17: TIGA PASS
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since two women became the de facto heads of House D’Mon
“Please tell me you’re not married to Teraeth,” Kihrin said.
“Technically—” Brother Qown started to say as Ninavis handed him a cup of coffee.
“I’m not married to Teraeth,” Janel said. She reached over to flick thumb and forefinger against the priest’s shoulder. “Don’t give him a heart attack.”
Qown sipped his cup, smiling.
“Who’s this stallion you’re talking about?” Dorna demanded. “Teraeth? How come I ain’t met this man?”
Dorna hadn’t demanded any such introduction to Kihrin. But he suspected everyone in the tavern knew his identity.
“Dorna, I’ve never met him in the Living World,” Janel said, “but if I ever do, I promise I’ll bring him around to meet you.” She paused. “Assuming he ever figures out he’s not in charge.”
“Oh, you have got to stop falling for stallions who think you have to be the mare,” Ninavis said, shaking her head. “Anyway, you don’t even know if he’s alive.”
“Oh, Teraeth’s alive,” Kihrin said, feeling much better about the entire conversation. Teraeth hadn’t won Janel over? Perfect.1 “I spent a few years training with him. He is, however, an assassin and would-be revolutionary.”
Ninavis grinned. “Oh, now you’re talking. Sounds like my kind of man.”
Dorna held up a finger. “But is he reins or saddle? That’s the question.”
Kihrin frowned. “What does—gods, you’re not talking about horses again, are you? Stop that.”
Everyone, save perhaps Brother Qown, had a good laugh.
“Now keep going,” Dorna said, waving. “I want to hear what happened to my foal.”
“Oh, we’ve been switching back and forth, Mare Dorna,” Brother Qown explained, “so our voices don’t wear out.” He pulled out his journal and started to read.
Qown’s Turn. Just outside the Tiga Pass, Jorat, Quur.
They traveled from Mereina to Atrine in the most miserable fashion. The weather continued to be execrable since leaving the estava. Brother Qown resorted to using magic to keep them from losing fingers and toes to the cold, and not even Sir Baramon protested. They were only able to forage after several days, when the weather finally turned in their favor. Later, they stopped at a small village to buy supplies.
Brother Qown chose not to point out the count never seemed to need healing. Her skin stayed warm no matter how cold the ice or snow, as if she kept a real fire behind her red eyes.
By the second week, they had moved to areas of Jorat beyond the reach of Aeyan’arric’s cold snap. The land bloomed with flowers. Smiling was easier. The count woke one morning as if she’d never known pain nor suffering, a broad smile on her face, which made even Dorna stop and stare.
“Were you any other, foal, I’d say you must have had sweet dreams.”
“Sweet enough,” the count agreed. She looked to her side, blinked, and then shook her head. “I keep expecting to see Arasgon.”
“He’ll find us soon enough,” Sir Baramon said. The man stretched, groaning. “Every part of me is sore. Even my toenails ache.”
“Oh, do I need to take a look—” Brother Qown started to offer.
“I’m fine,” Sir Baramon snapped.
The count stopped smiling.
“Qown’s Blood of Joras, you know,”2 Dorna said. “Don’t treat the boy like he’s a local mare. Let him help you.”
“Blood of what?” Brother Qown said. “Wait, what am I?”
But Dorna had stopped paying attention to him. Her stare focused on Janel. “Foal? What’s wrong?”
“The Tiga Pass.” Janel pointed. “Look at it.”
Brother Qown turned toward the north. They had almost reached the switchbacked trails and bridges leading from the Grazings of southern Jorat, to the Great Steppes, where both Tolamer and Jorat’s capital, Atrine, were located. They’d come this way to reach Barsine the first time. While Qown preferred the trails to climbing the sharp steppe cliffs, it was still a narrow, unpleasant, vertigo-inducing experience.
But what made his gut clench was the pass’s color.
White as snow.
No one spoke, but they rushed to break camp. The count’s urgency infected everyone. Brother Qown found himself missing Cloud, the gelding Janel had given him when she’d first learned Qown didn’t own a horse. He’d never considered himself a horseman (and Dorna would be quick to point out this was still true), but Cloud had made himself easy to love.
“We could always take the Great Lift,” Dorna pointed out.
“That’s another hundred miles,” Janel snapped.
“Look at the snow. It don’t ever snow in Tiga Pass. If that dragon’s up there, we should be someplace else.”
“I have to be sure,” the count said, and kept walking.
Dorna cursed under her breath and exchanged a parental look with Sir Baramon, but he shrugged as if to say, What can we do? and followed Janel.
They all did.
As soon as they crested the pass, Brother Qown knew the count’s worst suspicions had borne bitter fruit. The Tiga Pass was the busiest and best way to travel from the plateau to the lower grazing fields. As such, the pass saw all the traffic too poor or stubborn to use the Quuros gate system. When they had come this way themselves they had stayed just outside town, too poor to afford to pay for hospitality and too proud to beg.
The experience had, in fact, been what inspired Janel to start hunting bounties in the first place.
Now the pass and the town lay under a glacial layer, frozen solid.
The count didn’t wait for them to catch up. She walked, then ran.
“Don’t you go leave us—” Dorna choked off her scold as something moved near the town’s far side.
Aeyan’arric, the Lady of Storms, raised her head from where she’d been napping.
The count skidded to a stop. They all did, barely believing they’d been so caught out in the open. They couldn’t hide without shelter or nearby buildings, even trees. They were exposed.
And the dragon saw them.
Brother Qown knew they were about to die.
Aeyan’arric could’ve killed them in an instant. Qown didn’t possess nearly enough skill in battle magic to fend off a dragon. They carried no weapons that might affect such a creature. Aeyan’arric was larger than the town.
Count Janel stood still. The dragon and the girl stared at each other.
Then Aeyan’arric launched herself into the air and flew away, sweeping north.
Silence lingered over the frozen town.
Brother Qown couldn’t be certain what had saved them, but he had his suspicions. He didn’t think it was mercy. Rather, Brother Qown suspected Aeyan’arric hadn’t killed them for the same reason he wouldn’t kill a beetle if he saw one in the woods—what care did he have for the fate of beetles?
As Aeyan’arric took to the air, Janel ran toward the town for all the good it would serve. Every resident was dead.
Brother Qown couldn’t help but wonder just how closely the tragedy here had followed the pattern of Mereina. Had a white-skinned Doltari witch released a cloud of magic blue smoke here too? Or was this the dragon’s random attack?
It had been a very long time since Quur had seen a rampaging dragon.
When they caught up with the count, she’d fallen to her knees in the middle of town. Her eyes were bright and wet.
The temperature near her felt warmer than it should, given the surrounding ice. And that temperature grew less tolerable by the second. The ice under Janel’s knees began to melt, uncovering spring grass.
Sir Baramon drew his sword, looking around as if expecting some new attack.
“Foal, you mustn’t,” Dorna whispered. “Stop this.”
A choking sob came from the Count of Tolamer.
Dorna put a hand on Janel’s shoulder. “Please child. Stop.”
The thawed grass near Janel’s feet burst into flame. Dorna removed her hand and backed away.
“We should find shelter,” Brother Qown offered, not certain what else he could say. The sky grew darker with every passing minute. The storms Aeyan’arric’s passing summoned were on their way.
“There’s no time,” Sir Baramon said.
“Count, I know—” Brother Qown cleared his throat, feeling the panic rise. He was speaking just to speak, with no goal. He had no idea how to persuade Janel to stop using a spell-gift—one she may not have consciously been aware she possessed. Did she even realize she was thawing the ice? That she was setting nearby objects on fire?
“If we heat an empty azhock,” Qown continued, “then we might be safe enough here, at least until the storm clears.” He didn’t mention food. They didn’t have enough.
No one said a word, not even Sir Baramon. They all held their breath. The count’s affinity with flame proved to be one of those terrible truths everyone accepted, as long as no one ever acknowledged it aloud.
Brother Qown wondered if he could take credit for the fire, claim the spell work as his own. Dorna’s reminder that Qown was a “Blood of Joras” (whatever that meant) seemed to have given the priest immunity from the crime of practicing magic. As such, Sir Baramon would have an easier time accepting Qown as the flames’ source, rather than his count.
Janel wiped her eyes with her hands. “I can’t control it,” she whispered.3
“You can learn,” Brother Qown suggested. “You’re not a witch.”
She flinched. “You mean the way Tamin isn’t a witch?”
“What does it mean, to be Blood of Joras?” he asked. He’d been willing to let the question slide before. Not now.
She sighed.
Dorna answered in her stead. “When Emperor Kandor freed us from the horse god, Khorsal, he asked for all our mage folk in return—because our mages were the strongest in the whole world. Mostly that meant the great wizard Joras, who had led the rebellion against Khorsal. Important man, that Joras—Kandor named our dominion after him, you know. Anyway—Joras gathered up his family and all his blood kin. He took his whole clan, and they all went back west to teach and intermarry among all you Quuros—”
“Jorat is part of the Quuros Empire. We’re all Quuros.”
“No,” Dorna corrected. “You’re Quuros. We’re Joratese. Anyhow, his kin went back there so you folks would have powerful mages too. And that’s why you all know magic so good. Blood of Joras means Joras’s blood runs in your veins, giving you his powers. Anyone else who can do magic must have made deals with demons or been tainted by Marakori blood. And they sure make deals with demons, don’t they?”
Brother Qown blinked. “Are you … are you saying using magic is okay if you’re descended from a particular lineage?” He looked to the other two, but neither one seemed to think anything Dorna said was shocking or a surprise.
She humphed. “I didn’t say I believed it. I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but you asked.”
Brother Qown turned back to Janel. “Your eyes are red. Anywhere else in the empire and they would just assume you’re an Ogenra bastard, of House D’Talus. Their wizards specialize in fire. So maybe you’re Blood of Joras too and not a witch by anyone’s standards.” He left out the part where the rest of Quur would still consider her a witch because she was unlicensed—as all women were unlicensed. He’d leave that talk for another day.
“Are you implying she’s of tainted blood?” Sir Baramon had been pulled back into the conversation.
Dorna punched him hard in the shoulder. “Shut it, you. Janel’s mother was a commoner. Maybe Frena was one of them ‘oginrays.’ You don’t know.”
“Ogenra,” Brother Qown corrected.
“Oh, go soak it,” Dorna snapped. “I don’t give a ripe plum how you say the damn word.”
Janel rose to her feet. “All of you. Stay back.”
Dorna took Sir Baramon’s arm and began pulling him away from the town—as if Baramon was a child who didn’t understand not to stray under a merchant cart’s wheels. He looked anguished.
Brother Qown heard water trickling from the ice near Janel as it thawed in a growing circle and rapidly uncovered bodies.
Bodies that animated.
“Oh, Selanol,” Brother Qown prayed. “Count, look!”
Dorna drew back in frightened shock.
“Behind me,” Sir Baramon called out, drawing his sword.
Brother Qown forced himself to remember that Baramon’s sword skills were impressive, whatever his weight.
The count stood her ground. She unsheathed her sword and waited for the demon-possessed dead to find her.
Brother Qown tried to think of anything he could do to help. A blessing might make the demons pause, but not much more. These demons were not physically present. Instead, they were exploiting the halfway state of corpses, worming their way into a puppetlike presence in the land of the living. These demons must have possessed the dead, only to find themselves trapped in the ice.
Qown frowned. The dragon had thwarted the demons’ ability to start a Hellmarch.4
Janel swung her sword. A village woman’s head rolled away from its shoulders. A dead man swung at her, and Count Janel ducked to the side and punched it hard enough to dislocate its jaw and stagger it. She then made a mighty overhand cut with her sword, cleaving the corpse from shoulder to groin.
These dead were too frozen to bleed.
“Don’t thaw any more out!” Dorna cried out.
If the count heard her, she didn’t acknowledge it. She stepped forward and swung at another demon.
Then a little girl stepped forward.
The count hesitated.
A flash of motion to Brother Qown’s side caught his attention. He turned to look and realized a chestnut-haired corpse in tattered homespun hadn’t gone to attack Count Janel but had instead moved to flank them.
He yelped and jumped backward, tangled his foot on his agolé’s train, and tripped.
Sir Baramon came to Qown’s defense immediately. The knight struck out with his sword, but he didn’t have the count’s demonic strength. He opened a long, shallow cut in the demon’s frozen flesh. The demon ignored the blow and swung at Brother Qown.
Brother Qown screamed.
The demon lashed out with curled fingers, and Sir Baramon pulled Brother Qown to the side. The knight struck again, this time hewing off an arm.
The corpse kept fighting, anyway. Of course.
Then its head rolled away from its shoulders. Count Janel stood behind the falling body, eyes looking like twin suns.
“That was the last,” she said. “Are you two all right?”
“Damn thing nicked my arm,” Sir Baramon said. “No worse than I’ve taken in a bout. I’m fine.”
“Let me look,” Brother Qown said.
“That can wait.” Sir Baramon told Brother Qown. “We have to make sure there’s no more.”
“Oh, I reckon there’s one for every frozen person,” Dorna said, brushing her hands against each other. “But they’re all trapped under ice, so as long as we don’t go and melt that, we’re safe as foals.” She stopped and gave Janel a hard look. “Now tell me. Tell me you ain’t gonna insist we unfreeze them.”
Janel’s expression was ugly. Behind her on the ground lay a rumple of homespun covering multiple corpses. Janel pointed to an azhock that stood far enough from the main town that it hadn’t been frozen and from which no dead had emerged. “Shelter there. Don’t come out until I return.”
“And then what?” Dorna didn’t tell her not to do it. She knew how well Janel would have listened.
“And then we keep going to Atrine. We’ll melt the snow the whole way there if we have to.”
Janel waited until the rest of them had taken shelter.
Then she began her deadly work.