When he reached the camp, it was in chaos. He hid behind a stone that looked like some sort of animal: half cat, half bird. He peered around. Pools of dark water reflecting burning torches lay all over the ground. Judging by the things around the pools, Lorth suspected the water had once been fire. Trees hung low over and within the camp. Hounds and horses screamed in terror on their leads.
Icaros’s house stood in the middle of the mayhem: intact, unchanged, still as a tomb. Lorth trembled with mortal unease. He wondered, as the house stood both here and in the other dimension, where exactly it did exist. Not here. Not there. Nowhere. He half-expected to see Icaros hovering in a window.
Faerins surrounded the house three men deep. They threw things at the windows, with little effect: torches went out, and rocks and arrows fell short, as if the normal dimensions of time and space didn’t apply to the house.
The unreasonable spirit screamed again. As the earth shuddered, Lorth determined the creature was trapped inside the house. Both things had the same feeling: not there, not structural. Unreal. Either Freil had been in the house already, or he had fled there for protection.
When you find Freil, you will know him as this, Eaglin had said. The second word will keep him under your control.
Lorth had already skewed this by speaking the first word. Now he had a bigger problem: how to get Freil out of there? He didn’t even know what he would be freeing. But he had to do something. With a knot in his gut that had the decided quality of a warning, he spoke the second word.
“Caecos.” It sounded like the soft rattle of a beech leaf in midwinter.
One of the downstairs windows shattered, causing the Faerins to leap back with shouts of alarm. Some of them ran; others drew swords and bows as a beast came out of the window. Not human, not animal, it looked like a wolf that stood on two legs, with ragged wings and a long serpent tail. It shifted around like mist, avoiding anything shot or swung at it.
The creature swirled around, flashing teeth, flapping wings and whipping its long tail all over the place. Its speed and agility were inconceivable and yet, impossibly, one of the warriors sank an arrow into the monster’s haunches, causing it to rend the forest with a cry that dragged a rippling saw over Lorth’s scalp. Another Faerin tackled it, and three more managed to wrestle it to the ground.
The second word will keep him under your control. Lorth’s gut spun over like a fish in water as he realized the command also gave the Faerins control—probably because Lorth hadn’t made contact with Freil before uttering the first command.
He took aim and felled three men in the space between one howl and the next. The edge on his focus and skill had changed, as if it now came from another set of equations. He stood up, waved his arms and shouted Freil’s name to get the beast’s attention. Then he twisted into the shadow of the cat-bird stone as a volley of arrows whizzed through the air and stuck into the woods around him. One of the Faerins cried out a command, sending others his way.
Magic was necessary now, he decided. He ran into the woods, uttering words to cloak himself. At once, the spell rushed over him. His body felt like moving leaves as he ducked by the men who rushed him from every direction. He killed six before he made it to a spot where he could still himself and hide.
He heard the creature scream again, this time with a broken catch in its voice. Lorth peered through the brush at the camp below. The creature lay on the ground; men circled it warily, swords drawn. Though now wounded, its tail struck anyone who came near. But it would only be a matter of time before they beat it down.
Lorth didn’t know how to undo what he had done. Making himself known to the beast had changed nothing. He couldn’t speak the last word and return this place to its original state, or the Faerins would kill Freil. But if he didn’t, they would kill him in this form eventually.
Think. He felt the closest thing to panic he ever had. No trick of hunters or wizards would get him out of these waters. For the first time, he questioned whether his reluctance to play by the Keepers’ rules had left him in the dark—or kept him safe there. Whenever his heart got involved, things went awry.
Love lurked under everything that rendered him powerless. Love for Ostarin, Icaros, Leda and the hunt. And now? A boy, a page he had never asked for, a fledgling wizard who had no more grasp on the Old One’s waters than did Lorth. Or did he? A boy, by whose heartfelt plea to Maern the hunter wouldn’t have returned—or be here, doing this, for that matter.
He closed his eyes as love filled his heart like a cataclysm. “Freil.” Freil.
Shouts resounded below as warriors rushed around the house.
The creature had vanished.
Lorth looked around wildly. What just happened? He ran higher up the hill until he found a spot where he could get a good view of the forest around. He let his energy cloak fall away and calmed himself. The forest grew quiet but for the distant sounds of men, calling to each other.
“Freil,” he whispered, imagining the young wizard’s smile, his forest-colored eyes and pale hair hanging in his face. “Please come to me now...”
Silence, darkness, emptiness. Lorth sank to his knees. Had the creature died? Dropped into some primeval rift where even words that were not words could find him? Once more, he spoke the young wizard’s name. “Freil!”
A tear broke loose from his eye and slid down his cheek. Damn you Eaglin! If I lose that boy to your fucking tricks I’m going to... He grew still as a shadow crossed his nerves. Something stirred in the tree above him. He looked up—then quickly wiped his face.
The beast perched over his head, slavering and bristling, its tail curling at the tip and its haunches bunched for an attack. “Where did you come from?” Lorth breathed, his spine racing with a knife-sharp chill. “And they call me sneaky...”
It descended on him in a blur of claws and teeth. As Lorth caught it, the beast grew limp in his arms, and slid down to his feet with a whimpering cry. Lorth knelt and ran his hands over its body to look for injuries. Half an arrow stuck from its shoulder, its back leg was broken, and bleeding sword cuts covered its hide. Lorth hacked off part of his cloak with his knife and wrapped it around the beast’s leg to stop the bleeding. Then he stroked its head, and slowly moved his hand towards the broken arrow shaft. “I have to get this out of you.” The beast breathed unevenly, as if weeping.
It screamed when Lorth pulled the arrow out. The sound echoed through the forest—for miles, it echoed. Silence fell, and then the voices of men rose up again. Lorth scooped the creature into his arms. It was much bigger and heavier than the boy would have been. It clung to him as he headed northwest—or so he guessed—moving swiftly over the brush and pools between the trees. After a short time, he began avoiding the standing stones, as Freil cried out in pain whenever they neared one.
Despite the alien sky, the Faerins had rallied their wits to the matter at hand. Men thickened in the woods, some mounted, some on foot. Dogs barked. Lorth stopped and lowered Freil into a hollow formed by a mound of earth carpeted with pale flowers. “Freil.” The creature lay there, shifting in the mist, rasping with pain. “Can you leave this place? Go home?”
When the beast didn’t respond, Lorth remembered that this dimension—and Freil—depended on his own perception. That meant the boy couldn’t leave without him. They were bound until Lorth completed the sequence.
Several riders thundered through the trees. One of them said, “Wait.” They slowed, their horses stepping here and there amid the brush.
Freil stirred, his long tail recoiling like a snake. Lorth removed his cloak and threw it over him. He would need a horse before he tried this.
“They aren’t here,” said a second man, impatiently.
“I’m telling you, I can smell it.”
The dim figures moved by the earth mound on either side. The third rider followed them, and then stopped and whirled his mount around. Lorth stepped back, sheltered by the night, and knelt next to Freil as the man wrestled with his horse. Br
inging his bow around, Lorth reached out to touch the creature, to calm it.
Only his cloak lay there, with nothing beneath. Lorth felt around on the ground. Freil!
The third rider cried out as his horse bolted, unseating him. He hit the ground with a grunt. Someone nearby shouted a name. The unsaddled warrior got up into a crouch and yelled, “He’s here!” A sword hissed from its sheath.
Hoofbeats shook the trees. Lorth pressed himself into the mound and nocked an arrow. A horse leapt over him, its hooves tearing the air above his face with a shriek.
Silence fell.
From an eternity of emptiness, Lorth became aware. He sat up, surrounded by shadowy crags lit by an overcast dawn. Water roared nearby; it smelled of brine and crashed rhythmically, echoing in a hollow place. Lorth rose and moved towards the sound until he reached the edge of a drop that fell some fifty feet to a seashore.
In the tide lay Freil, unmoving. Water lapped and tugged at his wings and tail.
Lorth half climbed, half flew down the slippery rocks. When he reached the monster’s side, he gathered it into his arms and spoke the last of Eaglin’s words. “Siraelct.” Vines wove themselves into a neat pattern, and the portal stretched back into shape with a perceivable snap.
Storm clouds shrouded the mid-day sun, emptying rain with a great hiss on the mountain snow. Lorth huddled in the woods near Eusiron’s High Pass with Freil in his arms, bleeding and limp in a dirty gray-green cloak. Unconscious, still breathing, his shoulder bled from the Faerin arrow, and the scrap of Lorth’s cloak hung limp around his boot where his leg had broken. Several sword wounds marked his small body, and a heavy bruise colored his cheekbone.
“Freil,” Lorth said, touching his face. The young wizard opened his eyes and started like a hare. “Shh, it’s all right. Looks like you got us home.” Lorth stood and carried him through the rain-packed snow towards the path that led to the palace gates. He heard a shout in the distance as the sentries spotted him.
Freil caught his breath. “Lorth.” Tears streamed down his cheeks.
“We’ll be there soon,” the hunter soothed.
Black- and gray-clad riders appeared like a storm over the rise.
Freil’s face turned pale as death. “Let me down...”
Lorth knelt, his heart skipping a beat as Freil clutched his gut, twisted over and retched in the snow. Lorth stroked his back as he coughed on bile.
A dozen men entered the woods and halted nearby. Lorth held up his hand and motioned to the leader, a dark-haired captain named Prederi. A warrior called Randall, with dirty blond hair and the mark of a master swordsman on his arm, followed him.
“Ivy,” Freil whispered. His gaze shot up to Lorth’s and hung there, terrified.
“What about Ivy?” Lorth looked at Prederi as the warrior knelt. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Prederi said, “When the boy went missing, Captain Ivy took a company and went after him. They were ambushed and slaughtered to a man.”
Randall bowed his head. “Captain Ivy wasn’t with them. We’re still looking for her.”
Lorth took Freil’s face in his hands. “Talk to me, laddie. Do you know where she is?”
“Dead.” The word hung there. Then his chest moved, and he started to breathe heavily. He glanced up at the warriors as if they frightened him.
“Freil?” Lorth whispered, as his heart began to pound.
“They—hurt her.”
Lorth recalled Ivy at the solstice feast, shining like a war goddess as she stared Asmat into a puddle. There was only one reason Faerins would capture a woman like that instead of killing her with her men.
Randall flung back his cloak, knelt and leaned forward, his gray eyes wild. “What d’you mean they hurt—”
Lorth silenced him with a black gaze that translated the obvious.
Stunned, Randall said to the boy, “You saw that?”
“They made him watch,” Lorth concluded, and by the empty terror in his small friend’s eyes, he knew it for true. Break the boy’s spirit, prove to him—or perhaps themselves—that in their world, women belonged beneath men and being a wizard meant nothing.
“Who gave the order?” Prederi said in a rough voice, his cheeks pale.
Lorth glared at him. “I don’t think—”
“Lefors!” Freil blurted. “Lieutenant Lefors.”
Prederi rose slowly to his feet. “Eusiron will avenge,” he swore. Randall got up and joined him, and they strode into the trees, whistling for their men.
Lorth picked up his young page, hugged him close and trudged after the warriors with the Destroyer’s fist around his heart. He now not only understood what it meant to be a wizard, but also intended to discover just how deeply the Old One’s roots grew into it.
Chapter 15
Shade of Forsaken: The Void loves nothing.
Dusk settled on the palace of Eusiron as the hunter found his chamber in the Hall of Thorns. It rained steadily outside, and the cold chilled his bones. He had passed the threshold of exhaustion hours ago, and he felt confused and unnaturally weak, as he did every time he touched the Old One.
He removed his wet cloak and started a fire with wood Freil had brought the day before. The hunter gazed into the flames as the room warmed. He had laid his page gently in a bed in the Hall of Light, his spirit hanging like a limp telltale as the boy whispered, Don’t leave me. The sunrise in Leda’s eyes had set as she swept in and ordered everyone out, including Lorth. I’ll care for him. You need to rest, now.
The Void loves nothing. What did he expect?
Rest. His young page broken and Ivy raped and killed before the child’s eyes because Lorth had listened to the Hunter’s Rede instead of his heart. War upon them, traitors, murderers and spies running rampant over the land, Icaros’s realm cut, burned and occupied by force, and Freya lost out there in the woods with wolves, warriors and Maelgwn to contend with. Rest? That wouldn’t happen without one of Leda’s potions in his tea.
I owe nothing. Really? Did he not?
A hawk is beautiful because he is free, Leda had said. What cost, freedom? He had left Tarth for his freedom, and Icaros had died for it. Leaf. Now, Ivy. And a child’s heart, broken through. Aggressors and protectors—where did his freedom fit into that?
He rose and stripped off his wet clothes. He unbraided his tangled hair and left it hanging there, his heart as raw as a skinned rabbit. He had undressed to a damp loincloth and sat on his bed, starving and sad with his head in his hands when someone knocked on the door. He looked up and cleared his throat. “Come.”
Cael leaned in, his red hair catching the firelight. His expression, a mixture of blades and grief, told Lorth he knew about Ivy. “You’re wanted in the Council room.”
Lorth stood and reached for Icaros’s leggings and his gray shirt. Cael withdrew into the hall like a ghost as he dressed.
Life departs unknown. Not for the first time, Lorth questioned the Shade of Silence, not for accuracy, but for relevance. Sodding horseshit. He could no longer distance himself from death that way.
He left his father’s room and accompanied Cael through the Hall of Thorns. As they entered the long passage to the council room, the guards at the door stepped aside, disregarding formality. Cael pushed the doors open to a rush of warm air smelling of woodsmoke, burning wax, sweat and old leather. Inside stood Morfaen, Barenus, Regin, Aran, and the two captains who had sat next to Ivy at the solstice feast, named Lars and Sigmund, Northmen with braided red-blond hair and eyes the color of clear skies. By them stood Prederi.
Eaglin sat draped in a chair with his forehead in his hand. He looked up as Mira, a wolfhound who had been sprawled at his feet, rose and walked to Lorth, wagging her tail. The hunter leaned down and touched the hound, finding small comfort in her attention.
“We found Ivy,” Regin said from across the table, strewn with papers, flagons, weapons, burned-down candles.
At the far end of the table sat Eamon, clutching a flagon i
n his fist. His bloodshot gaze bored into Lorth like an iron pike. “Aye, found her, bloody and torn by—”
“Eamon!” Regin barked, silencing him.
Lorth clenched his jaw and looked at Eaglin. “Did you know about this when you sent me after Freil?”
“I knew she was missing,” the Raven said quietly. Mira returned to him, and sat obediently beneath his hand.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Morfaen said, “Captain Ivy was a damned fine warrior. She knew her duty and her charge, and the risks involved. Freil—”
“And what was your duty,” Eamon interrupted, still glowering at Lorth, “sneaking off on the eve of war?”
Lorth regarded the blond-haired warrior with a prickle in his gut. The others watched the exchange with expressions of clear unease. Cael approached and handed Lorth a cup of wine. He drained it, and set the cup on the end of the table. The guardsman filled it again.
Eaglin stirred and said, “As far as I knew, Freil was in greater danger. I didn’t want to distract you from that.”
Lorth leaned down on the table with a crocodile stare. “You sent me in there as a Web—and then decided what would and wouldn’t distract me? If I’d known Ivy was involved, I’d have gone about it differently.”
Sigmund said, “What could you’ve done about it?”
“Aye, too fuckin’ late by then, waddin it,” Eamon slurred.
“You don’t know that,” Lorth said over his shoulder. To Eaglin he said, “That boy eluded me for weeks as my page before I finally caught him. I know what he’s capable of. I don’t care if they had hounds—they’d never have gotten etherweed into him unless they had something to stand him down. If you’d told me she went after him I could have put it together.”
“And done what?” Sigmund repeated. “They killed her entire company. They’d have been waiting for you.”
Lorth said, “Freil called to the Old One for protection, something he’s only done once before, when he thought Le—the Mistress was in danger of being harmed by the Faerins. He brought me here from Tarth without even knowing it. With all the facts, I could have gone in there without magic and brought him home unscathed, and possibly Ivy as well.”
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