The Iron Hound

by Tim Akers

  “Horold, run!” Noel barked. She pushed the boy toward the nearest exit, an ivy-hung archway that stirred with a cold wind. Horold moved as if in a dream, his eyes still on Folam’s outstretched hand. “Run!”

  “Empty your lungs,” Folam intoned. His voice scraped across the stone walls of the room. A web of thin light drew up from Horold’s skin, the dancing highlights of natural illumination growing sharp until they flared away from his body like spider webs caught in a breeze. The twisting skeins of energy crossed the room, gathering in Folam’s hand. “Empty,” he groaned.

  Horold fell to his knees. A sound came from his bones, grinding and fast, as the boy’s essence fled his body. Folam drew a deep breath, and the web of light grew stronger.

  Noel screamed.

  “He’s only a child, Folam! He’s nothing but a boy!”

  “Boys become men,” Folam said. In the midst of the ritual, his voice tangled with the keening of Horold’s death, both sounds echoing through the buried chamber. The voidfather raised his other hand and pulled harder against Horold’s soul. “Men become soldiers, and soldiers end in death, for us, and for them.”

  Noel threw herself at Folam, but Gwen grabbed her before she reached him. They twisted together, arms locking, hands grappling. Noel’s skin grew hot.

  “This is what sacrifice looks like, pagan,” Gwen whispered. “People die. Usually the wrong people.”

  “He has a family, Adair! What if he was your brother?”

  “Then he would already be dead,” Gwen said. “Let it go.”

  Noel collapsed to her knees, Gwen on top of her. She stayed there, panting, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. Horold slumped to the floor. His skin was withering like dried fruit. One side of his youthful face was puckered, and his blond hair turned white as snow.

  “Do not mourn this child, Noel. He is already pledged to the enemy. If he did not die now, he would have raised his sword against us as an adult,” Folam said. “Better he pass now into silence, than…”

  There was a dull thud. Folam collapsed to the ground. Instantly the whisper-thin strands of light snapped like molasses, reeling back into Horold’s skin. The boy took a startled breath. He folded against the wall, lying there, breathing shallowly.

  Cahl loomed over the unconscious form of the voidfather. He held a sap in one hand. Its head was speckled with Folam’s blood.

  “Better that he live, and follow his faith, and grow in his understanding of the world,” the shaman rumbled. “If his path leads him to war, and then to death at our hand, the gods will it. But I will not see a child murdered.”

  Noel twisted free of Gwen’s stunned grip and ran to the child. She bent low over him, murmuring quietly. Flames flickered around her knees, washing over Horold’s wrinkled skin.

  “I thought the voidfather’s will was absolute,” Gwen said. Cahl shrugged.

  “Perhaps not,” Cahl said. “Perhaps even he can be wrong.”

  “So what now?” Gwen said. “What will you do when the old man wakes up?”

  “Apologize,” Cahl said.

  * * *

  Noel carried Horold down one of the corridors that branched off the domed room. The boy was delirious, whispering words that made no sense, shivering despite the heat. She laid him at the base of a stairwell that circled up toward the light. The sounds of voices and footfalls echoed down the steps.

  “Someone will find him here,” she said, her voice strained. “Or he will recover enough to make his own way out.”

  “This is a mistake,” Gwen said. “What tale will he tell?”

  “We’ll be long gone before he wakes up,” Noel said, “and by then it won’t matter.”

  “It will matter. Lady Sophie will not like stories about pagans lurking beneath her city. We are creating problems for our Tenerran brothers.”

  “They are not our problems,” Noel said. “Not today.”

  The two of them went back to the chamber. Folam was sitting in the corner, glaring at Cahl and nursing his head. The big shaman ignored the voidfather’s attention, busying himself with the mosaic. Noel went to a knee at Folam’s side.

  “I can ease the pain, voidfather. If you wish.”

  “It is nothing,” Folam said.

  “The boy is safe. He won’t talk, not today.”

  Folam grunted and stood, brushing past Noel. Gwen bristled as the voidfather approached, ready to defend Cahl if the man struck, but Folam went to stand beside the shaman, staring at the mosaic.

  “A relic of the old faith,” he said, “though not old enough to belong to the tribe of flowers.”

  “No. Celestial hands crafted this, though perhaps they didn’t understand what they were forming. There is enough here of Lady Strife to pass the inquisition’s attention, but it contains the vernal god’s markings, as well.” Cahl ran a finger over the depiction of a field, tracing lines among the missing tiles. “The petal cloak. The broken staff, freshly grown, and his host of saplings. It’s all here.” Gwen looked where Cahl pointed, but could see nothing of what he was saying. All she saw were flowers and trees, and the burning rays of the sun.

  “It’s a warning to pagan eyes,” Folam agreed. “That Strife’s madness has infected this ground.”

  “Or that the vernal god has been broken, and should not be allowed to wander,” Cahl said.

  “So this is it?” Gwen asked. “This is the shrine?”

  “No,” Cahl said, shaking his head. “That is beyond this wall. Farther down.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do? Are we close enough to perform your ritual, voidfather? Do we need to search these other corridors, in case there’s another path down?” Noel asked.

  “That will not be necessary,” Folam said. He bent his head to Cahl. “Draw us down, elder.”

  Cahl nodded sharply. He stepped away from the wall, pulling the bindings from his head, using the linens to wrap his hands. Folam backed away from the mosaic. He drew Noel and Gwen to his side. As Cahl knelt at the center of the chamber, Folam began to weave a circle binding around the trio.

  “I will forgive your rebellion, Noel, if you will forgive my outrage,” he whispered. Noel flinched away, but nodded once.

  “We do what is best. All of us,” she said.

  “There must be silence,” Cahl said. “If I’m to do this without waking the city.”

  “I am familiar with silence,” Folam said. He finished his binding. A wall of emptiness rose up from the ground, blurring the air, pressing hard vacuum against their faces. All sound died. Gwen’s skin tingled numbly, and her eyes began to water.

  Cahl glanced at them and nodded. In absolute silence, he ran his hands across the stone floor. Lines of blue light trailed from his palms, leaving patterns in the stone like piled sand. The scree melted beneath Cahl’s fingers, running together as veins of soft light shot through it, slowly accumulating into a crescent of thick stone.

  He bent close to the earth, his forehead resting on the formed rock. He whispered words of power into the crescent, each breath fogging the lightning-bright glow that seemed to come from within the earth. Pressing his palms against the stone, Cahl pushed out.

  The earth moved. The stone rose in a wave that crashed against the mosaic, breaking over the tiles. A pale illumination traveled up the images, until a frozen stroke of lightning appeared in the middle of the wall. With wrenching grace, the dome split, raining flakes of plaster down on Cahl, dusting his hair white. The wall opened, the sound swallowed by Folam’s aura of void space.

  Like birds flushing from the bush, a spray of flower petals arced into the room. They hung suspended in the air, their edges slowly turning into ember and then ash, until they drifted down to join the broken plaster on the floor.

  With a snap, Folam dropped his vacuum, and the world of sound and air rushed back in. Cahl turned to look at the voidfather. He gestured to the opening.

  “The shrine of flowers,” he said. Now that the air had returned to the room, Gwen could smell damp and
thunderstorms, and the heady musk of spring. Folam stepped past her, to step tentatively into the entrance to the shrine. Gwen started to follow, then saw that Cahl wasn’t moving. She knelt beside him. The shaman’s face was sheened with sweat, and his eyes were pressed shut.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “I will be fine,” he said. He stood with a grunt, weaving on his feet until he found his balance. Gwen took his arm to steady him. His skin was pale and clammy to the touch. “He asks much of me, sometimes.”

  “Yes,” Gwen said. She looked over at the voidfather as he disappeared into the shrine. “He asks much of us all.”

  31

  MALCOLM STOOD AT the base of the Hunter’s Tower. A cloud of squires bustled around him, fitting the plate-and-half that he traditionally wore in battle. The square below was chaos. Half of the people were trying to flee, half were forming up into battle lines, ready for when the gate fell. And it was going to fall.

  “Be quick about it,” Malcolm snapped. The squire at his feet stumbled back, grimacing as he lost his grip on the sabaton, sending it clattering to the ground. The man snatched it up and started once again to attach it to Malcolm’s boot. “My men need me at their front. And I’m not sure what bloody good this will do against a gheist.”

  “Mortal hope lies in immortal strength,” the Orphanshield said as he approached. The inquisitor trailed his pack of lesser priests, all of them burdened with various implements of the faith. “Stay behind, Houndhallow. This is the church’s business.”

  “I should say so,” Malcolm said. “Do you want to explain to me how one of your children succumbed to Sacombre’s corruption?”

  “What do you mean?” Frair Gilliam asked. He looked back on his cadre, brow furrowed. “My priests are faithful celestials, as you can see…”

  “What I can see is young Marcel tearing a hole in my wall,” Malcolm said, pointing to the front gate. “And those do not look like the blessings of Cinder.”

  The party turned to stare in the direction Malcolm was pointing. The gate, already damaged and half-hung, buckled under a titanic blow. The men holding the line stumbled back, then surged forward behind spears and shields and courage. This gave a brief view of the road beyond the gate.

  Frair Marcel hovered in the air, encased in a rippling aura of dark matter. A halo rotated slowly behind him, sprouting spears of black energy, each one tearing through the earth like a plow. From his hands and feet, scything limbs of shadow grew, their tips blooded by the gate’s defenders. Marcel’s face was twisted and slack. Too many teeth bristled from his mouth. Too much light came from his eyes.

  “This is not the work of the gods,” Gilliam whispered.

  “Not your gods, at least,” Malcolm said. “How am I to trust you to counter this threat, when it springs from your breast, Inquisitor?”

  “Marcel is faithful to the church,” Gilliam said. “I trained him myself. Raised him by my hand, lifted him from the sewer, guided him in Cinder’s path…” the inquisitor turned to Malcolm. His eyes were hollow with shock. “Whatever has happened to the boy, the fault lies in the north. And with me. I… I should never have taken them out of Heartsbridge. I shouldn’t have exposed them to this corrupt place. His faith wasn’t enough to protect him from the pagans.”

  “A faith untested is no faith at all,” Catrin DeBray said. The child priestess of Strife was standing on the steps of the Hunter’s Tower, having followed Malcolm down. She stepped forward. “What has befallen Marcel is not your fault, Frair.”

  “Perhaps not,” Gilliam answered, “but it is my responsibility to put it right. Children, with me. Houndhallow, clear your soldiers from the courtyard. Enough of the innocent have died today.”

  “If my men fall back, who will protect the gate from the Suhdrin?”

  “That is not my problem,” Gilliam said. Then the inquisitor raised his staff and started to gather the lingering shadows of night. He strode forward, chanting the holy words of Cinderfell. “Let Winter judge!”

  Malcolm sounded the retreat, though already there were few enough of his soldiers in the courtyard. Most had seen the darkness that they faced and fled. Those who remained moved aside at the inquisitor’s approach. Marcel, still gripped by whatever power had corrupted him, pushed the castle’s gates away with a flick of one talon-tipped finger.

  “Your wife will answer for this!” Marcel howled in a half-human voice when he spotted Malcolm. “She will answer for what she did to me! As will you, pagan-king!”

  The rest of his rage was drowned out by Gilliam’s chant, but the boy had said enough for Malcolm’s blood to run cold with fear.

  The inquisitor’s form twisted into a giant of forged shadow until he towered over the castle walls. The two dark figures, Marcel rippling with corrupted power, Gilliam bound in Cinder’s holy darkness, crashed together in the middle of the courtyard. The sound of their battle washed over the walls of the Fen Gate.

  A hand gripped Malcolm’s elbow. He turned to see Catrin staring at him.

  “Your wife,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “I will not sacrifice her, child,” Malcolm said. He drew his feyiron blade. “Not to the sort of justice Cinder would provide.”

  “Then she cannot stay here,” Catrin said. “Where is she?”

  “Safe,” Malcolm snapped. He was about to say more when Sir Baird ran up to him. The knight was flushed.

  “My lord,” Baird said, not sparing a look for Catrin or the two demons wrestling at the center of the courtyard. “The Suhdrin are moving.”

  “Little wonder,” Malcolm said. “What are they doing?”

  “Forming up to charge the gates. Once the matter of the gheist is settled, I suspect they’ll attack.”

  Malcolm growled, giving Catrin another angry look before turning away.

  “Gather the remaining knights at the sally gate,” he said. “And fetch my banner. I’ve had enough of skulking behind broken walls.”

  * * *

  Sir Doone kept a careful watch at the top of the ridgeline. Their campsite, nestled into the head of a small hollow, was rapidly being taken apart and packed away. From her post, Doone could see the walls of the Fen Gate, as well as the low haze of campfire smoke that marked the Suhdrin army. If trouble came, it would come from there.

  Footsteps scrabbled on the leaf-slick hill below, and Doone drew her blade before seeing Davon’s lumpy face peering up at her.

  “What do you want, Dav?”

  “Lady’s not comfortable. She’s getting… precious.”

  “Precious?” Doone asked. “I have never known Sorcha Blakley to be precious.”

  “No, well,” Davon winced as the lady’s voice carried up the hill to them. “She has become very particular about how things are done. Quite suddenly.”

  “Very well, you stay here and maintain the watch.” Doone slid down the toppled tree she had been straddling. “I will speak with her.”

  Sorcha was standing in the middle of the camp, an array of food items, blankets, bedrolls, and cooking utensils spread out around her. As Sir Doone was descending, she saw Sorcha brush past one of the soldiers and start pulling things out of a woman’s saddlebag.

  The woman, Katra Sion by name, stepped away from her horse and waited until Sorcha had unpacked most of her bags. When Lady Blakley wandered away to another horse, Katra started in on repacking.

  “My lady!” Doone called as soon as she was close enough that her shout wouldn’t travel to the nearby road. “What the hells do you think you’re doing?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Sorcha said. Her usually placid voice was agitated. “All this packing and carrying. We’ll just have to put it all down again, anyway. Just leave it here.” She turned, saw that Katra was re-bundling her bedroll, and swooped down on her, grabbing it. “I just took that out, child! Are you always so stubborn?”

  “My lady, these are things that we will need,” Doone said, easing the bedroll out of Sorcha’s hands and passing it b
ack to Katra. “We don’t know how long your husband will be delayed at the Fen Gate.”

  “I am not waiting for my husband to quit the Fen,” Sorcha said sharply, “any more than I’m waiting for the Suhdrins to give up on Halverdt’s foolish crusade. I am done with waiting.”

  “Even worse, my lady. Without supplies from the Fen Gate, we’ll be weeks on the road to Houndhallow.” Sir Doone picked up the camp stove that Sorcha had just pulled from Katra’s pack, collecting the spilled pots and utensils. “We can hunt, but none of us wants to eat raw hare, I promise.”

  “We are not going to Houndhallow,” Sorcha said. “Nor Dunneswerry, nor the Reaveholt.”

  “There are no safe harbors that lie closer, my lady,” Doone said. “Not north, at least, and I don’t think Suhdra would welcome you.”

  “I am not looking for safe harbor, Sir Doone,” Sorcha said. She yanked the stove out of Doone’s grip and tossed it clattering to the side. “I am seeking heavy weather, and the storm that follows.”

  “What do you mean?” Doone asked. Sorcha was about to answer when a gheist horn echoed down the hollow. Everyone froze.

  Everyone except Sorcha.

  The lady of Houndhallow glided up the ridge, her stride as smooth and confident as the tide. Doone rushed to keep up, clambering gracelessly through the slick mud that seemed to follow Sorcha wherever she went. Beside the toppled tree that served as their lookout post, the two women stopped and stared down at the castle. The horn was still sounding.

  “They have discovered the child,” Doone said, “and now they will be hunting for us.”

  “No, it’s not…” Sorcha paused, looking puzzled for a heartbeat. “Another has emerged. We have no time to waste.”

  “Another what?” Doone asked. Then a pillar of black energy blossomed just outside the Fen Gate’s walls. “Ah. Gheist. What are we going to do?”

  “Get ourselves to the godsroad?” Sir Davon asked. The big man was still perched in the tree above, peering down at the castle. As he talked, he scrabbled down, haste making the descent precarious. “Hope the inquisition can handle the demon before it decides to roam in our direction. Hope more that it’s alone.”