The Oracle’s Queen

“You not fight me,” Mahti warned. “I wish not to harm any.”

“Well ain’t that sweet?” the tall one growled, closing in. “And what you going to ‘harm’ us with? That walking stick? I don’t see no sword on your belt, friend.”

Mahti cocked his head, curious. “You call me ‘friend’ but voice and sword say ‘enemy.’ Go away, you. I will go my own way in peace.”

They were almost close enough to strike. Mahti sighed. He’d given fair warning. Raising the oo’lu to his lips, he blew a catamount cry at them. His attackers sprang back in surprise, as he’d hoped.

“Balls, what were that?” the third one said. He sounded much younger than the other two.

“You go,” Mahti warned again. “I kill you if you don’t.”

“That ain’t no Zengat,” the leader growled. “We got us a filthy little hill witch here. That’s one of them fancy bullroarers. Cut his throat before he gets up to mischief!”

Before they could attack Mahti began the drone of the bees. They stopped again, and this time they dropped their weapons and grabbed their heads in pain. The young one fell to his knees, screaming.

Mahti played louder, watching the other two fall writhing to the ground. The blood that burst from their ears and noses looked black in the moonlight. If they were innocent men, the magic would not hurt them so. Only the guilty with murder in their hearts and blood on their hands reacted like this. Mahti played on, louder and stronger until all three stopped thrashing and crying out and lay still in the grass. He changed to the song he’d used to lift the souls out of the bodies of Teolin and Irman’s old wife, and played over the body of the leader. This time, however, he ended it with a sharp raven’s croak that severed the thin thread of spirit that tethered the soul to the body. He did the same with the man in the hat, but let the boy live. He was young enough that perhaps this life hadn’t been his choice.

The spirits of the two dead men flittered around the bodies like angry bats. Mahti left them to find whatever afterlife southlanders had and continued on his way without a backward glance.

Chapter 14

The weather around the isthmus was always unpredictable, but even here, summer finally arrived with warmer days and softer winds. The coarse grass above the cliffs came to life, looking like a strip of green velvet stretched between the blue and silver seas on either side. Small flowers carpeted the waysides and even grew from the cracks in the stonework along the walls and in the courtyards.

Riding along the cliffs with Korin and the Companions, Lutha tried to find hope in the new season. Rumors still came thick and fast from the south, carried by the shaken warlords and nobles.

A sprawling encampment was slowly spreading over the flat ground before the fortress, nearly five thousand men in all. It wasn’t only cavalry and foot, either. Fifteen stout ships under the command of Duke Morus of Black Stag Harbor rode at anchor in Cirna harbor. By all reports, Tobin had only the few that had survived the Plenimaran raid.

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