Hinterland

A SWORD OF STEEL

The blare of a trumpet, muffled and faint, reached Dart’s hiding place. Something had stirred the tower. She heard distant shouts, too.

But she dared not move.

Not yet.

She hid in an alcove down the hall from the central stairs and chewed one of her knuckles. She shared her hiding space with a gray marble statue. It depicted some famous knight, one who bore a raven on his shoulder, though its beak had been broken off some time in the distant past.

She shouldn’t be here. She knew better, but she could not help herself. She was supposed to be down in the library, learning the history of Tashijan, with her fellow pages. But she had begged off, claiming some urgent business with the castellan. With a disinterested wave, the owl-eyed archivist had dismissed her-though her subterfuge earned a rash of sneers from her peers. All would have liked an excuse to escape the tedious study of dates and endless lists of battles. Especially with all the excitement of late. For the past day, the entire Citadel had practically thrummed like a plucked bowstring. It was hard for any of them to sit still.

But worst of all for Dart.

She knew when the retinue from Oldenbrook was due. She had learned which rooms they were to occupy and had gone and found a vantage from which to spy on the outer hall. She had waited through two bells, but she was eventually rewarded by their arrival, led by a tall woman in a snowy fur who seemed as fresh as if she had just returned from a garden stroll. Dart recognized her as the mistress of tears. At her shoulder strode a man, a guardsman from the look of him, resplendent in finery that matched the mistress’s. His eyes remained on the fur-cloaked Hand, while she seemed oblivious to him, deep in conversation with Castellan Vail, talking animatedly.

Dart had pushed deeper into her alcove, fearing being spotted by the castellan. What excuse could she offer for hiding here? Pupp had no such worry. He had been curled at her feet, but the commotion of the arriving party revived him. He trotted out into the hallway.

Though none could see him, she hissed under her breath and waved him back to the alcove. He reluctantly obeyed. Still, his stubbed tail wagged with excitement.

Dart understood. Despite the risk, she could not help peeking out. Another two Hands followed the one in the snowy-furred cloak. A man and a woman. One thin, one wide. Then Dart’s attention shifted to a pair of massive guards-loam-giants from the size of them-who shouldered out of the stairwell. She gaped at them. They carried a crate slung between them.

As they stepped aside, a more familiar figure appeared behind them.

The bronze boy.

Dart’s heart trembled somewhere between relief and terror.

So he had come.

He was a year ahead of her at school, so she had never known him well, but after encountering him in Oldenbrook, she had sought to learn more. Including his name. Brant. She tested the name now, mouthing it. It somehow fit him.

Her former schoolmate stopped with the giants near the stairs, shrugged aside a heavy winter cloak, and pointed an arm. “The houndskeep lies past the bailey. Take them down, get them settled, but keep them under watch. None are to see them until the morning.”

The giants nodded and headed away.

Brant watched them for a breath. He looked somehow thinner, paler than when last she’d seen him-though as he turned back to the hall, a fire burnt in his manner. He tromped after his party. His eyes narrowed upon the mistress of tears and her tall escort. Plainly there was some trouble here.

Dart kept one eye peeked as Castellan Vail assigned rooms. The boy vanished into his own with barely a word to any of the others.

She maintained her post until the hall was empty. Even the escorts had vanished with their captain, gone to break bread. And test the Citadel’s ale, she imagined.

She dared tarry no longer. The regent’s flippercraft would be mooring soon. Still, as Dart stepped out, she had to bite back a desire to knock on Brant’s door. If she could swear him to her secret…then she’d have nothing to fear. Maybe they could even share a-

A latch scraped ahead of her.

Dart crabbed backward with a wheel of her arms, ducking back into her alcove. Brant’s door opened. He glanced up and down the hall as if someone had rapped on his door. Or maybe it was the trumpets that had blared for the past half bell, echoing down from the top of Stormwatch.

Dart studied him.

He was dressed the same, still in his heavy winter cloak and boots. Seemingly satisfied that he was alone, he headed for the stairs. Where was he going? To investigate the trumpets? To sample the ale here, like the guards?

He reached the far stairs. Dart craned her neck to see, curious where he was going. Without a glance back, he headed down.

She drew after him, her feet moving on their own. Pupp trotted ahead of her down the hall.

Upon reaching the landing, she searched below. He had already vanished around a curve in the stairs. She hesitated on the steps. Her spying had already revealed what she had wanted to know. He had come. It was best now that she return to the castellan’s hermitage. The first evening bell would be ringing any moment. The regent’s flippercraft was due to arrive. Castellan Vail would expect her to attend the welcoming.

Still, she stood on the landing, burning with curiosity, tempered by a trace of fear. What to do?

Then her decision was taken from her.

Pupp bounded down the stairs after the boy, perhaps responding to some unspoken desire in her own heart. She hissed at him, but only faintly. A moment later, she pursued her ghostly companion.

Brant proceeded slowly, new to Tashijan, but he seemed to know where he was going, moving with a dogged determination. Perhaps he had been given a map to the towers.

As they progressed, Dart kept easily hidden. As usual, the stairs were crowded. She had no difficulty keeping him in sight while staying back herself. As she trailed her quarry, she heard snatches of conversation. With each level she passed, she slowly pieced together some mishap that had befallen a flippercraft landing atop Stormwatch. Word had traveled faster than the trumpet’s blare: of a fire, burning mekanicals, but order had been restored. No deaths.

Then she heard Tylar’s name.

Her feet slowed to listen to the rest of a knight’s conversation with a comely older maid. He leaned an elbow on the wall. Dart noted the Fiery Cross embroidered on his shoulder. “The regent arrives with as much turmoil as he’s beset our fair land. Is it any wonder Warden Fields disapproves of his position at Chrismferry?”

Dart continued past, lest she draw the knight’s eye. But it seemed the maid’s ample bosom had captured his attention full enough.

She hurried down a few more steps, dread clutching her throat. So it had been Tylar’s airship that had landed so roughly! He must have come early. She stopped at the next landing.

Enough with this foolishness. She needed to get back to the castellan’s hermitage. Kathryn might need her.

“You!”

The shout startled her-as did the hand that grabbed her roughly and pulled her around. She expected it to be Brant, wise to her spying.

But another familiar countenance pushed close to her, almost nose to nose. Pyllor. She smelled the sour ale on the squire’s breath.

“What are you doing out of your cage, Hothbrin? Come looking for some more lessons?” He shoved her against the wall with an angry laugh.

Dart struggled against him, but he outweighed her by two stones.

“’Course,” he slurred, “we’ll have to manage without Swordmaster Yuril. None of her coddling this time.”

His guffaw sounded more like a bark-but Dart was deaf to it, hearing only the beat of ravens’ wings behind his laugh. She tensed, remembering when another man had touched her so roughly.

Behind Pyllor, Dart saw two more of Pyllor’s friends. Dart didn’t know their names but recognized their hard eyes. She also noted the Fiery Cross emblems crudely stitched to their shirt collars.

Folks passed them on the stairs, barely noting them. Such ribaldry and hassling were not unknown among the ranks. But Dart read the mean intent in Pyllor’s eyes. The Fiery Cross bore no love for the castellan-or those who served her. Swords had been drawn over the division.

One of his companions grabbed Dart’s other shoulder. “Let’s do her?” he hissed at Pyllor, his eyes shining with malicious fire.

The second squire hesitated, half-blocking the way. “The castellan’s page-we don’t dare.”

Pyllor flat-handed him aside. His other fist knotted in Dart’s half cloak and tugged her toward an open door. “Bugger that sellwench up in her hermitage. We’re the warden’s men. She needs to learn who truly rules here.”

Dart fought against the fist in her cloak, trying to shed the garment and twist away. But her other elbow was snatched by the more exuberant of Pyllor’s two companions. The other hung back still, glancing to the stairs. But all interest still seemed caught upon the crashed flippercraft.

Dart was half-carried through a doorway into a dark, empty room. A single brazier burnt near the back, offering a meager glow.

An iron rod protruded from it, buried in the embers.

“Get your flat arse in here!” Pyllor’s friend said to their reluctant cohort.

He obeyed, caught in the wake of the other two.

“And latch the door!” Pyllor called out.

Dart stamped on the squire’s foot, desperate to escape, heart pounding in her throat. Raven wings echoed. Did they mean to rape her?

Pyllor swore and threw her deeper into the room, hard enough to trip her up. She skidded on the stone, ripping her leggings, bloodying her knee.

“Act like a skaggin’ wench…and we’ll treat you like one!”

A coarse laugh encouraged Pyllor.

The door closed behind him, sinking the room into gloom.

Pyllor’s partner crossed to the brazier, wrapped up his hand in a cloth, and pulled the rod from the coals. Its iron end glowed a fiery crimson. A branding iron. The tip was shaped into a circle bisected by crossed lines.

The symbol of the Fiery Cross.

It was not rape that they intended, but another violation of body.

“Where should we mark her?” the bearer asked. “The thigh, like we did that Moor Eld boy?”

Pyllor glared at Dart. “No. Somewhere where all will see.” He touched his cheek. “It’s time the Fiery Cross sent a message to that sellwench up in her hermitage.”

Dart scrambled back as the others laughed. She sought her only weapon. She reached down to her scraped knees, blessing her hands with her own blood. She needed Pupp.

Dart glanced around and only now realized she was alone.

Pupp was gone.

Pyllor stalked toward her. “Grab her.”

Brant knew he was being hunted.

He had sensed it for the last three levels as he descended the stairs, a pressure building behind his breastbone. He searched behind him, but the curve of the tower stairs betrayed him. All he saw was men and women in cloaks or various drapes of finery. A washerwoman with a tied bundle of linen bustled past him, almost knocking him aside. He caught the scent of soap and perfumed oil from her burden, intended for someone of higher station.

He took another step down. He was thwarted from much further progress by a tide of people heading up. He had almost reached the bottom of the tower, and some excitement seemed to be drafting folks upward, like smoke up a chimney, something about an arriving flippercraft.

Pressed against a wall, Brant finally noted the heat at his throat. His hand rose to touch the scar on his neck, then the stone resting below it. The stone wasn’t burning like the last time, flaring with a blistering fire. It was only warm, as if slightly fevered. Both curious and disturbed, he tested its black surface with his fingers.

As he stood, the stone warmed further, a match to the tension mounting in his chest. Brant took a step back up the stairs, then another. Under his fingertips, the stone heated to a toasty warmth. He reached the next landing, and a deeper burn surged, the stone becoming a coal in his fingers.

Wincing, he stopped. He remembered the daemon summoned by the stone when last it had flared. He searched all around him. Nothing.

At his throat, the stone began to cool.

No.

He sensed that whatever had been hunting him was now retreating. He could not lose it.

Brant took another step up, and the stone warmed ever so slightly. Encouraged, he hurried toward the next landing. With each step, the black stone responded, stoking higher with an inner fire. If he stopped or was slowed, it would cool again. He did not tarry, climbing two steps at a time now, caught in the flow of residents heading higher.

As he passed the next landing, Brant felt the stone suddenly lose its fiery edge. With each step farther, it cooled more.

Brant swung around and fought the tide again, heading back down, returning to the landing below.

The stone’s burn ignited again.

He left the stairs and entered the passageway.

It was nearly empty. He rushed forward, using the threaded rock like a lodestone, following the trail of heat. He was a quarter way down the hall when the stone flared to a roasting fire.

Brant gasped but knew he was close.

He yanked the cord from around his neck. He held out the necklace, letting the talisman swing. On one pass, the arc of the dangling stone suddenly stopped-halted by the backside of a molten bronze beast.

It appeared out of the air at his knees, facing away, toward a door. Its body seemed to melt and flow, constantly struggling to hold its beastly shape, half wolf, half lion. In its fierce churn, Brant sensed its fury. It wafted outward like the heat from an open forge.

Then the beast lunged away, vanishing from the touch of the stone, and through a solid door.

Brant straightened.

Then heard the scream.

Dart struggled to escape her own half cloak. It had been pulled over her head by the larger of Pyllor’s cohorts. She kicked and felt her boot strike flesh. A loud oof responded.

“Get’er legs, Ryskold!” Pyllor said.

Someone grabbed her knee.

Dart fought with a rising fury that grew to a blinding ferocity. A hand broke free of her cloak, and she raked her nails at whoever clutched her. She connected, digging deep.

A bellow of surprise erupted.

The grip loosened, and she twisted away, freeing herself-but only momentarily. Whoever she’d wounded lunged atop her, meaning to pin her with his greater weight. Dart held him off with an elbow and a hand. In the struggle, her fingers stumbled upon a familiar shape at the other’s waist.

She grabbed it and pulled.

The sword slid free of its sheath. Her attacker let loose a cry of pain, accidentally cut by his own blade.

Dart rolled to the side and to her feet. She lifted the stolen sword to face the three across the room.

In her hand was no wooden sword-this one was steel.

The bolder of Pyllor’s two friends clutched his forearm. His shirt had been cleaved and darkened with his blood. His eyes had narrowed with pain, but burnt with a fiery anger.

In the glow of the single brazier, Dart’s stolen blade shone brightly. As did Pyllor’s own blade as he pulled it free. A squire’s blade. No black diamond adorned its pommel, marking a true knight, for certainly no honor was to be found here.

“Leave her to me,” he called to the others unnecessarily.

His wounded partner’s sheath was already empty. The other had simply backed away, plainly refusing to be drawn further into the struggle here.

Pyllor sneered. “First I’ll bloody you, then we’ll get you branded up good-for all to see.”

Dart remained silent and took a warding stance. But this was no sparring match. Pyllor came at her with a brutal and heavy lunge.

She refused to be drawn into a block, not against the more muscled attacker. She simply turned her blade and let his steel sing along hers. She leaned her left shoulder back and Pyllor’s sword tip passed her harmlessly.

Surprised, her attacker was momentarily off balance.

And close.

Expressionless, Dart demonstrated how well she had learned Pyllor’s prior lesson, how sword fighting sometimes required more than a blade. As he stumbled near, she kneed out with her other leg, striking him square in the groin.

He cried out and fell back.

At that moment, motion stirred at the corner of her eye. Pupp burst through the latched door. He was a molten glow, a blur of impotent fury.

Though relieved, Dart kept her focus on Pyllor. He wobbled, clutching himself with one hand, but the other lifted his sword.

“You’re dead,” he hissed.

Pupp danced up to her, but she had no time to bloody him, to use the Grace in her most essential humour to call him forth.

Pyllor came at her again, more hobbled and more cautious. She read the cunning reflected in his eyes. She readied herself, but she knew he was the better swordsman.

He thrust, testing her this time.

She parried, but he smacked back her blade and came in with a feint, followed by a savage thrust. She barely nicked her hilt up to block the tip. Still, the blow reverberated up her arm and knocked her back a step.

Pyllor sneered and lowered his sword.

Dart took advantage of the satisfaction in his expression. She lunged out, sweeping into the opening. He dropped his hilt even farther, lowering his guard. Dart realized her mistake-but it was too late. She was committed. Her momentum carried forward her attack.

Pyllor suddenly shoved out his elbow and twisted his sword’s tip in the opposite direction. Dart recognized the opening maneuver. A perfectly executed Naethryn’s Folly.

And she had been drawn inescapably into it.

He looped his sword in a side-sweep, trapping her thrusted blade-then tugged his elbow to his side and turned on his back heel.

Dart’s sword sprang from her fingertips with a ring of steel. It sailed, hilt over tip, through the air, and clanged against the stone floor.

Pyllor did not wait-he drove his sword for her belly.

Dart had only one lesson left. One again taught to her by the squire. She grabbed bare-handed for his blade. Her fingers closed over the steel. She shoved with her palm.

Steel sliced with a painless kiss.

She would lose fingers.

Before she could react, a crash sounded to her right, and the door cracked open with a pop of its latch. Pyllor faltered in surprise. Dart pushed his sword aside and dropped back.

Light flooded the dim room from the hall outside. A dark figure stood limned in the doorway. In the stunned silence, he took in the scene before him.

Pyllor turned his sword toward the intruder. He eyed him, judging him. This was no knight, but someone in a rather plain cloak. Someone of no consequence.

“Begone! This is none of your concern!”

Ignoring him, the figure stepped inside. The blinding light fell from his shoulders and revealed face and form.

The bronze boy.

Brant.

How…?

“Let her go,” he said with a dread calm.

Dart glanced back to Pyllor. Surely this was over. Agony flared up her arm from her sliced palm. She clenched a fist against it, trying to squeeze it away.

Pyllor refused to back down. His fury, stoked by the thwarted attack, found a fresh target in the intruder, believing the younger man to be no more than one of the faceless underfolk, what with his worn leathers and scuffed boots.

Pyllor dropped his sword lower. But Dart knew this was another feint, a trick meant to dull an opponent’s guard. At his back, Dart spotted a dagger, hidden out of sight.

“Don’t-” she said and reached with her injured hand. Blood spattered from her fingertips and spilled from her palm.

But it never struck the floor.

The humour splashed upon the waiting form below.

Dart felt Pupp appear, blessed with blood, drawn fully into this world. He burst into solidity with a flare of ruddy fire. He leaped toward Pyllor at the exact time the squire twisted and flung his dagger toward the intruder.

Pupp sailed through the air, a molten bronze arrow. He hit Pyllor in the arm, taking it off at the elbow. Pyllor screamed.

The attack, though late, proved unnecessary. The thrown dagger missed its intended target as Brant sidestepped it, as if anticipating it all along. It clattered into the hall outside.

Pyllor fell back onto his rear, holding up his severed arm in disbelief. The edge of his shirt still smoked. The stump of his limb stuck out, blackened and seared.

More shouts of horror rose from Pyllor’s companions. They fled toward the door, away from Pupp, who now circled Pyllor on the floor.

Brant allowed the others to flee as he moved toward Dart.

Pyllor cowered, wide-eyed in terror and shock. He blubbered incoherently, scooting away, abandoning his sword as he pushed with his remaining hand.

Brant touched her arm. “We should be away. Now.” His eyes were on Pupp, but he seemed little surprised.

Dart allowed herself to be drawn toward the door.

“Call off your daemon,” Brant said.

Dart had no strength to argue. “To me, Pupp.”

His fiery form continued to circle Pyllor, hackles raised, snarling fire.

“To me,” Dart urged more firmly. She remembered what had befallen two other men, back in the rookery in Chrismferry. She had witnessed Pupp’s mercy then. A part of her wished the same for Pyllor.

Pupp seemed to sense this, glancing back at her. Beyond the fire of his eyes, she saw her own fury reflected. And again something not of this world. Beyond her ability to fathom.

Dart met that fiery gaze, acknowledged the bloodlust, both in Pupp and in her own heart. Still, she felt Brant’s touch on her elbow, urgent but patient. She responded to it.

“To me,” she commanded again. “Now.”

Pupp turned back to Pyllor. The squire moaned and pushed against the wall. A trail of wetness flowed from under Pyllor as he fouled himself in his terror. But Pupp finally obeyed. He swung around and trotted sullenly and darkly back to her. He brought with him a whiff of burnt blood-her own and perhaps Pyllor’s.

Brant led her to the door.

Down the hallway, a sharp cry of daemon rang from the central stair.

Brant glanced at her. Dart noted the flecks of gold in his emerald eyes. “Where?” he asked.

“This way,” Dart said and hurried away from the shouts. She led him toward the far end of the hallway. A back stair led to the warren of rooms and narrow halls of Tashijan’s underfolk and small staff.

“It fades,” Brant said beside her, staring at Pupp’s form.

“The Grace that gave him substance has been consumed.”

Pupp slipped back into his ghostly form. And none too soon. A door flew open, revealing an elderly manservant in house livery, drawn by the commotion. Dart and Brant hurried past, while Pupp padded through the man’s legs and the open door as if they were air.

Once they reached the back stairs, they ran down a full flight. Brant asked her as they fled, “What Grace is this you speak of?”

“Something…” She shifted her wounded fist, wrapped and snugged in her half cloak. “Something in my blood.”

Dart knew that what she had revealed was supposed to be kept secret, but she had neither the strength nor the will to roust up some fabrication. Besides, the strange young man seemed to know more than he expressed.

Like how he had come so opportunely to the door a moment ago.

It seemed both had secrets neither was ready to fully bare.

Brant slowed them and drew Dart into a niche. He pulled a bit of scarf from an inner pocket of his cloak. It was mere roughspun. He nodded for her hand. She held it out, and he deftly wrapped her palm, cinching it tight to hold the wound closed.

“Can you move your fingers?”

She demonstrated that she could, though it hurt.

“Nothing appears deeply maimed,” he mumbled. “But you should see a healer.”

She withdrew her hand from his, suddenly uncomfortable with his touch. “I will.”

They stepped back onto the stairs. Voices echoed from above. Inquiries called out, from shadowknights drawn by the commotion. A voice rang through, edged with panic.

“They fled that way with the daemon!”

Pyllor.

Brant sighed through his nose. Dart sensed that maybe he was reconsidering his mercy. They headed down before any pursuers closed in on them.

With the shock worn away, the enormity of what had happened struck Dart. Pyllor and his two cohorts, members of the Fiery Cross, would soon have the story of Dart and her daemon fluttering to the top of Stormwatch, to the Warden’s Eyrie and the castellan’s hermitage. Kathryn would be furious. Dart despaired. In a moment, all had come to ruin. There would be no hiding from accusations of summoning daemons. Her life here was over. She would either be exposed or have to flee again.

Until then, she needed a moment to sit, to think.

“They don’t know me,” Brant said. “We have to go somewhere where they won’t think to look for you.”

But where? Dart could not force her thoughts into any order. She simply ran, winding down the stairs, bumping her shoulders due to the narrowness, dodging a few of the under-staff who were busy with their own labors. Their flight was ignored.

Brant finally slowed her. “I might know a place. I was headed to the Citadel’s houndskeep and kennel. My lord arranged a private pen, one under guard. We could hole up down there.”

Dart nodded. She had been down to the houndskeep only once. It was unlikely anyone would recognize her. “I know a shorter route through the courtyard,” she said.

With a goal firmly in mind, she headed off at a faster pace. Once safe, perhaps she could get a letter to the castellan. Kathryn would know best how to handle this matter.

They fled another three flights to reach the level that separated the upper Citadel from the subterranean realm of the masters. She escaped the stairs through a warren of kitchens, passing baker’s ovens, simmerpots, and spitted roasting fires. Savory scents assaulted them at every turn: rising yeast, bubbling spiced oils, spattering fat, brittling sweetcake. They had to skirt around a team of cooks lifting a full boar from a massive hearth.

“Mind the tusks!” the chief cook hollered, meaty fists on his hips.

Then they were gone, out a door, escaping the ringing din of banging pans and sweltering heat. Brant closed the door against it. They sheltered a moment in an arched doorway, open to the central courtyard.

The cold struck Dart first, like jumping into a cold creek. She shivered all over and must have made some sound, for Brant turned toward her.

“Storm’s already here,” he said quietly and shifted his attention to the gray-cloaked skies above.

Snow sifted down, softly, gently. Sheltered by massive towers on four sides, the winds failed to reach here. Heavy flakes, like downy heron feathers, floated and drifted, almost hanging in the air, refusing to touch land. The snowfall filled the courtyard like sand in a well. Dart could barely discern the giant wyrmwood tree that graced the center of the courtyard. Its lower branches were caked with mounding snow. Its upper branches stretched upward, toward the top of Stormwatch, as if the ancient tree were trying to claw its way out of the courtyard, smothering under the thickening blanket.

Brant held out his hand and let a few flakes settle to his palm. The heat of his body melted them. He dried his hand on his pants. Dart noted a glint of suspicion in the narrowing of his eyes as he studied the skies for another breath.

“The true storm has yet to strike,” he mumbled and headed out into the snow. “The worst is yet to come.”

Dart bundled her cloak tighter and led the way across the courtyard. As she aimed for the far side of the massive trunk of the wyrmwood, she noted one of their party holding back, still sheltered in the archway.

“Pupp-to me,” she said and patted her hip.

He huddled his molten form low to the ground. His usual ruddy bronze had dulled to a wan shine. The spikes of his mane trembled as he shook ever so slightly.

“It’s only snow,” she said, stopping fully to turn to face him.

Brant halted with her. “Your daemon?”

“He’s not my daemon,” she said with a note of irritation. “He’s…he’s…” What could she say? “Never mind. It’s complicated.”

Dart had no desire to tell this emerald-eyed boy who she actually was. And unlike the gods of Myrillia, she was born whole and unsundered. Then again, maybe that wasn’t totally true. Pupp was birthed with her, joined to her, and in some aspects, a part of her. In fact, she grew deathly ill if Pupp was too far separated from her. Sundered yet still together was how Master Gerrod had once described it.

But for as long as Dart could remember, Pupp was just Pupp, her ghostly companion, champion, and forever a piece of her heart.

That was good enough for her.

Though right at this moment, his stubbornness piqued her growing impatience. She didn’t want to be in the storm any longer than necessary.

“Pupp, come here!”

“You can still see him?” Brant asked, his brows pinched as he searched the snowswept courtyard.

Before she could answer, Pupp finally obeyed. He shot out from under the archway and sped low to the ground, skirting side to side, as if trying to avoid any snowflakes. But the path he scribed formed a sigil of panic. He hurried to Dart and past, continuing across the yard.

Now Dart followed, almost running, dragging Brant with her.

At least Pupp must have understood where she wanted to go. He aimed for a short flight of descending stairs. He vanished down them.

In her hurry, Dart’s left boot slipped on a bit of black ice on the top step. She tumbled into a headlong fall-but Brant caught her around the waist and righted her back onto her feet. She hung a moment in his arms.

“Are you all right?”

Despite the cold, Dart felt her face warm. “Yes…sorry…”

Brant released her and led the way down the stairs to a low, wide door. He hauled the door open for her. Pupp had already passed through it in his haste to escape the snow.

“It’s not far from here,” Dart said, sliding past him. She kept her eyes from his, lest they betray her. She pushed into the dim hallway.

The heat inside stifled after the icy storm.

She headed to a cross passage and turned left. Already the barking and bawling of the Citadel’s stalking hounds reached them-as did the smell of wet dog and soiled hay. The entrance to the houndskeep lay only a few steps farther down the hall. The door was a gated grate of iron.

Dart stepped up to it.

Beyond stretched a cross-hatching of low passages, lit by torches, carved out of the stone that underlay Tashijan. It was said that the kennels here were once the dungeons of the original keep, before the coming of the gods, during the barbarous time of human kings.

Dart had a hard time imagining such a dungeon. Each carved niche barely held room enough for a pair of hounds, long-legged though they might be.

As they stopped before the gate, their arrival did not go unnoticed.

“’Bout time you got your hairy arse down here!” The keeper turned from a slop bucket. He was naked to the waist and appeared half bear himself with a back and chest covered in a pelt of curly hair. In some cruel trick of nature, though, his head was bald, his pate shining with sweat. “Like I have time to sit a couple wild whelpings-”

His eyes finally took note of who stood at his door.

He threw his hands in the air.

“Off with you…no time for gapers…’nough problems of mine own.” He waved them off.

“Good ser,” Brant said loudly, “I’ve come to inquire about two loam-giants, represented by Oldenbrook.”

His words only deepened the scowl on the keeper’s face, but he tromped over to them and swung open the door. “So you heard then, have you?”

Brant walked through with a frown. “Heard what?”

The answer came from down the passage. “Ock! Master Brant!”

A broad form pushed out of a side passage, hunkered from the low ceiling into an awkward crouch. It was one of the loam-giants Dart had spotted with Brant earlier. He approached, almost knuckling on the hay-strewn floor. A few hounds howled at him as he passed, unaccustomed to such giants down here.

“I just sent word up a mite ago. Did you jump from a window to get down here so fast?”

Dart didn’t know the giant, but she still read the deep unease in the man’s manner.

“Malthumalbaen,” Brant said, “what’s happened? I’ve heard no word. I’ve only chanced to come down here to see how the whelpings are settled for the night. One of Tashijan’s pages was kind enough to escort me.” He nodded to Dart.

The giant shook his thick-necked head. “Disaster, ser. Bad as they come.”

“The wolf cubbies?”

Malthumalbaen lowered his head and his voice. “Gone, ser.”

“Dead?” Worry etched his words, but anger narrowed his eyes.

“No, ser. Thank the gods for that good bit of Grace. You’d best come see. Dral is still trying to salvage the matter.”

“And it weren’t no fault of mine,” the keeper groused and called after them as they headed down the passage. “Just so it’s clear to one and all! If’n you had let me know you had wild whelpings, I could have better prepared.”

Malthumalbaen let out a long sigh and grumbled under his breath. Still it had to be loud enough to reach the keeper’s ears. “Gave us a place near the back. Ill-kept, it was, with nary a torch to see much by.”

The loam-giant turned the corner and led them down the cross passage.

Dart glanced to the small cells on either side, where tawny-furred forms lay curled at the back, two to a cage, piled almost atop each other for warmth. She noted an eye or two peek open as they passed, wary and watchful. A few others, younger and more exuberant, stalked back and forth in the front of their cages, hackles half-raised in warning. In the dimness, their eyes shown with a bit of Grace. Air and loam, she had been told. It gave the hounds especially keen noses and ears.

Then down near the end of the hall, a form lay splayed on the floor, as if dead or brought low by a blow. But the figure stirred at their approach, struggling, it seemed, with something out of sight. A growl of curses accompanied the effort.

“Dral!” the first giant called out. “Look what I found! Master Brant himself!”

The other giant, redheaded like the first, rolled to his side. Dart saw his arm was jammed down a hole at the base of the wall. He fought to pull his limb out. “Got myself stuck.”

Malthumalbaen went to his aid. It took a moment of yanking, twisting, and cursing to finally free the snared giant. Once that was accomplished, the one called Dral rolled to his seat, cradling his head in plain misery.

Pupp had sidled past the loam-giant and sniffed around the opening. Since stone blocked Pupp as surely as any other, the opening proved too small for even him to nose much deeper.

Malthumalbaen narrated their story. “We were just getting ’em outta that skaggin’ crate. They looked near on death themselves, all wet with their own piss. Scared to a lick, they were.”

He lifted an arm and pointed to a cage door that hung crooked on one hinge, the other broken. “We were just shutting them up, when off it comes.”

“I should have been more careful,” Dral moaned.

“Them little ones, they were out like arrows. We tried to snatch ’em back up, but down that rat hole they both went. Like they knew where they were going.” The giant shook his head. “Don’t even know where it goes.”

“I tried to see if I could reach them,” Dral added, then shrugged and covered the top of his head with his hands.

“The blame is not yours,” Brant said.

Dart had been so busy listening to the giants and watching wide-eyed, that only now did she note how dark Brant’s face had become. Looking into his eyes, she could almost smell the burn of brimstone off him. But he kept his fury locked inside him. His words to the giants were gentle and firm.

“I should never have brought them here,” he added to himself. He bent a knee to study the hole. It was cut smoothly into the back wall and plainly canted down at a steep angle. “Do you know where this leads?”

“We asked the keeper. All he knew is that when they swamped out the keeps here, they washed everything down that rat hole.”

“Into the sewers?”

Malthumalbaen shrugged. “Keeper seemed not to think so. Says his houndskeep is older than all of Tashijan. Before they plumbed and dug sewers for this place.”

Brant stood up. He held a fist tight to his side.

“But the keeper called for some help. They should-”

The entire houndskeep suddenly erupted with howls and baying barks, drowning out the giant’s words. Loud snatches of cursing accompanied the cacophony.

“That must be him,” the giant said.

Brant headed down the passage toward the commotion. He held off both giants with a raised palm and Dart with a stern look of worry.

Still, Dart trailed him. She kept a few steps back, fearing she might be recognized.

Brant reached the corner and peered around.

Dart noticed him flinch in shock. As the hounds continued to howl, curiosity overcame fear of discovery. She moved behind Brant and stared down the passage.

“Git that monster out of here!” the keeper yelled.

Near to filling the low passage stood a shaggy-furred beast that could have challenged the two giants in size and stature. A bullhound. It padded deeper, heading toward them. Its head was the size of a shield, and the remainder of its muscled form was banded in fur the color of burnt copper and ebony. Ropes of drool dangled from its half-snarled lips, capable of etching stone with its caustic touch if the hound were riled.

Brant reached behind him, intending to push Dart back to safety, but she avoided his hand and ran past him and down the hallway. With all the demands on her time, she had not seen the bullhound in ages.

“Barrin!” she called out, too delighted and relieved to care who might see her.

The bullhound snuffled and tossed its head a bit. Saliva flew to the walls, etching the stone. It then lowered its muzzle to accept Dart’s affection. The stub of its tail wagged in a blur.

Dart hugged the great beast, grabbing both ears, which required a full spread of her arms. She tugged a bit and heard a rumble of contentment.

“You’re going to spoil the kank,” a voice growled behind the bullhound’s shoulder.

A familiar figure stepped around to the front. He wore his usual furred breeches and knee-high mud brown boots. But it was his face that was the most welcome, a friend after the horrors of the past bells. The lower half of his face protruded in a slight muzzle, marking him, like the loam-giants before, as one touched by Graced alchemies in the womb. But only Tristal, god of Idlewyld, produced such men and women, wyld trackers, blessed with air and loam like the hounds here, creating the most skilled of Myrillian trackers and hunters.

“Lorr!” Dart called out happily.

She released her grip on the bullhound and hugged the wyld tracker with as much enthusiasm, though she didn’t tug his ears.

All around, the hounds continued their baying.

The houndskeeper stalked around, keeping well clear of Barrin’s haunches. “Got ’em all riled up! Your beast is going to put ’em all off their feed.”

Lorr shifted out of Dart’s embrace, but he still kept an arm around her. She felt a tremor deep in his chest, and while not a sound came from him, the hounds quickly quieted as if commanded.

The houndskeeper kept his fist on his hips, but he nodded. “That’s better.”

Lorr glanced up the passage. By now, Brant and the two loam-giants had stepped into view. “So someone brought a gift of Fell wolves to the knighting-and now you’ve gone and lost them.”

Dart heard the disdain and thread of anger behind the tracker’s words.

Dart touched Lorr’s arm. “They-he’s a friend of mine from back at the school in Chrismferry.”

Lorr studied Dart, then nodded. Some of the anger drained from him, but a trace of disdain remained. Friends or not, the tracker had little use for fools. “So then tell me what happened? Where have these whelpings gone off to?”

Brant pointed to the side passage. “Over this way.”

“Show me.”

Brant, trailed by the two giants, led the way back to the hole in the hall.

Lorr shifted closer to Dart and whispered to her. “I smell blood on you. Fresh blood.” He nodded to her hand. “What happened?”

“There was some trouble,” she offered lamely, avoiding the longer story.

Lorr nodded forward. “That boy didn’t-”

“No!” Dart cut him off. “The opposite. He saved me from worse harm.”

Lorr seemed satisfied, and Dart was happy to let him move to other matters. How was the castellan faring? Had Dart heard about Tylar’s bumpy arrival? Moments later, they reached the last cell in the passageway. Lorr noted the rusted and broken hinge, and as the story of the escape was related again, Lorr inspected the hole in the wall.

“And you’re sure they were Fell wolf cubbies and not loamed rats?”

Brant stood off to the side, arms crossed. Dart didn’t like the way his nose had pinched since Lorr’s arrival, as if he smelled something distasteful. Lorr, in turn, was unusually hard and abrupt with him during the telling of the tale. An unspoken tension remained between them. Dart could not understand why.

A new voice called from behind them. Dart jumped slightly, surprised by the sudden appearance. She had not heard a single booted tread. And no wonder. When she turned, she saw the stranger was also a wyld tracker, muzzled like Lorr, though perhaps slightly less protuberant. Then again, it might be the new tracker’s age. Fourteen winters at best. Also, while Lorr’s hair was a match to his brown boots, the younger tracker had long locks the color of a raven’s eye, black with a hint of blue. His skin shone with a ruddy blush and was as smooth as river stone worn by rushing waters.

“My sister’s son,” Lorr said. “Kytt.”

Brant’s nose crinkled even more. Dart suspected that if Brant had had fur, it would be bristling right now.

Kytt held out a hide flask. “I’ve fetched the musk secretions and had the alchemists dilute it in yellow bile as you ordered, Tracker Lorr.”

“Piss and musk?” one of the giants mumbled. “Mind me never to share a drink with these two.”

Lorr accepted the flask. “Musk from a fox will carry a scent far.” He bit the stopper free and decanted the flask’s contents down the hole. “We’ll see where this leads us.”

He stood up and tilted his head slightly as if testing the air. He remained like that for a long breath, then stirred again.

Lorr stepped away and waved the younger tracker ahead. “I will let you know what I discover.”

Brant stepped forward and blocked them. “I would go with you. The Fell wolves were my duty. I will not forsake it.”

“Too late for that, it seems. Besides, there have been enough mistakes this day. We need no one who smells of the Huntress muddying up the trail with his bumbling.”

Brant refused to move. Only his shoulders tightened, ready for a fight.

Dart failed to understand the layers of friction that lay beneath all this posturing. She knew that Brant hailed from Saysh Mal, the cloud forest and god-realm of the Huntress. But what difference did that make to Lorr? She stepped to intervene-and not just to settle a peace between them.

“I would like to go with you and Kytt,” Dart said. She should be safe with the trackers, and where they’d be searching would surely be away from the more traveled areas of Tashijan. Also, if she wanted to hide, it might be best to keep moving while doing it. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d let Master Brant come with us.”

Brant nodded to her, but his countenance remained far from grateful. “The whelpings know my scent,” he added. “It will be easier for me to lure them from hiding.”

Lorr glanced between Dart and Brant. His senses must have been heightened enough to suspect layers of intent beyond Dart’s words.

The tracker finally shrugged.

“Then let’s begin this hunt.”