She stepped out of the camouflaging oaks, no longer afraid of being spotted. “Look—where are their tents, their pennants? A fighting force of thousands of soldiers would leave a great mark as they moved across the landscape. They would destroy the terrain.” She looked over her shoulder. “If they came over the mountains, we would have seen the scars of their passage, the hills and grasslands trampled to muck by thousands of feet.”
“Maybe they came from another direction,” Nathan said. “North or south.”
“Why are there no fires?” she repeated. “There should be tents, picket lines of horses, supply wagons, material stockpiles.”
The others had no answer for her.
“Only one way to find out,” Bannon suggested. “If we’re careful, we can work our way through the hills, stick to the trees, and remain unseen. With so many soldiers across the plain and in the foothills, we’re bound to come upon outlying groups, maybe scouts camped in the woods, messengers, perimeter patrols. If we find a few people by themselves, we could ask questions.” He grinned uncertainly, but let his hand stray to the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword.
Nicci nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea, Bannon Farmer. We’ll approach through the trees—keep your eyes open. Mrra can range ahead and warn us. As soon as we come upon a lone member of the army, we will capture him and ask questions.” She allowed herself a thin smile. “By force if necessary.”
“If necessary, indeed.” Nathan raised his eyebrows. “But I would prefer not to start a war with half a million soldiers—at least not until I get my gift back.”
“I thought we would just talk with whomever we found,” Bannon muttered.
Having traveled together for so long, they easily worked their way through the chaparral foothills, among the hissing brown grasses and swaying tree thistles. Where possible, they kept to the patchy shelter of scrub oaks. A cascade of grasshoppers sprang out of their way. Distant birds chirped.
But they heard no sound at all from the huge, distant army.
Nicci spotted a dark scar where a grass fire had blackened a swath of bone-dry hills before burning itself out. In these driest months of late summer, she could imagine how the chaparral might become an inferno. Her greater concern, though, was that the burned area offered no cover.
Nathan paused next to a spiky thistle tree, shading his eyes to study the vast and oddly motionless military force. “I believe you’re right. My vision has always been exceptional—so much time staring at the rest of the world from high towers, I suppose. I’ve been focusing on specific groups of soldiers, and there isn’t any movement. None at all. I can make out hints of their uniforms, which are of an ancient sort, but their colors are all … gray.” He sucked on a tiny drop of blood that welled up on his palm where a thistle spine had pierced him. “Their armor reminds me of…”
His brow furrowed. “Remember after we worked our way inland from Renda Bay? You’ll recall that I took a side trip to an ancient watchtower. Through the tower’s bloodglass, I observed huge armies. I think they were the armies of Emperor Kurgan—Iron Fang. His General Utros conquered much of the world in his name, sweeping across the continent. From that watchtower, I saw the ancient warriors through time and magic.” He nodded slowly. “Dear spirits, the soldiers ahead remind me very much of those warriors.”
“But the ones you saw were from thousands of years in the past,” Bannon said.
“So I thought. And I can’t be sure about this army—until we get closer.”
They continued toward patchy forests where they could hide, and the questions in Nicci’s mind made her more and more uneasy. She could not make sense of what she was seeing.
She vividly recalled Jagang’s armies, the stench, turmoil, and mayhem, like miasma. Thanks to the acoustics of the foothills and the open plain, she should have been able to hear a distant murmur of shouts, the clang of steel from practice swordplay, or the bash of armorers hammering metal, the screams of captive women being dragged into soldiers’ tents, work crews with spades digging latrines or burial trenches for executed prisoners. There would have been the smell of funeral pyres, the smoke of cook fires, the lilt of music or bawdy singing, shouted orders from officers, or grumbled complaints from losers in gambling games.
But Nicci heard only the silence of the wind, the snickering grasses, the click and buzz of insects … none of the din and chaos generated by a huge army.
Mrra bounded back from her explorations, crashing through the underbrush—not prowling, not stealthy. Nicci relaxed.
In a cleft in the foothills ahead, several runoff streams converged in a glen thick with tall scrub oak and scattered pines. Bannon pointed toward the brush, the overhanging branches. “Look, I see soldiers there—not many. Maybe we can talk to them?”
“I see them as well,” Nathan said. “Only four or five men.” His whispered voice had an undertone of hope.
A chill prickled Nicci’s skin as she spotted several figures huddled in the lattice shadows of branches. They crouched together, possibly at a camp, maybe as lookouts for the army. She had not noticed them, and Mrra had not sensed them, but these concealed warriors had likely seen the three approach.
“It may be too late already.” Nicci saw no movement. “We’ll investigate, but be careful.” She touched the daggers she kept on each hip, but her greater weapon was her magic.
Bannon and Nathan drew their swords, and they moved together through the grasses to the patch of forest. Bannon ducked under a low-hanging branch, pushing leaves out of the way. “It looks like a good place to camp,” he whispered, far too loudly for Nicci’s tastes. “Maybe that’s why they’re here.”
Nicci shushed him, but she agreed with the assessment. An outlying party of soldiers could have taken shelter here in the tree-filled glen. But where was the smoke from a campfire?
Five ancient warriors waited for them under the oaks, gathered around a central point. Mrra padded forward, sniffing, but she showed no fear, no concern at all. Nicci halted, staring at the human figures. The burly warriors wore scaled armor, thick shoulder pads, greaves, and armored boots; pointed, clefted helmets covered their heads. They carried short swords. One man squatted halfway down, leaning toward an object that no one could see.
All five were petrified, turned to the whitish gray of stone.
“They’re … statues,” Bannon gasped, with a quaver in his voice. “Like the spell the Adjudicator used.”
Cautious, Nathan stepped closer. The stone warrior directed his blank gaze toward a cleared spot in the forest floor. “I’d wager that area held a campfire long ago. See, age has erased it, but there are still a few stones left in a ring.”
The statue warriors wore bland expressions, their thoughts frozen in place when the petrification spell took hold. Nicci ventured closer as tentative answers pelted her like cold hailstones in a summer storm. No fires, no movement across the entire army, utter silence. “I wonder if that whole army has been turned to stone across the plain.”
Nathan looked both fascinated and unsettled. “The magic required to work such a spell is beyond anything I’ve ever heard of—not since the great wizard wars three thousand years ago.” He spoke with distant admiration. “Ah, that was a time of titanic, unbridled magic.”