After several hours of paddling against the fierce current, their immediate destination came into view: the towering, vine-draped walls of the ruins known as the Knight’s Castle. She’d lost Stagger’s map in the rush to abandon the
Freewind
, but his directions were simple enough. Find the Knight’s Castle and head east. Here, she’d find rows of evenly spaced depressions in the ground. Stagger had been certain the place was a graveyard, but had always assumed, since the graves weren’t marked, that it had been used to bury people of little importance. No treasure hunter had ever done the hard work of digging here, because it seemed so unpromising. But she’d come seeking knowledge, not treasure, and the thought of the waiting graves filled her with an almost childlike excitement.
The pygmies guided the canoes between two enormous walls. In the flooded gap was a broad avenue, draped by shadows. Sorrow strained to see in the dim light. At the end of the avenue, steep stone steps rose from the water, leading to the top of the walls. Her canoe shuddered as it scraped over unseen stones beneath the coffee-colored river.
Eddy leapt from the tip of the canoe, his feet splashing loudly, his muscles bulging as he pulled the canoe to rest on one of the broad steps hidden just inches below the surface. Eddy wasn’t a young man, but his muscles were well sculpted beneath his leathery blue hide. Sorrow was embarrassed that she’d doubted the pygmies’ capacity to cart her gear. Despite their small stature, these men needed immense physical strength to survive this savage land.
Sorrow rose from her canoe as the other pygmies brought their vessels to rest on the steps. The pygmies still looked nervous, but she felt relieved to be away from the worst of the river.
She said, “Well done, Eddy. You’ve earned your moons today.”
Eddy frowned as his men gathered around Sorrow.
“There’s the matter of payment,” said Eddy.
“You’ll be paid when we reach the graveyard. Three moons each. We were clear on this subject.”
“At the market, my brother saw you pay for provisions with a purse full of moons.”
“Perhaps he did,” said Sorrow. “I don’t see how that matters.”
“It matters because we’re eight warriors,” said Eddy. “You’re a lone woman, far removed from any long-men who could hear your cries.”
Sorrow crossed her arms. “It’s bad enough that you would renege on an agreement. I can’t believe you’re trying to threaten me.”
“No, no, no,” Eddy said, laughing gently. “You misunderstand. I make no threat. I’m merely saying that, in such a hazardous landscape, you’ll give us all your coins in exchange for the chance to see another morning.”
He raised his left hand and brought his thumb and little finger together. At this signal, all seven of his companions drew knives from their belts.
Sorrow sighed. “I see. Fortunately for you, I abhor settling disputes with violence, and would like to avoid doing so now. Allow me to make a counter-proposal. Your men will drop their weapons. You’ll unload the canoes in a neat and professional fashion. After this, we shall part ways. In exchange, none of you will die in unimaginable agony. At least, not today. ”
Eddy drew his own knife. “You’ve a bold tongue, witch. We’ll see if you’re still as arrogant when I cut it from your mouth.”
Sorrow stepped back as Eddy ran toward her. She snapped her fingers, then extended her hand as Eddy leapt high in the air, swinging his knife at her torso. She caught him by the arm just as a second pygmy attempted to stab her in the back of her thigh. She felt his blade tear through her pants and skitter along the hard scales beneath as she toppled backward.
Meanwhile, Trunk had heard her snapped fingers and stirred. Her last golem had been built of driftwood, but she’d had no patience for rooting around on a snow-covered beach looking for appropriate timber. Trunk’s torso was a heavy cedar chest; his limbs were thick, sturdy boards. His fingers and toes were built of oak doweling. For a head, she’d used a bucket so new it had never been touched by a mop.
As expected, most of the pygmies turned toward the wooden man as he rose with a clatter. She had only to deal with Eddy, who was straddling her torso, attempting to press his knife to her throat, and the thigh-stabbing pygmy she’d fallen upon.
Dealing with Eddy was simplest. She relaxed her arm and allowed him to press his iron blade to her throat. The second it touched her flesh, she willed the knife to crumble and it did so, rusting instantly to the core and snapping as Eddy pressed down.
The pygmy she’d fallen on had managed to untangle himself from her legs, and now rose on his hands and knees directly in front of the soles of her boots. This was an unfortunate place for him. Since she’d hammered a fragment of Rott’s tooth into her brain, her legs had grown a covering of overlapping serpent scales. While she wasn’t happy that her legs looked like they belonged to a dragon, she was pleased that they’d become supernaturally strong. She kicked the pygmy squarely in the chest and he went flying, smacking into the vine-draped wall twenty feet away.
“Now, Eddy,” she said as she grabbed the diminutive robber’s face in both hands, “It’s time for me to teach you a lesson in keeping promises.”
She could have been merciful and killed the man. Instead, she allowed only the smallest fraction of Rott’s power of entropy to surge from her bare palms. Eddy howled as his flesh sagged on his face. She pushed him away and he fell on his back, writhing in agony. He wailed as his teeth turned black, falling from their sockets. His muscles shrank, and his skin grew paper thin. He raised his hands before his face as they twisted into arthritic claws. Mercifully, he didn’t have long to stare at his deformity. Thick cataracts fogged his eyes, turning them into twin white marbles.
She rose on trembling legs. When pressed into violence, she killed as efficiently and coolly as possible. She despised those who took pleasure at inflicting pain. Even so, she had to fight to keep from laughing at the man who’d threatened her with such swaggering confidence. She fought back the urge to taunt him, but not the urge to educate him.
“You called me a witch,” she said, staring down at the now ancient man. “It’s a term often used for women who are inadequately subservient to men. I, however, embrace the word’s true meaning. I command forces you can never hope to comprehend. I’m heir to an ancient and awesome power. You should not have betrayed me.”
She glanced behind her and found Trunk standing in ankle-deep water, surrounded by six headless corpses. She shook her head slowly. She’d hoped at least one survivor would bear witness to what he’d seen this day.
There was always Eddy, weeping at her feet, splayed out like a rag doll, covered in his own bodily waste. She doubted there was enough left of his mind to pass on her warning.
“What’s the point in teaching lessons if there’s no one around to learn?”
Then, because she was disturbed by the satisfaction she was taking from his wet, feeble sobs, she placed her boot upon his throat and pressed until his suffering ended.
She had Trunk dispose of the corpses in the river while she sorted through her supplies. They would have to cart in the gear one load at a time. Fortunately, the dug-out canoes would prove handy for storing what they left behind. Trunk turned over one canoe and placed it atop another. She used her power over wood to weave the two halves together, forming a sealed container that held most of her provisions. For now, Trunk would cart only tools and a few days’ worth of meals.
She led Trunk up the stairs to the top of the wall. She shielded her eyes from the fierce noon sun as she studied the jungle, gray and withered, devastated by the cold. From her vantage point, she could see a back slope beyond the trees, evidence of a recent lava flow. If Stagger’s description was correct, it looked as if the lava hadn’t covered the area of the graveyard.
Two hours later, she’d barely made it a hundred yards into the jungle. The ground was mushy, and Trunk kept sinking up to his knees. Sorrow grew coated in mud herself as she worked to free him and drag their supplies forward. She lost one of her boots in the sucking mire. She pressed her lips tightly together as she stared at her now-bare foot.
She wasn’t overly sentimental, but she missed her toes. During her journey to the Sea of Wine, she’d gained possession of a sliver of tooth belonging to Rott, the primal dragon of decay. It had been a gamble, nailing the sliver into her skull; without the guidance of a more experienced Weaver, she could have crippled herself. Fortunately, her many years of study had meant that she hadn’t relied on blind luck alone in placing the nail. Given that she now commanded the most fearsome powers she’d yet mastered, she had no regrets about her actions.
Having no regrets didn’t mean she lacked concerns. The scales coating her legs were diamond-shaped, large as her thumbnails, pitch black, and hard as iron. They’d started as small patches near her ankles, but now both legs from mid-thigh down were covered. Her feet no longer ended in toes, but instead each tapered to a banded point. If she pressed hard, she could barely feel the bones of her toes still present beneath the hard surface.
Her unusual skin condition added a sense of urgency to her quest to find the Witches’ Graveyard.
The few remaining practitioners of the art of weaving placed great value in their privacy. The few she’d tracked down seldom gave Sorrow a warm welcome. Sorrow’s pursuit of power had earned her more than a few enemies. Few living Weavers wanted to make themselves a target of the forces allied against her.
Her hope of pushing her education further now lay with dead Weavers. She was certain that, if she could study the skulls of witches, she could learn a great deal by documenting how they’d placed nails into their brains. With any luck, she wasn’t the first Weaver to tap the power of a primal dragon. She might yet discover the secret to using Rott’s power without corrupting her body.
It was nearly sunset when she finally found the hilly slope, covered with rows of long narrow depressions, that Stagger had described. Her nostrils twitched as she hacked her way through the spiky vines that draped the area. Was she smelling fire? Or was it just a lingering odor from the volcanic eruption?
She sliced her way through a curtain of dying vines and found herself in an area relatively free of undergrowth. The canopy of trees here was particularly thick, blanketing the area in a perpetual gloom that suppressed smaller plants. She looked up the hill and saw a large granite boulder, nearly the size of a house, shaped something like a heart. It looked top-heavy, and a bit out of place, despite being girded with thick vines. She suspected it had rolled down the mountain many years ago. Next to the boulder, she saw a small makeshift tent, little more than a large blanket stretched over some branches, and near it a smoldering fire pit.
She cocked her head. She could hear voices from the other side of the boulder.
She looked toward Trunk, and motioned for him to drop his pack. She opened a bundle of tools and supplied him with an axe, then nodded for him to follow her. Armed with her machete, she crept silently up the hill. Stagger had warned her that treasure-seekers often tried their luck around the Knight’s Castle. From what she knew, these were desperate men of low morals who might not behave honorably. She had no fear that they were an actual danger to her. Still, if they did look problematic, she saw no reason to waste the advantage of surprise.
She silently pressed herself against the heart-shaped boulder and listened to the voices from the other side.
“Here’s another one!” said a man in a curiously high-pitched falsetto.
“Gold?” a second man asked, sounding hopeful.
“No. It’s green. Maybe more glass? The light’s getting bad.”
“Let me see,” said the second man.
Sorrow furrowed her brow. She’d heard these voices before. What were they doing out here? Then she realized why she hadn’t been able to find her map when she abandoned the
Freewind
.
She marched around the boulder and saw a mound of damp earth piled high a few dozen feet away. A tall blond man was standing in a pit beside the mound, visible only from his bare shoulders up.
“Brand!” she shouted, stomping toward him.
The blond man looked up. His eyes grew wide. “Sorrow? I didn’t expect to see you out here.”
“I’m sure you didn’t!”
He grabbed a root near the edge of the pit and started to pull himself up. He was half out of the hole when she placed her boot onto his shoulder and knocked him back in. He landed next to the second figure in the pit, a pot-bellied dwarf wearing a platinum blonde wig.
“Villain!” the dwarf shrieked, shaking his fist. “You’ll pay dearly for striking the scion of King Brightmoon!”
“It’s okay,” said Brand, rising to his knees. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“You stole my map!” said Sorrow.
“Technically, I found a map in the rubble when we were hastily packing. How was I to know it was yours?”
“It was in my cabin!”
“Things got sloshed around when the ship capsized. There’s no telling where it originally came from.”
“You knew it wasn’t yours!”
Brand nodded. “Okay, sure, that’s true. But, honestly, when I found it, I saw the word ‘treasure’ in large letters, underlined, and thought it was a joke. I doubt that most people who hide buried treasure do that.”