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There was no condemnation in her words, no judgment, yet Serovek briefly closed his eyes, sick to his soul at their truth. When he opened them again, she was still in front of him, and beyond her Anhuset watched him with a wary, puzzled expression.
The queen had addressed him by the title given to the five who'd fought thegalla. “How do you know me?” he asked. “Did you and yours serve under my banner?” The Kai dead had followed Brishen while the human dead had answered to Serovek, Andras, Gaeres and Megiddo.
Again, only a voice in his mind answered. “We serve no one. All of the dead heard the summons of a son of the Old blood.”
This time the ghostly throng behind her spoke aloud, repeating in hollow unison ancient Kai words once uttered by Brishen's eidolon on Saruna Tor.
“Rise and come forth, ye sleepers and ye wanderers. Come forth and prepare for war. Rise. Rise.”
“Oh fuck.” Anhuset's face had gone the color of a dead fish. “All my wealth for a sword and shield right now.”
Serovek shuddered hard enough that he would have fallen to his knees had the vines not held him upright. Those words had seeded more than a few of his nightmares, always preceding grotesque images of Megiddo tortured by thegalla. He shoved aside the guilt and abiding horror to concentrate on the queen.
“We wished only to cross to the other side as a faster way to the Lobak valley,” he said. “We've no interest in exploring your city, only passing through it.”
She shook her head. “The dead and the damned already reside in Tineroth, Wraith king. There's no welcome for you and yours here.” The spectral queen smiled a sad, bitter smile. It faded, and behind her the court of phantoms sighed, the sound like the last gasp of the dying. “We've come to warn you. The guardian of Tineroth waits at the gate. Those who enter, don't leave. Go back the way you came.”
He was about to reassure her that was exactly what he intended when Anhuset pulled on her bonds in an attempt to free one arm. “Margrave, look to the far battlement right of the gate.” Serovek did as she instructed, spotting a lone figure perched like a raptor on the battlement's narrow ledge. “Whoever that is,” Anhuset continued. “They aren't a ghost.”
She was right. The wind howling up from the ravine whipped the figure's pale hair around their head, partially hiding their face. They were too far away for Serovek to make out any specific features, but the dull gleam of sunlight on steel told him the watcher wore armor, and the pole arm casually tucked into the crook of their elbow spoke of a warrior's ease with weaponry.
Like the bridge and the city it led to, something about that distant figure raised internal alarms, even if the phantom queen's words hadn't already done so.
“We can't stop you from entering Tineroth,” she said, her voice no longer strong in his mind but more of a resonance heard in a deep well. “But you, like others before you, will die there if you do.”
Serovek was no stranger to war, against the living, the dead, and the demonic, but a shorter path to the monastery wasn't worth risking their lives more than necessary, and his instincts told him the guardian the queen warned him about was more than a solitary warrior with a sharp blade.
She gestured with a pellucid hand, and the vines fell away from his and Anhuset's legs, retreating with a loud hiss as serpentine as their movements. “Your choice,” the queen said. “Farewell.” Her form faded, the last bits of mist shredded by the wind. The crowd of ghosts accompanying her lost shape and definition, melting into the obscuring fog that rolled back toward the city before enveloping it entirely in a gray shroud.
Serovek no longer saw the guardian, though he was sure they still watched him and Anhuset with malevolent intent.
Anhuset strode to where her knife lay on the deck, no longer covered by the vines. “What did the ghosts say? I could tell the one was speaking to you in your thoughts.”
“Turn back and live or go forward and die,” he replied. “I'll give you and the others details once we're off this bridge and back on the road.”
She wiped a hand across her sweating brow, no longer scowling now that she had her blade back. “I was hoping you'd say that. I'd rather face Chamtivos than keep company with ghosts and whoever watched us from the battlement.” A quick look back over her shoulder toward the mist wall. “Not a ghost,” she said. “But I think someone or somethingI'd not want to cross if I didn't have to.”
Her remark put to rest any hesitation he might have harbored about taking the long way through contested territory. It spoke volumes that the fierce Anhuset wasn't keen on journeying into the eerily silent city the queen called Tineroth.
He was done with ghosts andgalla, and his feet craved solid ground. “You boasted you're a fast swimmer.” He gave Anhuset an arch look, grinning a slow grin when she returned it. “But how fast can you run?”
“Faster than you, margrave,” she scoffed.
“Care to wager on that?”
“Any time, any place,” she said and launched into a sprint for the spot where Erostis and Klanek waited.
Serovek raced after her, uncaring if he lost a handful of coin to her, relieved to leave behind the dead and the grim words of their monarch.
“A dark song is your spirit, Wraith king, a hymn of the broken.”
Chapter Eight
Not so ugly this morning.
Anhuset layon her back looking up at a star-studded sky as she worried a dirty silk ribbon between her thumb and forefinger. She preferred being on guard duty, but she obeyed Serovek's edict that the four of them would take short shifts through the night so they were all mostly rested and alert during the day. No more napping on her horse while they rode through contested territory.
Despite the stains and fraying edges, the ribbon still slid smoothly between her fingers. One of her companions was asleep, the second tending the fire, and Serovek himself taking this round of the watch. None would see her stroking the ribbon.
