by Kit Hallows
“The nearest settlement south of here would be grand,” Samuel said, “or further if you can take us.”
The driver shook his head. “I’ll not go south, not for any price. The restless are heading there, demons too from what I’ve heard. A war’s brewing.”
Samuel nodded and I could almost see the thoughts shifting in his head. “Those are fine horses you have there,” he said.
The driver agreed. “Aye. Well, if that’s all-”
“Did you know the smaller of the pair is actually a witch named Half remembered Agnes?” Samuel asked. “And that she took the form of a horse to hide from a scorched toad she’d accidentally dropped into her cauldron? It escaped with one leg as red as sin, and an appetite for revenge more voracious than a cheated, drunken Lord. Since that time he’s been plotting a tall cup of… ah, there we go.”
The driver’s eyes glazed over with the same look of bewilderment that Samuel’s victims usually suffered upon hearing his enchantments. “Now,” Samuel said, “you’re heading south, yes?”
“Oh yes,” the driver said, “south.”
Samuel opened the carriage door, had a quick peek inside. “It’s empty. Probably should have checked that first, huh.” He smirked as he waved us over.
We climbed in. Astrid sat opposite me and gave me a soft smile. I returned it but knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. Samuel scooted in next to her, kicked off his boots and plopped his feet on the bench beside me. As the carriage rumbled off he leaned his head against the padded rest and closed his eyes.
I sat back and stared out the window, desperate to escape Astrid’s watchful gaze. I didn’t want to discuss what had happened at the tower, didn’t want to acknowledge it. Instead I watched the trees pass by and waited for the tug inside my being to weaken. I expected it was only a matter of time before the connection binding me to my other broke or was severed. But it didn’t happen; instead, the further we traveled, the stronger it became. I wondered if he felt it too, if he knew I was coming. If so, did he also know I was prepared to end his borrowed life if it came to it, and would he try to end mine first?
The thought of fratricide brought a raft of dark emotions. I’d ended many lives, despatched countless Nightkind to all the hells that awaited them, but this would be different. This would be like killing myself.
“Morgan!”
I looked up, suddenly realizing Astrid had been talking to me. “I’m sorry?”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I said.
She squeezed my hand and I tried my best to quell my melancholia as the carriage rolled south, to where all the wayward paths I’d stumbled down in my life seemed about to meet.
Eventually, the forest thinned and we passed a lake, its great waters reflecting the grey, stormy clouds above. People began to appear along the roadside, most of them traveling in the opposite direction. Their movements were slow and grim and occasionally they’d glance up, their faces studies in horror, as if whatever they’d left behind was almost more than they could bear.
“Tavislock!” the driver called. As the carriage slowed, stone and wooden houses appeared alongside a river that gurgled past them like a silver scar. People began to appear, gathering outside the buildings. The atmosphere grew thick with fearful anticipation and they looked at us as if we were dragons as we climbed out of the carriage.
“Is this your final destination?” the driver asked.
“No. Just a rest stop,” Samuel said, “please wait here while we get a bite to eat and learn what the news is. Do you want anything?”
“Naw, not for me,” the driver said, “I’m just happy to have met you!” And he was. His beaming smile hadn’t waned one jot since Samuel’s story.
“Good man,” Samuel said as he handed him coins.
“What’s this for?” the driver asked.
“For your time.”
“No, no, no, it is my pleasure,” the driver protested, and tried to hand the money back.
“Right now it is, but you may feel differently come morning, so I insist that you keep that,” Samuel said, before striding off along the muddy path, nodding to the villagers as he went. They didn’t respond except for a few, furtive glares and the children watched me and Astrid with the same intensity gazelles gave lions. I averted my eyes in an effort not to alarm them further.
“Ah! This’ll do.” Samuel nodded up to a disheveled sign that read ‘The Snake and Clover’. He shoved the door and we entered a dark pub dense with smoke and the overbearing scent of damp. Men and women were crowded around the bar and all the tables were taken.
“What can I get you?” the barman asked. While his question appeared neutral enough, it seemed he was serving us to avoid trouble, rather than any desire for profit.
“What do you recommend?” Samuel asked.
I didn’t hear his reply as I glanced around the room, and it seemed to glance back. The patrons were a muddy, ragged collective, and they looked like they’d been through the mill, most of them more than once. The elders met my eye as if daring me to stoop low enough to harass them, while the younger men looked into their pints as if fishing for ideas.
“Here.” Samuel offered me a tankard filled with bitter, frothy ale. It had a sharp, unpleasant taste, but I did my best not to show it. “Good day,” Samuel called to the room, “my name’s Samuel, this is Astrid, and the odd-looking man’s Morgan.”
“What do you want here?” a chubby woman with roving, shifty eyes asked. I gathered she was the town’s matriarch by her body language and once proud, steely glare.
“News, if you have any,” Astrid said.
“We don’t have news for you,” the woman said, “now finish your drink and be gone. Leave us to what we have left.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She met my eye, held it for a moment, and finally spoke. “Last moon we lost eleven people, and we can’t stand to lose any more. So like I said, finish your drinks-”
“How did you lose them?” I asked.
“The restless swept through.” said a young man no older than twenty. He was drunk, his eyes were glassy, and he’d been staring at me since we'd walked in. “Three weeks back, a huge wave of ‘em took my uncle, and more. We hid in our cellars,” he growled, “like cowards. Ducked down like frightened children while they tore our loved ones apart.”
“We cleared up the horror they left behind,” the matriarch added, “or tried to. I scrubbed and scrubbed but-” She wiped her eyes with two pudgy fingers. “It’s done now though, isn’t it? They’re gone and they’re not coming back. At least we pray not.”
“Why are you prising up our woes?” the young man demanded. “Are you ghouls?”
“No,” I said. “We’re tracking the restless, and a man.” I described my other and the body he’d stolen. “Have you seen him?”
“I did,” a woman called from the back, “he crossed my field with a lady. They looked like devils wearing flesh and blood masks.”
“Did you see where they went?” I asked.
“They were headed toward Daggermire Pass,” the woman said, “riding like lightning, they were, a couple of hours back. Why, what do you want with them?”
“The man you saw is aligned with the shade,” I said, and by the look in their eyes, they knew exactly who I meant. “And we mean to end their cursed lives.”
“It was the shade who called the restless across the pass,” the matriarch said, “summoned them he did. Rowan fucking Stroud.” She mimicked spitting over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry you’ve suffered but if it helps, we’re here to bring a thousand-fold suffering on to them all.” I said, as a jolt of anger passed through me and filled the void within. “We’ll end them, and as many restless as we can. But we’re three and they are countless, and we need help. Can you give it?”
“We’re not warring folk,” the matriarch said, “we’re farmers. We know how many folk fell before they crossed the pass and we don’t wish to join them.
But,” she glanced around the room, “we might be able to offer you supplies, should you need them.”
“Horses?” Samuel asked. “We've hired a carriage, but horses would be quicker.”
“We can manage that,” A burly man with a soot-smudged face replied.
“Thank you,” I said, nodding to the villagers as we left the inn and followed the man to the stables. It was a relief to be outside again, cold though it was. Samuel bounded off to the carriage and released the driver from his enchantment. Then together we mounted the horses and thanked their owner as we galloped away from the husk of the village toward the brittle black mountains.
48
We spent the day riding under an oppressive grey sky through scrub and heather followed by fens sodden with frigid water. The dark mountains loomed with each twist of the trail but as we drew closer, the clouds broke and the shadow of the peaks swept over us like a great arrowhead.
A forest of pointy-tipped trees rose up on the other side of the dell, and between it and the mountain was a wide swath of muddy-white snow pitched with tents and tiny figures moving across the dirt.
“Oh,” Samuel said. I followed his gaze to the trail of corpses scattered along the pass. It looked as if they’d tried to flee for the forest but had been cut down before they could reach it. Many of the bodies had been eviscerated, their guts gleaming obscenely in the sunlight like rubies. The restless, no doubt, via Stroud. He’d brought the undead to this place, the demons too.
I glanced up as I felt another invisible tug from my other. He was closer than before.
We slowed as we reached the foot of the hill and a checkpoint manned by a line of blue-cloaked soldiers. None had crossbows, but their swords were drawn. The leader of the troop, an officious-looking ass with a thin face and hard unyielding eyes, stepped forward. “Halt!”
Samuel brought his horse to a stop and Astrid and I followed suit. “Good day,” Samuel said.
“Is it?” the man asked staring at me. I gazed cooly back, fighting the instinct to jump down and knock him to his feet.
“Turn back,” he said. “Now.”
“We need to cross the pass,” Astrid said.
“Do you? For what purpose?”
“Because we do, that’s all,” Astrid replied, “now let us go.”
I watched as s soldier called out to an old man standing before a tent. The elderly man walked over, a thick ledger clasped in his hand. He opened it, flipped through the pages and glanced up at us. It seemed our descriptions had been circulated after the skirmish outside the Huntsfall Forest because the old man strode toward the officer, cradling the book as if it were a newborn baby.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Always,” Samuel said. He wheeled away and Astrid did the same, covertly pulling her knives as she went. I turned my horse too and held one hand on the pommel of my sword.
“Stop!” the officer called. “Stop right now!”
Samuel pulled his bow and notched an arrow in a flash. “Last chance,” he said, “let us through or die.”
The soldiers grouped together, and one began to call orders up the hill. A bell tolled, the sound leaden and ominous. There was no way through them, not without a fight, and both sides knew it.
I drew my sword, and we rode at them. Three of them charged my horse, I cut one down, injured another and narrowly avoided the third’s swing. More soldiers dropped as Astrid’s daggers struck between their plates. Samuel wheeled around the troop, his horse galloping along the tree line as he loosed arrow after arrow.
The soldiers up the hill ran toward us as fast as their armor allowed. Crossbow bolts filled the air, zipping past us. One hit Astrid’s horse, and it whinnied and fell. She rolled off fast and pulled two more daggers. I cursed, wishing I had my gun and a scrap of magic to wield, but I had neither. It was just me, the horse and my sword.
I galloped toward her as the soldiers closed in. Leaping down I set upon them, swinging the sword hard. I took three down and Astrid felled one with a well aimed dagger. Two more soldiers charged but before they could reach us Samuel’s arrows found them. I spun around as I heard heavy armor clanking behind me. A huge guard, his eyes wild beneath his wolf-like helmet staggered my way, swinging a mace that narrowly missed my head. I fell back.
Twhack!
An arrow thudded off his back, and he growled like a bear as he bore down on me, his crazed eyes fixed on mine, his blood clearly up. I managed to parry his next swing but the force of it sent me falling away. I glanced to Astrid as she slashed at her assailants. She looked exhausted.
I reached for my other, seeking aid from within, but there was no response. He was gone, and I was empty. “Fuck it!” I had nothing left except the basics and Samuel was right, I knew how to fight. I waited for my foe to make his move and I dodged, swinging the sword of intention at his covered throat. “End!” My blade dented his armor and he glanced at the damage, his mad eyes shocked.
“End!” I cried as I swung again. The sword blazed against the steel guarding his chest, causing it to buckle and rend. He looked down again and as he did, I swung the blade at the join by his wrist. It bit through, slicing his hand off. He howled as I rushed past him to stop the three remaining soldiers moving in on Astrid. She took one down before I was halfway there, Samuel felled another, and the final solider turned to flee.
“Stop him,” Samuel called, his voice stern and unyielding. I understood. There could be no witnesses, no one left to sound the alarm. I ran after him. He staggered then turned to launch a frenzied attack. I only had my wits, but they were enough. I parried blow after blow before kicking him between the legs. He cried out and as his hands fell toward the pain, I swung the sword. The blade bit through the gap between helmet and chest plate and sent him toppling to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Astrid asked as she stumbled toward me.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m not wounded. But as to the rest of it, I don’t know,” I said as I watched Samuel stoop over the ledger the older soldier had carried. He set it ablaze with a spell and moments later the ash from its pages drifted through the air like snow.
The pass was bloody and the soldiers and their commander lay dead. We gathered the two horses, and claimed another for Astrid.
I felt like I’d just run a marathon. My head was light and my mood as dark as well water. I thought of my other in his stolen body. He was in command now, wielding power and magic. Me, I had neither. What chance did we stand against Stroud or his legions of undead, demons and whatever else he’d summoned to his cause?
I cast a glance to the sky and was certain it would probably be one of my last.
49
We continued across the summit, with the aftermath of our battle with the soldiers dogging our every step. Samuel and Astrid were quiet, their expressions heavy and dire. It would never have gone that way if we’d had a choice, but it was war, and it had been for longer than I cared to remember. How many had died, I wondered, since I’d uncovered Rowan Stroud? How many had met their ends at his spectral hands?
A slurry of fresh footprints had churned the mud and it seemed the soldiers had let the restless pass through rather than fight them. Maybe their decision had been through fear, or maybe through hoping they’d just go away. If it was the latter then their reasoning was almost at blinkered levels in its denial, as if the undead wouldn’t return with an almighty vengeance.
I spotted horse tracks and as I looked closer, I felt a tug inside me. Emeric had ridden past this very spot. We pushed on until the mountain was at our backs, and its long shadows fell over the fields and the great forest beyond.
“Which way?” Astrid asked. She studied me closely, and I suddenly realized they were both waiting for an answer.
I nodded to the trees.
“Right. Then that’s where we’re going.” Samuel’s voice was low, his face as hard as flint.
“What is this place and where does it lead?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Damned if I know.�
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The footprints of the horde went west along the muddy trail, but we followed the pull instead and I wondered what had called my other into the forest. Stroud? Maybe, but it felt like something else, something I was certain I wanted no part of.
We followed the outskirts of the forest until we found a narrow path snaking through the tall, bushy trees. There was no birdsong, no whirr of insects, not even a spider’s web stretched between the branches. The place felt dead, and soon the trees bore this out. Many were decomposed or leaning hard, as if waiting to drop, and the further we traveled, the worse the reek of putrefaction grew until it hung in the air like a morbid, heady perfume.
“Which way?” Astrid asked as we paused by a brook to give the horses a chance to drink.
I closed my eyes and focused on my other, his borrowed heartbeat, and his dark, rancid thoughts. “West. Not far.”
Samuel glanced up at the patches of sky winking through the high treetops. “We should make camp, before it gets dark. Night falls fast at this time of year.”
“Good idea,” Astrid said, “let’s find a clearing.
“There’s one less than a mile from here,” I said, “near a small river this stream feeds into. It holds plenty of fish.”
“And you know this, how?” Samuel asked.
“I’m not sure, I just do,” I said, as I led them on through the trees.
The clearing was exactly where I’d said but by the time we reached it, the sun was low and night was creeping across the blue and purple sky. Samuel and Astrid went to catch fish while I cut branches and gathered foliage to make a lean-to for shelter.
Crude wooden houses had once stood in this place and I could almost see them in my mind’s eye, like a long forgotten memory. Then it hit me; an icy chill that began at the nape of my neck and ran the length of my spine. It was an echo from the past, a terrible, black, half-remembered memory. Something had happened in this place, something awful.