David Farland - The Lair of Bones

Borenson peered about nervously, worried that Inkarran warriors would come storming into the chamber at any moment. Myrrima rushed across the room, stared down some dark corridor.

“Where’s Prince Verazeth?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Borenson said. “I haven’t seen him in hours.”

She growled angrily and stalked back to Borenson. “We’ve got to get out of here!” Myrrima said. “If the Inkarrans find out what we’ve learned the shape of the Rune of Will, we’re dead.”

“Do you even know the way out?” Borenson asked, “This place is a maze.”

Myrrima froze. She had no idea how to get out of the city, much less the country.

In the darkness, Borenson heard a grunt as someone cleared his throat. Then a voice spoke up in mild Inkarran accent. “Perhaps I can help.”

Borenson whirled, ready to fight. In the darkness, against the wall, sat a man in dark robes. He had been so still that neither of them had seen him in the dark. He pulled back a deep hood to reveal skin as pale as milk and eyes that glowed red in the darkness from lack of pigment.

Borenson was about to launch himself at the man when he realized that he was a Days.

No, not just a Days, King Criomethes’s Days, he realized.

“And why would you help us?” Borenson asked. For the Days had been politically neutral from time immemorial. They took no side in any dispute.

“Because the fate of the world sits upon a precipice,” the Days answered. “For two days now, my people have argued whether to intervene. I have made up my mind, and the Council has made up theirs. They will not intervene.” As if to announce his decision, he stood up and pulled off his brown scholar’s robes. He was a tall man, with broad, powerful shoulders. Beneath his robes he wore a plain white tunic, and an Inkarran breastplate. A long Inkarran dirk rode in a sheath on his thigh. “It’s time for any man who hopes to call himself a man to go to fight at Carris.”

“Carris?” Myrrima asked.

“The Earth King has asked every man who can bear a weapon to ride to Carris to fight the reavers,” the Days said. “If we’re to make it, we must do so by sundown. I can get you out of Inkarra, but my kind are forbidden to enter Mystarria. Once we cross the border, my life will be in your hands.”

“Fight the reavers?” Myrrima asked. “Last I saw, Gaborn had the horde on the run.”

“No,” the Inkarran said, “not that horde—a new one. The reavers are marching toward Carris in a black tide, larger than the first.”

Borenson shuddered at the thought.

“Will Gaborn be fighting there?” he asked, for he hoped to tell Gaborn of his discoveries in Inkarra.

“He was last seen entering the Underworld two days ago, to fight a legend—the fell mage who leads the reavers, the One True Master,” the Inkarran said. He rushed over to the fire, reached under some bags that were hidden there. He pulled out a kingly head plate as protection, took a long straight Inkarran sword from over the fireplace and strapped it on.

He finished buckling on the sheath, looked Borenson in the eye. “I should warn you that the chances for those who fight in Carris are slim. A host of enemies are arrayed against you, and not all of them are reavers.”

“Who?”

“Raj Ahten has become a flameweaver, and even now he plots how to destroy Mystarria. As he does, his facilitators vector endowments to him as fast as they are able. They have resorted to bribing street urchins and blackmailing criminals. But he is not alone. Lowicker’s daughter guards the roads north of Carris, preventing any help from reaching the city from that direction.

“Beyond that, King Anders is riding from Crowthen, claiming that the Earth has called him to be its new king, now that Gaborn has lost the power to warn his Chosen of danger.”

Borenson snorted in derision, but the Inkarran said, “Do not laugh. For years he has studied the arts of sorcery, and already he has convinced many of the veracity of his words. But King Anders is full of treachery. He sent a plague of rats to destroy Heredon, and no Earth King would dare do something so vile. Gaborn managed to frustrate his plot, but Anders has others.”

“Name them,” Borenson said.

The Inkarran said, “At his bidding, the warlords of Internook have overrun the Courts of Tide. Olmarg himself led the attack, holding the Orb of Internook aloft. Three thousand gray longboats sailed into the city at dawn. Though Chancellor Westhaven surrendered, Olmarg gutted him. Then the barbarians of Internook hurled fire into the shanties along the docks, and have spent the morning raping and pillaging. Olmarg has seized the throne of Mystarria, and is even now looting its treasury of gold and forcibles. The Duchess Galent went before him an hour ago, begging him to restrain his men, for they slew her husband and deflowered her daughters before her eyes. In answer, Olmarg threw her on the floor and raped her, before slitting her throat. That is the kind of man that serves Anders.” By now the Inkarran had taken a purse full of coins from the dead king’s body and had grabbed some rice buns and fruit from a basket near the fire. He went to a peg on the wall and took down an Inkarran day cloak—a black cloak with a deep hood that would protect his eyes from the light—and wrapped it over his shoulders.

Borenson felt stunned at the news. He had spent his life in service to Gaborn’s father, protecting Mystarria. Never in his darkest dreams had he imagined that his nation would fall.

The Inkarran studied Borenson for a moment. “I’ll take you to the guards now. Act as if nothing is amiss. They’ll return your weapons. Your horses should have been delivered to the king’s stables. If not, we can steal mounts there.”

“And what of Prince Verazeth?” Myrrima asked. “Where is he?”

“He is drinking honeysuckle wine and playing dice with his friends,” the Inkarran answered. “With any luck, he won’t return to these rooms until nightfall.”

The Inkarran turned toward a door.

“One last thing,” Borenson asked. “Do you have a name?”

The Inkarran glanced back, his face a white mask beneath his hood. Just enough firelight caught his eyes so that they reflected the red embers. “Sarka. Sarka Kaul.”

When Chemoise woke from her dreams of rats, daylight was streaming through the open door of the old winery. Chills wracked her, and she could not stop shaking. Aunt Constance helped her to her feet, and someone from town—Chemoises’s eyes were too bleary to see who—guided her downhill to the house.

The ground outside the winery was burned bare. The hoops from the barrels lay in blackened rings. The pear trees were smoldering stakes. Fire had razed the hills to the west.

A wagon waited just outside the door, and Chemoise saw three people laid out on it with blankets draped over their faces.

“Who died?” Chemoise asked bitterly, for she had worked so hard to save everyone. To her knowledge, only her dear uncle Eber should have died. “Who is in the wagon?”