The Winter Vow

by Tim Akers

  Malcolm’s attention was drawn back to Doone by the sound of steel striking flesh. Doone had twisted free of her fallen mount, and was slashing down at the gheist, who was still tangled with the horse. Malcolm quickly dismounted, placing the tip of his sword at the center of the gheist, then leaning against it. The feyiron blade smoothly split the gheist open. In a final wave of choking mist, the spirit died.

  “Watch the horse!” Doone shouted. The war-trained destrier was already scrambling to its feet. Doone snatched the reins and looked around. “Back into the mists?” she asked.

  “We need to find Lady Bassion. Make sure she’s safe. If the leader of the Suhdrin army is killed by a gheist while parlaying with us, it will be the end of our hopes for an alliance.” Malcolm wiped ash from his sword, wheeling his horse toward the mist. “If she remains in the mists, we have no choice but to go back in.”

  Doone nodded and mounted smoothly. The wall of mists swirled like the surface of a deep pond, troubled by unseen currents.

  “What of the priests?” she asked. Malcolm glanced toward the top of the hill. The small guard of celestial troops escorted the trio of priests over the ridge and out of sight. Malcolm shook his head.

  “Let them go. We’ll settle matters with them later.”

  A groaning roar came from the mists, along with the clash of steel and screaming horses. Malcolm urged his mount into the mists. The shrouded figure of Sir Doone followed close at heel. Once again, the fog swallowed all sound, leaving Malcolm deaf and damp in the chill air. He rode at a trot, straining into the murk, listening for any indication of the gheists, or the Bassions.

  Instead, he found Grant MaeHerron, slowly dying. The lord of the Feltower was on his knees in the middle of a patch of churned sod, cradling his axe in his hands. There were other bodies around him, wearing the black and red of Fabron. Malcolm hurried to the man’s side, dismounting and kneeling. MaeHerron looked up at him with cloudy eyes.

  “Lord MaeHerron,” Malcolm whispered, “what happened here?”

  “It falls to my sister, now,” he said. MaeHerron closed his eyes, tipping his head forward, but Malcolm grabbed the man’s shoulder and shook him back to life. MaeHerron stared at him. “Why do you keep me from my father’s hall?”

  “What happened?” Malcolm hissed.

  “The gods saw fit to—” MaeHerron took a gasping breath “—fit to see us dead. This lot, already fighting. I joined.” He laughed, and blood bubbled onto his lips. “Should have let it kill them. Should have kept… kept riding.”

  “You were never the sort to ride past a fight,” Malcolm said. “And neither was your father. But now—”

  Horns sounded to the west. The mist began to thin, and Cinder’s light revealed the terrain. The head of the valley was thick with flames, the flickering light of a thousand campfires. It was the celestial line. The sentry horns sounded again. At the top of the ridge, Malcolm spotted Lady Bassion and her escort, down to two knights, just as they disappeared out of sight. In the celestial camp, a column of riders stirred and started riding toward them.

  “Their army marches. How in the hells did they know we were meeting Bassion here?” Doone muttered. “We’ll be crushed.”

  Malcolm snatched MaeHerron’s bloody axe, then mounted.

  “The priests will collect the dead,” he said. “Gods pray they give MaeHerron rest. He’s earned it. Let’s get out of here, before those riders catch sight of us.”

  Another horn caught Malcolm’s attention, this one close and loud. Over the ridge that he and Doone had just crossed, banners bristled and armor flashed. For a brief moment, Malcolm thought they were ruined. Then he spotted Castian Jaerdin riding at the column’s head.

  “Redgarden!” he shouted. Jaerdin waved in his direction and rode closer. “You heard the horns?”

  “A handful of your riders came to us, with the dying priest. I have brought what strength I can. Bit of a fight getting here, though…” Jaerdin’s voice trailed off as he scanned the celestial line. “They’ve already cut off our retreat. We may get reinforcement from the camps, but it will be too late, and not enough.”

  “We must hold until they arrive, sir. Doone, see to MaeHerron’s body. Jaerdin, with me. We must stand!”

  14

  A SHEET OF WATER rippled over the beaten earth of the courtyard, lapping against Ian’s toes before sinking into the dirt. A crowd of pagans swirled around the entrance to the doma, their voices a confused jumble of panic and alarm. On the tower, the gheist horn fell silent. Ian grabbed Hassek by the shoulder.

  “There were guards here. Tenerrans. What has become of them?” he asked.

  “Any not of the tribes has fled, my lord,” Hassek answered, again twisting those last two words in his mouth like a bitter herb. “Some few have converted to the old ways, but gods know if they can be trusted. Each will have to answer for their betrayal of the true gods, I imagine.” He grinned at Ian menacingly, then twisted out of Ian’s grip and rushed toward the doma.

  As Ian watched, a ring of shouting men dragged a guard wearing the Blakley colors out from behind a wagon. They threw him to the ground in front of the doma, then started throwing trash and stones at the man. Ian stepped forward to intervene when a hand grabbed his collar. He turned to see Henri Volent, wrapped in a heavy cloak, his face mostly obscured by the deep cowl.

  “You shouldn’t be here, little hound. Neither of us should be.”

  “They have one of my men,” Ian said. “I can’t leave him to the crowd.”

  “Try to save him, and they’ll have two gallows to raise instead of one.” From behind Ian, the guard screamed as the crowd set on him with their boots. Ian flinched, but Volent pulled him closer. “Three, if we stay much longer.”

  “I can’t leave him.”

  “You leave men in battle all the time, to save others. And there are many others to save here. If you hope to keep this castle, it will not be done here. Quickly!”

  Ian clenched his jaw. The guard’s screams had stopped. Stained glass shattered as someone threw a chair through a window of the doma. A line of pagans was dragging bodies out of the building, throwing the Tenerran dead into a pile while carefully lining up their own casualties. Soon after, a roar of applause went through the crowd. Ian turned to look. The doma was in flames.

  “That is the house of the gods that they burn,” he said. “My gods, on my land.”

  “Sterling wisdom, Blakley. Now come on. We have to get out of here before we’re recognized.”

  Ian paused, pulling back against Volent’s urgent tug. He stared at the flames spiraling up through the topmost calendar windows, their light as hot and as bright as a smithy’s forge. How many had died in the doma? How many more would die, before this was over? He looked down at the doors to the doma, to see if any were still fleeing the burning building.

  Gwen Adair stood just outside the door, her form limned by the flames inside. Even with her strange iron blood flaked away, Gwen looked fey against the firelight. She was dressed half in the Suhdrin-style armor of the nobility, and half in the camouflaged leathers of the tribes. She was a girl broken between worlds, bringing them together and tearing them apart. Much like me, Ian thought.

  Gwen was looking right at him, staring him down. Her gaze pinned him in place. Would she call the crowd’s attention to him? Would she march over and kill him herself? Neither. Gwen turned away. Ian pulled his hood over his head and turned to Volent.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.

  “Godsbless,” Volent answered. The two cloaked forms scurried away.

  * * *

  What they found was chaos. The few Tenerrans outside the keep, whether they were still guarding the tower or the stables, or off duty in the barracks when Daxter and his renegades struck in the doma, had quickly found themselves overrun by angry pagans. Few knew why Houndhallow was falling to violence, either among the attackers or their victims. Once the blades were out, few questioned their need. They simply killed, t
o save themselves or to vent generations of frustration and anger.

  “Like pigs to the slaughter. Tavvish will answer for this,” Ian said. The hallway they entered looked like a battlefield. Overturned tables bristled with arrows, bodies littered the floor, and flames from spilled torches licked the walls.

  “Tavvish didn’t do this killing,” Volent said. He threw off the cloak that enveloped him, revealing full armor underneath. Ian sometimes wondered if the man slept in that armor, so rarely was he without it. “The man did what he thought was right. Gods know you haven’t exactly been leading by example.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that this has been simmering for weeks. You can’t just name us all friends and expect it to be true. If it wasn’t Tavvish, or some other faithful Tenerran, then it would have been the tribes who struck first.”

  “This is all Tavvish’s fault,” Ian said. “If he hadn’t made those barricades—”

  “If he hadn’t barricaded the keep, there probably wouldn’t be a living Tenerran inside the castle walls by now. Stop thinking like your father for a minute, Ian. There’s no peace to be had here. Letting the pagans inside the walls was a mistake, but there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  “I will not let Tavvish’s mistakes, my father’s indecision, or Gwen Adair’s pagans take this castle,” Ian spat. “Come on. We’re going to the keep.”

  “And if Tavvish’s soldiers try to stop us?”

  “They are not Tavvish’s spears to command. They are mine.”

  Fortunately, the men at the gate and the women watching over the approach with their crossbows all knew Ian, and allowed him passage, though they gave Volent a share of nervous looks. The fighting here had passed. There were no bodies, though bloody smears on the floor indicated their recent removal. Scared knights and children watched from the doorways leading off the main hall as Ian marched up the stairs, to the living quarters.

  “Where is Master Tavvish?” Ian boomed. Those nearest looked away, though a few held Ian’s angry stare with their own looks of defiance. “Where is the man who tried to take my authority from me, in my own house?”

  “You took that name from me, my lord,” Tavvish said, stepping into the hallway from one of the adjoining rooms. He carried a short bow and three quivers, and his forearm bled from being struck by the draw of the string. “For now I fight only to earn my honor, and to protect those I swore to keep safe.”

  “You have overstepped your bounds, Tavvish,” Ian said. “You were set to slaughter those pagans, and look what it’s bought you. Any of our people not inside this keep are dead, or worse. Gods know what’s happening in the village, or surrounding farms. Where is your oath to protect them?”

  “I saved those I could.”

  “No, you betrayed my trust, acted in secret, and abandoned any who would not bend to your selfish will.” Ian leaned close to the man, but Tavvish did not flinch. “How does this end, Tavvish? How do we get out of this without all of us dead?”

  “If we kill enough pagans, they’ll surely break.”

  “Count the spears,” Ian said, aware in the back of his mind that he was echoing Cahl’s words from earlier that night. “Four pagans for every one of us.”

  “Then we’ll kill four for every Tenerran that falls!” Tavvish spat. “Your father would do no less!”

  “Do not bring my father into this. Malcolm Blakley would never arrange the slaughter of the innocent,” Ian said. “You are not worthy of uttering his name!”

  “You offend my honor, whelp,” Tavvish growled. “Be careful of your next words. Men have paid in steel for lesser insults.”

  “Would you kill my sister for your honor? What of these children?” He motioned to the families at the end of the hall. “These husbands, these wives? Do they need to die for your honor, Tavvish?”

  “Your father would understand—”

  “My father is not here; I am! My father is not in command of this castle right now. And neither are you, Master Tavvish.” Ian gave the hefty old man a push, and was pleased to see him flinch away. “I am the heir of Houndhallow, and in my father’s absence, I am its lord and commander. And I will not brook this insubordination any longer.”

  “What’s it matter?” Tavvish said sharply. “Complain all you want. You would not act, so I did. You would not lead, so I did. You yell and you threaten, but the die is already thrown.” Tavvish turned away. “This battle will be fought, and we will fall, or we won’t. Our lives are in the hands of the gods. Take your comfort in that, child.”

  The blade went smoothly through Tavvish’s bulk. The master of hearth stared down at the bloody tip protruding from his chest, blinking in shock. He tried to draw breath, but his lungs would only burble and rattle and wheeze. Ian whipped out the sword, and Tavvish collapsed to the ground.

  “So to any who would take Houndhallow from the Blakleys,” Ian whispered. “And so to you, Tavvish. I will pray for your soul.”

  15

  THE SUHDRIN CAMP erupted into chaos. A growing tide of panic spread out from Halverdt’s picket line; those closest to the main bonfire dropped whatever they were doing and fled. From their distant location, Lucas and Elsa weren’t able to make out what was happening.

  “We need to get closer,” Lucas said. He snatched his staff off the ground and began unwinding the cloths he had used to hide the symbols of Cinder.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Martin asked. “Everyone else seems to be running away.”

  “Everyone else is a coward,” Elsa answered. She already had her sword out of its linen bindings. “You have nothing to fear, Martin. You’re not the kind of heretic these people like to burn.”

  “I’m not sure they’ll take the time to ask,” Martin said, but Lucas was already pushing through the crowd, with Elsa close behind. Martin gave their campsite one last look, then followed at a trot.

  The fleeing camp followers and merchants made hard going, but eventually they were able to reach a low hill that overlooked the army’s main camp. They looked down on ordered rows of tents that were interspersed with campfires, joined by braziers at every intersection and along the perimeter. A central bonfire cast long shadows. Elsa turned to Lucas.

  “Something’s spooked these people, but I’m not sure what it is. The flowering of spring seems to be all around us. But in the camp—”

  “It’s the bonfire. Or rather, the ritual occurring around the fire,” Lucas said. He bent to the ground and started laying out a circle of icons around his legs. “I’m going into the naether. Guard me.”

  “I want to get closer. Martin, you watch the frair.”

  “Shouldn’t you do that? I mean, I don’t know much about—”

  “Do you want to go in there?” Elsa snapped. Martin flinched back, but didn’t answer. “Then stay here and watch Lucas. Keep anyone from, I don’t know, lynching him or something. I’ll be back.”

  Elsa didn’t wait for Martin to answer. She ran down the hill, cradling her blade and keeping her eyes up. The grounds looked like an abandoned battlefield now that the crowd had scattered. Overturned carts, trampled tents, scattered possessions, and churned mud were all that remained of them. Under the influence of the sudden spring, grass sprouted up from the earth in unnaturally vital shades of green, and the occasional trees hung heavy with leaves and fruit as thick as hives. Even the clouds that hung low over the camp churned with greenish light, as though they would sprout a spring storm at any moment.

  As she approached the picket line, Elsa slowed down. This was where the panic had started. And now she could see why. What she had taken as embers drifting from the bonfire at the center of the camp were actually glowing flowers. Petals of unearthly shades, as bright as lightning, spun lazily through the air. Where they landed, the ground turned to molten spring, boiling with growth and spewing clouds of pollen and light. More than one of these clouds hovered over dead bodies; civilians struck by the flowers, or children who had rushed to pick
them up. Their flesh was green with viny growth, their faces locked in a rictus of joy as malevolent spring burrowed through their bodies.

  A spinning flower drifted toward Elsa. She swung at it, popping it like a boil, and spun away. The burning pollen sizzled on her clothes. Coughing, Elsa brushed the last of it off before it could latch into her flesh. Her lungs filled with the scent of tilled earth and rain clouds.

  Elsa grabbed a discarded blanket and threw it over her head, then ran for the picket line. The guard post was abandoned, and with it the frairwood brazier. The flames in the brazier hissed in the darkness, glowing brighter than they should, hardly throwing out any of the holy incense smoke that was their purpose. She rushed past.

  Beyond the picket, the camp seemed in good order, if empty. Tent flaps opened into abandoned bivouacs, muddy lanes crossed through quiet regimental sections, guard posts remained unmanned. The deeper she went, the stranger it felt. Finally, she reached the center of the camp.

  There was no bonfire. At the center of clearing, Sophie Halverdt stood in front of a column of flame that reached the low cloud roof overhead. She was flanked by half a dozen vow knights. The rest of the army, what remained of it, stood in nervous rows around the flames. They were all in full armor, carrying travel packs and torches of bundled frairwood. Sophie’s voice carried over the crowd, exhorting them onward to glory.

  Slowly, one at a time, the army was filing into the flame. When each man reached the coruscating wall of fire, his shadow sank into the light, like a body sinking into deep water. A cloud of spinning flowers went up, and then he would disappear into ash. Those who hesitated were pushed forward by vow knights. The flames consumed all.

  “This is the gift of the bright lady!” Sophie was yelling. “Give yourself to her, and be reborn! We live not to fulfill the winter vow, but to end it! To end the need for it! So give yourself to flame, give yourself to fury, give yourself to summer and the war eternal! Rise, rise, rise!”

  A cadre of mounted knights led their horses, blindfolded, into the flames. The smell of singed flesh filled the camp. Somewhere nearby there was screaming, though Elsa couldn’t pinpoint its location. Slowly, she backed out of the clearing, hiding herself in the first tent she found.