by Ben Galley
On the fourth occasion, Farden slammed his armoured fist into the tree. His guttural yell scattered the few ground-birds that dared to break the forest’s silence. Mithrid was inclined to agree. Being so enclosed made her yearn for the flat face of the open ice flats. She throttled her axe.
‘We could cut one down, get some damn air.’
‘We should climb one,’ Aspala offered. ‘See what’s beyond.’
Farden was too busy inspecting the threads of sticky pale sap that came away with his gauntlet to offer an answer.
When nobody moved, Mithrid rolled up the sleeves of her cloak, showing the scorched black armour on her wrists. ‘A fine idea, and I’ll bet there isn’t a better climber here than me.’
Rubbing the damp from her fingers, Mithrid eagerly reached for the first branch. With a lurch that almost made her yelp, Farden seized her wrist. Only one of her fingers had touched the branch. He dragged it back, dragging a single strand of sap with it. Mithrid twitched as it stung her. It felt like a knife slicing down the length of her finger. Black shadow swirled around Mithrid’s hand as she clenched it.
‘It’s no magick, Mithrid,’ Farden said, drawing her away from the tree. ‘Poison, maybe.’
‘Poison? Shit…’ she seethed, immediately bending to wipe her finger across the mud and scrape it in a puddle. The panic died with the pain.
Farden pointed at another nearby tree with an irregular trunk. ‘Look. Can’t figure how I didn’t notice it before, but it’s right there.’
It took a tilt of her head, but she saw it: the vague shape of a deer in the silver wood, wrapped around the tree trunk. One leg and antler remained protruding as skeletal branches. No wonder not a scuffle of hoof or paw dared disrupt the silence. No wonder the birdsong was so meagre and haunting. The trees were truly carnivorous after all. Mithrid felt betrayed by every plant she had ever tended.
Warbringer snorted in anger, as if the mere existence of the trees was an affront. She glared at every branch or trunk within a swinging distance of her warhammer. ‘Meat-eating trees? We are in the Dark Fields, Farden. Is that where vampyre brings us?’
A frantic screeching of some bird trapped upon a branch spurred them onwards. A smattering of its feathered friends burst from the forest floor and took wing. With no more than a collective nod, the whole group seemed to agree at once to follow them, hoping the birds would flee the forest and lead them to light.
With the sounds of a tortured creature ringing in their ears, they dashed across the loam until their legs turned to fire. Ever onwards, they pressed, even when a wailing horn echoed through the forest. It was no creature, but blown by human breath. A gust of sickly wind blew around their sweating, stumbling forms as they chased its direction. The trees rustled overhead, and still they ran.
Sunlight.
A glorious blotch of it speared the oppressive, endless trees. Mithrid outpaced the others, though it was terrifying to see Warbringer bringing up second. For a moment, the soggy ground was sand of grey and black, and it was not the remnants of a war behind her, but Remina, and Bogran. And Bull.
By the time her legs were becoming gelatinous, Mithrid could spy the edge of the cursed forest. Where the loam ended, timid grass of yellow grew glowing in the sunlight. Baring teeth, Mithrid threw herself towards it and escaped the forest in a sprawl of limbs and tangled hair. She tumbled into a heap and let her lungs heave, drawing in a mouthful of dry grass but also a lungful of the freshest air she’d ever tasted.
Hooves skidded next to her. The minotaur’s rump colliding with the ground reverberated through Mithrid’s ribs.
‘First,’ she whispered, out of old habit.
Warbringer seemed put out. ‘Not race, girl.’
Aspala brought Farden across the threshold with her, the mage leaning heavily on the woman’s arm as they ran. They were the first to notice they had an audience.
Mithrid gradually pushed herself from the ground, eyes shifting from a powder blue sky and mountains so yellow they looked like sand dunes, to the sweeping plains leading right up to the grass still sticking to her face. The same faded grass that, not a stone’s throw away at the edge of the forest, a score of incredibly angry-looking strangers stood upon.
From their yellow and blue fur pelts to the scythes they brandished, to the grinning skull masks they wore, nothing was familiar about these people. Especially not the man standing at the centre of their huddle, who had deer horns affixed to his mask of silver.
It appeared as though they had interrupted some kind of ceremony. A body wrapped in white cloth lay before a huge specimen of the foul trees. Another figure stood kneeled before the trunk. The wood had swallowed his arms up to the elbows. The rest of his skin was turning a mottled silver. With his head back, mouth agape to the sky, thin green tendrils had sprouted from the man’s long-dead eyes.
Barging through his fellows, the silver-masked leader marched towards Mithrid and the others. He used the staff of his tall scythe like a walking stick while he bellowed in a dialect of the Commontongue, the words so thick they were almost another language.
‘Who dares to defile the Bronzewood?’ he demanded in furious tones.
Farden raised a hand in greeting. ‘Our mistake, sir! We are incredibly and undoubtedly lost. We meant no disrespect. As you can see, we wanted to leave the forest as quickly as possible.’
The man halted before them.
‘I am the High Cathak Tartavor, and I demand to know who defiles the Bronzewood! It is sacred Cathak land. Give me your names so I can have the Dusk God curse you for your flagrant sins.’
Farden cleared his throat. ‘And as I said, we are lost. If you could tell us where we are—?’
The man spluttered. ‘How does one forget the path they took to be here? One does not simply stumble into the Bronzewood!’ By now, the others in Tartavor’s pack had begun to form up behind him. His stern expression softened. ‘Yet our god is not cruel. Forgiveness for the fools, we preach. Instead, you shall pay the Dusk God a toll for your disrespect and trespass.’
Mithrid decided it was a fine time to stand at the mage’s side. As did Aspala. Warbringer stayed on her arse in the dust, looking bored by the whole affair. Durnus was still slumped over her shoulder.
Farden crossed his arms. ‘Really? A toll?’ He spoke sideways to Mithrid. ‘The oldest trick of bandits and waylayers. And I imagine it won’t be cheap.’
The High Cathak removed his silver mask to reveal a righteous grin smeared like honey across tanned and hairless features. A black crescent moon had been tattooed on his forehead, like the closed lid of a third eye. ‘You imagine well, for the price of trespassing upon sacred Cathak land is high indeed. A toll is necessary so the Dusk God may dispense his glorious forgiveness upon your shoulders. Unless you wish to make a sacrifice in blood. As is customary, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘The religious kinds of bandit really are the worst,’ Aspala muttered under her breath, eyeing the others fanning out past their leader, scythes raised in two hands. ‘A plague on the desert paths of Paraia.’
Farden nodded. ‘Aren’t they just?’
Tartavor attempted to look humble, almost discontented with his holy duty. ‘Your arms and armour would satisfy the Dusk God’s needs, I am sure. All of it. Even your half-sword, child of the Burnt South.’
Aspala thumbed the jagged edge of her gold blade, where the metal had been notched and broken. ‘And that will dispense enough justice, will it?’ she hissed.
‘Perhaps that ungodly pig-beast’s crude hammer as well, and the Exalted One’s wrath might be appeased.’
That got Warbringer’s attention something fierce. Putting Durnus aside, she arose and stretched to her enormous height before brushing past the others. Warbringer made no noise, no grunt of effort as she calmly approached the Cathak. Her “crude” hammer Voidaran screamed like a tortured ghost as she swung it, breaking a man beside Tartavor in two before driving his shattered corpse through two other
s. It was so barbarically abrupt it stunned half of the bandits immobile. Those who didn’t run, the minotaur broke like kindling. One man was decapitated so rapidly his body cartwheeled before landing in a headless heap. Another whose legs failed her found Voidaran dropped on the back of her skull with a whine.
Though the ease of which the human body was reduced to pieces turned Mithrid’s gut, she nodded appreciatively to see the High Cathak scarpering. Pelts flailing behind him, scythe forgotten, Tartavor had outstripped the half-dozen survivors and was dashing along the border of his precious Bronzewood. He soon disappeared over a rise in the grassland. His antlered helmet lay nearby in the dry soil.
Warbringer snuffled. Cheated of further spoils, she wiped her gruesome hammer across a patch of trampled grass and patted it. ‘Called me pig-beast.’
Farden shrugged. ‘No explanation needed.’
‘I think you made quite the impression,’ Mithrid said.
Warbringer smiled through sharp teeth. It was a brief moment of levity, and as their boots squelched through the blood, their minds turned back to serious matters, such as why in Hel the dead bundle of cloth was now trying to move.
Before Mithrid could point, Aspala was already hobbling towards it. Her sword made short work of the cloth, and she had to jump aside as a young boy exploded upright. Even gagged and bound, he managed to wriggle to his feet and hop madly around in a circle. He was barely dressed in sackcloth, covered in bruises and the bleeding marks of brands. The Cathak had sheared his head. Whatever he screamed under the gag was indecipherable, and Farden cuffed him lightly to keep him still. The mage tugged the cloth from the boy’s mouth while Aspala held his bonds.
‘Please don’t kill me! I have nothing to offer you! They took me as sacrifice. They were going to feed me to the Bronzewood—’
‘Shut it,’ Farden snapped. ‘Just tell me where in Emaneska we are and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Ema… Emeska?’
The way the boy questioned the name made Mithrid abruptly aware of the heartbeat pounding in her head.
‘You’re not in Emeska, sir.’
Farden shook him. ‘Where? Where then?’
‘You stand on the Rivenplains, sir.’ At their blank looks, he elaborated further. ‘On the S—Sunder Road. North of Lilerosk. Or west of Dathazh, you could say. That’s a proper city.’ The boy fussed with his hands.
The mage had his answer, but clearly not the one he wanted. It caused him to physically stumble. Sweat beaded his forehead. Farden looked to the plains and the sky, blinking owlishly as if he only just awoken.
Mithrid was still trying to make sense of the words when Farden began to totter away from the Bronzewood.
‘Where are you going?’ she called.
He shouted his answer to the cloudless blue. ‘South. Home.’
Mithrid chased after him. ‘Are we just going to leave that lad behind?’
‘At least he knows where he is.’
It was a coldness Mithrid had only seen Farden reserve for Arka. ‘Don’t you care?’
Farden whirled on her, temper soaring unexpectedly. ‘Of course I don’t, Mithrid! If I have to deal with one more problem right now my skull will simply explode. My mind is currently full of grander matters, as it happens. Such as the terror that we are the only survivors of Scalussen, lost in a land I’ve never seen. Or the fact I cannot feel my magick beneath my skin, and my armour seems inexplicably broken. Or that, despite my hopes of crushing Malvus and his ideals once and for all, despite killing thousands, hundreds of thousands with my own hands, despite sacrificing everything I’ve built, including my oldest friends, he still lives. And now, as if that wasn’t enough, a greater evil plays his games with Emaneska, and I am right back where I fucking started!’
Mithrid stared at him wide-eyed and breath held. Despite the rising fire in her chest, her armour, and wild hair, she felt the same Hâlorn girl who had stood before Farden atop the Frostsoar: unsure, untrusting, cowed. It was as if the last months had been wound back, and counted for naught.
Farden pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m sorry. I—’
A noise distracted him. A moment passed before Mithrid heard it also: a slight yet rumbling tremor in the ground. She searched for clouds but saw no culprits of thunder.
‘I don’t think we’ve seen the last of our gods-fearing friends,’ Farden warned in a low voice, at the precise moment a small copse of crooked scythes appeared over the rise. Two score of them, all wearing the same skull masks. Half of them sat astride muscular piebald cows. The rest ran, and, as they charged, their low and disturbing chants filled the air.
Warbringer readied Voidaran gleefully. Aspala began to hiss, half-blade low and backwards like a dagger. Farden reached for his sword and found it lacking. Mithrid caught his eye as it moved to her axe.
‘Not a chance,’ she said, sweeping it from its sheath and holding it fast.
‘Fuck it,’ growled Farden. He stretched for the ground, grimacing at his shaking arms. Mithrid was torn between watching the mage struggle and the charging Cathak rapidly close the distance between them. Worse, she felt no swell of magick in the air. None of their attackers were mages. Mithrid swallowed against a dry throat as she took a pace forwards, axe raised.
‘Look!’
A shadow crossed the bright afternoon sun that hung above the Bronzewood. Mithrid winced in the glare. Before she could shield her eyes, fire spewed from the sky. The bandits’ charge was enveloped in a blazing cloud of flame. Those who weren’t turned to cinders ran screaming with flames and smoke streaming from their furs. Cows bellowed and scattered in fear. The two score immediately became a dozen, and by the looks of the remainder, they had no wish to fight. In their panic to escape the fire, some even sprinted into their sacred Bronzewood.
A turquoise dragon brushed the grass with its wings before crash-landing in a heap. Mithrid and the others recognised its colours and pattern immediately.
Farden galloped ahead. ‘Fleetstar!’
Clouds of dust mingled with the smoke of Fleetstar’s laboured breaths. ‘Two thousand…’ she was gasping, huge, forked tongue lolling like a hound’s.
‘Two thousand what?’ Farden looked around, expecting an army marching into sight at any juncture.
‘Two thousand fucking miles,’ she cursed.
Farden had to put a hand on her warm scales to steady himself. The sweat ran down his cheek.
Mithrid stood close by. She was struggling to imagine such distance. ‘Where is that? Where does that put us?’
The dragon wheezed. ‘East of Trollhammerung. At least five hundred miles past what I’d safely call Emaneska. Past the old Crumbled Empire of Skölgard.’
‘How in Hel did you find us?’
Fleetstar blinked at the sun, distracted and abruptly quiet. ‘I just looked for trouble,’ she growled. ‘I spied a town further south.’
‘Lilerosk,’ interrupted the boy. He spoke in a whisper, transfixed by the dragon. It took him a moment to realise they were all staring at him expectantly. ‘It’s my home. It’s not far. A day or two’s travel.’
Mithrid sucked her teeth. ‘Well, Farden?’ She seized the chance at clinging onto a spot on the map.
While the mage pondered, the boy leaned closer to Aspala. ‘What is that thing?’
‘A dragon, boy.’
‘Never seen one before. Or whatever you and your… husband are?’ The lad looked to Warbringer, who promptly lifted her hammer. Aspala stayed her hand.
‘Two thousand miles,’ was all Farden could say to it all. He reached for the helmet that dangled from his waist and shoved it over his head. Grumbling at the crunch of metal, he patted Fleetstar between the spines of her neck.
‘Can you walk?’
The dragon rumbled somewhat inconclusively. ‘Not now,’ was all Fleetstar said, and she closed her eyes as if it were a fine moment and place for a nap.
‘Walk where, Farden?’ Mithrid interjected, but Farden ignored her. The mage
levelled a gold finger at the rescued lad.
‘And you, boy. You have a name?’
‘Kursi, sire.’
‘Then in return for saving your life, Kursi, you can take us to this town of yours,’ Farden ordered. ‘I’m tired of being lost. We should gather our thoughts and fill our bellies. Supplies. Weapons. A healer for Durnus. Anything we’ll need for our journey back to Elessi and the other survivors.’
Mithrid squinted to read his eyes behind the visor, but Farden turned and merely began to trudge, keeping the sun on his right. With a tired nod to the others, agreement was reached, and they followed the mage south.
The boy hop-skipped alongside her as if he couldn’t decide between walking or running. ‘So!’ he said, cheerful merely to be alive and not tree-fodder. ‘Who are you people?’
CHAPTER 3
ALL SPARKS
It is not gold nor military might that is most valuable in all the world, but souls. Not their belief, but their raw power.
FROM ANCIENT WRITINGS OF THE CULT OF EVERNIA
The first hawks from the north had arrived in the eyries of quiet Krauslung.
The rumours of scribbled, bloody missives, telling tales of mountains of fire and utter defeat had spread as a plague from the messenger towers to the streets, from one household to the next, until a fever of unrest claimed the empire’s capital. Crowds coalesced in markets. Streets turned quiet by war were filled by a press of bodies. The need for answers vomited the residents of shuttered houses onto the streets.
Under a sunset of red and bizarre green, Krauslung had gathered at the mighty walls at the valley’s mouth. There they flooded the wall-tops to wait for sons, daughters, fathers, and wives to come stumbling home through the pervasive, chilling shadow that had enveloped the Össfen Mountains. Most watched in silence, suffering the ailment of waiting. Others found company for their own fear by stoking those of others. Fear deteriorated into anger. Fights broke out between city guards and citizens. Before long, mobs stalked the streets, demanding answers of a city that could produce none. The emperor was as absent as his hordes.