The Pagan Night

by Tim Akers

  “Hush, hush,” Henri said. It was difficult, seeing himself like this. “It’s all right.” He didn’t really know what to do.

  “No,” the child whimpered. “It’s not all right. It never was.” He spun.

  The stone took Henri behind the ear, a weak blow driven by a child’s hand, but enough to surprise him. He slipped and collapsed back into the stream, cold water splashing over his hips. The child rose from the bank, the heavy stone once again in his hands.

  There was blood on it.

  “When the master goes mad,” the child whispered, “sometimes you have to put down the dog.”

  “What?” Henri sputtered.

  “You shouldn’t have left me in here,” the child shrilled. “You shouldn’t have left me with them!”

  Henri crawled backwards, slipping on smooth stones as he struggled away from the murderous boy. The child came at him, the stone over his head, screaming. Henri turned away, and the stone bounced off his back. The boy fell against him, tiny arms battering his head, his shoulders, young teeth sinking into his neck. Henri could taste the blood and the fear.

  He shoved the child away. His younger self fell into the stream, sputtering when his head went under. Henri pushed his head into the water. Young hands tore at his wrists, drawing blood. It was brief, the struggle, as the last moments of Henri’s memories of his father washed into the river.

  Try to not get any blood in the water.

  Henri stood and returned to the clearing.

  * * *

  “Lose yourself?” the feral man asked.

  “Shut up,” Henri snapped.

  “Oh, so now he has a backbone,” the knight responded. “Too bad he can’t keep track of a child.”

  “You, too,” Henri said. “I’ve had enough of this—of your accusations, your assumptions.” He drew his sword, which he wasn’t carrying until he reached for it. “The duke may have shaped us, and the church may have guided us, but it’s time I start making my own way.”

  “Yes, exactly!” the knight said. “Sense upon sense! All you have to do—” Henri thrust forward, sliding the blade smoothly through the silk and satin into flesh. The knight staggered, sputtered, and died.

  “Ho, ho!” the feral man yipped. “I don’t think he saw that coming!”

  “I’ve had enough of fitting into someone else’s sense of order,” Henri said. “No more orders, and no more madness.” He spun and brought the blade across the feral man’s crimson neck, opening him up like a butcher’s purse, sending him tumbling to the ground.

  Then Henri wheeled on the demon. The pit-faced figure backed slowly away, feeble hands up.

  “Be careful what you do here, Henri,” the demon said, his voice slithering through the air. “There’s no need…”

  “It was you, wasn’t it? You killed my parents!”

  “I don’t know…”

  “I thought all of this—my face, my skin… the nightmares… I thought it was a scar in my soul, or a wound that would heal in time. It’s not, is it?” Henri gritted. “It was all you!”

  “You were fertile ground,” the demon replied. “I have grown into more than I was.”

  “All these years, I’ve hunted the gheist, feared the pagan,” Henri snarled. “You have been inside me since the beginning.” He stepped forward. The demon stepped back.

  “Son, wait,” the demon said. He changed, his face swelling, eyes and nose and mouth welling up like water filling a hole. His features were like a dim memory.

  Father.

  “I am the god of memory, Henri Volent. I preserve the past that was lost.” The demon stepped forward, hand outstretched. “I hold your father, and your mother, as well.”

  “The dead are gone,” Henri growled. “Let them sleep.”

  “They’re never gone. Not as long as you…”

  “No,” Henri said. Then he placed the tip of his sword against his father’s face. The image of Jacque Volent whisked away like smoke. The blade passed through and into the pit of the demon’s face. A thousand voices screamed, his mother’s last of all, but then there was silence, and darkness, and weight.

  * * *

  He awoke lying among the tombs of the tribe of iron.

  Something was burning, thick, black, inky smokey boiling up from the stairwell. That was the direction Sacombre had come from.

  Henri stood, and felt tears on his face.

  He wondered why that seemed unusual.

  43

  IAN KNELT ON the bare stone of a lonely hill. He sang the evensong to himself, bidding farewell to the sun, counting down the rites to the moon, binding the wounds in his heart. When he was done he held the silence of a long moment. His knees ached, but he didn’t want to move.

  Evening crawled on, and reluctantly he stood and started down the hill. There was a time in his life when he would have been nervous walking the deep forests of Tener, especially this close to the equinox. Fear of the gheists had dominated so much of his youth. With Fianna and her coven so close, however, and after a month of traveling in their company, in the host of their gods, he was no longer afraid.

  So he had started observing the evensong again. Ian felt the need to put something between himself and these pagans. He needed to create a space, a sacred distance, and a time when he could feel the old gods again. When he could feel Cinder’s judgment, and Strife’s love.

  He found it odd that he had started thinking of the bright lady and gray lord as the “old gods.” Ian worried that he might not be remembering the forms of evensong. At first he had stumbled through them, gaining confidence with each night, but even now he wasn’t certain he had it right. He might be committing heresy without knowing it.

  He hoped the gods would understand, or perhaps not even notice.

  About halfway down the hill, Ian realized that he was no longer alone. Off to his left, Cahl was walking parallel to him. The shaman slipped quietly between the trees, pointedly ignoring him. Ian slowed, then came to a halt. Cahl circled into the path Ian would have followed, turned, and faced the young Tenerran.

  “You are learning to move through the forests, Ian of Houndhallow,” Cahl said. “The time hasn’t long passed that you would have stumbled through the darkness like an avalanche.”

  “I’ve had plenty of practice,” Ian said.

  “It’s more than that,” Cahl answered. He came closer, looking Ian up and down. “You are weaving the night into your bones. The silence of dreams cloaks you.”

  “I think I just got tired of falling on my face,” Ian persisted. “Started looking where I was going.”

  “You started seeing where you were going,” Cahl corrected. “There is a distinct difference.”

  “Are you here to harass me about my prayers?”

  “Your prayers will not keep the spirits from your blood,” Cahl said. “They will not keep you holy in this place.”

  “If you are trying to frighten me,” Ian said, “it’s not going to happen, and you’re not going to cause me to change.”

  Cahl didn’t answer. The big shaman just stood there, breathing slowly, as if he was tasting the air and the earth. Ian could sense the slight haze of everic power dancing around the man’s skin, tangling with the trees and sky and quiet stones of the earth beneath their feet.

  “No, you are not the type of man to take fright,” Cahl said. “You are not the type of man to be leashed, either—or led.”

  “Fianna leads you,” Ian said.

  Cahl smiled, the first time Ian had ever seen. It was a broad smile, full of teeth, and not frightening at all.

  “I do not understand her will for you,” Cahl said, “but not knowing is part of this. There are many of my brothers who would have left you for dead. There are many more who would hunt you down without a second thought. But Fianna is moving something in you. Surely you can feel that.”

  “No,” Ian answered. “Nothing about me is changing. I am of the Celestials, faithful to Cinder. Faithful to Strife. I am the heir of Hound
hallow, and sworn to Heartsbridge. Nothing that has happened here will change that.”

  “So you say,” Cahl said. “I have listened to your evensong, and I know those words, Ian of Houndhallow. They are older than your church.” The shaman loomed closer still, his rocky face inches from Ian’s nose. “I may never change you, but the gods are another matter.”

  Ian was about to answer when Cahl snorted and turned away. He loped down the hill, his broad back disappearing among the trees long before his footsteps faded.

  “Such a load of bullshit,” Ian hissed, shaking in frustration. “Gods, what’s wrong with these people? We should be fighting. We should be at the Fen Gate. Damn it!”

  Anger turned Ian’s feet. He walked around the hill, avoiding the pagan camp and the sentries he knew were roaming the trees.

  Word had filtered through the forest, from captured Suhdrin scouts foolish enough to wander far from the roads. They spoke about the size of the Suhdrin force, and the decimation of the Tenerran armies. It seemed unbelievable, but Ian had seen enough bodies, enough wreckage, had ambushed enough supply wagons to know that there was a seed of truth to what they said.

  Your prayers will not keep the spirits from your blood. Fianna had said something similar, and now Cahl was taking up the chorus. Exposure to the pagan arts didn’t make you a pagan. It made you aware of pagans. If anything, he felt more holy than he had before.

  Frustration kept Ian walking. He wanted to be at his father’s side. He wanted to settle the debt of blood he owed Martin Roard, and the whole damned Suhdrin army. They had taken his pride, and he meant to cut it from them, to take it back with iron. Yet until he convinced Fianna to move them north, they would be nipping at the edges of the conflict, taking pennies, when they should have been plundering a fortune.

  He came to a creek, its water babbling happily through the night. Ian stared down into the current, trying to decide what he was meant to be doing. What he should be doing. What the gods expected of him.

  Lost in thought, Ian did not at first hear the beast. Something came rushing through the forest, sliding through the trees. Before he knew it, the earth was shaking soundlessly. The night bent close, and his fears of the pagan night returned with a snap as sharp and fast as a crossbow loosing its bolt.

  A fog crept out of the ground, gray tendrils snaking between Ian’s feet. He drew his sword.

  A god came to a halt before him.

  It was a hound, as big as a horse, bigger. Its tangled fur was twined through with twigs and leaves, its dirty coat cluttered with vines that seemed to grow through its body. It was black, black as night, and its bearded jaw hung open, exposing scores of star-white teeth, each as big and as sharp as a gardener’s hook. Its eyes were fixed on Ian. He couldn’t look away from them. They were the color of smoke from a fire whose timber is too wet, and wisps of inky darkness swirled down the creature’s cheeks like tears of fog.

  Ian placed his weight on his back foot, bringing the sword up to his chest, waiting for the charge. Waiting to die. The hound trotted closer, and he never took his eyes away from its horrible face. A cold fog swirled around his legs, and the sound of the creek ceased, as if the water had turned to frost at the gheist’s approach.

  The hound passed close to him, nearly brushing his trembling arm with its hulking shoulder. It smelled like freshly tilled earth and old, damp leaves left under the forest canopy for seasons without end.

  And then it was gone. The night came back, the insects filling the world with their song, the creek returning to life. The forest peeled away from the gheist’s path, leaving a road through the trees. Ian stumbled forward, up a hill, the ground nothing but smooth grass. As he crested the summit, the trail closed behind him, the trees creaking as they returned to their natural place, the earth groaning and shifting beneath his feet.

  In the distance, the twin towers of the Fen Gate poked out of the trees. Yet there was no way they could be so close. Even as Ian watched, the horizon shivered and returned to normal.

  Fianna stepped up next to him, appearing out of nowhere, without sound, without warning. She sighed.

  “That is a sign I will follow,” she whispered. “It is sign enough for me.”

  “And me. Gods be good,” Ian answered. “And me.”

  44

  GWEN STOOD AT the lip of the clearing, staring down at the dead, unable to move. Her mind fumbled over the bodies lying in front of her, their faces gentle, their skin cold. Surely the wardens couldn’t be dead. Surely she couldn’t be alone in guarding the hallow? Surely the gods would not abandon her so?

  Elsa shook her out of her reverie.

  The bodies were still there.

  “These are the witches meant to save the frair’s life?” the vow knight asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Well, then,” Elsa said, turning in a slow circle, “we’ll need… something else.”

  “I can… I know something.” Gwen finally raised her eyes. Lucas looked little better than the bodies at her feet. “This way.”

  She led them past the killing ground to the base of the sacred hill, to one among dozens of henges that ringed the shrine. Elsa had to support the frair the entire way. When he lay down at the center of the circle of stones, he looked as if he wouldn’t get up again.

  “Have we made it in time, Huntress?” Elsa said. “I do not wish to bury him here.” There was a thinly veiled threat at the edge of her words.

  “The ground would not accept him, anyway,” Gwen answered, gathering deadfall and starting a fire. “We cannot yet know if we were fast enough—that’s for time to tell.”

  “Have no worry,” Lucas said quietly. “I can feel the weight of this place. I have many days ahead of me, Sir LaFey. Many days.”

  “Come,” Gwen said, plucking at Elsa’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to see, and we have things to do.”

  “We’re simply going to leave him here?” The vow knight didn’t move. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s a ley circle. It focuses the power of life in this place.” The huntress frowned. “There are rites, too, and balms, but they are beyond my abilities. The magic of this place might heal him. Or it might corrupt him—but there is no other way for him to reach the hallow.”

  Elsa just stared at her, then at the corpses.

  “Have faith,” Gwen said, then winced. “Wrong words. Just trust me—this is as much as can be done. It’s not a bloodwright, and it would be better if the wardens were alive to lend their aid, but given his robes, and the faith in his heart…”

  She turned and marched back to where the wardens lay. Elsa followed, and they buried the bodies where they lay, dragging stones over their motionless bodies while Frair Lucas slept away his death.

  “So what now?” Elsa asked when they were done. “We’re wasting time the frair doesn’t have, and Allaister is still hunting us out there. We can’t hide here forever.”

  “No,” Gwen said, setting the final stone on the final cairn, then swinging her cloak back around her shoulders. “I was hoping the wardens would be able to advise us.”

  “There’s no hope of that now, I doubt even Lucas could visit them in the quiet.”

  “He couldn’t manage it—not here, not even if he had permission,” Gwen said. “No, we’re on our own.”

  “Will Allaister be able to get through these wards?” Elsa asked, peering around as if expecting enemies to burst from the deepening shadows. “If the wardens aren’t around to maintain them…”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen admitted. “These people must have died in an attempt to build a shield around the hallow. The one who visited me the other night, she said that the gheist was straining the wards. That many had already died. There may be others coming, though. They have ways of speaking… through the trees.” She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “I just don’t know.”

  “Then there’s something I can say at your trial, after all,” Elsa said brusquely.

  “What�
�s that?”

  “That you don’t know much about pagan things,” she answered. “Perhaps ignorance will work in your favor.” The vow knight snatched up her pack and started walking toward the hill. “Come on. I’ve no interest in sleeping among the dead.”

  “I doubt they would want your company, anyway,” Gwen muttered. She gathered her things and followed. Mists began to appear in the hallow, forming odd, spectral shapes.

  * * *

  As the first stars appeared in the sky, a voice rose above the trees. The evensong, so familiar, sounded foreign in this wild place of the old gods. No gheists appeared in the darkness, however, and Gwen took that as a hopeful sign. She and Elsa hurried to where they had left the frair, then stopped dead, shock clear in the vow knight’s expression. Lucas was sitting up, eyes sparkling in the firelight for the first time since the demon had laid him low.

  “I thought you might have been swallowed by the everealm,” he said, his voice sounding rough with disuse. He held a handful of wildflowers in his fist, freshly bloomed at the verge of the henge. They appeared to drip blood. “These are fascinating blooms. What are they?”

  “They are your death,” Gwen said. “Siphoned away and given new life. I… wouldn’t advise you to handle them.”

  “Ah,” Lucas said. He dropped the flowers to the side, but his smile remained. “Glad to have you with us, Huntress.”

  “We were speaking of the wards,” Elsa said. “You must know something of the tricks pagans use to hide themselves. With the wardens gone, are we still safe from Allaister’s hunters?”

  “And it’s fine to see you alive and well, Sir LaFey,” Lucas said smartly, giving her a look. “Yes, thank you for asking, I feel quite well. It’s a miracle I live at all.”

  “You’ll get my sympathy later, old man,” the vow knight replied. “Your health does us no good if Allaister gets through.”