Hinterland g-2

by James Clemens

  Tylar gaped at the form beneath the cloak. Naked from neck to toe, all was laid bare-down to the bones. It was Perryl’s body, but the skin had gone translucent, allowing the sudden light to reveal what lay beneath. Where a heart should beat and organs should churn, something else had taken root. Darkness roiled, muscular and substantial, like a giant snake, pushing and kneading against the translucent skin. From the pierced wound, darkness smoked out instead of blood.

  It stank of bowel and decay.

  Not smoke. Gloom. The black leak of the naether into this world.

  Through the pall, Perryl’s black eyes met Tylar’s for a half beat of his heart. Tylar recognized a match to his own horror, a flash of something human, a splinter of his former self. Then it was whelmed away by darkness. The cloak billowed up, sweeping over Perryl. Shadows welled against the light-and the daemon knight fled back into the deeper darkness.

  To heal or to die.

  Not knowing which, Tylar turned to find the young tracker two steps away, holding aloft his lamp. His savior shook from toe to crown, breathing hard.

  “I-I came back for you…” Kytt gasped out. “Barrin…found Master Gerrod.”

  Tylar hurried to him, gripped his shoulder, and spun him back toward the stairs. “We must get out of the darkness.”

  Tylar knew that was their only defense. Flame, heat, light, warmth. All signs of life. It was all that stood between them and death.

  Together, they fled up out of the bowels of Tashijan. They reached the lamplit areas of the subterranean domain. Robed figures crowded the stairs, burdened with books, satchels, and boxes. Shouts and calls echoed. Doors slammed. Gerrod had his brethren on the move. He didn’t know what story the bronze master had related, but from the panic in their eyes and the quickness of their frantic steps, he had succeeded in lighting a fire in them.

  “Here!” A voice called to him from off the stairs.

  Tylar spotted Barrin hunched just off the next landing. The bullhound stood guard over the prone form of Tracker Lorr. He was propped up against the wall. Gerrod and Rogger flanked him.

  Rogger waved again to him, while Gerrod pinched bitter alchemies under the tracker’s nose. Lorr stirred. An arm raised to swat away the sting. From the tracker’s fingers, something fell free. A snatch of black cloth and something that glittered.

  Tylar stalked to their side. “We need to get everyone aboveground. Seal off these levels.”

  Rogger cast a questioning look in his direction.

  Tylar, his heart still thundering in his chest, continued in a rush. “Fires. We need the entire first level of Tashijan blazing.”

  Lorr groaned but failed to raise back fully to this world. A few words tumbled from his lips. “…black ghawls…”

  “He needs a healer,” Gerrod said, standing. “We’ll have to use the hound to carry him the rest of the way up.”

  Tylar waved to Kytt and Rogger. “Hurry.”

  He returned to the stairs. He heard the commotion of the masters as they retreated upward, but he kept his attention below. Shadows swallowed the lower stairs. Tylar wove their power into his cloak.

  Still, he remembered Perryl’s warning to him.

  I am ghawl now. The darkness of the naether is so much stronger than mere shadow.

  Tylar’s skin shivered up into pebbling gooseflesh, sensing the meaning behind the claim. Could it be? For centuries, shadows had fed the Grace of Tashijan’s knights, granting speed and cloaking their forms. But Tylar knew there was a darkness blacker than any shadow.

  He pictured the smoky Gloom of the naether bleeding from Perryl’s wound. Was that what fed these daemonic knights? A darkness deeper than shadow? Were they knights born of the naether, serving as swords for the undergods in this world?

  Lorr moaned behind him.

  The tracker had set fire to his own flesh to repel them.

  Why had he allowed them so close?

  Tylar turned as Barrin shuffled back to the stairs, burdened with Lorr’s weight, guided by Kytt. Gerrod followed, expressionless behind his armor. They set off upward, following the last of the masters. If there were any of Gerrod’s brethren still holed up in their domiciles and alchemical labs, they would discover the true depths of darkness that lurked beneath their feet.

  But who had birthed such a dark legion, these black ghawls?

  Rogger squeezed up to Tylar on the stairs. He held forth something in his hand. “Lorr dropped this. He had been clutching it all along, burnt to the skin of his palm.”

  Tylar took the strap of black cloth, weighted down with a heavy stone. He held the jewel up to the next lamp. The diamond’s facets trapped the light and reflected it back a thousandfold. It was a rare and handsome stone.

  And one he recognized.

  His blood chilled. Kathryn wore the same stone-though hers was only paste and artifice. Here was the true diadem that marked the castellan’s station, granted and passed from one to the next, over countless centuries. Only the chain was broken last year. The castellan before Kathryn had vanished as surely and completely as Perryl, taking this diadem with her.

  “Castellan Mirra…” he mumbled.

  He clutched the stone in his palm, picturing the stern face of the old woman, the longtime counselor to good Ser Henri, former warden to Tashijan. Henri had trusted no one more. Now here was the stone again, ripped away by Lorr at the risk of his own flesh.

  What did it mean?

  Kathryn kept her post, guarding Dart. Brant and Laurelle stood behind her shoulders.

  “Take the girl!” Argent said from behind the high bench.

  Shadowknights stalked toward her from both sides. Kathryn eyed the rear door to the chamber. It stood unguarded and led back to the adjudicators’ private rooms of contemplation. It would prove their best chance to escape. From there, Kathryn could reach those loyal to her, get Dart into hiding. After that, she would force Argent to face the true threat against Tashijan.

  But first she had to get Dart to safety, beyond Argent’s reach.

  She began to draw her sword-then a door on the far side slammed open with a resounding bang. All eyes turned. A knight swept into the chamber, flanked by a cadre of men in gray cloaks, a match to the cut of the first, except the men had blackened their faces with ash.

  The lead knight ripped away his masklin and tossed back his hood to reveal a knotted braid of white hair. “Back from the girl!” Krevan commanded.

  He led his men into the chamber, eyes defiant, staring all down.

  The bloodnullers retreated toward their alcoves. The warden’s men paused in their approach.

  Argent, plainly shaken by the interruption, collected himself. “You and your men have no bearing on this matter, Raven ser Kay,” he said, using the knight’s old name. “You have served Myrillia in the recent past. That will buy you and your men your freedom to leave Tashijan, but don’t expect further leniency. The Black Flaggers are still considered brigands and pirates.”

  Krevan approached the bench and stood between Kathryn and Argent. His men spread out in a threatening stance.

  “I have no bearing here?” he said, his voice lowering in threat. He shrugged back his cloak to free an arm and pointed back to Kathryn and the others while keeping his focus on Argent. “I have no bearing on what’s done to my own daughter?”

  Silence struck the room.

  Dart jerked to her feet in surprise.

  Argent also could not hide his shock. “What?” He held up a hand and shook his head. “Page Hothbrin-you claim she is your daughter?”

  Kathryn didn’t understand Krevan’s ruse, but she knew it best to follow suit. She stepped forward. “It is the reason I defend her now,” she said. “None were to know she was Krevan’s daughter. The regent and I granted his request to allow her to enter training here. I was sworn to secrecy.”

  Krevan cut in. “I was exiled, rightly or not, from these walls because of my history with the Wyr. But my daughter bears no such taint. She was born free from the Wyr,
birthed of a tryst in Drush Mire. I wished her to continue where I could not. To be a knight.”

  Argent struggled to absorb all this information. “I could not tell you,” Kathryn said. “Even the girl did not know her heritage. She thought her father had died shortly after her birth. Why burden her with the truth? We owed Krevan a debt. Here it was paid in full.”

  “Wait!” Argent yelled. “What of the Dark Graces we’ve seen here? Of the daemon witnessed by the squires?”

  “That would be my fault,” Krevan said. “I feared someone would discover her secret here. I have many enemies. Her life would be forfeit for my crimes. So I cast a dark alchemy upon her, one crafted by the Wyr. If she were threatened, it would awaken and defend her. Likewise, to keep her secret, I could not have her soothed, lest some truth be exposed. She was ignorant of all this.”

  “To bring dark alchemies within the walls of Tashijan, you break our edicts here.”

  Krevan stared down Argent. “It seems if matters are dire enough, such actions are warranted. Are they not, Warden Fields?”

  Argent’s face flushed, reminded of his own use of dark arts.

  Kathryn stepped forward, dropping her voice to a placating tone. “Such matters can be sorted at another time,” she said. “I must remind everyone of the danger that presently looms-from without and within. Tashijan must ready itself before all is lost.”

  Argent’s brow furrowed. He looked little resolved.

  Kathryn waved Dart to her feet. “I will keep the girl confined to my rooms. Upon my sworn word, I must keep her safe. Once we-”

  A clatter of boots interrupted her. Again all eyes turned to the door as a knight burst into the chambers. He drew to a winded stop. “Word from the main guard!”

  Argent brusquely motioned to him to speak.

  “The Masterlevels…are being emptied. Upon the orders of the regent.”

  Behind the man, a squawk of surprise arose from the doorway.

  “What?” Master Hesharian pushed from where he had been hiding at the threshold, mopping his shining brow with a folded scrap of cloth, plainly just arrived himself. “Why was I not informed? What is the meaning of all this?”

  The messenger ignored him, his full attention on the warden.

  Kathryn noted Master Hesharian’s companion, lurking in his larger shadow. Clouded eyes ignored everyone in the room and settled on Dart. She sensed that Krevan’s ruse would be peeled away under such a gaze. She stepped back to Dart, hiding the girl behind her cloak again.

  Before anyone could speak, a resounding strike of a gong reverberated from below and traveled up the throat of Stormwatch Tower. As its echoes died away, all gazes turned to the warden. All knew its meaning. Traditionally it was rung only once a year, during a formal ceremony, reminding all of their duty to Myrillia. Otherwise, it was struck for only one reason.

  “We’re too late,” Kathryn mumbled to no one and to everyone.

  They were under attack.

  THIRD

  WYR AND WRAITH

  Spiderboard for Skulls, played with brass pinches, a contest of luck, wit, and a fair scrape of deception. Better played with enemies than friends. More blood has been spilled over this game than all the wars of Myrillia. Origin: unknown, though attributed to the witchlords of Bly.

  A NAME SCRIBED IN BLOOD

  As the last of the evening bells rang throughout Tashijan, Dart waited with the others in the castellan’s hermitage. The fire from the hearth had been stoked to a wild flame in a vain attempt to hold back the dark worries in all their hearts. Gathered here, they awaited word from the castellan and the regent.

  Back in the adjudicator’s chambers, Tylar had appeared shortly after the messenger, storming inside with claims of daemonic knights. During the ensuing chaos, Dart and the others were sent under guard-both knights and the gray-cloaked Flaggers-up to Kathryn’s chambers.

  By the door, Krevan spoke with an ash-faced woman in a gray robe-then closed the door. His Flaggers would guard their privacy from here. His eyes drifted to Dart’s, then away again, almost embarrassed. Perhaps for the falsehoods he had spread to spare her further inquiry. Though untrue, this claimed relationship was an intimacy that had made the pirate suddenly awkward near her.

  Or was it something more?

  Elsewhere, off by the window, Barrin lay on the floor, head resting on his crossed paws. Kytt stood over him, one hand absently scratching the bullhound’s ear, his face lost in worry. Lorr had been taken into Kathryn’s private room, where a pair of healers were working on his burns with Grace-rich salves. He had yet to fully awaken, only occasionally mumbling in delirium.

  Dart had seen Lorr when he’d been hauled inside, half his side a burnt ruin. He had sacrificed himself to save them. She prayed the healers had Grace enough to save him in turn.

  At the threshold to the room, Rogger and Gerrod were bowed in quiet conversation. Rogger wore a stern look, so unlike his usual bravado. That worried Dart more than anything.

  Closer, Laurelle sat on the chair opposite her, hands folded in her lap as if she were waiting for a servant to bring a platter of sweetwine and finger cakes. Brant had gone to check on his wolfkits when they had climbed past his retinue’s floor. He had mumbled some promise to return, but his eyes had been shadowed and hard to read. Perhaps he was just glad for an excuse to be rid of them all.

  Dart couldn’t blame him.

  Brant’s vacancy was in turn taken up by Delia, the regent’s Hand of blood. The dark-haired woman stood behind Laurelle’s chair and stared into the flames, one finger resting on her chin as if she were about to say something, but she never did.

  Finally a muffled commotion sounded out in the hall, and the door swung open. Tylar and Kathryn entered. Both appeared flushed, angry, moving stiff-legged.

  “I should still be down there,” Tylar said.

  “Argent has the entire first three floors ablaze with bonfires and torches. All stairs from there are doubled with guards bearing torches. He has ordered barrels of oil to be stationed at landings, ready to be set to flame and rolled down.” Kathryn scowled. “I don’t know which to fear more-dark knights and cursed storms or Argent burning the towers down around our ankles.”

  Tylar looked little mollified. He seemed to finally see the others in the room. He brushed his dark hair back behind his ears.

  Dart noted he had taken a moment to restore Rivenscryr. When Tylar had first arrived in the adjudicators’ chamber, he had held only a golden hilt. It appeared like a broken sword. Only Dart’s eyes could see the silvery ghost of the blade. It would remain such until the blade was whetted again-whetted in her own blood. Before reaching here, Tylar must have anointed his sword from his stores of her humour, preserved in glass repostilaries. She knew he carried a small vial on a silver chain around his neck.

  Dart was glad he had already performed such an act. When she had first seen the ghostly state of the sword, she feared he would ask her to cut herself and freshly bless the blade. She did not know if she had the strength for that this night.

  As the two newcomers entered, Krevan, Rogger, and Gerrod gathered closer. Delia hung back with Dart and Laurelle. The woman’s eyes flicked a bit sharply between Kathryn and Tylar as if searching for some extra meaning.

  Tylar spoke into the expectant silence. “Kathryn is correct. Argent has acted with a surprising swiftness to lay a fiery swath between the two halves of Tashijan. It should allow us some ground to maneuver.”

  “But not farther than our own walls,” Rogger countered. “The storm closes us off from the rest of Myrillia. We’re trapped in these towers.”

  Gerrod creaked a step closer. “There may be some reason for hope. Such a siege as this cannot sustain itself. The storm must eventually blow itself out. Even a blizzard whipped by a cadre of gods will eventually succumb to the turn and flow of our world. It is a dam that must eventually burst. If we could wait it out…”

  Tylar shook his head. “I refuse to place the fate of Tashijan in the
hands of chance and the turn of the world. Gerrod, how long would it take your masters to get the damaged flippercraft flying again?”

  “If we had full support and rally of the dockworkers, perhaps as soon as daybreak.”

  “Get started on it.”

  “But the storm will still drain the Grace from any craft that nears it and-”

  Tylar cut him off with a raised hand. “Just get it done.” Then he turned to Kathryn. “See if the healers can revive Lorr enough that we can speak to him. We must know more about what he saw down there.”

  She nodded. “And you’re sure it was Perryl you saw below?”

  “It was Perryl’s body-I fear there is little left of the man.”

  Kathryn’s face clouded with a mix of anger and pain. She headed toward her private rooms.

  “I’ll see if I can help,” Delia said. “Lorr was more a father to me than my own.”

  The two left the room, though both would not meet the other’s eye.

  Once they were gone, Krevan shifted to Tylar. “I would speak a few words with you in private.” He pointed a finger at Rogger. “And you.”

  Tylar glanced around the crowded hearthroom. Barrin huffed a bit where he lay, as if offended at being excluded.

  Dart stepped forward. “If you seek privacy, my garret is through that door.” She pointed to the low and narrow arch. “There is not much space.”

  “It will do,” Krevan said brusquely and strode off.

  Rogger met Tylar’s eyes and shrugged.

  Dart walked them to her door, pushed it open, and stepped back.

  Krevan waved her inside. “Mayhap you should attend this, too.”

  Dart took a startled half step back. “Why?”

  The pirate’s hard eyes fixed on her. His next words turned her knees to porridge. Tylar caught her with a reassuring squeeze, but even he glanced to Krevan with narrowed eyes as he answered her question.

  “Because it concerns your father. Your real father.”