A Circle of Iron

Chapter 4

The Greenwell divided the world, separating the lands ruled by men from the lands they did not, the known from the unknown. So far as Thorn knew, the great wood had always been there, keeping its secrets as the fortunes and borders of men and nations shifted around it. In ancient times, the impenetrable green had been the only frontier the Old Empire could not conquer. Men said an ancient race had once made the wood their home. They had built the great city ofEldernost, the stone roads, and all the other towers and shrines and markers scattered through the westernmost fringes of the Greenwell. Men said these ancients were masters of magic, for precious traces of it remained behind, like ghosts in the ruins.

The ruins and the remnant magic were all that was left to remind the world the ancient race had ever existed. Thorn was pretty sure he knew what had happened to them. If you found a forest infested with wolves, no need to wonder where all the deer went. The wights had hunted the ancients to extinction, and now they hunted men.

Eldernost itself sprawled across both banks of theHorngrenRiver, both above and below thegreat fallswhere the water tumbled over jagged rock and threw up a white spray and dull roar that never subsided. The lower city, on the west bank, was where most of the scavengers worked, digging, scraping, and hammering, searching desperately for some trace of magic that might buy them a real life. The upper city, at the top of the falls, was dominated by the crumbling remains of a great castle. The imposing structure rose from a rugged island that split the river before it cascaded down to the easier terrain below. Ancient stone stairs carved into the hillside flanked the falls to either side and joined the upper and lower city.

Thorn stood on a low ridge and looked out over the ruins. The city sloped away from him, down toward the river, and the water was a silver ribbon winding through the maze of green-choked, crumbling stone. The bright sun was just peeking over the forest canopy, bathing the ruins in golden light. Thorn imagined how the city must have looked when it was alive, in ages past. From what he could tell, the buildings had been bigger and fancier along the river, and picked up more of both as they drew closer to the falls and the twin stairs that climbed to the upper city. The builders had favored the river and wanted to be close to it. In a city built by men, it would have had a rundown river port or a reeking fish market clogging its banks.

Three massive stone bridges spanned the river as it wound through the city, though the one nearest the falls had been sundered long ago. The stonework reached across the water from either bank, but there was a ragged gap in the center where the two spans would once have joined. Huge blocks were exposed above the surface of the river below, the pale stone almost hidden entirely by a green blanket of moss.

Thorn sighed. The day was of a kind that might ordinarily lift a man’s spirits, but the dead city was impervious to its charms. No matter how cheerful the weather, the story the ruins told was always the same: Everything dies.

The crew made their camp on a broad stone foundation flanked by cracked pillars that leaned left and right like drunken soldiers in their ranks. Most of the scavs did their digging near the edge of the ruins, and the elevated slab gave Thorn the best view of his wards he was likely to find. “Go on ahead and lay down a hexing circle,” he said to Blind Tom. “Might be it won’t do us any good in the ruins, but we don’t know that for a fact. Best take what precautions we can.”

The fat wizard struggled out of his pack and collapsed onto the stone, wheezing and sweating. He was wearing the heavy black robes of a Magister, and Thorn couldn’t think of an outfit any more foolish for the heat of the day. Once Quinix stopped heaving like a bellows, he dug around in his pack and drew out a flat circle of hammered iron, about the breadth of a man’s hand. He smiled and offered it to Thorn.

“What this then?”

“It’s a torq,” said Quinix. He pulled out more of the rings and passed them around. “You wear it around your neck—see, you can pull it apart like so.” The wizard demonstrated, pulling apart the ends of the torq and slipping it around his neck. “It’s for protection. The wights don’t like iron.”