Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

The riders came around the corner in single file. The horses moved very slowly. One by one they came into sight: six, ten, twelve, then fifteen, twenty. All black-haired. All tall and upright. All clad in dark leather with iron studwork or buckles or hilts glinting softly here and there. Ravens, riding into Glasbridge. Kanin smiled to himself.

  Then, still fifty or more paces distant, the lead rider halted her horse with the merest rolling of her wrist to tighten the reins. She stared down the street towards Kanin. Others of the riders came sedately forward and conferred with their leader. The muted exchange was curt. She nodded once, and two men peeled themselves away from the rest, easing their mounts round and heading, just as unhurriedly as they had come, back out towards the fields beyond the town.

  Kanin's smile died on his lips. His disappointment was far more bitter than he would have expected. It did not, in truth, matter greatly. After today, everything would rush onwards. The end--whatever its form, whatever its nature--would come quickly, and nothing and no one could change that. But he had hoped that this beginning might at least be perfect, flawless. It would have felt good.

  The Inkallim were coming on again, once more falling into a disciplined file. They had that arrogant, assured air that attended every member of the Battle. Kanin loathed it, now more than ever. Their forerunners had betrayed his Blood. They had abandoned it in the Vale of Stones thirty years ago, watching its finest warriors go down beneath the blades of a Lannis army.

  And now he stood, Thane of his people, in a ruined street, as Battle Inkallim came pace by careful pace towards him, and everything was at once the same and entirely different. This time Lannis was gone, burned away to ashes. But again Horin was betrayed. The Battle had stolen away every victory Kanin's Blood had won for the faith; they had handed it all to the mad halfbreed. They had condemned the world to his vile rule. They had lifted the man responsible for Wain's death up on their shoulders and made thousands bend the knee to him.

  Kanin made fists of his hands to stop them shaking. Today, today it would begin.

  The lead rider came to a halt before him. Two more let their horses drift wide to flank her on each side. She stared down at Kanin impassively.

  "Thane," she said.

  He nodded. "You've come for me, I assume?"

  "We have a message for you."

  "From Kan Avor. From the halfbreed." He did not conceal his contempt. It washed over her. Her pride made her impervious, he thought. It made her careless too, perhaps.

  "You have gathered many spears here, Thane. Gathered them where they are not required. The war, the struggle of the faithful against the faithless, is happening far to the south of here. At Kolkyre. Beyond Kilvale. That is where your spears are needed."

  "Because your strength falters?" Kanin smiled. "Because everything comes apart in your hands? I see, raven. I hear. I know your armies melt away like the winter snow come the thaw. I was there. I saw it start. Madness sprouting everywhere. Disorder. By now I'm sure your many Captains cannot hold more than a handful of spears together, cannot muster anything but the smallest of companies that will actually follow an order."

  Her face was an impassive mask, but he could see the truth of it in her eyes.

  "That's what you've achieved for the creed, raven," he told her. "Chaos."

  "Your strength is required," she said flatly.

  "You don't understand what you've helped to create, do you? Strength is not measured by the enumeration of spears and swords any more. It is not measured in armies. Strength is a matter of will now. It's about who can stand against the madness and keep a steady course through the storm. It's about who can keep sight of what they need to do."

  "Your swords are required, Thane. Do not fail the creed now."

  "You threaten me?" he said. "A Thane?" And he laughed at her. He possessed his own kind of madness, he knew. A sort of joy at the setting aside of all pretence and delay. A storm of blood would be released, and he felt joy at the prospect of it, for he had wearied of everything else. Nothing else could offer him any meaning, or peace, or rest. Nothing else, he felt certain, offered any kind of salvation, to him or to anyone. So there would be blood, and he would rejoice in it.

  "My strength is my own," he said. "I'll keep it to myself. Tell me, is there much sickness in Kan Avor? Are there fevers eating away at your halfbreed's slaves yet?"

  Her eyes narrowed just enough to please him. "You have warriors hidden in two houses behind us, Thane. You cannot imagine that is enough to prevent word of your betrayal reaching Kan Avor. You cannot imagine it is so easy to kill the Children of the Hundred."

  Again he laughed. That savage joy was pounding in him, coursing through his veins like invigorating fire. He imagined that with it inside him he might be capable of anything. He might be capable of shaking the whole world to its foundations.

  "Oh," he laughed, "I do not imagine it to be easy. That is why I have warriors hidden in a great many more than two houses, raven."

  He raised his left hand. Before the movement was finished, there were crossbow bolts standing in the chests of the three Inkallim before him. They appeared there with dull thuds, as if snapping out through the ribcages from within. But they had come, Kanin knew, from Hunt bows. Eska and her two fellow Inkallim. He harvested another small, bitter joy from that: Inkallim killed Inkallim at the behest of a Horin Thane.

  One of the ravens fell at once, sliding with blank eyes out of his saddle. The other two swayed but remained astride the horses.

  Those first three bolts were the vanguard of a swarm that clattered in from every direction, lashing at the column of Inkallim. One quarrel darted so close by Kanin's face that he felt the brush of its fletching on his cheek. He did not flinch. He seized the slack reins out of the woman's limp hand. She was starting to slump forward, folding herself about the bolt buried in her chest, but she still breathed. Kanin twisted the horse's head out of the way and stabbed his sword up into her stomach. It did not penetrate her leathers, but it was enough to knock her to the ground. As she fell, Kanin heard crossbow bolts strike the horse's flank. The animal screamed in panic, and tore itself free of his grasp.

  His people were pouring into the street, hurrying to close with those of the Inkallim that had not already fallen. His people, he called them. The truth was, he had brought more Lannis men than warriors of his own Blood to prepare this welcome. He trusted their visceral hatred of the ravens more than he trusted the loyalty of his own swords. His father would have been ashamed, enraged, had he lived to see such things. Kanin did not care. It no longer mattered.

  The Children of the Hundred fought as he would have expected them to: ferociously, fanatically. Many of them were wounded, with bolts nestled in their flesh, but they fought nevertheless. When a horse fell or was dragged down, its rider rolled clear and rose and carved a path into the converging throng. When the ravens died--pierced, as often as not, by a forest of spears lunging in from every side--they did so silently. Still fighting.

  Two of the Inkallim came riding through the crowd towards Kanin. Their swords flashed, slashing down first on one side, then the other, as they cut away every enemy that closed upon them. They had eyes only for Kanin. Those they killed and maimed did not even merit their attention.

  Kanin grinned at them as they drew near, and hefted his sword. Igris was at his side. One of the Inkallim was suddenly twisted by the impact of a bolt in her shoulder. That was enough to open the path for the spear that jabbed up from below and pierced her. The other burst free of the mob, his horse surging into a charge. Igris ran forward. To Kanin, it seemed a slow and dreamlike moment: the sound of the battle receded, his shieldman drifted into the path of the horse. The great beast moved with strange grace, forelegs rising and falling, lifting mud and slush in elegant plumes from the road.

  Igris did not try for the Inkallim. He ducked low and veered sideways, and hit the horse's leg with his sword. The blow sent the blade spinning away out of his hand but broke the animal's leg too. Kanin watc
hed with detached fascination as the horse buckled, ploughing down into the wet sludge, rolling, sending up a great curving curtain of spray. The Inkallim leaped from the horse's back and erupted through that curtain, reaching for Kanin. It all seemed so slow. Kanin's mind raced, but his body followed its commands with what felt like glacial lethargy. He leaned back and twisted as the Inkallim came towards him. As the raven's blade came up, levelling itself, arrowing itself in.

  The impact was stunning. It smashed the breath out of Kanin's chest, sent him sprawling, punched off his feet. His cloak spread and flapped about him. Like wings, he thought foolishly as he hit the ground and slid on his back. The sword had torn across his breastbone, ripping open his chain shirt, lacerating his chest. He could feel his own hot blood on his skin. But it was not a deep wound. By the smallest of margins, the blade's point had come at too sharp an angle to punch its way through the cage of his ribs. Not dead, was all Kanin thought as he struggled to get to his feet. Not dead yet.

  The Inkallim was rising too. His sword was gone, twisted out of his hands. Kanin still had his. He scrambled forward, slithering through the slush, and lashed out at the Inkallim's ankles. The man leaped above the swing. Then Igris came roaring in and hit him about the waist, embracing him, bearing him down. The two of them rolled, and flailed, and clawed at one another.

  Kanin stood over them. Every breath lit bands of fiery pain that encircled his chest. His legs felt loose, his sword terribly heavy in his hand. The Inkallim somehow got a heel into Igris' groin and half-kicked, half-pushed the shieldman away. Kanin took his chance. He hacked down at the raven's head, once, twice, until the skull broke and caved in. Again he struck, and again. It took him that long to master himself. Fighting off waves of dizziness, he extended a hand and hauled Igris to his feet. The shieldman was gasping, wild-eyed.

  "Well done," Kanin murmured.

  He turned back to the battle, and found it to be over. Dead littered the street. One horse was limping in a trembling circle, another pounding away riderless. It had cost better than thirty lives to bring down those few Inkallim, but it had been done. Townsfolk were beating some of the corpses, pulping them with staffs and clubs. Stiffly, painfully, Kanin sheathed his sword and pressed a hand to his wound. It would need cleaning. There would be fragments of cloth or metal to be picked out of his opened flesh. But it would not kill him.

  "Enough," he shouted. The pain almost choked him, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he spoke more softly, more carefully.

  "Enough. We're done here. Now it's Kan Avor."

  V

  As she moved through the Palace of Red Stone, treading lightly along its polished passageways, Anyara became aware of a low, almost subliminal, sound. At first it seemed to be emanating from the marble, as if it resonated to the beat of some vast drum deep in the earth. But the sound grew slowly more distinct and constant as she reached the northern side of the palace. It took on its own character. There was some great crowd, she realised, out there on the streets beyond these quiet marmoreal precincts, and this was its single voice, built out of a thousand individual cries and shouts, the tramping of many feet, the jostling of bodies one against the other. Built out of the fury of the mob.

  The realisation roused more curiosity than fear in her. When she chanced upon an open door, she drifted cautiously through it and into an empty room. Though she could not pretend to feel safe, moving alone through the palace's intricate passageways, she would have gone mad hiding away in her chambers all day and all night. She had crept out, carefully ensuring that she did not disturb Coinach, who had for once lapsed into an uncomfortable-looking sleep at his watch post in the corridor outside. She thus breached both the Chancellor's command for her to remain in gentle incarceration, and Coinach's trust that she would allow him to guard her as he thought necessary. The first breach she cared nothing for; the second she felt was justified, for Coinach desperately needed sleep, and she knew herself how rare and precious were those brief spells of slumber undisturbed by restless dreams.

  It was a dining room, but one evidently not used during the winter, for the long table was entirely bare, the fireplace spotlessly clean, the tapestries on the wall concealed behind sheets to protect them from any intrusive light. There were tall windows, but they were shuttered, and the shutters were secured with heavy, ornate copper hooks.

  The noise was unmistakable now, even though Anyara had never heard quite its like. A great collective rage. It was an unsettling sound.

  "What are you doing here?"

  She turned towards that ice-laden voice, its chill daggers cutting through the tumultuous rumble outside. She fought the black fear it loosed in her but could not prevent its rise. She felt herself shrinking, retreating into a corner of her mind.

  "I was looking for your wife, Chancellor," she managed to say.

  Mordyn Jerain smiled at her, but he did it with his teeth, not his eyes. He was between Anyara and the only doorway, and that frightened her. She squeezed her hands together in search of a steadying focus.

  "You hear it?" the Chancellor said. He came a few paces closer to her. She edged back until she felt the edge of the table against her thighs.

  "You hear the mob in full cry? That is the sound of an ending," Mordyn said, cocking his head. "That is the sound of change. Perhaps you hear it, and you think it a wild thing, beyond control."

  He had an air of contentment, as if he listened to the sweetest and most melodious of music.

  "Not so," he mused, his eyelids languidly drooping. "I made it. It is as much a product of my craft as the crop a farmer harvests is the product of his. Such has ever been my gift. To shape that which others assume cannot be shaped."

  There were, now and again, even through the Palace of Red Stone's thick walls, and those heavy shutters, individual voices to be heard amidst the otherwise formless noise: jagged rocks briefly exposed and then drowned again by the churning waves. Other than that, the sound could as easily have been born of animal throats as human.

  The Chancellor seemed lost in reverie, and Anyara moved to ease herself around him towards the doorway. His eyes at once sprang open and alert, and he reached out and laid a hand on the tabletop, blocking her path with his arm. He was oppressively close to her.

  "In truth," he breathed, "the crop is not quite ready for the scythe. Another day or two. No more, I think. Then the harvest comes."

  "I do not understand such matters," Anyara said, marshalling all the submissive, compliant girlishness that came no more naturally to her than flight would to a fish. "I have no interest in them."

  "Indeed?" Mordyn said with arched, coldly amused eyebrows. "You are something of a novice when it comes to dissemblance, I see. But do not worry. For now, my interest in you could not be less were you some dim-witted scullery maid. It is given to precious few to exert some influence upon the course of great events; to guide the current, rather than be merely carried along by it. You, my dear lady, are not one of those few. You are a gnat. No, of even less import. You are a common prisoner. Your Blood is extinguished."

  "My brother will --"

  The blow, an open-handed slap that had every strand of the Chancellor's strength behind it, was so sudden and violent that she reeled. Lights danced across Anyara's vision. Pain blazed in her cheek with such ferocity that she wondered if he had split it open.

  Mordyn came after her before she had a chance to compose herself. He seized her neck with one hand, her flailing arm with the other, and smashed her face down onto the table. He pinned her there and leaned over her, hissing into her ear.

  "You are not listening. Your brother? Where is your brother, lady? Hiding somewhere. Cowering like some craven child in a hovel, or a cave. Or dead, perhaps. Do you think he's dead?"

  "Orisian's not dead."

  "No? It doesn't matter. He is of no consequence. Less even than you. Do you understand? Entirely, utterly of no consequence. None of them are. The day of Thanes enters its twilight. The
y will pass. They will fall. Another power is coming, and it will rule in their stead."

  "Let go of me!"

  "No. Listen. I have seen, and I understand, what is coming. I am a part of it, and I will be one of those to rise, at his side, from the wreckage when the new dawn comes. Your brother will not. He and all his kind, Thanes and Kings and Bloodheirs and Stewards, their time is ending."

  He bent still closer to her ear, so close she could feel his lips brushing her skin.

  "Your time is ending."

  "You're his, aren't you?" Anyara said. "Bound, like Tarcene. Somehow, he made you his tool. His toy."

  Those fingers on her tightened. She felt the nails digging into her skin, pressing harder on the muscles and the veins beneath. She could no longer tell what was the sound of the mob outside and what the rushing of her own blood, its beating in her head.

  "What is happening here?"

  Anyara could not move, could not see the doorway, but that voice--light, clear, graceful--was enough to abruptly calm her fear.

  Mordyn released his grip upon the side of her neck and stepped away from her. She no longer felt the heat of his breath. Stiffly, cautiously, Anyara levered herself up off the table. One side of her face burned, and she could feel the print of his hand there like a brand; the other ached from the impact with the table. She refused to touch either. She would not give him that pleasure.

  Both she and the Chancellor looked towards the door, and towards Tara Jerain standing there, in a gown of surpassing elegance, her hands neatly clasped across her stomach.

  "What is happening here?" she asked again. Perfect composure. Not a hint of accusation or displeasure, only bland enquiry.

  Anyara glared at Mordyn, but he had already dismissed her from his thoughts. He was moving towards the door, adjusting his sleeves, sweeping back his hair. He paid no more attention to his wife than to Anyara. He brushed past Tara, jolting her shoulder out of the way.

  "You will regret that," Anyara said levelly but loudly to his back.