The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  "There is no bow." Mourn's voice filtered up the stairway, ethereal, dolorous, shamed.

  Dante returned to the top of the gap in the stairs. Mourn hadn't moved. "Their soldiers are at our feet, Mourn. Very soon, they're going to come up this tower, or set a fire below, and you will be roasted like a very hairy and treasonous pig. Now tell me what you're holding back."

  The norren looked down at his heavy palms. Fear and doubt added years to his face. He closed his eyes. "There is no bow. Or anyway, if there is, it's just a bunch of legends that built up around a very normal weapon. When you came in questing after it, Orlen let you believe it was real."

  "What?"

  "He saw what you could do. That you're a sorcerer. He thought he could use you to—"

  Gala rose behind the seated Mourn, blade in hand. "That's enough."

  Lira's sword flashed from its sheath to point at Gala's back. In the same instant, Dante shaped the nether into a swirling black ball. "Silent. Or you die."

  Gala's face took on a resigned smile. "I don't fear death. I do fear my clan."

  "We're going to die down there anyway, aren't we?" Blays shouldered past Dante, nearly toppling him down the empty gap. "What does it matter what we know? Our brains aren't tea leaves. When our skulls get split, all that will leak out is a bunch of goop. So sit your giant ass down and let the man talk."

  Fleetingly, Gala's smile widened. She lowered her curved blade, sheathed it. "Fine. If he wants his final act to be to dishonor his clan, let Josun Joh judge him."

  Mourn kept his gaze on Dante. "Orlen was using you to get back the cousin-clan."

  Dante swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "And now he's sold us out to the enemy while he rescues his people from the mine."

  "No!" Mourn's face jerked up, tight with pain. "Orlen just wanted your help. He didn't think he could secure it without making you believe you'd get the bow. You were sold out to Cassinder by one of our other clansmen. He thought it was the only way to get his family back. He's the one who tipped off the Bloody Knuckles, too. Once he saw we were poised to take back the Clan of the Green Lake ourselves, he confessed to Orlen and Vee."

  "Is that it?"

  The norren's gaze flicked past his shoulder. "The raid on the mine is real. So is the timing."

  "Meaning there's hope of an even bigger distraction." Dante glanced at Blays. "What do you think?"

  "That they'll kill me over my dead body." Blays grabbed hold of the rope and searched for a toehold down the ruined steps. "We should get downstairs. Block the door or see if we can make a run."

  "I'll be right behind you." Dante turned and jogged back upstairs. His mind whirled with anger and the helpless sense of being duped, of illusions torn away like shabby clothes. But there was no time for the self-pity or humiliation that welled beneath his outrage. On the upper floor, he lit his remaining candles and hurriedly placed them throughout the room. Cassinder's forces thought they had surprise on top of numbers. No reason to disabuse them of their own illusions.

  The others had already disappeared downstairs. Dante hardly slowed on his way across the rope spanning the gritty ledge. On the other side, he lit his feet with tiny white lights to show him the way and hurried to the ground floor, where the others waited in starlit darkness.

  "I count about forty versus five." Blays slid down from the narrow window to give Gala a pointed look. "Or should that be four?"

  She shrugged her broad shoulders. "I hope to see my clan again."

  "With that kind of enthusiasm, let's bump it up to four and a half. We could just let them siege us. Mourn and Gala are very large, so it should take several weeks to eat them."

  "We need to run," Dante said.

  "I'll lead the charge." Mourn gazed at the black window. "To erase my betrayal, I'll try to absorb as many arrows as I can."

  "You getting shot to death is not a plan." Dante crept to the window. Beyond, silhouettes of soldiers arranged themselves on the other side of the road. A picket of three or four troops waited further down the road toward the mine; presumably a similar group was blocking the opposite route to the manor. More than two hundred yards of open downhill slope separated the tower from the pine forest to the west, the obvious place for Dante to lose their pursuers—or to string them out and battle them in clusters rather than en masse. "Suppose they've got cavalry, too?"

  "In reserve at best," Blays said. "A horse snort carries pretty far at night."

  "So the good news is the cavalry might trample the arrows right out of our backs."

  "Can you make us invisible?"

  Dante shook his head. "Too complicated. I would have to match the illusions to whatever was around us. On all sides. Constantly."

  "Is that all?" Blays gritted his teeth. "But you could make illusions of us. Which could run out to do battle, swords in hand."

  "While the real usses make a break for the woods."

  "While you wrap us up in one of those balls of darkness. Like back in Bressel."

  "Wouldn't be able to see where we're going. We'll trip constantly. The'll be on us in seconds."

  "Will you stop making this so damned hard?" Blays laughed. "So we hold hands. Mourn's in the middle. I'm at the front. You focus on keeping the sphere centered around Mourn's big head, keeping the darkness just wide enough so I can peek out the front and make sure we're not about to plunge into a ditch."

  "That is insane." Dante laughed, too, waving one hand in dismissal. "Don't bother to ask. No, I can't think of anything better."

  Lira shook her head. "I don't understand a word of what you two just said."

  "Don't worry, neither did I," Blays grinned. "Just hang on to my hand and cut anyone who tries to take me away."

  "Are those the same orders you'd give a man?"

  "I don't know. Become one and we'll find out."

  Dante wasn't troubled by the idea of maintaining the shadowsphere during their run. In that alley in Bressel, the ball of darkness had been the very first time he'd used the nether—in fact, it had appeared completely by accident, a physical manifestation of his quite conscious desire to escape the men who'd been pursuing them. In much the same way he could hold a conversation while watching a play, he was certain he could keep up the sphere and their illusory doubles even while being tugged along blind down a hill. If he tripped, however, or inhaled a fly, all bets were off. Then it would be them, in the open, before some forty armed men.

  There was just enough space in the tower for the five of them to string themselves out hand in hand. Dante conjured the shadowsphere, concealing them inside a ball of perfect black. He shrunk the sphere until Blays called out that he could see, then held its size in his mind, memorizing the influx and arrangement of nether that would keep it at its present circumference.

  When he let the sphere fall away, the starlight was so crisp and silvery he could see the faces of the soldiers across the road. Dante drew the wavy knife he'd won at Nulladoon and traced a stark red line down the back of his arm. Nether fed on the blood as it ticked to the floor. One by one, he shaped the shadows into doppelgangers of their waiting crew. The matches were far from perfect—their flat eyes and chunky hair would easily be discredited in direct sunlight—but under full night, the hulking forms of two norren would be unmistakable. He finished the illusion with two human males, one blond and one dark-haired, and a woman with her long brunette locks clamped tight in a ponytail. Lira watched her double walk to the door with the strange half-smile of someone who's just heard something unspeakably rude.

  "Well," Dante said slowly, his focus splintered between the five stiff figures. "I hope I don't die with a stupid look on my face."

  Mourn lifted the board braced across the entry. Dante leaned into the heavy wood door and flung it wide, leaping back into the safety of the tower. Someone whistled sharply from the enemy lines. Dante narrowed his eyes. The five images hunched down and crept out the door, one by one.

  "Stop!" a man called from outside in a clear tenor.<
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  Dante straightened the figures and sent them racing north, paralleling the road to the mine. The man repeated his order. The five real people gathered just inside the tower doorway, linking hands, Blays at the front, Mourn in the middle. With the illusions fifty feet away and gaining distance fast, Dante summoned the shadowsphere to center on Mourn's head. Total blackness painted his eyes.

  "Go!" Blays hissed.

  A moment later, Mourn's thick hand yanked Dante forward; his right arm jangled, tugging Gala behind him. His feet swished into the weeds. Dante could no longer see the illusions except in his mind's eye, where they pumped their feet and sent horrified glances at every shout and command of Cassinder's troops, but he heard the arrows slashing the air, the thump of soldier's boots in sprinting pursuit. His own foot slipped in the damp grass; the shadowsphere flickered, allowing a ghostly glimpse of sword-bearing men charging away after the illusory silhouettes. For an instant, both of Dante's feet left the ground, his arms straining between the two norren's unholy strength, and then he found his footing and ran and ran. He redoubled his focus. The shadowsphere returned to total darkness.

  His feet struck packed dirt, jarring painfully. Some ways to his left—what he hoped to the gods was the south—hooves thudded the turf. Then he was back in the grass, feet churning. Mourn grunted in pain but didn't break stride. Up the road, a man cried out a string of incredulous profanity.

  Dante kept hold on the doubles and the shadowsphere. The confusion spread to a babble of voices, each soldier demanding, in his own specific phrasing, to know what in the nine hells was happening. Dante relaxed his hold on the sphere. Across the road and a couple hundred yards toward the mines, a man poked his sword into one of the false norren and waggled the weapon from side to side. Dante sent a final pulse of nether to the images. They popped in a rainbow-hued burst of silent light.

  Men cried out in surprise. The woods waited just ahead, thrusts of pines mixed with harvested stumps that could easily break an ankle. Dante dropped the shadowsphere completely. His hands slipped from Mourn's and Gala's. Behind them, men scattered across the grass, hollering frustrated updates; torches flared, casting yellow light and long shadows. Dante pounded into the fringes of the wood. For a moment, he thought they might escape without being seen at all.

  "In the trees!" a man shouted. "Right there!"

  Faces swung to stare their way. Men broke into dead runs, torches flapping, swords in hand. Archers set their feet. Moments later, the first arrows hissed through the leaves, smacking into trunks and burying shafts half a foot into the damp earth. Blays swore and veered left through the pines, then swung into a sharp right. Lira began to limp.

  Blays fell back with her, and after a moment's hesitation, so did Dante. The two norren slowed to a jog as well. Torches flashed between the trees, closing. It was a matter of time.

  Yet the chase had strung out Cassinder's soldiers, house-guards with little discipline. Feet thrashed through weeds and leaves. Blays stopped and whirled, ripping his swords from their sheaths. The nearest guard was a good twenty feet in front of the others; his eyes widened as he pounded down the slope, unable to stop.

  "Is this how you treat your guests?" Blays' sword sent the man's head spinning into the grass. Three more soldiers rushed down the hill. Dante flung a bolt of nether through the closest man's chest. The soldier's breath left him in a horrid groan. He crashed into the undergrowth, skidding facefirst. The two other stopped, faces painted with sudden fear, torches crackling. Bursts of shadows leapt from Dante's hands. Blood flashed in the starlight. The two men gurgled in the ferns.

  "For Beckonridge!" a man screamed from up the slope. Ten soldiers spilled down with him. Something heavy thumped behind Dante. Gala lay in the grass, an arrow jutting from her skull.

  Mourn lifted his gaze from the body. Wordless, he strode forward, raised his heavy sword, and slammed it down on the first man to reach him. His opponent blocked with a high, crossward slant. Steel banged on steel; the man's sword shot out of his hand, thudding to the dirt. Mourn's next blow cut straight through the man's warding arm and halved his head.

  Swords and blood and screams moiled in torchlight and darkness. To Dante's left, Blays punched his sword forward to meet an incoming blade, the weapons straining between their chests. Blays dipped his offhand blade, jabbed the soldier's foot. The man yelped and fell. Blays stabbed him without looking, parrying the thrust of another guard. A man rushed Dante, straight sword aimed at his chest. Dante intercepted with his own, dropping back two steps from the man's downhill momentum, and sent a spear of nether battering through his ribs.

  Beside him, Lira feinted, feinted again, then stumbled. As her opponent closed with a downward stroke, she lunged forward—the stumble, too, had been a feint—angling to the outside of the man's swipe and driving her own blade through his stomach.

  Uphill, a mounted man stopped his horse and turned it sideways. His downy hair glowed in the torchlight. Shadows flocked to Dante's fingers. He danced back from a man with a spear, putting Mourn between them, and winged a dark bolt for Cassinder's midsection. White sparks burst from the lord's stomach. Cassinder cried out, slumping from his horse and collapsing to the ground.

  "Your lord is dead!" Dante summoned a point of light high above his head, so bright and piercing he thought he could see the soldiers' skulls through their skin. "Do you want to die with him?"

  Cassinder's guards shrunk back. Several bolted for their master lying motionless in the grass. A bow whispered; an arrow gashed through Dante's left ear.

  "I say we try the running again," Blays said.

  Mourn sheathed his sword, grabbed up Lira, and slung her onto his back. She blinked, hoisting her sword to keep it from slashing the giant man. Other than the blood dripping down her temple, Gala still hadn't moved. Dante turned and ran down the hill.

  The land dropped sharply. Every step threatened to spill him. Mourn somehow matched pace, Lira bouncing on his back. A handful of arrows hissed past. The guards resumed the chase, torches winking behind trees, but between the skirmish and those who'd stayed behind to tend to Cassinder, the pursuers were less than half the number that had gathered beneath the tower. That, perhaps, explained why they stopped five minutes into the chase, their fires shrinking with each step Dante took through the wet grass. Dante heard nor saw any cavalry, either—the slope was too steep for horses, the night too full—but suspected they'd patrol the roads for days.

  Still they ran, leveling out and splashing across a frozen creek, then climbing through slippery pine needles and frost-glittered ferns. At the top of the hill, Mourn called for a stop. Blays bared his teeth, breathing hard. He gazed downhill and planted his hands on his hips.

  "Well, I don't think we have to worry about starting a war anymore."

  "What are you talking about?" Dante said. "That was a disaster!"

  "Exactly." Blays nodded down the slope. Dante turned. At the mines miles to the north, a great fire glared in the night, gouting white smoke. Far south, a second fire burned from the manor where they'd spent the last three nights. "I'd say the war's already begun."

  6

  "Well then," Dante said. "Let's be on our way."

  Blays blinked in the moonlight. "Did you hear me? That war we were trying so desperately to avert? Here it is!"

  "Right now, I'm a little more concerned about that." Dante tipped his head to the woody valley, lightly smeared with mist and smoke. Beagles howled from the trees. "I don't think I'll be worried about a war after I'm passed through a dog's belly and deposited on some lord's lawn."

  "You think being a pile of shit's going to save you? That will just make it easier for Cally to stomp you."

  Dante offered his hand to Mourn, who looked cadaverous beneath his beard. "Sorry to part this way. Perhaps we'll meet again."

  Mourn stiffened. "I thought I might come with you."

  "We're going back to Narashtovik. We're done with your clan."

  "I'm afraid I am, too."


  "What are you talking about?" Blays said. "You can't just run off on your clan."

  The norren tipped back his high chin, frowning down on them. "I can do whatever I want. I can jump down this hillside if I determine that to be a rewarding course of action. If you wouldn't consider me a millstone around your neck, I'd like to come with you."

  "We could use your help with her anyway," Dante nodded at Lira.

  Lira raised an eyebrow. "I'll be fine. It's a sprain, not an amputation."

  "Lyle's balls, I'm just saying you can't run at a time when we may need to. Can we get a move on?"

  She nodded, mollified. Dante cut east down the slope, reckoning by the stars and the twin columns of smoke. His footsteps stirred the scent of pine needles and minty wintrel leaves. Even with Lira leaning on Mourn's shoulder, the huge man moved lightly, stepping over low branches to leave them undisturbed. Not that it would help if the dogs caught up with them. If that happened, Dante would have to resort to methods that would provoke some very sharp words from Blays.

  The canopy closed above their heads. Birds peeped from the darkness. The howls of the hounds faded, miles away. Chasing the Clan of the Nine Pines, then. Dante expected the clan could take care of itself.

  It had certainly taken care of his own small contingent. Orlen and Vee had played them like a hand of two-bluff. Oh, you're looking for the Quivering Bow? Right this way. It happens to have been stolen by our worst enemy. If you'd like it back, all you'll have to do is everything we ask.

  Dante had let them lead him by the hand like a child crossing a thoroughfare. That knowledge tingled in his gut and prickled down his skin, hot and nauseating. In the cold, he felt his cheeks flushing. He'd let himself be swindled, blinded by a fantasy of a bow that could turn the tide of war by itself. Cassinder had done the same, letting his people feed Dante vague hints of the lord's wondrous new weapon, baiting the trap for Dante to make his move.

  Blays was right. The burning of Cassinder's estate would spark the very war he'd been trying to stave off. And yes, in all likelihood, that war would have come at some point no matter what they'd done. Gask wasn't going to just shrug as its norren vassals shucked their chains and began governing themselves. Eventually, it would have come to blows. Many thousands of them, in fact.