Shanvah accepted the correction with a nod, and loosed. Her arrow arced high over the dunes, then came down hard on the sand-filled bag they were using as a target. It wasn’t a perfect shot, but from such distance it was impressive nonetheless.
“How did you learn this?” Shanvah asked, lowering her bow. There was more respect in her tone now, though Renna was not fool enough to think them friends. “By your own words, you were no warrior until recently, but you handle that weapon too comfortably for the Par’chin to have been your only teacher.”
Renna shook her head. “My da taught me. Wern’t always enough food to go around back home. Everyone who liked eatin’ needed to go out and hunt sometimes.”
Shanvah nodded. “Among my people, women were not allowed to even touch weapons until recently. You are fortunate to have had such a father. What was his name?”
“Harl.” Renna spat. “But wern’t no fortune in him as a da.”
“In Krasia, we carry the honor of our fathers, daughter of Harl,” Shanvah said. “The pride of their victories, and the shame of their failures.”
“Got a lot to make up for, then,” Renna said.
“If we succeed tonight,” Shanvah said, “you will have cleaned the slate and dipped it in gold, even if your father is Alagai Ka himself.”
“Far as me and my sisters went, might as well have been.” Renna felt a throb in her temple. Thoughts of her father, of that corespawned farm, always made her angry. Less the memories themselves than the reminder they brought. The reminder of the old Renna. Weak. Scared. Useless. Sometimes she wished that part of her was a limb she could cut away and cast off forever.
Shanvah was staring at her. Why were she and Shanvah sharing stories like square girls, anyway? They might need to fight the same side, but neither trusted the other, and Renna saw no reason for that to change.
“You said you faced one of them,” Shanvah said. “An alagai prince.”
As if talk of Harl’s farm hadn’t been personal enough. Renna remembered the horror, the violation, as the demon had taken over her mind, burrowing deep and nestling in like a tomato bug. It was the last thing she wanted to talk about, but this, Shanvah had a right to know. Soon she would be face-to-face with them.
“Ay,” Renna said. “Keep your mind wards sharp that night. Paint ’em right on your brow. Don’t trust a headband. They get inside your mind, swallowing everything that makes you … you. Swallow it, and then spit out just the parts that cut the ones you love.”
Shanvah nodded. “But you killed it.”
Renna bared her teeth, magic boiling in her blood at the memory. “Arlen killed it. I put my knife right through its ripping back, and it kept fighting.”
“How is my bow supposed to make a difference against such a creature?” Shanvah asked.
Renna shrugged. “Honest word? Probably won’t. Against a mind demon, you strike a killing blow, or you might as well not have struck at all. Wouldn’t trust that to a bow.”
She looked at Shanvah. “But the minds are for Arlen and Jardir to worry about.” Shanvah stiffened at the informal reference to her uncle, but she kept her mouth closed. “Up to us to keep their guards away while it’s done,” Renna went on. “Minds can call other demons from miles around, and make ’em fight smart.”
Shanvah nodded. “So I have been told.”
“You heard about their bodyguards?” Renna asked. “The mimics?”
“Only whispers,” Shanvah said.
“Smarter’n other corelings,” Renna said. “Able to lead and summon lesser demons, but that ent the worst of it.”
“Shapeshifters,” Shanvah whispered, as much a question as a statement.
Renna nodded. “Turn into anything they can think of. One second you’re fighting the biggest damn rock demon you ever saw, and a second later it’s got tentacles, or wings. Think you got a grip and suddenly it’s a snake. Think you’ve got help coming, but in the blink of an eye it looks just like you, and your friends don’t know who to shoot.”
Shanvah gave no sign, but a trickle of fear came into her scent, and that was good. She needed to know what was coming and respect it, if she was going to live.
“Last one I fought killed over two dozen men before we brought it down,” Renna said. “Cut through a unit of dal’Sharum like a nightwolf in a henhouse. Killed half a dozen, along with Drillmaster Kaval and Enkido. And more Cutters than I can remember. Hadn’t been for Rojer and …”
She broke off, looking at Shanvah’s wide eyes. The young woman had stopped listening, staring at her openmouthed. Her scent changed dramatically, filling with mounting horror and grief as tears began to well in her eyes. It was more emotion than Renna had ever seen her show.
“What’d I say?” Renna asked.
Shanvah looked at her silently for a long time, her mouth moving slowly, as if needing to limber before forming words.
“Master Enkido is dead?” she asked.
Renna nodded, and Shanvah wailed. It went on till her breath caught, and she coughed out a sob.
She fumbled desperately at a pouch on her belt even as she wept, producing a tiny glass vial that slipped from her shaking fingers.
Renna caught the vial before it hit the ground, holding it out to her, but Shanvah made no move to take it. “Please,” she begged. “Catch them before they are lost.”
Renna looked at her curiously. “Catch what?”
“My tears!” she wailed.
It seemed a bizarre request, but Renna had seen the Krasian women doing this when they came for their dead after new moon. She unstoppered the vial, looking at its wide rim, the edge almost sharp, ideal for scraping a streaking tear from a cheek. She stepped close, catching one drop just before it fell, and then tracing its path back up with the vial’s edge.
Shanvah’s sobbing only increased, as if she were throwing herself intentionally into the emotion for this sole purpose. Fast as she was, Renna was hard-pressed to keep up. Shanvah filled two bottles before she was done.
“What happened to the demon?” Shanvah asked, when it was over.
“We killed it,” Renna said.
“You’re sure?” Shanvah pressed, leaning forward to grip her arm.
“Cut its head off myself,” Renna said.
Shanvah slumped back, looking as defeated as Renna had ever seen her, and she had beaten the woman unconscious just weeks earlier.
“Thank you,” Shanvah said.
Renna nodded, deciding it was best not to mention that she, too, had fought Enkido when they first met.
They reached Anoch Sun by the first morning of Waning. Arlen led them down to Kaji’s tomb, and they set to work preparing the chamber.
In the darkness beneath the sands, Anoch Sun was a place of strong magic, ancient and deep. It was embedded in every speck of dust, leached from the Core with powerful wards over thousands of years. Arlen reached tendrils of his own magic to join with it, and immediately felt the city come to life, like an extension of his own body. It hummed with power, lending him strength for the trials to come.
Jardir led a prayer to Everam, and Arlen swallowed his cynicism long enough to bow his head and be polite. He could see the honest belief in the auras of the Krasians, and the strength it gave them.
Even Renna shone with belief, in spite of all that had been done to her in the name of the Canon.
Night, wish I could share it. The others in the room were convinced they were marching in the Creator’s great plan. Arlen alone understood they were making things up as they went along.
“That’s enough,” he said at last, when it seemed the chanting would go on forever and he could stand it no more. “Night’s falling. Take your places, and no more noise.”
Jardir looked at him with irritation. The sun had not yet set. Still, he nodded. This was no time for discord. “The Par’chin speaks wisely.”
Shanjat and Shanvah had made an ambush pocket off to one side, cut from the wall, which Arlen had etched with wards of camouflage. The wall would appear unbroken to demon eyes.
Renna drew her Cloak of Unsight about herself and went to stand ready to one side of the small doorway into the tomb. Arlen moved to stand opposite her, cutting himself off from the magic of Anoch Sun, lest the coreling princes sense his presence.