The Gathering of the Lost

by Helen Lowe

  A bowstring thrummed from the terrace, and she pushed back hard at Nindorith, diving into what was left of the shrubbery beside the fallen wall and worming her way through it like a snake. The dark mind darted after her, quick as a serpent itself, and the warriors shouted, running to close off physical escape. Malian knew Nindorith would direct them straight to her unless she could conceal both mind and body—but the garden was too small. Wherever she hid, they would hunt her out soon.

  She hesitated, the scent of earth and rotting leaves and the mustiness of mice—there must be a nest nearby—strong in her nostrils. The green power that had stirred in Maraval wood welled through her as she breathed in, intensely aware of the elm’s deep roots and the shallower fibers of the shrubbery—as well as the numerous insects and minute night creatures that inhabited this small world. A beetle crawled out of leaf mulch and over her hand as another tendril of dark power slithered across her mind.

  This time Malian did not throw it off, but instead let her energy dissipate amongst the myriad small lives of the night garden. A man’s voice cursed, very close to her, and across the street a shutter banged open, a querulous voice demanding to know what was going on. Malian’s lips moved again, not gathering illusion and shadow this time—the stock-in-trade of the Shadow Band—but drawing the tiny pulse beats and formless thoughts around her into a loose weave before tapping deeper still, into the memory of the trees in Maraval wood shifting to banish Yorindesarinen’s apparition.

  The elm creaked, although the night breeze had died away—and Malian cast her net of small energies and diffuse minds outward, spreading to catch the Swarm hunter. The elm creaked again, dangerously, its great trunk bending and its branches whipping to the ground. The warriors cried out, jumping back, and Malian felt her patchwork net close over Nindorith’s power. She sensed the dark mind recoil, then almost immediately recover, flowing along the cobwebbed weave to find its source. But she was already springing for the outer wall, pulling a flurry of shadows along with her to confuse the hunters.

  Behind her, the net disintegrated, and Malian bit her lip, hoping the weave had been loose enough for the small night creatures to flee through the gaps—but she was over the wall now and away, sprinting past the nearest alley and down a side street. Her eyes raked its length for a quick route to the roofs as Nindorith’s mindsweep blasted: she staggered, knowing it would have wiped her mind clear had she not been steeled for it. She wanted to throw up but kept her feet, the nausea persisting as she ran on. Behind her, a gate thudded open and boots pounded on cobbles. Her temples pounded, too, as she felt the tremor that heralded a second mindsweep building.

  A psychic shield slammed around her like rock, and Malian heard the half sob of relief that was her breath as the mindsweep was shut out. “Here!” She caught the mental image in the same moment as the mindcall—a coal hatch at the end of the alley where the buildings stepped lower, with an easy climb from there to the top of the wall, and then the roof. Behind her, the pursuing voices had grown confused. Having lost their guiding intelligence, she guessed they would now be checking every alley and peering through gates into shadowed gardens. She sprang onto the hatch and leapt for the arms that came down and grasped hers, hauling her bodily to the roof.

  “Let’s go!” said Kalan, as he and Tarathan released her arms. Malian nodded, sucking in a great lungful of air, then racing after them along the roof. She could still feel Nindorith’s power, shockingly strong on the far side of the shield’s buffer. A quick glance back showed the rooftop still empty as they ducked around the gable end of the next house. They ran along the eaves then up the adjoining roof toward a cluster of chimneys, dropping into the deep shadow at their base and slithering to the far side of the brick stacks. All around them, Caer Argent stretched away, a sea of tiles interspersed by slender spires, with the basilica of Imuln a great island in the distance.

  Another mindsweep shook the night, but passed harmlessly away as Kalan swung the crossbow off his back. The sword at his side was short, with a long dagger on the opposite side, and the haft of another just showing above his boot. He was wearing an archer’s leather cap and quilted gambeson—to avoid the betraying rattle of metal, Malian guessed. On his far side, Tarathan still wore his herald’s gray, but carried a short, recurved bow and had the swallowtail swords strapped to his back.

  “How did you know where I was?” she asked, keeping her voice very low but avoiding the betraying hiss of a whisper.

  Kalan shrugged. “Because of our bond, I knew you were there when we left the palace yard. But then in the square I realized that you were tracking someone else.” He glanced sideways at the herald. “Tarathan knew you were close, too.”

  “That’s been easier since the Seven and Summer’s Eve,” Tarathan said, and she nodded, accepting that. “I was able to follow you at some distance until Kalan joined me and could shield us both.”

  “Where’s Jehane Mor?” Malian asked.

  “Somewhere they won’t find her easily,” Tarathan replied. “But we remain linked to each other.”

  “Which is helping with the shielding.” Kalan sounded almost breathless, as though he was running again. “Nine-cursed darkspawn is strong though,” he added, as another mindsweep blasted across the night. “My shield may not hold, not against this.”

  “They want to know who I am,” Malian replied, “and then see me dead. We need to lose them.”

  Kalan grunted. “I vote for opening a portal and disappearing.”

  “No.” Nhenir’s interjection was incisive. “The boy’s shield is not sufficient to prevent Nindorith sensing a gate opening—and tracking through the Gate of Dreams is one of his specialities.”

  Wonderful, thought Malian. She extended her seeker sense beneath the cover of Kalan’s shield and detected a patch of darkness, then several more, drifting up toward the rooftops. “No time now,” she said conversationally. “We’ve got company.”

  A half second later several blots of inky blackness appeared above the eaves, long filaments trailing beneath them. A line of warriors in grotesque helms rose up beside them, their bestial heads turning left and right. Tarathan strung his bow.

  “The tendriled creatures are lurkers,” he told them. “They sense heat and movement, so the shield won’t protect us once we move or they get close enough. We can take out one, perhaps two, but then we’ll have to run regardless.”

  “But if you have any Shadow Band sleight-of-eye to play . . .” Kalan added.

  “Or if you were willing to make yourself useful,” Malian said to Nhenir. She was remembering what the crow had told her, long ago: that the moon-dark helm had a will of its own and should be treated with circumspection. Not to be relied upon, Malian thought, surprised at her own lack of bitterness. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the Swarm warriors fan out across the roof, with the lurkers floating ahead.

  Soon, she thought—and Tarathan drew back his arm, the loosed arrow striking dead center amidst a lurker’s inky blackness. The creature collapsed, not unlike a deflated balloon, but the second arrow was already flying, followed rapidly by a third, bringing the lurkers down in quick succession. They shrieked as they collapsed, but the warriors in the grotesque helms remained completely silent, retreating out of range and unslinging their own bows. They would almost certainly have some sort of link to either Arcolin or Nindorith, Malian thought. “Time to go,” she said.

  “We need to separate,” Tarathan said briefly. “Split the pursuit.”

  Malian nodded, knowing that made sense. She did not have to like it, though, as the herald went in one direction and she eased down the roof behind Kalan, then ran, bent low, along the eaves. She probed with her mind as she went, loosening tiles on several of the adjoining roofs and catching at a wreath of smoke from a kitchen chimney on the other side of the street. She sent the tiles sliding and clattering down at the same time as the smoke separated into two figures, each racing in a different direction along midnight ridgepoles. Voices shouted at
last and Malian grinned, following Kalan down to the next, lean-to level.

  Another mindsweep powered across the night as she landed, crouching as close to Kalan as possible. She hoped that the strength of each sweep would begin to dissipate soon, as Nindorith was forced to cast a wider net. “We need more distance,” Kalan said, already back on his feet. “Are you sure you can’t just open a portal—get us out of this?”

  With Tarathan gone it was safer to speak of Nhenir, but Kalan shook his head when she relayed what the helm had told her. “So much for heroic weapons!” He was moving as he spoke, and Malian sprang to catch up, feeling a rush of exhilaration, so darkly fierce it was almost joy, as they cleared the first narrow street, cobbles flashing beneath them. To fall would be to die—but they were not going to fall. Her blood sang as they ran on, keeping to the narrow lanes and close-packed houses of the poorer quarters where there were plenty of sharp angles and deep shadows to hide in.

  Soon they were running as one, each knowing intuitively how the other would move, racing up roof slopes without hesitation and plunging down the far side, floating effortlessly across the gaps between buildings until Malian felt as though she were flying above Caer Argent. The pale gold moon kept pace alongside, so close it seemed she might touch it, or gather the white stars for a crown like the one worn by Yorindesarinen—if only she stretched out her hand at the right moment.

  They dropped down to street level again several times, but the old parts of the city were a maze, the streets little more than alleys with many dead ends. The roofs offered a clearer path, and they could orient themselves by the towers of the palace complex and the basilica’s dark crown. Malian was unsure when the mindsweeps stopped, but it was a long time after that when she noticed the stars growing pale, a reminder that the Midsummer dawn came early. She knew they must have crossed half the city and by rights she should feel tired, but instead she felt wonderfully and gloriously alive.

  They were circling what appeared to be a ruin now, even though it lay within the city boundaries. The wall that backed onto the neighboring houses was crumbling, and Malian could make out dark foundations beneath fallen beams, and a jagged curtain wall rising into a solitary tower. “This must be the old Cendreward mansion,” Kalan said. “Audin said it caught fire in his great-grandfather’s time and has never been rebuilt.” He paused. “One of the stories is that the Cendreward lord of that time set the fire himself, out of madness and grief for his sons who all died in the Ormondian wars.”

  Perhaps he was a little mad to start with, Malian reflected—although it was exactly the sort of thing a Derai would do and not be thought mad at all. I’m starting to see things with Haarth eyes, she thought, and shivered, shaken out of the exultant, rooftop rush. She noticed the brooding quiet at once, and extended her seeker’s awareness into the thinning dark. Kalan’s head turned, too, listening—and he wound a quarrel onto the crossbow as Malian slid throwing stars out of her sleeve.

  A line of warriors wearing blue-black armor, with lightning flashes on their helms, appeared above the roof ridge ahead. The nearest warrior laughed, and although he wore the same closed helm as the rest, Malian recognized Nherenor before he spoke, his voice holding the same thread of laughter. “Did you think to escape so easily, assassins or Derai pawns or whatever you are? You may be clever, but we have one who can see through time to where our enemies will be—and open doors in the air to bring us there.”

  “Enough talk,” said another warrior, drawing back his javelin to throw.

  Kalan shot him, the crossbow quarrel punching through the eye slit in the warrior’s helm as Malian cast the throwing stars in quick succession. She aimed for eye slits as well, and any gaps between pauldron, gorget, and helm closure, making the warriors duck and swerve as she jumped for the edge of the wall. Kalan swung the crossbow as a warrior leapt for him, knocking the man’s sword aside then battering the heavy bow into his face before he followed Malian. A bowstring twanged above them as they hung side by side, full length from the edge of a buttress.

  “You lie low,” Kalan mindspoke as the arrow whined past. “I’ll draw them off.”

  Malian dropped, mortar rattling around her. The ruined house was a tangle of shadows, with what had once been a garden grown wild on every side. She could hear Kalan, making just enough sound to seem inadvertent as he moved away, with the Swarm warriors in pursuit. Not all of them would follow him, though—or she would not, in their place, and she had no reason to think they were fools. Silently, she moved deeper into the ruins, alert for the sounds of pursuit as well as cellars or stairwells opening beneath her feet. She wondered how close or far Nindorith might be, and whether Nherenor or one of those with him was also a seeker.

  She assumed it was Nindorith that had used prescience to predict their route, even if the Swarm power had not yet seen who they were: Nherenor had still been guessing at that when he taunted them. Malian stopped, frowning, because Nhenir had always told her that peering through time and space was a chancy business—one in which seers might not always see actions and outcomes as clearly as they believed. And a powerful enough seer, knowing what was happening, could counteract another’s sight.

  Her frown deepened, her fingers clasping Yorindesarinen’s armring. The touch reassured her, although the bracelet’s full power had not flared into life since she found the moon-bright helm in Jaransor, five years before. “And a fine help you’ve turned out to be,” she said to Nhenir, “as soon as I meet an enemy with real power. But now,” she added, her mindtone level, “I need you to exert yourself if we’re to get out of this situation intact.”

  Chapter 39

  Darksworn

  On the far side of the ruin someone shouted—followed immediately by a cry, abruptly cut off. More shouting answered, and Malian thought she detected confusion and rage beneath the yells. She paused, already half turned back toward where Kalan must be, when his mindvoice came at her like an arrow: “Keep going!”

  She hesitated a moment longer then went, gliding from shadow to shadow toward the tower. The sky was definitely paling now and she could smell the dawn, lying in wait.

  The shouting had died away by the time she slipped into the tower and found a stone stair that wound upward, following the curve of the wall. Memory flashed, taking her back to the hidden tower in Jaransor and a crow sitting on her shoulder—but this donjon was solidly physical and a great deal lower in height. She reached the upper level in a few short flights and paused in the shadow of a crumbling door, studying the derelict hall beyond. The roof was half intact, half fallen in, although the wall that separated the hall from the adjoining street looked solid enough. Beyond it she could see the stark silhouette of Imuln’s dome, closer than she had thought, and banks of fog above the river. The air was hushed and Malian inhaled deeply, feeling the mist’s chill in her lungs as she stepped out, onto the tower roof.

  “Nindorith said you would come here.” Excitement and triumph mingled in Nherenor’s voice. “Now, spy, we shall find out exactly who and what you are.”

  He jumped down from the high point of the bastion, cutting off any retreat through the door. Malian moved to the edge of the tower, where it joined the ruined hall. A streamer of mist hung along the street on the other side of the wall, the cobblestones dark beneath it. “You are confident,” she said. And, she added to herself, bound to Nindorith in some way.

  He laughed. “I am Nherenor, Ilkerineth’s son.” His tone changed, and she guessed he was frowning behind his visor. “You have no sword. But it doesn’t matter. I have two daggers. We will use those, so no one can say that you fought at a disadvantage.”

  Malian raised her eyebrows. “I have a dagger,” she said, although in fact she had several, concealed about her person. She drew the hunting blade from its scabbard at her back and Nherenor laughed again, sheathing his sword and drawing a dagger himself as he came forward. Malian stepped back onto the wall that separated the ruined hall from the street. She thought he hesitated bef
ore advancing, and stepped back again, her feet feeling every indentation of the stone through the leather of her adept’s boots. Now she smiled, too, for this was Shadow Band territory: the high narrow place, the dim light that facilitated illusion shift, and the slender blade.

  Nherenor sprang forward, the lunge of someone who wanted to disarm, rather than an eviscerating thrust to the stomach or slash across the throat. Malian moved with his movement, curving her body away from the blow while her blade locked his at the wrist. She pushed the dagger away, forcing it down as she advanced into the space that had been his a split second before. Neat as a cat, he jumped back, throwing off the lock on his wrist. Malian waited, poised on the balls of her feet as he came forward more cautiously, before retreating further along the wall. Her adversary, she noticed, was not laughing anymore.

  Mist curled around her ankles as she slip-stepped back—and a lurker rose out of the ruined hall, its trailing tendrils reaching to engulf her. Malian slashed with her knife as Nherenor yelled, racing forward. The lurker shrieked and used its unsevered tendrils to push away from her, while spitting a jet of inky blackness toward her face. Malian somersaulted backward, hearing two simultaneous cries as her feet found the narrow stone again. She landed with one palm flat to the wall for balance, the other holding the knife ready to cut or throw.

  The lurker was falling, with an arrow protruding from its central core—but Nherenor was teetering, too, his knife falling from nerveless fingers as he dragged at his helmet with the other hand. Malian saw the wet slick across the visor and realized that the lurker’s poison must have caught him full across it and penetrated the eyeslit. The young warrior wavered again, the helm forgotten as he struggled to keep his balance on the narrow wall. Malian sprang forward without thinking, sheathing her knife and grabbing for his arm. But even as she moved, Nherenor’s body jerked, his back arching—and then he fell, crashing from the wall toward the cobbled street below. The loosened helmet fell clear, clanging and rolling along the cobbles, and the youth’s long black hair streamed out around him.