“Who are you?” the forger demanded, making it patently clear who wore the authority.
Before Kyel could answer, Alexa announced, “His name is Grand Master Kyel Archer. He is a Sentinel of Aerysius!”
The mayor’s face ran through a range of emotions faster than a pianist’s fingers flitting through scales. The smith’s eyes remained cold and even, fixing Kyel with a look of distrust.
“Show us the marks of the chains,” he ordered.
In the space between heartbeats, Kyel became aware that the commotion in the square had halted altogether. Glancing back, he saw that every person in the crowd had stopped moving and now stood frozen, gaping at him with fear in their eyes. With no small amount of apprehension, Kyel held his hands up one at a time, thrusting back his sleeves and baring his wrists for all to see.
The blacksmith stared hard at the markings of the chains. His gaze slid to Kyel’s face. He nodded curtly.
A bottomless silence settled over the crowd. Silence and deference. At first, Kyel couldn’t understand it. Then, in a flash of insight, the answer became obvious. For hundreds of years, this town had stood in the long shadow of Aerysius. None of the men and women gathered before him would dare disrespect the emblems of the chains. Kyel hadn’t counted on that reaction, but that didn’t make him any less relieved.
The forger thrust out his hand. “Tom Akins. I’m a smith down from Farbrook.”
Kyel accepted the smith’s handshake, noting the lingering doubt in the man’s eyes.
Tom continued, “I’m here because, well, Farbrook doesn’t exist anymore. Neither does Gannet or Castleton, or anything else north of here. The Enemy’s been raiding town-to-town. Within the past week, I’ve witnessed atrocities that will haunt my sleep for the rest of my days. I stood in a barn and looked the demon himself in the eye. I’ve never seen such inhumanity. He’s torched people in their own homes, crucified others. Impaled men on stakes and left them alive for the ravens to eat. He’s massacred whole families: mothers, babes. He has no mercy. No respect for life.”
The smith fell silent, visibly wrestling with the ghosts of the horrors he’d seen. His eyes fell on Kyel’s cloak, staring at it with a peculiar mixture of revulsion and expectation.
Kyel looked at him a long moment. Tom’s story was chilling. More so because his account was in line with everything Kyel had always heard about the Enemy, the kind of tales that used to terrify him as a boy. Apparently, the dark stories told to scare children were all based on truth.
The smith puffed out his cheeks in a protracted sigh. “Since Farbrook, I’ve made it my purpose to destroy that devil and his horde. I’ve been traveling south, warning the people ahead of him. Town by town, we’ve left them nothing. What we couldn’t take, we burned. What we couldn’t burn, we buried.” His stare hardened, locking on Kyel’s face. “Perhaps you can help us. Redeem the honor of that damn cloak you’re wearing.”
Kyel glanced sideways at the gathered crowd. Then he returned his stare to the blacksmith. “How hungry are they?”
“His raiders haven’t had a good meal in over a week. By now, they’re starving and desperate.”
Kyel nodded. He’d always heard that starving men didn’t think clearly. He hoped starving demons didn’t either.
“I’ve an idea,” he said. “But it’s a gamble. And I can’t stay to help you pull it off.”
18
Darien of Amberlie
The cold grip of memory wound around him and constricted.
Darien gazed down at the long strip of rutted dirt and felt throttled by remembrance. He tried to maintain his focus on the road ahead, bending all his will into the effort. It was no good. He kept glancing upward. His gaze roamed over the tangle of branches overhead, desperate for just one glimpse of the mountain cliffs above. But the forest canopy refused him. So he forced his gaze back down at the dirt, plagued by emotions he couldn’t name.
A town became visible through an opening in the trees. He nodded his head toward it. “That’s Amberlie.”
Azár and Sayeed exchanged sharp glances. Azár asked, “This is your home?”
Darien shook his head. “No. My home was up there”—he glanced up at the merciless snarl of branches— “but down here’s where I grew up.”
He stared harder at the road, so he wouldn’t have to look up, or ahead, or back. He studied the ruts in the dirt, the pockmarked clay broken with scuffed tracks, both human and animal. At the half-buried stones. He could name most of the rocks; they were common to the area. He stepped over a pebble of gypsum. A lump of quartz protruded from the side of the road, half-covered by grass. A small chunk of granite turned under his foot. The ubiquitous river-rock, round and smooth and polished. Mica. Fool’s gold. Feldspar.
“What’s up there?” Azár asked softly.
He wanted to ignore her. She already knew what was up there—she had to. Flatly, he responded, “Aerysius.”
“I don’t see it.”
Neither could he. Perhaps the thick branches were protective, like a scab over a wound.
“That’s because it’s gone,” he answered.
Azár walked with her head craned, searching for a break in the trees. Behind them, the rhythmic clatter that accompanied a column of armed men announced their presence to the world.
A broad streak of light shot down, making him squint. Making him stop. Darien took a deep, steadying breath. Then he looked up through the trees at the soaring cliffs overhead. His eyes traveled up the sharp granite wall. And up. And up, until he couldn’t tilt his head back any further.
“It was up there,” he said. “Where the cliff bows inward. You can see the terraces if you look hard enough. But there’s nothing else left.”
He glanced back down again and started forward, his boots scuffing the dirt. Azár took his hand. He supposed it was a gesture of comfort. He didn’t want it.
Two of Sayeed’s scouts jogged toward them from the direction of Amberlie. The first man reported, “The town appears empty, Warden. All of the structures are intact.”
“Good,” Darien said. “Maybe they left some food behind.”
He trained his focus on the town, visible through the trees. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Azár and Sayeed were still scanning the cliffs.
“It is so far up,” she gasped. “How do you climb that?”
He could hear the awe in her voice. It was the same awe he used to feel as a boy, standing in that same grove, gazing up at the mountain in yearning.
“There was a lift,” he said, and didn’t elaborate. Ahead, the town was mercifully closer.
“It is said you fell from that mountain.” There was a lightness in Sayeed’s tone that made Darien realize he was trying to make a jest. Probably an attempt to buoy his mood.
“I did.”
The levity melted from Sayeed’s face, his eyes widening as his gaze darted back upward.
The town of Amberlie was just as Darien remembered it, only empty. Like every other town they’d come across. He stopped in the middle of the square, his eyes wandering slowly over the littered street, fighting a sharp pang of nostalgia.
Around him, Sayeed’s Zakai spread out to search the structures. Darien waited with his eyes pinned on the mountain cliffs overhead. For minutes, that was all he could do. At last, the scouts reported back that the town was completely empty. Not one stubborn holdout had remained behind. Which was good. Darien hadn’t wanted to kill people he’d known all his life, had grown up with. Of all the towns they’d captured in the Vale, he’d dreaded taking Amberlie the most. He’d left too many friends there. And too many memories.
“Wait here. I’ll be back in a bit,” he said to Azár. Ignoring her look of confusion, he walked away from her.
Turning onto a side street, Darien strode past rows of houses he remembered well, following the same old cobbled street he’d taken a thousand times before. His feet remembered where to go. He found a small dirt path just out of town that looked more like
an abandoned deer trail than a footpath. He followed it anyway, aware of the crunching sounds of Azár’s footsteps following behind, and the eager patter of oversized paws that trailed him everywhere he went.
Darien scowled, irritated that his desire for solitude continued to be ignored. Without looking back at his unwanted companions, he followed the path as it meandered through the trees, finally ending at a dilapidated stone-and-wattle cottage covered by gray, ancient thatch.
He paused, staring for a moment at the outside of the cottage and the glen that surrounded it. Off to the side was the covered well he used to draw water from as a boy. Across from it was the sycamore with the beehive in it. The patch of ground that had once been the widow’s vegetable garden. The spot in the corner of the house where he’d buried the squirrel he’d killed with his slingshot. His brother’s treehouse in the sprawling oak, now fallen. He hadn’t been allowed up there. But he’d gone anyway.
Darien walked the rest of the way up the path and, motioning for the demon-hound to remain outside, entered the dark cottage. The floorboards groaned and cracked beneath his weight. Beams of light, swarming with dust, slanted down through gaping holes in the thatch. The cottage smelled of earth and mildew and abandonment. Everything inside was coated with dust. Old, tattered cobwebs sagged in the corners, looking just as neglected as the rest of the place.
He walked toward the hearth and stood looking down at the remains of the widow’s bed. Mice and rats had made nests in what was left of the bedding. Water and rot had claimed the rest. On the floor beside it was a rusted rushlight holder, left behind. Everything else had been either looted or decayed.
A cracking noise told him Azár had entered the space. Without looking back at her, he said, “This is the home of the widow who raised us.” He gestured at an empty corner. “We slept over there—me and my brother. She couldn’t afford a bed for us, so we gathered straw and threw it down and covered it with a blanket every night. There were chinks in the walls that let the cold in. Every morning, dew collected on the ceiling and fell on us like rain.”
Azár laid a hand on his back.
“We never lacked. My father made sure the widow always had food for us. He came to visit from time to time. Mother never did.” He stood quietly, eyes loosely focused on the dust swirling in the air as he struggled with the decision of how much he wanted to let himself feel.
“It was a good home,” Azár said, looking around.
He silently disagreed.
Footsteps on the path outside broke his attention. Sayeed burst into the cottage with an excited grin, announcing, “There’s food, Brother!” He retreated out the door then turned around, beckoning.
Darien led Azár by the hand away from the cottage, taking a shortcut he remembered. It led them under the fresh leaves of a maple grove, and down a small embankment into the outskirts of town.
Reaching the town square, Darien discovered that Sayeed’s men hadn’t been idle; they’d been cleaning out store houses and root cellars, stacking crates and bags of food in the center of town. Sayeed walked toward them up the main road with a broad smile on his face. “They left behind a bounty of food!” he announced. “We will feast tonight!”
Darien eyed the food stores warily. Every town they’d come to since Farbrook, without exception, had prepared in advance for their arrival. Burned to the ground, gutted. Stores depleted or destroyed. Nothing had been left to sustain a foraging army. All except this one town—a town that had special significance to him.
“No.” Darien shook his head. “We can’t trust this.”
Sayeed’s face went serious. He nodded slowly.
Darien said, “Have some of the men try it. Small portions. If they’re still standing this time tomorrow, then we’ll have your feast.”
He looked around at the empty houses that lined the square. “Let’s camp here.”
They bedded down in town—at least as many as the town would yield grudging space for. The remainder of the Tanisars camped outside in a neat ring of tents. Throughout the next day, Darien paced restlessly up and down the length of Amberlie’s streets, accompanied by his ever-slobbering pet. He tried to keep his eyes averted from the cliffs above, but the occasional hawk cry—or just plain distraction—inevitably turned his gaze in that direction. At last he gave in to the compulsion to acknowledge the scars raked across the cliff face above like self-inflicted wounds—and bit down on the instant pang of sorrow that shot up from some forgotten place inside.
He’d stood in this same spot as a boy, gazing up at the cliffs that loomed taller than the sky, staring in over-awed wonder at the city high above on the mountain. Dreaming of a time when he, too, could find his own place among the clouds. When he could become a Sentinel like his father and finally look upon the mother who had borne him, the woman who, for all intents and purposes, ruled the world. A time when he could at last come into his own and forge his own legend and legacy.
How naïve he had been. An ignorant boy, fool enough to hope and dream.
He shielded his eyes from the glare, focusing on a thin stream of water that plunged down the cliff in a tendril-thin cascade, never quite reaching the ground. At a point about halfway down the mountain, the waterfall dwindled to mist that was simply blown away.
He saw Azár turn a corner and angle toward him. She wore her hair unbound, which was a rare thing. It changed her appearance drastically, softening her features. He wasn’t used to seeing her with her hair unconstrained outside the privacy of their own tent.
“They are hauling in wood for the fires,” she announced with a smile. “It seems we will feast tonight, after all.”
Darien grunted. He’d kept an eye on the men who had tested the provisions. None had fallen ill. His mouth started watering at the prospect of a full meal. Azár wrapped an arm around him and glanced upward, using the other to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare.
“Tell me about the city in the sky. Speak to me of Aerysius.”
He slouched under the heavy weight of the inevitable. He’d known he’d have to confront his feelings at some point. He just hadn’t wanted it to be in front of her. Darien took his wife’s hand and drew her over to the side of the street, where the view was better and there was a bench they could sit on. Azár lowered herself down at his side and sat looking at him expectantly. Darien didn’t say anything for a while. He glanced down at her soft hand and trailed his fingers across her skin.
Indicating the cliffs, he said, “It was beautiful. It was built all on terraces, carved right out of the mountain. The towers were so elegant. It was like they floated in the clouds. The Hall of the Watchers was enormous. It was built around this giant dome. The pillars inside looked like trees. Enormous trees—far bigger than those.” He gestured at the old-growth pines lurking over the rooftops. “Row upon row upon row. Scores of them. It was breathtaking. I’ve never felt so insignificant as I did standing under that dome.”
He fell silent. Azár squeezed his hand.
“I am sorry you lost so much,” she said. Then she paused. “But I am not sorry your city in the clouds perished.”
He looked down regretfully. “No, I don’t suppose you would be.”
She reached up and turned his face toward her, forcing his eyes to meet hers. She said firmly, “If Aerysius had never fallen, then you would not have fallen. And we would not be here now. All of us—we would still be in Malikar. Waiting to die. So Aerysius had to fall. It had to fall so that we could live.”
She kissed him gently, caringly. Then she rose and walked away, leaving him alone with his hound and his memories.
Somehow the anticipated meal had evolved into a full-fledged festivity. The men had found a few casks of cider and rolled them out. A great bonfire was built in the center of the square, fed with items of furniture plundered from nearby homes.
Darien felt a tug on his arm and turned to find a smiling Sayeed carrying a mug of cider. The officer forcibly planted the drink in his hands, then tugged him
down the street in the direction of the fire. The odor of searing meat made Darien’s stomach spasm. Tumbling smoke and waves of heat rose from the fire, the flames crackling high into the air. The sky was the bleak color of the ocean, and only one faint star braved the twilight, flickering anxiously just above the trees.
Sayeed propelled him to where a tight cluster of men and women sat on rugs thrown across the ground a little way from the fire. Azár was already there, sitting on a cushion under a cloth canopy. She sat in a ring of Zakai gathered around a cluster of dishes and bowls filled with an assortment of foods. She was laughing at a comment or joke.
When Azár looked up at him, her eyes shone joyfully. She waved him over, patting a cushion by her side. Darien sat next to her, Sayeed following right behind. The men and women acknowledged his presence with reverent bows, not going fully to the ground, but not far from it. He ignored the deference.
Darien lifted the mug to his lips and took a gulp of hard cider. He already knew what it would taste like before it reached his tongue—he’d grown up drinking Koff Tabard’s favorite recipe made from local crab apples. It took just a taste to be certain the cider had come from old Koff’s hoarded stash. The knowledge came with a sharp pang of guilt that didn’t stop him from drinking it. Darien chugged the cider down, setting the empty mug by his side.
“Try the basha!” Azár exclaimed, scooping up some gravied vegetables with a piece of bread. She held it up before his face, grinning as he bit into it.
Immediately, Darien’s hunger overrode every other impulse. He dove into the meal, unable to stuff the food into his mouth fast enough. It was a long time before he slowed his chewing enough to even taste what he was eating. Azár laughed delightfully, tearing off a slice of bread and helping herself as Darien went on to explore the numerous other offerings spread out before them.
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