“Ah. Lihta. Lihta Rungsdautar.”
“And her fiancé? What became of him?”
Gilmer’s mouth quirked. “He never married. He became a windsmith, like his father. Hush, now—the floodgate isn’t far.”
They passed more dead in the streets, all with the same empty gaze. Not just people, but animals, as well—dogs, horses—even rats. Some had expressions of terror frozen on their faces, while others looked merely puzzled. Some—the worst somehow—seemed to have died in rapture.
Leoff noticed something else, as well—a smell, a faint odor of putrefaction. Yet it did not have the scent of the grave or butcher shop. There was no hint of maggots or sulfury gases. It reminded him of dry rot—subtle, not really unpleasant, with a faint perfume of burnt sugar.
As he progressed, he made out a noise, as well—a rhythmic hammering—not like a single hammer, but like many, all beating the bass line of the same dirge.
“That’s them working at the wall!” Gilmer said. “Hurry.”
He led them to the city wall and the stone stairs that went up it. They stepped over dead guardsmen to reach the top. From there they looked down.
Newland was moon-frosted to the horizon, but just below them, the wall cast a shadow down the embanked dike it stood upon. Torches burned there, flames straight and unwavering in the windless dark. Five men stripped to their waists were working at a stone section of the dam, hacking away with picks. Another five or six looked on—it was hard to tell exactly how many.
“Why is that one section made of stone?”
“It’s a cap. Most of the dike is banked earth. It would take too long to dig through it if the king needed to have Newland flooded, as has happened now and then. But it’s never been done at royal behest without warning to the low-dwellers.”
“But won’t they be drowned when they cut through?”
“Nay. They’re digging a narrow hole, see? The water will come out in a jet and tear the hole bigger as it goes, but it’ll give them time to move.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“Saints know.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“I’m thinking.”
Leoff strained his eyes to understand more of the scene. There was a pattern down there. What was it?
He settled his mind. There was the landscape, and the dike. They were like the staff that music was written on. Then there were the men digging, like the melody line, and the men silently standing guard, like the low throbbing bass notes of a pavane.
And that was all . . .
“No,” he whispered.
“Eh?”
Leoff pointed. “Look, there are dead down there, too.”
“Not surprising. Anyone alive would try to stop ‘em.” The windsmith squinted. “Right, see? They came around from the gate and attacked ‘em from behind.”
“But see how they’re lying, in a sort of arc? As if something simply struck them down when they got too close.”
Gilmer shook his head. “Aens’t you ever seen battle? If they formed their line there, that’s where they’d fall.”
“But I don’t see any signs of a fight. We haven’t seen any signs of battle anywhere in town, yet everyone is dead.”
“Auy. I noticed that,” Gilmer said dryly.
“So they form an arc. Look to the center of the arc.”
“What do you mean?”
“A lantern casts light in a circle, yes? Pretend where the corpses are is the edge of a circle of light. Now look for the lantern.”
With a skeptical grunt, Gilmer did that. After a moment, he whispered, “There is something. Some sort of box or crate with a cloak over it.”
“I’m willing to bet that it’s what struck down the people of Broogh. If we go down there—if they see us at all—they’ll turn it on us.”
“Turn what on us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have any idea. But it’s covered up, and there has to be some reason. Something tells me we can’t do anything as long as they have that.”
Gilmer was silent for a long moment. “You may be right,” he said, “but if you’re wrong . . .”
“I don’t believe I am.”
Gilmer nodded solemnly and peered back down. “It aens’t far from the wall, is it?”
“Not too. What do you have in mind?”
“Follow me.”
The little man gingerly searched the guardsmen for weapons, but found their scabbards empty—small wonder, considering the cost of a good sword. Then he guided Leoff along the top of the wall to a small storehouse. They had to step over six dead bodies along the way.
Gilmer opened the door, stepped into shadow, and stepped out again, grunting. He held a rock the size of Leoff’s head. “Help me with this.”
The two of them wrestled the stone to the parapet.
“Reckon we can toss it out far enough?” Gilmer asked.
“There’s a slope,” Leoff replied. “Even if we miss, it will roll.”
“Might not destroy that shinecrafting box, then. We’ll have to heave together.”
Leoff nodded and put both hands on the stone. When they had it aimed, Gilmer said very softly, “On three. One, two—”
“Hey! Hey there!” A shout went up, farther along the wall, not far from them at all.
“Go!” Gilmer shouted.
They heaved. Leoff wanted to watch, but someone was running along the battlement toward them, and he didn’t think it was for a friendly chat.
7
Discovered
The river Za dissolved Anne’s tears and swept them gently toward the sea.
Canaries sang in the olive and orange trees that struggled up through the ancient cracked flagstones of the terrace, and the wind was sweet with baking bread and autumn honeywands. Dragonflies whirred lazily in the pour of golden sunlight, and somewhere nearby a man strummed liquid chords on a lute and crooned softly of love. In the city of z’Espino, winter came gently, and this first day of Novamenza was especially kind.
But Anne’s reflection in the river looked as cold as the long, bleak nights of northernmost Nahzgave. Even the red flame of her hair seemed a dark shadow, and her face as pallid as the ghost of a drowned girl.
The river saw her heart and gave her back what was in it.
“Anne,” someone behind her said quietly. “Anne, you should not stay out in the open so.”
But Anne did not look up. She saw Austra in the river, too, looking as spectral as she did.
“I don’t care,” Anne said. “I can’t go back to that horrible little place, not now, not like this.”
“But it’s safer there, especially now . . .” Her voice faltered as Austra began to cry, too. She sat next to Anne, and they held each other.
“I still can’t believe it,” Austra said after a time. “It seems impossible. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe it’s a false rumor. After all, we are far and far from home.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Anne said. “But the news came by the Church cuveiturs. And know that it’s true. I can feel it.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It happened the same night they tried to kill us, you know. The night of that purple moon, when the knights burned the coven. I was meant to die with them.”
“Your mother lives yet, and your brother Charles.”
“But my father is dead. And Fastia, Elseny, Uncle Robert, all dead, and Lesbeth is missing. It’s too much, Austra. And all the sisters of the coven Saint Cer, killed because they stood between me and—” She shuddered back off into sobs.
“Then what shall we do?” Austra said after a time.
Anne closed her eyes and tried to sort through the phantoms that whirled behind her lids. “We have to go home, of course,” she said at last. It sounded like a weary stranger talking. “Everything she said . . .”
She stopped.
“Who?” Austra asked. “Who said? What’s this, Anne.”
“Nothing. A dream I had, that’s all.”
“A dream?”
“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.” She tried to smooth her cotton dress. “I don’t want to talk about anything for a while.”