“No. Please, no. I mean—what I mean is,” Kyel forced himself to take a deep breath. “Please, no, Force Commander. With all due respect.”
He stood trembling as the man circled him slowly like a hawk, hands clasped behind his back, gray cloak swaying in his wake. As the target of that predator-like stare, Kyel felt exceptionally like a mouse hiding in an open field, waiting for the raptor to descend. His eyes fell on a black, narrow hilt protruding from a thin sheath at the commander’s waist. He had never noticed it before, but the knife looked viciously intimidating, even more so than the sword at the man’s side.
“Your place is here,” Proctor repeated with a tone of finality that brooked no argument.
Stuttering, Kyel begged, “Please, j-just let me keep my bow.”
Now, why had he said that? The stick at his side was the least of his worries. Maybe what he wanted was a weapon to defend himself against the man. He found himself glancing to where Darien lay by the hearth, his face more peaceful than Kyel had ever seen it. He would not be stirring for awhile, Kyel thought, remembering the exhausted black horse they had left behind in the canyon.
“You’re an acolyte now,” Proctor stated in a factual tone. “What use have you for a weapon?”
The man knew. Kyel felt himself awash in cold, petrifying fear. He didn’t even know why. He groped deep down within, desperately trying to summon the last scrap of courage he could find. He still wanted to keep that bow.
“What use has Darien for his sword?” Kyel challenged, then quickly added, “Force Commander.”
The harsh angles of Proctor’s face softened. To Kyel, those stern blue eyes seemed to be almost smiling. A grim, satisfied smile that was more ominous than the man’s outright glare.
“Keep the bow, then,” he uttered, and strode past Kyel down the stairs.
“Aye, Force Commander,” Kyel whispered at Proctor’s back. His hand was trembling so hard on the grip of his weapon that the bowstring itself was vibrating.
Chapter Thirteen
Two Vows
IT TOOK THE BETTER PART of a week to dig the graves for the dead. By custom, each Greystone soldier who had fallen was buried individually, with a black stone cairn piled over his remains. The work was done entirely by the men of his own company. No words were ever spoken, no rites performed. The dead were not buried with their armaments; steel was far too precious to waste. Instead, the weapons of the dead were collected back to the armory and there stored for future reuse.
Enemy casualties received different treatment. A long trench had been dug down the center of the canyon, twenty feet deep, its bottom and sides lined with lye. The stiff, hardened corpses of Enemy soldiers were dragged, bumping across the ground, toward the pit where they were unceremoniously dumped in. There they collected in a growing, rotten-smelling pile that was layered daily with more lye. Then, at the end of the week, the whole trench was filled in with the black dirt of the river bottom and piled high with rock.
Traver had labored continuously through the horror of every step, working by the side of the remaining members of his company. Together, they raced time against the birds, the maggots, the scavengers, and the diseases that inevitably spawned under such fertile conditions. The sweet, pungent smell of ripe carcasses and spilled guts were their constant and close companions every day of the process, morning to night. By the end, Traver had lost count of the number of times stiff and swollen corpses had divulged their putrid fluids down the front of his shirt. At the end of each day he reeked like the dead. Everyone did. By the end of the week, when the last stone was finally laid in place, he felt as if he had been initiated in some terrible rite of manhood, and had passed beyond. The old Traver was dead, buried in the rocks somewhere along with the broken remains of men who had fought and died at his side.
What was even sadder than the long, perfect rows of graves that lined the walls of the canyon was the far inferior number of men left behind to mourn those fallen. On the last day, Traver joined the others as they stood at the feet of their departed friends for the last time, quietly honoring their sacrifice. Even the officers turned out for the silent, moments-long memorial. To Traver, the complete strength of the remaining Greystone forces paled beside the numbers of rock-encrusted graves. As he stared out across the grimly moving sight, he felt afraid. He couldn’t help fearing that, although the battle had been considered a victory, the forces that held the Pass of Lor-Gamorth had been dealt a cruel blow by the Enemy. And with no reinforcements since the arrival of the Valemen, it was a blow that might well prove unrecoverable.
Kyel picked a long, thin rock up off the ground and held it before his face to consider. He tilted his palm and watched it tumble as it rolled across his hand onto his fingers, an almost cylindrical piece of black, planed glass. He had never seen anything like it before coming to the pass. But the strange black glass was common here. Obsidian, they called it. Unlike true glass, the rock was opaque, the mysteries hidden in its depths unknowable without cracking open the stone. With a finger, he caressed a flat, angular plane, marveling at the crystalline perfection of it. He wondered if it would be possible to shape the stone into something useful, such as a knifeblade or even a spearpoint. He supposed it could be possible to fracture it so, given a sharp tool that could apply just enough pressure in just the right places. But he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do that. The stone was beautiful just as it was, uncut in the rough, complete in the perfection of its flaws.
Kyel flung the stone away, watching as it bounced off the rim of the cliff before disappearing into the bottom of the pass. Then he rose up off his perch. He had been sitting on a boulder that protruded from an outcrop that overlooked the Pass of Lor-Gamorth from the rear of the fortress. He had always wondered why no one had ever bothered to rebuild the keep’s crumbled rear wall. Now he knew. There was nothing behind the structure but a small rock scarp and the sheer drop of a cliff. The mountainside was more of a defense than the rear wall of the keep had ever been while it yet stood. Incursion was impossible from that approach.
Kyel had found it a good place to go to escape the stark and drafty chamber of Proctor’s quarters. He had found a small trail that only a goat would think to take that led down along the cliff around the rear corner of the keep, bending around steeply at the end and finally rising up to the outcrop. He had found a favorite boulder there on which to sit, a place where he could be alone to think. It was a pastime he had been doing much of lately.
Kyel did not like being left alone in that barren, circular room with Garret Proctor. He respected the Force Commander but, then, who wouldn’t? The Warden of Greystone Keep had held the pass from the Enemy for over fifteen years with scarcely more resources than the force of his will and the shrewdness of his mind. But he was not a pleasant man to be around. Proctor reminded Kyel of a cleverly brilliant chess master who was ingenious enough with strategy to think six moves in advance, while at the same time ruthless enough to sacrifice any piece, no matter how high, in order to gain an advantage over his opponent. He ignored Kyel, for the most part. Proctor seemed to spend much of his time studying the map on the wall or just sitting, staring into the fire of the hearth. Lately, he had been consuming his time on the top of the tower looking down from the battlements, brooding, always brooding. His eyes had taken on an emptiness as barren as his chamber.
Which was why Kyel felt like he had to leave, to escape. He hated it when those unnerving blue eyes fell on him. And he couldn’t just loiter in the hall and socialize with the other men anymore; Proctor had insured that. The men who had once been his fellows now considered him an outsider, no longer part of their group. They were not quite sure what Kyel’s status was, now, or how he had even arrived at it. The only man left that he felt he could truly talk to anymore was Traver, and even that relationship felt stressed by a stiff undercurrent of resentment. He was a Tower Man, now. And, Kyel had discovered, the tower was a lonely place to be.
The sound of movement belo
w startled Kyel from his thoughts. He rose as his hand dove for his quiver, but he didn’t nock an arrow to the string. Chances were, whoever approached was not an Enemy; the sentries were fewer in number now, strung out at greater intervals along the length of the pass. But their eyes were now sharper than ever. No Enemy soldier could make it so far as the steps beneath Greystone Keep.
And he was right. The man who approached from below was no enemy; he might even be the only friend Kyel had left.
“It’s a good view,” Darien said as he rose up from the climb, turning to glance over the lip of the outcrop. He didn’t look like himself at all, wearing regular clothes with his unbound hair falling in loose waves over his shoulders and down his back. To Kyel, the different apparel seemed a drastic change. Darien looked shockingly less severe, shockingly normal. Even the chains on his wrists seemed to lose their emphasis.
He turned back toward Kyel, a smile on his face as he gestured at the boulder. “I see you’ve found my rock.”
“Your rock?” Kyel raised his eyebrows.
Darien nodded as he tossed himself down upon it, bringing a knee up to his chest and sitting back as if relaxing. Kyel had to admit, he did look comfortable there.
“I come here often,” Darien admitted. “It’s a good place to sit, to think, if you have a mind to be alone.”
Kyel winced; that was exactly what he’d been doing, though he didn’t want to admit it.
“Have you given any more thought to my offer?” the mage asked softly.
Kyel opened his mouth, but then closed it again, not knowing what to say. Other than his move to the top of the keep, there had been no mention of the test Darien had given him so many days ago. In fact, he hadn’t brought it up once, not until now. Kyel had been starting to wonder if maybe the Sentinel had forgotten all about it.
Kyel shrugged, replying honestly, “I’ve been trying not to.”
Darien nodded, seeming to accept his answer. He brought his hand up to the side of his face, rubbing the short stubble on his cheek as his eyes grew distant in thought. He sat there for a moment in silence as a breath of wind stirred his long, black hair.
Summoning his courage, Kyel asked him, “How did you feel, when you came to be an acolyte and went to live in Aerysius?”
Darien’s stare remained inward as he replied, “It was different for me. Both of my parents were mages; Aerysius was in my blood. When I passed Consideration, it came as no shock.”
Kyel nodded, remembering how the name Lauchlin had sounded so familiar to him when he had first heard it. If both of Darien’s parents were Masters when Kyel’s own father had been there, then it was possible he could have mentioned one of them.
“What was it like, growing up there?” he wondered.
“I have no idea,” Darien replied. “I wasn’t raised there. I lived my entire childhood in the Vale. My brother and I were fostered out to a widow who lived down the mountain in Amberlie.”
To Kyel, that seemed strange. From what he knew from his father, it was not uncommon for mages to have families, even large ones.
As if sensing his question, Darien explained, “My father was a Sentinel, so he wasn’t around much to raise us. And my mother was elected Prime Warden shortly after I was born, so she never had the time.”
Kyel’s eyes widened at his last statement. That would certainly explain why the surname Lauchlin had sounded so familiar, if Darien’s own mother had been Prime Warden of Aerysius. Throughout history, the Prime Wardens had always been the highest authority in the land. Even kings and queens knelt at their feet, though they seldom exercised their vast political influence. That also explained where Darien had inherited his innate cloak of confidence. Kyel could not even imagine what it must have been like, growing up with a Sentinel for a father and a mother who was indisputably the most influential political figure in the world.
In an attempt to direct the tone of the conversation to a lighter course, Kyle asked, “So, you’ve a brother?”
The sudden change that came over the man’s face was not what Kyel had been expecting. In the second before Darien averted his gaze, Kyel got a glimpse of the same, terrible shadow he had seen in his eyes on the night Darien had tested him. Of course, he thought stupidly. Darien’s brother was doubtlessly dead, killed in the tragedy that had befallen Aerysius, along with all the rest of his kind.
“I’m sorry,” Kyel told him sincerely. “I ought to have thought.”
But Darien bowed his head, dark strands of hair falling forward to shroud his face. In a tone as dark and dead as the heritage of his home, he explained in a muted half-whisper, “No; he’s not dead. It was my brother Aidan who opened the Well of Tears.”
Kyel could only stare straight ahead, struck utterly speechless. Now he knew the impetus that fueled the dark and terrible storm that raged behind the Sentinel’s eyes. Darien had lost everything he’d ever known and ever loved, all at the hands of his own brother. What could anyone say to that? Kyel stood in silence, unable to think of any sort of response. No amount of sympathy, no words of comfort could possibly suffice. At last, he said the only thing he could think of, the question that was burning his mind.
“What are you going to do?”
Darien looked up, the expression on his face so dangerously intense that Kyel drew back involuntarily. In starkly lethal tones, the mage vowed, “I’m going to kill him.”
There was no trace in his voice that he was even aware of the sheer impossibility of that statement. Darien was a fully Bound Sentinel, fettered by his vow to do no harm with his gift. The possibility of him succeeding against another Master not so constrained was less than remote; it would be more like deliberate suicide.
“What about your Oath?” Kyel wondered.
Darien just shrugged, and an awkward silence followed. The mage turned his stare toward the bottom of the pass, slouching back on his rock as an almost warm breeze tousled his hair. To Kyel, he seemed to be staring off into nothing. His gaze was vacant, the expression on his face unreadable. Finally, after a period of silence that seemed to stretch an eternity, he turned back to Kyel.
“Want to go for a ride?” There was a reckless glint in his eyes.
Kyel found himself taken aback. The suggestion had come from out of nowhere. And, as always, Kyel had no idea what his purpose might be. He was starting to get the impression that he could know Darien Lauchlin for a hundred years and still never be able to fully understand the man.
“That sounds good,” he agreed hesitantly, but then he thought about it. “Under one condition: I want my own horse this time.”
Darien’s smile reassured him; it was nothing but sincere, and for once even the shadows seemed gone from his eyes.
Kyel waited at the steps of the keep while Darien went off to make arrangements. It turned out that acquiring a horse was not as simple a matter as walking down the hill and throwing a saddle over the back of the one you wanted. No one left the fortress grounds without permission, not even the Sentinel, it seemed. Darien had to inform Proctor he was going and leave some idea with the horsemaster of where they might be riding. It made sense, Kyel thought. If anything untoward happened, the soldiers back at the keep would need to have an idea of where to look for them. When the mage returned, Kyel was dismayed to see that he was once again wearing that blue-black cloak and had strung the harness of his sword over it. He found himself feeling a little disappointed; he had liked the scant moments he had spent with Darien in the clothes of just a normal man. The cloak had a power of its own, and Kyel found it distancing.
But Darien was still wearing his smile, at least, when he asked Kyel if he was ready.
They walked together down to the horse paddock below the keep and selected their mounts under the watchful gaze of the sentries that were stationed there to guard the animals. Kyel chose a chestnut gelding that reminded him a little of a horse he’d had when he was a boy. The gelding was a light riding horse, unlike the big black beast that neighed and trotted up as D
arien slipped through the paddock’s fence. Kyel watched the horse nudge its muzzle into its master’s chest affectionately as Darien stroked the side of its massive face. Kyel was amazed to see the warhorse looking so hale; the last time he had seen it, they had left the poor thing in the ravine stretched out on the rocks, looking little better off than dead. But when Darien had it saddled and swung himself up over its back, the great beast picked its legs up smartly and tossed its head in a spirited way, eagerly anticipating the ride. The warhorse made immediately for the gate without any prompting from its rider.
“So this is where you’ve been,” Kyel heard himself guessing as they rode through the gate of the paddock.
“Well, you took my rock,” Daren shrugged. “I figured I’d let you have it.”
He kicked his horse to a trot as Kyel’s own mount followed after it. The path they travelled wound around the mountainside, following the curve of the slope. After about two miles, the dirt path narrowed to a rocky trail. Kyel found himself reining in as the black charger suddenly swept around him, cutting his own horse off where the trail narrowed. Looking behind, he could barely make out the tower of Greystone Keep, a shadowy silhouette against the pale flickers of light in the cloudcover. They were already well down in the pass.
They walked the horses along the trail, taking a path that cut back upward from the main track and turned between the folds of two hills. The wind was starting to pick back up again, and Kyel reached his hand up to pull his cloak more tightly about himself. They moved gradually upward into a narrow ravine between two great legs of the mountain. The further they went in, the deeper the shadows settled around them. Kyel found himself growing a little unsettled by the intense quiet of the place.
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