For all her filth and smoke, unique stench, terrible crime and surly big city populace, I loved Setharis. It would always be a large part of my black and battered little heart. But here and now, tramping through pristine white snow and breathing fresh crisp air, I would rather be nowhere else. The town below was overrun by soldiers and every cart, horse and donkey in the area had been requisitioned to carry our supplies. Messengers came and left, carrying reports and orders. The wardens’ thoughts buzzed like a hive of angry wasps in the back of my brain, a constant annoyance. As I climbed higher the shouts and clangs of my small army faded on the wind, and the wardens swarming all around Barrow Hill reduced to dots, the buzzing dampened to a soft background hiss.
I felt cleansed; my pain, despair and loss all scoured away by icy wind. My troubles seemed lessened by distance. I left it all behind and climbed the path to the flat top of the hill and stood alone in the centre of a circle of tall grey stones that predated the town: ancient rocks standing in defiance of rain, wind and ice for years beyond record. The stones were half buried in snow and wore white caps. Three squared obelisks reared larger than the other, rougher stones in the outer circle: the largest to the north, others forming a triangle to the south-west and south-east.
From the centre of the monument, the view over the whole valley was every bit as majestic as I remembered. A slate-grey river serpentined north and west back to its source in the rugged white peaks of the Clanholds, still deep within the clutches of winter. Across the river and twenty leagues directly north along the rocky coast squatted the mining town of Ironport, from where the Skallgrim practiced blackest sorcery and prepared to invade all the lands of Kaladon.
I wondered if they’d left anybody in that town alive after I escaped onboard the last ship out. Did Old Sleazy and his serving girl still serve up fine drink and their lumpy grey special stew? Probably not. The tavern had been aflame and that sour-faced one-eyed git had meant to fight to the death, and as for her, I’d left her face down in the mud with her dress burning into her back.
I sighed and let it go. I had ‘not caring’ down to a fine art, mostly. That was another life, one before I crippled myself to kill a god. I opened up my Gift and let my consciousness spread out, fingers of thought drifting across the whole valley, further than I’d ever imagined possible. In the town below the anxious minds of the wardens churned, and when I focused on the eyes and ears of my two thralls I discovered my coterie plotting and planning how to survive the coming war, and me. An old couple hosting several wardens radiated annoyance at the disruption to their lives. A warden and a local girl behind the stables were having frantic, and probably final, sex.
I was too busy looking into the distance to notice the small, quiet presence until it was right next to me. I snapped back into myself and spun. The black-clad knight present at the conclave cocked her head, single green eye studying me from behind that impassive steel mask. There was something eerily familiar about the way she felt, that mind curled up tight and strong as anybody I’d ever encountered.
A grainy, broken, female voice from behind the mask: “Here to clear your mind?”
“I’m here to examine the stones,” I replied. “You?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t take you for a scholar.” “We haven’t been properly introduced,” I said. “You know who I am, but who are you?”
A dry, rasping, humourless laugh. “I should have expected you hadn’t read your papers. I would hope you might remember me.”
I pulled Cormac’s crumpled notes from my pocket and hastily leafed through them until I found the list of magi assigned to the expedition. Breath caught in my throat. My left hand spasmed and the papers fluttered to the snow, forgotten.
“Eva?”
Impossible. She died! She must have. And yet the name Evangeline Avernus was there, inked by Cillian’s own hand.
I staggered back, tripped and landed arse-down in the snow, staring up at her. Those broad shoulders and green eye, the other gone where Heinreich had burned it away… Sweet Lady Night, Eva was alive! And I had left her there to die.
“How?” I choked out. “I watched you…” The word burn caught in my throat. “It’s not possible.”
“I lay abed for weeks after they dragged me from the street, voiceless, healing and hurting, unable to even say my name.” She placed a gloved hand on one of the great stones. Her voice took on a bitter tone, “A gods-given miracle the Halcyons called it. I suspect that I wanted revenge and my Gift made it so, whatever the cost in pain. I always did have a bad temper.”
Her agony must have been unimaginable. “You saved my life,” I said, skin crawling with self-hate. “You saved all of us. And I left you behind.”
“Whatever is left of me now, Walker, I am still a soldier. I would have told you to go, and I would have left you there had our positions been reversed. If you had stayed we would all be dead. Martain told me everything.”
“Even so, I should have been there when you woke. I didn’t know…”
“We are not here to reminisce and recriminate. Guilt is a useless commodity. We are at war and it is likely we will all die in these mountains. Don’t waste our time.”
I got to my feet and reached for her hand. “I’m still sorry.”
She flinched back. “Don’t touch me.”
I swallowed and nodded. She might be alive but her body would be a blackened mass of scar tissue and exposed bone – her armour had glowed red and run, melting onto the flesh beneath. Even a knight’s magically reinforced body could not have withstood that. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to a person’s mind, and beyond confirming that she was stable and sane enough not to be a liability, I dared not delve too deeply.
“The stones,” she rasped. “Why are you interested in crude rock?” It was a welcome change of subject. I beckoned her over to the largest lichen-covered stone that faced north. “I came through here a few years ago and didn’t think much of it then.” I glanced at her and quickly looked away again, “However, recent events have reminded me of something from my childhood.”
I dug snow from the base of the stone and scrubbed it from the shallow troughs of time-worn markings. A winter morning offered the perfect low angle of sunlight to view the carvings.
She crouched next to me to examine the symbols. Her presence – so close – burned into me. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and shout with joy, and I also wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from the writhing guilt. Instead, I did nothing.
“What are they?” she rasped. “All I see are vague shapes.” “That’s what I thought the first time I visited. But I had forgotten the things I saw in the catacombs of the Boneyards.” That earned me a sharp look. “Just before the Magash Mora emerged you carried me from the river up to the bridge to meet Shadea. Do you remember what she told me I found down there as a pup?”
“Something about ogres,” she said, impassive steel mask revealing no trace of expression.
I took three fingers and made a triangle, pressing them into three tiny pits in the rock. “These are eyes. Three of them.” I traced the surrounding shape. “This represents a sloping head, and here a bulky body like a bear or a great ape from the Thousand Kingdoms. The shape is all wrong for a human. Clansfolk stories call them the ogarim, and I found the desiccated corpse of one entombed beneath Setharis. It’s where I got my spirit-bound blade. And my fear of enclosed spaces.” My right hand itched like it was crawling with ants, making me want to rip the glove off and scrape it on stone until my blood ran free and hot. Anything to relieve the damn itch.
“How old is this circle?” she asked.
I grimaced. “Older than history. Our race’s that is.” “Makes you wonder what happened to them,” she replied. “If they can erect stones they can build houses. If they can build houses they can build a civilisation.”
The corpse I’d seen had been bigger than us and wearing finely crafted bronze armour, warded too if I remembered correctly. “More than likely human
s wiped them out,” I said. “We excel at that sort of thing.”
She grunted in acknowledgement. “As commander, do you have any orders for me?”
I shook my head. “We both know I don’t have any fucking idea what I’m doing. I’m commander in name only. I trust you to do whatever is necessary.”
We didn’t say much after that, and nothing to do with the past, just went over a few deathly dull details of tomorrow’s march, logistics and whatnot. The old Eva was gone, and she would never return. It was immensely awkward and deeply saddening to go from brazen flirting and camaraderie with a young, vibrant women to facing this desert of guilt with a tortured human shell. If I’d been faster, more powerful or more intelligent, then I might have been able to do something.
She caught my look and stiffened. “I know pity,” she said. “And I want none of it.” She left me there amongst the stones, alone with the wind and snow and self-flagellation. Did I pity her, or pity my own weakness? I stayed there thinking until my face was numb and my body shivering. By the time I returned to the inn I found myself agreeing with Eva. Had it been me, I’d want nothing to do with pity. Now was a time for anger.
At my coterie’s table I flung my sodden coat down and bellowed for ale. “Right, you pack of mangy curs. Let’s chew on this business of war. How are we going to slaughter these heathen scum and head on home? The fouler the better – you won’t find me squeamish like those prissy wardens.”
Over the next few hours Diodorus and Nareene proved fertile ground for gruesomely effective ideas. I grinned at Jovian: we’d been wise to choose a killer for hire and an arsonist, and I was just the right sort of callous bastard to make full use of their macabre talents.
“Just tell me what you need to make this happen,” I said. “Those fuckers are going to burn.”
CHAPTER 9
Our small army was joined by a dozen hardy mountain ponies pulling carts loaded with weapons and supplies, and we set off up the slushy track leading into the mountainous Clanholds. My coterie marched alongside a small heavily-loaded cart pulled by a grizzled pony of more use for making leather and glue than for hard labour. It shied from every puddle and kept trying to bite me. Only me. Vaughn seemed besotted with the vile creature and it was passing strange to see the big angry brute fawning over the beast, so I happily left ‘Biter’ in Vaughn’s surprisingly gentle hands. It wasn’t like I hated horses, especially the smaller and less intimidating breeds, but they all seemed to hate me.
Fortunately for the war effort, a gaggle of merchants fleeing south from the Skallgrim advance had arrived in Barrow Hill with most of what we might need to wreak havoc: sealed buckets of quicklime, oil, sulphur, pitch, pine resin, and a plethora of other liquids and powders that Nareene immediately demanded I requisition. It was legal theft but my need was greater than theirs.
Diodorus had obtained certain dried plants and seeds from a creepy old herbalist in a shack outside of town that sent him into worrying paroxysms of joy. He had been flung into the deepest pit in the Black Garden for murdering dozens, and even the merest graze from one of his arrows had resulted in an excruciating death. Now he was being given free rein to utilise his unique talents, and in fact I was blatantly pushing him to murder and kill as many as possible. Good and evil were merely social constructs, and depended heavily on perspective.
Every night the advance scouts (I assumed, given that Eva was taking care of the logistics and, well, everything else) staked out where our tents were to be pitched and where the cook fires and latrines were to be set. At least somebody knew what they were doing. I’d never considered all the details of what was involved with an army on the march. Then disaster struck! I hadn’t thought of recruiting somebody that could cook. I was forced to do it myself and use my Gift to ‘borrow’ a pot and steal the secrets of campaign cooking from members of Eva’s main battle coterie – a force easily four times the size of the rest of ours, designed to take full advantage of a knight’s skills: Eva was pretty much invulnerable to normal weapons after all, unlike my squishy hide.
I did all the cooking myself because it was safer than accepting Diodorus’ offer to lend a hand. My new knowledge was not complimented by any acquired skills but at least the food turned out edible, if a little burnt.
A constant march through snow and across frozen ground created bone-deep exhaustion and aching muscles in my whole coterie, and invited scathing looks from the better-fed wardens who were stronger and more erect than my drooping penal force. At least I had magic to stiffen my resolve, and bad jokes to fall back on.
When we reached the foothills of the mountains we pitched camp and awaited the arrival of our Clansfolk guides. Only fools ventured into that natural maze of river valleys and mountain passes without a local to lead them, doubly so in winter. Centuries ago an entire army led by the Arcanum elder Rannikus had marched into those valleys, never to be heard from again. The frozen, rocky, barely fertile area had been more trouble than it was worth to the expanding Setharii Empire, especially when greater riches and exotic goods awaited them south across the Cyrulean Sea.
With nothing better to do, I called a conclave of magi. We had all been happy to avoid each other, but now that we were entering the Clanholds I couldn’t afford their blind arrogance getting them killed before we even faced the Skallgrim and their pet daemons.
It was a freezing night under a clear, star-speckled sky when the seven of us gathered in the command tent with furs and braziers to keep the chill outside. Joining Eva and Granville, who I already knew, and Cormac and Secca that I’d met, were a tall, dark and ugly aeromancer named Bryden and a greasy pyromancer named Vincent with a long nose and sneering, narrow face I immediately wanted to punch. Both were young magi with no House name. That made four of us born from the lower classes: lesser magi in the eyes of noble House-born like Granville, and without any of the political ramifications if we got butchered on this suicidal expedition. Which begged the question, since Granville hadn’t volunteered, who had he displeased to be stuck here with me? Not that the proud git would ever deign to tell.
“I don’t know how these things tend to go,” I said, “but let’s dispense with pointless pleasantries. We are heading into the Clanholds where your smooth words and political slitherings won’t be worth a rat’s arse.” That one was aimed squarely at Granville.
“I’ll begin by saying that the Clansfolk put great trust in their reputations and in their honesty, so unless you want your face smashed in I suggest you don’t outright call them liars. Even if it’s true. Especially if it’s true.”
I rubbed my hands and warmed them over a brazier. “The other thing you need to bear in mind is that they are highly religious, and not in the same loose, indifferent way as the Setharii.”
“That is true,” Comrac added. “Every holdfast from the oldest and grandest dun to the remotest farming croft boasts its own spirit of the hearth, and every clan also makes offerings to an ancestral guardian spirit. It would be considered a grave insult not to make a small offering if you are invited to enter their homes.”
Granville huffed. “I shall not worship any crude spirit. I am not a heathen.”
“You will pay your respects if you want out of the wind and snow,” I snapped. “But you are perfectly free to freeze your balls off.”
“The ancient spirits of the Clanholds are most unpleasant if offended,” Cormac replied. “In the old places of the world they are still strong forces.”
“This is not Setharis,” I said. “Spirits don’t wither and die here, devoured by–” I had my suspicions but didn’t want to voice them, “–the very air of our home. Spirits are plentiful hereabouts, some small and weak, and others vast and mighty. Some might even be considered gods.”
“Heresy,” Vincent hissed. “How can you compare them to Lady Night, the Lord of Bones or gilded, glorious Derrish?”
I shrugged. “At least they are still here.” The long-faced prick didn’t have an answer for that, and settled for cl
amping his jaw shut and grinding his teeth.
I couldn’t help but needle him some more. “You also missed out Shadea, the Iron Crone.”
“And let us not forget the Hooded God,” Granville said. His glare suggested that was not for my benefit, more that he disliked sloppy and incomplete answers.
“Yes, there is that murdering prick too,” I growled, earning a few raised eyebrows. “Oh please, how do you not know that so-called god is our old mentor, Byzant?”
They all stared at me. “What? I thought everybody knew his crimes by now.” In his enforced absence I’d done my best to ruin his previously glorious reputation, but apparently had not been quite as successful as I’d hoped. It was petty revenge, but for now it was all I could do in exchange for ruining my life and trying to get me killed when I was younger.
Eva cleared her throat. “Be that as it may, Walker, do you have any knowledge of their magi or military insights into the Clanholds you would care to share?”
I nodded. “Their magi are known as druí, but they do not use their Gift in our manner. Instead they make pacts with spirits who do as the druí ask in exchange for a portion of their magic.”
Granville and Vincent exchanged horrified glances. “As for the terrain,” I added, “it is rougher than the ale in the Warrens and armies travel slowly through the valleys, but the Clansfolk know all sorts of secret paths through the mountains.
A few locals can easily stay ahead of any foreign army. You will see farms here and there on the valley floor, even small villages, but the actual Clanholds are burrowed deep into the stone of the mountains for safety. The Skallgrim won’t be able to overrun them easily or quickly and they will pay a heavy price in blood if they try.”
God of Broken Things Page 9