The Shadow of Dread: The Bladeborn Saga, Book Six, page 66
There were murmurs from the men. “Then we stop here,” said one. “We can go no further. We return to Aram.”
Tantario glared at him. “We will continue to the Perch, as ordered by Moonlord Hasham. How often must I say it?”
Once more, Saska thought. Always once more.
“What of the feast?” called another of the men.
“And the featherbeds,” said a third.
Tantario shook his head. “We will camp here tonight. There are fears that the earth will tremble once more, and the city is no longer safe. Many buildings have collapsed, even some of the stone towers, and sinkholes are appearing. Tomorrow, we will head for the lake and take barges across the water. This will take us back onto the road.” He talked sharply, in a voice that brooked no dissent, and before any of the men might call out their complaints, he looked to Saska and said, “Serenity. Does that serve?”
Everyone looked at her. She could feel their eyes upon her. “If…if you think it’s the right course, Sunrider.”
“It is the only course,” he said. Then he stepped closer to her. “Walk with me, my lady.”
They left the others behind, grumbling and grousing, and moved out across the yard to where the animals were tied and stabled. From the coast, Saska saw the shadowed forms of Del and Kaa Sokari reappear, much to her relief, and Jaito as well, Del’s tent-mate and friend who’d been helping him with his training. She was musing on how glad that made her, for Del to have his own friend here, when Alym Tantario said, “I am sorry for my men, my lady. They shame me with their behaviour, and I assure you, it is quite unlike them. They were all chosen for this charge for their sense of duty, and yet too many are now losing their faith. I can only apologise. I hope you will accept it.”
She smiled at his grizzled face, deeply rutted at the eyes and forehead. It seemed to Saska that more lines had appeared during their weeks on the road, and they still had so far to go. “You don’t need to apologise, Alym. They are sun-weary and grief-struck and afraid, that’s all.”
“They are soldiers. Fine spearmen and knights, even Lightborn. They should know better how to control their emotions. But there is a rot in too many of them, eating away. It is the shroud of the Ever-War, permeating all. The creatures. This weather. Even the men are being corrupted.”
“Then send them home,” Saska found herself saying. “Let them return to their wives and their children.”
He frowned at her. “I cannot. Men of duty and oath are the last bastion against anarchy. If they should be allowed to abandon their posts, every city and town will fall to ruin.” He shook his head. “We will take you to Eagle’s Perch, as is our charge. The road is impassable here, as I said, and to go west around the lake would take time, and prove perilous. Crossing the lake would be quickest, though is not without its dangers.” He looked into the darkness. “I had hoped to speak to Princess Talasha about that. I take it she has found somewhere to rest for the night?”
“The hills,” Saska said, looking to the shadows in the distance. “She’ll spend the night up there.”
“Then I will speak to her on the morrow.” His jaw was tight, his eyes tense and weary. “It will take several days to cross the lake, my lady. And the barges are not large enough to take us all. We will have to take three, for the men and the mounts. But even then it will be tight, and these divisions…”
She understood. “We’ll split them up accordingly. Make sure the sellswords are separated. And the worst of the dissenters too.”
“That would be wise,” he said.
The look on his face suggested this was not the option he would have preferred. But no road was safe anymore. The sea was crawling, the plains as well, and the lake seemed the lesser of those evils. All the same, Saska could not help but think of Robbert Lukar, and the words that Lord Hasham had said.
“The seas will judge him,” the old moonlord had intoned.
And now the lake will stand judgement on us, she thought.
33
They rode in the shadow of the Hooded Hills, a solemn troop of four.
There was something sinister about this place. It had crept up on them over the last hour, a brooding menace suffusing the thick, misty air. The wind moaned and whined in strange plaintive voices, as though calling out in torment, and the trees seemed to shy at their passing, creaking and cowering away.
“It’s like the very land is afraid,” Harden said warily, riding beside Jonik on his weary old warhorse. It was the best that Lord Ghent could procure for them at the border, a stubborn old gelding whose best days were long behind him. Much like Harden, a man might say, but he kept on going like the old sellsword too. “Can the wind be in pain, do you think? The sounds here…”
“It’s just the lay of the land,” Jonik said. “The way the wind moves through the valleys and trees.”
“And this mist? It’s unnatural.”
A lot was unnatural these days. “It’s a thick morning fog, is all. Our minds are playing tricks on us.” He gave his piebald palfrey a rub on the neck. “If the horses aren’t worried, there’s no reason we should be.”
“You sure about that, lad?” Harden murmured, looking around. “These mists…Who knows what’s hiding behind the veil? Might be all sorts lurking just out of sight.”
“Nothing that I can hear,” Jonik said. He had his hand clutched to the grip of Mother’s Mercy, and had not let go for a long while. He had heard no growling, no low deep breathing, no skittering of feet, no crunch of twigs among the trees. Just that wailing wind, and its haunting laments. He wondered what the Rasalanians would make of it. They had lots of gods for the weather of the world. Gustas was their god of fierce winds, he knew, and Tish their goddess of the breeze. Did they have a deity for all this eerie keening? Some dead god, perhaps, who had perished in some foul way? If they did, Jonik hadn’t heard of it. “We’re just spooked because we know what happened here,” the former Shadowknight went on. “That’s all it is.”
The others were riding a little way up the slope, fading in and out of the fog, a dozen horse lengths away. Around them, the trees shivered in their clumps and thickets, shadows in this thick grey gloom, but every once in a while the mists cleared and the lands opened out, showing the distant shadow of the Hooded Hills to the east, the rolling grassy hills and wetlands around them, spreading far and wide.
They seemed to be thinning again now, those mists, waning as they made their way up the slope to the top of the rise. Jonik peered forward, to where Gerrin and Sir Owen were riding side by side, approaching the crest of the hill. The latter was sitting up stiff in the saddle, taut as a bowstring, staring forward. “We’re close,” Jonik said to Harden. “I can hear Sir Owen’s heartbeat getting faster. He recognises this place.”
Harden looked over at him. His haggard old face was twisted into a frown. “You can hear his heart from here?”
Jonik smiled. “You don’t believe me?”
“When you had the Nightblade, aye, maybe, but now…”
“The Nightblade didn’t enhance my hearing any more than regular godsteel. Or my sight. And if it did, it was marginal and I barely even noticed.” He looked forward again. “He’s anxious.” He could hear it when he focussed, that thud thud thud in Armdall’s chest, growing harder and stronger as they climbed. “This is the hill they fought on. It must be. We’ll see it when we reach the top.”
His own heart was starting to thump harder in anticipation, because he had heard from Sir Owen Armdall exactly what to expect. A land torn and broken, with steaming fissures and blackened trees melted down to stumps, where Drulgar the Dread, with Eldur the Eternal atop him, had fought a host of giants and a certain mad king with a Blade of Vandar in his grasp.
It had been a long week since the Oak of Armdall had told them that, since Gerrin had found him at the border. Jonik had been sleeping at the time, dozing beside Sir Lenard Borrington’s bedside when Gerrin stirred him awake. “Did you find out something about my grandfather?” Jonik had asked him, rubbing his eyes and clearing his throat.
“I found someone,” the old knight had responded. “Come, he’s waiting in the yard.”
He’d led Jonik down the spiral stair and through the keep, past the night guards and out into the yard of the Undercloak. There they had found him, sitting on a stump outside the stables, hunched forward in a sodden cloak, greenish grey and travel-stained. The knight had a cowl over his head, but at once Jonik saw the long tangle of beard, the matted hair, the glint of godsteel gorget about his neck. The knight looked up, hearing their approach, and then Jonik saw his eyes. They were the eyes of one haunted, eyes that had beheld things no man should ever perceive. His skin was mud-spattered, cheeks gone gaunt, and there were webs of wrinkles about his eyes. Jonik had heard it said that the Oak of Armdall was the model of chivalry, a dashing knight, beautiful and brilliant and young. What he saw was a broken thing, old before his time, a shadow of the man he was.
“Sir Owen,” Gerrin said. “This is him, the one I told you about.”
The sworn sword had stood and looked at Jonik for a long moment, as though searching for some resemblance. “The king’s grandson,” he said. “You don’t look like him.”
Jonik hadn’t cared to respond to that. He looked into the Oak’s haunted turquoise eyes. “Where is he? Is he dead?”
Sir Owen gave a forlorn nod. His voice was hollow, blunt. “He must be,” he said. “No one…no one could have survived that.”
“Survived what?” Jonik asked.
And that was when he told his tale.
Jonik had been speechless. He had stood for a long time in mute astonishment once Sir Owen was done. Then he had asked the only question that mattered. “Where is the Mistblade, Sir Owen?” Fear cut through him like a knife. “Did he take it? Eldur?”
“Not that I saw,” the Oak answered in a shaky voice. “The demon…he never left the back of the dragon. I wanted to help, to fight with him, your grandfather, I did, but…” He turned his eyes aside. “There was nothing I could do.”
“You’ve done enough bringing this news to us,” Jonik told him. “Did you try to search for him after?”
“After,” the knight nodded. “Once the dragon was gone, I…I tried. But there was no sign. He must have fallen…”
“Or left,” Gerrin had put in. “Could he not have faded to mist and given chase, Sir Owen? You said he had wanted this fight, against Eldur…”
“Against the demon, not the Dread. He never expected him.”
“Even so. If he survived…”
“He couldn’t have survived. Not that.” His eyes swam with the horror of it. “And he wouldn’t have left me. I was his faithful servant. His sworn sword.”
“Will you be mine?” Jonik asked him. The question took Sir Owen off guard. Even Jonik had not expected to utter it. “I have to find the Mistblade, Sir Owen. That is of vital importance. Will you swear me your sword and lead us to where they fought?”
The knight stared at him. “I don’t know if…I’m not sure I can go back. I tried to find him, as I said, but…”
“Four of us will have better luck,” Jonik said. “You’re coming with us, Sir Owen. It’s what my grandfather would have wanted.” He did not know why he said that or where it came from, but it seemed to work. He saw some measure of duty in the man’s gaze, a need to serve and help. “Will you swear me your sword?”
“I…yes, I…I will.”
“Then swear it,” Jonik had said, and shakily, Sir Owen Armdall went down to one knee…and their company took on a new member.
Harden, as ever, was not so happy about it. “You think we can trust him?” he asked now, as they rode behind, some thirty paces back. “Begging your pardons, Jonik, but your grandfather was a known loon, and Sir Owen his most loyal disciple. He might have some hidden plan up his sleeve.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Give me time to think about it.”
“You’ve had time. He’s been with us for a week.”
“Maybe he’s not dead,” Harden said. “Janilah. Maybe he’s off somewhere, hiding in the woods, and he’s planning to creep out and kill us one night.”
“Why?” Jonik asked, humouring the old man. “I’m his grandson. Why should he want to kill me?”
“For the Nightblade.”
“I don’t have the Nightblade.”
“Aye, but does the Oak know that? You’ve not pulled out Mother’s Mercy since he joined us, and…”
“He’s seen the crossguard, the handle, the pommel, and the sheath,” Jonik interrupted. “That should be enough for him to know it isn’t the Nightblade, Harden.”
“Aye. So why haven’t you told him?”
Jonik was confused. “Told him what?”
“About everything. Ilith and the refuge and all that. Leaving the Nightblade behind. You haven’t told him.”
“He hasn’t asked.”
“Exactly. He hasn’t asked about the Nightblade…and you haven’t told him…so that means you don’t trust him…and he…well, he doesn’t want to get into those sorts of conversations, because he’s planning to betray us anyway.” He smiled craggily, as though terribly proud of himself for coming up with such utter nonsense.
Jonik was less impressed. “Are you done? Can we focus on the task at hand now?” He made sure the sellsword wasn’t going to say anything more, then gestured up the slope. “The hilltop is just ahead. If you’re so worried about Sir Owen Armdall’s loyalties, by all means keep scowling at him, but so far as I see it, he’s the best chance we have right now of tracking down the Mistblade, and that’s all that matters.” He gave his horse a spur and left the old man behind.
Within a quick canter he had caught up with the others. Gerrin looked back. His eyes were wary. “Sir Owen says this is the place. The old castle ruins are right ahead, where they made their camp. The battle took place beyond.”
Not much of a battle, so far as Jonik had heard it. The word battle conjured a good contest and fair fight, two foes evenly matched, or at least enough to put the outcome in doubt. There had been no doubt as to who was going to emerge the victor in this fight, even with the gruloks involved. The demigod and the Dread could fell entire armies by themselves. An old man and his small cohort of giants were never going to be enough to stop them.
You were a fool, Grandfather, Jonik thought. You were blinded by your arrogance, and you died for it, and you’ve only yourself to blame.
The hilltop was wreathed in mist, like the valley they’d ridden through below. It hung heavy and still over the sodden, muddied earth, as though trying to shield the world’s eyes from what had happened here. That dark, ominous feeling still lingered in the air, and the wind was still making that plaintive, wailing noise. Sir Owen’s chest was going up and down. “I see the ruins,” he whispered, staring forward. “Right there. Near those trees.”
The castle had belonged to some river lord once upon a time, though had never been particularly grand. From the earth, the old stones poked out like grey finger bones, and in places the ground was churned and scarred. It was where the gruloks had rested, Sir Owen explained to them. “The night we arrived, the king sat out alone in the rain. He knew there was a grulok out there, and he was right. It came from the darkness, and then a bunch of others appeared. They’d been here for thousands of years, King Janilah said. Waiting for him to come. He said it was fate.”
The others shared a look. None of them wanted to discuss the whims of fate anymore.
Further south, across the hilltop, the mists swirled upon a land scarred and broken. They got only glimpses of it, but it was enough. Jonik saw chasms torn open in the earth, black mud boiled by flame, trees burned down to stumps. It had been a fine open grassland before, Sir Owen had said. “But the dragon and the demon…they turned it to a hell.”
Jonik was seeing that now, though only in the aftermath. Before, fires had blazed high across the hill, the fissures had gushed a black fume, and the very air had seemed to fizz and simmer, the Oak explained. He had been told to stay back by his king and had fought that command at first, but when the Dread drew closer, his own courage had fled him, he admitted. “I ran,” he’d said, in shame. “Took cover further back, and if I hadn’t, I’d be dead. There was nothing I could do. Even the gruloks…I saw them swatted aside like they were nothing. A few cut him, but they were just scratches. I saw one bitten into a thousand pieces, and another was knocked a hundred metres through the air.” He swallowed. “But mostly it was smoke and fire I saw. And the titan’s shadow. And that red light, from Eldur’s staff. It made a sound, like ten thousand men screaming at once. I thought I was going to die just hearing it.”
But that had been then. Now, what they saw was a land black and dead and shattered. No smoke, no flame, just a lingering shadow of dread.
“Let’s leave the horses here,” Gerrin said, dismounting. So far as they could see, the devastation had stopped just short of the ruins. “Is there any cover here to make a fire, Sir Owen?”
“There’s part of an old roundtower still standing, further in,” Armdall said. “That’s where we had our camp.”
“Let’s see it restored. We can begin our search after. Hopefully these mists will have cleared a bit by then.”
It was strange, Jonik mused, to think that a once great king had made camp here, in these mossy old ruins out in the middle of nowhere. The rotted remains of the curtain wall were barely visible among the weeds and sprouts of sedge, the gate had long since gone to rust and blown away, and the yard was full of thorn bushes and saplings. Some had been singed by the hot winds that blew from the battlefield, it looked, carrying here with its burning ashes, though the rains had served to prevent any true fires from catching. Further in, the wooden shelter Sir Owen had erected in the wreckage of the roundtower was still there. It had a roof of latticed branches and twigs, covered in grass and leaves to keep off the rain, and beneath that a small firepit had been dug, scattered with bits of charred wood. Jonik imagined his grandfather sitting here, night after night, brooding on the coming of his foe. He had turned pious, Sir Owen had told them, and called himself Vandar’s herald and his will. He was doing this all selflessly, to try to defeat the enemy and end the war.
