by D. P. Prior
Farian frowned. “Should I send for General Starn, Emperor?”
“Of course. Fat lot of good it will do, though.” Hagalle sniggered at his own little joke. Starn wasn’t the most athletic of soldiers and looked more like an over-indulgent baker than a general. About as useful as one, too. “This demands a response, Farian. I want the House Carls ready to march by morning. Where did these knights head after attacking my men?”
“Into the city, my Emperor.”
“Then they will perish with the rest of the population.”
Unless, Hagalle couldn’t help thinking, the blasted Nousians were behind the plague as well, in which case they would no doubt enjoy immunity. The thought panicked him and he had to draw a deep breath to keep his composure.
“Uhm, do you still wish me to summon General Starn, Emperor?” Farian was bobbing from one foot to the other.
Buffoon.
“How many times do I need to tell you, Farian? We can’t afford to pussyfoot any longer. The mawg situation is bad enough on its own. And now we have a Templum incursion into Sahul. The bloody Millians must be really pleased!”
Farian hurried off whilst Hagalle strode back out to the balcony and manufactured the required equanimity as he waved at the crowds and the ceaselessly passing veterans. His re-emergence was greeted with shouts of “Hagalle the Great!” and “Long live the emperor!”
Idiots!
Aristodeus leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. “Everything all right?”
Hagalle smiled benevolently and continued to wave. How much did the bald bastard already know? “Problems down south. Time to pay them a little visit, I think.”
Aristodeus rubbed his chin and gave a nod that might have been pensive, but could equally have been one of satisfaction. “Dark times, Emperor. Dark times indeed,” he said with infuriating vagueness. “Thank the fates we have you to lead us.”
Hagalle snapped his eyes shut and fought for the control to not punch the sarcastic little prat square on the nose. When he opened them again, Aristodeus had gone.
Typical! Bloody typical!
One way or another Hagalle knew his family’s dynasty was coming to an end. If it wasn’t due to the failure of his loins, it was only a matter of time before the Eastern Lords grew bold enough to strike the killing blow. And if by some miracle Hagalle survived that, would even the gold of Ashanta be enough to withstand the joint incursions of the mawgs and the Nousians? If Ashantan assassins didn’t get to him before he found a way to acquire it. His head shook ever so slightly as he continued to wave. There was no stability any more. No matter what he decided, Sahul was entering into a new phase of her turbulent existence.
DREAMER’S APPRENTICE
Sammy opened his eyes, yawned and stretched, reached out for Poodgie, his frayed old teddy bear. Must have fallen off the bed, along with the covers. The bed sure felt hard. Why hadn’t Mom called him, yet? Or Rhiannon? Couldn’t even hear them clattering around in the kitchen.
Something scrabbled over his legs. He sat bolt upright, sending a striped bobtail lizard scurrying for cover.
The embers of last night’s fire still smoldered in the circle of rocks he’d helped set, wisps of smoke wafting into the curved shelter Huntsman had painstakingly erected from bark and twine. There was just enough space for Sammy to curl up inside, the bowed branches overhead keeping in some of the warmth from the fire.
The sky was awash with reds and purples as the sun crept above the horizon, casting a soft and comforting glow over the stark landscape. They had walked the barren scrubland for days with no change in the scenery, no landmarks, just endless miles of red dirt sparsely populated by tufts of wild and spiky grass. Occasionally, the monotony had been broken by the sight of an eagle soaring in the thermals above, or kangaroos on their way to shade and water, although quite where that was Sammy had no idea.
Huntsman was back from foraging for food. He’d found tubers, roots, and foul looking maggoty things. Sammy had hardly eaten during their journey and was starving.
“Something to eat, little fellah?” The old Dreamer took hold of Sammy’s hand and pressed a leaf into his palm. He then dropped some still wriggling maggots on top and indicated with his fingers that Sammy should roll it up and take a bite.
Sammy simply stared at it, the knot of hunger in his stomach shifting to become a lump in his throat. “Can’t eat.” He looked at Huntsman for permission to put the leaf down.
The Dreamer’s eyes were dark and unblinking. “You need their strength.” He poked a maggot. “Much walking still to do.”
Sammy folded the leaf over the creatures and shut his eyes as he bit into it. Something popped between his teeth and a sweet warmth trickled into his mouth. Bile started to rise as he thought about what he was chewing on, but it was quickly replaced by a pleasing tang mingling with the sweetness. For an instant he relaxed, feeling like he was at home having breakfast, and then his mind was filled with the screams of his parents. His eyes were streaming with tears and snot poured from his nose. He tried to sniff it up, but it just kept coming. Huntsman was still watching him, nodding faintly, lips moving in imitation of Sammy’s chewing. It seemed to Sammy that the Dreamer was willing him to eat.
“Drink this,” Huntsman said, ripping into a large root and holding it above his head so that he could catch its dirty liquid on his tongue. He handed it to Sammy who did the same, delighting in the coolness and the bitter-sweet taste.
They finished their meal in silence and then Huntsman scattered the leftovers and set about dismantling the shelter.
“Will you teach me how to do that?” Sammy asked.
Huntsman paused for a moment, sitting back on his heels. He stuck out his bottom lip and cocked his head. “My people call this a mia.” He tapped the interwoven bark and branches. “Come, watch me take it down. That way you will see how it is made.”
“Can’t we leave it for someone else to sleep in?”
Huntsman took in the surrounding desert with a sweep of his arm. “These are sacred paths. Better they stay hidden. Only for Dreamers to use.”
Sammy liked the sound of that. “We should take it down and hide the branches so that other Dreamers can find them and make their own mia.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited for Huntsman to show him what to do.
“First—” Huntsman’s gnarled hands worked at a knot of twine. “—we return parts to Sahul, like you say, little fellah. This is way of Barraiya People, and you one of us now. When next we stop, you find branches, help me build mia.”
Sammy clapped his hands with glee and Huntsman smiled.
“If you want, little fellah, I teach you many more ways of our people.”
“Like what to eat?” Sammy rubbed his tummy.
“Still hungry? Must have hollow legs. I bring you more food once mia is back to Sahul.”
“But not the maggoty things.” Sammy wrinkled his nose as he helped Huntsman unravel some plant fiber that held a large piece of bark in place.
“Ah, but they so tasty! Even better toasted over hot coals. When we finish at Homestead, I show you how to fish.”
“Yes!” Sammy yelled excitedly. Then the sadness crept back into his heart. “How much further do we have to go?”
“Not far now.” Huntsman smiled and rested a hand on his shoulder.
But the tears were already flowing again.
A TEMPLUM BESIEGED
Shader stared at the bolted double doors of the templum, back starting to ache from sitting hunched over on the pew for so long. Confinement had never sat well with him. He’d always enjoyed the great open spaces of his father’s lands in Britannia. He’d spent his childhood roaming the forests that bordered their twenty acres. Years lived in accordance with the seasons: collecting the horse chestnuts in spring; trudging through autumn’s brown carpet beneath the bare limbs of the trees; the impatient rush towards Noustide, which the family had always spent at Brinwood Priory, where Mom had friends among the brothers.
Father always grumbled about the priory stays, but always appeared to enjoy his festive drinking bouts with Frater Kelvin beside the crackling fire of the refectory. It was at Brinwood that Shader had first seen a depth to his father that had otherwise been hidden beneath his lust for adventure and excellence at arms. With his mind freed by ale, Jarl had discoursed for hours with Frater Kelvin most evenings. Shader smiled at the memory, suspecting now that Kelvin had taken these opportunities to minister to Jarl’s spiritual needs, which were seldom so close to the surface.
Jarl had proven an enigma to the youthful Shader. The man was a military giant and had dedicated his life to physical prowess. If not practicing with weapons, he was off fighting overseas or becoming embroiled in local border disputes. In times of peace, which had become more frequent as the Templum brought more and more nations into the fold, Jarl had adopted the role of marshal, hunting down petty criminals, more often than not cattle rustlers. In those times of inaction he was prone to bouts of irritability and sudden fits of temper; and yet he had always recognized these flaws in himself and took himself off on voyages of exploration, or busied himself with chopping firewood, or oiling and sharpening his weapons for future use.
Thus far, Shader could understand his father. What had puzzled him, though, was the iron code of conduct, the natural inclination for self-examination and correction that would have been the envy of any Nousian luminary. But Jarl was not a Nousian. During the final months of his life, when he lay wasting away from cancer, Shader returned from Aeterna to be at his bedside. He winced at the memory. Jarl had spouted off about the hypocrisy of the Elect—enjoying the patronage of the Ipsissimus, claiming Nousian sanctity, and yet killers of men no different to those Jarl had spent his life amongst. The only difference, for him, was that the regular soldiers were honest about what they were. Shader had been stung by the remarks and they’d parted on bad terms. At the funeral a few days later, he’d not wept. He’d felt something: an emptiness, and the weight of expectation, but he doubted either was the result of filial love.
Love, Shader thought as the memory faded and he was left staring at the templum doors. It was as simple and as difficult as that. How could a swordsman ever reach that goal without discarding everything that made him what he was? Ain, he would have tried if Rhiannon…
The train of thought was mercifully cut short by a hand upon his shoulder. Shader looked up to see Maldark following his gaze towards the doors.
“They’re taking their time,” the dwarf grumbled.
“Perhaps you frightened them off.”
“By God, I’d have taught them a thing or two had it not been for Mater Ioana.”
“I know, Maldark, and I quite believe you would have won.”
“Or mayhap died trying,” the dwarf mumbled beneath his beard. “Begging thy pardon, Shader, but something hath been troubling me since first we met. Methinks I hath seen thy face before—it is most familiar. Are you sure we hath not met at some other time?”
Shader met the dwarf’s violet eyes, felt them boring into him, saw his own distorted reflection in their dampness. “I would have remembered. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, though. This God you mention. In our Liber we are forbidden to…”
Gaston moved to stand in front of the doors. His fingers played with the pommel of his sword and his eyes never lingered long on any one thing or person. “Why don’t they attack?” He sounded like a child complaining about the rain forcing him to stay inside.
“Pray, thou tell us, boy.” Maldark planted his hammer before him as he sat on a pew and rested his hands on the haft. “Art they not thy knights?”
Shader stood and wandered back into the nave where Pater Limus tended the sick and dying who lay upon pallets, skin ruptured with pustules, thick froth fouling their chins. Limus uttered soft words of encouragement and offered them his smile, which appeared at once beatific and vacant.
Further back, in the chancel, Rhiannon and Soror Agna were engaged in animated yet hushed conversation. Rhiannon was flustered and tearful, her arms clamped over her chest as she rejected Agna’s attempts to comfort her.
Ioana turned away from peering out of a window, climbed down from the pew she’d been standing on and ambled over to Shader with Cadris clamoring behind for answers.
“Why have they chosen now to persecute us?” he asked. “Why do they just sit there? Are they going to attack?”
Ioana gritted her teeth. “Just get on with your work, Cadris. There are ill people to tend and I’m starting to think it’s because they’re sick of your whining.”
Cadris stopped, mouth hanging open, and then stomped over to the pallet-beds, frequently peeking at Ioana and Shader in case he missed something.
Frater Hugues took up Ioana’s vigil at the window, a look of grim determination on his face.
“Tell me about this statue,” Ioana said.
“The Gray Abbot told me it’s the Statue of Eingana,” Shader said. “The artifact used by Huntsman to end the time of the Ancients. After the Reckoning, it divided into five pieces, two of which are now in the hands of Dr. Cadman.”
“He was convinced we were connected with it,” Ioana said.
Shader pulled the black serpent from his pocket, running his fingers over the ridges of its scales and squinting at the slender veins of amber now barely visible on the surface. “I shouldn’t have brought it here.”
Ioana reached out a hand to the statue and quickly drew it back as if afraid it might bite. “It’s sentient.”
Shader raised an eyebrow and studied it more intently. “I lack your intuition, Mater, but something tells me we would be wise to keep the statue from Dr. Cadman. I think that’s why Huntsman entrusted it to me. The bard was being a bit too reckless.”
“Sweet Nous!” Ioana said, looking around. “Where is Elias?”
“Hiding in his cart,” Hugues said from the window. “I see him pop his head out from time to time. Poor fellow looks frantic.” Hugues grinned maliciously.
Ioana returned her attention to the statue in Shader’s hand. “What do you propose to do with it?”
Shader shrugged and put it back in his pocket. “Guard it as best I can,” he said, “and find a way to retrieve the Gray Abbot’s piece.”
Ioana nodded, lost in thought. “Can Huntsman be trusted?”
“No idea,” Shader said. There were a thousand things the Dreamer wasn’t telling them, but that wasn’t any different to what Aristodeus had been doing all Shader’s life. Could either of them be trusted? When you didn’t even know the rules of the game, how could you know anything? Either you acted as you saw fit at the time, or you shut yourself away and did nothing, and that wasn’t in Shader’s nature. He wandered over to the window to peer over Hugues’ shoulder.
“Keeps poking his head out,” Hugues said, pointing towards Elias’s cart.
Elias was visible as a wriggling lump beneath the dirty blankets he covered his instruments with. Sure enough, his head appeared and his eyes met Shader’s. The bard was red-faced and grimacing. He withdrew a hand from his covers and pointed frantically at the area of his crotch.
Hugues sniggered as Elias ducked back out of sight.
The knights had started to move, fanning out until they completely surrounded the templum and its outbuildings.
“Looks like they’re getting ready for something,” Hugues said, sounding every bit the battle-honed corporal.
Ioana gave him an enquiring look.
“The knights have us encircled,” Shader explained. “It seems we are under siege.”
“What does he mean ‘under siege’?” squealed Cadris, scurrying over to Ioana.
“We must wait, Cadris,” she said. “Trust in Ain.”
“But what if they break in?”
“Then we smite them.” Maldark patted his hammer.
Cadris gulped, rubbed at his glistening forehead, smoothed a few stray wisps of hair back in place, and went back to bustling around the
patients.
Shader doubted they’d attack. They’d have done so already if that were the plan. He gazed out along the Domus Tyalae, scanning the trees flanking the road. They were waiting for something, he decided, but it didn’t make much sense. They already had overwhelming numbers and he doubted their inaction was due to cowardice. He caught Gaston watching him and raised an eyebrow. Gaston immediately looked away.
“I-I-I’d have ordered the at-at-attack by now,” he said, “but Justin’s ob-ob-obviously following orders.”
“Cadman’s?” Shader asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended.
Gaston winced, staring at his boots. “C-C-Cadman’s a very cautious man,” he said. “He w-w-won’t be taking any chances. Whatever’s coming, it’s not gonna be n-n-nice.”
Shader ground his teeth and shook his head, images of rotting corpses smashing their way into the Abbey of Pardes dancing behind his eyes.
“This Cadman…” Shader knew the answer even before he’d finished the question. “There’s more to him than meets the eye, right?”
Gaston blanched, his cheek starting to twitch. He nodded and finally met Shader’s gaze with wide and pleading eyes.
“No, Gaston,” Shader said, fixing him with a cold stare. “There’s no forgiveness for what you’ve done. When the time comes, I’ll fight beside you, but nothing more.”
Rhiannon was watching them, her eyes narrow, mouth curled into a grimace. She looked like she was going to be sick, but turned away as soon as Shader noticed her.
“He pretends t-t-to be fat,” Gaston said. “B-b-but really he’s just a corpse, like the others. Like the Lost.”
“The Lost? You mean Callixus?”
“There’s m-m-more. Couple of h-h-hundred, at least. I s-s-saw them. Saw him bring them b-b-back.”
“Where, Gaston? Where did this happen?”
“M-M-Mound outside the city. Deep in a f-f-forest. Fenrir, I think.”