by Tim Stead
The man with the hammer tapped a little more. Sandaray could see that he was raising the front of the bow a fraction higher, so there was something out there they were aiming at. In the distance he could see a few men running about in the camp. The lance-sized bolt had been noticed.
“Ready,” the hammer-tapper said.
“Shoot,” Dantillia said, and the bow bucked again.
Then war changed. For ever.
A huge plume of fire and smoke erupted into the air in the middle of Alwain’s camp. A moment later the sound arrived like all the thunder in the world and Sandaray felt the wall beneath him twitch with the impact. In the distance he could see things flying through the air – clods of earth, weapons, even people, hurled up and out from the centre of the blast. He cringed back at the sight.
“Fuck!” Sandaray was a man not given to profanity, but when he searched for a word it was the only one that came – an almost meaningless shout of shock and horror.
“Quite so,” Arbak said. He turned to Dantillia. “And the other one,” he said.
More tapping, then the bow let fly again and a second eruption occurred about fifty paces to the left of the first. The smoke and dust had not cleared from the first cataclysm when the second occurred, so it was several minutes before Sandaray could see the enemy camp clearly again.
Alwain’s camp was very large. Ten thousand men take up a lot of space, but the heart of it had been torn apart. Two large craters now occupied the central ground and around them lay a sea of wreckage – torn cloth, splintered wood, twisted metal and what had once been men. But for all the carnage Sandaray could hardly see the point. They had killed maybe a hundred men – perhaps wounded another three hundred. It was hard to believe that it had made a significant difference to Alwain’s ten thousand.
Arbak stood on the top of the tower looking at what they had wrought for a while.
“Get them aimed again,” he said. “They’ll sort themselves out. I expect they’ll be at us tomorrow.”
“What was that?” Sandaray asked.
“We buried stuff where we thought they’d camp,” Arbak told him. “The Wolfen call it hyper-expansive. It’s a liquid. If you hit it with something – well, you saw what happened.”
“And you have more of it buried out there?”
“We do.”
And that was the point, Sandaray supposed. Alwain’s men would advance on the gate tomorrow and the ground would erupt beneath their feet and kill them. It didn’t matter how many. They would be afraid. It was a threat that they couldn’t understand.
*
Cain stayed on the gate tower long after the shocked and bemused Colonel Sandaray had returned to his own regiment. He liked Sandaray and shared his distaste for the weapon that the Wolfen had invented, but he could see no good reason not to use it. It gave him an edge. It would sap the strength of Alwain’s men and diminish their expectation of victory.
He watched the confusion and panic in the distant camp subside and change into something more orderly as they began to pack up their tents, load their wagons and move to a position even further from the gates. That, too, was a benefit. His own men would have more warning when Alwain began his attack.
Now all he could do was wait.
The Wolfen moved around him, realigning their monstrous weapon so that they could pick out the furthest of the liquid caches they had buried on the approaches to the gate. But Cain wasn’t thinking about the war. Or not the war here. He was thinking about Sheyani. All the cavalry from the northern regiments had arrived – the last of them mere hours before Alwain’s main force – but Sheyani and Caster had both stayed behind with the infantry and he would not be happy until they were back with him again.
In the low city there was a house with a cellar, and in that cellar was a portal that gave access to the Farheim Gates. He had the house heavily guarded, its occupants moved elsewhere, but he could do no more. There were a handful of people in the world who could open those gates, and he was the only one left in Bas Erinor. He could not go. Even at night, even when he was supposed to be sleeping and not a soul would miss him. He had been tempted, of course. But what would be the point? He would go and stand at the other gate and look out into the darkness and know nothing. It was frustrating, and it was a distraction, so he had to ignore it.
Even so there was a part of him that watched and waited, and that was why he saw the soldier hurrying along the wall before anyone else. Even from a distance he could see that it was one of the men he’d assigned to the house. He jumped up and went down the tower steps three at a time coming out onto the wall as the soldier hurried toward him.
“What news?” he demanded.
“They are coming through, My Lord,” the soldier said.
“And the Lady Sheyani?”
“She is with them and unharmed, Lord Caster too. There was some fighting on the road, but losses were light.”
Cain looked out at Alwain’s disintegrating camp. He had time. There was no way that Alwain would be coming at him today. Not after that.
“I will come with you,” he said.
36 The Servant
Dardanel led the way down the tower steps. He didn’t hurry. Perhaps he thought that a dead person would wait patiently for them, no matter what their rank. There was, of course, some truth in that, but Lady Blackwood’s demise surely demanded a little respectful hastiness.
They arrived soon enough in the kitchen corridor where the body lay. Callan’s own men had all but sealed it off and a gaggle of servants and soldiers clustered at either end. They parted to allow Callen and the steward through.
Lady Blackwood’s body lay sprawled across the stone flags, a small pool of water framing her head. She was dressed immaculately, as always, but it was the face that drew Callan’s eyes. Her eyes were wide open and her face wore an expression of sheer panic. There were scratch marks on her throat and around her mouth.
“You said she’d drowned,” Callan said.
Dardanel leaned over the body, putting the flat of his hand on Lady Blackwood’s chest. He pressed down and water welled out of her mouth, spilling down her cheeks and onto the floor. She was full of water.
“She drowned somewhere else,” Callan said. “She was brought here. Someone must have seen something.”
“No,” Dardanel shook his head. “Her clothes are dry. You can see the marks where she fell. Look.” Callan looked. He touched the dead woman’s collar. It was dry.
“Water mage,” he said. “But the water must have come from somewhere.”
“A bottle, a bucket – anything would do, but whoever did this must have touched her, must have been here in the corridor.”
There was a commotion at the house end of the corridor. Callan had been expecting it. He stood and signalled to his guards to let Lord Blackwood through. The man came forward hesitantly. He stopped a few feet short of the body and stared.
“She’s dead then?” he said. His voice sounded hoarse, barely above a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Lord Blackwood.”
“No,” Blackwood said. “I told her to keep guards with her, but she said she didn’t want big men clanking around after her all day. I told her.” He knelt down and took his wife’s lifeless hand in his own. “Oh, Madi, what have you done now?”
Callan looked away, trying not to imagine how he would feel if it was Honaria lying there. He was suddenly angry. This was his house, his home, and someone was killing his allies, his friends. He liked Blackwood. He’d liked Blackwood’s wife. They had both been open and friendly, appreciative of Callan’s efforts to make them comfortable.
“I’ll kill whoever’s doing this,” he said.
Dardanel looked at him with an odd expression on his face. Perhaps the steward still suspected Honaria was responsible. Callan knew better. “I want to see all the members of my household in the great hall, Dardanel, you included. Bring four guards with you. Lord Blackwood, I grieve for your loss. We will honour Lady Blackwood in any
way you wish.”
He turned on his heel and left. His anger did not subside completely. As he hurried up the stairs to his tower rooms he tried to plan, but all he had was a gamble. There was nobody here that could possibly be the assassin, so it had to be somebody impossible. Neither Honaria nor Margalay could possess such talents. They were both, by definition, lacking what it took to be a Durander mage, and yet they were the only two Duranders in High Stone.
Add to that the impossibility of anyone not a Durander possessing such talents, and the conclusion was obvious. One of these things was possible. He had no way of knowing which one, and when he looked for motive, he couldn’t see one, or not a solid one. Someone was killing the high-born in High Stone just when they were gathered here for safety. There was one thing he was certain of. The assassin was an agent for some other power, and the only power he could imagine was Alwain.
In his rooms he picked up a crossbow and quickly levered the string back and loaded a bolt into the slot. He shrouded it in a towel and turned to go.
Honaria was standing in the doorway watching him.
“I heard that Lady Blackwood was killed,” she said. She was looking at the bundle in his hand. “Do you know who did it?”
“No,” he said.
“But you’re planning to shoot somebody?”
“Trust me,” he said.
She gave him a long, hard look, then nodded. “I’ll just check on Triss,” she said.
“Bring her.”
“You’re planning to confront a killer and you want me to bring our child?”
“Trust me.”
“You think she’ll be safer with us,” Honaria said. Callan smiled. She nodded and went into the child’s room, emerging a minute later with a sleepy girl balanced on her hip. Callan offered her his arm and she took it. They went down to the great hall together, a picture of unity.
The great hall was not crowded. High stone was not a great estate and Callan’s servants numbered less than twenty, including the steward and the maid, Margalay.
Callan steered Honaria to the emptiest part of the hall and put his bundle down on a table. He looked at Dardanel, who was standing close to the door with four soldiers.
“Close the door,” Callan said. “We needn’t share the business of this house with others.”
The door was shut and Callan turned to face his household.
“You will have heard by now that Lady Blackwood has been murdered,” he said. One or two hadn’t, that was clear from their faces. Callan studied his people, looking for reaction or lack of it. He saw what he expected to see.
“She was a guest in our house,” he said. “Lord Umber and his family were guests in our house. Apart from the despicable nature of these murders, apart from the affront to human decency and the rules of hospitality, these were good people, our allies, our friends.”
Callan paused. He watched faces again. He could still make a choice here, could decide to make this a speech and not a confrontation, but what would be the point of that? If he was wrong, he was going to look a fool. He took a deep breath.
“Why did you kill them, Margalay?”
Now he saw a reaction. It was like a pea dropped on the scales that measured guilt against innocence, a tiny bit of added certainty. But Margalay looked right back at him.
“My Lord? I have done nothing,” she said. As a protestation of innocence, it was too flat, too lacking in surprise and outrage. People were edging away from the maid. Another couple of peas weighed the scale towards guilt.
“What I can’t understand is how,” Callan went on as though she had not spoken. “Your family is a family of nothings, of no-talents. You have generations of farmers and servants behind you. By all reason what you’ve done is impossible. But that won’t save you.” He nodded to Dardanel and the soldiers came forwards. They seized her arms, one large man either side, but Margalay smiled.
“I’m not afraid of you, Callan Henn,” she said. That was enough. She was guilty. A little more acting, a little more denial and he would have doubted his guess. But he wanted her to talk.
“You should be,” he said. “You’ve committed crimes. You murdered children. There’s only one punishment.”
Margalay’s smile didn’t falter. Killing children clearly wasn’t something that bothered her, and nor was the threat of execution. As if to prove him right she did something and the guards holding her arms cried out and leaped back, waving and clutching at their hands as though burned.
“You know nothing,” the maid said. “You understand nothing.” She turned to Honaria. “You with your arrogant, gifted lines, nurturing the dried up remains of your talent. I have all the gifts, even the lost ones.”
The uninjured guards had drawn their blades, but Dardanel kept them back with a word. Callan didn’t doubt that they could kill Margalay, but he didn’t want that yet. Gifted or not she was no god mage – not even a Benetheon god. Steel would do for her well enough. He wanted her to talk first, and she seemed willing to do so.
“Who told you to do this?” Callan asked. “Who’s your master?” It struck him, as he asked the question, that Margalay wasn’t that bright. To do this she must have been harbouring a deep resentment, a smouldering fire that had been expertly stoked, and somehow she had been given the tools, the talents, to commit the murders as she had.
“I serve the one who is to come,” she said. “I serve…”
She fell like a tree. But trees are rigid, and there is nothing that falls quite like a person who is suddenly dead. She fell more like a stack of books, crumpling to the ground. There was no apparent interval between Margalay being alive and being dead.
For a moment the room was quite still.
Dardanel was the first to move. He stepped forwards and knelt beside the body, touched her neck, somewhat pointlessly Callan thought. He’d never seen anyone quite so convincingly dead as Margalay. Her eyes were open and her face slack. By the smell her bowels had let go.
“She’s dead,” Dardanel said.
Callan looked around the room. He saw shock and surprise on every face, but behind his staff he saw the shape of a head through one of the windows. The glass was too poor for him to see any detail, and as soon as he saw it, the shape moved and was gone. He pushed through his people and reached the window in seconds. He threw it open and stuck his head out.
Nothing. The kitchen garden was twenty feet below. He could see a basket and a trowel down there, and the basket was half filled with radishes. He looked left and right but saw only walls and windows, the naked rock of High Stone’s keep.
He pulled his head back in and closed the window. Had he really seen that?
“Everyone, go back to your duties. This is over. Honaria and Dardanel, you stay.”
Callen watched them file out, talking excitedly among themselves. He suspected that the news would be all over High Stone in minutes. The surviving lords would want to speak to him, so he didn’t have much time.
The door closed behind the last of them.
“Honaria, lost paths, does that mean anything to you?” She might not have the talent, but his wife was steeped in Durander lore. Nobody else could answer the question. She shrugged.
“There are stories. The first Durander mages were supposed to have ten paths, to be more powerful, far more powerful, but that’s always the way with stories, isn’t it? Things were always better in ancient days, men were stronger, women prettier.”
“But she did something with fire,” Dardanel said. “There’s no fire talent in Durandar.”
“The stories say there was,” Honaria said.
“So how could she have it?”
“The only way is to inherit it,” Honaria shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“She called them gifts, not talents. Could someone have given them to her?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“We can’t answer that,” Dardanel said. “Maybe the god mage could.”
“And the way she
died. Have you ever heard of anyone dying like that before?” Callan knew the answer. He’d read enough history, listened to Skal and Hestia’s tales of the Great War.
“Of course,” Dardanel said. “But what you’re thinking is impossible.”
“Can you explain it any other way?” Callan asked. Again, he knew the answer.
“No.”
“What she said sounded like prophecy – ‘the one who is to come’. Whoever that is the chances are they were the source of Margalay’s power and the person who killed her.”
“What are you two talking about?” Honaria asked.
Callan sighed. There was no escaping it.
“Margalay was killed by a god mage,” he said. “Not Pascha or Callista – someone else. She was killed because she was about to tell us his name. We have to tell Lord Skal. Somehow.”
37 Revenge
“Show me how to fix it!”
Keron was on edge, but Mordo seemed unmoved by Francis’s anger.
“I can’t show you,” he said. “But the principle is simple. Your body knows what it wants to be. It wants to heal. All you have to do it feed that desire.”
Francis struck at his wounded leg, slapping the point where the arrow had pierced him. The pain spiked, feeding his anger. The healers had done their best, he was sure, but he was supposed to have talent. He didn’t have to put up with this. But for all Mordo’s simplistic words he couldn’t find the key within him.
“Tell me how!”
Mordo sighed, which was annoying. “Calm down,” he said. “It’s easier to start with something other than your own body. The pain is a distraction. You have to get past it.”
Francis decided to ignore Mordo for a while. He looked at Keron. “Wine,” he said. “I want a cup of wine.”
Keron hurried to fulfil his wish, pouring a large cup and bringing it over. Francis had to make an effort not to snatch it from the big man’s hands. He took it and drained half of it down, but his leg still throbbed like waves of pain on some internal shore.
“Willow bark tea would be better,” Mordo said.
“Fuck willow bark tea,” Francis said. “I want to get drunk. Those bastards shot me. They meant to kill me.”