The Sentinel Mage (37 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

T
HEY FOLLOWED THE
river all day, red desert to the north, red cliffs to the south. Harkeld found his mood almost cheerful. Partly it was the scenery—the stark, barren beauty of sand and rock—partly it was the company: Tomas on his right, joking as he rode; Justen, laconic and dependable on his left. He could forget the witches riding behind, forget the curse, forget the bounty on his head—forget that his life had fallen apart, as the crumbling stones that sealed the granaries in the cliffs were falling apart.

At dusk they reached a place where the River Ner entered a wide canyon. “We’ll camp here,” Tomas said.

Men began to dismount. The soldier who’d been stung by the scorpion stumbled and fell to his knees. His skin was pallid, slick with sweat.

Tomas scrambled from his horse to help him. “Is he getting worse?”

Dareus shook his head. “The poison’s nearly out of his system.” He knelt on the soldier’s other side, gripping the man’s hand. “By tomorrow he should be fine.”

Tomas grunted. He stood and raised his voice in an order: “Dig pits for the fires tonight. We don’t want to attract any more scorpions.”

Harkeld dismounted and examined the canyon. It looked no different from the canyon they’d ridden through a couple of days ago, the high red sandstone walls pockmarked with caves. “Why did you say it’s a horrible place?”

“I’ll let you discover that for yourself. I want to see your expression when you first, uh...experience it.”

“Experience what?”

But Tomas only shook his head.

Harkeld studied the canyon again. It didn’t look sinister. “You’re being childish,” he told his friend.

“Merely continuing a long tradition. No one told
me
the canyon’s secret, the first time I came up here.” Tomas laughed, a sound that echoed off the sandstone cliffs. “I was so frightened I almost wet myself.”

Harkeld glanced at him sharply. “It’s that scary?”

Tomas grinned. “You’ll see.”

T
HEY ROSE IN
the chilly half-light of predawn, entering the canyon as daylight began to creep across the sea of sand, washing it with color. Gray stone became lilac, then pink, and then blazing red. Harkeld examined the canyon as they rode. The cliffs on either side rose several hundred feet, honeycombed with holes.

Terrifying? The canyon looked utterly ordinary, the sandy floor littered with chunks of stone, the high walls banded with shades of red. The sandstone was bisected by ravines little wider than cracks, too steep and narrow for man or horse to climb, and burrowed with cavities. All of the lower ones were bricked up.

“Lot of granaries here,” Justen remarked, after they’d been riding for several hours. “Wouldn’t have thought they’d have been able to grow so much grain in a canyon. Too narrow.”

“They’re not granaries,” Tomas told him. “They’re tombs.”

Justen’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Tombs?”

“The Massens didn’t burn their dead, or bury them. They walled them up in caves.” Tomas gestured at the sandstone cliffs. “This canyon is where they buried their warriors. To guard the route to the city.”

“Guard it?” Justen asked. “How?”

“Their spirits are said to linger.” Tomas looked sideways at him, a sly gleam in his eyes. “They dislike intruders.”

“Linger?”

Harkeld snorted. “Haunt.” Was this what Tomas hoped to scare him with? “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Tomas smiled slightly. “Of course not.”

They rode for several minutes in silence, apart from the sound of horses’ hooves muffled by the sand. Harkeld’s gaze kept straying to the base of the cliffs, to the blocked-up caves, the tombs. There were dozens. Hundreds, if you counted those they’d already passed. Thousands, if you counted those that lay ahead.

“I confess, I find the notion that the caves are filled with corpses slightly disturbing,” Justen said.

So do I.
“What do you do in Groot?” Harkeld asked his armsman. “With your dead?”

“Uh...” Justen blinked. “We give them to the sea.”

Harkeld nodded. It seemed a fitting conclusion for men who lived surrounded by the ocean. “We bury ours,” he said, trying to ignore the tombs. “But further east, in Ankeny, they burn them.”

“They bury them in Rosny, too,” Justen said.

“The sea?” Tomas said, turning in his saddle to look at the armsman. “How?”

“The fleet goes out to where the current is strongest.” Justen touched his hand to his chest, where the ivory amulet lay beneath his clothes. “And the body is placed in the water.”

Harkeld understood the gesture: A Grooten carried his amulet to his grave. His mind turned back to the witches. “They bury their dead in Rosny? They should burn them.”

Justen glanced at him. “Why?”

To get rid of them. So they can’t contaminate the soil.

A
S THE SUN
rose in the sky, so too did the wind rise, gusting in puffs from the direction of the desert, swirling sand and dust in little eddies along the canyon floor. They halted at noon for a hasty lunch. Harkeld ate mechanically, barely tasting his food.

A sound tugged faintly at the edge of his hearing. He stopped chewing and lifted his head, listening. He heard the mutter of voices, heard one of the horses snort, heard someone snap a round of hardbread in half. Other than those sounds, there was silence. Not even the wind blew.

Harkeld shook his head and resumed chewing.

Wind gusted in from the desert again, ruffling his hair, creating a small flurry of sand. A sound came with it, a whispering moan. Harkeld looked up sharply. “What’s that?”

“What?” Justen asked.

“Can’t you hear it?”

Justen shook his head and bit into his hardbread with a crunching sound.

The wind blew more strongly and the whisper became louder, rising to a wail that made the hairs on the back of Harkeld’s neck stand on end.

Justen froze, his mouth full of cheese and hardbread.

“That,” Harkeld said, reaching for his sword.

“Ghosts,” Tomas said.

“Nonsense!” Harkeld stood, drawing his sword, trying to face the sound, but it surrounded them—ahead, behind, above—riding on the wind.

“Ghosts,” Tomas said again, and continued eating.

None of the soldiers seemed alarmed. The horses were more perturbed, stamping nervously, rolling their eyes. Harkeld tightened his grip on the sword. “I don’t believe in ghosts.” His tongue spoke the words, but his mind was telling him otherwise. Terror prickled over his skin. The wailing was inhuman, terrifying. No living person could make that sound.

“I told you,” Tomas said, raising his voice to be heard above the wail. “The warriors were buried here to protect the city. To scare intruders away. They can’t touch us, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Harkeld glanced at Justen. Why wasn’t his armsman on his feet, sword in hand?

Justen was grinning.

Harkeld blinked. He looked around sharply.

The soldiers were grinning too. And the witches.

Tomas wasn’t grinning. His face was perfectly straight, but his eyes brimmed with laughter.

“You son of a whore.” Harkeld relaxed his grip on the sword. “It’s not ghosts.” He swung around to his armsman. “What is it?” he demanded, pointing the tip of his sword at Justen.

“As I understand it, the wailing comes from holes bored in the cliffs,” the armsman said. “The wind produces sounds as it blows through them, like pipes.”

“Son of a whore,” Harkeld muttered again. He sheathed his sword.

Tomas gave a whoop of laughter, startling the frightened horses further. One of the soldiers, made a choking sound, and hastily smothered it.

Harkeld sat. “You could have warned me.”

Justen’s expression was sheepish. “Prince Tomas asked me not to.”

“Your face—” Tomas said, and whooped with laughter again.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

W
HEN
K
AREL CAME
on duty at noon, the princess’s garden was bustling with activity. Gilt and marble tables stood on the smooth oval of grass, set with silver cutlery, crystal goblets, and plates with golden rims that gleamed in the sunshine.

Bondservants brought sweetmeats and pastries from the palace kitchen, while musicians set up their harps in the rose bower.

The princess was already dressed in one of her finest tunics, a sky blue silk embroidered with gold thread. Karel saw at a glance that she hadn’t drunk any poppy juice that morning. She stood in the middle of the lawn, directing the servants. “There,” she said to a woman carrying a deep silver bowl of fruit punch. “On that table.” And to three men bearing gilded chairs: “Over there.”

The twenty-three reed baskets were on a table to one side of the rose bower, with the crystal vases now nestling amid freshly cut flowers. Yasma hovered over them, rearranging the flowers, guarding the basket with the moss green silk.

Karel took up position where he could watch the princess. Tension sat in his shoulders. With every minute that passed, Princess Brigitta came closer to her act of treason, closer to the possibility of being caught, of being sentenced to death.
Stop her!
a voice inside him urged. And yet, he couldn’t, because what she was doing was right.

If Princess Brigitta was frightened, it didn’t show. She was paler and thinner than she’d been before she married the duke, but there was purpose on her face and her eyes were clear.

Footsteps crunched on one of the paths. Karel turned his head and watched as Duke Rikard approached, preceded by three bondservants carrying gilded chairs and followed by his armsman.

The duke halted at the edge of the lawn and watched his wife for a moment. His gaze was greedy, possessive.

Not today
, Karel told the duke silently.
Can’t you see she’s busy?

The duke apparently could not. He strode across the grass towards his wife.

The princess’s voice faltered when she saw him. She shrank back slightly. Karel saw her lips move,
I’m too busy
, but she said it with fear, not authority.

The duke took her arm.

Karel reached out and tipped over a goblet. It fell with a
clang
, scattering cutlery.

“Oh, dear!” the princess cried. She pulled free of Duke Rikard’s grip. “Excuse me, but I can’t come.”

“Let the servants—”

“My guests will be here soon,” she said, backing away from him.

The duke’s face tightened in displeasure.

Princess Brigitta turned her back to him and hurried across the grass. Her fingers trembled as she picked up the fallen goblet and straightened the cutlery.

Duke Rikard turned away and strode back towards the palace. His armsman followed. Their boots made sharp crunching sounds on the path.

“He’s gone,” Karel said in a low voice.

The princess glanced at him. Her eyes were the blue of the sky, the blue of her tunic. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then she straightened her shoulders and turned back to directing the servants.

W
HEN THE SIXTH
bell tolled, the guests began arriving with their armsmen. Princess Brigitta greeted the ladies, accepting their gifts graciously. Yasma took each present and placed it on the table beside the baskets of flowers. Karel saw jeweled combs and gold-backed mirrors, mother-of-pearl brooches and delicate glass vials of perfume.

The armsmen arrayed themselves around the garden, their faces blank. The air filled with the sound of ladies’ voices,the
clink
of cutlery, the tinkle of harps playing.

Princess Brigitta stood out among her guests, her hair gleaming as golden as the crown woven into it. Karel watched as she spoke with various ladies, as she handed out her gift baskets. It seemed to him that a sword hung over her head, waiting to fall.