The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

Guric had thought all the Knights dealt with. He himself had passed two scythe wing corpses on his way to the higher towers. If Soran had survived…

  "Fall back!" Guric shouted.

  It was a needless order. His men were already scrambling away. But some were too slow.

  The scythe wing swept one wing outward, and the hard, sharp bone along its length plowed through his men. Two went flying, and one went flying in two pieces. Another arrow from the knight took out yet another.

  "Regroup!" Guric roared to his men. "Turn and loose! Turn and loose, damn you!"

  The Creel obeyed. Turning, they loosed arrows and lobbed spears at Soran and his mount. One arrow bounced off the knight's armor, and the others struck the scythe wing. They only seemed to enrage the creature. It bellowed, spittle flying from its mouth, the roar drowning out all other sound.

  Guric's men drew arrows for another volley. The scythe wing lumbered forward and drew back one wing. Half the archers managed to loose before the wing mowed them down.

  "Fall back!" Guric called. He ran backward, not daring to turn his back on Soran and the huge beast. The archers were the first to retreat. They turned and ran. The spearmen backed away, keeping their sharp iron barbs between them and the great beast.

  The scythe wing did not pursue, but let out a great bellow. The men cowered, and a few even dropped their spears to cover their ears. The sound echoed off the mountain. Guric had always imagined it might sound like that if a wall of strong steel were ripped in half.

  Soran loosed another arrow, taking down another Nar, then turned his attention to the Damarans behind them. Knowing it might be only a lull in the carnage, Guric seized the moment.

  "Soran!" he called. "Soran, hear me!"

  Soran returned his attention to Guric but said nothing.

  "It's over, Soran," Guric said. "Lay down your arms, and on my oath all of you will be spared."

  "On your oath?" Even behind the face mask, Guric could hear the ragged edge to Soran's voice. There would be no surrender. "You swore oaths to serve the High Warden. Your life for his and for his people."

  "I did what I had to do," said Guric. "I took no pleasure in it. Let the bloodshed end here. Save your men. Save yourself."

  "Listen to your new lord," said a voice from behind Guric. Argalath had arrived. He stepped forward to stand beside Guric, Kadrigul a pale shape just behind him. "Highwatch is fallen."

  Argalath raised one hand and let the cloth of his robe fall back to reveal his hand and forearm. The red light of the fires from the village below made the pale waves and pools of his skin between the bruises seem to burn like the flames themselves. The deeper blotches of his spellscar shone blue. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pulled down his cowl.

  The scythe wing let out a low growl that sounded like tumbling river stones. Argalath kept his eyes closed. Guric could feel the ground shaking as the creature approached.

  The blue patches marring Argalath's skin flared with a cold, blue light, and when he opened his eyes, the same light burned in his gaze. The scythe wing stopped its approach and snorted in surprise.

  Around him, Guric heard the Nar gasp, taking in a collective breath of superstitious fear. Soran was close enough now that Guric could see his eyes widen with surprise.

  "No!" Soran called out.

  The scythe wing opened its jaws and roared, its fangs long as daggers. The sound echoed off the cliffs and towers, and Guric could smell its fetid breath washing over him. But he stood his ground.

  The blue glow emanating from Argalath flared.

  The scythe wing's roar cut off, ending in something like a whimper. Its jaws snapped shut, and it shook its head. A tremor passed through its entire body, and for a moment it stood stock still. Guric was watching when the first real pain hit it. He saw it as a flash in the creature's eyes and a dilation of its nostrils. It gathered its strength for one final lunge. But halfway its muscles lost all strength. The scythe wing collapsed and slid forward, its head coming to rest almost at Guric's feet. Its breath washed out of it, ruffling the hem of Argalath's robes, but it was only the great creature's dead weight pushing the air out of lifeless lungs.

  The Creel cheered.

  Argalath let his arm drop. Guric could see it trembling. It had been a long night.

  Soran roared in grief and fury. He threw aside his bow and drew the sword from the sheath at his back as he leaped from the saddle.

  CHAPTER SIX

  This can't be happening — can't be happening — can't be The thoughts tumbled through Hweilan's mind as she ran.

  She was no stranger to bloodshed. Narfell was a hard land. Outside of Narsek Qu'istrade, the tribes fought all the time. A warrior culture based on honor and status… bloodshed was inevitable. Most were little more than skirmishes, but now and then entire clans would feud.

  Never-not once-had anyone dared to assault Highwatch.

  But the smoke, the screams, the clang of steel, the harsh bellows of scythe wings…

  Spring rains had not yet come, and it had been too cold for the snows to melt. Fire could spread among the dry wooden buildings of the Kistrad. An unfortunate accident. That had to be it. A spilled lantern in someone's stable. It would spread fast. Scythe wings hated fire. That explained their cries. Perhaps the horde of Nar she'd seen flooding the valley were merely coming to help.

  Hweilan clung to these hopes. Tried to convince herself of them.

  Then she found the bodies.

  She rounded the hill and descended the final slope to the back walls of the fortress, still at least a quarter mile away. As fast as she was running, she was in the midst of corpses before her panicked mind registered them. She stopped so quickly that she skidded on the frosty ground, caught her boot on a bump in the path, and fell forward. She landed only inches from the staring eyes of a dead soldier. He lay on his stomach in the middle of the path. Two arrows sprouted from his back. Hweilan's eyes seemed drawn to them-anything but looking into the soldier's sightless stare.

  The shafts were of a dark brown wood. Shallow grooves had been etched lengthwise down the shaft. Called 'wind sleeves," they supposedly kept the shaft from warping. The fletching was the dark gray and brown feathers of pheasant. Nar arrows. Creel or Qu'ima.

  Not a nightmare then. Real. Nar were attacking Highwatch.

  Hweilan pushed herself to her feet and looked around. Three bodies were soldiers. Men of the Highwatch guard. But the rest were servants-older men and women in thick homespun clothes. Hweilan looked away, not wanting to see their faces, afraid she might recognize one.

  A man stood up from behind a bush next to the path. His dark hair pulled back in a topknot. Clothes of animal hide and furs. His face impassive, a mask, almost of boredom. But his eyes were hard, and his breath steamed in long plumes.

  "You were right," he said in Nar, "someone was coming down the path."

  "Fresh little doe, isn't she?" said another voice from behind her. "Good thing we lingered after all."

  Hweilan whirled. Another man stepped out of the brush on the other side of the path. Each man held a bow, and a sword hung from their belts. They came at her. Not hurrying. Nice and easy. Obviously not wanting to spook her, but utterly confident.

  From behind her, Hweilan could hear Oruk blundering down the path.

  The two Nar-both Creel by their accents-glanced that way.

  "Your friend comes?" the first one said, obviously struggling over the Damaran words.

  Hweilan tightened the grip on her knife. She didn't brandish it. No need to provoke them.

  "Let me pass," she said in Nar. "I-" She almost said, I am the High Warden's granddaughter, but instinct stopped her at the last moment. "I serve the High Warden. Let me pass, and I will not remember your faces."

  The Nar's brows rose as she spoke in perfect Nar, but he laughed. "Remember all you want," he said. "Vandalar feeds the crows."

  Hweilan felt as if she'd just been punched in the stomach.

  The sounds of Oruk's
approach were very close now. She could hear his ragged breathing as well as his footsteps.

  The other two Nar were only a few paces away now. They had dismissed the bow she held, unstrung as it was. But both eyed her knife.

  "Drop the blade," said one. He had an arrow fitted on the string of his bow. He pulled a little tension into the string. "Drop and we have no trouble."

  "Stop! Argalath wants her alive!"

  The two Nar looked up the path, where Oruk, red-faced and panting, was stumbling toward them.

  Hweilan ran. The distraction gave her a head start.

  "Stop her!"

  She jumped over a corpse in the path, and when she came down, her boot slipped on the uneven, frosty ground. She stumbled And it saved her life. An arrow hissed past, so close that she felt it tug loose a few stray strands of hair.

  "Alive, you whoreson! Argalath wants her alive!"

  Hweilan regained her balance and ran on. She could hear the men right behind her.

  "Stop! No!" Oruk screamed.

  Pain erupted from the back of Hweilan's skull.

  The next thing of which she was aware was voices.

  "It was a fowling arrow," said a man in Nar. "No point. I always keep one handy for birds and pretty girls."

  "Still might have cracked her skull," said Oruk. "She dies, Argalath will kill you."

  The voices were close. Hweilan tried to open her eyes. Her left wouldn't open at all. It hurt to open her right. She realized half her face was planted on the ground, and her hair had fallen across the other half of her face, some of it right across her eyelid.

  She felt a hand against her throat. "She's not dead."

  Full awareness seeped back in. She was lying on the path, one hand-the one that had held the bow-outstretched. The other, the one still holding the knife, was under her. It was a blessed miracle she hadn't fallen on the blade.

  "Find something to tie her," said Oruk. "She took Jatara's eye and I chased the little kujend over half the damned mountain."

  "She took Jatara's eye?" one of the men asked.

  "Gouged it right out," said Oruk.

  The voice nearest her laughed and said, "I would not want-"

  Hweilan rolled away from her pinned arm and brought her blade around in a fierce swipe. Her hair still covered her face, and she forsook a good aim for speed. The Nar screamed and jumped back, the tip of the knife slicing through his arm.

  "Get her!" said Oruk, who was standing only a few feet away, the other Nar by his side. "Don't let her-"

  An arrow struck him in the neck. It hit with such force that Hweilan heard the snap! of breaking bone. Oruk went down. The Nar beside him reached for his sword, then his eyes widened at the sight of something behind Hweilan, and he decided on flight rather than fight. He turned and made it all of two steps before an arrow hit him in the back. Screaming, he fell facedown into the brush.

  The man Hweilan had cut was scrambling away, trying to put distance between them as he struggled to his feet.

  Hweilan pushed herself to her feet, intending to run the final distance to the fortress, but when she looked up she found herself facing another Nar. He held a thick horn bow in front of him-Hweilan could hear it creaking with tension-and an arrow against his cheek. Blood covered the man-a spattering over his face, but shining wet gore, almost black, from his fists almost to his shoulders. His topknot was awry, and strands of hair made thick by sweat and blood draped his face. His eyes shone with a fury Hweilan had seen only in cornered beasts. There was nothing human in that gaze.

  But then she recognized the face.

  Scith.

  "Hweilan, down!" he said.

  She dived to the side of the path. She heard the twang of Scith's bow and the flight of the arrow over her, followed by the hard slap sound of the shaft striking flesh and bone. Men were screaming, but her heart beat so loudly in her ears that the sounds of dying men seemed thick and far away.

  She lay at the base of a thicket, thick with green, waxy leaves and wire-strong branches. She looked up to see Scith walking calmly past her. He dropped the bow on the path and drew his knife. Hweilan knew that blade well. Scith's hunting knife. Made of black iron, its single edge honed razor sharp, with it Scith could gut and dress a swiftstag in moments.

  Several paces away, the Nar Hweilan had cut was trying to crawl away, but the arrow protruding from his back seemed to be keeping his legs from working properly. Scith didn't hesitate or increase his pace. He walked steadily, patient and sure.

  Just before he reached the man, he turned and looked at Hweilan. "You should look away now."

  She didn't.

  Vandalar feeds the crows.

  That had been the man who said it.

  Hweilan watched the whole thing. Before it was over, she was smiling.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  What is this place, my lord?" Boran spoke in a reverent whisper as they passed through the stone arch and into the open air of the holy place. Something about it seemed to call for soft voices.

  The other men left their torches on sconces just inside the arch, but the snow on the ground outside reflected the star and moonlight, so that even without torches they could take in the entire scene. They stood on a great shelf of rock. Where it met the wall of the mountain behind them, it was broad as the fortress's inner bailey, but it narrowed to a point a stone's throw away before ending in a sharp precipice. The rock wall behind them showed many additions-elegant borders and runes carved in the dwarf fashion, Dethek runes praising Torm the Loyal Fury, and over the door itself a graven image of an open gauntlet. All of it displayed master craftsmanship.

  Most of the area beyond was empty space, open to wind and sky. Guric could see how its starkness appealed to Soran and the man's understanding of proper worship. But in the middle was a stone altar, about waist high, and before it a wide basin set in the ground, now filled with snow. Argalath stood there, a half dozen of his acolytes around him.

  "My lord…?" said Boran.

  "This place is sac red to the K nights of Ondrahar," said Guric. He took a deep breath of the mountain air and let it out in a great plume that turned to frost before it hit the ground. The snowstorm had blown over, the clouds had broken, and the air was almost painfully cold.

  Argalath walked over and bowed before Guric. "Well met, my lord," he said.

  "All is ready?" said Guric.

  "It is."

  "And she…?"

  "My servants have tended her well, my lord. Soon, you shall have her back."

  Guric thought that at those words a feeling of profound relief would have flooded him. He'd done so much to come to this moment. But now that it was done, all he could feel was dark apprehension.

  Argalath cleared his throat. "My lord, the sacrifice…?"

  "On its way," said Guric.

  "Very good, my lord," said Argalath. He bowed again and returned to his acolytes.

  "My lord," said Boran, his voice pitched not to carry. "What sacrifice?"

  Guric swallowed hard, then turned to his men. "I… I need a few moments. You men, go back down and help the others with their burden."

  The four guards bowed-Boran with a frown-then turned and disappeared back into the tunnel. Once the glow of their torchlight was gone, Guric walked over to Argalath and his acolytes. Closer, he could see their tracks in the snow, and the bundle they had laid in the very middle of the basin. Guric approached, slowly at first, but gaining speed so that when he fell to his knees before the shroud, he slid in the snow. Five years in the frozen ground had made the outer layers of the linen wrappings deteriorate. The runes written on them had faded to bruiselike splotches. Guric reached forward, reverently, and touched the shroud. The weakened fabric crumbled beneath his touch, but beneath, the linen seemed almost new, barely even stained from its burial. Wrapped in thick linens and bound with braided ribbons, it was still obvious what lay within. The head lay back, turned slightly to the side. Guric swallowed hard. She used to lie that way when in deep s
leep. He remembered lying there, watching her as the lamp burned low, the low flame off the red tapestries of their chamber making her pale skin seem warm and soft, like summer sunset through thin clouds.

  Guric tore his gaze from the bundle and looked to Argalath. He knew four of Argalath's acolytes-three Creel and one Qu'ima, the oldest of them no more than twenty. But two he didn't recognize. They wore the same robes of swiftstag hides and had shaved all but the topknot of their hair. But they had the bearing and hard build of seasoned warriors.

  Argalath stepped to the side and presented them. "Durel and Gued. My acolytes."

  "I don't know them."

  "They begin their disciplines tonight, my lord."

  Guric grunted. He'd been with Argalath long enough to recognize that more was going on here.

  "Your spells worked?" said Guric.

  "Perfectly, my lord," said Argalath behind him. "She has not changed since the day we put her in the ground."

  "I…" Guric gulped, part of him recoiling at what he was about to do. He hadn't seen his wife in five years, except in memory. "I must see her."

  "The outer wrappings must be removed for the rite," said Argalath. "If you will stand back, I will have my man remove the linens. He is most skilled with a blade."

  "No!" Guric looked up at Argalath. "No one touches her but me."

  Argalath closed his eyes and bowed. "As you wish, my lord. But I urge utmost caution. Cut away layer by layer. We must not damage the-"

  "I know!" Guric drew the dagger from the sheath at his belt, then peeled off his gloves with his teeth. His hands were trembling, and not from the cold.

  Using only his thumb and one finger, he gently peeled up the top layer of linen, set his blade under it, and pushed upward, slicing through the cloth. Rather than going layer by layer down the length of the shroud, he pressed into the lower layers with his fingers, pulled the cloth up and well away from the treasure beneath, and cut away all the upper layers, peeling them back like the pages of a book. Layer by layer he cut, his heart hammering faster with each layer. After five layers, the thick cloth was completely dry, and he thought he could still smell a faint waft of the burial oils.