whirled around, stinging her eyes, tickling her nose and making her snort. Sunbright carefully lifted and propped her up, and made an idle swipe with Harvester. A giant branch hung over their heads to trap them in a leafy prison, but the keen sword lopped it off so they could pass.
Knucklebones rubbed her eyes and stared. 'Wh-What-' she stammered. 'What happened?'
'I pulled down a tree,' Sunbright said simply. 'It was diseased, and can return to the soil faster this way.'
She stared. Smack across the center of the camp lay a tree that been leaning to one side. Sunbright had merely gestured, and brought the thing toppling like a dying forest god.
Now he waggled Harvester so the gleaming blade bobbed in the air. He was calm as an oak tree himself, despite the fact that they were surrounded by enemies. Knucklebones wondered at his calm air of certainty and lack of fear.
She breathed, 'You've changed!'
'Yes.' he agreed. 'I'm a shaman.' He smiled, and even his teeth radiated light, so she was reminded again of a paper lantern. 'Finally.'
Thrown off-balance, stunned by the magical attack, and trapped by the intervening tree, Wulgreth howled in rage and indignation, leaped into the air to crash down on packed dirt, beat his chest like an ape, and hollered his fury. His great hooked hands flexed as he ripped his lizard skin costume from his breast. Sunbright waited, unmoved and unafraid. Knucklebones clutched her familiar knife and crouched behind the newly-risen shaman.
Sense overcoming fury, Wulgreth saw that his antics didn't frighten his opponent, and quit. Instead, he stooped and latched onto a great rock with his craggy hands, grunted, and hoisted it high over his head.
Knucklebones shrieked, but Sunbright only snapped his fingertips together. The boulder burst into dust, like the tree limb, aged eons in less than a second. It spattered into dust around Wulgreth's head.
The lich lord stood stunned, blinking grit from his stone dead eyes. His followers oohed and aahed at the display, marveling that Sunbright could so oppose their invincible leader.
Knucklebones trembled. 'We should flee,' she told him. 'If you can use magic, you could shift us far away, can't you?'
'No.' Sunbright didn't look at her as he spoke, but watched his opponent. 'I owe the land here for my salvation. I must repay her, make repairs as I can.' He cast about at the dark woods, as if they were more important than a mere battle.
Talk of repaying the land sounded like mystic mumbo-jumbo to the thief, the vague mutterings of a priest cadging offerings. But she said nothing, only waited to see what he-and Wulgreth-would do.
The lich lord spread his feet wide, arched his back, tilted his head, and screamed. A long, keening undead screech that went on and on, setting Knucklebone's teeth on edge and making her spine crawl.
Her fear increased as, sprouting from the ground like horrific mushrooms or dropping from the branches or shambling from the dark, crept a handful of monsters awful to look at, painful to behold, for all were dead like him. Dead and deadly.
From the ground oozed a long skeleton, nothing but spine and ribs and a tiny human head with glittering black eye sockets. Cutting its way free of the earth was a small, dumpy man, but with four arms thin as sticks, blind white eyes, and mandibles clicking in his mouth. From the dark floated a pair of bulbous bags like ruby balloons, though with stinging tails that lashed as if eager to poison the living. Humping from the shadows came a short, stinking zombie lacking legs so it hobbled on hands and stumps. Dropping from the trees came a ball of arms and legs and tentacles and branches that grasped and writhed but had no body to speak of. And from the sundered campfire rose a wisp of smoke no wider than a shadow, a tall gangly thing that changed shape constantly as if unsure what it mimicked, though its hands were always long, scythe-like knives.
Knucklebones's teeth chattered as the undead things clustered around, weaving and bobbing, awaiting their chance. She'd seen horrors, but never anything to compare with these. More than ever she wished she were back in Karsus's sewers.
But Sunbright was undaunted, even laconic. In an even voice, he told Wulgreth, 'These threats will avail you naught. This forest has suffered enough. Banish your fiends and yourself, get hence and begone. This is an abode for the living, not the dead.'
Beside himself with anger, Wulgreth leveled his arm and screamed, 'Attack!'
Chapter 18
'Candy! Candy!'
Candlemas stumbled down a landing ramp, bruised, bloody, singed, and thoroughly rattled. Who was calling him that silly name? He didn't know anyone-then a warm bundle bounced into his chest. Soft arms were flung around his neck, his sweaty, sooty face was smothered in plump and delicious kisses. Struggling to stay on his feet, he wrapped his arms around the woman's broad back and hung on. When she paused for breath, he saw who it was.
'Sita! Aquesita?'
'Oh, Candy, I was so worried, I had to come see you!' she sobbed. Tears of joy and relief spilled down her cheeks. 'When Karry told me he'd sent you into battle, I couldn't believe it. But it was true! Oh, I'm so proud of you, my darling. So glad you've come back to me unhurt.'
'I'm not quite unhurt,' his words were mushy, his mouth sore. 'I bit my tongue when the ship crashed.'
'Crashed?' The word brought on a new flurry of tears, kisses, and hugs. 'Oh, my poor, brave soul!'
Stunned, and not just from knocks in the head, Candlemas hung onto his ladylove and basked in her praise and attention. Her broad back was comforting, her modest bosom, pressed to his dirty uniform, exciting. Awkwardly he kissed her hair, stroking it with smudged hands, murmuring what sweet nothings he could conjure.
This made no sense; his brain whirled. For days, Aquesita refused him an audience, returned his letters and flowers. Now she ran to his arms because he'd been in danger. Was this love madness, woman contrariness, or male thickness? He couldn't begin to guess, so he just gave into it and let himself be pampered.
The coddling included a ride in Aquesita's long carriage, plain white but painted with vibrant, intertwined roses and vines. Lolling on red cushions, Candlemas sipped wine that stung his swollen tongue and watched the hustle and bustle of the city pass his window. He'd done his share. War wasn't so bad, he reflected, if these were its rewards.
He shifted idly, seeking a muscle that didn't ache. Moving sent a faint whiff to his nostrils: the stink of burned flesh. Rocking forward, he gagged on his wine, spraying it on the floor and the hem of Aquesita's blue gown. With the smell came the memory of screams as men and women burned to death, hair and flesh igniting. Suddenly his hands trembled so badly the wineglass stem snapped and cut his fingers. That could have been him, crippled and unable to flee the heat ray. He could be ashes fertilizing a forest right now.
Slowly, head down, he breathed deeply while Aquesita cooed and stroked his back. Best to not think about the raid, the disaster. Hollowly, he said, 'I'll be all right. I just need a minute. And a… bath. What's-' He stopped himself. No, better not ask about her just yet. Their separation might be a sore point. 'What's the latest gossip?'
'Gossip?' Aquesita laughed uneasily. 'You know I don't follow gossip, dear Candy. I've no interest in who sleeps with whom, or who's gambled away his or her fortune, or who's lashed whom to ribbons. There are finer things in life to consider, and nobler pursuits. No, there's-wait! There was one unpleasantness that's newsworthy. Certainly it's a scandal. Did you ever meet a silver-haired woman named Polaris?'
'Lady Polaris?' Candlemas snapped upright so fast it made him dizzy. Cradling his aching skull, he said, 'I know her-knew her. Worked for her once, long ago. She's a cold thing, a heart of ice, single-mindedly dedicated to her personal pursuits, with no concern for anyone else. She could be empress some day.' If she lays off the food, he added mentally.
He kept thinking of the slim, calculating Polaris of old, not the bloated, preening, self-deluded pig he'd met in this time.
'She'll never be empress,' Aquesita said. 'She was assassinated last night.'
'A-Assassin-Assassinated?' Candlemas sputtered as a fresh stab of pain shot through his head. 'Dead?
