Hinterland

  “I will let no one harm her,” Kathryn said.

  “You have no say in the matter, Castellan Vail. The edict here is final.” Argent stood taller. He waved an arm toward Kathryn and those who had come with her. “Take them all under guard, strip them of their weapons!”

  Knights converged from all sides, the Fiery Cross bright on their shoulders. Bloodnullers swept in from sheltered alcoves to either side, ready to strip Grace and power. Kathryn stood her ground as Brant and Laurelle shifted to stand behind her cloak. A dagger appeared in the boy’s hand. He held it low and skilled.

  Kathryn’s hand rested on the hilt of her sheathed sword.

  To pull it free, to raise it against her fellow knights—such an act would divide their house when it needed to be at its most united. But she had no choice. Dart and her secret had to be preserved. For the sake of all of Myrillia.

  “Take them down!” Argent commanded.

  Kathryn’s fingers closed on her hilt.

  The bullhound bellowed in rage. Tylar followed the echoing howl down the spiral of the narrow stairs. He touched the Grace in his cloak and drew his sword, becoming a flow of shadow.

  He had left Rogger and Gerrod far behind. They were rousing the masters from their dens, getting them moving to higher ground.

  Tylar needed to know what threat they faced.

  Following the howling, he reached the last spiral, the deepest of the Masterlevels, floors long abandoned as the number of those who studied the disciplines waned, matching the decline in shadowknights above. Tylar had not realized the extent of the blight upon Tashijan. They were at their weakest when they needed to be at their strongest.

  Pushing back his despair, he burst from the stairs into a dark hall. No lamps lit this level. Dust lay thick on the floor. The strident bawling of the hound drew him deeper. Light appeared ahead.

  Tylar rushed toward it, a mothkin to the flame.

  As he rounded a bend, he discovered the narrow passage blocked by a shaggy form. The bullhound faced the opposite direction, hunched low to the ground, snarling and gruffing in warning. It backed slowly toward Tylar, retreating from the darker depths of the passage. It herded two forms behind it, one leaning on the other.

  “Keep the lamp high!” the taller of the two urged hoarsely.

  Tylar closed the distance, recognizing Tracker Lorr. His companion failed to note Tylar’s approach until the last moment. Tylar shed the shadows from his cloak as he entered the pool of lamplight. His appearance startled the younger man, barely older than a boy, plainly a wyld tracker from his muzzled features. The young man squeaked in alarm and came close to fumbling the lamp in his fright.

  “Be still, Kytt,” Lorr groaned as he hung on his younger companion. “He’s a friend.”

  Tylar held back his shock at the older tracker’s appearance. Lorr’s clothes were burnt to his skin along his left flank. His hair was singed to the roots along the same side, his ear a raw, blistered ruin.

  Through the stench, Tylar also smelled oil.

  “Shattered my lamp,” Lorr coughed out. “Set fire to myself to keep them at bay. Only way to escape. Got too close.”

  Tylar could not fathom such a means of defense. “Who…?”

  Lorr shook his head against explanations. He lifted an arm toward the far stairs. “Must climb out of the darkness. Away…” The tracker suddenly swooned on his feet. He fell and pulled down the young tracker with him.

  Tylar reached and tugged them both up with one arm. He kept his sword raised in the other. “Get Lorr up on the hound. Head back up. I’ll guard your rear.”

  The young tracker, Kytt, nodded. With strength born of terror, he helped Tylar heave Lorr across the withers of the hound. “Barrin,” he keened to the bullhound. “Come away.”

  Tylar noted how Kytt trembled all over, lamp jittering in his grip. But a brightness shone in his amber eyes. He held back his panic to control the hound. Together they retreated past Tylar, while he stood guard over the passage with his sword.

  As Kytt and the burdened bullhound wound back toward the far stairs, the lamplight receded with them. Tylar faced the deeper darkness, drawing the shadows over his shoulders again, fading his form into the gloom.

  His sword—Rivenscryr—held the last of the lamp’s glow to its heart, shining in the shadows. He waited a breath. What had Lorr found? What had set the tracker to burning himself to escape?

  Down the passage, where no lamp had been lit for a full century, the darkness stirred. Something—someone—flowed toward him. He heard a vague rustle of cloak. Another knight? Buried in shadows like Tylar?

  “Who are you?” Tylar challenged.

  Silence answered him.

  He stepped down the passage, lifting his sword higher, a beacon in the darkness. The shine of silver slowed the roiling shadows, just at the edge of sight.

  A figure stood there, more darkness than flesh.

  Deeper down the passage, the blackness churned and a deep rustling of chalk on gravestones whispered to him. Tylar knew a legion waited beyond this one’s shoulder, held back more by the glint of his sword than its keen edge.

  As they faced each other across the gulf, Tylar’s vision adjusted to the gloom. He discerned eyes shining back at him. They didn’t so much glow with light, but were wells of blackness deeper than any shadow. He risked another step closer. Features of pale flesh appeared out of the darkness like a skull rising out of black dirt, half hidden by masklin.

  It was a knight.

  One he knew.

  “No…” he moaned, stumbling back, his own breath choking him.

  The figure followed with a pall of black amusement.

  “Perryl…”

  It was his former squire, turned knight while Tylar was in exile. He had vanished from Tashijan over a year ago, believed taken for some dark rites by the Fiery Cross. But seeing what was left of Perryl here, Tylar knew his friend’s fate had taken a much darker turn.

  Words reached him, whispered with the coldness of deep caverns. “I bend my knee to a new master now.”

  Tylar shook his head against the voice—so like Perryl’s, yet not. The blackest corruption oiled his words.

  Fired by revulsion, Tylar stabbed at the dark figure. But his blade found only shadow. The knight flowed away, raising a black sword that ate the light, a match to the daemon knight’s eyes.

  “I am ghawl now,” Perryl whispered. “Flesh and death are my past.”

  The black blade parried Rivenscryr as if the Godsword were mere steel. Tylar felt the hilt spasm in his grip, clenching hard on his fingers, repulsed by the black blade’s touch.

  “The darkness of the naether is so much stronger than mere shadow.”

  The black sword slid across Tylar’s blade and drove for his heart.

  Then light flared behind Tylar, flashing like the first rays of the sun.

  The brightness ate away the dark blade before it could strike his chest. The glow also shed the shadows from the daemon knight, revealing cloak and form.

  Tylar thrust out with his own sword. He drove his blade through the heart of the figure that wore his friend’s face. It sank deep and cut free a shriek that pierced beyond hearing. A wash of fetid decay billowed out, shivering Tylar’s skin. At the same time, the daemon’s cloak flew open like the wings of some malevolent raven, revealing what was hidden beneath.

  Horror drove Tylar back. He bore only the hilt of the Godsword now. The blade had vanished, eaten away as usual until it could be whetted again in blood.

  Tylar gaped at the form beneath the cloak. Naked from neck to toe, all was laid bare—down to the bones. It was Perryl’s body, but the skin had gone translucent, allowing the sudden light to reveal what lay beneath. Where a heart should beat and organs should churn, something else had taken root. Darkness roiled, muscular and substantial, like a giant snake, pushing and kneading against the translucent skin. From the pierced wound, darkness smoked out instead of blood.

  It stank of bowel and dec
ay.

  Not smoke. Gloom. The black leak of the naether into this world.

  Through the pall, Perryl’s black eyes met Tylar’s for a half beat of his heart. Tylar recognized a match to his own horror, a flash of something human, a splinter of his former self. Then it was whelmed away by darkness. The cloak billowed up, sweeping over Perryl. Shadows welled against the light—and the daemon knight fled back into the deeper darkness.

  To heal or to die.

  Not knowing which, Tylar turned to find the young tracker two steps away, holding aloft his lamp. His savior shook from toe to crown, breathing hard.

  “I—I came back for you…” Kytt gasped out. “Barrin…found Master Gerrod.”

  Tylar hurried to him, gripped his shoulder, and spun him back toward the stairs. “We must get out of the darkness.”

  Tylar knew that was their only defense. Flame, heat, light, warmth. All signs of life. It was all that stood between them and death.

  Together, they fled up out of the bowels of Tashijan. They reached the lamplit areas of the subterranean domain. Robed figures crowded the stairs, burdened with books, satchels, and boxes. Shouts and calls echoed. Doors slammed. Gerrod had his brethren on the move. He didn’t know what story the bronze master had related, but from the panic in their eyes and the quickness of their frantic steps, he had succeeded in lighting a fire in them.

  “Here!” A voice called to him from off the stairs.

  Tylar spotted Barrin hunched just off the next landing. The bullhound stood guard over the prone form of Tracker Lorr. He was propped up against the wall. Gerrod and Rogger flanked him.

  Rogger waved again to him, while Gerrod pinched bitter alchemies under the tracker’s nose. Lorr stirred. An arm raised to swat away the sting. From the tracker’s fingers, something fell free. A snatch of black cloth and something that glittered.

  Tylar stalked to their side. “We need to get everyone aboveground. Seal off these levels.”

  Rogger cast a questioning look in his direction.

  Tylar, his heart still thundering in his chest, continued in a rush. “Fires. We need the entire first level of Tashijan blazing.”

  Lorr groaned but failed to raise back fully to this world. A few words tumbled from his lips. “…black ghawls…”

  “He needs a healer,” Gerrod said, standing. “We’ll have to use the hound to carry him the rest of the way up.”

  Tylar waved to Kytt and Rogger. “Hurry.”

  He returned to the stairs. He heard the commotion of the masters as they retreated upward, but he kept his attention below. Shadows swallowed the lower stairs. Tylar wove their power into his cloak.

  Still, he remembered Perryl’s warning to him.

  I am ghawl now. The darkness of the naether is so much stronger than mere shadow.

  Tylar’s skin shivered up into pebbling gooseflesh, sensing the meaning behind the claim. Could it be? For centuries, shadows had fed the Grace of Tashijan’s knights, granting speed and cloaking their forms. But Tylar knew there was a darkness blacker than any shadow.

  He pictured the smoky Gloom of the naether bleeding from Perryl’s wound. Was that what fed these daemonic knights? A darkness deeper than shadow? Were they knights born of the naether, serving as swords for the undergods in this world?

  Lorr moaned behind him.

  The tracker had set fire to his own flesh to repel them.

  Why had he allowed them so close?

  Tylar turned as Barrin shuffled back to the stairs, burdened with Lorr’s weight, guided by Kytt. Gerrod followed, expressionless behind his armor. They set off upward, following the last of the masters. If there were any of Gerrod’s brethren still holed up in their domiciles and alchemical labs, they would discover the true depths of darkness that lurked beneath their feet.

  But who had birthed such a dark legion, these black ghawls?

  Rogger squeezed up to Tylar on the stairs. He held forth something in his hand. “Lorr dropped this. He had been clutching it all along, burnt to the skin of his palm.”

  Tylar took the strap of black cloth, weighted down with a heavy stone. He held the jewel up to the next lamp. The diamond’s facets trapped the light and reflected it back a thousandfold. It was a rare and handsome stone.

  And one he recognized.

  His blood chilled. Kathryn wore the same stone—though hers was only paste and artifice. Here was the true diadem that marked the castellan’s station, granted and passed from one to the next, over countless centuries. Only the chain was broken last year. The castellan before Kathryn had vanished as surely and completely as Perryl, taking this diadem with her.

  “Castellan Mirra…” he mumbled.

  He clutched the stone in his palm, picturing the stern face of the old woman, the longtime counselor to good Ser Henri, former warden to Tashijan. Henri had trusted no one more. Now here was the stone again, ripped away by Lorr at the risk of his own flesh.

  What did it mean?

  Kathryn kept her post, guarding Dart. Brant and Laurelle stood behind her shoulders.

  “Take the girl!” Argent said from behind the high bench.

  Shadowknights stalked toward her from both sides. Kathryn eyed the rear door to the chamber. It stood unguarded and led back to the adjudicators’ private rooms of contemplation. It would prove their best chance to escape. From there, Kathryn could reach those loyal to her, get Dart into hiding. After that, she would force Argent to face the true threat against Tashijan.

  But first she had to get Dart to safety, beyond Argent’s reach.

  She began to draw her sword—then a door on the far side slammed open with a resounding bang. All eyes turned. A knight swept into the chamber, flanked by a cadre of men in gray cloaks, a match to the cut of the first, except the men had blackened their faces with ash.

  The lead knight ripped away his masklin and tossed back his hood to reveal a knotted braid of white hair. “Back from the girl!” Krevan commanded.

  He led his men into the chamber, eyes defiant, staring all down.

  The bloodnullers retreated toward their alcoves. The warden’s men paused in their approach.

  Argent, plainly shaken by the interruption, collected himself. “You and your men have no bearing on this matter, Raven ser Kay,” he said, using the knight’s old name. “You have served Myrillia in the recent past. That will buy you and your men your freedom to leave Tashijan, but don’t expect further leniency. The Black Flaggers are still considered brigands and pirates.”

  Krevan approached the bench and stood between Kathryn and Argent. His men spread out in a threatening stance.

  “I have no bearing here?” he said, his voice lowering in threat. He shrugged back his cloak to free an arm and pointed back to Kathryn and the others while keeping his focus on Argent. “I have no bearing on what’s done to my own daughter?”

  Silence struck the room.

  Dart jerked to her feet in surprise.

  Argent also could not hide his shock. “What?” He held up a hand and shook his head. “Page Hothbrin—you claim she is your daughter?”

  Kathryn didn’t understand Krevan’s ruse, but she knew it best to follow suit. She stepped forward. “It is the reason I defend her now,” she said. “None were to know she was Krevan’s daughter. The regent and I granted his request to allow her to enter training here. I was sworn to secrecy.”

  Krevan cut in. “I was exiled, rightly or not, from these walls because of my history with the Wyr. But my daughter bears no such taint. She was born free from the Wyr, birthed of a tryst in Drush Mire. I wished her to continue where I could not. To be a knight.”

  Argent struggled to absorb all this information. “I could not tell you,” Kathryn said. “Even the girl did not know her heritage. She thought her father had died shortly after her birth. Why burden her with the truth? We owed Krevan a debt. Here it was paid in full.”

  “Wait!” Argent yelled. “What of the Dark Graces we’ve seen here? Of the daemon witnessed by the squires?”
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  “That would be my fault,” Krevan said. “I feared someone would discover her secret here. I have many enemies. Her life would be forfeit for my crimes. So I cast a dark alchemy upon her, one crafted by the Wyr. If she were threatened, it would awaken and defend her. Likewise, to keep her secret, I could not have her soothed, lest some truth be exposed. She was ignorant of all this.”

  “To bring dark alchemies within the walls of Tashijan, you break our edicts here.”

  Krevan stared down Argent. “It seems if matters are dire enough, such actions are warranted. Are they not, Warden Fields?”

  Argent’s face flushed, reminded of his own use of dark arts.

  Kathryn stepped forward, dropping her voice to a placating tone. “Such matters can be sorted at another time,” she said. “I must remind everyone of the danger that presently looms—from without and within. Tashijan must ready itself before all is lost.”

  Argent’s brow furrowed. He looked little resolved.

  Kathryn waved Dart to her feet. “I will keep the girl confined to my rooms. Upon my sworn word, I must keep her safe. Once we—”

  A clatter of boots interrupted her. Again all eyes turned to the door as a knight burst into the chambers. He drew to a winded stop. “Word from the main guard!”

  Argent brusquely motioned to him to speak.

  “The Masterlevels…are being emptied. Upon the orders of the regent.”

  Behind the man, a squawk of surprise arose from the doorway.

  “What?” Master Hesharian pushed from where he had been hiding at the threshold, mopping his shining brow with a folded scrap of cloth, plainly just arrived himself. “Why was I not informed? What is the meaning of all this?”

  The messenger ignored him, his full attention on the warden.

  Kathryn noted Master Hesharian’s companion, lurking in his larger shadow. Clouded eyes ignored everyone in the room and settled on Dart. She sensed that Krevan’s ruse would be peeled away under such a gaze. She stepped back to Dart, hiding the girl behind her cloak again.