The Ghost's Crusade

XXIII. Tiernan

An oddly surprised look came across Akkali's face when she heard Tiernan's numb answer. For a moment she squinted at him, then abruptly reached out her good hand and pressed her thumb up against the scar beneath his left eye. He flinched slightly at the unexpected touch but refused to step away.

Her face darkened into a disturbing and hateful scowl as she removed her hand, the tone in her voice as she spoke coldly similar to the one she had used while they had fought to wrest Cyril's spirit from Hallia's body outside Baedorn. "I knew it."

"Knew what?"

"That scar," she muttered. "I noticed the taint when I was purging the werewolf poison. I know what did that to you."

A nearby explosion of thunder and lightning briefly cast the world into sharp shadows and muffled sounds. "Let's go inside to talk."

The Enkiri turned abruptly on her heels and set out at an alarmingly quick pace back to the Antenox inn. They barely made it back beneath the roof before the downpour of chilling rain and angry thunder began in earnest.

Tiernan did not miss the new shadows in the rafters above the stables, though he could not make out their faces. They had raised the alert since he had walked in, though he wasn't quite sure why. The stableboy James and the odd fellow within the house didn't seem all too concerned with his presence while he was there earlier.

Garret rose from his place by the fire poking at his stew pot when they walked in and greeted Akkali with a smile. "I put Hallia to bed upstairs. The dog went with her."

"Ah, thank you," stammered Akkali, the look on her face saying she was clearly glad the girl was not there. "How is she?"

"Still set of mind." The man's face lost its grandfatherly charm as he continued, becoming cold and grim like that of an old warrior who had seen one too many loosing battles in his life. "It would indeed be best to take her to Taskmaster Galerius in Cambria City. If she does not change her mind, he and Snerra are the best among us to prepare her for the path."

Akkali glared at the fire and for a moment Tiernan though he would see it flare up and engulf the entire hearth to reflect the anger in her eyes. "I would not wish any Enkiri to venture into the City while Imbrusil is still frozen."

"Speak with the Inquisitor," said Garret, motioning towards where Tiernan had been standing still in the doorway. "I will see to contacting Galerius."

The man left the room through a door which he locked behind himself, though the sound was almost lost as another crack of thunder rattled the tiles on the roof. As the winds swirled around the chimney the low fire burning in the fireplace flared brightly with the influx of air, then died back down just as quickly. Akkali snatched a few more logs from the pile opposite the stew pot and threw them into the fire, then sat back down on the sandstone hearth.

Tiernan briefly considered sitting in the wingback chair but had an odd feeling that it would somehow be offensive to the Inferi. He walked back to the counter and claimed one of the three-legged stools lined up before it, then perched himself in front of Akkali.

"What do you know?" he asked quietly, running his finger along his scar. Ever since his face had been struck by the Oratio the wound always looked blood-red and fresh, though it had been sewn up and healed over for more than a decade. "About this."

Akkali hunched over and rested her elbows on her thighs. "It was made by a demon's claw. A schaden talon—nasty bat-like things that hide in the shadows of living people draining their souls. An Oratio tried to assassinate my former master with one—he fed the would-be killer to the schaden instead, then had it killed and took a talon from each foot. He kept one for himself and gave the other to his apprentice, Simon Pelenbrook, as a gift on the day he received his patents as an Oratio."