“Dragged here and arranged, my lady,” Anselm sniffed. “See the way they’re set out? I’d guess they form a great circle, a grim border around the keep. It appears some unknown malevolence does not wish us to reach our destination.”

  Guyime saw a fair deal of fear in the knight’s bearing, albeit well controlled. Also, his reasoning appeared sound enough. Perhaps he was no stranger to battle after all.

  “So many,” Orsena said, scanning the arcing procession of corpses.

  “The Ravager’s Black Ledger marks the Vale of Stillwater Lake as both prosperous and populous,” Anselm replied. “A prize worth claiming.”

  “Ravager’s Black Ledger?” Orsena enquired, casting a cautious glance at Guyime.

  “After seizing the throne, the tyrant king ordered his chamberlain to compile a grand ordinance of his kingdom,” Anselm explained. “A count of every subject, great or small, and their possessions, down to every last bean and blade of grass, so the story goes.”

  “A strangely astute act for so renowned a madman,” Orsena observed, Guyime feeling the weight of her eyes upon him.

  “Mad to be sure, my lady,” Anselm agreed. “But also peerlessly greedy by all accounts. To tax a people, you must first learn what they own.”

  Guyime averted his gaze from Orsena’s discomfiting scrutiny, quelling the urge to impart a history lesson. In truth, the object of the Black Ledger hadn’t been efficient taxation but conscription. King Guyime had harboured ambitions of taking his crusade against the Risen Church beyond the borders of his newly acquired realm; the Ravager had intended to become the Conquerer.

  “It was a vast project,” Anselm went on, “continuing long after the Ravager had disappeared off to whatever well-deserved eternal torment awaited him. The name stuck, however, and, despite the passage of years, the Black Ledger remains the most accurate account of the Northern Kingdom.”

  Anselm fell silent, his face betraying both anger and disgust as he viewed the peasant bodies. “Prosperous land yields a grim harvest in troubled times,” he sighed.

  “Laying out so many is a lot of trouble to go to,” Guyime pointed out, keeping any inflection from his voice. Mention of the Black Ledger raised a flood of distracting memories, for not all had welcomed the intrusion of the king’s agents and the Ravager hadn’t stinted in suppressing such resistance. “And labour for many hands. An enemy who commands such strength could simply have attacked us on the road.”

  “I did not come here unprepared, Captain,” Anselm replied. “I’ve accrued many a tale of these eastern rebels. Their wiles are devious and legendarily vicious. I wouldn’t put it past them to slaughter their own folk in such manner. Also, in doing so they deny me my rents and the crops to sustain us.”

  Anselm stiffened, a hard resolution showing in his gaze as it tracked along the line of bodies. “Yet, I will not be diverted,” he said. “I swore on bended knee before the king and the Altar of the First Risen that I would hold Blackfyre Keep for one year, and that is what I will do.”

  Orsena raised an eyebrow at Guyime, her expression as pitying as it was scornful.

  “We should return to the company, my lord,” he said. “To reach the keep before nightfall will require some hard marching, and I’ve no desire to make camp in this downpour.”

  “No doubts, Captain?” Anselm asked. Although clearly a man made foolish by love, he was not completely shorn of insight. “No cautionary words for your employer?”

  Guyime slid the sword into its sheath and shrugged before turning away. “You pay me for neither doubt nor caution.”

  Chapter Five

  The Blackfyre Crypt

  Mercifully, the rain thinned and faded by the time they crested the line of hills that brought them within sight of the Vale of Stillwater Lake. On the far shore, Blackfyre Keep rose like a dark stump from the centre of a teardrop-shaped isthmus extending into the mirror-like surface of the lake. The land beyond the isthmus was a gently sloping expanse of enclosed pasture and densely wooded slopes dotted here and there with houses and barns. Guyime saw no smoke rising from the buildings and the fields were bare of livestock. Also, in accordance with Lakorath’s observation, the air was absent any bird calls.

  “Even the Execration was not so void of life,” Seeker murmured, concern showing in the cast of her eyes as they tracked over the silent view. “Did Ekiri find it this way or make it so?”

  “Questions still unanswered,” Guyime reminded her. “Perhaps she waits for us in the keep.”

  “She doesn’t. Nothing living resides here.” Seeker lowered her head in momentary sorrow before straightening and starting down the slope. “Once again, Pilgrim, we’re too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  Turning, Guyime found Galvin standing nearby. The squire had dismounted and the rain-softened earth concealed the sound of his approach. Yet Lakorath, Guyime assumed due to demonic mischief, had failed to warn him of the man’s presence.

  “The Rite of the Hunter’s Moon,” Guyime replied in bland dishonesty. “A sacred ritual amongst her people, one that can only be observed at a journey’s end.”

  “Who’s Ekiri?” a plainly unconvinced Galvin persisted. He came closer, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword, face darkening with burgeoning suspicion.

  “One of the Beast Charmer gods.” An outrageous lie, since Seeker’s people tended to take violent exception to the notion of worshipping any god. “She hopes to placate them with a successful hunt.”

  “You’ve a skilled tongue when it comes to untruth, Captain.” Galvin’s temper showed in the clipped rasp of his voice and unwavering stare. “But don’t mistake me for a low-born dolt. What is your true purpose here? I’ve seen the purses your band carries. You’ve no need of riches, and I’d wager the scholar and that high-born woman have never soldiered in their lives. You’re no more a mercenary band than I’m a jackanapes.”

  Guyime gestured to the soundless landscape. “But your lord, to whom you are so very devoted, remains in dire need of swords. Now more than ever. And if you can’t see that, then you are a dolt.”

  Galvin’s lips twitched as he contained a snarl, eyes flicking to Anselm. The knight was engaged in affording his soldiers some good-humoured encouragement, waving them towards the keep with a hearty call: “Just another mile or two then we’ll have a feast, eh, lads?”

  “I’ll tolerate no threat to him,” Galvin grated. “Whatever your true reason for coming here, if it endangers him in any way, know that I will kill you, Captain.”

  Lakorath would normally have piped up with a cheerful suggestion of bloody murder at this point, but he either sensed no threat in the squire or found the confrontation beneath his notice. It happened sometimes. When the demon grew bored or distracted by his vast well of memories, the concerns of mortal kind became tiresome and unworthy of comment.

  Guyime was similarly unperturbed by Galvin’s promise. It had been more years than he could easily count since he had feared human violence. “What is it between you?” he asked, eyes shifting between the knight and the squire’s flushed features. “Were you boyhood friends? The son of a castle scullion who became playmate to the lord’s heir, perhaps? Is that what bound you together?”

  “Battle bound us, hireling.” Galvin abandoned his attempt to keep the snarl from his lips, taking a half-step towards Guyime, ugly promise writ large in his glower. “A knight who risks his life to save a lowborn youth pressed into line with scant knowledge of how to even hold a halberd, that knight is worthy of my service.”

  “Even when his hopeless devotion to a cruelly indifferent woman leads you here?”

  Something changed in Galvin’s bearing then, a shift behind his eyes that told of a barb finding its mark. “Lady Elsinora is not cruel,” he rasped. “Do not speak of her again.” The squire took another step closer. “And as for Sir Anselm, if he led me into the Infernus itself I’d follow…”

  “Galvin!” Sir Anselm’s call cut through the squire’s threat. He plodded his destrier towards them, gesturing at the hill behind with weary impatience. “One of the carts has stuck in the mud on the far slope. See to it, would you?”

  Galvin, his face now rigidly bare of emotion, spared Guyime a carefully blank stare before affording Anselm a short bow. “At once, my lord,” he said, striding away.

  Blackfyre Keep had been constructed along ambitious lines, its walls far taller than many a castle raised even by the richest lords. Guyime, no stranger to castles, reckoned its height arose from the confines of the isthmus upon which it sat. The long-vanished Baron Blackfyre, or more likely, his hired architect, had evidently seen the wisdom of building up where they couldn’t build out. Consequently, the castle retained a good deal of its majesty despite the depredations of many years neglect. Yet, as they traversed the narrow spit of land separating keep from shore, Guyime saw clearly that its imposing walls were merely a facade for what was, undeniably, a ruin.

  The baron’s builders had rightly seen little utility in digging a ditch to the front of the main gate, since the constricted nature of the approach would spell doom for any attacking force. However, the gate itself was gone, great rusted iron hinges in the brickwork the only evidence of its prior existence. Beyond lay a lower courtyard rich in moss-covered stone and sprouting weeds. It surrounded a bailey consisting of a narrow, rectangular tower. The outer walls were tumbled in many places, creating deep, jagged ravines in the battlements. However, the inner tower appeared to retain its original height. Guyime concluded the outer walls had served to deflect the worst of the elements, protecting the tower’s foundations and saving it from a shattering fall.

  Despite this, a brief glance was enough to convince him that Blackfyre Keep was an indefensible relic requiring a year or more of repairs before it could hope to repel even a minor assault.

  “Magnificent!” Sir Anselm enthused upon guiding his mount through the vacant arch of the gate. Once again his youth became apparent as he gazed around at his new holdfast, eyes bright. “Stands taller than any castle in the west, wouldn’t you say, Galvin?”

  “That I would, my lord.”

  “Some careful labour,” Anselm went on, dismounting and tugging his leather gloves from his hands, “and I fancy this will do very well indeed.” He turned to Guyime with a raised eyebrow. “Eh, Captain?”

  Had honest counsel been his object, Guyime would have told this earnest knight errant to abandon this place and go home. If he was intent on staying, then felling trees and raising a wooden stockade atop the tallest nearby hill would have served him better than cloistering his force in this tumbledown trap. However, since honesty was not required here, Guyime’s reply was anything but.

  “Careful labour indeed, my lord,” he agreed with a sage nod. “With your permission, my band will make a close inspection of the castle. Lexius has a peerless eye for architecture and will furnish a list of the most urgently needed works by morning.”

  “Excellent.” Anselm slapped his gloves to his palm. “Whilst I shall tour the battlements for a time. Get a lay of the land, eh? Galvin, see to the disposition of the men and make sure you put a stop to any more fearful grumbling. I’ve been hearing too much of that lately.”

  “I’ll see to it, my lord.” The squire’s response was prompt and brisk, although his narrowed gaze lingered on Guyime as he spoke. “Close inspection, is it?” he enquired when Anselm strode off to mount the steps to the broken battlement. “Looking for something?”

  “Merely to do my paymaster’s bidding.” Guyime returned Galvin’s stare with one of his own. This man’s clever insights were becoming intrusively tiresome. “You have your orders, squire.”

  Galvin spared him a glower of understated rage before turning to assail a cluster of men-at-arms with a flurry of commands. Guyime ensured he was out of earshot before beckoning to Lexius and the others.

  “Whatever the map led us to is likely to be in there,” Guyime said, nodding to the tower. “It would be best if none of our comrades witnessed the finding. Master Druid, be so good as to loiter here, and conjure a distracting gale or two if any stray too close before we return.”

  “And once we’ve found it?” Orsena asked. “Whatever it might be.”

  “It’s a sword,” Seeker stated, features hard and voice flat with disappointment. “If Ekiri came here, she didn’t stay. I’d know if she had. He expects to find another sword.”

  “Even so,” Orsena said. “My question stands.”

  “Once we claim the sword,” Guyime said, “we will have what we came for and the map will reveal our next steps which, I’m sure,” he paused to offer Seeker an encouraging grimace, “will lead us to Ekiri.”

  “Meaning we just take it and leave these men to their fate.” Orsena’s smooth brow took on a judgemental crease. “Having accepted coin to ensure their protection. It requires no magical insight to see that there’s an ill-omen to this place. The very air stinks of doom. I may not be a natural-born child of Atheria, your highness, but I am still Atherian. In my city, a contract means something.”

  “Yes,” Guyime returned. “Usually it means servitude and exploitation by a caste above all laws. We are not in your city now, Ultria, and these men would have met their fate without any assistance from us. Our shared mission is above one knight’s lovelorn delusions.”

  He turned to Lorweth, not allowing her the interval to reply. “Master Druid, keep watch.”

  The tower’s interior was predictably gloomy and required the lighting of torches to find their way.

  “Stairwells and upper floors appear to be intact, at least,” Lexius observed. The torchlight gleaming on his lenses gave him an owlish appearance as he made a tour of the hall that occupied the building’s lowermost tier. “Sturdier construction than anything in Carthula,” he added, running a hand over walls crafted from boulder-sized slabs of dark granite. “This could stand forever.”

  “Nothing stands forever,” Guyime told him. “Live long enough and you get to witness once-great statues and temples fall to dust.”

  “Or once-unified kingdoms subside into war and lawlessness,” Orsena commented in pointed annoyance. He couldn’t tell if her pique arose from her ethical quandary or finding herself no longer occupying a position of unquestioned authority.

  “Quite,” Guyime said, deciding there was little need to antagonise her further. He raised his torch higher, revealing more of their surroundings. He recognised it as the main chamber of this keep, the place where the long-extinct Barons of Blackfyre had once convened council or heard petitions from bondsmen and peasants. The fine tapestries that once adorned the walls were now surely just dust on the flagstones, along with the long tables and chairs where family retainers feasted. Guyime’s own chamber had been of larger dimensions, for his family had not been lacking in wealth, yet the similarity stirred an unexpected pang of memory.

  He recalled how Loise had delighted in preparing the feasts, a task he was happy to leave in her hands since he found it so tedious. She would pay special attention to the seating arrangements, placing longtime friends in careful proximity to sometime enemies. In other castles this might have resulted in conflict, but few were roused to anger in Loise’s company for she possessed a gift for resolving even bitter disputes with just a few words. Castle Matthile had been his to rule, but anything of worth that ever happened within its walls was the fruit of his wife’s labour. Not that it saved her from the stake and the flames.

  “There’s another stairwell here,” Lexius said, torch revealing a narrow doorway and a descending set of stone steps. Guyime found himself grateful for the scholar’s echoing voice for it staunched the impending flood of memories.

  “So,” Orsena said, pursing her lips as she contemplated the stairwell before glancing at the ceiling. “Down or up?”

  “Down,” Guyime said, stepping through the doorway. “It’s always down.”

  The stairwell described a gradual curve as it descended into the bowels of the keep. Long experience of underground places stirred expectations of thick cobwebs and scurrying rats, but, when the stairs ended and opened out into a low-ceilinged chamber, it transpired that the vaults of this place were as lifeless as the rest of it.

  “The crypt of the Blackfyre family, I assume,” Lexius said as the combined light of their torches revealed a row of sarcophagi. The lid of each bulky stone box was adorned with a carved relief of a knight clutching a sword, the nearest being the most accomplished in its craftsmanship.

  “The ghostly Lord Orwin’s father,” Lexius mused, eyes tracking over the crest above the bearded stone features.

  Guyime felt a small flare of disappointment at this. Since beginning this journey he had entertained the notion that Sir Lorent Athil might have fulfilled his long-cherished dream of coming here to claim the cursed keep. Perhaps that most noble soul had made himself lord of this land and found the peace that eluded him in life. Now it was clear that, if Lorent had ever come here, he hadn’t felt minded to stay, not that Guyime found it surprising. Bereft of the beautiful and fierce Lady Ihlene, Lorent would ever be a lost and unsettled soul.

  “If this place is home to ghosts and spectres,” Orsena said, casting a glance at their shadowed surroundings, “this would seem the mostly likely spot for them to linger.”

  Guyime moved further into the crypt, eyes slipping from one abstract confluence of light and gloom to another. He had felt the touch of phantoms before yet sensed no such chill here. Even so, there was an undeniable weight to the air, a discomfiting itch that told of proximity to unseen, perhaps unknowable threats.

  “It could be no more than a weaving of age-old fable, my lord,” Lexius suggested, crouching to inspect the words etched into the side of the sarcophagus. “And we find ourselves in just an empty ruin.”

  “It’s not empty,” Guyime insisted. “The map wouldn’t have brought us here for nothing.” He watched Lexius move from one stone tomb to another, magnified eyes busily drinking in every inscription. “Anything of note?”