The Shadow at the Gate

by Christopher Bunn

  Owain walked through the village and wondered which house the little girl had belonged to. The trader had said they had found her outside.

  “Here now.”

  It was Hoon, who had silently appeared in front of him.

  “Summat else turned up,” said the tracker.

  He held up a tuft of hair and Owain took it from him. The hairs were coarse and colored a dark reddish-brown.

  “Where’d you find this?”

  Past the village and along the bank of the stream, a path lay among the willows. The two men walked along. It was getting on toward dusk and the sun was dropping fast. The valley was small, but it was deep and, as such, did not possess as much breadth of sky as the plain above. A lantern, however, swung from Hoon’s hand.

  “At the miller’s, you see.” Hoon grinned crookedly. “Figured I’d keep outa the way. No stacking bones or diggin’ for me.”

  Owain smiled and said nothing. Hoon was a good fellow—the best tracker he’d ever had—and he liked the little Mornish man. He would never put up with such familiarity from his other men, but he didn’t mind it coming from Hoon. The tracker never meant anything by it. Besides, the folk who lived in the Mountains of Morn had little patience with the social contrivances of nobility. Truth be told, Owain had little patience for it himself.

  “Millstone ain’t gonna turn for a while,” said Hoon. The house on the bank was half dwelling and half mill, for a small waterwheel jutted off the side of the house. The wooden shafts and gears were visible through an open shed built against the back wall. The waterwheel was slimed over with moss.

  “People will settle here someday.”

  “Mebbe. Mebbe not. A place gets uneasy-like, when murdering happens. Some folk can sense that. Horses an’ dogs can. Shadows move where they shouldn’t an’ the night air gets a strange taste to it. An’ here? Lotta murdering here. This place, whole family got taken inside ‘cept one poor soul on the threshold.”

  “You find the fur in the house?”

  “Nope. Fur was in the barn.”

  Across the yard from the house was a barn. Its doors gaped open, but there was only shadow inside. Owain paused in the middle of the yard and frowned. The door to the house was ajar as well, and bones lay scattered across its sill.

  For a second there, it had almost seemed like someone had whispered.

  Just behind him.

  No—it wasn’t possible.

  He shook his head and entered the barn. Tinder sparked in Hoon’s hand and the lantern flared. Bones snapped underfoot. Owain looked down. He had stepped squarely on the skeleton of an animal.

  “That’s a real dog,” said Hoon. He held the lantern high and light filled the barn.

  “Where was the fur you found?”

  “Right up there.” Hoon pointed.

  “That’s impossible.”

  They were both looking at the edge of a hayloft. A wooden ladder led up to the loft, but it was a good twenty feet in height.

  “Better believe it, an’ our beastie didn’t climb no ladder. See here on the floor?”

  Hoon nudged the straw with one foot.

  “Straw, dung, dust—all settled t’gether—but somethin’ lunged from here an’ kicked the lot loose. Straight up it jumped. Right to the hayloft.”

  “That’s impossible,” repeated Owain, looking up. Hoon didn’t reply but only began climbing the ladder. Owain followed him. “I could believe a sandcat jumping this distance. Not a dog.”

  Owain’s voice died away as he peered over the top of the hayloft. Hoon scrambled forward and hung the lantern on a chain dangling from the rafters overhead. The planks at the edge of the loft were heavily gouged. The wood was splintered, revealing the yellow grain under the aged exterior.

  “It jumped,” said Hoon with a certain gloomy satisfaction. “Straight on up. Musta hung on with its front claws, scrabbling like mad to get up and over, ripped this wood to shreds. An’ then—here—just past all the splinters, it caught hold. No more grooves, but more like dagger stabs, like it got its claws in good an’ proper.”

  He shook his head.

  “I sure would hate to meet this beastie w’out a good brace of swords alongside me.”

  “My sword would be enough,” said Owain. “But why would the thing have bothered to come up? With such determination, it must have been chasing quarry.”

  “Aye. Right to the trapdoor over the haymow. See here? It lunged forward an’ then stopped at the opening.”

  The two men stared down into the gloom of the haymow below. The lantern’s light gleamed on the wicked curves of the spikes beneath them. Light caught on something hanging from the tip of one of the spikes.

  “Bring that lantern down,” said Owain.

  The haymow yielded up its secret easily. The scrap of cloth, once white but now gray with dust and blotched with the dark stains of old blood, lay in Owain’s hand.

  “Dried blood on the spike, too,” said Hoon.

  “Aye, there would be. I daresay this is from a child’s nightgown.” And Owain remembered the wound in the little girl’s leg. Part of the puzzle solved at least.

  They searched the millhouse before returning to the encampment. Down a hallway there was a small room containing two beds. Owain immediately knew it was the right room. It was a simple space with little in it besides the beds. A skeleton lay tangled in the tattered sheets of one. The other bed was empty. A chest sat in one corner. It contained clothes for the most part, but he did not take them. At the bottom, however, was a doll made of frayed cotton, mended and re-mended with careful, minute stitches. He took the doll and put it in his pocket. Hoon said nothing.

  Night had fallen when they left the millhouse. The lantern cast a warm yellow glow around their feet. As they walked away, he heard the whisper again. Clearer now.

  Take care of her.

  “I will,” he said out loud.

  “What’s that?” said Hoon.

  “Nothing.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE COUNCIL OF CATS

  The regent held a small dinner party that night. Small, at least, by Botrell’s standards. Many of the nobility from the duchies had already arrived in Hearne for the Autumn Fair. They were all comfortably represented, except for the duchy of Mizra, whose party hadn’t arrived yet, and Harlech, who never bothered to take much notice of the rest of Tormay. Even haughty Harth had sent a contingent: the self-styled king’s only son and a small cadre of lords to accompany him. Chandeliers shone above a long table that seemed to stretch on and on through the length of a black marble hall.

  Big enough to gallop a herd of horses through, thought Levoreth to herself. Which I would rather be doing than sitting here making polite conversation with a half-witted lordling from Vomaro.

  “Must be dull to live so far in the north, Lady Levoreth,” drawled the lordling. His name was Dwaes. That was all Levoreth had heard—or had cared to hear—as the scallion pie on her plate was proving more interesting than his conversation.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  Far down at the end of the table, Botrell and her uncle were roaring with laughter. Probably telling horse stories. Or the regent was making another offer for her hand. She scowled down at her plate. The Fair would be tedious enough, fending off whatever ridiculous ideas of marriage the duke of Mizra had. Another admirer slobbering around her and quoting poetry at great length, as Botrell was fond of doing, would be enough to send her around the bend.

  “Rather dull, don’t you know,” bawled Dwaes, inspecting his empty wineglass, “living up in the north where you are, eh?” A servant materialized at his shoulder and filled the glass.

  “Oh, extremely,” she said nastily. “Most people who visit turn right around and go home. If you’re considering a trip, save yourself the bother.” Across the table, Aran Maernes, the old duke of Hull, winked at her.

  “Right up there next to Harlech,” continued Dwaes.

  “Umm,” she said, realizing that he wasn’t list
ening to her either. Perhaps that was the normal way to converse in these situations. She couldn’t remember. It had been a long time, and her head was starting to ache.

  “Right up there next to those savages. Uncivilized brutes, Harlech, don’t you know,” he yapped. “Only interested in horses and fighting. Just like those damn Farrows.”

  “What?” she said, despite herself. Her aunt smiled at her from far down the table and mouthed something encouraging. Levoreth scowled in response. Probably thinks this weedy lord a potential husband for me, she thought.

  “There’s some notion the Farrows share lineage with the men of Harlech,” offered the duke of Hull.

  “Same love of horses and fighting, m’lord,” drawled Dwaes. “Probably true. Same ice water in their veins. Not much good for anything else. Can’t see why you’d want ‘em as neighbors. No reason to have fightin’ men around when we have more peace ‘n we know what to do with.”

  “I’ve met Cullan Farrow a number of times, Lady Levoreth,” said old Maernes. “He has a magic hand with horse and sword. Despite the assertion of our young friend here, you’d never know a kinder man. Many a time he’s come traveling through Hull. I’ve sat with him at his fire and he at mine, trading stories until the moon was down. Forgive me, my dear. With your uncle’s love of horse, I’d imagine the Farrows would be common enough visitors in Andolan.”

  “We know another Farrow in Vomaro,” said Dwaes darkly.

  “That they are,” said Levoreth, ignoring the young lord next to her. She returned the old duke’s smile. “Every spring, their wagons come rolling along the Ciele. They are well loved in our little duchy.”

  “In mine as well. My twin sons learned their first turn at the sword under Cullan’s tutelage.” He smiled, as if remembering. “It was a long, slow summer and his wife had just given birth to a daughter. She had a strange, outlandish name that escapes me.”

  Levoreth’s own smile became forced. “They’ve only one daughter. Giverny is her name.”

  “That’s it. Cullan was worrisome of the little one’s health and so set camp near my town. He’d not take up residence within the gates, though I offered him a fine house. He laughed and said Farrows only stayed alive if they kept out under the sky. Said walls and towns and crowded places with folks all around were enough to blight any soul, though he smiled and asked my pardon for that, me with my stone walls and roofs. Anyway, he came the next day with short swords for my little lads and taught them their first steps, right there in the courtyard. The boys jabbered of nothing else after that and pestered me every day until I arranged lessons with Cullan. He’d more patience than I.”

  “Anyone who can gentle a horse wouldn’t find difficulty in much else. Least of all a couple of boys.”

  “No,” agreed Maernes. The old man lifted his cup and drank. “Though, he’d trouble enough with his own. Wasn’t long afterward his boy Declan up and vanished. Lifted his father’s best sword and horse and disappeared into the night. And he’d taken a turn or two at teaching my own sons. A remarkable hand with the blade that lad had. Near as good as his father, if not better.” He shook his head. “Cullan aged ten years overnight.”

  Levoreth sensed the young lord beside her stirring to speak. A shiver pricked at the back of her neck and she knew what he would say. A queer foreboding settled on her. The girl again. A thin, suntanned face flashing before her eyes, evoked by the old duke’s words. Empty sky and green earth receding away, things older and foreign to the walls and ways of men. There was an inevitability to it all.

  “How old be your boys now?” said Dwaes. “Near to twenty?” The duke nodded reluctantly, saying nothing, and the Vomaronish lord smiled with satisfaction. He had a thin, polished quality to his voice that carried well. Conversations quieted around them and faces turned.

  “That would be the same summer a Farrow came riding to the court in Lura, eager to join all the other would-be-heroes.” He smirked and glanced around, pleased by his larger audience. “I daresay this would be the errant son Declan you spoke of. A brash fool, a thief, as you said, having stolen his father’s sword and horse.”

  “Maybe,” grunted the duke. “Still a good boy, I warrant, regardless of all that. Farrows are good folk.”

  “I think not, m’lord,” returned the other silkily. “Farrows never show their faces in Vomaro ever since we sent the rascal packing, and that’s proof enough. If one proved a scoundrel, then no doubt the trait holds true for them all.”

  “Would you say the same facing someone of that family over swords?” inquired Levoreth icily, but he ignored her.

  Someone called out from further down the table. “Tell us, Dwaes, what was the real story behind that fellow? One hears so many different versions after all these years, there’s no certainty to the tale. Aren’t you related in some way to the house of Elloran? You Vomarones all seem to be related in some way or another. Goats and all.”

  A laugh went up, but Dwaes ignored the jibe. He knew he had the attention of those around him. More faces turned and eyes gleamed avidly in the candlelight. It was a shabby, mean story that Levoreth knew well. Probably even better than Dwaes. She selected an apple from a basket offered to her by a servant and began peeling it. The skin fell in unbroken curls from the blade of her knife. She had heard the story for the first time the same summer it had occurred, for the horses would talk of nothing else for days, snorting in disapproval. They behaved grumpily with the grooms for weeks, for the Farrows were legendary among their kind and beloved in the dim way that horses love. And it was precisely because of such stories, such behavior, that Levoreth preferred the company of her four-footed folk to that of humans.

  “I am only a distant relation of the house of Elloran,” said Dwaes modestly. “My mother being something of a cousin to the duke—”

  “Your whole duchy are something of cousins to the duke,” said someone, but Dwaes flapped one hand in easy dismissal.

  “—and as such, my family spent a great deal of time at the court in Lura. I knew Lady Devnes Elloran, the duke’s daughter, rather well, as we shared the same tutor when I stayed with them. She’s a true beauty, as all Vomaronish women are, of course, but unusually so, with hair the color of wheat and—”

  “Get to the story!” said a fat little man from across the table. He was evidently well in his cups, judging by his flushed face and the scarlet stain of wine across his surcoat.

  “Aye, the story,” said another.

  “And more wine here!”

  A quartet, hidden somewhere off in the shadows shrouding the reaches of the hall, launched into an air. The flute trilled over sonorous strings and cheerfully told the story of lost love. Levoreth heard a roar of laughter go up from the far end of the table where the regent sat. The ache in her head increased. The apple fell apart into four sections under her knife. She considered ramming the blade into Dwaes’s leg but discarded the idea, as it would only have meant more and louder noise from him.

  “The story,” said Dwaes, a bit off stride, “does not carry its full weight unless one comprehends the true beauty and virtue of Lady Devnes Elloran—as all Vomaronish women are, of course, beautiful and virtuous—”

  “More wine!”

  “Aye!” bawled the fat little drunk. “Summat like Thulish cattle, I’d say!”

  Dwaes reddened but chose to ignore this, as the rest of his audience was still intact.

  “In early May, Lady Devnes went riding with her attendants and several brave men-at-arms along the eastern shore of Lake Maro, as some are wont to do, for there the late spring flowers grow in a profusion that cannot be found elsewhere. While she and her maids were picking flowers, a party of ogres came rushing from the woods and fell upon them! The men-at-arms were hacked to pieces and the maids ravished so that only one survived, and she to die before the week was out. Unhappily, Lady Devnes was carried off, the ogres leaving the one poor maid to totter back to Lura with word of their demand.”

  “Wasn’t the lady ravished
too?” called someone raucously.

  “Of course not,” said Dwaes. “Ogres love gold more than anything else, and the duke’s daughter was worth her weight in gold to them. Untouched. They’re clever brutes and knew what they were doing. When her father, the duke of Elloran, heard the news, he sent word to all the duchies of Tormay, begging the aid of any lord brave enough to track the ogres and bring back his daughter unharmed, for he feared the ogres would not bother to release his child even if he delivered them their demanded price. Lords and princelings came from all across Tormay, eager to win fame, honor, and much more, for the duke had promised Devnes in marriage and the duchy of Vomaro at his death to whoever brought her back, for she was his only child.”

  “Two of my nephews,” said old Duke Maernes of Hull grimly, “fools that they were, went haring off to Vomaro when they heard the news. I thought the girl already dead. Besides, only an idiot would seek an ogre in its own stronghold.”

  “Your nephews,” said Dwaes, “did not fare so well.”

  “Aye,” said the duke. “Fools, both of them. Dead fools.”

  “Like many others. It was a grim, sad summer, with every manor and castle in Vomaro flying their mourning flags. And then, on midsummer’s day, the Farrow lad came riding on his black horse. Right up to the duke’s door, as calm as you’d please, and with coarse and common speech declared he’d come to try his hand at the quest. Oh, the duke knew of the Farrows, and he knew the great iron sword strapped on the whelp’s back. He knew who it belonged to. Desperate for his daughter, he would’ve sent forth anyone who desired. The duke provisioned the young scoundrel, and Declan Farrow rode out in the company of two others undertaking the same quest.

  “The trail was cold, but Farrow lad picked up trace of it west of the Lome Forest and so followed it with his two companions. I must confess, though he proved to be a damnable scoundrel, he could track the most clever of the woodland animals. Step by step, he made his way through the shadows of Lome Forest until he came to the foothills of the Morn Mountains. There, the trail climbed up into the snowy peaks.”