The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way (34 page)

“The men you trained have their own ideas,” Esselba said, gesturing toward a line of villagers with kinzchu spears. “They mean to go out hunting for an Evening Person of their own.”
 

Tejohn scowled. “Better yet, have Ghoron set fire to the tower. It would burn the stink away and bring your enemies to you. Then you wouldn’t have to carry the people you cured back here.”
 

She nodded gratefully. “You, Tyr Treygar, are welcome among us any time.”
 

He clasped her hand. “It’s good to be welcomed by a free people.”
 

Esselba turned to Cazia. “For you, we have a gift.”
 

“What? Why?” Cazia blurted out. Esselba and her people had always been scrupulously polite to her, but they’d kept their distance. There was little trust for scholars in Tempest Pass.
 

“Because you restored our charge to himself again and brought hope to us all.”
 

An elderly woman brought a package wrapped in a fine red linen and placed it in Esselba’s hands. Esselba held it out to Cazia, who gingerly peeled back the top cloth.
 

It was a mace. The handle was a little longer than Tejohn’s forearm and made of a slender rod of bronze. At the head, where a club would be, was a flat seashell formed out of pure copper. It had hinges on one side.
 

Cazia gaped at it, then picked it up. “It’s heavy!” she exclaimed. As she turned it upright, she noticed the hinges. “Should I?”
 

Esselba smiled. “Please do.”
 

The shell had a little metal ring on the back. Cazia pulled it open to reveal a kinzchu stone mounted beneath.
 

“We didn’t want you to go out into the lowlands unprotected, and a metal glove turned out to be a complicated thing to make. Still, we had a little money, some ins and a few specks—”
 

“You melted down your savings?” Cazia asked. “For me?”
 

“Yes,” Esselba said. “And for all of us. We’re all depending on the two of you.”
 

Shortly after, Cazia and Tejohn were in the air, flying south-southeast toward Salt Pass. After making sure the dozen kinzchu spears inside the cart were tied down carefully, Tejohn glanced downward. The black waters of Lake Windmark appeared to be full of floating logs, but he quickly realized they were alligaunts, dozens and dozens of them, moving southward, like them.
 

Then he glanced up at the sky, hoping to see the portal where the Sweeps wind was coming from, but it was too far. Dhe’s senses were more powerful than his healed sight, apparently.
 

As he turned to talk to Cazia, he caught a glimpse of orange. The tower at Tempest Pass was aflame. “They did it.”
 

Cazia glanced back. “Too bad,” she said.
 

“What’s too bad?” Tejohn asked. “The tower was full of rot and disease. A cleansing fire would do it good.”
 

“Oh, absolutely, but I wanted to be the one to do it.” She had a crooked grin. “I haven’t burned down a tower yet.”
 

He laughed a little. “You’re young.”

It was late in the day when they passed beyond the shores of Lake Windmark and crept up on the Marsh Gate, the northern edge of Twofin lands. Great Way, the wall was taller than he remembered, but perhaps it was just that he’d only seen it at night and from the uphill side.
 

“Bring us lower,” he called.
 

“Are you sure?” Cazia called over the wind. “I don’t want to crash in those marshes, not with all those alligaunts.”
 

She was right about the alligaunts, but it had to be risked. “I’m sure! Lower!” He hefted his shield just for the familiar feeling of preparing to fight, then drew one of the kinzchu spears out of the bundle tied inside the front of the cart.
 

There were human beings on the top of the wall. They held bows and long, flexible spears that wobbled in their hands. Tejohn saw a gray-bearded fellow heave a large rock.
 

The grunts were below, battering at both the large gate and the little gate. The soldiers seemed to be few--far too few--and the way they moved suggested they were exhausted and disheartened.
 

Tejohn was still leashed into the cart but there was enough slack for him to lean over the rail. The grunts swarmed at the base of the wall, roaring. A blue one leaped partway up, catching hold of the seams in the blocks, then creeping higher with tedious care.
 
The people above held their stones and spears high, ready to attack when the creature came nearer the top.
 

A purple grunt burst out from behind a pile of stones and threw itself against the little gate. There. That was the one. Tejohn knew it would cost him the spear, but that had to be his target.
 

The elderly woman at the top of the wall shouted a challenge at it, and the grunt hopped back, picked up a stone the size of a melon, and hurled it up at her. She ducked out of the way just in time, the rock soaring up and over the town.
 

Cazia was still bringing the cart closer to the ground, moving them to within range of the beasts. Tejohn could see them with more detail as they neared: the burrs in their fur, the gray blood matted into their shoulders and backs from early injuries now healed. Hatred and disgust welled up in him, and with it came the old familiar urge to start killing.
 

But not this time. This time would be a healing. A purge. This time, he might not even feel like a soldier at all.
 

It took much longer than he expected for their cart to be noticed by the fighters below, and the first was an old man atop of the wall. He exclaimed a wordless cry of surprise and relief, as though a single flying cart might save them. They gaped up at him, their faces slack, for just a moment, then they began to call and shout challenges at the grunts below.
 

The commotion they made was distracting enough that none of the grunts turned around until it was too late. Tejohn had never in his life hit his target with a thrown spear before, but this was the first. He heaved his weapon at the huge beast’s back, then felt the cart lurch as Cazia angled it upward again. He clutched at the rail and watched the spear strike the wall instead of the creature—the cart was moving too fast!—then glance off the thing’s shoulder on the ricochet.

They passed over the wall and Cazia spun the cart around, slowing them so suddenly that the railing nearly broke off in Tejohn’s hand. The whole cart groaned, then wood cracked. Tejohn looked back at her and saw a surprised and fearful look on her face that matched his own feelings very well.
 

“I guess that wasn’t such a good idea after all,” she said.
 

Cazia began to lower them to the open yard behind the wall, but the elderly woman above waved to warn them off. Others began pointing toward a wide spot atop the wall, which was tucked behind a bit of narrow cliff.
 

Tejohn glanced around and realized the yard was completely empty. There were no soldiers rallying on the ground, or preparing supplies, or even taking a short rest. All that empty space made him nervous. “Set us down up there,” he called. “In the staging area atop the wall.”
 

She did. While Cazia maneuvered toward the wall, Tejohn heard the kinzchu stone he had thrown burst apart, eliciting shrieks from the grunts outside. Immediately after, he saw the bright glow of firelight shine on the cliff faces around them.
 

The flames drew the defenders to the edge of the wall, where they stared down in amazement. While Tejohn fumbled with the knot of his leash, made all the tighter by the way he’d been lurched around, the Twofins who had fought atop the wall gaped at him, then at the foot of their defenses, then at him again.
 

He finally freed himself, scooped up the dozen spears at the front of the cart, and leaped onto the wall. “Who is the commander here?”
 

The wall stretched nearly one hundred and fifty feet from the sheer cliff beside him to the sheer cliff at the far end. There were only five defenders atop it. One, who appeared to be a young man of about fifteen, stood at the far end. He stared at Tejohn and the cart, but he did not leave his position.
 

The other four raced toward them, dropping their spears, stones, and empty quivers onto the wall walk as they ran. There was the elderly woman with her hair clipped short, a pudgy old graybeard who ran with his arms out to the sides. Beside them was a stout woman with thinning brown hair, her hand clamped to the wrist of a tall skinny girl with wild, terrified eyes.
 

“Who is the commander here?” Tejohn called again.
 

The graybeard answered in a thick, hoarse voice. “That would be—”
 

“Be quiet, Ilb,” the elderly woman said. “You can’t be in charge if no one does what you tell them. There’s no one in charge anymore, which I guess means I’m ‘no one.’ You got here just in time.”
 

She grabbed hold of the railing and began to climb into the cart.
 

“What are you doing?” Tejohn grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “We aren’t here to fly you away. We came to arm you.”
 

The old woman’s hand fell to the knife at her hip.
 

“Don’t,” he said harshly.
 

“I recognize you,” the skinny girl said. “You’re the tyr who said he was going for help!”
 

“You’re Tejohn Treygar!” Ilb blurted out.
 

The woman moved her hand away as if embarrassed she had reached for it. “You’re not here to rescue us?”
 

“No,” Tejohn said. He began to untie the weapons along the side of the cart. “Help me with this. I’m going to help you win this fight.”

“You’re Tejohn Treygar!”
 

“Shut up, Ilb!” the woman turned toward Tejohn. “You don’t… My tyr, the fight is lost. There are a few humans left besides us, hiding in the city or barred inside the holdfast. The soldiers have all been killed or bitten. Everyone who hasn’t turned will turn soon. The five of us haven’t eaten in two days!”
 

Tejohn managed the knot and the bundle of kinzchu spears fell onto the granite in a clatter. “Where is Commander Lowtower? He was supposed to hold Saltstone until my return.”
 

“Imprisoned by the tyr,” the woman said sourly, “along with the others.”
 

Tejohn felt a chill run through him. “Not Doctor Twofin?”
 

The woman nodded. “He’s Tyr Doctor Twofin now. The first scholar tyr in history, and Fire take the fools who returned his chair to him.”

Fallen. They had all fallen. Everything Tejohn had done to prepare for his own return had been wasted, and who knew how many people had lost their lives because of it.
 

He should have done something. He didn’t know what it should be but something. He should have said the right thing or stabbed the right person. Fire and Fury, he should have left Saltstone better prepared.
 

In fact, what he should have done was hunt down Doctor Twofin and…

Tejohn could taste his own blood. He’d bitten hard on the inside of his cheek, and he forced himself to relax. There was a wizard in the Twofin chair, and Tejohn had a kinzchu stone for him. It was his duty to cure everyone of the curses that possessed them.
 

“You’re Tejohn Treygar!” Ilb said again.
 

A roar startled them all. They turned and saw that a blue grunt had gained the wall walk. The young man lowered his wobbly spear, and the grunt moved toward him.
 

“Fire and Fury,” Tejohn snarled. The grunts were supposed to flee in terror when they saw one of their own transformed. “Blessing! BLESSING!”
 

The grunt spun about just as Tejohn pushed by Ilb and the three women. His shield was still on his back, and any thought that he might ready it was discarded once he saw the speed at which the grunt charged him.
 

The lad charged, too, his eyes wide and his lower lip clenched between his teeth. Tejohn wanted to yell at him to stop, but he didn’t want to take the creature’s attention off of him.
 

The thing closed quickly. Tejohn noticed a second flash of blue as another grunt gained the wall behind the wild-eyed young man.
 

Focus, focus, focus.
The beast in front of him was fast; it could flank a man in a moment, but up here, it was constrained by the width of the wall walk.
 

Still, it could leap. Tejohn stepped toward the inside of the wall, holding the spear with both hands. At the last moment, it leaped toward him, and he leaped, too, swinging the stone to keep it lined up with the beast’s midsection. The grunt swiped with its claw, knocking the stone aside.
 

The creature immediately went limp, crashing hard to the stones of the walk as Tejohn passed by. The force of the creature’s blow knocked the spear out of one hand, and he barely managed to hold on with the other, the weapon twisting all the way behind him.
 

The grunt beside him let loose his death cry, and Tejohn saw that the second creature, who had just knocked the young man onto his belly, had become still and wary at the sound, like a spooked boq. Tejohn got his spear into position and started toward it. The grunt leaned to the side to look around him—the fires must have started in the fallen beast’s fur—then cried out in terror and leaped from the wall into the Sweeps.
 

The young man scrambled to his feet to look after them, and Tejohn did the same. Grunts fled from the wall down toward the Sweeps. The one that had sounded the alarm writhed on the stony ground until its broken legs healed, then it, too, fled.
 

“Finally,” Tejohn said. He turned to the young man with the wobbly spear. Great Way, he was even younger than he appeared at a distance. The boy couldn’t have been more than thirteen. “Were you bitten?”