The Dark Ferryman

by Jenna Rhodes

  He found the crevasse and urged his mount forward. The beast trotted a few steps into the cut and then came to a stiff-legged halt, head down, and snorted. He shook his head, reins rattling when Sevryn urged him onward. Sevryn stretched in the stirrups, casting a look along the stony ground to see if prints or broken greenery might tell the tale of another taking the Way and saw little fresh sign of any consequence. Clouds in the skies above drew closer and grayer, the weather growing heavy with threatening rain. He put a heel to the recalcitrant beast’s flank. The horse flicked his ears back and stayed his ground.

  “Now then,” Sevryn told him. “We’re on the queen’s business. You were bred for that. Serve her well and you’ll have green pastures to retire to, with sun on your body and warm oat mash in the dead of winter. Do any less than the best you were bred for, my tashya, and you’ll be working the land for a Dweller or Kernan family, putting your shoulder to the harness and knowing the lash even when you’re tired. Not that it isn’t a noble occupation for a horse to work the land, but not for one of your hot blood, eh?” He pulled his water skin up and took a short swig, giving the horse a breather and a chance to relax against the bit. When he’d done so, Sevryn nudged the horse forward again.

  The horse took a few steps with an uneasy swing of his head. The snap of the rein ends against his neck did nothing but make him halt in his tracks again, four legs braced, and his ears down.

  With a sigh, Sevryn swung off and pulled the reins forward to lead his mount after him. It would do him good to stretch his legs a bit and perhaps his horse was more leg-weary than he’d gauged. Riding in Daravan’s wake had perhaps taken more of a toll on the horses than on the riders. He could feel the dampness in the sky. Did Hunter’s Cut hold off rain as well as snow and ice? He rather doubted it, and hunched his shoulders against the inevitable. The horse let the reins grow taut before giving a chuff and reluctantly trailing after. Sevryn broke into a slow jog.

  The horse threw his head back in a violent start, whipping the leather reins through his hand in a red-hot motion that left his palm and fingers stinging. His mount reared up, twisting his body about, and bolted back the way he had come.

  “Halt!” Sevryn’s Voice lashed the air.

  He could hear the grunt as his horse plowed to a stop, somewhere beyond the Way’s opening. He slogged after it, his hand afire, and found the mount, head down, shuddering, panting, lather foaming his neck.

  The horse rolled a white-ringed eye at him. Sevryn grunted back at the beast. He knelt by the side of a small stream running along the gravelly crevice and dipped his hand into the water to cool the fiery welt.

  His thoughts whirled into an icy river washing up to his knees. He could see Rivergrace afoot coaxing her mare across, one hand wrapped in the coarse black mane and the other in bridle reins. It was not the scene the Ferryman had showed him, but it sent a tremor of need through him. Shouts rang through the forest and across the river, and from upstream, riders bore down on her, her and the queen’s troops with her. Bolgers leaned over their small, scruffy mountain ponies, their faces stretched in war yelps, bows and swords in their hands. He could feel the fear lance through her body as she urged her mare across the river, the water dragging at them both as the raiders bore down on them. He could hear orders shouted from Lariel and Osten and see arrows slicing the air. This was far, far worse than anything the Dark Ferryman had given him in vision. This was what Quendius had goaded him about.

  He tore his hand from the freshet. With a muffled curse, he grabbed up his mount’s reins. No time to waste, no time to coax a stubborn beast. Rage surged through him, rage and the need to be in the battle. He put a hand to the creature’s ear, twisting it as he mounted and righted before letting go. Then he slammed his heels into the horse’s sides. “Now move,” he Voiced, and sent them plunging headlong into the Hunter’s Cut.

  Her skirts dragging wetly at the hems, Rivergrace paused in the riverbed, her hands full of horse and leather, but her senses filled with Sevryn. She could smell his odor, tinged with seawater and salt and horse and woodsmoke. She could feel his heat and hear his frustration in his breathing, so close to her, so close that she turned in the water, but no one stood behind her. She had just turned back to her mare, pushing against her, hurrying her against the current when a horse screamed. It thrashed and died, an arrow piercing its neck as it fell into the river, throwing its rider free. Whoops split the air as Bolgers yelped and growled, raiders riding down on Rivergrace and her companions through the river, spray flying from the pounding hooves of their rugged little ponies.

  “Stand back and hold!” Lara yelled as did Osten, and the trooper whose horse had gone down managed to drag himself aside, choking and sputtering as he did so. The archers spurred their mounts onto the far bank and unslung their bows, nocking arrows as fast as they could pull them from their quivers.

  Rivergrace froze for a thumping heartbeat or two. Then she slapped her mare on the rump, sending her bolting out of the river and splashing after the horse. An arrow hissed past her, slapping into the river ineffectively. The Bolgers pulled up, circling their tough little ponies in the churning waters. She looked for the age-toughened face of her old friend Rufus but did not see it among the others. She hoped for a moment they might be clan Bolgers of the area, just defending their lands, but they looked nothing like farmers and hunters and craftsmen. They wore boiled leather, with the insignia of a red hand on it, nothing she’d ever seen before. And they screamed for Vaelinar blood.

  Lara wheeled her horse about as an arrow whistled past her and thunked into Osten who bellowed in pain and anger. His horse reared up and crumpled on his hindquarters, legs giving way in the deep and fast-moving stream. The mount rolled and came up with Osten unhorsed and still cursing, holding onto the stirrup as he pulled the arrow from his breastplate. He tossed it away in disdain, pulling his one-handed sword and slapping the flat of it across his horse’s rump. The animal threw its head up with a squeal, bucking out of the river, dragging Osten’s bulk alongside. He heaved into position on the muddied bank as two of the Bolgers lunged at him in a spray of water. He braced his hefty legs and swung backhanded across the assault.

  One Bolger head went rolling in mid-yell, and the other rider caught the blade deep in his shoulder, unseating him and sending him into a sodden heap in the mud. Limp, he slid into and under the river’s waters. The two shaggy ponies whinnied sharply and pounded into the forest, their slack reins flying about their necks. They disappeared into the crackling shrubbery. Osten kicked the first body aside and set his boots in the mud, yelling out orders, his deep voice underscoring Lara’s higher authority.

  Of little use as the troopers and the archers fell into lines, Rivergrace took up the reins of the loosened mounts wherever she could, dragging them off to the shrubs and tying them there, fighting with horses twice as big but not half as stubborn as the sturdy ponies she’d grown up with, Acorn and his tough little stallion son Bumblebee. She shouldered her way between the tashya horses the Vaelinars favored, those hot-blooded animals with sculpted faces and long flowing manes and the need to run in their veins. They stamped their hooves and shook themselves dry like puppies and chomped at their bits but did as she bid them.

  She viewed a rout as she took up a position in the clearing, drawing her short sword. Jeredon would be gnashing his teeth at the line of the archers, broken apart and sent running by Bolgers who hung off the flanks of their ponies, using them as shields. She set herself as the attackers thrashed relentlessly downstream toward them. The initial group of raiders had been joined by two dozen or more. Whoops rang through the trees. Osten waded through bodies to join Lara shoulder to shoulder at the forefront. He bellowed his defiance. Grace slipped behind a bending sapling, and her movement caught an attacker’s attention.

  A raider followed her. Baring his curved tusks in a ferocious grin, he charged with the reins looped about one forearm and hoisted his sword in the other. She waited as the pony erupted from the
river in a spray of mud and foam before taking a step outward. She swung, one hand over the other on the hilt, cutting into his thigh deeply as her movement made the pony swerve into her blow. He hauled on the reins in yelping pain, bringing his mount about sharply. It lost its balance on the slippery bank, going down on top of the rider. When it regained its feet, the rider stayed facedown in a spreading pool of crimson. Rivergrace took a shaky breath, stepping back into tender green branches of the sapling. Red droplets ran off the edge of the sword onto trampled mud and grass.

  Lara and Osten shouted at each other over the cries of battle. She could barely hear them, words torn out of their mouths and swallowed by the riot of sound. A body surged past, borne by the river’s current. Its Vaelinar silvery-and-black hair in a long twirl about a bloodless face, the form threatened to disappear forever in the waters. Rivergrace plunged after him and dragged the corpse back to shore, looking across at their men who’d taken to high ground at the far side. She left him with his arms folded across his body.

  Upstream, a whistle split the air, sharp and keen as a sword blade. Grace’s attention jerked to it.

  A tall, proud Galdarkan sat atop a tall, proud horse. Both of them shone in tones of gold and bronze, but the man wore a diadem which caught the sun. He watched from a knoll at the river’s bend, and at the whistle, the Bolgers wheeled. They reacted to the sight of him by regrouping into a ragged unit and charging down on Lara and her troops again while the Galdarkan watched. Had the whistle come from him? Had he given the order to punish them all for trespassing? Did he hope his raiders were up to taking down the Warrior Queen? He turned and rode into the forest upriver, melting from sight as if he had never been.

  Rivergrace shouldered aside a riderless Bolger pony as it staggered into her through the scrub brush. The creature ambled off, covered with blood that might be its own or its missing rider’s. The sword hilt turned in her slippery hands as the raiders crashed into the wall of defenders poised to protect Lara. Blood slicked the river. The hot, coppery smell of it sickened her. The low moaning and fresh screams filled her ears. None of them cared if those which came after to drink with the dusk or the following dawn would find the river fouled. None of the warriors noted, as she did, the sounds of scavengers already flying in. Carrion eaters would wing in flocks and scurry on paws to tear the flesh of the dead. Their only care was for the matters of men and rulers, not for waters which were meant to carry life and had filled with death.

  A sour and bitter taste filled her throat. A hunkered raider lumbered at her, short ax in his hand and a feathered arrow in the back of his shoulder. Grace put her hand to her protective sapling and retreated a step as the Bolger squared away to face her. With a grunt, he moved closer and she released the sapling. It snapped into his face and she plunged her sword in after, shoving it deep into his flank and pulling it free. With a surprised look and a gnashing of his teeth the raider dropped to his knees and died.

  Rivergrace took a deep breath. She dropped her sword as anger filled her. Sweet water cried out to her as gore filled it. A silver-blue mist rose across her vision, heated tears filling her eyes at the desecration. She flung her arm out, curving her hand and pointing her fingers to the river, a vision of a wall of Bolger raiders bearing inexorably down on them, riding though the water as if it were a road built for their carnage. Their battle poisoned the earth and water about her. The fury came to her, hot and heavy, burning away the bile in her throat, searing away the shock of the cold river and the fear.

  She let out a cry. It came from her throat, melodic and high-pitched, winging across the air and through the noise of battle in a lance of sound, pure and beautiful in its anger. She ordered the river to do her bidding, and hers alone. She ordered it to forbid trespass.

  The waters rose with a noise that filled her ears. With a sound like a wind in high tempest, an inferno answered her call, turning against all nature. The sun seemed to fall into the river, its brilliance setting the very waves alight. Fire danced across it in a torrent of flame. A tongue of flame crested in orange-red and blue magnificence, and licked down upon the riders.

  Ponies screamed in terror, and voices shouted in disbelief. In moments, mere beats of her heart, the flames swept through the war party, sending the ponies bolting in fear. Their frenzied flight from the fire pounded the riders into the banks and trees, stunning all those within reach of the river of fire. Not a rider stayed on horseback. Not a weapon stayed in hand. Not a sheath or quiver could be recovered. The battle had been swept away from them on raging wildfire. The Bolgers fled.

  Silence fell. The fire crackled and slowly dissolved into a smoky black residue along the waters, hissing into nothingness.

  Her curved hand wavered as her arm dropped to her side. Grace took a step back, and only the green sapling with its springy strength kept her from falling. Its branches embraced her.

  Lara sheathed her sword and crossed the distance between them in four great, running strides, her lithe body coated with blood. She threw an arm around Grace’s waist, holding her up. “What, in the name of all the Gods of the Vaelinar, was that?”

  Grace looked at her, seeing her only dimly for a moment, then her vision sharpened, and she could hear her own heartbeat again instead of the thrumming, the roar, of the river. And she looked out as the sunlight abandoned the river, leaving the water to resume its swift flow downstream. The ragged troopers still standing did as instructed, pulling all of the dead onto dry land. She had no words for what might have happened, for what she might have felt tearing through her flesh and into the river. With each new heartbeat, she lost the sense of what she might have seen.

  “The river burned.”

  “Sun, in our eyes . . . I don’t know.” Grace shook her head.

  The Warrior Queen’s gaze went very still before Lara put her gauntleted hand over Grace’s bare one, and squeezed. “We’ll come to an understanding of this.” She released Rivergrace. “Osten! Get bonfires built for the dead and gather the troops together.”

  Rivergrace watched her leave. She put her hand to her throat, raw and chilled. She could still feel the authority of the unknown words which had been torn from her, the outrage and the power. She did not know where they had come from or where the sound fled, once uttered. The ache in her throat bore witness to an event her mind already shuttered away from her. She sank to her knees.

  Rivergrace shivered, suddenly aware of the cold and the death around her.

  Chapter Eight

  SEVRYN SPURRED HIS MOUNT down the narrow rock passageway, stones clattering under his hooves as Rivergrace’s need spurred his own. He would lame the horse and be on foot if he didn’t slow, but he couldn’t. He would force Hunter’s Cut to bring him to her side if he could but held no hope of turning that Way into another road. He bent low over his horse’s neck, urging caution out of him and speed into every stride. Shale brushed his elbow as they took the crooks and corners of the Cut at a breakneck pace. He slowed only when he had to, until the horse’s breathing grew ragged. Then, with great reluctance, he slowed his mount and swung off, leading him through the narrow tunnel of stone and rock with only a clouded sky overhead telling him that they were not buried in granite.

  He pulled his waterskin down and tipped it to the horse’s muzzle, wetting his mouth and waiting till the breathing grew steady, then coaxed the rest of the liquid down his throat. It wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the horse by any means, but they would have grass and water once out of Hunter’s Cut, even if only for a few moments while he caught his bearings and headed for Grace again. The pause cleared his mind of the rage which had been pulsing through his veins. She would be no safer with him than she would be with Lariel and Osten. He knew that, in the marrow of his bones, a fact which had escaped him until now. Something desperate had ridden him, spurred him, even as he had done so to his horse.

  He smoothed his horse’s forelock and straightened the bridle before strapping the emptied waterskin back onto the pack. When he s
tarted off again, his horse followed him quietly, head hanging low and easy. Sevryn wondered at the creature’s behavior before settling into a stride he’d learned from years of trekking behind Gilgarran with his love of the open road.

  He’d jogged long and far enough that his shins ached and his heels felt the jar of every step when the sky overhead rumbled in more than a threatening manner. He might have seen the flash of lightning from the corner of his eye, but the thunder left no doubt. They were in for rain. His cloak in shreds, he had little left for shelter. No matter. Once through Hunter’s Cut, he would have a clear path.

  Thunder rumbled again. Sevryn ground to a halt, his horse’s nose bumping onto his shoulder as he did, the beast giving a low, worried whicker. He glanced upward, at the slivers of sky seen through the rocky pass overhead. A brilliant blue shone back at him, streaked with streamers of blackening clouds. He had the eerie sense that he saw not the sky, but that the sky saw him . . . noticed him, as if for the first time, and was taking its measure of him as a being. An icy reaction shivered down the back of his neck as something or somethings sifted through him.

  Time slowed. The wind halted in mid-gust. The boiling clouds froze in the sky and beyond it, a deeper blue opened, like the slit of an eye. He stood, head thrown back, while his very being peeled off him layer by layer. He’d been dissected before by foreign hands with far greater power than anything he could conceive. This time was no different except that, as each layer fell away from him, touched by a cold assessment, he felt a weight of judgment. Sevryn could explain it no other way. It felt as though the Gods of Kerith peered down at him, examined the threads of the Vaelinar-made Hunter’s Cut, and plucked at the elemental strings braided by the Way, distorted from the nature of their world. It could not be what he imagined. It could not. But as he stared upward, he felt an icy anger as they sifted his very being and something within him answered. A white-hot defiance rose burning in his chest. He took a swelling breath to shout at the sky, and then choked it back as the earth moved below him while a muted thunder sounded again. He could feel the vibration under his boots. It gave way to a rolling motion, as though some great creature shivered and slithered its way under the ground. The reins grew taut as his horse threw his head back with a grunt. The ground swelled. He staggered and his elbow struck the side of the mountain sharply. He hadn’t moved. It had.