The Queen of Stone: Thorn of Breland (30 page)

“Your people seem to like their solitude,” Thorn murmured.

“There is a reason they chose this place,” Sheshka said. “But you are correct. It is not in our nature to share our lives with other creatures. As with the Children of Zaeurl, so it is with us—our power is also our curse. It is difficult to live among creatures so fragile that one angry glare can bring death.”

“But you can restore those you turn to stone,” Thorn said. A tower surrounded by scaffolding stood up ahead; Thorn guessed it was their destination.

“It’s not as simple as it seems.” Sheshka’s hand brushed against the silver collar that hung around her neck. “I am Sheshka, the Queen of Stone. To you, that may seem an arrogant title, an affectation of a woman who governs a city smaller than your Wroat or Passage. But it is not just a title of nobility. It is a statement of fact. I am the Queen of Stone. I hear the whisper of marble and granite. I have the power to release those who meet my gaze, if I so choose. For others of my kind, this takes skill with the arts of magic. Few possess such talents. Most of the time, the prison of stone is final.”

Fascinating
, Steel whispered. The dagger had kept silent, not wanting to distract Thorn, but for now the danger seemed to have passed.
Zane will want to know about that
.

“We have arrived,” Sheshka said. “Be welcome in our keep.”

The tower was a slender structure of white stone. It reminded Thorn of the trunk of a tall tree. A spiral ramp led up around the tower, and the pattern of a serpent’s path was engraved into the stone.

“Perhaps I should go first,” Thorn said. “Just to make sure there’s no danger.”

“And will you meet the angry gaze of my countrymen? No, this is my home, Thorn. I shall lead the way.”

Sheshka strode up the ramp, holding her bow in one hand as if it were a scepter instead of a weapon. Thorn followed, keeping Steel close against her wrist. She closed her eyes; she wanted to stay as close to Sheshka as possible, and she didn’t want to end up like the white wolf. Something troubled her … a smell in the air. But she couldn’t place it; she still had much to learn about her keen senses.

A door waited at the top of the ramp, and it stood ajar. Sheshka walked beneath the marble arch. Her serpents hissed in a strange pattern, and Thorn wondered if it was some sort of language. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see through the entrance, but she had the sense that a number of small stone objects were scattered about the floor, perhaps the remnants of a sculptor’s unfinished project.

“Greetings, my cousins!” Sheshka said. “This is a dire time indeed, and I call on you for aid and sanctuary. We must—”

Something lay on the floor in front of Sheshka. It was a granite statue of a rat … a rat the size of a small dog. The beast’s snout was at least four inches long, its mouth frozen in a snarl that revealed razor teeth. One leg was raised, claws clutching the air. It was an ugly thing, pure feral rage frozen forever in stone.

But it wasn’t the statue that had silenced the medusa queen. It was the shapes in the darkness beyond, the claws and teeth tearing at flesh and bone. All too late, Thorn realized what the strange scent was.

“Rats,” she said.

A
s Sheshka’s words died in her throat, the room came to life. Thorn’s intuition told her of movement in the darkness, of the creatures crawling on the shelves and tables, the huge rats gnawing on the four corpses spread across the floor. She could hear the scrape of claws against wood and stone, the click of tiny teeth, and the chittering voices of the vermin all around them. The stones scattered on the floor proved that the inhabitants of the tower had put up a fight; they’d taken many of the creatures with them. But in the end, the eyes of the medusas were no match for the numbers they had faced.

“Back!” Sheshka hissed. She held her bow in one hand and her sword in the other.
“Don’t let them bite you!
”

It was too late for that. The rats were already upon them. Thorn killed the first one that leaped toward her with a single stroke of Steel, but ten more followed in its wake. The creatures were all over her, clawing and biting. Each scratch was trivial, but the pain was a distraction. As she scattered the little beasts, something heavy landed on her back, claws digging through the mystical field formed by her bracers. It was one of the larger rats, and its teeth were long and sharp. Thorn hissed in pain as the
creature sank its fangs into her shoulder, but she didn’t stop moving. She thrust Steel over her shoulder, simultaneously slamming her back against the nearest wall. The impact pried the rat loose, and she felt her dagger sink into its flesh. Twisting around, she flung the speared beast to the ground.

The rat should have been crippled, if not instantly dead. Instead, it landed on its feet and scampered back toward her. Cursing, Thorn called the myrnaxe forth from her glove. She had only one hand free, and she couldn’t make a true thrust; instead, she let gravity take over. As the rat darted forward, she simply dropped the axe, guiding it as best she could. The spear point slammed through the beast’s back. It screeched and lay still.

Wererats, she thought. Lovely …

“Sheshka!” she shouted. “We need to
leave!
”

The ordinary rats were all around her; the only mercy was that the sheer numbers of the smaller creatures were keeping the large wererats at bay. Sheathing Steel, Thorn set both hands against the axe and pulled it free from the corpse; the oversized rat was already shifting, transforming into a pale goblin. Next to her, she heard the crash of a stone rat striking the floor, the sound of Sheshka’s sword spilling blood. But this wasn’t a fight they could win.

“Now!
” Thorn cried. She swung the axe with all her might, sending rats sprawling across the room. Then she turned and charged out the door, leaping off the ramp and into the air, falling toward the ground below. Thorn spun in midair, twisting to get her feet beneath her; it was a hard landing, but she was standing within a second, searching through the pockets of her cloak.

Sheshka was just behind her, and she leaped from the ramp with the grace of a trained acrobat. A half-dozen rats clung to the medusa’s armor and scales, but her serpents were snapping at the vermin even while Sheshka was
falling. Thorn saw a viper sink its fangs into a rat and tear the creature loose. The medusa rolled out from the impact, rising next to Thorn.

“Follow me,” she said, breaking into a run.

It was one thing to outpace a normal rat, but the shape-shifters had speed to match their size. When Thorn glanced back, she could see the massive rats pouring out of the tower, loping across the ground with the speed of hounds. The fugitives had a head start, but it wouldn’t last.

Thorn held a wooden vial in her left hand. She pulled at it with her teeth, prying off the lid to reveal a delicate glass tube inside. With one sharp motion, she dashed it to the ground, never breaking her stride. The instant the glass shattered, the magical effect began spreading out behind her. This one temporarily transformed earth and bare stone into thick, sloppy mud, and Thorn heard a surprised screech as the first rat stumbled into the muck.

It bought them time, nothing more. The rats would soon make their way through the bog. But every second was valuable, and Sheshka seemed to have a destination in mind. They had left the heart of the city behind, but a building stood up ahead, a ruin painted in the multicolored light of the moons. It was a stockade made from stone—a few defensive walls set together to form a barricade, presumably an outer watch post for the old city. The walls were crumbling and shattered in places, but Thorn could see the silhouettes of guardians standing on the walls, the shapes of halberds and arbalests set against the night. No one was challenging Sheshka’s approach; it seemed that she had friends after all.

Thorn could hear the rats screeching behind them, claws tearing at the earth. The mud had slowed them down, but they were closing in once more. The women would reach the barricade before the rats, but then it would come down to battle. Thorn hoped Sheshka’s allies were good at their work. They gave no indication of being interested in the
situation; the archers weren’t firing, and the halberdiers were standing steady.

A great gap yawned in one of the walls, and Sheshka leaped over the broken stone and into the compound. “Follow!” she hissed. Thorn saw that the structure wasn’t a fortress at all; rather, the walls were raised around a wide staircase that descended into the earth. Soldiers stood around them—hobgoblins and bugbears in full armor—but none of them moved or spoke as Sheshka darted through the troops and down the stairs.

The passage stretched down for at least thirty feet, and Thorn struggled to keep from tripping on the steep, curving steps. They reached a wide tunnel. Once, a gate had sealed the passage, but it had been knocked from its hinges long ago; all that was left were fragments of rusted metal and splinters of ancient wood. Soldiers stood around, but as before, they showed no interest in the intruders.

Sheshka spun around, gazing up the stairs. Thorn caught a brief glimpse of her glowing golden eyes as she turned, but it wasn’t enough to cause harm. Sheshka had sheathed her sword, and her bow was drawn back, one arrow to the string, two more clutched in her fingers. Thorn didn’t know what was going on, but she took a position at Sheshka’s side, ready to thrust with the tip of the silver spear.

“Wererats?” Thorn said.
“Wererats?
”

“I told you there were rats in the Crag,” Sheshka said. “I doubt they’ll have the courage to follow, but we should wait a few moments to make sure.”

“The courage?” Thorn said. “What is this place?”

“This is the Ossuary,” Sheshka replied, her eyes fixed on the stairs above. “And we’re here to look for a bone.”

The Ossuary was a goblin garrison, carved into the earth by the same masons that had hollowed out the tunnels of the Great Crag. It was built for creatures that could see
in the shadows, and there was no source of light in the depths. Once again, Thorn was forced to rely on the vision granted by her ring, which cast the world in shades of gray. So it took her a moment to realize why the hobgoblins and bugbears around her still hadn’t reacted to her presence.

They were all made of stone.

“What happened to them?” Thorn said. Presumably, they’d been petrified, but something about the situation felt wrong. The Valenar soldier in Sheshka’s quarters, the rats in the white tower—they’d been caught in the midst of battle. By contrast, no signs of fear showed on the faces of the soldiers around Thorn—no sense that they’d seen this threat approaching. One of the hobgoblins had been petrified in the middle of speaking to his comrade; he held his pike at rest, not at the ready.

“They fell in the war that destroyed the goblin empire, thousands of years ago.” Sheshka still watched the stairs, waiting for any signs of motion. “They faced one of the lords of madness, the daelkyr Orlassk, who some say was the creator of the cockatrice and the gorgon. It was Orlassk who destroyed Cazhaak Draal so long ago; then he came south to the Crag. He rose from Khyber, from tunnels that lie deep below this very fortress, and as he drew near, his sheer presence turned the guardians to stone. He petrified thousands across the city, and his troops killed ten times as many. And then, somehow, he was defeated and driven back into the depths.”

“Petrified thousands across the city? I didn’t see many statues …”

Sheshka turned away from the stairs, apparently satisfied that the rats had abandoned the chase. She began walking down the wide hallway, ignoring the frozen sentinels. “You would have, had you been here twenty years ago. It is why the Great Crag stood empty for so many millennia. The city and the lower levels of the Crag were filled with the effigies of the fallen. People said it was cursed—that the spirits of
the fallen remained trapped in the stone, crying out for vengeance.” She paused and brushed a finger across the cheek of a hobgoblin sergeant. “Surprisingly perceptive.”