Nightchild

by James Barclay

  “Nursing a problem, Unknown?”

  “You could say,” replied The Unknown after looking up to see Darrick walk in, leather cape around his shoulders, sword scabbarded at his waist, dark rings about his eyes. He must have ridden most of the night. “Sit down. I'll put some water on for coffee.” But that wasn't why Darrick was there.

  “I don't think we've got time for that,” he said.

  “No,” said The Unknown. He looked hard into the woods but could see nothing but the shadows of trees moving in the wind as the sun gradually pierced the clouds that threatened more rain. “Bring many with you?”

  “A couple of hundred.”

  “You were quiet,” The Unknown smiled.

  Darrick nodded and almost chuckled. “Well, we didn't ride right in, if that's what you mean.”

  “Two hundred, eh?” The Unknown glanced again at his sword lying in the mud of the wood. “That's probably enough.”

  “I thought so.” Darrick walked around in front of The Unknown and stood across the fire from him. “I thought you deserved overwhelming odds to help you make up your mind.”

  The Unknown looked up into the General's eyes and saw the guilt painted there like the mark of plague on the front door of a stricken house.

  “So what do you want?”

  “To stop The Raven from getting killed needlessly.”

  “Really?” The Unknown raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, really.” Darrick scratched at his forehead with a leather-gloved hand. “Look, you're in the middle of something bad and I don't think you fully understand how Dordover sees the stakes.”

  The Unknown felt a flash of anger. “Let me assure you, we know exactly how Dordover sees everything. That's why we're with him, trying to get to his daughter before anyone else.” He jerked a thumb at Denser.

  “It's not that simple.”

  “So Ilkar keeps saying. Only, it is that simple. Denser asked for our help. We're The Raven, so we helped him. He's one of us and he says he can save her and Balaia with her and that's enough for us.” There was silence. The Unknown could see Darrick understood but couldn't do anything about it. His loyalty was to Lystern and, through them, Dordover. “So where are you planning to take us?”

  “Arlen.”

  “Well that's fortunate. We were headed that way ourselves.”

  “I know. But you aren't doing anything when we get there.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “Something like that.” Darrick looked away.

  “Funny how things change, isn't it?” said The Unknown.

  “Not really,” said Darrick. “Now, are you going to wake them or must I?”

  The Unknown smiled again. “I'll do it. You know how fractious mages are if woken suddenly. Have you already got Hirad?” He saw no reason to hide the barbarian's absence. Darrick wasn't a fool.

  But Darrick just bit his lip and gazed down at the ground. “No,” he said. “I'm afraid we were too late.”

  “Good old Hirad,” said The Unknown. Hope flickered again but Darrick extinguished it.

  “Unknown, you don't understand. We tracked him all right but we were there second.” He wiped his gloved hand through his matted curls. “Gods, how do I say this? The wolves were already closing in when the scouts arrived. I'm sorry.”

  Arlen eschewed his horse in favour of marching through his town accompanied by twenty of his guard in a very obvious show of strength. There were faster routes to the Lakehome Inn but Arlen wanted as many people as possible, friends and enemies, to see his intent.

  So, with the sun trying to warm a cloudy day and dry the streets that had been swept once again by unseasonably heavy rain, Jasto Arlen strode from the gates of Arlen Castle. Walking quickly up the wide, stone-chipped avenue between his private gardens and the barracks, he turned right on to Market Approach, a meandering street that linked the town to the north trails. Market Approach was peppered by cross streets the whole of its length, while to the east, increasingly sumptuous merchant and shippers’ houses culminated in the magnificent Park of the Martyrs’ Souls. To the west, south of the barracks, the silk and fine goods market and the playhouse fronted a less affluent quarter including Arlen's castle workers’ cottages and tenements, the stables and the plain but most important Temple of the Sea.

  Arlen headed straight down Market Approach, a slightly sloped, cobbled street that opened out into Centenary Square, which housed the main market, selling everything from food to weapons to fine carved furnishings, and ringed all round with eating houses, inns and even the odd gallery. This early, the square was only just beginning to fill but word would spread quickly and Arlen felt his anger rising further. His was a well-formed, prosperous town built on hard work and a tight business ethic. No one would be allowed to change that.

  Waving at his townspeople and trading greetings with anyone he knew, Arlen turned right out of the square to walk through poorer tenement streets into the long-nicknamed Ice Quarter where the trawler men had traditionally lived and cold-stored late-landed fish before selling catches in the dock-front fish market each midmorning. Arlen walked past the iron foundry and fish market on his way to the dockside, taking in the empty harbour that housed the fishing fleet and the first of the deepwater berths, before turning left and walking past an attractive, sleek elven vessel, obviously just tied up, and stopping finally at the doors to the Lakehome Inn.

  Looking along the dock past the timber yard and on to the Salt Quarter, Arlen could see a few people about, including some of the Black Wings lounging around jetty posts. They, like his townspeople and visitors, straightened quickly, and before his sergeant-at-arms had finished hammering on the inn's door to demand attention, a crowd was beginning to gather, a hubbub of noise filling the air and taking men and women from their work as curiosity got the better of them.

  Locks were slid back and the left-hand of a pair of painted black wooden doors squeaked open. One of the innkeeper's sons, a scrawny lad in his early teens, peered out, his freckled face blanching under his shock of tangled orange hair.

  “Don't worry, Petren,” said Arlen. “Just wake your father. I need to talk to one of your guests. Now.”

  The frightened boy said nothing in reply, just bobbed his head and turned back into the gloom. Presently, they could hear his voice echoing through the inn, reedy and high, unbroken.

  “Father. Pa! The Earl's at the door, the Earl's at the door.”

  Arlen allowed himself a brief smile, catching the eye of his sergeant-at-arms.

  “At least he knew who I was,” said Arlen.

  “Yes sir.”

  During the short wait, the crowd swelled and amongst them, Arlen counted over a dozen of the Black Wings. Right now, the atmosphere was calm and curious but it wouldn't take much to turn it ugly. He leaned toward the sergeant-at-arms and ordered him to place men near the Black Wings.

  “My Lord?” It was the innkeeper, Denat.

  “Sorry to wake you,” said Arlen.

  “Not at all, my Lord. I've been up cooking breakfasts a while now.”

  “Busy time for you?”

  “I'm full,” confirmed Denat.

  “Hmm.” Arlen nodded. “Unfortunately, I fear you are about to lose much of your current custom.”

  “Pardon, my Lord?” Denat frowned and fidgeted at the door. He was a heavier set but balding version of his son.

  “I want Selik, is it? Yes, Selik, at this door immediately.”

  “Oh.” Denat hesitated. “Of course. I'll fetch him for you.”

  “Thank you.” Arlen's smile was thin. He regretted the necessity for men like Denat but had to concede his type was useful to the town's economy.

  “I am quite capable of fetching myself,” drawled a voice Arlen hadn't heard before. Disabled. Not true. And when the misshapen figure appeared around the door and forced himself past the retreating Denat, the Earl could see why.

  “Earl Arlen, I take it?” The figure proffered a hand which Arlen ignored.

 
; “Correct. And you are unwanted in this town.”

  Selik raised an eyebrow. “Really? By whom?”

  Arlen regarded him blankly. “Me. And that is enough. However, I'm not an unfair man and I've watched your activities for longer than I should.”

  “I—”

  “Be silent.” Arlen raised a finger but not his voice, unused to being interrupted. “And listen to me. Trade in this town is run by word, bond and delivery of goods and payment, not by threat, fist and intimidation. Goods stolen are accepted losses only if the perpetrator cannot be apprehended. And violations of the person, particularly the female person, are not tolerated under any circumstances.

  “These key laws and numerous others have been transgressed by you or your men. So here's what happens now. With two exceptions, I want every one of your men accounted for and out of my town by midday. Any found still here after that time will be deemed in breach of the fair trading laws and suffer the appropriate penalties.

  “Any goods you have bought legitimately but not received will be delivered to you beyond Arlen's borders. Any shipping deals you have struck, whether fairly or under duress, will be deemed void and any monies due will be returned to you.

  “You, Selik, will remain here not only until your men have gone but more importantly, until you identify and hand over the two scum who molested a woman and threatened her young child in my peaceful streets.

  “Do I make myself clear?”

  Arlen's speech had brought a hush to the crowd that now numbered in excess of one hundred, every one craning to catch every word. Even this close, the blustery wind off the lake snatched away the odd phrase yet enough was clear to send a ripple of applause around the gathering. Arlen did not acknowledge it.

  Throughout, Selik had met Arlen's gaze, a sneer evident on his smeared face. He had not attempted to interrupt. The applause died down quickly, the crowd anticipating Selik's response.

  “I understood this to be a free town. It appears I was mistaken.”

  “No, not mistaken,” said Arlen. “But freedom has to be bounded by rules to avoid it becoming anarchy. This is what you have attempted to bring here and I will not tolerate it.”

  Selik nodded, his sneer broadening into what might pass as a smile.

  “We asked for cooperation and received none,” he said quietly. “Yet we had to have what we tried to buy and I am afraid some of your traders did not seem to understand that. You see, Earl Arlen, there is a war coming, though you might not see it as such. And I am on the side of the just, fighting against the rising threat of dominion over Balaia of a single magical power.”

  Arlen scoffed. “War. Selik, we are all aware of problems with the mana spectrum. I do talk to my mages, you know. But these problems will pass, and with them this irritating wind and chilling rain. Don't attempt to hang your perverse actions on a magical uprising.” Arlen took half a pace forward, feeling revulsion grow for the man he confronted.

  “I know your beliefs and you are free to hold them. But you are not free to impose them on my people or to use them to justify your simpleminded thuggery. Now do you understand what you are to do, or do I take you to the jail to think on it at greater length?”

  Selik straightened and raised his voice.

  “I will grant you this futile and very short-lived victory, merely because it would be a waste of my time to stand against you at this moment. But mark my words, Arlen. There is war coming. We will have what we need to conduct it and the innocent will die and their blood will be on your streets and your hands unless you turn to me for help. Mark what I say. And let your people hear it too.” And he tapped Arlen's chest with his forefinger.

  The Earl grabbed Selik's hand and turned it away.

  “There will never be war in Arlen,” he snarled. “Unless you make the grave mistake of returning, that is, and, believe me, you will meet my steel if you try. Now get your men, give me the guilty and get out of my town.”

  Selik laughed. “Believe what you will, Arlen. But right will triumph over innocence and ignorance.”

  The look in Selik's eye left Arlen cold.

  Hirad made a hasty camp between the trunks of a trio of young oaks, lashing his treated leather sheet to them at an angle to give him some protection from the weather. On leaving the Raven camp, he'd gathered his saddle and unhitched his horse, unsure of how far he'd travel. In the end, he'd walked for a mile, maybe a little more, while the rain pounded down, soaking him through his furs and completing his miserable but unforgettable evening.

  With the wind at his back, beating the rain on to the leather, which thrummed and pulled, he set a fire with the dry sticks and kindling he habitually carried inside the leather, before collecting a few more to dry by the small blaze on the sodden ground.

  He let his horse wander, knowing it wouldn't stray unless endangered and, with his saddle as a pillow of sorts, lay back to contemplate the mess in which he found himself. There was a pit in his stomach that stole any appetite and a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with his earlier shouting. But above it all in his mind rode a deep sense of unease and wrong, coupled with loss. He'd walked out on The Raven, the only family he'd ever really known. This was nothing like the sad, if inevitable and certainly amicable parting of the ways they'd shared a few years before. This had been an act of finality.

  Hirad sought fruitlessly for a comfortable position on the soaking leaf mould, his mind distracted by the howling wind that tore at his sheet, threatening to rip it loose; the incessant heavy rain that poured from the leather, pooling on the ground before running downhill and away.

  He wasn't a deep and clever thinker like the others, never had been. He just reacted to what he saw, heard and felt. It was his strength and his curse. He had no idea what had snapped in him earlier. It would have been easy to blame Denser completely but he had to shoulder much of the blame himself.

  It was a culmination of things. The way he was always expected to jump to and help other people though, when matters were reversed, those others always found reasons not to bother. And Denser was the worst of them. He'd been acting very strangely since they'd met him in Greythorne.

  But still, Hirad knew he shouldn't have done what he did. Clearly, the man was scared for his family's lives and it unbalanced him. Made him say stupid things; and bringing the Kaan into it had been a mistake that had triggered so much.

  Once more, Hirad brought the image of The Unknown's blade to his mind, saw its unwavering point and the intent in the grip. It had been no warning and although Hirad knew The Unknown's reaction had been purebred instinct, he also knew that the Big Man would have killed him had he threatened the Xeteskian further. It was, after all, what he had been born to do; and even though he had been released from Protector thrall and had his soul returned, the legacy remained.

  And now Hirad didn't know how to feel. Angry at Denser, yes. Sad for what he had pushed The Unknown into, certainly. Disappointed he had walked out without solving the problem as well. That had always been The Raven's way until now. Not to run. But he had.

  There was nothing more to be done that night. Ilkar would know he wouldn't come back immediately and there was no way The Unknown would sanction a search for him until dawn. But there was one question he wanted to answer before he slept. Did he want to be found? Actually, as the hours slipped by and he drifted in and out of sleep, disturbed by wind, rain and the odd rumble of thunder, the answer had become rather obvious.

  Hirad awoke in a tight position that was scant protection from the chill. The dawn brought with it a strengthening of the wind but a welcome cessation of the rain. Hirad opened his eyes and stared at the taut leather bivouac vibrating against its ropes. He frowned as he blinked back the brightness of the morning, surprised he hadn't woken sooner. But that wasn't all that was amiss. Despite the wind, he should have been able to hear the sounds of forest birds, only it was very quiet and the wind rushed through what to the ear was a dead wood. Like Thornewood.

  He stretc
hed where he lay before rolling over and sitting upright, rubbing his face and scratching at an itchy scalp. It was time, he thought ruefully, for Ilkar to clear his head of mites.

  Pushing himself up, he ducked out from under the edge of his shelter and stretched again, his eyes coming to rest on his horse.

  “Hello, boy, I—” he began but faltered. The stallion was standing stock still, eyes wide, legs quivering, too terrified to move. Hirad looked left, following its stare to where five wolves stood, partly hidden by shadows.

  “Oh dear Gods,” he said. His sword lay by the ashes of the fire. He could grab for it but if he triggered a charge, he'd be killed in moments. So he stood, hoping against the odds that they would move on.

  “Easy boy,” he said to his horse but the words were as much to himself.

  The wolves stood in a close pack, the leader in front of two pairs. They didn't growl, didn't threaten and didn't give any indication of intent. Like Hirad, they stood and waited. It wasn't normal behaviour and Hirad, not blessed with patience, was anxious for an outcome. Any outcome.

  He took a pace forward, ignoring his blade, knowing that open aggression could be fatal.

  “So what is it?” he demanded of them. “Do something. We're not going anywhere.” His gesture included his horse, who suddenly pissed on the forest floor.

  The lead wolf sniffed the air and then, with a low growl to its fellows, padded out into the dappled sunlight. It was a huge beast, four feet at the shoulder, its eyes yellow-tinged and its coat pale brown but for a sprinkling of grey flecks and an absolutely unmistakable white stripe down the front of its neck.

  Hirad felt momentarily weak at the knees.

  It was Thraun.

  The Unknown, Ilkar and Denser rode in resentful silence but it could have been worse. The Dordovan mage guard had wanted the Raven mages bound but Darrick had instructed them otherwise. The Unknown had smiled at that, a fleeting amusement. The instruction had been little more than thinly veiled threat.

  And so the trio rode weaponless but not helpless in the midst of a Lysternan cavalry force heading at good speed toward Arlen. It had become clear to The Unknown that none in the column had any idea what they might find at the busy but sleepy fishing town whose docks had latterly attracted profitable attention. All they knew was that Erienne was due in on an elven ship and that The Raven weren't to be allowed access.