The Blood Curse (38 page)

Bennick then told Valor about Nolt and the jungle and the breathstealers.

Valor laughed when he heard Bennick had killed the prince, but the witches had healed him.

Bennick’s expression was part grin, part scowl. “I’ll get the whoreson. Just you wait.”

Valor’s sideways smile was sly. “Maybe
I’ll
get him.”

Bennick snorted. “The way you shoot?”

Valor shrugged. “Mightn’t come to arrows.” He glanced ahead at the wagon carrying the princess and the soldier. “Who’s that with her?”

“Armsman. Vught reckons he saw him at the Hook. Reckons he killed Bly.”

“Bly?” Valor looked doubtful. “Is an armsman that good?”

Bennick shrugged. “If he was, he’s not any more.”

“What’s an armsman?” Jaumé asked. “Is it a soldier?”

“A personal soldier,” Bennick said. “Trained as a bodyguard.”

“Better than an ordinary soldier?”

“Meant to be. But not all of them are.”

Jaumé wanted to ask more questions, but he looked at Bennick’s face and decided not to.

They rode in silence for half a mile, then Bennick said, “It’s been easy pickings, here in the Seven. Lots of safe houses. No mages. Don’t have to look over your shoulder the whole time.”

“Easier than the Allied Kingdoms, that’s for sure,” Valor said. “Those cursed Sentinels, always interfering... But it makes it more of a challenge, don’t you think? You come up against one of them, that’s a
true
test of skill. And if you kill one...” Valor grinned, showing his teeth. “There’s nothing better than killing a Sentinel.”

Bennick considered this, and nodded. “True.” His gaze fastened on something on the hillside. “Fancy fresh goat meat for dinner?”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

K
AREL GREW MORE
restless, more frantic, as the afternoon progressed. He tossed and twisted in his bed of blankets, calling her name, gripping her hand fiercely. It was a relief each time his eyes opened and—for a few seconds—he knew he’d found her. His face smoothed free of anguish, his whole body relaxed, and he slept—twenty minutes, thirty minutes—before it started again.

Britta tried to make him drink in the moments when his eyes were open, but he was never fully conscious. He saw her face and recognized her, but that was all. Her pleas that he drink had no effect. By the end of the day, she’d managed to trickle most of the contents of the waterskin into his mouth, but his lips looked parched and he was growing gaunt before her eyes. She could almost see the flesh melting away beneath his skin.

“How long will this go on for?” she asked Bennick, nearly in tears, when they halted for the night.

He shrugged. “As long as it goes on for.”

“It’s killing him! He’s too weak for this. He needs food, broth. Please, let me make him some broth!”

Bennick looked amused. “You know how to cook?”

“I can learn.”

Bennick shrugged. “I’ll make some broth.”

T
WO MORE ASSASSINS
had joined their party. They had a covered wagon. “Can we move Karel to the other wagon?” she asked Bennick, when he came with fresh poultices. “He’d be more sheltered there. Warmer.”

“You want to travel in that? Thought you got sick in a covered wagon.”

“Not always.”

“Not ever,” Bennick said.

Britta ignored this comment. “Can we move him?” The mountains were shrouded in snow cloud and the wind stabbed like icy needles.

Bennick shrugged. “Don’t see why not.” He turned his head. “Soll! Val! Give me a hand, will you?”

Karel woke when they lifted him. “Britta!” he cried, his expression frantic, and she grasped his hand and said, “I’m here, I’m here.”

His eyes clung to her face. She saw relief flood him before he slipped back into unconsciousness.

Britta gathered up the blankets, scrambled down to the ground, and hastily made up a new bed in the covered wagon. Once Karel was settled into it, Bennick unwound the bandages. “Looking good. See?” The comment was to Jaumé, but Britta leaned close to look. “Reckon we’re on top of the infection. Poultices are working.”

The smell of herbs mixed with the smell of roasting goat’s meat. Britta’s mouth watered. “The broth?”

“Broths take time. Got to boil the bones for at least an hour.”

“Bones?”

“You boil bones to make broth. The more meat on the bones, the richer the broth.”

“Oh,” Britta said.

Bennick tied the fresh poultices in place. “Don’t know if Vught told you, but we’ve reached the curse.”

The curse? Every hair on Britta’s body seemed to stand on end. She shivered, hugged her arms, shook her head. “He didn’t tell me.”

“Well, now you know. Don’t drink anything but water from the barrels. Unless you want to die.” Bennick smirked as he said the last words.

Jaumé, kneeling alongside him, didn’t smirk. His face was solemn. How old was he? Eight? Nine?

“You shouldn’t have brought Jaumé here,” Britta said, suddenly angry. “This is no place for a child! He should be somewhere
safe
.”

Bennick shrugged. “He chose to come. Didn’t you, lad?”

The boy nodded.

“Does he know what you are?” she demanded. “What you’ll make him into?”

“He knows. He wants to be a Brother. Don’t you, Jaumé?”

The boy nodded again, but his eyes slid away from Britta.

Bennick clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, lad. You can get in some practice before dinner. That goat’ll be a while longer.”

Jaumé scrambled down from the wagon and gathered up his bow and small quiver of arrows. Bennick set up a pale log as a target. Jaumé practiced first with the bow, then his throwing knife. The boy was good. Britta could barely see the ghostly shape of the target in the gloom, but Jaumé struck it every time.

She understood that this was a show, for her. Bennick was telling her the boy belonged with the Fithians.

Jaumé sheathed his throwing knife. He fetched a long object wrapped in hessian from the packsaddles. A sword. Britta narrowed her eyes. This was a weapon she could use if she had to. Small and light enough for her to wield. She took note of how Jaumé held the sword, how he stood, how he moved.

Bennick gave instruction patiently. She saw how intensely Jaumé wanted to please him, saw his fierce concentration, saw the way his face lit with joy when Bennick praised him. After the lesson was over, Bennick grinned down at the boy and ruffled his hair. Britta watched thoughtfully. She understood why Jaumé rode at Bennick’s side all day, why he sat beside him at the fire, slept alongside him at night. The assassin was father, teacher, friend, protector.

But for all those things, Bennick was also a cold-blooded killer, and Jaumé’s place
wasn’t
with him.

J
AUMÉ PUT AWAY
the sword. Britta observed which packsaddle it went in. She wanted that sword.

She’d given her word of honor not to escape, but if she could save Karel, save Harkeld and the Seven Kingdoms...

Some things were worth breaking one’s word for.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

“W
E SHOULD REACH
the foothills tomorrow,” Rand said, once they’d eaten. “There’s a track over the first range, but we can’t take the wagon on it. We’ll need to go around.” He unrolled a map and anchored it with rocks. “See, we’re here...”

Harkeld leaned close.

“The anchor stone is between these two ranges of foothills. We need to go around the end of this first range, join with this road here, and follow it up the valley.”

“There’s a road to the anchor stone?” Justen sounded skeptical.

“It wasn’t there three centuries ago. These mountains were the remotest part of Sault. Snowstorms. Wolves. People who ventured into them tended not to return. Hence their name.”

Harkeld squinted at the map, trying to read the name written between the saw-tooth serrations of the mountains.

“The Widow Makers,” Rand said, and Harkeld’s eyes suddenly made sense of the tiny letters. The words leapt out at him, the spikes of
W
and
M
and
K
.
“
Least, that’s what they call them here. Down in Vaere, they’re called the Furies.

“Farmers have moved up the valley in the last half-century, so there’s a road of sorts. We believe Ivek intended to go deeper into the Widow Makers, but he ran out of time. This was the last anchor stone he made.”

“He was caught near here,” Serril said. “Beheaded. Burned.”

By my ancestors.

“Tomorrow, I want a shapeshifter to fly ahead and look for the anchor stone, check everything’s all right there, check for Fithians.”

“I will,” Justen and Innis said at the same time.

Serril shook his head. “I will. That’s a strong headwind.”

“But—” both Innis and Justen said.

“I’m the strongest flier.”

Innis closed her mouth. So did Justen.

“I want you all to be familiar with this map,” Rand said. “If anything should happen to Serril and me, you need to know where to go and what to do.” He looked up into the darkness, raised his voice: “Petrus? Come down here a minute, will you?”

Serril wrapped one corner of his cloak around his forearm and held it out.

Petrus glided down and landed on Serril’s arm. He folded his wings and stared at Rand with yellow owl eyes.

Rand traced the route with his finger again. “South-west, around this range of foothills, then join with this road and head east.”

Innis pointed. “Is that a river?”

“Yes. The road follows the river down to Andeol. Now, pay attention. Where the road ends, you need to head north, up into this side valley.” He looked around, caught everyone’s eyes. “North. Got that?”

Harkeld nodded.

“When you reach the end of the valley, there’s a meadow. That’s where the anchor stone is. This one’s red. It may be under snow. Serril will find that out tomorrow.”

“Red?” Harkeld thought back to the two anchor stones he’d destroyed. One had been black, one gray.

“Mostly red. It’s sandstone.”

“Sandstone?”

Rand tilted his head. “Has no one explained to you how the anchor stones were made?”

“Dareus said...” Harkeld frowned, trying to remember. “He said Ivek anchored the curse in the east, west, and north. And that the stones have been drawing power from the kingdoms they’re in.”

“True,” Rand said. “But there’s a lot more to the anchor stones than that.” He tapped the tiny cross on the map that marked the anchor stone. “Now, do you all understand how to get there? Petrus? Adel?”

Everyone nodded. Petrus took off from Serril’s arm with a great sweep of creamy-white wings, making the flames in the fire bow sideways and then flare high. Rand rolled up the map and put it to one side. “Anchor stones,” he said, looking at Harkeld. “What happened is that Ivek took rock from each of the kingdoms—thirteen kingdoms there were, then—and used that to make the anchor stones. So each stone is bound to more than one kingdom. The black stone, that was basalt. It came from Ankeny and Roubos and two of the kingdoms Osgaard seized. Esfaban and...” His eyes narrowed. “Lomaly, I think.” He counted on his fingers. “Four kingdoms. The gray was granite. That’s Vaere, Sault, Osgaard and... what’s that first kingdom Osgaard invaded?”

“Karnveld.”

“Vaere, Sault, Osgaard, Karnveld, and some marble from Horst worked through it.” He counted on his fingers again. “Nine kingdoms. And the sandstone is from Lundegaard and two more of the kingdoms Osgaard took, the ones west of the desert.”

“Brindesan and Meren.”

Rand nodded. “Them, and Lundegaard and the Urel Archipelago. All of it red, except for the stone from Urel, which is white and yellow. Thirteen kingdoms, bound to three anchor stones. Extremely complex magic. No stone mage has come close to replicating it.”

“Why isn’t there a stone mage with us?” Harkeld asked.

“They can’t do anything with the anchor stones, except examine them,” Serril said. “And they’ve done that.”

“A day to the foothills,” Rand said. “A couple of days to go around them. Three days, maybe four, all up. And then we’re done.”

Harkeld glanced around at the fire-lit faces. Five mages. Six, counting Petrus.
Seven, counting me
.