by Ben Galley
Latest count from the Chamber of Military Might, Arctian year 1001
The sun’s brutal rhythm had grown easier with time. It was useless to oppose the monotony of sunrise and sunset. The stark mountainside became a place of opposites: day to night, hot to cold, blinding bright to deepest dark. But it was predictable, and anything predictable can be managed. Time, and lack of options, helped.
What was not predictable was the stench of Farazar’s body.
Nilith had never known a body could stink so in the desert heat. It was not uncommon to see a beast felled by the sun on the streets of Araxes, and for the corpse to linger there for days, filling the air with its reek. However, she had never had to share a horse’s back with one for days on end and get to suffer the entire spectrum of putrefaction. Just as she was getting used to one kind of smell, another came along to make her gag. Farazar’s wine- and fat-pickled body had also begun to squelch with the jolting of Anoish’s trot. As much as she tried to listen to the sand scattering in the hot breeze, or the hoof beats, even the grumbling of Farazar’s ghost, she still heard it.
The nights on the soaring slopes of the Firespar had become hallowed periods, where the body could be put away somewhere at the edge of the firelight, and a squelch-free silence could reign. It was also a chance to rest her leg, which, although healed by the beldam’s charms, still ached from being dangled against the horse’s side all day.
The slopes had not yet proven challenging. They were simply winding, with the path chasing back and forth through grey-brown shale to lessen the angle. Without feeling like they’d climbed at all, they could now stare down at the vast expanse of desert below them, where foothills were mere pimples and the dunes just cracks in a yellow palm.
That night, the moon and stars illuminated the vista, showing them a handful of other campfires far in the distance, shining against the inestimable wasteland. The soft glow of a town or quarry shone in the east, at the limit of the horizon. A thin, charcoal line of a river-rift meandered between the dunes, heading north and east.
In the west, a few soultrains or nomad caravans weaved back and forth. Nilith could even see the specks of gazelles or giraffes galloping across the salt flats. Perhaps sabre-cats pursued them, or jackals. If she peered closely enough, she swore she could see faint violet lights hovering between the dunes. They were the lures of dunewyrms. Like fishermen and baited hooks, they dangled their lights from a stalk to attract prey, waiting patiently until something became curious enough.
Nilith’s fire was hidden behind a rock, out of view of any watchful eyes immediately above and below. The hot breezes of the day had turned cold, and they whipped at the flames in jealousy.
Much to Nilith’s contentment, Farazar had stayed quiet for several days now. Perhaps he too had heard the squelching of his body and it had unsettled him. He spent the nights brooding with his back to her and knees drawn against his chest. Once he had tried to sit out on display, glowing like a beacon, but his weak attempt at betrayal had been swiftly quashed and criticised.
The night passed in shattered pieces between brief periods of sleep. Her unease kept her up. Once, she awoke to find Farazar pacing around the fire. She watched him with droopy eyes until he noticed her gaze, huffed, and went back to his brooding.
When morning broke over the side of the old mountain, the light pouring into the barren gullies dragged her from her shallow dreams. After taking a moment to relieve herself behind a nearby boulder – a curious black thing that looked half-molten – she roused Anoish and strapped the stinking body across his rump. She retched on her empty stomach. For some time, she had to stand quite still with the waterskin clasped in both hands.
Once the nausea passed, and with two strips of shirt stuffed up each of her nostrils, they continued the climb. Farazar took the lead today, eager to be far away from his corpse. Nilith wished she could do the same, but she needed her strength. The water was running low and her supplies were beginning to dwindle. Unless the old mountain had a spring at its peak, she would need every ounce of vigour to press on, and that meant riding.
Dawn became early morning, and the rousing sunrise grew into a sharp, angry heat. It was as if the sun lived a whole life each day: the harmless dawn cheery as a newborn, the morning and midday sun a hot, youthful angst, and the evening a regal slide into the horizon. Nilith waited all day for its passing.
The turns began to grow tighter and the angle of the path sharper. The Firespar had finally started to test them, and by early afternoon, the sweat poured from her and Anoish. The endless winding became disorientating, and when combined with the stink, Nilith found herself curling up on the horse’s back, filling her nose with his musty scent.
An hour later, the path forked, splitting into three like a trident spearing the mountain. One led west, another east, and the centre aimed straight up towards the ragged summit and the pass that led through its crater. It was the shortest path, but it was also the most dangerous.
Now that she stared up it, following its zig-zag tendencies and noting how far away the sharp crown of black rock still seemed, Nilith felt dizzy. She swayed against Anoish’s neck. She turned to look over her shoulder, but found the slope fell away at an alarming angle. The country far below was wrapped in a haze of heat and dust. Nilith put a hand to her forehead.
‘Trouble, wife?’
Farazar’s croaking voice brought her round. ‘None, thank you.’
‘Which way, then?’
‘Straight up. The hard path. The dangerous path.’ She could feel Anoish grumble through her backside, and the grind of his molars, too. The horse was far too smart for his own good.
‘Good. Maybe you’ll fall and break your neck.’
‘I keep telling you, if you want to spend the rest of eternity as the whipslave of some mountain bandit, be my guest. Remember that, before you try to attract attention again.’
Farazar fell back into his silence and began a slow trudge up the middle path. Nilith took a moment to water Anoish and herself before nocking an arrow to the string of her borrowed bow. It was a small thing, fashioned from dark wood and springbok horn, recurved and bent with gut-string. And should she run out of arrows, her knife sat at her side, the scimitar tucked into the corpse-wrappings behind her.
There was nothing to do but continue. She held tight to the horse with her legs, laying the bow flat on her lap, and endured. A mountain was simply a test of moving one limb in front of the other in the right direction, its height measured only by the number of repetitions needed to reach its peak.
Nilith gave up on counting by the time she reached six thousand, and those were hoofsteps. The landscape below had become smaller and less detailed, yet the jagged ridge still towered over them, as though it had barely moved. It was infuriating. She found herself clutching the copper coin looped around her neck, remembering the meaning of resolve.
The mountainside became more hostile the higher they climbed. The iron colours of sand and rock faded into black and sun-baked grey. Boulders perched on knuckles of folded rock. It bubbled here, seeped there: so full of movement yet all frozen in time. Great whorls and pockmarks interrupted the path, and the earth was scorched black wherever the stone had spread. Nilith could smell a faint sulphur on the breezes.
‘I thought this mountain had died a long time ago,’ she said to Farazar, still a dozen paces ahead.
He sighed. ‘They say the earth never truly dies here. They say the Firespar will roar again, one day.’
‘So you do know something of your country after all.’
He muttered something about wives and beheading.
Anoish was tired long before the sun had sunk behind the slope. His hooves were used to plains, not crags as steep as stairs. No steppe-hoof, this one. Half their path faded to darkness while the other half blazed a dark orange. Nilith cast around for something resembling a hollow, somewhere she wouldn’t roll to her demise down the craggy slope in the middle of the night.
The li
ght had almost disappeared by the time she decided it was useless. The slope looked like it had taken some ancient and magnificent hammer blow. There was no camp to be found amongst the jagged boulders, pumice and broken rock.
‘We press on,’ she said as she slipped from Anoish’s back. The horse whinnied his gratitude and she patted his pronounced ribs.
‘In the dark?’ Farazar had a point; no moon had risen yet.
‘We still have stars, and you’ll light the way for us, won’t you? Warn us of any craters or holes that could lame our good horse?’
‘Or bandits.’
‘Fear not, Farazar. You know I can defend myself. And you.’ She patted the corpse without thinking and quickly withdrew her hand.
‘Hmph.’
And on they went, with Farazar walking ahead of Nilith while she guided the horse. As night claimed the sky, his glow grew brighter, and with the added shine of the stars they kept up a good pace.
Conversation was non-existent; there was just the occasional mumble of a pothole or rift in the path. Anoish was clearly eager to avoid injury as well, and did a fine job of staying calm. He had grown used to the shade’s presence in the last week. He must have sensed Farazar’s uselessness, or the constant derision in Nilith’s voice. He ignored him as much as she did.
The pace slowed as the slope arched its back. There were a few places where they had to scrabble up the detritus of old landslides. Anoish whinnied in panic as the stones crumbled under his hooves, all pumice and shale. Nilith had to shove her shoulder into his flanks to help him onto firmer ground.
They reached the lip of the crater in the night’s darkest hours. In the starlight, they found it a hollow, vacant place. It stretched in a teardrop shape, a mile or two across at its shortest point. Jagged spires of rock stood around its edges like the surviving pillars of a hall with its roof blown off. Several of the structures must have rivalled Araxes’ mansions for height. They all leaned at an angle, away from the centre of the crater.
Beneath them, the rock fell away, grooved and scorched like the inside of an old cauldron. Occupying a hollow in its centre was a small lake, still and as silver as mercury in the starlight. Between it and them, a forest of fang-like rocks protruded from the crater’s floor, pointing at the stars.
It may have been a trick of the dawn, or compensation for the dark of the crater, but Nilith could have sworn she saw a faint glow to the north, where the city lay.
She shrugged off her cloak and handed it to Farazar. ‘Put this on. Wrap it around you.’
‘I refuse.’
‘Do it.’ She shuddered in the chilly breeze.
Farazar obeyed, slipping on the cloak and hugging it about him. It was almost as if he’d missed the touch of clothes on his body. After much complaining, he’d apparently grown used to his nakedness.
The descent into the crater was precarious, with Anoish almost tripping on a wobbling boulder. Thankfully, the ground was quick to level. Black sand hissed underfoot. Pebbles crumbled into ash, and the fine dust swirled about them like a sea mist.
They weaved their way through the black fangs. Their stone had escaped the harsh bite of the wind, and the glass-like facets had not dulled. The faint glow escaping Farazar’s cloak made their surfaces dance as if they dripped with oil. Their tall points blotted out the stars, so dark they were edgeless, looking like voids in the sky.
There was a heat to the ground that kept Nilith’s shivering at bay. She could feel it in her feet, or through her hands when she pressed them to the ash. She was grateful for it.
She kept her eyes on the silver lake, visible in portions between the standing stones. Her hand kept reaching out to the diminished waterskin dangling from Anoish’s side. She could feel the horse’s pace quicken every time he caught sight of the lake’s glint.
‘Steady now, boy,’ she whispered, plucking the skin from its rope and holding it tightly.
A stench of sulphur hit them hard as they emerged from the stones to cross the open earth to the lakeshore. It put a halt to the horse, but Nilith was too thirsty to stop. She bent to the water’s edge and found herself coughing at its reek of acrid salts. It made the dead body smell like perfume. She reeled backwards, holding her breath until she was several yards from the water.
‘Well, fuck that,’ she said between coughs.
‘It’s not advisable to drink the water,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Poisonous, eh? Eats your skin.’
Nilith’s knife was free of its sheath in a blur. Her other hand reached for the bow.
In the half-light, Nilith saw the form of a woman, large of build and wrapped in dusty leather armour. Smudges of ash decorated her piggish face in some poor attempt at a tribal pattern. Her black hair had been cut short and was waxed into spikes. She wore a wide grin, and though her open hands were empty, a sword hung at her belt.
‘You’re wise to be cautious up here, eh? Road’s always full of strangers, never friends.’
‘Keep your distance.’
She took a step forwards to prove her boldness. ‘Looking for water, eh? The kind for you or the kind for your ba’at?’ She used the old Arctian name for a ghost, as many desert-folk did. They were an older people, but that didn’t mean kinder.
Nilith shook her head. ‘I think we’ll go look somewhere else.’
The woman hissed through her teeth and half a dozen figures emerged from behind the stones. They were scraggy fellows all, with either knives drawn or arrows nocked. Nilith’s hand had found her bow, but she realised she would be turned into a pincushion before she could do any good with it.
The woman approached. She admired Anoish, running her hand across his rump, staying clear of his hooves. The horse shied away from her and Nilith bared a scowl.
‘Fine beast. And a fine stink. Not bound yet, I see, ba’at?’
Farazar raised his chin as he met her painted eyes.
‘What do you want?’ asked Nilith. ‘Gems?’
‘You have them?’
‘Some. Enough to pay for safe passage through your crater.’
The woman smiled, moving closer still despite the blade in Nilith’s hand. ‘We own nothing here. It would not be right to charge you for something we don’t own, eh?’
Nilith narrowed her eyes. ‘What if I pay for protection?’
‘From what?’
‘From you. From wild beasts. Or perhaps I pay for some clean water.’
‘Mm…’ She hummed, biting her bottom lip. ‘I’m not really in the business of protecting or selling things. Unfamiliar trades, eh?’
Nilith tensed her arm, ready. ‘Then what business are you in?’
The woman took her time, looking around at her men, who had formed a wall around them.
‘Taking what we want.’
The fist came for her gut like a triggerbow bolt. Before Nilith’s blade could do more than rake the woman’s arm, she was already winded and falling backwards. Two arrows thudded into the ground beside her head, and she fell still, curled around her stomach.
The woman stamped her feet either side of her face. With one fist, she seized Nilith by the collar, and with the other proceeded to beat her into unconsciousness. All she heard, before the knuckles brought the darkness, was the frantic neighing of Anoish and the stone-cold silence of Farazar. Between the starbursts of pain and spraying blood, she glimpsed him standing helpless nearby, three copper spears at his throat. His smirking face was the last thing she saw before succumbing.
‘Easy, beast. Easy.’
The equine shrieks brought her round sharply. She flinched, finding her hands bound and her face raw. Her nose felt broken. One eyelid was a narrow slit. The other was closed shut. Her jaw refused to move.
‘Calm it, eh?’
With great difficulty, Nilith inclined her head, looking over to the noise of the horse.
They had Anoish lashed to a stake with little room to move. The woman and a few of her bandits were surrounding him, hands waving in a vain effort to stop him b
ucking.
One man had a switch and kept lashing him across the flank, hissing for him to calm down. Nilith struggled again, forming no words but plenty of bloody spittle.
‘She’s up, Boss!’ yelled a voice not far from her.
‘A fighter, eh? Good news.’
Ungentle hands hauled her upright, resting her against her own stake in the ground. Nilith rolled her head about her shoulders as the woman approached. She felt the cold air where her clothes had been torn and ripped. One leg of her trews was missing. Her white hood and jacket were gone, as was the copper coin around her neck.
They were still on the shore of the lake. A great fire was now burning, mixing brushwood smoke with sulphur-stink. Farazar had been left beside his body. They hadn’t liked the smell either, and so he was down by the water. A guard hovered a good ten feet away.
‘Wha—’ Words were difficult. Her lips were split; fiery every time she moved them.
‘Don’t speak, woman. Won’t do you any good from here, eh?’
‘I have coins, gems. I could make you rich.’
The woman reached inside her leather jacket – Nilith’s jacket – and produced a fat ruby. ‘You already have, and no doubt you’ll make me richer still, eh? Folks in the south are growin’ fond of live slaves, not shades. You seem well bred, eh? Perhaps you’ll make one of the Belish dukes a good pet. You know what they say: can’t fuck a ghost. Real thing’s better.’
Her soot-stained hands reached out to run through Nilith’s tangled hair. She was rough, tugging here and there, then she patted her on the swollen cheek.
‘Pretty, too. Once. I bet, eh?’ Her tongue, stained black with ash and tobacco, licked from Nilith’s chin to her forehead. The cuts stung at the wet touch and Nilith recoiled. ‘If you’re lucky, I might take you into my tent tonight, instead of letting one of these fuckers have their way with you.’