Dawn of Swords

CHAPTER 24

They set up camp in a rock-strewn valley. Jacob was unusually silent while striking his flint, the sparks he created bringing his body in and out of focus like a phantom. Roland wanted to offer to take up the camp-making duties, as doing so might take his mind off the air’s numbing iciness, but he refrained. The First Man was frustration personified at the moment. Seven days of searching, of winding deeper into the Tinderlands and then back toward the river, and nothing had crossed their path-no stray humans, no wild beasts, not even a pack of wolves. Traversing the barren terrain was akin to hiking across an endless, dead steppe. Even during the cloudless days, when the sun shone down on the land with all the intensity it had in the south, there was an ever-present chill in the air. The small spattering of grass that covered the stony earth was brown and dead, brittle as hay, and there were wide swaths of ice that seemed to appear from out of nowhere.

Roland sighed. The trip across the Tinderlands had been a monotonous undertaking for the most part. The only excitement the group had experienced occurred on the first day, after he, Jacob, Brienna, and Azariah crossed the narrow strip of rapids opposite the defensive tower the Drake villagers were constructing. They had been greeted by a mudslide on the other side of a hill they crested. Roland had plummeted down the slope, flipping and slipping and whacking his head on dried roots and hard stones. When his descent finally came to an abrupt stop, he found himself surrounded by craggy rock faces on all sides, standing tall and dead like monuments to long-forgotten gods. He emerged covered with sticky sludge, his brain pounding in his skull, his entire body sore. When he called out to the other members of his party, he discovered them spread out along this odd desert of crude, naturally formed shrines. All but Jacob, that is. They searched the maze for hours, not discovering him until well past dusk, sprawled out on his back, moaning. Brienna had needed to slap him across the face to wake him.

Now the seventh day of searching came to a close, the sun dipping behind the mountains, allowing the blackness to swallow them whole. The mudslide and maze seemed so long ago. The monotony of each passing day bore down on him, causing his feet to twitch impatiently. He wanted to leave this place now, wanted to go home before something bad happened to them in this dead land.

Azariah warmed his long, elegant hands before the fire, his words breaking the lengthy silence.

“I think one of the villagers might have gone insane,” he said, the firelight reflecting in his eyes.

“Why would you say that?” asked Brienna.

The Warden raised his hands and gestured all around him. “Take a look. There is nothing about. This place is completely, irrevocably dead.”

Brienna muttered something incomprehensible in response.

“There is something out here,” said Jacob. Roland glanced at his master, watching him toy with his knife while he sat there with crossed legs.

“I think you are mistaken,” said Azariah.

“I think not,” Jacob snapped back. “I know there is something out here. We’re close. I can feel it.”

Azariah laughed. “You’re becoming as delusional as the villagers then, my friend. Perhaps it is you who has lost his senses. Should I be sleeping with one eye open from now on?”

“Perhaps you should.”

“Boys,” said Brienna, her tone weary. “Can we please stop this? My head aches. I need sleep.”

“Very well,” said Azariah.

Brienna turned to her lover. “Jacob, please come here. I need comfort tonight.”

Jacob jammed his knife into the ground and stood up. He sauntered around the fire, an odd look of frustration painted across his features, and slipped beneath the blankets with which Brienna had covered herself. The elf wrapped herself around him, and he around her, pulling the blankets up over their heads. Roland expected to hear the muffled giggles that usually came next, and to see the pile of blankets bulge and shift as the couple wrestled playfully, but it remained still but for the steady rise and fall of their breathing.

There would be no games tonight, it seemed. Brienna’s mood had soured along with Jacob’s. This awful place had once been her homeland, lush and alive and teeming with game. Now it was cold, desolate, and uninhabitable. All this she had told him one night while they shivered together in front of the fire, Brienna pining for the beauty of Kal’droth, her every word followed by harsh and biting profanities.

Roland took a swig from his waterskin, then uncorked the small vial of apple brandy Ephraim Wendover had given him and downed a gulp of that as well. The liquor warmed him ever so slightly, taking the most abrasive edge off the cold, but the feeling didn’t last long. To Roland, the cold was the absolute worst part of this entire, ill-fated journey. He thought he’d had it rough on the way to Drake, but the town had seemed downright balmy compared to where he was now. In the Tinderlands, he found, the cold was a living thing, a demon that circled him at all times, crystallizing the moisture in the air, filling his lungs with its frigid evil, making every breath laborious. No matter how many layers he piled atop himself-and Turock Escheton had been more than generous in supplying them with the necessities for their journey-his body was locked in a near-constant shiver. Even pushing himself physically didn’t seem to help, as exertion only made him sweat, and that sweat soon cooled, occasionally freezing on his flesh and making him colder than ever. He thought to ask Azariah for a swig from the large wooden carafe he carried with him, but the Warden was fast asleep, bundled to the neck, and snoring heavily.

Roland was all alone-the last conscious being in a land of the dead.

He lay awake for a long time, coverlets stacked atop him. Halfway through the night, as always, the cold invaded even those. The combination of the chill and the uncomfortable hardness of the uneven ground beneath him told him to give up on sleep. He sat up, poked a twig into the bed of glimmering coals, and tossed another couple of dried-out logs onto them. They caught fire almost immediately, crackling as the flames grew higher. If there was one good thing about the Tinderlands, it was the fact that there was plenty of undisturbed and well-seasoned firewood about.

He sat there for some time, poking at the fire, adding more sticks while his mind drifted to home. He was thinking of Mary Ulmer and the way her perky little breasts heaved whenever she scrubbed the family laundry in a thin, sheer blouse two sizes too small for her, when a strange sound echoed through the valley. The stirring in his abdomen retreated. For days he had heard nothing but the hiss and pop of the fire come evening, along with Azariah’s snores, but this was different-this was foreign. He froze in place, afraid to move, when he heard it again. It was an odd sound, like waves crashing against living rocks, making them all sigh at once.

The third time it happened, a very human-sounding scream followed, and Roland tore off his blankets and shot to his feet. He frantically lit the end of a dried stick and thrust it all about, searching for whatever beast was stalking them. The sound came a fourth time, and he retreated a step, tripping over the lump of Jacob and Brienna in the process. He careened backward, the dark vertigo playing tricks on him, and smacked his elbow when he landed.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed.

“What in the name of Ashhur?” Jacob’s voice called out.

Roland flipped onto his stomach and lifted his head. The light from his quaint fire was enough to illuminate Jacob and Brienna’s sleepy, stunned gazes. He opened his mouth to tell his master about what he had heard, but the effort was unnecessary. The sound rang out through the valley again, louder than before, this time not fading away, but seeming to linger, like fizz bubbling at the top of a mug of mead. It was droning and deep, yet its tone was oddly inconsistent.

“What was that?” asked Brienna.

Roland shrugged.

“How long has it been happening?” asked Jacob.

“Not long. A few minutes, maybe.”

Roland watched Jacob cock his head. When the sound came again, still increasing in volume, the First Man grinned.

“I knew it,” he whispered.

A short while later-it had taken a bit of effort to rouse Azariah, who was a deep sleeper-the quartet was wandering through the darkness, a single torch lighting their way. They progressed in a single line: Jacob in the lead, Brienna behind him, Roland third, and Azariah taking up the rear, each holding the shirt of the one in front so as not to fall out of line. The strange sound increased in frequency and consistency the farther north they tread, until it became as ever present as the insects that rubbed out their nightly song back in Safeway’s numerous gardens. Roland’s heart started to race. He knew he should be frightened, but Jacob diffused that fear with his unyielding excitement and curiosity. The fact that his master wasn’t scared meant he shouldn’t be either.

The noise led them up a steep incline, the loose rocks underfoot making each step treacherous, and then along a narrow ridge, the right edge of which fell into a steep drop. Jacob kept his eyes focused on the landscape before him, calling out urgent whispers to those following him whenever he came across a potential hazard. Somehow, despite the array of dips and cracks and sharp stones that littered their path, all four of them made it across the precipice without losing their footing.

And still the sound rose in volume.

Jacob steered them downward, through a narrow passage cut into the rock that reminded Roland very much of the Cavern of Solitude back home, complete with the sharp edges jutting from either side. With Jacob’s torch as their only light, Roland found himself flailing in the darkness. Once he veered too close to the wall, and a pointed stone slashed through his heavy woolen tunic, leaving a shallow gash on his arm. Roland bit down his cry. The last thing he wanted to do was to appear a burden to the others.

The cavern emptied out behind a row of boulders twice his size. A strange glow lit the top of the boulders, flushing the surface red and yellow. Once they emerged, the strange sound could be recognized for what it was-voices chanting. It was almost like prayer, an everyday occurrence for anyone who had been born and raised in Paradise. Jacob stopped, extinguished his torch, and pressed them all against the rocks, raising a finger to his lips. He was still grinning.

“I think this is another valley,” he whispered. “Proceed with caution. We do not know who lies beyond this wall.”

They all nodded in silent agreement and followed him.

The wall of stone progressed in a curve, the narrow duct they found themselves in gradually expanding until they had room to walk abreast of one another. The height of the wall lowered, allowing in more light from the other side. Roland tugged at his collar, sweat building up at the base of his neck, and it took him a few moments to realize he was no longer cold. In fact, he felt hotter than he had on the most sun-drenched summer day while slathering fresh tar on Jacob’s roof. Though it was a surreal feeling, he was silently thankful that his bones were no longer rattling.

A few hundred yards farther along the crevasse, they came upon a gap in the wall. Jacob halted them there, gazing around the uneven stone portal, his entire body bathed in red light. Roland saw his eyes widen, his jaw drop open, and his hands fall to his sides.

“What is it?” asked Brienna.

Jacob turned toward her slowly and then moved so that the rest of them could get a look at whatever strange ritual was taking place on the other side. It seemed to take forever for the line to progress, and impatience tickled the back of Roland’s throat and tingled in his legs.

When he finally arrived at the gap, squeezing in next to the beautiful elf while Azariah wedged his head in on the other side, he understood Jacob’s shocked reaction.

It wasn’t a valley below them, but a ravine, a bowl-shaped gorge of blackened rock and glistening crystal. A large group of cloaked individuals had gathered, hundreds of them, all arranged in five tightly packed groups. They were on their knees, folded over at the waist as if in appeal to a god, their outstretched arms pointing toward a gigantic bonfire so bright it was as if the sun itself had dropped from the sky and settled there. They chanted in a language Roland didn’t recognize. It sounded nothing like Elvish, and was as far removed from human dialect as the chirping of insects.

Hands grabbed either side of his head and moved it, shifting his field of vision. “Look at that,” Jacob whispered into his ear. “I knew it.”

Jacob had brought his attention to at a single man who was standing on the outskirts of the gathered worshippers. From a distance, Roland couldn’t make out his facial features, but he could tell that the man was bald and wore a long black robe. His arms were lifted up toward the star-dappled sky. This was the man who was leading the chanting, and each time words exited his mouth, the rest of the congregation answered.

“Who is it?” Roland whispered.

“Uther Crestwell,” Brienna answered. She gave Roland a grave look, then Azariah, and finally turned about to fix Jacob with an intense, knowing stare. “The mad priest. You were right.”

“Unfortunately,” Jacob replied.

“Is that Karak’s Army?” asked Roland, not understanding what they were talking about.

Jacob swallowed hard, gesturing for Roland to keep watching what was going on below. “Part of it, I assume,” he said in a soft voice. “But it’s worse than I thought.”

“Why?”

“Uther Crestwell, better known as the mad priest, is a zealot. Before I left Neldar for good, he and I argued about the practicality of having a land divided by three deities. He was an outcast of his own family, yet so dedicated to Karak that no one dared deny him his birthright, as they did his sister Moira. He believed Karak and only Karak should rule Dezrel, and even went so far as to suggest genocide for not just those created by the other gods, but the other gods themselves. Hence his more common name, for those brave enough to use it. Twenty years ago he retreated to the Crestwell stronghold in the north, at the base of Mount Hailen. Then, from what I’ve heard, he began researching the magics of blood and darkness, which were expelled from this realm long before the dawn of humanity.”

“The same sort of magics that were used by those demons you told me about?” asked Roland.

Jacob smiled. “Yes, Roland. It is good to know you listened.”

“What does he mean to do?”

At that, Jacob frowned. His lips compressed a thin white line and he shrugged.

“I guess we need to find out,” he said, turning his attention back to the happenings below.

A change had come over the assembly during their short conversation. The worshippers were standing now, and the man in charge-Uther, the mad priest-had moved into the throng and was standing directly in front of the raging, unnaturally bright bonfire. He motioned with one outstretched hand, and six more cloaked figures appeared from the other side of the ravine. Roland felt his blood rush through his veins as he watched them drag three individuals-a man, a woman, and a young girl-dressed in torn and filthy rags across the blackened, uneven floor of the culvert. They were handled roughly, without any care for their well-being, treated like they were less than animals. Roland remembered what Turock had said about the family that had been taken-the Rodderdams, that was it-and his breath caught in his throat.

The prisoners screamed and pleaded, and Roland watched the woman pound her fists into the hard-packed ground. Her keeper, faceless behind his black hood, violently yanked her arm until she stopped.

“We must do something,” he heard Azariah say, a frightened sort of rage rising in his voice.

“And what is that?” Jacob asked. “The four of us against hundreds? We watch and learn, so others may learn as well. That is the best we can do here.”

The Warden had no reply to that, and Brienna began to silently sob.

Back in the gully, the prisoners were forced to their knees, facing the blaze. Uther took his place before them, hands clasped in front of him, head down so that the fire reflected off his bald pate. Then he reached into the sleeve of his cloak and withdrew a dagger. The mother and daughter shrieked and began to struggle once more, this time so fiercely that it took eight men from the congregation to hold them in place.

Uther lifted his gaze skyward, and Roland thought he could make out the whites of the mad priest’s eyes in spite of the distance. Then he shouted a series of nonsensical phrases into the air, barking like a dog, twirling his hands in circles, firelight dancing off the dagger’s blade. Jacob gasped, and Roland felt the First Man’s hand wrap around his arm, squeezing so tightly that his fingers began to numb.

“No, no, no,” repeated Jacob.

“What?” asked Brienna, sniffling.

Jacob pointed to the far wall of the ravine, where a strange symbol, three diagonal lines intersected and overshadowed by a large circle, had been carved.

“I know why the villagers were taken. I know that symbol. I know this place. According to legend, back when Kal’droth still existed and this ravine was filled with rushing water, it was here that the war with the demon kings ended. It was here that Celestia banished the monsters from Dezrel, sending them to an unknown point in the universe.”

“So that means what, exactly?” Azariah asked.

A red shadow crossed Jacob’s face.

“Uther is trying to resurrect them.”

“And will it work?” Azariah asked, the blood seeming to drain from his face.

Jacob shook his head.

“But how can you be sure?” asked Roland.

“Because they’re in the wrong place,” Jacob said, adamant.

A scream split the night, and Roland glanced through the rocky portal to see Uther standing above the woman. He clutched her hair in one hand, yanking back her head, while the other lifted the dagger. The zealot plunged the blade into her neck, and even from high above Roland could see blood gushing from the wound, soaking the front of Uther’s robe. Brienna threw her hands over her mouth and backed away from the portal, eyes squeezed shut.

Shrieks reverberated from down below. Uther moved to the man next, performing the same duty with his sharp blade, and then finished off the young, sobbing girl. In moments, the Rodderdams were no more than three bodies bleeding out on the ground. Uther then went about tearing open their tattered clothes, using the dagger that had taken their lives to carve dreadful runes on their backs.

Roland felt like he was going to be sick. It was the first time he had ever watched anyone die, let alone in such a violent manner. Life with Jacob was steadily becoming a never-ending string of unwanted firsts.

When the mutilation of the corpses was complete, those who had dragged the prisoners before the congregation returned. One by one they tossed the bodies into the bonfire, the flames rising higher as each corpse was fed to it. Uther turned to face the blaze, dropped to his knees, raised his hands, and began chanting once more.

Bolts of black and purple lightning danced from Uther’s fingertips, growing both deeper and brighter in the same instant. Jacob and Azariah gasped, while Roland simply watched, spellbound and horrified. The raging of the bonfire diminished, darkening the air, and an inky pool of blackness appeared above the flames. It started out the size of an apple but grew with each passing second, until it looked large enough to swallow a man whole. The sphere of blackness undulated and writhed, as if alive, the meniscus stretching into ungodly shapes.

For the first time, Roland heard the sadistic man’s true voice as he shrieked up at the writhing orb.

“Come, beasts of the underworld, lords of death, emissaries of the darkness, reveal yourselves now and bow before the glory of Karak!”

The floating sphere rippled, looking like a school of tiny fish were pecking at it madly just beneath the surface. The bonfire’s flames flared once more, licking the bottom of the orb. Uther shouted in disbelief, and the orb seemed to collapse in on itself, folding over and over again, a shriek emanating from within that was so shrill, Roland thought it might burst his eardrums. He covered his ears, the pain so intense it whitewashed his thoughts, and he screamed along with the orb, his voice completely drowned out.

And then he could hear his own voice, as well as Brienna’s and Azariah’s. He felt hands on his back, shoving him, pulling him, shaking him. He opened his eyes to find his three companions staring back at him, each of their faces a mask of panic.

“Run,” Jacob said, but he could barely hear the words through the echo inside his skull. He stood still, frozen by his lack of understanding, even as Brienna and Azariah scampered away, disappearing around the bend of the narrow causeway. Roland turned toward the portal, saw a multitude of eyes staring up at him. Their screams had lasted longer than that of the sphere, alerting the murderous bastards to their presence. Some of the men began to dart out of sight, disappearing below the wall.

Jacob grabbed his shoulders and shook him, hard.

“Come on, Roland!” he shouted. “Snap out of it!”

He did, albeit sluggishly. Jacob took his hand and yanked him around the bend, heading back the way they had come. Only this time they didn’t break off where they had originally entered the chasm, instead continuing to follow it in a wide circle, even as the sound of shouted orders and the clank of metal on rock sounded all around them.

“We missed the opening!” said Roland.

Jacob pulled him harder.

“I know a different way.”

It was a different way indeed. Just as the cloaked men appeared ahead of them, brandishing swords and daggers, Jacob leapt on top of the passage’s low-standing wall. The First Man still had a grip on Roland’s wrist, so he had little choice but to follow his lead. They dashed across the thin ridge until Roland noticed that his rapid footfalls were now splashing instead of thumping. Jacob then leapt off the other side, dragging Roland along with him. They hit a slope, ice-cold water cascading all around them, propelling them downward. The freezing water made every nick and scrape Roland had amassed on the way down hurt far more.

They hit solid ground without warning, because the moon was shielded from them by what Roland now realized was a hollowed-out mountain. He scampered to his feet, no longer attached to Jacob, and tried to follow the sound of his master’s voice as he scurried across the hard, slate-like ground.

“It’s only a few more feet!” Jacob shouted. “Stay with me!”

The sound of rushing water reached his ears, and suddenly Roland was grabbed from behind. His feet flew out from under him and he dangled in the air, as if flying, until his legs swung back down and his heels collided with the earth.

“Shit,” he heard Jacob mutter.

“What now?” asked Brienna’s voice, and Roland was thrilled to realize that the elf was with them.

“Look at them all,” said Azariah, revealing his presence as well.

Roland’s eyes began adjusting to the dark, and he glanced down and saw that his feet were positioned perilously close to the rocky riverbank. Only Jacob’s arm, firmly wrapped around his waist, had spared him from a terrible fall. The river was wide and moving swiftly, numerous white caps appearing and disappearing, seeming to glow in the faint light. There were a great many rafts floating there, bobbing up and down, stretching the ropes that tethered them to shore.

The rumble of countless running feet seemed to be closing in from behind them. Jacob pulled Roland away from the river’s edge, depositing him a few feet away, and then shouted, “You two-get in a raft!”

Roland heard swishing and clunking as Brienna and Azariah climbed aboard one of the rickety boats.

“I’ll meet you in Drake,” Jacob said, and Roland saw the reflection of light off steel as Jacob whipped out his knife and slashed through the rope. The raft began to drift away quickly, as if it were being pulled by an invisible string on the other side.

Still the robed men came closer.

“Are we next?” asked Roland, bracing himself on the edge of the bank and testing the solidity of the next raft.

“No water for us, son. We’re sticking with dry land.”

Before he could protest, Jacob leapt to action, working his way down the line, cutting the tethers that held the rafts in place. When he was done, he rushed back to Roland and grabbed him again. The mob of angry Karak worshippers sounded like it was right on top of them.

“Sorry, but I had to do that,” panted Jacob as he dragged him quickly along. “Couldn’t let the bastards chase after the others. If they go on foot, they’ll have a much harder time catching them.”

“And what…about…us…?” Roland was able to wheeze. His lungs felt like they were on fire as his exhausted, frozen limbs struggled to keep up.

“You and I, we hit the high ground. Lose them in the cliffs.”

As the land beneath his feet began to rise sharply upward and the burn in his muscles became so intense, it felt as though he’d been dipped into a vat of magma, Roland couldn’t help but wish his master had let them climb onto the last raft before cutting the rope.