The Blood Knight

by Greg Keyes

  He couldn’t blame her. The cavern had become a charnel house, a place of death on a scale that paled anything Aspar had ever seen. The dead lay embanked on either side of a river of blood, and it was easy to imagine what had happened: the woorm crawling along, the slinders throwing themselves at it from either side, tearing at its armor with bare fingers and teeth. Those who weren’t crushed by its passage had succumbed to its poison.

  Of course, they weren’t all dead yet; a few still were moving. He and Winna had tried to help the first few, but they were so clearly beyond all hope that they now just avoided them. Most didn’t even seem to see them, and blood ran freely from their mouths and nostrils. He could tell from the way they breathed that something was wrong inside, in their lungs. Surely it was too late for the Sefry medicine to have any effect. Anyway, he and Winna needed what was left.

  If they came across Stephen or Ehawk…

  “Stephen!” Aspar shouted into the hollowness. “Ehawk!”

  The two of them might be anywhere. It could take months to find them if they were among the dead.

  Aspar put his hand on Winna’s shoulder. She was trembling, mumbling.

  “We’re…we’re not…”

  Over and over again.

  “Come on,” he told her. “Come on, Winn; let’s get out of this place.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with greater despair than he had imagined her capable of.

  “We can’t get out,” she said softly. Then something seemed to explode in her. “We can’t get out!” she shrieked. “Don’t you understand? We can’t get out! We’ve been here! We’ve already been here, and it just gets worse and worse, everything, we’re…we’re not…” Her words tapered off into an incoherent wail.

  He held her shoulders, knowing all he could really do was wait until it passed.

  If it passed.

  With a sigh he sat next to her.

  “I’ve been in this rewn before,” he said, not sure if she was listening. “It’s not much farther to the city. We could—it should be cleaner there. You could rest.”

  She didn’t answer. Her teeth were gritted and her eyes squeezed shut, and her breath was still racing with her heartbeat.

  “That’s it,” Aspar said. He picked her up. She didn’t resist but buried her head in the crook of her arm and wept.

  He dithered briefly, torn between continuing on and going back, but then it struck him how utterly stupid it would be to go after Fend and a woorm, carrying Winna all the while. True, he might hide her in the Sefry city, but that might be exactly where Fend and his pet had come to a stop. With his luck, the instant he left to look for them, Fend would sneak in from behind and make off with Winna again.

  So he started back the way they had come.

  The woorm had gone into the rewn; it had to come out. Aspar knew of only three entrances to the rewn: this one, another many leagues north, and a third just over the next ridge.

  And suddenly he had a plan that made sense.

  The horses were still outside—and alive—when he exited the cave. He got Winna up onto Tumble, made sure she had enough awareness to stay on, then took the horses’ reins to lead them. They started winding their way up the hillside.

  Half a league up, he felt his breath coming easier and he started to sweat, even though it was bitterly cold. His step strengthened, and at first he thought it was just that he had removed himself from the woorm’s venomed trail.

  Then he realized it was more than that. He was surrounded by life again, by sap that was slow but not dead. Squirrels scampered through the branches above, and a flight of fluting geese sang by high overhead. He watched them, smiling in spite of himself, but felt a slight chill as they suddenly changed course.

  “There we are,” he said, urging Ogre up the slope in the direction the geese had avoided. “It’s there, just as I thought.”

  Two bells later, about a bell before sunfall, they reached the top of the ridge. Winna had calmed, and Aspar got her down, then situated her in the roots of a big tree. Reluctantly, he left the horses saddled, because for all he knew they might have to bolt at any moment. Could a horse outrun a woorm? Maybe for a little while.

  “Winna?” He knelt and tucked another blanket around her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It was faint and she didn’t sound good, but it lifted the strongest fear off his heart: that her spirit had gone away. He had known such things to happen; he’d rescued a boy whose family had been slaughtered by the Black Wargh. He’d left the lad in the care of a widow in Walker’s Bailey. She’d tried to take care of him, but he never spoke, not for two years, and then he drowned himself in the mill creek.

  “These are mirk and horrible things,” Aspar said. “I would be more worried if they didn’t upset you.”

  “I was more than upset,” she said. “I was—useless.”

  “Hush. Listen, I’m going to climb up for a better view. You stay here, watch Ogre. If something’s coming, he’ll know before you do. Can you do that?”

  “Yah,” Winna said. “I can do that.”

  He kissed her, and she answered with a sort of desperate hunger. He knew he ought to say something, but nothing seemed right.

  “I won’t go far” was what he settled on.

  He’d taken them up to a section of the ridge too rocky to support many trees. For his watchtower he chose a honey locust perched on the edge of a broken stone shelf. From there he‘d be able to see down to this new entrance to the rewn. Though he couldn’t make out the opening itself, he was close enough that he would be able to see the monstrous serpent-thing should it appear.

  Looking the other way, he had an even better view. The River Ef wound through a pleasant valley checkered with pastures and orchards. On a rise about a league away he made out the bell tower of the monastery where Stephen had been headed when first they had met. The last time Aspar had been here, he’d been wounded and half out of his mind, and if it hadn’t been for Stephen, he would have died.

  At the moment the valley looked peaceful in the twilight, cloaked in a slight mist drifting through the neat rows of apple trees where they waited for spring’s kiss to bud them.

  Where was Stephen now? Dead, probably, since he had been with the slinders. Ehawk was probably dead, too.

  He ought to feel something, had felt something back when he saw the boys fall. But his heart had tightened up inside him, and the only emotion he recognized was anger.

  That was a good thing, he reckoned.

  Night seeped down through the clouds, and as the world his eyes knew faded, the deeper domain of scent and sound intensified. Winter sounds were spare: the chilling shrill of a screech owl, the wind catching its belly on bony branches, the scuff of small claws on bark.

  Smell was the more palpable sense: leaves steeping in cold pools, the smell of rot kept slow by cold, the grassy scent of cow dung from the pastures below, and smoke—hickory and old apple burning down in the valley, wormy witaec when the wind shifted from the Midenlands, and something nearer—oak, yes, but he also made out the minty scent of sassafras, sumac, and huckleberry: understory plants.

  And pine kindling.

  He strained his ears and heard the faint ticking and popping of a fire. It was downslope, not too far away.

  He eased out of the tree, afraid to breathe. If there was a monk down there who had walked the same faneway as Stephen…

  Then they already would have heard him, probably. The Order of Mamres—from which most of their churchish enemies had come—fought like mad lions but did not have senses any sharper than his. It was they who had walked the faneways of both Decmanus and Mamres who presented the greatest danger.

  He found Winna sleeping and again had a moment’s indecision, but the fear of leaving her unguarded was overridden by the need to know who was just down the hill. Besides, Ogre was still there; he would at least create a fuss, even in his weakened state, if someone came around.

  He began his slow creep down the s
lope, going hand to hand and foot to foot with shrubs and small trees that clung to stone and shallow earth. He wasn’t in a hurry; he reckoned he had all night. That was good, since he had to move by feel and instinct.

  He reckoned it was two or three bells past midnight when he finally saw the touch of orange glow on a tree trunk below. He couldn’t make out the fire itself, but he could guess where it was. He knew he’d come down too far east, with a sheer drop keeping him from getting the position he wanted.

  So he worked his way back uphill and west. The glimpse of light vanished, but he knew where he was going now, and shortly before sunup he found it.

  By then the fire was mostly embers, with just a few licks of flame. Aspar could make out someone sitting and someone lying flat but not much more. The campsite was about twelve kingsyards below him, beneath a long, shallow rock shelter.

  Would he be able to get a clear shot at them? The angle was bad.

  The clouds were gone, but there was no moon, only the distant, unhelpful lamps of the stars. Maybe when the sun cracked his eye, Aspar would be able to find a better position. He settled in to wait, hoping Winna didn’t wake and panic. He didn’t think she would, but after today…

  The earth below him was rumbling.

  He heard a stone crack and then the sudden rush of rocks sliding down a slope. It wasn’t close, but it wasn’t far, either.

  Quickly he heard the rush and roar of breathing and smelled the faint, sickening scent of its breath.

  As he’d thought, the woorm had gone through the rewn and was now exiting on the Ef side of the hill. That meant it was about a quarter of a league to his left.

  He still couldn’t see it, though he could easily hear it moving down the slope and toward the valley floor.

  “There she is,” an unfamiliar male voice said. He had a funny northern-sounding accent.

  “I told you,” a second man answered.

  That voice wasn’t unfamiliar at all. It was Fend, which was what Aspar had more than half expected. After all, it was all well and good to ride a woorm when it was traveling over open ground, but when your mount burrowed into a cave, you didn’t really want to be on it. Nor would it have been safe riding through a sea of hostile slinders. No, Fend was smarter than that.

  The woorm was moving away from him now. Fend was just below.

  First things first.

  Aspar felt about for a ledge, a branch, anything to allow him the perspective for a clear shot. To his delight, he found a jut of stone he hadn’t known was there. Carefully—very carefully—he let himself onto it belly first, then put an arrow to the string.

  “Should we follow it down?” the unknown voice said.

  Fend laughed shortly. “The Revesturi won’t all flee. Some of them will fight.”

  “Against the waurm?”

  “Remember who they are. The Revesturi know some very old faneways and some very potent sacaums. It’s true that none of them is likely to be able to slay our little lovely, but imagine what sort of sacaum they might attempt in the effort.”

  “Ah. So once again its better for us to stay out of the way.”

  “Precisely. If all goes well, the creature will slay the Revesturi, and if the Darige boy is there, it will bring him to us. But if the priests have some surprise in store…”

  Aspar froze at the mention of Stephen.

  “What if Darige is slain in the process?”

  “They no more wish him dead than we do,” Fend replied. “But if it happens, it happens.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  “No, he won’t—it would certainly be a serious setback. But only a setback.”

  Aspar listened carefully, anxious to catch their every word. Why would Fend be after Stephen? How could a monster like the woorm “bring him”? In its mouth? Who in Grim’s name were the Revesturi, and who did Fend work for?

  One of the two figures poked at the fire, and it suddenly flared brighter, providing enough light for him to locate Fend’s face. Aspar sighted down the arrow, his breathing slow and controlled. This was a shot he could make—of that he had no doubt. And Fend, finally, would be dead.

  There was a chance that Fend’s death might leave some unanswered questions, but he’d just have to take that chance. Whoever the fellow with him was, he seemed to know who their master was. A second shaft would wound him but leave him alive to provide the answers.

  Then Aspar would take the antidote and cure himself, Winna, and the horses. When the woorm returned, he’d have the Church’s arrow for that. And maybe Stephen would be with it.

  He drew back the string.

  Something flashed in his peripheral vision, a purple light.

  Fend saw it, too, and straightened.

  Everything went white as Aspar released the string. His eyes closed reflexively, and he heard Fend cry out in pain. He tried to open his eyes, to see…

  Something struck the mountain like a fist. His belly went queer, and he suddenly realized that the rock he was lying on was sliding out from under him. He was falling.

  He flailed, trying to find something to grab, but there was nothing, and he fell for the space of a whole breath before he hit something that bent, broke, and let him keep falling until he fetched hard against a boulder.

  He opened his eyes without knowing how long they had been closed. His mouth tasted like dust, and his eyes were full of grit. His ears were ringing as if thunder had just clapped a tree a yard away. He was looking at his hand, which was illuminated by a pale gray light.

  Someone nearby was screaming. That was what had wakened him.

  He raised his head, but all he saw was a confusion of crumpled vegetation. He hurt everywhere, but he couldn’t tell if anything was broken.

  The screaming dropped off to harsh panting.

  “That’s got it,” he heard the strange voice say. “The bleeding’s bad.”

  “Keep an eye out for him,” Fend’s voice instructed tersely.

  “That was Aspar. I know bloody well it was, and you’ll never hear him coming, not after that.”

  Aspar allowed himself a tight grin. He’d lost the bow in the fall, but he still had his dirk and ax. Grimacing, he pulled himself to his feet.

  That sent a dizziness through him that nearly sat him back down, but he waited through it, breathing as deeply as he could. Fend was right; he could hear their voices—barely—but the belling in his ears would hush over the small sounds of someone creeping up on him.

  Now, where exactly were they? He took a step in what he thought was the right direction and for an instant thought he had caught a glimpse of someone ahead, but the light was still dim.

  He was starting to move closer when someone grabbed him from behind and wrapped a forearm across his face. He grunted and tried to throw him off, but he was already off balance and he fell rather heavily with his face pressed against the earth. He twisted and kicked, vaguely aware that the ground was shuddering, and a face came into view. It was a familiar face, but not Fend’s.

  Ehawk.

  The boy pressed a finger to his lips and pointed.

  Four kingsyards away a massive wall of scale was sliding though the trees.

  PART III

  THE BOOK OF RETURN

  Nothing is ever destroyed, though often they are changed. Some things may be lost for a very long time, it is true—but the waters beneath the world will eventually carry them home.

  —FROM THE GHRAND ATEIIZ, OR THE BOOK OF RETURN ,AUTHOR ANON.

  Each fane I visited robbed me of some sense—feeling, hearing, sight, sound, and eventually self. But in the end it all came back, and more, much more.

  —FROM THE CODEX TEREMINNAM, AUTHOR ANON.

  ALIS MEANT to cut the man’s spine just below his skull, but her fatigue-numbed feet slipped on the slick stone, and the point of her dagger plunged into his collarbone instead.

  He screamed and whirled around. She had just enough presence of mind to duck his flailing arms, but his booted foot caught her in
the shins, and she gasped as pain shot jagged lines across her vision and she stumbled back into the wall.

  He hadn’t dropped his lantern, and they peered at each other in its sanguinary light.

  He was a large man—over six feet—all in black, one of the usurper’s Nightstriders. His face was surprisingly feminine for such a big fellow, with a gently tapered chin and round cheeks.

  “Bitch,” he snarled, drawing his knife.

  Behind him a girl—she might have been eleven—cowered against the wall.

  Alis tried to summon the shadow; sometimes it was easy, like snapping a finger inside her head, and sometimes it was very hard, especially when someone had already seen her.

  It didn’t come immediately, and she didn’t have time to work at it. So she blew out her breath and let her shoulders sag, let her knife hand drop to her side.

  He in turn relaxed for an instant, and with what remained of her strength she struck, launching from the wall, her empty left hand snapping toward his face. She felt a liquid, parting sensation as she plunged her knife into his left side and worked it in and out.

  He shrieked again, and a fist clubbed against her head, but she kept pumping the blade until her hand was so slick with blood that she couldn’t keep her grip on the weapon. Then she pushed herself away, gasping, and felt a weird wrenching in her arm. She realized that her arm hurt, that she had been cut, too. She backed into the shadows.

  Despite his wounds, the man didn’t stop, either. He lumbered after her, and she ran, feeling her way through the dark, until she reached the mouth of the tunnel. She ducked into it, hearing only the whine of her breath, then tugged at her breeches, trying to tear a piece to tie on her arm. She couldn’t get it to rip, so she just clamped her hand over the wound and waited.

  She could still make out the glow of firelight around the corner; he was there, waiting.