The Iron Hound

by Tim Akers

  “We have to get out of here,” Noel said. She pulled her companion to his feet. The shaman was massive, his thick arms nearly limp in her grasp. “Whatever Folam did, it’s put us in a shit position.”

  “Wait… Gwen…”

  “Probably dead,” Noel said, “and good riddance. She’s caused enough trouble for one child.”

  “No, I saw her fall. The god flowed through her, like a pipe, bursting. I… I think Folam needed her. Used her. As a focus,” Cahl said. His voice became steadily weaker with each word. He leaned over and nearly passed out. Noel shook him.

  “Better that she died here, then,” she insisted. “Fomharra’s possession changed her, no question. If this is the sort of power that change has wrought, she should never have traveled with the tribes. Folam has demonstrated it well enough.” She looked hopelessly around the crater. “She should be at peace, finally. With her family. With her tribe. She has nothing else to do in this world.”

  “I will decide that.” Gwen’s voice came from above them. They looked up, squinting into the light. Gwen was perched on the edge of the crater. Her clothes were ruined, ash smeared from her eyes to the temples of her shaved head. Something glowed through her, a frenetic energy that looked as much like madness as the burn of a fever dream.

  “But my time of peace hasn’t come yet,” she said.

  “Did you know—” Cahl started. Gwen cut him off.

  “Don’t be an idiot. Twice I’ve placed my faith in pagan elders, and twice I’ve paid in blood and ash. Folam spent whatever debt of trust I had left.”

  Noel stood, placing herself between the feeble shaman and Gwen. She started to draw on the spirit of her god, reflected in the fires that spotted the city around them. She lifted her chin.

  “Whatever you mean to do to us, best get it done,” Noel said. “We knew nothing of Folam’s plot. Will you kill us for that?”

  “Mean to do?” Gwen asked. “I mean to save you. Before the thousands of angry Suhdrins crawling through the wreckage of their homes realize they have pagans in their midst, and before I come up with a reason to not trust you, either.” She reached out to them, everic power crackling around her shoulders. A gale of wind lashed down the debris field, clearing a path through the wreckage.

  Noel and Cahl shared a look. Then, limping, they struggled up out of the crater.

  The sky was split between startling blue and the swirling madness of the risen god, his wrath etched in lightning and burning flowers. A cohort of knights rode against him. Banners flew, burning through the fields surrounding Greenhall. There were bodies among the pageantry, dead horses and crushed ranks of lesser spears, sacrificed to the fight. Flames danced through the city. The wail of the dying and the lament of the survivors mingled with the choir’s song, echoing down from the castle walls.

  They turned from it all and fled from it all, passing unnoticed through the chaos. Of the voidfather they saw no sign, other than the chaos he had sown, and the death he had reaped.

  * * *

  Sophie Halverdt was at her meal when the gheist horn sounded. The attending knights, in their doublets of silk and golden chain, stared dumbfounded. Sophie swept to her feet and went to the window.

  Beyond the wall to the citadel, out among the twisting streets of the Curse, a storm growled. As Sophie watched, a petal-cloaked god rose from between the buildings. Lightning danced across its body, and thunder shook the sky. She just laughed.

  “The Lady Strife has given us a second chance,” she said. “I let Sacombre slip through my fingers, and I feared the bright lady’s judgment. But instead she has shown me mercy.”

  Several of the knights crowded behind her. Sir Grier seized the drapes and pulled them aside, to give the whole group a better view. An immediate babble of panic broke out around the table.

  “My lady, we must secure the keep,” Grier said. “Order the gates closed, and the guard mustered!” Sophie shook her head.

  “I will not fail Strife twice, sir. The horn has sounded, and I will answer its call.” She turned to the collected knights. “Bring my armor and my lance. See to your blades, and draw the bloodwrought iron from your sheathes. Strife is judging us for our failure, and giving us the gift of trouble. Pray that we die in her service, or live in her glory!”

  * * *

  By the time she had her armor on and her mount caparisoned, the first column of knights had already ridden out. Sophie cursed herself for not being at their head. The people needed to see their lady in their midst, leading their defense, protecting their homes.

  She drew the blade her father had not lived long enough to gift her, the sword he had put aside to instead wield the cursed blade of Sacombre’s betrayal. It was an ancient blade, older even than Greenhall. Her family had carried in north in the war that earned them their title—the war fought against the pagan tribes.

  She raised the blade over her head.

  The column that was riding with her, made up mostly of the knights who had been eating with her when the horn sounded, settled into silence. Sophie raised her chin and nodded to the gates of the keep.

  “The eternal enemy is before us,” she called. “It has worn many names over the centuries, and many faces, but it is always the same. Pagan! Tenerran! Children of winter and of death. Those of us who walk in the light will always be troubled by these bastards.” She thrust the sword higher into the air, her voice louder with each word. “And we will always stand against them! Stand in the light. Stand in the majesty. Stand with Strife and your house will stand forever!”

  Her call was met with cheers, the glory washing through the crowd, riling them to the point of madness. Grinning maniacally, Sophie lowered the blade and pointed it at the gate. The guards cranked the doors aside, and she spurred her charger forward. The column of knights leapt after her, banners fluttering, in full voice and armor, blades high, spirits higher.

  * * *

  Outside the gates, Greenhall was a warzone. The streets were abandoned, strewn with upturned carriages and barrels of food, their contents scattered across the cobbles. The braziers that stood at every corner still burned, though several had been knocked over. Cinders danced in the air, threatening a wildfire that could bring the city low, but Sophie had no time for that.

  Strife was the goddess of fire. If she chose to consume the city, it was a gift Sophie was willing to give. Whatever the bright lady asked, she would surrender.

  Her armored column thundered through the empty streets, turning toward the Curse, and the god who waited there. It was hard to get a good look at the gheist. There were glimpses between buildings, a wave of burning flowers, a fist crown in lightning, a face as smooth and bright as a silver plate, reflecting the light of flickering flame. Yet no sooner would she get a look at the gheist than the road would turn, or a cart would stand in their path, or a burning tower would intervene. Finally, Sophie just bent to her charger’s neck and urged him to go faster.

  Suddenly, they found themselves among broken horses and the discarded armor of knights, choking the road. It was the wreckage of the first column that had charged out of the gates. Sophie had to slow down and pick her way through the carnage. The gore turned her stomach, and the smell of spilled guts and blood made her head swim. She found herself wishing she’d brought the frairwood sachet she kept by her bed.

  Beyond the dead, the road opened up into a broad avenue, and then a final turn brought them to an open square. The gheist stood at the center of square, surrounded by the remnants of the first column of knights. Their banners lay on the ground, along with a handful more of the dead and dying. The tight ranks of the column were broken. Individual knights rushed around the creature, giving half-hearted charges, wheeling past to strike whenever its attention was turned away, retreating just as quickly to the perimeter of the square.

  There was no rhythm to it, no glory. Their bloodwrought spears tangled in the unnatural flesh of their foe, tearing holes in the cloak of flowers, wounds that trailed bright cinder
s after the spears passed through. The gheist barely noticed. It struck with lightning-wreathed fists, digging ruts in the ground, as intent on destroying buildings as it was on killing the knights that attacked it.

  One of the knights wore a familiar sigil on her chest. It was Sir Lareux, who had attended her in the cloister—sent by her father to protect Sophie, should one of the other lords of the Circle try something clever with the heir of Greenhall. Lareux was gathering the scattered remnants of the column for a final charge. Sophie hailed her.

  “Deva! Sir Lareux!” Sophie shouted. The knight’s head snapped up. Her armor was dented across the shoulder, and her left arm hung limp against her saddle, but Lareux raised her sword and started toward Sophie’s position.

  Sophie waved her back. “We must strike together! As one, and from the other side.” She pointed to the other end of the courtyard, where a small gathering of knights hid behind the wreckage of a carriage. “Rally those men, and attack on my signal!”

  Lareux answered by wheeling her mount, shouting at the knights around her, and then charging to the ruined carriage. The knights there shied away, but Lareux urged them together, striking with the flat of her blade when they balked, circling them like a wolf. Like sheep, the knights clustered together, becoming more afraid of Lareux than they were of the gheist.

  “Are all my father’s bannermen cowards?” Sophie growled.

  “It is hard to blame them for their fear, considering what we face, my lady,” Grier said. “They are accustomed to fight steel and flesh, not the storm itself. Give them a spear wall to charge, and they will not balk. Ask them to die in battle with a god, however…” Grier shrugged. “It is difficult.”

  “Strife asks us to do difficult things,” Sophie said. “She asks us to fight, to die, to raise the banner of summer in winter’s darkness, to burn rather than rest.” She whirled on the men following her, sword gripped angrily across her chest. “I ask no less of you. Do I have your faith, or will I need to find braver hearts to lead?”

  “You have our faith, my lady,” Grier said grimly. “And our hearts.”

  “Very well! You ask for a battle, to prove your loyalty? This is the battle I offer.” She pointed her blade at the whirling storm of the gheist. “It is not the battle I expected, nor the death I would choose, but it is what Strife has given us, and I do not question the gifts of the bright lady. So come, let us fight, and die, and burn!”

  She whirled her mount around and gave it the spur. As one, the riders of the column lurched forward. On the other side of the square, Lareux and her bolstered knights shouted and charged in.

  The charge was a wild, rampaging gallop, Sophie’s mount hammering across the stones of the courtyard in a thundering tattoo that filled her skull and shook her bones to the core. Her throat was ragged with screaming, the sweat from her brow stinging her eyes. The gheist was in front of her. The rest of the world narrowed into a pinprick, and with each crashing stride of her charger, the gheist got closer. It filled her vision, and then she could only see the closest edge of the storming god. It looked like a squall line, cutting across the square, a whipping wall of wind and lightning.

  Closer, and the gale winds struck her helmet, drowning out all other sound.

  Closer, and the winds were drowned out by growling thunder.

  Closer…

  And the gheist was gone.

  The tip of Sophie’s spear tore a hole in the air in front of her, so that it parted like a curtain before a play. Streamers of flame and ash spun down from the tear. Sophie’s shoulders and knees hummed as the flesh of the gheist brushed against them. Her mount thrashed his head madly.

  Then the gheist burst like a melon. A wave of light and life washed over them, carried on a wind that smelled of sulphur and loam. Lightning cracked against the nearest tower, sending showers of rock into the courtyard. Another stroke fell, this time farther out, and another, until the sky was alight with streaks of lightning. Sophie screamed and covered her head, but the thunder became one long, rumbling growl that rattled her teeth… and her faith.

  A dozen fires started, then a hundred, uncountable. For a brief moment the city of Greenhall burned—even the stones—as though it was being consumed by Strife herself. And then the rain began.

  Only a drop at first, splattering on Sophie’s forehead as she looked up to watch her city being destroyed. In the next heartbeat the sky opened up, and a torrent such as she had never seen fell on the city. It quenched the fires, soaked the braziers, and turned the streets to mud. The lightning settled, changed to flickering light between clouds, and a low, comfortable rumble, distant and safe. The edge of the storm seemed to spread out beyond the walls of Greenhall, reaching the forest, stopping just beyond the tree line.

  Mingled with the rain, half-burned flower petals fell. Of the gheist there was no sign. It was as if its fury had been spent in the storm, as though it couldn’t keep a hold of itself, and so dissolved into the rain.

  “Inside,” Sophie said. She sheathed her blade. The rain was warm on her face, the water soaking into the padded lining of her armor. “Let’s get inside, before this thing turns again.”

  She led her sodden knights back to the keep, passing the already bloating bodies of their companions. Lightning scars danced over the walls, and every tower bore the mark of the gheist’s fury. Ruptured roofs, broken windows, cracked walls. The rain leaked in, soaking the castle in the remnants of the mad god of spring.

  40

  THE GROUND IN front of the Fen Gate was blackened and cracked. The walls were scoured clean by flames hotter than any fire could create. Nothing was left of the barricades that had separated Suhdrin from Tenerran. At the heart of this wasteland there were two figures.

  One was small and dead, the other bent and shaking.

  The Orphanshield made his slow, shuffling way across the dark earth, leaning heavily on his broken staff. The ironwood, blessed in Cinderfell, consecrated with the spirits of Frair Gilliam’s ancestors, had split down the middle as though lightning-struck. The silver icons of Cinder and the inquisition were forge hot, the air around them bending in waves, the sweat from Gilliam’s brow hissing when it struck the metal.

  Tears cut dusty tracks down his wrinkled cheeks. The inquisitor stopped beside the dead child. He knelt, the ashen crust of the ground crumbling beneath his knee.

  Marcel lay on his back. His eyes were open, though they swam with inky vapor, and tar-thick tears of his own ran down the corners of his face. The final wound, dealt by Frair Gilliam, steamed scarlet and ebon at the center of his chest. The horrific gheist that had possessed the young priest was gone. Its host had not survived the confrontation, had possibly been dead even before the gheist filled his bones. It didn’t matter. Gilliam would always carry the burden of the child’s death. His child. His orphan, and his weight to shoulder.

  Gilliam cast his staff aside and dug calloused hands under the boy’s body. The hard crust of the ground cut his knuckles, but he ignored it, gathering the dead child into his arms. He rose and looked around. A handful of soldiers stood near him, all of them looking as if they would rather die than draw his attention.

  “Who has done this!” Gilliam wailed. “From whom must I take my justice?”

  He was answered by silence. The disturbance of clouds that had formed during his battle with the gheist was slowly dissipating. The sun came out. Its heat and light mocked Gilliam’s misery. He scowled at the sky.

  “Answer me!” He held up the body, turning slowly.

  The Suhdrin forces gathered in a huge semi-circle around the castle gates, their ranks motionless. Along the walls of the Fen Gate, those few Tenerrans who remained stood in quiet regard. “One of you knows,” he said. “His blood is on someone’s hands! Give me that criminal, and spare yourself my wrath.” He stopped, facing the Suhdrin ranks. “He came from your camp. Did some twisted Suhdrin heart bow at the heretic’s shrine? Must I seek to pay this debt in southern blood?”

  “My frair,
we would never lift a hand against the sworn of Cinder,” one of the men said. He was a peasant, his gear patched together, but his eyes were earnest. Gilliam could always tell an honest man, especially when they were afraid. “He came from outside the camp,” the man continued. “From the forest.”

  “You swear it?” Gilliam hissed, and his voice carried power and threat. The man broke out in tears, but he nodded furiously. The inquisitor grunted, then turned to the gates of the castle. “And what of you, Tener? I came to sanctify this castle, to root out a heresy that your lord swore to me had passed. Does this look like an end to heresy?”

  No one answered. Many along the walls shifted uncomfortably, looking to the spears beside them, weighing the faith of their fellows.

  “Someone killed this child!” Gilliam roared. “And that same someone brought an abomination, a devil, into the world. To wear this boy’s flesh.” He shook the corpse like a banner, the dead child’s arms flopping, his limp jaw clapping shut. The sound echoed off the scorched walls of the castle. “Do words fail you? Fine. Bring me your lord, and let him answer my questions.”

  “My frair, I saw…” it was a knight of MaeHerron who spoke. She was tall, as though hewn from an oak, her skin fairer than most of the other Tenerrans, and she had no ink on her face. The woman paused and went to a knee. “Lord Blakley abandoned the castle shortly after the gheist horn sounded. I saw him slip out the sally gate, along with most of his loyal knights.”

  “Houndhallow ran?” Gilliam said. His voice was dangerously low now, dangerously quiet. “Fine. Let him run. I am fit for the hunt. Sir, your faith and that of your house will be rewarded. Yield these gates. It’s the time for this game of war to come to an end.”