"Wh-what just happened?" said Menduarthis.
"Get this creature out of my sight," said the queen, and she turned away.
"She is to live, then?"
The queen laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. "I very much doubt it, Menduarthis. But she isn't mine to kill. Someone else has a claim on her."
Someone else? Hweilan's vision began to blur. She could no longer see Kunin Gatar. The queen was fading into a whiteness that seemed to be overtaking everything. Even the floor was more gray than black now. Menduarthis remained the only bit of color in the world, and his voice cut through the steadily building hum in her mind.
"What would you have me to do with her?"
"I told you. Get her out of my sight! Use your imagination, Menduarthis."
Hweilan heard a raven cawing.
Then Menduarthis shouting.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Behold your new army," said Argalath.
Guric swallowed hard. He had to take careful breaths through his nose to keep the contents of his stomach from coming up. The stench in the enclosed cavern was overpowering.
"Not an army proper, perhaps," said Argalath. "But the troops at your back will be only for show. These"-he motioned to the standing corpses, still starting at them-"will be all the army you need, once the Damarans see what they do."
Their eyes had the same look as his beloved Valia's, that horror staring from the black eyes of her lovely face.
Before becoming a squire, Guric had studied with the clerics of Torm in Damara, and he knew of demonic possession. He'd never seen an exorcism himself, but his fellow students had told him that their teacher had once been famed in his crusades against evil spirits. Whatever profane pacts Argalath worked with his northern devil-gods, it was nothing like any possession Guric had ever heard of.
"What is this abomination?" said Guric.
Argalath frowned. "Not an abomination, my lord. When the rite to restore your beloved Valia… did not go as planned, well, we seem to have stumbled upon this rather happy accident."
"Accident?" Guric seized Argalath's robes in both his fists and shook him so hard that his hood fell back. "Happy accident!"
The acolytes began to approach, weaponless but fists clenched tight, but Argalath shook his head, and they stopped.
Guric lifted Argalath off the ground until their noses were only inches apart. "Give me one reason I shouldn't snap your neck right now."
He saw no fear in Argalath's eyes. Only a little surprise, but he buried it in what Guric was suddenly sure was an entirely false deference.
"I have three, my lord. The first and most immediate are your new troops. Killing me would rather upset my acolytes, I fear, and they might not be able to control our new creations."
"Without Valia, I don't care."
"Which brings me to my second reason, my lord," said Argalath, and the bastard even had the boldness to smile. "The forces we are dealing with… they do not know pity or remorse or fear. Only hunger. Their only delight is in death. The power is great, but the pacts we make with them… they are not bargains or alliances. We force them to bend to our will by words of power and deeds of blood. But they hate it. Hate it. It only fuels their hunger and malice. That thing up in the castle? The being using your beloved Valia's body like new clothes? Do you really think it will give her up unless we force it? It is trapped, my lord. We called it forth-"
"You!" Guric said, and shook him again. "You did this!"
"At your behest! At your command."
"Because you said it would bring her back."
"And it will! It will, my lord. But not without sacrifice. These things you see before you. Abominations, you named them. They are… an experiment of sorts. And it worked. It worked, my lord!"
Guric's resolve fractured. He kept a tight hold on Argalath's robes, but he lowered the man's feet back to the ground. "Explain."
"That thing in your wife, I do not think it will leave as promised. Its hunger is insatiable, and now that it has come into the world, surrounded by so much life, it will not go back willingly. And truth be told, it is beyond my skills to force back. But we can send it elsewhere. Give it a new home. A new body. A body we can control."
Guric looked to the creatures, none of which had moved during this confrontation. "We can control them?"
"A new army, my lord. One that does not know fear or feel pain or cold. One that can endure injuries that would kill the hardiest soldier. We were forced to allow such a being in Soran. But I realized, if this can be done once, why not twice? Or thrice? Or a hundred times? Yet with even one of them at your side, you will not need me to take the cities and forts of Damara. We will need to devise a new ruse, to be sure. So there are my three reasons." Argalath's voice softened. "All true. And all give you your heart's desire."
Guric let it sink it. "Yet every one requires murder."
Argalath sighed and looked away. "So it does, my lord. But if you will look"-he pointed to the first of the creatures on the left-"there is Lakan, one of the Creel responsible for the mishap with Valia's rite. The man you ordered slain, as you'll recall. Next to him is another of the same order. That hulking brute beyond him was found raping the hostler's wife in Kistrad-which was strictly forbidden, and by your orders punishable by death. You see my point. Is it murder if we use those deserving death anyway? This is Narfell, my lord. There will be no shortage of such men."
Had it really come to this? Guric had told himself that the death of the house of Highwatch was only justice for what they had done to Valia-and a small price to pay to get her back. But this…
Still, if it was the only way to get her back…
"Show me," he said.
"My lord?"
"You ask me to put great faith in these things. Show me what they can do for me. Show me now."
Argalath smiled. "As you command."
Guric let him go. Argalath pointed at the creatures and said something in a language Guric did not understand. All but one of the creatures walked out of the bowl, stepping through the body parts and vermin with no reaction. The one who remained had once been a Nar warrior-average height for his people, but this one was unusually muscular. He was dressed only in a ragged loincloth that fell to his knees. The strike that had killed him-a precise thrust of a knife between the ribs and into the heart, had been expertly stitched over.
Argalath turned to his acolytes. "Bring them."
Three of the Nar walked around the edge of the room and disappeared behind the altar. Guric looked to Argalath.
"A storage area below the altar, my lord," said Argalath. "Quite sizeable."
"What are they doing?"
Argalath nodded in the direction of the altar, and Guric looked. The Nar were returning, one leading and two following a procession of five men, all with arms bound and joined by a chain that ran through a collar around their necks. All of them were Nar-Creel as near as Guric could tell-but they were a dejected, disheveled lot.
"Criminals, my lord," said Argalath.
"Nar deal with their own criminals."
"Ah," said Argalath. "These five did not break any laws of their own people. They violated your commands, my lord."
Guric grunted in response. He knew what those were likely to be. He had very few commands enforced on his Nar allies. During the taking of Highwatch, they had killed and pillaged at his command. Everything in the village and every weapon taken in battle was theirs for the taking. He placed only two restrictions upon them. Women and children were to be spared, and raping was strictly forbidden. Breaking either of these commands was a death sentence.