by A J Dalton
‘We should be at the Only Inn by nightfall,’ Kate adjudged.
Saltar gave Mordius an enquiring look, the animee still not able to retrieve all the memories from when he was alive that passed for everyday knowledge.
‘Will it still be there? The Accritanian army will have gone right past its front door on their way south, on their way to their recent defeat.’
‘Oh, assuredly,’ Kate frowned. ‘The Only Inn is too important to both kingdoms for it ever to be harmed. It is the only inn in the mountains, as its name suggests. Most traders stop there to get a home-cooked meal and soft bed before braving the trip into the mountains or, if coming the other way, to warm their cold feet at its hearth and their cold marrows with fire-brandy. Remove the inn, and risk losing all trade between the kingdoms, basic trade without which the war would be even harder on the people of both kingdoms. They say that in generations past the name of the inn would change backwards and forwards depending on which side was winning the war or had last crossed into enemy territory, so it was called the First Inn and the Last Inn alternatingly. But the owners and traders got so confused trying to remember which name to use that inevitably a completely new name developed of itself.’
‘A thing should be allowed to have just one name,’ Saltar said cryptically. ‘At least the right name emerges eventually.’
Mordius ignored the comment. ‘I think I can sit a horse if you help me up into the saddle, Saltar. Tell me, what went on in that field? I remember the two of you trying to help me. What happened after that?’
‘The place was inhabited by some sort of evil spirit,’ Kate answered as Saltar bent to help him, ‘instituted by a ritual execution or sacrifice, or so it looked. Who knows if the spirit was the restless victim or something conjured from a nether realm. Having pulled you free, we wasted no time leaving the place.’
‘I see. And are such spirits so easily instituted, then?’
Kate sighed, knowing where such a question was going. ‘No, it is not easily done. It would require a magical curse, a successful supplication to one of the gods or the unholy creation of some passage between realms.’ Another sigh. ‘A sorceress, priest or necromancer is what we’re probably talking about. But what knowledge or interest do you have in such matters, Mordius?’
Breathing hard for just having dragged himself up into his saddle with Saltar’s aid, the small man replied: ‘Saltar and I have seen all manner of death on battlefields and elsewhere. We haven’t really experienced anything like that field before. I was wondering if you had much experience of such things… being a Guardian and all. I can’t see a farming community allowing a sorcerer or necromancer to practise freely amongst them. It must have been a sacrifice and a prayer for some intervention. Some god or agent of that god chose to respond, clearly.’
‘Great! That’s all we need!’ Saltar spat, mimicking what he thought was a suitably emotional response. ‘Gods attacking us now! Still, we didn’t fare so badly, eh?’
‘Speak for yourself!’ Mordius complained, but with a twinkle in his eye. ‘It wasn’t you coughing up your very soul.’
‘Interesting choice of words,’ Kate mused. ‘It would suggest some agency connected to holy Lacrimos. Surely we have not offended Him, have we?’
‘Don’t look at us!’ Mordius protested. ‘We’re not the ones who hunt down necromancers, many of whom worship Him, like that one in the Weeping Woods. Oh! You don’t think…’
Kate nodded. ‘I do think. We killed a powerful necromancer there, one who was seeking to cross the divide between the realms using those mandrakes and those poor victims. I can imagine Lacrimos being a touch narked with us right about now.’
‘Shame!’ Saltar said shaking his head. The others looked at him. ‘Until he learns to play nicely like all the other gods, then he’ll just have to stay where he is. He can sulk and have all the tantrums he likes, but he’ll still have to learn to do as his older sister tells him.’
Kate put a hand to her mouth and failed to stop a giggle. She sounded a might girlish to Mordius’s ear. Curiouser and curiouser. It was tragic in a way. ‘Once you two have finished uttering every blasphemy under the sun, perhaps we can get ourselves to that inn and its home-cooked meals and soft beds, if it’s not too much to ask.’
‘Of course, Mordius,’ Saltar intoned, more himself again.
***
Young Strap had been so named by a father who liked to take a strap to his young son. The boy understood why the man had beaten him: to teach him that he was a burden to his poor parents and should do all he could to minimise that burden. At just a handful of years old, he had learnt it was best to be out of their mean home as much as possible.
A kindly tavern-keeper had given the boy work in his taproom. The boy’s small hands had struggled with the heavy mugs of ale, so they’d put a table under the vat’s tap for him. By lowering the flagon onto the table just as it got heavier, he managed to pour the beer with a perfect head. The hours had been long and the manual work tiring for a mere child, but it was warm in the taproom, he was never beaten and he got fed titbits. He was allowed to have the odd cup of beer too, and he’d gradually developed a taste for the bitter liquid.
He’d creep home in the early hours when his father was likely to be in a drunken stupor and unlikely to be roused by the lifting of the latch on the door. There was always a cold supper left out for Young Strap by his mother. He rarely saw her, but occasionally she would creep from her bed and sit with him in a tired and lost silence while he ate. The kindly tavern-keeper gave him a few pennies each week and he would always leave them piled up neatly on the kitchen table for his parents.
And then someone had died, as often happens. And that death changed the lives of countless others, Young Strap’s amongst them. On a slow night, a fight had broken out in the tavern and the kindly tavern-keeper had come forwards with a cudgel, only to receive a knife to the gut as reward for his desire to keep the peace. The screams of the serving maids had brought Young Strap from the safety of his taproom. He’d stood blinking stupidly at the spilt and wasted beer all over the floor, a beer that was slowly turning crimson as the kindly tavern-keeper’s blood mingled with it.
The tavern had closed and Young Strap had been unable to find another safe haven in Corinus. At twelve, he had joined the King’s army and been furnished with a used uniform six sizes too big for him. They’d told him that if he meant to wear it for long, then he should try and grow into it quickly. The need for recruits was so great that the army didn’t care how old he was or where his name came from; as long as he was prepared to swear an oath to King and country, and was quick to obey orders.
He got given larger meals than he’d ever had in his life and all of a sudden he was as big as the other boys around him. He had his own bed and never had to creep timorously to it. He made friends and found he’d never been happier in his life. The army was his new home and family.
So it was that after a month’s training he’d marched from Corinus and not given it a backward glance. His troop had marched to the western mountains to bring relief to a lone outpost. The soldiers there had scared him with their hard eyes and rough talk. They were men inured to the visceral violence offered by troglodytes, cannibal mountain tribes and trolls, but the men did not threaten to harm him. They seemed strangely fascinated by his youthful innocence, as if they’d forgotten what it was like to be young, and sensed they had lost something by it.
The sergeant had immediately made Young Strap the outpost’s new scout. He was told it was an important job and effectively a promotion. He’d been delighted but worried what the more experienced soldiers would think at his being promoted above them.
The sergeant’s laughter had been harsh but genuine. ‘Boy, they’re a generous bunch and will be happy for you. Besides, the last scout didn’t last more than a few months. Ended up spitted over a mountain man’s campfire. You are small and unobtrusive. Let’s hope you’re as quick as a mountain rabbit too.’
&
nbsp; ‘Y-yes, sir!’
‘But you are our mascot too, Young Strap. Every man here will risk his life for you, be sure of that. We are all that’s civilized in the mountains. We do not eat each other, transgress against each other or sacrifice each other. We are brothers. You understand?’
‘I have never had a brother before, sir. It will be good to have one, I think.’
‘Good lad. Now, your brothers are bigger and stronger than you. You will leave the hand-to-hand combat with our monstrous enemies to them. You will master the bow so that you can support your brothers from afar. You will train for at least an hour each day, in all weathers. Will you do that?’
‘Yessir! I will do two hours where possible, for I do not wish to be a burden to my family.’
And he kept his word, becoming a terror to anything that moved in the mountains. Towards the end of his posting, he was confident enough to go off into the mountains entirely alone to track and kill unsuspecting enemies. Invariably, he came back with game for the outpost’s cooking pot as well.
He’d been genuinely saddened to leave the outpost and his brothers at the end of his tour. Some of the hard eyes that had so scared him when he first arrived actually had tears in them when he finally left. He’d formally requested to be allowed another tour in the mountains, but the sergeant had turned him down flatly.
‘You have your whole life before you, Young Strap. This place was never meant to be forever for you. Besides, if you carry on as you have been, there will be no enemies left for your brothers to fill their days with. Go see the world. Then, if you still wish to return, your brothers will still be here waiting for you. You will always be in our thoughts.’
‘What are you thinking, Young Strap?’
‘What?’ he said blinking.
‘You were somewhere else,’ the Scourge prompted. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘The mountains put me in mind of my time at the outpost. A hard place but one with its own beauty. There is no artifice in such a place, just the immediate need to share food and warmth. There is a simplicity and honesty in such a life that pleases the soul. I was happy there.’
The Scourge frowned. ‘I hear what you’re saying, but one as young as you shouldn’t sound as if he’s lived whole lifetimes already. You sound older than me sometimes.’
‘This is what happens when people grow up with war, Guardian,’ Nostracles shrugged. ‘If this war does not end soon, then there will be no youth and innocence left, only dark betrayal and bitter experience. Places of man’s creation like the city of Corinus are where dark betrayals and wars are begun. Corinus has built walls to keep out Shakri’s creation – nothing grows there and most die, so that it is little more than a city of the dead.
‘These mountains, though, are Shakri’s creation. They are as Young Strap has described them. They can be harsh and cruel in the challenge they present, but they help us realise how fragile our own lives are and that we would do well to value them and make the most of them.’
‘Alright, alright! Sermons won’t help us cross this range into Accritania. What’s wrong with you two? Is the thin air making you dizzy?’
‘It’s just nice to be reminded there is still some beauty in the world and life, Old Hound. No one can exist on a diet of just necromancers, demons and death and not expect to get sick. Body and soul need other nourishment if they are to remain healthy,’ Young Strap preached, with Nostracles nodding along.
‘Now just you listen to me!’ the Scourge warned. ‘The only sickness round here lies with you two, one bespelled by his own lustful pledge to a sorceress, and the other grieving so hard for his master that he was doubting his own faith not so long ago. Just what will satisfy the two of you? That I swear to do all in my power to end this war, even if it means betraying my own King, is that it?’
‘It would be a start,’ Nostracles agreed. ‘But we cannot force the decision from you.’
‘Apparently, that hasn’t stopped you from trying. It’s just a dumb mountain! Haven’t you seen a mountain before? If you love it so much, priest, then why don’t you stay and build your new temple here? And you, Young Strap, could stay and guard it against monsters if you like. As for me, I have a job to do, a necromancer and an undead hero to catch.’
As usual, Nostracles’s mild answer both surprised and irritated the Scourge: ‘I must admit to being tempted, Guardian. This is a good place for quiet contemplation, and also close to a trade route. However, the goddess wishes me to aid you in your search since it is somehow intertwined in the task of ending this war. I will continue on with you, therefore. The power of the goddess will be there to save you, as it was against Phyrax.’
‘Too kind, I’m sure, but let’s not forget that it was the power of the goddess that animated Phyrax in the first place. Her blessings are mixed at best. Do not continue on on my account. I have hunted necromancers all my life without the help of god or man, so I’m not about to need help now. Fear not, I will not forbid you from travelling with me, since I promised your master I would offer you company, but that is all you will get from me.’
The soughing wind and Young Strap’s gentles snoozes were all that greeted the Scourge’s impassioned assertion. A dry, bleached tree rattled its branches at him like a shaman shaking bones so that they could be cast to read the future. A small stone bounced and clattered down the slope ahead of them and then haphazardly across their path like a loaded dice. The air was so brittle it felt like it was about to crack.
‘It’s her again, isn’t it?’ the Scourge asked in a resigned voice. ‘Alright, where are you?’
‘What are you talking…?’ Nostracles began and then stopped in surprise as he noticed a crone looking down at them from a large, flat rock at the top of the slope.
‘Time to get down off your horse, priest, and start grovelling on the ground. Come along!’
Nostracles raised a hand to shield his eyes, since the hunched, old woman was outlined against the white sky and hard to make out.
‘Come on! Unless you can magic yourself to sleep and be like Young Strap. Don’t you recognise your own goddess?’
Nostracles dismounted hurriedly and began to make his way up the slope on foot, leading his horse behind him. The Scourge nudged his horse over to Young Strap’s, leaned down and grabbed its reins. The sleeping Guardian wobbled in his saddle but stayed upright. Suddenly, the Scourge had a vision of the youth slumping forward, toppling to the ground and cracking his head open on a rock. Alarmed, the Scourge reached out with his free hand and held Young Strap tightly. The crone cackled.
‘That was one of your tricks, wasn’t it, you hag?’ the Scourge accused her.
‘Ahh! He does care, for all his protestations. He knows what is valuable despite all his huffing and puffing. Young Strap is a tool of the white sorceress and yet he does not cast him off, he does not remove an actual threat to his own life, a threat to any future success he might have combating necromancers, demons and Lacrimos himself..’
The Scourge’s jaws clenched, muscles bunching as he worked to prevent his anger saying anything he might regret. She was trying to provoke him into some rash statement or oath. It was another trick, just like the vision of Young Strap’s fall that she’d just put in his head. How he resented the gods’ constant attempts to interfere with, manipulate and control the lives of mortals! They saw the lives of mortals as only having value in how they might further the selfish desires of the gods. The way they used the lives of mortals displayed only disdain and contempt for mortals. How then in return could the Scourge feel anything but contempt for the gods’ and their behaviour? Especially when the gods were privileged with divine powers and immortality, so that they could actually afford to put their selfishness aside from time to time if they would only choose to do so?
He was speaking anyway. ‘I seem to care more than some of the gods themselves. I heard of one god who abandoned her own high priest and let him be consumed by her enemies. Some reward for a lifetime of service, huh? I
t doesn’t exactly encourage others towards worship, does it? Mortals have shown themselves to be faithful, but gods have ever shown themselves to be faithless!’
‘Ancient one, tell me it isn’t true!’ Nostracles pleaded, now on knees grinding painfully on the stony ground.
The crone had been about to answer the Scourge, but was distracted by her priest’s suffering. A look of infinite sadness overtook her, a look that affected them in turn. Her sadness was immeasurable, beyond their brief experience and thus their understanding. They glimpsed but the smallest part of it, but had an awareness of its greater vastness. They knew it was beyond their reckoning and compass; and that very knowledge, their very awareness, overwhelmed. Tears ran unchecked down the Scourge’s face. Nostracles lay on his front and tore at his face, hair and clothes in grief.
‘I am a mother who is forced to watch her children die,’ the wind breathed.
‘I am a mother who is forced to watch her children fight one another and kill each other,’ the moss, grass and trees trembled as they grew.
‘I am a wife whose husband created war and left her for it,’ echoed the overarching sky.
‘I am a sister whose brother is death, a brother who seeks to unmake everything,’ swirled the beginnings of a light snowfall.’
‘I am a daughter whose parents abandoned her before she had a chance to form memories of them to sustain her,’ murmured a distant river.
‘I am a woman who understands communion through having suffered only isolation,’ the threaded sounds of Young Strap’s sleeping and Nostracles’s mourning said.
‘I am a being whose voice is life itself, whose essence is the spark that creates life, whose entire meaning is the value of life,’ spoke the Scourge’s own body to him through the sound, movement and feeling of its own living progress.