A Demon in Silver

by R. S. Ford

  War raged around them as they picked their way through the nightmare. Kaleb could only watch wide-eyed as he limped through it, smelling the stench of fire and blood. When they eventually reached the far side of the battlefield there was only the black of the waste ahead of them.

  Kaleb glanced over his shoulder. It seemed the horde had seen them now, as though their attempt at escape had spurred on the skeletal masses and now they were hell-bent on pursuit.

  ‘You must go,’ ordered Avenor. ‘Across the desert. Follow the furthest star.’ He pointed with his blade and Kaleb squinted with his one eye, seeing a baleful red orb in the sky.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, trying to put weight on his right leg and feeling it buckle beneath him.

  Avenor pulled him close. ‘You are a Sword Saint,’ he growled. ‘You are Kaleb Ap’Kharn. You will walk.’

  Kaleb felt Avenor’s words fill him with strength. A part of him remembered who he was, the victories he had achieved, and for the briefest moment he saw the battlefield with clarity. Legion warriors in armour of bone fought against the red-armoured Bloodguard.

  ‘Go,’ said Avenor, turning back to the battle.

  Kaleb paused long enough to watch Avenor march back towards the charging Legion berserkers, before he turned and stumbled into the dark.

  Every fibre of his body screamed as he walked. He could still feel the phantom pain of the nail through his knee, grinding and twisting through the joint as he put weight on it. Kaleb gritted his teeth against the pain, but he could not quell a moan as he took step after agonising step into the darkness.

  With every yard he heard the sound of battle recede behind him as he put distance between himself and the raging demon armies. At any moment he expected some figure of bone, wielding serrated iron, to come thrashing and hacking at him out of the dark. His sense of urgency made him want to run but he could manage little more than a stumbling limp as his feet scraped across the hard earth.

  The pain became more unbearable but Kaleb weathered it as only a Sword Saint could. Vague memories of who and what he was saw him through, as he focused on that red star in the sky. He had to keep going. Had to survive.

  As the sun began to rise he was surrounded by silence. Kaleb was on his hands and knees now, wounded leg dragging, his ruined right hand screaming as he pulled himself along. The morning brought the cawing of carrion birds and he knew they called out for him, watching eagerly as his slow stumbling flight had turned to a crawl. Every time he thought he could go no further Kaleb dug deep, searching for the reasons. Avenor’s words seemed distant now. There was only one thing – the face of a woman – but he could not place her. Kaleb just knew he could not stop. That she would not have wanted him to. That somewhere she was looking for him.

  A bird fluttered down beside him, head bobbing, filthy feathers splayed. Its beak dripped with black, a beak that would soon tear through his dead flesh.

  Kaleb wanted to laugh but his voice was gone.

  ‘Die,’ said the bird. ‘Die, die, die.’

  But he would not die. Not yet.

  Through a distant haze someone was coming. Kaleb tried to shield his eyes from the sun but he could still not make out what he saw.

  ‘Die, die, die,’ said the carrion bird.

  The figure in the distance approached. Kaleb knew not to trust his eyes. This could be a trick, just like the words of the bird.

  If he could stay conscious just a little longer…

  Someone crouched beside him, uncorking a waterskin. Cool life trickled over Kaleb’s lips and he managed to force some down his parched throat.

  He looked up, seeing a face from a distant memory. A face he knew, but one that had changed; one marred by years, grown gaunt and scarred.

  ‘Kaleb,’ spoke the memory.

  Kaleb smiled, a name coming to match the features of that face, features that had changed so much.

  ‘Dantar?’ he replied.

  ‘Die, die, die,’ said the bird.

  Kaleb succumbed to the dark.

  38

  KALEB woke to blinding light and a room of white marble. Columns rose, entwined in bright green vines and drapes of white silk blew in the quiet breeze. At first he thought he had been taken to the Halls of Qeltine to stand forever beside the other Sword Saints. It was the pain and noise that made him realise his mistake.

  He could hear troubled cries and weeping from other parts of the room, beyond the billowing silk. When he tried to move to see the source of the noise his body was wracked with agony. Every inch of him was in pain, but he refused to add his own cries to those of the white hall. Kaleb had cried enough. No more.

  Raising his right arm he saw that his smashed hand was tightly bound. He tried to flex his fingers but they would not respond. Lifting his left hand to his face he realised his head was likewise tightly bound, his left eye covered, the sickly sweet stench of salve thick in the air around him. As for his shattered knee, any attempt to move it sent lancing pain up from his ankle to buttock.

  Before long, silent figures came to minister to him, checking his bindings, applying more salve. The figures were wrapped in white, only their eyes visible. Kaleb tried to speak to them, imploring them to tell him where he was, but they remained silent.

  This continued for days, and slowly Kaleb’s pain receded. When he asked the white figures for information they continued with their silence.

  One morning, still in delirium, he reached out with his left hand, tearing aside the white mask only to see a gaunt face, its mouth sewn shut with metal thread. It was a horrific sight, but one Kaleb was unmoved by. He had seen these ‘Silent Sons’ before and knew they served the Brotherhood faithfully.

  Eventually his bandages were removed and the Silent Sons made him rise from his bed. They supported him as he attempted to walk but Kaleb was weak, only able to limp on his damaged knee. Likewise, his sword hand would never be the same, and he could barely even clench a fist.

  The dizziness when he stood gradually receded as he was made to walk every day, but there was a searing pain that would sporadically cut through the centre of his head. His left eye wept uncontrollably and his vision was constantly blurry.

  Along with the pain came a lack of memory. No matter how hard he tried to remember his recent past he could only grasp fleeting moments.

  There were no answers from the Silent Sons. They continued to minister to him, until finally he could limp unaided, and it seemed he had healed as much as he ever would.

  They led him through the halls of white, through the silken drapes, passing the sounds of the dying and the vine-wrapped columns. The Sons walked with him to an open door, then stopped. Kaleb paused for a moment before continuing out into the bright day.

  He found himself in the Circle, feeling the familiarity of its wide expanse. The memories of it came flooding back. And though they were not all welcome, Kaleb still cherished them, held onto them like precious gems.

  There was a solitary figure standing in the centre of the Circle but through his blurred vision Kaleb could not quite make out any details. He wanted answers, and something told him this lone figure at the centre of the Circle would hold them.

  On he limped, pain flashing up his leg and through his skull, the ruin of his right hand clenched and useless. As he drew nearer the figure, Kaleb recognised the man standing there. The Sword Saint stood rigid, black robe tied with a red sash at his waist, blade at his side, dark hair falling over his shoulders. Dantar’s face was a blank mask. He gave no smile of welcome.

  Kaleb stopped several paces before the Sword Saint, staring into that face he barely recognised.

  ‘Brother?’ he said.

  ‘Kaleb,’ Dantar replied.

  ‘Why am I here?’ asked Kaleb. ‘Why was I saved?’

  Dantar looked Kaleb up and down, taking in his smashed and ruined body.

  ‘Despite what has happened, you still have value to the Brotherhood. You are a Sword Saint no longer, that much should be obvious, but we
can still use you. Seferius is dead. We have a new Blood Regent now. One chosen by prophecy, and it has been foreseen he will raise us up to our former glory. He has deemed it wasteful to cast you out merely because you have become weak.’

  ‘Weak?’ said Kaleb, feeling himself flush with anger. ‘Give me a blade and I will show you weak.’

  Dantar shook his head. ‘Look at yourself. Can you even hold a blade?’

  ‘My left hand will work just as well.’ Kaleb flexed his left hand, his palm itching for a sword.

  ‘We both know that is not true. And your left leg will never be the same; your lack of balance will never allow you to fight the way you could. Your eye is likewise impaired; you cannot judge distance. We both know you are no longer Kaleb Ap’Kharn.’

  ‘I—’ Kaleb wanted to argue, but he knew the truth of it.

  ‘The Brotherhood has no room for cripples,’ said Dantar. ‘But you have been given a chance at redemption.’

  ‘Redemption?’ Kaleb could barely quell his anger. ‘Look at me. I am a cripple because I served the Brotherhood faithfully.’

  ‘And you failed. Avenor is dead. His obsession with freeing you from the Legion led to his rash attack. One in which he and hundreds of his best warriors were slaughtered.’

  Kaleb felt the news pierce him like a lance through his chest. Avenor was dead because of him, and the guilt of it gradually began to dawn.

  ‘The Silent Sons have done all they can,’ said Dantar. ‘The Brotherhood has accepted you back within the fold. Now you have a chance to repay that mercy.’

  Kaleb began to understand the chance he had been given. Avenor had sacrificed himself, and for what? To rescue a broken man? They should have let him die. This was more than he deserved.

  ‘What would this new Blood Regent have me do?’ Kaleb asked.

  ‘Word has reached us from agents in the Suderfeld. A farm girl has been discovered who could aid us. Who could be the answer to what we seek.’

  ‘What we seek?’ Kaleb mulled over the words. ‘And what is that?’

  ‘The restoration of the Brotherhood to its former glory. The return of the Blood Lord. To once again commune with Qeltine through blood and sacrifice.’

  ‘And this girl?’

  ‘Could be blessed with the gift of magic.’

  Kaleb shook his head. ‘After a hundred years? Magic returns to the land in the form of a peasant?’

  ‘I know how it sounds. And I also know how many pretenders there have been over the years. It is a small hope, but one that must be explored.’

  ‘And you are so convinced of the truth in this that you would send a cripple? Why doesn’t the Blood Regent send you?’

  ‘No Sword Saints can be spared. We are a dying breed.’ He looked Kaleb up and down once more, as though his crippled body made the point for itself. ‘Just travel south. Learn what you can. If you return with the girl there will be a place for you among the Brotherhood. You will be given a rank.’

  ‘Given my rank?’

  Dantar shook his head. ‘Kaleb Ap’Kharn is dead. You will never be a Sword Saint again. But the Blood Regent has promised to reward you.’

  Kaleb looked around the Circle, and more memories came flooding back. His knee twitched, his right hand hanging flaccid and useless. But perhaps there was still life in his left.

  ‘Where do I find this girl?’ he asked.

  * * *

  The Age of Penitence brought a period of deep division, of conflict and war, throughout the lands of men. Nowhere was this typified more than in the realm of the Seven Deserts – the Ramadi Wastes.

  Death cults emerged, worshipping the ancient gods; the lost eidolons who had left the world bereft. The harshness of the land cultivated a brutal culture of perpetual conflict and the disparate tribes evolved into factions dedicated to one god or another – idols to which endless rivers of blood were to be bequeathed in an orgy of blood sacrifice.

  In the beginning there were twelve factions, warring in the desert, fighting over scraps. As the centuries unfolded they would develop into their own singular entities – unique organisations with their own creeds and traditions, fashioned for but a single purpose… total dominion over all the lands of men.

  But first they would have to overcome one another.

  Amidst the ranks of each cult a Blood Lord rose – an avatar of their eidolon’s power on earth. Imbued with unparalleled sorcerous power, and unspeakable lusts to match, these beings ruled the Ramadi with an iron fist. But their rivalries were to turn what could have been a glorious conquest into a petty dispute over a wilderness empire.

  The Seven Deserts soon turned into a charnel pit. A wasteland of ash and blood. In those distant days of war, three of the cults were wiped out altogether, their adherents left in the desert to rot, the names of their progenitors lost to the desert winds. The remaining nine have remained locked in mortal conflict ever since, honouring their dead gods with slaughter on the battlefield.

  With the cults’ constant lust for violence and sacrifice, fortune smiles on the rest of the continent. For if the wars of the Ramadi Wastes were ever to cease, and the cults united under a single banner, they might turn their eye to the south and the rich lands that reside there.

  * * *

  39

  The Cordral Extent, 105 years after the Fall

  THE landscape had turned from green to brown, then barren, and it seemed to stretch north forever. If Livia thought she’d been in trouble with Mullen and Josten, there was no doubt she was in trouble now.

  The memory of them cut her deep. Seeing Mullen so cruelly butchered haunted her every step. And just when she thought she had found a friend in Josten they had been torn apart from one another.

  Her new travelling companion made Josten Cade seem like a court jester. He had not spoken a word to her since she’d woken by a campfire two days previously. Livia had felt fear welling up inside her as he regarded her with cold, dead eyes, but if he was going to do her harm she was sure he’d have done it by now. Instead he had not touched her, not spoken, merely led her forever north and, with little choice to do otherwise, she had followed.

  Of course she could have run – he was a cripple after all – but where would she have gone to in this dead land? Livia wouldn’t last a day out here, and despite his ailments he seemed to know how to hunt. Each morning she had woken there was a fresh spitted rabbit, though where he had caught such an animal in this desolate place she had no idea.

  Livia’s body still trembled on occasion from conjuring the power she held within. The thrill of it was wearing off slowly but she could feel the essence of it inside her. Try as she might, Livia could still not repeat her actions with will alone. It was clear that she could only manifest her power when under stress. Clearly being kidnapped by a silent cripple was not stressful enough.

  He moved ahead of her, his limp pronounced, left leg heavy under his stooped gait. His clothes were rags, and though Livia knew she must have smelled awful herself, she found herself almost gagging when she got close to him.

  And that face. She found herself trying to avoid his gaze, to skirt any need to look at his scarred visage. His hair was unkempt and the scalp beneath the left side was visible in patches. There were scars on his face and neck that looked old, but fresh lesions marked the flesh of his skull. His left eye twitched sporadically and would occasionally weep until he dabbed it with his sleeve.

  It made Livia wonder how long this man had been a cripple. She guessed there was only one way to find out, but so far she had remained silent on all matters. But then how did you start a conversation with a man like this? A man who was leading her relentlessly onwards to gods knew where.

  ‘Have we got much farther to go?’ she asked.

  Her captor said nothing.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she said, trying her best to sound conversational rather than just plain desperate. ‘It’s only polite to let someone know their destination when they’re on a journey.’


  Polite? Livia raised her eyes to the grey skies. Polite? This man could kill her at any moment, or worse, and she was rebuking him for his lack of manners.

  ‘At least tell me your name,’ she demanded, stopping in the road and folding her arms.

  The man shuffled on a few more steps before stopping. He let out a sigh, as though his patience had run thin, but he did not turn around. At least she had got some kind of reaction from him.

  Slowly, she took a pace forward. ‘My name is Livia Harrow,’ she said gently.

  He turned slowly to face her and she almost took a step back in revulsion. In the sunlight he was pallid, left eye glassy and moist. It twitched as he regarded her and a tear broke free and ran down his scarred cheek.

  Though it pained her she held out her hand for him to shake. He glanced down at it, then back to her face.

  ‘You must keep walking,’ he said. ‘We still have far to go.’

  His voice was warm, the only thing about him that did not fill her with revulsion. And at last he had spoken – it was a start.

  Livia quickened her pace to move up beside him.

  ‘Please, tell me your name.’

  He glanced at her nervously, as though this scant human contact made him anxious. As though her demonstrating she was a person with thoughts and feelings was unnerving to him.

  ‘You said we still have far to go. I need to call you something if we’re going to be together for much longer.’

  He glanced at her again, then back to the road before saying, ‘Kaleb.’

  Livia felt her heart race that much faster. This was progress.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Kaleb,’ she said, trying a smile. He didn’t seem to notice that. ‘Do you have a second name? A family name?’

  Kaleb’s eyes scanned the ground for a brief moment as though searching for an answer. Then he shook his head.

  ‘No. Just Kaleb.’