The Pagan Night

by Tim Akers

  Allaister knew he was close.

  He returned to the center of the camp and assumed a pose of meditation. There was a hollowness in his soul, the place that had been occupied by the god he had summoned in Gardengerry, a brittleness that he was anxious to heal. Being surrounded by pagan wards wasn’t easing the process. The gheists that shivered among the trees could sense something in him, something familiar yet foreign. They hungered for him.

  The blurring of borders that came with sleep had softened his defenses. Allaister’s dreams were filled with yawning gods of the forest. A darkness stalked him, a figure that wore a wicker mask, half covered in fresh buds and tender flowers of pink and white and red, the other half dry, leaves yellowed with autumn as it surrendered to winter’s embrace. The figure beckoned to him with hands tipped in bony talons, her breast smeared with blood and dirt.

  So Allaister stopped sleeping. He spent the night in contemplation of the winter god, dreaming the judgment he would pass against the north and their feral deities, and the power he would wield once he bent the hallow of autumn to his will.

  Something stirred in the darkness. At first, Allaister thought it was the wicker-masked woman. His eyes snapped open. The other priests went about their business, trying their best to avoid him. The world beyond the wards shimmered as it always had. Allaister began to think that he had just drifted into dangerous slumber, and was about to stand when the stirring came again.

  Beyond the wards the world moved. It tensed, and as it relaxed the trees seemed to settle into their natural order. Allaister had a moment of clarity. He saw the sky as it really was, stars holding steady beneath the light of the harvester’s moon. He ran to the nearest priest, bent over the fragile pages of an almanac.

  “What do you read!” he barked. “What is Cinder’s phase?” The man cowered away, holding the almanac up, using it to shield his face.

  Faith has failed this one, Allaister thought. He will be the next to give his blood to the rites. Snatching the book from the man’s trembling hands, Allaister made his own reading.

  “Shroud descending, Hearts open…” His finger ran along the charts. He realized he was shaking. A smile crossed his face as he found the appropriate entry. “Third of harvesting.” He leaned back from the book, turning his face to the sky. The other priests watched in fear. “Third of harvesting,” he repeated, then laughed and tossed the book aside. Drawing his dagger he pointed up at the moon. “That, my friends, is the third of harvesting. The sky stands true. Gather your staffs and your faith. The wards have fallen.”

  * * *

  While the wards had fallen, the river remained. As he and his fellow priests approached it, Allaister could see that it was no natural river. In either direction there was a furious current, whitecaps churning over rocks, the banks swollen and fast, but at the place where the shadow priests approached, the water was still. Calm. The river was waiting for them.

  “The water is deep and cold, brother,” Frair Galdt said. “If this is to be our path, we must find a ford. Perhaps farther upriver?”

  “We will cross here,” Allaister said carefully. “Lead us, Frair Galdt.”

  Galdt hesitated, looking first to Allaister, then the other priests who had lined up along the bank. Finally she approached the bank.

  “I can’t see the bottom,” she said.

  “It’s dark. Let the light of Cinder guide you,” Allaister answered. “Or your faith, whichever is greater.”

  The woman steeled her nerves, then set foot in the water. The rough waters quashed any ripples that carried from her entrance. Galdt was hardly a stride in when the guardian came for her.

  The water swelled, as though a fountain formed at its center, and yet the bulge slid smoothly across the surface, directly toward Frair Galdt. The priest gave a shout, but before she could back out, the tide surrounded her and dragged her down. The other priests—all but Allaister—backed quickly away from the banks. Galdt’s screams were short and furious, then she disappeared beneath the waves.

  “Another gheist,” one of the priests whispered, then he turned to Allaister. “Is this the god we seek?”

  “No,” Allaister said, “but it is the god we will take.”

  The bulge returned. The dark waters cleared, and a pillar of churning river loomed over the group. Frair Galdt hung limp in the center of the column, rotating slightly until she faced Frair Allaister. Her skin was doughy and soft, her eyes blank and unseeing, and her mouth hung open. The river shimmered, the column of water flexed, and a spray of mist cascaded off. Inside, the pressure of the column shattered Galdt’s bones in a dozen places.

  One of the priests stumbled away and began retching.

  Allaister nodded.

  “God of the river,” he said. “I welcome you to this earth. I welcome you to the world of blood and light.” He slowly started to disrobe, shrugging free of his cloak, his tunic, slipping his baldric to the ground. “Accept this sacrifice, and be welcome.” He stood naked in the moonlight, a blade clutched in his right hand. Across his body were the ancient sigils of a forgotten faith.

  The pillar of water churned silently. Galdt’s broken body slipped from where it was suspended, disappearing from sight, only to bob to the surface downriver. Her limbs twisted limply in the current. The cascades of mist fell from the column, until a woman of currents and whitecaps stood before Allaister.

  He raised arms stitched in runes and the symbols of water, fire, stone, and sky. Then he drew the knife across his palm.

  “Welcome,” he hissed, “and be bound.”

  47

  THE BLACK WALLS of the Fen Gate were torch-lit and streaming with blood. A massive Suhdrin army, its banners bristling in the fey half-light of thousands of torches, churned chaotically on the fields before the castle’s gate.

  There was chaos in the ranks, but the only sounds of battle came from the castle itself. The defenders fought on the parapets and along the wall, clustered in towers, but no flights of arrows traveled from there to the ground.

  “What is happening here?” Cahl asked. He, Fianna, and Ian had left most of the pagan rangers behind, moving as much through the everealm as the earth in order to travel unseen. They huddled among the close trees of a copse, from which they could watch Fenton unobserved.

  “The Suhdra must have breached the walls,” Ian said, “though I see no siege weapons, no ladders… some treachery, then—but why doesn’t their army press the advantage?”

  “The gate still holds,” Fianna noted.

  “Yes, but the sally gate is broken open. A narrow portal, but one that could be exploited.”

  “Whose banner flies at the gate?” Cahl asked.

  Ian squinted down into the darkness.

  “Roard,” he grunted. “They hold a line around the sally gate. It’s odd,” he said with a smile, “but encouraging. If Roard has turned against Halverdt’s crusade, there may be others.”

  “I will not stand with any Suhdrin heathens,” Cahl spat. “It’s bitter medicine enough to usher the son of the hound through the forests as if he was a lord.”

  “He is a lord,” Fianna said quietly, “and he is the true hound.” She turned to Ian and raised her brows. “Will you fight your way in?”

  “I was hoping you would… you know.” Ian shrugged and made a flittering motion with his fingers.

  “You want us to spell you in?” Cahl asked with disgust. “So you can run to your father and get back to your prayers?”

  “You’re the one who said it was an omen,” Ian countered. “The hound and all. I’m just doing what the hound has asked of me.”

  “You do not yet know what the hound asks you to do,” Fianna said. “Merely where he asks you to be.” Then she turned back to the castle. “However, your faith is enough for me. Cahl?”

  “I will not fight,” the shaman warned.

  “If the wards are as I suspect, the effort of getting us there will be great. You won’t have the strength to fight, even if you have the
will.”

  “Whatever we’re doing, we need to be quick about it,” Ian said. He pointed down the bluff at a small contingent of archers moving in their direction. “They mean to take the hill, in case this becomes a war.”

  “Very well,” Cahl said. He slid down the bluff a short distance, out of sight of the Suhdrin armies below. “The Fen Gate is one of stone, yes?”

  “Stone and old iron,” Fianna answered. “A gate without blood or fire.”

  “Stone is friend to water,” Cahl said expectantly.

  “They have barred the way of water,” Fianna said quietly. She peered down at the castle, a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “Gods know why.”

  “Then I must channel this alone,” Cahl said. “The effort may be beyond me.”

  “The gods ask much, brother.”

  Cahl didn’t answer, but crouched in the middle of the bluff, his palms flat against the rocky surface. He breathed deeply, rhythmically, drawing his shoulders up with each breath, pressing down with each exhalation. Pebbles on the surface of the stone began to rattle with each breath, drawing closer to the shaman, then sliding away. Cahl opened his mouth, and his voice reached into the earth. The bluff blistered under Cahl’s feet. Fianna took Ian’s shoulder.

  “There will be no peace after this,” she warned.

  “There never was peace,” Ian answered.

  The witch nodded, and then the two of them stepped forward and took hold of Cahl’s shoulders. The result was instant. Ian had the sensation of weight, unimaginable weight, crushing into his lungs and bones, slithering through his flesh like iron snakes, as though his blood had gone solid. The only sound he could hear was Cahl’s breathing, heavy and even, sawing through his skull.

  Then he spat out the air he had been holding in his lungs and drew in a panicked, painful breath. He stood up and put his hand against the grit of a wall. There was something wet, and still warm. Everything was darkness.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Beneath,” Fianna answered. “Something has happened.”

  “Such strength,” Cahl muttered. The shaman’s voice came from the floor. Ian heard him slump over, his flesh slapping limply against stone. “There is a body.”

  “Yes, I can smell it,” Fianna answered. “There should be candles.”

  Ian felt along the wall, his fingers trailing over spots of something soft and sticky, until he found a candle in a niche in the wall. The wax was warm and soft in his hands. There was a flint and taper next to it. It took several strikes to get the oil-soaked taper burning, but once it was going he was quick to get the candle lit and the taper extinguished. In those brief moments of dim light, Ian had the impression of blood along the stones, and something dark at the center of the room.

  He wished they had remained in darkness. A woman lay on her side. She had been opened… no… she had been unpacked. Much of her was scattered throughout the room, her lesser organs joined by lines of blackened blood.

  Ian leaned against the wall and retched. Cahl watched from his place on the floor, his pale eyes flickering with amusement and anger.

  “Witch Maeve,” Fianna said, ignoring both the gore and Ian’s distemper. “I thought her elsewhere. The secrets we keep from ourselves, eh, Cahl?”

  “What has been done here?” Ian muttered, stopping between words to spit the bile from his mouth. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “This is the shrine of the autumn hallow,” Fianna said quickly, looking around the room, tracing the path of organs, the trails of blood. “It has been made… profane. Broken.” Her voice was anxious, as though she had trouble believing what she saw. “I didn’t think he had the power.”

  “Who had?” Ian asked. “What power?”

  “The power to expose the hallow,” Fianna answered. “The wards will be down. The high inquisitor will be traveling there now. We must go up. Find your father.”

  “We should have gone to the hallow,” Cahl whispered. His face was getting paler, his words weaker. “We should not have been pampering this pup.”

  “I have made my decisions, Cahl of Storms. I will stand with them. Can you walk?” The shaman only shook his head, settling against the wall. “Then we must leave you. If the guards find you, let them take you. There must be no more blood in this place.”

  “Does Adair send guards even here?” he asked. “Go. I will greet the baron in your name, Ian Blakley. Perhaps that will stay his hand.”

  “Come on,” Fianna said sharply, taking Ian by the shoulder. He looked back at the shaman as she hustled him up the stairs.

  Soon there was no more light. The ascent continued for a long time. The smell of burned blood followed them. The pair stumbled through the darkness, and Fianna often had to stop to correct Ian’s footing or to drag him to his feet. After a time, the way ahead turned into gray, and then there was light. They came out in the crypts.

  “I’ve been here. This is just beneath the kitchens,” Ian said. They could hear fighting ahead. “More bodies.”

  “Yes,” Fianna said, ignoring the dead. She rushed Ian forward. “The danger is not here, or at least the danger here is not for us.”

  Ian wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he drew his sword. The kitchens were empty, but there was fighting in the courtyard beyond. Peering into the chaos, Ian could make out his father, sword flashing, standing with a group of mixed Tenerran and Suhdrin knights. They faced a smaller group of Suhdrin spearmen, and more Suhdrin attackers were gathered at the gatehouse, apparently trying to let the army inside.

  Ian surged forward, only to be caught by Fianna’s iron-hard fingers.

  “Not yet,” she hissed. “Dressed as you are, they will cut you down. Let the fighting calm.”

  “I came to stand with my father. Now that I’m here, I will not watch him be cut down,” Ian said. He pulled free from the witch and started to make his way to where Malcolm Blakley was fighting.

  The courtyard had seen much fighting. It looked as though some force had thrown open the sally gate, breaking the smaller door and letting this group of Suhdrin knights into the courtyard. They must have been prepared for the opportunity, though why the rest of the Suhdrin army had not followed was a mystery. Perhaps the Roards truly were holding the gate for Blakley. There might still be hope in the house of Stormwatch.

  Still, the Tenerrans were holding out. He was nearly to his father when something caught his eye. A familiar dress, torn and bloody. There among the broken spears and fallen knights, Sorcha Blakley was sleeping as the dead. Her face was pale, and blood leaked through the rings of her mail.

  Ian rushed to his mother’s side, throwing the litter of battle away from her and trying to make her comfortable. All he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears as the panic of seeing his mother, dying at his feet, burned through his veins. His breathing became panicked.

  Fianna put a hand on his shoulder.

  “So,” she said quietly, “this is why I’m here.”

  “Can you save her?” Ian asked.

  “Gods will it,” Fianna said. She fumbled a handful of stones out of her robes and slowly worked open Sorcha’s hand, placing one stone in her palm and folding her fingers over it. Then she moved to the other hand.

  Impatiently Ian took the stones and pulled his mother’s fingers apart. She was holding a small pendant, the edge of it bloodying her palm. He plucked it up and held it to the sky.

  “Something my father gave her,” he muttered.

  “Sweet,” Fianna said, “but she’s still dying.”

  Ian grunted, then pocketed the trinket and finished helping Fianna with her preparations. While the battle continued perilously nearby, smooth river stones went in Sorcha’s hands, at her feet, and a final one in her mouth. When they were ready, Fianna drew herself to a kneeling position and placed her hands flat against the ground.

  “What are you going to do?” Ian asked.

  “Ask the river for a favor. For her life.”

  “The
re’s no river here,” Ian said.

  “No, but there was.”

  Fianna closed her eyes and began to sing, low and quiet, her voice carrying eerily through the courtyard. Ian sat back, unwilling to leave his mother’s side, but afraid of interfering in the witch’s magic. Her song twisted through the air, avoiding the chaos of sound from the fight, joining the natural songs of wind and forest, the quiet hum of earth and stone. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, another song joined them—the heavy, swollen thrum of deep water.

  The river came from Sorcha’s heart. The blood leaking through her armor mingling with water, and then she was crying. Her eyes fluttered open and pure, clean water flowed out, as though her pupils were fountains and her veins their spring. Water swelled out of her mouth, a pool at first that overflowed, then washed over her face as a clear mask.

  Her wound, as well, became a slow fountain—then an inky blackness tore loose from her chest, an oily stain that swirled in the fountain then washed away. In its wake the stream glittered as it babbled over her armor, cleaning the blood and forming a pool around her. That pool grew ever larger until Ian and Fianna both were kneeling in it.

  Sorcha blinked and looked around. She tried to speak, but water continued to pour from her mouth. Her eyes fell on her son, and she reached out to him. Ian smiled, leaned forward and brushed her fingers with his.

  “What the hell are you doing to my wife?”

  Malcolm Blakley stood at the edge of the pool, several knights at his side, the shimmering blackness of his feyiron sword in his hands.

  Ian stood.

  “Father, she was dying. Fianna is—”

  “Ian? Gods be good, you live! What are you doing here?” Malcolm blinked in wonder, his mouth hanging open. Then he looked at the woman still kneeling beside Sorcha, and his eyes hardened. “Get the witch away from her.”

  “Father, Fianna is saving her,” Ian protested. “Mother was dying! Fianna brought me here, helped me get inside, saved my own life—”

  “Enough. I have watched my friends die and my land torn apart for fear of these people. I have learned the meaning of betrayal, and paid for another man’s heresy. The celestriarch will find only faith in my heart, should he bother to look for it. These pagans have destroyed one house of Tener—I won’t have one infecting the woman I love.” He turned to a rough-looking knight and nodded toward Fianna. “Arrest the witch. Then have my wife borne into the keep and kept safe until the walls are secured. There are still faithful priests to be found in the north. Bring me one.”