Darkfall by M. L. Spencer

Author:M. L. Spencer [Spencer, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: Stoneguard Publications
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

Parley

The wind howled and shrieked like a murder. The gale battered Kyel’s back, pushing him forward as he walked with Arvel and Alexa up a rise of sandstone steps that snaked upward to the crest of a low hill, the only truly defensible position on the valley floor. The steps had been worn down so much, they were almost a ramp. They led to the surface of a thick stone slab of chiseled marble: the footprint of an ancient temple, now reduced to a jumble of toppled columns.

Arvel led them across the foundation toward a group of men and women clustered at the far edge. Kyel stopped behind Arvel and watched as the man inserted himself into the group of robed priests and priestesses. He exchanged greetings and small talk, while Kyel stood on the edge of the gathering, waiting and watching, wondering how long he was going to be ignored.

After a long interval, Arvel turned and beckoned him over, the bronze sleeves of his robe billowed by the scolding wind. Kyel complied with a scowl, moving only close enough to be within earshot.

Arvel had to shout to be heard over the wind. “This is His Eminence! Ansel Stroud! The High Priest of Zephia!” He indicated a man standing next to him who wore a dark beard and a darker glower. Kyel recognized him. He’d met the man before, at a gathering of temple patriarchs. He hadn’t liked Stroud then, and he liked him less now.

“I’m sure you remember Kyel Archer!” Arvel shouted at the priest, who stared at Kyel and didn’t respond.

Kyel nodded a curt greeting that seemed to ruffle the man.

Arvel excused himself with a wave and a smile, moving off the foundation in a crackling ripple of oversized robes. Kyel stared after him, more unsettled than angry. He turned back to the Patriarch of Zephia, wondering who, between the two of them, was supposed to be in charge.

He leaned forward and shouted at the priest, “I’m going down there! I want to see if he’ll negotiate!”

“He won’t negotiate,” Stroud disagreed. “We have nothing to offer him!”

Kyel thought about it. “We can tell him if he surrenders, we’ll let them keep the North.”

The priest took a step back, staring at Kyel with a look of gaping disbelief. “You can’t just give them the North!”

Kyel shot him a disdainful glare. “They’ve already taken the North!”

With that, he swung away from the man and strode toward the stairs. The wind tore at his cloak and raked at his hair as he descended the worn steps toward the valley floor. There, a group of monks from one of the militant orders fell in around him, escorting him toward the tall cliffs that surrounded the valley.

The wind lessened as they approached the bluffs, finally giving way altogether, blocked by the walls of the bottleneck canyon that formed the valley’s entrance.

Kyel followed the path through the canyon as it wound like a serpent’s coils through the surrounding cliffs. The walls of the passage were high, made of stratified layers of tawny sandstone.

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