“No,” Maya said honestly. “But if Marn’s directions are right, this is the most likely spot.” She sighed. “I wish we had some sign Jaedia came this way. We should have nearly caught up to her by now.”
Beq twisted the dials on her spectacles, looking at the mountain that overshadowed the valley like a blue-white bank of grounded cloud. “It doesn’t look like it goes too far, anyway,” she said. “If we don’t find anything, we can backtrack without losing more than a day.” She glanced wistfully at their mounts, which were tethered to a scraggly tree a little ways off, pecking at the sparse grass. “We’ll have to leave the birds, though. They’d never get through those rocks.”
“We’ll leave the tents and heavy gear with them,” Maya decided. “If we’re in the wrong place, we can be back here by nightfall.”
“Assuming our luck with plaguespawn continues,” Tanax said.
Swiftbirds were big and mean enough to handle a small plaguespawn, but a large one might scatter them, and there was no telling if they’d find their way back. Maya frowned, but there was nothing for it. “We’ll have to take the risk. Worse comes to worst, we won’t starve before we can walk back to Grace.”
Tanax pondered a moment, then nodded agreement. They divested themselves of their heavy packs, leaving them in a pile beside the birds under a staked-down blanket. Maya broke open a bag of feed and scattered it on the ground in front of Blackbar and the other two, and soon they were pecking contentedly. She checked her gear—panoply belt, haken, a small pack with a few emergency supplies—and took a long breath of cool mountain air.
Here we are. Hopefully. Jaedia could be just ahead, along with Nicomidi and Chosen knew what else. Maya stared up the rock slope, mind racing, then gave a start as Beq slipped a hand into hers.
“We’ll find her,” Beq said quietly.
“Yeah.” Maya squeezed her fingers. “Thanks.”
After a short scramble, the valley leveled out into a steady uphill trudge broken by a few stretches of tumbled rocks. The sun climbed as they walked, but the air stayed cool. Everything was still and silent—so silent, in fact, that Maya started to worry. They’d surprised the occasional mountain goat or rabbit pretty regularly throughout their journey, but here—
“Plaguespawn!” Tanax hissed, hand dropping to his haken.
“Where?” Maya said.
“There!” Beq pointed, twisting the dials of her lenses.
Maya caught the flash of motion. A dark, asymmetrical shape loped over the ground a few hundred meters ahead, two long, canine heads rimmed with broken bones. But it was sprinting away, not charging them. As she watched, it disappeared over the rocks.
“That’s … odd,” she said.
“It must have been chasing something else,” Tanax muttered. “An animal, maybe.”
“Plaguespawn prefer humans to animals,” Beq said.
“Which means we may not be alone out here,” Maya said.
“You think it was going after Jaedia and Nicomidi?” Tanax said.
Maya shrugged. “If so, they can handle a few plaguespawn.”
It wasn’t long after that they started hearing thunder, rippling booms echoing down the valley. Maya squinted and thought she could see flashes reflecting off the rocks.
“That could be Nicomidi,” Tanax said. The Kyriliarch’s cognomen, Maya recalled, was Thunderclap.
“It sounds … too regular,” Beq said, peering ahead. “Like blaster fire.”
“Centarchs don’t need blasters,” Maya said. Uncertainty fluttered in her chest. “Let’s hurry.”
The booms eventually stopped, but by then there was no longer any doubt what was happening ahead of them. They passed the first battleground, strewn with plaguespawn corpses. Some of the monsters had been shattered by blaster bolts, others cut and torn with raw force. Maya didn’t think any of them bore the clean-edged cuts she would have expected if Jaedia had unleashed her powers.
“What in the name of the Chosen is going on?” Tanax said. “I’ve never heard of this many plaguespawn in one place. And look at the size of that one!” He kicked the flank of a bear-sized monstrosity, limbs slackened in death. It looked as through it had been torn apart by another beast on the same scale.
“Some of these are strange, too,” Beq said. She prodded another corpse carefully. “Look. No blood, and it’s covered in … rock, I think?”
“Dhakim,” Maya muttered. “I knew Cyrtak wasn’t at the center of this. There must be another one directing the plaguespawn.”
“How powerful does a dhakim need to be to pull together this many?” Tanax said.
“That depends on a lot of factors,” Beq said. “It’s not even clear if a dhakim’s reach scales linearly with some kind of overall ability, or if—”
“We have no idea, you mean,” Tanax interrupted.
“Basically.” Beq swallowed. “But if you want my guess—”
“Stronger than Cyrtak,” Maya said. “A lot stronger.”
They pushed on, past more places where bodies of plaguespawn had piled up in drifts. Whoever the monsters were fighting, they were certainly giving a good account of themselves. It has to be Jaedia and Nicomidi, doesn’t it? Only a centarch could kill this many plaguespawn. But Cyrtak had said Jaedia was working with the dhakim. Maya ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, gritted her teeth, and kept climbing. Midday came and went, but no one suggested turning back. Whatever was happening in this remote valley, it was clearly the place they’d come to find.
The mountain, Cracktooth, loomed ever larger. It did look a bit like a broken tooth, with a gentler slope on the far side but a sheer cliff on the face abutting the valley, rising to a rectangular summit. Passing another drift of plaguespawn, Maya spotted a rock formation that blocked half the valley, with the little stream curling around its base. She was about to suggest they climb it for a better view when Beq darted forward, adjusting her spectacles.
“There’s someone up there!” she said. “Two people, I think.” She shook her head. “They’re behind the rocks now, but I’m sure I saw them.” She glanced at Maya, who nodded and looked at Tanax. Then, together, they broke into a run.
*
A narrow path led up the side of the rocky outcrop, opening onto a wide, relatively flat space atop it. As Maya had predicted, it gave an excellent view of most of the valley, across a broad plain of scrub grass, to the face of the mountain.
The sight of the plain took her breath away. It was covered with plaguespawn, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, a sea of raw, rippling muscles and shattered bone, misshapen monstrosities in every possible variety. A half dozen of the twisted giants were at the forefront, against the wall of rock, staring at a single spot where the grass was buried under a pile of plaguespawn corpses. Maya realized that every plaguespawn in that vast swarm was doing the same, focused as rigidly as soldiers on parade. As though they were all part of one vast creature, and whatever was there had its undivided attention.
It took Maya a moment to drag her gaze away from the plaguespawn army and focus on the two human figures standing by the edge of the rock outcrop, also looking down into the field. There was a man and a woman, wearing fur-lined leather mountain coats, each carrying a haken on one hip. Beneath the woman’s hood, Maya saw the familiar green of Jaedia’s hair, lighter than Beq’s.