The Silver Scar Read online

  He spat out, “Wolf, he’s—”

  Castile hissed for silence, a sound so fierce Trinidad obeyed without thought. Bullets scuffed the dirt at their heels. They kept running and let the shadows swallow them.

  THIRTY-NINE

  They drugged Wolf and laid him on a cot, his wrist bound to Marius’ so he couldn’t escape while he roved. It didn’t take the bishop long to fall asleep, despite being tied by lengths of rope to Wolf and two more archwardens. Exhaustion was an ever-present shadow on the cusp of her crusade.

  After succumbing to the sedative, Wolf had first roved to his own room in the barracks. He spent what seemed hours there, ignoring Marius. She was willing to wait. He was hers now, whether he realized it or not. But by the time he roved to the sanctuary, looking for Trinidad, her patience gave way. He quickly realized he could rove nowhere without Marius in tow. So he refused to move from the church, staring past her. Candlelight gleamed off his scarred cheek and neck, the slick burn looking crimson and alien against his unmarred skin.

  And yet Marius reflected, the boy had a certain appeal. The unburned side showed promising signs of adult handsomeness. But it went deeper than looks. He had a quiet charisma. Familiar, and highly annoying.

  “Why are you following me?” he said, casting a glance at the shadows dancing against the corners of his dreamscape, where her archwardens waited. His good eyelid twitched.

  “To make certain you don’t do anything else wrong.”

  “I-I haven’t.” He paused, blinking in confusion.

  “You went to the jail and freed Trinidad and the Wiccan,” she said.

  His brow furrowed. “You mean Castile?”

  “Castile,” she agreed. “You freed them. I have a witness who saw you with them.”

  “I did?” he said. “I don’t remember.”

  She drifted closer. “You don’t remember a lot of things. Convenient, that.”

  He opened his mouth but closed it.

  “But there is something,” she said. “You remember how to rove.”

  His arm, bound to hers, involuntarily twitched. “I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t know this … rove.”

  “Don’t you want to help your brother?” she asked.

  His gaze flicked to her face. “You put him in jail.”

  “To keep him safe,” she said, and knelt by him. “I’m trying to protect our people, as Trinidad does.”

  “Trin protects all the people. Not just Christians.”

  That made her stumble, but she recovered quickly. “Yes. And that’s why I want him back. We need more men like him with us, to show us the way. He’s very godly, our Trinidad.”

  Wolf blinked, considered.

  “Will you take me to him?” she asked.

  “I tried … I can’t find him.”

  “He’s not asleep yet,” she said. “But he must be tired. He’ll rest soon. Where will they go?”

  “They won’t want me to say,” Wolf said, straightening his back. He knew, then, more than he was letting on. A clear signal to find out what the boy was made of.

  “Do you know what happens,” she said, drawing the sword at her side and turning it between them so the candlelight flickered along its edge. “When we kill in dreams?”

  Wolf nodded, dark eyes fixed on the blade.

  “But it doesn’t have to be that way,” she said. “You saw Trinidad’s scars, didn’t you? The silver. It heals. It’s holy, a gift from God. We need the sand to help our people. Trinidad and Castile know the way there. They claim you do, too.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, shook his head. “I don’t.”

  She laid the flat of her blade on his shoulder. “Then perhaps you’re not as much use to me as I thought.”

  He tried to lean away. She let her blade nick the side of his neck.

  He swallowed hard. She pressed it deeper, watched blood well over the razor edge. He blinked hard. “Don’t. Please.”

  She sighed and slowly slipped the sword an inch, making the slice in his skin longer. He cringed away; the blade followed.

  “I have no time or patience left for those who do not serve God. I know what you did. I know about the bombs—”

  “That wasn’t my fault. That was …” he faltered.

  “It was what?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. Trin …” he stopped, looked up at her. His throat moved against her blade as he swallowed.

  “Trinidad put a gun to your head.”

  A sorrowful nod. “He said he was taking me hostage and that he might have to kill me.”

  “Hmm. That doesn’t much sound like a man protecting his brother.”

  “He was! He …” His voice was barely audible. “He said he was.”

  Marius wondered what he was thinking, what he was remembering. But she really only needed the answer to one question. “Where is Trinidad?”

  Wolf lowered his chin. He held himself stiffly, trembling against the blade. “The cave. Castile’s coven. But I don’t know where it is.”

  She pulled the blade away as a reward. “You can find it.”

  He pressed his fingers to his cut. They came away smeared with a good deal of blood. “I can’t.”

  “You can. You’ve been there. You just don’t remember since it was from your former life.”

  “I don’t know what you mean—”

  “You had another life. You even have another name. I know you don’t remember. Would you like to know what it is?”

  He blinked rapidly.

  “Israel.” She whispered it, softly, as Javelot had instructed her to do. Toying with a trance subject’s keyword was dangerous.

  For a moment he looked blank, erased, as if a trance was taking hold. But his lips parted and he shook his head. “You’re lying.”

  “Those burns are from your parents’ explosion,” she said. “Trinidad’s parents as well. You’re truly brothers, not just adopted.”

  He placed a hand on his scarred cheek, still shaking his head.

  “I can fix that for you. I’ll take you to Denver Parish. We’ll bring in the best doctor we can find, see that you’re healed, that new skin is grown to replace the damaged,” she said. “But first, we have somewhere to go, don’t we?”

  “Kill me,” he whispered. His lips quivered, but he stared her in the eyes. “I won’t ever take you to Trinidad. So kill me.”

  She smiled and pulled the sword back. Flicking the blade toward him drew a violent flinch. Her smile broadened. “A noble plea, but I doubt you’re willing to die so soon. And I do need you. We need each other, as it turns out. I can’t kill you.”

  She gestured behind herself with the sword and Wolf stared past her at the slave girl. She huddled between the archwardens, head down, sniveling.

  “I can, however, kill her,” Marius said.

  “No!” Wolf lunged for her, but Marius yanked the rope, throwing him off balance. He fell to his knees. “She didn’t do anything!”

  An archwarden drew his sword blade, awaiting instructions.

  Wolf clung to their rope and stared up at Marius. “You won’t hurt her?”

  “As long as you do as I ask.”

  He swallowed hard and the shadows morphed into craggy walls. Sleeping sounds, a cough, sounding small in the cavern. Her vision adjusted and she saw the Wiccan graffiti on the walls of the cave, sigils and drawings, pentacles, quartered circles, and rough-drawn Celtic knots. The archwardens drew their blades. She looked around with interest. Whose head were they in?

  “Find Trinidad and Castile. Kill anyone who gets in your way,” she said.

  “No!” Wolf pulled back. He fumbled at the knot, trying to free himself.

  The archwarden who stayed at her side yanked viciously back on the rope, jerking Wolf to his knees.

  “Don’t kill them,” Wolf said, tears rolling down his scarred cheek.

  “You rove well. Good instincts. Come along now.”

  She turned and walked
through the cave, forcing him to stumble to his feet. He walked along behind her at the end of the rope, crying softly. In the unknown mind he’d roved into, the cave was quiet and sleeping. Curious. She’d only ever been in the Barren before, though Hawk had explained dreamscapes to her.

  The archwardens met her amid several rough buildings that leaned against craggy cavern walls. They dragged a young male Wiccan between them. He was around twenty, his bare chest marked with pagan signs and scars. By his broad shoulders and the way he fought them, he was a warrior. His sandy hair hung in his eyes, and he snarled Wiccan curses at them, invoking his gods, twisting in their grip. They forced him to his knees before her.

  “We could only find the dreamer,” one of the archwardens said. “He claims he hasn’t seen the Wiccan or Trinidad.”

  She shrugged. “Then the crusade starts here, now.”

  “NO!” Wolf shouted, but it was too late. The archwarden stabbed his sword into the Wiccan’s back, found his heart, and wrenched it back out. The wound spurted blood. The Wiccan gasped and fell forward, dead before his face hit the ground. The world dimmed, all the details faded, until they were back in Wolf’s mind again, in his room.

  “You … you … God will condemn you for what you have done,” Wolf said, his voice shaking.

  Marius reached out and smoothed back his hair. “God has already forsaken me. Now. Take me to the next dreamer.”

  “No. You’re going to kill them. I won’t dream for you again. You can’t make me.” He pulled back, but she jerked the rope. Wolf’s nostrils flared and he stared her in the eye, even as he sank to his knees.

  She looked down at him. “You’re willing to let her die for these heathens, Israel? You stayed behind to protect that girl, and now you’re going to let her die? An innocent Christian girl?”

  Tears gleamed on the boy’s scars as he closed his eyes and carried them to the next dreamscape.

  FORTY

  Martin Acres lay quiet. Too quiet. Barely a flicker of light from the cracks in boarded windows. No one walked the streets. Trinidad didn’t look east as he limped along next to Castile. He didn’t want to see the glow of the crusaders’ campfires east of the old neighborhood.

  “He’ll be all right, Trin,” he said. “They’ll probably consider him our victim.”

  “No. They’ll make him rove. I told Marius he can. It’s my fault. I didn’t think it through.”

  “It was a good ploy. It got us free at the church, didn’t it?” Castile held out his arm to halt him in the shadows before they attempted the open space that lay ahead. Moonlight glinted off the snow, making eerie shadows of stumps and rocks.

  Trinidad caught Castile’s arm, trying to capture his attention. “Don’t you see? She’ll make him find us, maybe make him take her to the Barren.”

  Castile nodded and pointed at a shed. “I know, Trin. But look. Horses.”

  He broke into the shed and bridled the horses with barely a jingle. They looked at the humans with curiosity and snuffled low. He handed the Appaloosa’s reins to Trinidad. “Sorry. They didn’t have a white one.”

  “Cas—”

  “I know, I know. We’ll get Wolf back. But it can’t happen tonight and they’ll still come after us in the flesh.”

  Castile was right. Trinidad nodded reluctantly and threw himself onto the back of the horse. He urged the animal into a lope. It seemed sound enough but he had no idea how long the animals could last. Castile led them due south, but Trinidad knew they’d have to cut across Old 93 at some point to get to the canyon that led to his coven’s cave. Trinidad guarded their rear, gripping the slaver’s Savage. It flaked dried blood. To the south lay the graveyard of the windfarm, old propellers thrusting giant ghostly spades against the dark skies. Finally, they slowed the panting horses to a walk.

  “They’re not coming. They have Wolf,” Trinidad said. “They don’t need us anymore.”

  Castile didn’t look back at him but he slowed, too. “We’d better cross now before we get any closer to Golden. Keep uphill.”

  After long, cold hours they emerged from the cover of a rock outcropping near Dragonspine, walked south along the road, and then turned westward into Clear Creek Canyon. High rocky cliffs rose up on either side of them, centered on a river frothy with snow along its banks. A bit of water ran between the ice-laced boulders. Cold wind swept down the gorge, whistling between rocks and rustling dead grasses like an animal on the scent of prey. Castile led them to the south, through the river shallows, the horses balking at the ice and then breaking through it as their riders forced them on. They walked deep down the natural trail toward the cave. All was quiet. Still, he drew his sword and halted his horse almost without realizing it. He scented the air, letting instincts take hold. Something else besides ash. A faint, foul sweetness.

  Blood.

  He opened his mouth to warn Castile, but he’d already jumped to the ground. Trinidad urged his horse closer, squinting in the darkness. Castile ran ahead and knelt by someone huddled inside the opening of the cave.

  “Spring,” Castile said, his voice choked. “He’s dead.”

  Trinidad dropped to the ground and strode over to study the prone figure. The witch sprawled just outside the narrow cave opening, his face slack. Blood trickled between his lips and leaked from under his unscathed armor, blooming against the dirt floor of the canyon.

  “It happened fast,” Trinidad whispered. But how? The man’s armor was whole.

  He tipped his head back and scanned the high stone walls, dark but for tiny sparks where starlight filtered through the shifting smog and clouds. He listened hard, heard nothing but Castile’s muttered prayers. If this was a broad assault, the attackers were already inside.

  He gripped the Savage under one arm, his finger holding the white scope-light on, as they stepped inside. It flashed like lightning across the mica embedded in the craggy stone walls of the grotto. Castile’s breath brushed the back of his neck. Their feet scuffed the floor.

  The grotto was empty but for the Wiccan altar, dark and cold. Trinidad stopped and listened. He exchanged glances with Castile, who shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “There should be more guards.”

  They passed from the grotto into the narrow inner corridor, moving with near silence over the stony path, and almost tripped over another body. Castile barely paused but bolted ahead into the next cave, Trinidad a step behind.

  “My lady?” Castile swung the curtain to Aspen’s house aside. He took a step forward and stopped.

  Something made a tiny mew, like a kitten.

  For a moment, Trinidad couldn’t make sense of what he saw. Two low lumps indicated sleepers on low pallets. Aspen curled around her child, crying, pleading in wordless noises. The other pallet was covered in splotchy black shadows. Blood rode the air, thick and sweet, and Trinidad realized the awful truth in those shadows.

  Castile stumbled forward with a hiss and knelt. Trinidad followed, shone his light close.

  “Aspen!” Castile said, sharp. She twitched violently. The baby’s tiny eyelids moved and blinked. Mewling turned to a full-on, yelping cry.

  Aspen clutched her child, still laying on her side. “They’re killing us,” she whispered.

  “It’s a dream. It’s all a dream.” Castile knelt low, his arms around her.

  She pushed herself up and spoke over the crying baby. “We’re under attack.”

  Trinidad knelt by the other sleeper. Only she wasn’t sleeping. Not anymore.

  “Castile,” Trinidad said, lifting the bloody covers to show him.

  Castile turned and stared.

  The Wiccan woman’s head hung from her body at an odd, wrong angle. Her face froze in a grimace, eyes staring forward like she’d just woken from a horrible nightmare. A bloody grin crossed her throat, deep enough to have easily severed her windpipe. A warrior, Trinidad registered. She had a knife nearby but hadn’t woken in time to use it … but what use would it have been against a sword anyway.
An ugly chill climbed his spine, as if there were eyes on him.

  A sword. She was still covered but the sword blade hadn’t sliced the blankets. No killer, no archwarden, would stop to cover someone they’d just murdered in their sleep. And they had, indeed, just murdered this witch in her sleep.

  “Wake them all,” Trinidad said, his voice hard, quick. “Cas, move. We have to wake them.”

  Aspen stared at them both, clutching her crying infant.

  Trinidad gripped Castile’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “They’re in their dreamscapes, killing them. Move.”

  Castile tore away from him and out into the cave, launching into high-pitched coyote war cries. The cave stirred, made noises, some of which erupted into screams. Trinidad followed, gripping his sword futilely. An older woman dragged a warrior out by his limp arms, bloodied with a wound amid the protective sigils inked over his ribs. Torches flared all around as the coven woke to their nightmare.

  Trinidad muttered a prayer through his clenched teeth. Someone touched his back. He spun, his hand on his blade, but it was only Aspen. She stood with a blanket over her shoulders, cradling her baby, who had stopped crying. “They need me, not you,” she said, and held out the infant. “Put away your weapons and take her.”

  His hands did her bidding without consulting his mind. He stripped his gauntlets off and took the child. She nestled against his armored chest, soft and wrong in his arms. He patted her curved back, feeling brutish. Aspen strode away, calling out to her people. He followed slowly and found Castile kneeling with his arm over the curved back of a crying gray-bearded man, warriors arrayed around them like the petals of a gruesome flower. Everywhere cries were echoing thick against the walls.

  The baby stirred in Trinidad’s arms and he realized the racket of keening would upset her. He couldn’t take her to Aspen’s house where the bloody warrior lay. Instead he walked deeper into the cave, staring forward, his arms locked around the coven’s newest member. On the way he grabbed a torch, remembering how dark Castile’s cave was.