“Wielding such power would break me,” he said. “My mortal form would not endure.”
The beast laughed, and the endless space seemed to ripple along with it.
The soul is limitless. With our help, you will become as mighty as the gods themselves.
Velixar found his consciousness assaulted by tiny pinpricks of light that gradually built up within his ethereal form, expanding it, filling him with knowledge. The pain was exquisite, and when he screamed, his voice seemed to rip through the heavens, pulverizing stars, exploding galaxies, causing time to fold in on itself.
“Why!” he screamed amid it. “Why would you help me?”
Laughter was his only answer, and then he opened his eyes. He was back in his pavilion, the head of Donnell Frost a heap of liquefied flesh and bone stuck to his fingers. He fell back, his rump splashing in the puddle of melted snow behind him. Rising to his feet, heart pounding, mind racing, he pulled the pendant from beneath his tunic and watched the bas-relief of the lion atop the mountain pulse and throb with a dark purple glow.
The soul is limitless. Velixar gritted his teeth and squeezed the pendant, feeling its warmth thump in his hand like a heartbeat.
“As mighty as the gods themselves,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 19
Not much farther now,” said Nole, one of the soldiers leading Rachida Gemcroft and her band of six hundred sellswords through the frozen white north. Nole and his six mates were thin to the point of malnourishment, their flesh pale and covered with ugly purple splotches and raised veins. Despite being young-Nole in particular looked to be barely out of his teens-they moved with the awkward gait of much older men. Each time their feet touched the ground, breaking through the thin sheen of ice and into the powdery snow beneath, it looked as if they might fall over.
Rachida shivered against the cold as she sat atop her horse, pulling her cloak tight around her. For fifteen days she and her legion had marched through cliffs and valleys, circling the bases of mountains, the last half of the journey spent trudging through snow, ice, and freezing rain while hungry wolves haunted their nights. At last they had arrived on the outskirts of Drake. Only instead of the people of Paradise, they’d happened upon this small band of Karak’s soldiers. The soldiers’ eyes had widened with what looked like relief when they’d emerged from the frozen wilderness, greeting her and her men as saviors. Rachida had introduced herself as Commander Mori, breathing a sigh of relief that her hired army still bore the standard of the lion on their chests.
Quester sidled up to her, pulling at his blond beard and appearing amused. “So what do we do now, milady?” he asked. “Draw swords?”
“Not yet,” Rachida whispered back. “Our enemy thinks us their ally still. Best we see the state of our opponent before we act.”
“Yes, milady,” Quester said with a grin before falling back into line with the others.
The snowy path they traveled veered into the forest, revealing the soldiers’ camp. There were numerous tents scattered about, and though a great many cookfires burned, the scent of food was noticeably lacking. It was the middle of the day, yet there was a gloom in the air. The tree branches above were weighed down by a thick coat of ice, glimmering in the murk like crystalline, skeletal fingers.
Men emerged from their tents as they rode through the center of the camp. There were so many of them. Countless eyes, deep-set and bloodshot, gazed hungrily in Rachida’s direction. She felt a chill and shivered once more, pulling her cloak even tighter around herself. Many of the men were hunched over as if their spines weren’t strong enough to hold up their bodies any longer. Others simply stood with their mouths hanging open, revealing rotting teeth and blackened gums. Still others sucked on handfuls of snow like sweet combs of honey.
It was one of the more frightening sights she’d ever seen.
At the head of the camp, set against a backdrop of trees with thick, imposing trunks, was a large pavilion. “Dismount here,” said Nole as they approached it. The young soldier then disappeared into the pavilion. Rachida patted her horse and swung out of the saddle, then looked back the way they had come. The sellswords formed a line through the trees, the rear of the procession concealed by fog. Her men eyed the soldiers warily, fingers dancing on the hilts of the swords on their belts. They dismounted and gathered around the wagons they’d brought with them, those containing what was left of the provisions harvested in Conch. Karak’s soldiers ogled the wagons, wantonness showing in their eyes.
Quester appeared beside her. His air was serious, much different from the flippancy he usually displayed.
“Get the captains,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
“All of them?”
“Yes. And be prepared for the worst.”
The Crimson Sword nodded.
The captains of the other five sellsword companies gathered, nary a word spoken between them. A moment later Nole stepped out of the pavilion.
“Captain Blackwolfe will see you now,” he said, gesturing to the tent flap. Rachida took a deep breath, then stepped into the pavilion, Quester and the other captains on her heels.
The men awaiting them inside looked like death warmed over. Their flesh was pale, eyes rimmed with purple, hair snarled into oily tendrils. The plate and mail armor they wore was rusting at the joints, and the roaring lion sigil on their chests appeared somber, not threatening. They looked like men who’d been lost in the wilderness for an age.
Despite their downtrodden appearance, the one in the center, a tall, lanky sort with a matted beard and intense eyes, smiled. “You came,” he said. “You actually came.”
“We did,” Rachida said, though she had no clue what he was talking about.
The man stood boldly upright, as if he’d just remembered protocol, and bowed to her.
“Captain Talon Blackwolfe at your service,” he said. “It is an honor to receive you, Commander Mori.”
“It is an honor to be received,” Rachida answered. Behind her, the sellsword captains fidgeted.
“Please know we appreciate your arrival,” the man told her. “It wasn’t expected. To say we’re relieved would be an understatement.”
The others in the pavilion hastily nodded their agreement.
A cold wind blew, billowing the sides of the tent around them. Talon Blackwolfe shivered and looked at the soldiers standing on either side of him, as if seeking guidance from them. It was such a strange thing. To Rachida, these men appeared much too green to be officers, and Talon was in no way captain material. He was too young, too gruff; a foot soldier, not a leader.
“Captain,” she said, “what has been going on here?”
Blackwolfe gave her a queer look, glancing at his eight officers. “Were you not told already?”
“Would you prefer to waste my time with assumptions, or would you answer the question I asked?”
The man sighed, his shoulders slumping. “There were five thousand of us here, making life miserable for those spellcasting bastards in Drake. Casualties were low, supplies good. But then our first commander, Wallace Ball, was taken from his pavilion in the middle of the night. We looked, found some footprints leading to the river, but that was the last trace of him we’ve seen since. Not long after, Captain Joseph Marten took command and ordered us on the offensive.
“We were just meant to harass, you know. Those were Karak’s orders-just harass, not assault. So long as the people of Drake stayed up here instead of going south to help Ashhur, we were doing our job. But our new captain wanted blood, though truth be told I think he was just spooked and thought he’d vanish like Wallace did. So we crossed the river, like good little soldiers.”
Rachida had heard stories of the spellcasters of Drake, but had yet to witness their power. A part of her ached to have been here during the assault.