by E. V. Greig
“What is there to debate?” Halun spoke then. “She is a wyrmblooded wraithspawn who allies herself with outlanders, monsters, and anthir! She is unfit to even look upon Ullensia – let alone to dwell here. Why, she has even admitted to having failed to protect her herdmate! Kalios at least has never caused the death of a sacred child of Ullen. Nor is he a wraithspawn.”
“From what we are told, brave Uleno died in battle against a nhynquara.” Naikran argued in support of the woman. “Ullen would surely honour such a worthy sacrifice!”
“But Kalios is the stronger caster.” Halun was swift to point that out. “We have seen him prove his power already.”
Naikran snorted. “Kaiwan was able to summon lightning earlier: Kalios has never managed that!”
“Enough!” The eldest of the shamans raised her voice then. “The true Ca’Ryln shall have mastery over all sylth. Whichever of these two can prove that such power is theirs, shall have the full support of all of our tribes; the other shall be put to death!”
∞∞∞
“It never ceases to amaze me how very easily the skree’akh die.” Veyrich tossed the broken remains of his latest victim onto the encampment’s main fire. “Less than an hour before this one expired!”
There was a strangled sort of hiss, and something dark shot past him through the flames: scooping up the female’s ruined corpse and smothering the cinders that had caught upon her with a fold of their dark cloak. “My Lady!”
“And what is this: another of them? Is the encampment infested?” The elite sneered and then paused as he realised too late that no one else appeared at all amused by the situation. “What?”
“Veyrich, you bloodthirsty dolt!” Gilvaneous leapt to his feet: his sword already in his hands, and his face dark with fury. Frelth slunk away to the far side of the dais and cowered there in abject terror. “Imbecile! You have butchered the very person that I have been forging an alliance with!”
Misericord had dropped to his knees and was cradling Naomi’s ravaged form against his chest. “My Lady lives yet, my Lord: although she has been most heinously harmed. I must hurry her home to her healers post haste.” The witchfinder wrapped his mistress carefully up in his cloak and rose gracefully to his feet. He was gone before the sylvanthir saw him move. A small black and white cat slipped after him.
“My Lord, she both insulted and attacked me!” Veyrich abased himself before his king. “I merely sought to teach her some proper manners: it is hardly my fault that she could not bear the lesson.”
“Perhaps not, but you thought her to be dead when she still lived, Veyrich. That was incompetent. I have no place in my army for incompetence. You are hereby stripped of your rank, your title, and all of your property. I furthermore exile you, Veyrich Balefenwal, for a period of one century. Leave my presence immediately.”
The former elite knew better than to rise. He crawled away from the dais and melted into the shadows of the encampment. It would only be a matter of time now until those that he had mistreated learnt of his predicament and came after him for their chance at revenge. I must find some means of placating the king before then – or of removing him instead! Yes: I think that it is time for a change of ruler.
∞∞∞
The flames of the fire were flickering faintly in the fireplace of the guardhouse as the witchfinder glanced around at the other members of the Lady’s retinue. He supposed that he ought to tell them of tonight’s tribulations, for in truth he himself was a tad troubled. “The Lady did successfully scry to identify a lecherous lout who had malignly mishandled Luath during his duties as messenger. We went to the anthiri encampment, where she permitted him to make her his prisoner, the better to bring him low.”
Elharan spluttered on his tea. “She did what?”
“It ‘twas a dangerous dance indeed, but one most lightly led by the Lady.” Misericord continued oiling his daggers. There was a soft purr from the pied beast at his feet.
“Then what happened?” Gyrfalcon wiped away a smear of ale from his upper lip, and shooed Tik-Tik away from his platter of broiled kidneys.
“The reprobate ravaged her onto oblivion, and cast her corpse upon the campfire. As arranged, I fetched her from the flames and assured her to be alive. Leaving the brutish boor to the mercies of his most mightily maddened monarch, we hastily hurried home.”
Spellsnitcher merely yawned and stretched. “Mine cousin has ever been willing to risk all in her games!”
“I’m going to kill her again myself once she regenerates!” Elharan was furious. “Of all the bloody minded, dangerous, idiotic schemes that she’s ever come up with, this one beats the rest!”
The squirrel-cat piped up then. “Tik-Tik think time she challenged daemon to dancing contest was better!”
“Oh yes, that was a good one!” Gyrfalcon nodded eagerly.
Elharan glared at his companions. “Stop enabling her!”
Gyrfalcon belched. “We’re just being supportive of our mistress, Elharan.”
Tik-Tik chirped in agreement. “Great Frog Spirit is pleased!”
Spellsnitcher had already vanished, so Elharan fixed his anger upon Misericord instead. “And what do you have to say for yourself, witchfinder?”
Misericord simply shrugged. “I serve the Lady. I pursue whatever plans that she proposes.”
The aged guardsman strode out of the room without another word, and went straight to Naomi’s chamber. Flinging open the door, he ordered the startled maidservants and healers out and stepped behind the screen to see himself how badly she was injured. He blanched at the sight. “Oh, Naomi – for pity’s sake, what have you put yourself through?”
Naomi winced and dabbed at another of her injuries. “Elharan...I don’t want you to see me like this...please...let me be for a time.”
Elharan shook his head grimly. “There’ll be an extra moon in the sky before I leave you alone in this state!” He took the cloth from her hand and set to work cleaning her wounds. “Misericord told us that you went in search of justice for Luath tonight. Was it worth this?”
“I hope so, Elharan. I don’t believe that I could endure another encounter with him.” She flinched as he dug a fine sliver of glass from her back. “I had expected that he would be wicked: I sensed as much from poor Luath when I questioned him. But I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t even halfway prepared.”
He frowned and gently wiped her face clean. “You’re in pieces, Naomi! I never thought to see you so afraid again – indeed, I’m not so certain that you were even this bad when I first found you on that rooftop in Alnaiea. Do you remember that night?”
She nodded and forced a smile. It was clearly painful for her to do so. “I hadn’t eaten in days and some noblemen had made cruel sport with me earlier that same evening. You found me and took me home with you. You were the only one that gave a damn about whether I lived or died.”
“Well, the good news is, you don’t seem to have lost your memory this time.” Elharan pulled another sliver of glass from Naomi’s back. “These look like needles.”
“They are. He is an accomplished torturer.”
“You got in over your head this time. I warned you that it was bound to happen eventually.”
“I should have listened.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and that terrified him. “I rather think that I might just stay within Briersburge for the foreseeable future, Elharan. I’ve had enough of adventuring.”
Elharan hugged her to him at that: silently cursing the bastard that had done this. He could feel her shaking. “I don’t blame you for a moment, Naomi.”
Chapter Seven
Hugo glared at his followers as they departed the inn the following day. “I can’t believe you tricked me!”
“You needed the rest: we all did, boss.” Squeaky tossed him an apple. “Cheer up – Ruiryk has some good news about our journey to Nandor Keep!”
“I got talking to some merchants last night. They told me of a caravan that will be heading
that way later this season. If we make for Xanra now, we can join up with it and earn passage to Nandor by ship in exchange for protecting the caravan.”
“And how far is it to Xanra?”
Ruiryk shrugged. “About six weeks travel, give or take. The caravan leaves in seven and a half, so we have time enough: provided that we leave soon.”
“I see. Ten days to track down that damned spider.”
“Boss – we think we should just forget about the spider, to be honest. It almost had you once already. It almost had Alyrra and Javia, too.” The Anyosian man fidgeted nervously. “It’s not worth it, boss. Too much risk and not enough pay. And besides, there’s the balance of nature to be thought of too.”
Marwyn nodded vigorously at that. “Oh yes indeed! If we did slay the poor beast, we would risk damaging the entire cycle of predator and prey for this region for generations to come. The long term effects could be catastrophic.”
“It’s a monster that’s been terrorising the local population for years. We’re mercenaries: we kill things that do that. We don’t preserve them!” The Alnaiean general shook his head in utter disbelief.
A small hand tugged at his sleeve then. “Brother sad,” Javia informed him solemnly. “Have bad voices again.”
Hugo blinked. “Did I miss something? Did you find her family whilst I was asleep?”
Alyrra frowned. “She’s been saying that same phrase all night and most of this morning too. I thought at first it was some childish game, but she seems to be so serious about it. She won’t explain what she means though.”
Javia uttered a shrill cry then and clamped her hands over her ears. “No, no, no – not time!” Her dark eyes rolled up in their sockets and she collapsed trembling to the ground.
Hugo and Alyrra knelt beside her: the former cradling her small body against his chest. “Healer – is it the falling sickness?”
“No, ‘tis some type of trance state, of the type favoured by certain mystics. But I have never seen the like in one so very young before: Hugo, this is not normal. She is likely to shake her bones to pieces if she does not awaken soon!”
“Well, what can you do for her?”
“This is beyond my ability.” Alyrra stroked the child’s pale brow. “We must find someone skilled in these arts to lead her soul back into her own body.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Not long; perhaps half a day, if even that. There are some cults that are rumoured to practice such trances. As I said, it would be unheard of for a child to participate.”
“My wife spoke of using trances, boss. There might be something in her book about what to do.”
“Good idea, Squeaky. It’s in my saddlebag: bring it over here and I’ll take a look.” Hugo hugged Javia to him. “Do you suppose that she was the child of Javians? That could be why she thinks that her name is Javia: she remembers hearing the word. Maybe she saw her family engage in these trances too.”
Squeaky handed him the book. “It would have been the women of her family, boss. There are no male Javians.”
Still cradling the child in his left arm, Hugo began to flick through the carefully inked pages. “Let me see now. Nocturan anlai farsan Vesqua: anlais nocturan!”
“That’s a prayer for peaceful dreams, boss.”
“Oh. How about this? Xalno ihldhyrym!”
“That one destroys restless dead, to the best of my knowledge. My wife used to bellow it at drauthir. They generally stopped moving and fell over.”
“Thalnor illsyn anlais: anlais surcum vede?”
In his arms, Javia ceased her trembling and drew in a deep slow breath. “Surcu anla vede!” She smiled up at him happily. “Urnos vede!”
Hugo glanced desperately at Squeaky. “What in Gorun’s name did I just say?”
“I’ve no idea, boss. I never heard my wife say that bit.”
Javia giggled and made to crawl away. Hugo set her on her feet and shook his head. “Speak Anyosian, Javia.”
“Better now. Brother still sad: not hurt spider!”
“Gods, I almost forgot about that! Don’t worry – we’ll get rid of that nasty spider and then your brother can be happy. How does that sound?”
“No! Not hurt spider!” She glared at him then, and Hugo felt a chill run through his bones. “Brother like spider!”
“I see. And who is your brother?”
“Vethnorn.”
“Forget I even asked.”
Squeaky was now even more nervous of the child. “Boss, Vethnorn is the God of Spiders! He’s said to be the brother of Javia; maybe we should leave the spider be. And we could probably let this little one wander off now too. I mean there are plenty of farms around here. She won’t starve.”
“She isn’t the Goddess of Death, damn it! She’s a confused little girl who needs looking after. It’s not her fault that her family were cultists. And there is no such thing as a God of Spiders, so you may knock that on the head too.”
Javia giggled as Hugo strode away from them to check on Waneve. “Hugo is silly! But why is Willum scared? We like Willum!”
“No offence, but Willum is happiest when the Gods aren’t paying him any heed.”
∞∞∞
It was just past daybreak when Misericord arrived at the Lady’s chamber. He had brought a tray with him: a small slice of freshly baked gingerbread and a cup of chamomile tea prepared precisely as the Lady preferred it. To his surprise, Elharan was already there. The guardsman nodded tersely from his position in the corner of the room. “Morning, witchfinder, you can take over this watch. Naomi: your breakfast has arrived. I’ll leave you to it.” He padded out and closed the door behind him.
Naomi shifted a little beneath the blankets but did not sit up. “Misericord, come to bed please. Just to hold one another for a time: until I stop feeling as though I shall fly apart.”
The witchfinder set the tray down on the dresser and quietly bolted the door. He slipped fully clad in next to her, and she grumbled slightly at the feel of his boots. “My Lady must not let the malign misdeeds of a monster fasten so firmly upon her fair heart.”
She huddled into him then: burying her face against his black leather armour and toying idly with the hilts of his various blades. “Sing me to sleep again please, Misericord. I heal faster when I sleep, but I am too frightened to even try to close my eyes at the moment.”
He ran his hands over her hair and cast his mind back to the songs that his mother used to sing to him and his brothers when they were children. The lyrics would not lend themselves to him: all that he could comprehend was that the Lady lay broken in his arms. Tortured...as so many women were by the witchfinders of our world...but I made no such misdeed: I never injured an innocent!
“Do I not deserve even one song then, Misericord?”
“My Lady, I should never have strayed from your side. This gruesome gambit required too rich a ransom.”
“The decision was mine to make, Misericord. Please don’t blame yourself: I took a risk, and it paid off. I just need to get past the consequences now.”
“Then as my Lady so seeks, so shall I softly sing.”
She sighed happily and relaxed against him. “Thank you, Misericord.”
He cleared his throat and began:
“The shadows shift beneath the boughs
Of the king of trees
In the deep woods now
And high above grows dark the sky
O’er the king of trees
As the hunt rides by:
Harken hither and hide!
My weary wildwoods’ child.”
∞∞∞
Ullensians were often deemed savage and merciless; a nameless untamed horde of wild men and even wilder horses. Even their nomadic allies, the desert blooded merchant traders of Ixran, were wary of them. Those folk who dwelt within walled cities and long established farmland communities found the nomads to be disturbing. The smaller villages on the outskirts of western Anyosia were constantly vigila
nt for any sign that the horsemen were abroad. And of all of the supposedly lesser races, the Ullensians were the one that made the proud sylvanthir hesitate; for they tipped their swift arrows and cruel spears with cold iron, not the refined steel of Anyosia, or the decorative bronze and gold of Ixran.
They were not a people to be crossed lightly. This much at least, Bandhir had gathered. Still he was waiting for Kaiwan when she emerged from the shamans’ tent. “Sorceress, I was listening, and I am concerned about what these Ullensians are proposing. I do not think that they threaten idly. Perhaps it would be as well for us to depart now.”
“But would it not be cowardly for me to leave without completing the trial, Efrym?”
“Sometimes true courage involves not caring what fools think of us. I believe you when you say that you are the Ca’Ryln: I have seen you call the very earth to your aid in battle! I have no wish to risk the champion of this world in a foolish competition. Let your brother have his crown. We know the truth, and that is all that matters.”
Kaiwan stared at him. “Where will we go to, Efrym? I thought that you wanted to come here too.”
“I did, until we arrived. I am greatly disappointed by this place – and I suspect that you are as well, sorceress.”
“It is not what I had hoped, but I still do not see where else we could hope to go. Anyosia is not safe for outlanders or sylth users, after all.”
“Well, what of the desert land that your father hailed from? Why should we not go there?”
“I do not know the way.”
“I do.” Drithik had joined them; accompanied by Saylii and Nala. “My family are merchants. I have been to most places on Graymyrh. I can be your guide.”
Saylii clapped and pranced from one foot to the other. “I shall go with you too!”