But Balger’s shock waned. The disbelief in his voice hardened to anger. “You lie, naether-spawn!”
Tylar dragged himself off the rack and crouched on the far side. He fell easily into his old form, back bent, left leg stiff as a walking stick. The ache of his joints was as familiar as a warm cloak. It helped center him, despite the horror.
The dark umbilicus flowed out from the black print over his heart, coiling and twisting. Tylar waved his hand through the channel, but found nothing but smoke. He recognized the billowing darkness now. While fleeing out of the depths of Tangle Reef, he had witnessed the same. What the seafolk named the Gloom. A penetration of the naether into this world. Only this black font leaked from his own chest. A conduit for the naether-spawn, the naethryn undergod.
He waved his hand again.
Though it caused him no harm, he knew its touch to be as deadly as the marine Gloom. He had witnessed how the guards had died back at Meeryn’s castillion in the Summering Isles, left boneless or broken as he and Rogger fled the keep.
Rogger kept low and hissed at him. “Let’s go.”
Guards shouted beyond the dungeon cell. The alarm spread quickly. Like all gods, Balger had his own Shadowknights… though such men who bent a knee to the lord of Foulsham Dell were of low ilk, disgraced knights whose crimes did not warrant full stripping. They, like their counterparts among men, found themselves washed up on these hard shores, lost and without futures. The knights of this realm were as likely to be found in bed with a sell-wench as snoring under a table at a low tavern.
Still, Tylar knew it was best to be away before pieces of shadow sprouted swords and men. He hobbled after Rogger to the door. The daemon continued its guard upon Lord Balger, sensing the greatest danger lay with the god.
Only once they vacated the cell did the daemon flow back with them.
Balger made no move to follow. Only his voice chased them. “If Rivenscryr is here, we’re all doomed!” Cruel laughter followed. “One man and one undergod cannot stop the end of all.”
Rogger led the way to the end of the short hall. Empty now. An iron door clanged shut ahead of them. The screech of a sliding bar echoed to them. “The cowards are trapping us here.” A snort of derision punctuated his words. “Locking a godslayer with their god.”
“What can we do?” Tylar asked as they reached the doors.
From its post behind them, the naethryn daemon snaked its neck over their heads and flowed to the iron… through the iron. Metal poured in rivers of molten slag. Hinges and locking bar melted away. The door toppled and crashed into the far room.
Bale dagger in hand, Tylar led the way, careful to step on the solid iron, using it to ford the pools of fiery slag. The last of the guards vanished out the other side of the dungeon’s anteroom. In their haste, no one bothered to bolt the far door.
In the larger room, the daemon streamed fully forward with a billow of smoke and reformed its wolfish silhouette, wings folded to its back, long neck questing up the stairwell beyond.
Rogger collected an abandoned short sword, while Tylar donned an oversized pair of leggings and boots found beside a cot. He kept his chest bared for the sake of the daemon’s umbilicus. Once ready, the daemon seemed to sense their desire and flowed up the stairwell.
Rogger and Tylar followed. As they wound up out of the subterranean warren, Tylar confronted the thief. “You sought to sell my life for your own.”
Rogger scowled. “So we wanted everyone to believe.”
“We?”
“Delia and I. We concocted this ill strategy while you slept these past days. We guessed word would’ve spread after our escape from the corsairs. Ravens graced with air can outrace any sputtering Fin. We needed a way to make landfall. A way to get you to Tashijan alive. With blessed wards, far-seers, and Graced armies spread along the shores and borders, it would take the protection of a god to keep your skin on your bones.”
“And you chose Balger?”
“What better god to know the value of a godslayer? Balger may be vile, but he is no fool.” Rogger shook his head. “I must say even I underestimated his cunning. I thought he’d be satisfied with the price on your head.”
“So the entirety of your plan was to have me captured by Balger and delivered trussed up and nulled to Tashijan?”
Rogger tugged his beard. “Just about.”
“And you couldn’t forwarn me of your plan?”
“We couldn’t risk you being soothed. You had to be unaware.”
“What about you and Delia being soothed?”
Rogger shrugged. “When you have a godslayer in tow, few look elsewhere. As we imagined, we were ignored.”
Tylar frowned. Ahead, a warm breeze blew down to them. It smelled of swamp and sea, salt and weed. Sunlight reflected off the sweating stone walls. With each step, the air grew hotter.
They cleared the last flight and found a doorway of rough-hewn squallwood planks. An open iron grating let in the slanting sunlight. Again the daemon pushed through the door. Wood turned to ash. The iron grating dropped and clanked against the top stair.
Out in the yard, muffled screams and shouts grew louder and clearer as the door fell away. Tylar ducked after the daemon. Rogger kept to his shoulder.
With their appearance, arrows and crossbow bolts rained around them, but the daemon’s wings spread out, a shield of shadow. Feather, wood, and steel all burned away or were deflected aside.
Rogger kept low. “Seems Balger’s men are braver from a distance.”
“What of Delia? We can’t leave her here.” Tylar slowed. He would not abandon her.
“She’s already gone. Two bells ago. Her escape was easy to arrange. I am not unknown among the wenches who serve… well, let’s say under Balger. Though sometimes on top, too, I’ve heard.”
Gongs clanged, raising the alarm.
Rogger pointed to the open gate to the courtyard. They fled across the weed-strewn yard.
It wasn’t far. Balger’s castillion was no larger than a manor house, a graceless jumble of blocks built of stone and wood. It sat in the middle of the Dell, atop a small outcropping of bedrock, a toad on a mound. The township itself was only so much flotsam and jetsam washed up against its rocky flanks: tumbled, chaotic, broken, waterlogged, bloated, rotted. A miasma of woodsmoke and swamp gasses cloyed the air and turned the sun into a continual glare. Beyond the city lay the only bits of arable land. Wheat, barley, and oat grass formed a fringed patchwork around the ramshackle town. And beyond the farmlands stretched endless marshes, bogs, and fens.
Where could they go?
They cleared the gates and spanned a moat that appeared more of a sewer than a defensive perimeter. Rogger led the way into the alleys and streets of Foulsham Dell. Shutters slammed all around. Cries raced ahead of them.
Rogger finally tugged him by the elbow into a cramped alleyway. He waved a hand at the daemon hulking half in shadow with them. “From here, mayhap you’d best rein in your friend there. That beastie of yours attracts too many eyes.”
Tylar licked his lips. The daemon seemed to read their intent. Its head snaked back, framed in a mane of smoke. Its fiery gaze burned brighter, angry. Here crouched one of the naethryn.
“How?” Tylar asked warily. “It took Meeryn’s blood last time to drive the beast back inside.”
“According to Delia, you bear Meeryn’s blood. At least the Grace of it. She thinks you’ll be able to reel the daemon back into you with a touch of your own blood.”
Rogger held out his short sword.
Tylar pocketed the dagger stolen from Balger. Such a dread weapon could not draw blood, only pain. Tylar ran the edge of his hand along Rogger’s pocked sword. It was a shallow cut but stung like an adder’s bite. Blood immediately flowed.
The scent of it drew the attention of the shadowbeast. The naethryn craned back, muzzle sniffing, eyes shining silver.
