by A. D. Green
That he’d left Rivercross was self-indulgent. Amos saw that now. Some boyhood fancy to travel the northern borders, see the wilds and maybe glimpse the Torns, just so he could say he’d done it. As well, to gaze upon the ilf lands would be a tale they could all recount in their dotage, sat around their hearth fires drinking ale and reliving glory days gone by.
Now they were three. His mind turned to Silver and the boy Seb and guilt lay heavy upon him. No glory days for them to talk of in their old age and he was to blame. Too damn cocksure, he’d treated the matter at the inn like a game and they’d paid the price for it.
Seb he knew little of. The boy’s family were staunch allies of the Duncans and he’d been asked to take Seb along to season him. He’d agreed readily enough.
Silver on the other hand, argh Silver gods damn-it. Silver had been a young sword master when first they’d met. He had trained Amos for a year before joining him and swearing to the Duncans. They became fast friends, one of the few he trusted. A man he’d known all his adult life dead and gone, because I sent him out ill-prepared, assuming we were better than everyone else. By the gods may I be damned, he cursed again.
The only consolation in all this was that his sister Mercy was safely away. She was highly capable, he had no doubts about that, but he sensed things were about to get a whole lot worse. Better she was out of it, Lucky and Stama too.
“Ain’t no fucking way Boss,” Jobe responded when Amos broke the news. “You ain’t getting rid of us that easy,” he hissed, keeping his voice low. Jerkze nodded his agreement.
“Look, there’s no sense us all going. We need to get word to the Black Crow of what we’ve seen,” Amos whispered back.
“The Crow ain’t sitting there waiting on you for news Amos. He’ll know by now what’s coming. Has his own scouts and hunters out,” Jerkze reasoned back. “As I recall, this was about you seeing with your own eyes what threat the urak pose. Way I see things you done that. Seen more an we need. I figure it’s time to go.”
Jerkze could see his words hit home, saw Amos consider them. Hell he probably even agreed with him. But damn him for a stubborn assed mule, he knew by the man’s stance he was going anyway.
Jerkze shrugged. “If’n ya think we need to go to this watch tower it makes sense for Jobe or me to go, not you.”
Damn him, damn them both, thought Amos. He hadn’t really expected anything less from them. He should’ve known better and he grudgingly conceded Jerkze’s reasoning was sounder than his own. He knew this was a battle he wouldn’t win. If he ordered them south, screamed at them they’d disobey him. It’s what he would do. So did he take them south or west?
“The urak are coming, we know that,” Amos stated. “But we have no idea what we’re facing, how many. Is it an incursion or an invasion? I figure we need to know.” He tapped his finger on the map over the Boil. “Figure this is as good a place as any to find out for sure.”
They peered over his shoulder at the map. Neither of them looked happy or convinced but they stood together.
“Best get it done then,” Jobe said, a grim but resolute look on his face.
Jerkze patted his friend on the back saying nothing. Turning, he cinched his saddle, tightening it for the ride ahead.
The three men cleared the foothills and valleys shortly past midnight. They were tired and their horses weary but they had no time to rest. The moons gave enough light to see by on the grassy plains and they passed several abandoned holdsteads and stopped at one to water the horses. The buildings when they checked them had been cleared out and trashed. Blood stains on floors and walls told their own tale painting a clear warning to them, if they still needed any, that this was hostile territory.
As they rode, they saw the lump of Santranta’s Boil as a black smudge against a dark background. Even so they were surprised when the ground suddenly started to rise. The Boil turned out to be a massive rock stuck up out of the ground, not a hillock at all. It must have been immense but in the dark it was hard to take it all in.
They found the start of a rough-hewn path on its southern flank. A path not meant for horses. Jerkze and Jobe drew lots. Jerkze lost and ended up tending the horses whilst Amos and Jobe climbed the path.
It proved a tricky ascent in the dark and was steep in places requiring them to scramble over rock and narrow ledges as the path snaked up the side of the Boil. Finally they pulled themselves up onto its flattened top, arms and legs aching, their breath coming in gasps.
Like a massive thimble, squat and rotund the tower stood before them. Amos wondered how in the seven hells anyone had ever managed to build on top of the Boil, just dragging himself up had been an effort. He was wary too; Jerkze’s parting words still fresh in his mind.
“Them urak will likely look to the Boil for the same reason we do. Have a care,” he'd warned.
They crept slowly over the rocky ground, careful not to disturb any loose stone. Making it safely to the tower wall they followed its curving flank eastward where they found the entrance. The gate was missing leaving a yawning gap.
Jobe glanced round and into the tower’s interior. A small fire smouldered inside and around its edge was laid three lumps. He turned to Amos holding three fingers up. They both knew there would be at least one on guard somewhere, surely.
A squeaky rumble sounded directly above them, seemingly loud in the quiet of the night. There was a mutter and rustle of movement, then nothing.
They’d found the sentry, almost stumbled upon him. Listening hard, Amos thought he detected a faint snore. It sounded like the sentry slept. Fortunate indeed, for any noise made was accentuated in the still night.
Amos wasn’t entirely sure how many urak there were, at least four but they weren’t here to fight in any case. Tapping Jobe on the shoulder he signalled and moved back the way they had come.
The entrance was on the south eastern side of the tower and so they followed the wall back the other way, easing around the towers girth.
Rounding the wall Amos’s eyes was drawn to the horizon. Pin pricks of light stood out against the black. Disbelieving he crept further round, hearing Jobe’s intake of breath behind.
To the north the dark quilt that lay upon the ground was punctured by thousands of campfires. The number was staggering. Amos held his hands up forming a square between thumbs and index fingers and counted the lights he saw within. It took him a while and when he was done he moved his hand trying to cover what he saw before him. It was difficult to be entirely accurate he knew with just the dark background to line up against but by his judgement there must have been twenty thousand campfires burning, probably more. He did a quick calculation in his head and didn’t like the answer he got. Turning, Amos signed it was time to go, he’d seen enough.
They took their time on the way back down, neither wanting to make a mistake and stumble or dislodge rocks that might alert the urak to their presence.
The descent proved uneventful but slow, much slower even than the ascent. Climbing and scrambling down a rocky path in the dark was more treacherous by far than going up it. By the time they reached Jerkze light cracked the eastern horizon with the faint kiss of dawn.
“Whores tits, Jerkze,” Jobe whispered. “You should’ve seen it.”
“Seen what?” Jerkze asked.
“The campfires; it was like the stars in the heavens had fallen to earth.”
Jerkze looked up at the night sky. There were a lot of stars up there. “That sounds like a lot,” he said soberly climbing into his saddle. “Now can we get the hells out of here?”
Turning south they rode hard before the dawn, tired but filled with urgency, the danger they’d seen lending them energy. The horses at least had been rested.
The further south they travelled the more holdings they passed leading them to tracks and then paths where the going was much easier. The three put as much distance between themselves and the Boil as possible before full daylight broke, worried they’d be easy to spy upon the plains.
They rested briefly at an abandoned holding as the sun fully crested the horizon. The holdstead was orderly. The urak hadn’t been there and it gave them hope they were ahead of the tide. They quickly fed and watered the horses, then themselves, before setting off again walking for a bit to rest the horses. Always they looked to the horizon, searching.
By noon tell-tale smoke was seen away to the north-west and again to the north. Their mood darkened and the tension rose. They could almost feel the urak closing in around them. Finding sign of a village just ahead they veered from the road crossing fields to bypass it, not wanting to risk running into trouble. A village could easily conceal a score of urak and they wouldn’t know it until arrows flew.
Leaving the village behind they took rest in an orchard lined with apple trees. The horses ate eagerly, the season was right and the apples hung ripe on the branches. It was as they walked the horses out of the orchard that they saw their first urak. It was just bad timing. They’d rested longer than they should have, feeling the horses needed it.
It was as they cleared the edge of the orchard that trouble struck. The hedgerow bordering the orchard followed a lane that ran away east to north. As they stepped out onto the dirt track a group of urak appeared in the near distance rounding a bend to the north.
They were out of arrow range Amos judged, but then who knew how far an urak bow fired. Mounting quickly they pointed their horses south as several urak began unlimbering bows and notching shafts.
As they cantered down the lane a few arrows were loosed but all fell short. Behind them they heard war cries as the urak gave chase. It was the start of their pursuit.
Chapter 49
: Mappels on Oust
Dawn was just cresting the eastern hills when Sand rode into the village of Mappels on Oust. It was small; a community of thirty or so houses and buildings in the immediate vicinity most of which were deserted.
Sand saw little sign of the people who remained but could sense those few that did huddled in their homes. A deep hunger had steadily grown in him since Redford driving him on and he needed to slake it.
Hitching his horse to a post outside a small inn he tried the door. It was barred. Cocking his head he listened but it was still inside. He walked on leaving the inn behind. The next building was a general store and was also devoid of life or at least none he could sense, he ignored it.
The third was a house and apothecary looking at the sign above its door. Flowers in pots framed the doorway and narrow planters ran the length of the building overgrown with a variety of herbs and other plants.
Sand sensed heat inside from two bodies. He tried the door but it was locked. He banged his fist firmly against its wood.
“We’re not open, go away.” An old voice a man’s voice answered, gruff and irritable.
It was not ideal but it was a start. Sand knocked again, louder, insistent.
“I said we’re closed, you deaf?” A head appeared out the window. The man was grizzled; wrinkled and bald apart from a ruff of hair around his ears. His eyes were rheumy and bloodshot. The eyes looked Sand up and down and decided they didn’t like the look of what they saw. The young man was dishevelled and unkempt, his fancy clothing torn in places and dirty, and was that blood on the sleeves? No, he didn’t much like the looks of him at all.
Sand turned an eye to the old man, an amiable look on his face. His hand suddenly shot forward clamping onto the man’s face. Stepping in Sand drove the head back into the frame of the window. With a sickening crunch the back of the skull cracked as it slammed into the wooden jamb. Then with a push the man’s limp and lifeless body fell back inside the house. There was a pause then the screaming started.
Closing his eyes Sand listened, a smile played across his face. He gave a sharp twist of his head, neck cricking, then stepped over to the door. Lifting his hand he knocked again. There was no reply, just the hysterical wailing of a woman inside. It made him… happy.
Sand raised his arm, hand open and facing the door and concentrated. The flowers, herbs and plants in the window box and planters suddenly withered, curled black and died. Immediately a dark swirl of energy gathered in his palm, crackling and pulsating. With a thought it exploded onto the door, its dark matter spreading out covering its upper width in an instant. There was a slight delay then with a sudden detonation the top half of the door crumpled, disintegrating into a thousand wooden shards and splinters to decorate the back wall of the apothecary and in many cases punch right through it.
Stepping up close to the shredded remains of the door Sand bent his head peeking through into the interior. A line of destruction led straight back from the entrance, everything decimated. The body of the old man lay on the floor outside the ruin, unscathed apart from the bloody pulp of bone matter and brains. An old woman knelt beside the man, the look of shock on her face turning to fear as she spied him peering at her from the shattered doorway.
“Knock, knock,” Sand said, smiling. She stared back in horror too stunned or scared to reply. “May I come in?” he asked, his voice pleasant.
Pushing herself up off creaking knees the old woman stood, backing away from her dead husband. “Who are you?” Her voice trembled. “Why are you doing this?” She reached the internal door, her hand fumbling behind for the latch.
“Would you like me to come in and explain it to you?” Sand asked, a questioning look on his face as if he cared for her answer.
Finding the latch she slammed it up. Pushing back against the door she all but fell through it into the next room.
Sand’s smile broadened as he watched the old lady gather herself before half hobbling half running for another door, spying her passage through the newly created rents in the wall. She had spirit. He liked that; that and the terror pulsing off her in waves.
Turning, he walked unhurried around the side of the house to a gate. A weak barrier, it took but a moment to open it and enter the backyard.
The old woman was there as he knew she would be, looking like she was skipping, not able to run but definitely not wanting to walk.
Sand bent picking up a log from the woodpile and hefted it in his hand. It was not the most elegant of tools but it would do. Stepping forward he launched it.
The ground was soft and wet from the earlier rain and as the log slammed with a heavy thud into the old woman’s back, it knocked her from her feet and sent her sprawling.
Sauntering up behind, Sand watched as she clawed in the mud, dragging herself on with a whimper.
“Why are you doing this?” The woman cried staring over her shoulder at Sand’s looming figure.
Sand knelt placing a hand on her shoulder. “Hush now. It’ll be over soon,” he said. Her fear was palpable and he closed his eyes, enjoying it, absorbing it.
“By the Lady may you burn in all seven hells for this. You’re a monster.”
His eyes snapped open. She was a fierce one, her fear turning to anger as she sensed the end. Sand liked that. Anger made them fight harder, last longer. Fear was good but people who only feared gave into death far too easily.
Casually Sand flipped the woman onto her back. Her face was muddy from her fall and her eyes stood out like beacons. Lifting one of her hands he roughly crushed it into a fist. Wrenching, he pried one of her fingers out straight then raising her fist sucked the finger into his mouth watching as her eyes widened in realisation.
Sand bit down, hard. Bone crunched and the old lady screamed writhing in his grip to no effect, he held her fast, untroubled. He sawed his teeth and twisted his mouth, the hot salty taste of blood washing into it as skin ripped and bones split. He spat her finger out and blood pumped from its stump.
She screamed and sobbed as he held her hand to his mouth once again. Closing his eyes he suckled on the shattered remnant of her finger. Sand could taste the fear and pain and terror in the warmth of her blood and relished it.
That sliver of self, buried deep in the recesses of his mind watched in horror as he gorged. It
shouted, crying out at him to stop but it was weak, powerless. His pleasure was palpable.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened to Margarit?” A voice sounded from behind, a woman.
Sand paused, clicking his neck again. He should have been aware of her approach but had lost himself in the moment. From behind it must have looked like he gave comfort, kneeling over Margarit’s body as she cried, holding her hand. Yes, from a certain angle it must look quite different from the reality, he thought.
The woman stepped closer, almost behind him now. Sand stood abruptly and turned. She was stocky and plain, her dark hair held back in a kerchief. On her hip was a babe, flushed with snot running from its nose, a sickly looking thing.
“What a lovely baby you have,” Sand said.
The woman looked taken aback. Surprise, then shock, and finally horror flickered across her face. The man’s mouth and jaw were coated in blood, his smile grotesque his white teeth stained red. Margarit whimpered and she glanced down aghast at what she saw.
“What’s going on?” Her voice was high turning hysterical.
Great, she’s going to start screaming now Sand thought. Too fast, his hands grasped her by the throat. He watched in pleasure as she struggled in his grip choking as he strangled her. Her hand came up to his and tried to pry his fingers away but his grip was like iron. His eyes drank her in as fear turned to panic. She was beautiful.
The woman dropped her babe slapping and pulling at his hands with both of hers and Sand tightened his grip, changed his stance. She flailed, one of her finger nails scratching a furrow down his cheek. Annoyed he squeezed and twisted crushing her larynx. He smacked his forehead into her face breaking her nose and she went limp. Lowering her gently to the floor he held her down watching with interest as blood pooled in her mouth.