Meek

Chapter 67: Throne

Eli swept a spark in front of Dorgo. Thirty or forty feet ahead, the wall dropped out of sight, like a river turning into a waterfall.

And the wall wasn't the only thing that stopped. The rooftop stopped, too, the entire ocean of stone. They'd reached the massive basin at the base of Heaven's Reach, a deep bowl scooped from the center of the city. A bowl or a quarry, like he'd thought earlier, a boxy pit. Three or four city blocks wide, in an uneven rectangular sharp, with ramps and excavated caverns.

The spire rose from the center of the quarry, though Eli couldn't see the floor, not from that far away.

What he could see was the people at the very end of the wall-walk. Five of them. Three mercenaries stood guard: Fishhook, a younger man, and a hefty woman with a long braid. That didn't surprise Eli, but the final two people made him frown in confusion.

They were both women. One was sitting primly on a chair facing the 'quarry,' a plump middle-aged woman with her gray hair in a bun, wearing a dress that looked better suited for a schoolroom than a battlefield. And at her feet, another woman seemed to drowse, wrapped in a pile of blankets. One of her slender arms emerged from the blankets, and her hand was wrapped loosely around the seated woman's ankle.

"Uh," Eli said.

"No idea," Payde said.

"The one in the chair is Miss Elsavet," Dorgo said, tromping closer. "Well, Mage Elsavet. Three-fold mage."

"By the Choir," Payde said, looking impressed.

"Yeah," Dorgo said. "Never seen anything like her. That's Commander Swan wiping her brow."

"And the one at her feet?" Lara asked.

"Lady Brazinka."

"What's she doing on--"

Ahead of them, Fishhook gave as sharp whistle, interrupting Loara, then barked at them to move their arses. Dorgo broke into a trot, moving with surprising grace for a man his size. The Shepherds and Lara followed along while Eli took up the rear, though his spark shot higher for a better view.

The base of the Reach was obscured by yards-deep layers of scaffolding, built of rough-hewn planks and barely-hewn branches. The scaffolding narrowed as it rose higher on the Reach, until far overhead only a single walkway surrounded the melted stone.

Far overhead. A quarter of the way to the now-darkening clouds.

An impressive feat of engineering.

The spark showed him deeper into the quarry at the base of the Reach, too. The mist thinned, revealing that the far wall was pitted with caves and lined with outcroppings. Ramps and walkways and ledges had been hewn from the stone. Except no. Those hadn't been 'hewn,' they were unmelted, or partially-unmelted, remnants of ancient buildings.

Of an ancient palace.

The caves were sagging doors or archways, leading into shadowed rooms. The ledges had once been balconies or terraces. The walkways were the remains of palatial corridors or promenades, and the curving ramps had once been grand staircases.

Closer to the ground, he saw outcroppings decorated with ... he couldn't tell what. Looked like bleached bones and worn clothing, arranged in strange patterns on stained rocks.

On altars.

Blood-stained altars.

As he followed the others closer to the end of the wall, his sparks showed him more of the quarry. A handful of buildings peeked around the base of the Reach. Looked like a bandit camp, with barracks and a makeshift forge and a sparring circle.

On the far side, there were filthy pens for the forced laborers ... or the risen.

Between the two clusters of building, Eli caught sight of a long shack standing beside stacks of logs, with cant-hooks and axes and bucking saws. The ground was littered with sawdust and scrap wood and greenwood poles.

A sawmill dedicated to building the scaffolding. And maybe the catapult from West Town, too.

Empty now, as far as Eli could see.

The entire quarry looked empty, though he couldn't see the floor closest to his side of the quarry, not yet. And his spark caught a whiff of familiar rot as he approached the end of the wall.

When Fishhook stepped forward to intercept them, Eli saw the reason for his name. The scar on his face must've been intentionally carved to resemble a hook. No accident would've produced that. Other than the scar, Fishhook looked like the image of a grizzled veteran: a lanky man with salt-and-pepper hair, who wore his sword as if he'd been born with it. His forehead was furrowed and his eyes were watchful and wary.

Except they smiled briefly when he greeted Riadn and Payde. "Better late than never."

"Captain," Riadn said.

"Lawrence," Payde said.

"Who're these?" Fishhook asked.

"She's Lara, he's Meek."

"Why'd you bring them?"

"Maybe we brought them," Lara told him. "We're here for the kids. Where are they?"

"They're dryn," Riadn explained to Fishhook. "She's a tracker, he's a one-fold Palm who can't heal anyone else."

"Less of a Palm and more of a pinkie finger," Payde said.

"Bring them here," Commander Swan called.

When Fishhook led them to her, Eli finally got close enough the the edge of the quarry to look almost straight down.

At the bottom of the quarry, a crowd of risen stood facing him, wearing torn rags and shredded flesh. Holding clubs and axes and spears. Maybe forty of them. Completely motionless, separated by an arm's length from each other.

As still as the dead. Heads forward, cataracted eyes staring, rictus smiles wide.

Some of them were clearly recently-dead. Skinny to the point of starvation, wearing gloves and smocks of lumber workers. And ten or fifteen of them looked like freshly-killed soldiers. Bandits and mercenaries both, wearing bloody armor and wielding good weapons.

Eli got the sense that more risen waited directly below the end of the wall, but he couldn't see that close to the quarry wall without pushing past the Shepherds.

So instead of straining to see the risen, he focused on the women with his other spark.

The one in the chair--Mage Elsavet--sat erect, with her eyes closed and her hands on her knees. There was a splatter of blood across the shawl that draped her shoulders. She breathed steadily but one of her closed eyes was twitching, and her knuckles were white, like she was clinging onto a cliffside for dear life.

Lady Brazinka, he couldn't see much except a fall of brown hair and her arm extending from the blanket to touch the older woman's ankle. Sleeping there, and touching the mage for comfort? Strange, but nobles were strange.

Commander Swan straightened from beside the chair and looked exhausted. With red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and a bandage on one arm.

"She can't last much longer," Swan said. "An hour at the outside."

"Forty minutes at the outside," Elsavet said, her voice crisp despite her words.

"Fill us in," Riadn told Fishhook.

"Look for yourself," he said, and gestured to the very end of the wall, where it plummeted into the quarry.

"That's a lot of them," Payde said, when he got close enough to see the rows of risen. "But with all your fighters, plus us and ..." He swore at what he saw next. "Oh."

"Bury my bones," Lara breathed. "The witch."

Eli's spark moved ahead of them and showed him what he'd been missing.

More risen--including a few 'pets.' Deer and wolves and a boar. Then another twenty living bandits, flanking a throne, except ...

"Vale," Payde gasped.

"Waves," Riadn murmured.

The Bloodwitch sat on a throne of the risen. Eight or nine of them crouched beneath her and stood behind her, hands clasping each other, legs interlocked, teeth gripping exposed bone, to stay in position. A swaying mass of dead flash upon which a small woman reclined.

She was hairless. Her skin was gray-white like a cloud and her eyes were the same. She smiled in an approximation of her creatures' rictus grins as she spoke in a soft voice and took of bites of ... of whatever she was eating, lazing there on her heavendamned throne.

A ramp rose in front of her. A ramp made of melted remnants of the wall Eli was standing on. The surface under his feet dipped sharply a few yard in front of him. Then fell into a sheer drop. Then five yards down, it straightened slightly, turning first diagonal then even flatter.

And a crowd of children huddled on the ramp: twelve of them, shivering and filthy.

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