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

by J. Edward Neill

  “Cold and dead,” said Marlos. “You mean to say…”

  Dank nodded. “Morg is neither the storm nor the wind. Morg is a spirit from the Archithropian age, a remnant of the dark sorceries wielded by the worst of the Tyberian warlocks. The villagers couldn’t have known. They saw carvings. What were they supposed to think?”

  Marlos looked fearful. “Spirits don’t die by swords, little man. Only men do.”

  “Your notion of spirits is lacking, I think,” said Dank. “A ghost can frighten a man, but the soldiers of the old war needed more than gooseflesh and frightened farmers. The Archithropian horrors were real. Their masters needed death, far as the eye could see, and their sort of spirits served them well in this regard.”

  “You jest.” Marlos raised his chin. “You’re just making up monsters now. You want us nice and scared.”

  “Afraid not,” Dank denied it. “Morg Umal is no cloud, no gossamer ghost. He’s real. We draw nearer to him every day, for his lair is what stands between us and the Furyon harbor. Somewhere in the coldest of these peaks, he’s said to sleep.”

  Garrett had never heard this myth before. One wonders why he would bring us this way, if in fact this horror awaits us.

  “Tell us your plan then,” demanded Marlos. “If we’re to cross one mountain instead of ten and the path of one monster instead of none, all of us would like to know why.”

  The shadows fled from Dank’s eyes, and the campfire, which had dwindled during his tale, spat a cloud of red embers into the night. “I only wanted you to know,” he said with a slender smile. “The truth is that Morg Umal has likely long moldered away or slumbers in his catacombs far below the earth. One can never tell with horrors. They’ve no minds of their own.”

  “So why tell us?” Marlos was well and truly angry by now. “If the damned thing is no threat, why say a word? Garrett, do us a favor and clip off his head. You lead us to Furyon. We’d all be merrier without this one.”

  Would that I could, Garrett wanted to say. But again, Dank tells us the truth.

  “I only want you to keep your eyes open.” Dank stood and dusted the dirt from his robes. “It’ll probably amount to nothing. But then…think of how angry you’d be if the monster fell upon us and I’d kept my secrets for myself. ”

  The Graveless Guardian

  Three days of marching in the shadowed crags of the Crown Mountains, and three black and chilly nights, and Garrett’s courage was all that was left to him.

  Velum was forgotten, the Furyons the same. Knowing the enemy had taken Andelusia turned his heart to coal and his mind to steel. All that mattered anymore was the aim of his arrows, the strength of his swordarm, and the lives of the others, which he valued above his own. If two nights go by without a kill, we will starve, he reminded himself during his hunts. And if my faith in Dank should falter, the others will soon follow.

  Dank was the journey’s guide, but Garrett became its soul. When Marlos groused, Saul doubted, and Endross brooded in daylong silences, it was he who motivated them, be it with a few words of wisdom or a haunch of freshly-slain meat. They never knew his mind. Nor will they, he swore. They will see the Garrett they want to see, and the journey will continue.

  The mountains were treacherous, to be certain. Dank led the way through craggy valleys, across the abdomens of steep-sloped mountainsides, and through tunnels of trees that were black by day, and utterly petrifying by night. The men’s striding became drudging, and each morn their hopes of returning home paled like the stars just before sunrise. But Garrett kept them moving. The hardest part was leaving Verod, he told himself. Since we are so far, we might as well make something of our deaths.

  Late during the fourth day after crossing the river, he and the others came to rest in a thicket between two grey-flanked mountains. They made camp as the daylight waned, their supper overcast by the larger of the two peaks. The tyrant amongst mountains was the hugest Garrett had ever seen, a colossal, snow-strewn spire. Its flanks were stony and lined with daggerlike trees. Its top cracked the cloud layer and threatened to breach the heavens. Father of all mountains, he thought as he hunkered by the campfire. We dare not falter now.

  While sitting by the fire upon the trunk of a fallen tree, he looked up to the great mountain and then back to his companions. They were solemn, more so than usual. “Now is the time.” He broke the quiet of their supper. “We need to talk.”

  “Do we?” Dank lifted his head.

  “We have gone quietly these past days. I know the reason.” He stirred the pot hanging above the fire and ladled some of the broth into his bowl. “You laid the groundwork for our fear days ago. It is time you explained yourself. You will tell us about Morg Umal.”

  Dank looked at him. “These days have been hard, no?” The little man sipped from his broth. “This place is as unforgiving as I remember. You could walk twenty dawns north to south and come to no end of it.”

  The other men shot Dank the same look as he did. They stared like full moons upon still water, like wolves upon a lamb.

  “Oh, you were serious,” said Dank. “You want more about Morg Umal. I’ll tell you then. Where do I begin?”

  “At the beginning,” said Marlos.

  “Ah, yes. The beginning.” Dank set his bowl down. “Morg Umal, the frozen soul. I’ll say mainly this; he, or it, is a monstrous thing, a keeper of the mountain we mean to cross. No man has seen him in a thousand years, though that hardly means he’s gone. He’s the undeath, the stirrer of nightmares. We should all be thankful he never descended upon Mormist, for that would’ve been a cruel day. Since the spirits of old were made to be eternal, one must conclude that Morg is no less eternal, and one must assume he still exists upon his mountain. Why, only last night I dreamt he watched over us as we slept. I shivered in his presence, for he was so like that which we mean to destroy.”

  “And he guards the way to Furyon?” Marlos glared over the crackling fire.

  “Not guards, no. The war is long over, and his purpose served. He’d never expect an intruder, to say nothing of five. He keeps the mountain, yes…he watches it. He keeps it because it’s the place his masters commanded him to exist upon, and he knows nothing else. He’ll likely be asleep when we pass, but if not, we’ll have no choice but to destroy him.”

  “Destroy him?” Marlos snorted. “I think you should be charged with that, since you seem to be delivering us to his doorstep.”

  “That may be true,” Dank nodded. “But why else would I have gathered the finest warriors of the land to join me, if not to slay anyone…or anything, opposing us?”

  “He can be killed?” asked Saul.

  “Everything has a weakness.” Dank wagged his finger. “The same magicks that created Morg crackle upon my fingertips and in Garrett’s sword. He can be destroyed, oh yes. Though it’s true we’d not be killing him so much as setting him free, since he’s already dead.”

  Saul bent a worried brow. “Magicks. Monsters. Spirits. A year ago, I’d have cracked your head for spouting such nonsense.”

  Dank’s gaze returned to the fire. “Be at ease, Master Saul. And you too, Marlos. I tell you this mainly because it makes for a good story. You like good stories, no? The odds are we’ll slip right past Morg, and he’ll stay snoring in his grave.”

  But Garrett saw the looks of fear on the men’s faces. Even upon Endross, normally as staid as an old oak, he caught glimpses of something other than courage. “You play at two games,” he said to Dank. “You would not mention him if you were not afraid. If we are fated to meet the beast, we will destroy him. Otherwise we should forget we ever heard of him, and you should stay silent on the matter.”

  The men agreed, nodding grimly. “Yes.” Dank lifted his cup and toasted four goblets that did not rise. “That’s the spirit, Garrett. We’ll cross the mountain, Morg’ll stay asleep, and Furyon will know our vengeance.”

  The next morning, Garrett arose at sun’s first light. Before any of the others crept out from beneath their
mounds of wolfskins, he walked in the shadows to the edge of a thicket of frosted sentinels and towering pines. He focused on the great mountain, whose body overshadowed everything, and whose peak was lost beyond a ring of grey cirrus. If there is such a thing as Morg, I must be the one to slay him.

  His heart was hard this morn. The sunlight seemed so like twilight, and it was a battle for him to dwell on things other than Rellen and Andelusia. After a brief breakfast consumed in silence, he followed as Dank took the lead toward the great mountain. The father mountain, he reckoned the colossal spike of stone. Few men of Mormist would be so foolish as we.

  Only a few hours in, the journey up the mountain’s roots turned treacherous.

  He picked his way over huge heaps of stone and climbed walls of naked shale. He plodded through catacombs of rocks and leapt over the bodies of trees shorn long ago from the mountain’s slopes. After the rocky mountain roots came a steep, rain-saturated slope, an incline that began smoothly enough, but soon became cold and tortuous. The massive mountain’s flank was littered with trees, living and dying and dead, a sea of limbs that left his legs bruised and his feet aching. Worst of all was the cold, thin air, growing worse the higher he climbed. I would rather fight a hundred Fury knights than keep climbing, he told himself.

  More likely to survive.

  As ever, Dank remained in the lead. The little man played the part of taskmaster, oft reminding him and the others, “If pitiful old me can make this climb, so can you. As mountains go, this is an easy one. We’ll not go near the top, and we’ll need no tools but hard boots, heavy wolfskins, and vengeful hearts…all of which we have.”

  A few hours before dusk, a quarter of the way up the mountain, and he felt himself slowing. He looked up and saw snow-covered trees and sheer cliffs made of faceless grey stone. He looked down and saw the faces of the others and the abyss at mountain’s bottom.

  “Not far now,” said Dank.

  “For the thousandth time, stop saying that!” Marlos grunted.

  “But it’s true,” Dank protested. “We’re near the mountain middle. We’re almost where we need to be.”

  “Just as we were this morning? As an hour ago? As five bloody breaths ago?”

  “Well perhaps it’s a little farther,” Dank conceded.

  Where they climbed to, summer had no power. Its warmth was shattered by the perpetual mountain gale and warded off by walls of frigid rock. Garrett minded it less than the others, but it pained him even so. Never been so deep in the mountains. We could die out here, and none but the wolves would find us.

  Come nightfall, Dank pressed on. Having battled so hard to climb so high upon, the men lit their torches only to discover that all things green were stricken from the rocky earth. There were no trees anymore, only snow and unyielding stone.

  “Should we stop?” Marlos’s breath was a plume of white.

  “I think so,” panted Saul. “We’re done for today.”

  Garrett knew the answer even before Dank voiced it. “No,” said the little warlock. “The mountain rib’s near, and the path to the other side a few hours’ walk away. If we march until dawn, we’ll be done with it. It’s still summer on the other side.”

  “You’re serious?” Marlos’s eyes widened.

  “I am. What’s one night of suffering compared to what the Furyons will do to Graehelm?”

  Garrett knew that if he followed, the others would do the same. Dank clicked his fingers and lit a violet torch, and sure enough they all trailed after him, dragging their knees like plows through the deepening snow. Garrett’s beard went white with frost, his eyes glazed like the lakes outside Gryphon in winter. With snow-licked eyelids and fingers white as death, he marched. Better to walk all night, he wanted to call to the others. Better to meet death on the mountain than die in our sleep.

  And then he heard a sound that made his heart skip a beat.

  A hundred paces ahead, nigh invisible in the snow, Dank had halted. Garrett heard him chanting, and was reminded of the voice in the Gholesh vale. Sorcery. He pulled Lorsmir’s blade halfway from its sheath.

  “What is it?” Saul halted at his side.

  “Magic,” he said. “Look. The warlock chants.”

  Their beards frosted, their faces haggard, the men lined up beside him. Dank’s chant deepened. His words were guttural, his tongue cracking like a Furyon scourge. And then, a half-breath before Garrett went to silence him, his chant ended. Garrett expected a Furyon storm to descend or for Morg Umal to erupt from the mountainside, but the result of Dank’s spell was far subtler. He made it warmer. He felt the night’s cruel cold lessen and the wind weaken from a gale to a breeze. For once, a worthwhile thing.

  “What did he do?” asked Marlos.

  “He saved us.”

  He wiped the frost from his eyebrows and gazed up the slope. Dank stood high above him, alone at the base of a huge pile of grey stones. The boulders lay beneath a gaping hole in the mountainside, a cave through which the wind flowed freely.

  Garrett waved his fur-wrapped arms to hurry the men, and soon he and the rest stood at Dank’s side. The wind was dead here, the snow no longer swirling, and the air as warm as though the summer sun were shining.

  “Damn warlock. Why not do it before?” Marlos grumbled. “You could’ve saved us hours of freezing.”

  Dank smiled thinly. “I thank you for thinking my strength to be limitless, but I’ve little to spare for the sake of comfort. I needed to clear the snow and find the way, and now I have. Here we are. Through this hole lies the mountain rib. We can follow it all the way to the other side.” Dank pulled his cowl close and clambered up the rocks.

  No sooner did he take two strides than the wind returned, bitterer than before.

  “Damn him, and damn the lot of you for talking me into this,” Marlos groaned as he climbed. “If we survive, each of you gets a knife in the ribs. Starting with you, Garrett.”

  Brushing past Dank, Garrett was first into the tunnel. A dangerous place, he thought, though mercifully free of snow. Dank’s violet torch was enough for him to see by, and so he stayed in the lead, spearing through the shadows without a word.

  A half-hour of winding through the dark, and he ascended through a last layer of mist on the tunnel’s far side. As he emerged, he stepped onto flat ground. The snow was smooth and level beneath his boots. The mountain’s halo of fog and furious wind were far below. He looked up to see stars, sharp as lanterns in the sky, and he saw the path laid out before him.

  “The mountain rib.” Dank emerged beside him. “This shelf of stone goes all the way around the mountain, flat as hammered iron. ‘Tis easier marching from here. Be thankful, brothers.”

  He gazed to the sky. The soft, silver moonlight smiled upon him. Wide as ten men, flat and treeless, the mountain rib curved forever into the night, a path that promised no more climbing, no more fear of falling. He felt safer here, just as Dank promised. The wind was but a gentle breath of snowflakes, and the sheer slopes above sparkling with starlight.

  “I could die here, it’s so peaceful.” Saul stared at the stars.

  “One wonders how you knew about this place.” Marlos puffed like a snowbird, his wolfskins white and billowing.

  With the moon as his guide, Garrett took to the path ahead of everyone. His bones felt brittle, his eyeballs about to shatter, but something about the mountain put him at ease. Like sleep, he thought as he marched upon the smooth, flat snow. Like death, only painless.

  Four hours into the night, far upon the mountain rib, and the men decided to rest.

  The wind was still, and other than their footfalls there were no sounds, no disturbances between mountain and sky. Garrett felt famished from the lack of supper and dizzy from the thin mountain air, but willed himself to show no sign of it. For his respite, he went alone to the edge of the rib, where he gnawed on half-frozen bread and lost himself in the stars. Ande would like it here, he thought.

  “No cooking tonight,” he heard Dank bicker with
Marlos in the snows behind him.

  “I hauled this kindling all the way up, and now you tell me,” Marlos complained.

  “Fire on the mountain would be unwise. Besides, it’d take too long. Sip your ice and nosh on your bread. It’ll be enough until we descend tomorrow and Garrett hunts again.”

  “Easy to say for a spindly little thing like you,” Marlos snorted. “A teacup of wine, and your belly might burst. Why not swirl up some of that purple fire of yours? A breath or two of that would cook these sausages nicely.”

  “No.” Dank stiffened. “The Ur fire sleeps tonight. Others might be watching, and nothing wakes the spirits like a sniff of their own essence.”

  “Gah!” Marlos cursed. “Have it your way. How much longer?”

  “A while longer of resting, and then we go until dawn,” said Dank. “When the sun rises, we’ll have circled the mountain. Just wait and see.”

  The others rested, and Garrett hardly moved. He lay like a child in an open field, gazing skyward, wondering what secrets slept in the darkness between the stars. He basked beneath the moon’s silver light, pretending it was warm sunlight shining down upon him.

  The softness from the heavens bathed his forehead, and sleep stole his senses away.

  Time unknown passed. No dreams captured him, and no memories wandered at the edge of thought. He slept too deeply, his mind intoxicated, and when he crept back to consciousness the night’s serenity felt departed. Too long asleep. His bones creaked and his eyelids felt leaden. Dank should have woken us by now.

  He stretched his arms and looked to the sky, and was dismayed to find the moonlight veiled by clouds, the wind whipping across the snow. Something changed, he sensed. The night is not the same.