“Maybe on the way back,” Corran said, elbowing his brother as if he had read his mind. “Can’t say I’d mind a night at an inn, if they don’t know us for wanted men.”
“I never considered us to be rich back in Ravenwood,” Rigan said. “But I was wrong. Gods, I miss home sometimes!”
Corran smiled sadly. “I not only miss Kell, I miss his cooking—how bad is that?”
Rigan read the gentle jibe the way it was intended and managed a tired smile of his own. “Maybe not the mushrooms… or the shit stew.” Though in truth, he would gladly endure the most vile of Kell’s culinary mistakes just to have their brother back with them once more, and he knew Corran felt the same.
“Not much farther now,” Aiden said, riding up behind them. “And if you’ve got the same headache I’ve got, I’ll mix us all an elixir once I can get into my saddlebags. Gods, magic takes its toll!”
Presumably, Ross and Trent had escaped the blinding headache that throbbed with each heavy step of their horses. Trent rode point for that reason since the others were too spent for further magic if they encountered trouble, and could barely sit their horses, let alone fight. Ross brought up the rear, allowing the three riders in the middle to rest.
“I can see the break in the trees that should be near the border,” Trent called back to them. “Let’s hope your friends haven’t given up on you.”
The road sloped down as they approached the meeting point. Out here, far from cities, the border was marked by iron stakes and patrolled infrequently. In places closer to trading towns, a low stone or timber fence might provide a warning. Despite the squabbles that Rigan had heard raged between the city-states of the Bakaran League, no one wanted to pay for fortified boundaries or enough soldiers to guard them.
If anyone challenged their crossing, Rigan feared it might be Ravenwood soldiers, or perhaps even guards loyal to Jorgeson who might have learned of their plans or anticipated their movements. He sighed in relief when they saw no garrison waiting to block their progress across the border.
Until a dozen heavily armed men rose from the shadows once they crossed into Sarolinia. “Stop right there,” the leader said. “Go no farther—if you value your lives.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Corran cursed under his breath. He reined in his horse and lifted his hands to indicate surrender. Much as he hated to do so, neither he nor any of the others could fight in their current condition. With luck, they could claim ignorance of the border and merely be turned back.
Before the standoff could turn ugly, Brock stepped out from behind the armed men.
“Forgive my methods, but there are real soldiers up the road, and none of us wish to encounter them,” the Sarolinian hunter said with an apologetic smile. “They only just arrived, requiring that we move our camp in haste.”
Corran felt relief drain away the buzz of tension as they followed Brock and the other hunters down a barely passable trail. At one point, they dismounted and led their horses along the pathway, until they saw the welcoming light of a campfire.
Mina rose and came to them, stopping first to clap a hand to her husband’s arm, welcoming him home safely, and then stepping up to greet their guests. Immediately, her expression grew troubled.
“You’ve had a difficult journey,” she said, meeting Corran’s gaze with a look that said she knew she was understating the reality. Her gaze flitted to Rigan and held steady, and Corran wondered what the two witches saw in each other.
“You look like one of the Wanderers,” Mina said to Rigan. “Both your face and your power mark you.” Then she looked at Aiden, appraising him, a cool glance which the healer returned in kind. To Trent and Ross, she barely nodded to acknowledge their presence.
“Come,” she said, beckoning them to the fire, where logs provided seating and a cauldron boiled on the embers. “First, we eat. Then, you tell us of your journey. After that, we must make plans. There is much to discuss.”
Aiden fetched the powders to make headache potions from his bags, and one of the Sarolinian hunters brought him a bucket of water. While the two city-states had their own origin languages, enough trade led to a common language that was adequate for most communication. Corran had to listen closely to catch what was said, given the thick Sarolinian accent, and he saw their hosts doing the same, perplexed at times by the regional differences. But by the time Aiden finished his ministrations and everyone consumed a hearty stew, the Darkhurst hunters had managed to tell their tale.
Mina turned her attention to Rigan. “Darkness touched your soul.” Her gaze strayed to Aiden. “Did you work blood magic to free yourself of the Rift? Tell me of your escape.”
Corran did not miss the way some of the foreign hunters shifted so that their hands were closer to their weapons. Trent and Ross responded in kind, going tense in anticipation of an attack.
“Everyone stand down,” Brock commanded, gaining him a glare from his wife and a questioning glance from the others. “I sense darkness, yes, but not corruption. We have all done dark things in these troubled days.” He shared a look with Mina that spoke volumes. “Let them speak.”
Mina leaned forward, wide-eyed. “You went inside the Realm. Tell us what you saw.” Her voice held wonder and fear.
“I will, but it won’t help you sleep at night, that’s for certain.” Rigan ran a hand through his hair and told a shortened version of the story, focusing mostly on the magic he attempted to bring them home and ending with Mir’s death.
“And on the other side, I was trying everything I could find in the old books to open a Rift from this side so they could get out,” Aiden added. “Including blood magic—but I swear, chickens and rabbits only.”
“That’s why I asked you for help,” Corran interjected. “Because we had run out of options.”
“If the monsters hadn’t attacked and killed Mir right then, I’m not sure we would have gotten home,” Rigan admitted, and Corran laid a hand on his arm in solidarity. “Although Corran bled himself pale short of that.” Rigan glared at his brother, and Corran looked away.
“Colduraan’s realm,” Mina said, entranced by the story. “Full of monsters. Did you sense anything else, anything we can use against those who open the Rifts?”
“There’s something on the other side that’s worse than the monsters,” Rigan said, avoiding her gaze. “I felt it watching us from the time we were pulled inside. But once we tried blood magic—even on a small scale—it haunted my dreams. It’s ancient and hungry.”
“A new kind of monster?” Brock suggested.
Rigan shook his head. “I don’t think ‘monster’ is quite the word for it, though it might fall short of ‘god’—but not by much.”
Mina looked troubled. “Tell me.”
Rigan did his best to explain the presence he had sensed, though words seemed inadequate. “Even though I’m back, I still see it in my dreams,” he confessed, unwilling to look up.
“I didn’t go through the Rift, but I did attempt forbidden magic to get our friends back,” Aiden said. “And I’ve also felt the touch of something dark and powerful. It hasn’t done anything, except draw closer sometimes. It just… watches.”
Mina said something to Brock in the language of the Wanderers. He answered her, and several of their hunters joined the short but heated discussion. Mina turned back to their guests apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice heavy with the Sarolinian accent. “Not all of our hunters speak the common tongue well enough for such unusual conversations. They expressed dismay. The presence you sensed may be known to us through the legends. We call him ‘He Who Watches’ and he is one of Colduraan’s First Beings, an Ancient One created before Order was wrested from chaos and the world that we know was formed.”
“So he’s not a god, but he is a creature made by the god of chaos,” Corran recapped grimly.
Mina nodded. “Yes.”
“Can he come through to our world?” Rigan asked, feeling queasy
at the thought of that presence taking shape in Darkhurst.
“If the Rift is wide enough, and the boundaries weaken,” Brock replied. They turned to look at him, surprised the answer did not come from Mina.
Brock sat back and clasped his hands around one knee. It looked as if he debated with himself for a moment about what to say, and Mina watched him, scarcely breathing, as she awaited his decision.
“You were acquainted with the Wanderers in Ravenwood, were you not?” he said finally.
The hunters nodded. “We saw them in the streets, but they kept to themselves,” Rigan replied. “Once, I went to them to beg training, thinking they would help since our mother was of their blood. But they turned me away.”
“For what it’s worth, our brother died with the Wanderers when the Lord Mayor purged the city,” Corran said, his voice as rough as ground glass.
Brock looked surprised, but seconds later his expression grew unreadable. “Our condolences on your loss.” He licked his lips as if broaching a difficult subject. “Most consider the Wanderers little better than vagrants and thieves, meandering troublemakers. That is how they’re treated throughout Darkhurst, now and for centuries past.”
“The old Wanderer woman told me that they protect the Balance in their own way and that their sigils are more than curses,” Rigan said.
Brock raised an eyebrow. “Then, despite your impression, she shared quite a bit with an outsider.” He drew a long breath and looked off into the distance.
“The Wanderers—my people—don’t simply ‘protect’ the Balance. In a very real way, they are the Balance, embodied. We were caught between two warring Elder Gods—Colduraan and Eshtamon. Colduraan cursed us because we would not side with chaos. For that reason, we wander, reviled wherever we go, homeless and stateless, hunted and vulnerable.”
“But Eshtamon stepped in,” Mina took up the tale. “He could not undo Colduraan’s curse, but he made the Wanderers his own, and promised that they would not be eradicated. And in gratitude, they give him their service, maintaining the Balance against the worst of what Colduraan would send against us.”
“We swore our souls to Eshtamon, to be his champions, the night Kell died,” Corran replied, leveling a challenging gaze at Mina and Brock. “So we may not be full Wanderers. But we are Wanderer blood, and we serve the same Elder God. How do we seal the Rifts, remove the taint, and stop He Who Watches from coming across to our world?”
“I have some ideas,” Brock said with a glance to Mina. “But discussing them is going to require more whiskey.” He raised a hand, and one of his men brought a bottle from their supplies. Brock took a pull and passed it to Mina, who did the same without raising an eyebrow and handed it off to Corran.
Corran followed his hosts’ example and tried not to gasp as the raw, potent liquor burned down his throat. He shoved the bottle at Rigan, who gulped down a swallow and needed to be thumped on the back to regain his breath. Aiden chuckled, and wisely took slow sips. Ross and Trent declined, appointing themselves to be on watch.
“Is there anything we can do about the taint?” Rigan asked. “It’s getting worse. It’s already turned a protective ghost vengeful. If it continues to foul the land, it’s going to eventually foul the magic, too.”
“It’s already begun to do that,” Aiden said. “Remember—I’m a healer. Sensing ‘sickness’ is part of my gift. Whatever is seeping from the Rifts won’t just affect the land and the magic—sooner or later, it’ll kill the crops, poison the water, and get into the animals. It’s a blight—from another Realm.”
Brock nodded. “You are correct—or as close as words can get to something magical and not of our world.” He looked to Rigan. “Did you sense the taint when you were through the Rift?”
“We stayed in a cave and kept to the rocks as much as we could, and I avoided anchoring my magic in places that felt unclean. But… it was almost everywhere on the other side of the Rift.”
“I examined Rigan and Trent when they returned,” Aiden hurried to add. “And I saw none of the taint in either of them.”
“Mir took sick,” Rigan recalled. “Our friend who got pulled across with us. He didn’t make it back.” Rigan swallowed hard. “Mir got injured, and the wounds went bad. He had been… struggling… with how things had changed for us, and he didn’t deal with it well. We thought he gave up hope.” He glanced to Trent. “Maybe the Rift made things worse.”
“You were fortunate,” Mina said. She studied Rigan. “Perhaps it was Eshtamon’s blessing that saved you—and your magic may have kept your friend safe as well. But you were only there for a short time. It would be unwise to count on such protection if the taint gets a hold in our realm.”
“What is it?” Aiden asked.
Mina shrugged. “No one is sure. Maybe just another form of chaos. I believe it is tied to Colduraan and He Who Watches. Close the Rifts, cut off its source, and in time, the taint will fade.”
“How can you be sure?” Corran pressed.
“This has happened before.” Mina’s lips twitched in a slight smile. “This is not the first time power-hungry men have tried to seize magic they were ill-prepared to understand. The Wanderer’s stories remember those times, the heroes who saved them, and what came after.”
“Does the taint make it harder to close Rifts? It’s hard enough now. I hate to think it could get worse,” Aiden said.
“It is difficult, but not for the reasons you think,” Brock said. “The Balance is skewed. Blood magic calls on chaos energy. If you’ve attempted it, you know how much it drains the witch. That is meant as a limit. But when ambitious men and women won’t be refused, then witches go looking for proxies. They called on the monsters to kill and spread fear, which increases the chaos energy, giving the witches more power.”
“That validates what we had already figured out,” Aiden said.
“There’s more,” Mina replied. “Natural monsters can’t be easily summoned or controlled. They’re smart, and they’re not just beasts. So the blood witches had to summon creatures of chaos—from Colduraan’s realm. They had to open the Rifts to do it, and sooner or later, with enough of them opening frequently, the taint was sure to seep through.”
“The energy of the Balance keeps the Rifts from opening on their own. It’s supposed to require great effort to rip a tear between realms.” Brock took up the story again. “Part of Eshtamon’s gift to the Wanderers was a measure of his power to help maintain the Balance and fight against Colduraan’s incursions.”
“But all the extra blood magic and opening the Rifts has sent that cockeyed,” Aiden said.
Brock nodded. “Yes. And it gets worse.”
Rigan groaned. “Really?”
“We intercepted a diplomatic courier carrying a message between the Sarolinian Crown Prince and one of his Merchant Princes. They both employ blood witches,” Brock said, distaste coloring his voice. “The letter advised the Merchant Prince that because of the need to maintain the Balance, the Cull would be greater than usual, and suggested that to reduce the Cull, the Merchant Prince had better meet the terms of their League agreements.”
Corran and Rigan exchanged a confused look. “That doesn’t make any sense,” Corran protested. “We were part of a Guild back in the city. We heard other Guild members talk. The Guilds that created goods for export were under pressure to live up to the trade agreements because if we lost our status, the things brought in from elsewhere would cost more and our shipments of everything—including food we couldn’t grow ourselves—wouldn’t be as nice.”
“That’s not the only consequence,” Brock replied. “The blood witches can control where the Rifts open and where the monsters go. The death and fear they spread is the Cull. City-states with the lowest rankings in the League pay more of the Cull because their goods and labor are worth less in gold.”
“So they pay with blood,” Rigan replied, jaw set.
“Do the Guilds know this?” Corran demanded.
Brock shr
ugged. “Doubtful. For obvious reasons, the masters of the blood witches wouldn’t want their subjects to know they were the ones sending the monsters to kill them.”
“We knew the Lord Mayor of Ravenwood and his blood witch were summoning monsters and sending them against their enemies—or the Guild members that supported their rivals,” Corran said. “When we overthrew them, we thought the problem was taken care of.”
“And then we came out here and found more of the conjured monsters,” Aiden added. “And realized someone else had to be calling them.”
Brock nodded. “Many people, I’m afraid. Far more than the Balance can sustain, and the Cull can only replenish the energy to a degree. At some point, the Cull would have to kill too many people for the city-state to function. It’s a seductive spiral that leads nowhere good.”
“So what now? We’re undertakers. We never meant to be revolutionaries,” Corran said. “What are we supposed to do? Kill the Merchant Princes and their witches? The Crown Prince? The king?” He took another gulp of the potent liquor. “This isn’t simply treason—it’s madness.”
Mina nodded somberly. “Yes, it is both. But we have a more immediate threat.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Corran muttered.
“In the same diplomatic pouch, there was a letter from the Sarolinian Crown Prince’s blood witch to the witch who serves Merchant Prince Kadar in Darkhurst.”
Rigan frowned. “Isn’t that somewhat improper? Sarolinia may be a neighbor, but they’re Darkhurst’s long-time trading rival. The official relationship isn’t exactly friendly.” He swallowed as if remembering where they were.
Brock smiled reassuringly. “You’re safe here, and we value you as allies. But the gist of the message between the two witches troubled me. Nightshade—the witch who serves our Crown Prince Neven—was reminding Wraithwind, the witch in Kadar’s service—about a crucial rendezvous they had with each other. They had agreed to meet on the Solstice—next week.”
Vengeance Page 45
