Lady Amaryllis drove the Curricle of Doom bravely forward despite a lingering ache in her ankle. Seated at her side, Lord Nathan gave her frequent close glances throughout their lighthearted banter. Behind them, in the smaller back seat, next to the travel chest, Lady Ignacia made herself comfortable against a pillow and pretended to doze, with her fur-trimmed hood raised against the wind, concealing both her plumed hat and her chilled face.
“Are you holding up well, Ignacia, darling?” said Amaryllis flippantly, as they made their way in the full but hazy daylight, with sparse trees and Lake Merlait on the left side, and thick forest on the right.
“Goodness, you’re the one with the sprained ankle, m’dear! Heaven only knows why you must insist we continue this silly excursion! As for me, I am utterly bored and exhausted,” retorted Ignacia in a similar tone. “Was just making a brave attempt at sleep, in order to dream of food—you know, succulent filet of smoked salmon drowning in white sauce, and roast duck in cream and mushroom puff pastry with dill and chives—”
“Stop that immediately! Ah, but you are far more evil than Amaryllis!” Nathan exclaimed. “And speaking of pastry, what have we that’s even remotely edible in that trunk next to you? If I recall, only the bread and croissants seem to have any flavor to them. . . .”
While they chattered, there was a sudden explosion of sound in the forest, just a few feet off the right side of the thoroughfare.
A horn blared deafeningly. . . .
And then dark figures mounted on horses, and even more men on foot, burst out everywhere around them. . . . Snowdrifts stirred, and more figures rose up, moving like elemental creatures of winter, white and slate and grizzled silver all in motion. Were they even human?
Amaryllis could barely keep hold of the reins as her black thoroughbreds reared up, for the second time in one day, neighing in terrified fury, as they were immediately grabbed from all directions by dark soldiers. There were vague flashes of ice-blue surcoats emblazoned with insignias, and then the curricle was jerked and held, by a least half a dozen mail-clad men-at-arms.
Amaryllis cried out, and Nathan and Ignacia’s voices sounded next to her and behind—
“Halt, upon pain of death! Stay where you are! Do not move!” The command was issued by several of the mounted helmed men, in peculiar strained or stilted voices, while another announced: “You are trespassing on Chidair land! What is your excuse?”
After the first shock, Amaryllis had regained her tongue. “Chidair land? Since when is a major thoroughfare considered Chidair land? We are noble travelers of consequence, on a free road, and this is an outrage! How dare you accost us or hold us? And as for ‘pain of death,’ gracious, where have you been?”
In reply the speaker laughed harshly. “Where have I been? If you must know, M’Lady, I’ve been in battle, and I’ve been slaughtered, and yet, here I sit!” Speaking thus, he removed his dirt-stained, dented helmet and revealed a grey bloodless face, frozen-motionless eyes, and what appeared to be a major gaping wound to his skull.
Amaryllis gave a scream and shrank back, dropping the reins in reflex. Nathan gasped.
“Yes, you see, pretty Lady, I’m a dead man. And so are most of the rest of us. Now, answer the question, what are you doing here? Or else you’ll learn the meaning of ‘pain of death’ without actually dying!”
“We are traveling from the Silver Court,” said Lord Woult with grim determination. “And as such, you have no claim on us, not even if this were Chidair territory instead of a free road.”
“Any Cobweb Brides here?” said a soldier leaning in from behind the curricle, drawing close and grinning wide with his own dead face—pale and bared of helm, and sporting even more gruesome mortal wounds across the neck and jaw, a hollowed eye socket, severed ligaments and sinew and raw bluish-violet flesh. Ignacia made a small stifled sound, then drew away as far as possible from him, leaning forward.
“Maybe . . .” said Amaryllis.
“In that case, you are to surrender now, upon the orders of Duke Ian Chidair—and lo, here is Hoarfrost Himself, arrived to deal with you!”
And as the denizens of the curricle looked on, the soldiers on all sides moved aside as from the right of the road, on the forest side, out of the snowdrifts and the overgrown hedge, emerged a tall warhorse. Mounted on it, sat a huge giant of a man. His barrel chest was clad in a damaged and tattered blue surcoat with Chidair crest and colors, covered with multiple faded bloodstains, poorly fitting loose mail plate over a damaged hauberk, and neither helm nor gauntlets. His wild tangled hair stood up like an unruly briar covered in frozen bits of lake bracken, leaves, twigs and other indescribable dirt. He was thus stained from head to toe, soaked and marinated in the lake, and then frozen . . . and lastly, dusted with snow.
However, the most disturbing part of him was his eyes—eyeballs opened wide and frozen in place, motionless and unblinking.
“Welcome to my lands, three pretty ladies! Or is there a lad amongst you? Aha, yes! A pretty lordling, I see!” Hoarfrost’s voice was a deep bellowing roar, and each word punctuated with hissing breaths driven by a mechanism of solid gears.
“I am Lord Nathan Woult, and your so-called welcome leaves much to be desired, Duke,” said the young man bravely, attempting to rise from his seat in the curricle. But he was immediately pushed back down by two thick mail-clad arms, as burly soldiers held him motionless.
“Stay, boy, stay!” roared Hoarfrost. “Are you a Cobweb Bride too? Or is it just these two lovelies?”
“How dare you!” Amaryllis could hold back no longer. “Have you no fear of the Emperor? Or is your honor besmirched entirely? Now that you are neither dead nor alive—yes, I can see quite well by your utterly filthy appearance—do you answer to Death alone, or perchance to no one at all?”
Hoarfrost bellowed with laughter. “You have said it, by my arse! Exactly so, girlie! I now answer to no one, and least of all to Death, the cold bastard! Now shut your pretty mouth, and sit tight, as I take you all to be my honored guests! That’s right, you are all guests of the Duke Chidair now, and as such, you will sit pretty in my Keep! And if you please me well, I will let you stay among the living a wee bit longer!”
“Provincial savage!” said Amaryllis, while Nathan squeezed her arm meaningfully, so that she remain quiet.
But Hoarforst ignored her completely now. He continued shaking with laughter, as he sputtered to his men: “Take them away and put them with the others. And take care with the excellent horses and that fancy bit’o carriage—”
But as he started to turn away, Ignacia’s voice sounded, ringing loud and unusually forceful, from the back seat of the curricle.
“Wait, Duke Hoarfrost, Ian Chidair! You might want to listen to what I have to say to you!”
“Oh, Ignacia, hush!”
Duke Hoarfrost paused and then slowly turned around, his barrel chest, perforated with holes, hissing loudly in the general silence. “And what have you to say, little bird?”
“Only this—you have been told to expect me.”
Hoarfrost stilled entirely. No hiss of breath; only macabre frozen eyeballs regarded her.
“I am the one,” continued Ignacia, a fierce new energy coming to her usually complacent and vacuous pretty face. “The one sent to parlay with you on behalf of Her Brilliance, Rumanar Avalais, the Sovereign of the Domain, and soon to be the sole ruler of all the surrounding territories.”
And as Lady Amaryllys and Lord Nathan stared at their dearest “friend” in shock, observing her in an entirely new light, all manner of details suddenly clicking into place, she continued:
“I am the Right Honorable Lady Ignacia Chitain of Balmue, and my true allegiance lies with the Sapphire Court and its Sovereign, and none other. For several years now I have been placed within the Silver Court to infiltrate and report to my real liege, and I am now at liberty to disclose my true role to you, because of the present circumstances.”
“Ignacia . . .” whispered Amaryllis, while blood drained from her cheeks, and cramps of ice seized her innards. “Is this a—joke?”
But her friend did not even deign to glance at her. “No joke at all, Lady Amaryllis. My apologies to you—and to Lord Woult—for the continued deception. It was nothing personal.”
The Duke’s hissing bellows came to life again. “How do I know that you do not lie now, and this is not an elaborate bit of nonsense to escape my hold?” Hoarfrost uttered, measuring every word.
Ignacia had a quick answer. “The missive you have received contained an invitation from the Sovereign to form an alliance against the King of Lethe and the Emperor of the Realm. In exchange for your cooperation, you were offered neither Life, nor Death, but the guarantee of perfect Eternity.”
About an hour after noon, Percy asked everyone if they wanted to take a small break. The forest remained noisy with men, distant echoes and footfalls and voices coming from all directions, but so far they had been amazingly fortunate, and the little path had kept them safely meandering deeper into the woodland.
Next to a comfortably large snow-hillock and several thick bushes, Percy pulled up Betsy, and the cart stopped.
“Quiet, quiet, now! For the love of God, keep quiet!” Lizabette repeated, as the girls scattered behind bushes to take care of bodily needs.
Percy got out Betsy’s grain bag and hung it around the horse’s neck for her to feed. There was no time to unhitch Betsy and get comfortable; this was going to be a short rest stop. She then stomped around to wake up her numb feet in their thick woolen wrappings. A few steps away, the man called Vlau stood hunched over and motionless, near the equally motionless, pitiful Claere, where she lay in the cart right next to sniffling Emilie and a few small sacks of their belongings. What a sorry sight they all made. . . .
“You hungry?” said Percy, looking at him. “We have a roll or two to spare, for you and your sister.” She then took out the basket with the bread and pulled out two flour-dusted rolls, now day-old, but perfectly edible and tasty.
He looked up with weary apathy, and started to refuse.
“Eat! It’ll warm you up.”
“My sister—she is too sick to eat.”
“Well, then you eat, and we’ll see to her later.”
He paused, parting his lips, about to speak, considering . . . when Percy reached out and put a roll in his hands.
“Take it. I’ll be back in a moment. Meanwhile, don’t try anything, all right?” Not waiting for him to respond, Percy then turned away, bit off a big chunk of the other roll, and while still chewing, went into the shrubbery to take care of her own natural business.
When she returned, most of the girls were back, and Flor, the baker’s daughter, was busy making a small fire in a hastily dug pit. “Bring me twigs, dry sticks, pine needles, pine cones, tree bark—anything you see! I can use it all to stoke the fire. Anything you bring, just watch, I can use to make a fire,” she whispered bossily, tucking long wisps of flax-blond hair out of her face and deeper under her kerchief shawl, and several girls immediately started looking.
While they were milling about, it started to snow.
“Oh, just what we need,” Lizabette grumbled, shivering, as large fluttering snowflakes landed on her lashes and cheeks. She pulled her coat collar up, and her hat lower down over her ears. Her long nose was red, and for that matter, so was everyone else’s.
“What if someone sees the smoke from the fire?” Sibyl asked.
“They won’t,” retorted Flor. “Not with my fire and my snow pit they won’t.”
And interestingly, she was right—she had arranged the walls of the snow pit just so and perforated them with several horizontal outlet tunnel holes, so that the smoke was oddly diffused and never rose more than a foot off the ground before dispersing.
When the little fire was burning steadily, fed by endless twigs and other kindling, Regata brought out a small iron kettle, and packed it full of clean snow for boiling water.
“What are we going to do for tea?” said Jenna, as the girls all gathered around the fire pit, and took off their mittens to warm reddened fingers against the rising steam. “Should I gather bark?”
“Bark tea? What an abomination. . . .” Lizabette vigorously rubbed her frost-bitten fingers, then held them splayed over the warm vapors escaping the boiling water. “Might as well brew dirt.”
“Check the basket.” Percy pointed to the bundle with the rolls and other supplies. “I think Ronna, bless her, gave us a small bag of real tea leaves.”
The tea was immediately located and a generous pinch went into the boiling water. Then Jenna and Regata uncovered two drinking mugs of fired clay, and they were filled with tea and passed around, warming many small frozen hands and fingers, not to mention their insides.
Percy sipped the heavenly warmth when it was her turn, then took her mug to the cart, and offered it to Emilie who pulled off the blanket from her miserable face just so that she could drink.
“How are you, child?” Percy held the back of her hand to the other’s burning forehead.
Emilie muttered something incoherent, then wrapped herself back in the blanket.
Percy returned to the fire to refill the mug, and this time she approached Vlau and his sister.
He took the mug without protest. “Thank you . . . I—I will give it to her myself.”
Percy watched as he drank a few eager gulps, then leaned forward, barely pulled back Claere’s hood, and made a show of trying to pour the hot tea past the sick girl’s lips.
For some reason, Percy’s gaze lingered on the two of them, lingered closely. And she noted the way most of the liquid seemed to miss the mouth and dribble on her chin. . . . And how the color of the girl’s face was so ashen white, so incredibly unreal, and the lips were bluish, with not a hint of blood underneath the skin. . . .
And then Percy blinked, and she saw it, a shadow lying alongside the sick girl in the cart. The shadow was like smoke and dark soot, and it looked exactly like the smoky shape at her grandmother’s bedside back at home in Oarclaven.
Percy recognized it, and she suddenly knew.
“Vlau,” she said in a soft voice. “You don’t need to give her any more tea. You know what she is, don’t you? If you do not—I am very sorry to have to tell you this, but—your sister is no longer alive. She—she is not going to need tea or rolls ever again. . . .”
He looked up at her, with his dark intense, stricken gaze.
“How did you know?”
Percy shrugged, then sighed. “I just know. I can see . . . some things, I suppose.”
“What things?”
“There’s a shadow,” said Percy, speaking very quietly, so that the girls giggling around the fire and sharing chunks of bread would have no chance of hearing. “The shadow is next to her. I think—it is her true death. But because all death has stopped, the shadow has nowhere to go, nothing to do. So it just waits there, at her side. At each person’s side. I know, because I have seen it before.”
“Please . . .” he said, “I beg—I ask you not to tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
He nodded, with some relief.
In that moment, the hood over Claere’s face moved back, swept by a thin, show-white hand, delicate as a swan’s neck.
Clare’s great hollowed eyes, frozen into eternal stillness in their sockets, were watching Percy.
It seemed, all her soul was contained in that silent gaze.
And then the dead lips parted, and there was an inhalation of breath. “Thank . . . you . . .” whispered the dead girl, as her breath gently faded. And then she was again silent, disappearing into herself.
Percy gave a small nod, then left them be, and returned to the warmth of the fire.
In a quarter of an hour they were done with eating and tea and restoring some warmth into their bodies. Flor put out the fire with the same care she used to create it, and she sprinkled delicate handfuls of snow gradually on the dying embers, so that the resulting smoke was absorbed and dispersed low on the earth. In the end, they piled more snow to create a drift in place where the fire pit had been, so that no one would know. And then Catrine and Niosta used branches to dust and smooth the snow all around their campsite.
“They will still see our footprints, will they not?” asked Jenna.
“They might. But then, they’ll also see Betsy’s hoof prints and the wheel tracks. Nothing can be done about it. Let’s go!”
“Let me just sweep this bit, just a little more—”
“No, Jen! No need, the best we can do now is be on our way. Now, climb in the cart! Hurry!” Percy spoke firmly, and Jenna scurried to obey her.
“Percy, you know how, back home, the older women all get together and talk?” Flor suddenly said in a low voice, while getting in the cart and settling down directly behind Percy.
“Yeah, I know.” Percy wondered what this was leading up to.
“Well,” said Flor. “Supposedly your Ma always complains that you are slow-witted and can’t do anything right. But what I think, is—you’re just pretending. You pretend you cannot do anything when in fact you can do all kinds of things . . . really well. Like what you’re doing now.”
Percy said nothing.
“I mean,” Flor continued, “it’s not just you. My Ma talks about me, too. She says these things about me, calls me an idiot and a slowpoke, when all I do is work and work around the oven, and she just complains and gives me more and more to do—”
Percy still said nothing, and picked up the reins.
“—so what I’m trying to say is, Percy—you don’t need to pretend any more. Not with me, or any of us. And—” here, Flor finished in a whisper—“thank you for taking care of us so well.”
I’ve stopped pretending a while ago. . . . Ever since I walked out of my father’s house, knowing it will be for the last time.
Percy silently drove the cart.
Claere Liguon, daughter of the Emperor, lay huddled against coarse wooden planks, on a thin layer of hay covering the floor of the jostling peasant cart.
She had never been near hay in her life—nor would she ever be, now—but in death, she now experienced its simple brittle softness.
Hay and snow. . . .
On one side of her corpse, right underneath her stiff ivory elbow, were baskets and satchels of unknown stuff underneath canvas and burlap. A large lumpy sack butted up against her waist from the back, and she—her cold lifeless body—felt the strange sensory distance of its touch, as though perceiving the world through thick molasses. And on the other side of Claere was a very sick peasant girl, cuddled in a thin blanket, coughing and sneezing every few moments, and blissfully unaware of who or what reposed right next to her.
There were more female shapes and voices all around, some girls seated in the cart, others walking right next to it.
All sound was surreal—slightly distorted, elongated, as if coming from a distance of thick atmospheric layers, or as though heard through water.
She listened to the strangeness, or listened despite it—to the soft whisper-level litany of their conversation, occasional gentle banter, bursts of giggles, and then long bouts of weary silence . . . at which point the resounding silence of the forest was revealed, woods oppressed by the weight of snow, and the crackle of timber, the slithering of the ice wind. . . .
A large pale draft-horse pulled their cart. And the driver was another peasant girl, her solid back covered with a length of woolen shawl, which was all that Claere could see directly from her vantage point. That girl, Percy, was far quieter than the others, introspective. And this one knew somehow, had known Claere’s true condition with an uncanny sixth sense.
Claere recalled a sympathetic steady gaze of intelligent eyes of an indeterminate swamp color, somewhere between blue and grey and green, and more like slate ashes. The girl’s round peasant face with its cold-reddened features was bland, but the strange depth of the expression gave her away somehow as something more complex. . . .
She sees me, sees my death. Who is she? And why can she see this when no one else can?
Claere’s stray random thoughts were like winged things beating against the shutters of her body, her broken human shell. She lay back and watched the grey pallor of the winter sky through glass eyes, while the cloak hood had shifted from her face, giving her a wide panoramic view. Clouds of varied whiteness and vapor and darkness sailed across the sphere of heaven, streaking past each other in infinite layers of cotton and torn smoke. The depth of heaven overhead was infinite.
Clare—the conscious thing that was Clare—felt a pull, a reeling vertigo, until she imagined herself lifting like a bird and then falling inversely into the distance of sky, a soul taken at last. . . . If she could breathe, she would be breathless with the infinity, if she could cry, there would be a river pouring out of her. . . .
But she had been drained of all her waters already, days ago. And her river that had run red and abundant like wine was now all gone—for what is blood but the wine of life?—while she, what remained of herself, was but a flopping, convulsing fish in its final gritty dregs.
And he—the man who had done this to her, the murderer and the victim in one—now walked at her side. There he paced, with only wooden planks of the side-rail wall of the cart between them. And she felt his overwhelming presence somehow, felt him with more clarity than anything else in her world.
Marquis Vlau Fiomarre.
She had taken to repeating his name in her mind upon occasion, she noticed this recently. And she was doing it now, again, repeating the name like a litany, a strange prayer. It had started when she first learned it, the name of her murderer. And at first she savored its knife-edge sound in order to fathom him, his motives. But in the forest, earlier today, when they had been on the run, she realized that she had been repeating his name as an anchor, holding on to the shape of it in her mind as he carried her through the forest, as she felt the wall of his body around her, through the veils of thickness—of her death—felt him lifting her, bearing her aloft. . . .
Vlau Fiomarre.
She sensed him now, walking at her side, for he was ever nearby. He had remained with her strangely, maybe out of guilt, or maybe driven by remnants of the need for vengeance. A wave of cold distant fear inundated her, as she imagined for a moment what kind of new exquisite revenge he could possibly have in mind, what other thing of occult dread and evil he might attempt to do to her, the “accursed Liguon.”
But then just as easily the fear and suspicion drained from her. And she knew with a sudden surety that it was no longer what bound them.
She remembered his face, every moment of him seared into her mind, from that first fateful instant he stood before her in the Silver Hall, to the moments of his dark raging passion as he stood in chains and told his mad story of injustice.
And now, all she had from him was a dark fathomless intensity. It encompassed him, this intensity, this darkness, this infinite focused presence.
She was drowning in it, in its abysmal virile strength. And somehow, just at the edges, there was a new thing. . . .
A craving was born.
Vlau Fiomarre.
She could never admit it, nor would she divulge it, not even to herself much less to him—the murderer, madman, her anchor, and her destruction.
In truth, she did not even have the words for it, for this desire—whether for constancy, for unwavering strength, or merely for a fixed point in her storm. He was her death—and yet, her blade of life, of clarity, to cut through the thick roiling swamp of personal darkness.
She needed him.
Vlau.
Another half hour, and the snow started to really come down, while the shadow of the weakling sun disappeared completely through the thick afternoon clouds. The wind increased—enough to cause small spinning flurries, and to make it feel bitterly cold—as Betsy, the cart, and its occupants slowly advanced along the path.
Despite the frequent meandering, they and the path were moving directly north.
And now, their entire world had become a lace veil of falling whiteness.
Betsy plodded forward through the snow, her hooves leaving deeper prints in the fresh power with every minute, as the newly fallen flakes accumulated.
The girls whose turn it was to walk next to the cart had their meager cloaks and shawls and winter coverings pulled tightly over their faces, so that in most cases only the eyes were showing. They walked, leaning into the wind, taking each step forward with effort.
Those in the cart huddled together and used whatever spare blankets they had to cover themselves.
Vlau, the only man among them, paced onward relentlessly, holding on to the cart next to where lay Claere. The dead girl moved her lily-white hands occasionally to pull the cloak over her face whenever the wind revealed too much of it.
Percy drew her nice wool shawl as much over her nose as possible and periodically tucked each mittened hand under the shawl for extra warmth, holding the reins with the other. She wrapped her skirts as closely as she could over her knees and legs. Still, whenever the wind gusts blew hard in her direction, she could feel the cold’s fiery bite through the insufficient fabric and along her upper thighs. Underneath, her old, well-worn cotton stockings were inadequate for such long winter exposure. At least her wrapped feet were still dry. . . .
We are going to die, all of us, tonight.
And then, as soon as she thought it, reality immediately intruded, cheerfully reminding her that there was no longer the option to die—not for any of them, no matter what. Death had ceased, and they were all being given a bizarre reprieve.
Well then, we are simply going to freeze to the point of death, but continue to move onward like toy soldiers, our bodies shutting down, burning with cold fire then growing numb, yet still imprisoning us. Not a bad prospect!
Lord help her, Percy was growing more amused with every mad thought. Indeed, this was insanity—and, at the same time, it was more cheerful and yet more depressing to contemplate than ordinary death that would have been so final. . . .
To stop herself from such morbid amusement, Percy glanced behind her and, in a low voice, asked how everyone was doing.
Several voices mumbled that they were all right, or tired, or simply cold.
Seated next to Percy this time, Lizabette wondered out loud if they were ever going to stop for the night—that is, when the night actually arrived.
“When it starts getting dark,” Percy said. “We still have at least three hours of daylight. See, the snow is starting to let up a bit.”
“Lordy, but how quiet it is!” Jenna suddenly said from the back of the cart.
And it was true. Everyone noticed that there were no more distant voices, no more baying of hounds echoing through the forest. Even the snowfall had slowed somewhat, and with it they had a return of slightly better visibility. Only the wind gusts continued their ragged whistle-song among the tree branches.
“The patrols must have gone home.” Regata was hunched over and holding the fur-trimmed edges of her hoodlet closely over her face.
“Or maybe they’ve stopped for a bite to eat.”
“Or maybe,” Percy said thoughtfully, “a changing of the guard.”
“They’re on rotation too!” Jenna giggled through her shawl, keeping her face from the most direct wind gusts.
“Hush!” Lizabette turned around and shoved the younger girl on the arm. Jenna quieted and put her mitten to her mouth.
But it was too late. . . .
In that instant, a terrible noise sounded from directly up ahead. It signified their greatest fear—a heavy weight of pounding iron hooves, ringing mail plate, the wild crackle of striking branches, and the angry neighing of more than one great war beast forced to plunge forward in an attack. . . .
“Run!” exclaimed Percy. “Everybody, run!”
The cart exploded with motion. The girls sprang up and scattered, many helping each other, some grabbing their small sacks of belongings. Semi-conscious Emilie was dragged down, together with her blanket, and carried bodily by Regata and Sibyl into the nearest shrubbery.
Vlau, his eyes flaring with life, momentarily froze with inaction. It seemed he was actually considering whether to stay and fight, because his hands reached for a non-existent sword at his side.
Good grief, is he a nobleman, or at least someone in the service of the upper crust? Well, that explains some things. . . .
He threw one maddened glance at Percy. But seeing her motioning him away wildly, he turned to his sole responsibility, his lifeless sister, and he picked her up and carried her in his arms, running into the forest.
Percy alone remained. Why? She was unsure. But Grial had asked her to do this, and Flor had thanked her, and she couldn’t exactly leave Betsy. . . .
Seated in the driver’s seat, latched onto Betsy’s reins with an iron grip, she held her breath. Her mind was reeling, and a brick of cold terror settled in her gut.
They were upon her in three heartbeats.
First, several running foot soldiers came crashing on both sides of the path, moving in parallel with it. In their wake, two mounted figures moved suddenly to cross it, and then—as though noticing the trail’s existence for the first time—immediately returned and entered the path directly. The first, on a bay horse, was a light rider in leathers, with a pale blue surcoat with Chidair crest and colors, over a chain hauberk, and bearing a lance.
Behind him, on a pure black charger, came he, fully plated, and helmed, dull ebony metal covering every inch of him, and nothing showing, not even eyes, under the lowered faceplate.
The black knight.
As the others came thundering past, the lance bearer paused, seeing Percy, but the black knight motioned with his hand, and the rider moved onward, riding off the path and into the forest to hunt the others. The rest of them passed by like a thundering wave, and were gone.
It was thus that the black knight alone came to a stop before Percy and Betsy and the cart.
In that moment, a hard gust of wind whistled directly at her, and Percy shivered. . . .
The black war stallion, controlled by his great gauntleted hand, slowed to a measured walk, a monster becoming docile. It took three more paces, and then stilled, just a hand-span away from Betsy. It was a testament to how truly enormous the stallion was, that next to him, the thick-limbed draft horse appeared a tiny filly.
In the new silence Betsy snorted.
Percy stared directly ahead, and up at him.
And the black knight regarded her.
“Who are you, girl?” he asked, in a surprisingly soft and weary baritone. “Are you, too, a Cobweb Bride?”
Whatever it was about his voice, something, maybe the mortal weariness—Percy could not be sure—but it emboldened her, just so that she recollected herself enough to breathe.
“And what if I am?” she said in an unusually insolent voice, meanwhile amazed at herself, at her own, previously unheard-of intonation.
“Then regretfully I must take you with me.”
Percy felt a sort of breathless madness come to her, fill her head to bursting. . . . She tied off the reins, got down from the cart, and then walked forward to stand directly before him.
“And what if I refuse to go? What will you do, slay me on the spot, Sir Knight? Oh, wait, that does not work anymore.”
Gusts of wind blew in the pause of silence.
“You are trespassing,” he then said quietly. “What do you think should be done with you? Oh, wait, hacking your limbs off will still work.”
“Do you really need another disembodied arm or leg? Why not simply let me go? I’ll be on my way and out of your lands before you know it. My business, Sir Knight, is not with you but with Death and his Keep.”
Did she imagine it, or did the knight sigh?
“It is precisely for that reason why I may not allow you to go on. But—enough dawdling. Here, take my hand and come with me willingly, or be lifted up by the scruff of that shawl of yours. . . .” And speaking thus, he pressed his war stallion forward and bent down from the saddle to reach for her.
Percy reacted to the great black gauntlet moving in her face, and she sprang back with agility, and ended up behind Betsy, and then on the other side of the cart. While the immense weight of the metal plates of the knight made them clang together like wicked bells tolling, he and his war beast maneuvered around Betsy. As though they were a single giant entity, they went after her, deceptively slow and measured.
In wild desperation, Percy rummaged over the side of the cart, grabbing for anything she could think might serve as a weapon. Her hands fell upon a large cast-iron saucepan—another blessed gift from Ronna—and she took it by the handle.
In that instant, the black knight was upon her, and his giant gauntlets were clasping her shoulders and waist, lifting her as though she were a feather; and she felt herself tossed up to the front of his saddle.
And then, before she even knew what she was doing, Percy reacted. She swung the saucepan in a wild arc, barely missing her own head, and crashed it with all her strength against the black knight’s helmet—inches away from her face.
Holy Mother of God, but what did just happen?
The ice wind whistled, and there came a pause—as the knight went still suddenly, and in his embrace she could feel his body losing its iron cast, its solidity and resistance, and all his strength dissolved around her—in one impossible instant of awareness.
And then the black knight fell.
And she, still in his embrace, fell also, somehow still trapped by his weakened hold. . . . They crashed from the saddle onto the snow, he landing on the ground first, and she fortunately landing on top of him, instead of being crushed by what looked to be an anvil of black iron plate. . . .
Holy Mother of God.
Percy lay where she had fallen, still holding on to the skillet. She was stunned, but only for the duration of one breath, and then, disentangling herself from his cold metal arms, she crawled. The black warhorse had screamed then shied away, and was now prancing ten feet from Betsy, who continued standing calmly through the entirety of this incident.
The black knight lay on his back in the snow.
Panting hard, vapor curling from her lips, Percy stood up, ignoring a painful bruise on her knee, adjusting her fallen shawl, shaking snow powder from her dark tangled hair, all the while watching his great motionless shape, the limp gauntlets. . . .
She then dropped the saucepan and put her hands to her mouth.
“Did you kill him?”
An amazed whisper sounded behind her. And there was Gloria, followed by Niosta and Marie, covered in white powder and emerging from a snowdrift thicket.
“Percy! Holy Lord! Is he . . . dead? You killed the black knight! How? What did you do?”
“I don’t—I don’t know!” she was saying. And then, again reality hit hard.
“He is not dead, remember!” she exclaimed. “Remember? No one is dead!”
“So then—”
“He’s out cold, is what he is!” Percy picked up the heavy iron skillet and pointed at him with it. “I used this, got him on the head, somehow. So now he is going to wake up eventually, and ‘kill’ us!”
“Oh no . . .” Marie whimpered.
“But before he does,” Percy continued, “we’re going to make sure he cannot hurt us or do anything to us.”
She approached the knight again, crouched beside him to check for signs of animation. “We need to tie him up, and quickly. . . . But first, let’s get him into the cart. . . . Help me, everyone!”
But it was easier said than done. The black knight weighed far more than an ordinary man, covered head to toe in metal plate as he was.
“Let’s strip him!” Flor emerged from hiding, coming from the other side of the path. “And hurry! The other hunters are still out there, and they already grabbed Catrine, Regata, and Sybil, and I think I saw them going after Lizabette—”
Niosta swore in foul gutter language. “My poor sis!”
But Percy and Gloria were already busy removing whatever portions of plate mail they could from the knight.
The first to come off was the helm. Percy raised his visor, bracing herself for the sight of a burly monster, and instead saw a pale bloodied face of a young man, surprisingly fine in appearance, with regular features, sculpted cheekbones and chestnut-brown wavy hair. Removing the helm altogether, she ascertained that not too much damage had been done by her blow with the saucepan. He had a minor bruise on his forehead, and a swollen lump on the right side of his head, above the back of the ear. Surely these wounds must have come about earlier, perpetrated by someone else. . . .
Altogether, he was still breathing.
As enough other pieces came off, they were able to lift him bodily at last, and the five of them together managed to drag him onto the cart, deep in the back.
“Get as much of this plate off him as possible,” said Percy, getting back into the driver’s seat. “And then tie his hands and feet, leave his woolens on, and put a blanket over him. Cover the armor too! Don’t leave any of it lying around, just in case his men come looking.”
“What of his fearsome horse? Should we shoo it away?”
Percy snorted. “You think you can? Anyone want to get up close to it? No?”
“Not me . . .” grumbled Niosta, using many loops of thick twine to bind the fallen knight’s wrists and ankles. “It can run back to hell if it wants to.”
At Percy’s careful urging, Betsy started walking forward again, directly at the war stallion. And her surprising determination made the much larger beast move backward, and then turn and gallop out of their way into the thicket, where they heard him neighing in fury and crashing through brush for several minutes—as though he were loath to abandon his fallen master.
“Lordy, Lord, what are we gonna do with him? I mean, it’s the black knight!” whispered Marie, in her teeny little voice with its funny accent, as they sat swaying in the cart. She had picked up the phrase “Lordy, Lord” from the others, and was now using it at every opportunity.
“Wait—where’s Jenna?” Percy suddenly felt a pang of fear. It was as if she’d left her mind back there in the snow . . . how could she have forgotten?
But in a few minutes—speaking of the devil—Jenna herself came running from up ahead. And she took them further up the path to where Vlau, Claere, and Emilie were concealed in a hedge. The two girls were lying motionless—one very sick and one very dead, thought Percy—and Vlau stared at Percy and the others with amazement.
“How did you manage to escape?” he asked.
Percy only snorted.
But Gloria lifted up the blanket in the back proudly, revealing an unconscious young man partially clad in black armor, and thoroughly trussed up, and she pointed at Percy, and then at a cast-iron skillet sitting on top of an ebony chest plate.
The look on Vlau’s face was priceless.
“Enough foolery, put the two girls back in the cart, and let’s get going before the patrol returns—and at which point we may not be so lucky.” Percy watched them all settle in. She then took the reins with newfound confidence, hid a smile, and said, “Whoa, Betsy.”
For some reason, despite the stunning events and the relentless cold and the wind and everything, she felt herself buoyant as a snowflake, light as a feather. . . .
She felt herself flying.
Beltain awoke in blue twilight. He inhaled deeply, with a shudder, and the freezing evening air entered his lungs.
His face, everything, was numb. Also, for some reason he could not move, and he was still in the forest. There were soft female voices all around him, lilting, rising in girlish chatter, and the deep natural silence was punctuated by the crackling sounds of a nearby fire.
He opened his eyes wide, and there was the golden glow on the ground, diffusing the bluish shadows of the tree trunks with warmth, in a small diameter of about fifteen feet.
He was lying under a burlap blanket, in the cart—the cart!
Everything came rushing back.
With a visceral jolt of awareness, he struggled to rise, realizing immediately that he was bound.
God in Heaven! The last thing he remembered was reaching down for that peasant girl to pull her up to his saddle. . . . She had been a strange brazen thing, and they had exchanged some pointed words—something about chopping off arms and legs and the philosophical impotence of Death. . . .
He recalled lifting her up, and then she did something—she hit him!
Beltain felt a cold fury mixed with chagrin, as he realized in those brief seconds that, not only had she hit him, but she had knocked him out.
A thickset peasant girl in a woolen shawl had accomplished what no tourney knight, no battle opponent had ever managed to do to the undefeated champion Lord Beltain Chidair since he was a small boy, fencing with wooden swords—
His sword! And for that matter, his horse! And where the hell were his men-at-arms?
With a parched groan, he turned his head, seeing a face immediately loom over him, while the other girlish voices around the fire quieted down.
The girl looking down at him, illuminated by the warm gold glow and bluish shadows, was likely no older than sixteen, and had a plain oval face, with no particular or distinguishing features—so nondescript indeed, that the only way he recognized her was by her woolen shawl, of an unmistakable older style, but vintage quality. The shawl was pulled back somewhat, revealing a few wisps of dark ash-brown hair over a pale forehead.
And then she said, “Good evening, Sir Knight.” And her voice—its strange, compelling combination of mockery and command, coupled with a semblance of indifference—her voice quickened him and invoked a dull rage. . . .
“Where am I?” he managed to croak through his parched lips. “What happened? How did you—”
“To be honest, I am not entirely sure what happened,” she said, continuing to lean over him, and he watched her reddened nose and her frost-chapped lips moving, and the escaping vaporous tendrils of her breath. “Now, try not to struggle too much, or the ropes might give you a burn eventually. For now, you’re not going anywhere. It seems, you’re somewhat beat up, but it’s none of our doing. I venture, the reason you passed out was because you were already hurt pretty badly, even before I—hit you. For which I apologize, but I’m not at all sorry.”
“Have you any idea who I am? Or what you’ve done?” he said.
“Let me get you some tea first, then you can berate me properly.” And then she was gone, and he heard the girls whispering, a few stifled giggles, and moments later she was back with a mug of hot brew.
She placed her hands underneath his head, and her touch was firm but more gentle than he expected, as she lifted him enough to put the mug to his lips. Warm tea water hit him like heavenly balm, and he swallowed in reflex, gulping at least six times before coming up for air.
Oh, how cold he had been—only now was he able to sense the true extent of it. . . . And now, oh, how he ached all over, stewing in a dull general agony of many days’ worth of battle bruises, since earlier that morning when he had collapsed for a single hour of sleep that his father had deigned to allow him, before having to return to his duties. How he had slept in that hour like a dead man! And yet the sleep had done him so little good, after the wrestling bear-hug with the Imperial knight, an embrace that had nearly crushed his ribs, the night before. . . .
“They will come looking for me,” he mused, moving his lips wearily, and at the same time imperceptibly tensing the ropes on his feet and his wrists, bound together mercifully before him (as opposed to being bound behind his back, which would have forced him to lie contorted on his side). He tested the bonds and they were too well tied, unfortunately. He could do nothing to escape them, not in his present condition.
“I’ve no doubt they will,” the girl said, putting the mug back to his lips. And again he drank. And then, things slipped away. . . .
The next moment he remembered coming to again, it was dark. Blue early evening had turned to deep indigo night.
The little fire still burned, but the voices had quieted, and there were a few soft snores coming from all around him, and in the cart.
Beltain made no sound, did not remember moaning, but again, the girl was back, looking into the cart and leaning over him. She must have been on lookout duty, or tending the fire while others slept, because she was so quick to appear nearby—quick to rise, quick on her feet, like a wild forest animal. . . .
They were all Cobweb Brides, he remembered then. This was still the forest. . . .
“My men . . .” he said. “I would not have allowed any harm done—to you. We simply take you back home with us. My father—his instructions are not to allow any of you to pass—”
“And why is that?” she whispered, arranging the cheap burlap blanket over him, tucking it around his head and under his chin, fingers grazing his jaw where there was a growing dark stubble. “Why not let Cobweb Brides pass? Are you as wicked as they say you are, O black knight and your black father?”
“His name is Hoarfrost—he is the Duke, Ian Chidair, and they call him Duke Hoarfrost—”
“And what do they call you, son of Duke Hoarfrost?”
“Beltain.”
“Bel-tain,” she repeated. “Not at all as frightening as the black knight.”
“And your name? You are?”
“I am,” said perversely. And then she turned away and left his side.
Beltain closed his eyes and slept.
He awoke again, still in pitch darkness, this time because of snow. Silence and cold snowflakes covered his cheeks, and he felt utterly numb, as though the whole world itself was trying to bury him in winter. There was no wind, but enough powder had come down to put out the tiny fire, and sprinkle the blanket.
He should have felt more cold, but instead there was a solid weight of a body pressed against him, warm wool on all sides. . . . And he craned his neck just barely, enough to realize she was sleeping at his side, wedged in a half-seated position between him and the wall of the cart. Her voluminous shawl was pulled over them both, and the snow piled harmlessly on the outside.
Somewhere on the other side of him, from deep in the cart, someone coughed—a phlegmy rasping sound of profound sickness that did not bode well.
And for some reason, hearing it, he coughed also.
The girl next to him woke up. He sensed her tensing, shifting her weight. Then her dark silhouette rose up somewhat, so she was now in a seated position, and the shawl covering momentarily left him—replaced by an in-pouring of cold—as she seemed to look out over their campsite, in the darkness.
She lay back down eventually, and the shawl was also back in place, covering him.
And then a warm hand reached out, and he felt its feather-light touch on his forehead, as she swept snow from his brow, then lingered, warming his forehead with her palm.
And in that strange warmth, he submerged immediately, into a morass of dreams.
Vlau Fiomarre huddled in the snow, at the foot of the cart, in the darkness. They had given him what looked to be an empty potato sack to lie on, and another rag of a blanket to cover with.
The notion of “warmth” had become a distant thing of the past. He was numb, and he hardly cared.
The Infanta lay just above, in the cart. He was aware of her utter silence, her non-being—just as he had been aware of her, every waking moment, ever since this morning when they had emerged from hiding in the snow.
Indeed, knowing where she was had become an obsession.
His entire existence, all the unrelenting hell of it, had been reduced to this one focus, one single-minded duty. He had to take her there, they had to find Death’s Keep, at which point—at which point he knew not what, but it had to be achieved, this one remaining purpose . . . for her sake.
Earlier, when the cart had come upon them, he was oddly relieved, because now their world had expanded to include others—he could observe her lying there, and walk beside her, knowing that she was in the relative safety of a minor crowd, and the reduced functionality of her frozen limbs could be preserved a few hours longer. . . . And this safety in numbers was also a comfortable illusion that allowed him to pretend she was not what he had made her into—since the girls had assumed she was merely sick and not dead.
All except one. The one called Percy, who was in charge of the group, silently and firmly.
She had known somehow, known what Claere Liguon was without knowing who she really was. How did she know?
And then Vlau thought of the most recent moments of terror, when the black knight and his men had come upon them. His first instinct had been to flare into action—for in a fight he could be deadly lightning—but he knew he had no means to fight properly on their behalf now, no weapons. And his body had been ravaged by the punishment of the Imperial guards, and then the prison, and lately, the relentless hours of trudging through the cold. . . .
In such a state of weakness he could not risk her.
Those other poor girls running in all directions, deeper into the forest—it was probably what had saved them both, as they hid, just off the path, after first running forward alongside it, directly through the thick hedge growth, for endless insane moments—and all the while he was carrying her. . . . What had also saved them was the girls’ obvious footprints left in the snow, pointing elsewhere, leading the hunters away.
The two of them, in the hedge, had left fewer traces that could be observed among the twisting roots. In addition, Vlau had swept away his own footprints, covered the Infanta with snow, packing it tightly around her, then covered himself, and tried not breathing, while the forest crashed all around them with the violence. . . .
And then, their impossible luck had held, and the black knight was no longer a threat. How and why had it come to pass? Was he indeed defeated and captured miraculously by that peasant girl? No, it did not make any sense, none of it. But then, none of it mattered. . . .
Why was he doing this now? Why follow the dead one? What release could be had at Death’s Keep, if any, for either one of them? What new illusion?
He had no answers, only an endless burning rage that had no quenching. He hated her and himself, and he did not know how to be rid of her, how to wipe her from his mind—so he had to stay at her side, follow her, and know. . . .
He lay thus, burning in a fever, in the icy cold of the night.
At some point, sleep took him in its soft delirium, and he dreamt of snowdrifts rising all about him, and softly falling flakes of pearl whiteness, and her pitiful shape swaddled in a cape, and underneath it a plain servant’s grey gown covering her fragile limbs. In his dream he lay against her cold body, full length, covering her with his own, while the snow piled up around them and the silence grew, rich with lavender twilight. . . .
And as the cocoon built, they were encased completely, and strangely, he could yet breathe, for the snow was now like soft cotton, porous and neutral to the touch, and there was now an odd impossible disembodied glow about them in the violet dusk, a faerie light. . . . And then, he thought, in that odd preternatural silence and illumination, he could suddenly hear a rhythmic sound, gentle and delicate, like the fluttering of a butterfly. . . . It was her heart!
She was alive, was breathing! She had been brought to life somehow, magically restored, and her body was no longer marble, but warming with the impossible coursing of blood in her veins, blood that she had regained somehow. Warm and pliant she had become, lying pressed against him. . . .
And in wonder he reached out, parting her cloak, and then pulling at the laces of her gown, to reveal her pale, soft shoulder, and the delicate column of her neck, whiter than snow in the strange ethereal luminescence around them. She did not struggle, only shifted against him slightly, opening her great smoke-colored eyes wide, letting her slim arms fall to each side pliantly, letting him untie the laces at her throat, then pull the fabric apart, as he searched lower—yes, there, underneath her tiny perfect bud of a breast with its rose tip—searched for any signs of the wound he had inflicted upon her with the long sharp blade of his familial dagger, plunged directly into her heart.
He stared, mesmerized, in an unspeakable effusion of joy and relief, and there was nothing there—not a scratch, no traces of the wound, her skin unbroken, without a single blemish.
He trembled then. . . . And at last, in the warm intimate lavender glow, the last remaining pressure of darkness and agony inside him burst, and he wept with exultation, pressing his face against her warm perfect skin, wallowing against her breast, his lips melded to her flesh, burning, burning, while she put her soft gentle arms around his neck, caressing him, whispering his name over and over, like a prayer, a litany. . . .
Vlau.
Percy came awake like a startled bird, in the pre-dawn twilight. Light was barely seeping from the east, or rather its precursor was changing the nature of the darkness.
The snow had stopped falling at some point in the night. At least an inch of it had compounded to line the sides and edges of the cart and the bundled bodies of the sleepers so that they all looked like uniform white bumps in the morass of a great white sea. . . .
Percy blinked, seeing the campsite entirely still and everyone asleep, most of them piled in the cart. Only the peculiar young man called Vlau, Claere’s so-called brother, lay in a bundle on the ground.
Next to Percy—she remembered with a sudden jolt of visceral terror—lay the other young man.
The black knight was lying at her side.
Heaven help them all, this was insane!
She glanced down and saw the shadowed planes of his half-covered face in the twilight, the powdering of snow on his cheeks, the closed eyes and long dark lashes on which more white powder had accumulated.
Beltain.
He barely breathed, seeming frozen and rather near death himself.
Percy stilled her own breath, watching him so closely, so tensely, for any signs of the shadow, for a gathering of soot in the air nearby to indicate he was no longer one of the living. . . .
But no, there was no unnatural shadow coagulating around him, and thus he was not dead—at least not yet. . . .
She had been focusing so hard on him, on seeing the pending death, that it seemed for a moment she had experienced a sudden vertigo instant of tunnel vision.
Percy blinked again and again, trying to clear her sight, and looked up and away from him, this time seeing with the periphery of her eyes the definite shadow next to the nearby silent shape of the girl Claere.
It was unmistakable. Which meant, she was seeing true, and he was indeed not in any immediate danger for his life.
And as Percy looked up and down, from him to Claere, as though adjusting her eyes, by comparison, to differing levels and degrees of “sight” through a pair of imaginary spectacles, her gaze happened to glance higher—past their campsite, and beyond the path, toward the denser growth of trees and directly north.
And it was then that she saw the shadow keep.
There, in the hazy distance, the translucent shapes of night darkness had coalesced into a distinct faraway structure that had the form of a fortress or a castle, with shadow turrets and towers, and shadow walls rising with sharp fine crenellation into the paling sky . . . then fading into it, translucent, like bits of storm cloud.
Death’s Keep loomed over the horizon of forest, and its highest central tower pointed due north.
Percy’s breath caught and she forgot everything else. “Oh . . . God,” she whispered. “It is here!”
“What is here?” The black knight, Beltain, woke up. His eyes glittered liquid in the pre-dawn dusk, as he watched her, from inches away.
“Death’s Keep!” whispered Percy loudly, forgetting caution, and continuing to stare at the horizon. “I can see it! There, in the distance, it stands! It has to be it, and none other!”
“What?” He attempted to rise and look, but failed due to multiple reasons (he was tied up; he was as infirm as an old man), managing instead to move only his head and neck weakly. However, others were waking up around them, and there were a few snorts and soft neighs of the newly-wakened horse, as it stomped in place.
“What is it?” Niosta’s worried sleepy voice sounded.
“Look straight north, there, near the line of trees, what do you see?”
“Huh?” said Jenna, waking up, and then sat up in the cart, and craned her neck to stare as directed. “Where? I don’t see nuthin’!”
“It’s a great big fortress!” Percy continued, feeling herself shaking with emotion she had no words for. “It’s right over there, and there are towers, many towers, and battlements—”
But just as she spoke, dawn intensified.
Twilight was fleeing, together with the last shadows of night.
And with it, the shadow structure in the distance faded also.
Even as Percy was looking at it, she saw it dissolve into the rapidly paling greyness of the sky of morning. First the edges of the towers went, then the walls, as though wiped from the horizon with a stroke of an invisible giant hand.
How it could be gone? It made no sense!
And yet, it occurred to Percy, it did make sense. Death’s Keep was but another one of his shadows. And all shadows fled with the coming of the light.
Percy exhaled the breath she had been holding. “It is gone,” she said. “But—I know now where it is—where it will be—and how to look for it.”
“What do you mean?” Gloria came to and was listening in to all of this. “What do you mean, Percy? What did you see?”
“I mean, I am almost certain, but if we travel fast enough tonight, by evening we shall reach the spot past the trees where I had seen it . . . and when the dusk comes, it will appear.”