It seemed that moment had been the beginning of all Nail’s heartache.
Where are they now, Ava Shay and Jenko Bruk? Do they still even live? Nail felt guilty for whatever fate they now suffered. I could have saved them. That one betrayal would forever haunt him.
The breeze gathered strength as Bronwyn led them down a desolate boulder-studded bluff toward a small fishing port nestled within a windy inlet of water-worn rock ledges. The port was no more than a half-dozen rickety white huts and a frail dock that stretched out into the choppy ocean.
It was growing hot, and being so near the sea again, Nail desired to bathe, deeply desired it, just wanted to jump straight from his horse right into the sea and scrub himself clean. As his mount wended its way down the rocky slope, Nail watched a group of fishing boats all a-sail, struggling toward the quay.
Bronwyn reached the head of the wooden dock first, water lapping against the shore beneath. She dismounted. Cromm slid from his mount too, his wide feet landing heavy on the ground. Nail’s legs were sore from long riding, yet he remained in his saddle. Val-Draekin too.
One vessel was already tied to the far end of the wavering dock, a good-sized fishing boat with a tall mast and furled sail. There were six fishermen climbing from it, gathering their gear. Soon all six were trudging up the wharf toward Bronwyn and Cromm. The fishermen were a ragged lot, rough-spun breeches and white shirts worn and stained, four carried coils of rope over their shoulders, one dragged a net behind him. The gray-haired man in front carried a thin bow in one hand and a quiver full of arrows with gray goose quills in the other. All six had sheathed boning knives at their belts.
They slowed their gait when they saw Bronwyn and the oghul, steady on their feet as the dock shifted with the rolling waters underneath. When Bronwyn pulled the black bow from over her shoulder, the six fishermen stopped altogether. Nail did not want her to shoot them. The oghul stepped up onto the dock, gums swollen and inflamed.
Nail’s heart shuddered.
“We are here to requisition your boat,” Bronwyn announced loudly.
“Our fishing boat?” the grizzled man with the bow and quiver of arrows said. He was a skinny fellow with yellow, nervous eyes and a swooping mustache. He reminded Nail of Bishop Hugh Godwyn. “Our boat ain’t for sale. And we don’t want any trouble.”
“Don’t want any trouble?” Bronwyn repeated. “I’m actually impressed with your steady thinking, Ser.” She gripped the black bow tighter in her fist, her other hand pulling an arrow from her quiver. “Does gloomy weather or sunny weather make you more fearful, Ser?”
“Pardon?” The man looked at her askance.
“There is an old oghul saying,” Bronwyn went on, “that bad things only happen on sunny days.”
“So.” The man’s brow furrowed as he looked back at his fishing partners.
“So.” Bronwyn shrugged. “Hot weather makes everyone mean and bitter.”
“Cromm is mean and bitter even in thunderstorms and blizzards,” the oghul said.
“What my companion is trying to say,” Bronwyn continued, “is that the heat is about to set him off into a rage. And patience is not one of his virtues.”
The oghul grinned at the man, thick lips pulling back, exposing flesh-tearing fangs. Horror fell over the faces of all six fishermen.
“ ’Tis rare Cromm is even this polite,” Bronwyn said. “But he can be very useful in the requisitioning of things, if he has a mind to.” She nocked the arrow to her bow, aimed it at the fisherman’s chest. The man stepped back, eyes wide with fear, not even bothering to ready his own bow.
“Do not kill him.” Nail spurred his mount forward, placing it between Bronwyn and the gray-haired man, her arrow pointed steady at his chest now.
“Bloody Mother Mia.” Bronwyn spat the curse like venom. Her eyes were like cold pools of moonlight under her black tattoos. “We need the boat. What’s one man to you?” Her brows furrowed to sharp points. “Even if I slay all six of them, what of it?”
“It’s murder,” Nail said. “They are just fishermen.”
“Murder?” she hissed. “Lest you forget, you ungrateful little shit, we killed plenty of oghuls when we rescued your sorry hide. You didn’t seem to mind murder then. Or is an oghul life worth less than that of a human?”
The bay gelding shifted under him, feeling his nervousness.
“Perhaps we can trade our horses for the boat.” Val-Draekin dismounted and walked his horse up to the old fisherman, handing the fellow his reins.
Bronwyn let the tip of her arrow waver, her gaze meeting Cromm’s. The oghul nodded. She put away her arrow, eyes still on Nail. “You will learn Cromm and I are not an unprincipled pair if someone offers but a simple solution.” She peered around Nail’s horse at the gray-haired fisherman. “A trade then, four horses for the boat?”
“It is a bad trade,” the man said.
“Or Cromm can suck on your neck whilst I place an arrow into the heart of every man with you.”
“We’ll take the horses,” the man said.
† † † † †
Val-Draekin untied the sailboat from the dock whilst Bronwyn and Cromm situated their saddlebags and supplies under the bulwarks, the oghul once again sucking on his black rock as he worked. Nail settled himself in the prow, watching as the six fishermen led their newly acquired horses up the boulder-strewn slope.
The black-haired girl in the white dress Nail had previously seen running in the fields of rye came bounding down the slope toward the fishermen. She threw her arms around one of the men, hugging him tight, fear on her face as she pointed back up the slope. Above them, atop the desolate rocky bluff, the five cloaked knights from the old keep appeared like flat black silhouettes against the sunbaked horizon, bleak spears of multicolored light sparking off their scaled armor in every direction. The black saber-toothed lion was with them.
“Rotted angels and the bloody Mother Mia too,” Bronwyn muttered. The whites of her eyes had turned to narrow slits as she looked up at the five knights in the distance.
Val-Draekin seemed utterly spellbound by the sudden appearance of the lion and the cloaked knights. Cromm was similarly transfixed. “The silver-faced knights,” the oghul muttered as their boat drifted free of the quay. “More oghul legend coming true.”
As subtle as flowing mist, the five knights made their way down the slope toward the girl and the group of fishermen, the black saber-tooth on their heels. No longer backlit by the harsh sun and shards of light, what grabbed Nail’s attention most about the five striking knights—beyond their brilliant suits of glimmering armor—was that they each indeed wore silver masks under their hoods, but these masks were in the shape of human skulls. They also had silver whips lined with sparkling silver barbs coiled in their gauntleted hands.
The six wary fishermen were now rooted in place as the lion and the five knights descended toward them. The girl cowered behind one of the horses. One of the skull-faced knights—the one in white armor—let his whip slowly unspool. The shimmering whip dripped quills of hissing silver into the rock and grass. The two groups faced each other without a word.
There was a wet-sounding snap as the knight struck. The whip’s silvery tip arced high into the sunlight, exploding back down, tearing almost halfway through both the fisherman and the haunches of the bay gelding behind him.
Icy fingers clawed straight into Nail’s guts as he watched the man fold in half and the horse topple over dead, sliding to the ground almost in two separate pieces. Blood and a thick sludge of guts drained from both corpses and down the hillside.
Two horrifying deaths in one crack of a whip.
Suddenly the whip flashed again, like lightning, and the rocky bluff filled with the terrified cries of the fishermen and the baying of the dying horses. It took every ounce of effort for Nail to bite back his own outcry of horror. For nothing could be so savagely efficient in creating instant gouts of blood and death as the sizzle and slash of the kni
ght’s silver whip. It sliced through man and horse alike as if flesh and bones were made of naught but air.
It had to be a dream, this new hideousness. The silver in the tombs! Nail could see the stuff now, dripping from the walls, melting the wooden stool in the Sky Loch mines.
Anger coursed though Nail at the vile injustice. The men had merely traded their boat for horses in an effort to remain safe from us, safe from Bronwyn . . . from me.
And they will all die anyway.
Nail looked away when the sabor-toothed lion went for the girl. A moment passed. And when he looked back, she was dead. All the fishermen were dead. The horses too. The whip-wielding knight turned his silver face toward Nail’s group at the end of the quay, one white-gauntleted hand sweeping the hood back from his skull-faced mask. Then he slowly drew the silver mask up over his head.
The pale face of the creature beneath was both unsettling and exquisite at once, almost Vallè-like in aspect, but unlike any Vallè Nail had ever seen, ears more pointed and thin, face almost feminine. The pure white pallor of the knight’s skin was both arresting and frightful.
The knight’s two silver eyes bore into Nail with both fire and malice, cutting into his soul, stark and merciless. And with that one commanding gaze, Nail’s will seemed to crumble, as if not only his soul was being sucked from his body, but also every bone and sinew was coming apart, trying to claw and tear its way out of his skin.
“That one is staring right at me,” Nail said loudly, touching the hilt of his sword to make sure it was still at his belt. The scars on his skin burned.
“Skulls,” Val-Draekin said, the look in his eyes as bleak as a winter’s gale cutting across a Sky Lochs glacier. “That is what they were called before all history of them was wiped clean. Seita dreamed they had returned to the Five Isles. I refused to believe her.”
“Skulls?” Nail met the Vallè’s anxious gaze. “In the Sky Loch mines, Culpa Barra mentioned something about the Skulls.”
“Aye, he did,” Val Draekin acknowledged. “The Moon Scrolls of Mia mention the Skulls but a handful of times. But that is not their only name.” The Vallè’s eyes remained fixed on the slope of bloody carnage above them and the black lion and cloaked knights who’d caused it. “They were presumably made extinct when Laijon banished all demons into the underworld during the Great War of Cleansing. Despite Seita’s dreams to the contrary, I did not believe they would ever return.”
“Who would return?” Bronwyn’s voice was laced with impatience as she shoved the boat farther from the dock with a long oar. “What would return?”
“An ancient race of Vallè,” Val-Draekin said, his voice grave. “The Aalavarrè Solas. Those who helped the oghuls tame the beasts of the underworld. Those who rode the Dragons in days long past. The Moon Scrolls of Mia referred to them as the Skulls. The Way and Truth of Laijon names them the Last Demon Lords.”
* * *
Between truth and lie and legend shall be a veil, and only on the heights of the stars shall dwell those who know the Slave by his marks. And in that final day their eyes shall be turned to the tree of fire and that Dragon Claw we’ve sought since the beginning of all things. That fell gauntlet that didst slay Laijon, that silver-clawed hand I didst steal from my son and place over the tomb of my beloved . . .
—THE MOON SCROLLS OF MIA
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTY
JONDRALYN BRONACHELL
6TH DAY OF THE FIRE MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AMADON, GUL KANA
This place is no good. Jondralyn gripped Hawkwood’s hand, her cloak suddenly hot, constricting. It was like she was back in the Rooms of Sorrow, only this spacious chamber Hawkwood had led her to was an ominous haze of ruby light, a grim and gritty room of white-plastered walls and wood benches smeared black with smoke residue. Dirty rags and furs were crammed into the cracks in the walls in front of her; two wood-plank doors stood behind her. Shadows drenched the corners of the room and vaulted ceiling above. High on the wall to the left was a lofty stained-glass window, each sunlit pane so fiery red, it almost hurt her eye. To the right hung an intricately stitched tapestry of Mia. The Blessed Mother’s gaze was drawn to the cross-shaped altar in the room’s center. Dried rivulets of blackness ran down the altar’s sides, as if someone had poured buckets of tar over it. There were ashes, bones, pigeon shit, and rat droppings strewn about its base, plus numerous carvings of the nameless beasts of the underworld—vile images that burned themselves into Jondralyn’s mind with their unholiness. Worst of all, the surface of the altar was stained with a dark substance. Fresh blood!
Jondralyn shuddered, fingers tightening around Hawkwood’s hand, wondering what foul sacrifice had recently taken place in this hidden crypt. Splatters of some liquid were sprinkled over the blood on the altar, shiny and silver in hue.
The curious gleam of the silver drew her farther into the room.
Hawkwood pulled her back. “We must be careful.”
There was genuine concern in his eyes, fear almost. She had never seen him afraid before. Together Mount Albion and Amadon Castle were a honeycomb of passages, hidden galleries, staircases, and secret ways. It made her uneasy knowing there were rooms like this that even she had not yet discovered.
“Why have you brought me here?” She voiced her concern.
“ ’Twas Tala who first led me to this place.” He let go of her hand and stepped to the center of the room, pulling the hood of his cloak back from his face. He leaned over the altar, studying its blood-crusted surface with crisp, dark eyes. “Your sister knows more about the Bloodwood lurking in the castle than she lets on.”
“Are you certain?”
“I followed Tala here not long after Lawri lost her arm. Your sister seemed distraught. No, more like deranged, shouting for the Bloodwood to appear, demanding a conversation from the empty darkness.”
Jondralyn felt her face twist in horror. “Was she taken with the wraiths?”
“No. She was lucid enough. I revealed myself and spoke with her briefly, gave her one of my swords, offered to teach her my craft.”
“Teach her?” Jondralyn questioned. “As you promised to teach me?”
“Aye.”
She did not like the thought of Tala learning to be an assassin.
But more important, there was one thing Hawkwood had said earlier that still needled her. “You mentioned Tala shouted for the Bloodwood. Did the Bloodwood come?”
It seemed Hawkwood hadn’t heard her, as his gaze lingered on the scarlet surface of the altar, his eyes narrowing to cold slits. “I can’t help but think that some secret lies in this room, Jon. The answer to all of our questions.”
He turned from the altar, his piercing eyes roaming the room, searching.
Despite her unease, she felt her every sense was heightened just being in his presence. The last time she had seen Hawkwood, they had made love, and also the time before that. Those occasional couplings were nearly all she could think of. What few times he’d dared venture into her chamber had been risky and brief. But she needed him more than just occasionally. Standing so close to him now, soaking in the familiar scent of cloves and leather that clung to him always, rekindled that desire in her.
“I wish to come with you after we leave this place,” she said, reaching up to his face, placing her hand gently over the faint wounds caused by Squireck Van Hester in the Rooms of Sorrow. His scars were nearly healed, unlike her own. “I cannot stand to be in the castle with my brother much longer.”
He leaned into her touch. “You must keep abreast of the goings-on in the king’s court, not hide in the shadows with me.”
“Jovan taunts me. Threatens both Tala and me at all hours. I fear I will do something rash if I am forced to remain near him much longer.”
“I promise, we shall begin your training soon.” The burning passion in his own eyes caught her by surprise. “And with that training you will learn patience. For to learn the skills of a Bloodwood is to learn
the art of death.” Again, the smoldering heat of his twin dark orbs seared through her soul. She could see the scars of his face tighten.
What are you thinking, Hawkwood?
It was this question that always plagued her. No matter how much she loved him, there would always be part of him she could not fathom. She saw that part lingering in the back corner of his eyes, always there, always just out of reach.
“We are destined for each other?” she asked, not able to shake the words of Squireck. The destiny of the Princess lies with the Gladiator. “We are meant for each other, are we not, Hawkwood?”
He leaned away from her touch just slightly, a look of chilly self-reproach momentarily crossing his face. What does he know that I do not?
Jondralyn wanted so desperately to reach forth and touch him again, but let her hand fall to her side. Does he finally see my face for what it truly is, horrid and scarred and mangled? It was an insecurity she knew she would always live with. In the wake of Squireck’s death she had felt naught but self-pity.
Sudden shame washed over her. Around Hawkwood, she’d almost entirely forgotten about Squireck. Initially she’d felt tremendous grief at the Prince of Saint Only’s death, but at the same time breathed deep and free. Before his death in the arena, her former betrothed’s faithful presence had become a burden, suffocating in its devotion. The moment Squireck died, she never imagined the horror of seeing his brutal beheading would abate, though within a few short days it had. Guilt swarmed her conscience at the thought. She blamed herself for his demise. She had been so cruel to him. And the prophecy of the Five Warrior Angels now a ruin with the death of the Gladiator.
The Blackest Heart Page 91