by Tim Akers
With the woman’s urging and the support of a gnarled staff, Ian got to his feet. He was wearing boots again, mismatched and obviously scrounged from the dead. He couldn’t help but stare at the ruined battlefield. Murders of crows fluttered through the air, landing and swirling from one corpse to the next, their dark wings as glossy as black mirrors against the grass.
“This is the Redoubt,” he mumbled. “How have I traveled so far?”
“A good question. The river was with you perhaps, or something else.” She brushed a hand against his cheek. “There is something mystical about you. That you’re alive at all. It’s best to not question. Just be thankful you live, unlike these fools and their iron skins.”
“What happened here?” Ian asked.
“Dying. Killing,” the woman answered. “Come. The others will not wait. They wanted me to leave you, but I know you. I wouldn’t leave you, but they wouldn’t wait, so we have to hurry.”
“Who? Who wouldn’t wait?”
The woman smiled at him, wrinkling the runes of her ink. She took his hand.
“You know who we are. You have seen our gods.” The woman walked firmly down the hill toward the distant tree line. “The hound led us to you, and now I will lead you to the hound.”
Together they stumbled to the edge of the field. In the forest their pace quickened, the ground passing beneath them more and more quickly, each step sliding over the ground as if the leaves were ice, and the earth a shifting plane. The sun hesitated in the sky, and the forest was a blur, trees whipping past like the lances of a cavalry charge. Ian’s fever grew and changed until he felt as if he was flying, and then he was, and the woman’s hand was a claw, and feathers, and the trees dipped their heads and let them pass into the sky.
* * *
The Redoubt and the bordering thin line of the river disappeared, swallowed by the humped and twisting hills of the Fen, veins of stone choked with wirewood and swamp grass. The sun hovered motionless in the sky while they traveled. After a time that felt like nothing but could have been hours, the woman guided them toward a clearing among the trees. Ian became aware of his body again. They landed in a plume of leaves that puffed up into the air, as though he and the woman had burst from the ground.
At first Ian thought they were alone. The clearing was on the top of a hill, one of the rare gentle slopes that dotted the Fen, rather than the sharp elevations of bluff and limestone that were so common. It was crowned with wirewood, a few larger aspens, and a single oak on the southern slope. Ian did a single spin, scanning the tree line. When he turned back to the woman she was on her knees, palms pressed firmly to the ground.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He started to kneel next to her when a hand grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and pulled him back. A man, dressed in leathers and a cloak that looked as if it was made entirely of leaves, hustled past him.
“What did you do to her?” the man asked. He rested a staff across the woman’s shoulders. “Fianna? Are you well?”
“Tired,” Fianna said. “The river had claimed much of him, and Dun’Abhain was feeling stubborn this morning.” She waved a hand at the man. “You traveled farther than I expected. Already dipping into the hayways, and the birds were stubborn. It is nothing, Cahl. See to him.”
Cahl seemed disinterested in Ian’s well-being and continued to focus on Fianna. Something was passing between them, a spider-thin web of greenish light that draped from the staff to Fianna’s ribs like puppet strings. She brushed them away.
“If you must help,” she said, “I could use wine and bread. In that order.”
Ian looked around the clearing again. Faces peered out from the shadow of the oak, and several men and women crept up the slope with spears in their hands and shadows dripping from their cloaks. He took a step back, bumping into Cahl.
He was a large man, dark hair woven into a knot of braids pulled back and held in place with leather straps. He had a nose like a battleax, broken and scarred, and the ink on his face was interrupted by a pair of scars that ran from his forehead to his left ear. The eye on that side of his face had an iris the color of thin milk, the pupil floating in the middle, wide and black. Cahl smelled like an angry bear.
Ian took a step back.
“What have you done to her?” Cahl asked again.
“Nothing,” Ian insisted. “She woke me up. I think she saved my life.”
Cahl snorted and continued to loom in a manner that seemed to be his primary form of communication. A trio of women, one young, one old, one middling, passed around the pair of men to kneel by Fianna.
The men formed a rough circle around Ian, spears loose in their hands. There were more than Ian had thought at first, at least a dozen, with others coming out of the trees all the time. They all wore similar cloaks, which Ian could now see were a motley of stained leather in the shape of leaves, stitched together like a jigsaw, each piece dyed in autumn colors.
“This is the hound?” Cahl asked no one in particular. Fianna didn’t seem too anxious to answer, so Ian straightened his back and let his hands rest on his belt. The palm of one hand slid unconsciously over the hilt of his knife, the only blade the river had left him.
“My name’s Lord Ian Blakley, son of Malcolm, duke of Houndhallow.” He squared his shoulders and leaned in to the man. “Who are you?”
Cahl answered with another snort, shook his head, and trotted down the slope toward the tree.
“Get her moving,” he said. “The hallow has called us, and we must answer. The demon is closer with every breath we waste talking to this fool. There’s nothing more we can do here. We must go.”
“You have had word from the hallow? Are the wardens safe?” Fianna asked, stirring from the attentive care of the other women.
“Nothing is safe. Shadows stir in the Fen.” Cahl hesitated a moment, as though uncomfortable. “Our eyes are clouded.”
“You cannot see the paths?” Fianna asked.
“I can see nothing. The sun and moon rise between us.” Cahl grimaced at Ian, then turned away. “We’ve wasted our time on this one. He is the sun and moon. The hound led wrong.” With that he stalked down the hill, surrounded by the other men of his pack. The women clucked disapprovingly, but Fianna watched him go with pity in her eyes.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ian asked.
“We are far from our henge,” Fianna said quietly, “and the dreams are failing us.” She sat quietly for a handful of heartbeats, then smiled and looked up at him. “Our home is far to the east, across the Wyl, near the coast. Our spirits belong there, but the wardens of the Fen dreamt us a warning and a plea. Shadows were stalking their spirits, and so we came west. To help.”
“You…” Ian looked around nervously, the reality of his situation slowly settling on him. “This is a coven. You’re a witch.”
“And a wife,” Fianna agreed. “To the spirits, but never to flesh. Do you think any old crone could pull you from death?”
“I can’t be here. You can’t…” Ian sputtered. “You must return me to my father. Immediately. If I am caught in the company of pagans…”
“What will you say? If the inquisition questions you, will you tell of the hound that breathed its life into your lungs? Of the gheist that carried you through the night?” Fianna waved off the increasingly nervous ministrations of the other wives. The women fled down the hill, to disappear among the trees. “Would you rather be dead than grateful, Ian Blakley?”
“Of course I’m grateful, but…” He collapsed to his knees on the hill. “You have to understand how dangerous this is for me. For my family.”
“More dangerous than drawing your sword against the high inquisitor? More dangerous than raising a banner and marching on Greenhall?” Fianna leaned back, resting on her palms, stretching her legs in the grass. Ian had no idea how old she was, but fatigue had softened her face and added weight to her years. “We are fighting a similar war, Ian Blakley. We may not be on the same side, but we are battling t
he same monsters.”
“No,” Ian said. “I have killed your gheists. You worship gods that haunt my nightmares.”
“You cannot kill a god, Ian. You may undo its body, and unknit the soul that binds it to our blood, but it remains, to rise again.” She stood, brushing off her skirt. Dry grass fluttered down from her legs, and Ian saw that the ground where Fianna had been sitting was charred and dead. There was a glow to her skin, as though her age had been scrubbed away with an iron comb. She held out a hand to him. “Come. Cahl is impatient, and our path is unclear.”
Ian took her hand and stood. They strolled down the hill, apparently to meet with the other pagans, though Ian could see no one among the trees.
“Will you take me to my father?” Ian asked.
“Not yet. Wherever our path goes, it is not yet to the Fen Gate. Cahl will want us to answer the wardens, but the hallow is far, and greater troubles may have grown between here and there. I have never seen the Fen in such turmoil.”
“This hallow. Is it like the one at Houndhallow?” Ian asked. “I had no idea House Adair had their own. I thought ours was the last in Tener.”
“Everywhere is hallowed, Ian Blakley. It takes a Suhdrin mind to think otherwise,” Fianna answered. “Some places are more holy than others. But now is not the time for such things. Here,” she raised a hand, and the rest of the pagans appeared from the trees. “We have much to discuss.”
“No, we don’t,” Cahl said. “The wardens call. We answer.”
“When the wardens’ call was the only song, we sang along,” Fianna answered. “But there is more sickness in the Fen than we thought.”
“Nothing is more important than the hallow,” Cahl hissed.
“What good is the…” Fianna paused, and it seemed to Ian she was purposely not looking at him. “What good is that, if a Suhdrin flag flies over the Fen Gate?”
“The bond was made with the tribe of iron,” Cahl countered. “Their stone house is no matter to me.”
“The house, no, but the land belongs in Tenerran hands—and that is in doubt.”
“My father is helping defend the border,” Ian interjected. “House Adair will not fall.”
“Your father runs north, leaving blood in his wake,” Cahl said angrily. “Yet we delay to rescue his pup.”
“If my father has lost the border, then it’s more important than ever that I join him. He will need every blade he can muster.”
“Every blade?” Fianna asked. “Would he accept our strength at his side?”
Ian hesitated, drawing another derisive snort from Cahl.
“We save his life, and yet he is afraid to be seen in our company.” The pagan spat. “Leave him here to limp his way home. The hallow needs us.”
“The tribes need us. We must consider where our spears might be of the most use,” Fianna said. “The army that marches north will grind the tribes from this land. Who will guard the hallow then?”
Cahl was silent. He shook his head.
“None of this matters if the hallow falls.”
“None of this matters,” Fianna agreed, “but nothing matters more than our choice. So what will we do?”
The pagans looked among themselves. No one spoke. They were waiting on Cahl. Finally, the shaman stirred.
“You are the wife of the gods,” he said. “What do they ask of us?”
Fianna nodded, then drew herself up and gave Ian a smile.
“We walk with the hound,” she said. “We stand with the Fen.”
“Then we fight,” Cahl said. He grimaced at Ian. “Whether these Celestials want us or not.”
32
THEY FLED THROUGH wirewood and darkness, coming eventually to a small valley that was surprisingly dry and thick with brush. Exhausted, both from their flight and her days under Allaister’s care, Gwen collapsed against a boulder and watched listlessly while Elsa and Lucas prepared the camp.
The shadow priest spent half an hour marking the perimeter of their camp and weaving the night into some kind of ward. Elsa cleared brush and started making a fire.
“You shouldn’t light that,” Gwen said. “It won’t be long before they come looking for us.”
“Thanks to the frair’s ward, no one will see this light, nor smell the smoke,” the vow knight said in a low voice. She looked to Lucas, who finished his preparations and gave a quick nod. “Besides, you can’t expect a knight of the winter vow to sleep without a little bit of light to give her comfort.”
“And I like my soup warm,” Lucas added as he swung a pot down from his saddle and rested it over the embers of the fire.
Gwen watched quietly while the two went about the business of camp. They hardly spoke, clearly accustomed to long silences and the comfort of working together. When Lucas handed Gwen her own cup of soup, she thanked him, then asked the question that had been bothering her since Elsa had first stepped into her tent.
“How did you find me? The last I saw you, you were heading to Greenhall.”
“Journeys have a funny way of going in circles,” Lucas answered. He explained how Frair Allaister had convinced the duke to give him a small force of soldiers, and how Halverdt insisted on putting Volent in charge. “Sir LaFey and I attached ourselves out of curiosity and, ostensibly, to finish our hunt for the gheist of Gardengerry.”
“Look where that hunt has brought us,” Elsa muttered into her cup.
“Yes, some unusual circumstances, I’ll grant,” Lucas said. “Truthfully, there was something about Frair Allaister that discomfited me. The gheist, as well. Something in its essence that didn’t seem right. Now I know what was bothering me—on both counts.”
“What’s that?” Gwen asked.
“Frair Allaister has leashed that gheist, and is commanding it, though for what purpose, I cannot imagine. The high inquisitor will have to deal with the matter.” Lucas slurped down the rest of his soup, banged the cup against a rock, then leaned back. “A difficult thing, accusing one of your brethren, but Cinder’s justice knows no affection for family or creed.”
“What will be done with me?” Gwen asked.
“That remains to be judged,” Frair Lucas said. He arranged a blanket around his legs and nestled into the ground, pulling his hood over his eyes. “However, as I have told you, I am beginning to think that our way of doing things has served us poorly. There is something holy in the gheists, those few who escape corruption.” His voice began to drift as sleep approached. “There are a few. Which is why I’m interested in your hallow, my lady.” Moments stretched, the silence growing. Lucas stirred.
“And its god.”
Elsa sighed and collected the frair’s cup, cleaning it with a wad of grass. She gave Gwen an uncertain look.
“That’s heresy,” she said very matter-of-factly. “I will take first watch. Sleep, and I will wake you for the second.” Then she disappeared out into the night, leaving behind the spark of sun that stirred among the embers of the fire. Gwen couldn’t help but feel that the flames watched her.
She settled into her blankets, whispering the forgotten names of the Fen, and wondering what the frair’s words could mean.
* * *
It wasn’t Elsa who woke her, but a dream. Gwen was floating in darkness, wrapped tight in arms of air and earth, when a light rose from her chest and pulled her ribs into the sky. She was following it, shrugging free of the flesh that held her, drifting through a city of dark towers and gray rain when she woke up and realized she was standing in the middle of the forest, alone.
She looked behind her and saw, some forty yards away, the strange circle of light that marked their camp. Elsa was still sitting on the stump, just barely visible, facing away from Gwen. She could see nothing of the frair. A twig snapped in front of her.
A witching wife stood just an arm’s length away, holding a broken twig in her outstretched hand. Gwen stumbled back.
“Thought you’d walk all the way to the Fen Gate if I didn’t wake you,” the woman said. Her voice wa
s as quiet as a snake’s whisper, passing the distance between her mouth and Gwen’s ear and no farther. “You have strange friends, Huntress.”
The wife said that last word with stiff contempt. Gwen’s place in the world of the Celestial church had always troubled the guardians of the witches’ hallow, though her father insisted that they understood the necessity.
“Not friends,” Gwen said as quietly as she could. “They rescued me. There are others in these woods, a frair with the old ink. I think he’s looking for the hallow.”
“A score, almost, and twice that many shadows,” the wife answered. “They bring the stink of the south with them.”
“Have they found it yet?”
“No, but we can’t hold them for long. They hound the little god.”
“Little god?” Gwen asked. “You mean the gheist?”
“A tangle of shadow stitched into the shape of men and horse. Quick through the woods. I know it. It was sealed away generations ago, a god that had gained a taste for mortal blood, and had to be imprisoned. The fools must have let it out. It’s a hunter, Gwendolyn Adair. Like you.”
“The gheist from Gardengerry,” Gwen said with a nod. “Frair Allaister seems to have tamed it.”
“A priest of the moon god, riding a gheist? What is this world becoming, Huntress?” The witching wife settled against a tree, and Gwen caught sight of a glimmer of slick blood on her side. Gwen took a worried step forward. The wife waved her off. “We have been bending the inquisitor’s path, but his shadows harry us. They bite. Anything hunted will bite, eventually.”
“You’re hurt,” Gwen said.
“More than that, child. I am dead. How else do you think I could find you?” The woman laughed, and Gwen realized the sound rustled only through her head. “Many of us have moved on to the everealm, but I remained behind, to warn you, and prepare you.”
“For what?”
“Tomorrow. Those few who remain will bend the gheist’s path. It will take all that they have. You must take the chance.”
