by Den Patrick
‘An old temple to Frejna if I had to guess,’ said Kimi. ‘Look at the crow sculptures over the windows, and the tree motif above the door.’
‘I speak to you today on behalf of the Emperor himself,’ called the Envoy in a booming voice. ‘I bring you warning of a terrible danger growing in the south.’ A crowd was starting to form around him. ‘As many of you know, the cities of Shanisrond are teeming with pirates!’
‘We should go,’ said Marozvolk, still remaining out of sight behind the wagon. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘I just want to hear what he’s going to say,’ replied Kimi.
‘Envoys are failed Vigilants that are too useful to kill,’ hissed Marozvolk. ‘If he has the sight then I could be in a lot of danger.’
‘These thieves have harassed Imperial shipping for many months,’ continued the Envoy. ‘And now we suspect they will come north.’
‘What do you mean, “sight”?’ Kimi frowned.
‘It’s how Vigilants detect witchsign. They can see the arcane about you. Some say they can smell it but it’s usually called the sight.’
‘You head back to the ship,’ said Kimi. ‘I just want to hear him out.’
‘Their agents may even be among you as I speak,’ added the Envoy. ‘And you will know them by their dark skins.’ At this, several of the people turned to glare at Marozvolk and Kimi.
‘I’m not leaving without you,’ said Marozvolk through gritted teeth. ‘Can we go now?’
Kimi stared at the crowd with a frosty look, then turned on her heel and slipped away into the next street.
‘I think it’s best I listen to you a bit more in future,’ said Kimi when they were safely away.
‘I’m not just trying to protect myself,’ replied Marozvolk, her words clipped with frustration. ‘I’m looking out for you too, Your Highness.’
CHAPTER THREE
Kjellrunn
Kjellrunn had stayed in her cabin all morning. She had no wish to be among the press and clamour of bodies as they vied for position on deck, no wish to squeeze past pirates and novices for the chance to sight land. Kjellrunn had never left Nordvlast before, never gone more than a dozen leagues from Cinderfell in any direction, and now the Watcher’s Wait approached Svingettevei with all its wonders and dangers but she felt nothing.
She had endured three weeks of nightmares, endlessly seeing her Uncle Verner killed by the Okhrana, and feeling her powers swell again with murderous fury. Over and over she dreamed of smashed corpses and the desolation she visited on the Imperial agents sent to hunt down Mistress Kamalov.
‘Kjellrunn. Do not tell me you are still in bed?’
Kjellrunn groaned and squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of Mistress Kamalov’s voice. She turned over in her bunk as the door creaked open and the renegade Vigilant pushed into the room. The old woman shook Kjellrunn firmly by the shoulder.
‘Up! There is much to do. We have made port at last.’ Kjellrunn pulled the blankets higher, as if they might fend off the day’s problems.
‘Come. I know you are dressed.’ Mistress Kamalov spoke Nordspråk with a harsh Solmindre accent that left no one in any doubt where she hailed from. ‘It’s time for you to get off this ship. We will have meat and wine and conversation with someone other than pirates and children.’
Kjellrunn rose from the bed without a word. It wasn’t wise to disobey the old woman once she’d set her mind to something.
‘I suppose Steiner has already gone ashore?’ Her voice was a sleepy mumble as she pulled a comb through the tangle of her blonde hair.
‘Of course,’ replied Mistress Kamalov as she fixed her headscarf. ‘But Kimi went first. She could barely wait for the boarding ramp to fall.’
‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until they come back? We don’t know what we may run into.’
‘Wise? Yes. But ship’s biscuit and dried meat are no good for children already half-starved from Vladibogdan. We must eat! And you most of all. Like a bag of bones, you are.’
Kjellrunn’s stomach rumbled as if on cue and she smiled with reluctance. ‘I’d just rather avoid running into the Okhrana again.’
‘This is good. It means you have some sense, but sense is no good if you starve to death on this stinking ship! Come on now, out of this cabin.’
They made their way through the dark confines of the Watcher’s Wait and up creaking steps to the main deck, where the escaped novices of Vladibogdan waited. The children were pale and slender in the main and numbered around two dozen.
‘Never much food on Vladibogdan,’ Mistress Kamalov had explained. Steiner had been little more than sinew and scars when he’d returned. The novices’ clothes were ragged and threadbare and many had naked feet. The faraway look that so often haunted the children’s eyes during the journey had been replaced by the fervour of excitement. The cadre of children fell silent as Mistress Kamalov crossed the deck. That she had escaped the Empire and lived as a renegade Vigilant had imbued the old woman with a legendary status among the children. But none had been told about the day a dozen Okhrana came for Marek and Verner in the woods north of Cinderfell. None knew that Kjellrunn had defended her father and the old woman. Not a single novice would be able to imagine Kjellrunn’s fury, manifested in such a display of arcane power that she had almost destroyed the old woodcutter’s chalet. Kjellrunn still saw the faces of the men she had killed when she slept, swept up in a storm of her vengeance, dashed against the trees and ground until they were bloody pulp.
‘Come,’ said Mistress Kamalov with a clap of her hands. ‘Cease your wool-gathering. You must keep your wits about you today, yes?’
Kjellrunn flinched and shivered. Even a passing thought of the dead Okhrana was enough to distract her.
‘We go to the city,’ said Mistress Kamalov to the children. ‘Stay close.’ Mistress Kamalov had never been given to ceremony or pomp and today was no different. The rag-tag band of two score children followed the elderly woman down the boarding ramp. Kjellrunn ushered the last of them off the ship and encouraged them to keep together. Such a large rabble of children attracted stares and comments from the dock workers as they went. Kjellrunn fell into step beside the old Vigilant and returned the hard stares of the locals, daring them to make trouble for her charges.
‘Kjellrunn. You are clenching your fists.’ The old woman directed a forced a smile at a nearby port official. ‘Try to relax, yes?’
‘This isn’t just a bad idea,’ said Kjellrunn under her breath as the children followed behind. ‘It’s a terrible idea.’
‘These children have been incarcerated for years,’ said Mistress Kamalov. ‘They have faced each day not knowing if they might live or die. Do you really think there is anything we can do to keep them on that ship?’ The old woman frowned. ‘Better we keep an eye on them if possible.’
Kjellrunn thought of all the times she had gone to spend the afternoon in woods north of Cinderfell.
‘I suppose I slipped away often enough to come and see you in the forest.’
‘Yes, for training. But these young souls want to spend their coin on stew and bread, clothes and boots, and Frejna knows what else.’
‘I don’t know how they’re going to pay for all this,’ said Kjellrunn, glancing over her shoulder at the ragged children in their threadbare clothes.
‘They looted the corpses of their captors.’ Mistress Kamalov grinned wickedly.
‘Corpses?’
‘There were a lot of soldiers on the island, a lot of loyal novices and Vigilants. These children have fought and killed for their freedom.’
Kjellrunn looked back over her shoulder at the novices with renewed interest. Some of the children were her own age but the majority were much younger.
‘Hah. You thought you are the only one who has killed, yes?’
Kjellrunn shivered as she tried not to think about the dead Okhrana. ‘I still think it’s a bad idea to head into Virag …’ Kjellrunn trailed off as they reached a wide thoroughfare, far m
ore imposing than the crude roads and humble tracks of Cinderfell and Nordvlast. Carts and wagons filled the view and the various ethnicities of Vinterkveld hurried in all directions, bearing heavy loads.
‘Are you unwell, Kjellrunn?’ said Mistress Kamalov. Kjellrunn had stopped walking to take in the vista while the novices clustered around them, all whispering, bickering and laughing.
‘I …’ Kjellrunn blinked and looked around. ‘We’re really not in Nordvlast any more, are we? Cinderfell, I mean. We’re not home any more. We can’t go back.’
‘Darling girl,’ said the old Vigilant in a rare moment of tenderness. ‘We spend three weeks cooped up on a stinking ship, and only now you begin to understand.’ The old woman squeezed her close. ‘It’s to be expected, I suppose. Do not worry. We will make a new home, yes?’
‘Where?’
‘I do not know.’ Mistress Kamalov looked away. ‘But I do know two children have already slipped away.’ The old woman pointed down the street and frowned. ‘Come now. Quickly.’
Mistress Kamalov had many talents but moving quickly was not among them. The old woman hobbled as best as she could. Kjellrunn supported her and they followed the two novices a few hundred feet down the road. The other children whispered and pointed.
‘Go find your friends,’ snapped Mistress Kamalov at two of the older children. ‘Find them and bring them back here.’ She held up a finger in warning. ‘And no trouble!’ The children sprinted down the street, pleased to be given such a task by their hero. Kjellrunn glared at the other novices, daring them to wander off from Mistress Kamalov’s protection. Sounds of yelling up ahead forced Mistress Kamalov to walk faster.
The crowds scurried away, parting to reveal an Imperial soldier who had grasped one of the older children by her neck. The raven-haired girl struggled and spat. She cursed as if she’d been born to it, filling the air with profanity in three different languages.
‘It would be Trine,’ said Mistress Kamalov, sounding exasperated.
‘Who’s Trine?’ asked Kjellrunn.
‘Only the most unruly novice I’ve ever crossed paths with.’ The renegade Vigilant glowered as three other novices argued with the soldier. An Envoy across the street stared and pointed, his mouth hanging open in shock. His gaze alighted on Mistress Kamalov, Kjellrunn, and the other children.
‘I sense witchsign on a scale I have never …’ He said no more as the girl called Trine jerked free of the soldier’s grasp. Kjellrunn could only watch as events unravelled, powerless to stop them.
The soldier lost his patience, and backhanded Trine with a heavy gauntlet. A trio of boys ran to protect their friend but the soldier stepped forward and punched one of the boys in the face. The boy was all of twelve summers old and weighed no more than a bushel of potatoes. He crumpled to the ground and his head smacked against the cobbles, silencing everyone. The boy’s friend, a sandy-haired youth from Nordvlast called Eivinde, knelt down beside him.
‘He’s bleeding!’ shouted Eivinde, plaintive and desperate. ‘He’s not moving.’
The soldier hesitated, feeling all eyes in the street fall upon him. Trine shook her head and wiped her bloody nose on her sleeve.
‘You fucking pigs.’ There was a fury in her eyes that Kjellrunn knew all too well. It had been the same fury she’d felt when Verner had died.
‘Capture or kill them all,’ bellowed the Envoy. ‘I don’t care which.’
The soldier hefted his mace and Kjellrunn ran toward Eivinde, hands outstretched in desperation. Trine opened her mouth and her neck glowed blood red. She breathed out, exhaling a torrent of flickering orange and yellow. The soldier’s head was engulfed in arcane fire.
‘We’ll kill you first,’ screamed Trine, turning to the Envoy. The soldier stumbled backwards, clawing at the searing metal of his helmet, desperately trying to remove it. Kjellrunn felt the acid burn of sickness in the back of her mouth. Her hands were shaking.
‘Not again.’
Chaos broke across the street like a wave. The people of Virag fled as the soldiers advanced on the novices. Far from being afraid, the children unleashed their talents. An unnatural gale pushed one soldier back, tearing fitfully at his cloak. A choir of five Vozdukha novices laughed as they summoned the dire wind, sending the soldier tumbling backwards down the street until he lost his footing and crashed into a wagon.
Another soldier leapt aside to avoid a ball of fire and landed on the cobbled street in a clatter of armour. He lurched to his feet only to discover his cloak was alight. Three Academy Plamya novices held their ground with looks of terrible concentration etched on their faces, hurling more fireballs at their attackers.
‘Kjellrunn!’ barked Mistress Kamalov. ‘Don’t just stand there!’ But Kjellrunn’s legs were locked, every muscle tense, she could barely breathe. ‘So much death,’ she whispered.
A gang of four novices from Academy Zemlya ran forward, calling on their arcane affinity with the earth. Their skin darkened to granite grey as they closed on the sergeant, still bearing his two-handed maul. Kjellrunn could only stare as the novices punched with fists of stone. The sound of rock slamming against armour joined the cacophony in the street. The sergeant stepped back and swung hard with the maul. The strike caught the largest of the novices square in the chest and sent him sprawling. Two other novices fixed themselves to the sergeant’s legs, trying to wrench his armour off with brute strength. The third novice scaled his back, pulling herself up with fistfuls of his cloak. She clamped her hands around the sergeant’s helm, one hand covering the eye slit.
And still Kjellrunn did nothing. Everything was happening too quickly. Indecision held her fast as if she’d been run through with a spear. She stood in the centre of the street and witnessed a struggle everywhere she looked. All the novices had joined the fight in any way they could. Mistress Kamalov remained behind her, though she had been accosted by a soldier who tried to snatch hold of her arm. The old woman stepped out of reach, muttering something dreadful. The soldier faltered, then swung with his mace, but Mistress Kamalov stepped neatly past the weapon, slipping behind the man. Her knife flashed in the sunlight and disappeared beneath the soldier’s helm, the tip sinking deep into his throat.
The Envoy was shouting at the top of his lungs in Solska. He drew a short sword from a jewelled sheath and swiped at the nearest novice. The boy stepped towards the man and parried the blow from a stony forearm, the metal sparking as it glanced from his granite skin. The Envoy raised a leg and stamped on the novice’s chest, sending the boy sprawling backwards, then grabbed a young girl by the shoulder. He held his short sword to her throat, thinking to save his wretched skin by threatening hers, but no one was watching, no one but Kjellrunn.
The sergeant cast off the stone-skinned Zemlya novices one by one. A wild strike from the maul caught the girl clinging to his back square between the eyes. In her stone form the first blow merely caused her to flinch, but the second blow sent her to the ground where she lay unmoving. The two boys grasping the sergeant’s legs didn’t last much longer. The maul was reinforced with metal and the novices’ concentration faltered under a series of punishing blows. One boy retreated while the other wailed in shock as his stony arm shattered apart.
More soldiers emerged from the side streets and from behind, arriving in groups of four until sixteen of the number loomed over the novices, in black armour, maces grasped in armoured fists.
‘You will stand down,’ screamed the Envoy, still holding his short sword to the young girl’s throat. The sergeant continued his onslaught, swinging wildly with his maul at the novices, who fled and ducked and dodged back to Mistress Kamalov at the centre of the street. Kjellrunn counted at least four children strewn across the cobbles.
‘Kjellrunn,’ whispered the old woman as rain began to fall. ‘We are surrounded.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Silverdust
The wind howled around the jagged black peaks of Vladibogdan, ushering in a grey shimmer of rain from the Sommer
ende Ocean. Silverdust gazed at the sky from a tower in Academy Vozdukha as the waves crashed against the cliffs far below with a hushed roar. Rare were the times a wind blew in from the north east. Such winds had a way of invading the very island itself. Up through the darkened cove the winds would race, ascending a hundred blackened steps, keening through the gatehouse which lay quiet and empty, and into Academy Square.
The square had been cleared of rubble since the uprising and the shattered pieces of the dragon statue had been committed to the sea. The many bodies of the fallen had been taken below to the forges, where Silverdust himself had immolated them with arcane fire. No one had assigned him the role of the cremator, yet it was important to him that each body meet a decent end. Silverdust had taken a quiet relief in this. No one would rise as a cinderwraith since Steiner destroyed the Ashen Torment and the vast statue at the centre of the island. No longer would dead souls toil in eternal service to the Empire. Silverdust was now the last of his kind. His fate would not be passed on to another generation.
The dark pall that had lain heavy over the island for years had dissipated, drawn this way and that by winds from all cardinal points. Silverdust had enjoyed three weeks of peace until the north-eastern wind gusted in. Three weeks of peace until now.
A knock on the door roused the Exarch from his reveries. He reached out with his mind and found Father Orlov waiting in the corridor outside.
Come. Silverdust sent the word with telepathy; he had lost the ability for speech long ago. The door creaked open and Father Orlov edged into the room. He was a heavyset Vigilant, broad in shoulder and thick of arm.
‘Exarch,’ said Father Orlov with a half bow. His mask was a handsome face with nine stars embossed down the right-hand side, one star for each province of the Empire.
Father Orlov. Silverdust inclined his head, though in truth he had no respect for the Vigilant. We have not had a chance to speak since the uprising.
‘You have kept yourself very busy, Exarch.’ Father Orlov edged further into the room and Silverdust could sense the man’s wariness. ‘Appearing only at night to take the corpses from the courtyard. You have given the children much to talk about.’ Father Orlov paused a moment. ‘And much to fear.’