“There is,” agreed the man, “at a small town named Lildun – though Hallor is at war with the Kingdom of Waulon to the south, so that bridge may be contested as well.” Once more, the man spat. “Yet another tin horn prince ruling a tiny bit of useless earth and naming it a kingdom and himself a king.”
“How far away is the bridge in Hallor?” Brenyn asked.
“Twenty-five leagues, at least, maybe thirty.”
Brenyn looked once again toward the west, where the army stirred dust into the atmosphere, turning the late-day sun to blood. Then, he gazed across the river to where the darkings bearing Emi had gone. Finally, his heart pounding with dread inside his chest, he turned away and urged Noris toward the east.
There was nothing else to do.
He had to get across the river and continue the search for her. While he rode eastward, torturous thoughts crowded into his brain, despite every effort to fight them off. After a detour around of some fifty or sixty leagues, even if he were able to cross the river unimpeded, how would he ever pick up the darkings’ trail again?
How would he ever find Emi now?
The darkings would gain a lead of several days through war-torn lands that they could travel with impunity while he must labor to avoid all entanglements.
Despair filled him.
Anguish threatened to overwhelm him.
Hope wavered at the edge of extinction.
Still, he knew nothing to do but to press onward.
And once he managed to cross the river, Brenyn realized, his task would have grown immensely. With the advantage of distance that the darking lord and his servant would then possess, Brenyn might never catch them up. He would have no choice but to learn all he could of darking lords. What were their comings and goings? Where were they spied most often? More important than all other things – where did they dwell?
Only when he learned the answers to these things would he have a chance to find and rescue Emi.
As that day waned, he pressed Noris eastward as hard as he dared with his heart black and heavy within him.
Just before the sun set, he came to another region where the actions of men at war had wreaked havoc upon the inhabitants. Farms and villages were burned and abandoned. In one small town the streets were yet littered with the dead, their carcasses stripped by vultures, the bones gleaming white in the failing light. The only sound that reverberated in those streets now was the soft crying of the wind as it bemoaned that which had been done there.
As the sun sank below the horizon, Brenyn found a barn that had somehow escaped the fire. There was stack of hay upon one side of the building and a stream that flowed near the farmhouse, which was also intact, though abandoned. Brenyn put Noris into a stable, found a pail and filled it with water, and then gave the horse enough hay to replenish his strength.
He and the horse, he realized, might as well rest and recover their vigor for the road ahead, which now would be lengthened and undoubtedly become more arduous, for Emi had been moved far beyond his immediate reach.
The quest to recover her had this day been rendered much longer by events that he could not control.
To help keep these black thoughts at bay, Brenyn went into the farmhouse to see what might be discovered and salvaged, for his supplies were running low.
There, he rifled through cupboards in the kitchen, looking for food stuffs for himself. In the end, all he found were a few dry beans and moldy bread that nonetheless retained a few places that the mold had not rendered inedible. Then he found a bed in a back room and lay down.
Sleep did not come.
Darkness and thick silence only served to blacken his mood and make his heart heavy with foreboding that Emi might be lost to him forever.
For he might never find her.
He tried to banish his fear and dread by remembering those days of lighthearted play alongside Small River, but such pleasant reminisces fled before the terrible hideousness of the truth.
Finally, deep in the night, he rose and went to pace beneath the stars and look across the river, into the unknown darkness.
Where was Emi now?
What tortures and deprivations did she suffer that he was helpless to prevent?
Going into the barn, he lay down next to the stall where he had stabled Noris and made himself lie still until the sun returned once more.
15.
When it grew light enough for him to see, Brenyn led Noris from the barn, saddled him, mounted up, and continued toward the east along the dirt track that ran beside the river. The sun, when it finally climbed above the horizon, brought new resolve to him. He would put away the shame and horror he felt in knowing that Emi had been borne past his house inside the box on the darkings’ cart while he watched, or that he had wasted a full night and much of another day before giving chase – for none of that could be altered now.
The only thing left to him was to find a way across the river, and then discover all that could be learned of darkings. Only then might he find where she had been taken. Only then, if she yet lived, might it become possible to save her and return her home.
As he rode eastward, he studied the river flowing heavily off to his right, seeking the possibility that a ford, or a shallow place in the stream might appear. But this was plains, level ground, and the wide and mighty river had cut its channel deep into the earth long ago. His search for easy passage across remained fruitless.
By the time the sun neared the apex of the sky, a region of higher ground began to rear to Brenyn’s front. Those hills were dark and greenish in color, as if they sported a covering of forest, and this proved to be the case. A thick woodland of hardwoods grew upon the slopes, much like those in Vicundium far off to the north.
The dirt track wound up and into the hills while the river channel narrowed, and the current became ever faster and more treacherous. After a time, the track ended in a clearing in the forest, where at one time logging had occurred. The lumbermen’s camp that had been the track’s destination was abandoned now.
Here, Brenyn was forced to enter the wilderness and make his way forward without the advantage of a path. But the trees all about were ancient, tall, and wide-spread, and he lost little time, for other than the occasional fallen giant there were few impediments. Little sunlight found its way through the canopy; brush was sparse.
Evening found him traveling across a sort of plateau where the forest failed; the trees thinned and gave way to broad stretches of grassy hills and hollows. There were some farms here, but the few people that he saw near them were quick to flee indoors when he came close. For his part, Brenyn ignored them – there was no reason to seek information from folk so removed from knowledge of the only thing that mattered to him.
Off to the right and down in a deep canyon, the river frothed and churned. Brenyn kept it close as he travelled so as not to miss the small town where the farmer had told him there was a bridge. Night fell and he was still upon the plateau with no town or bridge in sight. Going down into a hollow where there was a tumbling stream and plentiful grass, Brenyn removed the saddle from Noris’ back and picketed the horse for the night.
Again, sleep eluded him.
Horror and dread over what had happened to Emi found him instead and destroyed any attempt to rest.
In the clutches of anguish, he forced himself to lie still.
Before dawn broke, he was on the move again.
Two hours after sunup, Brenyn and Noris stood upon a hill in the shelter of trees and gazed down over a hamlet whose small collection of buildings clustered in a narrow valley next to the river. The River Irgon here flowed gentle and serene for perhaps a mile, passing beneath a wooden bridge before plunging into the canyon behind him to the west.
The bridge, to his great relief, was intact.
But the hamlet was burning.
Soldiers filled the streets, spreading the fire from building to building, slaying anyone that the fire rousted from their hiding places. Corpses lay strewn about
.
Upon the road, a half-mile from the village, up the narrow valley to his left, several uniformed men sat their horses, together, as if in conference. Now and again, as they consulted, one of them would turn his head and look up the road toward the north.
It was obvious to Brenyn that these men – those that spread fire, terror, and death throughout the village, and those that sat upon the road above them consulting over their next move – were invaders, undoubtedly from the land of Waulon, to the south of the bridge.
He eased Noris back, deeper into the shadowed shelter of a stand of trees and waited to see what would happen. Hopefully, once their appetite for debauchery and death was satiated, they would move up the road toward the north, deeper into Hallor. For only if they quit the area around the bridge could Brenyn dare to attempt a crossing.
Sadly, he could do nothing to aid the people that died among the streets of the village.
The sun rose higher. The screams of those who suffered at the hands of the invaders gradually faded and then ceased.
At last, the heat of the burning buildings forced the soldiers to quit the village and move up the road to the north, where most sat down alongside the pavement and watched the result of their morning’s vile work. The conference of mounted officers broke up soon afterward, and commands rang in the hollow. The soldiers, who numbered perhaps two thousand, formed into a column and began to follow their leaders up the roadway and into the hills.
Brenyn waited until they had passed from view and then he and Noris went down the slope, staying upon the hillside above the burning town, and eased around the southern end of the buildings and toward the river bridge. The part of town closest to the bridge had been fired first, and the flames burned lower there now.
Ignoring the horrors that had occurred in this small place – for he could no nothing to erase them – Brenyn gained the road and started across the bridge. Before he got far, an arrow sped past his head. Yanking Noris about, he retreated, looking over his shoulder as yet another arrow came his way. This second missile fell short and careened off the roadway and into the waters below.
The farther end of the bridge was guarded. He could see the soldiers, numbering perhaps eight or ten, moving out to stand in the roadway at the far end of the span, training their bows upon him. Several released their missiles at once, but all fell short. The men began to move forward then, to close the distance.
Brenyn retreated another few paces and then halted.
He had spoken truly when he informed the sergeant at the gates of Gravelton that he had never wielded his father’s sword. He had, however, become extraordinarily proficient in the use of the bow. And the bow that his mother had fashioned for his father was far more accurate – at much greater distance – than any other bow he had ever seen employed.
He was beyond the reach of the weapons that the soldiers on the far end of the bridge held in their hands; nonetheless, they were well within his.
Though he had never slain a human, Brenyn did not hesitate now, for they had fired the first salvo. Besides, Emi’s salvation depended upon him gaining the southern bank of the river.
He dismounted and tied Noris to the railing of the bridge. Then, he unlimbered his bow and nocked an arrow. Realizing instinctively that effect was as important as killing in matters of conflict, he deliberately aimed for the farthest of the men on the bridge, gauging the distance and the influence of the slight breeze carefully.
He released.
His arrow shot past the closest of the soldiers and drove deep into the torso of the man behind, killing him.
Instantly, the others halted.
A moment later, they began to retreat.
Brenyn, however, gave them no quarter.
His next missile killed the man in the center of the group in the lead, who seemed to him to be an officer. The men began to fall back more quickly.
Brenyn’s third arrow slew yet another, driving deep into his breastbone.
The group broke, turned, and ran.
Most raced up the road that led into the heights south of the river. One of the men, however, made for a building that stood off to one side of the roadway, likely a barracks of sorts. Brenyn, who already had another arrow nocked on the string, wanted none of these men to gain the advantage of shadows or structures, so he aimed and released. The arrow found that man, piercing his hip and hobbling him.
Upon hearing his scream of pain, the others increased their speed, tearing away up the road.
Brenyn nocked another arrow, untied Noris, and made his way across the bridge. The three men that he had shot upon the bridge were already dead, but the man he had hobbled, lying off to the side of the road near to the building, was squirming in agony. Brenyn checked to see if he could salvage his arrows but was able to keep only the one that had slain the officer, for it had passed through the man’s throat and onto the roadway behind him.
He wiped the blood from it on the grass and then made his way to the wounded man while keeping a sharp eye trained upon both the building behind the man and the soldiers still fleeing up the road into the hills. Nothing moved in any of the openings of the building, however, and when Brenyn came up to the man, he found that his arrow had already been broken, either by the man’s fall or by the man himself in an attempt to pull it free.
“Please,” the man begged, “don’t kill me.”
Brenyn mounted up, deposited the salvaged arrow into his quiver, and slid his bow over his head. “I won’t slay you,” he told the man.
“Then, please, help me,” the stricken soldier pleaded.
Brenyn hesitated, considering, but then he thought of the horrors that the man’s compatriots had wrought on the other side of the bridge. Saying nothing further, ignoring the man’s pleas, he urged Noris on up the roadway. He caught the rest of the soldiers, none of whom were now armed, within minutes, and passed them by as they scattered for the brush and rocks off the side of the road.
They were of no further interest to him.
As it climbed out of the hollow that led down to the bridge behind Brenyn, the road leveled out upon a plateau similar to that upon the opposite shore of the river. There was much evidence of the acts of war here as well – burned out farms, and, a little way further from the river, the charred remnants of a village.
Brenyn shook his head in wonder and shock.
It was as Captain Grizeo had once told him. The south of the world was aflame with the fires of war. And it was into this region of madness that the darkings had brought his beloved Emi. A few miles further on, at a crossroads, where yet another small village had been laid waste and burned, Brenyn found a road that led to the west. He turned Noris along it and urged the horse into a quick trot that would put the miles behind them.
As the sun climbed higher, he once again entered a forested region similar to that across the river to the north, though this time there was a narrow dirt track that wound through the trees. The hills began to slope down once more toward the plains to the west. There were people here, and scattered hamlets, and much like their neighbors to the north, terrified of any armed man riding past.
Brenyn finally caught sight of the plains through the trees of the forest before the sun set to his front. That night, he moved off the roadway and into the forest until he found a clearing with grass and then he picketed Noris again and sat down, leaning against the trunk of a great oak.
That night, to make the hours pass and to defray the black thoughts that ever plagued him in those dark hours, he planned out how he would find Emi. First, he would regain the road that the darkings had traveled upon when they left Farum and discover if there was a stronghold or citadel anywhere along that route where darkings congregated. Failing that, he would simply continue into the south along that same route, questioning everyone that he met as to whether they had encountered the two darkings with their odd conveyance.
Since everyone that he had talked with so far had expressed sincere surprise that they’d s
een a darking lord – apparently a rare occurrence – then anyone that had seen them would remember.
Brenyn’s head grew heavy as hope rose within him that he might, after all, be successful in finding the woman he loved more than his own life.
Sometime, deep in that night, exhausted, he slept.
A chill dawn awakened him.
Off to one side, Noris grazed upon the grass of the clearing.
At once, he mounted up, returned to the road, and quickly moved west. An hour after sunrise, the roadway came out upon a prominence that provided him with an unrestricted view of the plains to the west and south. Patchwork farms covered much of that level prairie, punctuated here and there by villages and towns. The road that he traveled, leading away from the hills at a point below and to his left, went nearly straight out into that landscape.
Like the sun rising behind him, Brenyn’s heart lifted.
Down there, somewhere, was the road that the darkings had taken with his Emi.
Brenyn moved on, urging Noris down the slope and out onto the plains, leaving the forested hills behind. By the end of that day, he had journeyed through several towns, drawing curious gazes in each, which he ignored, and found himself once more among farms. When night fell, he moved off the road and into a stand of trees that bordered a large stream that meandered slowly northward toward the distant river.
The food in his pack had run out the day before, and Brenyn was hungered. Gazing down into the slow-moving waters of the stream, he regretted that he had not thought to bring his fishing line on the journey. But then, he had been in a great, even panicked hurry, and had hoped to catch the darkings long before now.
Leaving Noris to graze upon the grass along the stream, he eased close to a nearby farmhouse. On the near side of the barn, there was an attached pen that looked like a coop. Bending his ear, he heard the soft clucking of chickens as the birds settled in for the night. Carefully and quietly undoing the latch, he made his way into the coop and found the chickens sitting on the roost.
Drawing his dagger, he quickly and silently beheaded the bird nearest him, catching it by its feet and holding it up to let the blood drain. The other chickens stirred uneasily but then, after a moment, settled down again. Back at the stream, Brenyn broke the dead lower limbs off the trees and started a small fire down over the bank where the glow would not be seen from the bridge or the roadway above. Plucking the feathers from the bird, and removing the innards, he suspended the carcass above the flames.
A Plague of Ruin: Book One: Son of Two Bloods Page 14
