The Path of Sorrow

by David Pilling

  “The use of fear is expedient, but I would not rule through fear alone,” Hoshea whispered. He stood on the earth rampart at the southern perimeter of the camp, watching the trees to the south. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of light reflecting from the armour of hundreds of men moving through the woods or a flash of colour from their banners.

  “Too late,” The Maker replied. “The people already fear you, and there are many who consider a jumped-up slave no fit ruler for Temeria. You will not last long, Master, without my aid.”

  “Silence!” Hoshea was furious, and several officers standing nearby turned to look at him in surprise. He bit back an angry retort and forced a smile onto his face. The Maker would have to be disciplined in private. Physical weapons were no use against demons, but there were certain incantations that could lash harder than any whip.

  A cheer rippled around the camp as the first horsemen emerged from the trees, led by gorgeously apparelled nobles on high-stepping chargers. The nobles lifted their mailed fists in salute, and the cheering rose to a storm.

  Hoshea breathed a sigh of relief and muttered the words that dismissed the Maker back to his pit in Hell, until he was needed again. The demon’s services would not be needed today.

  * * * *

  Captain Wade sat in his cabin, casually casting his eye over a battered nautical map. A long, elegant cigarette holder hung lazily from his pale, well-manicured fingers. A wisp of sweet smoke curled about his head, shining brightly in the sunlight pouring through the cabin porthole.

  “Landfall is but a heartbeat away, Erlo, but a heartbeat.”

  Erlo stood on a chair opposite Wade’s desk and passively gazed at the map showing the eastern coast of Temeria. As usual, the dwarf was silent.

  “Soon we shall drop anchor just off-shore, a short distance from Hasan. If our increasingly erratic employer is correct, and I hope she is, Erlo, the city will have but a small garrison. The vast majority of the city’s army has left on this insane quest to find a child. Such insanity seems to have infected everyone, Erlo, but not me, not me.”

  He paused to suck deeply on his cigarette. “I’m still unclear as to the reasons why everyone wants this Sorrow creature, Erlo,” he went on. “But I do know one thing. Whatever the reason, her desire for him has driven the Raven Queen even deeper into her particular brand of dementia. Whatever unimaginable properties this child possesses, they are enough to have Knights of the Temple coming all the way from the Winter Realm in a boat full of refugees, and enough to motivate a General to lead his entire army out of a city weakened by siege and civil war. So naturally, that city is our first stop. We are pirates after all, Erlo, and some good old-fashioned burning and looting is in order. If nothing else, my miniature enigma, it will keep the crew happy for a while. Vile creatures, my crew, brute beasts. I think of them and shudder.”

  Wade lounged back in his chair, taking a deep lungful of smoke, then propped his head artfully on one hand as though posing for a portrait which, being a man of not inconsiderable vanity, he had done many times. Unfortunately, none of the portraits he had commissioned had flattered him quite enough, so he had been forced to have the fingers and eyes of the painters removed to prevent them from causing further insult. In the past few years it had proven difficult to find a painter brave or stupid enough to put brush to canvas for him. At least not one who had eyes or fingers, which he considered essential for the job.

  Erlo stood and watched his master, his tiny beady eyes hardly blinking, like a murderous doll.

  “They need a taste of blood and booty to butter them up a bit before our little jaunt inland. We can’t have them mutinying now, can we, Erlo?”

  At that moment, they heard Gristle’s rasping bellow from the crow’s nest, which was a fitting place for a man with such a voice. He had spotted land to larboard and his voice could be heard all over the ship from port to stern.

  Wade slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, hiding his head behind its haze, and smiled.

  “But a heartbeat, Erlo.”

  * * * *

  Landfall was still some way down the coast before Wade sent Erlo to fetch his new first mate—a tall, wiry man with a face like a shrivelled leather boot that had been left on a hot stove, and a permanent squint to go with it. His name was Crease. He had a bad temper and a voice that sounded like the rope of a whaling ship’s harpoon unreeling as its doomed quarry dived vainly into the depths. Crease had wasted no time in earning the hatred of the crew as they had made their repairs at the House of Unkindness, working them hard to prove he was every bit as ruthless a taskmaster as his predecessor, the late and unlamented Silt.

  “Captain,” Crease growled as he strode into Wade’s cabin.

  “Hasan is not far, Crease, so bring us about to larboard and drop anchor on my signal. Ready the rowing boats and make sure my men are armed to the nostrils. We shall waste no time in sacking Hasan before we go on our merry way. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Crystal, Captain!” Crease barked, unable to hide his excitement as he spun on his heels and stormed back out the door, fists clenched and crooked mouth framing orders before he had even made it out of the cabin.

  The Jagged Blade lurched as her rudder swung her sharply about. Wade had half-expected to be intercepted by General Saqr’s fleet, but the Temerian ships were nowhere to be seen. He grinned as he imagined storming into an unprotected city.

  Feverish activity broke out aboard the Jagged Blade as she picked up speed. Men ran back and forth with various instruments of a nautical, navigational, or downright sadistic nature. Crease bellowed as the rowing boats were made ready to drop over the side, filled with some of the most bloodthirsty thieves in the Western Isles.

  Finally, when every man was in position, a tense quiet fell over the ship as it sped towards the shores of Temeria. All that could be heard was the odd shout from Crease, the spray of the ocean as the Jagged Blade cut through the swell, and the flap of sails in the wind. The sky was cloudless, but a strong southerly wind blew along the Temerian coast, hustling the ship towards her goal.

  After sailing past high, sheer cliffs and scatterings of treacherous rocks, they drew level to a small cove with a shingle beach. However, the beach was not Wade’s planned destination. Just past the cove there was a deep cave into which the tide flowed. He had been told many years ago by a fellow pirate this cave led right underneath Hasan and into the cellar of an old inn in the centre of the city. The pirate had claimed if a man had the balls, he could lead men through this cave and enter Hasan unnoticed. That plan had never been a realistic option before, as a pirate ship simply didn’t carry enough men to take on Hasan’s garrison. But that was not the case now.

  Erlo’s bald head appeared on deck, shining bright in the sunlight, and nodded to Crease. The dwarf was followed by Wade, who was greeted with an ear-splitting cheer from the crew and bowed theatrically to his men.

  “Furl sails!” roared Crease, and the ship began to slow as the men screamed and bellowed their approval. The shout died away while Crease waited in silence before his voice once again defied the wind and carried itself around the ship.

  “Drop anchor!” Another deafening cheer erupted from the increasingly excited crew, who began to drum and stamp, shaking the ship’s timbers. Another cheer went up as one of the men in the rigging let the excitement get the better of him and lost his grip. He screamed as he plummeted from the main-mast, broke his back with a loud crack on the larboard rail, and splashed into the sea to sink into a sandy grave.

  Wade rolled his eyes.

  “Am I the only pirate in the World Apparent with a shred of dignity?” he asked himself.

  Despite their boisterous excitement, the crew of the Jagged Blade disembarked with the efficiency of men well practised in their trade. A smooth stream of rowing boats left the ship at anchor with a skeleton crew aboard and rowed towards the cliffs. One by one, their dark shapes disappeared silently into the cave.

  * * * *

  W
ade’s rowing boat came to a gentle halt at the heart of the deep cave. He held his torch up to the slimy glistening cave wall, searching for the ancient set of steps hacked into the rock. Behind him was silence. As his strict orders had dictated, the only sound was the heavy breathing of the rowers, the slosh of the tide, and the eerie sound of the wind blowing throughout the chamber.

  He swept the torch from side to side, sending shadows dancing up one wall, then the other. After a moment’s thought, Wade stepped from the stern of his boat onto the slippery ledge and carefully made his way towards his left, concentration carved into his pale face. Finally, his flaming torch chased the shadows away from a dank corner where the cave wall curved around to deny further progress. There, flickering in the deep set angle of the wall, was a steep stairway, its edges worn smooth and round, climbing treacherously upwards in a zig-zag and disappearing into the darkness above.

  Wade turned and gestured to the rest of the men, more of them still arriving at the rear, and they steered their boats towards the ledge where he stood. He turned and gingerly put a foot on the first awkward step.

  “Gah!” Wade chided himself for being startled as a colony of bats suddenly came flapping out of the darkness, over and around his head. He teetered on the edge of the step, reaching out for a grip on the slimy stair in front of him with his free hand. The men behind him ducked as the bats swirled around the cave and out into the gathering dusk.

  Having regained his composure, he took the next step and carefully picked his way up the narrow, almost vertical stairway, knowing one slip could cause him to plummet all the way to the bottom, taking his crew with him. Close behind him followed Erlo and Crease. The crew of the Jagged Blade, bolstered with new and eager recruits from the Western Isles, came one by one, silent save for the occasional curse of a man losing his footing. Slowly, they inched their way up the dark stair, deep beneath the city of Hasan.

  The stairway was longer than Wade had hoped and his calf muscles complained agonisingly as his toes strained to keep him upright on each slick time-polished step. The air was close and stale, and the grunting and wheezing of the pirates echoed around the narrowing chamber as they slowly ascended the ancient stairway. Smoke from the torches caught in men’s throats, sending them into fits of coughing and making their eyes stream. The hellishly oppressive atmosphere inside the shaft made Wade pray whatever hidden entrance it led to had not been sealed up. To turn around and go back with more than two hundred men behind him would be next to impossible.

  Eventually, his brow dripping with sweat and his breath ragged in his chest, he mouthed a few words of thanks to no one in particular as he caught sight of a rotting wooden hatch above him.

  A rusting circular handle hung from one side. Wade reached up and slipped his hand around it, bracing himself against the slippery steps which led all the way up to its ancient hinges. Upon attempting to turn the handle, he realised the old metal was rusted solid, stuck fast from decades of neglect. Wiping his brow on his sleeve, he turned to Crease, who was immediately behind him, squinting up at the heavy hatch. Wade reached out to him wordlessly with his free hand and Crease handed him a hammer, taking his torch in return and holding the flame up to illuminate Wade’s view.

  Wade took a breath, hefting the big hammer in both hands, and bent his knees to take the pressure. Squinting to avoid getting the inevitable shower of splinters in his eyes, he lowered the hammer between his legs and swung it up as hard as he could against the rotten wood. The thick wooden hatch splintered into a thousand shards. The sound echoed around the dark shaft and a choking cloud of dust engulfed him.

  Wade stopped and listened, holding his breath, his eyes screwed tight shut, waiting for the dust to settle and listening for any sound of movement from above. There was none. He waved one hand in front of his face and breathed again. As the dust floated down to choke the men below him, the light of Crease’s torch showed he had made a great hole in the wood. But the hatch still held fast.

  He swung again. This time he aimed at the hinges, hoping to shift them from the rock they were bolted to. The iron of the hinges was rusted through, and the force of Wade’s hammer smashed them to pieces with an ear-splitting crack.

  Handing the hammer down to Crease, he reached up and pushed. Despite the damage he had done, the weight of the hatch was enormous, and it took all his wiry strength to push open. After straining for a moment, the hatch finally gave way with a whining screech as Wade lifted one side and eventually let it crash to the floor in the chamber above.

  Pausing for a moment, Wade drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his grimy face, then coughed violently into the cloth, emptying his throat of cloying dust and particles of wood. Having composed himself, he reached up and gripped the edge of the entrance to the upper chamber and hauled himself up into the silent darkness beyond. Crease handed his torch up after him.

  Wade stood in what appeared to be the long disused basement of a large house. The air was still musty, but fresher and much more breathable than in the shaft below. He blew out his sallow cheeks, relieved to be out of the suffocating atmosphere of the ancient stone stairwell. As he waved his torch from side to side, he could see old crates scattered about the floor, most of them opened and empty, their corners chewed by rats.

  As the rest of the men crept into the room one by one, Wade looked around for a door. The room was only wide enough for three men to lie end to end, but its length stretched away from Wade and the light of his torch did not reach the far wall. As he explored the darkness at the far end of the room, venturing farther from the hatch where men still entered in single file, he found the basement was L-shaped. As he turned the corner, he saw a wooden staircase leading up to a heavy wooden door.

  At the foot of the stairs lay a skeleton, still dressed in mouldering leathers and boots, its empty eye sockets staring blankly up at the ceiling. A large cavity in its cranium gave a hint to the cause of death. He stepped over the unfortunate corpse and crept slowly up the stairs. Each wooden step creaked under his weight, but the staircase still seemed strong enough to do its job. Putting his ear to the door, he could hear nothing from the other side. He groped around and found there was no handle or bolt on his side, then turned and descended the stairs again.

  Erlo and Crease waited at the bottom. The room was full of men now, and still more climbed through the hatchway.

  “Ready, lads?” Wade whispered, inclining his head towards the door at the top of the staircase.

  Crease turned and ordered two men to join him, somehow contriving to bark and whisper at the same time. The three of them climbed the stairs to the sound of the crew of the Jagged Blade drawing their swords. As they reached the last few stairs, they broke into a run and crashed against the door. A loud splintering crack rang out and the door shook violently on its hinges but somehow stayed in its frame.

  Crease was not discouraged. He growled at the other two men to charge again, and the second time they hit the door with such force that its hinges were ripped from the wall. They grunted as they collapsed on top of the fractured wood. The noise echoed around the empty courtyard beyond and Wade’s men flowed through, thirsty for bloodshed and mayhem, weapons glinting in the moonlight.

  They were in the courtyard of a large white building, several stories high. A couple of the highest windows flickered orange as candles were lit by the inhabitants jolted from their slumber by the sound of Crease and his fellow pirates crashing to the floor. More lights appeared in the building as the endless string of dark shapes swarmed from the little outhouse like raiding ants from their underground nest, eager to gulp their fill of murder, rape, and pillage.

  The door and windows were smashed in by the frenzied pirates, the big house their route to the rest of the city. For a few minutes, the courtyard was a riot of jostling men swearing at each other as they tried to get out of their holding pen and away into the night, to work their evils on the city of Hasan and its unsuspecting inhabitants.

 
; Screams and shouts broke out as the family inside the house were brutalised, and soon the familiar smell of smoke met Captain Wade’s nostrils. He had crept through a side door in the yard with Crease, Erlo, and a select few pirates for company.

  Crease had been raised in Hasan but had been obliged to leave years ago, to avoid being hanged for the crimes he had committed there. Like many men of a villainous, brutal nature, he had gravitated towards the Western Isles. Wade followed him through the quickest routes in the city to the warehouses in the merchant quarter.

  Hoshea had left a skeleton garrison, enough to defend the gates, but not to fend off an attack by more than two hundred pirates who seemed to have materialised by magic in the centre of the city. The pirates fell upon Hasan with such ferocity and blood-lust that, by dawn, half the city was in ruin.

  The first rays of sunlight found Wade, tired and streaked with soot but content, sitting at the head of a caravan of wagons bursting with stolen food, gold, and anything else of value. He had taken every horse that remained in General Saqr’s stables and every wagon he and his men could find and thrown the main gate open. Now, the pirates gathered there, having sated themselves on the defenceless city of Hasan.

  Wade smiled as the caravan rolled out of the gate. Behind him, black smoke drifted up from the charred and gutted city, a greasy smudge on the pale dawn sky. If any soul remained living in Hasan, they did not show themselves, and the great gate hung open like the gaping mouth of a corpse.

  * * * *

  With the Grey Man dead and respectfully buried, Colken found himself the new, if unelected, leader of the mercenaries. He ordered his company to gather what supplies they could carry and continue north, leaving the stream littered with corpses. Yesterday had wanted to burn the bodies of their fallen comrades, but Colken was reluctant to advertise their presence to any more bandits who might be in the area.