Leaning precariously in the saddle, Darach cantered up to Driprock Arch, one of the many historic bridges in Central Park. He reined the police horse to a walk and then a halt, lethargically throwing his leg over the saddle cantle to dismount. He was not fully in control of the motion and faltered, falling headfirst.
Quadir kicked his feet free of the stirrups. Having practiced many staged falls for the joust shows at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, he agilely landed on both feet and ran to catch the old man before he could hit the ground.
Darach leaned on him, panting. His face glistened with sweat in the park lights. "Just need to catch my breath." He pressed his hand just above his right hip and doubled over, leaning his forehead against the saddle.
"Shit!" Quadir swore. "Have you been run through?" Blood seeped through his threadbare gloves. He confirmed his fears by sniffing and then recoiling from the irony scent on his finger tips.
"I need to sit," Darach said, "but only a moment."
"You need more than that." Quadir ducked beneath the old man's arm to support him. Taking the reins of both horses, he half carried him beneath the arch.
Propping Darach against the stonewall, Quadir gently undid the linen cloth holding the old man's dreadlocks and stripped the fabric with his teeth to make a dressing. Bundling the strips into a thick pad, he pressed it against the wound and winced as the swordsman grimaced, gasping in pain.
"Jaliya."
"What?"
"The answer to the question you have not yet asked. Your mother's name," Darach said. He laid his head against the wall and took a deep, shuddering breath.
Jaliya. Quadir pretended to be busy tearing more strips from the cloth to avoid Darach's piercing eyes. "How do you know my mother?"
"I took her in when her parents were killed. Raised her as my own. Trained her to be a proper Dakaari. My finest pupil. Prominent noblemen and more than a few archmages sought her to serve as their guardian. Many had the coin, too, but your father was a man of great means and persuasion."
"Some guardian. Didn't do him much good. He's dead." Quadir felt his lower lip quiver with emotion. His jaw muscles twitched with fury at his abandonment as an infant. "He was poked full of holes, like you, according to the police report."
Darach laid a hand over Quadir's and looked into his eyes. "Have you lived believing she would not come for you? Protect you? You are wrong. Word is she fell in battle, securing the way for your father's escape into this world."
The truth of those words struck Quadir like a coffin nail. Twenty years of resentment flushed through him, a bitter poison, replaced by a burning shame, and then the cold reality of a tomb where every aspiration of meeting her died in the darkness.
Darach squeezed his hand. "You, Quadir, are a Dakaari, like your mother, born into the House of the Horse, and like her, you are meant to serve a noble lord or lady, peasant or farmer, it does not matter so long as a bond exists and is strong enough for binding."
Quadir threw himself back onto the ground and crossed his legs. "None of this makes any sense."
"You had to have known it, my boy. Felt the subtle scratching in the back of your mind, telling you that you didn't belong. You cannot stay here."
"Story of my life," Quadir whispered. The words were familiar, spoken whenever his foster parents would send him away for being too morose.
Behind him, Merlin tried to rummage through his pockets for treats. Quadir relented, dropping a few mints for the stallion, who greedily ate them up. The noise of his crunching echoed in the hollow beneath the bridge.
Drawing the longsword from the scabbard, Quadir admired the runes illuminated fiercely on the fuller in the center of the blade. The craftsmanship was unparalleled from any sword Quadir had ever seen, even in private collections, with a perfection of balance as if it was forged solely for his hand.
"This was your mother's sword. Now it's yours."
"What—who are the Dakaari?"
"There are twelve great houses, or there were," Darach said, a weak smile on his lips. "Only five remain. The Wolf, the Bear, the Ram, the Horse, and the Falcon, my house. Someone—something—has been systematically severing the bloodlines, ancient bloodlines set during the time of the Mhadurai, the Elder Ones, our ancestors. This is why your mother fled, taking a gamble on life in another world. Your father, Imalik Cardenas was a powerful wizard, more than capable of opening a portal between dimensions."
"Cardenas? But my last name is Janszoon."
Darach's grin widened. He wiped a trickle of blood from one corner of his mouth. "Your father took your mother's last name out of deference to her." He frowned then, and bowed his head. "They must have been interrupted while trying to escape, and things went horribly wrong."
"The more powerful the blood ... the older and purer the bloodline," Quadir whispered. "That's why they want to kill me."
"You are the last of your line, as am I. Whatever this nefarious scheme may be, destiny has been staked on whether you live or die."Removing his glove, Darach held out his right hand to show a small tattoo of a falcon's head on the pad between his wrist and thumb. "You have such a mark."
"It's just a stupid birthmark." Quadir tore off his glove to show him the tiny crimson patch. One of his foster mothers, who suffered from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, was convinced it was cancer and had the lesion examined by a dozen different physicians. It was no more than a blot of imperfection with no particular pattern. However, as Quadir stared in disbelief, the lines were quite distinct now, manifesting as the head of a horse with a crescent moon over its eye.
"The mark does not reveal itself until seven days before the Dakaari's 25th birthday." Darach sat back against the wall and pulled on his glove.
Quadir recognized the image and stared at the pommel of his sword. Inside the metal ring was a medallion in the shape of a horse's head with a crescent moon over its eye. The horse appeared to be made from the same metal as the sword, but the moon was an intricately sculpted pearl. Fingering the medallion with his thumb, it twirled freely on its axis. The sound of the metal resonated as it spun.
"The Sigil of the Horse. When the medallion spins freely, it means you are unbound and free to serve any master. During the Ceremony of Dŵnyr, when you pledge your loyalty and your life in service, the medallion locks in place and will remain so until death."
Quadir stuck his thumb into the ring to stop the medallion from spinning. "Until death?
"Yours or the one you serve. At such a time, the Dakaari is free to seek another. Without a master, we are naught but mercenaries for hire, and no true Dakaari would bring such shame to his house. You may serve several masters during your lifetime," Darach said, grinning proudly, "or if you're very lucky, only one."
"Was my mother some kind of concubine?"
"Gods no!" Darach said. "The bond between your mother and father was one of the most powerful I've ever seen. They were fated to be together. But while there is no code against it, a Dakaari was never meant to fall in love with the one they protect. No good has ever come of it.
Your parents made that decision on their own, and fate was not kind."
"Have you never fallen so hard for someone that you thought you couldn't live without them?" Quadir asked. His first love was his fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Roye, who had seen his love for horses and introduced him to a sport called dressage.
"Of course, I have, but thankfully the man I served had the sense to know that we could not be together. He was a very prominent mage from the kingdom of Baru-Baith. His family did not approve of his lifestyle choices. When they tried to force him to marry a girl from a respectable family in the north of Tiubhanwyn, he threatened to run away with me."
Darach chuckled, laying his hand on his heart as if to console it. "The scandal to their name would have been irredeemable. To appease them, he chose a solitary life, never marrying, childless ... except for your mother, whom he doted upon as much as I did." He sighed, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his hand. "We only ever kissed twice. The night of his ascension as an archmage in Elestyn and then again the night he died. I found him, still warm in his bed, after he had taken his own life. In the end, I could not protect him from his greatest enemy: himself."
"What happened to his moire?"
Darach stared into the shadows above him. "It died with him. That was his plan. The moire can only be passed through birth, handed down by a parent, or through death caused by piercing the heart with an ith'nael blade, so named for the Madhuri weaponsmaster who first crafted them some millennia ago. The metal is the conduit, steel infused with silver in a forging method long lost. This is why Dakaari blades are legendary, but there are others." Darach pursed his lips into a thin line, his face etched with remorse. "These tainted blades are not as powerful, but still capable of the task."
"The Bás Anáil?"
"Yes."
"What happens to the swords when the last member of a house dies?"
"Useless, but not without value. Though the blade could be broken in a single stroke, trophy collectors will pay full ransom for such ornament to display on a wall or mantle. Others will destroy them hoping to discover the method of their creation by dismantling them." Darach closed his eyes, nodding off for a moment.
"Darach?" Quadir examined the makeshift bandage. Blood was pooling beneath it. "We've got to get you to a hospital."
The old man waved him off, pulling a silver flask from his jerkin. He saluted Quadir and took a long shot. "Will you drink with me?"
Quadir reluctantly took the flask and drank. The contents were sweet, then bit him, sending a cascade of fire down the back of his throat.
"Dakaari share an affinity with the animal representing their particular house," Darach said, slurring his words. "Did you think you came by your skills with the horse so easily. The Bear is tough, difficult to pierce their armor. The Wolf, cunning, knowing how to track and bring down prey. The Ram is powerful, capable of breaking swords. And the Falcon is blessed with accuracy of sight. Besides speed and stamina, the gift of the Horse is travel. Moving great distances in short periods of time."
"Then I suggest we get moving, preferably somewhere to get you help." One shot of whiskey was not enough to render the man inebriated. Darach was delirious and swiftly losing blood. "What are we waiting for?"
"Moonrise. A Dakaari born under the House of the Horse may teleport to any place that they have been to or seen so long as the moon hangs in the skies. Your mother used that trick quite often to runaway from me whenever we quarreled, but I always found her, made certain she was safe, and then waited patiently for her to come home." The old man struggled to get to his feet. "We must hurry. The Bás Anáil are coming."
Quadir saw his breath coiling in a layer above his head as a chill slowly moved under the bridge. "Must be the remaining four you mentioned. The others are dead."
"Defeated, not dead," Darach said, struggling between syllables. "You cannot kill them, not even with an ith'nael blade. Their forms merely dissipate into the accursed hoarfrost, which brings them back. They are bound by a malignant magic and a sin so terrible that it keeps them trapped between worlds without rest."
Brilliant moonlight cast beams beyond the entrance to the arch, accentuating the mists of the hoarfrost. The fog slithered across the ground, a reaction to the warm temperatures of the autumn night. Quadir tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword and assumed a defensive stance.
"You can't fight them, Quadir," Darach said. "Not alone." He threw himself from the wall and onto Quadir's sword, impaling himself on the blade.
In shock, Quadir froze in place. "What the fuck are you doing?" He stepped back in terror, drawing the sword from Darach's abdomen. Merlin was directly behind him, and he was forced give the blade a slight twist to completely free it, causing the old man to cry out.
"Impetuous, so like your mother. Must be a trait of the House of the Horse. Free-spirited and wild, but ever faithful," Darach said, his breath weakening. "You've a destiny awaiting you, my boy. Please, do not let it end here."
Quadir gasped, the familiar, painful sensation—the culling—lanced through his chest, making it difficult to breathe. "What have you done? I don't want this."
"Forgive an old man his vanity," Darach panted. "I always wanted my death to have meaning." He smiled, the corners of his mouth quivering with pain. "Now it will." He reached up and touched Quadir's forehead. "I give you the gift of my blood and my final sight. Daol sidh fanil." The old swordsman collapsed in Quadir's arms.
In the pommel of Darach's sword, the medallion of a falcon's head against a sapphire sky began to spin. The rapid rotations created a shrill whistle that reverberated in the space beneath the arch. Abruptly, the sapphire cracked, its shattered pieces flying into the darkness as the medallion suddenly went still, the axis broken and hanging at an odd angle.
Through anguished tears, Quadir saw the four riders advancing on them from the archway entrance. He closed his eyes, resting his chin on the old man's head, and concentrated on the vivid image of a fallen watchtower, perched on a rocky cliffside on the edge of a sprawling forest.
In the span of a heartbeat, they were gone.