by Tom Lloyd
Bade nodded. He was aware that, while he wasn’t being scrutinised, the Lord-Exalted was renowned as possessing the finest mind in the Order. To have risen among a host of blond-haired nobles, clever and ruthless would only be the start of the man’s qualities. Bade couldn’t help but wonder what conclusions were being drawn now, the image of a broken man to go alongside his extensive file. The servant returned with wine and Bade took a grateful swig.
‘Your injuries are not yet healed?’
‘Ah, no, my Lord, not fully. Prone to infection, so the doctors say. Had to stop several times on the way after I developed fevers.’
‘But at last you are here – and in the meantime we have seen remarkable changes.’
‘So I’ve heard, sir.’
‘My condolences for your crew. Their effectiveness was noted in the files,’ he said, touching a stack of folders at the edge of the desk. ‘Most had been with you a long time.’
The gesture of humanity, brief as it was, startled Bade and he found himself immediately on the back foot. ‘Yes, Lord. Thank you. And, ah, as I was saying to the Exalted here, once I’m better I’d like a shot at avenging them. It’d be in the Order’s interests too, I reckon.’
‘No doubt, but as I have said, there are changes afoot. Toil Deshar may yet prove unimportant. Before we discuss any plans, however, your report in full.’
It took the best part of an hour to describe the events of Jarrazir. The only detail Bade left out was that he’d left one fragment of Banesh in the Labyrinth as a parting fuck-you to Toil. It hardly mattered now the Jarrazirans had recovered the haul, but certain priests might disagree all the same. Those who had known had died, Kastelian, Chotel and the rest. The memory caused a small pain in his chest, one he’d grown to recognise over past months and was no longer surprised by.
Life in the Pentaketh regiment didn’t afford people much room for affection or morality. Crews were expendable, troops there to do a job and die in your place, and yet … The loss of some had provoked grief in him, one that had mingled with the pain of his injuries to leave him gasping.
That’s the problem with success. You spend years surviving with the same lot o’ rogues, they become family. Shattered gods I could use Chotel at my side right now. Gods, even the sight of that annoying bastard Torril would be a salve.
But they were all dead. Even Sebaim, the gnarled tracker Bade had known for twenty years and had seemed like he’d outlive them all. With a jolt, Bade realised the room had fallen silent and the Lord-Exalted was looking expectant. He muttered an apology which seemed to not even register as the man stared at him.
‘Excellent,’ the Lord-Exalted proclaimed after a long pause. ‘You did well. General Faril’s actions were entirely in keeping with the woman’s, ah, inflexibility. I’m sure there will be further questions regarding the mages you faced and their tattoos, but for now I am satisfied. Is there anything else you wish to add?’
Bade hesitated then felt an upwelling of anger in his chest. ‘Yeah, I want to kill her.’
‘This woman, Toil?’
‘Aye. She took my friends and left me this way. You won’t find anyone better to hunt her.’
‘The search for Toil and her tattooed pets is already under way. That started as soon as I received your written report.’
‘Just point me in the direction of whoever’s leading it.’
The Lord-Exalted shook his head. ‘I have a better use for your skills, a task of higher importance to the Order.’
Bade bit back his first comment and asked quietly, ‘What’s that then?’
‘Whatever they did in the Labyrinth has affected the flow of magic across the whole Riven Kingdom. I have skilled manhunters, men and woman who can match you in that field, but there is another job where that is not the case.’
Bade glanced at Olebeis. The woman had been standing the whole time, disconcertingly still. Her expression remained wooden.
‘Don’t reckon I’m going to like the sound of this,’ Bade muttered before remembering himself. Fortunately, his words only resulted in the Lord-Exalted rising from his seat.
‘These are unusual times, Master Bade,’ the Lord-Exalted said. ‘We must all endure them as our god decrees. Insar’s grace has placed a man of your skills in my hands at a most opportune time. Olebeis, take him into the valley.’
‘The valley?’ Bade exclaimed.
‘Yes. There you will find your new assignment.’
Before Bade had time to say anything more the Lord-Exalted had already turned to a file on his desk. Clearly he was dismissed, but Bade remained rooted to his seat – less stunned by the casual manner and more by the implications. Even as a long-term employee of the Knights-Charnel, entering the holy valley itself wasn’t for the likes of him. It was sacred ground, closed to outsiders and most of the Knights-Charnel Order too.
So far as he understood things, the mountain now known as Insar’s Seat had contained a stronghold of the gods themselves. It was also said to be the location of Banesh’s great betrayal, when the God of Change shattered their bodies into the fragments now used to make mage-cartridges – destroying half the mountain in the process.
These days the valley housed the sacred charnel vaults and the Order’s holiest temples, along with Highkeep Sanctuary and the small city that serviced both temples and sanctuary. Unless you were on official Knight-Charnal business, you didn’t approach the pass to Seit-e-Veirolle itself upon pain of death.
Shattered gods, is this an honour or punishment? Bade thought, half-dazed by the idea.
Distantly, Bade noticed Olebeis ushering him out and he complied without complaint. Other than soldiers and priests, none of the population left the valley. The standing guard rarely ventured beyond the pass defences and supply caravans were handed over. The population lived and worked in the service of the Order and never, ever returned to the wider world.
Not even the prospect of the ruined city is worth that, Bade realised.
There had been a Duegar city of sorts there too, back in the time of the gods. Banesh’s act had obliterated the upper levels of honeycombed ground as it blasted pieces of every god across the Riven Kingdom. How extensively it had been explored, Bade didn’t know. The treasures in such a sacred site must be incredible – if any remained.
But if the price is never leaving? Shit on that. Even a wander through the charnel vaults wouldn’t be worth that. Suddenly the jokes about the citizens of Veirolle having webbed fingers don’t sound so funny. Not if I’m going to end my days as one of ’em.
Under a pale blue sky they rode towards the Seit pass. It was a bare and wind-scoured slope that led up to an opening in an impassable cliff of rock, flanked by those vast statues and tower defences. The road itself was long and winding to make the incline manageable, but it meant they covered several miles with only the flanks of their horses to deflect the stiff breeze.
Occasional bursts of sun warmed his back, but Bade remained chilled by the wind and the sight of the pass defences. Even under orders of the Lord-Exalted it was hard to avoid a sense of disquiet on such a forbidding approach. The flags of the Knights-Charnel were barely visible on the walls, but he could make out the thin beams of the largest war weapons peeking above the ramparts. It was enough to remind him of the few battles he’d been in and exactly why he preferred to keep well clear.
‘The first defence of the valley,’ Olebeis called as the climb dragged on and the gusty wind increased its buffeting. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it eventually.’
Bade ignored her, struggling as he was to walk quickly. A few choice responses danced through his mind, but he kept them to himself. It seemed to take hours but finally the pass was before them, a break in the high cliff of rock that penned the holy valley. The wind lessened as they entered the lee of those cliffs and Bade finally got a better look at the defences. There was a three-hundred-yard-long earthwork topped with a stone wall between the great towers. In the centre of that a small fort sat, which w
as where the road led. More siege weapons were visible atop that, but no faces looking over the wall itself, Bade noticed.
The fort gates opened before they reached it and a pair of dragoons rode out. Olebeis presented her letters of authorisation and, despite her rank, they took their time in reviewing those before finally saluting and returning the papers. Olebeis and Bade remounted as the dragoons moved aside, but barely had they passed through the gate when Bade stopped to stare. It wasn’t trepidation, despite everything, but from the high pass the whole of the valley was unveiled.
For one long drawn-out breath the world stilled around him – fixed in place by the pale gleam of the sun. There was the usual noise of a military installation but Bade could hear none of it. Instead, all sound faded as he beheld the ordered peace of Seit-e-Veirolle, the holy valley of the Knights-Charnel.
He stood at the tip of a wedge-shape valley with high cliff walls. Twelve miles long and four at its widest, the valley floor was marked by slender Duegar towers and stubby rock formations. At the far end, through the haze of morning light that glinted off the silvery lake beneath, rose Insar’s Seat. A huge, uneven face of sheer granite that looked like a giant had ripped the eastern side clean off.
The mountain’s western flank was a long pine-studded cloak of white. By contrast, the eastern side was largely gone, the peak just a blunt tip that overhung a grim vertical drop of dark stone and resembled the empty face of some vast spectre.
Finally, Bade’s mind caught up with him. He began to make out the details he’d heard rumour of, mostly from the Exalted he’d known in his life. The shattered half of the mountain had been hurled through the Duegar city below while the God Fragments were scattered impossibly far. The largest pieces of the mountain had dropped like siege weapons of the gods themselves and remained to this day. Much had no doubt been reduced to dust.
The small human-built city of Veirolle was centred around the largest of mountain fragments. Bade could clearly see the awkward block that stone mages over the centuries had honeycombed to create hundreds of homes. Several other lesser blocks all across the valley had been similarly co-opted. They were ugly and functional compared to the thin Duegar towers that protruded from the valley floor.
Those could only have been built after the betrayal, Bade knew. He could scarcely imagine the terrible assault of rock and fury that had scoured the upper levels of the then-populated Duegar city. No doubt some of that debris remained in the impassable crags comprising the valley walls. Looking again with a relic hunter’s eye he realised the whole valley floor had once probably been underground. The stubs of flat-topped rock could easily have been pillars – several stood on the shore or in the shallows of the lake.
A light garden? Bade wondered. Maybe just the grandest halls of the upper level adjoining each other. Ripped open, whatever it was. Exposed to the sun and left to die. Left to the creatures of the surface while the Duegar installed these sharp towers – maybe ventilation for the remaining levels.
The valley ended in grey shelves of rock hundreds of feet high where it met the nearer flank of the mountain. Beyond, hazy in the distance, was the ancient Torquen temple with its attendant monastery built on a high shelf of land. The complex was accessible only by the Thousand Steps, a huge mage-carved path up the mountainside. Somewhere beyond the temple, hidden behind ornate pillars carved from the fissured rock, was the charnel vault of Insar itself. Their greatest prize – more pieces of the God of Night assembled there than anywhere else in the world.
Enough indeed, it was said, for Insar’s spirit to reach out to its followers nearby. Until recently Bade would have called that foolishness. Now he was not quite so sure.
‘Come on!’ Olebeis called. ‘Enough gawping, it’s time to move.’
Bade flinched and looked over. There was a grin on her face, one that didn’t seem to have anything to do with religious fervour. No, this look was altogether more human and suddenly the pieces fitted into place.
‘Night’s whispers!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now it all makes sense.’
She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Does it now?’
‘Aye, you’re no convert. You were born here.’
‘Dammit, you’ve seen through my disguise – I’m really a tall blonde with pasty skin from the mean streets of Gerren district.’
Bade nodded. ‘Aye, there’s that. Had me stumped for a while.’
There was no city wall of course, no need for that in the most protected place in the entire continent of Urden. It was too far to see much of the city, but it seemed divided into three districts by the fallen chunk of mountain. And Olebeis had been born in not one of those districts.
‘Are you taking me home to meet your folks, Exalted? Normally I expect a woman to ply me with booze before she invites me into her holy valley.’
That wiped the smile off her face. Bade had no idea if her family was dead or there was something else amiss, but Olebeis turned abruptly and led her horse down the road towards Veirolle.
Good to see I can still piss off any women I meet. Old age ain’t dulled that skill.
Well apart from Veirolle itself on a boulder-studded rise stood a smaller community – Highkeep Sanctuary, he assumed. Home of more mages than anywhere outside of the Mage Islands, the inhabitants comprised the greater part of all those gathered as part of the Order’s holy mission. Some were permitted to marry and any offspring were either kept to work in the sanctuary, moved to Veirolle itself … or were recruited into the Order.
Olebeis upped her pace as they headed down a narrow road towards the nearest of seven Duegar towers that dotted the valley floor. Each was impossibly tall and thin with a copse of mountain yew growing at the base. An eighth cluster of the gnarled trees marked the location of a broken stub further down the valley.
They were made of stone, some dark mineral carved with curling trails of what appeared to be tanglethorn. Each was probably only seven yards across despite being eighty high. The only opening was at the top, three horizontal slots that sat just below a blunted peak, and in the quickening breeze they emitted a dull moan.
The road wound a shallow path down the eastern flank of the valley towards Veirolle. Impassable ground ran for most of that distance below the sheltering cliffs, fit only for birds and wildflowers. There were parcels of level ground scattered throughout where small settlements had been established. In the largest of these stood manor houses with a scattering of attendant buildings. Homes of the most honoured Knights-Charnel, Bade imagined. There was only one village, but it was just as wealthy with six or seven tall stone townhouses rising above a cobbled square.
‘The most exclusive residences in all the Riven Kingdom?’ Bade asked.
‘Quite.’
‘Any of the priests live there?’
‘There is a small temple in the village with a priest,’ Olebeis said in a firmly non-committal tone. ‘The highest servants of Insar reside in the city or Highkeep monastery.’
‘Is that where we’re headed?’
‘Impatient for your newest posting, Sotorian Bade? I am glad to see such keenness of spirit, especially given you are recovering from injuries.’
Bade snorted. ‘Oh yeah, bloody eager and willing, can’t you tell?’
The road took them gently down to the long valley floor and Bade realised the pass was not too great a climb from this side. They remained well above the level of the plain beyond. He didn’t fancy being caught here in winter, though. It was all too easy to picture a blanket of snow filling the valley.
They passed the silvery-grey lake, two miles in length with a handful of small fishing boats out on the water. Bade was more fascinated by the great bulk of Insar’s Seat beyond. The bare cliff rose almost to the mountain’s peak and he could see narrow waterfalls tumbling off the lower shelves. The road forked well short of the city and they turned left, past the imposing walls of Highkeep Sanctuary. Olebeis spared the settlement – part ammunition factory and part prison – a long look but maintained
her pace.
Around a spur of cliff they came to an archway seventy feet high and rode straight into a sort of broken cavern. Rock walls loomed high to form a rough square, but above on two sides there was open sky. Dragoons ran forward to meet them and take the reins of their horses. Puzzled, Bade looked around as he dismounted. He saw tunnels leading off this space, but it seemed this was the hub of a significant military operation.
The open section was large, a hundred yards across. It bore the unmistakable sights, sounds and smells of a regimental barracks. Buildings jutted out from the rock while a small square tower stood closer in on the most exposed side, inside the rock wall. All around the tower was a hive of activity. Dragoons busied themselves at a dozen different tasks while a group of shaven-headed mages in red robes were escorted by twice as many dragoons towards a square opening in the ground itself, seemingly leading down into absolute darkness.
‘Wait, is that Banesh’s Stair?’ Bade gasped.
Olebeis pursed her lips at the name, but shook her head. ‘It is not. What you refer to as Banesh’s Stair is far below us. This is called the Dawn Stair.’
‘So Banesh’s Stair really does exist? Ulfer’s breath, I thought the whole thing was a myth, a joke!’ he protested.
‘It is not.’ She looked up at what they could see of the sky, far above. Overcast and grey, the light was already waning. ‘It is far from a joke. Perhaps it is time for you to see.’
‘The Long Watch? Your hundred sentinels that stand guard around some sort o’ hellpit, day and night?’
‘Close enough.’
‘Shattered gods!’ He hesitated. ‘Why am I here? Why is it time for me to see? What’s all this about?’
‘I have read your file, all your work for the Pentaketh regiment and other activities besides,’ Olebeis said. ‘You are a man of particular experience; experience we have a use for. Welcome to your new assignment.’ She gave him a ghastly smile. ‘Here is your reward for service.’
‘To stand guard against the horrors o’ the deepest black? No thanks.’