by D. P. Prior
Nameless approached and pulled Shadrak aside. “Did you see what the little fellow did? The other little fellow, I mean.”
That should have earned the dwarf a knife in the nuts. That, and the fact everyone and their mother seemed intent on ruining his entertainment. The rate Ekyls was going, there’d be nothing left of the mawg to chop off in next to no time.
“Bird?”
“Yes,” Nameless said. “Magic. That business with the trees; and I can’t say I’m fond of it. Had my fill of homunculi in Gehenna. It’s bad enough having to put up with them at the Perfect Peak. It’s why I go so long without feeding. Can’t stand the shifty shoggers, present company excepted.”
Shadrak snorted at the slight. Well, it would have struck him as a slight from anyone but Nameless. Made the whole thing more troubling, though. If Nameless thought it, chances were he believed it. That just added weight to the niggling idea virtually everyone Shadrak met put about: that he was one of the spawn of the Demiurgos. He shrugged off speculation in that department the same way he shut out the loss of Kadee, or the desire to know who his real parents were. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, so it didn’t need to take up valuable space in his mind, the way he saw it.
“Don’t look now,” Nameless whispered, “but the creep’s watching. Do you think he hears everything we say?”
Shadrak couldn’t help himself and looked anyway. Bird was studying him with furrowed brows, the hint of a smile curling his lip. A gentle smile, maybe even tinged with sadness.
There was a long drawn-out gurgling and a sickening slosh. Shadrak spun back to face the mawg, just in time to see its head hit the ground and roll across the clearing.
Albert stopped it with his foot, then kicked it off into the trees. “No more questions, I assume.”
“No more need.” Ekyls was painted with dark ichor from head to toe. He gave a wide, jagged grin. “Mamba tribe know how to talk with mawgs. Goblins, all gone. Back to the clay. They just hunters for Sartis.”
Shadrak rubbed his shoulder. Already, the pain was no more than a dull ache. Nothing he wasn’t used to. “And the mawg? What was it doing here? Working for the fire giant, too?”
“Only mawg to serve. Outcast from pack. No more mawgs here.”
“Thank shog for that,” Nameless said. “Although, give me a dozen without the magic, and I’ll show you how to skin them with an axe.”
“And the tunnel?” Albert asked Ekyls.
Ekyls’ grin grew even wider. “Follow me, like old days. Before me undead.”
He scampered into the trees, not waiting to see if the others followed.
“What’s he mean undead?” Nameless leaned on his axe. “Sounds like a character from one of old Rugbeard’s tales.”
“Primitives,” Albert said, by way of explanation. “Ekyls and the other scouts uncovered a nest of mambas. Vicious little buggers, mambas. Kill a man in seconds. Ekyls was closest to me, so I tested my antidote on him. Should have brought a cart, as I jolly well had to carry him back to the tribe. Their witch doctor told me no one had ever survived a mamba bite. They believed it was impossible. So did Ekyls. Do you know the thanks I got for saving his life? The old coot put a curse on me, and the chief banished us both. I think they thought I was a necromancer. Still, every cloud… Ekyls thinks he’s a dead man walking, with me holding the strings. If I understand him rightly, he needs to do my bidding, be my bondsman, to earn the right of release into whatever dismal afterlife these savages believe in.”
Ludo peered over the top of his glasses. “Bondsman, indeed. I rather thought the age of servility was over.”
There was a rustling of leaves, and then Ekyls reappeared, gesturing for them to follow.
“Come. Too much talk. We go kill this Sartis.”
Maybe, Shadrak thought. That was the part of Aristodeus’s plan he liked least. His way of doing business was to know his target inside out. None of them had ever seen a giant, let alone fought one. It was leaving too much to chance.
Galen trudged past, trailing Beatrice’s reins behind him.
“Wait,” Albert said, bustling off to untie the mule. “Don’t forget Quintus.”
Shadrak waited for him as the others set off after Ekyls. “Quintus?”
“As in the poet. Met him once. Sold him a rare book that had come into my possession. Always thought he was a bit of an ass.”
Shadrak groaned and then looked over the camp. Where was Bird?
A quick scan revealed the mole burrowing back into the loamy soil, and above, perched on a high branch, a raven watched. It rolled its head, studying him with beady eyes. Then, it squawked and unfurled its wings.
Shadrak’s hand flicked out, and a razor star thudded into the bark beneath its claws. The raven hopped aside, and nearly fell from the branch.
“Don’t forget my shogging rifle,” Shadrak said. He nodded to where it dangled from a vine in a neighboring tree. “I ain’t climbing with this shoulder.”
AMONG THE WOLVES
Britannia, Earth
Shader crested the brow of the hill some way behind the others. The laughter of the girl wafted on the wind like the echo of a dream. He sat to remove a boot and dabbed at the puckered flesh of his heel, wincing and cursing. Sunlight danced upon his hip flask, which had dropped to the ground. He scooped it up, spun the top, and took a swig.
Rhiannon’s daughter was riding piggy-back on the skinny man, Pete, a Westie from the South, judging by his accent.
Saphra.
Don’t fret about the girl, Heredwin had said. So, he’d known about her; tried to prepare Shader to some degree.
She’s a paradox waitin’ ta be unwound. What did that even mean? And why tell him not to worry about her—least not now—? If he were honest, he couldn’t give a damn about her. No more than any other child, that is. So, he’d loved her mother once. That didn’t make her his concern. Or had Heredwin meant something else? Was there something about Saphra, something she might do, if not now, then at some future time?
And why Saphra? Why not some other name? More to the point, where had Rhiannon heard of it? As far as he could remember, he’d never mentioned what Osric had told him about the Society at the heart of the Elect. To his mind, that left only one possibility: Aristodeus.
Pete kept stopping to bounce the little girl, who giggled and shrieked, slapping his head and urging him onward.
Rhiannon walked a little in front, alongside a muscle-bound oaf called Sandau—the man who’d glared as they left the pub. Another Westie. All three were in uniform, the men with olive jackets and black britches, Rhiannon in the gray great-coat of the Fencibles, hand resting on the pommel of Callixus’s black sword swinging from her hip. He took another swig. What the Abyss did she think she was doing?
Thrusting the flask into his coat, Shader stood and tucked a boot under each arm.
Saphra jumped down from Pete’s shoulders and ran toward him, squealing. As Shader walked barefoot down the grassy slope, she gave him a haughty look and wagged her finger.
“Come on, slowcoach. Mommy’s waiting.”
Of course she was. She hadn’t even turned in his direction. Probably didn’t even know he was lagging behind.
“I’ll catch up.” He tried to smile, but she frowned back at him.
“You’d better, otherwise no food for you.” She scurried away and leapt into Pete’s arms as he approached. The idiot did his best to look concerned.
“You all right, buddy? Want me to call ’em on back?”
“I’m fine.”
“Ain’t a problem. I can run on over to them, if you like. Say, your foot’s bleeding.”
“It’s nothing. You two go on ahead.”
Pete worried his lower lip and frowned down at Shader’s foot. He nodded absently and gave the slightest of shrugs. “Just holler if you need anything.” He swung the girl onto his shoulders and started back down the hill.
Saphra turned her head to give Shader a malevolent stare. Once she
was sure he’d noticed, she stuck her nose in the air.
The lightest puffs and streaks of cloud hung motionless in the washed-out sky. Dappled sunlight flecked the hills in tight beams. He used to muse about them being messages from Araboth. That seemed a long time ago now.
Rhiannon and Sandau disappeared into a copse of trees, Pete and Saphra close on their tails. Cursing his raw and stinging heels, Shader limped after them. They’d wait. None of them had trekked this way before, but he’d grown up on the Downs. If they’d known their way, Rhiannon wouldn’t have asked him along. He wished she hadn’t.
His face tightened at the thought. The girl he’d met at Oakendale was as dead as the parents she’d left behind. He tried to picture her face, thin and pale, almost sickly, had it not been for the lips that stood out like a streak of blood on a server’s alb. That first sight had never left him: her crumpled against the trunk of a karri, black hair plastered across her face, clinging to her naked shoulders; dress a lacerated mess, wet with blood, riding up her thighs, vaunting the pertness of a breast. The mawg crouched over her, sniffing, slavering, excited by her fear and her flesh.
She’d been the first one he’d saved. His first. He sniffed at the irony. If only. If only matters had been left to take their own course, not steered in another direction by Huntsman and Aristodeus.
Shader shook all thought of them from his head, but he couldn’t banish the awakened memories of that first meeting with Rhiannon.
The mawg had chased her from Oakendale, caught her at the border with Broken Bridge. She’d been trying to get to Elias Wolf’s house, but it’s doubtful the bard would have been able to save her. The timing couldn’t have provided better evidence of providence at work: a monk with a yearning to fight, driving the pack from the abbey’s surrounds and pursuing it across country; the farm girl who wanted to be a priestess, running for her life. You had to wonder at Ain’s purpose, filling the heart with a desire for peace and furnishing the flesh with a need for violence. It was a mystery, of course. Either that or a sick joke.
“Never again,” Shader muttered, tramping down the slope. He was a priest now. A priest and nothing more. Someone else could save her next time. The fight had finally left him.
“You want to try these?”
He was startled from his reverie by Rhiannon holding up a pair of thick woolen socks. “Pete thought you could use them. Always carries spares. He’s got terrible feet.”
Shader sat to pull them on. “Mine were more holes than wool. Don’t know what I was thinking, walking all the way from Londinium.” Sailing all the way to Sahul, too, when you looked at it that way. Twice. Restlessness, is what it was. Sit still for too long, and he might have to make a commitment to something. Of course, that was Frater Trellian talking; the sort of thing he’d said when Shader first joined the abbey. He was still chilled by the idea of Pardes being the last place he’d see on Earth, once he’d taken solemn vows.
“Whatever were you thinking?” Rhiannon’s grin cut across her face. “I would have thought a knight of the Elect could darn his socks.” She popped a cigar in her mouth and struck a match. “That better?”
Shader tugged on his boots and stood, testing out his heel. “Still stings like the Abyss, but I should be able to walk. Tell Pete, thanks.”
Rhiannon looked him over, head slightly cocked. “She’s not his, you know. And she’s definitely not Sandau’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
It was and it wasn’t. Both men had that same easy familiarity with her he’d once enjoyed. It didn’t mean one thing or the other. It could have just been soldierly bonding, but then again, that didn’t mean she wasn’t sleeping with one of them, or even both. The scars on her body and arms, the swearing, the booze—well, no, not the booze; she’d always had that. The cigars, then. He shot a quick look at the one hanging from her mouth as she finally got a match to take. They were all signs of change. Indications of how far she’d fallen.
“To be honest,” he said, “I’ve not given it any thought. What you get up to is your own business.”
Rhiannon rolled her head, puffed out smoke. “Don’t you care? Aw, was it just the drink last night, Pater?”
“Think what you like. The sin’s all mine.” Shader brushed past her.
“Deacon,” she called out, her tone more conciliatory. “I want you to know. Saphra…”
Shader held up a hand without looking back. “Tell it to your confessor. Come on. Haven’t you got an informant to find?”
Rhiannon shrugged her new persona back on and swaggered as she jogged to his side. She made an exaggerated popping sound as she pulled the cigar from her mouth. She looked at it for a moment, stubbed it out on the grass, and tucked it behind her ear.
Shader didn’t break his stride to wait for her, but she retained her bravado, bobbing along beside him like an excited child.
“I’m just along for the walk. The uniform’s to make it look official.” She wrinkled her nose and gave one of her annoying grins. “Between you and me, the boys are a bit dim. They’d never find him without my help.”
“And you’d run around in circles out here without me,” Shader said, gesturing across the valley and the horizon blanketed in thinning clouds. “Don’t worry. I’m under no illusions about why you asked me along.”
Rhiannon did her best to look hurt. “Thought you’d want to talk. About yesterday. About Saphra.”
Shader shot her a sideways look and picked up the pace. He’d seen the chink in her armor, the momentary dropping of her act. It was an open invitation to dig deeper, find out what was bubbling away beneath the veneer. But right then, he didn’t want to know.
“Sure you don’t want to slow down?” Rhiannon said.
He tried his best to look nonchalant. “Why? The heel’s fine.”
“I meant your age.” That fake smile again. “Plus, you probably don’t get much exercise now you’re a priest and all.”
Shader found himself irritated by her Westisms. They were as phony as the rest of her.
“Don’t be too sure. It’s been nonstop since we left Aeterna. Go here, go there. Never thought a priest could be in such demand.” Now he was lying. The Templum seemed to have all but given up on him; barely tolerated him as an itinerant… Itinerant what? He could hardly call himself a preacher, and when was the last time he’d presided over the rituals?
Rhiannon either swallowed the lie or played along with it. “Some things never change. Deacon Shader, always on the move; always looking for someone to save, some worthy—”
Shader stopped her with a raised hand. The sky was awash with cobalt, the clouds pulsing with light, rapidly dispersing to admit the fierce glare of two flaming orbs.
‘Rhiannon visored her eyes with a hand. “What is it?”
“Aethir.”
In an instant, the orbs vanished, and a bank of cloud swallowed up the lone sun. The Downs were plunged into shadow, and Shader pulled his coat tight against the sudden drop in temperature.
***
They caught up with the others on the far side of a thicket edging a copse of ash trees. Sandau was rummaging through his haversack. Pete stood on the brink of a dew pond staring out along the sprawl of hills. Saphra made feigned dashes at the water, shrieking as if the nixies were playfully trying to drag her under.
“Weather’s turning.” Sandau stood, cramming some jerky into his mouth and chewing noisily. “How much farther?”
Shader looked out across the lazy undulations of the Downs. Clouds were closing in overhead like vultures. There was smoke atop the sheer slope of Firle Beacon.
“Something’s coming,” he muttered.
“Say again?” Sandau said around a mouthful of jerky.
Rhiannon pointed up at the westernmost peak. “That it?”
Shader nodded and shifted his gaze to the surrounding downland falling away from their vantage point, shades of green and straw flecked with poppies, hedged with gorse. Yellow fields of rape splashed the recedin
g hills. Long grass rippled and swayed, and an ancient lighthouse stood precariously atop the distant cliffs. He fastened his coat against the rising wind, tugged down the brim of his hat.
“Hardly seems worth it,” Pete said, squinting through a spyglass. “Ain’t nothing this fellah could tell us our boys don’t already know. The Channel’s been quiet for weeks, and I don’t see no invasion coming from the north, do you?”
Sandau shrugged his pack on. “Well, the bastard’s sure lit the beacon for something, and I dare say it ain’t dinner.” He flashed a smile at Rhiannon, who was struggling to relight her cigar.
Saphra trudged over to them, suddenly sullen and shivering. “Can we go now? I’m cold.”
Rhiannon flicked the cigar to the grass and took her hand. “Suits me.”
Pete passed Saphra the spyglass. “Here, honey, take a look through this.” While she tried it out, he said to Sandau, “Stoner says we should look into it. Ours is not to reason why.”
Sandau clapped him on the back and strode past manfully. “The fate of Britannia is in our hands, Petey boy. The fate of Nousia. Stoner says jump, and you sure better.”
Shader looked around uncomfortably as they slid down a scree bank into a shallow valley. The hills afforded some shelter from the wind, but the chill was starting to bite.
“What is it with this place?” Sandau shot over his shoulder. “Every season crammed into a day. I mean, for Crimeney’s sake.”
“Ah, stop whining,” Rhiannon said. “Or do you need a Fencible to teach you how to be a man?”
“How about right now?” Sandau said, pretending to undo his britches.
Rhiannon slugged him on the shoulder, and he roared with laughter.
They walked on in silence along a chalky track, heads bowed against the wind. Shader picked up the pace, ignoring the smarting of his heel, the throb of his knee. He entered a gully and scrambled up the slope at the far end to stand atop a plateau.
“If we keep this up, we should be there by first light.” He reached down to offer Pete a hand.
“Best be stopping for food soon,” Pete said, starting to wheeze.