Forge of Darkness

Rint could see the old blinds, constructed from piled stones, arcing in fragmented lines along slopes overlooking the old migration tracks. He could see signs of runs where beasts had been cut away from the main herd and driven off cliffs. Here and there, massive boulders rested atop hills, each one bearing painted scenes of beasts charging and dying, and stick figures wielding spears; and yet upon not one of these wrinkled tableaux was there a line denoting solid ground. Instead, these remembered hunts, these eternal images of slaughter, all floated in a dream world, uprooted and timeless.



Only a fool would not see death in such art. No matter how enlivened the beasts depicted, they were all long gone, slain, carved up and devoured, or left to rot. To look upon them, as he did when he and his companions rode past, was to see a dead hand’s longing for life, but a life belonging to the past. Every scene was a broken promise, and upon these hills now had settled a pall of silence.



If the dead spoke to the living, they did so in an array of frozen images, and this doomed them to themes of loss and regret. He well understood Feren’s warning. This was a gristle one could chew without end.



Lifting his gaze, his eyes narrowed. The eastern sky was grey, smudging the line of the horizon. He thought back to the Jhelarkan’s words and felt something grow taut within him.



‘Is that smoke?’ Ville asked.



Rint nudged his mount to a faster pace, and the others joined him. There was nothing worth saying. The chattering of speculation would simply give voice to fear and so fill the gut with bile. Smoke hung above Riven Keep. It could be as simple as a grass fire, spreading out across the plain.



His home was in the village below the fortification. There he would find his wife and his child, and discover anew their place in his life. Nothing needed to be the same as it had once been. Their nights of indifference and hard silence would be behind them now. Rint finally understood the gift she was to him, and now that they had made a child he would look with clear eyes upon all that was precious and sacred.



No longer would he flee her company, escaping into the wilds. He would make the future different from the past. For every person, change was within reach. He had made his journey and it would be the last one he would make. His future was at his wife’s side.



I have sworn vengeance against Draconus. But I will join my sister and put away my sword. I, too, am done with this.



By midday, they had ridden out from the hills on to flat land. The way ahead was wreathed in smoke. The smell did not belong to a grass fire. It was rank, oily.



The four Borderswords broke into a fast canter.



In his head, Rint uttered a list of vows to his wife and to his newborn child. The list began and ended with a vision of him standing with her, in a home emptied of his anger, the temper he could never quite control. And he saw the guardedness leaving her eyes, her hand leaving the grip of her knife which she had drawn countless times to defend herself against his rages. He saw a world of peace, floating as if painted on stone. The hand that could paint the past could paint the future. Rint meant to prove it.



‘Riders on our left!’



At Ville’s shout Rint turned, rose on his stirrups. Directly north was the long line of a dust cloud.



‘Must be the hunting party,’ Galak said. ‘Abyss below! There was no one at Riven!’



My wife. My child.



The distant riders were converging on them, and Rint now saw that they were Borderswords. No. No. He pushed his mount into a gallop, fixed his eyes eastward, to that dark smudge that was Riven Keep. But the tower was mostly gone, only one wall rising to two-thirds its original height, black as charcoal against the grey sky.



It was just one more damned argument. I rushed out, thinking only of escape lest I tear the knife from her grasp. And there was the call, a summons from Lord Draconus, who wanted an escort into the west. I found Feren. I badgered her into joining me. We needed to get away.



My wife’s face is burned in my mind. It was fear that made it a stranger’s face. It had always been fear that took away the face I knew.



I was running. Again.



Life was easier out there. Simpler. Feren was rotting, drinking too much. I had my sister to think of -



All at once, there were more riders crowding them, the thunder of horse hoofs almost deafening. As if from a vast distance, Rint heard Ville shouting.



‘Traj! What has happened?’



‘Lahanis found us — she escaped the slaughter — the villagers, Ville — they’re all dead!’



Someone howled, but even that sound was muffled, quickly swept away. The hammering of horse hoofs upon hard ground was a roar in Rint’s skull. Lahanis. He knew that name. A young woman, fast with her long-bladed Hust knife, but too young still to ride with the adults. A Bordersword in waiting who lived up the street.