Hinterland g-2

by James Clemens

  Before they knew it, they had reached the stairs.

  Tylar reversed their roles. “Burn a path up!” he ordered the others.

  He followed behind, leaning on Rogger. Below, the naethryn filled the lower stairs. It nabbed another shape out of the shadows and flung it back down the stairs.

  Still, Tylar knew it hadn’t been Perryl. He could almost sense the ghawl’s malevolent attention, a burning hatred. Was there anything of his former friend left in that husk?

  Round and round, they climbed up toward the warmth and flames above. Light again bathed around them.

  A shout rose ahead. It came from the Oldenbrook captain. “They’re closing the gate!”

  Krevan bellowed. “Wait! We’re coming!”

  Tylar limped around a turn of the spiral. He watched the flaming eye of the gateway slowly winking shut.

  They all began to shout.

  The lowering eyelid stopped. They hurried forward, but Rogger slowed Tylar’s step.

  “Perhaps you’d best rein in your dog first. Not the time to be piling out of the cellars tethered to a smoking daemon.”

  Tylar nodded. He patted his cloak.

  “Here,” Rogger said and passed him one of his daggers.

  Tylar took it, sliced his palm, and allowed the blood to well. It was the only way to recall the naethryn once it had been set free. With his own blood. He reached the red palm to the smoky link between him and the naethryn.

  It knew his intent and glanced back. Fiery eyes met his. Then Tylar’s bloody fingers closed on the tether of Gloom. With his touch, a fine scintillation washed out, cascading over the naethryn, erasing features-then all collapsed back toward him.

  Tylar braced for the mule-kick of its impact. Still, it struck with more force than he had expected. This was the second time in one night he had summoned the beast. He prayed it would be the last. He welcomed the return of his hale form. After a year, what had once felt familiar-his broken body-now felt foreign, like the life of another man.

  And that troubled him.

  The hobbled form was his true form. What he wore the rest of the year had been the illusion, born of Grace to hold the naethryn. Releasing the beast only reminded him of the truth.

  It was foolish to forget it.

  The force struck his chest and knocked him back a full step. His arms cartwheeled and his legs tripped on the stairs. He stumbled to keep upright-and with limbs now straight and hale again, he succeeded, leaning one palm against the wall to stead himself.

  As he lowered his arm, a twinge of pain flashed in his hand. He lifted it before his face. The smallest finger remained bent at a crooked angle. He had snapped the digit to free the demon. Always in the past, once he returned the naethryn to its roost, all would heal.

  He stared at his palm. As usual, even the cut had vanished, as though it had never happened.

  Rogger noted the broken finger. “That’s troubling…”

  Tylar lowered his arm. He’d worry about it later. The others had already cleared the gateway.

  “Tylar?” a voice called. Kathryn stood framed by the fires. “Is everything all right?”

  He climbed back up into the warmth and brightness. Still, as his hand throbbed, he feared he carried a part of the darkness out with him.

  Ducking under the half-lowered gate, he joined Kathryn.

  “Lock it down,” he ordered.

  The knights again wheeled the massive wyrmwood barrier into place. The heat of the hall, flames all around, should have warmed him. But they didn’t. It was not over.

  A shout erupted down the hall.

  All eyes swung to a pair of knights guarding the far gate, the one that led to the outer bailey of Stormwatch tower.

  Even from here, Tylar noted ice and frost sweeping across the inner surface of the gate. Timbers cracked with echoing pops.

  The two knights on guard at the gate retreated-but not fast enough.

  The entire barrier blew away in an explosion of frozen wood and brittled iron. An ice fog rolled into the hall. Torches on either side of the hallway flickered, then died.

  Through the fog, a shape formed, stepping out atop a sheen of ice that flooded across the stone. She stopped and stood naked to the world, rimed in frost.

  A lost ally returned.

  Tylar stared in horror. “Eylan…”

  A WRAITH IN THE WIND

  “Calla,”Krevan ordered, “Keep the boy safe!”

  Still addled, Brant allowed himself to be shoved toward the stairs as the icy apparition stood within the fractured gate. The jostled climb up out of the cellars had revived Brant enough to stand on his own-though his legs remained numb, and there remained a hole in his memory. He remembered nothing beyond the old woman with the skull.

  What had happened?

  Calla, the ash-faced woman, took Brant’s shoulder and guided him toward the stairs. He climbed dully, trailed by Sten. The others remained below with the warden and a clutch of knights. Orders were shouted. Brant searched the milling group below, then the stairs above. Someone was conspicuously missing.

  Where was the giant Dralmarfillneer? As huge as his name, his massive form should be easy to pick out.

  Brant stopped midway toward the landing.

  “Keep moving,” Calla ordered, giving him a slight shove.

  Brant twisted away and stumbled down a step.

  He bumped into Sten. “Where’s Dral?”

  The captain mumbled, shared a glance with his gray-cloaked escort, then shook his head. He scooted past Brant, anxious to climb higher.

  Calla grabbed his elbow. “Dead,” she said simply.

  “What…?” The shock rattled through Brant, but it also helped to further center him. “How?”

  “No time.”

  She again tried to force him higher, but he had regained his footing. He broke her grip and fled down to where Rogger stood at the foot of the stairs. He joined the bearded man, needing answers.

  “The skull?” he asked.

  Rogger patted a satchel slung at his shoulder. It was weighted down. Brant felt a slight warming of the stone at his throat. They had recovered it. But at what blood price?

  Before he could inquire, Rogger pointed down the hall. “We have bigger problems at the moment.”

  They had a clear view from the raised step as the woman approached, awash in icy mists. With each stride, the torches along both walls sputtered out, one after the other, sinking the hall in darkness. Frost skittered in spidery traces across the walls. Ice swept ahead of her across the floor, glassy smooth, like spilled water.

  One of the knights who had been guarding the far gate attempted to thwart her with his diamond-pommel sword. The advancing ice reached his toes first. At its touch he stiffened, a hand clutched at his throat-then he toppled, stone-solid, and struck the floor like an upended statue.

  Brant remembered the hare he had examined during the blizzard in Oldenbrook. Frozen solid. From the inside out. Here was the dread power of the storm given flesh.

  “Take her down!” the warden cried to the phalanx of knights that now blocked the hall’s end.

  A flurry of crossbows twanged, and a volley of bolts shot down the hall. Attesting to the knights’ marksmanship, each bolt struck true-only to shatter against the rime of frost that coated the woman.

  With nary a blink, she pressed on with the same silent and deliberate pace.

  “Flames!” the warden shouted. “Burn her!”

  A waist-high barrel of oil was kicked down the hallway. Both ends were lit with fiery rags. The blast blinded Brant. He instinctively covered his face with his arm. Flaming barrel staves rained down, reaching back even to the blockade of knights.

  Still, out of the flame and smoke, she appeared. She strode through the ruin, ushering ice and frost ahead of her. Fires ebbed and died around her.

  “Back!” the warden ordered.

  The knights below pushed toward the stairs. Rogger and Brant were driven higher, all the way up to the fir
st landing. Tylar and the castellan joined the warden, knotted in the center of the knights that now mounted the steps.

  From his higher vantage, Brant still had a view of the central hall below. The massive wyrmwood gate stood closed, sealing off the Masterlevels and the horrors below. But the flames in the giant braziers flanking the gate guttered out. The red iron cooled to black, cracking from the sudden loss of heat. Ice swept the floor, extinguishing the last of the flaming staves.

  Into the hall strode the source, the storm given flesh.

  She appeared below, marching to the center of the floor. The ice continued deeper down the next hall, evident by the torchlights dimming along that direction.

  She stopped and faced the gathered audience on the stair.

  Expressionless, she spoke. Frozen lips cracked, blood welled and iced again. “Godslayer…bring us the Godslayer.”

  Tylar stood, flanked by Argent and Kathryn. All their offenses had failed. Icy darkness had consumed the entire first level. The cold wafted from the hall, chilling the skin and turning their breath white.

  Argent stared at Tylar. “What are we to do?”

  Tylar shook his head. He eyed the wyrmwood gate. Fire and warmth were their only true weapons against Mirra’s dark legion. If the storm could so easily strip away their defenses, what hope did they have of resisting the black army below? They were trapped between ice and shadow.

  “We must get those fires back up,” Kathryn said.

  “Bring us the Godslayer, he whom we name Abomination, and we will leave your towers in peace.”

  Eylan’s voice was her own, but Tylar had no doubt who manipulated her like a stringed puppet. He had seen the god’s face in the storm. Ulf of Ice Eyrie. Along with whatever cadre of gods he had rallied to his cause. The conjoining of their powers would be almost impossible to fight.

  “You have one bell to hand him to us. Or suffer the death of all. The Abomination must die, one way or the other. The choice is yours.”

  Eylan crossed her arms, prepared to wait.

  Argent spoke to his men. “Stay here. Send word if she moves.” He pointed to one of the knights near the top landing. “Call the masters down here. Get them to study and test the Grace that protects the woman. We must find a way to break its blessing.”

  Obeying, the man fled upward.

  Argent met Tylar’s eyes. “We need to speak. In private.” The warden waved for Kathryn to follow, then motioned for a path to the next level. Knights parted out of the way.

  Tylar spoke to Krevan as he climbed up. “Keep with Rogger and the boy.”

  He nodded.

  Moments later, Kathryn and Tylar entered an evacuated room off the second level. It was a squires’ lodging. Four beds were stacked one atop the other near the back. The hearth was cold, and the place smelled of sour ale and old sweat. Pitiable surroundings to decide the fate of Tashijan.

  Argent closed the door. “What are we to do?”

  “We can’t give them Tylar,” Kathryn said, dropping to the lowermost bunk.

  “They hold all of Tashijan in ransom.” Argent paced the room’s narrow length. His sword smacked his leg with every turn. He rested his hand on the diamond pommel to quiet it. “We must consider the greater good.”

  Kathryn opened her mouth, but Tylar cut her off. “The warden is right.” He ignored the fire that flared in her eyes and flushed her cheeks. “We must make a choice between sacrificing one person or risking the fall of Tashijan, a loss that would threaten all the Nine Lands during this dark time. Even my life is not worth such a price.”

  “But will they truly take only your life?” she answered heatedly.

  Both men frowned at her words.

  She sighed in exasperation. “This cadre of gods worked up a storm and sent it against us. And we know they already employ Dark Grace.” She waved vaguely toward where Eylan awaited their decision. “We cannot discount the possibility that these gods are in league or perhaps just manipulated by the Cabal. Look at the choices we are offered by their emissary. Lose you or see Tashijan fall. Both ends serve the Cabal. And the threat below-Mirra’s black legion-only compounds the danger. We must ask ourselves an important question before we decide how to answer their demand.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Is there a connection between Mirra below and the storm without?” She glanced to Tylar, then to the warden. “Consider how these two forces are conjoined so perfectly. Is it happenstance alone-is Mirra merely taking advantage of the situation? Or is it something more insidious? Does the Cabal control the gods, too? Openly or secretly. Either way, if we hand Tylar over to them, his death might not be all they seek. Could they turn Tylar and his powers against all of us? If they somehow enslaved him like the Wyr-mistress below, he would be a weapon that could take down not only Tashijan but all of Myrillia.”

  Argent had stopped pacing and stood with his arms crossed, studying the floor. Tylar leaned on the edge of a small table. He stared down at the crook of his broken finger. It ached all the way up to his elbow. He used the pain to keep him sharp.

  “To gain Tylar as a weapon would be the Cabal’s ultimate victory,” Kathryn continued. “Better to hold strong here. If we bend to their demands now, we’ll be forever at their mercy. Tashijan must be defended.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Argent said. “What if these storm gods only want to end Tylar’s abomination? We’d risk Tashijan.”

  “Tashijan is already at risk,” she answered. “And always will be until the Cabal is destroyed. Our towers stand tall, for a reason. To attract those who seek to bring Myrillia low. We are the first defense. We must not fail.”

  Argent looked little convinced. He continued his study of the stone floor. “If only we knew the truth…”

  Tylar mumbled to himself, “There is one who knows.”

  The warden lifted his face. “Who?”

  Tylar had not meant to be heard, but he had no choice but to answer. “The Wyr-mistress. Eylan. She’s been to the storm’s heart and back.”

  “But she’s lost to us,” Kathryn said.

  Tylar nodded. He could not argue against that. Eylan was buried deep in that black melody of seersong. He pictured her eyes, flinty and cold, as dead as a frozen lake. Seersong proved impossible to resist.

  Even for him.

  He shuddered at the memory. All will and wit had been stripped from him in a moment. Though he had remained aware, all his focus had narrowed to the point of a needle, centered on the next note, ready to do anything to hear it, deaf to all else, obedient to one.

  Only for a moment had he been able to shake the thrall. When he had feebly attempted to warn the others to flee.

  Go…run…

  How had he managed that?

  “We are chasing shadows,” Argent said. “We must make this decision based on what we know, not what we might imagine. In one bell’s time, the storm gods will freeze our towers. And if that doesn’t kill us, Mirra’s daemons will follow in their wake. There is only one way to stem such a tide-even if such an act only buys us more time to rally, we must give them Tylar.”

  “Let us not make such a decision rashly,” Kathryn argued.

  Tylar let their words drift to the back of his mind. Other words rose, his own words. Go…run… He remembered uttering that warning, breaking free of the song for just that moment. He’d been trapped in song before and after. Up until now, harried by daemons, he’d not had the time to ponder it further.

  He did so now.

  Go…run…

  He went back to those words, to the song, to the moment before he spoke those words. Though deafened to all but Mirra’s seersong, something had reached him. A discordant note had pierced through the lilting spell, not loud, but enough to jar him momentarily loose. He heard an echo of it now.

  It had been a single word moaned in pain: No…

  And he knew who had uttered that word.

  Tylar shoved off the table and back to his feet.

 
“The boy.”

  Out in the hall, Brant sat with Rogger on the stone floor, backs against the wall. In simple words, he learned the fate of his friend Dralmarfillneer, how the giant had been struck down by a poisoned dagger.

  “And the witch still lives,” Brant said bitterly.

  Rogger placed a hand on his knee. “Aye, she does. Evil is too stubborn to die easily. But your friend’s death saved all our lives.”

  Brant shaded his eyes to hide the welling tears. “I must get word to his brother.”

  “Time enough for that, young man. No need to rush to break someone’s heart.”

  The door down the hall finally opened. Steps away, Krevan straightened from where he had been talking with Calla. Rogger rose from his seat on the floor. The dagger in his fingers vanished back into its sheath.

  Brant stood, too.

  The regent led the others out the door. Plain from their faces, some decision had been made. The warden passed Brant, casting him a strange glance with his one eye.

  “I’ll clear the lower stair,” he said and continued on.

  Tylar stopped in front of them. He waited until the warden had vanished away. He turned to Castellan Vail. “How is Gerrod managing?”

  “He’s struggling his best to follow the orders you left with him. He’s not sure he has enough humour.”

  “We’ll have to do with as much as he can muster. We may not have much time.”

  “I know.” Kathryn headed down the hall.

  Rogger spoke. “So can we assume that the warden isn’t going to just toss you arse-bared into the winter storm?”

  “Not for the moment.” The regent clapped Brant on the shoulder. “We have one hope.”

  A moment later, Brant stood three steps from the icy floor of the lower central hall. His breath huffed white into the frigid air. Tylar stood a step below. Rogger shared Brant’s perch, kneeling, the bile-wrapped skull resting on his lap. Krevan stood guard behind them with Calla and Kathryn. Upon the warden’s order, the rest of the stairs had been emptied back to the landing.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Brant asked.

  “Just call her name,” Tylar said. “When you feel the burning, you must keep talking. Anything. As long as you don’t stop.”