"She's the witch," said Vincius.
Shield shook his head. "She is Birgid's daughter. She saved us. Her words brought light into the darkness, gave us enough of an opportunity to escape the Dark Woods."
"She's a witch," the young Apprentice from Xichil said to Urbidis. "She is a danger to us. We should cut out her tongue before she spits her words at us."
"Don't be a fool, boy," said Spear. "You'll end up being the one whose tongue gets cut out."
"So you're the one who deserted," said Urbidis.
"My days as a running dog for Empire are over," said Shield.
"There will be a price to pay when all of this is over," said the commander.
"There's always been a price to pay. The Hounds are dead. Two remain."
"Three," muttered Spear.
"You're turning on Empire. You were to serve the Apprentice Chronicler and you abandoned him," said Urbidis. "Dhurma does not look lightly upon deserters. And I will be the one charged with tracking you down. You will never again be able to come south of the Black River and if you do, you will be hung. Your days will end."
"My days ended long ago," said Shield. "I am home now and I'm here to make things right for the North. I have come back to my people."
"Too late for that," said Spear. "We are a dying people and nothing can bring us back from the brink. Dhurma comes and when they do, the Black River will not be able to hold them back and their wrath and fury will bloody the meadows and the bogs. We will be driven further towards the ice fields or accept their yokes. What the warlock had done has completely changed everything. This is the end of the North."
"No, Spear Spyrchylde, the North will always endure," said Eliode, her eyes dark, her words sharp through the mists. "We may be a dying people but we will endure. One day, we will rise again – warriors, witches – a people reborn out of the darkest times. But until then, we must endure."
"All fine this," said Urbidis, "but what do you do so far from Lake's End? Do you come with us now to rid the world of the warlock and the witch?"
"I ride for the witch," said Shield. "I ride for my Birgid."
LOST
THEY HAD GATHERED there at the edge of the forest, introductions made, hands clasped, and they set off towards the stone tower of the warlock.
But Spear knew it was all a lie. Urbidis wanted to kill the warlock and witch, exact his revenge. Shield only sought to save Birgid and make amends for the crimes of his life. Vincius wanted the words and the tongues in his box. How could any of them walk away from the tower not covered in the blood of the men that they rode with?
Spear wondered how he would survive.
The grasslands deteriorated quickly as they rode. The ground softened beneath the weight of the horses, each step leaving an imprint that filled with dark stagnant water. Grass darkened with mud and slime.
The grasslands turned into swamp, the dreaded peat bogs of the North. Even Spear, a Northman himself, hated finding himself in the bogs. The travel was difficult, hard labor for the horses, and mists rose to obscure the distances. An enemy could be on them with no warning.
The air pressed his skin and furrowed down to his bones.
The bogs were places to be avoided. They were the scenes of childhood stories where brave warriors vanished, where dragons unfurled, and where skeletons assembled from the earth.
"Thicker than wool," said Harad, the big, red-haired Northman becoming a ghost in the fog even though he rode alongside Spear.
"Keep your blades drawn," said Spear. "If we come upon any of the warlock's men, it will be sudden."
"My hammer's always ready." Harad laughed.
Spear pushed through the fog, eyes narrowed trying to discern changes in the landscape. "Did you send Patch off well?"
Harad tightened his lips. "He died blade in hand. That is all we can ask."
"Perhaps when we return, we can bring his body back to Lake's End. Give him a proper burial. Send his smoke to the heavens and scatter his ashes in the heart of the lake."
"I don't think we're going back."
"To Lake's End? Who are they to turn the Hounds back?"
"I meant the forest," said Harad. "We barely survived it the first time and I doubt we would be able to make it through again. We killed a number of the Shadow Men and they will be looking to spill our blood if we trespass in their forest again. I swear I could hear the sounds of horns in the distance, as if they were calling others to a hunt.
"But I don't think we will return to Lake's End either. The Hounds are not welcome there."
Spear steered his horse around a pool of black water covered with patches of bright green algae. "If you go where the Hounds are welcome, there are few places you can go in the North."
"Maybe back down to Cullan town with you. Seems like there might be work for hired swords down there."
Spear thought about the fortress town, the dirty market, the clansmen who tried to dress and act like Dhurmans, the poverty, the bored soldiers on the wall of the fortress. He had made his life there – at the intersection of two worlds – but what kind of life was it? If he straddled two worlds, he would never fully be a part of either. He would always be seen as the outsider, never seen as an equal. Was his dream of buying his citizenship in Dhurma a folly? Why had he given up so easily on the North, his own people, his past?
"I miss being one of the Hounds," said Spear.
Harad tilted his head. "Are you joking, Spear? We parted on the worst of terms. I had thought that you and Shield were going to come to a final meeting of blades. We were all ready for it. You and your men and Shield and his."
"I saw nothing back then. What was I but a child in the body of a man? What did I know of honor, of clan, of the true history of the North? What did any of us know and for us to be wandering the hills of heather without a leader, for was that not what we were, what more could have been expected from us?"
"I think the problem was that we had too many leaders, you and Sword and Shield. Blood was coming. We all knew it."
"I suppose in the end that Shield was best for the Hounds after all," said Spear.
Harad shrugged. "Many moons have passed. So few have returned. Not even a bag of gold or gems between us. We returned only with our lives and our swords and the stories of the battles where we lost all the other Hounds."
"Don't hold it against him. If you would have stayed with me, or if Sword would have lived, few of us would remain whether felled by blade or folding back into the village. The Hounds would have disbanded within a year. We were never meant to be anything other than a temporary rite into manhood, a year of living dangerously so that excess of youth could be burned out and we could be returned to our villages, our fires spent."
"And now we are back in the North," said Harad, "yet we have not returned home. There is no home for us."
"I stayed and what home is there for me? A lackey of Dhurma, a thug among my own people, more concerned with gathering coin than protecting my people. There are no paths to follow. We are where we are."
"And where is that, Spear?"
"Lost in the swamp, my friend, and looking for a way out."
DOGS OF THE NORTH
"WE NEED TO kill them. Kill them all," said Vincius, leaning across his horse to Pullo, his voice a hiss barely heard above the cold wind of the North.
The big Xichilian scratched his cheeks and chin. "What nonsense is spewing from your mouth, boy? Kill who? The men we travel with?"
Vincius's eyes ran to where the clansmen rode some distance from the two of them. "They are dogs of the North. We can't trust them at all. We are at war with them. You saw what they did to the soldiers of the fortress. You saw the slaughter."
"That was the warlock. Not the Hounds or Spear or these boys who ride with us. We need them more right now than they need us."
"They don't ride for us, you fool. They ride for the North. As soon as they get their chance, they will slit our throats and put our heads up on spikes."
P
ullo laughed. "More likely that's what we'll do to them. You need to settle down and trust them. If we're going to get to the warlock and finish this thing that you so desperately want done, then we're going to have to trust them. We would never be able to find our way out of this damned mist by ourselves and, even if we did, how would you and I and Urbidis ever hope to take on the warlock? You can't even handle a blade, much less ride a horse, so how would we get past his guard and bring him and the witch down."
"It's the witch I am most worried about," hissed Vincius. "You heard Shield. He rides for her. He rides for her with another witch in tow. How can we trust them? We need to kill them, kill them all."
"And how exactly do you propose that we do this? Just point our blades at them and have at it? Do you even know which end of the sword to hold?"
"If we do not kill them, they will kill us. Even if we kill the warlock, Shield will not let us have the witch. You know this as well as I do. But we have to take the witch. She must die for her sins."
Pullo sighed. He let his horse drift some ways until he began to disintegrate into the mists.
Vincius wished that the Hounds would get lost in the fogs of the swamp. But he knew that Pullo was right. He needed the Northmen. Yet even with Shield and Harad and the rest of the clansmen what hope did they truly have?
They would inevitably be facing a defensive force of Northmen. The warlock was no fool. He had already gathered an army to put between himself and any legion that might venture beyond the Black River. Who knew what waited for them at the foot of the stone tower? Even then, how would they defeat the warlock and the witch when they could raise the dead?
Vincius feared they would not make it out of the mists and find the tower of the warlock. How could he return to Vas Dhurma without the tongues of the warlock and witch?
The mists surrounded him, the distances between himself and the other riders growing, until it was as if he alone rode. When he was sure no one could see him, he slipped his fingers between his teeth and tugged at his own tongue. He pulled at it so hard that he thought he would tear it from its root.
SONG IN THE MISTS
"RECONSIDER," SAID URBIDIS. The commander lagged at the tail end of the column with Shield. "The witch must pay the price for what she has done to my men."
"Is there no price to be paid for what Empire has done?"
"I am the justice of the Empire in the North. My blade will swing true and we will put your head on a stake at Oron's Belt to show what we do to traitors."
Shield laughed. 'You and what army? You think your fat sergeant and the little snake can stand two minutes against the Hounds and these clansmen? We will leave your bodies to pickle in the bog."
"I am patient. After this business is done, Empire will come to my call. We will breach the Black River and the North will know the fury of Dhurma. Give up the witch and you'll give your people a chance."
"You've been too far north for far too long," said the Hound. "Dhurma doesn't care. Can't you see how expendable you are? I once thought that I mattered. But the Hounds were pieces to be played in a great game. The man in the field or the man in the fortress are the same. Doesn't even matter what side we are on. We're tally marks to be consumed so lines on maps can be redrawn, so timber and gold and cattle flow to Dhurma, so the price of trade is clipped and the coffers of Vas Dhurma and its merchants and lords are filled, so they can live in their grotesqueness. But one day all that will fall. One day Dhurma will consume itself."
"You underestimate Dhurma."
"I know Dhurma. The North means nothing. It is simply an expense on a ledger. The East is where the treasures lie, the unconquered lands."
"The Chroniclers and the Grand Collegium will not stand for the rise of dark magic in the North," said Urbidis.
"And that's why we'll kill the warlock. We will give them something to satisfy their blood lust. The great evil will be gone and Dhurma will keep its eyes to the East. We will be left alone in our own lands."
"We need to kill the witch too."
"In that we differ."
"Then our blades will cross."
"Only if we both survive the assault on the tower of the warlock," said Shield. "Either way I foresee one of us not riding back."
Urbidis prodded his horse to a trot and caught up with Pullo and Vincius riding apart in the middle of the column.
"Damned mists," hissed Vincius. "Who knows where these clansmen lead us. I warn you that there might be a trap ahead."
Urbidis nodded. "We three need to stick together. We are outnumbered and the Northmen do not ride for us. We need to be the ones to kill the warlock and the witch. The Northmen will hesitate, especially with the witch."
"And we should kill the young witch who rides with us, too," said Vincius. "She is dangerous. I know it. I will put my blade in her."
"The witch is the sticky point," said Pullo. "What harm would it do just to kill the warlock and then return for the witch later when we have a full legion at our back? Look at the numbers now. This is a fool's quest. How can we ever hope to make it back across the Black River?"
"Forget about returning home," said Urbidis. "Duty and honor first. We kill the warlock and the witch and if we have to kill the others, so be it. But Shield must die. He is a traitor to Empire."
Pullo made noises as if to respond but was cut off by the suddenly raised fist of Spear at the front of the column. All talk among the men stopped.
Urbidis rode his horse to the front of the column. "What is it, Spear?"
The Northman shook his head, lips sealed grimly, raising a finger and craning the side of his head to the mists before them.
Urbidis heard nothing but the howl of the wind through the bog, the susurrant breath over the stagnant pools of water. But as he listened, a voice separated from the sound of the wind. A song emerged, the voice of an old man singing an ancient tongue, the dark magic of the warlock.
"What does he sing?" Urbidis called back to the Vincius.
The Chronicler shook his head, but the Eliode, the young witch, raised a hand, and then said, "Prepare yourselves. They come."
Even before the words left her mouth, the mists parted before them and dozens of Northmen raced across the swamp towards them, eyes wide, howling, spears and swords raised, and behind them the stone tower ran like a black scar against the pale blue sky.
THE TOWER
SPEAR WAS THE first into the fight. As soon as he saw the faces of the Painted Men, he kicked his horse into a gallop. He was in killing range. He had thought Urbidis to be right alongside him, but the Dhurman commander had stayed. The Northman charged alone.
Spear had expected the howling guard of the warlock to come right at him, spears prickling, swords slashing as they tried to surround him and pull him from his mount.
Instead before they reached him they fell over, face first, into the muck of the swamp.
He pulled at his reins. His own horse stepped deep into a hole hidden beneath the sheen of mud. He nearly pitched forward into the mud beside the fallen. It took all his effort to reverse his horse without being unseated.
The warlock stood at the top of his stone tower, his body half hidden behind the low wall. His black robe flowed around his body as if he were swimming in a cold sluggish river. The song of the warlock shifted, words seething from between his pale lips, his twiggy fingers clutching and digging at the air as if he could will it into substance.
"What's happening?" asked Harad as his horse thundered to a stop next to Spear.
"Some madness no doubt."
Little Wolf came alongside them. "They are down. Let's kill them now."
"Wait, boy," said Spear. "The horses are too heavy."
The fallen men began to rise. They struggled against the clutches of the muddy earth. They fought to their hands and knees, screaming, sheets of mud and grass and stone hanging from them.
"They are down," said Little Wolf. He hurled his spear. It flew true but rather than penetrating the struggling wa
rrior, the weapon stuck to the muddy mass.
The Painted Men fell again, their motions mirrored by the hands of the warlock as if he were a puppet master pulling his strings. Then they rose: warriors armored in the earth, warriors twice the size and girth of normal men. The spear of Little Wolf had been absorbed into the arm of one of the men and he swung it before him.
"Mud men," screamed the Apprentice Chronicler. He clutched the mane of his horse. All around him the others waited: the young warriors from Lake's End, Shield alongside Eliode. "He raises mud men."
"Use your magic," said Spear. "Break them apart again."
But Vincius's voice did not rise above the screaming. He did not again release a word that would tear the protective layers of mud and stone and peat from the creatures that lumbered towards them.
"Do we run again?" asked Harad, his red hair seeping from beneath his dented iron helm.
"We are the Hounds," said Spear. "We are men of the North. We don't run." He laughed. "Plus where would we go, lad? What we seek lies right here before us."
Birgid stood on that tower, next to the warlock. But where his lips unfurled words that made men into monsters, her lips were pursed, held tightly together.
Even at this distance, Spear could feel those eyes upon him, those deep fathomless eyes, those eyes that had drawn him towards her.
But she had been for Shield. He had made that known and so had she. Still Spear was haunted by those eyes, eyes that he had seen more than once linger on him, more than once lock within his own eyes. How different would the world have been if she would have chosen him instead of Shield? Would he have never led that fragment of the Hounds astray? Never been filled with the rage of pillaging? Never bonded himself with Sword, whose lips curled in joy when his blade cleaved flesh?
But the world was not made up of what might have been. It was only that which lay before Spear at any given moment. At this moment it was a mud man bearing down on him, spear extended from his arm, a gurgling scream erupting from his sodden mouth.
Black River (The Hounds of the North Book 2) Page 25
