The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) (25 page)

“Hrejka.”

The sorceress uttered this one word, in the tongue of the Varangian people. It was a language Hywel recognized but had never learned. As he watched, the demon began to quiver. In agitation or maybe pain, he thought at first, from whatever hex the woman had thrown on him.

The quiver became violent, convulsive, as if something inside were tearing its way out. Suddenly, the demon disintegrated in a final combustive burst. And just as suddenly, the carcass of the giant beast shriveled, twisting in on itself until it was nothing but a steaming pile of innards and gnarled bone.

Hywel was impressed by the young woman and her mighty victory, but he was far more concerned that where there was one red fiend, there were likely to be more. He whistled for Aeron, and by the time he had reached the wounded warrior, the black gelding had returned. Hywel offered Goram his hand. “Can yo
u ri
de?”

“Yes,” Goram said, pulling to his feet with Hywel’s help. “But give the horse to her. I will walk.”

“You can try, but you will only slow us down.” The tiny
sorceress
was brave and powerful, but also a little imperious. She turned to Hywel. “We’ll need more horses and all of your men. The nobleman who led the demons down on us has taken the other woman in our party. We might still be able to find their trail.”

“Under what banner did this nobleman march?” Hywel asked, dreading the answer.

Goram hauled himself onto Aeron’s saddle, but he was clearly spent. “His flag was emblazoned with a yellow lion rampant on a field of scarlet.”

Hywel muttered a foul curse. Clydog had sullied the colors of their house. Hywel had underestimated his brother’s hubris. “No need to waste time hunting their trail. I know where they’ve gone.”

“Do you know this man?”

“I do.” Hywel took hold of Aeron’s reins and leveled a kingly look on the young woman. “However, I still do not know you or your friend here.”

“I am Goram, eldest son of Aslak, holder of the oath of the Crwn Cawr Protectorate,” the soldier interceded, “and pledged to the service of Branwen, guardian of the Celestial Realm. This is her daughter.”

“I am both my mother’s legacy and the sole heir to my father’s throne.”

It seemed the tiny sorceress preferred to speak for herself. Hywel was yet even more impressed. He also appreciated the valuable alliances she represented. “By what name do you wish to be known?”

“Raven,” she said, growing impatient. “My name is Raven. Now where is your camp?”

T
WENTY-
F
OUR

G
lain waited until Nerys had closed her chamber door, and then took the service stairs that led to the kitchen. Before she could rest, she needed to understand how nearly all of her friends had come to betray her. At the very least, Euday owed her an explanation.

Several apprentices assigned to the scullery were already preparing the morning meal. Glain skirted the kitchen altogether by way of a small passage leading to an alcove wherein was the entrance to the dungeon. The door had been chained for as long as Glain could remember. Now one guard was stationed at the top of the old stone staircase and another at the bottom.

The steps were steep and fractured from age and disuse, and the air dank. Glain questioned the wisdom of her decision as she descended into this place of lost souls, and then she remembered how much she had opened herself to Euday.

His was the first cell of what appeared to be many, stretching down a narrow dirt-floored corridor that disappeared into blackness. The light from two torches mounted in iron sconces at the bottom of the stairway barely reached the bars. Euday cowered in the darkest corner of his cage, as though he hoped the shadows could protect him.

“A fitting home for a traitor,” Glain said. Bitterness thickened her tone and tinged her words dark and threatening. “A bereft place, a pitiless void—just like my heart.”

Euday did not respond, which only angered her more. Glain took hold of the bars with both hands and rattled the gate, startling him enough that he scuttled even further into his corner.

“I know you hear me, you worm. Just tell me why, Euday, and I will leave you to wallow in your own filth, which is the best favor you will ever have from me again. Why would you forsake the Order? Why would you forsake
me
? Were we
never
friends?”

“How like Madoc you are,” he said, as if it were an insult. “You are so convinced that you know best, that yours is the only way.”

“And how is Machreth any different?” she argued. “He is every bit as self-righteous as Madoc ever was. But Madoc never chose a path based on his own gain. If he erred, he did so believing he was serving the greater good.”

“And how is Machreth any different?” He mocked her with her own words. “His vision also serves a greater good, the good of the Stewardry. What care should we have for the world of men, when they have no care for us? Madoc would have us tie our fates to theirs. Machreth will free us from them.”

“So he can subjugate us himself,” Glain challenged. “How do you not see that?”

Euday lapsed into stubborn silence, and Glain regretted
having
come at all. She had been wrong to think having a
reason
would make the betrayals easier to accept. The hard truth was that none of them had ever truly been her friend—they had curried her favor and used her to further their attempts to aid Machreth. She had been duped, and there was no one to blame for that but herself. Nothing Euday said would make her feel
better
, and besides, it was Ynyr’s explanation she really wanted and would never have.

“I was wrong before,” Glain said, her anger abating in favor of mourning. “I do pity you, Euday.”

“Save your pity for yourself,” he scoffed. “I have made my choice.”

“And you shall suffer for it, Euday.” Glain sighed, truly sorry for him now. “In ways you haven’t even begun to imagine.”

Glain felt heavy with sorrow, so heavy her feet could hardly carry her back up the steps. Her entire body was convulsing with tiny rippling shudders, and the tears refused to be banished. Somehow she managed to keep herself upright and composed until she passed the sentry at the top of the dungeon stairs.

She made it as far as a corner of the alcove near the main corridor, just outside the view of the guard, before the emotions overwhelmed her attempts to contain them. Somehow she managed to maintain enough dignity to nod at the two apprentices she passed in the hallway on her way to the main stairs. Why hadn’t she thought to go back up the service stairs?

By the time Glain reached the second-floor landing, she was so dizzy she could no longer see where she was going. She shoved open the scriptorium door and slipped inside, beyond grateful to find the room empty. Her instincts carried her as far as the nearest chair, and there she collapsed.

Glain muffled herself with the sleeve of her dress, determined not to let a single sob escape. She would be mortified to be discovered in such weakness, but neither could she continue to pretend to be valiant. It felt as if all the horror and fear and grief of the last few months had joined forces against her—just like her friends. She had no one.

Madoc had been taken, and then Rhys had gone, and now Alwen was in need of all the strength she had left. Glain could not bear it. No one could. It was too much to ask, all that she had been through, and yet the struggle seemed no closer to its end than it had months before. Madoc had spoken so devoutly of faith, especially when there was no more hope. But what had his faith gotten him? Betrayal after betrayal, and in the end an icy tomb, that’s what.

Nothing Madoc had intended had come to pass, and if he could not succeed, how could she? Perhaps Madoc had been wrong all along. Perhaps fate meant for them to fail. It no longer mattered, one way or another. Glain no longer cared if Madoc’s testament were ever found. She no longer wanted any part of his legacy. She had never been worthy of it anyway. How had he not realized it? Faith was worse than nothing when it was misplaced, and Glain knew this better than anyone.

Odwain had a difficult time of it, giving Goram and Raven the news from home. Thorvald had been sent to retrieve them long before the Fane had come under attack, long before Madoc had fallen. He avoided the more unpleasant events, especially those that hurt him most to recall, and he did not see the need to expose Cerrigwen to their judgment. Nor did either of them need to bear any more sorrow than they were already carrying.

Hywel waited for Odwain to finish giving his account and th
en gathe
red Cerrigwen and his lieutenants around them.
Gor
am’s wou
nds had been stitched and dressed, and he seemed to
have had a restful night, but Hywel still made a point of
accommodating
his comfort. Hywel’s less than subtle efforts to
encourage
the young sorceress to busy herself elsewhere,
however
, went unheeded. Raven insisted that she remain at her friend’s side.

Odwain found the stalemate between Hywel and Raven amusing. He had observed now on several occasions that Hywel had a particular admiration for mages, one that held his ego and arrogance in check. Though he never actually deferred to them, he did respect them. And this particular mage seemed to have impressed Hywel more than most. And so it was that the young sorceress was permitted to stay.

“You say my brother has command of these Hellion soldiers?” Hywel was having difficulty digesting this. “They answer to him?”

“Blindly,” Goram explained. His voice was strained from the pain, but he was no longer in danger of dying. “So much so that I am surprised we encountered that last one. Soon as the little prince got hold of what he had come for, the slaughter ended and the entire contingent left with him.”

“Ffion,” Cerrigwen said. She had been quiet these three days past, but an emotional tumult roiled just below the surface, threatening to test her restraint. She was fragile. “He came for her.”

“Yes,” Hywel said. “But he will not allow her to come to harm. She is too valuable to him. Ffion is the means to his end.”

Odwain was only now beginning to piece together the underpinnings of the situation. “He intends to supplant you with her?”

“Not directly.” Hywel took a moment to think his logic through. “My first guess is that he plans to use her to manipulate me into some sort of concession. But if Machreth is his benefactor, Clydog will owe him something in return. It could be that ‘something’ is Ffion.”

Cerrigwen stiffened.

Hywel took pity and redirected the conversation, asking her about Goram’s condition. “Can you make him ready to ride by midday?”

“I am ready to ride now,” Goram insisted, forcing himself to sit up.

The young sorceress rose up on her knees for leverage and pushed him back flat with both hands placed squarely in the center of his chest. Either Raven was stronger than she looked, or Goram didn’t have as much fight in him as he wanted everyone to think.

“Midday is soon enough,” she said.

“Well?” Hywel looked to Cerrigwen. “We can’t leave him here.”

Whatever else he might think of Cerrigwen, Odwain had to admit she was a miraculous healer. She had done her best for Eirlys, when the black curse had curled its way through her veins and sucked her into a dark sleep. He had never believed
Cerrigwen
was the cause of it, as others had, but he would never truly trust her. Still, if any healing magic could help Goram, it was hers.

“No, nor could he stay even if he wanted to,” she said, assessing the wounded man and the situation in her thoughts. “His only choice is to continue to Fane Gramarye. If he is anywhere near able, his first and only duty is to get Raven safely there.”

Odwain reinforced her point. “We cannot risk losing another of the Guardians of the Realms.”

“He will be ready,” Cerrigwen said, pulling loose the healer’s bag she kept tied to her belt. “It won’t be a pleasant journey, but he will survive it.”

Hywel’s lieutenant tipped his chin toward Cerrigwen. “But can this sorceress fend off the demon army?”

Odwain wanted to laugh at the sheer naïveté of it. Whatever the younger sorceress had done, it could not compare to the power Cerrigwen could wield, even without the help of her
amulet
. “She is all the magic we need.”

Cerrigwen offered the slightest of nods in Odwain’s
direction
and then set to preparing her concoctions. He then spoke to Goram. “Have you had any word at all from your father? Aslak was dispatched weeks ago to intercept your party with news of the insurrection.”

“He met us some miles inland, half a day after we landed on the shores of Mercia.” Goram said. “He gave us the route we were to take to the Fane, before heading southeast to join some other warrior in search of the last guardian. The plan was to meet again along this path, before it joins the market road. It seems we got here first, as there has been no sign of him so far.”

“It is not safe to wait,” Hywel said. “Not without more men, and I can spare you none. Take your sorceress home, Goram, and report to Alwen all that has transpired here. We will press on toward Cwm Brith by way of the route you were to travel. And should we encounter Aslak along the way, I will recount to him what has happened.”

Goram accepted this with the stoic suffering Odwain had come to admire in all of the men of the Cad Nawdd. One man’s sacrifice was nothing when held against the loss the world would know should they fail to bring the guardians together. At least that was what Odwain told himself in the darkness of his own mind. So much loss and so little time taken for grieving were taking its toll on them all.

Hywel waved the conversation to the side so that Cerrigwen could focus her attention on Goram. “I want this camp struck and cleared before noon. We will follow this path as far as the trade road, to honor my word. But then we take to the woods again until we reach Cwm Brith. Tomorrow night should see us where we need to be.”

“Will your plan still work,” his lieutenant asked, “now that we’ve demons against us as well?”

Hywel shrugged. “Once we are inside the walls, all we need to do is find the girl and kill my brother. How hard can that be?”

There was a moment of sober silence while each of them calculated their chances. Odwain couldn’t be sure who snorted first, but they all knew the whole idea was just shy of impossible. There was a chuckle, and then Hywel broke out in a whole-hearted
guffaw
. Soon they were all lost to laughter, but the relief was short. There were beds to bundle and horses to saddle. Come midday, nerves would be tight and tempers short as they rode the final miles to Cwm Brith.