by David Benem
Then there was something. Something just at the edge of her vision—a flash or flicker that drew her eyes. She stared to a point fifty or so yards away on the street’s opposite side. There seemed an alleyway or narrow side street between a pair of two-story homes, choked by the same gray gloom as everything else.
She held her eyes upon that point, waiting.
Nothing. She breathed easier.
“Whatever you saw,” she said, turning, “seems long gone. There are a few more things in the house worth taking, and—”
The sky brightened for an instant with brilliant light.
Lightning?
A faint scream sounded from somewhere behind her.
Or…
She spun round and looked again to that spot down the road.
Just then a red-haired, brown-robed man stumbled from the alleyway and fell into the muddy street. He sobbed and shivered.
Another man—a lanky one clad in a green cloak that looked an awful lot like Merek’s—emerged and retreated to stand near the fallen fellow. He shouted back toward the alley, brandishing a sword that gleamed with a distinct greenish hue.
Two others spilled into the street from the alley, one in a green cloak, another a young, chubby fellow in brown robes.
Shadows—or what appeared to be shadows—stretched from the alleyway like the tentacles of some sea beast. The man with the sword hacked at them as though they were physical things. The shadows reeled back, gathered, then lashed at the group.
A tall, gnarled codger in heavy robes wobbled across the street from its opposite side, hefting a staff. He shouted something in an odd tongue. A pure, white light blazed from the staff’s head.
There came a shriek, a hideously pained sound that pierced Fencress’s ears even at this distance. Someone—or some thing—staggered into view, a bald and black-garbed thing. It fell, clawing at its pale skin and wailing in a high-pitched sound that seemed incapable of being produced by a human throat. It wailed and twitched with unnatural quickness, quivering in the street’s slop.
The sight of it made Fencress’s small hairs rise.
She felt almost relieved when she watched one of the green-cloaked men thrust his glowing sword into the thing, at which point it gave a final shudder and fell still.
“Two more!” shouted the old man. “Kill them! Kill them so we can seek our true quarry!”
The odd group looked about, seeming to regain their bearings. One of the green cloaks helped the robed fellow up from the street and after a moment the five of them set off at a brisk trot, away from Fencress and her companions.
Fencress didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath but found herself giving a long exhale. “Let’s get out of here. Now.”
They found Karnag waiting beside The Mewling Mutton, just beneath its peeling shingle depicting a sheep impaled upon a spear. He stood with horses already fitted with tack and strapped with stuffed saddlebags. His torso was bare and as the rain fell upon him the bloodstains wept like wounds freshly opened. His eyes carried the look of death.
Fencress tried to repress the fear she felt, not permitting her swift stride to falter upon catching sight of her old friend. She heard Drenj whimper, though, and sensed the boys flagging on the muddy road behind her.
“Ready for a pleasant morning ride, Karnag?” she asked, donning a bold grin.
Karnag nodded. “Mount your steeds,” he rumbled. “We ride at once.”
Fencress turned to Drenj and Paddyn and kept her voice low. “Do as he says, or be left to face whatever it is you saw back there.”
The young men seemed to give genuine thought to the options, but after a moment spurred their pace and made for the horses.
Karnag—now atop his black steed—stared past them with dead eyes. “Hurry,” he said in an eerily even tone. “Our pursuers have found us. They… and others. Shifting things that lurk just beyond the edges of my visions.” He looked to them. “You will be slain if you stray from my side. We ride. Now.”
Fencress doubled her pace, boots splashing upon the road. She yanked herself atop her waiting horse with as much grace as the muck would allow. “Boys?” she said with pretended cheer.
Drenj and Paddyn looked to Fencress with worried eyes as they slogged across the street. They pulled themselves atop their mounts and regarded Karnag with what seemed profound fear.
“Ride!” Karnag roared, digging his heels into his horse. The black steed reared and Karnag threw a fist to the sky. “Ride!” he roared again, then set off at a gallop.
They followed after him, their horses unsteady upon the muddy ground though rushing ahead with seeming desperation. Fencress wondered if they feared Karnag’s wrath as much as she did.
They fled the town’s ramshackle outskirts and followed Karnag as he left the road, charging up a low hill aside it.
We’re headed straight toward Riverweave.
Straight toward the war.
“Ride!” Karnag bellowed once more.
Thunder cracked overhead and the world trembled beneath it.
7
THE PAST’S LONG FINGERS
Lannick guided his horse through the rain, the beast’s hooves slurping their way along the muddy road. It was a gloomy evening, clouds casting a heavy shade upon the plain. He studied every shadow’s stretch, wary eyes lingering upon the dark.
The coming of night held a dread, one which Lannick worried would cling to him always. Shadows covered the land, and he wondered how many of them reflected a shadowpath below.
“There,” said Brugan beside him. “Another mile at most.”
Lannick pulled his eyes from the dark and looked ahead. He spotted a rise, a deeper black against the bruised sky.
“Last chance to turn back,” grumbled Cudgen Ashworn. “You’re sure this is a good idea? Five strangers paying a visit to a thane during wartime?”
“As much rumor as ale flows in my tavern,” Brugan said. “It’s known Thane Vandyl didn’t support the Crown’s war strategy, and that was before High King Deragol died. Now, with Chamberlain Alamis setting claim to the throne, he’s likely to be opposed outright. If Vandyl’s supplying the deserters as Ulder says, I’d say he has plans similar to our own. He’s a man who’d not see Rune fall.”
Arleigh Lay chortled. “And so you think five old soldiers the thane knows nothing of will be granted an audience with him? And if we are, you think he’ll gladly confess he’s committing treason and invite us to join in?”
Lannick shifted his crooked jaw. Cudgen and Arleigh’s presence in this endeavor troubled him, but Brugan insisted that bringing them was the best way of overcoming their doubts. “You need to let them see how you’ve changed, Lannick,” the big barkeep had said. “Hearts aren’t changed by words alone.” Lannick knew the truth of his friend’s statement, though that did little to quell the quiver in his guts whenever they questioned him.
“Do you, Lannick?” Cudgen asked shrilly.
Lannick turned his horse. Arleigh and Cudgen regarded him with suspicious stares beneath their dripping hoods, Kevlin with an impassive glare, and Brugan with what seemed close to, but not quite, a steadfast trust. Years before these men had been his closest advisors and finest soldiers, and had looked to him a hero. Now, aside from Brugan, they viewed him as something far less.
“I’ve met this man,” Lannick said, steeling his tone with what confidence he could. “I met him after being named Protector of Ironmoor. The title is the greatest honor a common man can achieve. The thanes are bound by tradition to open their holds to me, to offer provisions in times of need, and to assist my cause of defending the kingdom. Vandyl will honor that, even if his memory has faded.”
Arleigh’s gaze darkened beneath his hood. “You served as Protector for, what, a few months before disappearing into a drunken haze? Ha. You’re not that man any more. Word is you’ve not protected more than a tankard of ale these past many years.”
Lannick drew a slow breath. He knew no matter how far he d
ragged himself from the taverns of Ironmoor—no matter how much he’d changed—the past’s long fingers would claw at his heels. Regret, shame and despair. They’d always try keeping their grasp.
“And where is your prized sword?” said Cudgen. “How will he even know you are who you claim to be without it?”
“Fane stole my sword,” Lannick said, eyes falling. “But even without it… I’ve met Thane Vandyl. He’ll know.”
Brugan pressed close. “The captain’s right. Thane Vandyl will know him in spite of the years. I was there that day, and Lannick drew the thane’s admiration.”
“Hope so,” said Arleigh. “Else it’s our heads.”
Lannick nodded, as much an assurance for himself as the others. “He’ll know,” he said with feigned certainty. “His ancestors were some of Rune’s greatest heroes in fighting our enemies.”
Ahead, Thane Vandyl’s hold of Rellic appeared an imposing thing in the evening’s murk, a fortress of black stone glowering atop a hill about which huddled a modest township. A wall of stained wood taller than two men encircled the town and the obsidian barriers of the fortress above stretched thirty feet or more to the sky. Torches sputtered all about from a good many guards pacing in the spitting rain.
They came nearer the outer wall. Guards stalked battlements atop it, where the stained and fired timbers had been hewn to spiked points. Two men in mail hauberks and cloaks of brown and red stood beside the main gate.
“They wear the thane’s colors,” said Kevlin in his low, level tone, “but they wear the red sash as well.”
“Aye,” rumbled Brugan, “though that only means they’re loyal to Rune. Not that they’re loyal to Fane.”
Arleigh grunted. “Doesn’t mean they stand against the man, either.”
“Keep your hands from your weapons,” said Lannick. “Remember it’s wartime and they’ll be wanting no sign of trouble.”
They were perhaps fifty feet distant when the guards spotted them. The two men stepped from the gate, hands moving to the hilts of their longswords. The larger of the two, a man whose thick head barely squeezed into his round helm, raised a hand.
“You’ll stop there,” the guard said, “and come no closer. We’ve no refuge here.”
Lannick nudged his horse a slow step forward. “We call upon Thane Vandyl.”
“We are at war, stranger. Who are you to call upon Thane Vandyl and on such a night?”
Lannick cleared his throat, remembering the old words he’d hardly had occasion to use before. Once, maybe, and as he recalled that’d been with a Khaldisian prostitute. He grimaced sourly, tasting a hefty amount of self-disgust. After a hard swallow, he announced himself.
“I’m Lannick deVeers, seventy-fourth Protector of Ironmoor, and I demand entry.”
The ironbound portcullis of Thane Vandyl’s keep squealed upward. Hard-eyed soldiers glared from the torch-lit passage behind it then parted to reveal a smallish, stiff-postured man in a tailored tunic of brown and red. The man approached the rising gate and appraised Lannick and his company with narrow eyes.
The man gave a slight tilt of his spine. “I am Loryn, steward of Thane Vandyl. You are a Protector of Ironmoor, and ask to speak with Thane Vandyl as such?” he asked, though whether his tone was one of sarcasm or genuine curiosity Lannick could not be sure.
Lannick returned the bow. “I do. I am Lannick deVeers, seventy-fourth Protector and so named after the Battle of Pryam’s Bay. Your lord and I shared the same table to celebrate the war’s end. I ask to speak with the thane. I must share with him news of our enemy.”
Loryn’s expression did not change. “Very well. Thane Vandyl honors tradition and will grant you a brief audience. I trust our guards were accommodating? They stabled your horses? Good. And your weapons? Remove them. Our guards will return them to you after you’ve spoken with Thane Vandyl.”
Lannick untied his scabbard from his belt and offered it to a nearby guard. Brugan and the others did likewise, though Arleigh grumbled a good deal when parting with his long dagger and two more knives.
Loryn gestured down the passage. “This way.”
Lannick nodded to his companions and they followed the steward, the smallish man’s hands clasped behind his back as he walked. Lannick’s eyes drifted to the ceiling’s many gaping murder-holes for hot oil, acid, or whatever else. Vandyl’s keep seemed ready for war, and Lannick felt himself bracing for the rushing sound of the keep’s defenses as he strode ahead.
At the passage’s end Loryn pressed open a double door beneath a second raised portcullis. They followed him through and found themselves in a wide courtyard. Wooden scaffolds lined the inner walls and barrels and boxes stood in tall stacks all about. Rain-soaked soldiers hurried from one corner of the keep to another or practiced with weapons in a muddy training circle.
“Thane Vandyl is well prepared,” Lannick said.
“War is at our doorstep,” said the steward as he led them onward.
“Yet the thane has yet to commit his oath-bound?”
Loryn glanced back over his shoulder, leading them toward a square tower at the courtyard’s far end. “The thane’s oath-bound are needed here. One never knows if the Arranese plan to widen their attack, especially if General Fane holds them at Riverweave. It is the thane’s sworn duty to protect his lands and those north of here.”
Lannick looked to Brugan and the big man shrugged. The steward’s answer seemed reasonable enough, even though Brugan’s rumors claimed it to be in defiance of the Crown’s command. Lannick wondered over the truth of his friend’s tavern talk and felt his boots growing heavy.
How much dare we reveal of our intentions?
They reached the tower’s broad base. A red-sashed soldier opened a door and the small steward strode through. Lannick and his companions exchanged a brief look, then ducked under the doorframe and followed Loryn inside.
They moved through a cramped foyer into a room furnished with a long table lined with tall chairs. Bearskin rugs covered the floor and torches burned in sconces upon soot-stained walls of stone.
“Thane Vandyl will receive you here,” the steward said. He strode through another door at the room’s far end.
Lannick glanced to the others. Nervous gazes met his own.
“Take care, lad,” Brugan said. “We need his help, but try not to say too much. Politics is a twisted, slippery mess. Careful where you step.”
“We need his help,” Lannick said, settling into a chair along the table’s side. “His support would give us a far better chance of winning over the deserters—and a far better chance of winning the war.”
Arleigh plopped into a chair with a grunt. “Just mind your damned tongue and don’t get us killed.”
“I know how to handle this,” said Lannick.
At least I hope so…
The door at the room’s end creaked open and the steward returned. He bowed and gestured. “Rise for Thane Vandyl of Rellic.”
Through the door stepped an old man, his broad but sagging shoulders draped by a brown bearskin matching those piled upon the floor. He wore no adornment upon his white-haired head, and the only outward mark of nobility seemed to be the signet ring upon his right hand. He regarded them with shrewd, gray eyes beneath bushy brows, and motioned them to sit.
The thane assumed his seat at the table’s head and nodded to Lannick. “You,” he said in a scratchy voice. “We’ve met. Remind me of the occasion.”
Lannick suppressed a relieved smile at the recognition. “After Pryam’s Bay, Thane Vandyl. We celebrated our victory at a feast in the Bastion’s great hall.”
Thane Vandyl coughed wetly. “Hmm,” he said, followed by an audible swallow. “My steward Loryn tells me you are here with news of our enemy, the Arranese. The hour is late and war rages too near my keep. Waste neither time nor words. Speak.”
Lannick shifted in his seat, feeling the eyes of his companions upon him. He focused his thoughts on his task and the dangers facing them all. They’
d need all the help they could find.
No half-measures and no turning back.
“The Arranese,” he said in a measured tone, “may not be the kingdom’s most pressing concern in this war.”
Arleigh grumbled something from across the table. Lannick glanced over to see the man scowling as he scratched the shiny stump where his left hand had been.
“Go on,” Thane Vandyl said. “I didn’t receive you to solve your riddles.”
Lannick’s gaze darted to Brugan, who winked in a show of what seemed confidence. “Go on,” the big man mouthed.
Lannick turned back to the aged thane. He knew this was a terrible risk though his instincts instructed it was one worth taking. He reminded himself those very instincts had always been sharp—when not dulled by alcohol at least—and he drew an even breath.
“Go on,” the thane said impatiently.
Lannick shifted his crooked jaw. “Do you remember our discussion the last time we met? At the Bastion, after the war?”
“No. Remind me.”
Lannick found the old man’s eyes told nothing. “You confided,” Lannick said after a long breath, “you thought General Fane unfit for command.”
Vandyl’s stare remained fixed on Lannick. “Pryam’s Bay was a complicated battle, and many believe General Fane learned much from any mistakes made. This, now, is a complicated war. Are you suggesting General Fane should not be commanding Rune’s armies?”
No half-measures…
Lannick straightened in his chair and returned the gaze, sensing some agreement behind the man’s gray eyes. “He’s lost battle after battle already.”
“The old forests of the south would have been difficult ground for Rune’s soldiers. It was wise strategy for the general to surrender those lands while offering just enough resistance to slow the enemy’s advance.”
“His losses extend far beyond the old forests and have cost this kingdom thousands upon thousands of lives.”