The Stone of Sorrows

by Greg James

  “There is not. I only pray that help will come to us in time.”

  “If it does not, we will fight to the last and slay as many as we may.”

  Jedda squeezed the young man’s shoulder hard. “Whom did you lose?”

  “My father, Majesty. A Drujja stripped the flesh from his bones before my eyes.”

  “I grieve for your loss. I have lost my sister to this war. I think she will never come back to me. We will make them pay in blood.”

  “Aye, Majesty. In bodies and blood.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jedda returned to her chambers, but she could not sleep. She wished, in some ways, that she had gone with Sarah, but she knew that without a member of the royal line here, the defenders of Highmount would only hold together for so long. Fear was breeding a certain amount of strength in them, but it was the kind that was as brittle as it was hardy. It would only take the wrong blow to fall at the wrong time and the will to fight would leach out of the people gathered here.

  And I am the one who must hold them all together, she thought. I do not feel ready for such responsibility. It weights far too heavily on me after a few days alone. How will I fare once we are under siege? We could be so for weeks, months even.

  She paced the length and breadth of her chambers, feeling the weight of war pressing down upon her shoulders. The hour was very late before she was able to lie down and sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Mikka Wormtooth did not know how long he had been walking. The sky overhead seemed to be a broken landscape of thunderheads and stormclouds, rolling and unfurling in time with his progress across the Grassland Plains. He fed on the water from small rock pools and occasional streams, all tainted since the Fallen One’s armies had swept across the land. He could feel the taint burrowing into him, further perverting flesh and bone that had already been twisted into ruin by E’blis, his former master.

  But how can one pervert that which is already a perversion? Mikka thought to himself. For I am not a man but a grown thing, a falsity forged in the heart of the Shadowhorn. I am not a man. I never was. I am sickness masked. Diseased embodied. I was sent among men to bring about their downfall. There is naught left in me that could be considered human, or humane.

  However, there was the voice. Mikka had heard it the first night he had spent sleeping in a wilderness ditch. He had been hoping for a swift death at the hands of marauding Phages and Fellfolk, but none had fallen upon him in all of his travels. True, their energies were doubtless focussed upon bringing about the fall of Highmount, but still he should have encountered some of them. There were too many for his path to the West to have been so uninterrupted. He could only guess this was the work of the voice.

  If someone had asked him, he would not have been able to say why he was following it, because it said nothing of true substance to him. Instead, it whispered in dreams, evoking the world to come. Seythe remade. Seythe as it once was. A land under the dominion of the West and in fear of that which dwelt there. The time of the East and the Nightlands was coming to an end. The Living Flame had been rekindled for this purpose.

  As he slept, and sometimes as he walked by day, Mikka was haunted by visions of Sarah Bean. He saw her wreathed in flames, possessed by something both pure and other—beyond good and evil. In that moment, before the mirror exploded, Mikka had seen something he was sure his old master had not. Sarah Bean was beyond E’blis. Her power was not his to equal. The Prince of Pain would fall if her power was fully awoken, and the voice said that it soon would be.

  What then for Mikka Wormtooth?

  The voice said there would be a place for him in the West, that a power both new and old was arising. All Mikka would have to do was be the one to awaken it, to harness it, and to command it. And, as the dreary days and weary weeks went by, his footsteps led him on a course towards the Mountains of Mourning, to the city of E’phah, to the Deep Forges buried far below.

  A new age was at hand, said the voice: the Age of Ashes.

  The Iron Gods would walk upon the earth once more.

  Chapter Eight

  Trepolpen stood alongside the lake, just as Sarah remembered. It had not entirely escaped the scars of war. The wooden walls encircling it had been charred and gouged by attacks at some point. However, the people of the town had repelled the Fellfolk’s aggression, and Sarah could hear the bustle of the town and see smoke issuing from chimneys.

  “A blessed sight to see,” said Witta. “I had feared the worst, but things seem to have turned out for the best.”

  “There are worse things waiting for us yet, scoutsman,” said a regal voice. Orraea had divested herself of the hood and was regarding Trepolpen and its lake with something less than gratitude.

  “It’s a roof over our heads for a night, at least,” said Witta. “Do you not wish for a soft bed rather than another night on cold, hard ground, Mistress Wayfarer? Does your stomach not yearn for something other than dry meat, drier bread, and a mouthful or two of water?”

  “It may well do,” said Orraea, “but that is no cause to let elation overcome caution, Master Scoutsman.”

  Sarah spoke before Witta could reply. “We’ll be cautious, but we should also show gratitude to the people of Trepolpen, if they are able to help us. Whatever they have to give, they can’t have much. They might think they’re better off keeping the gates shut against the winter, and against us if we act miserably when they offer hospitality.”

  Orraea nodded. “You speak wisely, O Flame.”

  “Please, call me Sarah.”

  The Wayfarer shook her head, making her braid dance where it hung down her horse’s side. “No, you are the Flame, and I am your Wayfarer. Certain manners must be observed and kept.”

  You don’t want to get too close to me, Sarah thought, not after what happened to your father.

  Before Sarah could say something more, Enna returned to the party.

  “Come, we board tonight at The Water Mark.”

  Sarah’s face lit up. “Is Master Jez still there?”

  “Yes he is, my Lady Flame.”

  “Come on then.” Sarah beamed, taking Enna’s lead as her horse cantered through the opening gates of Trepolpen.

  Into the town they rode, and soon enough they came to the inn. Like the rest of the town, it bore signs of injury. Here, a window smashed. There, a wound from Dracken fire. People milled through the narrow streets but did not crowd them as Sarah remembered from the last time. Nor was there much singing or the sound of instruments playing. Trepolpen was lively compared to Highmount, but still His Shadow had reached out and left its mark here.

  How long before they are overcome? Sarah wondered. How long before Trepolpen is nothing but stumps of wood in the ground and its lake a boiled-dry hole?

  Dark thoughts had assailed her since they had left Highmount, although she tried to keep her mood as light as she could. She smiled when speaking to the others; what her Momma had called ‘putting a brave face on it’.

  Momma ...

  Sarah dismounted without thinking and did not speak as she passed Orraea, Enna, and Witta. Pushing open the door of The Water-Mark, she then stepped inside.

  Master Jez stood behind the bar, and his eyes lit up when he saw her. “Sarah! You are safe. It is good to see you. I feared greatly for you when I saw your steeds riding off towards the Mountains of Mourning.”

  “I’m no safer now than I was then.”

  Master Jez raised an eyebrow and cast his gaze around the bar. A short wench with autumnal curls was chatting to a group of lean, roughly dressed men at one of the tables.

  “Mya!” Master Jez called out, “come here and mind the bar. I have guests I must attend to in the backroom. See that food and drink is brought to us.” Mya nodded, making her curls bounce on her bosom, and hurried to the bar.

  Master Jez gestured to Sarah as her companions followed her into The Water Mark.

  “We must beware some of the grim-faced folk in the bar, dear Sarah. The Fallen One’s a
rmies have not yet turned their full attention to the scattered people of these plains. We were simply in their way when they marched on Highmount and the Three Kingdoms. But they will look to us soon enough, and I fear their scouts move among us. It is difficult to tell friend from foe when so many have been hounded, displaced, and made destitute.”

  Sarah looked around the bar a second time and saw what he was talking about. None wore clean clothing. The women were all tired, dry-eyed and frail-looking, except for Mya. The men were unshaven, ragged, and sporting minor wounds from hand-to-hand battles, likely fought on foot against mounted raiders. But still she felt a supernatural keenness in some of the eyes that watched her. Each time she thought that, a strong gaze met her own, the contact was broken, and she could not remember which person she had been looking at.

  “Dammit.”

  “My Lady Flame?” Enna was at her side, his thick arms folded and his eyes wandering the room like her own.

  “Nothing for now. Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later. First we should eat and drink.”

  “Aye, let’s do that.”

  Master Jez opened the bar and let them file through into the dark passage that led to the inn’s private backroom. As they went, Sarah could not shake the feeling of Plainsfolk eyes watching until they were out of sight.

  Whoever they are, she thought, they’re using some kind of spell to hide themselves.

  She should have felt thankful that Orraea was with them, but she did not. When she thought of Orraea, Ossen came to mind and her heart felt tight and heavy in her chest.

  How do I say to her that I’m truly sorry? How?

  ~ ~ ~

  In the backroom, the table was laid with plates of dried meat, hard yellow cheese and flagons of fruit nectar and ale. As everyone was settled around the table to eat a little and drink some more, Master Jez spoke.

  “The trade that once passed through our gates has become a mere trickle. My inn has become colder than I would have liked. I have to serve my guests meals that are mean and frugal. Times are hard and travellers few so tell me, where are you bound, Sarah? The last time you came through here, you were heading from peril into peril. I don’t doubt that this time is no different.”

  “We are heading for Lo’a’pan,” Orraea said.

  “The secret city? Truly?”

  “Yes.” Sarah nodded.

  “Then I must warn you that the Kay’lo have become wilder since the Fallen One’s onslaught began. The Dionin have decimated their outposts and underground villages. Lo’a’pan is the sole place that belongs to the Kay’lo, and they will defend it fiercely.”

  “We are not here to attack or conquer,” Witta interjected. “We are here to parlay with them.”

  “Parlay? With the Kay’lo? And how do you expect to live long enough to do that?”

  “Because the Lady Flame is with us,” Witta said.

  “Lady Flame?”

  Master Jez looked again around the table until his eyes finally rested on Sarah.

  “You? Then it is true. The rumours were right. There is hope.”

  Sarah smiled weakly, wishing she could agree with him after all that she had been through so far.

  What about hope for my sister? And the deal I made with E’blis? I’ve sworn to betray the very people I am supposed to be fighting for.

  “What do you have to tell us, Master Jez?” Orraea asked.

  He looked to the Wayfarer and nodded. “You see well, Lady Wayfarer. I know more than most about the Kay’lo.”

  “How is that?”

  “Before the Fallen One sent his armies forth from the Nightlands, the Kay’lo had begun to trade with me on occasion. They did not see Trepolpen as a threat in the way they did the Three Kingdoms, and their brigand existence can only bring them what they find in the caravans and wagons they waylay.”

  “Understood,” said Orraea. “So, tell us what we need to know, innkeeper?”

  Sarah looked hard at Orraea, not liking her harsh, interrogating tone.

  “I do not know the way to the secret city, but I know a path that may lead you to it.”

  “Be more clear with your words,” Orraea snapped.

  “A few nights ago, I met with the Kay’lo and exchanged some goods. I am to do the same in two nights time. I can lead you to the meeting place.”

  “Very good. It seems our purpose will be achieved more easily than we first thought.”

  “There is one thing, however. I will only take you to them if you all go unarmed.”

  “Do you mean to betray us, Master?” Enna asked. “The Kay’lo may well be in a treacherous mood if they see us with you.”

  “Perhaps. But if you carry weapons, they will slay you before you unsling your sword.”

  Enna grumbled in his throat and looked to his companions.

  “Master Jez, the Kay’lo took me prisoner when I was travelling with Ossen. They tortured us with poison. Why should I trust them not to do the same again?” Sarah asked.

  “Because, dear Sarah, I am not asking you to trust the Kay’lo; I am asking you to trust me.”

  Sarah felt the eyes of her companions on her as she mulled over his words. Finally, she nodded. “Very well. We will do as you say.”

  Chapter Nine

  General Kella stood over the body.

  It had been found shortly after dawn, and its ripe stench permeated the air and cut into his nostrils. The corpse had been a slender man, one of the higher-born Earlfolk in Highmount. His chest and limbs were scored with numerous cuts, repeated in a pattern all over him. His skin was rough with the dried rust of blood. He had been bled to death slowly before they put him out here for all to see.

  This was not the work of one person alone. There was more than one traitor in their midst. The very thought turned General Kella’s blood cold.

  He swallowed hard, watching his men check the corpse for signs of life; there were none. Battle-hardened men were squatting nearby, puking onto the ground. Kella turned away. The princess had been informed. He did not like to show her such things, but he would need her authority in order to act. As he waited, he heard a clanking sound. It was light and musical, but it made the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen nevertheless. He followed the sound.

  Clank-clank-clank.

  It was coming from nearby, and when Kella looked, he saw something he hadn’t expected to see: a doll, dangling from a ledge, its loose limbs clattering. It was made of bones, strung together by strips of ligament. Someone had dabbled a grim face onto the nugget of bone used for its head. The eyes were hollow, the mouth set in a stiff smile. A few torn strands of hair had been glued to its head.

  Still, he knew that minutely painted face.

  It was Jedda.

  What was this thing—some kind of warning?

  Kella put the back of his hand to his mouth and unfastened the doll from the stake. It swayed and swung from his fingers.

  Clank-clank-clank.

  Kella cast it away into the brush.

  “What happened here?”

  Jedda had arrived.

  Kella saluted her.

  “How were they able to do this without the patrols seeing?”

  “I do not know, my Princess. Some kind of enchantment. A Mind-Reaver trick, perhaps.”

  Jedda nodded.

  “It’s a warning and a threat. They are trying scare us.”

  “And they will succeed. Not all of our people are battle-trained or even battle-hardened, Majesty. The sight of a horror like this could send them fleeing into the Plains.”

  “The first blow is never struck by the sword.”

  “Pardon, my Princess?”

  “Something that father ... that King Ferra used to say to me. This is it, General. The first blow has been struck.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Prepare for the next,” said Jedda. “We do not have the strength to strike our own, and they know it. Whoever did this could undo all of the work we’ve done here.”

&
nbsp; “They will not. Tonight we will find the one who did this.”

  Jedda placed her fingers over the dead man’s eyes, drawing them closed.

  Rest in peace. May your soul find its place in the stars.

  “What are we to do if there is a traitor in our midst, Kella, possibly even one learned in magic?”

  “Watch and wait, Majesty. If we move, we risk panicking the innocent folk we have sworn to protect. If they fear us, they will not fight, nor will they work with all their hearts to defend the city from what is to come.”

  “I know. I know. You speak the same words that are in my heart, but it still sickens me that I can do nothing and that others may die before we catch those who have turned against us.”

  “If you did not feel so, Majesty, you would be a poor daughter of your father. I see him in you. He shines in your eyes as much as he did in little Venna. You both carry his strength.”

  “Venna carried his strength. She is lost to me.”

  “Oh, I think not, Majesty. Her body still lives, and her spirit may yet stir again within it. Just give it time.”

  “Time is one of the many things we lack.”

  “True, but it is also the most precious thing that we have. You should not waste it, Majesty. Pain, hate, and regret eat up time. They make it rot, just as the Fallen One wills it to be.”

  “Those are bold words to use to, Sire.”

  “But they are the truth all the same, my Princess. Many a man and woman would give up their heart and soul to live a few more hours in their own skin. Sadly, they often do not know this until it is too late to capture more time for themselves.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Later, General Kella sat in his private chamber with the lights out. There was some comfort in darkness for him, but not a good comfort. Every child born was taught to fear the shadows, and the greater shadows that they might serve. He liked to sit in the dark because it reminded him that they had to be prepared for whatever His Shadow might do. Kella did not drink or pipe-smoke. He sat very still in his chair, staring up at the void of the ceiling. He remembered looking up at his bedroom ceiling as a child with no light to pick out differences or details. They could have been the same ceiling. He could be back there now.