The Sacred Band

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The hunting lodge of Calfa Ven had once perched on a stone buttress high above the thick woodland of the King’s Preserve. The “nest of the mountain condor,” as the translation of its Senivalian name went, had catered to Acacian nobility for more than two hundred years. Standing on its balconies with wild valleys stretching out beneath her had been the closest Corinn had come to experiencing flight before her dragons brought it to her for real. It was a place of memories, of long horseback rides, of pastoral opulence, rich meals served by rustic staff, of cordials sipped beside crackling fires, of walks with her father and even images of her mother in health. A place of sunrises and sunsets and the ever-changing play of the light on the crowns of trees and over the granite outcroppings that jutted up like islands amid waves of foliage. It had been here that Corinn had bested Hanish at archery, thinking she hated him at the same time she was falling in love with him.

Now, having just climbed off Po’s back along with the ghost of Hanish beside her, she could not even recognize the field in which they had loosed their arrows. The lodge itself had been obliterated. Smashed and scoured clean from its granite foundation, nothing remained of it save the bases of the timbers that had secured the building to the stone. The outbuildings, stables and storehouse: all jumbled piles of lumber, broken and strewn about. The woodland in the valley had been scorched, trees snapped, others uprooted, splintered. Some of the largest trees twisted at bizarre angles, as if they had rendered temporarily molten. Great gashes festered in the earth, smoking, reeking of death. It was like this as far as the eye could see, an enormous scar with the former site of the lodge at its center.

Po cried out in frustration as he flew over the valley. In all that expanse no other living thing moved, nothing for him to hunt. He fled from place to place, chased by evil vapors in the air, uneasy. He wanted to leave, but Corinn did not respond to the wish.

In all of it she recognized the same accursed song that had set worms eating through her flesh. In all of it, Santoth rage. Had she any tears left within her, she would have cried. She took the scene in dry-eyed. She had called this devastation upon the place. What right did she have to cry over it now?

“It is changed, but we knew it would be.”

I should not have sent them here.

“You had to send them somewhere,” Hanish said. “This place… was full of memories for you. For us. It came into your head when you needed to name a destination. You could have chosen much worse places to send them, Corinn.” As he talked he walked around her, trying to sift through the ashes with his feet. He did not seem to notice that the toe of his boot did not really push objects about. He left no footprints, touched nothing in the world except for her.

You don’t know all of it, Corinn thought to him.

“No, I don’t. But still, let’s not talk about this.” He straightened and took in the desolation of the valley again. “What we should be asking is, where are the Santoth now?”

That’s clear enough. They don’t exactly walk lightly on the ground. They’re out there. They won’t stop searching. Corinn gestured with her chin, indicating the wide world around them. They’ve gone in different directions. No doubt some are heading back toward Acacia. We soared so high on the way here. Perhaps we flew over some of them. This is like the rage they experienced when Tinhadin exiled them. They may yet kill many people.

“That’s why we’re going to stop them. Call Po back. We should-”

A woman’s voice reached them. “Queen Corinn? Is-is that you?”

They both spun around, searching for the speaker. She was so still that Corinn’s eyes passed over her, only to snap back a moment later. A woman stood with something gripped to her chest, half hidden behind the rubble of a collapsed wall. She stepped out from behind it. “It is you, isn’t it?”

Corinn touched a hand to her cowl, which still hid the lower portion of her face. Realizing that was not a gesture that would serve as an answer here, she nodded.

The woman said something over her shoulder. A second woman emerged. Like the first, she bore a bundle in her arms. Just after, a third head peeked out. She came more reluctantly. As they picked their way forward through the debris, Corinn recognized them both. The first woman: Wren, Dariel’s lover. The second, Gurta, Rialus Neptos’s recent bride. The third was a girl who worked in the lodge, Peter’s daughter. She could not remember her name.

“Steady, Corinn,” Hanish said. He stepped up close, one hand at her elbow, one at the small of her back. “They are not ghosts. They live, and so, I think, do the babes they carry.”

He was right. The bundles in the women’s arms were unmistakable, as was the care with which they cradled them. Corinn felt her breath escape her. She leaned more heavily into Hanish.

“You see?” he asked. “There is still life here.”

When Wren reached them, she bowed her head and said, “Your Majesty.”

Gurta tried to do the same, but her eyes were round circles that would not leave the queen’s face. “What’s happening?” she asked. “They came here and destroyed everything. They killed everyone but us. We would not have survived if Bralyn hadn’t hidden us. She knew of a cave.” She paused, looking from the queen to Wren, a desperate intensity in her eyes. “It was horrible. They… I don’t know what to call it. They tore the world apart. They stayed for days, raging. They were demons. I know it sounds mad, but look around. Only great evil could do this. Queen Corinn, you should not be here. They may come back. The place may be cursed. It is cursed. I can feel it. Isn’t it cursed, Wren?”

The slim woman kept her smoothly lidded eyes on Corinn. She did not seem to be listening to Gurta at all, except that when prompted she did speak. “Queen, how do you come to be here? Alone?”

Corinn shook her head.

Wren misunderstood her. “I saw you ride in. I know that… thing out there is yours. But are others coming?”

Hanish said, “Show them.”

Corinn did. She pulled down the cowl and tucked it under her chin. All three women drew back, staring, aghast. Yes, that’s the horror of me. They could not hear her, of course, or see or hear Hanish. Unsure how to proceed, Corinn just stood, looking into the women’s faces as if into three mirrors, each of which showed a different reflection.

Wren began the conversation again. “Those ones did this to you, didn’t they? The same ones that came here.”

Corinn nodded.

“Oh, Queen, I’m sorry. They are so awful. You… you’re chasing them, aren’t you?”

Again, the queen nodded.

“Tell me you are going to destroy them.”

Blinking her eyes closed for a moment, Corinn answered with a third nod.

“Good,” Wren said. “I don’t know how you could possibly do that, but if anybody can, I guess you can. That’s what Dariel would say.”

At the mention of her brother, Corinn’s eyes went to the bundle in the woman’s arms. She stepped closer and pulled back the blanket to reveal a tiny child’s sleeping face. So small, with thin tendrils of black hair and a fist, a little ball of a fist, clenched just beside its face. “This is my baby,” Wren said. “Your niece, if you ever wish to call her so. She was born early. I got ill, bad ill. She wanted out of me. She’s all right, though. Small but strong. Like me.” The woman smiled.

Corinn almost collapsed. I got ill, bad ill. That sentence, next to that smile and beside that child was almost too much for her to stand. She sensed that Po felt her distress and wanted to return to her. She ordered him not to. Do you see the things I’ve done, Hanish? I tried to kill this child. I tried to kill this woman, and yet she smiles at me.

“She has every reason to,” he said. “She lives. Her daughter does, too.”

“She doesn’t have a name yet. I’ve not had time to think about it. But… she’s my little girl.”

Gurta found her voice again. “I got mine out, too,” she said. “I was cursing him for coming, but I’m glad he was out and at the breast before them ones came and did all this. He’s got more sense than his father; I can tell that already.”

Corinn reached in to see the infant’s face. She saw only an ear and a soft, lumpy curve of his head, but she peered in for a long time. She could smell the child, a scent that was sticky with his birthing but somehow lovely all the same. Mostly, though, she listened as Gurta continued her nervous rambling. She sounded more like a maid now than ever. The young woman had annoyed Corinn before. She could not imagine why anymore. Her voice was lovely, kind and warm. Without guile.

Rialus was lucky to have had you.

Touching her back again, Hanish said, “Tell her that so she can hear it. Find a way to talk to them, Corinn. Tell them the things you need to. Time is short.”

Reluctantly, she drew back. She rummaged around in one of her saddlebags until she found writing utensils and sheaves of parchment. As the women stood awkwardly beside her, she wrote two notes. One she signed with her royal title and stamped with the Akaran seal, rolled, and tied tight with a strip of ribbon that any official of high rank would recognize. The other was a simpler missive.

When she was finished both, she pressed the rolled document to Wren’s breast, indicating that she should hide it somewhere upon her person. The other she offered to them both to read. She had written:

Take this document with you to Acacia. It’s an official pass of protection from me. If anyone troubles you, show it to them. Tell them they face my wrath if they harm you. Take it to Acacia, show it at the palace, and ask for my secretary, Rhrenna. Go there and be safe, under Akaran protection. From now and for as long as we can provide it.

Gurta, forgive me for sending Rialus into such danger. I did not know what I was doing. I pray that he gets back to you, and that you live long and raise this child with love.

Wren, I have committed crimes against you. I am too afraid to name them now, and I don’t ask you to forgive me. That’s too much to ask. But please go to Acacia with my blessing. Declare yourself the mother of Dariel’s daughter. If my brother makes it back to you, love him, wed him, be a part of my family.

Go now. Hide yourselves again until I leave and the sorcerers follow me.

When they had both clearly read the messages, they stood, nervous and unsure what to make of them. Gurta said, “You can’t fight them by yourself, Your Majesty. Don’t do that. Fly home and get others. Get everyone.”

In answer, Corinn picked up the quill again. On the back of the missive, she wrote, I’m not alone. I was before, but I’m not anymore.

“And need never be again,” Hanish said.

L ater, once the two women had departed and had time to return to their deep hiding place, Corinn opened The Song of Elenet. As ever, she heard the song waft up from the pages, winged notes that danced on the breeze, instantly intoxicating.

Do you hear that?

“Of course I do,” Hanish said. “I can understand why you like it so much.”

Corinn bent forward, eyes closed, breathing the song in through her nose. The music caressed her face, searching the mottled flesh of her sealed mouth with gentle fingers. It wanted to heal her. She could feel it. The song itself-and whatever intelligence somehow lived in it-wished to rewrite the abomination that was the Santoth curse. It was wonderful to sense that sentient wish, but Corinn knew it could not be done. No matter how much of the song she could build within her head, it always had to be released through spoken breath, through open lips and with some resonance of the notes vibrating on her tongue. Even a whisper could do it, as when she whispered Barad’s eyes into stone.

But I cannot whisper.

“If I could whisper for you I would,” Hanish said.

I know. And she knew he could not. If she had years to be his tutor, perhaps she could have found some way to teach him. He could have been the ghost sorcerer that walked beside her, unseen by any eyes but Barad’s. She would have spoken to him with her mind and the song would have danced unheard from his lips. But again there was the trap. She did not have those years. The serpent of her dilemma ate its tail. Her life was a closed ring, tightening each moment.

What a couple we might have been together.

“Corinn, what a couple we are together.”

Corinn opened her eyes and looked down at the living words. She let them rise up into her eyes with their own power, just as they had done the very first time she looked upon them. That was all she needed to do.

The response came quickly. A bellowing from the west. Followed by a roar from the north. And concussions of rage that passed, soundless, through the air from all around them. The Santoth sensed the touch of her eyes on The Song. Just having it alive within her head was enough. She knew they would hear it, just as she knew they were each of them turning toward her, drawn to it.

Hanish said, “I think you’ve got their attention.”