Deathcaster Read online

  Lyss looked north, to where the rising sun was burning cloud from the flanks of Alyssa Peak.

  Jada leaned in close. “Is it true the bloodsworn are getting their asses kicked in the uplands?”

  Lyss nodded, careful to keep her opinions to herself. “The empress has decided to take the southern route.”

  When they’d arrived offshore, fresh dispatches had confirmed Lyss’s prediction. The invasion had stalled out in the mountains to the west of the Alyssa Plateau. Even as spring turned to summer, the high passes were filled with snow and clan war parties. The empress’s armies suffered staggering losses as they foundered on the slopes of the northern Heartfangs. The bloodsworn might be difficult to kill, but the northerners found a hundred ways.

  “Where are they getting all these soldiers?” the empress had grumbled.

  Lyss suspected but didn’t say that if Char Dunedain still commanded the army, she had probably abandoned the war in the south to focus on this one. The Fellsian general was used to making these kinds of difficult decisions. She was smart enough to know that what happened in Delphi wouldn’t matter if the empress conquered the north.

  This theory was confirmed when word came that Delphi had fallen to King Jarat’s army.

  But who was giving Dunedain her orders? Mellony? Julianna? If Jarat’s army marched all the way to Fellsmarch, the wolf in Lyss hoped that the traitors would end up hanging from the walls.

  Words from her battle anthem echoed in her head.

  From mountain camp to upland vale

  You’ll hear our battle cry:

  You think you’ve come to conquer.

  Instead, prepare to die.

  “I’d better go bring up my gear,” Long Foot said. She saluted and turned away.

  They rounded the point with the tide behind them and sluiced into the harbor at Spiritgate.

  It had been a long time since Lyss had been to this port. Even then, she’d generally seen it from a distance, being in enemy territory. But even someone unfamiliar with the seaport could tell that the waterfront had been all but destroyed.

  The empress’s forces had taken out the artillery on the heights to either side of the harbor entrance a week ago. Since then, they’d been firing on the city itself. Most of the buildings along the harbor front had been burned or cleared away—the taverns, clicket-houses, warehouses, chandleries and the like.

  The keep was still there, of course, and the fortifications along the cliff face. But soon it would be the empress’s flag that snapped in the onshore breeze.

  Batalions of Carthian cavalry were crossing the Alyssa Plateau from the beachhead at Chalk Cliffs. Thus far, they’d met with little resistance. The plan was that the land force would open the way to land troops, artillery, and supplies directly from the harbor.

  Lyss would have preferred to be in the fighting on land than to be watching it from a distance. Then again, she did not intend to die for the empress of Carthis, even if it meant that she could take a few Ardenine soldiers with her.

  She watched the bombardment for a while, trying not to think of everyone who might be in the path of this war. Where was Hadley, now that the Fells had lost its one deepwater port on the east coast? Where was Hal Matelon? Had he made it home, or had he died near Chalk Cliffs? Her mind kept turning to Sasha Talbot, to that image of her kneeling, presenting her sword. Sometimes it seemed as if Sasha was inside her head. Other times, it was as if she were calling to her from a distance, a distance that grew with every passing day.

  Spiritgate was in flames, now, sending sparks rising into the night sky. Guns thundered from landward. The horselords had arrived. Soon, she would be bringing her army ashore, on Ardenine soil. It was what she had wanted for a long time. It wasn’t quite the way she’d anticipated it, and it wasn’t the army she would have chosen, but she would make it work.

  Soon, she thought. I’m coming for you, Jarat.

  35

  BURNING THE BURNABLE

  The dragons weren’t finished with Celesgarde. They were already in a bad mood, after Lyssa’s disappearance, the empress’s escape, and the less-than-satisfying interview with the bloodsworn pirate. The attack on Jenna sent them into a frenzy of destruction. They burned everything that was burnable, from the quays to the houses that were tucked into the terraces on the hillside to the small fishing boats that were all that remained in the harbor. Every now and then, a small pocket of bloodsworn emerged from cover. The dragons showed no mercy. They took “burn the nest” very seriously.

  Jenna’s dragon nature warred with the part of her that deplored the massacre.

  It’s necessary, she thought. This is what you came for. But it would mean a lot more if the empress had been there to share the fate of her garrison. Only her scent remained, taunting them.

  It was odd. Celestine’s scent reminded her—a little—of Evan Strangward. What did that mean? Were they all connected? Were they all—somehow—related?

  Did Celestine have a magemark, too?

  The dragons were frustrated by the palace, raining flame down on it and charring every wooden part, but it still stood like a marble monument to the empress’s power. Finally, they began slamming into it, trying to knock off pieces.

  “Stop that!” Jenna cried. “You’ll hurt yourselves. Your armor is hard, but stone is harder than you.”

  The young dragon that had splashed into the harbor came up with the idea to lift loose boulders from the volcano and drop them onto the palace. They kept it up, lifting larger and larger boulders until the palace was a pile of glittering rubble.

  Rocks harder than palace, she said, with great satisfaction.

  Each attack flushed a few more bloodsworn from their hiding places in the palace. The dragons dispatched them as soon as they ran from the shattered structure like moles from a burrow. Eventually, they quit coming.

  “The dragon that splashed into the harbor” was an awkward name for humans, though it made total sense for dragons, who communicated through images. Slayer’s mind would conjure a dragon falling into the water, and that would tell him all he needed to know.

  In fact, when they’d finished reducing Celesgarde to a charred ruin, the young dragons began to reenact her humiliating landing by fluttering a short distance into the air, then pretending to fall into the bay, changing direction at the last minute to escape their nestmate’s fate.

  She seemed unperturbed. She was no longer wet, either. She was literally steaming as the heat from her body evaporated the water.

  “I need a shorter name for you,” Jenna said. “Can I call you ‘Splash’?”

  Good name, she replied gravely. Water snuffs fire. She looked sidelong at her brothers and sisters. And so another one of the young dragons acquired a name.

  After so much work and play, of course, the fledglings were famished, and three of them flew off hunting, promising to bring back meat. Slayer and Cas were among those who stayed behind.

  Slayer was morose. He’d participated in the destruction of Celesgarde with ruthless efficiency. Now it was as if every part of him drooped.

  Find Lyssa Wolf, he said.

  “I know, Slayer,” Jenna said, soothing and raveling his tangled mind. “I think she’s aboard one of the ships that sailed yesterday, but we don’t know which one, and we don’t know which way she went.”

  Slayer nudged the pool of metal that had once been the pirate’s sword. Lyssa needs armor.

  “Lyssa is smarter than me,” Jenna said, thinking of her close call. “She’ll be careful.”

  Cas, though, kept returning to the ruined palace, nudging stones out of the way, trying to poke his nose into the rubble at the entrance.

  “What’s the matter?” Jenna came up beside him.

  Something still alive in there.

  Jenna caught the scent. Very faint. Familiar, and, yet—not. It struck a chord deep inside her. It wasn’t Strangward’s scent, but it reminded her of him. It wasn’t Celestine’s scent—not quite—but it conjured up the s
ame vexing mix of emotions. Home. Family. Danger. It kindled in her the hope that somewhere inside, she might uncover the truth.

  Slayer nudged his way in. Not Lyss, he said with an air of finality. Let’s dig it out and kill it. He slammed his tail against the nearest wall, knocking it down.

  “Wait,” Jenna said. “I need to find out who’s in there.”

  Nobody good, Cas said, then added, as if Jenna had forgotten their mission, Kill the hatchlings.

  Burn the nest, Slayer said and poured flame over the broken facade of the building.

  “No!” Jenna said, thrusting herself between the dragon and the palace, her scales surfacing as skin met flame. “I’m going in to see.”

  This produced a cascade of dragon unhappiness.

  “I have to go,” Jenna said, taking a sword from a dead soldier. “You won’t fit. Now stay away from the building so it doesn’t come down on top of me.”

  Over strenuous objections, Jenna threaded her way into what was left of the marble palace. Bits of shattered rock pelted down on her from above, and the walls that remained standing threatened to fall at any moment. The scent grew stronger, though, so she pressed on, knowing that she must be getting close.

  As she passed a ruined staircase, she realized that the scent was coming from the floor above. Certain that at any moment, the building would come down around her ears, Jenna began to scramble up the remains of the staircase, hearing the clatter behind her as rocks hit the tiled floor below.

  Eventually, she heaved herself over the top step, where she rested a moment, her blade beside her, breathing hard. That was when she heard it—music unlike any she’d ever experienced before. It washed over her, so full of melancholy and desire and pain that she all but wept. It sounded like a stringed instrument, but not the basilkas she was used to.

  For a long moment, she lay there, flattened. But she knew she couldn’t linger long, or the dragons would come in after her and probably bury her in the process. She rose to her knees, then to her feet, and followed the sound and the scent back toward the front of the palace, picking her way around obstacles, leaping over chasms. Along the way, she passed more bodies—a crowd of bloodsworn crushed under debris, all holding weapons, as if ready to fend off intruders.

  The scent grew stronger until she reached a large, arched doorway. Across the threshold lay one of Celestine’s bloodsworn, broken but barely alive. When Jenna came into view, he lifted his sword and attempted to slash at her ankles, but she easily evaded him and leapt over his prone body, slicing off his sword arm along the way. He was like the last guardian of what lay beyond.

  And there, perched on what remained of a terrace overlooking the ocean, Jenna found the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen. His clothes had once been fine, but now were covered in dust and grit and soaked in blood. His hair was of an indeterminate color, powdered white by marble dust. In addition to his own distinctive scent, another scent clung to his hair, his clothes, his skin. A familiar, charred, smoky scent. There was something about him, a delicate, pampered quality, despite the dirt and disarray.

  Then Jenna noticed something else that set him apart. He had no aura. He was free, not bloodsworn.

  He was so focused on his playing that he didn’t notice Jenna until she said, “Who are you?”

  He looked up at her, smiled, and shook his head without missing a note.

  “What are you doing here?” she persisted. “Do you work for the empress? Are you her . . . musician?” She almost said favorite, but changed it to musician at the last moment.

  With that the music faltered just a bit. He hugged his instrument closer, as if she might try to take it from him. He looked at her mutely as if he wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

  “Can’t you speak?”

  He pointed at the pipe, and then at his throat, and shook his head. He stroked the strings, and they spoke more beautifully than any human voice.

  Jenna eased closer. She couldn’t help herself. The music was so enchanting that it drove caution from her mind. The boy rested his instrument on his lap, one leg bent. The other leg was pinned under a block of marble.

  “You’re hurt!” she said, throwing caution to the winds and kneeling down beside him.

  The boy looked sadly at his leg, and half-shrugged, as if he hadn’t noticed his predicament until now. Up close, the smoky scent was even stronger. When she saw the pipe lying next to him, she realized what it was. Leaf. She’d known people in Delphi who’d smoked it, in an attempt to make misery less miserable.

  “You can’t stay here,” Jenna said. “This building is going to collapse before long.”

  The boy mimicked pushing at the stone, then shook his head, his expression resigned. Then, raising both hands, palms flat, he pushed toward her, clearly telling her to go.

  Jenna tried putting her shoulder to the block of marble. Though it seemed like it didn’t budge an inch, the boy’s breath hissed out as if the attempt was painful. He closed his eyes and played some more, as if the music eased his pain.

  Pebbles and sand pelted them from above as something large and heavy landed on the broken palace wall behind them. The light dimmed as a massive head intruded between the terrace and the sun.

  Jenna?

  It was Cas.

  Jenna scrambled to her feet. “Cas! No!” she said, standing over the musician, spreading her arms to shelter him. “That wall can’t hold your weight.”

  If being crushed to death didn’t seem to worry the musician, the arrival of the massive dragon did. His eyes went wide and round and the music ended abruptly as he raised both hands to protect his face.

  Music? Cas said, leaning down toward the boy, looking plaintively into his eyes, which only terrified him further. Music?

  “You’re scaring him, Cas,” Jenna said. “Help me lift this rock off his leg. Careful not to put your weight on the—”

  It was too late. With an earsplitting crack, the terrace broke free from the ruined palace, dumping all three of them into space. At least two of them would have ended up in the harbor, except that Slayer and Splash hurtled past, intercepting them in midair with such bone-rattling force that Jenna thought her legs and arms might be shaken free from her body.

  All three dragons spiraled toward the ground, gently depositing their human cargo at the water’s edge. Jenna rolled to her feet, but it was clear the musician wasn’t going anywhere on his damaged leg for a while. He wrapped his arms around his instrument as if to protect it at all costs.

  Cas thrust his head in closer. Music?

  The dragon was trying to be charming, but it wasn’t working. When no music was forthcoming, the other dragons crowded in. They closed in on the boy from all sides, nudging him with their noses to see what he’d do, hitting the strings so that they sounded discordantly.

  “Stop it!” Jenna said. “He’s hurt, so he won’t be playing any music now. If you behave, maybe he’ll play again when he’s feeling better.”

  Hurt? Slayer said. Need Lyss.

  We do, Jenna thought, but I’ll have to do. Fortunately, she’d packed up their medical supplies along with everything else. Using her belt dagger, she cut away his breeches below the knee, exposing the injured leg. Miraculously, the bones didn’t seem to be broken, though the leg was bruised and bleeding. It didn’t help that the dragons wanted in on every move she made.

  She sent the dragons in search of fresh water to wash out the boy’s wounds, which got them out of her hair for a bit. She was wrapping his leg with linen when the fledglings returned with meat, prompting a dragon break for dinner.

  As Jenna was finishing up, the boy abruptly took hold of her hands. At first, she thought maybe she was hurting him, but then information flowed between them. His mind was cloudy, but the effects of the leaf seemed to be wearing off.

  An image came to Jenna’s mind—of a small boy with reddish hair streaked with gold. Familiar. Just like his scent.

  He cocked his head, eyes closed, as if listening, then r
eached for his instrument and struck a few tentative notes that pierced like a knife to her core.

  Startled, Jenna jerked her hands back. What had he taken from her that he could strike so close to the bone? She was the one who gleaned information, not the target.

  The promise of music drew the dragons away from their bloody feast. They crowded around like an audience impatient for the concert to begin.

  The boy flinched back, eyes wide.

  “This is your fault,” Jenna said to the musician. “You started it. They want to hear more music.”

  The boy half-smiled and played three songs in quick succession while the dragons listened raptly.

  I need to interrogate him, Jenna thought, but that won’t be easy. He seems to be able to hear well enough, but he can’t or won’t speak. Was he naturally mute, or had something been done to him to prevent him telling tales?

  Maybe Celestine cut out his tongue, Jenna thought with a shudder. Or his vocal cords.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “Open your mouth.”

  Looking mystified, he complied. She slid one hand behind his head to tilt his head back. And froze.

  He froze, too. They stared at each other as her fingers explored the magemark on the back of his neck. Looking frightened, he reached up and tried to dislodge her hand.

  The dragons were growing restless. More music, Cas said.

  Jenna ignored him. Taking hold of the musician’s wrist, she lifted his hand and placed it on her own neck.

  His eyes widened, and his muddled mind reacted slowly. With a hoarse cry, he pulled her into a rough embrace, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

  36

  HOME IS THE SAILOR

  After the council meeting ended, Lila followed Shadow out into the hallway to find Captain DeVilliers waiting for them. For Shadow, rather.

  “Shadow!” the sea captain hissed. “We need to talk.”

  “We do,” Shadow said. “We’re staying in Kendall House. Why don’t you come back with us?”