Darkfire: A Book of Underrealm (25 page)

“You were struck down in the fight,” said Loren. “But you fought bravely.”

“Of course I did,” Gem grunted. “I—”

He froze, his eyes dilating as he looked beyond Loren and Annis. Loren turned in time to see Trisken, risen from the floor to his knees. His mangled right arm still hung limp by his side, but with his left he seized Jordel’s cloak and dragged the Mystic down. His arm wrapped around Jordel’s throat, squeezing tight as he throttled the life from his body.

“Stinking Mystic,” Trisken hissed, voice bubbling with blood through his torn throat. “All your kind are doomed — but I am content to start with you.”

Albern flung himself forward, sinking his knife into the commander’s neck again. Trisken laughed.
 

Albern withdrew the knife and plunged it into the beast’s back, then again. Trisken laughed harder, while Jordel’s face grew purple, a weak rattle escaping his throat.
 

Loren ran to seize the commander’s wrist and pull his arm from Jordel. She may as well have tried shoving a mountain flat.
 

Albern drew back his knife and drove it into Trisken’s eye, the blade sinking six inches deep into the man’s skull. His body went slack, his arm finally falling away, and he sank to the ground.

Loren pulled Jordel from the body, where he fell to his face. He took great, wheezing gasps of air, sucking it down like dessert.

“What manner of witchery was that?” cried Annis. “He was dead. Jordel killed him.”

Albern shrugged, stooping to clean his dagger on the commander’s cloak. “Do not think much of it. In war, I have seen men fight through worse. But not a dagger in the eye. Tis over now.”

“We must leave,” Jordel said in a horrible rasp, forcing himself to one knee. “More will come, when their commander fails to return.”

“Indeed,” said Albern. “Strange that he would risk himself out here, with a garrison at his back. But no matter. Where will we go? The east and west roads will both be watched. Deeper into the caves?”

“No,” said Jordel. “Once they find his body, they will send their strength to scour this place. We have but one choice. We must enter the fort.”

His voice shaking, Gem said, “You are mad.”
 

“He is not,” said Loren. “There is a place we can hide. But Jordel, what then? It hardly seems a better hiding spot than this, and still it gives us no means of escape.”

“I do not yet know,” said Jordel. “But we cannot stay here.”

“The horses,” said Loren. “They will not fit where we must go. What will we do with them?”

“They must be abandoned,” said Jordel. “Bring everything from the saddles you can, and leave the rest.”

Loren looked far back into the cave, where Midnight still stood hobbled with the other mounts. The plowhorse and Albern’s bay nickered and danced at the bloodshed, but her own horse stood still, its eyes fixed on Loren’s. The thought of leaving the mare made her want to weep. More than a month they had spent on the road, until Midnight seemed as much a friend as Annis or Gem.

“Do not despair,” said Jordel. “We may yet have a chance to recover them. Soldiers within the stronghold will no doubt bring the horses in for themselves, and from there they might see our rescue.”

The odds against that seemed strong, but Loren merely nodded, knowing the Mystic was right. With heavy hearts, they went to their saddlebags and fetched their provisions. Albern stroked his horse’s mane, then removed its hobbles with a pat on the neck. Loren spent a moment holding her forehead to Midnight’s muzzle. The mare turned and nudged her, as though she could sense Loren’s distress.

Jordel went to Xain, bound hand and foot upon the cave floor. The wizard had watched the fight in silence, for a gag still bound his mouth. Now the Mystic hauled him to standing and looked solemnly into the wizard’s eyes.

“I am going to unbind your feet, and you will come with us. If you should try to flee, you will die. Even if you escape my grasp, the soldiers within the stronghold will find and kill you. Do you understand?”

Xain nodded, neither eager nor fearful. Loren remembered their brief exchange, the apology that had seemed so sincere. She found herself wanting to believe the wizard now, to have some assurance that his time of madness had passed. But still, she was not eager to break his bonds, nor remove the gag from his mouth.

They stood at the cave entrance, ready for the rain. But before Jordel took his first step beyond the opening, Loren heard the scraping of metal on stone.

She looked back and froze. Trisken’s boot slid slowly on the floor as he tried to raise it beneath him. His arms sought for purchase on the stone — both of them, right and left. Even as she watched, the torn flesh of his right arm stitched together, as if under a seamstress’s capable hands. The hole where his eye had been was sealed over with fresh skin, bubbling and rippling like a boiling kettle.

“Jordel,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Run,” he said Jordel. “
Now!”

They fled the cave, and raced into the pouring rain.

twenty-nine

JORDEL LED THEM AT A crouching run along the stronghold’s wall, around the corner toward the gate leading in from the east. They kept a wary eye above, watchful for any guard who might poke their head over to see them. But they clung closely to the wall and remained unnoticed.
 

Loren took the lead after that, for she knew where the hidden entrance was, while Jordel pushed the wizard ahead. Xain caused no trouble, obediently running along behind her, halting whenever the party did with no complaint.

They found the eastern gate closed, and crept by without incident. Before long they stood in front of the secret entrance. While Albern kept a hand on Xain’s arm, Jordel pressed his finger into the chink, and the stone gave way before them.

They crept inside, and Jordel pushed the door closed behind them. They were trapped in silence and darkness, within the bowels of their enemy’s stronghold, from where Loren had not the faintest idea of how they might escape.

Jordel bound the wizard’s feet again, which Xain suffered without comment or complaint. Then for a while they simply rested, nursing their injuries from the fight. Loren tried to feel on her back where Trisken had struck her, but her arms could not quite reach, and trying to do so made her ribs flare with pain. She could hardly see the others, visible only by a sliver of light bleeding in beneath the secret door.

Jordel said, “There should be a torch on the wall — here it is. They had a torch burning in the cells beyond, if you will recall, Loren. Fetch it for us, will you?”

“What if they notice its absence?”
 

“I do not think they would guess that we took it into the walls. But be quick, so that you are not seen.”

Loren went to the other end of the passageway, where she found the wooden wall that was, in fact, the back of the dungeon room shelves. She pushed it open on silent hinges, and ran to the torch. When she fixed it to the wall in the hidden passage, the light seemed like the sun after they had been sitting in such darkness.

“Much better.” Albern had unstrung the bow to lay it across his knees, and was now polishing his knife, which still bore bloody stains from the fight.

With the room lit, Loren could see the children sitting against the opposite wall. Gem was poking with interest at his bruised face. Annis sat huddled, arms wrapping her knees, eyes on nothing.
 

Loren sidled over to sit between them and placed an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “Do not be so afraid, Annis. You look like a woman awaiting execution.”

“Am I not?” said Annis. “We sit trapped in our enemy’s fortress, and their leader cannot be killed.”

Loren too had been badly shaken by the sight of Trisken rising to life again after Albern killed him twice. “It must be some kind of magic.”

“It is. A dark magic that has not been seen in the nine lands for centuries. Not since a much, much darker time. An evil portent indeed.” Jordel turned to where Xain sat against the wall. The wizard met his eyes with a troubled look, and Jordel gave him the slightest of nods.

Loren shot them both a dirty glance. The last thing they needed was to rob Annis of what little hope she had. “And yet, we escaped.”

“That hardly helps,” said Annis. “For still we are trapped.”

“And we will escape from here, too,” said Loren. “We will get away, just as we fled Cabrus, and Wellmont, and Vivien upon the river. Only after here, there will be no more dangers, no more foes trying to harm us. In no time we shall be in Feldemar, well on our way to … ” She turned to Jordel. “Where are we going, exactly?”

The Mystic must have finally understood that Loren wished to cheer the girl, for slowly he nodded.
 

“To my stronghold of Ammon, in the southwest of Feldemar. It was once a castle of my family’s, set to guard against invasion from Dorsea. But it has been long abandoned, for it was built in a time of war that is many yesteryears past. Feldemar and Dorsea have been at peace for hundreds of years, and all of Dorsea’s aggression is now spent upon Selvan instead. When I joined the order and learned of Ammon, I took it for my own, and from there I have long planned my efforts throughout the nine lands. It is no place of luxury, or even much comfort, but it is secret, and safe.”

“But will the other Mystics not know that you have gone there?” said Annis, her voice still worried. “Will they not find us?”

“I have told few others in my order about Ammon. It has always seemed prudent to keep a place of retreat, where not even my masters could find me.”

“Do you see?” said Loren. “Once we leave the Greatrocks we will lose ourselves in the Birchwood, my home, where no one will find us. And beyond the Birchwood, it is but a short journey to Feldemar.”

“A short journey, you say,” grumbled Annis. “I feel as though we move from one short jaunt to another, except they are longer than we think, and always fraught with peril.”

“You may be right, and yet I promise you this, Annis of the family Yerrin,” said Jordel. “I vow that I will see you safely to Ammon. While life remains in my body, I will not abandon you or turn aside. I will see you — and all of us — to safety.”

Annis peered at Jordel in the torchlight. She said nothing, but her nod seemed more relaxed.
 

“All good words, and I don’t doubt them,” said Albern. “But it seems the lot of us have much to do before they can be turned out.”

“He is right,” said Gem. “We cannot very well reach Ammon while lurking in the depths of this castle.”
 

“No, we cannot.” Jordel sighed. “But we have learned much about the foes who wish to prevent our escape — one known, the other largely a mystery. It is the unknown that worries me, of course — and yet with every encounter, I learn ever more. And at the same time, the family Yerrin becomes more of a question.”

“How do you mean?” said Loren.

“Think,” said Jordel. “Why should Yerrin seek the help of this Lord, whoever he may be? If they desire his help, he must be more powerful than they — or at least, capable of things they are not. But if that is true, how could he have hidden himself so well that I have never heard so much as a whisper of his arrival?”

“You would know better than us,” said Gem.

“And yet I know nothing. But I do have guesses. And if I suppose correctly, then we have already fought the first battle of a war I have tried to stave off for many years.”

Jordel looked at the wizard. Xain sat with his hands bound behind him, near the secret doorway. His eyes were now clear, as they were most days, and in them Loren saw a bottomless worry. She remembered how, in Wellmont, Jordel had spoken to Xain for most of a day. He had desired the wizard’s services ever since Loren met him in Cabrus, and on that day the Mystic had finally revealed his reasons. But not to her.

Gem reached for his saddlebag. “I wish you would speak more plainly. This double-talk makes me hungry, yet I am certain you will insist I do not eat as much as I wish.”

“In that you are correct, for if you ate as much as you wish, no doubt your stomach would rupture.” Jordel snatched the saddlebag away. “And it is wise to fear speaking plainly of that which you do not know, for then you may plant ideas in the minds of others that they may struggle to shake, even after seeing the truth.”

“More double-talk,” grumbled Gem. “Give me what food you will, and that will sate my curiosity.”

Jordel chuckled and divided their food, handing Gem some morsels of bread and the last of an old hunk of cheese that was not far from spoiled. The rest received their rations in silence, all lost in thought. Loren wondered if their minds were turned to the same thing as hers: the sight of Trisken struggling up from the floor, his ruined eye stitching itself together.

“Loren, will you feed Xain for me?”
 

She nodded, took the food from Jordel, then went to the wizard, noting with interest that he looked better than he had in a while. His limbs were still wasted thin, and his cheeks gaunt, but his eyes were clear and bright, and they no longer sank so deeply into his skull. He had lost much of his hair to the sickness, but what remained had thickened and grown lustrous. He looked at her eagerly as she removed the gag.

She carefully untied it then pulled the cloth from his mouth. The moment his lips were free, Xain said, “Jordel, let me help.”

His voice, so strong in the cramped space, made Loren jump in surprise. Jordel and Albern reached for their knives on instinct. But Xain did not move, and spoke no further word. Jordel had warned her that a firemage’s words of power were dangerous, and that is why he stayed gagged. Xain must have recognized their fear, for he did not utter so much as a murmur as Jordel silently studied him.

“Indeed, let him help us,” Annis muttered, looking down at her hands. “That has turned out so well in the past.”

Xain looked at her sadly, then returned his gaze to Jordel. His eyes were eager, earnest … Loren wanted him to speak, to explain himself. But the wizard waited.

“Go on,” said Jordel, his voice passive. Loren read nothing in the words.