The Iron Hound

by Tim Akers

  Malcolm sighed, but relented. He watched while the priest spread the dust around the chamber, muttering prayers and invocations. When he was finished, Gilliam plucked up the lantern and motioned to the stairs.

  “Bring my children,” he said. “And the oil.”

  “Should they see this?” Malcolm asked.

  “I will not shield them from horror, Blakley. The world is horror.” The priest gave the scene a long, considering look, lingering over the emblems of pagan faith and the butchered remains of the witch. “They must know what they stand against.”

  * * *

  Malcolm stood at the foot of the stairs. There wasn’t room in the tiny chamber for the guards, so they stood in a tense group in the crypts above, fingering their blades and exchanging cold stares.

  Frair Gilliam stood at the center of the chamber, his hands crossed over his darkwood staff, head bowed in prayer. The children splashed oil on the body and into the niches, soaking the pagan instruments. The oil seeped into the dried blood on the floor and walls, making the room look like a fresh slaughterhouse.

  When they were done, the young priests filed past Malcolm and up the stairs. Their eyes were stone, their faces still and calm. Malcolm wondered at the things these children must have seen to be so unmoved by the horrors of the room. When they were gone, Gilliam came to stand beside Malcolm.

  “We bury a great darkness here, Houndhallow,” he said. “This castle will always be haunted in some way,” the inquisitor said. “Whoever ascends to the Sedgewind throne must always be on their guard. Perhaps here more than most, but we will see the faithful of Cinder and Strife protected. This I do swear.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Malcolm replied bitterly.

  “Stand back, Houndhallow. The fire will be fierce.”

  “I have burned my share of bodies, priest,” Malcolm answered. “Give this woman what peace you can.”

  Frair Gilliam drew a piece of tinder from his robe and touched it to the lantern, then tossed it onto the body, which went up like a torch. Then the rest of the room caught. It wasn’t just the oil that burned, no, but the blood that lined the walls flared like hay, and beneath the blood was something more—runes written in the stone, hidden by the gore and now briefly exposed.

  Strange symbols in fire twisted up the walls like a fuse, burning out quickly to leave ghost images floating in the darkness. They rushed up to the ceiling, only to snuff out.

  Smoke billowed up, black and inky, and then Malcolm and the priest were choking on it, tendrils of dark smoke roiling with cinders coiling around their heads. They fled, the air stinging their eyes and stealing their breath, until Malcolm thought they might die in the darkness.

  A voice followed them, sharp and strange, the words foreign to their ears.

  The stairs twisted up and up, longer than Malcolm remembered, and then suddenly they were in the crypts and everyone was standing around staring at them. A pillar of smoke rushed out of the passageway behind them, flattening against the ceiling like a prowling snake, its scales made of embers and cinders and ash.

  “What in hell happened down there?” Malcolm gasped.

  “Nothing holy,” Gilliam answered, weeping ash. “Nothing sane.”

  “The flames live!” one of the young priests gasped. The tendril of smoke squirmed down the corridor, seeking escape from the death that lay in the chambers below.

  “Quickly!” the inquisitor shouted, running after it. “It must be some shred of the witch’s soul, seeking solace. We mustn’t let it escape!” In the distance, a woman screamed, the sound muffled by stone and distance. But even then, Malcolm knew his wife’s voice, screaming in pain. He waited until the inquisitor and his attendant priests were out of sight, and their Suhdrin guards with them. He turned to Sir Doone, who stood nervously by.

  “We have to move her,” Malcolm said. “Quickly.”

  They took another route, longer but hidden from most of the castle’s staff, praying they got to Sorcha before the inquisition.

  Praying and running.

  10

  THE THREE SOLDIERS who escorted them into the Reaveholt answered only to the name Duncan. Apparently they were brothers, and so inseparable as to not require their own names.

  They demanded that LaGaere and his company surrender their swords, and when the duke refused it appeared as if they would come to blows. Only Lucas’s promise of peace won them passage without disarmament.

  The design of the Reaveholt was pragmatically pessimistic. The walls were so high and the terrain so difficult that it would be almost impossible to capture without treachery. Even so, the castle was separated into three sections, any one of which could stand defense against the other two. Thus all three would need to fall for the attackers to cross over the bridge without being assaulted.

  The Tenerran defenders withdrew to their strongholds, then threw the gates wide open, letting Lucas and his caravan enter the central courtyard. The iron wagon’s wheels grated on the stony ground. Walls riddled with arrow slots stared down at them like a stony jury.

  Sir Bourne waited at the center of the courtyard, his back to the bridge-side gate. Completely alone, he was a wide man, short red hair bustling over his brow, dark eyes sunk deeply into his cheeks. His hand was slung over the bit of an axe whose blade was etched in the holy runes of summer along one edge, and those of winter on the other.

  “If you try to take me, my men have orders to kill everyone in the yard,” he said as Lucas approached. “I have no heart for sacrifice, but I would rather die than fall into the inquisition’s hands.”

  “I expect nothing less than bloody-minded fatalism from you, good sir,” Lucas answered. The Suhdrin guards who stood on both sides of the iron wagon stared grimly up at the walls, knuckles tight on their shields. Frair Lucas signaled them forward, until the wagon pulled up next to Sir Bourne. “Do you want to see them both, or just the high inquisitor?”

  “Both? Who else are you taking to Heartsbridge?”

  “A witch by the name of Fianna. She’s no one important, but that doesn’t keep her safe from trial.”

  “Is the inquisition in the business of giving trials to common pagans these days?” Bourne said. “Most witches receive nothing more than the sharp end of a spear, usually while they’re trying to run away. There must be something important about her.”

  “It’s difficult to explain. She played a role in the battle, and may have saved the life of Duke Blakley’s son, Ian,” Lucas said. “It’s hard to say how the boy would have reacted if we had just, you know…”

  “Run her through?” Bourne asked with a wide smile. “I have no interest in your pet witch, frair. Let me see Sacombre, then be on your way.”

  “If you try anything, Bourne…” Lucas said.

  “Keep your threats. Cinder will get his justice.” The knight waved him away, and the guards pulled the bar of the iron door free, then formed a lane between the wagon and Sir Bourne. The door creaked open and, after a few quiet moments, a pale, dirty face peered out.

  “Celestriarch,” Sacombre called out from the wagon’s dark interior. His voice was thin and cracked. “You have changed much in the past few months.”

  “This is Sir Bourne of the Reaveholt, Tomas,” Frair Lucas said. “We must pass his gate, and the toll is a meeting with you.”

  “Tomas. Tomas,” Sacombre muttered angrily. “Awfully informal, frair. I am still the high inquisitor, until Holy LaBrieure says different. I am more than coin to buy you passage.”

  “Not today, you’re not, Tomas. Today you are our coin. So behave. Try to not give him any good reason to murder you.”

  “I have more than reason enough,” Bourne said. “All of Tener has reason enough.” The knight shifted on his seat, spinning the massive axe in his palm. “Come out in the light, priest. Let’s have a look at you.”

  Sacombre stepped gingerly from the wagon, blinking rapidly in the glare of the sun. His robes were torn to rags, still bloodied by the strange death god to w
hich the priest once bound his soul, and his hair hung in greasy ropes down his head. Yet even in his ruin, Sacombre bore an air of smug condescension.

  “Does this please you, sir?” Sacombre asked. “Am I sufficiently humbled?” Bourne watched him closely, not answering, his dark eyes giving nothing. The former high inquisitor took another few steps into the courtyard. He looked around the walls that glared down at them. “Am I to beg forgiveness? Declare my innocence? What of you, LaGaere? You were anxious enough to bring your sword to my banner. Are you going to judge me, now?”

  “This is humiliating,” LaGaere hissed to Frair Lucas. “He is still a man of the church, even if he’s fallen from grace. The high inquisitor should not be forced to dance for every half-bit Tenerran knight we pass along the road!”

  “Peace, Warhome.”

  “It is not appropriate—”

  “Peace!” Lucas snapped. “We are escorting this man to Heartsbridge to be questioned, and judged, and then executed. It will be done with grace and justice, but it will also be humiliating.”

  LaGaere sighed, staring daggers at Lucas, but said nothing more. Lucas turned back to the proceedings. Sacombre watched them both very closely, the slightest smile on his lips. He nodded to Lucas, then turned to Sir Bourne.

  “So, Sir Bourne of the Reaveholt, what do you want of me?” Sacombre asked sharply. “Or is my humiliation payment enough?”

  “How did you know about Colm Adair?” the knight answered.

  “Oh! Oh, my. Yes. A very interesting question,” Sacombre said. Gaining strength, he clasped his hands behind his back and strolled forward as though he were in a garden. “Do you ask to know what you might have missed? To assuage your conscience, to prove to yourself that you couldn’t have known your master was harboring such awful secrets?” He wove from guard to guard, as though inspecting them for battle. When he was nearly to Sir Bourne, he paused and smiled up at the enormous man.

  “Or are you worried that your own heresy has also been revealed, and want to know what secrets I will spill once I am under the inquisition’s screw?”

  Sir Bourne clenched his jaw, his face growing a dangerous shade brighter, his eyes glinting darker, his hand tight on the bitted head of the axe. When he spoke, however, Bourne’s voice was low and calm.

  “My house has stood by Adair for generations,” he said. “Since long before the crusades, and the church, and the celestial calendar. Since before time was counted. My loyalty to the baron was only surpassed by my faith to Cinder, and to Strife.” Bourne stood, leaning against the axe as though it was a walking stick.

  “Colm Adair was blood father to my firstborn, and Gwen Adair took my son on his first gheist hunt. When they dedicated the new doma at Fenton, I helped carry the altar from the quarry at Hollyhaute.” Bourne strolled casually down the row of Suhdrin guards toward Sacombre. The guards twitched away from him, fists tightening on spears, eyes shifting nervously to their sergeant. “So when this man—this brother to me, whom I have followed in battle, whose hospitality I have taken—when he stands accused of heresy, I take note. It concerns me.”

  “As it should, Sir Bourne,” Sacombre said. The high inquisitor stood unbent before the giant man, his thin frame as still as stone. “Colm Adair deceived a great many of his fellow lords of Tener.”

  “Perhaps,” the great knight said, pausing and hefting his axe in both hands, turning it over like a spit. “Though the baron will never get his trial. Unlike you, and this fortunate witch. So tell me. How did you know? What did you know?”

  “This is tiring,” Sacombre said. “Frair Lucas, I do not wish to perform for this bully. Put me back in my cage.”

  “No,” Bourne hissed. “I am not done with you.”

  “And what will you do if I refuse to answer?” Sacombre drawled. “You have it in your hands to kill me. To kill us all, in fact.” The high inquisitor threw an arm wide to the waiting archers. “Are you that foolish? To slaughter the wounded, along with the priest who is trying to bring me to justice?”

  “It is justice I want, but not for you. We have all heard the stories of Colm Adair’s heresy,” Bourne said, “but he is dead, and by your hand. If the sentence has already been served, at least you can do him the honor of making your case against him. To me.”

  “And why should I?” Sacombre asked. “As you said, Colm Adair is dead. I killed him.” Sacombre shrugged and walked a casual circle around Sir Bourne, gesturing as he talked. “I killed his wife and child, as well. A lovely boy, such a waste. I don’t think he knew why he was dying. The mother did, of course. You could see it in her eyes, the weight of the lie and the loss it was causing. Poor woman.”

  “You had no right…”

  “Oh, but I did,” Sacombre said, pausing in front of the big knight. “That is my only right, as high inquisitor. To doubt the faith of my subjects, and render judgment as I see fit. My doubt was more than proven in the case of Colm Adair.”

  “Hypocrite. Murderer!” Bourne spat. “You sit in judgment of Tenerrans, with the blood of children on your hands, yet you are the one who has committed heresy! You are no less guilty than Colm Adair, and no less deserving of death!”

  “That remains to be seen, of course,” Sacombre replied. “It is given to me to judge as I must, and to use whatever means I see fit.” He nodded to Frair Lucas, smiling narrowly. “Which is why the good frair here is taking me to Heartsbridge. That I might be found innocent, and returned to my place as high inquisitor.”

  “That’s not—” Lucas started, but Sacombre rolled over him.

  “That is the difference between us, sir,” the ragged man persisted. “What you call heresy is nothing more than reasonable faith. What you call murder is simply the burden given me by my god.” Sacombre’s frail calm began to crack, his face growing flustered with every word. Spit dangled from his lips as his voice grew louder, until he shouted the giant down. “Cinder is just as harsh to his servants as he is to his enemies, sir, and harsher still to those who defy him! I did what was necessary to protect the church from its enemies, and to bring the heresy of House Adair to light, that it might be purified.”

  Bourne bristled with anger.

  “You vainglorious, self-righteous little prick! You start a false war, deceive Gabriel Halverdt, lead hundreds of men and women to their deaths, and you claim righteousness?” He was shaking, his knuckles white on the haft. The guards who surrounded Sacombre nervously closed ranks. “How am I to know this isn’t another of your lies? That it isn’t your sin that stains the walls of the Fen Gate? How is Colm Adair supposed to receive justice? How are his children… his wife?”

  “They did not deserve justice,” Sacombre spat. “They deserved to die like dogs, begging for their lives. As they did!”

  Bourne roared his fury. The guards were ready, though, and closed on him like a steel noose. With the iron-tipped butt of his axe, Bourne shattered the shield of the first man to reach him, swung the haft into the next man’s spear, splintering it, then scythed around him with the weapon’s cruel head. The steel whistled through the air, dancing sparks off shields and forcing back the ring of soldiers. A pair of men stepped in front of Sacombre, but Bourne put his boot into their locked shields. They fell, clattering, to the stones.

  “Treachery!” LaGaere howled. His promise of peace forgotten, the duke of Warhome drew his blade and rushed to the high inquisitor’s defense. His knights charged with him, freeing swords and maces from their belts, spreading out into a loose circle around Sir Bourne. The big Tenerran grinned sharply.

  “Do you defend the heretic, Warhome?” Bourne asked. “I will be glad to add your names to my belt, and your sigils to the banner of the dead.”

  “We came here under a flag of truce—”

  “You came here under a flag of deceit!” Bourne spat. “Suhdrin deceit, and Suhdrin lies. You’re anxious to find the guilt of Baron Adair, but if even a shade of sin colors the cheeks of your precious high inquisitor, you leap to his defense like a traine
d dog.”

  LaGaere didn’t answer, but his knights closed the gap between their blades and Bourne’s neck. The Tenerran knight set his feet and prepared to defend himself.

  “Surrender, Sir Bourne, and your offense will be overlooked,” Lucas said quickly. “There is no need for blood to be spilled over this.”

  “The inquisitor is too quick to forgive,” LaGaere said. “I am not.”

  Bourne leapt then, axe high over his head, screaming his frustration. He shouldered past LaGaere, bowling the duke of Warhome aside as though he was a child, and charged at Tomas Sacombre. For a brief second Sacombre cracked, terror filling his face. The high inquisitor stumbled back, covering his head with arms, crumpling to the ground. Bourne landed with a booming crash, his axe swung down toward Sacombre’s skull.

  Tendrils of shadow gripped the steel.

  Frost traveled rapidly up the haft, reaching Bourne’s fingers. The force of the attack pushed the axe just a little, just enough, to deflect it away from Sacombre’s quivering form. The axe head bit into the stones of the courtyard, striking sparks and singing loudly.

  When the courtyard was silent, the dark coils withdrew from Bourne’s axe and slithered back to Frair Lucas. The inquisitor stood with his arms extended, the effort of his casting evident on his face. The ground around him was frozen solid, and cold fog swirled across his shoulders like wings.

  “Enough of this,” he said sternly. “Guards, put the high inquisitor back in his cage. Sir Bourne, you have had your interview. Open the gates.”

  Bourne slowly stood, hefting his axe and grimacing at Sacombre. The guards swirled around the high inquisitor, gathering him and ushering him back to the iron wagon, slamming the door. Duke LaGaere and Sir Horne came to stand beside Frair Lucas. Bourne spat, but nodded in the direction of the gate.

  Machines groaned, and the portcullis slowly rose. The caravan started to move. Sir Bourne stood to the side to let them pass. Lucas joined him, along with Horne and LaGaere.

  “I was with Gwen Adair, sir,” Lucas said quietly. “She confessed to me, and to my companion. It is not a matter of wronged innocence, though too many have died in the prosecution of this heresy.”