The Barrow (61 page)

The three men glanced at each other again.

“Stjepan Black-Heart,” the eldest said, as much statement as question. Stjepan nodded. “Aye, we can take that message,” the old man said. He extended a gnarled hand to Stjepan. “Emeril Tarlan, Chief Warden to Lord Naeras of Gyrdiff.” As they shook hands, he indicated his two younger companions. “Pyle Garthing and Corwin Bregaine, both Wardens of Gyrdiff,” he said.

“And this is Erim of Berrina,” Stjepan said, and Erim found herself nodding solemnly and shaking hands with the three gruff men. “Well met, and my thanks. I have heard your name before, counted amongst those that brave the Uthed Wold to fight the Azharites. Can I offer coin for your troubles?”

“Not for ours,” said Emeril with a shake of his head. “The Lamb is well known to us, and he has spoken highly of you, and your service to the King of Warwark, whom all good men in the west count as a friend and ally.”

“The blessings of Heaven on King Derrek,” Corwin said softly.

“
La benedicia delles deas Yhera Invictus an'Adjia sura regnus Derrek
,” said Stjepan with a nod. That seemed to satisfy something in the three men, and Erim noticed their shoulders relax almost imperceptibly.

“Gause Three-Penny in the Devil's Tower, eh? I haven't seen him in a bit, he had a falling out with the last Lord of Gyrdiff and don't come round our neck of the woods no more, even though we got a new Lord of Gyrdiff. But I know he's still friends with the Lamb, and no man should remain in the Tower for long,” old Emeril said, and then he cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “You said passing
back
through Aberdelan? So you're headed into trouble, then?”

“Aye, good guess. It's up the Mizer Road and past the Wall for us,” Stjepan said. Erim tried to look tough and nonchalant when he said that.

“Then we will make offerings in the temple for your safe return,” Pyle said, a concerned look on his face. “The Kestle March is treacherous enough, but anywhere north or west of the Wall will be a place of great danger.”

“No simpler truth is there, and so I would thank you for your offerings and prayers,” Stjepan said. “Perhaps then I could ask you also to make offerings for me to Yhera Fortuna and Adjia the Huntress, who led me to you?” He held out some coins; Erim caught a glimpse of gold and silver. “I vowed an offering within the month upon my word, but the outcome of our journey is still in question.”

Old Emeril took the proffered coins, counted them, and dropped them in a pocket. “Aye, we can do that for you as well,” he said. “We will also ask the priestesses to offer prayers in your name and for your safe return.”

“If their prayers are successful then I shall pass through Gyrdiff and make offering at the Temple of the Hunt myself, and pay my respects to you and yours,” Stjepan said.

“That would be most welcome,” old Emeril said with a satisfied nod.

“
La benedicia della deas Yhera sura tou'nou
,” the four men said in unison, shaking each other's hands and embracing briefly. They smiled and shook Erim's hand as well, but she felt for a moment like a bit of a fraud; there was a quick and clear mutual communion, a shared bond of Goddess and woodland culture, that she saw between Stjepan and the men of Gyrdiff that she simply did not share.

As the Gyrdiff men mounted their horses, she and Stjepan started back down the street, and she wondered a bit at his ability to find comrades and allies seemingly anywhere he went. She'd seen it in Therapoli before, that recognition that came with the mention of the name
Black-Heart;
but here they were almost to the Wall of Fortias and still that name and hint of Athairi lore was opening doors and easing their way. And there she was by his side, plain simple Erim, of no name and no family to speak of, with no epithet to call her own. The Divine King had no use for her, and the gods of Hell awaited her, that she had been told and that she knew, but still she could not bring herself to think of actually making offerings to the Forbidden. They would be her punishment, not her patrons. Nor could she imagine following in Stjepan's path; the Old Religion had never been part of her life and upbringing, and she still found it foreign and strange, even if it was simply ancient, the first religion followed by men and women.

All of which left her quite alone in the world.

They crossed to the west side of the Volbrae after regrouping a few hours later and started up the Mizer Road, entering what the locals called the Hinterlands. The hills and lands to the west of the river were widely and officially known as Ravera's Barrens; once upon a time they had been lush and green, like the rest of the Danian countryside that the caravan had been passing through, but the land had been spoiled in a great catastrophe hundreds of years ago. Far to the west stood the Great Wall of Fortias, built to hold back the enemies of the Middle Kingdoms and the great curse that the Sun Court had called down upon them at the end of the war against the Last Worm. That curse had turned Uthedmael into a land of desolation, where nothing could live, and the Wall was meant to mark the spot where the curse ended. But by legend a young woman named Ravera had opened the gates of the Watchtower of Pallanwyn one night, thinking that her lover was on the other side. What had awaited her was a foul wind bearing the Curse of Lost Uthedmael with it, and the wind had swept out over the upper reaches of the Watchtower lands and Dain Dania, and killed trees and crops and people, leaving behind a barren landscape east of the Wall that stretched sixty miles to the Volbrae.

Not all of the land between the Wall and the Volbrae had been made barren, however, and in scattered spots the land still supported the livelihoods of man; the Hinterlands were one such region, where a lord and knights sworn to the Earl of Hartford held dusty hilltop keeps and their tenants eked out a living from the dry soil. The caravan passed irrigation canals that brought in water from the Volbrae and the Dunnbrae, and fields of barley and groves of orange, tangerine, and olives.

“This doesn't seem so barren,” Erim said to Stjepan, a bit disappointed.

“No, not this part,” he said. “The Hinterlands are quite habitable. In fact the wine from this area is very good, maybe as good as the vintages from near Orliac. But the terrain gets rougher the further west we go.”

“So do you think Ravera was an actual person?” asked Erim. “Odd to think that you'd go down in history with a whole region named after you because of a fuck-up.”

“We debated that back at the University,” Stjepan said. “The histories of the time all say yes, that she was the daughter of Lewyr, Watchtower King of Pallanwyn, and some books even name the lover that she thought was at the gate. I can't remember his name. Düras or Dürace or something like that. Shit, it's close enough to the Lamb's name that I'll never get it.” He shrugged. “Despite the records in the books, a lot of us suspected that it was just a legend and a name put on a terrible drought during a more superstitious time. But that was back before I'd actually climbed the Wall and seen the Wastes, I suppose.”

“And now that you've seen the Wastes?” asked Erim.

“Yes,” he said. “She was real. And she opened the gates. The Divine King priests from Aprenna blamed the Horned Man; they said the Devil came to the gate and called out to her in the voice of her lover. And having seen the Wastes, I'm guessing they're right.”

They rode for a bit in silence.

“I meant to ask you this earlier,” Erim said. “This friend of yours, the one you call the Lamb. Dürace Lambadras? You told Emeril that the Lamb was a knight-errant of the Court of the Silver Wood. That's one of the
Fae
Courts. I didn't realize a mortal could be sworn to a
Fae
Prince.”

“Both Athairi and Danian history have a number of knights-errant that claimed to be sworn to the
Fae
Courts. Indeed some say that's where the Golden Knights of An-Athair got their start, that they were sworn to the Golden Court of the
Fae
back when it was the only
Fae
Court, in addition to being knights sworn to protect the Green Temple and the Spring Queens, and that they could pass from our world to the Otherworld with ease,” said Stjepan. “But Dürace is a bit different, he's genuinely
fae
-born. His father was a Tirian knight from An-Maghram who was invited to spend some time amongst the
fae
, and later found Dürace on his doorstep to raise.”

A mortal father and a
fae
mother
, thought Erim with a pang of envy.
Everywhere I turn I hear about people more interesting than I am
.

And she fell quiet for the rest of the day.

They spent the night in a rather poor inn outside the castle of Lewsmaeve, though the locals were friendly enough and Erim conceded that the wine there was in fact excellent. She had a bit more than she should have, however, and awoke the next morning filled with regrets.

They started up into the hills of the Hinterlands, and the terrain became quickly harsher, filled with dry shrubs toward the peaks of the hills and woodland copses in the valleys, where water was more plentiful. By late morning of the 27th of Emperium they were paying the road tolls under the watchful eyes of the men-at-arms of Aberdelan, the last officially occupied keep on the Mizer Road, held by Pellas West, called the Hinter Lord, who held all the land from Aberdelan back to the Volbrae. In terms of total area, he controlled as much land as his liege lord, Earl Geller of Hartford, but as the land itself was quite poor the Dain King was unlikely to elevate him to the title of Earl.

Two miles further west and they reached a point in the Mizer Road from which they could actually see the Devil's Tower, though it was but a distant and forlorn speck on a barren, rough-looking crag, outlined against the gray sky to their south.

Erim and Stjepan stopped their horses by the side of the road to contemplate the tower. Erim took out Stjepan's spyglass—which he seemed to have given her—and trained it on the distant citadel.

“Legend says at night you can sometimes see lights and fires coming out of the tower,” Stjepan mused. “But I've been up and down this road twice before, and have never seen anything unusual. Well, unusual for the Barrens, at least.”

“Why do they call it the Devil's Tower?” she asked.

“Because a great demon took up occupancy there after Ravera made her Mistake,” said Stjepan. “One of the
Rahabi
. A
Golodriel
, by all report.”

“Oh.” Erim squinted. “It's only . . . what, maybe ten miles from here?”

“Less, probably eight or so,” said Stjepan, biting his lip. “So fucking close!”

“Do you want to make a run for it?” Erim asked. “I'm telling you, I still think it's a bad idea.”

Stjepan took a deep breath, and looked over at the rest of the caravan as it wound its way past them. Godewyn waved from the back of a wagon.

“No, you're right,” Stjepan said firmly, looking back toward the distant tower. “Gause Three-Penny is—or more likely
was
, at this point—a good man, whom I have known to always do the right thing, and that's a rare thing in this world; but we have a duty first and foremost to those that walk and ride beside us. If Gause's corpse has been sitting in that Tower for several weeks, then it can keep until we're on our way back; if he's still alive, then I only hope he can forgive me for not coming directly for him and his.”

He whistled, and turned Cúlain-mal back onto the Mizer Road. Erim watched him go for a moment before looking back toward the Devil's Tower.

Maybe not such a Black-Heart after all
, she thought.