Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (48 page)

“What of this ShadowLord of yours?” Annen
demanded. “We’ve heard wondrous tales of his deeds. What about all
this great magic we’ve heard of, and all this power? Tell me, where
is he? Why doesn’t he stop Illalla?”

At Annen’s question the Elhiynes all glanced
quickly into the shadows that danced about the room, but it was
Tulellcoe who answered him. “There was a time when I could sense
him if he were lurking in the shadows nearby, but he’s now drifted
so deeply into the netherworld he could be but an arm’s length from
me and I would not have the faintest inkling of his presence. I can
only guess that he must be here somewhere near.”

“Bah!” Annen scoffed. “When I was a child I
was frightened by such talk, but no longer. Any man who lurks in
shadows is a thief, or a murderer, or a coward.”

In the flickering shadows of the lamp Morgin
chose one going Annen’s way, stopped immediately behind him, leaned
forward and whispered in his ear, “But Illalla now fears his own
shadow.”

Annen jumped, started, spun about, but by
that time Morgin had moved to another shadow. “What was that?” he
demanded.

Cort looked at Tulellcoe. “Is it him, do you
think?”

Tulellcoe nodded, smiled. “Morgin. Step
forward. Make yourself known.”

There was a moment of silence while everyone
waited for something to happen. Morgin hesitated, not sure whom he
could trust, and too, it now took a strong effort to extinguish the
shadows about him. After careful thought he decided it would yet be
best to remain within his shadows.

Annen shook his head. “The ShadowLord is as
much legend as he has always been.”

Tulellcoe smiled unpleasantly. “Illalla
might disagree with you on that. And then there’s Salula, who’s no
longer with us. And there are Decouix graves aplenty that line the
God’s Road from here to Yestmark.”

“And the serpent,” Packwill pleaded. “I tell
you, my lord, he was bitten by the snake demon. I saw the wound
myself, and he survived.”

Annen opened his mouth to argue, but Eglahan
silenced him. “And the desertions. Let us not forget the
desertions. The reports I’m getting from my scouts tell me that
this ShadowLord alone has cost Illalla more than I and my entire
army.” Eglahan closed his eyes, sucked in a long, tired breath and
exhaled slowly. “But he hasn’t cost Illalla enough. Roland is lucky
to have levied three thousand men, half of them farmers with
pitchforks for weapons. And I have about four hundred men who can
still fight. Illalla’s men, on the other hand, are deserting him in
droves, but he’ll still have at least six thousand when he gets to
Sa’umbra, and they’re all seasoned veterans. I’ll not order my men
against those odds again. Not again.”

Eglahan rubbed his eyes, ran his hands
through unkempt hair. “My leg is hurting me. And it’s late. We’ll
talk about this more in the morning. Leave me now. All of you. I
need rest.”

Slowly they all filed out of the tent. At
Eglahan’s orders Annen carefully extinguished all of the candles in
the tent but one, and then he too left. Only Morgin stayed, waiting
in a shadow, finding it hard now not to succumb to the constant
pull of the netherworld.

Eglahan peered into the darkness as if he
sensed Morgin’s presence. He tilted his head like a blind man
cocking his ear toward a sound. The silence grew thick, and then he
said, “Tell me, ShadowLord. Why do you linger?”

Morgin struggled to pull himself completely
out of the netherworld. And then, with great care, like a
barefooted man walking near glass shards, he stepped into the dim
glow of the candle. For some seconds he was a specter of shifting,
flowing shadows, but then with an effort he extinguished his
shadowmagic and stood before the old warrior as one man to another.
“You must help us,” Morgin whispered. “Without you and your men it
will be a slaughter.”

Eglahan shook his head sadly. “With me and
my men it’ll still be a slaughter. We’re not enough. There has to
be something more. You have to provide something more. You,
ShadowLord. It’s up to you now, and the rest of us are without
recourse.”

Morgin looked into the soft flame of the
candle. The air in the tent was so still it didn’t even flicker,
and like the candle’s flame Morgin felt lifeless and empty. He’d
played the game of the ShadowLord to its conclusion, and it turned
out to be an empty game, with no substance or meaning.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Eglahan said
into the silence. “I’ll bring my four hundred men to Sa’umbra if
you can convince that bastard Wylow to bring four hundred of his
own, and if you match his warriors and my warriors each with a
warrior of your own. Do that, oh ShadowLord, and I’ll come.”

Morgin was desperate, even to the point of
lying. “It’s a deal,” he said flatly, wondering what price he would
have to pay when Eglahan finally learned he’d been deceived.

Eglahan flinched. He’d not expected Morgin
to agree to such a ridiculous proposition, but he recovered
quickly. “Where will you get eight hundred men?”

Morgin extended his hand. “Leave that to me.
You have my word. You have the word of AethonLaw et Elhiyne, the
ShadowLord.”

Eglahan reached out warily, clenched
Morgin’s hand with almost crushing force, and in that instant
Morgin extended his shadowmagic, let it encompass both he and the
Yestmarkian Lord. Eglahan gasped as the shadows surrounded him.
“But remember, Eglahan ye Elhiyne. If you break your word; if
you’re not there at Sa’umbra, then you will see me next in the
shadows of your dreams.”

Morgin left Eglahan in his tent, though he
took with him his shadows.

~~~

Mortiss rode like the wind, gusting at times
into bursts of blinding speed, then cutting back to a steady,
inexhaustible gale that blew on and on and on. Morgin clung
desperately to her back as she charged through the shadows of the
night, never quite sure if she rode the ways of the netherlife, or
galloped beneath the glow of a mortal moon. Time and distance
seemed unimportant on the roads that Mortiss traveled, for the sun
never rose to clear the perpetual shadows that enveloped them, and
the leagues were devoured beneath her hooves as Inetka grew closer
with each passing shadow.

There came a time when the shadows cleared,
though a thick blanket of cloud obscured the moon overhead. Mortiss
trotted down the Gods Road at an easy pace, and Morgin was relieved
to find that the night air he sucked into his lungs was mortal,
though a large part of him remained well within the netherlife no
matter how hard he tried to withdraw it. From the terrain he
guessed they must be somewhere near the fork in the road that led
to Sa’umbra.

Suddenly Morgin sensed another rider on the
road up ahead. He pulled Mortiss to a stop, closed his eyes,
listened to his soul as the man approached, recognized immediately
that he’d come upon the messenger they’d sent to Inetka with
JohnEngine and the rest of the wounded.

Morgin waited in the middle of the road with
Mortiss. He didn’t want to startle the man, but since no light from
the moon penetrated the cloud cover, he cast a faint glow about him
and Mortiss. The rider ahead turned a bend in the road, saw the
glowing apparition waiting there for him and pulled his horse to an
abrupt halt. He hesitated nervously, then asked, “Who are you?”

Morgin spoke softly. “I am Morgin et
Elhiyne.”

The man relaxed visibly and nudged his horse
forward, stopped before Morgin and bowed his head. “ShadowLord,” he
said.

“Are you bearing a message?” Morgin
demanded.

“Yes, my lord,” the man said uncomfortably.
“From Lord Wylow to Lord Tulellcoe.”

“Speak this message to me.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man said. “But please
remember that the words I speak are those of Lord Wylow, who
commanded me to speak them exactly as he himself did.”

Morgin nodded. “You will not be held
accountable for repeating Wylow’s words.”

“Thank you, my lord. Lord Wylow told me to
tell Lord Tulellcoe that he was a bloody idiot if he thought Inetka
would allow itself to be slaughtered with Elhiyne. He said we could
all go to the Ninth—”

“Enough,” Morgin interrupted. “I get the
gist of the message.”

Morgin thought for a moment, realized he’d
have to go to Inetka, though he wasn’t sure how he could convince
Wylow when Val had failed. “Continue north,” he told the messenger.
“You’ll find Tulellcoe and Eglahan riding south with the remnants
of Eglahan’s army. Deliver Wylow’s message to Tulellcoe exactly as
it was spoken to you. Then give Eglahan a message from me. Tell him
I want him to remember our bargain. Tell him I still intend to keep
my part of it.”

The man bowed his head. “Yes, my lord.”

While the messenger’s head was bowed, and
his eyes were averted, Morgin slipped a shadow over both he and
Mortiss and disappeared. He turned Mortiss toward Inetka, and a
short time later it began to rain. It was a cold, wet, driving rain
that soaked through the Kull cloak he wore, and he began to hope
that if Mortiss chose to travel the ways of the netherworld, it
would at least be out of the rain. But if she did carry him there
for a time, it was in no way obvious, for it rained there too. The
night and the rain lasted all the way to Inetka.

~~~

With Morgin astride her, Mortiss walked the
Nether Plane into Castle Inetka, a path that left no traces in the
world of mortal men. In the netherworld the stone of the castle
seemed insubstantial and ill-defined, though Morgin had no trouble
treading its halls. He found Wylow abed with his wife.

The Inetka lord snored loudly, grumbled
something in his sleep. He lay on his face with an arm thrown
haphazardly over his wife. Her name was Carmet, Morgin remembered,
though she seemed to live in the shadow of her husband and rarely
took an active role in the politics of the clans.

Still deeply in the netherworld, Morgin
climbed up on the footboard of Wylow’s bed, sat there irreverently
with his muddy boots crossed in front of him making a mess of the
blankets near Wylow’s feet. Morgin watched his hand move of its own
accord, as if he was a puppet dangling from a web of strings with
his actions dictated by some puppet master looking down from afar.
His hand settled on the hilt of his sword, pulled it silently from
its sheath, extended the tip toward Wylow’s face. He pulled the
Inetka leader into the netherworld with him, then nudged the man on
the cheek with the dull side of the blade.

Wylow growled something incoherently,
swatted at his face as if brushing away a bothersome fly, settled
back into sleep. Morgin nudged him again. This time his eyes opened
with a start, and though the room was wholly dark they settled
instantly on the sword tip only inches from his nose. Morgin
withdrew the sword to a safe distance.

Wylow rolled over on his back, sat up,
squinted into the darkness and could obviously see nothing more
than a faint silhouette at the end of his bed. “Who in netherhell
are you?”

Morgin shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Name yourself, damn it.”

Morgin tried to speak his name, but as in
the dream where he’d met Aethon, and found JohnEngine on the Plains
of Death, he could not, and by that fact he knew he was dreaming.
He decided to dream there was more light in the room, and there
was.

“Ah!” Wylow said. “It’s you. What the hell
are you doing in my dreams?”

Morgin laughed. “What are you doing in my
dreams?”

Wylow threw his head back and laughed
heartily. “So the ShadowLord has a sense of humor. What do you
want?”

“I want you to come to Sa’umbra.”

“Not on your life, lad. There’s no reason
Inetka should fall with Elhiyne.”

“And why does Elhiyne have to fall?”

“Look at the facts, lad. The odds are
against you.”

“What if I get Eglahan to come to Sa’umbra.
He still has four hundred mounted men that can fight.”

Wylow squinted at Morgin distrustfully. “So
that old fool’s still alive, eh? Four hundred men, eh?” Wylow
appeared to consider the situation carefully, but Morgin could
sense the scheming going on behind his eyes. The Inetka leader
appeared to come to a decision that he liked. “All right, lad. I’ll
make a deal with you. I’ll bring four hundred men to Sa’umbra if
you can convince that bastard Eglahan to bring his four hundred,
and if you match his warriors and mine each with a warrior of your
own. Do that, oh ShadowLord, and I’ll come.”

Morgin couldn’t believe his ears. The
bargain Wylow offered was identical to that Eglahan had offered,
and spoken in almost the same words. He wondered for a moment if
the two old warriors had conspired against him, but they couldn’t
have known in advance that he would play such a role in the coming
events, nor had they had the opportunity to communicate since the
battle at Yestmark. In any case, while Morgin had no hope of coming
up with eight hundred warriors of his own, if he agreed to the
bargain it would at least get Wylow and Eglahan to Sa’umbra with
their warriors. He had no idea how he’d convince them to actually
join the battle once he failed to fulfill his end of the
bargain.

“It’s a deal,” he said flatly. “But remember
this, Wylow et Inetka. For the ShadowLord, a bargain made in a
dream is still a bargain.”

Wylow’s confidence faltered, and he looked
at Morgin with growing fear. “If you break your word,” Morgin said,
and for some reason Wylow’s face twisted with terror, “If you’re
not there at Sa’umbra, then I will ever haunt the shadows of your
dreams.”

Wylow seemed near hysteria, but before he
could shout or cry out, his eyes drooped heavily, he lay back and
returned to sleep.

~~~

Wylow shot awake and cried out, sat up in bed
breathing heavily with his heart racing. It took some seconds to
calm himself, and only then did he realize it had all been only a
dream. He looked at the foot of the bed for reassurance, was
pleased to see that the covers were not mud-stained by the lad’s
boots.