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Chapter 3:
The Crypt of Stars


I


When the screaming stopped, Indar stepped into to the long shadow of the outbuilding and expectantly watched its door. But no one exited, and as a low masculine moan from within the structure climbed into a panting wail, Indar retreated in discomfort.

His meeting with the general had been scheduled to start almost a half hour ago. Frowning, Indar considered the ocean, pale blue beyond the reefs and dark upon the horizon. The morning sun cast a shimmering pillar of bronze across the water.

He looked out from a low hill near the ancient Volani garrison. The red soil and palm trees presented a certain stark beauty, but the Isles of the Dead were no tropical paradise. Little fresh water fell upon the mazelike island group, and few edible plants rooted among the sun-blasted rocks. The soldiers formerly stationed to patrol the islands had always bemoaned duty at the garrison, and now the hundred-odd survivors of the Dervan invasion had even greater cause for complaint, for the enemy empire had them digging into the very graves they had sworn to protect. Indar heard the clink of their shovels and picks below the hill, along with the curses of overseers. They were worked long hours for the baubles concealed in minor graves, claiming that entrances to the tombs of the powerful Volani families scattered among the islets were hidden even from them. Indar had told the general that was almost certainly true.

There was some hope that the officers recently shipped from Volanus itself might be better informed.

Indar winced as the screaming rose to a crescendo, then abruptly ceased. Whether it was because the officer had finally decided to share the location of a tomb, or because he had passed out or died, Indar couldn’t know. He hoped for the first, because that would put Mitrius in a much better mood.

A short while later the outbuilding door swung open and General Mitrius stepped blinking into the sunlight. Unaware of scrutiny, he pushed a hand up his high forehead and through his dark, receding hair.

Indar made his presence known by walking closer, then offered a formal bow and hand flourish.

Mitrius responded with a brief nod. Dark circles showed prominently under his eyes. His breastplate shone and the general held himself straight as a spear . . . yet his face had grown haggard in the week since Indar’s arrival.

Mitrius closed the door behind him. He offered no apology for the delay as they trudged the long distance across the square toward the Volani officer quarters, now occupied by the general. The dry sand crunched beneath their sandals.

“A nasty business,” the general confided. “Are you certain none of your contacts know anything? We would naturally reward them for information that produced results.”

“What sort of rewards?”

The general looked at him sidelong. “Do you know something?”

Indar hadn’t meant to imply knowledge he didn’t possess. How could he so quickly forget the covetous Dervan interest in treasure? “I know the location of my own family’s tombs, of course. But—”

Mitrius cut off this line of conversation with a decisive slice of his hand. “As I’ve said, they’re inviolate. I have appreciated your counsel on Volani matters, but I think it’s time to make better use of you. I want you to speak to the prisoners this evening before they eat. Offer any one of them their freedom if they reveal the location of a tomb.”

“Me?” Indar could scarce believe the suggestion.

“They’ll trust your word more than ours. Even if they don’t like your politics, they must respect you.”

Indar fought a laugh. While he knew he was no traitor, other Volani had been less charitable, and he thought these captured soldiers—likely every one of them an adherent of the Cabera family—would as soon kill him as look at him.

The general reached the door to his quarters, acknowledged the sentry’s stiff salute with a nod, and placed his hand on the latch. “I’m prepared to offer concessions to any who step forward. If they see you, whose family prospers while they sit in chains, I think it might be considerable inducement.”

The general opened the door and Indar followed into the reception area, bustling with well-manicured slaves in bright tunics. One of them closed the door, shutting out the blazing sun and the distant crack of whips.



II


Hanuvar had observed the garrison from the height of a craggy cliff for the last three days. Careful scrutiny had provided him with the numbers, habits, and patterns of the Dervans. There were less than a hundred of them. Likely more had been used in the assault against the garrison—for over three hundred Volani troops had been permanently stationed on the isles—but the bulk of the invading force must already have sailed back to the empire.

The Dervans prided themselves on their soldierly precision, and Hanuvar was grateful to them for it. He now knew the quarter hour when the sentries changed, the hour when the prisoners were fed, even the time when the Dervan general took his dinner.

He would have preferred to learn the names and habits of the enemy officers, but that would have required taking a prisoner, and the enemy would scurry like bugs if one of them went missing. Their schedule would change. He couldn’t have that.

Hanuvar climbed carefully down from the cliff and picked his way along the rough shoreline hidden from above by a rocky overhang. It was early morning, and the sun was just cresting over the rust-colored cliffs, brightening the bloodred water of a narrow, shallow course to pink. Legend had it that Lord Vazhan begged the Lady Neer each day to release those souls given over to her shadowy realm. His greedy wife never relented, and thus he sorrowed, staining the water of the inner channels with tears of blood.

Hanuvar had seen the isles lashed with winds and rain on visits escorting honored dead. When the water cascaded down the cliffs, the rock and soil turned it red. And so he knew that even if the lord of the underworld wept somewhere, it was the isles themselves that painted the waters their sinister color.

Only his errand coaxed him into open ground. He had to obtain the gatzi3 when they were at their most vulnerable. He moved swiftly between dusky purple shrubs that clung tenaciously to life on the rounded rocks. Yellow seabirds hung high overhead, almost motionless in the air currents.

As he climbed the slope a shadow set in the cliff resolved itself into the deeper darkness of a jagged cave mouth. It was from here the gatzi flew forth each evening. Their meals of choice were the scuttlers that scavenged over the outer beaches. Habitually the shelled creatures crawled up from the sea at night, and habitually the gatzi descended with their talons and razor jaws to devour them. Given the right stimulation, though, gatzi would attack nearly anything, and those unfortunate enough to stumble into a nest of the things seldom lived to tell of it.

The only folk Hanuvar knew who deliberately set out to find gatzi were suicides, sorcerers, or the occasional party sent to destroy them. Hunters were inevitably well armed with torches, spears, and protective gear, and even those brave souls never walked into a gatzi cave alone.

Hanuvar had no choice. He had fashioned thick gauntlets for his hands from canvas sacks that had once carried his supplies. Only two of those sacks remained, and these he bore over his shoulder, one sewn into the other. At his side hung a sword he’d brought from the distant isle of Narata. A fair blade, if not a fine one.

The stench of the cave hit him some twenty feet out. The gatzi den reeked of the dead things the ocean coughs up, fouler than the breath of a man dying from corruption.

As he trudged closer the odor grew stronger and somehow even more foul, and he paused to tie a cloth over his mouth and nose. It was neither as pretty as the painted masks the gatzi hunters wore, nor as thick. Its elegance did not matter to him; he only hoped he would be shielded enough from the fumes that he would not succumb.

He paused upon the threshold of the cave, staring into the darkness until his eyes adjusted. The floor was sticky with chalky, lumpy gatzi droppings. Here and there it moved, for it was home to tiny worms who thought the leavings the finest form of sustenance, and larger insects that preyed upon them. They grew, ate, bred, and died all in another creature’s filth.

The cave was narrow and high. The gatzi would roost deep within, far from the hated sunlight.

Hanuvar advanced into the darkness, walking cautiously through the crunchy, writhing floor until the light behind was but a distant porthole. He breathed through his mouth, and even then the vapor was so pungent his eyes watered.

He almost missed the gatzi. Their front rank huddled on an outcropping just below eye level; Hanuvar could not count their numbers, but he sensed the shelf stretching back into a vast space. Those gatzi nearest the rim resembled a rock formation, and it was the sharp regularity of their outlines that drew his attention. They were identical lumpy bundles of feathers, each roughly the length of his arm and spaced two hand spans apart, arranged so precisely it looked like Dervan legion work. Every one of them had tucked its head under its right forewing.

Hanuvar had never thought to stand so close beside a single gatzi, let alone hundreds.

He unslung the sack from his shoulder, his heart quickening, and reached with one gloved hand to grasp the nearest at the base of its neck. It was surprisingly bony, and light. The gatzi stirred only a little at first, but it hissed after Hanuvar dropped it in the sack. By the time he had slid a second through the opening, the objection from the bag had grown louder.

Hanuvar snatched three more in swift succession and dropped them in the bag. He hoped for nearly a dozen, but as he reached for another its head rose and he found himself mere inches from the open, stinking maw with its double rows of triangular teeth. He pulled back just as the beak snapped shut.

The monster that was the gatzi flock filled the chamber with echoing croaks, stirring the air with wings.

He thrust one last groggy one into his sack, then turned and ran for the light, the bumping, writhing, cawing bag held at arm’s length from his body. Behind him came a whispering thunder of wings, the hiss from a hundred throats rivaling that of an asalda.

The cave mouth was so far away.

On he ran, splattering cave muck with every stride. At any moment he expected to feel the talons rend his arm, the awful, diseased maws shredding the back of his neck like saw-toothed daggers. Something brushed the back of his shoulder, his hair—

And then he was in the light, blinded with its brilliance, kissed by the heat. He lost his footing on the rocks and swept out his arms as he fell. He dropped the bag. He landed with a thump, slamming his palms into the stone to take most of the impact, just managing to keep his head from striking a rock.

He slitted his eyelids against the burning sun. A few black spots that were gatzi flapped out, circled dizzily, then fled back into the cavern. Hanuvar lay staring at a fluffy cloud, then chuckled. What would the Dervans have thought of their hated enemy if they could have seen him then? He was nothing but a frightened, clumsy old man. In a better world his roaming days would be through. A man his age should be soaking up the morning sun, swapping stories with old friends, and watching his family grow to dare adventures of their own.

But that would never be.

Hanuvar climbed to his feet. His left knee was sore again, as it so often was these days. The gatzi within the bag rustled feebly. He tied their prison shut and lifted it. The sun visible through the cloth would leave them stupefied.

He started for his overhang. Once, he’d been better at waiting, but now, whenever he was not active, his mind returned to his burning city and to its butchered people, and his daughter, and his brothers. Once there had been four. Now there was only himself, and the ashes of his baby brother. Melgar would be the last of them ever interred within the family crypt.



III


The Volani had simmered with anger the moment Indar entered their midst, a fury so pronounced he sensed they might attack him even though spear-bearing legionaries ringed them. Had they greater savvy, they would have bowed their heads to him and begged forgiveness. They remained under the sway of the Cabera family, no matter the doom that allegiance had brought them.

The evening wind sapped the sun of its burning power, though its warmth was still heavy in the air. An image of Volanus rose unbidden to the forefront of his memory, with its cool evening breezes rustling leaves on the boulevards beneath the silver towers. He knew a sudden pang of loss.

One of the two soldiers flanking him cleared his throat.

Drilled in oration since his youth, it still took Indar a moment to gather his thoughts. He had practiced his speech for an hour, and now gave his audience the sympathetic frown he thought provided his best opening. “I’ve watched you for days, wondering what I could do for you. You’re victims. You were tricked, led down a path that your leaders could have seen, if they’d any kind of forethought. It isn’t your fault. You were told to trust them. And now you’re here.”

“Traitor!” one of them shouted, and grumbles of assent rose from the throng.

The soldiers at Indar’s side tensed, but he raised a hand. “I know you’re angry! You were soldiers, serving our city. And you didn’t ask for this! But I swear I am not your enemy! Who really brought you to this point? Where is your council? Where’s Hanuvar? They’re the ones who told you the Dervans could be bested. Had they listened to my father, you would not now sit here as prisoners.”

Someone yelled something foul about his father and one of the legionaries beside him grumbled. Indar had been impressed by the number of Dervan soldiers posted here who understood Volani and supposed it had been someone’s clever choice. He motioned the man to stand easy.

“My family urged peaceful surrender!” Indar said. “We knew the might of Derva! Had the Seven possessed even a modicum of the vaunted wisdom they claimed, they would have seen what we saw. But because of them, you sit in bondage. Where are the shofets and the hallowed Seven? Most cowered in the temples.” Repetition of the Dervan lie would only bolster their sense of unjust suffering. While it was true Belevar had hidden in a temple and sobbed for mercy, five had died by their swords or on them, even ancient Mevlia.

He managed greater conviction as he spoke on, for he knew, just as his father had long warned, that the Cabera family had guided Volanus to ruin. “And what of your great protector, Hanuvar? He didn’t even turn up until the city was aflame! Dervan power flung him into the sea.”

He paused to look over the weary faces of the hundred who watched. “The Cabera family brought you no lasting victories,” he continued. “They doomed our city with their deliberate provocations. But you need not be doomed. Life need not be such a trial. If any one of you aids the empire, he could live as free as I. Derva rewards its allies. Think of it. You’d have comforts like wine, and fine food, and regular baths. And you wouldn’t have to spend the rest of your life in the baking sun digging up old bones. I ask you only to consider my offer this night. If any of you knows the location of an important tomb, you will be rewarded the moment you step forward.” Indar held up his hands. “Now this is a weighty thing, and I want no hasty decisions. Think on it for the night. Remember that the dead are dead. It is time now to think of the welfare of the living.”

The faces that stared back at him were drawn and somber. He couldn’t guess their thoughts, but he pressed on, hoping he’d led them to consider a changed perspective and witness a spark of hope. He wagered these qualities might weigh against stubborn Volani pride. “I’ll speak with you tomorrow after the morning meal. For now, I bid you a good night.”

A few cursed at him as he turned away. He didn’t respond. Some would step forth in the morning, if protection were offered. He’d have to make sure they were immediately whisked away from the others.

The general’s priest had watched from beside the ring of soldiers, and the little scarlet-robed man joined Indar as he left the prisoners.

“I think that was well said,” the priest declared, his diction precise, his tone faintly nasal, as though distorted by traveling the length of his long straight nose. “You have a wise way for such a young man.”

“Thank you.” Indar didn’t feel that twenty-six years was especially young. He had already been married and divorced, and supervised the family holdings during the long months of his father’s absences. But that was nothing to the Dervans, who seemed only to value men with gray at their temples.

The priest’s robes swished against his thighs as he walked. His placid face turned to Indar’s. “You may well inspire a change in attitude.”

“One of them is bound to be smart enough, or miserable enough, to speak out.”

“I prayed at length this afternoon,” the priest continued. They strode on across open, rocky ground for the living quarters. “And I spread the sacred bones. A momentous change is on the wind. I’m not sure what it entails for you.”

The priest’s smile was still affable, but his eyes were cold. What was he after?

“I am a friend to Derva,” Indar said. “I desire only peace between our peoples.”

“Oh, of that I am certain.”

Indar feigned politeness. “What did you learn from the bones?” He knew the priest wished him to ask.

“They spoke of conflict, and a dead man. He is a man of some importance. I trust for your sake that the bones mean you will lead us to a dead man. I would hate to think that you would meet with any sort of unfortunate incident.”

“That’s very considerate of you.”

“Your father would certainly be disappointed. I know he has high hopes for you at the court.” The odious little man cleared his throat. “Darkness comes. I have duties. You should report to the general. Good evening. May the Night Wise guard your steps.”

“And may their blessings guide you.” Indar pressed hands to forehead and bowed. He watched the priest leave, wondering if he hurried off to care for the mewling thing he kept in the wicker basket beside his window. Indar had no desire to find out.



IV


Once the gatzi smelled the planks where Hanuvar smeared broken crabs, they sped into the night like arrows. The poor sentry didn’t have a chance. He’d knelt to examine the carcasses piled upon his patrol route, which ensured he was not only closer to the scent but that he smelled more strongly of it. One moment he was a dark form hunched on the dock, the next he was a screaming and writhing mass collapsing under the devouring assault.

Hanuvar no longer knew the number of men he’d slain, but he’d seldom been responsible for so gruesome an end. He preferred quick deaths for his enemies, as he’d delivered to the other Dervan sentry whose scarlet tunic, cuirass, dangling baltea, and helm he now wore. The helmet was a bit loose, but Hanuvar didn’t expect anyone to notice at night.

He heard the rest of the Dervan watch before he saw them, shouting from the wall above. Then came footsteps on the stone, cries to aid a downed man, and the postern gate was thrown open. Four soldiers rushed onto the docks.

Hanuvar slipped into the garrison.

He kept to the shadows as shouts rang out, walking swiftly for the old stone mess hall. All Volani captives were housed there, for the garrison had no prison, and the mess was the only room large enough to contain them under a minimal guard.

The Dervans had set thick metal loops on either side of the hall doors, which were locked by placement of an iron bar. Hanuvar carefully supported the bar so it wouldn’t clang against the loops as he slid it free. Once it was clear, he set it in the shadows and swiftly stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

“Olmar,” he said softly.

The room’s only light slipped through high windows, recently bricked by the Dervans so that they were too small to accommodate escape. By it he saw those within the dark chamber had not even the luxury of blankets. They slept curled on the bare floor, their arms or bunched-up shirts for pillows. A few sat up at Hanuvar’s call. They smelled of sweat and blood and hopelessness. Some few among them, he knew, were women, not just Eltyr, but the wives of soldiers.

He pulled off the helmet. “Olmar,” he said again, and stepped deeper into the room.

“Hanuvar—” said a voice, and then the silent forms were sitting or climbing to their feet. His name leapt from mouth to mouth, like fire spreading among the grain fields. Some cried that it could not be, others that he was a ghost. One laughed, madly, saying that he was there to rescue them, and even though Hanuvar was certain the Dervans were distracted, he worried the noise would bring them running.

“Silence!” he ordered. “Keep from the door!”

The captives ceased their gabbling, and those inching toward the portal halted their progress. They strained for better view of the figure before them.

“General?” One of the men limped forward. Hanuvar knew the low-pitched voice, but not the limp. That was new.

“Commander Olmar.” He’d recognized him during the long days of watching, one of his brother Adruvar’s best officers.

The figure halted a few paces off. “It is you—but you’re dead . . .” There was a frightened quaver in the man’s voice. “You fell into the sea.”

Hanuvar spoke quickly. “I am no spirit. I am a man, and I have come to save you.”

They began to chatter again, in joyous disbelief, but Hanuvar threw up his hands. “Quiet! We’ve little time. Listen to me, and you will soon sail free. Olmar. Come here.”

Olmar walked forward, favoring his right leg, a thickly built man with a wild mane of hair. “General?”

“They want our tombs. I want you to give them one. My wife’s family’s.” He could only hope, when he saw her in the afterlife, that Imilce and her forebearers would understand.

Olmar gasped in astonishment.

“I will tell you where to find it, and a handful of other tombs. We must be prepared to make this sacrifice.” Hanuvar turned his back to the others and whispered its location to Olmar, confiding to him the placement of several more. The officer nodded, replying in the affirmative when Hanuvar asked him if he understood.

“There’s much I would know,” Hanuvar said, “but we’ll talk after.” He turned to address the throng. Even though he could not see their eyes, he felt their attention fixed upon his every move.

“How many of you are fluent in Dervan?”

Nine raised their hands, and when he asked how many spoke it with little to no accent, only three arms remained. “Make sure you accompany Olmar tomorrow. Claim they have some special knowledge,” he told the officer.

Olmar nodded sharply. “Yes, General.”

Hanuvar could almost sense the sand grains falling in the hourglass. If some alert sentry were to wander by and seal the mess hall, everything he’d worked for would be lost. Yet he could not depart until he’d given them tangible hope. He addressed them once more. “In the morning, Olmar will guide some of the Dervans to a tomb. Do your best to loot it dry, so the Dervans will grow eager, and Olmar will tell them where others are. Once they transport you there to begin work, await my word. Then we’ll strike. And then you’ll be free.”

Hanuvar smote the Dervan breastplate, then turned for the door. He left without a backward glance.

Outside the air was clean and cool. No one seemed to have observed his exit. He sealed his people in their prison, stepped clear of the building . . . and saw the postern gate was shut. A half dozen soldiers clustered beside it. A man with a centurion’s lateral crested helmet cursed them. Had they noticed a missing man yet? Had they already carried in the gatzi victim?

The Dervans had moved even faster than he’d feared. He would have to rely on his backup exit. Without hesitation Hanuvar walked for a set of stone stairs to the upper level. A soldier was walking the crenelated wall above. “Is he going to make it?” the fellow called down.

“I don’t know,” Hanuvar answered in accentless Dervan. “He wasn’t moving.”

As he climbed he saw the shutters opening in a window built into the wall below the stairs. Was someone looking out at him? He glanced back, knew a chill when light reflected off eyes too round to be human. No time to worry about that—he headed into the gloom.

The wall looked very different from this side, but he had measured carefully. On his left was the flat, dark expanse of the garrison compound, on his right the merlons of the outer wall. Beyond that lay a drop to the sloping shore, save for a narrow stretch . . . there. He checked both ways once more, stepped quickly to the battlement and hung by his hands. The sea lapped the wall below.

The soldier Hanuvar had spoken with heard a splash and strode over to investigate, calling out to the man he’d seen. But Hanuvar, pulling off armor beneath the waves, didn’t hear. It would have been ideal to swim with both the helm and the breastplate, but that was one miracle too many for him to work in a single night. They would have to remain on the seabed.



V


“I felt certain one of them would come forward,” Indar said. “But I didn’t expect it would be Olmar.”

A half-eaten biscuit sat in a saucer on the general’s desk, next to a few white danaline rinds and some empty eggshells. Indar had not been asked to breakfast with the general this morning. He had begun to suspect Mitrius didn’t like him, perhaps because of their age difference, or Indar’s friendship with the emperor’s favorite nephew. Or it might be the general had realized Indar’s star was rising, while his own was surely waning. Else why would he have been given so miserable a post?

“You told me you had good news,” the general said.

“He’ll give us the location of a large crypt. And,” Indar could not help pausing for effect, “it’s the tomb of the Idresta family.”

The general’s eyebrows rose precipitously. “The family of Hanuvar’s wife?”

“Yes, General. Olmar had attended a family burial. One of Hanuvar’s brothers by marriage. And Olmar’s brother was one of the Vazhan priests, those sworn to oversee the sacred isles. He showed Olmar the locations of some of the other noble tombs as well.”

The general frowned. Indar wondered if anything made him smile.

“He knew all that, and confessed nothing under torture?”

“I . . .” Indar couldn’t dredge up any sort of clever answer.

The general sighed. “It makes one wonder as to the efficacy of our methods.”

Indar had no doubt as to the effectiveness of Dervan torture. He was certain he would have happily told them whatever they wished if he’d even been shown the instruments, much less endured their attentions. He flushed, feeling vulnerable and foolish.

General Mitrius, he realized, was talking. “ . . . wishes his own freedom for this information?”

“He asks for comforts for all his men.”

The general’s frown deepened and he sat back in his chair. “What specifically did he ask for?”

“Actual beds, with mattresses. More substantial meals. More breaks. No whips for men he swears will labor honestly.”

“It’s not so much,” the general said. “He knew we couldn’t grant all of them freedom, and so rather than asking solely for himself, he asked only for those under him to be treated like men. I wonder, Indar, if I would have done the same in his place?”

Indar hesitated, unsure how to answer. “You would not have allowed yourself to be in such a situation, General. Your intelligence—”

“There will always be a victor and a vanquished, young man. Only the gods know which one will win out. I will meet their demands, but they must first show me proof. Let us take two dozen of them to one of these burial sites and see if anything is there.”

“Yes, General.”

“And if there is, then maybe you, at least, can return to Derva and leave these accursed islands.”

Indar heard bitterness there, and sought to mollify the general’s feelings. “I’m sure you will be able to return soon yourself.”

Mitrius’ frown deepened. “I don’t know if you heard last night, but we lost two men. Gatzi killed one near the docks. He seems to have stumbled on them while they were eating. A gruesome death. We think another might have been attacked by some on the battlement and fallen into the water, but we’ve found no sign of his body.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Indar hoped that it wasn’t a swarming year. If it was, there would be much worse in the days ahead.

“We shouldn’t be here, pecking at the ground like chickens,” Mitrius continued sourly. “This place is for the dead, not the living.”

“That may be so,” Indar conceded with a forced smile, “but the emperor will surely be pleased with a new source of wealth for Derva’s coffers.”

The general’s tone changed abruptly, like the shutting of a door. “Go speak to Olmar. Tell him I accept his offer, provided I receive proof today. Have Olmar pick his twenty best men. Remind them the faster they work, the faster we can all depart these wretched islands.”

“Yes, General.” Indar bowed and left, thankful the sinister priest was nowhere in evidence. He’d begun to suspect the man was spying on him.

By midday a cadre of wretched prisoners was boarding one of the captured Volani ships. The general left more than half his contingent at the old garrison, assured he had men aplenty to shepherd the remaining Volani.

Indar watched the great red cliffs as they sailed south through the labyrinth of tiny islands. How many of his ancestors were interred within? What did they think when they looked down on him? Did they, too, think him a traitor?

He had turned his back on the fools who drove Volanus to death, and his father had seen to it the family would live on as valued servants to the Dervan Empire, but this was different. He revered his ancestors and their accomplishments. Was that why he still felt so troubled?

Then again, his unease might be because whenever he turned he found the priest’s eyes upon him. He was seated further back along the deck. The fellow would smile, nod pleasantly, and look away—and then stare at him once more. What did he want? What was he watching for?

Worse was the wicker basket beside the priest. A scent of dirty feathers drifted from it. Occasionally it rocked a little and the priest hushed it tenderly.

Indar was glad he had a knife at his belt. He might not be able to take down one of these soldiers, but if he had to, he was certain he could kill the priest.



VI


The Dervans had been thrilled with the riches in the tomb and, just as Hanuvar had supposed, quickly erected a temporary camp closer to the wealth and relocated their prisoners there. It wasn’t just that the Dervans were eager for the treasures. They wanted to complete their mission so they could put these desolate islands behind them.

He moved against the new camp in the deep night after the prisoners had been transferred. One by one he struck down the three sentries. Before too long the Volani most fluent in Dervan were in legionary armor and pretending to guard their fellow prisoners. Olmar and ten other Volani followed Hanuvar over the rocky ground, shovels and picks in hand.

After an hour’s walk, they set to work on an unassuming block of stone around the cliffside from the camp. Hanuvar spoke only to guide their efforts.

They had but two lanterns, shutters directing ghostly beams upon the scarlet-striated rocks. Olmar kept watch. The soldier did not speak of what the Dervans had done to him, but he often grimaced as he moved. He had insisted upon accompanying them, and Hanuvar had not gainsaid him.

It took nearly an hour to clear the dried, baked soil from the stone slab, another quarter hour and the combined efforts of nine strong men to leverage it from the square of darkness it concealed.

They worked wordlessly, out of both respect for the dead and the desire to avoid detection. Aside from his own instruction and the occasional grunt or low oath, the only noise was the clink of spade or pick and the rising wind, moaning through the canyons. Dark clouds drifted overhead, blanketing all but a narrow strip of sky through which a sliver of the moon shone whitely down.

When at last they had dragged the protesting rock clear of the hole, Hanuvar called for Olmar, replaced him with a dour younger man, and descended the dark stairs with a lantern. All but the sentry came with him.

It was cool down there in the old stone. A short walk brought them to a round chamber with a black marble table built around an empty urn. Here had offerings been made to the dead of his family.

A stark relief of Vazhan wept on the wall, leaning over the table, his colors long since faded. Hanuvar recalled his appearance from his last visit, noting then that someone should see to repainting his tears. His cousin had promised to do so.

“Olmar,” Hanuvar said without looking from the relief, “do you know anything of my cousins’ fates?”

“Not with certainty, General.” Olmar’s voice was grim.

“They are dead,” Hanuvar said.

“That is what we’ve heard. But I know no details.”

Hanuvar asked the question for which he dreaded the answer. “And my daughter?”

“They say she was taken. Her husband died in the street, fighting.”

So Narisia lived. But what kind of life might that be? And how long would it last? He followed that painful question with another. “When I left, she thought she might be pregnant. Did she have children?”

“She had two. I do not know their fates.”

He steadied himself against this wrenching news by looking only at the weeping relief. “How many of our people did the Dervans take alive, Olmar?”

The commander was slow in answering. When he did so, his voice was weak. “Less than a thousand.”

Hanuvar stared at the man in disbelief, for a vast multitude had called Volanus home.4

“We fought them,” Olmar said, his voice thin. “Block by block. House by house. Until there was no place left to retreat. The temple to Vazhan and Lady Neer was aflame, and some fell back to die within its walls.”

Knowing that the death count would be terrible, he had still not guessed it would be so high, and he struggled to comprehend the staggering enormity of the loss. He failed.

“After that, when they had us in chains, there was a fire in the larger prisoner enclosure. I could hear them screaming that night . . .” Olmar’s voice trailed off, and then he found the strength to continue. “It wasn’t a war. It was an extermination.”

Hanuvar forced calm upon himself, and focused upon the present. “There are weapons here,” he said. “We will need them in the coming hour. And hereafter.”

He had never heard the voices of the gods as the priests did, but for the first time in weeks he had prayed to them that morning, wondering all the while why they should aid him now when they had allowed the empire to destroy Volanus. Hearing Olmar’s grim tidings he was sure they were deaf, or dead, or only a dream.

“General?” Olmar prompted.

Hanuvar turned and faced them, the lantern deepening the hollows in his face. “This is the tomb of my family, down from the days of founding, and I bear with me the ashes of my brother, Melgar. He’s the last of us who shall ever be interred within. And we are the last who shall ever pay homage here.”

They waited for him to speak on, and he wished he knew all their names. There wasn’t time.

“Since the founding, only those of our bloodline have passed through this portal. Yet you may cross it with me this day. There are so few of us left. We are all one now.” He turned to the relief and pressed in upon the eyes, hard. The ancient magics worked a final time, and an eerie whistle rose from deep within the stone. The hairs along his arm and back of his neck stood quivering.

The old stone image sank slowly down. Before them loomed what at first seemed an underground lake, for the lantern beams that played over the space reflected off a liquid surface. And then those with him beheld what only the family of Cabera had looked upon for generations, a stone walkway built across an ocean of quicksilver, forever lapping the shores of the miniature inner and outer seas spread to either side of the path. Hanuvar heard the men talking in wonder as they walked on, pointing to the isles, the carved peaks and hills that rose from the ancient map. Someone noticed that diamonds were worked into the ceiling, arranged in the constellations, shining forever above the changeless sea. There too was a great emerald, along the shore. Eternal Volanus. Here in the tomb it still shone in all its beauty. And here in the tomb did his city belong.

A metal door set with gold waited at the path’s end, his family’s crest of a swift ship with a soaring bird above carved into its surface. Hanuvar pulled upon the handle and the heavy portal swung easily outward.

Beyond, the bodies and urns of the centuries of Cabera dead lay in ranks of stone niches, stretching into the darkness. And here, too, to either side of the door, his lantern gleamed upon a martial display of swords and shields.

“They’re treated with draden oil,” Hanuvar said, “by the young men of our family each time someone is interred within. All but the oldest of these should be free of rust.”

“You didn’t say there would be armor too,” one man said in nearly breathless awe.

“They’re beautiful,” said another, stepping forward to tentatively caress a hilt.

The arms and armaments had once been meant to honor the spirits of the men who had worn them. Now, though, the living needed them far more. “Dress in the armor. Carry as many weapons as you can. And then we return to camp. We must capture and crew the ship before dawn.”

“But where do we go?”

“I’ll tell you after our victory.” They could not know— yet. What if the attack failed? “Ready yourselves. I have a duty to perform.” Only then did he lift the flask from his belt. It was a poor container compared to those upon the biers glittering with gold and jewels, carved with swordsmen and ships. “It’s time to carry out the last wishes of my brother.” He took one of the lanterns and left with it for the tomb’s recesses, leaving the men among the shining weapons.

His sandals slapped over the cold, dark stone, his lantern’s light flickering over the dusty bones, and his thoughts sped down through the years. Here was his grandfather’s skull, and he recalled kissing that forehead a final time as they laid him there. Here were the bones of his aunt, and his baby sister.

Here was his father’s niche, empty for want of a body slain by Dervans and left for carrion. Hanuvar caressed the carven letters of his name. What would his father say to him now? Memories crowded for place like little children vying for attention. How young had he been on that first campaign with Father? He didn’t know, could scarce recall a time when an army camp had not been his home. He had wanted nothing more than to stand worthy in that man’s eyes and to emulate all that he was. Later he realized that glory had been thrust upon his sire, that his father stood the line because there was none better. Given a softer world, Himli Cabera would gladly have been a gardener.

Hanuvar no longer wondered what he might have been, only what he might have said had he been granted more days with those he loved. This night, so close to the bed that should have been his father’s last, he longed again to hear that calm, commanding voice. What would his father have done in his place? What counsel would he offer now?

He would urge him to waste no time.

Hanuvar stepped away. From far off, he heard his companions carefully donning armor.

Fabric yet clung to Adruvar’s frame, the mighty hands withered and still across his powerful chest. There lay Harnil, his crooked smile dust; death had reduced his handsome features to a grinning mockery and robbed him of distinctive identity.

He set Melgar’s ashes in an unmarked niche. The youngest of the four, he’d been the brashest of them all. A brilliant swordsman, and brave to a fault. After he’d survived that chest wound, the slash that cost him his left arm and the illness that followed, Hanuvar had thought Melgar unkillable. But he’d sickened in the new colony, and on his deathbed asked only that Hanuvar bear him to the family tomb. Legends said that those close to death often saw the future, but Melgar must surely not have done so, or he would have foreseen that when Hanuvar’s ship neared Volanus the Dervans would be at the city’s neck.

Hanuvar knelt by his brothers one last time, his eyes straying to the stone bed that would surely have been his own, someday, had there been anyone to carry him here after his death. He would die in some far-off, lonely land, and his bones would spend eternity in a Dervan trophy case.

This moment, though, was for his brother. He bowed his head and began to pray.



VII


Indar awoke to horror, and knew a pressure against his chest. It was the quiet of the deep night, yet there was light in his tent, and by it he saw a black, skull-like face looming over him. He failed to scream only because he choked on an air bubble as he sucked in a breath.

The stinking black-feathered creature with scalloped wings chattered angrily at him, and he felt its claws through the blankets as it shifted its catlike weight. The priest looked down at him on one side, a soldier with a lantern on the other.

“You sleep deeply,” the priest said.

“What is this?” Indar demanded more shrilly than he planned.

“You are coming with us.”

“Why?” Indar’s voice broke in fear.

“Because I have found you out, Indar.”

The creature hopped off his chest and watched unblinking from the edge of the bedroll.

Indar sat up quickly so it would not return. “What are you talking about?”

“You pretend it well. But my little servant has seen your friends.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Indar was surprised to hear annoyance in his voice. He would have assumed he’d project only his gripping terror.

“We will see. Dress and come.”

The priest left the tent, thankfully taking the hideous creature with him. The legionary remained, scowling.

Indar threw on his clothing. Outside he found a dozen unhappy soldiers, as well as General Mitrius. Upon Indar’s emergence they set out at a brisk walk into the night, the priest leading, and Indar soon saw that they were leaving the camp. “Where are we going?”

“To meet your smuggler friends,” the priest answered.

Indar fell in step beside him. A thin sliver of moon painted everything in whites and blacks.

“I don’t know any smug—”

“You make things worse for yourself, Indar,” Mitrius said wearily.

“Palhecoc saw them at work on a tomb,” the priest said. “And told me of it.” He rubbed a finger under the chin of the thing on his shoulder.

“It was not our men,” Mitrius said. “Our sentries and guards are in place and report all prisoners accounted for. Therefore they must be yours. For who else might have alerted them?”

Indar struggled for inspiration. How was he going to convince the general he hadn’t been involved in whatever was underway?

“I swear by my grandfather’s name that I know nothing of this,” he said finally.

“Oh, don’t play innocent.” The priest sounded pleased. “You must have a ship waiting nearby. You sent word to them once you finally knew the location of a tomb. Weren’t the riches the emperor had already given your family enough to satisfy you?”

“That’s ridiculous!” Indar could hear the conviction in his own voice. Surely the priest did as well. “General, I’m a man of my word, you know it!”

“I know that you work against your own people,” the officer replied stiffly.

“You’re wrong,” Indar snapped, wondering why he felt rage at the same time he knew numbing fear. “You will see I have nothing to do with any nonsanctioned operation and—” Indar’s voice trailed off. He’d been contemplating a threat, and remembered he was surrounded by men who’d kill him at a word.

It was a long, grim walk, and his heart sped the entire way. The general commanded his soldiers to quiet. The only conversation was that whispered back and forth between the eldritch creature and the priest. Indar was mostly thankful he did not understand them.

He guessed it was some three quarters of an hour into the journey when the priest sent his winged horror flying ahead. He’d had the men shutter the lanterns before they rounded a corner of a cliff. A channel of water no larger than a stream stretched along their right, and a jagged rock wall stood upon their left, heavy with shadows and shallow caves.

There was no sign of any ships—which presumably one would see if there were smugglers or thieves about—but Indar said nothing. Better if he remain completely silent, so as to give no cause for censure from the priest.

A dark shape winged out of the night and settled with a flap of wings on the ground before the priest. Indar gave an involuntary shudder. The thing bowed, then chattered at its master.

“It has slain one of them,” the priest relayed after a moment. “A sentry, I think.”

“Let us see,” said Mitrius.

The creature bounded ahead, flapping its wings determinedly until it had lift. It settled down beside a body, then tore at its neck with the claws spurred along the back of its long fingers.

“You, look ahead,” Mitrius commanded, pointing two men forward. “Here is your man, Indar.”

“That’s not—” Indar stared. “That’s one of the prisoners, General. Olmar’s friend with the missing fingers.” While the bulging, staring eyes distorted the young man’s visage, there was no mistaking the scraggly beard, the thick eyebrows, or the digits absent from the left hand.

Mitrius peered down at the body. “He’s right.”

“There’s an opening here, with stairs going down,” the centurion called to them.

“Someone’s found and opened a tomb,” the priest said to Mitrius.

The general frowned.

“As I said,” Indar declared with stiff dignity, “I had no knowledge of this.”

The general paid him no heed. Indar wondered, as the general’s gaze turned on him, if he would apologize. But Mitrius faced his soldiers. “This prisoner had a weapon. There are surely more, and they’re likely armed. Some of our workers must have gotten free. Stay alert.”

“What would prisoners want with a tomb?” Indar asked, glad to be so obviously innocent. “Wouldn’t they just escape?”

“Riches, of course,” the priest answered without looking at him. He scooped up his beast. “We will stop them.”

General Mitrius called for lights once they arrived at the stairs. They descended the flight in twos, Mitrius and the centurion first, followed by the priest and Indar, then the rest of them. In moments they had reached an antechamber, and Indar scanned the walls. So too did the priest, and the two of them spoke breathlessly, almost as one as they recognized the Volani lettering. “The tomb of Cabera.”

“This is Hanuvar’s family,” Indar said.

The priest chuckled. “Well, these slaves have done us a favor! The emperor himself will hear about this find!”

The legionaries marveled at the quicksilver lake beyond, and goggled at the immense map, taking in its beauty even before they noticed the riches set into the stone of the landmasses, a jewel sparkling at the site of every city. “Hands away,” the priest said. “My pet is watching. This is all for the emperor!”

Mitrius took the whole thing in, looking troubled. Indar understood his thinking. What could the prisoners possibly want with the tomb of their dead hero’s family? Of all sacred ground, surely this was the last they would ever have wished to disturb.

The general led them across a stone walkway that bisected the map and started across the gem-studded expanse of continent. He had almost arrived at the steps to a gilded door when it opened before him. He backed away, grasping his hilt.

In the open door, backlit by a blinding radiance, stood a man in armor. He was lean, powerful, with high, broad shoulders. There was no mistaking that proud hooked nose, the silver-flecked hair, the slate-gray eyes. In the shining armor he looked for all the world like some war god descended to mortal realms.

Indar’s blood chilled, and he stammered out what he knew, what many of the Dervans doubtless knew: “It’s Hanuvar!” He didn’t say that he’d returned from the dead, that he’d risen from his own tomb. Indar knew it, just as every man there knew it. Even General Mitrius froze.

The dead man leapt with a savage war cry. Too late did Mitrius throw up his parry. Hanuvar’s sword cleft bone and brain and dropped him. Hanuvar ducked a swing from the centurion and plunged his red blade into the armpit gap of his cuirass. The officer screamed and fell backward into a carved mountain range.

Behind Indar the legionaries cried out to their gods. Ahead, framed in the doorway, came more dead of the Cabera clan, each clad in shining armor.

The priest urged his pet forward but Hanuvar cut it down in midflight. The priest was still gaping stupidly as the sword sliced off his head.

“Spare me!” Indar cried. “I’m Volani!” And he threw himself flat.

Hanuvar’s ghost leapt over him, swinging at another legionary.

The Dervan soldiers screamed and ran.

“Chase them down!” Hanuvar roared, and his men raced after, splashing through the cold, silver fluid.

Indar was hefted into the air by the scruff of his tunic. The blazing eyes of the vengeful wraith stared into his own.

“You’ve soiled yourself,” Hanuvar said.

“Spare me—”

“Will you offer me riches?” The ghost’s voice dripped contempt. “What will you give me? My cousins’ lives? My daughter’s?” His voice shook. “My city?” He pointed the sword at the younger man’s throat.

“I followed my father!” he said.

And for some reason that gave the spirit pause, for the sword thrust did not come. Instead the ghost bore him backward and slammed him hard into the wall. Indar gasped in pain, felt something give behind him. A lever, he realized with a sickening lurch. Many Volani tombs had them, and at their trigger the tombs would be sealed by falling rock. He cried out in fear at the sound of a great rumble from the doorway where Hanuvar had come, but the roof held steady. A dense cloud of dust wafted out from the entry to the crypt.

Hanuvar dropped him.

Indar, crouching in the quicksilver beside the path, trembled under the dead general’s gaze.

“Live long, boy,” the spirit said. It walked toward the distant clash of steel. “Squeeze every moment from it that you can, for you bought it dearly. If our gods yet live, they will not be kind to you in the hereafter.”

And then he was swallowed by the darkness.

Indar found that he was sobbing with dread. Even if he had desired to retreat deeper into the tomb he could not, for he was certain nothing lay beyond the doorway but crumbled stone. And he dared not follow the spirits, so he sat in misery beside the bodies of the Dervans, under a thousand diamond stars.



VIII


In a little over an hour they had surprised and overpowered the rest of the Dervan legionaries. By the next evening, the surviving enemy soldiers had finished loading supplies aboard a captured patrol ship. Hanuvar left them alive on the shore and bade Olmar guide the craft along the eastern rim of the isles. Only then, at the prow, did he speak to Olmar of their destination. “Our colony lies in the far southeast. Two weeks beyond the mountains of fire and the isles where the leopards run. Steer toward the top star in Sedrasta’s horn.” He presented him with a handful of gemstones culled from the tombs they’d plundered thoroughly. “Revictual at the isle of Narata in the eastern Lenidines. You know it?”

Olmar nodded slowly. Once, he had captained a ship in the fleet. “I do. It’s tiny and remote.”

“A priestess advises the rulers there. See that no one learns your final destination. It must be secret. Our people must remain safe.”

“This is all true?” Olmar asked. There was a tremor in his voice. “There is a new Volanus?”

“It’s but a few thousand folk.” When Hanuvar had returned to Volanus, he’d hoped to lure a few thousand more to join him there. It was best not to dwell on what might have happened if he’d arrived even two months earlier. “Now. You need to stop at this island.” Hanuvar pointed. “I left my skiff on its far side.”

Something in his tone alerted Olmar. “You’re not coming?”

“There is more that I must do.”

“Hanuvar—”

“There are other survivors, aren’t there?” Hanuvar asked him. “Scattered through the empire?”

“Of course. But not all of them will be close to ships. They will be slaves, trapped deep in Dervan lands. They may be too weak to travel. It’s impossible. There’s no hope for them. Come with us and live.”

“Was there hope for you?” Hanuvar demanded.

Olmar fell silent in surprise.

Hanuvar had not meant to sound so caustic. His voice was softer as he turned. “I will find a way, or I will make one.”

The men and women scarcely knew what to say as they neared the beach and Hanuvar took the rowboat to shore. They called to him, blessed him, thanked him, watched him stride into the darkness. They did not expect to see him again.

Elsewhere, though, were others who felt sure he would be seen, for word spread quickly, borne first by official Dervan reports and then by rumors that grew in the telling. Hanuvar had risen from the tomb of his ancestors to wreak vengeance upon the Dervan Empire, a legion of undead warriors at his call, and he would not lie down again until his people were avenged and the emperor himself perished screaming on the altar to his dark gods.

Thus did Hanuvar free the first of his people, in the weeks before I met him in Hidrestus. There, in the largest Dervan city upon the empire’s eastern rim, he found more, slated for battle in the local arena. And while their liberation seemed a relatively simple matter, other minds had planned darker schemes. In truth, it was a wonder any of us escaped alive.

—Sosilos, Book One




3 These terrible nocturnal avian predators are almost never encountered beyond the continent of Kenasa and its close isles. While a variety of crabs form their primary diet, they easily frenzy over competition with their preferred prey, and have been known to attack and kill small bands of men and women who wander into their hunting grounds. As a result, they are hunted to extermination in all civilized lands. Volani legends state that a vengeful Nuvaran sorcerer king unleased them against northern Kenasa when his legions refused to cross the deserts to subjugate the peoples there. Nuvaran scholars write instead that Volani sorcery created the beasts as a barrier to Nuvaran expansion and further claim this is why a vast multitude of gatzi reside to this day in the desolate Ingandi peninsula that extends eastward from Kenasa. While the truth may never be known, the wise reader should question whether any sorcerer has the power to fashion such a plague.

Silenus


4 The emperor’s census of Derva at the time calculated that there were well over 750,000 citizens and slaves residing in the empire’s capital. Estimates are that Volanus housed less than a third that number, but even still, that means some 250,000 souls called Volanus and its suburbs home at the time of the city’s destruction. Disregarding a few thousand who fled as the invading army closed in, it is difficult even now to contemplate the vast numbers who fell, for according to records, only a little over 1,200 people survived to be taken into slavery. Several long months were to pass before Hanuvar himself gained access to these more accurate numbers.

Silenus


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