Vansen pulled himself up into his own saddle. Unlike Barrick’s strange black horse, Vansen’s mount was beginning to look a little the worse for wear, despite the long pause for rest. It shuddered restively as Skurn climbed the saddle blanket with beak and talons and hopped forward to a perch on the beast’s neck. Pleased with himself, the black bird looked around like a child about to be given a treat.
Mortal horses weren’t meant for this place,Vansen thought.No more than mortal men.
Although a dragging succession of hours had passed, and Vansen himself had slept long enough to feel heavy in his wits, his head was foggy as the tangled forest into which Barrick and Gyir now rode.
“Where be they going, Master?” Skurn asked, agitated. “Us must turn back! Didn’t uns listen? Don’t uns see that this be all Jack Chain’s land round about?”
“How should I know?” Vansen had no command of the situation, and the addition of the fairy-warrior to their party had made things worse, if anything. Gyir, the murderer of Prince Barrick’s people, a proven enemy, now seemed to have become the prince’s confidant, while Ferras Vansen, the captain of the royal guard, a man who had already risked his life for Barrick’s sake, had become some kind of foe. “Why do you ask me, bird? Can’tyouunderstand that Gyir thing?”
The raven groomed himself nervously. Up close he was quite repulsive, scaly skin visible in many places, what feathers remained matted with the gods only knew what. “Not us, Master. That be a trick of the High Ones, to talk so, without voices, not such as old Skurn. Us knows nothing of what they are saying or where they think they go.” “Well, then, that makes two of us.”
The remains of the ancient road stayed wide and relatively flat beneath them, but now the trees had grown thick again around them, shutting out anything but the briefest glimpses of the gray sky, as though they traveled down a long tunnel. Birds and other creatures Vansen could not identify hooted and whistled in the shadows; it was hard not to feel their approach was being heralded, as though he were back on one of the Eddons’ royal progresses with the trumpeters and criers running ahead, calling the common folk to come out, come out, a king’s son was passing. But Vansen could not help feeling that those who waited in this place did not wish them well.
His sense of danger, of being visible to some hostile, lurking force, grew stronger as the day of riding wore on. The unfamiliar bird and animal sounds died away, but Vansen found the silence even more foreboding. Barrick and the faceless man ignored him, no doubt deep in unspoken conversation, and even Skurn had fallen quiet, but Ferras Vansen’s patience had become so thin that every time the little creature moved and he caught a whiff of its putrid scent, he had to steel himself not to simply sweep it off onto the ground.
“This was once a great road, Highness, just as the bird said,” he called at last, and then wished he hadn’t: the echoes died almost immediately in the thick growth on either side of the road, but even the absence of an echo made the noise seem more stark, more exceptional. He could imagine an entire gallery of shadowy watchers leaning forward to listen. He spurred his horse forward so that he could speak more quietly. “This is the oldNorthmarch Road, not simply a forest path. If we follow it long enough we will arrive at something — perhaps the raven’s Jack Chain — but it will not be something we’ll like. Can’t you feel that?”
The prince turned his cool stare on him. Barrick’s hair was stuck to his forehead in damp red ringlets. “We know, Captain. We are looking for another road, one that crosses this one. If we ride overland through this tangled forest, we will come to grief.”
“But it is only a short way to Northmarch, and that is where Jack Chain has his hall!” squealed Skurn, hopping up and down, which made Vansen’s horse snort and prance so that he had to tighten his grip on the reins. “Even if we are lucky and One-Eye bes far away, and there be no Night Men about, still Jack-Rovers and Longskulls there be all around here, as well as the Follower-folk who remember not sunlanders nor nothing even of the High Ones! They will capture us, poor old Skurn. They will kill us!”
“They will certainly hear us if we stop to argue every few paces,” Barrick said harshly. “I did not bring you here, Vansen, and I certainly did not bring that…bird. If you wish to find your own way, you may do so.”
“I cannot leave you, Highness.”
“Yes, you can. I have told you to do it but you do not listen. You say you are my liegeman, but you will not obey the simplest order. Go away, Captain Vansen.”
He hung his head, hoping to hide both the shame and rage. “I cannot, Prince Barrick.”
“Then do as you wish. But do it silently.”
They had been riding for what seemed like most of a day when an astonishing thing happened, something that alarmed not only Vansen, but the raven, too, and even Gyir the Storm Lantern.
The sky began to grow dark.
It crept up on them slowly, and at first Ferras Vansen thought it no more than the ceaseless movement of gray cloud overhead, the blanket of mist which thickened and even sometimes thinned without ever diminishing much, and which gave the light of these lands its only real variety. But as he found himself squinting at trees beside the wide road, Vansen suddenly realized he could not doubt the truth any longer.
The twilight was dying. The sky was turning black.
“What’s going on?” Vansen reined up. “Prince Barrick, ask your fairy what this means!”
Gyir was looking up between the trees, but not as though searching for something with his eyes — it was an odd, blind gaze, as though he were smelling rather than staring. “He says it is smoke.”
“What? What does that mean?”
Skurn was clinging to the horse’s neck, beak tucked under a wing, mumbling to himself.
“What does he mean, smoke?” Vansen demanded of the raven. “Smoke from what? Do you know what’s happening here, bird? Why is it getting dark?”
“Crooked’s curse has come at last, must be. Must be!” The black bird moaned and bobbed its head. “If the Night Men catch us or don’t, it matters not. The queen will die and the Great Pig will swallow us all down to blackness!”
He could get nothing more out of him — the raven only croaked in terror. “I do not understand!” Vansen cried. “Where is the smoke coming from? Has the forest caught fire?”
“Gyir says no,” Barrick said slowly, and now even he sounded uneasy. “It is from fire someone has made — he says it stinks of metal and flesh.” The prince turned to look at silent Gyir, whose eyes were little more than red slits in his blank mask of a face. “He says it is the smoke of many small fires…or one very big one.”