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.”
FIFTH
Fall of the towers By this sword do we swear
By this cloak we do share
By this masklin are we hid
By this diamond we are bid
By this oath are we bound
By this honor we are crowned
For the sake of all Myrillia
We give our blood
We pledge our hearts
We devote our lives to all -Creed of the Shadowknight
A RUSTED HINGE
“We’ve lost the docks atop stormwatch!” Gerrod yelled down to Kathryn. He clanked down the central stairs. “The warden is abandoning the top five floors. We’re to rally below!”
Kathryn climbed through the line of cloaked knights as they surged downward. Many bore wounds. Others were slung between their brothers and sisters. In all their eyes, the same expression shone. Horror and hopelessness.
Alchemical smoke choked the stairwell.
She met Gerrod at the floor where her hermitage lay. She was returning from securing the entire populace of Tashijan-those not of cloak or robe-in the Grand Court, out of harm’s way, leaving the halls and stairs to the knights and masters.
The war had been going on for only four bells, and already they’d lost the shield wall and outer towers. They’d had to pull back into Stormwatch, the sole tower still holding. And its defenses were crumbling.
She reached him and together they headed toward her hermitage. More knights were emptying out of this level, cloaks torn, faces raked. A knight sat slumped a few steps past the stairwell, blood pooled around him.
“How many dead?” she asked.
Gerrod answered, his voice muffled by his armor. “At last tally…” He shook his head, voice cracking.
She glanced to him. He was her rock, and even he was breaking. She was suddenly glad he kept his helmet closed. His bronze countenance, while a false stolidity, helped hold her steady.
He found his voice, as if sensing her need. “Six score dead, thrice that injured. We just lost five barricading the door to the docks.”
Somewhere high above, a scream echoed. Human.
“And it’s not just the wraiths,” Gerrod said. “Blessing our blades with dire alchemies has offered us some measure of defense, but Lord Ulf’s forces also come with stormfire, balls of lightning. Only stone seems to stanch them.”
Crossing past the warden’s Eyrie, a shout called to her. “Kathryn!”
She turned to see Argent at the center of a flurry of activity, gathering scrolls and packing up all that was important. He shoved through a few knights, a storm in shadow. He limped toward her. She had heard of his defense of the Agate tower. His last rally had saved hundreds of underfolk who made their home in the outer tower. She had heard the tale of Argent’s ride against a storm of the wraiths, with only a dozen knights, splitting the winged legion enough to allow the tower’s escape, mostly women and young ones.
“Head below!” he yelled. “We gather in the fieldroom at the next bell!”
She nodded.
He reached the door, his one eye on her. She read the regret behind his stony face. “We’ll hold this tower,” he said in a quiet voice, fierce echoes behind it.
“To the last knight,” she said.
“And master,” Gerrod added.
It was no longer a tower divided. In the past bells, as their defenses fell, one after the other under Ulf’s ravening legion, they were all crushed together. Knight and master. Underfolk and townsfolk. The battle here was not one of victory but of survival. Their squabbles of the past seemed petty and churlish.
Kathryn noted the Fiery Cross on Argent’s shoulder. It was torn in half by a raked claw.
“I’ll see you at the bell,” she said with a nod toward the warden.
Their eyes held a fraction longer, just long enough to admit the fools they’d both been. And to forgive each other’s blind corners. At least for this one day. She prayed it would be enough.
A shout drew Argent back to his duty.
Released, Kathryn strode down to her own rooms. There were a few items she intended to secure, one in particular, the true reason she had forded up here against the flowing stream of their retreat.
She rushed to her door, found it ajar, and pushed inside. The hearth was cold. The heavy drapery had been torn down and the windows boarded and shuttered tight. There was still glass on the floor from where Ulf’s emissary had broken through from the outer balcony.
As she crossed the threshold, she heard a frantic scuffle from the next room. Her sword appeared in her hand. She held her other arm out toward Gerrod, warding him back.
Wraiths had been worrying themselves through cracks, finding every means to gnash their way inside. A bell ago, a pair had clawed their way down one of the kitchen’s chimneys, defying a roaring fire and smoke, and attacked a baker’s boy, ripping his head from his body. Four others had died. It had taken the head cook with a butcher’s cleaver and a lone scullery maid with a spitting fork to finally dispatch the beast. To such an extent had
