Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(101)

“What happened to the shaman?” she asked.

“Nez tortured and murdered him,” Hugh said. “Nez is part Navajo. His family never lived with Navajo Nation, but he went there when he was fifteen. He told them he wanted to learn about his heritage. They taught him for a while until they realized he was a navigator. They consider undeath to be unnatural.”

It was.

“There are prohibitions against doing evil,” Hugh continued. “The Navajo believe that humans are meant to be in harmony and piloting undead disrupts that harmony, bringing about hóchx??, chaos and sickness. Nez was given a choice: to abandon necromancy and continue learning or to leave before his sickness could spread. He left. Since that point, he goes after every shaman, medicine person, and hand trembler who crosses his path. He hunts them down and kills them. Doesn’t matter what Tribe.”

“Why? Is he trying to punish the Nations?”

“Yes and no. Mostly he is proving to himself that he’s superior.” Hugh grimaced. “Making deals and agreements with Nez is a waste of time. Might as well write a contract with a fork on the water in that moat out there. His word means nothing. His promises mean nothing. If the man’s mouth is moving, he is lying.”

She stretched next to him. “Are you worried I will sell you out, Preceptor?”

A hungry spark lit up his eyes.

“Did you buy us any time?” Hugh asked.

“Two weeks.” She checked his face. “Tell me you have some sort of plan, Hugh.”

“We’ll have to deploy the barrels,” he said. “I would’ve liked another week to make sure the moat holds water. If it doesn’t, we’re fucked.”

“What’s in the barrels?” she asked.

“If you play your cards right, I’ll show you.”

His voice had a drop of smugness. He thought he had her. She had to leave now, she realized. If she delayed any longer, she wouldn’t get out of his bed at all. She would just lay here, luxuriating in the warmth of his body, cozy and safe.

Get up. Get up, get up, get up…

“The sun is up.” She slipped out of the bed and swiped her clothes off the floor. “I’ve upheld my end of the bargain, Preceptor.”

“Paid in full,” he said.

She stretched, giving him one last good look, yawned, and went out the door naked.





The door slid shut.

It hit Hugh like a gut punch – she was gone. For the few blissful hours she was with him, he had forgotten about the death, the blood, and the void. He’d poured his rage and wretched ache into her, and she’d drained him so completely, the only thing that remained was a satiated calm. Happiness, he realized. For the first time in years he felt happy.

She was only a few feet away, walking to her bedroom. The sheets where she’d lain, curled up against him, still held the warmth of her body. He missed her the moment the door closed behind her. His mind conjured up her face, her scent, the way her skin glided against his. The ache rose in him. He wanted her back.

He would get her back. But first, he had to make sure they survived.

Nez was coming. He showed up “in person” to bargain with her, which meant their time was short and when Nez came for them, he would hit them with the full force of the Golden Legion. They weren’t ready. They barely had two weeks.

His mind cycled through everything that still needed to be done to make them ready for the assault. Sleep wasn’t in the cards. He would sleep when he was dead.

Hugh pushed himself off the bed, took a pitcher of cold tea from the refrigerator, and drained half of it. He shook himself, sending the magic through his body, fixing small aches, knitting battle cuts closed, realigning, healing, bringing himself back to fighting shape.

He had to make sure Baile stood firm. He had to make certain that when Nez came, his Golden Legion broke on the old castle like a wave on a pier.





15





Night had fallen, bringing with it an autumn chill. Elara pulled the long blue-and-white shawl around her shoulders and leaned on the wall. Fog had crawled in from the lake, twisting and spilling into the clearing before the castle, thick and milky. The darkness leached the color from the woods and behind the curtain of the fog, the mighty trees looked like a mirage, a careless charcoal sketch on the rough canvas of the night.

Next to her, Rook waited, a silent shadow. He’d come and gotten her a few minutes ago.

In the lower bailey, Hugh and his four centurions pulled the barrels out of storage and loaded them onto a horse-drawn cart.

Elara shifted more of her weight onto the stone. Her feet hurt. It had been a long, long day. First, they’d had to finish evacuating the last of Aberdine’s defenders. She had sent them back to their town fed and clean, with their wounds tended. As much as she wanted to help, Aberdine would have to fend for itself now.

That done, she had inspected their siege fund. The possibility of an attack was always there, and they had stockpiled rations and water since they took over the castle. Grain, dried fruit, dried meat, cheese, canned goods. Their short-term supplies, cheeses, smoked sausages, and so on, everything that wouldn’t keep for too long, looked good. The long-term stockpiles had taken a hit. Several barrels of grain had gotten pantry moths in them somehow, despite being sealed. The entire affected supply went to the livestock. The loss hurt and now they had pantry moths to deal with, which were damn near indestructible. She had to call the witches to fumigate the entire supply house.