by Tim Akers
Malcolm collapsed, from heart to lips. He pulled his wife close, squeezing his eyes shut, holding her and mingling his tears with the soft water of her skin. She was his, she had always been his. How could he have been such a fool.
The shimmering wall of water collapsed, drenching them in the cold stream. Malcolm came gasping to the surface, still holding his wife, the two of them sitting up to their armpits in the biting current. When he had his breath, Malcolm looked wildly around.
The inquisitor stood on the bank, his vow knight at his side. The look on the man’s face was all Malcolm needed to see, to know that he was ruined, and his wife with him. He stood.
“No,” he said, and drew his feyiron blade.
54
THE CREATURE SLITHERED across the street, its constantly changing body of teeth and shadow clicking loudly off the stone walls of the tavern. The tiles of the slate roof cracked under its touch, sliding down to shatter on the street below. Martin shielded his eyes with each impact, tiny fragments of broken tile stinging his hands.
“A city of priests and prison guards, and I’m left to face this thing,” Martin muttered to himself. The wave of screaming that marked the retreat of those guards and priests echoed as they slipped farther away. Surely someone would answer the alarm, at some point. He just had to hold the demon back long enough for the cavalry to arrive, or for Lucas to get back. He glanced in the direction the frair had run, but there was no sign of the man.
Martin sighed and twisted the ill-fit feyiron sword around in his hand.
“These things are priceless, you know,” he said to the gheist. “You can’t mine the damned metal anymore, much less smelt and forge the blades. Church claimed most of them as spoils of the crusades. Malcolm Blakley wouldn’t have inherited his if the man didn’t have a ducal throne and generations of faithful service to back it up. It’s a damned crime this one is in such bad shape.”
The gheist shifted, growing wide as a broadcloth sail before collapsing down into a seething ball no larger than a casket. Martin held the sword out, almost as if presenting it to the gheist. “And yet, here’s a feyiron sword, plucked up out of the mud like a beggar’s coin.”
The beast didn’t seem interested. Instead, it growled quietly in the middle of the street, its hundreds of talon-like teeth chewing through the stone. Really, it didn’t seem malevolent, or even willing to fight, any more than a thunderstorm seeks to cause a flood. Martin had seen shamans bind and control gheists—it was the stuff of legend when he was a child—and yet something that happened over and over since the start of this strange war. This creature acted nothing like those spirits. Even the snake-god that chased them out of Gardengerry showed more intuition than this monster.
The feral god squirmed and growled and broke whatever was close to it, but it did not pursue, neither the screaming crowd of priests, nor the man who stood in front of it with a sword. Not even Lucas, who might be the only frair in the city both willing and able to stand up to it.
The dark-clad man who had summoned it disappeared without giving it direction. Like a man dropping a lit flask, then slipping away before the flames spread.
“This isn’t a god of war,” Martin said. “Nor of murder. Though it’s frightening enough to cause flight, it seems to want nothing.” He looked down at the ground beneath it. A shallow pit was forming where its hundred mouths tore apart the stone and formed a ring of scree at the edge. Martin was no mason, but he could easily believe the scree was enough to fill in the pit. It was eating but not consuming.
He took a biscuit of hardtack out of his pocket, saved back from his days of near starvation on the road. He tossed it at the gheist, but missed the throw and watched as the biscuit landed short.
“Great,” he muttered. “Now I just need to dive in, kick that forward and pray you don’t—”
The gheist moved before Martin could finish his thought. A pod of darkness slipped free of its body and landed on the biscuit, then the rest of the gheist flowed forward like spilled oil. It settled over the food. The sound of its growling changed briefly. Then it returned to eating and shitting stone.
“Ok,” Martin said. “Result. And maybe I don’t have to try to kill you with someone else’s shitty blade.” He searched his pockets, then remembered those days of starvation and realized he was out of food. So he turned back to the tavern, kicked in the door, and disappeared inside.
Curious, the gheist followed.
* * *
The inn was physically unchanged, but something had happened to it. Lucas could feel the difference somewhere deep in his heart. The distant screaming of the crowds echoed eerily off the empty streets. He expected more of his fellow priests, but he wasn’t really surprised. The faithful of Cinder had become comfortable in the courts of law. Too few ventured out to the hunt, leaving that duty to the vow knights and the relatively small ranks of the inquisition. Fear was their tool, but their greatest weakness, as well.
Lucas slipped in the front door, drawing on the naether to let him see in the dark interior. There were strands of deeper darkness threaded through the room. The whole place felt dead. The innkeeper and a few patrons lay slumped over, their ragged souls drifting free of their flesh, fluttering tethered to their bones. There was no sign of violence, as though their lives had ended as suddenly as a candle snuffed by the breeze from an open window.
“I’m sorry, old friend,” Lucas muttered to the innkeeper. He paused long enough to shrive the man’s soul, freeing him into the quiet. The others would have to wait. There was noise from the stairwell, footsteps that banged like a drum through the empty building. He faced the stairs. Whoever was coming down the stairs, they weren’t alone. Maybe a dozen feet, maybe more.
“Corner the pursuers, let them release the high inquisitor and the witch, face them alone while on the verge of starvation,” Lucas said quietly. “I’ve had better plans.”
The first man came around the corner at a run. He might not have been expecting Lucas to be standing there, but he adjusted quickly enough. His cloak of black leather flickered out like a whip, concealing his arm and the knife. A blade flashed through the air, thumping into Lucas’s shoulder. The frair, expecting some kind of spiritual or demonic attack, fell to steel, keeling back on his heels, stumbling into a table, and then falling heavily to the floor.
The man slowed down, standing menacingly between Lucas and the door to the street. Another half-dozen figures, similarly dressed, fanned out through the room. They looked like an honor guard, thoughtful in their station, alert to every corner. Behind them, two figures hurried past. One was Sir Horne, her hand protectively on the other person, the other curled into a fist that was bleeding profusely.
The second figure was Tomas Sacombre. The high inquisitor was drained of color, limping, face turned down. He looked broken, but his bonds were cut. As he disappeared into the street, Sacombre caught Lucas’s eye. The high inquisitor nodded, and was gone.
Once Sacombre was out of the room the guards drained out, as well, one at a time. Before he left, the first man walked over to Lucas and twisted his knife out of the frair’s shoulder. He leaned down to whisper in Lucas’s ear.
“The gods will forgive you, frair,” he said. “If you live long enough.” His voice was rough, but beneath that his accent was deeply Suhdrin, court-born and careful. He nodded once, then followed his fellows into the street.
Lucas stood carefully. The pain in his shoulder was intense. Blood poured down his arm, dripping heavily from his fingers, staining his robes. He limped slowly to the door. There was no sign of the high inquisitor or his rescuers. Lucas teetered on the door frame, watching his life blood pool at his feet.
With a grunt he climbed the stairs and found the witch. Her body was already dead, though her spirit clung stubbornly to the flesh. Lucas tried to sit beside her, but lost his balance and collapsed gracelessly to the floor. The blood was his—Fianna had died cleanly. There was a knife in her chest, but the skin around it was puckere
d and dry. Lucas lifted a hand and realized it was soaked, not with blood, but water. He pushed up onto one arm.
Fianna’s spirit hung over him.
“So,” he said. “You made a play. You took your chance, and it got you killed.” The spirit didn’t answer.
There was something twined around Fianna’s soul that writhed and gushed. Lucas took a deep breath, then shifted until he was kneeling over the witch’s corpse. He rubbed his hands together, covering them in his blood, then gripped Fianna’s skull.
“I am sorry about this,” he said, “but I have to know.”
With the small power of his blood and the latent energy of the dead witch’s passing, Lucas reeled Fianna’s soul back into her body. Her corpse stiffened, back arching and eyes peeling back, as the spirit spun slowly down into its departed flesh. The dry skin around her wound turned to ash, and fresh blood pumped out of her chest, staining her robes and mixing with the cold water on the floor. She took a long, terrible breath, a wretched scream from empty lungs, and then the witch’s eyes fixed on Lucas.
“Why?” she coughed. “I was with them. Give me peace. Give me that, at least.”
“Who are they?” Lucas said urgently. “The ones who killed you. How did they do this thing?”
“A knife should be no mystery to you, Inquisitor. A blade buried in a heart does not require a ghost to explain,” she said. Her whole body shuddered, and the fingers clawing into Lucas’s shoulder went soft. “Now leave me to the ever.”
“That is not what I meant. You have been playing a game with me, Fianna. I have seen inside of you. What is that thing bent around you, that it holds your soul in place?” Lucas asked. Fianna didn’t respond, so he pulled her face closer, pushing her eyes open with his thumbs. “My bonds never held you, did they? Did they, witch?”
“It was good to have a leash for my pet priest,” she said quietly, her words slurring, eyes flickering shut. “Made it easy to keep track of you.”
“And those who killed you! If you are what I believe, if a gheist rode these bones, then how could they do it? Who were they? What art did they wield?” He shook her limp body, but no response came. He was about to lay her down when Fianna’s eyes snapped open.
“Older than you, winter’s son,” she said. “Older than us. There was a war before this one. I thought it was over, but no. They are still there. Waiting.”
And then she died, and whatever remained of her soul fell apart. The peace she sought in the everam was denied, not by death, but by the stubborn life Lucas demanded of her. He had an answer, but it cost the witch her heaven.
* * *
Martin appeared at the quay’s edge, carrying a basket of apples in his arms. The young prince looked frantically around the docks. Prison barges, mostly, bound for the Black Isle that dominated the harbor, but on the end there was a fisherman’s trawler, just coming in from the harvest. He ran to it. The sailors aboard watched him with curiosity.
“Do you have a catch aboard?” he yelled.
“Aye, and enough to feed a rank, if you’ve men to provision, my lord,” the owner of the boat responded. “Two silver a barrel, and the service of a fine smoker if you’re bound to march north. A deal at twice the—”
“Get out!” Martin yelled. He was practically hopping from foot to foot. The fisherman squinted nervously at the young lord, noticing for the first time that the fool had dropped a trail of apples that extended back into the city. “Get out of the boat!” Martin said again. “I’ll buy the lot, my name is worth that much at least, but I don’t think we’ll be needing a smoker. Now get out of the boat!”
“My lord, we must pack and prepare…”
Something came out of the city, a black shadow hanging with loose horns. The men on the ship shouted in horror, the lads on the oars who had been bringing them in to dock reversing their motion. The owner stood in horror as the demon lunged from discarded apple to core, slithering ever closer to the prince of Stormwatch. Martin’s mouth dropped open, then he took the basket and threw it onto the trawler. The remaining apples spilled out across the deck.
“Godsdamn you, my lord,” the owner shouted, then he jumped ship. His men followed moments later.
The gheist reached the end of the quay and hesitated. Swollen arms of tooth-lined shadow tested the waters, splashing almost playfully in the harbor. It brushed against an apple bobbing in the surf, consumed it without thought, then hurled itself across the narrow gap between quay and vessel.
Moments later wood splintered, and the holds of silverback trout burst open. The gheist busied itself in consumption and the butchery of cold, scaly flesh. Martin grabbed a boat hook and pushed the boat away from the quay. Its sails were still deployed, so when a fortunate wind caught the sheets they billowed out, dragging it further into the harbor. The sound of severed fish and cracking scales diminished, until the only sign that there was something wrong with the boat was a huddled mass of shadow on the deck, and the unnerving sight of teeth scenting the air.
The owner of the vessel dragged himself from the water and, sopping wet, loomed over Martin.
“What have you done?” he asked.
“Saved the city, I think?” Martin answered. “We’ll leave it to the priests to decide. For now, at least, we should find someone to tug that thing out to sea. Pray it doesn’t try to eat its way back to us.”
“But… but…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but”—Martin pointed out to the boat, bobbing on the water—“Is it getting bigger?”
The man turned and stared with horror. “No, I don’t think so.” He turned back. “Now what are you going to do to compensate me, sir?”
But Martin was gone, slipped back into the city, which was rapidly filling up with priests who had finally come out of hiding. The sound of their educated chatter filled the air with speculation and prayer.
55
THE ANCIENT WALLS of Houndhallow were raised over generations, built around the shrine that had been holy to the tribe of hounds, and the doma that was raised above it. The traditional throne of the Blakleys was a grand castle. During the crusades, armies of both the north and south broke themselves against its stone. Reaver bones were buried at its foot, and feral gheists dared never ascend its height.
It was a tower of strength, guarded by steel, blessed by the gods of Suhdra and held by Tenerran might.
The pagan army overwhelmed it in one night. The river that flowed around the castle walls swelled and then became still, allowing the shamans of the old ways to walk across. Archers from the towers were baffled by swirling winds, their flights scattering like matchsticks to fall harmlessly on the attacking horde. Wherever there was bedrock stone inside the castle walls, ink-eyed shamans and their witching wives emerged to secure hallways and kick open doors.
Their victory would have been absolute if not for the strange figures who countered them. Like a fisherman letting the hook settle in his victim’s mouth, the counterattack came once the walls had fallen and the main gate thrown wide. Blakley’s spears had fallen back to the keep when the first mysterious shadow claimed its victim.
* * *
It happened in the shrine, once holy, now a relic of forgotten faith.
The black-pit eyes of the iron hound guttered with flaming pitch, and the low wall that served as cistern and kneeler cast sharp shadows across the floor. A slow trickle of water started in the cistern, pushing aside dust that had gathered for generations, turning black with muck before finally reaching the gutter and flowing out onto the cobbles. The trickle became a stream, the stream grew into a pool, and then a hand splashed out of the water and scrambled for the cistern’s wall.
A man emerged. He pulled himself up onto the floor, shook off like a dog, then reached back into the shallow pool and drew a woman with him. The pair sat huddled in the dim light, staring with reverence at the statue of the hound.
“Not in a hundred years have pagan eyes witnessed this hallow,” the woman whispered. “We should make
a sacrifice.”
“We’ll make sacrifice enough in the blood of Blakley heathens, Kara,” the shaman answered. He stretched, making his absolution to the hallow before drawing twin knives and creeping to the door. “Come, eventually they will think to secure this room. We must strike while their backs are turned.”
“Morgan and Sammath will have their attention for a while,” Kara said. She stood and turned slowly. “I never thought my life would come to this.”
“Standing in the hallow of the tribe of hounds?”
“No, Marik, though that is strange enough,” she said. “I never expected to be striking out at House Blakley. They are kneelers, of course, and shelter the church as much as any lord of Suhdra, but they are Tenerran. They have the ink, and our blood. No matter what they did, I thought those things would overcome their mistrust of our faith.”
“All the worse,” Marik said. “They knew the gods and abandoned them. We should have struck long ago. Maybe some of this could have been prevented.”
Kara didn’t answer her shaman. Instead she went to the hallow and brushed a finger against its iron cheek. “I wish Fianna were here.”
“She isn’t,” Marik said sharply. “She has been taken from us, by the master of this house. If you wish to mourn, take your grief out on him.”
“You were always borne by the tide, Marik. Rising in anger, sinking into silence when it is calm,” Kara answered. “You would have been better served by the tribe of fire. Water does not suit you.”
“The river rages, wife,” Marik said. He nodded impatiently to the door. “Now stop delaying. You have brought us here. Let’s be about the task the gods have given us.”
Kara closed her eyes and nodded, smiling mournfully as Marik went to the door. Before the burly shaman could turn the handle, the door opened and a strange man in black and silver stepped through.
“That is far enough,” he said. “A sweet parting. I hope you will not regret it.”
He struck before Marik could move. A column of ash twisted out from between the man’s palms, blood and darkness mixing to slam into the shaman. Marik turned away from it, but the plume enveloped him. Kara heard him cry out once before she felt the death in her bones. She stumbled back, falling into the cistern, still in midair as she reached out to the water and undid the binding that had brought her to the hallow in the first place.