Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1)

by Greg James

  His eyes were wet.

  The eyes of Khale should have made him turn and run, but he did not. Swordless though he was, he knew what he had done. Khale watched what happened in the same way he once watched a wolf take down a deer. The blade of his sword pierced the man’s chest, driving in and then up under the breastbone. The mouth of the man brimmed over with blood as he died.

  Khale let the corpse fall.

  He knelt by her, and it was as if the battle had become a shifting dark silence around him. She was dead. She was gone. She was growing cold already. No last words. Nothing. None of that. Stabbed. Dead. Gone.

  A tear fell.

  Khale stood once more and closed his eyes. He could feel it. Every one of the centuries he had lived, bearing down upon him. Death shone bright. Life burned black. All was cold. All was hot. His blood was freezing. He cast his eyes to the skies above, where darkness churned, consuming the souls of the fallen.

  He spoke a single word.

  “Juular!”

  It called the darkness down to earth, where it could feast upon the frenzy.

  "Take them,” he roared, “all of them! For I care not for another soul on this earth!”

  Incandescence. Delirium. Howling. Burning. Shrieking. Shattering. White darkness. Blackest light. The screams of a thousand dead and a thousand swords. And it was done. Silence fell. The blackness lifted. The storm abated. And all were dead from one end of the battlefield to the other ...

  Khale remembered falling to his knees and howling his despair, because the Gods in Shadow had taken her corpse from him. They had stolen her, leaving him with nothing but memory and loss.

  And now he had not even that, because Milanda made him remember, and, after all these years, he had forgotten the name of the woman who died for him. He could not even bring her face clear into his thoughts, or remember why she had died for him, or for what they had been fighting. She had not known he was a rapist; he knew that much. She had died believing in the lies of his life, in the Khale of legend.

  From a far-gone and lost place in the night, Khale was sure he could hear the Gods in Shadow laughing at him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Not long after daybreak, as the last of the hillocks dropped away and she descended onto the sparser ground that marked the beginning of the road to Traitors’ Gap, Leste dismounted at the gate to a farmstead. It would be good to get some supplies if the farmer was willing.

  The haunted eyes of women acknowledged her, and a short man with a limp came forward. “You’re after him, aren’t you?”

  Leste described Khale and Milanda to the farmer. He sighed and nodded at her words. “He came, with her. He threatened us, thought to torture us, I could see it in his eyes. He killed my boy; just a lad and already cold in the ground before his twelfth winter. I was an outrider for Colm and the King in my youth, before I took an arrow in the knee.”

  Leste nodded, not sure what to make of his statement. She looked around at how worn the land and the farm were. Khale and Milanda had been fortunate, if that was the right word, to find people this far out.

  “Why settle so far out, where the land is so barren? It can be little good for animals here.” Leste asked, not realising her thoughts were spoken until she was done.

  “Because it wasn’t always so,” he replied. “The world grows frayed, and whatever’s out there in the Heart gnaws away at the edges. You can feel it in the night out here, when you’re trying to sleep. It’s a whisper on the wind and a coldness in the ground.

  Leste thought of the numbness in the earth at the henge—and the dream she’d had there, as he went on.

  “I had friends and trade in the villages that used to lie yonder—Wealdtun and Far Ormodtun, they were called—and there was the forest. Can you believe there was once forest at the foot of those mountains, spreading as far as the eye could see? The mages burned it down to cover their flight through Traitors’ Gap; that was when it all started—the rot. I don’t know whether it’s the fault of the mages, or our kings for hunting them down and driving them out. All I know is the world has been the worse for it, darker, and things don’t look to be getting better. My boy ... my boy ... I couldn’t save him. I used to be a rider and fighter, but because of my damned knee ... he died for us. It should have been me.” His voice cracked and tears came.

  Leste reached out a hand, which he struck away.

  “Don’t touch me, go. I’ll have no more killers on my land, or near my kin. You can bring me his head if you like, if you can take it from him. I’ll have nothing else from you, you understand? Keep your pity and comfort for someone who better deserves it.”

  Thus dismissed, Leste remounted and rode on.

  She did not look back.

  Chapter Twenty

  Crack ...

  “What was that?” Milanda asked, starting awake.

  “Get up, and do it slow,” said Khale, from the shadows. “Don’t move swiftly. Turn around, and try not to be afraid.”

  Milanda did as he said and looked out into the night, beyond the light cast by their fire. She saw dark shapes moving there. The crunch and shuffle of wet feet echoed in the surrounding emptiness. “Who are they?”

  “Things from Outside, wearing the flesh of men,” Khale said.

  “Demons.”

  “Nothing so mundane,” Khale said. “They are born of the Thoughtless Dark and serve neither good nor evil, only themselves. They come into the world to hunt and to feed, and someone has sent them after us.”

  “Someone in Colm?”

  “Someone who knows a mage.”

  “But there are none in Colm. Father said they were all gone.”

  “You father told you few words of truth, girl. You wouldn’t be as you are without having lived for years listening to his lies.”

  “He was still my father. Speak no more of it.”

  Crack ... crack ...

  Something came close enough for the fire to catch in its eyes. Milanda saw how wild the pupils were. Lips without skin twitched as if they were silently laughing at a joke she couldn’t hear.

  They’re going to kill us, she thought. Kill us and eat us.

  One of them reached a hand out of the dark towards her, and the shaking fingers curled into claws.

  “Get back and stay by the fire, Milanda.” Khale barked.

  “Do they fear it?”

  “No, child, but better to see them coming for you than to be snatched away in the dark.”

  Milanda did as Khale said. “Give me a weapon, Khale. I will fight them as best I can.”

  Khale grunted and tossed her the knife she had used against the dead men in the labyrinth. It felt comfortable in her hands as she watched for movements from the shadows. She heard a guttural snarl, and something came looming out of the dimness. A patchwork corpse held together by old blood. She could hear pieces of it coming away, loosened by decay. It raised gnawed-to-the-bone fingers. Yellowed teeth scraped over black gums, yearning to tear flesh in twain. In the back of its throat, she could hear the sound of a plague talking, suffocation seeking a voice as a hoarse, hectic chuckling. “Give us your meat ... your bones ... die into us ... so we may live on ... in you ...”

  A sword came out of the dark and stayed its fell blow.

  Leste Alen dashed into the circle of firelight.

  “Behind me, your Grace,” she growled.

  *

  The mirror-beast twisted its fleshless lips into a snarl as it came forward, favouring the arm that Leste’s blade had sheared of tissue all the way down to the bone. It sprang with a hideous shriek, driving its weight against Leste’s raised sword, which pierced its torso yet only served to anchor the mirror-beast to Leste. She shouted, winded, as the ground crashed hard against her back. The mirror-beast leaned forward, still alive despite the wound and sword buried in its flesh. Its jaws opened to reveal teeth, slick with a clear venom. Leste tried to adjust her weight, find a way to throw the creature from her, but she was unable to do so. She screa
med as drops of its venom struck her face, burning hot and cold.

  She screamed his name, “Khale!” and hated herself for it.

  The teeth were slung wide and about to close around her face, to tear the skin and make her as faceless as it was. The weight of the beast pressed down harder for a moment—and then it was gone.

  Leste blinked, able to breathe. She could see smoke from the fire and the stars above. She could smell the skin on her face burning. Rolling over, she grabbed handfuls of dirt and rubbed it on until the pain eased. Her stomach clenched, wound tight, she keeled over to vomit until she was dry-heaving on the ground.

  Somewhere close by, she could hear someone talking in whispers and something else screaming. When she was done clearing her stomach, she rose shakily to her feet and turned, red-eyed, to the source of the voices. Her guts clenched again.

  Khale was pressing the face of one of the beasts into the flames of the campfire. Another was laid out on the ground, unmoving, not so far away. Thick, greasy tongues of heat coiled off the blackening skull as it rained flesh and muscle into the ashes. He drew it back out of the heat and barked at it, “Name the one who sent you, or I will bind you to this corpse and leave you here to rot in the rain and wind. You will never return to the Thoughtless Dark, understand?”

  The mirror-beast let loose a chittering reply, like a thousand insects scurrying over carrion.

  “That’s the wrong answer,” said Khale. “I’m not the enemy here. The one who called you is the enemy, but I’m much worse than he.”

  He stood tall and stamped the skull of the creature back into the fire, near-extinguishing the small blaze with the blow. He ground his heel into the base of its skull until Leste could hear the vertebrae moored there beginning to splinter. Khale was chanting: a deep, guttural sound that made the shadows thicken around him. The chittering of the mirror-beast became ferocious in response, drowning out the fire’s crackling.

  Leste stood away from the scene as the shadows of the night converged on Khale and his victim.

  The chittering words became an atonal shriek, piercing the night. It brought tears to Leste’s eyes. She could feel darkness washing over her as something tangible. Then, it all ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The shadows of the night shrank back, and Khale stood by the fire, pushing the mirror-beast’s bones into the flames to be eaten by the blaze. A rich, pungent smell thickened the air as marrow cooked and minerals broke down.

  “It’s gone,” Khale said, “back to the place from whence it came. It gave me the name of who called it here. Timoth, a name I do not know.”

  Leste shook her head at the name, “I didn’t think you were going to let it go.”

  “Neither did I,” he said, “but I have more in common with the things of the Thoughtless Dark than I do with common men, so I spare them a little affection.”

  “A little? That thing was screaming.”

  “It was,” he said, “but I didn’t keep it here, which would have been a worse punishment—stuck inside a prison of meat and bone for countless days beneath a dead grey sky, rotting a lifetime away and dreaming constantly of death to end it all.” He smiled at Leste. “That is a much crueller fate than the one I bestowed, is it not?”

  “It is gone, then?” Leste asked, ignoring his bitter words.

  “Yes,” Khale answered. “Those bodies are only bones and burnt meat now. Let us ride. The beasts may be dead, but this land is less than safe. We will rest when the dawn comes up.”

  “We are going back to Colm,” said Leste.

  “I think not.”

  “I think so.”

  “Milanda is the Princess and daughter-heir to Colm. She belongs to the city and the people, not to you.”

  “She belongs to no-one,” Khale said. “None of us belong even to ourselves. We are ghosts that think ourselves real.”

  She hated the ease with which he faced her, without a trace of fear in his face at the sight of her drawn sword.

  “Do not play word games with me, Khale. I am taking the Princess home.”

  “I play no games,” Khale said, his voice dropping low, “and you shall take nothing from me that I do not give.”

  “Softly, Khale, it’s time your body was riven of its soul.”

  “You don’t think that you are the one to do that, surely?”

  “Legends are legends. Even gods and immortals must age and die in time.”

  “You really have no idea of what I am, do you?”

  “Then let’s find out,” Leste spat.

  She feinted, and Khale parried her, wielding his two-handed blade like a war-hammer. Their swords crossed and the flats scraped against one another.

  Leste could feel the weight of steel on Khale’s side, but swiftness was on hers. She danced clear of the great sweeps he made and dodged a hammer-blow that resounded with a crash on stony ground. She came up on him and made a slash at his legs, but he stepped aside and brought an elbow up that struck her full in the face. Cartilage and gristle broke in her nose, and she felt the hot sting of blood pouring out. Leste hawked and spat red onto the ground as she moved back out of his reach. He was swift and not slow in spite of the greatsword he wielded; she hadn’t expected that.

  She flourished her blade, feinting and parrying, hoping to distract him long enough to make a riposte that would wound him, draw enough blood and pain to give her the chance to make a deeper, more fatal cut. The opening came as his blade swept past, parting the air, and she drove her blade forward, aiming for his abdomen. She heard words leave Khale’s lips, and then she found herself slowing and becoming still. She was unable to move, and her blade was inches from its target.

  It had been a game to him the whole time.

  “I could have slain you with a word, Leste,” he said. “I know enough incantations to murder you in a hundred ways, but I am not going to use them this time.”

  Khale drew the edge of his blade across the skin of her neck until it began to abrade. “You feel that, Leste? That is mortality: your skin, its blood, and the pulse underneath that keeps you going. Immortality is altogether different; something else keeps you going and you never truly know what it is. You know only the ebb and flow of the years, their seasons, and the centuries that accrue like dirt on a grave. You see, to me you are a small stone on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in and wash you away. I am one with that tide. Do you understand me now?” Khale withdrew his blade from her throat.

  She squinted at him, and then felt her body suddenly relax, every muscle aching to do so. Her breath became a whistling thread. Khale’s face loomed large before her. He was a scarred and cratered eclipse: a greater darkness than all the shadows in the world drawn together as one. He was the Khale of legend, after all. She saw herself falling into him and heard a refrain sung by a voice she had not heard since childhood.

  Protect me, O Four who stand without light.

  For far gone and lost is this, my last night.

  Then, he stopped. Something was wrong.

  And Leste realised that they were alone, but for the horses.

  Milanda was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Milanda was climbing. Nothing was familiar in this shadow of the world she had once known. There were the shapes and appearances of things she thought she knew, but what was beneath the surface was altogether different now. The stone walls had flown away. The Sisters were not here with their dry, stales voices and drier hands. Her father was dead, killed by that man.

  That rapist.

  She thought of the dream she had about him, of feeling him inside her, but that was before she knew what he was. Things were different now. She had felt something for him, but now she only tasted ashes in her mouth once more. So few people could be trusted.

  And then, there were the monsters. They were coming after her.

  She could hear the skinless beast behind her, scouring the rocks and dry ground. Her eyes fell upon an opening in the earth. The rim of it glistened like the silver
of a spider’s web. Milanda crawled into the waiting hole. It was so close behind. She could smell it, almost feel it. She heard it call out to its fellows. She did not wait to see if they answered its cry.

  Soon, she was on her belly, pushing herself down through the tight, crushing space of the burrow, working her shoulders from side to side, rolling her torso forward and shoving against soil and stone with her feet. There was water in the burrow: bitter and standing, bobbing just beneath her chin. It was sucking the heat from her, every minute spent in contact with it sent a heavy shiver through her body, from head to toe. She kept moving, scraping her shoulders raw and barking her shins on the rocks that stuck out from the sides of the burrow; they cut her, taking blood, little bit by little bit. Puffing and blowing, spitting out mouthfuls of the rancid, flaky water, she crawled on through it.

  Milanda was forced to breath through her nose as it crept over her lips. She tried to keep her mouth closed, sure that swallowing the stuff would be like breathing in a lungful of disease. It was difficult going, breathing only through her nose, and she felt the first nervous scratch of claustrophobia working its way into her brain. Her heart was a steady drumbeat in her ears and the sound of blood rushing through her veins was as one with the splashes and spray of the tepid waters she disturbed.

  Everything sounded so loud and seemed to echo off into miles upon miles of underground distance. Screwing her eyes shut, sending a prayer to whoever or whatever might hear it, she plunged forwards, sloshing on through, so wet, soaked to the skin, miserable and angry all at once. She might die here, die in this nightmare.

  She heard something.

  It wasn’t far away.

  And the worst part dawned on her.

  She had come in so deep that she would not be able to make her way out again with ease. She had nowhere to go but deeper in. And the sound she had heard was the cry of one of those creatures.

  It came again from not so far behind, echoing down. Milanda’s nerves screamed because she could not. She could not look over her shoulder to see what was there, or how many were coming. There was too little room, no space, no air, nothing but the raking throat of rock she was descending down, and the jaundiced water. So, onwards, slow and sluggish, fighting her aches and pains, feeling them spread, feeling them gnaw and burn at her bones.