Children of Fire (37 page)

Raven circled high in the clouds, ignoring the buffeting winds and shards of ice that pelted her naked flesh. Miles below, her eagle eyes had picked out a small, huddled form moving slowly along a ledge. She knew it was the one she hunted; she had tasted her fear for days now.

Raven could sense the fire of the Crown she carried, a gleaming spark in the pack slung over the mortal's shoulder. Her instincts urged her to swoop down and seize it, plucking it from the pack and tossing the woman off the narrow ledge and into the chasm below.

But something held her at bay. There was another power here. She felt its presence on the wind, but it would be strongest in the earth and rocks beneath the mortal's feet. This was the domain of the Guardian, one of the ancient Chaos Spawn. And Raven knew she was no match for him.

Here among the frozen clouds she was safely hidden from the Guardian's awareness, but if she dove down to the earth he would sense her coming. Was he close enough to stop her from getting the Crown?

It would only take a few seconds. She would plummet from the sky, snatch the pack up in her claws, and fly back to Orath victorious. Or the Guardian would emerge and smite her from the sky, snuffing out her existence.

She circled again, then screamed in frustration. She would not dive down; she would not risk her death in a single desperate act. Her prey had escaped and the Crown was beyond her reach. She wheeled on the currents, turning west, leaving the land of endless winter—and her failure—behind her.

But where could she go now? She dared not return to Orath empty-handed.

Leaving the mountains behind, she continued west for many leagues until she reached the tundra-covered steppes where the barbarian hordes ranged, safely beyond the Guardian's reach. Coming in to land on the ground, she tilted her head back and tasted the air. There was life here—beasts she could hunt for food and mortals she could kill for sport as she waited for the Crown to return.

She coiled herself up into a ball on the ground, wrapping her black wings around her. Her dark skin began to shudder as ancient words of power spilled from her hooked beak. Seconds later her crouching, trembling form was enveloped in an orb of impenetrable black shadow. Within the darkness she screamed as the spell ripped and tore at her flesh.

After many minutes the darkness faded away, leaving Raven transformed. Her avian head and wings were gone; her naked, ebony body had taken on the form and features of an ordinary mortal woman dressed in the hides and skins of the nomadic tribes she had seen from high above.

A faint glimmer of a plan began had formed in her dark mind. The Crown could not stay with the Guardian forever. Its power was anathema to him; too long in its presence and he would sicken and die. After a few weeks, maybe a month, the Guardian would be forced to send it away, and the mortal would leave the safety of his lair.

Raven knew she could bide her time until then. She would live among the mortals of the barbarian tribes, sowing the seeds of Chaos and waiting for her chance to strike.

The cold had long since ceased to matter. The numbing pain meant nothing anymore, for Cassandra knew she was going to die. She felt the presence of her enemy high above her as she moved slowly along the ice-covered ledge. She felt it circling, she felt its hate, she felt its fear. It had found her.

She wanted to cry. Not for herself, but for her failure. She would cry for all those who had sacrificed for her, for those who had died for her, for those who had trusted her on this mission. She wanted to weep, but the tears froze at the corner of her eye, trapping the grief and sorrow inside her.

And then suddenly the presence above her was gone.

Puzzled, she turned her frostbitten face up, exposing it to the savage winds. Slowly she began to feel another presence. But this one did not fill her with sorrow or terror; it did not promise a grim and brutal death. It welcomed her, it called to her. It was close now, closer than she would have dared to believe. Through the blinding, endless blizzard she sensed the opening of a cave. She knew the presence was inside.

This presence offered hope and salvation and … and
warmth.

She redoubled her pace until she stepped off the ledge and into the pleasant heat of the sheltered cave. The Guardian was waiting for her.

Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks as the Guardian wrapped his strong arms around her, drawing her into his heat and away from the cold.

Scythe woke feeling completely refreshed. The weeks of exhausting travel had been swept away by a warm bath, some clean clothes, a good meal, and a single night in a real bed.

The executions were scheduled for noon, she remembered. If she wanted to have a proper view of the festivities, she'd have to arrive early. Reluctantly she climbed from the bed to wash up before leaving the comfort of the inn.

The innkeeper was waiting for her when she descended the steps. His eyes lit up when he saw her. Scythe realized he had developed a crush on her, and she hoped he wouldn't make any inappropriate advances. She wanted to maintain the illusion of a wealthy lady of culture, but if he made a move she'd respond with a knee to the groin and the charade would likely be over.

Fortunately, the innkeeper considered her a true lady and acted with nothing but grace and courtesy.

“Good morning,” he said, bowing low. “I trust last night was to your satisfaction.”

“I slept very well,” she replied. Noticing his desperate, hopeful expression she added, “I always find a good meal and sparkling conversation put me at ease so that I may enjoy a restful night. I thank you for both, good sir.”

The innkeeper blushed, and a coquettish giggle escaped Scythe's lips—a reaction suitable to the character she was playing, but one that was unplanned and unwelcome. Bile welled up in her throat, and suddenly she no longer enjoyed the game she had been playing. It conjured up memories of her life among the whorehouses of Callastan: adopting personalities that were not her own, subsuming her own identity into the roles her clients demanded, adopting false mannerisms to please the men—and sometimes women—who paid gold to own her, if even for one night. She hadn't realized how easy it would be to slip back into the old practices, and the realization disturbed her.

“I'll be leaving today,” she said to the innkeeper, not bothering with the aristocratic accent anymore.

He was too infatuated with her to notice. “Surely my lady plans to stay for the executions?” he inquired. Before she could respond he added, “There has been a third added to the list.”

“A third heretic?” Scythe was suddenly wary.

She'd been convinced the two wizards were acting alone. Was it possible they had come to meet an ally in Torian?

“Oh, no—not a heretic,” the innkeeper explained. “Last night the City Lord sent out a number of patrols to scour the area to ensure a smooth execution. One of the patrols stumbled across a barbarian spy hiding in the forest a few hours outside the city.”

It took all Scythe's strength to keep from collapsing. She leaned heavily on the railing, trying to support her weight so the innkeeper wouldn't suspect anything was wrong.

“They say he is a giant beast of a savage,” the man continued. “He attacked like an animal, using only his bare hands. It took the efforts of a full dozen men to subdue him!”

Gathering her courage, Scythe forced herself to ask a question.

“Where are they holding him?”

“Never fear, my lady—you'll see this monster at the execution. The City Lord has arranged for all three to be burned together. A simple matter, really. They'll just add another stake to the bonfire.”

Scythe half stumbled, half ran down the stairs. She shoved her way past the innkeeper as he reached out to help her keep her balance, then raced out into the street. She ran for several blocks, then doubled over and vomited up the remains of last night's supper, much to the disgust of the people passing by.

Her stomach continued to retch up its contents until there was nothing left. She gave her mouth a slight wipe and straightened up. She still felt like throwing up. Or crying. Or screaming.

Instead, she took a deep breath and began to walk toward the town center. She pushed her emotions—guilt, rage, grief—aside for now. There would be time enough for such things later. After she rescued Norr.

The crowd was already buzzing with excitement; they had begun to gather before the soldiers had even finished setting up. In the early hours of the morning the sounds of hammers and saws and commanders shouting out orders had been heard above the drone of the ever-increasing crush of people gathering in the square. Now the construction was finished. In the very center of the square a huge stage had been built of large masonry stones, nearly ten feet high and twenty feet across. Three large, sturdy stakes jutted up from its surface, surrounded by a pile of wood faggots soaked in oil.

Nearby a massive grandstand had been erected, a place for the wealthy and politically important personages of Torian to view the execution away from the unwashed masses pressing up against the wooden barriers set out around the edges of the stage.

Scythe had scouted the area from one side to the other, committing the layout to memory so she might better execute her plan to free Norr. Except she didn't have one yet.

She had initially thought it might be possible to slip him away before the prisoners were brought forth for the execution, but she had since abandoned that idea. The dungeon where they were being held was deep in the earth beneath Lady Beethania's mansion. A score of guards had ringed the building, and only the Gods knew how many more were inside.

Bribing them was another option she briefly considered then dismissed. If she had more time, she might be able to learn which guards were approachable and open to the idea of accepting a few coins to help one of the prisoners in their charge escape. But as it was she was likely to stumble on one devoted to duty, and she could end up being thrown in prison herself.

The blare of a horn was heard, and the crowd erupted in a wild, bloodthirsty cheer. The long blast announced the arrival of the prisoners; Scythe was out of time. At the far end of the square she saw a caravan of armed guards marching forward through the crowd. Twenty, maybe thirty in all, surrounding a large flatbed wagon. Chained to the wagon were the prisoners.

As the wagon slowly made its way through the throng of spectators, the people hurled insults at the condemned men from the crowd. They spit onto their helpless bound bodies; they hurled fruit and clumps of dirt and manure at them, screaming with the mindless hate of a true mob. The guards did nothing to stop their antics, save for drawing slightly farther away from the wagon lest they be hit by a stray missile.

Scythe shoved and pushed her way through the people, trying to gain a better look at Norr. When she finally got close enough to see the details, she nearly threw up again.

He had been stripped naked, his hands bound behind his back, his ankles tied together, and his mouth gagged. A thick metal chain had been latched onto the heavy collar around his neck and then attached to an iron ring in the bed of the wagon.

His naked body was a mess of dark, purple bruises. Nasty welts and cuts covered his back where they had whipped him; huge welts and angry red lumps covered his arms and legs where they had beaten him with metal rods. His face was nothing but a bloody, lumpy mess. His lips were swollen and split, his nose broken and twisted at a grotesque angle. His eyes were ringed with black-and-blue splotches and had puffed up so bad he probably couldn't even see. The thought of what they had done to him made Scythe want to kill every guard in the city, slowly and painfully. And her rage only grew when she saw the other men.

They were naked and bound as Norr, but had suffered neither whipping nor beating. On the younger of the two, she saw the strange tattoos of sorcery painted on his skin. The other had no markings traced onto his flesh, but she was close enough now to see his eyes. Or lack of them. He had once been a member of the Order, and now he was being tried for heresy.

The cart rolled slowly past her, and Scythe scrambled to keep up. She was able to twist and turn her small body through tiny gaps in the crowd, ignoring the rude comments, angry exclamations, and crude gropes she suffered as she squirmed her way toward the stage.

Despite her desperate efforts to hurry, the press of people slowed her down. By the time she reached the edge of the wooden barriers keeping the mob back, the prisoners had already been unloaded from the wagon and secured to the stakes. Their gags had been removed so the crowd could hear their dying screams.

Norr's head lolled to one side, and his eyes had rolled back into his skull. The nearest guard stepped up and slapped him until he regained consciousness, drawing a fresh stream of blood from the big man's broken nose and an approving roar from the crowd. Scythe marked that one, a tall, dark-haired young man.

Another horn blast silenced the shouts and cries of the crowd, and upon the nearby scaffold Scythe noticed that a platform had been built for a speaker to address the crowd. A woman who could only be Lady Beethania stood atop it, her face a mask of sadistic triumph. Beside her was a man clad in the outfit of a lord's mage, and in his hand he held a long staff with the skull of some strange monstrosity on the top.

Still not even sure what she was going to do, Scythe began to worm her way through the crowd toward those gathered near the base of the grandstand.

“Welcome, my people of Torian,” Lady Beethania proclaimed, her voice amplified by some minor enchantment of her mage so that it would carry to the farthest reaches of the square. “You are here to witness the execution of three men. One is a spy from the frozen steppes, an Eastern savage caught lurking in the fields and farms surrounding our great city. The other two have been declared heretics and sentenced to death by the Order itself.

“But the Order does not hold sway here in Torian—we are a Free City and answer to none but our own!” A great cheer went up from the crowd, and the City Lord waited for the noise to subside before continuing. “Before I pronounce sentence on these men I turn to you, the people of Torian, the strength of this Free City, united in heart and spirit and mind. How say you, my subjects? Are these men deserving of death, or mercy?”

A brief hope flared in Scythe's breast, only to be quenched when the crowd began a ruthless chant of “Burn! Burn! Burn!” She tried to shut out the hateful words, forcing her mind to focus on a way to save Norr at any cost.

“The people have spoken!” Lady Beethania declared, her arms raised for silence once more. “The prisoners shall burn!”

She turned her head to the lord's mage at her side. Scythe was close enough to see him draw a vial from his belt and take a sip. He swooned briefly, then smiled and slipped the vial back out of sight. He held up a fist with something small clenched inside and began a quick but intricate series of strange gestures. She could see his lips moving quickly in an arcane litany.

Scythe remembered the vial of witchroot she had taken from the room back in Praeton; it was still tucked safely away in the pouch at her side. She pulled it out, even though it could do little to help her now. She was no wizard.

She glanced over at the stage and saw that the guards had all climbed down. The prisoners stood alone, the oil-soaked faggots piled up to their knees. The lord's mage stamped the butt of his skull-topped staff down onto the wooden platform of the grandstand, drawing her attention back to him. He was sweating profusely and breathing in long, heavy gasps. Whatever spell he was concocting was taking its toll.

He stamped the staff again, and suddenly one of the faggots burst into flame. The fire caught on the oil, and the blaze quickly spread. A look of relief briefly passed across his heavy jowls, and then his face assumed an expression of arrogance and disdain fitting his position.

The crowd erupted in cheers and screams of delight as the mob pressed forward, knocking over the barriers. Scythe was swept along with them, but managed to break free and run over to the grandstand. All eyes, including those of Lady Beethania, her lord's mage, and the guards themselves, were on the quickly spreading blaze.

Clutching the witchroot vial in her fist, Scythe broke through the front ranks of the crowd and rushed the stage. One of the guards stepped forward to stop her, but she ducked beneath his clumsy grab and continued her charge. She leapt up and managed to clutch the edge of the stage with her empty hand, then swung herself up on top before any of the other soldiers could react.

The oil-soaked wood had been arranged so that the fire would burn slowly; just hot enough to cook the heretics over many minutes, giving the crowd ample time to enjoy their dying screams. Even so, the heat from the rising flames nearly bowled Scythe over. A wall of smoke blocked her path to the prisoners, but she threw her free arm across her face to shield her eyes as she plunged into the conflagration.

The low flames wrapped themselves around her legs, scorching her boots and blistering her skin. She ignored the pain and leapt toward the nearest prisoner, the young wizard. She yanked the stopper from the vial and jammed it into his surprised mouth.

“You better save all our asses!” she screamed as she dumped the entire contents down his throat.

For a brief second there was a look of horror on the young man's face, as if what she had done was somehow worse than the execution he was facing. And then he began to convulse and froth at the mouth.

Scythe took a half step back and almost fell to her knees, the heat and smoke from the fire overcoming her. She had failed. Norr was going to die here, as was she. The blaze was higher now; in a minute the flesh of those on the stage would begin to melt and burn, their hair would burst into flames, and they would perish in agony. Ignoring the seizures racking the young man's body, she turned away to find Norr and kiss him one last time before the heat devoured them both.

A great rush of wind nearly swept her from the stage, an updraft that appeared from nowhere and lifted her momentarily from her feet. Instantly the flames were gone, sucked up into the sky, swallowed by an ominous green cloud that had suddenly materialized above the city.

There was stunned silence from the crowd, the guards nearest the stage took a fearful step back. She glanced over at the young wizard: His back was arched, his head tilted up to the sky. His bound body thrashed about in the grip of a great seizure, though his eyes were wide open. He was screaming out an endless string of nonsensical gibberish, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth.