Atop one arch was a round-faced owl with spiral eyes that tracked them as they passed. Tam recognized it immediately. She’d seen it twice before: once in the Silverwood, and again on the night she’d gone to throw stones at a farmgirl’s window.
Had Contha been spying on them, watching his son in secret all this time?
She couldn’t voice her concerns to Freecloud, however, since they’d arrived at a henge made of monolithic stone slabs that gave off a faint, pearlescent light. Metal scrap lay everywhere, rough lumps of a violet mineral Tam didn’t recognize.
Kneeling amidst the circle of stones was something that might once have been a druin, but was something other now, as aberrant from the norm as the malformed creatures lurking in the forest around him. His face was gaunt and narrow, his eyes black as moon-shaped holes cut in the fabric of night. Pale pink fur sheathed ears gone limp as plucked daisies, and his almost translucent hair was so long it pooled like melted platinum around his knees. The figure wore a suit of close-fitting armour made of overlapping scale plates, each marked with a softly glowing rune. His limbs were long and bone-thin, near invisible for the dozens of inscribed duramantium bangles he wore on each. The ones around his neck chimed softly as he raised his head.
“Son,” said Contha, the last living Exarch of the Old Dominion. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Four Words
“Orbison, tea.” The ancient druin gestured absently, and a crosshatched rune on one of his bangles pulsed a vibrant green. The contruct moved to obey, clomping up the path behind them.
The bangles control the golems, Tam realized, and figured the runes on his armour served a similar purpose. How many can he control at once? Hundreds, maybe? Or thousands, if whole legions were bound by a single rune …
“Those bracers,” said Contha, admiring Rose’s armour. “They pair with the blades, yes? Where did she get them?”
“I stole them,” Rose said, though the Exarch had directed his question at Freecloud.
“You recognize them, Father?”
Contha shook his head slightly, since his ears were too limp to convey expression. “No. They are simple weapons. Uninspired, and unworthy of my time. I prefer to kill more”—he indicated the construct upon which he was working now—“creatively, when I must. Violence should be a last resort. True power is a deterrent to such vulgar ends.”
The Exarch’s current project was lying on its back before him. It bore a tortoise’s concave shell, but its six legs were long and jointed like that of a spider. They jerked spastically as the druin tampered with its insides. Contha was wearing a pair of gauntlets himself, each cuffed at the wrist by a spinning ring that looked like part of a tidal engine. They whirled as he worked, while lances of blue fire burned at his fingertips. The spider-thing’s metal frame warped beneath his touch.
He’s shaping it, Tam marvelled. Working metal like it was clay, using nothing but his hands.
If the Exarch passed on this knowledge—if he returned to the world above and shared the secret of such innovation with humankind—who knows what wonders they might fashion?
Or horrors, she was quick to remind herself, as a metalwork jackal limped past on three legs. Its leering eyes, shaped like the point of an arrowhead, were fixed on the child in Freecloud’s arms. The thing emitted a rattling growl that distracted Contha from his work. A rune matching the shape of its eyes flickered on one of his bangles, and the jackal scampered off.
“Here we are.” The Exarch turned over his creation. A sigil scored each facet of its shell: a circle bisected by a single line. He evoked a band around his emaciated bicep that bore an identical symbol, and the beetle-like construct surged to its feet. It scuttled in a slow half circle, then retraced its steps. Contha grunted. His eyes narrowed, and the rune on his arm blinked again. The spider-turtle took four jaunty steps sideways and then collapsed.
“By the Black Fronds of Nibenay!” Contha swore. “I’ve gone wrong, somewhere. Miscalculated. It should run like a spider, jump like a spider. I don’t understand.” His cuffs began spinning and his fingers flared alight.
“It needs more legs,” Tam pointed out.
“It has enough!” Contha spat.
“Well, fine, but not if it’s supposed to move like a spider. Spiders have eight legs.”
“What?” The Exarch tore his gaze from the capsized construct. “Is that true?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure. “I, uh—”
“It’s true,” said Freecloud.
“Kaksara!” Contha cursed in druic this time. “Do you see, boy? This is why I need you here! To gather specimens! To fetch me real, live spiders so I don’t waste my time with this”—he sliced one of the spurtle’s legs off with a swipe of his hand—“this disastrous cock-up!”
“I can’t stay, Father.” Freecloud reached to take Rose’s hand. “I’m in a band, now. I have a family.”
Contha stared at their clasped hands with the morbid curiosity of someone peering into the depths of an outhouse. “A family? Son, you can’t possibly—”
A cheery whistle signalled Orbison’s return. The golem carried a tray bearing four cups of unblemished glass—each with a scatter of red leaves in the bottom—along with a perfectly spherical teapot that somehow didn’t roll off onto the floor.
The golem had brought food as well: hollowed mushroom caps filled with a tart purple jelly that tasted nothing at all like grapes.
They roused Wren, who smiled when she saw Orbison and laughed when Freecloud introduced her to Contha. “You look funny,” she informed him, without malice. Her grandfather ignored her. “How did your hair get so long?” she asked, but the Exarch went on eating, using his fingers to scoop the jelly from his mushroom bowl.
He won’t even look at her, thought Tam. Could Contha hate humans so much? More likely, she reasoned, he was angry that a mortal woman had lured his son away, appalled that Freecloud would risk eternity to remain by her side.
“What happened to Orbison?” said Freecloud between sips of steaming crimson tea.
“Nothing.” Contha gestured to the construct. “He’s right there.”
“I mean his mouth.”
“Oh. I closed it.”
The bard saw Freecloud’s teacup tremble in his hand. “Why?”
“As punishment,” said his father, and since the prescience told him Freecloud would press the issue, the Exarch was obliged to elaborate. “He tried to follow you. When you didn’t return, Orbison feared some monster had got the better of you, or that Lastleaf had taken my refusal to join him personally and killed you to spite me.”
“Orbison came after me?”
Contha licked jelly from his fingers and then slurped from his own cup. “He did. And by the time I’d realized what he’d done, the bolt-brained fool had reached the Heartwyld and was too far away for me to compel him home. I sent a bird to track him—I’m rather good at those, you know.”
“I know,” murmured his son.
Tam shuddered. She tried to imagine returning home one day to discover Threnody pinned and peeled open on the kitchen table while her father examined her insides.
“He had a run-in with an ogre,” Contha said. “He defeated it—Orbison is quite handy in a fight, believe it or not—but his, unfortunately, is a gentle soul. He spared the ogre, who alerted his tribe, and by the time my reinforcements arrived he’d been rather badly mauled.”
Tam glanced up at Orbison. A gentle soul? Could a construct show courage, she wondered? Could it know worry, or friendship, or fear? Apparently yes, since concern for Freecloud’s well-being had compelled the copper giant to risk its well-being in the Heartwyld.
The Exarch went on. “My knights returned him to Lamneth, where I could see to his repairs. I’ll confess I was tempted to scrap him. I might have, too, except none of the others can brew a decent cup of tea. So I made him whole again. And how did he repay me? Begging! Incessant chatter! He pleaded to
be set free, so he could find you and bring you home.” The Exarch regarded the golem with an ugly sneer. “Except you didn’t really want to bring him home, did you, Orbison? You only wanted to join him in exile. To be rid of me, your master. To be runebroken.” Contha spat that final word like bile from his mouth.
Freecloud was repulsed. “So you disfigured him?”
“Defaced is a more suitable term, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Father—”
“Now he is quiet, and obedient, and the tea”—the Exarch closed his eyes and raised his cup—“is just as it should be.”
Rose stood, yanking Wren to her feet. “We’re leaving.”
“We’re not,” said Freecloud. “Not with Wren. It’s too dangerous in the city, and too late now to flee.”
“You’re right,” said the Exarch. “Astra will arrive very soon. You cannot hope to outrun her now.”
Freecloud’s ears angled suspiciously. “You know about Astra? How?”
“He’s been spying on you,” said Tam.
The Exarch’s eyes snapped to her, lips curling to reveal a glimpse of razor teeth.
“Is this true, Father?”
“Of course it’s true,” said Contha. “You’re my son, are you not? When you failed to return I feared the worst.” His gaze flickered to Rose as he said this, and his deepening scowl made it clear he considered her the worst.
“Astra has gone mad,” Freecloud stated.
“She went mad long ago. Now she seeks revenge for the death of her son.” The Exarch sighed, tapping a taloned finger against the rim of his glass. “That boy should never have been born. And his mother … Well, Vespian made a grave mistake in bringing her back. Assuming it is her he brought back.”
“She leads an army of the dead,” said Freecloud, “and intends to kill every man, woman, and child in Grandual.”
Contha looked mildly amused. “Does she, now? How … ambitious. Alas, so much for the brief and inglorious reign of humankind, eh? One could almost pity them, as one pities insects, or the grass that dies beneath the winter snow.” His black-moon eyes drifted to Freecloud. “It is good you are home, son. You are safe here. We will wait out this storm together, you and I.”
He made no mention of Rose, or of the child standing beside her.
“Orbison.” The golem whistled when Freecloud spoke his name. “Will you please take Wren for a walk?”
The girl clutched her mother’s arm with both hands, looking warily at the surrounding forest. “But there’s scary-looking things out there,” she said meekly.
Freecloud knelt. “They won’t hurt you, Wren. I know some of them look frightening. Especially that one.” He pointed to a metallic fox with a scorpion’s tail prowling just beyond the stone circle. “But what did I tell you when you first met Brune?”
The sylf rubbed her eye, thinking. “That just because something is ugly doesn’t mean it’s bad.”
“Exactly. And besides, you’ll have Orbison to protect you. Did you know”—he leaned in to whisper in his daughter’s ear—“that he has a light where his heart should be?”
“Really?” Wren looked up at the lanky golem.
Freecloud wore a wistful smile. “Show her, Orbison. Please.”
The construct made a cooing noise and pulled open the hatch on his chest. Emerald light flooded the circle, and Wren’s face brightened along with it. The golem lowered his arm and the girl tentatively took hold of it. When she was secure, he lifted her up and set her on his weathered green shoulder.
“I can see everything from here,” she announced as they left the henge and plodded up the path.
“Go ahead,” said Contha once the four of them were alone. “Ask. You think I don’t know why you’ve come? It wasn’t out of filial piety, that much is obvious.”
“We need—” Rose began, but the Exarch cut her off.
“My son can ask for himself.”
Freecloud’s ears betrayed annoyance at his father’s dismissiveness. Had anyone else in the world spoken to Rose that way, they’d be collecting their teeth off the floor right about now. The younger druin made a noticeable effort to calm himself before speaking. “We’d like to leave Wren here with you while we deal with Astra.”
The Exarch’s reply was immediate. “No.”
“Father, please. We have no other choice. It’s too late to run—you said so yourself.”
“Then remain here. I will not force you to leave.” Metal bands clattered as the Exarch waved a steel-shod hand. “The humans can stay if it pleases you. And the child, at least until it is reasonably safe for them to return to the surface.”
“We can’t stay,” said Freecloud.
The Exarch seemed genuinely confused. “Can’t? Why not? Do you care so much about the fate of …” He scowled. “What do they call that vile cesspit of a city above us?”
She saw Freecloud hesitate, so Tam decided to draw the druin’s ire herself. “Conthas,” she said. “They call the cesspit Conthas.”
The Exarch looked to his son for confirmation. “They named it after me?” When Freecloud nodded, the old druin stood. His back was bent, his neck craned like a vulture considering a corpse, and Tam was shocked to see that, even standing, his hair draped all the way to his feet.
“Let them die,” he snarled. “Let Astra scour that abscess clean so it can finally heal. Why throw your life away? There must be other warriors to stand in its defense. They need only kill a single druin sorceress and her Horde will crumble. They did so once before, remember.”
Sure, thought Tam. Kill the Queen, kill the Horde. Easy, right? But they would have to reach her first.
The bard tried to imagine a typical mercenary fighting through an undead legion of mercs and monsters (not to mention the Simurg, or Brontide himself) and getting close enough to put a blade through Astra’s heart. They would fail, of course, and in death would become yet another soulless soldier in the Winter Queen’s host.
In fact, if Tam was being completely honest with herself, she couldn’t imagine Rose doing so either.
“I’ll stay,” said Freecloud.
“What?” Rose wheeled on him. “No. Absolutely not. You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
Freecloud kept his eyes nailed to his father. “I’ll stay,” he repeated. “But on one condition: Wren stays here with me. When she leaves—if she leaves—it will be my decision, not yours.”
“Fine,” said Contha grudgingly.
“Not fine.” Rose was almost shouting now. She tugged roughly on Freecloud’s arm, forcing him to look at her. “What are you thinking? We can’t stay here, Cloud. You know we can’t.”
“Rose …”
“Don’t fucking Rose me,” she snapped. “We can’t stay here.”
Freecloud’s smile was hopelessly sad. “We can. I am.”
“What about Fable? What about Brune, and Cura, and Rod?”
“What about them?”
“You’d let them die?”
“I’d let them go!” The druin’s ears flicked in irritation. “I’d send them away. This isn’t their fight, Rose. It sure as spring isn’t mine, and it doesn’t have to be yours.”
“Those people up there need our help,” Rose said, and Tam could virtually hear Gabriel’s voice underscoring every word. “If we don’t stop her, Astra will kill everyone in Conthas.”
“There’s fifty thousand mercs in the city,” said Freecloud. “Half the Agrian army is camped outside the walls, and half as many Carteans. They defeated the Horde once already. They can do so again, without us.”
Rose wasn’t convinced. “The Horde lost because Astra wanted it to lose,” she told him. “You know that. And this time around they’ll have the Winter Queen to back them up. And the Dragoneater, thanks to us.”
“Thanks to you,” said Freecloud, causing Rose to reel as if he’d slapped her. “You dragged us to Diremarch, remember? You took the Widow’s deal. You put your career as a mercenary before our family, like you
always have. And that’s okay,” he said, when she appeared on the verge of interrupting him. “It’s what we both wanted. It’s what we agreed on. But you promised, Rose … You promised the Dragoneater would be our last gig.”
“But—”
“But what?” the druin cried. His fists were clenched, his ears a pair of pointed knives. “The city needs us? The people? The whole fucking world?” A mirthless chuckle. “There’s always someone who needs saving, Rose.”
“Cloud …”
“But it doesn’t have to be you who saves them. It doesn’t have to be Fable.” Tam could see it was killing him to tell her this—but it was obvious, too, that he’d wanted to say all of it before tonight. She saw the druin’s body tense as though he were readying himself for a blow. “Please,” he begged her. “This one time … Choose us instead of them. Choose me.”
Silence.
Something scratched in the darkness. Something rustled. Tam could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Or was it Rose’s, a prisoner forever trapped within the black iron carapace of that armour?
Freecloud, being druin, knew her reply before the words left her mouth. Tam saw his eyes go dark.
“She killed my father,” Rose said.
With those four words, any hope Freecloud had harboured that she might stay evaporated in an instant.
The druin’s mouth was a hard line, his eyes evergreen. “I know,” he said. And then his expression softened, and he said again, as if in reply to another revelation altogether, “I know.”
Contha (the vile little rat) wore a smirk that bordered on perverse, like a man who’d bet on both dogs in a fight and took joy in watching them tear one another apart. “You’ve made a wise choice, son. You and your daughter will be safe here. I will have Orbison show the woman out.”
Freecloud’s ears slanted sharply as he turned on the old man. “For fuck’s sake, Dad, her name is Rose.”
The Exarch’s smiled withered. He blinked several times. “Rose,” he said at last, without deigning to look at her. “I will not forget it.”
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