by Tim Akers
Her father had always intimated that there were other houses faithful to the shamans, that counted witching wives among their ladies and claimed gheists as their totem gods. But in all her years at court and in service to her father’s house, Gwen had never seen evidence of this.
She suspected they were alone.
The flap of her tent rustled, and light filled the narrow space, followed by heat. Gwen hauled herself to a sitting position. To her surprise, a vow knight marched inside, a lantern in one hand and sword in the other. She hung the lantern from the central pole of the tent, dragged a campstool closer to Gwen’s bed, and sat down. The woman rested the tip of her blade in the dry grass, so that the yellowed edges of vegetation crisped and turned to smoke.
“Who are you? I saw no vow knight in our company,” Gwen said. “The guards aren’t supposed to let anyone in. Inquisitor’s orders.”
“I am Sir Elsa LaFey, and the frair is seeing to the guards,” Elsa said. “He has taken an interest in you, Gwendolyn Adair. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out if you’re worth it.”
“Worth what?”
“Heresy,” the vow knight answered.
Gwen squirmed on her bedding, trying to look dignified even though her ankles were tied. Sir LaFey glared down at her.
“I’m not going to deny it,” Gwen said after a time.
“That’s usually best,” LaFey said. “The frair finds these things out eventually. Apparently he knew about you before we met.”
Lucas. It has to be him, Gwen realized suddenly. “And you didn’t?” she asked.
Elsa shook her head.
“Frair Lucas doesn’t always tell me everything. Right annoying.” Elsa scratched at the grass with her sword, looking more like a petulant child than an awe-inspiring weapon of righteousness. “The frair’s talking about getting you away from this lot. About letting you go.”
“The inquisitor would have you both declared apostate, if he didn’t kill you outright.”
“I’d piss my name in the snow if this Allaister fool would lick it up,” Elsa said. “Sacombre’s pet. Never been a hero of mine, but it’s not like we’re going to stick around to ask Finney’s opinion on the matter.”
“Why would you let me go?”
“Why not? Why anything? I do what the frair says, and the frair thinks you’re worth more than a trial and a heretic’s death.” The vow knight leaned forward, gesturing with the flat of her blade. “I hope you are—for his sake, if not your own.”
“I’m sure she is,” Frair Lucas said, stepping into the tent. His frosty head pressed against the canvas of the ceiling. Before the flap closed, Gwen could see that at least one of her guards was gone. “We had better be about this business,” he added.
“How did you find me?” Gwen asked.
“Well, we didn’t, not really,” Lucas said. “But that gheist that spooked your riders, and nearly killed you, we’ve been hunting it since Gardengerry.”
“Damned interesting to find it in the company of a frair,” Elsa muttered.
“An interest that I intend to take up with the celestriarch,” the older frair said, “but not tonight.” He leaned over Gwen, peering at her wounds with mist-shrouded eyes. “They seem to have left your important parts intact. Flesh and spirit, at least. How do you feel?”
“Like I could run forever, given the proper motivation,” Gwen said. “And Allaister has given me motivation enough.”
“Glad to hear. So let’s get you up and moving.”
“Not that I’m ungrateful,” Gwen said. “Not at all, but why would you let me go?”
“Let you go?” Lucas took a small knife with a silver crescent blade out from his robes and bent down beside Gwen. He took her ankle in hand and drew the blade across flesh and bond alike. “That’s an interesting idea.”
Gwen pulled back from the cut, but the frair’s hand held her ankle in place. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. The only thing that kept her quiet was the fear that her guards might be near.
Lucas took a carefully folded piece of linen from his sleeve and pressed it against the wound. As the blood spread, turning the white cloth into crimson, Gwen saw that it was covered in arcane script. Then the runes disappeared.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed.
“Opening a bond between us.” He mopped up the last of the blood, then handed the cloth to Sir LaFey. The vow knight took it with a rueful smile. The wound had already closed, forged shut by some arcane trickery. “Well, opening a bond between you and Sir LaFey, to be precise.”
“I don’t need dogs to hunt,” Elsa said, tucking the cloth into the armor at her shoulder. “Though pagans rarely offer their blood beforehand.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Gwen said stubbornly.
“There isn’t much time,” Lucas answered. “We’d best make use of what we have.”
“I’m not going until I have some idea what you’re doing, and why. I don’t like being fucked around with.”
Lucas chuckled drily as he struggled to his feet. Elsa hopped up from her seat and helped the old priest sit on the stool, then went to stand by the door of the tent.
“Fine, fine. Have you spent much time near Heartsbridge?”
“Never had much cause. The pilgrimage, five years ago. Not since.”
“Yes. There is little need for your type down there. Hunters of gheists, that is. Not Tenerrans,” he added quickly. “Between the inquisition, the knights of the winter sun, and the vigilance of the Suhdrin lords, most of the gheists are gone.”
“No true vow knights,” Elsa muttered quietly.
“Yes. My friend Elsa thinks little of the knights who swear their oaths at their father’s shrines and spend their service walking from the tavern to their lover’s bed. Many of the southern knights of the vow are second sons of famous lords, committed to protecting the realm only so far as their father’s money goes. A different life than the one that Elsa has led, to be sure.”
“You should be happy they can be lazy,” Gwen said. “If ending the gheists’ existence is what you mean to do, then it sounds like the vow knights of the south have fulfilled that goal. Haven’t they?”
“Yes, and now the south is dying,” Lucas answered. “The fields around Heartsbridge are dust, the rivers thick with silt, and the fisheries catch more kelp than salmon. While you can eat kelp, I don’t recommend it. That is part of what’s driving this push north. Resources.”
“If they want a war, why not just declare one?” Gwen asked.
“Because the church will not allow it, and without a king to lead them, the dukes of Suhdra could never agree on a plan of action. Or that such a plan would even be necessary.”
“What does this have to do with me? Why would you risk your place in the church to release a heretic? Is it to stop a war you don’t believe in?”
“No, to save a world. The gheists have been around a lot longer than you, or me, or this collection of men and spirits we call the Celestial church.” He leaned against the central pole, setting the lantern rocking back and forth. “I think they have something to do with the health of the land. That’s the story the pagans tell, isn’t it? That’s the story your father tells you.”
Gwen hesitated. It was one thing to be known as a heretic. It was another to trade theology with a priest of the inquisition.
“He says the gheists must be held close, if we want to survive,” she admitted. “If we want to thrive. He says that without them, the earth will crumble…”
“…into dust,” Lucas finished for her. “Those are the words I have heard, as well, so for now we must keep your secret safe. Your family’s secret, too, though I do hope to visit this hallow of yours someday. For now, however, it’s more important that we keep people like Frair Allaister away from it, I think.”
“What’s to keep him from finding it on his own?” Gwen asked. “I can’t allow that to happen.”
“With you gone and the wards still in plac
e, Frair Allaister will have no trail to follow. It will take more than luck to find the witches’ hallow,” Lucas said. “Besides, I think that once we’re past the shadow patrols…”
“The witching wives will not welcome you into the Fen,” Gwen said.
“Hopefully you’ll be able to change their mind, Huntress,” he said with a smile.
“If we’re going, I need my things. My spears, my clothes…” Gwen didn’t say anything about the hidden icons in her cloak, or the secret blessings bound to her weapons. She was sure the inquisitors would have found those things, but she hoped their purpose remained secret, and she couldn’t risk Allaister taking them back to Heartsbridge, to discover it on his own.
Lucas nodded to the vow knight. Elsa snorted, then tossed a package onto the ground at Gwen’s feet.
“If that satisfies, we should be on our way,” Lucas said with a smile, then he gestured for Gwen to stand. He snuffed the lantern and led her outside. Her guards were nowhere to be seen. The rest of the camp was quiet.
Frair Lucas closed his eyes and lifted his face to the moon. He raised his arms and curled his fingers tight. The night came loose in his hands, dark bands filling his palms and coalescing in the air. He started to weave an orb around the three of them, Elsa wincing as the shadow-stuff pressed tight to her head. Its touch was as cold as the tomb, and just as welcoming. When he was done, the frair placed his arms on Gwen’s shoulders and turned her toward the grassy field. Elsa huddled close behind him, so they formed a loose chain.
“Across the field,” he whispered into Gwen’s ear. “Stay close.”
She stumbled forward, the blood slowly working back into her numb feet, her tired legs. A dozen steps and she was in the grasses, yet their tall heads barely moved at their passing. The ground beneath her felt as soft as fog, and with a startled breath Gwen realized that her body had faded into shadow. Lucas pressed her forward. The three of them walked over mud and water as if it were solid ground.
At the edge of the field they came across a swirling presence in the darkness. She recognized the corrupt touch of naether as she passed, and barely glimpsed a shadow priest standing guard among the trees, a spear and the twisting energies his only weapons. For a second his eyes passed over them, and Gwen could hardly breathe for fear of being seen, but nothing happened. The priest didn’t move or shout.
The forest folded around them.
Then the shadows fell away. Lucas laughed quietly to himself, and Elsa hissed him quiet, but Gwen paid them no mind because she was running, staying quiet, quiet, and she was away. The field was behind her.
31
THERE WERE GIFTS of moments.
Ian felt nothing, but there was a heaviness in his chest, and his limbs dragged like lead through the water. He caught glimpses of light above the water, and then a dream of the moon and a sky brittle with stars. Thoughts of the quiet house came to him. He worried that there was no priest in the river. No one to shrive his soul, and Ian Blakley would walk the generations in the Tallow, haunting the muddy banks until his spirit unraveled.
Perhaps then the everealm would accept him.
Other moments found him. Stones and a cold pool, and the incredible weight of his lungs. Something ran along the bank. Between the trees, a wall of dark flesh, loping, eyes bright, a mouth of teeth so sharp and wicked that he could feel their bite from across the river. The beast trailed him. Its breath wrapped through his head and filled his lungs with air forge-hot and fetid.
Ian blinked and was alone. He was kneeling in a pool of water cold as ice. The bank was a ruin of gritty sand. His sluggish mind traced a paw print as big as a shield, and then he dragged himself from the water. His lips were blue, and his skin was as pale as snow. He had lost the feeling in his hands and feet, and it was with numb fingers that he clawed through the muddy bank. He beached himself against a smooth black rock that jutted out of the mud like a tower, and started to shiver.
The memory of the hound cartwheeled out of his mind, and he let it go.
Ian turned on his side and spat river water. His clothes were soaked and his sword was gone, along with his chain shirt. His father had gifted him that sword, on the tourney day, in Greenhall, and now it was gone—sold to the river.
None of that mattered. All he felt was the cold, and the damp, and the mud squishing through his clothes.
After a few minutes of mourning and worry, Ian pulled himself to his feet. He looked up at the moon. It was after midnight. He tottered numbly up the bank and into the narrow forest, quickly finding a path up the bluffs. He had to be near the Redoubt by now. If he could get topside, he might run into one of Adair’s patrols, or at least be in the clear when the sun rose.
That was his greatest priority. Sunlight, and the warmth it brought.
Scrambling up the rough scree of the hillside left Ian exhausted. Blood leaked from his palms and ragged knees. Despite the soaking cold of his time in the river, Ian was sweating. When he reached the flat heights of the bluff, he peeled off his shirt, discarding it along with his boots. They would all have to be replaced anyway. And he was so warm! At least there was grass here. The feeling came back to his extremities, the soft, crisp embrace of the grass cradling his feet as he strolled through the field. It was a beautiful night. The stars above and the soft ground below, and Cinder’s silver face watching all of it.
Then his foot struck something sharp and he stumbled. He rolled to a stop, his limbs flopping like a ragdoll, his head thumping into the ground. The ground was as soft as rose petals. His foot hurt badly, though. He lay there for a moment while his foot throbbed and his head burned with fever. Finally he curled into a ball and ran a finger over his foot.
There was a long gash by his heel, a soft flap of skin hanging loose and swollen with blood. Ian examined his fingers. A lot of blood. He squinted into the darkness, trying to figure out what sort of grass cut that deeply, feeling on the ground. He found a sword, discarded in the dirt, and laughed to himself.
“Gods give,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe if I stumble around a bit more I can find some armor, or even a horse. Though I think…”
He looked again. The sword was lying next to a shield, and then a helmet, though when Ian fumbled the helmet around in his tingling palms he saw that the head was still in it.
He stood and, ignoring the pain in his foot, saw so much more. Swords and broken spears tangled in the darkness, bodies mounding the night, fallen from horses or trapped beneath. Here was a trumpet, and there a banner, and then he noticed that the grass was so soft because it was churned into mud—blood instead of water, bones instead of grit.
Ian went to his knees and pulled the ruined wad of a banner out of the mud. He spread it out on the ground. A black gauntlet on a field of red, the fist clenched in simple defiance, or in strength, or pain. Below it the runes of an old language. Iron in the blood. The sigil of House Adair.
Ian dropped the banner and lay down among the Tenerran dead. Cinder, the lord in gray and ash, bent his head to the horizon, and surrendered to the dawn.
* * *
That he woke at all was a miracle. Ian dreamt of earth’s tight embrace and the sun laid low. Lady Strife but not the lady, some lesser sun rising out of the water to spread her warmth over his skin, the fire passing through his flesh to stitch itself into his bones.
He dreamt of the hound. In the dream Ian lay limp across the gheist’s broad back, his fingers twined into the thick mass of its fur, his mouth and nose full of the smell of torn earth and mulched leaves, the silent promise of autumn, the first frost of a dying summer.
He woke in stones. Ian tried to sit up, but the weight of rock on his chest held him down. There was some other constraint, something that pinned his arms against his side. It was soft and warm. A shadow passed over him, and then someone was peering into his face. A woman. There was the weight of age in her eyes, but her face was young. The sharp planes of her cheeks were knotted in ink, the Tenerran runes scrolling up her face and into
a crown of arcane symbols.
“You were dead,” she said quietly.
Ian craned his neck and saw that he was lying in a cairn. The small rocks of his burial were dark and smooth. A fire smoldered just behind the woman, a broad wedge of ashen timbers that shimmered with heat.
“Is that why you buried me?” he asked. His voice was dry and sore. The woman snorted and disappeared, returning with a tin ladle. She poured water over his mouth, a good portion of it going down his throat, the rest wetting his hair.
“Warm rocks and soft skin,” she said, nodding to the fire. Ian saw that a pile of the smooth black stones nestled among the ashes. “You were dead of the river. Cold as mud. Which is interesting. It takes a determined man to drown so far from the river’s bank.”
“I was looking for… I thought I could find…” He looked around the field, and recognized it as the Redoubt, now that he could see it in the light. The ranks of dead were drawn into battle lines and fields of retreat. His mind traced the progress of the battle. “They’re dead.”
“Yes. Not dead like you. Dead of steel and stone,” the woman answered. “I can’t help them, but old river is a friend of mine, so I know the way to your death.”
“Okay,” Ian said. He rested his head. “I’m going to sleep for a while.”
“No,” she said. “No time. People are looking, and I don’t think you want them finding.” She started plucking the stones from Ian’s cairn, using a square of sooty deerskin to throw the stones back into the fire. Showers of ash and cinder plumed into the air with each stone. “Sleep later.”
“I feel like sleeping now,” Ian said.
“Sleep and they will find you, and then you’ll die the iron death.” The woman finished with the cairn and did something around Ian’s chest. The constriction of his arms disappeared, then the woman lifted a large animal skin and tossed it over her shoulders like a cloak. “Iron is no friend of mine. Come… stand. We are going.”
