Shadow Magic (19 page)

Hades spun as he rose almost vertically toward the moon. Around and around like a corkscrew, turning Thorn over and over. There was no way to fight it, so Thorn surrendered to Hades’s joy.

Wings fully unfurled, the bat left his entourage behind.

Thorn glanced over his shoulder and gasped.

Castle Gloom looked so small. Hundreds of tents surrounded it, black and white and every other color there was. Flags fluttered in the wind. It had to be people here for the Halloween Ball, even though it was still over a week away. Nobles from the lesser houses loyal to the Shadows and the Solars, who had arrived early so they could set up near the castle. Campfires dotted the black earth and moonlight glinted on the armor of the Solar paladins as though they were fallen stars.

The greatest concentration of tents was to the north, around the fair at Devil’s Knoll. That made sense; people wanted to be near the fun. The first chance he got, Thorn was going to go and spend that coin he’d won off Old Colm. Wade had told him there were jugglers, cake stands, and even a zoo filled with magical animals.

Thorn scratched between Hades’s big ears. “Bet they ain’t got nothing as good as you.”

To the east spread the vast, dark expanse of Spindlewood.

Thorn tightened his grip on the reins and leaned toward the south. The tents were few and far between there. It seemed no one wanted to pitch up beside Lamentation Hill or the City of Silence.

Hades hesitated, then banked, one wing tip pointed to the earth, and the other to the moon at its zenith.

Thorn and Hades flew on toward the triple peaks of the Three Princes.

S
now and ice encrusted the upper reaches of the mountains. The peaks of the Three Princes were connected to one another by a gently curved ridge, creating a natural bowl on the southern face. Great clouds of white breath bellowed out from Hades’s mouth, and in the night, his fur glistened with gently falling snow.

Lily had been right. He was beautiful. And majestic.

A few hours later, they were circling above what had to be Graven. A light drizzle fell on both bat and boy. Judging by the clouds, Thorn reckoned he still had some time before it turned from a mist to a torrent and, if he was lucky and got his business done quickly, he might be able to beat the rain back to Castle Gloom.

The village was built as a strip along the riverbank. Old stone walls had tumbled in places and been poorly repaired with wooden posts. There was a large graveyard beside it.

Thorn squeezed his knees into Hades’s shoulders. The monster responded by closing his wings and swooping downward. The ground rushed toward them and then, just when it seemed too late to avoid crashing, Hades’s wings flung out wide and he landed, barely stirring a grass blade.

A horn blew from within the village walls.

Good. They’ve seen me. I hope they bring me something hot to eat.

Graven didn’t look like much. Not the village, anyway.

But the graveyard was something else.

“Did you bury kings out here?” Thorn asked Hades. The tombs were easily twice the size of the village huts and made of old, perfectly worked stone. The statues looked so lifelike he half expected them to wave at him.

The wooden gates opened and a squadron of cavalry rode out. Even from here he could hear the jangle of armor and see the black pennants on the spears.

Hades hissed loudly.

Thorn unbuckled himself from the saddle and slid off. “Hush, boy. They’re on our side.”

Black-cloaked riders drew up and formed a loose circle around him and his beast. The men stared at Hades and clutched their spears tighter. Hades snapped his jaws at them, and more than one rider had to rein in a frightened horse.

“I’m looking for Captain Wayland,” shouted Thorn. “I’ve some letters for him.”

A rider dismounted and tossed his reins to his companion. He wore a single breastplate of steel and a skirt of mail that covered his legs to his calves. He had the easy walk of a man used to armor, and the sword on his left hip was plain, broad, and brutal. He flicked up the visor of his helmet and the face under it was as tough as his blade. “That’ll be me.”

Thorn held out his satchel. “Tyburn told me to bring you these.”

Wayland took the satchel and passed it to another rider without looking at it. He chewed his mustache as he gazed up at Hades. “And who are you?”

“Thorn. I’m Tyburn’s squire.”

“Squire?” That surprised him. “Things have changed much in Castle Gloom if the executioner’s got himself a squire and men are riding bats now.” He gestured toward the village. “You have ice dangling from your chin, boy. Come inside. We’ve a fire and a duck turning over it.”

“Much appreciated, Captain.”

“What about your mount? I have oats in the stables.”

Hades shrieked and beat his wings. He twisted his head as he rose, searching this way and that. Thorn knew the bat well enough now to understand that he was going hunting. Thorn shouted after the leather-winged monster. “Be back before it starts raining! And don’t eat any villagers!” Thorn caught the frightened look among the soldiers. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He gave them his best and broadest smile. “He’s harmless, really.”

The other men stayed on their horses, but Wayland walked alongside Thorn.

“The graveyard’s bigger than the village,” said Thorn. “Who used to live here?”

“What do you mean?”

Thorn gazed up at the high iron railings surrounding the cemetery. “Back in my village, when you die, you get a sack, a patch of earth, and a wooden plaque with your name on it—if someone in your family knows how to write.”

Wayland smiled. “This is Gehenna. Here the dead have as many rights as the living. All makes sense, in a way. You’re going to spend more time dead than being alive, so it stands to reason you need somewhere to stay that’ll last a few centuries at least.”

“But you’re
dead
. You don’t need nothing.”

Wayland shook his head. “Gehenna was once a country of necromancers. All the old lords could summon ghosts and ghouls and what-have-yous. Whole armies of them.”

“Armies of undead? That’s evil.”

“Is it? Seems to me armies of the living are worse. Think about it. Sons and fathers and brothers going off to war, maybe to die, maybe to lose an arm or a leg. Then what happens to their families back home with no one to plant seeds or reap the harvest? Nothing but starvation and misery. Even those who survive aren’t the same. War wearies the soul.” Wayland gestured at the graveyard. “A zombie doesn’t feel pain. He’s already left this world. No one’s counting on him back home, are they? Used to be a law that you were still eligible to serve in the army even ten years after your death.”

“Why ten?”

“After that, the body’s too fragile. Bits falling off all the time.”

“Still, seems a fat waste of time and money building tombs like that and leaving it to a bunch of bones.”

“There’s dead, and there’s
dead
. The first kind didn’t always stay where they were buried. Nothing worse than Grandma coming back complaining her coffin’s too small.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s probably the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.” Thorn lifted up his collar, suddenly feeling colder. He was never going to get used to this place.

Wayland smirked. “Don’t worry. That was a long time ago. There isn’t that sort of magic in Gehenna anymore. Look over there.” He pointed to a fenced-off field beside the main graveyard. “That’s what we do with our dead now. A strip of earth, six feet by two. Nobody can afford the big tombs these days.”

By the time they reached the gate, there was a crowd of villagers waiting.

“Are you from Castle Gloom?” asked one of the men, wringing his cap in his hands.

Wayland sighed. “Valen, let the boy get some food and warmth.”

But the man took Thorn’s arm and held it firm. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” said Thorn.

Wayland pushed Valen off. “The boy’s come a long way. And he’s here on real business, not to listen to your ghost stories.”

“What ghost stories?” said Thorn. He looked at Valen. “What’s going on?”

Hadn’t Tyburn told him to look out for anything unusual?

Valen looked at one of the villagers, a woman. “You tell the young master what you’ve seen. Go on, Jemma.”

Thorn knew the type. Old before her time. There were plenty of women like that in Stour. Worked all day and night, and pushed out babies as often as lambing season. Some would make it, some wouldn’t. She crunched her apron in her thin fingers. “Begging your pardon, sir, but what I saw was real.”

“Saw what?”

“My old dad, he died last month. Caught a cold, and it turned his lungs to water. Nothing we could do.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know where this was going, but the woman was becoming more frantic. Something had her scared.
Really
scared.

“We buried him out there.” She pointed to the field. “Washed him, put him in his bedsheet and a fine coffin. Oak, it was. I wanted to send him off in his best suit and with his tools, but times are hard, young master. We…we kept his boots. Them was new. But we did right by my dad. Flowers every week. I sweep his grave clean and everything. Then why’s it happened?”

“What’s happened?”

“He’s come back, sir,” Jemma sobbed. “He’s come back.”

A
nything unusual.
That’s what Tyburn had said.

Now, standing amid six upturned graves, Thorn reckoned this counted as
very
unusual.

Thorn, Wayland, five of his men, and some of the villagers had marched out to the field where the more recent dead were buried.

“Could be animals,” said Wayland, gazing at the broken earth. “Or grave robbers. That’s always been a problem in Gehenna.”

“Why would anyone want to rob these graves?” Thorn asked. The soil had been upturned recently. Thorn couldn’t be sure whether with a shovel or with bare hands.

“Look at those big tombs,” said Wayland. “In the past, people were buried in their best clothes and with their possessions. A warrior would have his armor and sword. A farmer, his tools. Women would have plates and cutlery, yarn and knitting needles. Even a piece of jewelry or two.”

Now it made more sense. Swords were expensive. Farmers were always needing new tools, and pottery often broke. You could just come out here and dig up whatever you wanted. In any other country, these things would have been passed down through the family. It seemed to him a waste to leave them in the earth.

Jemma sobbed on Valen’s shoulder, and the other relatives looked at their family graves anxiously, more than a little afraid.

Thorn spoke to Jemma. “What did you see, exactly?”

The woman wiped her nose and pointed to the field between them and the village. “I came out to check on the cows. Then I saw him. My dad. Standing out in the field. It was a full moon, clear as day. It was him.”

“When?”

“Two nights past.”

“And these other graves?”

“We thought it was wolves,” said Wayland. “They come sniffing and pawing at the graves in winter.”

“Wasn’t wolves,” said Thorn. That was for sure. He knew wolf tracks and there weren’t any here.

The captain looked down at the broken earth. “Get shovels.”

It didn’t take long. The ground was damp and already loose. They dug, and all the while Thorn kept an eye on the east. Those rain clouds were getting closer.

A shovel struck wood, and the work turned to hands brushing dirt from Jemma’s father’s coffin lid.

A long crack ran from head to foot, and the bare wood was splintered.

“Move those lanterns closer,” said Wayland.

Everyone leaned over the edge as the captain jumped down into the pit. He grunted as he shifted the coffin lid.

Jemma gasped.

The coffin was empty except for a muddy shroud. Things were getting more unusual by the second.

Wayland clambered out and brushed off the worst of the dirt. “Worth digging the other five up?”

“They’ll be just as empty,” said Valen.

Could it really be true? Had the dead walked? Lily said such power didn’t exist anymore, but Thorn was finding it hard to come up with any other reason the coffin might be empty. He picked up the lantern and roamed around. Plenty of footprints, all on top of one another. Then he spotted something. “You said you kept his boots?”