Rudolfo nodded, feeling the weariness settling into him. The command tent was suddenly cold. “I concur,” he said. “I will return to the Seventh Forest Manor and continue the investigation.”
Philemus blinked. “There isn’t much you can do in the investigation, General.”
Something stirred in Rudolfo at the second captain’s words, and it felt like anger. He’s right, of course.
And more importantly, Rudolfo realized, Philemus was surprised.
Philemus was a savvy soldier turned scout. He’d held the same captaincy under Gregoric for a dozen years and had personally requested that Aedric be promoted to the position his father vacated. An older man, he’d still distinguished himself in the War for Windwir and wore his scarf of rank knotted to show his accomplishments in battle. But more importantly, he’d known the Gypsy King for most of Rudolfo’s life.
“I’ll have a squad ready to escort you,” Philemus finally said. “And I will keep courier lines open between our new interests in the north and your office in the Seventh Forest Manor.”
Rudolfo inclined his head. “Excellent, Captain. I think I will also-”
He heard running feet and an excited whistle outside the tent. They both turned toward the flap as it opened for the officer of the watch. “We’ve found something. unusual, Captain Philemus.”
The second captain scowled. “What is it?”
The man was breathless, and behind him, the light warbled in just a way for Rudolfo to see the vague form of a magicked scout. “Y’Zirite activity, Captain.”
He’d not expected this, especially in this isolated region. There were a few scattered villages, but the nearest major town was his Eighth Forest Manor, at least a hundred leagues south. Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “Evangelists? This far north and east?”
The officer of the watch shook his head. “Not evangelists, General.”
Rudolfo met Philemus’s eyes and knew his second captain also saw the grim expression upon the officer’s face. Words were not going to suffice.
“Show us,” Rudolfo said.
Ten minutes later, they ran magicked through the deep northern forest, tongues clicking against the roofs of their mouths to keep formation. Rudolfo kept Philemus on his right, just behind the young scout who’d brought word of this discovery. Around them, mist lay over the top of the ground, writhing with the breeze they made as they sprinted lightly over the surface of the frozen snow. Over them, the canopy of trees filtered the gray light.
Rudolfo stretched his legs into the magicks, finding it hard to keep his balance with just one hand free. He kept his lips pressed tight against the nausea and the headache that always beset him when he used the scout powders and ran with his head down and his eyes moving to the left and right.
Certainly, it was unseemly for someone of his position to magick himself, though his men had seen him do it before on a handful occasions-most occurring since Windwir’s fall. Unlike his scouts, he’d not been raised on the powders. He’d used them only enough to learn how to function under their heady influence. His father and his first captain had understood that sometimes the interpretation of kin-clave must be a fluid thing.
They ran ten leagues, and despite the stamina and speed the magicks lent him, Rudolfo knew his body would feel the run later, after the powders had burned their way out of his body. These powders, drawn and mixed from the various ingredients found in the earth’s roots and minerals, berries and herbs could render the user stronger, faster, quieter and nearly invisible. But the scouts who had breached his eastern border there at the Keeper’s Gate used magicks enhanced by blood and superior to anything the earth could give. Of course, until Ria showed up under those magicks, Rudolfo had assumed that the Machtvolk advantage was tempered by the fact that these magicks ultimately killed those who used them. They’d found the bodies of the Marsher scouts who’d carried out the attack on his Firstborn Feast. And he’d watched several of the Tam family lay down their lives by taking up the blood magicks to rescue their father, most notably the alchemist daughter, Rae Li Tam. But Ria had not been harmed by them, and now these other scouts-either Machtvolk sent despite his firm words to Ria about breaching his borders, or some new threat-used them as well.
A part of him wished he’d brought back a supply that his River Woman could’ve studied. He’d been in a room full of these magicks, there in the Blood Temple’s armory, and had not thought about it.
It is a formidable advantage in this strange war of ours. A war, he reminded himself, where he could no longer be certain who was friend and who was foe.
Ahead, the clicking shifted to the softest of whistles, and Rudolfo slowed. They were leaving one patch of evergreen and crossing a white clearing. Already, enough snow had fallen to cover the tracks of the patrol who had found this place earlier in the day. If they were fortunate, enough would fall over the next few hours to cover this latest trail.
They walked now, picking their way to the edge of a copse of trees. These were a darker evergreen, growing closely together and choked with more underbrush than was common in these parts. The nearer they drew, the more unusual it seemed until he realized it was because of the type of underbrush. These were the thick, twisted and thorny bushes used to cultivate Whymer Mazes-not a native plant this far north. And it had been seeded in the midst of these darker trees, creating a natural boundary to discourage entrance to this particular wood.
“There is an access point just north,” the scout said in a muffled voice that the breeze carried to Rudolfo’s ears.
They skirted the line of trees and brush, finally stopping at a small and narrow gap. With more whistles and clicks, the squad of Gypsy Scouts fanned out to establish a perimeter, their breath on the air and the clouds of snow where their feet fell giving them away.
Rudolfo waited until he felt the others slip ahead of him. Then, he followed and saw that the narrow tunnel twisted and turned much like a Whymer Maze before depositing them into a clearing that would have never been expected based on how the copse looked from outside.
There in the center of the clearing stood a windowless building made of white stone and hedged with yet more thornbushes. A large dark door stood closed against the weather. He felt a chill deeper than the winter air and forced his feet to carry him forward.
Even before he reached out to the open the door, he knew what this place was, and it took him no time at all to count the years it would take to hide it so thoroughly here within his Ninefold Forest, or to judge by the stonework, how long this building had stood here.
It was at least as old as he was, if not older.
He pushed the door open and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloomy single room it opened on. It was round, like the Blood Temple, and in the center lay a stained altar with its carved symbols and its catch-troughs for the blood spilled upon it. Rough wooden benches surrounded it, and Rudolfo slipped into the large room.
He noticed the absence of dust, the faintest smell of smoke and something sweet and cloying on the air.
“It’s been used recently,” he said in a voice that shook with an emotion he could not identify.
“Yes,” the scout said. “Within the last two weeks, though they were very careful to cover their tracks. There is a Rufello chest behind the altar.”
Rudolfo picked his way around the room and saw the box there. He’d studied the earlier resurgences enough to know what would be within it. Copies of their so-called gospels-perhaps even this newest by Ahm Y’Zir, the one that spoke of his family as a part of the Crimson Empress’s coming salvation. And there would be a set of silver knives wrapped in black velvet. Meditation candles made from wax and fat and blood, certainly, and vestal robes for whichever of his people served as the priest for this secluded shrine.