Paran nudged his mount forward and Toc followed after unslinging and stringing his bow. As Toc caught up with the captain, Paran saw that his companion had nocked an arrow.
The closer they approached the less like a tree the charred thing looked. The limb that reached out from it had familiar lines. Paran's gaze narrowed some more, then he cursed and spurred his horse. He closed the distance quickly, leaving behind a startled Toc.
Arriving, he dismounted and strode up to what he now saw were two bodies, one gigantic. Both had been burned beyond recognition, but Paran held no illusions as to who the other was. All that come close to me, all that I care for: «Tattersail,» he whispered, then fell to his knees.
Toc joined him, but remained in the saddle, standing in the stirrups and scanning the horizon. A minute later he dismounted and walked a slow circle around the embracing bodies, stopping at the dark smudge they'd seen from a distance. He crouched to study it.
Paran raised his head and struggled to keep his eyes on the figures. The limb belonged to the giant. The fire that had consumed them both had blackened the arm for most of its length, but its hand was only slightly scorched. Paran stared at the grasping fingers and wondered what salvation the giant had reached for in its moment of death. The freedom that is death, a freedom denied me. Damn the gods, damn them all.
Numbed, he was slow to realize that Toc called to him.
It was an effort to rise to his feet. He staggered to where Toc still crouched. On the ground before the man was a torn burlap sack.
«Tracks lead from this,» Toc said shakily, a strange expression on his face. He scratched vigorously at his scar, then rose. «Heading north-east.»
Paran looked at his companion without comprehension. «Tracks?»
«Small, like a child's. Only. .»
«Only what?» The man hugged himself. «Those feet were mostly bones.» He met the captain's blank stare. «As if the soles were gone, rotted or burned away-I don't know: Something horrible has happened here, Captain. I'm glad it's heading away, whatever it is.»
Paran turned back to the two entwined figures. He flinched. One hand reached up to touch his face. «That's Tattersail,» he said, in a flat voice.
«I know. I'm sorry. The other one is the Thelomen High Mage Bellurdan. It has to be.» Toc looked down at the burlap sack. «He took leave to come out here and bury Nightchill.» He added quietly, «I don't think Nightchill needs burying any more.»
«Tayschrenn did this,» Paran said.
Something in the captain's voice brought Toc round.
«Tayschrenn. And the Adjunct. Tattersail was right. They would not have killed her otherwise. Only she didn't die easily, she never took the easy path in anything.
«Lorn's taken her from me, just like she's tak everything else.»
«Captain:»
Paran's hand unconsciously gripped the pommel of his sword. «The heartless bitch has a lot coming to her, and I mean to deliver it.»
«Fine,» Toc growled. «Just let's be smart about it.»
Paran glared at him, «Let's get going, Toc the Younger.»
Toc glanced one last time into the north-east. This wasn't over, he said to himself, shivering. He winced as a savage, painful itch rose beneath scar. Though he tried, he found he could not reach through to it. And formless fire burned behind his empty eye-socket-something he had been experiencing often lately. Muttering, he strode to his horse a climbed into the saddle.
The captain had already swung his own mount and the trailing horse southward. The set of the man's back spoke volumes to Toc the Younger and he wondered if he hadn't made a mistake in accompanying him. Then he shrugged. «Well,» he said, to the two charred bodies, as he rode past, «it's done, ain't it?»
The plain below lay sheathed in darkness. Looking to the west, Crone could still see the setting sun. She rode the highest winds, the air around her bitter cold. The Great Raven had left Caladan Brood's company days ago. Since then, she'd detected no sign of life in the wastes below. Even the massive herds of Bhederin, which the Rhivi were in the habit following, had disappeared.
At night, Crone's senses were limited, though it was in such darkness that she could best detect sorcery. As she winged ever southward she scanned the land far below with a hungry eye. Others among her brethren from Moon's Spawn regularly patrolled the plains in service Anomander Rake. She'd yet to see one, but it was only a matter of time. When she did, she would ask them if they'd detected any source of magic recently.
Brood was not one to overreact. If something was happening down here that soured his palate, it could be momentous, and she wanted know of it before anyone else.
Fire flashed in the sky ahead of her, perhaps a league distant. It flared briefly, tinged green and blue, then disappeared. Crone tensed. That had been sorcery, but of a kind she'd never known. As she swept into the air the air washed over her hot and wet, with a charnel stench that remind her of-she cocked her head-burnt feathers.
A cry sounded ahead, angry and frightened. Crone opened her beak reply, then shut it again. It had come from one of her kin, she certain, but for some reason she felt the need to hold her tongue. Then another ball of fire flashed, this time close enough to Crone that she saw what it engulfed: a Great Raven.
Her breath hissed from her beak. In that brief instant of light she'd seen half a dozen more of her brethren wheeling in the sky ahead of her and to the west. She thrummed her wings and angled towards them.
When she could hear their panicked flapping about her on all sides, Crone called out, «Children! Attend to Crone! The Great Mother has come!» The ravens voiced relieved cries and closed in around her. They all shrieked at once in an effort to tell her what was happening, but Crone's angry hiss silenced them at once. «I heard among you Hurtle's voice,» Crone said, «did I not?» One male swept near her. «You did,» he replied. «I am Hurtle.»
«I've just come from the north, Hurtle. Explain to me what has occurred.»
«Confusion,» Hurtle drawled sarcastically.
Crone cackled. She loved a good joke more than anyone. «Indeed! Go on, lad!»
«Before dusk Kin Clip detected a flare of sorcery below her on the plain. It was odd, its feel, but clearly a Warren had just opened and something had issued on to the plain. Kin Clip spoke to me of this, then investigated. I shadowed her from above during the descent, and so saw what she saw. Crone, it has come to my mind that once again the art of soul-shifting has been exercised.»
«Ehr «Travelling on the ground and having just come from a Warren was a small puppet,» Hurtle explained, «animate and possessing great power. When this puppet detected Clip he gestured at her and she burst into flames. Since then, the creature has disappeared into its Warren, reappearing only to kill another of us.»
«Why do you remain?» Crone demanded.
Hurtle chuckled. «We would determine its course, Crone. Thus far, it seems to travel southward.»
«Very well. Now that that's been confirmed, leave and take the others with you. Return to Moon's Spawn and report to our lord.»
«As you command, Crone.» Hurtle dipped a wing and slid off into darkness. His voice called out and was answered by a chorus.
Crone waited. She wanted to be certain that they had all departed the area before doing some investigating on her own. Was this puppet the thing birthed in the pillar of fire? It didn't seem likely. And what kind of sorcery did it employ that no Great Raven could absorb?
There was an Eldering taste about this. Soul-shifting was no simple cantrip, and it had never been common-ustsuig the wizards even when its techniques were known. Too many tales of madness born within the shifting.