The Pariah

by Anthony Ryan

  Swain’s treatment of the thieving clerk had, for the time being, blunted my interest in the payroll. Having stripped him fully naked, the sergeant bound him to a tree before delivering thirty strokes to his back and arse with a horsewhip. After that, the bleeding half-dead wretch was driven from camp still naked and the custodians at the Callintor gates instructed not to allow him entry. I assumed he had probably perished from exposure or blood loss by now.

  “Better than nothing, I s’pose,” Brewer said, flexing his hand after pulling on one of the thick gloves. “Still rather have a breastplate and helm, though. Or at least some mail.”

  “It’s supposed to be waiting for us at the muster,” I told him. “The captain received a letter from the council assuring her of such only yesterday.”

  My tone was only slightly sardonic, partly due to fatigue after a twelve-mile eastward march, also because it was the truth. The Lady Evadine kept up a constant, hectoring correspondence with the Luminants’ Council. Her letters were filled with polite, but firm demands for more weapons, armour and, above all, recruits. So far, the only response had been a terse note confirming the consignment of armour had been dispatched and would be provided when the company rendezvoused with the king’s host.

  “You almost sound eager,” Toria muttered. “Keen to get at the Pretender’s vile horde, are we?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” Ayin enquired in the disapproving tone she adopted in rare moments of annoyance. It had become her habit to share the evening fire with us once her chores for the captain were complete. Since sinking to her knees before our anointed leader, Ayin’s demeanour had become more consistent in its cheerfulness with only rare slips into vacant-eyed rambling. Whether she was now fully cleansed of her gelding habits, however, remained an open question.

  “Captain Evadine says they’re all evildoers and heretics,” Ayin added, arching an eyebrow at Toria. “We shall be doing the Covenant a great service when we kill them all.”

  “Or,” Toria countered with a caustic smile, “we’ll be doing the crows a great service when they get to gobble up what’s left of us when the Pretender’s done.”

  “Victory is assured,” Ayin shot back, her tone taking on a worrying heat. “The captain has foreseen it. She told me.”

  “Oh, foreseen my farting arse—”

  “Toria,” I snapped, catching her eye and shaking my head.

  She flushed but fell silent, although her temper immediately began to boil again when Ayin added in a sullen huff, “Southern heretics shouldn’t be allowed in this company, anyways.”

  “Let’s take a walk!” I exclaimed, rising to bar Toria’s path as she scrambled to her feet. Fortunately, she held to some measure of restraint, allowing me to lead her away.

  We walked the dark lanes between the tents and the many huddled figures silhouetted by their night-time blazes. Although it was still late summer, the air felt chill, a feeling accentuated by the general absence of song in this camp. My criminal youth had led me through many a soldiers’ bivouac and they were usually lively places, full of voices raised in ancient martial tunes or arguments over dice. With both gambling and drink forbidden in Covenant Company, our evenings were much quieter affairs.

  Toria maintained a frigid silence for a time until our wanderings took us near the picket line. “Why exactly,” she began in a controlled but angry tone, “do we have to share our fire with that fucking loon? I know she’s pretty and all but you’re not even tupping her, as far as I can tell.”

  “Last week I had exactly two friends in the whole world,” I said with a shrug. “Now I have three.”

  “Because she cut some bastard’s cock off? Is that all it takes?”

  I had enlightened Toria and Brewer regarding the details of Erchel’s demise, it being the principal reason for our presence in this company, although I knew Brewer would have volunteered in any case. I also doubted he would have little truck for what I was about to suggest.

  “She’s harmless, thanks to the good captain,” I said. “Besides, I didn’t drag you away to talk about her.”

  I halted, casting a deliberately slow eye over the picket line. The circle of sentries was a testament to Sergeant Swain’s largely correct estimation of his soldiers. A third of the guards were veterans who had volunteered before the company’s arrival at Callintor, all lay folk with long allegiance to the Covenant and experience of soldiering into the bargain. The rest were carefully selected from the most ardent recruits, and what they lacked in martial discipline they made up for in fervent devotion. In short, it would be a very difficult barrier to cross without bloodshed.

  “You saw what Swain did to the clerk,” Toria said, a needless reminder since the vision of the man’s scored rump lived large in my mind. “And that was just for thieving. Desertion is a whole other business.”

  “Ever been in a battle?” I asked, still surveying the line of sentries.

  “’Course not.”

  “Neither have I, and I’m very keen to maintain my ignorance of the experience, for I hear it’s far from pleasant.”

  “All right.” She gave a sigh and joined in my scrutiny of the pickets. “I take it you have a notion?” She let out a faint laugh before I could answer. “Of course you fucking do.”

  “I was hoping we could slip away on the march,” I said, ignoring the jibe. “But Swain’s posted outriders on the column and—” I nodded to the pickets “—we’d have to kill one of these to get clear, then we’d have to run even further and faster than we did from the Pit. Lord Eldurm’s a dull-wit and still he damn near caught us. I’d wager Swain would chase us down in half the time.”

  “So?”

  “So we wait. There’s a good deal of road betwixt us and the king’s host. Who’s to say what trouble we’ll find? A patrolling band of the Pretender’s mob, maybe? Outlaws even? Either way, trouble creates a distraction which creates an opportunity. We just have to be ready for it.”

  “And if it doesn’t? I recall sitting chained in a cart for days waiting for an opportunity that never came. Say we make it all the way to the muster, what then?”

  “This company will join with the king’s host. That’s a lot of folk all mingled up in one place, and I doubt the churls all those nobles have scraped together will be so vigilant as this lot come nightfall.”

  “Brewer won’t come, nor will your little friend. Our anointed captain’s snared them too tight.”

  I met her eye with a steady gaze. “I know, and that’s a shame.”

  She grunted, giving a small nod of satisfaction as we resumed our saunter. “Any notion of what we might do once we’ve put this mob behind us? And I don’t want to hear any dung about Ascendant Sihlda’s fucking testament.”

  I did indeed have plans for Sihlda’s compiled wisdom but decided not to argue the point. Instead, I opted to voice a nebulous notion that had been worrying away at my thoughts with increasing persistence for days. “Ever hear of Lachlan’s hoard?”

  Toria stared at me, mouth quirking before she let out a laugh, loud and sharp in the gloom. Her mirth faded when she saw the seriousness of my expression. “You haven’t bought a map, have you, Alwyn?” she enquired, brows knotted in bemused surprise. She patted her jerkin. “Wait, I think I have a Caerith spell charm that is certain to ward off all sickness. Only ten sheks and it’s yours.”

  “Erchel spoke of it before he died,” I said. “Didn’t believe him at the time, but the more I ponder it, the more I wonder.”

  “A dying man will say anything if he thinks it gives him the slightest chance of catching another breath.”

  “He wasn’t promising it. He had no notion of where it is, but he said Deckin did. It was how he was going to pay for his rebellion.”

  “So he said. I’m guessing Deckin never spoke of it to you.”

  “He wasn’t the type to spill his secrets. Nor was he foolish enough to think he could seize the dukedom of the Shavine Marches with no war chest to pay those who followed him.”r />
  Toria shook her head again, but the light of a nearby fire caught the small, interested glimmer in her eye. “So, let’s say, purely for argument’s sake, that it’s real. There truly is a great hoard of treasure out there. How would we ever find it?”

  “Erchel spoke of the Shavine coast, but that’s no surprise. Almost all the stories point to the coast as Lachlan’s grave and most likely site of his loot.”

  “Not an easy place to search, I’d guess, else this hoard would’ve been found years ago, if it’s there to find.”

  I recalled my sole sojourn to the coast. I had been with Deckin’s band for two years when he ordered Klant to take me along on a message-running trip to a smuggling gang. Despite his limp, the result he claimed to be of a collision with a knight’s warhorse during some battle or other – Klant was a spry, chatty fellow. All these years later I still feel a pang when I think of his eventual fate: caught and hanged by the sheriff’s men the summer following our trip to the coast. It did, however, amply illustrate one of his favourite sayings: “Outlaws, boy, are always dangling from a fraying rope woven by their own misfortunes. One day, that rope becomes a noose for all of us.”

  What I recalled of the coast itself consisted of days of traipsing along windswept clifftops interspersed by repeated clambering up and down gullies of irksome depth. It was a wild place even in summer, beset by capricious tides and fierce gales prone to raising tall waves to lash against the innumerable crags and inlets. I remembered thinking it offered just as many places to hide as the forest, as long as you were willing to suffer the shivering dampness of it all.

  “No,” I agreed in a soft murmur. “Not an easy place to search. But, Deckin knew something of where to look, that much I’m content to believe.”

  “Why?”

  Where the Hound laid his head… “Something he said once. Something Erchel repeated before he died. I know it’s thin, but it’s something.”

  “So, words but no map,” Toria grunted. “Nothing more than another story, in truth.”

  “Except that it’s real, for once. As for a map…” I trailed off, brow furrowing as thoughts churned within.

  “Alwyn?” Toria prompted as my silence grew long.

  “Sihlda once said that books are our guide to the future. A library is a map of the past, and to know where you’re going you have to know where you’ve been. Deckin knew it too, but he couldn’t read. Stories were his map. He loved them. Everywhere we went, every village, every tavern, he always called the storyteller to the fire and paid them well for their tales. I doubt he ever forgot a single one.”

  “Your plan is to rove the duchies of this realm seeking out storytellers?”

  “No, my plan is to seek out a well-stocked library, preferably one used to house tax records.”

  Toria’s brow creased in puzzlement. “Why tax records?”

  “Because to calculate tax with any accuracy you have to track the ownership of land and property over time. Sihlda always said tax farmers are by far the best historians.”

  Toria gave a dubious squint at this before shrugging. “There’s a big old library in Couravel, also Athiltor. But I doubt they’d just throw their doors open to the likes of us.”

  “Since when has any door been a barrier to you?”

  “True enough. But I’ll need the right tools when the time comes…”

  She trailed off as we came to a large cluster of seated soldiers, all listening in rapt fascination as Communicant Captain Evadine Courlain began her nightly sermon. She stood before a large bonfire, a tall silhouette somehow made more compelling by the inability to fully discern her features. I assumed the fire to be a deliberate piece of theatre; by concealing her face it transformed her into an ethereal figure, more than human.

  Attendance at these gatherings was not compulsory but she never lacked for an audience. Glancing to my right, I saw Brewer and Ayin coming to join the throng. Ayin’s features were bright with anticipation while Brewer’s were stern, although his widened eyes indicated a hunger for the captain’s lesson. I had begun to discern a discomfort in him in recent days, a sense that he saw his growing devotion to the Lady Evadine as a betrayal of Sihlda’s legacy. If so, it was an inescapable betrayal, like a long-married man who can’t resist the harlot’s bed.

  “Do you gather here in supplication to the Seraphile’s grace and the Martyrs’ example?” Evadine asked the assembly, receiving the customary response.

  “We so gather.”

  At the commencement of most supplications these words were typically uttered in a habituated mumble, but here they rose as a fervent affirmation. During my first attendance at one of these sermons I had assumed that such enthusiasm resulted from the presence of Sergeant Swain and several other devout veterans. However, I now knew this zeal to be genuine and growing in volume each night.

  It was also a typical feature of supplications for the presiding cleric to open with a passage from one of the Martyr Scrolls. The lazier the cleric the more lengthy the recitation for it spared them the effort of coming up with an original interpretation with which to enlighten their flock. Evadine, however, rarely quoted from the scrolls, and then only to illustrate a point. From start to finish, every lesson was hers alone and I never once heard her repeat a prior sermon.

  “In recent days,” she began, her voice strong but not strident, “I have heard some of you refer to me as ‘anointed’. I must ask that you stop. Not for reasons of mere modesty, but because it is simply untrue. You see, my friends, I am not anointed by the Seraphile’s grace; I am cursed.”

  She paused to allow the ripple of surprise ebb through her audience before raising a hand. “Not, you will be pleased to hear, by the Malecite, or—” her voice took on an amused edge “—by some trinket-waving Caerith mummer. No…” Her silhouette took on a sudden stillness and, even though her face remained in shadow, I and everyone else present felt as if she looked directly into our eyes. “My curse comes from the Seraphile, for it was into my eyes they chose to send their vision, a vision I would not wish upon the vilest, most wicked soul to walk this earth. The Seraphile, you see, showed me the Scourge. Not the Scourge that has been; not the great calamity that brought empires low and nearly wiped our race from the face of the world. No, they showed me the Scourge to come, the Second Scourge warned of in the Scrolls of Martyrs Stevanos, Athil and Hersephone. The coming great rising of the Malecite that our beloved Covenant was formed to prevent.

  “I will not tell you all I saw, friends, for I do not wish to trouble your dreams with nightmares. But know this: I saw destruction. I saw violation. I saw agonies and torments it is beyond the wit of man to imagine. When you march tomorrow, look upon the beauty of nature. Gaze at the simple wonder of trees, grass, river and sky. Then envision it all twisted, rotten, torn and sundered. See the sky turned deepest crimson. See each blade of grass turned to ash and every forest a blackened tangle. See every river and sea choked with poison and the blood of the slaughtered. And see the Malecite.”

  She faltered then, lowering her head, raising a hand to touch her brow as the congregation waited in desperate anticipation.

  “It is not…” Evadine said, coughing to banish a catch in her throat “… not an easy thing to behold the true sight of the Malecite, when all their blandishments and deceits are stripped away. To look upon them is to look upon hate made flesh. And they hunger, friends. They hunger for our flesh and our souls. Our pain is their sustenance. Once they feasted and now they lust to feast again… Will you let them?”

  “No!” It wasn’t a shout at first, just an immediate, instinctive response, but no less fierce for its lack of volume. Of course, it didn’t end there. “NO!” Their defiance rose in a discordant babble as they got to their feet, quickly taking on the cadence of a chant. “NO! NO! NO!” Fists were raised and weapons brandished. I saw both Brewer and Ayin on their feet, he thrusting a fist into the air while she jumped, face lit with joyous abandon.

  It all stopped the instant E
vadine raised her hand. Hushed stillness gripped the assembly as they waited for her word. If Ascendant Hilbert had been giving this sermon he would have sought to stoke their fervour to an even higher pitch, perhaps with a few choice aphorisms stolen from Sihlda’s testament. But that, I knew, would be a mistake. Soon, these people would be required to fight. Sending them into too wild a frenzy at this time would inflame their spirits too early. This was just the first coal added to a fire that needed to burn white hot when battle dawned. I was undecided whether to admire or condemn the manipulation at play here, although I suspected the Lady Evadine might not be conscious of her own calculation. She believed, of that I had no doubt, and a believer will justify all acts in pursuit of their faith.

  So, instead of imparting more of her vision, Evadine merely spoke the words that signified the sermon’s end. “Will you go forth with hearts filled by the Seraphile’s grace and steps guided by the Martyrs’ example?”

  Once again, the response was instant and shot through with conviction, but muted. “We will.” I could sense their hunger, but also an acceptance arising from the knowledge that another ration of this addictive elixir would be doled out the following night.

  Toria and I fell in alongside Brewer and Ayin and we joined the serene procession of mostly silent soldiers making their way back to their tents. To her credit, Toria maintained her silence until the crowd had dispersed before whispering to me, “She’s fucking mad, y’know.”

  I glanced back at the bonfire still blazing beyond the dark angles of the surrounding tents. Like Toria, I had kept silent throughout it all: no fervent shouts or upraised fists for me. But still, although I pushed against the realisation, I knew Evadine’s words had pierced the armour encasing my heart. She hadn’t snared me, not yet. But compelling oratory spoken by a beautiful woman has a force all its own.