A fortnight of hard riding followed. Katlyn, Gail, Adamantus, and Tallia left behind the verdant fields and wild grasslands of Karrith and climbed into the windy steppes that waited at the base of the Rimcur range. The mountains appeared some days, breaking through the clouds in the morning, but were often shrouded again by the afternoons. Yet they were a constant presence, sentinels in the north, reminding Katlyn that this indeed was the farthest she had ever been from home.
Tallia, in contrast, was returning to familiar lands, but it was far from a joyous homecoming. They shared the trail with other Maurvant refugees journeying back after the disastrous campaign into Karrith. They included mostly women, youth, and wounded men. Their party also met up with other Maurvant headed to the lowlands. These were the old who had been left behind. They described villages that had fallen into destitution without the able-bodied to tend to the daily tasks of living.
“Our people are ruined,” Tallia said, sniffing and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “And it is this Magus at the center of it all. May his eyes be picked out by crows.”
But as they moved higher into the steppes, they saw it was Maurvant elders who had come to such unfortunate ends. They came upon villages, the outskirts marked by freshly dug graves. And in many places the living had been too weak with starvation or disease to provide burials. The dead were left out in the fields to rot, where vultures and crows gathered around picked over carcasses. Sapphire stayed close, riding in Adamantus’ crown, while Katlyn watched Soot with suspicion, wondering what carcasses he had alighted on when he left Gail’s side.
It was a frigid but clear day when they came upon Tallia’s home village. It was larger than the others they had passed through, but Katlyn would still have hesitated to call it a “town.”
The shelters were made of animal skins draped over long poles. Many were empty and had fallen into disrepair, the wind having torn hides loose, exposing the bare structures and the empty rooms within. As they neared the center of the village they passed by children, their feet wrapped in rags, their stomachs distended with hunger. Old women and men lined the main square, their eyes empty and forlorn. They seemed to have given up any hope of a triumphant return of their children and their children’s children. Now they reached out with calloused hands and begged for any scraps of food that the party could spare.
Tallia knew the elders by name. She embraced each of them, one after another, many weeping and touching her face and the edges of her cloak. They spoke softly to her in their own language. Katlyn imagined that both sides shared somber news. Finally Tallia turned back to Katlyn and the others. “With so many gone there was no one to tend the crops or the few animals left. Yet the Magus remains, demanding his share from the stores.” Tallia spat. “These people wish to leave but they are too afraid of what he will do to them.”
“He is still here?” Adamantus asked, the wind parting the fur on his mane.
Tallia exchanged a few words with a woman with a leathery face, dark skin, and white hair cut short so that it stuck up in tufts. She was not bent like some of the other woman and she wore a saber on her belt. One eye was clouded and bluish-white but the other burned with a fierce intensity. Katlyn sensed this woman had assumed a sort of leadership role in the village in the absence of so many others.
“This is Edith,” Tallia said. “She says the Magus resides in the former chief’s tent. She will take us there. It is nearly noon. He will be expecting his midday meal.”
“Well, we’ll bring him something else to surprise him instead,” Gail said, pulling on the reins of her horse.
“Show us the way,” Adamantus said.
The Maurvant showed mild surprise at the spectacle of a speaking elk. Perhaps with all they had seen from the Magus, nothing surprised them any longer. Perhaps they were old and had already witnessed too much in their long lives, or even perhaps it was simply that they had suffered too much up to now to display any shock. Katlyn knew they had to be hungry, so she handed them a full bag of provisions, for which they bowed with gratefulness.
“That is kind of you,” Tallia said.
“Careful, don’t make a habit of it,” Gail said, the disapproval on her face plain. “Or we will be starving ourselves on the way back.”
“Noted,” Katlyn said, her teeth grinding.
They followed Edith up a hill that had a commanding view of the village below. The tent waiting there was not made of hide, but rather colorful fabric with elaborate geometric designs embroidered onto it. It shook gently in the gusts of wind. Pendants snapped from the poles on its four corners and its center pole. The path to the door was well worn but the ground all about was overgrown with bracken and sere grass, as if no animals dared to come close to graze. A young boy wrapped in furs with a set of crutches next to him, the handles worn smooth, sat next to the front flaps of the tent. He swung himself up on one of the crutches and greeted Tallia and Edith with a hushed voice.
“The Magus, he is in repose,” Tallia said, translating his words.
“Well, we will wake him,” Gail said, nocking back an arrow.
There was a brief moment wherein each prepared for confrontation: Edith drawing her sword, Tallia, a dagger. Katlyn drew her own sword and unhooked a shield from the saddle of her horse. The boy took up his second crutch and started down the hill, his face pale, his eyes darting back over his shoulder.
Adamantus slashed through the front of the tent and dashed inside. Gail, Edith, Tallia, and Katlyn followed in a crushing rush. The interior of the tent was dark and smoky, a fire burned feebly in a brazier near the center of the room. Trays of rotting food sat, each untouched, before the throne carved from pale, blond wood. Between the high arms sat a figure, his size difficult to discern in the dim light and the folds of the royal blue robe that wrapped his body. His face was invisible, hidden by a low hanging hood. Gail did not wait for him to stand—instead she took a knee and let fly an arrow that struck true in the Magus’ heart and lodged there before Adamantus could even speak, “Gail, wait.”
For a moment they all waited, watching the figure, the moment stretching out to a lengthy minute, then another.
“Is he already dead?” Katlyn asked.
“Perhaps,” Adamantus said. “The air smells faintly of rot. But haste is not advisable,” he added, looking askance at Gail.
Gail shrugged and nocked back another arrow, the sound of the string stretching and the bow bending the only noise in the thick air. It was Edith who took a spear from where it leaned in the corner, approached the seated figure, and with the sharpened point lifted the edge of the hood to reveal a withered, desiccated visage. She and Tallia both gasped.
“It is Kiruna,” Tallia said, her hand to her heart. “Our chief.”
“He looks dead,” Gail said. “Like he has been so for a while.”
She was right. Kiruna’s skin was grayish blue, his lips curled back, his cheeks sunken, the skin thinned into threads so that they could see through them into the darkness of his mouth. His hair was falling out in clumps and his eyes closed tight, as if against a great glare.
“And yet, the smell is not right,” Adamantus said, approaching through the gloom. Gail relaxed her pull on her bow and slung it over her shoulder, coming up behind Edith.
“Look at this food. It’s as if he has not eaten in weeks,” she said.
“Yet they still brought him his portion,” Adamantus said.
Tallia leaned against Edith, gazing into the visage of death. “I don’t understand. All this time, it was Kiruna . . . but I thought he had disappeared.”
Edith covered her face in her hands while Gail stepped passed them both, placing her hand on Kiruna’s stiff shoulder and the other around the shaft of her arrow. “Looks like he had you all fooled,” she said with a grunt. “That was a lot easier—”
She did not finish her sentence. Kiruna’s arm snapped up and his hand seized her neck. She tried to scream but all that came out was a whimper before her feet left the ground, Kiruna standing and lifting her into the air. His eyes snapped opened with a dry crackling noise and he looked out at them with eyes that were empty except for a menacing blue light.
“Adamantus!” Katlyn cried out.
Edith, being closest, lowered her spear shaft and thrust it into Kiruna’s chest. It passed through him and emerged on the other side in a plume of dust. With his free hand, he tore it out and flung it off to the side.
Gail was kicking to loose herself, to no effect. Her eyes bulged and her face turned a shade of purple as she struggled for air. Adamantus was next to charge, swinging his antlers and chopping off Kiruna’s arm. It fell to the ground with a dry crushing sound, like a sack of autumn leaves. Gail hit the floor, gasping, and rolled away over trays of rotting food, dishes and cups clattering.
Losing an arm and being impaled with a spear did not slow Kiruna. Instead he curled his lips, barred his gray teeth, and set his gaze on Adamantus.
“Stygorn, you are too late and too weak to challenge me.” A dry brittle voice like a cackle came from his throat as he raised his remaining hand and his fingertips began to glow. Light arched among his fingers and gathered into a blue-white ball of light. Just before Kiruna released it, he tumbled over, Gail having rolled back and sliced his knee. The bolt of lightning went wide of Adamantus but struck Edith in a searing flash. She fell back, her body smoking, the blade of her sword glowing red hot. Adamantus ducked his head and swung up with his rack of antlers just as Kiruna began to regain his balance. The elk was too quick, however, and the antlers did their work, slicing through Kiruna’s neck and sending his head spinning from his shoulder to roll along the floor into the corner where the eyes still glowed.
Gail crossed the room, set her foot on the decapitated head and fired an arrow into each eye before she collapsed against the center pole, panting. Tallia rushed to Edith’s side but the woman was dead, her body smelling of cooked flesh. Tallia began to weep.
“By the stars what was that thing?” Gail asked.
Adamantus moved close to the mutilated, mummified body and drew the cloak aside with a hoof. In the dim light they could see a bright blue stone set in a leather choker around the severed neck. Katlyn realized she had seen the same type of stone before, on King Oean.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A moonstone,” Adamantus said, lifting the leather collar and stone with a point of his antlers. Its surface moved as if clouds of blue-white swirled just under its surface. “Very powerful and very dangerous.”
“Is that what gave Kiruna his power? Did it make him the Magus?” Tallia asked.
“No, it made him a slave to the Magus. Anyone wearing this, living or dead, would be under the control of the Magus. Kiruna died long ago but his body was a revenant, allowing the Magus, wherever he was, to control him, to see through his eyes, to rule through his victim.”
“Adamantus, King Oean was wearing one when he sentenced Haille. It was a trophy stolen from a dead Maurvant captain.”
“Likely another one of the Magus’s servants.”
“Does that mean the Magus is controlling Oean?” Katlyn asked.
“Yes, in part. But it takes time for the wielder of the stones to take full control. At that point the wearer is usually dead.” The elk turned his head to Edith’s body. “This does not bode well for us.”
“Or Haille,” Katlyn said.
“So Kiruna was long dead?” Tallia asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Adamantus said.
“Then who spoke? Who called you Stygorn? Who said you were too late and too weak?” Gail asked
“The Magus, wherever he is,” the elk said. He dropped his head, cut a hole in the side of the tent, allowing in fresh air and daylight, then stepped out.