Within the Bone

XXVI. Audience with the Enemy

The smell of cold blood on the wind, sickly sweet and rotting, sent a shiver down Mara's spine that had nothing to do with winter's chill. She gripped Isbrand's pauldrons more tightly, holding herself to the warg-rider's back. "What is ahead?" Her voice sounded uncomfortably shaky even to her own ears. "A battle?"

Isbrand paid her no heed, whistling to a pair of his soldiers to get their attention as they rode. "Aldegar, Landric, take that hill to the south of the road quietly. I do not think it is bandits so close to Valkaldr, but it does not hurt to be cautious."

The two warg riders saluted their sergeant crisply and broke away from the group as everyone else came to a stop, vanishing into the woodline. For such large beasts, the wargs could move with a surprising stealth. Their paws were almost soundless on the earth, a far cry from the clopping of a horse's hooves.

As she waited, Mara felt echoes stir through her shattered mind. For days now, maybe weeks, she constantly felt unsettled as little fragments floated to the surface. Sometimes the memories were benign, but other times the unknowable horrors that woke her at night left her screaming and crying practically insensibly. The strangers with her were of little comfort, but Isbrand also hadn't been cruel. He usually just shook her firmly and repeated over and over, "You are awake."

She wanted Aallotar, but the wildling still had not found her. Every hour that passed without her left a cancerous worry growing in Mara's stomach. What if the Immortal had doubled back and killed her? More often than not, Mara wished she had fought and burned herself to nothingness to protect the wildling, but a cold reason told her the current situation was their best hope of survival.

She wouldn't have wanted you to die.

Minutes passed in silence until Aldegar and Landric returned. "It is the blood of the legion's justice on the wind," Landric reported. "They crucified three men at the crossroads. The condemned's crimes decorate their necks. Beyond is Valkaldr, just as we left it."

Isbrand adjusted his position in the saddle, jostling Mara slightly. "Barbarians?"

Landric nodded. He was lanky and tall even for a warg-rider, with eyes as sharp as an eagle's. "Bandits seeking to take advantage of the chaos. They attacked a scouting party."

The sergeant's brow furrowed. "Only three?"

Aldegar shrugged. "Only three must have survived to be punished."

"Crucified?" Mara whispered when Isbrand nodded and motioned for his men to move out.

"Crucifixion is a method of execution," Isbrand explained as they rode down the main path. "A post is fixed into the earth and another placed horizontally above that. We nailed the condemned to it and leave them to hang until they die. If their executioner feels merciful, he will break their legs to speed the process."

Mara shuddered. "That's horrible."

"No worse than the offerings the people of the Red Mountains make to their war gods. At least our cruelties are meted out to the deserving."

"Like Immortalis Aelius striking you for insubordination?" Mara muttered.

She heard Isbrand's frown in his voice when he answered. "It is not your place to question the servant of a Divine Prince any more than it is mine, barbarian. I deserve chastisement for disobedience. That is why I will stand to account before my commander and make my case."

In the distance, Mara caught sight of proud Valkaldr and let out a hiss of shock. The city's famous fortifications were a blackened scar, the walls utterly demolished. Nearby, protected by a bend in the river, a second city seemed to have arisen. It stood walled in stone and surrounded by earthen works beyond that, carefully laid out in a perfectly square checkerboard encampment. Valkaldr stood a city of about 60,000—the fortification next to it could probably claim a population somewhere between a third and half the size. Every military camp Mara had ever seen was chaotic, ordered by clans and chieftains with their own ideas of discipline, but that did not seem the story with the neat rows of structures and planned, perfect avenues within the camp, the main promenades large enough for formations to form.