“You could see that level of detail from atop the mountain?” It was a foolish question, Gareth knew—Orians didn’t guess at things, plus their vision was uncanny—but he had to ask. He wanted to hear doubt in her next answer.
He didn’t. “Yes.”
Though the response suggested finality, he could sense there was more to be said. He waited patiently, though he felt the hairs on his neck straighten themselves like old hunched over men having discovered the fountain of youth.
“I also saw…something moving.”
“Something?” After the level of detail she’d provided on the fingers and boot protruding from the snow, her vagueness was even more disconcerting.
“They were large. They moved quickly, sometimes on all fours but occasionally reverting to two legs. They were hairless, their skin as pale as the snow around them. That’s why it was hard to make out details. At first I thought they might be some kind of bear or other animal, but the more I watched, the more I knew they were not.”
The Horde. There was no doubt in Gareth’s mind. Pools of blood. Bodies buried beneath the snow. Had the castle of Darrin been attacked? Had Annise and her people fled for the mountains, seeking the old paths through the stone behemoths, tunnels the easterners had once used to attack the north? Had any of them survived? His next question hung on his lips for a moment, and then fell. “How many?”
Hundreds. Thousands. A number as great as the salt in the sea, the sand in the desert, the dust in the wastelands of Phanes…
“Three,” she said.
“Three? Thousand?”
She shook her head. “Just three. Total. One, two, three.”
Gareth said, “Scouts?”
“I don’t think so. They made no attempt to hide themselves from watchful eyes. They moved fast, like they were fleeing, not stopping.”
Where the hell are the rest of them? Gareth wondered. It would’ve almost been better if the entire Horde were spread out around the city of Darrin. At least then he would know with a certainty where they were and what had happened to the northerners.
“Thank you,” he said. “Get some sustenance and rest.”
She nodded and bowed before leaving Gareth to his thoughts.
Three days later
The legionnaires were growing restless. Gareth sat on a gray rock jutting from the hillside, watching them eat and smoke and pass the time playing games. None had openly questioned his orders to remain encamped in the foothills of the Mournful Mountains, but he could sense their frustration. Why should they stay here in the off chance that a few of the northerners were still alive? What was the point?
He could also sense the growing impatience from the people of Crow’s Nest. On the eve of the first night, when he’d told them about the plight of the northerners and how he wanted to help them, he’d heard grumbles, but not one defied him the way Jormundar had back in Ferria. He’d taken it as a victory, but now he could feel the cold animosity like a fog settling over the whole of the mountain city.
The smart thing to do was to thank them for their hospitality and move on, leaving them to defend the northeast corner the way they always had. It had been days since he sent that stream to Darrin. Even the slowest, most bedraggled group would take only a handful of days to cross over or through to the east.
But what if Annise is still alive? What if we can still save some of her people? Gareth knew it could change the relationship between their proud nations for decades to come. And if he left now and Annise and her people stumbled down the flanks of the mountain…
They would be treated as enemies—killed, or at best imprisoned.
He gritted his teeth in frustration. For all he knew the Horde was crossing the Spear as he sat idly doing nothing. For all he knew one of his other border cities was being ravaged by the merciless barbarians…
That was the thought that made up his mind. Yes, he wanted to make peace with his neighbors to the north. Yes, he wanted to help them. But his ultimate responsibility was to his people and the east. He would lead his legionnaires west, sending scouts ahead. Locating the enemy’s main force would be the first priority. From there, war.
The decision made, he stood and started down the hill.
Forty
In the bowels of the Mournful Mountains
Annise Gäric
The snow was spread out before Annise’s feet like a soft blanket, stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Pristine. Untouched.
She turned slowly, trying to remember how she’d gotten here, and why.
Cries echoed from somewhere, but each time she whirled to locate the source, they seemed to twist, coming from behind her. “Stop,” she said. “Please stop.”
They did.
Her lips drew in the icy air, releasing each breath in a hot puff that vanished mere inches from her mouth.
Annise felt like she was vanishing too, though when she looked at her hands they were as solid as stone.
“Anniiiiiisssssse,” a voice said, and again she spun, but there was no one there, just a stark, empty snowfield. Except—
“By the frozen gods…” she murmured, every hair on her body standing up.
Where a moment earlier had been a sheet of unmarred snow, there was a crimson trail, like someone had painted a wide line of red over the ground.
She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the way the paint—aye, it’s paint, it’s only paint—moved, shifted, flowed.
It was a river. And, Annise knew in her heart, it wasn’t paint.
Her feet moved forward, though she swore she had given them no command. Not through the snow, but into the bloody stream. She wore no boots, she realized, and soon her feet and ankles were red, the thick, warm liquid sloshing around her as she walked.
Again, that voice. “Anniiiiiiisssssse,” and now she recognized it as Tarin’s monster.
Not Tarin’s monster, the voice said, which was not spoken at all, but hissed in her head. Your monster.
Annise tried to stop, to scream, “What?” but her feet continued to move of their own accord, following this trail of death. The trail she could now see was littered with bodies, which she trod on underfoot, unable to step over or around them.
The blood of my people, she realized. My path to safety was paved with their broken bodies, their bones.
I failed them.
The monster hissed, Not just themmm.
Something appeared in the distance—an end to the river of blood and corpses. A stone slab.
An altar? Annise thought.
Guess again, the monster said, and she could sense the excitement in its tone.
She didn’t want to. Didn’t want to see what was up ahead. Wanted to collapse in the snow and close her eyes and never face the people she had failed, the world she had been too weak for, the enemy she’d fled from like a rabbit from a wolf…
But then she was there, and she managed to stop before she reached what she now knew was a stone casket.
Death seemed to rise from it like a dark smoke and now it was night, the light sucked from the sky by a dark void. There were no stars nor moons, and yet a swathe of light with no origin spotlighted the casket.
Not just them, the monster had said. She had failed others. People closer to her. Loved ones. Jonius had been the latest. A shiver ran through her as she realized how many bodies the casket could contain. Her mother. Her brother. Somehow, she knew it wouldn’t be either of them.
No.
No.
It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be. For if Tarin was in the casket, she would surely die.
Her feet didn’t force her forward this time, and she sensed it was her choice whether to look.
I owe him that much. I owe him everything.
She took one step, but the stone edge continued to block her view.
Another. She saw a swathe of cloth, pure white. Northern funeral clothes, not unlike the purity garb the westerners wore daily.
Look, the monster
said. Behold the fruit of your reign as Warrior Queen of the North!
The words were mocking, intended to injure and anger and bloody.
But she also knew she had to look, even if it destroyed her.
Her final step was a long stride, bringing her all the way to the casket, her hands gripping the stone edge as she leaned over to stare at—
Herself.
She almost laughed because the casket contained a mirror, reflecting her face and body back at her, except—
Wait.
Oh frozen gods. Oh frozen hell. Oh no oh no oh gods oh hell I’m
Dead.
For it wasn’t a mirrored reflection but a real body. A corpse, its eyes closed and set with small iron shields, cracked but not broken—never broken, never ever broken, except when they were, except when they were shattered by their enemies, bones crunched underfoot, rivers of their blood flowing, flowing—her smooth porcelain skin so pale—where Tarin had touched so many times, his warm fingers trailing fire, but she could never be touched by him again—her chest still, so still, because air would never fill her lungs.
I am dead.
Yesss, the monster hissed. Yes, you are.
She screamed.
Annise awoke with a start, the end of the cry she’d screamed in her dream slipping from her lips in a breathless gush of sound.
Tarin was by her side in an instant because he’d never left her, not for one moment, not since they’d entered this infernal tomb of darkness.
They were five hundred and sixty-seven souls, she knew, for Christoff Metz had counted and informed her.
More had died than had lived.
And, despite what she’d seen in her dream, she’d survived. Not because she was strong, but because she was weak and Tarin had saved her. Her soldiers, too. And her family and friends, Zelda and Fay and Christoff and…Sir Jonius. I couldn’t save him.
Him she had failed. The rest she had failed. Perhaps it would’ve been best if she truly was in that cask—
“Annise,” Tarin said, pressing her head to his chest. “It was only a dream. A nightmare. You are safe.”
Tears bit at her eyes and she hated them almost as much as herself. For they were both filled with so much weakness, weren’t they? A queen couldn’t cry, couldn’t feel sorry for herself. No matter what happened, she needed to be strong. She thought of her cousin, Rhea, who had defeated Uncle Griswold’s entire armada, who had never wavered before the might of her enemies. Why couldn’t she have been more like her?
“Annise. Stop. I know what you’re thinking.” Tarin’s voice was soothing, but even that she didn’t deserve.
Of course he knew what she was thinking. His closeness to her was a double-edged sword at times. Not even her thoughts were her own.
She heard murmurs nearby, and she wondered how many of her people had heard her cry out in her sleep. She wondered what they all thought of her now.
Orange firelight played along the edges of Tarin’s strong jawline as he watched her. After the first day traveling in the darkness of the tunnels, the torches they’d brought had dried out enough to paint with oil and light using flint. Now, their light danced across the tunnel’s rough ceiling and walls. “Stop,” he said, stroking her hair with hands that could be as gentle as they were strong.
“When they needed me most, I faltered,” she said.
“Yes,” Tarin said. “You did.”
She couldn’t help it, she flinched, surprised by his words, which held no comfort. Good. Good.
“But I did not,” Tarin said. “Just as you did not when I faltered.”
“I don’t want to be the type of woman who requires her man to save her.” Tarin chuckled and she leaned back to glare at him. “Something amusing?”
“Yes,” he said. “You think I want to be the type of man who’s always saved by his queen lover?” He shook his head. “Neither of us are those people, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t save each other when we have the chance. You’ve saved me countless times and I won’t apologize for reciprocating. Now tell me about your dream.”
She did, and when she had finished, she waited for Tarin to chide her for being affected by something that, when analyzed now, seemed so ridiculous.
“I don’t know what it means,” he said, “but I have a guess.” His tone was serious, his eyes shadowed.
“Tell me.”
“I think it means you are willing to die for everyone we lost, to walk the same bloody path they were forced to follow.”
“I—” I am. She refused to say it aloud, for fear that it would sound as if she were painting herself a martyr, though it was she who’d survived and not them.
“Don’t say anything,” Tarin said. “Just know you are not the woman who froze up out there. You are the Warrior Queen of the North, Slayer of Ice Bears, Defender of the Realm.” He lowered his voice as he continued. “Sir Jonius was always proud of you, even at the last. And you are the love of my life, the keeper of my heart and soul. Never forget that, my queen. Never.”
In the tunnels, there was no night and day, only the times between sleeping and waking. The smoke from the torches had nowhere to go, clinging to their clothes and skin and hair, making them cough and struggle to breathe. Eventually they’d been forced to extinguish the torches until only one remained, a beacon of light at the fore of the column.
Scared children whimpered. Husbandless mothers or wifeless fathers soothed them. Soldiers still wearing bloodstained armor clanked as they walked. Time melted into stone melted into flesh and blood.
For a time, Zelda volunteered to carry the torch. Annise joined her at the front, a gap between them and the rest of the column, giving the smoke a chance to dissipate in their wake, leaving behind only an acrid stench.
“The tunnel has no end,” Zelda muttered.
She’d said the very same several times over the last few days, and Annise was beginning to agree. For all they knew it was curving slightly, sending them in the wrong direction, weeks away from spilling out into Raider’s Pass. Or they could be moving further east, where they would eventually tumble into the whitecapped ocean.
“It’s only because your legs are so short,” Annise said, trying to overcompensate for her own fears with a jape. “Perhaps Tarin should carry you.”
“Like a babe in a mother’s arms? Not if the entire Horde were chasing me. Do I look like a woman to be carried?”
“Yes,” Annise said and her aunt snorted.
They walked on, several moments of comfortable silence beating in time with their hearts. Then Zelda said, “You are my niece.”
Though the statement wasn’t more than a simple fact that didn’t need to be voiced, Annise knew what she was trying to say in her Zelda-like way. You are like me. You are strong. You are a warrior.
“Don’t you start, too, Auntie. I’ve already had the lecture from Tarin.”
“Good, you should listen to the big lug. And you should listen to me.”
“Auntie…”
“I will open your ears myself if I have to.” Annise clamped her mouth shut. “I was a girl of eight. Father said I had a gloomy disposition.”
“Gloomy? You? Never.”
“Amusing. Your wit has no end. Shall I continue?” Annise nodded. “There was a man—Bear Blackboots.”
“The one who raised my brother? Bane?”
“The one and the same. Back then he was a huntsman in the castle. There was something peculiar about him, so naturally I enjoyed his company. He made me feel like a human being. Treated me like an adult. He had a beautiful white wolfhound. When she hid in the snow you couldn’t see her, so long as her eyes were closed. But when she opened them, they were pools of crystalline blue, as piercing as a cloudless sky. Her name was Serenaia—Naia for short.” The sound of her aunt’s voice was calming, helping to hide if not erase the last weeks for a few, blessed moments. “Something happened one day. I witnessed it. My brother, your father, being his arrogant, foolish self. Naia atta
cked him. She was only protecting Bear and me.”
Despite the calming timbre of her aunt’s voice, Annise felt a twinge of dread. Stories that involved her father rarely ended well for anyone but him. “What happened?”
“My father was forced to have the dog put down.” Annise’s heart beat firmly in her chest. “Bear did it himself.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I was weak. I told the truth, but no one listened. And then I just let it happen. I should’ve done more.”
“You were eight. A little girl.”
Zelda shook her head. Tell me, what kind of girl were you at eight? What would you have done?”
Annise tried to remember being that age. By then she was already wrestling the boys in the yard—and winning. In her heart, she’d always heard the names they often called her, but she’d never let it show. But when it came to her father… “I—I don’t know.”
“Bollocks. You would’ve thrown yourself in front of that dog before you’d let anyone kill her.”
“Auntie, you don’t know that.”
“Frozen hell if I don’t. I know I was an eccentric—and that’s putting it nicely—aunt to you growing up, but I was always watching you. Wishing I had been more like you and less like me. But then again, I didn’t have a woman like Sabria as my mother.”
Annise frowned. “My mother rarely spoke to me. Now I know why she ignored me, but I didn’t learn anything from her.”
“And yet she is in you just the same. Did you know I never really stood up to my brothers until I met your mother? It took a different kind of strength to save the north from your father’s oppression. Your mother’s strength. You have that strength in you. And mine. That makes you undefeatable.”
Annise felt like crying, but she was done with tears. Still, her aunt’s story didn’t change anything. All it showed was that even women of the north showed weakness sometimes. Just like she had at the penultimate point of the battle with the Horde, which could have been disastrous if not for the actions of her loyal supporters.