The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XXI

The Trap

In which the dead speak

As Alia expected, beastmasters tracked the eagle, whose return she patiently awaited. When it finally arrived she rewarded it with a small, live rabbit.

A falconer’s aura intermingled with the bird’s: Someone would be visiting her shortly. The bird dined on the knoll below, while Alia lay in wait in the tree above.

The enemy didn’t keep her waiting. The rattle of their armor and the rhythmic beat of their kettledrums heralded their presence long before they came into view. Did they mean to strike fear into her with all of that racket?

The bird cocked its head in the direction of the noise. In ordinary circumstances Alia would have expected it to fly away. However, the Ellura revealed the spell at work on the eagle: by the falconer’s compulsion, the bird would remain near Alia until the soldiers arrived. She sketched a salute, pleased to see such competence in the enemy commander, whoever he might be. How well it suited her plans!

After what she’d done to the protector of Elamis, she fully expected him to order his elite soldiers to fetch her with all speed. Would they detect her trap before or after it was too late?

She glanced about, and this time her own companions made her salute with pride: they were well-hidden from even from her acute eyes. With her keen sensitivity to light, color, and movements she excelled at spotting hidden prey. Yet experience taught her that Sheridan was downright gifted at concealing himself from prey and predator alike. And Tregarde knew the art of the ambush, which accorded with his rank as a ‘sparrowhawk’ huntsman.

Satisfied her companions were doing their part, Alia turned her attention back to the calvary. Fortunately, they didn’t keep her in suspense. Swiftly the cataphracti came into view, man and horse armored alike in gleaming silvery armor. The men wore plates, their horses wore scale, but both shone brilliantly in the firelight of the torches the men carried.

Sheer marvel at the sight of armored horses made Alia’s blood cool and her nerves steady; the opposite of what the soldiers must have intended. Transfixed, she stared for several heartbeats before her purpose reasserted itself and she forced herself to focus on her mission. Remaining silent, she did not so much as flinch when the lead officer came to a halt just beyond the trap. The officer gestured for someone to come forward.

A man, the only one unarmored, slid off the back of a soldier’s horse and stepped forward. A falconer, Alia guessed, on account of his leather gauntlets and shoulder pads and hawking equipment tied to his belt.

With the falconer accounted for, Alia ignored him to study the horses instead. Their nervous nickering, skittish steps and swiveling ears were a warning. Would the soldiers heed it?

The falconer consulted with the leader, then held out his arm. The thick gauntlets protecting his forearm looked sturdy enough to withstand the eagle. Staring straight at the eagle, his lips began to move. No doubt he was commanding the golden eagle to return to him.

Yet the bird ignored him, focusing on the rabbit it dined upon. The cavalry men murmured amongst themselves, looking to one another in surprise. The falconer raised his voice. This time the eagle lifted her head, but otherwise ignored him.

Now the falconer stepped forward.

The grasses lining the bottom of the knoll reached his knees, forcing him to stomp his way through. At the crest of the hill the grass only came to his ankles. By this time, the raptor had sated herself. When the falconer held out his arm, the bird flew up and perched on the gauntlet.

Below the hill, the horses pawed at the ground.

The calvary commander’s nostrils flared. He urged his mount forward, but the horse snorted and reared up. The man’s will overcame the horse’s though, and soon he managed to get the beast onto the hillside.

The men followed their leader.

When the last cataphract ascended the hill a faint red ring appeared, circling the hill. At first the men didn’t notice; their attention was fixed on the falconer. The falconer in turn fixed his attention on the golden eagle. Thus, he exclaimed when the eagle flew up out of reach.

At that moment the ring became a curtain, shooting up from the tall grasses and reaching into the trees. Far beyond any height a horse could jump. The men began shouting, and all drew their swords.

The falconer focused on the horses, uttering a spell and making deliberate gestures. The tension in his stance and posture revealed he was using all of his willpower to keep the horses from bolting. The commander was having similar trouble with his men. After a short while he made them form an infantry square.

Shapes began to coalesce in the red lights. All of the men fell silent, but Alia focused on their leader. His posture stiffened and his gloved hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

As for the sorcerers—marked so by the lack of weapons in their hands—they remained calm. They clustered together inside the infantry square. By their chants Alia suspected they were preparing an abjuration spell. This did not trouble her, but she wondered if the sorcerers would impress her by remaining calm once the first phase of her plan came to fruition.

The shapes quickly proved to be shades, spectral beings in the form of men. Each “wore” different clothing, some in military uniforms and others in civilian clothes. One youth stood in their midst, a boy of about fourteen years old. At first the shades were motionless, in formation around the hill.

And then, as if by some secret signal, the shades surged forward.

Terrified, the soldiers shouted as one. Chaos unleashed, their commander abandoned any attempt to keep them in line. All of the cavalrymen gave their horses free rein as they bolted. The poor falconer, still on foot, was forced to run.

Thanks to Palamara and his family, Alia possessed a limited command of Anshani. Enough to understand when the men below her shouted, “I killed you! You’re supposed to be dead!”

From her perch in the trees Alia watched them flee. Tracking them would be absurdly easy, given the clamor of their armor and the beat of their horses’ hooves. People a mile away could probably hear them.

All she needed was one. Just one soldier would do. She whistled and her own mount, a gryphon, arrived. Sheridan had spent the day procuring gryphons for this very task. Now, Alia leapt onto its back and gave chase. She quartered the field, searching for one horseman isolated enough for her purposes.

The ghosts harried her prey, all according to plan. Initially she had intended to set up a barrier similar to the one she’d placed around the Wolf & Raven, the inn where she was staying. For the inn her spell prevented infernal or death magics from being used in and around the grounds.

But this park was her killing ground, and for such purpose Alia meant to adapt the barrier to have any such spell cast within it reflect back onto whoever cast it.

Unfortunately, Zephyra presented a complication. Because the girl might have chosen to accompany the cavalry, Alia needed to take every measure to avoid killing her, however indirectly.

So now, Tregarde’s gambit.

The veil separating the living from Erebossa became thin on solstice nights. Thin enough for resurrections on the summer solstice…

And thin enough for shades to cross over from Erebossa on the winter solstice.

In Lyrcania, people observed strict laws regarding the performance the rites for the dead, no matter who they were and how they’d died. But as Watch-Huntress Alia discovered murderers often refused their victims these rites, by disposing of them in a fashion that would prevent anyone else from performing it for them. A final, spiteful act, one which opened up dire consequences for any killer who struck too close to the winter solstice.

Soldiers in the service of Zephyra and the Protector would have to have dishonorably killed many people. Dissenters within the regime, resisters without, innocent bystanders—any such people would have been a target. Zephyra had remorselessly murdered a man in Aletheia’s temple; would she not also command others to murder people in furtherance of her own goals? No matter how long ago they died, her victims would still want justice.

On the night of the winter solstice, the dead could avenge themselves.

The silvery gleam on the horses’ armor aided Alia in picking out the one she wanted. With one whistle, she signaled Tregarde.

His reaction came swiftly. His gryphon swooped, screaming as it passed across the path of the cataphractus. The rider did not miss the living threat, and immediately swerved. Now Sheridan’s gryphon came screeching behind the horse and rider, intervening between the rider and the shade chasing him.

The rider swerved again. Tregarde and Sheridan alternated harrying him, until they drove him so far from his companions that none would hear him scream. Straight into a dead end path, which ended at the sheer face of the mountain Elamis was built around. Cornered against bare rock, the man had nowhere else to run.

The soldier looked wildly to and fro, his sword drawn. He cried out a command in Anshani.

Only the shade answered him, crashing toward him like a tidal wave. In a moment it floated before him, much to the terror of the horse, which bucked and shrieked. The horse shinnied away, trying desperately to escape the ghost.

The man lost his sword in a frantic attempt to calm his horse. But this close to the ghost the horse would not be stilled; only the most powerful of beastmasters could overcome the horse under the circumstances. The man lacked such power, and fell from his mount with a great clang as his armor struck the rocky soil. The horse galloped away, kicking up dirt and rocks in its wake.

Stranded, with nowhere else to run, the man reclaimed his sword. He held it point down as he faced his ghost. Marshalling what dignity he could he stood tall, his body coiled—for a strike or a blow Alia was not sure. Regardless, he held his head high.

“Hosh!” the man named his victim.

Now Alia intervened. She swept down, landing between the soldier and the ghost. Tregarde and Sheridan flanked her. With a backward gesture, a silver light flew from Tregarde’s hands. It encased the ghost, trapping it for the moment.

The soldier gaped at Alia. For this skirmish she had abandoned all pretense of being undercover, and once again clothed herself in her huntress regalia.

“Sheathe your sword,” she demanded.

“The huntress,” the man murmured, awestruck. He gripped his pommel and shifted his weight slightly, as if weighing his chances if he rushed her.

But it would be a futile strike, and he knew it. He obeyed, then folded his arms.

“Protector Amavand shall have your head,” he snapped at her. “Whatever you do to me—”

“Be silent until I give you leave to speak,” Alia cut him off.

The man’s jaw clicked shut.

Alia gestured, and Tregarde reacted. The entrapped ghost floated forward, between Alia and the soldier.

“How did you know this man?” Alia asked the ghost. Language did not deter a ghost from communicating; it would understand whatever she asked and she in turn would understand him.

The ghost assumed robes of brown edged in green, the colors of the Reaper.

“I was a groundskeeper,” Hosh sighed. “I kept the sacred herbs. But my wells were poisoned and my plants were scythed in service of the Abomination.”

“Shut your mouth!” the soldier shouted.

He began swearing, using the saltier words hurled by the criminals Alia arrested in Lyrcania. Her forbidding look, reminiscent of Rikka, silenced him quickly. His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched, but he stilled his tongue.

“The Abomination. Who or what is the Abomination?” Alia pursued, addressing the ghost. Was it too much to ask for the ghost to know the name of the shadow queen?

The ghost smiled, without mirth. He jerked his spectral finger at the soldier. “He fears I shall tell the sins of our king and her. The so-called Handmaiden. But I did not fear to call out their wickedness in life; I cannot be fettered in death.” He smiled wider, and the soldier shuddered.

“Yes,” Alia said briskly, bridling her impatience as best she could. “Let us embrace your freedom. Come, revel in it, dear old man: say now everything that he would keep hidden in the darkness. Look into his heart and tell me of the things he fears most to be known.”

Hosh cackled in profound glee at the license she’d given him. He spared nothing, telling her what she already suspected: the Handmaiden and Zephyra were one and the same, and that Zephyra served a dark queen. As for the queen,

“The Abomination is of Erebossa. A goddess, to the fools who pay fealty to her. She can tolerate nothing that is alive,” the ghost said. “She has a vast, bottomless hatred for the living. Her envy is without balm or succor for she cannot create, only tear asunder. Whether I spoke against the Handmaiden or not, she would have slain me anyway, for her queen must demand it of her: I am—was—a reaper. We who cultivate life are the mortal enemies of one such as her queen.”

Alia pondered his words. Before coming to Anshan she had already concluded the sorcerers aimed to destroy the gates between the living and the dead.

Now the ghost was telling her to go a step further: the sorcerers were obedient soldiers of the Erebossan queen. By her command they poisoned the dryad groves, and carried off the dryads. The destruction of the groves may not be just a means to an end, necessarily.

Alia’s stomach roiled. The hope she carried in her heart all these years, of finding her aunts alive, began to die. She swallowed hard, and forced herself to admit her hope had never been realistic. Vengeance, not rescue, for her missing aunts.

But Aunt Nalini and Aunt Chrysantha and all the others were taken alive. That has to mean something. It has to.

“What is the queen after?” she demanded. Part of Alia feared to know the answer. The other part of her, the part that belonged to the Huntress, knew that prey could not be hunted if one did not know where it slept or what it ate or where it mated.

“It is as I said,” the ghost said. “The infernal queen hates the living. Our undoing is all she seeks, and she will stop at nothing to make it so.”

Alia exchanged a glance with Tregarde and Sheridan. They looked as gut-punched as she felt.

“Why now? The Erebossan has had all of eternity to make this happen. Why is she only moved to act now?”

The ghost shimmered, a sort of shrug. Then he reasserted his form and replied, “You are in error. This did not begin only when you first knew of it. This I know: many battles she has fought, and many battles she has won. And, time is not reckoned the same in Erebossa.” The ghost’s tone became mournful now.

A tremor rippled through Alia at his tone. In her own way she had been cruel to the ghost, for he could not truly cross the great gulf between them. He could look upon the living, but not participate. He could remember the past, could perhaps foresee the future, but the present was lost to him now. In this world he was only past tense, now and forever.

But now was not the time for pity. Now she must follow the thread Hosh presented to her. Added to the threads she had already gathered she began to perceive a pattern, like a design woven on a loom. Faintly, for the complete picture still eluded her, but for the first time victory seemed nearer than it ever had.

“Did they kill you only because you served the Reaper? Is this soldier another follower of the queen?”

“The soldier? The soldier is a follower of the protector,” the ghost corrected. He put scorn into his voice as he said, “The protector may lead him to the Abyss itself and he would follow, fool that he is. Obedience will not win him escape from the Abyss, no matter what lies he tells himself.” A bitter smile at the soldier. “But what he fears in his heart he is right to fear: the protector cares nothing about him. The Handmaiden cares less so. This also I know.”

The soldier clenched his hands into fists. He cursed under his breath, only lapsing into silence again when Sheridan touched the hilt of his long knife.

“As for why I was killed,” said the ghost, who had born the name Hosh in life, “the queen demanded a ritual desecration of my body. I am neither the first nor last of her victims. You will find what is left, servant of the Huntress. You will find what is left of me. Deal honorably with my bones, I beg of you, so I may go to my rest in the Everlasting Lands”

Alia bowed her head. “It shall be done, servant of the Reaper. Go now to your rest. And if you see the queen, let her know Alia Ironwing is coming for her.”

A spectral light shimmered around and through the ghost. “She knows,” he said, the light fading, and he with it. “She awaits you. May your knives be sharp and your arrows sing true.”

Having blessed her, he returned once more to Erebossa.

Alia turned the full weight of her gaze now on the soldier.

“Now what?” he demanded, his tone sullen as he shifted his gaze from her to Tregarde to Sheridan and back to her again. “Listen to that foolish old man if you must. Do your worst if you must; I do not fear you.” He spoke in stilted Pelasgian.

It was Alia’s turn to smile. “I offer you the luxury of another night. What is left of it. And I will even give you advice, for what it is worth to you: tell Zephyra all that I have done this night. Hold nothing back from her and you may keep your tongue between your jaws.”

With that, she spurred her gryphon to take flight, Tregarde and Sheridan following only a heartbeat later.

“Will she kill him, do you think?” Sheridan wondered as they watched Hosh’s murderer speed on his way, as fast as his feet would take him.

From their vantage point they kept watch over the remnants of the calvary. With great might the calvary had come as one to subdue and capture them. Now, the soldiers fled in every direction. Most of them had unwittingly passed Alia’s second boundary, which no shade was permitted to cross. They still fled, though nothing now pursued them.

How long would it take for the thunder of hoofbeats to reach Zephyra’s ears in the citadel? Doubtless, this “handmaiden” would do her own accounting of their numbers. Failure to return to her would not be met with mercy…

Again Alia thought of the drawing the Guileless One had given her of Zephyra. Such cold, cold eyes. Cruel eyes. The eyes of one who may be above petty tantrums, but not above pitiless punishments for failure. Perhaps the surviving soldiers might flee…

“Maybe she will allow him to live. Unless she needs a sacrifice,” Alia answered at last. “But I don’t like his chances all the same. However, his problems are not our problems, so long as he serves our purposes.”

However, the thought of a sacrifice sparked alarm in her. The roil in her stomach threatened to become a tidal wave, and it was all she could do to keep her food down.

This night she had used the winter solstice as a weapon. Primarily to save lives at the Everbright’s festival. But what would an Erebossan queen who hated the living do on such a night? What sacrifice would propitiate her?

Though Alia had thwarted her from turning the festival into a slaughter, she doubted the Erebossan queen would allow herself to be balked so easily. Other victims might be procured for her…

“Spread out,” Alia said. “We need to quarter the city. See where any watchman, any soldier goes. You heard what Hosh said. If the queen does not demand blood on this night of all nights then I am not a huntress.”

“The soldiers. The watchmen. Do we engage them?” Sheridan asked. He touched the rifle, still in its scabbard on his saddle.

“From a distance if you can,” Alia said. “But the priority is to save the intended victims. Spare nothing in that. I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared their deaths will be the beginning of their suffering if they die by her will tonight.”

“Oh happy thoughts,” Tregarde muttered, unholstering his own pistol and setting it across his thigh. “May your bullets sing true,” Tregarde said to them both.

With that, they split up, leaving Alia alone. She’d allotted herself the park, as it was close enough to the parade grounds for would-be murder victims to flee to.

She stared down at the scenery below, having second thoughts about her plan. Only herself, Tregarde, and Sheridan to carry it out, after all. A bloodthirsty Erebossan queen would have sent her handmaiden and other henchman abroad, on tonight of all nights. And what were they doing?

Frustration and terror battled it out inside of her. How was she to protect this city? Between herself, Sheridan, and Tregarde, she could not hope to save everyone who needed saving.

Should she ask the Huntress to send her an astral? Perhaps an army of astral warriors?

“It’s all the—what is that?”

She swooped for a closer look. And frowned, confused by what she saw.

Jackals.

Dead jackals, a ring of them, outside a circle lined with salt. The Ellura wand illuminated the macabre scene, revealing the beasts died from slashes to their throats and muzzles.

A fresh kill, going by the smell and the moistness of the blood. Killed within only the last hour or so. However, the jackals had advanced in their decay, yet no carrion feasted on them.

The hair stood up on the back of Alia’s neck.

Inside the salt circle lay two swirls of fabric. Alia used the muzzle of her pistol to lift a piece of cloth. A dress, the old-fashioned kind she saw in paintings, or during festival season when old Pelasgian plays were staged. The second swirl proved to be the same. Neither dress showed signs of tearing or ripping, as if the owners had voluntarily shed them.

But for what purpose?

And what did that purpose have to do with killing the jackals? Had the women inside the circle killed them? But why were the jackals there in the first place? The city’s position did not make it possible for the jackals to randomly enter unnoticed. Someone would have had to bring them. Why?

The empty gowns offered no answers. Pelasgians of old may have shed their clothes during a fight, but who took off their clothes when jackals were around?

…the queen demanded a ritual desecration of my body…

Alia ran her Ellura No. 8 over the salt. “Holy salt.”

Fascinating. Who used holy anything to hold mere jackals at bay? Then again, the very presence of the jackals signaled something unnatural was afoot. And their intended victims were armed with a quantity of holy salt. Again, an unnatural happenstance.

So. Perhaps one of Zephyra’s henchmen had selected the women as prey, but the women had reversed their fortunes and became the hunters instead? A vulpine smile flashed like lightning across Alia’s face as she contemplated the possibility.

She ran the Ellura over the dresses; this time to record the auras of the women. Quickly, she took flight, letting the Ellura guide her.

The auras led her to yet another strange sight: a trio of dead owls and a trail of blood. So. A second falconer was involved. Alia examined the owls with haste. They looked as they ought, which suggested the falconer had summoned them at the last moment, rather than procured in advance as the jackals must have been. Alia narrowed her eyes, thinking of the protector’s gambit during the festival.

What was the plan?

To have a beastmaster set the jackals upon the foreign women he had meant for the crowd to kill? The jackals’ unnatural presence, and their kills could have been passed off as some sort of divine punishment.

Would anyone in Elamis have suspected their protector would set out to kill random strangers? No, too frightening a thought. People would have wanted to believe he enjoyed the protection of the gods, and the gods would have sent the jackals to slay his enemies. Divine protection meant he remained worthy of his peoples’ obedience.

A pass of the Ellura confirmed the blood trail belonged to a third aura, a sorcerer. A beastmaster for certain, she judged. His blood trail went down a ways, and Alia was satisfied to see the previous two auras ran parallel to it. The possibility of finding allies equal to the task of dealing with Zephyra’s minions spurred her on.

A tower peeked out over the trees, and Alia slowed her gryphon a little. Currently the roof was empty. Currently. Her attention had been elsewhere, after all. Someone could have been watching her without her noticing. If so, her approach would not be unexpected.

The mysterious women must have suspected a trap as well, for their auras veered off, even though the beastmaster’s blood trail remained in plain sight. They had hidden amongst the trees for a time. Alia’s heart began to pound when the Ellura alerted her of a fourth aura which joined theirs.

Her heart somersaulted when the Ellura revealed who the aura belonged to.

“Aunt Nalini!”