The Temple of Heart and Bone (42 page)

Troseth’s
head was pounding. He tried to remember where he was. The acrid reek of stale
smoke invaded his nostrils. It mixed with the taste of alcohol and vomit lining
his mouth. His head continued to pound.

Had he just attacked Ythel’s
estate? No, he wasn’t in Arlethord. That had been years ago. He was fairly
certain of that. There hadn’t been smoke that time. His hand was resting on the
cool handle of his sword. He hadn’t had a sword back then, either.

The pounding, the damn incessant
pounding was waking him up, but it hurt too much to think clearly. He tried to
open his eyes, but they were stuck shut. Pulling his hand from his sword to his
eye, he felt something crusty. It scratched at his eyelids and fingers as he
broke it away.

The world was blurry when he
first opened his eyes. After a moment, his vision cleared. He was in a tent.
That made sense.

He could hear the rustling of the
tent’s canvas in the stale breeze—nothing else. He heard no voices, no
footsteps. He was alone. He closed his eyes. He was alone with his pain.

Æostemark. He was in Æostemark.

Memories began to filter in,
fuzzier than the day’s light. He was in Æostemark with the old man, Poson, and
a cluster of dead. Li was with them.

Li was here, in Æostemark, with
him, and further out of reach than ever. A spike of pain drove deep into his
skull. He crushed his eyes shut and tried to endure it. He felt around the tent
floor for a bottle, a flask, anything to ease his pain. His hand found his
dagger. Not yet, he thought to himself.

He found nothing in his tent
other than a patch of dried vomit under his head. He tried to breathe deeply.

He was sure he was in Æostemark.
He just wasn’t sure why he was sure—or how he’d gotten there. It wasn’t the
smell, he thought to himself. Æostemark didn’t smell any different than Sa Ruus
or Sa Kuuth.

Sa Kuuth. They’d been in Sa
Kuuth. That was where he’d found Li. And lost Li. She’d been taken from him,
right from his very hands. Poson gave her up—gave him up—to the old man, the
“Master.” He’d trusted Poson, and Poson had betrayed him. There was no trust in
this world, no honor. There was only his pounding head. Troseth’s eyes clamped
shut with each pulse of pain.

The old Necromancer and Poson,
there was some battle going on between them, but it wasn’t a stand-up fight. He
wasn’t sure how long the covert war had been waged, but he was certain it was
coming to a head.

Damn, but his head hurt.

Troseth pushed himself to his
knees with some effort. His head responded with another spike of pain. His neck
bones felt as if they’d been locked together. He heard an audible “snap” when
they came loose. Blinking rapidly, he tried to convince his eyes to stay open.
The light hurt. Everything hurt.

Li had been taken from him. She was
a piece on the field between Poson and the old man, but Troseth didn’t know if
she was a pawn or a queen. Either way, she was equally out of reach. Honestly,
he thought, she might not mean anything at all to them. That thought hurt far
worse than his head—to lose everything for nothing.

He pushed aside his tent flaps as
if they’d been made of granite. He tripped on the tent’s lower edge as he
lurched out, catching himself before he hit the ground. He wasn’t sure the
effort hurt less than the fall would have.

Troseth looked around his
encampment. This was the little patch of the Ostie ruins he’d been assigned by
some mageling. His men still slept in various states of disarray. He was
certain that none of them would fare better than he had when they woke. He was
just as certain that none would feel worse.

He shuffled slowly through the
camp, kicking at canteens and bottles, hoping to hear the slosh of liquid.
Behind a large, rectangular section of support beam the men had been using as a
bench, he found a bottle that was nearly half-full. He bent over to pick it up,
enduring the spike of pain necessary for his salvation. Tipping the bottle up,
he drank greedily—only to spit out as much as he could, sputtering and cursing.

Who the hell pisses in a bottle,
he asked himself, throwing it at the head of his nearest trooper. The bottle
missed, shattering inches from the sleeping soldier. The man snored on
obliviously.

He took a moment to vomit.
Surprisingly, he felt a little better after purging himself. He was about to go
back to his tent when he spied a bottle beside a wagon. He picked it up and
examined it closely. It was still waxed shut, but he sniffed it after opening
it, just to be safe.

He downed a quarter of the bottle
in one go. The alcohol raced down his throat and into his belly. In moments, he
felt the warmth as it bit into his blood. He felt sick for a few minutes, but
struggled to hold against it. The pounding in his head began to ease. The
muscles in his neck began to relax. His owlishly blinking eyes slowed and
stayed open to the light.

“Captain Troseth,” a mageling
said, seeming to appear from nowhere. “Captain, are you well?”

“I’m fine,” Troseth answered
gruffly. “What do you want?”

“The investment ritual will begin
at midnight, Captain. My Lord Poson wished you to be informed.”

“Midnight?” Troseth looked up at
the hazy sky. He thought it was late afternoon. “How long have we been here?”

“This will be our third night in
Æostemark, Captain,” the underpriest replied. Distaste narrowed the man’s eyes.

“Third night,” Troseth mused. He
took another drink and shook his head.

“Yes, Captain,” the underpriest
answered, assuming Troseth’s musing to be a question.

“Fine, fine,” he told the priest.
“I’ll be there when I’m ready.”

“As you wish, Captain.” The
priest bowed ever-so-slightly to Troseth and left.

“Insolent cur,” Troseth mumbled
as the man scurried away. He closed his eyes to the pain.

It took Troseth the better part
of the evening—and his bottle—to pull himself together. Back in his tent, he
strapped on his armor and wiped himself down with a dirty rag. He wasn’t shiny
anymore, he thought to himself, but he’d at least knocked off most of the dirt.

He left the tent, remembering to
step over the little canvas lip at the doorway. As a reward for not tripping,
he decided to kick his sergeant awake.

“Moler,” he said gruffly, kicking
the sergeant a second time.

“What?” the sergeant asked,
agitated by his awakening.

“Get up, Moler,” Troseth ordered,
kicking him harder the third time.

“Captain,” Moler grunted. “Sorry,
Sir, I didn’t know it was you.” He scrambled unsteadily to his feet.

“Get the men assembled tonight.
The old man’s doing another ritual in the square. Get there when you’ve got
them presentable.” He paused. “On second thought, send in those new recruits we
picked up outside of Sa Kuuth. Let them see what they’ve signed up for. Keep
the veterans ready, but in reserve. We’ll see if any of the new blood get cold
feet. If they do, enlist them in the Master’s army—the hard way.”

“Yes, Captain,” the sergeant
said, saluting. His eyes were bloodshot, but he stood straight and still.

Moler wore his hangover well,
Troseth thought, the benefits of experience.

Troseth worked his way through
the ruined city. His encampment was several streets back from the main square.
He hadn’t thought about it when the place had been assigned to him. At least,
he didn’t
think
he’d thought about it. He had plenty of time to think
about it as he walked.

The last time he’d been in the
square, he’d been right beside the old man. His troops had been their entire
force. Now, however, he’d been cast aside, literally and geographically. His
men were useless, a fifth wheel trailing behind a wagon.

His wheel squeaked, he was honest
enough to admit to himself. It needed things; food, water, shelter. It got
drunk. It made noise. It wavered and wobbled. It wasn’t needed and, in truth,
it was annoying.

He had started this defection
pure and clean. He’d had purpose and plan. He had, actually, achieved his goal.
He’d found the woman he’d been looking for—dead or not. Then he’d lost her.
He’d lost everything.

Maker-damned alcohol! He couldn’t
pull himself out of his downward spiral of thoughts. He stumbled over loose
bricks and charred wooden beams. With each stumble, with each bump into the
ruins, his armor picked up filth. He looked down and realized he was far more
of a mess than when he’d started.

He was a useless, filthy fifth
wheel.

A low chanting intruded itself on
Troseth’s thoughts. He looked across the square. The Necromancer stood with a
single red-clothed skeleton before him. Troseth could feel wave upon wave of
energy flowing toward the man and the body. The waves passed in peaks of heat
and troughs of cold, and their frequency was increasing. Troseth followed the
invisible waves as they coursed directly toward the chanting Necromancer.

A small movement caught his eye
near the skeleton’s bare foot. It appeared as if a dark weed was growing up into
the foot, writhing and wrapping itself around the bone. Troseth watched as the
dark ribbon slithered and snaked its way higher into the leg when another
movement called his attention back to the feet.

A dark mass, much larger than the
first, swelled up and over the bones of the corpse’s foot. Like a blind snail,
the mass inched its way up the foot, attaching itself and growing offshoots
that spread up the leg. The mass surged and retracted, stretching itself,
pulling itself higher into the frame. Troseth shook his head and looked back
down at the corpse’s foot.

Sprouting over the dark red mass
was a pale covering, spreading like spilled milk on a kitchen floor. The stain
spread to cover the entire mass of the foot and eagerly pushed its way up the
masses attached to the lower leg. Troseth’s eyes widened as he realized he was
seeing skin—fresh skin form to cover the veins and musculature of the dead body
in the center of the square.

The weed-like veins had invaded
the body’s lower abdomen and reached hungrily toward the chest cavity. Troseth
watched, oblivious to all else, as the muscles and skin covered the thighs and
hips. He averted his eyes quickly when he realized that the skin was forming
the external organs of a male.

The veins had found purchase in
the chest and were blossoming into a dark mass the size of a man’s fist. Two
pale bags dropped low into the rib cage on either side as intestines boiled up
from below. Muscles rippled through the creature’s abdomen and up over his
breast. Although he wasn’t sure, Troseth could swear that he had seen the heart
twitch.

As skin climbed up and over the
secrets of the heart and lungs, more veins were threading through the
skeleton’s jaw, skull, and eye sockets. Flesh and muscle crept up the man’s
neck as gray matter writhed and bunched through a massive hole in the upper
skull. Red musculature slithered out onto the face and two bright white orbs
rolled from inside the skull to settle in the eye sockets. Troseth watched,
stunned, as the skull’s bone knitted itself over the large hole just as flesh
and muscle completed their course. Looking up at the stars above, Troseth
realized it had taken roughly an hour for the skeleton to become flesh, blood,
and bones.

Two underpriests came forward to
escort the new man away, while two more brought a drink and a small gold vial
to the Necromancer. The ancient mage drank from both and handed them back to
his servants. He crooked a finger and another red-clothed skeleton marched out
of the line to confront him.

Troseth had been standing,
staring with his mouth open, in shocked disbelief. This old man had not merely
raised the dead, he did not simply control multitudes of animated bones—he
could restore the foundation of life
at will!
Troseth closed his mouth
and tasted the dry, sickening flavor of assimilated alcohol. He could also
taste the charred flesh of Æostemark, and the decaying corpses around him. None
of that mattered as he staggered slightly into Poson. All that mattered to
Troseth in that moment was the process he was watching and the possibilities it
presented.

Poson smiled.

It
took two day’s hard riding for Drothspar, Chance, and Captain Cardalan’s
contingent to reach the forest west of Æostemark. Cardalan’s forward scout reported
that the city appeared to be occupied by a hostile force. Drothspar was present
when the rider reported to Cardalan, and he could hear the anxiety in the young
man’s voice.

Cardalan dismissed the rider,
sending him off for a meal and some rest. He ordered his men to set up camp
some distance back from the edge of the woods.

“Sergeant!” Cardalan called.

“Yes, Captain!”

“I’m going with our guests to
reconnoiter at the tree-line. No fires tonight. Tell the men we’re in enemy
territory now. Keep everyone alert.”

“Yes, Sir!”

“And Sergeant,” Cardalan said,
his tone more familiar, less rigid.

“Yes, Sir?”

“Take care of the children,
Sergeant.” Cardalan looked past the sergeant back to the west, back toward
Arlethord. “These aren’t Avrandian raiders, Glement. I think we just woke up to
a nightmare none of us ever thought we would dream, you know?”

“We’ll bring ‘em home, Cap’n.
They’re good kids. They’ll do what needs being done.”

Cardalan reached out his hand and
the sergeant automatically saluted him. Instead of returning the salute,
Cardalan extended his hand, waiting. The sergeant looked at his captain,
nodded, and took the offered hand.

“Don’t be too long, Cap’n, or
we’ll come looking for ya.”

“Damn right you will,” Cardalan
smiled and turned away.

Drothspar and Chance dropped off
their gear and waited for Cardalan at the edge of the camp. They could barely
make out his form talking seriously to Vae. The Eastern warrior was more in
control of her emotions and listening closely to Cardalan. When the captain
stopped speaking, she nodded her head slowly and touched her hand to her chest
in salute. Cardalan returned the gesture and the pair walked over to join
Drothspar and Chance.

“Are we ready?” Cardalan asked
his assembled guests.

Everyone nodded affirmatively.

“Vae here has agreed to keep a
truce with you, Drothspar, for this reconnaissance.” He looked closely at the
Avrandian woman’s eyes. “She gave me her word, and I accept it. I recommend you
do the same.”

“I do accept her word, Captain,
gratefully. I thank you, Miss—”

“Vae,” she said shortly. “My name
is Vae, not ‘
miss
.’”

“Thank you, Vae.” Drothspar
corrected himself.

“Thank you, Vae,” Chance said,
smiling at the Easterner. “How’s your leg?”

“It’ll heal,” Vae answered,
shrugging her shoulders. “How’s yours?”

“A little sore,” Chance admitted.

“That was a nice cut, girl.” Vae
said admiringly. “I never even saw you pull the blade.”

“Thank you, again,” Chance
replied, flushing slightly. “I try to keep in practice.” She smiled wryly. “That
was a pretty nice kick, too. I was really surprised at how hard you hit with
such a small movement.”

“It has to do with how you move
your whole body,” Vae explained, “perhaps later we can—”

“Ladies,” Cardalan said,
interrupting them. “There will be plenty of time to discuss training after we
return. Let’s get to the tree-line before we lose all our light, shall we?”

Vae and Chance nodded at Cardalan
and turned to smile warily at each other. It was a small step, Drothspar
thought, but it was a step on the path to peace. Forgiveness, he knew, required
far more strength than conflict.

They moved east from the camp and
threaded their way through the trees. The sun had already set, and the steel
blue light of evening was fading fast into night. They approached the tree-line
and looked out into the fields surrounding Æostemark.

Cardalan examined the scene and
his face paled. Several hundred bodies stood in loose formation just west of
the damaged wall. More ranks faded out of sight on the north side of the city.
Chance stared, eyes wide, trying to count the total number. Vae’s eyes
hardened, her teeth bared like a cornered wolf.

Drothspar felt a tightness in his
chest. Something was different, out of place, like a familiar melody played
slightly out of tune. He was struggling with the feeling when Cardalan signaled
for them to return to the camp. They worked their way back from the trees and
met with the sergeant.

“Keep your voices down,” he
warned them in a low whisper.

“What’s going on, Sergeant?”
Cardalan asked.

“There’s something to the west of
us, Sir. We haven’t been able to get a good look at it. It’s keeping its
distance.”

“How many are there?”

“As far as we can tell, Sir,
there’s only one. Whatever it is, though, it’s got the horses spooked but
good.”

“Did you see that?” Chance
whispered anxiously.

“See what?” Cardalan whispered
back.

“Eyes! Glowing eyes!”

“Where?” Vae whispered, reaching
for her empty sheath.

“May I approach?”
Drothspar heard a woman’s voice
ask clearly.

“What?” he said, louder than he had
expected.

“Shhh!” came the collective
warning.

“May I approach your encampment?
Your friends seem upset by my presence.”

“Who are you?” Drothspar asked
quietly. Cardalan, Chance, and Vae stared at him nervously.

“Who are you talking to?” Chance whispered
to him seriously.

Out in the woods, Drothspar
thought he saw a shadow move through the trees. It wasn’t so much a shadow, he
thought, as an absence of light entirely. He saw it move and then stop, and two
gleaming eyes turned to shine toward him.

“There!” Chance whispered again,
excitedly. “There they are again!”

Drothspar could barely make out
the form of the darkness. It appeared to be a four-legged creature, like a
large cat.

“Please, may I approach you,”
the voice asked again,
“I’ve
been waiting for you for quite some time now.”
The voice stopped,
considering.
“Is it this form that’s disturbing you?”
it asked.

There was a shimmer in the woods
and the blackness shifted into the form of a person.

“They’re gone now,” Chance
reported. “The eyes are gone.”

Drothspar looked at his friend,
surprised she couldn’t see the figure in the woods.

“Come forward,” Drothspar said,
“slowly, please.” He turned to Cardalan. “Captain, we have a visitor. Let’s see
what she wants before we do anything hasty.”

Cardalan stared at Drothspar and
then back into the woods.

“Sergeant, pass the word. No one
attacks unless I give the order. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” the sergeant
whispered in reply. He relayed the command down the line.

“Thank you,” a woman’s voice said
in a normal tone. “I’m coming in now.” She walked closer to the camp and
stopped to let the living get a clear view of her. “I mean you no harm,” she
told them gently. “Though I have to admit, it’s about time you got here.”

The woman was dressed in a black
velvet cloak that reached to the ground. Her head was covered by a velvet hood
of the same color. She moved easily over the rough forest floor, her every step
fluid and graceful. She approached the camp directly where Drothspar, Chance,
Cardalan and Vae were watching. As she moved closer, she pushed back her hood,
revealing long, glossy-black hair and a beautiful face. Her skin was pale and
her eyes a brilliant green. Her beauty was familiar, classical. She was the
very definition of beauty in art. It was not that she matched myriad paintings
and sculptures, but more that those works sought to become what she, herself,
was.

“What did you mean ‘it’s about
time’ we got here?” Cardalan asked. “Have you been waiting for us?” His eyes
were hard, suspicious.

“Well, I simply meant that it was
about time that you returned from the—”

Drothspar watched the woman’s
eyes as she spoke. Although her face was turned toward Cardalan, her eyes were
focused on Vae. He felt a rough tug at his neck and heard Cardalan’s dagger
scrape out of its sheath. Vae slipped the captain’s dagger up to Drothspar’s
neck and pulled him two steps behind the others.

“What are you
doing
?!”
Cardalan demanded.

“Isn’t it obvious,” Vae said, her
voice heavy with contempt. “This creature is in collusion with the enemy—with
this—this
woman
!” Vae held Drothspar securely and kept the dagger firmly
to the vertebrae of his neck.

“You gave me your
word
you
wouldn’t attack him!” Cardalan told her accusingly.

“I gave you my word I wouldn’t
attack him at the
tree-line
,” she replied. She looked at the woman who
had just entered the camp. “This thing is an abomination, and an enemy, and it
must be destroyed!”

The woman in the black velvet
robe sighed.

“Really, Vae? Do you think that
harming Drothspar will ease your guilty conscience? Do you think that hurting
him will in some way alleviate your fears for the child you left behind?
Drothspar had nothing to do with any of that, you know. He was never part of
those creatures in Æostemark.” She stared at Vae with unwavering eyes.

Vae looked first at Cardalan and
then at Chance. She knew they were the only two people close enough to stop
her. She stared back at the strange woman in black, her eyes uncertain,
wounded.

“If you think it will make you
feel better, Vae,” the woman continued, “by all means, cut him with your
knife.”

“No!” Chance exclaimed, “Please!”
Her eyes darted to the strange woman and filled with hatred. The woman returned
her gaze, unperturbed. Chance turned to Vae and pleaded once more. “Please, Vae,
don’t do it!”

“Oh, go on Vae,” the woman said.
“If violence will really ease your troubled heart, you go right ahead.”

Vae stared at the woman in
disbelief. Her eyes widened and then narrowed into a hard gaze. She sneered at
the stranger, certain she was being taunted. Thrusting forward with her left
hand, she slashed across Drothspar’s neck with her right. The dagger slipped
easily between his vertebrae and Vae fell backward to the ground, surprised by
the lack of resistance.

“There,” the woman asked, “do you
feel better now?”

Cardalan was on top of Vae in a
moment, and joined by several of his men and Chance, who ripped the dagger from
her hand. Chance spun on the strange woman and leveled the dagger at her
breast.

“What
were
you thinking?!”
Chance screamed, shocking everyone in the camp.

“Do calm down, Sasha… or do you
prefer Chance?” The woman waited for an answer, but Chance was flushed red and
breathing too heavily to answer. Her body shook, but the hand that held the
dagger was rock steady. “Look at him,” the woman continued, “He’s fine,” she
said as if there had never been any doubt. “Did you really think that dagger
could hurt him?” She looked at Chance with a wry smile. “Yours didn’t, did it?”

“What?!” Chance asked, her voice
rising in tone. “How could you know…? Who
are
you?!”

“You’re asking my name?” the
woman asked, surprised. She clapped her hands together delightedly. “No one’s
asked my name in
so
long!” She frowned slightly and sighed. “I can’t
tell it to you, of course, but thank you so much for asking!”

Chance stared at her,
dumbfounded.

“Still,” the woman went on, “you
people do seem to require labels for things.” She paused, thinking. “How about
this? Call me, ‘Kitti.’”

Drothspar, who still felt a
little odd about having a knife pass through his neck, cocked his head at the
woman.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said.

“No! Not at all! Quite
appropriate, don’t you think?”

“It’s your name,” he said.

“Well, no, it’s not actually, but
I do take your meaning.” She smiled at him and he was taken aback by her
beauty.

“What
is
she talking
about?” Cardalan asked, releasing Vae to his men.

“The glowing eyes you saw in the
woods,” Drothspar said, “they belonged to a very large black cat.” He nodded
meaningfully at the woman. “Kitti.”

“Her?” Cardalan exclaimed.

“Of course, me,” the woman
answered. She looked at Cardalan. “Do you mean to tell me you can stand there,
in the presence of an animate skeleton, and be surprised that
I
have
another form?”

“Well,” Cardalan started, “it’s
just that…” He sighed and threw up his hands. “Okay, whatever. Nice to meet
you,
Kitti
.”

“Thank you, Captain, it’s nice to
finally meet you, as well.”

“What are you doing here?”
Drothspar asked.