Night, on the other hand, was a shadow of black within the darkness, his form made up of indeterminable writhing, as if worms or serpents had joined to occupy the shape of his body. Despite both of them being wrapped within the cloak, Night walked at a distance from Spear, less walked, more shambled, head bent from the dim light, each step a struggle as if the cloak were made of iron rather than cloth. Night pointed with a finger, undulating as if the bones were soft, towards the keep, and his distant whisper burned in Spear’s ears. “The Fortress of A’Gruthr.”
The climb up the slope was a struggle. Each step felt as if Spear’s legs had to tear through a web of threads. His breath came hard and ragged. He felt as if a hand clamped over his mouth. His lungs ached with the effort.
“There.” Night pointed at the arrows, bright as flame, arcing over the top of the wall. The arrows lifted then paused in the sky before dropping. “We fly.” A hand of writhing flesh seized Spear’s and they ran, faster than the speed of the arrows, impossibly fast, dodging to the left and the arrows clattered harmlessly into the rocks. Bubbling laughter trickled from Night’s dark form.
When they reached the foot of the keep, Spear felt the tingling. It was nothing at first. Just the touch of the fabric or a gentle breeze against his skin. But it persisted, probing, against the back of his neck, his cheek, his bare arm. He brushed at it but it did not relent. “What is that?” A single thread, thick, had unfurled from the veil that surrounded them and it pressed into the skin of Spear’s arm. He grabbed the thread and pinching it into his hand looked closely at it. It was not just a thread but more like a worm, eyeless, black, with a circle of razor-sharp teeth at its end. As he had pulled it away, he could see that it had cut into him, and a small dot of blood formed against his skin. The worm thread thrashed in his hand, lunging, and beginning to slip from between his fingers. It elongated, making a bold effort for his arm again.
Suddenly, Night’s arms flung open and the cloak was torn from Spear and his skin ripped: his arms, his calf, his breast, his cheek and the back of his neck. Bright light flooded his eyes and he was forced to cover his face with his hands. Blood dripped, small tears in his skin.
“What foul magic?” he asked.
Night was near invisible, the cloak a shimmering against the granite wall. The cloak had assumed the color and texture of the wall as if at any moment Night might just melt into the stone.
“A price for everything,” said Night. “But we all know that, don’t we?”
“Those worms? My skin? They were eating away at my flesh. I could feel them burrowing into me. How can you stand it?”
“I feel nothing anymore.”
“Can you take off the cloak? Night?”
“A price for everything.”
Spear reached out but Night shimmered, just beyond his fingers, and melted into stone before rippling away along the wall. With each step, the former Hound of the North vanished.
“Why did you come back?” Spear asked. He remembered his friend coming to his aid at the bridge. He tried to recall the man free of the shadows of the cloak and how he might have looked twenty some years prior when they rode through the heather and the fens but he could not conjure the shape of the man’s face or the color of his eyes or the cut of his beard. Night did not exist without the cloak.
“You are my brother. I could not leave you to die. Would you not do the same for me?” His face was lost in the cloak. What was visible writhed as if it were a face constructed of grubs or worms, swarming to create a nose, lips, eyes.
“I’m not the brother you think I am. Do you not know what I have become?”
“I can see what you might become.”
“And what is that?” asked Spear.
He waited for an answer staring at the wall of the keep before realizing that Night was no longer there. He glanced to the left and to the right trying to discern the rippling shape of his companion. But he could not. Night had slipped away.
“Night,” he whispered. But no answer came.
A jagged crack ran up the wall from the debris-choked ground, along the glassy surface to the top. The crack was a wide as a fist in some places and as narrow as a single finger in others.
Down the slope, Seana, Bones, Biroc and Kiara crouched behind boulders waiting. He would need to do more than open the gates. He would need to blood the walls, and then his crew would have a chance to race up the scree-filled hill.
Another flock of arrows flew from the wall, black silhouettes against the bright sky. He followed their trajectory and their sudden descent. Most of the heads sparked off stone but a few splintered into wood. At least one hit something softer, and Bones let loose a string of curses.
Spear had no choice. He could not turn back. He would be slaughtered within a few steps. It was only a matter of time before the others were dead. The arrows would find them.
He wanted to rip this keep out of Cruhund’s hands. Spear would take Cruhund’s head. Spear would honor the promise he had made to Valda. But, he would also take what was rightfully his. He should be the one standing on that wall, not Cruhund. That rotten-mouthed lout should never have risen above Spear.
Nothing that had happened before would matter. All the suffering would be cleansed from him. All the misery wiped away. All doubts squashed. Spear was going to climb the crack in the wall, sling his sword, open the gate and seize what waited for him.
He wondered what his former lover, Yriel, would say. She who had lain with Cruhund even before Spear had left Cullantown. What would be the look on her face when Spear walked into her bed chamber with the head of Cruhund swinging from his hand?
He almost laughed but caught himself.
He turned his belt so his sword hung behind.
Spear slipped his hand in the crack reaching as high as he could and then made a fist. He pulled back and with the tension wedged one foot in the crack. Maintaining the pressure of his fist in the crack, he stepped up and repeated the process with his other hand and foot. He was climbing the wall. It would get more difficult but he would be at the lip in a few minutes and then the wall would flow red.
Crows perched on a leafless tree near the gate. They watched him with their glistening, beady eyes. He knew the message they brought. Death would come. That, he knew. The birds would feast. The only questioned that remained was was whose flesh they would feast on.
Only one way to find out. So he kept climbing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
BLOOD DRIPPED DOWN Spear’s wrists. The sharp stone of the granite wall had torn the skin of his knuckles and hands. His feet had slipped out a few times and the only thing that had prevented a fall to the shards of stone below had been his wedged hands. But that had come with the price of tearing flesh. The blood ran in small ribbons over his wrists and forearms before disappearing beneath his tunic. The blood he did not mind except for the fear it would make his holds on the crack even more tenuous. To slip was to die.
He was high on the wall, near five times his own height. If he fell, he doubted he would land well. He imagined bone-snapping death as he hit the ground. He had no choice but to climb.
Then he reached a point in the climb that was difficult. Where previously the crack had been wide enough for him to plunge his entire fist in and wedge it to support his weight, the crack now narrowed to a few finger-widths and, in the next short section just before the lip, the crack narrowed to a thin black line, too small even for his fingers.
His fingers ached and his thighs burned. One leg had begun trembling uncontrollably before he was able to shake it out and re-wedge it beneath himself. His ankle was bent in an awkward position and with each moment he clung to the wall, the pain grew.
The sun soaked a line of sweat down his back. He wanted to wipe his brow but was afraid to remove his hands from the holds. Behind him, the scree slope dropped and the added height made Spear feel even more exposed to a fall. Far below, the dark trees hunched together. He could have been hiding, and waiting for nightfal
l, but rashness had overwhelmed him and he had led the attack by day.
He stared at the lip of the wall. He needed to focus. Just a little more pain and effort and he would reach the top. He refused to think what might be waiting for him there, but it would be no worse than hanging over sharp stones.
As he pressed upward, stepping up to slide his fingers into the narrowing crack, one of the crows swooped, its black feathers snapping across his face. He shook his head at it and it darted away but as he did one foot slipped out from the crack, and then the other. He hung by only his wedged fingers. But he held on, curling and compressing his hand. The pains in his hands sheared all the way through to his forearms and elbows.
Another rivulet of blood rolled down his arm. He kicked at the wall, trying to find a place for his foot, but no matter where he placed it, it slipped.
Suddenly from directly overhead, a set of bow strings twanged and two arrows whistled overhead. They joined with another bunch of arrows shot from further down the wall. He followed them with his turned head. They cracked against Seana’s painted shield. The wood surface, tilted between two boulders, was blackened with arrows.
He waited to see her move, even the slightest adjustment of her shield but there was nothing, not a single movement. No movement from behind the boulders. He would have expected the fluttering of a stray cloak or the edge of a boot. Even the curses of Bones been silenced. Nothing but the sudden cawing of the crows in the tree. At least the crows were not dancing among the boulders.
Maybe his crew had left. Maybe Night had gone back and embracing them within his cloak moved them to safety. He shuddered at the memory of the worms against his skin, their razor sharp orifices tearing into his flesh.
His left hand, slick with blood, began to slide out of the crack. He jammed it back in but it was too slippery to stick. Desperately he kicked against the wall trying to scramble upwards and by chance his right foot found the crack. As he twisted, his body flagged to the left. It bought him enough time to step a little higher, wedging his left foot in the crack. When his feet were solid, he shook out his left hand to bring back some of the feeling.
“Running out of arrows, Lefty,” a gravelly voice said from above him on the wall.
“Haven’t seen anything move for minutes,” answered Lefty. “Why’s he having us shoot at nothing?”
“Nothing alive no more.”
“Why ain’t he standing with us.”
“Hides in his room with that sick woman. A man makes a claim to a keep, he should be the first to defend it.”
Lefty cleared his throat and then spit over Spear’s head to the rocks below. “Making us stand on this wall.”
“The others are in no shape. We should get out of here. Find something else. Cruhund’s going to get us killed before long. Or kill us himself. What he did to Big Haran…that’s not right.”
“He won’t defend his wall, maybe we should toss him over,” said Lefty.
“We should slip out tonight. Sneak away. Won’t be like he’ll come after us.”
“Where will we go?”
“He’s not the only border lord. Can’t imagine the others to be much worse. Or maybe we can get some horses and head east. Chase down the rising sun. Hear there’s fortunes to be made.”
“I still say we toss him over the wall, rotten teeth and all. I could be lord of this keep.”
The gravelly-voiced man laughed. “Who the hell would follow Lord Lefty?”
Spear silently cursed every word the men said. How long were they going to stand there? His right hand pulsed, trapped in the crack. He was losing the feeling in his feet. His breath became more ragged as he hung from the wall. They would either hear him soon or he would lose his grip. Either way was death.
He drove his bloody left hand into the crack then sprung off his feet, his right hand somehow finding a hold, and then one more quick scrambling of his feet, and then his left hand, just the fingers, found the lip of the wall. Spear did not hesitate or congratulate himself on reaching the top. Instead, he threw his right hand to the lip and with a sudden swing hooked his left foot on the wall and he pulled himself up.
A grizzled face stared at him: blue Northern eyes, weathered and scarred skin, and a closely shaven head. For a moment, Spear thought he looked into a reflection. But then the man’s mouth twisted into a shout of surprise. The man may have looked like a brother but he was an enemy for Spear to cut down.
And that’s what he did.
Even precariously perched on the top of the wall, his hands bloodied and his legs practically cramping, he drew his sword in one swift motion and slashed. The man’s hands rose too late. He dropped to his knees, his bow tumbling into the courtyard below, blood gushing from his face.
Spear quickly surveyed the keep. On the catwalks ranged a half dozen men, all armed with bows. A few more clustered at the gate tower. In the courtyard below, another dozen milled about or lay on their backs, armor off, skin exposed to sun. A few of them stumbled with jugs of mead. Beneath the gatehouse, a ramshackle stable had been cobbled together with half rotten wood. The stench of horses and pigs and moldy hay filled the air. Some beast moaned from within. On the opposite side of the courtyard, the tower of the keep rose into the cliff wall. On the upper level a pair of massive doors opened to a veranda and tattered white curtains fluttered. Spear knew where he would find Cruhund.
But first he had to get through these men on the catwalk and open the gates.
Lefty had dropped his bow and drew a short sword. His companion, the man whose face Spear had sliced, had not risen from his knees but instead sobbed loudly, desperately trying to stem the blood from where his nose had been sliced from his face.
“Son of a bitch,” said Lefty. “My wall, my keep.”
Lefty charged, trying to bridge contact with his blade and close the distance to where his shorter sword would be more effective. Spear sprung backwards, leaping clear of the noseless man, and flicked out his blade. Lefty withdrew his sword and tried to counter but he was slow. The metal of the swords clanged.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Spear saw the other archers on the wall turning towards him, a web of questions and commands weaving among them. He needed to dispatch the man in front of him, and fast. They may not take a shot at him, but they would alert the men in the courtyard or come at him with swords.
Spear retreated until Lefty was squeezing by his weeping companion. At that moment, Spear leapt forward, follow stepped with his back foot and lunged again, arm extending in a sharp arc. As fast as Lefty retreated, his back pedaling was no match for the amount of ground Spear covered charging forward. A quick cut of his sword lopped off his thumb; another hard swipe knocked the sword from his useless grip, and that was followed by a kick that sent Lefty screaming over the wall before the scree field below silenced him.
Spear wasted no time. He dashed to where the other man wept over his disfigured face. Spear scooped him up, one arm circling under his arms from behind, and shoved him forward; he held up the man’s body as a shield to catch the volley of arrows.
His feet pounded hard on the catwalk, enough that he feared the wooden structure would collapse. But it held. His face pressed into the other man’s back. His body stank of stale smoke-weed, piss, and blood. An arrow slammed into Spear’s arm causing him to release his human shield.
The shield did not matter anymore. Spear had covered enough ground. He was in among the archers.
They tried to toss aside their bows and draw their swords but Spear was too fast – a fox among the hens. He blocked a downward slash and, as the sword slid down the length of his blade, he pivoted his own weapon around the point of contact and gave back a blow that split helm and head alike. He elbowed the screaming man aside and charged.
A snapped arrow shaft stuck out of his forearm. Burning pain ran from shoulder to finger tips.
He wheeled to the next archer, who had snagged a shield and now raised it against Spear’s sword. A skipping kick sent the man
tumbling to the courtyard below.
A sword breeched Spear’s guard, the blade shearing along his hip. Hot blood washed his leg. Spear collapsed to one knee; his attacker raised his sword overhead. Spear tried to lift his weapon, to block the blow, but an archer’s booted heel stomped down on it and pinned it to the catwalk.
The raised sword flashed in the sun. Spear wondered if that burst of light would be the last thing he would ever see. But the blade did not fall. The man spit out a gulp of air. An arrow, one of Biroc’s black death-dealers, pierced the man’s ribs.
Spear abandoned his trapped sword and drove his shoulder into the man who had stepped on the blade. At the same time, Spear drew his dagger and raked it across the man’s thigh. Spyrchylde surged upwards, smashing his helmet into the other man’s chin.
Then a moment of calm. Spear stood panting, the pain in his arm and hip flaring, hot blood dripping down his limbs.
The archers around him were either dead or bleeding out. All had fallen. The half-drunk men in the courtyard loped towards the ladders.
Spear picked up his sword.
He needed his crew. He needed to get to the gate tower and open the doors.
Spear limped along on the unsteady planks towards the gate house. He was almost there when a giant figure with an axe stepped out onto the catwalk.
It was Longbeard, the coward and traitor.
CHAPTER FORTY
SPEAR CHARGED, SWORD looping over head, towards the gatehouse. But before he could reach the doorway, Longbeard ducked into the shadows. Spear cursed.
The gatehouse was one of two towers along the wall of the keep. The dark blocks of granite rose several stories above the level of the wall. The mechanism for opening the gates and allowing the rest of the bandits through the walls would be on the upper level. Spear would have to fight his way past Longbeard to open the gates.
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