Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  ‘But as I said, none of—’

  The marshal had raised a hand for silence. ‘Your diligence is to be commended … but this is a matter for the Order now. You will speak to no one regarding this.’

  Drawing himself up taut, the youth bowed curtly. ‘As you say, Marshal.’

  ‘Thank you. Now, perhaps you could show an old man the easiest path back up to the tower, yes?’

  Another stiff bow. ‘Of course, Marshal.’

  Colberant had asked for Javus’ guidance but he did not need it; he had been walking these rocks for decades. His sandalled feet sought purchase on their own as his thoughts flew far ahead. I must send word to Hiam immediately. The supply launch must be readied. Javus will wonder … but to be honoured with this posting his loyalty must already stand beyond reproach. For here in this tower, secluded from the Stormwall, guarded by four hundred most dedicated of the Chosen, are sequestered the Order’s holiest of relics. Including, so our ancient lore has it, the gift responsible for the founding of our Order, given from the hand of the Blessed Lady herself.

  * * *

  All that day Ivanr knew of the army’s approach. He said nothing about it to the boy. Smoke and dust was a distant haze obscuring the higher valley. The hint of cook fires and the miasmic pong of stale human sweat and poorly cured leather made him wince; he had been a long time away from any human settlement.

  He set camp in the evening, hobbled the mounts. The boy sat, arms tight around his shins, watching, silent still.

  Not a word since leaving that pathetic village. Seeing one’s family butchered before one’s eyes might put a halt to discussion.

  Yet look at me …

  ‘Hungry?’

  No response, chin on knees, eyes big and hair unkempt.

  Ivanr cleared his throat. ‘We have bread. Meat. Preserves. Care for some cheese?’

  Nothing. A shudder from the gathering cool.

  Ivanr sighed.

  I have been alone in the mountains for a month and the one human being I choose to travel with won’t say a damned word. Serves me right, I suppose.

  He set to gathering firewood.

  While he collected the dry bracken and sticks, he called, ‘A man has only two hands, you know. Be nice to have a warm fire going by now …’

  He paused, glanced over his shoulder. The boy was watching him over his. ‘Never mind. Tricky business this, stalking twigs. Maybe when you’re older …’

  He sat facing the camp fire, finishing off the bread; the boy stared back, the tear of dried meat that Ivanr had placed in his hand still there. Ivanr was waiting for the advance scouts of the force up-valley to decide they were harmless.

  ‘Am I evil?’ the boy asked, so sudden, so unbidden, that Ivanr thought someone else had spoken from the dark.

  ‘I’m sorry, lad. What was that?’

  The earnestness of the boy’s gaze was a needle to Ivanr’s chest. ‘Am I evil?’

  ‘By all the gods true or false – no! Of course not. Who would say such a thing?’

  ‘My father did. When he gathered us all together. Ma and the little ‘uns. Said we were evil in the sight of the Lady and had to die for it.’

  Ivanr stared through the fire between them. He felt his face darkening and a heart-squeezing pain. All the unholy gods. What can anyone say to that? ‘No, lad,’ he managed, fighting to keep his voice light. ‘That’s wrong. Your father was … led wrongly.’

  He heard them approaching then through the rough chaparral. Encircling – at least they got that right. As the scouts emerged from the dark – two men and two women – the boy jolted upright mouthing an inarticulate yelp. Ivanr quickly crossed to set a hand on his shoulder. Beneath his palm the lad was shivering like a colt. ‘Who are you?’ Ivanr demanded, if only because they had said nothing.

  ‘Where are you from, Thel?’ one of the women demanded.

  ‘I’ve been farming. There’s a village beneath the slope here. They’re killing everyone. We fled.’

  She studied him while the other three collected his gear and un-hobbled his mount. ‘Hey! That’s my horse.’

  ‘Not any longer,’ said the woman. She was hardly older than a girl. ‘Why did you flee?’

  ‘I’ve had enough of killing.’

  That struck the woman as funny and she gave a derisive snort. ‘Then you should’ve kept to your fields, because you are now part of the Army of Reform.’

  ‘Reform? Who came up with that?’

  The woman pressed the tip of her Jourilan longsword to his chest. ‘Careful, recruit.’ The lad’s eyes were huge on the woman’s sword.

  ‘You don’t kill your recruits, do you?’

  ‘Just the spies and infiltrators.’

  ‘I’m not the type.’

  ‘No? Then what are you?’

  ‘I’m a pacifist. I’ve renounced killing.’

  Another derisive snort and the woman lowered her blade, sheathing it. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘A damned Thel pacifist. Now I’ve seen everything.’ She scanned the others. ‘We ready?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Okay. Back to camp.’ She waved Ivanr onward. ‘Beneth might want a word with you.’

  Walking through the night, a comforting arm over the lad’s shoulders, Ivanr wondered on that name, Beneth. Could it really be the same he’d heard so much of over the years? The heretic mystic of the mountains, hunted for so long. Had he now gathered to himself an army of followers? Or had refugees merely coaleesced naturally around him? The appearance of these scouts supported that theory: scruffy mismatched armour, no uniform. The possibility was troubling; he did not relish being pressed into an army of religious fanatics. He knew his history. There had been uprisings in the past, millennial movements, charismatics, schismatics, peasant rebellions. All crushed beneath the hooves of the Jourilan Imperial cavalry and the banner of the Blessed Lady.

  Late in the night they passed between pickets and reached the army encampment. Here the woman stopped him. ‘Just you.’

  The boy peered up, his brows troubled. Ivanr patted his shoulders. ‘He’s with me.’

  The woman’s sour scowl, apparently her normal expression, eased into something like mild distaste. ‘We have a large train of followers. Refugees. Families. He can join the camp.’

  It occurred to Ivanr that from all he’d seen so far this assemblage was nothing more than one bloated congregation of refugees, but he thought it imprudent to say so at the moment. He crouched before the lad. ‘Go with this girl here. She’ll take you to a family. They’ll feed you. Take you in. Okay?’

  The boy just stared back, the crusted dried blood Ivanr couldn’t remove black in the dim torchlight. The eyes remained just as empty as before. Show something, damn you! Anything. Even fear.

  He straightened, nodded to the woman. She took the lad’s hand. ‘Is he …’ and she gestured to her head.

  Ivanr almost slapped the young scout. ‘No!’ He softened his voice. ‘He’s seen some terrible things.’

  She grunted, dubious, pulled him away. The lad went without a sound. He looked back once over a shoulder, his eyes big and gleaming in the dark. It somehow saddened Ivanr that he should go so easily and he felt a stab of pain as he wondered if perhaps he’d been forgotten already. One of the remaining scouts gestured. ‘This way.’

  The tent was large but no different from any of the others surrounding it. Guards stood before the closed flap. They searched him then waved him in. When he ducked within, the first thing that struck Ivanr was the heat, that and the bright light of a fire and numerous lamps. He stood blinking, hunched beneath the low roof.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said someone, a man. ‘You’re making me uncomfortable just looking at you.’

  Squinting, he made out scattered blankets and cushions. He sat. ‘My thanks.’

  ‘So, you are just up from the lowlands.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘And what awaits us there?’

  ‘Chaos and bloodshed.’

&nbs
p; A barked laugh. ‘You were just there, weren’t you?’

  His vision adjusting, Ivanr made out three occupants. The speaker was middle-aged, bearded, well dressed in a tailored shirt and jacket of the kind once fashionable in the Jourilan courts. That and his accent placed him as a Jourilan aristocrat. The second occupant was a woman, thick-boned, dressed in a battered plain coat such as might also serve as underpadding for heavy armour. Her hair was hacked short, touched with grey, and her nose was flattened and canted aside, crushed long ago by some fearsome blow. He could not place her background – Katakan, perhaps. The last occupant was farther into shadows, a hump of piled blankets topped by an old man’s bald gleaming head, a cloth wrapped round the eyes. ‘What do you want with me?’ Ivanr asked. ‘I’m just a refugee.’

  The old man’s face drew up in a wrinkled smile. ‘Greetings, refugee.’ He cocked his head to one side and raised it as if looking off just above Ivanr. ‘My name is Beneth. Describe him, Hegil.’

  ‘He’s the closest to a full-breed Thel that I’ve ever seen,’ said the bearded man. ‘Was once better fed but has lost weight recently. Carries himself like a soldier – is probably a veteran. And rides a horse recently stolen from the army.’

  ‘What do you say to that, Thel?’

  ‘I’d say your friend’s right – and that he’s been in the army too.’

  The old man – blind for some time, Ivanr decided – seemed to wink behind the cloth wrap. ‘You are both correct, of course. I would hazard the guess that you are Ivanr. Welcome to our camp.’

  Ivanr couldn’t help starting, amazed. ‘How did—’

  ‘Ivanr the Grand Champion?’ said Hegil, equally amazed.

  The blind old man’s expression was unchanged, maddeningly secretive, almost mischievous. ‘As a soothsayer might say, I saw it in a dream. Now come. We have tea, and meat.’

  Ivanr did not object when trenchers of food were passed round: goat on skewers, yoghurt, and freshly baked flatbread.

  ‘So someone here knows me,’ he said to the old man.

  Beneth was chewing thoughtfully on his bread. ‘Not that I know of. Do you know him, Hegil?’

  Hegil, obviously once a Jourilan officer, was now eyeing Ivanr with open hostility. ‘Only by reputation.’

  Beneth nodded. ‘There you are. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. I guessed correctly because I was forewarned you might come to us.’

  ‘Forewarned by whom?’

  ‘By the Priestess.’

  Ivanr almost choked on the goat. ‘Is she here?’

  Again the knowing smile. ‘I hear in your voice that you’ve met her. No, she is not, but many of those gathered here are adherents of hers. They passed along the information. In any case, as I said, let us not get ahead of ourselves. Introductions first.’ He motioned to his left, where the woman in the functional-looking coat sat. ‘This is Martal, of Katakan.’ She inclined her chin in wary greeting. ‘Martal is in charge of organizing our forces.’

  Best of luck to you, Martal.

  ‘Hegil is the commander of our cavalry.’

  Ivanr nodded to the aristocrat. An odd arrangement – just who was in charge then? Hegil or the woman? He shifted uncomfortably and stretched a leg that threatened to seize in a knot. ‘Well, thank you for the meal and I wish you well, but I must be getting on. I’m sure you have better intelligence than I can provide.’

  Beneth again cocked his head in thought, as if listening to distant voices only he could hear. ‘May I ask where you might be getting on to, Ivanr? Have you given any thought to where you might be headed?’

  Ivanr chewed a mouthful of flatbread. He shrugged. ‘Well, no offence, but I would hardly tell you that, would I?’

  The old man nodded at such prudence. ‘True. But let me guess. You were thinking of heading across the inland sea to the Blight Plains, and perhaps continuing east to the coast to take ship to other lands where the name of Ivanr is not known.’

  Ivanr coughed on his flatbread, washed it down with a mouthful of goat’s milk. He glowered at the innocently beaming fellow. ‘Your point, old man?’

  ‘My point is that everyone here was drawn to this place for a reason. We are assembled here and in other locations for a purpose. What that purpose is I cannot say exactly. I can only perceive its vague outlines. But I do assure you this – it is a far greater end than that which any of us could achieve in the pursuit of our own individual goals.’

  Ivanr stared at the blind old fellow. Delusional. And a demagogue. The two tended to go hand in hand. Prosecute someone, chase them into the wasteland, and they can’t help but be driven to the conclusion that it’s all for some sort of higher good – after all, the alternative would just be too crushing. It takes an unusually philosophic mind to accept that all one’s suffering might be to no end, really, in the larger scheme of things.

  After a long thoughtful sip of goat’s milk, Ivanr raised and lowered his shoulders. ‘I can assure you that I was not drawn here.’

  Beneth appeared untroubled. He waved a quavering, age-spotted hand. ‘A poor analogy maybe. Guided. Spurred along by events, perhaps.’

  Scowling at his own foolishness in actually attempting to debate with the old hermit, Ivanr shrugged. He would get nowhere in this. ‘Well, again, thank you for the meal. Am I to assume that I am your prisoner? After all, you could hardly allow me to leave and possibly reveal your presence here in the hills.’

  ‘They know we’re here,’ said Hegil.

  ‘They’ve placed spies among us,’ added Martal, speaking for the first time.

  Ivanr found it hard to penetrate her accent. ‘Really? Why don’t you get rid of them?’

  The old man’s mouth crooked up. ‘Better that we know who the spies are than not. And we can use them to send along the information we want sent.’

  Not quite so otherworldly, are you, holy man? Ivanr could not deny feeling a certain degree of admiration for such subtlety in thinking and tactics.

  ‘In any case,’ Beneth continued, ‘we could hardly deter Grand Champion Ivanr from leaving our modest camp, should he choose to. Yes?’

  Ivanr merely raised an eyebrow. You damned well know you could should you choose to. About ten spearmen who knew what they were doing ought to take care of that.

  ‘But before we retire why don’t I tell you a story? My story, to be exact. One that I hope might shed some light on why we are here, and what we hope to accomplish. I am old, as you see. Very old. I was born long before the Malazans came to our shores with their foreign ways and foreign gods. I was also born different. All my life I could see things other people could not. Shadows of other things. These shadows spoke to me, showed me strange visions. When I spoke of these things to my parents, I was beaten and told never to entertain such evil again. For such is how all those born different are treated here among the Korelri and Roolians – all those you Thel name invaders.

  ‘Foolishly though, or stubbornly, I persisted in indulging my gifts, for they were my solace, my company, the only thing I had left after I had been named touched. And so one day representatives of the priesthood, the Lady’s examiners, came for me. Since you persist in your evil visions, they said, we will put a permanent end to your perverted ways. And they heated irons and put out my eyes. I was but fourteen years of age at the time.’

  The old man cleared his throat. Martal pressed a skin of water into one of his hands, which he took and drank. ‘I was left to starve, blind, in the foothills of the mountains south of Stygg. The Ebon range. But I did not die. When I awoke I found that I possessed another kind of vision. The vision of a land like this but subtly different – a kind of shadow version. I wandered the wilderness, the ice wastes, the snow-topped Iceback range. There I was shown images of the past and present that lacerated my spirit, horrified me beyond recounting. I was shown that these lands are in the grip of a great evil, a monstrous deformation of life that has persisted, entwining itself into our ways here in these lands for thousands of years. One that must be r
ooted out and cleansed. And to that end we are all of us gathered here.’

  Ivanr glanced from face to face searching for scepticism or ridicule, but saw only a kind of gentle affection for the old man. Hegil was nodding, his gaze downcast. Even Martal – who appeared the most hardened veteran Ivanr had met in a long time – was affected: her flat broad face twisted in a ferocious scowl. Lady preserve him, this was far worse than he’d imagined. Crusaders. The Priestess had infected all these people with her madness. Right then he saw that he had to confront her. Visions came of this refugee rabble marching to be mowed down by Jourilan Imperials. Mass murder. All in her name. Someone had to make her see her responsibility for all these deaths. To make her stop this hopeless cause. And it surely would not be any of them.

  He cleared his throat and raised his hands, gesturing helplessly. ‘I’m sorry for all that you have suffered, Beneth. But again, none of this has anything to do with me. I wish you luck. Though I have to say that I do not think you will fare well against the Jourilan Army.’

  ‘We are not fighting the Jourilan Army. Or even the Jourilan Emperor himself. But that aside, I am surprised to hear you say that none of this has anything to do with you.’

  He could not suppress a shiver of unease. ‘What do you mean?’ He could have sworn the old man cocked a brow behind the bandage across his eyes.

  ‘Why … she sought you out, of course. And now you have found your way here among us. Surely you do not think this mere coincidence?’

  And why did the tree fall on my house? Because the hundred other ones that fell did not, old man. We invent patterns when we look back on what has brought us to wherever we happen to be. This particular choice, or that particular turn. All in hindsight … when in truth all was mere chance. This is where people go to flee the carnage below and so – wonders of wonders – here we have all congregated. That is all there is to it, old man. Nothing more. Ivanr finished his goat’s milk. ‘Well, we simply disagree there.’

  Again, the knowing, indulgent smile. ‘So you say. But it is late. I must sleep. A guard will show you a billet. Good night.’