by Tim Akers
Contents
Cover
Also by Tim Akers
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
1: A Gathering of Heretics
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
2: Blood and Iron
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
3: Fire and Shadow
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Coming Soon from Titan Books
COMING SOON FROM TIM AKERS AND TITAN BOOKS
The Iron Hound (January 2017)
The Winter Vow (January 2018)
THE PAGAN NIGHT
Print edition ISBN: 9781783297375
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783297399
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP
First edition: January 2016
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Tim Akers. All Rights Reserved.
Maps and illustrations copyright © 2016 David Pope. All Rights Reserved.
Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
For Jennifer.
Forever.
1
A GATHERING OF HERETICS
1
THEY WAITED IN the gloom. Six men in a small stone hut, warming their hands over the fire pit in the middle of the floor, well armed, well frightened. They didn’t look at one another.
An unexpected cold snap, not uncommon this far north even in the heart of summer, gave them a morning more like autumn. Their breath fogged the air, mixing with the smudgy wood smoke to fill the closed hut with haze. Each man’s face was stitched in the traditional tattoos of the Tenerran spirit warriors of legend. The markings were painted on, muddy blue ink that wrinkled and flaked when they talked.
They were on the south side of the border between Suhdra and Tener, the wrong place to be wearing the ink. They all had friends who had died just for being Tenerran, and family, cold and buried in the mud, who had been murdered by the duke of Greenhall’s men. All risked the same with that ink on their face, even if it was false. A last vestige of the crusade that had taken their religion from them and replaced it with the church, unifying the island under the celestriarch’s rule, putting a doma in every village and priests of Cinder and Strife at every altar.
While the rest of the island had settled into uneasy peace, the marches still saw more than their share of blood and hatred.
“Later than usual,” one of the men said. He was thick, with little neck and an excess of beard.
“He’s always late. You be calm, Tunnie.”
“I’ll be calm when he’s here. Till then, I’ll damn well be what I please.”
“You nag like my mother.”
“Your mother nags like she screws, Mancey,” Tunnie replied. “Everyone.”
They laughed, but it wasn’t a settled laughter. Their voices were blunted by their accents. Deep Tenerran brogues muddied their vowels. They were dressed like farmers, but there was a bundle of clothing on the ground between each man’s feet. A sword lay across each bundle. They didn’t look at those, either. The freshly sharpened steel of the blades danced in the light of the fire.
The men waited, and they stared at the flames.
The door opened, revealing a cloaked man. When he came into the room, they all started to stand, then remembered themselves and settled back onto the bench. He was tall and thin, with delicate wrists and long, narrow fingers, each tipped with a musician’s callus. The man who had grumbled before, Tunnie, spat into the fire.
“Late enough,” he said.
“Early enough, you mean,” the newcomer said. His voice was crisp, the twist of the rural accent more like the notes of a song. It was the kind of voice women loved, and bards cultivated. “Moon’s only now up—and we’re about the moon’s business.”
“You talk like a priest,” Tunnie said.
“No need to be cruel,” the newcomer said. “Now. Let’s get about it, shall we?”
Grumbling, the men stood and lifted their bundles, revealing cloaks like the newcomer wore. All but Tunnie. He kept his hands to the fire.
“I mean it, Allaister. You talk like a priest.” He looked up. “The place we’re going, we don’t need priests.”
“You accuse me of something, Tunnie, but I don’t know what.” Allaister picked up his own bundle and began to unpack it. “Are there things you feel need saying?”
“Just this. You’ve been here four months. We don’t know anything about you, other than that you escaped from Greenhall’s dungeons. We don’t even know what put you in there, much less what broke you out.”
“I broke myself out,” Allaister said. “The gods broke me out. What does it matter? And what does it matter what I was doing there?”
“No one breaks out of that place,” Mancey mumbled, but Allaister ignored him. Tunnie nodded.
“People don’t go to Gabriel Halverdt’s prison for nothing,” he said, “and people don’t just walk out. You could be anyone. A murderer, a rapist… we don’t know enough about you, Allaister.”
“Oh, I assure you. I am a murderer,” he said with a smile and a nod. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“I’ve never seen you at the Frostnight keg. Never seen you drink at the Allfire, and yet you’re the one leading us. I wonder how that happened.”
“You wonder? Have I been anything but honest with you?” He threw back the hood of the traveler’s cloak that he’d been wearing. Allaister’s face was a maze of traditional Tenerran markings, his name and the promises of the Seers etched in woad across his cheeks. True ink, permanent and profane. His face was handsome under the crude markings. His goatee was well trimmed, and his eyes were black. But his voice was calm.
“You’ve been grumbling against Duke Acorn for how long? Years? How often have his men raped your wives? Your daughters? How many of your harvests have gone to his stores, how many young calves pitted for his table? While you starved?”
He turned from one man to the next, and then stopped. “This land is occupied, Tunnie, held by a Suhdrin lord when it’s good Tenerran blood that works its fields. We were born on the wrong side of the border, and for that our brothers have died. I came, and I’ve done something about it.”
“Something. You’ve gotten a lot of us killed. We’ve spilled a lot of our own blood for you.”
“Blood is the price,” Allaister answered. The other men nodded and whispered the same phrase in response, like a prayer. It was an old phrase from the liturgies of the shamans—mystical words, words that carried meaning down from the ancient days, their edges worn smooth by repetition and hope. Tunnie grimaced. He had walked into that. Still, he rubbed his hands over the fire and made no move toward his bundle of clothes. By that time the other men had donned their cloaks and penitent’s masks, to hide their ink and identity.
“I know the words, priest. My family has been bleeding into this ground longer than anyone here. Longer than the church. Don’t think you can preach to me.”
“Tunnie.” Allaister tightened the cord of his belt and picked up the simple sword at his feet. “We go tonight to clean the land. We have bled in different soil, you and I. Our families have knelt to different spirits, but they are honest spirits nonetheless, and not the bookish gods these bastards put over us after the crusade. So I ask—” he raised the sword and fitted the tip of the blade into the scabbard, then slapped it home “—what the hell is your problem?”
“I don’t know you,” Tunnie said. “I haven’t prayed with you. Your fathers didn’t sit the midnight vigil with my fathers, nor your sons with my sons. I don’t know what sort of man you are, nor how you bleed when the spirits call.”
“My brother, tonight you will know.” Allaister fastened the blade and scabbard beneath his cloak, and then raised his hood. The weapon disappeared completely beneath the pilgrim’s robes. Allaister folded his hands into the sleeves of the robe and stood up straight. “Though you must judge the Suhdrin blood I will be spilling, and not my own.”
The others laughed. Tunnie sighed, but he stood and started to put on his cloak.
“I damn well hope so,” he muttered. “My brothers have sacrificed much since you showed up.”
The others ignored him, though they finished their preparations quietly while he got dressed. Allaister stood by the door, staring out into the night. When everyone was ready, they flipped their hoods up over their heads and filed out into the darkness. The last man dumped sand onto the fire, leaving darkness and ash and the stink of fear in the air.
* * *
Gilliard stood atop the guardhouse and looked down at the moon-washed ruins at Gardengerry. The banner of House Halverdt, a triple acorn and a cross, stirred sluggishly in the breeze over the gate. This place had been old when the first Suhdrin traders had found it, shunned by the tribes of Tenerran savages—stone walls surrounded by offerings of burnt flowers and totems of pagan power.
The water here was fresh so the traders had settled and Gardengerry became a major stop for the pilgrims on the road to Cinderfell, populated entirely by faithful Suhdrin and their kin. They had never fully repaired the ruins, however. In the moonlight, Gilliard imagined he could see the old city that had once stood here, tall and bright under the starry sky.
“You’re looking the wrong way.” The voice came from below. Gilliard turned around. There were pilgrims, seven of them, standing outside the gate. They were wearing full mendicants’ robes, hood and mask covering their faces. In the darkness it was impossible to tell more about them.
“Ah, sorry,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place.” Gilliard scratched his head and started the slow walk down the outer stairwell. He was wearing heavy chain mail and a pair of awkward plate gauntlets, along with boots of good steel. The whole kit was heavy, though, and made him nervous when he had to take the stairs in the dark. “Bit late to be outside, don’t you think? You’re close to the savage lands,” he said, gesturing broadly to the north, where the border between Tener and Suhdra lay.
“Really?” the lead pilgrim said a bit tensely. “I was under the impression that most Tenerrans were friendly to the church.” Something about his voice sounded odd. “Hard to walk all the way to Cinderfell without crossing through a few Tenerran fields, hm?”
“It’s Tenerrans from here to the winter god’s shrine, boys. The tame type, mind you, but still. Stick to the godsroad and you’ll be fine. Stray far, and it’ll be mad gods and murderers for you.” Gilliard smiled beneath his helm. “But surely you know that. This your first time traveling to Cinderfell?”
“It is,” the pilgrim answered. The rest of them were awful quiet, and Gilliard still didn’t like this fellow’s voice. He leaned against the wall and peered down.
“Like I said. Bit late to be out, isn’t it?”
“Travel from Pilgrim’s Rest has taken us longer than we expected, but we’re glad for your hospitality.”
“Ho, now. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Gilliard paused at the cupola that overlooked the road. This outer wall wasn’t much good in a siege, but it served well enough for collecting tolls and keeping out vagrants. The guard rested his spear against the wall and leaned down for a better look. “Healthy lot, for pilgrims.”
The men looked among themselves, and the lead one shrugged.
“Should we have been starving ourselves?”
“Traditionally, yes,” Gilliard said, “and Pilgrim’s Rest is quite a distance from here, if that’s how you came. Where’d you stay last night?”
“Doonan. Came up the godsroad.”
“Doonan’s a good walk, but aye.” There was something about these fellows that Gilliard didn’t like. Only one of them talking. “The rest of you taken some kind of vow of silence, then?”
“Uh, yes. They have… and loving kindness, as well. Which is why we’re willing to keep standing here and chat politely, when you really should have opened that door by now.”
“Oh, aye. You’ve taken no vows then, have ya?” Gilliard smiled broadly. “But you’re not worried about running into any Tenerrans, I don’t think. Because you’re of the tribes, aren’t ya? I can hear it in your voice.”
The man sighed. When he answered, the brogue was distinct, though certainly less heavy than the filthy rural types who lived in the outer villages.
“Aye, the sun and moon blessed us with that name, but we’re good little kneelers, my lord. We’re going east, to practice bending the knee in Cinderfell for the Allfire.”
“And why do you travel to the moon’s temple to celebrate the festival of the sun, hmm?” Gilliard liked this group less and less. There were few tribesmen inside the walls, but it was still more than he preferred. “I’m not going to let you in here if you don’t start talking your station. Now, first, why is a group of Tenerran converts traveling through Pilgrim’s Rest? Up Dunneswerry, by the river, that’s the way for lads like you. Thought you lot avoided the ’Gerry.”
“We aren’t from the grasslands, nor the lakes. We live in Lac Leure, down Heartsbridge way,” the pilgrim answered, a hint of anger appearing in his voice. “Just as if we were real people.”
“Not with an accent like that, you don’t. You know,” Gilliard stood straight and snatched up his spear. “I think you can sleep outside. Just for tonight. Lord Cinder will appreciate your sacrifice.”
“Bloody Suhdrin and their bloody accents,” the man mumbled, exasperation leaking through his tension. “Tunnie?”
* * *
The big pilgrim in the back, who had kept his head down for the entire exchange, glanced upward, and then rolled his shoulder. His arm came up in a lazy arc, like he was stretching, and then four inches of cold iron dart was sticking out of Gilliard’s forehead.
The guard collapsed, clattering down the remaining stairs and out of sight of the seven nervous men. His limp body struck the wall and pitched over, landing with a crash at Allaister’s feet. He made a terrible commotion as he went, all that chain and p
late, battering against the stone.
“Not ideal,” Allaister hissed. “Joer, get up there. Tunnie—” he turned to the man “—that blood enough for you?”
“Not near enough,” Tunnie rumbled.
“Good,” Allaister said.
Joer clambered smoothly up the wall, finding finger holds in the vine-cracked stones. The defenses hadn’t been maintained well enough to keep men out, hadn’t even been built for such a mundane purpose—something the Suhdrins had never really recognized in their rush to settle the ancient ruins.
A minute later the gate swung open.
“Surprised no one heard that,” Mancey said.
“Oh, I’m sure someone did,” Allaister answered. “Which is why we need to keep moving.” He hurried the six of them through the gate, then lingered over the fallen guard. Allaister knelt beside the corpse, drawing a blade from his sleeve.
“My apologies, brother. Your sacrifice will be remembered, and your blood counted. Go now to the quiet house.” Allaister muttered something quietly under his breath, using one hand to draw the blade across Gilliard’s neck while making the sign of the moon with the other. A plume of frost whispered out, melting quickly in the summer night. The blood on his blade was sticky and black. Allaister used it to draw a symbol on the dead man’s forehead, smearing blood around the wound.
Gravel crunched behind him.
“You coming?” Tunnie called from the open gate. Allaister closed his eyes in frustration, but hopped up and trotted inside.
“Of course, of course. Making sure the bastard was dead,” Allaister said as he passed the big man. “Didn’t want him talking.”
Tunnie stared at the dead guard and the smear of blood on his forehead. For a second he thought it might be a Celestial death rune, the kind of thing their priests burned into the skin of the departed.
Surely not.
Torches appeared on the upper wall, and the voices of guards drifted down. Grimacing, Tunnie gripped the sword beneath his robes and hurried after the others.
* * *
These men were farmers. Their work was the earth, mud and stone and water, the slow cycle of the year’s planting and harvest. They were not born to killing, but some of them had acquired a taste for it.