CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Caim winced as someone’s misplaced foot stepped on a branch hidden under the snow. The resulting snap echoed through the trees. The troop leader, Malig, turned around and scowled at the score of men strung out behind him. Caim thought Malig was going to bark at them, but the outlaw held his tongue. With a wave, he motioned for them to keep after him. He was learning. Finally.

From atop a small tor between two sturdy asper trees, Caim watched the column of outlaws march through the woods below. He had been drilling them for six days straight in close combat, ambush tactics, infiltration, and reconnaissance—all the things they needed if they were going to have any chance against the duke’s forces. So far, the results were slow. Each night, exhausted, he fell into a dreamless sleep that was never long enough before dawn arrived, and all the while one unavoidable truth refused to be ignored. He was the leader of a rebellion. If Hubert could see me now, he’d laugh good and hard. Caim the Knife, leader of rebels and insurrectionists.

He’d had his chance to skip out, and not taken it. That alone was enough, in his mind at least, to condemn him. But what did he hope to achieve? What would victory look like, and would any of them know if they managed to achieve it? He didn’t have the answers.

The daylight was fading. The nights were getting darker as they approached the new moon. In the old days, this would have been his preferred time to strike. The old days … Caim took a deep breath of the bracing air. His need to see Kit was bordering on desperation, not for her talents, but just to see her and talk to her again. He’d wrestled with the question of how to find her, and come up empty. Why didn’t she come back? Didn’t she see how much he needed her? Kit, if you can hear me, I need you. I’m sorry for whatever I did. Dammit, just come back.

Caim exhaled a long sigh that turned to mist in the cold air. He didn’t know what he felt about her. She was his friend. Wasn’t that enough? Things had been simpler once, though he could hardly remember when. But she wasn’t the only source of advice. He’d gone to see Caedman one night after a frustrating session with the men. The outlaw leader sat up in his bed, looking paler and thinner than the day they rescued him. When Caim laid out his problems, Caedman shook his head.

“They aren’t soldiers, Caim. They’re loggers and trappers.” Candlelight flickered across Caedman’s face, hiding some of the scars. “You can’t beat them over the heads with drills and instruction about tactics.”

Caim threw back the last of the crude mead in his cup. “They don’t listen. I spend half my time breaking up fights.”

“You have to show them what you want, Caim.”

“How do I do that?”

“Start at the beginning.”

Then, as he had made his way back to Keegan’s hut, he found Hagan sitting on the same stone as before, looking up at the moon. “You figure out what you’re doing yet, son?”

Caim stopped not far from him. “I’m not sure. Feels like I’ve been running for days, but not getting anywhere.”

“It’s not you they’re fighting.” The old man took a puff from his pipe. “It’s the witch. Our people hold to the old ways. They believe stories that the southlands pass off as myth and legend.”

When Caim didn’t understand, Hagan explained. “A long time ago, before there was a land called Eregoth, or even Nimea for that matter, another empire ruled over the land. An empire of darkness.”

Caim had heard tales of old empires before. They were all evil in the stories. But Hagan told of a dominion that spread its wickedness to every corner of the world, until there were few places of light left.

“And what happened to this dark empire?’ Caim asked.

Hagan pulled the stem of the pipe from his mouth. “Some few found the courage to fight back. And after a long struggle, the few prevailed against the many, and the Dark was pushed back. But now some think it’s come back, that the witch and her spawn are the harbingers of a new dominion.”

Caim had walked away shaking his head, but the old man’s story had lingered in the back of his mind ever since.

A ragged yell erupted below as a flight of arrows flew from the trees. Some of the padded missiles found targets among Malig’s company, but the men hit didn’t lie down like they were supposed to do in these war games. Instead, they charged at Keegan’s unit descending on them from above.

If Caim hadn’t insisted on using sticks instead of real weapons, most of the men would be dead or maimed already. Although he’d showed them again and again how to defend against attacks by employing different angles of approach and a simple system of blocks, but the woodsmen still swung their ersatz swords like wild men, bashing each other over the head, arms, legs, or any part that stuck out.

At least the fights were entertaining. Children perched in the trees to watch; women found reasons to pass by the practice area as they went about their work. Amid the trees, the skirmish had devolved into a brawl with men flinging each other into the snow and falling over each other. Caim nodded to Killian. While the older man hustled down into the melee, separating combatants and shouting for everyone to stand down, snow crunched behind Caim as Liana walked up to him.

She was another problem. He noticed the lingering gazes cast in his direction. Even her father had taken notice. A year ago he would have bedded her and enjoyed it, but with Josey in his head and Kit gone …

She handed Caim a steaming mug and watched the fracas below. “I thought you might be cold.”

“Thank you.”

Liana crossed her arms. She wasn’t wearing her heavy coat, just a leather vest over a long-sleeved gambeson and loose leggings. The bandage around her head was gone, the cut now scabbed over.

“Keegan says you talk to yourself.”

Caim swallowed a mouthful of cha and spilled a little down his chin. “What are you talking about?”

“He says at the prison, you called out to someone. Says it sounded like ‘Cat.’ Is that a Nimean god?”

Caim thought back to that chaotic night. He and Keegan had been in the atrium when Kit spoke in his head with a warning. Had he responded out loud? “Something like that,” he said.

She smiled. “I didn’t take you for a pious man, Caim.”

He shook his head. “I’m not, usually. But the gods know you and your brother have given me reason to pray.”

“I want to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“We want to train, too,” she said.

“We?”

“Yes. The other women and I. We want you to teach us how to fight so we can stand with the men.”

He looked at her again. She wore heavy boots. Her vest was too big—probably borrowed from Keegan—and her leggings were overly bulky, as if she’d pulled one pair over another for extra padding. She’s serious.

“No.”

She stood with her hands on her hips, looking too much like Kit in a snit for his comfort. “Why not? This is our fight as much as theirs.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Because we’re women?”

“In a way of speaking, yes.”

“But—”

A loud yelp snatched his attention back to the scene below. Most of the outlaws were wrestling in the snow now, and more than a little blood stained the ground. Caim handed Liana the mug. He had seen enough.

As he trotted down the hill, Caim shouted at Hoon, who held a melon-sized rock above his head as he stood over his foe.

“Put that down. Gently! Everyone else take a step back.”

The outlaws backed away from each other, trading barbs and insults. Caim found Keegan in the crowd, the youth sporting a new bruise over one eye. The scratches they’d found on his arms were disturbing, but Caim saw promise in the young man.

“Good job with your group. You kept the element of surprise and conducted an effective ambush.”

He looked around for Malig. “You! You started in a good position, but failed to keep control of your squad. As a result—”

“These sods can’t fight worth a damn!” the burly outlaw complained, glaring at everyone. He had a bloody lip and snot running from his nose.

“As a result,” Caim continued, “your group fell apart when the attack came. If this had been a real battle, you’d all be dead.”

That evoked a chorus of contention from Malig’s unit.

“They didn’t fight fair!” a skinny outlaw grumbled.

Caim walked over and jabbed the man in his bony chest. “You think the duke’s soldiers are going to fight fair?” He looked around. “You all better wake up, and soon, or your families are going to be digging a lot of graves.”

Caim held out his hand. “Give me your weapon. Everyone form a circle. Malig inside.”

The outlaws jeered as they made a ring around Malig. The outlaw swung the stout tree branch he had been using as a sword back and forth. Caim looked up to the hilltop. He didn’t want to do it, but he had to put this notion out of Liana’s head before she did something foolhardy.

He pointed. “And Liana. Get down here.”

The crowd quieted as she descended the slope. Caim handed her the stick, which she accepted with a nod.

Keegan pushed through the crowd. “Caim!”

He held up a hand. “Not now.”

“But she’s—”

Caim glared at the boy. “Take your place and watch, or get out of my sight.”

Keegan shut his mouth, but his hands gripped his wooden sword with white knuckles. Caim understood how he felt. He didn’t want to see Liana get hurt either, but this had to be done.

Liana and Malig took up places in the middle of the circle. He was a full foot taller and probably outweighed her by four or five stone. She held her weapon like a carpet-beater, hands gripped too close together, wrists bent at an awkward angle. Caim almost stopped the bout before it began. No, she needs to see this isn’t a game.

Caim lifted his hand. When Liana nodded, he dropped it.

It was over almost as fast as he anticipated. Malig came out swinging his wooden sword like he was mowing wheat. Liana backed away from his rush and couldn’t keep her feet. In a matter of heartbeats she was driven out of the circle and into a snowbank. Malig brandished his weapon to the hoots of the onlookers as he trotted around the ring.

As Liana extricated herself from the embankment, Caim wanted to ask if she was all right, but held back. He owed her the real deal. Amused chuckles arose as she stepped back into the ring.

When both fighters were in position, Caim raised his hand. This time, he didn’t wait for Liana to give the okay before he started the bout. His hands balled up into fists as Malig made a side-armed swing that would have ripped off half of Liana’s face if she hadn’t ducked away. He thought this fight was going to end the same way as the last, but to her credit, Liana darted back in and jabbed her wooden sword at Malig. The tip of her weapon touched his stomach. Then his backhanded swing caught her flush in the shoulder with a loud smack and drove her to the ground.

Keegan launched himself into the circle. Malig barely had time to turn before the youth tackled him. Caim ran over. He and Killian pulled them apart, both a little bloodied and breathing hard, but nothing serious. Caim disarmed Keegan and shoved him toward the sideline. Malig clutched his neck and shot dark glares over his shoulder as Killian walked him in the other direction.

Caim knelt down beside Liana. He expected tears in her eyes. Instead, she grinned as she sat up and rubbed her shoulder.

“Not broken, I take it,” he said.

She lifted her arm to show it wasn’t. “I want another go.”

Caim shook his head. This woman would be the death of him. “That’s not necessary.”

Liana brushed off her leggings as she stood up. “I can do better.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Damn right,” Malig growled. “I’ll knock her fool head off next time!”

Caim looked over at him. “There’s no need to go again because she won.”

“What? You must be blind. I knocked the tar out of her.”

“Yes. Right after she stabbed you through the gut.”

“That fly swat? I hardly felt it.”

“A gut wound is a slow and painful way to go. If those had been real swords, you’d be holding your insides on your lap.”

There were a few laughs from the crowd. Malig scowled at them, but Killian’s hand on his shoulder kept him in line.

“He was sloppy, the same as many of you.” Caim faced the outlaws. “You haven’t listened to a single thing I’ve tried to teach you. You think fighting is about beating down the other man with sheer strength and you’re missing the point. It’s about staying alive, about killing more of them than they kill of us. I can show you how, but only if you listen.”

They looked around at each other. A few were still frowning, but no one was arguing with him. That was a good start. I’ll take what I can get.

“All right,” he said. “Head farther down the trail and try it again, but this time Malig’s crew sets the ambush. Killian, get them set up.”

Groans echoed off the valley walls as the men marched off through the brush. Caim suppressed a sigh. It’s going to be a long day. And a long night, too. I’ll have Killian set up some night-fighting exercises.

Liana waited until the men were out of earshot. “You were trying to embarrass him. I didn’t win.”

“You won.”

“I could do better if you gave me another chance.”

Caim sighed and ran a hand over his forehead. He didn’t want to get into this with her. But she deserves to know the truth.

“Liana, you’re brave and you’ve got more brains than most of these oafs put together, but the men we’ll be facing will be bigger, stronger, and crueler than you. What’s more, they’ll have superior arms and numbers.”

“Yes, but—”

“It takes more than a few days of drills in the woods. It takes years of training and conditioning, and years more experience to know when to fight and when to run. Years we don’t have. Teaching you a few tricks and sending you off against the duke’s soldiers would mean certain death.”

“What about the men? They don’t have years of training.”

He leveled with her. “Many of them are going to die. Maybe all of them, before this is over.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “So what can we do?”

“Go fetch the women. Tell them to cut saplings this tall.” He held a hand about a foot over his head. “Strip them down to the wood. I’m going to teach you how to use the spear.”

“But the men use—”

“Don’t argue! A spear is better than a sword nine times out of ten. Now get!”

With a laugh, she ran off through the trees, back toward the castle. Caim shook his head and wondered what he’d created. He didn’t know the first thing about training women to fight. Then again, he didn’t know anything about training men either. But now they were here all together, the blind leading the blind.

Gods preserve us.

The pool’s cloudy depths swirled and eddied under her gaze, forming patterns that melded and broke away in an endless dance of shadow and light. Sybelle leaned closer and projected her will through the surface to the deeper substance underneath. It was like pushing through a wall of sludge, but then the resistance melted away and a gray void floated before her eyes.

Sybelle released the breath she had been holding. The pool had been acting strangely of late, fighting her with more than its usual tenacity. This was the third time she’d attempted to reach her agent today, and she was determined to persevere until she got what she wanted.

She needed information. Since the events at the prison almost a sennight ago, her entire world had begun to unravel. She had returned to the palace to discover that Erric had gone out to lose himself in the city’s sordid pleasure houses. After admonishing herself for the umpteenth time for not putting a geas on the man, she went back to her temple to find her priests conducting a bloodletting rite. Normally, such a ceremony would calm her nerves, but that night she had been beyond consolation. She hadn’t been able to summon the necessary hunger to partake fully and had had to content herself with the consumption of a few choice morsels. It was his fault.

The scion.

His appearance had disrupted everything. She needed to eliminate him, but that was easier contemplated than done. Again and again she’d sent the shadows hunting for him, to no avail. Now, fortified and rested, she would try another approach.

Sybelle focused her attention on the scrying pool. The one she sought was far away, and his cooperation was involuntary, which made contacting him a more demanding feat. Then, like fog whisked from the surface of a lake by a stiff breeze, the grayness resolved itself into indistinct shapes. Sybelle pushed harder and the shapes became objects. A crude table. A lantern, dark now, its reservoir almost empty. And tendrils of light—the first pale fingers of dawn through a window. She was in a small room walled in old stone blocks. She listened, and was pleased to hear the wheeze of labored breathing. Her servant lay on a wood cot. A fire burned low in a fieldstone hearth. On the opposite wall hung a shield, battered and scuffed. Through the grime she discerned a picture of some furry Brightlands beast.

Sybelle took in a deep breath, feeling it expand the lungs of her real body, and pushed. Excitement tickled her stomach as a large hand rose into her view. A man’s hand, long of finger and strong despite its wasted appearance. She focused on transmitting her command across the ether.

Turn to the window.

She watched the scene with anticipation, expecting to see the view swivel toward the morning light. Instead, it remained unchanged with only a slight wavering. Sybelle pushed harder. In her own body, the strain sent tremors shooting through her frame.

Turn!

The picture trembled as her minion fought the compulsion, but Sybelle bore down, and with agonizing slowness the view tacked to the left. The morning glow grew brighter as the edge of a window appeared, the aperture covered by a leather flap.

Stand up.

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the view rose to a higher angle. At her direction, the hand rose up again and swiped aside the window flap. Bright sunlight poured into the room. Sybelle squinted reflexively, but the light did not blind her. Of course not. These are mortal eyes.

She looked out into a wide courtyard blanketed in snow. Crude buildings—homes for peasants, she assumed—were built against a backdrop of crumbling walls. Beyond the loose ramparts loomed the sheer face of a cliff, glistening in the sunlight. She compelled her minion closer to the window and lifted his eyes. Sybelle’s breath caught in her throat as the startling vastness of the sky opened above the shack. Never had she seen the firmament with such crystalline clarity. Even swaddled in gray clouds, it was incredible.

She pulled her attention back to the task at hand. Her minion was in a canyon or deep valley, but the hills of Eregoth were riddled with gorges and ravines, many of them unknown to any map. She needed a landmark, something by which she could locate this place, but all she saw was stone and sky. She tried to lean out the window.

Sybelle gasped as she was thrust back into her body. Her heart pounded as she drew in several deep breaths. The pool bubbled and thrashed like a boiling kettle. The man had cast her out! She screeched at the walls until mortar oozed down the stone blocks. The shadows flocked around her, feeding off her rage.

As she steadied herself, images flashed through her head. Memories, but they weren’t hers. She smiled as the pictures slowed, showing her much of what she needed to see. Then she leaned over the pool and sent forth her consciousness into the cloudy waters again. This time Soloroth’s face filled the pool, and for once he wasn’t wearing his helmet. Sybelle’s anger cooled at the sight of her son’s features, his deep black eyes that looked like they could swallow her whole. She had forgotten how much he resembled his father, whom she hadn’t thought about in years. One more thing she’d left behind when she came to this horrid world. Sybelle’s gaze traced the many scars slicing across his skin, the half-missing ear on his left side. He had suffered in her service. We all suffer. It is no different for me.

“Mother.”

Trees moved past him in the background, their white-clad limbs blocking out the dim sky.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Fourteen leagues west of the city, near the first village. We have begun our first sweep of the—”

“Change direction to south by southwest and go to the Elmerton sentry post. Approach with care. I do not want the scion alerted until you are in position.”

He nodded, though his eyes remained on her. As his image faded from the waters, Sybelle contacted another agent farther west. He answered at once, but his features were unfocused, as if she were seeing him through oily glass.

“I am here, my queen.”

Sybelle allowed herself a small smile. He was one of her favorites, despite his pale skin like an undercooked fish and repulsive blue eyes. “The rebels are shut up in a secluded valley among the central peaks. Don’t stop searching until you find them.”

“Your Darkness, that terrain is treacherous. An extensive search will take—”

She slapped the water with her hand, cutting him off. “Do not make excuses.”

His shaved pate came into view as he bowed deeply. “It will be done, my queen.”

“Report back when you are finished.”

As the pool settled into opaque darkness, Sybelle dried her hands on the skirt of her gown and considered her next move. She was tired, but slumber seemed as far away as the stars. Tonight, she would lie in her bower with a stalk of lotus gathered in her arms, inhaling its dream-laced pollen.

The gong in the alcove rang.

Sybelle’s fingers froze, dangling over the dark waters. She knew by its tone that the Master was seeking her. The pool bubbled. She jerked away. She was not prepared to face him. Not now. Not until I have the scion.

She opened a portal and left the sanctum.