Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (55 page)

“I am your Death,” the Bán Cailleach roared, and the wind became a hurricane and the rain a torrent, and the dragons belched fire toward them. Caibre cried out in terror, his voice utterly lost in the clamor, and yanked at the reins of his horse. He gave no thought to his Cloch Mór or to challenging the Bán Cailleach—he fled from the pass and the Pale Witch’s presence toward the banner and front ranks of the army just now approaching the Narrows, not caring whether his men followed him or not. Fire, wind, rain, and the Bán Cailleach’s mocking laughter pursued him.

“Tell them!” she shouted in a voice so loud that it nearly tore Cairbre from his mount, hammering against his back. “Tell them that I will not permit them to come here! Tell them that they have created me, and now they must deal with what they’ve made!”

Cairbre risked a glance back as he fled. Above him, the dragons reared, their tails curled around the spires of the Narrows. The eyes of the storm clouds, the Bán Cailleach’s eyes, turned in the sky, glaring down at them in defiance and fury. Thunder boomed, the sound rolling over the mountains and the land, and in it were the words of the Bán Cailleach.

“Tell them!”

Grozan Kralj’s palace was once the keep at Torness. Ennis, comparing it to the keep at Dún Laoghaire, realized that this place must be much changed from when the Thane’s Ionadaí had been installed here. The Arruk had torn down the hangings that had adorned the stone walls; the ragged weavings remained where they’d fallen, torn and dusty, with mice prowling in their folds and chewing holes in the once-bright fabrics. The stone flags were littered with the refuse and excrement of the Arruk, so that there wasn’t a clear path for Ennis to walk without fouling his shoes. Kurhv Ruka didn’t seem to mind, striding barefoot through the mess; the blue ghost of Ennis walked determinedly behind him, so Ennis did the same, shoving his distaste deep in the back of his mind. He tried to ignore the stench, the sight of the Arruk who glared at him as he passed, the sounds that emanated from the bowels of the place, the taste of the sour air in his mouth. He focused instead on the blue ghost and Kurhv Ruka’s back, and the promise that the pattern he’d chosen had given him: the future that he’d glimpsed at the end of the path.

In the dim, uncertain distance of the future, he saw himself on a throne, and around him the Arruk bowed down and the Daoine trembled. He saw himself in a place where no one could hurt him again, and where he could punish those who had wounded him in the past.

“Follow the path.”
He could hear Isibéal’s voice speaking to him through Treoraí’s Heart, and he listened.
“You will do to them what you did to me,”
Isibéal said. There were other voices in the Heart, too. He thought he heard Mam, crying far down, and that ancient, graveled voice was there, and the voices of the gardai and Artol Jantsk and the sailors and Haughey and his wife. . . . All of them that he had taken with the Heart.

“No,”
those he’d slain all shouted back to him.
“We won’t allow it.”

He tried to shut his ears to them, but he could hear them still.
“Listen to the Taisteal,”
Noz Ruka howled, close by.
“Death. That is what we Arruk understand best. . . .”

“Follow the path . . .”
Isibéal admonished him.
“Follow the path of the blue ghost and perhaps we’ll let you speak to your mam.”
He nodded, though he wanted to cry, wanted to flee and run from here. He would do as Isibéal said. He had no choice.

The keep’s throne room was worse than the corridors. The hall had evidently been the site of a battle during the capture of Torness, and the bodies of Daoine soldiers still lay there, desiccated and skeletal now, the bones and rusting armor and weapons shoved to one side of the hall near the door. The room smelled of their corruption, strong enough that it overpowered the Arruk reek and made Ennis gag and nearly vomit as he entered.

The room was crowded with Arruk. Ennis had certainly seen his own mam’s throne room full with supplicants and officials and delegates, all clustering about waiting for their moment to approach; it seemed that the Arruk treated their rulers much the same. Many of the crowd had turned to look as Kurhv Ruka entered the hall—from the way their nostrils twitched in their reptilian faces, Ennis suspected that they smelled him as he could smell them. There were whispered comments and waving of taloned hands, but they gave way and made room for Kurhv Ruka as he strode forward.

Grozan Kralj sat on the dais, the once-embroidered cushion of the throne seat now torn, the stuffing falling from rips and tears in the cloth. The Kralj was not what Ennis expected: Ennis had thought that the Arruk ruler would be old and withered, like Rí Mas Sithig back in Talamh An Ghlas, whom he’d once met. But Grozan Kralj appeared to be hale and healthy and strong, as finely muscled a specimen as Kurhv Ruka. He realized then that it was probably a rare Kralj who lived to old age among the Arruk.

Another Arruk stood to the right of the dais: shorter by a head than Kurhv Ruka or Cima, his scales paler in color and smaller—more like Cima’s—his entire frame slight and thin, rather than thickly padded with muscle. The creature held a knob-ended staff in his left hand, the wood carved with what seemed to be a snarl of animal forms, all curled about one another and painted bright colors. “That’s Gyl Svarti,” Cima whispered to Ennis, evidently noticing the boy’s stare. “Watch him carefully. He’s killed more people with his spell-stick than I can count, Arruk as well as you bluntclaws, and he’s always at Grozan Kralj’s side.”

Grozan Kralj, slouching carelessly in the throne made for a Daoine occupant, watched them with hooded eyes as they approached through the mob of supplicants. Ennis could see the guards on their stations around the dais stiffen and tighten their grip on their jaka. Kurhv Ruka stopped a careful three strides from the dais. Gyl Svarti’s slitted eyes narrowed and he tilted his spell-stick noticeably in their direction. Kurhv Ruka lifted his snout toward the dais, exposing the loose skin under his long chin—Cima had already told Ennis that showing the vulnerable throat was the proper sign of respect to a peer or higher-ranked person, rather than the Daoine bow of the head, which the Arruk would have interpreted as an insult.

“Ah, Kurhv Ruka,” Grozan Kralj said, with a distinct emphasis on the title as Cima translated urgently in Ennis’ ear. “So you’ve come to show us this bluntclaw pup we’ve heard about? I wonder, why did you come directly to me and not go to Lieve Mairki as would have been proper?” Grozan Kralj seemed to nearly smile at that; even Ennis could hear the taunting in his voice. Gyl Svarti snickered openly.

“Lieve Mairki wouldn’t have understood the importance of this bluntclaw,” Kurhv Ruka answered easily, and the undisguised scorn in Kurhv Ruka’s face widened Grozan Kralj’s eyes and pulled him upright in his chair. A ripple of quiet astonishment stirred the onlookers, and Ennis slid close to Kurhv Ruka, uneasy. Gyl Svarti leaned over to Grozan Kralj and whispered.

“Does Kurhv Ruka ask to challenge Lieve Mairki, then?” Grozan Kralj asked. “Interesting. I’ll send for the Mairki . . .” He started to lift a hand to summon one of the guards, but Kurhv Ruka gave a cough of denial.

“I’ve no interest in Lieve Mairki,” he said. “I will deal with him when he is under my command.”

That brought twin hisses from both Grozan Kralj and Gyl Svarti. Grozan Kralj stood slowly, uncoiling from his easy posture in the seat. Ennis could see the muscles sliding under his scales and the scars from his previous battles. The Arruk was massive, half a head taller than Kurhv Ruka and wider by a hand. His legs looked like twin pillars, and the talons of his fingers and toes gleamed sharp and white. He leered, showing his teeth. “You’ve always been arrogant and rash, Kurhv Ruka, and always too forgetful of your place. I’d hoped that breaking you to Ruka would teach you humility and caution, but it has not. You’ve overreached yourself this time. I’ll send your head back to your mates; I’ll have the rats feed on your entrails.”

Grozan Kralj yawned, stretching his arms out and flexing his hands so that the talons clashed with a sound like ivory daggers. The crowd in the throne room, sensing the conflict, stepped back. Cima slid away with them, leaving Kurhv Ruka and Ennis standing alone before the throne. Ennis wanted to go with Cima, to hide and lose himself in the crowd if he could, but the blue ghost would not move, and so he stayed where he was, trembling and terrified.

He knew what Kurhv Ruka wanted him to do. He knew. He could already feel Treoraí’s Heart burning against his chest, a searing brand that linked his heart and his hand and made him want to close his fingers around the stone.
“Don’t worry, Ennis,”
he thought he heard Isibéal whisper.
“It’s your power and your destiny.”
Or perhaps it was Haughey or Artol Jantsk or Noz Ruka talking; he couldn’t tell. Ennis looked down at his left hand. The scarred flesh there seemed to glow, the curled pattern rising well above his wrist. He reached for Treoraí’s Heart, fumbled with the cloch under his clothing and brought it out.

Grozan Kralj took a step toward the edge of the dais, looking as if he were about to launch himself at Kurhv Ruka, but Gyl Svarti stirred, reaching out with his spell stick to stop Grozan Kralj. “My Kralj,” the Svarti crooned. “Wait . . .” That much Ennis understood without Cima. The Arruk mage was smiling grimly, and his eyes were on Ennis. Grozan Kralj’s body remained tense and ready, but he halted, glaring, and Gyl Svarti stepped down from the dais. He walked slowly over to them, the spellstick tapping loudly on the stone flags. He stopped a bare stride away from them, glancing up once at Kurhv Ruka, whose gaze was locked with that of Grozan Kralj, then down to Ennis. Ennis cowered, trying to hide behind Kurhv Ruka’s armored hip as he’d once hidden, shyly, behind his mam’s clóca. He waited for the blue ghost to respond so he would know what to say or do, but the blue ghost had vanished as if Gyl Svarti’s presence had banished it.

Ennis was alone, and he had no guide.
“Isibéal!”
he thought frantically.
“Mam!”

There was no answer. He wanted to cry, but he sensed it would be his death.

Gyl Svarti held out the knobbed end of the spell-stick toward Ennis. He spoke, but Ennis could only understand a few of the words: “Move . . . Noz Ruka . . . the Kralj.” The spell-stick jabbed toward him and Ennis cowered back. The knurled wood seemed to glow, as if the Svarti were about to release a spell. As Ennis retreated before Gyl Svarti, Grozan Kralj snarled and leaped toward Kurhv Ruka, who lunged forward to meet the Kralj in the same breath.

Ennis gave a belated cry of alarm as the two Arruk collided before the dais. The crash of their scaled bodies was as loud and percussive as the closing of the Dún Kiil gates in the evening, accompanied by cheers from the onlookers. Ennis saw the two of them roll on the floor, taloned hands ripping and tearing at scales, and blood smearing on the stones as they tumbled. He started forward, but Gyl Svarti jabbed his spell-stick at Ennis’ chest and the touch was as if lightning had struck him: he was sent hurtling backward into the ring of watching Arruk, his clóca smoldering where the spell-stick had struck him and the smell of charred flesh strong in his nostrils. Ennis screamed in pain and surprise as the Arruk threw him rudely back toward Gyl Svarti. He nearly stumbled and went down, but managed to keep his footing. His fingers were still around Treoraí’s Heart, and he opened the cloch in his mind as Gyl Svarti raised his spell-stick high. The Arruk mage’s lipless mouth moved.
“He’s releasing a spell,”
Ennis heard Isibéal /Noz Ruka say.
“Go to him!”

Ennis shouted, rushing toward Gyl Svarti. The mage brought the spell-stick down, pointing it at Ennis, but Ennis grasped the end of the staff with his free hand. He could feel his awareness shift with the touch, traveling through the wood to where Gyl Svarti’s hand clutched it, and snaking into the Arruk. He could
hear
the creature . . .

He
was
the creature. His lips moved with the strange, unfamiliar words of the spell—“.
. . molim vas ponovite vrlo vrlo sporo . . .
”—and he felt himself recoil at the intrusion of Ennis’ thoughts into his own:
“. . . the bluntclaw is in me . . .”
But it was already too late. Ennis released the power of the Heart into Gyl Svarti even as he felt the trapped slow magic begin to uncoil from the spell-stick. Ennis held onto the staff desperately, thrusting with the violet spear of Treoraí’s Heart, stabbing deep, deep into Gyl Svarti’s body, letting it rip and tear and rend what it found there. Gyl Svarti’s head reared back with a horrible, gargling scream and Ennis did the same, feeling the mirrored agony in himself. Gyl Svarti released the spell-stick from hands struck nerveless and shattered; Ennis managed to hold onto it as the mage fell backward to the flags. The Arruk vomited black blood; his body twitched once . . . again . . .

Everyone was shouting around him, the yowling din of the Arruk deafening. The cloch-energy still filled him and he could hear Gyl Svarti in the roar of the Heart, still moaning in terror and pain, but inside now, inside with Mam and Isibéal and Noz Ruka and the others. Ennis pushed into the creature’s memories and plundered them . . .