The Path of Destruction (Rune Breaker) (7 page)

“What are you talking about, Ru?” Taylin asked, “The bridge—”

“—was not destroyed to avoid pursuit.” Ru cut her off.

“Blood turn to flame, stop being smug and tell us what you know.” Kaiel said with a glower.

Ru smirked and waved his hand to indicate the length and breadth of the valley. “This place is a terrible place for your average spellcrafter. As Raiteria and Arunsteadeles already noted, the river stunts
ere-a
. Not only
ere-a
, but that favorite of battlemagi:
flaer
. Meanwhile, the floodplain is normally a cradle of life, inviting vast amounts of
vitae
. Except, and
she
,” He shot a venomous glare at Brin, “can attest to the fact as well, that the violent deaths and moldering corpses of so many minor beasts of the Threefold Moon have left that homestead a festering pit of
nekras
, and by extension, this entire valley anima-neutral: a perfect brew for abnormally weak spellcraft—unless like me you possess a robust natural capacity, or like this dog of Immurai, you possess a conduit to an outside source of power.”

He watched their faces when he was done. It didn't need to be said because even Taylin, who knew nothing of magic, knew much of tactics and the laws of advantage. The demon hadn't destroyed the bridge to escape the army, it had done so to keep
them
from escaping.

“Yes.” He said casually, “They're all going to die.”

“No.” Taylin said before the words were even completely out of his mouth. “They're not. Look at how many there are of them, how many mages. It only works if they're taken by surprise. We can warn them, help them mount a defense.”

“To what end?” Ru swung the scythe up onto his shoulder. “We owe them nothing. It might even be a kindness: I've seen the fates of hundreds of armies left without a nation. Death at the claw, or death from starvation and neglect.”

Rai started to say something, but stopped. Percival had worked with Grandmother to find her to bring news of Motsey's kidnapping when he had much larger problems before him. But on the other hand, she wanted to move on, to close the gap between her and her son as quickly as possible.

As Ru and Taylin continued to argue the pros and cons, Kaiel went to stand with Brin, facing Idarian Homestead. Without a word, he raised his arm and ordered the orm into flight in that direction.

Brin glanced over at him and instantly knew why. “There's only one place the demon could be hiding on this side of the river.” She said quietly.

“Unless he knows how to hold his breath or go invisible.” Kaiel agreed. Then he held out his hand to her. “I can see through the orm's eyes and control its movement—at least for a while. And I can let you see too... if you want to.”

A soft sigh escaped Brin, but not in the romantic sense. “I don't really want to. Just seeing how the wall is dying tells me that the place is poisoned by
nekras
, far more than just the deaths of the farmers can account for. They must have died in pain. Terrified. I'm not sure I want to see them in the light of day.”

“It might not be that bad.” said Kaiel. “Those creatures you fought weren't spirit beasts; they were lesser minions of the Threefold Moon, demons not so much grown, or even created as roughly cobbled together with a massive infusion of
nekras
to animate them. When they're killed, they dissipate gouts of it, so you can imagine how terrible the contamination would be from a swarm of them.”

Brin nodded. “I suppose, but in the end it doesn't matter either. I'm a spirit docent, and I have a responsibility to the dead. My discomfort doesn't mean a lot in the face of that.” Slowly, with great care, she took his hand.

“Good.” Kaiel said quietly, carefully picking his tone and inflection so as to weave the pattern between them to share the information coming from the orm. “Now just close your left eye...”

Through the orm's eyes, the world was brighter and the pallet of colors shifted toward yellow. Four eyes provided a sprawling panorama below without losing depth perception. They saw almost the whole of the valley and beyond.

Most importantly, the homestead began to slip into view below. It was an average enclave for that part of the world: two lots of three fields each inside the initial wall. Where some enclaves built stone walls or palisades, this one was fortunate enough to have someone skilled enough with
vitae
to throw up and maintain the living wall of trees. As they'd seen before, the fields and the tree wall were dying and decaying at an accelerated rate from
nekras
contamination.

“There should be bodies.” Brin told Kaiel, her voice low and reverent. “Not villagers, but monsters. I met at least seven on the road out, after I found Layaka. I killed them there and they should still be there: spidery things with six legs and faces like bulls with long, lolling tongues. I assumed a divinity spark had hit an ant nest.”

Kaiel guided the orm forward with a stern expression on his face. “I have theories, but I don't want to say anything until I'm sure...”

Past the fields and outbuildings, including coops and a pig pen, there was a second wall, traditionally built from stone, but only some seven feet tall or so. The slanted roofs of the houses were visible above it. They were arranged in a horseshoe shape with the open end facing the now ruined gate with storehouses, a stable, and various craft houses toward the back. There was no well, but there was a cistern visible through the gate before the orm passed through it.

The cistern held the first corpse. It was a demon Kaiel had never encountered before in his studies; a twisted mass of reddish brown limbs covered with stiff hairs. Its bloated belly had been pierced again and again before it finally collapsed back into the summoned water in the cistern and went still.

Weeks had passed and there was no rot or sign of scavengers. Demons didn't rot and nothing natural would take the meat. Direct sunlight broke down the
nekras
most of the time, but the miasma of the stuff present in the homestead preserved the bodies, and there were many of them.

“How many did you kill.” Kaiel said with hushed awe as the orm's flight revealed more and more impaled, slashed, and broken demonic bodies. There wasn't much left of the inhabitants, their bones picked clean by creatures that turned away from the demons, but the place was a veritable demonic graveyard.

Brin shifted uncomfortably. “They swarmed us. I merged with Reflair and... I didn't count. We were just trying to get ourselves and Layaka out and—wait. What was that?”

“What was what?” Kaiel wheeled the orm back around and this time, he saw it too: one of the demons was moving, but not in the sense that it was up and walking, or even crawling.

It was being dragged behind a house.

“Blood to ice, please don't be what I think it is.” Kaiel murmured and sent the orm flitting up and over the roof.

“What do you think it is?” Brin asked.

But it was too late to prepare her for it. The orm lighted on the roof and looked down into what had been an open air forge. There, crouched among the anvil, the quenching trough, and all the other accoutrements of the forge was a gigantic, red monster with black antlers and a mouth crammed full of mismatched teeth.

As they watched, those teeth set to work as the demon lifted the body of the lesser demon and crunched down into it, powerful mandibles grinding, tearing and shredding the corpse as a barbed tongue drew it further down the gullet.

Kaiel shuddered. He knew that demon from his studies. “Bashurra the Crevasse.” He whispered as if the demon could hear him. “The first known record of him is an etching of the Fall of Baiamas in the one hundred and third year after Draconic Control. He's ancient, a
pan-khul
among the demons of the Threefold Moon: something like a general. He might look like a brute, but he's a skilled spellcrafter and master of military strategy. In fact, the translations of many of the names ancient kingdoms had for him come out to 'Tactics Ogre'. This is phenomenally bad.”

Meanwhile, Brin was watching with disgust as the last of the demonic corpse slid down Bashurra's throat. “He's
eating
them. Why? Aren't they on the same side? Why would he desecrate those bodies?”

“A Kaydan demon is only on his own side and the Threefold Moon's; they rarely ally with each other willingly.” Kaiel said. “He's eating them because their bodies are full of dark anima: every bite he takes, he grows stronger.”

He cut off the connection suddenly, setting the orm free at the same time. “He's not just going to ambush the army, he's going to annihilate them. We have to stop him before he absorbs the
nekras
from all those demons.”

Both of them turned back toward Ru and Taylin, who were still arguing.

“They didn't have to give us any help at all.” Taylin was saying, “But they did, and they've been letting us follow them all this time without a word. We can't repay them by letting them die!”

Brin pulled on Kaiel's sleeve. “I can disperse the
nekras
, maybe even purify the corpses. But he'll know the second I start. Maybe he's not strong enough to take on the army alone right now, but he could definitely defeat Reflair and I.”

“Then let's fight a monster with a monster.” Kaiel gave her a confident smile he didn't entirely feel and stepped into the argument.

Ru was livid, more so than usual. “Can you not see this, Miss Taylin? This is Immurai's game. His plan. He knows how you are from Partha and he's counting on your conscience to lead you to stand and fight. I refuse to play along. I say we continue on and deny him whatever end this serves.”

“It's Bashurra the Crevasse.” Kaiel said, having reached them without either one noticing. He fixed Ru with a look. “Does that name ring a bell with you?”

“Should it?”

“He's a
pan-khul
, on Immurai's level. The level the records say Immurai is anyhow. That either means they're working together, or Immurai is far, far more powerful than my books say. Which is a very real possibility because besides his cults, there's no mention of him acting directly since the War of Ascension.”

Ru sneered. “I still don't see why I should care.”

“You have a grudge against these demons.” Taylin pointed out. “Why wouldn't you want to fight this one?”

“No, I have a grudge against
Immurai
.” Ru shot back. “I have no real cares about the Threefold Moon and this demon's done nothing to me. I want Immurai and staying here and fighting an unrelated battle delays the time between me and ripping out his still-beating heart.”

Kaiel raised an eyebrow at him, decided that getting past his contrariness wasn't worth the time and effort, and turned to Taylin. “It actually doesn't matter what he wants. He can stand here and look like a coward for all anyone cares. The issue at hand is that Bashurra is known to be a military genius and he's taking the time to increase his strength instead of ambushing the army before they can set up camp defenses.”

Just as he'd hoped, Taylin understood where that was going, thanks to her own military knowledge. “He doesn't think he can win with just the ambush. The army could beat him if they mobilized.” Her gaze strayed to the homestead. “Except even with those trees dying, that's a pretty good defensive position.”

“We've got to lure him out anyway.” Kaiel explained and gestured for Brin to join them.

Brin nodded in agreement. “I can cut him off from more power. The same seal against
nekras
I was going to perform anyway should keep him from drawing on more power.”

Taylin nodded and her feathers fluffed up as she thought. “That sounds like a good plan. We remove an advantage he thinks he has, and turn his ambush into one of our own. Only... how do we lure him out?”

Someone cleared their throat and everyone looked to find that Raiteria had joined their circle, clutching her rifle.

“I thought you would see reason.” Ru glared down at her, sounding mildly betrayed. “Your son hangs in the balance of this. Do you think any good is being done for him by plunging into this foolishness?”

Rai refused to meet his gaze, her expression turning to a bittersweet smile. “When I find Motsey, and I bring him home, I'm going to have to tell him
and
Rale that story of how mommy came and saved him. What do you think he'll think of me if I tell him that I let the people who came and found me, and told me he was gone, die?”

“That his mother has a proper set of priorities, not corrupted by storyspinner drivel.” Ru muttered, but he was now being fully ignored as the others started concocting their plan.

His yellow eyes scanned the plain again and he scowled his disapproval. But at the same time, he couldn't help but wonder: what was Immurai's game? Solgrum was dead, his army would be reduced to mercenaries in weeks—it wasn't exactly a toppling of titans even counting the assassination.

No, he wanted the group there, and he was using Taylin's moral code along with Kaiel's bardic philosophy to pin them there. But why?

***

Tolere dabbed at the sweat pouring off his brow in a losing battle. With the enlarged garrison complement, the kitchens were working most hours out of the day now, and that made the upper levels of the keep increasingly unbearable with rising heat.

To make matters worse, Lord Crossius and his family hardly seemed to notice and didn't even bother having the windows opened, or the air-circulating spells activated.

He glanced up at Crossius and saw that the man hadn't even broken a sweat. Coughing to keep a reproachful look from appearing on his face, he tried to continue his report. “Another mercenary company arrived in the early morning today and I'm having trouble accommodating them. The garrison is at capacity, as are the guard bunks of the keep. If any more arrive, we'll be forced to shelter them in town.”

Crossius was drawing a complex spell diagram on a long piece of vellum, something Tolere knew little to nothing about. He was also making something of a production of only listening with half an ear. Only now did he blow out a dispassionate sigh and looked down at the other man from his elevated desk and seat in the Lord's office.