The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  ‘Dallen!’ Already the soldiers not glaring at Dallen were circling around the icy ruins of Mendrick, coming for her with cold glee in their eyes. The prince didn’t turn when he shouted this time.

  ‘Just run, girl!’ he said. ‘Get away from here!’

  Swallowing down a sob, Nuava turned and half ran, half fell out of the clearing and into the trees. She could hear pursuit close behind her, could even hear their laughter. I won’t make it ten feet, she thought, trying not to think of Mendrick’s body, dead because he had defended her, or Prince Dallen, who would likely be joining him soon. Instead, she tried to think what the sell-sword Wydrin would do.

  For a start, she would put something between her and their bastard-spears.

  Immediately she veered off to where the trees were thickest, crashing through undergrowth and the hardened snow as she did so, feeling branches tear at her clothes and scratch her face. There was a thunderous crack as an ice-spear hit a tree behind her, splitting the trunk, and then a series of thuds as they threw more. She felt the temperature drop, her fingers bright with agony and the air in her chest seemingly made of daggers, but she kept moving, and they didn’t quite catch her.

  She ran deeper into the trees, always heading to where the foliage was thickest. They were fast, and they were still laughing, but she was smaller than them, and she sensed that their passage through the trees was not so easy. The laughter turned to cursing, and even better than that, it grew quieter as she gradually gained a lead on them. Gasping for breath now, a sharp pain in her chest steadily growing, she kept on moving, grimly ignoring the thin trickle of blood from the scratches on her face and the biting cold in her hands. Soon, she was in a part of the forest so thick that the sky was a distant blue mosaic above her, cut into a thousand pieces by the black branches that reached across it. The sounds of pursuit faded, and then she couldn’t hear them at all. Eventually, she paused by an enormous fir tree and leaned against its trunk, trying to get her breath back. Listen, she told herself. You must be careful now.

  She listened. There was silence in the trees, with only the sounds of her own breathing and the creaking, wet sounds of the forest. She could not hear the Narhl, and she could hear no battle. Was it over already, Prince Dallen lying dead in the snow next to Mendrick? Or had she run so far that the noises were muffled?

  She looked around, trying to get some sense of where she was in relation to Skaldshollow. She was somewhere in the east of the forest that blanketed the mountain next to her city; a wild place, with no paths or signs of human habitation. The forest was big, she knew that much, and she’d grown up with stories of children foolish enough to wander into it with no guide. It was their fate to be eaten by wolves, or taken by the Narhl, who would use their skins as blankets for Narhl children. Or, at least, that was what the grown-ups had told them. She tried to imagine Prince Dallen, with his proud, kind face, skinning a child and found she could not.

  ‘Even if that story is a lie, I suspect there are still plenty of creatures in here that would happily eat me.’ Her voice sounded tiny and unsure, but the simple human sound of it was reassuring. ‘I could well be in trouble here.’

  She decided to keep walking the way she’d been heading; it wouldn’t do to double back and stumble across the Narhl patrol. Perhaps they had given up already, and gone back to their plan of attacking Skaldshollow while its people were distracted. She almost hoped they would. It would serve them right.

  Everything she’d had – her bag of scavenged food, the flask of rum borrowed from Wydrin – had been back at their camp. Even her warmest hat had fallen off as she’d run from the Narhl, and although the walking kept her blood moving she could already feel the temperature dropping. How much time had passed? She looked up at the sky and was dismayed to see the clear blue starting to darken to an ominous indigo. Sooner than she wanted, she saw the bright glint of stars in the sky, and a deep, insidious sort of cold began to seep into her bones. Wrapping her arms around herself she stumbled onwards, trying not to think too closely about any of it, about how she was lost out here on her own, her brother dead, her newly made friends far away. And Mendrick dead, of course, the consciousness she’d only just realised existed blasted away in a moment of violence. He had moved by himself – Wydrin was much too far away to command the werken, and even if she had, how could she have known to move him just then? No, the werken had chosen to move, a concept that would have been unthinkable to any Skald. If the Narhl were right, perhaps Mendrick had returned to the mountain, one small part of the mind returning to the greater whole, but she couldn’t help feeling that was of little comfort.

  Some time later – she could not tell how long, save that the sky was black and the forest lit only by frosted moonlight – her legs gave way beneath her and she fell to the ground, rolling awkwardly into a thorn bush and coming to rest with her chest pressed against frozen mud. The shock of it knocked a sob from her, the first in hours. She would die out here, away from her home and her family, and she would be no great crafter of the Edeian – just a lost child in the woods, her corpse covered in snow and chewed on by animals. She let herself cry, harsh sobs at first, eventually dissolving into miserable sniffles. The tears warmed her face and seemed to wake her up. I’ve been walking in a daze, she thought. Things are bad, but I’m no idiot.

  She sat up, rubbing a cold hand across her wet face. After a few moments she realised the thorn bush she’d fallen into was both large and old, and if she shoved herself far inside, it was reasonably dry, the thick twisted branches above keeping most of the snow off. She dug herself a small space, and after some trial and error, had the makings of a fire. By this time she was certain that the Narhl were no longer on her trail, but even so, as she coaxed it into life with the flint and a blunt cooking knife she’d been keeping in her pocket, she kept the flames small, just enough to warm her hands and bring some life back into her frozen feet.

  Inside the thorn bush, the fire became her entire world, so bright it blotted out the cold and the black. Nuava stared into it, telling herself the same things over and over until her eyelids began to droop: Things will look better in the daylight, and I will be able to find my way. Things will look better in the daylight, and I will be able to find my way. Things will look better in the daylight . . .

  She awoke at dawn with a gasp, certain that only a noise could have brought her out of sleep so suddenly. The small fire had long since died, and the forest was still largely dark; the steely grey light of dawn painted the bush and the trees in insomnia’s colours, bleached and half-unreal.

  There was a sharp crack, off to her left. The sound of a branch breaking on the ground, as if trodden on by a heavy boot. Slowly, Nuava came out of the bush, trying to look in every direction at once. Again, she thought of Wydrin’s heavy dagger.

  Another crunch, and a shifting of foliage. And after that, a sigh. Nuava heard it clearly, and it was close. She balled her fists at her side, torn between running and facing down whatever had followed her. All around her the forest was still draining away the night’s shadows, and every darkened space seemed to hold a threatening figure. She remembered the horrors of the centipedes’ lair, of being caught in their terrible, grasping pincers. She had survived. Compared to that, being out in the woods alone was nothing at all.

  Nuava took a deep breath. ‘Who’s there? I can hear you.’

  For a few seconds there was nothing save for the rustle of leaves and the drip of melting snow, and then another crunching footstep in the bracken, followed by a low groan. Nuava tensed, still primed to run. The noises seemed to be coming from just ahead, where a pair of tree trunks grew closely together, each wider than Nuava with her arms held out to either side. There was a patch of darkness between them, and in that space she could see movement. She was almost sure of it.

  ‘Come out of there,’ she said, willing her voice to remain steady. ‘I can see you.’ Something pale and dishevelled flopped out of the dark patch between the trees, falling h
eavily against a trunk and clinging there. Nuava could make out long dark hair hiding a downcast face, and torn clothing. The figure groaned again.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve found you.’ The figure shook its head, and a sense of eerie familiarity tickled at the back of Nuava’s mind. She swallowed hard, barely daring to believe it. ‘I told them I would do that at least, and I did.’

  ‘Tamlyn?’

  The figure raised its head, and Nuava felt her mouth drop open with shock. One side of her aunt’s face was a bloody ruin, her right eye caked shut with blood, her lips purple and bruised. There was dirt in the wound too, and Tamlyn was holding herself awkwardly, as though just standing and talking were the hardest things she’d ever done. The side of her face that wasn’t torn to pieces was smudged with dirt, one brown eye staring steadily out of the muck, and it was that cool, determined stare that Nuava recognised most of all.

  She ran to her, pushing her shoulder into the older woman’s armpit so that she was forced to rest her weight on her niece.

  ‘Aunty, what happened?’ Nuava felt a moment’s embarrassment as that babyish word escaped her lips, but Tamlyn didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I found you, girl.’ Tamlyn squeezed her shoulders, despite the effort it obviously cost her. ‘I lost your brother, but not you.’

  ‘Please, Tamlyn, what is going on?’ Nuava helped her to walk a few steps. The dawn light was growing brighter all the time, and there were birds singing in the trees. ‘Mistress Crafter, you have to tell me what happened.’

  At the use of her old title Tamlyn seemed to come together somehow, and when they stopped she stood a little straighter.

  ‘Damn it, I feel like my head has come loose. Joah Demonsworn is what happened, of course.’ She paused to cough. There were twigs and leaves stuck in her tangled hair. ‘He came back, and the creature he brought with him –’ she bared her teeth – ‘it is a devil. A giant devil.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Nuava. She felt enormously relieved – both that she was no longer alone and that her aunt was alive – but it was tempered with a sense of terrifying responsibility. Tamlyn was very badly hurt, possibly even close to death, and Nuava was the only one around to help her. ‘He called it the Rivener.’

  ‘Bloody thing. Crushed me. Threw me from the pit. I landed in a tree, caught up in all the branches. Took me a whole day to get down.’

  ‘It’s all right, Tamlyn. I’m here to help you now.’

  ‘Yes.’ They had been shuffling forward, Nuava trying to guide her aunt to a nearby patch of clear snow, but now Tamlyn stopped. She turned to look at Nuava, and the older woman was grinning, her lips gummy with blood. ‘Yes, you’ll help me. We have work to do, girl. Our finest work.’

  Nuava simply nodded and looked away, concentrating on getting her aunt moving again. Her insides felt cold and her heart was beating too fast. For a few moments Tamlyn Nox had looked as mad as Joah Demonsworn.

  63

  When Wydrin came round she was on her hands and knees, her stomach clenching painfully. She gritted her teeth until the urge to vomit passed, and then slumped back down onto her side, shivering and clutching her head.

  ‘Fuck me, that was a bad idea.’

  It was like the worst hangover she’d ever had, multiplied a hundred, no, a thousand times. When she’d been very young, no older than thirteen or fourteen, she’d got into an argument with Jarath over who could stomach the most rum. All night they’d been drinking shots of an evil substance out of small tin cups, and the next morning she had gone down to the docks with the very real intention of throwing herself into the sea – anything to stop feeling so rotten. Luckily for her she hadn’t even been capable of that short walk, and had instead fallen into an alley outside the nearest pie shop. Eventually the owner had taken pity on her and had brought her out a bacon and potato bake, wrapped in buttery pastry and still hot from the oven.

  The memory was so vivid that she had to press her hand to her mouth, concentrating furiously on not being sick. She stayed where she was for a time, breathing hard and trying to see past the pounding behind her eyes.

  It was the taint of the demon. It had been inside her, however briefly, and it felt like every part of her was filthy, lessened in some way. When she had touched minds with Mendrick, she had caught a sense of something huge and tranquil: a cold presence, distant and clean. Bezcavar had been pain and fire and misery and madness, like being buried alive under a pile of corpses at a battle where everyone had died in pain and terror. She had felt the demon slip fiery tendrils around her mind, flowing into every place she kept hidden.

  The relief when the Rivener had torn it from her had been immense.

  Her stomach sour but quiet, Wydrin lifted her head and looked around. She was on the floor of someone’s front room; it was furnished simply enough with table and chairs, thick woven rugs on the floor, some painted plates hanging from the walls. There was a door leading to a rough stone staircase, the steps cast into shadow, and another door that was still ajar. Wydrin could see the street beyond, but she had no memory of how she’d got there. She could hear nothing at all, not even the wind that habitually howled around Skaldshollow’s walls. And there was something else as well; the light was all wrong. The sliver of daylight coming in through the crack of the door was a deep, murky red, as though they were experiencing some kind of doom-laden sunset, but something about it set her teeth on edge. The light just felt wrong, as though the entire place were trapped inside a red glass bottle.

  She climbed shakily to her feet.

  ‘I fell from the Rivener, then.’ She patted herself down as she spoke. Nothing appeared to be broken, although she reckoned her backside would soon be sporting an exciting range of black and purple bruises. Her dagger and her sword still hung on her belt, thankfully. ‘Fell back down into the city and managed to get a roof over my head while I was unconscious. That was bloody clever of me.’

  ‘I dragged you here.’

  Wydrin spun. Seconds ago she would have sworn she was alone in the bare room, but now there was a figure standing in the far corner. She was tall, with dark brown skin and a shaven head, and her left arm ended in a stump. The woman was watching Wydrin with cold amusement.

  ‘And who might you be?’ Frostling was already in her hand, red light spilling along its length like wine. ‘And, thank you, I suppose.’

  The woman raised an eyebrow, sending a flurry of creases across her smooth forehead. There was a mage’s word tattooed on it, although Wydrin could not have said which one.

  ‘I am Xinian the Battleborn.’

  Wydrin nodded. ‘The ghost who spoke to Frith. I guessed as much. I have to say, you look remarkably sprightly and solid for someone who has been dead a thousand years.’

  ‘In this place, I am as real as you.’ Xinian came forward, circling the room and moving with a careful grace. She did not appear to be armed, so Wydrin lowered her weapon. ‘What have you and your friends done, sell-sword? This city has been torn out of its rightful place and cast half into the world of the dead.’

  Wydrin shrugged. ‘I have no idea. It’s the sort of thing that seems to happen to us.’

  ‘But you smell of the demon,’ said Xinian. ‘Its reek is all over you.’

  ‘That I can agree with.’ Wydrin wrinkled her nose. ‘When I get out of here I’m having a week-long bath.’ She shoved Frostling back into its scabbard. ‘I hosted the demon briefly, and then it was torn out of me by Joah’s contraption. What happened to it after that, I don’t know. Hopefully it has been scattered to the winds.’

  Xinian stared at her, appearing to weigh her words. ‘You survived the Rivener?’

  ‘I have a link to . . . someone else. I thought it likely that it would keep me from losing my soul to that thing.’

  ‘That was a foolish thing to do.’

  ‘Well, I am known for my staggeringly intelligent plans.’ Wydrin rubbed her face. Keeping up all this bravado was exhausting, and
her eyeballs felt like they were trying to push their way out of her skull. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I go where Joah Demonsworn goes,’ the woman replied. ‘He has this place captive now, frozen in place. A short time ago it was as if the sky was blotted out by a terrible eclipse. I felt this city shift closer to me, and now I walk it as you do. And I am not the only dead thing here.’

  ‘It sounds to me as though something went very wrong, in that case.’ Wydrin shook her head. ‘I left them up there, with him. I shouldn’t have done that, but I was desperate. Frith was dying, and I . . .’

  The woman was looking at her too closely now.

  ‘I have to get out of here,’ said Wydrin. ‘I need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘You may not find that so easy.’

  In the following silence, there was a scraping noise from upstairs, followed by the heavy thump thump thump of footsteps. Wydrin listened, and caught the sound of a faint moan, as though someone had been disturbed in their sleep.

  ‘There are people in this house?’

  Xinian the Battleborn looked up at the ceiling. ‘Not people as such, no.’

  It shuffled down the stairs towards them, dragging one heavy foot after the other, its head lolling to one side. Its mouth hung open, exposing a black, swollen tongue, and its skin was an unnatural blue, riddled with cracks that glowed softly. Wydrin was reminded of the Heart-Stone, how it had glowed in a similar way in Joah’s lair, casting its poison out into the world, but this was a man, or at least it had been one once. Now its eyes were blind, and its blackened fingers clutched convulsively at its sides. The rags it wore were soiled and torn.

  ‘The Rivened,’ said Xinian. ‘Joah took their souls and cast them out, and now this darkened city has given them some semblance of life again. The dead are walking.’

  ‘Oh great.’ Wydrin took a step back, unsheathing Glassheart. ‘I don’t suppose the Rivened are looking forward to a restful old age and a quiet pint by the fire?’