Too tired to fight it, she plummeted into dismal sleep.
Nightmares of fire and smoke-darkened skies greeted her. In her dream’s shadow, she saw only one friendly face, Rellen, but he was too far away to touch. She watched him walk to a cliff’s edge and fall away into oblivion, leaving her to face the nightmare alone. As he fell, a hand, mailed and bitterly cold, reached for her. Its fingers took her by the collar and throttled her. It grasped a blade and laid it between her breasts, the pressure of the dagger’s point increasing until her flesh parted and the steel slipped into her heart.
Her eyes flickered open.
She expected to see the same awful images she had dreamed of, but the new morning brought light to the forest. A slender sunbeam cut through the grey curtain of clouds, glistening like polished silver upon the dewy grass. She glimpsed the wilderness outside of her cage, and she thought how perfect it would be if not for the Furyons.
And then she saw the prisoners.
Twenty men, shackled by heavy chains, shuffled in a line not far from her cage. Lean and fair, she observed. Graefolk. My folk. Behind the slave line walked several Furyons, their long, barbed whips dragging. The troupe marched past her cage and down a winding path between the trees. Where they went was hidden to her, for the forest’s thick, ropey limbs quickly closed off all view of them. We must be losing the war, she thought. Only four days from Verod, and here the enemy sits without a care. It was obvious to her the Graehelm men had suffered dearly. Their faces had been drawn and haggard, their skin dried as though by fire and ash. She feared she would soon be wrapped in the same chains, that she would soon be broken. Sick with her terror, she sank against the iron bars. One foolish choice, she thought, and the life I knew is over.
Many hours passed. The morning’s softness gave way to a wan afternoon. The sun’s ethereal glow filtered into the forest, the light diminishing as it collapsed through the canopy of leaves. The weird light polished every stone and blade of grass to a metallic shine, draining all things of their natural hue.
In her prison, Andelusia suffered the torment of hunger without reprieve. Her cage sat upon the open ground, and all the Furyons who passed her by witnessed her helpless state. Many of the fiends leered, while others licked their lips as though she might soon be their newest concubine. The longer the day wore on, the more her vision blurred. She tried to project strength, tried not to show her pain, but by the time evening finally came, she could but slump pitifully against the cold iron bars. No food. No water. By dawn I will be dead.
Then came the rain. It began by pinging on the top of her prison. She awoke from dreary half-sleep, though less because of the rain and more due to the movement of many enemy soldiers nearby. By the shadows of twilight, she watched many thousands of Furyons gather to depart. Northward bound, headed for battle, she feared. If you can hear me, Dennov, run. Once some fifty ranks were collected, she watched them march into the darkness. Even after they were gone, their footsteps rattled in her skull. Find them, Rellen. Destroy them. Save us all.
With most of the enemy departed, she feared she would be abandoned to starvation. She clutched the bars of her cold cell, shivering, gazing into the darkness. She wished she had a blanket, a sackcloth, a scrap of anything dry and warm. Clinging to her cloak, shaking like a rabbit trapped in a wolf’s jaws, she imagined she was sipping on warm cider in some cozy corner of the Rockbottom. Symon would scold me for drinking while I work. She could almost see his face. Mother would scold me again when I traipsed in after midnight. But alive I would be, free and full-bellied.
And far from here.
A while longer of sleepless suffering, and the sound of heavy footsteps drew near. She crawled to her knees and peered between the cell bars, straining to see in the dark. “Who goes?” she rasped.
The light of a smoking torch appeared from behind a gloomy row of trees. A figure in grey and red stalked toward her, followed by several others. Archmyr arrived, and his ghostly gaze wandered over every part of her, devouring her like a morsel of forgotten cake. With a sharp accent, he spoke to her in the Grae tongue. “Did you think we’d leave you, little lamb?” He rattled her cage, jarring her. “Why? Why would we?” He looked to his men, who did not comprehend. “Are you not the most remarkable creature we’ve ever seen?”
She hoped he would go away and leave her to suffer in peace, and yet he knelt before her cage, licking his teeth like a viper. She saw in his hands a skin of water and a long sliver of cooked meat, and her hunger betrayed her. “Food,” she whimpered. “Please…”
“You want this?” He dangled the meat just out of reach.
She stuck her skinny arm between the bars and grabbed at the skin of water. “Please, just one sip.”
With a devil’s grin, he slipped the food and drink into her clutches. She devoured his gifts like an animal, greedily gulping the half-cooked meat and warm, tasteless water. “Enjoy your meal, slave girl.” He watched her eat. “You’ll taste such treats as your service warrants. You’re now and forever my pet, my adoring object. Before this war’s over, you’ll kneel in reverence to the Pale Knight. Don’t think to hope otherwise.”
She drained the last drop of water from the skin. Her body shuddered in satisfaction, and for a moment she nearly forgot her anguish. She looked up to Archmyr, feeling in her belly the sole virtue of obeying him, and she understood that obedience was her only means of survival. “Why?” she asked. “Why come here? All you do is kill and enslave. What is the point?”
His impious smile broadened. “My army? You flatter me. It’s not my hand that drives the Furyons, not alone anyway. I can’t speak for them. I’m here for myself.”
“Then why enslave me?” She glared at him. “I have nothing. I have no one. I am meaningless.”
His eyes were devoid of sympathy. “Oh, come now. Why play at innocence? I could lie and tell you slavery disgusts me, but since my men found you, I find I feel otherwise. This arrangement between you and I…it could turn out well. Resist me not, and you’ll be spared. But cause me grief, and you’ll feel your skin stretched between two spears. I regret to say; either is acceptable.”
This was the moment of her surrender, she knew. She wished Saul would appear and strike Archmyr down, just as he had done to Aramar. She wished for Garrett and his sword, Rellen and his army. Alas, no heroes came. “I want to live.” She lowered her head in defeat.
“Good,” he laughed. “Perfect.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I told you. I’m Archmyr. From Shivershore, farthest corner of Thillria. You’ll not have heard of it. It’s a bitter place, cold and sunless. I rather miss it sometimes, but for the lack of war.”
He stood and ordered one of the soldiers behind him to step forward. The warrior produced a ring of clinking steel keys from his belt. Choosing one from many, he slid a knobby, worn sliver of metal into her cage’s lock. She quavered. She hated herself for being here, for being a fool and leaving Verod. Archmyr’s hand, rough and cruel, clapped around her wrist and dragged her out. The beating of her heart slowed to a crawl, and all her desire to be alive vanished in a breath.
“Come with me,” he commanded. “We’ll clean the filth from you. Your prettiness will shine again.” Locking her wrist in his grasp, he turned to his warriors and snapped at them in the Furyon tongue. He reveled in his power over them, barking and hissing at them like an animal. Satisfied with their response, he took her into a dark thicket, through which he hauled her as though she were a dog.
“If I am to be a slave,” she dared, “must you shatter me so soon?”
“I’ve more important possessions than you, little lamb.” He clenched her wrist all the tighter. “I’ve much to do, and little time to do it in.”
Her courage swelled. “Oh? Like what?”
For all the warning in his eyes, she sensed he almost relished her defiance. “Slaves…” he grumbled. “All of you, so loud, so needy. The Emperor would have us collect more of you than we kill.
Be glad you’re so pretty, little lamb. I’d hand an uglier girl to the Furyons.”
“So hateful.” Her words came out before she could stop them.
“And why not?” He jerked her past a tree, dragging her not unlike Aramar had. “The war goes the way of the Furyons, not the Pale Knight. Though not for long.”
She winced as he pulled her through a web of sharp, rain-wetted branches. “What do you mean?”
“You ask too many questions, lamb. But since you’re mine, I’ll forgive your ignorance. I tire of the Furyons’ pace. They plod like mules and plot like politicians. Come the time, I’ll stage my own invasion. No horns, no slaves, no pity. You’re not from Mormist. You’re too pale, too delicate. You’d not mind if I butchered a few hundred thousand of these people, would you? The Emperor would have us subdue them. I’ll show him how best to do it.”
A shudder ran the length of her body. She felt sick with his words, numb at his touch. Were she braver, she might have asked him to slay her on the spot, that she might never see the horrors he intended for Mormist.
“We’re near now.” He wrenched her around another tree.
“Where are you taking me?”
He glared at her again. In his torch’s firelight he appeared more ghost than man. “To my camp, where that ugly frown will fall from your face, else I’ll burn it off.”
Trailing him, she entered the clearing of his private encampment. The many fires that had surrounded it the previous night were gone. Only a pair of braziers brooded in the pitch. As she emerged from the trees, the dull red flames glowered over the ground, fingers of light crawling toward the edge of darkness. Archmyr’s soldiers stood all around, facing the forest as though to guard against the night.
He led her nearer the braziers, where lurked his crimson tent. It was there beside the fire he halted, the smirk falling from his face.
“What is the matter?” Her words slipped out again, unbidden.
“Another word, and your tongue will feed the dogs,” he snapped.
Beyond his tent, where the trees were dense and the night blacker than black, she saw a figure shift in the shadows. She felt Archmyr tense the same as she, and she felt his frozen fingers fall away from her arm. The figure in the darkness took several steps forward, and a knight more massive than any man she had ever seen strode into view. The knight was a monster among men. His armor was black and full of fissures, his eyes raw and red-rimmed. Behind him, she glimpsed at least fifty Furyons arrayed in the darkness, though none as fearsome as he. Archmyr grasped her shirt between the bodice and yanked her behind him. “Stay silent, lamb,” he warned. “Tis Daćin.”
The massive Furyon crossed the clearing and halted before Archmyr, looking for all his size like a steel fortress looming over a stick-walled shanty. When the beast came, Archmyr bowed, and every word thereafter was spoken in a language she did not understand:
“Commander, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Rise now. Don’t tempt my anger,” bellowed the Furyon giant. “I come as my own emissary, to hear the truth of things.”
Archmyr arose. Even as he stood to his full height, the top of his head barely reached the bottom of Daćin’s chin. “As you wish. What’s your question?”
Daćin stalked closer. His heavy gaze fell onto Archmyr, bending him like a reed beneath the wind. “Your report told of a storm that devoured the enemy and spat his bones across the plain. Tell me of it. I wish to hear it from you.”
“Our master meddles with the war.” Archmyr smirked. “The Emperor doesn’t trust me to win it without his aid. He sent two servants to undermine me. Just when the moment of victory was at hand, they sounded the horn. The sound of the abyss came out of that thing, and the storm ravaged the plain. There was no battle. The wind and ice left nothing behind but frozen dead. How am I to inspire fear if our only method is to hide in the trees and lash out with these…trinkets?”
Daćin grimaced. Andelusia watched. Whatever Archmyr had said seemed to surprise the Furyon giant.
“You challenge the method, Pale One, but not the result,” said Daćin. “I understand your contempt for our master’s artifice. I feel it too. But whatever his methods, it’s not for us to question. Malog’s power is all-destroying, all-powerful. We should be thankful.”
Archmyr snorted. “Don’t you see it? This war’s not for us. It’s for him. This dream, this Tyberia, it’s a farce, a fool’s quest made of lies. I’m thankful for nothing.”
Daćin’s face twisted. He lashed out like a whip, gripping Archmyr’s throat in his gauntleted fingers. “Curse not our ways, Thillrian! You may be a gifted warlord, but you’re no Furyon. You’ll never voice your doubt again, not if you wish your black heart to continue its cursed beat.”
Dead silent, she watching as Daćin tore his hand away from Archmyr’s neck. Archmyr fell to his knees, gasping. The Furyon giant stepped back, drew in a sharp breath, and became calm again. “I came here not to threaten you, Pale Knight, but to deliver a new command. Our first fight is ended. As in the south fields, the Emperor’s storm destroyed our enemy. The Grae are scattered in their graves. Because of this, you’ll march as far west as the forest reaches, where you’ll await my signal for our next attack. Make your camp in the forest. Take what you will of the people there. When I send word, we’ll march out of the trees and go to the heart of this Graehelm.”
Standing with a sneer, Archmyr rubbed his neck and jaw. She sensed the rage filling him, boiling like poison in his blood.
“We attack when the Emperor sends word. No earlier, no later,” said Daćin. The huge Furyon wheeled to depart, but halted, seeming to sense the strange emptiness of the forest. “Where are your men, Pale Knight? Sleeping? The forest’s too quiet.”
“North.” Archmyr rubbed his throat. “I sent them north. They went through a valley to find Tratec, the one city that escapes us.”
Daćin arched his brow. “The ground we stand upon…it’s here you were ordered to stay. There was to be no movement. Have you altered things against my bidding?”
“They go to find Tratec, not attack it,” Archmyr hissed. “They’re due to return by week’s end.”
“See that they do.” Daćin opened his hand as if to threaten another strangling. “Bring them back, all of them. Don’t test my patience again. It fails in light of you.”
“Yes.” Archmyr’s eyes were full of murder.
“Last of all,” said the hulking Furyon. “Tell me how many slaves you have sent to Minec. Have you captured only men, or are there women as well? Chakran demands a count.”
“Many caravans of men, just as requested,” Archmyr rasped. “Twenty wagons twice filled and sent. I found no women worthy of delivering.”
Even as he listened, the Furyon giant looked beyond Archmyr. There, in the red brazier light, he caught sight of Andelusia. She felt his gaze falling upon her like a shadow, and she feared for what the conversation had turned to.
“Then who’s this?” Daćin asked.
She lowered her gaze to the earth. When the Furyon giant came to her, she cringed in the deep shadow that engulfed her. “Well? Who is she?” Daćin asked Archmyr’s henchmen, who were skulking in the trees.
Only one of the Furyons stepped forth. The scarred solider spoke in a mangled, throaty voice, sounding much like iron grating on rock. She wondered if the big man had crushed his throat as well. “Master, it’s I, Ghuri of Malog,” said the scarred soldier. “This girl’s nameless, yes. She knows not our language. They found her wandering the trade road, the one twixt here and Tratec.”
“Why isn’t she on a wagon? Why isn’t she bound for Chakran?”
“Master...” Ghuri leaned in to whisper, “The Pale Knight would keep her for himself. He’s as rebellious as expected.”
Their conversation went on, and their stares settled more than once upon her. She wanted so badly to understand them.
Are they deciding how best to split me?
Where to hang me?
Which city to send my head to?
When the Furyon giant snorted and walked away from the scarred solider, she hoped his interest in her might be slaked. It was not. He came to her and lifted her chin in his gauntleted grip, and she did her best to look right though him.
“Face me, Thillrian,” the beast demanded.
Standing in a red lake of brazier light, Archmyr glared over his shoulder. “Haven’t I served the banners of Furyon well? Haven’t I mastered our enemies on every field? Do I not deserve a reward? I know what you would do. Let me keep this girl. Let me have this tiny morsel, that I might reap some small benefit for killing thousands in your name.”
“No,” replied Daćin. “She’s not for you. Even as you’ve served us, you have twisted our cause. Furyon doesn’t revel in violence. We seek only what is rightfully ours.”
“Rightfully?” the Pale Knight dared.
Daćin’s eyes darkened. “Bathing in your river of blood would reduce us to beasts. We’d scratch out our stakes atop the ruin of others. No. You’ve not earned this, not yet. Prove your mettle, heed my command, and perhaps in the end you’ll find your reward. Chakran may favor you, Thillrian snake, but I see through your scales. This slave girl deserves better. Now go. Wait for me at the edge of the forest. Your chance for killing will come soon enough.”
Archmyr smoldered in silence. She sensed the Furyon giant had given him a command he did not welcome, one that the Pale Knight would betray at first opportunity. You should kill him, giant. He hates you. How can you not see it?
The giant came for her.
When he placed his gauntleted hands upon her, she stiffened, her blood freezing in her veins. He hoisted her over his shoulder, carried her a short distance, and dropped her into the saddle of one of Archmyr’s horses. What happens now? What did they say? Is this it? Will they take me into those trees and slaughter me?
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 31
