by Tim Akers
“We can’t go far like this, my lord,” Sir Harrow muttered. She looked straight ahead, as though even a glance to the side would unseat her. “If the gheist comes on us, I’d rather fight on my feet than die like a fool.”
“Aye,” Malcolm said. “If it comes to that.”
“Hold,” Sorcha called from the front. She held up her arm, but few of the riders had enough control of their mounts to slow, much less stop. “Hold and turn!”
Malcolm rode past her and quickly realized why she had been calling for the halt. A river, swollen beyond its banks and frothy with current, swirled on the trail ahead. He jerked back on the horse’s mane, but that only caused the beast to spin wildly. Fortunately it slowed, coming to a stop knee deep in the swirling waters.
Sliding unceremoniously off of the mount’s back, he crashed into the river, sputtering as he came up for air. The other riders hemmed and hawed along the banks, tumbling into mud or falling to the solid ground. One knight—Sir Connor, perhaps—clung madly on to his mount as the beast charged full-on into the water. They were swept up in the current and disappeared downstream, mount and rider screaming.
“We’ll fight here,” Malcolm said. It wasn’t much of an order, as they had no choice in the matter. He trudged to the shore, drawing his feyiron blade and bellowing commands to those who could hear him. “Harrow, Darcy, form a line along the bank. Doone, I leave the flanks to you. Sorcha, can you do anything about this water? I’d like to have an escape available, if possible.”
“The madness of spring is upon it,” Sorcha said. She slid easily from her horse, bare feet squishing in the mud. “It will fight, if I ask it, but gods know who it will strike.”
“Best leave it out, then,” Malcolm said. He turned to the priestess, who had tarried and was only now coming over the hill. “Frair Catrin! If my men fall, I will leave them to your care.”
“That may not be necessary,” she said. “The gheist has turned.”
“Turned?” Malcolm said. He walked up the bank to the priestess’s side. Sure enough, the light from the gheist glittered on the horizon, lighting up the sky. It progressed slowly south, keeping to the road. “It bypassed our camp, at least, but where is it going?”
“I think I know,” Catrin said. She pointed, and Malcolm was able to see a scattering of campfires in the distance, directly in the rogue god’s path.
“But who…” Malcolm didn’t finish his thought. The gheist reached the lights and stopped moving. The dome sealed shut, until the only light came from a collection of slits along the side. At this distance, the gheist looked like a doma, dropped into the middle of the woods, illuminated by candles through stained glass.
Moments later the screams began.
They didn’t stop for several minutes. Once the night was silent again, the gheist came apart and disappeared.
* * *
They gathered their saddles and fitted them in silence. Sir Connor’s gear was split among the survivors. Once everyone was ready, they rode to where the gheist had been. The road was quiet. Not even the campfires remained.
The wreckage was simple. Dead bodies—men and women and horses—all dressed for war. The gheist had not come on them unawares. Swords lay broken in the mud. Supplies were thrown about, and the half-dozen fires of the company were smothered under a blanket of fine ash. Malcolm stirred the remnants of the nearest fire with his toe. A sweet smell rose up, like incense.
“They were burning frairwood,” he said. “For all the good it did.”
“I have never seen a gheist move with such intent,” Catrin said. “It was as though it hunted them. As though it was drawn to this place.”
“You have been too long isolated in Heartsbridge,” Malcolm said. “The feral gods move and hunt as they will. Without the vow knights and the inquisition, the whole north would be like this. Snuffed out.”
“That’s hardly true,” Sorcha said quietly, but Malcolm ignored her. The men moved somberly among the dead, looking for survivors.
“These are Suhdrin,” Doone said. She held up a tabard. Red, with a golden heart. “Galleux. They marched with Halverdt.”
“Aye. So they’ve extended their search south,” Malcolm said. “I was hoping they would focus to the north, toward Houndhallow. They must know we slipped free.”
“Or these men were coming north, as part of a reinforcement for the Fen Gate. Few enough of Galleux’s men fought at White Lake,” Sorcha said.
“That would mean that the Reaveholt has fallen, or been enveloped,” Malcolm said. “Either way, we’ll be too late to find shelter there.” He fell silent. The knights lost interest in the dead, drifting back to their horses. Malcolm followed them, mounting up and peering to the north. “What of the gheist?” he said. “We should see where it came from. What drew it into the world.”
“I think that’s best left a mystery,” Sorcha said. The duchess looked pale, even against her own internal light. She leaned wearily against her horse’s neck, trailing fingers through its mane. “We should not have come here. They will see us, now.”
“Who will see us?” Malcolm asked, but his wife fell once again into her strange reverie. He glanced at Catrin, but the priestess could only shrug. “Very well. Either the Reaveholt has fallen, or we are racing Galleux’s men to reach its gates. Either way, we should be on our way.”
“The calendar has turned against us,” Catrin said quietly. “The nights of gheists are here, and then it will be winter. Lady Strife is far away.”
“If she will not come to us, then we will ride to her,” Malcolm insisted. “Quickly now. South, before the old gods find us again.”
Leaving the Suhdrin dead behind, they reached the godsroad and beat their way toward Reaveholt, riding fast until the dawn brought them some warmth. Though a fog had set in, there was something comforting about daylight, that made it seem as if the gheists would leave them at peace, at least until night fell again.
* * *
The eyes that watched them from the shadows of the forest were of mortal blood. A dark form, armored in black and riding a pale horse, stood watch on a hill overlooking the road. It had trailed the gheist on its hunt, like the master follows the hound. The form noted Malcolm’s haste, and Sorcha’s light. It counted the Tenerran strength, and it smiled as it recognized Catrin’s pale form.
Once the Tenerrans were gone, the form whispered to its horse and turned north, riding for a dozen steps before blurring into shadow and fog. It disappeared with a whisper.
46
THE FIRST IAN saw of the old god was a wall of fog that moved at the edge of the campfire’s flickering light. The bank of swirling mist scudded between the trees, gray on black on shadow. The others were asleep, and he thought he might be dreaming, so he stayed silent. Stayed silent, and watched.
The gheist brushed against a lonely pine, and a shower of needles shook free of its limbs, dusting the god’s back in debris. The beast flexed iron hard muscles beneath tangled fur, and threw the needles off. The sound was like the jangle of pins on glass, even though the pine was green and the ground soft with autumn mulch. Ian stood and drew his sword. The gheist snapped like a banner in the wind, then disappeared among the trees.
“What was that?” Volent asked. Ian looked back to see that the Deadface had rolled to his feet, his vivid eyes staring into the woods.
“Nothing,” he said. “Fog, I think.” Even as he spoke, two bright eyes appeared in the distance, the color of storm clouds just before the tornado whips down. A rolling growl curled through the forest. Ian edged back. Volent seemed to not have heard the sound, or seen the eyes.
“Fog,” Volent answered. “Fog hides many things in the north.”
“It’s just fog,” Ian insisted. “You’re jumpy.” He sheathed his sword and sat back down on the log, his back to the fire so that he could continue to watch. The forest grew quiet again, and he began to think Volent had gone back to sleep. Then the knight marshal loomed suddenly out of his peripheral vision,
sitting heavily at Ian’s side. “I still have the watch, Volent,” he growled. “Get some sleep.”
“Sleep is no friend of mine,” Volent said. He uncapped a bottle and handed it over. “Nor yours, I think. I haven’t seen you sleep since we left Harthal.”
“I sleep,” Ian said, waving the bottle away. Volent pushed it toward him again, and Ian took it, reluctantly. It was just water. “And I’ll go back to sleep just as soon as my turn at the watch is over. Sooner, if you want to take over.”
Volent didn’t answer, but sat quietly, drinking and staring out into the woods. Ian cleared his throat and started to stand. Volent grabbed him.
“Don’t think I don’t see, Blakley. Your pet tails us like a bad scent. If it weren’t for your lady fair, I would have dragged you into the woods and cut your pagan heart out days ago.” Volent didn’t look up as he spoke, the slack mosaic of his face turned toward the darkened woods. “You have the vow knight fooled, but not me. Never me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ian said, snatching his arm away. “But know that if it comes to murder, you will need to take me unawares. I’m more than a match for a broken old knight like you.”
Volent snorted, then waved at him dismissively. “I’ve put down my share of young pups. You won’t be the last. Go to bed, Houndhallow. Dream of the glory you will never earn.”
Ian spun and stomped back to his bedroll, curling around his sword so that he faced Volent’s back. The Deadface didn’t move, just sat silently on the stump, watching the woods. Then Ian glanced over at Elsa, to see that the vow knight was staring at him. Her face was still and calm. She looked from him to Volent, then breathed a long, shuddering sigh and closed her eyes.
The Hound, he thought to himself. Why is it following me? Ever since his family’s ancestral totem had urged him forward on the road to Harthal, Ian had felt the creature’s presence in the back of his mind. Nothing terrified him more than the thought of Elsa finding and slaying the gheist. What would I do? he wondered. Would I try to stop her? The idea pressed at him, yet he had no answer.
Best not to think about it. Best not to worry.
Ian fell asleep much later, and his dreams were troubled.
* * *
They rode at a steady pace, each leading a spare horse acquired from the ruined stable at Harthal. Their days were strained by silence and the imminence of violence. Ian tried several times to convince Elsa that they should leave Volent behind, but she was insistent.
“Whatever he is, Volent is no enemy of the church,” she said. For his part, Volent watched Ian closely. More than once, he caught the two in close conversation. Ian spent his nights trying to come up with some way to convince Elsa that Volent couldn’t be trusted. He started to worry that Volent was doing the same thing.
After Harthal, the pagan’s path led them north and east. Beyond the Fen, Tenumbra opened into a landscape of rolling hills, sharp granite cliffs and sudden valleys that cut deep into the earth. The mornings were wrapped in fog that lifted slowly into the skies, to become low hanging clouds and rain. The grasses that swept from horizon to horizon were brilliantly green. The air was cold, and when the winds blew across the granite hills, the mists that scudded around them cut like knives.
“Are we sure we’re going the right way?” Ian asked. “I don’t know how we could track anyone over these moors.”
“Have you lost your faith in our dear Sir Elsa?” Volent asked. “Surely the goddess of summer won’t lead us astray.”
“This feels like astray,” Ian said. He huddled deeper into his cloak, any pretense of northern pride abandoned. “What sort of reach does summer have in this place?”
“This place?” Volent asked. “You talk as if this is a foreign land, Blakley. Aren’t those the Grayeyes?” He nodded toward a line of jagged mountains to the east, barely visible among the clouds. “And this the reaveroad? We should be dreadfully close to Houndhallow.”
“I am long from home, you’re right,” Ian said. “But that is your fault, not mine. It was your master’s war that roused my house from their hearth. I would still be hunting boar in the gray wood, if not for you.”
“And all the duller for it,” Volent said. “Think of all the adventures you’ve had! The battles you’ve fought, and the friends you’ve made. Why, if not for my master, that heretic Adair would still be scheming on the Sedgewind throne, and your mother still sleeping well at night.”
“I have had enough of your taunting, Deadface,” Ian said. “Halverdt got the death he deserved, buried as a pawn of a corrupt inquisition and used as an excuse for unjust war. Why couldn’t you have died at his side, like a good monster?”
“Some monsters don’t die when they’re meant to,” Volent said. He looked away, and his voice grew distant. “Some aren’t meant to die at all.”
“I would love to settle this with a duel or something,” Sir Elsa said sharply. “So the two of you could kill each other, and maybe I could get some holy work done. Failing that, I must ask you to settle into your leashes and serve the church’s will.”
“This one’s not fit for a leash,” Ian muttered.
Volent snorted. “As if I would…”
“Silence!” Elsa roared. Her voice echoed over the moors, startling a flock of crows into the air, sending them cawing toward the distant mountains. “I can accept that you have your differences, and your history, but that is not unique. It doesn’t make you special. When I entered the Lightfort, I was one person. When I left, I was someone else. Someone better.
“And so I ask a simple question,” she continued. “We are here on the church’s business. Will you serve that task, or are you determined to complain every inch of the way?”
Ian and Volent were silent for a few moments. Ian blushed bright red, while Volent’s face went the color of ice, and his jaw was set. He spoke first.
“The last priest who spoke to me that way was Tomas Sacombre,” Volent said. “So you will forgive me if my service is not freely given.”
“What the servants of Cinder asked of you was unforgivable,” Elsa said. “But let’s not pretend you were coerced into violence, Deadface.”
“Do not call me that, sir,” Volent said, “and do not speak of Cinder as though he is foreign to you. The difference between Cinder and Strife is a polite fiction. Heartsbridge moves the pawns of Tenumbra as it pleases them, and if any defy their will, we are thrown to the gheists. It’s little wonder the north rises against you.”
“It’s not the church that we rise against,” Ian said tightly. “It’s gods damned southern dukes who think the church gives them free rein to take our lands and burn our fields in the name of crusade. If it weren’t for Halverdt’s paranoia…”
“Or Adair’s heresy—” Volent cut in.
“Gods save us from stiff-necked soldiers of glory,” Elsa snapped, interrupting the exchange. “Forget the past that has brought you here. You are both exiles from your houses, shunned by your lords and abandoned by the war that set you against each other. Forget those things.” She drew in front of them, turning her mount in their path and bringing them to an awkward halt.
“We are on the trail of a god. Brought into this world by a man of my church, yes, and an enemy to us all. If we are lucky, that god will lead us to Gwendolyn Adair, and perhaps a greater understanding of the things that have broken our world apart.” She threw back her cloak, revealing the blade of her office. “I do not ask for your loyalty or affection. I only ask that you not kill each other, and maybe argue less— at least until we’ve seen to Gwen Adair. You’re making it very difficult to sleep at night.”
“Difficult to sleep?” Ian asked. “This man has threatened to drag me into the woods and cut my heart out!”
“Yes, well,” Volent said, “justice and all that.”
“The man who murdered the village of Tallownere shouldn’t seek justice,” Ian said. “He might not like what he finds.”
“That was different. That was… I
was… different,” Volent said. Ian thought he could sense the slightest timidity in the man.
“Fine,” he said. “Our histories will return to us, but not today, and not until we’ve seen an end to this hunt. Agreed?”
“We all seek the same thing,” Volent answered. “For different reasons.”
“Different reasons, but one road,” Elsa said. “The death god, and Gwen beyond. So let’s walk in peace, if we can.”
“If we can,” Volent agreed. “Which brings us back to young Blakley’s original question. Are we sure this is the correct path?” He peered out onto the moors. The fields of green and granite stretched unbroken. “How can we know you’ve led us true?”
“There are no tracks to follow, and no distant figures to hunt,” Ian said. “There are endless places to hide, and few enough locals to guide our way. The pagan could be watching us from a cave right now, and we’d never know.”
“We’re going the right way because we’re following the same road as our quarry,” Elsa said. “We are merely restrained by how fast we can go.”
“How fast? We have horses, and spares, and a steady supply of food and water,” Volent said. “That man was on foot, and injured. We should run him down before nightfall.”
“Certain pagans travel by more than road or river,” Elsa said. “This one showed enough proficiency with the old gods, that I must assume he knows of these hidden roads. Ley lines, beneath the earth, concentrations of great power. If properly trained, the servants of the gheists can move along them very quickly.”
“Then how are we ever supposed to catch him?” Ian asked.
“Because as Volent says, he is injured, and such travel takes much from the practitioner. Also, the man must be going somewhere. To someone. Either for help or healing, or simply to warn them that we still live.” Elsa closed her cloak and turned back to the path they had been following. “He will not run forever.”
“And when he stops, especially if he reaches allies? One shaman nearly proved the end of all three of us,” Ian said.