by Anthony Ryan
“Lord Antesh,” Uncle Sentes said. “I see no recognisable flag of truce, do you?”
Antesh pursed his lips and shook his head. “Can’t say as I do, my lord.”
“Well then.”
“. . . swift transportation to any land of your choice,” the Volarian was saying, the scroll held in front of his eyes. “Plus one hundred pounds in gol—” He choked off as Antesh’s arrow punched through the scroll and the breastplate beyond. He tumbled from the saddle and lay still, the scroll pinned to his chest.
“Right,” the Fief Lord said, turning away. “Let me know when the rest get here.”
CHAPTER SIX
Vaelin
He found it impossible to gauge the Eorhil woman’s age. Somewhere between fifty and seventy was his best guess. Her face possessed many lines, her lips cracked with age and her long braids iron-grey. But there was a leanness and evident strength to her that bespoke an ageless vitality, her back straight as she sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, her bare arms strung with knotted muscle. Behind her the great gathering of Eorhil warriors waited, some dismounted, most not, over ten thousand riders come in answer to the Tower Lord’s call. The Eorhil woman’s name, translated by Insha ka Forna, was unusual amongst her people as it consisted of but one word: Wisdom.
“You ask much, man of tower,” the young Eorhil had cautioned. “Not since war with beast people do so many come. Then they knew old tower man, you they don’t. Wisdom will decide.”
They had been sitting like this for much of the afternoon, the woman staring at him through the smoke rising from the fire. He heard no note from the blood-song, she possessed no gift, at least none it could recognise. Ten days’ march had brought them here to the lake the Eorhil called the Silver Tear, a small placid body of water shining amidst the great expanse of the plains where the Eorhil were already waiting with their full number.
“Al Myrna wanted a quiet life,” Wisdom said finally in flawless Realm Tongue, Vaelin starting at the sudden break in the silence. “A man with many battles in his past, tired of war. Our trust in him was built on that weariness. It’s the man of energy who hungers for war, and you, Vaelin Al Sorna, are a man of considerable energy.”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I’ve seen enough battle also. It pains me to lead so many to war once more.”
“Then why do it?”
“Why does any man of reason go to war? To preserve what is good and destroy what is not.”
“The Volarians seek to destroy your homeland. But that is far from here.”
“Your forest sister has seen the hearts of these people. They will not stop at my homeland. And I have seen what they did to the ice people. They will take all they can, from the Seordah, the Lonak and you.”
“And if we give you our warriors, the bright promise of our youth, how many will return?”
“I do not know. Many will fall, I do not deny it. I do know that the Eorhil will have to fight the Volarians, either on these plains or in my realm.”
“To reach your realm we must travel through the forest. You expect the Seordah to allow this?”
“I expect them to heed the words of the blind woman.”
Wisdom gave a start of her own, stiffening as her gaze narrowed. “You’ve seen her?”
“And spoken with her.”
The Eorhil woman’s mouth twitched and he discerned she was fighting fear. She got to her feet muttering, “We named you wrong.” She stalked back to her people, casting her final words over her shoulder. “We will ride with you.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Wisdom,” Vaelin read slowly, pronouncing each syllable with care.
“Good,” Dahrena said. “And this?” Her finger moved on to the next word.
“Aah-greeed?”
She smiled. “Very good, my lord. A few more weeks and you won’t need me at all.”
“I very much doubt that will be the case, my lady.” He reclined in his chair, yawning. The evening drill had been hard, far too many men still stumbling about with faint notion of the difference between right and left, clumsiness made worse by fatigue from the day’s march, but there was no other choice if they were to have a hope of facing a disciplined enemy.
They were four days from the lake, the Eorhil scouting ahead and covering the flanks as they moved south towards the forest, now no more than a week away. Dahrena fretted over the fact they were yet to meet any Seordah but he told her to stow her worries, forcing more certainty into his tone than he actually felt. Just tell them you met a blind woman from several centuries hence, and they’ll throw their arms wide in welcome? he asked himself. Do you really suppose it’ll be that easy?
But the blood-song was unchanged; the route to the Realm lay through the forest. So he marched his army, trained them for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, suffered the grumbling and doubts of his captains and spent a blessed hour before slumber learning letters with the Lady Dahrena.
He was finding a joy in the words the more he learned, the poetry his mother had tried to impart now laid bare, the emptiness of the catechisms glaring and obvious when captured in ink. It gave him a deeper appreciation of the gift enjoyed by Brother Harlick, the power and the beauty of it, to have an entire library in one’s head.
Dahrena sat at the table they shared, adding the final words to the treaty formalising the Eorhil’s alliance to their cause, including an unasked-for grant of ownership over the northern plains in perpetuity. The treaty would require ratification by the monarch of the Unified Realm, assuming they could find one. Vaelin had ordered Brother Harlick to draw up a list of those with a legitimate claim to the throne should the Al Nieren line prove extinct. It consisted of just four names.
“King Janus lost much of his family to the Red Hand,” Harlick explained. “Many of the survivors perished in the wars of unification. These”—he held up the list—“are the only blood relatives still living in the Realm, to the best of my knowledge, since it’s several years since I lived there.”
“Anyone of note?” Vaelin asked.
Harlick considered the list. “Lord Al Pernil is a famed horse-breeder, assuming he still lives. My lord, you may have to consider the possibility that there is no surviving heir to the throne of the Unified Realm. If that’s the case, other options will have to be considered.”
“Options?”
“The Realm is not the Realm without a monarch. And in a time of chaos people will look to the strongest man for leadership, regardless of blood or station.”
Vaelin studied the man’s face, wondering if some fresh design lurked behind his eyes. “More honest and unselfish intent, brother?”
“Merely the observations of a well-read man, my lord.”
“Well, confine your observations to those subjects I ask you to consider.” He moved to the map table, his eyes picking out Alltor, the blood-song flaring as it always did whenever his thoughts turned to Reva. Recently there had been a change in the tone, an ominous counterpoint to the usual compulsion. They come for her, he decided. And she won’t run.
“The population of Alltor?” he asked Harlick.
“The King’s census ten years ago put the total at some forty-eight thousand souls,” the brother replied without hesitation. “Though, in times of siege it could be expected to double.” He paused. “That’s where we’re going?”
“As fast as the men can stand it.”
“The distance . . .”
Vaelin shook his head. “Is immaterial. We march to Alltor, even if it’s only to survey a ruin. That’s all for now, brother.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Four days’ march saw a dark uneven line appear on the horizon. It thickened as they marched, growing into a great wall of trees, stretching away on either side as far as eyes could see. Vaelin ordered the army to camp a half mile short of the forest and bowed to Dahr
ena. “Allow me to escort you home, my lady.”
Nortah guided his horse closer, Snowdance padding alongside. “We should go too,” he said. “The sight of a war-cat may ward against anger at your intrusion.”
“It’s more likely to provoke it,” Dahrena told him. “In any case, my people will not harm us. I’m sure of it.” Vaelin detected a wariness to her gaze as she eyed the forest, indicating a lack of conviction in her own words.
“If you don’t return?” Nortah asked.
Vaelin was tempted to offer a flippant response but seeing Dahrena’s unease decided on a reasoned reply. “Then I name you as my successor, brother. You will lead the army back to the tower and prepare against siege.”
“You imagine these people will follow a simple teacher?”
“A teacher with a war-cat.” Vaelin grinned and spurred Flame into motion.
The blood-song swelled as they neared the forest edge, not in warning, but welcome. It subsided to a soft contented note as the trees closed in around them, the air cool and musty with the myriad scents offered by all forests. Dahrena reined to a halt and dismounted, her face raised to the canopy of branches, eyes closed and a faint smile on her lips. “I missed you,” she said softly.
Vaelin dismounted and left Flame grazing on a patch of long grass, his eyes scanning the trees and finding a man standing between two elms, watching him with a deeply furrowed brow.
“Hera!” Dahrena gave a joyous yelp and ran to the Seordah, jumping to embrace him.
The man seemed less joyful as she drew back, his smile of welcome strained. His hair was long and streaked with grey, swept back from a hawk-nosed face stirring Vaelin’s memory.
“Hera Drakil,” he said, moving towards the man. “Friend to Tower Lord Al Myrna. I . . .”
“I know who you are,” Hera Drakil said, his accent thick but clear. “Beral Shak Ur, though I had hoped to be hunting in the dream age when your shadow fell on this forest.”
“I come with friendship . . .”
“You come with war, ever the way with the Marelim Sil.” The Seordah laid an affectionate hand on Dahrena’s cheek and turned away. “Come, the stone waits.”
◆ ◆ ◆
There were a dozen Seordah chiefs waiting, five women and seven men, all of an age with Hera Drakil who sat in their centre of their line. He had led them to a small clearing some miles into the forest, in the centre of which stood a stone plinth. The shape and height of the stone reminded Vaelin of one he had seen before, although whilst the stone in the Martishe had been overgrown with weeds and creepers, this was free of any vegetation, the carved granite seemingly unmarked by age or weather. In the trees beyond he could see many other Seordah, faces concealed in shadow, but he made out bows and war clubs amongst the shifting silhouettes. Warriors, he thought. Waiting for something.
Vaelin and Dahrena sat before the dozen chiefs, finding no welcome in any gaze. One of them said something, a woman with a crow feather in her hair.
“We give you no leave to enter,” Dahrena translated. “Yet here you are. She asks for a reason why they shouldn’t kill you.”
“I come to seek your help,” Vaelin replied as she related his words to the chiefs. “A great and terrible enemy has attacked my people. Soon they will come to the forest, bringing fire and torment . . .”
Hera Drakil held up a hand and Vaelin fell silent as the Seordah spoke in his own language. “Your people could not take this forest from us,” Dahrena related. “Though they tried. Why should we fear these newcomers when we do not fear you?”
“My people saw wisdom in making peace. Our enemy has no such wisdom. Ask your sister, she has seen their hearts.”
The chiefs’ gaze turned to Dahrena who nodded and spoke at length in the Seordah tongue, no doubt relating what her gift had revealed of Varinshold’s fate and the Volarians’ nature.
“You face a cruel foe indeed,” she translated when one of the other chiefs responded to her tale, a wiry man with a foxtail hanging about his neck. “But it is your foe, not ours. The wars of the Marelim Sil are their own.”
Vaelin paused, pondering how best to phrase what he hoped would silence their doubts. “I am named Beral Shak Ur by Nersus Sil Nin. I tell you true that I have seen and spoken with the blind woman. She has blessed the course of my life. Can any here claim the same?”
He saw some flickers of uncertainty on the faces of the chiefs, but no shock or fear, and certainly no change of heart.
“If the blind woman blesses you,” Dahrena related the words of Hera Drakil as he pointed over Vaelin’s shoulder, “she will hear you now.”
Vaelin turned, regarding the stone for a moment then getting to his feet. “You don’t have to.” Dahrena moved to his side as he approached the stone, looking down at the smooth flat surface with the single perfectly round indentation in the centre. “Let me talk to them. With enough time, they’ll listen.”
“Who am I to deny them a show?” he asked. “One I suspect they’ve been expecting for a long time.”
“You don’t understand. Seordah have been coming here for generations, usually the old and the sick, some the mad. All come to touch the stone and seek the blind woman’s counsel. Most just touch it, wait for a time then leave disappointed, but some, only a very few . . . Some it takes, leaving their bodies empty.”
“Except you,” he said. “You said you had seen her.”
“After my husband died . . .” Her eyes went to the stone, clouded with sorrowful remembrance. “My grief was such I didn’t care if I lived. I came here in search of some kind of answer, some reason. If that was denied me then I would happily accept death. The blind woman . . . She showed me something to live for.” Her hand reached out, hovering over the surface of the stone. “It put me back in my body, because she willed it.”
“Then,” he said, stepping closer. “Let’s hope she finds me similarly worthy.”
The granite was cool under his palm, but he felt no other sensation, no change in his song, but when he looked up Dahrena and the Seordah were gone. It was night and a woman sat at a fire, face turned away from him but he knew her instantly. “Nersus Sil Nin,” he greeted her, walking to the fire. She was older than he remembered, lines deeply etched into the flesh around her red marble eyes, her hair entirely white. She blinked and glanced up at him.
“You’re older,” she said. “And your song is stronger.”
“You said I should learn its music well.”
“Did I? It was so long ago. There have been so many visions since.” Her hand reached down to the stack of firewood at her feet, tossing some branches into the flames. “Still serving your Faith?” she asked.
“My Faith was a lie. Though I think you knew that.”
“Is a lie really a lie if it is honestly believed? Your people sought to make sense of the world’s many mysteries with their Faith. Misguided perhaps, but based on a truth not fully revealed.”
The thing that lived in Barkus, the cruelty of its laugh. “A soul can be trapped in the Beyond.”
“Not all souls, only those with a gift. This power, this fire that burns in you and I, doesn’t cease burning when our life fades.”
“And when it slips into the void. What then?”
Her aged lips formed a smile. “I suspect I’ll discover that myself before long.”
“Something lives there, in the void. Something that takes these souls and twists them, making them serve its purpose, sending them back to take the bodies of other gifted.”
Her eyebrows rose in faint surprise. “So, it grew after all.”
“What grew? What is it that lives there?”
She turned her blank eyes to him, face heavy with regret. “I do not know. All I know is that it needs. It hungers.”
“What for?”
She voiced her answer with a flat certainty making doubts redundant, �
��Death.”
“Can you tell me how to defeat it?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “But I can tell you it has to be fought, if you care about this world and its people.”
He looked up at the small patch of night sky visible through the branches above, seeing the seven stars of the sword. This high in the sky meant it was early autumn here, though how many years before his time was an unfathomable mystery. “Has it happened yet?” he asked. “Have my people come to take this land?”
“I’ll be many years dead before that happens. Though I’ve had enough visions from that time to make me thankful for it.”
“And the future? The future of this land?”
She stared into the fire for some time and he suspected she wouldn’t answer, but eventually she said, “You are as far into the future as I’ve seen, Beral Shak Ur. After you, there is no future. None that I can see.”
“And yet you would have me fight?”
“My gift is not absolute. Many things remain hidden. And in any case, what else would you do? Give up your hope and sit waiting for the end?”
“Your people require persuasion to grant passage through the forest. What do I tell them?”
Her brow creased into an amused frown. “Tell them I said they should. That might help.”
“And that will be enough?”
Her frown turned into a laugh, bitter and short. “I haven’t the faintest notion. The people you find in this forest may speak my language and share my blood, but they are not my people. Those who come to touch the stone are shadows of former greatness and beauty. They gather in tribes and pursue their endless feuds with the Lonak, myth and legend has replaced knowledge and wisdom. They have forgotten who they were, allowed themselves to be diminished.”
“If they don’t join with me, then even that shadow of your greatness will be gone, along with any chance that it might one day be rebuilt.”
“What is broken remains so. It is the way of things.” She turned to the stone. “We did not craft these vessels of memory and time, they were here long before us. We merely divined their use, and even then they prove fickle, taking the minds of those they deem unworthy. Once a people far greater than the Seordah crafted wonders and built cities the length and breadth of this land. Now, even their name is lost forever.”