The man gave no sign he'd heard. Gavril took another step. Then he stopped. He quickly cast the spell to relight his fingers, which meant removing one hand from his sword, and Moria scanned the grass for any sign of an ambush. When Gavril let out a curse, she hurried forward.
As Moria approached, Gavril drew his hand into a fist, all but extinguishing the magical glow, yet not before she saw the wagon driver. Or at least, saw the bloody mess that she knew was the driver only by those beaded braids. His clothing was shredded and caked in dirt and blood. His nose seemed pushed into his face, as if it had collapsed on itself. One eye was . . . unmoored.
"He's been trampled," she whispered. "He freed the horses, and they trampled him."
The man's good eye stared as if dead, but he exhaled, the sound wheezing through collapsed lungs. Moria dropped beside him and put her hands to his chest. It was caved in, ribs broken, one pushing through skin, blood soaking his tunic. Still she pressed her hands against his heart.
"I can't tell . . ." she said. "Blast it, I'm no healer."
"I believe he is beyond that," Gavril said, his voice low, as if hoping the man could not hear. Moria suspected that even if he could, he didn't understand them. His head had been bashed in on the same side, blood and gray matter oozing out. Yet he lived. Clearly, he breathed, so he must--
"Moria!"
The man's right hand rose, his fingers curved and twisted, like claws. Moria saw that and flashed back to her father--
The whistle of a blade. The thwack of steel cutting through flesh and bone, and the man's hand sailed free of his body. She leaped up, staggering back as the wagon driver's body bucked and flailed, the stump of his arm thrashing, bloodless. His other arm pulsed, as if trying to change itself into the claw-like thing but finding itself unable to complete the transformation, crushed and nearly severed by the horse's hooves.
Gavril's sword sailed up, ready to strike the killing blow, but Moria said, "Wait!"
"It's--" he began.
"A shadow stalker. Which means you cannot kill it with that. We're safe at a distance--it can't fully manifest when the body is ruined, and it seems trapped inside. I can banish it but . . ." Her gaze crossed the open land. "Where there's one . . ."
"Yes, of course. Conserve your powers."
They stepped back onto the path. Gavril's gaze lingered on the wagon driver.
"His spirit has fled," Moria said. "He is at peace."
"I wasn't--"
"You're allowed to express concern for a fellow human being, Gavril. No one will judge you for it." When he opened his mouth, she said, "No one here will judge you for it."
He nodded. "Thank you."
"Let's look around."
NINETEEN
They walked in ever-widening circles around the wagon. There were no other bodies. No other signs of death. Nor of shadow stalkers. What they feared most was discovering the other form, the shadows and fog that could possess a man--or rip him to pieces. Moria's powers allowed her to protect them against that, but she did not care to test how long it would last. Yet they saw no sign of fog or shadow.
"The horses are gone," she said. "The livestock in Edgewood had vanished, too. Is that part of the sorcery?"
Gavril shook his head. "Creatures will flee ahead of the shadow stalkers if they can. They sense them, much as you seem to."
"I'm not sure I--"
"You've come to recognize their presence. It's a matter of trusting and understanding that, which we will work on later."
He'd taken the lead while they crested a rise, being nearly a head taller and thus able to see over it sooner. She stared at his back as he said they'd work on it later, as if they were back in the Wastes and nothing in the interim had happened. And truly, at this moment, that was how it felt. As if all the lies and the betrayals and the pain belonged to some half-remembered nightmare.
Complicated.
Yes, it was indeed.
"So the horses fled in panic," she said.
He nodded.
"And we did not hear them? Did not hear the bandits trying to control them or free them before they injured themselves? Did not hear a man trampled to death?"
"I . . . I don't know how. Only we did not. The explanation isn't important."
"Is it not?" she said. "We just saw a shadow stalker, Kitsune. They do not randomly occur in nature."
He slowed, as if only just considering this, and she sighed. "If there are shadow stalkers, then there is a sorcerer who raised them to attack our wagon, and likely magics that kept us both sleeping and safe. It must be someone who is on your father's side, mustn't it? I presume this is not common sorcery."
"No, it is not." His voice was low, his words slow, as if working them through.
"Well, then, how many sorcerers would know it? Since there is no chance we've just happened to stumble on your father himself, out here in the middle of the steppes."
"I believe we are on the edge of the steppes."
Her sigh bordered on a growl now. "That is not my point, Kitsune."
"I know. Just . . . I did not consider . . . The problem is--"
He stopped suddenly and one hand shot up, warning her back. Then he gripped his sword with both hands, and she heard the sound of something being dragged over the hard earth.
"Help me."
The words came muffled and soft, and if it had not been completely silent on the plain they'd not have heard them. The voice came from the same direction as the dragging sound, and they both looked over but saw only the grass. Then the grass swayed as something moved through it.
"Who's there?" Gavril said.
"Help . . ." A garbled sound. "Help."
"Stay where you are," Gavril said.
"Help--"
"Stop moving. We will come to you."
The grass went still. Gavril waved for Moria to circle around while he approached straight on. He kept his gaze fixed on the spot where they'd last seen the grass move while Moria scanned the plain. Both drew steadily nearer until they could see it was Toman. Leader of the bandits.
Gavril took one look at him and said, "Moria! Back! He's--"
"No, he's not possessed," she said. "This is not the same."
Toman was indeed misshapen. Not twisted and wizened but inflated, his skin stretching like an overfilled waterskin. His clothing had split at the seams, flesh bulging through the gaps, some of it ripped and oozing. His face was nearly as unrecognizable as the wagon driver's had been, his eyes and mouth almost lost in bloated flesh.
Gavril stared in horror as Toman's distended arms reached toward Gavril's boots, his fingers digging into the ground as he pulled himself forward. Toman lifted his head, wobbling on his neck, as if he could no longer support it.
"Help me," he said.
Gavril started to look over at Moria, then stopped and squared his shoulders, as if deciding not to seek her opinion in this, not to ask for her complicity. He lifted his sword.
"Keeper?" he said. "Turn away." Then, "Please."
She did. She heard the sound of steel cutting flesh and bone and then a distant growl, and she spun to see Gavril with both hands gripping his bloodied blade, Toman's head at his feet, severed from his body. Gavril breathed hard, his eyes shut. And behind him--
"Gavril!"
A growling figure flew over the ridge. A shadow stalker. She launched her daggers, one after the other, and both hit their target and stopped the stalker just as it came within arm's length of Gavril.
Gavril's sword was already in flight. It hit the thing at the waist and cleaved clean through it. Both halves of the shadow stalker fell. Then the upper half began to twitch, and the thing launched itself at Gavril as Moria caught the back of his tunic and yanked him away.
The shadow stalker's torso continued toward them, dragging itself on twisted arms as it gnashed its teeth.
"Begone!" Moria said, focusing her energy on the creature. "In the name of the goddess and the ancestors, begone."
It continued coming as they backe
d away and as Moria commanded the spirit to leave, which only seemed to antagonize it. Finally, it dug its clawed hands into the earth and hurled itself again at them, and she shouted, "Begone!" and the thing dropped to the ground as a cloud of fog swirled up from it. Moria pulled Gavril to her, but the cloud made no move to come for him as it whirled up in the air and disappeared into the night.
"Anger," Gavril said. "That's what it needs. Anger and force."
She looked at him, not comprehending, but he was gazing out over the plain, surveying it for more trouble.
"Your banishing power," he said when he caught her look. "You need to infuse it with anger and force. Command them to leave with full authority and confidence. Clearly you have no shortage of either. Simply channel that better when you are banishing."
This was, she could point out, not the time for a post-battle analysis, and in the past she'd have bristled at it. But she knew by now there was no insult intended. He was unnerved, and this was how he calmed himself.
"And I must learn not to be so disturbed by . . ." He glanced down at Toman's decapitated corpse. "By what I must do."
"It was the most merciful way."
"Hmm."
He started to return his sword to its scabbard, his gaze still distant.
"Clean your blade, Kitsune," she said.
"Hmm?"
She pointed to Toman. "We have seen that condition before. The creature in the Forest of the Dead. The one you claimed was a natural evolution for the environment."
"The quilled rodent?"
"Yes. Tyrus and I saw rats at Fairview that were the same. Bloated and misshapen. I believe it is a byproduct of the magics. I killed one with my dagger and Tyrus insisted on cleaning it to be safe. You ought to do the same."
He nodded and began wiping it on the grass as she retrieved her daggers from the dead shadow stalker.
"This is not one of the bandits," she said.
Gavril looked closer at the shadow-stalker-abandoned corpse. "You are correct," he said, as if with some surprise.
She gave him a look. "Thank you. So it seems we are stuck in the middle--sorry, the edge of the steppes--with no horses and a useless wagon and a landscape populated by shadow stalkers. If they are indeed raised by some confederate of your father's, then we should be safe enough. We simply need to find this sorcerer and turn ourselves in to him to be returned to your father and resume our original mission. However, the fact that it"--Moria waved at the shadow stalker--"attempted to attack you suggests we are not safe at all. What is going on here, Kitsune?"
"I . . . I'm thinking."
"If you do it aloud, perhaps I can help. Unless you still think me a dull-witted Northerner."
"I only said that to needle you."
"You also did it in front of your father."
"As I said, it was to convince him you were not intellectually capable . . ." He stopped and scowled at her. "You're needling me now, Keeper. Playing on my guilt to make me share my thoughts."
"I do not believe I am intellectually capable of such cunning--"
"Enough. You asked who else could do this, and that is the problem I am working out. As far as I know, the magics are my father's alone. He spent three summers living well beyond the empire's borders to learn this particular sorcery, and he claims to have killed the man who taught him."
"Were there other students?"
"Others who would spend over thirty moons studying for one purpose? Who would have the power and the will to do such a thing? Very few, and no chance that another has coincidentally arrived in the empire and begun also raising shadow stalkers."
"So it must be your father."
"But how? Why?" He brushed back his braids impatiently. "This makes no sense, Moria." He waved at the dead shadow stalker. "He makes no sense. Where did he come from? My father carefully guards the warriors he has raised."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know. The point--"
She stepped in front of him. "No, the point is exactly what I'm asking, Kitsune. This man is not dressed as one would expect in this climate. Is it reasonable to think he might have come from Fairview?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then he did not simply wander off from the others and appear here. You say you do not know where your father keeps his army of the undead?" She waved across the land. "How about here?"
"I cannot imagine we have stumbled . . ."
He trailed off as she started back toward the wagon.
Gavril stalked after her. "What have I done now?"
"Nothing, which is the problem. It is night. There are shadow stalkers. Discussing the situation with you has proved tedious. I am taking action. Food, water, perhaps a lantern if I can find it. Then I am walking until I find a settlement. If you wish to be useful, help me find supplies. Including a sharpening stone or another sword for you. We will almost certainly encounter more shadow stalkers, and the only ways to stop them are banishment and hacking them to bits. We must be ready."
TWENTY
Gavril did as he was told. But the moment they set out, as dawn began coloring the horizon, he renewed their conversation as if they hadn't paused.
"My problem with your scenario is that it lacks plausibility and probability, Keeper," he said as they passed the wagon driver, the shadow stalker still seemingly caught within his battered corpse.
"Note that," she said, pointing as the thing reared up at them, hissing. "The shadow stalker is trapped. Why? They've seemed to be able to come and go at will before."
"Perhaps it is the condition of the corpse. The creature entered it and, unable to mobilize it, could not exit either."
"I think there is more to it than that. But for now, simply make note."
Gavril had fallen behind to examine the thing. Now he caught up. "As I was saying, what are the chances that our wagon just happened to pass near where my father is keeping his army?"
"Is it not also near where he was keeping--?" She broke off.
"My mother."
"I did not mean to remind you."
Silence for the next fifty paces. Then he said, "I take your point. However--"
"Halt."
A growl of frustration. "I want to discuss this--"
"And I said halt. Not stop talking."
She stopped several paces behind and was looking about when a shadow stalker shot from behind a stand of bushes. It ran toward them. Or attempted to. Its gait was oddly uneven, and it moved in a staggering, stumbling run they could easily outpace.
"Save your sword, Kitsune," Moria said. "Let me practice on this one."
She worked on banishing it while staying out of its way. She tried various methods. Speaking the words aloud. Saying them in her head. Shouting. Whispering. Invoking the ancestors. Invoking the goddess. She saved one method for last, and when it worked, she turned to Gavril.
"You are correct. The wording and the invocation do not matter as much as the force of my delivery. And you can stop clutching your sword like that. You don't need to cleave anything in two. Not yet."
As she walked to the fallen body, she saw why the thing had moved so awkwardly. It was barefoot, and its soles were worn to bone. She flipped the corpse onto its back. The dawn light hit it, and she reeled.
"Jonas?" she breathed.
"What?" Gavril sheathed his blade and stepped closer.
The creature's face had contorted beyond recognition, but scar tissue marred one forearm. He had dark skin, only a few shades lighter than Gavril's, and close-cropped curly hair. Her gaze slid back down to his feet and she imagined shabby boots, already on their way to the dust heap. She would not forget those boots. They were the last thing she'd seen of Jonas, as he'd been dragged into the undergrowth in the Forest of the Dead. She'd lunged, trying to catch them as he disappeared.
Now her gaze rose again to his arm and she touched the scars. "He told me he'd burned it saving a child from a fire."
Gavril snorted. "No, he . . ." He shifted his weight. "Yes, I'm certain
that's how it happened."
"I'm certain it is not. He was a warrior trying to impress a girl, in a village with too many warriors and not enough girls. I heard many stories. Jonas was kind, though. Too old to be eyeing girls barely past their sixteenth summer, but he was kind." She laid his hands on his chest and then stood. "We have seen one man likely from Fairview and another we can both attest was from Edgewood. Do you still doubt your father's army is housed nearby?"
"While I do not like the sheer magnitude of the coincidence, I would accept it if it were not for a bigger question, Keeper. Why are we encountering them here?"
"Is it possible your father has indeed found us, and he thinks you've betrayed him, and this is his punishment? Perhaps not to harm you but to frighten you with the possibility?"
Gavril said nothing, and when Moria glanced over, his gaze had gone blank. Deeply immersed in his thoughts. A look flickered over his face, but he blinked hard and it vanished. He motioned for them to resume walking, and they did.
"It is certainly not impossible that my father would attempt to frighten me," he said. "He did so many times in my youth. But he takes too great a risk here. I am his only heir. There is little point in winning an empire if one cannot launch a dynasty. With both his age and his past . . . performance, he is not foolish enough to believe he can father more sons. That is why I can get away with some degree of disrespect. Yet there is a limit, as I've learned. My sons could be his heirs as well as I could. He has threatened me with that when I am overtly impudent."
"Threatened you with what? Forcing you to father children? I'm hardly an expert in the matter, but my rudimentary knowledge of the process suggests that would be difficult."
She swore Gavril flushed. Impossible to tell with his skin tone, of course, but his expression said if he was a Northerner, he'd be as red as a summer plum.
"My father would not threaten it if there was not a way," he said. "A potion or a spell." When she stared at him, he said, "My father knows more magics than simply raising the dead."
"I do not doubt that. Even alcohol can influence behavior. My shock, Kitsune, comes from the fact that after receiving such a threat, you still believed he had no intention of actually forcing you to marry me."
"He did not. As he said, it was a matter of political posturing."
"And he would never insist on your marrying me to accomplish the other purpose?"