“This isn’t the time for funerary rights,” Brother Qown said.
I sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose or punch someone, anyone, in the face. “We don’t burn our dead in Jorat for religious reasons, Brother Qown. We do it to make sure demons have nothing to possess. You saw what happened to Dedreugh. That potential exists anytime a body’s left to rot.”6
Brother Qown blinked at me. “What?”
I frowned. “Your order are experts on fighting demons. How has Father Zajhera never told you this?”
Brother Qown stared at me. “What?”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He sputtered. “I saw Dedreugh was possessed, but I assumed black magic summoned the demon…” His voice trailed off as he turned to Ninavis. “Is she serious?”
Ninavis understood our customs. “As metal. Demons have to take possession of a living person to summon more of their kind, but they can possess the dead too. Make ’em walk. Make ’em kill. That’s not how it works where you’re from?”
He started mumbling something under his breath.
My attention focused back on Dango and Dorna. “This leaves me with two questions. First, since the witch-smoke smothers fire, how did you intend to light the wood? Second, are you really planning to burn those bodies using ritually enchanted burning stakes, designed to send souls straight to waiting demons?”
“Oh, dear,” Dorna said.
Dango’s eyes widened with horror. “But…?”
I pointed to the stakes. “You can’t use this wood. You can’t use this wood, and you can’t burn the dead here. You’ll be doing the witch’s work for her.”
Tanner threw down the flint and steel he’d been trying to use to light kindling. “Damn it all, we have to burn the bodies!”
“No,” I corrected. “We want to burn the bodies. But as it happens, we can’t. So stop wasting my time.”
He straightened, glaring at me. “If we don’t burn these, the dead won’t stay dead for long.”
“If we don’t leave here soon, we won’t stay living for long. We don’t know when the smoke will dissipate. Maybe it will still be here when the demons start playing dress-up using our slain. We cannot wait. Do you understand? We cannot stop this.”
“Is that the baron?” A voice I didn’t recognize asked the question. I groaned inside. People might well be eager to blame him for the day’s events.
And they might be right.
A dozen voices raised at once.
Kalazan—Kalazan, of all people—silenced them. “Whoever did this made no effort to protect Tamin. He was a target as much as any of us.”
“Who’s to say you ain’t the one responsible?” someone shouted. “He said you was helping witches. Was this your doing?”
“No!” Kalazan scowled. “Of course not.”
“Be quiet,” I ordered.
They ignored me.
I sighed and inhaled deep. Just before I raised my voice, Arasgon raised his.
“My lord said be quiet. You’re alive because she saved you. Be silent!”
The voices paused.
“Thank you, Arasgon,” I said. “Everyone, grab what you can. We will meet in the town if the smoke hasn’t yet reached it. If it has, keep moving until you find an area free from smoke and wait there.”
“But my husband—”
I raised my voice, despite all my intentions not to. “If he isn’t here, if he hasn’t been blessed by my people, then it is too late to save him. Today, we leave the dead where they fall. Now go!”
“How do we know we can trust you?”
I whirled back to the crowd. They were so few compared to how many there had been just a short time earlier. “Because I’m still here. Trust me or not as your conscience demands. But if you stay here and do nothing, or stay here to burn your dead, you will soon join them. You will only add your corpses to these others. So make your choice. We leave now.”
The gathered crowd scrambled to find their azhocks and possessions. Ninavis and her people had already been parted from their meager possessions some time ago.
Ninavis’s group had gained in size. I recognized the smith who’d left his azhock to stare at us the previous night, as well as the black-skinned, silver-haired girl who had fetched him.
Dorna had done well, rescuing all these plus her own horse, Pocket Biter, and Brother Qown’s sweet gelding, Cloud. Only a few dozen people, in addition to the ones Brother Qown had saved. Thousands had attended the fair.
No. I couldn’t dwell on that.
“Which way to town?” I asked Arasgon.
He tossed his head, pointing into the smoke. For all I could tell, he might as well have been pointing to the castle, but I knew his sense of direction was superior to my own.
I helped Kalazan pick up Tamin, and we walked.
11: EIGHT GATES
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Two days since the Devoran Prophecies stopped being so hypothetical
“That smoke wiped out a whole town?” Kihrin didn’t try to hide the horror in his voice. “How many people died?”
Janel scowled. “I didn’t count.”
“Just over three thousand,” Brother Qown said.1 “We were lucky. Mereina’s normal population was closer to fifteen thousand, but a large percentage of the population had already left to avoid the baron’s overzealous witch hunt.”
“Still that’s—” Kihrin found himself at a loss to express how hollow he felt at the news.
She gave him a shrewd glance. “You should know what you’re up against. That bottle of blue smoke wasn’t unique.”
“Anyone who would use a weapon like this is a monster.”
“You’ll hear no argument from me,” Janel said, her voice soft.
Kihrin leaned forward in his seat and scrubbed at his eyes with his palms. “It’s not right. I still don’t know how many died in the Capital. I don’t know if you’ve heard—”
“I heard,” she said. “What happened in the Capital wasn’t your fault.”
“If I hadn’t come back—” He stared into the fireplace and left the sentence hanging.
“If you hadn’t come back, Gadrith would still be ‘alive’—or whatever you want to call his particular exemption from decomposition.”
Kihrin frowned. “That almost sounds like you knew him.”
“Maybe I did, but we’d be jumping ahead of the story, wouldn’t we? Let’s let Brother Qown continue.” She smiled. “He loves this part.”
“I don’t,” Brother Qown protested. “It’s very sad.”
But he was quick to start reading.
Qown’s Turn. Mereina, Barsine Banner, Jorat, Quur.
Brother Qown fought the temptation to fall to the ground and pray to Selanol when he saw sunlight. It meant the smoke hadn’t reached the town. There would be survivors.
At least, there would be a few survivors.
A small crowd waited at the town’s edges. Not more than a few dozen people who, for various reasons, hadn’t been near the fairgrounds when disaster struck. Not all those had survived either. At least a few townsfolk had braved the cloud seeking friends and family. Their bodies just inside the witch-smoke border told their fate.