Silence answered that pronouncement.
“So you can track him,” said Circan. “Use the blood to magically discern his location.” Circan himself had done the same thing, using a vial of Aldane Roland's blood to track the stolen child.
“Aye,” said Timothy.
“He put a great deal of trust in you,” said Circan. “That blood could be a powerful weapon, in the wrong hands.”
Timothy shrugged. “Lucan trusted me, as much as he trusted anyone, but he took...precautions. The vial containing the blood is warded. If anyone other than me attempts to use it, the wards will...react. Violently, I expect.”
“But you can use it to track Lucan?” said Circan.
Timothy nodded. “I'm certain of it.”
“That seems the best course,” said Kjalmir. “Your wizard uses this vial of blood to track down the Dragon’s Shadow. Corvad will not be far away, and once we know his location, we can take his head.”
“We'll have to surprise him,” said Mazael. “Catch him off-guard, before his warlocks open a mistgate to escape.”
“The woman will be the dangerous one,” said Romaria, voice soft. “She saw me, when I followed Corvad's Malrags.”
“She can die alongside Corvad,” said Mazael. “Or we can simply kill his warlocks. I doubt Corvad has the ability to conjure mistgates on his own. We'll take as many men as the castle can spare – knights, mounted armsmen, and militia archers on horseback. Then we'll find Corvad, defeat his Malrags, and kill him.”
It sounded so easy. But Mazael doubted it would be that simple.
Battles never were.
Chapter 9 – Shades
Lucan trudged through the dead forest, ancient leaves crackling beneath his boots. The moaning wind followed him, tugging at the branches, making them creak and groan.
Save for his breathing, the creak of the trees, and the rustle of his boots, he heard no other sounds.
None at all.
Noises filled a living forest. This forest, this maze of dead trees, was motionless and lifeless. Lucan had not seen a single living thing.
Save for the reapers.
Assuming they were living things, of course.
He had not seen the reapers since the fight outside the forest. Yet from time to time he caught glimpses of them. Something that might have been a black cloak, pooled at the base of a tree. A bone-white hand, curled around a branch. Twice Lucan had loosed psychokinetic blasts, smashing a dead tree to splinters, only to realize he had been jumping at shadows.
The reapers – if they were still following him – knew how to remain unseen.
Lucan wished he could conjure up a screen of minor spirit creatures to act as scouts. No matter how stealthy the reapers, they could not hide from the senses of a spirit wolf or falcon. He had tried the spell a half dozen times, only to fail again and again.
He tried once more.
Nothing happened.
Lucan kept walking, mind racing, eyes scanning the trees.
He suspected the reapers were waiting for him to fall asleep. They knew his spells could harm them. But if they waited until he fell asleep, they could surge out of the darkness, reaching for him with their white hands...
He hadn't yet seen the features beneath those black hoods, and he didn't want to.
But sooner or later he would have to sleep. He had to find a safe place, or at least a defensible one, before that. One of the ruins he had glimpsed in the forest, perhaps?
For that matter, he had to find something to eat and to drink. Soon. He had been walking perhaps six hours. Or had it been longer? Was that the reapers' strategy? To wait until Lucan collapsed, exhausted from hunger and thirst, and then to fall upon him?
That, he had to admit, was a good plan. It was what he would have done, facing a more powerful opponent. Wear him down bit by bit, until...
A branch creaked, and Lucan saw a flash of white in the shadow of a tree.
He thrust out his hand, summoning power. Psychokinetic force hammered into the dead tree, which exploded into dry splinters. The crack echoed through the forest.
But nothing stirred in the ruins of the tree. Lucan turned in a slow circle, breathing hard, eyes darting back and forth.
Nothing.
He was alone.
Or so it seemed.
He turned again, scanning the trees, the dark mountain with the massive black city in the distance, the curl of smoke rising over the branches...
Lucan blinked.
If something caught flame here, the fire would turn this forest of dry trees into an inferno. A sharp smell came to Lucan’s nose. Meat, cooking over a fire. Did someone live here in this bleak land? Lucan’s mind sorted through the possibilities. Whoever lived here might well prove hostile, and whatever had started that fire might not even be human. Yet Lucan needed a place to rest, and he needed food.
He took a deep breath and walked towards the smoke.
The forest parted in a clearing, and in the clearing stood a village.
The small houses had been built out of the same black stone as the city that crowned the distant mountain. The place looked abandoned, the houses weathered, the doors and windows open and empty. A small domed church stood in the center of the village. The church’s windows had been smashed, and its twin doors lay on a pile of rubble at the foot of the stairs.
The smoke came from the church.
The village seemed long-deserted, without a hint of another living soul. Perhaps the reapers had killed whoever lived here. Yet still it looked...dangerous. As if unseen eyes watched from the empty windows and doors.
Yet there was that smoke from the church.
And Lucan needed a safe place to sleep.
He walked into the village, ready to unleash a psychokinetic blast at anything that moved. The village remained silent. The only hint of movement was the steady curl of smoke rising from the ring of windows encircling the base of the church’s dome.
That domed church...
Lucan blinked. The church was built in the style of the old kingdom of Dracaryl, which had once ruled over the Grim Marches, along with the Great Mountains and the Black Plains. Yet if that writhing black sky was any indication, Lucan was not in the Grim Marches. He wasn't even sure he was in the mortal world.
Why would a church in the style of Dracaryl be...here, wherever here was?
“You shouldn't have come.”
Lucan whirled, hand coming up to unleash a spell.
An old man stood in the doorway of an empty house, clad in rough woolen clothes and a greasy leather apron. A fringe of white hair encircled his bald head, and a maze of wrinkles marked his tanned face. A face that looked familiar...
“Crispin?” said Lucan in astonishment. He had known Crispin for years. The old man worked in the stables of Swordgrim, tending to Lord Richard Mandragon's horses. He'd been terrified of Lucan, but so had everyone else at Swordgrim. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Crispin's pale eyes glittered with hatred. “You don't belong here. You should go back, now, before it's too late.”
“Where am I?” said Lucan.
Crispin said nothing, still glaring at Lucan.
“What is this place?” said Lucan. “Answer me!”
“You did it,” hissed Crispin. “You killed the trees. You blighted the earth. You shattered the city's walls and laid it waste. It is on your hands.”
“What are you talking about?” said Lucan. “I have never been here before.” He glanced at the black city atop the mountain. “How could I have laid that city waste?”
“You did it,” said Crispin. “You drank the poison. You feasted on corruption. You killed the forests and ruined the city and tainted the earth with your vileness. And you did this all for nothing.”
“Damn it,” said Lucan, “give me a straight answer, or I'll tear it from you. Where am I?”
“You,” said Crispin.
“You?” said Lucan. “What does that mean? Where am I?”
Crispin fell silent, his eyes still bright with malice.
“How did you get here?” said Lucan. “We're a long way from Swordgrim...wherever we are. Did my father dismiss you from his service?”
“You brought me here,” said Crispin.
Lucan scowled. “I did no such thing.”
“I am your servant,” said Crispin. “I yearn to serve you, to obey you.”
“Do you?” said Lucan. “Well, obey. Tell me where I am.”
“You,” said Crispin.
Lucan gritted his teeth in annoyance. He focused his will, gathered power, and began casting a spell. The spell would let him reach into Crispin's mind, and force the old man to speak the truth. A strong enough will could fight the spell, but Lucan doubted Crispin possessed the strength of mind for such a feat.
Lucan finished the spell and gestured, his thoughts reaching for Crispin's mind...
...and found absolutely nothing there.
It was like swinging a sword through empty air. If Crispin's mind possessed defensive wards, his spell would have clashed against them. But it was as if Crispin wasn't really there at all.
Like an illusion.
Lucan cast another spell, the one to sense the presence of magical forces.
It found nothing.
He grabbed Crispin's shoulder. The old man gave no reaction. Lucan felt the rough wool of Crispin's shirt, the warmth of his flesh beneath the cloth. The old man was no illusion. He was really there.
Or else Lucan was hallucinating.
“You shouldn't have come here.”
A woman's voice, querulous and soft. Lucan stepped away from Crispin and saw an old woman in a black dress hobbling towards him, and all the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He remembered this old woman very well. Natalia had been his nurse as a child, watching over him until the age of seven. Lucan had preferred her company to that of his father and his brother.
Natalia had also died nine years ago.
“This,” said Lucan, “this isn't possible.”
Again he worked the spell to sense the presence of magical forces, expecting to find that Natalia was an illusion, or a shade conjured up by necromancy.
And again his spell detected no magic. Natalia was really here. But she had been dead for years, even before Marstan had left his polluted memories in Lucan's mind...
“You shouldn't have come here,” said Natalia, again.
“I don't understand,” said Lucan.
“You did this,” said Natalia.
Lucan saw more men and women emerging from the houses. He knew all of them. The cooks in the kitchens of Swordgrim. The old knight who had taught Lucan to hold a sword, before his talent had manifested and his father had apprenticed him to Marstan. His brother's childhood friends, bullies and thugs like Toraine himself. The bailiff of the town outside of Swordgrim's gates. Lucan knew them all. Some still lived.
Some had been dead for years.
Had he lost his mind? Or was this all a vision taking place within his own head?
“You did this,” said Natalia. “You slew the trees. You poisoned the ground. You poured your corruption into the earth. You brought yourself here. You did this to us.”
“You summoned us,” said the old knight, his armor clanking. “You created us.”
They drew closer, closing in a circle around him. Lucan backed away, ready to unleash psychokinetic blasts. They pushed him towards the church, drove him towards the doors.
“You did this,” said Crispin. “You tainted the earth, blighted the ground.”
“You did this to yourself,” said Natalia.
“It is your fault,” said the old knight.
Lucan backed up the stairs to the church, stepping over the fallen boards of the door. Should he attack and fight his way free? With his magic, he would have no problem fighting off a dozen old men and women. But these people had done him no harm. And some of them had been dead for years.
Were they even real?
“Go and look,” hissed Crispin, face twisted with rage. “Go and see what you did to yourself.”
Lucan backed through the doors of the church, turned around, and almost screamed.
In place of the altar, a bed of glowing coals dominated the far end of the church, painting the walls with hellish light. A thick iron chain hung from the ceiling, and a naked man danged from the links, roasting over the coals. Black blood sizzled against the coals, and Lucan saw that the chain had been threaded between the bones of the hanging man's forearms. The man himself almost looked like a Malrag, gray skin covered in tumors and growths, black veins threading through his twisted limbs, his eyes ablaze with crimson light. And his face...his face...
The man dangling from the chain, whimpering in agony, had Lucan's features. Lucan remembered the bloodstaff burning in his hands, remembered watching in terrified impotence as his skin turned gray, as his limbs twisted and knotted...
He heard a metallic clink from the church's steps and turned.
Crispin, Natalia, and the other stood on the stairs, watching him. They held a chain of black iron in their hands. They were going to chain him, Lucan realized with a chill, bind him and let him roast to death.
He snarled and lifted his hand. Let them try! He would blast...
“You summoned us,” hissed Crispin.
“You poisoned the land,” said Natalia.
“Why do you fight us?” said the old knight, armored hands creaking against the iron chain.
“Resist us all you wish,” said Natalia, “but you will not escape us, for you called us into being. Whether you wish it or not.”
She took a step forward, and she and the others changed.
One moment they were men and women. The next they were gaunt shapes draped in hooded black cloaks, white hands and feet jutting from the folds like bones from ashes. Darkness filled their hoods, but Lucan had the sense of something malevolent watching him the within blackness, something that hated him and yearned to watch him suffer.
The reapers.
Lucan yelled and flung out his hands. Psychokinetic force exploded from him and slammed into the reapers. Some crashed into the walls of the church, while others tumbled backwards down the stairs. Yet the creatures recovered quickly, springing back to their feet with fluid grace, rushing up the stairs with terrible speed. Another blast of invisible force sent them falling down the stairs once more, but the reapers against the wall recovered and came at Lucan.