by Tom Lloyd
'The fact that so many are congregating in Scree is important, I think – your kind are as bad as white-eyes when it comes to tolerat¬ing the presence of your own. There's something in the air here, a storm brewing. I intend to find out what that is, and be ready when it comes.' Her expression darkened. 'When I see a wandering minstrel wearing an augury chain, it makes me think you Raylin might have got it right when you smelled trouble.'
CHAPTER 7
In the burnished light of evening Lord Salen looked down over the valleys and ravines that served as streets for the great city of Thotel. At this distance the pickets and patrols that kept the conquered in¬habitants under control were silent, the torches and guard-fires little more than pinpricks of light. Salen enjoyed the sense of standing above the rest of humanity. Here, above the darkness of the streets, a trace of sunlight still remained. For a dizzying moment it felt like he stood on the peak of a mountain, his body light enough to float away into the abyss below.
He shook off the feeling and turned his attention back to Thotel, a city quite unlike any Menin city. The hollowed-out rock formations that the Chetse called stoneduns were massive weathered chunks of granite scattered around this deep valley like a giant's discarded toys. Wind and water had eroded the softer stone to expose these gigantic boulders, then the Chetse had chipped and scraped until the rocks were riddled with tunnels and living chambers. The mud-brick houses that surrounded them looked like worm-castings in comparison.
Each stonedun had a clan name carved into the rock, identifying it as a community, a fortress in its own right. Some clans had refused to surrender to the Menin, believing their barred gates would hold them safe through a siege…
Lord Salen was leaning out of an open window at the highest point of one such stonedun. The rough rock ledge felt curiously pleasant against his palms, as though the wall still resisted, long after the gates had been torn open and the inhabitants slaughtered.
A brass-bound, wax-stoppered bottle hanging on a long golden chain from his neck chinked delicately against the stone and he pulled it up and slipped it into one of the many pockets of his patchwork robe. He was small for a white-eye, but he was the Chosen of Larat and Lord of
the Hidden Tower, and his mind was sharper than his blade. He wore no armour and carried only a long dagger, but years of study had armed him with weapons few soldiers would even understand. Though the Menin were Karkarn's chosen people – the War God's own – Salen had always preferred the controlled ways of Larat to Karkarn's brutal strength. In Lord Styrax's absence, he had quietened this city with mere words. When he stirred himself to action, the very bedrock of Thotel would tremble.
'Lord Salen?' The messenger coughed uncomfortably, trying not to look too hard at the charms and amulets set into each of the brightly coloured fragments of cloth. Some made his eyes water, writhing to avoid his gaze; others, of tarnished metals, had gems that sparkled too brightly in their pitted settings. A few were impossible to make out in the gloom. Those were the one Mikiss found his eyes drawn to the most – he was glad that he couldn't discern any details.
The mage didn't move.
'My Lord, a message from Larim,' Mikiss repeated.
'The maggots are quiet tonight.'
'My Lord?'
'The Chetse. Don't you think they live like maggots, Mikiss? Tunnelling their way through these great stones; riddling these ancient forms with holes. There's been violence every night since we took the city, but tonight is quiet. Perhaps even maggots have primitive senses, enough to smell something in the air.'
'I wouldn't know, Lord. One of the patrols killed some youths break¬ing curfew – one was carrying a weapon, so they were all executed, according to your standing orders.'
'And the benefit of those orders is now plain to see: I am enjoying the peace it has brought to the city this evening. These people can only be cowed; a shame Styrax could not see that.' The white-eye leaned over the balcony and looked directly down. Mikiss could hear the man's rings scrape on the stone as he watched a ripple run though Salen's robe, though there was no hint of any breeze.
Ah, the message, my Lord?' Mikiss said again, trying to hide the apprehension in his voice. 'Lord Larim has seen the wyvern approach¬ing. Lord Styrax will be here very soon.'
'Good. I've been waiting for him. I wonder what he's been up to; what can have taken so long.' Salen's aristocratic voice was measured
and calm, but Mikiss still found it sinister and shivered – he imagined a lizard would speak that way. Larat's adepts were all like that: their words were measured, whispery, their eyes were clinical and inhuman. He knew treachery was planned, and he was beginning to feel as if the foulness in the messages he'd carried over the last few weeks had seeped out to infect him with the poison of Larat's influence. A long-forgotten sense of duty, of honour, was awakening, crying for action, but he had felt Salen's gaze on him constantly over the last week and he could hardly eat or sleep with that unnatural presence sitting cold and heavy at the edges of his mind. The weight of exhaustion dragged at his heels.
'Go to Quistal; tell him to be ready to welcome our lord.'
'I-' He stopped suddenly.
Salen turned around, slowly. His thin face tightened. 'You have something to add?' One manicured nail tapped at the ivory hilt of his dagger, the other hand played with something in a pocket. Mikiss knew enough of the adepts of Larat to fear what was hidden more.
He couldn't bear those unblinking white eyes. He looked down at the floor and asked, 'Do you wish me to find Lord Kohrad and General Gaur?' He knew the mage wouldn't want his lord's son and most loyal subject alerted, but it was as close to a protest as Mikiss could manage.
Salen didn't bother even showing his contempt. 'They are out of the city with the Third Army. I am quite sure they will join Lord Styrax soon enough.'
'Very good, my Lord.' Mikiss fled, stumbling on the uneven floor of the stonedun's tunnels. Torches flickered weakly at each turn, barely sufficient to light the roughly hewn stone. As he descended the steep stairway to the main gate Mikiss felt a sudden breeze rush up past him, the tunnel channelling the unexpected wind. He flinched down, hands over his face, but was too slow to prevent the fine sand that lined the floor getting in his eyes. Cursing, he slowed, trying to blink the grit away.
At the ruined remains of the massive main gates, Mikiss saw a party of horsemen, one of the night patrols that kept the curfew, returning with a report for Salen's staff. A soldier stood facing away from him on the high steps below the gate. Mikiss smothered his jangling fears and walked out from the shadows, blinking furiously and tugging at his sleeve, which had snagged on the vambrace on his left arm.
The soldier on the steps gave a start at the sound of footsteps and spun around, reaching for the axe at his belt. Untangling his sleeve, Mikiss revealed the brass vambrace that had his messenger warrant inscribed in deep Menin glyphs.
Something about the soldiers puzzled him. Mikiss squinted until he was able to read the painted glyphs on one man's shoulder-plate: Cheme 3rd Legion. The Cheme legion? Weren't they were part of the Third Army?
'Hold it there, messenger,' growled the man bearing the furled unit banner, 'and where are you bound this fine evening?' The banner-man, swathed entirely in a long grey cloak, pushed back his hood to reveal bristling fur and long tusks. Mikiss froze; it was not a man at all but General Gaur. Oh Gods.
The air was dry and light. The soft taste of the southern plains tickled the back of his throat as he brushed past the rough stonedun walls. He noticed the forced silence: a few weeks of Salen's rule had changed the atmosphere of Thotel completely. The Chosen of Larat had done exactly as expected, performing one last act of service, however un¬wittingly, for the lord he had plotted against for years.
Here inside the stoneduns, Styrax could feel the pain of those slaughtered here, the entire extended family. Salen would not have noticed the voices, nor been able to sense the tears, the loss, echoing around the bloodstained tunnels. Rusty line
s streaked the steps and sloping walls where blood and excrement had run down towards the deep heart of the stonedun.
He ran his stained fingernails over the rough-hewn surface. As ever, his left hand was ungloved. He almost savoured the discomfort of his damaged skin. The duel with Koezh Vukotic had left the feeling impaired in his pale and scarred hand, but it had been replaced with a less worldly sensation. He couldn't feel the evening breeze on his skin, but it sang when power flowed through his body. Right now, the sensation was one of needles being pushed into the back of his hand.
He could feel the currents of magic running through the city, where both Menin and Chetse mages were engaged in a variety of activities. He wondered what else was busy in the city that night, what other treachery waited in Thotel's dark streets. He thought of the daemon that had warned him of Salen's betrayal, the shadow that lingered on the edge of sight. It had spoken to him in the desert as he left his forces and went after Lord Bahl. It claimed to have nothing but contempt for its own kind, but who could tell, in truth? Was it watching him now, waiting to exploit events as they unfolded for its own purpose?
His footsteps silent, his black armour melting into the shadows, Styrax felt insubstantial, temporary, nothing but a memory when compared to the solid, immovable stone that encased him. As he reached the high chamber he stopped and waited, buoyed by the ac¬cumulating power inside him. After a while he decided the time had come. He scuffed the sole of his boot lightly on the ground.
The figure up ahead didn't move, but Styrax knew he had been heard.
After a longer pause, Salen asked, 'Well, Mikiss, what do you want now?'
Styrax remained still, drawing more power into the Skull at his chest as he watched Salen's back. He wanted the man to have time to appreciate the foolishness of his treachery, to understand how he had been anticipated every step of the way, and that he had been permitted his childish delusion of supremacy – before it was all stripped away.
Salen's long robe of reds and yellows and blues, the seams stitched in silver and gold, moved a little in what little breeze reached the tower. 'Mikiss?' As he turned around, his expression of anger fell away.
Styrax smiled. His white hand burned savagely, every crease in his skin alive with sensation as the stored magic howled to be loose. He was glad of the pain; it reminded him of his mortality as much as his vast strength. He believed in the need for balance in all things – his son Kohrad was not the only person he tried to drum this into – so perhaps a demonstration would succeed where wise words had not.
'Well, Salen? You've been preparing for this moment for weeks now. Time to make your move.'
The Chosen of Larat jerked into action, his hand darting into his pocket as he reached for the energy around him – and astonishment flashed across his face as he grasped nothing, the expected flow of power inexplicably absent to his touch. Instead, it was surging to the Skull fused to Styrax's armour.
'What?' Salen whispered in confusion.
Styrax saw the white-eye was still open to the absent energies in the air, but he was no longer searching for the tang of magic. The path was laid, the energies inside him screaming to be released – with a gasping shudder, he let the torrent course through his body and surge
towards Salen, who rocked back on his heels, flailing wildly, as if he were being physically overcome by the raging deluge. With the Skull, Styrax had barely been able to contain the power he'd stolen; now, as he reversed the flow, his enemy screamed hideously and writhed in agony as the rampant flood of energy burned through every nerve and blood vessel in his body.
The Lord of the Hidden Tower collapsed, still convulsing, and the patchwork robe burst into pyrotechnic flames, the colours searing through Styrax's closed eyelids. He shielded his face with his hands, but still flinched as the amulets on Salen's robe exploded into bright white light.
Wind whipped across his body and Styrax jerked away as a piece of stone hit the thumbnail of his exposed hand. The night air grew suddenly close around him, pressing tight against his throat. Styrax forced his arms down by his sides and rested one hand on his sword hilt as he recognised the presence of the Gods. He would not let them see him reeling, not even if he were dying.
A profound silence fell on the chamber. Styrax opened his eyes to see just a charred pile of bones where Salen had been lying, and darkness all around. As he watched, the harsh shadows softened; Styrax imagined Death stalking back into the night, dragging Salen's scorched and pitted soul along behind him.
A sound came distantly, faint against the wind running through the city streets. Styrax listened closely, trying to identify it. For a moment he was puzzled, then he recognised Larat's hollow chuckle drifting through the night. Lord Salen's patron God was obviously amused at the irony of his Chosen's death. The white-eye grimaced. Salen's deranged indifference to life reflected his God's, and Styrax did not understand men like that, men who lived their own lives as little more than pale reflections of their God.
Styrax turned at last and moved briskly to join his guards below. He trotted down the winding steps until he reached the gate where General Gaur waited with the horses and a wretched-looking mes¬senger. There were more deaths to come this night, more blood to spill into Thotel's ever-thirsty earth.
He drew his sword and stepped out into the pale moonlight.
CHAPTER 8
'My name is Mikiss, my Lord, Army Messenger Koden Mikiss.' He met Styrax's gaze for a brief moment, then lowered his eyes again. His horse, surrounded by muscular cavalry horses made even more bulky by their armour, looked fragile, and added to the picture of misery that was the exhausted, frightened messenger.
Styrax smiled inwardly. He would surprise a man with unexpected mercy more than once tonight.
'Come. We must ride,' he said, and his party set off at a brisk canter through the empty streets of Thotel. The looming stoneduns dotted around the plain cast huge black shadows over the smaller buildings set in long, wide avenues. The single cliff of the river-valley reached away to their left, the quartz adorning ancient shrines set into the cliff-face sparkling where it caught lamplight or moonlight.
'You have been carrying all of Salen's messages,' Styrax said, turn¬ing his attention back to Mikiss. It was not a question.
'Not all, my Lord, but many.' Mikiss sounded resigned to his inevi¬table fate; he had been expecting a sharp blade across the throat from the moment he recognised the general.
'Then it is fortunate for you that I noticed an enchantment compel¬ling you,' Styrax said calmly, 'or I would have been forced to conclude you were a traitor.'
Mikiss looked up, clearly startled by the word 'traitor'. He cut a strange figure, with the red-dyed skullcap that marked him out as a member of the messenger corps and an over-large grey cloak. The brass vambrace was ceremonial; he wore no other armour.
No doubt he is a competent messenger, thought Styrax, or Salen would not have used him. The harried trepidation on Mikiss' pallid face looked to be a permanent feature. Perhaps his family had bought the young man a commission as a messenger because he'd hardly survive
a week in command of a squad, let alone a company of men. It ap¬peared that he had not yet realised he was not for the immediate chop.
'I'm showing clemency, man.' He brushed away stammered thanks and went on. 'Where is Quistal? Can I assume he's waiting for me to return to the Gate of Three Suns before making his move?'
Mikiss nodded. 'His troops are camped on the Plain of Pillars and Salen's personal troops are in the sunken orchards. Where the coterie is, I don't know.'
General Gaur turned towards Styrax with a questioning look; the white-eye shook his head. The two often had little need of words, for they had been something like friends for many years now.
'They are of no consequence,' Styrax said out loud. 'Larim should have killed them all by now. The coterie will have felt their master's death.' He fell silent, thinking of the ground where they would have to fight. The Gate of Three Suns was a part
icularly remarkable con¬struction. The massive stone wall was strung across a thousand yards of flat ground between a stonedun and a long rocky plateau. The three circular gates set into it served as the main passages in and out of the city. His brief inspection earlier had suggested that the wall was straightforward engineering, not magic.
The sophisticated irrigation of the sunken orchards had been his second surprise that day – this was the desert, for pity's sake. Styrax hadn't expected the Chetse to show such ingenuity, but there was no denying the enormous skill involved. He decided he was right to seek the trust of the tribe; clearly there were remarkable men within the wild, unwashed masses.
'Before we discuss matters with Quistal, we have an errand to run,' Styrax announced to the unit in general.
'An errand?' echoed Kohrad. The young white-eye's voice sounded overly loud in the silent streets.
His words prompted a growled response from General Gaur. 'Keep your voice down; we don't want to run into a patrol if we can help it. Salen made sure all the night patrols were his own men. We don't need word to get back to the Plain of Pillars before we're ready.'
'An errand,' confirmed Styrax. 'Mikiss, where is General Dev being held?'
The messenger blinked in surprise. 'The commander of the Lion Guard? He's at his family's stonedun, under guard. He'd been injured
before the battle and couldn't be moved safely. Lord Salen wanted to make sure the general was alive for execution.'
'I'm sure he did. Take us there.'
'Father-' Kohrad started before Styrax raised a hand.
'No questions – have faith.'
'Yes, Father.'
Styrax couldn't see his son's face, which was obscured by the red-stained steel helm. It was impossible to tell if Kohrad was seething underneath; his reply had been crisp and level, but meant little. The boy was learning to hide his emotions even as his grip on sanity ap¬peared to be weakening.