Sturdy wooden posts had been set upright in the mysterious holes surrounding the dry basin at the head of the ledges. A few men were still at work clearing debris from the area.
“There are plenty of good vantage points up on those rocks, but I bet they’ll have men up there,” Alec whispered.
“We’ll manage something. Beshar will most likely be up there, behind those posts. Look for a place that will give you the best shot at her.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hit the bitch.”
Seregil glanced at Alec in surprise and saw a hardness in his expression that had never been there before.
Soon more men began to wander up from the camp. Hurrying back to the pine, they found Micum there ahead of them. He held a finger to his lips as they entered, then pointed to Nysander kneeling in the center of a dancing circle of white sparks. Inside the circle he’d scraped back the pine needles and scratched a complex pattern of symbols into the packed earth beneath.
Eyes half-lidded, Nysander was calmly weaving shining figures in the air. He had stripped to his breeches and covered his arms, chest, and face with designs drawn in blue ink. A horizontal band of black paint across his eyes gave him an uncharacteristically barbaric appearance. In front of him, Alec’s bow and quiver lay amid a clutter of bowls, wands, and parchments.
Alec and Seregil hesitated at the edge of the light circle, but Nysander motioned for them all to enter. Once inside, they smelled the scent of magic mingling with the aroma of the pine like the faint, rich odor left behind in a cupboard where spices had once been stored.
“The eclipse will begin soon,” said Nysander, taking up a brush and a bowl of black paint. “This band across your eyes will ward off the blinding effects of it, even at the full. Unless the Plenimarans take similar precautions, it may work to our advantage.”
Nysander painted a heavy band across each of their faces, then set the bowl aside. “Now, if you would hand me your weapons.”
Using several colors of pigment, Nysander painted a few small sigils on each blade. He took the longest over Seregil’s sword, covering it from hilt to tip with a line of tiny figures that flickered and disappeared as soon as they were completed.
“What’s all this?” Micum asked.
“Just some necessary magicking. The dyrmagnos is not the only one with protective magic. Kneel with me here, close together, and hold out your hands.”
Gathering them in a small circle, Nysander painted their palms with concentric circles of black, red, brown, and blue, then instructed them to press their raised palms to those of the person on either side of them. Seregil was on the wizard’s right, Alec to his left, with Micum closing the chain.
The moment the circle of hands was complete they were enveloped in a sudden sensation of tingling warmth that raised the hairs on their arms and made their eyes water. A collective shudder ran through them as the feeling swelled and faded away.
Nysander was the first to lower his hands. “It is done.”
The paint was gone. In its place each of them bore a complex pattern of red and gold on each palm.
“The great sigla of Aura,” Seregil murmured, touching his left palm.
“What is it, some kind of protection?” asked Alec.
“It will not keep you from being wounded. It is to protect your soul,” Nysander explained. “If any of us are killed today, the Eater of Death will not have us. The design will fade from sight in time, but the protection is permanent.”
Seregil regarded his hands with a humorless, lopsided grin. “Well, that’s one less thing for us to worry about.”
At that moment, less than two miles to the north, Beka Cavish shivered suddenly when a sharp tingle passed through her as she tethered her horse with the others.
“You all right, Lieutenant?” asked Rhylin, who’d been out scouting the Plenimaran camp with her.
“Guess a snake must’ve crawled across my shadow.” The strange sensation passed as quickly as it had come, except for a slight tingling in her gloved hands. Flexing them, she walked over to where Braknil and the others sat waiting in the shadow of a gully.
They had preparations to make.
An hour before noon a tiny, curved paring disappeared from the lower edge of the sun.
“There it goes,” Seregil whispered as he and Micum lay in a brush thicket overlooking the temple.
The dry pool near the head of the cove had been cleared of all debris and painted with white symbols neither he nor Micum had ever seen before. More symbols had been outlined between each of the fourteen posts set into the rock and a large square had been painted to contain the entire site.
The sacrificial victims huddled under close guard on the rocks above the pool. Slightly apart from these, Thero stood between two of Tildus’ men. He was dressed in wizard’s robes, but below its full sleeves Seregil caught a glimpse of metal on Thero’s wrists.
“Well, he’s alive but they’ve got him under control again.”
“Too bad,” muttered Micum. “My guess is we could use his help before this is over.”
Twenty soldiers stood formed up in ranks before the captives, unlit torches piled at their feet. A brazier stood nearby, filling the air with fragrant smoke.
Mardus sat on the white marker stone, studying a parchment. He was dressed in ceremonial splendor for the occasion; beneath his sweeping black cloak, his burnished cuirass and gorget glinted with gold chasing.
As Seregil and Micum watched, the dyrmagnos stepped from the trees and the failing sunlight glinted from the jewel work on her veil and gown.
“Don’t they just make a handsome pair.” Micum glanced up at the sun again. “Nysander said the eclipse would take about an hour. Looks like you were right about it matching the tide. It’s already as high as it was yesterday and still coming in.”
“Come on then, time to get started.”
• • •
Irtuk Beshar laid a wizened hand on Mardus’ sleeve. “The conjunction has begun, my lord.”
Mardus glanced up from the document he’d been studying. “Ah, yes. Tildus!”
“Yes, my lord?” Never far from his master, the bearded captain stepped forward.
“Pass the word, Tildus; the eclipse has begun. Remind the men to avoid looking at it, particularly once it’s complete.”
Tildus snapped a quick salute and strode off.
The tide was climbing steadily toward the pool and with it came a warm breeze smelling of rock weed and salt.
Soon enough it would smell of blood, Mardus thought with satisfaction.
When all his men were in position, he strode down into the temple, his black war cloak sweeping out behind him. The waves were surging close to the dry basin now, and lines of foam ran ahead up the two narrow fissures that contained the carvings. He paced a slow circuit around the declivity, then moved to stand on the landward side of it and raised a hand. Trumpeters at the head of the ledges blew a blaring fanfare.
Irtuk Beshar stepped from the trees above at the head of a small procession. First came silent Harid Yordun bearing the carved chest containing the elements of the Helm. Behind him, soldiers led four unblemished white heifers with the symbol of Dalna painted on their brows and four young black bulls bearing the sign of Sakor. These were followed by large wicker cages containing four gulls and four large brown owls, symbolic of Astellus and Illior.
Harid placed the chest reverently at the landward edge of the dry pool and the animals were divided, one of each sort at the four corners of the great square.
Irtuk Beshar moved slowly from one group to another, laying hands on the beasts. They sank dead beneath her touch and were immediately gutted and piled in reeking heaps.
Lifting her arms to the sky, she threw back her head and shouted in the ancient necromantic tongue, “Agrosh marg venu Kui gri bara kon Seriami. Y’ka Vatharna prak’ot!”
Tongues of shimmering, unnatural fire flared up from the piles of carrion. The assembled soldiers cheered at the sight of it.
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The sun was a thin, inverted crescent now against the leaden purple sky. Beneath it, the long tail of the comet hung like an evil, slitted eye. Shadows blurred and faded in the uncertain light, lending a strange flatness to the landscape. Birds that had been singing noisily since dawn gradually faltered to silence except for the occasional puzzled hooting of doves and the rasping croak of a lone raven.
Water surged up the fissures and spilled into the rock basin. Mardus signaled to the guards standing over the prisoners. Ten frightened men were dragged forward, stripped, and tied to the posts. With Irtuk Beshar chanting tonelessly behind him, Mardus drew his dagger and slit their throats in quick succession. They died quickly, these first ones, their blood flowing down to stain the swirling waters of the salt pool.
As the last sliver of sun narrowed to an edge, a raucous clatter suddenly came from all sides. An immense flock of ravens appeared out of the surrounding gloom, croaking and sawing in a cloud of black wings as they settled on tree and ledge and post top. At the same moment, crabs of every size and color came boiling up out of the water. Sidling up the rocks, they swarmed over the piles of dead animals and the corpses, feeding greedily.
Cries of terror burst out among the remaining prisoners. Tildus barked orders and the torchbearers lit their brands at the brazier. The whole ghastly scene leapt into sharper relief.
No one, not even the dyrmagnos, noticed when the three guards stationed on the northern promontory were jerked back out of sight. Any sound they may have made was lost in the general outcry below.
Carrion eaters. Eaters of the dead, thought Seregil as he, Alec, and Micum shoved the men they’d just killed into the undergrowth behind them. The black stripes across their faces gave them all a deadly, feral look as they belly-crawled back to the edge of the overlook where Nysander was keeping watch.
The moon overtook the last curve of the sun and a hazy corona burst out around it. The black disk hung framed in light, like a baleful, glaring eye. The burning arc of the plague star, visible now in the darkened sky, glowed just below it.
With every surge of the surf, water foamed into the stone hollow at Irtuk Beshar’s feet.
The dead men were cut from the posts and thrown onto the offal pile. Ten women took their places and Mardus’ knife flashed again, severing their cries.
Seregil winced. It was agonizing to watch and not act. Beside him, Alec clenched his hands around his bow, eyes wide with horror.
“How can we just lay here and watch them die?” he hissed.
Nysander was on Alec’s other side and Seregil saw him close a hand over Alec’s. “Think of how many will die if we fail,” the wizard reminded him. “Be strong, my boy. Let nothing distract you.”
Raising her hands toward the sky, Irtuk Beshur began to chant again, her cracked, dry voice loud above the rush of the sea. More victims were dragged forward to the edge of the pool and beheaded by swordsmen, who then held the bodies so that the blood still pumping from the severed necks fell into the water.
Mardus opened the chest and lifted out the crystal crown. Taking it from him, Beshar held it up to the sky a moment, then cast it into the surging waters of the pool. Next came a plain iron hoop, then the crude clay bowl.
“It is almost time,” whispered Nysander.
Seregil gripped Alec’s arm. “Shoot true, talí.”
Alec pressed a white-fletched arrow to his lips. “I will, talí,” he whispered back, blue eyes glinting fiercely under the black paint.
Holding that image in his heart, Seregil hurried away after the others.
Alec gripped the arrow in his fist, feeling the power in it. The sound of the sea now was the sound from his nightmares, but this time the arrow had a head.
Looking down, he saw the dyrmagnos scatter the handful of wooden disks into the water. As the last one sank from sight the face of the pool went still and glassy. The tide still surged and thundered to its edge, but the power of the dyrmagnos kept any more water from flowing into the pool, which was now full. Like a dark mirror, it reflected the black eye of the sun.
The dyrmagnos raised her hands above it and began a new chant. A man was brought forward and thrown down on his back at her feet. Soldiers held him by the hands and feet and Harid Yordun came forward with the black ax.
Alec wanted desperately not to watch as he hacked the man’s chest open, but he knew he must not look away for an instant.
Harid cut out the heart and threw it into the water. Quick, skirling ripples appeared and faded on its glassy surface as if a flock of swallows had darted past. Another heart was thrown in, and the ripples reappeared, more numerous this time.
Alec felt a silent tremor roll through the stone he was lying on. It came again as the ax rose and fell, growing to a steady rhythm like the pounding of a labored heart.
The pool went black and dull as tar. Tendrils of mist rose from it, and with them came disembodied moans that echoed softly on all sides.
Seregil recognized those ghostly voices, remembered standing over the crown as his blood fell into ice and crystal while they whispered around him. Crouched with the others now behind a fallen tree near the waterline, he saw shifting, half-formed shapes gathering out of the gloom beyond the torches, mingling restlessly with the vaporous exhalations of the pool. The black water began to swirl as if stirred with a dyer’s paddle. The spirit voices grew louder, sighing and shrieking. Wraiths buffeted them, plucking at their clothing and weapons, twitching strands of hair. The air thickened perceptibly, muting what little light remained. Nysander sketched a quick sigil on the air and the wraiths retreated.
Working their way into the woods without being seen by the sentries, they followed the road to the head of the cove.
“Be ready,” the wizard whispered. “It is nearly time.”
Something slipped coldly across Alec’s back beneath his tunic. The weird disturbances in the air were worse now, tenuous but too insistent to be denied. Spectral forms, half-seen from the corner of the eye, brushed light as cobweb against his face, only to flit out of sight when he tried to look at them directly.
The soldiers’ torches flared green and spit off fragments of flame that skittered like rats around the edge of the pool before being sucked up into the column of ghostly mist that was forming over the roiling pool. Up and up it rose, thrusting a twisting grey pillar flecked with tongues of fire into the burnt sky. It stood over the pool for a long moment, spirit forms darting around and through it, then a single blue-white bolt of lightning forked down through its center with an apocalyptic roar, blasting the pool into an explosion of steam and rock fragments.
Soldiers fell to their knees, covering their faces in terror. The ravens rose in a screaming cloud, adding their raw voices to the din. From the direction of the road came the frenzied screams of the horses tethered there, and the clatter of carts being dragged off as the panicked beasts bolted. The mist slowly rolled back, revealing a shattered, steaming hole where the pool had been.
With a shout of triumph, Irtuk Beshar climbed down into it and retrieved something from the water and rubble. Straightening again, she raised a helmet in both hands with a screech of sheer triumph.
The bulging, peaked top and nasal of the helm were fashioned of dull iron but it was circled at the brow with a wide circlet of ruddy gold. This band was set around with eight dull blue stones and surmounted by a bristling crown formed from eight twisted black horns. A curtain of black mail hung down from the back of the Helm and skeletal, long-taloned hands served as the cheek guards.
Climbing out, she held it up before Mardus and launched into an invocation of some kind. Although Alec did not understand her language, he recognized two words: “Seriamaius” and “Vatharna.”
Alec drew the bowstring to his ear.
Before he could loose the shaft, however, shouting broke out in the forest to the south. All eyes turned to see the bright glow of fire above the tops of the trees in the direction of the camp.
Mardus drew his sw
ord and shouted an order, sending half the guards off in the direction of the disturbance. Still clutching the helm, Irtuk Beshar gabbled urgently at him.
Time slowed to dreamlike unreality as Alec rose to his feet and took aim again at the dyrmagnos. Ghostly forms imposed themselves between him and his target, swirling around him to buffet and natter but he ignored them, concentrating on his shot.
Shoot true, talí.
“Aura Elustri málreil,” he whispered.
The black bow quivered like a live thing under his hand as he drew it, calling on every ounce of power the Radly possessed. When the nock was level with his ear he released it. The fletching nicked his cheek as it flew, carrying a drop of his blood away with it.
The arrow sped straight and true as any shaft he’d ever loosed, and made a sound like a sudden crack of summer thunder when it struck Irtuk Beshar in the chest just below her throat. The impact spun her like a broken doll. The Helm fell from her hands, tumbling back into the blasted pool.
“And now you, you bastard!” Alec yelled, taking aim at the startled Mardus.
But an arrow buzzed by his head, spoiling the shot. Another whined past and he dropped for cover as pandemonium broke out below. Still clutching his bow, he scrambled to the edge of the outcropping to see what was going on.
Arrows flew from all directions, but most found targets among the Plenimarans. By the wavering light of the fallen torches Alec could just make out a small group of archers on the high ground opposite where he lay. They were shooting down at the exposed men below. In the melee, he saw Seregil and Micum dashing down over the rocks with their swords drawn, closing in on the wounded dyrmagnos.
Mardus was nowhere to be seen, so Alec turned his attention to the soldiers, shooting two in rapid succession before he was momentarily blinded by a brilliant flash of light that flared among the prisoners.
As his vision cleared, he saw Thero standing over the smoking bodies of several dead soldiers, but apparently unaware of the armed man coming at his back.
The wounding of the dyrmagnos must have weakened her hold on the wizard, Alec thought. “Look out,” he whispered, sending a red-fletched shaft at the guard. The man fell and Thero was lost from sight as the other prisoners surged forward in rebellion or panic.