Shadow's master

her son was in the wastes, possibly on his way here?

Balaam considered the helmet in his hand. Then he created his own portal and stepped away from the cavern.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Caim watched his crew as they marched ahead of him. After just a couple hours' sleep, everyone rode in silence, but they were wound tight. Though he'd been riding with Malig and Dray for weeks, he didn't know them well enough to recognize their breaking points. When they came, he was afraid it was going to be ugly.

“You look troubled.”

Shikari looked down from atop his horse. Though the temperature had dropped overnight and remained uncomfortably frigid, the former slave didn't complain. And Caim couldn't criticize her resilience; she and her protector kept up with the pace without faltering.

“Just thinking about what's ahead.”

She gazed northward, her eyes narrowed as if studying the darkness. “Yes, Erebus. Aren't you afraid?”

The question caught Caim off guard. Fear wasn't the word he would use for his feelings. Resigned, maybe. “Back at the ruins, you-”

“Sturmgaard,” Shikari said. “That is what the Northmen call the place. It's very old. Older, perhaps, than anything else in the wastes.”

“You know a lot about this land. How long were you a slave?”

“Less than a year, but it felt like most of my life.”

Caim considered the path ahead. The tugging had intensified. Was he getting close to his goal? “Don't the Northmen brand their slaves?”

“Sometimes. I had the good fortune to be owned by a man who didn't want me blemished. Hoek, show Caim your mementos.”

The big slave pulled up his shirt to reveal several marks burned into his skin. The older ones were seared over, but Caim could make out an animal paw with three claws and a wolf's head under the scars.

“You don't trust easily, Caim,” Shikari said. “In that way you are like the people of this empty land.”

“I've learned that things aren't always what they seem.”

“All that is gold does not glitter?” She laughed. It was more sultry than her petite frame would suggest.

“You were held by the Bear tribe?” When she nodded, Caim asked, “What are they like?”

“They are a grim people. They never laugh and seldom cry.”

“Not even the children?”

“When they reach the age of three, every child is taken from their mother and given to the asherjhag-the priests. Those found worthy are given to the warrior's society or the women's hall to raise in the ways of the tribe.”

Caim didn't want to know what happened to the children found unworthy. “We saw some of those priests. Do they hold much power in the Northman tribes, then?”

“Not even a chieftain will defy the asherjhag. They speak for the dark lord, and as such their word is law.”

Caim stepped carefully over a patch of ice. From what he'd learned from the Eregoths, the relationship between the priesthood and the Shadow Lord sounded suspiciously like the cult Sybelle had formed in Liovard. It sounded logical, to control the populace through a state religion. “What do the Northmen say about this dark lord?” he asked.

“They speak of him as a god. According to the asherjhag he is the Prince of the Night who once ruled these wastes millennia ago. Their myths say he was banished to the outer darkness, but he has returned to bring endless night to the whole world.”

Not a pleasant image. But Caim could believe it. They'd heard plenty of tales about the other marchlands, stories of Northmen armies bent on conquest. It had almost happened in Eregoth-would have if Caedman and his men hadn't risen up in defiance. All of it led back to the wastes. To Erebus, the heart of the darkness.

A jackdaw called from the front of the party. Dray was pointing. Caim followed the pointing digit to a flicker of fire atop a low hill. It looked like a bonfire, or perhaps several fires. It was too far away to be sure. Caim felt unfriendly eyes upon them, but saw nothing in particular. The shadows remained quiet.

“You think it's a town?” Malig asked.

Caim called for Egil, and the guide came hustling back. “A Bear tribe holding,” he explained.

“Swing clear of it,” Caim said.

Dray sawed on his horse's reins. “We should go for a look.”

“The last thing we need is more trouble.”

Dray lifted his brother's spear. There were thin gouges carved into the shaft. “If my brother's killer is up there, I'm not about to pass by without-”

Caim heard the high-pitched whine a moment before his brain registered the sound of the arrow's flight. He pulled Shikari down from the horse and dove to the ground, cushioning her from the fall. Malig's horse reared up. Caim thought the Eregoth had been hit, but then Egil rolled over from where he lay on the ground, a feathered shaft protruding from his chest. Everyone else was down on the ground or crouching behind their mount.

“How many are there?” Dray asked.

Malig attempted to string a bow, but the string snapped in his hands. Egil groaned as another arrow passed overhead. Caim traced the flight to a snowbank about seventy paces north of their position. He gathered his legs under him. “Stay here!”

“Wait!” Shikari called.

But Caim was already running. The hilts of his knives were burning cold through his gloves. He stayed low as he moved across the snow, hoping the shooters didn't have his night vision. Two men with short bows peered over the snowbank. Both wore a stuffed ursine head over their helmet. Bear tribesmen, just as Egil had warned. Caim was stalking toward them when a bright light lit up the wastes. A pillar of flames erupted from the vicinity of his crew. What in the hells?

The two archers looked right at Caim. He charged their position. An arrow sizzled past his head as he dove. His seax knife took the nearest archer in the throat, cutting straight through the meat of the Northman's neck to come out the other side. Caim ripped the knife free with a twist of his wrist and lunged across the falling Northman for his partner. The second archer hopped back, swinging his bow like a club. Caim took the blow on his shoulder and punched his suete knife into the man's thigh near the groin. The Northman stiffened as Caim tackled him to the ground. They thrashed for a couple moments until Caim knelt on the barbarian's chest, the point of his suete under the Northman's chin. “How many are with you?”

The Northman glared up at Caim. His mouth was a flat line framed with bushy, reddish-brown curls. Caim applied more pressure, and a line of blood trickled down the man's hairy neck. “I said-”

“Drepta mae, ter fridjen sekrburr!”

The Northman tried to punch him, and Caim drew his knife across the jugular. Steam rose from the bright red blood pouring onto the ground. Caim stared at it, feeling himself lean down. The blood called. If he just-

Caim wrenched himself away from the dying Northman. The bloodlust lingered, taunting him. This place is turning me into a gods-damned ghoul.

Sickened, he turned away. The second archer was stone dead. Beyond the snowbank, flames rose from a clump of bushes where he'd left the others, and the sounds of combat rang across the plain.

Caim leapt over the bank and ran back, alert for arrows. He arrived to find Dray bashing a Northman across the face with the butt of his spear. Blood and teeth exploded from the barbarian's mouth as he collapsed. Dray reversed the weapon and drove it down, pinning his foe to the ground. Streaks of blood ran down Dray's face as he twisted the spear back and forth. A knife's throw away, Malig dueled with another Northman. Malig swung his axe like a thresher flailing grain. It was a losing strategy, for the Northman was cagily holding back, waiting for Malig to exhaust himself. Caim could foresee the end. Malig would keep swinging away until he made a mistake, stepping