Scourge of the Betrayer ba-1

by Jeff Salyards

  “I believe we’ll leave the way we came in, like rats through the alley.”

  “Very good. And how shall Captain Gurdinn call on you? I assume you don’t want him sharing a drink with you in the common room of the, Grieving Dog, was it?”

  Braylar nodded. “It was, and you assume correctly.” To Gurdinn, “Meet us three miles from the North Gate. Two days hence, when we are to meet with the priest, just after dawn, on the side of the road to Redvale. A small group of your men, only, and if you require armor, make sure it’s blackened or covered. We will lead you to the priests and their promised payment for illicit deeds, but only if you don’t give our position away by clunking about or flashing in the sun.”

  Gurdinn didn’t respond and Braylar said, “I’ll take your hateful stare as agreeable acquiescence, Captain Honeycock, but I do hope you’re less reticent once on the road. I would hate to jeopardize your lord’s safety because of failed communication.”

  Gurdinn glared long and hard, and the baron led his men towards the stairwell they came down. The stairs squeaked with their weight as Braylar and Hewspear rejoined me.

  Braylar looked immensely pleased with himself. “We go. Curfew is but a short time off, and I’ve no wish to tussle with the city watch. I don’t imagine they’d readily accept this tale as an excuse.”

  The pair in front of me was silent as we walked back to the Grieving Dog, and the rain had subsided to a drizzle barely more substantial than mist. Looking around and seeing no one nearby, I started asking a question, but Braylar stopped me with, “I might need a scribe, but no one said I needed one with a tongue.”

  When we arrived, Mulldoos was in one corner, dicing with what looked like city guards, although they didn’t appear to be guarding anything except their ale just now. Hewspear walked over to their table and got his attention while Braylar led me to our suite.

  As we entered, I asked him if he was willing to discuss what happened now that we were in a secure location.

  He replied, “There’s no such thing. And I’ll tell you more when it becomes necessary. You would do well to leave it to me to determine when that is.”

  Hewspear and Mulldoos joined us just after and Braylar locked the door. Then Braylar turned to me. “Retire for the night. Don’t fear-all will be divulged soon enough. And when it is, you can ask as many questions as you like. Well, at least as many as I like.”

  He led his lieutenants into his room, no doubt to discuss all those things I wanted desperately to be privy to.

  I laid in bed for a long time, listening to the revelers in the courtyard below descend into deeper drunkenness, wondering if anyone had been killed in the inn (it seemed likely, given the name), and considering whether these Syldoon were all that they appeared.

  The next day, I was essentially held captive, not allowed to even go down the stairs to the common room or ale garden. Two Syldoon I hadn’t seen before alternated shifts guarding the antechamber. Each time I tried to pass, they informed me that the captain’s orders were explicit. I wasn’t to leave. I considered climbing out the window and down a tree, but I suspected disaster for me if I did, so I contented myself with waiting in my room.

  I was asleep on my bed in the afternoon when my door opened. Braylar sat down opposite me, and when I didn’t respond, he said, “Your breathing has changed-you fool no one.”

  I sat up and asked why he wouldn’t allow me to even leave our suite and he replied, “We have come too far to risk our plan being undermined by a loose tongue or disloyal scribe. Tomorrow, you travel with us, but for the remainder of today, you’ll stay here. Don’t fear-you shall have your opportunity to explore the fair in due time, but not just yet. I have no need for your trust, only your obedience. So. Tomorrow we move.”

  The next morning, one of the new Syldoon-Tomner, he said his name was-woke me before dawn. I dressed and entered the antechamber, finding Braylar, Mulldoos, Hewspear, Lloi, and Tomner waiting. I’d seen a few other Syldoon come and go while sequestered, but it appeared they were remaining behind in Alespell. I assumed Vendurro and Glesswik were already ahead. Mulldoos was pulling a tunic on over his head, swearing as it caught on the lamellar plates of his armor. The others had covered their armor already.

  We headed to the stables and the grooms had everyone’s mount prepared. Braylar had chosen a brown mare with a wild splash of white down its middle for me. I wondered if it would bite, or kick, or buck, sure he would’ve chosen an ill-tempered beast, but it seemed disinterested enough. I would’ve preferred a wagon, even one with a massive bloodstain inside.

  We rode through Alespell in the predawn dark, encountering no one, the clopping of our horse’s hooves obscenely loud with no other noise for competition. When we reached the North Gate, I expected the guards to detain us, but Gurdinn must have already alerted them to our departure, as the portcullis was up and the drawbridge down, despite the fact that curfew hadn’t been called. After exchanging some words with Braylar, the guards let us through.

  We put some miles behind us, still seeing no one, before coming across Gurdinn and four soldiers on the side of the road. True to Braylar’s instructions, they had long tunics over their hauberks, but nothing that marked them as Brunesmen. They could easily have been caravan guards, bandits, or itinerant mercenaries.

  When we reined up, Braylar said, “So very good of you to join us, Captain Honeycock.”

  Gurdinn looked us over, and if he thought it strange that a Grass Dog and an unarmed, unpenned scribe were in the company, he hid it well enough. “Lead on, Black Noose.”

  Braylar ordered Tomner to ride ahead of the party. Whatever else might be said about the man, he didn’t take scouting lightly.

  We traveled on the road throughout the morning, seeing only the odd small clumps of travelers at first, and then thickening traffic heading to Alespell, though we were the only group going in the opposite direction at that hour.

  Unaccustomed as I was to riding, it wasn’t long before my legs and lower back ached abominably. Few words were exchanged by anyone, even when we stopped briefly to allow the horses to rest and eat. Late morning, we left the road for good, and I experienced the usual misgivings-even a bandit-plagued road still offered the illusion of safety. But I doubted anyone was interested in my opinion, so withheld it.

  Lloi fell back and rode alongside me. There was some distance between us and the nearest Syldoon, but I was still surprised when she leaned over a bit, and quietly said, “Always seem to make them right uneasy. Guessing I set even old Hewspear’s nerves to jangling, and he’s the most tolerant of the bunch. What’s your excuse for being stuck at the back?” She gave her customary gap-toothed smile.

  “I imagine they aren’t keen on either of our kind us in their company. Scribes and… what is it you do, again?”

  She shook her head and laughed quietly. “Besides slink around in Captain Noose’s skull, you mean? You do make a body smile, bookmaster. That you do.”

  I’d been waiting for an opportunity to bring a topic up again, and this seemed as good a time as any. “Lloi, back in the grass,” I kept my voice at nearly whisper level, “you mentioned Memoridons. But I sensed you didn’t want to say anything with Captain Killcoin nearby. Why was that?”

  She glanced at the captain at the front of our column. “Like I said, never met one. But I heard the Syldoon talk about them from time to time, mostly when they thought I wasn’t nearby or listening none. Syldoon as hard as they come, afraid of little and less. But the way they talk about them memory witches, they got a real healthy respect for them, about two paces shy of fear.”

  “But from the stories, I always got the impression the Syldoon controlled the Memoridon.”

  She shrugged. “You can put a collar on a ripper and drop it in a cage, but unless you chop off the beak and rip out the claws, you still best step lightly, unless you like the idea of being real dead real fast.”

  “Dead?” I said, loud enough that one of Baron Brune’s soldiers heard and glance
d over his shoulder. I carefully lowered my voice again. “Don’t they do what you do, or something like it? I don’t understand-why they are so dangerous?”

  She waited until she was sure no one was listening. “They can creep through a man’s memories, same as me, sure enough. Said they can track a man by his memories, too. Though I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how. So the Syldoon use them as spies, doing recon and the like. But it’s also said they can strike a man down, just by looking at him. Cripple, maim, kill, drop him to the dirt like a stone.”

  “Why… why can’t you do that?” I asked, suddenly very glad she couldn’t.

  “No clue how. I barely know how to do what I do now. Mostly taught myself, stumbling in the dark. The Memoridon, they recruit their own, same as the Syldoon, real young. They find someone who got the gift of it, they snatch them right up, train them the same way you train a man to swing a sword or scribble on that parchment like you. Talent with no teachers barely talents at all, and rough ones as that.”

  I looked at Lloi, never considering before that she might have had other latent abilities that could have been harnessed if she’d come under Syldoon care earlier in her life. Either way, she would have had few enough choices, and been a tool regardless. Albeit a more deadly one, had she become a Memoridon. But she wouldn’t have been mutilated, or whored out, and she would be powerful, if what she said was accurate and not merely unfounded rumor. I wondered what that version of Lloi would have been like. It was difficult to imagine.

  “When the captain discovered what you could do, why didn’t he bring you back to the empire, or wherever it is Memoridon are trained? Wouldn’t you have been more, uh, useful to him if you had some tutelage or mentorship?”

  Lloi looked up the line again to be sure none of Braylar’s retinue were in earshot, which would have been difficult, since I could barely hear her over the clomping of hooves. Satisfied, she said, “Got the real solid impression the Syldoon give the memory witches as wide a berth as they’re able. Seems to be most times, you attracted their attention, you attracted nothing of any kind you wanted. Things go sour right quick when the witches and the soldiers mix it up.

  “That, and Captain Noose got a sister who’s one.”

  That was exceptionally unexpected. “A Memoridon? His sister?”

  “Yup. And from what I gather, the only blood they got betwixt them is poison bad.”

  I was about to ask more when a Syldoon soldier rejoined the group and spoke briefly with Braylar. I expected that meant we were nearing our destination. We rode up a steep wooded hill, winding our way through bent and bowed trees that must have been ancient. Braylar told us all to dismount before we reached the top, and we walked our horses the rest of the way.

  At the top of the hill, I saw the temple ruins laid out below us, nestled in the crook of a sludgy brown river. While the temple had probably been quite a sight a thousand years ago, it was now mostly a shell. The roof and whatever domes or tiles or spires it had once possessed were completely gone, dragged off to serve other buildings when the temple had been abandoned. There were sections of the wall still intact, though few enough, and arches here and there, some even freestanding, but much of that had been picked clean as well. I wondered why it had been abandoned, but the answer was clear when I looked at the meadows and river behind the ruins.

  The Godveil.

  The air shimmered slightly, like hot air rising off an arid plain that warps whatever appears beyond. The only difference was, this shimmering continued much higher into the sky, bending even the bottoms of the dense clouds, and it wasn’t isolated to one particular spot, but crossed the entire shallow valley floor, over the river, and up into the woods beyond, continuing until it disappeared behind the ridge. And once my eye had caught it, the senses picked up two other things as well-the tiniest noise, so remote it was barely audible, like the last note played by a harp, hanging in the air just before it disappeared entirely, only this note never quite got that far. It simply hung there, thrumming so low you would be hard pressed to notice it at all if you hadn’t already seen the warping air. There was also a whiff of a mildly unpleasant odor, a combination of singed hair and vinegar, so faint and unobtrusive, you might have thought you imagined it if the other signals weren’t there to tell you the Godveil was in the vicinity. I’d seen it once, when I was very young, but it had been from very far away, and for only a short time.

  I’d run away from home-though I can’t recall why now. Some tiff with my mother, no doubt. Most children threaten as much, and never journey too far from the front door, but I promised myself I was going to run as far as I could, never to return. I even packed some food and clothes, and slipped off through the woods. I didn’t know where I was headed, only that I was going to keep going. And I might have. I put several miles behind me when suddenly the woods got quiet. There were no more bird calls. No more scurrying squirrels. Just empty, still woods. And then I saw it, through the trees… the Godveil. My mother had warned me it was out there, somewhere, and that it was the deadliest thing in the world that no living thing could abide. And looking around the deserted woods, I could see she was right. No one lived near the Godveil, or trafficked in the vicinity if they could help it. To do so was to invite death. So I ran back home as fast as my feet could carry me. My mother whipped me double hard when she learned where I’d gone, and made me swear I’d never do anything half so stupid again. And I hadn’t. Until accompanying the Syldoon.

  It’s said the Godveil wraps around the entire world, stretching over mountains, deserts, and every other empty, desolate locale. I hoped never to travel widely enough to confirm or deny that claim, but there was no mistaking that however long or short it was, some part of the Godveil ran its ethereal course behind the ruins before us. There was a good reason no one lived close to the Veil, or built near it either-there were no active settlements, outposts, or communities anywhere along its entire length, if reports were to be believed.

  The only structures remotely close were utterly deserted. All I could imagine was that this temple had predated the Veil.

  Lloi made some strange fluttery sign over her chest and face and looked shaken. When she saw me staring at her she let out a deep breath. “Like I told you, when my people figured what I could do, they gave me a choice. Leave off some finger bits, or part the Veil. Weren’t much of a choice, really.” And then she shivered, which made me shiver as well, despite the warm, heavy air.

  That was obviously an expression, “part the Veil,” and ironic at that. You could walk towards it, but no could walk through it. The Veil didn’t part for anyone. But trying, approaching it too closely, that meant the end, just as surely as walking off a cliff.

  I glanced around. The Brunesmen looked uncomfortable being this close as well, and one mumbled a near-silent prayer. Another behind me spoke quietly, with a kind of awe, “Back in Threespire, they got lodges. Call them dream stations. Built right close to the Veil. Never been there, but I hear you pay some coin, you get tethered to the lodge, to a post anyways, so you can walk just close enough. Said the world opens behind your eyes when you do, you see things that never been seen before.”

  Another Brunesman replied, “Same where I’m from. Call them something different though. Must be something to it, I reckon. You reckon?”

  Mulldoos looked at the pair. “I reckon you two are just about the dumbest bastards in the wide world. Only dumber being some fools willing to pay for a tethering. Veil’s the same as any other natural thing that can kill you. Fire, lightning. Nothing more mystical than that. Only thing that opens up if you get real close is the back of your skull.” He looked up at the broiling clouds. “You don’t run around with your sword in the air when it’s thundering, you don’t go walking towards the Veil. Unless you figure being dead sounds mighty fine. Simple as that.”

  Hewspear replied, “Is it? Fires run their course and eventually burn out, and lightning flashes once and is gone. But our grandfather’s grandfathers have seen the
Godveil, and their grandfather’s grandfathers besides. A thousand years, maybe more, shifting, but never changing. Calling to any who would travel close, drawing them closer. A beautiful seductress who kills. You don’t find that strange?”

  Mulldoos laughed. “I find superstitious old goats strange.”

  After a pause, a Brunesman suggested, “It’s said you can see the Deserters, you get close enough. Moving like shadows on the other side. Catch a glimpse of them from time to time. Maybe that’s why they build the dream stations.”

  Even now, long, long after those old gods abandoned humanity, they were still mentioned with a kind of reverence.

  By most anyway. Voice wrought with scorn, Mulldoos said, “Called Deserters for a reason. They good and left us clean, back when your grandfathers’ grandfathers got grandfathers with grandfathers, ain’t that right, Hew? They abandoned our sorry asses. You think they’re sitting pretty on the other side, posing for a painting? Dumb horsecunts, the lot of you. Deserters ain’t never coming back, ain’t never going to be seen again. Maybe they died on the other side. I hope they did. If we deserved deserting, they deserve something worse. But either way, they’re gone forever and more, and there’s no sense talking about it. So quit your cunty yapping before I take your purses and throw you into the Veil myself.”

  That put an end to the discussion. But while Mulldoos had ridiculed and threatened everyone into silence, it didn’t change the tension still hanging in the air. There was that barely perceptible pull from the Veil, even from this distance. More than a simple desire to see how many bones might lay strewn along its course. This wasn’t curiosity, wasn’t even just fascination. It was a horrible compulsion to step closer, to approach the Veil, despite the surety that to do so could only end in doom. Mulldoos was wrong on that count-there wasn’t anything natural about it.