David Coe - Shapers of Darkness

Glyndwr Highlands, Eibithar

Tavis of Curgh and Grinsa jal Arriet were less than a day’s ride from Glyndwr Castle when the storm hit. They had awakened that morning to a freshening wind and dark, angry skies. In the time it took them to eat a small breakfast and break camp, the rain began, accompanied by distant echoes of thunder, and gusts of wind that flattened the grasses and made their riding cloaks snap. Still, they climbed onto their mounts and resumed their journey northward, hoping to reach the rim of the steppe before dusk, perhaps with time enough to begin their descent.

Even as they rode, though, Grinsa repeatedly cast anxious glances to the west, marking the progress of the storm. The thunder quickly grew louder and the sky flashed continuously. Soon it was raining so hard, Tavis could hardly see. Lightning arced overhead, sinuous and brilliant, making the young lord flinch. He could feel his horse straining against the reins, the beast’s dark eyes wide and wild.

“It’s no good!” the gleaner shouted to him, his voice barely carrying over the gale.

He reined his mount to a halt and Tavis did the same.

“We have to stop!”

“Do you want to turn back?” Tavis asked. They were closer to Glyndwr Castle than they were to the end of the steppe, and the young lord felt certain that Kearney the Younger, the king’s son, who was now duke in the House of Wolves, would welcome them and offer shelter and food until the weather cleared.

But Grinsa shook his head, blinking the rain from his pale yellow eyes. “We can’t ride in this!” he said.

Tavis nodded. No doubt the gleaner was no more eager than he to return to Glyndwr. Grinsa, the young noble knew, wanted only to reach the City of Kings, where he could see Cresenne, hold his child, and protect them both from the Weaver. Already they had been away from Audun’s Castle for far longer than they had intended, and with each day that passed the danger to Cresenne increased.

For his part, Tavis was eager to ride north, beyond Audun’s Castle, to the Moorlands, where the war with Braedon would be waged. He hungered to defend the realm and fight alongside his father and his pledged liege man, Xaver MarCullet. For too long, the young lord had been an exile, wrongly accused of murdering Lady Brienne of Kentigern and obsessed with his desire to find and kill the assassin who sent his queen to Bian’s realm. He had his revenge now-Cadel was dead by his hand. And though the man’s death hadn’t brought him peace, it had at least ended his pursuit, giving him the freedom to return to Eibithar and claim his place as a noble of the realm.

“So what do you suggest?” Tavis asked. Wind lashed at them, driving the rain so that it stung his face. The air wasn’t cold, but already his clothes were soaked through. He would have given all the gold he carried to be back in Glyndwr, sitting beside a fire and sipping tea.

“There was a cluster of stones back a ways. We could take shelter there.”

It didn’t seem as inviting as the castle, but it would be an improvement over the open plain. He nodded. “Lead the way.”

Tavis had little sense of where these stones were, but he followed the gleaner, trusting him to find them again, despite the rain. Lightning twisted across the sky, illuminating the highlands as might the sun. An instant later, a clap of thunder made the ground quake.

“There!” Grinsa called to him, pointing.

Squinting and shielding his eyes with an open hand, Tavis could barely make out the hulking outlines of several boulders, huddled together as if seeking comfort from one another.

“I see it!”

There were stones strewn all about the grasses here, and the two riders steered their mounts among them, eager now for any shelter against the tempest.

Before they could reach the stones, lightning struck again, so close to where he was riding this time that Tavis could hear it sizzle, like fat cooking on an open fire. The air around him seemed to explode, the noise of the blast crashing down on him like a giant fist. Abruptly he was sprawled on the ground, rain filling his mouth and nostrils. He sat up, sputtering. His mount was a short distance off, just slowing to a trot. It had been years since he was last thrown from a horse, and in spite of the storm and the rain and the dull ache in his back, the young lord began to laugh.

“It’s a good thing for me that the grasses grow thick in this part of the highlands,” he said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

No reply.

“Grinsa?”

Tavis scrambled to his feet and spun around, looking for the gleaner.

“Grinsa?” he called again, louder this time.

He spotted the Qirsi’s horse near his own, but saw no sign of his companion. Feeling panic rise in his chest, the boy fought to keep his composure. Grinsa had been ahead of him. Had he been thrown, too? He scanned the ground, and quickly spotted the gleaner’s body, the man’s white hair standing out starkly against the dark grasses.

Tavis ran to where the gleaner lay and knelt beside him. “Grinsa!”

The Qirsi was lying on his side, his head leaning against one of the grey stones. Tavis knew little of healing; the man’s limbs rested as they might if he were sleeping and the boy didn’t think any of his bones were broken. But even with the rain still pouring down on them, Tavis could see a trickle of blood flowing from a wound on the back of Grinsa’s head. Probing the injury gently with his fingers, he felt a large welt forming.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Grinsa? Can you hear me?”

The gleaner didn’t stir.

A gust of wind made him shiver, and he peered ahead through the storm toward the cluster of boulders they had been trying to reach. Bending close to the gleaner’s face, Tavis felt the man’s breath against his cheek. At least he was alive.

The young lord slung the gleaner’s arm over his shoulder and struggled to his feet, wrapping his other arm around Grinsa’s body and lifting the gleaner with him. Grinsa was a large man, both taller and broader than Tavis, and the boy could barely support him.

Lightning struck again nearby, and earsplitting thunder followed an instant later. Tavis forced himself into motion, half dragging the gleaner, half carrying him. The thick grasses, which had cushioned his own fall just a short time before, now became his adversary, slowing his progress and making him stumble repeatedly. He was quickly winded, his shoulder and back aching, but he kept his eyes fixed on the boulders before him, refusing to stop. Wind and rain lashed at his face, noticeably colder now.

“There’s worse weather moving in,” he said, as if Grinsa could hear him. “And I’ve no way to build us a fire.”

When at last he reached the boulders, he found that there were several narrow passages into the sheltered space they created, but none so wide that he could simply walk the gleaner through. Instead, he had to turn sideways and pull him past the stones, taking care that he didn’t further injure the man. The sky flashed brightly again, and the ground trembled as if some great beast of Bian’s realm were struggling to sunder the very earth on which they stood. Tavis wondered briefly where the horses might be by this time, but he knew that this was the least of his concerns.

With one last heave, he pulled Grinsa into the circle of stones and crumpled to the ground, the gleaner collapsing on top of him. Tavis rolled Grinsa off of him as carefully as he could and pushed him nearer to one of the hulking boulders that now surrounded them. It still rained on them-the stones couldn’t shelter them from that-but without the wind, the air felt somewhat warmer and the rain didn’t sting his eyes and face.

The young lord stood and looked around, and as he did, his heart sank. There was a small ring of stones in the middle of the space, and within it much ash and several pieces of blackened wood. A small pile of unburned wood had been stacked on the far side of the sheltered area, along with a small rusted hatchet and what looked like the pieces of a crude wooden cooking spit.