Page 27 of Hinterland


  As the naethryn filled the room, it drew off all of Tylar’s strength and sturdiness of limb. His back was bent, joints callused, and his knee turned askew. He was no longer regent, no longer knight—only a broken man again. Gnarled fingers brushed through the tether of smoke that linked to the naethryn.

  It needed no guidance, this black dog of his. It knew his heart.

  “Keep back!” Rogger warned their party. “One touch will kill. Burn the bones right out of your flesh.”

  Even the shadows heeded the thief’s admonishment.

  Like a wave receding across a beach, the darkness retreated out the doorway, taking Mirra with it. She was nowhere to be seen.

  The naethryn hunched, wings high, head low. It bellowed, maw stretched wide, baring fangs of Gloom and tongue of black fire—but not a sound escaped it. Still, a mighty wind blasted outward. At the door, darkness shredded away under the force of the silent gale, ripped and scattered. The shadows emptied of any lurkers hidden within its folds, becoming lighter, weightless.

  Rogger pulled Tylar straighter, supporting him under a thin shoulder. The thief was stronger than most imagined. “Let’s go!” Rogger ordered and passed the Oldenbrook captain his torch. “Keep ’em high! Don’t let any of the buggers near.”

  Krevan—burdened with the boy who still lolled in a half-daze across one shoulder—grabbed one of the fallen torches. There was still enough oil to ignite its end from his cohort’s torch.

  They stepped as a group toward the door.

  Beyond the threshold, words reached them. “Kill the naethryn,” Mirra ordered. “Then bring me the god’s skull…and the head of the boy.”

  As the naethryn gathered its wind for another assault, Tylar sensed a shift in the shadows. Something approached the threshold. The daemon bellowed again, blowing back the thickening darkness yet again. But this time the retreating shadows revealed a form in the doorway, resolute against the assault.

  A knight, his cloak billowing in the naethryn’s wind.

  One of the black ghawls.

  The knight stepped forward, little intimidated by the wan firelight, emboldened by the horde at his back, the entire legion’s power flowing into him, armoring him against the flames.

  Tylar recognized the bloodless countenance under a fall of white hair.

  “Perryl…”

  The knight lifted a sword carved of Gloom. As he shifted it higher, streaks of emerald flowed along its length, glinting with malevolence and poison.

  “Kill the naethryn!” Mirra screamed from the darkness.

  And her daemon obeyed.

  Kathryn stood on the first landing with Argent. They had a view to the hall below that separated the tower from the Masterlevels. The yawning archway stood open.

  At least for now.

  Two knights manned the gate’s greatwheel, ready to lower it at the warden’s command. Another two knights stood with sledges, prepared to break the clutches on the chains and bring the barrier crashing down if necessary.

  To either side, flames blazed from giant braziers. Wall torches spread outward down both hallways. Still, all the light offered little illumination of what lay below. The stairs spiraled away into the depths, dark and silent.

  “They should’ve been back by now,” Argent said.

  “A little longer,” she urged.

  “A time was set. Longer and they are surely corrupted or dead.”

  She turned to Argent, ready to argue, ready to fight. She had no strength for it. Worry had worn her hollow.

  Argent read something in her face. In turn, the steely sternness softened at the edges of his lips. “A moment more,” he whispered and turned to face the same dark gate. “No longer.”

  Tylar faced Perryl—or rather the naethryn did. Two creatures born of Gloom. The Godsword had failed to kill the daemon earlier. Would Meeryn’s naethryn fare any better?

  “Stay back,” Tylar warned those behind him.

  Perryl stepped into the room, long of limb and somehow moving with an unnatural grace he had never shown in life. His sword carved a path through the air, leaving a smoking trail. A noxious miasma accompanied it, like the vapor from a bloated corpse.

  Tylar’s naethryn eyed his path, cocking its head one way, then the other, sizing up—then striking with the speed of a serpent. It snapped at Perryl, but he was no longer there, a blur of shadow to the side.

  The knight stabbed his sword.

  The naethryn coiled back to avoid the point and struck out with an edge of wing. Perryl was clipped in the shoulder and spun away. Still, the blow did damage. The misty darkness on that side collapsed to mere cloth and bony arm.

  Perryl backed, shook the limb, and the foggy darkness wrapped him up again. He circled wide, searching for a weakness. He took another step to the left. Then, faster than the human eye could follow, he ducked under a wing and thrust his sword toward the throat of the naethryn.

  The naethryn reared back from the blade.

  Perryl stumbled as he missed. His sword point dropped.

  The naethryn lunged forward.

  “No!” Tylar yelled. He had recognized the feint. He had taught Perryl the move, as all knights taught their squires. It was called Naethryn’s Folly.

  And so it proved to be.

  As the beast snapped at the knight, Perryl turned heel and wrist, catching himself. The sword point jabbed up as the naethryn lunged down. At the last moment, perhaps heeding his yell, the creature hoved to the side. Instead of the blade driving square into the exposed throat, its edge sliced the left side.

  Tylar felt it as a searing pain across his own ribs.

  He gasped, his legs going loose under him. He thought Rogger would hold him up, but the thief was gone. His knees struck the stone floor. The naethryn reared up and back, wings spread wide, eyes fiery with pain.

  Perryl moved under its guard, going for its exposed belly.

  But Rogger had slid under the right wing of the naethryn. Glass glinted in both hands. He threw one, then the other. Snowballs made of crystal. Repostilaries. Small vessels full of humours.

  Perryl, focused on the fight, had failed to note the thief.

  The globes smashed—one at Perryl’s toes, splashing his legs, the other full on the chest, drenching him.

  Rogger rolled to the side, circling back.

  Perryl’s legs staggered, stiffening. The cloak that billowed with Gloom and shadow turned to cloth, tangling the knight further. Perryl wrenched away, barely avoiding the jaws of the naethryn.

  Again Tylar caught a glimpse beneath the flowing cloak: of naked, translucent skin, beneath which something squirmed and kneaded, writhing under the surface. Then Perryl dove into the waiting darkness at the door, seeking refuge and escape.

  Rogger returned to Tylar’s side and hauled him to his feet. His left side still burnt, but he found enough strength to stand and stumble alongside him.

  “Now!” Tylar said. “Before they regroup.”

  Obeying the desire in his heart, the naethryn drove through the door ahead of them, clearing a path. They followed, encircled by flames. But the legion appeared in full rout.

  As they fled, his beast lunged out into the shadows and yanked something squirming in its jaws, like a waterstrider spearing a fish. The naethryn shook its catch and tossed it far down a side hall with a flip of its snaking neck. A keening scream marked its flight.

  Tylar glanced to Rogger. “You saved us back there.”

  “Actually, you did.”

  Tylar frowned at the thief.

  “Those were repostilaries of your own saliva. Delia gave them to me before we headed down. Thought we might be able to use them.”

  “Why—?” Then Tylar understood. Each humour had its own effect on Grace. Saliva weakened an aspect.

  “Wasn’t sure it would work against Dark Grace, but apparently Grace is Grace. Figured it might dull him, knock his legs out from him.”

  It certainly had. If Perryl had finished his blow…followed through w
ith Naethryn’s Folly…

  Tylar rubbed the fiery slash across his ribs.

  Before they knew it, they had reached the stairs.

  Tylar reversed their roles. “Burn a path up!” he ordered the others.

  He followed behind, leaning on Rogger. Below, the naethryn filled the lower stairs. It nabbed another shape out of the shadows and flung it back down the stairs.

  Still, Tylar knew it hadn’t been Perryl. He could almost sense the ghawl’s malevolent attention, a burning hatred. Was there anything of his former friend left in that husk?

  Round and round, they climbed up toward the warmth and flames above. Light again bathed around them.

  A shout rose ahead. It came from the Oldenbrook captain. “They’re closing the gate!”

  Krevan bellowed. “Wait! We’re coming!”

  Tylar limped around a turn of the spiral. He watched the flaming eye of the gateway slowly winking shut.

  They all began to shout.

  The lowering eyelid stopped. They hurried forward, but Rogger slowed Tylar’s step.

  “Perhaps you’d best rein in your dog first. Not the time to be piling out of the cellars tethered to a smoking daemon.”

  Tylar nodded. He patted his cloak.

  “Here,” Rogger said and passed him one of his daggers.

  Tylar took it, sliced his palm, and allowed the blood to well. It was the only way to recall the naethryn once it had been set free. With his own blood. He reached the red palm to the smoky link between him and the naethryn.

  It knew his intent and glanced back. Fiery eyes met his. Then Tylar’s bloody fingers closed on the tether of Gloom. With his touch, a fine scintillation washed out, cascading over the naethryn, erasing features—then all collapsed back toward him.

  Tylar braced for the mule-kick of its impact. Still, it struck with more force than he had expected. This was the second time in one night he had summoned the beast. He prayed it would be the last. He welcomed the return of his hale form. After a year, what had once felt familiar—his broken body—now felt foreign, like the life of another man.

  And that troubled him.

  The hobbled form was his true form. What he wore the rest of the year had been the illusion, born of Grace to hold the naethryn. Releasing the beast only reminded him of the truth.

  It was foolish to forget it.

  The force struck his chest and knocked him back a full step. His arms cartwheeled and his legs tripped on the stairs. He stumbled to keep upright—and with limbs now straight and hale again, he succeeded, leaning one palm against the wall to stead himself.

  As he lowered his arm, a twinge of pain flashed in his hand. He lifted it before his face. The smallest finger remained bent at a crooked angle. He had snapped the digit to free the demon. Always in the past, once he returned the naethryn to its roost, all would heal.

  He stared at his palm. As usual, even the cut had vanished, as though it had never happened.

  Rogger noted the broken finger. “That’s troubling…”

  Tylar lowered his arm. He’d worry about it later. The others had already cleared the gateway.

  “Tylar?” a voice called. Kathryn stood framed by the fires. “Is everything all right?”

  He climbed back up into the warmth and brightness. Still, as his hand throbbed, he feared he carried a part of the darkness out with him.

  Ducking under the half-lowered gate, he joined Kathryn.

  “Lock it down,” he ordered.

  The knights again wheeled the massive wyrmwood barrier into place. The heat of the hall, flames all around, should have warmed him. But they didn’t. It was not over.

  A shout erupted down the hall.

  All eyes swung to a pair of knights guarding the far gate, the one that led to the outer bailey of Stormwatch tower.

  Even from here, Tylar noted ice and frost sweeping across the inner surface of the gate. Timbers cracked with echoing pops.

  The two knights on guard at the gate retreated—but not fast enough.

  The entire barrier blew away in an explosion of frozen wood and brittled iron. An ice fog rolled into the hall. Torches on either side of the hallway flickered, then died.

  Through the fog, a shape formed, stepping out atop a sheen of ice that flooded across the stone. She stopped and stood naked to the world, rimed in frost.

  A lost ally returned.

  Tylar stared in horror. “Eylan…”

  13

  A WRAITH IN THE WIND

  “CALLA,” KREVAN ORDERED, “KEEP THE BOY SAFE!”

  Still addled, Brant allowed himself to be shoved toward the stairs as the icy apparition stood within the fractured gate. The jostled climb up out of the cellars had revived Brant enough to stand on his own—though his legs remained numb, and there remained a hole in his memory. He remembered nothing beyond the old woman with the skull.

  What had happened?

  Calla, the ash-faced woman, took Brant’s shoulder and guided him toward the stairs. He climbed dully, trailed by Sten. The others remained below with the warden and a clutch of knights. Orders were shouted. Brant searched the milling group below, then the stairs above. Someone was conspicuously missing.

  Where was the giant Dralmarfillneer? As huge as his name, his massive form should be easy to pick out.

  Brant stopped midway toward the landing.

  “Keep moving,” Calla ordered, giving him a slight shove.

  Brant twisted away and stumbled down a step.

  He bumped into Sten. “Where’s Dral?”

  The captain mumbled, shared a glance with his gray-cloaked escort, then shook his head. He scooted past Brant, anxious to climb higher.

  Calla grabbed his elbow. “Dead,” she said simply.

  “What…?” The shock rattled through Brant, but it also helped to further center him. “How?”

  “No time.”

  She again tried to force him higher, but he had regained his footing. He broke her grip and fled down to where Rogger stood at the foot of the stairs. He joined the bearded man, needing answers.

  “The skull?” he asked.

  Rogger patted a satchel slung at his shoulder. It was weighted down. Brant felt a slight warming of the stone at his throat. They had recovered it. But at what blood price?

  Before he could inquire, Rogger pointed down the hall. “We have bigger problems at the moment.”

  They had a clear view from the raised step as the woman approached, awash in icy mists. With each stride, the torches along both walls sputtered out, one after the other, sinking the hall in darkness. Frost skittered in spidery traces across the walls. Ice swept ahead of her across the floor, glassy smooth, like spilled water.

  One of the knights who had been guarding the far gate attempted to thwart her with his diamond-pommel sword. The advancing ice reached his toes first. At its touch he stiffened, a hand clutched at his throat—then he toppled, stone-solid, and struck the floor like an upended statue.

  Brant remembered the hare he had examined during the blizzard in Oldenbrook. Frozen solid. From the inside out. Here was the dread power of the storm given flesh.

  “Take her down!” the warden cried to the phalanx of knights that now blocked the hall’s end.

  A flurry of crossbows twanged, and a volley of bolts shot down the hall. Attesting to the knights’ marksmanship, each bolt struck true—only to shatter against the rime of frost that coated the woman.

  With nary a blink, she pressed on with the same silent and deliberate pace.

  “Flames!” the warden shouted. “Burn her!”

  A waist-high barrel of oil was kicked down the hallway. Both ends were lit with fiery rags. The blast blinded Brant. He instinctively covered his face with his arm. Flaming barrel staves rained down, reaching back even to the blockade of knights.

  Still, out of the flame and smoke, she appeared. She strode through the ruin, ushering ice and frost ahead of her. Fires ebbed and died around her.

  “Back!” the warden order
ed.

  The knights below pushed toward the stairs. Rogger and Brant were driven higher, all the way up to the first landing. Tylar and the castellan joined the warden, knotted in the center of the knights that now mounted the steps.

  From his higher vantage, Brant still had a view of the central hall below. The massive wyrmwood gate stood closed, sealing off the Masterlevels and the horrors below. But the flames in the giant braziers flanking the gate guttered out. The red iron cooled to black, cracking from the sudden loss of heat. Ice swept the floor, extinguishing the last of the flaming staves.

  Into the hall strode the source, the storm given flesh.

  She appeared below, marching to the center of the floor. The ice continued deeper down the next hall, evident by the torchlights dimming along that direction.

  She stopped and faced the gathered audience on the stair.

  Expressionless, she spoke. Frozen lips cracked, blood welled and iced again. “Godslayer…bring us the Godslayer.”

  Tylar stood, flanked by Argent and Kathryn. All their offenses had failed. Icy darkness had consumed the entire first level. The cold wafted from the hall, chilling the skin and turning their breath white.

  Argent stared at Tylar. “What are we to do?”

  Tylar shook his head. He eyed the wyrmwood gate. Fire and warmth were their only true weapons against Mirra’s dark legion. If the storm could so easily strip away their defenses, what hope did they have of resisting the black army below? They were trapped between ice and shadow.

  “We must get those fires back up,” Kathryn said.

  “Bring us the Godslayer, he whom we name Abomination, and we will leave your towers in peace.”

  Eylan’s voice was her own, but Tylar had no doubt who manipulated her like a stringed puppet. He had seen the god’s face in the storm. Ulf of Ice Eyrie. Along with whatever cadre of gods he had rallied to his cause. The conjoining of their powers would be almost impossible to fight.

  “You have one bell to hand him to us. Or suffer the death of all. The Abomination must die, one way or the other. The choice is yours.”

  Eylan crossed her arms, prepared to wait.

  Argent spoke to his men. “Stay here. Send word if she moves.” He pointed to one of the knights near the top landing. “Call the masters down here. Get them to study and test the Grace that protects the woman. We must find a way to break its blessing.”