by Neil Beynon
‘You can’t,’ she says. ‘What’s done is done. There is only now and the choice of what to do. The dead do not come back.’
‘Please … I need to repent …’
‘I know you do, foolish Kurah. Thinking you can do whatever you want and a sorry will make it all right. How many would it take? A hundred? A thousand? To save as many as you took? It is comforting because it abdicates you of responsibility. You can never undo this stain.’
The goddess is glaring at us now.
‘Please …’
She looks away. ‘Will you do what I wish?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whatever I ask?’
‘Yes!’
‘Then that’s a start.’
Danu leads me into the treeline. I try to wake up, to no avail. I am forced to watch, to feel everything. I cannot tell what is me any more and what is Laos. The night is a lone one.
Chapter Thirty-One
The pain was like the feeling of cold steel in her chest.
The thain had taken a blade through her left lung once when she was in her twenties, in a brief skirmish with the Kurah, before the witch-warrior, Gobaith, became her bodyguard. They had thought she would die. The feeling of the steel when the blade was in her had been almost as painful as the feeling in her chest today. She had sent the healer away, despite his protestations. If she was going to die, there was little he could do now save give her tinctures that would dull her pain and blunt her mind. She would see them safe before she took the long walk across Golgotha.
The rain drove down on them as if it were the third player in the Kurah axis. The weather was bitter and cold, and smelt faintly of magic and left the thain with the feeling that more was happening back at the forest than she could imagine. She had regretted sending Bene as soon as she had done it, and now, slumped in her saddle and soaked to the skin, she wondered if it had been a fatal mistake. He was the only one she could trust, the only one she could conceivably hand over power to now that Jeb was dead. What if I die before there is another?
Vort rode back to her. The thain had let herself fall back to the centre of the spearhead formation the army was in – better for her to be seen amongst them than hiding at the front or the back. The former general leant over from her horse to try and make herself understood.
‘We must make camp!’
The thain stared at her. She shook her head. ‘We must get to the coast.’
‘That’ll do us no good if everyone dies before we get there,’ shouted Vort back. The storm was heavy.
‘How many?’ asked the thain, mentally totting up the deaths she already knew about.
‘Forty,’ said Vort. ‘And there’s a father and child not in a good way at the rear of the convoy.’
The thain nodded. ‘You may make camp.’
Vort nodded back, tight-lipped, and the thain had the overwhelming sense, not for the first time, that she did not hold with the thain’s habit of talking to everyone as if they were the same. The thain did not care very much what Vort thought. She was far more concerned with where her shadow was, and if she had identified the defector in her midst. She noticed Vort staring at her.
‘Is there anything else, Major?’
‘Milady,’ said Vort. ‘The council recognises your long service but is wondering if you might join us for a discussion over the rest of your plan.’
‘Major Vort,’ she replied, her voice cold. ‘The terms of our agreement are clear, and these are war circumstances. I have full control.’
‘In your current condition?’
‘What condition is that?’ she barked back, too weary to mince her words. ‘I demoted you. What concern is it of yours?’
Just at that moment, the thain thought she could smell citrus trees, a strange thing to scent in the middle of a storm, and the thought distracted her from Vort. The lady looked confused.
‘You’re clearly exhausted, milady. You are no longer young, and no one would think any less of you if you shared your burden.’
The thain looked hard at Vort. Someone must have put her up to this, but who? The thain was having trouble thinking in a straight line, and the rain was making it hard to see. She coughed. There was blood in her mouth. The world was bending in peculiar patterns, and it felt like the rain was washing everything.
Vort spoke. The words sounded like she was speaking through her cloak.
The thain tumbled into the soft mud, where the earth swallowed her up.
‘Is she going to die?’
The thain did not know how long she had been unconscious, only that she was lying in her makeshift bed, in her tent, and the sound of rain on canvas was fierce. There were at least three people she could sense in the room from smell alone, but she refused to open her eyes or try to sit up. She had no idea what was going on. Was she a prisoner?
‘How many people saw her fall?’ asked Vort.
‘Only a handful,’ replied one of Bene’s men who had stayed behind. She couldn’t recall his name. That was terrible.
‘Is she going to die?’ repeated the speaker of the council.
‘No,’ said Yorg. ‘Not today. She has pushed herself too far and has a severe infection in her lungs.’
This was the agreed party line if she had an attack of her fatal condition while in public. Yorg was briefed to give only this information, regardless of her actual condition, and so she had no idea if she had additional injuries. She didn’t feel like she had. The aches were just the usual chest pain and the constant faint taste of copper at the back of her throat.
‘Are we in charge yet?’ asked the speaker.
‘No,’ said Vort. ‘You are not. If this persists, we may need to look at this with the loremasters and determine if the council can take over, but even if there is a precedent, you would not carry the warriors with you yet.’
The thain felt a surge of gratitude towards Vort. She may have been a bit handy with her knife, but she was honest and true. She needed more like her. She opened her eyes.
‘How long?’ she asked.
‘Milady!’ said Yorg and the speaker together.
The thain pushed herself up on her elbows. The tent was full of not just the three she had heard but the whole of the council. She attempted a faint smile. ‘Am I dead that all my friends and colleagues are spread before me?’
‘Milady,’ said Vort. ‘We feared for your life.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘My life is fine. You may return to your duties.’
‘Milady,’ said the speaker. ‘We must discuss what we do next. The ports are still a number of days away, and the people are failing.’
‘There are no changes to your orders,’ said the thain. ‘Save that Vort is returned to her rank.’
Vort gave her a nod of appreciation.
The thain did not look away from the council members staring at her as if she had gone mad. Her chest burned, but she did not show any pain.
‘Milady,’ protested the speaker.
‘Are you challenging me?’ asked the thain, reaching for her sword.
The speaker raised her hands. ‘No, milady.’
‘Get out,’ hissed the thain. ‘All of you.’
The ruler glared, straight-backed, until only the healer remained and she was able to fall back into the pillows, her eyes streaming from the pain. Yorg rushed over to her.
‘How long can you buy me?’ she gasped as he looked her over.
‘You will be dead before the alignment,’ said the healer, his voice cracking. ‘The disease is in the final stages.’
The thain closed her eyes. The final betrayal. Perhaps all leaders craved just another hour on the stage to get their meaning across. Or maybe this was just a situation that made her feel as if she couldn’t go yet.
‘I should get the council in again,’ said Yorg. ‘They’re right, we need to make preparations.’
‘No,’ said the thain, sitting back up. ‘The council will not lead.’
‘They are the people we chose,’
said the healer. ‘There is no heir – who else?’
The thain shook her head. ‘No. They are the people who desired to rule and have proven themselves unworthy. Bring me parchment and a pen.’
‘What will you do?’
The thain smiled. ‘It will be random and temporary, save when there is war; then Bene or whoever holds his post will lead.’
Yorg passed the thain pen and parchment.
‘Those chosen will not understand what they are dealing with.’
‘That’s the point.’
Montu watched as Zoren danced and shuffled his cant.
The mage’s body was covered in soil. His eyes shone and his hair was growing white and thin as he expended himself into the glowing gate of energy on the edge of the camp. The battalion shuffled uneasily between the king and the portal. They disliked this display of power, and they feared the return of Cernubus. This irritated Montu in his bones. They should have been talking about how their king was starting to leverage the same power.
‘You understand your job, Commander?’ asked the king.
The warrior looked at Montu. He nodded. ‘Leave enough alive to bring back and witness the god’s sacrifice. Kill everyone else.’
Zoren let forth a scream and appeared to fold into himself. A gust of wind blew him to dust, leaving only the portal that looked out on a rain-strewn landscape fifty leagues away.
The attack started with a trebuchet bolt.
The missile arced through the storm and landed on one of the Shaanti smiths’ tents, crushing the occupants and sending confusion through the camp. More hissed down and shook the ground. The Kurah hit the Shaanti line with their full force, and all was chaos.
The alarm was an insistent ringing of the warning bells.
The thain put the half-finished parchment to one side. She could smell smoke despite the rain and hear screams as people panicked. Cursing, the leader moved as fast as she could from her bed, which was not quickly, and began pulling on her armour. It felt looser than it should. The healer stuck his head through the canvas opening to her tent.
‘Do not attempt to fight,’ he said. ‘We will see them off.’
‘It’s the Kurah,’ said the thain. ‘It is my job.’
‘Your job is to stay alive,’ replied Yorg.
The shadow moved him gently to one side and stepped into the tent.
‘Leave us,’ she said. ‘I will see milady is taken care of.’
The thain did not watch him leave but turned to pick up her sword.
‘Do not try to dissuade me,’ she said. ‘I would go out with steel in my hand.’
The thain attempted to raise her sword. She felt it lift off the chair it was resting on, but the weight pulled the point down and into the soil.
‘How is that working for you?’ asked the shadow, not unkindly.
The thain felt herself go down to one knee.
‘I have so little time left,’ she whispered. ‘Let me choose how I die.’
The shadow came over to her and knelt by the thain, cupping her head in her hands. ‘Why?’
She looked the shadow in her eye. ‘Because the Shaanti must go on, or all my life has been a waste.’
‘Everything ends,’ said the shadow. ‘Perhaps it is just our time.’
The thain dropped her sword and put her hands to the shadow’s. ‘What have you found?’
The shadow took her hands from the thain and pulled the leader into her lap, hugging her as if she were a child.
‘You were right, of course. There is another traitor, and she was working with Golan.’
‘What did you find?’ whispered the thain.
The shadow pulled a bundle from within her cloak, spreading the fabric out on their legs. The ground shook. There was screaming all around, but once again the noise seemed to the thain like it was coming from a vast way away. The cloth contained shards of glass that glittered in the candlelight. She felt cold. The sensation wasn’t the disease.
‘Is that a signal?’
‘It was,’ said the shadow. ‘I destroyed the signal where I found the cursed device. I doubt she has been foolish enough to use it.’
‘Could you tell who the signal belonged to?’
The shadow flinched. Only a mage could trace the origin of the signal. They had never spoken openly of her smattering of magical power. It was just understood that the shadow could get into places others could not, and in the hints of power in the time they spent alone. There was no time left for subtlety.
The shadow nodded.
‘Who?’
‘Vort,’ she replied.
The thain felt the world fall away again. Vort? She had lost all her senses. She had taken Vort at her word; she didn’t question it – why else would the general disobey her wishes and slay Golan? Vort, who had been her rock since that moment. Vort, who could have quietly knifed her as she fell from her horse. Vort, who even now was leading her forces as the enemy attacked under her invitation.
‘I must go. I restored her rank,’ she muttered, trying to stand. Finding her legs wouldn’t work, she toppled onto her belly.
‘What’s happening?’ she found herself muttering over and over as the shadow clutched her to her chest, crying again and again.
‘Muriel,’ the shadow whispered. ‘Muriel.’
The thain fell quiet at her name. She lifted her hands up to her shadow’s eyes and softly said the shadow’s true name back. ‘Sevlen.’
‘I am not as strong as the witch-warrior,’ Sevlen replied in low tones. ‘But I can try.’
The thain tried to scream for her to stop, but it was too late, and the dark rolled over Muriel like a spring storm.
They were screaming still when she woke.
The thain had no idea how much time had passed. The pain in her chest had subsided to a low ache, and she found she could move her legs again. No one was holding her now. She shifted. Someone was lying next to her. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees to look, and her heart broke into splinters. An old woman lay dead by her side, impossibly ancient, her hair white like bone and her skin wrinkled and cracked like old leather. She was dressed in the shadow’s clothes.
‘Sevlen,’ she said, over and over again. ‘Not you. Not you.’
The thain couldn’t see. Her eyes were streaming tears. She felt the power that her shadow had poured into her to stave off the illness, and with the magic came knowledge, all that Sevlen, her shadow, had seen in her time and remembered and felt. Sevlen’s voice whispered inside Muriel.
Use this.
The thain saw her general concealing the signal. She saw her slaughter Golan. She saw the god fighting Jeb. She felt the anger burning in her like Atos, the brightest of the sentinels. She placed the shadow down gently, covering her with a blanket from her bed, and picked up her sword. She did not bother with her helmet. Looking up at the mirror by her bed, she cut the plait from her hair as a sign of mourning and left the tent.
Vort was standing on high ground, barking orders at the warriors and avoiding any fighting. The thain did not wait for Vort to notice her. There were a few council members nearby, those who did not wish to fight, and most of her best commanders, who were attempting to convince the general to change course. Muriel did not bother with the battle. The first job was the cancer at the heart of her people.
‘Vort ab Rain!’
The rabble stopped and turned. Vort looked at her.
‘Vort ab Rain,’ she yelled. ‘You have betrayed me and our people.’
‘What is she talking about?’ asked the speaker.
Vort shook her head. ‘No, madam. You have that honour. You should have surrendered to the Kurah thirty years ago.’
Vort drew her sword and came down to meet her.
‘And you should have challenged me if you wanted my seat.’
‘But I don’t,’ she sighed. ‘I just want peace.’
‘Peace is only possible between equals,’ said the thain. ‘Montu wants servants.’
&n
bsp; ‘I want us to live.’
The thain gestured around at the burning camp and the fighting. ‘How is that working for you?’
‘Where are the civilians?’
The thain smiled. She had done something right at least. In the event of an attack, she had asked Bene’s remaining warriors to lead the majority of those who couldn’t fight and those who were caring for them with Gor-Iven into the catacombs that lined the hidden road. She had told no one else, her dwindling intuition keeping her from trusting anyone outside of her own guard.
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ she said, and attacked.
Vort parried fast. She spun round and mounted her own attack. She missed with the blade but managed to graze the thain’s head with her foot as she kicked up and round. The blow caught the thain by surprise but didn’t do much else, and Vort lost her leg below the knee when she tried again. The thain sliced her blade clean through at the point where Vort’s shin plate ended for her knee to bend. Vort dropped her blade, falling to the mud and clutching at the wound. The thain did not give her a chance to speak. The thain brought her sword down through Vort’s skull. The general shuddered once and fell still.
The thain glared up at her audience. ‘General Vort was in league with the Kurah.’
‘Thank the gods you are recovered,’ said Commander Wobyn, relieved as she embraced the thain. ‘The Kurah are trying to trap us in a pincer, attacking both ends of the road.’
‘Show me.’
They led her up to the top of the high ground. There were two fronts. One line at the south of the camp where, improbably, the Kurah had attacked from Vikrain. That route had been clear only the day before. It should not have been possible. The thain pushed the conundrum from her mind – they were here regardless. She looked to the second, northern front where another Kurah force was attacking.
‘How did they attack the rear?’
Wobyn frowned. ‘They appear to have mages, possibly from Delgasia. There is a portal in amongst their trebuchets.’