Witchsign

by Den Patrick

  ‘Follow,’ said the soldier, and exited to the corridor beyond, descending the first of many steps leading them ever downward.

  Only two of the soldiers escorted him, grunting and pointing, shoving him in the desired direction when he moved too slowly.

  ‘How much further?’ Steiner asked, keen to fill the stifling silence with something. None of the buildings in Cinderfell rose above two storeys and Steiner marvelled at the winding staircase. The soldiers said nothing, still smarting from the prospect of escorting the troublemaker to the furnaces, wherever they were.

  ‘It’s a wonder I can get a word in edgeways with you two,’ said Steiner over his shoulder, and still nothing.

  Neither of the soldiers took the bait, silently ushering him outside to Academy Square, now empty with only the flickering flames of the stone dragon to light the rain-slicked cobbles. Steiner craned his neck to see a patch of grey sky, framed on all sides by the jagged peaks of the island on every side. It was as if he’d fallen into a chasm or a deep crater.

  ‘This way.’ The soldiers were identical in the gloom. The outstretched hand pointed to a narrow lane that led away from the square, nestled between two of the academy buildings, towering above.

  ‘But I can’t see,’ mumbled Steiner, his earlier confidence fled now Felgenhauer was out of sight.

  The soldiers shoved him, leaving him no choice but to take step after anxious step along the alleyway. The smell of rotting food was strong here and Steiner gagged behind his sleeve. There was another more familiar smell: smoke and ashes.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘You stop here.’ Steiner waited, squinting into the darkness where the soldiers remained as shadows, only the red stars on their helms hinted that colour had not been leached from the world. One of the soldiers hefted his mace and Steiner felt a surge of fear, felt the cold sweat across his back as his mouth went dry. Surely they wouldn’t dream of murdering him in this dank place? Wasn’t he under Felgenhauer’s protection?

  The other soldier busied himself in an alcove and a series of strikes and sparks sounded and shone in the darkness. A torch flared to life and then another. The soldier handed one over.

  ‘You will need this to see way down. Otherwise you break neck.’

  Steiner grasped the torch, the smell of pitch overwhelming the other odours of the alley.

  ‘Do not use as weapon,’ said the soldier.

  Steiner hefted the sledgehammer in his other hand. ‘I’m not sure the torch would be my first choice. Where are we going now?’

  ‘Behind you,’ said the soldier. Steiner turned and saw what the darkness had concealed. A ragged hole had been punched through the rock at the alley’s end. The cobbles stopped and turned up like the blunt teeth of some colossal creature.

  ‘That is where you go,’ said the second soldier. He made no move to follow.

  ‘She did say the deepest darkest place,’ said Steiner, surprised at the steps, carved into the island itself. The walls pressed in overhead, meeting in a rough arch, twice his height.

  ‘You were supposed to deliver me to Tief,’ he said. The soldiers said nothing and turned away, the clink and jingle of armour sounding with each step.

  ‘You can’t just leave me here. I don’t know my way around.’ Steiner couldn’t know the expressions they bore beneath the helms but he guessed they might be of relief. ‘Some escort you were.’ Steiner frowned into the darkness and fought off a wave of panic that rooted him to the spot. The stairwell curved in a gentle arc, the end always just out of sight. Each step was worn smooth and water trickled along channels carved at each side.

  ‘Frejna’s teeth. How deep does this go?’ he muttered under his breath, pressing deeper along the endless stairs. The torchlight was dwindling. No matter how he twisted the wood the flame would not take, and soon he would be plunged into darkness and lost beneath Vladibogdan.

  Deeper and ever downward. If the abandoned square had felt like a chasm then surely this was an abyss. A pause to rest his aching legs and a glance over his shoulder confirmed what he’d known; the oppressive gloom crowded in, held back by the guttering torch. Steiner held up his hand, shielding the torch from the gusts of wind that howled after him in the tunnel, the glow no more than a candle flame.

  Steiner hurried onward, downward, wondering if he were beneath the level of the sea. A ruddy light signalled the passage’s end, and with the red glow came a terrible heat. The scent of hot metal and coal dust welcomed him, just like in his father’s smithy. His feet led him onto a stone balcony above a cavern hundreds of feet wide, lit at intervals by great furnaces. The air was thick with smoke and the sound of hammered metal yet Steiner failed to see a single soul in the ruddy half-light. Leaning from the balcony’s edge offered no clue where the noise came from but revealed gleaming metal rungs hammered into the rock. Steiner climbed from rung to rung, cursing his sweating palms, the spent torch discarded.

  The air was warm enough to make his skin tight and the smoke forced him to hold a sleeve to his face so he might breathe. He stumbled on, blinking away tears brought on by scorched air and the fine ashes that drifted on it. Never had he seen such a vast scene of industry.

  A dark spectre of swirling cinders emerged from a nearby shadow, its eyes the orange of stirred embers, face a shapeless, unknowable darkness. Steiner raised the sledgehammer with shaking hands, hoping the weapon might prove a deterrent. The apparition edged closer, eyes bright with malice.

  ‘May Frejna’s eye not find you,’ said Steiner, stumbling backwards, voice small in the darkness, ‘and may Frøya keep you close.’ The apparition reached forth and Steiner called out.

  ‘Stay back now,’ he shouted, but the wraith drifted closer still.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Steiner

  Perhaps the most troubling discovery of my travels across Vinterkveld is that Spriggani have knowledge of arcane power. It is rooted in the earth and water schools and these schools alone, yet it does not corrupt their bodies in the way that Vigilants become twisted, blackened things.

  – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

  Steiner brandished the sledgehammer and still the apparition closed on him, orange eyes bright in the ruddy cavern’s gloom.

  ‘Get away from me!’ he bellowed and still it came. Steiner swung and the creature came apart like smoke and fine ashes, tendrils of darkness dispersing on the air. The eyes, burning with intent, blinked out, lost to darkness. Steiner took a step back, chest rising and falling with shock.

  You never told me stories about these, Kjell.

  His eyes remained transfixed on the floor where he’d sundered the spirit. The smoke coalesced and the apparition formed anew, the orange embers of its eyes coming to life as the spirit resumed its shape.

  ‘Just die, will you?’ growled Steiner. He desperately wanted to run, but where?

  ‘What foolishness is this?’ said a heavily accented voice. ‘Get away from him! He’ll soil his britches if you keep on so.’

  Escorted by three dark apparitions was a man. He stood about a hand’s width shorter than Steiner, and wore patched trousers with a grubby smock. The outfit was completed with a thick strap of leather worn across his body from shoulder to hip, festooned with tools. The man held up a lantern and peered into the gloom at Steiner.

  ‘And what might you be doing in this Frøya-forsaken place?’ The lantern light revealed high cheekbones, dark eyes and olive skin. Steiner struggled to guess how old he was, at least twenty-five if he had to say.

  ‘You’re a Spriggani.’

  ‘And you’re not as stupid as you look, which is plenty I might add.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. What are you doing down here?’

  ‘My sister would be beside herself, if she were here.’

  ‘It would seem you’re fairly beside yourself too. And you still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘My sister said the Spriggani can
use the arcane, but the Empire had mostly driven you south, to Shanisrond.’

  The man nodded with a grim expression on his face. ‘Those Spriggani who could run, fled. And those foolish enough, or stubborn enough, to stay have been killed and captured.’

  ‘Stubborn like you?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘Stubborn like me,’ agreed the Spriggani. ‘Now, are you going to tell me why you’re down here?’

  ‘Felgenhauer sent me down here to find someone called Tief. She said I had to help out in the forges.’

  ‘Well, the goddess is with you. I’m Tief and this is the forge. We’re not used to outsiders down here. It usually means trouble.’

  The Spriggani pulled out a pipe and set to making himself a smoke as more and more apparitions gathered around them, forming a circle of ashes and shadows. The glowing coals of their eyes were fixed on Steiner and he cast fearful glances over his shoulders.

  ‘Pah!’ said the Spriggani. ‘You’ve no need to worry yourself about these lost souls. They’ll not harm you. You’re one of us now.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Cinderwraiths, forgotten slaves to the Empire, out of sight and out of mind.’ The Spriggani blew a jet of smoke that mingled with the wraith Steiner had dissipated with his hammer just moments before.

  ‘Did I hurt it?’

  ‘Hurt isn’t the right word,’ replied Tief. He added another jet of pipe smoke to the creature. ‘Though I’ve never seen that happen before, truth be told. Still he seems to have got himself together again. If it is indeed a him. I’d say you’re more shaken than he is.’

  Steiner nodded. That he was talking to a living, breathing, pipe-smoking Spriggani was unbelievable enough, but the cinderwraiths were like something from a nightmare. How many times had he laughed at Kjellrunn for wanting to meet the forest kin?

  ‘So do you have a name, or shall we call you Hammersmith, on account of that great sledge you’re so keen on waving about?’

  ‘Steiner. I was brought to the island by mistake. I don’t have witchsign.’

  ‘Ah, there’s no telling the deaf or the foolish. I said they’d make a hash of things one day. Shame you have to pay the price for their incompetence. Still, at least you’ll never be cold again.’ Tief had found the silver lining, the furnaces were beyond warm and perspiration dotted Steiner’s forehead.

  ‘Felgenhauer said something about Enkhtuya,’ said Steiner. ‘Does this Enkhtuya run the forge?’

  The cinderwraiths drifted away, returning to their furnaces and resuming their tasks.

  ‘Aye, something like that,’ said Tief, clamping his teeth on the pipe stem. ‘But Enkhtuya doesn’t care much for Northmen, so watch your step.’ Tief cleared his throat and dipped his chin before muttering, ‘Felgenhauer should know better.’ The Spriggani toked on his pipe and beckoned with his other hand. ‘Come on, now. There’s work to be done.’

  Tief led him through an underworld of furnaces and fires; barrels of brackish water waited to quench burning hot metal. Cinderwraiths worked in teams; they looked up from their work with burning gazes as Steiner passed.

  ‘They can’t speak?’

  ‘No,’ said Tief. ‘At least no sound I’ve ever heard. They can converse among themselves, but I’ve never ascertained how. Only Frejna would know.’

  Tief led him on through the cavern and stout crates greeted them at every juncture and turn. Steiner couldn’t help but peer into one as they passed by, seeing swords sleeping on beds of canvas and straw.

  ‘I thought the Empire’s treaty with the Scorched Republics forbids the forging of weapons.’

  ‘Did you now?’ said Tief.

  ‘It was one of the few concessions the Republics won after the destruction of the dragons.’ Steiner was less sure of himself. ‘A concession meant to stop Imperial expansion.’

  ‘Pah! Expansion. The Hammersmith has all the long words.’ Tief toked on his pipe. ‘And who told you all of this?’

  ‘My uncle Verner,’ said Steiner with a frown, ‘in Cinderfell.’

  ‘And where are you now?’

  ‘On an island of crazed Vigilants?’

  ‘True enough, but try again.’

  ‘Trapped in a huge forge with a workforce of lost souls?’

  ‘You were closer the first time.’

  ‘On an island?’ ventured Steiner.

  ‘Yes, the island of Vladibogdan.’

  ‘And Vladibogdan … isn’t part of the Empire?’

  ‘Precisely.’ Tief nodded with a solemn look on his face. ‘Vladibogdan doesn’t exist; it doesn’t fall within the borders of Solmindre.’

  Steiner regarded the cavern of cinderwraiths working tirelessly. Swords and shields, vambraces and breastplates, knives and spearheads.

  ‘Which means they can make all of this and not break the terms of the treaty.’

  ‘Clever bastards, aren’t they?’ Tief cleared his throat. ‘When the world ends it will be due to a technicality. The Empire will use the swords to fight their war in the south and they’ll use the spears to arm their garrisons in the Scorched Republics.’ Tief took a step closer and beckoned with a finger. Steiner leaned closer so he might hear better over the din of the forge. ‘They’ll use the knives to slit the throats of those who speak out against them. And when the city states of Shanisrond are defeated, and when Svingettevei, Vannerånd, Drakefjord and Nordvlast bend their knee to the Empire, there’ll just be one last thing to do.’

  ‘What?’ asked Steiner.

  ‘Exterminate everyone without pale skin.’ Tief leaned close. ‘Cheery thought, is it? As I said, they’re complete bastards.’

  ‘But what have the Spriggani, the Shanish and the Yamal ever done to the Empire?’

  ‘Dared to be different. Dared to use the arcane. Dared to stand our ground.’

  ‘But you can’t exterminate an entire people.’

  ‘Tell that to the Emperor.’ Tief shook his head, then turned his back and stamped off into the gloom. Steiner followed him towards the cavern’s centre, watching the smoke emitted by the countless fires; it did not settle as a fog but drifted to a dark corner. Tief caught his gaze and nodded.

  ‘So you’ve spotted the breeze. There are a few cracks here and there that let the wind in. And out. If it wasn’t for those we’d all choke to death.’

  They were near the centre now and Steiner spotted more and more Spriggani among the cinderwraiths. Around a dozen of them looked up from their work; some scowled, but most appeared uninterested.

  ‘You’re slaves,’ he whispered as they neared the journey’s end.

  ‘We are all slaves, Hammersmith. Some wear chains and some don’t, but dry your eyes, it’s not so bad. There are far worse things in Vinterkveld than slavery.’

  The cavern’s centre was home to a stone dais dozens of feet across, and pitted with age. At its centre was the largest furnace Steiner had ever seen, flanked by two anvils, and a rack of tools. Sacks of coal lay at the edge of the dais, well away from stray cinders or burning embers.

  Enkhtuya hammered at brightly glowing metal with a grim expression on her face.

  ‘Frøya’s tits,’ whispered Steiner.

  ‘Mind your language,’ grumbled Tief.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone from Yamal before.’

  ‘Don’t say anything stupid,’ warned Tief.

  ‘Her skin is so dark, are they all like that?’

  ‘Yes, they are. And that’s the one stupid question you’re allowed.’

  Enkhtuya wore a heavy leather apron. The light brown material had been fashioned from broad chevrons stitched together, all pointing up to the broad shoulders and stern visage of the Yamal woman. Her hands were bound up in thick gloves and a heavy amulet hung from a cord around her neck.

  ‘Kimi! Stop fooling about with hot metal.’ Tief pulled himself up onto the dais. ‘We’ve got company.’

  Enkhtuya turned to them. She had a wide mouth and serious eyes. Plaits of dark hair ran in neat rows along her scalp, terminati
ng in metal thimbles near her neck.

  ‘Why is there a Northman in my forge?’ said Enkhtuya, her Nordspråk perfect.

  ‘Felgenhauer sent him down,’ said Tief. ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he added as Enkhtuya’s expression hardened. She kicked a bucket, a curse word escaping her lips. The bucket upended, splashing the water over a cinderwraith who hissed and disappeared, the orange eyes extinguished in a heartbeat.

  Tief knelt down at the spot the cinderwraith had disappeared, the knees of his breaches stained with wet ashes.

  ‘What did you do?’ he hollered. ‘I’m going to need some coal and kindling. Be quick about it!’ A handful of wraiths hurried to fetch the materials and the Spriggani set about making a fire. Steiner watched in horror, trying to ignore the glowering presence of Enkhtuya while avoiding the many wraiths as they dashed about. The phantom workers were insubstantial, but somehow carried items that were not.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Steiner whispered, kneeling beside Tief.

  ‘Resurrection,’ he replied. ‘The spirit will fade unless I start a fire to give it a new form. It needs smoke.’

  Steiner watched in fascination as tongues of flame gave off tendrils of grey and black, curling around Tief’s fingers.

  ‘That’s it, my friend,’ soothed Tief. ‘Come back to the land of the living.’ He frowned. ‘Well, almost living.’

  The pall grew around Tief’s fingers and two motes of orange light appeared and began to swell. They waited for long minutes, Enkhtuya and Steiner watching Tief coax the spark of unlife back into the cinderwraith.

  Finally Tief stood up with a grunt and turned to Enkhtuya, frowning hard. ‘You nearly invented a new meaning for “kicked the bucket”, your highness.’

  Enkhtuya gave a half-shrug and rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not having a Northman in my forge.’ Her voice was quiet, and Steiner was reminded of Felgenhauer, and the aura of command she attired herself in.

  ‘I’m a blacksmith’s son. I can help,’ said Steiner. ‘I want to help.’

  ‘See,’ said Tief. ‘He wants to help. He’s not one of them. I daresay he hates the Empire.’

  ‘I’m not having a Northman in my furnace. Regardless of his hatred for the Empire.’ Enkhtuya stepped down from the dais and Steiner’s eyes widened as he realized she was squaring up to him. He’d seen it before plenty of times, in the school yard and the tavern.