The Dark Ferryman (57 page)

Quendius snapped an order. Narskap shook his head, and then, deliberately, swung away from the other, and took a feeder tunnel on his right. Quendius watched him go, and then snarled in anger. He made a furious gesture that swung the amulet around his neck to one side, like a pendulum. It caught the dim light and gave off a dull glow before disappearing from sight. But Quendius did not slow nor did he signal any of the guards to follow Narskap. The Hound had not slipped the hold of the packmaster, but he might have snapped at the hand which fed him, Garner thought.

Bregan took Garner’s arm and pulled him sideways into the same tunnel as they reached it. The tramp of boots covered their defection. Bregan reached up and touched a set of marks painted onto a beautiful though half-recessed and hidden tile in the wall. It glowed at his touch.

Garner caught his breath and saw Bregan fighting to do the same. The trader had spent his frail strength keeping pace. It was defect or die as the army caught up and overran him. They both withdrew deeper into the small cut as the march of other steps drew nearer and nearer, drowning out even their labored exhalations.

They could not go back now, even if they wished. Or they could only if they had the strength and will to sprint back into place with the caravan guards, but Garner doubted that Oxfort could manage it. He did not know if he himself could, as his sides burned and his breath wheezed slightly. Even as he pondered the choice that Bregan had made for them, the invading army began to trot past.

He saw the Ravers. He knew them by their odd gait. Some hopped and leaped on two legs, others gamboled on four, uneven legs, their black rags in tattered wisps about their shining carapaces. Bregan drew in a hiss and then held it as if afraid they might hear him. Garner worried more about their scent. Heat boiled off him like a kettle even though he shivered and dust coated him, caking over the sweat of his body, dust raised by the troops as they went by. Bregan steepled his hands over his nose in protection as they both watched in horrified fascination.

Things
followed after the Ravers. Things like no beings he had ever seen before, and he was not sure he could ever describe to another who had not already seen such a creation. Lean and muscled, they trotted upright like a man, but there all resemblance ended. He would have said nothing that looked as they did could run except that he saw them. Only one scent hung about them, that of blood. Copper, sweet, ripening blood. They hissed as they quick marched, tongues flickering in and out. Panting? Complaining to one another? The noises they made battered at his eardrums, atonal and sharp, pitched lower and higher than he could hear in comfort. They wore armor, or perhaps it was their hide along the back, folded into plates about the shoulders and flanks. Some of them were spined, short and sharp, now and again, heavy and blunt. Armor and weapon were grown out of their own tough hide, in addition to what they carried. Teeth, many, sharp and pointed, glinted in every gaping mouth.

Beezel reeled into his view, his staggering form buffeted uncaring by the tide surrounding him. Sweat poured off his purpling face. He clutched his left arm and cried, “Stop, just let me stop! Help me . . .”

They
sssssisssed
at him as he spun about, helplessly. Their ranks broke around him, as a tide parts around a huge boulder jutting up from an ocean floor, leaving him vulnerable to one huge figure as it bore down on him.

Beezel took a whooping gulp of air as he fell to one knee, cradling his arm to his chest, heavy creases of pain etched into his weathered face. The . . . thing . . . came at him, a hand out.

Long curving claws tipped each finger on that hand. It swiped through the air, catching Beezel by the throat, and ripped it out. Blood spurted out in a wave that flooded the ground. Beezel waved his arms and toppled onto his side. Crimson splashed up and all around him as he did. Garner turned Bregan’s face away, hoping only that Beezel was dead before the thing began to feed greedily, tearing flesh from bone in long bloody strips. One or two others joined it, at the end, and they fought over the last scraps and gobbets of meat.

Tears coursed down his face, hot and wet, and dried far too quickly, and were far too few. His body had little moisture it could spare, even in shock and sorrow for a comrade. He took Bregan and shoved him down the feeder tunnel, praying only that they not meet Narskap, less afraid of the dark than he was of what he’d just seen. He did not stop until they’d gone far enough that the sound of the passing marchers was only a mild thrum in their ears.

“If only he could have stayed on his feet,” Bregan said, in a low breath. “On his feet.”

Even a whisper might be too loud, but he answered anyway. “An army that feeds on itself never stops. No wounded. The enemy losses only fuel it.
No survivors
.” Garner tore his attention away from the main tunnel and put his back to the stone wall. “We can’t let it reach its goal. Whatever it is. Whoever they are.”

Bregan made a noise in his throat. He wiped his mouth with shaking fingers. “They are the Raymy,” he managed. He turned and pressed his face to the stone and then shifted farther down the tunnel into its obsidian depths before finding something and fingering it upon the wall. His touch feathered across an inset tile, and he put his hand forward to it as it lit, as if its coolness, as if its subtle light, could both soothe and guide him. After a moment, he reared back and put his fingertips to it, tracing and strengthening the object. Whatever he worked upon the tile, it answered. “We can outrun them.”

Garner felt his lips twist. “I won’t go back. I’ve got to warn Sevryn. I’ve got to get the warning out.”

“Why? What have the Vaelinars ever done for us, but weave a web about us that strangles us, Ways that bind us and tax us . . .”

“Ways that bridged us together after the Mageborn tore us apart.”

“It took the Mageborn to turn away the Raymy.”

“They went for each other’s throats after.”

Something glinted deep in Bregan’s eyes. “They did not value one another.”

“As you don’t the Vaelinars? The Galdarkans?”

Bregan spit dryly to one side. “At least defend something of Kernan, if you’re going to defend anything.”

“They’re human! Human enough that many of them have loved us, and we loved them back. They redressed their wrongs. They know the mistakes they’ve made. They’re human,” he repeated, adding “There’s nothing human in that army.”

“You’ll kill us, playing the hero.”

“There’s no other way. Die this way or go back and try to stay on our feet . . .”

“All right, all right!” Bregan waved a hand, quieting Garner. “We can travel a pathway they cannot, by sheer bulk of their numbers. These side tunnels are narrow. They can chase us if they see us, but not en masse. If I can but know where they were headed . . . I saw the tiles . . .” Bregan closed his eyes tightly, face screwed in memory. “I read everything in the trader libraries growing up. Everything. It stays with me, even languages long dead.”

Garner looked at the brushed-on sigils. He knew a little of the Galdarkan style from his brief stint in Calcort, and he would have staked his life that he looked at it now. “Who made these?”

Bregan gave a shrug. “Perhaps it was the Mageborn you so revile.” He leaned over to adjust his brace. “Have you water in your pack?”

“Some.”

“As do I. A drink now, and then we go this way.” He pointed down the feeder tunnel as he straightened.

“Where to?”

“A place called Ashenbrook.” He frowned. “I should know that name.”

Garner took his waterskin out and drank a little, slowly, wetting his lips and tongue, and letting it trickle down his throat, before taking a second sip. “Where Kanako fell and the Vaelinars won a blood-soaked victory, according to toback shop tales.”

“Then we can only pray history repeats itself.” Bregan took his own drink, capped his flask tightly, and waved Garner ahead of him. “Everything is against us. Time, tide, and all manner of flesh.”

The wide and treacherous Nylara River stretched sinuously across their view, deeply sapphire, foaming sea green where it etched into the riverbank. Lara looked down at the tradesman they had accosted, he with but a few caravans parked idle at the river’s edge.

“There’s no Ferryman here. Ay waited better part of a day, then sent for regular boatman from across t’Nylara. Ropes still in place, and th’ barge, but no Ferryman. Took the most of yestiddy and t’day to get my caravan acrosst. This be th’ last of it.” The trader hitched up the shoulder of his finely embroidered vest as though it scratched him under his heavy winter coat.

“What do you mean, he’s not here?”

“Are you daft? Looky around you. No Ferryman! Now, mind you, he takes his time, part’clarly when it comes to trader caravans, ever since th’ Oxfort son struck him down. He carries a grudge, that un. Traders sum-times wait much as ’alf a day t’get him to show up. Now there’s sum that says he ferries other rivers, too, but ay can’t be sayin’ that. You all would know more abut that. Mebbe you’ll have more luck gettin’ th’ ornery beast t’ answer.” And he leveled his heavy eyebrows to look at them. Despite his heavy northeast Kernan accent, his meaning was clear, his words seeming to hang in the air between them.

Lara’s mount stamped restlessly. She looked to Bistane. “Tree’s blood.” Her mouth worked on words she wanted to spit out, but did not. His eyes reflected both her anger and her worry. The Ferryman was not a being, beast, or man, but a Way and what if he had spun out of existence just as the Cut had done around Sevryn. Yet there was no sign of anything amiss at the edge of the Nylara River other than the missing phantom. As she glared across the bright blue ribbon of the river, harsh winter sun glancing off it, she saw, she
felt
, no sign of the Ferryman. What she did feel hit her like a blow, the link with her vantane cutting across her vision of the Nylara: a field of war, trampled grass running red-brown with blood, horses down and struggling to get to their feet despite shattered legs, men and women strewn everywhere like broken dolls, and a trap waiting to be sprung that would spare all the rest of the fighters from the same fate—if she and her troops could but get there in time. As planned, by the hand of the Ferryman. She shut her eyes tightly. Bistane’s arm went around her waist to steady her in her saddle.

A brilliant trap. If it could be worked.

Bistel and her brother led troops as bait. She and her troops were the jaws.

She opened her eyes.

“What do we do?”

She hauled back on the reins, spinning her mount around sharply as he squealed in protest. “We ride,” she answered tightly. “And pray we get there in time to be of some help. Bistel will hold them as long as he can.”

“Five days.” Bistane sounded grim.

“If anyone can do it, the warlord can.”

Bistane signaled the troops to fall in, and they set out at a collected, steady run back the way they had come. They dared not run far or long, but they would press themselves as they could. Lives depended on it. The thought of victory had been swept away. Now the Warrior Queen concentrated only on survival.

RIVERGRACE DRAGGED HER BOOTS. She walked in gliding, searching strides even though she could see a little in the torchlight cast around her, more in worry that there would be something in shadow she could not see. The weight of the rock pressed down on her. Her throat fought to close against the dust she raised. Last time she had walked a route like this, Cerat had been in her hands, talking to her, taunting her, urging her. Not that she would ever want to hold a presence like that again, but it had distracted her from the reality closing about her. Then, those other forces had driven her, had led her. Propelled by a River Goddess wanting freedom, a souldrinking Demon wanting mayhem and a trapped elemental Goddess of Kerith seeking cleansing, she had been pulled and pushed to her destination. Now she had no idea where to go except that she could not go back.

How did the Ferryman know to find her, to take her from Larandaril, and for what reasons? Had they been his own or was he nothing more than a thrall to a Way, a Way that even other Vaelinars found a mystery? No one seemed sure what House made it or brought the specter into being or how he tamed his river. Few knew that he could tame other rivers, bridging them with his phantom presence. So did he have a master who lived still, as Vaelinar could and often did? Had that master sent for her, and the Ferryman failed, or did she walk to him now? What could he possibly be, under all this rock, let alone where? Now it seemed she could wander down here, lost, until she no longer had the strength go on.

Grace halted. She put her right hand to her chest to see if her heart still beat as she thought it did. It pulsed strongly under her palm. The gesture echoed the touch she liked to give Sevryn, her palm over his chest to feel the strength of his heart as if she could cradle the life he carried within him. She closed her eyes. She could not feel him, whether he lived or died, whether he had betrayed himself to Lara or whether he kept himself confined and coiled, waiting to strike. He would come after her, she knew, if he could find the means to do it. Even through death, he would find a road. They had done it before. This time, though . . . her thoughts faltered and her hand dropped to her side. Lara’s attack on her had scattered her trust to the winds. What was she that she had earned that betrayal? What did the queen fear from her? Narskap’s daughter. Who was she but lost? And if she were lost, how could she hope that anyone else would be able to find her? She had no way forward unless she found it herself.

Grace stopped thinking, shutting down her doubt, her shadow wavering in the orange-yellow glow of her torch. She stiffened her spine. Betrayed or rescued, punished righteously or persecuted, how could she know what transpired? She could only know herself. And she knew water. Fresh water. Droplets of rain and puddles and the beginnings of the smallest brook to the deepest, white-water current. Water ran through sand and stone, through ash and branch . . . it ran wherever it could until it was free. If she found it and followed it, it might take her into depths where only the merest rivulet could run, or it might take her to freedom.