by S J Hartland
“You cannot drain a bonded warrior,” a ghoul yelled. “His blood poisons us.”
Breath lost within, stiff with fear, Kaell strained to see through the cloth.
Quietly, Archanin said, “You forget who I am.”
“We forget nothing, my lord. We remember who our enemies are.”
“And you would give those enemies peace?”
“What would you give them? A kiss?” They all laughed then.
“A bitter kiss, yes.”
Another uneasy hush fell. Lengthened. Beneath it rolled darkness and blazing power as though this chamber could not contain Archanin’s presence, his will.
Cold sweat broke out at the back of Kaell’s neck. He trembled from head to toe.
“My lord, what do you mean?” Lastenarron said.
“Just this. I will not give this warrior the peace of death.”
Kaell sobbed a panicked breath. Sick, his spirit frayed, he wanted only to die.
“I know your anger.” Archanin’s voice rose above their muttering. “I understand your fear. He is a hunter, yes. But what if he hunted men? What if my brother’s weapon belonged to me? A bonded warrior who fights with us, not against us.”
“Impossible.”
“Who said that? Nothing is impossible for your god. His hair is pale. I am told he has green eyes. You know what that means.”
“He must die. Punish him, lord. Kill him.”
“Yes. Kill him.” Others fell upon the words as a chant.
“Fools!”
Kaell shuddered at the contained fury in Archanin’s tone. He imagined ghouls reeling back as fear hunted like a chill wind about the hall.
“Every bonded warrior desires death. I will not give it to him. Not to this one. No, I will make him what he hates most.”
Archanin paused. When not even a breath stirred air, he said: “One of us.”
No one spoke. Then a ghoul snickered. A second joined in. Then another. Until ugly, mocking laughter rang through the hall. It rolled like a wave, then ebbed away. As if a storm approached, the air charged with excitement, a cruel, knife-thin expectation.
Stunned, Kaell struggled to understand. Then terror leapt at him like flames. “No, no, no!” Twisting, wrenching, he tore at the irons until blood streamed down his wrists and arms.
Air shifted heavy and grim. A scent swirled. It was tantalisingly gentle, only a thread of sand, heat and wild roses. Another’s breaths flowed in and out, slower than his inflamed heart, hammering the silence with dread.
Fingers touched his cheek. Kaell choked on a scream.
“Be still. Still.” The softly spoken words rang with power. Those fingers stroked his lank hair. Limp in his chains, Kaell whimpered and was at once ashamed.
His captor grasped his chin. Breath warmed his neck.
Kaell could not move a muscle. Then, like hot knives, pain erupted, convulsing through his body. And he knew nothing.
Val Arques
Vraymorg woke with a cry, his heart stormy against his ribs. What was that sound? He peered about his bedchamber. A shutter thumped against the stone wall.
Tossing furs aside, he padded to the window, the floor boards cool beneath his soles. Grey dawn welled in hollows between distant peaks, its ghastly light pallid on frost-covered fields. A vicious, skirring wind whipped his hair.
His nakedness adorned in gooseflesh, he fastened the shutter and crawled into bed, a sting behind his eyelids.
How she would laugh if he wept. Bloodless, Devarsi had called him. A man too afraid to feel. Why think of a long-dead queen now? Because his curse had started with his oath to her?
Or because of the boy.
I knew the danger. Surely I did not let myself care?
Restless, a tug at his heart, he rose again, threw a blanket about his shoulders and paced. A wall tapestry, the only colour in his drab chamber, caught his eye. Faded threads depicted a warrior on his knees, sword and helm spilled, an enemy’s steel at his bowed neck.
Centuries ago when this castle belonged to the Serravan order of warriors, the tapestry had hung in the great hall. Vraymorg, then a naïve student, often stared at it, puzzled. At last he asked the weapons master why the Serravan displayed a symbol of defeat.
“To warn against pride,” the man said. “Every bladesman knows defeat—sooner or later.”
I was proud, Vraymorg thought, tracing the kneeling warrior’s embroidered face with stiff fingers. Proud of Kaell. Of his quick wits, his speed. The way the sword answered to him.
Had he let himself care too much? Was he kind when he should have been strict?
Had his pride failed Kaell?
Reluctantly, grief a cold, hard spear in his breast, he thought back to the previous night. To drinking beside the fire with the king’s messenger, Patric of the Falls.
“The villagers of Thom sent word to Caelmarsh, and he to the king, when your men didn’t return,” Patric had said. “They were afraid to enter the forest. But Caelmarsh’s soldiers did. I went with them as the king’s representative.”
He stirred the fire with a tong. “Your men were dead. I’d spare you the grizzly details, my lord.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
The messenger released a drawn-out, bleak sigh. “Some died from sword thrusts or blows from axes. But the wounded—” His voice fell away.
Vraymorg leaned, hands clasped tightly on his thighs. “Tell me.”
“It’s not pretty, my lord. Ghouls fed upon them. We buried the bodies in the forest.”
And Kaell? He could not ask. He could not. “All of them dead? And—”
Patric studied a green-stoned ring on his middle finger. The silence lengthened. Bawling wind rattled a branch against a window. Crisp autumn air smelt of snow.
And Kaell. What of Kaell?
The messenger looked at him. “We did not find his body, my lord.”
“Are you certain? Was he—” Vraymorg closed his eyes. “Was Kaell disfigured, unrecognisable?”
Again a pause. In a quiet voice, Patric said: “The dead all had dark hair, my lord.”
Vraymorg dropped his shaking hand from the tapestry. Like a malignant beast, ashen morning crept across the great pass and into his chamber. Cold rattled his teeth.
He forced himself to confront Patric’s words.
Then the ghouls took Kaell’s body, or worse, took him, to torture or humiliate.
A wretched thought, too huge, too terrible to bear. If he were a wolf, he might howl out his grief. If he believed in gods, he’d fall to his knees and beg them to kill Kaell sooner than his captors intended.
Kaell gone. He could not take it in. Didn’t want to accept it. Wouldn’t. Would—not.
No. The soldiers didn’t find Kaell’s body. Maybe, maybe, he had escaped.
“The villagers say they warned Kaell one hundred ghouls or more waited in the forest.” Patric’s words repeated in his mind. “Outnumbered, he still insisted on attacking.”
Pride. Vraymorg’s gaze dwelled on the tapestry. A warning against pride.
A nightmare snared him the moment he slept. With a soundless cry of terror, he jerked awake. Bright sunlight pierced the shutters. It hurt his eyes.
Ewen stood over him, puffing as if he had sprinted up the stairs.
“You must see this.”
Blunt words. No apology for disturbing him.
Trouble then.
Vraymorg stumbled from the bed. Chill air stabbed his ankles. Last night’s fire had died to ash. He dressed quickly.
“Where?”
“At the gates.”
He followed Ewen from the room and into the stairwell. Nothing to hear but their boots tapping stone. A hush shrouded the castle.
“The dead gather,” Arn had told Kaell on a morning like this when the boy was younger. “The souls of those who froze in the night mask every noise.”
Kaell had shivered. “What makes them go away?”
“Laughter,” Arn said. “Or one of your rhyming so
ngs, little one.” He’d chuckled deep in his throat the way he always did.
Vraymorg almost paused to listen, as though Arn’s laugh might echo about the stairwell.
Ewen grasped his elbow to steer him on. “Val. Quickly.”
Soft snow carpeted dead grass in the ward. By noon it would churn to mush. That was autumn in the Silent Mountains. Ice, drizzle; the stink of mud and bitter winds carrying the voices of the dead.
Figures huddled by the gates. Quiet, like the keep. They parted for him. A sentry looked down at his boots. A stable boy, too young to know better, stared boldly.
At the foot of the wall, snow partly covered a long bundle. Vraymorg dropped to his knees. With a shaking hand he untied cord.
Ewen fidgeted at his shoulder. “Is it his, then?”
Vraymorg pulled the sword clear. A woman gasped. A young voice sobbed.
He wound numb fingers around the hilt. The familiar blade’s glint mocked. A burst of wind iced his neck. It blew hard then fell away like a trumpet blast heralding what? An end? A beginning?
Soon the wind would turn. Soon it would bring spring’s riotous colour to the land. Then summer’s frolicking, honeyed warmth. Followed by winter, bleak winter, again. Another year. Then another. Until Khir whispered about another boy.
Vraymorg would not care about that boy. Not again. Yet …
“When was it found? Who left it?”
A guardsman stepped forward. “Just before dawn, my lord. I was in the tower and saw a figure approach the gates. I challenged them. Then I loosed a few arrows.”
He jerked his head towards the treeless ground rolling from the walls. “I called Garth. We went to look, retrieve my arrows. That’s when we saw the bundle. We woke the captain, and he sought Ewen.”
Vraymorg nodded. He beckoned his new watch captain to his side.
Philip rubbed smudged eyes, his face gaunt. A candle burned in his rooms when Vraymorg retired to bed. With the king’s demands for men and weapons, too few men defended the castle. The young captain’s burdens sat heavily.
“They could still be close,” Philip said. “Hiding, now the sun’s up.”
“I doubt it.” This was a message, not a trap. “But take some of the new men to check the woods. They’re raw so be careful.” He could ill afford to lose more warriors, trained or otherwise.
They were yet to count the dead from Thom.
Philip brought news to the hall of a fruitless search. Back to the fire, Vraymorg thumbed the thread on Fortitude’s hilt. Ewen lifted his head from the account books to listen.
“That boy has a good head about him,” he muttered, when Vraymorg sent Philip off to sleep. “But there’s talk. Hard to miss the resemblance.”
Vraymorg shrugged, unconcerned by gossip.
He stroked the sword’s tapered steel, so smooth beneath his fingertips. Years ago, in this very room, he’d first put Fortitude in Kaell’s hands. The boy could not suppress a beaming smile.
He didn’t know his lord was handing him death.
Vraymorg’s eyes smarted. No. No tears. Shields up. Do not think about Kaell.
Dully he polished a spot on the glinting blade. How did Seithin blade smiths make this terrible weapon? How did they produce enough heat to fold the metal hundreds of times?
The sword’s secrets did not frighten him. Too much in this castle groaned with the otherworld’s chill whispers. Some folk, the more superstitious, might even call him a thing of darkness—if they knew the truth.
Ewen scratched a mark in a book. “This coming war will break us. Do you know how expensive rope is? Every rope maker in the Mountains works day and night but we won’t be able to supply all the king needs.”
“Without rope the king’s siege engines are useless. Arbalests, mangonels.” Vraymorg laughed at a memory. “When I was a boy, Isles engineers preferred to use hair for siege engines. Perhaps Aric is right now cutting off women’s braids to defend Tide’s End.”
Ewen snorted. “Cutting off men’s braids, more likely. Can’t tell the difference in the Isles.” He bent over his books again. “This castle has more arrows than snowflakes.”
“The kings of Telor have always stored weapons here.” He stroked the sword’s steel again. Sleek. Dangerous.
Ewen looked up and glared. “Put down that cursed blade. What did the paper say?”
What quick eyes he had. “Paper?”
Ewen wagged a finger. “I saw you hide it beneath your cloak. What was it? A ghoul threat? What?”
“How is Philip performing as captain, do you think?”
“So you don’t want to tell me?”
Vraymorg sighed. He took rolled parchment from his sleeve and flattened it.
“Four words, that’s all.”
“Yes?”
“It says: ‘for the next one’.”
Ewen stormed to his feet. His mouth formed words that didn’t come.
“They’ll pay.” Vraymorg stared bleakly into the flames. Wood crackled then popped as though the fire jeered. Pay? Gods help him. How? The monsters taunted him. And he didn’t even know where to search for them.
“Evil.” Ewen shook his head. “Monstrous. That poor child—”
Grew up. Grew careless. “Is gone.” With deliberate care he placed the sword down and clutched the table, his legs wobbly.
“Val.” Ewen plucked at his sleeve. His face was tight with worry.
“I’m all right.”
He wasn’t. For all his shields, grief bowed his shoulders, weighed his spirit. It crept through his blood, exhaled in every breath; a malicious shadow beneath every thought.
“I think it’s time for you to die,” Ewen said.
“What?”
“You left it too long. There’s been mutterings about how young you look. You should have pretended to die when the last king did.”
“How could I?” Vraymorg spread his arms. “Kaell was only eight.”
“Kaell’s dead,” Ewen said flatly. “Now might be the time to grow a thick beard, catch a chill and die. I’ll spread word about your bastard son. In a few months, you can reappear, minus the beard, and say you’re Vraymorg’s son. I’ll back you up, just as my ancestors have always backed you up.”
“It isn’t the right time. Come spring, the king will march on the Isles.”
Philip entered and dipped his head. “My lord.”
“I told you to sleep.” Vraymorg’s voice was gruffer than he intended.
“A guardsman brought this.” Philip thrust a rose at him. “Someone left it at the gates.”
A perfect bud, silky to touch, its petals an exquisite dark red, but with little scent. Just like the gift giver, perhaps? Beautiful to look at but everything else a lie.
Philip’s questioning gaze bore into him.
“I must go.” Vraymorg shoved Kaell’s sword into his belt beside his own.
“Now?” Ewen cast a doubtful look at darkness gathering beyond the windows. “It’s nearly nightfall.”
Nightfall. At dawn. Whenever. Just so long as it was now. He wanted an end to the pain.
Ripped branches from black-barked trees littered the path through the forest. Beneath his horse’s churning hooves, leaves billowed, their red and gold tarnished beneath the grey palate of rain clouds.
The lashing wind at last lost its voice. Sullen air, thick with silence, left Vraymorg alone with his wretched thoughts.
He could not brush off his nightmare. It layered his skin like a cold sweat; insubstantial but stirring a queasy foreboding in his gut.
Because of the sword? Why send it back except to taunt him?
I want an end to it. All the heartache. I want to forget.
Vraymorg scratched his neck beneath his damp cloak. Water dripped from his eyelashes, from matted hair. The relentless drizzle chaffed his skin.
“Curse the rain that stings,” a Telorian poet once wrote. “And the misery it brings.”
Vraymorg had no time for poets. Yet sometimes they hit a curious m
ark.
Unsettled, he fingered one of the two sword hilts at his hip. This forest scratched with memories—bad memories, the sort that tainted his dreams.
Once his past had nearly caught him here. And it all started with a game. Just a stupid game between him and Kaell.
A spring day. Yes, he remembered its scents. Dewy grass. That dry aroma of sage and doughy earth. Violets and bluebells sprayed across this very path, but crisp, windless air stung his cheeks and shadows cast from lofty trunks overwhelmed pale sunlight.
He rode with his horse tightly reined, his glance flickering left and right. Somewhere in the trees, Kaell stole towards the waterfall Mountains folk called the Crystal Drop.
“Be as lithe as creeping darkness,” Vraymorg instructed the boy before they set out. A phrase his tutors had taught him centuries ago. Be swift. Be silent. Be smart.
All just words. Useless words. Kaell might be swift, but reckless as well. What happened at Thom proved that.
But that spring day he had clue Kaell could be so rash.
He remembered Kaell flashing a brash grin as he slipped into the undergrowth. He even remembered thrashing a gloved hand at bushes scratching his legs as he stared after the boy, wondering if he had been that cocky at fourteen.
Just as Kaell disappeared, Vraymorg heard a woman singing, her voice clear and sweet. A girl from a nearby village, perhaps, searching for early raspberries.
Vraymorg forgot her as he splashed across a stream and on to a path through low-swept boughs. Ahead, a figure stood silhouetted against the dark trunks.
He squinted. As the figure came into focus, Vraymorg recognised Kaell and laughed.
“I don’t think you grasped the point of this, young fool. You’re meant to be stealthy. Not just stand there on the path and wait for me to find you.”
Kaell did not answer.
“Kaell?”
The boy turned, his smile remote. “Don’t you hear it, my lord?”
Hear what? Only the woman’s high-pitched song carried in the stillness.
“She’s calling. I must go to her, my lord.”
Her? Go? A prickling at Vraymorg’s neck became a shudder. “Kaell! Come here.”