The Shadowed Path

by Gail Z. Martin

  Just then, shouts and loud cries rose from the center of the caravan, where cages held wild animals from all over the Winter Kingdoms. The center of the caravan’s camp had bustled with people just moments before, but now the crowd parted to clear a path as the panicked shouts continued.

  “By the Crone’s tits!” Linton blustered, planting himself in the center of the opened space. “What’s going on?”

  Jonmarc spotted a dark form bounding toward them. Rippling with muscles under a sleek, dark coat of fur, the predator cat covered the ground as swiftly as a horse. The big cat growled, baring its sharp fangs, and ran straight for Linton.

  The dark cat was on Linton almost before the caravan master could draw his sword. Linton let out a hoarse cry as he slashed at the cat. The crowd was backing away, and it was clear to Jonmarc that despite all the shouting, no help was on its way. Jonmarc looked around desperately, berating himself for leaving his swords in the wagon. He grabbed two of the heavy bridles he had delivered to Linton, and swung them with all his might at the cat that pinned Linton on the ground.

  The steel in the first bridle slammed into the cat’s head, knocking the big animal to the side. A cheer went up from the crowd, but they got no closer to the fight. The cat growled at Jonmarc, momentarily forgetting the prey beneath it. The second bridle hit, opening a bloody gash by the wild cat’s ear. Jonmarc backed up, his heart racing, wondering if his damn fool plan would actually work.

  The cat began to stalk him, and Jonmarc drew him off, giving Linton time to scramble to his feet. Jonmarc never took his eyes from the cat. The predator stepped up its pace, no longer walking but not yet at a full run. Jonmarc swung the bridle again, and the cat slowed warily.

  The cat tensed to lunge just as a silver streak gleamed in the air, and the animal fell to the side, with the hilt of a dagger protruding from its fur. Jonmarc looked up to see Linton, his clothes torn and bloodied, ready with a second throwing knife.

  When the cat lay still, Linton waved to several nearby caravan handlers who grudgingly responded. “Tie it up and get it to a healer. It’s too damn hard to find cats like that to lose him now. And make sure he stays in his cage this time!” Linton growled.

  Jonmarc had not moved. His heart was still pounding, and now that the fight was done, he felt his hands shaking. Linton strode up to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  “That was fast thinking,” Linton said. Up close, Jonmarc could see where the big cat’s claws had gashed Linton’s shoulder.

  “What was that thing?” Jonmarc asked, watching as the men tied up the wounded animal, which still had enough fight to snap at them until one of them looped a muzzle over its nose and chin.

  “Stawar. You don’t usually see one in these parts, but they’re native to Eastmark,” Linton replied. “They’re the symbol of the Eastmark royal family, so it’s highly illegal to remove one from the kingdom. I paid a pretty coin to smuggle that one out, and I’ll not lose my investment! Thank you,” Linton said, meeting Jonmarc’s gaze. “That took balls—more than any of my whore-spawned performers had, that’s for certain.”

  Jonmarc shrugged. “I’d hate to lose my best customer.”

  Linton guffawed. “Customer, indeed! You ever decide to see the world, I’ll have a place for you, and that’s a promise.”

  JONMARC DROVE THE empty wagon back to Ebbetshire alert for highwaymen. The trip had taken longer than he expected, and it was growing dark. Shanna would be worried about him. Shadows were already falling on the mountains just beyond town, and Jonmarc spared a glance for the high cliffs. In bright sunlight, you could just make out the dark places that marked the largest of the cave openings. But Jonmarc knew there were hundreds of others, many of them hidden or barely large enough for a man to enter. Places where long ago, the first people to settle this land had buried their dead.

  It was their long-forgotten graves Jonmarc looted.

  He hadn’t set out to be a grave robber. It began with an off-handed remark from Linton about how much money one of his merchants had gotten for an old bit of jewelry. Intrigued, Jonmarc had stopped by the merchant’s stall and recognized his wares were like the forgotten bits that littered the caves where he had gone exploring as a boy. Ever since then, Jonmarc had brought what he could find along with him when he traded iron and herbs, and Linton was happy to pay him for the odd pieces. The dead don’t care, and the living need to eat, Jonmarc thought.

  His horse whinnied and stopped abruptly. Ahead on the road, Jonmarc saw a dark form in the shadows. He drew his knife. “Get out of my way, or I’ll ride you down.”

  The figure took a few steps closer, moving out of the shadows and into the moonlight. Now, Jonmarc could see it was a man in a dark cloak with a hood that hid his face. “Who are you?” Jonmarc demanded.

  “My name is Foor Arontala. I have a business offer for you, Jonmarc Vahanian.”

  Jonmarc’s grip tightened on his knife. “How do you know my name?”

  The figure chuckled. “You’re the one who sells trinkets to the caravan. There’s an item I’d like you to retrieve from the caves for me. I’ll pay you well for it.” The man lowered his hood. He had long, dark hair and a pale face with fine, aristocratic features.

  “How well?”

  “Three gold pieces. That should make it worth the effort.”

  Three gold pieces were more than most village men would see for years of work. Jonmarc nodded, but did not lower his knife. “Say on.”

  “I’m looking for a talisman,” the man said. “Nothing most people would value, but it’s of interest to me. It’s very old. If you’ll accept the job, I can tell you where to find it.”

  “If you know where it is, why don’t you get it yourself?”

  The man chuckled, and as his lips parted, Jonmarc could see the points of his long eye teeth. Vayash moru, Jonmarc thought, and a chill ran through him. “The lowest, oldest areas of the caves are spelled against my kind. But mortals may pass without harm.”

  “That’s it? I go into the caves and bring back the talisman? Then what?” Common sense told Jonmarc he should snap the reins and ride on. Practicality made him stay. The last harvest had been poor, and the villagers had little coin to spend. Money had been too scarce over the last few years to turn down such a good prospect, and with a baby due any day and Shanna’s mother also depending on their earnings, Jonmarc could not make himself turn away. Tucker was a good master and he paid Jonmarc his promised wage, but there had been weeks when business was bad enough that they had all gotten by on cabbage and leeks and a few rabbits poached from the king’s forest. “Then I pay you,” the man replied. “Handsomely.”

  “You’ve got a deal,” Jonmarc said. The stranger came closer, and Jonmarc’s horse shied. The man held out a folded piece of parchment.

  “These are the directions. Show them to no one else. They are spelled for your eyes alone.”

  Jonmarc’s suspicion that the stranger was a mage deepened. “How will I find you?”

  “I’ll find you,” the man said. “In three days, I’ll come for the talisman at twelfth bells. Have it ready. I will be most unhappy if you do not have it for me when I arrive.” He gave an unpleasant smile, and this time, Jonmarc was certain it was to make sure he saw the vayash moru’s fangs.

  “Understood,” Jonmarc replied, but his gut clenched. Sweet Mother and Childe! What have I gotten myself into?

  Jonmarc blinked, and the stranger was gone. He shivered, but it had nothing to do with the evening chill. He snapped the reins and sent the horse into a fast trot, and only his pride and the certainty that the dark stranger was watching from the shadows kept him from a full gallop.

  SHANNA WAS WAITING for him when he came in from putting the wagon away and seeing to the horse. “I was beginning to worry,” she said, smiling. “There’s some stew left in the pot. I kept it warm for you.” Her dark blonde hair was tied back with a bit of cloth, and her cheeks were pink from the warmth of the cooking fire. One hand fell to he
r swollen belly, and she smiled. “I felt the baby kick again. He’s going to be a fine blacksmith, I wager!”

  Jonmarc wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, and touched her belly gently. “Or a fine hedge witch like her mother and grandmother,” he murmured.

  Shanna chuckled and helped him out of his coat. “We’ll have to wait and see now, won’t we?” Her smile faded as she watched him. “Did something go wrong? Didn’t you get the coin the caravan master promised?”

  Jonmarc ladled some stew into a bowl and sat down at the table, ripping off a chunk of bread from the loaf that lay in the center. “Linton always keeps his word. He paid everything he said he would.” He took out a pouch of coins and laid them on the table. “I’ll take them to Tuck in the morning.”

  Shanna came to sit on the opposite side of the table. “What about the bits from the cave?”

  Jonmarc withdrew a second pouch and dropped it onto the wood so that the coins jangled. “Twenty coppers. Not bad for odd rubbish just moldering in the cliffside.”

  Shanna made the sign of the Lady in warding. “You know how I feel about you going into the caves. There’s a reason they’re forbidden. They’re haunted.”

  Jonmarc finished his bite of bread and stew before he answered. “I’m more afraid of the living than the dead,” he said. “We’ll have a new mouth to feed, and the caravan’s moving on. No telling when we’ll get more customers. I’ve got to make what I can while I can. I’d rather not eat cabbage for every meal.”

  Shanna reached out to touch his hand. “You have something else on your mind.” Her brown eyes seemed to see right through him, and he sighed.

  “I met a buyer on the road, coming home from Linton’s,” he said. “He wants something from the caves—and he’ll pay gold.”

  Shanna’s eyes narrowed. “Gold? For odd bits from old graves of people everyone’s long forgotten?” She shook her head. “There’s something wrong.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, setting his empty bowl aside. “But I already agreed to the deal. A couple of gold coins will feed us all for a long time—Tuck’s family, too, if need be.”

  “And how will you explain where you came by gold?” Shanna challenged. “Someone will say you stole it, and get the king’s guard after you.”

  The same thought had occurred to Jonmarc. “The man’s coming to pay me in three days. If Linton’s not gone yet, I’ll go to the caravan to change it to silver and coppers. Or I’ll take a load of goods to Eiderford and exchange my gold for the silver they pay me. Tuck won’t have a problem with getting his pay in gold, I wager.”

  “I wish you hadn’t made the bargain,” Shanna said. “We’d get by without it.”

  Jonmarc leaned over and kissed her. “I want to be a proper father, and a proper husband,” he said. “I promised Elly I’d take good care of you.”

  Shanna smiled and twined her fingers with his. “You do right by mother and me, Jonmarc. I just wish times were easier.”

  “Nothing lasts forever, my father used to say,” Jonmarc replied. “Bad times or good. Always a storm coming, or one just passed.” He let out a long breath. “And I wager he knew what he was talking about.”

  THE NEXT EVENING, once his day at the forge was through, Jonmarc ate a hurried dinner and packed his gear. He left Shanna with a kiss and assurances of a quick return.

  She pressed an amulet pouch of her mother’s dried plants into his hand. “To ward off danger,” she said, folding his fingers around the pouch.

  Jonmarc forced a smile and tucked the amulet into his bag. “I’ll be back before morning. You’ll see. Nothing to worry about.” He knew from the look in Shanna’s eyes that she was unconvinced.

  The moon was bright, and Jonmarc crossed the lowlands with relative ease, glad he did not have to light a lantern. So far, he had eluded notice, but he had no doubt that there would be some in the village who would look askance at his forays into the caves, although the ancient dead whose skeletons lay in the cliffside were none of their own. Tuck, Jonmarc was certain, would shrug and agree that the living had more need of the trinkets than the dead. Shanna’s mother, Elly, would worry about the wardings and traps that might be set for tomb robbers, or the spirits of the restless dead. If any of them had seen the stranger, Jonmarc was quite certain they would have told him to forget the whole thing. But there’s no going back now. He thought as he reached the cliffs and began his climb.

  As a child, back in Lunsbetter, Jonmarc and his brothers had often climbed the cliffs and poked around the caves near their village. When Jonmarc had gotten settled into his new home in Ebbetshire, the allure of the nearby cliffs had proven irresistible. Climbing gave him a way to clear his mind, and in those quiet moments, he was alone with his grief for his murdered family. Investigating the caves had begun as a lark, and he had not considered selling the trinkets he found beside the old graves until money had gotten tight.

  Jonmarc swore under his breath as he reached for a difficult handhold on the rough stone. He pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, and inched his way along until he reached an outcropping in the rock. Ducking behind the outcropping, Jonmarc struck flint to steel to light his lantern, and held it aloft, alert for trouble. The stranger’s knowledge of the caves made him wary, and Jonmarc half expected to find the man waiting for him. When nothing moved in the shadows, he let out a long breath, and started into the caves.

  Shanna and her mother swore the caves were haunted, but Jonmarc rarely saw ghosts. Then again, few people without a touch of magic saw spirits except at Haunts, the Feast of the Departed. Jonmarc was just as glad to do without any special ability to see the dead. Even without magic, he saw enough ghosts in his dreams.

  Jonmarc had memorized the stranger’s map. Much of the route was already familiar; only the last portion was new. Once Jonmarc got past the first chamber, more rooms opened up into a warren of dark passages leading deep into the cliff. Over the last two years, he had explored most of them, but even he had only dared to go so deep. The stranger’s map took him further down one of the remote tunnels than he had ever ventured, and Jonmarc felt a prickle of fear.

  “At least the bats are gone,” he muttered to himself. A benefit of coming after dark meant that the bats that clustered in the caves were out feeding, although the floor of the cave was slick with their droppings.

  The deeper he got in the cave, the more aware he became of the faint green glow of the moss that clung to the walls of the tunnel. Most of the time, Jonmarc barely paid the moss any attention, but tonight, his nerves were enough on edge that the eerie glow just added to his feeling of foreboding.

  This deal was a mistake. The thought repeated itself in his mind with every step, and Jonmarc pushed it aside. I made a bargain. Not keeping it would be a real mistake—especially with a vayash moru. It did no good to wish for his father’s counsel or his mother’s advice. They were two years dead and buried with the rest of his village. Maybe I should have talked to Elly or Tuck, but what could they tell me? By the time I could have seen them, the deal was struck.

  The passage in front of him forked, and Jonmarc knew that the stranger’s map led him to the left. Just in case, he marked the turn with a bit of coal he had brought for that purpose. In case something down here doesn’t want the talisman brought back up to the surface, he thought.

  Jonmarc’s lantern cast a small circle of light, just enough for him to see a few steps in front of him. Darkness closed in behind him as he moved forward, and yielded temporarily to him as he advanced. But the further he went down this particular tunnel, the more the feeling grew that he was being watched. He stopped, wary of a trap. Nothing moved in the darkness, and the only sounds were the faint, distant dripping of water and his own rapid breath. Sometimes, he had surprised rats and other small creatures in the upper tunnels. All the same, he had the feeling that he was not alone, and not particularly welcome. Whispers hissed at the very edge of his hearing, and some of the shadows slipped away from his light as if
they had a will of their own.

  It feels like the realm of the dead , Jonmarc thought, and made the sign of the Lady in warding.

  Enough foolishness, he berated himself. I just need to grab the talisman and go.

  Two more turns took him much deeper into the cave, and for an instant, he imagined the weight of the cliff bearing down on him, stifling his breath. His heart raced, and he fought the urge to turn and run. He mustered his courage and went on, mindful of how much the candle in his lantern had burned down. I’ve got no desire to be stuck down here in the dark, he thought, though he had taken the precaution to bring an extra candle, just in case.

  One more short tunnel led him to the end of the stranger’s map. He had passed many old burial sites along the way, with yellowed bones wrapped in crumbling cloth. On a normal hunt, he would have looked in each one for saleable trinkets, but this night, he focused only on the stranger’s errand. They’re not going anywhere, he thought with a glance to the long-dead corpses. I can always come back for them.

  At the end of the tunnel Jonmarc found a room carved into the stone. Unlike the other crypts which were natural recesses in the sides of the cave, this room had an arched doorway which still showed the faded remnants of ancient paint. Beyond the archway, a raised platform held the remains of a man. Jonmarc felt a tingle as he stepped through into the room, and he wondered what magics had been set in these tunnels, and by whom.

  He had expected to find a skeleton, or even a jumble of bones. But the body that lay in repose appeared to be a fresh corpse, unsullied by time or decay. Jonmarc took a closer look. By the look of the dead man’s clothing, he had been dead for a very long time, a century or more perhaps. But his outfit and personal items left no doubt about the dead man’s vocation. A wicked sword lay atop the body, its pommel still clutched in his hands. Though the sword was of a more crude design than those Jonmarc forged, it was a lethal weapon for a man of war. The corpse wore a leather cuirass covered in metal rings over a finely-woven tunic with intricate embroidery along its hem. The dead man’s boots and scabbard were of equally high quality. A king? Jonmarc wondered. At the least, an important warrior.