CHAPTER 92

The smell of straw and manure assaults my senses. Warmth pervades the air, and bodies shuffle in the darkness. Horses neigh and whinny and come paw the ground, scared by the flash of green light that broke their sleep. Observant catches round eyes turning this way and that, and loose outward movement, away from us.

A hand of my shoulder. Essa. I turn to her.

“How did you find me? How did you know?”

“Later,” she whispers. Her face is very close to mine, her eyes attentive and alert. “Where are we?”

“Hollor’s Fall,” I say. “Roark’s Stables. Close to Lysander’s place.”

“You think that’s wise? They will look for us here.”

“No,” I shake my head. “Or they might, but we’ll be long gone. We’re not staying. We just need to find our bearings and see what the situation is outside.”

“The situation?”

I bite my tongue.

“I think something happened to Lysander. No, I know something happened to Lysander. When I tried to travel to his place, I—it didn’t work.”

Essa holds still for a moment, thinking. Then she nods.

“And the stables? Is the person here trustworthy?”

I grimace.

“I don’t know. It was a location. I didn’t want to say Hollor’s Fall and not know where we’d end up.”

“Alright. We should move, then. Hilde, are you ready?”

Silence.

Essa and I react at the same time, possibly feeling the same panic. We crouch, whisper her name, touch the strawy floor we’re standing on. A terrible thought assaults me.

Rue?

Yes, Malco?

Relief, sudden and welcome.

Can you see Hilde?

Yes, Malco. She’s lying on the floor a few paces to your right. She seems cold.

I dart the way my Familiar indicates and reach down to touch Hilde’s shoulder. She’s shaking; a single continuous shiver that rumbles through her like her skin is made of Rue. I crouch down next to her, whispering her name over and over, going around her lush beard to find her icy neck and a blissfully busy artery.

Thank the gods.

“M-Malco?” she mumbles, shifting under my touch.

“Hilde! Are you alright? You’re cold.”

“Side-effect. I did it, Malco,” she says. The faint lines of her face shift. I can barely perceive it, but still I can tell she’s smiling. “I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Caligomancy! I summoned it! I was in control!”

I smile right back at her.

“And you were awesome,” I say without a touch or hue of irony. “In every sense. You saved me.”

She chuckles.

“That I did. It was good to finally getting my hands on Valkas. Shame I couldn’t get Meriana too.”

I pat her hand.

“Don’t worry. Someone did.”

And hopefully made it out of the keep after.

I held the shivering dwarf up, then, stumbling and groping our way, we follow Essa down the straw-covered passage. The building is asleep, and the village beyond it as well. There are no sounds beyond the soft, worried neighs of the animals, our muffled steps, and the swish of the war mantle through the straw.

Essa reaches the end of the passage and touches the wide barn doors, which produce a thin metallic clicking.

“Locked,” she whispers.

“Let me,” I say. “Rue, lockpick-shape, please.”

I move to the door and feel my way to the lock before inserting Rue in the opening. It’s a heavy lock, but easy to dismantle. The Lockpicker Perk is halfway through telling me what to do before a click sounds to my right. A very ominous click.

“First time I catch someone trying to get out,” says a gruff, conversational voice. “If you fellas would please raise your hands, this doesn’t have to become any uglier than it is.”

I sense Essa move behind me. Ready to strike.

“Is this Roark?” I say quickly.

“Name’s above the door, innit?” the gruff voice answers. “Good one. Not every robber who can read two words together. You’ll get good use of those eyes when we chop yer hands off, won’t you?”

“Actually, I’m down one already,” I say. “I’m Malco. Lysander’s Challenger? Gedden introduced us.”

There is a shift in the shadow that is Roark.

“Lysander’s Challenger? The lad who rode out of Hollow House on a black stallion some time ago?”

“It was a grey mare. Firebrand.”

A pause and a mutter. I passed the test.

A bright beacon flares up in the corner of the stables, illuminating Roark’s face. The man is wrapped in heavy wool against the chill and holding a candle in one hand. A crossbow lays on his lap, and though it’s not trained on us, Roark’s free hand never wanders far from the trigger.

“It is you. Gods, lad, I almost put a bolt in your eye. What in the hells are you doing in my stables?”

“Lysander disappeared,” I blurt out. “I came to find him. We shouldn’t stay long; we should get in the forest. The Black Sword is looking for us.”

“The Black Sword is already here,” Roark replies. “And the forest? Lad, the forest’s gone mad. That troll m’lord brought in, he’s shown himself for who he is, didn’t he? Closed off the road with his magic, and now everything is thorns and gloom.”

Is it worse than I thought? Or is it exactly as I thought it would be? I knew something must have happened in Hollor’s Fall.

“And Lysander?”

Roark frowns.

“M’lord is gone. I was damn near the last to see him, too. He stopped by to get a horse, all in a rush, then rode up the road –when there was still a road, mind. No one’s seen him since. There was a fire shortly after, coming from within the forest, but when we went to make sure all was right, the road vanished, the thorns grew. We weren’t allowed to pass.”

“Hollow House burned down?” I ask.

Roark nods.

“That’s what I reckon.”

That’s why the amulet didn’t work. Why I couldn’t travel to the House. If I’d said anything else –Reach, Hollor’s Fall, blasted Ready Roderick’s…

That way lies too deep a sorrow. Too deep for now.

“You said there were Godtouched here. Black Sword. They’re patrolling? Bossing people around?”

“Patrolling! Pfeh,” Roark spits on the straw. “Patrolling the taverns, maybe. Chasing after the young people. Bunch of bastards. Never would have happened with m’lord around.” Roark’s face contorts in worry. “You reckon he’s alright? I know he cannot die, not for long, but maybe those bastards did something to him, do you think?”

I shake my head, but it’s Essa who answers.

“Regardless of what happened to Lysander, Valkas is on his way, if he’s not here already. He lost three Challengers at a stroke. Not something he’s likely to forgive and forget.”

“You’re right. And the forest is our only option. Road or not, we need to find out what happened to Lysander.”

Roark hesitates, but nods.

“As you please, as you please,” he says. “You’re close enough now. I’ll open the gate and you just go straight up, you’re not five minutes from—”

A sudden flash cut him off, painting the world in green through the slits in the stable doors.

“Godtouched arriving,” Roark whispers. “In the village square.”

A series of flashes follows. Soon enough, we hear raised voices, commands being issued, tasks being distributed. They’re here.

“We need to go now,” I say. “They don’t know where we are, but it’ll be easy to surround the village and start searching buildings.”

“Won’t they see us now, already?” Essa asks. “They’ve got magic lights.”

“I c-can make darkness,” Hilde says, who so far had been shivering to herself and letting us speak. “Darkness their light can’t break through.”

“If you’re sure, I’ll show you the back door, then,” Roark says, standing and walking past us. “Avoid the road up. The way is harder if you go around it, but you can put houses between you and anyone who’s looking.”

We follow him down the path we’d come. Roark walks into an empty enclosure, watched by many round and frightened eyes. He moves a few boxes around, revealing a small door, which he opens with a heavy key.

“Out you go. Straight up. I can’t speak for when you reach the forest, though. I trust you know what you’re doing.”

We pass single file through the small passage into the cool night air. Shouts echo in sleepy Hollor’s Fall. As we stand to orient ourselves, there comes the crack of broken wood followed by a piercing scream.

“Bastards,” Roark mutters behind us.

“We should do something,” Essa hisses. “It’s not right.”

She’s right. We can’t let Valkas torture these people to find us.

“Roark,” I say. “Give us a few minutes, then run and tell the Godtouched you saw us go up the road.”

The stablemaster stops and scratches his chin with thick fingers.

“Don’t think I shall, young master. Seems dear close to betrayal. I might say you went into the plains, towards Olvion.”

“The plains are too open. They’ll take your horses and cover the distance in no time. Valkas isn’t going to be gentle about this. He doesn’t know where we went for sure. He probably sent people here but also into Red Harbor, and—”

And Reach. Godsdamnit.

“You need to let us know you saw us. It’ll spare pain and it’ll force him to focus his efforts.”

“Focus his efforts on you,” Roark points out.

“Yes. It won’t matter much. If we make it to Lysander and rescue him, that’s enough. Hopefully we can do it before Valkas’ people catch up to us.”

The stablemaster still doesn’t look convinced, but I can see in his eyes that his conviction has cracked. He sighs.

“I’ll give you as long as I can,” Roark says. “If things start to get out of control, I’ll say I saw you go up. Maybe they’ll find tracks and that’ll be enough to leave the village alone.”

The ‘maybe’ hangs in the air like a mote of dust, suspended on our collective disbelief. But it’s the best plan, no matter Rue’s buzzing insistence that we ‘Just kill them’.

To a gesture from Hilde, a globe of darkness envelops us. Like someone draped a cloth over the world, everything turns to black.

“One second,” Hilde mutters. And then, “There. I can see now. Grab my shoulder and move in a l-line. I’ll try to move quick.”

I hold onto Essa, who holds onto Hilde, and we start moving through weeds, then tall grass. Almost imperceptibly, the path shifts up, and we begin to climb.

“Doesn’t this just look like a black ball rolling up a hill?” Essa asks.

“It’s cloudy,” Hilde answers. “This doesn’t look like anything at all, and magic darkness keeps magic light at bay. Sometimes.”

“Oh, sometimes,” Essa mutters snidely.

“Hey,” I interrupt before things get out of hand. “How did you two find me? How did you even know I needed finding?”

I feel Essa’s shoulder jump under my hand when she chuckles without a trace of humor.

“Valkas isn’t exactly subtle when he’s in a mood, you know? My tail about doubled at some point in the evening. And after a while they just asked me to come with them to Valkas’ office. The place was a mess, and Hilde was already there.”

“I could hear people walking outside my door for a while,” Hilde says. “Valkas’ guard. At some point they just opened the door and ordered me out, took me to the office. They were talking about you, saying that you’d broken in somewhere. Valkas was sending people to all sorts of places.

“And then a guy came running. Said he’d seen you in the private workrooms. Valkas bolted out of there followed by an army. And that was that.”

I shake my head to myself.

“That’s not that,” I say. “You turned into a fog monster!”

“Well, yes,” she says from up ahead. “Essa and I talked and decided that we had to save you. And I finally managed to activate my Caligomancy.”

“She was amazing,” Essa says fervently. “I was basically doing clean-up the whole way.”

“I finally got how it works. I have to spend time in darkness, in gloominess, to absorb it. And I’d been spending a lot of time doing that—Oh. We’re here.”

“Here?”

“The woods start here,” Hilde says. “Take a few more steps and we’ll be under the treeline.”

“Thorns?”

“They’re there. Doesn’t seem inviting, but I’m positive we can make it through.”

I nod in case Hilde’s watching. Then I point my hand up.

“I don’t think Roark is going to tell anyone he saw us. Do you?”

Their silence is enough answer.

“Get ready to go, then,” I say.

I cast the Incendiary Dart into the sky, imagine it blazing fiercely against the night until it dissipates. A beacon for all to see.

Cries sound down in the village. A moment later, Hilde starts walking again, and we move into Mossgreen’s forest.