Marked for Death

Chapter 17

The overcast sky above the house was barely a shade lighter than the pitch black of night, but Kandler had charitably decided to call it dawn. The others-Burch and the five knights-hadn’t disagreed, so they all found themselves standing in Kandler’s yard, their horses each packed and ready for a long, tortuous trip. The knights were dressed in their full, gleaming suits of armor and their crimson tabards, their swords and shields buckled in various places, ready to be put to use at an instant’s notice. Kandler and Burch wore less armor than the knights, but they moved more surely for it-a compromise between protection and speed Kandler was always willing to make.

“What do you say, Burch?” Kandler stood over the shifter as Burch examined the ground.

Kandler could barely see even his own footprints on the ground, but the shifter sauntered around the place as if the noontime sun had burned through the clouds and exposed the secrets on every inch of ground.

“They came this way,” the shifter said. He knelt down and ran his hand over the thin, gray, weedy grass that made up Kandler’s lawn. “Two people-both in boots-and a big dog.”

“Vampires often take the form of wolves,” Deothen as he climbed astride his white stallion. Each of the knights followed his example.

“Fits,” Burch said.

“The one we saw turned to mist,” Kandler said. “I hear they can fly as bats too.”

“All true,” Deothen said.

“Then there’s no way to tell how many of them there are,” Levritt said.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kandler. “We’ll kill them all.”

The shifter followed the tracks for a while on foot, his russet-coated mount-a shorter, shaggy-coated horse known as a lupallo-close on his heels. The others trailed after him in single file-first Kandler, then Deothen, Sallah, Levritt, Brendis, and Gweir, each of the knights on their snow-colored horses.

After a short while, Burch raised his hand to call a halt. The others spread out behind him as he studied the ground before him. “A horse waited here. The two pairs of boots lead right to it. The wolf and the horse went off that way.” He pointed eastward.

“Were the two people Esprл and the changeling?” Kandler asked.

Burch rubbed his chin. “Maybe the changeling, but the other one wasn’t Esprл. Both sets of footprints are too big for her. The changeling was hurt bad too, but better now.”

“How could you know that?” Gweir asked.

Burch reach down and picked up a small, metal vial. He raised it to his nose and sniffed. He wrinkled his nose and then tossed the vial to Deothen, who plucked it out of the air. “Healing potion,” Burch said. “Powerful stuff.”

“It might have been the vampire,” Levritt said.

“Healing magics harm the undead, my son,” said Deothen. “That would have been like poison to one of their ilk.”

“The horse’s trail is clear as a road,” Burch said. “Let’s ride.”

The shifter mounted his lupallo and spurred it to a trot, heading to the northeast. The others fell into line behind the squat, powerful steed.

The hunters rode without speaking, the rhythm of the horses’ hooves the only sound they made. Soon, the edge of the crater reared up before them. Burch picked out an aggressive switchback path that worked its way up the curve of the crater wall, winding its way through the scrub. As the riders rose along the ever-steeper wall, they grew closer and closer to the swirling gray mists that obscured the crater’s edge. The air grew close and oppressive.

“Is it always like this?” Brendis asked.

“Ever since the Day of Mourning,” Kandler said, relieved to have something to think about other than Esprл. “This wall of fog rolled out to the edges of what was once Cyre, and no one’s seen a ray of sunshine in the Mournland since, even four years on.”

“I thought we were already in the Mournland,” said Sallah.

Deothen chuckled at that but allowed Kandler to explain.

“Mardakine is on the edge of the Mournland. We’re low enough that the mists rarely reach the crater floor, and we’re close enough to the border that we sometimes see the sun. If the wind blows in the right direction, we can get full days during which you’d think we were in Breland’s green and fertile fields.”

“They say little can live in the Mournland,” said Sallah. “You have a solid people here, but I wondered how even they could manage in such a place.”

“That’s life on the edge,” Kandler said. “If it wasn’t for the crater being right where it is, I don’t think we could make it this close to this place.”

“Then why are you here?” asked Deothen. “This seems an inhospitable place for a town.”

“Everyone in Mardakine except for Burch and me hailed from Cyre-even Temmah. After the Day of Mourning, the people had nowhere else to go.”

“Other refugees fled the place,” Deothen said. “Your people could have joined the others in New Cyre or Sham.”

“That’s deep in Breland, not Gyre.”

“But your King Boranel granted them the land for New Cyre, and the town is run by none other than Prince Oargev. How much more Cyran could it be?”

Kandler laughed. “Look around you. You see this place, how gray and horrible it is? The people of Mardakine love sunlight as much as the next person. No one enjoys living in the shadow of the largest mass grave in recorded history.”

“Then why?”

“Back when there was a Cyre, this crater was part of it. The people of New Cyre hope to one day return to their homeland. The residents of Mardakine live that dream every day.”

“Seems like a nightmare to me,” Levritt said as the hunters trotted further into the mists.

“Boy,” Kandler said, motioning to the mists, “this is nothing. You’re looking at the shroud over the body.”

The mists grew thicker until it was nearly impossible for Kandler to see farther than the horse before him. Burch called a halt. While the others calmed their mounts, which were all a bit unnerved by their strange environs, the shifter pulled out a long length of rope and used it to tie their horses together.

“What’s this about?” Gweir said. “We are experienced riders, and these are the finest horses.”

“You can still get lost,” Burch said. “That would slow us down.”

“Birds lose their way in this stuff and fly into the ground,” Kandler said. “Even I get turned around sometimes, and I’ve been through here dozens of times. The mist is miles thick, and most who wander into it never wander back out again. Burch is the only one I trust here.”

“If you get separated, don’t move,” the shifter told the knights as he double-checked the knots in the line. “Don’t run. You could fall off a cliff or into a gully. Stay where you are and stay quiet.”

“Shouldn’t we yell for help?” asked Brendis.

“Only if you’re already under attack,” Kandler said.

Burch frowned. “Stay quiet. I’ll find you.”

“What if you don’t?” asked Sallah.

Burch walked back to the front of the line and mounted his horse. Just two horses separated him from Sallah, but the mists were already too thick for her to see him.

“Yell all you want then,” Kandler said. “Better to die fighting.”

The hunters fell quiet then. Only the sound of their horses’ hooves broke the silence. The mists muffled the noise as if they were made of cotton. It was like riding through dark, angry clouds, waiting for the storm to break all around. With no sun to guide them, it was impossible to judge the time. Kandler counted for a while but gave up when he neared a thousand.

After what seemed like half a day, Brendis spoke. “How long does it go on like this?” His tone mixed reverence with fear, as if he found himself in the house of an angry god.

“Miles,” said Kandler, “sometimes more than others. Or at least it seems that way. It impossible to tell while you’re in here.”

“Haven’t we already gone for miles?” asked Levritt.

“It’s slow going,” Kandler said. “Burch is barely able to see the trail as it is. You can thank your god we have a trail to follow. It beats falling into a sinkhole or wandering into a trap.”

“Yes,” said Deothen. “I was just thinking how easy it would be to set up an ambush in a place like this. Assuming you could see through the mists.”

“Or turn into it,” said Sallah.

“They won’t chance it,” Kandler said. As the words left his lips, he wondered if he should be as confident as he sounded.

“Why not?” asked Sallah. “They could destroy us before we could draw our blades.” She rested her hand on the pommel of her sword and peered into the mists.

“For one, vampires like to sleep during the day. Two and three, they’re powerful and immortal, so they’re arrogant and think they have all the time they need. Four, they’re cowards. If there’s even an off chance one of us could do something to part the clouds for a minute, they don’t want to mess with us. Five”-Kandler smiled-“because I say so.”

“Who’s being arrogant now?” Sallah asked.

The hunters fell mute again and rode on. After what seemed another few hours, the mists began to thin.

“We must be near the end of it,” said Brendis.

Gweir smiled. “Finally! I can’t wait to feel the sun on my face. I shall almost be glad to hear Levritt whining about how hot it is under his armor again.”

The young knight began to protest, but Deothen cut him off. “You are Knights of the Silver Flame, not children. Behave-”

Deothen’s voice stopped dead as the mists swirled back and revealed the blasted landscape of the Mournland to him for the first time. The hunters found themselves atop the crest of a hill overlooking a wide valley that stretched on for miles to the north and south. The grass their horses trod upon was dead and gray, as were the few trees scattered on the opposite hill in the distance. A tar-black river ran through the center of the valley.

No animals moved here. No birds sang. The only sound was that of the wind rustling through the grass and the scrub and the rumble of distant thunder. The whole of the land lay under the shadow of a thick, unbroken layer of gray cloud. Miles to the north, lightning flashed, but it came down in all colors of the rainbow rather than electric white. Some of the discharges were a bright black.

A trail ran down the hill before the hunters and crossed the river at a shallow ford. The rocks shoved up through the water there like broken bones through skin. Things lay all about the ford, scattered in various formations that were hard on the eyes, as if the mind did not dare to examine them too closely.

“What are those?” Deothen asked as he came to a halt next to Kandler and Burch.

“There was a great battle at that ford on the Day of Mourning,” said Kandler. “Thousands died.”

“But that was years ago,” Deothen said as he made the sign of the flame in front of himself. “Did the victors leave behind the losers’ armor?”

“There were no victors,” said Kandler. “They all died. Those are their bodies.”