The Brush of Black Wings (7 page)

His eyes, reflective as polished steel and
pitiless, widened for a moment before darkening with the shadows of
madness. “Bring me home,
kashaptu,
and I will.”

His cloak swirled around them, wrapping both
in wailing, shrieking shadow until Martise no longer saw the forest
or the temple, the snow or the moonlight, only a gray howling and
the touch of the dead on her skin.

CHAPTER FIVE

Silhara jackknifed from the bed, slammed awake
by Cael’s raucous bays and the feel of black sorcery suffocating
the bedchamber. The place beside him was empty, Martise nowhere in
sight. The gut level alarm that warned him something was horribly
wrong propelled him out of the bed and toward the door at a dead
run.

A mass of foul-smelling fur hurtled into him
the moment he opened the door, punching Silhara across the room. He
landed on his back, smacking his head on the wood floor hard enough
to see stars. Cael stood on top of him, head lowered, great chest
bellowing in and out with his rapid pants. Silhara tried to shove
the dog off of him, certain he’d die either by asphyxiation or
drowning in a wash of drool.

Cael didn’t budge, only snapped his teeth. The
Master of Crows stilled under his crimson gaze. A pair of large
hands wrapped in the magefinder’s scruff and pulled. Cael growled
low in his throat and braced his weight on Silhara’s chest as Gurn
struggled to pull him off his master.

“
Gurn, wait,” Silhara said on a
thin breath.

The servant let go and stepped back. Dog and
sorcerer stared at each other for a long moment. Silhara peered
hard into the canine gaze, searching for the message Cael so
desperately wanted to convey.

He’d never before tried seer bonding with
someone not human, and he hesitated now. Who knew how the magic
might work between the two? Or if it worked at all. He had little
faith in the spell on its own, but his sorcery still surged with
the power he’d bled from Martise’s Gift the previous day. He might
well kill his devoted magefinder in his attempt to learn what lay
behind that stare, but he’d have to risk it. Somewhere his wife
faced an unknown danger alone; he knew it in his bones, his very
spirit. And if Cael’s behavior was any indication, the dog knew it
too.

He rested his hand on Cael’s head and murmured
the words that invoked a bonding. Far more fractured and abstract
than the easy bonding Silhara shared with Martise, this connection
skipped across his mind’s eye—fleeting images of the forest in
shades of blue and yellow. Rabbits dashing through the trees to
bank off their trunks in a frantic bid to escape him.

Smells overrode the images. The meaty, coppery
scent of a fresh kill flooded his nostrils along with the gagging
sweetness of orange flower, the pungent odor of the bailey and the
astringent bite of sapling evergreens dusted in snow. They were all
overlaid by a more unnatural smell – long death and old agony,
purpose and malice. Fear. Martise’s fear.

Silhara snarled, and Cael echoed the sound. A
new vision rose, this one of Martise’s face, wide-eyed and blanched
of color. Behind her, the broken temple loomed, bathed in
viridescent light. Her beloved features filled his inner sight and
two words thundered in his mind.

“
Megiddo! Run!”

The hound jerked his head from under his
master’s touch with a whine. Unprepared for the effect of an
abruptly broken bond, Silhara cursed as a shock of pain ricocheted
between his temples. This time, when he shoved the dog off him,
Cael went, unresisting. Silhara rolled to his feet, staggered a
moment and waved away Gurn’s offer of assistance.

Who—or what—the fuck was Megiddo?

He donned shirt, trousers and shoes, uncaring
that he was decorated with muddy paw prints and slimed in dog
drool. Gurn and Cael kept pace with him as he raced down the gloomy
hall. He caught glimpses in the corner of his eye of the servant’s
hands sketching signs.

“
Where is Martise?”

“
Taken,” Silhara snapped, and
skipped the last six steps of the stairwell to vault over the
banister. He snatched his cloak from a hook by the bailey door and
left Gurn to catch up. Cael loped easily beside him, his earlier
bays silenced, his eyes the fiery shade of hearth coals.

Their journey to the temple ruin lasted an
eternity, at least for Silhara whose fear for his wife’s safety
wrestled with an overwhelming rage that someone dared invade his
land and steal that which was most precious to him. Corruption had
once destroyed his orange grove. Silhara had grieved and then
replanted, mollified over the grove’s loss by the god’s destruction
at his hands.

Martise was not an orange grove easily
replaced, and he vowed to himself that if she came to any harm,
he’d wreak a vengeance that would make a god’s execution look like
child’s play.

He chose the stealth of creeping up to the
ruin instead of the blunt force of the invocation he’d employed
when the wood’s curse magic had rippled a warning that something
wrong was at work on his lands. The faint hope he might once again
discover Martise standing near the temple, frightened but unharmed,
died a quick death. Disappointment warred with relief. His fury
over her assumed abduction would be nothing compared to his horror
if he found her dead, his efforts to protect her through mage-wards
the reason for her demise.

The structure stood empty as did the
spoked-wheel design surrounding it. The deadly wards Silhara had
raised to confine whatever had used the temple as a gateway were
broken, remnants of their presence still lingering in haphazard
scorch marks seared into the temple steps and columns. A few still
smoked, sending acrid whiffs of black char into the air.

He should have obliterated the damn thing
yesterday! Left it a smoking heap of rubble suffocated in salt and
warded harder than a Conclave bishop’s virginal daughter. He’d
waited instead, acquiescing to Martise’s more level-headed response
that they learn more about the temple before deciding on the best
way to dispatch it. And this is what caution had gained them. It
was the last time he’d listen to his wife!

Places like these, built by an Elder race,
held ancient secrets, and he picked his way carefully around the
spoked wheel, barking the order at an overly curious Cael to stay
put. Gurn soon joined them and waited with the dog on the edges of
the wheel’s perimeter.

Silhara possessed a Gift of extraordinary
power, but that power was human-born, and this temple was not. His
wards, strong enough to entrap a gaggle of adept priests, had
disintegrated as if woven by a novice who’d forgotten half the
incantation.

As with the first time he’d reconnoitered the
temple for Martise, he cast multiple spells—revelations, seekings
and second sights. He sketched sigils in the air and traced them on
the temple floor, designs whose origins in the black arcana
guaranteed Silhara an appearance before a Conclave tribunal if they
witnessed his actions now.

Nothing happened. The snow-laden wind gusted
through the trees; branches creaked, and a nearby crow cawed. Even
the blackest sigil did nothing more than leave a greasy,
foul-smelling smear on the floor pavers. Whatever took Martise had
disappeared from this world, leaving no trace or echo behind
it.

Silhara raked his hands through his hair,
spitting out curses between his clenched teeth. The urge to unleash
his anger in a hail of spells and turn the temple into a gravel
pile almost overwhelmed him. He held onto his fury and did the next
best thing—called out his wife’s name.

“
Martise!”

The unseen crow’s caws ceased. The wind did
not, and Martise didn’t answer.

“
Martise!”

This time he shouted her name, the command
that she answer him right now implicit in his tone. Still, she
didn’t reply.

The third time, her name boiled up from the
depths of his spirit, a desperate bellow likely heard by the
citizens of Eastern Prime on the seashore and the Kurman nomads at
the feet of the Dramorin Mountains.

“
MARTISE!”

A heavy clasp on his shoulder made him whirl,
nostrils flared. Gurn’s steady gaze blunted the frenetic edge of
helpless panic fueling his rage. The servant signed, his eyes
conveying the message as much as his hands did.

“
The library. She has
notes.”

Of course she had notes. Silhara knew that,
but reviewing her notes meant leaving here, and for a moment he
refused to move, even while acknowledging that anything else he
tried based on guesses was futile.

Gurn nudged him with a shoulder, making
Silhara stumble.
“The library, master.”

Silhara nodded. He’d done all he could at the
moment with what little information he had. Anything else was a
waste of precious time. Martise had discovered something in her
scouring of his library—something that made her leap away from his
touch and cower under a table like a cornered rat. His memory of
that moment served only to boil his blood even hotter.

His journey back to the manor didn’t require
stealth, and the spell he used to return left Gurn and Cael in the
wood to trek back home on foot. He pounded up the stairs and threw
open the library door. Martise’s books and notes were as she’d left
them the previous evening.

A small dread dissipated inside him. He’d
worried that whatever had entered his home and abducted his wife
had stayed long enough to destroy any clue about its
nature.

Martise’s precise script tracked across the
parchment pages in neat lines. Silhara scanned them, too impatient
to sit and study each word. His gaze caught on a pair of passages
she’d underlined. The first were gibberish to him, likely the
antiquated Makkadian she’d spoken of earlier when she’d translated
the word
kashaptu
for him.

Saruum ina etuti abu redu gi su
ikul kir.

Hamsum saruui emu, duranki
shuhadaku.

Saruum shuhadaku. Shuhadaku
saruum.

Rebu saruui iksuda. Isten saruum
halqu.

Saruui Buidu.

Her translation made him reel.

The king who dwells in darkness
leads the shadows that eat the world.

Five kings made spirit, bound to
the sword.

The king is the sword. The sword
is the king.

Wraith Kings.

His heart, already knocking against his
breastbone, stopped for a moment, then restarted on a hard gallop.
Wraith Kings. Bursin help them, let that translation be
wrong.

She’d listed all five of their names. They
meant nothing to him except one—Megiddo Anastas.

Megiddo. The word Cael had carried back with
him to the manor, along with the terrified “Run!” that followed it.
Not just a pesky demon lurking about but a fucking Wraith
King!

Silhara snatched up the half empty inkwell and
hurled it at book shelf. “Gods damn it, Martise!” He glared at the
black stain splattered across book spines and the ink pot rolling
across the floor. No wonder the woman had shrieked loud enough to
bring the rafters down when he’d startled her awake. She’d
discovered the origin of her temple nemesis and fell asleep with
that knowledge humming through her mind.

Bursin’s wings, all he ever wanted was to be
left alone to live his life in peace! Instead, he’d dealt with
meddlesome priests at his door, an exiled god bent on possession
and world domination and now a demon king traipsing off with his
wife who harbored a reawakened Gift more curse than
blessing.

A box of quills met the same fate as the ink
pot, shattering to splinters when it struck the wall. Silhara
paced. Demons didn’t scare him. He’d battled a few in years past,
controlled an equal number as well. He’d even summoned one to
frighten Martise in those early days when they’d first met and
viewed each other as adversaries.

This was different. Far, far different. These
weren’t gibbering toadies serving a greater, more intelligent
force. The Wraith Kings were ancient, powerful beings. Neither
Elder nor human, they were gods in their own right—dark ones who
once led legions of demons across the earth. Warring kingdoms had
united to stop them, the loss of life catastrophic in the
aftermath.

Knowledge of their existence had faded from
memory and legitimate record as if an entire epoch had chosen
forgetfulness in order to heal. What few tomes spoke of them were
jealously hoarded and guarded by those who traveled the necromantic
path or were stashed away by crow wizards like himself who dabbled
in the black arcana. Silhara was not at all surprised to find that
Martise had made her discovery of the kings in grimoires stolen
from a lich’s barrow.

Her ability to uncover the most obscure
information was as astounding as her luck was abysmal. Silhara
muttered under his breath. Leave it to his hapless wife to go out
for a morning jaunt of mushroom-hunting and end up drawing down a
damn Wraith King!

Gurn strode into the library, hands in motion.
“Did you find anything?”

Silhara scowled. “Of course, and it’s
predictably a hundred times worse than I anticipated.”