by Tim Stead
And afterwards? It bore all the hallmarks of guilt. The five had done nothing for two hundred years. Well, not quite true. It seemed that two of them had taken their own lives. The remaining three had set about trying to build a better world, to atone.
They had not done a good job.
Seti and Iarran, the names now corrupted to Seth Yarra, had travelled to a new land and tried to create a just and peaceful society there. They had created The Book as a guide for their new people. Satisfied with their creation, they then removed themselves, answering to their guilt in the most final way, and leaving Pelion alone of all those who had once ruled the world.
In the time between their creation and now their people had degenerated into a rigid and fanatical society – one where men were punished for laying one stone upon the other in the wrong way, where intolerance had become a creed.
Pelion, too, had tried to atone.
He had established the six kingdoms. He had created the Bren, probably, Pascha thought, to make a more malleable species than mankind. Finally he had raised up the Benetheon. The Bren had become jealous of their progenitor’s other children, and now sought to make war on men, while the Benetheon itself was mostly dead or swimming around the sea pretending to be fish. It was not a stellar record.
She took a perverse pride in the fact that none of the twelve had been women.
Their discussions had become more intense. Pascha was pushing him now, trying to squeeze the last secrets from him, and he was surprisingly reluctant to divulge them. It was almost as though he knew when the last words were spoken his purpose would at last be spent, and there was no more call for him to be in the world, even in this reduced shadow existence.
She found that more and more she was able to guess his secrets. It was more than native intelligence and luck. Perhaps it was because she was here, living in Pelion’s mind, that parts of what he knew were constantly leaking into her consciousness.
“Ants,” she said when he brought up the subject of the Bren. “You started with ants.”
Pelion’s composure faltered for a moment, but he recovered almost at once. “Yes,” he said. “A low beginning, but there was less that I had to discard. There were other creatures, too, but I did begin with ants.”
Pelion explained the process, how he had laid magic upon magic to change ants, by increment, into the Bren. It was not at all a simple thing. The task had taken years. Ants may produce warriors, workers and queens, but the degree of specialisation in the Bren was far greater, and the mechanism for breeding whatever was desired complicated in the extreme.
Ants are simple. They have no minds, really, and so the collective mind of the Bren had to be conceived and designed as well. Pelion had been clever here. He suited the mind to the function. The messengers were so tied together that they were really one creature, immortal and omnipresent. The warriors were different again. A portion of a warrior’s mind was subservient to the mind of the creature above him, and that creature’s to the one above him, so that commands could be passed instantly through the chain and the soldiery of the Bren behaved as one. It worked only downwards, though. The commander, whatever level he might be, saw only what he saw, thought only what he thought. In this sense he was like a man.
The diggers, the nurses, the many other specialities were each different in their own way. They all shared something, though, a single thread that ran through them all. Pelion called it the will of the Bren, the common purpose. No one individual carried it. It was a sum of parts, an average if you like.
Pascha was, for once, impressed. The structures were elegant and robust, and the Bren had proved it by surviving more or less unchanged for at least sixteen centuries. But all things grow and change, and so had the Bren. They chafed at their historical subservience to men, and so they had rewritten their history, were in the process of rewriting the laws that Pelion had left them.
Pelion knew this, and he did not approve, but Pelion had cut himself off from the world, and could no longer interfere. He wanted Pascha to do it for him. Her task, Pelion told her, was to tame the Bren once more.
“Tame?” she asked. She did not like the word. It smacked of slavery, of dogs and horses, and she knew that the Bren were proper creatures with minds that were more or less the equal of any man.
“They stray from their path,” Pelion said.
This, too, did not seem right. She acknowledged that Pelion had created the Bren, but once made they should be permitted to find their own path. Trying to dictate too much might well lead to rebellion or the sort of grievous error that now possessed Seth Yarra.
“And what is their path?” she asked. “Where should they be going?”
“Going? Nowhere. They should be staying. Their place is below the ground. I made them that way. Now they lust for the rightful property of others.”
When he put it that way it sounded convincing, but something within Pascha insisted that the Bren should be free to make their own way, to choose their own path. It was as though everything Pelion now told her seemed wrong or deficient in some fundamental truth, and that made her look within for truth, and judge more harshly everything he said. It also made her sad.
Forty Four – Skal
Three days it took, and they were hard days, slogging through the bitter cold, camping at night among the cathedral pines of the high plateau where the frozen wind sought them out in the dark hours and chilled their bones, wrapped up as they were in whatever they could carry from the fastness of the Chain. Skal had not thought it would be so hard.
He lost four men. Most commanders would have been proud to have done so harsh a journey and lost only four, but Skal counted each as a scar on his honour. He had not thought to lose one.
Even so, when they came through the final pass and descended at last to the Heron Valley, green and patched with snow, he had felt a great burden lift from him. It was still cold. After all, winter still held sway over the whole country, but it was a living cold, not the killing, frozen weather of the high lands.
They had carried what they could, but the fodder to keep their horses alive had taken the place of food, and so they needed to live off the land. It was easy now for the horses. There was enough wild grass for them to feed, but the men were not so easily victualled. The Heron Valley was sparsely farmed, but there were sheep and cattle here, and with three thousand men to feed Skal was prepared to steal, borrow or buy what he needed.
Mostly he bought. He bought with paper – no more than his word, really. He wrote what he had taken, a price that he had agreed with the farmer, and signed his name. Enough of them had heard of him, heard that he had rescued their queen, and that was enough. He was able to agree a fair price with most.
Urgonial kept to himself. Wrapped in a thick cloak of nondescript colour the Durander boy mage could pass for just another Avilian among thousands. He sat his horse well and most of the time vanished into the midst of the army. It was only in the evenings that he came to Skal’s tent and sat with a black bowl of water, peering into it and saying this and that about the world beyond.
Skal thought the talent remarkable, though it was hardly tested. They encountered no sign of Seth Yarra on the plateau, nor for three days moving slowly south down the Heron Valley. It was on the fourth eve that the mage saw something.
He stiffened suddenly, and bent closer to his bowl, gesturing with his right hand and muttering to himself.
“You see something, Areshi?” Skal asked. They were alone together, as was their custom. Outside his men were still setting up the camp for the night and twilight was settling over the land. Urgonial hushed him and continued to look at the water. Skal accepted the rebuke and sat, wondering why he was taking this from a child.
He did not have to wait long.
“There has been a battle,” the boy mage said.
Skal was instantly alert. “Where? Between whom?”
“Not far from here,” the boy replied. “A few hours ride at most, into the hills east o
f the river. I cannot tell who fought who, for I see only bodies, and the numbers are not great. Perhaps a hundred. They lie unburied. But they are fresh, Lord Skal. I see wetness in the blood, and very little crow work done on them.”
“Can you say the number of miles?”
“No more than ten, no less than eight. Will you ride there? There is no threat.”
“When men are killed there is always threat, Areshi,” he said. “We must determine who did the killing and why, and who was killed. Friend or foe, it will be important just to know it.”
The boy nodded. “I did not see further tonight,” he said. “With more time I could have tracked them. I could do so in the morning if you wish it.”
Again there was a small reproach in what the boy mage said. He had asked several times that they stop earlier so that he had more time to look ahead, but Skal wanted miles behind him, and so pushed on each day until the light began to fade. Urgonial had said that he could not practice his art unless hidden from prying eyes, and Skal understood. They were riding through Telas, and every man that lived here was his enemy.
“In the morning, then,” he said. “We shall discover where the victors are, their numbers, too, and shape our strategy accordingly.”
He found it difficult to sleep after that. He lay eyes open, staring at the canvas above him that flapped and billowed in the lively night air. He heard every voice that spoke in the night, saw the dance of shadow flames against the tent walls as campfires died away around him, but sleep would not come.
Some Telan unit, perhaps, risen against the occupier and finally run to ground. Or perhaps a large Seth Yarra patrol ambushed by rebellious Telans. Either was possible, but he could not be certain of anything. One thing that the war had taught him was that nothing would ever be quite as he expected it. He needed to know if the enemy was on his flank.
In the morning he was gritty eyed with lack of sleep, but he was up well before dawn, pacing the camp, his presence making officers chase sergeants and sergeants chase men from their tents. They were moving before the sun rose above the distant peaks of the Dragon’s Back. Urgonial had already done his work.
Skal had considered a patrol, sending just a few men to scout the area and report back what they found, but he wanted to be there himself. He wanted to see, and he didn’t want to leave his regiment, so he took them all.
He sent out scouts, of course, ranging a mile or two ahead of the column, and half a mile to each side. He even left men in the rear to watch the road they had taken in case they were followed.
Within two hours the first of the scouts was back.
Seth Yarra. The dead men were undoubtedly Seth Yarra. His scouts knew their swords, their armour, their clothes, and there was no mistake. The men who had killed them had moved further west, towards the mountains, away from the easy country of the river valley.
Skal followed. Now he was genuinely puzzled. He moved the regiment with even greater caution, slowing even more so that he could send out scouts on foot. He knew from Urgonial that there were about a hundred and fifty men camped in a sheltered valley up ahead. It was a moderately good position. He could not surround them, and to block the other end of the valley he would have to circle round, a manoeuvre that would cost him two more hours.
He didn’t deem it necessary. He had cavalry. They did not. He outnumbered them twenty to one.
There was enough cover for him to get quite close. He moved archers into the trees at the foot of the valley, moved cavalry in behind them. But Skal didn’t want to kill these men because he wanted to talk to them. There were a hundred or more dead Seth Yarra in the hills behind them, and these men had done it, but as he sat astride his horse and peered through the trees he could see them clearly enough. These men, too, were Seth Yarra.
He gave the order and his men rode out in line, blocking the valley with a hundred horse, the archers close behind, ready to step through and shoot a volley if they were needed.
Skal rode with the first rank. It was not just that he knew that he was safe from harm. Being here gave him immediate control over his men, and he knew that he might need it to avert a slaughter.
It was plain enough when the Seth Yarra saw them, which was almost at once. They stopped talking among themselves. One or two of them shouted. One or two others leapt for their bows or drew swords, but the majority of them just stopped and looked. It was as though they had expected this moment, Skal thought.
One of them, still dressed in the remnants of his black tunic and armour, rose to his feet and walked towards Skal. Skal gave the order to his men to stand, and the line steadied. He heard bowstrings stretch behind him, and gave the order again. He didn’t want a stray arrow to start anything.
The cleanser walked steadily towards them, finally stopping about twenty paces shy of the stamping, impatient horses. He was a brave man, Skal told himself, to walk into the face of the enemy. The cleanser stood and looked up and down the Avilian line, and eventually his eyes settled on Skal.
“Do any of you speak the eastern tongue?” he asked. He spoke in Afalel, which seemed to be their adopted speech, and he spoke with a thick accent, but Skal understood his words.
“I do,” he replied. His voice carried clearly. It was uncanny how silent the valley had become. The Seth Yarra were silent. His own men, too, were silent saving the occasional jingle of harness steel. It seemed that the birds themselves had fallen silent.
“I am Jorgan, son of Miran. I am…” he seemed to struggle for the right word. “I speak for these people.”
“You speak for them?” Skal was puzzled by the choice of words, even surprised. “You are not their leader?”
Jorgan shrugged. “It is the word we decided on,” he said.
“I see,” Skal said, not seeing at all.
“I do not know your ways,” Jorgan went on. “But I will tell you our intention, and you may tell me what we must do, if you wish, or then we will fight.”
“Jorgan,” he said. “I have three thousand men.”
“We do not fear death,” Jorgan said, and there was a glint in his eye, steel in his tone, that suggested he was not lying.
“Then say your piece,” Skal said.
“We are unbound men,” Jorgan said. “We have cast aside the teachings of The Book, and we stand ready to accept the wisdom of the one you call the Wolf. We intend to worship him and do as he commands. We will no longer fight but on his word, and in defence of ourselves.”
Skal was aghast. “You’re changing gods?” he asked.
Jorgan raised his head defiantly. “With good reason. We lose every battle. Our men are slaughtered without purpose. Your god stands alongside you, raises his sword beside yours, answers when you call, and when we stood defeated and at your mercy before the wall of stones you granted mercy. We were deceived by our own leaders, They said there would be no mercy, that the virtues of the god were absent in this land, and all that we believed is shown to be false.”
So much from so little. Skal could guess what had happened. The wall of stones had to be Cain’s temporary wall across the White Road. These men had been part of the army that had marched north to attack him, and been destroyed. Their remnant had attacked the wall and been slaughtered until Cain had sent them away instead of finishing the job. It was a familiar maxim. A soldier’s job is to win the battle, not kill the enemy. Cain had lived his words, and this was the result. They had turned on their own god.
The situation was unprecedented, and presented Skal with a problem beyond his experience. Militarily, these Seth Yarra were no value to him. He could not count on them to support him in battle. He could not trust them. They were few, and he could take them prisoner, but that, too, would be a burden. They would need to be guarded and fed, and in any conflict they would weaken him.
On the other hand, they were a political bonanza. But politics was not Skal’s strongest suit. He needed advice on how best to make use of them. The very fact that over a hundred Seth Yarra had turned agai
nst their god might weaken the enemy more than the destruction of another of their armies. Hestia would know, he thought. The Telan queen would see a way to use them well.
“I welcome your change of heart,” he told Jorgan. “But I cannot leave you here to roam these lands. Apart from anything else you will find the people hostile, and the Telans will come and hunt you down.”
“We will fight,” Jorgan said.
“That will not do.” Skal looked over the Seth Yarra again. They were few, and if he gave the order the problem would disappear in a welter of blood. He glanced back at him men, wondering how many of them spoke Afalel. He guessed one in five – enough for the entire regiment to know what had passed between him and this Seth Yarra. Skal didn’t want to kill them. Cain’s words again, and it would be Cain’s work he would be undoing if he acted in haste. “You will come with us,” he said.