Scarred Man

by Bevan McGuiness

  Sleep came once more, swiftly taking him away from his examination of Kirri, plunging him once more into dreams.

  After the beast left him, he fled south-east as fast as he could. He had almost run himself into exhaustion before he realised he was gripping the Warrior’s Claw. His mind recoiled in horror as he skidded to a halt and stared down at the gleaming weapon. He could not remember picking it up. Neither could he remember its weight in his hand as he ran. Without thinking, he tucked it inside his jerkin and continued walking towards where he hoped he would find Leserlang.

  It required all of his mental discipline to keep his mind from spiralling into useless speculation. What was that thing? Why had it spoken to him? What was its purpose? But there was no point in wasting his time worrying or trying to analyse the thing’s words: it was not human. Slave pushed himself on across the barren, frozen plain. His clothes were caked with blood and other less identifiable substances. In the icy wind, their rigidity was a blessing, but if it ever warmed up and they started to thaw …

  He shied away from what he would smell like.

  Or look like.

  One thing about the screaming wind was that it killed the silence that was so unnerving. Enclosed silence was one thing, he was comfortable with that, but the vast, open silence of the world above ground still set him on edge. With this hateful wind, he was spared that at least, but the night was still full of unexplained scents, sounds and half-seen movements. Every time he moved his head to see one thing, it was gone, to be replaced by something else at the edge of his vision. He knew there was never anything there, but he had to look.

  The sky was covered by cloud, giving the illusion of cover but without the protection afforded by solid rock. Overhead was still nothingness — vast, open space. Each time his mind reached this point, Slave wrenched his wandering thoughts back under control before panic entered his soul once more. It was getting harder every time. If he did not find some cover soon, he might not be able to maintain his control.

  The wind screamed across the open plain, whipping snow and ice along with it, sending strange patterns whirling and dancing before it. Snowdrifts had been carved into eerie shapes — half seen, half imagined — that tugged at his mind. He saw monsters crouching, dead bodies sprawling, dark portals yawning to swallow him. As the freezing wind scoured past him, all the shapes, the shadows, the dark places had the illusion of movement that played with him, taunted his alert senses, used his energy and drove him closer and closer to the exhaustion that would strip his ability to control his mind.

  That way lay madness.

  But he kept walking, pushing against the fear, the wind, the cold and the pain, keeping his eyes down, trying not to see too much.

  At some stage after his mind was numb and his feet beyond feeling, light tickled the edge of his vision. A soft grey eased its way up into the black of night as day dawned over the tundra of C’sobra.

  The sun sluggishly dragged itself up over the horizon, casting diffuse warmth on the ice, but not enough to turn any of the frozen ground into slush. Not yet. And with the cloud cover in place, probably not at all today.

  Despite the increase in warmth, the wind continued. The tiny ice particles kept cutting through the air without respite. Slave had never felt so miserable, but as uncomfortable as this vile plain was, he was free to walk it. No one was over him. No one was in command of him. Were he to freeze to death here he would die a free man no matter that he had made himself slave to his need to right what he had done. His panic before at being enslaved again had been misplaced. He was free. His earlier decision was just that, a decision; he’d done the one thing that only a free man could do — decide for himself.

  You are surrounded by peace.

  Myrrhini had said that.

  Kirri had said that.

  The thought clawed its way up past the dream to ring like a bell through his scrambled focus.

  Slave’s eyes snapped open. He raised himself up on one elbow and stared down at Kirri. She looked nothing like Myrrhini, but the implications of her words were unmistakeable. She had to be an Eye of Varuun, pureblood Mertian. A target of the thing he had released under Vogel. The Revenant was hunting her! And he might have led it straight to her.

  ‘Kirri, wake up,’ he hissed as he shook her.

  ‘What?’ she groaned. She yawned and rolled over.

  The wind battered at their simple shelter, carrying the promise of ice and cold. Beneath the leather floor, the ground was frozen, as it had been for unknown time. A faint glow of sunrise was starting to appear.

  ‘Kirri, I need to know. Do you have any daven in your bag?’

  Kirri nodded slowly. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Are you Mertian?’

  ‘We all are. All the Kuvnos are Mertian.’

  Slave pulled back from her. ‘I can’t be here,’ he said.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Kirri reached out to pull him back down again but he held her hands away from him.

  ‘You said I was surrounded by peace. Why did you say that? Did you have a vision?’

  Kirri’s eyes widened. ‘How can you know about the visions?’

  ‘Just tell me, did you have a vision?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Slave demanded, his hands gripping hers tightly.

  ‘Let go, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  Kirri looked hard into his face, anger springing into her eyes, but something in his expression made her look away quickly. All resolve faded from her and she seemed to shrink away from him. Her voice, when it finally came, was soft, barely above a whisper. Slave had to lean close, holding his ear by her mouth to hear over the wind.

  ‘… darkness arises from the labyrinth. The wild evil bursts forth and returns chaos to the world. The great enemies resume their battle, fighting to the death in their unending hatred. The Scarred Man, the great Beq, will lead the armies of the warrior, but he will lead the Seeing One, being surrounded by peace. She will flee before the enemies, harboured by the unseeing vision.’

  ‘What does that all mean?’

  ‘It means that you will be surrounded by peace.’

  ‘I haven’t known any peace since escaping from Sondelle. Why do you people keep telling me this?’

  Kirri took advantage of Slave’s distraction to snatch her hands away. She pulled back from him as far as their simple shelter would allow, curling herself into a protective ball.

  ‘So you are the Beq?’ she asked.

  Slave lowered his head. ‘Yes,’ he muttered.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I am the warlord of the Great Revenant’s army. When I released it from the labyrinth beneath Vogel, it gave me these,’ he traced the scars across his face, ‘and this.’ He held up the Warrior’s Claw. It glinted in the darkness, shining with its own light. ‘It also bestowed its blessing on me.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘I kill, without restraint, without thought. When I am threatened, I kill. It’s another reason why I should not be around you.’

  ‘But the peace?’

  Slave snarled and started to pull on his yok. ‘Peace,’ he spat. ‘If you want any, keep away from me.’

  He shoved his feet deep into his thick boots and wrenched open the flap of their tent. The wind roared in, ripping apart their warmth with icy fingers. Slave shivered, shuddering in the sudden change as he forced himself out into the pre-dawn of a new day. He left the Kuvnos with sadness, but he had to. Sondelle had set him on this path, but he himself had made the choices that brought him here.

  The thought of Sondelle made Slave shiver again. If the old sorcerer was still hunting him, he had to keep moving. Idly, as he drove himself into the wind, Slave wondered whether he would find the beast he released before the beast he fled found him.

  15

  The sky slowly turned from black to pink to pale blue. Keshik hung, exhausted in his cage, staring blankly out at the northern t
undra. The Arch was so far north of Leserlang that the ugly brown stain of a city was out of sight, leaving this ancient ruin standing alone in the plain with nothing between it and the Sixth Waste. His body ached from uncontrolled shivering, his knees bled from being forced against the iron bars, his knuckles were bloodied and raw from pounding at the cage, and his mind still reeled from the night’s encounter with the terrifying spectre.

  Never in his life had he known such pain, so close to utter despair. Enst was dead, his husk of a body hanging limply in his cage, his eyes wide in horror at the nature of his death. What had he said? Who has unleashed this evil upon us?

  Me, Keshik realised. I did. I unleashed that terror I saw last night.

  What was that thing?

  He tried to recall its name, but could not. The aftereffects of what he had seen left his mind sluggish and weary. Every muscle groaned; thirst was beginning to bite. He would not survive another night.

  He muttered his dofain, but it came out blurred and slow from a dry tongue. The sun crept up over the flat horizon, casting harsh light over the cold ground. Nothing broke the northern horizon except the occasional flurry of loose snow picked up to dance by the incessant winds.

  ‘I will not die here,’ Keshik mumbled. ‘Maida, I will find you. I will make redress for what I have done.’ As if speaking the words gave him strength, he flexed his shoulders, pressing them hard against the unyielding bars of his cage to heave himself more upright. His fists clenched and he resumed his pounding against the cold iron. With every blow, a stab of pain ran along his arm. He summoned memories of Maida to soften the agony.

  Her smile, her green eyes, her flame-red hair. He saw her riding one of the tough northern horses, setting a trap, skinning her kill, wrapped against the cold with only her eyes visible. His battered hands felt her silken skin as they lay close together under piles of furs inside their gyrn while outside the cleansing wind drove pure snow across the wasteland that had become their home. Keshik closed his eyes to better focus on the exquisite memories of Maida while his fists continued their rhythmic battering at the iron.

  The passionate arguments that lit her eyes with green fire; her shy smile at his words of love; her shape beneath his exploring hands; her angry outbursts at his stubbornness. She had stayed with him, sharing his exile, sharing his wanderings through the world’s wild places, only coming to cities for supplies and the money needed to buy them.

  Maida had been by his side while he plied his killing skills, acting as assassin for hire, always seeking that one opponent. That one — the worthy one. Worthy of both Keshik’s blade and title. The one in battle with whom Keshik could not foresee the outcome.

  ‘Worthy,’ he gasped. ‘I will be worthy.’

  Worthy of you, Maida. One day.

  The sun rose higher, taking some of the chill from the air, enough for Keshik to stop shivering, but with the warmth came the cramps, the pain of muscles tortured by a night of constant shivering and crouching without freedom to move. Every muscle spasmed, jerking his limbs against the bars, wrenching his back. Cries of agony burst from a dry throat past cracking lips. With every sound, more blood trickled down his chin. His eyes started to blur some time after noon when his eyelids could no longer glide easily. He saw shapes that were not there.

  Not images from his mind, images from dry eyes and tricks of the light. He saw fuzzy blobs drifting across the horizon, blurry shapes flying through the pale blue sky, and things creeping towards him. As they came to him, he tried to flinch away, to ward them off, but his body no longer obeyed. Two days exposed without water or food, and before that, uncounted days in a dank cell, starving and weak, were taking a fearsome toll.

  Some time after the sun passed its zenith, he started hearing things. Not actual voices, but half-understood sounds, hints of long-forgotten noises, all just hovering at the edge of comprehension.

  When the voice first spoke to him, he ignored it, believing it to be another phantom, but it persisted.

  ‘… you in there?’ the voice asked.

  Keshik groaned, trying to force words through his broken lips. Nothing more than a croak and a trickle of blood came out. He forced his eyes wider, trying to focus on the source of the voice.

  ‘You don’t look well,’ the voice went on. ‘These your blades?’

  Keshik croaked again, this time attempting to ask for water, but the man on horseback in front of him still did not understand. His eyesight cleared slightly, allowing him to watch as the fair-haired man reached out and grasped the hilts of the dangling swords.

  ‘Good weapons. What is this one made of, I wonder?’

  ‘Water.’ Keshik managed to force out the word. The man looked up. Keshik stared down at him, his mind screaming at him from a long way away. He knew there was something about this dark-skinned man with the oddly yellowish hair and the savage scars cut across his face, but whatever it was slipped out of his grasp. The man’s silver eye glinted in the sunlight.

  ‘Water,’ the man repeated. ‘I have some.’ He pulled a waterskin out from under his heavy coat and considered the height of the cage. ‘I’ll climb up.’

  He easily climbed the chains holding Keshik’s swords and clambered up the iron bars of the cage. Holding on with one hand, he unstoppered the waterskin and poured the water into Keshik’s open mouth. The cold liquid flooded his throat and overflowed down his chin as he gulped greedily. He felt the cooling flow as it made its way into his stomach.

  ‘My thanks,’ he gasped. Harsh coughing racked his body as the water settled.

  The fair-haired man pulled a Warrior’s Claw from his belt and started striking one of the bars. With every blow, sparks flew and, impossibly, small cuts formed. Keshik watched, disbelieving, as slowly the heavy iron was cut.

  Soon there was enough room for Keshik to reach his arm out. He stretched his arm, feeling the exquisite agony as the blood flowed back into the limb. In less time than he would have believed possible, the man had cut through one bar and was working on another. Then another. It seemed that no sooner was one arm free than three of the bars, fully half the cage, had been hacked away. Keshik felt himself slump as the supporting bars fell to the ground. He tried to grip the remaining bars but his hand was too weak and his grasp slipped. With a despairing cry, Keshik tumbled from his cage and fell heavily to the frozen ground. There was a brilliant flash of pain behind his eyes and he lost consciousness.

  He awoke — warm, in pain and hungry. His eyes opened to look up at a grey sky.

  ‘Where …?’ he croaked.

  ‘Not far from that place,’ the fair-haired man replied.

  Keshik turned his head to regard him again. ‘I owe you my life, stranger,’ he rasped.

  The man shrugged. ‘I couldn’t leave anyone to die like that. You owe me nothing.’

  ‘I do,’ Keshik persisted. ‘All I have are my honour and my blades. I swear I will never harm you.’

  The man narrowed his eyes, the green and the silver, to stare. ‘I think you mean that,’ he said softly. He flicked an appraising glance over Keshik. ‘And I think you could harm me if you chose to.’ He stood quickly and pulled the Claw from his belt. It was a casual gesture, not threatening, more as though he was taking some sort of comfort from the weapon.

  That stance! That weapon! What was it about them?

  This time, Keshik’s mind was quicker and he suddenly remembered where he had seen this man before.

  ‘You!’ he hissed. ‘It is you.’

  ‘Yar. It is me, who else could I be?’

  Keshik struggled to rise to his feet, but the other man pushed him back down easily.

  ‘Easy, man. Easy. You are weak.’

  ‘You killed her!’ Keshik said.

  ‘I have killed a lot of people recently,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You don’t even remember, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t remember a lot of what I have done.’

  There was something in his tone that made Kes
hik hesitate. He had heard of berserk rages and how men could go battle-mad, unaware of their actions, unable to control their murderous frenzy. Could this strange man be one of those? He lay back, feeling the warmth of furs around him. The wind was cold, as it always seemed to be in this hateful place, and Keshik pulled the furs tighter around himself, his mind in turmoil.

  He had just sworn on his honour not to harm the man who had murdered Maida. Keshik sighed. When would he learn to think before acting? But it had been the right thing to do: the man had saved his life, he had had to do something. He groaned and tried to think about something else.

  The pain.

  He could think about the pain. More pain than he had known for a long time. His shoulders ached from being cramped in the cage, his knees were on fire from not being able to stand up properly, from bearing his weight as they pressed against the bars. His knuckles were badly bruised and torn from a day’s pounding against the unyielding iron, while his stomach was knotted in cramp from the hunger. He closed his eyes. Maybe I shouldn’t think about the pain.

  ‘You need some time, I think,’ the Scarred Man said.

  ‘No, I don’t have time.’ Keshik tried to lift himself up, but his body betrayed him. He could barely raise his head off the ground. ‘I will overcome,’ he muttered as he subsided.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the Scarred Man asked.

  ‘Keshik. You?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I am called Slave.’

  ‘Not much of a name,’ Keshik said.

  Slave lifted his disconcerting eyes to stare at the horizon. ‘What’s so important you can’t wait to recover?’ he said finally.

  ‘Maida,’ Keshik said simply.

  ‘Ah,’ Slave said. ‘A woman.’ He remembered the Lac’un farmers’ knowing nods at Slave’s pursuit of Waarde. ‘Has to be a woman involved,’ he added.