The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two (56 page)

“So you reached out to the souls of the dead, and the Flow? Damn. That took a lot of energy.”

“Don’t forget the souls of the Temnottan dead. I set them free.”

“No wonder you’re so drained. I’m impressed. A year ago, lesser workings knocked you out for days at a time.”

“I guess it’s true—you gain strength from the things that don’t kill you.”

“Let’s not push that idea too far,” Fallon replied wryly. She was silent for a moment. “Do you think Scaith will try that trick again?”

Tris closed his eyes and slouched in his chair, letting his head fall back. “Goddess, I hope not. I’ll do my best in the next battle to help the dead cross over as quickly as possible so their souls can’t be violated. Scaith’s troops weren’t fighting out of their love for Temnotta or their loyalty to him. All I felt was fear.”

“How long do you think it will take him to regroup? Can you be on your feet first?”

Tris tried to sit up and groaned. “It was a strain for him—I could feel it. I had the distinct feeling that Scaith hasn’t come ashore yet, so he was casting his power over a greater distance. That cost him, and I think he’ll make sure he’s closer the next time.” Wincing as movement made his head throb, Tris staggered from his chair and dropped heavily onto his cot. “As for how quickly I can be on my feet—the sooner I sleep this off, the sooner I can get back out there.”

“We’ve got the new mages,” Fallon said, moving to stand beside Tris. She bent down and touched his temples
again, blurring the pain and hastening sleep. “The sheer unpredictability of what they’ll throw at Temnotta should keep the enemy at bay until you’re ready for action again.” She shook her head. “It’s easy to forget the mage and focus only on the madness, but of the mages who I saw with Rosta today, they were all considered quite powerful in their day. Mad or not, they’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“Then let’s leave it in the hands of the madmen, at least, for a little while,” Tris murmured, as Fallon’s magic took effect and he fell into a deep, healing slumber.

Y
ou’re certain Buka is dead?”

Scian inclined her head and leveled a measured glance at Jonmarc Vahanian. “Quite certain. I put the blade through his heart myself.”

“There’s no mistake that it was Buka you killed?”

Scian shifted her whipcord-thin frame in the campaign chair, meeting Jonmarc’s eyes. “Absolutely no mistake. He’d set his eye on a specific target, a
serroquette
. She barely escaped from him once, and we were just steps behind them, but Buka got away from us. We watched for her, and tailed her. Our ghost blades found it easy to focus on her magic. When she left the tunnels, we followed her to an inn outside of town and waited. Buka followed her, too. When he struck, so did we. Buka is dead.”

Jonmarc frowned. “A
serroquette
? Aidane?”

Scian shrugged. “The same ghost whore who was with the queen at the ceremony on Haunts.”

“Why was Aidane outside of the palace—not to mention the tunnels?”

Scian looked bored. “How should I know? Lucky for us
that she was; Buka knew the area he was using as a killing ground as well as the ghosts themselves did. His blood magic charms made it difficult for my ghost blades to get a fix on him. Aidane drew him out into the open for us, out of his usual hunting area. We severed the head and burned the skull, hand, and breastbone separately, then set the rest of the body on fire. The ashes were scattered over a very wide area. I used a
damashqi
dagger when I killed him; it was spelled to destroy the soul. He’s gone. Permanently.”

There was a rustle at the tent door, and Jonmarc looked up to see Ansu, the
vayash moru
mage, framed in the doorway. “Glad you could make it,” Jonmarc said, motioning for Ansu to join them. Scian regarded Ansu warily.

“I thought your ghost blades were an extinct breed,” Ansu said, regarding Scian with a look that seemed to take her measure.

“As the
vayash moru
know, large numbers aren’t always necessary.”

“Very true.” Ansu looked from Scian back to Jonmarc. “In my mortal days, nearly every warlord employed a handful of ghost blades among his personal retinue. They were regarded as prized weapons.”

“As were
vayash moru
assassins,” Scian replied in a tone that implied far more than it stated.

“Indeed. I have no desire to see those days return.”

Scian shrugged. “Peace may suit the farmer, but it’s hell on the fighter. Turn us loose on the enemy.”

Jonmarc had been quiet, letting the two dodge and parry. He looked up and glanced at Ansu. “The timing is right. It has to be connected.”

“Hmm?”

“Scian’s told me about how her ghost blades finally
caught and killed Buka. That was four days ago. It matches, to the candlemark, when Imri pulled his troops back.”

“That
is
interesting,” Ansu agreed. “It would make sense, if Buka’s butchering was somehow feeding the invaders’ power. But what about the other time?”

Scian leaned forward. “Other time?”

Jonmarc nodded. “Not long after Sohan. We were in a pitched battle—just as we were on the night you killed Buka—and if I had to place bets, I would have said Imri’s side had the advantage. All of a sudden, it felt like the energy completely changed on the battlefield. Imri’s troops lost their will to fight. They called back their troops when they were winning, for Crone’s sake, and the ones that didn’t hear the call milled around lost until we cut them down.”

“I hadn’t come to the battle lines yet, but I think I know the night you speak of,” said Ansu. “I, too, felt a shift in the magic, but it was blood magic, not the Flow, that waned. I’d wager that on one of the battlefronts, someone struck a deathblow to the one of the dark summoner’s sources of power, and without their blood offerings, the Volshe lost some of their power.”

“Just like with Buka,” Jonmarc murmured. “I’m grateful for anything that hands us a victory.” He looked to Scian. “If Imri is using blood magic, how does that affect your ghost blades?”

Scian grimaced. “It depends on how the power is being used. If the blood magic targets ghosts, then my assassins can’t let the spirits possess them. They lose the edge that the spirit warriors provide. On the other hand, if the blood magic is set against mortals, our ghost blades may have an advantage.”

“If you’re right, Imri and his Volshe have lost the extra power they were getting from Buka’s murders and from somewhere else, maybe the Black Robes. They’ve come too far to retreat, so that means they’ll throw everything they’ve got into the next battle.” Jonmarc leaned back in his chair, thinking. “I wish we knew how the war was going in the other kingdoms. Temnotta took a big risk when it decided to attack the entire coastline. If Margolan and Isencroft are holding their own, then it has to have taken a toll on Temnotta’s manpower and mages.” He let out a long breath. “And if Margolan and Isencroft haven’t been able to hold them off, Goddess help us.”

By the time the sun was high in the sky on the next day, Jonmarc was looking out over the lines of battle from astride his warhorse. Gethin and the
Hojun
priests were to his left, while Taru was to his right.

“With Gregor gone, Exeter had to cover the flank. We’ll miss his mercs on the advance,” Jonmarc commented to Taru.

“We’ve still got a sizeable force, between your men and Valjan’s,” Gethin added.

“How sizeable depends on what Imri still has to throw at us. I don’t think he’s out of tricks.”

“No, but he won’t throw the same trick twice,” Taru said dryly. “My mages have made sure of that.”

“Something feels wrong,” Jonmarc muttered. Valjan’s division had made the first assault of the day, while Jonmarc’s soldiers hung back to enable an onslaught of fresh troops later in the fight. Exeter’s mercs were intent on forcing back the flanking invaders who had gained ground at Gregor’s expense. “I don’t think Imri is throwing his full weight against us. It’s not like him to fight defensively.”

“Maybe getting rid of Buka hurt him more than we realized.” Taru followed his gaze out over the battlefield, and Jonmarc guessed from her look of concentration that she was seeing with her magic as well as with her vision.

“Much as I’d love to believe that, it’s too convenient. He’s waiting, trying to wear us down, or hoping our guard slips,” Jonmarc replied. It wasn’t magic that informed his skepticism, but rather hard-won intuition, born of more life-and-death battles than he cared to remember. And every fiber in his body told him that the fight had not yet really started.

As the light began to wane, neither side had gained ground. Despite pitched skirmishes up and down the battlefront, the line of fighting retreated and advanced like the tide, gaining precious yardage only to surrender the same ground moments later.

At the front of his division, Jonmarc watched the position of the sun. As dusk fell, he raised his arm to signal his unit to advance. On the ride behind them, he saw Ansu join Taru and the mages. Vygulf stepped up beside the
Hojun
priests. The
vyrkin
in their wolf form slipped among the ranks of the waiting soldiers, awaiting the order to charge. And although he couldn’t see them, Jonmarc knew that Scian and the ghost blades were somewhere in the fight, as were the
vayash moru
.

“Move out!” Jonmarc shouted, and he heard the order echoed down the line. He gripped his reins and raised his sword high, leading the advance. The moon was waning, and the night was dark as clouds blotted out the stars. Here and there, torches lit the darkness. Barrages of mage fire from both sides split the night like lightning strikes. Imri’s forces showed no sign of falling back; instead, Jonmarc
noted that the rogue shapeshifters’ army seemed invigorated as darkness fell.
That’s exactly what I was afraid of
.

He heard shouts and the screams of men coming from his right, and he saw that Exeter’s troops were fully engaged, yet their enemy did not appear to be the Temnottan soldiers. Jonmarc rode into the thick of the fighting. Cries of horror rose from the soldiers at the front.

“What is
that
?” Gethin’s voice carried above the fray.

“The missing dead.”

Hundreds of walking corpses staggered over a rise to their right. Jonmarc felt his blood chill. Dressed in ragged clothing and tattered shrouds, these weren’t the fresh dead of the battlefield. They weren’t battle dead at all. Jonmarc remembered the panicked farmers and bewildered townspeople who sought a reason for why someone had snatched the bodies from their crypts. Staring at the shambling corpses, Jonmarc now knew the answer.

“Hold your ground! They’re already dead. Cut them down!” With a cry, Jonmarc spurred his horse onward, toward the ranks of the dead. Only when he reached the front did realization hit him.

These were not mindless puppets, crudely moved by distant mages. Nor were they
ashtenerath
, men driven to madness by magic and potions. These corpses moved with sentience and malice. Armed with famers’ scythes or the scavenged swords of the battle dead, the corpse fighters moved with purpose. Two of them fixed their eyeless stares on Jonmarc and advanced.

The night suddenly grew colder. Across the battlefield, a horrific wail split the night, the keening of the damned. Opaque shadows flitted across the sky or wound between the soldiers, stretching into shapes with dangerously long
arms and gaping maws. Jonmarc brought his sword down hard on the nearest corpse fighter, swinging his blade to send the head rolling from the body. His blade glowed and tingled in his hand as it made contact, and as the corpse fighter fell, another of the black shadow shapes rose from its headless body.

Sweet Chenne. Imri might not be a summoner, but he’s enticed the hollowed spirits to possess the dead he stole from the tombs. How in the name of the Lady do we fight that?

Four of the corpse fighters advanced on Jonmarc, trying to encircle him. He cut down two with his sword. He heard a growl and the snap of teeth, and one of the
vyrkin
leaped past him, taking the third corpse fighter to the ground and ripping into the dead flesh of its throat, breaking its spine. Jonmarc reared his horse, and a powerful kick from the sharpened shoes on his stallion’s front hooves shattered the fourth corpse’s skull.

Men screamed as the hollowed spirits attacked with fury. In the gray fog, Jonmarc spotted Tevin, the fire mage, lobbing bursts of flame to drive back the ravening shadows. Vygulf’s ghost
vyrkin
joined the attack, and when they leaped at the dark shapes of the hollowed ghosts, the shadow ghosts shrieked and drew back.

To his left, Jonmarc glimpsed the
Hojuns
’ spirit stawars prowling across the battlefield, hunting the hollowed spirits that had suddenly gone from predator to prey. Two of the corpse fighters launched themselves at Jonmarc. As Jonmarc used his sword to cut one of the corpses from shoulder to hip, the other attacker leaped from the other side, colliding with Jonmarc with such force that he was thrown from his saddle as his panicked horse reared.

Mottled teeth snapped a breath away from his throat as Jonmarc bucked to free himself from his attacker. This close, he could smell the stench of the grave. The corpse fighter tore at him, and the exposed bone and leathery darkened flesh of its hands ripped at Jonmarc’s armor. Momentarily winded by his fall, Jonmarc twisted to throw the attacker clear, but it fought with a
dimonn
’s fury.