Chapter 15 #2
“If you intend to attack me rather than work together, get it over with.” Sinan had washed the gruesome face paint off but had kept on his burial shroud of a cloak over a close-fitting tunic and trousers.
As before, he looked too damn beautiful to be a Bone Lord.
The necromancer’s sword was at his waist, and he had a travel pack in one hand.
“Glad you finally showed up, Sinan.” Gallmau put his arm over Meri’s shoulders and succeeded in getting her to sheathe her weapons with a few soothing whispers.
He indicated Tumas. “Allow me to introduce Captain Tumas of the Gardes Soissons.” He pointed to the circle of Shields who had gathered around to stare at the two Bone Lords.
“You’ve probably tried to kill most of this lot already, so I’ll pass on the formalities. ”
Sinan gave Tumas an unfriendly glare, which he then extended to everyone else. The Shields bunched together in a defensive formation, and a few of Tumas’s troops who had wandered over took several steps back. The captain held his position by Gallmau’s side, his face tight.
Sinan didn’t bother with social niceties. “I’m here at the Artifact. I can kill you both, then go in, or you can join me as we discussed. It’s up to you.”
“You’re quite confident how that fight would end, aren’t you?” Meri struggled not to let her pain show on her face. If Sinan was already manipulating her curse, she didn’t stand a chance. If he didn’t know about it, she didn’t want him to find out.
“Based on how the last one went, yes.” Sinan ignored Meri and turned to Naghwe, which pissed her off even more.
His undead mother rubbed her hands together and reached out to hug him. “One last gift, then.”
Over a dozen sigils on Sinan’s cloak glowed bright purple, and Meri swore under her breath. She had never seen anything like it, and based on the startled gasps from the group of Shields, she guessed they hadn’t, either.
Naghwe disappeared back into a pool of shadow on the ground, and Sinan walked to the Witch Stone without another word to either Meri or Gallmau.
The two of them had little choice but to grab their own packs and weapons and follow, after Gallmau gave Tumas a pat on the shoulder and a promise he’d be back to drink ale with him.
“This is a terrible idea.” Meri couldn’t walk without a limp, and Gallmau reached out for her hand, his face filled with concern.
“I think Sinan’s enhancing my curse.” Meri hesitated for a second, since there was so much she hadn’t shared with Gallmau.
“If he knows and can control me through it, we’re both dead.
He already has too many advantages, and he doesn’t need us once we’re away from the Gardes and the Shields.
We should try to kill him after we go through the portal. ”
“I’m not even going to consider that.” Gallmau lowered his voice as they drew closer to the arch, where Sinan now stood with his back to them. “We’re going to need all the help we can get to save Rixende, not to mention that stabbing a fellow soldier in the back is dishonorable.”
“Your honor’s going to get you killed one day.” Meri dragged herself forward, biting her lip as the spasms wracked her spine again. The undead Bone Lord inside her had barely made his presence known since the Death Hound attack. Sinan had to be helping him.
“Dottoressa de Almania said opening the Artifact was different for every mage that tries it.” Gallmau tried that out as a conversation starter with Sinan.
The necromancer hadn’t bothered to acknowledge that they had followed him.
“Something about affinities that matched—I didn’t understand most of what she said. ”
“I don’t need advice from Valentina about my magic.” Sinan didn’t so much as turn his head in Gallmau’s direction.
“Well, that’s what Jacques thought, and he had us waiting half a day to get the damn thing working. Abarsam listened to her and solved it in an hour.”
Gallmau’s comparison of Sinan to the incensor finally got the necromancer’s attention.
He swung around. “I know how to get past it. What I don’t know is if you’re planning to pick a fight with me first.” Sinan directed that part of his tirade at Meri, who stood with her arms crossed and her mouth set in a scowl.
“Go ahead.” Meri steadied her voice, but she held herself as if she was in pain, and anyone trained in combat would recognize it as a weakness. “Just don’t expect us to help you kill someone to do it.”
Gallmau started to say something, but didn’t get a chance.
Sinan swung back to face the arch, his hands at his sides in a position Meri now recognized as an attack stance.
Dark bands wove around the Witch Stone, and it cracked with a sound like the earth was about to split open under their feet.
Then it shattered, chunks of its apex crashing into the dirt, leaving only two tilted pillars.
Meri stood, stunned. She had seen Sinan fight Cliona, but this demonstration of his power was breathtaking. He wasn’t known as the Prince of Shadows for nothing.
“Fuck. Me.” Gallmau, for his part, couldn’t come up with anything more eloquent than that.
Sinan shot him an impenetrable look. Meri doubted the necromancer was concerned about Gallmau’s foul language, and he couldn’t possibly have misunderstood the cursing as a salacious invitation.
Hopefully Gallmau hadn’t meant it that way, either.
Beyond the ruins of what had been an arch, the mists again began to clear, opening up to reveal a dirt road passing by the ruins of a church and cemetery, all under gray, sullen skies.
“Are the two of you coming?” Sinan turned to them with evident impatience. “We need to walk in at the same time.”
Gallmau glanced at Meri, who pushed down the pit of fear in her stomach and walked to stand by the necromancer’s side.
The three of them approached the space between the broken pillars, which could have fit three Meri-sized people easily.
Gallmau, on the other hand, took up far too much room and was forced to brush against the odd material of the Witch Stone and rub shoulders with Sinan at the same time.
That didn’t go over well. As they stepped past what remained of the arch and onto the rough road, the necromancer quickened his pace, brushing off his arm and leg as if Gallmau had been a muddy dog who dirtied his clothing.
“As I said before, don’t touch me.” Sinan motioned them along with an angry wave of his hand. The mist began to creep forward, and both Gallmau and Meri sped up to avoid it. Within another few seconds, there was nothing behind them but thick fog. Getting out was going to be as hard as getting in.
“We get it, you don’t like to cuddle.” Meri walked with a smoother stride, now that the stabbing pain in her back had eased. “Why is the fog back? I thought you broke that cursed thing.”
“I can’t destroy an Artifact, especially one that enhances the powers of a weather mage.” Sinan slowed his pace as they reached the graveyard. “I took a short cut in opening it. Also, I don’t need to kill something every time I use my Gift.”
“You still feed off death.” Meri wasn’t about to let this go. Maybe she wanted to goad Sinan into attacking them, so Gallmau would go along with her plan. Maybe she was so frustrated and angry about her curse that the Prince of Shadows was an easy target. “All of your kind do.”
Sinan huffed in exasperation. “Consider this graveyard.” The necromancer bent down to run his gloved hand over a flat grave marker, half covered by grass.
“There’s thaumaturgic residual—even though there were only about fifty souls buried here, over the years.
I don’t need any power from it right now, with what my mother gave me—but yes, the dead help my magic.
They also help the grass to grow and worms to live.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to explain all of this to you, since you hate my kind so much you’re probably not even listening.
I need to find out where we are in Terra Amata.
The portal would have placed the mages in three different locations. ”
“I was right when I thought each time the Artifact opened the view had changed,” Gallmau said. “There were landmarks I recognized from the map that were nowhere near each other. Even the weather was different each time.”
“You have a map?” Sinan straightened and turned to Gallmau, his posture less hostile. “Good. Show me where the others are.”
“So you can murder them?” Meri asked. “We agreed to work with you to find Rixende and kill the necromancer who abducted her. I didn’t sign up to help you get revenge on your enemies in the Noviodunam—or on us for that matter.”
“Jacques’s group entered the portal from the eastern boundary of the mist.” Gallmau ignored Meri’s glare of outrage as he answered Sinan’s question in precise detail.
“When Abarsam opened it, he came from the western side. This old church is in the southern part of the area enclosed by the mist, near a small lake that should be north of us.”
“That’s helpful information from one of you, for once.
” The wind whipped at Sinan’s shroud cloak, and his black hair fluttered like a raven preening its feathers.
Maybe Meri felt a chill because she was standing next to a necromancer in a graveyard.
Or perhaps the temperature had dropped since they crossed through the fog.
“I’d assume the Artifact would set all three groups as far away from where Rixende is being held as possible, and nowhere near each other in the unlikely event Jacques or Abarsam would want to work with me.
That makes heading north the logical choice. ”
“You haven’t answered my question.” Meri stepped closer to Sinan, and the young necromancer let his hands fall to his sides.
“You haven’t answered mine,” Sinan responded. “Are you challenging me to a duel?”
“Hold on a minute.” Gallmau stepped in between Meri and Sinan, which given his bulk, was quite effective. “Meri’s angry because she thinks you’ve already attacked her with your magic.”
Meri bit back an oath. Why was Gallmau so damn honest all the time?
Sinan tilted his head to one side again, as if both Gallmau and Meri baffled him. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Because you’re such an honorable monster, I’m sure.” Meri drawled the words out, sarcasm dripping from each one.
“I don’t attack first unless there’s no possible chance I could lose.
” Sinan said this with flat certainty. “Other than the Order of Katil, few of my people would, except the untrained ferals the two of you hunt for money. There are risks inherent in starting a fight with one of the Blessed—and death isn’t the worst of them. ”
Meri drew in a shaky breath. Maybe Gallmau was right, and this wasn’t the time to antagonize the necromancer. The awful pain and spasm in her spine had stopped, and if Sinan was working with the necromancer who had cursed her she should be screaming in agony now.
Sinan relaxed his hands more as Meri took a step back. “What do you think I did to you?”
Meri gave Gallmau their hand signal for silence. Thank the Prophets she had taught him that one first. “Other than poison the two of us, you mean?” She tried to change the subject and not answer the question.
“That was my mother’s doing.” Sinan rounded on Meri, his posture threatening again.
“As was her decision to let both of you live. I offered you a small fortune to leave me alone to finish the fight with Cliona, and you didn’t take it.
That was after the two of you let the assassin out from under the carriage I had dropped on top of her.
Then you threatened to take my head off with Abarsam’s blades. ”
Gallmau stepped between them again. He reached into his bag and pulled out the map. “Here. Let’s stop arguing and focus on getting my sister back.”
Sinan came close enough to Gallmau to take the map, keeping a suspicious eye on Meri. “What’s the building on the other side of the lake?”
“A royal hunting lodge.” Gallmau motioned for Sinan to keep the map, and Meri didn’t protest. The small gesture of goodwill would help defuse the situation she had created, and Gallmau had memorized every detail on it anyway.
“I came here often with my father—the King, I mean, Saints rest his soul—when I was younger. We even brought Zhang Jue with us a few times, but he spent the trip reading, not hunting.”
“Could it be the place the necromancer is holding Rixende?” Meri came over to stare at the map as well, pretending the distraction worked as well on her as it had on Sinan.
“It’s close to where we came in.” Sinan pored over the map, his eyes, framed by a fringe of long lashes, scanning the document.
Why was he so damn attractive, and why couldn’t Meri stop thinking about that and focus on not being killed by him?
“So easy to get to. It would be a good place to ambush us.”
“Not if I scout it out first while the two of you provide some distraction.” Meri pointed to the hill in front of them. “That’s north, let’s go. Save the dueling for the next time you and Jacques go after each other.”