Bloodwalk (9 page)

Her group eventually found the edge of the pit where Goorgian had consumed his own life in dreams of power. Morgynn stared deep into that darkness and began to dream herself. For the first time, Morgynn imagined power, real power. She had no idea that the next three years would pass so quickly or that her mother would not only give up on her only daughter but would also seek to end her life.

With her ritual complete, the memories faded along with the pain that lessened to a dull ache in her forearm. Traced with the letters and secret language of her magic, she admired her skin for a moment, studying her work and feeling more confident with her scars restored. She sighed, shrugging off the haze of the pain-induced trance, and surveyed her surroundings.

The walls inside the lone tower of Jhareat were piled high with bones, shoved from the floors to clear them. Dusty skulls and fleshless limbs adorned each room in the narrow tower, its long-forgotten defenders well beyond caring about being conquered. Their weapons and armor lay rusting and tattered amid the bones. Through a small arched window, lightning flashed and powerful winds roared. She could almost hear the chanting Gargauthans below, weaving the storm spell into the base of the tower.

She found that she enjoyed the storms more as she’d traveled farther south. Their warmth was a welcome change from the chilling gales that blew across the tundra in Narfell. The more she beheld them, the more it seemed her thick blood demanded them. Lost in the chaos of thunder and roaring tornadoes, her memories were but a nagging whisper, where her blood was a raging tempest.

She peered through the darkness of the low-hanging clouds, across the fields of ruined walls and jutting bits of rubble, to the edge of the forest. She whispered a quick spell and her eyes became as sharp as an eagle’s, focusing the forest with amazing clarity. After a few moments, she found what she’d been looking for, what she’d sensed coming closer. A massive, coal-black mastiff stared back at her, its muscles rippling as it prowled through the trees. She smiled at his savage beauty, his brute strength and stealth as he negotiated the shadows of the ruined clearing at a full run.

Khaemil was shadurakul, a breed of shapeshifter called from the realm of Avernus in the Nine Hells. Though released from his initial bond of servitude, Khaemil had bound himself to Morgynn willingly, remaining at her side ever since and considered a blessing by the Gargauthans. Morgynn stopped short of calling him a blessing. She’d tasted one of Gargauth’s favors already. Though grateful, she felt no desire to entertain them in the future.

Morgynn could hear him entering the tower below. The heavy clicking of his paws became the familiar rustle of night robes as he ascended the twisting staircase along the tower’s interior. Then Khaemil stood in the doorway to the uppermost floor, his head bowed and awaiting Morgynn’s attention. She’d been casting recently, and she knew he could smell the scent of her as soon as he’d entered the tower. The aroma of blood and heat defied the open window and the cool air that blew outside.

She turned to him slowly, settling into her stone seat and dismissing her spell of vision, bringing the room back to a softer focus. Khaemil stepped into the candlelight, lowering his hood, as Morgynn watched him expectantly.

“What news from the forest?” Morgynn asked the question nonchalantly and looked down to inspect her skin once again, caressing and tracing the darkening designs.

“We have many potential allies deep in the woods, but they are mere beasts. Those more intelligent attempt to hide themselves from us, but they are there.”

“No matter,” Morgynn replied, “All is as it should be for now. The Gargauthans have begun their work on the tower and the storm grows by the moment. We have little to do but gather our strength and wait.”

“Yes, my lady. The storm is magnificent.” Khaemil walked to the window then, looking across the dampening ruins as she had moments before. “Talmen looks little pleased by our success so far.” A smile crept into his voice, capturing Morgynn’s attention with his implication of further news.

“Your voice is mischievous, Khaemil. What delights you so?”

Khaemil turned, sighing through his toothy grin. “Only that poor Talmen and his favorite pupil no longer serve Gargauth in the same manner. While Talmen seeks his god’s favor in his daily works, Mahgra now petitions for mercy in the pits of the Nine Hells. He is dead.”

Morgynn returned Khaemil’s smile, but the look lasted only a moment before her mood changed and rage boiled in the back of her throat. Khaemil gasped, his heartbeat pounding as she stood and walked toward him. He couldn’t breathe and stared wide-eyed at her, frantically clawing at his chest and shoulder as pain raced through them.

As she watched him struggle, her eyes welled with blood, red tears seeking to burst forth in a mockery of despair. At her belt she gripped a small silver vial. Within it was Khaemil’s blood, taken long ago and used as a kind of leash against him. A leash—and, as now—a lash.

“Why does Talmen know the tale of Mahgra before me?” Her words were swift and forceful, wasting none of the time Khaemil had left before death might claim him. She eased her spell slightly, giving him a moment to answer with shallow breath.

“Scrying! My lady, please! He watches!”

Morgynn arched an eyebrow and looked to her side. “Ah, so the worm isn’t as docile as I’d imagined him to be.” She released the vial of blood and Khaemil fell to the floor, gulping at the air and allowing the pain to fade before standing again. “We must watch the dear malefactor more closely. He may be ready to accept that a wandering Hoarite has killed Mahgra, but if he suspects our hand in the matter, we may lose the support of the Gargauthans.”

“Yes, my lady.” Khaemil’s voice was hoarse as he regained his footing. He staggered slightly as his pulse slowly fell into step with his actions. “I will watch him.”

“No, Khaemil. He already knows you are not fond of him. I will keep an eye on dear Talmen. He is blind enough to accept my presence without question.” She stared into the flame of a nearby candle, her mind racing to put all in order. “We have no more need of the Hoarite. His job is done here—make sure he crusades elsewhere.”

Her voice softened and grew more detached as the flame transfixed her gaze.

“I will do as you command, Lady Morgynn, as always, but there is another matter of the forest. A ring of pale trees, a short distance beyond the edge of the woods—a strange scent lingers there, a feeling of defiance and power but also fear.”

Morgynn did not answer right away, lost in thought. She tilted her head, her eyes nearly closing in the embrace of her own magic, her blood excited and dancing within her.

“My lady?”

“Yes,” she pulled herself away for a moment, “yes, the pale trees. I will deal with them later. I must prepare—I have work to do soon. Leave me now.”

She did not hear or see him leave, only felt the absence of his pulse in the room, a void where his warmth had once stood. In the candle’s flame, she saw other flames, old fires in her memory. The divine inferno of Lathander burned in her past along with the face of her mother, twisted in righteous anger as the Well of Goorgian had been surrounded by the Sedras.

Beyond all desire for power, beyond blood and magic and vile spell, the ambition of a blood magus is not born in the study of ancient secrets and dusty tomes. The blood magus, a child of death, must appease that fickle parent—the grave—above all other concerns. Only in death, whether chosen or delivered, does the power first stir in the cold, still heart. And the memory of that death lasts forever.

The candle flickered in a strong gust from the window and guttered out. Morgynn blinked, watching the trailing smoke of the blackened wick disperse before her eyes. Immeasurable moments passed before she finally looked away.

Elisandrya was taller than her older sister, taking after their father’s strong Shaaryan blood. She was long of limb and lithe, her skin an exotic blend of the yellowish Shaaryan and her mother’s dark Arkaiun tones. Both sisters bore the thick auburn hair of their mother, long and curled in natural ringlets, but while Dreslya’s was contained and pulled back, Elisandrya’s was free and flowing, at the mercy of the wind.

As they approached one another on the crowded field of hunters, each reflected on their long separation from one another. Dreslya fairly ran to meet her sister. Elisandrya stood in place, half-smiling and even happy, but nervous. She had always felt the irony between the two of them more, that Dreslya was an oracle and saw far less than her hunter sister. Elisandrya had fallen far from the scared and skittish little girl she’d been before joining the hunters and seeing much of the harsh world beyond Brookhollow’s well-ordered lanes.

Her eyes had become older than the face that framed them, like those of the hunters who had trained her in their ways. Those eyes were at peace with the world they viewed, but they understood that only the sword and bow procured that peace. Life and freedom on the edge of the Qurth, more often than not, was bought with death. Being called to Brookhollow in the midst of such storms and spreading plague brought that martial knowledge to the forefront of her thoughts. The mere idea of a gathering, tendays before the traditional Feast of the Moon, set her on edge, and she found she could focus on little else.

Dreslya’s easy smile faded as she approached her sister, and Eli felt instantly guilty for banishing the spirit of their reunion. Years could not erase the events which had taken their parents, nor the vast difference with which Eli had dealt with the loss compared to Dres. Always, she felt burdened with secrets, though it was in Brookhollow where they seemed stored.

“It’s good to see you, Eli,” Dreslya said hesitantly, as if addressing a distant acquaintance.

“Would that it could be under better circumstances, Dres.” Elisandrya heard the tone in her own voice and felt ashamed. “I—I’m sorry, Dres. It’s been a long ride and things—”

“It’s all right, Eli. I know … we all know.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Eli managed, but she struggled to reconcile the memory of her older sister with the woman she now saw. Was she truly happy to be back in Brookhollow?

The white walls of the temple loomed above the wooden and stone barrier of the main perimeter. Eli avoided looking at them, content to wrestle with matters of family and time before confronting those of memory and faith.

She instead studied Dreslya’s face and almost smiled, seeing the image of their mother. That understanding look had driven her to indignant rage at times, and at others it had been all that she longed to see again. It was pleasant now but bittersweet. Only days ago had she visited their parents’ graves to the north along an empty stretch of the Low Road to Littlewater. Turning away, she fidgeted at her horse’s saddle and bags, avoiding that familiar emerald gaze.

“How are signs of the blush within the city?” Eli asked while working at a loose harness on the saddle.

“The plague is evident in some, but not so much as the rumors from the north are telling. We do what we can, but a cure is still elusive at best.”

Eli was quiet for a moment, attempting to choose her words, but then felt little need to as the narrow line of darkness on the horizon rumbled with thunder.

Well-chosen words will do us no favors now, she thought.

“There are no rumors from the north, only truths.” Eli stopped and stared blindly at the worn leather of her saddle, remembering. “I chanced upon a merchant caravan just north of Littlewater. It had been through Logfell and Targris and was turned away at the gates of Derlusk.

“The hired guards spoke to me when I rode near to inquire of their business and wares. They said Logfell was lost, completely overrun with the disease, and that Targris had its fair share of victims as well. Several of their own caravan weren’t feeling well, and they suspected those at Derlusk knew something but would not even open the gates to them.”

“Turned away at Derlusk? But surely the sages there have some information, some knowledge of a cure?”

Eli knew the defeated and confused tone in Dreslya’s voice, had known the same when confronted by these horrible truths.

“The sages have their books and magic, Dres, but the merchant princes hold the gates and the money. They’ll not see their decadence ruined by plague, and I suspect Littlewater will hold much the same opinion—too long have they courted Derlusk’s nobles and favor.”

Dres was quiet, absorbing the news as Eli thought a moment. Then the hunter leaned forward to whisper in her sister’s ear, “What is happening here? Why have we not heard news from the high oracle?”

Dres pulled back quickly, her eyes darting in all directions. She shook her head as if to say, Not here, not now.

Eli’s concern grew at her sister’s strange reaction, though something within her already sensed the nature of her anxiety. After a moment, she nodded and dropped the subject. Dreslya calmed, then turned as the long horns on the walls began to trumpet across the field, announcing the arrival of the lord hunter.

In older times, the Lord Hunter of the Hidden Circle had been selected from the greatest and most respected warriors—those renowned for prowess on the field of battle and powerful devotion to Savras and his temple at Brookhollow. As the unarmored figure of Lord Hunter Baertah rode through the ranks of the assembled hunters, it was apparent that recent times had seen the rise of politics and finances as the measures of virtue and title.

Baertah had a slight build, thin and wiry. His hands were well manicured, as was the fashion among the nobility in larger cities. His pale, unblemished face, perfumed with oils, contrasted with his deep black eyes, making them appear larger and giving him a feral look. Across his back was slung a bow and a quiver of arrows. The blade he carried was a thin rapier, an impractical weapon for a hunter, but popular in Derlusk and Littlewater.

Dreslya nodded to Elisandrya and walked to meet Baertah at the gates. Eli continued to needlessly check her packs and saddle harness. She felt no desire to watch Baertah ride by. She’d been at odds with the lord hunter on more than one occasion and had no need to rekindle old conflicts. She did not envy her sister’s duty. As the acting Sibylite of the temple, Dreslya would accompany the lord hunter in the procession through the streets.