Exile (Bloodforge Book 1)

by Tom Stacey

  The lead runner was a hundred paces or so from the illusory safety of the trees when he saw the column of soldiers. He froze in his tracks and his companions bumped into him; one of them went sprawling.

  “Look away now, lass,” said Beccorban. “This is the bad part.” Riella ignored him but her eyes began to glaze with moisture.

  Antler Helm snapped a harsh command in a deep, musical language that carried even to their hiding place. In response the strange, feathered lizard bunched its muscles and leapt, unfolding long but narrow wings that had previously lain unseen, flattened against its back. The wings gave it just enough lift to close on the lead runner in a few short beats. Its beak clamped on to his head and they heard the pop as his skull shattered. The other two were finished in short, bloody order, and the creature began to feast on their broken flesh as the column led the prisoners past. Beccorban swore and dragged a stunned Riella back over the ridge. He let her sit down and rest in the grass, although he knew they needed to be on their way soon. The second city was dead and it would suit them best to be clear of it as quickly as they could.

  Riella did not speak for a long time and when she did it was only a whisper. “I thought they would make it,” she said.

  “So did I,” he lied.

  “We have to help them.”

  “Who, the prisoners? No, Riella. That’s madness.”

  “You’d let them die?” she stared up at him with accusing eyes.

  “It’s not my responsibility.”

  She spat between his feet and he rocked backwards in shock. She stood and shouldered past him to stand carelessly on the ridge. Beccorban sighed and went to join her and watch the grisly procession below. The last few miserable captives were being herded through the broken Wandering Gate. Of Antler Helm there was no sign.

  “I came to see the Temple Dawn,” Riella said defiantly, wiping tears from her eyes.

  Beccorban nodded. “Then I shall take you there.” He tried to pick out the golden dome amongst the distant flames. Maybe there is something to be done in Kressel, he thought, and as he tried to convince himself, he felt the hammer on his back sing with joy.

  XVI

  “I do understand, my love, I just can’t see why we have to go now.” Raiya turned and walked to the room’s one long glass window. It was a rare thing, plate glass, and though it was cloudy around the edges, Callistan thought that he had probably paid a great deal for it. “Why would they care where you are? You’re nowhere near Temple now.”

  Callistan stood up from his chair, which creaked with relief as he took his weight off of it, and crossed to his wife in three short steps. He placed a hand behind her neck and pulled her into his chest, bending his neck to kiss the fiery crown of her hair. He breathed in her smell. It did not fill him with memories as he thought it would but it was comforting: a hot, rich smell of cleanliness and washed skin scented with cloves. “They care because I know things that I shouldn’t,” he said. She looked up at him, unimpressed, so he continued. “There is a man out there who stole my face and took my memory, Raiya. He’ll hunt me to the edges of Daegermund if he thinks I can ruin his plans.” Callistan did not think that the slipskin had anything to do with his memory loss but his wife was taking more convincing than he had anticipated and it could only serve to strengthen his argument. “I don’t know who else is helping him. They could be on their way here, now.”

  Raiya twisted and broke from his grip, turning away and burying her face in her hands. “But why?! Why you? It’s horrible! How can somebody wear another person’s face?”

  Callistan shook his head. “I don’t know.” He paused. “He wasn’t entirely human.”

  Raiya looked at him sharply and then went back to sobbing. “How can this be happening to us? You’ve only just got back and now… now this.”

  “I wish I had answers for you,” said Callistan meekly, “but we can’t be here for much longer. We have to leave, all of us together.” He made to reach out for his wife and then stopped himself. She had been colder than he had expected since his return but that was not wholly strange. After all, he had been gone for months — so she had told him. Now he had swept back into her life to tell her that they must abandon everything and flee north for he knew not how long.

  Raiya fled from the room without a sound and left him alone. Callistan scratched the back of his head and went outside into the weak afternoon sunlight. He stepped on to the large flagstones of the yard, cool now after the passing of the sun. Crucio was hitched to a low rail nearby and the beast raised his head in mute inquisition as his new owner appeared. Callistan smiled and walked to him, patting the horse’s broad chest and tickling behind one large ear. This was an expensive creature, bred for war. It had been good fortune to come by him. Callistan knelt by a deep stone trough and dipped a hand into the silvery water, watching the liquid sparkle as it fell through his fingers. Crucio whickered and stepped forward to lap noisily from the trough.

  Sometimes it felt as if he would never regain his life, could never go back to who and what he had been. Maybe he was being foolish but he had expected things to be different with Raiya. It had been his secret hope that she would fall into his arms and there melt like butter, would kiss his lips and caress his face and soothe his troubles away, make him feel like a husband again, like a man. She was as beautiful as he wished he could remember: red hair like burnt bronze and high cheekbones that looked sharp enough to wound but from which hung a smile of dazzling power. The fleeting Raiya of his memory was always smiling and laughing. Not so in reality.

  This morning, she had run from the tall horseman with dark blonde hair, and Callistan had not known what to do. Confused, he had dismounted and waited dumbly on the cropped grass in front of the main house until a servant appeared. The servant was a middle-aged woman named Cyna, who seemed delighted to see him. He apologised for not recognising her and he had to ask her name twice, but she laughed and waved away his contrition as if it were smoke on the wind. Callistan had decided that he liked Cyna, but she could not help him with Raiya. That was up to him alone.

  Eventually he had found his wife in a large bedroom, probably the sleeping chamber they shared together. It was a low-ceilinged room with walls of pale yellow wood and a stone floor topped with reeds. This was a place that would keep the heat in during the long winters and wet springs. When he entered, Raiya had been hiding behind the bed. She stood abruptly and then, after staring for a moment, covered her face with her hands and tried to run past him. Callistan caught her around the waist and held her until her trembling stopped and she looked up at him, lips drawn in a thin line. She reached out and touched his face, tugging softly on the flesh of his cheek as if to check that he was not some apparition.

  And yet now she had fled from him again. Why so cold and aloof? Did she have another man? No, that thought was unworthy of him.

  Crucio nuzzled his shoulder, nibbling at the fresh white tunic he had donned, and Callistan laughed impulsively, stroking the huge beast’s neck. The sun had burned down to embers and there was a hard line between the amber light and the grey shadow crawling across the stone floor of the yard. Callistan frowned. He would have liked to be away by nightfall, and night came early at this time of year. He did not know how far his pursuers were behind him but he knew they must surely be coming. He stood and marched back towards the house. Where was the damned woman? He needed to get some sense from her. There wasn’t much time. He strode through the door, back into the relative gloom of the dining area. The large wooden table that dominated the room was mournful and empty; the surface was scarred and shiny in places where elbows and forearms had rubbed it smooth. Callistan absently brushed his fingers across the wood as he walked past, wishing that touch could transfer the memories of the moments the wood had witnessed.

  He crossed a wide threshold into a dim hall and cursed as he slipped on something hard. Looking down he saw a small wooden horse, hand-carved and gaily painted. He knelt down and picked up the toy. It was
split in a seam across its back where he had stepped on it and the russet-brown paint had rubbed off its face entirely, leaving a streak across the stone floor that looked too much like blood. Callistan thought of Crucio and felt oddly guilty.

  Cold apprehension trickled into his gut as he thought of his children, Farilion and Mela. Where were they? He had been so caught up in his wife’s strange behaviour that he had put all thought of his children from his mind. He crossed the hall to a doorway that opened into a small room. There were toys scattered everywhere but no sign of their owners. Callistan placed the broken horse in a pocket of his borrowed tunic and crouched to inspect the other discarded playthings. There was a knight on horseback, fashioned from a soft grey metal; a cup and ball game, connected by a thin piece of fraying string; and two wooden sticks that had been tied together in a cross-hatch to make a sword. Boy’s toys. He strained his mind and decided that it made sense. Farilion was the younger. Mela was, what, ten summers? No, twelve. Almost a maiden flowered. She would have long discarded any dolls or other childish things. He smiled. Women sought adulthood with a fierce need, whilst men held on to their youth until senility stole it from them. Or tragedy, he thought, and briefly the phantom smell of burning flesh curled in front of his nostrils.

  Callistan stood and wandered back into the hall. He called for Raiya long and loud but no answer came, so he worked his way through the house towards the servants’ quarters. They were separated from the main house by a thin wooden door that split across the middle like a stable gate. He knew Cyna would be working but the rest of the house was strangely empty and it gave Callistan an uncomfortable feeling, as if he were trespassing. Through the door he could hear voices and the activity of those who work to live. It calmed him, but he did not go through to join them. Night was not far off now and he needed to find Raiya and the children so they could at least prepare to escape. He reminded himself to warn the servants to leave as well.

  He turned away from the orange glow that peeped under the door, and the warmth of human voices. “Raiya?” he called again. He heard the door open behind him and the sounds of bustling activity and boisterous conversation bled into the hallway.

  Cyna stood there, wringing a cloth in her hands. She was a large woman and she held the thick wooden door at arm’s length like a displeasing suitor. “They’re out in the orchard, milord,” she said.

  “They?” he asked.

  “Aye, milord. The lady and the young master.”

  “Farilion.” he said.

  She nodded.

  “And Mela? Where is she?” Cyna looked uncomfortable and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

  “It’s not my place to say, milord,” she said dumbly.

  Callistan frowned and the worry in his stomach froze into hard ice. “Tell me.”

  “I have not seen her for a few days, milord. The Lady Raiya says she is sick but we are not permitted to go upstairs in the main house, even to clean and change the bedclothes.” Cyna’s craggy face wrinkled further as she went on. “It’s been that way since after the last ride out, milord.” Callistan blinked, not understanding, so Cyna continued. “The little lady, milord. She couldn’t go, because of her sickness.”

  “How did she get sick?” asked Callistan lamely.

  “Just a fever, milord, nothing too serious. She took ill one day and retired to her chambers but it meant she had to miss the ride.” Cyna stopped, and when she noticed Callistan’s confusion, she stumbled on, fumbling with the dishcloth. “We looked after her here, but when Lady Raiya and the little master returned, we were told not to go upstairs.”

  Callistan nodded slowly and his mouth was set into a grim line. “Thank you, Cyna. Go back to the kitchens, please.” Cyna disappeared.

  Callistan turned and looked up the stairs. They spiralled and stretched away into shadow and suddenly he was afraid to mount them, though he knew he must. He began to climb on legs weak with dread, keeping to the edges so as to avoid creaking floorboards, as though he did not want to be heard. He gripped the wooden banister with his gloved left hand and pulled himself up, reluctant yet eager to find out what had happened to his daughter.

  He came out on a landing of dark wooden floorboards. This was the highest point in the house and the small porthole windows cut into the thick walls would probably afford a great view over the surrounding landscape. However, each had been covered with a stiff leather hide, nailed to the stone so that all was gloom. Only the most persistent of the sinking sunlight spilled past the hides to form a halo on the floor. Dust floated like snow in the meagre light, and looking down Callistan could see a faint layer of grime that coated everything. His eyes were still adjusting, milking what they could from the darkness, yet he could make out the tell-tale marks of small footprints in the dust. Mela? Or had her brother been here?

  There were four doors but only one was partially open and it was there that the footprints led. Callistan walked towards it, careful not to mar the spoor with his own bigger tread. He reached out and pushed the door open but it caught on something heavy before it could open fully. He tried it again but the door would not move. Carefully he slid his body through the gap and into the small room. There was a low bed, a wooden chest and some furs, and there behind the door, a large pile of discarded clothing and sheets. He knelt and rummaged through the pile but there was nothing else besides the tangled fabrics.

  Callistan stood and looked around. The room was empty and the wooden shutters were locked against the light from outside. The room smelt musty and had clearly been abandoned in a hurry; the way the sheets on the bed were thrown back and the pile of discarded clothing suggested somebody had ransacked a wardrobe to find something. But what?

  He made a cursory check of the other rooms — a storage cupboard stacked with linens and unwanted furniture; another large bedroom, similarly abandoned; an empty cell with bare stone walls and a filthy wooden floor — and then went to the window. By his reckoning it would offer him a view out over the fields behind the house. He yanked the hide from the wall and eye-watering sunlight poured in as a welcome torrent. Callistan blinked rapidly against the sudden pain and pressed his thumbs into his eyes to try and massage them back to comfort.

  When he opened them, he could see again, though the orange ball of the sun was still too bright as it sunk towards the horizon. Before him marched a wide expanse of green grass, verdant from the life-giving stream that cut across it. The land stretched away in a flat sweep, dotted here and there with darker patches where clumps of trees stood or stubborn rock poked out from the turf like a burrowing animal. To the right was a low hill upon which sat a cluster of trees in many shades of green and brown, with leaves that caught the light as they flirted with the cool breeze from the east. The orchard. It was a mess of woodland colour and looked like it had not been cared for in some time, but even from this distance, Callistan thought he could make out two small figures flitting between the columns of the trees.

  Callistan carefully laid the leather back over the window and made his way to the stairs.

  It was time to get some answers.

  The grass was buoyant and springy and it added a lilt to Callistan’s steps that he did not feel. It was a short walk from the house, over the small bridge that forded the stream and up to the hill. As he walked, Callistan noticed that the colours were not so bright as he had once thought. When he had crested the hill behind the house that morning, the land had been caught full glare in the dawn sun, and everything had seemed vibrant and full of life. Now the greens seemed washed-out and diluted, and the bright flowers he had seen from a distance seemed nothing more than pale imitations of their summer glory.

  Approaching the hill, Callistan thought he could hear rushing water nearby. He noted that the earth was still damp from the rains of the last few days and his boots slid in the mud several times as he climbed. His feet tore grass from the ground and left brown scars on the hill as though a wild beast had savaged it, but eventually he reached the top. The
re was a low wooden fence, built to keep out idle pests, and he leapt it with ease, ducking as a fat bee buzzed by on its way to find a suitable flower. It was late in the year for bees, but the sight of the busy insect reminded him of summer and happier times — still formed of faceless, nameless memory, but happy nonetheless. Ahead, through the thick tangle of overgrown greenery, he could make out the figure of Raiya and a smaller silhouette by her side. His heart should have leapt at the sight of his son but the dread in his stomach had a firm grip and it sucked the joy from him.

  He cleared the denser trees and waded through a knot of thick gorse, ignoring the tiny, thorny blades that slashed at his knees. Raiya and Farilion had their backs to him and were looking down at something that he could not see. As he closed on them, he could see that Raiya was weeping and that Farilion was covered in patches of mud as if he had been playing. Callistan reached them and put a hand on Raiya’s shoulder, then looked down at the object of their attention.

  There in a patch of hastily and clumsily cleared grass, was a grave.

  His breath caught in his throat, then escaped as a low sob that he could not stop. It was a small grave, dug for a child, and the soil on top sat clumped and thick, not properly stamped down, nor lined with stones to keep out scavengers. The weeds and shrubs had been cut back only as far as they needed to be and looked as though they were merely awaiting another bout of rainfall so that they could stretch out and seize back the stolen land.

  Farilion looked up at him with that expressionless, removed look, so mastered by the young during moments of grief. Callistan wept then. He let go of his wife’s shoulder and sank to his knees ignoring the cold press of wet mud against his leggings. He tore at the invading plants with his bare hands, oblivious to the scores of tiny scratches and welts. He heaved with sorrow and then fell forward until his brow touched the loose soil that covered his daughter, and his tears salted the earth so that nothing might grow atop this child of his that had been taken from him.