Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

  “That is not possible,” Pascha said.

  “The letter was long, but I will summarise. It is more disturbing the more you read.” He poured himself another cup of wine. “Lord Henn says that several members of the northern aristocracy, who are staying at High Stone while their regiments fight Alwain, were murdered. The manner of their death indicated that a Durander mage was responsible.”

  “You said a god-mage,” Pascha interrupted.

  “There’s more. The culprit was identified as Lady Henn’s servant, a Durander from a long line of mute blood. She displayed several talents, including pathmaking, water, and fire.”

  “Fire? There is no such…”

  “Forgive me, but I will explain. The murderer, when confronted, was about to announce the name of the master she served when she dropped dead, like that,” Skal snapped his fingers. “Henn saw a shadow at the window and ran to investigate, but there was nobody there, and that window was twenty feet above the ground.”

  “This sounds like a ghost story, Skal.”

  “I know Lord Henn. He is reliable.”

  “How do you know him?”

  Skal shrugged. “Tilian Henn was my Captain. He married my kin. Callan Henn is kin. I’ve always kept in touch with the family.”

  “He’s your spy,” Pascha said, smiling. “That’s why you trust him.”

  “I am Avilian born. I see no harm in keeping abreast of events in the kingdom.”

  “Even so, his story seems unlikely. There is no Durander Fire Talent.”

  “The woman referred to them as gifts,” Skal said. “She claimed that these gifts had been given to her by the person she was about to name when she died. The manner of her death was significant for Lord Henn. He knew of nobody but a god mage who could kill in that fashion.”

  Pascha glanced at Callista again. “And you think we should take this report, word for word, at face value, Lord Skal?”

  “I do. Lord Henn is not prone to excesses of imagination. If he says it happened that way, you can be certain that it did.”

  “Well, then,” Pascha said. “We have a problem. If what Lord Henn says is true and what the woman said to him is true, then we have a god-mage in Avilian who knows more than I do.”

  “But you were taught by Pelion,” Callista protested.

  “And Pelion deliberately hid certain things from me. He made a point of saying so.” Pascha sighed.

  “But if a god-mage wanted people dead why not kill them? Why go to all the trouble of creating a Durander mage to do it and then kill her? It makes no sense.”

  “If it happened, there is a reason for it,” Pascha said. “If we do not understand it, then there is something we do not know. I will travel to High Stone and speak with Lord Henn.”

  “I will come with you,” Skal said.

  Pascha considered this for a moment, then nodded. “He will be more inclined to speak without reserve if you are there,” she said. “But first we must answer the challenge. Things have changed. You were right, Callista, we must have agents abroad and we must move quickly. But who can we send?”

  “Duranders,” Callista said. “They are loyal and they have some talent.”

  “I am not fond of their loyalty,” Pascha said. “It seems tainted by reluctance. To be frank I do not trust them. Besides, they could not serve in Telas and they’re hardly popular in the other kingdoms.”

  “You could send Enali,” Skal said.

  “She’s a child, and besides that she’s Narak’s.”

  “She chafes here in Col Boran,” Skal said. “She is bored. Besides that, she’s competent with a weapon and bears the Wolf’s ring.”

  “That’s not enough to keep her safe, and I won’t risk a child in the middle of a war.”

  “Then give her more,” Callista said.

  Pascha looked at her as though the idea had never occurred to her, as though it was a startling new thing. But it was obvious. Even after so many centuries as a Benetheon god it must surely have been obvious that now she could do more? Yet perhaps not. Perhaps after so many years, so many centuries of being one thing the new state of being took time to sink in. Old ways died hard.

  “I could, yes,” Pascha said, and smiled.

  55 Great Howe

  It looked a tough nut to crack, even for Jerac Fane. The fortress of Great Howe stood a few hundred paces north of the town of the same name. The reason for the name was obvious as soon as Fane saw the place. It stood on a vast, ancient mound. The base of its thick wall was fifty feet above the town gate, and the walls towered twenty feet higher. Any assaulting force must first climb a daunting hill under the bows of the defenders before attempting the gate. The gate itself was pure deterrent. A steel portcullis barred the way to a thick, wooden portal.

  Fane reckoned that one man could defend it against fifty, and he had only two hundred men. However, the place was easy to isolate. One path led up to that impenetrable gate and anyone coming down had the same issue as those attacking. There was no practical escape route. The very things that made Great Howe an excellent defensive position also made it a prison. He wondered how much food they had up there.

  His men camped outside the small town. The inhabitants were cautiously welcoming. It was clear to Fane that they had no special love for their lords in the castle, but at the same time they did not want to be seen to be overly friendly in case Fane and his men went away again and left them to the castle’s mercy. The town was little more than a scattering of houses around a tavern. There was a market that operated one day a week in the modest square, and a small, undedicated temple where the inhabitants could make offerings to the god or gods of their choice.

  He spent his evenings in the tavern. He drank moderately, but most of all he listened. It took a few days for the locals to get used to him being there, but gradually their whispers evolved into the usual tavern babble. He learned a lot about the native soils, the rainfall, the quality or otherwise of the tavern’s ale, but he also picked up the names of the most prominent citizens, those who were considered rash and those thought to be wise.

  There was one particular name that was spoken a great deal with respect: Dana Amanilan. The woman evidently had a long memory and folk consulted her about everything from what crops did well where, to whose grandfather it was that had sold a piece of land to who. Her word was taken, more or less unchallenged, as the truth.

  A couple of questions in the street were enough to lead him to her door.

  Wisdom was not well rewarded in Great Howe, it seemed. The house was little more than a hovel, though the small patch of land before it was rich with vegetables and herbs, all thriving. There were chickens pecking among the leaves and the front door had recently been painted a rich, daffodil yellow. Fane knocked.

  A voice from within called out. “Come in and wipe your feet. The door isn’t locked.”

  Fane lifted the latch and stepped inside.

  The cottage had only one room, and Fane could see it all from the door. There was a bed to the right of the fireplace, a chair in front of it. A pot hung over the flames. The woman sitting in the chair was old, but she looked at Fane with undisguised curiosity in her clear, blue eyes.

  “General Fane,” she said. “I hoped you’d come.”

  Fane raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re wondering how I knew who you were?” the woman asked. She pointed to the bed. There wasn’t another chair, so Fane sat there. “Everyone knows my door is open,” she said. “They don’t knock, and you don’t look like a common soldier.”

  “I see,” Fane said. “And I suppose you know what I want to ask?”

  “About the castle,” Dana said. “What else would a soldier want?”

  Fane smiled. “Well?”

  “It’s just what it seems,” she said. “There are no back doors, secret tunnels or cracks in the walls. The men inside are a different matter. Some of them are local boys, but to persuade them to act against their lord you’d have to convince them you can win,
and to do that you have to speak to them. That won’t happen with you out here and them in there.”

  “And the howe itself?”

  The old woman shrugged. “It’s old. Older than me and older than the castle and the town… ancient. Apart from that I can’t tell you anything.” She reached out and picked up a cup, sipped from it. “Was that all?”

  “No legends? No old stories about it?”

  “Mostly the typical nonsense,” Dana said. “A king is buried there, a mage, an army, a dragon.” She shrugged again. “There’s even a story that it’s a door, that Farheim used to travel through it.”

  “Ah.”

  “This means something to you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Could it be true? There had been talk amongst the cognoscenti, before he had left the kingdoms, of pathways accessible only to Farheim. It had been a hushed tale, a secret. Cain Arbak had been at the heart of it. Fane himself had travelled with Cain and Sheyani through the Dragon’s Back via one such road, but that had been his only time. Cain, so rumour said, had gone on to explore further and had discovered a network. Perhaps one of the paths did end here, but finding it would be difficult. If it was like the one in Telas it would be invisible and not at ground level. Only by placing his hand in the opening would he discover it.

  “They tell me that you are Farheim,” Dana said.

  “I am,” Fane said.

  “Then you have lived history,” she said.

  “I’ve fought in two wars and killed a lot of people who were trying to kill me. If that’s history, then yes, I’ve lived it.”

  “But you get no pleasure from life.”

  Fane stared back at her. “Should I? My trade is killing. If I make friends, they grow old and die. Would you swap places with me, old woman?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve seen enough. Perhaps you have seen too much. Your long life was bought with other lives. I would not have it so.”

  “You think you can imagine how that feels, but you will never know.” Fane turned his back and opened the door. It was no more than three paces from where he had been sitting. He paused in the hovel’s entrance. He smiled a crooked smile. “Thank you for your tales Dana Amanilan. I am in your debt.”

  He stepped outside and closed the door. He took a breath of cold air and looked up at the sky. In truth his long life, how he had come by it, did not trouble him. He understood that no slaughter had been done that he might live again. It had been happenstance, accident, no more than a throw of the dice.

  Now he had work to do.

  *

  The following morning Fane took two men and rode up the path to Great Howe’s formidable gate under a flag of truce. He could see archers above the gate and hear words shouted back to someone with more authority. He waited patiently, the pale flag snapping in a cold breeze that gusted from the north. He took the opportunity to examine the castle in detail.

  It was solidly built. He could not judge the thickness of the walls, but by the positioning of the gate and portcullis he guessed they was at least ten feet thick. The walls were high and the towers that ringed the castle commanded every line. He would probably need a thousand men to storm this place, assuming it was adequately defended. He looked up again at the men above him. He counted no more than six heads, which was hardly an intimidating show of force.

  Another head appeared.

  “What do you want?” The voice was educated and more than a little angry.

  “To speak with the lord of Great Howe,” Fane shouted up.

  “I am Lord Everard,” the man on the wall said. “Speak your piece.”

  “I am loath to waste men attacking you, Lord Everard,” Fane said. “Will you yield the castle to me?”

  “Why would I do that?” The reply was scornful.

  “Your family is with you. I would assume you wish to spare them. Your fortress is all but empty and if you surrender to me, I guarantee that you, your family and all your men will be spared.”

  The pause on top of the wall told him all he wanted to know. He was right. Everard had no more than twenty men.

  “Who are you to make such promises?” the lord asked.

  “I am the Farheim Lord Jerac Fane, general commanding the people’s army of Avilian.”

  “People’s army? That rabble? You have barely a company and they look about as disciplined as flea-bitten cats.”

  That answered another question. Everard had no intention of surrendering his castle. But that, too, could be used.

  “I will give you a day to consider my offer, Lord Everard,” he said. “I will return tomorrow and hear your reply.”

  He did not wait, but turned his horse and rode back down the path with his men behind him. Fane didn’t want to hear that reply just yet. Back in the camp he sought out Wenban. The colonel of the Berrit Ghosts was, as ever, trying to make his men into better soldiers. He was overseeing a training session. Fane took him aside.

  “We attack tonight,” he said.

  “Tonight?”

  “I want you to put on a good show. Make it look like a party down here – lots of singing and shouting. A few fights would look good. I don’t care if some of the men get drunk, but keep fifty aside, your best, and an hour after midnight have them ready to attack. When you hear an alarm sounded within the castle lead them up to the gate as quietly as you can.”

  “You’re going in alone, General?”

  “My guess is they have less than twenty-five men in there. Half of those will be asleep, and they won’t be expecting me.”

  “You’ll open the gates for us.”

  “If all goes well.”

  Wenban smiled. He didn’t doubt, apparently. Fane himself was not so certain. He’d come close to death a few times back in the homeland and knew all too well that one bit of foolishness, one poor judgement, could end it.

  He spent the day preparing. He sharpened his blades, though they hardly needed it, and blacked them with soot and oil so they wouldn’t catch any lamp light. He dressed in black cottons and soft soled boots, strapped his blades to his back and waited. He ate a light meal just after sunset and dozed for a couple of hours.

  An hour before midnight he left his tent and set off across the fields, not heading for the castle, but away into the night. By now Wenban’s party was in full swing. Blazing fires and loud, discordant singing would doubtless draw the eyes of the men on watch up above.

  Fane walked for a couple of hundred paces then turned north, circling round the howe, putting the castle between himself and the camp. As he had expected the back of the fortress was dark. There were no lamps on the walls and he could see no movement against the starlit sky. He approached the howe and began to climb.

  It was an easy enough ascent, given his Farheim strength and the plentiful handholds the rocky face offered him. In less than two minutes he had scaled the face and now stood beneath the wall. This, too, was far from smooth. He had seen that at the gate. The stone walls were old and pitted. Mortar had worn away between the massive blocks and those cracks were adequate for fingers and toes.

  Fane climbed again, this time more carefully. The wall was a more challenging face and he was keen not to alert any wakeful guard to his presence.

  He paused just below the top, hanging by his left hand and balanced on one foot, he drew a knife and raised himself slowly to peer through a crenel.

  He saw nothing. The keep was between him and the main gate, and the small gap he was peering through revealed only its high stone walls. There were a few slit windows, but no light showed in them. He shifted up and leaned forwards, putting his head through the crenel so that he could look left and right along the parapet.

  There was a man about twenty paces away. He was looking out into the night, alert as far as Fane could tell. That was a pity. He tossed his knife and caught it by the blade. He lifted himself further, very slowly, rising until he could put a foot on the wall and raise his arm into clear air.

  He threw the knife.


  It was a good throw. The blade took the guard just below the rim of his helmet and buried itself up to the hilt in the side of his head. He fell like a puppet with cut strings.

  Fane stepped out onto the parapet. It was dark here, the wall curving away around the keep was barely a shape in the night. He advanced, retrieved his blade and, after taking the guard’s helmet and spear, he pushed the body over the wall.

  He walked slowly along the curve. After a few paces he could make out another figure standing guard. He had been right. It was a basic tenet of defence that your guards should be able to see one another. To spread them this thin was foolish unless you simply lacked the numbers. Fane couldn’t help thinking of ways he would have overcome the problem. Giving each man a lamp so he could be seen, with other lamps between them so that the limited number of guards wouldn’t be obvious – there were dozens of things that Everard or his officers could have done. Now a large section of the wall was open to assault.

  He put the dead guard’s helmet on and walked towards the second man. It was so dark that he would be nothing more than a familiar shape until he was close enough to strike. It worked perfectly. The other man saw him coming and called out. Fane raised a hand in greeting and carried on walking.

  It wasn’t until the last moment that the guard realised he had been deceived. By then it was far too late. He swung his spear down, but Fane stepped inside it and caught the shaft in one hand, shorting his borrowed weapon and stabbing the guard in the chest. The strength of the blow was enough to shatter the mail on his chest and pierce his body. He lived only a few moments longer than the first guard, and Fane tipped him, too, over the wall.

  It seemed that the rear wall was now clear, but Fane had to open the main gate, the only gate, to let Wenban and his men through. He looked around once more, but he could see neither lights nor men on this side of the keep. He threw away the spear and dropped off the edge of the parapet, landing inside the bailey.

  He moved quickly to the keep wall and stayed close to it, walking around its curve towards the main gate. He stopped when the gate came into sight.