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

by J. Edward Neill

  “Yes, well....” Arjobec looked embarrassed. “The Emperor’s decisions make for many hardships. We’re grateful he spared you.”

  She spooned at her steaming oats and nibbled on her eggs. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For the food.”

  Arjobec sipped from a steaming cup of cider. “Our road is simpler now, mistress. Fewer unfriendly eyes, but longer walks and colder nights. No easy thing, the path to Furyon, but you might find it more to your liking.”

  “So be it,” she said. “What comes after the mountains?”

  “The sea.”

  “And after that?”

  “Morellellus, city of spires. From there we’ll go north to our master’s estate in Dageni.”

  “Will I be shared by his servants while I wait for him?” she dared. “And what if he does not return? What if the Grae should kill him?”

  Arjobec dismissed the notion. “Master Daćin won’t die. He’s the Emperor’s chosen. And no, you shan’t be shared. It’s as I have said; you’ll live a good life provided you submit to it. The choice is ultimately yours.”

  Before leaving that morn, he allowed her to wash in the river, whose sparkling shallows meandered through the grasses in the center of the vale. She savored the opportunity. She left her horse and strolled to the cool, iridescent water, which trickled by like a stream of diamonds flowing in the sun. If he left me here, I would stay forever, she daydreamed while splashing her face and scrubbing the dirt from her skin. I would build a house of sticks and stones. I would want for nothing. The cold water felt like sweet sunshine against her naked skin, and the smells of earth and thicket reminded her that she still wanted to live, however shameful being alive often felt.

  “Was it what you’d hoped it would be?” Arjobec came to her after she dressed.

  I would rather stay the night, and another, and another, she thought as she squeezed the water from her locks. “It was,” she said modestly. “Thank you.”

  “Well and good, mistress. It may be the last for a while.”

  “I know.” She looked longingly back to the water.

  He knelt and rummaged through his pack. “Now, because we’ll be on the deep road and we may meet Furyons who won’t respect my office, I believe a change is necessary. You’ll not like this, but it may save your skin. Here, take these.”

  She knit her brow at the things he gave her. Strips of dark cloth, brown rags, a sackcloth dress, and furs fit only for dogs. “Pardon, milord, but does our master wish me to be ugly?”

  “The rags and cloths are for your hair,” he explained. “Hide it as best you can. Make yourself undesirable. Less like a flower, more like a mouse. The sackcloth you’ll don atop what you wear now. Will it be itchy? Yes. Ugly? Certainly. But might it save your life? Quite possibly.”

  “I do not understand.” She frowned at the smelly pile of raiment.

  “I expect not.” He shrugged. “But if you remember the looks of the men at Minec, and if you sense the same of my countrymen as do I, you’ll know it’s best to look ragged rather than rich, and wilted instead of pretty.”

  A moment’s contemplation, and she grasped his meaning. He knows, she thought. He sees it too. Something is the matter with the other Furies. Their skins are grey and their teeth falling out. They look hungry, not for food but for life. My life. She shuddered to recall some of the Furies she had encountered. Their faces had been drawn, their eyes hollow, and their swords always in hand.

  Arjobec pressed the rags into her palms and turned his back while she did as he asked. It almost hurt to tie her hair back and hide every scarlet strand beneath the ugly, colorless strands of cloth, but it seemed a small price to pay to avoid Furyon torment. “Is this good?” She grimaced as she lowered the sackcloth over her shoulders.

  “Good enough. There are few Furyons with hair like yours or skin so pale. To disguise yourself until we reach our master’s manse is wisest.”

  He leapt atop his horse, and she atop hers. In the beginning, she had expected him to bind and gag her, or lead her mount from a barbed chain, but by now she knew better. So long as she obeyed, he would never strike her or submit her to the humility of an ordinary captive. And yet I deserve it. She sagged as she trailed him down the valley and deeper into the mountains. How many innocents have died while I, the betrayer, have lost not a single drop of blood?

  Midday, and after a brief rest in a thicket between two valleys, she rode into a low, dark valley, the hundredth of its kind. She felt uncomfortable today. More than once, she thought she glimpsed a shadow lurking behind her, and yet every time she looked, she saw nothing.

  Arjobec seemed to sense her distraction. He pulled back on his reins, startling her. “What is it, mistress?” he questioned. “What are you looking for?”

  “Nothing. No one.”

  “A hundred times you’ve looked.” He peered into the dense forest behind her. “Did you see a bear? A wolf?”

  “No,” she said unconvincingly. “Truly, I see nothing.”

  “Mistress, I see your eyes. For many days, you’ve watched the empty road even though no one is there. What is it? Tell me what you see. Do you seek to escape? Have I been unkind? Have I not shielded you from what the others might do?”

  “Milord, I…it is just that…I wonder if we are being followed.”

  With narrowed eyes, he glanced again to the forest behind her. The trees were tall and dark, the spaces beneath full of shadows, and yet there was no one. “Have you seen someone?” he asked.

  “No, milord…” The truth dangled on the tip of her tongue. “But I sense someone is there. You will not believe me, but I have dreamed it. I saw a shadow at our backs. I heard footfalls when there are none.”

  Another squint into the endless corridor of trees, and he shook his head. “Mistress, there’s no one. Come now. We’re lagging today.”

  She kicked her horse’s sides and trotted ahead. I know what I feel. She resisted a thousand urges to glance behind her. There is something, someone.

  I will pretend otherwise, but I know.

  After one valley traversed, narrow and dark, and another wide and swept with pale grasses, the hour grew late. The sun plunged from its zenith, and darkness crept closer. At length she forgot the shadows at her back. Beneath the cloudless sky, crisp and violet, she rode in amiable silence until she and Arjobec reached a river carving its way between two grey mountains. The river was shallow and swift, its water foaming against white rocks. She might have asked to stop and drink, but the bridge crossing it was guarded by twelve Furyons.

  “Say nothing,” warned Arjobec. “These are Chakran’s men, not our master’s.”

  The bridge was a marvel of Mormist craftsmanship, a great wooden arch spanning the river in a single, graceful bound. On its far side, an abandoned village and a pasture as green as her eyes lay peaceably, and beyond that the mountains climbed higher than ever. She saw none of it. Only the Furyon soldiers occupied her gaze, only the blacks of their visors, the jutting tines upon their mail, and the cold Dageni steel waiting in their grasps.

  “Why are they here?” she whispered. “This is the middle of nowhere. Why guard it?”

  “Shhhhhhhh.” Arjobec silenced her.

  He led her to the bridge. The unhappy cadre of Furyon knights awaited like executioners, their faces invisible behind their Dageni masks. She knew not a word of the Fury tongue, but listened all the same to the exchange between Arjobec and the tallest of the Furyon guards. The conversation seemed terse, even hostile. My warden has no power here, she knew. They could kill him and send us in pieces down the river.

  Even after the argument, when she crossed safely to the bridge’s other side, she felt the guards’ eyes biting at her back. Like statues, they remained, moving little and speaking none.

  She dared not ask what was wrong with them.

  So went her travels for the next seven days.

  All of it was as Arjobec promised. The road through the mountains was easy by day, and bone-gnawingl
y cold at night. She suffered it better than her warden, she reckoned, for though the winds gave her shivers and the howling of the wolves chilled her blood, she felt numb to the worst of it. Having no hope had its privileges. The death of her heart rewarded her with the absence of fear. Three times, she and he came to Fury outposts, and each time was the same. They ask questions, but Arjo’s answers do not matter. They stare at me with grim fascination. They guard places that need no guarding. Whatever it is they want, I do not care.

  On the sixteenth day since leaving Orye, she and Arjobec trotted toward a tower taller than any other she had seen.

  The pale spire guarded a pass between two mountains, watching over a gloomy village lying in the mountains’ shadows. Perhaps there are Graefolk here? She wondered. But the closer she rode, the more she saw the truth. The village was dead. A Furyon garrison of a few hundred occupied the tower and a dozen hollow dwellings below. Everything else was empty.

  Weary, she trotted into the city behind Arjobec. Her body was not made for such a long journey, and by now she felt like falling from her saddle and plunging into sleep on the bare stones of the village’s only street. If not for her hunger, she might have.

  “We’ll gather fresh provisions,” Arjobec explained after a harsh conversation with a quartet of Furyon soldiers. “Say nothing. Speak to no one.”

  “Why not?” Her exhaustion made her defiant. “What does it matter? The worst they can do is kill me.”

  Arjobec shook his head. “Mistress, you disappoint me. I hoped by now your acceptance would be complete.”

  “Sometimes it is,” she murmured. “But I should not have to explain why it is not always so.”

  As ever, he seemed to understand. “Well and good. But don’t dream of escape now, not here. We have leave to occupy the tower for two nights. This may be our last chance for comfort before Morellellus. I suggest you try to enjoy it.”

  At the tower, tall and brooding, a single Furyon soldier greeted Arjobec and her. The soldier’s helmet was off, and for once a black blade not swaying in his hand. But he looks just like the others, she thought as the soldier and Arjobec spoke. I wonder why Arjobec is the only one different. Maybe because his armor is silver, not black, and his sword of Grae-metal, not of shadow steel. Maybe he is from Davin Kal.

  She understood little of what was said. It seemed at first the two spoke about her, but then their tempers changed noticeably, and the Furyon guardian’s voice became like none she had ever heard. His speech, once calm and disinterested, became sinister and soulless. She did not know why she was afraid, for he was only a man, but his every utterance crawled into her ears like a eulogy, and way he licked his pallid lips suggested he might like to kill her on the spot and make a feast of her bones.

  After her horse was taken and the tower doors opened, Arjobec forced a weak smile. “That was one of the Emperor’s guard, the finest of Furyon. We’re honored to have seen him.”

  If the sallow-skinned, cold-eyed soldier had been Furyon’s best, she shuddered to imagine the worst. “Are they all like that?”

  “Don’t be afraid.” Arjobec tried to placate her. “The mountains have an ill effect on many of us. The cold nights and thin air aren’t to our liking, and some of us are less friendly for it. Come now. Forget what you’ve seen. Your quarters are in the tower’s top. I think you might like it there.”

  He led her through a pair of leaf-shaped doors and into the tower’s grand foyer. Were she not captive, she might have thought the tower innards magnificent. Whitestone statues of Mormist heroes lined the walls, illuminated by gentle light filtering in through scores of stain-glassed windows. A long stair made of glasslike marble coiled upward, its silver railings as intricate as any embroidery.

  Following Arjobec’s lead, she climbed the stair in silence, half-imagining it might shatter beneath her feet if she stepped too harshly. She was glad only for one thing. I see no Furies. Doubtless they are in their rooms, plotting many deaths.

  What lay in the great hollowness of most of the tower, she never saw. Arjobec led her straight to the top, passing dozens of closed doors on the way, hurrying her as if afraid. His breath was spent after the climb, and his age showing as much as ever. Panting, he delivered her to the topmost chamber and swung it door open. Shards of sunlight spilled over her, bars of white light invading the space beyond the door like white swords slashing through a score of windows.

  “Your room, mistress.” Arjobec ushered her inside.

  She blinked against the sunlight. Against her expectations, the chamber beyond the door appeared untouched by the Furyons. It was richly furnished, flush with mirrors, cedar chests, couches woven of pale thread, and a massive bed, curtained on all sides with waifish blue silk. She took three tentative steps within. Velvet carpet greeted her sore, sandaled feet, the first soft surface she had walked on in weeks. More impressive was the view. Through each of twenty windows, she glimpsed a different view of the mountains. She saw snowy peaks here, forested precipices there. I would build a tower here, too, she mused at the wisdom of the Mormist folk in erecting such a place. So beautiful. No wonder the Furies do not occupy this room.

  “Rest, mistress.” Arjobec waved her further therein. “You have two days, and then we leave for Furyon.”

  He turned to go, but she reached out for him. “Arjobec,” she said his name for the first time ever, “why are you not like the others?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are too kind. Your war has destroyed everything, and yet I find it impossible to hate you.”

  “I do only as instructed, mistress,” the old soldier sighed. “Our master ordered this. Had he wished otherwise, I would’ve done it, whatever it was.”

  “Oh…” She shivered.

  Once he left her, she tore the rags from her hair, shrugged off her sackcloth dress, and slumped on the edge of the massive bed. The sunlight bathed her, thawing her as though her skin were ice. She did not believe where she was, and she did not know what to think. Arjobec is different. The rest of them are diseased, but with what ailment? They look half-dead. Will it be like this in Furyon? Is everything he tells me a lie?

  Troubled, she sank onto the soft, cushiony bed and let her hair spill across the clean white linens. Why? She asked herself. Why am I here? Grant me courage, sun and stars. I do not want to go to Furyon, but I do not want to die.

  Her dreams were deep that afternoon. Long before dusk, and long before anything of the world disturbed her again, she plummeted into the dark ocean of her imagination. She glimpsed the Furyon Emperor, his broad shoulders teeming with Dageni tines, his beard like a nest of snakes. Hovering over her cage, he whispered to his underlings and laughed at her, knowing she could not understand.

  Much worse was when he and his cohorts faded. In the absence of the Furies, she found herself alone, floating atop a black ocean beneath a starry night sky. Voices whispered in the darkness between the stars. She remembered hearing them twice before, urging her to flee Verod and prodding her to give her secrets to the Furyon commander. The voices said different things in this dream. They promised glory even as they threatened. They spoke of devouring her, but told her she was immortal, that nothing the Furies did could ever harm her. She wanted to dive beneath the black waters to escape them, but she was frozen. She could but stare, mouth wide and bones quaking, as they tormented her.

  The next morn arrived, and the sun was hidden by clouds. Untouched, her tray of breakfast sat cooling at the end of her bed. The fog, thick as smoke, clung to every surface in her room, and the only sound was that of the rain rushing beyond her windows. Cold, so cold.

  She stood at a window in a gossamer nightgown gleaned from one of the chests. Her hearth was quiet and her gown too thin to protect her, but she did not mind. She liked the cold, for it suited her mood.

  From that morning until late afternoon, a summer storm clattered against the mountains. The thunder banged on her shutters and the drizzle dampened her sills, and she found she
rather enjoyed it. Arjobec came just twice to her chamber that day. He delivered food and new raiment before leaving hastily, seeming hurried to attend other matters. He told her he feared no escape attempt on her part, and rightfully so. She had no intentions of leaving the room. Rather than hope for freedom, she sat and watched the rain wash over the stones of the nameless village, an empty glaze in her eyes.

  She dreamed none that night. Alone but oddly content, she awoke the next morning to a golden sunrise. There was no fog, no remnants of the rain. As she stretched by her window, Arjobec knocked, and no sooner did she answer than he shouldered his way inside and bid her to hurry. “Mistress, it’s time. Gather yourself quickly. The road ahead is a long one.”

  “Can we stay another day?” She knew the answer.

  The old soldier shook his head. “The last ships leave for Morellellus in less than a week. If we arrive late, we’ll be consigned to the war-camp for a month, maybe more. I think it best we hurry. The harbor’s an unhappy place. You wouldn’t like it. You wouldn’t last.”

  I would not care, she said to herself. As Arjobec piled her new clothing atop her bed, she gazed out of the nearest window. The mountains looked the same as two days ago, but she no longer thought them beautiful. Prison bars, they are. Failed to keep the Furies out. Failed to keep me in.

  More sullen than yesterday, she stuffed her satchel with the new clothes Arjobec gave her. She dropped a set of winter wools into the bag, along with a shapeless shirt, two unflattering caps, and a skirt which was little more than a white sheet with a cloth belt. Arjobec gave her an apple for breakfast, but the thing tasted rotten, and she tossed it out the window when he was not looking. Her satchel dangling from her shoulder, she trailed him out of the room. Goodbye, pretty room, she thought as the door thudded shut behind her. It should have been me instead of the apple.

  After descending the tower stairs, she stepped into the daylight, where a new horse awaited her. He was a broad-bellied, grey-maned stallion, far huger than the one that had brought her here. My new friend. She climbed into the saddle. Do you know where we are going? Likely not. I reckon I will probably sit in your saddle all the way to a Furyon gallows.