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Chapter 12:

Death Grip

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I


Leta had just told him the little market town lay only a little ways ahead when the boy rode over the ridge. He was mounted on a charcoal gray mare, and guided an old black gelding, saddled, by a long lead line.

Hanuvar hoped to obtain a horse as soon as he reached a settlement, and here was one directly in his path. He brought the wagon to a halt and called out to the boy. “Come here! I’ve a question for you!”

The child slowed and looked Hanuvar’s way, his expression still focused inward, as though the words he’d heard intruded upon a more pressing reality. Probably he’d lived no more than thirteen years. He had a long face with a knobby chin. He wore his hair short, and it was straight and dark brown, red tinted from long exposure to the sun. His saddlebags bulged with sage, poking out from under the clasps, and the scent was stronger than that of horseflesh. The boy himself wore a necklace from which a long line of small bent nails dangled. This, then, was someone cautious of the dead.

The boy’s gaze took in the grim-faced older woman on Hanuvar’s right, studied him and the sheathed weapon on the bench beside him with growing interest, then examined the young brindle-brown mastiff standing with erect ears along the driver’s side of the cart.

“What do you want with him?” Leta asked.

Hanuvar didn’t answer, for the boy was riding close. A sheathed gladius in weathered wraps hung at the child’s side. By the time he stopped, the boy’s dark eyes were calculating.

Hanuvar had planned to open a conversation about renting the animal, for he did not carry nearly enough to purchase even an aging work horse like the one trailing the boy, and Leta meant to go no further than the nearby settlement. But the boy spoke first, his delivery pressured. “I see you’ve got a sword. Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes.”

The boy could scarcely wait to reply. “Can your dog fight?”

“He’s a killer,” Leta asserted helpfully. “What’s a boy like you need that for?”

“I need help getting my brother.”

“I’m hoping to rent a horse,” Hanuvar said. “I wonder—”

The boy cut him off. “My brother handles that kind of thing. Help me find him and we can loan it to you.”

“Is your brother lost?” Hanuvar asked.

The boy hesitated, then explained, watching Hanuvar for reaction. “He and his friends went to stop the ghost in the cave. And they didn’t come back last night. No one else will help me, so I’m going to do it.”

He was young enough still to play pretend, but his tense manner did not suggest that he did so now. “How far away is this cave?” Hanuvar asked.

“I think it’s less than a half hour from here. I’ve got a pretty good idea of where it is,” the boy added, more as if to reassure himself than Hanuvar.

“Swords aren’t going to help much against a ghost,” Leta remarked dourly.

“That’s what the magistrate said. The decurion couldn’t even be bothered. Everyone’s afraid. I’ve got wards against ghosts and a sword an old wise woman blessed. But if you don’t want to come, say so, because I want to get there before dark.”

Hanuvar had no interest in hunting a “ghost,” but he needed a horse and he wasn’t likely to get a better deal. He faced Leta. “You’re almost at your destination so I’ll leave you here. Good luck at the market.”

“You take care of that dog.” Leta had shared her food, but she’d never displayed much warmth apart from that she gruffly gave the mastiff. She nodded to Hanuvar after he climbed down and then she shook the reins and the cart lurched into motion.

After two days on the road Hanuvar thought himself well enough healed to ride, though he still had to favor the leg if he was afoot. He managed to walk almost normally to the horse, wearing the battered sword he’d taken from his would-be murderers. The animal appeared healthy despite a back bowing with age and graying muzzle. He stood just over fifteen hands high, and his dark coat was well brushed, his legs sturdy and hooves well trimmed. He radiated placid calm, which Hanuvar preferred to coltish nonsense.

“You’re sure your brother’s in this cave?” Hanuvar asked.

“First I want to check the shack in the woods where he and his friends go. There’s a chance they’re there. It’s on the way.” The boy then added detail: “People have been disappearing. Ever since they found that jewelry.”

In an eyeblink Hanuvar had clarity. These were Turian lands, and the Turians had been a people who liked to inter their dead with distinctive grave goods. Enterprising descendants still sought out unopened tombs secreted in the hilly countryside. “In a Turian crypt?” Hanuvar suggested.

The boy seemed shocked that Hanuvar had deduced the truth so easily. “Maybe,” he said, then decided upon confirmation. “They were bragging about it. Everyone knows, because they have big mouths for people who want to keep a secret. Justus told me he and his buddies had found a big cache, but his friends and their treasures started to disappear, and those left were going to get together yesterday and talk. Maybe even lock the tomb back up. Then he didn’t come home.”

“You have no parents?” Hanuvar guessed not, but he meant to confirm.

The boy shook his head no.

“Aunts, uncles?”

“My uncle runs the tavern we work at, but he’s gone. We think the ghost got him.”

Hanuvar climbed into the saddle. “Let’s see this shack.”



II


They headed away from the road and into the green, hilly Turian wilderness. The wind brought the mixed scent of lavender and myrtle, the white blossoms of which flowered along the forest edge.

Beneath overcast skies the land felt ageless and unwelcoming. Even the little farmsteads looked just this side of overgrown, as though despite centuries of occupation men and women had made no true impact upon the wilderness, which remained positioned to regain the upper hand the moment vigilance faltered.

The boy stayed silent until they were well into the hills, along a secondary path little better than a deer track. They had just passed a crumbling brown wall heavy with ivy when he turned his horse into a wide clearing. A wall of forest lay only a half mile ahead. Hanuvar drew up beside him. He had noted then that one of the boy’s booted feet was larger than the other. A club foot.

The boy saw the direction of his gaze. “I can get around just fine,” he said assertively.

“What’s your name?” Hanuvar asked.

“Kliment.”

“I’m Flavius.”

The boy was more interested in the dog trotting with them. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Kalak.” When Leta had suggested calling the dog “Hanuvar,” he’d eventually explained that he didn’t want to be shouting that out in public and offered an alternative. The mountain range he’d named the animal after lay near Volanus and had been described in a famous Dervan poem as possessing a savage beauty. Leta didn’t seem much of a scholar, but even she could cite a few lines from Ellius and had approved his choice.

The mastiff had romped curiously for the last mile or two, acting like the half-grown pup he was. Now, approaching the woods, something had him on the alert. He kept close, ears pricked, and eyes scanning the dark areas between the trees. The horses, too, seemed tense as if they knew the primeval power of the countryside rendered humans and their allies unwanted.

They picketed their mounts a little beyond the forest edge, then the limping boy slung the greenery-laden saddlebags over one shoulder and led Hanuvar down a trail. The shack sat in a small upland clearing only a few hundred feet from the wood’s edge, a small stone structure with sagging, moss-studded roof tiles. The battered wooden door hung shattered in its frame.

The boy raised his voice as they drew close. “Justus? Are you in there? It’s Kliment.”

It didn’t seem a place where anyone would linger. Kalak trotted forward expectantly and sniffed at the door.

“Back,” Hanuvar ordered, not trusting the animal’s sense about when to act with lethal force if there was someone hiding within. The dog obliged with seeming reluctance.

“Someone’s kicked in the door.” Kliment swallowed, then called out his brother’s name again. “Justus?” The broken door creaked as he pushed it open. Dull sunlight stretched before him, illuminating the toppled table, a broken stool, and a red and stinking smear, as of a bloody body dragged across the dirt floor. Flies, agitated by their appearance, spiraled up from the mess.

Hanuvar lingered in the threshold, scanning the dark corners. He spotted a set of muddy footprints. Untidy wreaths of sage and asphodel hung on each wall. There were no closets, wardrobes, or doorways, no rug under which a pit might lie hidden. Returning outside, he saw no further drag marks, as though the corpse had been transported by that point. “Are there bandits in this area?” he asked Kliment.

“It’s not bandits. It’s a spirit. This is like what we found when it got my uncle. We’ve got to go to the tomb. Justus said he was going to go to the tomb.” Kliment started past him, but Hanuvar stopped him with a hand to his arm.

“I think you’d best make a few things clear before we go any further.”

The boy paused, his eye wide, his expression blank.

Hanuvar had seen that look in survivors of ambushes. He withdrew his hand and spoke calmly and slowly. “You need to tell me what’s been happening. How many people have died, how did they die, and how long has it been going on?”

“I don’t know how they died. People started to go missing the same night my brother and his friends found the old crypt.” He blinked, and seemed to see Hanuvar, for he met his eyes again. His voice resumed a more even cadence. “There’d been another tremor, and sometimes that exposes doors on the hillsides, so they headed for a place where some others have been found, and there it was. They said the crypt was full of great old stuff, but it was really creepy, and they just grabbed a few pieces and got out fast. They took seven things. Lucky seven. They thought if nothing happened, maybe they’d come back for more.” He gulped. “But things started happening. Gratian, the boy who found the tomb door, disappeared. Then our uncle went missing the next night. They gave him a bracelet because he thought he could probably find a market for it and some of the necklaces. Then Marcus vanished. Along with the jewelry they had. Well, Marcus had a cup.”

“Is that everyone?”

“Yes. Until today, I guess.” His eyes tracked to the doorway and the smear just visible through it. Possibly left by his brother’s body. “Justus figured a haunt was coming after the things they took, so he convinced the other two to give everything back, and seal up the tomb. Extra tight. They wanted to go at Noon when we figured the ghost would be most weak. But that was yesterday.”

“This one seems to be quite strong. Something broke through this door while it was barricaded. Did you see the that the door bar had been cracked in half?”

The boy blinked at him. “No. I don’t understand why someone was here,” he added.

Hanuvar could guess, and he hesitated telling the boy. But it was important he understand the implications. “You said the tomb was close. Do you think someone ran back here, from the tomb? Maybe because there were wreaths on the walls, to keep out spirits? But it didn’t help.”

“I think I know where it is. We have to check.” Kliment fingered the necklace with its bent nails, as if in hope it would keep him safe more than the sage and asphodel wreaths. He looked around as if lost. “Look, I can give you Altus. He’s my horse. I was riding my brother’s. But you can have the one you were riding. You don’t even have to rent him. But I don’t want to do this alone.” He sounded even smaller than before but, Hanuvar concluded, determined to go regardless.

Hanuvar closed his eyes for a moment to wrestle competing impulses. “Very well. Lead on.”

Still carrying the sage-filled saddlebags over his shoulder, Kliment headed out. They didn’t advance more than a few hundred yards before they came to a line of low hills. After another half mile they came to not so much a clearing as a thinning of the nearby trees, enough that wide shafts of sunlight sporadically broke through the canopy of oak and ash, which served less to illuminate and more to somehow emphasize the depth of the shadows.

After that point the boy appeared briefly unsure until he spied a huge oak and veered to the right, coming upon another line of hills. Again Kliment looked uncertain, scanning the terrain and walking slowly until he arrived before a rocky crevice. From straight on it seemed a narrow slit, but the boy limped ahead and through and they found themselves in a wider passage that stopped before a closed stone door set below a lintel built into the hillside. The dirt that had coated it before the tremor lay in a mound at its feet, indented with sandal prints and drag marks toward the door.

Kalak sniffed the area and growled, his ruff up.

The boy’s gaze fell—he had observed the drag lines in the dirt. Hanuvar wondered if he too questioned who had closed the door. Certainly no one fleeing from the crypt would have politely shut it behind them.

Kliment addressed him quietly. “Justus said the door was on a pivot. That it just opened right up. I brought torches,” he added, though Hanuvar had already noted them poking out of the left saddlebag.

Hanuvar borrowed the boy’s flint to light one, expecting he would be faster at the task, then handed it to Kliment. He grasped the stone door at a carved ridge and pulled. The slab was a good seven feet tall, but swung open with astonishing ease.

No spectral monster waited just beyond. He saw only a man-high corridor through the dirt leading into darkness. The boy produced small, shoddy wreaths of sage from his pack, pressed one into Hanuvar’s hands and put another around his neck, over the circlet of bent nails.

Hanuvar thought it too small to fit over his head, so wrapped it around his left arm and started in. Kliment followed, flickering torch held aloft. Hanuvar’s good ankle had grown sore from favoring the other, and his injury had certainly not benefitted from the afternoon’s walk. He limped inside, scanning the environment, conscious that the boy limped with him. The dog padded at his side.

Six feet beyond the entrance the tunnel opened into a stone hall lined with stiff carved Turian figures bearing chin beards and wide staring eyes and square fingers. Four of them glared solemnly down at the stone slabbed floor. The hall continued on, but Hanuvar stopped to contemplate a sticky black mass upon the slabs, and streaks trailing into the greater darkness.

Blood, recently spilled. A fair amount of it. Something had dragged the body that had housed that blood backward into the gloom.

The boy watched him, his expression fixed and cautious.

“You should stay here,” Hanuvar said.

“I am going with you.”

Apparently Kliment feared the darkness of the tomb less than being on his own, and so Hanuvar gave him only one other instruction. “If I give the word, run.”

Kliment answered with a tight nod of the head.

There was a difference between battlefield fear and the hair-stiffening atmosphere of the supernatural. Hanuvar felt the heightened awareness, even the apprehension, but so far today he had not yet experienced the innate feeling of wrongness that came from the intrusion into the mortal sphere of things from elsewhere. Kalak stayed close, head shifting to right and left. The old tales always had it that animals were more sensitive than men to the supernatural, and he expected this dog might be especially so. Right now the dog still acted only cautious, not frightened, which reassured him. Even so he advanced with bared blade.

The boy’s torchlight spilled ruddily onto a stone dais built into the central wall. To either side dark niches were laddered into the corridor, four high, each brimming with goods. Light flickered on a row of golden rings carefully arranged with identical distance between them. Small statues of gods or heroes stood in a line like the toys of a rich man’s child. There was a long series of necklaces as well, and Kliment, attracted by the sheen on the nearest, stretched out a hand.

“Don’t touch it,” Hanuvar cautioned, and the boy quickly pulled his hand back.

“I wasn’t going to take it.” Kliment looked chagrinned but moved well away from the niches.

Hanuvar had caught a whiff of rotting flesh, the putrid sickly-sweet stink he knew too well from battlefields. Kliment, too, had noticed it, and put his hand tentatively on the handle of another sealed door. He looked grimly to Hanuvar, took a deep breath, and pulled it wide.

He gasped when it opened, not just because of the terrible smell, but because of the horror before him. Someone, or some thing, had sat six bodies against the wall just beneath a wide, empty wall niche. The three on the right were younger and fresher, but all were dead, their eyes vacant, their jaws gaping.

The boy advanced toward the corpses on the right and knelt before one with a sob.

Breath held, Hanuvar scanned them for signs of wounds, noting the scratches and purpling about their necks. Blood soaked their clothing.

Scanning the corridor of treasures, Hanuvar noticed a relief above a central niche, and recognized the Turian lord of the dead, he of the sad eyes and sympathetic brows. Someone had recently driven a nail into wall just beneath the god’s extended hand and draped a wreath of sage there so that he seemed almost to be holding it.

The hairs on Hanuvar’s neck stood upright and it was easy to imagine something gliding up behind him. He turned, seeing only the dog, and the chamber of goods, dark but empty of enemies. The long rectangle held few of the traditional accoutrements of the dead. There were not pairs of goblets, but multiple rows of them, each vessel slightly different in design. There was not a single plate, so that the spirit might imagine itself a meal, but ranks of them, each decorated with a unique pattern—one with tree leaves, another with ivy, another with winter branches. The finer details were hard to make out through the dust.

Hanuvar could not help reflecting upon his own family tomb, even briefly. Laid down by distant forebearers, its outer chamber had been impossibly, almost ludicrously, opulent, so that all who came to inter new bodies in the crypts beyond would be impressed that the Cabera family could afford such skilled artistry. But for all its grandeur the antechamber had celebrated the family as a whole, not individuals, who were interred beyond with nothing but their best clothing, armament, or a fine urn if they had been cremated.

This was different. Personal and strange. For all that, he had a more pressing question.

“Kliment,” Hanuvar called, “is this all of the missing people?”

The answer was so low it barely could be heard over the whisper of flame. “Yes.” Kliment choked back a sob.

“Tell me about these goods.” Hanuvar pointed to a row of rings and necklaces. “Are any of these the things they took from the tomb?”

It took a moment, but eventually Kliment left the room of bodies. The boy turned his head from right to left but did not near the niches. “That looks like one of the necklaces. And that’s the bracelet Uncle had.”

Kliment’s torchlight caught on the yellow in the painted mural above the shelves of goods, and the beaming image of the bearded man standing with spread arms, as if demanding viewers admire the valuables spread beneath him. The pride manifest in the man’s expression suggested their acquisition equivalent to the defeat of monsters, the founding of cities, or the writing of epics.

“Is anything missing?” Hanuvar asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s important that you do know,” Hanuvar said. “You said there were seven items taken and there’s an empty spot right here, between these two rings.”

The boy was silent with thought for a long moment, then blurted a single name. “Callista.” He faced Hanuvar. “Justus gave a ring to Callista, a girl he likes.”

“She may be in terrible danger.”

“You think the thing has gone after her?”

“It may when darkness falls,” Hanuvar pointed out.

Kliment’s voice took on a younger, whining quality. “Why does it care so much? The jewelry was just lying there, not doing any good to anyone! The dead don’t need jewelry! They can’t drink or eat! Why does it need goblets?” The sentiment, fueled by anguish, sounded sincere, but Hanuvar wondered if it was what the boy himself believed, or if it was something his brother and friends had said in front of him.

“Maybe it reminds them of the life they lost. Or the living thought it would make them happy.”

“But even a living man doesn’t need so many cups, and so many statues—”

“He was a collector. We need to go.”

“But Justus . . . We have to take him out of here.”

“I don’t think anyone should linger here. And this girl is in danger.”

The boy retreated only reluctantly, and before long they passed through the portal. Outside, a false twilight had come in advance of the real one, for dark clouds cloaked the sky. Kalak wagged his tail as he lifted his nose to the fresh air.

Hanuvar wasn’t sure he wanted to engage with this issue any further. He’d held to his word and helped the boy find his brother. This fight wasn’t his, and he could not afford to linger. And yet he still didn’t want to leave Kliment to fight a battle on his own, or to doom a young woman.

Hanuvar’s bad ankle was quite sore by the time they left the forest and reached their horses. Neither animal was particularly pleased to have been picketed near the woods, let alone when a storm threatened, and a few moments were required to calm them.

He held the boy’s animal while he mounted up. “Guide us to the girl.”

“Justus really wanted to impress her.” Kliment threw himself over the mare and righted himself in the saddle. “Callista’s family’s rich. And her mother doesn’t . . . didn’t like Justus. But he wanted to show he could provide for her, you know?”

A wiser person would have known that giving expensive jewelry to a girl was no guarantor of impressing parents, especially if they were of higher social status, but there was no reason to point that out to Kliment.

“Thank you,” the boy said suddenly. “For all this.”

“I like to see a job through.” Hanuvar climbed into his own saddle. “And you’re not the only one to lose a brother in an unpleasant way. Let’s go.”

They skirted the corner of a strangely quiet Turian settlement and rode on toward a modest villa along its eastern edge. The boy’s idea of wealth was relative. The home was well made but its exterior was sparsely decorated. It included a small separate stables, a half acre of olive orchard, and some fields, but it was nothing like the vast estates to the north and east.

By the time they dismounted the skies were dark. A chill wind blew. Their horses were restive and Kalak trotted close upon Hanuvar’s left.

Kliment had led them to the servant’s entrance, built into a courtyard wall. From its far side they heard the chatter of activity and the sizzle of food. The scent of fish and baking bread wafted through the air.

The two slid down from their horses and then the boy rapped the door with his lame foot.

It was opened by a thin man who glanced suspiciously at Hanuvar but seemed to recognize the boy.

“We don’t want any eels, Kliment,” the man said in a lugubrious tenor. “We already bought some at market today.”

“I’m not selling eels. Is Callista here?”

The slave dropped his voice and leaned out. “You know I can’t pass messages on to the mistress from your brother—”

“Justus is dead. I need to see her.”

The slave’s eyes widened in sorrow. “Oh, Kliment. I’m so—”

He looked to his left, surprised, then moved nervously aside. The door was pushed further open by a tall, older woman in a formal blue stola. Her eyes were a pretty blue, though there was no warmth to them.

“Kliment,” she said sternly. “You’re to tell Justus he’s not welcome here.”

“Justus is dead,” Kliment repeated.

“Dead?” The woman did not look unmoved but appeared uncertain as to how she should react, and turned her gaze to Hanuvar, clearly seeking explanation. “Who are you?”

Kliment brushed at his eyes as he answered. “His name is Flavius, and he came to help me find my brother.” He choked on a sob.

The woman’s hands fluttered at her side. She raised them and started to reach out, then restrained herself against a natural instinct to comfort the boy.

The horses neighed as the wind picked up. The leaves susurrated in the wind.

Hanuvar thought it time to explain. “Justus and his friends took things from a Turian tomb. They’ve all been killed. We found them inside.”

The woman looked back and forth between Hanuvar and Kliment as though she searched for some safe place to rest her eyes where they would not find anything unsettling.

“Justus gave Callista a ring,” Kliment managed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

“He what?” The woman didn’t wait for an answer. “Callista would never take a ring from a boy,” she asserted, but her voice trailed off, because she clearly wondered if that was true even as she said it. She turned on her heel and shouted. “Callista! Come here immediately! Immediately, do you hear?”

The girl must have been lingering close by, for the woman, with back turned to them, began speaking to her while she was out of sight. “Is it true, Callista? Did you accept a ring from that stable boy?”

A young woman’s voice was thick with feigned confusion. “A ring?”

“Oh shining Arepon. You did, didn’t you? Your friend’s mother didn’t give that to you at all, did she? It was from that boy.”

“The dead boy,” Hanuvar reminded her. “Does she still have the ring?”

The woman had briefly been outraged by the shame of her daughter being courted by a social inferior, but the reminder of Justus’ death centered her once more. She snapped at her daughter. “Go and fetch the ring. Let me see it.”

“I’ve got it right here.”

Finally Hanuvar saw a clear-skinned, auburn-haired girl, fifteen at the oldest. She wrestled with something upon her hand.

Behind Hanuvar, the dog growled. “What’s this all about?” Callista was saying.

The wind rose, and something black and shifting drifted out of the night, a darkness given human shape. It floated in a straight line for the villa.

Hanuvar pushed open the door. The woman frowned at him and backed away while he noted the back courtyard wall and the twin ovens, the grill beneath an awning, some river fish roasting over the flames, and a bucket beside them. The skinny slave who’d opened the door waited apprehensively to one side. Another slave monitored the spitted fish while a second paused from chopping fresh greens on a wooden block and gaped at Hanuvar and Kliment and the dog as they barged into the space.

The woman objected to his entrance but Hanuvar didn’t stop. Behind him the slave stammered in fright and pointed out the door.

The girl screamed at whatever followed. He spun to see it but did not unsheathe a weapon.

The haunt glided in, the wind its company. It couldn’t quite hold a human shape. It was a curtain of darkness with burning eyes under which the memory of bones could be glimpsed, as through a shifting murky depth. It swept past the mother and the barking dog, ghastly hands stretched toward the stammering girl. From it wafted not just the cold of the world’s high places, but an atmosphere of ineffable wrongness so disquieting Hanuvar himself backstepped. The boy gasped and slid behind him. Callista’s mother moved to shield her daughter, face pale in horror. One cook fled screaming; the doorman shouted for the mistress to get to safety and pulled ineffectually on her arm. The second cook froze in place, staring with enormous eyes.

Hanuvar didn’t possess a vast knowledge of old Turian, but he understood the icy words that rolled from somewhere within that phantasm, no matter their odd accent. “Mine! Mine! Blood for mine!”

The shrieking girl had finally worked the ring free and Hanuvar grabbed it from her. He took a tentative step away, testing his theory, and the thing shifted toward him.

“Callista,” her mother cried, “run!”

But the girl was rooted to the spot. The haunt followed Hanuvar, vaporous hands outstretched. The dog menaced it but made no contact, barking with a mix of frightened whines.

“What are you doing?” Kliment cried.

Taking a risk, Hanuvar thought. It really depended on how long those eels had been sitting in the bucket near the grill.

By the light of the cherry red coals and a lantern dangling from the roof overhang, he saw the cluster of animals shifting in the bucket. They were still alive. He plunged a hand in, unsurprised to encounter the gritty salt that seasons and removes slime while slowly killing eels.

The spirit flowed on for him and Hanuvar fought down the instinct to take to his heels. Heart slamming, he fumbled for grip on one of the creatures, lifting the writhing eel and pressing its jaw open with his thumb.

The spirit reached for Hanuvar. No matter fire or grill, proximity to the chill leached through his clothes and numbed his skin.

Hanuvar thrust the ring down the eel’s throat, brushing his fingers against the ridged teeth of its jaw, then dropped it into the bucket and threw himself to the right in a roll. He scarcely noted the twinge in his ankle as he came to his feet, heart hammering.

The spirit had risen with one skeletal hand holding the eel, which twisted only briefly before going limp.

The long fish still clasped in its hand, the haunt floated swiftly from the outdoor kitchen, out the door in the wall, and vanished into the night. The dog barked at the doorway but did not follow.

Hanuvar stood staring after it for a long time, catching his breath, willing his pulse to settle. He shuddered like a man exposed in a winter wind. Vaguely he heard the woman asking if he was all right.

He turned to find Callista’s mother at his side, and he nodded slowly. “It needed to take a life in vengeance for the theft. Fortunately for us, the kind of life didn’t matter.”

“How did you know? Are you a mage?”

He laughed without humor. “No. Just observant. The spirit still needs to be dealt with. Maybe some priests of Lutar can send it on, but its tomb should be sealed, and soon.”

“And Kliment knows where it lairs?”

“He does.” Hanuvar nodded to the boy, talking softly with the drawn-looking Callista. “I don’t think he has any family left. If he hadn’t led me here, your daughter would be dead.”

The woman considered Kliment for a long moment, then seemed to come to some final decision. “He will have us, then. His mother was a good woman,” she added, then, after a moment, said, “and Justus was a nice boy, really.”25 The woman returned her attention to him. “But what of you? Is there nothing I can do for you?”

Her gratitude was honest and unrestrained. Hanuvar was touched by it. There was little, though, that she could do to help him. “I must travel. If you can spare a little food, I will be quite content.”

She offered him the guest bedroom that night, and he slept deep, though he was awake before the dawn. Kliment woke to see him off, and assured him he could keep the horse. The mistress of the house saw to it that he would not need to halt for food or drink for long days. Both must have had further time to reflect on what he had done for them, for their thanks were heartfelt, even if their words were simple.

He raised his hand in farewell, climbed into the saddle, and headed into the morning with the dog trotting after.

decorative stars

Hanuvar pressed on through the Turian wilds as fast as his tall old gelding would take him.

By that evening, Tafari had arrived with his army of gladiators, occupying Apicius in numbers so great the legionaries retreated to their fortress. The citizen soldiers commanded the harbor and access to every one of the vessels berthed there, making this absolutely clear when a band of gladiators sneaked out in the early morning to commandeer one of the ships and the Dervans smashed it to pieces—along with all but two of the gladiators—by means of a few well-placed catapult stones.

Although Tafari kept his people under tight rein, the presence of so many armed, lawless men taking what they wished of the town’s supplies was a cause for panic, and all those remaining who were able fled. Izivar welcomed into her home many who could not, mostly women with dependents, and through a fortunate quirk of events was able to act with a surprisingly free hand. Eshmun, the Volani soldier turned gladiator, was one of Tafari’s trusted lieutenants. Discovering a small cadre of free Volani living upon the coast, his initial assumption that they were traitors changed when he learned that Izivar had purchased and freed many of her staff, and, perhaps surprisingly, Captain Bomilcar and Elistala relayed that Izivar and I were considered allies by Hanuvar. The captain in particular seemed to retain his own doubts, but did not pass them along to Eshmun, who was quite friendly from that day forward.

Izivar sought to shield the Lady Amelia as well, to no avail. Ciprion’s wife had been apprehended and imprisoned following stiff resistance from some of her staff; fortunately, the grandchildren and other relatives were no longer in town. While Izivar could not arrange for Amelia’s release, she saw to it that she was housed in comfort and treated with respect.

Then it seemed everyone still in the town settled into a stalemate. The legionaries had sent out a ship for reinforcements. The gladiators sought a way to pry out the warriors guarding the ships, for they meant to sail free and no other nearby harbors held anything approaching the quality and size of the vessels berthed in Apicius. Izivar and I waited for Hanuvar. And unbeknownst to us, Calenius had returned to Esuvia, where he continued to ready for the spell that would doom us all.

—Sosilos, Book Seventeen





25. When I tracked down this settlement I discovered that the Ranelian family had been true to their word. Kliment had been welcomed as their son and now cared for his ailing adopted mother as well as a growing family of his own. The girl, Callista, had married a neighbor boy. Kliment and his mother were able to corroborate everything from Antires’ version of the account (again and again I found Antires’ account to be accurate, enough so that in those instances where I could find no living witnesses I feel reasonably confident he relayed the truth).—Silenus



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Framed