“I look forward to Gryphon.” Garrett’s eyes were shut, but Rellen knew he was awake. “We have been to the stone halls of the south, whose stairs we were both tired of walking. We have been to Romaldar, where you say the ladies were lovely, but where the men were vulgar and ready to slit our throats. We have walked the Dales, the prairies, and everywhere in between. All of this, and I have never been to Gryphon. I have never met your father face-to-face. It shall be interesting.”
A sigh, and he let Garrett return to the sanctuary of his thoughts. He knew his friend, and he knew it was the wilderness affecting him so. Garrett, the philosopher. The same as every night. Whoever knew a swordsman who thinks so much?
He might have slept then, but for the fact he was not tired. He drained one skin of mead and another of water, and afterward leaned back against the great tree. “If father doesn’t send us back to Ardenn, I wonder what’ll be next,” he murmured. “When we’re done at Gryphon, that is.”
“Another journey, another castle, and plenty more nights like this,” answered Garrett. “Some corner of Graehelm will need us.”
“Not what I meant.” He clucked his tongue. “What I meant was; do you think we’ll be famous? We did quite some work in Ardenn, you and I. Some might say our deeds were heroic. I half expect to come home to blaring trumpets and farmers’ daughters flinging themselves naked at our feet. It’d be nice, no? A bit of recognition for all we’ve done.”
“Lofty hopes.” Garrett’s face was all in shadow now. “Though if we take much longer, the farmers’ naked daughters will freeze.”
He laughed at that. “We’re not just soldiers, you and I. There’re other things in the world than chasing Yrul and feasting with herds of smelly lords. We deserve better. Is it so wrong to say?”
Garrett mustered no argument. A while more of silence, and Rellen watched him build a small, snapping fire, swallow a supper of roasted rabbit and five-day-old bread, and shut his eyes to some deep, dark thought. After sitting so long, the night’s chill had begun to bother him, and so he scooted beside the flames and crashed headlong into sleep.
The next morn, he and Garrett rode northward.
They were within a week of Gryphon, but his desire to linger away from home led them to the village of Briar. At dusk, they approached the old forest town. Its outermost dwellings, fashioned of thick, bronze-wooded logs, were stacked east and west of the main road, their roofs shadowed by trees and buried beneath oceans of fallen leaves. West of the city, the oaks were even taller than most and the clearings half as wide as farmers’ fields. To the east, a swift river carved its way through a gorge, beyond which the forest is wilder, Rellen thought. And more interesting.
But tonight is for beer, and with any luck, a few pretty faces.
He and Garrett stabled their horses in the outskirts and walked to Briar’s beating heart. Overlooking the gorge, the city center was a maze of wagon-rutted roads and dwellings made of stone and log. Some of the brawnier buildings were lordlings’ homes, while others were shops and storehouses for Grandwood’s wealthiest merchants. Lanterns lined every street, greeting passersby into shops stuffed with all manner of goods, foodstuffs, wine, and as Garrett noted, a healthy supply of weapons. In the center of it all, where the streets were lined with tents and no trees dared to grow, an edifice of smoothly-cut river stones arose like a castle. “Grunhall,” Rellen reminded Garrett. “I miss this place.”
Long had the Grunhall stood, a great, grim square of stone hewn from the gorge. The six-story monolith served as Briar’s inn, its feasting hall, its fortress, and the place where every merchant in Grandwood came to warm his toes and drink himself stupid. The rest of Graehelm can sleep outside, Rellen thought as he swung the door open. Tonight, this is where I belong.
Inside, the air was hot and smoky, and the rows of trestle tables stuffed near to bursting with feasting men and women. Already recognized by many folk, Rellen smiled and shouldered his way to a table in Grunhall’s heart. Coins were dropped and supper delivered. Mead, ale, and great goblets of cool water were poured in earnest. Darkness had fallen outside, but he hardly noticed. All the Grunhall’s windows were shuttered, and all thirsts and hungers satisfied. He and Garrett partook as kings might, downing platters of steaming venison, bowls of barley soup, and mugs of whatever they liked. He drank more cups of mead than he should have, while Garrett drank only water. Visitors clamored to his table, some offering thanks to him for his deeds in Ardenn, others trying to sell him weapons, and still others, the ladies of Briar, aiming to please his eye.
An hour in, he sensed Garrett wearying of Grunhall’s charms. “Everything well?” he asked as he spied the bottom of a passing barmaid.
“I take my leave.” Garrett rose. “You are safe enough here. Meet me on the north road tomorrow after daybreak. Try not to fall into too many beds.”
He took a swig from his cup, his hundredth of the night. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise. Seems a shame for you to leave it all to me.”
“And yet here I go.” Garrett showed a rare grin, and then walked away.
He lasted longer than I thought he would, he mused as Garrett made for the door. The Grunhall is not for him.
Men shied from Garrett’s passing and girls gaped, hopeful for his attention, but Rellen’s black-clad friend stopped for nothing, vanishing into the night without a sound.
The seat Garrett had occupied soon became the dominion of a sour, pug-faced drunkard, and the night moved along, somehow less interesting than before. Rellen made due. In the company of nosy strangers, half-forgotten friends, and amorous maidens, he carried on until his table was littered with empty mugs and platters stripped bare. It was easy being Gryphon’s heir, easier still with the reputation he had earned in Ardenn. Men saw his tabard and sword, and either gave him wide berth or paid him compliments by the dozen. Woman slipped into his company like bees after a pot of honey, all of them pretty in one way or another, and few of them shy.
Even so, for all the twenty-odd girls, women, maidens, and wives who came to visit, he danced with none of them, and flirted not nearly as much as he had planned. The night’s music was drowned by the mead sloshing between his ears, and too often he found himself staring off into nothingness as his admirers talked. There will be a new king, he remembered what Garrett had said. And trouble follows new kings. He was never one to worry about tomorrow, but tonight felt different. He dwelled in the darkness of his thoughts far more than intended, and the clamor of the night fell away, dwindling until he found himself in a room in some cold corner of the Grunhall, drowsing in an itchy bed without a woman beside him.
The next morning, he awoke alone in his inn-chamber with pain throbbing in his temples.
Should’ve gone with Garrett, he thought as he sat up in bed. A barrel of mead in my belly, and nothing to show for it but a headache.
Waking in the confines of a dingy inn room was not as nearly satisfying as rising with the morning mist blanketing his campsite, a fire snapping beside him, and his sword laid across his chest. After trudging down the stairs, he passed several coins to the tavern-keeper and plodded outside, wincing against the early sunlight. Most of Briar was still asleep. Striding through the streets, he arrived at the stables, and after finding no sign of Garrett or his horse, he tossed the stable boy a purse with thrice as many coins as he owed, found his horse, and rode north until the sun hopped above the horizon. The mist beyond Briar was thick, and the trees as watchful as seaside towers. Prettier than the Grunhall anyhow, and quieter too, he realized. I see why Garrett left.
When Garrett proved tardy, Rellen trotted to the roadside and tethered his stallion to a tree. He knew his friend would find him. He always does. Glad to be rid of Briar, he plunked down atop a fallen log, stripped his broadsword from his waist, and began to work the edges with his whetstone. Perhaps it was last night’s mead, or perhaps the lack of a warm-bottomed girl on his knee, but after a time he realized he was shivering. To warm himself, he leapt to his feet
and spun as if in battle, pretending some number of invisible foes were lurking among the trees. One by one, he parried their imaginary blows, felling them with bloodless precision.
So engrossed, he only saw Garrett after his mock battle was several hundred thrusts and slashes along. “You should be careful who you slink up on,” he grumbled to Garrett. “My sword may slip, and then where would your head be?” Grinning like a lion, he returned to his duel against a score of unseen enemies. “You should’ve stayed for a while longer last night. The ladies were swarming.”
“The Grunhall has its charms, but it was not in me last night to be festive,” said Garrett. “The night called me outside. I walked for a while, then went to the smithy.”
Rellen speared his sword into its scabbard and untethered his stallion from the tree. The sparring had done him well, for the cobwebs of last night were already clearing. “The smithy?” He raised a brow. “As if you need another sword. That blade on your horse’s backside could carve a castle in half.”
Garrett’s expression never changed. “The head blacksmith was the only man left. I had questions for him. He had answers. No one knows a kingdom’s condition better than the one who makes its weapons.”
He knew where this was going. He shivered, for the wind felt a little colder, and the dawn less welcoming than a moment earlier. “You mean you asked him about the capital? King Balov and such? The fighting and the deaths?”
“Indeed,” said Garrett.
“What’d he have to say?”
“Last week he sold seventeen swords and a dozen axes to a band of sellswords headed north. They were bound for the capital. If he wishes peace, your father had best act swiftly. The sellswords were from Mooreye, so the blacksmith believed. The sooner Graehelm has a new king, the fewer nobles will lie dead in the gutter.”
They’ll kill each other fighting over a chair, Rellen thought as he climbed atop his horse. Thank the stars the bloodshed stays within the capital walls…for now. “I think I understand why Father wants me home. Mother must be in his ear. They must be worried sick.”
“Or…” said Garrett as he mounted his destrier. “They want you and me to do something about it.”
They left Briar behind. Rellen forgot all about the Grunhall, the mead, and the maidens fair, and for a time he dwelled upon things just as Garrett did. Nobles, swords, and gutters. He pictured the capital awash in blood. Dead kings, empty chairs, and Mooreye sellswords roaming the streets. Father should just send Garrett. A day or two, and everyone needing a blade in his belly would be dead.
The road was empty that morn, and the sunlight growing weaker with each breath. By midday, after hours of riding in silence, the weather took a turn for the worse. Like a merchant robbed of his wares at knifepoint, the sun yielded its light to a curtain of dark, dreary clouds. Rellen wanted to stop and take shelter, but Garrett urged him to ride on. Nearer dusk, the rains caught up to them, and a cold, cold wind arrived. By the time they slowed and hunkered in their campsite, a bitter wind rent the night, the cold sweeping between the trees like winter’s first frost through a wide-open window.
A hard six-day ride ensued.
The pleasantries of the journey’s beginning were lost.
On the sixth morning after leaving Briar, after a third consecutive rainy, sleepless night, their travels brought them out of Grandwood and to the threshold of Graehelm’s capital, upon which the clouds seemed to hang even heavier than in the forest. The great Grae capital had no singular name. It hardly needed one to announce its presence in the world, for it was enormous by any reckoning. Its towers lorded above the Grae prairie like monuments meant to rival the sky. Its stone walls were twenty men tall in some places, and fifty in others. He and Garrett dared not enter. Since King Balov’s death two months ago, a shadow had fallen across the place, and rumors of murder were rampant. It stands to reason, since Balov left no heirs. Rellen gazed at the city’s bleak walls, the gates shut fast, and the soldiers roaming the parapets with pikes squeezed so hard it seemed their hafts might splinter. After such a good reign, how could he do this to us? The city was not at war, not yet, but it was no safe place to go. He remembered what the lords of Ardenn had rumored the day he and Garrett had left. ‘Grief and anger,’ they had told him of the King’s passing. ‘A great man’s life ended poorly, like a book whose final chapter leaves its reader ill.’ The latest news was that sadness for the fallen monarch had given way to hunger for his throne, and in recent days battles between nobles had swept through the streets, claiming hundreds.
A shared shudder, and he and Garrett turned east and rode past the city. He felt half-surprised no one broke from the gates to pursue him, though if they saw Garrett, they probably counted their numbers and realized they did not have enough men.
The eastward road was as empty as the road through Grandwood. There were few merchants in the open prairie, and none headed for the capital. He and Garrett spurred their mounts until the edge of evening, riding hard through high grasses and beneath drab grey skies. Ahead, the clouds sheltered the landscape to the end of sights, greys upon greys, the sun falling faster than seemed possible.
Then he glimpsed a barn, its sides painted white, and his heart leapt back to life. “I know that barn,” he said. “We’re almost home.”
“None too soon,” said Garrett.
So far from the iron gates of Ardenn, he and Garrett approached the city of Gryphon. Until the moment his father’s keep was in sight, he pretended not to be excited, but when he sat up in his saddle and looked upon the houses fashioned of whitewood, the blue banners flapping, and the towers rising into the night, his spirits soared. He kicked the sides of his horse and rode ahead, taking to the stony path leading into the western end of the city. “Come on then!” he shouted back to Garrett. “I’m starved. We’ve eaten dry bread and hard potatoes for a week. I need hot bird and warm cider. Ride faster!”
Soon all of Gryphon came into view. Even beneath a dusk greyer than any he remembered, he thought his home a beautiful thing. The city had no outer walls, only rings of whitewood dwellings, spreading out like a spider’s web from Gryphon’s center. Beyond the houses, he glimpsed his father’s keep, a seven-towered slab of stone nestled behind two round walls and surrounded by black-watered moat. Mist from the moat shrouded Gryphon’s smaller dwellings, nestling them in a soft, almost inviting haze. High above the mist stood four watchtowers, the cornerstones of the city. Atop each tower he glimpsed his father’s banners fluttering carelessly in the evening wind, the blues and golds crisp enough to distinguish even in the gloom. The worries of the last week paled when he saw the banners, for they meant Gryphon was whole, and Father still the lord of the city.
Trotting closer, he watched Garrett take his first glimpses of the city. The rows of white houses, their windows bright and chimneys smoking, where not like anything he imagined Garrett had seen. The dwellings were two stories tall, far huger than most homes built in Mormist, and far more striking than anything in grey, grim Ardenn. He saw Garrett gazing at Gryphon Keep, the fortress looming like a dark, boundless sentry over the city, and for once he knew his friend was awestruck. “Father’s keep,” he remarked. “Finished when I was boy. Seven towers for my grandfather’s seven sons. Father was the youngest. All the rest are dead.”
“Impressive,” said Garrett.
Rellen grinned. “I know.”
As they neared the outermost cluster of Gryphon’s dwellings, they dismounted and led their stallions by hand. They strode onto the widest of the city’s streets, where bright lanterns were lit and a crowd was gathering. He did not expect to be recognized so soon. Father must have posted sentries…and told everyone about Ardenn. He could not help but soak in the people’s adoration. There were children dressed in House Gryphon’s colors, men clapping and shouting, and ladies in dresses blushing. He took his time as he walked through them, shaking as many hands as he could, planting kisses on as many wives’ cheeks as possible. He introduced Garrett to as many
folk as he could, though the shadow cast by his friend and his huge charcoal destrier made more than a few people shy.
Amongst the many who came to greet him, there were two he was most pleased to see. He glimpsed them at the far end of the street, pushing through the crowd like bears through a field of rabbits. With wide shoulders and heavy hands, the two men shouldered through several hundred townsfolk, halting in a pool of lamplight with smiles ear-to-ear.
“And here we’ve a boy who’s not concerned with time or its meaning,” said one man to the other.
“Yes, late as usual,” the other replied. “And who should be surprised? All the same, we’re glad to see he’s arrived, unkilled by the barbarians of Yrul.”
Dropping the reins of his horse into Garrett’s grasp, he went to greet them. He had long feared his father might send Marlos and Bruced away on other duties, and nothing was better than to know than they were still in Gryphon. “Hoy!” He hugged them, and they crushed him back. “You sods, you should’ve been there with me! The last few months were dull as driftwood, and the Yrul soft as butter. With you two, we might’ve been done with the whole thing ages ago.”
More hugs were doled out and crushing handshakes shared. At length, he waved at Garrett to step forward. “Now here we’ve a good man,” he announced to his burly friends. “This lanky lord is Garrett Croft, hunter and warrior of Mormist. No greater swordsman walks amongst us, leastways not that I’ve seen.”
“Aye, your father mentioned him,” said Marlos.
“Minced a hundred Yrul, and quite a few Romaldarians too,” agreed Bruced.
Garrett and the two men grasped one another’s forearms and shook, declaring their respects without speaking a word. “Garrett, these are two of the finest friends a man could ask for,” Rellen said when they were done. “This here is Marlos Obas, captain of Gryphon’s riders. Ah, but Marlos is old and more than a bit cranky, and still we tolerate him. He makes a mean stew, a meaner sword, and yet they say his wife is meaner still.”
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 6
