by Tim Akers
There were bodies all around, their wasted limbs as tangled as driftwood after the flood has receded. They wore Thyber black, the crescent and hand worked into their shields and the pommels of their broken swords. Their skin was stretched thin and gray, but none of them had any obvious wounds.
“Death will count his debt, and find these souls missing,” Ian said. “And then what will you do?”
“That is none of your business!” the gheist replied. “My brother has slipped in his duties! And these few lingered in my realm, and so I thought… I hoped…” The strange man rubbed willow-thin hands together. “There should be more to my home than passing guests. I deserve more than that! He is younger, after all, younger and greedier and so damned full of himself.”
“Keeping these souls is not your domain, Night, and if you will not bow to the old god, you must submit to another,” Ian said. He bent to the nearest corpse, rolling its head on the stone. “I am no priest, but I know Cinder’s rites as well as anyone.”
“No, you can’t!” the gheist cried out. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!” Before it could interrupt, however, Ian sketched the icon of the crescent moon on the man’s forehead, muttering the prayers of severing that would free the dead to return to the quiet. He wasn’t sure he was doing it right, but he had seen the ritual often enough in his days at war.
For extra measure, he added in a little of the prayers spoken by Cahl whenever one of the druids died. Ian was just finishing when the gheist’s bony hand gripped his shoulder and shoved him aside.
“If he hears that call, you’ll ruin everything!” it whispered harshly. “I’ve worked too hard…” But it was too late.
The dead man changed, and the world with him.
A thin web of dark ink crept from the traditional tattoos on the body’s face. It bled down his cheeks, limning his teeth in shadow and oil. The gheist flinched back, as though the body was on fire. The nearby waves of fog grew sharp, grays bleaching white, shadows diving into absolute blackness. Inky tendrils coiled from the body like flames of black light. The body became a pyre, the flames spreading to the other corpses that were scattered around the outcropping of rock. Their burning linens curled into the air. The metal of their armor pinged and cracked, leather buckles boiling away, chain melting into silver beads.
Only their flesh didn’t burn, and as the flames consumed them, a voice could be heard in the sky.
“What is this?” the sky asked. “Who has opened this door into night? Why am I needed here?”
“Eldoreath!” the gheist shouted, throwing its arms wide in supplication. “I bring to you these humble dead, who passed through my realm, and now are delivered unto yours! May they pass into your care with…”
“Silence,” the voice said. The dark bonfires grew and roared and then disappeared, and the bodies with them, but the heavy presence remained. “Did you think to deceive me, brother?”
“No, no! It was…” the gheist looked nervously around, then threw his arm in Ian’s direction. “It was this mortal! He tried to hide in my realm, but I found him, and flushed him from the shadows! These men are his responsibility!”
“There is no courage in night, is there?” Ian said, standing. “It’s as my father said. Do you wish you’d let us go?” he asked the gheist.
“These mortals, binding when they should worship, hiding when they should rule!” The sky grew closer, the stars blotted out, followed by a sudden storm of lightning and then ash. “Are you one of Sacombre’s pet shamans? Or do you follow a different… No…” The voice in the sky trailed off, then boomed back to life. “NO! You are of Malcolm’s blood! This is perfect!”
“As I knew it would be, brother!” the gheist howled. “That is why I trapped him here! It was only a matter of time before I brought him to you. And there is another, tangled in the forests of night. Shall I fetch her, as well?”
“There is no need.” The sky rolled, and then the storm battered them. Lightning lashed the stone, carving runes in cinder and scar. “I will take what is mine.” The presence of death washed over the stone. Ian flinched away, covering his face with his arm. Chips of stone cut his skin. The ground shifted under his feet. He looked down to see that the rock was as insubstantial as melting ice. It shivered and split.
Another darkness entered the sky, darker than night, older than fear.
“This was a mistake,” Ian muttered through gritted teeth. “Elsa!” he cried at the top of his lungs. “There’s some… I think this is the kind of problem a vow knight might be able to fix!”
There was a tremendous crack, and Ian lay face-up. As he struggled to his feet, he saw the night gheist torn apart like a rag doll. Then a twisting form of ink-black muscles and smiling claws began to materialize in the storm.
“Your father stood against me, young Blakley,” it said. “I will take his insolence out of your skin. Yes, that will be very satisfying. Very.”
“Definitely a mistake,” Ian said. He turned and ran down the collapsing spit of stone. Lightning chased him, cracking stone and burning the air in his lungs. When he reached the end, Ian jumped once again.
There was nothing graceful, this time, nothing dreamlike. He fell, twisting, screaming, clawing at empty space as gravity plucked him out of the air and threw him down. He fell like a stone until the forest appeared like dark cracks in the sheet of fog below. Only a breath to think about it, and then Ian was crashing through the trees, dry branches shattering against him, the pain knocking sense from his head and air from his body.
He crashed into a thick copse of trees, shattering them, then lay there, unmoving, unthinking, without breath or thought. Above him, rain began to fall from the churning sky, thick, heavy drops of pitch that sizzled when they spattered against his face. He stared up at the sky and waited.
Elsa’s face eclipsed the view, her ash-scarred face smiling grimly.
“My hero,” she said, kicking Ian in the side to roll him over, watching carefully until he took a deep, jagged breath. “Not dead?”
“Not yet,” he said. He lay in the center of her cage. The life was gone from the tree, the limbs lying about in a ruin of bark and cinder. Elsa had taken her frustrations out on her captor. “Soon, I think,” he continued, “but not yet.”
“Good. What’s coming?” Elsa asked. She looked up at the pitch-raining sky, twisting her sword around in her grip. “Servants of night? Demons of nightmare?”
“Nothing so small,” Ian answered. “The god of death.” He rolled onto his heels, steadying himself, trying to find his balance.
“The god of… death,” Elsa repeated. “So we should run?”
“That would seem wise,” Ian answered. He stood, weaving back and forth on his feet like a drunkard. “Though I’m not sure where we run to, or how.”
The forest shivered again, the trees around them quivering like a wind chime. The ground shifted precariously as the world righted itself, aligning again with the natural order of tree trunks and limbs, the ground below, the sky above. Ian and Elsa lurched against the cage’s remaining walls, which crumbled quickly under their weight.
They steadied themselves for a minute, then started running.
The storm blew through the forest behind them, crushing trees and undergrowth, tearing the earth apart. Cracks formed in the ground—shifting plates of stone jutting into the air that quickly crumbled under the force of the tempest. Shards of broken rock turned the air into a swarm of stinging grit. Ian stumbled as he ran, faster and faster, bouncing off the ground when it shifted, dodging rubble, Elsa bounding at his side until they ran out of ground and could run no farther.
Then they fell.
And the world fell with them.
8
SHE EXPECTED THE light. Gwen’s memories were wrapped in light, in the vibrant heat of spring as the season’s first hunt took her to the forests of her youth, in the warm sun of summer, in the tenderly waning fire of autumn as stores were laid in for the long, bitter winter.
What shocked her was the pain.
It felt as if her veins had been replaced with sharp steel, quenched in her blood like a vow knight’s blade, then ripped from her body. She tried to lift her hand, but if felt as though her arm was snarled in a bramble of thorns. She opened her eyes to see the wounds and figure a way out of the bramble.
Her arm lay bare on a bed of cut moss. Other than a few scrapes and a mottled bracelet of bruising, she was unharmed. Gwen tried to lift her arm again, and the pain of brambles returned.
“The wounds are deep, and not of the body,” a man said from behind her. Gwen started to turn around, but agony pushed her back to the ground. Several heartbeats passed before her vision cleared. The man was leaning over her, a blank expression on his face. “Don’t move suddenly. Or at all.”
“Yeah, I…” She gasped, winced at the pain, then continued on. “I have learned that lesson.”
“You are the huntress. Gwen Adair,” the man said. It wasn’t a question, but it really wasn’t a statement, either. It was as if he was trying to get his head around the idea. “You have stolen the autumn god from us.”
“Goddess,” Gwen corrected. The man shrugged.
“Pretending the gods are as simple as man or a woman is a foolish path. We wrap them in our language because we need to call them something.” He took Gwen’s chin between his fingers and tilted her head, as though examining her throat. “Use the words that matter to you. They don’t care.”
“Who are you?” she asked. “Where am I?”
“I am a man who is constantly disappointed in the struggles of Tenerran lords and ladies, and constantly dependent on their help. You were at the witches’ hallow when Fomharra awoke?” He released Gwen’s head, settling back on his heels to stare at her. Now that the initial pain had passed, Gwen saw that she was nestled in a bower of trees, the layer of moss resting on a bed of stacked peat. The smoke from a smoldering fire tangled with the branches, filtering the sun into golden beams. The man leaned forward and waved his hand in front of her face.
“You were there?”
“Fomharra?” Gwen asked.
“The autumn god,” the man answered. “The harvester.”
“Yes, that is the name. It feels familiar.” She adjusted herself on the bed of moss and nodded. “I was there,” Gwen answered. Each word cost her dearly, yet she had the impression this man had many more questions, and no patience for her discomfort. “I did it. Woke her.”
He was silent for a moment. Shadows moved outside the bower. Gwen could see a face peering in between the oak branches, eyes the color of water staring at her from a face of leaves. Finally, the man spoke again.
“I would not believe that if I had not seen you at the Fen Gate,” he said. “And here, in this condition. With these wounds.” He passed a hand over her body, not touching her, but brushing her skin with a wave of heat. “You have worn a god, and lived. It is unexpected, and unfortunate.”
“I’m pretty happy about it,” Gwen said crossly.
“For now,” he said, then he stood. “You may live long enough to regret surviving.”
“Wait—who are you? You said you were at the Fen Gate?”
“My name is Cahl. Do you know of Ian Blakley?”
A memory of battle, of a tower being torn stone from stone, and a boy arguing with her, trying to get her to stop destroying her home. Beyond that, the image of Ian from years long gone, before things had changed. Before she had changed. Not that long ago, really, but it seemed as though ages had passed.
“Since we were children,” she said.
“You are still children,” he said impatiently, then shook his head. “I was ranging along the Tallow with my cadre. One of our witches found him, nearly dead, and insisted on bringing him with us.” Cahl rubbed his hands together, a strange nervousness that didn’t sit well with his calm way of speaking. “Trails later, we entered the Fen Gate during the battle. The witch stayed with him, and was captured.”
“You escaped?”
“I know when to run, but I will not forget the hound’s betrayal.”
“Yet still you insist on protecting this one,” a voice said from outside the bower. The man who had been watching, his face tattooed with a mask of leaves, stepped into the little shelter. “When will you learn to stop trusting these pretenders?”
“House Adair suffered greatly in their service to Fomharra. The huntress is the last of that blood, and I would not betray it.”
The last of my blood. The last of my family… Pain shot through her again, and she nearly lost consciousness.
“She is not one of us, Cahl,” the other man snapped. “She does not know us, or our ways, or our paths. She knows nothing of the pagan ways.”
“She knew the wardens,” Cahl answered.
“The wardens are dead! As we will be, if we lead her down this path.”
“It is not our way to sacrifice without need, Aedan.”
“I am not speaking of sacrifice,” the man answered. He loomed over Gwen, the dark ink of his face and light eyes a startling contrast. “I am speaking of justice. She swore to protect the autumn god, and yet he is lost to us. The stories I have heard tell of her leading an inquisitor to the hallow, as well as a vow knight.”
“They are only stories,” Cahl said.
“True stories,” Gwen answered grimly. “It was best.”
“Best?” Aedan asked, raising his brows. “Best for whom? Surely not the god. Surely not Tener, nor the witches who died defending the hallow.”
“You don’t know,” Gwen insisted. The pain threatened to overwhelm her again, but anger kept her talking. “Frair Lucas was dying, and he wanted to help. Without him, the Fen god… Fomharra… would be in the hands of the church, and Sacombre would still be at the head of a Suhdrin army ravaging Tenerran soil.”
“I have witnessed the cost of celestial help, child,” Aedan hissed. “I have lost enough to the church. I will lose no more.”
“Peace, shaman,” Cahl whispered. “This is no time for accusations. The conclave will have its answers, in time.”
“Yes, we will,” Aedan said menacingly. “Our answers, and our revenge.” Still seething, he turned and pushed his way out of the shelter. Cahl watched him leave, then sighed and knelt beside Gwen.
“I can not save you from him, should the conclave decide on sacrifice,” he said. His voice was gentle. “But know that I mean to hear your story, and make sure the elders hear it, as well.”
“What did he mean about not knowing anything of the pagan ways?” Gwen asked. “My blood has been raised in pagan rites, since I was a child. Since my father’s father was born.”
My father, she thought. Dead.
“No,” Cahl said. “Not truly. Your family was sealed away from the true path, kept from knowing too much, given just enough power without knowing anything that might damage us, should you decide to turn.”
“What?” Gwen forced herself up despite the stabbing agony, squinting in anger. “We would never turn. We would never betray you!”
“And gods bless you for it—but that was a chance the conclave would not take.” Cahl raised his hands, his voice soothing. “Peace, child. This decision is generations old. Your greatfathers knew the pact they were signing. They knew the price, and the debt.”
“The price was our lives, if the church found out,” Gwen said. “A price we paid. And the debt was to the god in the Fen. To Fomharra.”
“And now your family is dead,” Cahl said. “The church knows of your heresy, and the Fen god is lost to us.”
“You don’t need to remind me…”
“Lost, because of your actions. Dead, because of decisions you made, Gwendolyn of the tribe of iron, and so you have paid the price.” Cahl straightened, grimacing. “We have all paid the debt.”
“I did what I thought was best,” Gwen muttered.
“Yes. We all do.” Cahl stood and backed to the edge of the shelter. “But sometimes we are wrong. Rest for now
. We have tarried too long in this place. The conclave has been called, and we must travel in the morning.”
“The conclave?”
“A meeting of the tribes, their elders,” Cahl said. “To hear your story, and judge its worth. We have strange paths to walk between now and then. There are many who would not have those secrets revealed to you, even now.”
Then he left, and Gwen settled back into pain and healing and regret.
* * *
Walking was pure misery. She had always been fit, as much at home in the forest as in the castle. Now her weapons had been taken, fire jolted through her veins with every step, and the bottoms of her feet prickled through her ruined boots. Whenever she stumbled, Cahl would appear at Gwen’s elbow to drag her up and urge her on, only to disappear moments later. The other shaman, Aedan, was as constant as a shadow, lurking just behind her, disappearing when she turned her attention his way. The other pagans ignored her to the point of cruelty.
She walked alone. At least it gave her time to think.
Gwen wasn’t sure what she had expected, how she’d thought the pagans would treat her once she freed the Fen god. Fomharra. How had her family lost that particular knowledge—the name of the god they were hiding, or the fact that the old gods even had names. When hunting, Gwen always thought of the gheists in more generic terms, like the waterfen spirit, or the gallows gheist, or the little god along the bluffs.
They must all have names, she realized. She wondered if Cahl knew them. She would ask, the next time he appeared.
Cahl claimed that her family had been cut off from the rest of the pagan faith, in an attempt to protect the faithful in case the inquisition learned the truth of Adair’s heresy. That startled her. Other than the few covens of shaman, who was left to save? She had been taught that their family was among the few faithful houses that remained. Had that been a lie?
A silent line of pagan outriders slipped between the tree trunks off to her left, spears loose in their hands, cloaks dancing through the air like a flock of mottled birds. She watched sidelong as they disappeared into the deeper forest.