The Iron Hound

by Tim Akers

  As he stumbled through the wreckage, he found the farmers who had been pummeling Elsa moments earlier, now cowering behind barrels and the toppled pillars of the stables. Horses cantered through the storm, their eyes wide with terror. As he went around the keep, Ian slipped and fell on his ass, knocking the breath from his lungs. He was still struggling to breathe when he realized he had fallen in the ruin of some peasant’s skull, the man’s brains smeared across the cobbles like spilled stew.

  Fighting back the bile in his throat, he scampered far enough away that the dead man disappeared in the storm. Then he collapsed into the snow. His ears rang, either from the force of the storm or the frair’s blow that had knocked him out. His wrists were chafed from the ropes that still bound him, blood seeping into the hemp, his fingers sticking together. His breath came in short, panicked gasps. The fall left his spine sparkling with pain, jolts of sharp agony that prickled through his hips, his lungs, all the way to his skull.

  Ian’s arms shook. His whole body trembled.

  “Get your shit together, Blakley,” he muttered. He pressed his back into the stone of the keep, slowly pushing himself to his feet. “Elsa’s sword, and then shelter. Let the vow knight sort it out. Let her do the killing.”

  There was a crash, and Elsa pinwheeled into sight. Her spinning body toppled a pile of crates that were stacked against the outer wall. Stored food spilled out, sliding to the ground in a scree of salt and shattered masonry. Slowly the vow knight stood again, grimacing as salt ground into her many wounds, then marched back into the courtyard and out of sight.

  “Right. The sword,” Ian said. The sounds of conflict resumed. He stole a glance around the corner of the keep, saw Elsa and the shaman spinning madly through the snow-covered grounds. Then he dashed to the doma.

  There was a hole in the snow, sword-shaped and empty. The ice around it had melted and then refrozen in a flash, burned by the blade’s fire and then re-formed by the gheist’s storm. The sword was gone, but there were footprints beside it, leading to the doma.

  “Oh, damn it,” Ian said. He bent to the footprints. Slippered feet, the arches soft in the fresh snow. Not farmer’s boots, or the hobnailed soles of a soldier. Slippers. A noble, or a merchant. He looked up at the door of the doma, shut against the storm.

  “Or a frair,” he muttered.

  Ian threw himself against the splintered wood of the door. It rang, his shoulder bouncing painfully off. He crumpled into the snow. That would never work—not without an axe or a ram, neither of which Ian had. His own sword had been taken from him by the frair.

  Looking around, he saw only the swirling chaos of the storm, and brief flashes of the fight between Elsa and the shaman. He had to get inside before she fell, or the shaman spotted him and guessed his purpose. So he examined the door. It was braced with iron, the hinges sunk into the stone. From his brief encounter with the wood, Ian was pretty sure it was barred from the inside. There had to be another way in.

  Perhaps through the keep, but that would be full of guards, and Ian wasn’t sure of Halfic’s disposition. Did he know of his frair’s treachery? Probably, but if not, now wasn’t the time to explain.

  He stood and started circling the doma’s perimeter. There were no other doors. He looked up. The dozens of shutters that lined the roof had been smashed by the storm. The wooden panels had been pried apart, their sheathes of silver and gold peeled away, leaving small, dark openings. All he had to do was climb up, in the wind and ice, with bound wrists and possibly broken ribs.

  Ian turned back to the whirling fight at the center of the courtyard.

  “Might be better to face the gheist,” he mused. “Might be easier.” He looked up the sloping arc of the doma and sighed. “But no, no. This is the thing I’m supposed to do. Right.”

  * * *

  The first few feet weren’t so bad. Ian was able to hook his wrists around the stone gutters that ringed the lower level of the doma and scramble up the flat surface of the wall. Beyond that, though, things got tricky.

  The sloped dome of the roof was closely fitted stone, with the only interruptions being the calendar windows. Most were too small to allow Ian’s passage, but he was able to use them as hand and footholds. The spaces between were slick with ice and snow. The wind was relentless. With each foot Ian dragged himself forward, the wind shoved harder and harder. More than once he tore free, balancing precariously or sliding down before catching himself on a broken shutter or ill-joined stone.

  The rope between his wrists proved both invaluable and a burden. Ian used it to hook around buttresses, but it prevented him from keeping one handhold while reaching for another. Every move was a commitment. Every jump was a launch across an icy wall, with nothing below but stones.

  Finally he reached a window that had been pried open far enough to allow entrance. Gold leaf curled out from the ruined paneling, and the winch that controlled the shutters clattered against the roof, hanging out like the guts of a disemboweled fish. Ian tangled his fingers in the winch’s rope, then pulled himself through the slit in the stone. It was a tight fit, and halfway through Ian was sure he’d get stuck, but then he slithered through and nearly fell the thirty feet to the doma floor below.

  Only luck and the grace of Strife kept him from falling. His hands, still bound, became fouled inextricably in the winch. He swung through and dangled from the window’s mechanism, wrenching his shoulders and leaving his feet fluttering in open air.

  He spotted the frair, watching his progress from below. The man stood beside the altar, Elsa’s sword gripped uncomfortably in both hands, held like a torch.

  “You are very persistent,” he said. “Bound, beaten, at the feet of a gheist with no weapons and no hope, and still you live.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ian said with a grunt. “I may still fall to my death.” He twisted slowly in the air. The pulleys along the wall began to pop free, one at a time. “It would be quite a mess to clean up, though.”

  “I have to warn you, I—” the frair started. Before he could finish, the remaining pulleys ripped free from their stone moorings, all at once, leading to a jerky, jangling descent that ended among the pews.

  Ian lay still for a long time. When he stirred, it was with a moan of pain and quiet regret. He shifted to his knees and then, reluctantly, stood. The room spun around him. Everything ached, but nothing appeared to be broken or ruptured or crushed. Quite gloriously, his bonds seemed to have torn free in the fall, along with most of the skin of his wrists.

  “I have reached my limit on climbing,” he muttered to himself. “I won’t do it again. Not for gods or gold or pretty girls. Bloody awful practice. Nearly as bad as falling down. Gods.”

  “I have to warn you,” the frair said again. He waved the sword stiffly in Ian’s direction. “I’m not afraid to use this.”

  “Afraid? No, I suspect not.” Ian limped into the aisle and then hobbled toward the altar and the frair. “Incapable of using it, though. I think that’s quite likely.”

  “I’m not without the blessings of the gods!” the frair snapped. He held the blade in front of him with an angry snarl and spat the words of an invocation. The power of the binding twisted around the sword, the air bending and warping with heat. The runes along the blade sizzled into life, glowing with sudden fire, which then blossomed.

  With a yelp, the frair dropped the sword and backed away, his charred fingers blistering, the cuffs of his vestments turning into cinders. He stumbled to the altar and plunged his hands into a silver bowl of holy water.

  Ian chuckled. “You’d have been better off throwing it at me,” he said. “Or dropping it on my toe.” He stooped quickly and, using the torn ends of his shirt, carefully picked up Elsa’s blade. It was still warm beneath the cloth, and the smell of burned flesh hung in the air. “Now,” he said, “to get this to my lady foul.”

  The doors boomed, as though struck by a battering ram. There was angry yelling, then they shuddered again. The third time they broke. Si
r Elsa slid gracelessly into the doma on her back, hands slapping against the pews as she went. She skidded to a halt in a heap at Ian’s feet. He set the tip of the blade on the floor and dipped the handle toward her.

  “Sir Elsa,” he said. “Your blade.”

  “Could have used that a bit earlier,” she said weakly. “Too damned late now.”

  At the foot of the aisle, the gheist-wrapped shaman stooped and came through the shattered doors. The storm whipped around his feet, scattering snow and splintered wood. Once inside, the pagan unfolded to his full height. The god of storms filled the doma with its fury.

  38

  ONCE THEY WERE off the road, LaGaere’s path was easy enough to follow. The horses churned a track in the mud, and soon there was a trail of torn brush and trampled shrubbery that ran up and down the rolling hills of the moor. Judging from their stride and the frequent stops, LaGaere and his men did not expect pursuit.

  “They’re certainly taking their time about it,” Martin said. “Stopping to rest frequently, it seems, and the mounts led as often as they’re ridden. Do they think we won’t chase them?”

  “It’s not an unreasonable belief,” Lucas said. He glanced down at the strange river of silvery water that had led them this far, and which stretched over the next hill and beyond. “Without Fianna guiding us, we would still be beating through the forests and following the roads. Besides, their horses are exhausted. We’ll have them soon enough.”

  “And what then?” Martin asked. “They outnumber us, and even riding only occasionally, they’ll be fresher than us in a fight.”

  “Not to mention your high inquisitor,” Fianna said. The witch was dragging. Whatever magic bound her to the water that led them had sapped her energy. Once they found the trail in the mud, Lucas tried to get her to release the binding, but she refused. He wondered if the little river might be the only thing sustaining her.

  “We will come upon them unawares,” he said. “Sacombre is powerful, but the battle of the Fen Gate reduced him greatly.” He turned to Martin. “I have heard great things about your skill of arms, Sir Roard. Surely Warhome and his men will be little match for you.”

  “Yes, of course. I will simply recite my tournament record, and they will surely cast down their arms,” Martin muttered. “Not a worry.”

  “There’s the spirit,” Lucas said. They approached another gentle hill, but at its base Fianna stumbled. Lucas laid a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. “Not long now, witch. We are nearly at the end.”

  “My end is far from here, priest,” she answered irritably.

  “What game is LaGaere playing at?” Martin asked, hoping to change the subject as quickly as he could. The thought of putting the witch to trial, even after she had helped them, made him uncomfortable. “You don’t think he’s another heretic, do you? Secretly serving the pagan gods, or one of Sacombre’s conspirators?”

  “Heretic? Oh, I think not. I’m sure he had nothing to do with the gheist’s attack,” Lucas said. “LaGaere likely saw his opportunity and took it while we were distracted. Though someone led that gheist to our camp.”

  “Could Sacombre be responsible? Even in chains?”

  “I think not. There are rituals required, and sacrifices to be made,” Lucas said. “Someone must be following us. A troop of pagans, perhaps, or priests loyal to Sacombre’s heresy.”

  “None of mine,” Fianna said. “We would not dare stir the ancient dust of Gardengerry. Not even now, with the hunter gone.”

  “Then the sooner we are to Heartsbridge, the better. I won’t feel safe until those sacred walls have embraced us,” Martin said quietly.

  “If then,” Lucas said.

  They crossed another hill, much taller than most, affording a view for miles. The path of churned mud and broken shrubbery disappeared into the distance, and a strap of smoke leaked into the sky from the valley beyond. Night was beginning to fall. Lucas pulled them back from the hill’s summit before they were silhouetted against the sky.

  “This is as far as you go, for now,” he said. “Stay beneath the crest of the hill. If they set a watch, they might have already seen us. I doubt it, but there’s no reason to risk it any further.”

  “If they do have a watch posted and have spotted us, we should strike now,” Martin said. “Even with tired horses, as soon as they know they’re pursued, LaGaere will push to the coast without remorse. This may be our only chance.”

  “Perhaps, but if that’s the case, we’re already lost. We’ll never cross those hills in the time it would take them to mount up and flee.” Lucas slid to the ground and started to unpack his bags. He unrolled a leather wrap of arcane tools, drawing each one from its sleeve with a mumbled prayer. “I will scout ahead. Perhaps something can be done about those horses.”

  “You’re exhausted, my frair,” Martin said.

  “I am tired, yes, but I am bound to the task—and what better time for a priest of Cinder to do his work than under Cinder’s pale gaze?” Lucas laid the tools in a broad circle just beneath the crest of the hill. He settled into the center of the circle. “Besides, the witch will never make those miles in her present condition. As much help as she has been, I would not count on her in a fight.”

  “Nor I you,” Fianna said. She collapsed to the ground, crossing her legs and leaning her head forward to rest in her palms. “But this will not come to a fight, I think. Not while Sacombre lives.”

  “Perhaps. Either way, you must guard us both, Sir Roard. Don’t let her interfere with this ritual, and if I fail and LaGaere comes for her, you must run. Protect her, and see her delivered to justice.”

  “I will,” Martin said. “Even unto death.”

  “Even unto death,” Lucas said. Then he lay his staff across his knees, closed his eyes, and began the slow, steady process of unraveling his soul from the flesh of his body, spooling it out into the night.

  * * *

  They sat in a tight circle of light, their shadows stretching long and sharp into the moors. Sacombre sat on his campstool quietly, head tipped up to the moon in prayer. The soldiers ate without speaking. LaGaere stayed close to the high inquisitor.

  “We should have hunted longer for the witch,” one of the knights muttered darkly into his cup. “We could have already seen her to justice by now.”

  “You would linger too long with her flesh, I think, Sir Sault,” LaGaere answered. “Best that we leave her to the inquisition.”

  “Like the inquisition doesn’t dawdle in the flesh,” Sault answered. He gave the high inquisitor a sideways glance and a smirk. “Got to stay warm in winter somehow, eh?”

  “No,” Sacombre said without lowering his eyes from the sky. “We don’t.”

  The men shifted uncomfortably on their campstools. LaGaere waited a long moment, then closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Now that we have secured your safety, your holiness, we should discuss what comes next,” he said. “The hypocrisy of this hedge priest, dragging you south to face judgment after he stood beside Malcolm Blakley and Colm Adair. It cannot be tolerated.” He fidgeted with a bottle of wine. “The ignominy of it. You, the one man willing to expose the Tenerran savages for the pagans they truly are! And to use Lord Halverdt’s death as justification…

  “Cinder and Strife, what’s to be done?”

  “What’s to be done indeed,” Sacombre said quietly. He sat with his shoulders hunched, barely touching the food they offered. His face and hands were crossed with strange scars, wounds that looked very old and deep, but which hadn’t been on his flesh during the campaign against Adair. LaGaere wanted to ask about them but, frankly, he was reluctant to broach the subject.

  The silence stretched for several minutes.

  “Yes,” LaGaere said finally. “Sophie Halverdt might be brought around, if we were able to explain what happened to her father. She holds his deep distrust of Tener, as any good and faithful Celestial must, but the duke’s blood haunts her. Perhaps now that she has his body�
�”

  “What remains of his body, that is,” Sault muttered. There had been little left of the duke of Greenhall following the gheist’s attack.

  “Halverdt will be no friend to me,” Sacombre said. “Not until her mind has been bent in my favor. But she will be no friend to Tener, either.”

  “Best we leave her out of it, then,” LaGaere said.

  “The true lords of Suhdra will stand with you, your holiness,” Sault said sharply. “We will raise your banner along the Burning Coast, and gather the faithful of Cinder and Strife to protest this miscarriage of justice.”

  “Enthusiasm suits you,” Sacombre said, “but I wonder, Sir Sault, have you been to the Circle of Lords?”

  “Of course. I served as my lord’s honor guard last Frostnight, and now that his son will take the peaked throne, I hope to render young Fabron the same service.”

  “Very good. And did you see the throne that sits there, in the midst of the Circle?” Sacombre asked. He turned to Duke LaGaere and smiled. “Or the remains of a throne, at least.”

  “We all know the history, your holiness,” LaGaere snapped. “The church ended the line of kings in the south, and promised to do so again, should we rise against them. But our faith is absolute—it is what has led us to this point, and nothing less!”

  “The Celestriarch might not see it that way, should you march against his walls with banners flying and spears raised,” Sacombre noted. “No matter how pure your intentions.”

  “Well, what of Heartsbridge itself? Surely there are allies in the Celestial Dome who will see through this lie?” Sault asked.

  “If you mean to take me to Heartsbridge, it would have been better to leave me in the frair’s custody. The court of winter will not look kindly on galloping off into the moors, away from the celestially designated escort. Frair Lucas was taking me to my justice.” Sacombre raised his bony head and looked at LaGaere. His eyes were the color of fresh snow. “Do you think I would be ill served by the church’s justice?”