James West - Lady Of Regret

As they navigated a sharp bend in the river, Loro reined in hard. “Gods!”

Rathe, who had been looking over his shoulder, followed Loro’s gaze. His mouth dropped open in surprise. “Seems we’ll not be sleeping cold, after all.”

The ancient wall stretched across the river gorge. Looming battlements capped with darker stone showed the wear of brutal eons. A vaulted tunnel constrained the course of the river to one side of a colossal barbican gate fashioned after the prow of a ship. Round and tapering, twin drum towers flanked the gatehouse, their tops notched like shattered crowns. A portcullis and wooden gates once guarded the entrance. Time had crushed both. Rotted beams, planks, and pitted iron banding lay where they had fallen. Remnants of the portcullis hung like rusted teeth. Through the gate, mists hugged the ground.

“Ho the gate!” Loro called. His voice boomed hollowly into the distance. A raven croaked in reply.

“Unless the dead speak,” Rathe said, “I would not look for an invitation.”

Loro shot him a hard look. “Would it trouble you to not say things like that?”

Rathe shrugged. “Who but the dead would live here?”

“Doesn’t seem so bad to me. And waiting out in the weather is not getting us any warmer.”

Rathe ushered Loro forward with an inviting gesture. “Lead the way.”

Loro grinned wryly, backed his big red horse down the trail. “You’re the Scorpion and the Champion of Cerrikoth. Simple soldiers such as myself do not lead such valiant men as you.”

“Neither of us are the men we were,” Rathe said, guiding the gray through the tangle of wood and iron outside the gate. The ceiling of the gatehouse soared above them, its shadows aflutter with bats just coming awake. Sleek black rats scurried over the floor, climbed atop iron sconces disfigured by rust. He counted it a good sign that he saw no bones lying about, either of man or beast.

Beyond the gate, the way widened into a cobbled road, its length cut by deep ruts. Rathe guessed the fortress must have once been a center of bustling commerce and travel. If so, prosperity had come and gone, long centuries before.

He drew rein, searching. Blocky stonework channeled the river, and rose twenty feet up the walls of the gorge to become walkways lined with stone rails. Marching into the fog, rows of footbridges held aloft by thin pillars spanned the river, joining the two sides of the strange fortress. Some pillars had fallen, but most stood intact. Hard seasons had rounded every surface, giving the place a weary, slumping look.

“Smell that?” Rathe asked.

“Aye, river and moss,” Loro answered, peering around.

“There’s something else … wood smoke.”

Loro scanned the highest footbridges. “Mayhap a fellow traveler took shelter.”

Rathe was not so sure. “People might live here. If so, they might not welcome us.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Loro said, “I’d think you want trouble to come down on us. Asking for it all the time, you are.”

“Trouble is what I’m trying to avoid,” Rathe said, remembering the stories told in Valdar. “We’ll make camp at the far gate. If there’s anyone here who mistrusts strangers enough to attack, we need to be away quickly.”

Loro did not argue the point, and followed after Rathe.

The rushing river, and the echoes of their horses’ hooves, made listening for furtive sounds impossible. Keeping an eye out proved nearly as useless. Mist hazed everything, and with the sun going down, only a faint pink glow showed above them.

“I smell roasting meat,” Loro said, perking up.

“As do I.”

“Mayhap someone will share their meal? I’ve a hunger for lamb, hot bread, and gravy by the bucket.”

“Be still,” Rathe warned, stomach turning at the thought of eating anything in such a desolate place. If he had a desire, it was to be gone. Second to that, he wanted to fill his hand with steel.

After a mile, Rathe had to admit they had not entered a fortress, but a forsaken city. At regular intervals, steps led from the cobbled roadway up to broad porticos built around unbarred doors that led into the walls of the gorge. Beyond these, all lay black and still. Walled gardens might have once held flowers, but now housed only weeds. The sensation of being stalked fell on him again, stronger than ever. Vague shadows drifted through the mist, always vanishing when he looked directly at them. He resisted the urge to heel the gray into a headlong gallop out of the city.

When a little man tottered down a set of steps and into the road, Rathe and Loro drew up short. Bent almost double, the stranger faced them, propped against a gnarled staff he held in a clawed hand. He brushed back his tangled white hair to reveal a pair of pale, hooded eyes. His clothing was threadbare and dark with grime.

“Friends!” he piped, voice reedy. “Well met! Yes, well met, indeed. Long has it been since my people and I’ve had guests in Deepreach.”

“Fitting name for a city fashioned after a ditch,” Rathe murmured, looking around but seeing no sign of anyone else.

“Gods be damned,” Loro gasped. “The smell of him could gag a boar.”

Rathe tried to ease his horse closer to the man, but the gray tossed his head, and would not budge. “Well met,” he said, offering their names.

“I be Tulfa,” said the little man with a bow that made him tremble, as if pained. He straightened, came a hesitant step closer, making the horses prance. Tulfa pushed his hair back again, eyes widening. “Fine animals. So fine. Yes, fine indeed!”

The way the crookbacked fellow went on, showing far more excitement than caution, made Rathe edgy. All the more for the way he kept licking his dirty lips and sucking back drool. “I’m afraid we’re just passing through, Master Tulfa. I wonder, can you tell me how far until we are out of Deepreach?”

Tulfa’s eyes narrowed to slits, befouled lips turned down at the corners. “ No .”

“No call for rudeness,” Loro admonished.

Tulfa gave himself a shake, and was again a jolly, filthy old man. “No, no. You mistake me. Dark is coming, you see, you see? The road is not safe at night. No, no. Not safe at all. Not at night. ‘Tis never safe when shadows lay thick and cold over the land.” As he spoke, his voice dropped lower, and his face changed again, showing fear.

“His wits have departed him,” Loro said quietly.

“He’s no more dangerous for all that,” Rathe answered, hoping he was right.

“Where are your friends, Master Tulfa?” Loro asked.

“Friends? What friends? There’s only Tulfa in Deepreach. Yes, yes, only Tulfa! Tulfa is the only one left!”

Loro rolled his eyes, and Rathe shifted in the saddle. “Beg pardon,” he said. “I thought sure you mentioned there were more of you.”

“There are!” Tulfa hooted. “Tulfa and the shadowkin! Come, Tulfa will feed you!”

“I suppose he might count shadows as friends,” Rathe said quietly.

“If I might ask,” Loro said to Tulfa, looking more interested, “what sort of food do you have, here in Deepreach?”

“Why, meat, my good Loro! Yes! Yes! Tulfa cooks juicy meat on the bone! Only that and naught more!” The little man scuttled up the steps with far more nimbleness than he had shown coming down. He paused every third step to grin and wave them on.

“Where are you off to?” Rathe asked, when Loro slid out of the saddle.

“To supper. You heard the man. He has meat on the bone. If so, he must also have a better place to sleep than under the sky. And,” he added with a lecherous wink, “mayhap one of these shadow folk is a she who would like to tempt me to sin.”