A Circle of Iron (Eldernost: Book 1)

by Greg Benage

  Chapter 1

  The forest whispered. Caleb Thorn ignored it and kept running for his life. For a year or more when he first came to the Greenwell, he bent his ear to the incessant whispering and tried to make sense of it. The effort had only ever been good for a headache.

  Even if he couldn’t understand the whispers, he knew what they meant. The trees wanted his blood, same as the creature hunting him. He couldn’t see the wight, couldn’t even hear it over the whispering of the trees or the sound of his own wind rasping in and out, but it was back there in the wood somewhere. It was coming for him.

  Light filtered through the canopy, and golden, glittering sheets angled down in the spaces between the trees. The Greenwell did strange things with light. Thorn could find his bearings in the wood with nothing more to guide him than the way the light fell, how the shadows played on the forest floor, or even how the moon cast its glow through the branches at night. The patch of forest through which he ran favored birch trees. They grew tall and straight with some space between them, and the sunlight hung there like the glowing walls of a magical castle out of some old story.

  Thorn plunged on, his booted feet pounding the blanket of fallen leaves that covered the forest floor. Branches grasped and slapped at him, stinging his face and hands, and gnarled roots thrust up from the ground to ensnare him.

  They’re only trees. All but the infernal whispering was in his mind. The trees could not harm him. Still, it would take only one fall, perhaps just a stumble, and the chase would be over. The wight would have him. It would bring him down and its teeth would sink deep into his soft throat, and that would be the sorry end of Caleb Thorn.

  How much farther to the damn hexing circle? Thorn tucked his chin down and willed strength into his burning legs. The wights knew him now. Each time, they were a little wiser and the circle had to be placed farther out. Each time, Thorn had to dance a little closer to death. Eventually the distance would be a few strides too great and he would die. Perhaps this was the time.

  Thorn heard a branch snap above his head and didn’t even have a chance to turn before the wight fell upon him. His momentum carried him forward and he stumbled, and then fell. They rolled together across the leaves and Thorn felt the wight’s nails rake his chest, cutting through heavy cloth and leather. He felt its hot breath on his neck. Fangs tore at his throat, and he screamed.

  Blind Tom’s mastiff was the first to reach the wight. Thorn was face down in the duff, but he heard a vicious snarl and then the sickening sound of flesh tearing and bones ground to splinters between powerful jaws. The wight loosened its hold on him even as its body tensed, and Thorn heard a soft grunt.

  Somehow, despite the massive beast clamped to its leg, the wight struggled to its feet. A man would have howled in pain, yelled a challenge or pleaded for his life. The wight was silent. Long, fine hair that was almost white flowed down its back, and body paint in deep blues and browns covered its pale skin. Thorn rolled onto his back in time to see the wight draw two curved bronze knives from its belt. One blade rose and then flashed down at the mastiff’s neck.

  The dog danced away before the blade could bite, as if it knew what was coming. It did, of course. The mastiff was well trained and the crew always took a bounty the same way. It always went the same way, and it always would. Until it didn’t, and then someone would die. Not today, though. The mastiff leaped out of the wight’s range, and the net came down. The cruelly hooked iron barbs pierced the pale flesh, and the creature began tearing at the net in a mindless frenzy. The barbs bit and dug deeper. The wight fell to its knees, flailing its arms and thrashing from side to side.

  Thorn stood and pressed a hand to his bleeding throat long enough to be sure the wight was the only one dying. Then he drew the double-edged iron dagger at his side. His sword was with Blind Tom. He couldn’t run a damn with it belted at his waist, and a sword slung over a man’s back was about as useful as face powder on a mule. Mara drifted into the circle, gripping thin, straight knives in both hands, grinning and watching the wight with a different kind of hunger in her eyes. Big Odd stepped out from behind a tree that wasn’t much larger than he was, leveling a longspear at the thrashing wight.

  “Bleed it,” Thorn said. “More will be coming. They’ll try to cut us off before we can get out with what we came for. Let’s finish the job.”

  Mara darted in and thrust once with each of her knives, opening deep, weeping holes in the wight’s cheek and shoulder. Blind Tom’s mastiff circled around in front of the creature, and Big Odd behind. When the wight turned to watch the dog, Odd put his spear all the way through its back and out through its belly. The wight’s spine arched and its head fell back when Odd wrenched the spear free. Thorn moved in close and opened its throat through a gap in the netting.

  Blood poured from the wounds and soaked the ground red. The wight’s head lolled forward, and then it lifted its eyes to stare at Thorn. Odd put another hole in it with his spear to maintain a steady flow, and they all stood and watched the creature bleed out.

  “A man bleeds when you cut him,” Big Odd said. “So does a wight, but a wight drinks blood. Maybe that’s why a man pisses and shits himself when he dies.”

  “Ash and air, but you’re a dumb son of a bitch,” Mara said. Then she went and sat down with her back against the trunk of an old oak.

  “Odd ain’t dumb, he’s odd,” said Blind Tom. He whistled and the mastiff trotted over to his side, tail swinging like a maul in the hands of a giant. Big Odd knelt in the bloody dirt and rested the shaft of his longspear across his bulging thighs.

  “Guess I’ll get the teeth,” Thorn muttered. He always got the teeth, and he always did the running. Mara did the knife work, and she was good with a bow, too, when the situation called for it. Odd handled the net and the philosophizing. Blind Tom salted the trees and took care of the hexing circle, because he was the only who knew how to do it and he was no good in a fight. The dog was his, too, and the mastiff always held up his end.

  Even without the dog, Blind Tom was the most vital member of the crew. Inside the hexing circle, the trees didn’t whisper. Thorn didn’t know if it was the salt or the stones, but a wight couldn’t sense a hexing circle until it was too late. Once inside, the trees couldn’t tell it any secrets, like where the ambushers were positioned. By a wight’s reckoning, inside a hexing circle it was as blind as Blind Tom.

  Thorn’s crew knew more about killing wights than anyone in the lands of the Old Empire, including the knights and soldiers whose job it was to do the killing. The wight’s teeth would earn one gold mark, split four ways. Enough to live on for a month, perhaps two if they were frugal, which they never were. One kill a month, then, one bounty, and each time a longer run and a closer call.

  Thorn had seen enough death that the fear of it didn’t have much of a grip on him. There was no use running from it, unless you were baiting it into an ambush with a bounty on the line. He looked around at the faces of his friends. He wasn’t afraid that a wight would someday bring him down. He was afraid he wouldn’t die alone.