The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  There they reined in, by mutual agreement. Not a word had been spoken, but the presentiment was pressing. Why were the drums being sounded? What had the distant Tower watchmen seen? Fear gripped them all, and they stared toward the north from whence, unaccountably, the fear emanated.

  Something unseelie was coming.

  Swiftly, it was coming.

  The evening darkened. Low thunderclouds completely covered the sky like a blanket, from horizon to horizon, and a thick gray mist roiled up from the hollows of the land. Even the sea, so close at hand, was hidden. By now, it seemed to the riders that they stood on an island in an ocean of fog, with a heavy ceiling pressing down on their heads and threatening to crush them. They all faced north, straining their eyes to pierce the thickening murk. From that direction came a certainty of sheer horror that enveloped them like some oppressive mantle. Their limbs weighed so heavily they could scarcely move a muscle. It was onerous, in that ghastly miasma, even to think of lifting a hand to guide the horses toward shelter. An unnatural lethargy pinned the riders to the ridgetop.

  Their terror increased as sounds approached along the roof of the sky—a baying and yammering, a deep thunder, the crazed hallooing, the berserk screaming of carnivorous horses like the screech of metal ripped asunder. A denser cloud ballooned out of the rest and raced straight toward the watchers. Bursting from its depths loomed the shapes of fire-eyed hounds and dark riders on mounts that snorted flame. Ahead of them plunged their leader—a thing shaped like a man.

  Yet it was no true man.

  It was a darkness with two sunken sumps for eyes; and, not worn as a helm would be worn, but growing from the head, magnificent when gracing a stag, yet obscene on this human parody—the appalling tines, a pair of wide skull-claws, the antlers.

  At the instant these apparitions appeared, Ustorix screamed and launched himself sideways off his horse. In panic, Callidus’s steed reared and threw its rider. Zimmuth’s mount bolted downhill, followed by the four packhorses. His henchman spurred after him. The Hunt galloped right over the heads of the remaining four riders and receded in the direction of Isse Tower, invisible somewhere in the mist, twenty miles away.

  The two men of the stables cursed softly, calming their horses. Rohain’s mount shivered beneath her, slippery with the sweat of terror. Leaning over its neck, she murmured into its ear. Keat Featherstone spoke rapidly to his three companions.

  ‘Isse Tower is in dire peril. My lady, forgive us. We are obliged to leave you and return to the aid of our comrades in the Tower. Our lords remain hereabouts—they will guard you.’

  ‘I give you leave, Featherstone and Pennyrigg. Wind be with you.’

  ‘And with you, lady. We must ride hard. Let those follow who will!’

  Without further ado, the two stablemen leapt away down the hill at a cracking pace.

  Clanking, the armour-plated lords lurched on foot after their chargers, whistling and calling. They disappeared down the north side of the ridge, leaving the two damsels alone.

  ‘Well, Viviana,’ said Rohain. She was dazed and reeling from shock after witnessing such appalling visitations, and felt alarmed by their unexpected abandonment. ‘Well, Viviana, it seems our guardians are otherwise occupied.’ She mustered her thoughts. ‘Meanwhile, mayhap we can help our hosts. I vote we follow those who ride to the Tower’s aid.’

  Viviana seemed to shrink. ‘Those things …’ she said in a low voice. ‘Those things that hunt through the sky …’

  ‘We are pinched between a sword and a spear, as the saying goes,’ said Rohain. ‘The Tower is beleaguered, for sure, but it is well-manned and fortified. Would you rather we camped on this hill waiting for the Wild Hunt to fly over our heads on its return journey? Or that we continue on to the haunted caldera, two ladies unguarded and alone?’

  ‘Marry,’ said Viviana in weary disgust, ‘this is a sorry state of affairs. That Ustorix is a craven bumbler and no mistake. First he falls from his horse in his terror, then he runs away, leaving us vulnerable. So much for his vaunted boldness and chivalry.’

  ‘Will you return with me to the House of the Stormriders?’

  ‘I am loathe to do so, m’lady, but we have little choice.’

  They cast one glance over their shoulders in the direction of the horizon where Huntingtowers brooded unseen, unconquered. Then, pointing the heads of their steeds back toward the stronghold of the Seventh House, they set off at a gallop.

  Below the hill, the road dived back under its roof of trees. The dank wall of mist and the obscuring vegetation afforded no view of the Tower to Rohain and Viviana as they rode. The sonorous pattern of the drums continued on for a while, then ceased abruptly, leaving a calm broken only by the hammering of iron-shod hooves on wet clay and leaf-mold.

  The pale vapors drew back among the trees and frayed to invisibility. A wind brooming through the upper atmosphere swept most of the dirty clouds away to the west. Only the last rays of the sun lingered by the time the travellers cantered their weary horses along the last stretch of road leading to the demesne-gates of Isse, and a translucent moon was already rising, swimming up into the unfathomable sky like some pale coelenterate. Now rowans crowded in thickly toward the road. To the left, the stone walls of the demesnes rose high, topped with metal spikes and shards.

  Through the black lacework of boughs the Tower loured in the half-light, tapering from its wide base to become a slim needle in the sky. So high it soared that its turreted head was hidden in a shredded remnant of cloud. Much winged activity was taking place around the upper stories. Darkly etched on the clouds, dozens of eotaurs whirled in descending spirals, onhebbing toward the ground. Their riders’ cloaks billowed up like broken bubbles. Shouts issued from behind the demesne walls, accompanied by the crunch of hooves on gravel. From high above speared shrill, inhuman yells, deep roars, the clash of metal and stone. A howling bundle plummeted from a balcony, its limbs writhing.

  Just before a bend in the road that concealed the gate from view, the travellers crossed a stone bridge over a little rill and cantered beneath a long arch of overhanging willows.

  ‘Stop, my lady, I beg you!’ They reined in. Rohain glanced quizzically at her companion. ‘My lady, the Tower is overrun by wights. There is nothing we can do—we must turn back! We must ride for our lives!’

  Two more victims hurtled, screaming, from above.

  ‘In good faith—we cannot leave! We must help them fight.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do. We are not warriors. To bide here means certain death.’

  Rohain hesitated. ‘You have the right of it,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘and yet …’

  As she faltered, something like a fish-hook raked across her chest. It caught in the fine gold chain of her tilhal, ramming it tight into the flesh of her throat and crushing her windpipe until she could not breathe. Mercifully, the chain snapped. The rooster with pink rubies for eyes shot away into the grasses at the roadside. A scrawny arm whipped like a leather belt across Rohain’s eyes, blinding her.

  A scrawl of hobyahs had swung down from the willow-boughs overhanging the road. Their grotesque limbs were thin and strong as whipcords. Wrapping them around the heads of the riders, they wrenched off the talium-lined riding hats. Others of their kind dangled by their skinny legs and gripped the damsels by their hair, whereupon their terrified horses ran from underneath them. Both mortals were let fall to the ground.

  The hobyahs rushed at their victims. No more than two feet tall, they leered through bright needles of eyes that slanted upward at the outer corners, narrowing to mere slits. Their noses were large and uptilted. Pointed ears stuck up on either side of their conical caps and their mouths grinned maliciously. Avoiding contact with turned-out garments or bridle-bells, they hung off the saddles and surcingles, then jumped in twos and threes on the horses’ backs and rode them away. Possessed of the hideous strength of eldritch, they hooked their clawlike fingers into their victims’ hair and easily dragged them off the road.
The struggles of the young women were futile. There could be no escape.

  Yet in the next instant, the hobyahs’ yodels of victory turned to screeches. Red-and-gold lightning flashed among them, and suddenly there were horsemen brandishing swords. A skirmish broke out. The cold iron blades of the superior force broke the wights’ resistance, scattering them, routing them. Staggering to their feet, Rohain and Viviana clung to each other. Blood trickled in runnels from their scalps. Their garments hung in tatters. Hair tumbled over their faces.

  ‘Let us to the safety of the demesnes!’ gasped Rohain. But even as they started for the gates, equestrians emerged from both banks of the road ahead, blocking their way. In dismay, the girls whirled about, only to be faced with a second blockade closing in behind.

  ‘’Tis some eldritch trickery!’ cried Viviana. ‘These men wear the Royal Livery—this cannot be!’

  In scarlet jackets and gold braid the riders sat tall and straight. The final thin shafts of sunlight, sword-bright, pierced through disintegrating clouds and struck golden gleams from their face-guards and plumed helms. They appeared like a vision from the Fair Realm.

  Five of them rode slowly forward. The damsels exchanged frightened glances.

  ‘We wield iron!’ cried Rohain in desperation. ‘Approach at your peril!’

  Calmly, the horsemen reined in a short distance away.

  ‘You mistake us,’ their leader, a lieutenant, shouted. His tone was grave. ‘We are cavalry of the Royal Legions.’

  Rohain and Viviana exchanged glances of relief. Wights were incapable of lying.

  ‘Out here it is perilous for mortals,’ the lieutenant said. ‘The lower stories of the Tower are now secured against the enemy. Come. We shall bear you to safety there.’

  He gestured to two of the cavalrymen. Dismounting, they helped Rohain and Viviana up behind the other two. A black smoke spewed from a southern gate in the Tower, just below the cloud ceiling. Dimly within it, the Wild Hunt soared in outward flight. They seemed this time to be fewer in number. Unseelie hounds and horses swooped around the Tower and struck out northward over the lifting moon, pursued by a company of eotaur-riders who, although great in number, could not match the speed of their eldritch quarry and were sure to be outdistanced.

  ‘Happy day! Huon is driven forth!’ exclaimed the lieutenant. on witnessing this rout. His men cheered; several yelled triumphantly and punched the air above their heads.

  In perfect formation, six men of the platoon rode up and closed ranks around the officers with the pillion riders. Together, they made toward the gate.

  Red-jacketed men-at-arms patrolled throughout the shadowy demesnes. Guards at the Tower doors saluted and allowed the lieutenant to pass through with his wards. He consigned them to the care of some doughty stewards of Isse and returned to his business of scouring the area immediately outside the demesnes.

  Within the Tower, all was in uproar. Rohain and Viviana were escorted to a kitchen in one of the lower stories. There they found crowds of house-carls and nobles mingling, making a tremendous hubbub, some chattering, others sobbing.

  ‘Wickedness! Oh, wickedness!’

  ‘’Tis an evil hour that brought these fell fiends upon the House.’

  ‘Lend me your kerchief, for I bleed.’

  ‘All fate be praised for bringing us our rescuer in time of need!’

  ‘I cannot yet grasp that he is among us!’

  ‘And more striking than the stories ever told!’

  ‘Cursed be this day that saw such evil fall on Isse. Yet bless’d it be also …’

  Some were uncharacteristically shrieking and wringing their hands, and several, in a sorry state, lay prone upon the tables while their wounds were tended. Pet capuchins loped about, jabbering and hindering.

  Rohain stared at the scene, sickened and appalled. Questions and offers of help surged at her and her companion as soon as they entered. Dolvach Trenchwhistle cleared a path for them with her elbows.

  ‘Make way for the fine ladies from Caermelor! Can’t you see that they are hurt, you dolts? Get out of the way.’

  She seated the fine ladies by the hearth, proffering glasses of brandy. Heligea shouldered her way through the press and stood before them.

  ‘My brother and Callidus! Are they with you?’

  ‘No,’ said Rohain, sipping brandy to give her strength. ‘I do not know how they fare.’

  ‘Ill tidings, then.’

  ‘Yet I would vouch for their safety, encased as they are in all that iron.’

  ‘’Sbane! I see you are wounded, my friend. Blood runs from your hair. You, servant, bring oil.’

  A young girl hastened away.

  ‘What has happened here?’ asked Rohain.

  ‘The Tower was attacked at nightfall,’ said Heligea. ‘Terrible ravagers they were. Powerful. They landed in at the top stories and coursed down through the Tower at speed, like rats down a drainpipe. We had no time to escape. Methinks they were hunting for something, or somebody. When they couldn’t find their target, they turned on us like boars at bay, and took our people and began to torment them. Then he came.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Why, none other than the King-Emperor himself!’

  ‘His Imperial Majesty here?’ cried Viviana. ‘I can scarce credit it!’

  Heligea’s eyes blazed as though with pride, or triumph, or battle-lust. ‘He came from the south, riding to our rescue, leading the Duke of Roxburgh and others of the Royal Attriod, and regiments of the Royal Legions and thriesniuns of the Dainnan, all mounted on Skyhorses. They’d got word that the Scourge was on its way here, and they came. Ah!’ Dreamily, she clasped her hands at her throat. ‘The King-Emperor himself, here at Isse! I never thought to see this hour. Dainnan and men-at-arms swarm all over the Tower. I’ll be honest, at first it seemed impossible that even such great fighting men could drive off the Wild Hunt, but victory has been won!’

  ‘Won?’ echoed Rohain. ‘So the wights are all gone and the Tower is safe?’

  Heligea waved her hand dismissively. ‘Yes, yes. Almost safe. A few of the lesser wights that rode with the Hunter remain scattered throughout the upper stories and must be flushed out. We are to remain locked up down here until all things unseelie have been ousted and the Tower thoroughly scoured. As yet I have not set eyes upon His Majesty, but as I am, for the moment, the Mistress of the House, I am sure to be summoned soon by his gentlemen. I confess to a little nervousness, but in good sooth, how I look forward to the moment I am presented!’ Lowering her voice, she leaned forward confidentially. ‘You have seen him at Court. I never have. Is he as fine as they say? Do the images stamped on the coins of the realm do him justice?’

  Rohain felt reluctant to admit she had never been in the King-Emperor’s presence. She could not know whether the portraits hanging in gilt frames all over the palace were good representations, or the worn and blurred profiles in relief stamped into the coins. Besides, she had only ever seen older coins, depicting the D’Armancourt ancestors. Of the portraits, she recalled only cascades of velvet and brocade. She could barely remember them, not having paid much heed. In any event, she supposed he had aged greatly since those images had been created.

  ‘Via,’ she said, ‘tell Heligea what he looks like.’

  ‘Well, ma’am, no artist has ever been able to featly capture his likeness,’ said Viviana. ‘Just barely do the portraits represent His Majesty. I look forward to seeing him again with all my heart, if only from a distance, for upon my word he is a gentleman any maid or wife would sigh to look upon—a gentleman after every lady’s heart. All the ladies at Court are in love with him, I doubt not—every one; and I’d warrant that every woman throughout Erith who has ever set eyes on him would share that passion.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘So handsome is he and so kingly. Just to think of him causes the strangest thrill, as if the shang were passing over.’ She balked, blushing suddenly. ‘Sain me—I hope you’ll not think me impertinent for speaking thus of His Imperial Maj
esty.’

  ‘You are impertinent,’ interrupted Heligea impatiently, ‘and should be thrashed for presuming to such familiarity, insolent girl. Ah, here comes a servant with the oil.’

  A girl approached, carrying a stoneware jar. She was young, almost a child, thin and pale-cheeked but vigorous-looking, with large, deep-lidded eyes and a neat, bow-shaped mouth. Rohain recognised that triangular face, surrounded by its abundant cloud of wavy brown locks. The daughter of the Keeper of the Keys, the girl’s name was Caitri Lendoon, and long ago she had shown kindness to the deformed, yellow-haired lad.

  Before Rohain could acknowledge her former friend, the smell of the oil assaulted her, closing in on her like a dark jail. Her throat and back were on fire. She gagged.

  ‘What is in that jar?’ she said hoarsely, holding the folds of her skirts to her nose. ‘Whatever it is, I beg you to take it away from me. I wonder you don’t all expire from the stench.’

  ‘’Tis only siedo-pod oil,’ said Heligea in astonishment. ‘A pungent scent, aye, but tolerable enough.’

  ‘I will not have it near me!’

  ‘It will soothe your hurts, my lady,’ protested the little girl, backing away.

  ‘Mayhap. But I cannot stand the stink of it. I would rather endure the pain of my hurts and take another drop of brandy. You may anoint Viviana, if she is willing, and I will move from her side. Heligea, I must be brought into the King-Emperor’s presence as soon as possible.’

  ‘None but His Imperial Majesty’s gentlemen may attend him now. That is how I am informed.’

  ‘Yes, but as soon as the Tower has been secured—’

  ‘Of course. Come, my lady, let these servants bathe you with lavender water if you will not have the oil. And take another sip of the spirit.’

  There was to be no sleep that night. The moans of the wounded filled the lower halls. Those who had escaped harm spoke of nothing but the disastrous attack, and the unprecedented presence of royalty at the Tower. Occasional noises of belligerence echoed down the stairwells and the lift-shafts as malevolent presences were flushed out of oblique crannies. These became more infrequent, and eventually ceased altogether. Alone in a quiet room of the servants’ quarters, Rohain sat by a window embrasure. It was forbidden to open the shutters until the danger had passed, but a cold night breeze crept in through the cracks and this she inhaled with relish.