Blood Song

by Anthony Ryan

  “We’ll see you in the Realm, my lord!” Gallis said, snapping off an impeccable salute and marching onto the ship, quickly followed by Krelnik and Noren.

  The Cumbraelin archers were the last contingent onto the ships. He had offered to place them ahead of the Renfaelins for fear they might suspect some perfidious Darkblade plot to abandon them to the Alpirans, but Bren Antesh had surprised him by insisting they wait until all others had gone. He supposed there was a possibility of ambush, he was alone with a thousand men who saw him as an enemy of their god after all, but they all trooped onto the ships without trouble, most either ignoring him or offering nods of wary respect.

  “They’re grateful for their lives,” Antesh said, reading his expression. “But they’ll be dammed if they’ll say it. So I will.” He bowed, Vaelin realising it was the first time he had done so.

  “You’re welcome, Captain.”

  Antesh straightened, glanced at the waiting ship and then back at Vaelin. “This is the last ship, my lord.”

  “I know.”

  Antesh raised his eyebrows as realisation dawned. “You don’t intend to return to the Realm.”

  “I have business elsewhere.”

  “You shouldn’t linger here. All these people have to offer you is an ugly death.”

  “Is that what happens to the Darkblade in the prophecy?”

  “Hardly. He is seduced by a sorceress, who makes herself a queen with the power to conjure fire from the air. Together they wreak terrible ruin on the world until her fire consumes him in the throes of their sinful passion.”

  “Well, at least I have that to look forward to.” He returned Antesh’s bow. “Luck to you, Captain.”

  “I have something to tell you,” Antesh said, his normally placid features sombre. “I did not always carry the name Antesh. Once I had another name, one you know.”

  The blood-song surged, not in warning, but clear and strident triumph. “Tell me,” he said.

  Ahm Lin’s burns had healed well but his scars would linger for the rest of his life. A large patch of puckered, discoloured tissue marred the right side of his face from cheek to neck and similarly ugly scars were visible on his arms and chest. Despite this, he appeared as affable as ever, although his sadness at what Vaelin asked of him was obvious.

  “She has preserved me, cared for me,” he said. “To do such a thing…”

  “Would you do any less for your wife?” Vaelin asked.

  “I would follow my song, brother. Are you?”

  He recalled the pure, triumphant note of the blood-song as he had listened to what Antesh had to say. “More closely than I ever have before.” He met the mason’s gaze. “Will you do this thing I ask?”

  “It seems our songs are in agreement, so I have little choice.”

  Sherin knocked at the door and entered, bearing a bowl of soup. “He needs to eat,” she said, placing the bowl next to the mason’s bed and turning to Vaelin. “And you need to help me pack.”

  Vaelin touched Ahm Lin briefly on the hand by way of thanks and followed her from the room. She had taken over Sister Gilma’s old quarters in the basement of the guild house and was busily sorting out which of the myriad bottles and boxes of curatives to take with her. “I’ve managed to procure a small chest for your things,” she told him, moving to a shelf where her hand traced along the line of bottles, picking out some, leaving others.

  “I only have these,” he replied, taking a bundle from his cloak and handing it to her, the wooden blocks Frentis had brought him wrapped in Sella’s scarf. “Not much of a dowry, I know.”

  She gently undid the scarf, fingers pausing to play over the intricate design. “Very fine. Where did you come by this?”

  “A gift of thanks from a beautiful maiden.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  “Hardly. She’s half a world away and, I suspect, married to a handsome blond fellow we used to know.”

  Sherin pulled the blocks apart. “Winterbloom.”

  “From my sister.”

  “You have a sister? A blood sister?”

  “Yes. I only met her once. We spoke of flowers.”

  She reached to clasp his hand, summoning an overpowering need for her, so fierce and powerful as to almost make him forget what he had asked of Ahm Lin, forget the Aspect, the war, the whole sorry blood-soaked tale. Almost.

  “Governor Aruan is arranging the ship, but we have hours yet,” he said, moving to the table where she prepared her concoctions, sitting down to unstopper a bottle of wine. “Quite possibly the last bottle of Cumbraelin red left in the city. Will you drink with a former Lord Marshal of the Thirty-fifth Regiment of Foot, Sword of the Realm and brother of the Sixth Order?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Have I saddled myself with a drunkard, I wonder?”

  He reached for two cups and poured a measure of red in each. “Just have a drink, woman.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said in mock servility, sitting opposite and reaching for a cup. “Did you tell them?”

  “Just Barkus. The others think I’m following on the last ship.”

  “We could still go back. With the war over…”

  “There’s no place for you there, now. You said so yourself.”

  “But you’re losing so much.”

  He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I’m losing nothing and gaining everything.”

  She smiled and sipped her wine. “And the task the Aspect set you, is it complete?”

  “Not quite. By the time we leave here it will be.”

  “Can you tell me now? Am I finally allowed to know?”

  He squeezed her hand. “I don’t see why not.”

  It had been cold that day, colder than usual even for Weslin. Aspect Arlyn stood at the edge of the practice field, watching Master Haunlin teach the staff to a group of novice brothers. Vaelin judged them as third-year survivors from their age and the comparative smallness of the group. In the distance mad Master Rensial was trying to ride down another group of boys, his shrill tones carrying well in the chill air.

  “Brother Vaelin,” the Aspect greeted him.

  “Aspect. I request lodging for the Thirty-fifth Regiment of Foot during the winter months.” At the Aspect’s insistence it had become a ritual between them to formally request lodging every time the regiment returned to the Order House, recognition of the fact that, funding and equipment notwithstanding, it remained a part of the Realm Guard.

  “Granted. How was Nilsael?”

  “Cold, Aspect.” They had spent the better part of three months on the Nilsaelin border with Cumbreael, hunting a particularly savage and fanatical band of god worshippers calling themselves the Sons of the Trueblade. One of their less savoury habits was the abduction and forcible conversion of Nilsaelin children, many of whom had been subjected to various forms of abuse to force their adherence, some killed outright when they proved too intractable or troublesome. The pursuit through the hill country and valleys of southern Nilsael had been difficult but the regiment had harried the band with such ferocity they were down to barely thirty men by the time they were cornered in a deep gulley. They immediately killed their remaining captives, a brother and sister of eight and nine stolen from a Nilsaelin farmhouse a few days before, then loosed arrows at the Wolfrunners whilst singing prayers to their god. Vaelin left it to Dentos and his archers to wipe them out to a man, something he found troubled his conscience not at all.

  “Casualties?” the Aspect enquired.

  “Four dead, ten injured.”

  “Regrettable. And what did you learn about these, what was it, Sons of the Trueblade?”

  “They considered themselves followers of Hentes Mustor, believed by many Cumbraelins to embody the prophesied Trueblade from their Fifth Book.”

  “Ah, yes. Apparently there is an eleventh book being touted around Cumbrael, The Book of the Trueblade, telling the tale of the Usurper’s life and martyrdom. The Cumbraelin bishops have condemned it as heretical
but many of their followers are clamouring to read it. It’s always the way with such things, burn a book and the ashes spawn a thousand copies. It seems by killing one lunatic we have grown another branch to their church. Ironic, don’t you think?”

  “Very, Aspect.” He hesitated, gathering strength for what he had to say, but as ever the Aspect was ahead of him.

  “King Janus wants my support for his war.”

  Does anything ever surprise you? Vaelin wondered. “Yes, Aspect.”

  “Tell me, Vaelin, do you believe Alpiran spies lurk in every alleyway and bush preparing the way for their armies to invade our lands?”

  “No, Aspect.”

  “And do you believe Alpiran Deniers abduct our children to defile in unspeakable god-worshipping rites?”

  “No, Aspect.”

  “In that case do you think that the future wealth and prosperity of this Realm is dependent on securing the three principal Alpiran ports on the Erinean Sea?”

  “I do not, Aspect.”

  “And yet you come to ask for my support on behalf of the King?”

  “I come to ask for guidance. The King has placed my father and his family under threat in order to ensure my obedience, but I find I cannot preserve them whilst thousands die in a pointless war. There must be some way to steer the King away from this course, some pressure that can be brought against him. If all the Orders were to speak as one…”

  “The time when the Orders spoke as one is long past. Aspect Tendris hungers for war against the Unfaithful like an ale-starved drunkard whilst our brothers in the Third Order lose themselves in their books and watch the events of the world with cold detachment. The Fifth Order by custom takes no part in politics and as for the First and Second, they consider communion with their souls and the souls of the Departed to take precedence over all earthly concerns.”

  “Aspect, I am given to believe there is another Order, with possibly more power than all the others combined.”

  He was expecting some register of shock or alarm, but the Aspect’s only expression was a slightly raised eyebrow. “I see this is the day all secrets are to be revealed, brother.” He clasped his long-fingered hands together and concealed them within his robe, turning and gesturing with his head. “Come, walk with me.”

  Frost crunched underfoot as they walked together in silence. From the practice field came the shouts and grunts of pain and triumph he remembered so well. It made him ache with unexpected nostalgia, for all the pain and the loss of his years within these walls it had been a simpler time, before the schemes of kings and the secrets of the Faith brought darkness and confusion into his life.

  “How did you come by this knowledge?” the Aspect asked eventually.

  “I met a man in the north, a brother of an order long thought to be a myth by the Faithful.”

  “He told you of the Seventh Order?”

  “Not without persuasion and only up to a point. He did confirm that the continued existence of the Seventh Order is a secret known to all the Aspects. Although, given the recent rift with the Fourth Order, I suspect Aspect Tendris remains in ignorance of this information.”

  “Indeed he does, and it is vital his ignorance continues. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Certainly, Aspect.”

  “What do you know of the Seventh Order?”

  “That it is to the Dark as we are to war and the Fifth Order is to healing.”

  “Quite so, although our brothers and sisters in the Seventh Order do not refer to the Dark. They regard themselves as guardians and practitioners of dangerous and arcane knowledge, much of which defies such mundane concepts as names or categories.”

  “And would they use such knowledge to aid us?”

  “Of course, they always have and continue to do so to this day.”

  “The man I met in the north spoke of a war within the Faith, of some within the Seventh Order becoming corrupted by their power.”

  “Corrupted or deluded. Who can say? There is much that remains known only to the vanished years. What is clear is that members of the Seventh Order came to possess knowledge best left hidden, that somehow they reached into the Beyond and touched something, some spirit or being of such power and malice that it came close to destroying our Faith and the Realm with it.”

  “But it was defeated?”

  “‘Contained’ might be a better word. But it lurks there still, in the Beyond, waiting, and there are those called to do its bidding, plotting and killing at its instruction.”

  “The Aspect massacre.”

  “That and more.”

  Vaelin thought back to his confrontation with One Eye beneath the city, of what he had told Frentis as he carved the complex pattern of scars into his chest. “The One Who Waits.”

  This time the Aspect’s surprise was clear. “You have been busy haven’t you?”

  “Who is he?”

  The Aspect paused, turning to regard the boys on the practice field. “Perhaps he’s Master Rensial, his apparent madness all these years merely a cloak for his true design. Or he’s Master Haunlin, who never did say how he came by those burns. Or is he you, I wonder?” There was an unnerving intensity to the Aspect’s gaze as he turned to Vaelin. “What better disguise could there be, after all? Son of the Battle Lord, courageous in all things, apparently without flaw, loved by the Faithful. What better disguise indeed.”

  Vaelin nodded. “Quite. It would only be surpassed by you, Aspect.”

  The Aspect blinked slowly and turned away to resume his walk. “My point is that he remains too well hidden and no device or effort by the Seventh Order has yet revealed him. He could be a brother of the Order or a soldier in your regiment. Or even someone with no connection to the Order at all. The prophecies are vague on the method but are clear that it is the purpose of the One Who Waits to destroy this Order.”

  Vaelin frowned in puzzlement. The concept of prophecy was not a feature of the Faith. Prophets and their visions were the province of false beliefs, of god worshippers and Deniers who clung to superstition they mistook for wisdom. “Prophecies, Aspect?”

  “The One Who Waits was foretold to us many years ago by the Seventh Order. There are some within their ranks who have the gift of scrying the future, or at least the ever-changing clouds of shadow that make up the future, so they tell me. It is rare for the visions produced by such people to concur, for the shadows to coalesce into a recognisable whole, but they all agreed on two things: we will have only one chance to discover the One Who Waits and if we fail to do so, then this Order will fall, and without this Order so falls the Faith and the Realm.”

  “But we have a chance to stop it?”

  “One chance, yes. The last brother to make a prophecy on the subject lived over a century ago, it’s said he would slip into a trance and write his visions in script more precise and artful than the most skilled scribe in the land, even though he was unable to read or write when the trance was not upon him. Shortly before he died he reached once more for his pen and left a short passage. ‘War will unmask the One Who Waits when a king sends his army to fight beneath a desert sun. He’ll seek the death of his brother and mayhap find his own.’”

  The death of his brother…

  “You survived two attempts on your life whilst still in training,” the Aspect went on. “We believe both were carried out by those in service to whatever malignance lurks in the Beyond. For some reason it greatly desires your death.”

  “If the One Who Waits is concealed within the Order, why not simply have him kill me?”

  “Either because no such opportunity has yet arisen or because to do so would have risked revealing his face, and he still has much to do. But amidst the chaos of war, surrounded by so much death, he may well take his chance.”

  Vaelin felt a chill that owed nothing to the icy winds sweeping across the practice field. “The King’s war is our chance?”

  “Our only chance.”

  “Foretold by a man scribbling in a trance more
than a hundred years ago. You are willing to commit the Order to war on the basis of this alone?”

  “After all you have seen, all you have learned, can you really doubt it? This war will happen whether we support it or not. The King has set his course and will not be dissuaded.”

  “If it happens, the Realm could fall in any case.”

  “And if it doesn’t, it will certainly fall. Not to warring Fiefs once more but to utter ruin, the earth scorched, the forests burned to cinder and all the people, Realm folk, Seordah and Lonak, dead. What else would you have us do?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything to say,” Vaelin told Sherin, his thumb tracing over the smooth skin of her hand. “He was right. It was horrible, terrible, but he was right. He told me this would be a war unlike any we have known. A great sacrifice would be made. But I must return. No matter how many of my men and my brothers fell, I must return to the Realm once I had completed my task. As he walked away he told me I reminded him of my mother. I often wondered how they came to know each other, now I suppose I’ll never find out.”

  Her head lay on the table, eyes closed, lips parted, her hand still holding the wine cup he had given her. “Two parts valerian, one part crown root and a pinch of camomile to mask the taste,” he said, stroking her hair. “Try not to hate me.”

  He dressed her in her cloak, tucking the scarf and blocks in the folds, and carried her to the harbour. She was light in his arms, fragile. Ahm Lin waited on the quay next to a large merchant vessel, his wife Shoala clutching his hand, her face tight with suppressed tears as she cast a forlorn gaze at the city she would likely never see again. Governor Aruan was negotiating with the vessel’s captain, a stocky man from the Far West who grew alarmed at the sight of Vaelin. Perhaps he had been one of the captains forced to watch the burning ships after the sailors’ escape attempt, Vaelin couldn’t remember, but he quickly concluded his haggling with the governor and stomped off up the gangplank.