The Shattered Circle

5. Care from the Cold

The Sanctum was clearly more than even the exaggerations of her people's stories, because Shira gaped as we rode across the Narrows, a slender bridge crossing the frothing River Salh as it wound its twisting way around. The plunge off the side of the bridge was a hundred foot chasm with water roiling so furiously as to be white all the way around. It was a formidable natural barrier, one enhanced in certain ways by the area. All around us was a blighted landscape, gray and ashen covered by a perpetual chill. The plants that survived were pale and twisted things, even the flowers that bloomed already rotting by the time they spread their petals. The path to the Sanctum's great gate was lined with dying roses and dark, needle-like thorns.

Towers of black glass rose from the barren slopes of the mountains, built into the side of a great cliff. Some floated above, anchored by bridges and connecting towers, all intricately woven together to form a city that rose as high in the sky and deep in the ground as it spread in the cardinal directions. It was a massive citadel, with an outer wall of seamless basalt that rose a hundred feet high, studded with defensive towers. Each tower bore a set of sigils carved in a vertical line on the interior side that connected it to the network of wards and magical defenses the King in Black had woven to endure every assault by gods and mortals alike.

I smiled faintly as we passed through the Obelisk Gate, carved to look like the great maw of some grinning skull, with sharp adamantine teeth that closed behind us as a combination of portcullis and doors. Just inside was the obelisk it was named for, a towering hunk of gleaming silver metal engraved with scenes of undead triumph. Above us in the sky, a great aurora with shades of blue to green to purple burned in the sky as magic radiating from the wards danced to illuminate the world below. In the morning, the sun would shine so weakly through the clouds, designed to protect the more sensitive undead, that even midday seemed barely dawn. At night the sky was far more striking and clear.

The Sanctum was fairly chaotic at the moment, with an army flooding in to resume their various lives. I nudged Tavuus with my knees, directing him over another bridge to a higher section of the cliff, back to the stables. They were kept away from the mindless undead, tended to by the human servants who made their homes here. Those who served the King in Black of their own volition were paid and treated well. He cared very little about what they did with their own lives, mundanely beneath him, but had laid down laws that prohibited the undead from simply devouring them.

There were plenty of different living groups who had come to his banner: the wild berserkers of the northern reach and their stormcallers, the arcanists who might have been burned as witches, the acolytes and priests of the Dark Mothers who praised necromancy and its wielders, and the houses of nobility who fell in the civil war that divided Rusa from the Eternal Kingdom. There were even a few wyrms who kept lairs in the mountains nearby, treating with the King in Black as if he was one of their number.

Captives were a different arrangement. Like all mortals, they were ants to the King in Black, but they were also enemies. He was willing to leave their fates to the whims of his generals. Hallen would probably execute his prisoners quickly and relatively painlessly after gaining as much information as possible with Luka's help. Those captured by Rhandiir, Varys, and Teth could expect far less pleasant ends. Maric had already let his soldiers tear apart the mortals they'd captured on the road, never one for delayed gratification.

Once we were inside the stables and away from the undead, Shira's grip on me eased. Something about the familiar warmth, smell of animals, and the sudden appearance of human servants put her at ease. I sighed and patted Tavuus. Even without battle, it had been a long day and he deserved to rest. I swung down from the horse and looked up at Shira.

She froze under my gaze as if I was some basilisk.

"Come down." Even as I spoke with that same hint of chill, I held out a hand to help her down.