Utros did not need to hear more. “They will live and they will keep fighting for me. Tonight in camp, after we have crossed the first foothills, I want you to work your spell.” He sighed. “I will take the credit and the blame, if need be, once the soldiers discover what has been done to them. I promised to keep my men alive, and in this manner they will live.” He looked to the twin sorceresses. “Save them by any means necessary.”
*
The army trudged into full darkness, trampling the grassy hills and rising into thickening forests. Behind them, the ground was pounded hard by countless boots, flattened and lifeless.
After so many years of experience, the soldiers knew how to set up and break down camp with quick efficiency. Scouting parties dispersed to cut down trees and build bonfires. Second Commanders Halders and Arros distributed meager rations, promising the ranks that they would have more to eat as soon as they raided a city. The soldiers believed them, for now.
Each man found some patch of ground for his blanket where he could lie down to sleep and look up at the stars while he and his comrades remembered being human and all they had lost. They were fifteen centuries overdue to meet the Keeper.
In front of the command pavilion as darkness settled in, Ava and Ruva laid the foundations of their spell. The largest bonfire was a beacon of crackling flames and smoke from the burning green wood. Utros sat outside the newly erected pavilion where he could watch his camp and listen to the activity. Curious, First Commander Enoch joined the general as the twins made their preparations for the dark spell.
Ava and Ruva had filled small clay pots with different powders, dried blood mixed with salt, the ashes of bones, powdered roots, flower petals and berries they had collected.
When the women proclaimed themselves to be ready, both were naked, their blue gowns discarded, all hair cleanly shaved from their skin, scalp, eyebrows, armpits, even the thatch between their legs. With their bodies painted with whirling patterns of deep red, intense black, and bursts of white, Utros barely noticed their nakedness. Each woman cradled a small pot of powder against her flat stomach. “We will begin, beloved Utros.”
Ava dipped into one of the pots and held up a finger covered with a greasy yellow substance like tallow mixed with honey and sulfur. She dabbed a mark at the center of the general’s forehead at the edge of his golden half mask.
“What is this for?” he asked.
“To protect you.”
“Is your magic dangerous? Are my men at risk?”
“It will save you,” Ruva replied.
Ava smeared a dab of the substance on her own forehead, then did the same to her sister. “This will nullify the spell. The magic won’t change you. You will stay human.”
Concerned, Enoch rose to his feet. “If we are asking the soldiers to make this sacrifice, should we not do the same?”
“There was a time I would have said yes,” Utros said, “but so much is uncertain. We need to lead them, First Commander.” He gestured toward Enoch. “Give him the mark as well.”
When Ava stepped forward with the pot, Enoch raised his arm to ward her off. “I don’t want it.” But when Utros gave him a steely glare, the veteran lowered his arm with a sigh. “If you must.” As Ava marked his forehead, he asked, “Is this spell reversible? Once you have placed it on all these soldiers, can you change them back? After we achieve our victory and have all the supplies we need, can they be normal again?”
The twin sorceresses replied with noncommittal shrugs. “It’s what we have to do.”
The soldiers bedded down around their fires, exchanging stories, comparing dreams, and boasting about how wealthy they would be from the spoils of war, how many enemies they would kill.
Ava and Ruva circled the largest bonfire, throwing powders into the embers. Sparks flared and the smoke thickened, changed color, and spread like a miasma across the camp. Near their own campfires, the other soldiers didn’t notice the mysterious smoke.
The sorceresses began a low chanting. They threw blood powder, bone ashes, flammable mineral dust, dried mushrooms, and ground-up tubers. The heady smoke dispersed among the scattered soldiers, changing them, tightening their stomachs, altering their blood flow.
“I need for them to survive until we reach the big cities, and there we will take enough supplies to feed them all again,” Utros said.
“Your army will carve a swath over the mountains all the way to the coast, General,” Enoch said. “Nothing can stop them.”
“Good.” Utros crossed his muscular arms over his chest and surprised the others as he announced his unexpected decision. “For the next several days, the army is in your hands, First Commander. You will lead the continuing march, while I need to depart for another destination.” He had been considering his next move in great detail, but there was something else he had to do first. “I will take a thousand mounted soldiers and ride hard to the north. Ava and Ruva will go with me.”
Alarmed, Enoch wiped the smear of greasy yellow off his forehead now that the spell had been cast. “You leave the army under my command? Where are you going, sir? The soldiers will want to know.”
Utros nodded slowly. “Emperor Kurgan is long dead, but surely some remnant of the empire must remain. I serve the empire.” He looked through the darkness, seeing the shadowed silhouettes of hills that blocked the vault of sky. “We will make the long ride to the capital city of Orogang so that I can report to whoever is left there.”
CHAPTER 15
The defenders straggled in from their separate missions and met at a sandstone outcropping in the forest. Some looked frightened, while some were giddy with excitement. Nathan did a rough tally, guessing that several hundred ancient warriors had been killed, all told, but four D’Haran soldiers had fallen in the various skirmishes. Most battlefield commanders would consider those acceptable losses, but losing even four members of their ragtag band was a serious blow.
The last group to return included Captain Trevor and the wizard Leo. Leo was a skinny man with a narrow face, shaggy gray-black hair, and a dark goatee. He had managed two yaxen slaughterhouses in Ildakar, but those days were gone. He seemed terrified as he sat among the others beneath the sandstone overhang. His hands were covered with drying blood. “I killed people. I used my gift, and I?.?.?.?I tore them to pieces. I watched them die.”
“They were our enemies,” Zimmer said. “It is what they deserved. You already killed many on the battlefield while you were helping Elsa lay down her transference magic.”
Leo nodded, though he still looked shaken.
“That is how we survive,” Verna explained to him in a calm voice. “And there will need to be much more killing.”
Oliver and Peretta returned to the camp with water from a nearby stream, while Amber and several Sisters of the Light foraged for berries and wild vegetables. Since
they couldn’t risk building fires, Nathan used his gift to heat a flat slab of rock, which served as a stove, and Rendell made a decent meal by boiling dried beans along with some wild onions. They shared stories as they ate.
As he listened to Renn talk about Hanavir, Nathan absently rubbed the scar on his chest. Although his new heart beat steadily, he felt a dark vengeance trying to gain hold of his thoughts. A foreign part of his mind, some stain of Chief Handler Ivan that still dwelled inside the heart, chastised him about what he had done when faced with the terrible decision. Ivan’s sour presence complained that Nathan and Renn should have shown no mercy, that the weak townspeople of Hanavir were a necessary sacrifice to stop the raiding party. They deserved it. How many more people would die, now that General Utros could feed his army? Nathan gritted his teeth. His heart—Ivan’s heart—beat like a loud primal drum inside his chest.
Trying to drown out the unwelcome thoughts, he lurched to his feet, startling the others as he breathed hard and heavy to drive back the pain. “Hanavir could have gone a different way,” he said, interrupting Renn and ignoring the alarmed expressions around him, “but then there would have been more bloodshed. We have to save people where we can and when we can!” His pulse calmed as he exerted control over his rebellious heart. He sat back down, insisting he was all right, and quietly ate his beans.
Thorn, who had accompanied General Zimmer’s group, proudly told of how they had defeated a hundred and twenty armed soldiers outside of a mining village. She and her sister morazeth Lyesse compared notes about their victims. Nathan found their discussion an odd mixture of boasting and technical advice on killing the enemy.
With a concerned look, Verna offered him a handful of berries that Amber had gathered. “Is this our life now, Nathan? Hiding in the forest, harassing the fringes of an overwhelming army, and then running again?”
Lyesse heard the comment and made a defensive reply. “We’re more nimble than the army is. Our small group can strike and run, strike and run. Given several years, we will decimate them.”
