“Do you know the way through here?” Tylar asked.
“Rough enough,” Krevan answered.
Tylar found little comfort in his answer.
Rogger dropped beside Tylar. “The only known route through Kistlery Downs is the main road. And that will be guarded.”
Delia studied the white cliffs on either side of them. They glistened with bits of gypsum and quartz. “I heard that dark alchemists set up black foundries here, dug into the hillsides, spewing corruption and burned Graces from their subterranean chimneys.”
Rogger waved aside such worries. “Blood witches and Wyr-lords are the least of our concerns. They may haunt the Downs, but they’ll shy from us as much as we might wish to avoid them.”
“Why doesn’t Lord Balger rid the hills of their foul ilk?”
Rogger glanced back to her. “Where do you think His Largeness gets most of his revenues? More of Balger’s humours flow through the black fires here than are traded across borders.”
Tylar noted the deepening frown on Delia’s face. Sheltered in schools and selected young as a handmaiden to Meeryn, she’d had little chance to understand how trade among the lands was more often black rather than white. Whereas Tylar had direct dealings with the Gray Traders, those who plied the rivers of commerce that flowed beneath all else, traffickers in Dark Graces, stolen humours, and accursed weapons and tools. Tylar knew that the bale dagger he had stolen from Lord Balger, a blade that healed as fast as it cut, would fetch a significant ransom among the Traders.
And one time he would have made that deal.
As a young man, he had thought himself wise in the ways of the world, capable of moving within that gray territory between the light and the dark. He had raised coin through some shady profiteering. And while most of it went to help the orphanage where he had been raised, a fair amount still found its way into his own pocket.
He’d had a wedding to plan… to Kathryn.
He shoved this last thought aside.
But memories still flooded through him: of blue eyes looking deep into his own, of hushed breaths in the stillness of a long night, of tender lips, of promises both whispered and shouted aloud. And through it all, laughter flowed, light, yet coming from the heart.
All had been so easy, so very easy.
No longer.
He gripped his short sword, fingers firm and sure. While his body had been healed by Grace, his heart remained untouched. There was no blessing to heal that which had died long ago.
“How far to reach the border?” Delia asked, drawing his attention to his current plight.
“Another six reaches,” Rogger answered. “Barring any missteps-which is not hard in this skaggin’ place-we’ll reach the far plains a bell or two after sunrise. And if the morning sea mists have burned away, we might even catch a glimpse of Stormwatch Tower in the distance.”
Tashijan’s tallest spire.
“So close…” Delia mumbled.
She glanced over to Tylar. Both had listened silently to Krevan’s report on the current tidings at the Citadel. Argent ser Fields had been named the new warden. After hearing this, Delia had bowed her head. Tylar kept silent about the familial tie between Argent and Delia, father and estranged daughter. It was not his place to speak of it.
But all knew of Tylar’s tie to Argent’s new castellan, Kathryn ser Vail. His former betrothed. Eyes had carefully avoided his as this detail was recounted.
Only Delia had the courage to meet his gaze. Both their pasts had become tied together in one place. A place they must explore to solve a riddle uttered by a dying god.
Krevan stopped ahead, his form barely discernible in the fetid fog that filled the hollow spaces between the hills. With his head cocked, he waved them to his side.
“What-?” Delia began.
He shushed her. Silence pressed down upon them-then a wheezing rasp echoed from up ahead. It was not unfamiliar. They had heard the same telltale noise chasing them all night.
“How many?” Rogger asked in a matching wheeze.
“Too many,” Krevan answered under his breath.
He motioned them back. A fresh rasping rose behind them. This was no echo. They were being surrounded. From the darkness, Krevan’s knights coalesced, closing ranks.
“They’ve cut us off,” one of the knights hissed.
“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.