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Both stared, but not the soldier beside them, his breastplate edged with rust, his eyes pecked into a set of black, gaping holes. Perhaps by the crow sitting on what remained of his shoulder, arm dangling on little more than skin long dried around the shredded edges.
Something cracked beneath the weight of my shifting body. Twigs?
Muscles strained, aching, I glanced back over my shoulder, fighting against the darkness blurring the edges of my vision. A trail of mud and misery lay behind me, paved with crushed corpses poking from the ground where they didn’t pile in heaps as tall as five men to each side.
My breath stalled.
Many heaps.
In fact, I’d only ever heard of one such place.
I lifted my head, glancing toward the slosh of hooves sinking into the mud before each one lifted with a wetpop. Hobbles gone, Augustine trudged along the parting crowd of corpses. He walked over those too dismembered to move, trampling them into the ground with blood-curdling cracks.
I was dragged over what was left.
Devil be damned, I had to free myself.
I reached for the piece of leather wrapped around my ankle. A little more… Almost…
Pain seized my muscles.
My head hit the ground and blood seasoned my tongue.
From the corner of my left eye, a gray structure rose above me, casting a cold shadow over my shivering body. The damn mule had dragged me to the Blighted Fields, but I couldn’t pass the Æfen Gate into the Graying Tower. No human could enter—
Sloshing stomps turned to echoingclip-clops.
Sudden cold paralyzed my muscles. It accompanied me along a passage into darkness and crept into my veins as panic flooded my head.I shouldn’t be here.Felt it in the marrow of my bones that I was in the wrong place.
The whistling of wind followed us for long moments but faded away the deeper we ventured. In its place, a violentcrshhechoed from the surrounding stone.
“Wine. Always… wine.” The voice was a low rumble, followed by anothercrshh, like shattering plates. “Did they all run out of mead? Wasn’t there a single ale to be had?”
“If mead’s what ye want, ye have to keep the rot from me body long enough so I can go another day past the nearest village. As if I dinnae have enough trouble already finding enough wine for ye muddled head.”
The deep voice growled, “Mind your tongue, Orlaigh.”
A finalclopand Augustine stopped.
His swishing tail blocked most of my view, though I could make out white steps where pieces of clay jugs lay scattered. Wine dripped from them, red puddles on the pale alabaster surrounding it all.
“Ach, they worked ye poor animal to death, dinnae they?” Black boots appeared between my mule’s four sturdy legs, and Orlaigh’s voice came softer. “Dinnea bother taking the harness off, huh? What a fine animal ye are, bringing weary bones to rest with yer master.”
Bones to rest with their master…?
A violent tremble grabbed my body, lungs heaving against the mounting desperation rattling through them. Was I truly inside the Graying Tower? No. This had to be a bad dream. A dream. Yes, only a dream. Just a dr—
The harness jiggled, sending such a stabbing pain into my ankle that I sucked in a sharp breath…
…and choked on it.
A gargle played around my ribs, expanded, swelled until my chest hardened against relentless pressure. Something warm and thick clogged my throat, bubbling underneath coughs until, turning my head, it all dislodged at once. It coated my gums, filled the gaps of my teeth, and dribbled down my chin like cod-liver oil as I heaved it all out.
Blood.
Too warm to be a dream.
Clop. Clop.
