Shadow of the Knight (The Orb Book 3)

by Matt Heppe

  The demon roared again.

  “A fiend,” she said. “They’ve summoned a fiend. Another sacrifice.”

  Mekeles closed his eyes and nodded. “We’re doomed,” he said.

  Telea looked up, hoping to spot another Drinker on the walkway above her. The three nearest walkway segments had all shattered and fallen into the gorge. The closest intact section was some thirty paces away, and there was no one to be seen there.

  “They’re gone. The Drinkers—the porters—they’re all gone,” she said.

  “Can’t blame them,” Mekeles replied.

  Their cut safety line was within reach. It rose to a piton, but even if she climbed the rope, it wouldn’t help. The walkway on either side of the piton was gone.

  “If it could fly, it would be here already,” Telea said. “They must have summoned it on the road beyond the walkway.”

  “What does it matter? We’re dead anyway. The Drinkers won’t come back.”

  “They don’t fear demons.”

  “They have no reason to come back. They think us all dead.”

  “Can you climb down?” Telea asked, trying to peer past Mekeles. “How far does the crack go?”

  “I don’t know.” He shifted himself to see but cried out in fear as he slipped and nearly fell. “I don’t know. I can’t see,” he said when he recovered his composure.

  Telea spied a larger split in the rock—the one she’d seen when she started onto the walkway. It offered some hope at least. “Off to our left,” she said. “There’s a chimney we can climb.”

  “Chimney? What are you talking about?”

  “A big crack. We can crawl inside and climb.”

  “It isn’t any use. We can’t get to it.”

  The fiend roared, the echoes floating up the valley.

  “You can’t just hang here,” Telea said. “Use the rope and make your way over.”

  “How? I can’t.”

  “Grab the rope. Coil it around your arm.”

  Slowly, he removed one hand from the crack and did as she said. Then, with a deep breath, he freed his other hand and worked his way to the left. Finally, he made it, and disappeared into the chimney.

  “Send the rope back to me,” Telea called.

  Without leaving the safety of the chimney, he tossed it free, but the rope caught on the cliff face and never made it back to her. Telea clenched her teeth. What did I say about healers not hating?

  The thought reminded her of Joda and her master and the others who had perished. She couldn’t join them. She had to survive.

  There were small fractures in the cliff face. It would have to be enough. She used her teeth to pull her right glove off and shoved it in her pocket. Then she switched hands and took off the other. The air chilled her hands, but she’d have a better grip with no gloves.

  Ever so slowly, she worked her way across the mountain face. She only had to make it fifteen paces to the rope, and then she’d be safe. But the holds were tiny and soon her hands and forearms burned with the effort.

  She gritted her teeth against the pain. There was no option but death. Finally she made it to the rope and wound it around her wrist. In short order she joined Mekeles in the chimney. She found a rock to stand upon and shook out her burning hands before putting her gloves back on.

  “How did you manage that?” Mekeles asked.

  “My father was a Drinker. He taught me ropes and climbing. Not much, though.”

  “Can you climb up to the path?” Mekeles asked.

  Telea looked up and shook her head. “I’ll try, but I don’t see many holds.” She shook out her hands a little more and started to ascend the chimney. After ten paces she had to stop.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “I’d have to jump for the next hold, and if I miss… I’m dead.”

  As if echoing her thoughts, a demon roar echoed up the valley. It wasn’t coming for them, at least.

  “Can you climb down?” she asked.

  “It’s thousands of paces. We’ll never make it.”

  “Mekeles, there’s no choice. We must climb down.”

  “You said you could jump,” he said, his tone accusing.

  “I said I’ll die. Start down!”

  He obeyed. Ever so slowly, he climbed downward. For a time the chimney ran straight down and hardly changed in width. But there were handholds, and where there weren’t, they could wedge their bodies into the crevasse and squirm downwards.

  They didn’t talk. The only sounds Telea heard were their own breath, the wind running up the valley, and the echoing roars of the fiend. Telea’s arms and legs burned with the effort of descending.

  Mekeles stopped on a ledge below her. “Why is it still here?” he asked after another demon roar. “Shouldn’t it have returned to Dromost?”

  “They’ve bound it. They mean for it to guard the pass.”

  “What do you mean by bound it?”

  “Blood is the fuel for summoning—”

  “I know that! I’m not a fool!”

  “Let me finish,” Telea said. “Blood can also be used to bind a demon to a place, preventing it from returning to Dromost.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know for certain. A long time… depending how it was done.”

  “And the summoner Magister? You think he went to Salador?”

  “I think the fiend is the summoner. I think the summoner and his apprentice both sacrificed themselves. That flying demon was no possessed man. It was a sacrifice demon. It was wearing his robes.”

  Mekeles frowned at her. “It doesn’t please me that you know so much of summoning. You healers know too much of the ways of our enemies.”

  Telea ignored the comment for a moment, staring out of the shelter and into the gorge. For all the good they did the world, for all the danger they faced healing the sick, healers were always looked at with fear. There was no place in the Empire where healers could go and be accepted. Well, the Drinkers accepted them. And the healers were safe in their college. Neither were truly part of the Empire though.

  “There’s no healing without summoning,” Telea finally said. “We only use it for good.”

  “And the rest of us must trust you.” He made his lack of faith plain in his voice.

  Telea drank from her water skin. At least it was almost full. Besides the skin, her healer’s satchel, a pocket full of pennies, and the kyre knife she wore at her waist, she had only the clothes on her back. She was certain Mekeles had little more, although his clothes were finer, and he probably carried gold and silver.

  “We should keep going,” she said.

  “Might as well, for the good it will do us.”

  “You’d rather starve in this little hole in the rock?”

  Mekeles shrugged. “Less painful than falling off a mountain.”

  “Come on. We have to try.”

  As they continued, Telea looked up, only to be dismayed at how little progress they’d made. Only a few hundred paces, with thousands more to go. They’d never make it before nightfall.

  The fiend’s roars still echoed off the mountains. And so they would until the demon was destroyed or the binding broken. At least, as long as she and Mekeles lived, their mission was not a failure. An elementar with Forsvar or the Orb of Creation could defeat the demon and make their way to the Empire, or so she imagined.

  Throughout the afternoon they struggled down the mountain face. Telea didn’t want to think what would happen if the crack they followed ended. Thankfully it got easier the further they descended. The handholds became more plentiful and deeper. Even the slope was less severe. It was fortunate, as there was no way they could otherwise hope to make it.

  Just before full darkness, the chimney brought them to a ledge. There was soil here and a few scrubby trees. “We can stay here for the night,” Telea said. “We can even make a fire. I have my fire kit in my bag.”

  Mekeles carefully moved a short distance downslope. “There’s still a long way to go.
It isn’t much easier.”

  “At least it gets easier.”

  “Bah, you’re a hopeful one.”

  Telea ignored the comment and gathered fallen branches, taking them back to the crevasse. There was some shelter from the wind there. After a few moments Mekeles started breaking larger branches from a long-dead pine.

  Darkness found them tucked into the crevasse, their supply of wood behind them and a tiny, unlit fire set in front of them. They had their heavy winter coats and gloves, but the night would be cold. She didn’t relish huddling with Mekeles, but she relished freezing to death even less. They’d agreed to wait until later to light the fire. The small supply of wood had to last until morning.

  “I’m starving,” Mekeles said for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “We’ll find food in the valley below.”

  “If we make it.”

  “If we don’t make it, we don’t have to worry about being hungry.” She couldn’t keep the anger from her voice.

  Mekeles shifted next to her, trying to get comfortable in the cramped space. “We can’t fail at this,” he said. “Demons will consume the world.”

  “Then we mustn’t fail.”

  High above them the demon bellowed.

  Chapter Two

  Orlos drew himself deep into his spiridus nature as the two dogs licked his hands. How did I not see them? He smiled at the dogs and wished them kind thoughts. Dear Helna, please don’t let them jump up on me!

  “What in Dromost’s name are those mutts doing?” said one of the four men by the campfire. Orlos had gotten within ten strides of them before the dogs had bounded out of the trees and run up to him. They could see him, even if the men couldn’t.

  “Your dogs are damned stupid,” another man said. “Look at them hopping around.”

  The first man stood and walked toward Orlos. Orlos shifted his longbow so that the man wouldn’t walk into it and then wrapped himself deeper in spiridus shadows. He’d played a foolish game, getting so close to the camp. He’d wanted to hear what the men were saying and to find out who they were.

  I’ll never get away if he sees me. Orlos closed his eyes and thought only good thoughts about the man and his dogs. He’s a good man. They’re good dogs. It was a lie, but he pushed the thought from his mind.

  Orlos opened his eyes as the man came closer. He was a big man, with a neat beard. Like the other three men around the fire he wore a laced tunic—half blue and half yellow. On the breast of the blue side there was a crown above a lit lamp embroidered in gold.

  An inquisitor!

  The man’s step faltered. “What the—”

  He’s a good man. Not an evil man. He means no harm. Orlos shrank deeper into himself, letting darkness surround him. He couldn’t move. He’d never remained shadowed so close to someone before.

  “Did you see something?” the man asked his companions by the fire.

  “Just your dumb dogs flapping their tongues at nothing.”

  “Come here, Wolf! Here, Shadow.” The inquisitor took the dogs by their collars and half dragged them back to the fire where he sat again. The dogs settled beside him, still looking at Orlos.

  “What did you think you saw?” the other man said as he went back to stirring his stew pot.

  “He saw a ghost,” said a third man. “You know. A spiridus.” He laughed.

  Orlos took a deep breath. Why did he do these things to himself? He wasn’t even in Landomere. The Great Spirit would be angry. More than angry. What if he didn’t return?

  Why do I risk so much? I could be killed. Mother would be furious. His thoughts drifted back to Landomere and to his home in Belavil. At least dead the nightmares would end.

  “We should take them tonight, Jarham,” said the second man, pulling Orlos’s attention back to the fire. “It’s a risk waiting until morning.”

  Jarham, the man who had approached Orlos, shook his head as he accepted a bowl of stew from the third man. “They’re exhausted, and they don’t know that we’re on them. They won’t go anywhere until morning. We’ll take them in their sleep.”

  “We’re too close to the forest to be playing games like this.”

  “Stop your nagging, Keris. If we’d gone at them before dark they’d have made for the forest. We’ll get them.”

  “It will be a nice bounty,” said the third man. “Taking two real elementars.”

  Jarham shook his head. “Only one’s real, for certain. The child we’re not sure about. It’s the smuggler I want. He already robbed us of one bounty.”

  “I’d like to put a dagger in him,” Keris said before digging his spoon into his bowl.

  “No killing men,” Jarham said, pointing his spoon at the other man. “We’re not killing male elementars anymore. You know the rules.”

  “The smuggler isn’t—”

  “We don’t know that. And the queen will have you flayed. Take them alive.”

  “Dangerous business taking an elementar alive,” the last man said. His back was to Orlos.

  Jarham finished chewing. “That’s why we get paid so well. Now finish up, and get some rest.” He turned to Keris and said, “After the second watch, you go and take over for Elrin. He’s watching the elementars from the big tree near the cottage. We’ll come for you on the third watch and take them.”

  Keris nodded. “Elrin’s not getting much sleep tonight.”

  “Bah, you know he’s sleeping right now.” The men around the fire laughed.

  Orlos had heard enough. He turned from the men and crept back to the cover of the trees. He glanced over his shoulder to make certain none of the inquisitors had taken notice of his departure, but they only continued eating and talking.

  The dogs perked up, and he gave them a wink as he left the last of the firelight. He paused for a moment when he was well away from them. The inquisitors had made camp along a sunken streambed next to an old abandoned farmstead. The once fallow fields had grown into a young forest in the seventeen years since the Wasting had ended. In some places men had come to reclaim the farmland, but not here. Not in this far corner of the South Teren, so close to Landomere.

  Orlos knew exactly who the inquisitors were after. Well, not the elementars, but the smuggler at least. The scholar from Sal-Oras. In defiance of the queen’s commands, he was rescuing the elementars who had emerged following Akinos’s death. He’d already saved one elementar, bringing him to Belavil, where the Landomeri sheltered him.

  Keeping himself wrapped in shadows, Orlos jogged through the woods towards the cottage the inquisitor had spoken of. At least he hoped it was the same cottage. Orlos had been there before—the first time he’d met the scholar, Sulentis.

  Orlos ran faster—time and fatigue meant little to him when he was deep in his spiridus nature. He wouldn’t let Queen Ilana’s men take his friend Sulentis or the elementars he protected. It was her men who had come to Landomere and taken him as a baby. It was her men who had slain his mother’s friend Hadde.

  For years the queen’s men had come to Landomere, searching for Hadde’s daughter, Enna, and for the eternal, Morin. The Landomeri had tolerated the Saladorans as long as they did no harm. There had been a truce of sorts. The Landomeri didn’t want a war with Salador, and they had nothing to hide. They didn’t know where Enna was either.

  After a time word had come that there were more elementars in the world than just Prince Handrin. Then the queen sent out her inquisitors to find and kill them all. When the inquisitors had come to Landomere, they had been rebuffed. The Landomeri would have nothing of their persecution.

  It was odd, then, that this inquisitor, Jarham, said that their orders had changed. The inquisitors would no longer kill male elementars. Why only kill the female elementars? What was the queen up to?

  Orlos slowed as he approached the ruined cottage. He’d only been there twice before and wasn’t certain where the inquisitor was. There was certainly someone in the cottage. Light glowed through the windows and doorway. The s
cholar certainly didn’t seem to know the danger he was in.

  Not far from the cottage stood an old, dead tree. Sure enough, the inquisitor was there, and just as Jarham had predicted, the man was asleep. He lay on his stomach facing the cottage, snoring deeply. A polished cudgel and a crossbow rested on the ground near his head. He wore a long dagger and an eating knife at his waist. A small pack lay by his feet.

  Orlos knelt by the man and very carefully took his crossbow and club and put them out of reach. The man snored on, and Orlos had to suppress a laugh. Crouching closer, he took a deep breath, and drew the man’s dagger from its sheath. It stuck at first, and then it slipped free. The man shifted as Orlos took the eating knife, and for a moment it appeared he would awaken. Orlos froze. He had no intention of killing the man. He’d never killed anyone. But he also didn’t want his friend hurt or captured.

  Orlos glanced back in the direction of the inquisitor’s companions. It would be a quarter night before they arrived. He smiled as he looked down at the sleeping man next to him. It wasn’t enough that he was disarmed.

  After laying his longbow on the ground next to the man’s pack, Orlos cut off the leather ties that held the pack closed. He was left with a leather thong the length of his arm. It was stout enough for what he had in mind. Very gently, Orlos looped the thong around both of the inquisitor’s boots and then tied them off. He nodded in appreciation of his work.

  Orlos took up his bow and the inquisitor’s weapons, and re-cloaking himself in the spiridus shadows he had let lapse, he made his way toward the cottage. There were six horses tethered near the front door, and he could see a man lurking there, just inside the threshold.

  Orlos crept to one of the windows and peered in. The man at the door, Orlos’s friend Sulentis, still stared outside, while four more people slept in the ruined cottage. They were in a ring around a small fire burning in the middle of the room. A man, a woman, and a girl, all slept near one another. Another man rested a little separated from them.