by Niki Florica
He was guided only by the lashing branches and the occasional glimpse of a red feather in the starlight that leaked through the canopy, and it was long before he realized he was alone. When the feather ceased to appear he waited, rigid, listening to the silence and squinting into the dark for a flicker of red in the shadows. “Robin,” he hissed finally, impatience souring into unease. “Robin!”
The silence swallowed the call and drowned the echoes. Kyrian loosened the knife in his belt and stole forward with one hand on the hilt.
The Robin had not spoken to him since Dunbrielle, and though Kyrian was hardly desperate for conversation there was something unnerving in his silence. His demeanour was no longer cold nor bitter, but empty, as if Rydel of Robinsdwel had been drained of all heart and was left a hollow shell in a green cape and red feather. Silently he walked, and silently Kyrian followed. A shallow bond, perhaps—but he preferred it to a knife in the dark.
He found him at the centre of a clearing, still as stone, back turned, the gentle drifting of his feather the only indication that he was, in fact, a living creature and not a figure carved from darkness. He would have been invisible, buried in gloom, but a gash in the clearing’s canopy was directly above his head, allowing a shimmer of white light to leak from the heavens and paint his green-caped shoulders pale. The knife settled in Kyrian’s belt.
“What is it?” he whispered, for no reason save that the stillness of the forest seemed to demand it. “I expect no courtesy from you, Robin, but I cannot follow a guide I cannot see.”
He expected retaliation—a bitter retort, a stinging parry, some evidence of wrath after so long an emotionless vigil. But the Robin only raised a silencing hand, head cocked to the shadows. “Do not speak, Skyad,” he muttered from the dark. “Do not speak, do not move. We are not alone.”
Anxiety melting into anger, Kyrian pushed the hand from his face and scowled. “What is it?’
“Listen,” came the low response. “Can you not hear it?”
Kyrian glanced at him impatiently. “I hear silence.”
“Listen. Are the Skyads deaf as well as ignorant? Listen to the silence, Skyad, to the trees.”
The first moments passed emptily, filled only by the soft breaths of the Robin at his side and the distant pulse of his own heart. He felt the hot, stagnant air against his skin, a cold bead of perspiration trickling along his spine, the weight of the Sword of Kings at his side, the point of Elillian’s knife against his thigh. The silence remained thick about him, heavy, suffocating, and empty.
Then he began to listen.
The first he heard was the creaking of a thousand pines, the moaning of age-old roots against the soil binding them to this sky-forsaken earth. He heard a chorus of voices—deep, earthen tones—cursing the Skies, the waters, and the invaders of the wood in a crumbling, ancient tongue. The words were intelligible, creaking and eerie, but though the hoary curses were lost to him Kyrian sensed, in the deepest chasms of his being, that he himself, the Heir of Ariad, was at their very heart.
“The trees.” A shiver traced his spine. His fingers sought the Sword. “Dryads?”
“No,” the Robin replied. “There are no words for such evil in the Dryad tongue . . . and darker creatures than the Dryads were in existence when the fell paths of Jardenith were formed.”
Kyrian scanned the gloom, fighting an impression that the wood was growing darker. “We must go on.”
“We cannot.” The Robin’s eyes were dark, almost black.
“What do you mean?” Kyrian hissed, nearing panic. “You know the path, do you not?”
“Do you see the path, Skyad?”
His heartbeat intensified and he knew there was no need to look for himself. The black towering trees felt nearer now, as if they had drawn closer in the darkness, a noose encircling its prey. He glanced to the Robin and found that the starlight had all but vanished, and in unison they looked skyward to watch the black branches overhead close over the opening, strangling the light.
Kyrian exhaled, and the Skies vanished, replaced by black. Only black. “What is this?” he breathed, loosening the Sword in its sheath.
“I have heard tales of these creatures,” replied the Green, “but I thought them a myth.”
The forest creaked, and beneath his feet Kyrian felt the earth churning, disturbed by the roots of a killing ring, tightening about its prey. “And now?”
The Robin offered no response, and the creaking of the ancient noose drew nearer, tighter, as with every breath the darkness filled his lungs and chilled his pounding heart. The last he saw was a single star, struggling valiantly to pierce the black tangle above, and he wondered how the darkness of this dying world could possibly be destroyed by one chosen Sword-bearer.
Then the trees that were not trees reached forward with shadowy claws, and all was dark.
Rydel was decided. He would not kill the Heir.
It would have been simple. Effortless. A swift thrust in the dark, the sound of death swallowed by the silence, the killed and the killer both concealed beneath the cloak of night. He would not have seen the dark eyes widen, nor the scarlet blood upon his knife, nor the final, haunting stare of his victim, the one that would plague his nightmares as all the others did. But he would have heard the sounds. The gasp, the groan, the final hissed curse of a sky-born warrior refusing to die without the last, wrathful word.
Still, a thrust and the beast of hatred within him would be satisfied. For a time. But his guilt, the poisonous void of his guilt would only be worsened . . . and if it did not kill him as justice, the Naiad healer surely would. Rydel could not rid himself of this creature who tortured him, not without torment, not in the chance that the Skyad was who he claimed to be. If truth, Rydel would live in the agony of knowing he had rid the world of its deliverer. If deception, he would forever be haunted by the unpaid debt hanging upon a silver chain about his neck.
So many debts. So much torment.
But if he himself could not kill the Heir, perhaps the trees would spare him the guilt.
Beside him the Skyad’s breaths were steady and even. Good. He was capable of defending himself, calm in the face of threat. Rydel drew one knife and twirled it, thoughtful. At the least, he could depend upon the Heir to cover his side, and he suspected the Skyad to be more capable with the Sword he carried than Rydel had first believed. Fine. The warrior would prove an advantageous ally, despite being an enemy, at least until the trees overtook him. Rydel would fight for himself, and if the Heir fell, he would consider his conscience relieved and his debt paid before returning to Robinsdwel to starve alongside his people.
The earth shifted, the darkness thickened, and the ground trembled with the groping, grasping roots churning soil beneath the surface. Some evil wisp brushed his shoulder, soft and invisible, silent as death, and he drew his new knife—the one given him by the Naiads as recompense for the blade the Nelduith had claimed. It was heavy in his hand, unfamiliar, but already the craft of the river-keepers was molding to his hand. The blade would serve him well enough alongside its worn partner.
Suddenly, there was light. Golden, it shone hot and fierce as Rydel cast a cursory glance to the Heir, whose hand now held a hilt that glowed as if the stars themselves were singing in its pommel. It drowned the blackness, chasing it into the ring’s corners, pooling upon the bare ground and igniting the Heir’s eyes like burning coals as he pulled the Sword of Kings from its sheath and stared at the shining blade as if seeing it for the first time. He, Rydel recalled, had been incoherent when it had wakened upon Dunbrielle’s cavern floor. Dimly he wondered at its meaning, struck by an uncomfortable instinct that it was, somehow, bound to him.
The light revealed a ring of smooth-barked trees, cloaked in gauzy grey moss. Not pines, for the branches began high above his head and clawed at the sky with sickly black limbs, draped in tendrils of venomous green. Roots protruded from the ground in places, and Rydel was certain in the flickering light that he could see them mov
ing. Groping forward, like earthen serpents. Tightening the noose.
Kyrian of the Rain Realm drew the Naiad’s knife. A green tendril coiled Rydel’s wrist.
He jerked to free himself, hissing as the vine slipped from his wrist and left a thin trail of blood in its wake, jagged serrations stinging across his skin. The Skyad looked to him at the sound, eyes golden and flickering. “What is it?”
Rydel swallowed and swept the thin trail of blood against his overly-white tunic. “Serrated.”
Frowning, Kyrian of the Rain Realm studied him coolly. “You are all right?”
Rydel gritted his teeth and glared into the gloom. “Fine.”
The first vine to venture into the light was poisonous, viperous green. It sought to grasp hold of Rydel’s left wrist, before he severed it in two and watched it fall, lifeless, to the dry forest floor. It was replaced by another, slithering from the darkness to brush his neck, and still another, and another, silent serpents seeking to latch onto his limbs before he sent them, severed, to the ground. They were gradual at first, his knives slicing them in turn while his eyes sought the shadows for their followers, preparing for the next attack, wary from each direction. But the onslaught soon intensified, tendrils seeking him from all sides at once, curling at his feet, whispering against his throat, more and more, swifter and swifter until the world was green with their numbers and the knives of Robinsdwel and Dunbrielle flew in blind defence. One jagged vine hissed across Rydel’s shoulder, trailing blood, but he felt no pain as he severed it, then whirled to slice another. The Skyad was at his back, Sword in one hand, dagger in the other, dual defence protecting their unguarded backs.
Rydel tossed a damp curl from his eyes. The knife hilts were slipping in his salty palms and his vision was failing him, flickering black, wavering like dying candlelight even as the Sword glowed strong at his side. Another vine fell at his feet; he whirled to sever a tendril whispering at his shoulder, just as a forest-green coil descended in silence directly toward the Heir’s exposed throat.
He did not think, did not hesitate, but suddenly the vine was severed by his knife and the Heir’s wild eyes were upon him and distantly he was aware that he had broken his own vow. Somewhere within his being he cursed himself for wasting the opportunity to ensure his rival’s death, but the thought was distant and vague, drowned by adrenaline and the pounding of his racing heart.
The Skyad nodded his thanks, eyes narrow.
Black shadows were creeping into his vision again and Rydel blinked to clear them, but they lingered, a dark fog that obscured the Heir’s Sword-lit face and blurred the clinging vines. A tendril brushed his wrist and he blindly sliced shadow, squinting madly to rid his vision of the mist as the sea of vines closed in upon him and Rydel felt the first talons of fear close about his heart.
“We cannot fight them, Robin!” the Heir shouted, slicing with Sword and dagger.
A vine closed about his left forearm, serrated edge piercing flesh.
The world grew darker. Rydel scarcely heard him.
He was fighting to remember how to breathe.
He heard the Skyad shout and felt the jagged vine tearing from his arm, slicing a gash in his flesh, wrenching a strangled cry from his throat. He blinked again, hard, and his vision seemed momentarily to clear, enough to see the Heir, with bloody fingers, casting the vine into the shadows and dodging to avoid another. His eyes burned in the amber light. Fierce . . . almost kingly.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Rydel buried the thought.
The Heir scanned the clearing frantically for an escape while Rydel willed his muscles into motion, twirling his right hand knife to sever one vine, lashes flickering all the while. The trees were closer now, their smooth trunks forming bars of an ever-tightening prison, and not even Rydel could have slipped through the diminishing spaces between them. He held his bloodied arm to his chest, fighting madly with his right, attempting—despite his vow—to cover the Skyad’s side.
“Too many!” he cried, surprised by the hoarseness of his own voice. “We cannot fight them!”
The Skyad raised his face to the black sky, eyes wide. “We are in your hands, my King!”
Then he dropped his knife, hefted the Sword in both hands, and swung, with a force that would sever a sea of tendrils, directly at one shadowy trunk.
There was a rending impact. An eerie, tortured wail rose in the night, followed by the creak and deafening shudder of a living demon falling to the ground, felled by a single blow. Shadow spilled into the golden clearing from the gash. Wails arose, adopted by the ring of creatures as the trees bent to close the space before their prey could escape. The Skyad lunged for his knife, one foot within the ring, the other beyond the gap. “Robin!” he shouted, beckoning. “Quickly!”
Rydel heard the cry, but his eyes were betraying him, fading again to black, and he could no longer see the gash, nor the Heir, nor the light of the Sword of Kings. Blood trickled from his arm, soaking his shirt through to his breeches, and he could feel the whispers of the tendrils as they closed upon him, blind and helpless prey. The Heir shouted his name, he fought the shadows in his eyes, and his knives fell lamely to his sides as in his heart Rydel resigned himself to death.
This was his judgment. He had been warned of this fate.
His eyes were open, as Aradin had wished.
But Rydel saw only darkness.
Twenty-One
The gap was lessening even as he stood there, panting, shouting, willing the Robin to move while the creature gazed blankly into the gloom. The tendrils were descending, gradually now, wicked and certain their prey was snared, and as the knives hung limp at the Robin’s side, Kyrian was beginning to suspect the same. “Robin!”
Time was dwindling, the gap tightening, and their portal of escape quickly sealing. Hissing a curse, Kyrian sprinted into the ring, dodging the tendrils, grasped the Robin’s green cape, and threw him toward the opening just as the precious door began to seal. The trees shrieked and moaned, bending inward like a living prison. Kyrian shoved his guide through the gap and dove into the darkness after him a split moment before all escape would have been killed by the forest.
He landed hard upon the roots of a pine and peered into the starlight, already searching frantically for the green-caped shadow that should have been at his side. He was there—gasping on hands and knees, knives clenched in white fingers, russet hair dark with perspiration. Kyrian could hear a wheezing tremor in his breaths but there was not time enough to question his madness, not while the killing ring lay so near. In a moment he was standing, heaving the Robin to his feet, pulling him through the undergrowth, dodging boughs and needle-laden branches of a forest that now seemed tame and welcoming compared to the ring. Starlight guiding his footfalls, adrenaline fuelling his sprint, with no direction and no destination, he simply ran.
It felt an eternity before they emerged from the shadowy wood and into the open starlight: Kyrian, with heaving shoulders and a racing heart, alongside the Robin, whose eyes were frantic and eerily dark. They had stumbled upon a band of wide meadowland, where once flowed a sister stream of the Nelduith, now little more than a dry, cracked bed, weaving through the grasses. The third moon was falling, painting the meadow ochre, and among thoughtful stars it watched Kyrian and the Robin collapse there, in the dust, bloody, breathless, and blind with adrenaline.
“What happened, Robin?” he shouted the moment his lungs resumed functioning. “We had but one moment to escape them and you stood there like a blind—”
“Why did you do that?” The voice was low and hoarse, rasping in the Robin’s throat as he crouched upon his hands and knees, the moonlight burning red-brown in his hair. The knives were still clenched in his fists but they trembled, violently, stark against the paleness of his fingers.
Kyrian stared at him. “What?”
“Why did you save me?” he growled. “Why?”
Kyrian rose onto his heels and fixed the creature with the fiercest, coldest gl
are he could muster in his exhaustion. “If this is your attempt at thanks, Robin, I would prefer silence.”
“Thanks?” the creature spat with a harsh, mad laugh. “I owe you no thanks, Skyad. I owe you nothing. You think yourself my master, that you own me for the debts I cannot pay?” He coughed raggedly, fingers clenching earth. “I did not ask you to save my life and I shall not be your slave, not though you save me a thousand times. I owe you nothing. Nothing.”
“You are not my slave, Robin. I gave you your freedom—do you not remember? I told you to return to your people.”
He shook his head, gasping ragged breaths. “I have no people.”
By the Skies, the creature had lost his mind.
Kyrian glared at the sinking third moon and ran a hand through his hair, the sharp sting reminding him of the gash in his palm, torn by the vine he had wrenched from the Robin’s arm. Blood had trickled down his wrist, soaking his bracer scarlet; he tore the leather cuff from his wrist, allowing it to drip to his elbow. The bracer landed with the Rosghel insignia facing skyward. He looked away.
The Robin was sitting now, forehead resting upon his propped knees, knives abandoned at his sides. His breathing was deafening, rattling in his lungs like death itself, and Kyrian focused on it while he tore a shred from his borrowed undershirt and wrapped it tightly over his hand, listening to each breath, each rasp. The third moon dipped beneath the trees to the southwest, burnishing the meadow, and he leaned his head back against the shallow streambank to study the Skies to the north.
Dark. Overlaid by the Grey fleet of the Storm Realm as far as the eye could see. The shadow was unmoving. The clouds were moored, then, above the Black Wastes, awaiting dawn’s light, unaware that the Heir of Ariad had evaded their attack, likely unaware that the Heir of Ariad existed at all. He winced, dragged a hand over his face, not caring that he had probably streaked it with his own blood, not caring that dawn would soon be upon them and with it their cloak of protection would be lifted. Standing, he flexed his shoulder tentatively, though confident Elillian had performed her healer’s duty well. He pulled the silver pouch Gilvonel had provided from his belt and withdrew a ration of odourless flatbread, holding it between his teeth while he tossed another to the Robin. It landed in a spray of dust before the earth-stained moccasins, but the head did not rise.
