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

by J. Edward Neill

  And then he saw the mansion beyond.

  He knew right away what he was looking at. The wounded woman at Dalak’s manor had spoken rightly, for House Thure was unmistakable. The great household corrupted the northern horizon, striking out at the sky as few other dwellings in the world could boast. It was a huge, many-towered manse, framed on its sides by scores of ancient oaks and numerous smaller homes. Its mirrored windows and black, steel-plated towers looked almost Furyon in make. But for the fact that the manor was two-hundred years old, he might have believed it possible.

  The lantern-bearers turned eastward. Glad to see them go, he settled upon action without forethought. He bolted blindly into the dark fields between his thicket and House Thure’s labyrinth gardens. The grass flowed past his knees like the waters of a cold and shallow river, and the wind chilled him beneath his raiment. The run was exhilarating, and for the first time since leaving Gryphon he felt a tiny sense of hope, a sense that his father might be near. Streaking though the grey dawnlight, he crossed a last field and arrived at the copse of oaks guarding House Thure’s western flank.

  As he hunkered amid the trees, he heard riders. Twenty mounted men, armored in black hauberks, exploded into his sights from somewhere behind the great manor. He feared at first they had seen him, but none of them raised their black-bladed spears in his direction. Abertham’s plan, he hoped against hope. Maybe it worked. Or maybe Aeric loosed his tongue and they’re searching for me.

  The sun’s grey light caught the riders just so. Spears flashing and eyes full of murder, they tore across the fields and took to the southbound road. He crouched among the oaks, watching as their passage sent plumes of water and mud flying into the air. The nearest of them came within a stone’s throw, but soon they all were gone.

  He breathed. His heartbeat slowed to a steady drum. Too close. If I’d been in the grass, my head would be stuck on a pig pole. A steady drip of water pattered atop his head, the oak leaves weeping in memory of yestereve’s rain. The clouds of daybreak looked as gloomy as the night before, the skies promising more rain to come. As quiet as the breeze, he removed his ruined cloak and tucked it beside the roots of the nearest oak. His stomach groaned, begging to be filled, but he paid it no mind. No time. Every moment I waste, Father suffers.

  Quiet as a cutpurse, he crept closer to House Thure. The three manors he had spotted earlier seemed but shanties compared to the Lord of Mooreye’s home. He slipped by a dozen oaks until he set foot upon the edge of a maze of hedgerows, all of which looked grey in the shadow of House Thure’s towers. Look at this place. He paused at the edge of the grass. No wonder he lives here instead of in the city.

  The manor was unlike all the other houses he had seen, and not only because of its size. Its walls were hewn of smooth, almost glossy white stone, and its roof inlaid with ribs of blackened metal. There were six towers, each of them narrow and perilously tall, their pinnacles like black needles pricking the bottoms of the clouds.

  The garden was untended. The carriage lanes were empty. Nervous in spite of his boldness, he rounded the hedges and cut through the gardens to arrive within sight of the main entrance, which lay at the top of a black marble stair. Graven into the huge double doors, the eagle of House Thure gazed grimly down at him. The raptor glyph was elegantly carved, but to his eyes it looked dangerous, watchful over the secrets of its house. Father… he whispered, grant me strength if you’re here…forgiveness if you’re not.

  He crouched in the dewy grass, waiting with baited breath for the doors to fly open, for a cry of ‘Intruder!’ to ring out, or for an arrow to streak from one of a thousand windows. When no arrows cut the wind and no guards swarmed out, he clambered to his feet. His plans felt dead-ended, his courage overreaching. Never expected to get this far, he realized. I’m a thief who doesn’t know where his treasure is. Do I go in the front or the back? In a door or a window? If I were Nentham, would I keep my prisoners here? Or would I have killed them weeks ago?

  The argument in his head was short-lived. He sprinted across the carriage lane, leapt into the garden on the other side, and hugged the walls beneath the windows. As he rounded the manse’s western tower, he had no idea what to expect, whether it be barred gates, impassable walls, or a host of guards ready and waiting. His palm sweating on his spear, he planned for the worst and hoped for nothing. He skirted the white walls like a child in hiding, his palms brushing the cold, smooth stones. He was a knife in the morning’s light fog, a common burglar.

  He heard a horn blaring somewhere behind him, but it sounded too far away. From the city, he assumed. Thure’s army rallying to slaughter Abertham. Ignoring the ugly sound, he moved in the shadow of the manor’s western wall and rounded another tower to the rear of the house. Some hundred sideways steps later, he froze dead against the pallid stone. He heard thunder rumbling, the distant horn blaring, and voices drawing near. Exiting the rear of the manor were six people: two elderly, aristocratic men and a pale, skinny woman in a violet dress, the lot of them trailed by three young servants. The group walked swiftly in his direction. He sucked in a deep breath and bolted across a flagstone path, sliding in the wet grass and into cover behind a broad, bright evergreen.

  “A fine king, he will make,” he overheard the lady noble say as she approached. “But oh, the quickness. Why give the poor so many weapons? What if they turn on us? What’sthe hurry?”

  One of the men laughed. “Quickness is just what we require, madame. Without it, we may as well announce our intentions to the whole of Grae.”

  “Indeed,” murmured the third. “To be slow is to be dead.”

  “But what will happen should it go awry?” the lady asked shrilly. “All the weed-chewers and woodfolk will turn their spears on us!”

  The second of the two men rasped. The rattle in his lungs betrayed some sickness, which Rellen smiled secretly at. “Think not of that,” the aristocrat coughed. “Think only of what spoils will be given to your house. Think only faithful thoughts, and our master will remember us come the day.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the lady. “So you say. So we’ve all been warned.”

  The aristocrats never saw him. Caught up in their banter, they held their noses too high, while their servants’ gazes remained too grovelingly low. The six folk hurried along the flagstone path around the western side of the house and passed out of earshot.

  He sighed more with disgust than relief when they were gone. Glad to be alone again, he looked to the sky. Rain, will you? He pleaded with the clouds. The harder you fall, the louder I can be.

  He crept behind one evergreen, then another and another. The trees were dense in the rear of Nentham’s house, but manicured enough to allow him to wend through. After twenty trees were circumvented and a small, private garden crossed, he halted behind another wall of hedgerows. He was within sprinting distance of the manor’s rear doors, he saw. He glimpsed the tall, dark portals beneath a black-stoned, ivy-covered awning, and he glimpsed two soldiers standing guard. His heart sank when he saw them. I suppose it’s too much to ask, he beseeched the gathering clouds. But if you’d be so kind as to strike the two of them with lightning, I’d be grateful.

  Pleading for lightning was too much, but the rain was another matter. Even as he crouched behind the hedgerow, the storm arrived. The thunder cracked, the clouds vomited, and rain shattered the air. He knew his chance had come, for the morning was thrown into darkness. Dark. Sodden. The best time for a thief, he thought as he flattened himself to the drowning earth and peered below the hedges.

  He saw the guards amble under the awning, their eyes glazed from lack of sleep. Their weapons were stout blades sheathed in tawny leather upon their belts. Their chests were form-fitted behind black cuir bouilli, while upon their tabards was sewn the same raptor glyph he had seen emblazoned on the southern doors. Ten paces behind them, the rear doors were sealed shut. They were heavy, oaken things, too thick to dream of smashing. Still easy, he tried to convince himself. Charge them. Kill them
both without making a sound. Take their key. Get inside. Lock everyone else out.

  Simple, right?

  His fortune was ever the rain. Crawling between the hedgerows, he sneaked within a short dash of the awning without the guards noticing. He wished he had a sword instead of a dagger and spear, but then he saw something that distracted him from all his thoughts of violence. The keys…still in the door… He swiped the water from his brow for the hundredth time. Thank you, Father.

  He laid his spear into the grass, sucked in three sharp breaths, and peeled his dagger from its lashing around his calf. The guards were neck deep in debate, looking up only occasionally to observe the oak limbs thrashing in the wind. They never saw him coming. He darted across the grass and descended on them like a lion upon sleeping mice. Another day, another lifetime, he might have felt craven for attacking them so, but not this morn. He opened their throats in less than a breath, and in the slashing rain and booming thunder their dying gasps sank like stones to the bottom of the sea. He pretended he was as strong as Bruced as he slid their bodies across the grass and into the trees, and he tiptoed as lightly as Therian when he crept back to the door and slid inside the mansion.

  Inside, the house was dark. The rain was quiet, and the thunder muted. The hinges cried out like a wounded pig when he shut the door behind him. He prepared for the worst, but when he heard no cries of alarm, he ducked into a gloomy pantry and hunkered beside a cupboard until his terror fled. The guards’ blood stained his hands, and in the glow of the pantry’s lonely lamp, he made his peace with having killed them. There was no other way, he explained to himself. But they were so young… If they had caught me, would they have had the nerve to kill me? Yes, they would’ve. It had to be done. But did it really? Yes, it did. For Father and Jacob. For everyone.

  Now stand up and be a man.

  How many lives of Gryphon has Nentham taken?

  He crouched and clutched his dagger. The house’s rear hall was lightless save for a sprinkling of candles and lamps flickering in their sconces. More unnerving was the eerie, pervasive silence, a quiet unbroken only by the rain and wind buffeting against unseen windows. The place felt haunted. He half expected a ghost to greet him, and a large part of him screamed that his entrance had been a folly. With a shiver, he rose to his feet. His eyes adjusted to the dimness, and beyond the pantry he saw a hallway leading into a vast, seven-walled dining chamber. It all looked so clean, tidier than anything in Gryphon, polished to a state of cold perfection.

  He slunk into the shadows of the hallway and eased his way toward the dining chamber beyond. He glimpsed but a few lamps glowing in the vast chamber at the hall’s end, but was able to imagine it stuffed full of aristocrats nonetheless. Dozens of them. Sneering and laughing. No doubt planning the fall of Gryphon over venison and wine.

  In the center of the great room sat a hulking table covered by a thick, crimson tablecloth. The table was surrounded by some forty chairs, and from the aroma of fresh cedar, he guessed the furnishings had been recently crafted, a testament to the priorities of the wealthy even in times of war. The walls were embellished with gilded plaques, polished coats of arms, and unflattering portraits of the Mooreye aristocracy. Surrounded by the painted faces of his foes, he lurked at the hallway’s end and glanced in all directions. There were six ways out, six open doors leading into darkness. What have I gotten myself into? Which one do I take?

  He took two tentative steps into the grand chamber, but before he could decide which doorway to choose, he heard footsteps drumming in the nearest passage to his left. A light wavered in the shadows beyond. Heavy boots crashed upon hard floors. He sprinted to the great table and ducked underneath, where the crimson tablecloth buried him in blackness as though he were hiding in a cave. He peered beneath the tablecloth and glimpsed a man enter the room with an oil lamp blazing in his hand. The man crossed the room , and Rellen perceived him as naught but a shadow. The man walked casually past the table. Rellen glimpsed the bottom half of his sword. The blade was of Furyon make, its tip the smoky hue of volcanic glass.

  He expected guards, but the sight of a Furyon weapon crawled beneath his skin. The Furies are everywhere. He felt his blood run molten. Am I too late? Have they already crossed the Dales? Is home in ashes? He could hardly stand not knowing, and he soon succumbed to rashness. How can I sit here? Me, a soldier, hiding from a traitor! I’m not Garrett. I’m not so cold. I’m not a killer, and yet…

  He burst from beneath the table as swiftly as a sunbeam and plunged his dagger between the sentry’s shoulders. His unwary prey let out no cry, for his heart was pierced and his lifeblood spilled like scarlet wine onto Nentham’s grey carpets. His lamp extinguished, the man shuddered and slumped, dead before he knew what had struck him. Rellen cupped the man’s mouth with his hand, stifling the small death rattle.

  He sat in morbid silence for a long time afterward. Three men murdered. I’m the monster now. His senses slow to return, he dragged the man beneath the table. Before the tablecloth fell, he dared a glance at his face. I know him. His face turned pale. He came to Father’s hall four winters ago. We supped together. We clinked cups and laughed. From the Dales, he came, with a wife and three sons. But why? You fool, why’d you do it?

  He let the tablecloth fall. In the aftermath, he grieved alone. His skin went cold, his gaze blurred, and his mouth felt drier than a parched field. When the worst of his guilt subsided, he stood, his fingers dripping red. Think, he commanded himself. Don’t weep. He would’ve killed you just the same. He wiped clean his mind’s slate and returned to the present. His father and Jacob were all that mattered. He knew they might be locked away in one of the towers, bound in a wayside room, or not here at all.

  While agonizing on what next to do, he caught sight of the Furyon stiletto that had fallen from the dead man’s waist. He knelt and plucked the thing from a circle of bloodstained carpet. The long, skinny blade was as black as pitch, made of the same weightless alloy as the sword Garrett had used at Gholesh. He thought to keep it, but a moment before sliding it into his belt, he tapped its pommel twice upon the floor. Hollow? The floors of most manors in Gryphon were fashioned of stone, but the floor of the dining chamber sounded void beneath his tapping. A wooden floor? A basement beneath? He pressed his bloody palm to the floor, leaving a handprint. Or maybe even a dungeon?

  He chose the passage the dead man had come from. Its windowless walls were dark and many-doored. He took to the shadows as though he were a burglar, cracking each door to glimpse bedrooms, studies, kitchens, and rooms full of books. The longer he sneaked, the more he begun to understand the vastness of Nentham’s wealth. Pillowed chairs were everywhere, befriended by small, polished tables whose tops were littered with trinkets of gold and glass. Every wall was covered with murals, paintings of people and places that seemed to tell of a place other than Graehelm. After a time, he noticed the hall curving inward. He deduced that if he followed it to its end, he would circle the whole of House Thure, ending up right back in the grand dining room, where the man’s cold corpse would await him. Shuddering, he moved on. There were no sentries. There were no sounds at all. Thrice during his sneaking, he came across barren chambers, round rooms with stone walls not covered by tapestries. He guessed these were the tower chambers, for within each he glimpsed a stair circling upward. But which one do I climb? I’ve no time. Nentham’s meeting won’t last forever.

  After circling half the house in the endless hallway, he crept within sight of the house’s grandest chamber. While not so vast as Emun’s hall at Gryphon Keep, Nentham’s grand foyer dominated the forefront of House Thure. The two-story room was glorious by any standard, its polished floors watched by twenty tall and narrow windows. The grey daylight speared its way through each pane of glass, illuminating some parts of the great room, leaving others in shadow. Paintings, embroidery, and works of gold and silver lined every wall, a wealth of art worth more than many cities of the realm. In the room’s center, a grand stairwell vaulted up
ward, its broad marble steps dressed with red and violet carpets.

  He paid little heed to all of the room’s riches. His gaze was for one thing only. There. He glimpsed what he had hoped for. Behind the stairs. A niche, a handrail. A stair beneath the stair.

  A moment before his recklessness took hold, he realized he was not alone. He froze in the aperture between the hall and grand foyer, catching sight of the sentry standing watch at the front door. A tree of a man, the guard’s wolfish gaze was fixed through a window. Rings of mail were visible beneath his tabard, and his visored helm was the same that some men wore during tilting, and others during war. More troubling was the long-hafted axe hanging loosely from his grasp. Like an executioner’s axe. He wished he were equipped likewise. If I had the same, I’d fight him. No throat-cutting, no daggers in the back. Just me and him.

  His next choice wounded his honor. A last glance at the guard, and he fled back the way he had come. He tread the hallways like an assassin, hearing no one and seeing nothing. Backtracking fully a third of the mansion, he halted when he reached the entrance to the southeastern tower. Either the house is empty for Nentham’s gathering or its servants are ghosts, he reckoned as he cracked the tower door open and slipped inside. The air within the tower felt fresher and cooler than in the rest of the house, the scent of rain strangely welcoming. He ascended the curling stair, stopping once to peer out of a window. The storm outside was waning, but the sky no less dreary than before. After a few hundred steps, he reached an oaken door. It was the way to the mansion’s second story, and to the grand stairs, a better angle on the guard, and a shorter route to the stair beneath the stairs.

  He put his palm on the door, but did not push. His gaze trailed upward, following the tower stair to its highest point. He glimpsed another door at the stairwell top, a portal fashioned of rusted iron with thick chains strung across its middle. The tower top…a prison room? Father?