Brotherhood of the Wolf (42 page)

Iome interviewed the clubfooted boy in the lower bailey. He stood on the cobblestones with his head down, clearly embarrassed to have been dragged before the Queen. His embarrassment did not concern Iome so much as his infirmity.

His right leg was a swollen monstrosity, so large that he could not have worn pants. He wore nothing but a tunic of old sackcloth that looked as if the poorest inhabitant of the castle might have discarded it.

“How old are you?” Iome asked gently.

“Ten,” the boy said. Then after a long moment he added, “Yer High … uh … Ladyship.”

Iome smiled. He might have addressed her as “Your Highness” or “milady,” but had instead invented his own uncouth concoction.

“Ten years?” she asked. “Have you lived in Castle Sylvarresta
so long?” She'd never seen him before.

“No,” the boy said slowly, never daring to look up. “I come from Balliwick.” It was a village on Heredon's western border.

“That is a long way, nearly a hundred miles,” Iome said. “Are you an apprentice to a carter? Who brought you?”

“I come to see the Earth King,” the boy said. “I walked. I got here Wednesday, but he was at the hunt.…”

The boy's leg was as swollen as a melon and his foot twisted inward at a horrible angle. No boot would have fit it, so he'd merely wrapped the thing and walked about on the bandage. She imagined that he must have had his leg broken as a babe, and that it had healed poorly. Yet she could not imagine that anyone with such a leg could walk all the way from Balliwick. He'd have dragged it, painfully, step by aching step.

“The Earth King is gone,” Iome said, “headed south into war.”

The boy stared hard at the ground, fighting tears. She wondered what to do with the lad.

I could put him in the inn, with the others who are sick, she thought. But to leave him here in the castle would be dangerous.

This boy had walked a hundred miles to see her husband, but Gaborn was riding south, and Iome realized that this child was so slow he might never catch the Earth King, might never be able to obtain his lord's blessing. While the merchant princes of Lysle hadn't bothered to walk from their camps to see her husband, this boy had crawled halfway across Heredon for an audience.

She couldn't abandon him. She couldn't easily take him, either. “I'm going south,” Iome decided at last. “You could ride with me. But first you must get into some proper clothes.”

The boy looked up in wonder, for no pauper would have hoped for such a boon. But as he looked up, Iome fretted. Myrrima had already left the castle with Jureem. But by the sun, it could not be much later than two o'clock. Nightfall
was hours away. She had almost managed to bring her dream to life. The city guard had searched the whole east end of the city, gathered every last one of her vassals and sent them south.

“Go to the King's Keep,” Iome told the boy. “On the top floor, take the hallway to the left. There you will find my apartments. Look in the guest wardrobe to the left and get yourself a decent tunic and a traveling cloak, then take a moment to wash in the horse trough there in the bailey. When you finish, come back and wait until we can leave.”

“Yes, Yer Lordship,” the boy said. Iome winced at his use of a masculine title for her. He leapt up and half-limped, half-ran on his twisted, clumsy foot, lumbering up Market Street.

Iome closed her eyes, savored the moment. The guards had only to search the north end of the city. Two more hours. That is all it would take to clear the city.

But now Gaborn's warning rang through her. “Hide! You are too late to flee. Hide—all of you!”

Iome started. From here in the bailey, she could not see over the castle walls. A watchman on the gate tower cried, “Your Highness, it's coming from the south—a great shadow above the clouds.”

Even as he spoke, thunder cracked over the Dunnwood. Lightning strobed. Nearby, Iome's horse jumped, pulling at its tethers.

Sir Donnor grabbed the reins to Iome's mare, and mounted his horse, as did Iome's Days. “Your Highness,” Sir Donnor shouted, “we must away!”

“Hide!” she ordered him, astonished that he wanted to flee—for the Earth King had told them to hide.

“But we've fast mounts,” Sir Donnor urged, “faster than anything that flies.”

Perhaps Sir Donnor is right, she thought. A swift force horse
might
outrun such a creature—Ah, who am I fooling? I would never risk it.

“Hide!” Gaborn's warning struck her again.

Iome ran and leapt on her mare. Sir Donnor turned his
mount and sped out the city gates, over the drawbridge and away from Castle Sylvarresta, never looking back. He'd been certain that she would follow. Iome's Days raced hot on his heel, but after years of keeping her eyes on royalty, the matronly woman spared a glance backward by habit, realized that Iome was not following.

The Days' face was stricken, pale with fear.

But Iome could not leave the clubfooted boy.

She wheeled her mare and raced up Market Street, the beast's hooves clattering over the cobblestones, its breath coming hot from its mouth. Her Days followed a hundred yards behind.

As Iome's charger hit the Black Corner, turned and sped under the portcullis of the King's Gate, she glanced back down over the valley. She could see the fields before Castle Sylvarresta from up here: the river Wye twisted like a silver thread among the green fields on the east of the castle, the autumn golds and reds of the Dunnwood rose above the fire-blackened fields to the south.

And there on the blackened fields, Sir Donnor spun his mount, galloping back toward the castle, having realized that Iome was not following.

To Iome's dismay, Myrrima was racing down from the hills, too. She passed Sir Donnor.

Even as Iome watched, a great sphere hurtled from the clouds. Blackness suddenly filled the sky above, darker than any night. A tornado swirled above the sphere, a tornado of light and heat and fire all whirling down into the heart of blackness.

The Darkling Glory drew the light and heat from the sky like some consummate flameweaver, channeling the power to himself. Within the heart of the sphere, swirling air and veils of night concealed the Darkling Glory.

Yet it plunged toward those who raced for the castle, swept toward Sir Donnor like a hawk for a dove.

*   *   *

Myrrima galloped across the downs, gouging her heels into the flanks of her charger, hoping for greater speed. She clutched the bag of herbs Binnesman had given her. Myrrima had never owned a horse, had learned to ride only because the boys in Bannisferre had sometimes insisted that she ride with them.

Yet now she galloped for the castle, drove mercilessly as the Darkling Glory came on, the wind screaming at her back. Sir Donnor had been racing toward her, fleeing the castle. Now he wheeled his mount and shouted wordlessly, trying to pace her.

With the Darkling Glory came a night darker than any winter's eve.

Myrrima's horse plunged through thickening gloom. She glanced up at the city, saw a flash of movement. Iome's horse was racing across the barren green at the crown of the hill, toward the King's Keep. Iome's traveling cloak flapped like a banner in the wind.

It seemed to Myrrima that the Darkling Glory slowed abruptly, that it hovered just at her heel, silently.

She hoped that she'd be able to outpace the beast, for with each second, the castle drew nearer, with its tall battlements and stone towers and the promise of safety.

Her charger rounded a bend. Myrrima clung tight, tried to keep from falling. She glanced back. Sir Donnor galloped behind, struggling to catch up. The knight half-turned to the side, drew his great horseman's axe. He looked as if he would wheel and do battle.

A ball of wind hurtled from the darkness. Myrrima saw it skim across the blackened field, picking up ash from last week's fire, blurring like a hand to cut the legs from beneath Sir Donnor's charger.

Sir Donnor shrieked as his mount went down, and he pitched forward to meet the ground.

Myrrima screamed for her horse to run. She grabbed her bow and quiver from off her pack.

Sir Donnor shouted, but his cry was drowned out in the rising roar of the wind that whipped all about. Myrrima
glanced back. Sir Donnor was lost to the darkness.

Myrrima peered forward. She had almost reached the drawbridge. She saw it through the darkening gloom. “Jump!” she shouted to her charger, vainly hoping that somehow the beast would leap faster than it ran.

She heard a lightning bolt snap, felt her horse jerk and quiver. Its impetus suddenly redoubled as a lightning bolt hurled it forward. The horse flipped in the air, head over hooves, and then she too was tumbling.

Iome never spotted the clubfooted boy. She timed her leap for the moment that her mount slowed, and ran into the keep.

“Boy?” Iome shouted. “Are you here?”

“Milord?” he called from the top of the stairs.

Outside, thunder pealed and rattled the windows. Wind screamed over the stones of the keep like something in pain.

“Down here!” she shouted. “The Darkling Glory!”

He came running at once, tripped and rolled down the carpeted stairs above. In seconds he stood before her, looking ridiculous in the King's finest brocaded jacket, a gorgeous thing made of cloth-of-gold with cardinal stripes. The boy had not been able to resist trying it on.

Thunder pealed, and all light seemed to flee as night descended on the castle. Wind howled through the King's Keep and hail battered the windows. Iome wheeled toward the door of the keep, just as lightning split the sky outside. Her horse screamed in pain and she heard a wet thud as its carcass dropped. The wind lifted the beast, rotated it slowly in the air about ten feet off the ground, like a cat holding a mouse in fascination.

The clubfooted boy screamed in terror. Iome glanced about in dismay. Her Days had not followed her into the keep, and Iome wondered where the woman might have gone. Never before had a Days deserted her, no matter how great the danger.

She raced for the door outside, but the wind grabbed the
huge oaken door, slammed it closed in her face.

“Hide!” Gaborn's Voice rang through her. “For the sake of our love, hide.”

“This way!” Iome called to the boy, grabbed his hand. A suffocating darkness enveloped the castle. It was not the darkness one sees on a star-filled night, or even on a night of storms when clouds blanket heaven. It was a complete absence of light, the darkness of the deepest cavern.

Yet Iome knew the keep, knew all its twists and turns. She felt her way along the hall, heading for the buttery, thinking to hide in a deep corner of some vegetable bin.

But she recalled Binnesman's chamber in the cellars. She recalled the sense of power she'd felt in that room. Down in the depths of the castle, surrounded by earth.

She turned abruptly, raced for the lower passage that had seldom been used, threw open the door. The flagstones leading down were rough and uneven. The fourth one from the landing twisted loosely underfoot. She'd have to be careful on her way down. The cellar had never been meant for habitation. She led the boy as swiftly as she could.

She saw light ahead.

Iome reached the door at the top of the stairs, closed it behind her, bolted it. Outside, wind screamed. Thunder pealed and hail battered the stone walls.

Upstairs, the windows of the keep all shattered as if from a great blow. Iome winced. The stained glass of the oriels in the King's Chamber had been in place for a thousand years. The glass was a treasure that could not be replaced.

With the door sealed, Iome could see the faintest glow from a fire down below. The air smelled sickly sweet from lemon verbena that simmered on Binnesman's hearth. Iome had not seen the wizard in half an hour. The last she'd been aware, he'd taken off toward the inns in town, gone to help the sick, but he might have come back here. He might have taken one of the side roads back up to the keep.

Binnesman had planned to fight this monster. She dared hope to find him in his room.

She raced down to the cellar, found the pot of verbena
still brewing, a few coals glowing in the hearth. The boy raced over to the fire.

Iome threw the door closed, looked for a way to bolt it. Binnesman's door did not even have a latch.

She searched Binnesman's room for something to hold the door closed. There were various large stones among the Seer's Stones, too large for her to roll by herself.

“Hide!” Gaborn shouted in her mind. “It comes for you!”

Binnesman did not even have a bed to hide under—only the pile of dirt in the corner.

Myrrima woke, floating facedown in the moat. She tasted water, cold water mixed with algae.

Pain throbbed in every muscle. Vaguely she remembered falling from her horse, and she believed that she must have shattered bones on impact, then rolled into the water. Darkness hovered over her.

Her horse was screaming and thrashing in the moat nearby. The waves of its struggle made her bob on the surface like a piece of cork bark.

I'm dying, she thought muzzily.

She floated in deep water as cold as winter ice, and just as numbing. She felt so weak.

She could not move. She struggled vainly, tried to lift a hand and swim—to the shore, to the castle wall, anywhere. But she could not see a thing in such total darkness.

Above her, she felt a wind, the wash of giant wings as something hovered overhead.

It did not matter where she went, so long as she swam.

But she struggled, and as she struggled, she found herself sinking.

It does not matter, she thought. It does not matter if I die today, if I join the ghosts of the Dunnwood.

By dying, Myrrima would lose her endowments. Her sisters would be glad to get back their glamour. Her mother would regain her wit. They would work and scrape in their little house outside Bannisferre, and they might be happy. It did not matter if Myrrima died.