Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1)

by J. Edward Neill

  * * *

  Leaving the red-haired girl behind was no easy thing. All the same, Saul steeled his heart and made his way south. He rode for hours through woods and over stone-capped hills, the path from rough and rain-sodden. The trees hunched over him, seeming to judge him, while the mud sucked at Beref’s hooves. Long after leaving the gully behind, late in the cool, cloudless afternoon, he rode up the side of a hundredth hill and halted at its top. There were no more hills, he saw. From his perch atop Cairn’s southernmost slope, he looked out upon an ocean of grass, a golden sea swaying in the autumn wind to the end of sights. Narrow ropes of mist floated like white smoke above the grasses, marking the waterways and rivers which snaked down from the hills and into the prairie. My next road, he knew.

  The heart of Graehelm.

  That evening, after riding the entire afternoon through the prairies, he found a clearing amongst the grass and reeds, a patch of bare earth beside a shallow, snaking creek. As he made his camp, the fires of sunset were quenched by the absolute dark of a moonless sky. He built a low flame in a ring of river rocks, and as he supped upon snared rabbit and brick-hard bread, he set his thoughts upon his time in Cairn. His gaze followed the dancing of the campfire. He began to question his own heart, his decision hard-made. He dwelled upon slaying Aramar, and though he expected to feel remorse, his mind wandered instead to the girl. It was not her fault. The man meant to murder her, and worse… He wondered whether he had done right or whether he had left her to a fate worse than death. Any other day, he told himself. I could have helped her. It was a blessing that his exhaustion chased him from his troubles. With the memory of the girl fading, he plunged into sleep and forgot all else.

  * * *

  Andelusia stood alone in the gully. She remained right where Saul had left her, numb and still as death. All she could think of was Aramar, his breath, and the fear he had instilled into her. Never before had she dwelled upon death and pain, but in such vile thoughts she could no longer help but drown. Gone were the wistful daydreams of yesterday. The shadows of the stinking mud-pit crowded in around her, and the trees looked like swords eager to impale her. I must leave Cairn, she whispered to herself.

  Saul or no Saul, I have to go.

  Twenty hard breaths, a hundred bats of her tear-laden eyelashes, and her mind was made up. She would leave home. She would abandon all she knew, no matter that she had no food, no water, and no knowledge of the wilderness outside of Cairn. With all things weighing upon her, she convinced herself she must leave immediately, and that there was no hope in staying a moment longer. I must go. Sorry, mum. Sorry, Symon. Sorry, Rockbottom. This life is not for me.

  She clambered through the mud, reaching for the mare that had been Aramar’s. The beast was not afraid of her. It sniffed her fingers and her hair, seeming to like her. Though she had little skill in riding, she decided by all rights the mare belonged to her. Strong and healthy, she marveled. You understand me, I think. We will be friends. You can lead me to better things, and I will never mistreat you. As she ran her fingers through the mare’s mane, the urgency to leave deepened. It felt foolish, rash, and reckless, but she could not deny it.

  She plucked her dagger from where it lay in the mud and sidled back to the mare’s side, stroking its haunch as she neared. The beast whickered at her touch. She decided whatever goods might be in its saddlebags also belonged to her, and so she searched, finding a skin of water, a bottle of wine, and grain for feeding the mount. Upon the mare’s back, she found a blanket, which I will need, and a shovel, meant to bury me with, which she untied and hurled into the gully. She washed her face with water from the skin and dried her dress with a corner of the blanket. I must look a mess. What would Symon say? Foolish girl…

  A while of scolding herself for all she had done wrong in her life, and all good sense abandoned her. Gulping hard, she climbed atop the mare. Safely in the saddle, she urged it to climb from the gully and steer her south, directly away from home. The mare took to her urgings without complaint, and within moments the gully, the house, and Aramar’s cooling corpse were out of sight. There were no goodbyes for her mother, no farewells for Symon or Cairn, just an ache to be free. Save your guilt for later, she told herself. Besides, Symon would approve, and Mother…well…she will be happier, for I was nothing if not a burden.

  In the hours following her escape from the gully, she let the mare be her guide. She did not try to guess where it might take her. She did not care. The beast chose a narrow path through Cairn’s southern hills, following it as though itching for the same freedom as she. The trees were taller out here, unfamiliar but not unfriendly. The breezes seemed to blow warmer, a gift of Father Sun. She clung to the mare and let it lead the way ever farther, riding until home was almost an afterthought, a forgettable sprinkle of trees and memories in a place already fleeing from her heart. Leaving home was easier than she thought. One hoof before the other, she thought.

  Just keep going and never look back.

  She rode on. She stopped seldom to rest, not daring to for fear her resolve might break and Cairn consume her again. The mare took her to the ends of the forest, where the hills flattened and the far grasses swayed to a wind she had never before felt. She let the mare lead the way into the prairie. An hour passed, then many more, and when next she looked back, the hills were but a pale shadow on the northern horizon. Still she rode. Her backside ached, her body still sore from Aramar’s abuse. Nightfall began to steal the sunlight away. With twilight’s coming, her stomach began to growl with hunger. She felt so sick she nearly fell from the saddle, and yet even as she thought to stop and sleep, a fleeting hope entered her mind. Saul came this way. He had to. If I can find him, he will see I am serious. And at least he might feed me. She remembered the flicker of compassion in his eyes, his gentleness as he lifted her from the muck. She convinced herself if he were to see her again, he would take her with him and protect her until she found someplace better than Cairn. He will help me. He must. He is a good man.

  I know it.

  And so, with Cairn’s hills lost to sight, she pressed deeper into the shadows of the Graehelm prairie. The cold, hungry night came crawling behind her. Soon she was lost in the darkness of the plains, the stars like little candles guiding her to nowhere. Her mare plodded through the ocean of grass. Her optimism began to wither. The prairie seemed endless, the night deep and impenetrable. The longer she rode, the more she worried she might have made a terrible, terrible mistake. I need food. Are there no cities out here? How can there be all this land and nothing to eat?

  And then she saw it. Somewhere in the mantle of darkness, she spied the glow of a fire dancing in the distance. Her heart nearly leapt from her chest. Saul? Could it be him?

  She slid out of her saddle and trod the last thousand steps on foot toward the campfire. The fire has to be his, she convinced herself. No one else would be out here alone. She moved faster through the prairie. The grass cut her ankles and the mud stole her sandals, but she slowed none. When at last she came to the clearing of crushed grass, her mare’s hooves mashed the damp prairie soil, her bare feet sinking into the mud. Halting ten steps from the flame, she parted her lips to say Saul’s name, but the sleeping shadow leapt to his feet before any sound came out, battle-staff at the ready.

  “Saul!” She held up her hands. “It is only me. Please…”

  Saul rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Andelusia? Is that-?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Me.”

  “What? Why? Why’re you here? Goodness, girl. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I followed you.”

  “Why on earth? You shouldn’t be here. You must go home.”

  Breathless, nigh crumbling to dust at the edge of his campfire, she wandered toward him with childlike eyes. No creature on earth could have turned her away in that moment. She was like the moon, pure and pale, eyes melting the hearts of all the night’s denizens. “Saul,” she said his name as though she had known him all
her life. “I need your help. I came all this way.”

  He set his battlestaff against his shoulder and shook his head. He wanted to resist, she knew, but her desperation affected him far more than he wanted. “Listen, Ande, Andelusia, whatever your name is,” he said. “I’m leaving, never to come back. Do you understand? I didn’t bargain for a daughter, not here, not ever. What made you think to leave your mother? What use do I have for a pup nipping at my heels and devouring all of my food?”

  She smoothed her dirty tunic to her sides and curtseyed. She could not remember ever being so vulnerable. “Ser Saul, I know I we have only just met, but it does not matter. I will do whatever you ask. Carry your bags, feed your horse, shine your boots, whatever is needed. I will do anything but return to Cairn. My mother, Symon…I will miss them. The sun and the stars know I should not have left them without saying goodbye, but what choice did I have? I will not play barmaid anymore. I will not wait for the Lord Mayor to find and punish me for what you did to Aramar. I want to be free. You are the only one who can help me. Please, I beg you, take me to Graehelm. Help me this second time and I will bother you no more.”

  “You’re serious?” He staggered as though she had throttled him.

  “I am.”

  “You really mean to do this?”

  “I do.”

  “So you’re that sort of girl?”

  “What sort?”

  “The sort who chases strangers into the wild. The sort who runs away from home, foolishness be damned.”

  “I reckon so,” she said proudly.

  He sighed, his shoulders sagging. “You’ve ridden through most of the night. You must be half-dead, same for your horse. You should rest. The sun will be up in a few hours. Since I can’t let you starve, I’m obliged to feed you. Take some bread from my bag, but only a bit. The next days will be thin enough.”

  “So you will…?”

  “Let a meteor fall from the sky and land on my head…what else can I do?” He shook his head. “You say you’ll not go home, and I can’t spare the time to drag you back. Cairn, it seems, will forever curse me. ‘That man of Elrain,’ your mother will say. ‘Stole my daughter and murdered the Lord Mayor’s man.’”

  “Mother always knew this would happen,” she reasoned. “And Aramar had it coming.” She had struck a chord in his heart, she knew. The look on his face, grave as a father’s, gave it all away. “Saul, can I say something?” She approached him.

  “As if I could stop you,” he said.

  “I trust you.” She stood in his shadow, feeling small. “I do not know why, but I do. I used to think you were a robber, but after the gully…after Aramar… Thank you.”

  She wanted to embrace him, but dared not press her luck. She was too tired, too hungry, and in need of his continued sympathy. She gave him a smile, cracking on her lips like sunrise as she knelt before his fire. He melted at the sight, and she knew she had won him over. Later, her belly full of bread, she rested her head on her blanket and drifted away. She snored soft as falling snow, and he kept his watch over her for longer than she knew.

  Early morn of the next day, and Father Sun’s light pried her eyelids open. Until now, she had never slept a night so far from home. The earth felt like a bed of stone beneath her, the grass like switches against her skin. The bracing wind snapped her up from sleep, biting her cheeks and watering her eyes. Hunching before the fire in shivering silence, she shared Saul’s meal of bread, rabbit haunches, and water. She expected him to scold her, though if he was angry, he said nothing.

  “Come, m’lady.” He stood after breakfast was finished. “Time to go. Long days ahead. Grass and more grass all the way south.”

  “How far?” She tugged her borrowed blanket close to her collar.

  “Not precisely sure. Never been here before.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the Councilors of Graehelm.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Save your questions. Fetch your mare. We’ve weeks ahead of us, and plenty of time for talk.”

  The Restless

  In the midst of mighty Grandwood, where bronze-barked oaks loomed like giants and sunlight slanted upon glades of golden brush, two riders trotted northward on the road. The first sat in the saddle of his grey-coated stallion, teasing the beast’s mane with loving hands. Rellen Gryphon was the sole son of Emun Gryphon, heir to the most beloved house in all of Graehelm. His boots were damp and leaf-covered at their bottoms, but polished to an ebon gleam at their tops. His tabard, blue and gold and clean as sunshine, hung from his shoulders like a banner from a proud tower. With hair like wheat and a stubbly blonde beard, he looked as though he had been born in the great Grae prairie, where the grasses seemed spun of gold, and where the heart of Graehelm’s power had always lived.

  The second rider was a much darker sort of man. Atop a hulking, charcoal-hued destrier, Garrett Croft trotted along beside Rellen, his cloak trailing from his shoulders like twilight. A white bow and black-scabbarded sword rested snugly on his horse’s hips, their colors opposite, but their purpose the same. Garrett’s hauberk gleamed like polished jet, tiny scars from a hundred swords like latticework upon it. He had been many things in his life. Men near and far knew him as a swordsman, a hunter, and a slayer of more Yrul than any soldier would think to boast of, but he was none of these more than he was a friend to Rellen, a fact for which Rellen was grateful.

  Today was their fifteenth day since exiting the iron gates of the Graehelm garrison at Ardenn, and yet atop his stallion Rellen felt like a king not an hour’s ride from home. He guided his horse beneath Grandwood’s thousand-colored canopy, wending the road between the broad, bronzed trunks of the world’s hugest forest, and he did so as though time and distance were meaningless. The hour was late. Evening drifted into the sky, draining the color from Grandwood’s leaves. No matter that days’ worth of forest were before him, he and Garrett prodded their mounts well beyond dusk, hardly slowing even when darkness descended. This is our way, he thought. We stop only when we are ready, never before.

  When the day was finally dead and starlight peered through the leaves, Garrett tugged his destrier closer to Rellen. Uh oh, thought Rellen. He has that look. Something’s on his mind.

  “The night is fresh. I have been thinking,” said Garrett. In the shadows, he and his destrier looked like ghosts. “Here we are, all alone. Autumn is an old man about to die. Your father would never summon us to Gryphon so late in the season without good cause. I assume we will be tasked with something serious.”

  “You worried?” Rellen’s gaze wandered in the stars.

  “Never,” Garrett answered.

  “Good. What’s there to worry about?” He shrugged. “Father’s pressed to answer the matter of the throne. They say he could even be a candidate for king. He’ll not want it, of course. He’ll decline, and our house will support some high and mighty master of this or that noble house to rule. You and I are just formalities. We’ll stand at father’s side, swear our fealties, and that’ll be the end of it. Come springtime, we’ll be back on the road again.”

  “That simple…” Garrett’s face was unreadable.

  “Yes, that simple. Father wishes us home for the winter to see if I’ve been a good son, and if you’re as terrifying as all the letters tell. When he finds out how much Ardenn loved us, and how greatly the Yrul feared us, he’ll be relieved and send us elsewhere. Really, it’s a small thing.”

  Garrett spurred his stallion ahead on the path. The great dark destrier blocked Rellen from going further. “You say there will be a new king.” Garrett’s gaze gleamed with starlight. “Trouble follows new kings. There are problems the Grae have ignored. I heard the lords of Ardenn rumoring at our last supper. Some say the people of the east have grown rebellious, that they desire freedom from the fatherland. Mormist will not be ignored. It is worth considering that you and I may be sent somewhere we do not expect.”

  Rellen shrugged the suggestion off. Garrett’s
from Mormist, he had to remind himself. If there were trouble, he’d know. But the mountain country was weeks farther away than Gryphon, and the idea of his father sending him there again felt absurd. “You never give up, do you? Father will not drop just any noble onto the throne. He’ll find Graehelm’s finest, nothing less. Mormist will become the new King’s problem, not ours. Unless you’re itching to go back home? Are you?”

  “I would rather not.” Garrett’s gaze darkened.

  “Then forget it. Tonight we’ll build a fire and drain some mead. Tomorrow we go to Briar, remember? Briar means beer, and beer means women. Can you even remember the last time we saw a good piece of skirt?”

  Garrett fell into his usual silence, and the topic of Mormist was soon forgotten.

  Less than an hour later, when clouds crossed the starlight and the way ahead grew too dark, the two trotted off the road and into the deep black of the woods. Rellen found a clearing not far from the path, a bare patch of brushless, twilit earth shadowed in its center by a mighty tree. He lay down his things and plunked into the grass. “No tents tonight,” he said with a grin. “No fire either. Too nice a night. Is there any better life?”

  “Savor it while you can,” said Garrett. “Winter is not far.”

  Leave it to you to be so grim, Rellen thought as he gazed out into the darkness, where the shadows of Grandwood’s trees blocked out the rest of the world.

  Only an hour ago, the forest had been ablaze with orange, red, and golden leaves, fluttering like feathers in the cap of every oak, but now the forest seemed a city made of black towers, impassible to all things save the wind. “Father should’ve waited until next year to call us back,” he said. “Winter would’ve been easier in Ardenn. You and I might as well be gods there, for all that everyone adored us.”