“Take me to them. Maybe I can make them change their minds.”
He could see Harper wanting to argue again. He knew his friend well. They had fought side by side on a score of occasions and traveled together long enough that even if they had not grown together in the same town they’d have claimed fellowship.
“I have to try, Harper.” His hands clenched into fists around the four cold, metal coins. They were of a size that his fists could not completely close. “I have to.”
Harper stood completely still for one more moment and then he sighed. “So let’s go see if we can get your family back.”
“I owe you.”
“I’ve owed you for a lifetime.” Harper shook his head and spat. He was not happy. There was nothing to be happy about.
Volkner was coming his way, his ambling stride leaving him swaying one way and then the other. Brogan knew exactly how much the man ached inside for failing to stop Nora and the children from being taken.
“I am so sorry, Brogan.”
“You could not have stopped them.” It was all he could manage as a defense for his friend. It was the truth. No one could stop the Grakhul. They were called by many names, not the least of which was the Undying. Every story of anyone trying to prevent a family member from being taken ended poorly for the would-be saviors.
Brogan climbed back into the saddle and turned toward the Broken Swords. The sun gleamed off the distant shards in a display of colors that was the envy of rainbows, and Brogan did not care in the least.
Somewhere beyond those mountains his family was being dragged to their deaths.
He would save them or he would die trying.
Niall Leraby walked through the woods and let himself commune with the world around him. Not far away he could hear the Weeping River living up to its name, the waters sighing and crying as they pattered over the crystalline rocks and worried their way past the thick roots from the garrah trees that leaned over the river as if to protect their young.
A dozen paces away a doe looked at him and froze, waiting to see what he would do. He nodded in her direction and ignored her otherwise. He loved a good cut of venison, but he wasn't here to hunt for meat. He was looking for the proper herbs to satisfy Mosara’s needs. The master gardener was not a hard man to work for, but he expected nothing less than perfection in what was brought to him. Less than that, he often said, would lead to a person dying.
There were some gardeners who tended to the trees on an estate or two and then there were gardeners like Mosara, who handled the landscape at the palace. Some day, if he were bright enough and learned his lessons well, Niall would take his place there. For now he learned and in the process he wandered the woods outside of the city and plucked this root or that leaf or even an occasional berry, because Mosara told him he had to.
“All and well,” he said to himself. “There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.” That was the truth of it, too. He was happy with his lot in life. There were few who could say that in his estimation.
The deer was almost behind him now, and he had let her drift from his attention when she suddenly bolted, charging past him and leaping a distance that was startling to witness. She did not wait around, but continued her rapid escape from the area.
He turned to see what might have startled her, and saw the cloaked figure a dozen feet away.
Niall was not a fool. Upon occasion he was accused of being too trusting, but he seldom let himself get caught unawares.
His fingers tightened on the walking staff in his right hand and he made himself appear calm.
“Well met.”
The cowl was filled only with darkness and whomever it was that looked back from under it made no response.
“Was there something you needed help with? Are you lost?” It happened from time to time, even away from the city. People could get lost. In the woods if they ate the wrong things they could easily get addled and forget where they were going.
Instead of speaking the figure tossed a glittering trinket into the air and Niall watched as the shining metal arced toward him. No. Not a trinket.
A coin.
The metal hit the ground in front of Niall and landed on its edge. The loam under his feet was soft, and the heavy coin cut the surface of the stuff and stood at a nearly impossible angle, like a dagger driven into flesh.
“What are you doing?” Niall asked, but he already knew the answer.
He took a step back and shifted his balance. The staff rose up from the ground and he held it in a two-handed grip.
“I do not follow your gods,” he did his best to sound stern. “Find another.”
The cloaked figure shuddered and came toward him, moving quickly. “No.” The word was not spoken, it was hissed.
Niall brought his staff around in a brutal arc and aimed the thicker end of the hard wood at the blackness of the cowl’s depths. Somehow he missed. His aim was good, but the stranger moved too quickly and dodged his attack.
Niall shook his head. He wanted this done and sooner rather than later.
While he was contemplating what he wanted something hit him hard in the back of his head. The wooden staff fell from his hands and he grunted and then fell forward.
When he hit the ground the cold coin of the Grakhul scraped along his jaw and narrowly avoided drawing blood.
There were more of them. Not one shape, but half a dozen or more, and they moved around him, cutting off any chance of escape.
He would have risen if he could have. The cloaked figure leaned over him and spoke again. “The gods do not need your faith. They need your life.”
They fell on him then, their hands feverishly hot, their breath rancid and diseased. He did not know how many of them attacked; he could not tell for certain, but he saw their faces and knew a fear deeper than he ever had before.
After that the darkness swallowed Niall whole.
They rode hard, and as they went they gathered more riders to join them.
They did not manage an army, but there were enough folk who either owed Brogan for past deeds, had suffered from the same loss in the past, or would work for coin, that they gathered twenty in all. More would been too cumbersome.
Harper led the way.
Harper, who could be so secretive and who had spent time among the Grakhul, protecting deliveries to their nameless keep in the forsaken northeast. The laws of the Five Kingdoms forbade travel to the area. It was the land reserved for the Grakhul, and unless those very people offered safe passage, the foolish that trespassed did not live long to speak of their journeys.
“We have to follow the proper passages across the land. Stray too far and death will follow.”
Harper’s words dragged Brogan from his thoughts.
“How do you know these paths?”
The man’s smile was thin and unreadable. “I was trained to be here. I’m betraying a trust.”
“Do you think I don’t know what I’ve asked of you?” Brogan’s voice was soft as the finest leather. “Do you think I ask it lightly?”
“If I doubted you, I would not be here.” Harper did not flinch from his gaze. “She is your wife, and they are your children, but I’ve loved them too. They’re as much my family as you are, Brogan.”
“Why do they take them, Harper?”
“Why does the wind blow? The gods make demands and those who follow them obey those demands.”
Really there was no more to say and so they rode on as quickly as they safely could.
The land they finally reached was bleak, a dismal collection of black rock and broken shale that fell toward a dim, gray shoreline of more shale and dark sands. The ocean beyond it was equally uninviting and violent besides. The waves at low tide slammed themselves furiously against the shoreline and dashed into the blades of rock with murderous force. The vibrations from the impacts could be felt through the leather of his boot heels.
According to Harper more than one fool had attempted to attack by that route but no
ne had succeeded. Few had ever approached the nameless keep of the Grakhul and come back. Those that did were never the same. Strong men were broken by what they saw and their flesh sometimes withered where they had strayed too far from the proper path.
Harper pointed out the Gateway to them. The place that the Grakhul claimed led to the home of the gods.
At a distance the monolithic Gateway rose from the night time waters, a massive bridge of dark stone that sometimes was merely an arch and other times revealed the land beneath it. They had heard of the Gateway before, but only one of them had ever seen it. Few saw the Gateway and fewer still saw the keep. These were forbidden things, as ordered by the royal families of the Five Kingdoms. Those rare few given permission to visit were allowed only because the Grakhul deemed them worthy. Harper was one of the fortunate souls trained to find his way through what seemed like an unremarkable terrain.
None of them looked at the Gateway for long. There was something about that odd stone bridge over the waters that hurt the eyes and made the mind ache.
After a scan of the area Brogan McTyre pushed aside the idea of attacking from the shore below. There were other ways that might prove slightly less dangerous.
“Well, now we know why no one ever attacks this place.” Laram scowled as he spoke.
The keep was built into the side of the dark stone cliff. Somewhere in the distant past madmen had decided to risk life and limb and carve the damnable place into existence. The very structure gave off a feeling of extreme age, even if one didn’t take the time to notice where the winds had smoothed a few of the edges.
Brogan looked toward Laram and nodded. He felt exactly the same way. The difference was that he was the one leading the assault and couldn’t actually voice that opinion.
He shook his head and spit into the cold sea air. If he thought too much about the dangerous air of the place, if he let himself worry, he’d lose his anger. He needed that right now to keep him warm and to keep him brave.
Unconsciously he let his fingers roam into the pouch secured on the inside of his broad leather belt, where the four coins rested. He did not need to see them. He’d memorized every detail of their surfaces. They’d been pressed between his belt and the fabric of his kilt for days, but when his fingers touched the heavy, gold coins they still felt cold. He understood cold as he never had before.
“Enough. The sun’s up in a few hours.” He squinted into the wind and looked toward the east. “Though around here it might be hard to tell. Let’s find a way in. We’ve bloody work to do.”
A few voices muttered agreement but most were silent. They were here because they owed Brogan a debt or because they had experienced similar pains. None of them were there for money alone. Brogan couldn’t hope to offer enough to offend the gods. Where others had allowed the old ways to continue, Brogan intended to get his family back or make sure it never happened again.
Harper spoke up, dark hair flipping lazily around his lean face, dark eyes staring intently at Brogan. “You are sure you want to do this? It breaks all of the laws.”
Brogan knew the man was trying to be the voice of reason, but anger and reason have never been close associates. “I did not ask you here to stop me, Harper, and you know that.”
That thin mouth broke into a crooked grin, that made the man look younger by years. “I never said I would stop you, Brogan. Only that I would aid you in any way I can. Sometimes that means saying the things you do not want to hear.”
Brogan put a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder and nodded. “I thank you for that, but I mean to have my family today. Will you join me?”
Harper licked his lips. “I have never been one to turn away from blood. No reason to start now.” The leaner man looked toward the shore and the odd, rough stone that marked the top of the Grakhul keep. “There is a pathway. It’s right at the edge and it is steep. If you are afraid of heights, you might wish to turn back.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “The horses will have to stay behind. They’d never manage to keep their footing.”
“How do the Grakhul manage it?”
Harper looked at him for a long moment and barely even seemed to breathe. The man was seldom bothered by much. “They aren’t human, Brogan. Make no mistake of it. They are not like us, no matter how much they might look the part.”
Brogan spat again. “No turning back. Let’s go.”
Harper, the only one of them who knew the ways to enter the keep without dying for the effort, led the way with that same half smile on his face.
Harper sighed. “No turning back, indeed, Brogan. No turning back now. Not ever again.”
Brogan had heard the warnings before. They had all been raised on admonitions about what it meant to defy the Grakhul. Those had always been enough in the past.
Everything changed when it happened to your loved ones. He understood that now. There would be no forgiveness for whatever happened. For that reason alone he owed a debt of blood to each of the men with him.
They were mostly mercenaries. They’d fought at one time or another for each of the kingdoms. The thing about being sought for crimes was first people had to know you had committed them. None of them were foolish enough to admit to the crimes. Well, except possibly Harper, but he could only hope the man kept his tongue.
“Harper?”
“Yes?”
Brogan looked to his friend and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’ll do if we’re too late.”
“I’d say we should pray, but that might not go the right way. I mean who would we pray to?”
He could always trust Harper to find the most challenging part of a quandary. Who indeed?
The others would not talk. Like him they were here for personal reasons. Blood sometimes calls for blood.
Harper was right. Madmen had surely designed the slope down into the keep. The stone was slicked with algae and nearly too smooth to allow a man to walk. Instead they clutched at the wall of the winding, twisting path, and half walked half slid toward the plateau below.
Brogan, a man bent on either salvation or revenge, could feel his heart hammering in his chest. After ten minutes of doing their best to keep their footing Harper and the men he was leading made it to the flat land of the keep itself.
The ground here was just as damp, and the green slime that had been under their feet coated the walls of the ancient structure as well, lending it an unsettling level of camouflage.
The winds along the cliff face were rough and those men who had long hair and had not already tied it back began the task almost immediately. The sole exception was Harper, who remained as calm as ever.
For one moment Brogan pondered whether the man would betray him and then crushed the thought. They had grown up in the same town and been friends as long as he could recall.
Harper looked his way and drew his chosen weapons. In his right hand he carried a long blade with a hook at the end. In his other hand he gripped a thin sword that was perfectly designed for a man of his leaner stature.
Harper broke the silence. He spoke softly, but did not whisper. The wind would have stolen his words away too easily. The men moved closer to hear him. “We move around the first wall here, and we’ll see their sacrificial pits. There are four of them. They are large, but they have no decorations to let you know they are there. Be very careful. You have already felt the surface of the ground here. Those pits, they are where the bodies go.” He didn’t have to say which bodies. They all knew.
The Grakhul had always come and they demanded their sacrifices.
The Grakhul did not ask. They took. The only sign they left of who had come and taken were the large gold coins they dropped, one for each person stolen away. The weight of them pulled at Brogan’s belt.
Harper looked his way and Brogan realized the man was still speaking. “Beyond the pits is the great hall. It’s where the prisoners are kept and where all of the Grakhul feast.” He looked at the ground ahead. Dark and green and damp against a gray sky
that showed no sign of a sun. There were clouds out there, a gathering black bank that rose up the gods alone knew how far. The waves raged and threw themselves at the land.
Brogan knew how they felt.
“Lead the way, Harper. Let this be finished.” His words were low, but heard by all.
Harper nodded, and that smirk marred his features as he turned and moved forward, sliding across the ground with a grace that Brogan envied.
Brogan strode across the level deck, with stone on three sides and a severe drop to the sea below on his left, and pushed his boots into the thick slime, balancing himself with each step he took. After only a few paces the slippery surface lost its coating of green and became a surer, safer footing.
Harper moved around the last corner and he followed. Five steps and Brogan saw the first of the pits. They were vast, indeed, and dark: cavernous holes large enough to easily swallow a fully loaded wagon and as perfectly round as anything he had ever seen. The walls were completely smooth and as far as he could tell no lichen or moss touched the stone. He had no idea how far they went down, but the cliffs ran for a few hundred feet before they met the ocean and he could feel a breeze rising from the pit. The breeze smelled of the sea and darker things.
Some moments take forever. There was so much to see, so much to absorb, and Brogan’s mind was a sponge at that moment, thirsty for information.
No more than three heartbeats to take it all in, but only one was needed before Brogan was screaming.
There were four pits. The edges of three of them were coated in a residual wash of crimson that painted the dark stone.
At the pit closest to them a single man dropped a small, bloodied body into the well and looked up at the sound that came from Brogan’s mouth. The shape that fell into the pit was tiny, no larger than a young boy. Brogan recognized Braghe’s face before the figure dropped.
The second pit had already been abandoned, and the man who’d been standing there was walking toward the farthest of the four deep holes.
At the third a man was looking down into the depths of the well and turned toward the group as Brogan screamed.
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