by Anthony Ryan
In any event, such speculation is entirely academic, for Margnus Gruinskard did not die in that moment. In fact, all these years later, I receive occasional reports that the mysterious old bastard somehow contrives to draw breath to this day. If so, he draws it through deformed lips and I certainly hope his missing eye pains him a great deal.
Once again moving with his age-defying swiftness, the Tielwald jerked his head aside just as the point of Evadine’s sword touched his flesh. It scored its way up his face, slicing through both lips and his left eye before leaving a deep channel in the maze of creases covering his forehead. But, grievous injury though it surely was, it didn’t kill him.
Reeling away with a roar of pain and fury, the Tielwald swung his axe in a wide arc, Evadine ducking low to evade it, her sword poised for another thrust. With Gruinskard off balance and wounded, it may well have been this blow that struck him down, but it was one the Anointed Lady never got the chance to deliver.
The two wolves bounded over the crest of the mound, the black leaping high, the white low. Evadine pivoted in time to slash her sword deep into the side of the white wolf, but not before it clamped its jaws on her leg. The black angled its huge head to fix its maw on Evadine’s chest. I was close enough now to see her breastplate buckle under the pressure and blood spurt as teeth bit through steel.
Evadine’s sword spun free of her hand as the wolves brought her down in an untidy tangle, jaws still locked and heads shaking with furious violence. The blood gushing from the white’s side failed to distract it from joining its brother in attempting to rend Evadine apart. So fixated were they on their victim, they failed to notice my charge. The black was nearest so I stabbed it first, putting all my weight behind my longsword and driving it deep into the beast’s back. I had aimed to sever its spine but the brute shifted at the last instant and my blade pierced its ribs instead.
Releasing its hold on Evadine’s chest, the wolf arched its body to snap at me, the teeth closing within an inch of my face. I felt my fear return at the hot blast of the beast’s breath on my skin, my nostrils filling with the rank stench of its breath. Faced with such raw ferocity, my body shuddered with the urge to let go of my sword and run, but the brawler’s instinct told me that would be a mistake. A glimpse of the wolf’s glaring, hate-filled eyes made it clear it was now intent upon my death. Wounded though it was, if I ran I would cover no more than a few steps before it brought me down.
So I fought instead, slamming a punch into the wolf’s eye then clamping both hands to my sword, heaving and twisting the blade then driving it deeper towards where I hoped its heart lay. Fortune favoured me, for the wolf abruptly stiffened and let out a sound that mingled a growl with a piteous whimper. Twitching and vomiting blood, the black-coated monster collapsed.
I began to drag the longsword clear then felt a massive weight on both my shoulders. Rubble cracked beneath my back as the white wolf’s paws pressed down, gaping mouth rearing to deliver a killing bite. A loud crunching thud and my vision turned instantly red. Instead of the expected explosion of pain followed by, I hoped, swift oblivion, I felt a hot wetness cover my face.
“Get up, Scribe!” Sergeant Swain instructed. I blinked then wiped warm gore from my eyes to see him grunting with the effort of heaving the white wolf’s corpse aside. Blood dripped from his mace and I caught sight of brains spilling from the shattered skull of the beast as it tumbled down the rubble slope.
“See to the captain!” Swain shouted and a group of company soldiers rushed past. I staggered to my feet, watching them gather Evadine up and finding my gaze transfixed by her bleached, sagging features. Her eyes were open but possessed only the dullest gleam and her face tensed repeatedly with pain.
A loud bellowing drew my sight to where a line of soldiers was holding off a mob of Ascarlians. Wilhum stood in the centre, his longsword rising and falling with expert and deadly skill. The bellowing, louder even than the shouts and screams of the combatants, came from beyond the melee. Through the haze I made out Margnus Gruinskard’s bulky form surrounded by a brace of struggling northmen. For one mad instant I thought he had turned on his own kind then realised they were pulling him from the fray.
“Form crescent!” Swain barked and the troop quickly assumed the half-moon formation favoured for an orderly withdrawal. The ranks were joined by a dozen or so surviving ducal men-at-arms, but a quick count of numbers made it clear we had lost near half our strength getting to the captain’s side.
Fortunately, the troop’s initial charge had possessed enough ferocity to kill or discourage most of the northmen in the immediate vicinity. A few more stalwart or battle-maddened souls were unwilling to see us leave this gathering so soon and threw themselves against the arcing line as we retreated. Wilhum cut down two in rapid succession while the halberdiers accounted for the rest. More forceful attacks would surely have followed, perhaps eventually turning our withdrawal to the harbour into a rout, then a massacre. But fortune was to smile on us once more in the shape of a thick, choking pall of ember-rich smoke that swept in from the centre of the town. It enveloped us in an instant, stinging eyes and birthing a chorus of coughs.
“Grab the shoulder of the man next to you!” Swain called out, voice hoarse but still strong. “Stay together!”
I reached out my left hand, finding no convenient shoulder within reach, while the hand that touched mine failed to gain purchase on my gore-covered pauldron. Blinded by the smoke, I jostled and stumbled along, trying to stay within the formation until my feet found an inconveniently placed corpse.
“Martyrs’ guts!” I cursed, landing hard on wet cobbles. I tried to scramble to my feet only for the bloodied ground to trip me once more. A blast of hot air accompanied by the crack and roar of tumbling timber had me huddling with an arm thrown over my head. When the heat abated, I blinked wet eyes to find the smoke had thinned and I was now alone in a corpse-strewn street. The route to the docks had been blocked by the collapsed, burning remnants of a house.
Regaining my feet, I ran, letting my senses guide me away from the heat. Landmarks were swallowed by the smoke which stung my eyes every time I dared open them. Also, every breath felt like swallowing a cloud of hot needles, forcing me into repeated bouts of coughing, some violent enough to send me to my knees. Finally, a turn in the wind brought some relief and I found myself standing amid the familiar broad stretch of cobbles that surrounded the library.
My panicked mind quickly fixated on the great stone building as a possible refuge. However, as I stumbled towards it, I found stark evidence that the Ascarlians did not share the Fjord Gelders’ sacred convictions regarding books.
The library’s walls were stone, but the roof was ancient and dry timber. Whether those aged beams had caught an ember, or the conflagration that now engulfed the heart of the building was the result of deliberate vandalism, remains a matter of much scholarly conjecture. Whatever the truth of it, the result was the near complete destruction of an archive that had existed for at least a thousand years. Fed by countless pieces of parchment and vellum, the flames that had consumed the roof and what lay within burned bright and hot, licking up at the sky like the myriad tongues of some ethereal ravenous spirit. For a scribe it was an ugly thing to behold, almost as ugly as the corpses littering the streets. For a librarian, of course, it was far worse.
I saw her slim form outlined against the flames, standing too close to the blaze than was safe but she didn’t appear to care about the embers swarming around like angry wasps. Berrine remained a statue as I approached, an unmoving witness to the destruction of the place that was more than her work, more than her home.
I will confess that I thought of killing her then, finding no shame in the prospect of hacking down a defenceless woman before she had the chance to even turn around. But I didn’t. All born killers are outlaws, but not all outlaws are born killers. Deckin’s words from long ago. A long dead, betrayed fool he may have been, but he had known my heart with unerring clarity.
/> So, instead of hacking her neck through with my longsword, I coughed and summoned enough spit to say, “Ulthnir falls so that the Ascar may rise.”
She consented to turn then, revealing a face that was as rigid as her body. Tears had scored pale channels through the soot covering her cheeks, but it appeared she had wept herself dry now. The eyes that stared into mine were not quite those of a madwoman, but neither were they fully sane. Guilt and hatred put a very particular sheen to the eye, and I saw both in hers. But I doubted her hatred was for me.
“They built it when the city was young,” she told me. Her voice possessed a disturbing calmness, the words flowing without any smoke-born catch to her throat. “When they honoured this place with the statues of the Altvar. What better place to craft an escape route should they ever need it?”
“An escape?” I gave a bitter laugh and saw her face twitch with the cruelty of it. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t kill her but neither would I spare her. “No one else knew, did they?” I asked, shouting above the roar of the flames. “Only you with your unique insight into this library and all its many secrets. Only you could have unearthed so priceless a treasure. You must have felt very special. What did the Tielwald promise you in return for the key to this port?”
A bright, unblinking stare was her only reply but I knew the answer. “They were all going to be yours, weren’t they?” I stabbed a finger at the blackened shell of the library. “All the books. No more senior librarians to get in the way. This would be your kingdom. Look at it now.”
She continued to stare so I lunged for her, grasping her shoulders and forcing her to face the inferno. “Look at it!”
“Will you…” Berrine’s slim form shuddered in my grasp, her voice finally betraying some emotion as she faltered, desperate entreaty colouring the words she gasped out. “Will you… please, kill me… Alwyn?”
The anger leached from me then, a thunderous rumble of collapsing timbers from the library and another shift in the wind reminding me that my time in this place was over. I released her and stepped away, then stopped. I don’t know why I spoke my next words – that old serpent sentiment perhaps, or just obligation born of recent intimacy.
“We’ve seized some ships,” I grunted. “There’s a place on board if you want it.” I let out another laugh, this one more wry than cruel. “Plenty more books in the southlands.”
Before Berrine lowered her head, I like to think there was some measure of gratitude there, but it may have been the shifting glow of the fire playing over her face. “Why do you imagine I have a choice where I go?” she asked. She reached for her collar and drew out a small trinket on a leather cord. I wasn’t shocked by the fact that it was another silver knot, but the fact that it was shimmering with a bright yellow glow was highly disconcerting.
“He’s calling for me,” she said. “And for you, Alwyn.”
A sudden flare of warmth over my breastbone had me reaching for my own token. Pulling it out I saw that it too had begun to glow. It wasn’t as bright as Berrine’s and the colour was red rather than yellow. At another time it might have transfixed me with wonder, stirred my ever-curious mind to stay and demand answers. But in that moment, I felt only repulsion at the sheer impossibility of it.
“It seems he likes you,” Berrine observed. “But also, you appear to have made him angry. What did you do?”
I killed one of his wolves, I thought, not understanding how I knew that, but knowing it with utter certainty nonetheless. I began to back away, the silver knot pulsing brighter with every step.
“There’ll be a price to pay,” Berrine warned. “But you’ll live, and his rewards will be great, if you stay. After all, what is there for you in the southlands?”
Her voice was a shout now, harsh with admonition, so unlike her own and I wondered if it were truly her speaking. My fear soared to new heights at the notion, the urge to survive reasserting itself with implacable force. I took one last look at Berrine’s stern, demanding features, threw the silver knot at her feet, then turned and ran.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Is she dying?”
Evadine’s eyes were closed, her skin pale as a marble statue. Supplicant Delric had bound her torso with bandages and forced a succession of different medicinal concoctions down her throat, but none of it had summoned more than a faint groan from her lips. Delric changed the bandages every few hours, but the blood that stained them seemed darker each time.
He gave no answer to my question beyond a short, angry glance, one mirrored in the faces of Swain and Wilhum. It was clear they, and the rest of Covenant Company, had no desire to confront what increasingly appeared to be a dire inevitability – not yet in any case.
Evadine had been placed beneath the awning at the stern of our stolen Ascarlian longship. Their shipwrights didn’t appear to trouble themselves with such niceties as cabins so shelter on deck consisted of what could be improvised from cloaks and unused sails. Still, I felt it to be a more seaworthy craft than the gut-roiling bucket that had carried us north.
Shifting my gaze from Evadine’s unresponsive features, I surveyed the twenty ships and several dozen townsfolk-laden fishing craft that comprised our newly created fleet. Supplicant Ofihla had been typically efficient in seizing enough craft to carry the entire company. The feat hadn’t been accomplished without loss, for the boys and old men left behind to crew them were disinclined to surrender without a struggle. Even so, by the time Swain returned with the stricken Evadine, resistance had mostly been quelled and many of the surplus vessels put to the torch. Most of the old ones had had to be cut down but the boys were generally spared. Ofihla had them pushed into rowboats and set adrift. A few Ascarlian craft managed to scramble enough hands together to row themselves clear of danger, but it was plain this victory had cost the Sister Queens dear, in ships if not lives.
My own escape from Olversahl had not been easy, involving much avoidance of falling buildings and fighting my way through a growing horde of fleeing townsfolk. It wasn’t surprising to find that my comrades had opted not to await my arrival, although Wilhum later assured me the decision to cast off had been a difficult one, if swiftly taken. Finding the quay bare of ships and the few remaining fishing boats already under way, I made for the mole. On the seaward side I discovered a cluster of small boats, their occupants busily attempting to row away with varying degrees of success. I chose the largest boat I could see and eschewed descending one of the iron ladders for simply jumping into the midst of the merchant family who had somehow gained possession of it. The husband was initially disinclined to allow me to join their crew, but a bared dagger convinced him otherwise and soon we were rowing for the ships.
One day out from Olversahl and the smoke of its destruction still rose above the northern horizon. I would learn later of the many foul deeds that marked its fall. The incineration of the library is the principal crime remembered by scholars when they depict this event, which tends to overlook the massacre and wanton destruction that accompanied it, including the desecration of the Shrine to Martyr Athil. One more lurid tale has it that the old Supplicant knelt before the relic altar and his lips continued to intone the Martyr for deliverance even after an Ascarlian warrior hacked his head from his shoulders.
The story of Lord Elderman Fohlvast is far more believable. Having been discovered hiding under a dung heap in his stables he was promptly dragged out to suffer the Crimson Hawk under the stern, one-eyed gaze of Margnus Gruinskard. It transpired that, prior to seizing Olversahl for the Crown, the elderman had entered into negotiations with the Sister Queens to surrender it to them for the right price. When they failed to meet his demands he promptly rediscovered his loyalty to King Tomas. While I have occasion to regret many things that transpired in that unfortunate port, the demise of Maritz Fohlvast is not among them.
Watching the smoke rise, I pondered Berrine’s fate and the frightful impossibilities I had witnessed. The Caerith book was once again strapped to my side together with h
er guide to translating the ancient text it held. When I found the leisure to set myself to that particular task I had little doubt I would find a fulsome description of our parting. It was not a discovery I relished making, but knew I would make it nonetheless. The book was even more irresistible now, the promise in its pages both terrifying and alluring. It appeared I had gained possession of the maps to two treasures: one the long-sought-after hoard of a long dead outlaw, the other my own future. The very obvious dilemma presented by the latter did occur to me, of course, but not with the import it should have: If it has already been written down, can I still change it?
“Delric won’t say it, but I can read his answer in his eyes.”
I turned to find Wilhum coming to my side, his own gaze also fixed on the distant column of smoke. “She’s dying.” His voice caught as he said it and I spared him further discomfort by looking away from the tears welling in his eyes. Glancing at Evadine’s pale, hollow-cheeked face, I found the sight of it clutched at my heart with a forcefulness I didn’t like.
Then she’ll be the Martyr Sihlda wasn’t, I thought, trying to summon a bitter cynicism I didn’t feel. They’ll give her a shrine. Pickle her organs and bones and set them on an altar for desperate fools to grovel at for centuries to come. Martyr Evadine, the Anointed Lady, Sword of the Covenant, slain by heathen treachery. Think of the tithes she’ll bring.
I said none of this to Wilhum, suspecting he might kill me for it. “The seas are calm,” I told him, opting to employ forced optimism for want of anything else. “We’ll have a swift passage to Farinsahl where there are healers more skilful even than Delric.”
Wilhum wiped his eyes, his grief giving way to a grimace of deep foreboding. “And a Crown agent who will lose no time reporting our failure to King Tomas. We lost the jewel of the Fjord Geld to the Ascarlians, and with it the duchy.”
“We also destroyed most of their fleet and captured several prizes, escaping with most of the company intact. That has to be worth something.”