Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1)

by A J Dalton

  ‘Who isn’t these days?’ Thomas reflected. ‘Don’t need to be old to be crazy, although it seems more forgivable if you’re old. I mean, look at you two youngsters. The millions of people of the Empire would say you had to be crazy to stand against them. Just what made you think it would ever be a good idea, eh?’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that, perhaps you’re right.’ Ash shrugged cheerily.

  ‘Matter of perspective, I suppose,’ Aspin conceded guiltily.

  ‘But if you’re talking about Torpeth the Great,’ Thomas added, ‘then he really is crazy. Worse than crazy, in fact. Dangerous. Pray we never meet him.’

  ‘Welcome to Godsend,’ Torpeth called down amiably to Aspin, Ash, Thomas and Jillan. ‘What kept you, Aspin Longstep, eh?’

  ‘Shut up, fool,’ Minister Praxis sneered and tried to cuff his servant round the back of the head. Torpeth ducked into a bow, however, and avoided the blow.

  ‘Silence, both of you!’ Chief Braggar shouldered them aside so that he could come to the wall and see those below. ‘Ha! Longstep! You join us once all the fighting is done, I see.’

  ‘Braggar. Where is Chief Blackwing? I bring ill tidings of more fighting to come. The Saint of this region marches towards us with an army of his Heroes.’

  There were uneasy murmurs from the warriors lining the wall on either side of the north gates. A few spat contemptuously.

  ‘You will address him as Chief Braggar, son Aspin,’ snow-haired Slavin said sternly as he somehow contrived to create and step into a gap between the Minister and Braggar.

  Braggar puffed up his chest and adjusted the necklace of mountain gems that signified his status. ‘Ha! I say these are not ill tidings! The warriors of Wayfar have already defeated the so-called Heroes of the Empire in glorious battle. We rejoice at the prospect of bringing more to their knees in the name of the gods.’

  ‘Even if these Heroes aren’t a bit sick like the other ones!’ Torpeth shouted as the warriors cheered their chief’s words.

  Aspin signalled his companions to dismount. Thomas got down and then helped Jillan. Aspin bowed low and shouted, ‘Hail, Chief Braggar! We beg entry and shelter so that we may share more of our glad tidings with you and raise a toast to your wise leadership of our people and to the glorious victory you have already brought us.’

  ‘I am minded to let them in, and I am sure I will hear no protest from you,’ Braggar murmured to Slavin. ‘Besides, it would be good sense to learn more of our enemy from them. But what say you, low-lander?’

  Minister Praxis made a strangled noise and his eyes bulged as he stared down at Jillan.

  ‘I think that’s a yes,’ Torpeth offered.

  ‘Then make it so!’ Braggar commanded, his voice ringing off the gates and the wall.

  There was a moment or two of awkward silence. People shuffled their feet.

  Slavin sighed and gestured to two of the warriors closest to them. ‘Be so good as to get down there and open the gates. Then we can all get out of the cold.’

  Braggar frowned. ‘Where are our other warriors?’

  ‘Some are out hunting, Chief Braggar, while the rest are at the inn,’ Slavin managed to say without making his opinion on the matter evident.

  ‘I thought the drink was all gone once we’d poured libations to the gods to celebrate our victory over the weakling lowlanders.’

  ‘Apparently, they found another cellar.’

  ‘What! And no one told me?’ Braggar snorted like a bull. ‘That … that is …’

  ‘Utterly disrespectful?’ Torpeth ventured.

  ‘Yes, damn it! Disrespectful! Don’t they know who’s the chief round here? I am the favoured of the gods. I’ll see heads broken for this!’

  ‘Heads broken in the name of the gods,’ Torpeth nodded.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘The gods are sure to be very grateful.’

  Braggar’s brows came down and he lowered his head as if he had horns and was about to charge. ‘You’d better not be mocking me, old man. Lowlander, get your servant under control or I’ll have him thrown from the top of the gates.’

  The Minister at last dragged his eyes away from the newcomers at the gates and blinked. He’d missed much of what had just happened, but saw enough to know Torpeth had been taunting the young chief again. The Minister’s long arm shot out and he caught the holy man by the ear, giving it a savage twist.

  The small man hopped up and down. ‘Hey! That tickles! If you envy my ear and have become so attached to it, then you may have it, for I have another. But do not stand like a wide-eyed child before this spectacle, good chieftain, lest all the ale be gone before you get there. I hear your warriors belching and sniggering that you are not able to drink as much as they.’

  Snow-haired Slavin silently rolled his eyes and looked to the sky.

  ‘Silence, meddlesome slave!’ the Minister screeched and turned Torpeth’s ear ever more cruelly. ‘On your knees!’

  ‘Gah!’ Braggar waved in disgust and shouldered his way from the wall. ‘Slavin, bring your son and the others to the inn. I will make that building my meeting place from now on.’

  Jillan saw Minister Praxis staring down at him with the sort of outrage and disgust that had always been evident when Jillan had failed to answer a question correctly in class or had done something he thought blasphemous. The same outrage and disgust with which the Minister had always warned them about the dark and sneaking thoughts of the Chaos and made Jillan feel so guilty. For the taint suggested dark and sneaking thoughts to him, did it not, and was therefore surely the voice of the Chaos? He felt dirty and sinful. He hung his head in shame. He was so overcome by self-loathing that he trembled wretchedly.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Aspin was asking, but Jillan hardly heard him.

  ‘Exhaustion and grief. I don’t think he’s slept or eaten since … You know. He needs rest,’ Thomas said.

  A willowy white-haired warrior came out from the gates to meet them. His skin was tanned a deep chestnut from a lifetime spent among the high peaks. His face was criss-crossed like old leather, but his blue eyes were young and he moved with the grace of a man half his age. There was a poise about him that said he was either holy or a deadly warrior, perhaps both.

  Aspin bowed so deeply that his head almost touched the ground, and Thomas and Ash also felt it wise to incline their heads. Jillan already stood with his chin on his chest.

  ‘Stand, my son. I am happy to see you here before me.’

  Aspin stood proud before the elder. ‘Honoured Father, these are good men, and I ask that you pay them notice. Here is Thomas Ironshoe, whose heart fills his chest and whose strength shakes the mountains. Here is Ash of the woods, who is a kindred spirit of the wolves, yet laughs with the wind. And here is Jillan Hunterson, brother to my heart.’

  Slavin’s blue eyes took in Thomas and Ash and gave them a gentle nod of acknowledgement each. Then his eyes passed to Jillan and looked upon him for long moments. ‘Your brother is sorely afflicted. The road must have been hard on him. He can be excused an audience with the young chief for now.’

  ‘I will take him somewhere he can lie down,’ Ash volunteered.

  Slavin inclined his head. ‘Good. Aspin and Thomas need to present themselves at the inn directly.’

  ‘The inn?’ Ash asked with a raised eyebrow and a strange smack of the lips.

  Slavin turned slowly back to him. ‘It seems that the young chief finds himself most comfortable upon a throne of ale barrels.’

  Numbly Jillan followed Ash into the wintry streets of Godsend. Water and blood lay frozen in the road’s muddy cart tracks. The gutters to either side of the street were backed up with excrement and garbage. A body lay in one, eyes wide and mouth open, but it looked anything but human. It was so bloated and discoloured that it was more like one of the strange fish found in the deep forest pools. Despite the cold, the reek of the town was foul. Ash kept his nose buried in his sleeve.

  They passed the veranda of
a long house. An old man sat in a rocking chair at the far end, seeming to watch them. It was Old Samuel. Jillan had clustered with the other children of Godsend every evening to listen to his tales of the wide and wonderful world beyond the community’s walls. The old man would puff on his pipe and tell them that if they were quick enough, and looked hard enough, they would see fighting dragons in the clouds of smoke. He said the dragons drifted up to join the clouds and became bigger there until they were ready to fly east and fight the barbarians, or to fly wherever there were enemies of the Empire. He said that the raindrops that fell were the tears the dragons shed when one of their number died protecting the People. The children had become sad or scared at this, but he’d laughed and reassured them that as long as there were clouds in the sky, there were always dragons watching over them and the Empire would always be safe.

  There were no children clustered around Old Samuel now, and he wasn’t smoking his pipe. He had no one to listen to his stories. Jillan had been beyond the community’s walls and seen the wide and wonderful world. He now knew Old Samuel’s stories had just been make-believe to entertain children. There was nothing in the sky crying or watching over them. Children did not always remain safe just because there were clouds in the sky. If anyone said otherwise, then it was a lie of sorts, and a dangerous lie.

  For Old Samuel was dead. He sat in his rocking chair, a permanent look of pain on his face. His skin was mottled with purple and there were black trickles of dried blood down his cheeks and chin.

  ‘There’s no one around,’ Ash whispered, as if he were scared he might disturb the dead. ‘You don’t think Aspin’s lot have killed everyone, do you?’

  Jillan shrugged disconsolately and trudged past him.

  ‘No,’ Ash said with relief. ‘There’s a child over there. See him?’

  Jillan caught a glimpse of something a way off, but it was too small and quick to make out.

  ‘And another one there! And there! They keep disappearing, like they’re watching us but don’t want to be caught at it. Shy, are they, these Godsenders?’

  Jillan saw a couple clearly this time. Children quite a bit younger than him. He didn’t recognise them. Where had they come from? It didn’t matter, though. They were probably intent on avoiding the murderous mountain men and anyone who might have the plague, which by now had to be just about everyone in Godsend. It was probably for the best that they did, since that way there was a slim chance that one or two of them might survive long enough to get out of Godsend and find somewhere in the forest where there was enough food and shelter to see them grow into a free adult one day. They were right to avoid people, for too often people brought death. And there were no dragons in the sky watching over them.

  ‘There are people in the houses, I expect, but they’re all dying,’ Jillan said. ‘It’ll be worse where we’re going, because the southern part of town had most of the old and poor. They always get sick first, and are hardly ever strong enough to recover.’

  ‘Er … okay. Say, you look like you’re managing well enough now, Jillan. I was thinking …’

  ‘Sure, Ash. I’ll see you later. Go join the others in the inn. If you can’t convince them to flee before the Saint gets here, then maybe you can entertain them with a song.’

  The woodsman shifted his weight from foot to foot, hesitating. Jillan kept trudging on.

  ‘I’ll bring you some bread and a drink from the inn,’ the woodsman called hopefully.

  Jillan nodded without turning back and listened to Ash walk and then run back the other way. He couldn’t blame him. He’d have wanted to do the same thing himself. To sit in a warm inn with a foaming ale and merry company. As a child, it was something he’d always dreamed his life would be. As an adult, he now realised it was something people did precisely to forget their lives. Brief moments of happiness and long moments of forgetting – all adding up to a sort of contentment and a way of getting by. It wasn’t so bad. It was just a shame that such simple lives and pleasures didn’t have a way of holding back plagues, armies, the fall of gods and oblivion. Such a shame. But he couldn’t blame them. The streets and the world outside the inn were dark, scary, horrible places. Who in their right mind ever really wanted to leave a comfortable seat next to the warm hearth? No one, for oblivion lay just beyond the door. The vast hungry darkness of the void crouched, waiting for the innocent and unwary.

  Which begs the question, dopey, of just what you’re doing. Careful! There are more of those kids about, and they’re closing in on you, herding you, I think. You don’t think they’ve turned to cannibalism for want of food, do you? I bet they have sharp and pointy little teeth.

  ‘One of my friends is out here,’ Jillan explained. ‘I have to find him. Otherwise, what sort of friend would I be?’

  Er … an alive one? You’d be an alive friend. I’m sure your friend wouldn’t want you as a friend if you were a dead one. Besides, he can probably find his way on his own.

  ‘Actually, I’d already be dead if it weren’t for him. Taint, payment is due.’

  There was a silent gasp. Where did you hear that phrase? the taint asked shakily, but fled before Jillan decided whether to answer or not.

  Jillan moved into the wide Gathering Place in the centre of Godsend and walked over to the Meeting House. He’d heard the patter of small feet behind and to either side of him, but they’d broken off abruptly as he’d left the narrow street. There was no cover in the large square for his stalkers to use, and they clearly lacked the courage to attack him out in the open.

  ‘Hello, my friend,’ Jillan said as he looked down at the chained and drooling Samnir. The once always clean-shaven soldier had an unkempt grey beard, which made him look far older than Jillan remembered. Yet Samnir did not look as gaunt or filthy as Jillan had feared he would. Had someone been feeding and cleaning him? There was a good blanket beside him too, which must have been why he wasn’t yet dead of exposure.

  ‘I’ve come to return your sword, Samnir, for I have had good use of it and do not need it any more. Let me see. What did you say when you first gave it to me? Ah. It is freely given and therefore yours to command.’

  Jillan used the sword to cut his friend’s chains and then laid it in his lap. He took a deep breath and called magic to him. As the storm began to eddy and swirl around him, power rose in answer from his core. ‘Not to kill!’ Jillan breathed to himself and gently trickled power into his friend.

  After a few long moments, Samnir’s body was completely suffused and sparks of excess energy danced in the air around his skin, but the soldier’s eyes remained empty. What was wrong? Any more power would kill the old soldier. Jillan began to shake and sweat with the strain of the conjuring. If he didn’t find an answer quickly, he might end up killing them both.

  The taint sighed. Can’t have you killing yourself over something so silly, can I? The problem’s with his mind, not his body.

  Mind? Mind! The Saint had disconnected Samnir’s mind from his body. Rushing, but with little other choice, Jillan ran power through old synapses, saving, reforming and reshaping where he could. Breaking off, he fell back with a gasp. He prayed he had done enough.

  He watched Samnir’s dead grey eyes. Was that a flutter or a reflection of falling snow? Then a slow blink. A spark of life and intelligence.

  ‘Saviours be prai— The gods be praised,’ Jillan breathed.

  ‘Jillan!’ Samnir rasped. ‘Look at all the trouble you’ve caused! I’ve a good mind to put you over my knee.’

  ‘Samnir!’ Jillan cried in delight and hugged the old soldier.

  ‘Oof! Careful. You’re either stronger than you look or I’m weaker than I should be. I’m absolutely frozen. And I’ve got piles to boot.’

  Jillan felt hot tears on his cheeks, but they were good tears, tears that washed some of the pain and horror from his eyes, tears that blurred his vision kindly so that the world looked a little less grimy. ‘And Hella?’ he dared ask Samnir softly.

  Samnir nodded.
‘Who else do you think it was kept me alive? Ugh! What’s that smell? It’s me! Come on, Jillan lad, let’s get you home and the two of us cleaned up. We should try to look presentable, or Hella will be turning us away from her doorstep before I can properly thank her or she can properly recognise you. I think you’ll have to help me up. I’m stiff as f … er … a plank. Easy! Ow!’

  They hobbled out of the Gathering Place towards Jillan’s old home.

  As they went, Jillan noticed nearly every door in the southern part of town had a big white cross painted on it as a mark of the plague. The doors and windows were shut up tight, some from the outside. There was no one to be seen except for an emaciated mongrel that was eating something red, and that growled as they passed.

  ‘At least the odd chimney is showing smoke,’ Samnir coughed. ‘Otherwise, I’d think we walked through a graveyard.’

  ‘The pagans from the mountains have left them alone, at least.’

  ‘The pagans are no doubt fearful of the plague too. It’s probably prevented most of the rape, pillage and looting that would otherwise have gone on.’

  ‘I don’t think Aspin’s people are like that.’

  Samnir gave him a wan smile and shrugged. Jillan noticed the old soldier was leaning quite heavily on him now that his cheeks had lost their brief flush of colour and he was beginning to shiver.

  ‘Nearly there. Here we are,’ Jillan said as they ducked the low overhangs of roofs and zigzagged between the old cottages, water butts and lean-tos near the southern wall. ‘Oh.’

  The door to Jillan’s home hung forlornly from one hinge and bore the scars of where the Heroes who’d come to arrest his parents had kicked it in. Snow had drifted inside, and it seemed far smaller than Jillan remembered. For a second or two he was convinced that they’d come to the wrong place, that they must have got confused in the maze of streets. The top of his head had never brushed the door lintel like that, and he’d never had to turn his shoulder slightly to avoid knocking it on the jamb. And that was surely a toy version of his father’s great wooden armchair. No, this wasn’t his home. It was too dark and pokey. Far too cold, somehow colder than outside. It was … broken. He felt a lump in his throat, felt sick.