Harbinger (24 page)

Sorcha closed her eyes, hearing the voices but trying not to listen. Instead she summoned up the memories of her mother—scant as they were—to give her strength. Still, what little she had been able to see when she shared her mother’s mind, she used as a goad on herself. Sorcha’s hands clenched on the arms of the chair, and the wood ground into her flesh. If she did not pull this new Order together, then that would be all humanity’s fate: nothing but breeders and food for the undead.

She had to find out what the Circle of Stars were doing. Their hunt for the Patternmaker of the Native Order had come to nothing. None of the runes seemed able to pierce that particular mystery. Merrick’s prescience might be terrifying, but not exactly helpful when it came to specifics. His use of runes had brought them to the right place to make a spectacle, but that could not be relied on in the next step.

Sorcha Faris, Harbinger of the Enlightened surged to her feet. It was time for a hunt.

She shoved the doors of the mayor’s office open. They swung far easier than she had thought and slammed into the walls on either side with a tremendous crash. The people who had been bustling to and fro in the hallway jumped. Sorcha saw not just respect in their eyes but a little fear as well. Deacons and folk she had known for years now looked at her differently. The new title she had chosen had not apparently been a reassuring one.

Merrick, who had been sitting across from the mayor’s office, got abruptly to his feet. He pulled his silver fur cloak around himself and walked over to where she stood. His brown eyes were troubled, but his mind, which she felt along the Bond, was as stalwart as ever.

“We need to find a geist,” Sorcha said, taking him by the elbow and guiding him down the hallway and toward the front door—not allowing him to argue in front of everyone. Perhaps pulling her partner out the door wasn’t good for their new image, but after the night before’s display, Sorcha thought she had some leeway on that.

“Very inconvenient then,” Merrick said, shooting her a thin smile, “considering that you just destroyed all of the ones in the city.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t have much time to stop and think.” The blur of the confrontation outside the town hall was something that she still had to sort through. Reaching out to the geists had seemed so very easy. Like a sword removed from its sheath, she had known just what to do.

Sorcha cleared her throat, and jerked her mind away from contemplating that at present. “But nevertheless, we need a geist.”

They stepped out into the sunshine and blinked at its brightness. Sorcha even tilted her head back and enjoyed the feel of it on her face. The damage to the city was intense; everywhere broken buildings poked from among the untouched like scorched trees in the forest. While the smell of death would take much time to clear, it still smelled better than it had yesterday. A kindly wind had wafted away much of the stench.

“You and I need to travel,” Sorcha said, as firmly as she could manage. Now it was his turn to lead her.

Somehow, remarkably the public stables had survived, and it was here that the Order had brought the Breed horses. When they entered, Sorcha’s gaze traveled over the remains of that bright creation of the Order of the Eye and the Fist. Seven stallions and twenty-three mares were all that remained. Much like the Deacons, they had been badly damaged.

Still, her heart lifted a bit when a familiar long nose poked over the stall door and snuffled at her cloak. Shedryi, the tall black stallion, as old as he was, had come away from the scourging of the Mother Abbey with not a scratch on him. A young lay Brother had ridden him out before the flames reached the stables. Melochi, the mare that Merrick favored, was in the stall next to him.

Merrick fished out a sugar cube and fed it to her. That simple pleasure of a horse’s gentle mouth on his open palm made him smile. Her young partner had precious few reasons to really smile of late.

Shedryi turned one accusing dark eye on Sorcha, since she had brought no treat. “Here,” Merrick said, reaching across and dropping one into her hand. “I found a few down in the kitchens.”

Shedryi gobbled his treat and then threw his head up with a snort. “Yes, indeed, we are going on a little ride, you wicked boy,” Sorcha said, rubbing his smooth neck. Glancing across at Merrick she asked, “Any sign of Raed yet?”

Taking a bridle down from the wall, Merrick shook his head. “Aachon said he wanted to be sure all the geists had gone before he came back. He should turn up soon.”

Sorcha shrugged. She was not worried about her lover, he was no dog on a leash, and besides any who threatened him would feel the wrath of the Rossin. She understood that sometimes the Young Pretender needed his space—he too had dark shadows to wrestle with.

Unlike in the Mother Abbey, the Deacons saddled up their own mounts—lay Brothers were far too busy to tend to the whims of the Active or Sensitive. Sorcha didn’t mind. In fact, she thought this new Order of Enlightenment would be better served if the Deacons of it knew a little of what the Brothers of the gray cloaks went through.

Merrick mounted up with alacrity, once again making Sorcha’s bones feel very old. “So, where to?” he asked.

Her partner looked positively elated to be on horseback again, so he was not going to like her reply. “Any direction . . . we just have to get out of the city to find a geist. It shouldn’t take long or far.”

Merrick rode Melochi out into the yard, while Sorcha saddled the stallion. Shedryi turned and tried to nip at her as she tightened the cinch on him—however when she slapped him on the rump, he settled down. Soon she too was mounted, and with a little nudge of the stirrups, they trotted out of the stable and into the city.

In the dark of the previous night, Sorcha had been given precious little time to examine the city of Waikein they were saving. It was dreadful now to ride through it, but the people that they met along the way seemed positively happy. They looked up at the passing Deacons with soot-stained faces, grinned and waved. They were clearing the streets, gathering up the unburied corpses for proper ceremonies, and repairing those houses that could be salvaged.

“You would hardly know them as the same people from last night,” Merrick commented, pushing the reluctant Melochi past lines of smashed barricades.

Sorcha nodded but kept her eyes averted from the gaze of the grateful citizens. She was afraid she had given them false hope. The geists were not beaten back. Countless numbers of them still waited.

Sensing her tumult, Merrick reached across and squeezed her hand. “It was a demonstration, Sorcha. It had to be done, and word of it will already be spreading throughout the Empire.”

“Not that there is much of an Empire anymore,” she muttered in reply.

“Zofiya will be helping with that,” he shot back, and then effectively ended the conversation by urging his mare into a quick trot.

Sorcha needed to feel the wind in her hair and grab a little joy too. She kicked Shedryi into a gallop in response, and soon they had caught up and passed him.

The two of them were quickly out of the city and on their way to the rolling hills that bordered it. It was a wonderful thing to be beyond the stench of death and destruction. They rode the horses up through the velvet green hills punctuated by pale gray rocks, and along the banks of the river. Merrick was being sensible, though, keeping his Center open as they went. All the time they felt no geist presence.

Sorcha knew that most of the undead in the area would have been drawn to the city to feed on the concentration of humanity there.

She took a long deep breath. At this stage the natural world was still untouched; she saw rabbits moving on the hills, and a flock of birds overhead against the bright blue sky. However, should the Circle of Stars achieve their aim then eventually that too would be ravaged.

Shedryi snorted and tossed his head, but that was only when a fox darted across their path. He was a small one, and definitely not a coyote, but Sorcha nonetheless shivered; it reminded her too much of the Fensena. She knew he and his favor were waiting somewhere for her—as if she didn’t have enough to worry about.

They came to a looming series of waterfalls, sliding their way down from the mountains to the east, and the partners began picking their way up the side of the cliffs through a series of goat tracks. The roar of the water and the cloud of spray around them was deeply refreshing. Sorcha took the chance to wipe her face in the chill dew and rub her neck with it. She’d learned to take enjoyment in whatever moment they could.

With that thought, she turned Shedryi around and waited for Merrick to reach her. He kneed Melochi up the rise and then pulled her to a stop next to his partner. He looked out over the beautiful scene of nature’s power, and then also tilted his face into the sun. A few of the shadows gathered in the corner of his eyes seemed to lift slightly. “This was a fine idea, Harbinger.” The way his mouth formed that title said that he was still not happy with it. “But which sort of geist do we need?”

Sorcha considered his question. It could not be one of the lesser ones like a rei, but she did not want a geistlord either. Finally, she settled on one. “A revenant would be ideal, but if you could manage . . .”

As Merrick abruptly opened his Center and shared it with her, her words dried in her mouth. Every time he did so she was reminded how lucky she was to have been partnered with him. The hills and grassland that had seemed pretty enough suddenly exploded into life. It would have been overwhelming in the hands of a lesser Sensitive, but Merrick balanced it so effortlessly that the only information she got was the important facts.

Like the blur of red and gold along the ridgeline; a twining undead power that flickered in and out with tormented faces in its midst. A revenant—a geistlord that gathered the tormented souls of humans as they died, and trapped them within—just as she had asked for. Perhaps her luck was going to hold out.

“Well done, Merrick,” she said, digging her heels into her stallion’s sides, “you have found our informant.” A wicked and dangerous grin spread on her lips. Perhaps as Harbinger she was going to have different luck than when she’d been merely a Deacon.

“Right back where we started,” Merrick found himself muttering under his breath, but it was not with any true distress. The few times that he and Sorcha had hunted geist on the way to Ulrich had been invigorating. It was, after all, what Deacons were trained to do, and when they did engage with each other to exercise their abilities it was a glorious thing.

The sly smile that his partner shot him now suggested that she felt the very same way. Along the Bond the whispering of the Wrayth seemed to subside, or maybe it was the sheer power of the moment that simply drowned them out.

Both Deacons slid from their mounts and walked together up the hill. The earth was springy underfoot. Now, the revenant would usually have tried to escape them, seeing as they were its natural enemy, but lately the undead had learned more than a little bravery. The weakening of the barrier between the human realm and the Otherside was giving them much greater strength.

Merrick caught the subtle gesture of Sorcha flicking back her cloak. It would have been the moment when she went to pull her Gauntlets from her belt, but of course they were no longer there. A gesture learned over a lifetime could not so easily be put aside. Realizing her mistake, Sorcha cleared her throat and instead pushed her sleeves up, flexing her fingers. That particular gesture worked just as well without Gauntlets as it had with.

The runes trickled and ran through the marks the Patternmaker had carved, and Merrick marveled how she didn’t even seem to need to think the words for the runes before they were there. Blue fire filled the lines and flooded down toward her fingertips.

Merrick’s own power was just as second nature as his partner’s. His Sight filled the landscape around them with life and death; but he narrowed it in on the revenant that had just begun to whirl about on itself.

“You really expect to get information from a geist?” he asked as they neared the undead and tried to sound more positive than he felt.

Sorcha shrugged. “Well, if there is anyone more likely to know when and where the barrier will be torn I cannot think of it right now.” She spun on her heel and stared at him hard.

He hated it when she was like this . . . bad and dangerous things happened when his partner threw her hands up in the air and just decided to try some madcap scheme. She might have put on a good show in the town square last night, but she was not fooling him. She was still the same Active that had so casually created a strong, maddening Bond between them.

Sorcha’s lips curled at the corners, but there was a hint of sadness in her face. “Oh, so now you are regretting being my Sensitive, are you?”

“I . . . I . . .” Merrick opened his mouth, and then shut it with a snap.
Just get on with this.
He pushed his words along the Bond.

They had both come to rely on the link between them and, in fact, with its recent weakening, he had begun to miss it. Still, they remained partners, and Merrick would cling onto that fact until he was spent and done with life.

The revenant was dancing toward them, twirling and strangely confident. It looked like it had captured quite a number of torn souls, thanks to the devastation of the city. Merrick’s stomach turned over in a sick knot. No one had ever discovered the true extent of a revenant’s power, and it had been speculated that there could be no limit to it. If the geist could find enough souls, it could possibly rival a geistlord.

Sorcha had to feel his concern, but it did not stop her. She stepped lightly over the ground toward it, as if they were two dancers—and only they could hear the music.

Merrick strained his senses, both ethereal and physical, but it appeared that they were the only living things of any consequence nearby. By the time he looked up, Sorcha’s whole arms were glowing red with the flame of Pyet, just as the snapping skeletal heads of the revenant spun and threw themselves down on her.