The Darkest Road

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  “Be welcome, Brock,” Aileron said, with genuine warmth. “Bright the hour of your return. Will you name your companions to me and give me what tidings you can?”

  Brock rose, and for all his fatigue his voice was clear.

  “Greetings, High King,” said the Dwarf. “I would wish you to extend your welcome to these two who have come with me, riding without stop through two nights and most of two days to serve in your ranks. Beside me is Faebur of Larak, in Eridu, and beyond him is one who styles himself Dalreidan, and I can tell you that he saved my life and that of the Seer of Brennin, when otherwise we would surely have died.”

  Dave blinked at the Dalrei’s name. He caught a glance from Levon, who whispered, “Rider’s Son? An exile. I wonder who it is.”

  “I bid you both welcome,” Aileron said. And then, with a tightening in his voice, “What tidings beyond the mountains?”

  “Grievous, my lord,” Brock said. “One more grief to lay at the door of the Dwarves. A death rain fell for three days in Eridu. The Cauldron shaped it from Cader Sedat, and—bitter to my tongue the telling—I do not think there is a man or woman left alive in that land.”

  The stillness that followed was of devastation beyond the compassing of words. Faebur, Dave saw, stood straight as a spear, his face set in a mask of stone.

  “Is it falling still?” Ra-Tenniel asked, very softly.

  Brock shook his head. “I would have thought you knew. Are there no tidings from them? The rain stopped two days ago. The Seer told us that the Cauldron had been smashed in Cader Sedat.”

  After pain, after grief, hope beyond expectation. A murmur of sound suddenly rose, sweeping back through the ranks of the army.

  “Weaver be praised!” Aileron exclaimed. And then: “What of the Seer, Brock?”

  Brock said, “She was alive and well, though I know not where she is now. We were guided to Khath Meigol by the two men here with me. She freed the Paraiko there, with the aid of Tabor dan Ivor and his flying creature, and they bore her west two nights ago. Where, I know not.”

  Dave looked at Ivor.

  The Aven said, “What was he doing there? I left him with orders to guard the camps.”

  “He was.” The one called Dalreidan spoke for the first tune. “He was guarding them, and was going back to do so again. He was summoned by the Seer, Ivor… Aven. She knew the name of his creature, and he had no choice. Nor did she—she could not have done what she had to do with only the three of us. Be not angry with him. I think he is suffering enough.”

  Levon’s face had gone white. Ivor opened his mouth and then closed it again.

  “What is it you fear, Aven of the Plain?” It was Ra-Tenniel.

  Again, Ivor hesitated. Then, as if drawing the thought up from the wellspring of his heart, he said, “He goes farther away every time he flies. I am afraid he will soon be like… like Owein and the Wild Hunt. A thing of smoke and death, utterly cut off from the world of men.”

  Silence once more, a different kind, shaped of awe as much as fear. It was broken by Aileron in a deliberately crisp voice that brought them all back to the Plain and the day moving inexorably toward dusk.

  “We’ve a long way to go,” the High King said. “The three of you are welcome among us. Can you ride?”

  Brock nodded.

  “It is why I am here,” said Faebur. A young voice, trying hard to be stern. “To ride with you, and do what I can when battle comes.”

  Aileron looked over at the older man who called himself Dalreidan. Dave saw that Ivor was looking at him too, and that Dalreidan was gazing back, not at the High King but at the Aven.

  “I can ride,” Dalreidan said, very softly. “Have I leave?”

  Abruptly, Dave realized that something else was happening here.

  Ivor looked at Dalreidan for a long time without answering. Then: “No Chieftain can reclaim an exile within the Law. But nothing I know in the parchments at Celidon speaks to what the Aven may do in such a case. We are at war, and you have done service already in our cause. You have leave to return. As Aven I say so now.”

  He stopped. Then, in a different voice, Ivor said, “You have leave to return to the Plain and to your tribe, though not under the name you have taken now. Be welcome back under the name you bore before the accident that thrust you forth into the mountains. This is a brighter thread in darkness than I ever thought to see, a promise of return. I cannot say how glad I am to see you here again.”

  He smiled. “Turn now, for there is another here who will be as glad. Sorcha of the third tribe, turn and greet your son!”

  In front of Dave, Tore went rigid, as Levon let out a whoop of delight. Sorcha turned. He looked at his son, and Dave, still standing behind Tore, saw the old Dalrei’s begrimed face light up with an unlooked-for joy.

  One moment the tableau held; then Tore stumbled forward with unwonted awkwardness, and he and his father met in an embrace so fierce it seemed as if they meant to squeeze away all the dark years that had lain between.

  Dave, who had given Tore the push that sent him forward, was smiling through tears. He looked at Levon and then at Ivor. He thought of his own father, so far away—so far away, it seemed, all his life. He looked over and up at Rangat and remembered the hand of fire.

  “Do you think,” Mabon of Rhoden murmured, “that that small expedition we were planning might just as easily be done with seven?”

  Dave wiped his eyes. He nodded. Then, still unable to speak, he nodded again.

  Levon signaled them forward. Careful of the axe he carried, moving as silently as he could, Dave crawled up beside his friend. The others did the same. Lying prone on a hillock—scant shelter on the open Plain—the seven of them gazed north toward the darkness of Gwynir.

  Overhead, clouds scudded eastward, now revealing, now obscuring the waning moon. Sighing through the tall grass, the breeze carried for the first time the scent of the evergreen forest. Far beyond the trees Rangat reared up, dominating the northern sky. When the moon was clear of the clouds the mountain glowed with a strange, spectral light. Dave looked away to the west and saw that the world ended there.

  Or seemed to. They were on the very edge of Daniloth: the Shadowland, where time changed. Where men could wander lost in Ra-Lathen’s mist until the end of all the worlds. Dave peered into the moonlit shadows, the drifting fog, and it seemed to him that he saw blurred figures moving there, some riding ghostly horses, others on foot, all silent in the mist.

  They had left the camp at moonrise, with less difficulty than expected. Levon had led them to the guard post manned by Cechtar of the third tribe, who was not about to betray or impede the designs of the Aven’s son. Indeed, his only objection had been in not being allowed to accompany them.

  “You can’t,” Levon had murmured very calmly, in control. “If we aren’t back before sunrise, we will be captured or dead, and someone will have to warn the High King. The someone is you, Cechtar. I’m sorry. A thankless task. If the gods love us, it is a message you’ll not have to carry.”

  After that, there had been no more words for a long time. Only the whisper of the night breeze across the Plain, the hoot of a hunting owl, the soft tread of their own footsteps as they walked away from the fires of the camp into the dark. Then the rustling sound of grasses parting as they dropped down and crawled the last part of the way toward the low tummock Levon had pointed out, just east of Daniloth, just south of Gwynir.

  Crawling along beside Mabon of Rhoden, behind Tore and Sorcha, who seemed unwilling to allow more than a few inches of space between them now, Dave found himself thinking about how much a part of his reality death had been since he came to Fionavar.

  Since he had crashed through the space between worlds here on the Plain and Tore had almost killed him with a dagger. There had been a killing that first night: he and the dark Dalrei he called a brother now had slain an urgach together in Faelinn Grove, first death among so many. There had been a battle by Llewenmere, and then among the snows of t
he Latham. A wolf hunt in Gwen Ystrat, and then, only three nights ago, the carnage along the banks of the Adein.

  He had been lucky, he realized, moving more cautiously forward as the moon came out from between two banks of cloud. He could have died a dozen times over. Died a long way from home. The moon slid back behind the clouds. The breeze was cool. Another owl hooted. There were scattered stars overhead, where the cloud cover broke.

  He thought of his father for the second time that day. It wasn’t hard, even for Dave, to figure out why. He looked at Sorcha, just ahead, moving effortlessly over the shadowed ground. Almost against his will, a trick of distance and shadows and of long sorrow, he pictured his father here with them, an eighth figure on the dark Plain. Josef Martyniuk had fought among the Ukrainian partisans for three years. More than forty years ago, but even so. Even so, a lifetime of physical labor had kept his big body hard, and Dave had grown up fearing the power of his father’s brawny arm. Josef could have swung a killing axe, and his icy blue eyes might have glinted just a little—too much to ask?—to see how easily his son handled one, how honored Dave was among people of rank and wisdom.

  He could have kept up, too, Dave thought, going with the fantasy a little way. At least as well as Mabon, surely. And he wouldn’t have had any doubts, any hesitations about the lightness of doing this, of going to war in this cause. There had been stories in Dave’s childhood about his father’s deeds in his own war.

  None from Josef, though. Whatever fragments Dave had heard had come from friends of his parents, middle-aged men pouring a third glass of iced vodka for themselves, telling the awkward, oversized younger son stories about his father long ago. Or beginning the stories. Before Josef, overhearing, would silence them with a harsh storm of words in the old tongue.

  Dave could still remember the first time he had beaten up his older brother. When Vincent, late one night in the room they shared, had let slip a casual reference to a railway bombing their father had organized.

  “How do you know about that?” Dave, perhaps ten, had demanded. He could still remember the way his heart had lurched.

  “Dad told me,” Vincent had answered calmly. “He’s told me lots of those stories.”

  Perhaps even now, fifteen years after, Vincent still didn’t know why his younger brother had so ferociously attacked him. For the first time ever, and the only time. Leaping upon his smaller, frailer older brother and punching him about. Crying that Vincent was lying.

  Vincent’s own cries had brought Josef storming into the room, to block the light from the hallway with his size, to seize his younger son in one hand and hold him in the air as he cuffed him about with an open, meaty palm.

  “He is smaller than you!” Josef had roared. “You are never to hit him!”

  And Dave, crying, suspended helplessly in the air, unable to dodge the slaps raining down on him, had screamed, almost incoherently, “But I’m smaller than you!”

  And Josef had stopped.

  Had set his gangly, clumsy son down to weep on his bed. And had said, in a strained, unsettling voice, “This is true. This is correct.”

  And had gone out, closing the bedroom door on the light.

  Dave hadn’t understood any of it then, and, to be honest, he grasped only a part of what had happened that night, even now. He didn’t have that kind of introspection. Perhaps by choice.

  He did remember Vincent, the next night offering to tell his younger brother the story of the train bombing.

  And himself, inarticulate but defiant, telling Vince to just shut up.

  He was sorry about that now. Sorry about a lot of things. Distance, he supposed, did that to you.

  And thinking so, he crawled up beside Levon on the hillock and looked upon the darkness of Gwynir.

  “This isn’t,” Levon murmured, “the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done.” The words were rueful, but the tone was not.

  Dave heard the barely suppressed excitement in the voice of Ivor’s son and, within himself, rising over his fears, he felt an unexpected rush of joy. He was among friends, men he liked and deeply respected, and he was sharing danger with them in a cause worthy of that sharing. His nerves seemed sharp, honed, he felt intensely alive.

  The moon slipped behind another thick bank of clouds. The outline of the forest became blurred and indistinct. Levon said, “Very well. I will lead. Follow in pairs behind me. I do not think they are watching for us—if, indeed, there is anything there beyond bears and hunting cats. I will make for the depression a little east of north. Follow quietly. If the moon comes out, hold where you are until it is gone again.”

  Levon slipped over the ridge and, working along on his belly, began sliding over the open space toward the forest. He moved so neatly the grasses scarcely seemed to move to mark his passage.

  Dave waited a moment, then, with Mabon beside him, began propelling himself forward. It wasn’t easy going with the axe, but he hadn’t come here to share in something easy. He found a rhythm of elbows and knees, forced himself to breathe evenly and slowly, and kept his head low to the ground. Twice he glanced up, to make sure of his orientation, and once the thinning moon did slide out, briefly, pinning them down among the silvered grasses. When it disappeared again, they went on.

  They found the downward slope, just where the trees began to thicken. Levon was waiting, crouched low, a finger to his lips. Dave rested on one knee, balancing his axe, breathing carefully. And listening.

  Silence, save for night birds, wind in the trees, the quick scurrying of some small animal. Then a barely audible rustle of grass, and Tore and Sorcha were beside him, followed, a moment later, as silently, by Brock and Faebur. The young Eridun’s face was set in a grim mask. With the dark tattoos he looked like some primitive, implacable god of war.

  Levon motioned them close. In the faintest thread of a whisper he said, “If there is an ambush of any kind, it will not be far from here. They will expect us to skirt as close to Daniloth as we can. Any attack would pin us against the Shadowland, with the horses useless among these trees. I want to check due north from here and then loop back along a line farther east. If we find nothing, we can return to camp and play at dice with Cechtar. He’s a bad gambler with a belt I like.”

  Levon’s teeth flashed white in the blackness. Dave grinned back at him. Moments like this, he decided, were what you lived for.

  Then the armed guard stepped into their hollow from the north.

  Had he given the alarm, had he had time to do so, all of them would probably have died. He did not. He had no time.

  Of the seven men he stumbled upon, every one was terribly dangerous in his own fashion, and very quick. The guard saw them, opened his mouth to scream a warning—and died with the quickest blade of them all in his throat.

  Two arrows struck him, and a second knife before he hit the ground, but all seven of them knew whose blade had killed, whose had been first.

  They looked at Brock of Banir Tal, and then at the Dwarf he had slain, and they were silent.

  Brock walked forward and stood looking down at his victim for a long time. Then he stooped and withdrew his knife, and Sorcha’s as well, from the Dwarf’s heart. He walked back to the six of them, and his eyes, even in the night shadows, bore witness to a great pain.

  “I knew him,” he whispered. “His name was Vojna. He was very young. I knew his parents too. He never did an evil thing in all his days. What has happened to us?”

  It was Mabon’s deep voice that slipped quietly into the silence. “To some of you,” he amended gently. “But I think we have an answer now to Teyrnon’s riddle. There is danger here, but not true evil, only a thread of it. The Dwarves are sent to ambush us, but they are not truly of the Dark.”

  “Does it matter?” Brock whispered bitterly.

  “I think so,” Levon replied gravely. “I think it might. Enough words, though: there will be other guards. I want to find out how many of them there are, and exactly where. I also need two of you to carry word ba
ck to the camp, right now.” He hesitated. “Tore. Sorcha.”

  “Levon, no!” Tore hissed. “You cannot—”

  Levon’s jaw tightened and his eyes blazed. Tore stopped abruptly. The dark Dalrei swallowed, nodded once, jerkily, and then, with his father beside him, turned and left the forest, heading back south. The night took them, as if they’d never been there.

  Dave found Levon looking at him. He returned the gaze. “I couldn’t,” Levon whispered. “Not so soon after they’d found each other!”

  Words were useless sometimes, they were stupid. Dave reached forward and squeezed Levon’s shoulder. None of the others spoke either. Levon turned and started ahead. With Mabon beside him again, and Brock and Faebur following, Dave set out after him, his axe held ready, into the blackness of the forest.

  The guard had come from the northeast, and Levon led them the same way. His heart racing now, Dave walked, crouched low among the scented outlines of the evergreens, his eyes straining for shapes in the night. There was death here, and treachery, and for all his fear and anger, there was room within him to pity Brock and grieve for him—and he knew he would never have felt either a year and a half ago.

  Levon stopped and held up one hand. Dave froze.

  A moment later he heard it too: the sounds of a great many men, too many to maintain an absolute silence.

  Carefully he sank to one knee and, bending low, caught a glimpse of firelight in the space between two trees. He tapped Levon’s leg, and the fair-haired Dalrei dropped down as well and his gaze followed Dave’s pointing finger.

  Levon looked for a long time; then he turned back, and his eyes met Brock’s. He nodded, and the Dwarf silently moved past Levon to lead them toward the camp of his people. Levon fell back beside Faebur, who had drawn his bow. Dave looped his hand tightly through the thong at the end of his axe handle; he saw that Brock had done the same. Mabon drew his sword.

  They went forward, crawling again, careful of their weapons, desperately careful of twigs and leaves on the forest floor. With excruciating slowness Brock guided them toward the glow of light Dave had seen.