He slid out his sword. Blessed in Dark Alchemies of loam and fire, just a poke of it would turn flesh to stone. Such a weapon was forbidden, of course, but such a transgression would be forgiven when he brought the godslayer to justice.
Ahead, a knight enfolded from the darkness of another passage. He dropped to one knee.
“She moves swiftly,” he reported. “Into the unoccupied areas of Tashijan.”
“Are all still with her?” Argent commanded.
“She and the tracker lead five knights, all cloaked.”
“Show me,” Argent ordered.
The knight rose and joined their party, sweeping ahead, drawing speed from the shadowed halls. All of Tashijan converged upon Kathryn. Her party was easy to follow, what with two bullhounds at their lead. Scouts were left behind, like this one, to lead Argent toward her and the godslayer.
Under orders, she and the others were not to be touched.
He would make the kill.
All of Tashijan would witness it.
Argent and his men stormed ahead. He felt the Black Grace coursing along the length of his sword. There was no greater swordsman in all of Myrillia. And not even a godslayer would survive the curse upon the blade.
They sped ahead, collecting scouts along the way, growing in size like a raging flood of snowmelt.
“She went through that way!”
“She crossed down that stair!”
“She circles back around this hall!”
Argent could almost smell her. Once Tylar was slain, Kathryn would be his. She would have a choice between the gallows and his wedding bed. And if she still refused, the blood of her friends would seal the arrangement. To save them, she would have to take his ring.
Another scout dropped to a knee ahead. “She’s stopped,” he said, voice trembling. “Trapped herself in a room without an exit. But something has excited her party.”
Argent motioned Symon ser Jaklar to his side. They both pulled up their hoods and marched down a narrow passage. Other knights followed, two score, and more filled halls and passages around them. There would be no escape.
Light appeared ahead. A flickering torch.
Voices reached them. Argent recognized Lorr’s thick cadence.
“The body were here,” he said heatedly. “A slain knight . . . a pit of bones. Now nothing. I can’t even scent the blood.”
“The Fiery Cross must have known of your discovery,” a gruff voice said. “Cleaned the place with curse and acid.”
“So where’s Perryl?” Lorr asked.
Argent frowned at these strange words.
With cursed blade in hand, he flowed into the room, drawing shadows to him, swelling with power. Ever his personal shadow, Symon swept to his side. More knights followed, billowing with darkness.
Bullhounds met them, crouched down, growling.
“Call off your dogs!” Argent bellowed, taking in the scene with a glance. They were in a domed chamber, crumbling seats circling the walls.
On the room’s far side, Lorr perched at the edge of a pit, staring down. When he glanced up, he seemed unsurprised.
Near him, a slimmer figure leaned over the same pit.
The shadowcloak didn’t fully obscure the body of the woman beneath. It must be Kathryn.
Between them stood a phalanx of Shadowknights, led by one man, looming and full of menace, fully masked.
It had to be Tylar, come for his woman.
Triumphant, Argent raced forward, sword raised. One of the bullhounds lunged at him. But with reflexes borne of shadow, he sidestepped its teeth as Symon drove the beast away. A bloody howl of pain erupted as Symon stabbed the dog.
“Don’t!” Lorr cried out.
The scream from the hound suddenly cut off. Argent allowed himself a grimace of satisfaction. Symon was second only to Argent in skill with a blade.
The leader of the knights glowered at him. Did Tylar recognize the man who had sent him into slavery? Argent pulled more speed, wicking it to his sword arm. Blade became a blur, impossible to parry.
He lunged.
All it will take is a nick.
Then the man shifted, not so much movement as the flicker of a shadow. A blade appeared, flashing silver. It met Argent’s blade with a resounding clang.
Though surprised, Argent slipped the point of his blade along the other’s sword and thrust for the man’s forearm.
Just a mere cut . . .
But his point found only shadow.
The godslayer swirled away. A spark of silver glinted at the corner of Argent’s eye. He ducked and rolled from the sudden dagger thrust. The blade held in Tylar’s other hand.
Argent gained his feet, noting the fierce melee erupting around the room. Shadowknight fought Shadowknight. The second bullhound blocked the narrow entrance, snarling and snapping. It guarded over the remains of its companion. Blood pooled on the floor, making footing treacherous.
Argent continued his dance with his opponent. Parrying, lunging, sweeping. He had a dagger in his own hand now. None had ever withstood him so fiercely.
“Who are you?” Argent asked as their swords momentarily locked. Tylar could never fight this well.
The figure turned his blade ever so slightly, straining both men’s muscles. A glitter of lamplight lit the length of the sword. A golden wyrm bloomed on the blade, unnoticed until now.
Argent gasped. “Serpentfang . . .”
Shock dropped his guard. The other took the advantage and turned Argent’s blade. The Raven Knight kicked out at Argent’s knee, knocking him off his footing. Argent fell forward, his sword thrusting straight ahead. The blade passed under his combatant’s armpit and continued its plunge—into Symon ser Jaklar’s chest as the Wolf tried to sneak up on the other’s back.
The Raven Knight twirled away.
Symon stared at the blade in his chest, then up at Argent. A cry rose to his lips, but never came, his face twisted in agony, going gray, then black. Knight became statue, rooted to the stone floor.
Argent stumbled back, trying to free his blade, but the stone held it fast. He suddenly felt pressure against the hollow of his throat. He stared down the length of Serpentfang. The point bit into his neck.
“Call down your knights, Warden.” The command was spoken calmly but resounded across the chamber.
Attention drew to them. The ringing of steel went silent. The two forces retreated to either side, the wounded and dead between them. The Raven Knight continued to hold the sword to Argent’s throat.
“Have them stand down,” the Raven Knight commanded. “The godslayer is not with us.”
Argent lowered his fingers from the hilt of the cursed blade. He saw the truth as the knights at the man’s side dropped their masklins and threw back their hoods. Tylar was not among them.
Argent closed his eyes. He had been tricked. Kathryn had purposefully lured him away.
Knowing there was no gain, he faced his knights. “Stand down,” he said. He noted the many eyes on the stone figure of Symon ser Jaklar. His own blade impaled through it. Cursed. His guilt plain by sword and witness.
Movement drew his eye. Lorr led Kathryn before him. Or at least the woman he’d assumed was Kathryn.
The figure tossed back her hood. Argent stared in disbelief.
“Hello, Father,” Delia said.
Tylar watched Stormwatch Tower fall away beneath him. The large, potbellied flippercraft had lifted smoothly from its cradle, its aeroskimmers glowing with Grace as it rose into the dark skies. Off to the east, the barest glimmer promised dawn, but sunrise was still a full two bells away. If all went well, by the time the sun showed its full face, they would be landing in Chrismferry.
Rogger sat in the seat across from him, staring out his own window. “Storm clouds are coming from the south.”
Tylar twisted and spotted a few spats of lightning flickering.
Rogger leaned back. “Will I ever be dry?”
Kathryn and Gerrod shared their small compartmen
t, one of ten private passenger cabins. Their two heads were bent in whispers.
Their only other companion was the stoic Eylan. The Wyr-woman studied Tylar from across the way, sitting stiffly, ever vigilant. She had spoken no more than three words since first joining them. And those words were Leave me be, to Rogger. Tylar suspected Rogger had heard those words often enough, but never with more command or more disdain. The two were posing as husband and wife, from Tashijan’s cook staff, off to visit relatives in Chrismferry.
“I don’t know why I married that woman,” Rogger had griped at her rebuke.
The others had boarded the craft separately. With all of Tashijan’s attention turned elsewhere, none of the guards had given the ship’s passengers more than a cursory glance. The Citadel was more concerned about the godslayer entering Tashijan, not leaving it. Gerrod already had his cabin paid and reserved. Tylar had played the master’s servant, hooded, his knight’s tattoos wiped over with face paint. He had also acted the cripple, not a difficult ruse. Kathryn had entered in secret, using her considerable gift for shadowplay. She kept hidden until all had gathered in Gerrod’s cabin.
Kathryn stirred from her discussion with Gerrod and turned to Tylar. “Both ravens we sent have been dispatched. Hopefully they’ll reach their intended in time.” She pulled out a letter from her cloak. It bore the castellan’s seal, her seal.
Tylar leaned over and read the name.
Kathryn looked into his eyes. “This had been for Perryl. A cover for him to join Gerrod in his trip to Chrismferry.”
He reached out and touched her hand, lowering the letter. “They’ll find him in time.”
“You can’t know that.”
Attempting to distract her from her worry, Tylar pointed to the letter. It was addressed to the same man to whom the wyndraven had been dispatched. “Will your man be able to aid us in gaining access to Chrism’s castillion?”
“He should. Yaellin de Mar is one of Chrism’s Hands.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Fully.”
“But with all that’s going on, how can you be so sure?”
Kathryn glanced past him and out the window. “Because Yaellin is Ser Henri’s bastard son.”
19
THE FIRST GOD
“KEEP RUNNING,”YAELLIN SNARLED.
Dart held Laurelle’s hand as they fled through the dark myrrwood. Thorns tugged and scraped, branches slapped and stung. Dart’s breath rasped ragged in her panicked flight. Laurelle let out soft moans.
Behind them, cries and shrieks grew ever closer. Ilk-beasts, once men and women, pursued them, crashing through the underbrush.
Dart remembered her dream of a few nights back. She had been chased then, as a babe, carried away by the old headmistress of the Conclave. Why?
Yaellin kept behind, urging them onward through bower and glade. The myrrwood seemed without end. Dart risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw nothing but a flowing wall of shadow.
He’s keeping us hidden with his billowing cloak.
Ahead, Pupp raced through the wood, passing ghostly through bush and scrub without a rustle. Dart watched him bump against a bole of the myrrwood and bounce off of it. The trunk was solid to him, like the blood roots below.
She had no time for this mystery and chased after him. His glow helped light her path.
They passed crumbled walls, a moss-covered well, a tiny wooden arbor fallen to ruin. And still the wood continued onward. Grown from a single seed, sown with Chrism’s own blood, the myrrwood’s branches had stretched for four thousand years.
Would they ever escape its shadow?
As they ran, Dart noted the trunks grew thicker. They were not heading back toward the castillion, toward light and people, but deeper into the heart of the myrrwood.
“Where . . . ?” Dart gasped.
“To the back wall of the Eldergarden,” Yaellin answered. “And over. We must reach the city.”
As if hearing their words, a keening shriek erupted to the left. A large form crashed toward them.
“Behind me!” Yaellin called.
Dart twisted. Laurelle froze. With her hand gripping Laurelle’s, Dart tugged her friend back around. Shadows swept over and past them. Pupp wheeled around and raced toward them.
Dart dropped to her knees, sheltered by a bole of the myrrwood.
A dark shape flung itself into their path. Eyes glowing crimson, it ran on all fours, fingers and toes twisted into razored claws. A row of bony spikes pierced through the skin of its arched back. It howled at Yaellin, its jaws hinging its entire head, and leaped at the man.
Yaellin’s cloak sailed to a branch overhead, a flow of living shadow. Snagging purchase, Yaellin flew upward. The beast passed below him, snapping and spitting. With a hiss and a slash, it whirled.
But Yaellin had already dropped beside it. He struck out with his fist—no, not just a fist. He held a dagger with a shining black blade. He struck the ilk-beast in the side, then rolled backward. A lick of fire chased him, like a splash of blood, from the beast.
The creature reared up, claws extended—then collapsed into ash, faintly ruddy, like wood embers from a dying fire.
Yaellin waved to them with his dagger. “Hurry . . .”
Dart knew the weapon he had employed: the cursed blade from Jacinta. Dart was now glad Yaellin had stolen it. She and Laurelle fled to his side, and the chase continued.
But the pause to dispatch the lone beast had cost them. The howls had drawn closer.
“I . . . I can’t go on,” Laurelle moaned. Her feet began to trip.
Yaellin was there, scooping her up in arm and cloak. He reached for Dart with the other.
“I can still run,” she said, not wishing to burden Yaellin. Besides, she had the wind for this. She had been running her entire life.
She turned to flee, Pupp at her side.
They dodged around boles as wide as carriage carts. The scent of myrrh grew stifling, trapped under the dense leafy canopy where wind, rain, and sunshine never reached. The underbrush turned skeletal, thorny, with strange red berries aglow in the gloom. Through the upper branches, luminescent butterflits of azure and crimson fluttered lazily, hanging and gliding in the too-still air.
Ahead a wall appeared, lit by the ruddy glow of Pupp’s molten form.
Dart hurried ahead, sensing salvation. What had terrified her before—the empty streets of Chrismferry at night—now seemed a welcome place. At least their pursuers seemed to fall back, losing their track, or maybe they had come upon the smoldering ashes of their fellow beast and now proceeded with more caution.
Either way, they had to find a way over the wall.
Pupp had stopped ahead. Over the millennia, a thick deadfall had blown against the wall, tangled and dark in the night.
“Caution,” Yaellin warned behind her, farther back than she expected.
“Where can we cross the wall?” Dart asked. The deadfall looked treacherous and unstable.
“It’s no wall, Dart.” Yaellin hurried to her, his voice dropped to the barest whisper.
Her foot crunched through brittle twigs and branches as she joined Pupp. She saw Yaellin was right. What she had thought was wall was instead a tree of such immensity that the curve of its trunk could not be easily discerned, appearing more like a wall of smooth, gray bark.
“Quiet now,” Yaellin whispered. “Around to the left. Keep out of the bones.”
Dart frowned, then saw where Yaellin pointed. She stumbled back with a strangled cry, crackling a mouse’s rib cage under her heel. She gaped toward the tree. The snarl of deadfall showed itself to be bones, piled and broken: slender leg bones of deer, cracked skulls of rabbits, ribs of giant woodland slothkins, ivory horns of lothicorns.
“The true heart of the myrrwood,” Yaellin intoned. “The one trunk from which all else spread.”
“The Heartwood,” Dart said, remembering the stories told. She stared around her. Here was Lord Chrism’s private sanctuary, a forbidden,
sacred place. None but the god was allowed to enter. Even the sun hid its face from this soil. “What happened?”
“Corruption . . . like with the men and women.”
They circled its bole, keeping wide of the ring of bones. As they ran, a soft skittering sounded. A skull of a slothkin rose from the pile, lifted by a writhing root. Its empty eye sockets bloomed with a sickly yellow flame.
Yaellin guided them to the side, skirting bushes and trunks. “It wakes.”
More skulls rose, igniting with fire. Riding roots, they pushed out of the pile and snaked outward. Piled bones toppled with a hollow wooden sound as the roots quested into the surrounding wood.
They ran, keeping hidden.
Movement to Dart’s left drew her eye. A cracked skull of a deer, still antlered, teetered up from a beach of bone. It swung around, meeting her gaze. She found the blaze in the sockets fixing to her.
Her feet slowed.
A trilling filled her head, sweet and high. The wood grew darker at the edges. The skull and eyes glowed brighter. Words grew in her head, speaking with her own voice: come, sleep, rest, come . . .
Fingers gripped her chin and turned her face. “No,” Yaellin said. He had placed Laurelle down. “Don’t look.”
She nodded, but still felt drawn to glance over. Her feet drifted her back toward the deadfall. Motion snaked throughout the pile. Bones skittered and rolled. New fires lit the night as more eyes opened, a dance of fireflits.
Pretty . . .
She turned to see—but a sweep of darkness dropped like a curtain across the sight.
“No,” Yaellin repeated behind her. “Only a little farther.”
Laurelle stumbled up to her, her face bled of all color.
A shape leaped before them. Both girls yelped, falling into each other’s arms. But it was only a dwarf deerling, no taller than Dart’s waist. Its ears quivered. It stopped on tiny hooves, blind to the three of them, then bounded forward, toward the deadfall.