Bledig cursed himself and jammed his heels into the horse’s hindquarters, charging headlong into the smoldering haze. Garbled epithets wafted over the din as Domagoj hurtled past, racing Bledig for the wall. Bledig was relieved. In battle, he knew no better ally, no better friend. Domagoj had a wild spirit, matched in equal measure by his loyalty.
It was the horses that saved them both from barreling blindly into the unknown. The animals sensed doom long before either Bledig or Domagoj, and skidded to a stop several dozen yards from the gates. Bledig’s nostrils flared at the stench of seared flesh. He had never acquired a tolerance for the taste of death, and his tongue was coated with it.
The scene that greeted them was shocking, beyond Bledig’s worst expectations. Evidence of a brutal battle, bloody and shortlived, was strewn across the open grounds. Beneath and beside them, the earth was littered with the fallen — brave young men, just like Odwain. Small fires snapped and crackled in clumps of grass, and lifeless limbs lay pierced with flaming arrows.
Bledig gripped the hilt of his blade a bit tighter, anticipating. Billows of smoke thickened and thinned on the wind, all but obscuring any view of the enemy that remained. He could not see this Hellion army Glain spoke of, but he could feel its presence.
“It is too quiet,” Bledig whispered.
Domagoj grunted and uttered an old Obotrite ward against evil. “I can hear something still moving ahead.”
Bledig nodded and urged his horse through the smoke, toward a low rustle and murmur in the distance. Domagoj rode alongside, wary and alert. The nearer they drew to the gates, the denser the trail of corpses. Bledig’s heart grew heavier with every hoof step. It appeared unlikely that any of the men who had faced the fight could have survived.
“Horses,” Domagoj whispered. He pulled up and pointed toward hulking shadows shifting in the haze. “I think.”
Bledig peered into the smoke, hoping for a clear glimpse. He could see what looked to be the outline of good-sized mounts, but no sign of soldiers. The sounds were more disturbing than what he feared was lurking in the shadows. It was not the whinny and bray of horses. What Bledig heard was the snorts and gurgle of the gorge — the sounds of wild animals feasting on their kill.
The air ahead of them cleared briefly, revealing a monstrosity that defied belief. Domagoj recoiled. “What are they?”
Bledig did not respond, afraid to speak for fear of being discovered before he was ready. The Hellion loitered in the ruins of a large section of the outer wall that had been toppled by their onslaught. And hellish they were. Dozens of them, each standing the size of two men and clad head to foot in the bloodred armor that Glain had described. Only their eyes were visible, sinister orbs glowing from a visor in their headgear, and the random tuft of mangy hair poking from beneath their crimson cowls. Bledig imagined their true appearance to be more hideous and threatening than the beasts they rode.
The creatures Domagoj had mistaken for horses were indeed horselike, but more massive than any breed Bledig had ever seen. They were taller, broader, and furrier than even the enormous Frisian stallions. Their bodies were bowed by hulking shoulders that supported a barreled chest and thick legs. From their great, bulging heads jutted gigantic gnashing jaws, misshapen by the protrusion of daggered teeth that dripped with blood and sinew.
“They’re eating the dead!” Domagoj blurted in horror. “Those creatures are feasting on men!”
Bledig’s heart stopped dead as one of the Hellion marauders turned toward them. The smoke cloud was not camouflage enough to shield them from the piercing glare of Machreth’s demons, and they were but two men against an immeasurable force. In the pregnant pause that followed, thunder rumbled in the distance, and Bledig had only one thought.
“Now, Domagoj!”
* * *
It was an unnatural storm, erupting without warning in a calm sky. Thunderheads formed from nothing and banked the horizon with angry black plumes. And then the rains came, in torrents. Icy winds swept the commons and whipped between the outbuildings, battering the walls already weakened by the incessant rumbling deep in the earth. One after another, the heavy stones that bolstered the parapets slid free as the mortar that held them crumbled, teetered precariously over their heads, and then crashed to the ground.
“The world is falling apart around us, Rhys. Bolt the doors!” Glain tugged at his arm, trying to pull him back into the temple foyer. “We mustn’t wait any longer. This storm will strike us down as surely as the Hellion legion.”
“There is still time.”
He pried Glain’s fingers from his sleeve and stepped down to the courtyard to get a better view. When Odwain’s guardsman had returned, bloodied and beaten, Rhys had recalled every last man to the safety of the temple halls. Whatever defense they could muster stood its best chances with the stone walls between them and the enemy.
The wind-whipped rains were fierce, and though they had quenched the fires and smoke, it was still impossible to see beyond the courtyard. Glain was right, but Rhys was reluctant to give Odwain and the others up for dead. He was determined to wait until the last possible moment before barricading the doors. Rhys could sense riders coming, and they were close.
Glain shrieked as a bulky oak limb splintered from the trunk of a nearby tree and thudded against the cobbled steps at his feet. Too close to Rhys for comfort. He retreated to the protection of the foyer to wait, with Glain hovering behind him.
His mother was still missing somewhere in the bowels of the castle, and for all Rhys knew, his father had been lost to the very embodiment of evil. Rhys could not bear to imagine what had become of Odwain, and the last thing he wanted was Glain’s wellintentioned argument.
“Please, Rhys. Listen to reason!”
“Blazes, Glain!” Rhys turned on her. “Go and see to your novitiate, or tend to the wounded.”
The shock on her face surprised him, but only until the echo of his words resounded in his ears long enough for him to actually hear it. Glain’s shocked look paled to one of embarrassment and hurt.
Rhys was mortified. The right thing would be to apologize, to tell Glain that his outburst had been borne more of concern than annoyance. He should confess that he fretted for her as much as he worried for his family, maybe more. Before he could speak, she disappeared.
Lightning splintered the cobbled road right in front of the temple. The blast sent Rhys stumbling back against the threshold, and then the earth pitched him forward. He landed in a heap at the bottom of the steps. The rain stung as it hit, pricking his face like tiny frozen arrows. No one could last long in this storm, and Rhys began to worry anew. Had his father and the others survived the Hellion, the elements might well finish them off.
Rhys hauled himself to his feet and started back to the shelter of the temple. Just two steps up, he paused, certain he had heard the insistent staccato of hoofbeats over the rainfall and between claps of thunder and falling rock. He turned where he stood, straining to see some evidence of his kinsmen riding toward him through the squall. The heaving of the earth kept changing the horizon, making it as impossible to see as nature’s chaotic din made it impossible to hear. But Rhys was absolutely sure. Despite his many protests to the contrary, he was not completely devoid of his mother’s talents. There were some things he could sense by way of the spirits, things he knew and never questioned.
As if in answer to his faith, riders suddenly plunged from the deluge. Rhys counted two horses, then another, and one more, all with men astride, riding like the damned fleeing their fate. Domagoj reached the courtyard first and threw himself from the saddle.
“Here!” Domagoj shouted. “Help me with the horses.”
Rhys raced toward Domagoj, struggling to keep his feet and see who followed. Bledig’s bulky stallion skittered to a halt, and his father slid to the ground no more than a foot in front of him. Rhys had never been so glad in all his life.
Bledig let loose the reins, and Rhys caught the bit just in time to keep the
horse from bolting. “Are you all right?” his father roared.
Only the Wolf King could out-bellow the heavens, Rhys thought. He would have laughed with an absurd sort of relief had he not been sobered by the look in his father’s eyes. “Yes,” he shouted. “Are you?”
Bledig’s answer was to shove Rhys out of the way as the last two horses nearly overran them. A man Rhys could not immediately recognize literally fell from his saddle before his steed could skid to a stop. Bledig bent to haul the injured man to his feet.
“Let loose of the horses, Rhys. They’ll see to themselves. Help me get this boy inside. Hurry.”
Rhys immediately freed the reins and steadied the wounded soldier on the opposite side. He craned to see the man’s face. It was not Odwain, though he hadn’t really expected it would be. All the same, his heart sank. His neck tensed as the shrill wail of the Hellion rang out. Rhys glanced over the soldier’s head at his father for guidance, only to be further unnerved by the grim expression on Bledig’s face.
“Make haste, Wolf Prince. I’m getting wet.”
Domagoj had reached the steps ahead of them and stood at the top, holding the temple door open against the wind with a wild man’s grip and a grin. The fourth man, whom Rhys had all but forgotten, was making his way up the stairs unaided. Rhys immediately recognized Odwain’s gait, unsteady and ungainly as it was. Gratitude swelled over his panic, but only for a moment.
Once inside, Rhys ordered the bolts thrown and the guard doubled. He then asked Glain, who had reappeared without beckon and offered her aid, to take Odwain and his man to have their wounds tended. Bledig stood staring vacantly at the doors in deep thought, assessing the situation. Rhys wanted to know what his father had seen, but was actually afraid to ask. Instead, he deferred command of the temple garrison to Bledig and waited to be told.
Domagoj cursed wildly as the next quake of the earth caused a slide of mortar and rubble to spill from high in the walls. He brushed the debris from his hair and glared overhead at the rafters. “It is magic that keeps this place standing,” Domagoj muttered. “But even magic can’t hold forever.”
Bledig nodded and then suddenly turned his gaze on Rhys. “Where is your mother?”
Thirty
Alwen bolted upright with a greedy, retching suck. Air rushed into her lungs, dense and icy cold. Her body shuddered violently against the clad of wet wool and velvet as it struggled to take its fill of breath and reawaken. Consciousness returned, but the memory of what had happened to her was slower to revive. Alwen’s eyes snapped open, and she did not know where she was.
It was dark, deeply dark, and the air was so thick with dust it burned her eyes and clogged her throat. Alwen could not see past her own nose, but she sensed herself entombed. The ground beneath her backside rolled and grumbled, like some great giant turning over in his sleep. The earth’s queasy heave gave her stomach a good lurch and sent her blood quivering. The need to flee this dank, cramped place was strong.
Her vision soon began to adjust to the lack of light, and Alwen realized with great relief that the space in which she was trapped was larger than she had thought. The dust seemed to be settling, and she could breathe easier. As the air thinned, a faint glimmer emerged. Alwen’s spirits rose a bit in vague but unmistakable hope. Torchlight, on the far side of the vault, suspended near what she believed was a way out. And then, she remembered.
Madoc. He was still in the well. Alwen wrestled her soggy clothing to get onto her knees and turned to look. The surface had crusted over with frost, and what little she could see beneath had turned brackish. Before her eyes, the waters continued to congeal and darken until they finally turned black as pitch. With a final groan and a hiss, the surface froze solid and fogged the cavern with a frigid vapor.
Alwen stared, horrorstruck and unbelieving. This could not be happening. Madoc, Ard Druidh and ninth sovereign of the Stewardry at Fane Gramarye, had fallen victim to his own spell. He was lost, trapped inside the enchanted well.
What was she to do? Alwen’s hands clasped at her breast in an unconscious impulse to cleave to something solid, but there was an object already in her clutch. She unclenched her fist, with difficulty, uncoiling the blackened, frostbitten fingers of her right hand one by one until they exposed the circle of gold metal pressed into her palm.
She had Madoc’s ring. A single forlorn sob escaped her lips, breaking the awful silence with a haunting echo. The signet was the only symbol of Madoc’s reign. Whosoever bore the ring bore his seal — and with it, his power. In the end, it was just as Madoc had intended. He was gone and Alwen was now his proxy, liege of the Stewardry until the true heir ascended.
You will never be beyond the reach of my thoughts.
Alwen remembered the promise of the dream-speak and clung to its comfort. She had swallowed so much of the consecrated water when she was in the pool that she had nearly drowned. Whether or not the rite of succession was complete had yet to be revealed, but for now, she would believe it was. Alwen could not bear to imagine otherwise.
“What are you waiting for? Get out of this bloody cave before it buries you alive.”
Alwen jumped. “Fergus?”
He did not answer. Alwen turned toward the direction of his voice. Silt and rock still sifted from the cavern roof, but the rumbling had stopped. All but the one torch still braced in the wall sconce had been snuffed. Machreth was nowhere to be seen, and Alwen no longer felt his presence.
“Fergus?” He had to be near. She could sense him, even if she could not see him. “Fergus? Are you hurt?”
A dry, hacking cough and a rush of pebbled dirt from a heap near the cavern entrance were sign enough. Alwen crawled through the dusty haze on hands and knees, feeling her way through the rubble toward the sound.
“Here.”
His voice was strained and weak. Alwen knew the need to hurry. Soon she could make out his form, splayed at an awkward angle and obscured from chest to thigh by debris. Fergus reached out as she came near.
“I tried to keep him from escaping but got caught in this mess instead.”
“Machreth?” Alwen took his hand and tried to see how he was pinned. A first glance was enough to see that Fergus was trapped beneath a giant upheaval of earth and rock that had already crushed more than half of him.
“Aye,” he coughed. “I managed to pull him off ye but he escaped into the labyrinth. Lost in the bowels of this place, I hope.”
That was one possibility, but Alwen knew of another more likely and far more disturbing outcome. If Machreth had managed to find his way to the well, surely he could also make his way out of the temple through the underground passage that led into the White Woods. Worse, he might be lying in wait to confront her.
“Machreth will be brought to heel soon enough.” She tried to pry the rocks from his chest to give Fergus more room to breathe, but she wasn’t strong enough. “Let’s just worry about getting you loose.”
Alwen glanced at his face to offer him a smile of encouragement, but he did not seem to see her. His eyes were wide and fixed upon the cavern ceiling above her head. Her heart stuttered with dread.
“Fergus, please wake,” Alwen sobbed, clawing at his breast. “You cannot leave me here.”
But he had. Fergus was already departed, traveled beyond the sound of her voice. No longer could she sense his comforting presence, nor did she feel the anchoring which he had always given her. All these years, it was Fergus who had tethered her to her past. He had held her together in ways she had never truly understood, until now.
In the heartbeat or two that followed, Alwen glimpsed the gaping hole his loss would leave in her soul. The emptiness she felt was colder than the ice in the cave. His remains deserved greater respect than this dusty tomb, but she would have to leave him here.
For the first time since she had left home, Alwen was without his protection. A terrifying thought, so far outside the reach of helping hands. No one would hear her calls, if indeed anyone was searching for h
er. Despair set in with the sobering realization that no one, save Machreth, knew where she was. In this dark and lonely place, it was his malevolence that threatened her most.
Alwen’s body had taken to a constant shiver, which made it increasingly difficult to think. She was vaguely aware that she had been exposed to the elements too long. She had no choice but to move, now, before she was altogether unable.
“I must have the strength,” she chattered. The warmth and safety of the Fane was her only salvation, if she could reach it.
Machreth. Alwen knew how sorely she had underestimated him. She had witnessed his power, and it was a gargantuan force. So strong was Machreth’s wizardry that even Madoc had failed to thwart him, and Alwen had the ring, the one thing left of Madoc that Machreth could take. And he would most certainly try.
Alwen forced herself to her feet and started to drag herself out. It was only then she realized that the earth had stopped its quaking. Alwen placed one foot afore the other in a shaky but dogged trek across the cavern, half-plod and half-clamber. Every third or fourth step seemed to be more effort than her wobbly legs could manage and sent Alwen faltering over her own feet.
At the cavern entrance, she paused, trying to clear her mind and steady herself. Alwen reached for the torch still smoldering in the wall sconce and peered ahead. A surveying glance of the passageways to either side of her was daunting. In some places, the wooden beams that supported the walls had shifted, and the rockwork looked as though it could give way at any moment. The narrow tunnel had been made all the narrower by the caving in of great lengths of wall, though the tunnels were not fully blocked. Treacherous passage all the same, whether the danger was the passageway itself, or what might be lurking within it.
Alwen braced herself with one hand against the nearest sturdy buttress and closed her eyes to concentrate. Pushing through the heavy veils of exhaustion and despair that threatened to overcome her, she combed her thoughts for the vision of the labyrinth she had so carefully committed to memory. Instead of retracing her steps back to the stairwell, she searched the corridors for the mouse she had found earlier. Machreth would easily repel her direct attempt to sense him, but he would not so easily notice the rodent.
The Well of Tears Page 24