The Sentinel Mage (46 page)

Two hundred yards distant, on another sandstone fin, in a hole barely large enough for a man, a seventh assassin crouched, utterly still, watching the river and the path to Ner.

Innis spent an hour looking for further sentries, but found none. She flew back to the first cave and shifted into the shape of a lizard and crept as close as she dared. She stared at the six men. Fithian assassins. Killers, with a harsh and legendary code of honor.

They looked disappointingly ordinary: tired, dirty, with unshaven faces and stained, rumpled clothing. And yet, for all their ordinariness, they were terrifying. The sentry didn’t fidget, didn’t yawn. His stillness, his focus on his task, was absolute. He was waiting. Waiting for his shift to end. Waiting for another night, with corpses prowling the canyon floor.
Waiting for us to arrive, so that he may kill the prince.

I
T WAS LATE
afternoon when Innis reached the others. They were setting up camp in a cave on the eastern side of the canyon, hauling blankets, food, water, up by rope.

“Did you find them?” Dareus asked, once she’d dressed.

“Yes.”

Prince Tomas looked up from his task: lashing waterskins to the rope dangling from the cave. “How many?”

Innis was aware of men pausing, turning to look at her. “Seven. They’re hiding at the mouth of the canyon.”

“Seven.” Tomas glanced at his soldiers, as if counting them.

“We can handle ‘em,” Gerit said. He cleared his throat and spat into the sand. “Bastards won’t know what hit ‘em.”

T
HEY PASSED THE
night with no more disturbance than the occasional detached hand creeping up from the canyon floor. In the morning, Harkeld stood in the cave mouth and looked out. Dawn flushed the sky. The sand was empty apart from the churned tracks of hundreds of feet and the odd, abandoned limb.

“Once the anchor stone is destroyed, will the corpses stop coming out?” Tomas asked.

“I don’t know,” Dareus said. “But my guess would be yes.”

B
Y MID-MORNING THEY’D
gathered the horses—eleven had broken free, two needed to be killed—loaded their supplies and were on their way: another ordinary day. The disembodied wailing, the stark landscape, the broken tombs, had become familiar, almost normal.

At noon, they came to a place where the canyon was no wider than the ancient riverbed. They dismounted and led the horses, picking their way over the tumbled boulders.

“Rapids,” Justen said.

Harkeld nodded.

The canyon grew narrower. They were climbing now, scrambling. Water must have once spewed through here with extraordinary force—the canyon was choked with boulders, some larger than houses, and the cliffs were deeply scored and gouged. No water gushed through here now: the River Ner trickled deep below the jumble of rock.

The canyon walls leaned over them, almost touching. The rock was veined with white, like fat marbling a slice of beef. There were no tombs, although the occasional cave still pocked the sandstone.

Harkeld halted to drink from his waterskin. His horse blew in his ear. He glanced at the men and horses strung out ahead of him, clambering upward, then turned and looked back down the rubble-choked gorge. The canyon echoed with sound—the clatter of hooves on rock, the scrape of hobnailed boots, the sound of men panting and grunting as they climbed.

Justen looked up from several yards below. “Over half way up, I reckon.”

Harkeld nodded. He slung the waterskin over his shoulder. Something whistled past his cheek. Two things happened simultaneously: hot liquid sprayed across his face, filling his eyes, and his horse stumbled and collapsed, knocking him to the ground.

A second object hurtled past his face, striking rock with a fierce
clang.

“Sire?” he heard Justen call out. “What’s wrong with your horse?”

The horse lay heavy and unmoving, pinning the lower half of his body. Harkeld struggled to push it aside, struggled to wipe his eyes, struggled to reach for his sword. The smell of fresh blood filled his nose.

His vision cleared. He saw a stranger crouched a few yards in front of him. The man’s face was stubbled, dirty. He detached something from his belt: a five-bladed throwing star.

Fithian assassin!

Everything in Harkeld’s body seemed to stand still: his heart didn’t beat, his blood didn’t flow, no breath filled his lungs.

A hawk dropped screaming from the sky.

“Sire! What’s wrong?” Justen’s voice was closer.

The assassin paid no attention to the hawk, no attention to Tomas now shouting and running back towards them. His eyes were fixed on Harkeld with fierce intensity. He raised his arm to throw. The blades of the throwing star gleamed in his hand.

Something ignited in Harkeld’s chest—fear, anger, panic—burning as hotly as flames inside him. He thrust his hand towards the man, a futile gesture, as if that lethal weapon could be warded off with mere flesh and bone.

The assassin erupted into flames. Not just his clothes, but his hair, his skin, his screaming mouth. An answering fire crackled over Harkeld’s skin with a
hiss
he felt deep inside him.

Justen scrambled over the horse and halted, his sword outstretched.

The assassin burned, writhing in agony, his skin crisping and blackening, turning to ash. The flames were intensely hot, almost roaring as they consumed him. In a matter of seconds the man was dead. On the rock lay a charred, smoking husk that had once been human.

Justen re-sheathed his sword. He turned to Harkeld, his face pale. “Sire, let me help you.”

With Justen’s assistance he was able to push aside the horse and scramble to his feet. Harkeld stood, trembling. Horror reverberated inside him.

“Are you hurt?” Tomas asked, breathless, as he reached them.

Harkeld shook his head, unable to tear his gaze from the black, twisted corpse.

“There’s blood on your face.”

The horse’s.
His tongue couldn’t form the words. He wiped his face with his sleeve.

Dareus pushed through the soldiers. “Are you all right?”

Harkeld turned to him. His horror found an outlet. “How could you do that?” His voice was hoarse. He swallowed and spoke more strongly, almost shouting, hurling the words at the witch: “How could you do something so monstrous!”

“We didn’t.” Dareus was looking at him as intensely as the assassin had. “You did.”

Harkeld stepped away from the witch, away from the smoking corpse, shaking his head. “You’re lying.” But even as he spoke, he felt the truth of Dareus’s words: the remembered sensation of fire igniting in his chest, the sting of flames running over his skin. “You did it!”

“We were too far away.”

“No!” Harkeld shook his head again. “I’m not a witch.” He looked at Justen, at Tomas. Justen met his gaze squarely, with no hint of condemnation on his face; Tomas wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I am not a witch!”

The shout reverberated in the gorge, echoing off the towering cliffs.
Witch witch witch.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

T
HE ASSASSIN HAD
been hiding in a cave, a dark hole a few yards from where his body lay. Inside were blankets, food and water, and bandages caked with dried blood.

“He was injured,” Gerit said. “Left behind—or chose to stay behind.” He backed out of the cave. “Decided he wanted to take the prince with him when he died.”

And almost succeeded.
Innis looked down at the blackened corpse. It had been reduced mostly to ash, although one charred hand reached out, claw-like, as if in supplication.

“Injured? How?” Tomas asked, not looking at Prince Harkeld.

“His arm,” Innis said, remembering what she’d seen as she’d scrambled over the dead horse: a man crouching, reaching awkwardly for a throwing star. “That’s why he missed.”

Gerit grunted. “Likely,” he said. “Fithians don’t usually miss.” He dropped down on one knee and stirred the ashes with the tip of his dagger.

Innis shuddered and looked up the gorge. Movement caught her eye: a large wolf with a silvery ruff, leaping lightly from boulder to boulder towards them. Petrus.

“How did he know which was Harkeld?” Prince Tomas asked.

“He was in the middle. The rest of you were in uniform. Easy.” Gerit didn’t bother to look up as he spoke.

Tomas bridled. “Justen was also—”

“Prince Harkeld is dark,” Dareus said. “They’d have that much of a description.”

The wolf jumped the last few boulders, padded over to Dareus, and sat on its haunches. “Any more of them?” Dareus asked.

The wolf shook its head.

“Stay in that form,” Dareus ordered. “There could be others.”

“Others?” Tomas said. “How can there be?” He turned to Gerit. “You said there were ten of them—”

“Or thereabouts.” Gerit looked up at him. “The scent was old. Hard to tell.”

“We made a mistake, thinking there were only seven survivors.” Dareus rubbed his face. “And thinking they would stay together. This time, we were lucky. Next time, we may not be.”

Gerit flipped the throwing star free of the ashes. It skittered several feet, coming to rest against a boulder with a dull
clang.
The steel was stained black with soot, the blades sharp, deadly.

P
ETRUS LOPED AHEAD
of them for the rest of the afternoon, while Ebril flew above. Prince Harkeld was silent. He didn’t speak while they rode or while they prepared for the night: tethering the horses a mile up the canyon, hauling blankets and water up to the cave Gerit had found, stacking the rest of their supplies where the corpses wouldn’t trample them.

He sat alongside her now, chewing his food, sunk so deeply in his thoughts that she doubted he knew where he was. It was as if he’d erected a barrier around himself. The way he sat, the set of his shoulders, the set of his face, said as loudly as words could:
Leave me alone.

No one spoke much. Tomas was almost as silent as his friend.

Friend? Innis doubted the word could be applied to the two princes now. Tomas’s eyes held fear when he looked at Prince Harkeld.

The soldiers, too, eyed the prince warily.
As if he’s one of us.

Wasn’t he?

Innis glanced at Prince Harkeld again. She’d never seen anyone look so bleak, so grim.

She curled her fingers into her palm, clenching them, and looked at Dareus.
Do something. Speak to him
. But Dareus didn’t notice. He ate, talking with Cora as if nothing untoward had happened.

Innis looked down at her bowl. Beans and flakes of dried fish floated in a greasy soup. If she’d been closer to the prince, at his side as she was meant to be, he wouldn’t have had to use his magic.

She stirred with her spoon, watching as the beans floated, bumping against one another.
I am not a witch!
the prince had shouted. It hadn’t been anger that had made his voice so loud; it had been fear.

S
OMEONE HELD HIM.
Harkeld felt the soft warmth of a woman’s body along his back, felt her arms encircling him.

He laid his hands over hers. His mind replayed the moment in the gorge: the assassin flaring alight, flames bursting from his hair, from his open, screaming mouth.
No. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.
Did she feel how he shook? Did she feel the tremors?

“It’s all right,” she whispered.

“No.”
It will never be all right again.

She sighed softly against his back. Her arms tightened around him. “Would it be so terrible to be a witch?”

Terrible?

He remembered how it had felt. Bones, blood, everything in his body on fire, as if he were burning alive.

Panic rose in him, squeezing in his chest, choking his throat. Harkeld wrenched free of her embrace. “I won’t be a witch! I won’t be a monster!”