Hinterland

  Though the scent had been pleasant, the sight had been horrible.

  His clothes had burnt, his skin had blackened, and the flames contracted his body, as if he were trying to curl in the seat to read a book.

  She didn’t close her eyes.

  She thought she owed him that much for his sacrifice.

  But she failed at the end. The flames and heat writhed his body, twisting and consuming it. She dropped and covered her face. At that moment, she heard whispers in those last flames. Notes of gentle consolation. But she didn’t know if they were meant for her or for the tortured master.

  Then came a final fluttering rush of flames, like a hundred ravens taking flight—followed by a heavy silence.

  “Come,” Kytt urged. “He’s gone.”

  “I know…” she moaned.

  “No, I mean he’s gone. See for yourself.”

  His curious words finally drew her up. She still needed his help.

  Kytt lifted her.

  The black column had turned solid white, along with a splash across the arched roof where flames had licked. The rest of the Boil remained glassy and dark, but the heart had been purified.

  She stared into the niche, expecting to see a pile of charred bone. But it was empty. The space was the pristine white of new snow. Not even a sprinkle of ash or bone.

  She reached out a hand.

  “Take care,” Kytt warned.

  But Laurelle knew it was safe, purified by the selfless fire. Her fingers brushed the seat. As she made contact, words rang in her head, whether some echoing trace of the master or merely her own memory.

  Very good, Mistress Hothbrin…

  Either way, she offered a ghost of a smile.

  Then the stone underfoot began to tremble.

  Kytt grabbed her and drew her away.

  Stumbling with him, she glanced around her. “The Boil,” she said, picturing the black flame trapped in granite. “The naether wakes to the plug Orquell planted here. They are fighting back.”

  The quaking continued, rattling the roots of Tashijan.

  Laurelle and Kytt fled up the stairs. Ahead, loud crashes echoed down to them as large sections of rock struck the stairs.

  “It’s all coming down!” Kytt cried out.

  Kathryn felt the tower shake. She sat astride Stoneheart. Mychall hugged her back. She brandished a torch toward the few ghawls that still kept to the halls. The rest had fled in every direction, no longer guided by the will of the witch.

  Mirra’s body still lay bloody on the stone.

  As the shaking grew more violent, the last few ghawls lost their wills and fled, emptying the hall.

  A cry sounded behind her as Horsemaster Poll was finally freed from the wall. He fell to the floor, but Bastian caught him around the waist. He regained his legs, hugging his spiked hands to his chest.

  “I kin stand,” he mumbled weakly.

  “Da!” Mychall slid from Stoneheart’s back. He slammed into his father, wrapping his arms around his waist.

  The quaking continued. It seemed to arise from deep underground.

  Tyllus must have read her concern. “We’ll get these two upstairs. You’d best see to the pickets.”

  She nodded to the two knights. “Keep them safe.”

  She nudged Stoneheart toward the stairs. He had refused to climb before, but whether trusting this rider or merely happy to flee the blood and horror here, he burst up the stairs now. Kathryn leaned forward, balancing her weight.

  The horse clopped loudly, climbing out of darkness and into the flame-lit upper levels. The picket came into line ahead. Fire and black knights filled the stairs. A small cheer rose from them as they saw her clatter into view, astride the handsome stallion, sweated and shining in the firelight.

  She dismounted by the line and left the stallion with a knight she knew was familiar with horses. She forded the picket and climbed toward the level of the fieldroom.

  She met Argent as he climbed down from the line above.

  “What was that shaking?” the warden asked, breathless.

  Kathryn shook her head, but the quakes were already fading away. Whatever had been shaken up below was quieting back down. “I don’t know, but the witch is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Slain. Her legion routed and in full panic.”

  Argent’s eye brightened. Together they hurried toward the fieldroom. “That’s the first fair news in many a bell. Maybe we can hold out yet!”

  They reached the fieldroom to find Delia and Gerrod by the shuttered window, peering out the small opening.

  Gerrod turned to them. There was something grim about his stance. He lifted an arm, urging them to join him.

  Kathryn stepped around one side of the map table, Argent the other. They met again at the window. Argent touched Delia’s shoulder to make room. She slid back.

  Bending, Kathryn peered out into the dark stormswept night. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but it appeared that the winds had subsided.

  “Lord Ulf has pulled back his wraiths,” Gerrod said. “At least those loose out there.”

  “Is he retreating?” Argent asked.

  Gerrod remained silent.

  Kathryn saw why. The shield wall was coated with ice. As she watched, black rock grew white with hoarfrost, spreading out in a crystallizing pattern, consuming the wall.

  All hope went cold.

  Her voice dropped to a dry whisper.

  “The ice is coming.”

  22

  A CROWN OF AN ANCIENT KING

  PERRYL’S POISONOUS BLADE PRESSED AGAINST TYLAR’S chest, pinching through his cloak. He held the blade off by sheer trembling muscle. Rivenscryr crossed against the daemon’s sword.

  Pinned against the wall of the hide tent, Tylar could not maneuver. His legs shook. Even the hand that bore Rivenscryr had begun to gnarl as the venom inside him spread. The exertion only sped the corruption.

  “Perryl…” he begged.

  If he could somehow reach him…

  But the pale face remained impassive, no anger or fury, simply certainty. The face of a predator in a dark sea.

  Then a momentary flicker passed through the fire in the daemon’s eyes, like a brush of wind. Tylar shoved with his remaining strength.

  Perryl went stumbling back, plainly disoriented.

  Something had happened.

  Free, Tylar lifted Rivenscryr. He judged how to use the moment. Flee or attack. Overhead, rain pelted the tent, beating against it like a hide drum. With his body weakened, he could not match swords with Perryl.

  In that moment of hesitation, a splash of fire nosed under the tent flap and wiggled inside. Pupp’s molten form hissed with rain. Fiery eyes took in the scene, and he trotted blithely to the room’s center.

  The ghawl retreated another step, spooked by the appearance. Pupp’s fire and light stripped some of the shadows from Perryl, revealing cloak and pale skin. Again Tylar saw the strange translucent oil that was his new skin, squirming beneath with dark snaking muscles.

  Revulsion filled him anew.

  Perhaps with Pupp’s help…

  But the creature seemed to have come with another purpose. Pupp trotted to Tylar, molten spikes bristling. He carried something in his mouth. It shone brilliantly, lit by Pupp’s fiery tongue.

  Once near, Pupp spat it at his toes—then vanished away.

  Tylar stared at what lay at his feet. A black diamond, not unlike those that adorned a shadowknight’s sword. His own knightly blade lay on the floor, abandoned after cleaving off Krevan’s arm. And in that one breath, he understood. Only one stone brought Pupp to life.

  Brant’s stone.

  He stared between the diamond and the abandoned sword and understood. The stone was somehow meant to adorn Rivenscryr. But it wasn’t by wits alone that he came by this insight. In his grip, the sword’s hilt seemed to ooze tighter around his fingers. It grew warmer. He had felt such stirrings before in the sword, but never such a muscular spasm a
s this. Tylar sensed the sword’s lust for the stone—to complete itself.

  Tylar bent his one good knee.

  Perryl must have comprehended the danger and surged forward, his indecisiveness burnt away by fear. Tylar reached out and slammed the hilt of his sword atop the stone. He felt the pommel open and bite into the stone.

  As the contact was made, all the air in the room blew outward, rattling hide walls and roof, sucking the wind out of Tylar’s chest. Perryl was blasted back, cloak whipping.

  Rivenscryr blazed for a heartbeat in that airless moment.

  Then all the weight and substance collapsed back.

  Walls and roof sagged. Air fell atop them. Tylar felt as if the world had grown smaller, squeezing tighter around him. He remembered Miyana’s description when she held the stone, a gathering back of what was sundered.

  Tylar felt an echo of it. He gained his legs, less aching. The hand that had gripped Rivenscryr had straightened its bones, allowing him to hold tighter, more certain. He wasn’t cured. His knee was still frozen in scarred bone. His side still burnt with fire. But somehow the stone in the sword had gathered Meeryn’s aethryn closer to its naethryn, the two remaining fractions of the god of the Summering Isles. And in that moment, like Miyana, the naethryn found comfort enough to rally, to stave off the spreading poison a little longer.

  Straightening and raising the brilliant sword—Rivenscryr whole and united—Tylar faced the daemon lord. He took a step forward, but Perryl sensed the change in balance here. Already shaken by whatever had flickered through him, the daemon swept up his cloak and spun into the back shadows of the tent.

  Tylar pursued him, but his leg remained hobbled, slowing him. By the time he reached the back, he found only darkness.

  The daemon had fled.

  A scream burst from outside.

  The others…

  Tylar turned back to the tent flap and dodged through it. He almost tripped over Krevan’s body, sprawled in the mud, soaked by rain and blood. Tylar knelt long enough to check for signs of life. He placed a palm on the man’s chest. He breathed. Alive. No ordinary man would have survived, but Krevan was Wyr-born, possessed of a living blood. It sustained him, but barely. He would need some attention.

  But not now.

  Tylar surged up, drawing more shadows. One of the ghawls unfolded out of the darkness with a screech. Perryl had fled, but he’d left his dogs behind. Tylar easily blocked the thrusting black blade and parried to the attack. He slid the newly forged Rivenscryr through the creature’s gut.

  It was like shoving a red-hot iron into cold swamp water.

  Flesh exploded with a sickening wash of foul steam and corruption. For a moment, as Tylar yanked his sword out, a tangle of black tentacles followed, bursting out of the wound, writhing in the air. But they did not belong in this world and shivered into a sludging collapse, taking the cloaked body with them.

  Tylar spun away. He aimed for a glow beyond the edge of the rock pinnacle, where he had left the others. With a speed born of shadow, he reached the others in two breaths. They clustered around a dying fire, a pack of ghawls nestled tight about them. But like Perryl, these seemed directionless, still held off by even this feeble fire.

  Such caution would not last forever.

  Tylar swept up to them and through them, cleaving a swath of death. Bodies fell in a wash of fetid steam, tentacles flickered like black flames, then died away. A pair of ghawls fled in opposite directions, mindless with terror, plainly intending to lose themselves forever in the hinterlands. All others lay dead around the fire.

  Except Perryl.

  Where had he gone? Off to the rogues?

  Tylar stared out at the spread of black water. Rain pebbled the surface, but the downpour was already ending.

  Calla appeared at his side, her face a mask of worry. “Krevan?” she managed to ask, though she feared the answer.

  Tylar nodded. “Alive. By the tent. But he needs help.” He pointed. “Grab the giant and get him to carry Krevan back to the fire.”

  Calla ran to obey.

  Rogger came up to him. “So you fixed your sword.”

  Tylar glanced over to him.

  “We sent Pupp with the diamond,” Rogger explained. “Figured his fiery form would pass unmolested through those skaggin’ ghawls, while we didn’t dare.”

  Tylar turned the blade, examining its brilliant length. The deaths of the daemons had failed to douse the blade. It required no replenishing blood. Made whole by the diamond, the blade now abided. The stone held it firm in this world.

  “But how…?” Tylar finally muttered. “The diamond…”

  “You can thank Brant and Dart for that,” Rogger said. “Dart for her special eyes, Brant for his insight. Those two make a nice pair.”

  Tylar noted them standing hand in hand. Then counted the others. Someone was missing.

  “Lorr,” Rogger said, noting his search. “He was slain protecting the young ones.”

  Dart stumbled closer to the water. “But he fell right there,” she said, pointing to the shallows near the bank. “Now he’s gone. Could he still be alive?”

  Hope rang in her voice.

  But in answer, something dark surged up in the water, humping black scales, then vanishing back into the depths.

  “Taken,” Brant said, coming up and putting his arm around Dart. He understood what was written in the ripples. “Nothing goes to waste in the forest of the world. It is the Way.”

  Dart covered her face, but Brant plainly found comfort in such an end. And maybe he was right. Lorr had been a creature of the forest. It was only fitting he should return to it again.

  A scrape of leather on stone drew their attention around.

  From the nearby pinnacle, a handful of women descended on ropes, landing lightly. They were all that was left of Meylan’s tribe. One stepped forward. Tylar could not say if this was Meylan or another.

  “Wyrd Bennifren,” she said dourly. “We spied him falling.”

  She swung around and headed toward the camp.

  Tylar had forgotten about the Wyr-lord. Bennifren had gone off to fetch a repostilary for Tylar’s humour. He had no idea of the strange man’s fate, and normally he wouldn’t care—but there were the promised maps.

  “Keep the others by the fire,” Tylar ordered Rogger.

  The thief nodded, adding wet wood to the fire.

  Tylar set off with the women. They led the way into the nest of tents. Bodies were strewn everywhere, blackened by the burn of the ghawls’ swords. It had been a slaughter.

  They found Bennifren’s milk mare collapsed face-first in the mud, just as blackened. One of the women knelt down and heaved the body over. Beneath the charred remains, still swaddled, lay Bennifren, pink and hale, sheltered and hidden by the dead woman.

  One arm lifted weakly. He gasped and sucked air, plainly only moments from suffocation. His eyelids flickered open, wet with tears. He breathed deeply for several breaths, then coughed a meanness back into his eyes.

  His gaze found Tylar.

  “Find the rogues…” he seethed sibilantly.

  “I’ll need the maps.”

  His eyes flicked to the woman who freed him. “Meylan, fetch them for him.”

  So the woman was Meylan. How the Wyr-lord could tell the women apart was a mystery to Tylar. Meylan ran off, while another gathered their lord up into her arms.

  “And what about our bargain?” Tylar asked.

  The Wyr-lord turned to him. Perhaps he was still rattled, or perhaps it was a generosity born of fury, but Wyrd Bennifren finally relinquished a debt. “It is forgiven…” A hand reached out and tiny fingers clutched the edge of Tylar’s cloak. “But only if you free those rogues. Make the Cabal suffer…make them pay.”

  It was a bargain Tylar accepted gladly.

  “Bound and done,” he promised.

  Dart stared at the strange craft, lent to them by the Wyr.

  She stood on the bank, chewing on the back of her thumb,
nervous. It looked like a small flippercraft cleaved open through the middle, leaving only the bottom half intact. The flitterskiff was a shallow-keeled boat lined on each side by six long bronze paddles, but these required no oarsmen to row. It was a mekanical craft that ran on alchemies of water.

  “And Air?” Rogger asked as he knelt beside the boat, examining one of the paddles. He ran a hand along its double-hulled side. The alchemies ran between the hulls.

  She had seen Rogger test it under the guidance of a squat Wyr-man, one of the few survivors. The thief was to be their pilot. None of the Wyr could venture where they intended to travel, to where seersong bent the will of those Graced. Like Eylan, they would be easily captured by the song. Even Krevan had to be left here under Calla’s care. He would be a threat once within earshot of seersong.

  They readied to leave.

  Tylar clasped Krevan’s good shoulder. His other was cross-wrapped in a large bandage. Dart had learned that the pirate owed his life to his Wyr heritage. Krevan had been born without a heart. Through his veins ran a living blood, a blood that had refused to flow out those same veins when his arm had been cleaved away. Still, he would need time and rest to heal.

  Tylar turned to the pirate’s swordmate. “Keep him safe, Calla, until we return.”

  “I will,” she said sternly.

  Malthumalbaen helped push the flitterskiff off the bank and into the water. It had sat rather crooked in the sand, a rough landing by Rogger, but it was his first attempt.

  The giant held the boat for Brant and Dart to climb aboard. Brant gave her a hand, and they found a bench near the front. The skiff was large enough to hold a good dozen. So they had plenty of room, even with a giant on board.

  Rogger hopped in and crossed to the bow, where foot pedals and a wheel sat before a scooped wooden seat. He sank into it, rubbing his palms.

  Tylar left Krevan’s side and splashed into the water. Grabbing the starboard rail, he struggled a bit, confounded by a bad leg. Malthumalbaen helped him with a push on his backside. Tylar straightened once aboard, his cheeks slightly flushed.

  With the sword at his belt, Tylar certainly did seem somewhat more solid of foot—but he still hobbled. While Rogger had learned to wield the flitterskiff, Tylar had tested his new sword. It would be best to know its abilities before venturing into unknown territories.