One of the faces he knew well was Corban Henley, who had been a somewhat gangly boy with a capricious flair for adventure. Corban had been the son of the town constable. Darien remembered him as being one of the ringleaders of the local gang of mischiefs he’d belonged to himself. But Darien had not laid eyes on Corban in over fifteen years. The man staring at him now was still tall, but the lanky frame had filled out remarkably since adolescence. Corban now sported a thick red beard and muscles that looked capable of wrestling an ox to the ground. Unlike most of the other faces around him, there was no trace of awe or even anxiety in his old friend’s eyes. Instead, he was regarding Darien with a look of wary speculation.
Darien opened his mouth to address them, but closed it again. He had no idea what they wanted him to say. A nervous sweat broke out on his brow as he stared out at the expectant faces before him.
“What will you do?” someone called out at him.
Darien turned in the direction of the shout to see if he recognized the owner of the voice, but he couldn’t tell who had spoken. Everyone was looking at him as if they expected him to call down the powers of the heavens and save them from the terror in the sky. They had to know he couldn’t do that; he was just a man. More than that, he was constrained by a vow to do no harm.
So he did the only thing he could think of, the only thing that might possibly make them understand. Reaching down, he pulled back the sleeves of his black robe, exposing first the left arm and then the right, forcing the thick material all the way back to his elbows. He raised his bared wrists before their staring eyes, rotating his hands slowly as the engrained markings shimmered in the morning light.
“I’ve sworn the Oath of Harmony,” he uttered in a tone of grim finality. “There’s nothing I can do against that.” He directed his eyes upward into the sky, toward the thin pillar of light that shot straight up from the side of the mountain, radiant and very visible even in the full light of day.
He had been hoping they would understand. But instead of accepting his words, the crowd in front of him exploded with voracity. People were shouting curses at him. The cry of “Coward!” was being raised by a group of men near the back. It was Master Edric who came to his rescue, stepping forward.
“Now wait a minute, all of you!” the old man bellowed in a thunderous voice. Darien glanced back at the Bird Man in mild shock. He would have never credited that frail old body with the ability to produce such a resounding noise. Edric’s voice echoed off the sheer face of the surrounding cliffs, drowning out even the din of the crowd. Everyone stood still, stunned into silence. Mouths opened, but said nothing. The only noise in the forest was the stir of air through the treetops. Edric nodded, looking self-satisfied, then took a step back.
“Let the man speak.”
Darien lowered his head, not wanting to confront the angry glares that were fixed solely on him. He needed a moment to think of something to say that would calm this desperate mob. But he could think of nothing. So he brought his eyes back up and drew in a deep breath, letting it out again slowly. He was starting to feel irritated himself; these people had no right to pin all of their hopes and expectations on him. Whatever else they might think, he was only just one man. A man who had lost everything.
“I really can’t do anything here,” he told them, just loud enough to be heard over the wind in the trees. “The battle was waged up on the mountainside, and it’s over now. Aerysius is destroyed. I can’t change that.” He paused, leveling his stare at each one of them in turn, returning their glares right back at them. “But there is still a war going on in the North, and it’s to there I’ll be headed. Perhaps, there, I can make a small bit of difference.”
There was no reaction from the crowd; his words were greeted by an uncomfortable silence. People were exchanging nervous glances, shifting uneasily on their feet.
Finally one man called out, “Then you think the danger’s passed?”
Darien shook his head, raking his hair back roughly from his face. “If the front fails to hold, there will be no place that is safe. If you wish to help fight this war, then you’ll come with me. Otherwise, gather up your families and leave this place. The Vale of Amberlie is no longer safe.”
“Why won’t you protect us?” shouted a woman.
“That’s your bleeding job, isn’t it?” another man yelled.
“He’s a bloody coward, that’s what he is!”
“Oh, shut up, all of you!” It was Corban Henley, Darien’s friend from childhood, stepping forward through the press of bodies in the crowd. “I’ve known Darien Lauchlin since we were boys. He’s no coward. If there was something that could be done, don’t you think he’d be doing it?” Reaching the front of the crowd, he glared up at Darien. “You’re going to the front?”
Darien nodded, swallowing. “I’m useless here. The front is the only place I can make any difference.”
Henley’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded sagely. He turned back around, raising his voice to address the crowd behind him. “What’s wrong with you people? You’re all standing here whining like a pack of helpless dogs. You all want something done, but instead of lifting a finger to help yourselves, you brand this man a coward because he won’t do it all for you. Well, I see only one of him. And there’s sure as hell’s a lot more of you.” Looking back at Darien, he said, “I’m no stranger to a blade. If you’re going to the front, then I’ll come with you. Now, is there anyone else with me?”
No one spoke. Henley turned his head and spat on the ground. “Craven dogs,” he muttered.
Finally, a man toward the back stepped forward. “I’ll go.”
“I don’t have a family,” called another. “I’m with you, Henley.”
Suddenly the air was filled with offers of support. Darien rubbed his eyes wearily. The critical moment had passed; he had a lot to thank Corban for.
Turning back to the crowd he told them, “I’ll be heading out at first light. I’ll take any man who wants to come with me. The rest of you should go home and gather up your families. Leave everything behind. Make for Auberdale; that route would be your safest choice. We’ll try to hold the North for you so that someday you might have a home to come back to.”
There were no cheers; his address hadn’t been delivered to inspire. But the crowd dispersed, which was all Darien had wanted to accomplish. Corban Henley gave him a nod as he turned away. Darien stood on the porch of the Bird Man’s home and watched until the last stragglers disappeared into the forest.
“You need to work a bit on your delivery,” Master Edric chuckled, patting Darien’s shoulder as they moved back inside. Darien had to duck under the outstretched form of a great heron that was hanging too low on the other side of the door.
There he stopped. He stood staring down at the chain set into the flesh of his wrist, turning his arm and watching the metallic luster gleam in the sunlight coming in through the open doorway. He never realized how much he could despise something that was so much a part of him.
“Don’t stare at those chains too long,” the Bird Man suggested mildly. “They’ll begin to feel even heavier than they already are. Trust me; I know from experience.”
Darien sighed, dropping his hand. “What will you do, Edric?”
“Me? I’m just an old man who loves his birds. I can’t fight...the only thing I have left to do is fly.” His voice trailed off heavily as he gazed upward at the spinning birds dangling from the ceiling. As Darien watched, the old Master shook his head sadly. “I know you think there’s little you can do, but there you’re wrong. If you keep your wits about you, you’ll find there are more ways to win a battle than washing your hands in the blood of your enemy. Use your head. That’s why I saved it for you. As for me...it’s no good here anymore. My old friends have all flown away. Just listen.”
Darien listened. Edric was right; only the sound of silence greeted his ears. He hadn’t even noticed the complete absence of birdsong from the forest.
“Birds are s
mart,” Edric pronounced softly. “They always know when it’s time to fly. As do I.”
Darien’s brow furrowed as he wondered exactly what the old man meant by that. But the aged Master did not elaborate; instead he left, closing the door softly behind him.
Darien sat down heavily on the bed. The soft gleam of his sword caught his eye. He let his hand go toward it, grasping the hilt and releasing the blade from its scabbard as he drew it toward him, holding it across his knees on the edge of the bed. He curled his fingers around the steel, one hand near the crossguard, the other a third of the length down the blade, feeling the bite of the dual cutting edges. He turned the sword slowly, watching the light gleam along the melded folds of silken metal.
At first he thought Aidan had lied to him. Meiran’s blood was not dried and crusted on the steel. But then his eyes found a splattering of dark stains far up, in the dull area where the blade was flattened just above the hilt. Darien’s fingers tightened involuntarily as he threw his head back in grief. He didn’t notice his own blood spreading from his hands, welling over the cold steel to cover the stains already on the blade.
The old Bird Man was used to waking frequently in the night to answer the pressing urgings of a bladder that was just as old and tired as the rest of him. He crept out of bed, shuffling across the room under the spinning shadows of the birds that danced in the wan green light cast by the abomination that still pierced the sky. He knew what that light was, had no doubts as to the dreadful significance it implied. The Gateway had filled his dreams of late. Edric glanced up at the shadows of his birds, watching them dance in their endless pursuit of flight. He wanted to fly, as well. He had always envied birds, envied them the freedom of their wings.
He relieved himself outside against the rough gray bark of a pine tree he had nurtured from a sapling. He turned to go back inside, but hesitated.
He wanted one last flight.
If anyone had actually been watching, all they would have seen was the form of an old man standing under the branches of a pine suddenly disappear into the shadows of the night. Their eyes would have entirely missed the small warbler that took wing from the place where the old man had just been standing. The tiny bird fluttered, pumping upward and spiraling into the sky, its whistling queries the only sound in the still night air. The warbler fluttered across the disk of the rising moon, now diving, now soaring, finally backstroking to a rest in the spot where it had first arisen.
If anyone had truly been watching, all they would have seen was a tired and breathless old man shuffling out from under the shadow of an ancient pine, climbing stiffly back up the stairs to the door of his cottage.
Edric made his way back inside, but it was not to his own bed that his arthritic limbs carried him. Instead, he knelt beside the form of the young man lying on a pallet on the floor. He waited, eyes studying the rhythmic rise and fall of the blankets, checking to make certain that the young man was in the deepest stages of sleep. Almost tenderly, he placed a trembling and rheumatic hand over Darien’s chest, closing his tired old eyes. Above him, his silent friends were whirling on a breeze carried in through the window, feathers ruffling on outstretched wings.
The Bird Man filled his mind with the thrill of flight as he opened the conduit of Transference between them and offered up his ancient life.
Chapter Eight
Greystone Keep
SHEET LIGHTNING LANCED though a sky filled with turbulent thunderheads, making the whole heavens blaze. As it faded, ice on the sharp mountain peaks continued to gleam a luminous white, like a hellish afterglow that was soon devoured by consummate darkness. Gusting winds ripped down from the high mountain passes, brutally cold and viciously fierce. Kyel staggered as a thrust of gale-force wind threatened to push him over, having to lean forward with all of his weight just to remain on his feet. The gusts were so violent that it seemed as if the very air were being ripped right out of his lungs before he could manage to draw a breath. The bitter chill of it stung his face and ears like a thousand icy needles, and his eyes felt like dried balls of dirt. He had lost the feeling in his hands long ago. The merciless wind continued to batter against him, making every step forward a contest of will.
It should have been daylight. When they had started up into the Pass of Lor-Gamorth, the first hint of light was just beginning to glow on the horizon to the east. But as they had climbed ever higher up into the treacherous pass between jagged black slopes, the light of day had steadily disintegrated. It had grown dark and cold, like a chill winter night. And then the scolding winds had picked up as stormclouds closed in overhead. Someone had warned him it would be like this. But no words, no image in his mind, could have ever prepared him for the horrifying reality of the Shadowspears. There was no sunlight, ever, in the mountains that bordered the Black Lands. Only a death-dark sky filled with masses of cloudcover that swirled and churned, surging across the horizon, fomented by the angry wind and lightning that crackled endlessly. The weather patterns here were an extension of the curse that had desecrated the lands to the north over a thousand years ago, remaking them over in Hell’s own image.
And Kyel was walking right toward those twisted lands, just one in a long file of exhausted men that trudged stooping forward as their cloaks rippled out in front of them, hammered by the icy gale. He had known these men now for over three weeks, the time it had taken them to journey northward from Rothscard across the green grasslands of the North, all the way to the dark and craggy slopes of the Shadowspears. They were convicts, one and all. Sentenced to death, but delivered from that fate only to be conscripted into the war effort. It was still a death sentence, however commuted. There was no return from the front; everyone knew that the only way out was to die. The tales Kyel had heard of deserters had grown dim in his mind over the long leagues he had walked from Hunter’s Home. By the time the sad file of prisoners had reached the mouth of the pass, Kyel was very well aware of the bitter truth: there were no deserters from the front, at least none alive. They had sentenced him to death for a crime he hadn’t committed. It might take a few months longer than the headsman’s axe, but the end result would still be the same.
Kyel had wept quietly every night of that first long week, knowing in his heart that he would never see Amelia or his son ever again. He wasn’t the only man who had broken down, knowing the grim fate they all walked toward, every step of the way taking them a little bit closer to the end. Kyel had even seen Traver shed a tear or two, though the man had done his best to try and hide it.
At first, Kyel had been so enraged at his old friend that he had stopped speaking to him altogether, hadn’t even wanted to look at him. But the anger had passed. It had taken some time, but at last Kyel realized that Traver didn’t have it in him to murder the man back at Hunter’s Home. He was guilty of many things, but he was no killer. Traver was a rogue, a scoundrel, a drunk and a compulsive gambler. But that was the end of his faults. He was also a staunch and loyal friend, with a core of silent courage that had shown itself repeatedly on the journey.
The sky lit up overhead and thunder pealed over the shrieking gale. In that brief flash of light, Kyel could make out the dark outline of a fortress high above on the edge of a rock outcrop. It was there for just an instant and then gone again immediately, consumed by utter darkness. It was to that structure Kyel knew they were headed. The name Greystone Keep was legendary. The fortress at the edge of the Black Lands had existed for over five hundred years, holding the North against the incursions of the Enemy. Kyel had heard its name mentioned in song and tale, but had never imagined that he would ever truly be seeing it with his own eyes. Greystone Keep was an ominous name, and its reputation was sinisterly foreboding.
Kyel strained against the wind at every step as they climbed the narrow trail toward the keep. The pass itself angled sharply downward below them, emptying into an alluvial fan that was the border of the Black Lands. The thin trail they were on cut steeply upward, carved into the rough volcanic rock of t
he craggy mountain face. Overhead, thunderheads flickered with a strange luminescence that seemed to come from deep within the bank of clouds. The shape of the fortress was revealed briefly by that unearthly strobe of light. Kyel could see a narrow and frayed banner whipping in the wind over the high tower of the keep, which was the only part of the structure that looked intact. The crumbling walls were a lusterless gray, the stone infested with yellow growths of moss and lichen. Flying buttresses supported the main structure, which looked on the verge of crumbling down. Indeed, the rear of the keep was entirely caved in, the back wall but a pile of collapsed stone. Greystone Keep had the appearance of a fortress that was going to fall at any time. It did not look like it was capable of defending much of anything, much less entire nations.
Kyel had known all along that he was marching toward his doom. He just had never imagined that the end would come so quickly. That fortress was going to fall soon, and when it did, he was going to die. And so would the rest of the Rhen. He hadn’t even known, back home in Coventry, that everything he loved most was in such dire peril. He thought of Amelia and baby Gil, happily going on about the business of life with no way of knowing the dire threat that was growing in the North, on the very brink of flooding southward to consume them. Kyel finally realized why he was here. Not because of a stroke of bad luck, and not because of Traver’s chance mishap with fate. He was here to protect his family. He felt a strong wave of resolve wash over him, steeling him as he stared up at the ruins of Greystone Keep with new appreciation.
At last, the long line of prisoners attained the stone steps of the fortress. Kyel shuffled up the stairs, reaching out with his arms in front of him in case a chance gust of wind caught him unprepared. The steps were steep and narrow, broken by two small landings where the stair made an abrupt turn. As Kyel rounded the second landing, the direction of the wind shifted and hit him square in the back. It almost sent him reeling over the edge, but the man behind him reached a hand out to steady him. Kyel turned, nodding his gratitude at the man, who turned out to be Traver. Kyel had forgotten he’d been back there behind him, probably all day.
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