(Shadowmarch #1) Shadowmarch

by Tad Williams

  “And it will be a longer time yet until I have my new shawl if we don’t get on with ourselves.” But she was the one who lingered, looking almost wistfully along the trampled track through the long grass. “Was that really the princess? Where do you suppose they were going in such a hurry?”

  “Following the hunt. Didn’t you hear the horns? Ta-ra, ta-ra! The gentry are out chasing some poor creature across the hills today. In the bad old days, it might have been one of us!”

  She sniffed, recovering herself. “I don’t pay heed to any of that, and if you’re wise, neither will you. Don’t meddle with the big folk without need and don’t draw their attention, as my father always said. No good will come of it. Now let’s get on with our work, old man. I don’t want to be wandering around near the edge of Shadowline when darkness comes.”

  Chert Blue Quartz shook his head, serious again. “Nor do I, my love.”

  The harriers and sight hounds seemed reluctant to enter the stand of trees, although their hesitation did not make them any quieter. The clamor was atrocious, but even the keenest of the hunters seemed content to wait a short distance up the hill until the dogs had driven their quarry out into the open.

  The lure of the hunt for most had little to do with the quarry anyway, even so unusual a prize as this. At least two dozen lords and ladies and many times that number of their servitors swarmed along the hillside, the gentle-folk laughing and talking and admiring (or pretending to admire) each others’ horses and clothes, with soldiers and servants plodding along behind or driving oxcarts stacked high with food and drink and tableware and even the folded pavilions in which the company had earlier taken their morning meal. Many of the squires led spare horses, since it was not unusual during a particularly exciting hunt for one of the mounts to collapse with a broken leg or burst heart. None of the hunters would stand for missing the kill and having to ride home on a wagon just because of a dead horse. Among the churls and higher servants strode men-at-arms carrying pikes or halberds, grooms, houndsmen in mud-stained, tattered clothes, a few priests—those of lesser status had to walk, like the soldiers—and even Puzzle, the king’s bony old jester, who was playing a rather unconvincing hunting air on his lute as he struggled to remain seated on a saddled donkey. In fact, the quiet hills below the Shadowline now contained what was more or less an entire village on the move.

  Briony, who always liked to get out of the stony reaches of the castle, where the towers sometimes seemed to blot out the sun for most of the day, had especially enjoyed the momentary escape from this great mass of humanity and the quiet that came with it. She couldn’t help wondering what a hunt must be like with the huge royal courts of Syan or Jellon—she had heard they sometimes lasted for weeks! But she did not have long to think about it.

  Shaso dan-Heza rode out from the crowd to meet Barrick and Briony as they came down the crest. The master of arms was the only member of the gentry who actually seemed dressed to kill something, wearing not the finery most nobles donned for the hunt but his old black leather cuirass that was only a few shades darker than his skin. His huge war bow bumped at his saddle, bent and strung as though he expected attack at any moment. To Briony, the master of arms and her sullen brother Barrick looked like a pair of storm clouds drifting toward each other and she braced herself for the thunder. It was not long in coming.

  “Where have you two been?” Shaso demanded. “Why did you leave your guards behind?”

  Briony hastened to take the blame. “We did not mean to be away so long. We were just talking, and Snow was hobbling a little . . .”

  The old Tuani warrior ignored her, fixing his hard gaze on Barrick. Shaso seemed angrier than he should have been, as though the twins had done more than simply wander away from the press of humanity for a short while. Surely he could not think they were in danger here, only a few miles from the castle in the country the Eddon family had ruled for generations? “I saw you turn from the hunt and ride off without a word to anyone, boy,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

  Barrick shrugged, but there were spots of color high on his cheeks. “Don’t call me ‘boy.’ And what affair is it of yours?”

  The old man flinched and his hand curled. For a frightening moment Briony thought he might actually hit Barrick. He had dealt the boy many clouts over the years, but always in the course of instruction, the legitmate blows of combat; to strike one of the royal family in public would be something else entirely. Shaso was not well-liked—many of the nobles openly maintained that it was not fitting for a dark-skinned southerner, a former prisoner of war as well, to hold such high estate in Southmarch, that the security of the kingdom should be in the hands of a foreigner. No one doubted Shaso’s skill or bravery—even once he had been disarmed in the Battle of Hierosol, in which he and young King Olin had met as enemies, it had taken a half dozen men to capture the Tuani warrior, and he had still managed to break free long enough to knock Olin from his horse with the blow of a hammering fist. But instead of punishing the prisoner, the twins’ father had admired the southerner’s courage, and after Shaso had been taken back to Southmarch and had survived nearly ten years of unransomed captivity, he had continued to grow in Olin’s estimation until at last he was set free except for a bond of honor to the Eddon family and given a position of responsibility. In the more than two decades since the Battle of Hierosol, Shaso dan-Heza had upheld his duties with honor, great skill, and an almost tiresome rigor, eclipsing all the other nobles so thoroughly—and earning resentment for that even more strongly than for the color of his skin—that he had advanced at last to the lofty position of master of arms, the king’s minister of war for all the March Kingdoms. The ex-prisoner had been untouchable as long as the twins’ father sat on the throne, but now Briony wondered whether Shaso’s titles, or even Shaso himself, would survive this bleak time of King Olin’s absence.

  As if a similar thought passed through his head as well, Shaso lowered his hand. “You are a prince of Southmarch,” he told Barrick, brusque but quiet. “When you risk your life without need, it is not me you are harming.”

  Her twin stared back defiantly, but the old man’s words cooled some of the heat of his anger. Briony knew Barrick would not apologize, but there would not be a fight either.

  The excited barking of the dogs had risen in pitch. The twins’ older brother Kendrick was beckoning them down to where he was engaged in conversation with Gailon Tolly, the young Duke of Summerfield. Briony rode down the hill toward them with Barrick just behind her. Shaso gave them a few paces start before following.

  Gailon of Summerfield—only half a dozen years senior to Barrick and Briony, but with an uncomfortable formality that she knew masked his dislike of some of her family’s broader eccentricities—removed his green velvet hat and bowed to them. “Princess Briony, Prince Barrick. We were concerned for your well-being, cousins.”

  She doubted that was entirely true. Barring the Eddons themselves, the Tollys were the closest family in the line of succession and they were known to have ambitions. Gailon had proved himself capable of at least the appearance of honorable subservience, but she doubted the same could be said for his younger brothers, Caradon and the disturbing Hendon. Briony could only be grateful the rest of the Tollys seemed to prefer lording it over their massive estate down in Summerfield to playing at loyal underlings here in Southmarch, and left that task to their brother the duke.

  Briony’s brother Kendrick seemed in a surprisingly good mood considering the burdens of regency on his young shoulders during his father’s absence. Unlike King Olin, Kendrick was capable of forgetting his troubles long enough to enjoy a hunt or a pageant. Already his jacket of Sessian finecloth was unbuttoned, his golden hair in a careless tangle. “So there you are,” he called. “Gailon is right—we were worried about you two. It’s especially not like Briony to miss the excitement.” He glanced at Barrick’s funereal garb and widened his eyes. “Has the Procession of Penance come early this year?”

 
; “Oh, yes, I should apologize for my clothes,” Barrick growled. “How terribly tasteless of me to dress this way, as though our father were being held prisoner somewhere. But wait—our father is a prisoner. Fancy that.”

  Kendrick winced and looked inquiringly at Briony, who made a face that said, He’s having one of his difficult days. The prince regent turned to his younger brother and asked, “Would you rather go back?”

  “No!” Barrick shook his head violently, but then managed to summon an unconvincing smile. “No. Everyone worries about me too much. I don’t mean to be rude, truly. My arm just hurts a bit. Sometimes.”

  “He is a brave youth,” said Duke Gailon without even the tiniest hint of mockery, but it still made Briony bristle like one of her beloved dogs. Last year Gailon had offered to marry her. He was handsome enough in a longchinned way, and his family’s holdings in Summerfield were second only to Southmarch itself in size, but she was glad that her father had been in no hurry to find her a husband. She had a feeling that Gailon Tolly would not be as tolerant to his wife as King Olin was to his daughter—that if she were his, he would make certain Briony did not go riding to the hunt in a split skirt, straddling her horse like a man.

  The dogs were yapping even more shrilly now, and a stir ran through the hunting party gathered on the hill. Briony turned to see a movement in the trees of the dell below them, a flash of red and gold like autumn leaves carried on a swift stream. Then something burst out of the undergrowth and into the open, a large serpentine shape that was fully visible for the space of five or six heartbeats before it found high grass and vanished again. The dogs were already swarming after it in a frenzy.

  “Gods!” said Briony in sudden fear, and several around her made the three-fingered sign of the Trigon against their breasts. “That thing is huge!” She turned accusingly to Shaso. “I thought you said you could kill one of them with no more than a good clop on the head.”

  Even the master of arms looked startled. “The other one . . . it was smaller.”

  Kendrick shook his head. “That thing is ten cubits long or I’m a Skimmer.” He shouted, “Bring up the boar spears!” to one of the beaters, then spurred down the hill with Gailon of Summerfield racing beside him and the other nobles hurrying to find their places close to the young prince regent.

  “But . . . !” Briony fell silent. She had no idea what she’d meant to say—why else were they here if not to hunt and kill a wyvern?—but she suddenly felt certain that Kendrick would be in danger if he got too close. Since when are you an oracle or a witching-woman? she asked herself, but the worry was strangely potent, the crystalization of something that had been troubling her all day like a shadow at the corner of her eye. The strangeness of the gods was in the air today, that feeling of being surrounded by the unseen. Perhaps it was not Barrick who was seeking Death—perhaps rather the grim deity, the Earth Father, was hunting them all.

  She shook her head to throw off the swift chill of fear. Silly thoughts, Briony. Evil thoughts. It must have been Barrick’s sorrowing talk of their own imprisoned father that had done it. Surely there was no harm in a day like this, late in Dekamene, the tenth month, but lit by such a bold sun it still seemed high summer—how could the gods object? The whole hunt was riding in Kendrick’s wake now, the horses thundering down the hill after the hounds, the beaters and servants bounding along behind, shouting excitedly, and she suddenly wanted to be out in front with Kendrick and the other nobles, running ahead of all shadows and worries.

  I won’t hang back like a girl this time, she thought. Like a proper lady. I want to see a wyvern.

  And what if I’m the one who kills it? Well, why not?

  In any case, her brothers both needed looking after. “Come on, Barrick,” she called. “No time to mope. If we don’t go now, we’ll miss it all.”

  “The girl, the princess—her name’s Briony, isn’t it?” Opal asked after they had been hiking again for a good part of an hour.

  Chert hid a smile. “Are we talking about the big folk? I thought we weren’t supposed to meddle with that sort.”

  “Don’t mock. I don’t like it here. Even though the sun’s overhead, it seems dark. And the grass is so wet! It makes me feel all fluttery.”

  “Sorry, my dear. I don’t like it much here either, but along the edge is where the interesting things are. Almost every time it draws back a little there’s something new. Do you remember that Edri’s Egg crystal, the one big as a fist? I found it just sitting in the grass, like something washed up on a beach.”

  “This whole place—it’s not natural.”

  “Of course it’s not natural. Nothing about the Shadowline is natural. That’s why the Qar left it behind when they retreated from the big folk armies, not just as a boundary between their lands and ours, but as a . . . a warning, I suppose you’d call it. Keep out. But you said you wanted to come today, and here you are.” He looked up to the line of mist running along the grassy hills, denser in the hollows, but still thick as eiderdown along the hilltops. “We’ve almost reached it.”

  “So you say,” she grunted wearily.

  Chert felt a pang of shame at how he teased her, his good old wife. She could be tart, but so could an apple, and none the less wholesome for it. “Yes, by the way, since you asked. The girl’s name’s Briony.”

  “And that other one, dressed in black. That’s the other brother?”

  “I think so, but I’ve never seem him so close. They’re not much for public show, that family. The old king, Ustin—those children’s grandfather—he was a great one for festivals and parades, do you remember? Scarcely a holy day went by . . .”

  Opal did not seem interested in historical reminiscence. “He seemed sad, that boy.”

  “Well, his father’s being held for a ransom the kingdom can’t afford and the boy’s got himself a gammy arm. Reasons enough, perhaps.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Chert waved his hand as though he were not the type to pass along idle gossip, but it was only for show, of course. “I’ve heard it said a horse fell on him. But Old Pyrite claims that his father threw him down the stairs.”

  “King Olin? He would never do such a thing!”

  Chert almost smiled again at her indignant tone: for one who claimed not to care about the doings of big folk, his wife had some definite opinions about them. “It seems far-fetched,” he admitted. “And the gods know that Old Pyrite will say almost anything when he’s had enough mossbrew . . .” He stopped, frowning. It was always hard to tell, here along the edge where distances were tricky at the best of times, but there was definitely something wrong.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s . . . it’s moved.” They were only a few dozen paces away from the boundary now—quite as close as he wanted to get. He stared, first at the ground, then at a familiar stand of white oak trees now half smothered by mist and faint as wandering spirits. For the first time he could remember, the unnatural murk had actually advanced past their trunks. The hairs on the back of Chert’s neck rose. “It has moved!”

  “But it’s always moving. You said so.”

  “Slipping back from the edge a wee bit, then coming up to it again, like the tide,” he whispered. “Like something breathing in and out. That is why we find things here, when the line has drifted back toward the shadowlands.” He could feel a heaviness to the air unusual even for this haunted place, a heightened watchfulness: it made him feel reluctant even to speak. “But from the moment two centuries ago when the Twilight People first conjured it up, it’s never moved any closer to us, Opal. Until now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s come forward.” He didn’t want to believe it but he had spent as much time in these hills as anyone. “Like floodwaters coming over the banks. At least a dozen paces ahead of where I’ve ever seen it.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Is that all? Woman, the Twilight People made that line to keep men out of the shadowlands. No one cross
es it and returns, not that I’ve ever heard of. And before today, it hasn’t moved an inch closer to the castle in two hundred years!” He was breathless, dizzy with it. “I have to tell someone.”

  “You? Why should you be the one to get tangled up with this, old man? Aren’t there big-folk guards that watch the Shadowline?”

  He waved his hands in exasperation. “Yes, and you saw them when we went past their post-house, although they didn’t see us, or didn’t care. They might as well be guarding the moon! They pay no heed to anything, and the task is given to the youngest and greenest of the soldiers. Nothing has changed on this foggy border in so long they don’t even believe anything could change.” He shook his head, suddenly troubled by a low noise at the edge of his hearing, a tremble of air. Distant thunder? “I can barely believe it myself, and I have walked these hills for years.” The dim rumbling was growing louder and Chert finally realized it wasn’t thunder. “Fissure and fracture!” he swore. “Those are horses coming toward us!”

  “The hunt?” she asked. The damp hillside and close-leaning trees seemed capable of hiding anything. “You said the hunt was out today.”

  “It’s not coming from that direction—and they would never come so far this direction, so near to . . .” His heart stumbled in his chest. “Gods of raw earth—it’s coming from the shadowlands!”

  He grabbed his wife’s hand and yanked her stumbling along the hill away from the misty boundary, short legs digging, feet slipping on the wet grass as they scrambled for the shelter of the trees. The noise of hooves seemed impossibly loud now, as though it were right on top of the staggering Funderlings.

  Chert and Opal reached the trees and threw themselves down into the scratching underbrush. Chert grabbed his wife close and peered out at the hillside as four riders erupted from the mist and reined in their stamping white mounts. The animals, tall and lean and not quite like any horses Chert had ever seen, blinked as though unused to even such occluded sunlight. He could not see the faces of the riders, who wore hooded cloaks that at first seemed dark gray or even black, but which had the flickering sheen of an oily puddle, yet they too seemed startled by the brightness of this new place. A tongue of mist curled about the horses’ feet, as though their shadowy land would not entirely let them go.