Exile (Bloodforge Book 1)

by Tom Stacey

  “I’m not going anywhere, Aifayne. I just need to go out of sight for a minute, if you know what I mean.”

  The elderly priest bristled. “Out of sight, my Lord?” he squeaked. “Absolutely not! I forbid it!”

  Loster bit the inside of his cheek and tried to ignore Aifayne’s nagging tone. He was a kindly old man and any sharpness in his voice would have been born of concern. “I’m going for a piss, Aifayne. If you insist on me not breaking eye contact, I shall oblige.”

  Aifayne blushed pink and stammered over his reply. “Oh, well, why didn’t you say?” He slammed the door shut and Loster spun away and slipped into the musty darkness of the forest.

  The forest of Mantle was old: a dark and gloomy place of beech and elm and oak that smelt of rotting vegetation. Thick moss clung to the low limbs of the trees, and creepers as thick as a man’s wrist wound around the thick trunks like blood vessels around a man’s heart. If I cut one, would it bleed? Loster wondered. He smiled and ran his hand over the rough bark of the nearest tree. I don’t have a weapon and wouldn’t know how to use it anyway — he held out his hand as if to prove his innocence to this old man of the forest.

  He stepped over an obstructing root and reached up under his white acolyte’s tunic to loosen his trews. His water steamed as it hit the earth. The weather had been unseasonably warm as the world slipped into winter, yet now it seemed that Frost had dug its fingers into the soil and that tendrils of cold were reaching out to choke the life from the land. He shivered uncontrollably, as men relieving themselves often do, and buttoned up his leggings with stiff fingers.

  It suddenly occurred to him that he was entirely alone. When in Elk he had been under constant watch. In daylight hours he had never strayed too far from the eyes of teachers, or his father’s guardsmen. Nighttime was the only time he had to himself, and most of the time in his dim room was spent waiting, dreading the tramp of drunken footsteps approaching his door. Now his only watcher was Aifayne, and though the priest was a bumbling, crook-backed old man, he was still sharp. Loster was held on a short leash with a firm grip.

  The young acolyte sighed and then held his breath, closing his eyes to open his ears so that he might listen to the forest’s heartbeat. There was nothing. No tweep-tweep of birds or creaking of tiny insects. Loster frowned and opened his eyes again. He was alone, with only the hiss of the wind to keep him company. He turned and looked about him. There were greens of many hues and the deep blues of afternoon shadows, hiding from the sun. Here and there droplets of yesterday’s rain still clung stubbornly to the leaves, whilst others sparkled as they fell into the slow track of a column of light. Behind him he knew the small convoy waited to bear him to Kressel, though through some trick of the forest he could not hear any activity from it. This is my chance, he thought. He could run, but he doubted he would get more than half a day away before his father’s guardsmen found him and brought him back for punishment. Aifayne’s discipline would be timid at best in comparison to Malix’s, but any attempted escape would shame the old priest, and the Lord of Elk would bring retribution down on his grey head. And I will be dragged back to the Great Hall. Then it would not even matter if he were a black thrall of the Temple Deep. Nothing would save him from his father.

  He felt suddenly weak and feared that he would suffer one of his episodes. If it came over him out here he could be left alone for hours. He doubted Aifayne had the strength or even to the will to come looking for him if he fainted. Loster gritted his teeth and clenched and unclenched his fists, encouraging the flow of blood and breathing in deeply. The tunnelling began to recede and crept back to the edges of his vision, though it left him with an empty feeling of sour nausea in the pit of his belly.

  He retched and spat bile as bitter as vinegar on to the bole of the old tree in front of him. He stood up straight and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and felt a sudden stab of fear that he was making too much noise; that he might awaken unfriendly eyes in the otherwise lifeless forest.

  He turned and tried not to run back to the road, though he was sure that if he turned he would see a nameless horror approaching fast. He quickened his pace despite his resolve not to and abruptly stumbled out on to the raised stone, tripping on a jutting edge. He glared down at his feet.

  Now that he really looked, the grand high road of Temple was not nearly so grand as he had imagined it would be. This deep into the forest, the insistent push of the trees had bitten into this highway of men, and here and there the roots had lifted the stone slabs as though they were made of nothing heavier than cloth. These trees had watched healthy cousins cut down by cruel iron and their vengeance was to jealously take back their land, spilling the earth in muddy peninsulas on to the pale grey stone.

  Loster knelt and massaged his stubbed toe, and just then the door to his tiny, cramped carriage flew open and a wash of heat struck him full in the face. He sighed. Aifayne was an old man and his bones felt the cold more than most people, so he had a small, shielded brazier of blackened iron in the carriage that emitted a stifling and smothering warmth.

  “My Lord! You have been gone for almost a quarter of the clock!” Aifayne admonished, pointing at an imaginary clock face somewhere in the sky. “Must it take so long to empty your bladder? I was ever so worried.”

  Yet not so worried as to leave the comfort of your carriage, thought Loster. “Apologies, Aifayne. I got lost.”

  Aifayne nodded, clearly accepting this as reasonable explanation. “Yes, I should think so,” he mumbled, beckoning his ward inside. “We’re not cut out for this kind of adventuring. We have no knowledge of the forest, and after all why should we? We are of the gods and our thoughts are directed inwards. I know you have found your studies difficult, my Lord, but it will come. I remember when I was an acolyte. I was reading ‘The Third Commune of Dawn’ when all of a sudden…”

  Loster stood and let the elderly priest ramble on. Soon he would forget why he started and mutter into his long white beard. For the meantime, Loster would use this opportunity to get as much fresh air as he could, and nod and smile and gasp appropriately like a good, attentive acolyte.

  An angry shout made him look towards the head of the column of wagons where several soldiers milled about. He began to walk towards them, drawn by curiosity rather than an urge to assert his flimsy authority.

  “My Lord? Lord Loster? Where are you going?” Aifayne’s nagging tones tugged at his sleeve but he waved them away and walked on. The cries from the priest became more insistent.

  Ahead of him the road curved slightly so that he could not see what was causing the soldiers to be so agitated. There were quite a few of them now, spilling off of the road and on to the muddy bank that fell into the forest. Malix had not spared too many of his guardsmen. Fifteen men had left Elk, and five of those had turned back after Temple, but the truth was that anyone in the dark grey favoured by the Lord of Elk made Loster uncomfortable. Aifayne’s carriage seemed more and more comfortable with every step he took.

  The wizened priest’s cries had receded into a distant whine, and now he could hear the low, threatening tones of his father’s men rising and then falling again in the swell of anger.

  “I won’t say it again, peasant. Give me an order one more time and I’ll gut you!” said a hard voice. Loster felt the buzz of adrenaline and fought to keep his hands from shaking.

  “An’ while you’re sticking him, I’ll stick his pretty daughter,” said another. The men in armour laughed. There were five of them — no, six.

  “Your sword ain’t sharp enough, Podwain.”

  “Do you even know where it goes?” More laughter.

  “Give her to Nerret. He ain’t ever ‘ad a woman!”

  “Oh, she’s just a girl, this ‘un. Needs a gentle touch.” This time the laughter had a deeper, uglier sound, and Loster sensed that the moment was ripe for something sinister.

  “Hold,” he called out, then added uncertainly, “men.”

  They turned as he
rounded the lead wagon — a simple wheeled gurney stacked with shovels and tent pegs. The men stood in a crescent that now opened outwards as they turned, like the blooming petals of a metal flower. In front of them was a simple cart overladen with cargo and covered by a huge piece of white cloth, tied down by thick, salt-stained hempen rope, like that a sailor might use. On the back of the cart sat a woman of around forty summers, wrapped up warm with her head covered by a shawl. At her side sat a girl a few years younger than Loster. Her hair was dark as night under a new moon, yet it framed a face too youthful to be truly attractive. She was also scarred by fear, her eyes wide and her lips parted slightly. Loster suddenly felt very protective of her.

  He stepped through the semi circle of his father’s men, careful not to brush his shoulders into the hard metal pauldrons they wore, until he found himself face to face with a short, stocky man. The man was prematurely grey, with dark skin darkened further by the sun and whipped to the texture of old leather by the wind. However, his clothes were wealthy and finely cut, if a little shabby.

  Loster finished his inspection, knowing it seemed arrogant and cocky, but also knowing that it gave him time to think. The man stared back with a grim expression that suggested he had just eaten something unpleasant. There was steel in his eyes and his hand hovered near the dagger hanging from his belt.

  Loster turned back to the soldiers with what he thought was casual disdain. “What is happening here?” he tried to keep his voice level.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” said the first speaker, before adding, “milord,” without any real feeling.

  Loster breathed in slowly and adjusted his feet so that his stance seemed firmer. “That’s not what I asked, soldier.”

  The first man spat a fleshy lump of phlegm on to the road. He was a lanky, ginger-haired man, in cheap battered armour, probably passed down from family members whom it had failed to save. “I ain’t no soldier. I’m a guardsman.” Loster noted that most of the other men had the good grace to shift uncomfortably and avert their eyes.

  “That’s not what I asked, guardsman,” Loster added just enough edge to that last word to sound vaguely menacing, but it had no apparent effect on the man in front of him. He continued, “I asked what was going on.”

  “I need these wagons out from my way,” said a thick foreign accent behind Loster. “You’re blocking the road.”

  “So are you, you fat oaf,” said the self-appointed spokesman. “Stand aside, milord. We’ll tip his wagon into the muck and stick on him on one of ‘is majesty’s sticking poles.” The guardsman pointed at a rotten stump of wood that thrust upwards out of the earth some yards from the road. It was no tree and had clearly been cut by human hands. Loster knew the story, as did most people under Illis’ rule. After the Helhammer had freed the Empron from the dungeons of Fend, he had ordered every Respini prisoner to be impaled on great wooden poles, all along the road to Ruum. It was to serve as a warning that any who crossed him would die in agony. Loster had no desire to recreate something so dark and terrible.

  “No,” he said softly.

  “But your Lord father—”

  “Is not here,” Loster finished for him, surprised at his own courage. The guardsman’s face flushed with anger. “What is your name?”

  “He’s Dilitch, milord,” said one of the others with a humoured lilt in his voice, earning an evil glare from the man he had identified.

  Loster nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the foreigner. “And you?”

  “Faro,” he said.

  Loster looked over the stocky man’s shoulder, past the two females who hugged each other against the cold. A mist was beginning to form, which seemed strange to Loster, but then he was unused to life in the low country of the Heartlands. He had spent all of his fourteen years in the shadow of the Widowpeak and any fog there tended to end up speared atop the great mountain. He looked back down the length of the convoy and then returned his gaze to Faro, trying hard to look lordly and stern but afraid he might appear constipated instead. He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “We have many wagons, and you have but one.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “My Lord!” corrected a guardsman in an angry roar. Loster, grateful for the support, tried to ignore the sound of Dilitch hawking another gobbet of phlegm on to the damp stone.

  “Yeah, he’s a lord,” said the surly guardsman, though his tone suggested he believed otherwise.

  “Lord or no,” drawled Faro, “I need to get past.”

  “Why the hurry, fat man? We thought your daughter would wanna stop for a play,” said one of Malix’s men.

  The others laughed and Loster flushed with the prudishness of one who had not known a woman. “Enough of that.”

  “Come on, milord, she’s about your age. Reckon you could get your tip wet.”

  “What is going on here?” cried a shrill voice, and the small group of armoured men split apart to reveal the crooked form of Aifayne shambling forward with purpose. “Come away, my Lord. Let the soldiers deal with this. What is it? Broken axle?” He peered over Loster’s shoulder at Faro.

  “Broken head, more like. Thinks we should move, milord,” Dilitch spoke in a calmer, more respectful tone reserved for the elderly or the pious. Aifayne was both.

  “Move?” crowed Aifayne with a raspy chuckle. “Very good, very good. Oh, and I am no lord, master soldier, just a simple man of the gods.”

  Dilitch bowed his head respectfully as Aifayne passed. The priest reached Loster and plucked at the sleeve of his pristine white tunic. “Come, my Lord. You will catch a chill out here. Come.” He tugged insistently.

  “Wouldn’t wanna catch chill, milord,” said Dilitch wickedly, head still bowed.

  Loster scowled and felt an unfamiliar anger rising within him. He yanked his arm away from his minder. “No, Aifayne. I have business here.”

  “Business? What business?”

  “Faro here—”

  “Faro where?” said Aifayne.

  Loster looked behind him to see that Faro was by his wagon, helping his wife and daughter down from the wooden bench seat. Loster strode to his side.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, uncomfortably aware that Faro’s daughter was watching him intently.

  “Leaving,” he said simply. “I need to get out of here.”

  “But we can’t move the wagons,” Loster protested. “Your things…”

  “Keep them.” Faro turned to look at him grimly and ran his eyes over the young acolyte of the Temple Dawn in an inspection of his own. When his face did not soften, Loster could only guess that he did not like what he saw. The foreign man — a merchant? — jogged forward to the carthorse that had pulled his wagon. He freed it from the traces and then lifted his daughter on to its back.

  “You don’t have a saddle,” said Loster dumbly, too unsure of what to say to say nothing. Faro ignored him and formed a stirrup with his hands for his wife to step into. The older woman slipped and clutched at the horse’s mane to steady herself. Faro caught her considerable bulk and pushed her up roughly, heaving with his hands on her rump. The men jeered but he ignored them too and began to lead his family away, walking alongside the horse. When Dilitch tried to provoke him with the thrust of a shoulder, he deftly sidestepped the challenge and continued on his way.

  The guardsman set his jaw and probed the root of a black tooth with the tip of his tongue. “You just gonna let ‘em go?” he asked accusingly.

  “What?” said Loster, snapping out of his confused reverie. The mist had thickened and it was making his tunic damp.

  “Your father wouldn’t have done that,” said Dilitch with the confidence of a man facing a boy. The fiery-haired guardsman took a menacing step forward.

  “Come, Lord Loster,” said Aifayne, shuffling past the swaggering guardsman. “Let the soldiers handle this.”

  “There ain’t nothing to handle now he’s gone an’ stuck his nose in where it don’t belong.” Dilitch was
growing bolder as he saw the uncertainty and fear on the face of the boy in front of him.

  “Be ware,” grumbled one of the other guardsmen.

  “Why should I?” sneered Dilitch. “’He’s just a jumped up little prick.”

  Loster did not react, so Dilitch stepped closer, revelling in this moment of power. Yet Dilitch was a lesser son of lesser sons, and he had misread this situation entirely, for though Loster was afraid — truly afraid — it was not of the skinny, pockmarked guardsman looming before him. Rather he was looking at the silhouettes in dark grey armour that were approaching from the mist. They were still far enough away to make it difficult to identify, but Loster had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t remember any of his father’s men being so tall.

  Dilitich’s predatory gaze flicked from Loster to a point over his shoulder — an action that the young acolyte noticed peripherally. Loster twisted his head to look past Faro’s abandoned cart at the towering soldier that stalked on to the road behind the retreating merchant. The soldier stopped and craned his head to the side, then began to stride towards them on alarmingly long and birdlike legs.

  “Oh, your scouts have returned, master soldier!” said Aifayne delightedly. “Come, Loster, we must return to your carriage. We will be moving on soon.”

  Loster stood frozen to the spot as he watched the giant approach. The soldier was fully covered in plate armour the colour of a wet pebble, though it did not glisten like metal. The armour was hard and angular, lined with geometric etchings and grooves that resembled the fuller of a sword. Its helm was a flat plate of grim grey, split by a hair-thin visor. The soldier did not speak, but drew a slim, needle-like knife from a hidden sheath behind its back and paced forward with purpose.

  Then the screams began.

  Loster and the men around him burst into action. The young Lord turned and grabbed Aifayne, dragging him by the hood of his robe into the spaces between the trees.

  “What are you— My Lord!” Aifayne struggled weakly but Loster had a strength born of fear and the ancient holy man was no match.