Antiphon (35 page)

The kettle whistled and the Watcher stood. He brought it to the table and filled her cup again. But this time, she did not touch it. She forced herself to breathe in the rancid air around her.

The metal man sat again before speaking. “I’m afraid I will need to return to my duties soon, Great Mother. But I am delighted for this time with you. I hope you will return to me when you can bring the child.”

I could never bring him into this stinking hole.
But she forced herself to smile, certain he could see it despite the scout magicks. “I will hope for that as well,” she said, hoping this ancient wonder couldn’t see through her lie as well as he did the powders.

She heard another hum and the softest of metallic clicks from deep within the mechoservitor. “I do have an uncomfortable matter to discuss with you before you rejoin your men and return to Queen Winteria’s lodge.”

She gave in, reached for the tea and took a long sip before setting the cup down again. “What uncomfortable matter would that be?”

The metal man sat up straight. She saw the liquid way in which he moved, heard the quiet whisper of the functions beneath his dark, pitted skin. “I have word from the regent that our Blood Guard hunt the Wastes for the Abomination’s hand servants. We are fortunate to have caught the Abomination, but his metal disciples have proven more problematic. Their dream is dangerous, and they spread it as an infection among themselves.”

Now there was no need to lie or to hide her surprise. “I do not know what you speak of.”

The mechoservitor shrugged. “I suppose you do not. Still, the regent has requested that all mechoservitors remaining in the Named Lands be placed under my care until those in the Wastes are located and rendered nonfunctional. We do not want them contaminated by this anomalous scripting.” His eyes went dull and then bright. “This includes the one chosen to bear the spell—the one your husband named Isaak.”

She blinked her surprise. “What regent do you speak of?”
This is new.

“The regent of House Y’Zir.” He stood, and again she noted the way he moved as he walked toward the narrow corridor that fed back into the cave. “I would ask that you convey this word to Lord Rudolfo at your earliest convenience.”

She found her composure again and stood. “I will bear the news, but I do not expect Lord Rudolfo will agree to this.”

“His agreement is not required,” the metal man said over his shoulder. “Only his obedience.”

She followed him into the corridor, but instead of turning right and heading into the fading daylight where Aedric and the others waited, they turned left and moved deeper into the cave. As they moved, the carrion smell grew until her magick-enhanced sense of smell was overpowered and tears streamed from her eyes. It was dark, this space they moved into, but the dim light from the mechoservitor’s eyes, coupled with her sharpened vision, allowed her to pick out two tables. Atop those tables were two stinking piles of skin and meat.

The metal man walked into the room as she waited. “I also assist Queen Winteria in the distilling of her blood magicks. A work that I find soothing.” The mechoservitor stooped and lifted a folded stack of clothing and brought it to her. She accepted the bundle.

It took her a moment to pick out the rainbow colors of winter woolen uniforms, topped with leather belts, sheathed scout knives and carefully folded turbans. “Tell your first captain that he and his men may enter my cave to retrieve and bury their dead. But should they return beyond that, they will add their blood to my distillery.”

She took the folded uniforms and turned woodenly without a word. She walked quickly away, moving from that darkness and toward the white light of a snowy afternoon.

When Jin Li Tam left the cave, she made herself walk in slow, careful steps. Already, the magicks were burning out in her, her head throbbing and her stomach clenching as they did. Still, she held herself erect and moved quickly through the field to where her men waited in the tree line.

“Lady Tam,” Aedric said, his muffled voice afraid. “Are you—?”

But she interrupted him when all composure flew from her control. Falling to her knees, Jin Li Tam vomited, tasting the sour, sweet blend of tea and bile. Grabbing handfuls of snow, she rubbed it into her mouth and nose, hoping somehow it would scrub the taste and smell of death from her.

They waited and watched eastward, their horses magicked for speed and stamina, stamping to gallop. The sun had risen just hours before,
and already Petronus had the sinking feeling that things had gone awry. Grymlis sat beside him, shielding his eyes from the sun with a gloved hand.

“He’s late,” Petronus said.

“He’s Remus’s boy,” the Gray Guard captain said. “I don’t recall the father ever keeping to a schedule either.”

Petronus swallowed his fear and kept watching. Nearby, Geoffrus and his men laughed and hooted among themselves until Grymlis withered them with a glare.

We should have ridden for him ourselves.
Yet just in the past day they’d seen two kin-ravens against the cloudless sky. Renard had surely been correct: They could not have gotten close enough to extract the boy. And even Rudolfo’s best were not trained for Waste fighting. Their scout magicks and knives were better suited for woodland combat, not the wide open stretch of rock and sand and fused glass that surrounded them now.

Still, under Renard’s leadership, they at least had a chance.

It hadn’t been so long ago that Petronus had faced a blood-magicked scout that night in his shack before his arrest and trial on the Delta. In the end, Grymlis and his men had saved him, but it had cost him some men. And he’d heard stories of the attacks on Rudolfo’s Firstborn Feast and the other nations. The only weak spot in these blood magicks was the fact that they killed the bearer after roughly three days’ time.

That did not appear to be the case with these runners. Not if Renard spoke true.

When Grymlis raised a finger and pointed, he followed it. There, on the horizon, he saw what he thought was a billowing swell of dust. Squinting, he picked out another just behind it—and behind that, another.

Any others were lost to distance and the play of sunlight over the blasted landscape.

“Now we ride,” Grymlis said, urging his horse forward. Petronus did likewise, and the company fell in behind them.

Geoffrus and his band leaped to their feet, their teeth black from the root they chewed, but this time, they did not take the lead. Instead, they nestled themselves in among the galloping horses, stretching their legs into the run.

As they rode, Petronus kept his eyes upon the dust cloud and was able to pick out two more straggling forms behind. But even as he picked them out, another storm swept in from behind an outcropping
of stone and one of the straggling forms went down. Another hesitated, just for a moment, and then sped up as another gout of dust rose up and cut the runner off.

They are pursued.

He saw Grymlis’s sword out now, held low, though there were still many leagues between them and any foe. The hooves of his horse blurred as they moved over the ground.

They rode to intersect with the runners, and they rode in silence but for the panting of their horses and the muffled sound of magicked hooves striking stone.

But even as they galloped forward, Petronus watched another dust cloud fall into a blur of commotion.

We will not be fast enough.

The lead runner zigged south towards them. Grymlis adjusted their course, and Petronus followed. As they rode, Petronus grew aware of noise on the wind, and it took him a moment to place it. It was a song, faint and broken.

“Do you hear it?” he shouted across to Grymlis.

The puzzled look on the captain’s face told Petronus he did not.

He cannot hear it. He has not been affected by the blood magicks as you have, Father.
It was Hebda’s voice, whispering between his ears.

Each word of that whisper was a hammer to Petronus’s temples, and he winced.

Send Renard with the boy. The light needs you elsewhere.

The nausea set in, and Petronus’s nose was suddenly filled with the scent of ozone and blood.

An image formed in his mind, and it wrenched him. He fell forward in the saddle at the sight of it—a hollow mountain far to the north, nestled in the Dragon’s Spine. A scaffold draped in nets woven with evergreen branches rose up from the valley floor, and figures moved about, careful to keep the sun from reflecting off their metal surfaces.

He felt warmth in his beard and realized his nose had started bleeding at some point.

Shepherd them, Father. Wolves on the hunt.

He tasted the bile in his throat, the sour acid burning his mouth. And just as his equilibrium started to slide, the whisper receded and he clung to his horse, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

When he had the strength, he looked to Grymlis and shouted over the sound of that song. “Our plans have changed,” he said. “We ride north. Renard runs west with the boy.”

Grymlis’s face registered surprise. “Now?”

Petronus shook his head. “After we give him a head start.”

The old Gray Guard nodded. “Aye,” he said.

They rode wordlessly, low in their saddles and adjusting their course. Petronus wished now that he’d taken one of the swords they’d offered him, though he would’ve had no idea how to use it. He had been a fisherman, a statesman and scholar. Now, an exile back from the grave and possibly riding hells-bent for another.

When the lines of dust grew nearer, Petronus hung back and watched the others surge ahead. Grymlis and his small contingent of Gray Guard split away from the Gypsy Scouts while the Foresters magicked themselves from the saddle and leaped down to form a running perimeter.

Petronus heard Renard’s shout and watched as the perimeter opened to let the magicked figure through.

“Hail, Father,” the Waste guide called as he approached.

In that moment, Petronus felt the worry suddenly pull at him. “Do you have him? How is he?”

The pursuing Blood Guard struck the perimeter now, and horses screamed as they intersected with the mounted Gray Guard as well.

Renard’s voice was heavy with exhaustion. “He’s alive. He’s wounded.”

“We’ve new instructions,” Petronus said. “You’re to run him west.” He paused.
Do I tell him the rest?
In the end, it was Remus’s son. “We’re riding north to tend the antiphon.” He opened his mouth to say more, but Renard interrupted him.

“We’ve no time for long good-byes, Father,” the Waste guide said. “I wish you good fortune.”

Before Petronus could answer, the magicked man was running again, dust rising from his passage.

Petronus was turning his mount back to the battle when something solid hit him and his horse staggered. He felt hands he could not see grabbing at him, and the force of it toppled him from the saddle.

The world slowed down as he fell, and he felt the wind of rushing hooves as it blew his hair. His right leg caught in the stirrup and then released, the sudden jerking of the horse tumbling him out amid the other hooves.

When he struck the ground the wind went out of him and he gasped. The magicked runner pinned him. “You are the Last Son,” a woman’s muffled voice said. He smelled blood on her breath.

“I am Petronus,” he said.

“You must stand down your men, Last Son, and give us back the boy.”

Petronus did not answer. Instead, he kicked out and felt her move at the last minute to avoid his foot.

He heard a shift on the wind.
The song grows closer.

Three of the Gray Guard dropped back and approached. When one leaned down, his eyes suddenly bulged as his throat opened. “I may not harm you, Last Son,” she hissed. “But your mark does not protect anyone else.”

He heard the song now pounding in his blood. It was so loud that it vibrated the ground and the scar at his neck burned. The woman who pinned him was suddenly gone as some greater force collided with them.

At first he thought it was a horse, but the dust storm that erupted around them registered finally. Another ghost—maybe one of Rudolfo’s men—had tumbled her off of him.

The sound of the song drowned out the noise they made, but Petronus saw the dust from it, twisting and roiling around him in a circle. He scrambled back from them and waited for the storm to subside.

When it did, he heard a woman’s voice. “I bring this for the boy,” she said. “He is not finished with it yet.” She pushed something into his hands and it vibrated there, the canticle so loud he felt it in the ground. Her voice was already fading when he opened the magicked pouch and the song reached a crescendo that made his hands shake. There, shining in the afternoon light, was a silver crescent shaped like a sliver of the moon, the continents, mountains and seas etched lightly into its surface.

He felt the heat of it in his scars.

Petronus dropped it back into the pouch and felt for its straps. He stood slowly and tied it to his belt. He climbed into his saddle and first looked back to the raging skirmish. Then, he looked to the west and tried to find the line of dust.