Mordraud strained an ear and a faint smile lit up his face. Somebody was digging with a spade and pickaxe not far away.
“Who on earth’s working the land right here?!” muttered Hammer. “And in this season!”
“You twit! It’s not peasants...” Mordraud silenced him. “Wait here. You come with me, Giant. You too, Mercy, and bring your bow.”
“Yep... That sounds good.”
Mordraud noticed Mercy’s cruel smile with a shudder. When he wanted, that man knew how to curdle his blood. Luckily, he was on his side, he thought with relief. Mordraud padded a few paces between the trees, and when the noise grew more defined, he ordered them onto their stomachs to slither through the snow. Concealed by the vegetation and a heap of soil, four men in armour were digging holes, while another six kept their eyes on the wood.
“But that armour...” hissed Giant. “Isn’t that the colours of the Irinne Point cavalry?”
Mordraud looked carefully and nodded in silence. Irinne Point was one of Eld’s allies in the war against Cambria. It was a small fiefdom north of the coast looking out onto the Ocean of the East. It contributed only a handful of troops, and they were usually men who spoke little and kept very much to themselves. They hadn’t seen Irinne soldiers at the Rampart for many months.
“A perfect disguise for infiltration. Assassins sent by the Empire.”
“Are you sure, Mordraud?”
“More than certain. Beanpole, can you hit a couple of them from... let’s say... down there?”
Mordraud pointed to a thicket of dense trees opposite. The throat-slitter nodded with an extremely serious air and slipped away.
“Go and call the others. And remember, no noise!”
Mordraud waited impatiently as his men took up their positions. The scent of the anticipated clash excited him, as always. The snow, the air and the wood seemed to twinkle as if in a daydream. Fear was an entirely secondary sensation.
“Ready...”
An arrow sped through the trees, embedding itself perfectly in the first soldier’s neck.
“ATTACK!”
Mordraud sprang into action, stirring flurries of snow and swirls of frozen air. The silence was total, broken only by his breathing burdened by the cold. One of the guards grabbed his bow and tautened the string towards him. Mercy’s arrow deadened any hope he might have. Mordraud pounced on the enemy, twirling his sword to free it from the frost.
The first fighter tried to defend himself but didn’t have the time. Mordraud gouged a deep groove in his face, at eye height, with the tip of his blade. But he’d calculated the distance badly. Spurred on by his own eagerness, he knocked the soldier over and tumbled into one of the holes gaping in the ground, squashing under his weight the man at work there. One of the shovels nearly punctured his thigh, ripping his padded leather protections. The mud made everything more laborious. Mordraud tried to wield his sword but there was insufficient room. So he smashed its hilt into the face of the stunned man beneath him and used his body to climb up out of the pit.
Whilst struggling to hoist himself up, fumbling with numb fingers in the slippery sludgy snow, Mordraud saw a soldier in Irinne armour unsheathe his sword just a few paces from him. He was about to loosen his grip, but hesitated when he saw he wasn’t the warrior enemy’s target: he was aiming to strike one of his own. One of the few left alive, a thin middle-aged man bent over under the load of plating that was clearly too large for his narrow shoulders.
“NO! DON’T!” yelled the feeble little man. “PLEASE!”
It was like imploring the wind. The soldier who’d been his comrade until a few moments earlier no longer existed. He thrust his sword into his torso, up to the hilt.
“TAKE THAT MAN ALIVE! DON’T KILL HIM!” Mordraud yelled. Red and Giant quickly freed themselves of their opponents and leapt over the hole to seize the traitor warrior, but he just managed to escape them. Mordraud saw him run into the thick of the forest.
“Damn! What are you waiting for?! After him!” he cursed, hauling his body up from the pit. Mercy and he jumped on his trail, tramping through mounds of snow and protruding roots.
They’d walked that wood far and wide a thousand times, during the months of training at the camp. Adraman drew almost perverse pleasure from ordering them to gather wood there at any time of the day or night, forcing the new recruits to get up at unearthly hours and accept gruelling toil. Mordraud was thankful. He knew where he was going, and so did Mercy. Without uttering a word, they split so as to drive the prey into their trap. The trees passed by in a haze, all frozen and warped in the same manner by the cold. The ground felt like granite and the branches scraped against his stiff arms like blackened bones. He was panting, and his leg injured by the spade was gradually growing numb under the weight of his paces. But the unmistakable gurgle of the stream fuelled him with new energy.
The Imperial explorer had headed straight towards the only river in the forest, penetrating between slick rocks. At that point, the banks were high and steep, with the waters slicing between the stone. Ice was clogging up almost the entire course, but a trickle still persisted, despite the bitter cold. When they reached the bank, the fugitive was looking earnestly about, gripped by desperation. He saw Mercy, and attempted to get away.
He ended up in Mordraud’s clutches.
“Got you, you idiot!”
A couple of well-placed blows dulled his burning spirits. Mordraud tied his hands tightly behind his back with a leather lace, relieved him of all his weapons and didn’t forget to dish out some more punches, just so the man knew who he was dealing with. The other rebels arrived in dribs and drabs, laughing coarsely and congratulating their captain.
“Hey, lads, I told you so...” Giant yelled. “Mordraud can pick up on Cambria’s scent better than dogs do!”
“All just luck, isn’t that right, boss?!”
“What d’you mean, luck?! I’m just doing my job. Not like you lot.”
Mordraud dragged the restive soldier by an arm and, to coax him along, unfurled a couple more blows to his stomach. But he miscalculated.
There was only the slippery icy rock of the river’s cliffs beneath his feet.
Mordraud lost his balance for a moment, and the soldier took his chance. Instead of flinging himself forwards and attempting a hopeless escape, he let himself fall backwards, like a dead weight.
“NO!”
His back smashed violently on the stream’s pale blue ice, and a web of cracks rippled out around him. Mordraud was about to throw himself in pursuit, but Mercy caught him at the last second, yanking him by the arm.
“Chief, that’s crazy!”
“Let go of me! We’ve got to get him to speak... We must...”
Mordraud’s eyes met those of the prisoner the instant the sheet of ice gave way under his weight. All the soldiers watched as he was carried away by the current, while attempting to free his hands. The water dragged him beneath the ice. They saw him gasping like a hideous fish. The freezing temperatures did the rest.
“DAMN IT ALL!” shouted Mordraud, releasing a punch onto frozen stone.
“Boss, he was just a Cambrian soldier...”
“Didn’t you see?! He killed one of his own before fleeing! They didn’t want us to find something out... And now we don’t know what they’re planning on!”
“Chief, we found these at the pits...”
Hammer placed a few pieces of classic Imperial cavalry armour on the ground: a crown emblazoned the breastplate. “They’d changed and were hiding their old armour... They wanted to get in through the Rampart and... do who knows what.”
“Let’s get back,” decided Mordraud. “We need to report to Berg. He’ll be really angry now, curse it all...”
“Because we went out without his consent?” asked Red.
“No, you moron... Because we didn’t find out what their scheme is... And there’s nothing we can do about it now!”
XX
“And so he left, in the end
.”
“Yes... They’ve all left.”
“It was going to happen sooner or later.”
“Maybe... But it hurts just the same.”
Larois finished serving up the broth she’d placed to heat up on the stove in the centre of the unplastered room. Sernio was waiting patiently, his blanket on his legs and wooden spoon ready in hand. Gwern had set off ten days earlier. It felt like years. She was missing him desperately, her little Aelian. She’d grown fond of that strangeness of his too in the end. A fairytale boy, as she liked to call him. A gift to a woman who’d lost all, without even a murmur.
“I hope you’ve made a decision... Can I go?” he’d said that morning, waking her from her nap. She now slept very little at night, and was endlessly tired during the day. Like all old people, she thought, with a twist of bitterness.
“This is my opportunity, and Mordraud’s risking his life to give me the chance to try,” he’d continued, after her first wan objections. The truth was that Gwern was free to go wherever he pleased. There were no ties of blood, or history, between them. Only a few years of life shared, a mutual hand during a time of need.
“It could be dangerous, and you’re still so young...” Larois had tried, but she’d only spurred the opposite effect. “I can cope on my own. Mordraud managed it, many orphans do. I’ll get by too,” Gwern retorted, annoyed.
“Saiden certainly seems like a good man... And you’re very motivated. But what if it’s not your path in life?”
“Then I’ll join my brother and fight with the rebels!”
“Even you don’t believe that. I know you, you crafty little one! The war scares you to death. And you’re terrified at the idea of using weapons.”
“That’s not true,” Gwern had protested, but not very convincingly. “I can get used to anything.”
“Sure, sure...”
“Anyway, I’m not going to change my mind! Mordraud’s collected the money together, like he promised he would. Saiden has accepted. You’ve met him. Now it’s my turn to do my bit. I’ll never get another chance like this one!”
“Go on then. What are you waiting for?”
Larois would have preferred a gentler farewell.
“Your stuff’s in your room. You’ll find your last wages on the table.”
“But I’m not running away, Larois. That’s why I wanted you to meet Master Saiden...”
“You could have not bothered asking for my consent – it’s not going to change your mind. Come on, off you go to this Saiden. And make sure you behave yourself. Now let me rest a little bit more.”
“I’ll drop by later and say goodbye...”
“Yes, yes, fine... Off you go now...”
While Gwern was gathering his few belongings together, Larois had counted out the money to pay him, adding a generous tip. All the money she had around the house. Next to this, wrapped up well in two linen cloths, she left him a large loaf of bread with cheese and slices of cured meat.
‘And a dollop of cabbage – you’re so very fond of that,’ she mused.
Of course, she’d done all she could not to see him again: she’d stayed out all day. Gwern had already set off when she came home, well after sundown.
“He’ll have been upset,” commented Sernio, tasting the hot broth. Larois filled herself a large steaming cupful and settled down on a stack of books.
“I was upset too.”
“Don’t play the child, Larois.”
“I’m not playing the child...”
She was the one who’d arranged Mordraud’s job at Deanna’s. And it was her again who’d sent Gwern to lend Sernio a hand. She’d hoped she might be able to get him to study through this man, and to help the boy feel better after his brother’s departure. In the end, she’d given both of them their openings to leave. Exactly what she’d never wanted to happen.
“And what if that’s what you were doing right from the start...?”
“What?”
“Giving those two the chance to make something of themselves. I’d say you’ve done a good job.”
“It’s no great consolation...” she snapped. “I wonder though what really steered Master Saiden to accept Gwern. He was the one to suggest it, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, it surprised me too,” replied Sernio. “He came back to see me one day and said: I’d like you to introduce me to that boy. He told me he’d seen something important in him. That he’d definitely become someone.”
“And don’t you find that strange?”
“No... I too believe Gwern can achieve great things.”
“You don’t convince me, you old fool! That Saiden might be a good man, but I still find him a bit unsettling,” muttered Larois. “Bah... when it comes down to it, you and your big mouth have taken my little Gwern from me... and now I’m all alone again.”
“Like all us old people, my friend,” responded Sernio. “Like every other inhabitant of Eld. We’re all alone... We’re all orphans.”
“Yes, perhaps you’re right...” murmured Larois, drinking slowly at her cup of broth. “But I’ll miss him just the same.”
“I know. You’re still a girl at heart. And I’m obviously right!”
Larois laughed, drying her eyes with her fingertips. “Okay, well it seems like I’ll have to pop in and check up on you myself from now on. But only when my back’s not hurting too much.”
“Gwern was meticulous. Remember, us oldies like our routine.”
“Okay, okay...” said Larois, sorrowfully sipping her broth.
***
“Any news of the first unit?”
“No, sir.”
Asaeld finished signing a string of missives destined for the southern front. Requests for provisions, blankets and arms – all in large quantities. Loralon spoke well and daydreamed even better, but the reality was very different to how he envisaged it. The front was long, and there were many soldiers. Too many, in relation to the real forces deployed in battle. Something that never failed to wrest from him a smile of respect for Eldain and his men.
“Not even confirmation they’ve arrived?”
“Nothing at all, sir.”
In implementing the Arcane’s plan, he’d already seen to sending the first experts to study the land and to determine the boundaries limiting the range of action for the choir’s complex chanting.
“If even just one of them fails to return and report that the mission was successful, we’ll be forced to put everything off.”
“Yes, I imagine so, sir...”
His private messenger was unaware of exactly what plan he was talking about. He knew merely a few details. Even Dunwich had only been partially informed, although the idea had stemmed from his suggestion. Very few times in his life had the young man been enraged like then. He’d ranted, criticised the Emperor and his cronies, and cursed just outside the throne hall. Amidst many people.
‘The lad’s slightly lost his head...’ he thought, smiling. ‘He’ll get over it.’
“Go and give orders to the Arcane’s spokesman to suspend the forays. Everything’s postponed until next winter.”
“In a year’s time, sir?!” asked the stunned attendant.
“Of course. This one’s nearly over. And we’re not in time to send new teams before the full thaw.”
“I presume the Emperor and Raelin will be rather annoyed at the news.”
“Well, I hope they are,” concluded Asaeld, motioning to him to dismiss at once. “But they’re obliged to follow my orders.”
Another year’s leeway – perhaps pointless – for the rebels.
“Eldain, we’re going to leave you be for a while longer. Glad about that?” he said to the empty room.
“You should be.”
***
“I’ve seen more cheerful spots at the front...”
Benno helped Gwern down from his horse. They’d reached the place Saiden had described as being near his abode. Before them stretched the forgotten ivy-smothered remains of a little to
wn. The foundations alone had weathered the elements and the years: an angular map of walls marking the land in desolate empty squares. The only edifice still standing was a very tall wide tower. Circular in form, it loomed more or less at the heart of the ruins. Amazing how it was perfectly preserved, reflected Gwern, whistling in surprise. It had no windows. Just a small door that looked tremendously heavy.
“I ask myself why anyone would want to live in a deserted town. I never would,” declared Benno as he unstrapped Gwern’s bag from the saddle. He accompanied the boy to the tower, looking around suspiciously. “Want me to wait out here a day or two? In case you have any... trouble?”
“No, Benno. Go back to my brother,” replied Gwern, gesturing to him that everything was going just wonderfully. Actually, he was terrified, but didn’t wish to convey that impression. He wanted Mordraud to hear a positive account of how he’d handled that significant moment in his life.
He was crapping himself.
Luckily, Benno didn’t object and wandered off, doubtfully. He’d left him at the door to the tower. The soldier would rather have waited, but Gwern wanted to face the situation alone, at all costs. He had to stop counting on him, or on Larois. It was time to seize his own life in both hands, and push onwards.
The small solid metal door opened while Gwern was still searching for a knocker.
“Welcome to my home.”
Master Saiden met him with a mildly pleased smile. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt, his hair was combed back and his hazel eyes shone with remarkable intensity. He intimated to the boy to enter. Gwern looked at his muddy boots and lingered in uncertainty. “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem,” the man reassured him.
“From now on, behave as if it were your own house.”
Gwern waited for his eyes to get used to the change of light, then gazed around. He wrinkled up his face and rubbed his chin in puzzlement.
“But... how do they...?”
“Oh, it’s curious, isn’t it?” returned Saiden, with a happy smile. “This tower’s architect was a genius.”
Gwern nodded, perturbed. The belly of the round tower was a vast open space upon which huge stone cubes floated. Each one was connected to the next by a bizarre elliptical spiral staircase that was also narrow and oblong. With the bridges and suspended steps, the experience was like observing an entirely different panorama from a new viewpoint. As if the building did not stretch up vertically, but rather extended horizontally, similarly to a little – and very normal – town.
Mordraud, Book One Page 39