The Sentinel Mage (39 page)

“They’ve been torn to pieces.”

Wailing whispered in the air around them, lifting the hairs on the nape of Innis’s neck. “Wild animals?”

Gerit snorted. “Here?”

“Could it be the curse?” Prince Harkeld asked.

“I don’t see how.” Dareus began the scrambling journey back over the boulders to where the horses waited.

T
HEY RODE WARILY,
the soldiers drawing close around them. Innis was aware of the weight of the sword strapped to her back, the snug fit of the baldric across her chest. Foreboding grew inside her—the stark barrenness of the canyon, the wailing that filled the dry air, the dark curse shadows, the tombs honeycombing the cliffs—all seemed filled with menace.

“Horses!”

The shouted word brought her head around. One of the soldiers was pointing ahead.

There were indeed horses, in a tight, nervous cluster on the other side of the stony riverbed.

They slowed to a trot. “Ditmer’s,” Tomas said as they came closer. “Do you think?”

Innis nodded silently.

They halted. The horses stared at them uneasily, jostling each other.

“Do we take them with us?” a soldier asked.

Innis glanced back at the long train of horses behind them—their own packhorses, and Captain Anselm’s captured horses. “They’ll die if we don’t.” There was water here for the beasts, but no food.

“We’ll take them if we find supplies for them,” Tomas said. “Ditmer’s camp must be nearby.”

They cantered again. The beat of hooves echoed back at them from the sandstone. The canyon swung east, the cliffs pulling back as it widened.

Tomas reined in his horse. “What the—”

Innis followed his gaze. The tombs lining the base of the cliffs had been broken open. Dark holes gaped in the stonework.

The damage looked fresh; the little piles of rubble hadn’t been dispersed by the wind.

Gerit pushed his horse forward. “It wasn’t like this a few days ago.”

“Did Ditmer’s men loot the tombs?” Prince Harkeld asked.

Gerit shrugged. “Not that I saw.”

“They were fools if they did,” Tomas said. “There’s no treasure in these tombs. Everyone knows that.”

Innis glimpsed what looked like a pile of dead leaves and bleached sticks inside the tomb nearest her. She averted her gaze.

A hundred yards further on, a wolf sat beside a stunted thorn bush. It shifted into Ebril as they approached.

“As far as I can tell, no one other than Ditmer and his men were here last night,” he said, shading his eyes against the sun as he looked up at them. “The only human scents here belong to the dead.”

“Animals?” one of the soldiers asked.

Ebril shook his head. “Only their horses.”

“What do you smell?” Dareus asked.

“Ditmer’s men. His horses. And the bodies from the tombs.”

“From the tombs?” Tomas said. “Why would you smell them?”

“See for yourself.” Ebril gestured behind him.

Tomas dismounted and strode in the direction Ebril pointed. Prince Harkeld followed.

Innis hastily slid from her horse, hurrying to keep up with the princes, the long sword in its scabbard slapping against her back. Behind her she heard the crunch of booted feet on stony ground as others followed.

The ground rose slightly in a low hump, and on the other side—

Innis halted alongside the two Princes. She blinked, and for a moment was unable to take in what she saw. It was beyond comprehension, beyond what was possible.
Not real. This isn’t real.

Bodies lay strewn on the ground. Not one of them was whole. Limbs were scattered like children’s toys. She saw legs and arms, a headless torso resting against a lump of red sandstone, and then she caught the stench of death—the heavy, coppery smell of blood, the smell of urine, of excrement, the smell of intestines torn open and exposed to the air.

Someone to her left began to retch. The smell of bile joined the others—a stomach-turning medley.

Innis swallowed and clenched her jaw. Her gaze jerked from one item to the next: a boot with someone’s foot still in it; an outflung arm, its hand loosely curled around the hilt of a sword; a head staring at her from beside a thorn bush, eyes dusted with gritty red sand.

She looked away, towards the broken tombs, but even there, the slaughter continued: body parts were strewn across the churned-up sand.

“They’d raided the tombs,” Ebril said quietly. “See? There are lots of pieces of the bodies.”

Now that he pointed it out, she saw them: the dirty gray-white of old bones breaking through a covering of leathery skin, clumps of matted hair like dried brown grass, a grinning, toothless skull.

“But why would they desecrate the tombs?” Prince Harkeld asked. “You said there was no treasure.”

“There isn’t,” Tomas said. “Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone in Lundegaard,” Innis said. “But these men were from Osgaard. They may not have known.”

Prince Harkeld glanced at her and gave a curt nod of agreement.

Tomas stepped forward, and then looked back at Dareus, his expression as baffled as his voice. “What happened here?”

Dareus joined the prince, his face grim as he surveyed the litter of body parts. “There’s no blood on any of the swords.”

A number of weapons lay on the ground: daggers, dirks, swords. The blades glinted in the sunlight, clean.

“They weren’t attacked by men, then,” Tomas said. “Or animals.”

Someone muttered behind her. Innis caught the word faintly: witches.

She opened her mouth to refute the charge, and then closed it. She was Justen, not a mage.
If I knew nothing of magic, what would I think?
she asked herself, staring at the massacre. Her eyes fastened on a hand lying palm-up on the sand, the fingers curled slightly as if in supplication. The fingernails were ragged, bitten almost to the quick. Magic couldn’t tear men limb from limb, but the soldiers didn’t know that—and nor would Justen.

Innis waited for the soldier behind her to speak his accusation more loudly. He didn’t.

Then I shall
. “Witches?”

Dareus glanced at her, his gaze sharp. Tomas looked at her, too. He gave a small nod and turned to Dareus. “Did your witches do this?”

Gerit pushed forward, anger livid on his face. “You whoreson—”

Dareus held up his hand, silencing Gerit. “No,” he told Tomas. “We did not do this.” There was no bluster in his voice, just a calm matter-of-factness that made his words utterly believable.

Prince Harkeld stirred beside her. “What of other witches?”

Ebril shook his head. “The only scents here belong to the dead. No one else was here last night.”

“But the tracks—” Tomas gestured to the sand surrounding them. It was churned as if a hundred men had fought here, tracks leading in all directions.

“Go only to the tombs.”

Beside her, Prince Harkeld rubbed his face. She heard the rasp of stubble beneath his hand. “Could the ancient Massens have left spells?” he asked. “Could this be punishment for Ditmer pillaging the tombs?”

The question hung in the silence for a moment.

“Is that possible?” Tomas asked Dareus.

“Magic can’t do this to people.”

“Then what killed them?”

Dareus shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Wind gusted up the canyon behind them, bringing with it a flurry of sand and a long, sobbing note.

“Is this all of them?” a soldier asked.

Tomas shrugged and turned to face the slaughter again. “How does one count—?”

“The heads,” Cora said. “Count the heads.”

Innis obeyed automatically, her eyes skipping from one head to the next—eyes closed, eyes open and staring up at the sky, eyes looking straight at her.

“Fourteen,” someone said.

“That’s all of them, then,” Tomas said. “No survivors.”

Innis looked down at the ground in front of her—red sand, red pebbles, a spraying arc of dried blood. Against the red of sand and stone, the blood looked almost black.

“They were sleeping,” Tomas said.

She looked up.

Tomas walked among the dead, placing his feet with care. “See?” He pointed. “Many of them weren’t fully clothed.”

A noise came from behind her. Innis jerked around, reaching for her sword. The noise came a second time: nothing but the wind stirring the dry branches of a thorn bush.

Ditmer’s supplies lay undisturbed, a neat cache in a sandy hollow. Grimly, hastily, the soldiers gathered Ditmer’s horses and strapped on the new loads of food and firewood, grain for the horses, bundles of arrows.

“Do we bury them?” someone asked, when it was done.

If they’d killed Ditmer’s men themselves, they wouldn’t have buried them, but Innis understood the question: the violated bodies seemed to deserve some mark of respect.

Tomas shook his head. “I want to get as far away from here as possible.”

A final item lay half-buried in the sand. Innis picked it up: a sack tied with a drawstring. The weave was tight, the stitching sturdy. She opened it. Inside was a second sack, folded, and an empty silver flask. For a moment she stood staring at it, her brow creased. An empty silver flask? What use—

Then she understood: one sack was for Prince Harkeld’s head, the other for his hands, the flask for his blood. She grimaced, and glanced at the massacred soldiers. They had deserved to die.

But not like this
, a voice inside her whispered.
Not ripped apart
.

She threw the sacks and flask aside.

“What was that?” Prince Harkeld asked.

“Nothing.”

They mounted. “Stay alert,” Tomas instructed his soldiers.

They departed at a hard canter, two hawks skimming ahead of them and another soaring high in the sky. The red sandstone walls towered threateningly over them and the very air they breathed seemed filled with menace. The broken tombs were like eyes, staring at them.

After a quarter of a mile the damage to the tombs stopped. Innis should have felt easier, safer, but she didn’t. What had killed Ditmer and his men? Where was it now?

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

K
AREL DIDN’T SLEEP
well. He kept waking, kept worrying. He rolled out of his bunk not long after the first bell. All around him, armsmen slumbered.
How can you sleep?
he wanted to shout.
Don’t you know that something momentous is happening?

He busied himself sharpening his sword, mending his clothes, rubbing wax into his boots. Then he set himself to punching a horsehair-filled sack, slamming his fists into it until his knuckles were raw. When the third bell rang, he made his way to the mess hall, tense and exhausted.

Karel ate, not tasting the food. What was happening in the palace? Had Lundegaard’s ambassador acted yet? Had Duke Rikard discovered his wife’s perfidy?

His mind wasn’t on his training that morning; he lost two sword-fighting bouts. “Getting soft, islander,” the second victor sneered.

Not soft. Worried.

Karel washed the sweat from his skin, dressed in his armsman’s uniform, and finally—
finally
—it was time to go on duty.

He strode through the marble corridors, past bondservants scurrying on errands and strolling

nobles. The atmosphere was hushed, calm. No rumors echoed beneath the high ceilings, no soldiers hurried past with their hands on their sword hilts.

All was quiet when he reached Duke Rikard’s rooms. The duke was visiting his wife; the door to the bedchamber was closed.

The armsman assigned to Princess Brigitta was in the salon. “You’re late,” he said, even though the fifth bell was still ringing.

Karel ignored the jibe.

“Stupid whoreson,” the armsman muttered under his breath, and left.