More troubling still, the woman he slept beside was not the wife he’d loved on that shadow world. She was a warrior woman with bones as big as an ox and an unkind temperament. She had borne him sons, but took no pleasure in the making of them.
At last she reached out and squeezed his hand, as if to comfort him. It was an odd gesture, one that she had never performed before.
“I dreamed,” she said, “that I was a cobbler’s wife, and that I was childless. We…were wealthy, I suppose. We had everything that we could want, except for the one thing that I wanted most-a daughter. And then the raiders came, the damned warlords of Internook, and they plundered our house, took all that they wanted, and burned the rest.”
Madoc considered this. He wondered if she might go searching for the cobbler of her dreams. He wondered if he should go searching for Deralynne. His home with Deralynne had been in a peaceful land called Toom, where stories of raids and looting in faraway places were just that…stories.
Were the loves that they had forged in another life any less meaningful than the ones that they had forged here?
At last, he asked the question that burned in him.
“If you could have that life, would you?” Madoc asked.
“I would kill anyone, risk anything, not to,” she said. She turned to him then, the moonlight shining through the window just barely revealing the curve of her face, the glint of an eye.
“We are a wealthy family,” she said, “held in esteem. You could be High King someday. You should be High King. What has Urstone done for this people? For years his son has languished in prison while the wyrmlings consolidate their hold. To do nothing in a time of war, that is treason. Urstone should be…replaced.”
Madoc had never considered murdering the king before. It was a repugnant idea.
Yet he knew that she was right. The kingdom needed a strong leader now more than ever, and Urstone had become too enfeebled over the years.
To kill him would be to serve the people.
THE WAYFINDER
Death is the perfect huntress, and she will find us all. Lady Despair, make me worthy prey this night, swift and elusive.
Less than an hour before dawn, just as the first birds began to peep querulously at the coming light, the Knights Eternal found the human fortress south of Caer Golgeata, as Lady Despair had promised.
They circled the small castle twice from above, studying its curious workmanship, then dived into the courtyard. As Vulgnash landed, his wings folded neatly around him like a bloody robe.
Vulgnash studied the tree in the courtyard while his companions began the hunt. The undersides of its leaves gleamed softly in the starlight, creating a numinous glow. The sound of its leaves whispering in the night breeze soothed his jangled nerves, aroused feelings of hope and longings for decency that had long since abandoned him.
As Thul hunched with his cowl around his face and crept from door to door sensing for living things, Kryssidia merely crouched upon a wall, watching for guards.
“They’re hiding,” Thul hissed at last, his voice as dry as a crypt. “But they are here.”
“Of course they are here,” Vulgnash said. There was tall grass and vines outside the castle gate, and only a few pairs of feet had trampled them. If the inhabitants of the castle had fled, they’d have left a larger trail.
With any luck, the wizard Fallion Orden would still be here.
Vulgnash leapt up a stone wall, strode to the tree. He caressed its golden bark, found it soothing and pleasant to the touch. It had an exotic scent to it, like cumin, only sweeter.
With his finger he drew a rune upon the tree, then stepped back a few paces and uttered a single curse word.
The bark squealed and shattered, as if lightning took the tree, and suddenly it was blasted with rot. Fungi the color of butter and snow covered it like a scab, and burst up from beneath the rents in the bark. Leaves shriveled and turned the gray of dirty rags.
Vulgnash stood back as the heavy scent of decay filled the courtyard.
In death most of all, Vulgnash thought, the tree was beautiful.
There was a hiss from across the courtyard, at the mouth of the keep. “Here,” Thul whispered.
Kryssidia swooped down from the wall on crimson wings, like a giant bloodied crow, while Vulgnash strode to the door in question.
Thul pushed upon it, and the heavy door swung inward.
Interesting, Vulgnash thought. I had imagined that they would bar it. But of course, by doing so, they would have signaled where they were hid.
Thul stood by the open door, and his long dark tongue flickered like a snake’s. Vulgnash tasted the air, too. His senses were acutely attuned to the smell of death, and every creature, no matter how much alive, also had a taste of death to it-an odor of decaying skin, putrefying fat. Yes, there was more than a hint of death in the air. There was the smell of those who were wounded and dying.
Moving almost as one, the three drew their blades and crept into the keep, walking as softly as shades. Some small starlight came in shafts through the windows. Vulgnash bent his will upon it, scattered it backward, so that the three became one with the shadows.
They followed the familiar scent of death through the halls, found a stairwell going down. The scent was stronger there.
They crept down the stone steps, halted just in front of the door.
The smell of decay was strong. Someone stood just on the other side, guarding the door, a human, an older man. There was no fear in his scent. He did not know that he was being stalked.
Kryssidia pushed on the door, this time using only the power of his shade.
This door was barred.
The Knights Eternal looked at one another, and then as one bent their wills upon the door.
It shattered inward as if a rampaging bull had charged into it. Shards of wood and splinters flew everywhere.
A frightened old man cried out, “What? What? Who goes there? I, I, I have a sword.”
Vulgnash had learned many languages in his long life, but he did not recognize this one. The old man’s words were meaningless.
The man shouted, “Help! Someone! Everyone!” He drew a sword and began swinging wildly in the darkness. Obviously, he was not a wyrmling. He did not even have the poor night vision of one of the warrior clan. He was blind and helpless in the dark.
“Shawve zek Fallion Orden?” Vulgnash hissed. Where is Fallion Orden?
The old man cried out, lunged forward, aiming only at the sound of Vulgnash’s voice. Thul grabbed the man by the wrist as he passed, and squeezed so tightly upon the ganglia of his wrist that the fellow’s swords clattered to floor, even as the bones of his wrist shattered with a crackling sound.
The old man let out a groan of pain, falling to his knees, and Thul grabbed his face, preparing to drain the life from him.
There were shouts down the hallway, the sound of more guards coming, and Vulgnash’s heart leapt in joy. There would be enough lives to feed all three here tonight! Indeed, Kryssidia was already leaping ahead, eager to sate his appetite.
“Wait!” Vulgnash commanded before Thul could take the old man’s life. “I will have an answer to my question first.”
He reached down as Thul held the old man’s weapon hand, and grabbed the old man’s finger. The old man
