Rellen said nothing.
“We’re twenty-five now,” Marlos continued. “And that includes Dennov and my nephew. You say we’re to go to Mormist, and so we shall. We aim to leave in an hour. Is that acceptable?”
He nodded. Marlos let him be.
Upon the loam he laid, gazing toward the rising sun until his eyes watered from the light. Sleep soon came to claim him. Though he grieved for his friends, injured and lost, his dreams were not for them. His drowsing mind reached out across the void, seeking something less tangible, something untouchable.
Andelusia.
Resist though he tried, he drifted into a dream of her. Her laughter rang in his ears, her scent catching in the imagined wind like raindrops on a hot summer day. Later, even as the sun climbed higher and the company arose to leave, he lingered in his life’s deepest sleep. He was lost in the warm corridors of his mind, unaware that even as he dreamed of Andelusia, she was dreaming of him.
Rain
Away in the east Andelusia slept, her tent touched by the first rays of morning light.
Her head lay upon a pillow of downy cloth, her back on the rough bedroll she had borne all the way from Gryphon. She awakened slowly, her thoughts still clouded with blurry visions of Rellen and her time in Gryphon. She and Garrett had arrived too late the previous day to explore Tratec, and had taken refuge on a hilltop overlooking the Crossroad. She sat up, peered out into the day, and saw Garrett gathering his things to leave for the city.
“Morning,” she murmured as she crawled out of her tent.
“Morning,” said Garrett. “You look well.”
“I could use another hour.” She smacked her lips sleepily. “My backside is still numb. All the riding. Ouch.”
Yawning, she laid her softest gaze upon her travel mate. Garrett was dressed almost as though for battle. He wore a black hauberk atop a fine mesh of mail, while over his shoulders hung a tabard, grim and grey. Even dressed so, he seemed relaxed, leaning in the shade of an evergreen bough, whittling a prairie reed between his teeth. She reckoned if she could choose any guardian in the world, he would be the one. “So Garrett…” she said, enjoying the sound of his name. “How is it I know almost nothing about you?”
“Tell me what you want to know.”
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sidled across the clearing. “Rellen told me plenty. He said warrior this and hunter that, but I have never heard a peep out of you about yourself, not about your family, not about your life. Really now, Ser Mysterious, will you ever say more?”
“No one has asked me in years,” he said. “I suppose I am all the things Rellen says. I have hunted, fought, and done other deeds better left unsaid. Were I a better man, I might not be here. I might be elsewhere, doing what most sons do. But here I am, far from home.”
“Sad story?” she wondered.
“No. And certainly not a tale for today. Today is for work.”
Her shoulders sank. A hundred times I have tried crack his armor, and never to much avail. “Well…where are we going today?” she asked. “Tratec at last?”
He shielded his eyes from the rising sun. He surveyed the forest below the campsite, within which Tratec lied. “I will go to the city. You will wait here.”
“But…” Her heart sank. “You promised I could go with you.”
He smiled sympathetically. “I will return at midday. I need only make sure Tratec is safe. When that is done, you may wander as you wish. Promise me you will be cautious while I am gone. No running through the forest as though this was Grandwood, and no sneaking off. I would rather not endure Rellen’s wrath should you be harmed.”
She started to pout, but caught herself. Garrett is not Saul, she knew. Not as pliable or prone to change his mind.
“I promise,” she said.
“Good. Remember what we talked about.”
“I remember.” She beamed. “If someone asks, I am from Trebidal, where the valley in the forest makes a bowl. There is a garrison there for Graehelm soldiers, knights under the command of Ahnwyn of Triaxe, who lives at Gallen Hold to the south. Trebidal is a fair enough place. In the spring, the hillsides tumble with white daisies, in the summer with silver yarrow. I have lived there my whole life, and I know little else of the world.”
Garrett nodded his approval. “And who are your sovereign lords?”
“Lord Ennoch, Lord Ruel, and Lord Ivallos,” she recalled without hesitation.
“And why have you come here, so far from home?”
“I am in the care of my cousin, good Garrett Croft. He is on an errand to purchase a number of stallions, in hopes of breeding them in the south for profit. I am his charge, and he my warden, for my parents fell ill last winter and perished.”
“Well done.” He looked pleased. “Now I am off. You stay put. I will return before long, and you will be free.”
Her disappointment waning, she watched him make his final preparations. He hung his sword from his belt, slid a dagger in his boot, and tightened his tabard atop his hauberk. He looked altogether fearsome when it was done, taller than any of the Gryphon house guard save Bruced, and twice as deadly, she reckoned.
With Garrett gone, the morning was achingly slow to pass. She had never felt so bored, leastways not since leaving Cairn. For one hour, then three, she paced the camp like a restless cat, plucking flowers wherever she found them and humming songs remembered from the Rockbottom.
The sun crawled higher in the sky. The day grew warm, and she grew ever hungrier. Her mouth watered, not for more of the rocklike bread and warm water that had been her staples during the journey, but for some of the hot game and cider she smelled wafting up from Tratec’s outskirts.
Another hour of circling the camp’s invisible confines, and she decided enough was enough. The morning had dragged by too slowly. With nothing better to do, she plucked a pillow from her tent and nestled in an alcove between two trees. Garrett will be back soon, she told herself. And maybe Rellen along with him.
Her niche between the trees was more comfortable than expected. A few breaths after closing her eyes, she plunged into sleep, returning to the vivid world of her imagination. Her dreamed-of realm felt fairer than the real world. The pale grasses beneath her ethereal feet tickled her toes like feathers, the wind from the lavender sky catching her hair and tugging it like a pennant of flames. Many friends came to her in her dream: Symon and Saul, Garrett and the friendly servants of Gryphon Keep. Each of them moseyed past and smiled for her, though none stopped to talk. Rellen was last to appear. Dressed in blue and silver, he emerged from the ethereal mist, and though he said nothing his kiss was enough to set her heart to smoldering. Soon she was alone again. Contented by the visits from all her friends, she felt her body rise higher and higher above the lands of Mormist, floating freely amongst the clouds. She gazed down upon the mountaintops, their sides a thousand shades of green, their caps crowned with feathery snow. But it was in the next breaths her dream changed. Her eyelids fluttered open and shut, and her dream grew black. She began to fall through bitterly cold sheets of rain, plummeting into the heart of a vast, noisome storm. The trees on the mountains caught fire, and the snow turned to ash. She looked downward, screaming silently as a chasm filled with lightning and flames opened its maw beneath her, threatening to consume her. She fell and fell, plunging ever downward. At the chasm’s bottom, a crack of thunder boomed in her ears, and she awoke.
Startled and sweating, her eyes fluttered open. The first thing she felt was a pair of hands gently clutching her shoulders. It was Garrett, my guardian, shielding her from her imagined dangers. “You were dreaming,” he said. “And talking in your sleep.”
She peered past his shoulder and into the sky. Grey clouds, not black, she was grateful to see. And no chasm. “I thought I heard a storm,” she said. “Was there thunder just now?”
“Yes.” He took his hands away. “A spring rain is on us.”
She pushed herself to her feet. She felt thoroughly frightened
, her skin crawling with sensations from the dream. “It came over me so fast.” She shivered. “Ash and lightning and fire. I thought I was dead. I never had such a dream.”
“The rain is here now, but the sun will shine again,” said Garrett.
She smiled weakly. “My imagination is too powerful sometimes.”
Garrett was right. The rain was upon her. Floating more than falling, it descended through the leaves, speckling her skin and making wet wicks of the ends of her hair. She shook the droplets off, at the same time shaking loose the horrors of her dream. Garrett’s presence made it all the easier.
“What of Tratec?” She looked to him.
“Safe, at least for now. I walked it end to end. No one will think much of two travelers from Trebidal.”
“Good. I am starving.”
“Then let us go.”
“I thought you might never say it.” She glided off the hilltop. “Race you to the bottom!” Taking the lead, she skipped down the slope, gliding between wet grey boulders and swordlike trees. She was nimble as a doe, steady despite the rain. In moments she made her way to the hill’s bottom, where a line of empty stone houses stood beside a stream. A steady trickle of rain slid through the leaves and wetted her hair to her shoulders. Liking the feel of it, she ran her fingers through her crimson locks, spreading the strands of her hair like ropes of fire. “Never mind what I said yesterday about sleeping under a roof,” she said once Garrett caught up. “I think I like the hilltop better.”
“I knew you would.” He peered skyward. “And a good thing, too. We might be there awhile.”
She shrugged. “Why would the Three Lords want to start a war anyway? They only want their gold, not for Graehelm to invade. Why not just ask Lord Emun? Or even King Jacob? No sense in slitting throats over a few coins. What are you looking at anyway? Is the sky prettier than me?”
“The clouds.” He gestured to an opening in the tree canopy. “Grimmer than yesterday. I have a feeling about tonight. The storm we saw from the Dales might fall upon us soon. I hope you like the rain.”
“I do,” she said cheerily. “Always have.”
He led her into Tratec without further delay. She marched along beside him, pleased with the rain, the trees, and every sight she saw. Tratec was a city without walls or boundaries, she soon discovered. With the Crossroad cutting through its center like an arrow, buildings of all sorts radiated outward from the road into the forest. Some were built of worn stones and weary logs, others of round river rocks piled high. The roofs were thatched with sheaves of straw, every eave dripping.
Between the houses and along the Crossroad, the Tratec folk teemed. They were the hardy people of Mormist, tall and strong and fair, Garrett’s folk through and through. Hard to believe this is the source of Graehelm’s trouble, she thought as she walked among them. Everyone is at ease, and no soldiers are in sight.
Garrett took her on the full tour. He thrice forded the Crossroad, marching hither and to with mind to show her Tratec’s many landmarks. He pointed out a hundred year-old inn, bought bread and cider for her at a deep wood market, gave her a copper coin to toss into a white-marbled fountain, and showed her Tratec’s famous moss-walled manors. The many sights were scattered amid the tall, slender trees, such that it seemed not one city she traversed, but many. She tried to remember the name of every landmark he brought her to, but they were too many, and names felt less important than the fact she liked them all.
And then, during a lull in the rain, he led her away from the rest of Tratec and into the shadow of a wide heel of earth, atop which sat a structure both ancient and formidable.
“What is it?” She strained her neck to see the shadow at the top of the ridge.
Garrett pointed through the bristled treetops. “One. Two. And three,” he counted, gesturing to each of three towers spiraling far above the forest canopy. She saw the whole of it soon enough. Atop the mighty spur of earth and stone stood a fortress, a three-towered castle seated far above the rest of Tratec. Its walls were high and white, though its towers were crumbling. “Castle Verod,” he explained.
“Looks old,” she remarked.
“It was built before the Three Lords, before their fathers.” He gazed at Verod reverently. “It guarded Graehelm’s easternmost boundary. It is empty these days. Merchants, beggars, and squatters are all who live there. No soldiers have walked its halls for thirty years.”
Save for Gryphon Keep and the tower of Cyrul, this was the closest she had ever been to a true castle. She saw at once Verod was in ruin. No soldiers stood atop its walls and no banners blew in the morning breeze. Its towers looked sullen and remorseful, and its pale stones, climbed upon by webs of thirsty vines, seemed to sag beneath the rain. Verod looked less like a beacon of Graehelm’s strength, and more like a symbol of decay. “It is beautiful in a way,” she sighed, almost sad for it.
“Verod,” Garrett said again. “Had the Grae kings maintained it, we might not be here.”
Thunder boomed somewhere in the bellies of the clouds. The rain quickened, falling harder and chillier. Garrett led her away from Verod and back into Tratec proper. She rather liked the way he cut so casually through the rain. He moved like a sword through water, and she found herself mimicking him. Soon she lost track of where she was. He led her onto paths narrow and wide, through thickets overgrown with bristling branches and tangled vines. Finally he stopped before a dwelling whose door was locked and whose windows were shuttered against the rain. The house was alone in the forest, surrounded on nearly all sides by dark green grass and evergreens ten men tall. Garrett halted some ten strides from its rickety front door.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Remember this house,” he instructed her. “Whenever the rain ends, we will come here again. A seamstress lives here. The best in Mormist, they say, perhaps in all the Graelands. If you wished it, she could make a dress for you.”
“A dress?” Her heart leapt. “You mean… you would… for me?”
“I thought you might approve.”
“But wait…” She sagged like the roof of the seamstress’s tired old house. “I have no silver. Saul was my only provider.”
A moment’s gleam shined in Garrett’s eyes. “It is a good thing our seamstress takes no silver. She accepts only gold.”
“But I have no gold either.”
Taking two strides across the drowning grass, he halted before her. He reached into his belt pouch and plucked out a trio of golden coins. She nearly fainted when she saw the glittering gold. One coin alone would have been a small fortune to anyone from Cairn, but three is another matter entirely.
“We have these.” He held up the coins before dropping them back into his pouch. “But we must wait till the rain ends.”
“But… I—”
“Not a word of it. If it helps, try to think of it not as a gift for you, but for Rellen. Nothing will please him more than to arrive from the hard road and find his love waiting and resplendent. If he sees you in one of our seamstress’s creations, he will curse me less for bringing you here.”
“Garrett, I…” She looked to her current clothes: tired, wet, and drab. “Why are you so kind?”
For once, his perfect calm faltered. “For Rellen,” he said. “But for you as well. Now, come. Let us find some food. This rain cuts like daggers. Some bread, game, and hot cider ought to do us nicely.”
Hurrying, she followed him away from the seamstress’s house and back beneath the dripping trees. After another hundred turns, she found herself at the entrance to a crowded, two-story tavern wedged against a hillside. It could be the Rockbottom, she thought when she saw it. Except bigger, louder, and without a Symon.
Beneath an archway of creaking beams and baskets of hanging flowers she walked, arriving in a cozy, lanternlit room in which no amount of rain seemed able to mute the patrons’ laughter. The Tratec folk greeted her with warm smiles and raised mugs, though if Garrett were not here, I wonder what they might sa
y.
She and he found a seat in the corner, and shortly thereafter a plump lad in a greasy apron piled two platters of hot food and a decanter of cool cider upon their table. She wanted nothing so much as to eat, and for the next hours, eat was all she did.
By early evening, the rains ceased.
She and Garrett said their goodbyes and left the tavern behind, a bag of bread, berries, and salted meat slung over each of their backs. By the pale light of Garrett’s new lantern, she marched through the trees and returned to the hilltop only to find the camp ruined by the day’s heavy deluge. “A fine mess this is.” She dropped her bag when she saw it. Their tents were collapsed, their bedrolls saturated, and wet tree limbs scattered everywhere like broken swords across a battlefield.
“Most unlucky.” Garrett hung his lantern from a low-hanging branch. “At least we stabled the horses, else they might have bolted.”
The day had been much too good for Andelusia to complain. “Not so bad. Tomorrow will be drier.”
“I would not count on it.” Garrett regarded the sky.
The sun set. High above the hilltop, the sky boiled with black clouds, thick and dark as the ocean at midnight. Garrett’s lantern and a few far-off windows of Tratec provided the night’s only specks of light. After a while spent scraping the mud from her tent and blanket, Andelusia piled most of her things into Garrett’s arms and trailed him through the trees toward a taller, drier hilltop. Garrett worried she might stumble in the dark, but she glided up the shadowed slope as though she had climbed it a thousand times. The top of the next hill was treeless, the earth soft and grassy. The higher she climbed, the more she reckoned the new camp looked like a crown, for the hilltop was ringed by a dozen craggy boulders, each of them a sharp spike in the hill’s royal crown.
Beneath night’s starless reign, she and Garrett erected their new camp, and afterwards rested beside a crackling fire. “Tell me something about Rellen.” She sat on her side of the fire, her knees drawn up to her chin. “Something I have never heard before.”
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 20