The Charnel Prince (51 page)

“What do you mean?”

“The first time it was a hedge maze. The second time it was a forest clearing, and on the ship it was in the midst of the forest, and dark.”

“But how? How did we come here, I mean?”

“The first time I was brought here by someone,” Anne explained. “A woman in a mask. The other times I came myself.”

Austra folded down into a cross-legged position, her brows knitted. “But—Anne,” she said, “you didn’t
go
anywhere, those other times. I wasn’t there in the womb of Mefitis, but you were still on Tom Woth, that day. And you were still on the ship.”

“I’m not sure of that,” Anne said. “I might have gone and returned.”

“I’m not certain about Tom Woth,” Austra granted her, “but I
am
sure about the ship. I didn’t take my eyes off you. That means, wherever we think we are—or wherever our shadows have gone—our bodies are still there for the knights to find and do with as they please.”

Anne raised her hands helplessly. “That may be, but I don’t know how to get back. It always just happens.”

“Well, have you ever tried? You brought us here, after all.”

“That’s true,” Anne conceded.

“Well,
try
.”

Anne closed her eyes, trying to find that place again. It was there but quiet, and seemed in no mood to stir.

Austra gasped.

Anne opened her eyes, but didn’t see anything immediately. “What is it?”

“Something’s here,” Austra said. “I can’t see it, but it’s here.”

Anne shivered, remembering the shadow man, but there were no shadows now. A warm wind was picking up, almost summery, bending the tops of the trees and ruffling the grass. It had a scent of festering vegetation about it, not exactly unpleasant.

And it blew from every direction, toward them, forcing the trees, ferns, and grass to bow as if she and Austra were lords of Elphin. And at the edge of her hearing, Anne heard the faint, wild music of birds.

“What’s happening?” she murmured.

Suddenly they came, over the treetops—swans and geese, fielies and swallows, brieches and red-Roberts, thousands of them, all swirling down into the clearing, clattering, cawing, and screeching toward Anne and Austra. Anne threw up her hands to cover her face, but a yard away the birds spiraled around them, a cyclone of feathers whirling up to cloud the sky.

After a moment, the fear faded, and Anne began to laugh. Austra looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

“What is it?” Austra asked. “Do you know what’s happening?”

“I’ve no idea,” Anne said. “But the wonder of it . . .” She needed a word she didn’t have, so she stopped trying to find it.

It seemed to go on for a long time, but the winds finally subsided and went to their quarters, taking the birds with them, leaving only the crane, still fishing for his catch. The sound of the birds faded at last.

“Anne, I’m sleepy.” Austra sighed. Her panic seemed to have left her.

Anne found her own lids suddenly very heavy. The sun was warmer now, and after the rush of events, natural and otherwise, she felt as if she had been awake for days.

“Faiths, are you here?” she asked.

There was no answer, but the crane looked up and regarded her before going back to his task.

“Thank you,” Anne said.

She wasn’t sure whom she was speaking to, or what she was thanking them for.

She woke in the horz with Austra beside her, still clutching her hand. They were both covered in severed limbs and foliage. The knights had done it—they had defiled the sacred garden. She and Austra lay at the terminus of their destructive, sacrilegious path.

Well
, she thought.
We’re not dead. That’s a start
.
But if Austra was right, and the land of the Faiths was just a sort of dream, how could their assailants have missed them?

She listened quietly for a long time, but heard nothing except the drone of an occasional insect. After a time, she woke Austra.

Austra sat up, took in their return, then mumbled a faint prayer to Saint Selfan and Saint Rieyene. “They didn’t see us,” she said. “Though I can’t imagine why not.”

“Maybe you were wrong,” Anne said. “Maybe we didn’t leave our bodies behind after all.”

“Maybe,” Austra said dubiously.

“You stay here,” Anne said. “I’ll go out and have a look.”

“No, let me go.”

“If they catch you, they’ll still come after me,” Anne said. “If they catch me, they’ll have no reason to come in after you.”

Austra reluctantly consented to that logic, and Anne went back out of the horz, walking this time through the torn and trampled vegetation.

Near the entrance she found a pool of dark, sticky liquid which she recognized as blood. There was more outside, a trail of it that abruptly stopped.

She poked around a few of the ruins, but the horsemen seemed to be gone. They weren’t on the road, either, when she climbed the hill and looked down.

Cazio, z’Acatto and the horsemen were gone.

“We have to find them,” Austra insisted desperately. “We have to.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and Anne couldn’t blame her. She’d had her own cry before going back to the horz to collect her friend.

“We will,” she said, trying to sound confident.

“But how?”

“They can’t have gone far,” Anne pointed out.

“No, no,” Austra said. “We might have been in there for a year. Or ten years, or a hundred. We’ve just been in Elphin, haven’t we? Things like that happen.”

“In kinderspells,” Anne reminded her. “And we don’t know that it’s Elphin, anyway. I’ve never been gone more than a bell or so. So we ought to be able to follow them.”

“They might have already killed Cazio and z’Acatto.”

“I don’t see their bodies, do you?”

“They might have buried them.”

“I don’t think those men are the sort likely to do such a thing. If they don’t fear the consequences of murdering an entire coven or cutting up a horz, they wouldn’t pay much mind to leaving a couple of bodies on the road. Besides, the knights had them all bound up, remember? They’re probably taking them back to their ship.”

“Or Cazio told them some clever lie about where we’d gone,” Austra suggested, sounding calmer now, “and they’re waiting to see if he told the truth before they torture him.”

“That’s possible,” Anne said, trying not to think about Cazio being tortured.

“So which way do we go?” Austra asked.

“Their ship sailed north past Duve,” Anne said. “So it seems reasonable that they came from farther up the road, the direction we’re going.”

“But Cazio would have sent them south, to keep us safe.”

“True,” Anne agreed, staring at the road in frustration, wishing she knew the tiniest thing about how to follow a trail. But even that many horsemen made little impression on such a well-traveled road, or at least none that her untrained eye could find.

But then she saw it, a small drop of blood. She walked a few paces north and found another, and another after that.

There were none to the south.

“North,” she said. “One of them was bleeding by the horz, and I guess he still is. Anyhow, it’s the only sign we’ve got.”

———«»——————«»——————«»———

In some distant age, the river Teremene had cut a gorge in the pale bones of the countryside, but he hardly seemed the sort of river to do that now. He appeared old and sluggish beneath a wintry sky, hardly troubling the coracles, barges, and sailboats on his back.

Nor did he seem resentful of the impressive stone bridge that spanned him at his narrows, or the massive granite pylons that thrust down into his waters to support it.

Anne switched her gaze to the village that rested beyond the stone span. She vaguely remembered that it was also called Teremene, and they hadn’t stopped there during their last trip on the Vitellian Way.

“Austra,” Anne asked, “when we crossed into Vitellio, there were border guards. Do you remember?”

“Yes. You flirted with one, as I recall.”

“I did not, you jade,” Anne protested. “I asked him to be more careful inspecting my things! And never mind that anyway. Were there border guards here? This is the border between Tero Galle and Hornladh. Shouldn’t there be guards?”

“We weren’t stopped,” Austra confirmed, after a moment of thought. “But we weren’t stopped when we crossed into Hornladh from Crotheny, either.”

“Right, but Hornladh is a part of father’s—” She broke off as grief bit. She kept forgetting. “Hornladh is part of the Empire. Tero Galle isn’t. Anyway, it looks like there are guards there now.”

Austra nodded. “I saw them inspecting the caravan.”

“So why the sudden vigilance?”

“The caravan is going into Hornladh, and we were leaving it. Maybe the Empire cares who comes into its territory, and Tero Galle doesn’t.”

“Maybe,” Anne sighed. “I should know these things, shouldn’t I? Why didn’t I pay more attention to my tutors?”

“You’re afraid it’s the horsemen?”

“Yes—or they may have offered a reward for us, like they did in z’Espino.”

“Then it doesn’t matter if they’re legitimate guards or not,” Austra reasoned. “We can’t take the risk.”

“But we have to cross the bridge,” Anne said. “And I was hoping, once in the Empire, we might find some help. Or at least ask if anyone has seen Cazio and z’Acatto.”

“And get something to eat,” Austra added. “The fish was tiresome, but it was better than nothing.”

Anne’s stomach was rumbling, too. For the moment it was just unpleasant, but in a day or two, it would be a real problem. They didn’t have even a copper miser left, and she had already sold her hair. That only left a few things to sell, none of which she cared to think about.

“Maybe when it gets dark,” Austra proposed dubiously.

Something moved behind them. A little rock went bouncing down the slope and past their hiding place. Gasping softly, Anne swung around to see what it was and discovered two young men with dark hair and olive complexions staring down at them. They wore leather jerkins and ticking pantaloons tucked into high boots. Both had short swords, and one of them had a bow.

“
Ishatite! Ishatite, ne ech te nekeme
!
” the man with the bow shouted.

“I don’t understand you!” Anne snapped back in frustration.

The shouter cocked his head. “King’s tongue, yes?” he said, coming down the slope, arrow pointed squarely at her. “Then you
are
the ones they look for, I bet me.”

“There’s one behind us now,” Austra whispered. Anne’s heart sank, but as the two moved closer her fear began to turn to anger.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

“Want you,” the man said. “Outlanders come by yesterday, say, ‘Find two girls, one with red hair, one with gold. Bring them or kill them, make no difference, but bring them and get much coin.’ Here I see me girl with gold hair. I think under that rag, I see hair is red.” He gestured with the weapon. “Take off.”

Anne reached up and removed the scarf. The man’s grin broadened. “Try to hide, eh? Doing not so good.”

“You’re a fool,” Anne said. “They won’t pay you. They’ll kill you.”

“You say,” the man replied. “I think not to trust you.” He stepped forward.

“Don’t touch me,” Anne snarled.

“
Eshrije
,” the other man said.

“Yes, right,” the bowman replied. “They say red-hair is witch. Better just to kill.”

As he pulled back on the bow, Anne lifted her chin in defiance, reaching for her power, ready to see what it could really do. “You will die for this,” she said.

A brief fear seemed to pass across his face, and he hesitated. Then he gasped in pain and surprise, stumbling, and she saw an arrow standing from his shoulder. He dropped his bow, groaning loudly, and the other man started shouting.

“Stand away, Comarre, and the rest of you, too,” a new voice said. Anne saw the owner, farther up the hill—a man in late middle age, with a seamed, sun-browned face and black hair gone half-silver. “These ladies don’t seem to like you.”

“Damn you, Artore,” the man with the arrow in his shoulder gritted. “This no business of yours. I saw first.”

“My boys and I are making it our business,” the older man replied.

Their attackers backed away. “Yes, fine,” Comarre said. “But another day, Artore.”

At that, an arrow hit him in the throat, and he dropped like a sack of grain. The other two had time to cry out, and then Anne found herself staring at three corpses.

“No other day, Comarre,” Artore said, shaking his head.

Anne looked up at him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, ladies,” he said. “Are you well?” He stepped closer.

Anne grabbed Austra and hugged her tightly. “What do you want?” she asked. “Why did you kill them?”