She nodded. ‘Okay. Next, why do I feel great? I should be exhausted, ill, whatever.’
‘I hired a Sanang hedgewitch to heal you.’
‘What?’
Kalayne shook his head. ‘I don’t intend to repeat myself.’
‘You found a Sanang mage? Here?’
‘The Kellach have been hiding him for some time. His services don’t come cheap, let me tell you.’
‘How did you afford it?’
‘I sold some of the valuables I took from the embassy the night you were arrested. As well as the hedgewitch, your jewellery paid for the wagon, a pair of horses, and supplies for our journey.’
‘Oh yeah? Where are we going?’
‘Kellach Brigdomin.’
‘Not on your fucking life.’
‘It’s safe there,’ he said. ‘We can regroup. Others are making their way to the haven at Domm, I have seen it. We shall need to meet with them, as I have a plan for how we can defeat the Creator.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘That’ll be Chief Duncan,’ said Kalayne. ‘He mentioned he might pop over to see you. Remember, he thinks that Guilliam has been given powers. Let’s keep it that way, there’s no point trying to explain the truth to him. Oh, and he knows nothing about the hedgewitch, so don’t mention it.’
The door opened, and a tall, broad Kellach man entered, bowing his head due to the low ceiling. He took a seat at her bedside and frowned at her.
Shella smirked. ‘You have the biggest beard I’ve ever seen.’
‘I am Chief Duncan,’ he said, his eyes flickering contempt. ‘I rule the Kellach Brigdomin, and this quarter of the city. Were it not for the many favours that Kalayne has performed for our folk, I would not have allowed you to be hidden on our property, but even so, your time here is limited.’
‘Don’t you worry, Duncan,’ Kalayne said, slapping the huge man on the back, ‘we’ll be off in the morning. The wagon’s all been sorted.’
‘Are you also leaving the city?’ Duncan asked.
‘Aye.’
‘You should stay. A new dawn is rising over the empire. Now is the time to be living here, in the capital. That bitch Keira may have burned half of it, but we can rebuild it bigger and better. A new reign of peace has come. No army will ever dare attack this city again. The Creator has blessed the Emperor with the power he needs to protect us.’
‘And that’s just lovely,’ Kalayne said, ‘but unfortunately I have business elsewhere that forces me to leave for a while. But have no doubt, I’ll be back.’
‘Will you be escorting her out?’
‘Oh aye,’ Kalayne said. ‘I’ll be with her for a good portion of the way. I’ll make sure she leaves.’
‘Good.’
He stood, flinching as he banged his head on the ceiling.
‘Farewell,’ he muttered, and left the room.
Shella sighed. ‘What a fuckwad. How did he ever become chief?’
‘He’s a good man,’ Kalayne shrugged. ‘Has the best interests of the folk here at heart. He’s just always felt grateful to the Holdings for taking them in when they were refugees. He’s loyal. And stubborn. He committed himself to the alliance and the empire, and he’ll be with them to the end.’
He leaned over and picked up a bottle from the floor.
‘One other thing in his favour,’ he said. ‘He controls many of the illicit stills in the Kellach quarter, and let me tell you, this stuff’s not too shabby.’
He opened the bottle.
‘Tonight we might as well get pissed,’ he said, ‘for tomorrow we begin a long, and no doubt extremely tedious journey to the far end of the world.’
‘Sounds delightful,’ Shella said, picking up her mug. ‘We might have to put Thymo to bed first.’
‘And then we’ll be alone,’ he leered. ‘Still feeling grateful?’
‘Dream on, grandpa.’
‘That’s not a wagon,’ Shella said, pointing. ‘It’s barely a cart, at best.’ She turned to Kalayne, his face in the shadow of a hood as Thymo trotted behind. ‘Is it supposed to get us all the way to Kellach Brigdomin?’
‘Your jewellery didn’t fetch at much as you might have hoped. If I were you, I’d put in a complaint to the Rakanese government for giving you such cheap tat to wear.’
They reached the small wooden wagon. Two Kellach porters were loading trunks and boxes onto it while another held the reins of the horses harnessed to the front. The sky in the east was growing brighter, and a chill breeze swept through the tavern courtyard. Shella pulled her hooded cloak around her as they waited.
When the porters had finished, Kalayne opened a purse of coins and gave them a couple each. They passed the reins to Kalayne and went back into the tavern.
Kalayne gestured to Thymo, and the boy climbed up onto the cart, and sat down on the narrow driver’s bench. The old Kell got up next to him.
‘Am I in the back?’ Shella said.
‘For now,’ Kalayne said. ‘Let’s get you out of the city first, before you make yourself too obvious.’
Shella frowned, but stepped up onto the rear of the cart. She squeezed between the crates and boxes, and settled down.
Kalayne leaned back. ‘Put this blanket over you, and stay quiet.’
He snapped the reins, and the two horses moved off towards the courtyard entrance, where it opened onto a street. Shella watched from under the blanket as they pulled out onto the cobbles of the narrow road, the tall wooden tenements of the Kellach Brigdomin quarter to either side. The streets were quiet, with just a few Kellach going to work, as well as several homeless Holdings folk sleeping in doorways.
She noticed more of them as they approached the edge of the quarter, lying out in the open air, or clustered round burning braziers. Ahead of them loomed the old Emergency Wall, built in a few frantic days when Agang Garo’s army had threatened the city, in what seemed a lifetime before. A great opening had been knocked through, and the gates were being hauled open as the sun rose.
Kalayne led the cart to the end of a small queue of wagons waiting to get through. A large group of Kellach labourers on foot had also gathered, ready for a day’s work in the New Town.
When the gates opened a squad of imperial soldiers strode under the archway and began to wave the traffic through. There were paying no attention to the wagons or the labourers, gathering round a fire to warm their hands.
Kalayne clicked his tongue, and the horses began to walk, following the wagon ahead of them. Shella kept her head down as they went under the arch and entered the New Town, where the city’s biggest market was located.
She gasped. The market had gone, replaced by mounds of piled-up wreckage, charred and burnt. Dozens of labourers were cleaning the huge, open square, sweeping up the ashes and clearing the roads. The houses and shops bordering the square were burnt-out shells, their roofs gone and their walls blackened.
Kalayne flicked the reins, and the horses turned the cart onto a road leading through the merchants’ quarter. Many of the fine, stately mansions were in ruins. Whole streets had been gutted, while just a few yards away, others had escaped the devastation. She remembered back to the night under the institute, and the rumbling explosions she had heard. Now she saw the damage they had caused.
Bodies were being pulled from the rubble, and heaped onto the backs of open-topped wagons. Imperial soldiers stood around, guarding the properties of the wealthy.
They turned a corner, and Shella saw a huge breach in the city walls. It was over twenty yards wide, and giant fragments of rubble were scattered across the street. There, the bodies that were being slung onto wagons were not Holdings, but Sanang warriors from the fire mage’s great horde. Their corpses were burnt and blackened, and littered the street. A way through had been cleared, and Kalayne led the cart between the mounds of scorched bodies, grime-covered labourers, and the dozen wagons that were half-piled with dead.
The horses shied away from the stench, but Kalayne spoke soft
words to them and they passed through, then went up a side street towards the eastern gates.
In the distance, the ruins of the cathedral came into view. Its bulk had been pierced in several places, and its high spires had toppled. The roof had collapsed, and smoke was lingering up from the gutted interior. To the left, the palace was in a similar condition. Its great silver dome had gone, replaced with jagged and scorched stonework.
As they approached the gates, Shella sunk down lower into the cart and covered her head with the blanket. She felt the horses come to a halt as a Holdings voice rang out. There was the muffled sound of a conversation, and they moved off again.
Shella sighed with relief as the cart picked up speed.
After a few minutes, she felt a hand shake her.
‘You can come out now,’ Kalayne said.
She lifted the blanket and gazed back down the road they were trotting along. Between the cart and the city walls lay a carpet of dead Sanang, covering every inch of ground. She gagged as she realised that each body was missing its head. Above, birds were circling, and in the distance a few pyres were sending thick black smoke into the sky.
‘The Creator did this?’
‘Aye,’ Kalayne said.
She bowed her head. ‘The bastard used my power to do it. The power he ripped out of me. Do you know if Keira came close to stopping him?’
Kalayne shrugged. ‘She certainly distracted him, and that along with my tampering with Benel’s mind was enough to force him into making a mistake. Maybe if she’d arrived a day earlier, or if a few fireballs had been luckier and scored a direct hit, she might have got him, but then you’d be dead. We’re fortunate, under the circumstances.’
‘But the Creator is now the Emperor,’ she said. ‘With his power he can rule the world.’
‘I don’t think he’s interested in ruling, to be honest. He sees us as worthless worms, and he’ll use us to get what he wants without any consideration for our wellbeing.’
‘What does he want?’
He stared at her, frowning. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘You still have no idea what he’s planning?’
‘No. My dreams have taken me into his mind more often in recent days, and I’ve caught glimpses of his plan as he was discussing it with the Lord Vicar. He needs the five different mages, and he wants to try again, but as to what his aims are, or what will occur if he succeeds, I have heard not a single word. The only thing I’m certain of is that it will destroy all life in this world.’
She snorted. ‘Why the fuck would Arnault and the rest of them be helping him, if they know his plan will result in them getting killed?’
‘Decades of the Creator being in their heads,’ Kalayne said. ‘Dreams, visions, twisted versions of the truth, over and over, until their minds essentially belong to him.’
‘So he’s going to try again?’
‘Of course. I doubt very much that he’ll decide to settle into his role as emperor and govern us all with a kind hand.’
‘How do we kill him?’
‘Funny you should ask,’ Kalayne smirked. ‘I may very well have concocted a little plan.’
‘A plan that involves us travelling to the far end of the world?’
‘Indeed.’
Shella frowned.
‘Come now,’ Kalayne said, ‘I’m sure you’ll love Domm.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘No, you’ll hate it. But we still have to go. There are people you need to meet.’
‘Like who?’
Kalayne smirked. ‘Well, the fire mage for one.’
‘Keira? You told me she was dead.’
‘No, not exactly. I said that the Emperor stopped her heart. What I have been saving until we were out of the city is that it was restarted again. Rejoice, for the fire goddess lives.’
‘Rejoice?’ Shella cried. ‘Are you fucking joking? Do you think I have any desire to meet the mad bitch that murdered a hundred thousand of my people? What makes you think I won’t kill her the second I lay eyes on her?’
Kalayne frowned. ‘We’ll sip that whisky when we come to it.’
The morning sun shone down on them, and Shella felt a hint of warmth in its rays. She dozed for a few hours in the back of the wagon, huddled between the crates as the horses kept up a steady trot on the road. Kalayne woke her as they approached a junction. The way ahead stretched eastwards towards the wall at the border with Arakhanah, and a branch split off to the right and headed south, where it joined the main road that skirted the coast of the Inner Sea all the way to Rainsby.
Next to the junction a small hut had been erected, and around it sat a squad of imperial soldiers, their shields piled up against a wall, and crossbows slung over their shoulders.
‘Back under the blanket,’ Kalayne said.
She sighed and lay down, covering herself.
‘Halt,’ a voice cried, and she felt the horses come to a stop on the road.
‘Greetings, troopers,’ Kalayne said. ‘How can I help you this fine morning?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Rainsby, my good sergeant.’
‘Why?’
‘Well let me see. It’s less… less burnt.’
‘Thinks he’s a smartarse,’ another voice said.
‘Shut up,’ said the sergeant. ‘On your way, old man, but watch out for rogue bands of Sanang. They’ve been spotted in the area.’
‘I thought the beloved Emperor had destroyed them all?’
‘He killed all the warriors, right enough,’ the sergeant said, ‘but there was a few up in their camp. Followers, whores, the crippled and a few slaves. Anyway, they scattered, those that could. We rounded up most of them yesterday, but a few are still on the loose.’
‘Thank you, sergeant,’ said Kalayne.
‘What’s going on?’ said a different voice.
‘I was just about to let these folks pass through, Father,’ said the sergeant.
‘Blast you,’ said the priest. ‘You know you’re supposed to wake me. Every traveller needs to be checked.’
‘I tried, Father. You were gone to the world.’
The priest tutted, and Shella heard his footsteps approach.
‘This boy’s Rakanese,’ the priest said.
‘You’re a clever fellow,’ Kalayne said. ‘Are you going to try to read my mind?’
‘Be quiet, old man,’ the priest said. ‘I don’t need to read your mind to know that you shouldn’t be transporting a Rakanese child across the Plateau.’
There was a long pause, and Shella lay still and strained her ears to listen. She clenched and unclenched her fists, readying her powers.
‘I have papers,’ said Kalayne. ‘Just give me a moment…’
There was movement at the front of the cart, and the sound of a crossbow thrumming.
Shella leapt up from the blanket as Kalayne toppled out of the wagon and fell to the ground, a bolt between his eyes.
The priest staggered back a step, his eyes wide, while the soldiers stared open-mouthed at the body of the old Kell man sprawled on the road.
‘I thought he was going for a weapon, sarge,’ a trooper shouted, his voice wavering.
Shella gripped Thymo by the shoulder and pushed him down into the back of the cart.
‘Close your eyes, little man.’
She raised her hand, rage coursing through every nerve. The faces of the soldiers gazed up at her. Some reached for their crossbows, but were too late. She swept her arm in their direction and they fell like reaped wheat, their eyes and ears pouring blood.
She turned to the priest.
He stared up at her, frozen in terror.
Shella flicked her hand, and his head disintegrated in a flash of red, showering the bodies of the fallen soldiers.
She jumped off the wagon, and knelt by Kalayne. She closed his eyes and bowed her head, numb to his death, as if she were watching from afar.
Thymo knelt down beside her, crying silent te
ars. He reached his arms around the old man.
‘Grandpa.’
Shella rubbed his shoulders.
‘It’s going to be okay.’
Her eyes welled up and she began to weep, breaking down over the body of the dead Kell, sobs wracking her body.
Thymo hugged her, and they wept together as the sun rose higher in the sky.
Without Kalayne she had no clue what to do next. She dismissed the idea of travelling to Kellach Brigdomin, but could think of nowhere that would be safe for her and Thymo. She gazed at the boy. He had relied more on Kalayne than on her during his stay in the embassy, and fear coursed through her as she realised she was now the sole adult responsible for him. Jayki was gone. And Kalayne.
‘You stupid bastard,’ she said, wiping her tears away.
‘Come on Thymo,’ she said. ‘We’ve lots to do. Let’s get grandpa’s body up onto the cart, we’ll bury him when we stop tonight. Then I need to clear up the soldiers.’
She glanced at the boy and forced herself to smile.
‘It’ll be alright.’
Thymo said nothing. He got to his feet, his face streaked with tears.
‘Will you help me lift grandpa onto the cart?’ she said.
He nodded.
‘Good. Then we can be on our way as soon as I’ve cleared the road.’
‘Where are we going, auntie?’
She got to her feet, and gazed at the mountains on the eastern horizon.
‘A little town,’ she said, ‘where they might remember me. Somewhere we’ll be safe.’
‘Where?’
‘Silverstream.’
Chapter 38
Family
Southern Plateau – 7th Day, Last Third Winter 506
Daphne gazed at her daughter. ‘Yes.’
‘Aye,’ Karalyn grinned.
‘Yes.’
‘Aye.’
Daphne glanced at Killop, who was holding onto the reins of the wagon. ‘You’ve done this to her.’
‘I need to teach her a bit of Kellach if we’re going to the Holdings.’
‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘If we were heading to Domm, I’d be teaching her to speak like a proper Holdings lady. Although I hope you draw the line at some of the more colourful language your people use.’
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