Exile (Bloodforge Book 1)

by Tom Stacey

  Loster forgot his search and started forward again but then froze. Kreyiss lay on the ground nearby, dropped and forgotten by its wielder who now stared Death in the face. Loster scrambled over to the mighty weapon and wrapped both hands around it. He had never imagined it would be so heavy.

  He raced towards Antler Helm, dragging Kreyiss behind him.

  “What are you doing? You’ll get us killed!” Barde’s voice was a scream inside his head.

  There was a large block of fallen stone a few paces behind the great Echo and his prey. Once, perhaps, it had sat high on the ruined watchtower, in a time when the land it overlooked had belonged to a mighty nation. It had known wind and rain and salt-air from the sea, ever secure in its mortar, fixed in position to guard the world of men and watch for the coming of a terrible enemy. Now the enemy had returned and stood not six feet away, and the stone had been cast from its righteous perch to the damp ground where it would lay and endure little other than time itself, another untold story in a broken landscape. But Loster was not a stone. Loster could not simply endure.

  Time seemed to slow as he approached the leader of the Echoes. He veered towards the fallen masonry. With two great leaps Loster jumped on to the block of stone and then threw himself off the top, swinging the hammer from the waist as he fell so that it carried all of his paltry weight behind it. He was keening his hatred in a terrible cry of agony and Antler Helm turned to look upon him.

  Kreyiss smashed into the side of the Echo’s head, ripping the helmet free to clatter on the ground, and turning the top half of the Echo leader’s skull into pulp. Antler Helm fell to the stone floor with an almighty crash and Loster flew into his body, grunting as the wind was forced from his lungs, and then rolling away to lie in the dust looking up at a brightening sky.

  The silence of the moment struck him as odd and he raised his head from the ground. Beccorban was staring at him with mouth agape and he was so still that Loster feared that he had died after all. Then the big man blinked and forced himself to his feet, wincing with pain and clutching his stomach with a hand drenched in blood. The man they called the Helhammer reached out with his good hand and hauled Loster to his feet, brushing the dust from the young acolyte’s crimson armour like a fussy parent.

  Loster looked around to see that a crowd had gathered. None were left fighting now. Over the tops of their heads he could see the last few Echoes running pell-mell into the wilderness. They had won.

  “By the gods, lad, Droswain was right,” said Beccorban softly, and then he did something that Loster thought was wholly odd.

  He knelt.

  Loster stood still, unsure of how to react, but then the other soldiers nearby began to kneel as well until every man, though injured and exhausted, was kneeling on the ground, kneeling for him.

  “Victory!” someone cried, and Loster began to laugh, because even now Barde had nothing to say.

  Beccorban ordered the Echo dead — Antler Helm among them — to be stripped of their armour and left for the birds. “Let eaters be eaten,” he said grimly. It was one of the few duties that Droswain volunteered for. He seemed oddly fascinated by the dead Echoes, ordering some of their cadavers to be stored on the wagon and arguing against Beccorban’s protests until the big warrior relented.

  When the men had finished cheering his name, Loster was awarded with Antler Helm’s strange namesake, though it was far too large for him to wear. Droswain took centre stage, placing the ruined helmet awkwardly atop the youth’s head and declaring him the Hammer’s Son. Beccorban looked on proudly. He was ashamed to admit — and would never do so — that he had not thought Loster would be able to do it. He had been proven wrong and he hoped that all of his misgivings would be similarly cast aside in the days ahead. After all, this was only the beginning. Veria was still lost. Now they would have to take it back.

  Callistan was long gone. Sometime during the battle he had broken out of his cell, murdered one of his guardsmen and escaped on his horse, leaving only the grisly display of Illis’ slipskin as a remembrance. Droswain had declared him outlaw. Anyone who saw him was to treat him as a foe.

  Beccorban noticed that Riella was absent during Loster’s mock coronation. As Droswain recounted Callistan’s crimes to the gathered men, he went to find her. She was sitting some distance from the fortress, next to the makeshift pen where the horses had been corralled. He approached her from the front so that she could see him coming and sat down beside her on a mound of grass, grunting as his broken body protested. She said nothing, instead twirling a thick green blade in her fingers.

  “Droswain tells me that the horseman murdered young Tellisk,” he said softly, probing her.

  She answered quickly. “I don’t believe it. He’s not a murderer.”

  “And last night Loster was not a warrior. People change, Riella.”

  She winced. “You always call me that when you’re trying to be serious.”

  “I didn’t realise I was trying…” he began but she assumed a po-faced expression and lowered her voice to sound like him.

  “Now listen here, Riella. What you have to remember, Riella.”

  He laughed, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and she smiled at him, though he could see it was only a mask. “If you believe he’s innocent, lass, then go after him.”

  She looked down at her feet and then nodded her head at one of the horses. It was already packed for a long journey, laden with satchels and a bedroll.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “Thank you, Beccorban,” said Riella. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  He waved a bandaged hand. “We’ve all had a part to play in this.”

  Riella nodded and for a moment they both enjoyed the comfortable silence between them. “Did Loster really kill the big one?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed. “I never knew he had it in him.”

  “He’s made for great things, Riella. So are you if you follow your path.”

  Riella looked off into the distance where the mountains of the Heartland Range were a blur on the horizon. “I’ve made peace with my path. I was never meant to be a priestess. I know that now.”

  “Then what will you do?” he asked, looking sidelong at her.

  She turned her head and stared back and he realised just how much he was going to miss her. She was one of the few people he knew who could meet his gaze. “I’ll follow him,” she said simply. “And get my damned knife back.”

  “Gods help him,” said Beccorban and they both laughed again.

  Riella set off before midday. She said no more goodbyes to anyone and Beccorban watched her go as Mirril clung to his leg, the small girl’s eyes wet from crying. He had a sense of loss he had not felt in a long time but he would not let it show on his face as nakedly as the child beside him. It made him wonder who was the stronger. Go on lass. Find what you’re looking for.

  Droswain came to him once she had gone, asking for a private moment.

  “I looked at Antler Helm’s body,” he said straight away, eyes boring into Beccorban as though searching for some hidden truth.

  “Make sure he’s dead, will you?” said Beccorban lightly.

  “I noticed that he had been stabbed in the throat — a twisted piece of metal had been rammed into what I would assume was his jugular vein.”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, priest, but I wish you would hurry up and say it.” Beccorban watched the little man, half-expecting some accusation, though what it would be he did not know.

  “I am saying, Beccorban, that I am well aware of what you did — for Loster I mean.” He leant in close. “I know it was you that killed the beast.”

  Beccorban shrugged and swayed away from Droswain. The little man’s breath was too sweet, like overripe fruit. He pressed a thumb into the bandages wrapped around his wounded hand. It stung but it gave him an excuse to wear a sour expression. “I did no such thing, priest. Loster killed Antler Helm. He used Kreyiss. We all saw
it.”

  Droswain laughed mirthlessly. “Yes, you’re right, he did. That is not to say, of course, that the foul creature was not already fatally wounded. I appreciate what you did today, Beccorban, I really do. I took you for a glory-hound but I admit that I was mistaken. You have made yourself a firm ally in me, for what that is worth.”

  Beccorban nodded and watched as the small priest walked away. Though Droswain had come to offer peace, Beccorban could not help but feel that it was meant as a threat. Maybe you’re just paranoid, he told himself. You’ve lived too long in the shadow of betrayal. Things will be different now. He grunted.

  “Things are never different,” he said aloud.

  They moved on by early afternoon, though none of them really wanted to go. True, they had lost friends here but those friends had been mourned and given proper funeral rites, consumed by fire like warriors of old. The Dalvossi fortress meant something else to them now than death. It meant victory. It meant hope. The Echoes could not touch them here.

  Beccorban pushed them on into the Dalvossi hinterland, leading them ever westwards but careful not to stray into the Raid to the north. That was a wild land, even more wild than this one, and three hundred armed men would not be too large a target for some of the bandit kings that dwelled there. Loster was given a horse to ride and every man he passed greeted him as if he were an old friend. It was an odd feeling but he knew he had earned it and it made him proud.

  The sun made an appearance, bursting through the clouds that had plagued them since Fend and shining its warmth down upon them. Loster basked in the rays. He felt at peace with himself, as though the gods themselves were congratulating him.

  “Don’t believe in everything you’re told,” warned Barde. The familiar voice in his head had been more quiet since the battle, only concerning itself with weak insults that held no lasting rancour. With every passing minute, every pat on the back, every person who cheered his name, Loster was finding it easier to ignore his phantom brother.

  The land began to rise again as they pushed inland. Beccorban allowed them ten minutes of rest every two hours but they marched long into the night and then on again before it was light. After a solid day of travelling, they came to the great Dalvossi steppe, the vast area of flat, stony land that had once trembled with the sound of the mighty overmarches and their huge armies. It was one of the most carefree times in Loster’s life. No longer did they have to worry about the Echoes hunting them down. This was an empty land in which they could hide forever if need be.

  On the dawn of the second day, Loster left behind Droswain who rode on the wagon and trotted his horse forward to find Beccorban marching alongside his men at the front of the column. As the leader of their force, Beccorban had been offered a horse of his own. He was still recovering from his injuries and both his chest and his left hand were swathed in bandages, but the grizzled old warrior would not hear of it. “I’ve lived through and with worse than this, lad,” he had said. “A little walking will help get the breath back in me.”

  Now Loster reined in his mount to keep pace and grinned down at Beccorban who smiled back. A part of him warned that he should feel guilty riding one of their few horses while others walked, but nobody seemed to begrudge him the privilege and he thought it was about time that he spoiled himself a little. “Hail, Helhammer!” he said.

  “Hail Echo-killer,” replied Beccorban, and a few men cheered.

  Loster beamed. “Where are you leading us?”

  Beccorban grunted. “For the moment, I intend to get as far from the coast as possible. Once we are clear of the Echoes’ reach we will find somewhere defensible.”

  “So it’s like Droswain said, then. We are exiles.”

  Beccorban sighed. “For the moment, but we will go back. First we must rally. Once the tale of your victory spreads then others will come. There will be some who escaped the Echoes’ nets and we need as many men as possible.”

  “And women!” shouted an anonymous voice and there was much laughter. These men were happy, untroubled. I will make them the core of my army, thought Loster. He was surprised at his own ambition, but then scolded himself. You are the Hammer’s Son. Sooner or later you’re going to have to start believing it.

  “And then we take back Veria?” he asked Beccorban, knowing what the answer would be.

  “Yes. When we are strong, we will carry the fight to the enemy.”

  Loster remembered how he had felt when fighting. Though the thought of more fighting scared him, it also made him excited. He reached down to his saddle and touched the hilts of the two curved swords that he had taken from dead Echoes. The task before them was huge but on that day nothing seemed impossible. With men like Beccorban on their side, how could they fail?

  Loster lowered his voice and steered his mount closer to the old warrior, suddenly less comfortable with broadcasting his thoughts than he had been. “When you took Veria back from the Respini, how did you start?”

  Beccorban looked at him and his eyes were seeking something. Whatever it was, they must have found it because he looked away again. “With a single step, Loster. Then one at a time.”

  Loster smiled. One step at a time. He could do that.

  Beccorban turned them south again, angling back towards the borders of Respin. In the distance, little more than a jagged blur on the horizon, Loster could make out the Heartland Mountains with the towering pinnacle of the Widowpeak at the western limit of the range. His soul fell silent at the sight and he slowed his horse, letting the soldiers pass him by. Some looked at him curiously but he ignored them, trapped in his own inner thoughts. Up on his horse, he suddenly felt very exposed.

  There, at the foot of the largest mountain in Daegermund, lay his home. There was the lair of the Guardian, the place where all of this had begun with the spilling of his brother’s blood.

  He felt cold and a sharp pain started at the back of his neck.

  “Oh, if only they knew, Los. If only they knew the truth.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Slipskins can’t bear children,” the pretend Illis said as he cut into it. “You killed your own son.”

  Callistan shook his head and screwed his eyes shut. He could feel the pain welling up inside him again, the memory of that cherubic face as he had thundered down upon it and stole the life from its small body.

  “Please, Papa! Let me go!”

  A whimper escaped his lips and the man next to him shoved him roughly. “Are you alright?” the stranger asked.

  Callistan nodded and looked down at his boots. It was dark and he was wearing a hooded cloak so the man wouldn’t have been able to make out his features anyway, but it made no sense to be recognised. Not here.

  “It’s okay to be afraid,” the man continued. He was in late middle-age — around fifty summers — and Callistan had chosen to stand next to him for this exact reason, and because he had a kindly face. He always put himself amongst the older ones. They were less likely to cause trouble, less likely to shout something out and so be taken.

  It was the fourth time he had stood in the main square in Temple, and tonight it was raining fat droplets of icy water that soaked through every stitch of clothing until your bones were cold and brittle. Temple had changed little since his last visit, but it was emptier now. Some people chose to stay in their homes at night, but that often led to trouble. The Echoes were watching everyone all the time. If you missed too many of the nightly addresses it got noticed and then they sent the Knockers to your door. The Echoes had not sacked Temple like Kressel. Instead the city had opened its gates to the enemy and had been granted its peoples’ lives in return.

  For a time.

  Already there were stories of disappearances, people going out and never coming back. Every drunkard in every tavern had a theory of where the missing ones were going but Callistan knew the truth of it. An army marches on its stomach, he thought, and Temple is more than a plateful.

  He had no plans to stay, of course. This city was
a lost cause, it had been before it was captured. He was only here for one reason and that reason had brought him south, through the icy passes of the Heartland Range where Beccorban had led his beleaguered forces almost thirty years before, and up over the walls of the capital of Veria. Though it had taken months to get here, entry into the city itself had not been difficult. The Echoes did not give much thought to defence. They had no need of it. They had taken the entire nation in less than a year, and with the Dremon still absent the nearest formidable force was less than a rumour.

  Part of him wondered how the others had fared in their battle but he quickly suppressed those thoughts. You left them for a reason. Don’t carry them with you. He fingered the hilt of Riella’s knife, strapped to his belt. She had called it something but the name slipped his mind. It wasn’t important. Weapons should not have names. A stab of guilt hit him and he bit his lower lip. Every time he thought of her, of how she tasted, he thought of his wife, skinned and worn as a cloak by the foul servants of the Echoes. No, that’s not how they do it. He shook his head again and cleared it of haunting memories.

  “Look there, who’s this all primped up?” the man nudged Callistan’s shoulder. “He’s not the one they usually send.” The man shrugged. “When he’s done we can go home. You should come to the Five Fillies, I’ll buy you a jug of ale.”

  Callistan looked up and saw himself. The Doppelganger. It still wore his face. Three nights of failure and finally he had found his tormentor. He slid his hand down to the blade of the knife and it bit into the ball of his thumb, drawing blood. He gritted his teeth.

  “No announcements tonight, good people. Be sure to get home safely,” the Doppelganger’s face was split into a wide grin and under his hood Callistan grinned back, though there was no warmth in his smile. He was not as good an actor as his double.

  The Doppelganger stepped down off the stage and into an entourage of robed Echoes and the crowd began to disperse.