by Anthony Ryan
“They were like ghosts,” Jehrid, the boy-soldier, said in response to Brother Oskin’s request for an account of his regiment’s demise. “Just seemed to spring out of the air. The lads think it was some Dark spell cast by their shaman.”
“Dark spell, eh?” Oskin enquired with an amused snort.
“How else to explain it?” Jehrid replied, face reddening a little. “Two hundred men just appearing out of nowhere. And the way they fought…” He grimaced and shook his head. “Not natural.”
“One hundred and eighteen,” Sollis said. He didn’t bother to turn as he steered his mount along the ridgeline which descended in a gradual slope to the sparsely grassed plain north of the Pass. “And they weren’t all men. The Lonak don’t need the Dark to ambush fools, boy. This is their land and they know every stone of it.”
The narrow gate in the Pass’s northernmost wall trundled open after the customary delay as the sentries on the parapet ensured the approaching party were not Lonak in disguise. It was a ruse their enemy hadn’t attempted in decades, but the Order never forgot a hard lesson. Sollis led the company inside to wind their way through the twists and turns of the inner fortifications until they emerged into the courtyard.
“Get the wounded to the healing house,” Sollis told Oskin, climbing down from the saddle. “And find room for the rest to bed down. I’ll report to the Brother Commander.”
After stabling his horse he made his way to the tallest of the towers which crowded the southern stretch of the Pass. “He’s got company,” Brother Artin advised as Sollis strode through the door. He and Sollis were the most senior brothers stationed at the Pass. Artin had responsibility for the day-to-day running of the garrison whilst Sollis oversaw forays beyond the fortifications. He felt no resentment at the disparity in their roles. Artin was a sound leader and no slouch in combat, but his stolid attachment to routine made him a better fit for commanding a fortress. Sollis, by contrast, would sometimes contrive excuses to patrol north of the Pass if he spent more than a few days within these walls.
“Urgent business, brother,” he told Artin, not pausing in his stride. “Something you should hear too,” he added before knocking on the door to the Brother Commander’s chamber with a forcefulness he hoped fell short of causing offence. There was a brief interval before he heard a muffled, “Come in,” in a tone he was relieved to find free of irritation.
“Brother Sollis.” Brother Commander Arlyn sat behind his desk, greeting him with his customary faint smile, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Back early, I see.”
“With intelligence, brother,” Sollis said, his gaze immediately drawn to the room’s other occupant. She sat in a chair before Brother Arlyn’s desk, blonde hair shifting as she turned to regard Sollis with an open smile and inquisitive blue eyes. Apart from the occasional Lonak captive, women were a decided rarity at the Pass, though he had a sense that a woman like this would be a rarity anywhere.
“Do you know Sister Elera?” Arlyn enquired. “She arrived this morning. Come all the way from Varinshold on a mission of some import.”
Sollis, realising he was staring, took note of the woman’s grey robe before shifting his gaze. “I do not, brother,” he said. “I bid you welcome, sister. We can always use another healer. In fact, presently there are Realm Guard requiring assistance in the courtyard.”
“In a moment, sister,” Arlyn said as Elera began to rise. “If they’ve lasted this long, I daresay they can last a little longer. Our own healers know their business in any case.” His eyes took on a more serious cast as he turned back to Sollis. “You found the war band, I take it?”
“We did, brother,” Sollis confirmed. “Came upon them in the midst of slaughtering a regiment of Realm Guard cavalry. Apparently, their Lord Marshal thought pursuing the Lonak into their own dominion little different from chasing after a gang of common outlaws.”
“I don’t envy his interview with the king,” Artin commented from the doorway.
“He’s dead,” Sollis told him. “Fortune was merciful.” He saw Sister Elera’s smooth brow crease in a frown of disapproval and felt compelled to elaborate. “The king is not renowned for his indulgence of incompetence, sister.”
“No,” she conceded with a small shrug. Her voice was smooth and cultured, lacking any trace of the streets or the fields. “But the Faith teaches that judgment should be left to the Departed.”
“Our casualties?” Brother Arlyn asked.
“None,” Sollis told him. “Though Brother Hestin is complaining of a sprained wrist. We brought back ninety Realm Guard, including wounded.”
“A grim toll,” Arlyn observed. “But the mission can still be counted a success.”
“There’s something else, brother.” Sollis paused to cast a wary glance at Sister Elera.
“Speak freely,” Arlyn said. “As I said, our sister is here on a particular mission and I suspect your intelligence will enlighten her as to its wisdom.”
“There was a Lonak shaman amongst the war band.” Sollis looked over his shoulder and gestured for Artin to close the door, waiting until he had done so before continuing. “He lived long enough to tell us the raid was ordered by the Mahlessa in retribution for something we had done. He made mention of the Dark before he died.”
“Mahlessa?” Sister Elera asked.
“The High Priestess of the Lonak,” Arlyn explained. “The clans feud amongst each other constantly, but they all answer when the Mahlessa calls.” His eyes settled on Sollis. “Whatever their faults as a people, the Lonak are even less prone to superstition than the Faithful, despite their attachment to god-worship.”
“Indeed, brother,” Sollis agreed. “For a shaman to make mention of it would indicate trouble in the mountains. Trouble the Mahlessa, for whatever reason, has blamed on the Order.”
Arlyn pursed his lips and turned to Elera. “So you see, sister. This would appear to be a particularly ill-chosen moment to pursue your course.”
Elera gave a brisk smile in response, nodding at the opened letter on Arlyn’s desk. “Nevertheless, the Aspects of all six orders have chosen it. It is not for us to gainsay their authority, merely to fulfil their instructions.”
Sollis saw Arlyn smother a sigh as he gestured him forward, pointing at the letter. “I think your counsel would be welcome here, brother.”
Sollis duly retrieved the single page of parchment, reading it through quickly. It was set down in neat precise letters, presumably the work of a Third Order scribe, and signed by all six Aspects of the Faith. He took particular note of the fact that Aspect Andril, the aged but highly respected head of the Sixth Order, had seen fit to underline his signature, twice.
“You wish to travel into the mountains,” Sollis said to Elera, frowning as he read through the letter’s final paragraph. “In search of this… weed?”
“Quite so, brother,” she responded, her brisk smile still in place. She reached into a pocket in her robe and extracted a small paper scroll, unfurling it to reveal a drawing. It depicted what appeared to Sollis to be an unremarkable plant, a cluster of narrow stems from which sprouted small four-petalled flowers. “Jaden’s Weed, to be precise,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve encountered it during one of your many daring northward quests.”
Sollis’s frown deepened at that and he saw her mouth twitch a little. “I’ve no memory of it,” he said, glancing at the drawing again and shaking his head.
“My research indicates it can be found in a particular place,” Elera said, furling the scroll. “Morvil’s Reach. Do you know of it?”
Brother Artin gave a derisive snort. “Morvil’s Folly we call it, sister,” he said. “You want to go there?”
“It seems the best place to start,” she replied, apparently unconcerned by his half-amused, half-appalled tone. “Does this present a particular difficulty?”
“Oh, not at all.” Artin raised his eyebrows in mock solicitation. “Once you discount the fact that it’s a good sixty miles into the mountains a
nd smack in the middle of the lands held by the Grey Hawk Clan, the most numerous and warlike clan in the Lonak Dominion, I’d say it presents no difficulty at all.”
“Brother.” Arlyn spoke softly, but the single word was enough for Artin to fall silent. He crossed his arms and retreated to a corner, heavy brows bunched in disapproval.
“Brothers,” Elera said, her smile now replaced by something more genuine and open. “Please do not think I am ignorant of the risks involved. I would not undertake them, nor ask others to do so, unless the matter was not both urgent and necessary.”
“As the Aspects’ letter states,” Arlyn said. “And yet the reason for such urgency is not explained.”
Elera lowered her gaze, all trace of humour leaving her features. “No word of what I am about to say is to leave this room,” she said, lifting her head to regard each of them in turn, eyes hard with sincere gravity. “I require your word as servants of the Faith.”
“You have it,” Arlyn said. After Sollis and Artin had also voiced their assurance Elera nodded.
“Four weeks ago,” she began, “a ship from the far off Volarian port of Vehrel docked in Maelinscove. Half the crew were found to be dead and most of the others stricken by sickness. Their symptoms…” She trailed off, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Their symptoms were consistent with the disease we know as the Red Hand.”
She fell silent, letting the words settle. Brothers of the Sixth Order were not prone to overt expressions of emotion but even so Artin couldn’t contain a soft and rarely heard obscenity whilst the Brother Commander merely closed his eyes, Sollis noticing how his long fingered hands twitched briefly before he clasped them together. His own reaction was internal, a rush of memory, mostly unwelcome and not often dwelt upon. The livid red marks that encircled his mother’s neck, the tears that always rose in her eyes whenever she spoke of those terrible days. She had been only an infant when the Red Hand swept through the four fiefs. There had been no Realm then, King Janus himself just a callow youth who barely survived his own brush with the plague. In those days the four fiefs bickered and warred constantly, endless columns of soldiers trampling the crops that surrounded the border hamlet where his mother lived. Then one day they stopped.
Dead men can’t march, she told him decades later. We found hundreds littering the fields, thousands even. Your grammy and I went out to rob the dead, as was custom. Don’t you look at me like that, boy! Lords and their wars do nothing but take food from the mouths of folk like us. Only fair we take something back when we can. ‘Cept this time we took something best left behind.
She went on to tell him how the hamlet had died. A poor but mostly peaceful community that had persisted in the borderlands between Asrael and Cumbrael for nigh on a century, wiped out in the course of a few days. Sollis’s mother woke from her fever to find herself staring into his grandmother’s empty eyes. By the time it was over the only ones left were me, Fram the wheelwright and the gormless loon they called the pig-boy. Still, we’d just gathered the harvest so there was plenty to go around that winter. She had laughed then, as was her wont when voicing dark humour. She rarely laughed otherwise, but then Sollis recalled her having little to laugh about.
“So it’s come back,” he said to Elera. “How far has it spread?”
“Fortunately, the outbreak was swiftly contained,” she said. “One of King Janus’s earliest acts on ascending the throne was to institute a strict protocol for dealing with any vessel found to be carrying the Red Hand. The ship was towed far out to sea and fire arrows used to burn it.”
“Along with its crew, I presume?” Arlyn enquired. “Even those who had not yet succumbed.”
“The King’s Word may be harsh at times,” she replied. “But often it has saved us from disaster, as in this case. There was a fair amount of panic in the port, of course. So the king arranged for certain rumours to be spread attributing the ship’s demise to poisoning or some god-worshipper’s Dark design. More concerning was the news imparted by one of the crew before he expired. It seems the Red Hand now has a firm hold in Vehrel, a port from which merchant vessels sail to all corners of the world.”
“Then,” Sollis said, “it’s only a matter of time before another plague ship turns up at our door.”
“I fear so, brother.”
He nodded at the scroll in her hand. “And this weed of yours?”
“The Fifth Order has spent decades trying to develop a curative for the Red Hand, without any real success. With the advent of the current crisis I was charged by my Aspect to review all the historical accounts held by our Order. It was hoped that I might find something others had missed.” She looked at the scroll, giving a tight smile. “I found this. There is a fragmentary account of a Renfaelin campaign against the Lonak. A century ago an army of knights advanced into the mountains…”
“And never marched out again,” Artin said. “We know the story, sister. They were led by Baron Valeric Morvil, said to be the greatest knight of his age. It was him who built the folly now named in his honour.” He shook his head in professional disdain. “Only a Renfaelin noble would think to build a castle in the mountains. I’m sure the Lonak must have found it all very amusing. The story goes they actually let him finish it before wiping out his entire command in a single night.”
“That campaign was accompanied by a brother from the Third Order,” Elera said. “He sent periodic reports back to Varinshold, which stopped eventually for obvious reasons. However, the final account speaks of a captured Lonak shaman using this weed to cure a knight named Jaden, a knight whose symptoms indicate he may have contracted a variant of the Red Hand.”
“Variant?” Sollis asked. “There’s more than one kind?”
“Diseases change over time, brother,” she explained. “They grow, become more contagious, more virulent. It’s what made the plague so damaging when it swept through the four fiefs. We had never encountered its like before, so had no means of fighting it. The account relates how this weed,” she held up the scroll once more, “was found in close proximity to Morvil’s outpost. If we can find it, we may have a chance of stopping the Red Hand should it return.”
“A chance to commit suicide, more like,” Artin said, holding up a hand at her scowling response. “I’m sorry, sister, but this is…”
“Our mission,” Brother Commander Arlyn broke in. “As ordained by the Aspects of the Faith,” he added, meeting Sollis’s eyes. “Tell me truly, brother, can you get to Morvil’s Reach and return safely?”
“Perhaps,” Sollis said. “With a small group. No more than four. But if the Mahlessa has raised the Lonak against us…”
“Then it’s possible you might also discover the cause of this current unrest.” The perennially faint smile returned to Arlyn’s lips. “Two bucks with one arrow. Choose your brothers and be ready to leave by morning.”
* * *
“You know this is a hopeless mission,” Artin whispered as he and Sollis stepped out into the corridor.
“And yet hope remains the heart of the Faith, brother,” Sollis replied, earning a scowl in response before Artin strode off, shoulders hunched in anger. Sollis, hearing Arlyn’s voice, paused for a second, glancing back to see Sister Elera in the doorway, turning to regard the Brother Commander. Sollis was struck by the cautious hesitancy of Arlyn’s tone. Although a softly spoken man at most times, his voice rarely lacked certainty.
“Our… former sister,” Arlyn said. “She is well?”
“Very well, brother,” Elera said.
There was a short interval before Arlyn spoke again. “And the child?”
“As healthy as a new born can be.” The sister let out a small laugh. “Perhaps more so.”
Another, shorter pause. “Please assure her of my continued friendship and regard when you see her next.”
“I shall, brother. Though, I doubt she needs any such reassurance.”
The warmth in Elera’s voice was coloured by a faint note of something Soll
is would never have expected to be directed at Brother Arlyn: pity. Seized by an abrupt sense of transgression, Sollis turned and followed in Artin’s wake. He would check on the wounded then spend the hours before sleep pondering a means of surviving his mission. A brief estimation of the odds gave them perhaps one chance in three, though with careful planning and a modicum of luck he thought he might be able to make it an even bet.
3
“The weed must be tested,” Sister Elera explained. “I daresay we’ll find more than a few plants that bear a similarity to the drawing. I will subject a sample to various agents to ensure it does in fact hold the healing properties we require.” She patted the saddle bags on the back of her stout mare before mounting up with a smooth, accustomed grace.
“You could teach me,” Sollis said.
“Oh, we certainly don’t have time for that.” She gave him another of her brisk smiles as she guided her mare towards the first of the inner gates. “You have your task, brother. I have mine.”
“This is not a game, sister,” he told her.
“Good. I detest games. Such a waste of mental effort.” She halted her mare at the gate and glanced over her shoulder, her smile replaced by an impatient frown. “Are you coming?”
Sollis swallowed his anger and turned away. Dealing with someone he couldn’t command was always irksome, but Sister Elera was proving a very singular trial. “Brother Lemnish,” he said, addressing the youngest of the three brothers waiting with their mounts in the courtyard. “Too many hooves in this party. You’ll stay behind.”