Erin Connal could not leave the door to the netherworld in the ruined village of Twynhaven behind—not really. Oh, she turned her back, rode away, but the knowledge that it existed preyed upon her, and her heart stayed, even when urgent matters demanded her attention.
Two hours after leaving Twynhaven, she and Celinor stopped on a lonely hill that afforded a view of Castle Hingham, some five miles off in southeastern Beldinook. “There’s a hornet’s nest for us,” Celinor said.
The riders from Fleeds had warned that Lowicker’s daughter was waging a tantrum, but from the hilltop it looked like war. Carpenters and masons were fitting hoardings on the castle walls. Perhaps three thousand mounted knights wheeled about on its greens, practicing with the lance. To the north, a column of footmen snaked over the hills. Wains filled with supplies rolled in from the east. Beyond them a dirty brown haze hung in the air as if an army moved, but Erin could not see what caused it.
Erin and Celinor headed west, through the forests, circling Beldinook, not daring to take a road. They cautiously followed a dry streambed through the pines.
For much of the day they kept silent, alert. Or at least Celinor remained alert. Erin could not.
As she rode through a quiet glen in the early afternoon, shafts of sunlight spilling upon the moist leaves, the drone of mosquitoes buzzing in her ears, time and again her thoughts returned to the door to the netherworld at Twynhaven. She imagined the green flames swirling there among the black ashes of the ruins.
She was transfixed. She’d found a gate between worlds. Who could guess what wonders might be on the other side? All she had to do was step through. That would be an adventure!
But could she make it? Wizards might visit that realm, but Erin doubted that a common person could do so. Yet her dagger had disappeared. It had plunged into the flames. Perhaps it was destroyed, or even now, it might lie upon that far world.
The call of a rook on the hill startled Erin. Its raucous cry indicated that something lurked there.
It might have been nothing more than a boar or a bear. But both she and Celinor were edgy. They drew reins, made no noise, listened for other riders. Pines shadowed the ridge above them. Long after the rook fell silent, Erin urged her mount forward.
They entered a canyon where deep pines closed in on both sides of the streambed. The trees stood so thick that Erin did not fear other riders. No horse could make it through the dense undergrowth.
So as the shadows played upon her back, cooling her, Erin closed her eyes. She’d slept little in the past few days. She now took a moment to rest as Runelords do, letting her mind wander through realms of dream.
She dreamt of Twynhaven—gray ash that blanketed the ground, smelling bitter and dry. She dreamt of families lying dead in the ashes, while a vivid green circle of fire shone upon the blasted earth like a flickering eye.
In her dream she stood by the circle, and leapt.
Her feet struck the ground of a new world with a jolt. For a moment she crouched in deep grass as thick as a carpet. Full night lay upon the land, and she smelled moisture rising from the fields. Overhead, scintillating stars filled the heavens—not the tens of thousands that she’d tried counting as a child upon the plains of Fleeds. Instead hundreds of thousands simmered in the sky. Each was a fiery crystal on a blanket of blue, and their combined brilliance gave more light than a harvest moon. Erin gasped in wonder.
Just ahead atop a small hill stood a monolithic oak. Each limb was wider than the trunk of any oak she’d ever seen. The limbs snaked around, and a cottage could have fit in a crook of one of those limbs.
The One Tree! she thought—the great tree that legend said sheltered men in the netherworld. But a glance told her otherwise. To her left, more majestic oaks raised their proud heads along the rolling hills. Each was perfect in its own way, as if some higher mind had first conceived it and then given it form.
Not the One Tree, she realized—just a tree.
She looked about. The fields were empty. No cricket disturbed the night. A strange creature, perhaps a bird, gave a throaty call in the distance, miles away.
Having no destination in mind, Erin set out for the nearest tree, but stopped after a few paces. The green grass reached almost to her knees. But all around, the stalks were bent and crushed in a circle a hundred yards wide. She smelled burned grass. In a scorched patch ahead, something gleamed like water in the starlight.
She drew forward. It looked like a scorpion, perhaps three feet in length. At least it had a tail like a scorpion’s, and it had claws, but it gleamed like silver. One claw was broken. Black soot suggested that lightning had struck it.
Was it a statue? Had it been alive? Or might it still be alive? A trail had been trammeled in the grass. The thing had certainly crawled to its resting place.
She drew her warhammer from her sheath, and tasted the air. Yes, the grass smelled sweet, almost honeyed, but lightning had struck. She could make out more burned patches—arcane symbols burned into the grass.
She walked around the circle and found thirteen runes—each different, each unknown, at equal distances. Deep hoofprints suggested that riders had combed this area. She could taste the scent of horses.
She tried to understand what might have happened. Someone had burned runes into the grass. Perhaps in doing so, they had attracted attention—a patrol. She could not tell who had killed the scorpion.
Warily, Erin stalked uphill toward the great tree. It was a mountain of a tree. A grove of normal trees could have sheltered beneath its boughs. Each leaf was as large as a knight’s breastplate, and a single acorn would have fit in a helm.
She had not gotten beneath the boughs when she became aware of distant sound, the grumble of thunder.
Erin wondered. She tasted cool moisture rising off the fields, but the air was not thick with the scent of water. The still heavens heralded no wind. Yet distant lightning split the night. She glanced toward the source.
The sky was black along the horizon for a dozen miles, blotting out the stars, as if a storm were rolling in. Tongues of flame darted in the blackness.
But it was no natural storm: funnels of fire appeared high up. By the flicker of lightning she could make out vast shapes, like enormous men with the wings of bats.
Erin had seen such a thing only once—when the Darkling Glory struck at Castle Sylvarresta. Now thousands of them streamed across the horizon in a flock. They were half a dozen miles away, closing fast.
Erin raced for shelter, hoping the vast tree would hide her as a bush might hide a mouse from the hawk.
It was no easy feat. The hill was steep, and as she sprinted, boughs overhead blotted out the starlight. It was nearly half a mile from the shade of the nearest limb to the deepest recesses at the bole of the tree.
The limbs rose high overhead as she entered the shadows. The pungent leaves smelled so strongly that Erin realized that she’d never truly tasted the scent of an oak before. Her feet thudded over the ground, muted by a thick carpet of decaying leaves. Darkness and cold reigned under the tree. Sunlight had not warmed the soil here for a thousand years. Under the vast tree, nothing grew.
Erin stumbled. Dry bones clacked beneath her feet. Fallen leaves had hidden them. She saw a greatsword thrust into the ground, a monument to a battle. The bones of creatures that might have been men lay all about. She saw the glint of bright armor, and a skull that was too wide of face to have been human.
Lightning struck closer, only a mile or two off by the sound of it. It threw stark shadows. Erin feared that it would show her up to anything that flew above. The cries of Darkling Glories sounded, an unearthly howling.
Erin ran deep under the great oak. The trunk was old, twisted, and no less than ninety feet across. Lightning flashed close to the ground, and a scream involuntarily tore from Erin’s throat—for in the stark light, she saw that the tree had a face: eyes and a wide mouth.