by David Keck
“That is where I saw the thing on the night we first passed this way. We’d heard that ox-groan in the blackness,” Durand said. He let the others scramble after him as he stalked across the camp, eyes fixed on the cliff top. “Right there! I let myself think it was some knob of rock, but I knew that something had us in its eye.” He strode over the knotted grass and out of the ring, seeking some way to attack the cliff. He had done nothing before, and look what it had cost them.
“Durand?” said Deorwen. “What do you mean to do?”
“We will see what is watching us this time.”
A hundred paces north, he found a rubble-choked breach in the cliff wall leading to a soaring fissure that rose before him like a ruined stair. He threw himself into this alley of stone and climbed, sometimes grappling up between the high, facing walls. He had been chased and thrown and treed and mauled since Acconel. Now, he had a chance to do some chasing of his own. He did not rest or slow until he crested the final rise.
A gust at the cliff top met him like a bullock’s shoulder, and he winced into the eternal gale that boiled over the high places of Creation. There, across a promontory as narrow as a whale’s back, something lurched. But, rather than a man or monster, what Durand saw was the wry scrag of a tree—and a white mantle snagged upon it, lashing in the wind.
The wind hit him as he stepped out onto the rock, and he teetered like a man on the keel of an upturned ship. The mantle bore a thick collar of white fur. He knelt as the others crested the rise. Deorwen must have been right on his heels the whole way up. But Durand could only stare at the cloak. He had seen Almora nestled in it, riding her fool palfrey on the way from Wrothsilver. She had been here.
“It is her cloak,” said Deorwen. “She will be cold without it. She—” Deorwen reached to put her fingers in the soft collar, but snatched her hand back. Something buzzed.
Durand got hold of the cloak, tearing it from the tree, ready to seize anything that might be hiding. But he found only a silver pendant: a bit of jewelry caught by its chain.
The amulet spread wings like slivered pennies and leapt against the end of its chain.
“It is Almora’s! The little Power.”
He had seen it a thousand times, flying sometimes under the vaults of the Painted Hall. Marveling despite himself, Durand reached for the tiny thing—hardly larger than a beetle. But as he touched the chain, he must have knocked it free, for the thing flew shrilling down from the precipice and off into the west, where it darted and was lost to sight.
“She was here,” said Deorwen.
“Yes.” The Hornbearer had carried her this far, at least. But alive or dead? Durand had the cloak still in his hand, and now, with this question in his mind, he pawed over the thing, searching for traces.
“No blood,” said Doerwen. “Durand, she was alive!”
“Come,” said Durand. “That little Power flew west. Who knows what such a sign may mean? But I say we must follow.”
* * *
WITH RECKLESS HASTE, they scrambled down the humped back of the promontory to the floor of a stark valley, following on as it dipped and rolled westward.
After an hour of tramping in that alien place, seemingly alone under the vault of Heaven, Aliric spotted signs that men had passed this way: the sandy bank of some nameless rivulet bore the scars of many hooves.
“I had forgotten Raimer’s men,” said Durand.
“Aye. It could be them,” said Ailric. He winced and grimaced, tilting his head to and fro. “Several horses. A line, traveling westward. Too much trampling for a certain count, and it has rained since they passed.”
“If they were here too, it may be a good sign. When the trail was fresher, good men chose this route.”
Ailric nodded, his face impassive. Somewhere ahead then, Raimer’s squadrons were hidden in these same canyons.
Not long after, they spotted horses up a blind valley. The poor devils were wandering against a scree slope, small as insects in the distance. “They will starve,” said Deorwen. “Or freeze.”
“They will,” said Durand. It would take a day to catch the horses on foot in this open place, but Durand was less worried about horses than riders. You did not leave horses to die in the mountains; not easily.
“Raimer will have been following some trail,” said Ailric. “That might have led them from the valley. A horse cannot scale a cliff. There are slopes a man can master that no horse would try.”
“Or the riders are dead,” said Deorwen. “None of us are children, Ailric.”
The valley died between two peaks, leaving only a dark and narrow gorge ahead. It was like stepping from the mountains into a lost temple, so narrow and thick with gloom was it.
Ailric searched the threshold and found marks upon it. “They passed here,” he said.
“Then we follow.”
Gone were the open winds of the wide mountains. Here, the clammy walls seemed to shut away the world.
* * *
AFTER A TIME, a strange murmur swelled between the walls. Durand looked to each of the others, but saw only the mirror of his own wary bewilderment. The sound ebbed as the wind faltered.
“It can only be the wind groaning over some hollow in the stones,” said Deorwen.
Durand held his tongue and marched up the defile. Like the killing ground between castle walls, a stone rampart stretched above them before jogging right and out of sight. Durand eyed the heights, thinking of giants on the high ground and no escape for a poor fool in the gorge.
They reached the bend, climbing warily around the mighty knife of stone only to hear the voices swell once more—moaning, whispering, filling the gorge and hissing as close as lips at their ears.
Still, it was a moment before he made out the squat shapes that crowded the canyon. There were ranks and ranks of standing stones, each rudely carved. Durand made out the dark gashes of their eyes, the arrowhead blades of their beards, and the gaping sockets of their mouths. They wore miters, crowns, and helms of ancient make.
The wind in the gorge conjured aching sounds from the stones. The idols stood close, like a royal guard at attention. There was no hope of keeping distance. There must have been five hundred.
They picked their way into the groaning crowd. “This will have been some part of the wards,” said Deorwen. “Coming from the south, you could not enter that whole gorge without passing through these kings.”
“The patriarchs will have tried to stopper up every pass that lets into Pennons Gate,” said Ailric.
A long breeze drew a rising song from the stones all around.
Deorwen looked into one stark face. “This bears an Atthian mark. He is a Patriarch, I think.” She touched another. “This is a king, though I could not guess his name. How many places like these are there in these high passes?”
“Pardon, Lady. There is more.” Ailric pointed beyond the crowding stones. “There has been a slide, I think. Raimer’s party must have tried to skirt the stones on the high ground there.”
Durand made out the heaped gravel easily enough, but, between the two-score stone heads, he thought he saw something more—a dark shape humped low at the bottom. He moved to get a glimpse between the kings.
And, with his eyes fixed on the rubble, he did not see what was at his own feet.
Something caught his leg, and the force and surprise tripped Durand to the gravel. The man’s eyes blinked in Durand’s face.
Ailric had his blade in his fist, but Durand said, “Raimer?”
The eyes flashed, but there was nothing like understanding in them. The clawed hands flinched tighter.
“It is only justice,” said the man. And the voice—a sizzling whisper—was not Raimer’s at all. “It is justice for the burning halls, for the birthright of thousands tossed like scraps to dogs.” He thumped Durand’s chest. “They cry aloud, your people! They cry for justice, those who have sworn faith to your kin since the Cradle’s Landing.” He bent low. And, without a flicker, he locked his ha
nds around Durand’s throat.
Durand wrenched himself free, startled for a moment at the iron strength in the man’s limbs. “Raimer!” he barked. He was tired of mad babble. This was a man who might tell of the Hornbearer, of Almora.
With his open hand, Durand loosened a few of the man’s teeth.
Raimer rolled but stopped, suddenly clinging to the ground. He drew a rib-cracking gulp of the cold air. “Yours is the Horn. Yours to sound. Yours to call. At a stroke, your people can be free.”
The knight’s head fell. All around, the idols were whispering with the stricken knight, and Durand heard them take up the same chorus. “It is justice, it is justice, it is justice.” The whispers swelled like waves on a shingle beach.
“What is this?” said Durand. Together, he and Deorwen held the man’s shoulders and kept his head from the earth.
“Like the beggars at the Banderol, Durand,” said Deorwen. “Something is whispering down the wards. We are hearing echoes.”
Durand spoke in a ragged undertone, as if he might wake Raimer. “This was about Leovere’s horn! About the thralls!”
“I know. Here—they are speaking again!” said Deorwen.
“You have done much. And no one could fault you. Now, you must only find that same courage once more. Your task is unfinished, your foe is vulnerable. He is ready to fall. You may say she is young, but many were young who lost their birthrights in your land. And blameless? But who is blameless who lives on the proceeds of despair? You may argue all you like, but you know. At a stroke, we shall have him. At a stroke, you will have justice.” The man writhed against the gravel. His back arched. Durand could see the unnatural folding of a badly broken leg as he held on. He suspected broken ribs. Maybe something wrong in his hip.
“Raimer,” said Deorwen. “Raimer, we are with you.”
But the man was dying now, Durand was sure. His wracked body fought to breathe. “He has fallen into this place. He’ll have rolled with the horse,” Durand said.
“Raimer,” said Deorwen. She cupped the hard madness of his face. “It is time now. You may let go. You may seek the Bright Gates. It is time.”
And Raimer sagged then. His last breath shuddered free of the strange whispers of the stone kings and into the high vault of the sky.
Durand and Deorwen paused a moment together, then she closed the dead man’s eyes.
“He’ll have been days lying out in these ruts,” said Durand. The kings were moaning still, though the whispers had subsided. “We will get him out of this place and bury him where he can have some peace.”
Deorwen was looking into the man’s still face.
“This is a place of priestcraft. It is bound to the king and the wards and the patriarchs. But those whispers…”
“Aye. Whispers again.” Durand was just standing up, offering Deorwen a hand, when he heard a scrape against the gravel at his feet, like the twitch of snake. Ailric was snatching at Deorwen’s elbow, heaving her away.
Raimer’s eyes were open, as blank and blind as oyster shells.
But Raimer was dead.
The man’s white lips flinched and shivered. His tongue darted, a gray thing. “It is only justice. It is only justice for the burning halls, for the birthright of thousands tossed like scraps to dogs. They cry aloud, your people! They cry for justice, those who have sworn faith to your kin since the Cradle’s Landing.”
The kings whispered too.
“It is enough!” said Durand.
He got two fistfuls of the dead man’s surcoat and hauled him through the eddying hiss: “Yours is the Horn. Yours to sound. Yours to call. At a stroke, your people can be free.…” He hauled the man through the ranks of idols until, finally, they were free, and Raimer’s corpse subsided once more, though Durand dragged him a hundred paces further on before the three searchers prayed the prayers and heaped the stones upon him.
“What do you think it was?” said Deorwen.
“The horn, first. Then it was her,” said Durand. He would not say Almora’s name where the kings might hear him; they kept up their groaning, even now.
“Echoes,” said Deorwen, and Durand knew she was right. Those words, they had not been directed at him, but merely mirrors of a previous conversation, reflected back through time.
His eyes widened. “Yes. They were arguing about the girl. About her death. Pressing and pressing. And … Leovere’s horn.”
Deorwen was shaking her head.
Durand thought of the beggar king. “When last I heard the like of this, it was those Banderol madmen. But that was the king, with them.”
“But these were not Ragnal’s words,” said Deorwen. “What cares he for Leovere and his wounded pride? What would he know of some heirloom in Penseval?”
“Nothing.” Durand ground his hands into his eyes. “He has been too busy making war on his brother in Windhover and chasing old men in Acconel.” He glanced into the rows of kings. “But I would like to have a word with that hermit boy in Gowlins now.”
“It does not matter,” said Deorwen. “Not now. We must find her—before they convince Leovere to act!”
19
Of Ice, Death, and Stone
Beyond the gorge of the kings, they climbed rough animal tracks snaking ever higher into the mountains. These were the worming ways by which the maragrim had slipped the wards. By such high and perilous passes and lonely climbs in the dead of night, the maragrim had advanced—and in numbers unthinkable when Errest was strong.
And there were dead men in the high places.
On a scree slope at the foot of a cliff, they found three more of Raimer’s party. One had been dashed to blood and rags by a stone block as large as a half-grown calf. Two others seemed to have been thrown from the heights.
Ailric stopped a moment to crouch beside the third broken body.
“They will have died on the first night, I think. We are only a few hours from the pass. They will have seen or heard it, leading them onward.”
Durand nodded, still trudging upward. “The thing will have been toying with them. It could outpace any pack of riders that might have been on its heels.”
“It laid in wait up there somewhere.”
“Tired of its game,” said Durand.
Deorwen eyed the cliff then. “Every lump I see, I am certain it is her. Every one. I have been trying to remember the color of her gown. There was the scarlet, but it might have been the other. The blue serge. For my life, I can’t remember.”
It was not an hour later that they saw another body. This one distant—and in blue.
Without speaking, they climbed a broad slope till they came upon the place where the body lay. Durand rolled the corpse.
He had a strong jaw and bristling brown hair. Some half-anonymous knight of Wrothsilver.
“It is some poor mother’s son, but I can feel only joy,” gasped Deorwen. “It is not my Almora.”
At the crest of the slope, they found themselves at the foot of a great cliff. The specter of the Farrow Moon hung huge and low above it, seeming very near, almost as though the pale shell of the thing might crack upon the high sweep of the broken rock face.
Strangest, however, was the waterfall that tumbled from those impossible heights. There could be little enough water on the roof of Creation, but this spill tumbled, half cloud and half spray, fully two hundred fathoms, to shower a lake as bright as aquamarine.
The three stared up at this scene: the moon, the falls, the cliff face clapped in shimmering ice, a glassy rivulet jagging away. The wind cast veils of spray over their faces.
“Look there,” said Ailric.
By the bank of the blue lake—hardly more than a pond in the gray stone shelf below the falls—Durand saw splashes of unnatural color.
Already, the Eye of Heaven burned low among the western peaks, blazing against the falls and the ice wall behind it.
They clambered to the gravel bank of the tarn, with the high falls raining down. Durand did not think it was bodie
s they saw. In the puddles and the stones were bundled coats of mail, saddlebags stuffed with god knows, and the bright panoply of knights. All neat. All perched on the tallest stones, the driest slabs. All shelled in ice.
The others arrived a step behind him.
Almora’s silvery amulet fizzed in circles over the water.
“They have gone into the pool,” said Deorwen. “They’ve all gone in.”
Plates of glassy ice reached across the water toward the falls. Frost glittered everywhere. If Raimer’s men had followed the girl to this icy loch and then leapt in, they had not come back.
“The tarn stands alone, more or less,” said Ailric. “The trail goes no further. They have left everything on the bank.”
Durand looked back over the roof of Creation—hundreds of leagues, mountains beyond counting. Somewhere, where the Eye of Heaven still blazed, would be Windhover, Eldinor, and the sea.
“They must have followed the Hornbearer here,” said Ailric. He moved along the bank, slipping his fingertips into obscure marks in the frosty sand and gravel. “There is over-tracking. They will have gone down one at a time, one after another. It might have been daylight then, though the peaks would have put this place in shadow. They must have seen something.”
“It was the Hornbearer,” Durand said. “This is where it came. This is where it brought her.”
The water was blue. Oddly so. And the falls stippled its face. Durand began to set his things down, unthinkingly looking for dry places. The first men here had done the same. He set his own hauberk beside the close-woven coats of steel already lying folded on the stones.
“It must have entered the pool,” said Ailric.
Durand crunched to the water’s edge. Pebbles glistened like beads trapped in clear glass, possibly fathoms deep. Then, toward the base of the cliff, a deep gloom shot through the water.
Stripped of his coat of mail, his scabbard and boots, he stood in the frigid sunset with only his breeches and Ouen’s bare blade. The spray and breezes sent a shiver over him.