Legacy of Ash

by Matthew Ward

  “Where have you brought me?”

  “Where you wanted,” said Apara.

  “I wanted to be brought to Branghall.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. The mists run where the mists run. Eskavord should be a few miles south-east. Whichever way that is. We weren’t in the mists that long. It should be dusk.”

  “It is dusk. The Dark has smothered the sky.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He crossed to the nearest window. The drapes hung open behind the leaded frame. Three bodies lay slumped across the table. A father and two children. Their eyes gazed emptily across half-eaten meals. No blood. No sign of struggle. A peaceful tableau, but for the flies swarming like fractured shadows beyond the glass.

  And everywhere the echo of magic. A familiar magic, like to Viktor’s own shadow, but deeper . . . so much deeper. He’d touched it before. At Davenwood. In that one, desperate moment when all had seemed lost, and anger had slipped the shackles of reason.

  “Malatriant is making Eskavord her stronghold,” he said. “Those she can’t control, she kills.”

  “Malatriant? You’ve been too long in the mists. It’s scattered your wits.”

  “No. If anything, I’m seeing clearer than ever.”

  Apara joined him at the window. Her face twisted in revulsion. “Poison. Blue spittle’s a giveaway. Moonglove, most likely.”

  “And the fourth plate. Untouched. The mother’s. Malatriant whispered in her ear and she poisoned her family, never knowing why.”

  “No. You’re mistaken. There are a dozen reasons she might have done such a thing.”

  He lowered the lantern, glad to let the scene sink into gloom. “You shouldn’t judge all mothers by the standards of your own.”

  Apara answered his bleak humour with a bitter look. “Nothing could make me do that to my own kin.”

  He snorted. “I could. I did. Malatriant once bent whole nations to her will. This . . . This is nothing.”

  Apara glanced about. “Do you suppose she’s still here?”

  “I doubt it. I understand she keeps her thralls close. They have Branghall besieged.”

  “Sounds like you need an army.”

  “I have one. But I wanted to arrive sooner. There’s someone I have to find.”

  He broke off. There’d never been much chance that Calenne had survived the Battle of Davenwood. What hope he’d allowed himself floundered in the darkness.

  Apara snarled a short, bitter laugh. “Can it be that you actually care about someone?”

  “I care about everyone. Even you.” He fished a coin purse from his belt. She caught it smoothly, despite evident surprise. “For your service. Should I need you again, I’ll find you.”

  Eyes narrowed in suspicion. “As easy as that? You don’t want me to stay?”

  “I’ve distractions enough without worrying about a knife in the back. Go home.”

  She hefted the purse. “This doesn’t excuse what you’ve done to me.”

  “I don’t mean it to. If I don’t return, you may consider your debts paid, and a new life earned. Do better with it.”

  She gave a slow nod and backed away. One eye ever fixed on him, she traced her fingers across brick, coaxing forth the mists. Greenish-white light spilled into the courtyard. For a time, it vied with the glow from Viktor’s lantern, a curious darkness flickering as a barrier where the two met. Then Apara was gone, and a gust of wind scattered the gate to nothing.

  The walls of Cragwatch sat silent. Neither lantern nor flame graced the battlements. If anything moved within it did so hidden from Melanna’s sight. Like the Eskavord road, it seemed wholly bereft of life. Kreska at least had shown signs of activity, if furtive and fleeting.

  At first, she’d told herself the quiet of Kreska was merely the aftermath of battle. That, or the fruits of whatever quarrel had broken out between the Tressian factions. But then she’d noted the wreath of bramble and black ivy nailed to the gate. The bonfires raging on the battlements, the sweet notes of duskhazel and fleenroot soured by burning flesh. Charms to ward off witchcraft, and fire to cleanse those suspected of the crime. And fear. Fear above all.

  It had taken Melanna every scrap of willpower to press on into the Dark, but she had done so, through fields empty of workers and houses bereft of tenants. Before Kreska, she’d travelled with bow slung and daggers sheathed. After, she did so with arrow nocked. The silver arrowhead, blessed in the crystal waters of high temple, glowed with soft moonfire. Just as well, for she’d never have found her way through the trees without it.

  And now she knelt on the ridge above Cragwatch, aged by every whisper of movement and scurry of claw on branch. Eskavord yet lay miles to the west, but already Melanna’s heart had almost failed her on more occasions than she could readily count.

  She wanted to turn back, to flee to the border and the embrace of kin. So why was she seized with a desire to slip inside the silent fortress? Was it curiosity, or simple defiance? Proof to herself that the Dark hadn’t turned her into a fearful, timid creature as it had the folk of Kreska? Or perhaps she hoped for a sight so horrific that it would grant licence to turn back, to endure Sera’s certain chastisement?

  So it was that without really knowing why, Melanna descended the root-woven hillside and ghosted across Cragwatch’s dry moat. There was no cover to be had in the ditch, but she kept low and moved at a bandy-legged run, all the while expecting to hear challenge from the wall, or else the heart-stopping thump of a bolt in her belly.

  Neither came.

  She scrambled up the sheer bank to where the weathered stone bridge met archway. Silver arrowhead bobbing before her like a hallow-wisp, she approached the iron-braced timbers of the gate. They sat ajar.

  The stench hit Melanna as she passed inside. Soft and sweet; rotting meat leavened by dawnblossom. Kin to the bonfires on Kreska’s walls, and yet different. Sour where the other was smoky. The stink of death left unburied.

  Cragwatch’s courtyard lay thick with corpses; scores, even hundreds. They lay in groups, beneath stones smeared with blood and half-sunk in filthy puddles. Most wore the king’s blue of the Tressian army – the rest a hodgepodge of garb drawn from all walks of life. The latter struck Melanna as almost peaceful in repose. Not so the former, who had the look of men and women set upon by rabid wolves. It wasn’t war as Melanna knew it, but desperation. The stones practically shrieked with terror.

  And the citizenry . . . Torn fingernails and blood crusted about their lips. Their wrists shackled. And their eyes . . . glittering black, with spidery vein-work running across flesh like cracks across parched land. And the wagons standing empty. A prison convoy? Southwealders bound for servitude in the north until . . . Until what? How could folk furious enough to contest steel with bare hands seem so serene in death?

  They couldn’t. Not unless the will driving them was not their own.

  Sera was wrong. The dream had not been a dream.

  The boggy field sucked at Viktor’s heels, clinging to his boots with the determination of a street-keelie to a nobleman’s stolen purse.

  Viktor pressed on, head bowed into the wind, hewing as south-westerly a course as the muddy fields allowed. If anything, his mood was blacker than his immediate surroundings. They, at least, had the lantern to lend contrast. He’d done this. He’d loosed the Dark in a moment of pride and fury. The land he’d sought to save from the arrogance of his countrymen was now humbled by his own.

  He had to do better. He would do better.

  The fault, he deemed, lay not with his actions, but that he’d been driven to such desperate means in the first place. If the Council had granted him soldiers with which to oppose the Hadari, he’d never have been forced to reckless use of his shadow. Poor strategy birthed desperate tactics. It was obvious with hindsight. Indeed, if he’d slain his father back when all this had begun . . .

  Even now, Viktor felt no remorse. Whatever love he’d felt for his sire had faded long ago, replaced by
creeping disappointment at his failures, and contempt for his deeds. More than anything, Viktor resented the waste – that a great man could be so overcome by selfishness. The real Hadon Akadra had died long ago, drowned in comfort and privilege. Viktor could conjure no shame for ridding the world of his remnant. Whatever stain it placed on his soul he’d bear gladly, knowing that Tressia was richer for it.

  Viktor came to a squelching halt. Thus far he’d navigated not by sight – for he could make out little, even with the lantern’s aid – but by instinct. He could feel where the Dark thickened away beyond the field – beyond the forest’s edge. He felt its lure, and the pull it exerted on his shadow. If that was Malatriant, and Malatriant had taken Eskavord, then that at last had given him some idea of where Branghall could be found. Now, the paling sky rising above the treetops confirmed it.

  He had to start at Branghall, to bring word that help was coming, and to learn of Calenne’s fate, if anything were known. Viktor knew that wasn’t entirely rational but was at a loss how else to proceed. One man alone could do little for Eskavord, but if fortune was with him, he could yet find Calenne.

  Undergrowth rustled. An old woman in a heavy woollen shawl stepped out onto the path ahead. Viktor halted, his free hand at the hilt of his claymore. He knew the face.

  “Mother Savka?”

  The woman straightened, and Viktor recognised the right and wrong of his challenge. The body was Elda’s, or at least it had once been so. Now her eyes glittered darkly in black-webbed sockets, as if the flesh beneath had shattered, and some unspeakable darkness had come crawling out. Her shadow belonged to a much taller figure and flickered where the light did not.

  “So you’ve come. I knew you would.”

  The voice was older even than Elda’s leathery face, and dry with the rasp of the tomb. When Viktor looked on her through his shadow’s eyes rather than his own, he saw a faint echo of . . . something . . . at her shoulder. A cadaverous figure whose hair coiled to entwine the old woman’s misshapen shadow.

  “What is your name, my child?”

  “You knew I’d be coming, but not my name?” Viktor forced bravado into his voice. There was fear, but distant. He felt the yearning more. A need. Even a kinship. “I expected better from Queen Malatriant.”

  Filth-matted plaits danced as Elda tilted her head. Her lips hooked an old smile. “We have no need of names, you and I.”

  Brambles crackled. A dozen shapes emerged from beyond the lantern light. A man in frayed proctor’s robes. A young girl, her hair still bound in fraying plaits. A woman swathed in a wolf-cloak. An older man in the silk scarf and weskit of the well-to-do. Most wore the homespun cloth of farmers. Two carried swords. Others bore labourers’ tools: mattocks, baling forks and shovels. All shared Elda’s glittering eyes.

  “I’ve waited so long for this moment.” Elda extended her hand. “Come with me.”

  The others formed a loose ring, as Ascension dancers gathering about a lumendoll. A piece of Viktor wanted to go to her. More than a piece. Desperate for an anchor, he stared into the lantern. It helped. Yearning flickered to vapour in the golden glow.

  He slid his claymore free of its slings.

  “I regret that I’m needed elsewhere.”

  Elda laughed. The notes scraped across Viktor’s thoughts like steel on slate. “The needs of others are of no concern.”

  The ring of thralls closed in.

  Lantern still gripped tightly in his left hand, Viktor sent the claymore arcing towards the merchant. There was little threat in the clumsy, one-handed blow, but still the thrall stumbled away. Viktor hurled himself at the opposite side of the circle, angling between sword-point and mattock.

  His shoulder struck a labourer’s ribs, driving the man back. The proctor moved to take his place, his sword held more like a ceremonial candle than a weapon. Viktor battered it aside with his own steel and lunged for freedom.

  Sword abandoned, the proctor threw himself onto the claymore’s killing point. A scream parted pale lips. Others echoed the cry, as if his pain were their own. The man grasped at the crossguard and drew himself inch by bloody inch onto the blade. Giving voice to a last gurgling whimper, he sank to the soil, dragging the sword from Viktor’s grip as he fell.

  Viktor backed away from the surviving thralls. Weaponless, he did the only thing he could. He called for his shadow.

  It refused him. There was no fear, no reluctance . . . not even malice. It simply sank into his soul and did not rise.

  Viktor scrambled away uphill. Only Elda hung back from pursuit, a knowing, ancient smile frozen on her lips. A mattock’s wild swing smashed the lantern. The forest drowned in hungry darkness.

  Blinded, Viktor fled. Boots snagged on tree-roots. Branches ripped at his cheeks. His right shoulder slammed into a bough.

  “There is nothing to fear,” intoned Elda. “We are all one in the Dark.”

  Yearning returned. Like calling to like. Only this time there was no lantern-light to sear temptation away. Instead, Viktor clapped his hands over his ears. It helped. But it also meant he didn’t hear the hoof-beats until the rider was almost on him.

  Viktor threw himself aside. The horseman galloped past, a dark presence against a black sky, given shape only by Branghall’s distant glow. The horse wheeled about. Viktor tensed for a pounce. Better to die in pursuit of freedom than surrender.

  The rider slowed. The juddering pulse of hooves faltered to nothing. A cloak’s folds parted, and lantern-light blazed forth.

  “Viktor?” Calenne’s lips parted, torn between laughter and surprise. “I might have known. What in Lumestra’s name are you doing out here?”

  Viktor fumbled for a reply and found none. Undergrowth crackled on the slope behind.

  Calenne straightened in her saddle and gazed over his head. “Tell me later . . . Unless you’d rather stay here?”

  There it was. The smile he’d yearned for and feared never to see again. “No.”

  For a moment, Viktor forgot the Dark, forgot the Tyrant Queen drawing near through the trees, and lost himself in that one, unlooked-for moment of perfect joy. Then he swung onto the horse behind Calenne and let her bear him far away.

  Sixty-Six

  The flame shrank back from the gloom of the empty barn. Or perhaps, Viktor allowed, the fault lay not with the fire, but with him, for his own emotions were such a whirl that light and warmth held little of his attention.

  Calenne watched him from across the flames with shadowed eyes. She looked . . . different. Leaner. Sharper. It suited her. But beneath the grime, beneath the fraying plaits and weather-stained ribbons tied through her black hair, she remained Calenne more than she did not. As if hardship had peeled away the last shreds of a pampered cocoon to reveal her truth.

  All this and more Viktor longed to say, but he instead retreated into practicality.

  “Are you certain the fire won’t give us away?” he asked.

  “They never come out this far. Not now.”

  The weary voice matched Calenne’s appearance. Still unquestionably hers, it was hollowed out by hardship; adrift on a grey ocean with no shore in sight. Viktor couldn’t imagine the lessons she’d learned to change her so, and wished he’d been able to spare her the tutelage.

  Calenne poked at the smouldering ash with her dagger. “First couple of days were different. They came marching in from the surrounding villages. Horrible to see. Then the rain stopped and the Dark flooded in. Now they only leave Eskavord with a purpose. Like when an idiot northwealder comes plodding about with an unshielded lantern. You must be special. I’ve not seen Elda beyond the walls since this started.”

  Viktor winced. “I suppose that was foolish.”

  “You’re lucky I found you.”

  “And you’ve been fortunate to stay free.”

  She nodded, thoughts plainly elsewhere. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “What about the others?”

  “There are no others.” She closed her eyes. “Not outside Br
anghall. Malatriant’s thralls are ringed about those walls three deep – so many that Eskavord’s deserted. I’ve found no one else. And I’ve looked, Viktor. Every farm and village, one edge of the Dark to the other. It’s horrible. Simply horrible. And it’s all my fault.”

  He frowned. “How do you conjure that?”

  “After my horse bolted, I fell deep into Skazit Maze – maybe even below Skazit Maze. I saw her. Bound behind walls of light. The memory’s so hazy, but I . . . I know I set her free. I’ve been running ever since.” She jerked upright, eyes taut with sorrow. “And now look what’s become of my home.”

  Guilt crowded Viktor’s thoughts. “You’re not to blame. Someone erred. Someone so desperate for victory that they didn’t stop to consider the cost.”

  Calenne’s gaze hardened. “That Hadari witch.”

  It would be so easy to lay the blame on Melanna Saranal, to free Calenne of her guilt and his. But he’d been nothing but truthful with Calenne from the moment they’d met. How could he now be otherwise? Better to lose her trust through honest mistake than wilful deception.

  “No,” he murmured. “The Hadari had no part of this.”

  She gazed at him, expecting more. Then her throat bobbed and she stared down into the fire. “I see.”

  Silence reigned, broken only by the thin crackle of the flames. Viktor breathed deep of the bitter smoke and scrabbled for an explanation. But truth was he’d little more to say. Pride had loosed great evil. All else was evasion.

  Calenne’s lips thinned. “So where do we go from here?”

  “We destroy Malatriant.”

  She snorted. “Just us?”

  “No. An army is coming.”

  “I thought the Council didn’t care about the Southshires.”

  “A great deal has changed, and for the better.”

  “And my brother?” Her tone held no concern, only polite interest.

  “Rides at the army’s head.”

  She laughed, none too kindly. “So Josiri finally slipped from under his mother’s shadow?”