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

by J. Edward Neill

  The crowd was enraptured. Their eyes shone lavender with the blade’s fire, their mouths hanging wide as the gates of Verod.

  “How?” one asked. “How do we stop them?”

  He lowered the sword, allowing its flame to smolder at his feet. Mead in nearby cups boiled and hissed, while every man in the room stared. “You must rebuild Verod,” he told them. “You must fortify every block, every girder, and every plank until neither wind nor enchanted arrow can break through. When the castle arises, a fortress rekindled, you must defend it. Hold Verod like a pack of wolves defending its cubs. Let the Furies smash their souls to pieces against its walls, and let their winds wail fall flat against stone instead of skin. Do it, for if you do not, if you run to the Dales, no man of Mormist or Graehelm will ever walk in these woods again. The enemy will think you mad for resisting, but you must make your stand nonetheless, else cowards you will be forever known. This is your land, yours and no other. Your foes need to see it.”

  The sword-flame went out. The crowd was stunned, gaping as though the gods, long dead and forgotten, had just spoken. The lanterns and candles of the room sputtered, and by the time a few flared back to life, he was off the table and headed for the stairs. Let them think about that, he mused. If they will not fight for their own reasons, let them fight out of fear.

  The next dawn, he awoke from dreamless sleep. The excitement of last night was already fading in his heart, a memory that felt like it belonged to someone else. Naught will come of it, he worried. They will wake and think me a drunkard. They will feast a few more times and flee. Melancholic, he took his breakfast as usual and descended into the grand hall. The room was starkly empty. Every table was clear, every cup and platter vanished. The sun shined brightly today, carving through the high window slits and crossing the floor like gilded blades, and so he decided to take a walk. A last view of the forest, he thought as he passed out of the gate. Before the storm tears it down.

  And then he saw what passed in Tratec.

  During the feast in the hall of Verod, Dennov’s guests had seemed a callous lot. His memories were of mead dripping from beards, overmuch belching and boasting, and laughter at jokes too obscene for even his accustomed ears. But as he set foot onto the Crossroad, he saw a sight that made his body go still. Hundreds, likely thousands of men and women were at work. On a hillside that had only yesterday been pristine, he saw workers tearing down trees and gutting the earth to reach the underlying granite. In a nearby thicket, he glimpsed wagons piled high with all manner of iron and steel for smelting. He heard axes striking lumber and picks chipping away at stone. They must have been working since dawn! He stood in the center of the Crossroad, dumbfounded. Look at all the weapons. All the horses. All the rocks. His doubts dropped out of his wide-open mouth. These were Mormist folk, after all. None in all of Grae were so skilled in stonework, so swift of axe, or so proud. That must have been what did it. Their pride. That a Gryphon would call them cravens has driven them to work.

  It began that morning and continued for many days thereafter. Driven by his challenge, the dwellers of Tratec toiled day and night, battling rain and hot sun, working their hands near to the bone. At least a thousand set to work upon Verod. Crumbling archways were shored up, gaps sealed with freshly-cut stone, and cracks mortared. The front gate, once creaky and rotting, was reinforced with oak planks and iron rods, its outer face given steel spikes just for good measure. The men worked so fast it scarcely seemed possible, carving a formidable fortress out of a withered shell of stones.

  In Tratec, the work was just as swift. The hillside furnaces blazed day and night, shaping tools and blades. The smiths forged spears, swords, dirks, and heavy oaken shields, handing them out by the hundred to any man of age. Elsewhere, workers laid traps for the Furyon vanguard, digging pits, rigging snares, and erecting fences of sharpened stakes east of the city. Every man, woman, and child accepted their duty with grim determination. Every soul wanted to believe that Verod would protect them.

  On the fifth day, same as the previous four, Rellen toiled with the rest of them. He spent his morning stacking quarried stone meant for Verod, grueling work for any man, but harder for him so soon after convalescence. By midday, after hauling some two hundred stones, his hands were sore and swollen, his feet aching as though Saul had worked them over with his battlestaff. Kneeling in the middle of the Crossroad, he poured a skin of water onto his head just in time to see Dennov approach.

  “A good day for hard work,” he remarked as Dennov neared. “Easier here than in Gryphon. Less sun, more shade.”

  Dennov did not smile. His hands were folded into his robes and his gaze distant. “Perhaps it is a good day, though not for all,” he said sourly. “If you can spare it, might I borrow a moment from you? There is something I need to say.”

  He heaved a last rock into his wheelbarrow. Slapping his hands clean the same as Bruced used to do, he trudged nearer the nobleman. “What is it?”

  “Might we talk in private?” Dennov glanced sidelong at the men laboring nearby. “This is not for them to worry of.”

  The way Dennov said it did not sit well. Grimacing, he beckoned the lordling to join him in the shade of a roadside oak, one of few not harvested for the war effort.

  “This is not right,” Dennov said sharply once they were far from the workers. “You are leading them into something false,”

  This was not the Dennov I know. Shaken by the nobleman’s tone, he bristled. “Not right? How so? Would it be better to loose them into the Dales with the Furies on their heels? I only want them to fight long enough to give the rest of the world a chance. I have already died once for these people. Is it too much to ask them to defend their own homes? Is Mormist not theirs, every thicket, every stone? If Graehelm is given time, we will bring help. If not, if you run without resisting, our heads will sit on Furyon pikes, and our eyeballs will be supper for the crows.”

  Dennov’s expression darkened. “No matter what army you find in Graehelm, the Furies will burn Verod to ashes before you can return. I beg you to end this madness. Set these men free from your delusions.”

  He wanted to argue, but deep down he knew the nobleman might have the truth of it. Verod might hold for weeks, but not months. “What would you have them do?” He swiped the sweat from his brow. “Yes, Verod will eventually burn. Yes, many lives will be lost. But if these men run now, they and every soul in the Dales will be forfeit. I have seen our enemy, and he is not merciful. If these men can defend Verod for a week, maybe two, we will have time to raise an army in the west. When the Furies come out of the trees, thinking themselves victorious, Jacob will fall upon them and destroy them. That is my plan. It is all that I have. If you have another, say it now. You are the master here, after all, not I.”

  Dennov hung his head. “I wish it were true, we having any chance of winning, but you know as well as I do Mormist is lost. Even if you surround the enemy with ten times their number, you cannot stop them. You cannot pierce their armor or their shields, and you know what Fury blades do to Grae steel. They are magicked. They are too many. It is time we accept it. The days of Mormist are numbered”

  “Accept that if you wish.” He stepped past Dennov and back onto Crossroad. “I will not. If these countrymen of yours had any courage, any ounce of love for their homes, they would have done all of this without me saying a word.”

  Dennov sulked back toward the castle, and Rellen returned to his labors. He was well and truly angry now, hurling several huge stones into the wagon. If the Furies came to Gryphon, Marlos would not have run, nor I, nor Saul. He savored the way the wagon shuddered beneath the weight. If Bruced were still here, he would have been the first to greet them at Father’s front door. How did these people ever hold this country to begin with? Was Garrett their entire army?

  As much as he was angry, he felt his guilt creeping up on him. But then…am I not fleeing? He dwelled on his decision to go back to Gryphon. They will think me craven when I go, and they wil
l hate me. They will wonder why I chose not to die a second time. They will not understand. Gritting his teeth, he continued his work. For many hours he toiled, hauling, sweating, and dying inside. The cords of his muscles felt about to snap, but still he slaved until the wagon was full. The work had a way of distracting him. He wished he had enough to last the night.

  When at last the sun dipped low and he could move no more stone, he bid his fellows goodnight. He retired to his tower in Verod, soaking in a cool basin of water and chasing his bath with a meal of roasted pheasant and cider. That he should eat so well only made him feel worse. Easy for me to talk of bravery, he began to doubt himself again. I ask them to stay while I plot to flee. What if I am the craven I so railed against?

  Garrett found him much later, seated beneath the window, the moon casting slivers of pallid light onto his face. Looking none the worse for wear despite having slaved since dawn, Garrett stalked smoothly across the room. “We should thank the Furies for dallying,” he said as he slid like water into a chair. “Verod is nearly defensible again.”

  Rellen drained his cup. His eyelids felt heavy as anvils, his hands as raw and cracked as fired kindling. “In all my life, not many days have felt longer than today. I feel like I rebuilt the castle single-handedly.”

  “Perhaps you did.” Garrett grinned. “And for that, you deserve a full night’s sleep. Marlos tells me you wander the tower some nights, stalking up and down looking for Andelusia. You should stay in your bed tonight. We need your mind sharp.”

  “Maybe,” he sighed. “Though if I stay in bed, it will only be for one more night. I have decided to leave for Gryphon in the morn.”

  He expected wrath, but Garrett remained calm. “You mean to go through with it.”

  “Yes.” He swallowed hard when he said it. “And why not? When I return, I mean to bring an army with me. Jacob’s army, that is.”

  Garrett poured himself a cup of mead and gazed at the sliver of moonlight, which hung so like a farmer’s sickle in the sky. “Another army,” he said at length. “As though the first two were not enough. More armies may not be the answer, Rellen. It will take something greater.”

  “You think me foolish.” He slumped low in his chair. “A coward.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know what you have sacrificed. Despite what some will say, you owe the world nothing more.”

  He stiffened in his chair. Garrett was being cryptic again, saying one thing and thinking another. “I hate it when you get like this, you know that? I know what you want. You want to light a fire under my feet again, to set me ablaze with more of your damnable wisdom. And yet you just sit there, like some lump under my pillow that will not let me sleep.”

  “I have spoken my mind, and you yours.” Garrett sipped from his cup. “There is nothing more to add.”

  A short silence reigned. The moon slid behind the clouds and came back again, bathing the room in pallid white light. Rellen felt calmer for it, feeding off Garrett’s serenity. If only I could be like him, he mused. Just for a day or two. I would run off and kill all the Furies myself. How easy would that be?

  “Marlos means to stay.” Garrett’s voice carved through his thoughts. “He agonized over it, but he decided Mormist needs him.”

  “I know. I heard. He will command here. He says it is what Father would demand of him. I can think of no one better to do it.”

  “Saul will remain as well.”

  “Yes. He hopes… well… you know what he hopes.”

  “That Ande will return.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so you will go alone.”

  “Yes.” Rellen’s eyes went dark. “If Bruced were here, I would ask him to come with me. If Ande were here, I would... well never mind that. The journey will go faster if I am alone. Father will be likely waiting for me. Surely he did not make it to Ahnwyn’s host before the Furies destroyed it. He must be in Gryphon, raising a host against Nentham.”

  “We can hope,” said Garrett.

  He pulled the sleep from his face with half-numb fingers. His exhaustion felt like a waterfall near to plummeting over its edge. “So then, what more? You did not climb all the way up here just to say goodbye. You hate goodbyes, remember?”

  “I do. I came to deliver Marlos and Saul’s farewells, not my own. They are grieved to hear you mean to go, more so that you asked me to deliver the message rather than tell them yourself.”

  The way Garrett said it made him sink even lower in his chair. “I had no nerve for it,” he tried to explain. “I knew what they would say. Guilt would have been their hammer, and me the nail. I do not expect them to understand. They have not seen what I have. I was a dead man, Garrett. The ghosts of all the Grae tried to drag me under. I have to earn this second chance. I had the bracer for a reason. If I stay here with that…that sword of Lorsmir’s, I know what will happen. I will charge into the thick of it and get myself slaughtered all over again. What good would that do?”

  For once, Garrett smiled. “It is a hard decision. I will not judge you for it.”

  “You swear it?”

  “I do.”

  “So this is it? This is farewell?”

  “For now anyway.”

  “What about Saul and Marlos? What will you tell them once I go?”

  Garrett rose and backed away. His shadow seemed to fall across everything in the room. “I told them you already left.” He slid toward the door. “If I had not, Marlos would have been here by now. This peaceful supper of yours would be spread about the floor, and you bound to the bed until your senses returned.”

  “And what about you?”

  “You said it rightly before. I do not like goodbyes.”

  He rose from his table and made to approach Garrett for a last embrace, a clasp of hands, anything to see his friend off into the night. He was too slow. A rush of cool air, a click of the tower door, and Garrett was gone. Damn him. Always the same. We could all die tomorrow, and he would just shrug.

  The next morning came too quickly. He awoke at the precipice of dawn. The rising sun burst over the mountaintops, cascading into the window and onto his bed. He rose slowly in the light, musing at how much he would enjoy waking to such a sight every morning, were only there no war. Completely alone, he slipped out of his bed and shook off the soreness of many days’ labor. He took up his clothes, his boots, and his sword. He was careful not to hold the blade too long so as not to arouse the flame.

  At the bottom of all his belongings, he found something that gave him a shiver. A venomous snake, it might have been, for all the gooseflesh erupting on his arms. There on the floor, twisted and ruined, were the remains of the silver bracer Lorsmir had given him. He had not seen it since his fall at Gholesh. It looked like it had been struck by a heated sledge, for its splendor was now ruin, a shapeless sheaf of metal, scorched and blackened with ash. The perfect relief that had once adorned it was missing, as though it had never been. How is my arm not burned? Where did the symbols go? If Lorsmir did not make it, who did?

  He picked the thing up and inspected it closely. He found nothing that gave it secrets away. The bracer was lifeless, devoid of whatever mysterious quality it had been imbued with. To touch it made his skin go cold, and so he cast it back onto the floor. I’ll ask Father who made you. He frowned at the twisted husk of silver. But you cannot come with me.

  His things gathered, he went to the door and loosed a sigh. Morning was the quietest time in Verod, the perfect hour to escape. Hopefully Saul and Marlos are still sleeping. Or even better, already at work. When he shut the door behind him, his stomach churned. He felt like a coward, a liar, a thief. He took to the stairs, crept cautiously through narrow hallways, and he slipped out of the gates while speaking to no one. The day was already bright and beaming when he and his stallion reached the Crossroad, the work in Tratec already begun.

  The city and castle lay at his back, along with the many thousands my boasting has convinced to stay an
d fight. Trotting on the road, he glanced back to Verod and thought of everyone he knew. I hope you survive, all of you. I will return, I swear it, and the Furies will be sorry. He stroked his stallion’s mane, whispering to it of the long journey ahead. He trotted quicker now, his head down, his shoulders low. He passed wagons loaded with stone, worktables where smiths’ tools lay scattered, and millstones grinding daggers meant for sliding between the Furyons’ lobstered mail. When at last all of it lay behind him, he saw not a single person between him and the ends of the forest. He kicked his heels into his stallion’s sides and galloped for the sunlit sweeps of the Dales.

  Along the Crossroad he went, beneath the shadows of a thousand trees. Save for the wind, he felt entirely alone, and yet he did not go far before a cloaked rider bolted from the trees behind him. On the back of a swift, dark destrier, the rider sped toward him, bearing down at him like a lion upon its prey.

  He reared his stallion and leveled the spear he had taken from Verod. “Who goes?” he shouted. “Show your face!”

  The cloaked rider slowed. Rellen leveled his spear with his throat. When the rider halted some twenty paces away, he cocked. “I do not miss,” he threatened.

  The rider laughed. “All these years, and your eyes are still shut. One would think you would know my horse by now. You have watered him a thousand times.”

  The rider lifted his hood. The spear went loose in Rellen’s fingers.

  “A spear is no way to greet a friend,” said Garrett. “Besides, if I had wanted to kill you, I would have sat in the trees and shot you off your horse. Your head was lost in the clouds. It would have been easy.”

  All the tension drained from his body. “I could have killed you, you know,” he huffed. “How was I to know you were not a Furyon, you in all your black?”

  Garrett shrugged and trotted closer. “If you have a doubt, make the throw next time. You would have missed, but it might have made a good spectacle.”