Hinterland

by James Clemens

  Tylar frowned. He sensed there were layers of meaning behind her soft words. Why was it that women seemed so capable of lacing a thousand thoughts behind so few words? And men so inept at deciphering it all.

  Worth the risk…

  He slowly began to understand. Delia’s mood was more than just dread at the reunion of father and daughter. The risk she spoke of went even beyond bringing the Godsword so near the godling child, Dart.

  No, it went even deeper.

  Tylar stared out at the towers of Tashijan. Lights glowed from its thousand windows. How could he have been so blind? He reached a hand to her knee.

  She seemed oblivious to his touch—then her hand drifted to his. Their fingers intertwined. He squeezed his reassurance.

  “Kathryn is my past,” he mumbled ever so softly.

  “Is she?”

  “Delia…”

  She refused to face him. Over the past year, they had become more than lord and handservant. But how much more? During the long stretch of winter, they’d shared more and more time together. Each found easy companionship with the other, even solace. And as the nights lengthened, quiet times slowly stretched to moments of tentative intimacy: a lingering touch, a glance held too long in silence, a moment of shared breaths when leaning together over some trivial matter. Then their first kiss, a brush of lips, only a fortnight ago. They’d barely had a moment to truly discuss what it meant. Only a quiet admission that both wished to explore it further.

  But how much further were they willing to explore?

  They’d certainly never shared a bed. In fact, Tylar feared bedding any woman since receiving Meeryn’s gift. With the Grace that now laced his seed, he did not know what horrors might arise from any chance dalliance. Still, his reluctance with Delia was not so much a matter of Grace as his own heart.

  Another tremble shook the flippercraft, more abrupt and sharp this time, hard enough to dislodge their fingers.

  Delia sat straighter, glancing over to him. The last shake was no mere correction, of course. The craft quaked again.

  Tylar gained his feet. “Something’s wrong.”

  He crossed to the cabin door and opened it. He found Eylan and Sergeant Kyllan looking equally concerned. A few other doors opened along the central hallway.

  “Keep everyone in their cabins,” Tylar ordered Kyllan. “I’m going to check with the captain.”

  He headed off, drawing Eylan and Delia behind him.

  They strode toward the bow, where the door to the pilot’s compartment stood closed. A crewman noted his approach with a nervous squint to his eye.

  “I would speak with Captain Horas,” Tylar said.

  “Certainly, my lord.”

  But before he could open the door, it popped wide on its own. Captain Horas blocked the way. He came close to colliding with Tylar. He was a tall fellow, uniformed in yellow and white, hair as black as oiled pitch and a beard clipped into two horns at his throat.

  The captain stepped back, startled.

  “Ser, I was just coming to inform you. No need for fear. The shakes are just the black-cursed storm biting at our tail.”

  “I thought we were well ahead of the blizzard.” Tylar noted how the captain avoided his eyes.

  “Ah, the skies are like the seas, my lord. Storms never like to blow as one expects. Winds shifted during the past bell. The storm’s been chasing after us ever since.”

  “Will we reach Tashijan before its full brunt?”

  “Oh, most certainly. I’ve stoked the mekanicals to full roil. We’ll be docking soon. But perhaps it would be best if you all returned to your cabins until we’re landed and moored tight.”

  Tylar finally caught the captain’s eye. “I think I’d prefer to watch the docking from the pilot’s compartment.”

  “Ser…” A slight warning tone entered the captain’s voice.

  Tylar strode toward the door, leaving the man little choice: Step aside or grab ahold of the regent of Chrismferry. Captain Horas was no fool.

  Tylar entered the compartment with the captain at his elbow. The space ahead filled the nose of the flippercraft. It was divided into two levels. Here at the top, the ship’s crew manned the controls that wielded the mekanicals along with the outer paddles that balanced the flight. Tylar smelled the scent of burning blood as the ship’s mekanicals consumed the air alchemies that kept the great wooden whale aloft.

  He stepped deeper inside. The control level overlooked a gigantic curve of blessed glass, the ship’s Eye, through which the pilot could study the world below and guide his ship.

  From the weight of the crew’s concentration and the waver in the pilot’s barked orders, he could tell something was amiss.

  Captain Horas finally explained. “We must’ve pushed the ship too hard for too long. The mekanicals are strained. Or perhaps the alchemies are not as richly Graced as we were promised. Either way, the ship is hobbled.”

  The ship shook again, canting to port and dropping its nose. Tylar caught himself, grabbing the shoulder of the ship’s boatswain. A rally of commands quickly evened the ship’s keel. The pilot was plainly keeping the flippercraft aloft more with his skill than any with Grace of air.

  “We’ll make it,” the captain assured him. Then in a lower voice, “If it weren’t for this twice-cursed storm…”

  Tylar stared out the Eye. Tashijan rose ahead. Its highest tower—Stormwatch—glowed like a lighthouse along a rocky coast. But closer still, the sky around the flippercraft swirled with eddies of snow. With every breath, it fell harder. They had lost the race.

  The storm had caught them.

  Kathryn knew something was wrong as she neared her hermitage. The door was cracked open, and her maid Penni waited in the hall. The young girl stood tugging at a brown curl that had escaped her white bonnet. She startled when Kathryn neared, finally realizing the shadowknight approaching her in full cloak was indeed the castellan.

  The maid jumped, offered a fast curtsy, then began to stammer, with a glance toward the open door. “I—I—I couldn’t—I didn’t know—”

  “Calm yourself, Penni.”

  Kathryn allowed the shadows to shed from her cloth, revealing herself fully. She had climbed the tower in a hurry, cloaked in Grace, seeking to avoid recognition. It seemed every other person sought some boon from her: shadowknights, handservants, or underfolk. She was just returning from her most recent duty, greeting the last of the retinues to arrive—from Oldenbrook—making sure the party was settled and formally welcoming them. They seemed very excited to present some special gift to Argent and Tylar at the morning’s ceremony.

  But Kathryn hadn’t inquired further.

  She had already been late.

  Tylar’s flippercraft was due to dock in less than a bell. The warden had prepared an elaborate welcome, including drums and trumpets. She was expected to attend—and in more than a worn shadowcloak.

  Now some new trouble waited to be addressed.

  “Take a breath and tell me what’s wrong,” she said to Penni.

  The maid had served the hermitage for longer than Kathryn had worn the diadem of her station. Penni had been servant to the former castellan, the elderly Mirra, long vanished and surely dead.

  “I thought he was a knight,” Penni said. “What with there being so many strangers, coming and going.”

  Kathryn understood the maid’s consternation. Tashijan’s knightly residents had tripled in number, gathering from near and fear, a mad rabble of ravens come to witness the momentous event.

  “He claimed to be your friend,” Penni continued in a rush. “Come on urgent matters, he says, so I let him into your rooms.” The maid lowered her voice to a whisper. “But then he let his masklin drop. It were no knight.”

  Kathryn relaxed.

  There was only one person that would be so bold as to masquerade himself as a shadowknight within the very fold of the Order. Rogger. She had not heard a single word since the thief had vanished into the throngs below. He must h
ave donned such a disguise so he might attend Tylar’s welcome. It would be good to hear what tidings Rogger had gleaned from listening to the low whispers and the ale-addled braggings, words that seldom reached as high as her hermitage.

  Kathryn stepped past Penni.

  At her elbow, the maid finished her breathless tale. “Though he has a soft tongue, he was too fearsome for me to stay in the same room—so I waited out here.”

  Kathryn frowned at the faintheartedness of the young girl. Who would ever find Rogger fearsome? Glad for a familiar face, she pushed into her room with a creak of the door hinges.

  Penni shadowed her, keeping behind her cloak. “I’ve heard stories of their ilk,” she said. “Painting their faces with ash to hide their true names, even from each other.”

  Kathryn realized her mistake.

  It was not Rogger who had come calling.

  The tall figure turned from her hearth, the only light in the room. He indeed wore a shadowcloak. She noted how its edges vanished into the darkness beyond. And his face was indeed daubed black, traditional for members of the Black Flag, the murderous guild of pirates and brigands.

  He shed his cloak’s hood to reveal a knotted braid of hair made snow white by years under salt and sea. Many years. Centuries in fact. Here stood the near-mythic figure of the Flaggers’ leader. Beneath his cloak he wore a fine cut of black leathers, from boots to collar, and at his waist he carried a sheathed sword, Serpentfang, a blade as famous as the knight who once wielded it.

  “It is good to see you again, Castellan Vail,” Krevan said with a slight bow.

  She crossed into the room. “Why have you come, Ser Kay?”

  The man frowned. “Raven ser Kay died long ago. It is merely Krevan now.”

  Krevan the Merciless, she thought to herself. Three centuries ago, he had been a legendary shadowknight. But he had hidden a great secret from all, a secret exposed upon the point of a sword, one driven through his heart. He had not died from his wound—for he had no heart. Born among the Wyr, an enemy of the Order, Raven ser Kay was unlike any other man. Since the founding of the first god-realm, Wyr-lords had been churning dark alchemies in their hidden and forbidden forges, attempting to imbue man with immortality. Krevan was one of their great successes. He had been born with a living blood that flowed through his veins without the need for the beat of a heart, thus slowing his aging.

  But exposed as one of the Wyr’s cursed offspring, the former Raven Knight had to die, to vanish into myths. And out of those mists of time, Krevan was born anew, embittered, turning his skills as a knight to less noble pursuits. The heartless became the merciless.

  Still, the man had not forgotten his honor.

  “How may I help you?” Kathryn asked. “Have you come for Tylar’s knighting?”

  Krevan waved such a thought away. “A cloak does not make a man.” He stepped from the hearth toward her. There was an urgency to the motion. A hand reached out for her.

  She took a reflexive step back. Her own cloak surged around her, ready to fold her into the shadows and grant speed to her limbs.

  “You have the cursed skull,” he said. “The skull of the rogue god.”

  Kathryn was taken aback by his statement—then remembered Rogger’s story of another who had been hunting the same talisman, someone with a face painted black. So it hadn’t been just a low-level Flagger seeking a fast splash of silver. The desire had come from the very top.

  “What interest is the skull to you?” she asked.

  His eyes flashed and a ferocity entered his voice. “I must have it. It should never have been brought here. Especially here. Especially now.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  Krevan suddenly was at her side, moving with the swiftness of shadows. He clutched her elbow. “I must have it!”

  Penni squeaked by the door.

  Before Krevan could offer any further explanation, a splintering crash echoed from above. The floor shook.

  Everyone froze.

  A single trumpet blared high above, a warning of fire, a call for buckets. The sound of pounding feet echoed from the hall outside, heard through the crack.

  Kathryn turned as someone rapped hard on her door. It creaked farther open with the impact. Penni blocked it with a toe.

  “Castellan Vail!” a familiar voice called.

  It was Lowl, manservant to the warden. Kathryn turned to Krevan—but the leader of the Black Flaggers was gone from her side. She twisted around. He had vanished into the shadows and away. She noted a slight waft to the heavy drapery over the windows that opened onto her private balcony.

  She knew that if she yanked back the drapes, she’d find nothing but a window cracked open and the balcony just as empty.

  Krevan was gone.

  Through the open window, shouts echoed, coming from the top of Stormwatch. Kathryn pictured the high docks that surmounted the tower. Only one flippercraft had still been expected this day.

  Another trumpet blast reverberated, sounding strident and panicked.

  “Castellan Vail!”

  Kathryn returned her attention to the door and waved Penni to open it. The maid removed her foot and tugged on the latch.

  Lowl stood at her threshold, flanked by guards who shifted uneasily, glancing down the hall toward the center stairs. Lowl stood wide-eyed, tall and spindly-limbed. He shook all over. Kathryn expected to hear his bones rattle.

  “What has happened?” she asked.

  “Warden Fields sent me to fetch you! Word had come that the flippercraft from Chrismferry had been spotted in the skies, outrunning the coming storm, arriving early.” He winced from another trumpet blast. “He—Warden Fields wanted you in attendance above. For—for the welcome.”

  Plainly the manservant had been sent before whatever mishap had befallen that same arrival. Kathryn rushed to the door. She would get no answers from the man.

  She pushed through the guards, fellow shadowknights with crimson stitching on the shoulders of their cloaks. The Fiery Cross. Argent’s men.

  Lowl called to her. “Warden Fields asked that you present yourself in attire most fitting for the occasion and to—”

  Kathryn ignored the man and drew power to her cloak from the shadows, increasing her pace. She sped down the hall to the central stair. The steps were packed with other knights, drawn by the commotion. She shed her cloak enough to let her diadem shine.

  “Clear the way for the castellan!” she boomed.

  The black sea of cloaks parted. She raced upward through them. Near the top, she saw men and women, mostly lineworkers and dock laborers, rushing by with buckets. A large cistern occupied this level, kept always full for just such a crisis.

  She followed a burly man in heavy boots, slogging with a bucket in each fist. He plowed a path for her to follow. The door appeared ahead, propped open against a gusting wind that pushed down at them, as if warding them back.

  Kathryn smelled the smoke—then she was through the door and out onto the high dock.

  The chill struck her first, frigid enough to pierce her fevered panic. She wrapped the tattered shadows around her, pulling her cloak tight. One hand pulled her hood up against the wind.

  She then stepped clear of the chaos, allowing the workers to battle the flames. But it appeared the worst was already over. Smoke churned into the twilight murk as the sun set to the west, already lost in heavy clouds.

  A few patches of fire rose from the crushed belly of the flippercraft. It had landed on the cradle, but it had come in too hard, cracking the supports and smashing to the stone. Flames licked from a few cracks in the bottom-most planks, coming from the housing that sheltered the craft’s main mekanicals and reservoirs of alchemy.

  Through the smoke, Kathryn smelled the acrid yet oddly sweet tang of burnt blood. The entire mekanicals must have combusted with the crash. Kathryn imagined the ship had come in already overheated, mekanicals under full roil. Now the flames were consuming all.

  She edged around toward
the far side. She spotted the open rear door to the flippercraft. Men and women were gathered there, churning a bit in confusion. Kathryn spotted Argent ser Fields. He stood head-high above the others, atop a crate. He was shouting something, but the wind took his words.

  Kathryn pushed toward the crowd.

  Where was Tylar?

  Worry had her shoving rudely, almost knocking over a woman rushing past with an empty bucket.

  She searched the faces ahead, recognizing guards in the golds and umbers of Chrismferry, alongside several Hands of Chrismferry.

  Finally, she reached an eddy in the chaos, an open space between the dockworkers and the gathering passengers who had disembarked. She stepped closer, ready with a thousand questions. But first she had to find Tylar.

  From the skies, snow drifted down out of the darkening clouds. Winds buffeted the heavy flakes into thick swirls. The snowfall mixed with the smoke and began to settle over the ruin. It would take several days to clear the wreckage. Not the most auspicious arrival for the new regent.

  One flake landed on Kathryn’s cheek.

  The cold stung like the bite of a mud-wasp, but she wiped the flake away, too focused on her search to mind the cold. Still, she tugged up her masklin against the icy snowfall. After cinching the facecloth in place, she held out a hand for a moment. Flakes settled to her palm and melted.

  She shook her head and stepped again toward the crowd around Argent. She could now hear his voice.

  “Everyone head below! We’ll escort you to your rooms!”

  The churn of the crowd shifted in her direction. She still had not spotted Tylar. Then motion near the flippercraft drew her eye. She saw Tylar stepping down the rear ramp. He was not alone. A young woman leaned close to him. The ship’s captain flanked his other side. Tylar was speaking to the man with some urgency.

  The captain nodded and set off toward the flaming mekanicals.

  Tylar stepped to the stones of Tashijan, the first time in a year. His eyes swept the crowd, as if counting heads.

  Thank the gods, he appeared to be uninjured.

  Tylar’s eyes narrowed when they settled upon Argent.

  Kathryn headed toward him. Best to keep Tylar and Argent apart as much as possible, especially when Tylar’s blood was surely overheated already. The storm had ruined the welcome already. No need to make matters worse.