Shadowfall

15

Tylar stared into the small campfire. the tiny hearth smoked more than it flamed, fed with wet wood, but that was all that could be found in the moldering swamps and bogs. The party gathered as best they could around the meager source of heat.

Rogger spit roasted a marsh hare over the pit. Upon the thief’s recommendation, they had built the fire in a shallow pit to shield its sallow flame in the night. He had even caked the rabbit’s skinned flesh with clay to cut down the scent of its sizzling flesh.

Next to him, Delia huddled in a cloak lined with otter fur. She was bone tired, as were they all.

No one spoke. Their small party, led by Krevan and his band of cloaked knights, had ridden all day, then fled all night through the marshes: punting a pair of skiffs, trekking salt flats, crawling through a forest of vines and creepers. They dared not risk the main road through the swamps, a rutted overgrown path that wound around stagnant stretches of water and forded bubbling rivers with bridges of stout oak.

And it was good they had taken Krevan’s advice to abandon the road and seek out old trapper paths and animal trails. Lord Balger had not waited long before sending out his hunters, a mix of his own sworn Shadowknights and swamp trackers. Their pursuit proved dogged.

A full day and night stretched into one endless chase. Krevan set up traps and looped their course to confound pursuit. But the hunters had the advantage: the blessing of the god of the land. They followed with scent hounds Graced in alchemies of air, they bore weapons anointed in fire, and followed in swamp crawlers fueled as much by Balger’s fury as the god’s blood.

With such pursuit, the party had little chance to rest. But with dawn nearing, they were forced to ground, too exhausted to tackle the rolling mounds that marked the borderlands of the accursed Dell.

“What do you suppose is waiting beyond those hills?” Tylar asked.

Krevan shrugged.

“Will Balger have sent word ahead?” Tylar glanced to the east, where the skies were just beginning to lighten. “Will he have alerted Tashijan?”

Rogger snorted and pulled the spitted hare from the fire. He sniffed at its baked clay surface. “To raise the alarm, Balger would have to admit that he had you and let you escape. The bastard has too much pride for that. He’d lose face among the brigands and sly folk that make up his countrymen. Word won’t travel beyond his borders until you’re either dead or captured.”

Krevan lifted a hand, standing quickly with a rustle of cloak and shadow. “Someone comes.”

Tylar’s palm dropped to the hilt of his sword, a borrowed short sword with a bone grip.

Krevan stepped back, half-dissolving into shadow. A whistle of skit-swift sounded from his lips. It was answered by another… and another. He stepped back into the circle of firelight. “One of the scouts.”

As if drawn out by his words, shadows stretched and birthed the figure of a cloaked man. It was one of Krevan’s knights. The man stepped into the glow, shedding darkness from his form. Tylar recognized him as an older knight named Corram. While it took a keen eye to discern one masked and cloaked Shadowknight from another, years of living among such men and women had sharpened Tylar’s attention: to the cut and color of hair, to the shape and hue of eye, to the subtle scars and wrinkles. Even the manner of movement, rhythm of gait, and a knight’s carriage revealed clues.

Despite his advanced years, Corram moved with a stealth few could match. His eyes were ice, his hair a matching silver.

He nodded to Krevan. “The hunters have found our scent again. They move even now to close us off from the border mounds.”

“How quickly?”

Corram shook his head. “We have a quarter bell at best.”

Rogger swore and began kicking dirt atop the wood coals, dousing the flames. “Then let us not tarry.” He lifted the roasted hare and cracked the caked clay. The scent of sizzling fat and flesh wafted strongly. He handed the spitted hare to one of Krevan’s men. “Stake this little bait on the raft by the stream. The current will carry her off, drawing the scent hounds away from our path. I never knew a hound that wouldn’t follow a bit of roasted hare.”

With a nod, the knight stepped away.

The others quickly broke camp and set off.

Krevan again led the way. His ten knights flanked forward and behind, alert for attack. Rogger strode behind the leader of the Shadowknights. Tylar followed next with his short sword and kept Delia close to his side. She met his gaze for a breath. Her face was smeared with mud, a cheek scratched deeply, and her eyes were rimmed with fear.

“Stay with me,” he whispered. It was the only consolation he could offer.

It seemed enough. Taking a shuddering breath, she nodded.

The party stumbled through the tangle of bog brier that had been their bower and splashed across a sluicing riverbed, smelling of stagnant mud and root rot. As they climbed the far banks, the mounds rose before them, limned in the thin light of approaching dawn.

These borderlands, named the Kistlery Downs, were chalk-and-flint hills rising from the swamplands, a hard boundary separating the lowland swamps and bogs of Foulsham Dell from the central plains of the First Land. While the mounds were not high, they were steep sided, creating a maze of vales, hollows, and dells. Confounding the matter, the lowest portions remained shrouded in foul mist. It was as easy to get lost among them as it was to be trapped.

“Do you know the way through here?” Tylar asked.

“Rough enough,” Krevan answered.

Tylar found little comfort in his answer.

Rogger dropped beside Tylar. “The only known route through Kistlery Downs is the main road. And that will be guarded.”

Delia studied the white cliffs on either side of them. They glistened with bits of gypsum and quartz. “I heard that dark alchemists set up black foundries here, dug into the hillsides, spewing corruption and burned Graces from their subterranean chimneys.”

Rogger waved aside such worries. “Blood witches and Wyr-lords are the least of our concerns. They may haunt the Downs, but they’ll shy from us as much as we might wish to avoid them.”

“Why doesn’t Lord Balger rid the hills of their foul ilk?”

Rogger glanced back to her. “Where do you think His Largeness gets most of his revenues? More of Balger’s humours flow through the black fires here than are traded across borders.”

Tylar noted the deepening frown on Delia’s face. Sheltered in schools and selected young as a handmaiden to Meeryn, she’d had little chance to understand how trade among the lands was more often black rather than white. Whereas Tylar had direct dealings with the Gray Traders, those who plied the rivers of commerce that flowed beneath all else, traffickers in Dark Graces, stolen humours, and accursed weapons and tools. Tylar knew that the bale dagger he had stolen from Lord Balger, a blade that healed as fast as it cut, would fetch a significant ransom among the Traders.

And one time he would have made that deal.

As a young man, he had thought himself wise in the ways of the world, capable of moving within that gray territory between the light and the dark. He had raised coin through some shady profiteering. And while most of it went to help the orphanage where he had been raised, a fair amount still found its way into his own pocket.

He’d had a wedding to plan… to Kathryn.

He shoved this last thought aside.

But memories still flooded through him: of blue eyes looking deep into his own, of hushed breaths in the stillness of a long night, of tender lips, of promises both whispered and shouted aloud. And through it all, laughter flowed, light, yet coming from the heart.

All had been so easy, so very easy.

No longer.

He gripped his short sword, fingers firm and sure. While his body had been healed by Grace, his heart remained untouched. There was no blessing to heal that which had died long ago.

“How far to reach the border?” Delia asked, drawing his attention to his current plight.

“Another six reaches,” Rogger answered. “Barring any missteps-which is not hard in this skaggin’ place-we’ll reach the far plains a bell or two after sunrise. And if the morning sea mists have burned away, we might even catch a glimpse of Stormwatch Tower in the distance.”

Tashijan’s tallest spire.

“So close…” Delia mumbled.

She glanced over to Tylar. Both had listened silently to Krevan’s report on the current tidings at the Citadel. Argent ser Fields had been named the new warden. After hearing this, Delia had bowed her head. Tylar kept silent about the familial tie between Argent and Delia, father and estranged daughter. It was not his place to speak of it.

But all knew of Tylar’s tie to Argent’s new castellan, Kathryn ser Vail. His former betrothed. Eyes had carefully avoided his as this detail was recounted.

Only Delia had the courage to meet his gaze. Both their pasts had become tied together in one place. A place they must explore to solve a riddle uttered by a dying god.

Krevan stopped ahead, his form barely discernible in the fetid fog that filled the hollow spaces between the hills. With his head cocked, he waved them to his side.

“What-?” Delia began.

He shushed her. Silence pressed down upon them-then a wheezing rasp echoed from up ahead. It was not unfamiliar. They had heard the same telltale noise chasing them all night.

“How many?” Rogger asked in a matching wheeze.

“Too many,” Krevan answered under his breath.

He motioned them back. A fresh rasping rose behind them. This was no echo. They were being surrounded. From the darkness, Krevan’s knights coalesced, closing ranks.

“They’ve cut us off,” one of the knights hissed.

“What do we do?” Tylar asked, raising his sword, firming his stance.

Krevan glanced to him. “Run, fight, or die. Take your pick.”

Beyond Krevan’s shoulder, a tall spindly shape crept out of the fog. It moved on eight jointed legs, like some bronze metal spider, twice the height of a man. Each leg ended in a sharpened point, perfect for maneuvering through the muck and rot of the swamps, jabbing into logs and tree trunks for purchase, slipping in and out of the mud with ease.

A swamp crawler.

Tylar smelled the blood burning from exhaust flutes behind the mekanical crawler. Its two riders crouched in the central egg-shaped seat. One controlled the swamper, the other squatted with a crossbow. Both were deadly.

A bolt sliced through the fog, ripping through a fold of a knight’s shadowcloak. At the same time, one of the sharpened legs lashed out with a burr of mekanicals, nearly impaling the same knight. But a dance of cloak saved the man. Tylar recognized Corram-then the older knight vanished into deeper shadows.

Krevan grabbed his shoulder. “This way.”

His cloak billowed out to either side, sweeping out to encompass Tylar and Delia. Corram reappeared on their other side, offering the same protection to Rogger-but not before flinging out a dagger from a wrist sheath. The blade flashed in the misty starlight, slicing through the fog. It struck the lead rider in the eye.

The bronze mekanical faltered as its pilot fell back, dead in the riding sling. The crawler’s front legs crumpled, no longer fueled. The mekanical toppled. The second man tossed his crossbow and struggled to escape his own sling.

Tylar never saw the man’s fate as he was guided away. A crash and clatter of bronze echoed after them.

They fled back down the misted vale.

A new pair of crawlers blocked their retreat, moving in tandem, half-climbing the walls to either side, legs digging into the flinty hills. More movement stirred behind them.

Krevan led the way off to the side, to a narrow gorge between two hills. They had to proceed in single file. Corram kept to their rear.

“What about the other knights?” Delia asked.

Cries answered her, coming from behind them. The bronze spiders were finding these flies had teeth.

Still, Tylar knew that Balger had sent a full score of crawlers after them. Too many for the Shadowknights to handle. The others were only providing them breath to escape. But how much breath?

Already the baying of hounds carried to them. More hunters. The dogs’ keepers would not be far behind, armed with flaming swords and oiled fireballs in leather slings, capable of incinerating entire patches of forest to the ground.

“I guess those hounds weren’t interested in my fine rabbit stew,” Rogger mumbled.

Krevan suddenly grabbed Tylar and Delia and dragged them to one wall of the gorge. Corram did the same with Rogger against the far wall. Both knight and thief vanished under a wave of shadowcloak.

Overhead, bronze legs crested over the top of the gorge. Another crawler. It stopped, perched above them.

Krevan pulled Delia farther behind him. Tylar felt the tingle of Grace flowing through the Raven Knight’s cloth, keeping them hidden.

The seat lowered into the gorge, suspended by the legs. The pilot worked the controls, swiveling the cabin. The archer kept his crossbow fixed to his shoulder and scanned the gorge. He mostly concentrated back toward the valley.

The pilot settled the crawler in place. It looked as though they were staying. They must have been sent here to block this pass, pinching off retreat in this direction. Other crawlers were probably blocking other escape routes. The noose was tightening.

Krevan stirred. If any alarm was raised, they were doomed, trapped between the walls of the gorge.

Tylar closed his eyes, calculating in his head. He felt Krevan begin to step away. Tylar reached out and grabbed his elbow, warning the knight from rash action. Then Tylar slipped a hand to Krevan’s belt and relieved him of one of his daggers. He slid the blade through a fist, slicing skin. As blood and sweat anointed the blade at the same time, Tylar pictured flames, the sear of flesh. He felt the blade heat up in his fist.

Balancing the dagger in his fingers, he pushed from the wall, rolled out under the crawler’s cabin, and threw the dagger straight up. The blade struck where one of the legs joined the seat.

He dashed back to the wall, enveloped again by shadow and cloak.

“What…?” Krevan asked.

Tylar silenced him with a hiss.

Overhead, the crawler began to spew smoke from its flues. He prayed the strike of the dagger would be mistaken for a burp in the mekanicals. He watched the pilot struggle to hold his crawler. Its movements grew jerky and labored. More smoke billowed, followed by a cough of flame. The crawler lost its footing, tumbling forward. The pilot fought his controls. The cabin seat struck one of the gorge walls, jarring like a struck bell.

“Go,” Tylar urged and pointed deeper down the gorge.

With the hunters distracted by their foundering craft, Tylar and the others fled unseen up the gorge and away. Finally, Krevan spoke. “What did you do back there?”

“I cast a blessing upon their crawler. Using blood and sweat.”

Delia glanced back over her shoulder. “You cast heat?”

Tylar nodded. “Crawlers are fueled by fire alchemies. They steam hotly. It takes only a little extra heat to push the mekanicals beyond their limits, burning them out. The same can happen if you overwork them. I hoped that flaming out their mekanicals would be taken as simple bad luck.”

Krevan nodded. “And now those same hunters will guard our own path. They’ll hold their position and swear no one passed them.”

“Changing hunters into guardians,” Rogger said. “Not bad, Tylar. You’re becoming a right good alchemist.”

“I had a good teacher.” He nodded toward Delia, who shyly glanced forward.

Corram pointed ahead. “Where to now?”

Krevan forged deeper into the narrowing gorge. “Off to strike a bargain.”

“Where?” Tylar asked.

Krevan simply scowled.

Rogger answered, struggling a few steps ahead of Corram, his voice thick with distaste. “The Lair of the Wyr.”

As the sun rose, Tylar found the dawn brought little light. The cliffs were high and narrow, shrouded in mists, trapping them in eternal twilight. It seemed they had been marching for days. Tylar trudged after Krevan, Delia behind him, followed by Rogger and Corram. All sounds of battle had long grown silent.

No knight had returned, but Krevan had expressed no worry. “They know to lead the hunters astray, away from our path. We’ll regroup in Muddlethwait across the border.”

“That is, if we ever get out of these hills,” Rogger added.

Tylar glanced to the high walls. He was thoroughly lost. Even Krevan seemed to be losing his faith in his sense of direction, slowing their pace, pausing at crossroads among the maze of gorges.

“How much farther?” Delia asked. “Where is this Lair?”

Rogger moved closer, his voice an edgy whisper. “Child, we’ve been among the Wyr for the past full bell.”

Tylar tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt.

“They watch us even now,” Rogger said.

As if hearing his words, a rock crumbled from the cliff edge and skittered down the wall.

Krevan ignored it all and continued forward.

Tylar now eyed the crevices and side chutes with plain suspicion, sword pointed and ready. He had, of course, heard of the Lair, an assembly of Wyr, those who practiced arcane alchemies upon themselves, seeking some measure of corrupted Grace. It was whispered that an ultimate goal was sought by the Wyr: the creation of a perfect abomination, to birth a god from human flesh, to bring new divinity into the world from mortal union.

But in this quest, they created misshapen creatures, some raving, others wise beyond measure. And ultimately theirs was a mad goal, an impossibility. Even when gods lay down with a man or woman, no child was ever born from such a union. As Grace foreshortened the lives of the Hands who served their gods, such strong emanations destroyed this earliest spark of life. No child could be born into Grace. It could only be granted by a god.

Still, the Wyr-lords persisted, producing abomination and deformity. Their ilk, while mostly hidden away in the depths of the hinterlands, could be found throughout Myrillia.

And the true heart of all the Wyr was rumored to be hidden here.

The Lair.

At last the narrow gorge opened into a wide hollow, framed by the tallest of the mounds. In the center, a small pond shone in the thin light, rimmed in red algae and as dark as oil. It bubbled slowly and stank of sulfur that burned the nose.

A woman awaited them, carrying a baby in her arms, swaddled in a blanket. Flaxen haired and pale of complexion, the woman was tall, lithe of figure, generous of bust as was fitting a new mother. She seemed unsurprised by the visitors, but her face was uninviting.

“Leave your weapons,” Krevan said. He met Rogger’s eyes for a moment longer. “ All your weapons.”

Corram tugged free his sword belt and rested it atop a boulder. He shook back his cloak’s sleeves and undid a series of wrist sheaths, each housing three daggers, then did the same at each ankle.

And while this was an impressive array of weaponry, Rogger proved to be a regular armory: short sword, throwing daggers, razored stars, a flail, even a blowgun down one pant leg. It was surprising the thief could even walk upright.

Delia had only a single dagger, Tylar the one short sword.

Krevan was the last to disarm, pulling free his diamondpomelled sword and holding it before him, blade resting in his two palms as if offering a gift.

Tylar stared at the blade, seeing it for the first time. Along its silver length, a winged wyrm had been traced in gold, filigreed and detailed.

“Serpentfang,” he whispered in awe. He remembered Rogger’s claim that Krevan was actually Raven ser Kay, the Raven Knight of lore. Any attempt to question Krevan earlier had been answered by a cold stare. And Rogger refused to say more after his initial revelation.

Tylar had assumed Krevan was a descendant of that infamous Shadowknight, a man said to have died three centuries ago. But here was the very blade once said to have been borne by the Raven Knight. Serpentfang had been described in song and fable, depicted in tapestry and in oil.

While the blade was polished, any Shadowknight could recognize its age, its steel folded a thousand times. This was no replica given to some young lord upon a birthing day.

Without mistake, here was the very blade that slew the Reaper King.

And if this was indeed Serpentfang…

Tylar watched Krevan approach the lone woman by the lake. Halfway to her position, the Raven Knight dropped to one knee, lowered the blade to the chalky soil, and stepped past it, abandoning a prize that could ransom an entire god-realm.

Only then did the woman stir, stepping into Krevan’s shadow. The knight towered over her, blocking the view but not her words.

“Raven ser Kay,” she said, her voice sibilant and high, full of malice and amusement. “What brings you into the Lair again? Last we met, you swore to kill me.”

Krevan kept a wary stance. “Your memory is long, Wyrd Bennifren.”

“Eighty years is not long to either of us, now, is it?”

Krevan remained silent.

“Again, what brings you here?” she asked.

“We wish to buy passage through the Lair’s burrow.”

A long silence answered his request. Then slowly she spoke. “For you… and the godslayer.”

Krevan attempted a lie. “Don’t tell me you believe such nonsense?” He punctuated it with a harsh snort.

“Perhaps not, but Lord Balger certainly does. We know the Downs are overrun with crawlers, scent hunters, and worse. Two of your knights met their ends among the hollows. The rest are hotly pursued. Yet you bring the true prize to my doorstep.”

Krevan had not moved, yet a dark cloud of cloak and shadow seemed to swell from his shoulders. “You bear no special love for Lord Balger

… or Tashijan. To keep this godslayer as a prize would bring the full wrath of both upon the Lair.”

“No doubt of that, but I would see this godslayer for myself,” the woman finished, “before we settle on a price.”

Krevan glanced back to Tylar. He was waved forward.

Rogger hissed at his ear as he stepped away. “Speak with a cautious tongue. Deals among the Wyr are struck upon one’s word.”

Tylar moved to join Krevan. Stepping around the large knight’s billowing form, he again spotted the woman. She leaned her weight on one leg, throwing out her hip, carrying her swaddled babe there. She wore a bored expression.

“So this is the godslayer?”

Tylar’s brow pinched. The woman’s mouth had not moved as she spoke. In fact, her entire manner-from slack lips to glazed eyes-struck Tylar as dull and mindless.

“Bring him closer.” Pale movement drew his eye. He spotted a tiny white arm beckon to him. It was the baby boy. The infant’s eyes were fixed on his face. “Tylar de Noche,” the babe said, thick with disdain. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Tylar found no words, mouth agape.

Krevan covered for him. “May I introduce Wyrd Bennifren, Lord of the Lair and free leader of the Wyrdling clans.”

“Be welcome, Godslayer.” The baby smiled up at him, a horrible toothless visage, eyes wizened with age. “Let us strike a bargain for your life.”

Tylar paced the confines of the small cave. Their accommodations were surprisingly pleasant. Flames crackled in a small hearth carved into the wall, the smoke fluming away through a buried chimney. Underfoot, thick sheepskin rugs warmed the natural stone floor. Torches blazed on all four walls, illuminating the tapestries of Kashmiri silk woven with gold-and-silver thread. He could easily be in the greeting chamber of some lord’s manor house, rather than deep beneath the chalk hills of Kistlery Downs.

“How much longer must we wait?” Tylar finally blurted.

“The Wyr will not be rushed,” Krevan said. He sat hunched on a bench. The room had no shadows in which to hide or draw strength, and clearly this made him ill at ease and seemed to age him.

His fellow knight, Corram, simply leaned against one wall, rubbing a wrist where his sheathed daggers once rested.

Seated on a chair by the hearth, Rogger chewed a stubby briar pipe, puffing out clouds of redolent smoke through his beard. “Bennifren is actually treating us-or rather should I say you ”-he glanced pointedly at Krevan-“much more courteously than I would have imagined.”

“What past do you two share?” Delia asked. She also sat by the fire, but in a deep, cushioned chair. She had sunk gratefully into it. Tylar had almost forgotten Delia’s past as a handmaiden to Meeryn, where such luxuries were easily at hand. She had abandoned so much, a life of comfort and grace, to accompany him on this hard road.

Krevan stared at her, then away. An imperceptible movement of his wrist toward Rogger indicated it was permissible to speak of this matter.

The thief took up the mantle with aplomb. “Now that’s a tale.” He stood up to warm his backside by the fire. “But before that one could be told, one must tell the story of the Raven Knight. One not sung by minstrels, nor written in the great recountings of history.”

Tylar stopped his pacing and gave Rogger his full attention. “And we should begin such a story at the beginning-with the death of Raven ser Kay. Some three hundred years now, is it not?” Rogger glanced to Krevan, who only glared back, eyes flashing with Grace.

“Yes,” Rogger continued. “Raven ser Kay did not die a noble death on some battlefield, but instead met his end in bed, of an affliction of the heart. Or more specifically, a dagger to the heart, wielded by a concubine who shared his sheets. A comely lass of great beauty, I’ve heard, but one whose family ties could be traced to the Reaper King. An unfortunate discovery made after she used that same dagger to slay herself.”

Delia sat straighter. “Such is the tale sung by balladeers.”

“A truly tragic end, one embellished with details over the centuries, making it a grand tale of love, revenge, and honor. But where such ballads end, the true story begins.” Rogger paused to puff on his pipe, then continued. “For Raven ser Kay was not like other men

… There was a reason he survived so many battles. He had a secret he kept from the wardens and castellans of Tashijan. A secret that a comely assassin revealed upon the point of her dagger.”

“What secret is that?” Tylar asked as Rogger paused again.

“He has no heart.”

“What?”

“There is a reason he is titled Krevan the Merciless. It comes from his much older but truer name: Krevan the heartless.”

Tylar shook his head. “What foolishness is this?”

“He speaks the truth,” Krevan grumbled from his bench. “I was born with no heart.”

“How…?” Delia asked, growing paler.

Rogger explained. “Exposed as a babe in the womb to black alchemies, his blood was corrupted. It is a living thing, flowing on its own through his flesh and organs, needing no muscled pump. It is this same corruption that allowed him to survive the assassin’s blow. You can’t stab what isn’t there.”

Tylar stared at Krevan with new eyes.

“But such a wound could not be hidden. His secret was laid bare. He was given a choice by the warden at that time. Be stripped and humiliated… or allow the Raven Knight to die.”

Rogger glanced again to Krevan. “So he walked away, leaving his past to the balladeers and historians to pick and chew over like dogs on bone. He started a new life-not unlike you, Tylar-among the low and forgotten. Out of the seed of his pain grew the Black Flaggers.”

Tylar sensed corners of the story left untold, but he did not press.

“But how did he come to be corrupted in the first place?” Delia asked. “To be born without a heart?”

The answer came from the doorway. Wyr-lord Bennifren entered, carried by the same woman. “Because he was born here… in the Lair.”

Delia covered her mouth in shock.

“This is his true home,” the ancient baby said in that sickly sibilant tone of his. “He is born of the Wyr.”

Krevan gained his feet. “One does not choose a birthplace, but one can choose a life thereafter. I renounced this place long ago.”

“Blood is always blood.”

Krevan spat on the floor. “And shite is forever shite.”

The knight’s outburst only amused the Wyr-lord. Dark laughter flowed. Krevan seemed to sense he had been drawn deliberately out. He straightened and glared. “What of the bargain? Will it cost me more of my blood?”

“That bought Allison’s freedom eighty years ago. You struck a hard bargain. I still miss your mother.” He reached up and squeezed the breast of the woman who carried him. There was no reaction. “She had the sweetest milk of all my cows. Whatever did become of her after you left here? Died I heard. Drowned. Was it an accident or did she still have a bit of will left in her? Perhaps she missed her former life.”

“What you did to her…” Krevan’s reaction was not an outburst, but a coldly spoken promise. “I will still kill you for that.”

A tiny arm waved away his threat. “She let you flee the Lair. She had to be punished. But I’m surprised it took two centuries for you to finally come looking for her. Who’s to blame for that?”

Krevan’s eyes narrowed.

Tylar read the pain there, deep rooted and old. He had to end this. He spoke up, drawing the Wyr-lord’s attention. “Is there a deal to be struck here or not?”

“To the point,” Bennifren said, ancient eyes staring out of the pudgy, soft face. “Very good. The council has conferred. We will allow you safe passage through our burrows.”

“And the price?” Tylar asked.

“One you can live with, I believe… and that is the point of all this, is it not?”

Tylar smelled sour milk wafting as the Wyr-lord was carried closer.

“For ages upon end,” he continued, “the Wyr clans have sought divinity in flesh. We have made many strides toward that end. The black knight who led you here was but one success, a mortal man almost unbound by time. But he does age, like myself, only much more slowly. A century or more and he will expire, as will I. That is, if he does not die sooner of severe wounds or sickness like any man. We have some manner to go before we can breed godhood out of mortal flesh-but we grow closer with every passing birth.”

Tylar had seen the results of such births over the years: children without limbs, creatures of misshapen flesh, Grace-maddened beasts. But the worst were those like the abomination before him. Twisted by alchemies in the womb, yet wise beyond reason. They were dangerous and cunning.

He would have to tread lightly. He had no misconceptions about the Wyr, and they surely were not blind to his own abilities: from the Grace flowing through his body to the smoky daemon held in check. Yet they allowed him into their Lair without fear. He did not doubt that eyes watched from unseen places, and safeguards were in place to kill them all at the slightest provocation.

“Then what do you want from us?” Tylar asked again.

“As payment for saving your flesh, we ask only that you leave a little of it behind.”

“What do you mean?”

The eyes of the babe flashed brighter. “You have been blasted by Grace, had it infused into your being. One such as yourself could help us achieve our ancient goal in a single generation.

“We want nothing more-and nothing less-than a single sample of each of your eight humours. Leave that behind and passage will be granted to all of you.”

Tylar considered this offer. It was plain enough. He began to open his mouth, ready to agree.

Rogger mumbled around his pipe, the words barely reaching Tylar’s ears, “Bargain, damn you…”

Tylar realized he had been too ready to seal the deal. “You ask for much,” he stumbled out. “I say my blood alone should buy us passage.”

“What you offer so freely we could perhaps take by force,” Bennifren countered, eyes squinting with threat.

“But what will it cost you? You know I am not without weapons.”

“Your daemon…” the Wyr-lord sneered, a disturbing expression on a babe’s face.

Tylar nodded. Let them believe he could wield the creature like a sword. “You would never find your way out of our burrows. We have traps that can kill even a daemon-cursed man. And what of your friends? Do you throw their lives away so easily?”

Tylar sighed and countered. “Then I’ll offer blood and both biles.”

“Shite and piss? That’s how you sweeten the deal. I’m not moved.”

“Then make a counter.”

“I will leave you tears and sweat, and take all else.”

Tylar narrowed his eyes. The Wyr birthed abominations in their drive for divinity. They would want his seed more than anything else. He suspected it was this very reason he was still alive. While the Wyr might harvest most humours from his corpse, his seed would die with him.

Yet now that he considered it, this was the one humour he would keep to himself. He would not have some twisted child born from the seed of his loins. Not among the Wyr. He had only to consider Krevan’s story to know better.

“You may have all my humours except one,” Tylar said.

“You wish to restrain your seed from us,” the babe said, as if reading his mind. “Is this not so?”

Tylar felt a chill despite the hearth. Dark intelligence shone from the little one’s eyes. He sensed a trap being set but had no choice but to step forward. He nodded his agreement.

“We will allow this.”

Tylar could not hold back his surprise and spoke too soon. “Then we have a bargain.”

“Almost… we will allow you to restrain your seed, for now, to keep it safe where it now resides. But we demand a future claim.”

Tylar frowned at this.

“Before you die, you must forfeit your seed to the Wyr.”

He shook his head. “Death can come suddenly, without warning. I cannot promise time to cast my seed.”

The Wyr-lord nodded. “We accept this risk, but in doing so, we require one last concession to seal the bargain.”

“And what is that?”

“One of the Wyr will journey with you from here, to safeguard our claim, to keep its bearer secure.”

“You wish to send a guard along with us?”

“That is our last and best offer.”

Tylar glanced to Rogger. He had remained silent. His only assistance now was a shrug.

Tylar faced the Wyr-lord. He still felt the presence of the noose, but they had no other option.

With a deep sigh, he nodded. “We accept your bargain.”

“So it is spoken, so it is bound,” the lord finished. The woman turned, obeying some unseen signal, driven and ridden like a barebacked horse. “Meet your guardian.”

Tylar prepared himself to face some heaving monstrosity, some muscled mix of loam-giant and Wyr-blasted corruption.

The guardian stepped into the doorway.

Tylar’s eyes widened in shock.

She was as tall as Krevan, stately of limb, decked in deer-skin from boots to furred collar, cut low between her ample breasts. The curves of her body seemed to ripple as she entered the chamber, moving like some feral black leopard. Her ebony hair fell straight to her shoulders, unbraided, untamed. Her skin was the hue of bitternut: dark, but mixed with cream. Her black eyes bore the slightest narrowed pinch, accentuating her feline grace. Her lips were full, nose narrow.

Her calm gaze swept the room and settled on Tylar. A perfume of crushed lilies carried in with her… accompanied by a deeper, muskier scent that quickened Tylar’s breath as he attempted to capture it.

“May I introduce Wyr-mistress Eylan,” the babe-lord said.

Rogger mumbled behind Tylar, “You’d better keep a close eye on that seed of yours. Something tells me you might be giving it sooner than you expected… and willingly at that.”

So here was the Wyr-lord’s trap.

Tylar watched Eylan bow, moving with such unassuming grace.

A trap baited most beautifully.

Deep underground, Tylar stepped from the steaming chamber where a hot spring bubbled. Smelling of salt and iron, the air had seared and drawn sweat from all his pores. Wearing only a breechcloth, he shivered as he entered the neighboring cell, ready to let his sweat be harvested by Wyrd Bennifren’s alchemist.

“Tylar…”

The new voice startled him, unexpected as it was.

Delia stood in the chamber.

He half-covered his nakedness as she crossed toward him.

Past her shoulder, at the entrance, he spotted the thicklimbed giant with the bony brow-his guard-and the wizened old alchemist who wheezed constantly. In the company of these two Wyr-men, Tylar had already emptied bowel and bladder. He had spat until his mouth was paste and had sniffed ground nettlecorn until his nose dripped heavily. Everything had been collected in crystal receptacles, ready for some dark purpose, the thought of which unnerved Tylar.

Delia spoke when she reached his side, glancing askance at his body. “I’ve convinced them to allow me to harvest your last three humours. Blood and tears are especially delicate to collect. And as a chosen Hand, I’ve the most experience.”

He nodded.

She smelled of sweetwater and lemon. Clearly she had been allowed to bathe. Her hair was damp and combed back behind her ears. It looked even blacker, almost oiled. And she had changed out of her muddy wear and into a soft shift of green linen, belted at the waist with a braid of bleached leathers. The shift clung fetchingly to her. He noted how fair shaped she was: apple-sized breasts, slender waist.

So young… too young, he reminded himself. Still, he could not discount how she shortened his breath, especially now. With the mud of the road washed from her, she came to him less like a fellow companion and more like a woman.

She stepped to his side and unrolled a silk scarf atop a table, revealing an array of silver and crystal utensils. She picked up a glass blade and crystal cup. She waved him to the table. “Lift your arms.”

He did as she instructed. “You don’t have to do this…”

“I served Meeryn,” she said. “I will serve her still.”

She drew the dull edge of the blade along his heat-dampened skin, from shoulder to waist, scraping the sweat from his body. She deftly collected the runoff into the tiny cup, then continued across his back, under his arms, down his legs, not unlike a stableman brushing down a sweated horse.

But she was no stableman.

As she stepped around to work his chest, he felt himself stir and fought against it, willing himself to distraction. But she continued her work, moving the blade up and down his chest, scraping delicately and smoothly.

Unbidden, a shiver trembled through him.

She finally seemed to note the flush to his skin. She glanced up to his eyes and saw something that widened her lashes. She lowered the blade. “I… I think that will be enough.”

Gratefully, he slipped into a cloak, covering his half-naked form before turning back to her.

Delia set up for the next harvest, laying out a silver lancet and twisting up a cord of silk.

Tylar cleared his throat, needing to break the silence. “Delia,” he began, his voice coming out strained. “You’ve done much to get me here, given up much, risked more. But now that I’ve reached the First Land-”

Without looking up, she cut him off. “I’m not leaving your side. Meeryn is inside you. She is still my duty.”

“What’s inside me is not Meeryn,” he pressed. “She died.”

“No.” Delia continued her preparation.

Tylar took a deep breath, glanced to the door, then back to Delia. He lowered his voice. “What is inside me is not spellcast daemon but one of the naethryn.”

Delia glanced up again, eyes narrowed.

Tylar moved closer. “One of the undergods.”

“How do you know this?”

He balked at telling her about his dream. “I just know.”

Delia motioned for him to kneel before her. He did. Their knees now touched. She sat silent for a long breath, her brow crinkled. “I should have considered that possibility,” she finally mumbled.

Tylar frowned. “What do you mean?”

She took his arm and rested his hand in her lap, palm up, then tied the silk at his elbow. “When the gods were sundered, they were split into three parts: the gods of flesh here, and their counterparts up in the aether and down in the naether. Meeryn had spoken of how she could sense her other parts, lost to her, but still there, tied ethereally and eternally.”

“Until now.”

Delia nodded. “Somehow Meeryn, as she died, must have used this tie to draw a part of herself into you. Her naethryn self.”

Tylar glanced down to the black palm print.

Delia ran her fingers over his forearm.

He shivered again. And it wasn’t from Delia’s touch this time. He considered what lay inside him… not just any naethryn, but Meeryn’s undergod. What did it all mean?

Delia concentrated on her work, a lock of hair hanging over one eye.

Tylar reached up and brushed the stray bit of hair back in place. It was a reflexive gesture, from another time, another man… another woman. He quickly dropped his hand.

“This vessel will do,” she said, and gripped his wrist, pressing deeply as before, numbing his hand. She slid the lancet into his arm, then caught the flow into another repostilary.

Tylar looked away.

“If Meeryn’s naethryn is inside you,” Delia continued, “then I cannot leave your side.”

“Why? You swore no oath to her undergod.”

“I did not serve Meeryn upon oath alone. I loved her… as did all her Hands. She died to bring you this gift.” A tremble entered Delia’s voice. “I will serve its bearer like I served her.”

“I asked no oath of you.”

A touch of firebalm flared from his wrist, marking the end of the bloodletting. Delia’s next words were so soft Tylar barely heard them. “As with Meeryn, it’s no oath that binds me…”

He stared into her eyes. They glistened more brightly in the torchlight.

“Oy there!” a voice shouted from the door. It was the crook-backed alchemist. “Enough jabbering. Be quick about your harvest. I’m late for my dinner.”

Delia placed aside the blood-filled jar and called back to the Wyr-man, “All we have left are tears.” She set about preparing for the next harvest, picking up a glass straw to wick his tears, then pinched a bit of salted powder to sting the eyes.

All we have left are tears.

Tylar considered their future, all their futures. He suspected no truer words had ever been spoken.

Tylar stumbled along with the others. They had been blindfolded for over two bells, guided like sheep through the warren of tunnels beneath the Kistlery Downs. He had at first balked at being put at such a disadvantage, but Krevan had voiced his unconcern. “The Wyr will not break an oath once sworn.”

Tylar had honored his side of the bargain, giving up his humours. Even now he shied his thoughts from what ill-use they would serve for the alchemists of the Wyr.

Tylar felt a freshening breeze on his cheek, coming from ahead. The end of the tunnels. He found his steps hurrying. The Wyr-man who gripped his elbow and guided his steps forced Tylar to slow. He heard the creak of some ancient wooden gear and the twang of strained ropes. Another trap was being undone. This last must guard the easternmost entrance to the Lair.

Tylar was anxious to be free of the blindfold and free of the tunnels. As they had traversed the Lair, he had heard strange cries, howls, and low mewlings echoing up from the deeper levels of the Lair. During such moments, he was glad for the blindfold. His guide moved him forward again-into the face of the fresh breeze.

In four steps, he sensed the world open around him. The press of stone lifted, filled by the noises of meadow and forest: the twitter of swifts, the cronk of a frog, the slight rustle of water over stone. Somewhere far ahead, a dog barked, echoing up from below.

He was led another hundred steps, moving up and down, stumbling in his haste.

Finally, he was pulled to a stop. The hand on his elbow vanished. He stood for a moment, unsure where to move.

Delia’s voice called out. “Tylar… Rogger…”

Tylar reached toward her voice, bumped into someone, grabbed hold.

“Watch what you’re a-grabbing there,” Rogger’s voice erupted.

Tylar let go and ripped away his blindfold. He blinked back the dazzle. The others were doing the same. Krevan already stood a few steps away with Corram, at the edge of a steep incline. Their weapons were piled at their feet.

Tylar glanced around the sparsely wooded glen. All the Wyr were gone… except for Eylan. She stood a few steps back, stoic, staring in the same direction as Krevan and Corram. The others must have retreated to the Lair’s hidden entrance, keeping its location unknown.

Tylar crossed to Krevan, along with Rogger and Delia.

The knight pointed an arm.

Ahead stretched an open plain, broken into green pasture-lands and patches of crops. A small township lay not far away, by a small freshwater lake. Muddlethwait. It was where they were to rendezvous with any of the surviving knights.

But that was not where Krevan pointed.

The sun, high overhead, shone clear to the distant Strait of Parting. Near the horizon, a steeple seemed to float above the thin layer of sea mist and cloud. Tylar would recognize that sight anywhere. It had called him home many a day.

Stormwatch.

The highest tower of Tashijan.

“How long to reach there?” Delia asked.

“We should have horses in Muddlethwait awaiting us,” Krevan answered. “If we ride hard, we’ll reach Tashijan in the dead of night. A good time to seek entry.”

“Good or not,” Rogger said, “it’s the dead part that worries me.”

Tylar stared across the plains. Now in sight of the tower, the enormity of their task threatened to overwhelm him.

Rogger touched his shoulder. “Are you ready for this?”

He had no choice. Both his past and future lay ahead of him.

“Let’s go.”