Blood and Iron 4 Read online

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  More pale pink than red, the blood moon hung low in the sky, surrounded by stars ended only by the horizon, rising to the east and north, and falling low to the west and south. The wind had resumed its bite, chilling the air and taking with it the heavy mantle of smoke from the valley. Still, the stench clung to Byron’s clothes, damning him as a party to the savagery.

  The aroma of roasted meat, the fat of the land, filled his nostrils. Charred and savory, it watered his mouth and reminded him that all he’d on his stomach was half a loaf of moldy bread and far too much of the jug. He closed his eyes and focused on pushing back the wine’s lingering effects, but it remained with him still.

  Byron strode the edge of the camp, watching the horses graze the hills while eyeing the nearby yurts. There were a half dozen or so, mostly darkened and likely full of tack, except for one. Its flap was pulled open, spilling warm amber light out across the darkened pasture.

  Two men’s laughter drifted out in waves. A fortnight ago he would’ve burst into the tent and raised the nine hells against the sentries. And if ale was found a party to their absence on post, then a lashing would’ve been in order.

  But it wasn’t a fortnight ago.

  Swinging wide around their tent, Byron slunk through the tall grass by the light of the moon. A wave of nausea overtook him, followed by a nagging ache behind his temples. Crouching low, he felt his watering mouth sour. Shrugging out of his pack, he planted both knees on the ground and pressed a single hand out before him, digging his fingers deep into the dirt while he closed his eyes and sucked in long breaths, but the wine’s witchery would not withdraw.

  You are a fool thrice over! Drunk on the night you would dabble in treason... Have you learned nothing? All that befalls you is but the wages of your witlessness…

  Turning his head, he braced himself on his nub and curled two fingers down his throat until he could feel the bile rising. Demeaned, he retched like a beast in the field and watched it spatter his pants. Several long breaths later, he sat on his ass and wiped his brow and felt the sickness subside. Standing, he dusted himself off and continued his advance.

  In the far tent, he found a soft-seated saddle with large bags on the back for provisions. Tack made for travel, it afforded the rider more comfort than the stiffened gear that provided the structure and brace needed for the blistering impact of a war charge. Heaving it up, Byron slipped back out into the night.

  In the moonlit field, he pulled his hood tight and searched the team of horses for a well-mannered gelding that would take to a strange rider. Across the way, a grulla caught his eye as it grazed alone. Light in body like a mouse and dark of mane and tail, with black forelegs and the faintest of dorsal stripes, he looked primitive yet exuded a tranquil demeanor.

  The animal nickered in response to Byron’s touch, nudging his head into his palm. “Shhh,” he whispered, “else you’ll get us both in trouble.”

  Matching the gelding’s almond eyes for a time, he said, “Are you an outsider here?”

  The grey-blue grulla snorted in response.

  “Me too,” he replied, slipping on the saddle.

  “What in the nine are you up too?” a harsh voice called out from behind.

  Whirling around, Dhane had no retort. Instead, he pulled close the fur tuft of his hood and rested his hand on Lordsbane.

  “A mute horse thief, eh?” a second voice mocked.

  “A mute, traitorous, horse thief,” added the first. “The commander’s words were sharp when it came to deserters,” the second said, drawing his sword.

  “Commander,” Byron scoffed.

  The first chuckled. “A miracle indeed, the craven speaks.”

  Dhane stepped forward, slipping his nub into his shield and pulling its buckle tight. The words of his house stared back at him.

  We Light the Way

  Gripping the daystar, he growled, “For Bathild...”

  Laughing, the first sentry retorted, “Indeed.”

  The sound of galloping horses, charging from the flanks, startled them all. Back to back, the sentries squared off against the darkened riders. Meanwhile, Byron finished fitting the saddle to the gelding.

  Stepping into the stirrup, Dhane heard a sickening crunch followed by a weak gurgle. Turning, he saw the first sentry fall. The second man bolted for the camp, but stumbled and fell headlong halfway to the yellow light of the yurt with a fletched shaft protruding from his back. Drawing his sword, the second rider approached and dismounted, before pulling back the sentry’s head and ending him with a single cross-draw of steel.

  “You would mean to leave us here?” the first rider snorted. It was the thick nigh-northerly voice of Weston Volf.

  Byron breathed a sigh of relief. “I had hoped not.”

  “We should go,” Havar interjected, stepping back into the stirrup and climbing atop his horse. “With haste.”

  “North then,” the treasoned commander replied with a faint grin, slapping the reins against the gray grulla, turning them into the wind.

  Chapter 43

  Eldrick D’Eldar

  Braeridge Mountains

  Kingdom of Beyorn

  Head down, Eldrick avoided the worst of the wind’s wrath. Besides, there was nothing to see but white on black all around him. In his hands was a braided rope — strung between he and Jarin and Bo — tied to Jorok’s pack, it was all that kept them tethered to Kren’s war party. The cold cut deeper and the gales grew sharper the higher they climbed, with no end to its wrath in sight. Snow drifts masked the danger of loose rocks, and rocks, the risk of a sudden plunging death, and death, respite from a night that refused to end.

  “The tenth hell must certainly be these high crags,” Jarin muttered.

  “Indeed,” replied Bo, “I can feel the sabling of my toes.”

  Kren snorted. “If your feet were black, you would not feel a thing, lowlander.”

  Between the gusts, the spy glanced up to watch the titan climb the steep slopes with long strides, while Griffon lay limp over his shoulders. He looked lifeless, dead already. D’Eldar hoped against hope that their ascent was not for naught.

  It cannot be, not yet, we need you. You beat the fiend once, you can beat him again, I know it...

  When he looked up, the titan was at his side, studying him with a gaze that pierced like the winds. “You’re not like them,” Kren said, after a time.

  “I’m not from here.”

  “Where, then?”

  Eldrick snorted. “A world away, it seems, though it’s never seemed quite as far away as right now.”

  “Is your world not like this place?”

  “The Kal’Deas are everything this place isn’t. Instead of green hills, we have dunes of sand. Your harsh winters are our endless summers. And there are no olde growths, but we have pomegranate groves on endless coasts lapped by sapphire seas.”

  Kren spat. “No crags?”

  “We have mountains.”

  “You should lead with that. Else, one may despair of such a place the way you tell it.”

  The spy smiled, before stumbling through a deep snow drift. The titan caught him under his arm and steadied him, while still shouldering Griffon. “Is that why you left?” he added, “Because your high places were low and it shamed you?”

  Despite the howling misery all around them, the Kal’Dean managed a faint chuckle. Shaking his head, he replied, “No, that story is longer than we have time.”

  “The mountain is higher than you expect.”

  “The story is longer than you imagine.”

  Kren snorted. “I like your words. What is your name?”

  “Eldrick… Eldrick D’Eldar.”

  “For now I will call you Eldrick Wayfarer, but your will earn another name. Of that I am certain. I am Kren, son of Kren, son of Ulf.”

  “Well met, Kren, though I wish the circumstances were better.”

  “You worry about Eleksandr?”

  The spy nodded.

>   “His fate is not ours to know, but it may be one we can change. Olin will know.”

  For a long while, they climbed in silence. Eldrick labored in the cold, unaccustomed to the extremes harbored by the high peaks. Exhaustion crept in, weighing down his feet and hunching his back. Muscles stiffened and his joints ached with each step.

  “Your eyes grow heavy, Wayfarer. Speak to keep them open, for while I can carry two men, I may choose not to.”

  The spy searched his thoughts for a time, before saying, “How did you know to come to our aid?”

  “From the high places, my scouts watched the black blight and his army march south. We saw the siege of your keep, and we watched them hang-“

  “Don’t speak of that,” D’Eldar whispered. “The others, they do not know.”

  Pausing for a moment, Kren nodded, saying, “It is good that Eleksandr should hear it first.” Brushing the frost from his stubble, he continued, “We smelled the storm on the winds, and counseled by the moon, and decided to use this night to purge the pass, to reclaim the mountains from the men of the witch that wears green. It is but for the wisdom of the mountain that we came upon you. When I saw you flee the keep with Eleksandr, I knew what I must do.”

  “Wait, you saw us in the courtyard through the blizzard? How?”

  The titan chuckled and offered a shrug. “It is told that the Uhnan’akk of old bred with eagles.” With a wink, he added, “Though we do not anymore, for their claws are sharp.”

  Eldrick snorted at the imagery. After climbing over a ledge, he said, “Griffon spoke of you – said you killed the mage in the forest. He said you’re a warrior unequaled.”

  Stepping over a cleft in the rocks, Kren was quiet for a time. “There were three of us, and one is no longer. It is not a story I tell around the fires as the men pass the skins, and it is not one that I would speak of here.” After several moments, he added, “But I have vowed never again. I have sought the mountain’s wisdom, and have paid for it with my own blood. I will not be found wanting by a witch, not again.”

  In the twilit hours, the blizzard passed, and with it the snow and the worst of the winds. By mid-morning, a narrow trail opened up in the crags, wide enough for one man.

  Kren knelt with Griffon in his arms and studied his condition. “He is neither better nor worse. It is as if he is held captive at the edge of death. Truly I thought I would find a corpse lain across my shoulder.” He mustered a weak smile and added, “But this one is strong, he bears the soul of an Uhnan’akk.” With two fingers, the wildman scratched at the woada that was frozen on his own cheeks, and smeared the faintest of blue dust across the young lord’s forehead.

  “How much farther to Olin?” Eldrick asked.

  Standing, the titan replied, “On this path, we shall reach the camp before nightfall.”

  Hearing this, Bo sighed. “Nightfall? We’re exhausted as it is...”

  Kren snorted. “Then burrow into the snow like a cleft rat and sleep, but I will not wait, not for any of you. This is the son of your chief, and he demands loyalty more than you deliver.” Turning, he started up the winding trail, cursing under his breath.

  The Uhnan’akk’s rebuke cut D’Eldar as deep as any blade. Though Bo had spoken the words, they had niggled at his mind long before the trail had opened up. ‘For the Brae,’ we shout, and yet, this stranger fights harder for our own than even we? “Come on Bo,” he whispered, offering a hand to the crouching armsman. “We can make it. We must, for Griffon.”

  Nodding, he clasped the Kal’Dean’s forearm and rose.

  In the late evening, the trail ended at a fissured wall. Ducking low and turning sideways, Kren squeezed through the gap with the young lord draped across his arms.

  Eldrick shivered from the icy blast that channeled through the passage, while rough stone walls grasped at his furs, unhooding him. His exposed ears tingled from the air’s harsh bite. Just beyond, he saw a palisade and an open gate.

  Heavy logs, bound together by three rows of timbers on the inside, formed the wall. Eldrick had not seen a tree of any size since starting up the slopes, and realized that they had found their way up to this secluded section of the mountain through only one means.

  Kren led them past the rough-hewn A-frame hall and animal-skin tents and glowing cookfires. The high cliffs to the north and west guarded the camp from the harshest winds, and allowed the smell of stewed meat to hang thick in the air. Famished, Eldrick inhaled the aroma, though he would’ve much rathered rest to nourishment.

  The war party dispersed as they filtered through the winter camp and proceeded to the cavern mouth set in the north cliff, until it was just the three lowlanders and the titan. In the cave, he guided them past two side tunnels, before entering a third that terminated at a round room with a ceiling hewn into an arch. Torchlight cast uneven shadows on the walls and illuminated the face of an old man puffing a stone pipe while sitting in the center of the chamber. Sweet, gray smoke from a plant they didn’t know filled their nostrils. Warm air greeted them, a welcome reprieve from the stinging chill just outside. Kneeling, the wildman laid Griffon on a mat of soft furs in front of the old man and knelt beside him.

  Thin strands of silver hair hung unevenly in his face. Skin, wrinkled from a long and harsh life, bunched under his blue-gray eyes and sagged beneath his chin. He first studied the limp body, then the lowlanders, and finally Kren. Unmoved by their unannounced appearance, he examined the deep gashes on the young Alexander’s back, before asking, “What did this?”

  “A bramw-“

  Kren interrupted Jarin. “It was a rulk, Olin.”

  The shaman’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  The wildman nodded.

  Struggling to his feet, Olin hobbled over to several woven baskets along the room’s edge and retrieved a large mortar and an armful of cloudy-glassed containers. Liquids blood red and watery gray and thick viscous brown filled jars and vials and bottles. In the mortar, he siphoned off varying amounts of each, then stirred them with a single finger until they melded into a thick black paste.

  Kren tore back Griffon’s hardened leather and wool, revealing red flesh burning with corruption. Olin poured the paste over the gashes until they were coated in full, before slathering it around with his hands. Sitting back, he shook his head and said, “This will slow the rot of the flesh, but it cannot return him.”

  Eldrick started to speak, but the titan raised a hand. Eyeing the old shaman, he asked, “Return him from where?”

  “His mind. He is trapped there, warring with the rulk still. The poison on the claws of a fiend is potent, and draws a man in. There, he will stay until he is slain by the beast, or his wound overtakes him.”

  “You mean to say he is a prisoner in his own mind?” Eldrick snorted, “Still fighting the demon?”

  The old man narrowed his eyes. “Did I chew on my tongue? Were my words not as I heard them?”

  “This is preposterous,” the spy replied.

  Turning to Kren, Olin spat. “Who are these men you have brought me that desire wisdom yet do not listen?” Motioning to Griffon, he said, “Take this one away. He is dead, for they have killed him with their unbelief.”

  The Kal’Dean could feel his anger rising, fueled by exhaustion. Stepping forward, he started to speak. Kren stood to his feet, towering over Eldrick and blocking his view of the shaman. “Do not,” he whispered. “I beg you.”

  Eldrick turned away as the old man rolled his eyes and puffed his pipe while cupping it with paste-stained hands.

  Kneeling again and fixing his gaze on the shaman, the wildman asked, “What must I do?”

  Sighing, Olin said, “May that it cannot be done.”

  “Tell me, and I will do it. He is like a brother I have only just found.”

  “…The blood of the wyrm is his only hope.”

  Kren looked as if he had been knifed from behind. After a moment, he steeled himself and replied, “It will be done.”

  Chapter 44
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  Rowan Vos

  The Cormorant

  Calisal Sea

  It was the first place he had met Iseult. How could he forget? Sparse and rocky and flat, the badlands spread out before him once again. The same blue-gray fog hung thick in the air, like a herd of clouds come to rest on the plain. Plateaus climbed out of the pewter haze, like tables of the gods.

  Gone was the sickly-sweet smell from before, replaced with air crisped by a coming storm, tinged with something he could only describe as electric. A pink-white sun set small in the sky stared at him unblinkingly, the sole sentry in the somber sandscape. It reminded him of the bloody brooch pinned over the Calisal. Only then did Rowan realize that perhaps it was not the sun overhead, and had never been.

  Spinning, he searched the bleakness, but Iseult was nowhere to be found. His hand slid down his side until it found Unforged. Pulling it from its sheath, he let it hang free, loose but primed to strike at a moment’s notice.

  The thief started to call out for the warwitch, but decided against it. Instead, he stalked across the dunes and wind-scraped outcroppings as gusts swept sand as fine as chalk mined from the sheer Cliffs of Caerhorn — as high as the low clouds and as white as the purest pearls from the cleft oysters in the cold depths beyond the flat shelf of the Colored Coast — across his face, scouring his skin, filling his nose and burning his eyes, before matting them shut. Pulling a linen scarf from his pack, he wrapped his head and let the loose ends flap over his shoulders in the wind like a kite’s forked tail.

  With every step, the chalky sand barked at him in protest. After a time, how long he could not divine, he crested a low ridge and started back down into a parched valley. At its bottom he felt the ground rumble beneath his feet, pushing back the fog and giving the gusts pause and halting Rowan mid stride. Again tremors emanated out from the epicenter that was him, tightening his chest, quickening his heart, filling him with dread. A low groan began, building, building, crawling up from the depths, growing in strength until it was a growl, pushing through the dirt and the rock, rushing up to the surface.