Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1)

by J. Edward Neill

  Garrett fell silent.

  Marlos recoiled.

  The thunder and the Furyon drums crashed in Saul’s mind like two swords crossing.

  The stars fall from the sky and the earth split beneath my toes, he thought. Should I do this? Should I go?

  A horn sounded in the distance. Not a Fury horn. From Verod. The castle gates are opening. The Furyons are attacking. The terrible rhythm of the Furyon drums reached high into the morning, the sounds banging off the bottoms of the gathering clouds. He smelled smoke again, same as yestereve. Screams from afar rent the air, and the distant clash of sword, spear, and shield rang like funeral bells between the trees.

  “There is no time,” said Garrett. “You must decide. Remain if you must, and join the battle. Or take the plunge with me. We will not judge you either way.”

  Marlos was an anguished man, Saul saw. The Gryphon captain closed his eyes and tugged on his great rope of a beard. “You say the Gryphons support this?” he asked.

  Garrett nodded. “Lord Emun sheltered Dank in Gryphon Keep for some twenty years. Sara Gryphon supports his tale, and told me she would make the journey herself were she a warrior. Rellen might have joined us had he the time, but his heart carried him elsewhere.”

  Marlos looked no less tortured. “And you carry Rellen’s blade? He gave it to you willingly?”

  “Until he and I meet again, yes.”

  “You’re asking me to leave my men behind. You’re asking that I do it now, without any warning.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re no madman, Garrett. What’ve you seen? What’s changed you so?”

  “My companion can explain it better than I. And he will, but not now.”

  Marlos shook his head. He considers it, thought Saul. He doesn’t want to die on a Furyon sword, not today. But what of me? Do I stay and die or journey and perish later? Better that I had a king, that he might tell which is the right path.

  “Garrett, you don’t know what you’re asking,” Marlos said at length.

  “But I do,” Garrett replied. “Truly.”

  The Gryphon captain looked nauseous, shaken by Garrett’s words as much as by the boom of the Furyon drums. “I’m bound to House Gryphon. Emun’s always been my lord, Rellen the same. I know how Rellen reveres you, Garrett. In his letters from Ardenn, he talked about you, about your swordarm, and how you always spoke the hard truths. I’ve a wife in Gryphon, and I wouldn’t see her slain by Furies. I’d see her again soon if I could. And yet here you are, telling me the only right thing to do is abandon my brothers, abandon her, and go to Furyon on a whim.”

  “You have reached the heart of it,” said Garrett.

  “And you, Saul?” Marlos turned his gaze on him. “What will you do?”

  Saul had no wife, no child, no beloved, but the choice felt just as hard. This is the coward’s way, he thought. I leave today and live, at least for a while. But if I stay…those drums…the storm…I will die today, and all that remains of me shall be my staff, splintered and planted like a tree atop my grave.

  “Garrett’s is the way.” The words came out easier than seemed possible. “Graehelm forgive me, I’ll go to Furyon.”

  It looked all the harder for Marlos. The poor man paced the clearing, gazing daggers at Garrett and the little stranger. The shadows from the gathering storm were no longer darkest upon Garrett, but on him instead. “If you say this is the way, I’ll do it.” He paled as he said it. “I’ll leave my men here to suffer and die. I’ll play the coward. But if I find you’ve misled me, or if it chances that we succeed but return to find Gryphon in ashes, I’ll plant both my swords in your body. Take my word for it, Garrett. No man lies to Marlos Obas and lives. Now, if you’re so honored to have me, take my hand. Tell me this is the truth again. Make an oath to rise over all other oaths.”

  Garrett took Marlos’s hand into his own, shaking it as though to seal a treaty between kings. “I speak the truth as I know it. You have my word.”

  “Then I’ll go.” Marlos’s face was drawn with grief. “The afterlife be kind to me, I’ll go.”

  And then another entered the clearing. Saul nearly leapt out of his boots as the branches behind him rustled and parted. The Furies! He whirled his battlestaff. Here already!

  But it was no Fury who marched into view. Emerging from the shadows between the trees, a Grae knight lumbered forth like a wagon, his back bent with four sacks stuffed to their brims. “Lo, Garrett and Dank.” Ser Endross erected himself in the clearing’s center. “And Saul, Marlos, and young Therian.”

  “Ser Endross?” Saul stared blankly. “We never thought to see you here.”

  “Nor I you.” Endross dropped the sacks to the earth.

  He marveled at the sight of the man. Clearly, Ser Endross had recovered from the ailments that had nearly taken his life in the days after his arrival at Tratec. The knight’s face was full of life, his eyes as bright as freshly-struck lanterns. His face was newly shaven, his dark hair cropped, and his shoulders saddled with a massive, battle-worn axe in its sling. He was fitted fully for war, dressed in an assortment of greaves and mail. And yet he bore it all with ease.

  Dank went to Endross and clasped the huge man’s hand. “Thank you for coming, ser. Are these sacks full of food? Are you decided?”

  Saul was shocked to see Endross nod. “They are, and I am,” said the last knight of Triaxe. “I’ve prayed to gods who won’t listen for a chance of vengeance, and here you are, an answer to my call. The Furyons took my lord, my brothers, all but my life. I thank you for this chance.”

  “Him?” Marlos seemed annoyed. “Beg pardon, but why, Ser Endross?”

  Endross looked hard at Dank, and then in the direction of the booming Furyon drums. “Many reasons, and most of them my own. The reason you might best understand is Ahnwyn. My master was a friend to the Gryphons. Lord Emun once visited us, just as we visited him many years ago. You don’t remember me, but I remember you, Marlos Obas. Master Dank has long been the protector of House Gryphon. He tells no lies; my own Ahnwyn once swore it to me.”

  “But…Furyon?” Marlos doubted.

  “My brothers are dead, frozen on the plains south of Velum. My lord is slain, speared seven times through by daggers of ice. Nothing of my own remains to protect, so I find myself honor-bound to the next best cause. What better task than this? What cleaner vengeance than to sever the heartstrings of my enemy even as he moves to ravage the dwelling of my friend?”

  The knight stepped closer, gazing hard at Saul and Marlos. “And I know the Furies’ power, my friends. I’ve twice seen it. Two storms and two slaughters. I’ll not see it happen again.”

  “So you know Dank?” Saul found it hard to believe. “You two have met before?”

  “Thrice,” Endross answered. “Once in Ahnwyn’s hall, once again in Lord Emun’s, and a final time: this very morning. As I guarded the gates of Verod, I saw his robes. I never forget a face.”

  “And the bags?” Marlos glared.

  “Full of food and furs, just as Dank asked,” the knight answered.

  “Why furs? Is Furyon a frozen place?”

  Endross shrugged his armored shoulders. “I did not ask. I took him at his word we would need them.”

  Saul’s heart sank to the bottom of his chest. If Garrett was the key, Endross is the lock, he knew. These men are serious. We are going to Furyon.

  “There’s just one more thing.” Marlos raised his voice anew. “What of you, little Dank? Who are you? I’m the captain of Gryphon, and yet I’ve never met you before. Seems unlikely Emun wouldn’t have mentioned you.”

  Hands hidden in his conjoined sleeves, eyes a brighter green than emeralds, Dank disarmed everyone but Marlos with his smile. “If we stand here and discuss who I am, where I’ve been, and the thousand reasons why you should follow me, we may as well go to battle.”

  Matching stares with the little man, Marlos smirked. “So this is your companion, eh Garrett? Friend to Emun, secret lover to Sara, bed
der of all the roaches in our cellars. He seems in such a grand hurry. For someone who expects to upend the Furies, I’d have expected someone…taller.”

  “Don’t worry about my size.” Dank grinned a devilish grin.

  “As you say,” Marlos snorted. “It’s only that I wonder whether Emun was in his right mind when he secreted you away in his service. One would hope for warriors, not children.”

  “Give me a week, and I’ll convince you,” said Dank. “I don’t expect your fealty, only your swords.”

  Dank motioned at Garrett and Endross. Wordless, the two men plucked one sack each from the earth, afterward flanking the little man like two towers straddling a shanty. We’re to leave now, Saul understood. Before the Furyon storm slays us all. Though tentative, he hauled a sack over his shoulder and walked to Garrett’s side. Only Marlos and Therian remained.

  “What about me?” said Therian. “Let me go too, uncle. I’ve as much reason to hate the Furies as any of you.”

  If before Marlos looked anguished, now his heart seemed to crack in two. “My dear boy, you can’t go. You must stay.”

  “But—”

  “No, lad. If I drag you any closer to Furyon than I already have, your mother will string me up by my balls and your auntie will leave me for Nentham Thure. No, I need you to stay and do something important. Ride to the Gryphon company. If they still live, they’re on the high hillside with Dennov. Tell them I’m not coming, that Rellen has sent me elsewhere. Tell them they won’t see me again, or even that I’m dead. Look them in the eyes and say that the Furies can do nothing to them if they keep their honor and fight like Gryphon men. Only you can do this. Garrett and the little man tell me again and again that I have no time.”

  “Uncle, I—” Therian protested.

  “No. You’ll do as I say. You’ll go to them now. But you’ll also promise me this: When the enemy closes ranks, you’ll flee. When the ramparts break and you see the first of those damnable black spears, you’ll be the first one to slip back to the stables, the first on the road to the Dales.”

  “You want me to be a coward.” The lad looked wounded.

  “I want you alive. The others are trained for killing, but you’re meant for riding. Go to Barrok, to the twin cities, to anywhere you like, just not to Mooreye, and not into battle. Do you understand?”

  Therian heaved his chest and let out a vast breath of disappointment. Saul felt awful for the lad. He wants so badly to follow. He wants honor and glory, same as his uncle.

  Therian lowered his head, his pride destroyed. “Yes uncle,” he said. “Goodbye, uncle. You too, Saul and Garrett. And even you, Dank.”

  A last glare from Marlos, and the lad was gone, dashing up into the trees on fleet legs, never once glancing back.

  Once his nephew was departed, Marlos glared at everyone. “There. I’ve sent the boy away and left my men behind. I’m hence the coward of Gryphon and the dasher of young men’s dreams. Is that enough? May we leave?”

  Dank nodded his assent. “Five,” he said with unsettling satisfaction. “Five men I hoped for and five we have. Follow me, lads, and stay close. Today’s not our day to die, though tomorrow might be.”

  Saul watched Dank slip between the trees, then Garrett, then Endross, and finally Marlos. He was last to follow. The Furyon drums beat a frenzied pace at his back, shaking Tratec from its foundations, paralyzing every soul in Verod. But look at me, he thought, hating himself. Down, down I go. Skulking away from honor.

  He followed them down the hillside and into the deep, dark valley on the far side of Verod. The clouds became grim as gravekeepers, and the trees looked like stands of onyx towers. Verod fell out of sight and the Furyon drumbeat faded, but he felt no better. His march was a wretched one, and the longer he walked, the more the forest thickened around him. Like prison bars, he mused. Caging the deserters.

  Curtains of vines, leaves, and gnarled limbs swallowed him. The birds were quiet, the wind absent, and not a single creature of the woods stirred that he could see. In the lowest part of the valley, he plucked a leaf from a sapling and rolled it between two soiled fingers. The black, sickly flora fell apart like a fly’s wings, crumbling like ashes into the grass. Dead, he thought. Starved for life despite all the rain, curling with rot long before autumn. The Furyons did this.

  Garrett is right.

  We have to go.

  Path of Most Resistance

  The sun’s sad light fled from every surface of Velum Forest. The greys and browns of storm-battered trees turned black with twilight’s approach.

  Away from the others, Garrett marched. He disliked the way darkness arrived, the way the gloom crawled like black fingers across every leaf and every blade of grass. He had no words for what he experienced, for Mormist no longer felt like home. The Furyons changed it. He dwelled upon the silence, the absence of fauna, and the chill in the evening air. Everything is dead and cold. Like graveyards, but without bodies.

  It was an hour after sunset when they stopped. They were deep in the forest, far from any dwelling, well-removed from the horrors of Verod. Dank led them to a clearing amidst a ring of trees. The grass was soft and squelchy, the leaves dripping from a gentle rain. After making their beds, gathering kindling, and struggling to give life to a fire by which to cook their supper, Marlos, Saul, and Endross rested on whatever dry spots they could find. He watched them from the shadows, and they left him alone. They seemed to know better than to bother him.

  Much later, as the fire dwindled, Marlos worked up the nerve to call to him. It was a surprisingly friendly summons, considering that for the last ten hours the Gryphon captain had not gone longer than a half-breath without complaining. “Come fetch some stew, Garrett,” the burly man bellowed. “If we’re to die on the morrow, might as well do it with a full belly.”

  He rejoined his companions. Marlos’s concoction of potatoes, greens, and old spices was far better fare than he expected. The others dipped their spoons in and out, scouring their bowls clean, and he did the same.

  Afterward, as supper sat heavy in his belly, Marlos again broke the silence. “We’ve waited long enough,” the captain said to Dank. “Out with it. What is it we’re doing here? Why have you decided to make cowards of us?”

  Garrett watched as Dank drained his bowl of its broth. The little man rose, bowed shallowly, and cleared his throat. “I bid you listen, my friends.” He waved his arm as if introducing himself for the first time. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  For many hours afterward, Dank held sway of the night. Until midnight’s breeze chilled the camp and the fire lived on its last embers, he held Marlos, Saul, and Endross in thrall. Garrett knew the tale all too well, but listened all the closer. With even more detail than previously told, Dank uttered warnings of black times to come, of dire, magical things, and of days too dark for most men to imagine.

  The little man told the saga of Tyberia and Niviliath, painting Furyon alike to ancient Tyberia. He spoke of how Tyberia had become Archithrope, of how its sorcerers constructed cities with obsidian towers taller than mountains. In gruesome detail, he told of how entire civilizations were enslaved, and of how millions were put to the sword for no other sin than drawing breath. Ever grave, he described dwellings constructed of dead men’s bones, cities that smoldered for decades after their destruction, and tombs graven a week’s walk below the earth, catacombs meant to hold the carcasses of every last foe of Archithrope.

  And then at last he came to the crux of it.

  His eyes gleaming, his face whiter than the moon, he spoke of the malevolent objects created so long ago, in particular the one he meant to destroy. “The Furyons understand little of what they do.” He raised his hands into the air as though beseeching the forest to take heed. “They’ve planted a seed of evil in their belly, thinking it a trinket to aid the war. But this is no toy they play with. This thing they’ve rebuilt must be vanquished, and we’re the ones who must do it.”

  Garrett watched a
nd listened. He saw Saul turn pallid, Marlos scoff, and Endross remain stiff as mountain stone.

  When Dank finally paused, Marlos argued. “Very grim, little man. And a bit too far over the ramparts if you ask me. I find myself wanting to believe, but lacking the stomach to swallow so much manure.”

  “I tell no lies,” said Dank.

  “Let us suppose your tales are true,” said Marlos. “What good are we? You say the Furyons are like these Archithropians, that they have no souls, that they see only darkness. Five men seems about five-hundred thousand too few. Even if we reach the Furyon coast, we’ve little hope of crossing their country, even less of finding this relic of yours.”

  Dank held his palm over the embers of the fire. If any doubt lurked inside the little man, it never showed. “I know you have reservations. Who wouldn’t? But you must have faith just as I do. Have faith because there is no other way. There are no others to do this.”

  Marlos gazed hard across the flame. “But why you? Why us? Why not an army?”

  “Of all the people in the world, I’m best to lead this journey,” said Dank. “I can guide us to Furyon, and I can bring us to the Object. For you see, the laws of nature don’t encumber me as they do everyone else.”

  With that, the little man lowered his palm until it rested a hand’s breadth above the campfire’s dying embers. He uttered a phrase, a dread chorus of words that made even Garrett’s skin crawl. At Dank’s beckoning, the trees shuddered and the air thinned, the night crowding close as if hungry to devour the living.

  “Listen, and watch.” A flame grew in Dank’s palm. It was made of shadow, its tongues black and searing, its heart a crackling of hellish heat that stole the campfire’s light and reduced the logs to ash. The campfire’s red embers were extinguished, and yet the clearing remained lit. Dank’s shadow flame emitted a spectral smolder, a black and violet luminescence seeming capable of immolating everything did not the little man control it.

  Dank lifted his hand higher and higher, commanding the fire as though it were his slave. The flame answered, roiling so violently up his forearm that even Garrett turned his cheek.