The Living Sword 2: The Road Ahead

by Pemry Janes

  “What was that for?”

  “For thinking like a rock, again. You speak of death as if it were a bad thing. Death is a part of life. One cannot be without the other, or we would all be like the Immortal.” She glanced back at Vanha Forest with a sneer.

  “But I killed people.” Rock looked at the ground. “I wanted to see the world, see the wonders I’d read about. Not drown in its horrors.”

  “Again, you speak of killing as if it were a wrong thing.” His head shot up, his eyes wide as he looked at her. “I saw that san, Chizuho, kill.” She wasn’t sure that mage had actually died, but this was not the moment for such fine distinctions. “He had killed, wanted to kill you. How many would have died by his hand if you hadn’t fought him?”

  “Slyvair would have,” he said.

  Leraine shook her head. “Done nothing for months to come. You heard him, he intended to travel to the Solitary Mountain and only return to deal with the plant-man afterward. That is, if he survived the journey. Without you, how many of Senan Aldhoub’s caravan would have fallen to the elves? How many more would have died because you were not there?”

  Silence reigned while the wind raced along the meadows around them. Sheep nibbled on the grass in the distance. There was a path leading east toward a village she could see far off in the distance; ancient stones stuck out of the dirt here and there. Rock started to walk down that path. “This should lead to the Road, from there it is a straight shot north.”

  “Hold on, I’m not taking another step before I’ve put my armor on right.”

  Rock stopped, but he didn’t turn around. He stared off into the distance while Leraine put her pack down. Sighing, she got to work.

  ***

  Eurik’s thoughts spun as he put one foot in front of the other; step, spin, step, spin. No conclusion reached him, no insight cleared the confusion. The anger was still there, a warm glow in the pit of his mind even though he’d put Vanha Forest behind him two days ago.

  Silver Fang’s logic was so tempting, yet it could not blot out the memories. She hadn’t mentioned those guards in Lord Merin’s tower either, and what threat had they been? Or her own teacher, Irelith—she would have been alive today if Eurik had stayed on the island. If he hadn’t run around Linese with Misthell on his back.

  But he did do those things. So what would he do now? Go back, face sesin and tell him he failed? Or did he go forward, take the risk?

  He still had no answer when they finally reached the Road. A straight ribbon of grayish stone, pillars on either side stood a silent vigil at regular intervals. It was a broad road, at least a bowshot in width and very busy. A dwarven caravan passed them heading south, pulled by more of those goatematons. A carriage was pulled by four horses, a rearing stag painted on its doors, escorted by a hundred men clad in shining steel and with little flags tied to the ends of their spears.

  The Road ran all the way from Chappenuioc in the north to the only gap in the Wall to the south, where it submerged into Hagdis Swamp, only to resurface once more in the hot grasslands beyond the Wall. The lands where dragons ruled.

  But Eurik wasn’t going south, he was going north . . . for now. The last wagon passed them and he took his first step on the Road. He almost forgot to take another: Silver Fang had to drag him over to the other side where they could walk with the traffic while Eurik’s gaze was firmly fixed upon the smooth stone beneath him.

  It was as if this place was not connected to the world. Suddenly, he could not feel its heartbeat. The world shrank, and the only chiri he could sense was the wind stirred by the thousands who traveled on the Road. He stomped on the gray surface, but there was nothing. No ripple, no chiri.

  Was this the reason neither time nor man had marked the Road? He’d read magic didn’t work here, but he never knew anything could stop the Ways. Marvel gave way to a terrible sense of vulnerability as Eurik realized he was nearly defenseless here. He did not consider his skill with wind as middling.

  “Is something wrong?” Silver Fang had spoken Thelauk. A man in a brown tunic with a pointed hood and carrying a billhook glanced at them but kept walking.

  “No.” He tore his gaze away from the Road. “No,” he repeated in the same language. “I did not expect something. I cannot use my . . . powers here.”

  “Truly?”

  Eurik nodded. “This road is . . .” He gave up on trying to use this language; he may not even have a need of it any longer. “Whatever the Inza used to make their structures, it doesn’t contain any chiri. I wonder if the masters know of this? Only someone who knew the Ways could confirm it.”

  Silver Fang didn’t switch languages, but stayed with her own. “Who knows? Our people have lived with their handiwork for as long as we can remember, yet we know almost nothing. These stones refuse us, they refuse everything.”

  Like the Immortal, refusing him answers. The thought came unbidden and spoiled the mystery before him, a mystery that only just had managed to distract him from his worries. Eurik scowled. “I’ll ask them when I’m home.”

  “Oh, you’ve decided, then?”

  “Ahh.” He hadn’t meant for her to hear that. “No, I haven’t,” Eurik said, forcing the anger down. Silver Fang wasn’t a proper target for it, and wouldn’t put up with him if he tried. But the emotion wouldn’t go away. He reached for the comfort of earth on instinct, but there was nothing there. “Let’s go, we’ve got a long road ahead of us.”

  “So we do,” his friend agreed after a moment.

  ***

  Leraine glanced at Rock as they walked over the Road. It had been days since they’d left Vanha Forest, days since they’d reached the Road and their journey had turned north. They had crossed the Elodrada and had passed the point where Senan Aldhoub’s caravan must have entered the Road.

  Mostly, they had traveled in silence, surrounded by the noise of other travelers. Rock had said little and Leraine still didn’t know quite what to say. He could be the affable young man she’d gotten used to these past months one moment, then clam up and stomp off the next. The cause was clear, even if he was hiding it, albeit poorly.

  And that was the confusing part. The anger seemed to come and go, but Rock never expressed it. Or he didn’t know how to. He wasn’t raised by horse people, or soulless. He wasn’t raised by humans at all.

  “This is the spot,” Rock announced, halting.

  Curious, she looked around and her eyes caught the sight of a large victory marker as the horse people liked to make them. A pile of stones taller than two men standing on each other with the rusting remains of weapons and armor wedged between the rocks. It stood on a rise on her left not far from the Road itself.

  He crossed the Road and stepped off it. “This is where the Nesan advance was halted. This is the site of the Battle of the Road.”

  “Always thought that was a silly name, not like there haven’t been battles along the Road before. Though none bigger than that one,” she said. “You read about it back on your island?”

  Rock nodded. “There was a scholar on the island . . . the book he was working on had several chapters on the battle. It was a pivotal moment.” He froze, then his shoulders shook as laughter bubbled up. “And now I know where I heard the name Herardios before. He was the tribune of magic for General Parmenos.”

  Leraine hesitated. “That is significant?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. But it should have given me a clue. Something else I missed.”

  “Then perhaps you can answer something for me. I’ve always wondered how the Driver managed to surprise the Nesans as he did, they must have faced cavalry charges before that?”

  “The Driver?”

  “Our name for Willamon ris Yahmon, Duke of Asburgt, Marshal of Irelia.” She shook her head. “Too many names and they still missed the most important part that made the man.”

  “How so?”

  Leraine gestured around her. “Horse people, we call them that for a reason. They prefer to live together, they l
ike to follow a leader, but their leaders act like stallions in heat. Prancing about, huffing and puffing at anybody that they see as trampling on what is theirs. And the biggest threat in their eyes isn’t the wolf stalking his herd, it is a rival.”

  Rock tilted his head slightly. “It is different among the Mochedan?”

  “No.” Her lips twisted in distaste. “Not entirely. But we don’t follow our leaders slavishly. If they don’t think of the . . . of the group, we walk out or get a new leader.”

  “That doesn’t really sound different from the Irelians.”

  “It is different,” she insisted, though trying to make that clear in Linesan proved harder than she thought it should be. Leraine shook her head. “You will see when we get home.”

  Rock made a sound, and his gaze wandered back to the marker. “So, why do you call Marshal Asburgt the Driver?”

  “Because he got them all acting as one herd, all those squabbling nobles. And he did it twice. Without him, the empire would have fallen and my people would have faced the might of the invaders on our own. Again.”

  The emotion drained out of Rock’s face once more. His gaze swept to the west, but he wasn’t looking at the monument.

  “Enough,” Leraine said with some force. Rock’s head snapped back to look at her, surprise written clear in his features. “I have let you be, I have tried to understand that you do not mean to be so insulting, but there are limits.”

  “I . . . What are you talking about? I haven’t said anything!”

  Leraine took a step forward and lowered her voice. “I am talking about the Immortal’s words and the way you have been agonizing about them. As if my people are children, as if we are characters in a play, whose lives start and end when you enter them. But we are not, and you are not the hero of a tale.”

  “That’s not what this is about!”

  Leraine had to fight back a smile as, at last, she saw some fire, some life, return to him. At last he was speaking, rather than smoldering. “Then why have the Immortal’s words affected you so?”

  “I don’t see anybody as . . . as not real,” Rock said, waving his hand. “But what if he knows something I don’t? Death’s been following me wherever I go, even after Lord Merin. You heard that Irelian, the elves hadn’t attacked anybody in months, not until they hit the caravan I happened to be on.”

  Leraine crossed her arms. “And you’d rather they’d attacked somebody else.”

  “Yes!” Rock’s shoulders slumped and sighed. “No, no I wouldn’t.”

  “Good.” Leraine shook her head. “And death has not been following you, it is simply everywhere. I said before you read the wrong books, but it sounds more like the island was wrong, if it shielded you from unpleasant truths.”

  “People did die on the island. Just not . . . often.”

  “It sounds very safe. But the world isn’t safe, not for you, not for me, not for anybody. You best decide if you can accept that and soon, or it would be best if you returned to your island.”

  Rock’s gaze drifted north, back west toward the monument. Beyond it laid the Barren Hills and the way back to his island. His attention turned north again, up the Road. Eventually, he spoke. “People are still going to die, even if I do go back home, won’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I won’t know that they do, I won’t know their names, their faces. And I won’t know if I could have done something to help them.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, and a smile tugged at the left corner of his lips. “Ignorance can be cured, stupidity cannot,” he said softly.

  Leraine made a noise, unsure if he was still speaking to her.

  “Hmm, oh, that’s something I read a long time ago. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity cannot. Seemed very obvious to me back then. Now, I’m hoping that the author was wrong.”

  She tilted her head as she mulled it over. “Ah, yes. But do not worry, you are not stupid. Merely dense.”

  A smile broke through Rock’s self-pity. “Why thank you, that is a relief to hear.”

  “It is my pleasure. I agreed to teach you, and correcting mistakes such as those are part of that. But come, the sun will not sit still in the sky while we talk and we still have a long journey ahead of us.”

  “So we do,” Rock agreed.

  Chapter 13

  The Fork in the Road

  “Tomorrow, we’ll reach the Glinster,” Silver Fang announced three days later as they left the farm they’d stayed the night at. Travel along the Road was faster than it should be for some reason. No horse people mage or People shaman had ever found an explanation for it. It simply was, like all the works of the Inza.

  The Road itself was a bowshot or two away; you couldn’t live too close to it. Not for long, anyway. The thoroughfare they were on now wasn’t paved, but the dirt had been packed from solid traffic and had been baked into stone by the summer sun. They walked along the wooden fence lining the road as carts and wagons rattled and creaked past them.

  “I’d like to go to Glinfell,” Silver Fang said. “My mother has . . . acquaintances there who could pass along a message to her. One that would arrive sooner than we will.”

  Eurik hesitated before speaking. Parents were one thing he knew very little of. Enough to know that a teacher and a parent were two different things, though what exactly was the difference he had yet to figure out. “When was the last time she heard from you?”

  “That depends. I forgot to ask that Bone Lord if he had sent his ransom demand before we left. If he did not, then it has been six months since she heard from me. Though she might have heard of me from others.” Silver Fang had a pinched look on her face while her left middle finger rubbed the pommel of her sword.

  “From her acquaintances?” They were speaking Thelauk, but he thought he got the pronunciation right. The word had given Silver Fang pause, though. Perhaps she’d intended to use another word at first.

  “Yes.” She glanced at him, then fixed her gaze forward. A frown appeared and she cocked her head slightly. “These people are all leaving the Road. Heading for Witterlocken.”

  Eurik realized that she was right. And they seemed to be in a hurry as well. “Perhaps there is some festival?”

  “No. The farmer did not mention anything and the next holy day is still some weeks away. I do not like this.” Silver Fang sped up, not quite running. Eurik went after her, easily keeping pace with her. It took them only minutes to reach the Road itself, both breathing faster. Silver Fang looked to the north, she looked to the south, and for the first time since Eurik had seen the Road, it was quiet.

  Not that they could see far; perspective and the horizon were off. And it had never been clearer than today, when they had an unobstructed view; unobstructed until it met a blue-gray haze.

  Stepping off the Road again, he closed his eyes and listened. He sensed nothing, but that meant little. The Road wasn’t part of the world. Perhaps—

  There, something. A group of people were stepping onto the Road and they were trailed by . . . wagons. “Southeast, there’s something there,” he said, opening his eyes. “Too far to make much sense out of it, but it must be big if I can sense it from here. And it is moving.”

  Silver Fang peered in the direction he’d indicated, but there was nothing to see but trees and fields as far as they eye could see. “You can make walls, but can you make a tower? High enough to see past these trees?”

  He stomped the ground and nodded. “Not a problem.” Eurik raised his hands and a pillar of earth lifted them up into the sky. Silver Fang wobbled, but regained her footing before Eurik could even think to stop. Soon enough they were looking out over the tallest trees and he dared not lift them higher. Not without some serious work on the ground around the pillar to keep the whole thing from collapsing into a sinkhole.

  “Is that it?” He didn’t need to tell Silver Fang what “it” was. The cloud of dust drifting up into the air was too big not to draw attention. “It must be a great ca
ravan to kick up that much dust.”

  “That’s not a caravan, that’s an army,” Misthell said from over his shoulder.

  Silver Fang leaned forward as if that would bring out any more detail. “As I feared. It’s the only explanation why people would abandon the Road. Nobody wants to share it with an army, but the question is, whose army is it?”

  “How can you tell from here?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.” Silver Fang switched back to Linese. “But depending on their direction, I can make a good guess. Come, bring us down and let us be on our way. We’ll take another look at midday, see where they are going, then I’ll have to make a decision.”

  “Don’t you mean we?” Eurik said as he slowly brought them back down.

  “No.”

  Eurik tried to pry, but Silver Fang would not elaborate on her answer and fell into silence, her eyes fixed upon the Road ahead.

  ***

  There was a breeze up here, a welcome relief after the pace she’d set. Leraine had predicted they’d reach the Glinster the next day, but she could actually see it right now if she strained her eyes and looked north. Her attention wasn’t aimed in that direction, but in the one they had come from.

  They couldn’t see the main army, and they’d almost certainly outpaced it. But any decent army would have outriders and scouts to check the route ahead. And some of those were now visible, tiny little figures on horseback. They were heading north.

  Leraine did not fear getting caught; two could easily outpace an army and the scouts would not stray too far from the main body if they were any good. But it would be near thing and then there was the matter of their destination.

  “I can’t see any detail,” Rock said. “How can you see enough to tell who they are?”

  “Because I only need one fact to make a good guess, and that would be their direction.”

  “You believe you can divine their destination from that? The Road stretches across the entire valley, from the Wall all the way to Chappenuioc. That’s a lot of possibilities.”