The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  Looking back the way he’d come, he let out a long breath. No sign of Willard and the others yet, of course, which was good. But they were riding already, and he did not want to meet them until he knew what he was going to say. If they overtook him, they’d think him inept—that he had muffed his getaway—or that he was weak and cowardly and had second thoughts.

  No. Better if he rode ahead and waited to meet them at some stop beyond the canyon, where it would look like he’d stopped deliberately to deliver a message. Then he’d ask to speak with Willard alone, and once he’d revealed what he knew, the knight could do with it what he pleased, and Harric would ride to tell the Queen himself.

  That decision dissolved the knot of tension in his chest, and he felt his shoulders loosening.

  He’d just turned back to the trail when a distant shout broke up his thoughts and he froze, uncertain where it had come from. Peering through the trees above the river, he tried to scan the opposite bank, but the trees there limited his view.

  For a long moment, he heard nothing but the roar of the river below him. Then he heard hoofbeats and another shout went up from across the river.

  A knife of fear slipped between his ribs. Cobbing moons. It’s Bannus.

  After tying Snapper’s lead to a branch, Harric crept down an elk trail that slanted down from the yoab bed toward the river. In the imperfect light, he stumbled over roots and stones until he came to a wider break in the trees where he could crouch in a well of shadow. Torches bobbed in the forest beyond the river. Soon the riders that carried the torches emerged onto the margin of the river. A dozen riders, perhaps, drew up across from his position.

  Torch and moonlight glittered on the back of the rushing water and from the polished armor of the knights. The ranks of knights parted to make way for a rider in deep black or possibly purple robes. From the depths of a cowl, the robed one surveyed the river, looking upstream, then downstream. As he turned to look downstream, a ray of moonlight gleamed from his alabaster mask, and Harric’s breath snagged in his chest.

  The Faceless One. Sir Bannus’s shield bearer.

  Sinking farther into the shadow of the hill, Harric made himself very small. His hand went to the side of his neck to find the scar left when the creature had cut him and begged his master for Harric’s skin. He saw—or rather felt—himself naked and helpless all over again—saw the raw red flesh behind the mask, the red-shot, lidless eyes. And his guts seemed to turn to water inside him.

  The Faceless One pulled back the cowl of his purple robes and turned his masked face to the Bright Mother, as if her silver light on the mask might cool the burning flesh beneath. Other riders emerged from the trees to gather at a distance. Then the huge shape of a Phyros-rider loomed behind them and came to a stop beside the Faceless One. Yet the Phyros-rider was not Sir Bannus. This rider wore no armor. Instead, he wore a wide robe or smothercoat that made him look if anything bigger than Sir Bannus. And the robe looked…alive somehow, as if composed of living serpents.

  Ballads were sung of Phyros-riders who used the Blood to sculpt and augment their bodies with the flesh of vanquished enemies. Was this such a one? Were the serpents the living trophies of fallen foes, or a kind of living armor?

  The deep notes of an immortal’s voice reached Harric over the roar of the river. The Phyros-rider appeared to be speaking to the Faceless One, who still faced the moon. Even in the moonlight, Harric had difficulty making sense of the Phyros-rider’s figure, especially what seemed like an impossibly thick neck—or maybe no neck at all—or thick braids, like ropes, in a bunching mane.

  The Faceless One returned the cowl to his head and motioned to the south. The gathered knights spurred their horses and rode, and the Faceless One followed, leaving this new and unfamiliar Phyros-rider alone on the bank.

  Gods leave us, they’re on the wrong side of the river. They have to backtrack to a crossing.

  As the sounds of horses and gear submerged in the roar of the river, the immortal sat in his saddle, his attention seemingly fixed on the water, and Harric imagined he gauged whether his Phyros could swim the torrent. Every particle of Harric’s body froze like a petrified prey animal. If the rider crossed, Harric was dead.

  The immortal’s mane and robe stirred like shadows on dark water. After what seemed an eternity, the Phyros turned downstream and followed the others.

  Harric let out a long, shuddering breath. Cold sweat had soaked the hair at the back of his neck, and as he stood, his knees quaked.

  It seemed clear to him that Sir Bannus’s shield bearer and this new Phyros-rider would ride south only far enough to find a place where the river widened and slowed enough for them to cross. Harric didn’t know how far downstream that would be, and he didn’t know if Mudruffle’s map would show the nearest crossing.

  Cursing, he scrambled up the trail to Snapper, and hauled him around to face back the way he’d come. Harric had no choice but to return to Willard and the others now. They were in much greater danger than they knew, and he had to warn them.

  He mounted Snapper, and with his back now to the river, he opened his oculus and navigated using his spirit vision. As he rode, it occurred to him that Sir Bannus was still unaccounted for. Halting, he looked back, cursing himself for panicking and leaving so quickly. If he went back and waited a little longer, Bannus might well emerge from the trees like the other Phyros-rider had. No, Harric decided, resuming his trek. If Bannus was riding with them, they’d have waited on the bank and not run ahead without him. Bannus was elsewhere, and this was a scouting party or a second flank.

  Harric hadn’t gone far before he spotted the bobbing lanterns of his former companions in the gloom ahead, and realized he’d look suspicious without a light source of his own, but it was too late to light one. If they asked him about it, he’d say he doused it for fear of the enemies so near.

  Molly sensed him first and growled just as he said, “It’s me, Harric,” but Willard’s sword was out and Molly upon him in the instant. Willard loomed over him, standing high in his stirrups as if he’d chop Harric in two from crown to crotch, then lowered his blade.

  “You,” Willard spat. “What the Black Moon do you mean by lurking on the trail like a bandit? Thought you were gone for good. Having second thoughts? Or do you return on some other whim?”

  The stink of Blood gusted to Harric on Molly’s breath. He recoiled and steered Snapper to the side so he could breathe, and waited as the others reined in beside them.

  Caris’s gaze traveled across him, unseeing and distant, her mind clearly in the world of horses, but the sight of her tugged at his heart. She led Idgit and Holly, and both Brolli and Mudruffle strained to see Harric from their seats on the mare’s back. He had to keep his eyes off Brolli to keep himself from glaring, and instead focused on Willard.

  “It was for Caris’s sake that I left,” Harric said. “And I had no intention of returning, but I saw something that you should know of.” He proceeded to describe to them what he’d seen of the riders and the Faceless One, and concluded with a description of the new Phyros-rider.

  Willard chewed a stub of unlit ragleaf through the account, but his jaw stopped moving when Harric described the thick, misshapen form of the new Phyros-rider. “You’re sure about his robe? It moved. Like serpents.”

  Harric swallowed. “Like a smothercoat of ropes. Was it—”

  “You didn’t imagine it.” Willard flicked his gaze back toward Brolli and frowned at Harric, as if to say, Say no more of this before the ambassador. Rag had turned her head and blocked Harric’s view of Brolli, but when he saw him again, Brolli appeared to be listening intently.

  “You saw nothing of Bannus?” Willard said.

  Harric shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Then Bannus has either found a way up the other side—a way the others couldn’t follow—or he has already gone south to find the nearest ford to cross onto our side, and will soon appear on our tails.”

  Mudruffle’s shining head
poked from the basket behind Brolli, flat eyes glittering. “There is no way through the valley on the west side. High cliffs prevent it. You will see when we enter the canyon.”

  “Then he is behind us and we must fly.” Willard urged Molly past Harric and gave him a grudging nod. “Well met. Fall in behind Caris.”

  As Caris rode past Harric with Brolli and Mudruffle in tow, Harric avoided their eyes by busying himself with maneuvering Snapper, but he felt their gazes on his face like heat from a torch. They would judge his sudden departure and return without understanding, and there was no point in explaining anything. The only explaining he planned to do was to Willard as soon as he could get the knight alone.

  “I don’t like this,” Kogan said, as Harric fell in behind the lumbering musk auroch. “If Bannus got up the canyon ahead of us, it’ll be a trap. Bannus ahead, the others behind.” He spat. “Don’t care what that honking hat rack says.”

  “I doubt even Bannus could cross the river,” Harric said. “That other Phyros-rider seemed to consider it, but he turned south with the rest of them. Wait till you see the water, here, and you’ll understand. It wouldn’t drown a Phyros, of course, but the water would dash it miles downstream before it found a spot to climb out. And anyway, the only thing we know for sure is what we’ll find if we go back.”

  The sky lightened with the feathery gray of dawn as they descended the elk trail to the flat rock ledge that ran along the edge of the river. Hooves clattering on the stone, they rode for the dark cliff at the head of the valley.

  In the predawn gloom, the mouth of the canyon yawned in the face of the cliff like the open gate of some giant’s stone keep. So steep and straight were the canyon’s sides that it seemed they’d been cut with a potter’s wire when the rock was clay. From it, the river tumbled swift and cold and brawny, deeper than a man was tall and thirty paces wide. In places, it rose in standing waves that bunched and broke like the crests of a gigantic serpent.

  Willard rode into the throat of the canyon, Molly’s iron shoes ringing and echoing from its walls, each horse adding to the din. Harric felt like an ant crossing the threshold of a castle.

  As Mudruffle predicted, the low autumn water had exposed a wide shelf along their side of the river, right along the base of the steep canyon wall. Also as he’d predicted, there was no bank or ledge on the opposite side, where the water deeply undercut the sandstone wall. They were on the only path through the canyon.

  The shelf proved passable, if difficult. At times, it rose a full fathom above the torrent, but just as often dipped under the swirling water to depths well over the horses’ ankles. Other times, the canyon wall retreated from the water’s edge, giving them a path as wide as a carriage, but more often it squeezed them against the river so badly that they had to unpack the saddlebags from Molly and Geraldine and lead them through by hand. Twice in the first hours, the cliff overhung the path so low that all riders but those on Idgit had to dismount to pass beneath.

  Above them, the high walls pinched the dawn sky to nothing more than a jagged ribbon of gray, and Harric watched as a hawk dipped low enough to get a good look at them, probably wondering at the line of lanterns glittering off the water. By the time the amber light of sunrise gilt the opposite rim of the canyon, however, the canyon walls relaxed and widened into a steep V crowded with the standing trunks of dead trees. It seemed the forest had succumbed to some plague or other in this part of the canyon, leaving nothing but rank upon rank of sun-bleached white trunks, like bare and sterile fangs.

  “Toothed Canyon, I’ll wager,” Harric said, though Kogan didn’t appear to hear him.

  Farther up the canyon, the dead spikes gave way to swaths of lodge-pole pine. These crowded the slopes all the way to the river’s edge, where their dry silver underskirts overhung the water like brittle lace.

  Luck grant Sir Bannus can’t scale such crags as these, Harric thought, looking up at the crown of cliffs above the wooded slopes. It occurred to him then that if Bannus did confront them in the canyon, the river would prevent Harric from hiding in the Unseen even if the sun had already set. He ran a hand through his hair and chewed at his lower lip. If it came down to it, he’d jump in the river. No one would follow him. And better to be swept away and die than allow himself to be taken by Bannus.

  That’d be odd. Survive the Kwendi city and the void, only to drown in a river.

  But it would also clear him of any trouble with Missy.

  Thought of her summoned a cold hand upon his heart. This was the night Fink had arranged for Missy to meet them regarding the ring on Caris. Unless it was the night before… And now Harric couldn’t remember if Fink said he’d called it off with Missy or not. With all the excitement of the gate and the Kwendi city, the matter had been buried in the shuffle. And lack of sleep had made his brain foggy.

  If she had come that last night—say, after they’d entered the gate and gone halfway across the continent to the Kwendi lands—then she’d have found no sign of them. Surely that would raise questions. And when she saw Fink’s chubby soul belly had returned overnight to his usual half-starved scarecrow self, that would raise questions. What would he say when she demanded to know what great task had drained so much from him?

  Harric chewed at the inside of his cheek.

  Gods take it, Fink. You better be ready with a good lie.

  Three things one never forgets: a first love, a first loss, and a first horse.

  —Barwell, Stabler to Earl Bright

  63

  Heart Sacrifice

  Caris raised her eyes to the red-orange crags across the river and squinted against the setting sun. The low angle of the light sent long shadows down the cliffs, skeletal fingers that seemed to reach for her from the heights. Seemed like the shadows were always grasping for her, and none greater than Molly’s. She looked past Harric, who had taken up the position behind Willard, and watched Molly walk, her enormous haunches rippling and flexing with each step. The dark strength of the immortal beast called to her, tempted her to reach out for just a light brush against the flame—

  She shuddered. Gods leave me, is this what Willard feels? Is this addiction?

  Tearing her eyes from the Phyros, she patted Rag’s sweaty shoulder and murmured praise. Rag shook her mane and her steps grew noticeably lighter, as they did when she was happy or playful. The change was so sudden and unexpected that it roused a laugh from Caris. Rag let out a chuckling whinny, and Caris—hoping against hope—sent her senses into Rag and found the mare’s heart once again open and trusting.

  Tears of joy streaked Caris’s cheeks. “Thank you, girl… Thank you.”

  Rag was back. Their bond was back. Rag was family again.

  Halting, Rag let out a soft snort, and Caris looked up to see that Harric had stopped Snapper because Willard had called a halt. The stone path before him had dropped below the surface of the water, and the cliff beside it had squeezed it to a strip barely wide enough for Molly to pass without a rider.

  Willard dismounted, took Molly’s lead, and led her onto the flooded ledge. As water piled against his boots and sucked at Molly’s ankles, he called back, “Slippery. Take care.”

  Caris caught Harric looking back at her as he dismounted, and the touch of his gaze sent another pulse of longing through her. A groan welled inside her. The night before, she’d felt so good and so free, as if the ring had finally given up. But that morning, the ache had returned with renewed vigor and the theme of wedding, like some idiot ballad she couldn’t shake from her head. Tears stung her eyes, and before another swell of longing could bewitch her, she buried herself deeper in Rag’s senses.

  When Harric disappeared around a bend in the ledge, she sighed and dismounted.

  “Come on, girl.”

  Holding both Idgit’s and Rag’s leads in one hand, Caris braced her other hand against the sun-warmed cliff and followed. The river pushed against her boots, and at once the freezing water kissed her toes and soaked her stockings. Evening su
nlight dazzled off the surface of the water, redoubling the heat on her cheeks, but a steady breeze rode down the canyon on the back of the river to counter it. She moved slowly up the ledge, first probing with her boot, then setting it, and finally transferring weight before repeating with the other foot. Each boot became a bucket of icy water and each foot so numb she had to stamp to feel anything.

  Harric led Snapper some forty paces on the submerged path and disappeared around a bend in the cliff. Once he was clear, she started after, and had reached about halfway to the bend when a peculiar whinny from Molly drifted back to Caris on the breeze. The sound drained all the warmth from her middle, because it came from Molly, and she’d heard it before: it was a whinny of mating urges and frustrated needs.

  Gygon. She senses Gygon.

  Caris’s heart thumped in her ears. If Molly scented Gygon, it meant he and Sir Bannus were upwind—ahead of them—and they were walking into a trap.

  “Sir Willard!” she called, but the roar of the river swallowed the words. Piles! The path was too narrow and treacherous to try to turn around, and she couldn’t back more than one horse at once, so her only option was to push on till they came to a place wide enough to turn.

  Tugging Rag after her, she continued her painstaking steps.

  “What is the trouble?” Brolli said, leaning out so he could see around Rag from his saddle on Idgit.

  She bit her lip. “I heard—”

  The rest was a cry of surprise as her boot slipped and she sat down hard in hip-deep water. Icy fingers invaded her armor and shoved her downstream toward Rag’s hooves. Rag whinnied and tossed her head, eyes rolling. In that instant, Caris saw herself sliding into Rag, taking her hooves out from under her, and dragging the whole line of horses into the flood.

  Arching her back, she pushed off the ledge with one hand and staggered upright. One boot caught a lip in the rock, halting her slide, but the other continued to slip, and she windmilled on the edge of the deep water.