The Pagan Night (50 page)

Cahl smiled, the first time Ian had ever seen. It was a broad smile, full of teeth, and not frightening at all.

“I do not understand her will for you,” Cahl said, “but not knowing is part of this. There are many of my brothers who would have left you for dead. There are many more who would hunt you down without a second thought. But Fianna is moving something in you. Surely you can feel that.”

“No,” Ian answered. “Nothing about me is changing. I am of the Celestials, faithful to Cinder. Faithful to Strife. I am the heir of Houndhallow, and sworn to Heartsbridge. Nothing that has happened here will change that.”

“So you say,” Cahl said. “I have listened to your evensong, and I know those words, Ian of Houndhallow. They are older than your church.” The shaman loomed closer still, his rocky face inches from Ian’s nose. “I may never change you, but the gods are another matter.”

Ian was about to answer when Cahl snorted and turned away. He loped down the hill, his broad back disappearing among the trees long before his footsteps faded.

“Such a load of bullshit,” Ian hissed, shaking in frustration. “Gods, what’s wrong with these people? We should be fighting. We should be at the Fen Gate. Damn it!”

Anger turned Ian’s feet. He walked around the hill, avoiding the pagan camp and the sentries he knew were roaming the trees.

Word had filtered through the forest, from captured Suhdrin scouts foolish enough to wander far from the roads. They spoke about the size of the Suhdrin force, and the decimation of the Tenerran armies. It seemed unbelievable, but Ian had seen enough bodies, enough wreckage, had ambushed enough supply wagons to know that there was a seed of truth to what they said.

Your prayers will not keep the spirits from your blood.
Fianna had said something similar, and now Cahl was taking up the chorus. Exposure to the pagan arts didn’t make you a pagan. It made you
aware
of pagans. If anything, he felt more holy than he had before.

Frustration kept Ian walking. He wanted to be at his father’s side. He wanted to settle the debt of blood he owed Martin Roard, and the whole damned Suhdrin army. They had taken his pride, and he meant to cut it from them, to take it back with iron. Yet until he convinced Fianna to move them north, they would be nipping at the edges of the conflict, taking pennies, when they should have been plundering a fortune.

He came to a creek, its water babbling happily through the night. Ian stared down into the current, trying to decide what he was meant to be doing. What he should be doing. What the gods expected of him.

Lost in thought, Ian did not at first hear the beast. Something came rushing through the forest, sliding through the trees. Before he knew it, the earth was shaking soundlessly. The night bent close, and his fears of the pagan night returned with a snap as sharp and fast as a crossbow loosing its bolt.

A fog crept out of the ground, gray tendrils snaking between Ian’s feet. He drew his sword.

A god came to a halt before him.

It was a hound, as big as a horse, bigger. Its tangled fur was twined through with twigs and leaves, its dirty coat cluttered with vines that seemed to grow through its body. It was black, black as night, and its bearded jaw hung open, exposing scores of star-white teeth, each as big and as sharp as a gardener’s hook. Its eyes were fixed on Ian. He couldn’t look away from them. They were the color of smoke from a fire whose timber is too wet, and wisps of inky darkness swirled down the creature’s cheeks like tears of fog.

Ian placed his weight on his back foot, bringing the sword up to his chest, waiting for the charge. Waiting to die. The hound trotted closer, and he never took his eyes away from its horrible face. A cold fog swirled around his legs, and the sound of the creek ceased, as if the water had turned to frost at the gheist’s approach.

The hound passed close to him, nearly brushing his trembling arm with its hulking shoulder. It smelled like freshly tilled earth and old, damp leaves left under the forest canopy for seasons without end.

And then it was gone. The night came back, the insects filling the world with their song, the creek returning to life. The forest peeled away from the gheist’s path, leaving a road through the trees. Ian stumbled forward, up a hill, the ground nothing but smooth grass. As he crested the summit, the trail closed behind him, the trees creaking as they returned to their natural place, the earth groaning and shifting beneath his feet.

In the distance, the twin towers of the Fen Gate poked out of the trees. Yet there was no way they could be so close. Even as Ian watched, the horizon shivered and returned to normal.

Fianna stepped up next to him, appearing out of nowhere, without sound, without warning. She sighed.

“That is a sign I will follow,” she whispered. “It is sign enough for me.”

“And me. Gods be good,” Ian answered. “And me.”

G
WEN STOOD AT
the lip of the clearing, staring down at the dead, unable to move. Her mind fumbled over the bodies lying in front of her, their faces gentle, their skin cold. Surely the wardens couldn’t be dead. Surely she couldn’t be alone in guarding the hallow? Surely the gods would not abandon her so?

Elsa shook her out of her reverie.

The bodies were still there.

“These are the witches meant to save the frair’s life?” the vow knight asked.

“Aye.”

“Well, then,” Elsa said, turning in a slow circle, “we’ll need… something else.”

“I can… I know something.” Gwen finally raised her eyes. Lucas looked little better than the bodies at her feet. “This way.”

She led them past the killing ground to the base of the sacred hill, to one among dozens of henges that ringed the shrine. Elsa had to support the frair the entire way. When he lay down at the center of the circle of stones, he looked as if he wouldn’t get up again.

“Have we made it in time, Huntress?” Elsa said. “I do not wish to bury him here.” There was a thinly veiled threat at the edge of her words.

“The ground would not accept him, anyway,” Gwen answered, gathering deadfall and starting a fire. “We cannot yet know if we were fast enough—that’s for time to tell.”

“Have no worry,” Lucas said quietly. “I can feel the weight of this place. I have many days ahead of me, Sir LaFey. Many days.”

“Come,” Gwen said, plucking at Elsa’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to see, and we have things to do.”

“We’re simply going to leave him here?” The vow knight didn’t move. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s a ley circle. It focuses the power of life in this place.” The huntress frowned. “There are rites, too, and balms, but they are beyond my abilities. The magic of this place might heal him. Or it might corrupt him—but there is no other way for him to reach the hallow.”

Elsa just stared at her, then at the corpses.

“Have faith,” Gwen said, then winced. “Wrong words. Just trust me—this is as much as can be done. It’s not a bloodwright, and it would be better if the wardens were alive to lend their aid, but given his robes, and the faith in his heart…”

She turned and marched back to where the wardens lay. Elsa followed, and they buried the bodies where they lay, dragging stones over their motionless bodies while Frair Lucas slept away his death.

“So what now?” Elsa asked when they were done. “We’re wasting time the frair doesn’t have, and Allaister is still hunting us out there. We can’t hide here forever.”

“No,” Gwen said, setting the final stone on the final cairn, then swinging her cloak back around her shoulders. “I was hoping the wardens would be able to advise us.”

“There’s no hope of that now, I doubt even Lucas could visit them in the quiet.”

“He couldn’t manage it—not here, not even if he had permission,” Gwen said. “No, we’re on our own.”

“Will Allaister be able to get through these wards?” Elsa asked, peering around as if expecting enemies to burst from the deepening shadows. “If the wardens aren’t around to maintain them…”

“I don’t know,” Gwen admitted. “These people must have died in an attempt to build a shield around the hallow. The one who visited me the other night, she said that the gheist was straining the wards. That many had already died. There may be others coming, though. They have ways of speaking… through the trees.” She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “I just don’t know.”

“Then there’s something I can say at your trial, after all,” Elsa said brusquely.

“What’s that?”

“That you don’t know much about pagan things,” she answered. “Perhaps ignorance will work in your favor.” The vow knight snatched up her pack and started walking toward the hill. “Come on. I’ve no interest in sleeping among the dead.”

“I doubt they would want your company, anyway,” Gwen muttered. She gathered her things and followed. Mists began to appear in the hallow, forming odd, spectral shapes.

* * *

As the first stars appeared in the sky, a voice rose above the trees. The evensong, so familiar, sounded foreign in this wild place of the old gods. No gheists appeared in the darkness, however, and Gwen took that as a hopeful sign. She and Elsa hurried to where they had left the frair, then stopped dead, shock clear in the vow knight’s expression. Lucas was sitting up, eyes sparkling in the firelight for the first time since the demon had laid him low.

“I thought you might have been swallowed by the everealm,” he said, his voice sounding rough with disuse. He held a handful of wildflowers in his fist, freshly bloomed at the verge of the henge. They appeared to drip blood. “These are fascinating blooms. What are they?”

“They are your death,” Gwen said. “Siphoned away and given new life. I… wouldn’t advise you to handle them.”

“Ah,” Lucas said. He dropped the flowers to the side, but his smile remained. “Glad to have you with us, Huntress.”

“We were speaking of the wards,” Elsa said. “You must know something of the tricks pagans use to hide themselves. With the wardens gone, are we still safe from Allaister’s hunters?”

“And it’s fine to see you alive and well, Sir LaFey,” Lucas said smartly, giving her a look. “Yes, thank you for asking, I feel quite well. It’s a miracle I live at all.”

“You’ll get my sympathy later, old man,” the vow knight replied. “Your health does us no good if Allaister gets through.”

Lucas stood, dusting the last of the blood pollen from his hands, stretched his back, and took a deep breath of the everam-laced air. The change in him was astonishing. After such a short time within the henge, already he looked years younger. Gwen wondered how old the dead wardens might have been, and what benefits they had reaped from living in such a place.

“He will get through, eventually,” the frair said. “I could, at least, and I’m not sure Frair Allaister isn’t my better. These wards are meant to beguile and hide—not protect. Once discovered, they are vulnerable. Without the benefit of Gwendolyn Adair to lead the way, it will take time for him to find the path, but it can be done.” Lucas nodded to himself, and looked around. “Wards such as these must be constantly renewed. I’m shocked that there were so few wardens here, considering the importance of this site.”

“There were more,” Gwen said. “The gheist depleted their numbers considerably.” She shook her head. “At least that’s what I hope.”

“You hope?” Elsa asked. “How do their deaths benefit us?”

Gwen shrugged. “The old gods are fickle, not as well understood as they once were. Lives… are sometimes lost.”

“You mean to say that they’re not as sane as they once were, Huntress,” Lucas said. “Tell the story you like. Years of neglect have taken their toll on your gods.”

“And whose fault is that?” she snapped.

“Fault doesn’t matter,” he said. “You brought us here, Gwendolyn, because you hoped we could help you. You could have left us before now, in the woods between here and there. You could have slipped between the wards and disappeared—but you didn’t, and so here we are. In your hallow, saying prayers for the dead of your faith.”

“It wasn’t really part of my plan,” Gwen muttered.

“Nor theirs, I would imagine,” Lucas agreed. “Yet the question remains: What do you hope of us? How do you think we will be able to help you?”

“And
why
do you think we will?” Elsa added pointedly. Gwen just ignored her. She stared up at the sky.

“I don’t think it matters anymore,” she said finally. “With the wardens gone, we’ll never prevent the inquisition from finding this place.”

“That’s no longer an issue,” Lucas answered with a smile. “Unless you’ve forgotten my oath. I’m still faithful to Cinder.”

“And yet, I feel you came for another reason. Don’t you want to help us hide this site?”

“That isn’t my purpose. The time for hiding is past, for good or ill—Allaister and his master, High Inquisitor Sacombre, know what lurks in these woods. They won’t rest until they have found it.”

“I can’t let him destroy it,” Gwen said stiffly. “Not while I live.”

“Destroy it?” Lucas gave a mirthless chuckle. “No. I believe the high inquisitor means to bend the god to his will. That’s why he has provoked this war, why he sent Allaister in secret. If he meant to call a crusade against House Adair, he could certainly draw the support of all of Suhdra, and most of Tener, as well. The northern lords are anxious to appear pious, after all.”

“I would destroy it,” Elsa said. Lucas waved her down.

“What comes after, comes after,” he said. “Our immediate concern is to—”

“No,” Gwen said, cutting him off. “What comes after matters—to me at least. I haven’t forgotten who you are,” she said, her eyes on the vow knight, “nor what you do to pagans when you find them. This lot had the decency to die before you arrived, but I’ve no doubt their fate would have been the same. Cinder is the god of judges, after all.”

“Though not of executioners,” Lucas said. “You need to put some faith in us, Gwen, if we’re going to be able to help you.”

“I brought you here. Isn’t that faith enough?”

“Not nearly.” Lucas turned to face her. “I know something of pagan lore, Huntress. I know what this place is meant to be, and what it’s supposed to be protecting, but I haven’t grown up with that lore. Allaister and his men have dabbled in the ancient rituals, as you’ve seen, and are able to draw some of the everealm’s power. But these things are merely means to an end, to them. They know nothing of the deeper arts.”