Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

“This might be the place,” he said when his crew caught up. “Keep your wits about you and your weapons close at hand.”

Aemon pulled on the hilt of his sword. It took him three hard yanks to loosen the frozen blade. Seeing this, the others looked to their weapons as well. Caim reached behind him, but his knives came free at a touch. He led the party deeper into the woods.

Trees blocked out all but narrow patches of the dark sky. There was no trail or path, so Caim made his own, leading his horse around the massive boles. Egil hiked beside him, navigating the woods with ease.

“You have any idea where we are?” Caim asked.

“Some, but no one I know has ever been this far north. If you get caught hunting up here, you're like to lose your hands, if not your head.”

“Great,” Malig said. “This place just gets more and more inviting. You thinking of building a little house up here, Caim?”

As Caim opened his mouth to make a terse reply, he saw something through the trees ahead. A plinth of stone rose from the snow fifty paces away. “There's something up ahead.”

The others squinted in the dark. “What is it?” Dray asked.

Caim shushed him and slid down from the saddle. He didn't sense danger, but it was all too quiet. The wind had dropped away as if the forest was holding its breath.

Caim tossed his reins to Aemon. “Follow close and stay quiet.”

Moving across the frozen snow, which crunched under his heels no matter how he tried to be quiet, Caim approached the plinth. It was taller than he first assumed, being about twice the height of a man. It was made of green-gray stone, worn and mottled with lichen. Looking through the trees to either side, Caim saw another, shorter plinth fifty paces to the east, and a pile of tumbled stones beyond that. Their positions lined up almost perfectly. He stepped back with a fresh perspective. These stones had once been part of a wall extending through the forest. Then he saw a building beyond the plinth, half-shrouded by the trees. It was difficult to make out, but he thought there were more structures beyond it. Caim pulled Egil aside.

“I don't know about any towns this far north,” the guide said. “Not except the dark lord's citadel.”

Caim peered through the trees. Was this his destination? He didn't see any inhabitants. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen any animals since entering the forest either, nor heard their cries. The woods were quieter than a graveyard.

He shook his head to clear away these distracting thoughts. He knew what had to be done. Caim glanced at Aemon and the others. “I'm going in. Count to fifty and then follow me.”

Caim moved ahead with careful steps, hand on the pommel of his seax knife, as he followed the pull's tether toward the buildings. He reached the outer corner of the first structure without trouble. The roof and two outer walls were collapsed, leaving half a shell made of the same stone as the plinths. Square windows gaped at him. The next nearest building was a score of paces away; three of its walls still stood, along with half of an interior partition. The snow between them was unbroken. Caim was about to cross the distance, but something held him back. He looked out at the expanse of whiteness, and then it hit him.

The shadows.

They were all around, clustered in the trees, in the windows of the shattered buildings. Their voices whispered in his ears. Caim exhaled a cloud of steam as he watched them. Whatever this place used to be, the shadows were very interested in it, and that didn't reassure him. But the others were catching up. He kept moving.

From the cover of the next building, Caim saw more broken constructions ahead, dozens of them ranging in size from modest homes to sprawling edifices that could have been palaces. The structures were lofty, and the existing stonework was elaborate with scrollwork and other decorative touches, unlike anything else he'd seen in the north. There was an open space farther down from his position with a few broken columns visible through the gloom. The ruins looked centuries old. What had happened here? Plague? War was the most likely answer, but none of the tribes they'd encountered were capable of this level of architecture. Had another people lived in these lands once? In the tales he'd been fed as a child, the Northlands were supposed to be the abode of goblins and spooks, but this city was real enough.

The others caught up to him, all of them holding a weapon. Even Egil had his hunting knife out.

“We're not stopping here for the night, are we?” Malig asked.

“Why?” Dray smiled. “You scared the spirits of the wood are going to get you, Mal?”

Malig scowled. “Go sod yourself. I'm not worried about no woods.”

Caim winced as their voices carried over the faint clack of the wind through the branches. Aemon spoke up. “I feel like there's something breathing down my neck.”

“What are you talking about?” Dray asked. “There hasn't been anyone living here in a long damned time.”

Aemon rolled his shoulders. “I don't know, but I feel it. Like we're being watched.”

Caim glanced at the nearest shadows as the same feeling itched at the nape of his neck. “We'll look around. But stay together and keep the horses saddled for now.”

“Can we make a light?” Dray asked. “I can't see shit.”

“Just one lantern, and be ready to shutter it if I give the word.”

Caim waited while Aemon dug out a lantern and struck a spark to the wick. He wanted to range ahead on his own, but there was something odd here. The ruins appeared empty, except for the shadows. Caim wished he knew the reason behind their sudden appearance. Was this place somehow connected to the Shadowlands? He didn't know, and that ignorance always found a way to kick him in the head. And he had driven Kit away…

Caim pushed away from the safety of the building and approached the open area, which he soon realized was a plaza, perhaps even the ancient city's main square. Each of the plaza's four sides was fronted by a huge structure. They might have been temples, or halls of government. With their broken roofs and leaning columns, he didn't relish the thought of entering them to explore.

As Caim prowled the edge of the square, the tugging in his head intensified to where he could hardly think straight. It beckoned him across the plaza, which was empty except for a vertical stone near the center. Taller and more slender than the plinths outside, it looked like the kind of stele used to commemorate important events. Othir was filled with them, chiseled with the heroics of dead generals and politicians. Caim had started across the snow toward it when the others entered the plaza. The lantern's cold light reflected off icicles hanging from the rooftops. The shadows on the entablature above their heads shifted, looking like nothing so much as a flock of blackbirds. Watching them.

The stele's surface was weathered and covered in ice. Caim was so intent on studying it that he almost didn't see the eight-foot-wide pit yawning before it. Pulling back from the brink, he peered over the side, but couldn't see a bottom to the stone shaft falling down into the darkness.

“What'd you find?” Aemon asked as he walked over. He had left the lantern with the others; Egil held it now, turning it to flash across the building fronts.

Caim was turning to answer when a huge, black shape flew up from the mouth of the pit. At first Caim registered it as a flock of bats disturbed from their lair, but then he caught a glimpse of curled talons raking toward his eyes. Without time to move, he threw an arm over his face and grunted as something heavy rammed into him from the side. A shock of long yellow hair flew across his vision, and then he was on the icy ground.