Prince of Dogs

It was a long night.

In the predawn stillness, with the moon sliding below the trees, they groped their way along an overgrown trail and came out to a burned farmstead.

“I recognize this place,” said Liath, breath hissing between her teeth. She led them into a meadow beyond the sad remains of buildings and there, in the clearing, she had light enough to discern the landscape.

“This is the cave’s mouth!” she exclaimed. “Look there!” The light on the eastern horizon rimmed the bluff with a dim glow but its rocky slope lay still in darkness. “From the height you can see the city. Who will follow me into the cave? I’ll need a torch once we get inside.”

None of the men seemed eager to follow her into the cave, but Captain Ulric picked out a volunteer, left six men with the horses, and took another two to climb the bluff with him.

“Come now, Erkanwulf,” she said to her companion, a slender young man with pale hair, “I can’t believe you’d be afraid of the dark.”

“Ai, well, mistress,” he said politely but with a slight tremor in his voice, “I’m not feared of the dark. But my good mother did tell me that the old gods fled to the caves when the deacons and fraters came to our country and drove them out of the villages and crossroads and stone circles. How do I know that wasn’t true in this land as well?”

“I didn’t see you flinch at fighting the Eika, friend. You dispatched one yourself, at the river’s shore.”

“So I did, but they’re savages, aren’t they? And they can die just like you and me can, so there’s no reason to be feared of what is mortal.” She sensed him grin by his tone; it was too dark to see. “Unless it has an ax and you don’t, I suppose.” He chuckled, perhaps recalling Sergeant Fell. But he followed Liath gamely enough as she thrust through bushes and found the mouth of the cave.

Setting flint to rock, Erkanwulf caught a spark and lit the pitch-soaked torch just as he stepped inside. She sucked in breath, seeing the flame spit into existence. Could she have lit it with the touch of her hand? It was still too dangerous for her to try.

The young man had already gone forward, made bold by fire. “See here,” he called back over his shoulder, his shadow writhing over the walls as he moved into the back of the cave. “There’s no outlet. This must be the wrong cave.”

“No.” She shook herself free of this fruitless worrying; she couldn’t unravel the mystery of her own magic until she found a teacher. As Da always said: “Harvest the wheat that’s ripe instead of watching the shoots grow.” “I know this is the right place.” Coming up behind him, she stopped short. It was all rock, a rough wall of stone that curved back above them, sealing them in …

… and yet, wasn’t there a kind of vibration to the wall, a disturbance in the barrier of rock?

“No,” she said as it dissolved before her. “See, there, you can see the break in the wall,” she stepped forward as Erkanwulf gasped.

“You’ll walk right into the wall—!”

She found the first step with her foot, poised there with the touch of air swirling up against her like an echo of the river’s currents where the Veser met the sea. She smelled the dank passages of stone, the dry scent of old earth, the holy remains of the dead who lay in the cathedral crypt and, surely, the rank presence of the Eika in the cathedral itself and the blood of all those who had died.

Sanglant. And poor Manfred, and all the others who had fallen together with Gent.

Erkanwulf gasped again. The torch’s heat flamed against her back, and she shifted sideways as he came up beside her. “By our Lord! It’s as you said! I’d never have seen it with the shadows so deep here. Lady Above! Do you think the old spirits were hiding it from us?”

She turned back in time to see him retreat, face golden under the torch’s light. He looked all about himself as if he expected a peevish sprite to swoop down upon him with elfshot nocked and ready to let fly. She laughed. “Nay, friend Erkanwulf. Remember, I saw the vision of St. Kristine with my own two eyes, and I’ll never forget it, so long as I live. I think she hid the entrance so that only those in need could find it. Come on, then. We’ve news to take to Count Lavastine—”

“And his army yet to find,” countered the young man as he followed her out. He snuffed the torch, tossed it to his waiting fellows, and climbed the bluff after her. She could hear him puffing and grunting as he scrambled, slipping on loose scree. Was that pounding his heavy tread?