The Pagan Night

by Tim Akers

  Still Elsa attacked, and still the gheist fell back, circling around, unwilling to leave the confines of the village.

  Lucas drew a quick icon across his eye, opening the unseen world. The ghosts of the dead were following the gheist around, dragged behind it like fish in a net. They clumped together in its wake, shivering and howling in that unseen wind.

  “Is he feeding off of them?” Lucas muttered to himself. “Binding them?” The souls shouldn’t be here at all. The faithful dead were drawn out of the world and into the quiet house, a shrine at Cinderfell where the lord of winter ruled over the souls of those who had died. There the priests of Cinder looked after them, stilling their troubles and easing their journey into the nothing that lay beyond death. A soul that wasn’t successfully severed from its body might end up haunting the place of its death, sometimes even becoming a gheist itself. It was part of the duty of the church of Cinder to perform this final rite for the dead, to ease their passage.

  Either these souls had never been severed from their bodies, or the gheist had found some way to draw them back from the quiet. Perhaps the gheist was a manifestation of the tragedy of their death. Yet it had appeared before Volent had put the village to the sword.

  Something else, then…

  While Lucas speculated, Elsa found her rhythm. The gheist pounced at her and she blocked, drew back and struck before the demon could limp away—a quick crossing blow that scythed into the gheist’s belly, then its chest, biting deeply into the muscle of its back. The demon howled and fell, rolling nearly to the other side of the village before it stopped.

  This appeared to be as far away from the pack of souls as the gheist could be without leaving the village. It also was as close to the souls as Lucas could possibly get. He saw his chance, and took it.

  Rising quickly, he ran into the village. He didn’t spare any attention or power on summoning naetheric armor. Instead, the frair held his staff in front of him and recited the rites of severance.

  “To Cinder’s wound, I send you. To winter’s rest, I send you. From Strife’s love, I cut you,” he yelled, scattering blessings and benediction around the barely seen souls of the dead. “From summer’s warmth, I cast you away. To the spirit you return. From the flesh, be severed!”

  The effect was immediate. The sketchy images of the dead, their bodies as insubstantial as a candle’s afterglow, squealed and fell away. Even with his kinship to the naetherealm, Lucas could sense nothing of their passage. One breath they were, and the next they were not.

  The gheist barreled into Lucas, delivering a hammer blow that threw him to the ground and sent his staff skittering away. The beast loomed over him, legs as solid as stone pillars, rapidly cooling iron scabbing over its skin, the heat of its blood washing over the priest, taking his breath away. Droplets of molten iron fell alarmingly near, landing with a hiss. The growl that rolled out of its chest was as deep as thunder, and full of fury.

  He reached for the naetherealm, bracing himself for the plunge into winter’s heart, racing for the invocation before the demon decided to finish him off.

  He never got there.

  With a bound and a leap, the gheist ran away. It abandoned the village and disappeared into the forest, spattering the ground with tears of molten iron that started tiny fires and singed the bark of each tree it passed. Lucas eased himself to his knees. Elsa’s hand found his shoulder. Her skin was still hot, her armor pinging with the residue of her summoning.

  “Do we chase it?” she asked. She sounded weak, and he looked up. The scars on her cheeks and jaw were as red as fire, weeping ash. By the pallor of her skin and the heat washing off her bones, the vow knight was broken.

  “No,” Lucas said. “Not today. We get you back to Greenhall, and we rest.”

  That Sir LaFey didn’t protest said a lot about her condition. That Lucas had to carry her back to their horses, his skin blistering at her touch, said a great deal more.

  19

  A SCATTERING OF DARK riders went north. At first they went in groups of two and three, traveling with whomever was at their side when they fled the city, carrying their lives on their backs. Their armor was an odd mixture of tournament finery and rough-spun wool. They had little in the way of supplies. Halverdt’s men had blocked access to the visitors’ camp as soon as the troubles began. Malcolm’s preparations were useless. His men were forced to abandon their belongings in their haste to be free of the city. As the days passed their numbers grew, small groups pooling together, trading support and protection, until they were a column of knights and spear-attendants, servants and lords, all making do with what they could manage.

  Their way had been slow and dangerous. Avoiding all the roads that led north and sticking to the untrammeled woods had taken time, made worse by the need to hide every time one of the outriders spotted a patrol. Still, they were finally approaching the Tenerran border, and hopefully safety beyond.

  At the fore rode Malcolm Blakley, duke of Houndhallow and hero of the Reaver War. He was still wearing the formal tunic he had worn to watch his son’s joust, with his plate-and-half buckled over. He had donned the armor so quickly that he didn’t have a padded tunic beneath, and after a short time in the saddle the metal chafed his skin. Even after a week, he bore this pain quietly.

  His son was less graceful.

  “Gods, my back,” Ian mumbled. He squirmed beneath his cloak, trying to stretch muscles that hadn’t moved since he mounted that morning. “I feel like my spine’s been replaced with a tanner’s hook.”

  “Better your back than your feet,” Sir Dugan answered. “You could be walking back to Houndhallow.”

  “Not in this gear,” Ian said. He was still in the tournament rig, the stiff greaves and intractable shoulder plating, designed to take a hard blow but unforgiving to movement. His partly crushed helmet was stowed in a burlap sack on the saddle’s side.

  “You should have dumped that clatter back at Greenhall,” Malcolm said. “You’re wearing out our horses faster than we can rest them. We’ll never cross the Tallow at this rate.”

  “And face Halverdt’s arrows in thin cloth?” Ian replied irritably.

  “If we keep moving, we won’t have to face them at all,” Malcolm answered. The other men drew away from the argument between lord and heir, though Sir Dugan stayed close enough to intervene, if necessary. “You are letting your stubborn fear hold you back from the best course of action. Fleeing is a hard choice, but the necessary one.” He adjusted his reins irritably. “Hold fast to Cinder’s words, and you will be able to make the hard decision.”

  “Cinder’s words? Gods around, Father, do you forget who just drove us from Greenhall? That it was the church who closed the gates? Their guards who harried us north, until the walls of that cursed city were out of sight? How can you invoke the gray lord’s name in this situation?”

  “The same way you can blaspheme it, boy,” Malcolm said. “They closed the gates to keep the riot from spreading to the city, and to protect what little peace remained in the tourney ground. If they hadn’t stood between us and Halverdt’s court, gods know what tragedy would have followed. And as for harrying us—” he pulled his horse in front of his son’s, forcing the boy to stop “—that was an escort, sent to make certain some hotheaded knight didn’t try his luck on our blood. Without that assistance, we might not even be alive.”

  “How thoughtless of me,” Ian answered, his anger turning him red around the tight collar of his breastplate. “Perhaps one day I can return the honor.”

  The two stared awkwardly at one another for a long minute as the rest of the column flowed around them. Eventually, Malcolm snorted and rode his way back to the fore. Ian was about to follow when Sir Dugan pulled him to the side.

  “Give him his time, boy,” the older knight hissed. “This has been a low season for your father.”

  “He doesn’t have to take it out on me.”

  “He does, actually.”

  “Why? Because he blames m
e for riding the lists? Because I risked my life against that gheist, and gathered more glory than the old man has seen in the last decade? Or is it just that I’m his son, and he expects more of me than I can give?”

  “It’s because you’re wearing that ridiculous armor,” Dugan answered as he rode off. “Lose it. Before you kill one of the horses, and my goodwill with it.”

  * * *

  Malcolm’s column sighted the Tallow from the edge of a scrub forest at the top of a rolling hill, late the next day. This far east the river was broad and slow, bounded by limestone bluffs that occasionally dipped to allow a ford or tumbling waterfall that led to flat brown lakes that baked in the midsummer sun. There was still a day’s ride ahead of them. Grassy, rolling plains stretched ahead of them, with folds that hid much of the ground, and soft peaks topped by scattered stones and the few sparse, wind-wrenched trees that could survive.

  “No cover,” Dugan muttered. “We’ll be mice to the hawks out there.”

  “We should go east. Cross at the Reaveholt and ride to Houndhallow,” Ian said.

  “And add days to our journey, if not another week,” Malcolm answered. “We haven’t the food or luxury. The church won’t be able to keep Halverdt’s men off the road forever. The sooner we have Tenerran dirt beneath our feet, the better off we’ll be.”

  “I can’t imagine Colm Adair will be happy to find us at his gate,” Dugan said. He glanced over at Sir Merret, standing some distance down the hill with Sir Doone. “Or the fact that we bring Halverdt’s attention with us.”

  “Colm Adair won’t mind the fight,” Malcolm said. “Gods know he’s earned the attention.”

  “You think he sent Gwen out on purpose? You think he was looking for this trouble?” Ian asked.

  “I think he’d be a fool to draw Volent’s attention,” Malcolm said, “and Colm Adair is no fool. Yet I know nothing of his daughter, and this story about gheists has me worried.”

  “Superstition and fear,” Dugan muttered.

  “Aye, and both are powerful enough to see us to trouble,” Malcolm replied. He stood up in his stirrups and called to Doone and Merret, who were making their way up the hill. “What news? Is there any other way forward?”

  “Ways enough,” Doone answered. She had taken control of the loose column of knights and spear-attendants, while Dugan tended to the needs of the duke and his son. “None of them good. There’s an old crossing well west of here, but it would mean weeks in the Fen, and those paths are dark. No godsroad leads that way.”

  “I would scoff at the worry of meeting gheists this close to the Allfire, but the last few weeks have proven the threat real enough,” Malcolm said. “Still, that is too far to travel. We must make directly for the Fen Gate, and disperse from there to alert the north.”

  “Or gather banners,” Sir Merret answered. “I’m sorry, my lord, but it may have come to that.”

  “It may,” Malcolm agreed. “Let us take this one treasonous act at a time. Sir Doone, what are your thoughts?”

  “I don’t like crossing here. I don’t like crossing to the west,” she said, squinting into the setting sun. She turned back to Malcolm and his attendant knights. “And I don’t like delaying to go east, either. Frankly, I like nothing about this situation.”

  “Then how are we to please you, sir?” Dugan asked.

  “By taking the least terrible choice and driving it hard,” she said. “Let us cross here, and proceed as quickly as the gods will take us.”

  “I will settle for the speed of our horses,” Malcolm said. “Sir Doone, gather the troops. We rest here tonight, and take to the fields tomorrow.”

  “Why not go now?” Ian asked.

  “We will have to ride hard and fast, and these horses have had no relief since we put Greenhall behind us,” Malcolm answered. He barely looked at his son as he spoke. “Also, if we cross now, we will be forced to spend the night on an open field, whereas here we can camp in the cover of the forest. No, we must risk discovery tonight to increase our chances of success tomorrow. Settle the horses and eat whatever food you can manage. We don’t want to carry a single pound more than is necessary.”

  * * *

  A sound reached Ian as he lay in his bedroll—a soft murmuring from the night. He rolled to his feet and stared into the darkness. Beyond the perimeter of the camp, he could see shadows pooling. He crept closer.

  A single rider waited at the edge of the forest. The man held a spear across his lap and stared between the trees, shifting in his saddle to peer into the murk. The man’s horse cropped the grass at the tree line. The sound of the beast’s teeth clapping together was what had drawn Ian’s attention.

  The man could be one of the Tenerran knights, driven from Greenhall and making his way north to the safety of the Fen, independent of the Blakley column. He could be a scout of House Adair, or Halverdt, or the outrider for a larger force. Or he might be a lordless knight, unfortunate enough to get caught along the border in difficult times.

  Ian looked back to the camp, and saw Sir Doone crouching twenty feet further down the tree line, staring at him. She signaled him back, then crept into the shadows. Ian followed. They met among the sleeping knights of their company.

  “Thinking of saying hello?” she hissed at him.

  “No, of course not. We don’t know who it is.”

  “Not yet, but he’s none of ours.”

  “He could be a scout from House Adair.”

  “No rider from the Fen Gate would be caught south of the Tallow, not since Gwen Adair stirred the pot.” Doone felt along the ground by her bedroll, coming up with a pair of spears. She pushed one into Ian’s hands. “He doesn’t seem to have noticed our presence. So we watch, and if he sees more than he should, we stop him.”

  Ian nodded. Together they snuck back to where the rider sat, then split up, finding his flank and waiting. The man had moved farther into the forest, perhaps just following his horse’s appetite, perhaps because he thought he saw something among the trees.

  The rider wore armor, perhaps brigandine, perhaps simple hunter’s leather, but his spear was too long for boar-hunting. Ian tried to get closer, to see if there was a tabard across his chest, or barding on the horse.

  His heel came down in mud, his leg slid forward, his back crunched against the dry bark of a tree. He held his tongue, but the sound of his fall carried through the forest.

  The rider straightened but didn’t turn his head. Instead, he started to ride slowly out of the forest, approaching the crest of the hill where Ian and Malcolm had observed the Tallow earlier that day. He moved without panic or speed.

  Maybe he didn’t hear…

  Sir Doone stepped out of the trees and let fly. Her spear arced silently through the air and thumped into the rider’s shoulder. The man twisted but didn’t fall. A second later he spurred the horse forward. In moments he would be over the crest and out of range of their spears.

  “Idiot, throw!” Doone yelled. Ian snapped out of his horror and stood, running out of the tree line and hauling back with the spear. It would be a long throw, and hard to make, but it felt good as he released. He watched as the spear reached the top of its flight, hung there for a moment, then dipped and raced back to the ground.

  It landed quietly in the ground, the shaft humming. The rider thundered past it, up the hill, and then disappeared over the ridge.

  “Godsfuck,” Doone spat. “Wake your father, and the rest as well—we need to set out immediately. With luck he’ll bleed to death before he reaches help. They’ll know we’re out here, but hopefully…”

  She drifted to silence as another sound rolled over the plains. There was a shout, and then a pair of flames crested the hill: a pair of spearmen, torches held high, the tri-acorn and cross of House Halverdt on their chests. They yelled down the hill, and then a new thunder rose from the grass.

  A column of riders came over the hill. They followed the scouts’ waving torches, the sound of their passing like clattering metal and
falling stones.

  Doone was already running. Ian turned and followed, shouting for his father to wake, for the knights of Tener to gather arms and prepare to fight. The first torches winked to life among the trees, and the sound of sleep-addled knights and their attendants mingled with the gathering of steel.

  The war had found them.

  It would not wait till morning.

  * * *

  Malcolm woke to strange lights among the trees and the taste of blood in his mouth. He was standing, naked, with blade in hand. A man was dying at his feet.

  “My lord!” a voice called from his left. Malcolm turned and saw a knight rushing in his direction. The man faltered at the sight of the lord of Houndhallow naked and soaked in blood, but only for a second. “We are found, my lord.”

  “I am awake,” Malcolm muttered. The knight blinked, nodded, and stepped close.

  “A Suhdrin scout stumbled on us. Your son and Sir Doone thought to ambush the rider, but he was not alone. We don’t know their number or bearing, but they are upon us.” The knight glanced around, looking for something to cover Malcolm’s body. Malcolm recognized the man, but couldn’t put a name to his face. One of MaeHeart’s bannermen, he thought, but without tabard or the light of Strife, Malcolm couldn’t be sure.

  The knight retrieved a cloak and placed it on Malcolm’s shoulders.

  “It’s fine,” Malcolm said, brushing the cloak aside. He looked down at himself. His body, ridged in scars and gray with hair and rippled fat, shivered in the night air. The hulking musculature that had been his youthful pride was turned to crust and crumb, old bones sticking through skin as weary and worn as parchment. He straightened his back, threw back his shoulders, and scanned the battlefield. “I thought it was a dream.”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Then let us fight. Gather the knights to the center and leave the spears among the trees. Get rid of those lights, in case they have archers on the ridge. We don’t want to give away our numbers or position, if possible.”