by Anthony Ryan
“Do you know Sister Elera?” Arlyn enquired. “She arrived this morning. Come all the way from Varinshold on a mission of some import.”
Sollis, realising he was staring, took note of the woman’s grey robe before shifting his gaze. “I do not, brother,” he said. “I bid you welcome, sister. We can always use another healer. In fact, presently there are Realm Guard requiring assistance in the courtyard.”
“In a moment, sister,” Arlyn said as Elera began to rise. “If they’ve lasted this long, I daresay they can last a little longer. Our own healers know their business in any case.” His eyes took on a more serious cast as he turned back to Sollis. “You found the war band, I take it?”
“We did, brother,” Sollis confirmed. “Came upon them in the midst of slaughtering a regiment of Realm Guard cavalry. Apparently, their Lord Marshal thought pursuing the Lonak into their own dominion little different from chasing after a gang of common outlaws.”
“I don’t envy his interview with the king,” Artin commented from the doorway.
“He’s dead,” Sollis told him. “Fortune was merciful.” He saw Sister Elera’s smooth brow crease in a frown of disapproval and felt compelled to elaborate. “The king is not renowned for his indulgence of incompetence, sister.”
“No,” she conceded with a small shrug. Her voice was smooth and cultured, lacking any trace of the streets or the fields. “But the Faith teaches that judgment should be left to the Departed.”
“Our casualties?” Brother Arlyn asked.
“None,” Sollis told him. “Though Brother Hestin is complaining of a sprained wrist. We brought back ninety Realm Guard, including wounded.”
“A grim toll,” Arlyn observed. “But the mission can still be counted a success.”
“There’s something else, brother.” Sollis paused to cast a wary glance at Sister Elera.
“Speak freely,” Arlyn said. “As I said, our sister is here on a particular mission and I suspect your intelligence will enlighten her as to its wisdom.”
“There was a Lonak shaman amongst the war band.” Sollis looked over his shoulder and gestured for Artin to close the door, waiting until he had done so before continuing. “He lived long enough to tell us the raid was ordered by the Mahlessa in retribution for something we had done. He made mention of the Dark before he died.”
“Mahlessa?” Sister Elera asked.
“The High Priestess of the Lonak,” Arlyn explained. “The clans feud amongst each other constantly, but they all answer when the Mahlessa calls.” His eyes settled on Sollis. “Whatever their faults as a people, the Lonak are even less prone to superstition than the Faithful, despite their attachment to god-worship.”
“Indeed, brother,” Sollis agreed. “For a shaman to make mention of it would indicate trouble in the mountains. Trouble the Mahlessa, for whatever reason, has blamed on the Order.”
Arlyn pursed his lips and turned to Elera. “So you see, sister. This would appear to be a particularly ill-chosen moment to pursue your course.”
Elera gave a brisk smile in response, nodding at the opened letter on Arlyn’s desk. “Nevertheless, the Aspects of all six orders have chosen it. It is not for us to gainsay their authority, merely to fulfil their instructions.”
Sollis saw Arlyn smother a sigh as he gestured him forward, pointing at the letter. “I think your counsel would be welcome here, brother.”
Sollis duly retrieved the single page of parchment, reading it through quickly. It was set down in neat precise letters, presumably the work of a Third Order scribe, and signed by all six Aspects of the Faith. He took particular note of the fact that Aspect Andril, the aged but highly respected head of the Sixth Order, had seen fit to underline his signature, twice.
“You wish to travel into the mountains,” Sollis said to Elera, frowning as he read through the letter’s final paragraph. “In search of this… weed?”
“Quite so, brother,” she responded, her brisk smile still in place. She reached into a pocket in her robe and extracted a small paper scroll, unfurling it to reveal a drawing. It depicted what appeared to Sollis to be an unremarkable plant, a cluster of narrow stems from which sprouted small four-petalled flowers. “Jaden’s Weed, to be precise,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve encountered it during one of your many daring northward quests.”
Sollis’s frown deepened at that and he saw her mouth twitch a little. “I’ve no memory of it,” he said, glancing at the drawing again and shaking his head.
“My research indicates it can be found in a particular place,” Elera said, furling the scroll. “Morvil’s Reach. Do you know of it?”
Brother Artin gave a derisive snort. “Morvil’s Folly we call it, sister,” he said. “You want to go there?”
“It seems the best place to start,” she replied, apparently unconcerned by his half-amused, half-appalled tone. “Does this present a particular difficulty?”
“Oh, not at all.” Artin raised his eyebrows in mock solicitation. “Once you discount the fact that it’s a good sixty miles into the mountains and smack in the middle of the lands held by the Grey Hawk Clan, the most numerous and warlike clan in the Lonak Dominion, I’d say it presents no difficulty at all.”
“Brother.” Arlyn spoke softly, but the single word was enough for Artin to fall silent. He crossed his arms and retreated to a corner, heavy brows bunched in disapproval.
“Brothers,” Elera said, her smile now replaced by something more genuine and open. “Please do not think I am ignorant of the risks involved. I would not undertake them, nor ask others to do so, unless the matter was not both urgent and necessary.”
“As the Aspects’ letter states,” Arlyn said. “And yet the reason for such urgency is not explained.”
Elera lowered her gaze, all trace of humour leaving her features. “No word of what I am about to say is to leave this room,” she said, lifting her head to regard each of them in turn, eyes hard with sincere gravity. “I require your word as servants of the Faith.”
“You have it,” Arlyn said. After Sollis and Artin had also voiced their assurance Elera nodded.
“Four weeks ago,” she began, “a ship from the far off Volarian port of Vehrel docked in Maelinscove. Half the crew were found to be dead and most of the others stricken by sickness. Their symptoms…” She trailed off, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Their symptoms were consistent with the disease we know as the Red Hand.”
She fell silent, letting the words settle. Brothers of the Sixth Order were not prone to overt expressions of emotion but even so Artin couldn’t contain a soft and rarely heard obscenity whilst the Brother Commander merely closed his eyes, Sollis noticing how his long fingered hands twitched briefly before he clasped them together. His own reaction was internal, a rush of memory, mostly unwelcome and not often dwelt upon. The livid red marks that encircled his mother’s neck, the tears that always rose in her eyes whenever she spoke of those terrible days. She had been only an infant when the Red Hand swept through the four fiefs. There had been no Realm then, King Janus himself just a callow youth who barely survived his own brush with the plague. In those days the four fiefs bickered and warred constantly, endless columns of soldiers trampling the crops that surrounded the border hamlet where his mother lived. Then one day they stopped.
Dead men can’t march, she told him decades later. We found hundreds littering the fields, thousands even. Your grammy and I went out to rob the dead, as was custom. Don’t you look at me like that, boy! Lords and their wars do nothing but take food from the mouths of folk like us. Only fair we take something back when we can. ‘Cept this time we took something best left behind.
She went on to tell him how the hamlet had died. A poor but mostly peaceful community that had persisted in the borderlands between Asrael and Cumbrael for nigh on a century, wiped out in the course of a few days. Sollis’s mother woke from her fever to find herself staring into his grandmother’s empty eyes. By the time it was over the only ones left were me,
Fram the wheelwright and the gormless loon they called the pig-boy. Still, we’d just gathered the harvest so there was plenty to go around that winter. She had laughed then, as was her wont when voicing dark humour. She rarely laughed otherwise, but then Sollis recalled her having little to laugh about.
“So it’s come back,” he said to Elera. “How far has it spread?”
“Fortunately, the outbreak was swiftly contained,” she said. “One of King Janus’s earliest acts on ascending the throne was to institute a strict protocol for dealing with any vessel found to be carrying the Red Hand. The ship was towed far out to sea and fire arrows used to burn it.”
“Along with its crew, I presume?” Arlyn enquired. “Even those who had not yet succumbed.”
“The King’s Word may be harsh at times,” she replied. “But often it has saved us from disaster, as in this case. There was a fair amount of panic in the port, of course. So the king arranged for certain rumours to be spread attributing the ship’s demise to poisoning or some god-worshipper’s Dark design. More concerning was the news imparted by one of the crew before he expired. It seems the Red Hand now has a firm hold in Vehrel, a port from which merchant vessels sail to all corners of the world.”
“Then,” Sollis said, “it’s only a matter of time before another plague ship turns up at our door.”
“I fear so, brother.”
He nodded at the scroll in her hand. “And this weed of yours?”
“The Fifth Order has spent decades trying to develop a curative for the Red Hand, without any real success. With the advent of the current crisis I was charged by my Aspect to review all the historical accounts held by our Order. It was hoped that I might find something others had missed.” She looked at the scroll, giving a tight smile. “I found this. There is a fragmentary account of a Renfaelin campaign against the Lonak. A century ago an army of knights advanced into the mountains…”
“And never marched out again,” Artin said. “We know the story, sister. They were led by Baron Valeric Morvil, said to be the greatest knight of his age. It was him who built the folly now named in his honour.” He shook his head in professional disdain. “Only a Renfaelin noble would think to build a castle in the mountains. I’m sure the Lonak must have found it all very amusing. The story goes they actually let him finish it before wiping out his entire command in a single night.”
“That campaign was accompanied by a brother from the Third Order,” Elera said. “He sent periodic reports back to Varinshold, which stopped eventually for obvious reasons. However, the final account speaks of a captured Lonak shaman using this weed to cure a knight named Jaden, a knight whose symptoms indicate he may have contracted a variant of the Red Hand.”
“Variant?” Sollis asked. “There’s more than one kind?”
“Diseases change over time, brother,” she explained. “They grow, become more contagious, more virulent. It’s what made the plague so damaging when it swept through the four fiefs. We had never encountered its like before, so had no means of fighting it. The account relates how this weed,” she held up the scroll once more, “was found in close proximity to Morvil’s outpost. If we can find it, we may have a chance of stopping the Red Hand should it return.”
“A chance to commit suicide, more like,” Artin said, holding up a hand at her scowling response. “I’m sorry, sister, but this is…”
“Our mission,” Brother Commander Arlyn broke in. “As ordained by the Aspects of the Faith,” he added, meeting Sollis’s eyes. “Tell me truly, brother, can you get to Morvil’s Reach and return safely?”
“Perhaps,” Sollis said. “With a small group. No more than four. But if the Mahlessa has raised the Lonak against us…”
“Then it’s possible you might also discover the cause of this current unrest.” The perennially faint smile returned to Arlyn’s lips. “Two bucks with one arrow. Choose your brothers and be ready to leave by morning.”
* * *
“You know this is a hopeless mission,” Artin whispered as he and Sollis stepped out into the corridor.
“And yet hope remains the heart of the Faith, brother,” Sollis replied, earning a scowl in response before Artin strode off, shoulders hunched in anger. Sollis, hearing Arlyn’s voice, paused for a second, glancing back to see Sister Elera in the doorway, turning to regard the Brother Commander. Sollis was struck by the cautious hesitancy of Arlyn’s tone. Although a softly spoken man at most times, his voice rarely lacked certainty.
“Our… former sister,” Arlyn said. “She is well?”
“Very well, brother,” Elera said.
There was a short interval before Arlyn spoke again. “And the child?”
“As healthy as a new born can be.” The sister let out a small laugh. “Perhaps more so.”
Another, shorter pause. “Please assure her of my continued friendship and regard when you see her next.”
“I shall, brother. Though, I doubt she needs any such reassurance.”
The warmth in Elera’s voice was coloured by a faint note of something Sollis would never have expected to be directed at Brother Arlyn: pity. Seized by an abrupt sense of transgression, Sollis turned and followed in Artin’s wake. He would check on the wounded then spend the hours before sleep pondering a means of surviving his mission. A brief estimation of the odds gave them perhaps one chance in three, though with careful planning and a modicum of luck he thought he might be able to make it an even bet.
3
“The weed must be tested,” Sister Elera explained. “I daresay we’ll find more than a few plants that bear a similarity to the drawing. I will subject a sample to various agents to ensure it does in fact hold the healing properties we require.” She patted the saddle bags on the back of her stout mare before mounting up with a smooth, accustomed grace.
“You could teach me,” Sollis said.
“Oh, we certainly don’t have time for that.” She gave him another of her brisk smiles as she guided her mare towards the first of the inner gates. “You have your task, brother. I have mine.”
“This is not a game, sister,” he told her.
“Good. I detest games. Such a waste of mental effort.” She halted her mare at the gate and glanced over her shoulder, her smile replaced by an impatient frown. “Are you coming?”
Sollis swallowed his anger and turned away. Dealing with someone he couldn’t command was always irksome, but Sister Elera was proving a very singular trial. “Brother Lemnish,” he said, addressing the youngest of the three brothers waiting with their mounts in the courtyard. “Too many hooves in this party. You’ll stay behind.”
Sollis saw the young brother mask his relief with a regretful shrug before leading his horse back to the stable. The man was no coward, Sollis knew, but neither was he a fool. “Mount up,” he told Oskin and Smentil. Of the two, only Oskin betrayed any outward sign of trepidation and that just a hardly perceptible shake of his head before he climbed into the saddle. They were the two most experienced brothers in the Pass, both having served here for years before Sollis arrived. Risking them on this mission might rob the Order of two of its most valuable assets, but he knew there was little chance of success if he chose to leave them behind.
Vensar, Sollis’s own mount, gave only a small snort as he swung himself into the saddle. He had ridden the stallion since being posted to the Pass four years before. The stallion’s plains origins were evident in his name, an Eorhil word for a comet that would appear in the northern sky once a century. Sollis assumed it had been chosen for the teardrop blaze of white on the animal’s forehead. Despite being bred for the hunt rather than battle, Vensar’s mostly sedate nature would disappear in combat, his hooves and teeth proving deadly weapons on more than one occasion.
Red Ears loped ahead as they made their way through the outer walls and the northern gate. The hound never barked, the trait having been bred out of her bloodline generations before. Instead her signals consisted of a sudden stillness, the severity of the threat r
evealed by the speed at which her tail wagged. Sollis saw her crest a low rise just beyond bowshot of the gate, whereupon she came to an abrupt halt, tail swishing at a slow tempo.
“Well,” Oskin said, reining his horse to a halt at the hound’s side. “Seems there’s something on the wind today.”
“The Lonak?” Sister Elera asked.
“No. When she catches their scent her tail becomes straight as an arrow.” Oskin angled his head at Red Ears and made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. The hound looked up at him, brows raised a faint whine escaping her maw. “Something unfamiliar, looks like,” Oskin mused, rubbing his grey-stubbled chin. “She doesn’t like it, whatever it is.”
Sollis spared the hound a brief glance before turning Vensar’s nose towards the west. Without any clue as to the nature of whatever alien scent had troubled the hound’s nose there seemed little point dwelling on the mystery. “We’ll make for the Saw Back,” he said. “Cut north once we’re through the Notch.”
“Forgive me, brother,” Elera said as Sollis kicked Vensar into a trot. She prodded her mare to follow suit and quickly drew alongside. “But our destination is to the north-east, is it not? Your course appears to be taking us directly west.”
Sollis’s eyes flicked to her for an instant before he slapped his reins against Vensar’s neck and the stallion accelerated into a gallop. “The mountains have eyes, sister,” he heard Oskin explain to Elera. “It doesn’t do to follow the compass needle too closely up here.”
The Saw Back came into view as the sun neared noon. It was a twenty mile long ridge that rose from the plain to snake a northerly course into the mountains. Centuries before the Renfaelins had named it for its resemblance to the jagged bones of a boar’s back, but the Lonak called it Irshak’s Tail and believed it to be the remnants of their god of birth. Irshak, so the shamans taught, willingly allowed her spirit to depart her mighty body so that it would sink into the earth, giving rise to the mountains thereby gifting the Lonak a home for all eternity.