Crown of Shadows

by C. S. Friedman

  “Do you see an alternative?”

  “You’re the one who cares about time.”

  Did it seem that the Hunter flinched? Certainly he hesitated before answering, “I would rather lose a day reaching my goal than lose my life getting there.”

  “You’re that sure he’ll be waiting for us?”

  The silver eyes met his. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s the rotten part about traveling with you, you know? Even your enemies are competent.” He took a short swig from his canteen, and watched as Tarrant did the same, trying to assess the weight of the Hunter’s canteen by the way he handled it. Half-empty at least, he judged. Did he have others like it, or was he reaching the end of his supply? “What about the Gastine? Won’t he try to whip up some kind of ambush there, once he guesses where we’re headed?”

  “Without doubt. But the towns near there are farther from the Forest, and its people will be less ready to rally to his cause.” He paused. “The trick is to beat them there.”

  He drew in a sharp breath and glanced back at the grazing horses. “Our mounts—”

  “Will need attention,” he agreed. “And as Healing is your department, not mine, I leave you to it.” He rose to his feet in a fluid motion, not unlike a snake uncoiling. “The currents here are strong, but you should be able to Work them. One benefit of having been driven so far from our chosen course,” he said dryly. And then he began to walk away from the camp.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Far enough from the three of you that I can Know what’s happening in the Forest. Or, at least, try to.”

  “I thought it was all but impossible to do that from here.”

  “Yes. Well.” The Hunter’s eyes glittered in the moonlight, half-lidded and thoughtful. “Doing the impossible seems to be our order of business, doesn’t it?” He gazed out at the endless dark vista to the west of them, and Damien thought he saw him stiffen in anticipation. “You just see to the horses.”

  See to the horses. Easier said than done, when the problem was not one wound or a simple illness but general systemic exhaustion. The animals needed sound sleep and a few good meals, not another Working. But with fifty or more miles ahead of them before they reached the Ridge, Damien and Tarrant had little choice. Calesta would certainly make sure that no town let them come close enough to purchase—or steal, he added grimly—fresher mounts.

  “Don’t go far,” he warned Tarrant. The man was too far away to hear him now, but what the hell. He felt better for saying it.

  With a sigh, he braced himself for a Healing.

  They pushed hard for the rest of the night, hard enough that Damien wondered if the horses wouldn’t collapse before dawn. If so, he didn’t know that he could do much to save them. It was one thing to spruce up an animal’s biochemistry when it was still relatively healthy, another thing entirely to save it once systemic breakdown had begun. But to his surprise they kept up a hard pace through the remainder of the night, enough to get their riders across the sloping line of hills which bordered the Raksha Valley to the south, and partway across the valley itself.

  By morning’s light Damien could see their eventual destination, a solid black wall that stretched as far as the eye could see to the east and the west of them, cutting short not only routes of travel but the very winds themselves. Weather systems rarely crossed the Black Ridge, he knew that from Geography 101, and the currents likewise tended to flow around it instead of across it. Which was in the long run what made the valley habitable, since the fae beyond that barrier was hot enough and wild enough that even sorcerers feared it.

  And that’s where we’re headed, he thought, gazing at the snow-clad peaks. Not a happy thought.

  From where they made their camp, Damien could see the pass itself, a place where the great ridge had folded in its making, creating a deep cleft through which men might travel without braving its heights. His stomach tightened at the thought of what might be waiting for them there, but he knew in his heart that there was no alternate route. Unlike the varied ranges of the east, the Black Ridge was an all-or-nothing climb for most of its length. And while they could push their horses hard along open ground and hope to make good time, Damien knew that if they tried to ride up there, where heat and oxygen were both in short supply, they would soon find themselves walking.

  Nevertheless ... “No other way?” he asked Tarrant as the man dismounted. Hoping that there was some route he didn’t know about, which they could turn to.

  “I’m afraid not,” the Hunter told him. And that was that. Because if there was any man Damien trusted to know the layout of this land, and to assess its hidden potential, it was the Hunter.

  He watched as Tarrant drained the last of his canteen’s contents, and waited for him to say something about his need for further nourishment. But the Hunter offered no information, and he didn’t want to ask him about it. If he needed something more than he carried with him, surely he would tell Damien. The Hunter had never been shy about his needs.

  1’ll feed him if I have to, he thought. Wondering even as he did so how he could do battle with Calesta’s troops with less blood in his own veins than he needed, or weakened by an endless assault of nightmares. Then he thought about the pass and what would be waiting for them there. Can you make me more afraid than I already am?

  “Get some sleep,” Tarrant urged him. “Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

  Sleep. Could you sleep in the shadow of such a threat, pretending that it was just another day? When the wind grew quiet, he imagined he could hear men’s voices in the distance, as Calesta used the daylight hours to prepare for combat. How many local warriors had he gathered there, how had he prepared them for the battle to come? Did they think they were fighting demons, or some other faeborn threat? What manner of illusion served them in the place of courage, that would keep them fighting long after every human instinct cried, Enough!

  Shivering, he laid his head down on his pack and tried to sleep. Wondering if somewhere in between the nightmares that awaited him he might not find five or ten minutes of genuine rest, so that he could be fresh and ready at sunset.

  Twenty-three days left.

  Thirty-two

  It took the Church’s faithful five days to reach Kale. They followed the path that regional planners had laid out centuries ago, when they first came to understand that in order to travel freely across the continent man would need protection from the night and its demons at regular intervals. The daes—small fortress-inns, solidly walled and carefully warded—punctuated the road at planned intervals, and their facilities, designed to accommodate massive trade caravans when necessary, were not hard pressed to provide room and board for the small band of warriors and their horses.

  Eighty-seven men and women. Not all of those would be going into the Forest, of course; there were a handful who would be assigned liaison duties in Mordreth, and at least a dozen more who would man a supporting camp just outside the Forest’s borders, to guarantee their supply line should the conflict become an extended one. Several hundred more were already in place at the edge of that damned realm, stripping the land of all that could burn against the day when the Church’s final weapon would be wielded, and the Forbidden Forest would pass into history. It was a small force even in its total, a deliberate contrast to the vast armies which had assaulted that realm in ages past. Those armies had failed, the Patriarch was quick to remind them. Numbers alone could not guarantee safety in a war where the very battlefield was alive and hostile. So this time they would field not an army proper, but a finely honed strike force, who would pierce the Forest quickly, strike its blow, and then—hopefully—get out.

  The Hunter’s realm, going up in flames. Andrys dreamed of it daily, savoring the vision as his mount carried him closer and closer to its fulfillment. The image sustained him when all else seemed about to fall apart, when the strength he feigned and the courage he pretended to possess seemed more of a l
ie than ever. The heat of that fire fed him with life, and with hope, and gave him the strength to go on.

  His companions were strangers to him. He walked among them, he ate dinner in their company, but they might have been from another planet for all he understood them. It was the religious thing, of course. Like all the Tarrants, Andrys had been raised to serve the One God, in word and deed if not in spirit, and he had been to services often enough for weddings and the like to be able to mouth the common prayers along with his fellows. But it meant little to him. These people were different. They were marching north to fight, perhaps to die, all in the name of a God so divorced from human affairs that they never even dreamed He would help them. Why? Between their motives and his comprehension was a chasm so vast, so darkly infinite, that all the well-intended prayers in the world could not begin to bridge it.

  Faith. It meant nothing to him. Faith was a fantasy, a delusion. Faith was like wine: you poured it inside you and for a brief time it blossomed, it eased the pain of living, it banished the guilt that tended to clog up a man’s head. And then it was gone, like wine: digested, expelled, forgotten. What was the point?

  Did anyone really believe the One God was out there? Did anyone believe that He cared the least bit whether this venture of theirs succeeded? Did they honestly believe that a caring God would let a creature like the Hunter exist in the first place, much less reward his lifestyle with virtual immortality?

  Maybe the pagans have it right, he thought bitterly. Envying his polytheistic brethren for the comforting simplicity of their faith. Do good or evil, and the world responds in kind. Maybe not the way you would have liked, maybe not in a way you even understand, but at least the relationship is there. That, he could relate to. This ... this was a total mystery to him.

  Perhaps if he could just be alone for a short while he could come to terms with it all. But there was little privacy in this new world of his. His days were spent riding with the troops, the Patriarch of the Eastern Autarchy on his right and the Company Commander, a woman named Tabra Zefila, on his left. Sandwiched in by authority like that, he felt self-conscious even sneezing; God alone knew what would happen if a muttered curse should escape his lips when his horse stumbled. At night he ate with the common troops, while the two leaders withdrew to converse in private. An alien in their midst, he rarely joined in their conversation. When it came time to retire, he joined his fellow men in a room prepared for merchant guards, six bunks to a room with a common bath. Never alone. Sometimes he felt so desperate for privacy that he wanted to scream. It wasn’t just because he needed a drink so badly, so often; after dinner there was enough ale and enough wine making the rounds that he could sate his thirst without being conspicuous. In the past he’d had to hide his drunkenness in front of Samiel and Betrise so often that the skill was now second nature to him; he could drink himself to the borders of oblivion and still walk steadily to his room, even climb up to his bunk as if nothing were wrong. No, that wasn’t the problem. And it had nothing to do with the drugs he had brought with him, a last desperate gambit in case the journey proved too much for him. He hadn’t needed them yet, and if he did, he could always swallow a pill quickly in the bathroom and get back to bed before it took effect. No, that wasn’t it either.

  It was the memories.

  Not just memories of the past now, though chilling images of his family’s slaughter—and his own cowardly inadequacy—still churned in his brain. Now there were memories of the girl, as well. Sweet memories, warm and seductive ... and more painful than all the others combined. Because he wasn’t going back to her. He knew that. He was going to pit himself against the Forest in the hope of avenging his family, but the odds of his coming back from that quest were minimal. And even if he did, how could he take that gentle girl into his arms again once his flesh had housed the Hunter’s spirit? Even if he did survive this, even if he somehow—impossibly—managed to salvage his sanity, how could he pretend to just pick up where he had left off as if nothing had changed? Could a man become the Hunter in spirit and not be poisoned by the experience?

  When he could, he lost himself in drink. When he couldn‘t, he vacillated between fighting the memories—all of them—and giving way to the sweetest ones, a last fleeting indulgence before the darkness of the Hunter’s realm swallowed him whole.

  They were received warmly in Kale, even passionately, as befit the first visit of this Patriarch to the thriving port city. To Andrys, who had never paid much attention to Church hierarchy—or any other power structure, for that matter—it was an eloquent reminder of the importance of the man who rode by his side, and the significance of his position to the men and women who worshiped the One God.

  There were thousands of them lining the south road when they arrived, the faithful and the curious both, come to see this man who embodied God’s Will. Many reached out to touch him, and once or twice the Patriarch reined up and indulged them, offering his hand to be shaken or kissed or whatever. Watching him, Andrys was awed by the aura of the righteous authority which he exuded, and by its power over the people here. Some of them even fell to their knees as he approached, a gesture which he accepted as naturally and as regally as he did all the others. It was hard to remember who and what this man was when you saw him only in small rooms and on dusty horseback, running small affairs, dealing with trivial day-to-day matters, surrounded by people who were accustomed to his presence. It was something else again, Andrys thought, to see this. He found that he was trembling despite himself, and when the Patriarch turned once to look back at him he felt genuinely shaken, as if those blue eyes had been a channel to something greater, something any mere human should be frightened of.

  The mayor met them at the city gate—an impromptu structure which had been hastily erected in order for there to be somewhere to hold such a ceremony—and showered them with verbal honor. Saviors of the north, he called them. Saints of the One God. But despite his surface enthusiasm, Andrys had the distinct impression that the man kept looking back over his shoulder, as if expecting something to creep up behind him at any moment.

  It’s the ghost of Mordreth, Zefila whispered to him. It took him a minute to place the name, but when he did so he nodded solemnly that yes, he understood. Mordreth was a town just across the Serpent, on the very border of the Forest, which had once hosted a similarly organized effort to destroy the Hunter’s realm. In retribution, the town had been destroyed in a single night: man, woman and child; their pets and their flocks; and even the buildings that housed them, reduced to dead meat and rubble in one night of vengeance. It was little wonder that the mayor seemed so nervous, with such a reminder of the Hunter’s power only miles away. Given the circumstances, it was almost surprising that the troops had been welcomed at all.

  They were given rooms, and food, and offered supplies; the Patriarch accepted it all. He was pressed into holding an impromptu service in the local church, which had to be moved to the city square to accommodate all the people who came. Andrys knew enough about Church theosophy to recognize that as the man stood there, the center of attention for thousands of worshipers, he was in fact shaping the fae through their faith, weaving additional power for use in this venture. Why can’t they just do it openly? he wondered. Calla stone a stone. But by the end of the service even he could feel the force of what had been conjured, and for once that night he retired without doubt, without fear, drifting softly into a realm where even the nightmares were gentle.

  Would that it had lasted!

  In the morning they set sail for Mordreth. Across the choppy waters of the Serpent (was the Hunter sending a storm to harass them?), past the dark bulk of Morgot (what enemies might emerge from that secret port?) into the muddy waters of Mordreth’s harbor. This time there were no warm welcomes awaiting them, no crowds to shower them with honor, not even a low-level official or two to make sure that they followed local port custom. Their own agent met them at the pier, along with the four Church-folk he had brought with him. Other t
han that, the harbor was practically deserted.

  “They’re afraid,” he told the Patriarch, and Andrys thought, Who can blame them?

  Through a nearly deserted town they rode, and the sky added its own silent comment by drizzling rain down on them. Many of Mordreth’s inhabitants had left the town in fear for their lives, and those that remained dared not even look upon the passing troops, for fear that the Hunter would read his own meaning into such behavior and exact a terrible vengeance. Nevertheless, there were signs that life—and hope-had not been totally extinguished. A shutter creaking open as they passed, so that frightened eyes might gaze through the opening. A curtain pulled aside to reveal shadowed faces. It seemed to Andrys that once or twice he could hear muttered words—fragments of a prayer, it seemed—but he was at a loss to identify its source, or even explain how the sound had reached him.

  “This is the face of our enemy,” the Patriarch pronounced, when they had all gathered at the far edge of town to hear his words. His arm swept toward the south, encompassing the town they had just passed through. “This is what we’ve come to fight. Can any man see what we have seen and doubt the inevitability of such a battle? Can any of you bear to stand back and do nothing and watch this influence spread, household by household, city by city, until the entire eastern realm scurries like frightened animals at the mere mention of the Hunter’s name? Until your husbands and your wives and your children cower in shadows at the slightest hint of his presence? We will cleanse this land forever,” he pronounced. “Not only to destroy an unclean thing which God Himself abhors, but to restore the spirits of our fellow men. It is the souls of humankind that we do battle for,” he told them, and the winds of the fae etched that message into their brains so powerfully that it seemed the fate of the entire world was at issue in this one campaign.

  They rode northward for several hours, until at last, atop a low rise, Zefila called a halt. In the distance it was just possible to see the grasslands give way to a tightly wooded expanse, and Andrys felt his soul clench up at the sight of it. For a long time they stood there, gazing down at the enemy’s domain, and no one spoke a word. The air seemed to be thicker coming from that direction, and colder, and it carried a scent that was markedly unpleasant, of blood and illness and flesh gone to rot. One man was sickened enough by it that he went off to the rear of the company to vomit; Andrys could hear his heaving off to the left somewhere as he struggled to gather his own courage, and he wished desperately that he could sneak away and steal a drink. But there’d be no more ale now and no more wine until this matter was finished, he knew that. In a realm where one’s every fear would be given wings and teeth and the hunger to kill, drunkenness was too volatile a weakness.