The Queen of Wolves (34 page)

The drums began, and pounded out a slow but regular beat. These were answered with drumbeats along the canals, and the drums at the towers, and in the brief interval between this dooming noise, thunderclaps burst from the clouds. The booms grew softer as the last light of day was no more, and the deepening shadows of the storm clouds—rightfully called ravens by the pagans of the wood—darkened even the white snow.

“The day passes too swiftly,” Calyx said. “The long night begins. In years past, I would be here with the other women of the Great Forest, and we would call the Briary Maidens to aid us, and give offerings to the Lord and Lady of the Wood. But now, I feel the Veil’s torn caul, as I feel the plague in my blood. The rage of the Old Ones grows, and the fires of the heavens split the skies. Enora’s army burns the canals and the woods at the edge so that we must enter fire to meet them in battle. They know you are here. They are prepared. If we do not take it to them in a few hours’ time, they will ride to us—but a thousand riders of the Disk, and not three.”

“We will end this at their gates,” I said. “I will take the heads of many. I will find those who have offended you and your kind, as I will find those who have harmed my tribe among them. Corentin Falmouth will feel the suffering he brought to Ewen and those vampyres of my tribe. The alchemist, and Pythia—the betrayer of her tribe—if she is with him, will find no escape from the sword I bring to the gates of Taranis-Hir. Before dawn, Enora will beg for the mercy of the Great Serpent, but I will cast her down into the Asmodh fires before I allow her breath to cloud the air for one more night.” As I spoke these words, I no longer felt Aleric within me. Falconer I was, and Falconer I would remain, son of the Great Serpent and no other.

The storm of falcons would fly with me to the gates, and tear them down, and when the city had been taken, we would burn it to the earth, and salt the earth that such a city should never again grow from the Barrow-Depths.

She turned to me, grasping my arm lightly, leaning in to me. “Their sorcery is powerful. The White Robes have called many men from provinces and towns, offering them wealth and the promise of Heaven for their loyalty. The minds of so many are polluted by the Disk dream. How do we fight the world?”

“This is not the world,” I said. “I have seen other lands in my journey, and the plagues have touched them, but not all mortals cower before the Disk dream. These White Robes are the hounds of the Veil, the shadows of priests, and the one who rules them. Our aim is for closing the Veil itself. This is the time of the Great Crossing, and Medhya uses the tears of the Veil and the blood of many to break through. An aspect of Medhya herself—in the form of Datbathani, her sister—told me that one of my children will mend the Veil. The other will tear it. That one was made of fire and one of blood, though I do not understand these words. They are both flesh and blood, of me. I must take my children beyond the grasp of the White Robes. They will not be pawns in this war.”

One of the mortals came out from the rock opening, and told Calyx that there was not enough blood among them to satisfy the hundreds of warriors who had come from Myrryd.

“I will tell my tribe of this, for they are bidden not to harm you. But they shall drink deep tonight, in battle,” I said. I reached for Calyx and drew her close. “Will you join the fight, ashling?”

“Everyone here will join it,” she said. “For we still have weapons and will. And now that you have brought healing to the wounded, they, too, will take up arms and return. We will fight to the death.”

“Good. Have your men gather nine horses from those in the paddock. We will descend the cliffs in three hours’ time, and the Asyrr and you—and I—will ride into battle as kings of this earth, while our warriors cover the skies as hunting falcons.”

“But we can have the horses ready within the hour,” she said. “For they are rested and watered, strong and able for battle.”

“I have something I must do first,” I said, and would not tell her my intention. I found Ophion, and drew him aside. “While I am gone, you are in charge of our tribe.”

“Do you leave us now in these first hours of dark?” he asked. “Oh, my brother, do not do this. I cannot command this...this rabble.”

“It will be a short while,” I said. “You must make sure they do not overcome the mortals who offer blood. And here, you may hold this”—I drew out the Eclipsis—”as a symbol of your power.”

“I cannot do anything with it,” he said, turning the obsidian-black orb over in his hands.

“They will not know that,” I said. “And they will see you as my representative here. You led them from Myrryd with your knowledge of the stars. They trust you, as do I.”

Then I returned to where I had slept the day, and donned a simple tunic and breeches and boots, borrowed from one of the mortals. Over this, I drew a hooded cloak. I sought Calyx, who walked among her people and brought them strength and comfort for the coming battle. “Where in the towers do they keep my children?”

“There are rooms in the tower of White-Horse—they will probably be locked in their chambers,” she said, but cautioned me, “Though you seek your twins, you must know that the boy, Taran, is as cruel and bloodthirsty as his mother. It is Lyan who is gentle and has learned lessons of humility and suffering from watching the kingdom’s evil.”

“They are both of my blood,” I said. “And if the boy is a monster, it is the Myrrydanai who have made him so—and their mother, whom I saw within the Veil bleeding him over the bogs to call up the dark spirits that have invaded this land. He is innocent, though he may not seem so.”

“I wish I could say that the nature of a child is so changeable,” she said. “But I do not believe it from what I have learned of life.”

“You will not speak of my children like this,” I said. “Tell me, is there no other place they might be kept?”

“None that I am aware of,” she said.

I was not angry with her for her opinion of my son, for I did not know either child except at some distance. Yet I could not blame either for the lives they had led to this point. I was determined to save them from the tyranny of their mother’s darkness.

After I spoke with the Asyrr and settled their impatience with strategy, and warned their servants and warriors to drink no more from our mortal hosts, I leapt from the rock face of the cliff and flew out into the darkening night.

3

The blizzard had grown thick, and battered at me as I went. Lightning flashed, followed by roars of thunder, and the constant beating of the war drum from far below. I flew high above the trees, into the storm clouds, where the temperature nearly froze me, yet I did not wish to be seen by Morns, who would surely be patrolling the skies.

In moments, I focused my mind on falcons, and felt the tingling of the Serpent’s skin along my body as I burst into many forms—and became several falcons flying in formation, together, moving as a mass of blurred wings. In the centuries since, I have understood the molecules of the body, and the influence of the mind over them—their shapes, their separations, their joinings. The shapeshifters of my early life somehow had a key turned within their blood and flesh and minds to shift like this, though most could not control their shifting.

It is something in the mind that can be tapped to re-create the form of another species, but it requires the strongest of minds not to lose one’s self in the creation. The molecules connected to the shifter also go, and become part of the new creation—so my cloak, the Nameless wrapped at my waist, my clothes, all became the skin and feathers and talons of the birds. The Chymer wolf-women were victims of a plague particular to them—and their shapeshifting was not within their conscious control at all, but came upon them from the will of Ghorien and his Myrrydanai. But my mind had become touched with the greater Asmodh sorcery, and I felt a great surge of life with each shift of my body.

When I shifted into the birds, it felt no different to me than drawing my wings from my shoulders. It was a pleasure to do so, and I felt an utter freedom and a desire to leave the cares of the world of mortal and immortal behind me, and become the creatures to which I had changed my form. I descended—a flock—from the roiling clouds, and the snow felt fresh upon my being—for just a moment I felt the presence of that greater self within me—the Serpent.

As I swooped the towers of the city, I heard the shrill cries of the Morns, and glanced downward to watch a mottled-skinned Morn, her head half-shaved, looking up at me, her eyes narrowing as she watched the flight of birds.

Her milky eyes seemed to take me in, and although I only glanced at her for a second, I knew who it was from her shape and her face, despite the scarring and the absence of personality there: it was Kiya.

She had been turned into one of the Myrrydanai slaves, slave to the staff, to the Queen of Taranis-Hir, to the will of the alchemist Artephius.

I flew past her, wondering if she would follow me, but she did not. The Morns had no thought of their own, but were merely the hunting jackals of this city. In a whirl, I flew across the tombs of Taranis-Hir, and toward the towers of White-Horse itself, past the hundreds of soldiers who mounted great pots of boiling fire, and timber cut from the woodlands to be used to pummel those who came beneath the city battlements. In the loopholes of the castle walls, archers stood at the ready, and many lined up with bows between the crenel spurs above the gates themselves. At the conical spires of the towers, still other lookout guards watched the skies for vampyres; but none noticed the birds that flew just beneath them, as falcons might, though not on such a stormy evening.

When I found again my daughter’s bedroom as I had seen it once before, I dropped through its narrow window and re-formed myself once I touched the floor.

4

It took a moment for my re-formation—I felt a shimmering of my body as the many birds came together. The staff drew from my fist, and I felt at my waist for the sword. I drew the hood of my cloak over my head, and brought the glamour to the cloth that it should resemble that of the White Robes.

The chamber was empty, but when I went into the hall, I saw the servant Constantine there.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “I am here to find my children.”

He looked at me, eyes wide, and would not speak. I saw a bandage at his right wrist, and his hand was missing—cut off, no doubt, as punishment for his part in my escape from the clutches of the Red Scorpion. He shook his head, his eyes downcast, and I understood from the gesture that my children were no longer in the tower.

“Where then?” I asked.

He tried to talk, but strange raspings came from him.
His tongue. They had cut it.

He pointed at me as I approached him, but I realized quickly that he pointed through me—to someone who had come out of one of the chambers down the hall.

I heard a noise—a slight whistle of metal—a dagger, flung in the air? I turned swiftly, raising the staff, and the blade that had been aimed for my back broke against the Nahhashim.

Behind me, the consort of the lady of the castle drew his sword.

5

“Corentin Falmouth,” I said to my half-brother. His face had grown gaunt over the past weeks, but he wore the look of royal smugness he had always cultivated. His hair was cut short, a fashion of the knights of the Disk, and he wore the robes of a king, though he’d been born—as was I—in the marshes at the edge of the trees and field. He reached for his sword, and I heard the whine of its blade as he drew it out. I pulled the Nameless swiftly—it formed a short sword with the flicker of fire upon it—and flung it at him and willed that the blade should find his sword-bearing wrist that he might feel the punishment meted out to the elderly servant.

The blade struck bone, and seared his flesh, then was in my grip again, for I was its master. Corentin’s sword dropped to the floor, clattering. His hand was still wrapped tight around its hilt as it fell. He leaned forward, clutching his wrist, crying out in pain.

“You’re fortunate,” I said. “You will not bleed as you have bled Constantine, for the fire of the Asmodh sword sealed your flesh and blood as it cut you.”

Corentin looked up at me, fury in his eyes, sweat pouring from his face. “You bastard son of a whore! My wrist burns now, but you will burn in the sun eternally!” He shouted for guards, and I leapt upon him, wanting to drag him then and there out to the walls and drop him to his death. But I heard the whisking of cloaks and the sound of approaching guards and knew I had no time for him.

Instead of soldiers, the Myrrydanai in their flesh garments arrived, though the skin had begun rotting as it hung from the shadows beneath their robes. A dozen White Robes moved swiftly along the corridor toward us, and several more came from the opposite direction. I lifted Corentin by the throat until his legs dangled. “Would you like to lose both hands? For your crimes, I should tear your heart out now.”

He snarled and groaned in pain, but the White Robes moved closer, their capes and robes drifting across the floor as if they had no feet, their skin drawn and battered as if they had not changed the skins of the dead for many weeks.

“
Maz-Sherah
,”
they whispered, a hundred maddening locusts tickling my ear. “
Come to us. We know you, and wish for your safety. Do not believe the lies of the Serpent, for it is the Dark Mother who seeks your blessing this night
.”

I tossed Corentin to the side and glanced at Constantine. The old man crouched on his knees in fear, covering his face and whimpering.

The White Robes drew swords from their long, heavy sleeves, and their fleshly gloves held them tightly.

“You fight as men now,” I said. “Your magick must be waning as the fire of the sun wanes at this time of year. I call to Ghorien to show himself to me.”

“
Maz-Sherah
,”
they whispered as one. “
Come to us, and we will take you to our Dark Mother that she may delight in you
.”