The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Maybe he just wanted to keep the family business alive," Dante said.

  "I would guess he was just selfish, but to each his own. Naturally, Corwell found it as despicable as I do, but couldn't do anything about it, because Margon lived in a tower of solid iron with a top so high it was lost in the clouds, and the tower itself stood on a mountain so high it makes you too dizzy to stand. Corwell only made it up because he was half-god, but as much as he pounded on the tower's walls, he couldn't leave a scratch. It just gonged like a giant bell, resounding through the clouds, which was probably a good thing, because when Corwell, in his completely relatable despair, flung himself from the mountain, his uncle Josun Joh had already been drawn there by the bell, and was able to catch him.

  "Josun Joh offered to help, because unlike Corwell's own father, he is a man of principles and upright character. Plucking a seedling from the base of the White Tree, he bent it into a bow, stripping its leaves—this was a fairly normal tree, unlike its hideous progenitor—to be tied into a fan. He gave these to his nephew and told him the tower's outer wall was invincible, but that it was just a shell around a very normal stone structure. If Corwell could fire an arrow through the single window just below the tower's peak, he could strike the inner stone, sending the whole thing crumbling down.

  "So Corwell went back to the iron tower and called to his father Margon, who didn't even bother to come out and explain himself, which again shows you what kind of man he was. Corwell waved the fan, blowing away the clouds. He drew back his mighty bow and sighted in on the window, which was just a black speck so tiny you couldn't even see it, let alone shoot an arrow through it. In fact, it was so far away it took a full minute after he released his arrow for it to fly right through the distant window.

  "Once more, the tower rung like a bell. Its note was so strong it knocked the birds from the sky. Half the mountain slid into the sea, which probably killed a lot of people if anyone lived on the nearby islands. And the tower itself crumbled, dashing down in a hellstorm of thudding stone and screaming iron. Horrified that everyone in it was dead, Corwell waved his fan, flushing the dust out to sea, and found Velia alive under the broken body of his father."

  Mourn frowned again at the backs of his hands. "Which sounds like a happy ending, except when you think about it Corwell killed his own dad and Velia was abducted and ravished by her husband's father, which she couldn't have been too happy about either. But that's how Corwell got the Quivering Bow, and at least nobody ever bothered him or his family again."

  "Neat," Blays said. "No one will want to mess with us then, either."

  "Now do you see why we're after it?" Dante said.

  "Sure. Sounds like we'd be invincible. So why not go after the Hammer of Taim while we're at it? Or find a way to catapult the sun straight into Setteven?"

  "Origin stories are always exaggerated. If you don't buy Mourn's, I know one I think actually happened."

  "I wasn't just making that up," Mourn said.

  "All I'm saying is—"

  "These are things we believe, you know. I don't know where you're from that you don't even pretend to take them seriously, but it must be a rude place. Many shoving-related deaths."

  Dante glared off at the cliffs drifting by at the speed of the current. "I don't know what's true and what isn't. If the bow's real, then maybe Corwell's story is, too, along with the one I've heard. It's about a norren named Wenworth, who only died about fifty years ago, so—"

  "Wenworth the Mole died 56 years ago."

  "—it's at least reasonably trustworthy. In short, Wenworth was a norren warrior exiled from his clan after his younger brother convinced them he'd burned down their ancestral shrine—but his brother stole some of the relics from the shrine, and sealed them up in a stone tomb. A tomb in which his treachery would soon cause him to be interred.

  "It began from jealousy. Wenworth and his brother Bode were sons of the chieftain, and Wenworth, as the elder, was naturally in place to—"

  "All hands!" Captain Varlen bellowed from the barge's aftercastle. "All hands take arms!"

  A sailor leapt on the mainmast, climbing hand over hand up the rigging. Others rushed for the ship's bow or passed around spears stored in a closet on the face of the stern's castle. Dante rose and peered across the gray waters. Small waves smacked the hull. The men called back and forth, adjusting sails, swinging the Boomer starboard and angling it at the eastern shore. Norren warriors swarmed up the ladder from belowdecks. Dante and Blays exchanged a look, then jogged to the bow and up the steps of the aftercastle, where Varlen relayed orders to a bald, gnomish old man who in turn barked them to the crew in a voice far larger than his wiry body would seem to allow.

  "What's happening?" Dante said to the barrel-chested captain.

  "Someone's distracting me from my duties," the captain said.

  "If you think you see pirates, we need to know."

  "No pirates."

  "That's good," Blays said.

  "Just the bodies they left behind."

  Varlen nodded across the river and resumed jabbering at the gnomish man. Upriver near the far bank, something flat yet jagged floated a short distance from shore, a plane interrupted by sudden snagging upthrusts of snapped wood.

  "Is that a shipwreck?" Blays said. The captain nodded. "Then what are we doing sailing away from it?"

  "Avoiding a trap." The burly man pointed to a steep rise, its top lightly wooded, where the river curved downstream. "Such as a man left ashore on yonder hill, with a signal-mirror ready to flash the vessel hidden around the bend."

  "So what? We've got to check it out."

  "Anything worth taking's already been took by the ones that burnt their ship."

  Blays rolled his eyes. "To help the survivors."

  "That isn't a part of our mission," Dante said.

  "Our mission is to help the people of these lands. When you're brought to Arawn's hill in the sky, don't you want to be able to point to a few good deeds to balance out all the killings?"

  "Arawn doesn't judge."

  "Well, he should. And we should, too." Blays turned to Varlen. "Take us to the wrack."

  "That thing looks days old. The only comfort they'll need is a burial." The blocky man rubbed his stubble. "Well, you're paying for this trip. But one whiff of anything fishy and we're shoving off."

  "Cowardice isn't a free meal," Blays said. "It isn't something we should be lining up for."

  He turned on his heel, brushing shoulders with Orlen, who'd joined them on the aftercastle. Dante followed Blays down the steps. The gnomish sailor roared out new orders. Men clambered the rigging, tacking the sails to swing the barge larboard. Blays set up position on the bow, swords sheathed. Mourn procured a bow and hastily strung it. As they neared the wreckage, Dante kept one eye downstream for enemy boats, but the waters were empty, gray as the clouds.

  The wreck, it turned out, wasn't drifting so much as lodged in the rocks and mud ten yards from shore. Its hull stopped a few feet above the water, charred and broken. Submerged white sails flapped in the current like bleached seaweed. Wood creaked on rocks. Soot and rot rolled over the clammy, muddy smell of the river. Varlen anchored and set his crew to preparing the Boomer's single life raft, which had just enough room for Dante, Blays, and two sailors manning the oars. Though the wreck was as silent as the clouds, Mourn crouched over the Boomer's rails, bow at the ready, joined by a dozen other warriors of the clan. Two crewmen dipped their paddles into the cold water and pushed the rowboat forward. The tiny vessel rolled on the waves, swells thudding hollowly against its wooden sides.

  The deck of the wreck angled from the waters. One of the rowers reached for the damp railing and guided the rowboat in. They tied off, startling a crowd of crows, who hopped further down the ship and resumed pecking at a blackened arm tangled in a wrist-thick rope.

  Dante crawled past the crewmen, grabbed onto the railing, and eased onto the slant of the deck, boots slipping on the slick wood. He braced himself
and gave Blays a hand up. A few feet to their right where the deck met the water, a pair of legs lay on dry wood. The man's upper body swayed in the water, shirt billowing around his bruised and pale skin.

  Dante crouched down, breathing through his nose. "This does not look so good."

  "That's because it's a wreck," Blays said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter if they're all dead. The important thing was coming here to check."

  "Well, look at you. I'm surprised you could coax that high horse into the middle of a river."

  "Sorry to interrupt all the beatings, threats, and killings to help someone for a change."

  Downed sails and charred, shattered wood blanketed the deck. Reddish-brown ovals stained the canvas. Blays curled a rope around his forearm and used it to brace himself as he half-climbed, half-walked up the deck toward the stern, where an open hatch gaped into darkness. He leaned over its edge, wrinkling his nose.

  "If smells can kill, I hope you're ready with my eulogy." He unwrapped the rope from his arm and slid it down the canted deck to Dante.

  "I'd be honored. You are an overweight nun with a drinking problem, right?" Dante coiled the rope around his arm and scrabbled up the creaking planks. At the hatch, the stink of fresh death churned his gut. Water lapped gently in the darkness. Still clinging to the rope, Dante rolled onto his back, rooted through his pack, and emerged with a dull, semi-opaque marble. He rubbed the torchstone between his palms, periodically blowing on it as if it were a colicky fire, until a strong, pale light bloomed from the stone. Dante leaned over the hatch rim and lowered the stone into the gloom. Ropes, broken casks, and shards of pottery scattered the planks some 15 feet below. Bodies lay propped against pillars or crushed between barrels. His nose already acclimating to the scents of decay and exposed guts, Dante smelled old smoke, coppery blood, and the sharp, irritating tang of oil. From the darkness beyond the stone's reach, something stirred the broken jars.

  Dante jolted back from the hatch, scrabbling to catch himself on its edge before he slid down the deck. "There's something down there."

  "A cargo hold has cargo? This is a discovery right up there with fire."

  "Something alive."

  "Oh." Blays gazed down at the opening as if suddenly regretting the entire venture, then grabbed the rope, scooted toward the deck railing, and started knotting. "This river just has fish in it, right? Nothing with tentacles?"

  "I feel like a large, tentacled object will pretty much go wherever it pleases."

  "Why do I always forget to bring a trident?" Blays tested his knot with a tug, then slung the rope's free end down the hatch. It struck the bottom with a damp thud. He gestured down the pit. "Well, you've got the light."

  Dante frowned at the gloom. "I could just hand it to you."

  "Too much work. Get climbing."

  Dante scowled, clamped the stone between his teeth, and grabbed hold of the rope. For all he'd seen and done—the fights, the battles, the deaths—he was still afraid of the dark. Not in a rational way, either. He was less scared of whatever was really down there than of all the things that couldn't be: the venemous monsters, the clawed horrors, the spider-faced giants that would lurch from the darkness the moment he turned his back. But this wasn't a fear he could voice to Blays, so he lowered himself hand over hand into the damp chill gloom.

  As the rope swung with his weight, Dante glanced frantically from corner to corner, splashing the hold with the stone's white light. It rushed over shattered wood, burst barrels, bubbly green glass. His boots touched the floor. He shuffled through the debris towards a chest-high crate that was gouged but intact, then hunkered down and pressed his back against it.

  "I'm down," he called.

  Feet dangled through the hatch. Blays leapt straight down, the rope threaded through his elbows, slowing him just enough to stave off injury when he thumped to the planks. The boat groaned, grinding on the rocks, broken glass jangling in the darkness.

  Blays threw his arms out for balance as the ship settled into a new angle of rest. "Possibly not a great idea."

  "Not unless you're trying to drown. In which case please ask me first." Dante glanced up the sloping boat. At the gray limits of the torchstone's reach, a man lay facedown beneath a mass of loose barrel staves and hoops. Other than Blays' disturbance of the rubble, Dante hadn't heard anything since descending besides the smack of waves against the hull. He crept across the floor and knelt beside the body. The man's wrist was cold as the river. Dante turned downslope. Beside him, Blays eased through the ruins, pointing at a pair of legs jutting from a mound of broken crates and spilled white cloth. Dante stepped through the tacky, rusty stain around the body and crouched beside one foot. Tugging up its pant leg, the shin was white and cold.

  There was no need to check the third man for warmth or pulse. He slumped against the curved inner wall, head missing from the nose up. Dante moved past, smelling cold, stagnant water. The torchstone's white light glimmered on the black pool that was the back half of the sunken boat. Broken boards and whole barrels floated there, circling in an unseen current. He suddenly felt very cold.

  "Okay," Blays said. "I've seen enough."

  Dante stared into the black water. He thought he could see something moving there, a serpentine, twilight shape that could only be seen in glimpses from the corner of his eye.

  A voice moaned from the darkness.

  Dante nearly dropped the stone. Blays yelped. "Remind me never to do anything good again."

  They found her curled tight under a shroud of sodden, dirty cloth. Dark-haired, a few years older—mid-20s. Her bare arms were as ropy as the rigging, but her cheeks were sunken, her skin as pale as the sails swaying in the current. A bloody bandage held her left leg together.

  "Go get help," Dante said. "I'll see what I can do."

  Blays' footsteps faded up the slope. Dante drew his knife across the back of his hand. The nether reacted at once, restless in this borderland between air and water, light and dark, life and death. He took hold of the woman's wrist, which pulsed heat like a stove. Shadows flowed down his arms, sinking into her skin like rain into sand. She coughed so hard her shoulders lifted from the deck. He turned her head sideways to let her dribble phlegm onto the damp wood.

  He breathed slowly, drawing the nether from the black pool, from the shadows under casks and crates, from the bodies of the dead. The heat of her skin ebbed. He checked the wound on her leg. It was red as a rose, inflamed and oozing blood. A white shard of bone projected from her skin. For now, he left it, along with her pain, fighting her fever instead, her soul-deep chills, the things that threatened to devour the final remnants of whatever spirit still clung to her bones.

  She hadn't awoken by the time the crewmen from the Boomer arrived. Nor even when they built a stretcher, strapped her to it, and lifted her into the waning daylight of the topdeck. The rowboat shepherded Dante and the woman back to the Boomer, then turned around to pick up Blays and the other hands who'd helped with the rescue. Dante settled her into a cabin on the aftercastle and summoned the ship's barber, who set her leg and cleansed the wound.

  That, at last, was enough to wake her. Dante called the shadows to soothe her pain. She collapsed into the sheets, sweating and unconscious.

  Back on the open deck, Blays puffed his cheeks with a sigh. "Think she'll live?"

  "Yes, in the sense that she hasn't died while we're talking. Past that, I give her even odds." Dante glanced at Captain Varlen, who stood with arms folded. "We should question her next time she wakes up. She might be able to point us in the right direction."

  Varlen squinted his small black eyes against the sunset. "Need to get away from the wreck. Night's coming."

  "Meaning?" Dante said.

  "Meaning dead sailors become unruly jealous of those who aren't."

  Dante was too tired to argue. The Boomer weighed anchor, steering for the river's middle. He sat watch over the woman but quickly nodded off. An hour later, heavy knocking jolted him from his seat. Orlen shov
ed open the door before Dante crossed the tiny cabin.

  "What's going on here?" the chieftain demanded.

  Dante moved to block the massive man's entry. "Since when was I allowed to speak to you?"

  "Since you ordered we stop. Are we currently standing hip-deep in dead pirates? That is when we stop."

  "That woman is near death. Unless you'd like to beat her there, lower your gods damned voice and get out of this room."

  Orlen's scarred cheek twitched. He backed from the cabin, lowering his shaggy head to clear the doorframe. Dante followed him outdoors. The clouds had cleared and stars reflected from the waters.

  "I should know by morning whether she'll wake up," Dante said. "If she does, she may know where the Ransom's gone."

  "Away. And we need to follow."

  "What if we pass right by in the night? Or worse, they run into us?"

  The norren shook his head. "Josun Joh has spoken to me. The Ransom is more than a hundred miles downriver."

  "Forgive me for preferring to get the facts from an actual witness."

  "Josun Joh is both actual and a witness. Every day we dawdle takes our cousins of the Clan of the Green Lake another day away." Orlen closed his eyes and nodded. "We sail on."

  "We're not going anywhere. I'm the one who paid the captain."

  Orlen gave him a tight smile and started up the aftercastle stairs. Dante returned to the cabin. A few moments later, shouts rang up from above, followed by the angry thumps of a 350-pound norren descending the stairs.

  The woman woke before Dante did, rasping for water. He returned with a full mug. She gulped it down without stopping, then fell back among the bedclothes, gasping. "Who are you?"

  "My name's Dante. What happened to your ship?"

  Her sunken eyes dwindled further in their sockets. "We were attacked. A war-galley."

  "The Bloody Knuckles?"

  "They wore red sashes over their hands. I thought it was strange. Bad for one's grip."

  He smiled. "You're a fighter?"

  She gazed down at her leg, where fresh bandages wrapped her compound fracture. "I doubt that title can still be applied."