by Tom Lloyd
Vorizh cocked his head at the white-eye, intrigued at last. ‘If you want a vampire bound,’ he commented with a trace of contempt, ‘I believe my sister’s tastes run more that way than mine.’
Isak ignored the comment; she’d heard worse from saner men over the millennia. ‘It’s dusk,’ he explained. ‘The shadows are at their longest now, and I’d prefer not to be overheard.’ A spark of magic left his blackened fingers and danced around the circle, leaping from stone to stone until a haze filled the air between each one. ‘Circles can be used for protection as well as binding.’
Vorizh inclined his head and joined Isak inside, and Vesna followed a moment later. As he passed through the barrier Isak had created Vesna felt a frisson of energy run over his skin and a sudden whisper of wind through grass filled his ears until he was on the other side and then there was calm again: a magic-dulled stillness.
‘And now,’ Vorizh said, ‘what service can I render to one who commands Gods and frees daemons?’
In the depths of a thicket a hundred yards from the stone circle, someone watched, a shadow on their shoulder that brushed the figure’s pale skin with spidery claws. ‘What bargain with Vorizh must be kept even from his companions?’ the figure wondered, eyes fixed on the stone circle. ‘After all we’ve seen at his side?’
‘One the boy would be a fool to trust in,’ the shadow replied, ‘but he can feel the end drawing near. I so prefer desperation in my enemies – all the better to let them seize their undoing.’
The two men faced each other, neither speaking. A space had been cleared in the town square, and soldiers crammed every side-street, watching the silent meeting of two weary but unbowed men. The elder looked small in his armour, the wrinkles on his face more apparent when viewed opposite the scars of the younger man. He was more heavily armoured, his banded pauldrons and solid breastplate bearing a fanged skull device. His younger opponent wore leather armour stiffened by grooved steel rods. They both carried Menin steel half-helms.
A cold wind drove down from the north, stretching out the banners that flew proudly from the town’s tallest buildings, fluttering madly in their reach for freedom, though beyond these walls they would be burned or trampled into the dirt. Here was their last bastion.
‘You come as his envoy?’ General Arek asked at last. All around him, hands tightened on grips as they awaited the reply.
Amber shook his head, slowly, regretfully. ‘I come as a Menin.’
‘You come to join our stand?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’ There was no rancour in the general’s voice, none of the antagonism Amber had expected, no interest nor passion; the man was playing his part. Beyond the fatigue in his eyes, Amber saw relief, and the promise of a longed-for end.
There is no such promise for me.
‘I come to save the lives of these warriors. I come to lead them back across the Elven Waste and return them to their homes,’ Amber declared, loud enough for all to hear.
‘You will lead them against our enemy?’
‘They are no longer the enemy; they are the victors in our war. All that remains is the long march home, to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors.’
Amber could tell from the tense silence that the significance was not lost on anyone there: the Long March had been instigated by the most infamous of Menin lords, the man who had nearly obliterated the Litse tribe before a mysterious change of heart. Amber alone among his people knew the truth of this mystery, but they all knew that Lord Grast, instead of completing his scouring of the Land, had marched his tribe across the Waste to a new home, letting the weakest fall by the wayside until only the strongest survived. The Long March had meant rebirth for the Menin, but it had meant terrible loss too, and it revealed the callousness of rulers.
‘You would play Deverk Grast’s role?’ General Arek asked. ‘I do not think you strong enough to follow the dark dragon’s lead.’
‘I am no dark dragon, and I make no such claims, but I will do what must be done.’
‘You are of noble birth? What emblem would take the dragon’s place?’
The question caught Amber unawares and he reeled from the bursting stars of pain and loss in his mind. ‘I …’ Amber closed his mouth, the air sucked from his lungs. To answer the question he tugged the gauntlet from one hand and unfastened the vambrace from his left arm. On his forearm was a dark rusty-red tattoo, a bird in flight.
‘A red merlin? You are from the west slopes?’
Amber nodded. ‘But of late I’m accompanied by ravens; the red merlins of my home are just a faint memory.’
The comment deflated the general. ‘I would have preferred a dragon to that dark omen,’ he said, ‘yet you come to us speaking of ravens and a long march. I think you bring us nothing but pain, all for a faint promise of home.’
‘That is all I have.’
‘You would accept King Emin’s offer? You would become a mercenary under his banner?’
‘I would do what I must,’ Amber said. ‘I have nothing else.’
‘I cannot,’ the general replied after a long pause. ‘I cannot ask that of my army.’
‘I know.’ Amber looked around at the assembled faces. Most were hidden behind thick black beards, but he was Menin; he knew the anger contained within each man. ‘We are Menin,’ he started, ‘we are the finest soldiers this Land knows. We have seen much since crossing the waste – the squabbling of the Farlan, the foolish obedience of the Chetse, the resolve of Narkang. We have seen weakness and strength, but what do they see? Battle-thirsty monsters? Warriors who cannot comprehend defeat? The place of a general is to make the choices that must be made. Your men will not like the decision, but they are not Farlan – they will not whine, nor argue and plot in secret. They will know the right of what must be done. A sour taste in the mouth is not enough to sway Menin.’
‘I cannot,’ Arek said, almost in a whisper. ‘They have stolen all we are … they have cut out my heart.’
‘You must,’ Amber declared. ‘There is no other choice.’
With sudden passion Arek tore the helm from his head and threw it on the ground before them. ‘You do not order me! I am the commander of this army – there is nothing I must do! Our lord is lost, our generals and noblemen are lost; there is no other but me.’
‘And so the decision is yours.’
Arek straightened, composing himself. ‘And mine alone,’ he added for emphasis. ‘Of the Menin this side of the waste, I hold the rank – I am the lord who holds life and death in my hand.’
He took a step closer to Amber and stared straight in his eye.
‘Do you understand me, Major? I am lord here; I acknowledge no authority beyond the God of War himself!’
Amber bowed his head. ‘I understand,’ he said quietly. And so it comes to this: you ask this of me because you do not have the strength. You cannot bring yourself even to save the men who would die at your command.
‘I invoke the right of challenge,’ he declared, and saw the relief in Arek’s eyes as he spoke. ‘We are the chosen tribe of Karkarn and a warrior must lead us. It is my right as Menin – does any here deny it?’
He cast right and left towards the closest men, the colonels and majors who flanked General Arek, watching for their reaction, but Arek saw no reason to wait. The ageing general stepped back and drew his broadsword, waving over a man with his shield without ever taking his eyes off Amber.
‘I acknowledge your right,’ Arek replied with a renewed vigour, ‘and I call no champion. Draw your swords.’
Amber did so, sliding his scimitars out of their scabbards, the soft whisper of steel on leather a deadly promise. He settled into the stance beaten into him over years in the training Temple of Haysh the Steel Dancer, hands at mid-chest and tips directed to Arek’s eyes – and advanced slowly.
Arek attacked wildly, slashing at Amber’s hands, but never coming near his target, then changed tactic, bringing his shield and sword close together as he adv
anced. Amber gave him ground, his swords still at a long guard, to give him time to manoeuvre. When Arek lunged forward over his shield, Amber danced to the limit of the general’s range. He was watching to gauge how he intended to fight.
The general obliged him by not making him wait; he charged forward and aimed a savage cut down at Amber’s knee. Amber twisted left and parried, hunching his shoulder to deflect the inevitable blow from Arek’s shield away from his neck, stabbing across his body as he did so. His left scimitar punctured the mail on Arek’s arm – it wasn’t a killing blow, but Amber was faster than the older man and now he pushed up from his knees, sweeping the parrying blade up to slash over Arek’s armour and shield-arm.
Amber followed with a lunge that glanced up off Arek’s cheek-guard, but by that point the general was reeling. He retreated on instinct, retreating behind his shield, and Amber hacked down onto it with such force that his right scimitar bit and caught. He immediately turned and pivoted around the shield as Arek thrust forward and cut at the general’s leg. Amber twisted back the way he’d come, the movement pulling Arek off-balance. His sword was barely raised against Amber’s return blow; somehow it caught it, but in the next movement Amber stepped forward and drove his pommel into his opponent’s neck.
He had freed his other sword by that twist and now Amber wasted no time in chopping down over the shield. His blow caught Arek perfectly and the general fell, his neck broken and half-severed, and dead before he hit the ground.
Amber stared down at the blood that sprayed out over his boots, looking shockingly bright on the chalky ground. He took a breath, and felt a small puff of wind stroke over his face: the Land suddenly returning to focus again. The corpse lay quite still, legs not even twitching as blood continued to leak out. The hard-packed pale ground greedily drank it down, but Amber knew Arek was already gone, his soul carried away.
Was that just a breeze or the passing of a soul? he wondered distantly. The wings of ravens, bearing him to his Last Judgement? ‘Lord Death,’ Amber cried, ‘judge him fairly – and remember the part you played in his death today. This blood is on your blade too.’
He looked up at the colonels of the legions, seeing approval on the faces of several. None spoke now to refute the claim he had made in the blood of another.
‘Burn the body,’ Amber said, ‘gather his ashes and bring them with us. They will be the burden we bear on our long march. Once we return home I will carry them to his people and tell them of his bravery.’ He paused and raised his voice. ‘Gather your weapons – the Menin march once more to war!’
CHAPTER 23
A white falcon soared above Byora, far from the voices and clamour of the city below. Lord Gesh watched it with envious eyes; his own great wings provided him with no such freedom now that tradition and politics dragged at his heels. The touch of the thin autumn sunlight on his body failed to warm him, and the soft kiss of magic that had carried him this high was no longer the sheer indulgent pleasure it had once been.
He was not entirely alone up here, of course, but his guards maintained their distance. Their lord’s fatigue was obvious, even to other white-eyes. The burdens of leadership, or something more? Gesh was not sure he knew himself. Restful sleep had eluded him ever since he had ascended to Lord of the Litse.
Perhaps it’s guilt? – no, hardly; Celao had been an insult to their God, and the people of Ismess had suffered for it. Now they cheered Gesh with a passion: a lord who truly embodied their God.
And Ismess welcomed Ruhen’s Children with open arms, their enthusiasm the greatest of any quarter of the Circle City. The preachers had been careful to speak out only against the priests of the city, not the God who was their patron. The cults of Ismess had seen the clerics’ rebellion in Byora and the Devoted’s own power struggle in Akell. They had seen sense and chosen survival over principle. The Gods were weakened and Ilit would not intercede, even for his own priests, so they had quietly closed their temples and gone to ground or left the city, leaving no opposition to Ruhen’s Children, no dissenting voices to his message – and no refusal of the food appearing in their markets.
And yet I barely sleep, and a shadow covers the sun and bars me from its warmth. Lord Gesh banked away from the breeze and let it carry him in a wide, lazy spiral towards the high towers of Byora. The red sash across his chest fluttered madly as the air rushed past – Lord Ilit trying to tear off the mark of his place on the Devoted’s ruling council? He guessed not, no matter how frantic a movement it was. So long as the Devoted did not force their laws on the Litse, their patron God could have no complaint that his people were shielded in their hour of weakness.
From where he was he could see little of Blackfang’s tabletop surface. The broken mountain was high enough that it was an effort to climb that far in the thin air, but the Ruby Tower’s peak was still below him as he descended. Gesh heard the beat of wings as his two guards followed him, but he was more intent on the city below. He was above Breakale district now, and he could see a crowd massed around the Stepped Gardens there. Many wore the mismatched, poorly dyed white clothes prevalent among Ruhen’s supporters. As he moved closer he saw neat lines of figures, not in white, formed up like soldiers but without any obvious livery.
New pilgrims? Or does Ruhen now have soldiers of his own to carry this message of peace? But they weren’t the only crowds in Byora, Gesh saw. Just as in Ismess – and Akell and Fortinn quarters, no doubt – he saw large gatherings at street corners and Ruhen’s burgeoning army of followers praying or singing wordless hymns at the Walls of Intercession that most of the Circle City now saw as the key to their salvation. Ruhen’s followers had dismantled many of the quarter’s temples and put up hundreds of shanties in their places, temporary structures in the main, but enough to house the pilgrims flocking daily to Byora in search of this child the preachers all spoke of.
Lord Gesh descended slowly, letting his great wings be seen by all long before he touched his toes to the ground. Ruhen stood on the highest of the garden’s three tiers, in the centre of the top step, so that everyone in the area could see him. The ground sloped away dramatically, with a dozen steep steps leading between each fifty-yard-wide tier. Alongside the child was Mage Peness, wearing scarlet robes, the three remaining Jesters, and Luerce, the First Disciple. Behind them were five masked Harlequins, Ruhen’s own bodyguard, put in place after an assassination attempt had narrowly failed.
Of Duchess Escral there was no sign, but Gesh was not surprised. She was alive, he had heard, but afflicted with some illness that left her enfeebled. Her place as ruler of Byora had been taken by Ruhen, a wordless and bloodless coup that none objected to. Even the Knights of the Temples acknowledged his primacy.
‘Lord Gesh,’ Ruhen sang out as the slender white-eye dropped lightly to the ground, his bodyguards following suit a moment later. The child, Byora’s saviour, as many called him now, wore a long grey tunic, caught at the waist by a plain belt. His dress was understated for the adopted son of a duchess, functional and neat rather than elegant. He wore only a single pearl at his throat for ornamentation.
‘Lord Ruhen,’ Gesh acknowledged, bowing low. ‘Koteer, Mage Peness,’ he added as he straightened, ‘a fair wind guide you all.’
He gestured to the soldiers he had seen earlier and was about to ask who they were when he realised he knew. They were formed into ten blocks of fifty: too many to be Harlequins, but their steel helms had white-painted faces or white leather masks underneath.
‘Your people, Lord Koteer?’
‘The warriors of our clan,’ the white-masked son of Death confirmed. ‘Our blood and kin.’
There were no large towns or cities in the Elven Waste, so five hundred warriors on top of those who had been working as mercenaries with the Jesters must have left the clan’s home villages poorly defended at best. It appeared the Jesters did not care if there was a home to return to once their business with Ruhen was done. Perhaps these Demi-Gods had a new one in mind, and not one where
their mortal followers could accompany them.
Ruhen advanced to Gesh’s side and looked up at the Litse lord with his intense, shadow-laden eyes. Under that scrutiny Gesh felt the fatigue of earlier recede, and a warmth seep into his bones that the sun couldn’t provide.
‘Your people thrive without the shackles of their priests,’ Ruhen said. ‘Already I can feel the strength of the Litse returning.’
Gesh inclined his head. ‘Optimism returns,’ he countered, ‘and that has been rare among my people for decades. It is the only start I could wish for, now our ancient enemy has been defeated.’
‘We have a new enemy, one just as terrible as the Menin, only their hatred is for all who look to the future.’ As the little boy stepped forward to the edge of the upper terrace there was a collective intake of breath from his followers. They moved forward eagerly onto the lawns where the most devoted of Ruhen’s Children sat or knelt in small groups. The soldiers stayed where they were on the lower tier, but the Harlequin bodyguards advanced to crouch on the lowest steps in front of Ruhen, wary of letting even white-cloaked devotees within striking distance.
Gesh found himself standing like an attendant with Luerce and Koteer. All of them were stilled by the upwelling of emotion that broke like a wave and filled the air around them; a great thermal reverence that made Gesh want to open his wings and catch it and draw their wordless prayers into him as a God might.
Gesh kept his eyes on the child. Ruhen looked too small to contain such a force of personality, but he had the immediate attention of every person there. His neat little hands were clasped together as though he was about to begin praying, but he did nothing of the sort as he looked around the gardens. A tiny zephyr danced across the grass between them and swirled around the child to twitch the long hem of his tunic and ruffle his wavy brown hair.
Ruhen half-turned at the touch, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips.