The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  Still, the thought of oghuls pursuing them had been the only thing spurring Liz Hen on at such a brisk pace these last few hours. Nail wished Culpa had never told the girl about the oghuls and how they skinned folk and sucked the blood out of their necks. Liz Hen wouldn’t shut up about her fear of them now. “Why would anyone become a bloodletter?” she asked. “What’s in it for the humans? How does a human survive if an oghul bites into their jugulars? Won’t they bleed out?”

  “There’s an addictive toxin inside each oghul fang,” Roguemoore answered from just ahead of her. “A pleasing chemical that over time a bloodletter cannot live without. The same toxin also seals off the vein after a feeding. A bloodletter won’t bleed out. But an oghul bite will leave one nasty bruise.”

  Liz Hen felt her own neck, visibly shuddering. The red-haired girl, along with Dokie and Beer Mug, hiked along the ever-constricting and craggy path directly in front of Nail. Stefan was right behind him, followed by Seita, Val-Draekin bringing up the rear. Bishop Godwyn led the way, Culpa Barra and Roguemoore behind him, each of them leading one of the two dun-colored pack mules by the tether. The beasts were loaded down with food and gear purchased from the livery: tack, bridles, four heavy canvas tarps, thick blankets for all, two woodcutting axes, nine ice picks and many small iron spikes, sacks of flour, potatoes, dried salmon, jerked stag and elk meat, fish bait, several extra quivers full of arrows, two long lengths of coiled rope, nine torches, and enough pine-resin pitch to keep a bonfire going for moons.

  Ragged gray clouds hung over their heads. But as they’d first started hiking up the gaping gorge a mile south of Stanclyffe, the clouds had parted fully and a daunting view of the cliffs rising bleak and shadowy over the town became fully visible. Nail had taken one last look at the towering ten-thousand-foot slab of awe-inspiring rock and quailed at the sight. The Company of Nine was soon swallowed up by the river-carved gorge as they journeyed on. The hazy comfort of civilization was left behind and upward they trudged.

  The wild frothing river to their left was naught but constant snarling madness. It rumbled and crashed with thunder around mossy boulders and over tumbled-down trees. Across the river was an overhanging cliff riven with waterfalls of every size. Ferns and lustrous green moss grew out of the stone wherever Nail’s eyes fell. To the right of their path was a steep slope of sharp jutting rock and towering trees clinging to lofty perches. The trees were mostly ash, aspen, and pine, their pale green leaves trembling in the faint frigid breeze of the deep chasm. Other vines, thick with leaves and heavy with dark red flowers, raced up the sharp stone cliff in a mad tangle. The precarious trail itself wasn’t much of a trail: just worn steps of broken, mossy rock choked with grass and weeds. Stout scrub brush of some kind lined the way, and the roots, wildly splayed over large rocks, seemed to flit and quiver as they passed by, like snakes writhing amidst the stone. It was an eerie canyon and huge.

  Bishop Godwyn, under his gray cloak, wore knee-high leather boots, leather breeches, and a green woolen shirt edged at the elbows with elk hide. The bow strapped over his back was similar to Stefan’s, Dayknight made, constructed of witch hazel and ash wood. The bishop carried a sheathed Dayknight sword hooked to the baldric over his shoulder and a leather pouch of healing poultices at his belt.

  Culpa Barra, right behind the bishop, wore his full Dayknight armor and sword under his cloak. His black helmet was strapped to the dun mule he led.

  Roguemoore had been like a rock the entire trip, serious and determined. He led the second mule, laden with the bulk of their food. Over his back the dwarf bore a vicious-looking spiked mace with a tang set in a sturdy wooden handle. The iron ball of the mace looked heavy enough for ten men, yet aboard Duchess of Devlin, Roguemoore had swung it easily about with one arm whilst practicing with it. Under his short gray cloak, the dwarf wore layered armor that hung like a skirt well below his knees. Atop his head he bore a bulky helm with bull horns jutting from either side. Both the armor and helm he had purchased in Lord’s Point just for the trip. His armor was dull and rusted in spots and had lost most of its shine. And the layered breastplate was a battered testament to the tribal wars some dwarf warrior had fought long years ago. The first time Roguemoore had put the armor on in the Turn Key Saloon, Liz Hen had laughed aloud, saying he looked like a large beetle encased in all that iron. Stefan claimed all the grime and dents gave the armor character. And to Nail, it seemed fighting any dwarf in that much armor would be like trying to spear a hog in a thick iron cauldron with its lid sealed shut.

  Liz Hen was the least equipped of them all. She wore layers of woolen leggings and several thick woolen coats plus her gray cloak, the Sør Sevier sword she was so proud of at her hip. Dokie, Stefan, and Nail had again kept their own Gallows Haven armor for the journey. And Nail was glad for that. The old scrap of iron plate had grown to be a part of him. Underneath, all three boys wore the shirts and tan woolen leggings the bishop had given them at the Swithen Wells Trail Abbey. They were all three wrapped in their gray cloaks like the rest.

  Stefan had the Dayknight bow Shawcroft had given him and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. Dokie carried a small ax and dagger at either hip.

  Nail had a decent sword strapped to his side for once, a long, shiny blade Roguemoore had purchased from an armory in Lord’s Point and given him. Aboard the Duchess of Devlin, Culpa Barra and Val-Draekin had taught both him and Liz Hen daily how to use their swords to best effect. Nail took to it naturally, realizing that much of what Shawcroft had taught him about swinging a pickax was similar to the way Hawkwood had taught him at the abbey and to the way Culpa was teaching him now. Liz Hen was growing surprisingly proficient with a blade too. She was stout and strong and had given Nail some good duels. He could respect her some for that, as annoying as she was.

  The two Vallè were dressed alike. Val-Draekin wore a gray cloak covering supple black leather armor studded with thin layers of ring mail about the neckline. He wore no weapons—at least none that were visible. But Nail knew of at least a half-dozen little daggers the dark-haired fellow kept hidden in the folds of his leather. Seita wore dark leather pants with a black leather belt and matching black doublet, along with a simple fox-fur-lined cape. Her gray cloak was currently tied over one shoulder. She too had no weapons visible. But Nail knew she had at least one thin dagger hidden in the folds of her pants and the ball-and-chain mace at her belt. Despite the damage he had seen the mace do to the Turn Key Saloon’s practice shield, Nail wasn’t convinced it was a real weapon at all. But he kept his opinion to himself.

  Godwyn led the company up a separate small canyon forged by another, smaller alpine stream. While their trail wound up the mountain and the water gurgled down below, the path they followed headed straight up the canyon toward a roaring waterfall. The fresh smell of spray from the brawling falls smelled good. The trail took them even higher above the riotous creek, along the right side of the canyon. On both sides, pine forests clung to harsh columns of rock. Stark-white goats with hooves and curled horns of umber were perched on thin ledges and crags. Godwyn had called the nimble creatures Dall sheep. In the far distance, among the more lofty crags, dozens of rolling, crashing, rock-filled streams of crystal waters danced and tumbled down the mountains in glistening falls, all of them fed from the snowcapped peaks of the Glacier Range far above. The deep rumble of the waterfalls all around was a deafening roar.

  “It’s springtime!” Roguemoore yelled above the din. “There’s more runoff than usual!” The misty spray from the myriad falls was thick enough to veil most of the rocks and vegetation at the bottom of the gorge.

  A lonely gust of wind raked the path when they reached the top of the water-carved chasm, almost eight hours of climbing from Stanclyffe. The clouds had dissipated and the sky was naught but a deep blue dusk. A small brook with a stone-slab bridge led to a high-mountain pasture of sorts. Just beyond the glade was a meadow of grasslands. In the meadow were lichen-covered boulders of various sizes. The spring weather
had melted away the snow and the highland flowers had blossomed, sprinkling the meadow with color. Nail spied several groupings of standing stones here and there.

  Liz Hen heaved a gusty breath of relief when Culpa Barra halted them for a short rest. “Reminds me of our flight from Gallows Haven,” she said, hunched over, taking deeper breaths, rubbing her calves. “Hope there ain’t no more climbing. I’m liable to flop over dead right here.”

  “Lie down too long and the oghuls will sniff you out,” Dokie said, leaning against a rock next to Liz Hen. Her eyes darted about the green glade, worried.

  “You’re a hardy and fit hiker,” Val-Draekin praised Liz Hen.

  She smiled at the compliment and straightened her back, patting Beer Mug atop the head. “I did hike a long way, didn’t I?” she said. Beer Mug licked her hand.

  “It’s good to build up your stamina,” the Vallè continued. “It’ll help you swing a sword with more ferocity when the time comes. And that’s a big sword you carry.”

  “ ’Tis very big.” Liz Hen still struggled with her breath.

  “Let me teach you a Vallè breathing technique,” Val-Draekin said. “When winded, take three deep breaths and briefly hold the last, then repeat. It will help in these high climes.”

  Liz Hen did as instructed. “I feel much more refreshed.”

  “Works every time.”

  “Why don’t you carry a sword?” she asked. “You’re a good sword-fighting teacher anyway.”

  “I wager I’ve been trained in just about every weapon imaginable at one time or another,” Val-Draekin answered. “I just always liked to travel light. The knives serve me well enough, I suppose. As long as I have enough.”

  “And how many you got squirreled away in that armor of yours?”

  “Enough.” He smiled and winked.

  “Look at those.” Dokie did the three-fingered-sign of the Laijon Cross over his heart, then lifted himself from the rock and made his way toward a circle of square-cut standing stones at the bottom of the briar-filled dell fifty feet to the left. Ten paces from the stones he pulled out a strip of parchment and charcoal and started drawing what he saw on the rocks. Nail recalled Dokie doing similar sketches on their journey from the Swithen Wells Trail Abbey to Ravenker.

  “What are they?” Liz Hen asked about the stones.

  “Merely a shrine.” Godwyn said. “A place one can stop and pray for safe travels.”

  “But Dokie ain’t praying,” she said. “He’s drawing.”

  Nail himself wanted no part of the standing stones. Who knew what symbols he might find carved upon them. Squares? Circles? Crosses? Crescent moons? Shooting stars? Dragons? Dokie had once claimed to have seen symbols in his dreams, symbols like the ones on the standing stones above Gallows Haven. Nail had his own dreams and visions to worry about. And who was Cassietta Raybourne? My mother? Could I be kin to the brutal killer Aeros, son of Aevrett? Too many questions. And he would certainly never broach the subject with Roguemoore or Godwyn. They would likely not tell him the truth anyway.

  He was content to just sit still and watch Dokie draw.

  †  †  †  †  †

  Soon the Company of Nine was hoofing along again, this time veering from the main trail. Once on smoother terrain, they hiked at a faster pace. They left the main footpath, now traipsing a pleasant trek through green meadows bound with buttercups. They skirted a battalion of aspens, rolled through some dips and hollows, saw a small herd of elk, stopped for a moment to admire the forest royalty, then continued on, their path taking them ever higher.

  At one point, they traversed a meadow so green it hurt Nail’s eyes. In the center of the meadow was a familiar woolly beast—a musk ox. Only this one was much bigger than any Nail had seen in the Autumn Range. Roguemoore claimed that most oghuls would rather ride a musk ox than a horse. Like elk, musk ox stood on four legs, this one well over twelve feet tall, strands and clumps of long brown hair stretching from the crown of its head and back almost to the ground, concealing the bulk of its body. This one had two monstrous ivory tusks jutting from the top of its head, which swooped toward the ground in a great arch and then back up to sharp points at about eye level—if the thing even had eyes, so covered in tangled long hair it was. They were not as large as the woolly mammoths of Adin Wyte. Still, Stefan marveled aloud at the size of this creature, calling it magnificent. Liz Hen scoffed, “Looks like naught but a big dirty mop with upside-down horns to me.”

  And Liz Hen had kept up her chatter as they moved on, spouting her opinion on a variety of subjects from mop-heads to what type of hats were apt to blow off one’s head in a stiff wind. And before long the sun was down and the light was dim and a brisk wind hissed over the trees, racing toward the snowcapped mountains stretching in the far distance. Godwyn eventually called a halt to their procession and led them up into a small thicket of aspens atop a long, sloping hill. Once sufficiently hidden within the cover of the trees, they began to set up camp, Liz Hen still nattering away about whatever crossed her mind, up to and including the discomforts she had already suffered so far on this expedition, and all she was bound to suffer in the days to come.

  †  †  †  †  †

  Liz Hen was still talking as their dinner wound to a close. “At least we get to eat on this trip,” she blathered on almost without taking a breath. “Potatoes and fish. Unlike when we was in the Autumn Range with Nail guiding us. Almost starved, I did. No food. No fresh trout. This trip is almost pleasurable in comparison. What a nightmare finding the Swithen Wells Trail Abbey that was. Rough. And the cold. Bitter. Freezing. But at least I ain’t got that Sør Sevier slave brand on my wrist like Stefan and Nail does. And that red-haired woman who done the branding was a rank bitch if I ever did see one. Making Jenko do that to his own papa. Told me I’d be spared the hot iron if I but stuck them daggers in poor Baron Bruk’s tarred stumps.” Dokie squinched his face in revulsion as he always did whenever Liz Hen told the story.

  The Company of Nine were all gathered about the fire pit now, some sitting on rocks, others on the cold ground. The crackling fire had been lit by Roguemoore. Culpa and Stefan had pulled the trout out of a nearby stream. Initially Liz Hen had been both worried about and grateful for the fire. Worried because she thought it might bring oghuls raining down on her, grateful because it was warm.

  “So you stuck the knives in Jubal Bruk?” Val-Draekin asked, this being the first time he’d heard the story of the baron. “Stuck the knives in his tarred stumps? I saw him, when Leif Chaparral brought him to the castle. The knives were still there.”

  “You’ve seen him alive then?” Liz Hen asked. “So Jenko’s father made it to Amadon alive like the Sør Sevier bitch said he would?”

  Val-Draekin nodded, black hair glinting orange shards in the firelight. “Alive and with the message from the White Prince he was sent to deliver.”

  “Well, I’ll be hog-tied sidewards and buggered straight in the piehole. I figured poor Jubal Bruk was one dead sorry feller. But he lasted that long?”

  “Still alive as far as I know.” Val-Draekin held his palms to the flame for warmth.

  Liz Hen, ruffling the fur on Beer Mug’s neck, went on talking about Jubal Bruk. “The man in black leather armor plied the baron with some sort of serum, said it would make him survive the trip all the way to Amadon. I figured it was all just a bunch of crockery twaddle and lies, considering how chopped-up and limbless Jubal was.”

  “The man in black leather armor?” Seita inquired.

  Liz Hen answered the Vallè with reluctance in her voice. “They called him the Spider. Most evil thing I seen yet, leastwise since this whole nightmare started. Wore black leather dark as a witch’s snatch.”

  Dokie, sitting cross-legged in the dirt next to Liz Hen, said, “Most evil thing I seen so far was that ghastly horse spiked at the bottom of the elk trap. Remember, Liz Hen, that black horse with the red eyes dull as dead cinders? Like a demon from the underworld.
”

  Seita’s green eyes narrowed. Nail shared an anxious look with Stefan. They’d both seen that horse when it was alive—a shiny black mare ridden by a Vallè woman with features alarmingly similar to Seita’s. Stefan had no idea the Vallè on the trail above Gallows Haven had been a Bloodwood assassin, or that Shawcroft had killed her. Nail would never mention her to him either, especially not now.

  “What did this red-eyed horse look like exactly, Dokie?” Roguemoore asked. Dancing firelight flickered gold flakes off the dwarf’s scaled armor.

  “It looked unquestionably dead,” Dokie answered, a haunted look on his face. “Like I ain’t never seen anything deader. Them eyes, dead as dusty coal. And its hide, as dead as dusty coal too. Lusterless and cold.”

  “Lusterless?” Liz Hen barked. “How do you even know what that word means?”

  Dokie looked at her blank-faced. Liz Hen swatted him in the back of the head. “You lusterless clodpole.”

  “Well,” Culpa Barra broke in, “we had all best prepare ourselves for seeing much worse than a dead horse at the bottom of an elk trap.” The Dayknight sat on a rock leaning over the fire, sharpening his sword with a palm-sized whetstone.

  “What do you mean?” Liz Hen’s eyes grew concerned quickly.

  “As I said before at the Turn Key, there were things Shawcroft and I saw deep in the Deadwood Gate mines.” A hint of fear crept into the Dayknight’s eyes. “Things I can’t explain. Those mines are a nightmare of their own, an evil place of wraiths and dark oghul magics. Like I said before, a place apt to play tricks on your mind if you let your guard down.”

  Firelight danced in the forest of white aspens surrounding their camp, creating long shadows into the night. Nail had been in plenty of mines with Shawcroft. He’d gathered Forgetting Moon and the blue angel stone from the altar in the Roahm Mines himself. It seemed Culpa Barra was exaggerating for effect.

  “I’m not afraid of any mines,” he said, then immediately wished he hadn’t as Roguemoore looked at him sharply.