The Shield of Weeping Ghosts (5 page)

Everyone heard the moaning now—a chorus of wailing voices on a chilled breeze of decay. The dim torches on the ground guttered out, leaving only the tiny lights of the swarming spiders visible through the fog and growing darkness. Bastun backed toward the rest of the group as a deeper darkness crept along the edges of the barricade. Black forms distinguished themselves in the crawling shadow, twisted arms and malformed heads, incorporeal bodies that swam through a multitudinous wave of spirits.

“What evil have you summoned, vremyonni?” Syrolf whispered.

Bastun didn’t answer. Reaching Thaena’s side he waved her back.

“We have to go—now,”he said, trying to be silent, though he knew it didn’t matter against the senses of the dead. The edges of the crawling cloud reached the panicking Nar, and a second set of voices joined the moaning, the screams of the Nar just as chilling as the winter wind. The nimbus of crawling light surrounding a few of the Nar moved through the fog toward Bastun and the fang, trying to escape the grim tide of death.

Chanting and spreading a fine dust over the snow, Thaena strode forward and slammed her staff into the ground. As she completed the spell, a shimmering barrier materialized between the buildings on the right and the wall of rubble on

the left. Walking swiftly, she returned to the group and nodded to Duras.

“Now we go,” she said coldly.

The fang moved quickly back the way they had come. No one turned to watch the fate of the Nar. Only Bastun looked to see them beating against the ethran’s invisible wall as the dead engulfed them. Then Syrolf blocked his view, scowling with sword in hand to keep the vremyonni moving.

After a few blocks, losing themselves in the maze of Shandaular’s streets, Duras broke the silence.

“What is happening, Thaena? How did Nar get into Shandaular?”

The ethran didn’t answer right away, her steely gaze fixed on the road ahead. Similar questions were at the forefront of Bastun’s thoughts as well, but he wondered not how the Nar got in, rather why they would come to such a place at all.

“We’ll return to the second wall,” Thaena answered. “I remember seeing an intact gatehouse. We shall tend to our wounded and discuss the situation there.”

Duras nodded, apparently not wishing to press her further on the subject, and moved to direct the lead warriors toward the gatehouse.

Bastun noticed a trail of little spots appearing ahead of his every step—each one a bright scarlet, dripped from the wounds of the warriors. Some of them pressed against deep cuts, while others tried to disguise a slight limp. This behavior too—though a common point of pride among all berserkers—was also taken from the wolf, who would hide or attempt to ignore injury to stay with the pack. It was another reason Bastun wished he’d been one of them—and also one of the primary reasons he was not and never would be.

“You wasted no time ignoring the rules of your exile, Bastun,” Thaena said, still looking forward.

“I did what I thought best,” he replied. “I—I meant no disrespect.”

“The Nar have… changed things,” she said, her eyes scanning the shadows among the ruin, and let the matter of rules and laws drop. He too could not keep from wondering if another ambush awaited them, though his heart raced at her nearness. “The Shield s hathran may be in need of our assistance.”

“You suspect the Shield to be in danger?” he asked.

“I can imagine few other reasons for the Nar to be here, in this broken city,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “And no one comes here without a good reason.”

He said nothing else, thinking of his own reasons for being brought here and the life he might know upon leaving again. The presence of his old friends tangled his thoughts and hopes for a different life. At the moment he wished that the wychlaren had chosen someone else to lead this mission, someone he could look straight through and despise without complication.

Thaena glanced at him, her eyes unreadable within the wychlaren mask, and whispered, “Thank you, Bastun—for ignoring the rules.”

“There’s no need, Thaena, I—” he said, trying to catch her eye before she returned to careful study of the dark corners they passed, but she seemed already far distant again, “It’s nice… to hear something familiar.”

“Familiar?”

“Your voice, speaking my name,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

She looked at him once, before quickening her stride to join Duras at the head of the formation. Bastun watched her until she became just another blur in the fog, another set of anonymous footprints in the snow. Sighing, he chided himself and shook his head.

“You’re welcome,” he said under his breath.

After his sister’s funeral he had not been allowed to meet or speak with anyone before being taken away to the Running

Rocks. The wychlaren had thought it best. The rumors were spreading, and due to his magical talent he would be joining the vremyonni. They thought that with time the stories would be forgotten and that the rumors would fade away. Thaena and Duras had become a dream and Ulsera a nightmare. Seeing his old friends both now made that dream more real and his nightmare even more so—the memory that he had been the one to send Ulsera to her death.

The snow grew deeper as they walked, the footsteps before and behind Bastun growing louder and more forced. Even in the wind he could hear the return of the whispers. Glancing over his shoulder, Bastun saw Syrolf striding close on his heels as if leading an angry mob, which he likely did. The fang called him prejhenovani, or “one who summons evil”—and considering the Nar attack, Bastun felt inclined to agree. Misfortune seemed a traveling companion he could not shake.

He looked to each of the obelisks they’d passed before the ambush, and he contemplated the ash smeared in Nar symbols atop them. The warriors they’d fought could be the least of their worries if they encountered the author of those symbols.

+

(racks in the stone gatehouse were encrusted with ice unaffected by torches or the gathering warmth of so many bodies inside the lowest level. The stone had charred, but not so much as the structures within the third wall, the ones closest to the Shield where demons had swarmed among the flames and screams.

Every few moments, when wind stirred the fog, the faint silhouette of the distant fortress appeared. Bastun marveled at the endurance of such a monument—hidden for so long, forgotten by the world—and shuddered at the thought of what lay buried inside.

In a corner of the room, through a small arrow slit, he stared outside and listened for the voice of Thaena. She had taken a chamber upstairs to confer with Duras and Syrolf. It had been left to the rest of the fang to keep watch over the vremyonni while binding their wounds and using wychlaren salves to staunch bleeding. Their eyes, when they found him, left little to the imagination. They were Rashemi and Bastun had chosen not to be; the berserkers were rarely open-minded on the subject of loyalty. Sighing, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, close to a sizeable crack that reached from foundation up to the ceiling and beyond. The voices of the ethran and her warriors whispered through his mask.

“Most of the fang will be fine,” Duras said, “and they shall

be more than ready should we encounter a second ambush.”

“That is one thing I think we can be sure of,” Syrolf said. “For all we know they could be on their way here now.”

“No,” said Duras, “I don’t think they would brave pushing past the spirits we encountered to attack an enemy in a fortified position. At least, not until dawn.”

“We will not wait for dawn,” Thaena said, her voice firm. “These Nar have moved too close to Rashemen. They threaten our outpost at the Shield.”

“Is that not the least bit coincidental?” Syrolf asked. Bastun could hear him pacing as he continued. “That the Nar are here ? Now of all times ?”

No one answered, and Syrolf stopped pacing. Bastun strained to hear, curious to know if these three knew something he didn’t—or more importantly knew something that they shouldn’t.

“What do you mean?” Thaena asked.

“Considering recent events and decisions made in—”

“Just get to the point, Syrolf,” Duras said, an edge in his tone.

“The vremyonni,” Syrolf answered. “No, I mean, the exile.”

“You are suggesting that Bastun may be responsible for the Nar attack?” Thaena asked. “Ridiculous,” Duras said.

“You haven’t even considered the notion yourself?” Syrolf said. “On the ship we were attacked by rusalkas—in the presence of an ethran, no less! Now here we find Nar tribesmen and our safe paths compromised by their magic? Go downstairs and see for yourself. Not a soul down there hasn’t considered that the exile is behind whatever is going on.”

“There’s no point!” Duras said. “What could Bastun possibly gain?”

“It is not my business to think like an exile or a murderer,” Syrolf answered, “but I have some experience in trusting my

gut… and keeping a sharp eye on one who has made it clear that his loyalties do not lie with Rashemen.”

SyrolPs words hung in the air. Bastun fought the scream building in his chest, the pressure of his frustration almost too much to bear as he pretended to doze against the wall.

“Bastun is not a murderer,” Duras said at length, his voice low, but Bastun could hear a menacing tone behind the words. He could imagine the burning stare between the two.

“And you know this for sure?” Syrolf said. “As I heard the tale, the evidence at the vremyonni’s trial told an uneven tale. The theft of several scrolls? He didn’t have them, but he knew what was in them. I heard they spoke of Shandaular. The death of Keffrass? No solid evidence, but he was the only one there. He stood at that trial, with the sole possession of his dead master in his hands, and requested to be exiled. A sentence traditionally carried out here in this place. He knew exactly where he would be taken.”

“Do you question the judgment of your superiors, Syrolf?” Duras’s voice rose further.

“Should I even bring up what they say about his sister—?”

“Enough!” Thaena snapped, and the pair fell silent.

Bastun gripped his staff tighdy in trembling hands, his thumb resting in the weapon’s narrow scar as he counted his heartbeats one by one until they slowed. Though Syrolf had said little of the details, Bastun’s thoughts raced with memories of the past.

“I apologize, ethran,” Duras said. ‘

Syrolf said nothing. Thaena walked toward the wall closest to Bastun, just above him. He imagined she looked out over Shandaular from thŁ arrow slit there just as he had. She could surely feel as well as he that something was amiss in the fragile order the wychlaren had established in Shandaular. The Weave was strong in the city, but wild and wavering, as if it were reacting to some old wound. Their spells had worked well enough, but the taste and feel of the magic was different. Like a warning.

“We have little reason to suspect Bastun of any involvement with the Nar,” Thaena said.

“I disagree, ethran,” Syrolf said. “We should—”

“But,” Thaena continued, quieting the warrior, “he has chosen his exile, for whatever reason, and cannot be viewed as loyal to Rashemen because of it. It is not in my nature to trust such a man or to respect his choice, but I will also not place blame on him every time I stub my toe. Our mission was to bring him to the Shield for examination by the hathran and then to see him away to the west, never to return.

“That still is our mission, but we must also work to eliminate any threat to Rashemen by discovering why the Nar are here and what they have done. If my sisters are threatened we are dutybound to assist them. We will have no summary executions unless the charges are backed by solid evidence. But we will also not be lax in our observation of the exile.”

Thaena let her words sink in. Neither warrior responded.

“Am I understood?”

Bastun could only assume they agreed quietly, for the conversation ended. He opened his eyes and looked once again into the fog outside. He had to keep watching, for the faces of Ulsera and Keffrass were there when he closed his eyes. There had been fog on the day of Ulsera’s funeral. It had been the last time he’d seen his parents. On the day of Keffrass’s funeral he had been alone.

With ghosts and shadows residing in his mind, it took a few moments to realize that something was moving outside. He blinked and sat up, watching two faint figures stumble and push through the snow.

Guards outside the gatehouse called a warning and hailed the approaching figures. Several of the fang jumped to their feet and grabbed weapons as they rushed outside. Unwatched for the moment, Bastun got up and followed after them.

The wind whipped at his braided hair and robes as he neared the huddled figures who had fallen to their knees

before the Rashemi warriors. Wrapped in a blanket, Bastun could make out a woman and a man, but as the woman raised her face into the torchlight he paused, stepping back and staring.

The woman’s mask was elaborately decorated, as most wychlaren masks were, but in the details were the markings of a very different magic: forbidden symbols and runes that only graced the masks of the wychlaren’s bitter rivals—the durthans.

The fang helped the woman to her feet. Seeing her mask they treated her with all the respect due to a hathran. Her companion, a pale-skinned man with sharp features, hung close by, warily watching their would-be rescuers. Bastun gritted his teeth. Loosening his fingers, he prepared to defend himself, the Weave tingling across his knuckles.

As the visitors were being led toward shelter Thaena came from the gatehouse, followed by Duras and Syrolf. Seeing the stern glare of the ethran, they halted. Bastun breathed a sigh of relief as Thaena approached, her forearms crossed defensively. She had seen as quickly as he.

“Hold her!” she commanded. The warriors complied, though hesitantly. “Keep her still. She is not one of us.”

The durthan stood tall, confident as Thaena studied her.

“Lady Ethran, I—” the woman began.

“Your formality is not required, durthan,” Thaena said, ignoring the shocked glances of the berserkers. “We both know that my status among the wychlaren means nothing to you.”