2

PREDATORS IN THE RUINS

The back of Deuneroi’s neck prickled, a premonition of pursuit. He looked over his shoulder across the dark glass of Deep Lake. Autumn mist swirled over the surface as if it had been disturbed. He thought he caught traces of the vee cut by a swimmer.

But the waters smoothed, fields of floating stars reappeared, and the mist settled like a suspended breath. The only creatures that Cyndere’s royal consort could discern were zigzagging lakebats snapping their way through clouds of water bugs.

Meanwhile, his companions were contemplating a different sort of danger—the devastation of House Abascar, which lay ahead beyond the forest.

“I’ve seen terrible things in my seventy years.” Slagh was a windbag, a timeworn merchant full of half-imagined stories. But Deuneroi believed the old man’s claim that he had been bargaining in Abascar on the day of the great calamity. So Deuneroi had paid the talkative fellow to lead the rain-burdened party from House Bel Amica to the edge of Abascar’s wreckage. And even though the travelers exchanged weary glances whenever the merchant opened his mouth, Deuneroi listened.

“I’ve seen summer’s forest fires blacken miles of earth,” Slagh continued. “I’ve choked on the foul fog that the beastmen breathe in the wasteland of House Cent Regus. I’ve watched a mountainside turn to porridge and collapse during a quake. I stood in the Rushtide Inlet during the Red Moon Flood, and my father carried me on his shoulders while the water rose to his chin. I’ve lived through all those nightmares. But I’ve never seen anything like the day House Abascar fell. I’ve never seen the earth open up its fiery throat and swallow a whole kingdom. I’ve never seen that. You ever seen that?”

Deuneroi looped a strap of his heavy pack around a broken tree branch, then called up into the tree. “Ryllion, what do you see?”

Ryllion’s answer fell with the rain. “Looks like somebody kicked apart an anthill. Abascar’s been smashed into the earth. It’s buried treasure. Our merchant must be worried that we’ll take the spoils. He’s trying to scare us home.”

Deuneroi smiled to his companions, who scowled while waterfalls poured off their hoods. “Imagine what Ryllion will be like when he’s grown up. He’ll see through the morning fog and tell us who’s misbehaving on the islands. It’s frightening, how far our boy can see.”

“I heard that,” Ryllion growled. “And I’ll have you know I’m—”

“Twenty-two years old!” chorused Ryllion’s thirteen companions. Raucous laughter broke the tension, a welcome moment of levity along their soggy, treacherous course.

There were only four. But four would be enough to finish these Bel Amicans.

Picking at his fangs with a polished claw, Jordam huffed impatiently. He and his brothers were famous along the roads of the Expanse. He liked to think that the travelers would see him tonight in their dreams underneath these agitated trees.

Tomorrow my brothers and I will teach them that nightmares are real.

He lay on the high branch of a long-beard tree, listening through rain-patter to the Bel Amicans as they muttered in their shadowy camp. Syllables. Phrases. Whispers. Hiding out of the lantern’s glow, he sifted their chatter, but he caught only a few puzzling scraps in the damaged nets of his memory and mind. Fires. Fog. Mountain. Throat.

Like his brothers, Jordam had learned some of these words. Fragments of Common still endured in the brusque tongue of the Cent Regus, but he rarely managed to understand what one of the weakerfolk’s words had to do with the other. It was clear, however, that these nervous travelers had decided to wait until morning to proceed into Abascar’s ruin.

To Jordam’s surprise his older brother, Mordafey, had insisted that they wait until morning as well. Tomorrow, Mordafey had explained, when the Bel Amicans’ attention faltered—that would be the time to strike.

Rain seeped into Jordam’s mane and dripped from his browbone, the blunt horn that jutted from his forehead.

Two of his brothers were already asleep. The youngest, Jorn—the hairless one with dark stripes on his grey hide—mumbled curses, his tongue twitching behind jutting tusks. Jordam’s twin, Goreth, lay on his back like a big brown ape, smiling and thumping the ground with his long, hairy tail, the only distinctive feature that Jordam did not share. Dreaming of honey and rockbeetles, Jordam guessed.

Below Jordam’s perch Mordafey sat against the base of the long-beard tree picking fleas out of his brindled fur. His black ears were cupped forward, and his leonine nose twitched in irritation. Mordafey did not like the language of weakerfolk. Everything about such people enraged him. “Deuneroi,” he muttered softly, gnawing rough edges from his claws. “Deuneroi. Deuneroi.”

Jordam felt his eyelids grow heavy. But then something unusual brought him back to full attention.

Mordafey sprang to his feet and broke one of the rules he had set for the brothers. He prowled off into the night. Alone.

As much as he wanted to follow, Jordam knew better than to test his older brother’s temper. Mordafey was larger and stronger than all of them. But he would not forget this. Mordafey was up to something.

As Deuneroi beheld the ruinous crater, the Underkeep into which House Abascar had crumbled, he began to wonder if he had won the wrong argument with Cyndere. Perhaps she had been right to favor fear.

For hours the company descended into the maze, all sense of direction lost, prodding dead ends with their spear tips in search of concealed paths and stairs. Stone and clay corridors had collapsed in tangles. Some wove crookedly; some led to walls or chasms. Most were crowded with rockslides and boulders, rivers of sand, fragments of walls. Massive columns—what Ryllion called “the ribs”—lay long and pale beneath slanted, smoke-blackened ceilings.

The air, caliginous with ash, moved in currents through the glow of their sparking torches. The Bel Amicans breathed through thick scarves and moved gingerly, as though wary of some hibernating giant.

At one turn in the tunnel, the searchers glimpsed the rattling tail of a rockwyrm before it vanished into a burrow. That unsettled what little remained secure within them. Oblivion lapped at the edges of the rooms, and a sound like slippery tendrils rose from the abyss. Every shudder in the walls whispered, Wise men do not walk here. This is death’s den. Even Ryllion cursed when he found that the jutting obstacles in his path were not stones at all, but bones.

“Crolca.” Deuneroi draped another layer of his scarf across his nose to muffle the stench. “Abascar’s a corpse too big for burying.” He stared at a skeletal hand that still clutched a broken spear. Teeth marks lined the bones of the forearm. Rumors claimed that beastmen had slaughtered survivors or dragged them off as prisoners. His spirits sank further when he observed his companions’ relief, for they assumed that he was defeated and ready to go home.

But Ryllion’s yellow-bearded jaw was set, his eyes wild. Deuneroi had seen this look before—a drive for satisfaction. Ryllion’s heart was set on treasure.

Devoted to the study of moon-spirits, Ryllion believed the Seers when they said that each person was guarded by a personal spirit. This moon-dwelling spirit would bestow desire—“sacred destinies,” a mysterious cargo carried on moonlight—within a subject’s heart by night and then punish him if he did not pursue that call by day. But if he strove with passion, he would be blessed. Ryllion’s zeal had become famous throughout Bel Amica. No one could deny his desire to become a captain, to attain the stature of a legendary defender. It was only a matter of time for a man of such uncanny talents. Ryllion would not return from Abascar without some trophy.

“Hold,” said Ryllion. “Master, look.”

The soldiers’ silence spoke their objection as Deuneroi joined Ryllion, surveying the wall’s three open mouths. The royal consort used his sword as a crutch. His feet had blistered on the journey; he was more accustomed to riding in royal processions. He waved his torch at the three tunnels and watched shadows shift.

“I smell possibilities.” Ryllion cocked his head like an attentive bird. “And I suspect, from the look of this third passage, that it leads down to the dungeons. We might find survivors there.”

Deuneroi could not bear to surrender their mission while anyone still had the spirit to search. “We’ll take one look further, and then we’ll…” He leaned against the entrance, clenched his eyes and teeth.

“Master?” Ryllion grabbed his arm. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

“Don’t the Seers teach that ghosts don’t exist?” He forced a smile. “I just need my breath. I suppose this adventure is a quick game of hide-and-bother for you. But me, I feel like I’ve just climbed over the Forbidding Wall.”

“I can revive you. I’ve brought some of the Seers’ cures.”

“Potions? When have I ever trusted their elixirs?” Deuneroi stepped away from the wall, turning to the company. “Break up; three groups. Sound an alarm at any sign of trouble.”

“If you won’t take the potions, then you’re coming with me, master. Just in case I need to carry you back out.” Ryllion directed some of the group into the largest tunnel and others down the broken stair.

“How will we know when to return here?” squeaked Slagh. It seemed that dark memories had seized him by the throat. “We have no sands or sunlight for marking the hour.”

“Recite the ‘Song of Tammos Raak’s Escape.’ It’s a long and tedious song, but it will give us a good measure on when to rendezvous.” Deuneroi paused, then added, “Whisper it.”

With shared glances that spoke of fears darker than any morbid ballad, they parted ways.

“I doubt that anyone trapped here is better than bones by now.” Deuneroi fingered the golden eagle emblem that clasped the collar of his cape.

“Wouldn’t Cyndere have searched deeper?” Ryllion’s laugh was edged with worry, echoing ahead in the narrow passage. “There’s no one bolder or sharper in Bel Amica. If you hadn’t married her, I might have pursued her myself.”

Deuneroi grinned. “You think the boldest and sharpest would have accepted you?”

“Choosing you was a flourish of genius?”

“A rare lapse in judgment.” Laughing, he clapped Ryllion’s shoulder, glad for anyone who could find levity in such a tomb. Startled, the soldier grabbed his sword hilt.

“Forgive me!” said Deuneroi. “Did I scare you?”

Ryllion scowled. “It’s my training.”

It was an answer, but not enough to set Deuneroi at ease. “Should we turn back? What’s troubling you?”

Ryllion wiped his dripping brow, and without answering he pressed on.

As the Bel Amicans’ torchflares faded into the tunnels, Jordam and his brothers moved with the darkness, creeping like insects along the sloped, boulder-strewn walls. Together they dropped to the floor and walked, leaning slightly forward with the weight of the heavy browbones that jutted from their foreheads like sawed-off horns.

Mordafey hissed instructions to his younger brothers. “Quiet. We follow. Bel Amicans may lead us to treasure.”

While Jordam wanted nothing more than to hurl himself, claws extended, at the Bel Amicans’ backs, he held the reins of his appetite hard. Restraint wasn’t easy for the Cent Regus, but the brothers had learned that cooperation often brought greater spoils. This advantage and their capacity for strategy made them famously successful hunters among their kind.

Mordafey proceeded alone, low to the ground, muscled legs tensed for a jump. Jordam watched his brother vanish into the narrow crevasse where Deuneroi and his guardsman had gone.

“Claims the best prize for himself,” Goreth whispered.

Jordam gestured for silence. Corridors like these could carry echoes of the slightest disturbance. The Bel Amicans would be on their guard. But he was nervous for other reasons as well. By Mordafey’s instructions, this would not be a typical ambush. The brothers would be divided, attacking soldiers from behind.

Jordam moved to the passage of the cold stair. He paused and watched Goreth push their younger brother, Jorn, into the second passageway, like a master releasing a hound for a hunt. As they disappeared, Jordam felt a fever rise, an eagerness for blood. He crouched, flexed his jaws, sniffed the air, and then padded softly downward.

Inhaling, he detected simple elements—sweat, the clean metal of drawn swords, dried scraps of fish. The Bel Amicans moved quickly, chanting in rhythm.

On a platform where the crooked stair took a sudden turn, he ducked behind two stacked barrels. Excited whispers echoed in some large space around a corner. Jordam’s red-furred ear flicked free of his black mane.

“Do you believe this?” a woman gasped.

“These footprints must be ten hands wide,” a man replied. “No creature so large could make it through passageways so small. Look, seven toes.”

“I don’t need more convincing. This is the sign that says ‘Go home.’ ”

“What kind of animal would Abascar keep down here? Deuneroi will want to see this.”

“Deuneroi must not hear about this. His curiosity will ruin us. Do you want to be here when this…this thing comes back?”

“Haven’t we all just completed the ‘Song of Tammos Raak’s Escape’?”

Footprints. Creature. Animal. Abascar. The words were familiar musical notes. But Jordam could not discern the song. As much as he hated the weakerfolk and their language, he knew that Cent Regus who could understand them demonstrated an unusual capacity for patience, concentration, and memory, giving them advantages over their brutish kin. Jordam suspected Mordafey understood more than he let on. Mordafey kept secrets.

These Bel Amicans in the chamber below—they had changed their minds. They were moving quickly back up the stairs. Their torchlight would carve his image from the darkness long before he could return to the crossroads.

Jordam tapped the top barrel. It made a hollow fffumm. He clambered up, swung his legs over the opening, landed in ankle-deep ash, and crouched inside. The barrel fit as if crafted to hold him, an ideal place to hide.

But the barrel beneath him, also empty, its wooden slats charred from Abascar’s fire, could not sustain the new weight. It buckled and splintered, then crumbled to soot. The top barrel, tipping, fell into the stairwell.

Jordam rolled down the first few steps, then began picking up speed. Before he could escape, the barrel was hurtling downward. He heard a shout. His barrel struck the ascending soldiers as they rounded the corner. A clamor of armor. Dropped weapons clattering. The barrel continued down the last stretch of stairs. And then a hard impact, a rapid roll, and a spin across the floor. He choked on clouds of ash. And he felt the ground open into another abysm.

When the barrel crashed at last into a chamber far below, it began to break apart, rolling crookedly. Light flickered through the cracks. It slowed, spun, and stopped against a wall.

Jordam’s crooked browbone, half of which had been smashed off in a fall long ago, vibrated from the jolt. Pain daggered his head. He lay exhausted, listening. No sounds of pursuit. No hints of investigation.

But the scent—it cut through the haze of cold ash and caught him like a snare. A whiff of clear water. Something familiar.

On the ceiling colors glimmered in a wavering array. At first Jordam thought he imagined them. When they did not dissipate, he pulled himself out of the wreckage and crawled through ash, rocks, and bones to stare. Threads of memory gathered, braiding themselves together into a cord that stretched back through time. He knew these colors.

A washbasin teetered on broken floorboards. Like a bowl of burning candles, the vessel revealed a lustrous aura, casting a beacon to the ceiling. Jordam approached it warily, sensing that his discovery would carry consequences. But he could not resist.

Inside the basin a cloth turned and twisted like a living thing. It slipped free of the murky water easily as if glad to be discovered. Rivers of oily brine streamed away without leaving a stain. He was enveloped in the glow.

The light rushed in, illuminating dark corners of his past, details he had forgotten in the seasons since the colors’ disappearance. He had touched this weave before. A deep ache dissolved in his long and weary sigh. Something missing from his mind was restored.

The colors sang in harmonic tones—just as they had in the caves on the edge of Deep Lake where he had watched a lonely misfit weaving them. The colors had seeped into his skull and somehow lulled a throbbing ache to sleep. Not long ago when the girl and this, her most extravagant creation, vanished, the pain had returned like a patch of weeds spreading behind his eyes, staining every sunrise, burdening every step.

“O-raya…here?”

He hadn’t told his brothers about discovering those caves. He hadn’t told them about the girl who enchanted him with her otherworldly craft. Mordafey would not have understood.

Examining more basins and an overturned washtub on the far side of the room, he pressed the cloth to his chest. He would take this prize. He would steal away with it and conceal it. And then he would return to the ruins and search for the girl.

He had only a moment’s warning—a rain of debris—before two figures dropped into the chamber. By the time they landed, he had cast the glowing fabric back into its cauldron and lunged to hide behind the overturned tub. Peering over its rounded metal edge, Jordam stifled a snarl.

Cent Regus creatures slunk and spat across the floor. Not killers, but rodentlike scavengers who followed more powerful hunters in hopes of stealing. One noticed the colors and, in a gurgling gasp, jerked out the magnificent fabric. “Shiny,” she hissed.

The other laughed, guttural and greedy. “Chieftain wants shiny things. Abascar prizes. To taunt his favorite Abascar prisoner. The queen. Big reward for me.”

“I had it first.”

Tugging at the corners, they kicked at each other with long-toed feet, naked tails lashing.

Wrath boiled in Jordam’s throat. If he saw so much as a strand of color severed, he would strike. While he had rested in those lakeside caves with his discovery, he had imagined what he would do to anyone who dared disrupt the designs of O-raya’s nimble fingers. But when she vanished, he had found no one to punish, his anger remaining unsatisfied until it dwindled into embers.

So when the rodentlike beastmen scuttled up the walls of this Underkeep chamber and through the tear in the ceiling, yanking the cloak of colors between them, Jordam pursued like an angry swarm.

When he reached the crossing, he found himself in the midst of a skirmish. The smell of slaughter clouded his concentration, demanded his attention. Swords clashed. Arrows sang past and thudded into the walls.

Enthused by his twin’s arrival, Goreth laughed. Jordam marched past him, growling as his instincts sought to distract him from his goal. He stumbled into hot Bel Amican blood and stopped, looking back.

A merchant, the one Deuneroi had called “Slagh,” came up behind Goreth and raised a bloodied Bel Amican sword. Cursing, Jordam abandoned his pursuit of the thieves. He could not bear to see Goreth scarred by such a feeble fool. He snatched a short blade from its sheath just below his knee and flung it. The merchant fell against the wall, grasping at the hilt that protruded from his chest. As the blade came out, a sigh spluttered from the wound. The merchant collapsed.

“Rockbeetles!” Goreth exclaimed, as he did when anything pleased him.

The killing frenzy seized Jordam, burning all the hotter for his anger at losing O-raya’s colors. He turned to roar at the remaining Bel Amicans, who stood back to back as they steadied their swords. In their desperate shouts, he heard Deuneroi’s name. Then he, Goreth, and Jorn finished them.

When Mordafey emerged from the third passage, his boastful grin was like a rack of knives. He threw something into a puddle of blood. “Deuneroi,” he snarled in the darkness, trembling with satisfaction. “Deuneroi.”

The severed hand lay open like a question while the last Bel Amican torches gasped and went out.