The Crimson Queen

by Alec Hutson

  After the third time he stumbled, she sighed and shook her head. “You know, I’m city-born, and I’m able to keep on my feet. I thought you peasants would have spent all your time in the woods. Are you just naturally clumsy?”

  “I’m a fisherman.” Keilan gasped, trying to find his balance on the slithering leaves. “We don’t often go into the woods.”

  The girl gave his arm a quick squeeze. “Well, close your eyes and imagine you’re running on sand.”

  Keilan grunted and tried to push on faster. “Why . . . Why are we running?”

  The girl scrambled up a steep incline veined with roots, then reached back to help Keilan. “I’ve seen the Pure fight. We were lucky that one was concerned about the lives of the men he’d brought with him; otherwise, many would have died back there. We need to put some distance between ourselves and him before he decides to come after us.”

  Keilan spared a glance over his shoulder at the dark forest. He glimpsed the archers slipping through the trees still holding their bows, but he couldn’t see any other pursuit.

  The Pure. His kidnapping. The ambush. Now a frantic flight through the woods . . . the events of this afternoon were like hammer blows, one after another. Before he could find his balance or fully comprehend what was happening, everything shifted again, too quickly. He wanted to sink down onto the forest floor and close his eyes and wake up tomorrow in his bed.

  But the girl was insistent, pulling him along; farther ahead, Keilan saw the red wizard hurrying, the lacy frill of his collar plastered to his neck. A pair of the archers flanked him, fistfuls of arrows held at the ready, as if they expected the Pure at any moment to burst from between the trees astride his war horse and charge them.

  At this point, Keilan wasn’t sure that would have surprised him.

  Again he glanced at the woods, wondering if he could vanish into the bracken before the girl or her friends could catch him. But the paladin had spoken of taking him to something called the Cleansing, and that it would probably kill him . . . at least his rescuers had made no such threats.

  Finally, they emerged from the forest into a large clearing beside a shallow, swift-running stream. More of the gray-hooded archers were there, lowering their bows when they saw who approached and touching the knuckles of closed fists to their foreheads in what Keilan assumed was some kind of respectful greeting. Behind them many horses and ponies milled, laden down with saddlebags, snorting and shifting at the sudden excitement. It looked to Keilan like they had come a great distance, and had a long way yet to go.

  “Who are these men?”

  “Rangers of Dymoria. Usually they stay in the northern forests, protecting the kingdom from raids by Skein warbands. But we brought a troop south because we needed to move through wilderness quickly.”

  The girl led him to a piebald mare and gestured for him to mount. Unsure of what exactly to do, Keilan put one foot in a stirrup and awkwardly swung himself up into the saddle. The girl watched him critically.

  “Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

  Keilan shook his head, still struggling to find his balance. The girl rolled her eyes and gathered his reins. “I’ll hold on to these, then. Best pray we don’t have to move faster than a canter, or I think you’ll bounce right off.”

  She led his horse through the chaos of two dozen men hurriedly securing bags and climbing into saddles. Keilan noticed that every man had a golden medallion clasping his cloak, a sinuous dragon eating its own tail.

  “Lady Nel,” a ranger tying his quiver to his horse’s barding said as she passed him, “we must ride through the night. In the darkness will we be able to navigate the road you spoke of before?”

  “We will have to,” the girl replied, vaulting onto the back of a russet pony. “I want to put as much distance between ourselves and the paladin as we can, and I doubt he is familiar with the old ways. But we won’t reach the road until tomorrow’s first light, at the earliest.”

  The ranger knuckled his forehead and turned away. The girl kicked her pony into a trot and tugged on the reins of Keilan’s horse, leading him along.

  “Your name is Nel?” he asked as they splashed through the shallow stream.

  The girl did not turn around. “It is.”

  “Just Nel?”

  “Just Nel.”

  Keilan shifted, trying to get more comfortable in the saddle. “But that man called you ‘lady. ’ Doesn’t that mean you are highborn?”

  The girl threw back her head and laughed again. “I’m about as highborn as you are, fisherboy. My mother was a two-kellic whore on the Street of Silk, and my father was someone with at least two kellics in his purse.”

  “Yet you command these men.”

  “In truth, they follow me because I am Vhelan’s knife.”

  “Vhelan?”

  The girl reined her pony up beside the man the Pure had claimed was a wizard; he looked about as awkward on his horse as Keilan felt. He slumped in his saddle in his sodden finery, bedraggled as a cat caught out in the rain.

  “Boss!”

  The sorcerer turned toward them. He was younger than Keilan had first thought, maybe about the same age as the girl. His fine red clothing seemed to shimmer in the gloaming. He sniffled loudly and inclined his head at Keilan.

  “Greetings . . .” The sorcerer raised his eyebrows and glanced questioningly at Nel. She cleared her throat and shot Keilan a look of embarrassment.

  “Ah, yes, we didn’t actually get to that, did we. What’s your name, boy?”

  Keilan tried to answer, but his mind was suddenly a scrap of blank parchment.

  The sorcerer turned to Nel. “Is the lad simple? That would be unfortunate.”

  “Keilan. Keilan Ferrisorn,” he finally blurted out, running a shaking hand through his rain-slicked hair.

  The sorcerer offered a crooked smile. “Well met, Keilan. I am Vhelan ri Vhalus, a magister of the second rank, and this is my knife, Nel. We’ve traveled a long way to find you.”

  “Why is this happening? What do you want with me?” Keilan struggled to hide the edge of desperation in his voice.

  Vhelan must have heard it, because he reached out to pat Keilan’s arm. “Be calm, lad. We came because you have a great gift, and there are many who would do you harm. Our queen in Dymoria provides safe haven for those such as us. We did not expect the Pure to find you first, but luckily we travel in strength these days, and so could effect a rescue.”

  “And speaking of the rescue,” Nel said, casting a glance at the woods where they had come from, “I won’t consider it a success until we put about a hundred leagues between ourselves and that paladin.”

  “Agreed,” the wizard said, fumbling his hands free of his long sleeves. “Let us be off.” He mumbled something, too quiet for Keilan to hear clearly, his fingers sketching a quick pattern. The whispers had a strange resonance, shivering in the air for a few moments after being spoken, like the fading tolling of a bell. Cold clear light blossomed in the wizard’s hand and began to swell.

  Sorcery. Keilan’s mouth was dry, and his pulse thundered in his ears. It wasn’t fear that he felt, though, to his surprise. It was excitement. If what the Pure said was true, could he be taught to do that?

  The wizard cupped his hands around the light, molding it into a sphere, still muttering his incantations. He released the glowing object with a flourish, and it floated free, coming to hover in front of him and bathing them all in pallid ghost-light.

  “This should be enough so that the horses won’t lame themselves in the dark. We ride.”

  The company followed the stream for a ways, the light floating ahead giving the water an eerie sheen, and then when the trees thinned they turned into the woods. The rain stopped soon after, though water still dripped from the canopy in an unsteady drumbeat. Shadows skittered around them as the glowing sphere passed through g
rasping branches, and Keilan found himself peering nervously into the darkness, while beneath them the moss on the forest floor shone with a faint luminescence, illuminating nightblooms stirring to life as they mistook the light for a risen moon.

  Questions roiled inside Keilan, but he couldn’t bring himself to break the silence. Instead, he stroked the neck of his mare and tried to sort through what had happened to him. He felt a pang of sadness thinking of his father, and Sella, but otherwise there was very little he would miss about the life he was leaving behind. His books. Should he try and get back to his village? Keilan hunched in his saddle as he considered what had happened. Could he trust Nel and this sorcerer? Weren’t those that drew forth sorcery wicked? He had to admit that they did not seem evil.

  The company rode until shreds of a gray dawn were visible through the branches above, then one of the rangers called a halt, and most of the riders slid from their horses and began rummaging through saddlebags, pulling out strips of dried meat and bread. Keilan clambered down, every bone in his body throbbing with pain. He accepted a water skin from Nel and drank greedily, pacing back and forth to try and walk off the aching in his legs.

  “Your first long ride is always the worst,” she said, chuckling at his discomfort. “I could barely walk for a day afterward.”

  “The way you ride now, I thought you’d been born in a saddle.”

  Nel snorted. “Hah. Until I was about your age the closest I’d come to a horse was when I slit the saddlebags of some fat merchant as he was riding through the prosidium. Neither Vhelan nor myself had ever ridden before we left Lyr seven years ago. And he still looks like he’s never been on one.”

  Keilan handed the skin back to Nel. “So you’ve known Vhelan for a long time?”

  “Almost my whole life. He was my first friend in the Warrens. I told you, I’m his knife.”

  “You’ve said that before, but I don’t know what it means.”

  “His knife . . .” Nel paused, seeming to grope for the right words. “It’s like a lieutenant. In the Warrens, all the gangs have a boss, and every boss has a knife. Closer than brother and sister. I’d do anything for him, go anywhere. So when a sorcerer noticed him and offered to bring him north, I came as well.”

  Keilan glanced past Nel at the wizard, who was rubbing his legs furiously, as if to restore some life to them.

  “He was the boss of a gang of thieves?”

  Nel smirked. “He’s changed a bit, certainly. But even in the Warrens his nickname was ‘scholar. ’ Vhelan’s always been a little . . . foppish. He cultivates it, somewhat. It is better, we’ve both found, if your enemies underestimate you.”

  Nel took a final swig of water, and then stoppered the skin. “Come. We must continue. Tonight, if we make good time and there’s no sign of pursuit, we can sleep.”

  Keilan stifled a groan as Nel swung herself back up into her saddle. “You can walk for a ways, if you wish. We can’t move so fast in the forest, though when we reach the road you’ll have to ride again.”

  He gave her a grateful look and gathered up the reins. His horse chuffed, as if insulted by his decision to walk, so he patted its flank and apologized. Nel rummaged in her saddlebag and tossed down an apple.

  “She’ll forgive you quick enough if you let her have that.”

  One quick crunch and the apple was gone, and Keilan imagined whatever reproach he had glimpsed in his horse’s eyes vanished with it.

  Morning faded, the light deepening as they continued on. The forest was as wild as Keilan had suspected the night before; the trees grew thick and tall enough that the undergrowth was stunted, but even still they sometimes had to carefully guide the horses through a tangle of great roots or around fallen trunks. Birds flitted above, and once Keilan caught a shadowy man-shape recede into the highest branches. A gibbon, the reclusive forest-apes. This was the deep woods, far different than anything he had explored around his village. Only a few hunters ever braved these depths, and Keilan found himself remembering some of Mam Ru’s old tales, stories of green men who watched from the boles of trees, their mossy teeth hungering for the taste of child flesh, ancient white stags with glimmering silver antlers, mischievous telflings, wicked faeries, ravenous spirits, and haunted ruins. He didn’t think he could find his way back to his village now, even if he somehow managed to slip away.

  Keilan did not see the road until he’d almost tripped over it. At first he thought it was just a rill in the folds of the forest, but when he crested the raised earthen mound suddenly there it was, a wide avenue of gleaming black stone that stretched as far as he could see. The trees did not encroach upon the road, almost as if they shied away from it.

  “What is this?” he asked, crouching down to trace the thin grooves where the blocks of stone fit together flawlessly.

  “The Black Road,” Vhelan said, his tone faintly reverential as he urged his horse forward. Its hooves rang strangely on the stone, almost as if they were striking metal. “Built thousands of years ago by the sorcerers of the Kalyuni Imperium. Once it connected their glorious cities with the north, the holdfasts of Min-Ceruth and other lost kingdoms. I’ve read that if you follow it south far enough it vanishes straight into the waves of the Broken Sea. Perhaps it still runs all the way to the drowned Star Towers – the sorcery woven into this stone is strong. Can you feel it?”

  “I can.” Keilan whispered, pressing his palm to the road. It was a thin pulsing, like the faint beating of a distant heart.

  “The things the ancients wrought are far beyond our present skill,” Vhelan said slowly, almost to himself. “But perhaps that will change soon.” He glanced at Keilan, and crooked a smile. “Rejoice, boy, for you could be a part of our rebirth.”

  With a cry the sorcerer spurred his horse into a canter, each hoof-strike on the Black Road sounding to Keilan like when Speaker Homlin used to hammer iron pulled white-hot from the forge. The rest of the men followed, creating a shuddering, tinkling cacophony, until only he and Nel remained behind.

  “Time to mount up again, boy.” Nel moved to take his reins again, but he shook his head and gathered them himself.

  “No. I can do it.”

  She eyed him for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. Try to keep up.”

  They kept a good pace, the forest hemming the road becoming a dark blur. During the ride Keilan gradually became more comfortable controlling his mare, learning how to slow or quicken her stride through slight pressure from his knees or a gentle pull on the reins. Keilan suspected that the horse had been very well trained, and was subtly compensating for any mistakes he was making. He made sure to pat her neck and lean forward regularly to whisper his thanks, and after some deliberation arrived at a name to call her: Storm, for the swirling dark blotches on her coat reminded him of the sky before the Shael unleashed their wrath on the seas below.

  The afternoon light was beginning to wane when they reached the second road. It was smaller than the one they’d been riding on, wide enough for only a few horses, while a half dozen could fit comfortably on the main road with room to spare. It vanished into the woods, the trees pressing closer than on the road they had been following. Keilan thought he could see something else through the tangle, strange shapes looming deep within.

  They halted at the junction, the sorcerer beckoning for Nel and one of the rangers to approach. This warrior’s dragon-brooch was red instead of gold, and a twisting horn banded with silver hung from his saddle. The leader of these men, Keilan guessed. He nudged his mare closer so he could hear the exchange, while the rest of the archers kept a discreet distance, talking amongst themselves.

  “We can camp there tonight,” Vhelan said, gesturing where the smaller road disappeared into the trees. “We need the rest, and we’ll have shelter if it rains again.”

  The ranger’s mouth was set in a thin line. “I say we press on. Any pursuit will expect us to stop in the ruins.
”

  The wizard snorted. “Pursuit? We’ve come so far so fast. Did you see any imperial trackers with the Pure? The paladins are not trained for this kind of hunting.”

  “Nevertheless, we could hide our camp in the woods far enough off the road that we’d be invisible to any that followed. Why take the risk? What do you hope to find in the city?”

  Vhelan plucked at his sleeves, scowling. “Find? Nothing, of course. The city has been dead for a thousand years. But I do wish to gaze upon it with my own eyes. What is it that you fear?”

  The ranger’s face darkened. “I’m entrusted with returning you safely to Herath and the queen. I refuse to take unnecessary risks.”

  “Captain d’Taran,” Nel interjected, “we do appreciate your diligence. But you were not given command here. You are to protect Vhelan and follow his orders, whatever they may be.”

  The ranger gave the sorcerer and his knife a long, measuring look. Finally, he sighed. “Very well. It is as you say. But be wary, wizard. There are many stories about such dead cities, and what can be found within.”

  “Superstitions, I assure you, captain,” Vhelan said, waving away the ranger’s warning. “The bones of these ruins have been picked over a half-hundred times by scholars from the Reliquary or other looters. Whatever magics once thrived there have long since faded or been stolen away.”

  The captain offered a curt nod of agreement and wheeled his horse around, trotting toward where a knot of his men were waiting expectantly. He muttered something under his breath, too quiet for the sorcerer to hear, but Keilan was close enough that he caught what was said.

  “Then what are you looking for, wizard?”

  They followed the avenue until it ended, but this tributary of the Black Road did not trail off into shards of stone pockmarking the forest floor; rather, it appeared to have been sheared clean, as if struck by a giant’s impossibly sharp sword. And over that last gleaming slab a great archway loomed, built of dark blocks of stone that seemed so precariously fitted together that Keilan felt a slight pang of nervousness as they approached. The deprivations of the wilds were evident: the stones were pitted with age, stained by lichen, and vines like arms knotted with muscles wrapped the structure, as if trying to pull it down. At the arch’s apex, where the crumbling stones met haphazardly, a great eye had been carved, seeming to watch the party as they neared. When Keilan came closer he saw that the arch was actually festooned with innumerable eyes, most so faded with age that they seemed to have nearly sunk back into the stone from which they had emerged. Wide eyes, hooded eyes, slitted eyes, the eyes of cats and snakes and fish and other animals Keilan did not recognize. All watchful.