Chapter 31
GALLMAU
G allmau drew in another breath, the scents of manure and horse urine filling his nose, and tried again to break the ropes binding his hands. They were more insults than true bonds, knotted fiber he normally could have snapped apart with ease—if it wasn’t for the candle.
It sat in front of him inside a tin holder, its only remarkable feature the gold flames that flowed down from the wick and pooled at the base—a miniature version of the fountain of fire in the Palais de Feu.
Saints damn witches and all their tricks.
The fire magic in front of him had drained away his strength, and even the two Shields left as guards weren’t paying him much attention. They stood at the entrance of the cave, their backs to him as they waited to hear the ending to the story Odart and Zhang Jue wanted.
His sister, dead. Valentina too, if Jacques kept refusing to kill Rixende. And Sinan—Gallmau prayed he had somehow escaped, but he knew better. The Prince of Shadows wouldn’t have left one of his people behind, and Gallmau now understood Rixende was one of the Blessed.
Odart only wanted Gallmau alive because he wanted to oust Queen Xiaolian and put someone he could control on the throne. If he refused, they would kill Meri.
Gallmau was about to get everything he never wanted, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Shouts rang out outside the cave, and Gallmau’s two guards straightened and saluted as another Shield carrying a lantern stepped inside.
“The Prince of Shadows is dead.” The man’s face was twisted into a satisfied grin. “Odart’s son finally did his job. The bitch should be next, then.”
Gallmau swallowed, the impact of the news crushing, even though he had expected it. Images of Sinan’s beautiful body, broken and burnt like Abarsam’s, flooded his mind. He couldn’t get past the rage and grief welling up inside him to think of any plan.
Worse yet, he didn’t know which woman they planned on killing next.
Valentina, perhaps? He prayed Meri was safe, with her value as a hostage.
His sister must be dead by now, deceived and lied to by men who had taken oaths to protect her.
Hell, even Gallmau had trusted Zhang Jue.
Now he wanted to kill him even more than he wanted to break Odart’s neck with his bare hands.
All three men gathered outside the cave to point and talk amongst themselves. Gallmau could do nothing more but thrash around, trying to break the ropes. His agitation distracted him from the squeaking noise until it grew too loud to ignore.
A familiar pair of glowing blue lights hovered near the floor.
The body of a rat formed around them, and the ghost animal began to sniff the air.
Gallmau was still wearing Sinan’s cloak, not that the enchanted object was of much use to him, and perhaps the animal wanted to be close to something that had belonged to his now-dead master.
“Sinan’s gone.” Speaking the words out loud made more raw grief well up inside him. “No cheese, either.”
The animal straightened up at the mention of a snack, its whiskers quivering hopefully. Gallmau gave a half-sob, half-laugh.
Then he had a thought. “The ropes around my hands are made of cheese.”
The rat cocked its head, a motion that mimicked Sinan perfectly.
The animal wasn’t buying it. “All right, maybe not, but I need you to chew through them. Can you do that for me?”
The rat behaved in a most un-rodent-like fashion and scrambled behind Gallmau to do as it was told.
His heart leaped, even as he had to bite his lip to not yelp in pain as the ghost animal chewed away enthusiastically at both the tough fibers of the ropes and the tender skin on Gallmau’s fingers.
In a few minutes his hands were free, and he could untie his legs.
Gallmau rose to his feet, cupping the rodent in his hand and letting it scramble up to his shoulders. He had to drag his weight along, and each step felt like it took an eternity.
As he moved away from the candle, his strength improved, bit by bit.
His captors had left the Grimoard dynasty shield propped up against one wall, although they had taken his armor and swords elsewhere.
Perhaps the Shields had wanted to show the royal symbol some respect, or maybe they had merely been careless.
Only one of those guards now stood at the entrance, craning his neck to peer into the darkness outside. There were shouts and commotion, and the Shields acted uneasy—and focused on events outside the cave. Gallmau wasn’t going to get another chance like this.
He could try to lift his shield and engage the guard in a fair fight—one he would likely lose, given the lingering effects of the fire magic. That would be the honorable thing to do.
Meri had told him his honor would get him killed one day. He could accept that.
What he couldn’t accept was his honor getting Meri killed.
His eyes locked on the guard’s back, Gallmau bent down and felt the inner lining of his boot with his fingers. The stiletto Meri had given him and insisted he always hide in his footwear slid out without a sound.
He came up behind the guard and slid the blade in between the ribs on the man’s left side and thrust it high and up.
His military training had not taught him this, but Meri had, and as the man collapsed to the floor, unable to even choke out a warning to his fellow Shields before dying, Gallmau grabbed the Shield of Soissons and ran out of the cave and toward the cover of the trees.
It was more of a stumbling, awkward jog, but no one tried to stop him. He heard more shouts of alarm and guessed something had happened to agitate his enemies.
Between that and the darkness, no one had noticed his escape.
The surge of relief he felt at that receded, replaced by hopelessness.
Freedom didn’t solve any of his problems. He couldn’t take on Odart, Zhang Jue, and the remaining Shields by himself.
Other than getting away from his captors, he had no plan.
They still had Meri as a prisoner, and Jacques—who had proved to be loyal to his country and his Queen—was as helpless as Gallmau.
Then he made out a crumpled shape lying on the bank of the river.
Sinan.
If it was all over, if he would have to choose between serving as a puppet for his sister’s murderer or watching Meri die, he wanted to pay his respects to the man they had both grown to care about, even if had been for such a brief time.
He held the rat out in his hand, using the unnatural light of its eyes to see.
Sinan’s body lay at the river’s edge, his outflung right arm crooked at an impossible angle as the water lapped away at it.
The magic coat Abarsam had created to protect Baahir flared around him, the material bobbing up and down with the ripples of water.
Gallmau placed the rat on Sinan’s chest, surprised the body had no burn marks. His fingers fumbled to loosen the cloak around his neck, and he draped it over him, whispering a prayer to the Lady of Shadows, Sinan’s patron Saint.
The river gurgled back to him, and his grief-stricken mind changed the musical sound into the young necromancer’s voice.
“Jacques couldn’t quite get me far enough. Close to the water, though. Enough that Abarsam’s cloak worked. If I could only summon the corpus animatum, but it won’t come to me.”
Wait, he was hearing him.
Gallmau gasped in surprise and bent over Sinan’s face.
The necromancer’s long eyelashes fluttered, then cracked open.
“You’re alive.” Gallmau pressed his lips to Sinan’s, stopping only when the necromancer groaned with pain. “Sorry!”
“I need the rat.” Sinan got those words out with obvious effort.
“I’ve got the little guy right here.” Excitement and triumph flooded through him.
Sinan was alive, and Gallmau was free, and that meant they could do something to save the others. What, he had no idea. He pushed the rodent toward Sinan’s face. The animal gave a disinterested sniff and climbed back up Gallmau’s arm.
Sinan opened his eyes wider, pain etched on his beautiful features. “My undead servant won’t obey me. If the rat’s here now in our realm, it could contact a corporeal spirit for us. It has no connection to my mother, but if Sanura hasn’t passed over the Veil…”
His voice trailed off, and his eyelids closed.
“It listens to me when I tell it what to do.” Gallmau picked the rat up again, his heart all but dancing in his chest. This had to work. “What do I say to it?”
“Complicated phasmancy.” Sinan’s eyes hadn’t reopened, and his slurred words made little sense. “I’d have trouble with it even if I had my Gift back.”
“Obey me.” Gallmau held the undead rodent in his hands and tried to talk like a necromancer. It didn’t sound believable, and he had no idea what phasmancy was, much less how to try it.
He did know Meri’s little sister’s name, though.
“Go fetch Sanura.” Gallmau spoke in his friendly voice, the one he used with small children afraid of his size and hunting dogs when he scratched them behind the ears. “She’s nice, and she’ll pet you, and I promise I’ll find some cheese.”
“That’s not how you issue commands to a corpus animatum.” Sinan gave a weak cough.
The rat blinked its glowing eyes shut, and then it was gone. Gallmau’s energy flagged, and he could do nothing more than hold Sinan’s hand and beg him to hold on a little longer.
As he waited, a chill began to travel along his spine, creeping up his back like the tips of icy fingers. A glowing shape walked on top of the rushing waters of the stream, small but with a determined stride.
Gallmau reached out a hand, unable to stop himself. Even if she was a ghost, he wanted to be polite to Meri’s little sister, who had come back from the grave again, this time to help them fight the man who had protected her killer.
Sanura accepted his hand, her glowing fingers solidifying in his grasp as she stepped onto the riverbank. She crouched next to Sinan, as the rat on her shoulder scuttled back up Gallmau’s arm. “Meri sent me away, and I couldn’t find my way back. She’s in terrible danger.”
“I need you to call up my mother.” Sinan croaked out the words. “Bring Naghwe here, and I’ll save Meri.”
Sanura beamed, her face at once sweet and innocent and utterly terrifying. “I can do that.”
A mass of shadows darker than the night around them undulated near the ghost girl, and Mother Naghwe formed from the twisting shapes. Her own smile was all fangs and glee, and it took everything Gallmau had not to run in the opposite direction.
“My son.” Naghwe bent down and stroked Sinan’s cheek. “I waited for your soul, but it never came. I reached out with our bond, but I was blocked.”
“Amor Vitriol,” Sinan gasped. “My powers are gone, Mother. Along with my Blessing.”
“No, they’re not.” Naghwe gave Sinan’s head a fond pat. Then she plunged her hand into his chest.
Gallmau lurched backward, a choked scream of shock escaping from him, as Sinan convulsed, his arms and legs shaking.
The ground below him shook, and the cold dread he had felt in his spine spread throughout his body, making him shiver uncontrollably.
Sloshing sounds reached his ears, and a wet, rotting smell filled his nostrils.
He gagged and turned in horror to see dozens of bodies splashing through the water, a faint glow illuminating their misshapen heads, bloated bellies, and rotting limbs.
“Those are the hortdan . ” Sinan’s voice sounded normal again. Well, not as normal as when he, Meri, and Gallmau had tumbled one another. More like the cool, menacing tones he had used when they first met. “Try not to get too close.”
The necromancer stirred, lifting his broken right arm.
There was a crack and snapping of bone, and Sinan rose to his feet, the damage done by the fall healing at a rapid rate.
He lifted his shroud cloak over his shoulders, and the entire garment glowed with the intensity of more symbols than Gallmau had ever seen on it.
The cloth burned with death magic, and Sinan’s eyes glittered dangerously in its unnatural light.
“You look scary as fuck.” Gallmau didn’t know if that was a wise thing to say to Sinan right now, but those were the only words that could make it past his lips.
Sinan turned toward him and smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been thinking about what you said about stories, and I have a new one for you.”
He strode forward, and Gallmau followed, eyeing the dripping monsters shambling around them with unease.
Sanura clutched his hand again, her little fingers cold but comforting, and the ghost rat on his shoulder hissed at the undead protectively.
Naghwe squeezed his biceps on the other side, which was—not so comforting.
“I hope it’s a good story.” Gallmau could see men and lanterns milling in front of the caves and wondered when Odart’s men were going to realize the Prince of Shadows and a horde of monsters were bearing down on them. “They have Meri and I don’t know if Valentina and Rixende are still alive.”
“The story goes something like this.” Sinan lifted his hood over his head, and the night itself swirled around him. “Raise the undead army, kill the Noviodunam mages, and save the necromancer princess.”
“I know my sister’s the beast master and tried to kill me.” Gallmau corrected himself, since Rixende didn’t give up that easily. “Twice.”
Sinan cocked his head, that same familiar movement. Only now it held more challenge than confusion. “Still want to save your sister now you know she’s one of the Blessed?”
“Hell, yes.” Gallmau’s strength flowed back to him, along with all of his fury at the Noviodunam witches who caused this mess.
If Rixende was someone like Sinan, that was fine with him.
His tolerance for creepy had gone way up since this whole thing had started, anyway.
“That damn fire spell is gone, and I’m going to rip Odart’s arms off for using it on me.
Then I’m going to beat the shit out of Zhang Jue. ”
Sinan sent his shadow shields spinning around both of them. “Let’s find out who gets to them first.”