by Tim Akers
“Strange days, stranger friends,” Ian said. “I must speak to Tavvish, and see to my sister’s health.”
“Of course,” Knox said, but still neither he nor his fellow Tenerrans lowered their spears. “What of your companions? The day hasn’t dawned when I would stand aside for the likes of them.”
“You’ll have to trust me,” Ian said. He gestured to his closest riders. “They are not the same men you knew. Especially this one.”
Gwen turned her attention to the two knights flanking Ian. One was a grizzled man of Suhdra, wearing the yellow tabard of Marchand, the paint on his shield heavily chipped and worn. He kept his eyes roaming between the pagans and the Blakley force, unsure of which presented the greatest threat. The other rider looked strange, his face a ruin of red and white. Gwen stared at the man for a full breath before his name snapped into her head.
“Volent,” she hissed. The hound sprang forward without her willing it. A swirling mass of pagans solidified around her, falling into step in the hound’s wake, the strangeness of her appearance and the size of the hound marked her as part of the ancient and faithful.
The knight of Marchand noticed her first, sucking in his breath and barking a warning to the others. The Suhdrins flowed into a defensive stance behind him, leaving Ian and Volent stranded between the Blakleys and Gwen. Ian turned to look at her. He didn’t seem to recognize her.
“It’s me, Ian,” she said. “It’s Gwen Adair.”
“Lady Gwen,” he said, his face lighting up. “I suspected you would be at the center of this.” He flicked his reins and brought his mount around to face her, but made no motion toward his sword. “Would you care to explain?” Volent seemed nonplussed, though it was impossible to read emotion on his broken face.
“What explanation do I owe you, Blakley?” Gwen said. She turned to Volent. “Deadface.”
“I do not answer to that anymore,” Volent said. His features shifted awkwardly, the misfit pieces of his face shuffling together. “Though if any of us owe an explanation, it is I.”
“So,” Gwen said. “Explain.”
Volent shook his head slowly. “Now isn’t the time. I would say you wouldn’t believe me anyway, but,”—he gestured at her—“You seem to be wearing armor made of your own blood, and riding a dog the size of a small horse. So my story may seem dull.”
“Strange times,” Gwen said.
“Stranger friends,” Volent answered.
“Why are your people attacking my home?” Ian demanded.
“They aren’t my people,” Gwen said. “Any more or less than they are yours, Ian of the tribe of hounds. As for the attack…” She glanced back at the pagans who had fallen into step behind her. “…I believe they have been deceived.”
“The Blakleys attacked us first,” one of the pagans said. Gwen remembered seeing the man at the conclave of elders, though he had none of the braids of a shaman. He was dressed in bones, marking him as a member of the tribe of the dead. One of Judoc’s faithful. Would he know of the betrayal? Was he party to it?
“The voidfather was escorting us through the forests,” the man continued, “when a patrol of inquisitors fell on us. They were flying the hound! We weren’t even in Blakley lands.”
“That’s a right load of shit,” young Knox said. “This lot appeared out of nowhere and started killing villagers. Master Tavvish ordered folks inside the walls. They burned most of the outer farmyards and granaries before their main force arrived. It was a slaughter.”
“Your people burned their own houses as they retreated,” the pagan said. “Not that we need your damned walls. The forest gives us what we need, as it always has. Typical Suhdrin bullshit.”
“Now you take that Suhdrin shit back,” Knox said. He surged forward menacingly, courage plucked by Ian’s presence. “We won’t have any of that shit.”
“You don’t have to say shit with every sentence, Tenny,” Ian said quietly. “It gives less steel to your words than you think.” The boy fell back, his face blushing. Ian smiled and raised his chin to Gwen. “What do you say to these accusations? I know nothing of this voidfather, but if he’s been taken captive, I’m sure I can negotiate his release. If it will end this conflict.”
“Folam Voidfather is not in your dungeon, nor was he taken by your father’s men,” Gwen said. “I fought him just now, in the forests overlooking this castle.”
“I was with him,” the young pagan said. “I saw him taken.” He glared at her with hatred in his eyes. “Aedan was right about you. The huntress of Adair is not to be trusted.”
Some of the pagans edged away from her, others stood closer. The rift in their ranks was clear. Spears started to turn inward, the Blakley threat temporarily forgotten.
“Peace, peace, godsdamned peace!” Gwen said loudly. “We traveled with the voidfather to Greenhall, to mollify the vernal god.” She shot a look at Ian, who appeared to have heard of events at Halverdt’s castle. His brows were up, and his hand was resting on the hilt of his blade. “Folam betrayed us. Nearly killed the three of us, and brought terrible ruin to the castle.”
“That’s not the tale he told,” the man said. A murmur of agreement went through the pagan ranks. “Noel Summerdaughter, the Suhdrin, murdered Cahl and the two of you tried to kill the voidfather, as well. Then you tried to summon the vernal god and failed to bind it to your will. As you did with the Fen god, Gwen Adair, at the high inquisitor’s will.”
Ian and Gwen laughed together, a sound that sent the nervous Suhdrin knights into a murmur. But it was Volent who spoke.
“Whatever I know of Sacombre, it is this—his madness was of Cinder born, and not of the old gods. That lesson he taught me well enough, whether he meant to or not,” Volent said. He looked around at a sea of doubtful expressions. “Though I imagine my word is little currency in this company.”
“That’s an understatement,” Gwen said. “I still don’t know why you’re here at all.”
“Looking for you,” Volent said.
“That still doesn’t solve this problem,” the grizzled Suhdrin knight said. “We are all at spear-ends, with the ranks of the dead all around us, and I haven’t heard a reasonable explanation as to why.”
“Folam,” Gwen said firmly. “He deceived you. Faked his capture, led the conclave here while his compatriots planted the seeds of war. It was his priests who burned your farms, Blakley, and his faithful who posed as houndsmen to give the pagans reason to fight. Now that the battle is joined, his void priests strike at both sides, to feed the flames.”
“Where is your proof?” the young pagan said.
“There,” she said, pointing to the dead void priest at the verge of the road. “One of his men, uncloaked.”
“That’s an inquisitor,” the pagan said. “The same ones who attacked Folam in the first place, and who even now help defend Houndhallow.”
“No,” Ian said. He dismounted and walked over to the corpse. Taking the body by the nape of the neck, he turned it over, holding the dead man’s face to the gathered pagans. “I know no inquisitor like this.”
The void priest’s face was stitched in pagan ink, the patterns branded into his skin. Unfamiliar runes had been added to the traditional forms, covering his eyes and running down his cheeks. The man’s braids had been shorn.
“His clothes are not that of a priest of Cinder, though they are similar,” Volent said. “Perhaps Sacombre’s heresy goes even deeper than we thought.”
“This proves nothing,” the young pagan said. “A Tenerran converted to the celestial faith. There are few enough true to the old ways!”
“You are stubborn in your violence,” Gwen said. She turned the hound sidewise to face the man, holding herself stiff. “What do you say of me? Am I of celestial mien? Do I look like a Tenerran converted to the celestial faith? Is my word worth nothing to you?”
“The voidfather—”
“Has betrayed us all,” Cahl announced. The shaman limped onto the road, holding his side. B
lood leaked out from between his fingers, and each step brought a gasp to his lips. “Do not doubt the last daughter of the iron tribe. She speaks true.”
A murmur went up among the pagans, at the sight of the man they thought dead. Some pulled back from the confrontation, while others remained unconvinced.
“So we are to just accept this? The word of this girl, a Tenerran lord accompanied by Suhdrin knights, and the Deadface?” a young pagan asked. It was the one dressed in bones.
“Judoc is dead, friend,” Cahl said. “Your elder has passed from this world. You must trust someone.” He stopped and stood straight. “Trust me.”
“Yet what of Folam?” the tribesman hissed. “What has become of the voidfather!”
They were answered by an echoing scream—a grating, piercing howl that pushed the trees aside like grass, and filled their bones with terror. They turned to face the forest.
There among the trees was a god made of emptiness.
60
THE RANKS ARRAYED against them were vast. Bassion’s army represented the slow accumulation of political favor, the mustering of the deep resources of the southern lords, and a noble will to lead that harkened back to the days of Suhdrin kings and queens. The attached might of the priests of Cinder only underscored that will.
Generations ago, the celestial church had shattered the royal lineage of Bassion to replace it with the holy rule of the celestriarch and the subservient role of the Circle of Lords. That Cinder’s faithful would march beside this army said much of Duchess Helenne’s political power, and more about the celestriarch’s waning influence in Cinderfell.
Malcolm sat on his horse atop a hill, overlooking this force. He had scant hundreds at his side, and nothing that could oppose the might of Cinder. Beyond the Suhdrin lines, the iron walls of the Reaveholt stood, containing several thousand Tenerran spears. Perhaps enough to hold out until help came, but of no use to him.
“This is a fool’s errand,” he muttered. At his side, Castian Jaerdin snorted.
“It has been since the beginning, Malcolm,” he said. “Sent to Greenhall by one side of the church, just to be betrayed by the other. Forced into war by Halverdt, only to see him fall to Sacombre’s trickery and our own gullible faith. Sworn to protect Adair—the only genuine heretic in your midst—and now we face Bassion, whose only ambition seems to be ambition itself.”
“And Cinder,” Malcolm said. “The court of winter itself fights us, and gods only know why.”
“I doubt the gods have much to do with it,” Castian said. “Whatever happened at Greenhall has the south in a fury. I would be surprised if there’s a single Tenerran priest in their ranks.”
“I’ve learned to expect little of surprise,” Malcolm said. “Days come and go, and the wonders of my life pile up. It’s become a bit tiring.”
“There must be a hint of heroism left in you, friend,” Castian said quietly. “Else we would have already fled the field, and spared these faithful few their lives.”
“There’s nowhere to run,” Malcolm replied. “Bassion before us, the hunting ranks of Marchand at our back, and whatever remains of the pagans somewhere in between.” He sighted along the length of his arm, estimating distance to the front ranks of the Suhdrin force. His eyesight was failing, along with everything else. Little matter now. “If I were to release them, they would only live a few weeks on the run, eating mud and sleeping on stones before they were driven to ground by some Suhdrin errant.
“At least I can give them a better death than that.”
“They ask for no more,” Castian said. He sat quietly for a long moment, the distant sound of Suhdrin drums echoing down the countryside. “About the priest…”
“I will hear no more of that,” Malcolm said. “It’s done. Our lot is cast. If I die today, my soul will not travel to the house of Cinder. That is a blessing and a curse. Winter never held much love for me, anyway.”
“The men are worried. They fear the inquisition,” Castian said. “They fear the wrath of winter.”
“Let them take comfort in the promise of summer,” Malcolm answered. “Lady Strife promises warmth, even to those who die in winter’s arms. That is our hope.” A great shout broke free of the Suhdrin army, and the drumbeat changed. The ranks of spear and horse began their slow march forward. “Our only hope, it seems.”
Castian reached over and grasped Malcolm’s arm. The duke of Redgarden met Malcolm’s eyes and smiled.
“It has been my greatest honor to march at your side, Houndhallow. When my children tell this story to their children, it will serve my name well to know that I stood with the greatest, bravest man of my generation.”
“Your name, perhaps, but not your soul.” Malcolm returned the clasped hand with his own stiff smile. “The honor has been mine, Redgarden. If all in Suhdra and Tener could love as we love, this war would never happen.”
“A wishful thought,” Castian said, then he turned and rode off to see to his ranks. Horns and drums started to sound from Malcolm’s company, the meager lines drawing up to face the certainty of death.
“You look like a statue, husband,” Sorcha said as she rode up. “As if they’ve already made the memorial of you, and cast your flesh in bronze.”
“This would be a good place for it, should ever they decide to do such a thing.” Malcolm looked around, gesturing to the rolling hills. “No lords to bother my final resting place, and no children to piss on my marble.”
“I hate it when you’re morose,” she said. He turned his horse to slide closer to hers, their knees touching first, then their hands. He clasped her fingers, twining them together. She smiled. “I would blame the weather, but it seems not even the sun could stir your smile.”
“I’ve lost so many days, my love,” he said, looking firmly into her eyes. “Days I could have spent with you, with our son, our daughter. Chasing things that have no weight, and titles that will be forgotten once I am dead.”
“You never chased your titles, Malcolm,” she said. “‘Duke’ you were given by your father and your blood, though you came to it too early to know its weight. ‘Reaverbane’ came because you refused to stand by and let your lands fall into ruin. You did not seek glory, my love. That is why it fits so comfortably on your head.”
“The only title I would have is husband, and I have not earned it,” he said. “Sorcha, love, I’m sorry I treated you so poorly. I could not see the woman I married, and let my fear sweep away the promises I made. You should not have lived a single day in darkness. Not one.”
“Oh, silly,” Sorcha said. “You make a girl of me again.”
“That we were,” Malcolm said. “Girl and boy and nothing else. Free to leave this behind, and live our days together.”
“We have lived our days together,” Sorcha said. “All the days the gods have given us, and now we’re here.” She untangled her fingers and took his jaw in her hand, pulling it close, kissing him lightly on the lips. Malcolm pressed his forehead against hers, and they breathed together that way, until the world pulled them away.
A great shout broke out from the valley. Malcolm didn’t move until Sir Doone shook him, and he realized she had been trying to get his attention for several moments.
“My lord,” she said urgently. “There is movement among the Suhdrins!”
“Yes, yes,” he said, withdrawing reluctantly from his wife’s embrace. “Let us march now, and die… and so forth.”
“You misunderstand, my lord,” Doone said, her eyes wide. “They are breaking in half. Their ranks are scattering to the winds, and their banners with them!”
* * *
Doone spoke true. The vast wedge of the Suhdrin army was splintering apart. A confusion of horns sounded over the valley, and their drums fell silent. Malcolm peered at where Bassion’s command platform overlooked the field, but the banners there swayed dangerously, unsettled by the pressing crowd.
The platform itself was abandoned. Among the ranks, spears stuck awkwardly, becomi
ng tangled, the files pressing together or breaking apart. Men threw down their weapons and ran across the fields. A scattering of cavalry rode them down, trampling their companions in their haste to get away.
Only the company of Cinder held firm. The sky above those banners was a little darker, a little heavier, but they were still on the field, rank upon rank of black-clad spearmen and their attendant priests, a rock amid the currents.
“What the hell is going on?” Malcolm asked.
“We know not,” Doone answered. “The horns stopped briefly, and then we heard… I swear to you, we heard screaming from their camps. The ranks broke shortly after.”
“What does our vow knight say?”
“She has not emerged from her tent,” Doone said. “Trueau refuses to be a part of this battle.”
“I can’t blame her, but fetch the woman. See if she understands Cinder’s patience, or knows what unseen force might have put the fear into Bassion’s army.”
“I am not at your beck, Houndhallow,” the vow knight said, striding up. She wore her armor, as well as a white lace mourning veil that covered the open face of her helm. Only a hint of her eyes could be seen through the pattern. “But I felt the change. What is happening?”
Malcolm pointed to the opposite side of the field. Cinder’s ranks had shifted, though they seemed intent on repositioning themselves, rather than marching directly toward his force. A steady drum sounded, and more dark-armored figures joined their ranks, small detachments that seemed to be coming from the surrounding woods.
“They have reinforcements?” Doone asked. “Or…”
“There is a motion of gheists among the hills,” Trueau said sharply. “The… the ley lines themselves are shifting.”
“What the godsdamned hell does that mean?” Malcolm asked.
“It means that something terrible has happened,” Sorcha answered. Malcolm looked at his wife and saw the alarm written on her face. “Yes, I feel it as well. As though a storm has found a way into my heart.”
“My lord, the Suhdrin army is coming to us,” Doone reported. “We must decide how we intend to greet them.” A full half of the force had thrown down their weapons and were now running with no thought to their own defense or safety. It would have been easy enough to ride them down, to cut them down with bows, or spit them on spears, or break them with a solid charge of heavy horse.