Wings of Wrath (18 page)

It wasn't natural.

That was all Kamala could think, as she circled high above the wall of rubble that blocked the Guardians' path.

It wasn't natural.

Did they know that?

She saw them pull out their maps and their tablets as they tried to work out the best route to follow. If they'd been farther south she could have revealed herself to them and offered to help, but after her failure in conjuring edible food she was hesitant about working any sorcery this close to the Wrath. Besides, what explanation could she give for having followed them? No witch would be wasting her life energy for two people she didn't even know in the middle of nowhere. Did she want these two guessing at the truth and perhaps bringing back word of it to their respective peoples when this was over?
We met a female Magister up north. Don't know who she was or why she was there
. Word would get back to Colivar and his ilk soon enough, and then she would be hunted in earnest.

From overhead she could see that what had looked like a simple rockslide from their vantage point was in fact something else entirely and she was pretty sure that no simple earthquake had caused it. Even without sorcery to call upon, her Sight could pick out the glimmer of power along the ragged edges of the shattered mountain. Something—some
one
—had set this all in motion. But why in this particular place? Judging from the maps that the two Guardians had consulted, there was only one answer possible. Whoever had blocked this pass hadn't just wanted to slow down any travelers coming from the west; he'd wanted to channel them to another road entirely, one that ran through the heart of Alkali territory.

Maybe if she hadn't used her sorcery on the Guardians earlier they would have realized that. But her own power had blunted the edge of their suspicion, and now that they were closer to the Wrath she didn't dare take the risk of trying to unweave that spell. Helplessly she was forced to watch as they turned their horses toward the only viable path, making exactly the choice that
someone
had intended them to. They couldn't hear the echoes of power that whispered from the mountainside as they passed by. They couldn't see the glimmering force that played along the edges of the shattered peak. While she—who could hear the whispers, who could see the signs—had no way to warn them of danger to come, unless she wanted to stand in their path in her human skin, waving her human hands and shouting out the news as they passed by her.

And who was to say they would take her advice even if she did that?

She followed them for a while, brooding as she rode the mountain thermals, wrapped in her own dark thoughts. Then, with sudden determination, she began to beat her wings against the wind, picking up speed. If she could do nothing else she could at least reconnoiter the land ahead of them. If she was right and they were heading into a trap, she should find that out. This close to the Wrath it was unlikely that anyone would be taking precautions against being spied on from overhead; the odds were good that if something was out there, she would be able to find it.

Back when she had studied with Ethanus she had learned to read maps, but those had been finely fashioned documents that she could study at her leisure, with sorcery to help focus her sight or clarify arcane markings if required. It was quite another thing to snatch a glimpse of a map from hundreds of feet in the air and then try to match it to a living landscape with no sorcery for assistance. Not to mention that whoever had shattered a mountain in order to herd visitors to the east might well have worked other changes in the landscape as well, and those would not have been recorded. But the long glen that Rhys and the woman were heading toward seemed a large enough feature on the map that even an ill-trained hawk should be able to spot it from overhead. Or so she hoped.

Keeping the Three Sisters in sight to guide her, Kamala headed eastward, scanning the ground below her for any sign of what Rhys had called “the Alkali route.”

She was not disappointed.

From the air, it looked as though some vast blade had sliced open the earth; probably the locals had legends about ancient gods doing just that. The bottom of the narrow valley was flat and rocky, with the remnants of what must have been a sizeable stream running down the center of a gravel bed; it was but a trickle now, with puddles and pools on both sides of it, remnants of a wetter season. She saw no evidence of human passage along the bottom, but that meant very little; anyone smart enough to be using this place for a trap would be savvy enough not to leave behind any obvious sign of his presence.

Heart racing in anticipation, she rode a warm breeze up and over the eastern wall of the glen and began to examine the land beyond it. She thought she saw a narrow path worn into the brush, but there was no way to tell if it had been made by men or by beasts. The latter was unlikely, though. Most of the larger animals had abandoned this region long ago, and those that remained were too small in number to be leaving such a clear sign of their presence. Human, then.

She did not follow the trail directly, but wove back and forth across it in what she hoped was the normal manner of a hawk searching for prey. The last thing she wanted was for her quarry to wonder why a raptor was following his path.

And then she saw them. Their helmets caught her eye first, gleaming in the low-angled sunlight. Soldiers. There were at least half a dozen of them on her side of the valley, and now that she knew what she was looking for, she could catch the glint of several others on the far side as well. All of them carefully positioned so as to be invisible to travelers in the glen below them.

Bad.

The portion of the valley that they had chosen to keep watch over was steep and narrow; no horse would be able climb out of it easily. Farther ahead, around a slight bend, there was a blockade of sorts, and then beyond that, a path leading down from the summit of the western side that the guards might use to descend safely. And she remembered a place she had just passed by, about half a mile back, where the slope of one wall had been moderate enough that armed men might clamber down it safely, perhaps with ropes to guide them.

Very bad.

She had seen enough. Circling high over the heads of the waiting soldiers, she turned back toward the south. There was no longer any question of what she must do. If she wanted those two Guardians alive to serve her own needs, then she would have to turn them away from this trap. And there was only one way to do that with the power of the Wrath fouling her sorcery.

She flew back to the place where she'd originally entered the glen, calculating that before the day was out the Guardians would pass by that spot. She found herself a thicket of dense brush where her transformation back into human form could be hidden from sight and buried herself in the heart of it, just in case there were scouts wandering about. Her wings ached from the long flight, but the freedom they gave her would be sorely missed. From this place she could sense the baleful power of the Wrath coursing down the long glen, foaming like white water as it rushed southward. The kind of sorcery required to take on animal form was complex and risky under the best of circumstances and unthinkable in such a setting. Whatever challenges she faced from now on, she'd be facing them in human flesh.

Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to still the pounding of her heart. Reclaiming her human form would be risky here, but it should still be manageable. All living flesh had an innate preference for its natural form and would return to that form if sorcery did not actively prevent it from doing so. All she had to do was unweave the spell that had given her feathers and wings in the first place, and the rest should come naturally.

And power burst forth from the center of her body, engulfing her in molten sorcery, unfettered by any human spell. Too much, too fast! Her body could not contain it. The flesh of her arms and legs began to liquefy, blood and sinew losing any semblance of cohesive form; fluid oozed forth from a twisted skeleton as convulsions of transformation wracked her frame. Feathers appeared upon her fingertips and then were gone as they switched helplessly back and forth from one form to another, unable to fix on a single identity. Kamala felt herself screaming, but her ears had melted and could not absorb the sound. Her skeleton cracked audibly as it expanded, contracted, expanded again. Her rib cage shrank to avian proportions around her human heart, strangling its beat, then expanded in a burst of pain.

You cannot survive without a viable body for longer than a few seconds,
Ethanus had once warned her.
Never forget that
.

Gasping for breath whenever her lungs were coherent enough to allow for it, Kamala struggled to impose a human template upon the formless agony that was her flesh. Vital organs took shape at her command and then collapsed into themselves seconds later as raw transformative energy surged through them. Her heart managed half a dozen beats, then dissolved. Her lungs drew in two breaths, and then collapsed. Her limbs were clothed in skin one moment, and skinless in the next; red and blue veins snaked their way around her body, throbbing erratically as her heart struggled to reconstruct itself and then burst, spilling her life's blood out upon the ground.

Men who have their heads cut off have been known to blink for second or two afterward,
Ethanus had taught her.
That is all the time you can count on having, once your body can no longer sustain you.

The pain was fading now, but that was not a good sign. All the sensory input she had was beginning to fail her; her flesh was expiring. But the spirit within her, that had gotten her through First Transition and beyond, refused to die. Struggling to control the power, she forced her heart to take shape once more, and then poured all her force of will into it in one last desperate bid to reclaim conscious control of her flesh. With each surge of blood a portion of her indomitable will flowed outward into her body, and with it all the force of her human identity.
This is what the flesh must become!
she screamed silently at her body.
This is its natural state!

And slowly, painfully, the tide of chaos receded. Inch by inch her body restored itself to what it was supposed to be; organ by organ it resumed its functioning. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she lay upon a bed of bloodstained grass, simply human. Simply breathing. Grateful to be alive.

After another eternity, she found the strength to open her eyes and look around her. Only that much strength, and then they fell shut once more. But she had seen what mattered.

It was dark. The sun had set long ago.

She needed no sorcery to know that the Guardians had passed her by.

She had failed to save them.

The sun was beginning to go down by the time Rhys and Namanti reached the valley floor, and the high ridge to the west of them cast shadows across the dried riverbed. For a moment they both pulled up their horses, considering the options.

It had been a long day. Rhys was used to riding long distances, but after the push to reach this point by sunset, even he was exhausted. Namanti's mount was starting to get edgy—edgier than usual, that is—and even a brief stint without a rider had not done much to sooth his nerves. All of them needed a rest.

Together the Guardians stared at the road ahead and considered what they had seen that day, why they had come.

“We could make another few miles before nightfall,” Namanti offered.

Grimly, Rhys nodded. Human exhaustion was a compelling argument, but the duty of a Guardian was even more compelling. Something was wrong in this part of the world, and the sooner they figured out what it was, the better. He sighed as he kicked his horse into motion once more, hearing him snort in indignation at the order.
Soon,
he promised him.
The day is almost done. Have patience
.

They rode in silence through the lengthening shadows. The rhythmic creaking of leather and the jangling of tack took the place of conversation as the horses splashed their way through a succession of puddles, scattering frogs with each step. For reasons no one understood, amphibians seemed to be immune to the Wrath. Yet one more ancient mystery that the Guardians had failed to unravel.

As they rode on, the valley began to narrow. Its walls rose up higher and higher on either side of them, until the last rays of direct sunlight were blocked; the puddles ahead of them turned to sleek black glass that fractured into a thousand glittering droplets as their horses splashed noisily through them.