to Preter. “Unless you can think of any way that the souls can be freed but the island can be kept afloat?”
“Perhaps there is a way,” the monk said slowly, his expression tightening. “But if what Prince Aerax says is true, then we may have it wrong. Why would Goranik send a few stone wraiths to slaughter those on the island, when there are thousands of generations of souls trapped there, and who can create an army of stone wraiths for the Destroyer? He would only need access to the chamber where they are imprisoned and some of your king’s blood.”
Lizzan felt all blood drain from her face. An army of stone wraiths, when only one had slaughtered a monastery full of monks. Against so many, even a dragon could not defeat them. The only hope was that Icaro and Koth were holding out against Goranik and the viswan.
“Could he be stopped?”
Preter nodded. “If the souls were freed before he cast the spell.”
Abruptly she stood, Aerax rising beside her. A full turn of the moon still lay between them and the island.
And no time could they waste.
“Aerax and I will leave now for Koth.” Heart pounding, Lizzan looked to Saxen. “Will you come with us? We’ll find a horse and armor for you, because we may need your strength to defeat your father.”
“If you will have me, I will come.” Saxen rose from his bench, then turned back toward the table and ripped a leg from the roast to take with him. “For the ride.”
Nodding, Kelir stood. “Let us all ride.”
CHAPTER 26
LIZZAN
An empty road was still a dangerous road, and it did not take long to discover why. On his return to Koth from Radreh, Goranik had poisoned the forests and fields surrounding the road with spells that raised bramble beasts, reanimating the spirits of dead animals with wood and vines, as if the very forest itself came alive to attack them.
No more could Aerax and Caeb hunt, because every beast they brought down rose again. Only small animals did Caeb eat, for a bramble rabbit that a horse could stomp flat was easier to defeat than a giant sloth with long curving claws. Yet the forest was alive with predators that had no knowledge or care of spells, and prey was transformed into deadly predators themselves—from worms that became crawling twigs that would invade their bedrolls to shorthaired mammoths that became charging horrors of piercing thornteeth and massive treelegs.
Every day became nearly as harrowing as the monastery—though at least the bramble beasts could be defeated by blade and by fire. Still, it seemed to Lizzan that the full turn was spent racing north until they could go no farther each day, and then after a too-brief rest, they were racing north again.
It was with tears and sheer relief that she finally glimpsed in the distance the lake surrounding Koth. Under skies that were only yellow and gray since the eruption, the water seemed dull steel instead of brilliantly blue, yet she had no care at all . . . except that there was no escape from the bramble beasts, which meant that Goranik was also near to Koth.
At speed they rode toward the King’s Walk, yet they had just crested the final hill when the sight before Lizzan struck her silent with disbelief.
So many rumors there’d been that Koth was abandoned—though it had not been when Aerax and the councilors had left, nearly two seasons past.
But it was.
In the outlands near the King’s Walk, a huge swath of forest had been cleared, and the logs stacked in an enormous circle to create a high wall of timber. Inside the wall were tents packed together in rows—as if an army camped there. But Koth’s army had never numbered so many. Instead it seemed that every Kothan citizen had sought refuge within those timber walls.
“What has happened?” Lady Junica looked ahead in horror.
“Let us find out,” Aerax said grimly, riding forward.
They had nearly reached the wall when a thunderous cracking through the trees heralded the charge of a bramble beast—a longhorn bison that could knock a horse off its hooves before ripping it to pieces. With a roar, Caeb leapt upon its back, claws tearing the beast apart and fangs slashing until it was but a shambling collection of shredded greens and broken branches. Caeb swatted at a leaf that had peeled away from the bison’s face and returned to trot alongside Lizzan and Aerax, and then a murmur from Tyzen