The Iron Hound

by Tim Akers

  “My frair, I don’t have the authority—”

  “Yield the gate!” he shouted, and he started marching forward, turning his head to the quiet ranks of Suhdrin troops. “Into the castle, faithful servants of Heartsbridge. Strip the noble of their weapons, fill the dungeon with those of lesser birth. Kill any who resist you.” He turned back to the Fen Gate, raising his voice, lacing it with naetheric power until it boomed from the skies like a thunderclap. “Kneel before Cinder and you will be spared! Raise your hand against the true servants of the gods, and your blood will be used in the forges of hell!”

  The knight of MaeHerron who had been the first to speak quickly presented her sword, holding it out in her palms. One of the Suhdrin soldiers snatched it away, kicking her over as he passed. A cheer went up among the southerners as their column flooded through the open gates. The Tenerrans were too stunned to resist.

  There were a few pockets of violence, the product of over exuberance or stubborn anger. Gilliam saw none of it. The frair marched into the ruined keep and lay Marcel’s body on the throne. Then he turned to the crowd of Suhdrins who had followed him inside.

  “Find Houndhallow, and bring him to me,” he said. “Bring me the lord of dogs! Run him down. Bring him groveling at my feet.” They roared in response, and the sound carried into the sky, through the broken walls of the Fen Gate, until it settled in the forests beyond.

  The horn sounded. The hunt began.

  * * *

  The waters fell and drained away, taking the dead of Suhdra with them. Malcolm’s column of knights stood in stunned silence, watching the unnatural river disappear into the ground.

  Sorcha lowered her arms and smiled.

  “Easy enough, if you’re willing to break the rules of common war,” she said.

  “My lady, what has happened…” Sir Harrow started. The woman shuddered as she stared at the duchess, touching fingers to her mouth, her eyes wide. “What has become of you?”

  “Not now, Harrow,” Malcolm snapped. He turned to his wife, pulling her to one side. “How could you do that? How dare you reveal yourself so, to these loyal knights?”

  “How dare I?” Sorcha asked, raising her brows. “Would you rather I let them die in pointless war? Do you not value their lives, Malcolm?” She drew closer to him, as the smile lingering on her lips turned sour. “Do you not value mine?”

  “That is not what I meant,” Malcolm said. “These men and women are loyal to me and to the church. You have presented them with a decision they cannot make.”

  “Yes, I suppose I have,” Sorcha said. She brushed her husband aside and addressed the narrow crescent of knights tarrying at the edge of the forest. They watched her nervously. “Who will you betray?” she asked them. “Which lord will you turn aside? My dear husband, who has clothed and fed and trained you, to whom you owe your honor and your blades?” She gestured to the sky. “Or the gods above?”

  “It was her son what did this,” one of the knights said. His name was Sir Flynn, the youngest of an old family, one that listed tribe elders and then earls in its history, before falling humble into the service of House Blakley. His wild red hair spoke to noble blood, despite his new station. Flynn sniffed and looked among the other knights. “Young Blakley brought that witch to us. He broke the old promises. Why are we supposed to take the heretic’s brand for him?”

  “Ian stood in the broken gate,” Harrow said sharply. “Held back the Suhdrin horde, when the rest of us had failed. And he’s the son of our lord. He deserves our loyalty, as does Lord Blakley.”

  “If he’s worthy of our loyalty, where is he now?” Flynn asked. He turned to face Malcolm head on. “Houndhallow sent him away, didn’t he? Sent him on pilgrimage with that grim bitch of Strife.”

  “Anyone who speaks that way of a vow knight has little to say to me about loyalty,” Malcolm said.

  “And yet he speaks so of your son, and let it be so,” Sorcha said quietly. “It’s no wonder your sworn blades are dithering over loyalty.”

  “There is little doubt what the church asks of us,” Flynn said. “The lady is possessed. The cold reason of Cinder would see her cleansed.”

  “We will not speak of my wife like an infection to be burned away,” Malcolm said. “You have put your faith in me. Have faith that I will make appropriate decisions regarding Lady Sorcha. The church will be brought into this—when the time is right, and the mood has shifted.”

  “When they won’t simply kill her out of spite, you mean,” Sir Doone said. The woman who had served as Sorcha’s personal guard stood tensely beside her lady.

  “When tempers have settled, yes,” Malcolm agreed. He took a step forward, addressing the gathered knights who, until now, had known nothing of Sorcha’s condition. He held out his hands. “I am not asking you for heresy, or even intrigue. I’m only asking you to trust me. Trust the lord who has led you in war and in peace, around whose banner you gathered on the fields of White Lake. I will see my wife to holy health, with the blessing of the church. I just won’t lose her to the inquisition.”

  The crescent of knights stood still, looking back and forth from Sorcha to Malcolm to their own ranks. Finally, Sir Flynn took a step forward. He drew his sword. Sir Doone’s blade was in her hand immediately, the steel whispering eagerly from the scabbard. Everyone froze.

  Flynn smiled at Sir Doone, then went to one knee, presenting his sword in uplifted palms and bowing his head.

  “I swore an oath to you, of service and of faith. I will keep that oath. Gods know you’ve earned it, Reaverbane.”

  “I rode beside you in the charge at White Lake, and stood by your son on the walls of the Fen Gate,” Sir Harrow said. She knelt. “I am not going to abandon you now.”

  The rest of the knights knelt, one by one, whispering oaths of their own, to the Hound, the hallow. Reaverbane. Even iron in the blood. Sir Doone was the last to kneel, and her sword tipped in Sorcha’s direction. Malcolm sighed.

  “Would that I were worthy of your loyalty,” Malcolm said. “I swear to earn it.”

  “Your son would be here as well, on his knee with the rest of them,” Sorcha whispered. “If you hadn’t sent him away with that damned priestess.”

  “Priestess,” Malcolm answered, sudden horror in his voice. “Gods, the priestess!”

  * * *

  She was where Malcolm had left her. Her breathing was shallow, she was still terribly pale, but her wounds had stopped bleeding and some color had returned to her face. Her horse cropped nearby, oblivious to its rider’s distress. Malcolm knelt beside her, taking her hand.

  “We have to get her to the castle,” he said. “Flynn, Doone, give me a hand.”

  “You will reopen her wounds,” Doone said. “Better to bring a medic here.”

  “The Suhdrin forces will be forcing the gates by now,” Flynn said. “The barbers will have their hands full with our own wounded.”

  “We can’t leave her here,” Malcolm said. “The Orphanshield will have my skin if one of his pet children dies in my care.”

  “What were you thinking, letting a priestess ride out with you?” Sorcha asked.

  “It wasn’t my choice,” Malcolm muttered. “She was very insistent, but it doesn’t matter now. Flynn, return to the castle and bring one of the inquisitor’s people to us. Even a priest of Cinder should be able to stabilize the child.”

  “Or usher her into the quiet, if we’re too late,” Flynn said, but he mounted smoothly and rode hard for the sally port. Malcolm looked to his wife.

  “You will need to hide, my love,” Malcolm said. “We have gone through too much to reveal you now.”

  “The child already knows,” Sorcha said, bending closer. “You know, I could…”

  “No,” Malcolm said. “The child is better dead than damned.”

  “Oh? And what about me?” Sorcha asked. “Am I better dead, my love?”

  “You aren’t yet dead, and far from damned,” Malcolm said. “I will see you healed, my love.
Have faith.”

  “Healed? Or fixed?” Sorcha turned squarely to face her husband. Her pale skin flashed with bright light. “Am I a cracked vase to be repaired, husband? So I can be returned to a place of honor on your mantle?”

  “Gods, Sorcha, you know that isn’t…”

  “No, I don’t know, actually. What I know is that you have hidden me away since this happened, sent my son into exile as punishment for my condition, imprisoned the woman who saved my life, and now stand on the edge of heresy to keep the inquisition from finding me. You’re so damned convinced that I can be fixed, I wonder how you’ll react when you learn that there is no solution for my particular problem,” Sorcha said. “Or worse, what you will say if I learn the price of my repair, and refuse it?”

  “Sorcha…” Malcolm said sadly. Sorcha cut him off.

  “These knights have kept their loyalty to you, in spite of your actions. Perhaps you could learn from them. I know I would appreciate it,” she said. “I’m sure your son would have, as well.”

  Malcolm stood quietly, working his jaw. He was about to answer when Sir Flynn returned, riding as though his mount was on fire.

  “My lord! To Houndhallow!” Flynn shouted. He dismounted at a run, grabbing Malcolm’s shoulders. “The inquisition has betrayed us. Marchand’s men have taken the castle without a fight. Your banners are struck, and your men are being marched into the dungeons. We must flee to Houndhallow!”

  “Surely there is some mistake,” Malcolm said. “Frair Gilliam’s writ was to cleanse the castle of pagan influence. He would never take a hand in our battle.”

  “You overestimate the faith of the inquisitor,” Sorcha said sourly. “He will do what he thinks is best. For the church, not Tener—and certainly not for us.” At that moment another rider scrambled up, a man they had sent to scout the Suhdrin flank. His eyes were wide.

  “Suhdrin banners along the godsroad, my lord,” he said. “They have passed us, and seem to be hunting.”

  “They seek us, no doubt,” Flynn said. “They must think we fled before the battle.”

  “If the road north is closed to us, we must go elsewhere. Doone, you’ve spent a month in these woods. Is there another way?”

  “North? No,” Sir Doone said, shaking her head. “Deer paths lead around the castle, but the Fen is too dense to our north. We might make it through eventually, but we don’t have the supplies to support so many riders.”

  “Then we go elsewhere. We go south. Last I heard, the Reaveholt was besieged but still held.” Malcolm gathered the reins of his mount. “Doone, lead us by these shadowed paths as far south as you can. We’ll risk the godsroad only once we’re well away.”

  “And what of the girl?” Harrow asked. “Do we leave her for the Suhdrins to find? She may die in the interim.”

  Malcolm paused. He sighed deeply, then turned to his wife and nodded.

  “Do what you must,” he said. “Join us when it is done. I would not witness such heresy.”

  “Of course not, my love,” Sorcha said. Malcolm mounted quickly and trotted off. Most of the knights followed him, but Doone and the others who had served Sorcha for the past month remained behind. The duchess knelt beside the priestess and smiled.

  “The gods will forgive you for this, my dear,” she whispered. “As they will forgive me.”

  41

  THE SHOULDERS OF the gheist scraped the doma’s ceiling. The summer chimes, packed away for the season, tore free from their moorings and spun through the roaring winds that cloaked the creature. The sound of it was like a vault of coins falling on hard stone. The pews shifted, the storm plowing down the aisle to make room for the feral god and his attendant shaman.

  Elsa sighed. This fight had gone on too long. She was barely recovered from the blizzard. Her own impatience had forced her out of bed, forced her into this situation. If she’d stayed down, the people of Halfic wouldn’t have felt compelled to throw her and Ian out of town. They would have left the gates closed, and whatever wards they were employing would have kept this monster outside.

  She wasn’t the type to stay down, though. Not even now. As the gheist hauled its ponderous form into the doma, she slowly got to her feet, using the sword as a crutch until she was standing. Ian watched her nervously. He had a good heart, she mused.

  Pity he was going to die this way.

  Maybe Halfic’s people would live, though. Those children. Their parents. Maybe they were fleeing from the village even now, out into that storm. It wasn’t a good death, but they stood a better chance at living than if they had remained.

  “Let’s end this,” Elsa said. She was weaving on her feet, her legs unsteady, the pain in her bones an endless roar. Channeling the bright lady’s blessings was hard on the body. Harder without her sword and the bloodwrought magic it contained. At least she had the sword back. She held the blade in front of her, almost losing her balance as she brought it up. Frustration kicked through her blood, and she fed it into her muscles, bearing down on the weakness with an iron will. She steadied and fell into the familiar balance of a guard stance.

  “We’ve played around long enough,” she growled. “Summer is waiting for you, pagan. The dawn will always come.”

  “Not for you it won’t, vow knight,” the shaman responded. “Never again.” The gheist surged forward, dragging the shaman behind it. A wall of fog blanketed the doma in its wake. At her side, Ian stumbled back, hiding behind one of the lesser shrines that lined the sanctuary. She had a brief flash of memory, being regaled with stories about this boy and how he’d faced a gheist on the fields of Greenhall during the Allfire. He had learned a lot since then.

  Thank the gods.

  They came together just in front of the altar.

  Her opponent struck, and Elsa parried, stepped aside, and was forced to parry again as the feral spirit swung its ice-sheathed fists in broad, hall clearing arcs. Elsa’s blade glowed hot, sparks cascading from the edge with each blow. The magic written into her blood and forged into the blade flashed bright, light leaking through her skin from the veins beneath.

  The fog swept around them, cloaking the altar and hanging like a tapestry from the ceiling of the doma, but the heat of Elsa’s defense burned it away before it could creep any closer. Strands of it hung in tattered streams at the perimeter of the fight.

  The gheist fell back. The gray-white mass of its icy fists was fractured, bright white lines cracking through its knuckles. Several of Elsa’s ripostes struck true, leaving long scars across its chest. The shaman at the gheist’s center bowed in concentration, his hands clenched desperately around the dagger that seemed to be the focus of his power. Around him, the gheist shifted like a cloak that kept slipping from his shoulders.

  Perhaps she wasn’t the only one feeling the weight of their fight, Elsa mused with a certain satisfaction. Perhaps there was a way out of this after all.

  “Your wards are strong,” the shaman said. “Your inquisitor taught you well.”

  “My inquisitor taught me more about soup than wards,” Elsa said. “Come, shaman. You tarry too long in this world. I mean to part you from it.” She took a step forward. The gheist retreated, flinching back like a shadow in flickering light. Elsa pressed the attack.

  “Elsa! The altar!” Ian shouted from the side. “He’s trying to draw you away!”

  She paused, unwilling to take her eyes off the enemy in front of her. Instead she unfolded her attention, wrapping the room in the focus that usually stayed in her sword. To her surprise, the doma was crossed with magical power. It laced through the air, filling the place and stretching to the walls outside, anchoring wards that Elsa only now sensed, because they weren’t directed at her and she hadn’t looked for them before.

  The entire pattern was centered in the altar behind her. The threads weren’t the bright energy that sparked through her blood, but the cool, smooth shadow of the naether. Inquisitor magic. Winter’s power. But there was no inquisitor in Harthal.

  In the brie
f moment that Elsa was distracted by the wards, the gheist renewed its attack. Its first blow knocked her from her feet, driving her back to the altar. She only kept a grip on her sword by luck and habit. Now that she was aware of them, Elsa understood that the wards cushioned the blow. She scrambled to her feet, but the bank of fog filled the room, hiding the gheist along with everything else.

  “Ian! Can you see anything out there? Do you know where it is?” Her words were muffled by the damp air. She sketched a line of light with her blade, throwing it into the fog like a whip, but the cloud quickly absorbed it. “This is your hope, coward?” Elsa said. “To strike me from behind? Is that the only way you can win?”

  “Freedom at any cost. Honor is a light price, and easily paid.” The shaman’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing through the close shroud of the fog. “I will see you bleed, summer child.”

  “I’ve blood enough to spare,” Elsa said. “You must—”

  A patch of fog to her right darkened, resolved into the gheist before she could turn to face it. Elsa had only a breath to twist, the forte of her blade coming up close to her body, the full force of her blood pressing the defense. The creature hit her and she fell, scrambling mindlessly behind the altar, the pain roaring through her body as her mind struggled to grapple with whatever fresh injury had been wrought.

  Howling, the shaman drove the gheist forward. His grip on the spirit appeared to be failing, and yet he spurred it on. Another massive fist swung at Elsa, but landed on the stone altar instead.

  The altar cracked, and like a net drawn out of the ocean, the wards snapped back into the naether, spinning into the altar’s splintered face, disappearing from the world. The shaman laughed hysterically. Whatever nuisance the wards had been, they were gone. His binding of the gheist visibly tightened, the shifting cloak of power cutting trim. He stood over Elsa.

  “Another glory for my name,” the shaman said. “Another dead vow knight under my fist. You all die this way, bitch. Ashen and hot, like a fire waiting to be stamped out.”