Hinterland

A RIVER OF FIRE

“The poison of the Jinx bat stops both heart and breath,” the old man said as he leaned over Brant’s body, ear to the boy’s chest.

Tylar stood to the side. They gathered in a glade, not far from the Huntress’s castillion, but the forest lay dense around them, keeping them well cloaked and hidden. He was relieved to find Lorr and Malthumalbaen already here, somehow escaped.

And with their weapons.

Tylar strapped on his swords, belting Rivenscryr to one hip, the knight’s sword to the other. He straightened, aching and sore, near to crippled from their mad flight. He had already wrapped his hand and bound the ache of his broken rib. Still, he limped carefully toward the boy on the litter.

They had already broken the poisoned arrowhead, pulled the shaft, and packed the wound with healing firebalm. But there was a greater concern.

Dart knelt on Brant’s far side, shadowed by Lorr and the giant. All their faces were grim. Krevan and Calla checked their glade’s periphery, eyeing the motley-dressed young hunters, some who probably hadn’t seen ten summers.

Rogger stood off to the side, talking earnestly with Harp, the leader of the band, if only by sheer height. Tylar recognized that the boy was probably younger than Brant.

The only elder here worked on Brant.

“Lucky for us,” the old man said as he straightened, “our giant jungle bat likes its meat fresh after it has laid up its prey. Its venom slows rot and decay, holds it at bay for a time. But that time’s about run out.”

He snapped a finger at one of the boys, who hurried forward with two hollowed stems of a whiskerpine. The lad had been packing the stems with a downy powder.

The man accepted the pipes and leaned over Brant.

He had introduced himself as Sheershym, one-time scholar and master at the school here. No longer. He still wore a master’s robes, but they were shabby and stained. Stubble covered his bald pate, obscuring the tattoos of his mastered disciplines. It was rare to find a master who didn’t keep his head shaved proudly. Tylar read one of his sigils, designating skill in the healing arts, but the mark looked nearly faded. The freshest tattoos concentrated on histories, scholariums, and alchemies of mnelopy, the study of dreams and memory, fitting for one who delved into the deep past of Myrillia.

Not so useful for healing.

Still, he seemed to know what he was doing.

The man placed the end of each stem into one of Brant’s nostrils. He nodded to Dart. “Lass, would you mind covering his mouth and pinching his nose closed around the pipes?”

She nodded and did as he instructed, her face pale with worry.

Sheershym bent and slipped the other ends of the pipe into his own mouth. He exhaled sharply through the stems, blowing the powder deep and puffing up Brant’s thin chest with his own breath. He held that pose for a long moment, face reddening. Then he straightened, drawing the pipes out Brant’s nose.

Brant’s chest sighed down.

The master waved Dart back. “Now we’ll see. That’s all we can do.”

They all stared.

Brant still lay unmoving, but slowly his body seemed to relax, muscles sagging, as if he had been slightly clenched, holding death away by stubborn will.

“Is he-?” Dart began to tearfully inquire.

The master held up a hand.

Brant’s chest suddenly swelled and collapsed with a contented sigh.

Malthumalbaen let out a whoop that scattered a pair of skipperwings from their canopy nest. The resulting frowns quickly silenced him, but they failed to dim the relief shining from his eyes.

“What manner of alchemy was that?” Rogger asked, stepping to them with Harp.

The boy answered for the master. “Dreamsmoke, from the Farallon lotus petal.”

Sheershym nodded. “When smoked in water pipes, it brings a sense of peace and giddiness, but in its purest alchemy it also bears great healing Grace. We’ll have to carry the boy from here. The smoke will have him dozing for a good three bells. He’ll rise from his bed with no worse than a pounding in his head.”

“Better that than rising from his grave,” Rogger mumbled.

Sheershym stood with a groan, supporting his old back, and rolled an eye at Rogger. “It is said there were once alchemies even for that. Hidden in a tome, scribed on leathered human skin. The Nekralikos Arcanum. Written by the tongueless one himself.” He shrugged. “But who can say if it’s true? If you look long enough into the past, memory becomes dream.”

“Or so says Daronicus,” Rogger said.

Sheershym’s left eyebrow rose in surprise. “You know Harshon Daronicus?”

Rogger shrugged. “I’ve read his work in its original Littick. A long time ago. Another life.”

“Truly? Where-?”

“Master Sheershym,” Harp said, interrupting, “perhaps we can leave this talk until we’re beyond the burn.”

He nodded. “Certainly. We should be off. The Huntress will be upon our heels like a ravening dog at any moment.”

They quickly broke down the small camp. Krevan carried one end of the litter and the giant the other. Several boys vanished into the forest to either side, barely stirring a leaf.

“They’ll clear our back trail,” Harp said. “And lay false ones.”

Tylar walked with the boy and the master near the front of the band as it snaked through the woods. “How long have you been hiding out here?”

“Since the winnowing,” the master said grimly. “Beginning of the last full shine of the lesser moon. Some forty days.”

Tylar pictured the mass of skilled hunters that had circled the Grove and ambushed them. He remembered the unerring flight of their arrows. “And you’ve dodged capture all this time? How?”

“Not without losses,” Harp said grimly. “Especially when her hunters started poisoning their arrows. Her madness grows worse with each setting sun.”

“What happened here?”

The boy haltingly told the story of Saysh Mal, of the Huntress’s ravening, of her slaughter, how she began with only a hundred hunters, bound and burned to her, then spread her wickedness.

“Wells were poisoned with her blood, binding all to her will,” Harp said. “Her corruption spread. Mothers and fathers shaved the stakes used against their own children. Those weak of limb were cut down. What you saw back in the Grove is only the barest glimpse of what lies rotting under the canopy.”

“Only the strongest were allowed to live and serve her,” Sheershym finished.

Tylar’s voice was driven soft by the horrors described. “How did you all escape such slaughter?”

“We fled. Three score of us. The master had old maps of the hinterlands. We sought to flee Saysh Mal, to escape into the hinter.” He made a quiet scoffing sound and shook his head.

“A sorry state when the hinterlands offer better succor than your own settled realm.”

“And still we wouldn’t have lived. Not without her help.”

“Whose help?”

Harp waved a dismissive hand, done with reliving the nightmare. “You’ll see soon enough. Best save your breath.”

Tylar didn’t argue. He was finding it harder to match even the elder’s pace. His side throbbed, shortening his breaths, and his knee remained locked up painfully. He could barely move it.

“How long have you been crippled up?” Sheershym asked him, nodding toward his gait.

Tylar shook his head. Now it was his turn to prefer silence. He didn’t understand the growing ruin of his body. Why had he failed to summon the naethryn back on the balcony? Had it become permanently imprisoned? Was the cost of its release more than a single broken bone? He recalled when all this had first started, down in the cellars of Tashijan. The finger that hadn’t healed.

What had gone awry?

“Once we reach our main camp,” Sheershym said, “I’ll attend your injuries. See what I can do to help.”

Tylar merely nodded.

“We had such hope,” the master mumbled.

Tylar glanced at him, hearing the pain.

“When we spotted your flippercraft, we believed it marked the end of the Huntress’s reign. And if not that, then at least rescue.”

Harp snorted. In the end, it had been Tylar’s party that had needed the rescuing.

Sheershym pointed ahead. “Once safe, you’ll have to explain how the Godslayer ended up in Saysh Mal. I wager it wasn’t a chance visit.”

Tylar nodded. “I’m afraid we may need more than your hospitality. Do you still have those old maps of the hinterlands?”

The master’s brow crinkled as he looked over at Tylar. He slowly nodded. “Our camp is secure. It is madness to think to venture out there.”

“Madness seems rampant of late across Myrillia,” Tylar mumbled darkly. He ended any further discussion by drifting back along the line, favoring his knee. He settled next to the litter bearing Brant, still borne by Krevan and Malthumalbaen.

Dart walked on the far side. “He continues to slumber,” she reported. “Though I heard him mumbling in his sleep. I thought he was asking for my help. But then he seemed angry, mumbling about letting someone burn.”

Tylar frowned, recalling a similar cryptic utterance. The words had stayed with him.

HELP THEM…FREE THEM… LET THEM ALL BURN

He also remembered Mirra screaming at him. Kill the boy…before he wakes them! What did any of it mean? What was it about Brant? He found his gaze drifting to the one thing that tied him to all this.

The stone rested at the hollow of his throat.

Dart noted his attention. “It is pretty-”

Tylar glanced to her.

Her eyes remained on the stone, then slowly shifted to him. “Do you think it’s true? That the stone came from the home of the gods.”

Tylar realized the weight of those words to Dart, a child of these same gods. If the Huntress was correct, the stone was also a piece of her lost home, a world she’d never seen.

Until now.

Her gaze returned to it, her face worried yet frosted with wonder.

Rogger broke the spell, ambling up to them, nose crinkled. “Do you smell something burning?”

Dart gaped at the swath of ruin ahead. It cut through the jungle, a river of black rock, steaming, cracked in places to reveal its molten, fiery heart. They gathered on one bank, still green, though tributaries of burnt forest stretched outward. They had edged along one such tributary to reach this place. The firestorm, ignited by the molten flow, had burnt the jungle down to the loam, leaving stretches of forest charred to trunks, blackened spires spreading in great tracks, eerily reminiscent of the stakes back in the Grove.

At least there were no bodies here.

“What happened?” Tylar asked, voicing aloud the question for all.

Harp stood beside Dart. He pointed to the south, to the headwaters of the black river. A mountain rose into the sky, far taller than the peaks across the river. Snow crowned its summit, glinting in the sun.

“Takaminara,” Dart whispered, naming both god and mountain. She remembered Brant describing it earlier, the sleeping volcano. It slept no longer.

“She saved us,” Harp said and pointed across the ruin. A bit of green forest could be seen on the far side, pinched between the western mountain ranges. “We fled toward the hinterland beyond the Divide, where the mountains fall into the lower wild lands. But the Huntress found us. She led two hundred of her best against us. Two hundred against three score. We were too young, too old, too weak. We would never make the hinter in time. Neither could we withstand such a force against us. So we kept running well into the night. First one moon rose, then the other. We helped each other as best we could, but as we reached the foot of the western mountain passes, the weakest, the oldest, the youngest began to falter on the steeper slopes. All seemed hopeless.

“Then in the darkest part of the night, the ground began to tremor. Leaves shook, trunks cracked. And behind us, the land split open in a thunderous crack. Fiery rock surged up, brilliant in the darkness. It separated our group from the hunters, raising a river between us, impassable. The hunters were driven off with flame and clouds of brimstone. The wound in her land sent the Huntress deep into seclusion.”

Harp stared toward the mountain. “She protected us, sheltered us.”

“Why?” Dart asked. “It is not her realm.”

“Takaminara might have sensed the corruption here,” Rogger said. “Probably had an eye turned in this direction. Perhaps she had witnessed enough slaughter, so lashed out as best she could to protect what was left.”

“Or shake the Huntress back to her sensibilities,” Tylar said. “The Huntress is a god of loam. To tear her realm must have struck her like the lash of a whip, one that cut deep. No wonder she retreated into hiding, to lick her wounds.”

Krevan overheard their conversation. “But why did Takaminara act at all? It is rare enough for a god to assault a neighboring realm. And that one, buried in her mountain, barely acknowledges the outer world as it is.”

Harp turned from his grateful gaze upon the mountain. “Whatever her reason, she saved us. The Huntress avoids this place. Refuses to let her hunters cross. Our camp on the far side remains secure. But we don’t know how long such fear will last. Or if Takaminara will act a second time to protect us. For days afterward, her volcano rumbled, yellow steam issued from a thousand cracks. But now the mountain sleeps again.”

Dart heard the worry in his voice.

“And it’s safe to cross now?” Malthumalbaen asked, carrying the rear of Brant’s litter, eyeing one of the glowing cracks.

“If you know the right path,” Harp said and started across the rock.

Dart followed. “Where are we going?”

Harp pointed to the two tallest spires ahead. The tips of the peaks glowed above shrouds of mists and smudgy smoke. “Our camp lies between the Anvil and the Hammer.”

Rogger squinted. “In other words, within the Forge?”

Harp glanced back and nodded.

They continued in a stretched line across the frozen black river. Dart felt the heat of the rock through the soles of her boots. All around, thin vents wept steam, smelling of brimstone and staining the surrounding rock yellow, turning the cracks into festering wounds.

Pupp kept close to her side, sensing her unease, glowing a bit brighter as if challenging the heat with his own molten form.

On the opposite side of Brant’s litter, Rogger dropped closer to Tylar.

“The Forge,” the thief whispered to Tylar and nodded toward Brant. “Where the boy and his father found Keorn’s burning form. Seems we’ve just about come full circle.”

“But where from there?” Tylar mumbled. He held his wrapped hand over his left side, favoring it. His limp had grown much worse.

Behind them, a sharp trill of a jungle loon rose from farther out in the forest, as if calling to them, warning them.

Ahead, Harp glanced back, eyes narrowed with suspicion. He didn’t say anything, but he increased their pace.

Words died among them as the heat rose and noxious seeps tainted the air. Ahead, the green beach beckoned with a promise of shade and dripping canopy, but it grew too slowly.

With no choice, they marched onward as the sun sank before them. The twin peaks of the Forge-the Anvil and the Hammer-blazed ever brighter. Dart’s eyes ached at the glare, but she could not turn away. It was their destination.

At long last, the line of jungle swelled, and the rock under foot cooled as they left behind the deeper flows near the river’s center. They stumbled gratefully off the rock and into the welcoming embrace of shade and green leaf.

“The way is steeper from here,” Harp warned. “But it’s not much farther. If you look to that cliff, you can see one of our watchtowers, where we can watch the burn and spy for any trespass against us.”

Dart squinted. Half-blinded by the heat and glare, all she was able to discern atop the indicated cliff was a shroud of trees. She bit back a groan. They might not have far to go, but it was high.

For Tylar, it was both too far and too high.

He suddenly sank to a fallen log, half-collapsing. His black hair was slicked to his scalp with his own sweat. His face shone with exhaustion and was etched with deep lines by pain. Near the end of their fording of the black river, he had leaned heavily on the giant. His bad leg seemed to have twisted under him, bowing, turning his heel. He cradled his arm with the bandaged hand to his chest. His fingers poking from the wrapping looked as if they had already healed, but crookedly.

Master Sheershym approached and knelt beside him. “You’ll not make it to the camp. We’ll have to cut a litter for you.”

Tylar just hung his head. “If I rest…” he said weakly.

Rogger joined the master. “You can sleep the year away, and you’d still not be able to climb that far.”

Harp already had his boys cutting and weaving another litter. They did it with a practiced speed. He also waved to two boys to run ahead and alert the camp of their pending arrival.

“This weakness,” Sheershym said. “It is more than mere tired limb. I may not be the best healer of Saysh Mal, but even I can tell that what ails you goes deeper than broken bone.”

He took Tylar’s hand and deftly unwrapped it. The broken finger had indeed healed crooked, evident when Tylar tried to clench and pull away. But in his exhaustion, he could not break even the elderly grip of Sheershym. Worse still, the two neighboring fingers, unbroken before, had also curled into calloused knots, and it appeared his wrist had locked up as much as his knee. It was as if the damage had spread, wicking outward into healthy flesh like some poison from a wound.

Even Tylar gaped at the sight, surprised what the wrap had hid. His other hand rubbed his knee. His leg was plainly more twisted.

“It’s like you’re going back,” Rogger mumbled.

“Back where?” Sheershym asked.

Rogger shook his head.

The master sat on his heels and glanced between Tylar and Rogger. “Silence will not serve you here. Whatever is at work had best be attended with full knowledge.” This voice took on a tone of a master at the front of his students.

Tylar nodded. “You know my story,” he said weakly. “A broken knight, healed by Meeryn of the Summering Isles as she lay dying. How she instilled her naethryn undergod into me, curing me at the same time.”

“Who doesn’t know that tale by now?”

“What many don’t know is that when I loose the naethryn, my body returns to its broken form.” Tylar lifted his gnarled hand. “When the naethryn returns again to my body, so does my hale form. But now…”

Rogger finished. “He failed to loose the naethryn with the Huntress. And his body continues to slowly break and twist again, driving him back toward his crippled form.”

“It started slow. An unhealed break. But it spreads ever faster. I don’t know why it’s happening, nor what it portends.”

Sheershym asked a few more questions about what was broken in the past and now. By the time he was done, Harp had a litter ready. “Let’s get you up to the camp,” the master said, standing again. “I’d like to study this puzzle in more detail. ‘It is often the smallest thread that reveals the greater pattern.’”

“Tyrrian Balk,” Roger said.

Sheershym glanced to him. “You’ve read the work of the Arithromatic. You must someday tell me where you performed your studies.”

They hurriedly got Tylar stretched out and continued skyward along a steep and winding path. It looked little more than a deer track, and probably was. Switchbacks climbed the side of a promontory of rock that jutted from the peak called the Anvil.

As they climbed, Brant had begun to revive, mumbling and attempting to sit up on his litter.

Lorr pressed his shoulder back down. “Stay put,” the tracker ordered.

“Where…?”

Dart kept to his other side. She found his hand and took it. “We’re heading up into the forest. Rest now. We’ll explain more when we stop.”

He nodded, eyes rolling slightly. His fingers found the strength to squeeze hers, an intimacy that warmed through Dart and made the path seem less steep. Then he relaxed back into slumber.

After several more turns, views opened and revealed how high they’d already climbed. The black river stretched below, winding back to the great mountain to the south. On the far side, the spread of green forest filled the lower valleys. But much remained hidden behind mists, including the Huntress’s castillion.

Then the views vanished again under heavy canopy. A few shouts reached them from ahead. One last push, and they topped the rise and found a small glade where a crude camp had been set up. It was nothing more than sprawls of tented canvas across low limbs and netted hammocks hanging higher. Children and elders gathered, though some hung close to the forest edge, looking ready to bolt-especially when Malthumalbaen trudged into view. One of the youngest began to cry and buried his face in the skirt of an older woman leaning on a cane.

“He won’t eat you,” the woman promised.

“Dral might have,” the giant mumbled under his breath as he passed. “’Course after that climb, I’m not about to be that particular either.”

Harp guided them forward and found a corner for them to rest and catch their wind. Water was brought in leather flasks. It tasted sour, but to Dart it was still the sweetest wine.

Tylar settled to the forest floor.

Sheershym appeared with a book tucked under one arm. “I would like to sketch a map of your injuries. Where they are now, where they were before. See what pattern, if any, might reveal itself.”

Tylar groaned and shifted up into a seated position. “I feel stronger already.”

“Because your arse was hauled up here,” Rogger said. “That’s why.”

“And rest will not straighten a crooked bone.” Sheershym added. He waved Tylar back down. “First I’d like to inspect the mark Meeryn placed upon you. It is through there that the naethryn enters and leaves this world. Yes?”

Tylar grimaced, but that was the extent of his further objections. With Rogger’s help, he slipped his shadowcloak over his shoulders, then unhooked the shirt beneath. It had been soaked through with his sweat.

Rogger accepted the garment as Tylar shed it. The thief pinched it up with a sour expression. “If Delia saw this waste of humour, she’d burn you with her tongue for days.” He wrung out the garment, squeezing the sweat into a small fire ringed by stones. It sizzled and popped, destroying any residual Grace.

Bare-chested, Tylar leaned back to the litter, plainly exerted by even this small effort. Still, a bit of color had filled his cheeks again after the rest.

Sheershym leaned to study the black palm print centered on Tylar’s chest, the mark of Meeryn. He reached a hand toward it. “May I?”

Tylar had his eyes closed and waved a few fingers of his good hand. “Do what you must.”

Sheershym traced the black edges with a finger, then tested the flesh within the mark.

Dart winced as she stood to the side, arms crossed over her chest. It was the first time she had seen Tylar’s hidden mark since back in Chrismferry. It made her uneasy to look upon it. It looked to her like a well of dark water shaped like a palm. She feared the master’s hand would pass into Tylar’s chest.

But his fingers only discovered skin over bone.

“I don’t feel anything amiss,” he said, straightening. “Let’s check the rest of your injuries. For the knee, we’ll need those leggings off.”

The master waved to Dart and Calla. “Perhaps a bit of modesty is in order.”

Calla shrugged and wandered a few steps away to where someone had spitted a rabbit over a flame. Dart also began to turn away, when a flash of light caught her eye.

She turned back to Tylar. He had raised to one elbow and was tugging free the loop of his sword belt. “Wait,” she said and stepped closer.

Tylar lifted his face toward her.

Dart leaned closer to the mark on his chest, bending at the waist. “I-I thought I saw something…”

Tylar glanced down at himself, his brow crinkling.

The well of dark water that was his mark swirled ever so slightly as she stared closely. She had noted the same back in Chrismferry, as if something had crested just under the surface, stirring the waters.

His naethryn.

But that was not what had drawn her eye.

Sheershym sighed with impatience. “I assure you, lass. Nothing is amiss.”

Rogger warded him back. “Best let her look. She’s got eyes a mite sharper than ours. Sees things others miss.” He said this last with a wink in her direction.

Dart kept her focus on the mark, only a hand’s breadth from Tylar’s chest. She waited. Maybe she was mistaken-

Then it flashed again.

Deep within the well, a trickling trace of green fire snaked across the mark and away again. Flames within a dark sea.

“Did you see that?” Dart asked, startled.

Sheershym glanced at her, shook his head, then returned to study the mark.

Tylar caught her eye. “What did you see, Dart?”

“Flames, stirring deep with your mark. Then away again.”

“Flames?” Rogger mumbled. “What did they look like?”

She frowned, picturing them, trying to capture how they made her feel. “Emerald but with a sickly cast. A feverish sheen to them.”

Tylar touched his mark and found only flesh. “Green fire…” His eyes narrowed.

“What?” Rogger asked, plainly sensing some recognition in the other’s voice.

Tylar kept his gaze fixed to Dart. “Like moonlight off pond scum.”

She slowly nodded.

“I’ve seen such a flame before,” Tylar said. “It shone from the blade Perryl struck me with. Or rather struck Meeryn’s naethryn with.”

“Who is this Perryl?” Sheershym asked.

“A black ghawl,” Rogger said. “A daemon wearing another’s skin.”

“His dark sword grazed the naethryn when it was last released. I felt the burn of the blade’s kiss.” Tylar touched the side of his chest. “Here.”

Sheershym inspected the bruised flesh. “Where your rib is broken now.”

Tylar nodded.

Off to the side, Brant stirred and mumbled. “She…she…we must…” Then he drifted away.

The master looked to the boy, then back to Tylar. “I fear young Brant might not be the only one poisoned here. That blade must have carried some corruption. It poisoned your naethyn-and as the two of you are bound together, you suffer for it, too.”

Silence settled over them.

“And if his naethryn dies…?” Rogger finally asked.

Sheershym shook his head. “I cannot say. But I suspect the wear and break of your body reflects the vitality of the naethryn inside you. As you grow more crippled of limb, it maps your naethryn’s slide toward death.”

“Is there some cure?” Rogger said. “Some powder to smoke the poison out, like you did with Brant?”

“Such matters are far beyond my skills,” Sheershym said. His face looked especially waxen with fear, something unspoken.

“What?” Tylar asked.

“Even if there were a cure,” the master said, “I fear its potency might never reach where it is most needed.”

“Why’s that?”

“There has been talk and speculation amongst the masters since you rose to your regency. Arguments and thoughts shared by raven’s wing. One consensus is that the naethryn inside you…isn’t truly inside you. How could it be? Instead most believe it to be tethered to you while trapped half in this world, half in the naether. For any hope to burn the poison from the creature, you must bring it fully here.”

“Which I failed to do before,” Tylar said.

“And while poisoned, you may never be able to do.”

Rogger shook his head. “A perfectly laid trap.”

But it wasn’t the only one.

Brant suddenly sat up on the neighboring litter, gasping out as if startled by the terror of a dream, “She…she…”

A shout caught his words and finished his thought, coming from the forest, in the direction of the cliff’s edge. “She comes! She comes!”

Dart straightened, along with everyone else.

Even Brant gained his legs, wobbly but supported by Lorr.

They all stared to the east, toward the burnt swath of the black river.

The Huntress was on the move.

“The river remains quiet,” Brant said. “Takaminara seems to show no interest in stopping the Huntress this time.”

“She may not be able to,” Rogger said. “It must have cost her greatly to split the land the first time.”

Their party gathered at a hunting lodge that overlooked the cliff’s edge. It had been turned into a watchtower by a pair of sentinels, boys barely past twelve. The lodge offered a wide view of the valley floor, once a green sea, now split by a black river.

Brant shifted the arm in his sling. The firebalm had sealed his wound, and Grace already knit the tissue with a burning itch. Between his eyes, a throbbing ache persisted, the dregs of his poisoning. His left leg also felt numb and thick. But the walk here had helped return sensation with a fiery prickling.

He was alive.

But for how long?

Harp stood at his shoulder. Brant could not believe how much his old friend had grown. Once shorter, he now stood half a head taller than Brant. But so much remained the same, too. The worried crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the way he tapped his chin when struggling with a puzzle, even the same crooked grin, offered when he’d first crossed to Brant back in the camp. Still, despite the warm and genuine greeting, there remained a darker look to his eye, something Brant had never seen before. Shadows that would forever haunt his friend.

Brant studied the land below. In just the short time it had taken to come here, the Huntress had led her war party halfway across the river. She did not shy from its burn and stink any longer. Brant had heard the story of Harp’s flight. The Huntress, angered by their escape, meant to end this now.

“They move swiftly,” Tylar said.

“And so must we if we’re to reach the cliffs and the hinterlands beyond,” Rogger said.

Brant had walked these lands as a boy. He knew them well. The Divide fell away into the hinter about two leagues away. A hard march, but one they should be able to make. They had already sent ahead the youngest and oldest, to await word at the cliff’s edge, in case Takaminara chose to protect them yet again. No one wanted to enter the deadly hinterlands unless there was no other choice.

Now they knew.

“We must go,” Brant said.

Harp had everything prepared. While camped here, he’d had ladders woven of vine and sinew. They waited at the Divide, coiled and ready to be unfurled down the cliff into the hinterlands. But Harp had planned further strategies as well.

“I’ll leave ten of our fastest runners,” he said and pointed to key high points. “Along the ridges here and there. With arrow and bow, they should be able to hold the pass, slow the others a bit longer. We don’t want to be caught on the cliff, still on the ladders. A few ax chops and we’d all be tumbling headlong into the hinter.”

“How likely will her hunters be to follow us down there?” Tylar asked.

“She won’t stop until we’re all dead,” Harp said with certainty. “But I’ve already soaked the ladders in poxflame oil. Once below, we can set the ladder afire. Burn them off the cliffs. It will take time for any pursuers to find another way down.”

Brant read the appreciation and respect in the regent’s eyes as he nodded. “Very good,” Tylar said.

Krevan stood at the lip of the cliff, a long glass to his eye. He finally lowered it. “Six score,” he said. “Eighty with bows. Forty with spears.”

Harp frowned at him. “Six score? You’re sure of that count?”

Krevan stared hard, not bothering to answer.

Harp’s frown deepened as he glanced below. “The best of her hunters number two hundred. She comes with too few.”

Brant understood what he meant. All attention had been on the war party that crossed the river directly. But the burn spread to the north and south, stretching out of sight in both directions, beyond the view of the sentries in the makeshift watchtower.

“She sent others ahead of her,” Harp said and turned to them, his eyes wide with worry.

“To close off our escape,” Brant said. There was a reason their god was named the Huntress.

Confirming this, screams suddenly erupted, faint and distant, coming from the top of the pass. Where the others had been headed. Horns sounded from that direction, echoing darkly through the wood.

The snare had been sprung.

Responding to the horns, the Huntress called to them from below. Her voice carried to them, borne aloft in Grace.

“I want only the Godslayer and the boy! To bring his stone!” Horns punctuated her words. “The rest will be allowed to leave my realm. But any further trespass will be met with blood!”

“What are we going to do?” Dart asked as the horns echoed away. She stood with Lorr and Malthumalbaen at the door to the lodge. “You can’t go down there.”

“Agreed.” Krevan pointed toward the Forge. “Best we fight our way through to the Divide. There are only two score up there.”

“Two score of her best hunters,” Harp said with a sour shake of his head. “And they have the high ground. Even if we could make the cliffs, they’d burn us or chop us off the ladders.”

The Huntress called again, pointing an arm. “Come to where the black rock meets the green wood! In the open. If you are not there when I set foot back to loam, your lives-all your lives-will be forfeit!”

Brant watched Tylar study the spread of hunters below, his eyes narrowed with calculations. Though his body was broken, his mind remained sharp.

Tylar finally spoke. “Krevan, lead the others toward the Divide. Gather everyone you can along the way. Keep them safe.”

The leader of the Black Flaggers seemed ready to argue, but whatever he saw in the regent’s eyes held his tongue.

Dart was not so reticent. “I can be of help,” she said.

“No. If the Huntress spots anyone else below…” Tylar shook his head. “We dare not antagonize her any further. And I’d rather you’re safely away.”

“Then take Pupp at least. No one can see him, and he’s…he’s fierce.”

“He is indeed. But we’ve never tested his nature against a god, and now is not the time to find out. Still, you’ve given me a thought.”

Tylar turned to Harp. “You mentioned swift runners. Take me to your fastest.” With a nod, Harp led him around the corner of the lodge.

Dart came to Brant and touched his arm, still unconvinced. “It is surely your death if you go down there.”

“I pray it’s only my death,” he mumbled, remembering the bloodstained lips of Marron. “Perhaps this is my path. It started in the shadow of the Forge. Maybe it is supposed to end here.”

Tylar quickly returned, hopping on his good leg. He had overheard Brant’s words. “Don’t be so quick to accept death. Do that and you’ll have one foot in your grave already.”

Rogger crossed to them and held out his hand. A piece of yellowed bone rested in his palm. “Before we fled, I stole a sliver of the skull. Mayhap it still contains enough Dark Grace to break the seersong’s hold with that black stone of yours.”

Brant stared at the skull, touched the stone at his throat, and slowly shook his head. “I feel the smallest tingle or warmth, nothing more.”

Rogger frowned. “I was afraid of that.”

In his heart, Brant was relieved. He wanted nothing more to do with the skull.

“Still, keep it safe for now,” Tylar ordered the man, then nodded toward the approaching hunters. “We dare tarry no longer.”

In short order, their two parties split. Harp led the others toward the higher pass, guarded by Krevan and Malthumalbaen. Tylar headed back down the small deer path. He hobbled heavily on one side, lost in his own thoughts.

Brant followed. “You have some plan?” he asked.

“I do.”

Brant waited for him to elaborate, but the regent remained silent, marching onward, descending toward the dark river below. A view opened briefly. The leading edge of hunters neared the fringe of forest below, running ahead of the Huntress. Her scouts would reach the jungle first.

Brant tired of Tylar’s cryptic silence. “So am I part of this plan?” he asked, a bit harshly.

“A big part.” Tylar glanced back to Brant. “You’re the worm on the hook.”

Dart climbed beside Malthumalbaen. The giant looked back as often as Dart. Both were worried for Brant…for Tylar. While they climbed toward safety, the others descended toward certain doom.

“Master Brant knows how to take care of himself,” the giant said.

Pupp also kept her company, lagging at her heels.

Ahead, Krevan slipped into and out of shadow, sword drawn. Calla and Lorr followed behind with a handful of Harp’s young hunters. Farther ahead, Rogger marched with Harp. Spread around and between them were the other ragged survivors, the last small handful.

Boys in torn leathers, some bootless. Elders with crooked staffs to help their steps over uneven rock. One young girl carried a babe in her arms, though barely more than a babe herself. All looked gaunt and hollow.

There was no joy in their survival.

Even if they cleared the Divide, they were headed into the hinterlands.

Rounding a steep jog in the track, they heard a horn sound ahead. A commotion jarred through the group, starting near the front and flowing downslope.

From both sides, hunters appeared, dressed in leaves to match the jungle, faces painted black. They bore spears, poison-tipped for sure. Their party was herded closer together, forced up the slope to a jungle dell with a creek trickling over rock. Moss lay thick over all surfaces, turning the small glade emerald green.

It was too bright and handsome a place for the horror here.

To either side knelt the party that had left earlier. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Many looked beaten. One old woman lay on her side, face bloody, unmoving.

But worst of all, a body lay near the creek, seeping blood into the water, swirling it crimson.

Headless.

Standing over the body was a familiar figure, baring the filed points of his teeth, feral and blood-maddened. His arms and chest were drenched in the fresh flow of his kill, lifeblood steaming on his skin.

“Marron…” Harp moaned.

To the hunter’s side, a fierce fire had been stoked with smoky greenwood. Another of the hunters charred the end of a long pole, sharpened at both ends in the flames. At his leader’s signal, he pulled the pole out of the fire and jammed the cool end deep into the mossy loam.

“Don’t,” Harp said.

He was ignored.

Marron bent and lifted the head of the corpse at his feet. Holding it between his palms, he raised it high, then jammed it atop the hot stake. Blood sizzled. Smoke issued from the gaping mouth and nose.

Dart recognized the naked head, tattooed with disciplines.

Master Sheershym.

Dart turned away, hiding her face. Across the creek, more hunters knelt with sharp blades, straddling long branches, shaving them to points.

More stakes, already sharpened, lay piled nearby.

Marron stepped to a young girl who knelt at his feet. He twisted a fistful of her hair and cruelly bared her neck. In his other hand, he carried one of the same blades used to cut the stakes.

The giant reached out and covered Dart’s eyes.

But she could still hear.

Down by the hardened river of black rock, Brant allowed himself to be roughly searched. Hands dug over his body. Finally he was shoved forward to join Tylar at the edge of the black river of steaming rock.

Tylar studied his toes. He had already been searched, even stripped of his shadowcloak. He shifted a full step to one side, more than necessary, as if he were avoiding Brant’s company.

Out on the river, the Huntress had stood waiting. Only now did she come forward, striding through the steam, her skin shining with sweat and Grace. Her hair had been unbraided, giving her a wild look that stirred Brant in unpleasant ways.

Brant and Tylar were forced to their knees, spearpoints at their backs. Tylar, hobbled by his bad leg, fell to one hand.

Ignoring him, the Huntress crossed immediately to Brant. She held out her palm, her eyes bright with desire. There was no need to ask what she wanted.

Brant reached to his neck and pulled out the twisted cord from which the rock hung. It was bound tight. The Huntress motioned with her other hand. The spearpoint was shifted from his back and cut the cord. The stone fell free, into Brant’s palm.

She studied it, lifting her chin and staring down her nose. “It appears such a dull thing-but he was always clever. Sometimes too clever for his own good. Like entrusting it to an equally dull boy.”

She paced one step to the side, then back again, plainly hesitant with the prize so close. “I think I knew, back when you were brought before me. That was why I banished you-but afterward, I couldn’t remember why. The dark whispers filled my head again and I knew I wasn’t in the correct turn of mind to take its responsibility.” A bit of madness crackled. “But now I must be. Why else have you returned? It must be a sign, surely!”

Brant sensed she was trying to goad herself into taking it but was plainly fearful at the same time. He could almost sense the tidal pull and push warring inside her.

Beside him, Tylar remained crouched, his face down, leaning heavily on his one arm. But Brant noted a certain tautness to his shoulders. The way his toe shifted ever so slightly, catching a purchase on a lip of stone, like a climber firming his hold.

“The time must be ripe!” the Huntress cried out. “A plain sign!”

Brant held his breath.

Everything happened too fast.

The god lunged for the stone in his palm and grabbed it. At the same time, Tylar shoved off his good leg, away from the spear at his back, and pulled out a bladeless gold hilt that had been hidden beneath a flat yellow stone.

Rivenscryr.

Here was what Tylar had sent ahead, borne by one of Harp’s fleet-footed runners, to be planted in secret at the river’s edge. Bladeless, it had been easy to hide, easy to miss.

Rising now, Tylar spun off his good leg. Glass tinkled in his other hand, revealing a tiny repostilary hidden under his wraps. A splash of crimson spilled and struck a silver blade that shimmered into existence with the touch of blood.

Still turning, Tylar swung the freshly whetted sword for the Huntress’s neck, ready to take her head clean off-but while all this happened in a blink, Brant’s eyes had truly never left the Huntress’s face.

As her fingers closed on the stone, he saw something rise in her eyes.

His heart clenched.

“No!” Brant burst up and drove his shoulder into Tylar’s hip.

The regent went flying. His sword tumbled from his fingers and clattered on the black rock. He landed hard and rolled to a dazed stop.

Brant sat up, horrified at what he’d just done. In that long blink, he’d had no time for doubt. He did now.

Still, he knew what he had seen in her eyes. It was a match to the expression on the rogue’s face as the fires had consumed his flesh.

Hope.

Before him, the Huntress slowly sank to her knees, oblivious to Tylar’s attack and Brant’s defense. Around her, the other hunters fell back as if strings holding them had suddenly snapped. In a widening circle, they collapsed, limbless and dazed, to rock and loam.

Tylar, his face flushed with fury, crawled to his feet, one cheek deeply abraded and bleeding. But as he saw the hunters collapse all around, fury changed to confusion. He moved over to Brant, collecting his sword. But he refrained from continuing his attack.

On her knees, the Huntress cradled the stone to her heart, rocking slightly, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

Neither dared speak.

Though the Huntress never raised her face, she slowly whispered, as if she knew they waited. “Such a small stone. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop. And make whole what was sundered.”

There was no raving in her voice.

She finally lifted her face. Tears streamed down her dark skin. Her eyes shone with them, but nothing more. No Grace. Not in her eyes, nor in her tears, nor in the sheen on her sweated skin. It had blown out. But filling the void was a warmth, a softening of countenance that Brant had never seen in her before.

In that moment, she seemed so much younger and so much older.

“I remember,” she said, smiling with a sadness that ached the heart. “What was lost in ravings and passing centuries. What the Sundering stole, this small stone returned.”

“What?” Tylar asked softly.

Her eyes did not seem to see him, but she answered. “My name…it was Miyana.”

With the utterance, the ground shook. Loose rock rattled like broken teeth. Leaves shuttered with the noise of a thousand birds taking wing. And deep under their feet, a low roar moaned with grief and sorrow.

Behind the Huntress, the black river split to reveal its fiery heart.

Brant felt the heat as a breath of regret.

The Huntress- Miyana -turned her face to the mountain as the ground shook. It reminded Brant of Miyana’s shoulders a moment before. A silent sobbing.

She whispered toward the distant mountain. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be heard. But Brant heard it.

“Mother…forgive me…”

Miyana stood. She seemed to finally note the boy kneeling on the rock in front of her. Her words were hollow and haunted.

“Brant, son of Rylland…we’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.” She glanced over her shoulder to the greater forest. “But there is one mistress even more cruel. Memory. She makes no distinction between horror and beauty, joy and sorrow. She makes us swallow it all, bitter and sweet. Until it’s all too much.”

She sank again into herself. She took one step back, then another.

“Mistress…” Brant said, knowing what she intended. “Don’t.”

Her eyes flicked to him as she took another step back. “One last kindness, then. So you might hate me more fully.”

“I don’t-”

“I killed your father. I sent the she-panther that killed him.”

Brant sought some way to understand what she was saying. “Wh-why?” he stammered through his shock.

“I was already sliding into madness. But perhaps deep down I knew and lashed out.”

“Knew what?” Tylar asked for him.

“Rylland brought me the wrong gift. A curse, instead of hope. Corruption, instead of my name.”

Brant understood.

His father had brought her Keorn’s skull, instead of the stone. Without knowing the power in either, the choice had been pure misfortune. Her first words returned to him. We’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.

Her eyes returned to the distant forest.

They had been left with worse than nothing.

She whispered to the forest. “Until it’s all too much.”

She took one last stride and stepped into the open crack behind her. Molten rock consumed her bone and flesh. She gasped but didn’t scream. The agony in her heart was far worse than any flame. Her face turned to the mountain, to the source of the fire that swallowed her.

Instead of pain, Brant read the love in her face.

“Thank you for protecting these last few…” she whispered, her words rising like steam toward the distant mountain. “I want to go home.”

Spreading her arms, she fell forward into the molten rock, as if into a welcoming embrace. The stone flew from her fingertips, no longer needed.

The piece of black rock bounced and rolled, coming to rest at Brant’s knee. He reached down and took the gift. For the second time in his life, a god burning with fire had passed this stone into his fingers.

But now he knew the truth.

It wasn’t just a rock.

It was the hope of a lost world.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, Tylar climbed with the others toward the Divide. The twin peaks of the Forge burnt with the last rays of the sun. No one had spoken for the past full league. And the silence wasn’t just the steepness of their climb, nor even grief.

It was an emotion that transcended numbness. An attempt to reconcile all that had happened, while still placing one foot in front of the other. If they stopped, they might never move again. The day had held too much horror, framed by the rising and setting of a single sun. It was a day they had to push past.

Yet some still tried to make sense of it.

Rogger mumbled through his beard. “The stone-it explains much.”

Tylar glanced to him. He didn’t ask for an elaboration, but Rogger gave it anyway.

“The Huntress-”

“Miyana,” Tylar corrected. She had paid a heavy price for that name. Tylar refused to let it be lost again. “Her name was Miyana.”

Rogger nodded. “She claimed that the stone allowed those parts of her that were sundered to return to her.”

He nodded. Miyana’s words echoed inside him. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop.

“Here in Myrillia, the gods are split into three,” Rogger continued, ticking them off on his fingers. “An undergod in the naether, the god of flesh here, and that higher self that flew off into the aether. But with a piece of their original home in hand, it must be like returning home, becoming whole again. When Miyana held the stone, her naethryn and aethryn parts must have gathered back to her. Like moths to a flickering flame.”

“So it would seem,” Tylar said.

“Then that goes a long way toward explaining what transpired here.”

Drawn by the conversation, Brant and Dart drew closer. Perhaps there was another way of moving past all this. Through some manner of understanding.

The thief nodded toward Dart. “Do you remember Master Gerrod’s explanation for why Dart’s humours don’t flow with Grace?”

Tylar silenced Rogger with a glare. Not all here were aware of Dart’s nature. “I remember,” he said tersely.

Though birthed of gods, Dart was born in Myrillia. Born unsundered. Gerrod had come to believe that the Grace of the gods arose because they were sundered. It was the stretch of their essences between the three realms, flowing across them, that sustained their flesh and imbued their humours with power. Back in their original kingdoms, whole and intact, the gods had borne no Grace.

Rogger changed the tack of the conversation. “After Miyana took the stone, did you notice any change in her? Any lessening of her powers?”

Brant answered. “It did seem the Grace in her eyes dimmed.”

“Exactly! As the stone made her whole again, her Grace died away. And since seersong only works on those Graced…”

“She broke free,” Brant finished for him. “The song had no hold.”

“Or at least less of a hold. I suspect the stone does not make a god fully whole. They still reside in Myrillia. But the stone draws their other selves up close. Look at Keorn. He was carrying that stone, but still got trapped in the song for a long spell. Though eventually he did resist it well enough to escape.”

Tylar’s interest grew. “If you’re right, then we can use the stone to free the rogues. Bring each rogue in contact with it.”

“Perhaps. But there’s a snag. Remember, Keorn’s skull was still black with seersong; the stone held it in check. But he had to be holding it. Like Miyana. I fear that once you move the stone from one rogue to the next, the first will succumb anew to the song. It may be one of the reasons Miyana destroyed herself. Perhaps she knew this truth.”

“So we’d need a stone for each rogue to keep them all from becoming enslaved again.”

Rogger nodded. “Good luck with that.”

Tylar pondered all this. It was better than thinking about the horrors behind them.

“It makes you wonder about Keorn, though,” Rogger said, lowering his voice and motioning Tylar aside.

“How so?”

“I don’t think he just happened upon that stone. What’s the likelihood of a raving rogue chancing upon a lost talisman of home?” Rogger continued without leaving time for Tylar to respond. “I wager Keorn arrived here with that chunk of stone. And because he had it all along, it kept him mostly whole, weakening his Grace. And being so weak from the start, he probably never suffered the ravenings of his more Grace-maddened brothers and sisters.”

“A rogue god who does not rave.”

Some measure of disbelief must have rung in Tylar’s words.

Rogger dropped his voice even lower. “It’s probably why he chose to live in the hinterlands. With no wild Grace to calm, he had no reason to settle a realm. Why give up the world and freedom if you didn’t have to? And didn’t the Wyr sense something odd about him? Didn’t he escape their trackers? And what about Dart?”

“What about her?”

“A god’s seed rarely takes root in a belly. The Grace burns such fragile unions. But Keorn’s seed took root.”

It made a certain horrible sense, though Tylar would prefer to discuss it with a tower full of masters. For every question Rogger answered, another two arose. Why did Keorn have a child? Why keep the stone secret? Why remain hidden in the hinterlands for four thousand years? Why not reveal yourself? Mystery atop mystery remained.

And Tylar suspected the answers lay beyond the Divide, in the hinterlands.

Finally, they climbed the last slope. A small group of hunters waited at the top of the pass. Harp stood among them. He had gone on ahead to ready the rope ladders for their descent.

He came forward, face grim. “All is ready. I have Master Sheershym’s maps of the lands below packed.”

His voice cracked a bit on those last words.

Tylar clasped the boy on the shoulder. “You have much to bear on shoulders so young.”

“And so bony,” Rogger added.

His attempt at levity raised only a ghost of a smile on the boy’s lips, mostly polite. His eyes remained tired, haunted. Harp had much work ahead here. After Miyana’s death, the hunters under her thrall had fallen into various states. Some had rolled fully into a ravening lunacy. Others remained in a strange dreamlike state, as if their minds had simply snuffed out, leaving only a breathing husk behind. A few were grief-stricken, addled by guilt, but had hopes for some life hereafter.

And one hunter had died, torn apart at the hands of his own people. His head rested on a stake not far away, forever baring his filed teeth in a grimace of pain.

Harp led them to the ladders. “It might be best to attempt your climb in the morning,” he warned. “If you leave now, it will be dark when you finally set foot down there.”

Tylar stared out past the cliff. It was his first view of the hinterlands below. Though the sun still hovered at the edge of the world, the lower lands were already blanketed in darkness. It was a world of broken rock and steaming jungle, more swamp than forest. A few fiery snakes glowed through the darkness, molten rivers streaming out from Takaminara’s volcanic peak, fresh flows from a god grieving for her daughter, fiery tears for one returned to her so briefly.

Mother…forgive me…

Tylar felt Harp’s eyes on him, waiting for his answer.

Despite the dangers below, he had had enough of this sad land.

“We’ll go now.”