The Charnel Prince Read online

  The antlered man merely blinked, as if Sir Oneu’s words were so many raindrops.

  “You’re quite senseless, aren’t you?” Sir Oneu asked.

  This time the horned man crooked his head back, so his mouth opened to the sky, and he howled.

  Three bows hummed together. Ehawk jerked around at the sound and saw that three of the monks were firing into the forest. The naked and half-naked figures that had been drifting through the trees were suddenly charging. Ehawk watched as one of them fell, an arrow in her neck. She was pretty, or had been. Now she spasmed on the ground like a wounded deer.

  “Flank me, Brother Gavrel,” Sir Oneu said. He dropped his lance level to the party on the trail. Like their brethren in the woods, they were unarmed, and the sight of a fully armored knight ought to have shaken them, but instead, one of the women sprang forward and ran upon the spear. It hit her with such force that the spearhead broke through her back, but she clawed at the shaft as if she might drag herself up its length to the knight who had killed her.

  Sir Oneu cursed and drew his broadsword. He hacked down the first man leaping for him, and the next, but more and more of the madmen came pouring from the woods. The three monks kept firing at a rate Ehawk deemed impossible, yet already most of their shafts were hitting almost point-blank, and the sides of the trail were quickly heaped with dead.

  Martyn, Gavrel, and Sir Oneu drew swords, now trading places with the archers, forming a circle around them to give them space to fire. Ehawk was crowded into the center of the ring. Belatedly, he took out his own bow and put an arrow to it, but with all the jostling chaos, it was hard to find a shot.

  They had more attackers than Ehawk could count, but those were all unarmed.

  Then that changed, suddenly, as someone seemed to remember how to throw a stone. The first rock belled from Sir Oneu’s helm and did no damage, but soon there came a hail of them. Meanwhile, the enemy had begun a kind of wordless chant or keening. It rose and fell like the call of the whippoorwill.

  Brother Alvaer staggered as a stone struck his forehead and blood sprayed from the cut. He raised a hand to wipe his eyes, and in that brief pause, a giant of a man yanked at his arm, pulling him into the sea of rabid faces.

  Ehawk had never seen the sea, of course, but he could imagine it from Sir Oneu’s vivid descriptions—like a lake that rose and fell. Alvaer was like a man drowning in such water. He fought his way above the waves and was pulled down again. He reappeared once more, farther away and very bloody. Ehawk thought the monk was missing an eye.

  Alvaer struggled back up a final time—and then was gone.

  Meanwhile, the other monks and Sir Oneu continued the slaughter, but bodies were piling too thick for the horses to move. Gavrel was next to die, pulled into the throng and torn limb from limb.

  “They will overwhelm us!” Sir Oneu shouted. “We must break free.” He urged Airece forward, his sword arm rising and falling, hewing limbs that grappled at him and his mount. Ehawk’s pony screamed and pranced, and suddenly a man was there, tearing at Ehawk’s leg with filthy, ragged nails. He shouted, dropped his bow, and yanked out his dirk. He stabbed and felt rather than saw the blade cut. The man ignored him and leapt up, caught Ehawk by the arm, and began to pull with hideous strength.

  Then suddenly Martyn was beside him, and the attacker’s head bouncing on the ground. Ehawk watched with detached fascination.

  He looked back up in time to see Sir Oneu go down, three men attached to his sword arm and two more tugging at him. He shouted in anguish as they pulled him from his horse. The monks fought forward, moving with absurd speed, striking, it seemed, in all directions at once.

  They did not reach Sir Oneu in time. A rock hit Ehawk in the shoulder; several struck Martyn, one in the head. He swayed for just an instant, but kept in his saddle.

  “Follow me,” Martyn told Ehawk. “Do not flinch.”

  He wheeled his horse away from his two brothers and plunged off the trail. Dazed, Ehawk never considered disobeying. Martyn’s sword whirled too quickly to be seen, and the monk had chosen his direction wisely, picking the point where the attackers were thinnest. Beyond the battle was a broad stream.

  They plunged into the water, and their steeds sank deep and began to swim. They managed the other side, where the slope was gentle and their mounts found purchase.

  A look back showed their attackers already following.

  Martyn reached over and took Ehawk by the shoulder. “News of this must reach the praifec. Do you understand? Praifec Hespero, in Eslen. It’s much for me to ask of you, but you must swear to do it.”

  “Eslen? I can’t go to Eslen. It’s too far, and I don’t know the way.”

  “You must. You must, Ehawk. I lay it as a dying geos on you.”

  Several of their pursuers splashed into the stream, swimming clumsily.

  “Go with me,” Ehawk desperately begged. “I cannot do it without you.”

  “I’ll follow if I can, but I must hold them here, and you must ride as hard as that horse will take you. Here.” He detached a pouch from his belt and thrust it into Ehawk’s hand. “There’s coin there, not much. Spend it wisely. Within is also a letter with a seal. That will get you before the praifec. Tell him what we’ve seen here. Do not fail. Now go!”

  Then he had to turn to meet the first of the madmen emerging from the stream. He split the fellow’s skull like a melon, then shifted his footing and prepared to meet the next.

  “Go!” he shouted, without looking back. “Or we all have died in vain.”

  Something snapped in Ehawk then, and he spurred his horse and rode until the mare stumbled in exhaustion. Even then, he did not stop, but kept the poor beast at what pace it could maintain. Sobs tore from his chest until it ached, and then the stars came out.

  He rode always west, for he knew it was somewhere in that direction that Eslen lay.

  PART I

  SHADOW DAYS

  The Year 2,223 of Everon

  The Month of Novmen

  The last day of Otavmen is the day of Saint Temnos. The first six days in Novmen are, in their turn, Saint Dun, Saint Under, Saint Shade, Saint Mefitis, Saint Gavriel, and Saint Halaqin. Taken together, these are the Shadow Days, where the World of the Quick meets the World of the Dead.

  —FROM THE ALMANACK OF PRESSON MANTEO

  And after twelve long months he grieved

  His lover’s ghost rose from the deep

  What do you want from me my love

  That troubles my eternal sleep?

  I want a kiss, oh love of mine

  A single kiss from thee

  And then I’ll trouble you no more

  I’ll let you sleep in peace

  My breath is ice and sea my love

  My lips are cold as clay

  And if you kiss my salt wet lips

  You’ll never live another day

  —FROM “THE DROWNED LOVER,” A FOLK SONG OF VIRGENYA

  He shall be cursed to live, and thus bring ruin to life.

  —TRANSLATED FROM THE Tafles Taceis OR Book of Murmurs

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE NIGHT

  NEIL MEQVREN RODE WITH his queen down a dark street in the city of the dead. The tattoo of their horses’ hooves was drowned by hail shattering on lead cobbles. The wind was a dragon heaving its misty coils and lashing its wet tail. Ghosts began to stir, and beneath Neil’s burnished breastplate, beneath his chilled skin and cage of bone, worry clenched.

  He did not mind the wind or frozen rain. His homeland was Skern, where the frost and the sea and the clouds were all the same, where ice and pain were the simplest facts of life. The dead did not bother him either.

  It was the living he feared, the knives and darts the dark and weather hid from his merely human eyes. It would take so little to kill his queen—the prick of a tiny needle, a hole the size of a little finger in her heart, a sling-flung stone to her temple. How could he protect her? How could he keep safe the only thing he had left?
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  He glanced at her; she was obscured in a wool weather-cloak, her face shadowed deep in the cowl. A similar cloak covered his own lord’s plate and helm. They might appear to be any two pilgrims, come to see their ancestors—or so he hoped. If those who wanted the queen dead were grains of sand, there would be strand enough to beach a war galley.

  They crossed stone bridges over black water canals that caught bits of the fire from their lantern and stirred them into gauzy yellow webs. The houses of the dead huddled between the waterways, peaked roofs shedding the storm, keeping their quiet inhabitants dry if not warm. A few lights moved elsewhere between the lanes—the queen, it seemed, was not the only one undeterred by the weather, determined to seek the company of the dead this night. The dead could be spoken to on any night, of course, but on the last night of Otavmen—Saint Temnosnaht—the dead might speak back.

  Up the hill in Eslen-of-the-Quick, they were feasting, and until the storm came, the streets had been filled with dancers in skeleton costume and somber Sverrun priests chanting the forty hymns of Temnos. Skull-masked petitioners went from house to house, begging soulcakes, and bonfires burned in public squares, the largest in the great assembly ground known as the Candle Grove. Now the feasts had gone inside homes and taverns, and the procession that would have wound its way to the Eslen-of-Shadows had shrunk from a river to a brooh in the fierce face of winter’s arrival. The little lamps carved of turnips and apples were all dark, and there would be little in the way of festival here tonight.

  Neil kept his hand on the pommel of his broadsword, Crow, and his eyes were restless. He did not watch the moving light of the lanterns, but the darkness that stretched between. If something came for her, it would likely come from there.

  The houses grew larger and taller as they passed the third and fourth canals, and then they came to the final circle, walled in granite and iron spears, where the statues of Saint Dun and Saint Under watched over palaces of marble and alabaster. Here, a lantern approached them.

  “Keep your cowl drawn, milady,” Neil told the queen.

  “It is only one of the scathomen, who guard the tombs,” she answered.

  “That may or may not be,” Neil replied.

  He trotted Hurricane up a few paces. “Who’s there?” he called.

  The lantern lifted, and in its light, an angular, middle-aged face appeared from the shadows of a weather-cloak. Neil’s breath sat a little easier in his lungs, for he knew this man—Sir Len, indeed, one of the scathomen who dedicated their lives to the dead.

  Of course, the appearance of a man and what was inside him were two different things, as Neil had learned from bitter experience. So he remained wary.

  “I must ask you the same question,” the old knight replied to Neil’s question.

  Neil rode nearer. “It is the queen,” he told the man.

  “I must see her face,” Sir Len said. “Tonight of all nights, everything must be proper.”

  “All shall be proper,” the queen’s voice came as she lifted her lantern and drew back the deep hood of her cloak.

  Her face appeared, beautiful and hard as the ice falling from the sky.

  “I know you, lady,” Sir Len said. “You may pass. But . . .” His words seemed to go off with the wind.

  “Do not question Her Majesty,” Neil cautioned stiffly.

  The old knight’s eyes speared at Neil. “I knew your queen when she wore toddling clothes,” he said, “when you were never born nor even thought of.”

  “Sir Neil is my knight,” the queen said. “He is my protector.”

  “Auy. Then away from here he should take you. You should not come to this place, lady, when the dead speak. No good shall come of it. I have watched here long enough to know that.”

  The queen regarded Sir Len for a long moment. “Your advice is well-intended,” she said, “but I will disregard it. Please question me no more.”

  Sir Len bowed to his knee. “I shall not, my queen.”

  “I am queen no longer,” she said softly. “My husband is dead. There is no queen in Eslen.”

  “As you live, lady, there is a queen,” the old knight replied. “In truth, if not in law.”

  She nodded her head slightly, and they passed into the houses of the royal dead without another word.

  They moved under the wrought-iron pastato of a large house of red marble, where they tethered the horses, and with the turn of an iron key left the freezing rain outside. Within the doors they found a small foyer with an altar and a hall that led into the depths of the building. Someone had lit the hall tapers already, though shadows still clung like cobwebs in the corners.

  “What shall I do, lady?” Neil asked.

  “Keep guard,” she answered. “That is all.”

  She knelt at the altar and lit the candles.

  “Fathers and mothers of the house Dare,” she sang, “your adopted daughter is calling, humble before her elders. Honor me, I beg you, this night of all nights.”

  Now she lit a small wand of incense, and an aroma like pine and liquidambar seemed to explode in Neil’s nostrils.

  Somewhere in the house, something rustled, and a chime sounded.

  Muriele rose and removed her weather-cloak. Beneath was a gown of boned black safnite. Her raven hair seemed to blend into it, making an orphan of her face, which appeared almost to float. Neil’s throat caught. The queen was beautiful beyond compare, and age had done little to diminish her beauty, but it was not that which twisted Neil’s heart—rather, it was that for just an instant she resembled someone else.

  Neil turned his gaze away, searching the shadows.

  The queen started up the corridor.

  “If I may, Majesty,” he said quickly. “I would precede you.”

  She hesitated. “You are my servant, and my husband’s kin will see you as such. You must walk behind me.”

  “Lady, if there is ambush ahead—”

  “I will chance it,” she replied.

  They moved down a hall paneled in bas-reliefs depicting the deeds of the house Dare. The queen walked with measured step, head bowed, and her footsteps echoed clearly, despite the distant hammering of the storm on the slate roof.

  They entered a great chamber with vaulted ceilings where a long table was prepared, thirty places set with crystal goblets. In each, wine as red as blood had been poured. The queen paced by the chairs, searching, until she found the one she sought, and then she sat, staring at the wine.

  Outside the wind groaned.

  Long moments passed, and then a bell sounded, and another. Twelve in all, and with the midnight stroke, the queen drank from the cup.

  Neil felt something pass in the air, a chill, a humming.

  Then the queen began to speak, in a voice deeper and huskier than usual. The hairs on Neil’s neck prickled at the sound of it.

  “Muriele,” she said. “My queen.”

  And then, as if answering herself, she spoke in her more usual tone. “Erren, my friend.”

  “Your servant,” the deeper voice replied. “How fare you? Did I fail?”

  “I live,” Muriele answered. “Your sacrifice was not in vain.”

  “But your daughters are here, in this place of dust.”

  Neil’s heartbeat quickened, and he realized he had moved. He was standing near one of the chairs, staring at the wine.

  “All of them?”

  “No. But Fastia is here, and sweet Elseny. They wear shrouds, Muriele. I failed them—and you.”

  “We were betrayed,” Muriele replied. “You did all you could, gave all you could. I cannot blame you. But I must know about Anne.”

  “Anne . . .” The voice sighed off. “We forget, Muriele. The dead forget. It is like a cloud, a mist that eats more of us each day. Anne . . .”

  “My youngest daughter. Anne. I sent her to the coven of Saint Cer, and no word has come from there. I must know if the assassins found her there.”

  “Your husband is dead,” the voice called Erren replied.
“He does not sleep here, but calls from far away. His voice is faint, and sad. Lonely. He did love you.”

  “William? Can you speak to him?”

  “He is too distant. He cannot find his way here. The paths are dark, you know. The whole world is dark, and the wind is strong.”

  “But Anne—you cannot hear her whisper?”

  “I remember her now,” Erren crooned, in the queen’s voice. “Hair like strawberry. Always trouble. Your favorite.”

  “Does she live, Erren? I must know.”

  Silence then, and to his surprise Neil found the glass of wine in his hand. It was only distantly that he heard the reply.

  “I believe she lives. It is cold here, Muriele.”

  More was said, but Neil did not hear it, for he raised the cup before him and drank.

  He set the cup on the table as he swallowed the bitter sip he’d taken. He stared into the remaining wine, which calmed and became a red mirror. He saw himself in it; his father’s strong jaw was there, but his blue eyes were black pits and his wheat hair ruddy, as if he examined a portrait painted in blood.

  Then someone stood behind him, and a hand fell on his shoulder. “Do not turn,” a feminine voice whispered.

  “Fastia?”

  But now he saw her face instead of his mirrored in the wine. He smelled her lavender fragrance.

  “I was called that, wasn’t I?” Fastia said. “And you were my love.”

  He tried to face her then, but the hand tightened on his shoulder.

  “Do not,” she said. “Do not look at me.”

  His hand trembled the wineglass, but the image of her in it remained untroubled. She smiled faintly, but her eyes were lamps burning sadness.

  “I wish . . . ,” he began, but could not finish.

  “Yes,” she said. “So do I. But it could not have been, you know. We were foolish.”

  “And I let you die.”

  “I don’t remember that. I remember you holding me in your arms. Cradled, like a child. I was happy. That is all I remember, and soon I will not even remember that. But it is enough. It is almost enough.” Fingers traced chills on the back of his neck. “I must know if you loved me,” she whispered.