A Clatter of Chains

by A Van Wyck

  What had Keeper Justin done?

  Sensing his regard, the tired priest turned to meet his gaze, giving him a slight smile. He dropped his eyes in shame. He’d not spoken to the keeper about what had happened – what he had done – but he had no illusions that Justin knew anyway. And he feared his misdeeds of the night past were painted on his face for all to see. Mayhap they were… He lifted a hand to touch the stitches spanning the bridge of his nose but dropped it again at a warning cough from the keeper.

  “We should have given chase,” the chapter master was musing, “stamped out the threat completely.”

  “Ah, good general,” the ambassador quipped, his quicksilver moods taking an upswing, “do not second guess yourself so! No doubt your brave men saw them off with their tails between their legs, off to lick their wounds and not soon to return.”

  The chapter master had nothing to say to this.

  Bear sat back on his heels, his search finished. Glancing first at Justin, he locked eyes with Christian and shook his head, having found nothing.

  The masha’na leader’s lips thinned irritably.

  He was aware of the ambassador continuing his expostulation but his attention was all for the keeper who had raised his head to stare in the direction of the forest, a frown slowly deepening on his brow. Christian, also noticing the keeper’s distraction, turned to follow his gaze.

  Weiron came sprinting out of the woods, his masha’na robes flapping about his boots and his flatbow slung across his back. Spotting him, Bear straightened, alerting the others, who turned to see the Temple warrior skip lightly across the narrow stream. Tension rose in their little group.

  “Looks like you may have been in error, ambassador,” the chapter master said lightly. “It seems we may have angered the robber baron.” The grey-maned man did not seem entirely displeased at the notion.

  The approaching masha’na closed the distance swiftly, skidding to a stop facing Christian, to the ambassador’s obvious displeasure.

  “Riders,” the scout reported between wheezing breaths. “A score or more … in uniform … riding formation … down main road … at a trot …”

  “More bandits?” The ambassador sounded as if he’d take it as a personal insult if it were so.

  “Not wearing uniform, surely?” the chapter master observed mildly, choosing to ignore the ambassador’s sharp glance. “Could you see any livery?” he directed at Weiron instead.

  The man shook his head.

  “Too far out, sir.”

  “How long?” Christian asked the pertinent question.

  “Hendir is keeping pace, sticking to the high ground. We’ll see him before we see them. But I’d say less than a quarter bell.”

  “I need to get my men organized,” the chapter master muttered, hurrying away.

  “Alright,” Christian said, his tone businesslike. “Inform Captain Iolus, rejoin the troupe and get them spread among the trees. And make sure they understand that no one lets fly an arrow unless we’re attacked first.”

  Weiron sprinted away, loosing a shrill whistle. Men in orange and umber robes raced after him to melt into the tree line.

  “I doubt that will be necessary, captain,” Justin put in.

  Christian glanced sidelong at the priest. Their masha’na escort had, of necessity, been briefed on the keeper’s abilities. But knowing was a far cry from seeing. No doubt the blonde warrior was considering the stories he’d heard about the keeper.

  “Is there something I should be aware of, sir?” he asked respectfully, pitching his voice low.

  “Not in the way you mean, captain. Just a feeling.”

  The young man blinked.

  “Then, if it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d just as soon prepare for an attack.”

  “Of course, captain. I bow to your experience in all martial matters.”

  “Then, if you’ll excuse me, keeper, I’m needed elsewhere.”

  He gave the keeper a half-salute, bowed in the ambassador’s direction and gathered up Bear with a glance. The two masha’na disappeared in the direction of the stream.

  “I had best go change,” the ambassador thought out loud. Marco blinked. His own and Justin’s robes were soot stained and scorched. The high lord was the only person in camp this morning dressed as if for a ball. What could he possibly want to change into?

  The man swept away in the direction of his carriage.

  Marco and the keeper stood blinking after him.

  “Shall we go have a look as well?” the priest finally broke the silence, smiling an invitation as he set off after the two masha’na. Falling into step, Marco followed the priest down to where the two burnt out wagons had been drawn across the stream in a crude barricade.

  The motion of walking set the dull pain in his face to pulsing. The keeper had done what he could to speed the knitting of the bone of his damaged nose bridge and the mender had closed the gash with stitches but the bristles were terribly distracting and kept drawing his eye. It itched horribly. He raised a hand.

  “Don’t,” the keeper commanded without turning, “or it’ll scar.”

  He dropped his hand but his fingers twitched again and again as the moments stretched. He turned at the sound of hooves to see the Imperial Guard, mounted and decked in full shields and armor, Captain Iolus in the lead, draw up behind them. The enameled crest of the commander’s helm glinted in the morning sunlight.

  “Here we go,” the keeper whispered, surprising him. He jerked his head back in the direction of the trees. Hendir stood atop a slight rise, screened from the forest behind him. The masha’na gestured twice. Down the line of defenders, Christian waved that they understood. Hendir melted back into the shadowy fronds.

  He didn’t need the keeper’s gift to feel the tension in the air climb another notch. Breaths were held nervously as everyone stared at the tree line, the only noise the occasional wuff of one of the Elite’s horses.

  He stared hard at the dark boles across the stream, his fists clenched tight on the blackened timber of the wagon.

  There!

  Movement between the trees resolved into a pair of horses, their riders sitting high in the saddle. Another pair rode out behind them. And another behind them. Swallowing hard, he watched as the double line of mounted men emerged slowly from the forest, dressed identically in leather great coats and polished steel helms. The lead rider had reached the stream before the tail end of the column had exited the trees, about two score, all told. The foremost rider came on alone, his arms held out peaceably, throwing his cloak wide. Bright steel peeked from its shadow. Guiding his horse with his knees, the newcomer halted fifty paces from the barricade, well within bowshot.

  He recognized the design of the white stork, rampant on the blue surcoat. It was the crest of the Renali monarchy.

  “I am Commander Fermont of his Majesty’s Royal Guard,” the rider boomed, careful to keep his hands visible. “Under orders of his Majesty, the king, I am to safely escort you and your party to the capital as royal guests.”

  Beside him, the keeper’s lips curled in a gratified smile.

  “Oh, good,” someone muttered. “We’re saved.”

  PART II

  The final days of the Age of Magic

  The day of the Fall

  The coast of Thell

  “We need to cast off now!”

  The captain remained silent, giving his panic stricken first mate a moment in which to absorb the contempt on his captain’s face. But fear made the man unheeding of such nuances.

  “We wait,” he informed his new first mate for the last time. He’d lost his previous first mate to a freak accident on the voyage to reach this cursed land and had been saddled with this yellow streak of brine for the last two weeks. He’d much rather have promoted one of his trusted hands but that wasn’t how the navy worked, so he’d had to accept this… transfer.

  “Captain…!” The man stank of fear sweat – a stench that had grown progressively more pungent as th
ey’d all watched from deck the limping exodus of soldiers file down the gorge and fill up all the other docked vessels.

  A little over two bells earlier the earth had shifted, loosing rains of rock from the cliffs above and setting the ship to bobbing like a cork in a tub. His ship, The Lady’s Tears, was the last ship anchored in the wide bay. The rest were winging their way across the ocean at their backs, the transports moving at a good clip now that they were no longer wallowing low in the water under the weight of their cargo – as they had been upon arriving. They’d left many good men and women dead on this foreign soil. Too many. Distant sails on the horizon carried the remnants of the Holy Legion away. The last transport had cast off almost a bell ago now.

  “The wall is failing!” the first mate managed to choke past the cowardice strangling him. “If we don’t cast off now, we’ll be beached by the low tide!”

  The captain turned his back on the man, letting the mewling wash over him as he let his eyes climb the steep gorge, along the snaking foot trail to the very lip of the cliff far above the bay. He could only just make out the very crest of the fiery wall. True enough, the palls of smoke curling from it were turning from angry black to spent grey in some places. He would not be surprised if there were already breaks in that magical barrier. A wonder it had lasted this long. He could not begin to fathom the force of will that had kept that burning for bells on end. He could only imagine the sacrifice it had demanded. But it had worked. What was left of the Legion was safely away.

  Except for us.

  But he had his orders. And followed them gladly. He would stay. His first mate’s harangue broke through his calm moment of reflection and his fingers twitched toward the hilt of the common sailor’s knife tucked behind his elaborate naval officer’s sabre. Being a navy man was all well and good but you weren’t worth a thimble full of piss on the open water if you weren’t a sailor first. And before he was anything else, he was a sailor. Through and through.

  The sabre fit his resplendent uniform. It came with the authority of a captain in the Imperial Navy. But naval officers were bound by rules and regulations. Disciplinary procedures. Codes of good conduct that were drilled into you at the academy.

  He kept the sailor’s knife to remind him–

  “Captain, we cannot remain here! This is madness! None could have survived on the other side of the wall! Did you not hear the talk among those returned soldiers?! We are waiting for a rearguard that will never– eeeugh…”

  He didn’t realise he’d moved until he found himself face to shocked face with his gurgling first mate, his hand around the surprised officer neck and the idiot’s toes barely managing to scuff the planking, hoisted up against the aft mast like a soiled flag.

  –sometimes you just had to be a sailor first.

  The crew watched resolutely – good men all – as the first mate’s scrabbling resistance went on, and on, becoming feeble. None interfered. They’d seen their captain face down storms and typhoons and recognized the familiar stony expression.

  The first mate’s eyes were rolling up into the back of his skull.

  “I see them!!!” the cry came from a sailor hanging off the high rigging by one hand, the other pointing up the cliff face excitedly.

  The captain released his grip and the first mate collapsed, coughing, to the deck. None move to aid the man.

  “Weigh anchor!” the captain bellowed, the ship exploding into a frenzy of purpose. “Man the oars! Prepare to pile on sail!”

  “Should we drop the longboats, captain? They can’t swim out to us in armor!”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed on the mouth of the snaking pass, far up the precipice, where a handful of figures were pelting down the rocky passage. It was too far to make out individual features but, as he watched, he saw them forsake the zigzagging pathway, leaping instead in great arcs from rock to outcropping to crevasse, making their way down the cliff face with inhuman speed and grace.

  “Nay!” he bellowed, forestalling the hands that were untangling the longboats’ lines.

  “But… captain…?”

  “Nay, I said!” he thundered, turning back to the cliff face briefly to gauge the speed of the approaching figures. From the top of the cliff other figures were now appearing. Monstrous silhouettes, merciful robbed of detail by distance, boiling over the stone lip in pursuit.

  “Set to oars! Cruising speed!” the captain commanded. “Helmsman, course us under that outcrop!” he pointed.

  “Aye, sir!” a chorus answered him, wood and sail and lines creaked as the helmsman swung the wheel, setting course for open water.

  “Heave!” The ship lurched beneath them as the oars bit salt water. “Heave! … Heave!”

  The figures traversing the rock face had sighted the ship and guessed her captain’s intent. They were also angling for the stone outcropping that overhung the bay mouth. They were close enough now to pick out details. Blood sheathed them like a sloppily applied veneer and tireless legs propelled them toward the ship despite the weight of armor and weapons. The monstrous horde behind them was also coming into focus, all teeth and claws and chaos. And the horde was gaining – nameless, long-limbed creatures speeding across the uneven slope as if galloping across level land.

  “Archers to the stern!” the captain bellowed. Another voice took up his command and leather clad soldiers rushed in an orderly line up to the rail, nocking arrows and testing waxed strings.

  The fleeing figures were nearing the outcropping. But the horde was hot on their heels.

  “Draw!” the captain ordered and the rattle and groan of wood and muscle answered as the strings were drawn taut.

  “Loose!”

  The volley arched high, striking viciously into the forefront of the approaching wave of monstrosities. Myriad nameless creatures went down but some merely got back up and others continued, unfazed, with shafts sticking out of them. Too few remained grounded, fodder for the rushing advance behind them.

  “Draw! Loose!” Another volley winged skyward and peppered down among the closing monsters with too little effect. “Draw! Loose!”

  A shadow loomed over them as they passed beneath the stone outcrop, twice as high above the water as the center mast. The captain watched, shading his eyes, as the fleeing figures reached the spar, running along it surefooted as mountain goats.

  “All hands! Clear the poop deck!” the captain bellowed. Confused sailors scrambled past him to obey, rushing down the aft ladders to leave the highest deck of the ship abandoned, save for the wide-eyed helmsman who clung to the wheel as if it were a life line.

  The figures above them reached the end of the spar.

  Gasps surrounded the captain as the fleeing soldiers launched themselves unhesitatingly into thin air, arrowing down towards the ship with torn cloaks flapping and blood-clumped hair whipping like banners.

  Four separate impacts rocked The Lady’s Tears, the last accompanied by the loud crack of splintering plank. Four kneeling figures crowded the poop deck. They reeked of offal and the gore of war, painted head to toe in alien blood and all manner of ichor.

  Arrows continued to fly at the shore as the monstrous pursuers reached the spar but they were drawing away now, the ship churning a wide wake as the oarsmen found their stroke. Some of the monsters tried to jump the distance, as had their quarry, but those splashed into the water in the ship’s wake. Others roared at them from atop the outcrop and enemy arrows found the deck but were quickly losing their range. The ship was away and drawing out of the bay and into the open ocean.

  The kneeling figures rose.

  “Captain,” the foremost addressed him in a deep, rumbling voice, “permission to come aboard?”

  The captain bowed deeply. “The Lady’s Tears and her crew are honored to welcome the Primes.”

  Somewhere behind him, the first mate was loudly sick.

  CHAPTER 7 – PEBBLES

  Present day

  Southern Cantella

  The Renali Kingdomr />
  It was a magnificent mansion for a rural lord. But then, the Cantella fief was the sole producer of the haired yam. A thoroughly disgusting plant in its raw form – it was completely inedible, smelling of rotting meat and tasting even worse. But when subjected to the correct alchemical refinement, it became worth its weight in gold. In its processed state, the drug was virulent, becoming a vigorous aphrodisiac and a mild to strong hallucinogenic. In the desert cities, where demand was greatest, it was called hisang ar banak. Song of the Sandcat. Which only made sense if you knew sandcats would mate with anything they could catch – which was basically everything – and were notorious for doing so for days on end.

  Lord Cantella himself had grown rich and influential on desert gold and was well known for his… appetites. Prolonged use of his own produce had left him highly paranoid – an unfortunate and unadvertised side effect of long term overindulgence. Now, apart from the constant and random patrols by a small army of guards, the alchemists (and, it was whispered – mages) the lord retained also provided their own brand of specialized protection. Even so, the carnally addled lord hadn’t ventured outside his own walls in years.

  While there certainly was some justice in that, it did make it difficult for anyone trying to gain undetected entry into the lord’s manse.

  Difficult but not impossible.

  The lord was sitting in his favorite chair. Throne might have been a better word. Its gilded curves belied the oaken sturdiness that supported the lord’s massive weight. Fat fingers danced nimbly among the heaped delicacies, proffered on silver trays by orbiting servants. The lord’s chewing jowls bounced distractedly, eyes glittering intent on the gauze wrapped dancers whirling across the floor. A gift from some grateful desert prince, no doubt. The dark skinned women’s seductive dance was obviously having the desired effect. The corpulent lord leaned forward, a bead of perspiration daring the treacherous path down his triple chins. A pudgy hand waved absently for the two fan girls to step up the pace. One of the loin-clothed adolescents froze, her fan forgotten, disbelieving eyes staring at the dagger that dropped into existence above the salivating lord.