The Gloom faded away, swallowed by the greater shadows of the myrrwood. The pillars stood as before, only their encrusted brown vines had turned to ash, the yellow lichen blackened. A stench still clung to the glade.
The woods seemed somehow darker. A grumbling, felt in the soles of the feet, threatened, and the bower overhead shivered. More rain drizzled through the disturbed canopy.
“The myrrwood felt the passage of the Gloom,” Gerrod said. “Certainly Chrism will have, too. It is no longer safe here. He will know about the sword.”
Tylar nodded in the direction of the castillion. “Then let us return what is his.”
“How do you propose to get to him?” Kathryn asked.
“The subterranean route,” Yaellin said. “The entrance is over here.”
They all followed the knight out the dark glade and through a short section of forest. A stone door appeared in the side of a small hummock. Its surface bore an etching of tangled wyldroses. Littick symbols glowed through the thorns and petals.
“ ‘Blood and bone,’ ” Gerrod read. “ Krys and ymm.”
“Warded with Chrism’s own name,” Kathryn said.
“And blood,” Yaellin said. He reached into a pocket of his cloak and removed a small crystal repostilary. “But the god’s own black bile will nullify the blessing.”
The knight removed the stopper. It had a small glass wand attached to its underside, like a woman’s sweetwater bottle, used to dab scent to throat and wrist. Only this was not so pleasant. Tylar whiffed the stench of black bile. It seemed even a god’s shite did not smell like roses.
Yaellin painted the bile along the lines of Littick lettering. The glow died under each stroke, smearing away the warding. Once done, a crack of stone sounded. Yaellin reached to draw the door open.
It slammed wide on its own.
A black snarl of roots burst forth, like the tentacles of a miiodon-and just as deadly. Yaellin was snatched and torn from his place, dragged into the tunnel’s entrance. Roots choked and tore. Blood spurted. His form disappeared without a sound. Even his scream was strangled away.
Other roots grabbed and tangled into the gathered party.
Dart fell to her backside, her ankle wrapped in vine. Tylar lunged at her, but she grabbed her dagger from its sheath and stabbed it into the root. The squirming vine blackened, cracking with flame. She tumbled away as the root fell to ash, releasing her.
Others fared worse. Dart’s friend Laurelle had been in Yaellin’s shadow. With the knight ripped from her side, she was seized at waist and leg.
Tylar twisted at the hip and swung his sword in a broad stroke. The shining blade cleaved through a mass of roots near the entrance. It passed as if through air. The severed roots writhed, spewing black blood. Laurelle fell free, as did Eylan, who had lunged to the girl’s aid and become entangled herself.
At the tunnel entrance, the stumped ends of the root, sliced by Rivenscryr, burst into flame, as if the blood inside were oil and the sword a tinder match. Coiling roots exploded from the inside, casting forth gouts of fiery debris. The flames raced deeper down the tunnel. More blasts echoed.
The party tumbled away.
“Yaellin…” Dart moaned.
He was gone.
Smoke and flames billowed out. The ground shook as the fires spread down the subterranean tunnel. A few roots writhed and twisted, but these also blew apart as the blood inside them torched.
“Away!” Tylar called with a pained expression.
He led them off through the myrrwood. He knew no path, but simply fled in the direction of the castillion.
A brilliant explosion lit the night behind them. Tylar turned in time to see one of the massive trunks of the myrrwood burst into flame, becoming a giant torch. Another, deeper in the forest, shattered with flames.
“The myrrwood is all one tree,” Gerrod said. “You’ve set its roots on fire. And it continues to spread, flaming through the channels of blood. From one tree to another.”
Tylar gaped.
“You lit the wick,” Rogger said. “Now all we can do is run!”
More trees exploded into living torches, all around them, behind and in front. The ground shook underfoot.
They fled as the forest continued its immolation. Trunks shattered, debris rained down. Smoke rolled and choked.
They had no choice but to keep fleeing-toward the castillion.
But they had no delusions for what awaited them.
“If Chrism didn’t know you were coming,” Rogger coughed out, “he does now. All of Chrismferry will be looking this way.”
Laurelle spoke, her face smeared with soot, tear tracks traced through the ash. “You… your sword.” She pointed.
Tylar raised the weapon, still gripping the warm hilt. Only that was all he held. In the mad flight, he hadn’t noticed.
The sword’s blade had vanished.
“One stroke,” Gerrod said as they paused in their flight, cowering in a dark section of forest momentarily free of flames. “That must be all the sword can bear before needing to be replenished.”
Kathryn watched Dart again lay her bloody hands upon the sword and draw them along its length. Smoke rose from between her pressed palms, and from that blood and smoke, the silver sword appeared once again, whetted by the girl’s Grace.
Tylar stepped back.
“You two are indeed sword and sheath,” Rogger mumbled. “Both of you had better keep close.”
More blasts echoed from the deeper forest behind them. Ahead lay patches of fire. The heat grew worse with each breath. They dared not tarry in the fiery woods any longer.
“Let’s go,” Tylar said.
Dart glanced back. Kathryn followed. She caught the haunted look in the young girl’s eyes. She had seen too much death for one day.
Kathryn recognized the sorrow. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “He did his duty,” she said softly. “There will be time to mourn Yaellin later.”
Dart nodded and turned, but her eyes shone brighter with tears.
It was easy to say… harder to do.
Kathryn also glanced back. First the father and now the son. She prayed Ser Henri and Yaellin’s sacrifices had not been in vain. With the last strength of her arms, she would make it so.
The woods finally grew thinner around them. The eternal night of the heavy bower lightened to gray skies and stiff winds. Rain broke the canopy. After the heat and stifle of the deeper wood, its coolness was a relief.
Distantly, thunder rumbled.
They paused to rest one last time.
Ahead the towers of the castillion peeked between the weave of branches. It was afire with torches. At windows, along battlements. The castillion awaited them.
Kathryn sought any other path. She faced the fiery woods behind them. Despite the downpour, the woods glowed and flamed, steamed and smoked. There was no escape that way. There was not enough water across all of Myrillia to douse that fire. To Kathryn, it seemed all the elements had gathered for this coming night: loam, air, fire, and water.
A tree ahead of them burst, engulfed in a spiral of flame.
Tylar lifted the quickened blade and pointed his arm.
Though set by their own hand, the fires drove them forward.
They had no choice.
She remembered Eylan’s tale of prophecy and ordainment. Perhaps they never had a choice.
She stared at Tylar. Traitor, godslayer, sword-bearer. But all she could see was the man she once loved… perhaps still loved. She could not deny this last. The heart did not forget.
