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

by J. Edward Neill

  A moment more, and he seemed to recognize her. The paleness of her face, the waves of scarlet locks cascading from her hood, and the depth of her green-jeweled eyes gave her away. “I know you.” He smiled. “I’ve seen you before. Why are you out here alone?”

  “Well… Um…” She hated herself for behaving so unladylike. “I rather enjoy the winter, I suppose. I like the secrecy of the forest. I especially like the quiet. But then, I might ask you the same question. Should not a nobleman have men-at-arms at his side?”

  He shrugged his shoulders as though to throw off some great heaviness. “Maybe I’m not a noble. Maybe I’m just a wanderer. Maybe I only came out here to walk and forget things for a time. ”

  “What is so awful that you must forget?” She looked to his sword, then into his eyes. “Maybe you should not be so serious.”

  “Serious? Me?” His scoff sounded less than convincing. “Nothing serious here. Only some fresh air for me. Only a walk in the woods.”

  “I know what troubles you.” The words escaped her lips before she knew what she was saying.

  “Oh?” he said. “Doubtful. I don’t know you, but even if you were very wise, you couldn’t know.”

  “But what if I did?”

  He arched his brow. “How?”

  She bit her lip, guilty at the memory of her eavesdropping in Gryphon Keep. “I was there that night. I heard what Saul told you and Lord Emun. It sounded dreadful, all that talk about war and armies. I heard about the Kal, the Furies, and the knights pale and grim. Saul is my friend, you know. I had been waiting for weeks to hear his message.”

  “How’s this possible?” Rellen’s eyes darkened. “What do you know?”

  “I listened at the door.” Her cheeks reddened with shame. “Forgive me, but I was so tired, and I had nowhere to lie down. Please do not be angry. All your secrets are safe with me. It was just your father…he was so loud. Saul too.”

  “Just who are you?” He squinted at her.

  “My name?” she stammered. “Andelusia.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Cairn.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because Saul let me follow him.”

  Rellen crooked his brow in befuddlement. He has never heard of Cairn, she knew. And Saul is just some messenger from far, far away.

  Rellen looked as though he was about to storm her with questions, but was silenced when a sharp gust of air caught him under his collar.

  “You must be cold.” She took one of his hands into her own, kneading his palm with hers. If he was angry, it did not last. He melted at her touch, his tension like putty dripping into the snow. “Who are you then, if not a noble? I could have sworn I heard Lord Emun call you his son.”

  “Because I am,” he said. “Rellen, of House Gryphon. Emun is my father. Sara my mother. What are you doing to my hand?”

  Her heart fluttered, but she stayed steady, massaging the spaces between his fingers. “Are you a prince? Are you in line to become king?”

  “No. Neither. There’s no king, not yet anyway. Things are in jeopardy because of it. I’m heir to Gryphon, and to whatever else Father decides to give me, but that’s all.”

  She peeled her hands away from his and dipped into a curtsey. “I apologize, milord.” Her gaze fell to the snow. “I listened at your door when I had no right. I interrupted your walk, and I troubled you when all you wanted was to be at peace. I hope I have not proven to be a nuisance.”

  His mouth fell flat. “Please.” He waved her out of her curtsey. “You’re hardly a nuisance. And my name is Rellen, just plain Rellen, not milord or sire or anything like that.”

  “Just plain Rellen?” She tilted her cheek.

  “Just plain Rellen,” he repeated. “Better that than prince or king.”

  If the day was still cold, she no longer sensed it. She felt warm despite the weather, tingling in her belly as if she had downed two cups of wine.

  “Walk with me?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She nearly jumped when he said it. “I thought you might never ask.”

  Another moment of wandering in each other’s eyes, and he led the way back to Mirror. She watched him as she followed, absorbed by the way his tabard caught in the wind and his silver-tipped scabbard drew a line in the snow. He looks like a king, even if he is not, she thought. So handsome, and so sad. Why is my heart pounding? Once she and he returned to the frozen pond, he found a sitting place upon the same shale perch she had used that morning. He sat, and she hopped up right beside him.

  “Why did you listen at my father’s door?” He stared off into the forest as he asked. “Of what interest are war and politics?”

  She thought before answering. “I would apologize again, but I have the feeling you would not believe me. I suppose…I want to hear of things larger than me. I feel small in the world, and stories of grand events make me feel less so. When I heard Saul tell the story of the Davin Kal, I felt sad, but also curious. I wondered who their enemies are. What do they want? Why would they invade? Is Saul’s letter what worries you? Do you think you will be sent off to fight those terrible people, those Furies?”

  “You say I’m worried.” He shook his head. “Why? You don’t know me. How can you tell?”

  “Because you are,” she said mildly. “I see it in you. Please do not be angry.”

  He sighed, his breath like a bank of fog. I see right through him, she thought. And he knows it. He wants to be upset with me, but cannot.

  “It’s not that I’m afraid of war or death,” he told her. “I’m not. Much worse is not knowing when Father will send me away. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I pace my room, pester my mother, and hide from my friends. I’ve no one to talk to. I can’t even tell Garrett. You know who Garrett is, yes?”

  “You could tell me.” Her suggestion was almost a whisper.

  “You’ve heard too much already.” He sank lower onto the shale. “Father would boot you and Saul into the moat if he found out.”

  “Tell me.” She let her fingers fall absently onto his forearm. “No one else has to know.”

  He looked to the sky, beseeching it for guidance. He wages a small war in his heart, she sensed. A battle quickly ended. He should not tell me, and I should not ask, but…

  He looked to the sky, the trees, to the endless drifts of snow, and in the end returned to her. “Did your friend happen to tell you about the Three Lords of Mormist?”

  She had heard the name Mormist spoken before, but possessed no sense of where it was or what manner of people inhabited it. “No. Who are they? What is Mormist?”

  “Mormist is east of us. Here. Look.” He painted an invisible map in the air. “It lies in the shadow of the Crown Mountains, over here. It’s the home of our wealthiest ally. In Mormist, Three Lords hold power. It’s their place to rule over all who live in the mountains. But…the Lords are supposed to be vassals of Graehelm. We give them gold and protection, and they supply us with iron and stone from the mountains. But Father tells me they’ve disappeared. We need them more than we thought. As they fare, so do we.”

  “Why should this be so much trouble?” she questioned. “Just send someone else to lead until the Lords’ return.”

  He shivered, and she sensed she had found the heart of it. “It shouldn’t trouble me,” he said. “Save for I will probably be the one Father sends.”

  A sudden deadness filled the air. She shrank against the shale, her warmth stolen. “Your father would send you away?” she asked as though the idea wounded her. “Why?”

  “I did it once before in Ardenn. When the Councilor was killed, they sent me and my men to hold the south until order was restored. I did it too well, I think. Father wants me to do it again.”

  She felt her shoulders sag, the same as his. Like storm clouds shifting, the gloom shadowed the small space between them. “Are you afraid?” Her voice cracked.

  “Not of death,” he said.” And not of Mormist. What I fear is I’ll n
ever have my freedom. I’m doomed to answer Father’s demands from now until…well...forever. I’m his instrument first, his son last. Going to Ardenn and Mormist are things I might do even if I had no master, but waiting for Father while he broods in his tower is something I can’t stand. Why won’t he tell me everything? It drives me mad. I wish it weren’t this way, but it is.” He exhaled a huge gust of frosted air. “And now I’ve said too much. You and I are strangers. I should be more like a rock, a man who complains to no one. I should be like Garrett, or maybe even your friend, Saul.”

  The hour was well after midday, and in the silence after Rellen’s tale, the wind whipped like an army of spirits between the trees. The forest felt closer, darker, and colder. The clouds began to accumulate in great grey blobs, befouling the afternoon sky, casting a long shadow across all of Grandwood

  “It’ll snow again,” Rellen said. “A bit more, and we’ll all drown in it.”

  I should say nothing more, she knew. It is not my place. He is a noble, and I am nobody. But silence was not a realm she could live in for long. Even as Rellen slumped, she shrugged off the gathering gloom. “I have your solution.” Her eyes sparkled.

  Rellen almost smiled. “Oh? What solution?”

  “Glad you asked.” She folded her hands in her lap. “You say you want freedom. I say you will have it. You have to serve in your father’s shadow for now, but it will not always be so. You are the heir to your house, and someday you will be the one to decide what happens. Is this not true? You will be the lord of Gryphon, no? Unless your father lives to see a hundred years, you will rule over your own destiny, and you will answer to no one but yourself. And though I hardly know you, I see strength enough in you to be free even while you think you are not. Your day will come. You must be patient.”

  “You think so?” he sighed. “Maybe…maybe you’re right. Truth be told, I never think of myself as much of a lord, least of all over a whole house.”

  “All things change,” she said. “I should know best.”

  “Alright, enough of me then,” he declared. “What about you? Why on earth did you come to Gryphon?”

  “Me?” She pointed to herself, flattered. “I have no real tale to tell. My home is far away, my mother and I rarely got along, and I never had a father.”

  “No father? A bit unlikely, that,” he quipped. “Might make for a good fireside story though. The red-haired girl, sprang up from the clay, she did. No mother but the wind, no father but the fire. An orphan, they call her, and an eavesdropper too.”

  She saw the laughter lighting up his face. She could not help but share it. She laughed, and he laughed harder, and the troubled talk of before felt farther away.

  “Tell me of yourself.” He looked her in the eye, and for the first time she felt he truly saw her. “How did you come to leave Cairn? How did you meet Saul? Tell me of your friends, your family, your life.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  Then and there, their conversation truly began. The cold no longer seemed to matter, and the gathering clouds became an afterthought. An hour, then two, and she shared all she could remember of her travels, her life, and her small experience of the world. She told him a dozen stories, smiled a hundred smiles, and he listened more closely than anyone had ever listened to her before. The hours passed. The sun began to fall toward the horizon. The new friends sat in the lengthening shadows of evening, and as they talked all breezes ceased to blow, delivering utter quiet into the forest. Even as darkness drifted across the trees, washing away the light, an aura of timelessness surrounded them. She and he lingered on the shale shelf, sharing their stories without worry for still another hour, forgetting why they had come to the forest in the first place. At the edge of night, when the greys of the day became blacks, they wandered between the trees and across empty fields of snow. They came to Gryphon Keep, and when at last they parted, they smiled one last time, for words seemed somehow unnecessary.

  * * *

  At that same hour, in a high hallway of Gryphon keep, Garrett Croft stood at a frosted window and surveyed the city below. His long coat shined as black as a starless night and his sword hung solemnly from his belt, but his mood was not grim. The clouds gathering beyond the window instilled him with a sense of imperturbable calm. He rather liked the deepening of winter. It reminded him of home.

  Garrett was not alone. Leaning on the wall beside the window was Saul, who gazed out into the night much the same as Garrett did. The two had just returned from a late dinner, where much had been discussed in the company of Marlos, Bruced, and a number of close friends of Lord Emun.

  “I’ve thought long upon it,” Saul said at length. “I may take Lord Emun at his offer. Fealty and soldiery in the name of House Gryphon. It’ll be the same as in Elrain.”

  Garrett watched the shadows of night stretch like dark fingers across the city streets. High above it all, the tumultuous sky shaped the foundations of another winter storm. Without moving, he spoke to Saul. “Lord Gryphon can always use good men,” he said calmly. “Three years, and I have no complaints.”

  Saul kneaded his beard. “I can’t help but notice the lords of Gryphon seem restless. Is it always this way? Or only lately? Perhaps my message did more ill than good.”

  “Perhaps,” Garrett acknowledged. “Once Lord Emun decides his course, all restlessness will cease. His family will do as they always have. I, for one, will do what I can to aid them.”

  “I heard you follow Emun’s son,” Saul squinted into the night. “You go where he goes, they say, but you’re not his servant. Do you serve Lord Emun directly? The crown? Or is another your master?”

  “You are not the first to ask,” Garrett answered. “Rellen Gryphon is a rare sort of boy. Young and brash, but worthy. As it happens, I am neither his servant nor his father’s. I follow Rellen because I believe he will do good things for the world. I am as free a man as any in Graehelm, but for now my path aligns with his.”

  Saul stepped back from the window. “Good things?” he asked. “The lad seems so young, and so…immature.”

  “I do believe it,” admitted Garrett. “And yes, he is. Men like him need mentors, and the occasional sword at their side. If I can be both, I will be. It is all I am made for.”

  Gazing through the window as though it did not exist, Garrett peered down to the courtyard of Gryphon Keep, where he happened to glimpse Rellen and Andelusia walking side-by-side. He secreted a smile when he saw them together. He had not seen Rellen today, and now he knew the reason.

  * * *

  That night, a second storm came to Gryphon. A mountain of snow and ice buried the landscape, clutching all within winter’s frozen embrace. Fields, lakes, and streams were lost, all features of the earth obscured. For nearly a week afterward, Gryphon served as a little more than a prison for its inhabitants. Even when the sky brightened and the clouds shattered, only a few people dared leave their homes. Lucky were they, for if not for the wealthy harvests of autumn and the rich stores of food kept by Emun, the city would have withered.

  It was a difficult time, cold as any winter in memory, but Andelusia minded it less than most. During the long, dreary days and howling nights, she did all she could to catch glimpses of Rellen, my new friend, and my prince. Gryphon Keep was a vast, sprawling labyrinth of passageways and doors, but it was not nearly huge enough to keep her from finding him. She saw him in the hallways, traded smiles with him across crowded chambers, and found excuses to slip past him in lantern-lit stairwells. Every morn, she spotted him at breakfasting, and every night in the great hall when the feasts of Emun Gryphon were laid, she dined in plain view of him. They spoke little, but looked often. She longed to return to the seclusion of the woods with him. She wanted to believe that if winter were milder, he would have obliged.

  Another week went by, then six more, and winter grew ever wearier. The storms passed. The worst of the snows began to thaw. Thus it was on one evening, during a supper feast in the
grand hall, Rellen mustered the courage to sit next to her. His father was absent again, his mother retired early for the eve. The moment after Saul left for bed, Rellen set his plate and goblet beside hers.

  “I wondered,” she said shyly as he slipped onto the bench beside her.

  “…if I’d ever leave my table for yours?”

  “…if Saul would ever go to bed.” She sipped from her wine. “He watches over me like a worried old uncle. He frets more than is healthy.”

  Rellen slugged a great gulp of wine and scooted nearer. All around him were whisperers and watchers, but he seemed to ignore them. “And what does your old uncle worry about?”

  “You.” She sipped again.

  “Me?” Rellen grinned impishly. “Nothing to worry about from me.”

  “Oh?”

  “I only want to talk.”

  “Talk? Is that all?”

  “Unless milady desires more.”

  “Milady is not sure what she wants.” She tapped the rim of her goblet lightly against his. “But she knows she is glad you are here, and she hopes you will stay.”

  Hours passed. The hall emptied. Her goblet went dry and her plate turned cold, but she did not notice. Conversation was her liquor now, and flirtation her dessert. The servants urged Rellen to sleep, but he shooed them away. Appearances be damned, she thought with a flutter. If I were the noble and he the urchin, I would do the same for him.

  One by one, the room’s lights winked out until only a few candles remained. The wind wailed at the high windows, rattling pane and shutter with winter’s fury. She noticed none of it. Long after the final platter was cleared and the last servant tiptoed off to sleep, she remained. For where else would I want to be than with Rellen? The feeling inside her was like nothing she knew. Symon had told her she might one day fall in love, and her mother had said the same. Not that I ever believed them. Their words felt truer now. By evening’s end, her fingers were entwined with his, the touch so light and accidental she could not remember just how or when it happened.