by Grace Draven
The agacin jerked back as if bitten. Her wide eyes nearly glowed in the dark. “You would shelter in a grave.”
“We’ll shelter from the Empire.” He captured her elbow. “Don’t fight me. You have more to fear from me than any spirit still trapped behind these walls.”
He expected more resistance from her and was surprised when she only stood tense beside him. Her expression spoke more than any words of her loathing for him, even greater than her terror of Midrigar. “I hope whatever waits in there devours you.”
“Pray it finds me tastier meat than you, since you’ll be in there with me.” He tugged her along behind him as he stepped over the rubble partially blocking the entrance to the shattered gate.
The agacin edged a little closer to him, shivering hard enough to make her teeth audibly clack together. Azarion turned, signaling for quiet with a finger to his lips. Every hair on his arms stood at attention. The dead didn’t sleep in Midrigar; they listened, and they heard.
If the ruins stretched before them gave truth, then he and the fire witch were the only living souls in the city now, and the hush hung like a shroud over its crumbling ramparts. He’d hear the tracking party from Kraelag long before it ever reached the gates. For now, the silence reigned, unbroken except for the occasional gust of cold wind that swirled through the gaps in the wall.
The city gradually revealed itself in a jumbled sprawl half lit by the moon’s rays, half obscured by the night’s shadows. Scorch marks licked up the outer walls of roofless buildings, testament to old fires that must have raged through Midrigar when the Empire chose to punish her for her rebellion. Even now, when the stench of burnt bodies had long since faded and the fires were nothing more than the memory of ash, Azarion fancied he caught the acrid scent of smoke.
He half dragged, half carried the witch across the courtyard toward a temple, ears straining to catch the sound of their pursuers drawing closer. A lone howl caught on the wind, and Azarion didn’t dare hope it was a wolf. The witch added her own voice to the wind’s mournful tune in a wordless hum inspired by pain and misery.
He’d made the same sounds more than once as he nursed injuries obtained in the arena. He hummed so he wouldn’t scream as the pain swelled and ebbed and swelled.
He halted at the temple steps when she fell to one knee. The agacin’s features were drawn as he crouched and tilted her chin up with his thumb for a better look at her. Lines bracketed her tight mouth and furrowed her forehead. The humming continued unabated.
She favored her leg and flinched away when his fingers edged closer to her back. He saw no blood on her clothes, no signs of attack, no singe marks from the conflagration she had called forth in the arena. “What causes your pain?”
Her eyes swallowed him whole in a gaze dark as the shadows that crawled down the temple steps. Her breathing was labored, her words short. “I burn. I burn.”
He frowned, recalling her telling him in his cell that she was impervious to fire.
She remained docile while he helped her stand and turned her until her back was to him, hissing softly when his fingers clasped the hem of her tunic to lift it. The humming resumed, rising in pitch as he inched the garment past her waist, toward her ribs and higher. He caught only a glimpse of red, blistered skin—some of it overlaid across a patchwork of old burn scars—before she jerked away from him.
“Enough,” she said in a shaky voice. Her gaze swept the shattered cityscape before settling on Azarion. “We shouldn’t be here,” she said in a trembling whisper.
His own senses thrummed warnings. In this dead city, they weren’t alone. He could feel it. “We have no choice,” he said in low tones to match hers. He tried to distract her. “I thought you couldn’t burn by fire.”
Her jaw flexed with the failed effort to hold back a pained whine. He didn’t think she’d answer until she inhaled a careful breath. “It isn’t fire that burns me; it’s the magic I use to summon it. It comes with a price.”
“And you pay each time you summon it?” She nodded, and he touched her arm, a poor offering of comfort. She pulled away. “Come,” he said. “We’ll shelter there.” He pointed to an undamaged section of the temple’s portico.
She didn’t argue or resist his light nudge to her shoulder, choosing instead to hobble along just behind him as they picked a narrow path through the rubble to the cracked stairs that led to the portico.
The heavy feeling of being watched only deepened as stars gleamed above them. Azarion kept a hand on his knife and an eye on his surroundings. The shadows cast by the gutted buildings were odd. Instead of cutting across the ground in sharp angles, they seemed to undulate, their edges undefined and ever shifting, as if they were alive.
He reached back for the agacin, capturing her cold fingers in his. “Up the stairs.”
She paused, teeth chattering, either from fear or pain or both, and peered at the black chasm in the temple’s archway. No light penetrated that darkness. “I’m not going in there,” she stuttered.
Injured he might be, but she was no match for him physically. If he chose to force her into the temple’s shelter, he had only to lift and carry her up the steps and through the archway. But even in the straits they found themselves now, he wasn’t that desperate. The longer he stared into the fathomless murk, the more certain he grew that something stared back. Waiting.
“Neither of us is,” he replied. “We’ll rest outside, against the wall there.” He pointed to a spot away from the archway but still under the temple’s roof overhang. The deep angle of a corner and the girth of a massive pillar offered a little shelter from the chilly breeze and a small bit of concealment from any who might come searching for them. They’d be cold and uncomfortable, but they wouldn’t freeze.
She nodded and freed her hand to clasp her arms in a futile bid for warmth. “Walk up the other side. I don’t want to go near that door.”
If something decided to hurtle out of the temple and attack them, taking the steps at a different spot wouldn’t make much of a difference, but he did her bidding and helped her climb stone treads cracked and blackened by fire until they reached the spot he chose for their rest.
“Tuck into the corner,” he instructed. “I’ll sit in front of you and block the wind.”
She gave him a puzzled look before hobbling to the place he indicated. Her lips pressed flat against her teeth as she carefully folded to the ground and lay on her side.
Azarion watched as she curled into a semi-fetal position. The wounds on her back made her hiss a protest when she curved too far, and she straightened with a groan. She closed her eyes, her lashes lying dark against her pale cheeks, and shivered.
He dug into one of the satchels and found a cloak. Made of coarse-woven wool that reeked of sweat and sour wine, the garment was standard issue to every Kraelian soldier, given to him along with a water flask, a tin plate, and a knife. Azarion tossed the cloak over the agacin’s shaking form. Her eyes opened. Startled by his solicitude, she clutched the cloak, nose wrinkling at the smell, and tucked it closer around her. Her hesitant thanks surprised him. He sat down beside her and reclined back against the marble wall. “Get some rest, Agacin.”
“Not likely,” she muttered. “Even the dead don’t rest in Midrigar.”
He smiled, relieved that for a brief moment they were in accord. His gaze flickered back to the blanket covering her. He might well have to tear a strip from it and gag her with it to keep her from warning the hunters if they chose to follow them into the city. He prayed they weren’t nearly as foolish as he was desperate.
He turned his attention to the ruined city. All knew the history of Midrigar. Once a thriving town and vassal to the Empire, it had rebelled when Krael demanded the vicegerent’s daughter as a Flower of Spring. The man refused, raising a revolt among the citizens, who already resented sending their wives and daughters to burn in the Pit.
The emperor’s wrath had been boundless, and the example he made of Midrigar ensured no other city risked suffering the same fate. Scribes recorded and storytellers whispered in hushed tones the tale of Midrigar’s fall, the wholesale slaughter of its people from the oldest crone to the youngest babe. The streets had washed red with rivers of blood, and the buildings burned for days, lit by a fiery glow that could be seen as far south as the islands of Lohar and as far west as the river port town of Dulvaden.
Even when the Kraelian soldiers had butchered everyone and everything down to the last rat, the Empire wasn’t done. The emperor sent in his sorcerers with their spells and curses so that even in death, the souls of Midrigar would be punished through the centuries for their rebellion. No wonder the witch’s defiance had crumbled in the face of Azarion’s threat that Beroe would meet the same doom as Midrigar if she refused to help him. At the time he meant every word. Now, seeing the remains of the city’s destruction and breathing the despair carried on every draft of cold air that swirled around him, he doubted he could follow through with so heinous a threat. Herself and the Pit had done their best to twist his soul into a reflection of the Empire’s own corruption, but even they hadn’t hardened him enough to consign another town and its folk to this terrible fate.
He glanced down at the agacin. Despite her claim that no one slept in Midrigar, she did. Huddled under the cloak, only the top of her head and a strip of her forehead were visible. She still shivered from the cold, but Azarion no longer heard her teeth chatter.
His own skin pebbled, the clothing he wore not much protection against the night’s chill. He ignored it. The elements rarely bothered him. As one of the Empire’s many gladiators, he sometimes traveled to other cities, fighting for the pleasure of whichever of Hanimus’s patrons chose to pay for the entertainment. They rode in rough carts or walked under a blistering sun, in the pouring rain, and sometimes in driving snow. Hanimus believed such hardships made his gladiators tougher fighters. Azarion gave an internal shrug. The master trainer might well have been right, but Azarion wished his companion had the strength to at least summon a small campfire.
What had she said about her magic? It comes with a price. The wounds were one thing, but she hadn’t tried to escape him by burning him. Not even a blister on his finger. Had she used up her power? If so, did it return sooner or later? The thought made him uneasy. He needed her abilities. Without them, he’d have a difficult time reclaiming his birthright.
He sighed and dragged the second pack closer. Inside he found a full flask and prayed it held water instead of the foul wine that scented the cloak. He unstoppered the flask and sniffed. Water. It was flat but cold and soothing against his dry lips and throat.
“I’d like some, please.”
The agacin’s voice was hoarse. Azarion shifted, careful not to twinge his left side too hard, and held out the flask. Fingers that had been cold a little earlier burned now as they grazed his knuckles. She took the flask and brought it to her lips for a quick swallow before handing it back.
Azarion frowned, certain the flags of color on her cheeks hadn’t been there earlier, only the bruise from his knee. She watched him with glassy eyes. “What?”
She drew away when he reached out, trying hard to avoid his touch and failing when he lay his palm against her forehead and then her uninjured cheek. “You need to drink more. You’ve a fever.”
She pushed away his second offer of the flask. “It will pass. It always does.”
Magic and its price. “And the burns?”
A shrug. “They’ll heal and leave their mark.” Her too-bright eyes narrowed. “Why did you take me? I’m no use to you now. In fact, I’m a burden.”
He tucked the cloak more snugly under her. “You’re even more valuable to me now. You’re an agacin, and agacins are revered by my people.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Agna, he prayed silently to the goddess. Please let her loss of magic be a temporary thing. Aloud, he told the witch, “I need an agacin to reclaim my birthright. I need you.”
The heat of her glare matched the heat of her fever. “Pig,” she spat before yanking the cloak over her head to shut him out of her sight.
He heard no more from her, and soon her breathing slowed and deepened as sleep claimed her once more. The following hour passed in thick silence as Azarion listened for the hunters. He no longer heard the hounds, and prayed they had strayed in an opposite direction, misled by a lead dog’s faulty nose or an instinctive fear of Midrigar. They might be safe from the Empire for the moment, but he and the witch weren’t out of harm’s way. The prickling sensation of being watched didn’t abate, though it had blunted, either because whatever observed them lost interest or his own exhaustion dulled his senses. They sharpened to full alert when something moved in the shadows of the buildings across the bone-littered avenue.
Azarion straightened from his slouch against the wall and unsheathed the knife at his hip. Stolen from the guard he killed in the catacombs, it wasn’t much in the way of weaponry but better than nothing.
More movement rippled through the darkness before a ribbon of vapor unfurled itself from the shelter of a broken column to float above the street’s cobblestones. Azarion possessed a newly discovered and puzzling talent for seeing through illusion, but whatever hovered in midair before him wasn’t an illusionary mask cast over a person. Nor was it a mist. The night was cold and clear, and dry enough to sting the lungs with each breath. And mist didn’t move the way whatever this was did. As insubstantial as a cloud, it bore the vague outlines of a person, its borders solidifying until Azarion could make out the ghostly form of a man.
He wore the clothes of another age and stared at Azarion from a face half hacked away by a sword or an ax. The grotesque visage didn’t take away from the intensity of the one-eyed gaze that rested on Azarion. A mournful keening, separate from the wind’s own dirge, rose along the street, and soon the wraith was joined by a throng of other wraiths.
Men, women, and children, young and old, they poured out of doorways and windows and bled through the scorched walls. Their keening turned to hollow wails that crescendoed and ebbed over and over until Azarion’s ears rang. He stood, blocking the feverish agacin from their gazes. None approached them, but their numbers swelled, spreading through the city streets to surround the temple where he sheltered.
“I told you,” the agacin whispered behind him. “This is a grave, and we’re desecrating it.”
He didn’t dare take his eyes off the ghostly crowd to look at her. “They’ve done nothing so far except deafen me with their wailing.” He had far more to fear from the living than the dead.
“Not just wailing.” The witch’s tone firmed. “Can’t you feel it? They’re calling to something. Beseeching it to come.”
Her words, more than the shifting spirits and their wretched cries, sent a spike of ice water down his spine. He didn’t ask her to explain. Those who worked magic, any magic, possessed a sense that others didn’t for the odd and unnatural. His shaman mother often sensed things otherworldly and strange when working her rituals. If the witch said this was more than the grieving of the suffering dead, he believed her.
He bent to empty the satchels, finding only rations, utensils, and a bone needle and thread. A small bundle tumbled out last, and his fingers made short work of the binding. He crowed in triumph when bits of charcoal for starting a fire spilled onto the portico floor.
“What are you doing?” The agacin’s wide eyes were fever-bright, her gaze frightened.
“Drawing a circle of protection around us. My mother taught me this.” He set to work, using the charcoal to sketch a circle around himself and the agacin. Sacred words of power, taught to him and his sister when they were children, spilled from his lips, and the soot-stain arc he’d drawn shimmered faintly in the darkness.
“It’s coming,” the witc
h said, her warning almost drowned as the ghosts’ wails pitched to ear-ringing shrieks.
Azarion eyed the circle, searching for any gaps. His hands trembled as he filled in the spots he’d missed. There could be no gaps, or whatever the ghosts had summoned would break through the meager protection.
The mob of wraiths pulsed with a kind of ravenous eagerness for whatever horror approached. Their wailing halted with an abruptness that made Azarion jump. Midrigar’s spectral prisoners thinned like fog before a sunrise, fading from a vaporous army crowding the streets to shredded wisps of smoke that sank into the cobblestones and walls or darted away, quick as moths chased by bats. In moments, the city emptied, leaving only the suffocating silence that had first greeted them at the gate.
It was a false serenity.
They didn’t have long to wait for the thing summoned by the dead. Azarion spotted a strange warping of the stones along the side of one of the buildings facing the temple where he sheltered with the agacin. At first, it looked like the masonry oozed in spots, as if the moonlight glimmered so hot, it melted the mortar used to hold the stones in place. He squinted for a better look and noticed the melting was simply the watery movement of a translucent creature as it crawled down the structure like a long-limbed crab.
Three times the length of a man, with two arms and two legs, it scuttled along the surface of the building until it reached the street. Long fingers—seven on each hand—detached from the wall and stretched out to skate across the cobblestones. The thing had no face, only the watery outline of a skull atop a neck and shoulders whose shape rippled, collapsed, and re-formed as if made of melting ice.
Free of the wall, it paused to crouch, rocking one way and then the other, head tipped up as if to sniff the air with a nose that wasn’t there. Azarion dared not breathe. Behind him, the witch was as silent as the dead.
Suddenly, it pivoted on its haunches, its faceless head whipping toward Azarion. Spindly limbs tucked into themselves before snapping apart as the creature hurtled toward them, eating the distance in disjointed leaps.