Shadowfall g-1 Page 27

  With the rising sun, they had decided to make landfall here, in the Foulsham marshes, where no one would note their approach and where there was plenty of cover to hide the Fin from both the shipping lanes of the Straits of Parting and the few villages that lay ashore. They had selected an empty stretch of coastline and watched for the glow lights from early-morning giggers and fishers.

  Once the skies lightened enough to see by and most of the nocturnal marsh predators had slunk back to their lairs, Rogger had led Tylar and Delia toward the shore. The thief promised that he knew some paths through the marshlands, knowledge gained from the time he spent here in Foulsham Dell.

  They planned to steer clear of the god-realm itself, edge past its eastern border, and head overland for Tashijan. They had originally thought to make a more direct approach, landing somewhere along the Steps of the Gods, the ancient series of lofty bridges connecting a series of small islands to form a road between the First and Second Lands. But upon arriving among the islands, they found all the shores heavily guarded. Word of the godslayer’s escape from the corsairs had flown ahead of them.

  So they had kept their craft submerged and passed between two of the islands, sailing into the Straits of Parting that separated the First and Second Lands. Over another full day, they had glided along the southern coastline of the First Land, debating where best to make landfall.

  It was Rogger’s idea to go through the marshes.

  “So when’s the last time you placed a foot here?” the thief asked as they slogged toward more solid ground.

  “On the First Land?”

  Rogger nodded.

  “Five years.” The thought had been on Tylar’s mind since abandoning the Fin. Five years. A long time to be gone. But it seemed too short, especially when measured against the span of his pain and hardship. It seemed an entire lifetime had passed, not just five years.

  And now he had returned, come full circle. To what end? To clear a name long abandoned? To right a wrong? Despite the stripes on his face and his healed body, he was no knight.

  “Of course, I’m not sure this is exactly making landfall yet,” the thief continued, dragging a foot from the muck with a slurping sound. “More like making mud fall.”

  Delia slapped her arm, squashing a winged sucker. Both Delia and Rogger bore red welts from their bites on arms, face, and neck. Only Tylar was spared.

  Delia caught him staring as she flicked away the offending insect. “It’s your blood,” she said. “Even the suckers smell the Grace flowing there. Like smoke from a fire. They know better than to sip from such a font.”

  Rogger scratched a bite on his neck. “And you were grousing about being Grace blessed. I’ll take your burden ’til we’re out of these skaggin’ marshes. Or even for-”

  “How much farther?” Tylar asked, cutting him off.

  “Not far.” Rogger climbed a hummock, shoving between bushes of spiny sedge. He stood with his hands on his hips. “Not far at all.”

  Tylar helped Delia up. The two had spoken little since the night she had revealed herself to be the estranged daughter of Argent ser Fields, the man who had sent Tylar into slavery.

  Delia nodded her thanks as she climbed out of the marsh.

  But she did not meet his eye.

  Tylar followed. As he hauled himself up, he still felt like he carried the swamp with him: dripping water, caked in mud, sand and silt trapped in every crack and crevice. He had at least managed to keep his bandaged wrist dry, but the motion and exertion had set it to seeping blood again.

  Joining Rogger, Tylar spotted a thin path through the marsh grasses, no more than an animal track, but it led away. The hummock they stood on was connected to others in a maze-like chain.

  “Do you know where we are?” Tylar asked.

  “More west than I’d hoped. This is the Middens, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “The Middens?” Delia asked.

  Rogger picked a leaf from his beard. “The eastern border of Foulsham Dell. We’ll have to move quickly. Skirt the edge. In these wilds, there’s a good chance we’ll be long gone before ol’ Balger sniffs us out. Follow me.”

  They dared not venture too far into Foulsham Dell. Through the morning mist, Tylar could see the shadowy silhouette of the mountains of the Middleback Range to the north. The Dell lay in the crumble of land where the mountains tumbled into the Straits. It was a landscape of steaming bogs, dark marshes, sudden sinkholes, craggy slopes, misty highlands, and in the center of it all, the sprawling, ramshackle city of Foulsham Dell.

  The city was the realm of the god Lord Balger. Its western border dissolved into the wilds of the untamed hinterlands that shadowed the far side of the Middleback Range. In the Dell, such boundaries blurred. It was said that the border between settled land and hinterland was as unreliable as Lord Balger’s moods.

  The god’s stormy temper was as legendary as his debaucheries. He reveled in the pleasures of the flesh without restraint. He ate to a belching fullness, growing rotund. He drank to a blackened stupor, pissing from the towers of his castillion, “blessing” passersby with his streaming Grace. He whored with his own men in low places, accompanied by a Hand who would collect his spilled seed. But worst of all, he found pleasure in cruelty. Screams flowed from his castillion as often as song.

  It seemed even the lowliest of Myrillian scum needed a god, a land to call their own. Balger offered them such hard shelter.

  Tylar paced Rogger as they followed the thin path through the hummocks and hillocks. “Why risk the Dell? Why not wade back into the marshlands and head due east?”

  Rogger waved a hand to the left. “The waters around the Middens are treacherous with quicksand. A misstep and all would be lost. We’re lucky to have gotten here as it is. To set off in another tack, we’d have to retreat all the way back to the Fin, then circle back in again. I know the Middens. We’ll be fine.”

  Tylar didn’t argue. Here at least was dry, solid land.

  As they hiked through the thick marshlands, the sun climbed into the sky, visible through the boles and fronded limbs of swamp palms and the skeletal forms of fennwood trees. The day wore warmer, steaming away the layers of fog and mist. The stench of the bog grew, a pungent smell of sulfur gasses and decay.

  Still, they marched onward, occasionally leaping from one hummock to another. Frogs plopped away to either side of their path, marking their passage with tiny splashes. A loon called across the waters, a haunted, forlorn sound.

  “You’re limping again,” Delia said softly after a long spell of silence.

  Tylar noted how he had assumed the posture and gait of his formerly broken body: right leg stiff, short hobbled steps, back crooked. He forced himself straighter, his step more assured.

  Delia moved closer. “Why do you still do that?”

  He shook his head.

  “Is it that you don’t trust this hale form you wear now?”

  “What is there to trust?” Tylar said. “The only reason my bones have been mended is to cage the dred ghawl inside me. Once I’m rid of the daemon-if we’re victorious-then my body will revert to its broken posture. So why lose the reflexes honed from years of crippling? I may need them again.”

  Rogger grumbled ahead of him, “Cursed with the daemon… broken without it. A real corker there.”

  As they continued marching, the sun climbed directly overhead.. and still there appeared no end to the marshlands. Tylar searched around him. Hadn’t they passed this way already? Wasn’t that the same stump of fennwood?

  Hadn’t he already pushed through this bramblebrier tangle before? He searched the mud for the telltale print of his boots. Nothing.

  Still, he felt as if they were circling and circling.

  Delia voiced a similar concern. “I thought you said it wasn’t far to clear the swamps.” She dabbed her brow with a pocket kerchief.

  Rogger scowled back at her, dripping sweat from nose and brow. “Far… near… it’s all relative. I’ll get us-”


  With his attention turned, Rogger failed to see the trap. His foot stepped into the snare, it sprang with a sharp thwip, and the thief flipped into the air with a cry of surprise. Bouncing a bit, he hung upside down by one ankle.

  Tylar crossed under him. Deer snare. During their long hike, he had spotted a few long-legged fawns and even an antlered buck, bounding from hummock to hillock and away. Fleet-footed… more so than Tylar’s thieving companion. He freed a dagger to cut him down.

  Rogger caught his winded breath, still bouncing. His eyes were wide, clearly still panicked. “Trap…” he gasped out.

  Tylar froze, dagger in hand.

  He heard the twang of the crossbow and turned to see Delia struck in the shoulder and spilled into the water. Before he could take a step, he felt something crack against the back of his skull-then the ground rushed up at him and struck him in the face.

  He heard Rogger cry out.

  Then darkness.

  Awareness came slowly. But no sight. He heard distant sounds: the clank of an iron door, the rattle of a chain, echoing words, even the drip of water. But closer, by his ear, a voice spoke from out of the blackness.

  … BE AWARE… BEWARE…

  Tylar had no sense of himself. He hung weightless in a black sea, between consciousness and oblivion.

  But he was not alone.

  He felt the stir of current around him, something swimming past, under him. He sensed the immensity of its size, a leviathan of the deep. Its scrutiny drew all warmth from him.

  … THE CABAL… HUNTS…

  The words were not at his ear, but in his head. Tylar found no tongue to express his confusion, but it was understood.

  A more frantic stirring spun him in the dark sea. He sensed urgency, a press of time like a lead weight. What did the speaker want of him?

  … RIVENSCRYR…

  Tylar shivered in the darkness. He caught the barest scent of spring blossoms, dried and burned on a brazier, sweet but smoldering. A shadow of Meeryn, the scent of her funeral pyre… only this was not death. Again the presence swam beneath him. Tylar sensed who spoke to him now. He felt a writhing where his heart once lay, deep within his chest, past bone and blood.

  It was the dred ghawl.

  Awakened inside him.

  A single word arose from the darkness:

  … NAETHRYN…

  Tylar inwardly shivered. He remembered Fyla expressing her belief that such a being, a naethryn, slew Meeryn. Was this further proof? That one of the dread undergods, the dark shadows of their Myrillian counterparts, had broken into this world?

  The scrutiny of the daemon grew more intense, swelling into him, through him. Such language was beyond it, but still it struggled.

  NOT DAEMON…

  It sought to clarify, putting all its efforts into one last thought.

  NAETHRYN… I AM NAETHRYN…

  Shock shattered away the darkness. Firelight flickered in the cracks and drove the dregs of the black dream away. Still Tylar felt the slither of the daemon behind the bones of his rib cage, fiery with anger.

  Not a dream…

  I am naethryn.

  Could such a thing be possible? Did he bear some aspect of an undergod inside him, a creature a thousandfold more foul than any daemon? And if truly a naethryn, could it be the very monster who murdered Meeryn?

  Before he could ponder further, awareness of his surroundings finally struck through his shock. He was in a stone cell. Another dungeon. He lay on his back, naked except for a loincloth, strapped spread-eagle on a rack, lashed in rope that stank of shite. Black bile. The ropes had been blessed by bloodnullers, protecting the hemp from Graced enchantments.

  He sensed a presence in the cell with him.

  “He wakes,” a slithery voice said.

  Tylar turned his head, making the room spin and his stomach churn queasily. A black-robed figure huddled near an open door, bent in shadow, face cowled. A hand, smeared in filth… black bile… pointed to him. The stench off the bloodnuller filled his nostrils, gagging him further.

  With the nuller’s words, a figure stepped into the doorway, limned in torchlight. A tall man of wide girth and broad shoulders. He wore a beard, forked to the middle of his swollen belly. His clothing matched his hair, as black as a crow’s tail: boots, leggings, surcoat. Only his shirt seemed woven of silver thread, reflecting the torchlight, like the finest wrought chain mail.

  Dark eyes stared down at Tylar’s sprawled form. Fire glowed in them, the shine of Grace, fiery Grace. Here stood one of the fire gods of Myrillia.

  Tylar needed no introduction.

  “Lord Balger…” he mumbled.

  The god nodded ever so slightly, a strange courtesy considering their situation. “So you are the godslayer.” His voice was the grumble of a log crumbling in a stoked fire.

  Tylar felt the room grow warmer as the god stepped closer. Grace, heated with the aspect of fire, seeped from the god’s pores.

  “Not much to look at,” Balger said.

  “I slew no gods,” Tylar choked past his sickened stomach.

  “So you have claimed, but many disagree.” Balger reached a finger to one of his bound hands. The fingertip burned like a brand. Flesh blistered and smoked.

  Tylar cried out.

  Balger bent and sniffed the charred flesh. “I do smell Grace in you. Water, if I’m not mistaken.” He straightened and glanced to the bloodnuller. “It seems even the skagging touch of one of that ilk does not wipe away all your blessing. Now why is that?”

  A voice answered from the doorway. “He carries the full Grace of a god in him, milord. Meeryn’s Grace.” Rogger leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, freshly bathed from the look of his damp hair. “It’s in all his humours. He walks like a god himself, only perhaps slightly weaker, a paler shadow, yet still not without potency. You saw how his wounds healed with a mere slather of firebalm.”

  Balger frowned through his beard. “You’ve brought me quite the trophy from your pilgrimage.”

  Rogger shrugged. “I knew it would take such compensation to buy back my freedom.”

  Tylar stared at the thief, aghast. Had he been betrayed? Surely this was some ruse on Rogger’s part.

  Balger folded his arms across his ample chest, fingers entwined on his belly. “Well done indeed. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen such strangeness with my own eyes. A human godling. When you sent that message to expect you in the Middens, I thought it a foolish trick.”

  “No trick. I’ve learned better than that.” Rogger rubbed one of the branded tattoos from his interrupted pilgrimage. “It took a bit of time and pain. The overheated tubes of the Fin stung like a salted whip. I needed most of a morning, while the others slept, to tattoo that new message into my flesh.”

  Rogger pulled up a sleeve of his starched shirt, fingering a crude, blackened and blistered scrawl on the underside of his arm. “Firebalm is not healing my wounds as quickly as it does your prisoner.” He eyed Tylar as if he were some dried-and-pinned specimen in an alchemist’s lab and shook his sleeve back over his betrayal.

  Despite the dawning horror, Tylar had to acknowledge the thief’s cleverness. Of course Balger would know any words burned upon Rogger’s flesh. The god had cursed him with the pilgrimage, requiring the sigils of each realm’s house to be branded into his flesh. A pilgrim’s progress was overseen by the very god who placed the curse, to ensure the pilgrim continued his journey. Rogger had used that blessed link to carve a message upon his own flesh, to deliver word to Balger, knowing the god would sense every brand pressed into him.

  Tylar stared at Rogger. Had this been his plan all along? To buy his freedom? Tylar stared hard at the thief. “What have you done with Delia?”

  “Safe,” Rogger answered. “It was only a sandbag that tipped the crossbow’s arrow. Meant to stun. As I warned in my message. The same as struck you in the back of the head. No broken bones.” He eyed the bindings. “We can’t have you loosing that daemon of yours.” />
  Tylar’s head ached. “Where is she? What have you done-?”

  “She’s being well treated by the bevy of ladies in Lord Balger’s private wenchworks. Scrubbed, combed, and sweetened. It’s not every night the Hand of one god will lose her maidenhead to another god. She’ll be entertaining Lord Balger this very evening.”

  “You bastard…” He struggled in his bonds, but only managed to choke himself against a leather strap securing his neck. He could barely move a finger.

  During this discussion, Balger slowly circled Tylar, studying him, rubbing his upper lip with a finger. “No one knows he is here?” the god asked.

  “No, milord.”

  “He would make for an excellent source of Grace, an ever-flowing font of riches. A golden cow to be milked daily.”

  “Milord, what of the call from Tashijan? Is he not to be delivered to them? The reward for his capture-both in gold and goodwill-would surely be substantial.”

  A wave dismissed his words. “Such payment would come but once. A living godling would be a treasure without end.”

  “But there is also the danger. A chance mishandling, a lowered guard, and it would take but the snap of a finger or toe to unleash the dred ghawl inside him.”

  Balger’s eyes both narrowed and brightened. “I would see this daemon, fathom its aspect. Surely there is profit to be found in such a creature.”

  “Be wary. I believe, as does the handmaiden who accompanied us, that this dred ghawl somehow maintains this font of Grace. For its own preservation in a man’s form. A cocoon of Grace inside a cage of bone.”

  Through his anger, words echoed in Tylar’s head: I am naethryn.

  Balger leaned closer. “I’ll have my alchemists study his body from crown to toe, from mouth to arse.” The god reached across Tylar’s bare chest. He splayed his hand above the blackened print atop Tylar’s heart, hovering, matching his fingers to Meeryn’s.

  Tylar smelled the fire flaming from the god’s pores.