Page 40 of Death's Mistress (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 1)

they grew up and went unharvested. The new ones are scattered everywhere. Birds spread them out, and next year after those go to seed, the pattern disappears even further.” He glanced around. “And look at the vegetable garden. It’s entirely untended.”

Nicci felt uneasy. “This homestead has been abandoned. They’re all abandoned.”

“But why? The land looks fertile. See these crops? The soil is dark and rich.”

Hearing an odd sound, she spun, ready to release her magic in case she had to attack, but it was only the bleat of a goat. Two gray and white animals came forward, attracted by their conversation.

Bannon grinned. “Look at you!” The goats came forward, and each one let him pat it on the side of the neck. “You look like you’re eating well.” He frowned at Nicci in puzzlement. “If goats run loose, they’ll ransack the vegetable garden. My mother would never let goats come close to our house.”

They walked up to a log cottage, where the shake roof had fallen into disrepair. An overturned cart with a sprung wheel was covered with weeds. “No one lives here,” Nicci said. “That much is apparent.”

They went around to the side of the farmhouse, where they came upon two unexpected ornamental statues, a life-size man and woman dressed as farmers. The expressions on their stone faces showed abject misery. The man’s lips were drawn back in anguish, his face turned to the sky, his marble eyes staring. His mouth was wide open in a wordless wail of grief. The woman was hunched, her hands to her face as if weeping, or maybe clawing out her eyes in despair.

Bannon looked deeply unsettled, and Nicci could not help but recall the stone carvings Emperor Jagang and Brother Narev had commissioned in Altur’Rang, making sculptors depict the corruption and pain of humanity, rather than its majesty. Jagang and Narev had wanted all statues to reflect the most horrific expressions, just like what Nicci saw now. Was this some other follower of Narev’s teachings?

When she had lived with Richard in Altur’Rang, he worked as a stone carver and ultimately sculpted a breathtaking representation of the human spirit, a statue he called Truth. That was when Nicci had experienced a fundamental epiphany. She had changed.

That had been the end of her life as Death’s Mistress, as a Sister of the Dark.

But whoever had carved these statues had apparently not received the same epiphany.

“We should find another farmhouse,” said Bannon. “I don’t like those statues. Who would want something like at their home?”

Nicci glanced at him. “Obviously someone who does not share your vision of an idyllic world.”

CHAPTER 30

The wind whistling around the sentinel tower took on a deeper tone, like a lost moan. The intact panes of crimson glass in the observation windows shimmered, pulsed, awakened.

Nathan held up his sliced hand, cupping the drops of blood in his palm. “Dear spirits,” he muttered. As the upper observation platform of the watchtower throbbed with a deep angry light, he stared at the glowing red-glass panes with more fascination than fear. Though he couldn’t use his gift, he still felt the restless magic inside him, twitching, uncontrollable. His innate, uncertain Han felt attuned to what was happening.

A memory tickled the back of his mind, and he smiled with recognition. “Bloodglass! Yes, I have heard of bloodglass.”

The temperature around him increased, as if the glass reflected some distant volcanic fire, but this magic was heated by blood. Curious, the wizard went to one of the intact panes as the thrumming grew louder, more powerful.

Bloodglass was a wizard’s tool in war. Glass bound with blood, tempered and shaped with the spilled blood of sacrifices, so that the panes themselves were connected to bloodshed. In the most violent wars, the seers of military commanders could gaze through panes of bloodglass to monitor the progress of their armies—the battles, victories, massacres. Bloodglass did not reveal an actual landscape, but rather the patterns of pain and death, which allowed warlords to map the topography of their slaughter.

Nathan stood close to the nearest window and peered through the glowing crimson glass. From the top of this watchtower, he had expected to see for great distances—the old imperial roads, the mountain ranges, maybe even the vast fertile valley that lay between here and Kol Adair.

Instead, he viewed the inexorable march of memory armies, hundreds of thousands of fighters who wielded swords and shields, sweeping like locusts across the land. The bloodglass was so perfectly transparent that he could look through time as well as distance at a panorama magnified by the impurity of blood in the crystal.

The Old World was vast and ancient, allowing him to gaze across the sweep of invasions and pitched battles, a succession of armies, of emperors, of countless generations of bloodshed. Barbarians struck villages, killing men who tried to defend their homes and families, raping the women, beheading the children. After the wild and undisciplined warriors came another type of predator: organized machinelike armies that moved in perfect formation and killed without passion but with relentless precision.

Nathan followed the octagonal wall of the tower and peered through a second bloodglass window. This one blazed even brighter, and the armies in the image seemed closer. The glass vibrated, and the whole massive tower structure thrummed as if awakened … as if afraid.

Nathan spun upon hearing a sound—a rattle of hollow bones. He looked at the dismembered skeletons scattered on the iron-hard wood of the platform. Had they moved? The light filling the watchtower seemed uncertain, a thicker crimson. Outside, the afternoon sun dipped lower, but this murderous magical light was entirely independent of it. Nervously, he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword—his slick bloody hand. He lifted his palm to look at the scarlet drops that ran down his wrist.

He whirled again at a louder clatter of bones, but saw nothing. Surely, the skeletons had moved. He hurried to look through two more of the intact crimson panes, and saw another army approaching. This one seemed more ominous than the others, more real.

The warriors had pointed steel helmets, scaled armor, and shields emblazoned with a stylized flame. Nathan remembered that flame … the symbol of Emperor Kurgan’s army. Through the sorcerous magnification, he discerned a fearsome warlord at the vanguard, and Nathan realized that he might be seeing General Utros himself, suffused through blood and time.

The wind howled louder around the broken walls, as if an invisible storm swept across the top of the bluff. Carried along with the breezes came the shouts of soldiers, the clatter of steel, and the pounding thud of marching boots. The red light grew more intense, as if it shone through a fine mist of blood.

Nathan drew his sword now, clamping his fingers hard around the ornate hilt, but his blood made the grip slippery. He turned slowly, but saw no movement from the scattered bones. He hurried over to look through another of the windows and saw the army of General Utros marching toward the high citadel, an inexorable flood of armed men converging on the watchtower. Somehow, the magic had brought them back: these ruthless soldiers seemed absolutely real. They stormed up the wide stone paths, approaching the tower from three sides. He stared at the bristling, relentless force closing in.

Another clatter tore Nathan’s attention away from the bloodglass. Whirling, he did see the bones of the long-forgotten defenders twitching, shuddering, reassembling. Bathed in red light from the eerie windows, the skeletons rose up as if they were marionettes.

The wizard raised his sword to fight them, but these were only a few clumsy threats. He was much more worried about the hordes of ghost soldiers pressing toward the tower. He could hear them below, a surging crowd of swords, armor, and muscles. A gruff voice—Utros?—shouted in an accented language that Nathan somehow understood, “Take the tower. Kill them all!”

Surrounded by suffocating red light, Nathan braced himself to fight the skeletons. A thunder of pounding feet came up the tower stairs. He struggled to find the magic within him, ready to release his recalcitrant gift, whether or not it caused a disaster. He was all a

lone here. Even if a backlash from using magic caused terrible damage and leveled this entire watchtower, at least he wouldn’t hurt Nicci or young Bannon. He might, however, destroy these spectral soldiers.

One of the reanimated soldiers clattered toward him, bony hands outstretched as if the skeleton thought Nathan himself was an invader. The wizard swung his sword and sliced through the neck vertebrae. The skull toppled off and rolled across the wooden floor, its jaws still clacking. The fleshless hands and arms flailed, clawing at him. He smashed them, splintering the wickerwork of bones. Then he spun to dismember another skeleton, this one wearing tatters of armor. He kicked out with a boot to knock apart the loose bones of a third rattling opponent.

Then the greater threat arrived. Armored spectral warriors with flame-emblazoned shields and wide swords pushed through the door to the tower chamber, two abreast. They shimmered in the deep red light.

Nathan backed toward a wall, hoping to find some protection with his back to the stone blocks. He had no place to hide.

A flood of long-dead soldiers flowed through the door, as if they meant to take over the sentinel tower and simply drown anyone there with their sheer numbers.

The wizard faced them, mustering all his strength. “Come at me, then!” He slashed his blade across the air, surrendering the hope that he could find the ragged thread of magic within him again. The flow of Han wouldn’t come to him now. He would have to make do with his sword.

Oddly, he wished Bannon were here. He and the young man could have slain dozens before they fell. “I’ll just have to do it myself!” His straight white hair flew as he hurled himself at the ancient attackers.

Crimson light from the bloodglass throbbed around him, and he felt as if he were in a trance. He swung his sword at one of the ancient warriors, bracing himself for the hard impact against scaled armor, flesh, bone. But his sword passed through, and the enemy collapsed. Nathan didn’t slow, but slashed at another, cleaving through misty armor.

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