by Den Patrick
‘Well, you’re going to have to stay cold and hungry for a good while yet,’ said Marek. ‘We can’t stop today, not with the soldiers here.’
The weather, like Steiner’s mood, did not improve during the next few days. Only when they reached the tall pines of the Karelina Forest did Steiner relax. ‘I don’t care for walking out in the open like that,’ he admitted that evening as they settled down and made a fire. ‘Too easy for people on horseback to see you from afar and come riding over.’
‘You mean Okhrana,’ said Kristofine. Steiner nodded. The sun had long begun to set and the shadows reached across every part of the dreary land.
‘Okhrana aren’t so bad,’ said a voice from deeper in the forest.
Marek, Steiner and Kristofine looked at one another for a stuttering heartbeat, then lurched to their feet and brandished their weapons.
‘They have teeth,’ said another voice from nearby.
‘Aye, and some spirit too.’ A shadow within the forest emerged and stepped into the meagre light of the camp fire. He was a tall man, taller than Marek, but wiry and thin. His sandy beard was long and unkempt and a dirty bandage covered one eye.
‘Hoy there,’ said Steiner.
‘So you’re on the run from the Okhrana?’ said the one-eyed man. He nodded as if considering this. ‘Exciting, eh, Nils?’
‘Very exciting,’ said another man, stepping from the treeline. He was younger, darker, and more heavyset than his friend. ‘I’ve been in trouble with the Empire myself, but never the Okhrana. Sounds serious.’
More men stepped into the light, emerging from the forest with sodden cloaks and ragged boots and trousers. All were armed.
‘Steiner,’ whispered Kristofine. ‘We’re surrounded.’ He nodded and gripped the sledgehammer tighter; there had to be about a dozen brigands.
‘It seems you have the numbers,’ said Marek. ‘So now what?’
‘Now?’ The one-eyed man stepped forward. ‘Now we invite you to dinner of course!’
‘Do we have a choice?’ asked Steiner.
‘No,’ replied Nils. ‘Not really.’ Steiner and Kristofine gathered up their things as Marek stamped out the fire.
‘What will we do?’ said Steiner under his breath.
‘Not much we can do,’ replied Marek quietly. ‘If we’re lucky we’ll get out of this with our lives, but we won’t have much coin to show for it.’
‘Come,’ said the man called Nils. ‘No need for the long faces.’
The brigands hadn’t confiscated their weapons, but remained twenty feet away, forming a loose circle around their captives.
‘So what brings you to my beautiful county?’ asked Nils brightly.
‘We’re heading east—’ said Steiner.
‘I wasn’t asking you.’ Nils’ expression became stony in a heartbeat. He nodded to Kristofine. ‘You. What brings you here?’
‘Ah, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’ Kristofine sighed and an irritated look crossed her face.
‘I think this one likes to game, Einar,’ said Nils, smiling again.
‘Aye.’ The brigands’ leader scratched at his bandage and nodded. ‘Speak up, little girl, we’ll hear you out no matter how outlandish the tale.’
‘What if I told you we had come all the way from Nordvlast, from the farthest town north you might ever care to visit.’
‘Then I would imagine you wish you hadn’t left,’ replied Nils. The brigands laughed.
‘We had to leave, had no choice in the matter,’ said Kristofine. ‘The whole town learned of Vladibogdan, and the Empire would kill every single one just for knowing such a thing.’
The brigands muttered to each other until their leader, Einar, spoke up. ‘Never heard of Vladibogdan.’
‘It’s an island,’ said Kristofine, looking around and seeing she had gained their attention. ‘A secret place where they take children with witchsign. Steiner here escaped in order to try and save us.’
‘Hah! Secret islands and forbidden powers,’ said Nils. ‘This tale gets better and better. Go on, little girl.’ They trudged further into the forest, only stopping for the brigands to light lanterns.
‘The Empire took my husband by accident, thinking he had witchsign. In their haste they overlooked his sister, who has considerable power.’
Steiner mouthed the word ‘husband?’ to Kristofine in the darkness and she shrugged.
‘And where is this sister now?’ asked Nils, hoping to find a hole in the story.
‘Questions later!’ said Kristofine with a sly smile. ‘For months Steiner was held captive on the island and he learned that a Vigilant was coming to claim his sister and set the town afire. The Vigilant was called Shirinov, and had a mask of smiling silver.’
‘Shirinov, you say?’ said Einar. He’d come a little closer now as they continued their march into the forest.
‘Steiner’s father, Marek, who you see before you now, saw fit to gift his son with a mighty sledgehammer, and this was how Steiner fought Vigilant Shirinov on the freezing beach as a mighty storm rumbled and shook the skies.’
‘A scene worthy of the sagas!’ said Nils. ‘And this Shirinov, was he a worthy opponent?’
‘Vigilants are far more than they seem,’ said Kristofine. ‘But I doubt you’d believe that part of the story, and besides, it’s one of the Empire’s greatest secrets.’
‘Ha!’ Nils grinned. ‘She’s good. I’ll give her that. I’m but a fish on the hook of this tale.’
Kristofine returned the brigand’s grin. ‘The children who are taken each year are trained. They’re trained to become Vigilants, though they keep their powers hidden.’
The brigands took a moment to absorb this piece of information, and a few muttered or grumbled hard words to each other in the gloom of the night-time forest.
‘So it was that Steiner had to endure all the powers of the arcane that the Vigilant could conjure, even turning his skin to stone to survive their fight.’
‘But the sledgehammer …’ said Einar.
‘But the sledgehammer was Shirinov’s undoing,’ agreed Kristofine. ‘For stony skin might protect against knives and swords, but a hammer is quite another thing.’
They reached a clearing littered with pots and pans and a sunken fire pit with a spit. A half-collapsed cottage had been taken over, the roof replaced with canvas for want of something better.
‘And this is why the Okhrana want you?’ said Einar.
‘Partly,’ agreed Kristofine. ‘And also because my husband helped the stolen children escape and set the dragons free.’
‘What dragons?’ asked Nils. His mocking tone had given way to genuine curiosity.
‘Why don’t we light a fire,’ said Kristofine, ‘and I’ll tell you the whole tale, including the parts I missed out. Though my husband tells the story best. After all, it’s his story.’ She squeezed Steiner’s hand and smiled at him. Steiner forced a smile and felt sick to his boots.
Steiner woke to a dreadful pain behind his eyes and his mouth was dry. He could barely move but desperately needed to make water.
‘Frøya keep me close. What happened?’ he grunted. Kristofine pushed her cold nose under his ear and chuckled.
‘You’re hungover is all.’
‘What? How?’
‘Turns out at least two of our new friends have lost children to Invigilation. I don’t know when it happened, but there came a point where they realised I wasn’t making the story up.’
‘And we’re not dead?’ asked Steiner, though he felt somewhat otherwise. He pressed his fingers against his eyelids.
‘I’m not,’ said Kristofine. ‘But you might be. You wouldn’t be the first person from Nordvlast to die of vodka poisoning.’
Steiner opened his eyes and realised they’d been given a corner of the tumbledown cottage to sleep in. Slowly, he dragged himself to his feet and stepped outside, grunting like an old man and wanting to throw up. Kristofine linked her arm in his and smiled at him. The brigands
were lounging around the fire pit. Some had fallen asleep where they sat the previous night, and some continued to sleep. A dim light made its way into the clearing and for once no rain fell from the skies.
‘You actually persuaded a gang of brigands not to kill us by telling them a story.’ Steiner shook his head in disbelief.
‘Not any story. Your story.’ She looked at him fondly, with more than a little pride. ‘Our story.’
‘That she did!’ shouted Nils cheerfully. Steiner flinched and mumbled a curse. ‘Feeling delicate today, are we, dragon rider?’ The brigand clapped a hand on Steiner’s shoulder. ‘Who knew dragons still lived, eh?’
Steiner stared at Kristofine for a moment. ‘You really told them everything, didn’t you?’
‘We told them everything,’ she replied.
Marek and Einar sat by the fire pit. Einar would prod a large pot of porridge every so often, but his attention was fixed on Marek for the most part. The men’s heads were bowed in conversation.
‘Father?’ said Steiner, wary of interrupting the two men.
‘Good news,’ said Marek with a smile. ‘Einar and his men have agreed to escort us through the forest, right up to the mountain pass that will take us to Slavon Province.’
‘An escort?’ Steiner gestured at the brigands preparing to travel. ‘How did this happen?’
‘It happened because Kristofine made it happen,’ said Marek with a smile. ‘She could charm crows from a battlefield.’
Steiner opened his mouth to speak but Marek had already turned away to discuss the journey ahead with Einar. Kristofine was retelling parts of the story to Nils, leaving Steiner feeling hungover and useless.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kjellrunn
Dos Khor was at least triple the size of Cinderfell and different in every way. The roads were dusty and the buildings were made from pale stone or sun-baked mud, so unlike the thatched hovels Kjellrunn had known. There were no hills or rises nor were there any trees, and grass was a distant memory. The people were dark-skinned and slender and wore robes in varying shades of sand, earth and cream. They looked at the rabble of children and the two elderly women with unflinching gazes.
‘They’re not shy about who they stare at,’ muttered Kjellrunn as they made their way from the shore, walking deeper into the town.
‘It’s not rude to stare in Shanisrond,’ said Maxim. ‘You’re Steiner’s sister, aren’t you?’ Kjellrunn nodded. ‘We looked out for one another on Vladibogdan.’ The boy said this with all the gravitas of a veteran four times his age.
‘You looked out for Steiner?’ Kjellrunn hid her amusement behind her hand, faking a cough. ‘How old are you?’
‘Eleven,’ he replied. Kjellrunn cast a sidelong glance, noticing him properly for the first time. ‘Shatterspine … I mean, Vigilant Shirinov, he almost killed me the first day we got to the island. Steiner stopped him.’
‘I heard you at the docks, talking to Kimi. You miss my brother.’
‘We should never have left him behind in Virag,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Kjellrunn grinned. ‘It’s good to meet you, Maxim. I’d like to know you better once we get settled here.’
The boy gave a shy smile and looked over his shoulder. ‘I’d best go and check on Sundra. I promised Tief I would.’
‘That makes two of us.’
They pressed on through the town as the afternoon heat threatened to stifle their enthusiasm for their new home. Twice Mistress Kamalov attempted to speak to the local people and twice she was waved off.
‘This is not what I was hoping for,’ said Sundra, though her voice was a hoarse whisper. She was sweating freely and looked particularly pale in the fierce daylight.
‘We need to get you into some shade,’ said Kjellrunn, looking about the street for somewhere to shelter.
‘What is wrong with these fools?’ Mistress Kamalov glared at the passersby. ‘Anyone would think I had brought soldiers here directly from Khlystburg.’
The novices milled about looking fearful, but stayed close to the high priestess and the renegade Vigilant. It was clear to Kjellrunn that the two women were keeping a polite distance from one another, just as they had done on the ship.
‘What’s that?’ said Maxim, pointing at a strange building in the next street. Four towers rose up from the ground, stained black, unlike the dun-coloured mud homes of Dos Khor. Each was straight along one side, curving at the other to taper at the top.
‘It can’t be,’ whispered Sundra. She headed towards the towers without waiting for the others. Mistress Kamalov urged the children to follow.
‘It looks bad,’ said Trine, wrinkling her nose. ‘Is it a prison?’ But no one answered because none knew, save for Sundra. She drifted towards the building as if she were sleepwalking. Once they were closer Kjellrunn could see that the towers rose up perhaps five storeys and were arranged around a circular building at the centre. A wide semicircular door opened out onto the street, almost hidden beneath a ragged awning of faded teal. A slender, dark-skinned man sat on the steps enjoying the shade.
‘Sundra.’ Kjellrunn touched the woman gently on the arm. ‘What is this place?’
‘We Spriggani never built temples to the goddesses. We never really believed you needed them. Simply being in nature, in the forests was good enough, but I often heard tell that things were different in the south.’
‘This is a temple?’ said Kjellrunn, grimacing. The four towers were slender and graceful, but the soot-coloured building looked ominous rather than calming.
‘The four towers represent the wings of Frejna’s two crows,’ replied Sundra quietly. ‘This is a temple to Se and Venter, a place for spirits to pass over to the afterlife. The bones whispered the name of this town to me, over and over, but never did I think to find a temple here.’
The man on the temple steps raised his head, revealing shrunken, sightless eyes.
‘Frejna,’ he repeated softly. He spoke a stream of words a moment later, but Kjellrunn understood none of it.
‘He said the temple has been abandoned,’ translated Maxim. ‘Imperial soldiers came here by ship years ago and killed the priestesses.’
Maxim spoke to him briefly and the man replied.
‘No one has been in the temple since the soldiers came.’ Maxim sighed. ‘He says everyone is scared that the Empire will come back.’
‘What language is that?’ asked Kjellrunn.
Maxim shrugged. ‘I only know that my mother spoke to me with these words before I was taken. Some of the words sound different the way he says them, but it’s close enough.’
Sundra looked at the vast wing-like towers and a glimmer of a smile crossed her face for a moment. She took Maxim’s hand and leaned close to the boy. ‘Tell the beggar that a new priestess has arrived.’
Maxim did as he was told and the man reeled off a long and winding ribbon of words.
‘He says the soldiers will come back if a priestess enters the temple.’
‘Tell him we won’t let them,’ said Mistress Kamalov, her expression dour.
‘I’ll fucking burn the lot of them,’ said Trine.
‘Do not use such language,’ said Sundra with a hard look. ‘Do your ears not work? I quite clearly said this is a holy place.’
‘We can’t stay here,’ said Kjellrunn quietly. ‘It’s a temple. It’s not right.’
‘And I suppose you have a palace nearby where we can stay, your highness?’ said Trine. The novices behind her sniggered and exchanged knowing glances.
‘It’s better than sleeping in the street,’ said Maxim. ‘Come on.’
They followed the high priestess into the silence of the old temple, exchanging the dust of the arid street for the dust of abandonment. They explored for perhaps half an hour before Kjellrunn emerged at the doorway again.
‘You may as well join us for lunch,’ she said. ‘This was your home before it was ours.’ The blind man smiled and babbled cheerfully, nodding as they went. ‘M
axim?’ Kjellrunn hoped the boy might appear to translate. The old man kept up his unfathomable ramble. She guided him into the temple and sat him down on one of the many low benches that faced the simple altar.
She looked down at the old man and sighed. ‘I’m going to need to learn this language of yours if I’m to stay here, aren’t I?’
‘I thought you could have this one,’ said Sundra as she opened the door. They were on the first floor of the north-east tower. Kjellrunn entered the dimly lit room with Maxim close behind. ‘You’ll have the one above,’ added Sundra to the boy. ‘I will be in the room below. These old legs of mine have had quite enough of stairs over the years.’
Daylight shone through horizontal gaps in the shutters, throwing blades of golden sun over a narrow bed, a table with two chairs, and a dusty rug.
‘All of this is for me?’ said Kjellrunn. The room had to be twice as large as the kitchen in Cinderfell and contained none of the clutter.
‘Not the most homely of places, I grant you,’ said Sundra, looking over the room with a disapproving eye.
‘It’s perfect.’ Kjellrunn sat on the bed. ‘We only had a loft in Cinderfell, with thin walls to divide different parts. Just straw and blankets, nothing like this.’ She looked around the room with a smile on her face.
‘Perhaps this room once belonged to an initiate of Frejna just like you,’ said Sundra. ‘And it is our good fortune to have found such a place.’ She rested a hand on Maxim’s shoulder. ‘Come, let’s get you settled in upstairs.’
As much as Kjellrunn liked her new room, it contained nothing to keep her or entertain her, and so she wandered down the tiled steps. The walls and floors inside the temple were the colour of pale white sand, while doors and wooden panelling were a rich if dusty mahogany. Cinderfell had only ever been endless shades of grey by contrast. Small wonder she’d gone to the forest whenever she was able.
‘Hey! Get off of me.’ The voice was male, young and loud, coming up the stairs from the main hall of the temple. Kjellrunn felt a moment of panic before racing down the steps. She glanced around, her heart beating loud, a cold sweat at her brow. Two men had grabbed one of the novices and were dragging him to the main door. It was Eivind, the boy who’d lost an arm in the fight at Virag. The men wore riding boots and dirty cream robes, with short curving scabbards hanging from their thick leather belts.