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

by J. Edward Neill

  And then came Yorian.

  An instant before the Furyon let his blade sing, the young Gryphon knight burst through the gate. He was half the Furyon’s size and weakened by beatings and starvation, but when he screamed his battle cry and sprinted into the desolate room, Rellen half imagined an army had come to save him. He lifted his chin and through a curtain of blood glimpsed the Furyon stagger. He saw Yorian clinging to the beast’s back like a spider, beating on him with a splintered table leg. His hope caught fire, but sank just as quickly. The Furyon recovered his balance, delivered an armored elbow into Yorian’s chest, and hurled the lad over his shoulder. Yorian crashed atop a table, which shattered into a thousand rotted pieces.

  The beast could have cleaved Yorian in two, but turned his attention back to Rellen. Rellen knew what was coming. He felt his blood snake down his nose and patter on the back of his palm, and in his haze he saw three Furyons in place of one. The sword came for his head, and with what little strength he had left, he rolled to the side just as the Furyon’s stroke fell. Ha! Made you miss, he thought with morbid glee. Instead of taking his head, the Furyon’s blade hammered against the floor and settled into the stone. The Furyon grunted and twisted, but the weapon had bitten so deep into the dungeon bottom no amount of wrenching seemed able to free it.

  I should be dead, he thought. That should’ve killed me.

  From some far corner of his consciousness, he found the strength to rip the Furyon stiletto out of his belt and clamber to his feet. His enemy looked up at him with soulless eyes, his grey face contorted by his struggle to free the greatsword. Rellen took two quick steps and stabbed. He assumed it was futile thing, but he knew not the make of the dagger. A wisp of ebon, it slipped without sound through the knight’s Dageni breastplate and into his heart.

  The Furyon seized, his eyes snapping open, his grey face gone white.

  Rellen left the dagger right where he had planted it. Its handle jutted from the black breastplate, irretrievable. The Furyon’s blood dribbled onto the floor like wine leaking from a broken cask. Face frozen in agony, the beast fell. His limp, Dageni-clad body crashed to the ground like a toppling tower, and afterward all was silent.

  Rellen sank to the stone floor. His senses felt dull, his head swimming. He supposed it must be raining outside, for all that the water sweated through the stone and dampened his leggings. Yorian limped and dropped down beside him, and together they sat like two logs fallen from the same tired tree. “My head feels split,” Rellen grunted. “He should’ve killed me. Would’ve spared me some pain.

  “Aye,” murmured Yorian. “I know the feeling. How long until more arrive?”

  “Any moment now. Are you well enough to walk?”

  “Better than you, anyway,” said Yorian. “Your father would call you a fool for what you just did.”

  “He may yet have the chance.”

  He dragged himself back to his feet. The Furyon greatsword beckoned, and he went to it tentatively, wrapping his fingers around its leathern handle as though expecting it to burn him. To his amazement, it slid out of its stony tomb at the slightest tug.

  “The Fury did all the work,” Yorian quipped.

  “Weighs nothing.” He managed a smile. “No wonder the fiend didn’t tire.”

  He shouldered the blade and shambled into the gloom near the chamber’s farthest wall. The prison cells sat in cold silence, the bars reeking of rust and the insides of old decay. His gaze drifted over eight such rooms, until he came to the darkest of them all. Inside the corner cell, a motionless figure sat upon a wooden bench, the man’s shape writ like a statue into the darkness. For a moment he wondered if the man were dead, until he heard a cough. “Is someone there?” He grasped a prison bar and strained to see inside. “Father, is that you?”

  After a long quiet, there came a voice. “Rellen…I might have known.”

  The Furyon sword slid from his grasp and clattered on the floor. “Jacob? Alive? ”

  The King of Graehelm stirred on his iron bench, his manacles rattling. “You were expecting a corpse?”

  “I was. Nentham’s killed thousands down here. But not the ones who mattered.”

  “Ah, Rellen…”

  The way Jacob’s voice cracked sent Rellen down to a knee. He squinted into the shadows, searching for another figure in the darkness, but there was only one. “Where’s Father? In the city?”

  Jacob’s manacles went still. “Rellen, there are hard truths other men might not want to say. I will say it for them. Your father is gone. Two nights ago, Nentham and his guards came for him. He’s dead by now.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I didn’t see it for myself, true enough. But I know what Nentham swore, and I saw his twisted smile. Your father is slain, Rellen. Before the other guards left me this morn, they told of how it happened.”

  “No. They’re mistaken.” He choked, his tears welling. “Tell me what they did. Tell me, Jacob. I have to know.”

  He saw Jacob shake his head, the shadows piling heavy as a crown upon his brow. “I won’t say it, Rellen. Release me if you will. Leave me to rot if you must. But I won’t tell the horrors I heard. They are many. You don’t need to hear them.”

  Thirty

  In a field many hours west of House Thure, Rellen sagged atop his stolen horse.

  All the life in him was gone. He was sodden to his bones, the bags beneath his eyes as blue and grey as clouds. From his grasp, the Furyon greatsword dangled, the blade nearly invisible in the gathering darkness. To his left sat Yorian, sopping and silent atop a fat-bottomed draft horse, while to his right Jacob Nurė trotted atop a steed not nearly regal enough to suit him. The night was almost upon the world. If ever Rellen had known a blacker hour, he could not remember it. “They’ll come for us.” He looked over his shoulder, where the grasses swayed like the waters of a cold, lightless sea. “We did well to get this far, but sooner or later they’ll track us down. We’ll die, and no one’ll know what we did here.”

  A flash of lightning wounded the sky. As the rain quickened, Jacob called for all three horses to stop.

  King or not, Rellen cared none. Yorian and Jacob might as well be ghosts, escorting him into the afterlife. “I should stay behind,” he offered. “If Garrett can cut down a hundred Furies, I can manage a few Mooreye worms. I’ll fight. You two can escape.”

  “No,” said Jacob.

  “I must,” he argued. “I’ll slow them down, draw them off the trail. Why should it matter if I die? I freed you, which is half enough. Build the army, Jacob. Stop the Furies. You can win where the rest of us have failed.”

  Jacob wheeled his horse. The beast whinnied and stamped in the waist-high grass. Even with nightfall descending, Jacob looked no less a lord. The blood on his brow and stains on his ragged shirt did nothing to diminish him. “I remember these fields.” The King gazed across the rainswept grass. “Nentham’s men kept your father and me in a covered cage, blindfolded and gagged, but I remember them all the same. He stored us for a night in a house not far from here. He locked us in the basement and bound us in chains. I remember the smell of burning flesh, the cries of your father’s men as Lord Thure tortured them, and the things Nentham said to us when it was done.”

  “Why tell me this?”

  The rain sluiced in rivers down Jacob’s face. Cut as if from marble, he set his stare on the horizon. “When the night waned and your father and I were last to be beaten, Nentham came to us. He boasted. He spat on us. He mocked Houses Gryphon and Nurė. ‘Mooreye is your master now,’ he laughed at us. ‘The Furies shall reign in the east, and House Thure in the west.’ As I hung from the wall and bled, I began to believe it. Our mistakes had caught up with us. We were to be brought to the heart of Mooreye and slaughtered for everyone to see. Nentham would hoist our crown upon his head. The Dales would fall, Grandwood would burn, and all the lands from here to Elrain and Romaldar would have no choice but to raise the Moor’s banner or be carved to ribbons by Nentham�
��s new allies. This is the future he offered us. ‘Balov’s dead,’ he crowed. ‘Now is the Moor’s time.’”

  “But you’re free. Everything will change,” said Yorian.

  Jacob faced Rellen. “Exactly my meaning. Our future is not mortared. We have a chance to alter it. But all three of us must survive. There will be no sacrifices tonight.”

  Rellen lifted the Furyon blade and gazed hard upon it. When the lightning flashed, he saw his reflection on its surface, but in the ghoulish radiance his beard looked grey and his cheeks gaunt. “What then?” He lowered the sword’s tip back into the grass. “Father’s dead. What’s left for me?”

  “Consider returning home,” said Jacob. “You and Yorian ride for Gryphon, and I will ride alone for the capital.”

  “Home?” He recoiled in his saddle. “What use would that be?”

  “You’re the last son of Gryphon. You are lord. Go to your mother and console her. Claim your birthright, rally your guard, and protect your city. Graehelm will need Gryphon before the end.”

  Of all the things Jacob might have commanded him to do, going home was the least expected. “And the war?” he countered. “Verod might be burning. Mormist has likely fallen. I promised them I’d return. I won’t be a liar.”

  “You feel ashamed?” said Jacob. “Why? You plucked me from the dregs of Nentham’s pit, and Yorian tells of how you and your men cleaved your way through Nentham’s trap in the bogs. You’re no coward, Rellen Gryphon. As King, I forbid this notion of dishonor. You’ll not give your life away, and you’ll not return to Mormist.”

  “I’m a soldier.” His voice felt fragile. “Killing Furies is what I’m meant for.”

  “You cannot shoulder the world’s pain,” said Jacob. “You cannot survive every war. Hurling yourself at Furyon would make for a fine song, but Graehelm would rather you live. In your father’s absence, you are now a Councilor. You must act with your mind, not your blade.”

  The darkness was nearly complete. The rain slid in sheaves through the night, cresting like waves through the swordlike grass. Heedless, Rellen’s thoughts slid far from the present. Father, I need your wisdom. The King asks me to run. But Marlos… Therian… Dennov… they need me. What should I do, Father? Tell me. Give me a sign.

  No sign appeared. The rain drove against him, and Jacob turned his horse westward. “We ride through the night,” said the King. “At dawn, we break. You’ll go to Gryphon. I’ll go to the capital. Is it agreed?”

  Yorian nodded his assent and fell in behind Jacob, but Rellen stayed put. “It’s not agreed,” he said. “I’ll not return home.”

  Jacob wheeled his horse again and stopped dead before him. “You will not?”

  “Home doesn’t need me. I have a better idea.”

  “You’re bent on throwing your life away?”

  “No. I ask a boon.”

  Jacob inclined his chin. “Ask.”

  “Ardenn…” he began.

  “Go on.”

  “I want to go there. I want your blessing.”

  “For what reason?”

  “The garrison is fifteen thousand strong. The lords of the south have retainers, men-at-arms, and house guards of their own. I’ve friends in Ardenn, allies hard-earned. I wager I could cobble together twenty thousand, most of them mounted, all of them veterans of many seasons spent warring with the Yrul.”

  Jacob lowered his head. “I’d planned to summon Ardenn. Perhaps when the time comes, I—”

  “I want to go now. Tonight. And I want to go alone.”

  “Alone?” Jacob seemed at a loss.

  “I know Grandwood better than my mother’s teats. I know the old paths, the inner roads, and the villages up and down. I could get to the garrison in ten days. If we wait, the Furies will cut deeper into Graehelm. If they cut too deep, nothing will remain for us to defend. Our best chance is if I go tonight.”

  The King seemed tormented. “I might have expected this. Your father warned me. ‘Reckless,’ he said of you. ‘Dangerous with his mind.’”

  To hear his father’s compliments filled him with pride. “So that’s a yes? The boon is granted?”

  Jacob grinned. “I’ve the feeling you’ll go no matter what I command. What does that leave me? You’re so like your mother, and so unlike your father. So I suppose you have my blessing, provided you return with an army. But you’ll take Yorian. That is not negotiable.”

  “You should take Yorian,” he protested. “You are King. You shouldn’t ride alone.”

  Jacob’s grin turned dangerous. “You underestimate me. I’m not King solely for my wit. The other Councilors used to say I was the second deadliest swordsman in Graehelm. Unless Nentham’s riders catch me by the dozen, I’ll outlast them. Yorian, now heed me. You are to follow Rellen wherever he goes.”

  Rellen bent his brow. “Second deadliest?”

  “Aye.” Jacob nodded. “Your father wrote me while you were away on duty. He said the first was your companion, Garrett Croft.”

  He nearly fell out of his saddle at that. The rain and wind battered his face and wetted him to his bones, but he felt nothing. “How would Father know that? He never met Garrett…not until…”

  Jacob shrugged a small ocean’s worth of rain from his shoulders. “Are you so sure of that? Ask yourself; would a lord and Councilor let his only son travel far and wide without a guardian? Was it by chance you met Garrett in Mormist, or somewhat else? How much do you really know about the man?”

  “Not as much as I thought,” he stammered.

  Jacob raised his palm. “So then, it’s set. You will go to Ardenn. You will raise this army of yours, and you will return. Yorian, are you willing?”

  “I am.” Yorian nodded.

  Jacob sat tall in his saddle, as serious as a mountain rising from the sea. “So be it. This was not my first plan, but it’ll have to do. By now, the Furies are consolidating their power. Mormist is theirs, and the Dales soon to be. Lothe is dead, so you’ve told me, and Ahnwyn too. When the Furies are ready, they will march. Nentham will send his soldiers to skirmish, but will not risk an attack upon the capital alone.”

  “Two armies…” He sagged. “Two against none.”

  The King looked skyward. “We have little more than a month. Our enemies will not lend us any longer. They will think to destroy us before we can prepare. They will strike for our heart and smoke the rest of us out after the capital is captured.”

  He felt sick to his stomach. Grief for his father became terror for all of Grae. “So you mean to say…”

  “…you have thirty days,” said Jacob. “No more than that.”

  “So few,” worried Yorian.

  “What will you do while we are gone?” Rellen asked.

  Jacob shrugged. “Rally the houses. Send for Farid’s men. Smelt every scrap of iron in the countryside and turn it into swords. What else?”

  “And the Furies’ sorcery? What about their storms?”

  Retreating into the rain, Jacob managed a last smile. “I will trust in you to make a plan, Rellen. You are the only one here to have seen the storm firsthand. You have thirty days, and most of them will be spent on the road. Seems like plenty of time to dream the Furies’ destruction.”

  “Thirty days,” he said solemnly.

  “Thirty days,” Jacob echoed. “Unless I send word otherwise, we will meet a day’s ride west of Mooreye City. Luck be willing, we’ll bring the battle to Nentham. If we’re already under attack, it will fall upon you to break the siege.”

  There were no farewells. Slathered in rain, weaponless save for a stolen Mooreye spear, Jacob trotted into the darkness and vanished. Rellen wanted to pursue him with questions of his father, of Garrett, and of his true plans for the war, but dared not.

  Another sheet of rain slammed against the earth, and he and Yorian were alone.

  “Are you well, m’lord?” Yorian trotted near.

  “No. Nor will I be. Doesn’t not matter. We’ve work to do.”

  “Wo
uld you really have gone to Ardenn no matter what he said?”

  “I think so.”

  The rain fell harder.

  Darkness claimed dominion.

  He and Yorian rode.

  To go west would have led him to safety, to the halls of Gryphon and the sanctuary of his tower, but he and Yorian made for the south. He might have gone blindfolded, for all that the land felt familiar even in the dark. To Grandwood, to my forest, he thought, the promise of the trees calling to him. The night did not slow him, nor the rain, the wind, his hunger, his pain, or his weariness. He rode like the lightning, Yorian ever at his back, gliding through the grass like a ghost, disguised from all the hundreds of Mooreye soldiers stalking at their backs.

  I will return, dear Nentham, he promised. The Furies might slay us all, but not before I have my vengeance.

  Knight of Two Faces

  The silence was impenetrable. The sky was choked with ash. The desolation of war claimed all sights, all places high and low, from the highest hilltop to the lowest, dimmest vale.

  At castle Verod, nothing lived.

  No men of Grae drew breath, and no heroes were left standing. Bodies lay everywhere, littered carelessly amid crumbling stones, stacked beside trees in twisted heaps, and heaped into wagons like piled refuse. In Tratec, the carnage was no prettier. Corpses of slaughtered soldiers curled like leaves as they burned in Furyon pyres, and pillars of black smoke reached ever upward like vast, corrupted towers, their loathsome pinnacles visible for a day in each direction.

  The second night after Verod’s fall, Daćin walked the Crossroad through the heart of Tratec. He strode uneasily through the still simmering forest, glad for his successes, but displeased that so much had been annihilated. The trees around him were leafless, husks of blackened timber scarred by fire and stroke of axe. Save for a few straggling dogs and several small armies of crows, the forest’s fauna had been driven away by hunters, corpse-fires, and the smoke from smoldering buildings. He trod amid the landscape of death, gazing into every hollowed house he passed. When he arrived at his pavilion in the shadow of Verod, he slid into its embrace, sat in his dozen-pillowed chair, and poured a mouthful of wine down his gullet. The candles in his tent were many, their lights sharp as stars, but as he swallowed his wine and sank ever deeper in his chair, he felt only shadows falling upon him.