Hinterland g-2

by James Clemens

  As her fingers closed on the stone, he saw something rise in her eyes.

  His heart clenched.

  “No!” Brant burst up and drove his shoulder into Tylar’s hip.

  The regent went flying. His sword tumbled from his fingers and clattered on the black rock. He landed hard and rolled to a dazed stop.

  Brant sat up, horrified at what he’d just done. In that long blink, he’d had no time for doubt. He did now.

  Still, he knew what he had seen in her eyes. It was a match to the expression on the rogue’s face as the fires had consumed his flesh.

  Hope.

  Before him, the Huntress slowly sank to her knees, oblivious to Tylar’s attack and Brant’s defense. Around her, the other hunters fell back as if strings holding them had suddenly snapped. In a widening circle, they collapsed, limbless and dazed, to rock and loam.

  Tylar, his face flushed with fury, crawled to his feet, one cheek deeply abraded and bleeding. But as he saw the hunters collapse all around, fury changed to confusion. He moved over to Brant, collecting his sword. But he refrained from continuing his attack.

  On her knees, the Huntress cradled the stone to her heart, rocking slightly, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

  Neither dared speak.

  Though the Huntress never raised her face, she slowly whispered, as if she knew they waited. “Such a small stone. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop. And make whole what was sundered.”

  There was no raving in her voice.

  She finally lifted her face. Tears streamed down her dark skin. Her eyes shone with them, but nothing more. No Grace. Not in her eyes, nor in her tears, nor in the sheen on her sweated skin. It had blown out. But filling the void was a warmth, a softening of countenance that Brant had never seen in her before.

  In that moment, she seemed so much younger and so much older.

  “I remember,” she said, smiling with a sadness that ached the heart. “What was lost in ravings and passing centuries. What the Sundering stole, this small stone returned.”

  “What?” Tylar asked softly.

  Her eyes did not seem to see him, but she answered. “My name…it was Miyana.”

  With the utterance, the ground shook. Loose rock rattled like broken teeth. Leaves shuttered with the noise of a thousand birds taking wing. And deep under their feet, a low roar moaned with grief and sorrow.

  Behind the Huntress, the black river split to reveal its fiery heart.

  Brant felt the heat as a breath of regret.

  The Huntress- Miyana -turned her face to the mountain as the ground shook. It reminded Brant of Miyana’s shoulders a moment before. A silent sobbing.

  She whispered toward the distant mountain. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be heard. But Brant heard it.

  “Mother…forgive me…”

  Miyana stood. She seemed to finally note the boy kneeling on the rock in front of her. Her words were hollow and haunted.

  “Brant, son of Rylland…we’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.” She glanced over her shoulder to the greater forest. “But there is one mistress even more cruel. Memory. She makes no distinction between horror and beauty, joy and sorrow. She makes us swallow it all, bitter and sweet. Until it’s all too much.”

  She sank again into herself. She took one step back, then another.

  “Mistress…” Brant said, knowing what she intended. “Don’t.”

  Her eyes flicked to him as she took another step back. “One last kindness, then. So you might hate me more fully.”

  “I don’t-”

  “I killed your father. I sent the she-panther that killed him.”

  Brant sought some way to understand what she was saying. “Wh-why?” he stammered through his shock.

  “I was already sliding into madness. But perhaps deep down I knew and lashed out.”

  “Knew what?” Tylar asked for him.

  “Rylland brought me the wrong gift. A curse, instead of hope. Corruption, instead of my name.”

  Brant understood.

  His father had brought her Keorn’s skull, instead of the stone. Without knowing the power in either, the choice had been pure misfortune. Her first words returned to him. We’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.

  Her eyes returned to the distant forest.

  They had been left with worse than nothing.

  She whispered to the forest. “Until it’s all too much.”

  She took one last stride and stepped into the open crack behind her. Molten rock consumed her bone and flesh. She gasped but didn’t scream. The agony in her heart was far worse than any flame. Her face turned to the mountain, to the source of the fire that swallowed her.

  Instead of pain, Brant read the love in her face.

  “Thank you for protecting these last few…” she whispered, her words rising like steam toward the distant mountain. “I want to go home.”

  Spreading her arms, she fell forward into the molten rock, as if into a welcoming embrace. The stone flew from her fingertips, no longer needed.

  The piece of black rock bounced and rolled, coming to rest at Brant’s knee. He reached down and took the gift. For the second time in his life, a god burning with fire had passed this stone into his fingers.

  But now he knew the truth.

  It wasn’t just a rock.

  It was the hope of a lost world.

  As the sun sank toward the horizon, Tylar climbed with the others toward the Divide. The twin peaks of the Forge burnt with the last rays of the sun. No one had spoken for the past full league. And the silence wasn’t just the steepness of their climb, nor even grief.

  It was an emotion that transcended numbness. An attempt to reconcile all that had happened, while still placing one foot in front of the other. If they stopped, they might never move again. The day had held too much horror, framed by the rising and setting of a single sun. It was a day they had to push past.

  Yet some still tried to make sense of it.

  Rogger mumbled through his beard. “The stone-it explains much.”

  Tylar glanced to him. He didn’t ask for an elaboration, but Rogger gave it anyway.

  “The Huntress-”

  “Miyana,” Tylar corrected. She had paid a heavy price for that name. Tylar refused to let it be lost again. “Her name was Miyana.”

  Rogger nodded. “She claimed that the stone allowed those parts of her that were sundered to return to her.”

  He nodded. Miyana’s words echoed inside him. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop.

  “Here in Myrillia, the gods are split into three,” Rogger continued, ticking them off on his fingers. “An undergod in the naether, the god of flesh here, and that higher self that flew off into the aether. But with a piece of their original home in hand, it must be like returning home, becoming whole again. When Miyana held the stone, her naethryn and aethryn parts must have gathered back to her. Like moths to a flickering flame.”

  “So it would seem,” Tylar said.

  “Then that goes a long way toward explaining what transpired here.”

  Drawn by the conversation, Brant and Dart drew closer. Perhaps there was another way of moving past all this. Through some manner of understanding.

  The thief nodded toward Dart. “Do you remember Master Gerrod’s explanation for why Dart’s humours don’t flow with Grace?”

  Tylar silenced Rogger with a glare. Not all here were aware of Dart’s nature. “I remember,” he said tersely.

  Though birthed of gods, Dart was born in Myrillia. Born unsundered. Gerrod had come to believe that the Grace of the gods arose because they were sundered. It was the stretch of their essences between the three realms, flowing across them, that sustained their flesh and imbued their humours with power. Back in their original kingdoms, whole and intact, the gods had borne no Grace.

  Rogger changed the tack of the conversation. “After Miyana took the stone,
did you notice any change in her? Any lessening of her powers?”

  Brant answered. “It did seem the Grace in her eyes dimmed.”

  “Exactly! As the stone made her whole again, her Grace died away. And since seersong only works on those Graced…”

  “She broke free,” Brant finished for him. “The song had no hold.”

  “Or at least less of a hold. I suspect the stone does not make a god fully whole. They still reside in Myrillia. But the stone draws their other selves up close. Look at Keorn. He was carrying that stone, but still got trapped in the song for a long spell. Though eventually he did resist it well enough to escape.”

  Tylar’s interest grew. “If you’re right, then we can use the stone to free the rogues. Bring each rogue in contact with it.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s a snag. Remember, Keorn’s skull was still black with seersong; the stone held it in check. But he had to be holding it. Like Miyana. I fear that once you move the stone from one rogue to the next, the first will succumb anew to the song. It may be one of the reasons Miyana destroyed herself. Perhaps she knew this truth.”

  “So we’d need a stone for each rogue to keep them all from becoming enslaved again.”

  Rogger nodded. “Good luck with that.”

  Tylar pondered all this. It was better than thinking about the horrors behind them.

  “It makes you wonder about Keorn, though,” Rogger said, lowering his voice and motioning Tylar aside.

  “How so?”

  “I don’t think he just happened upon that stone. What’s the likelihood of a raving rogue chancing upon a lost talisman of home?” Rogger continued without leaving time for Tylar to respond. “I wager Keorn arrived here with that chunk of stone. And because he had it all along, it kept him mostly whole, weakening his Grace. And being so weak from the start, he probably never suffered the ravenings of his more Grace-maddened brothers and sisters.”

  “A rogue god who does not rave.”

  Some measure of disbelief must have rung in Tylar’s words.

  Rogger dropped his voice even lower. “It’s probably why he chose to live in the hinterlands. With no wild Grace to calm, he had no reason to settle a realm. Why give up the world and freedom if you didn’t have to? And didn’t the Wyr sense something odd about him? Didn’t he escape their trackers? And what about Dart?”

  “What about her?”

  “A god’s seed rarely takes root in a belly. The Grace burns such fragile unions. But Keorn’s seed took root.”

  It made a certain horrible sense, though Tylar would prefer to discuss it with a tower full of masters. For every question Rogger answered, another two arose. Why did Keorn have a child? Why keep the stone secret? Why remain hidden in the hinterlands for four thousand years? Why not reveal yourself? Mystery atop mystery remained.

  And Tylar suspected the answers lay beyond the Divide, in the hinterlands.

  Finally, they climbed the last slope. A small group of hunters waited at the top of the pass. Harp stood among them. He had gone on ahead to ready the rope ladders for their descent.

  He came forward, face grim. “All is ready. I have Master Sheershym’s maps of the lands below packed.”

  His voice cracked a bit on those last words.

  Tylar clasped the boy on the shoulder. “You have much to bear on shoulders so young.”

  “And so bony,” Rogger added.

  His attempt at levity raised only a ghost of a smile on the boy’s lips, mostly polite. His eyes remained tired, haunted. Harp had much work ahead here. After Miyana’s death, the hunters under her thrall had fallen into various states. Some had rolled fully into a ravening lunacy. Others remained in a strange dreamlike state, as if their minds had simply snuffed out, leaving only a breathing husk behind. A few were grief-stricken, addled by guilt, but had hopes for some life hereafter.

  And one hunter had died, torn apart at the hands of his own people. His head rested on a stake not far away, forever baring his filed teeth in a grimace of pain.

  Harp led them to the ladders. “It might be best to attempt your climb in the morning,” he warned. “If you leave now, it will be dark when you finally set foot down there.”

  Tylar stared out past the cliff. It was his first view of the hinterlands below. Though the sun still hovered at the edge of the world, the lower lands were already blanketed in darkness. It was a world of broken rock and steaming jungle, more swamp than forest. A few fiery snakes glowed through the darkness, molten rivers streaming out from Takaminara’s volcanic peak, fresh flows from a god grieving for her daughter, fiery tears for one returned to her so briefly.

  Mother…forgive me…

  Tylar felt Harp’s eyes on him, waiting for his answer.

  Despite the dangers below, he had had enough of this sad land.

  “We’ll go now.”

  FIFTH

  Fall of the towers By this sword do we swear

  By this cloak we do share

  By this masklin are we hid

  By this diamond we are bid

  By this oath are we bound

  By this honor we are crowned

  For the sake of all Myrillia

  We give our blood

  We pledge our hearts

  We devote our lives to all -Creed of the Shadowknight

  A RUSTED HINGE

  “We’ve lost the docks atop stormwatch!” Gerrod yelled down to Kathryn. He clanked down the central stairs. “The warden is abandoning the top five floors. We’re to rally below!”

  Kathryn climbed through the line of cloaked knights as they surged downward. Many bore wounds. Others were slung between their brothers and sisters. In all their eyes, the same expression shone. Horror and hopelessness.

  Alchemical smoke choked the stairwell.

  She met Gerrod at the floor where her hermitage lay. She was returning from securing the entire populace of Tashijan-those not of cloak or robe-in the Grand Court, out of harm’s way, leaving the halls and stairs to the knights and masters.

  The war had been going on for only four bells, and already they’d lost the shield wall and outer towers. They’d had to pull back into Stormwatch, the sole tower still holding. And its defenses were crumbling.

  She reached him and together they headed toward her hermitage. More knights were emptying out of this level, cloaks torn, faces raked. A knight sat slumped a few steps past the stairwell, blood pooled around him.

  “How many dead?” she asked.

  Gerrod answered, his voice muffled by his armor. “At last tally…” He shook his head, voice cracking.

  She glanced to him. He was her rock, and even he was breaking. She was suddenly glad he kept his helmet closed. His bronze countenance, while a false stolidity, helped hold her steady.

  He found his voice, as if sensing her need. “Six score dead, thrice that injured. We just lost five barricading the door to the docks.”

  Somewhere high above, a scream echoed. Human.

  “And it’s not just the wraiths,” Gerrod said. “Blessing our blades with dire alchemies has offered us some measure of defense, but Lord Ulf’s forces also come with stormfire, balls of lightning. Only stone seems to stanch them.”

  Crossing past the warden’s Eyrie, a shout called to her. “Kathryn!”

  She turned to see Argent at the center of a flurry of activity, gathering scrolls and packing up all that was important. He shoved through a few knights, a storm in shadow. He limped toward her. She had heard of his defense of the Agate tower. His last rally had saved hundreds of underfolk who made their home in the outer tower. She had heard the tale of Argent’s ride against a storm of the wraiths, with only a dozen knights, splitting the winged legion enough to allow the tower’s escape, mostly women and young ones.

  “Head below!” he yelled. “We gather in the fieldroom at the next bell!”

  She nodded.

  He reached the door, his one eye on her. She read the regret behind his stony face. “We’ll hold this tower,” he said
in a quiet voice, fierce echoes behind it.

  “To the last knight,” she said.

  “And master,” Gerrod added.

  It was no longer a tower divided. In the past bells, as their defenses fell, one after the other under Ulf’s ravening legion, they were all crushed together. Knight and master. Underfolk and townsfolk. The battle here was not one of victory but of survival. Their squabbles of the past seemed petty and churlish.

  Kathryn noted the Fiery Cross on Argent’s shoulder. It was torn in half by a raked claw.

  “I’ll see you at the bell,” she said with a nod toward the warden.

  Their eyes held a fraction longer, just long enough to admit the fools they’d both been. And to forgive each other’s blind corners. At least for this one day. She prayed it would be enough.

  A shout drew Argent back to his duty.

  Released, Kathryn strode down to her own rooms. There were a few items she intended to secure, one in particular, the true reason she had forded up here against the flowing stream of their retreat.

  She rushed to her door, found it ajar, and pushed inside. The hearth was cold. The heavy drapery had been torn down and the windows boarded and shuttered tight. There was still glass on the floor from where Ulf’s emissary had broken through from the outer balcony.

  As she crossed the threshold, she heard a frantic scuffle from the next room. Her sword appeared in her hand. She held her other arm out toward Gerrod, warding him back.

  Wraiths had been worrying themselves through cracks, finding every means to gnash their way inside. A bell ago, a pair had clawed their way down one of the kitchen’s chimneys, defying a roaring fire and smoke, and attacked a baker’s boy, ripping his head from his body. Four others had died. It had taken the head cook with a butcher’s cleaver and a lone scullery maid with a spitting fork to finally dispatch the beast. To such an extent had the defense of Tashijan fallen.

  Stepping farther into the room, Kathryn noted a small and familiar squeak from the next room.

  “Penni?” Kathryn called out.

  Silence-then a flutter of footsteps and a bonneted head peeked around the corner leading to her private room. “Mistress!” The maid offered a trembling curtsy that was strangely reassuring in its familiarity.