“What do we do?” Tylar asked, raising his sword, firming his stance.
Krevan glanced to him. “Run, fight, or die. Take your pick.”
Beyond Krevan’s shoulder, a tall spindly shape crept out of the fog. It moved on eight jointed legs, like some bronze metal spider, twice the height of a man. Each leg ended in a sharpened point, perfect for maneuvering through the muck and rot of the swamps, jabbing into logs and tree trunks for purchase, slipping in and out of the mud with ease.
A swamp crawler.
Tylar smelled the blood burning from exhaust flutes behind the mekanical crawler. Its two riders crouched in the central egg-shaped seat. One controlled the swamper, the other squatted with a crossbow. Both were deadly.
A bolt sliced through the fog, ripping through a fold of a knight’s shadowcloak. At the same time, one of the sharpened legs lashed out with a burr of mekanicals, nearly impaling the same knight. But a dance of cloak saved the man. Tylar recognized Corram-then the older knight vanished into deeper shadows.
Krevan grabbed his shoulder. “This way.”
His cloak billowed out to either side, sweeping out to encompass Tylar and Delia. Corram reappeared on their other side, offering the same protection to Rogger-but not before flinging out a dagger from a wrist sheath. The blade flashed in the misty starlight, slicing through the fog. It struck the lead rider in the eye.
The bronze mekanical faltered as its pilot fell back, dead in the riding sling. The crawler’s front legs crumpled, no longer fueled. The mekanical toppled. The second man tossed his crossbow and struggled to escape his own sling.
Tylar never saw the man’s fate as he was guided away. A crash and clatter of bronze echoed after them.
They fled back down the misted vale.
A new pair of crawlers blocked their retreat, moving in tandem, half-climbing the walls to either side, legs digging into the flinty hills. More movement stirred behind them.
Krevan led the way off to the side, to a narrow gorge between two hills. They had to proceed in single file. Corram kept to their rear.
“What about the other knights?” Delia asked.
Cries answered her, coming from behind them. The bronze spiders were finding these flies had teeth.
Still, Tylar knew that Balger had sent a full score of crawlers after them. Too many for the Shadowknights to handle. The others were only providing them breath to escape. But how much breath?
Already the baying of hounds carried to them. More hunters. The dogs’ keepers would not be far behind, armed with flaming swords and oiled fireballs in leather slings, capable of incinerating entire patches of forest to the ground.
“I guess those hounds weren’t interested in my fine rabbit stew,” Rogger mumbled.
Krevan suddenly grabbed Tylar and Delia and dragged them to one wall of the gorge. Corram did the same with Rogger against the far wall. Both knight and thief vanished under a wave of shadowcloak.
Overhead, bronze legs crested over the top of the gorge. Another crawler. It stopped, perched above them.
Krevan pulled Delia farther behind him. Tylar felt the tingle of Grace flowing through the Raven Knight’s cloth, keeping them hidden.
The seat lowered into the gorge, suspended by the legs. The pilot worked the controls, swiveling the cabin. The archer kept his crossbow fixed to his shoulder and scanned the gorge. He mostly concentrated back toward the valley.
The pilot settled the crawler in place. It looked as though they were staying. They must have been sent here to block this pass, pinching off retreat in this direction. Other crawlers were probably blocking other escape routes. The noose was tightening.
Krevan stirred. If any alarm was raised, they were doomed, trapped between the walls of the gorge.
Tylar closed his eyes, calculating in his head. He felt Krevan begin to step away. Tylar reached out and grabbed his elbow, warning the knight from rash action. Then Tylar slipped a hand to Krevan’s belt and relieved him of one of his daggers. He slid the blade through a fist, slicing skin. As blood and sweat anointed the blade at the same time, Tylar pictured flames, the sear of flesh. He felt the blade heat up in his fist.
Balancing the dagger in his fingers, he pushed from the wall, rolled out under the crawler’s cabin, and threw the dagger straight up. The blade struck where one of the legs joined the seat.
He dashed back to the wall, enveloped again by shadow and cloak.
“What…?” Krevan asked.
Tylar silenced him with a hiss.
Overhead, the crawler began to spew smoke from its flues. He prayed the strike of the dagger would be mistaken for a burp in the mekanicals. He watched the pilot struggle to hold his crawler. Its movements grew jerky and labored. More smoke billowed, followed by a cough of flame. The crawler lost its footing, tumbling forward. The pilot fought his controls. The cabin seat struck one of the gorge walls, jarring like a struck bell.
“Go,” Tylar urged and pointed deeper down the gorge.
With the hunters distracted by their foundering craft, Tylar and the others fled unseen up the gorge and away. Finally, Krevan spoke. “What did you do back there?”
“I cast a blessing upon their crawler. Using blood and sweat.”
Delia glanced back over her shoulder. “You cast heat?”
Tylar nodded. “Crawlers are fueled by fire alchemies. They steam hotly. It takes only a little extra heat to push the mekanicals beyond their limits, burning them out. The same can happen if you overwork them. I hoped that flaming out their mekanicals would be taken as simple bad luck.”
Krevan nodded. “And now those same hunters will guard our own path. They’ll hold their position and swear no one passed them.”
“Changing hunters into guardians,” Rogger said. “Not bad, Tylar. You’re becoming a right good alchemist.”
“I had a good teacher.” He nodded toward Delia, who shyly glanced forward.
Corram pointed ahead. “Where to now?”
Krevan forged deeper into the narrowing gorge. “Off to strike a bargain.”
“Where?” Tylar asked.
Krevan simply scowled.
Rogger answered, struggling a few steps ahead of Corram, his voice thick with distaste. “The Lair of the Wyr.”
As the sun rose, Tylar found the dawn brought little light. The cliffs were high and narrow, shrouded in mists, trapping them in eternal twilight. It seemed they had been marching for days. Tylar trudged after Krevan, Delia behind him, followed by Rogger and Corram. All sounds of battle had long grown silent.
No knight had returned, but Krevan had expressed no worry. “They know to lead the hunters astray, away from our path. We’ll regroup in Muddlethwait across the border.”
“That is, if we ever get out of these hills,” Rogger added.
Tylar glanced to the high walls. He was thoroughly lost. Even Krevan seemed to be losing his faith in his sense of direction, slowing their pace, pausing at crossroads among the maze of gorges.
“How much farther?” Delia asked. “Where is this Lair?”
Rogger moved closer, his voice an edgy whisper. “Child, we’ve been among the Wyr for the past full bell.”
Tylar tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt.
“They watch us even now,” Rogger said.
As if hearing his words, a rock crumbled from the cliff edge and skittered down the wall.
Krevan ignored it all and continued forward.
Tylar now eyed the crevices and side chutes with plain suspicion, sword pointed and ready. He had, of course, heard of the Lair, an assembly of Wyr, those who practiced arcane alchemies upon themselves, seeking some measure of corrupted Grace. It was whispered that an ultimate goal was sought by the Wyr: the creation of a perfect abomination, to birth a god from human flesh, to bring new divinity into the world from mortal union.
