The Barrow (67 page)

It was Gilgwyr's turn to snort.
It's true, I suppose; thanks to us and to Harvald, that family's entire life has been turned upside down and likely ruined, with the end of their line in sight, unless we can find a magic sword buried in the middle of nowhere
, he thought.
And yet my own dreams promise me a great day is coming. Why am I the only one to see the possibility of such joy?

He jumped down from the wagon, on the sudden impulse to stretch his legs. As he settled his tricorn on his head he decided to join Stjepan and Erim at the front of the caravan. He slung his scabbarded rapier over his shoulder and sauntered up the hard trail to join them at the crossroads.

“I am beginning to sense some growing disquiet in the ranks,” he said jovially. “And this day was already off to a bad start.”

“Apologies, Master Gilgwyr,” said Stjepan gruffly. “We are at a crossroads, as you can see, and I just want to make sure that we head in the right direction.” He pointed to the northward path. “That path leads down into the Vale, and that is not where we are going. But of the two remaining paths . . . I'm pretty sure the one to the south eventually turns toward Lost Angharad. The one in the center follows the hills out to a spur that juts into the Plain, and upon which sits Geniché's Throne, the great carved seat of rock where legend says Geniché once sat in the days when this was still part of her great Garden, and to which she was said to return on occasion to watch over the dead of the Vale.”

“You took that with Harvald once,” Gilgwyr said.

“Aye,” said Stjepan. “Two summers ago.”

“Did you sit on the Throne?” Erim asked. “Is it true you can see the Future, and talk to the Dead there?”

“I chose not to sit on it,” said Stjepan with a shrug. “Wasn't my time to do so, I don't think. But Harvald did. I never asked him what he saw. But he didn't talk for a day afterwards.”

Gilgwyr laughed. “Now that's an act of real magic,” he said. “So which road do we take?”

“Yeah, that's the problem,” Stjepan said. “We're headed for someplace in between Angharad and Geniché's Throne, so I have to figure out from my other maps of the area which of these two roads has a side trail going where we need to go.”

“Fantastic,” said Gilgwyr with a smile. “Hurry the fuck up.”

He turned and rather than returning directly to his perch, he decided instead to stroll toward the rear. He could hear one of the squires whispering the Prayer for the Dead for Sir Clodin as he approached the coach. He promptly doffed his hat and nodded gravely to Arduin and his knights and squires as he passed them, and they icily ignored him. He heard Leigh laughing quietly behind him, and he winced a bit at that.
No need to provoke them with laughter
, he thought.
I know you're laughing at me, but they don't.
As he slipped his hat back on he stole a glance into the coach, but despite the fact that the window was ajar it merely opened into darkness, and he caught no glimpse of Harvald's beautiful sister.

As he approached the last wagon, Godewyn was pacing by its side, throwing angry glances up the column toward Stjepan in the lead. His men were ringed around it on foot, their motley assortment of weapons ready at hand, but there was a certain boredom mixed in with their nervousness. “How much longer, do you think?” Godewyn said, walking up to Gilgwyr with big Cole Thimber and Too Tall right behind him. “What's the delay? Where in the Six Hells are we going? Are we lost?”

“We're not lost. Well, not exactly,” said Gilgwyr. “There's a crossroads up ahead and Stjepan isn't sure which fork takes us to where we're going. He's just checking his maps, we'll be fine.”

“Black-Heart knows the rules out here! Unless you know you're in a safe place, you don't stop moving unless you've got a magician's wards set around you!” Godewyn snarled. “And hanging out on the side of this hill most definitely is not—”

“Hey, new guy! Careful over there!” shouted Handsome Pallas.

Godewyn and Gilgwyr both turned to look at the shout, following Pallas' line of sight. Isham Wall had wandered away a bit up the hillside, apparently taking a break to relieve a bloated bladder. He'd found a slightly sheltered spot behind a large, twisted, and petrified tree a few dozen paces away, and had dropped his pants to urinate on the ground.

“What the fuck? Get back here!” shouted Godewyn, turning and starting to unlimber his broadsword.

Isham glanced over his shoulder at them and made a bored wave. “Be right there, chief!” he shouted.

“Islik's balls,” Godewyn spat, already starting to move. “I said—”

And then Isham gave a scream as his legs were swept out from under him, and he pitched back and was dragged with stunning speed halfway into the earth under the tree. Suddenly he stopped, momentarily jammed in place.

Godewyn, Pallas, and Too Tall were at a run in a shot, Godewyn cursing loudly as they drew their weapons. Gilgwyr was so startled by the sight that he lost a step or two and was behind them, and big Cole Thimber who was naturally slow wound up bringing up their rear. Gilgwyr glanced back up the caravan and saw the knights turning their horses about in alarm, and found himself thankful that Sirs Theodras and Theodore had put spur to flank and had started riding back toward them.

By the time Godewyn reached him, Isham was being pulled slowly further and further into a small hole of earth and rock in the ground under the base of the petrified tree, still screaming at the top of his lungs. “Fuck! It's got me! It's got me! Fu
accckkk
!” he cried. Godewyn and the others immediately grabbed his arms and started pulling as he pleaded, but in an instant they knew it was a losing battle. Whatever had a hold of him was incredibly strong and even though the hole looked very, very small it was making some progress at pulling him inside. Their efforts held him suspended for a moment, and his scream became wordless as he was pulled in both directions. His upper thighs and hips had been what had jammed him up in the hole, his exposed manhood flopping uselessly about for a moment, still free and urinating from both need and fear, until he got pulled in another few inches and his member was crushed into the hole along with his hips with the sound of bone breaking. His scream went up an octave and blood and liquid spurted onto his abdomen. Gilgwyr arrived just in time to wince and look away.

Isham and Godewyn locked eyes for a moment. They both knew he was going to get pulled under the tree.

“Sorry, mate,” said Godewyn quietly. And then he plunged a dagger into Isham's neck. As the blood arced out of his jugular, Isham gurgled and his eyes started to roll back into his head, and his body started to go limp as he bled out.

Godewyn's gang let go of him as he died, and Isham was pulled from their sight, disappearing under the tree with a sickening crunch of bone and flesh. They spun away, shouting and screaming in rage and fear, weapons pointed at the ready as they stared at the hole, waiting for something to emerge.

And then suddenly Leigh appeared amongst them, a blur of blue-black robes, and he threw a bottle etched with runes at the hole. It exploded in a
whoosh
of blue flame as all of them leapt back and the horses of the two knights right behind them reared and whinnied in shock and surprise, almost throwing Sir Theodras to the ground.

“Begone, things of the cursed dark! Begone, things of the cursed earth! I bar you from this portal!” he cried out.

No one moved for a long moment.

Leigh slowly straightened, surveying his handiwork with a self-satisfied air; the hole in the ground was filled with blue fire, and the petrified wood of the tree was being slowly enveloped in the crackling blue flames, black and white smoke curling up from its branches.

He nodded. “Sorry about your lad. You did the right thing,” he said to Godewyn. Then he turned and walked away from the burning tree.

Godewyn stared at the hole in the ground. He breathed in heavily. “He knew the risks. We all do,” he said quietly.

The group moved away from the burning tree, at first slowly and then with increasing speed, hurrying back to the rear wagon. Cole and Too Tall clambered back up into the driver's seat of the wagon, their eyes and weapons still pointed back up the hill toward the growing conflagration, but Godewyn and Pallas keep marching, past the knights shifting about on their horses, past the first wagon toward Stjepan and Erim at the front of the caravan. Gilgwyr and Leigh followed in tow, and Giordus jumped off the first wagon as well, and Arduin urged his horse forward to see what was going to happen.

Stjepan and Erim had come back about halfway to the first wagon from the crossroads on hearing the shouts and cries from the back of the caravan, and now they waited there wordlessly as Godewyn walked right up to Stjepan. He swung a big fist with startling speed right at Stjepan's head, but almost seemingly by accident Stjepan half stumbled, half ducked out of the way at the last second and Godewyn caught nothing but air with his punch.

And then Pallas and Gilgwyr and Giordus were holding the big man back as he tried to get at Stjepan again, but already his heart wasn't in it, and then Erim and Leigh were stepping in front of him with hands upraised, separating the two men.

“Get us moving, you fucking Athairi, before any more of us die!” Godewyn shouted angrily. He let himself be dragged away by his men as they said soothing words to him until finally he shook himself free and turned around and started walking back toward the rear of the caravan, cursing and waving his arms dismissively. Arduin moved his horse out of the way with pursed lips, a look of satisfaction on his face as he let Godewyn and his men pass him. He looked coldly at Stjepan, and then he turned Ironbound and walked the destrier back to the coach and his waiting knights.

Stjepan watched Godewyn's receding back with narrowed eyes. Leigh, Gilgwyr, and Erim stood around him, breathing heavily. The petrified tree continued to burn in the distance behind the idled caravan.

“Well, lucky you. Now they all hate you,” Gilgwyr said lightly.

“Yeah,” said Stjepan. “Perfect.”

They spent the night in a hollow beneath a hilltop ringed with the trace of stone formations, unsure whether the stones were ancient
menhirs
or the ruins of an ancient fort or hill-town. Neither Leigh nor Stjepan could find any trace of enchantment or
fae
power in the piles of rocks they found. The camp was quiet, dejected, drained of energy and life, the only conversations conducted in hushed tones. Eyes filled with hurt and loss watched Stjepan disappear into the Ladies' Tent for several hours.

The next morning, the 3rd of Ascensium, opened hazy and gray, with darker storm clouds looming in the west that seemed to threaten lightning or rain. They traveled only with difficulty, the road now reduced to a rough trail, requiring frequent stops to clear hardy brush from their path or free stuck wagon wheels. They no longer left it to chance, and every time they stopped Leigh would walk a perimeter, pouring his chalk dust and pronouncing some variation on a protective ritual, until the enchanter began to complain that he was running low and might indeed run out of his supplies.

But no one died, and the threatened storms never materialized. The skies lightened into gray and white, and every now and then a patch of blue appeared. By the evening yellow and orange mixed with the gray, and they arrived to stand in waist-high weed grass and thorny bramble on a ridge top overlooking a deep vale shaped almost like a bowl and filled with a thicket of gnarled and stunted trees, a brownish briar patch that had grown over and around the ruin of a burnt-out black-walled fortress at its center. A single great turreted tower still projected up from the middle of the fortress, its surface covered by dark, thorny vines. Ravens and carrion birds circled over the once ornate, slate-covered steeped spire, now riddled with holes and partially collapsed, and they appeared to be using it as a rookery.

Stjepan, Erim, Arduin, Gilgwyr, Leigh, and Godewyn stood side by side on the eastern side of the bowl in the earth, surveying the dark and foreboding tower at its center. Sir Holgar and Caider Ross stood back a bit, Sir Holgar with a greatsword tucked in the crook of an arm and Caider with a loaded crossbow held casually in his.

“The Black Tower of Azharad,” said Leigh. “Or what's left of it.”

Stjepan, Erim, Gilgwyr, and Godewyn promptly spat to one side.

“Shit,” said Erim to no one in particular. She raised her spyglass and trained it on the Black Tower, looking for movement.

“Stjepan, have you ever read
De Daemonologis
?” asked Leigh. “That at least can't be forbidden! It's the Inquisition's handbook on demonology and the Nameless Cults, for Heaven's sake.”

“No, Magister, that book has not been banned, and yes, I have read it,” Stjepan said.

“Well, that's something at least. Attributed to a namesake of yours, Stephans, Patriarch of Therapoli, as I recall,” said Leigh.