“Their master?” said Caina. “Another spirit?”
“Something that was once a man,” said the pyrikon. “Behold, Liberator.”
The pyrikon pointed its sword at the Lord’s Castle, and the world melted and blurred around them.
When it reformed, Caina found herself standing in a vast crypt.
She turned in a circle, looking around. Massive pillars supported the ceiling, and she saw corridors opening off from the chamber, leading into the depths of the earth. Bones littered the floor, along with rusting weapons and armor. In the center of the crypt stood a stone bier, and atop the bier was…
Caina blinked in surprise.
A glass box sat atop the bier. It was greenish in color, the surface and sides rippled, and…
No, not a glass box. A glass coffin.
Caina approached, her valikon ready in her right hand. There was a dark shape within the coffin, but the glass was too distorted and cloudy for her to get a good look at it. She thought the shape was an armored man. But there was no way she was going to open the lid to take a better look at the coffin’s occupant.
Given how common necromancy was in Ulkaar, that would have been a foolish idea.
“What is this place?” said Caina.
“Your foe,” said the pyrikon.
“The thing in the coffin?” said Caina.
“This is correct,” said the pyrikon.
“What is it?” said Caina.
“A servant of this man,” said the pyrikon, and the crypt blurred around her.
Caina found herself standing in a courtyard of stone, the twisting black sky of the netherworld rising over the towers and turrets of a mighty castle. Strange, tumor-like growths distorted the stone of the towers and walls as if a corrupted living creature was growing within the castle. A dead, oppressive silence hung over the courtyard.
Sigilsoara. She was back in Sigilsoara, the castle of the Iron King caught between the material world and the netherworld. Come to think of it, this was the place where she had found the Ring of Rasarion Yagar as she fled from the Temnoti.
A statue of the Iron King rose from a plinth in the center of the courtyard.
The bronze image of Rasarion Yagar was a proud-looking man wearing armor of an archaic design. His face was lean and cruel, with a hooked beak of a nose and a full mustache that hung down the sides of his thin mouth. He carried a sword and a dagger sheathed at his belt, and a strange amulet hung against his chest. A large signet ring with a dragon seal was prominent on his right hand, a diadem resting upon his head.
The ring on the statue’s finger was a perfect image of the Ring that Caina now carried with her.
“The thing in the coffin was a servant of Rasarion Yagar?” said Caina.
“Behold,” said the pyrikon, and it gestured at the statue.
And the cosmos exploded before Caina’s eyes.
She staggered, trying to keep her balance, and wound up having to grab at the statue’s plinth to keep from falling over. Caina had seen a vision like this before. The Knight of Wind and Air had shown her the totality of the cosmos, with every mortal life and every decision ever made woven together like a single tapestry wrought from uncountable quintillions of threads. Caina’s mind could no more comprehend the sight than a bucket could hold the ocean.
Yet images flashed before her mind, glimpses from the past.
She saw Rasarion Yagar clad in plate armor, riding through Ulkaar with a host of horsemen behind him. The bronze statue had faithfully captured his likeness. He was a proud-faced man, with cruel eyes and a drooping black mustache. A diadem of iron rested upon his head, and a strange flat amulet adorned with an emerald against his cuirass. The very Ring that Caina now carried rested on his finger, and a sword and a dagger hung from his belt.
The horsemen were pale and gaunt, almost like corpses, a strange red glitter in their dark eyes.
The Iron King and his szlachts galloped past Caina, riding towards a castle overlooking a river. With a shock, she realized it was the Lord’s Castle as it had been in its days of strength, that she was standing on the land that would one day become Vagraastrad.
Images blurred before her sight, faster and faster.
An army rode through Ulkaar, led by a woman in armor, a bronze pyrikon staff glowing in her left hand. She had close-cropped hair and a commanding face, and Caina realized that the woman was Nadezhda the Warmaiden, the loremaster of Iramis who had led the war against Rasarion Yagar’s necromantic tyranny.
Then Caina saw that army besieging the Lord’s Castle. A szlacht stood atop the curtain wall, a scar-faced man with dark armor, necromantic fire burning around his fingers. That had to be Cazmar Vagastru, the distant ancestor of the current Voivode who had been a szlacht of the Iron King himself.
More images blurred before Caina, faster and faster. There was a furious battle. Men screamed and fought and died, struggling in the courtyard of the Lord’s Castle as sorcery snarled and hissed around them. Caina saw Nadezhda dueling Cazmar below the doors to the keep, ghostly green fire playing around the szlacht’s fingers. Cazmar moved faster and quicker than normal for a human, and in the shadows behind him Caina glimpse withered, desiccated corpses, drained of all their life energy.
The reason Cazmar was faster and stronger than human was because he had left his mortality behind and become something else.
Something worse.
The vision ended as Caina’s mind could no longer process the images, and she awoke with a gasp, sitting up with a single violent spasm.
“Caina?” said Kylon, blinking at her as he came awake.
Caina looked at her left wrist, saw the last of the white glow fading from her pyrikon. Had it glowed as she had seen the strange vision?
Then she saw something else.
A towering figure stood at the other end of the room, clad in a rough brown cloak and a shapeless brown dress of the same material. In her gnarled right hand, she held a rough bronze staff, and beneath the cowl, bronze teeth glinted behind her thin lips.
It was the Bronze Witch.
“Be warned, Balarigar,” said the Bronze Witch. “For the enemy…”
Kylon moved so fast that he was a blur. One heartbeat he was lying next to Caina. The next he was out of bed, his valikon in hand, the burning blade resting at the Bronze Witch’s throat. Caina’s groggy mind just had time to note that he looked good naked, that the white fire of the valikon threw light and shadow across the hard planes of his body in a compelling pattern.
Then alarm overrode both her grogginess and her idle lust, and Caina surged out of bed and got to her feet.
“Kylon!” she said, grabbing his arm. “Wait. Wait!”
“What is this?” said Kylon, tapping the edge of the valikon against the Witch’s throat. “Are you spying on us? Planning to knife us in our sleep?”
“I…” said the Bronze Witch. To Caina’s surprise, there was fear in that raspy voice. Before the Bronze Witch had always assumed the amused mien of a wise old woman. Kylon must have rattled her.
“No games, no riddles, no prophecies,” said Kylon. “If you want to help us, fine. But no games.”
“Very well, Lord Kylon,” said the Bronze Witch. “Then hear a clear warning. Your enemies are coming for you right now. For your foes have realized that the return of a valikarion to Ulkaar is a deadly danger to them, and they will extinguish that threat before it can harm them.”
Kylon’s face hardened, and Caina’s fingers tightened against his arm. He did not like oracles, and he had no patience for the kind of riddling games that someone like Samnirdamnus had played, for he believed that such riddles were partially responsible for Thalastre's death. For an instant, Caina feared that Kylon was going to kill the Bronze Witch then and there, and she drew breath to dissuade him.
But he wasn’t scowling at the Witch.
He stepped away from her, turned, and hurried to the window and opened one of the shutters. Caina flinched as cold air blew into the room,
her skin erupting with goosebumps. The Bronze Witch turned and slipped through the door, vanishing onto the balcony. Despite her alarm and discomfort, that caught Caina’s attention. Before, the Witch had always used her bronze staff to travel away. She had never walked.
It was another mystery.
Caina hurried to join Kylon, her arms curling around her chest in a vain effort to stay warm.
“What is it?” said Caina. She saw nothing on the dark street below.
“Reveniri,” said Kylon, his voice grim. “Carrion spirits. I can sense them, dozens of them. They’re coming.”
Chapter 8: Priestcraft
Kylon slammed the shutter closed, turned, and hurried to get dressed.
Caina was nearly dressed by the time he turned around. He was always surprised how quickly she could change clothes, though given her past as a Ghost nightfighter, perhaps he shouldn’t have been. She had already pulled on her shirt and trousers and was donning the leather coat lined with steel plates that Ivan Zomanek had given her before the fight with Sergei Nagrach.
Would those thin steel plates be enough to stop reveniri claws?
Kylon doubted it.
Well, he would just have to keep the reveniri away from her.
“How many?” said Caina, reaching for her boots.
“At least thirty,” said Kylon, dismissing his valikon and grabbing his clothes. “Maybe forty. They’re so close together it’s hard to tell.” The corrupting, rotting aura of the carrion spirits brushed against his senses as he yanked on his trousers and pulled on a shirt.
“I wonder if they’re here for the Ring,” said Caina, adjusting her belt. “No, that’s not right. They shouldn’t be able to sense the Ring, and I’ve kept it with me.” She had even remembered to sleep with the damned thing. “Or they’re here for Teodor.”
“Or they just want dinner and we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Kylon, tugging on his boots. He had fought for his life barefoot, had even fought naked a few times, but hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience. It was too cold for that, anyway. “We had better wake up the others.”
“Right,” said Caina, and she called her valikon to her hand. The sigils on the ghostsilver blade glowed with harsh white light, throwing back the shadows of the room. The valikons might have been forged to destroy the nagataaru and other malevolent spirits, but they also made excellent torches.
“Ready?” said Kylon.
Caina nodded and followed him onto the balcony overlooking the common room. It was still a few hours before sunrise, but the room wasn’t deserted. Old Laskar sat on a stool by the hearth, jabbing the logs with a poker and rubbing his leg every so often. Perhaps it troubled him and kept him from sleeping. Theodosia sat at one of the tables, a cup of tea in her hand and a distant look on her face.
Both Theodosia and Laskar looked up in surprise, blinking at the light of the valikons.
“I’ll warn Theodosia and Laskar,” said Kylon. “You get the others.”
Caina nodded and hurried down the balcony. Kylon decided to save time, drew on the sorcery of water, grasped the railing, and vaulted over it. He landed in a crouch, his legs collapsing to absorb the impact, and the sorcery of water kept the landing from breaking his bones.
“What the hell?” croaked Laskar, getting to his feet.
Theodosia raised an eyebrow. “I confess, Lord Kylon, that your method of dealing with insomnia is rather different than mine.”
“Reveniri,” said Kylon, and Laskar’s eyes went wide, and Theodosia’s smile vanished. “There are over thirty of them outside, and they’re heading for the inn. We need to be ready to fight.” Behind him, he heard the creak of hinges, heard Seb’s dry voice.
“Reveniri?” said Laskar. “By the Divine! We need to sound the alarm, we…”
“Don’t go outside,” said Kylon. “If you go outside, you’re a dead man.”
“But we need help!”
“Look at his sword, Master Laskar,” said Theodosia, getting to her feet. “Look at his sword, and you’ll see that we already have the best help we are likely to get.”
“By the Divine,” croaked Laskar, his eyes going wide as they settled upon Kylon’s sword. “Is that…is that a holy valikon, the sword of an Arvaltyr…”
“Yes, it is a valikon,” said Kylon. “No, I’m not an Arvaltyr.” Caina was the Arvaltyr, but he wasn’t about to tell the innkeeper that. So much for sneaking quietly out of Vagraastrad with Theodosia’s company. “Master Laskar, if you have any weapons, get them.” He looked back at Theodosia. “You should tell your people to stay in their rooms with the shutters barred. The reveniri will try to come through the front door in a rush, but I think the damned things can climb walls. If your people panic and try to flee during the fighting, it might be a slaughter.”
He half-expected Theodosia to argue with him or to say something snide, but she only nodded, rose to her feet, and hurried to the stairs. Kylon supposed one did not survive as a circlemaster of the Ghosts without keeping a level head in a crisis.
Boots thumped against the stairs, and Kylon saw Caina hurrying towards him, Seb following. Sophia was right behind them, her eyes and emotional sense frightened, but her face determined.
“Go with Theodosia,” Caina told the girl. “Help her to make sure the company stays in their rooms.”
Sophia nodded and followed Theodosia. Another door on the balcony opened, and Ilona emerged, her hair mussed and her clothes in disarray, her face flushed from exertion. Maybe she had been entertaining a lover. Ilona rushed to Theodosia and Sophia, and the three of them began going from door to door.
“Why is it,” said Seb, adjusting his armor, “that whenever I travel with you two, I always find myself awakened in the middle of the night by attacking undead?”
“It’s not by choice, believe me,” said Caina. “And it’s closer to dawn than midnight.”
“Thirty of them?” said Seb.
“Aye,” said Kylon, watching the door. He could sense them gathering in the street outside the inn. “Probably more. They’re all out front. I think they’re going to go through the door and into the common room, or climb up the walls and try to get through the windows.”
“They’ll start with the door,” said Seb. He drew his black sword, the steel ringing, and gestured with his left hand. Kylon felt the faint surge of arcane power as Seb worked a spell of psychokinetic force to make himself faster and stronger. “I expect your valikons will be far more effective than my sword. I’ll stun them, you finish them off.”
“Agreed,” said Kylon. He looked at Caina, and she nodded.
Seb put himself on the right side of the door, and Kylon planted himself in front of it. As he did, he heard the faint rasp of claws against wood. The reveniri were outside, and soon they would storm into the inn and swarm through the common room.
“Why don’t we invite them inside?” said Kylon, adjusting his grip on his valikon’s hilt.
“I’ll get the door,” said Caina, shifting her valikon to her left hand.
“What?” said Laskar. He hovered by the hearth, clutching a club in his hand. “You’re going to let them into my inn?”
“They don’t need an invitation,” said Caina, “and if we don’t let them inside, they’ll come through the door anyway.”
With that, she stepped forward, removed the bar, grasped the door handle, flung it open, and stepped back.
It had started snowing, Kylon saw, covering the cobblestones of the street with a faint white layer. Six reveniri stood just outside the door. They looked a great deal like the creatures Kylon and the others had fought north of Vagraastrad, gaunt gray corpses in crumbling clothes, white light shining in their eyes, freezing mist swirling around their claws. The creatures went motionless for an instant, surprised that Caina had opened the door. Kylon sensed the greasy, malevolent presence of the carrion spirits within the undead flesh, felt their attention focus upon him.
He braced himself, and then the reveniri s
urged forward in a rush, claws raised.
###
Caina grasped her valikon as the reveniri crashed into the inn’s common room.
Seb struck at once, and she saw the glow of arcane power around him as his spell of psychokinetic force made him faster and stronger. His black sword blurred, and he took off the leg of a reveniri at the knee. The creature stumbled, and Kylon’s valikon came down in a flash of white fire. The ghostsilver blade stabbed into the reveniri’s chest, and the creature collapsed as the valikon destroyed the carrion spirit.
Caina moved to the right side of the door, valikon drawn back to stab. The creatures did not have functional physical eyes, which meant they relied upon the sorcerous senses of their carrion spirits to perceive the world. Since valikarion were immune to sorcerous detection, that meant the reveniri could not see her.
Again, Seb struck, his blow severing the leg of a reveniri. The creature fell to one knee, and Kylon destroyed it with a swing from his valikon. Another reveniri burst through the door and Caina stabbed with her sword. The reveniri never saw it coming. Her blade plunged into its chest, and white fire burned through it. The valikon destroyed the carrion spirit and broke the necromantic spells upon the undead creature, and the emptied corpse joined the others upon the floor.
Caina felt a hard smile flash across her face. She had told people again and again that she was a spy, not a warrior, though she seemed to find herself in battles more often than she wanted. But since she had become a valikarion, she was suited for a fight like this. The reveniri could not see her, and thanks to the valikon, she had a weapon forged to destroy such creatures.
There was a flash of brilliant light behind her. Caina risked a look back and saw Laskar, his wife, and several of his maids and porters approaching. All of them held sunstones, their expressions grim and determined, and the sunstones flared with brilliant yellow-orange light. Caina’s first thought was annoyance that they were involving themselves in the fight. Her second was admiration for their bravery.
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