Hinterland

  Brant moaned in Krevan’s arms. A hand rose. At least this boy would live.

  She took a shuddering breath and continued onward.

  As if sensing some dam had broken inside her, Tylar pushed up to join her. “Argent will be furious,” he said.

  “I’ll deal with him,” she said coldly.

  And for the moment, the warden was anything but furious. Jubilant was more the word to describe him after he discovered that Eylan had been slain. He had been more than willing to allow them all to flee up into the highest levels of Tashijan, their duty done. With the storm’s deadly emissary gone, the ice had melted and receded from the lower hall.

  But for how long?

  They needed to be prepared.

  Argent took over the refortification of the first level. Fires had to be relit, stations posted, and the broken main gate repaired. He had Master Hesharian leading a group of masters to discern some defense against another attack. They didn’t know how long a respite was bought with Eylan’s life, but all knew the war was not over.

  “Have you heard any further word from Master Gerrod?” Tylar asked.

  She shook her head. “I sent a runner up to let him know our urgency. Dart should be ready as well.”

  “We’ve shaken them up,” Tylar said, referring no doubt to the powers that wielded the storm. “But it won’t last long. We must take advantage of it.”

  She nodded.

  As they rounded another landing, a booming shout rose to their right. “Master Brant!” From the hallway, a massive shape pushed out on the stair. A loam-giant. “What have you done with Master Brant?”

  There was an equal amount of threat as grief in his voice.

  Tylar held up a palm. “He lives. We’re taking him to the healers up in the castellan’s hermitage.”

  “I’ll take him, then.” The giant pushed toward Krevan.

  Once his shoulders cleared the hall, Kathryn spotted a gathering of others, hanging back, plainly curious for news. She also saw the Oldenbrook guard who had accompanied Tylar into the cellars. He stood next to a lithe woman in a silver nightrobe.

  “Back to your rooms!” she ordered them.

  There was a small motion back, but she was mostly ignored. She had no time to argue and turned to the giant, ready to give him the same instructions.

  Rogger, though, touched her arm. He whispered. “That is the twin brother of the giant that died below.”

  Kathryn let her angry breath sigh out of her. Only now did she note the watery pain in the giant’s eyes, still angry, needing something to do. Apparently the Oldenbrook guard had brought word of his brother’s demise.

  She waved to Krevan. “Let him come.”

  He took the boy up in his massive arms with surprising gentleness.

  Brant stirred, jostled. His eyelids opened. “Mal…” he said hoarsely.

  “I got ya, Master Brant.”

  A feeble hand rose and touched the giant’s chin. “Dral…”

  “I heard…I know, Master Brant.” The giant nodded for them to continue. “We’ll get our blood from them yet. Then we’ll mourn.”

  They wound the rest of the way to the top of Stormwatch, reaching her hermitage again. The remainder of Krevan’s Flaggers still guarded her door. All had been quiet, they reported.

  Such seemed impossible after all the chaos below, but she took them at their word and led the others inside. Dart and Laurelle shared chairs by the hearth, while the young wyld tracker napped against the curled bulk of the bullhound.

  They all rose, one after the other as the party pushed inside.

  Dart’s eyes widened as she saw the giant carry in Brant’s weak form. A hand rose to her throat with concern.

  “He’ll live,” Kathryn promised her. “Can you show him to the healers? He might have to share the bed with Lorr.”

  “Not this night, my lady.” A form hobbled in from the back room, drawn by their arrival.

  “Lorr—what are you doing out of bed?”

  Though barefooted, he had donned his breeches and had a loose shift open. His left arm was swathed with bandages, but his face was uncovered, baring his burns. The blistered flesh had already settled to a pinkish hue across his cheek and in a goathorn curl up the side of his head.

  “The work of your fine healers…masters of Grace, they are.”

  A grunt discounted his words as Healer Fennis rounded behind him. “Stubbornness of this prickly tracker, more like it.” He waved the giant over to him. “And a fair amount of quickened healing due to his Grace-blessed nature.”

  Lorr shrugged.

  Healer Fennis followed the giant into the next room, calling to his wife. “Don’t put away the whistlewort yet, my dear.”

  “They’ll have to manage as best they can,” Tylar said. “Weak or not, we must be gone with the boy in the next quarter bell.”

  Kathryn understood.

  “We leave so soon?” Dart said.

  Kathryn turned to her. “Do you have your bag ready?”

  “I helped her,” Laurelle said and nodded to a stuffed sack-cloth beside the hearth.

  Tylar turned to Krevan. “Can you send Calla above? Have her check with Master Gerrod on how long until the flippercraft is ready?”

  Krevan obeyed, then returned. He knew of their plan, plotted before they’d ever ventured into the cellars, but he did not know everything. “How can we hope to pierce the storm? Won’t the storm suck the air alchemies from the ship?”

  “Tylar and Gerrod have worked something out,” Kathryn said. “The better question is what to do after you make it through?”

  The plan had been simple before. To get Tylar and Dart out of Tashijan. They could not risk Rivenscryr falling into the Cabal’s hands, especially with Dart here, too. And once through the storm, Tylar could rally the gods of the First Land and whatever forces could be brought to bear.

  But now matters had become more complicated, with the skull, with the boy, with the dying words from Eylan.

  “We must find the rogues,” Tylar said. “We knew the storm out there had to be fed by more than one god. Ulf alone could not wield such forces from Ice Eyrie. We assumed he had the support of a cadre of gods, more of the Hundred who sought my downfall.”

  “It was a reasonable assumption,” Kathryn said. “No one considered rogue gods might be involved. They are wild and raving creatures, beyond such masterful manipulation of vast amounts of Grace.”

  “Unless they were enslaved,” Tylar said. He glanced to Rogger, who had the skull wrapped up in his satchel. “Like Keorn must have been, trapped in seersong. Somehow he was able to escape, to flee into Saysh Mal, sacrificing himself to bring a warning out.”

  “And carrying with him a means to free his trapped brethren.” Rogger nodded toward the next room. “The stone…bonded to the boy.”

  “I’m not sure that all is so simple,” Kathryn said. “There is more going on. But either way, does any of us doubt the Cabal is behind the enslavement of these rogues?”

  No one voiced a dissent.

  “Then that answers my earlier question. Mirra’s forces and the storm were brought against us as a unified strategy. A coordinated attack to capture Tylar and gain the Godsword. Mirra may even know about Dart. And once they gained such power, Tashijan would surely be torn apart, not only destroying the bastion for all of Myrillia, but murdering a good portion of the Hands that serve the gods around here. In one move, we could lose this entire Land.”

  “Artful strategy,” Rogger said. “You have to respect that. They must have been planning this for years.”

  “Or even longer,” Krevan said. “I fear that, like the Wyr, the Cabal’s plots are stretched over centuries.”

  “And if the castellan is correct,” Rogger said, “it’s all the more reason to get Dart and Tylar free of here.”

  “And what of the rogues?” Krevan asked.

  Tylar rubbed at the corner of his eye, almost tracing his tattooed stripes. Kathryn recognized it as a gestu
re of intense concentration. She also noted the wrapped digit of the same hand. She had heard that it had not healed. Tylar had dismissed it earlier, but Kathryn feared that the Dark Graces flowing through here threatened the complicated spell that bonded naethryn to man. Yet another reason to get him clear of Tashijan.

  Tylar finally spoke. “If the enslaved rogues are fueling this storm, then we can end this siege by finding and freeing them. As Eylan warned.”

  “Simple enough,” Rogger said. “But that depends on two things.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  He held up a finger. “First, Tashijan must hold out that long.”

  Kathryn nodded. That was her duty. To remain behind and rally the towers as best she could. To hold firm until Tylar could bring in additional forces—or find some way to free them. It wasn’t only rogues that were ensnared by the Cabal.

  Rogger held up a second finger. “And more importantly, we must find this coven of song-cast gods.”

  Tylar nodded. Here was his duty. “Eylan has offered us one clue. Hinterland.”

  “Not exactly a map, now, is it?” Rogger said. “Half of Myrillia is still unsettled hinter. We can spend a lifetime or more to find them.”

  “Maybe not,” Krevan said. “The skull came from Saysh Mal. The Eighth Land’s hinter is the trickiest maze of them all, and the most wild and dangerous.” The pirate glanced to Tylar. “Not one shadowknight has ever set foot in there and returned to tell about it. If you’re going to hide something from Tashijan, that would be a good place to begin.”

  “And it was in that hinter that Keorn was captured,” Tylar said.

  Krevan nodded. “The Wyr had tracked him there, then lost him. Only to have him appear again in Saysh Mal.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll begin our search,” Tylar said.

  “We may have one other ally to aid us,” the pirate said. He pointed to Rogger’s burdened satchel. “Wyrd Bennifren waits just outside of Saysh Mal, in the neighboring hinterland, for the skull. The trade still stands. We can ransom it against the Wyr’s knowledge.”

  “Not a bargain I’d trust,” Rogger said.

  “But we have little choice,” Tylar said. “And in some small way, perhaps it’s a debt we owe to Eylan.”

  No one argued against that.

  Rogger finally spoke. “I forgot one last item that stands between us and success.” He raised his hand and now held up three fingers. “Before any of this can begin, we have to get our arses out of here.”

  After several matters had been settled further, Tylar stepped into the back room. They could wait no longer.

  “It is time,” he told the healers.

  Healer Fennis and his wife bustled on either side of the bed, shoving last bits of balms and wraps into an overstuffed pack. “Are you sure that’s everything?” Fennis asked.

  His wife gave him a look that seemed equal parts exasperation and certainty.

  Fennis held up a hand, acquiescing. Wise man.

  Lorr crossed and picked up the pack.

  “There’s extra wrappings,” Fennis said, fingering at the dressings on the man’s arm. “If you’ll need them.”

  Lorr batted him away. “Don’t mind me. Get the boy ready.”

  Tylar studied the wyld tracker. He had agreed to let Lorr join their search. His hunting and tracking skills could prove useful out in the hinterlands. It would be foolish to refuse such experienced service. The man hauled the laden bag with ease, little fazed by his burns.

  Brant, though, looked little better, burnt as well, but on the inside, where it was harder for balms to reach. His bronze skin had yellowed and stretched thin across his bones. And though his breathing was stronger, when he tried to lift himself up on an elbow, he failed.

  Tylar caught the healer’s eye.

  “He’s been well-draughted,” the man assured him. “Addles a bit. By midday on the morrow, he’ll feel half his oats again.”

  He nodded. Morning was not far off, but it seemed like a fanciful dream, a hope that one did not really expect to attain.

  Kathryn hurried inside, slightly breathless. “I heard word. Argent has gotten wise to what we’re planning.”

  Tylar clenched a fist.

  “I’ll get Master Brant,” the giant said.

  The loam-giant rose from a crouch on the far side of the bed and plucked away the bedsheet. He gently collected Brant out of his nest of pillows with a regretful expression.

  Brant startled, clutching at the man’s neck.

  “Just Mal, Master Brant.”

  The boy’s eyes focused and searched the room. “We’re heading out?” he asked through thin lips.

  “We must,” Tylar said and led them back to the main room. The others were already waiting.

  “I’m coming with you,” Mal said.

  Tylar thought to argue, but the giant’s brother had died to gain them this vantage. Plus the man was plainly strong and could prove his value. An objection arose, though, from another corner.

  “No,” Brant mumbled. “The whelpings?”

  “I locked ’em up in your rooms,” the giant said. He pulled a key from a pocket as proof.

  “Who’s going to—?” Brant coughed away the last of his words, but the worry shone in his wan face.

  Mal’s brow furrowed into deep-plowed tracks, caught between two duties.

  He was saved by a hand plucking the key from his fingertips. Lorr tossed the key over to the young tracker beside the bullhound. “Kytt and Barrin will look after them.”

  The young tracker bumbled the iron key, and it fell with a clatter.

  Laurelle retrieved it as it bounced to her toes. “I’ll help, too.”

  Mal sighed with relief. “They’ll take good care of the mites.”

  Brant still wore a troubled expression, but he did not object.

  With such matters settled, they set out. Dart gave her friend Laurelle a final teary-eyed hug. Then the group was on its way at a quick pace, herded close, led by Kathryn.

  Halfway down the hall, a long-limbed man in blue livery, spotless and unwrinkled, blocked the way. “The warden sent word that no one is to leave this floor!” he scolded.

  “Out of our way, Lowl,” Kathryn said, stiff-arming him aside. Luckily all of Argent’s forces were occupied down below, leaving only this manservant to attend his orders here. “I’ll take it up with the warden when I get back.”

  Chased by the man’s objections, they hurried to the stairs and fled up toward the top of the tower. A cool wind wafted down to them. Tylar heard the pound of hammer on wood. That could not be good. With Argent below and the storm without, they had no time for delays.

  Tylar found Captain Horas just inside the door that led out to the flippercraft dock atop Stormwatch. He had a stick of coal in one hand and had been calculating on the wall. Numbers and symbols lined from floor to eye. Some crossed out, others circled.

  The man wore the yellow-and-white uniform of his station, but it was stained and smudged. From the smell, not all of it was coal.

  “Won’t work…” the captain muttered, scratching his head with his sliver of coal.

  Tylar joined him and waved the others out on the dock.

  Captain Horas had to squeeze against the wall to allow Malthumalbaen to pass. His eyes tracked the giant, then back to Tylar. “He’s not going, is he?”

  Tylar nodded.

  “Sweet aether…” The captain scratched a line of calculations. “A dozen, that’s the most we’ll be able to ferry through the storm. If we can ferry through the storm.” He laughed, but it held no mirth. “And I need three men to crew…and that giant…that’s two men right there.”

  Tylar took the charcoal from his fingers and turned the man toward the open door. “We’ll have to manage.” He gave him a push out into the freezing bite of the storm’s heart.

  Outside, the others gaped at the state of the flippercraft. The woodwrights had proven their mastery. The stoved ship seemed to be patched well. Details were fa
irly smeared away.

  Lorr held a hand over his nose. Tylar did not blame him. The reek was overpowering even in the open.

  “Black bile,” Krevan said with a shake of his head.

  One of the dockworkers, masked against the stench, swabbed a sodden mop over the outer planking of the ship’s bow, smearing more black bile over a thin patch. Shouts echoed. Ladders were being hauled aside.

  Tylar hurried to the others.

  Rogger stood with his fists on his hips. “A ship of shite…now that’s a boat fit for a regent.”

  Gerrod crossed toward the group, expressionless behind his bronze armor. He was followed by a welcome figure. Delia was bundled in a heavy coat, also splattered with bile.

  “You had enough humour?” Tylar asked the armored master.

  “Barely. We’ve emptied all of Tashijan’s storehouses.”

  “And a few privies, I’d imagine,” Rogger said.

  Gerrod ignored him. “Mistress Delia has proven to be an able alchemist. She had some suggestions for heightening the Grace with tears. It will not last long, but hopefully long enough to get through the storm.”

  Delia stood to the side with her arms crossed. Her eyes flitted to Kathryn and back to him, her face unreadable, smudged with bile.

  Gerrod continued, “Her suggestion allowed us to thin the coating across the flippercraft, while still hopefully blocking the storm’s ability to draw Grace out of the ship’s mekanicals as you pass through it. But even bile has its limits. You will have to gain as much wind as you can before attempting to spear through the storm’s ring.”

  “We’ll make it,” Tylar said. They had no other choice.

  A shout by the stairway door reminded them that Argent was on his way.

  “Everybody aboard,” Kathryn said.

  Tylar waved them toward the open hatch. Captain Horas and two of his men had already boarded, all wearing expressions of doom. Tylar watched the others climb inside. They looked no more confident, except Rogger, who was whistling.