The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [104]
The leaves were sharp and bitter, and Thorn grimaced. Harryn was bandaging the rat bite on her shoulder, which was the worst of her injuries.
“What is this?” she said.
“Wolfsbane.”
She spat it out. Time to go back to Fharg, she thought. “That’s poisonous!”
Harryn looked at the leaves. “Don’t worry. It’s a small risk, but it’s better than the alternative.”
“He speaks the truth,” Sheshka said.
Harryn returned to his work, examining the scratches on Thorn’s leg. “The rats, the wolves. You’ve been bitten, and that means the curse was likely passed to you. The wolfsbane should drive it out of your blood.”
“So I could turn into a rat?”
Sheshka said “No,” just as Stormblade said “Yes.”
Thorn looked at Sheshka. “You first.”
“Only a few of the Children of Zaeurl have the power to pass on their ‘blessing,’ and even then, it needs time to take root. Even if you were infected, you would not change until tomorrow, if then.”
Thorn glanced at Harryn. “Now you, poisoner.”
“What she says would be true, any other time. But not beneath these six moons. If the Wild Heart truly stirs—and if the moons are in the sky—the curse is stronger than it has been in over a century. Any of the cursed can pass on their affliction with a bite, and only those with tremendous will can resist its power. Those who fall to the curse will become subjects of the Feral Master, driven to spill the blood of those they once loved. Under the light of these moons, the change could occur within moments.” He had finished his work, and he slung his pack across his back and picked up his sword. “I have done all that I can. Battle calls.”
Thorn was troubled. As they made their way to the surface, she moved closer to Sheshka. “Do you believe what Stormblade says?”
A few serpents turned to regard her. “I do. I told you of the skinchangers who came to this land before Zaeurl and her children. They were a dangerous breed, and those they touched turned on their own kind. The greater horrors came after the Stormblade left us. Perhaps, if I’d remained at his side … things would have been different.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Thorn murmured. “You said that Zaeurl wasn’t like those others … and that she was loyal to the Daughters of Sora Kell. Why would they want their people to become subjects of the Wild Heart?”
“I do not know. But Zaeurl cannot be acting alone. The skullcrushers and the war ogres are the troops of the Great Crag.”
Thorn shook her head. “Perhaps. But it still doesn’t feel right.”
The moonlight was dazzling as they emerged from the mouth of the Ossuary. All around them, stone hobgoblins stood ready for battle, waiting for a war that ended thousands of years before. Ahead of them, they could still hear the shouts, drums, and howls of the revelers. Drul Kantar had told the truth; the welcoming feast was nothing next to the excitement of the Midnight Dawn.
“Stormblade, tell me more about the Moonlord,” Thorn said as they climbed over the ruined walls of the fortress. “Do you suppose someone’s taken his place this time? You said he was a tiger—could this be a woman with the soul of a wolf?”
“I know little about the Moonlord,” Stormblade replied. “He claimed to be chosen by the Feral Master himself. He had power over those who were touched by the wild. He could drive them to madness or force them to do his bidding. But I don’t know if these were gifts of his own, or tied to the orbs.”
“Orbs?”
“The lunar orbs. Crystal spheres, relics of the first age. I know even less about them than I do about Drukan. I know only that there was one for each moon, and that Drukan sought them all.”
“Silence upon you,” Sheshka whispered. “We approach the city.”
“This time I know where we’re going,” Thorn said. “I’ll take the lead.”
After the battle in the Ossuary and the rats in the tower, Thorn was expecting resistance. But it seemed that the Aundairian