Promise of Blood

“Go to him?” Sabon asked. “Why can’t we just call a meeting? When he comes, we will take him.”

“We have to force him to play his hand,” Tamas said. “His spies will tell him the attack on Mihali failed and that he has been exposed. If he flees, we confirm his guilt. If he stays, we will confront him. Either way, I will not let him escape. Get moving.”

Adamat felt himself swept aside as the soldiers rushed into action. Tamas paused beside him, leaning heavily on his cane, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Good work,” he said. “Go home. Pack up.” His voice dropped. “Get your family out of the country. If everything goes well, I will have use for you and your skills in the future.”

Did he joke? Adamat searched Tamas’s face. No. He was serious. Too serious. Tamas moved away, jerking like a marionette as he walked, his crutch clicking against the paving stones.

Signs of cave lions only increased as Taniel’s company approached the summit. The dogs pulled at their harnesses despite Rina’s rebukes. Half the time they wanted to give chase. Half the time they whimpered, tugging Rina back down the slope.

Taniel felt his own nerves begin to fray. In his mind the cave lions were beyond each slight rise, or waiting to pounce from every boulder. The wild eyes of his companions said they were thinking the same thing. Yet they weren’t being tracked. All signs said the creatures were ahead of them, following the Kez in force. By their tracks there were at least seventy of the creatures, and growing more numerous by the mile.

They found the first body partially devoured and dragged to the side of the trail. It was torn and mangled, blood soaking the white snow, but easy enough to tell it had been a cave lion. Ka-poel squatted beside it, her fingers searching through the snow. Taniel thought he saw her put something in her pack. He came up beside her.

“What killed it?” he asked. He already had a pretty good idea.

Ka-poel mimed firing a rifle.

He nodded. “So the Kez know they’re being followed. And these creatures. They feast on their own kind. How far from the top?” he asked when saw Bo had joined them.

“Not far, I think,” Bo said. “I’ve only come this high once before.” He turned to the monk. “Del?”

Their guide had paled at the sight of the cave lion carcass. Slowly, his hands shaking, he lifted one arm to point ahead. “There,” he managed.

Taniel followed his gaze toward an outcropping where the trail disappeared. “That close?” Taniel frowned. “Where’s the city?”

“There,” Del said again.

“You’ll see what he means,” Bo said.

It took less than half an hour to reach the height Del had indicated. They climbed a steep knoll in the road. Taniel paused to catch his breath, only to find it whisked from him at the sight below.

He stood on the lip of a vast crater. It had to be tens of miles across and it was hundreds of feet deep. Taniel wobbled, then regained his footing.

There were trees below, species that could never have survived at this altitude. They ringed the inner edge of the crater, towering in the air. He could almost reach out and touch the tops of the closest ones. Yet these trees were long dead. Their sides were scorched black, their branches naked and twisted. Once, they were a mighty grove. Now they looked like the boneyard of someplace long cursed.

Past the trees were the ruins of a vast city. Buildings filled the greater part of the crater—more buildings than there were in all of Adopest, and many taller too. They were little more than stone husks now. Their sides were blackened like the trees, shutterless windows staring out like the empty sockets of thousand-eyed skulls. The sight made Taniel shiver.

“The Kresim Caldera,” Del said. His voice quaked.

Bo’s face was grim. “Kresimir’s protection has faded over the centuries. The volcano’s acid and heat have killed the trees and burned out the buildings. Nothing lives up here.”

“Except the cave lions,” Taniel said. “I don’t know how they can.”

“Something keeps them alive,” Bo said.

Taniel could see a lake in the middle of the caldera. There were plots of trees as well, and ponds, and clear knolls that had once been parks where children played in the Time of Kresimir. Taniel imagined that the waters within the caldera had once run clean and beautiful. From his vantage point he could see that the lake was foul and brown. It bubbled and belched, and a thick cloud of steam and smoke rose from its center.

In the distance Taniel heard the scream of a cave lion.

“Fix bayonets,” he said. He heard the clatter of weapons as the Watchers behind him readied themselves.

Spreading out, they proceeded into the crater.

Taniel positioned himself between Del and Bo. “Where is the coliseum?” he asked.

Del didn’t respond. Taniel thought he heard a whimper come from the man. Then again, it could have been the dogs. They’d fallen deathly silent since entering the caldera.