The Black Road

TWENTY-ONE

Perched high on a northern hill overlooking Bramwell and the Church of the Prophet of the Light to the south, Darrick scanned the imposing edifice with the spyglass he'd managed to hang on to even over the worst of the past year. A quarter-mile distant, the church was lighted, festooned with lanterns and torches as worshippers continued their pilgrimage into the structure.

Farther out into the harbor, several ships remained lighted as well. Along with the influx of worshippers wanting to try their luck at getting to walk along the Way of Dreams, smugglers had also seen opportunities to reap financial gain by supplying the populace with black market goods. Guards stayed with the ships during all watches, and it still wasn't unusual for some of them to be attacked and raided by pirates. Thieves picked the pockets of worshippers and robbed them in the alleys.

Bramwell was fast becoming one of the most dangerous port cities on the Gulf of Westmarch.

Darrick lowered the spyglass and rubbed his aching eyes. It had taken the group almost three weeks to reach Bramwell as they journeyed down from the north. It seemed that winter had followed on their heels, blowing in on cold gusts.

Seven men had died at Ellig Barrows's home, and two more had been permanently crippled during the attack of the lezantis and couldn't continue. Seventeen men remained of Taramis Volken's original group of demon hunters.

Seventeen, Darrick mused as the cold air cut through the forest around him, against hundreds and maybe thousandsthat Kabraxis has inside the church. The odds were overwhelming, and their chances of success seemed nonexistent. Even an army wouldn't stand a chance.

And yet Darrick couldn't turn away. There was no fear left in him, and no anticipation, either. For the last three weeks, his father's voice had been inside his head-during his waking moments as well as his sleep-telling him how worthless he was. His dreams had been nightmares, looping segments of events that had transpired in the small barn behind the butcher's shop. Worst of all had been the memories of Mat Hu-Ring bringing him food and medicines, being there to let Darrick know he wasn't alone-yet all the while he had been trapped. Until he had made his escape.

Brush stirred behind Darrick. He shifted slightly, his hand dropping to the hilt of the long sword across his thighs. The blade was naked and ready as he faded into the long shadows of the approaching night.

A dim sunset, a thin slice of ocher and amber, like grapes smeared through pale ale, hung in the west. The last dregs of the day managed to cast a silvery sheen over the harbor, making the ships and boats look like two-dimensional black cutouts on the water. The light barely threaded through the city and seemed not to touch the Church of the Prophet of the Light.

Darrick released his breath slowly so it wouldn't be heard, emptying his lungs completely so he could draw in a full breath if he needed to go into action. The demon hunters had camped within the forest high in the mountains for the last two days and not been disturbed. In the higher reaches where they were, where the cold could reach them, game had been chased up from the foothills by the tent city that had sprung up outside Bramwell and was plentiful.

Maybe it was only a deer, Darrick thought. Then he dismissed the possibility. The sound he'd heard had been too calm, too measured.

"Darrick," Rhambal called.

"Aye," Darrick said in a low voice.

Tracking the sound of Darrick's voice, Rhambal crept closer. The warrior was a big man but moved as quietly as a woodlands creature through the forest. A square-cut beard framed his broad face, and he had a cut across his nose and beneath his left eye from a lezanti claw that hadn't quite healed during the past three weeks. Exposure to the harsh weather and not being able truly to rest had slowed the healing. Several of the other warriors bore such marks as well.

"I've come to get you," Rhambal said.

"I'd prefer to stay out here," Darrick said.

The big man hesitated.

Despite the fact that Darrick was the only one among them who could carry Hauklin's enchanted blade, Darrick's lack of interest in getting to know the other warriors had made him suspect to them. If it hadn't been for Taramis Volken's leadership, Darrick thought the warriors would have abandoned him or forced him to leave.

Of course, without Taramis Volken, the quest to break into the Church of the Prophet of the Light would have been abandoned. Only Taramis's charisma and his own unflinching courage kept them moving forward.

"Taramis has returned from the town," Rhambal said. "He wants everyone to gather and talk. He thinks he has a way into the church for us."

Darrick had known that the demon hunter had returned. He'd watched Taramis come up the mountainside less than an hour before.

"When do we go?" Darrick asked.

"Tonight."

The answer didn't surprise Darrick.

"And I for one am ready to do this thing," Rhambal said. "Crossing all this distance from the north and haunted by nightmares the way we've been, I'm ready to get shut of it all one way or another."

Darrick didn't reply. The nightmares had been a constant in all their lives. Even though Ellig Barrows andTaramis had carefully constructed a warding around the group that prevented Kabraxis's scrying on them, they all knew their lives were forfeit if they were caught. The demon had identified them. Several times during the last few weeks, they'd barely escaped patrols of warriors as well as herds of demonic-forged creatures that hunted them.

The group hadn't been able to escape the nightmares, though. Taramis had said that he was certain the night terrors were inspired by an insidious spell that they hadn't been able to escape. Not a warrior among the group avoided them, and the three weeks of sleepless nights and private hells had taken their toll. A few of the warriors had even suggested that the nightmares were a curse, that they'd never be free of them.

Palat Shires, one of the oldest warriors among them, had tried to leave the group, unable to bear whatever it was that had haunted him. Darrick had heard whispers that Palat had once been a pirate, and as vicious a killer as any might fear to meet, till Taramis had exorcised the lesser demon that had crawled into Palat's mind from the enchanted weapon he carried and almost driven him insane with bloodlust. Still, even though he knew it had been the demon's possession of him that had caused him to do such horrible things, Palat had never been truly able to forgive himself for the murders and maiming he had committed. But he had sworn himself to Taramis's cause.

Three days after he'd left the group, Palat had returned. All knew from his haggard look that he had failed to escape the nightmares. Two days later, in the still hours near dawn, Palat had slashed his wrists and tried to kill himself. Only one of the other warriors, unable to sleep, had prevented Palat's death. Taramis had healed the old warrior as much as he could, then they'd holed up for four days to weather out a rain squall and let Palat regain his lost strength.

"Come on," Rhambal said. "There's stew still in a pot back there, and Taramis brought up loaves of bread andhoneyed butter. There's even a sack of apple cakes because he was in such a generous mood." A wide grin split the warrior's face, but it didn't get past the fatigue that showed there.

"What about a sentry?" Darrick asked.

"We've been here two nights before this," Rhambal said. "Hasn't anyone come close to us in all that time. There's no reason to think it's going to happen in the next hour."

"We're leaving in the next hour?"

Rhambal nodded and squinted toward the dimming of the day. "As soon as true night hits and before the moon comes into full. Only a fool or a desperate man would be out in the chill of this night."

Reluctantly, because it meant being around the warriors and seeing the damage the harsh journey and the sleepless nights had wrought on them, Darrick stood and crept through the forest, heading higher up the mountainside. The heavy timber blocked most of the north wind that ravaged the mountain.

The campsite was located in a westward-facing cul-de-sac of rock near the peak of the mountain. The cul-de-sac was a small box of stone that stood up from the scrub brush and wind-bent pine trees.

The campfire was that in name only. No flames leapt up around piles of wood to warm the warriors gathered there. Only a heap of orange-glowing coals sheathed amid white and gray ash took the barest hint of the chill away. A pot of rabbit stew sat in the coals and occasionally bubbled.

The warriors sat around the campfire, but it was more because there was so little room in the cul-de-sac than out of any vain hope that the coals might stave off the cold. The horses stood at the back of the canyon, their breaths feathering the air with gray plumes, their long coats frosted over. The animals filled the cul-de-sac with the scent of wet horse and ate the long grass that the warriors had harvested for them earlier.

Taramis sat nearest the campfire, his legs crossed under him. The dim orange glow of the coals stripped the shadowsfrom his face and made him look feverish. His eyes met Darrick's, and he nodded in greeting.

Holding his hands out over the coals, the sage said, "I can't guarantee you the success of our foray this night, but I will tell you that it is warmer down in Bramwell than it is up on this mountain."

The warriors laughed, but it was more out of politeness than real humor.

Rhambal took a seat beside Darrick, then picked up two tin cups from their meager store of utensils by the campfire. The big warrior dipped both cups into the stew they'd made from vegetables and leaves they could find and three unwary hares caught just before sunset. After pulling the cups back from the stewpot, Rhambal dragged a large finger along their sides to clean them, then popped his finger into his mouth.

Despite his fatigue and the feeling of ill ease that clung to him, Darrick accepted the cup of stew with a thankful nod. The warmth of the stew carried through the tin cup to his hands. He held it for a time, just soaking up the warmth, then started to drink it before it cooled too much. The bits of rabbit meat in the stew were tough and stringy.

"I've found a way into the church," Taramis announced.

"A place as big as that," Palat grumbled, "it should be as full of holes as my socks." He held up one of the socks that he'd been drying on a stick near the campfire. The garment was filled with holes.

"It is full of holes," Taramis agreed. "A year ago, Master Sayes arrived in Bramwell and began the Church of the Black Road from the back of a caravan. That sprawl of buildings that makes up the church now was built in sections, but it was built well. There are secret passages honeycombing the church, used by Master Sayes and his acolytes, as well as the guards. But the church is well protected."

"What about the sewers?" Rhambal asked. "We'd talked about getting into the building through the sewers."

"Mercenaries guard the sewer entrances," Taramis answered. "They also guard the underground supply routes into the building."

"Then where's this way you're talking about?" Palat asked.

Taramis took a small, charred stick from the teeth of the dying coals. "They built the church too fast, too grand, and they didn't allow for the late-spring flooding. All the building along the shore, including new wells to feed the pools and water reservoirs inside the church, created problems."

The sage drew a pair of irregular lines to represent the river, then a large rectangle beside it. He added another small square that thrust out over the river.

"Where the church hangs out over the river here," Taramis continued, "offering grand parapets where worshippers can wait to get into the next service and look out over the city as well as be impressed by the size of the church, the river has eroded the bank and undermined the plaza supports, weakening them considerably."

Accepting the chunk of bread smothered in honey butter that Rhambal offered, Darrick listened to Taramis and ate mechanically. His mind was full of the plan that the sage sketched in the dirt, prying and prodding at the details as they were revealed.

"One of the problems they had in constructing that parapet that was more vanity than anything else," Taramis continued, "was that the pilings for the parapet had to be laid so that they missed one of the old sewer systems the church had outgrown. Though the church's exterior may look polished and complete, the land underneath hasn't improved much beyond the quagmire it was that persuaded the local populace not to build there."

"So what are you thinking?" Palat asked.

Taramis gazed at the drawing barely lit by the low orange glow of the coals. "I'm thinking that with a little luck and the theft of one of those boats out there, we'll have a way into the church tonight as well as a diversion."

"Tonight?" Rhambal asked.

The sage nodded and looked up, meeting the gaze of every man in front of him. "The men I talked to down in Bramwell's taverns this afternoon said that the church services go on for hours even after nightfall."

"That's something you don't always see," Corrigor said. "Usually a man working the field or a fishing boat, he's looking for a warm, dry place to curl up after the sun sets. He's not wanting a church service."

"Most church services," Taramis said, "aren't giving away healing or luck that brings a man love or wealth or power."

"True," Corrigor said.

"So we go tonight," Taramis said. "Unless there's someone among us who would rather wait another night." He looked at Darrick as he said that.

Darrick shook his head, and the other men all answered the same. Everyone was tired of waiting.

"We rested up last night," Rhambal said. "If I rest any more, I'm just going to get antsy."

"Good." Taramis smiled grimly, without mirth and with perhaps a hint of fear. Despite the sage's commitment to hunting demons and the loss of his family, he was still human enough to be afraid of what they were going to attempt.

Then, in a calm and measured tone, Taramis told them the plan.

A light fog shrouded the river, but lanterns and torches along the banks and aboard the ships at anchorage in front of the warehouses and taverns burned away patches of the moist, cottony gray vapor. Men's voices carried over the sound of the wind in the rigging and the loose furls of sailcloth. Other men sang or called out dirty limericks and jokes.

Stone bridges crossed the river in two places, and both of them were filled with people walking from one bank to the other in search of food or drink. Some of the people were tourists, whiling away the time till the church let out and thenext service began. Others were thieves, merchants, and guardsmen. The prostitutes were the loudest, yelling offers to the sailors and fishermen aboard their boats.

Darrick followed Taramis along the shore toward the cargo ship that the sage had selected as their target. Blue Zephyr was a squat, ugly cargo ship that held the rancid stench of whale oil. Not a sailor worth his salt would want to crew aboard her because she was such a stinkpot, Darrick knew, but she could guarantee a small crew a decent profit for their efforts.

Three men remained on board the small cargo ship. The captain and the rest of the crew had gone into the taverns along Dock Street. But careful observation of the crew revealed that they also had a bottle on board the ship and gathered in the stern to drink it.

The thieves and smugglers in Bramwell wouldn't want Blue Zephyr' s cargo, Darrick knew. The barrels of whale oil were too heavy to steal easily or escape with from the harbor.

Without breaking his stride, Taramis reached the bottom of the gangplank leading up to the cargo ship. The sage started up the gangplank without pause. Darrick trailed after him, heart beating rapidly in his chest as his boots thudded against the boarding ramp.

The three sailors gathered in the cargo ship's stern turned at once. One of the men grabbed a lantern sitting on the plotting table and shined it toward them.

"Who goes there?" the sailor with the lantern asked.

The other two sailors filled their hands with swords and took up defensive positions.

"Orloff," Taramis said, walking toward the men without hesitation.

Darrick split off from the sage, surveying the rigging and deciding in the space of a drawn breath which canvases to use and how best to free them. Only four other men among the sage's warriors had any real experience aboard masted ships, and they all had considerably less than he did.

"I don't know no Orloff," the sailor with the lantern said. "Mayhap ye got the wrong ship there, mate."

"I've got the right ship," Taramis assured the man. He closed on them, walking with a confident gait. "Captain Rihard asked me to drop by with this package." He held up a leather-covered bottle. "Said it would be something to warm you up against the night's chill."

"I don't know no Cap'n Rihard," the sailor said. "Ye got the wrong ship. Ye'd best be shovin' off."

But by that time, Taramis was among them. He sketched an eldritch symbol in the air. The symbol flared to emerald-green life and flickered out of existence.

Before the last of the color died away, a shimmering wall of force exploded toward the three sailors and knocked them all over the stern railing, scattering them like leaves before a fierce gust. The sailor carrying the lantern hung on to it, arcing out over the river and falling like a comet from the heavens till he disappeared into the water with a loud splash.

At the same time, signaled by the spell Taramis had used, Rhambal set fire to the oil-soaked exterior of one of the larger warehouses on the south side of the river to create a diversion. Flames blossomed up the side of the warehouse, alerting dozens of people living in the surrounding neighborhood. In seconds, even as the three sailors were knocked from Blue Zephyr' s stern, the hue and cry about the fire filled the streets and the banks on both sides of the river.

When the sailors surfaced, they didn't gain much support for their troubles. Palat joined Taramis in the stern, an arrow to bowstring and the fletchings pulled back to his ear. The sailors got the message and swam for the riverbank.

"Get those sails down," Darrick ordered. Now that they were into the action, with little chance of turning back, his blood sang in his veins. Apart of him came back alive after a year of trying to deaden it. He remembered times past when he and Mat had scrambled aboard a ship to prepare for battle or respond to a surprise attack.

The four warriors with sailing experience split up. One went to the stern to take the wheel, and the others scrambled up the rigging.

Darrick climbed the rigging like a monkey, all the moves coming back to him even though it had been months since he'd last climbed in a sailing ship. Hauklin's mystic sword banged against his back as he climbed. The cutlass had been short enough that he'd kept it sheathed at his side, but the long sword felt more natural slung across his shoulder.

As he climbed the rigging and reached the furled sails, he slashed through the neatly tied ropes with his belt knife. His sailor's soul resented the loss of the rope, always a prized commodity of a ship at sea, but he knew they'd have no further use of it. Thinking like that made him remember what Taramis had in store for the cargo vessel, and that made Darrick even sadder. The small ship wasn't much, but she was seaworthy and had a purpose.

At the top of the mast, all the sails cut loose below him, Darrick gazed down at the deck. The remaining eleven warriors-Rhambal would join them in a moment-busied themselves with bringing small casks of whale oil up from the hold. Blue Zephyr had shipped with small kegs of oil as well as the large kegs, otherwise they'd have needed a block-and-tackle to get them on deck.

Darrick slipped down through the rigging, dropping hand-over-hand to the deck. "Lash those sails in place. Hurry." He scanned the river anchorage.

The three sailors Taramis had knocked over the cargo ship's side had reached the riverbank, calling out to other sailors and city guards. For the most part they were ignored. The fire at the warehouse was more important because if it spread, the city might be in danger.

Watching the flames blaze, stretching long tongues into the sky above the warehouse, while he tied the sails fast, Darrick knew he couldn't have given the order to fire the building as Taramis had. The people who owned the warehouse had done nothing wrong, nor had the people who stored their goods there.

It had been a necessary evil, the sage had told them all. None of the warriors had exhibited any problems with the plan.

"Darrick," Taramis called from the ship's stern. He'd taken off his outer coat, revealing the orange Vizjerei robes with the silver mystic symbols.

"Aye," Darrick called back.

"Are the sails ready?"

"Aye," Darrick replied, finishing the last lashing and glancing around at the other warriors working on the canvas. They had been slower at it than he had, but it was all done. "You're clear." He glanced at the other men again. "Stand ready, boys. This is going to be a quick bit of work if we can pull it off."

Taramis spoke, and the words he used sounded like growls. No human throat was meant to use the phrases, and Darrick was certain that the sage's spell was from some of the earliest magic that had been brought into the world by the demons among the Vizjerei. Some mages and sorcerers believed that spellcraft was purer when used in the old language it had first been taught in.

A wavering reflection of the warehouse fire spread over the choppy surface of the river. Other glowing dots spread along the banks reflected on the river, too. More were in a straight line under the second bridge that lay between the cargo ship and the church. Hoarse shouts drifted, trapped and held close to the water as sound always was. A bucket brigade had started near the warehouse.

Despite his readiness, Darrick was almost knocked from his feet as Taramis's spell summoned a wild wind from the west. The canvas popped and crackled overhead as the sails filled. Her sails filled with the magically summoned wind, and the ship started forward, cutting through the river against the current.