Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

Serge came back with some disturbing news.

“Isembaard is gearing up for war,” Serge said, sitting down cross-legged at the fire while

Venetia, Ravenna, and Salome, who was feeling far less fatigued than she had in the mountains,

handed about fresh bread and goat”s cheese. “The tyrant, Isaiah, is marshaling his forces at

Sakkuth for a push through the Salamaan Pass into the Outlands. And we”ve learned the reason

why this land is so deserted. Apparently Isaiah wants the people from these parts of his land to

resettle in the Outlands. The settlers are gathering with the army near Sakkuth. Isaiah himself is

even now, apparently, moving up the Lhyl from his palace in the south toward Sakkuth and is expected there within days.”

Serge paused at that point, and Maximilian looked at him keenly.

“What else have you heard?” Maximilian said. He wondered who this Isaiah was truly.

Kanubai? Already preparing for his push on Elcho Falling? No, surely not…surely not…

Serge and Venetia exchanged a glance, then Serge continued. “Maximilian, the rumor

among the Isembaardians, started by soldiers who were recently in this area, is that Isaiah of

Isembaard plans to meet with an army of Skraelings that are in the process of swarming south.

An army of millions of Skraelings, heading into the Central Kingdoms.”

Everyone stared at Serge, StarDrifter muttering a shocked obscenity.

“No…” Maximilian whispered. “Oh, gods!” To hear this now, when they no longer had

the winged Icarii among them who might have been able to warn the Central Kingdoms.

Skraelings? Millions? Maximilian ran a hand over his eyes, aghast.

How?

He did not need to answer that. Kanubai.

Would Escator be safe? Maximilian didn”t know, and he felt physically sick.

“There is yet more news,” Venetia said, very softly, looking at Maximilian.

“Any worse than this I have just heard?” Maximilian said, and Venetia shrugged a little.

“The homesteaders passed on some more gossip they”d heard from Isaiah”s troops,” she

said.

“And?” said Maximilian.

“Isaiah has abandoned and forsaken all his eighty-odd former wives,” said Serge, “for a

new and Favored Wife, as she is styled. A new bride. Ishbel, former Queen of Escator.”

There was a complete silence about the campfire as everyone fought not to look at

Maximilian.

“Then this Isaiah has good taste,” said Maximilian, his voice now very tight, “and poor

judgment, to think Ishbel”s Escatorian husband so willing to abandon her.”

“I am sure that Ishbel wouldn”t—” Ravenna began.

“I don”t think any of us can count on what Ishbel would or wouldn”t do,” said

Maximilian, very quietly, “or where her loyalties lie. I just want her and our child. I have not

come this far to turn back now.”

No one said anything.

“But, by gods,” Maximilian said, “I cannot wait to quit this land and get back home.

Skraelings! Ah…Serge, do you know how far distant Sakkuth is? And in what direction?”

Serge gave a nod. “It will take us a week to travel there. East, and slightly south. But we

will be traveling into a war zone, Maximilian, and life will not be easy for us once we approach

Sakkuth…not the least because, according to the villagers, Isaiah has at least half a million men

gathering in and about Sakkuth. And then more, for many of them have their wives and families.

Perhaps close to a million people, all to move north.”

Maximilian opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was too much to assimilate all at

once: invasion, Skraelings, Ishbel now Isaiah”s “Favored Wife,” and now this.

“Sakkuth it is then,” he said after a moment. “We free Ishbel, then we head home as fast

as we may. Ravenna, Venetia, we will need your skills, as well as my penchant for the shadows,

to get us close to this Isaiah.”

He paused. “And then to get us out again.”

Maximilian found it difficult to accept this much abysmal news. He set aside the

terrifying news of the Skraeling invasion, and even that of the forces that Isaiah mustered, for at

the moment he could do nothing about either.

Instead he thought about Ishbel.

He sat apart from the others for a while, the Weeper in his lap, his fingers gently stroking

its cool surface. He hoped that it might say something to him, impart some understanding, but

there was nothing. Maximilian had once or twice asked his Persimius ring what it knew of the

Weeper, and the ring had only replied that the Weeper was very old and very sad and entirely

lost without his employment. That last confused Maximilian even more, and the ring steadfastly

evaded any attempt to get it to explain itself.

Ishbel. This Isaiah”s Favored Wife.

Maximilian hoped that she”d been taken unwillingly, and that the relationship was purely

theater and not actuality. What else? Ishbel was now virtually full-term in her pregnancy and

could surely not be sharing her body with this man.

Isaiah…

Maximilian still had the sense that people were being drawn together, all being drawn

toward Elcho Falling. Even though he was now desperate to get home to Escator, Maximilian

had the powerful sense that he must get to Ishbel first. Perhaps she would know more of what

was happening.

Perhaps she might even be prepared, now, to share some truths with him.

A week and he would have more answers.

A week, and perhaps he would have his wife and maybe even a child.

A week, and then he could take his family home to Escator.

“Maxel?” Ravenna sat down next to him in his solitary spot a little distant from the fire.

“Such bad news we have heard this day, and poor news regarding Ishbel indeed. I am sorry for

the hurt it has caused you.”

Maximilian made a gesture with his hand, not truly wanting to discuss Ishbel with

Ravenna.

“Perhaps she is not such a good wife for you, Maxel.”

Maximilian sighed. He set the Weeper to one side and began to strip off his outer coat,

then his shirt, meaning to change into something fresher, and hoping that perhaps Ravenna

would take the hint and move away. As much as he liked Ravenna, for the moment he just

wanted to be alone.

“Maxel, what will you do if she has gone to Isaiah willingly?”

“Ravenna, we will know soon enough. I really do not feel like roaming into conjecture

here and now. I just want to get Ishbel and our child, and go home.”

“Of course, Maxel. I”m sorry, I shouldn”t have pried.” Ravenna started to rise, then

halted, staring at Maximilian”s right biceps.

“Maxel?”

“What is it?”

Ravenna had laid a hand on his shoulder, and Maximilian felt his flesh quiver at its

warmth and pressure.

“Your mark…the Manteceros.”

Maximilian twisted his head to look at the bright blue tattoo of the Manteceros, the

supernatural creature that was both symbol and protector of Escator, that had been engraved into

his skin as a baby.

It had faded into almost nonexistence.

Maximilian went cold. He was being prepared for a greater throne indeed—Escator was

literally fading from his grasp.

Perhaps he would never return to Escator…

“What is going on?” Ravenna hissed. “What sorcery erases this mark?”

Maximilian studied her. She both looked and sounded angry, almost affronted. The

Manteceros, in his true guise as Drava, Lord of Dreams, had been Ravenna”s lover for many

years, and Maximilian supposed that she saw this fading as an affront to Drava himself.

I wonder where your true loyalties lie, my lady, he thought. Are you here for me, or to

watch me on behalf of your supernatural lover?

“The world is turning upside down, Ravenna,” he said, shrugging off her hand and

pulling on a fresh shirt. “Perhaps the mark of the Manteceros is being lost in the confusion.”

After she”d left Maximilian, Ravenna went for a walk into the darkness. She was

disturbed deeply by the fading of Maximilian”s mark. Everything had gone wrong in

Maximilian”s life, and it had all gone wrong from the moment he”d met this woman, Ishbel.

“I do not think I like you, Ishbel,” Ravenna whispered, “but I think you are going to play

right into my hands.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Sakkuth, Isembaard

In the end it took Maximilian and his party a mere six days to get to Sakkuth, and that

accomplished only with effort, physical as well as magical. For the first two days they traveled

relatively unhindered, but then, having crossed the River Lhyl, they entered the territory just to

the west of Sakkuth.

It was here that Isaiah”s army gathered, together with the settlers from the northwest of

the Tyranny.

Maximilian, Serge, and Doyle stood together on a small hillock at dawn on the day they

encountered the gathering army, hidden by a small stand of trees and some of Maximilian”s

ability to meld with the shadows, and stared eastward.

“That is not an army,” Doyle said softly. “That is a nation.”

“An ocean,” said Serge, “gathering for a storm.”