When the Heavens Fall (35 page)

For once Ebon was grateful for his uncle's booming voice, because without it he wouldn't have been able to make out his words. “The consel is trapped here just as we are. To open the gates would be to invite his own death.”

Janir loomed over him. “Not if he intended to carve his way
clear
. The whole thing's perfect for him. Let the
undead
raze the city, save himself the trouble come the spring. Does anyone here
doubt
he would do it?”

Ebon hesitated, then nodded. “Mottle, see that he is watched. But be discreet.”

“Mottle can be nothing less, though the prospect of spying leaves his conscience sorely tested.”

“As is our patience, mage,” Janir grated, “by your endless prattle.”

“It is difficult for Mottle to keep his silence when he has such wisdom to impart…”

The wailing of the spirits escalated again. Mottle's lips were moving, but Ebon could no longer make out what he was saying. The spirits' fear broke over him in waves, and he found himself struggling against the urge to flee the guardroom …
Away from the walls.
His chest felt tight.
Something is coming.

Mottle was watching him now, and Ebon took a steadying breath, then whispered, “Mage, take us to the battlements. I sense … something…”

The old man raised his hands. “Dearest friends. Pray forgive this unseemly interruption, but Mottle suggests a hasty adjournment to the wall may be in order.”

Reynes looked across. “Why? The sentries would have warned us…”

The general's voice trailed off.

Still reeling from the spirits' wretchedness, it took Ebon a moment to realize the
thud thud thud
of the battering ram had stopped.

Rising from his chair, he stumbled to the stairwell.

 

C
HAPTER
11

L
UKER SCANNED
the buildings to either side of the rubble-strewn street. The sun had bleached the walls of the red mud-brick hovels a rusty hue, and tufts of straw had torn loose from the roofs to ripple like prairie grasses. Ahead the road shimmered in the heat, and the wind stirred the dust into eddies that swirled as high as the tops of the buildings before falling back to earth. The sound of stones settling came from his left, but when he looked across he saw only a wither snake slithering through a pile of debris. Still the Guardian's hand hovered over his sword hilt. The place didn't have the smell of a trap, but he wouldn't relax his guard just yet. For while an arrow or crossbow bolt had no chance of piercing his wards, Jenna didn't have the luxury of defenses such as his.

“What is this place?” the assassin said from beside him.

“Ontep,” he replied. “Used to be a base for slavers raiding across the Shield.”

“And?”

Luker guided his horse round the wreckage of a house. Potsherds cracked beneath the mare's hooves. “Emperor shut it down. Many years back now, before the Arandas campaign.”

“Then why are we here?”

Luker gestured along the street. “Temple. Other side of the marketplace.”

“A temple?” Jenna's voice carried a note of humor. “Why Luker, I had no idea you were so devout.”

The Guardian did not respond.

As a boy of seven he had walked these same streets with his father when the sandclaws' migrations drew them to the western fringes of the Waste. He could still smell the stink of the town's slave pens, hear the roar of the spectators at the blood pits, feel the bristling tension on the air as slavers and townsfolk rubbed shoulders with tribesmen from the plains. It had never taken much of a spark to light the kindling, and sometimes it had been Luker's father who had provided it, doused up on juripa spirits and still stupid with grief at the loss of Luker's mother. The Guardian hawked and spat. Too bad he'd been traveling beyond the White Mountains when the emperor gave the order to bury this place. He'd have liked to have been here to watch the work done, maybe even pick up a spade and help with the digging.

As he neared the center of the settlement he saw signs that people had been here recently: the remains of fires within the doorways of buildings; horse droppings baked dry in the sun; scuffed tracks down sheltered side streets. Tribesmen, most likely, or survivors of the emperor's purge come to take back what was theirs.
So where are they now?
The walls of many of the buildings were covered with cracks, but seemed sound enough.
Someone should have claimed this place.

He entered a dusty basin surrounded by crumbling buildings and littered with pieces of wood and straw. The air carried a hint of decay, but the gusting winds made it impossible to determine its source. At the top of a flight of steps a hundred paces away stood the temple. Its doorway was a jagged wound in the building's fa
ç
ade, as if something huge had forced its way through an opening too small to accommodate it. Blocks of stone were scattered across the stairs below.

Luker drew up his horse. The ground was pockmarked with indentations, and he dismounted to examine them. The marks had been made by clawed feet, three talons in front, a fourth behind and to the side. Both the breadth and depth of the impressions suggested one big Shroud-cursed bastard of a creature.

And they were fresh.

The jingle of bridles marked the arrival of Merin and Chamery. When the tyrin spoke, his voice sounded as dry as the dust beneath Luker's fingertips. “What is it?”

“Tracks,” Luker said. “Not from any plains creature—”

Chamery's lisp interrupted him. “Tracks, Guardian? Are we here to admire the wildlife, then?”

Luker looked at him. Chamery's pupils were dilated, and his hands trembled on his horse's reins. The boy was brimful.
Of course—the smell of rot.
The mage must be drawing in the energies released by whatever had died. “Where's the corpse?” Luker asked. “Where's this stink coming from?”

“The temple.”

Of course it is.

Chamery's tone was mocking. “What's the matter? Are you afraid of the dead?” Then, before Luker could respond, he spurred his horse toward the shrine.

Merin set off after him.

The Guardian could sense Jenna's smile at his back. He stood and rolled his shoulders. The time was fast approaching when he would have to put the boy in his place, even if that place was a shovel's height under.

Leading his horse by the reins, he made for the temple. The stone steps at the foot of the building were scratched and cracked. At the top, he wrapped his mare's reins round a fallen block of stone and joined Merin and Chamery at the doorway. Peering into the gloom he saw a chamber with another doorway in the far wall. The central part of the floor had caved in, and there was blood on the tiles round the hole. A stink rose from the shadows below, like a corpse washed up in a sewer. The walls and what remained of the floor were frost-rimed, the air so cold it snatched the warmth from Luker's breath even as it passed his lips. Echoes of alien sorcery left the Guardian's stomach churning.

Merin spoke from beside him. “Looks like we missed a fight.”

“I recognize the smell now,” Luker said. “A pentarrion. I think we can assume it's dead.”

“Perhaps whichever god owns this shrine took objection to the creature setting up home here.”

The Guardian shook his head. “The temple isn't sanctified. Hasn't been for years.” He tested the air again. “I don't know the sorcery.”

“I do,” Chamery said. “A titan's.”

“Where in Shroud's name have you come up against a titan before?”

The mage smiled, but said nothing.

Merin scowled. “I'd have heard if there was a titan on the loose in these lands. The emperor is meticulous in such matters.”

“Maybe the titan's on his way to report in now,” Luker said.

Merin ignored the comment. “Can you sense the immortal nearby?”

“No, though he can likely hide from me easy enough.”

Chamery laughed. “But not from me. The titan has moved on, I am sure of it.” He looked at Luker. “It is safe for you to enter. Unless you'd prefer I went in first.”

Jenna spoke from behind. “You're going in there? Why?”

“We need water,” Luker said. “There's a well inside.”

Merin crossed his arms. “Do we have time for this, Guardian? How far behind is the soulcaster?”

“Maybe three bells. It's either the well or a waterhole farther east.”

“Closer to the Waste, then.”

“Aye. Might be under sand by now.”

The tyrin looked once more through the doorway, then nodded.

Jenna snorted and turned away. “Someone has to stay to watch the horses. Knock yourselves out in there.”

*   *   *

Parolla crossed her arms as the riders approached up the slope. Earth-spirits crowded the ground beneath them, their rumble of outrage mixing with the thunder of hooves to make it sound as if a great host were bearing down on Parolla instead of the score or so clansmen.

The slope was covered with boulders, but the horsemen guided their mounts round them with the skill of a people born to ride. They wore leather armor and carried spears and shortbows. Black-fletched arrows protruded from quivers strapped across their chests. At the front of the group was a man—the leader, probably—mounted on a gray horse with a white patch across its chest. The rider's eyes were closed, but a large tattoo of a third eye, its lids partly opened, adorned the center of his forehead. A shaman, then. His face was gaunt to the point of emaciation, and his skin had a feverish cast to it.
He's dying,
Parolla realized, his life force no doubt consumed by the threads of death-magic in the air.

As yet the horsemen had not strung arrows to their bows, but she knew it would take but a heartbeat for them to do so. And there was no reason to think this tribe would be any less hostile to strangers than the ones she'd clashed with previously. Releasing her power, she wove wards of shadow about herself. A few days ago a score of horsemen bearing down on her would have set her heart pounding, but not now. For while the touch of the strands of death-magic seemed to be toxic to the tribesmen, for Parolla they had had the opposite effect. Her power had grown since she left the Shades. Disturbingly so.

At a distance of thirty paces the shaman raised his spear and barked a command. The clansmen split into two parties. One group rode to Parolla's left, the other to her right, and moments later she was surrounded by twin circles of riders, turning in opposite directions. A cloud of dust thrown up by the horses' hooves swept over her, and she blinked grit from her eyes. The tribesmen were blurred shapes in the fog. A single arrow came whistling toward Parolla from ahead and to her right. It burst into fire as it passed through her sorcerous shadows and disintegrated. A crackle behind marked the incineration of another missile, then another, and another, as the horsemen wasted their shafts trying to pierce her wards.

Parolla heard one of the clansmen call out, and a dozen voices responded with an answering cry. The pattern of shouts was repeated, growing louder each time, and in the chanting Parolla heard the beginnings of a ritual. The darkness within her started to build in response. Through the murk she could see the savages holding their spears out before them, the points sketching glittering symbols in the air. The ground beneath her feet shuddered, then her skin tingled as whatever power they were fashioning broke against her defenses. She had tensed herself for its impact, but the clansmen's sorcery was weak, and she shrugged it off with ease.

It was time to send a shot across their bows.

She unleashed her power, and shadows rippled outward to deepen the gloom. As the darkness drew near to the tribesmen it was slowed by a wall of their magic. When Parolla pushed against that barrier, though, it gave way like rotten wood. Her tainted blood wanted her to keep pushing, but she held it back.

Suddenly the riders broke on all sides, wheeling away with ululating cries. Another wave of dust rolled over Parolla. She could no longer see the horsemen through the murk, but she could hear their mounts' hooves as they galloped down the slope. The earth-spirits rumbled their fury as they set off in pursuit. Parolla could detect the derision they directed at the backs of the retreating clansmen, but then it was easy to be brave when you were already dead. As the hoofbeats faded, she reached out with her senses to explore the rise in case one of the savages had remained behind to surprise her. The hilltop, though, was deserted.

Parolla surrendered her power, and the gloom began to melt away, revealing a circle of withered black grasses all about, two score paces across. Beyond the circle lay a bow dropped by one of the riders, the wood warping as the last of her shadows lapped over it. The dust cloud was slower to disperse than the darkness. Her clothes were powder white, and she brushed herself down. In truth, she had not expected the tribesmen to withdraw so quickly, for on her journey from Enikalda to the Shades only blood had sufficed to drive her attackers off. Then she remembered the dwarf and his demons, and heard again Tumbal Qerivan telling her about other powers abroad on the steppes, drawn to the far-off source of death-magic. Evidently the clans had learned the wisdom of caution from those who had gone before her.

A cough sounded behind her, and she turned to see Tumbal standing a short distance away. As he approached he spread his four hands as if to assure her he carried no weapons. “Good day to thee.”

“And to you,
sirrah
. Forgive me for leaving without you this morning, but when you did not return from scouting…”

Was it possible for a spirit to blush? For a heartbeat Tumbal's ghostly cheeks seemed to darken. “The scream we heard … It was not, ah, as we believed, but rather two clanspeople, who did not, ah, welcome the interruption.”