Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (8 page)

It was just as well. A smile
spread across her face every time she thought about conjuring those boggins for
the nailtooths.
I told them I wasn’t going to do any parlor tricks. I showed
those human spawn some real magic.

As the night dragged on and the
fires died down, the air grew bitter and raw. When she exhaled, her breath was
visible, and she noticed Kali was practically on top of Kale. Delilah felt a
pang of jealousy, not for the attention Kali received from her brother, but
rather for her brother’s high body heat that allowed him to weather the cold
with a thin cloth cloak.

Delilah shivered and drew her
thick wool cloak around her. She scooted closer to the fire, holding her hands
toward its warmth. Edric kicked her foot. “Hey, go check on the lizards.”

She shot him a glance. “Why don’t
you?”

The dwarf glanced over his
shoulder toward the horses. “Yaffa’s fine with the horses. The lizards are drak
responsibilities. Scales for scales and all that.”

Delilah cursed under her breath
and shoved Edric as she stepped past. “You’re a pain in my
scales.”

She stomped her feet as she made
her way to the nailtooth pen. It seemed to keep the chill at arm’s length as
the warmth of the fire became a distant memory. The Eye of Tinian was low in
the sky now, marking the inevitable pass of winter into spring, though she
guessed it would be several weeks still before it was gone entirely.
Muncifer
is still so far away.
The realization of how far she was from the only home
she’d ever known caused a shiver to wrack her body. She gritted her teeth and
studied the lizards.

The nailtooths huddled together
in a cluster at the center of the pen, sharing body heat and sleeping. After
ensuring everything was secure, she turned to find a human child staring at
her.

She gasped and jumped backward
out of reflex. It was almost eye level with her. She recognized the child as
the screaming boy Oleg grabbed. It struck her how flat human faces were. His
greasy, stringy hair fell down around his ears and across his forehead, and the
cold air gave his broad nose a red tinge.

“Were those real monsters you
made your lizards eat?”

Delilah stared at him, her mouth
agape, before she glanced at the nailtooths and back at him. “They were real…
they weren’t monsters though, not really.”

She shifted her weight, desperate
for the comfort of her staff. It was where she left it on the ground near where
she had been seated in front of the fire.

“What were they? I ain’t never
seen things like that before.”

“Boggins. They live in the
mountains. In caves.”

The child continued to stare at
her. “Are they nice? Our sheep are nice. I cry when we have to kill one to eat
it.”

Delilah’s lips curled. “They’re
nasty. They’re bitey and stupid.”

“Oh.” He studied the grass and
scratched his leg. “You’re a wizard.” It was a statement, not a question.

Delilah answered anyway. “Yes.
I’m a sorceress.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Wizards study arcana in schools.
I learned it on my own.”
I guess since I’m learning from a book now, I’m
more wizardly than I used to be.

“Huh. What’s your name?”

“Delilah.”

The boy stared at her, his brow
creased in thought. “That doesn’t sound so wizardy.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Adric.”

“Well, Adric”—Delilah offered her
hand—“I’m sorry I scared you.”

He took her hand and peered at it
as they shook. “Okay.”

Adric turned and ran. He glanced
over his shoulder at the sorceress. “Time for sleep.”

Delilah watched the boy jog away
and then returned to the fire. Vasily continued telling stories, and Magda was
deep in her interrogation of Pancras. Delilah huddled under her cloak with her staff
and thought of volcanic fire.
Maybe if I think I’m hot, I won’t feel so
cold.

Chapter 5

Cold snaps were not unheard of as
the season transitioned to spring, but Pancras had hoped they would not
encounter one as they traveled to Muncifer. He shivered as he fell into a
fitful sleep, despite having covered himself with numerous blankets and furs.

The tickle in the corner of his
mind, which Pancras felt earlier that evening, returned as his dreams resumed
and whisked him away to magical places. It started light as a feather’s touch
and then gripped his mind stronger and tighter like an iron vise. Eyes formed
in the darkness, pinpoints like glowing embers in the night.

The embers cooled, and the red
glow faded to icy blue. A spectral visage formed around the eyes, a mask of
death. A woman with sunken cheeks, skin stretched tight as a drum, smiled, her
teeth sharpened into spikes as she grimaced in pleasure.

Seek me out, Necromancer. Your
life, your death, belongs to me.

Pancras felt his throat
constrict. He tried to awaken but could not. In his dream, he gasped for
breath. The grip around his throat tightened.

You can resist. You can fight.
You can die. It is useless. Futile. Escape is impossible. Before the end, you
will do my bidding.

The grim visage faded and was
replaced by a shadow with glowing ember eyes, its laugh a chill wind that froze
Pancras’s blood.

He awoke with a grunt, his
withered hand locked around his throat. The world was covered in a dark haze,
as if his face were covered with a black veil. Rolling over, Pancras groaned
and pushed himself to his hands and knees. Dawn broke, the sun’s rays
backlighting wispy clouds gliding across a rose sky. He rubbed his eyes with
his unwithered hand. The haze faded, retreating to the edges of his vision.
Edric, already up, stood talking with Vasily by the cooking fire. Delilah was
huddled next to her brother, who was also lending his body heat to Kali.

Vasily saw Pancras stir and
raised a hand to him. “Good morning, my friend! Sleep well?”

“Not really. I miss my bed.”
Pancras rolled his neck and tried to work out the kinks in his muscles. The
more he slept on hard-packed, semi-frozen dirt, the more he missed the comforts
of Drak-Anor.

“I have helped Edric feed your
animals. If you would like to break your fast with us, you’re more than welcome
to before you resume your journey.” Vasily offered Pancras a steaming mug of
murky brown liquid.

Pancras sniffed it. “What is
this?”

“Beef bro—oh.” Vasily snatched
the mug out of Pancras’s hands. “My apologies. We find it’s a good way to start
a cold day, but I expect minotaurs… well…” The color drained out of Vasily’s
face, and he glanced about, as if planning an escape.

“It’s all right, an honest
mistake.” Pancras clapped Vasily on the shoulder. “Do you have any mulled wine?
Cider? Anything like that?”

Vasily sipped from the mug he’d
taken from Pancras. “Yes, I’m sure someone does. I will find some for you.” He
ran off, leaving Pancras with Edric and the draks.

“What’s the plan for today?”
Edric sat at the fireside. “Leave these tinkers behind as soon as possible?”

“Yes, we must continue our
journey to Muncifer. We can brook no delay.” Pancras nudged the draks with his
foot. “Up you get! We must get going. Sleep in the saddle.”

The return of the shadow in his
dreams worried Pancras. He did not know to whom the shriveled visage belonged,
but he was certain it was not that of Aita. The Princess of the Underworld
never appeared as a desiccated woman; she either appeared as a bare skull or a
dark-haired beauty. Not that Pancras had ever had a visitation from the goddess
of death. If the shadow and its mistress were malevolent in any way, Pancras
wanted to ensure no innocents were within their grasp.

Despite their groans of protest,
the draks pulled themselves together. By the time Vasily returned with a carafe
of steaming cider, they were breaking their fast together with Magda. Pancras
handed Vasily a handful of silver talons for their hospitality.

“This should cover everything,
including that sheep you fed to our lizards this morning.”

Vasily counted the coins with a
smile on his face. “You’re too generous. This is far more than that stringy
mutton was worth.”

Pancras nodded and patted the
man’s shoulder. “Keep it. Share it with the others. May Cybele watch over your
fields.”

* * *

To Delilah’s relief, they
encountered no other travelers or settlements after leaving the tinkers and
farmers behind. As the weeks passed, the sun traversed lazily in its heavenly
track during the day, bringing the warmth of spring, though winter’s chill
remained in the evenings. Her only regret was that she couldn’t study her
grimoire while riding Fang; the book was too heavy to hold with one hand, and
it required too much of her concentration.

The rolling plains of Etrunia
grew rockier the farther south they traveled until groves of evergreens dotted
the hills. The mountains dominated the western horizon, like a great wall
keeping the rest of the world at bay. The rushing waters of the Icymist River
awaited them at the bottom of a valley.

Pancras raised his hand and
halted their progress. “We have to find a ford. Once we cross, the trade road
from Almeria should be over the next ridge. We follow that, turn toward the mountains,
and arrive in Muncifer within a day.”

Hopefully
. Delilah
didn’t trust the navigation skills of someone who professed he hated travel to
give them an exact estimate, but she figured he was probably accurate to within
a few days.

“We have to cross that?” Edric
pointed at the river. “Don’t you surfacers believe in bridges?”

“Who are you calling a surfacer?”
Delilah scowled at the dwarf. “Kali’s the only one that doesn’t live in
Drak-Anor, under a mountain, you hairy—”

Pancras silenced Delilah with a glare.
“There is a bridge. Probably a week’s travel to the west where the trade road
crosses the river.” He looked up into the sky. The clear blue gave way to dusky
rose in the west where the sun was setting. “Tinian’s Eye has been gone a week
at least. The Plow will be rising soon. I don’t doubt the stars of the handle
are already visible. We don’t have time to backtrack that far.”

“But fording means we have to go
into the water!”

Delilah snorted. “Afraid of
getting wet? You could use a bath, Edric.”

“Wadin’ through a river ain’t
like takin’ a bath. Dwarves don’t swim.”

Kali rode her lizard, which she’d
taken to calling Taavi, up alongside Edric and his mount. “Yaffa can swim. You
just need to not fall off her.”

“Bugger that. If I fall, I’ll
sink like a stone! When we cross, I’m riding with the minotaur. Yaffa can swim
herself.”

“Fine. You’ll ride with me.”
Pancras turned in his saddle to instruct Kali. “You lead Yaffa across when we
arrive there.”

Despite Edric’s grumblings, the
crossing was painless. Kali scouted ahead and found a rocky area through which
the river flowed. The water, though crisp, was shallow, barely reaching
Stormheart’s abdomen. Pancras’s steed snorted and tossed his head as he
crossed, and even the old girl Yaffa seemed to enjoy the chilly water, stopping
to drink in the middle of the crossing.

When they reached the other side,
Pancras waited for Edric to return to Yaffa. “All right, no one died; no one
drowned. Let’s push on. We’re almost there.”

Delilah longed to sleep in a bed
again and have time to read her grimoire. There was still much to learn.

* * *

Pancras’s estimate was correct.
Shortly after breaking camp the next morning, they rode out of the hills and
onto the trade road from Almeria. The group let their mounts run on the
relatively flat road, stretching their muscles and working out the frustration
of picking their way through the rocky foothills of the Iron Gate Mountains.

The minotaur stopped as the road
crested a hill. Mountains loomed like impassible walls behind an expanse of
cinereous blocks, an abstract field of stone dwellings and towers dotted with
tiny blotches of sparse green vegetation. “Finally. Muncifer.”

The towers flanking the granite
gates of the city reminded Kale of home, of Drak-Anor. From the towers, walls
built along the hill surrounded the inner city. Clusters of buildings lined the
road leading to the gates, as trails of ashy smoke wafted up from their chimneys
to join with the clouds above the city. Where the towers of Drak-Anor felt
organic, as if they were grown to be part of the city, the towers, walls, and
buildings of Muncifer were cold, precise, and clashed with the mountainous
geography. Blocks placed with singular purpose indicated dwarven influences
within sharp angles of the natural-colored architecture. A vast, yawning chasm
lined with budding trees cleaved the city in twain. Buildings carved into the
face of the rock lined the chasm, and bridges crisscrossed the span like
threads of a web
.
Beyond the walls of the city, Kale viewed buildings,
all similar shades of grey, though some had colorful burgundy, dull sapphire,
and auburn roofs, splashes of light in the twilight shades of Muncifer.

Kale fluttered his wings for
balance when Delilah bumped into him as she joined him on the ridge to gaze at
the city. “It’s ugly.” Fang hissed and snapped at Kale’s mount. He tightened
his grip on the reins to keep Gazi steady.

“It certainly looks like dwarven
architecture.” Pancras regarded the draks.

“Aye.” Edric nodded in agreement.
“That means it’s strong. I hope they have good ale.” He spurred his pony into a
trot and headed down the embankment toward the road that led to Muncifer’s
gates.

No, it’s not like home; it’s the
opposite.
To Kale, the city appeared uninviting. It was as if a child
plunked down blocks in the shape of a city. Just slabs with purpose, but no
design. Only the roofs of the buildings provided any relief from the monotony
of the monolithic architecture.

The wind shifted, bringing a
breeze that carried the smells of the city past them. The air seemed sulfurous,
and he wondered what burned in the fireplaces of Muncifer to warm its citizens.
Kale hoped for more of the exotic spices and herbs he smelled when approaching
Almeria. Instead, he inhaled aromas that reminded him not of wonder and a good
time, but of work and boredom.

He looked at his sister. “It kind
of seems like Drak-Anor’s opposite, but not in a good way, you know?”

Delilah took a deep breath.
“Let’s just get this over with, and then we can go home.” She spurred Fang to
trot down the road after Pancras and Edric. Kali and Kale brought up the rear.

“I’m sure we’ll find something
interesting here, Kale. Together, right?”

“Right.” Kale and Kali descended
and rode toward the gates of Muncifer.

* * *

Grímar slammed the door to the
Court of Wizardry, rousing Gisella from her reading. She looked up as he
stomped across the courtyard toward the bench on which she sat under the Blood
Oak. Folding up the collated reports she had been reading, she greeted him.

“Bad news?”

He sat on the bench, nearly
upsetting it. Gisella grabbed his arm for balance.

“I’m being sent after a
renegade.”

“So?” Gisella guessed that was
not likely the cause of his ire. Tracking down renegades was what slayers did.

“In the Southern Watch!” Grímar
punched his palm with a mailed fist. “It’ll take months to journey there. It
never thaws even in the summer. Winters are worse. By the time I find her, I’ll
probably have to guard her for the entire season before I can bring her back.
It’s madness!”

Her? Could it be…?
“Who is
this renegade? Watchfolk don’t often become wizards.”

“I was told her name is Alysha,
though she may be using an alias.”

“Alysha?” Gisella laughed.
What
have you done this time, sister?
“Alysha is my sister.”

Grímar’s mouth moved silently. He
furrowed his brow. “Sister? There could not be another renegade wizard in the
Southern Watch called Alysha?”

Gisella admitted it was possible
but unlikely. Her sister often spoke of going to one of the far reaches of the
world and carving out her own kingdom. “I’ll wager you five crowns that it’s my
sister.”

“Well, why isn’t Manless sending
you after her then?” Grímar grabbed the moon amulet around his neck.

“Perhaps he feels my judgement
would be compromised by my relationship with her.” Gisella waved one of the
court’s pages over to her.

The girl curtsied. “I’m honored,
mi’lady. What do you require of me?”

“Fetch me parchment, a quill, and
ink, please.” If Grímar indeed pursued her sister, he might as well deliver
some correspondence as well.