Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (22 page)

“We follow you, my sister,” Rhywder whispered, tears in his eyes over her pain. “We leave with you, even against our fathers. They would have let the night kill you. They have forgotten, you are their light and their voice. But we have not. Lead us to your Silver King, Asteria.”

Rhywder lifted her onto a waiting horse and mounted his own. He drew up the reins, and together, what would be the last of the Lochlains to survive the gathering rode into the night.

When they reached the spot Asteria guided them to, the Little Fox and his companions waited to first let her cross the vale alone to Argolis, who had come as he had promised.

When she reached him, she drew her horse alongside and held up her hand, delicately, her fingers spread in the sign of the word. Argolis laid his hand against hers, curled his fingers into hers. He reached over and pulled her from her horse onto his own, holding her close against him. He looked across to the others.

“This is all?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “Only twenty and nine, my brother among them, but we are yours, my king. I am sorry, but someone betrayed us and Tisias gathers his forces against you.”

Argolis nodded, sadly. He saw the rest were merely boys, but all armed with bow and sword, faces hardened—Lochlains. He needed more of them, they were valiant, the tribe of Lochlain; it was beyond sadness that so many of them would fall this dawn.

As he held her firm against him, Asteria glanced down and saw, briefly, a glint from his sword, the mark of the father, the sword called the Angelslayer, resting in its ivory scabbard against his thigh.

With the sight of it, the dream dissolved and Adrea found herself again standing in the midst of the battle, the same image that had swept her when she stood on the sand of the Dove Cara that afternoon. It was the image of a war that covered all the Earth, the screams, the smell of blood. It was all linked to the sword. The mark of the father.

Adrea found herself sitting up in her room, in the quiet of the cabin, breathless. She noticed Aeson awake, as well, staring at her, frightened.

There were heavy footsteps, and the goatskin was thrown back from the doorway. In its shadow stood Lamachus, his great axe gripped tight in his hand. He was poised as a warrior, searching the dark. He looked to Adrea.

“What is it, girl! What happened?”

She placed a hand against her breast, feeling weak, as Asteria had.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

“You did not hear your own scream?”

“I screamed?”

“Enough to turn the dead.”

“It … it was just a nightmare, Father. Sorry that I awakened you.” “What could have made you scream that way?”

“I … I cannot remember.”

“Well, that must be God's blessing, not remembering, considering it took a few years off my skin and I was in the other room.” He relaxed, took a deep breath. “Well, at least you are all right.” He started to turn, but paused. “You need anything? Milk? A bit of grog? Could help you sleep.”

“No, I will be fine. Thank you, Father.”

Lamachus nodded. He pulled the goatskin closed and she heard his bare feet pad back to his room. She looked to Aeson. The dream was still with her, clouding her thoughts. Looking down, she noticed the bloodstone of the ring had turned from purple to black, except it burned with a tiny, distant spark. She kept it covered from Aeson's sight.

“If you talk about nightmares, they lose their power,” said Aeson. “Do you want to talk? I will stay awake.”

“I will be fine, Aeson. Whatever it was, it is over now.”

“Are you still afraid?”

She stared at him a moment, but nodded.

“Want me to sleep with you?”

She nodded again.

Aeson crawled over and curled into her blanket, nestling beside her, and was asleep almost as soon as he laid down his head. Adrea lifted her hand to look back at the ring. She felt no comfort from it this time, only a far, terrible fear and the death of too many souls to bear thinking of.

I
t is said of the ancients that the black mountain, Hericlon, was the first land to emerege from the primeval dark. Before the coming of the angels Hericlon captured the winter wind. Her spurs curled about the valley below, leaving the ground cold and raw. Her spires and crags were forever iced. A canyon cleft had been cut through to the south as though by the sword of God, with sheer rock walls of black-gray that blocked the sun.

In its center, the highest plateau of the pass, where the air chilled and all seasons moaned from the winds, there, the Etlantians built the mighty gate of Hericlon, spanning the width of the great canyon with gigantic, red-granite blocks.

Hericlon's gate rose eighty feet up the black rock. Steep stone stairways to either side ascended to the causeway. The battlement was of heavy stone, with archer ports and dark towers overlooking the passage south.

Hericlon's portcullis was unlike anything known, even of Etlantis. It was made of ancient bars of heavy, crimson Etlantian oraculum. Each oraculum beam was the width of two men and there was nothing on Earth that could pierce the portcullis when it was closed. In morning's light the red metal looked bathed in blood.

Below the gate, in the span of the passageway, blunt, squared-stone housing served as Hericlon's garrison for horses and seventy men.

Hericlon was stone upon stone, for no tree, no root, nor vine could find the sun. Hericlon was the stonework of gods. With her portcullis closed, Hericlon was impregnable.

From the moment the canyon cliffs began to rise to either side of him, Rhywder felt his skin crawl. The air was thick with what was called Hericlon's southwind, the cold that streamed down from the mountain's crags and spires. It moved through the pass, always a mournful cry, as if it were a memory of the wars of Dawnshroud, when it was built by the angels, separating the north of the Light Bearer from the south, claimed of Azazel. It was an ancient mark, a boundary as old as the Earth. As Rhywder and Agapenor rode into the canyon's yawning black walls, the axeman on instinct unlatched his axe and laid it over his thigh. It was as if they were leaving the world of light behind.

“What is that for?” asked Rhywder.

“Feel something,” was all the axeman said.

Suddenly, a horse passed, riderless, eyes wide. It galloped madly, careening off the edge of one rock wall in a swerve to avoid them. A Galaglean saddle dragged behind, bouncing off the rock.

Rhywder drew his short sword and pulled up on the reins.

“Care, Agapenor.”

“Aye,” the big man answered, “as I just said—feel something. It would be just up ahead of us.”

They continued, riding slow and carefully. When they rounded a corner, both paused. Sitting against the stone was a Galaglean warrior in full armor. He had drawn a dagger and was stabbing his own face. The dagger sank in and out, blood whipping, until the face was unrecognizable. The Galaglean finally stilled, relaxed, the bloodied dagger slipping from his fingers, and for a moment he almost looked relaxed, resting against the rock, but for the destroyed face and blood that spilled across his breastplate.

“Agapenor!” Rhywder screamed. “Get behind me! Now!”

Agapenor lost breath as the spirits came, jetting out of the bloodied corpse with screams to match the wind, four, then five, all gray shadows. Seeing Rhywder and Agapenor, they went for them, oval mouths agape, hands clawing.

Rhywder ripped the witch's amulet from his belt and held it before them. He kept a tight grip on the reins, but his horse reared as the wraiths collided with the amulet. It was as if Rhywder were blocking a blast of fire. They were repelled, soaring upward, some vanishing into the very face of the rock, others high into the chill, night air.

Rhywder latched the amulet back beneath his belt. He glanced to Agapenor, who was holding the reins of his horse in one fist and his axe in another.

“Yet more Uttuku?” Agapenor asked, rather calmly, considering.

Rhywder nodded.

“Those were weak or strong, would you say?” “Strong; they were able to hold the flesh, walk it.” “How would you fight something like that, Captain?” “Magick—such as the amulet I just used.” “What if one had no magick amulet?”

“Then you would likely be taken, but if they cannot find a mark quickly, it is said they are lost for many counts of the moon before they can strike again.” “Some comfort, eh?”

Rhywder eased his horse forward, and rode slowly, till the danger was past. Hericlon always left him uneasy.

“Things are off, not right. It has begun to turn.”

“What has begun to turn? What are you saying?” Agapenor prodded.

“Endgame. The signs are in the skies, though I have tried hard to ignore them. If I were a Follower, a preacher of Enoch, I would tell you the Earth itself has tilted, that even time is a bit off course. It is the work of the angels, what they call
star knowledge.
Hard to explain, would not worry about it if I were you, Agapenor.”

“I will try, Captain, though if not for you explaining it, I would not have it to think of in the first place.”

“Some say I talk too much. Habit.”

“Learning more each day with you, Little Fox. I was not thinking this adventure would turn out such an educational opportunity. So this is the passage of Hericlon? Never thought I would see it. Have to admit it is impressive.”

“If nothing else, Hericlon does always impress.”

“You say these Uttuku cannot take one whose heart is pure, is that true?” “So it is said.”

“Then why do you carry this amulet? Your heart is not pure, Little Fox?” “There are a few things I have regretted in my time. How about yourself, Agapenor? How would you figure your heart?”

“I suppose it is as pure as any other slayer who has spent most his life killing those that needed killing. But I do no whoring. I am true to my woman and I do not gamble or lie or steal. Who could say? Maybe my heart is pure, though I have no desire to put it to the test.”

When the opening of the garrison and Hericlon's gate fell into view, Rhywder drew up a moment. He was surprised that the great portcullis was raised, like the mouth of a dragon—open. There were blue-cloaked Galaglean warriors atop the causeway and more guarding the huge windlass assemblies of cogs with their rings of thick chain. Even more disturbing, the passageway was cluttered with pyres burning. A score of them at least.

“This does not look good,” Rhywder said.

“You think?”

Rhywder and Agapenor were shortly surrounded by a company of horsemen, javelins lifted, steel bows drawn. They parted to let a rider through, a captain by his shoulder tassels—a young Daath commander with a darkened silver breastplate and Daathan cloak.

“State who you are,” the captain said boldly but hopelessly in soprano.

Agapenor grunted beside Rhywder.

“Have no fear, Captain,” Rhywder touched the plain, silver armband on his upper right arm.

“A Shadow Walker!” the commander gasped.

“Would you mind lowering the tips of these arrows?” Rhywder asked calmly. “I would hate to think what might happen if one of your men got an itch.”

The captain raised a gauntleted hand and the weapons lowered. The Galagleans he was commanding were to a man more experienced and capable than the young Daath, but that was the way of things in Terith-Aire.

“Elyon be thanked,” the youth said with a sigh of relief. “One of our men has finally gotten through! You bring word from Argolis? Are they coming?”

“Who?”

“Reinforcements! I have sent ten men for reinforcements over the past fifteen days. Surely that is why you are here?”

Rhywder eased back in the saddle. There was fear in the young captain's eye, the kind that came of witchery and shadows.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but we would be just passing through.”

“No, no, it cannot be. This is madness, we are trapped here. There had been no word, no sign any of them have even gotten past the vale.”