Etchings of Power (Aegis of the Gods) (28 page)

“I shall venture for a closer look and make sure the way is safe,” Sakari said.

Before Ryne could reply, the man was sliding into the surrounding brush. With a shake of his head, Ryne watched. He didn’t need his friend’s protection, but Sakari insisted. Long ago, Ryne had abandoned his attempts to tell the man he was not his personal bodyguard.

While he waited, Ryne immersed himself in the sights treasured by many who lived on the Orchid Plains. Distended gray clouds reflected the setting sun’s tenuous glow in purple and orange, the light brushing the plains like an artful masterpiece. To the south, out of sight at the end of the plains’ thousand mile stretch sat the Misted Cliffs and beyond, the Sea of Clouds. He once promised to take the children and the sisters to visit the sea. The trip might never happen now.

Sakari returned before the clouds crossed more than a few feet across the sky. “The village is clear.”

“Have you seen anyone alive? Kahkon, Taeria, Vana, Vera?”

Sakari shook his head.

“Corpses?” Even as he asked the question, a lump crawled into Ryne’s chest.

“Yes, a few to the east and south. All the same way as the others we found, but none were those you asked about.”

A sliver of hope eased through Ryne. Maybe Bertram had managed to get the others away.

“The scouts and hunters I found all died before they could react,” Sakari said.

The words drew prickles across Ryne’s skin as he remembered the golden-haired woman had moved without any of the others seeing her. After scanning his surroundings with utmost care, he motioned for Sakari to lead the way.

They stood and trotted toward Carnas. Ever vigilant, searching for the slightest movements that might signify life, Ryne fingered his sword. They found nothing but the dead. Two more corpses they passed were blackened by flames, but Ryne recognized them still—Dren and Keevo. Both bodies contained no sela. Saying a brief prayer to Ilumni, he also took their heads.

After circling the village, they approached Ryne’s home first. The structure had been razed, so they continued moving. They headed toward Taeria’s home next. Along the way, any buildings still intact displayed broken doorframes or windows with doors and shutters hanging askew, creaking in the wind. Inside the mender’s house, they found dried blood, old bandages, and the ransacked contents of the healing room. Of Taeria and Kahkon, there was no sign.

Nothing living moved within the village. No dogs barked, no chickens pecked, no ducks waddled, and not even the abundant tame pheasants clucked along the streets. Deserted roads and burnt homes continued to taunt them, their windows and entrances dark gaping holes like the eyes and mouths of blackened corpses. They found more charred bodies in a few homes. Other houses stood empty. A hint of moldy fur, of decayed flesh, threaded the air within the homes not burnt.

They came upon Vana and Vera’s house. No flames scarred it, but the door hung off the hinges. A black cloud of flies buzzed in and out of the open doorway. Taking a few apprehensive steps, Ryne entered. The unmistakable reek of rotting flesh hit him.

The sisters lay splayed on the floor with their feet and hands nailed to the wood. Their faces were sickly, black and red messes, battered in such a way they did not resemble themselves. Bile rising in his throat, Ryne squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of their naked bodies. Before he could think, he was stumbling back outside, retching. His arms trembled, fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly, and his eyes filmed over as if a red sheet covered them. He dared not touch his sword. He bent over, his hands against the wall, and sucked in several drawn out breaths until he managed a seething calm.

Eyes lifeless sockets, Sakari just watched him, saying nothing. They moved on.

At Carnas’ southwest end, they found Lenka, Malka, and Denton, bodies riddled with gashes. Trampled grass spread for miles—signs of an armies’ entrance into the village.
How had this army reached here so fast and coming from the southwest instead of farther northeast? And if they had shadelings, where were the creatures now?

With each new body, a pattern became clear to Ryne. The wounds bore too many similarities to those found on the murdered men from weeks ago. Whatever weapons or power used to kill those men near the kinai patches had been used to kill Carnas’ inhabitants. Now he knew this army had been scouting Carnas for some time. And neither he nor Sakari had known of their presence.

Hope diminishing with the increasing death count, Ryne trudged on. The chance of finding a single survivor became a fleeting wish whispering on the wind. Outside the homes without bodies, they found dark, russet splotches and streaks that signified a dragged body. There, the malodorous odor of unwashed dog fur and rot were strongest. Every spot they found like this pointed toward the village square.

With night upon them, and storm clouds brewing overhead, Ryne gave in. “Let’s head to the green.”

They followed the main road toward the middle of the village. The dried blood splatter and drag furrows increased, scuffmarks and gouges pointing their way towards the village square in trails of dust and dirt. A faint smell grew stronger as they ventured nearer. With the wind blowing the opposite direction, they had not smelled it before. After a few more feet, the odor clung to the air with a stench similar to what they encountered within the sisters’ home multiplied a hundredfold.

Ryne strained against the urge to run to the plaza. Along with the smell, there came a sound. A buzzing as if a thousand bees flew close by. The corpses became visible before he entered the square.

“No. No,” he whispered. “Dear gods, no.” Ryne ran.

The distended bodies looked no different to logs or firewood stacked on top of each other. They littered the area by the thousands. Men, women, and children. Not one was spared.

Large, black corpse flies swarmed the bodies. Not a single body contained any sela essence. Whatever ate the other villagers had gorged itself here. Congealed blood covered the ground as if a river of blood once flowed from the green. Bile bubbled unbidden within Ryne’s mouth.

Ryne attempted to approach the corpses, but Sakari held him back. “No, master. There is nothing you can do to help. Going too close to so many consumed by the shade may taint you.”

Shuddering, Ryne slapped Sakari’s hand from his shoulder, the control he realized he’d found in the Nevermore Heights splintering. He opened his mouth to speak, but he could find no words, and the scream he tried to release came out as a hoarse croak. He collapsed to his knees before sitting, eyes staring sightlessly.

Everything he cared for had been ripped from him. Pain stabbed his heart like an Alzari’s blade. The malevolent voice whispered delightful revenge, beseeching him to reach for the Mater around him. The second voice muttered and moaned while his bloodlust attempted to soar up from the pits where he’d thrust it. Drops of blood pattered to the ground from his hands which were curled into vise-like fists. Like a drowning man clutching at a floating log, he clung on, knowing if he surrendered, there would be no controlling the craze to kill when it rose.

Ryne’s vision grew bleary. Wetness trickled down his cheeks and before he could stop himself, he was sobbing uncontrollably, his face contorting with grief. He’d clung to hope for so long that this eventuality overwhelmed him.

He didn’t know how long he sat there with his eyes closed. When he opened them, night had fully come. The colossal twin moons stood high to the east, lighting everything in silvery-blue, dark clouds steadily encroaching on them.

Ryne stood and was surprised to find his legs steady as he strode to the large shed close to the square that held the firewood the villagers had collected. One by one, he took wood and stacked it in the square around the bodies. Each log bore bloodstains from the small punctures his fingernails had inflicted in his palms. He could care less if he somehow became tainted. These were his people, and they needed to be sent off to the gods in the proper fashion. They deserved at least that much. Numb to the occasional splinters digging into his skin, and the weight on his shoulder, he labored on.

Every trip to the green brought different feelings bubbling to the surface. At times, his eyes filmed red, and he burned inside. Other moments, his shoulders slumped. A chill crept through his body as he imagined what they must have felt in their dying moments.

He couldn’t help heaping the blame for the massacre on himself. Maybe if he lived a different life before he settled in Carnas this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if he hadn’t answered the summons he could’ve saved them. Maybe the souls of all the people who died at his hands had cursed him. Did he commit some other great atrocities in his past life—the life he couldn’t remember—which warranted such punishment from the gods?

His thoughts shifted, and he laid the blame at the feet of Amuni’s Children and whatever shadelings committed these terrible acts.
They will pay for this in blood
. And if he found out Mariel or the golden-haired woman were involved, they too would pay. His ponderings went on for hours before he stopped and studied the firewood piled around the bodies and decided he had collected enough.

Searching among the homes still intact, he collected oil in several buckets and lined them up around the pyre. Grief gnawing at his heart, tears running down his cheeks, he poured the fuel onto the wood stacks and the villagers’ remains. Black corpse flies were buzzing angrily at his interference before they settled to gorge themselves once again. Oblivious to the stench, he stood before the bodies and lit several torches. Ignoring the shadows that danced across their now grotesque forms, he pictured the villagers as they once were, alive and filled with promise.

Hagan, you and your pipe, always generous and willing to help those in need, among the first to accept me. One-eyed Mayor Bertram, you loved to argue, but you placed yourself before the village too many times to count. Vana and Vera, thank you for taking care of when I was hurt. I will miss your, Temtesa. Lara, you always cooked the best meals. Kahkon, your thirst for learning I’ve never seen in anyone before.

On and on the faces swept through him. He etched each into his mind.

“May the gods find a place for your souls and may their Battleguards keep you safe.” Ryne threw the torches onto the wood.

The logs burst into flames with a whoosh, heated waves from the pyre forcing Ryne to take a step back. He stared into the roaring blaze. Black smoke billowed into the air in greasy plumes, and the acrid smell from the burning flesh filled the air.

Ryne whispered another prayer, then a torch and the remainder of the oil in hand, he strode to Vana and Vera’s home. He didn’t go inside. He wanted to remember them as they were the night he left. He doused their home with oil and set it ablaze.

As he watched the conflagration, Ryne lost himself in thought. To have taken the six clanholds, and keep moving the way they did, the advancing army must number over a hundred thousand or more.
How many of those are shadelings or worse? Halvor said my enemies sought me. Well now, I’ll seek them. If my purpose is to battle, then I’ll once again embrace my bloodlust. They will know fucking fear.

A withering heat filled Ryne as if he and the inferno were one. “We’ll need to behead and burn the other bodies. Afterward, we have cities to warn. We need to find Thumper. He should be at his favorite clearing in the Fretian.”

After destroying the other bodies and setting more homes on fire, they strode from Carnas, heading to the southeast. There, they found signs of blood mixed with the tracks left by the army leaving the village.

“Have you realized we did not find Kahkon, Bertram, or Taeria and the other menders?” Sakari asked.

“Yes,” Ryne answered, but he offered nothing more as he pushed the chance for survivors from his mind. If any did live, they were as good as dead.

They jogged across the plains, and Ryne took one last look back at Carnas. The village itself was now a huge pyre with a black pall darker than the night rising into the air to meet the dark clouds rolling across the sky.

He turned away, his face as hard as silversteel, and his heart ice.

CHAPTER 22

Irmina Nagel gestured to the rockhound, sending an image of what she wanted along her link with the creature. The beast padded behind her to guard her back.

Undergrowth wreathed in darkness and silhouetted tree trunks that wore their leaves and branches as black mantles surrounded her. They provided easy cover for the short Ostanian man with the painted face to remain hidden while making his many surprise attacks. Ever since the giant and his companion left, this had become his pattern. After graduating Eldanhill's Mystera and attending the Iluminus, she had placed at the top of her class when it came to scouting and using her surroundings to mask her presence. Yet her stealth was a pale shadow of this man’s.

Painted Face had gradually moved toward the outskirts of the Mondros Forest as evening drew to night and clouds moved in to obscure the twin moons. Not once did he allow her to come close to his family.