by Tom Lloyd
A crawling dread slithered down Isak’s neck. No man stood there; its body was entirely black, and almost invisible in the fog, but he could guess something of the stance - it was on all fours. Visions of the Temple Plaza of Scree flooded back to him: the terrible slaughter done in the firelight, the towering figure of the Burning Man illuminating the terrified figures around him and in the distance, the humped back of the Great Wolf, stalking.
Now Isak could make out little more than a shape and a pair of burning eyes in the dark. It was untouched by the moonlight and almost hidden in the fog. Shadow upon shadow, imagination or not, the black dog did not move an inch. It simply stood there with its baleful gaze fixed upon him.
‘My Lord?’ Isak jumped at the voice, his heart giving a lurch until he realised it was only Lesarl standing behind him. Lesarl gave him a quizzical look.
‘Look,’ Isak said quickly, pointing down the street, but when he looked back to where the black dog had been standing, the words died in his throat. The street was empty, and silent. Isak stared at where the creature had been, then searched all around in vain for it.
‘What is it?’ Lesarl said as he rounded his lord to look at where Isak was still pointing.
‘I- I’m not sure,’ Isak admitted after a pause. ‘There was . . .’ he stopped. I thought I saw a ghostly dog wasn’t the sort of thing he really wanted to tell his Chief Steward. Isak hurriedly opened his senses to the Land and reached out all around. Aside from the taste of frost and mud on the air the only thing he could sense was Conjurer, in the room above, a faint flicker of magic in her body that grew as she felt his questing. There was nothing more. Hoping that he’d be able to sense something similar to Morghien’s ghosts when they touched his mind, Isak reached as far as he could, but felt nothing at all.
‘There was?’ Lesarl prompted quietly. The man had seen enough during Bahl’s reign not to question his new lord’s first instinct.
‘I thought I saw something, I must have been wrong.’ Isak shook his head and took his hand off Eolis’s hilt, where, predictably, it had drifted without him even being aware.
‘My Lord, I find that a little hard to believe,’ Lesarl said firmly. ‘Your expression is not that of a man whose imagination has just played him false. So what is it that you saw?’
Isak glared at the man, but Lesarl waited patiently until the young white-eye exhaled and let the anger fade with his breath on the night air.
‘What do you want me to tell you? What I thought I saw disappeared in the time it took to turn my head, and anything that can do that without me sensing where it went is a little out of your field of expertise.’
‘I do understand that, my Lord,’ Lesarl said, bowing his head, ‘but still I would share the burden I see in your face; no man should look so haunted—’ He broke off as Isak gave a humourless snort.
‘Haunted? Aye, that might just be it.’ He took a step closer and leaned down to look Lesarl in the eye. ‘I dream that death walks in my shadow. I have ever since the fall of Scree. On the edge of earshot I keep thinking I hear the footsteps of the Reapers. I feel the ground move at my feet as a grave opens before me; I remember the pain Aryn Bwr felt as he was cut down in battle, and it is so familiar to me I ache for it.’
He stopped and straightened, a hard expression falling across his face. ‘And tonight I see a black dog with burning eyes standing in the road before me, something my mother’s people believe to be a portent of death to come. Now who will share this burden with me?’
Lesarl stared up at him in alarm. For a moment Isak suddenly saw the Chief Steward for the man he really was: beneath his calculating expression and sardonic grin, Lesarl was just a man with a mass of worry-lines on his thin face and a nervous shiver enough to shake his bony body from head to toe.
‘We will all share your burden, my Lord,’ Lesarl said after a moment, his usual calm restored. ‘Your advisors, my coterie, the Palace Guard, the whole tribe: if Death comes for you, He shall not find you alone.’
Isak sighed. ‘It’s good of you to say so. Something tells me otherwise, but if the future was fixed I’d already be dead, so perhaps you’re right. Come on, it’s time to meet the herald of our latest woes; you’re going to hate her.’
‘A white-eye lord’s daughter?’ Lesarl scowled at the ground as he started off at Isak’s side down the street. ‘I think you’re right there.’
CHAPTER 4
Lesarl left his lord to his thoughts as they walked back through the quiet streets, winding their way through dark alleys until they had reached a better district of the city than the docks. The Chief Steward had to walk quickly to keep up with Isak’s long stride, but he was glad for it, for the air was chill and his prominent nose and cheeks felt like icicles. In all his years of service to the Lord of the Farlan, he’d never got used to the cold of Tirah’s night-time streets.
It was strange to see the city so deserted. Hunter’s Ride and the Palace Walk were main thoroughfares, usually only empty when snow lay thick on the ground. The tall stone buildings were dark and silent, with only the occasional pair of shutters showing a glimmer of light at the edges - night-watchmen’s billets and servants’ quarters, for the merchants’ townhouses were as dark as if they were empty, with no light seeping through the heavy drapes that hung at every window to keep in the heat.
A pair of Palace Guards loitered on Irienn Square, the semi-enclosed plaza off Hunter’s Ride which was surrounded by government offices. Their sharp eyes picked out Isak by his height. They saluted, making no move to intercept them.
It wasn’t long until they reached the fountain at the centre of Barbican Square, just before the looming presence of the palace walls. After the enclosed streets the open ground felt even colder, and when Isak stopped in front of the statue on the fountain, what little heat was left in Lesarl’s body felt like it was bleeding away as he obediently took up his position in his master’s lee.
White-eyes! They’re all the same when they’re brooding, Lesarl thought, suppressing a shiver as the image of Lord Bahl came to mind. It’s not taken him long to adopt that role. If I ever dreamed of ruling when I was a child, I know better now. I didn’t know then that it scars in ways you could never predict; Lord Bahl once said that his soul felt worn thin, so thin it was hardly there. After Scree I think this one’s the same already. Let’s just hope it doesn’t prove his undoing too.
‘A year, only a year,’ Isak rumbled from the shadow of his raised hood.
‘Since you came this way for the first time?’ Lesarl replied. ‘Almost exactly, yes, my Lord.’
He left it at that, knowing that the white-eye wasn’t asking for a conversation. Instead he turned his attention to the fountain itself. He passed it every day, and it struck him that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly looked at it. It was a representation of Evaol, a minor Aspect of Vasle, God of Rivers. The scattering of coins in the fountain were likely nothing to do with her alignment, though, probably just whores hoping for a little luck.
The statue itself was of a column of water reaching up to the waist of a bare-breasted woman, who was running a fish-spine comb through her hair. Rain and wind had taken their toll on the pale stone, blurring some lines and leaving their own on the work. He resisted the urge to stamp some warmth back into his feet, but an involuntary shiver caught Isak’s eye and woke him from his thoughts.
‘Sorry, Lesarl, I’m keeping you out in the cold.’
‘My Lord, that is one of the responsibilities of the high position I enjoy,’ Lesarl said, keeping the reproach from his voice, though he knew he would have to explain the point yet again to his lord.
‘That doesn’t mean you should have to suffer because of my constant whims.’
‘Yes, actually, it does, my Lord,’ the Chief Steward said firmly. ‘My remit spans every suzerainty and aspect of Farlan life, unmatched power within the tribe. However good and loyal a servant you have as your Chief Steward, to fully handle the duties required of that po
sition, he - or she - must have the capacity for cruelty and scheming. And that sort of person enjoys the position of power all too much. Lord Bahl understood it well enough to insist that I do indeed suffer his every whim.’ Lesarl gave a small smile. ‘It was only several years after I took over from my father that I realised you train a dog in a very similar way. Without blind obedience to my master I might well have started to question why it was that I was running the nation yet he wore the duke’s circlet.’
‘So you’re as much a slave to your instincts as I am?’ Isak replied.
‘I’m saying that those who love power are often least suited to it. Megalomania has its uses in a nation, whether anyone will admit it or not, but left unchecked, it is its own worst enemy.’
‘And so for the good of the nation,’ Isak continued, ‘such a person should be trained to come running when I whistle?’ He grinned. ‘I see your point, I suppose. Maybe I should get you a collar as your badge of office.’
‘Yes, Master,’ his Chief Steward said, baring his teeth.
Isak laughed and led the way over the drawbridge. The gate was already opening, the light of a torch creeping through the widening crack. On a whim Isak turned right and headed for the guardroom, just as a Ghost in full armour stepped out. The man removed his helm when he saw Isak approaching. The white-eye stopped, recognition flourishing on his face.
‘You, soldier, what’s your name?’
‘Me, my Lord? Ah, Private Varner, my Lord,’ the soldier replied quickly, his voice sounding rough, almost grating. He was careful to keep his manner deferential, but he looked apprehensive, and Lesarl remembered how Isak had described his first meeting with Lord Bahl, and the aura of power that hung around him like the heat from a roaring fire.
Isak had kept clear of the other white-eyes in the palace during the last year there. Kerin had made it clear they were a vicious, foul-mouthed lot that Isak had nothing good in common with. It was a full-time effort for the Swordmasters to keep them in check, and there was a pretty high chance that any encounter would result in a fight, which in turn would result in Isak killing a valuable soldier.
‘I remember you,’ Isak said. ‘You were on duty my first night here, weren’t you? You punched out my father.’
‘Was me, yeah, my Lord.’
Isak smiled. ‘That was something I’d wanted to do for years. Thank you.’
The white-eye blinked up at Isak in surprise. Like the rest of his kind the man was tall and powerful, but he was closer to a regular soldier in build than to Isak. It clearly fascinated Isak to see the same snowy irises and black pinprick pupils in the eyes of another, but Lesarl saw the scrutiny was not welcome. There was no kindred spirit in those eyes, only ice.
‘I’ll go in this way, remind myself of simpler times,’ Isak said eventually. ‘Keep the gates open, though; we’re about to have a few visitors. They’re not to be delayed in any way; I want them in the duke’s chambers as quickly and as quietly as possible.’
‘As you wish, my Lord.’ The man bowed low, cast a glance back at his comrade still in the guardroom and then headed for the half-open gates.
‘Come on,’ Isak said to Lesarl, and ducked through the small doorway into the cramped guardroom, only just missing the lintel. He turned and frowned - he had grown so much over the last year, from an outsized youth to a seven-foot-tall giant, - that everything from that former life felt greatly reduced now.
Making his way to the Great Hall, Isak awkwardly acknowledged the various salutes he received. The deference was easy to accept, but he was still occasionally surprised when an entire room of strangers jumped up to salute, bow or curtsey every single time he hoved into view.
The hall was nearly full, as it had been ever since Isak had returned with the army. Scores of those with light injuries had returned on wagons or horseback, even walking, to avoid wintering away from their families, and many of the nobles answering their new lord’s summons had chosen to billet with the Palace Guard they had once served in. Money for lodgings was tight for many of the knights and hurscals who’d travelled with their liege lords, especially when the innkeepers of the city, who had also heard Isak’s summons, had cannily doubled their prices.
Lesarl had seen this as a good thing and he had instructed Kerin to make as much space as he could to accommodate anyone wearing the white. The Ghosts were the Farlan’s finest soldiers, so many nobles sent their sons there for training. Almost half the men knighted on the battlefield were raised from the Palace Guard’s ranks, and Lesarl was keen to encourage the return of veterans, men who’d completed their ten-year term and been recruited as hurscals by suzerains. They were men whose opinions would be respected, and it would do no one any harm to remind them of their primary loyalty, to the Legion.
Once the required personal greetings had been made to three marshals with white on their collars and a recent recruit, Scion Tebran, who was with his father, the suzerain - who, despite the stains on his tunic had obviously managed to find his mouth often enough to get roaring drunk - Isak headed through the rear door of the hall and down the long, cold corridor to the forbidding entrance to the tower, which was next to the main staircase to the private apartments.
The corridor was bedecked with mouldering flags, except for the green and gold standard of the Narkang Kingsguard, which shone bright and new. It had been presented to Lord Isak as a gesture of friendship by King Emin of Narkang after Isak had helped defend the city from a White Circle coup.
‘Makes the others look decrepit, doesn’t it?’ Isak said, pointing to the flag.
‘Should I order replacements? Some are defunct legions now, but we can have them copied without much difficulty.’ Lesarl stopped and turned to the flag nearest to the Great Hall. It was so old and dirty that it was hard to make out the zigzags of blue and green woven through each other down its edge, but there was enough to confirm Lesarl’s judgment. ‘My Lord, this one is the Boarhunters, one of the oldest Tildek light cavalry legions.’
‘They still exist?’
‘Indeed, though somewhat lacking the glory of centuries past that caused their flag to be hung here. That, if memory serves correctly, included ambushing and destroying a Tor Milist army four times their number, then blocking the main enemy force’s line of retreat for two days despite terrible losses.’
‘The battle of Hale Hills?’ Isak replied, his eyes lighting up at the memory of the heroic action.
‘The very same,’ Lesarl said. ‘My Lord, perhaps it would be a gesture of peace to the people of Lomin if you officially requested a replacement flag? I can find out who the commander is; no doubt he is in the city. One of my agents mentioned that the common folk of Tildek - and Lomin too - are concerned they will be held to blame for the actions of their suzerain and the rest of the Certinse family. This might send a sign to both Tildek and Lomin that we still value them.’
‘Do you want to make a show of it at my investiture?’
‘I would advise against that,’ Lesarl said, ‘it should belong to the people of the suzerainty, not the nobles. I will find an ennobled man to pass the request on, and that will ensure the men of the legion know of it too, not just their officers.’
‘Good. The investiture will be complicated enough without added theatrics,’ Isak growled as he started up the wide stone staircase. ‘Stay down here and bring Xeliath up to my chambers without letting that lot see her,’ he said, jabbing a thumb towards the Great Hall where voices were now raised in song. ‘She’ll sleep in my bedroom - I still have my room in the Tower. I suspect the journey will have taken a toll, and as the physician’s at my father’s bedside anyway he might as well keep an eye on her too.’
‘Your father’s condition is unchanged?’
‘There’s been no change since his fever subsided, and that was weeks ago. The priests of Shotir cannot heal a wound from Eolis, and the priests of Larat have been of even less use. He’s in no actual danger at the moment. I’m almost tempted to blame his lack of improvement
on stubbornness. Sour-faced bastard knows he’ll have to bow to me if he ever gets out of that bed.’
Lesarl tried to read Isak’s expression as he spoke, but the white-eye gave nothing away. It was a miracle that Horman was even alive, having been possessed by a daemon and made to attack his own son in the Temple of Death. A priest of Shotir had been found in the Devoted camp and he had accompanied them back to Tirah, nearly killing himself in the process as he kept Horman from Death’s Halls.
He settled for a brief bow and a knowing look. ‘Perhaps your father will have noted the hours you’ve spent at his bedside?’
‘Bloody doubt it,’ Isak snapped, ‘but either way, it’s not a problem you need to be involved in.’ He stomped on up the stairs and turned the corner, Lesarl catching a flash of one colourless eye in the light of a torch before Isak disappeared from view.
‘Of course, my Lord, as you wish,’ Lesarl muttered. He turned to another door which would take him to the western part of the main wing where his office nestled at the heart of several dozen others. Adjoining it were the small apartments he shared with his wife and son; his townhouse was currently rented to Suzerain Nelbove and his household.
‘Perhaps I’ll look in on them before going back to work,’ he said softly to the Land in general. ‘The boy might find tonight’s events more interesting than sleep. We’re as alike as Lord Isak and his father are. Best we don’t let ourselves end up that way.’
Isak acknowledged the salutes from the guardsmen sporting his dragon crest and eased open the reinforced oak door to the duke’s chambers. The main room was dark, the only light coming from the fire and a single candlestick on a side table. A maid sat at the table with her elbows on it, her chin supported by her hands and her head angled towards the open doorway. He sniffed slightly and she leapt up, her mouth already opening to apologise.