Chapter Seven

Tallant yawned, then finished his gruel and hot cider. Setting the empty mug down, he stood and smiled at Cecil. "Ready to go when you are." Cecil said nothing, merely pushed away from the wall against which he'd been leaning, the very image of impatience. He strode from the hall without a word. Tallant followed, not at all upset with his early morning view of Cecil's backside, encased in well-fitted leggings.

Around them, the castle was only just beginning to stir to life, as hazy morning light only just barely began to break up the dark sky. Horses were ready and waiting for them at the stable, and Tallant accepted the reins of his with a quietly murmured thanks. Swinging into the saddle, he followed Cecil across the drawbridge and into the forest.

By the time they reached the place where the ward anchors were located, there was enough light to see clearly. The magic of the wards crackled along his skin, compelling and frightening all at once. Magic was in his blood. Even if he had not followed a warrior path, he would have spent his life immersed in magic. His family had a long history of magic, as did his clan, but even for him, the wards were something else again.

They were a wall of magic that circled the greater portion of the continent, sealing the dragons off in the wild lands of the mountains and edges of the great forests. The walls were not strictly visible, though, not unless one was stupid enough to touch them. Only the anchors were visible—tall stone obelisks carved with old, powerful runes the likes of which even Tallant would not mess with.

The obelisks were set roughly two miles apart, traversing the continent, and until then they had held without problem. They had never needed special protection because they were powerful and strange enough to be their own protection.

This particular obelisk was not as it should be, though. Something dark and flaking was splashed across the base, marring the runes. Blood. Tallant knelt and rubbed his fingers in the mess to confirm, but he hardly needed to. "This blood is too fresh to have been here long," he said thoughtfully. He looked at the obelisk, reached out to feel the magic, wincing as the force of it struck him, made him dizzy.

It was only the left side that had collapsed. Whatever had broken the wards had only broken the miles between this obelisk and the next. So it was not as bad as it could have been—but it was bad enough. Cecil had said the wards were fraying, meaning with one part of it collapsed, the rest would eventually begin to collapse as well. So they had to fix this section, and quickly.

Never mind the dragons, and how many may have gotten past the castle—like the one which had attacked Tallant and Milton while they were still days away. All it took was one female getting too far into the country and hiding somewhere to lay her eggs.

Tallant pulled away from the magic, wincing slightly at the headache now pounding at his temples. Standing up, he wiped his hands on his pants and turned to Cecil. "Someone offered a blood sacrifice recently—very recently. Within the last day or so, I would say."

Cecil frowned. "A blood sacrifice? Someone is attempting to repair the ward? That would take the blood of a high mage, or at least someone with high mage potential. No such persons exist in this kingdom. I'm not even certain there's someone like that in the entire kingdom. Who in the hell would even try? No one has the skill for that, even if we had the correct sacrifice and I allowed it."

"You have the skill to learn," Tallant pointed out, "which means that someone else could learn if they so desired. Are you certain the duke is not behind it all somehow?"

Cecil shrugged irritably. "He would have the knowledge, certainly, but his mind is broken and he's locked up. Why do you and Milton keep harping on His Grace?"

"Only the dead are incapable of taking any action," Tallant recited. "Does anyone else come out here?"

"Just me and my men," Cecil replied. "Irene forbade anyone else a long time ago. So can you tell how the wards were broken?"

Tallant shook his head, but smirked. "Not quite yet, but be patient. I've always preferred slow and steady. The rewards for patience are far more gratifying." He looked Cecil slowly up and down, incapable of resisting an opportunity to fluster. "Though I admit hard and fast has its merits."

Cecil scowled at him, face flushing pink in the early morning light. He jerked away and put fingers to his lips, giving a sharp, piercing whistle. A few minutes later, Bite and Raze came darting from the trees, greeting Cecil enthusiastically.

After a couple of minutes, they veered toward Tallant, curious and bold, pushing and sniffing and growling lightly. They suddenly barked, rubbed against him, and padded back to Cecil. They sat on their haunches on either side of him, and stared at Tallant, tongues lolling.

Cecil glared.

Tallant smirked. "So now that I have their approval, can I come over there and rub against you too?"

Cecil flushed again, but the heat of his glare only increased. "Do you always attempt to flirt with married men? Or only when their wives have been kidnapped and possibly killed?"

The words struck Tallant like a slap. "No," he said, bowing his head in apology. "I keep forgetting you are married. I have not forgotten the dire situation in which we are mired. But I have also learned that levity is necessary to temper strife, or the weight of the strife crushes all ability to think, even act. I mean no disrespect, Your Grace."

"Stop calling me that," Cecil snapped. "My name is Rasnake, or Cecil if you must. I'm not 'Your Grace'."

"But you are," Tallant countered. "You are married to Lady Irene. When the duke dies, she will officially become the Duchess of Fendal and you will be her duke. If she should die—"

"She won't!" Cecil snarled. "I made her a promise and I will keep it. If you are not going to help me, elf, then bugger off."

Tallant shook his head. "All that angry energy will help no one; neither will pushing away those of us trying to help you."

"Do not lecture me," Cecil said coldly. "You have no right."

"Whether or not I have the right is immaterial," Tallant replied. "You're too flik, exactly like your—"

"Stop saying that!"

Tallant regarded him in silence for a moment, then replied quietly, "What really bothers you? That he was gone for so long, or that now he's back all you want is to surrender the authority you've been forced to carry for so long? Milton wants to help, and no one would think less of you for ceding power and leaning—"

"Shut up!" Cecil bellowed, looking furious—but also so wretched and miserable that Tallant wanted to bundle him close and distract him with kisses and soft words. "Just shut up. We're here to investigate the wards, not lecture me."

Tallant sighed. "I'm trying to help. I wish I could get that through your flik head." He turned away and focused on the wards, not waiting for Cecil's scathing reply. Kneeling again, he looked over the base of the obelisk again. The obelisk was a full head taller than he; the runes covered each side, top to bottom, side to side, except the side that faced the sealed off portions of the land.

The runes nearest the base were the key runes, and it was these which had been most heavily covered in blood. Pulling out his water skin and a cloth he generally used to clean his weapons, Tallant slowly cleaned away all the blood.

Only when the obelisk was clean did he see what had caused the wards to fail—someone or something had smashed a small portion of it. Not much, only a few small fractures in the stone, but it was enough to shatter three of the key runes. Such damage unfortunately meant the obelisk could not be easily repaired, if it could be repaired at all. He motioned to Cecil, and pointed, "That's what did it."

Cecil frowned. "That wasn't there before. I would have noticed that sort of damage. I've been over this damned thing a thousand times—those cracks were not there before."

Tallant matched his frown. "That's interesting. If that's the case, it means someone broke the magic first, and only now is the obelisk beginning to show physical signs of it."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we're dealing with someone at least as good as me," Tallant said grimly. He thought again of Marden, wandering about the castle in the dead hours of the night. Tampering with the magic, attempting to alter it, he could easily have broken the wards by mistake and snapped his own mind in the process.

"So why the blood?" Cecil asked. "Whoever broke it must know this level of damage can't be fixed by a mere blood sacrifice."

"Desperation," Tallant replied. "A desperate person will take any and every chance. I think whoever broke the wards did not mean to, and is now struggling to fix his mistake."

"But who—" He was cut off as his wolves suddenly howled, then took off. Cecil burst to his feet and sprinted off after them. Groaning, Tallant followed, wishing fervently that he could put that energy to better use than running about like madmen.

Shaking his head, he shoved the errant though aside and focused on not losing sight of Cecil. He eventually caught up, but only because Cecil had stopped. As Tallant saw the reason why, though, he wished they were still running.

"Amber," Cecil said raggedly, brushing a strand of strawberry blonde hair from the dead girl's face. "Her name was Amber. She was only seventeen. That is three of the Dancing Princesses dead now. Damn it!" He struck the ground with his fist, and bowed his head, trembling with anger and grief.

"Dancing Princesses?"

"That is what Irene called them," Cecil said quietly, sadly. "To keep spirits up, she and the girls would dance almost every night to entertain the castle. She called them her Dancing Princesses, and the castle took up the name. There are only twelve left now." He reached out again to touch Amber's face, wiping away a smudge of dirt. "Who could want to kill a bunch of girls who never did anything but make people smile?"

Tallant shook his head, having no reply to that. Instead, he turned his eyes to the body. "How did the other women die?" he asked.

"Wha—um—" Cecil shook himself, but his voice was still rough as he continued. "The priest said it looked like they were strangled. Given the state of their clothes, their feet, they were probably running for their lives and did not run fast enough."

"This woman bled out," Tallant said grimly. He hated to burden Cecil with such grisly details, but they had no choice, and Cecil had proven he could and would endure it. "It would explain the fresh blood on the obelisk." He gingerly touched the place where her throat had been cut. Blood soaked her dress—a ball gown, of all things. He also noticed that one shoe was missing, but the remaining shoe was a dancing slipper.

Cecil abruptly leaned forward, bending over the dead girl, and sniffed. "Fella," he muttered.

That was thieves' cant for a powerful drug called felson. It could, depending on dosage, do anything from make a person sleepy to knock them out—to kill them. "She was drugged before he killed her," Tallant ssaid. "The first two got away from him, maybe, and he just killed them. He made certain this one didn't. But it still didn't repair the wards. Which means he'll just kill another, and keep doing it until one of the sacrifices works—but none of them will."

Cecil removed his cloak and laid it tenderly over the body, then scrubbed hastily at his face, turning it away as he did so, obviously hoping Tallant wouldn't see his tears.

Calling up his magic, Tallant cast a spell that would repel animals for a brief period. "Nothing will touch her, for a few hours at least." Nodding, Cecil motioned to his wolves, and they jogged off back the way they'd come. Tallant went after them, stifling a sigh. "I don't think anything here can help me further for the moment," he said as they reached the obelisk. "I'll need to go back and consult my books."

"You have bo—" Cecil cut himself and turned sharply away, stalking to where the horses waited.

Tallant smothered a grin. Books were a pain in the ass to haul around everywhere, but he did have a half dozen small volumes that came in handy more often the he'd anticipated they would. He should have thought of them sooner. Swords and arrows might dominate Cecil's life, but a scholar was a scholar, and he would bet his life that Cecil had read every book on the premises. Of course he would be excited at the prospect of new books to read.

Mounting, they rode back to the castle, each lost to his own thoughts. The wolves rode alongside them, and Tallant marveled at how common a sight they must be, that the horses were not troubled by them.

The quiet was split by the sound of the horn—three short, bursting calls. "Distress!" Cecil said, and kicked his horse into a gallop. Tallant did the same, and they raced back to the castle as quickly as they could.