The Winter Vow

by Tim Akers

  Ian stood stiffly for a long moment, then relented. “It is true, our doma was destroyed in the battle. We have no priests to sanctify it, though the walls and ceiling must be rebuilt before—”

  “Nonsense,” Veureux said. “This is why we are here. The gods have provided. Show us the doma.”

  “But the fire… the walls…”

  “Fire burns and walls collapse, but the gods remain. If the ground has been desecrated, then we must repair that, before anything else can be done. Despite our long journey, we must do this, before we may rest.” Veureux motioned to the doors. “If you please.”

  “Volent, gather a guard, and show the frairs to the doma,” Ian said. “I will be with you in a moment.”

  “Your presence will be needed, my lord.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But I’m not going to witness this in my dressing robe. I won’t be long.” He grabbed Volent before he left, lowering his voice. “A double guard, and more in the courtyard. I don’t trust them.”

  25

  THE TWIN TOWERS of the Fen Gate appeared in the distance, looming out of the fog like broken teeth. The pagans had been skirting the edge of the Fen for a week, following Gwen’s lead and the weather, marching through snow and sleet to reach this shelter. Now that they were here, though, Gwen was less sure of herself.

  “I never thought I’d be here again,” she said. “It feels wrong, somehow. That after everything, I should return to this place.”

  “Coming home always gives me a sense of impending doom,” Bruler said. “Though I don’t often ride at the side of a half-gheist madwoman. And this is not my home. Nor is it yours, any longer.”

  “I don’t think I have a home,” Gwen said. “This was my family’s home, and they’re gone. I have no claim on this place. Still, something doesn’t feel right. Don’t you feel it?”

  “Huntress, I have been in the saddle for a week, and half that time has been spent bending my head to sleet so cold it would freeze a witch’s—” He glanced at Kesthe. “It’s been cold. So I feel nothing, and want more than anything to sit by a hearth and taste beer that hasn’t been cut with sawdust.”

  “Lady Adair is right,” Kesthe said, ignoring the Suhdrin knight. “There is something out of place about the castle.” She closed her eyes and muttered an invocation. “More death than I would think. We should send scouts.”

  “More death?” Bruler said incredulously. “Do you have any idea the battles this place has seen since the Allfire?”

  “It is more than that,” Kesthe answered. “There is… there is something lurking within the walls. You said the inquisition purged the shrine beneath the crypts. We must be careful. Lady Adair, let me send three rangers and a witch, to bless our path.”

  “We’re too close,” Gwen said. “If the Fen Gate is in the enemy’s hands, they will have already spotted us. Sending scouts alone would be giving those men over to the grave. We will scout in force.”

  “Very well.” Kesthe turned to the rangers waiting behind them. “Duncan, Kight, Holme, gather three dozen good blades and take them to the castle walls. If you see nothing—”

  “I will lead them,” Gwen said. She glanced back at the gathered rangers. “If they can keep up! Hyah!”

  She spurred her horse forward. Bruler was still swearing when he caught up with her. Two dozen riders galloped close behind.

  “My lady, you need to do a better job of assigning tasks and accepting the help of others,” Bruler shouted over the wind. “That is the nature of leadership.”

  “I have assigned tasks. Kesthe is in charge of the main body, because they didn’t follow us. And you are here, because it is where you belong,” she answered with a smile. “A leader doesn’t always need to give orders, Bruler. Good people know what they must do, what their duty is, to gods and thrones, and they will do it.”

  “It is not that easy,” Bruler said, but smiled as he shook his head. “For most people, it is not that easy.”

  Gwen laughed and rode faster, disappearing into the trails she had ridden since childhood. The silver and black stream of her cadre, steel and leather, horse and blade, followed close behind.

  It thrilled Gwen to be on these trails again. They were thick with memory; the hundreds of hunts she and her father had ridden, the gheists and boar they had ridden down. The secret tracks of deer, the silent hours spent waiting for the flush, time spent alone among the trees, or quietly with her companions.

  All of whom were dead. Even her father. Especially her father.

  Gwen’s heart fell. Why was she here? When she brought the pagan army out of Houndhallow, it was to reclaim her home. But her home was gone. Even these woods, so familiar, were a foreign land to her. It was heartbreaking.

  So lost in these things was Gwen that she didn’t notice the river until her horse was chest deep and balking. Gwen gripped the reins hard, barely keeping her saddle. Eventually she was able to work her way back to the shore, where Bruler and the others watched in wonder.

  “This was not here before,” Gwen said. “This path ran straight to the front gates, dry the whole way.” She looked up and down the river. It flowed deep and narrow, disappearing into the forest to her right. “There is no river this deep near here that might have been diverted.”

  “Rivers don’t just spring out of nothing,” Bruler said.

  “They do when gheists are involved. That’s what I scented before. Pagan gods, unsettled and roaming.” She turned her horse along the bank and started to follow the river toward its source. “Come on.”

  They followed the river until they came upon a shallow pool with a spring at its middle. Clear, cold water boiled out of the ground.

  “There,” Bruler said. “Nothing unusual about that. A new spring. Now we can leave off all this talk of gheists and get back to the castle, and that promised beer.”

  “This is no natural spring,” Gwen said. She dismounted and plunged her hands into the pool, drinking deeply. “As clean and fresh as spring. This is god touched.”

  “The elder of tides is back at Houndhallow,” one of the rangers said. “We might be able to scare up one of her witches in the main column. See what she has to say about this.”

  “No need,” Gwen said. “I’ve seen this before. This is Fianna’s work.”

  “Fianna went south, with that inquisitor,” the ranger said.

  “Aye, she did. But she left someone behind.”

  “Sorcha Blakley.” Bruler grimaced as he looked around at the surrounding forest, as though he expected the lady of Houndhallow to step out from behind a tree. His brow creased. “I remember now. When Lord Blakley abandoned the castle, there was a bit of a fight out here. There was talk in the camp after, that his wife ended it. Drowned a cadre of knights. I didn’t believe it. But maybe I was wrong. Stories of Lady Blakley have spread throughout the north… I wasn’t sure what to make of them. But if she did this, someone must have trained her. Maybe the Blakleys are secret pagans after all.”

  “No,” Gwen said. “Fianna changed her.” She touched the pool of water again, then shook her hand dry. “If this sort of power still exists outside the castle, gods know what we’ll find inside. The inquisition should have purged this pool long ago.”

  “Unless they’re fully engaged cleansing the castle itself,” Bruler said. “Those halls were haunted beyond mortal ken.”

  “That’s my home you’re talking about,” Gwen answered. She swung back into her saddle. “Let’s see what we can see of the castle, and make our decision then.”

  Gwen abandoned the trails and led her cadre through the woods. The going was slow, but stealth was more important than speed. The light crunch of snow and rattle of armor was the only sound as they wound their way through the forest. Gwen was troubled by the lack of birdsong. Even in winter, the forests of the Fen were usually alive with birds and other woodland beasts, but now it was as quiet as a tomb.

  The closer they got to the castle, the stranger the world became. The trees seemed to
bend toward them, and the sky was obscured by mist and overhanging vines. Gwen’s breath hung in puffs of cloud that seemed to linger long after they passed, adding to the grim atmosphere. Near the main road into Fenton, Gwen called a halt.

  “There should be traffic. Even if the castle is in enemy hands, the people of the village will have returned to their homes. They can’t live in the courtyard of the Fen Gate forever.”

  “Unless they’ve fled entirely,” Bruler said. “There were few Tenerrans in the village when I was here. Most went to Dunneswerry, or north, fleeing the war.”

  “Then patrols, at least?” Gwen asked. “Surely your commanders would not abandon the roads completely?”

  “We were ranging far in search of Lord Blakley. I was north of Harthal when Sir LaFey and Ian found me and converted me to their cause. But by now, Malcolm’s position on the Tallow is well known. How many have joined the Suhdrin forces there, and how many remain at the Fen Gate?” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “We are going to approach the road. If it is empty, we will continue along it, until we sight the main gate,” Gwen said. “I really thought they would have noticed us by now.”

  “Are we looking for a fight?”

  “No. But I thought there would be one. Come on. The godsroad is just up ahead.” Gwen took up her reins and led the cadre through a copse of trees and onto the road.

  As they rode out, they gasped as one. They had happened upon a small roadside shrine, one of those that maintained the sanctity of the blessings of traveling inquisitors and the faith of their vow knights. But the shrine had been profaned. The symbols of Cinder and Strife were broken, the icons of the church torn down and thrown away. Cracks spiderwebbed across the tiny altar. The ground at its base was freshly charred. When Gwen approached it, she could feel a sharp malevolence emanating from the stone.

  “That’s troubling,” Bruler said.

  “Whatever the inquisitor did to the shrine must have spread outward,” Gwen answered. “I can think of no reason why a man of the church would have profaned these shrines.”

  “You are making a lot of assumptions.” Bruler looked nervously up and down the road. “We shouldn’t be here. This was a fool’s errand. The Fen Gate is lost to us. We should head south, and join our strength to Blakley’s.”

  “I do not want to leave my home in such a state. If a darkness has settled there, the least I can do is bring it some light,” Gwen answered, and trotted down the road.

  Bruler turned to the cadre. “Stay here. If we come around that corner at a gallop, start running. We’ll catch you up.”

  “No one here is going to abandon Lady Adair,” a ranger said.

  “I do not doubt your loyalty. But right now I’m not sure the best thing we can do is ride in force against the castle gates. The less dangerous we look, the less likely they are to send a legion nipping at our heels. Stay. We’ll be back.”

  The ranger looked discontented, but didn’t follow when Bruler rode away. He caught up with Gwen long before they reached the final corner to the gate.

  “What will you do if they hail us?” he asked.

  “Answer back. But if they invite us inside, I will gladly decline.”

  “Thank the gods. I think those men would tear the gates off with their hands if you were captured. And die in the process.”

  “Would that their elders were half as loyal,” Gwen said as they turned the corner. The Fen Gate loomed ahead.

  The castle itself was under repair. Scaffolding covered parts of the walls and front gate, while the section of the keep they could see above the walls looked as if it had been recently restored. Judging by the state of the village, many of the materials used in the repairs had been stripped from the homes there; most of the village was gone, replaced by rutty tracks and sawdust. Gwen came to a halt.

  “They’ve done so much, in so little time,” she said. “How is that possible?”

  “We are in a time of impossible things. I’m glad I joined Ian’s party, and never returned to my post here. I am not cut out for mean labor.”

  “Even if they bent the army to this task, they couldn’t have rebuilt the keep. It was devastated. They would have had to tear it down and start again.”

  “They have clearly not bent the entire army to repair,” Bruler said, pointing. “That’s a column of knights making their way through the outskirts of the village. LaGaere’s men, by their colors.” He glanced over at Gwen. She was dressed in ranger’s leathers, a pagan if ever he saw one. “Hide as much of that beneath your hood as you can, and maybe let me do the talking.”

  “They’ve seen us already. I don’t think we’ll be talking,” she said. Bruler looked back to the column. As they cleared the village, the knights were ramping up to a canter with their spears lowered.

  “They might still be amenable to words. I know many of LaGaere’s company. Decent folk, if you can get past the scorn they hold for all other human beings.”

  Gwen wheeled her horse, tightening her grip on the reins and scowling.

  “Look closer!” she yelled, then spurred her horse and shot off down the road, back the way they had come.

  Bruler narrowed his eyes. The lead knight rode without her helm, long, black hair streaming behind her head. She seemed loose in the saddle, as though she were barely holding on to her seat, despite the sharp discipline of her lance and shield. Her head lolled forward, then fell spinning from her neck, onto the ground. The rest of the column ran over it.

  The dead knight rode on, lowering her lance and spurring her mount into a gallop.

  “Not much for talking, no,” Bruler muttered, then wheeled his horse and hurried after Gwen. The dead followed close behind, silent and fast.

  26

  THE CELESTIAL LINE slammed into Malcolm’s position with a thunderous crash. The first to fall were Sir Bourne and his cadre, caught out in front of Malcolm and the rest of the Tenerran knights. Malcolm watched as Bourne’s companions scattered in the first wave of lances. Of the big knight himself, there was no sign.

  Malcolm got enough of his own riders turned in to the celestial charge to survive the initial impact. A lance skipped off his shield, the knight wielding it pitching forward as their mounts collided, the weight of the charge shocking both men. Malcolm brought his sword down, glancing off the heavy steel of his opponent’s weapon arm, hacked again and again as the knight tried to disentangle himself from the charge. Finally the man dropped his splintered lance and drew his own sword. As he raised his blade to strike back at Malcolm, Malcolm thrust, driving the point of his sword into the chain of the knight’s armpit. The knight flopped back in his saddle and was still.

  There was no time to enjoy even this small victory. The dead knight didn’t move, pressed in place by the mass of riders behind him, but on Malcolm’s other side one of the Tenerrans fell, horse and rider disappearing into the trample. A celestial wielding a mace in both hands, swinging madly, quickly took his place. It was all Malcolm could do to block the attack, the flanged head of the mace denting his shield over and over again. The man’s momentum took him past Malcolm, deeper into the Tenerran formation.

  More celestials filled the gap, and Malcolm was quickly isolated from the rest of his knights. Celestials passed him by, each offering a quick sword strike or passing blow before continuing the charge. Malcolm parried feverishly, taking as many of the shots on his shield as he could before the face of the bulwark splintered and fell apart. He threw it aside, taking his feyiron sword in both hands and laying into the nearest celestial.

  The celestial knight attempted to dodge Malcolm’s attack and continue into the Tenerran formation, but this time Malcolm wouldn’t let him pass. He sundered the knight’s shield in one blow, knocked it out of the man’s hands with the backswing, then brought his sword down on the steel brow of his helm over and over until the metal crumpled. The knight slid free of his saddle and disappeared into the mud below, leaving his wide-eyed horse behind.

  “Get out of
here,” Malcolm shouted at the horse, slapping it on the rump with the flat of his sword. The beast charged back the way it had come, disrupting the knights who followed, knocking one to the ground and turning three more aside.

  The fury of his attack left a brief clearing around Malcolm. He stood up in his stirrups and surveyed the field. The two gheists that had apparently dug the trenches to hide the celestial forces were running amuck through Malcolm’s columns of foot. The celestials facing those columns were hanging back, apparently afraid of getting caught in the demons’ scything claws. In the center, celestial knights had broken through Malcolm’s position and were wheeling around for another pass. The churning mist at the end of the valley still hid Sir Galleux and her vow knights. Far behind, Castian Jaerdin held the reserves. There was so much chaos that the man probably didn’t know where to commit, but if he didn’t throw his knights into the battle soon, there would be no victory to salvage.

  Malcolm’s view was interrupted by a gheist. The beast had fought its way free of the ranks of spear and was now charging headlong into the Tenerran center. Its rampage caught the celestial knights as well, just as they were wheeling closer to the Tenerrans. It burst through their lines and started hammering toward Malcolm.

  The gheist loped forward, thick arms rolling under shoulders as big as barrels, with a mouth that looked like a geode, bright, sharp teeth disappearing into a howling maw. As it drew closer, Malcolm could see shards of loose stone sloughing off its back, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

  Malcolm dug his knees into the sides of his horse and charged. The black blade of his sword raised high above his head, the destrier galloping below him, the sounds of battle faded from his mind. The world slowed. The Tenerrans and celestials around Malcolm paused in their battle, eyes following the Reaverbane as he shot across the field of battle into the waiting jaws of a mad god.

  The gheist struck, one massive paw swinging straight through Malcolm’s horse, turning the creature to pulp. Its stony claw clipped Malcolm’s leg, and then he was flying through the air, twisting and turning, the sky meeting the ground. He struck the gheist shoulder first, bouncing off stone to roll limply to the ground. Malcolm lay face down in the mud. Pain hummed through his body. Around him, the screams of dying horses and knights continued.