Broken Stone 02 - Warlock's Sun Rising

by Damien Black

  ‘Yon wretch has been driven mad by his torment,’ said Horskram, not unkindly. ‘I fear his mind will never recover, even if we do get him out of this godforsaken place.’ He quickly related Wulbert’s story to the others.

  ‘Why did they spare him?’ asked Braxus.

  ‘For sport,’ replied Horskram, his lip curling. ‘Like many denizens of the Other Side, draugar delight in tormenting their victims. As like as not they forwent the opportunity to feast on his flesh so they could keep him alive for entertainment.’

  ‘How long do you think he has been here?’ asked Torgun.

  ‘Probably longer than you think,’ interjected Adhelina. ‘His manner of speech is old-fashioned… greybeards I knew in childhood spoke thus.’

  Adelko felt his heart sink. ‘That means time is playing tricks on us again,’ he said. ‘Just like in Tintagael.’

  Adhelina looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Horskram quickly. ‘Let’s take him with us, see if he recovers his wits again and can tell us anything more. We haven’t a moment to spare – the sooner we find the Draugfluss the better.’

  Wulbert’s ears pricked up and a queer light entered his watery eyes. ‘Draugfluss?’ he said. ‘The river you mean, yes? Oh by all the heavens, sirrah, that river I can find for you, oh yes indeed for Wulbert knows where it is!’

  Horskram looked at him askance. ‘How so?’ he barked. ‘And if you know where it is, why have you not left the Draugmoors of your own accord?’

  Wulbert shook his head frantically and started to sob. ‘Oh no, no, no, NO!!! They won’t let me, no… Only to partake of its waters, you see. They say if I try to leave, come for me they will, just like the others…!’

  His sobbing overtook him. Adelko felt his sympathy deepen. But beneath pity his sixth sense was flaring. Wulbert wasn’t telling them everything.

  Horskram was sensing much the same. ‘Stop hiding the truth from those who would help you,’ he snapped. ‘Think you that an Argolian is easily deceived? Speak the contents of your mind, Wulbert, or we’ll leave you here as we found you.’

  ‘No, NO!’ the peasant reached up, scrabbling at Horskram’s stirrup with long, emaciated fingers. Adelko wondered how long it was since the man had eaten. ‘Don’t leave me here,’ he whimpered. ‘Don’t leave me here with them. Please…! More than I could bear it is!’

  ‘Alright,’ said Horskram, his tone softening. ‘We won’t abandon you, Wulbert, just tell us what you know.’

  The peasant stopped pawing at Horskram’s boot and slumped to the ground on all fours. He started drooling and whining into the hard soil.

  ‘We can’t take him with us,’ said Wrackwulf. ‘Yon man’s mind is clearly gone, prayers or no. The best thing we can do now is put him out of his misery.’ He moved his hand meaningfully towards his axe.

  ‘No!’ said Horskram sternly. ‘There’ll be no killing of innocents on my watch, even if life is a misery to them.’ Turning back to the peasant he said: ‘Wulbert! Some of my companions would fain leave you here, or else put you out of your misery. I want to help you, but only if you help us. In Reus’ name tell us what you know!’

  Wulbert looked up at Horskram. There was a tortured look in his eyes now, one that went beyond mere terror. ‘They kept Wulbert alive,’ he whispered. ‘The grey-faced kings let him drink of their waters… and eat… they let him eat…’

  Adelko felt his stomach churn as he suddenly realised how Wulbert had survived in the Draugmoors.

  Adhelina and Hettie made disgusted noises as the same realisation dawned on them. Horskram looked down at Wulbert with revulsion as he collapsed into a sobbing heap. Wrackwulf looked at Horskram as if to say I told you so and began dismounting.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Horskram as the knight unslung his axe.

  ‘Ending his pain is what I’m doing,’ replied Wrackwulf, raising the axe. ‘This villein has lived long enough methinks.’

  ‘Stay your hand!’ cried Horskram. His voice seemed to echo off the sides of the dell they were in. Adelko shivered as he fancied he heard something in the distance. On the edge of his hearing, it was too faint to be identifiable.

  Wrackwulf paused, axe in hand, glaring up at Horskram. Torgun took a step forward, interposing himself between Wulbert and the freelancer.

  ‘Leave him be,’ said Torgun. ‘He’s suffered enough as it is.’

  ‘Yon villein is a flesh-eating ghoul, fit for naught but swift death!’ insisted Wrackwulf. ‘We cannot leave him alive, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘No soul is beyond redemption whilst it lingers in the mortal vale, as the Redeemer sayeth,’ said Horskram. ‘While he remains alive he has the chance to atone for his crimes, gross as they are.’

  Turning again to the labourer he said: ‘Hear that, Wulbert? Your crimes are not unforgivable. Guide us to the river and the Almighty who sees all shall pardon your sins.’

  A glimmer of hope entered Wulbert’s eyes. ‘If Wulbert takes you to the river, you will bear him abroad with you?’ He seemed uncertain and far from trusting.

  ‘See this?’ said Horskram, brandishing the Redeemer’s blood. ‘This is a sacred relic, one of the greatest of the Creed. Its power should be enough to protect us from the draug kings… but we need your guidance. Help us and I promise we shall give you succour.’

  Adelko felt his stomach twist. He’d heard Horskram’s promises of sanctuary and forgiveness all too often. He suddenly remembered Ulla the hedge witch being dragged off to the dungeons in Salmor.

  Whatever the novice’s misgivings, Wulbert seemed convinced at last. ‘Oh very good, very good, thankee, thankee master monk!’ The peasant reached up and pawed gratefully at Horskram’s boot.

  ‘Enough of your unctuousness!’ snapped Horskram, barely concealing his contempt. ‘We’ve tarried long enough, now let’s be off! You lead the way, Wulbert. And we’ll be staying in the saddle, so don’t even think about trying to run off!’

  Wulbert gave fulsome assurances to the contrary before bounding off into the nacreous mists, like an enthusiastic dog let off the leash.

  ‘Do you really think we can trust him?’ whispered Adelko as they followed him. His sixth sense had not subsided.

  ‘After Reus knows how long in this accursed bourne, I doubt it,’ muttered Horskram. ‘Yon villein has been turned into a plaything of the draugar… As like as not he regards them as his keepers now.’

  ‘So why follow him?’

  ‘At least there’s a chance our prayers and the prospect of escape might break their hold over him long enough to get us to the river. The alternative is we wander at will, hoping to chance upon the Draugfluss ourselves.’

  Adelko couldn’t resist his next remark. ‘Was entering the Draugmoors really a good idea, Master Horskram? It seems no better than fleeing into Tintagael.’

  ‘Entering Tintagael proved to be our saviour, much as I hate to give credit to the Faerie Kings,’ Horskram reminded him. ‘The road to redemption takes many a twist into dark hollows, as the Redeemer sayeth.’

  The novice frowned. Palom’s reference to dark hollows was eerily appropriate to their current predicament. ‘You think… we were meant to come here?’ Adelko thought of fate and destiny, the powers the Earth Witch had claimed to channel.

  ‘Possibly,’ replied Horskram. ‘Some say all men’s actions are preordained, guided by His will to further an ultimate purpose only He can fathom. Others claim free will as the Almighty’s greatest gift to mortalkind. Like most of our Order I incline towards the latter view. It is up to us to make the decisions we feel to be correct at any given time. I make my choices, and hope I have been guided towards the best solution by Palom’s grace.’

  Adelko thought about that for a bit. ‘But didn’t the loremaster Sallust of Hierapolis say that free will is an illusion… Men are only free to choose the actions that occur to them…’

  ‘… because the will is always bound to make a choice,’ Horskram finished for him. ‘Even doing n
othing is itself a choice.’ The adept spared his novice an impressed look. ‘I had no idea you’d read any of the Thalamian philosophers,’ he said. ‘Clearly you’ve not just used your spare time in the library to read Gracius and Maegellin.’

  ‘I’ve always loved reading,’ said Adelko simply. ‘Well, ever since you gave me my first book at Narvik.’ Mention of his home village usually brought pangs of homesickness, but this time all he felt was a faint longing. Far stronger was the desire to sit in Ulfang’s library again, to be immersed in the musty smell of its books. He hoped Heilag had a sizeable library. The Grand High Monastery at Rima would – but that still seemed like a long way away.

  ‘Anyway, what was your point?’ asked Horskram.

  ‘Well… If we’re only free to choose the actions that occur to us, and we were made by the Almighty, then surely He decides what those actions might be. Why make bad choices occur to us if He only wants the best for us?’

  Horskram mulled that over as they ambled on after Wulbert, who was scrambling over rocks as he led them into the darkling valley.

  ‘You are not just speaking of choices that are erroneous, but morally wrong as well,’ he said at length.

  Question everything.

  ‘Yes…’ faltered Adelko. ‘If free will is the freedom to choose from ideas that occur to us, why make bad or wicked ideas occur to us at all?’

  ‘Tis Abaddon, not Reus, who puts such ideas in men’s minds,’ said Horskram. ‘Don’t forget the Author of All Evil had a hand in our making, when he was foremost among the archangels.’

  Adelko wasn’t about to give up on his argument that easily. ‘But Abaddon is an emanation of the Almighty,’ he persisted. ‘Just as the Seven Princes of Perfidy are emanations of the Seven Seraphim. Reus created him… and if Abaddon is responsible for all evil, then that means Reus is either not omniscient, or He is but…’

  The novice left his thought unspoken, not daring to voice it.

  Horskram surprised him by picking up the slack. ‘Or else He is omniscient but does not always have mortalkind’s best interests at heart. That is what you mean to say?’

  ‘Yes, Master Horskram.’

  Adelko barely managed to get the words out. Even just thinking them made him feel guilty. The Order had taken him in and given him a way of life beyond his wildest dreams: who was he to question the motives of Reus? And yet the question had been invited by his own thinking, pursuing the very ideas that occurred to him.

  Horskram surprised him again with the candour of his next statement. ‘Adelko, I do believe you are beginning to grapple with the very question that has plagued me for decades. Should you chance upon an answer to it, be sure to let your old mentor know.’

  Flashing his novice a wry glance, Horskram steered his horse in front of him. Another discourse over. Yet more unanswered questions.

  Adelko blinked and shook his head to clear it. He was beginning to wonder whether horseshoes might not have been such a bad choice of living after all. They were certainly less baffling than books. Had it been the Redeemer’s grace or Abaddon’s pride that had moved him to pick the latter? Or both?

  His ensuing reverie was a painful one.

  On and on Wulbert took them, always hovering on the fringe of their circle of light. They seemed to meander for hours, yet the sun did not rise. Adelko barely had the energy left to mutter the psalm, and more than once caught himself nodding in the saddle. At last, mercifully, Horskram called a halt. The others had slipped back into their trance-like state; Horskram revived Anupe and Vaskrian with a muttered prayer.

  ‘We need to rest,’ he said curtly. ‘You two are on first watch – keep an eye on our guide and make sure he doesn’t slip off!’

  But the adept need not have worried. Wulbert had curled up on the side of a hill and was already fast asleep.

  It wasn’t long before Adelko joined him.

  His sleep was disturbed by frightful dreams. Only this time he could barely remember them upon waking: a black angel had come to him over and over and asked him to make a choice… hosts of armoured men swarmed to the call of arms… and at the head of the foremost rode a one-eyed general, fierce and proud and stern. Lastly of all he glimpsed a strange fat man dressed in brightly coloured exotic clothing… he winked over elaborate mustachios at the novice, smiling in the manner of a friend, yet on his shoulder a demon perched…

  Adelko roused himself from his pallet. His body was covered in a light sweat that was already freezing over. Shivering he got up and walked around. The fog had not abated. The company had arranged their horses in a circle around themselves. Even if they had dared to light a fire, there were no trees from which to make one. At least they had the light of the Redeemer: Horskram slept on his back, the phial around his neck emitting its soft yet comforting radiance.

  Vaskrian and Anupe were still on watch. The Harijan’s eyes were fixed on Wulbert, who appeared blissfully untroubled in his sleep. Perhaps that was the only peace he ever knew, Adelko reflected sadly.

  ‘I hope we find this river soon,’ Vaskrian muttered as Adelko drew level with him. ‘We’re running low on water.’

  Adelko didn’t like to think about drinking from a river cursed by sorcery.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ replied Vaskrian. ‘Still no sign of the sun. I imagine we’ll be on our way soon enough. Horskram said to wake him when we get tired.’

  The squire seemed calm enough. Adelko supposed they had the Redeemer to thank for that much at least, though uncomfortable questions about his faith lingered. He was about to offer to go on watch next when Anupe yelled.

  Turning he saw the Harijan lurching back, a shocked look on her face. Looking at the ground Adelko saw why. A long thin arm, its grey muscles knotted and tinged with blue, was reaching up out of the ground, the fingers of a gaunt hand clamped around her calf.

  In a flash her blade was out. Its razor edge sliced off the hand at the wrist; the rest of the arm disappeared back below the ground. The hand remained clutching Anupe’s leg. The Harijan cried out as its fingers dug deep into her flesh. Vaskrian dashed over and tried to prise it free but an unearthly strength was in the thing. Adelko was about to recite the Psalm of Banishing when he saw there was no need. The hand was beginning to dissolve; patches of decay appeared across its cadaverous skin, growing and clumping together. The bones of the land seemed to groan in pain as the hand opened, releasing the Harijan and falling to the dank earth. In the blinking of an eye it had disappeared, swallowed up by the dark soil.

  Horskram stirred from his sleep and sat upright, blinking into wakefulness. Vaskrian tended to Anupe while Adelko brought his mentor up to speed.

  ‘Looks as though our draugar friends weren’t chary of trying their luck,’ he said. ‘But the Redeemer’s power is not to be trifled with!’ The adept made the sign before bustling over to have a look at Anupe. Her flesh was badly bruised just below the knee, but the skin hadn’t been punctured. ‘That is a good thing,’ said Horskram. ‘No chance of the wound becoming infected by draugar poison.’ The adept intoned a quick prayer over it.

  ‘It came at me from the ground,’ breathed the Harijan. ‘What manner of devil does that?’

  ‘Draugs can move through stone and earth as well as shapeshift,’ Horskram explained. ‘As like as not this was the same one that was spying on us earlier, or another one alerted by it. Well, our unwelcoming hosts know we are here for certain – but at least they know we enjoy the Redeemer’s protection too! Wake the others – it’s high time we found that river.’

  Something caught Adelko’s eye as they were preparing to strike camp. Bending down he picked it up gingerly. It was a bracelet, presumably worn by the thing that had tried to attack them. With a shock of revulsion he realised it was made of human knucklebones. Horskram threw him a piercing glance as he dropped the horrid ornament.

  ‘Best not to toy with the keepsakes of the Draug Kings,’ he said. ‘Remember they were mortal men once, just
as you and I.’

  Adelko could not resist a sidelong glance at Wulbert, already skulking on the fringes of the Redeemer’s light as he waited for the others. The novice could have sworn the wretch felt less comfortable within its aegis, preferring the darkness without. His sixth sense had not left off from jangling, but that was hardly surprising given where they were. All the same, he kept his gaze fixed uneasily on the labourer as he led them off once more.

  After a while the moorlands began steadily to rise. That made sense at least, the source of the river must be higher up. Adelko began to register desiccated plants and shrubs; they looked almost to have been petrified, and offered no cheer to the blasted iron landscape that now held them in its clutches. Whenever the Redeemer’s light fell on these, they sloughed pitifully away into ashes, as though Palom’s blood were putting them out of their misery. The novice yearned to be out of these tortured lands; with the others in a trancelike state, he had only the psalms and his mentor’s sonorous voice to distract him.

  As such his heart leapt for joy when he heard the unmistakeable rushing of a river. Wulbert turned back and favoured them with an enthusiastic wave of the hand, before scampering over the crest of the valley pass they had been following and disappearing into the fog.

  ‘I still don’t trust him,’ said Horskram. Turning his horse around he muttered the Psalm of Reawakening, bringing the others out of their induced reverie.

  ‘We’ve reached the river but we need to be on our guard,’ he said. ‘Weapons at the ready, just in case!’

  ‘I thought weapons would avail us little against the rulers of these lands,’ muttered Braxus darkly. But he drew his sword nonetheless.

  ‘Blades won’t be much use against them,’ conceded Horskram. ‘But we don’t know what dangers await us – best to be prepared for all contingencies. Stay within the light at all times!’

  The company prepared itself, keeping the damsels in the middle. Horskram and Adelko rode out in front, with Torgun and Braxus flanking and Vaskrian, Wrackwulf and Anupe bringing up the rear. Nudging their steeds over the rise, they gazed down upon a strangely welcome sight.