Starwatch

by Ian Blackport

  “Fifteen hundred light infantry. The weather has been capricious of late and my heavy troops were bogged down in dense rains. Their eventual arrival will bring my complement to eight thousand. Four thousand fewer than I hoped, as we still have yet to replenish our ranks after last year’s Lorentarthese campaign. Lord Malin fares worse, from what my scouts tell me.”

  “Unfortunately true. He has with him only five thousand.”

  Brath ran one gentle finger along the Old Imperial Way snaking through Almaya and into the Empire’s heart. “And once we march, what do we face?”

  “The Draugans are regrouping here, best as we can tell,” Lincema avowed, tapping a forefinger upon the vellum map’s illustrated contours. “Seven legions encamped on the plains north of Tarn, only a few leagues distant from Littlebend. Four legions are newly raised levies. But the other three are veteran units who have already shed blood in this war, including the Tenth Legion. And to compound our difficulties, their bungling field commander was sadly sacked. I liked the inept man. His replacement is High Legatus Mallick Erris. Against them we can field thirty-one thousand.”

  “The numerical advantage will be theirs.”

  “It will be. As it was five months previous at Soyhor Pass, and we bloodied their noses well enough.”

  “The same was not true on the shores of Lake Ossaia, as Lady Tyona’s youngest son learned. Is this wise?”

  “The dead have nothing to learn, my friend. But we who are still among the living must do what is necessary.” Lincema lifted his eyes from the map to glimpse Lord Venshal. “How long will the weather delay your heavy infantry?”

  “No more than three days, I suspect.”

  Brynn cast an inquisitive expression toward his father. “We can’t hope to challenge the Empire’s legions without the levies from Cingas. Not if Erris commands their army, and not with the Tenth in attendance.”

  Layara casually tucked both thumbs into the slight belt looped about her waist. “Yeah, but three days’ worth of sitting on our collective arses?”

  “Additional delay might well cede initiative to the Draugans,” Lincema declared.

  Brath traced a lone finger along his smooth jawbone. “In this I must apologize. But even without my forces the allied army can still prevent the Empire from pushing northward and hold their legions to the outskirts of Tarn. Once the full weight of Cingas stands beside you, only then will we force battle.”

  “Agreed,” Lincema conceded. “We shall ride tonight, as intended. Are your fifteen hundred able to join us on the road?”

  “Regrettably no. Beating rains spoiled our supplies in great numbers. We barely had what was needed to reach your gates and the heavy infantry fares no better. I would not have my soldiers as a burden on your march. The few among us already here will provision and hold.”

  A begrudging sigh escaped Lincema’s lips. “If you must. Make southward with all haste at first opportunity. See that there are no further delays.”

  “It will be done.” Brath flicked a dirt clump from under his index finger. “What force will remain behind in Adaven?”

  “Three hundred troops to impose order. A pitifully small complement and nearly all raw recruits to boot. Excitable and eager to prove, perhaps, but the entire lot is untried and green save a few aging veterans with too many winters to their names.” Lincema placed both hands on the dusky table and hunched his back. Faint ripples creased beige illustrations as wood beneath moaned in protest. “Would that I could thrust a blade into the hand of every man, woman and child within our walls and send them to kill Draugans.”

  Brath swallowed a final trickling mouthful and set his goblet down. “An outlook I share.”

  “Two centuries suffering through occupation,” Lincema said, “at an end. After four long years of war our ancestors’ dream is within grasp and I mean to seize it. Brynn, escort Lord Venshal to his quarters and prepare the army to march. Lord Arayla will coordinate with you.”

  “Yes, father.”

  Lincema watched Brath and his son depart the chamber and placed a hand on Layara’s forearm. “Stay with me a moment longer. We’ve matters to discuss that must be seen to while I am away.”

  *

  Golden swaths swept across a pink sky sprinkled with wispy clouds, harkening twilight’s arrival and bathing Adaven in a pale glow. Caressing breezes stirred Layara’s hair into restlessness and she tucked strands behind one ear. Leaning on the stone windowsill in one of Silverspire’s myriad towers, she glimpsed her father and brother riding from the keep. Dust swirled aloft behind clapping hooves and glistened in the day’s waning sunlight. Blue and gold banners fluttered above cavalry, bearing the standard for House Erodin. The small force cantered along a cobblestone avenue leading to Eternity Gate, beyond which awaited the encamped army. Canvas tents and tarpaulins littered the rugged horizon, barely discernible to Layara’s acute eyes. She wished more than anything to be among their number.

  Her gaze drifted downward to cardinal tiles topping sloped rooftops. Spiralling plants and flowers spilled from windows and lined colonnaded verandas. Adaven was a veritable artistic palette, renowned for its elegance. Functionality had always placed a distant second to beauty in this ancient capital.

  Granite chilled her bare forearms and raised goose bumps on pale skin. Layara rubbed lumpy flesh and exited the room, scuffing grubby floor with her feet. She meandered through hallways ornamented with embroidered draperies and descended a winding staircase of depressed stone. Soon she stood outside a doorway guarded by soldiers gripping spears in gauntleted hands. Arched windows lighted the corridor and overlooked a sprawling ivy courtyard below, where trilling songbirds flitted amid pathways and groomed shrubbery.

  Layara touched a brass knob portraying a roaring grizzly head and twisted, entering the bedchamber. Her mother’s pallid face peeked above woolen covers and bear furs. Moisture slicked a carafe of iced water resting on the bedside table, reflecting light from a burning fireplace. Delicate squeaks sounded from the rocking chair Ely perched in, her intense focus devoted downward. She crudely stabbed a hooked needle into fabric balanced on her blanketed lap, muttering dissent with each poke. Layara smirked at her little sister’s frustration while Ely wrangled against a knotted spool of lilac yarn, serving only to increase curses.

  Nonchalantly leaning against the threshold, Layara tapped a knuckle to announce her presence. Ely peeked up from tangled handiwork and flashed an infectious smile. Dimples cut into her rouged cheeks and she squinted, causing creases to etch the corners of her eyes beneath untamed curls.

  “Still sleeping, is she?”

  “Yep,” Ely answered, looking at their mother. “She’s in and out all day long. Tends to be out more though.”

  “And how goes your lovely art?”

  “This is a stupid hobby.” Ely lifted her left hand and waggled reddened fingertips smeared with pinprick welts. “I don’t know why mom even suggested it.”

  “Because crocheting is pointless busy work. And you’re in need of it. Have you even seen the sun lately?”

  “I see the sun plenty when it shines through the window. Sometimes it comes close to touching me in the afternoon.”

  Layara pushed off the doorframe and wove a circuitous route toward the lone window, glancing between it and her sister. “I’m being serious, Ely. Past time you got out and did something. A few more days of this and you’ll have to relearn how to ride a horse.”

  “Mom needs me here.”

  “For what, I wonder? What crucial help are you giving when she sleeps through the entire day? No reason to pour her water or fetch anything. Not much point talking to her at the moment, either. And I’m not sure how much I like this self-induced torture you’ve got going on there,” Layara added, gesturing toward the crochet.

  “But if she wakes up and I’ve gone—”

  “Then she can call to the guards outside her door.” Layara folded arms across her chest and sighed. “Mom will be fine on her own.”

&
nbsp; “Sure you’re not venting about being stuck here yourself?”

  Doves pecked at dishevelled feathers and cooed on a nearby ledge, gripping their tiny talons into stone. “Maybe a little.”

  Ely lifted her shoulders in a reasonably unsympathetic shrug. “Dad needs someone here to govern.”

  “Haven’t even been in charge for an hour and I’ve already gotten my first request for a petition from the Guild of Goldsmiths for tomorrow.”

  “About what?”

  “Damned if I know, and I couldn’t care less. Apparently some trade emporium is clamoring for an audience, too. Plus the Carpentry Union and Stonemason Combine are in yet another godsdamned feud and want arbitration. And no matter who I choose to admit first, it’ll piss off the other one and they’ll fling petty accusations of favoritism at me. But it’s not as if I could possibly bring in both groups at the same time. No, that’d erupt into a bloody screaming match. Beyond our walls this war is still being fought and they’re bickering over these meaningless concerns like it’s peacetime.” Layara touched fore and middle fingers to her temples and massaged. “I haven’t seen any of their faces yet and my head’s already started throbbing.” She clapped her hands together and stepped away from the window. “I need to go loose some arrows at stuff.”

  “Always seems to makes you feel better,” Ely stated, shifting her attention to again manipulating a needle trailing yarn. “You should hire an artist to paint all those guild idiots. Then you could shoot them.”

  “Oh I’m sure dad would be thrilled with that. ‘What’d you do while I was away?’ ‘Just put the likeness of people I don’t care for on hay bales so I could kill them at my leisure time and again.’”

  “Dad would loose arrows before getting rid of them. We both know it.”

  “He would, too.” Layara casually peeked over Ely’s shoulder on the way to the door. “That’s terrible, you know.”

  Ely smacked both hands into her lap. “I don’t need to be told that to know it’s true!”

  *

  Layara tugged off cured leather gloves and slapped them onto one whitewood chair with a mumbled expletive. Her waxed bowstring had snagged on doeskin and torn a gaping hole the length of her index finger; an occurrence that was most assuredly not supposed to happen. In the morning she planned to inquire about having it mended. Layara was fond of those gloves, after all.

  She deposited her clothing and accoutrements in a heap before flopping into bed wearing only a light undershirt. Howling laughter drifted from a nearby hall, echoes from Galen Talfrey regaling Steward Varin with salacious tales of his early life studying in Starwatch Tower. Difficult as it was to imagine the wizened galen being capable of such things, she nonetheless chuckled alongside the pair for a brief time.

  Layara burrowed her head into a goose down pillow, willing the night to quieten. Drudgery and boredom awaited her in the morning, and there was no avoiding that.

  Father, she mused in frustration, what horrors have you left me to face?

  Chapter 2

  More than one unforgiveable truth was birthed amid night’s dark embrace.

  Mallene Thevara, Among Faceless Shadows

  292 Black Ruin, Year of the Veiled Fortune

  20 Kilessin

  Muted glints of silvery moonlight drifted through mauve drapery. Layara rubbed bleary eyes and cast furs off her body, wiping droplets from a clammy forehead. Embers twinkled atop scorched logs in the fireplace and one smoke thread curled upward beyond blackened stone bricks.

  A hushed clatter penetrated Silverspire’s walls, banishing weariness from Layara’s features. She kicked aside tousled linen sheets and smacked her feet onto carpet, listening for further noise. Muffled shouts shattered the night’s stillness and Layara felt her bones chill.

  Lunging across the chamber, she pulled her cotton tunic and ebony leggings on, yanked a vermilion doublet atop and fastened ivory buttons. She lashed boiled leather vambraces on each forearm, cinched a belt about her waist and thrust bare feet into cold buckskin boots. Finally Layara retrieved a scabbarded bastard sword and affixed it to her rawhide belt. Grasping a verdant shagreen grip, she swept the weapon from its bronze-rimmed sheath and held it aloft. Clenching the granulated surface calmed trembling fingers amid distant shrieks.

  Pallid silver and orange from moons and simmering fire danced along the brandished blade in an eerie luminance. Layara dashed to the entryway and tugged on heavy oak, spilling yellow light from a lit hallway beyond. Lavender carpeting lined the corridor, with potted plants and wavering sconces at irregular intervals along its length.

  Adjoining the passage opposite her was Ely’s bedchamber, which proved to be empty. Her young sister frequently spent nights in a cushioned chair at their mother’s side, so her absence was not yet cause for concern. Indistinct sounds lingered in the air, drawing nearer with each stride through the empty corridor. At its end Layara descended a staircase and emerged in one of Silverspire’s various halls. Vases and amphorae stood on small marble columns beneath woven tapestries and canvas oil paintings framed in gold.

  Blazes glowed atop torches throughout the vaulted hall. In its center rested an elegant table and four accompanying chairs carved from lavish cherrywood in the Melvosi style. Exquisite and colored with subtle red hints, cherrywood fixtures were notoriously fragile. Currently the furnishings housed discarded ceramic tea cups and crumbly sweet tarts. Remains from Talfrey and Varin’s jovial late night gathering, which kitchen servants should have long since swept aside.

  Stifled cries echoed through branching corridors and chambers, greeting her approach. Layara slipped across the room and drew one door inward. Creaking wood was silenced when a gauntleted hand clamped down a mere hairsbreadth from her face. Squealing hinges resounded and ironwood hurtled into her chest, ripping air from burning lungs. She toppled backward gasping for breath.

  Layara sprawled on flooring as an armored figure surged into the hall, hands clutching a stained broadsword. Fiery radiance played across the iron suit he wore and coarse stubble the color of cracked pepper coated flesh left uncovered by his halfhelm. Dark eyes gazed at her prone form beyond rounded slits and his weapon lifted for a killing thrust. She scrambled to her knees and pounced across gold carpet, hearing the piercing clash of his blade gouging into fabric and stone.

  With a flourishing whirl Layara leapt upright and clasped both hands around her sword grip. A sadistic smirk bared the intruder’s yellowed teeth as he hefted his broadsword with a growl. Quilted violet wool draped loose atop his cuirass, and emblazoned on the surcoat was an elk’s head sprouting forked antlers. The cloth was besprinkled with red splotches and droplets reeking of cheap rum.

  Bracing leather soles on a lavish rug, Layara sprang at the man. She feinted toward his knee and speared upward, thwarted by a rapid parry. Her adversary shifted into a low stance and unleashed three successive slashes at Layara’s right arm. Staggered blocks forced the broadsword aside and she responded with a wild thrash that rattled against the upraised iron vambrace on his forearm. Layara’s swift thrust averted an ensuing horizontal slice, but he bashed the smaller girl’s countering stroke away. Scarlet flashed on his broadsword in light from roaring fires, clanging against the flat of her dancing blade.

  Bunched carpeting tangled beneath Layara’s feet and her unbalanced stab clattered off his armored shoulder, imparting a crude dent in the pauldron. He unleashed a raging bellow and smashed his broadsword into her weapon again and again.

  Tremors lanced through Layara’s arms and a final overhead strike battered through her meager defenses. Quavering aches seized Layara’s fingers and the bastard sword was wrenched from her grip as she tumbled backward. Cherrywood furnishings cracked into fragments, tossing green and black liquids in all directions. She grunted and bounced over smooth stone, felt cold tea splash onto her face, and slid to a halt covered in sweet tarts.

  Her assailant snatched an overturned chair in one gauntlet and tossed it from his path to shatter into g
narled slivers. Armor plates and metallic buckles clinked with each tread and Layara slapped bare hands against fractured remnants. She whipped a tapering table leg and the projectile exploded against his breastplate, showering dust on a violet surcoat. He floundered for a heartbeat and Layara clambered onto her feet.

  “Miserable bitch,” he hissed, brushing shards from a rough beard.

  Layara withdrew until her back touched bumpy stone underneath one torch. Heavy footsteps thudded as he charged, wielding his broadsword for a mauling stroke.

  Her clenched hand ripped the torch from its recessed slot, spraying splinters that ignited amid an arching blaze. Layara plunged fiery wood against his surcoat, grinding her implement across chest and face to spread the inferno. He howled and flailed backward, waving useless arms while incandescent fire overtook fabric smeared in rum. Searing pain flared on Layara’s left hand and wrist as flaming spurts touched her limb, but she banished torment behind a wall of hatred.

  His skin crackled like meat on a spit and smoky tendrils curled to the ceiling while horrified screams rang out. Flames washed over his face, surcoat and limbs. Scorched flesh hissed apart, spewing muscle reduced to powdery ash. Layara dropped the torch and crawled away, eyes welling with tears against anguish seizing her reddened hand.

  The lurching man crumpled into a blackened shell. Burning globules seeped onto stone floor and died, leaving murky soot marks.

  Layara wiped stinging eyes and paced beyond toppled furnishings to retrieve her lean blade. She wiggled and flexed stiff fingers, grimacing as bitter pangs bit into the entire limb. Miniscule blisters topped swollen skin. Layara uttered blasphemous invectives before setting off for the gaping entranceway, drawn once more to shouts and clashing iron.

  Kitchen servants sprawled at hallway’s end, their limbs contorted under ruined bodies. Dark liquid pooled around prone figures and oozed in rivulets across tiles and tattered material. An acrid stench stung her nose as Layara slipped through an adjoining corridor and onward to an expansive chamber littered with corpses. Notched blades and cleft spear shafts lay in rigid fingers, ruby stains sparkling on iron. Trickling blood flowed atop violet surcoats, the adorned elk’s head bespattered in gore. Entangled amid these bodies were figures garbed in blue and gold, while others wore studded leathers. Broad slashes sheared fabrics and disfigured exposed skin.