His Ancient Heart (3 page)

"So you get him to the palace walls. Then what? He can't climb with one arm."

"I'll climb the wall and open the gate for him. I need Oz with me. He is made of ircidium, impervious to magic. If Overlord Prezi catches me..."

"If she catches you, one juggernaut won't help. There is an entire army behind those walls. Anyway, it isn't impervious. I cut through its leg to help repair it."

"
He
will have sent them out in search of us. It will be a small garrison at best. And, you had to focus your power into the smallest point to get through the metal. Even if the Overlord did the same, it would take hours."

"I don't like it." Wilem looked back at Eryn. She was laying on the simple mattress where Davin and Saretta once slept.

"I don't like it either. The truth is... there is a very good chance I will not succeed. If that happens..." He didn't want to say what he knew he must. "If that happens, don't let her change. Do you understand?"

Wilem's face paled, and tears pooled in his eyes. He put his hand on Eryn's. "I won't."

"Swear it, my boy. Swear it on all our lives. That General wanted her for a reason. He wanted her to change, and to have control over her once she did."

"I know. I... I understand. I have a dagger. If I must, I will."

Silas nodded. "If you could give me a moment alone with her."

Wilem bowed slightly and left the small hole, climbing out to stand with Oz. Silas knelt down beside Eryn and clasped her cold, rough hand between both of his.
 

"Forgive me, child, if my efforts fail. Forgive an old fool for the ruination of this world." The tears dropped from his face onto the straw. He sat with his eyes closed for a minute, and then rose.
 

There was no time to waste.

CHAPTER FIVE

Spyne

"I will ask you again. Have you seen him?" Spyne asked.
 

The villager was young and pretty. She cowered before him and his Historians, clutching her arms across her chest to hide her body, bared with the tip of a blade.

The one they called Worm hovered next to her, dagger in hand. He was the youngest of the Historians, the coldest. He was small and slight, his entire body marked in ink - patterns and pictures, sharp angles and lines, skulls, bones, blades, and blood.

He was expressionless, emotionless, while he waited for Spyne's orders. The General sat on his charger a dozen feet away, five other men and Worm's horse aligned behind him. His Historians, the most well-trained, capable, and hard men culled from
his
army of thousands. They all shared the same thick beard and cold eyes. They all rode in full armor at all times, just like their General. All except Worm.

Dozens of the residents of Chaston stood around them, crowding tight together, ready to aid her once the General was done with his questioning. The villager's father was at the head of the line, his eyes raining tears, his face red with anger and embarrassment.

Spyne's eyes flicked across them. He knew the girl hadn't seen Talon. He knew none of them had. The key to control was fear, and by scaring them now they would be more honest with him later, perhaps even sending someone to him should the Liar make his way through the area.

Cutting away her bodice... He thought he would have enjoyed that. There was a time when he had, but time had stolen his simple pleasures. Now it took more, so much more to overcome the darkness that stirred inside him. The uncontrollable anger. The overarching hate.

"I... I haven't, my Lord. I swear on my life."

"Do you swear on your chastity?" Colonel Peyn asked from Spyne's right, following it with a rough laugh.
 

The question alone caused the girl to fall to her knees and sob.

"We would know if the man you described passed through here, my Lord," her father said from the crowd. "Please, leave her be."

Peyn slid easily from his mount and stormed over. "Are you giving me orders?" he screamed in the man's face.

"N..no... no, my Lord. My apologies." The man knelt on the ground, his head lowered.
 

Spyne watched as Peyn drew his bright ircidium blade and removed the man's bowed head. He could feel the entire crowd hold their breath while they watched the body collapse. The girl screeched and passed out, leaving herself exposed. Worm's eyes shifted down for only an instant, and then regained their straight, blank gaze.

"Colonel," Spyne said. "Did I give you permission to draw your weapon?" His eyes remained on the girl's prone body. He studied the soft skin, the smooth rise of her chest, the wrinkled flesh at the tips of her breasts.
 

He felt nothing.

"No, my Lord." Peyn returned his blade to its scabbard. He turned and knelt before his General, his foot resting on the decapitated head. "These villagers need to learn respect, my Lord."

Spyne looked them over again.
 

"I think your lesson has been effective, Colonel." He raised his voice so the gathered crowd could hear. "If ever I hear that the Liar has passed through this village and I have not been informed, you can be assured that all of your men will find themselves missing their heads, and all of your women will find themselves missing their purity. Is that understood?"

They were silent around him. Worm made his way back to his stallion, while Colonel Peyn regained his mount, his face curled into a predatory smile. Spyne flicked the reins, and his heavy charger snorted and turned. The villagers scattered as he ordered it into a full gallop. It was a risk to have wasted these minutes frightening these people, but he wasn't taking chances. He had remembered that there were two routes out of Genesia, and one of them spilled directly towards this hovel.
 

"We should have stayed a while, General," Peyn said, bringing his warhorse alongside. "She was a pretty young thing, I think she could have held up for an hour at least."

"If we had, and we missed Talon Rast for our dalliance, you would be the first one I killed."

Peyn laughed, not because he doubted the General's words, but because he didn't. "It might have been worth it for that one."

Spyne allowed himself to smile. He recruited the hardest of men from his armies, because hard men were the kind of men he needed. A book, a map, a scrap of paper - these were easy things to hide, easy things to deny. They could be secreted away anywhere, and he would rarely be the wiser. It was fear that brought them all in line. None wanted to risk the wrath of the Historians. No tome scribbled in a language they couldn't read was worth watching their wife or daughter be defiled. No ancient clue measured the value of their home remaining unburned, their head remaining connected to their neck.
His
soldiers did the same for the Cursed, but even the Cursed weren't as dangerous as the truth.

He took their threats, and he carried them a step further. He made them more palpable, more real, and more terrifying than simple destruction. He promised pain and anguish, drawn out to his satisfaction.

He was a very hard man to satisfy.
 

Such actions required the most soulless of men. The threats were meaningless without those who wouldn't hesitate to make good on them. Men such as Peyn, Rose, Cain, Ash, Ollie, and Worm.
 

Spyne glanced back at Worm for just a moment, checking on him and yet trying not to be noticed. That one never spoke, not a word, and in his silence he created a fear far deeper than terror. Even Spyne rarely issued him an order, preferring to let him ride, his tattoos hiding every thought and emotion.

Spyne was sure he was a demon in human skin. Born in Heden itself, and dropped from the womb to the world of man because he scared the damned who lived in eternal torment there. He hadn't wanted him as a Historian, but
he
had commanded it, and in time he had seen the wisdom of the decision.
 

Still, he often wondered where the man had come from, certain that he would never know.

He fixed his eyes ahead, scanning the thicker trees rising from the horizon and the small mountains behind them. He felt a small something in his heart. Not anger. A feeling he didn't recognize.

Genesia. Home.
 

It had been a long, long time.

CHAPTER SIX

Silas

It was a faster, easier journey for Silas, now that he knew Eryn would be safe for a while. He moved forward at a light jog, the juggernaut easily keeping pace on its new limb. They skirted the forest between Varrow City and the mines, retreading much of the same ground Eryn had covered on her way to the Dark.
 

Silas hadn't found the answers he was seeking. In fact, he had left with even more questions, the most important being why. They had won the war. They had defeated the Shifters. They could have returned their world to glory while there was still some glory left to it. Why had Jeremiah become a cold-hearted tyrant of a ruler? Why had he agreed to follow?
 

Murderer.

The word spilled into his mind, and he put his hands to his head. It was a word that never left him, even after renouncing his past life. Even after sacrificing himself for Eryn, so that she might see to
his
destruction.
 

The innocents he had slaughtered...
 

If only he knew why.

Murderer.

"It is near." The burst of steam through Oz's grated mouth pulled Silas from his thoughts. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

"What is near?"

"Wizard. It comes." The juggernaut pointed to a small hill. "It is near." Even as it spoke, it lifted the massive sword slung across its back.

Silas scanned the trees. He didn't hear or see anything.

"It is near," Oz repeated.
 

He didn't want to get into a battle with any of
his
soldiers. Not yet. He didn't want them to know they were anywhere near Varrow City.

"This way," he said, leading the metal man away from the hill. "Be quiet."

"It is pleased to be quiet." Oz followed behind him in the strange, shuffling gait that allowed him to stay almost silent, despite the shifting plates of metal and the gears that spun with every motion.

They had managed to get into the brush only moments before a dozen horses crested the hill, a Mediator at its head. A woman with long black hair and the olive complexion of the south. She rode casually, her eyes focused ahead.
His
soldiers rode in formation behind her, in full heavy armor.
 

It was odd to see them fully dressed for battle. Did they know he was near? How could they?
 

"It is coming," Oz said next to him, at little more than a whisper. It pointed in front of them again. Silas watched another contingent of soldiers ride out to greet the first, again with a Mediator at the front, a man... little more than a boy... He appeared to be even younger than Wilem.
 

Silas looked around, searching for an escape route. Even with the power of the juggernaut, they would be hard-pressed to defeat a group this size should they be discovered.
 

"Which way?" the first Mediator asked the second.
 

"It went east, towards the Killorns. Tibbleton is a ruin. The cattle eaten, the village burned."

"Then why are we riding west?"

The second Mediator handed the first a piece of paper. Orders carried by a messenger.

"From General Thornn. The beast came from the mountains, which means that is where we should look for Silas Morningstar and his whore. He is riding east to deal with the monster himself."

Silas pursed his lips and bristled. He hated when they referred to Eryn as a whore. At least now he knew it was the dragon that had brought them out in full armor, though it would do them little good against the monster's breath and claws.
 

They would travel up the mountains and find what was left of the Dark, of Genesia.
 

They would discover that he was days gone.

They stayed hidden from view while the pair of Mediators continued the journey west, the soldiers trailing behind them.
 

"Why would he send them after me?" Silas said under his breath. "Why not go with them?" Thornn had always been the logical, pragmatic one. The most calculating, the most averse to risk. He had to know their chance of success was limited.
 

Unless another of the Nine was already there, or would be soon?
 

"It is confused."

"So am I. Thank you for alerting me to the Mediators. I would have been caught in the open without you."

The juggernaut made a huffing sound that Silas took as a chuckle. "It is pleased to save First of Nine. It is pleased to save its friend."

Silas stared at Oz. Juggernauts were creatures of magic and metal. They didn't have feelings. They didn't have friends. "Friend?"

"It remembers."

"Remembers what?"

"It remembers."

"What do you remember, Oz?"

"It remembers."

Silas kept looking at the dented, rusted face of the creature, waiting for it to say more. It simply stared back at him with its small red eyes.

"Perhaps another time," he said. "We're almost to Varrow City. Come."

"It is pleased to follow First of Nine."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Silas

They reached the hidden entrance to Davin's tunnel without running into any more soldiers. Even so, Silas could hear the commotion in the distance - the sounds of steel and horses and trumpets, the sounds of hundreds of soldiers assembling for march.

He pulled the brush aside, branches and leaves and clumps of grass intended to make the passage invisible from more than a few feet away. Oz waited behind him, motionless and silent save for the occasional burst of steam from his mouthpiece.
 

"It looks like it's still intact," Silas said, pushing aside the last branch and peering inside. It was going to be a cozy fit for Oz, but not an impossible one.