Wytchfire (Book 1) (12 page)

A squad of guards approached them, led by a young, green-robed priest with a cruel jaw and wide, mad eyes. Though the man was Human, he looked so fey that Rowen wondered for a moment if he hadn’t just seen some entirely new race for the first time. The priest fixed them in a severe, unblinking look.

“Worship or trade?”

Hráthbam patted Right’s neck to soothe the horse, who was suddenly more anxious than usual. “Trade.”

The priest nodded. “Twenty copper cranáfi to approach the graveyard of the holy.” He added, “Or if you’re paying in iron crowns,
thirty.
”

Hráthbam bristled at this. The priest’s guards noticed, too. Several drew their swords. Rowen resisted the impulse to draw his own. Clearing his throat, he nodded slightly.

Hráthbam scowled, counted out twenty copper cranáfi, and passed them to the priest, who counted them again. “Follow.” He turned on his heel and started toward the fissure. Half the guards fell in behind him. The rest waited, swords and pikes glinting in the daylight. Rowen guessed they would fall in behind the wagon. He did not like the thought of mad, armed men behind him, but it was too late.

As they drew closer to the fissure, the lamentation increased. Rowen resisted the impulse to plug his ears—in part because he feared the gesture might be taken as offensive, but also to keep his hands free in case the guards attacked. He and Hráthbam were no dunces when it came to swordplay, but what chance did they have against the ten armed men surrounding them—especially if Hráthbam took a wound without blood-powder or a Dragonkin handy to assist him? Besides, even if they cut their way through, dozens more were scattered along the fissure or pacing the painted stone steps of the gaudy temple.

“Looks like we’ll have to take our chances,” Hráthbam muttered, echoing Rowen’s thoughts.

Rowen grunted in reply. Ahead of them, the priest and guards stopped. Rowen tensed. But they did not attack. Instead, the priest pointed. A broad stone stairwell descended into the depths of the fissure. Pilgrims crowded the stairs, often moving shoulder to shoulder. The fissure itself resembled a great, open mineshaft.

Rowen shuddered. A foul, sulfurous odor wafted from the fissure. But worst of all was the wailing. Here, the cries and screaming prayers of priests and pilgrims bounced off the high walls of stone, echoing frightfully. Rowen touched his short hilt, squeezing until his knuckles whitened. Pilgrims and priests jostled into him, and it took all his restraint not to shove them back.

Hráthbam caught his arm and whispered, “Dragon ivory be damned. Locke, let’s get out of here!”

The priest held up his hand, stopping them. Rowen wondered if the priest had overheard or simply read the Soroccan’s expression. “You may not leave before paying proper tribute to the winged dead.” All around them, guards who had not already drawn their weapons did so.

Hráthbam scowled. Rowen feared the merchant was about to reference the twenty copper coins they had already paid in tribute. “Do the dragonbones come from this mine?” Hráthbam asked instead.

The mad priest smiled at the question. “Long ago, when the Dragonkin sucked dry the holy lifeforce of the winged ones, they buried their bones deep within the earth. We recover them. With tears and bloody hands, we lift back into sunlight the remnants of Zet’s winged children.”

And sell them.

The priest gave them so severe a look that Rowen feared he’d read his mind. Instead, the priest said, “You must leave your wagon.”

Hráthbam scoffed. “Not likely.” He quickly added, patting Right’s neck, “This horse will go mad if she sees me go down there. She doesn’t like to be left alone, you understand.”

“Horses are not welcome in such a holy place. You can be assured that the guards will protect you from any thievery.”

Hráthbam consented. They backed up the wagon as far as they could from the crowds and cries around the fissure, unhitched the wagon and tended the skittish horses, and turned them over to the nearest stable. Then, they reluctantly allowed the guards to lead them into the chilly bowels of the dragon graveyard.

The depths of Cadavash were even more disconcerting than the surface: a bizarre combination of temple and marketplace staged on the dark, dank floor of a huge, man-made fissure. Walls of dirt and rough-hewn stone bristled with the remnants of trees whose dead roots had been left in the earth.

The smell of sweat and lantern oil filled the air. Priests, pilgrims, and guards paced and wailed like madmen. Here and there, men, women, and even children were bleeding. A few held cloths to their wounds but most seemed ignorant of their own bloodshed. Rowen could not tell if their wounds had come from fighting or prostrating themselves on the stones before them. They passed a cluster of wide-eyed priests who tugged up their sleeves, feverishly chanted some kind of unintelligible prayer, and took turns ritualistically cutting themselves. Rowen shied away. Hráthbam did likewise. Rowen wondered if the merchant was wary of all those flashing knives, given his blood condition.

I should be watching him more closely. I’m his bodyguard. I’m not here to gawk.

So theatrical were the worshippers that it wasn’t until he gazed past them that Rowen saw the gigantic dragonbones displayed in every direction—not just single bones, but full skeletons with outspread wings as wide as a farmer’s field. Most of the dragons had two wings, but some had four. Then he saw the unfurled remnants of a six-winged dragon suspended on huge iron chains whose creaking could be heard even over the lamentation of the pilgrims clustered around it. The skeleton was completely intact, down to its leering skull and four limbs ending in scimitar-sized claws.
Jinn’s name, that thing could have carried off two elephants at a time!

The priest and guards who had led them into Cadavash had already lost interest in them and wandered back to the surface, but a different priest—an old man with half a hundred scars on his face—caught Rowen staring up at the ceiling and smiled wolfishly.

“Behold, Godsbane, the greatest of Zet’s children!”

Hráthbam waited until the priest continued walking, then he leaned in. “I know that’s something I’ll tell my grandchildren about, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ve seen enough.”

Rowen wrested his gaze off the remains of Godsbane and forced himself to move on. He shifted his scrutiny from worshippers and dragonbones to all the merchants. Though easy to miss at first, given their comparatively subdued demeanor, there were plenty of them. All looked just as ill at ease as Rowen and Hráthbam, suggesting that they were equally new to this ghastly place. Rowen also saw food vendors, tradesmen, and prostitutes, nearly as mad as the priests around them, stumbling along in the twisted light of torches and the sound of tortured wailing.

“They’re mad,” Hráthbam hissed in his ear. “All of them!”

“Drugged, too, by the look of it. Let’s just buy your damned ivory and go.”

But that was easier said than done.

The priests of Zet demanded outlandish prices. On one dais, Rowen saw the horse-sized skull of a dragon for which a priest and his guards wanted more wealth than all the coin Rowen had ever held in his life! Even finger-length bits of bones cost double what Hráthbam had anticipated. But looking over the merchant’s shoulder, Rowen had to admit that the ivory was impressive—stark-white in color but swirled with brilliant veins of red.

He could not exactly say why, but something about the bones spoke of power and lost history. The priest wrapped the wing bones in black cloth, which Hráthbam accepted. “You need more?”

Hráthbam hesitated. “Maybe. I’ll have to charge a fortune for what I’ve got already, just to break even. If I can’t find buyers willing to pay…”

Rowen heard a fresh chorus of wailing, saw a dazed child walk by with bloody arms, and fought the impulse to turn and run. Forcing a smile, he said, “I’m your servant. Lead on. You do your best to get rich, and I’ll do what I can to keep you safe from all this.”

Hráthbam smirked and answered with a jest that was drowned out by more wailing.

They continued to explore the market. The two men quickly realized, to their horror, that the depths of Cadavash extended much farther than they had anticipated. Crowded stairwells descended deeper and deeper into the earth. When Rowen stopped one of the priests and asked about this, the madman beamed.

“The true temple to the winged dead lies beneath your feet!” he said, louder than he needed to, then moved on, weeping.

Rowen and Hráthbam exchanged looks of trepidation. “Should we really go down there?” the Soroccan asked.

Rowen took a deep breath, one hand on the hilt of his borrowed shortsword. “We came this far. We may as well do this right.” He added, as confidently as he could, “I told you, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Like you did against that damn greatwolf?” He clapped Rowen on the shoulder then started for the stairs.

Rowen and Hráthbam expected the subterranean levels of Cadavash to consist of dank caves and claustrophobic tunnels crowded with more fey-eyed dragon worshippers. But once again, what they found surprised and chilled them. The priest had spoken the truth.

The true Temple of the Winged Dead existed not on the surface but in the earth.

“Jinn’s name,” Rowen gasped, shaking his head. “This is a
city
!” He had heard stories of the Dwarrs building vast dwellings under the earth, hollowing out mountains for their homes, but he doubted even they would have approved of this.

Cadavash stretched in all directions: a dark, fire-lit metropolis of stone and gruesome winged monuments forsaken by the sun. Massive shafts cut in the stone allowed for a measure of fresh air, but despite these great feats of engineering, the air in Cadavash’s subterrain remained dank and stale. Priests and guards stood everywhere, even more crazed than their brethren on the surface, alongside hollow-eyed merchants and tradesmen. More worshippers wailed and injured themselves in the name of their bizarre faith, some carving themselves with thin knives while others whipped themselves bloody with thick flails of knotted leather. But that was not what chilled Rowen’s heart the most.

Both on the Lotus Isles and in Lyos, people had an open attitude toward prostitution. Cadavash took this to a frightful extreme. Women sold themselves—or were sold—then used on the open street. But the men’s eyes burned with hatred, not lust. Again and again, Rowen was tempted to draw his shortsword and stab someone who deserved it. He did not have to look hard to see corpses here and there, ignored and untended, and he marveled that this place had not been overcome by disease. Tears stung his eyes.

Hráthbam said, “I thought I’d take a look around first then haul my wares down here and trade them, only I don’t relish the idea of setting up a table in this place.” When Rowen did not answer, he added, “Are you all right, my friend?”

“Let’s just... finish and get out of here.”

Hráthbam nodded in ready agreement.

The deeper they descended into Cadavash, the cheaper they could buy dragonbone. Hráthbam bought more wing bones then an expensive, larger bone nearly the length of Rowen’s arm. Despite their foul surroundings, Hráthbam beamed.

“In Lyos, I bet I could sell that for five hundred silver cranáfi!”

Rowen had never seen such a sum, but he was not about to argue. Hráthbam trusted him to carry most of the cloth-wrapped ivory, while the Soroccan carried the longest shaft of dragonbone himself. Rowen was not offended. Hráthbam was already trusting him with a fortune. But Rowen was not about to run away with it. Even though he was not a Knight of the Crane, he was no thief—at least, not unless he had to be.

“That’s nearly all the coin I have,” Hráthbam said, then adding, “except for what I’ll use to pay you, of course!” He stopped a passing dragon worshipper. “Is this the lowest level?”

The worshipper frowned. “Beneath you lies one last holy level. The
greatest
level, from which all but the anointed are forbidden!”

Hráthbam’s eyes sparked with curiosity. Rowen groaned. “Maybe we’ve pressed our luck enough for one day.”

Hráthbam hesitated a moment then agreed. The two quickly made their way out of the smoky, nightmarish subterrain, back to the comparative calm of the surface. They ascended the steps and made for the wagon. Rowen had never been so happy to see the sun, even though it was setting by now.

“Gods, I shudder to think how long we were down there,” Hráthbam said.

“About four hours longer than any sane man would have done.”

Hráthbam hurried back to the wagon. While nothing had been stolen and the horses were skittish but in good shape, Rowen cursed that he and Hráthbam had not had the foresight to have the wagon repaired while they were in Cadavash. They found a craftsman to repair the damaged wagon easily enough, but Rowen was disheartened to hear that the work would have to wait until the next morning.
Gods, do we really have to spend another night in this place?

They found a cheap, comparatively sane inn near the stables, but Rowen advised Hráthbam to get a room while he remained behind to guard the wagon. Hráthbam wanted to keep the dragonbone with him in the room, but Rowen won out. Despite the number of patrolling guards—perhaps because of them—Cadavash was a rough place. It would serve nothing if both men got a good night’s rest, only to find that their wagon and horses had been stolen the next morning.

Hráthbam brought him food and drink and then retired to his room in the inn. The craftsmen soon left as well, intending to finish their work in the morning. Rowen decided to sleep in the wagon, trusting that he would wake if anybody approached. Luckily, the screams and wailing of the dragon worshippers had died down although a chilling cry still ripped through the night from time to time, jolting Rowen from an uneasy slumber. Finally, Rowen gave up on sleep altogether. He lit a lantern but turned its wick low, listening to the lonesome sound of his own breathing.

Inside the wagon, he kept his borrowed shortsword within easy reach, along with a knife and the Queshi composite bow. His unease fended off sleep, but that suited him fine. Tired or no, he would feel better when they were gone from here. He tried to clear his mind by imagining what the morning would bring.

Hráthbam had his dragonbone. The merchant’s next task would be to sell it. Lyos was still the closest city worthy of mention—a city Rowen knew all too well and couldn’t avoid forever. If Hráthbam had a mind to extend their contract, Rowen could see the Soroccan safely to Lyos, guard him in the King’s Market until his wares were sold, then decide what to do from there.