“This is my favorite time of year,” Talwyn said, resting her head against Jair’s shoulder. “First of all, you’re on the Ride with us. But I love the autumn weather and the harvest foods. I don’t even mind the winter if the harvest has been good. And I’ll admit that as much as I enjoy Winterstide, the Moon Feast and the Feast of the Departed are two of my favorite festivals.”
A question crossed Jair’s mind, something he had wondered from the events of the night before, but he pushed it away, unwilling to spoil the mood. Talwyn noticed the shift and gave him a questioning look.
“What is it?”
Jair frowned. “Just something I heard last night. We didn’t really get a chance to talk after the tribunal.”
Talwyn’s mood sobered. “Sorry about that. There are rituals to follow after a working like that to ground yourself back in this realm, and offerings to be made. By the time I came back to the tent, you and Kenver were both fast asleep.”
Jair leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “It’s not that—I know you have obligations. But when one of the Black Robes was rambling, he talked about a war and chaos. Did that make any sense to you?”
Talwyn sighed and withdrew her arm, walking a few steps ahead. “Unfortunately, it does.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
Talwyn looked out across the camp. Children’s laughter echoed with the sound of singing and the thunder of hoofbeats as young men raced their horses in the distance. “There are legends about how the world was made, very ancient stories. According to the legends, the world has been made and unmade several times. The Dark Aspect of the Formless One is chaos, where worlds are torn apart and new worlds are born. She’s neither good nor evil—she just
is
. But Shanthadura and the Shrouded Ones embraced the chaos. They revered the power to destroy, but not to create. That was one of the main reasons why some of the kings like Hadenrul the Great worked so hard to supplant the cult of Shanthadura with worship of the Sacred Lady. You can just imagine what it would be like with the Black Robes running around with the power to do real damage.”
“Where does the war come in?”
Talwyn walked slowly, and she held out her hand to Jair. “The old stories talk about the World Cycle that moves much like the year. Everything is new in the spring, it blossoms in the summer, it bears fruit in autumn, and it lies barren and dead in winter, only to begin again. The stories say the World Cycle begins and ends in a great war, the War of Unmaking. That’s what the Black Robe was talking about. To the blood mages and the dark summoners and the worshippers of Shanthadura who draw their power from death, it’s the ultimate source of energy, the destruction of everything. For those who worship the Lady and her Consorts, the focus is on rebirth and the power of creation.” She met Jair’s eyes. “As you can see, it’s another point of contention between the two sides.”
“Do you believe him? That there’s a dark master out there who is going to usher in the War of Unmaking?”
Talwyn shrugged. “The sages warn us against trying to predict such things. Worrying about the War of Unmaking is a lot like fearing your own death. It comes whether you fear it or not, but you miss out on all the living up to that point.”
“But could it be true this time? So many things are happening. The Durim and the Black Robes bringing back the cult of Shanthadura after hundreds of years. The desecration of the barrows. And now this power that’s rising. Could it be true?”
Talwyn shivered, although the day was warm. “I don’t know, Jair. I don’t know. Those are exactly the things that the old stories say happened before the last War of Unmaking. And does it change anything? Do we sit by and let this dark power—whatever it is—rise? Maybe it’s not the War of Unmaking. Maybe it’s just one more man with too much power. Maybe the War of Unmaking is just a legend, a story that’s been made of old wars all added together and given a good dramatic twist by some long-ago bard.” She met Jair’s eyes. “It doesn’t really matter. If the Black Robes are right and there’s a darkness rising, then I have to fight. The Sworn will defend, so long as we have breath.”
Jair took her hand in both of his. “Where you ride, I ride. That’s why I asked. Because I think war is coming, and when it comes, I plan to fight.”
M
ake them stop stealing our dead!”
The red-faced man leaned across the table, and his body trembled with his shout.
On the other side of the table, Lord Jonmarc Vahanian passed a hand across his eyes. There were many duties that came with the title and land holdings that Jonmarc enjoyed. Holding court was not one of them. “Sit down before I put you down,” Jonmarc growled. The red-faced man looked startled, but he pulled back and took his chair.
“Now, let’s start at the beginning,” Jonmarc said tiredly. As lord of the manor, he was the final arbiter of disputes, petty and otherwise. While the Blood Council dealt with disagreements between
vayash moru
, and the
vyrkin
handled their problems among themselves, dealings between mortals or between a mortal and either a
vayash moru
or a
vyrkin
fell to the lord of the manor to arbitrate. The irony of the once-brigand Lord of Dark Haven now handing down judgment was not lost on Jonmarc. “Why do you think your dead are missing and what makes you think anyone took them?”
“They bloody well didn’t walk off all by themselves,” the man retorted.
Jonmarc fixed him with a glance. “Want to rephrase that? Dark Haven has more dead men walking than anywhere else I’ve ever been.”
The florid-faced man glanced at Gabriel, who stood behind Jonmarc, and reined in his temper. “These dead aren’t biters.”
“And you’re certain of that how?”
The man sighed. By his clothes and his manner, Jonmarc guessed him to be a farmer. Beside him sat another man, likely a tinker or tradesman, Jonmarc thought. Probably a newcomer to the area, and thus automatically under suspicion. The yellow-haired tinker looked bewildered and indignant. Things like walking dead were out of the men’s experience, and some days, Jonmarc wished they were out of his, as well. But a year spent with Tris Drayke and another year as Lord of Dark Haven had altered a good many of his theories about life, death, and afterlife. “Because our dead stayed dead, until he came,” the farmer said, with a glare toward the tinker.
Jonmarc glanced at Sakwi, who had agreed to attend the tribunal should any need for magic arise. “Can you tell if he’s a blood mage or a summoner?” Jonmarc asked Sakwi.
Sakwi moved closer to the tinker, who drew back in his chair fearfully. Though Sakwi’s specialty was land magic, Jonmarc had learned enough about mages from recent experience to know that, regardless of their expertise, they could sense another’s magic. Sakwi held out his hands, palms out, and closed his deep-set, brown eyes, losing himself in thought for a moment. Then he opened
his eyes and shook his head. “No. No magic at all, in fact. Just a charm around his neck that isn’t worth its tin.”
The tinker relaxed, but only for a moment. The farmer was again on his feet. “I don’t care what your hocus says. Someone is stealing our dead!”
“You’ve said that twice now, without explaining it,” Jonmarc said, with a dangerous undercurrent in his voice that was not lost on the farmer, who remembered himself and sat back down. “If someone’s robbing tombs, then we need to look for a thief. Do you bury your dead with gold or jewelry?” The question was logical, but the hard-scrabble look of the farmer made Jonmarc doubt that the man or his neighbors had a gold coin among them, let alone treasures to waste on the dead.
“You’re not hearing me,” the farmer said, straining for control. “No one’s stealing the pots and charms we buried with the bodies. They’re still in the graves. It’s the bodies that are gone. Someone’s torn up our burial grounds.”
“Is it just the newly dead who’ve gone missing?”
The farmer shook his head. “They’re gone, but they’re not the only ones. We have a crypt that the whole village uses. It’s dug into the caves. We’ve used it for generations. My sister’s husband was killed last week when his horse bolted. Broke his neck. We washed the body, and the women prepared it with herbs and honey, as we do all our dead. When we’d mourned him, we wrapped him in a shroud and carried him into the tomb. But when his widow went back two days later to bring a soul offering, the crypt had been opened. His body was gone—windings and all—and so were the other bodies in the newest chamber.” He swallowed hard. “You can excuse my sister for not taking a complete count when she realized what had happened.”
“So you don’t know how many bodies are gone?”
The farmer shook his head. “No. But three weeks before my sister’s husband died, an old woman in the village died of the cough. And then last month, one of the Rimmin boys drowned in the creek. Their bodies should have been in the crypt—but they weren’t, and neither were the bodies from the three we lost to consumption over the summer.”
Jonmarc exchanged puzzled glances with Gabriel. “Do your people know anything about this?”
Gabriel shook his head. “I can assure you no one of my brood has made any new fledglings. I’d be willing to wager that Riqua’s family hasn’t, either. I can’t say for certain about the other
vayash moru
broods, but what the man described doesn’t sound right for a
vayash moru
rising.”
“Could the bodies have been taken by animals?” Jonmarc asked. “The herbs and honey used to preserve them might smell like food.”
The farmer looked appalled. “We’re not stupid, m’lord. The crypt seals tightly.”
Jonmarc felt a headache beginning to grow. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were stupid,” he said carefully, “but people forget things in their grief. Is it possible that someone forgot to close the crypt?”
The farmer shook his head. “We were all there when the body was laid to rest. We helped to seal the door. It was closed.”
“How difficult is it to open the door?”
“I’m not a small man, m’lord, and I can’t open it by myself. It was made heavy enough to require two men, to stop tomb robbers and vandals.” He paused. “There is one
other thing, m’lord. The dead weren’t carried off. They walked.”
Jonmarc had been slumped in his chair. Now he sat up and leaned forward. “Walked?”
The farmer nodded, wide-eyed. “My eldest son saw it. Ran home babbling about wights, but at the time, we just thought a trick of the moonlight spooked him.”
“Is he with you?”
The farmer turned and summoned a young man from the back of the room. This was the last judgment of the day, and the room was otherwise empty of onlookers. The farmer’s son bore a strong family resemblance, with a wide face and a strong jaw and an unruly shock of straight, brown hair that stuck out at odd angles. The boy looked to be about sixteen summers old, old enough to testify in court as a man.
“Tell us what you saw,” Jonmarc said.
The boy spoke without looking up. “I wasn’t supposed to be out that night. But I’d slipped out to see Molly Rimmin. We’d agreed to meet up in a clearing that’s just out of view of the village.”
“You always meet your girlfriends in the burying grounds?”
The boy winced. “We weren’t actually in the burying grounds, but the crypts aren’t far from there. We’d been… busy… for a while, when I heard a noise, like something crashing through the underbrush. I was scared that it might be wolves.”
“If it had been wolves, you wouldn’t have heard them until they were on you,” Sior, the representative for the
vyrkin
, spoke from his place behind Jonmarc. The boy blushed scarlet.
“We didn’t have all our clothes on,” he admitted in a mumble. “I didn’t want to die naked, and I was trying to put my pants back on when I saw them.”
“Who?”
“I saw the dead. I know my own uncle. And I knew he was dead. But there he was, and behind him were others. I didn’t stop to count. I grabbed Molly and what clothes we could gather and we ran.”
“What did they look like?” Jonmarc pressed.
The boy made an impatient expression. “They looked like themselves, only dead.”
Jonmarc shook his head and silently counted to ten. “Was there anything unusual about how they moved?”
The boy shook his head in frustration. “Did you not hear me? They were dead and they were walking—that’s damn unusual where I come from!”
The farmer cuffed the boy on the side of the head. “You forget yourself. That’s the lord you be talking to.”
“Sorry,” the boy mumbled, looking down.
“I once saw a dead body able to move when a ghost possessed it,” Jonmarc said. Even now, the memory sent a chill down his back. “Is the area around the crypt haunted?”
The farmer shrugged. “No more than any burying ground. We have our ghosts, like all villages. Our ancestors lie in there. They stay with us.”
Jonmarc struggled to make himself understood. “Do you have any bad ghosts? Ones who throw things or try to hurt people? Anyone who was murdered and looking for revenge?”
The farmer thought for a moment and shook his head. “Old man Velnost hung himself in his barn a few years
back, and he soured the milk when his wife remarried, but our ghosts are quiet folk, like they were when they were alive. I don’t imagine my sister’s husband was happy about dying, but he wasn’t the sort to trouble the living.”