Utros pressed his lips together. “Yes, he fancied himself a historian and informed me that my name is legend.” He tasted the bitter sarcasm in his throat. “Nathan is also the one who told me of the fall of Emperor Kurgan. It was he who told me what really happened to my dear Majel.” Bile rose in his throat every time he thought of that sweet woman, how her own husband had skinned her alive to get his revenge.
The gold mask felt heavy on his face, and Utros adjusted it against his cheekbone. “But Nathan’s gift was gone, was it not? He seemed impotent as a wizard. How did he fight you?”
“His gift is back,” Ruva said. “He and one other wizard from Ildakar, a man named Renn, attempted to protect the town. But we defeated them.”
Utros was pleased but perplexed. “You defeated two wizards? How?”
“Compassion was their weakness,” Enoch said. “We couldn’t fight their gift directly, but we slew some innocent townspeople and threatened to kill them all if they did not relent. The two wizards escaped, and we took all the supplies.”
With a haughty sniff, Ruva said, “We should have killed the townspeople anyway, just to punish them.”
“Those were not my orders,” Enoch responded with a hint of anger. “My priority was to commandeer supplies to feed our troops, not to secure some petty revenge.”
“It wouldn’t have taken long,” the sorceress said flippantly, but she deferred.
They watched the carts being unloaded, so many soldiers dividing up the supplies. Second Commanders Halders and Arros directed the activity.
“The soldiers will follow orders until the hunger in their bellies convinces them otherwise.” Utros shook his head. “We can’t just stay encamped in this worthless valley. Ildakar is gone, as are all its supplies. There is no reason to remain. Our army has to move, and soon.”
“We have a continent to conquer,” Ava said.
“We dare not let King Grieve have it all,” Ruva said.
The thought made Utros ill. He looked across the valley. “We break camp at dawn and march westward at a swift, even brutal, pace. Our food will run out before long.” He lowered his voice. “When we were partly stone, our bellies were quiet. We did not appreciate the blessing that went hand in hand with that curse. Now this army must hold itself together long enough to cross over the mountains.”
“You will hold the army together,” Ruva said.
Utros couldn’t drive away the cold knot in his chest. In the past month he had already dispatched dozens of expeditionary armies with thousands of men to plant the banner of Utros across the landscape. Now he would have to strip every resource they could find just to keep the huge army moving.
But he looked forward to the march.
CHAPTER 12
As Adessa moved up the riverbank on her long journey back to Ildakar, her only company was Maxim’s severed head, which she carried in a bloody sack at her side. She traveled at a steady pace, without urgency, since the hunt was over. She had killed her prey, but her quest was not finished. She still had to bring the trophy back home.
Home. Adessa rarely let herself think such thoughts. As a morazeth, she gave her body and her skills entirely to Ildakar. Adessa had no joys, no doubts, only service. She would fight and defeat any opponent in the combat arena; she would kill any enemies of the city, even the wizard commander himself. She did not count the cost in blood, nor did she celebrate the amount she spilled.
Before she had killed Maxim, he’d taunted her that Ildakar might be under siege by a Norukai war fleet. He also claimed to have broken the petrification spell and intentionally unleashed the gigantic army of General Utros. Adessa had no reason to believe this was true, since she also knew that the wizard commander had a habit of lying. Once she got back to the city, she would see the truth for herself, and fight if necessary.
As she moved mile after mile, Adessa anticipated seeing the glorious city, the arbor-lined streets, the ruling tower and the sacrificial pyramid, the combat arena soaked with blood and glory. Adessa had trained so many fighters, and some, like Ian, even became champions, a rare honor. She had also allowed Ian to become her lover, to impregnate her with her most recent child. Even though Adessa had killed Ian when he betrayed Ildakar, she could not deny the fondness she’d felt for him. If only he had not been corrupted.…
At Gant’s Ford, after leaving the Farrier family, she considered finding a riverboat pilot who would take her upriver to Ildakar, but Adessa was in no mood for company. She could travel swiftly enough alone, and she had been by herself ever since the sovrena sent her on this hunt. By now the uprising in Ildakar would have been subdued, Thora and the wizards’ duma would have reestablished their rule and punished the criminals. Adessa would come home triumphant.
She followed a dirt road alongside the Killraven River, but as she went farther from the town, the path degenerated into a faint trail among the trees. The dangerous swamps far to the north would be much more of a challenge.
After a day of hard traveling, she ate dried meat and fruit from her pack and eventually stopped to make camp. Adessa gathered dry wood in a clearing and sat on a fallen tree whose bark had rotted away. The campfire of dry willow wood, grasses, and oak twigs cracked and popped, exhaling a ribbon of smoke. She drank from her waterskin and made a small meal of more preserved food. In a few days, she would have to hunt, but tonight she would just rest and then move on as soon as the sun rose.
The nearby river curled along the banks with a whispering sound. Night birds chirped and insects muttered as they stirred in the comforting darkness.
Adessa picked up the sack with its grisly burden and set Maxim’s head on a stump across from the campfire. She pushed the fabric down to expose the discolored, swollen skin. The wizard commander’s eyes were puffy and half open, a gelatinous milky white. His mouth hung slack as the lips drooped to expose his teeth. He had once possessed a capricious trickster smile filled with more poison than humor. Now his skin held an oily greenish cast of decay, and rusty brown stains covered the stump of his neck.
Trying to balance the head upright, she pressed down to squish the soft tissue. “You will be my company for the evening,” Adessa said. “But you were not good company in life. Sovrena Thora despised you. Now you will at least be silent and respectful.”
With his dead face across from her, Adessa squatted on the log and contemplated as she finished her meal. Ravens squawked in the trees above the river and burst into flight. She looked up, wondering what had disturbed them.
Then a taunting voice sent splinters of ice down her spine. “You think you have won.”
Her hand flashed to the short sword at her side and she rose from her seat. The campfire snapped again. She looked around.
“You won’t win,” the voice said, and she turned toward Maxim’s head. Though bloated and discolored with decomposition, his eyes were now open, with the whites focused on her. “Ildakar has already fallen.”
“By the Keeper!” she cried.
“Yes, by the Keeper.” Maxim’s lips spread apart and cracked as pus leaked through them. His swollen tongue protruded from his teeth as the jaws moved to form words. “You haven’t finished the job, morazeth.”
Sure that she was imagining this nonsense, Adessa stared. “Be silent!”
When Maxim laughed, his head wobbled on the stump. “The veil is frayed, the boundaries slippery. Many souls moved through the cracks.” The head chuckled again. “And I am slippery indeed.”
“Be silent!”
Gripping her short sword, she strode around the fire to loom over the severed head. The eyes blinked at her in mocking innocence.