by Jon Sprunk
The smell of his mother’s hair.
Arion’s boots clacked on the stone tiles as he strode through the palace corridors. For a day and a half they’d ridden hard back to Liovard. He didn’t know how Yanig held on, punched full of holes as he was, but the army doctors said he’d gotten to them just in time. Okin hadn’t spoken a word since they left the roadside inn. He’d survived the attack by those little black creatures, whatever they had been, but an unnerving look had taken over his eyes, as if he’d glimpsed damnation and couldn’t forget it.
Arion passed a servant carrying a silver ewer. A livid bruise darkened the boy’s eye. Arion smacked his gauntlets into the palm of his hand. He’d hoped things would improve while he was away, but they had only gotten worse. The sentries at the gates lounged in their guard shack, drinking and playing cards. The stables where he left his horse were filthy, with no grooms in sight; he’d had to brush his mare and put her in a stall himself. Worst of all, he knew the root of these problems, but could do nothing about it.
His father’s mistress.
Just the thought of her made him want to punch the wall. His life had been easier before she arrived. It was a little more than two years ago since she had appeared in the midst of a cold winter night, she and the Beast and his Northmen. The people called her a witch, and Arion could see why. Not only had she convinced his father to embark on a campaign to take the city and declare himself duke of Eregoth, recently there had been rumors she was urging him to take the next step-to conquer all of the northern states and take up the mantle of king. It was beyond madness. Whereas Eregoth’s clans had lived in uneasy peace since winning their freedom from Nimea, now there was open warfare. Add to that the covert raids they were launching across the southern border, and even he was ready to suspect witchcraft.
If things don’t change, the entire country will collapse around our ears. If father won’t get rid of the witch -
The doors of the great hall opened before him. Arion remembered this chamber from years ago when his father had brought him to the city as a boy. Then, the castle had been a place of light and laughter where thanes discussed their disputes without rancor or bloodshed. Those days were gone. Half a dozen men slouched at a table that looked ridiculously small in the vast chamber. The brilliant banners that had covered the walls were gone, revealing sooty wooden panels and bare windows looking out onto a smoke-smudged sky.
The lean man with graying sideburns sitting at the head of the table glanced up and wobbled to his feet. “My son returns!”
Arion could see at once that his father was drunk, or befuddled by the noxious herbs he smoked. The others at the table, his captains, nodded and grumbled their greetings. Arion tried not to show what he was thinking when he saw the old warriors, some he had known since boyhood. Once they had been a proud lot, fiercely protective of his father. Now they sat around this hall, draped with chains and jeweled rings, like a pack of toothless old lions. Some couldn’t even meet his gaze. His father was a sick man, but no one said anything. Can you blame them? They’re afraid to lose their place at the table.
As Arion embraced his father, he smelled strong spirits and the stink of days-old sweat. His father’s clothes were soiled and wrinkled. His laugh was a pale whisper of its former self.
“Tell me everything, Arion. Did you see Hamock? How do the men look?”
Arion brushed a dead fly off the bench as he sat down. “The men are well, and Commander Hamock sends his regards. But something happened on the ride back, Father.”
The duke chuckled, and it turned into a cough. A servant rushed forward with a cup. The duke guzzled it down. Setting the cup aside and mopping his tangled beard with a grimy sleeve, he sighed.
“Father,” Arion said. “Do you remember the first time we came to Liovard together?”
The duke stared off into the distance for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly at first, but with growing vigor. “It was the Feast of Saint Olaf. You were just a boy.”
Kulloch, the oldest of his father’s captains, rapped his hairy knuckles on the table. “I remember that day. Allarand held games, and you won the sword match, Your Grace.”
For a moment, Arion saw a glimmer of his father’s old self, the powerful man who had defeated a host of rivals to take the reins of their clan. Then a voice filled the hall, and the duke slouched back in his seat.
“ Majesty.”
The captains looked down into their cups. Arion gripped the table as Sybelle came around the throne to perch on his father’s lap.
“We must all address His Majesty as he is due,” she said. “For someday he will be king.”
Arion wanted to hurl the words back in her face. King? His father barely controlled the lands just a few leagues from the city walls, but she filled his head with dreams of conquest and glory.
Arion focused on his father. “I was trying to tell you. On the way back we stopped at a comfort house along the road and had some trouble with the locals. We caught an insurrectionist-he had the mark. But another man interfered with our arrest.”
The duke snorted. “Did you string him up as an example?”
“We tried to take him into custody, but he escaped. And not before he cut down my men.”
“One man defeated your entire entourage?” Sybelle’s throaty laughter clawed Arion’s spine.
His father grinned as he pounded the arm of his throne. “You were drunk again, Arion! And you tried to molest some of my commons, and one of them showed you the useful end of a spade. Ha!”
Arion’s grip on the tabletop tightened until he thought he would break his fingers. “I know what I saw. Brustus is no slouch with a blade, and Sergeant Stiv is stronger than any two men in the company, but this stranger was fast-faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. He toyed with us like we were children. And then something happened.”
As Arion remembered, his stomach clenched. “The inside of the house became as dark as night. And there were these… things…”
Sybelle pushed away from his father. “What kind of things?”
“I don’t know how to explain them, except that they seemed…”
He would have stopped there. Every eye was on him, magnifying his shame. But Sybelle leaned closer. Her gaze burned into him.
“It seemed like the darkness shattered into pieces and came to this man’s aid,” Arion said. “Like they were his pets, or guardians.”
A couple of the captains chuckled. His father just looked away.
Arion struck the table with his open palm. “Ask the others if you don’t believe me! Better yet, go down to the infirmary and see what those things did to Okin’s face. It doesn’t matter. Stiv and I are going back out to find this man.”
The duke rubbed his lips. “That’s out of the quest-”
“An excellent idea,” Sybelle interrupted. “You should find this person and bring him to justice. Lord Soloroth will accompany you.”
Arion shoved himself back from the table. “I don’t need any help from your demon spawn-”
“Careful.” Sybelle raised a finger. The dark irises of her eyes reflected no light. “Soloroth holds his honor as dearly as you. Erric, as you have heard from your progeny’s own words, the maneuvers in the south are well under way. It is time to consolidate your control of this land. We cannot strike southward until our flanks are secure.”
The duke reached for his cup. “As you say, Sybelle. It is time for Eregoth to bow to one master. Wine!”
Arion stood up. Without a word, he turned away.
“Son!” his father called. “Come and we’ll have supper. A feast to celebrate your return. We’ll broach a cask of wine…”
But Arion kept walking, out the door and down the empty hallway. And the witch’s laughter followed him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
C aim awoke to the smell of wood smoke and opened his eyes to see Kit floating above him. Her long, silver hair hung loose about her shoulders.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
> Caim opened his mouth, and then closed it. He hadn’t expected her back in such a good humor. It made him suspicious. But now wasn’t the time to get to the bottom of it. Knowing Kit, she would let him know why when she was good and ready.
Hagan bent over the fire pit. His pan nestled in the embers, giving off an aroma of sizzling meat. Beef this time. Caim pushed away his blanket and took stock of his condition. His leg was stiff, but it felt better than the day before. His face didn’t hurt as much either. When he probed the area around his ear, flakes of dried blood came away on his fingers. The gouges in his back weren’t as deep as he’d feared. Good thing, or I’d be crippled.
When he reached over to put on his boots, a jolt ran up his right forearm. Pulling up his sleeve, he peeled back the bandage. The flesh underneath was torn like his leg wound and sore to the touch. He pulled off his shirt and started ripping it into strips.
When he had rewrapped his arm and donned a fresh shirt from his pack, Caim scooted up to the fire. The morning was bitter cold. Holding out his hands to the warmth, a memory came to him of another bitter winter, of him and Kas sitting across the table in their ramshackle cabin, shivering over plates of beans and mutton while a blizzard wailed outside. He could see the old soldier’s grim smile as he joked about people someday finding their frozen bodies.
Hagan held out a steaming cup. “ Cha? Not strong enough by a fair measure, but it’ll warm you up.”
As Caim took the cup, Kit brushed against him.
“I already checked for poison,” she said. “But he’s a good man. You can trust him.”
Caim almost choked on the hot, bitter liquid. If this was weak, he didn’t want to know this man’s idea of a proper cha. Still, it was hot, so he drank until the cup was empty, whereupon Hagan filled it with browned meat from the pan. They ate in silence. More snow had fallen in the night. It covered their tracks and made everything look new and clean, as if he had dreamt the apparition that attacked him. He would have liked to ask Kit about it, but while Hagan looked rather old, he didn’t seem hard of hearing.
They washed out their cups in the snow and packed up. Grabbing his gear, Caim walked out from under the tree with only a slight hobble. Hagan didn’t wait for him, but started off toward whatever landmarks he used to guide his path. Caim was content to trail behind. It wasn’t like he was going to lose the old man out here in the wilderness. While he walked, Kit kept pace with his strides.
“Where have you been?” he asked her in a low whisper.
“Right here. I was watching you sleep.”
“I mean last night.”
“Why? Did something happen? Did the old guy try to cut your throat in the night?”
“Of course n-I thought you said I could trust him.”
Her laughter rang like a chorus of bells. “I’m just teasing. He’s a good egg.”
“Good egg, eh? Well, to answer your question, yes, something did happen last night.” He told her about the strange apparition and how it vanished into the night.
“That’s odd,” she said. When he gave her a strained look, she asked, “What?”
“Well, for a start you could tell me what it might have been.”
“Do I look like a ghoul hunter?”
Caim sighed and shifted the bundles on his shoulder to a new position. “Don’t get pissy. I just asked a question. It’s just that you’re… you know…”
“What? Fae?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
Hagan turned his head to the side as if he’d heard something, and Caim dropped his voice ever lower. “I figure you would know more about this stuff than me.”
“Not without being there to see it myself, or getting a better description than what you’ve told me so far.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it. The darkness seemed to, I don’t know, gather around the thing.”
“Well, that’s interesting, but what I was going to say…” She paused until he nodded for her to proceed. “I was going to say maybe I don’t know any more than you about such things.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say it sounds like something from the Shadow.”
“Our guide says people disappear a lot out here.”
“So you’ll be careful?”
“That’s why I keep you around.”
She floated closer and put her arms around his neck. “I thought it was because you couldn’t resist me.”
“Go see where we’re going.”
Her teeth snapped at the end of his nose. “Fine. Be that way.”
Then she was gone. The sky had lost some of its color and now glimmered with an icy grayness. The breeze was slight, but with the exertion of hiking he didn’t mind the chill. In all, Caim felt like he was finally heading in the right direction. But within a candlemark, he started to slow again and pulled down his hood over his eyes. They kept traveling cross-country and stopped at midday to share a cold meal of bread and cheese provided by Hagan.
As the afternoon waned, Caim began to wonder where they would make camp. Hagan surprised him with an invitation.
“My home is close by,” he said. “Just past the next stand. You’re welcome to stay for the night.”
Tempted by the idea of sleeping under a roof, Caim assented, and Hagan adjusted their path a couple points westward. As the sky darkened, a ridge appeared before them. Denuded trees sprouted from its snowy slopes. At the base of the hill stood a small cottage. Tufts of grass showed through the snow covering the low roof. Squares holes covered by hide panes served for windows.
Hagan pushed open the solid plank door and stood aside for Caim to enter. The inside of the cottage was a single open room. It reminded him of Kas’s cabin. Three small beds sat against the walls. A fire burned in a round hearth in the center of the floor, surrounded by a bench of fieldstone. The place smelled of smoke and old leather. Wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling, hung with herbs. A young woman turned toward the door as they entered. The first thing Caim noticed was the way the firelight glimmered in her amber-brown eyes. She was quite pretty, with a pert nose, and copper-hued braids draped down her shoulders.
“Daughter, we have a guest.” Hagan stomped his boots to shake off the snow. “Caim, this is Liana. Seat yourself by the fire and take the chill off.”
Caim set down his burdens and pulled a chair over to the hearth. Liana grimaced as she maneuvered around her father to take a stack of plates down from a shelf and set them around the homemade table. Caim watched the girl out of the corner of his eye. He doubted she’d seen her twentieth summer yet. Twice, he caught her glancing in his direction. He smiled after the second time, and she pulled her father aside. Snippets of their conversation reached him.
“… is he?”
“Mind your… guest…”
“… don’t even know…”
“… the proper respect.”
Liana brought over a bowl of warm water and a cake of hard soap so they could wash. Caim was embarrassed when his hands turned the water brown, but Hagan didn’t appear to notice as he splashed his face and dried off with a cloth. Hagan dragged the only other chair up to the table and sat down. Caim got up to offer Liana his seat, but she swept by without looking at him and pulled out a three-legged stool for herself.
The meal was a simple affair, round loaves of bread hot from the hearth-oven, ash-roasted potatoes in the skin, and strips of chewy meat that were probably rabbit. Hagan worked his way across his plate like a lumberjack felling trees. Liana pushed around her food, but little made it into her mouth. Caim devoured everything they put in front of him. After a time, he had to stop or risk splitting his insides. It was with a satisfied sigh that he sat back in the chair.
A row of clay figurines stood on a shelf above Hagan’s head. Caim recognized the major deities of the north-Nogh, Saronna, Sirga, and Father Ell. All outlawed since the coming of the Church. Beside the pagan icons hung a sunburst medallion on a nail, which struck Caim
as strange. Stories of the crusade that had brought the True Faith to Eregoth were legendary for their carnage and viciousness on both sides. Yet both faiths were represented here, side by side under the same roof. Caim would have liked to know the reason behind it, but he wasn’t curious enough to offend his hosts by asking.
Hagan pulled out his pipe and a pouch. “So, your father was a soldier.”
Caim plucked at the whiskers on his chin. Why keep lying? Who was he trying to protect? The air in the hut felt stuffy. He wished his host would prop open one of the flaps over the windows.
“I’m sorry, Hagan. I didn’t tell you the truth before. My father
…” He took a breath, unable to believe what he was about to do. “My father was Baron Du’Vartha.”
If the old man was shocked, he didn’t show it. He combed his fingers through his beard and nodded as if he dined with nobility all the time. His daughter glanced up for a moment, and then dropped her gaze again.
“Liana, clear this off, won’t you?”
With a sharp glance at her father, the girl threw on a knitted shawl and carried the dirty tableware outside.
Hagan lit his pipe from a candle and took short puffs. Looking at him, secure in his home, surrounded by a growing cloud of smoke, Caim saw a different side to his host. There was an air of gravity about him, like a magistrate at his tall bench.
“It’s said none survived the attack on Du’Vartha’s manor. Not even the animals in their pens, all dead by fire or sword.”
Caim put both hands on the table, palms down. A rivulet of sweat ran down his spine. “I survived. And so did my mother.”
The old man leaned forward, and the top of his shirt gaped open to reveal a bronze torc around his neck. “I never heard that, and I know just about everything that happens in these parts.”
“What do you know about what happened?”
