Authors: Jonathan Moeller
The result was a slaughter, not a battle. The shield line buckled a bit, but the Imperial Guards swung their swords with the clinical efficiency of a forester chopping wood. A dozen more Kaltari fell in the first few moments of the exchange, and the rest turned and fled. Aiovost railed at them, calling them cowards, but he took one look at the advancing wall of shields and fled with them.
Tylas called a halt, and the Guards stopped as the remaining Kaltari fled over the hills.
“The road is clear, my lord,” said Tylas.
“Thank you, centurion,” said Martin with perfect calm. Caina was impressed by the air of authority around him. Claudia’s husband did indeed know how to lead troops. “And convey my thanks to your men.”
The Imperial Guards shouted and banged the flats of their swords against their shields.
After the men cleaned their weapons and looted the bodies of the Kaltari raiders, the column pressed on. They made another nine miles before nightfall, stopping where the road widened under the shadow of a ring of carved menhirs. Caina remained alert, suspecting that the Huntress might use the Kaltari raiders to launch a surprise attack, but neither any additional Kaltari warriors nor any assassins appeared.
Perhaps the ferocity of the Imperial Guard had frightened the bandits off.
At last Caina lay down beneath one of the wagons and went to sleep.
###
And in her sleep, she dreamed.
Once against she stood upon the bleak, dead plain of the Desert of Candles, a moaning wind blowing across the dusty ground. All around her rose hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of irregular crystalline columns, each one standing eight or nine feet tall and flickering with a pale blue light.
Caina had seen this dream before. In it she had watched Grand Master Callatas raise the Star and use it to burn Iramis to ashes in a firestorm that transformed the fertile Iramisian fields to smoking ash, the blue crystalline pillars rising from the ground.
She had seen this dream before, and she had spoken to the spirit that had created it.
She turned, expecting to see the djinni in the form of Corvalis Aberon.
Instead Claudia stood behind her.
She wore a rich green gown with golden trim and black scrollwork upon the sleeves and bodice, her long blond hair blowing behind her in the cold wind. Her eyes glowed with smokeless, yellow-orange flame, seeming to paint the pale skin of her face with a harsh light.
“Samnirdamnus,” said Caina.
She had not spoken to the djinni since the aftermath of the raid upon Callatas’s Maze. He had warned her, more than once, of deadly peril to her life, but she did not know his motives or his purpose. Like Nasser Glasshand, he was an enemy of Callatas. Beyond that Caina knew little about him, though she hoped he had forgotten about her. A hope, it seemed, that had been in vain.
“Caina Amalas,” said Samnirdamnus with Claudia’s voice. “My darling demonslayer. How very busy you have been.”
“Why are you wearing Claudia’s form?” said Caina. “You always used to wear Corvalis’s shape.”
“I?” said the djinni, walking in a slow circle around Caina, a mocking smile on Claudia’s red lips. “Alas, you mistake me. Flesh is an affectation of the mortal world. I have no material form. Your mind interprets me as it chooses. Claudia Aberon Dorius, you say? Perhaps she weighs heavily upon your thoughts.”
“You’ve been watching me, then,” said Caina.
“When I can,” said Samnirdamnus. “It is easier now than it was. There are more cracks between the netherworld and the mortal world.” He waved Claudia’s hand at the sky, and Caina saw the echoes of the ghostly cracks of golden fire, the results of the terrible gate the Moroaica had ripped to the netherworld. “Simpler for things to get through, and not just me. Your new friends in the Kaltari Highlands will find it all the easier to speak to their masters, even to summon them up.”
“If you have been watching me,” said Caina, “why didn’t you warn me about the Red Huntress? She killed many men who might now live if you had warned me.” A flicker of guilt went through her. Sulaman had warned her of a coming danger, and she had not realized it might be targeted at Martin.
Samnirdamnus’s form flickered and twitched, and Caina took a step back in alarm as the djinni took on the shape of the Red Huntress. Red leather armor sheathed her limbs, making her look sleek and graceful and deadly, and swords and daggers waited in sheaths at her belt. The serene steel mask covered her features, and the crimson cloak blew around her like wings of blood.
The eyes of the mask shone with the smokeless flame of the djinn.
“I do not know if you are the one I have sought or not,” said Samnirdamnus. “But if the Huntress kills you, then I shall never find out. I would have warned you. But the high lords of the nagataaru have great power, and the Voice is my equal in strength. It can shield itself from my sight.”
Caina frowned. “Then the Huntress’s nagataaru is truly called the Voice?”
“The nagataaru do not have names,” said Samnirdamnus. “They have no need of them. Mortal minds require names, and mortal minds bestow names upon the nagataaru. The mortal woman who became the Huntress named the nagataaru within her the Voice, for it whispers in her ear constantly. Urging her to kill so it can feast upon the released energies. It returns some of that stolen energy to her as power, allowing her to kill more victims, providing more pain and death upon which the Voice can feast.”
“A cozy little partnership,” said Caina, remembering how blindingly fast the Huntress had been able to move. “What can you tell me about the Huntress?”
“The Voice is older than this world, as I am,” said Samnirdamnus. “Before this world congealed out of the dust of an exploded star, the nagataaru and the court of the Azure Sovereign battled each other across the netherworld’s infinite reaches. We wielded weapons beyond your comprehension, blades wrought of thought and elemental power, engines fashioned of sorcery and raw power. Many times I fought the Voice, and sometimes I prevailed, and sometimes it triumphed. It is little different than any other nagataaru. It despises creatures weaker than itself, and regards mortals as prey, as food.”
“But what can you tell me about the Huntress herself?” said Caina. If the nagataaru despised humans as food and nothing more, why would it have stayed in the Huntress’s head for so long? Or, for that matter, why would the Huntress have continued working with the Voice? Perhaps the Voice had overridden the human woman’s mind and transformed her into a puppet of flesh, wearing her body like a suit.
“A curious question,” said Samnirdamnus. “Does not the Huntress derive all her power from the Voice?”
“I’m a curious sort of woman,” said Caina. “Answer the question.”
“Why do you wish to know?” said Samnirdamnus.
“Because I cannot fight and defeat the Red Huntress,” said Caina. “She is too fast, too strong, too skilled. If I try to take her in a straight fight, she’s going to kill me.”
“Ah,” murmured Samnirdamnus. “But you are not a warrior, are you, my darling demonslayer? You strike from the shadows. You arrange for your foes’ downfall.”
“I need to know about the woman who became the Huntress,” said Caina, “because I need to know her weaknesses. The way her mind works. Because I can’t fight her. I can only hope to outwit her. If I don’t outwit her, she’s going to kill Martin.”
“My dear Balarigar,” murmured Samnirdamnus, and his form blurred and shifted to become that of Martin Dorius, stark in black coat and trousers, “what makes you think that Lord Martin is in any danger whatsoever?”
“If you have been watching me,” said Caina, “then you have failed to note the obvious.”
“Well,” said Samnirdamnus. “I am not the only one to make that mistake.”
Caina wondered what that meant.
“But,” said the djinni, “I know a little of the Voice’s host, the woman you know as the Huntress. She is old, easily over a century and a half old, her flesh sustained by the power of the Voice. I do not know her name, but that is of no importance, because she herself has forgotten it. She works in full cooperation with the Voice, and has grown to take delight in killing and joy in torment. She was once a slave, but loathes weakness of any kind and holds it in contempt.”
“A slave?” said Caina.
“Belonging to Grand Master Callatas,” said Samnirdamnus. “One of his earliest experiments, before Iramis even burned. Before he had fully even conceived the Apotheosis, though he did not summon me to guard his Maze until several years later. Callatas had already summoned minor nagataaru and bound them to corpses to create minions, but they were mindless things driven only by hunger. At last he had the idea of summoning a greater nagataaru and binding it to the flesh of a living mortal, to create a servant that possessed the power of the nagataaru and could still reason and think. So he summoned the Voice, a greater lord of the nagataaru…”
“And bound it to the flesh of a slave,” said Caina with disgust. “Someone expendable, someone he did not care about.”
“You reason correctly,” said Samnirdamnus.
“The experiment succeeded,” said Caina. “Callatas created the Red Huntress.”
Samnirdamnus smiled. “Not entirely. The slave and the Voice created the Huntress in equal measure.”
“What do you mean?” said Caina.
“The slave was hardly an innocent woman,” said Samnirdamnus. “She had already killed other slaves, those who threatened her or annoyed her. In her the Voice found neither an empty vessel nor a beast of burden, but a willing partner to its appetites. The Voice twisted her, but she joyfully embraced the twisting. She became the Huntress, and soon was strong enough that Callatas could not completely control her.”
“He could not?” said Caina. “So that was why she went on a rampage at the Golden Palace. He has tried to keep the nagataaru and the source of the wraithblood secret. Having the Huntress go on a public killing spree doesn’t help keep his secrets. It draws attention.”
“This is so,” said Samnirdamnus. “Callatas uses her only as a weapon of last resort, when other means of removing a threat have failed. She is almost always successful, though she tends to inflict a great deal of…incidental damage, shall we say.”
“If Callatas can’t control her, why didn’t he kill her?” said Caina. “He’s not the sort of man to use weapons he cannot fully control.”
“He is unable to kill her,” said Samnirdamnus.
Caina blinked. “He…can’t?” She had seen Callatas’s sorcery in action, had seen his wraithblood laboratories and sensed the power and intricacy of his spells. Grand Master Callatas was one of the strongest sorcerers she had ever encountered. “Why not?”
“She is too strong for him,” said Samnirdamnus.
“Then why hasn’t she killed him?” said Caina.
“Likewise, she cannot,” he said.
“He’s too strong?” said Caina.
“The Voice will not kill its superior,” said Samnirdamnus.
“Superior?” said Caina. “Then you mean…Callatas is possessed? He has a nagataaru within him as the Huntress does? But one of higher rank?” That was an extremely disturbing thought. The might of his native sorcery joined to the power of a nagataaru lord…little wonder no one had defeated Callatas in a century and a half.
“Alas,” said Samnirdamnus, “on this topic, I cannot speak.”
“Because you are bound,” said Caina.
Samnirdamnus said nothing, which was as good as an answer.
“Can you tell me how to kill her?” said Caina.
“You are upon the right path,” said Samnirdamnus. “The only hope you have of defeating the Huntress is in the weapons of ancient Iramis. If you can find the valikon and wield it, you have a chance of victory. But you have already committed one great failure.”
“What is that?” said Caina.
“You do not understand the Huntress,” said Samnirdamnus. “You do not understand what she seeks.”
“And if I fail to understand her purpose?” said Caina.
Samnirdamnus shrugged, the smokeless flames of his eyes blazing brighter. “I think you are the one I have sought…but I have been wrong before.”
The Desert of Candles dissolved into nothingness.
###
Caina awoke and sat up with an alarmed hiss, reaching for the dagger next to her pillow. At the last moment she remembered that she had fallen asleep beneath one of the wagons, but not in time to stop herself from hitting her head on the axle overhead.
Gods, but that hurt.
“Damn it,” she whispered, rubbing her head. At least she hadn’t broken the skin, or worse, cracked her skull. It would have been bitterly amusing to have escaped from mortal peril again and again only to bash her head open on a wagon after a bad dream.
But that hadn’t been a bad dream, had it? That had been a vision, a message from Samnirdamnus.
Caina lay back down, trying to ignore her throbbing head.
She had to understand the Red Huntress. But what was there to understand? Callatas had sent the Huntress to kill Martin Dorius, and the Voice within her feasted upon pain and death. It was a simple explanation, one that explained everything that had happened, though Caina still could not imagine why Callatas wanted Martin dead.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
But sleep did not come as dark thoughts chased themselves around her head.
Chapter 13 - The Headman
Three days later, they came to a village atop the hill.
The road had climbed higher as they went further south, and it was the coldest weather Caina had encountered since leaving Malarae. Here and there she saw clumps of towering pine trees, and large portions of the hillsides had been cut into terraces to grow crops. Today great fingers of gray mist wound their way through the rocky hills, cool and damp against Caina’s face.
“What is that place?” said Martin, peering through the mist.
The village topped one of the larger hills, fortified within a stockade of piled stone crowned with wooden stakes. Caina saw dozens of houses built in the ancient Caerish style, round stone walls topped with conical roofs of thatch. A long stone hall with a timber roof occupied the center of the village, a dark green banner adorned with a black Kaltari knot flying overhead.