The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  Jarred shook his head. “How can we know what goes on behind any throne?”

  Yaadosh snorted. “Ha! So, we are leaving the domain of a wanderwitted monarch only to enter that of a dribble-weak one. The sooner we get to Narngalis the better, eh, Jarred?”

  “Hush! You’ll lose your tongue, or worse, before we reach the north if you insist on broadcasting such rumors to all the Four Kingdoms of Tir,” warned Jarred quietly, glancing from side to side. “Anyway, these rumors are but ear-kissing arguments. Furthermore, it is treason, recall, to suggest that royalty is anything other than virtuous in all respects.”

  “Who could hear us, out here in the wilderness!” A chuckle rumbled in the big man’s chest. As he too looked about him, the chuckle trailed away and both youths fell silent.

  The riders were passing through a narrow defile in the foothills. Steep, rocky walls loomed high at either hand, blocking out most of the sky so that only a narrow strip of pearly lilac could be seen. The sense of enclosure made them all uneasy. The footfalls of their horses echoed doubly from the rough-hewn escarpments, and a cold shadow lay heavily on the cavalcade. Yaadosh’s horse slowed, dropping back behind Jarred’s. Its ears flattened to its head and it danced skittishly.

  “What ails you, you lazy mule?” grumbled Yaadosh, letting the reins go slack and nudging his steed with his heels.

  “I’ve heard they call this place Bandit’s Alley,” said another member of the group.

  At the mention of bandits, most of the travelers pictured the roving packs of Marauders that plagued the countryside. Based in the mountains far away to the northeast, they roamed in gangs across the Four Kingdoms, covering long distances as they sought for travelers to waylay. It was said they were subnormal, or supernormal; at any rate, it was popularly agreed they were no longer entirely human. Over the generations, some unnameable influence had physically altered them in ways that, by all accounts, ranged from subtle to nauseating. They had no chieftain, no central government, and if they abided by any laws at all, those laws were their own. It was apparent that they possessed no virtues of mercy or charity.

  There came a vibration in the air—a small sound of shifting, of an alteration in balance, of gravel grating against crystal. The sound rapidly crescendoed, filling the chasm, and someone yelled, “Look up!” Even as the travelers tilted back their heads, a massive boulder crashed down from the heights, closely followed by others. The first monolith bounced ponderously off an outcrop and slammed into the lead rider, who happened to be Jarred. Uttering shrill whoops of urgency, the rest of the travelers dug their heels into their horses’ flanks and sped forth in an endeavor to outrun the avalanche. With a crashing roar as from the throat of a giant, blocks and chunks of every size came smashing down, bringing with them a hail of dust and pebbles. The desert horses swerved and dodged. The riders’ shouts were submerged in the grinding cacophony of stone abruptly meeting stone with implacable, grinding force.

  Half a mile farther on, the rocky walls dropped away on either side, revealing expanses of broken ground strewn with the humped forms of crouching boulders. At last the horsemen raced free of the canyon and its missiles, emerging from the cloud of dust only to be assailed by figures who sprang at them from all sides, shouting, brandishing axes, clubs, and swords.

  In an instant, the travelers’ scimitars had slid, ringing, from their sheaths. The curved blades flashed as the young men laid about to right and left, hacking at their assailants, some of whom were masked. Cutlery clashed. Horses screamed and reared up, but the ambushers were not looking to harm animals that possessed considerable market value. Rather, they intended to prize the owners from the booty, to unhorse them, preferably by dealing them a fatal blow with their straight-edged blades.

  Yaadosh sprang from his steed and smacked it on the rump. Swiftly the horse galloped away down the road, its eyes rolling in fear. A scar-faced, wiry bandit leaped to confront Yaadosh, thrusting his weapon toward the big man’s midriff. Yaadosh parried and darted aside. He fought like an enraged whirlwind, all the while screaming revenge for his young comrade upon whom the first boulder had fallen. Yet it was a cold battle fire motivating him, no hot desire for blood. His countenance was bleak and bitter; he found no joy in injuring and maiming mortal men, whether they resembled ordinary human beings or not. He wished these fellows had not forced him into this situation. More, he wished his friend Jarred had not been crushed to pulp by the boulder. Hard-pressed, he had no leisure to contemplate the loss of his comrade, which was fortunate, or the scalding tears would surely have blinded and betrayed him.

  In his anger, the man rushed at his opponent and struck him hard in the side of the head, so that the blade sliced into his teeth. He smote a second adversary on the elbow with a recoiling stroke; blood spurted, and the red arm hung uselessly. The bandit’s mask slipped sideways, and Yaadosh caught a horrifying glimpse of a protruding muzzle buttoned by a pair of hoglike nostrils.

  Shoulder to shoulder the travelers fought. Although they were skilled fighters, they were callow. Age and experience favored their assailants, who soon began to gain the advantage. It must have gone ill for Yaadosh and his comrades had their spirits and strength not been boosted from an unexpected quarter.

  Just as the fray reached its height, a man, tall and lithe, came running out of the hovering haze of dust that still filled and obscured the defile. Uttering a crazy war whoop, he rushed at the ambushers, his scimitar upraised. He moved like a peasant dancer—not with consummate skill but with supreme confidence. Striking to right and left, feinting, parrying, his eager blade slashed the air like a whirling, silver-spoked wheel. The edge bit into flesh like the north wind in Winter and dripped crimson with gore.

  The lunatic disarmed an adversary with a cunning stroke of his scimitar, then upheld his foe’s chin on the point of his curved blade. The illmatched eyes of the terrified bandit glazed over: behind his conqueror’s shoulder he could see Death walking down the road to fetch him.

  “Avaunt thee, dog!” shouted the madman in his foe’s face. “I grant thee mercy. But never trouble us again!”

  With the flat of his blade, he smacked the brigand on the side of the head, ringing the man’s skull like an iron bell. Then he dropped his sword arm. Dazed, the brigand stood motionless for the space of five heartbeats before taking to his heels as though Death had suddenly hoisted up his tattered robes of darkness and hunted after him at a gallop.

  Jarred—for underneath the coating of sweat and grime the madman’s identity was clear—fought on unscathed. Confronted with this apparition, apparently berserk with bloodlust and obviously so sure of his lethal prowess that he feared nothing, the courage of the assailants began to desert them.

  A bare-faced, chinless bandit lunged forward, stabbing at Yaadosh’s breastbone. Yaadosh parried, sweeping the blade out and down to the left. He gave ground a little to ensure his enemy would not be able to draw or tip-cut him when his guard was down. Reckoning the ambusher expected an automatic counterattack, he deliberately hung back. Behind the lank hair that dripped down over his massive brow ridges, the bandit’s eyes blazed with triumph: he fell for the trick. He made a sudden thrust, thinking Yaadosh was in retreat. Yaadosh dodged aside at the last moment, avoiding the blade by a hair’s breadth, and swung his scimitar down with a long, slicing sweep to sever the bandit’s hamstrings at the back of the left thigh. The bandit staggered, off balance: a welter of blood gushed from the wound. He pivoted on his sound leg, but too late: Yaadosh had the advantage and he drove it home, his blade parrying the bandit’s desperate, off-target thrust. As he pulled back his arm, he made certain the edge of his scimitar carved the enemy’s throat. Without staying to watch the doomed man fall, Yaadosh turned to help his cousin Michaiah.

  Their confidence undermined, the brigands began to retreat, and in their panic they made mistakes, leaving themselves unprotected. Already one of their number lay mortally wounded on the road, accounted for by Yaadosh. Now the Ashqalêthans’ lead
er, Tsafrir, whose scimitar had broken, used his dagger to stab a second man to the heart. Simultaneously, a third brigand in a boiled-leather mask succumbed to the fury of the newly arrived, mad warrior. He emitted a howl as his sword spun high in the air, four severed fingers spinning with it. At this sight, the ambushers, having rapidly recalculated their position, turned and fled. They leapt over the rocky verges like startled deer, vanishing into the stony landscape, leaving their dead lying on the ground. Scarlet ichor trickled in rivulets across the damp clay.

  Jarred leaned on his scimitar, breathing deeply, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. His hands glistened, slippery with blood.

  A grin spread across Yaadosh’s face. “By the beards of the druids, man! I never thought to see you alive!” he exclaimed, striding up and clapping his friend heartily on the shoulder. “I thought that blundering bit of mountainside had finally made mincemeat of you back there!”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you,” said Jarred dryly. “It finished Bathsheva,” he added, “but not me.” Bitterness and grief twisted his features, for he had cherished his mare as a companion.

  “Then the luck of the amulet holds!” exclaimed the big man in awe, indicating the token strung on the silver chain around Jarred’s neck, “By the beards, that druid’s stone holds surpassing mighty powers.”

  Jarred nodded absently, sorrow for his slain mare churning in his breast. “At least she died quickly. There was no time for pain.” His thoughts turned to the welfare of his comrades. “Aye. Who among us is hurt?”

  The two young men went to the aid of their friends. Despite the ferocity of the assault, the travelers’ wounds were few and not overly severe. The most grievously wounded was Nasim, brother of the leader of the band. His forearm had been slashed open to the bone, although it was a clean gash. Pale and grim, he held the bloody edges of the wound together with his other hand.

  Like his comrades, Jarred was streaked with gore and filth. It pleased him that the grime disguised his unscathed condition, thus blurring the contrast between him and the wounded. Not that his comrades had ever resented his privileged condition—but then again, they had never before been involved in a fight to the death. Would they now change their opinion of the amulet-wearer? Would they secretly feel aggrieved at the obvious injustice? Once again, Jarred experienced a twinge of acrimony toward the object he had vowed to wear around his neck.

  Yet his companions displayed no sign of ill will toward him. “It is impossible to tend now to your hurt,” said Tsafrir to his brother. “There is no time. We must depart swiftly from this place. Who knows—the brigands might have reinforcements hiding in readiness nearby. They might return in full capacity at any time.”

  Yaadosh helped Nasim mount behind Tsafrir, while Jarred leapt onto the back of Nasim’s steed. Then the big man uttered a piercing whistle, at which his horse appeared, cantering down the road toward him.

  “He’s well trained,” approved Yaadosh’s cousin Michaiah, stating the obvious.

  Gloomily, young Gamliel stared at the two corpses. “We ought to bury their dead.”

  The grin disappeared from Yaadosh’s face. “I have never killed a man before,” he said. He bent over the brigand he had slain, staring closely at the pallid face, the sightless eyes. “It is a grievous thing, to take a man’s life. Someone will weep for him.”

  “By the beards of the druids, is that a man?” murmured Michaiah, staring at the head of the other corpse, with its snaggletooth, dragged-down eye, and proboscis like a fungus.

  “I have no qualms about slaying that one,” grimly said Tsafrir, “and not just because I didn’t like his looks. He would have finished me had I not fought hard against him. Now it is more important to tend to our living. Doubtless the ambushers will return for their fallen cohorts, and I would fain be far from here when they do. Ride on!”

  The travelers galloped ahead for a mile or so until, judging they were outside the ambushers’ territory, they halted at a glade where a small stone bridge spanned a stream flowing through a beech wood. Here, kneeling among flowering grasses and the fringed heads of ragged-robin, they bathed their wounds and filled their water bottles. Although they continued absentmindedly to marvel at the novelty of free-flowing water, tall trees, and cloud-brushed skies, their mood was somber. They were proficient in the arts of self-defense, but these men of Ashqalêth did not love fighting; peaceable trading was more to their liking.

  “Not more than a step inside the border of Slievmordhu and already the Marauders are at us,” commented the leader sourly as he pulled a clean tunic from his saddlebag. “It does not bode well.”

  “Tsafrir, how can you be certain they were Marauders?” Michaiah questioned. “Are we not too far west? Might they not have been merely a roving band of ordinary brigands?

  In childhood, Tsafrir had traveled through Slievmordhu with his father. He, of all of them, knew something of this foreign realm and the perils that beset the Four Kingdoms of Tir.

  “Because of the masks. Some of the Marauders once looked like men, but not anymore. They are men that once were men, but perhaps are no longer truly of our race. They have been evilly affected by the places in which they dwell. Malevolence lies at the roots of the eastern mountains. It seeps upward through the ground and into the bones and hearts of those who inhabit the caves. Many of them have been physically changed. That is why some wear masks—to hide the hideous deformities. It is not shame that drives them to cover themselves, but pride. They are conceited about these aberrations, and it is their way to believe others are not worthy to look upon their unique mutations. It is said that they choose from among themselves the largest and strongest and most malformed to be their leaders, and they give honor to every quaint way in which their cohorts deviate from typical human beings. Furthermore, did you note the red and black tattoos on the backs of their hands, the torcs of copper clasping their necks, and the curious manner in which their hair was shaved at the sides of the head?” He began tearing strips off the spare tunic.

  “I noticed nothing of their fashion,” Yaadosh grunted dourly, “being occupied with trying to rid myself of their presence entirely.” Gingerly he flexed his thigh, which had been bruised by the swing of a club.

  “Neither did I,” commented Jarred. “Howbeit, I did note the blackness of their teeth and the foul stench of their breath.”

  Tsafrir bandaged his brother’s arm, carefully pinching together the wound’s lips. “They are in the habit of chewing some kind of weed,” he explained briefly.

  “How long until we reach King’s Winterbourne?” asked Nasim, wincing. Blood oozed into the fabric of the makeshift bandage.

  “About two months, by my reckoning,” replied Tsafrir, finishing his task of binding up his brother’s wound, “depending on the fortunes of the road.”

  “How far to Cathair Rua?” inquired Gamliel.

  “Maybe four weeks of steady riding. The road writhes back and forth like a sand viper.”

  “Nasim would benefit from a healer’s attention as soon as possible,” said Jarred, “and we will need to replenish the provisions contained in my saddlebags, which were crushed by the boulder. What say we make halt at a village along the way?”

  “Good rede,” answered Tsafrir. He pondered a moment. “There are crofts scattered through the Hills of Bellaghmoon, but they are isolated and likely to be occupied only by shepherd families. The village of Moss has no healer, of that I am certain. The closest township is in the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, and although it is off our route, it is situated north of us, which is the direction of our final destination. Perhaps the marsh is worth a visit. There are sure to be healers.”

  “But if we strike northward by way of the marsh,” interjected Gamliel, “we will not pass through Cathair Rua.”

  “Small loss,” said Tsafrir dryly.

  “And we will be far from the main road …”

  “No doubt we shall find byroads and footpaths.”

  “The
farther from the main road, the fewer the highwaymen to plague us,” Michaiah pointed out.

  “How far?” Nasim asked again. Pain flickered across his face like a sudden light.

  “We are eight days’ journey from the marsh, I reckon,” Tsafrir said. “It might take a day or three to cross it, but after we leave its northern rim we ought to reach King’s Winterbourne in little more than a month. The roads of Narngalis are smooth and wide.”

  “’Twill be a shortcut!” cried Michaiah gladly.

  “Then let us to the marsh,” said Nasim. He was breathing rapidly, and his cheeks looked uncharacteristically gaunt. “Are we all agreed?”

  Eight voices joined. “Agreed,” they said.

  Jarred pushed loose strands of chestnut hair from his eyes, turning his gaze toward the north …

  “What are your nine-o? Nine for the nine Bright Shiners, eight for the Averil Rainers, seven for the seven stars in the sky, and six for the six Proud Walkers …” The singer lingered on the cliff top.

  Sometimes she believed her inconstant, intangible pursuer to be a thing without shape or name. Other times she envisioned it as a walking thin figure like a skeleton; or else a monstrous beast with grasping tentacles; or an engine of iron with fanged and snapping jaws; or a fire with a brain; or some wheeled instrument of torture; or a faceless thing; or a creature with a face and nothing else, a pale ovoid hanging in the air, pronged by two scorching eyes, slashed across by a bloody maw; sometimes she thought it was simply a pair of bodiless marching feet.

  Most often she pictured it as an invisible emanation whose passage across the ground caused indented footprints to appear, induced the grasses to sway, and generated the sound of footfalls but displayed no other evidence of existence. This was the most terrifying incarnations of all.