Chapter 2
MERI
Meri’s strength gave out first, then her speed, and time came rushing back. The words of the final prayer formed in her mind, and she waited for the searing pain of the monster’s teeth as they sank into her flesh.
But she never felt the bite.
Instead, the white Death Hound flew off her, knocked fully across the road by a flash of metal and wood.
Gallmau stood over her, holding the shield he had used to pummel the beast. His massive round piece of armor, emblazoned with the royal crest of Soissons, had its own smell of magic—damp moss and aged oak.
Prophets bless him, he had come in time.
She opened her mouth to scream instructions at him, but he had paid attention to her teachings over the past few years.
He slung his shield on his back and unsheathed his sword.
With a few long steps, he reached the limping dark Hound and took off its head in one blow.
Her cursed spine had relaxed, perhaps with the anticipation of her death, and she reached for her speed again, scooping up one of her fallen blades and darting across the road toward the white Hound.
Its ribcage had been caved in by the force of Gallmau’s blow, but the monster was still beginning to rise to its feet for another attack when she brought the edge of her blade against its neck as hard as she could, hacking until the furred head dropped to the ground.
Once again she stepped out of her speed, arms and legs shaking.
She had more endurance than most people who shared her Gift—much as Gallmau was far quicker than the average strength fighter—but this battle had pushed her beyond her limits.
Of course, had her curse not struck at the worst possible moment, she might have been able to end all of this without Gallmau’s help.
“What the fuck were those things?” her red-haired friend asked before turning back to the road as hoofbeats pounded up toward them.
Gallmau had ridden the short distance from their afternoon camp bareback, with only his short sword and shield.
Not the wisest choice when entering into a dangerous and unknown situation, but he had saved her life, so she supposed she couldn’t scold him about it.
The twins pulled their horses to a stop and dismounted with their black powder pistols drawn—useless against death magic, but unlike Gallmau, they ignored her lectures—and stared around them in a mix of confusion and awe.
“Death Hounds.” Meri’s breaths came in gasps, and Karabil rushed over to hand her a canteen of water.
He was thoughtful enough to pull out some dried fruit to go with it.
She always craved sweets when she pushed herself this far, although the rush of relief they gave her faded quickly.
“Animals with death magic. Some Bone Lords keep them as pets.”
“We’re less than an hour away from the capital.” Gallmau kicked at the remnants of the dark-furred Hound. “What necromancer would dare to send things like this out to kill travelers with the Noviodunam so close?”
Meri chewed away at her fruit leather and took another long gulp of water.
The Noviodunam was to the Kingdom of Soissons what the University of Abdju was to her home country, the Sultanate of Kush.
Both were centers of magical scholarship and learning known throughout the world, and both were crawling with every sort of sorcerer—except necromancers.
Other witches hated Bone Lords as much as she did.
This was an unusual attack, and the sensible thing was to make haste to the capital and let the sorcerer soldiers of the Noviodunam track down the Bone Lord responsible.
A woman screamed, followed by a loud crash of breaking wood.
Gallmau whirled toward the sound, and Meri jerked her attention to the Witch Stone, as if more monsters might jump out from behind it.
To the left of the bone-pale structure were carriage-wheel tracks leading into the trees, a detail she had missed until now.
Her friend took off in that direction, incapable as ever of ignoring a damsel in distress.
“Leave the horses. We’ll go on foot.” Meri added in a few curses under her breath as she ordered the twins to follow Gallmau.
She wasn’t about to ignore a cry for help, but she would have preferred her friend put practicality before gallantry and let her assess the situation with her speed before he charged in.
Still, her Gift had its limits, and if the Death Hounds’ master was in the grove, she and her companions were trained to work as a team to take down the Bone Lord responsible for the monstrous dogs.
The four of them followed the carriage tracks to the wooded area, and no further cries broke the grim silence around them.
The sun had dipped lower in the sky, filtering light through the dying leaves, a riot of colors ranging from yellow to dark burgundy.
As they drew closer, Meri could make out broken trees and upturned earth and a glint of metal amidst the tangled growth.
The four of them entered the copse of trees with their hands on their weapons.
Gallmau took the lead, as he usually did.
His size either frightened their opponents or encouraged them to direct their attacks against him.
This allowed Meri to circle behind their enemies and strike while they were occupied with trying Gallmau’s strength and endurance, not to mention the magically enhanced protection of his shield.
The twins fanned out on either side, in their customary role of searching for ambushes or loot, depending on their mood.
The smell hit her as soon as they advanced a few paces into the wooded area, the same dank odor of magic the Hounds had carried with them.
As they moved closer, she picked up another scent.
Clean and bracing, it came with a sense of cold that gave her a brief shiver.
It was at once both foreign and tantalizingly familiar, and it teased the edge of her memories, drawing her back into a recollection she couldn’t quite place.
The tracks ended as they pushed through more broken foliage, and the fragmented scene in front of them resolved into horrible clarity.
Metal glinted from the wheels of a large carriage, lying upside down in the midst of a slaughter.
Dead horses lay on beds of crushed branches and brush, their throats ripped out, with splotches of congealed blood staining the fall leaves around them.
Meri counted five human bodies who joined the animals in the tableau of violent death.
She drew in a breath of horror at the sight, even as used to bloody carnage as she was.
All were younger men, dressed in light armor with muskets and swords.
A small guard party, perhaps. Wealthy travelers often hired escorts for long journeys, and the dead were dressed the part.
The amount of damage done to them was extreme—two were decapitated, and the others had hacked-off limbs and wounds so grave it was as if killing them once hadn’t been enough.
Wisps of shadow floated through the air, landing softly on the ground. Their gentle descent jogged Meri’s memory. She knew what the clean smell that overwhelmed the stench of blood and torn viscera was, not that it made any sense.
It was the scent of snow about to fall. Cold, bracing, and deadly if you weren’t prepared for it.
Meri shook herself out of her reverie and blinked. The drifting fragments of black had vanished, if they ever had been there at all. This might be her curse again, the evil inside her choosing to cloud her mind rather than cripple her body with pain.
Gallmau came to a stop, holding up a hand, and unsheathed his short sword. He used his two-hander when fighting off a group, and the smaller blade and his massive shield with single battles.
And there was only one living person in the clearing.
A man crouched near the overturned carriage, his hand clutching something on the ground. As they approached, he rose to his feet. It was a slow movement, perhaps intended to signal he had no intention of starting a fight.
He was tall, at least by her standards, although Gallmau towered over him, as he did most men.
Shoulder-length black hair framed the stranger’s pale face.
Meri often teased Gallmau about his fair skin and freckles, which turned boiling red in the hot sun, as opposed to her dark brown coloring, but this shade of white was unnatural.
It was as if he lived in a cave and never saw sunlight.
His eyes, though, were a brown so much darker than her own they seemed black, along with his eyebrows and striking, long lashes.
He was a beautiful young man, clean-shaven and well-dressed.
Even covered with dust and blood, his fine wool clothing and elegant leather boots spoke to considerable wealth.
“What happened here?” Gallmau asked. He used the Soissons dialect spoken in the kingdom’s capital and taught in many places in the world, including the harem school Meri had attended when she joined the Sultana’s household as a child.
“We were attacked.” The man spoke to Gallmau, his own command of the Soissons tongue flawless to Meri’s ears, but he fixed his gaze upon her, not on the hulking man with a sword and shield asking him a question.
Both that and his stance were odd. Gallmau’s size and weaponry should have the survivor’s undivided attention.
Meri was the most dangerous of the group, but the handsome stranger couldn’t know that.
Even odder, he stood with his arms by his sides, palms facing her.
It might have been to show he had no weapons—although Meri had already spotted the empty scabbard at his waist and the sword that lay at his feet—but it felt like a challenge.
“My guards fought bravely”—his voice hitched for a moment, a fleeting hint of emotion—“but they stood no chance against her.”
“Her?” Gallmau relaxed his stance, which irritated Meri.
Running off at the sound of a woman screaming had been foolhardy enough on his part.
Granted, she and the twins had followed him, but this was no time to let down their guard.
She had expected to run into a necromancer, and instead they had found an attractive man who shouldn’t be alive and traces of magic she didn’t understand.
The survivor didn’t respond to Gallmau. Instead, he stared back at her, his dark eyes glinting in the shafts of sunlight streaking through the trees.
“You’re the owner of the carriage, then?
” Meri stalked closer to him, her pulse quickening.
Gallmau and the twins remained behind to guard her back, and her curved blades remained sheathed at her waist. She rarely took them out before she dropped into her speed.
The man’s long coat and trousers, dark and severely cut, could be those of a merchant dressed for discretion rather than opulence.
Not typical attire for a necromancer, certainly.
Many of them barely wore clothes. “Is there anyone else who lived, someone who could tell us more?”
The man glanced down at the overturned carriage, and Meri noticed a hand and forearm protruding from under the smashed vehicle.
Gallmau spotted it as well.
“Who is that?” Gallmau rushed over, disregarding every bit of advice and admonishment Meri had provided him about dealing with monsters, human or not.
The man’s gaze flickered to Gallmau’s face for the first time. “My mother.”
Meri bit back a groan. Much as she loved Gallmau, he was terribly flawed as her partner in the business of monster hunting.
He couldn’t lie to save his life, bargained like a drunk sailor in a brothel after a year at sea, and insisted on risking his money, energy, and even his safety rescuing anything or anyone he thought might need his protection.
“I need a fighter, not a knight from the old tales,” Meri had told him the first three times she had turned down his offer to join her small group of monster killers for hire.
She had given in because he was impossible to say no to and because he was quite useful when he did fight.
But there was no charitable act, no matter how mundane or ill-advised, he could resist.
And Gallmau, having lost his own at a young age, held mothers in very high regard indeed. Even if they were buried under a carriage and most certainly dead.
“We’ll get her out.” Gallmau dropped his shield—losing the protection the object gave him—and sheathing his sword, bent down toward the thin arm limp on the ground. “Get ready, Meri.”
The last thing she wanted to do was dive into her speed again so soon, and for a fruitless purpose that would only use up her strength for combat. But there was no stopping Gallmau when he got like this.
“No.” The man’s tone grew sharper, although he was still scarcely animated. Meri couldn’t tell if he was so overwhelmed by the death around him he had shut away his emotions, or if he was trying to cover up his involvement in this mess. “You can’t lift it, in any event.”
The dark-haired stranger was in for a surprise.
Gallmau’s strength was as unearthly powerful as Meri’s speed was.
She found the space between her heartbeats, and the world slowed again.
Gallmau reached down to grasp the carriage and forced the entire thing up into the air.
Meri ran toward him, timing her movements so she arrived just as enough of the framework of the vehicle had elevated for her to get under it.
An elderly woman, so thin she appeared half-starved, lay underneath. Beside her, another body lay motionless.
Two corpses, and Meri wouldn’t have time to pull them both out. She scooped the old woman into her arms, pausing for the barest fraction of time as she realized the second body had disappeared. Only a patch of darkness on the dirt remained, more like a shadow than something real.
Damn her curse and the mind tricks it played to the hottest level of Hell.
She dashed out, laying the old woman gently on the ground as Gallmau released his hold and the remains of the carriage began a slow fall to the ground.
She broke out of her speed as the crash of wood and metal filled the air around them.
She focused on the handsome stranger first, making sure he hadn’t taken advantage of Gallmau’s damned heroics to attack them.
He had stepped back, with his head cocked to one side as if that might help him figure out what the hell they were doing.
Meri sympathized. She had no idea why they had risked themselves to drag a corpse out into the open when whatever killer had loosed the Death Hounds could attack them at any moment.
The dead woman in front of Meri drew in a deep breath and rose to her knees, her hands clasped in prayer. “Blessed be the Lady of Shadows, who has delivered us from death only so we can enjoy her cold embrace on another day.”