by Leo Carew
Those who had fled were the younger families, whose love for their land was not yet so complete that it was unthinkable to uproot. Not one of the scores that Bellamus had spoken to had thought to tell him that; it had not occurred to them that a Sutherner would feel any different. They did not realise that the Suthern army was not crippled by wretched heartsickness at the alien lands through which they marched. They did not realise that Sutherners, as a rule, do not love their homes as dearly as they love their families.
Through observation, trial, error and experimentation, Bellamus had come to know more. The Anakim did not seem to feel as acutely as the Sutherners. Cold was less bothersome, worry less sickening, pain less debilitating, fear less overwhelming and horror less shocking. Only love seemed to be felt quite as acutely, but still they rarely let it engulf them. Indeed, so different were they that cold was something they appeared to love. Bellamus had questioned this and found most unequal to an explanation. They just loved it. Could Bellamus explain why he was happier in the warmth? Why food was a pleasure when hungry? Why roses smelt sweet? A few had tried harder, stuttering something about cold making the feeling of maskunn (to be exposed) more intense. If you were cold, they explained, you felt more. There was less separation between them and their beloved land.
There must be so much more that he, Bellamus, did not know; that he might not find out for many years. It was what they lacked which was most obvious. They could conceive of no value to gold, so did not use money. They had to trade simply instead: one useful object for another. Perhaps this was because their understanding of art and symbolism was so crude. Everything that they painted or wove was in black and cream; they did not seem able to conceive the new dimensions that colour might add. Beyond a few specific symbols, they had no writing. Their language, Bellamus was finding, was frustratingly inexact where it ought to be precise, and pedantic where it ought to be obscure. It lacked equivalent words for the distinct colours of orange, red, blue and green, and concepts such as “civilised,” “optimistic” or “déjà vu.” To them, orange and red were simply considered two shades of the same colour, as were blue and green; civilisation was anathema; optimistic simply irrelevant, and déjà vu a phenomenon they appeared familiar with, but had no term to describe.
But they had words that the Sutherners had yet to imagine. They had a word for a stranger you feel you have met before; a word for a memory or thought that slips away as you grasp at it; a word for the feeling that something good is drawing to a close; a word for the sin of putting the short term above the long term; a word for wind strong enough to make branches in the forest rattle and smack together; a word for the sense of nostalgia initiated by a familiar smell; a word for feeling estranged from someone you were once close to. Their word for servant was unambiguously positive. Their word for “lord” was related to that of “father,” “lady” to that of “mother,” and both were more than anything else an expression of gratitude. It was not expressed with the deference that a Sutherner might associate with the words: rather, with appreciation. Bellamus had uncovered six different words for “stream,” four describing the silhouette of a tree, seven for how hard ground was to travel on. His favourite discovery was their term for a word that is pleasurable to say: eulalaic.
He had arrived in the north with libraries of questions, and the Black Kingdom had answered precious few. Instead, it asked its own of him, and then wrung the answers from him. What frightened him? Is anything inherent to the Sutherner? How do desperate men behave? How robust are your ideas of beauty? Decency? Honour? Truth? God?
Bellamus stayed in northern Suthdal. This was partly to keep eyes on the Abus and make certain that no vengeful legions came south, and partly because he did not want to face King Osbert’s displeasure. It had taken an enormous effort of will to launch another invasion so soon after the last, and Bellamus had made promises that he should not have. He stayed away.
Legions did come south, but only to deliver the Suthern army back home. Fifty thousand heads, planted on the pikes that had been left on the battlefield, were erected on the Suthdal side of the Abus. There were enough to stretch, one every four yards, from one coast of Albion to the other. The crows found them and feasted, cutting the island in half with a turbulent wall of black. Bellamus saw it with his own eyes. He and Garrett, accompanied by Stepan and half a dozen Hermit Crabs, sat on horseback atop a hill that overlooked the Abus, in front of which the heads had been planted. There was no sign of Anakim north of the bank.
“This isn’t the last of this,” said Bellamus. “They’re coming south, Garrett.”
“They are not as hard as the Unhieru,” was all Garrett said.
“The Anakim’s bad cousins,” mused Bellamus. “I find the Anakim infinitely more threatening. They have an eye to the long term that neither we nor the Unhieru possess and, given the right motivations and the right leader, they can bend everything towards a single cause. We have given them both.”
“The right leader and the right cause?”
“Exactly. And they and the Unhieru are natural allies. If the Anakim come south, we may have to face Gogmagoc as well.”
“I would like nothing more than to face Gogmagoc,” said Garrett.
“No doubt that would add to your considerable renown,” observed Bellamus.
“And that Pryce Rubenson …” Garrett let out a long, slow breath. “He was the fastest thing I have ever seen.”
“I doubt you’ll see Pryce again, but there are other Anakim champions you can test yourself against. Leon Kaldison is the next great hero, and Vigtyr the Quick is supposed to be the best of them. We must be prepared for a different class of warfare, big man. We have to find ways of matching the Anakim man-for-man. At the moment, the quality of their individual soldier is too good.”
“We have started a war that cannot be won,” said Garrett bleakly.
“No. We have ended a peace that masked a lie; we cannot live with the Anakim.” Bellamus glanced back at Stepan sitting behind, who, unseen by Garrett, dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Or, rather, I ended a peace that masked a lie.”
Garrett turned his head slowly to face Bellamus. “What do you mean, you ended the peace?”
Bellamus smiled at him pleasantly. “What you must understand about the Anakim, Garrett, is that they are too warlike for their own good. Battle is the only thing that keeps their numbers in check. They live such a long time that, though they breed more slowly than us, in the end they will outnumber us if they are not controlled by war.” Garrett was frowning and Bellamus turned back to face the bleak kingdom over the river. “That was the realisation I came to a few years ago. All across Erebos, I’ve seen the frontier where Anakim meets Sutherner, and there is never peace. We are too different; there is too much mutual suspicion and misunderstanding. We have the advantage in numbers now, but it will not last. The sooner this war started, the more likely we were to win it. So I started it.”
“No you didn’t,” said Garrett. “They started raiding Suthdal. That brought God’s wrath: the flooding, the plague, the snakes in the sky. That is why the war started.”
“And why did the Anakim raid south? Because I raided them first. We did,” said Bellamus, gesturing around at the Hermit Crabs. “We provoked them, and they replied. There is always flooding. There is always plague. Every single year. The fiery snakes were a pleasant coincidence, but it was I who paid the priests to declare that they were signs of God’s displeasure for allowing the Anakim to set foot in our lands. I know how the king works, Garrett. He’s scared wicked of the Anakim. All he needed was the right push.” Garrett did not seem to have noticed that the Hermit Crabs were now very close behind him.
“I heard that you were counselling caution in King Osbert’s court,” said Garrett, still suspicious. “And that it was Queen Aramilla who championed the invasion.”
Bellamus waved the queen’s intervention aside, not prepared to reveal everything. “I did counsel caution,” he said. “I d
id not want my hand detected and I did not want Earl William in charge, but fortunately that situation resolved itself early in the campaign.” Bellamus let silence fall for a time. “So now that you know,” he said presently. “I wondered whether you might join me in finishing this war. I can promise you more prestige than you will find anywhere else. Certainly more than you’ll get sitting in King Osbert’s court. You can have your chance against the greatest Anakim warriors ever to live. You can fight Gogmagoc. Or, you can do as His Majesty suggested and take my head back to him for my failure.”
Garrett was fixated on Bellamus, sitting very still in his saddle. “What will His Majesty do when he discovers what’s happened?” He spoke in a softer voice than Bellamus had heard him use before.
“Certainly I am out of favour now, and that makes me safer up here, even with your presence,” said Bellamus, casting an eye over the huge man. “But in the inevitable slaughter when the Anakim come south, opportunity will arise and His Majesty will need me again. I just need to stay away until then. I’m looking forward to it. You say you want to fight Gogmagoc? I want Roper. This Black Lord is even better than his father.”
Silence fell for a time. Bellamus’s horse tossed its head and twitched its ears and he soothed it.
Garrett imitated Bellamus and turned back to face the Black Kingdom. “So you’re testing me,” he said after a while. Bellamus thought that more perceptive than he would have given Garrett credit for. “If you think your warriors could stop me before I killed you, you are mistaken.”
Bellamus wondered whether that was right. He sat passively, waiting for the big man to finish. Tucked within his jerkin were two letters. One was in Aramilla’s cypher, imploring him to stay away, describing King Osbert’s terrified rage and suggesting that he stay very quiet in the north and hope to be forgotten until he was needed. Wait for this storm to pass, my upstart. When it does, I will come north for you. I will not forget.
The second had been addressed to Garrett, intercepted by one of Bellamus’s men. It ordered the hybrid to decapitate Bellamus and take his head south to be displayed over Lundenceaster’s gate. Now it was damp with Bellamus’s sweat as he waited for the warrior’s response. Garrett had Heofonfyr at his side, though the long-bladed tip was covered in a ghastly leather sheath of his own creation, made from Anakim skin. He was still staring straight ahead. The Hermit Crabs were pressing a little closer to him, readying themselves to stop his response. Stepan’s sword was six inches clear of its scabbard. Bellamus was still. He must trust his men.
“I want what you want,” said Garrett at last. “And the king is a grub. I do not follow men like him.”
Bellamus did not relax. “But you will follow me? You cannot stay here if I can’t trust you.”
“If I am first among your warriors then yes, I will follow you.”
“No one but you can make you first among my warriors,” said Bellamus.
“That I will do.”
Bellamus smiled gently. “The legendary Eoten-Draefend,” he said. “It’s good to have you join us.” Silence fell again.
“There’s nothing there,” said Garrett. He was staring over the Abus at the far rugged country. “Barely even farmland. Just forests and mountains and rivers. Do they love it? The disorder? Or is it just sloth that stops them improving their land?”
“Oh, they love it.” And so do I, thought Bellamus. Gazing across the Abus, the upstart’s eyes were fierce and tender in equal measure. Bellamus knew Stepan felt the same: both were bewitched by the Black Kingdom. Garrett, however, shared the view of most of his countrymen: the north was a barren wasteland. “Wilderness is an essential part of their world,” said Bellamus. “To them, tilled land is empty land. In the wild they feel more … well, they just feel more. To them, the world is outlines and shadows. They have absolutely no interest in colour. To them, memory is colour. In the wild, there is more on which to hang memories. If I could be granted any wish, it would be to see the world through Anakim eyes for just one day.”
Garrett glanced sidelong at his master and Bellamus regretted the words at once. The hybrid had turned against the Anakim with the certainty that only a man with a foot either side of the Abus could muster. He would never be welcome in the north. Here, in the south, his only chance of survival was to be more certain in his hatred of the Anakim than even the most resolute Sutherner. “They are demons,” said the huge man slowly. “It is a whole country of fallen angels.”
“Of course,” said Bellamus, quickly. “It is a foolhardy desire, I suspect. But to fight your enemy, you must know your enemy. They will not be defeated unless we understand them.”
“As you said, we will never understand them,” said Garrett.
“So have you discovered any more about the Kryptea?”
Roper and Keturah sat opposite one another in his quarters; Roper at his desk, the battered equipment spread out before him bearing the signature of Harstathur; Keturah sitting on the bed and attempting to weave.
Keturah was silent for a moment as she fumbled with a line. Her movements became jerkier and clumsier and finally she dropped the malformed square of cloth in her lap with a tut. She stared at it for a while longer before answering Roper. “Yes. I discovered that I will learn no more about them from the Academy.”
Roper looked up at her, frowning.
“I witnessed a chant on the third level while you were away,” she explained. “The Kryptea and the Academy have an alliance, Husband. For the last four hundred years, the Academy has sent anything regarding the Kryptea to their Master for editing. That is why I was warned so heavily against enquiring about them. They protect each other.”
Roper stared at Keturah. “What? The Academy is supposed to be fully independent.”
Keturah nodded. “So are the Kryptea. It seems that the position of both as outsiders persuaded them they would be more secure together. So they struck a deal: the Kryptea gets to filter out any information that might turn people against its existence, and in return, it expanded its role to defend the Academy. So anyone now thought to be endangering the Academy is targeted.” Roper could do no more than stare and Keturah took up her weaving once more. “It is as I heard in that first chant. The Kryptea are a toxic fungus, whose roots have spread too wide to ever be cut out. They are everywhere. They know I’ve been asking about them. They left me a cuckoo in my clothes.”
Roper’s stillness was partly because Keturah had spoken so matter-of-factly. They had threatened her; they directly threatened him by their mere existence. And one day, they might do the same to the child she carried.
There came a knock at the door and Roper ignored it for a while, continuing to stare at Keturah. “This is simply our first dead end, Wife. We will find a way to neuter that office. I broke Uvoren. Some day, I will break Jokul.” Keturah’s head jerked up at him, eyes wide, but Roper had turned towards the door. “Come!”
Roper expected to see Helmec’s familiar face as the door opened but was instead presented with the less benign countenance of the guardsman Leon, who had been brought closer to Roper on Pryce’s advice. Leon announced Gray’s presence and stood back so the new captain could enter.
“Captain,” said Keturah, looking up with a smile. “Thank you for the last time. You survived the battle unscathed?”
“I did, Miss Keturah. My head is still a little tender, but once again I am not seriously wounded.”
“Given the tales I hear of your bravery, that must make your skill quite remarkable. Pryce and my father returned fairly cut to pieces.”
“My fortune is quite remarkable. How is the pregnancy?”
Keturah grimaced. “Morning sickness. Roper arrived in the middle of a bout earlier and it appears to hurt him almost as much as it does me.”
“It is disgusting,” confirmed Roper. He beckoned Gray forward. “You’re working on your list?”
“I am, lord,” said Gray, taking a seat opposite Roper. The Black Lord, his ear bent by the lictors, legates and ca
ptains throughout the army, had presented Gray with a sheet, covered in the arms of almost three hundred warriors. From those, Gray would pick the most worthy to join the Sacred Guard. He had been working on it for almost the whole journey back from Harstathur and would announce almost a hundred new guardsmen at the victory feast in just a few hours’ time. As soon as Gray gave the word, messengers would scurry out across the fortress to invite the new guardsmen to the Honour Hall. Everyone knew there were many vacancies in the Sacred Guard, and every warrior with a reputation would be hoping desperately for a seat at the long benches that night.
“There is one crest here that does not fit with the others, lord,” said Gray. “That of Vigtyr the Quick.”
“Ah …” Roper set down his quill and sat back in his chair, gazing at Gray. “You’re certain?”
“Quite certain. It would be an assault on the principles of the Guard. Vigtyr is an exceptional fighter, but his courage is insufficient. He is too self-serving, has too much of a love for gold and wealth. Questions would rightly be asked over his inclusion.”
“It is your decision,” said Roper, raising his palms. “Vigtyr will not be invited to the Honour Hall if he is not to be made a guardsman. He would have to bear the disappointment in front of too many men. Better that he can do that in obscurity.”