Shadowgod

by Michael Cobley

  Scallow lay at the bottleneck between a long inlet and Sarlekwater, a curved inland sea. The Sarlekwater's distant northern shore fed into the Bay of Horns via a river canal down which Keren and the others had sailed after buying passage on a cramped and smelly barkan. The wharf where they had docked was on the western side of the bottleneck and during the approach to Scallow Keren had noticed on the eastern shore a series of larger, more elaborate quays made from heavy piles and massive masonry. Many of the buildings over there were built on or around several small hills, the highest of which was occupied by a squat castle, whereas the eastern shore was fairly flat.

  This was her first visit to Scallow and she knew little of the city beyond its talents at shipbuilding and sea warfare. Gilly had mentioned a place called Wracktown, supposedly the surviving vessels of a defeated Anghatan fleet that had been lashed and nailed together between a cluster of small islands, their decks and cabins turned into homes, taverns and workshop. But all Keren had seen as they arrived were some densely overbuilt bridges spanning the rocky islands in the strait.

  She was watching a long, oar-driven Honjiran galley approach from the north when Gilly came over to join her. Instantly, the fishy odour returned.

  “Fine fellows, those fishermen,” he said. “Very welcoming and gossipy.”

  “How welcoming?” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Well, shook hands once or twice…” Frowning, he paused and sniffed his fingers, then shrugged. “At least I found out a few things…”

  Before Keren could make an acerbic observation, Medwin came stalking over with a face like thunder.

  “What a lying, swindling reptile,” he said between gritted teeth, clearly straining to keep his voice down.

  “Ah, our noble captain,” said Gilly.

  “What is wrong?” Keren said.

  “He refuses to allow the horses off,” Medwin said. “He claims that two of them were not hobbled properly, and that they panicked and kicked out their stall doors. He wants to take me down and show me, but I had to come over here and let you know what is transpiring.” He breathed deeply. “And to calm myself….ah, there he is. I shall return as soon as I find out just what the truth is…”

  With that he strode off back to the dockside where the captain, a tall, lanky man, waited with some of his crew. Gilly snorted in amusement.

  “I'm afraid that the only truth Medwin will discover is that all barkan captains are insidious rogues,” he said.

  The mage and the captain went back on board and descended into the hold, reappearing a few minutes later accompanied by Redrigh, their escort captain who stayed on deck while Medwin returned to Gilly and Keren.

  “So - how much extra did he want?” Gilly said.

  “One and a half regals,” Medwin said. “When he showed me the so-called damage I almost laughed in his face. Certainly the doors were lying in pieces, yet even I could tell that they could be easily reassembled and hung again.”

  “No doubt as easily as they were disassembled,” Keren said.

  “Just so.” His anger now fading, Medwin shook his head. “There was a moment when I was tempted to use the Lesser Power, even with his crew nearby, but I decided against it and paid the money instead.”

  “Very wise,” Gilly said. “News of such an incident would travel fast, and the rebel septs would seize upon it with glee.”

  “I know,” said the mage, glancing round as Captain Redrigh joined them, his face dark and angry.

  “Ser Medwin, I fear it may take another half an hour for these oafs to move the mounts ashore,” he said. “Will you wait or find a wagon to take you across to the east shore?”

  “Such a pity we couldn't bring the wagon with us, eh?” said Gilly.

  Medwin arched an eyebrow and Keren coughed.

  “Before we boarded the good captain's manure boat,” the mage said acidly. “I despatched a message bird to the crown representative here, informing them of our progress. But we were delayed on the way, so they may have been here earlier and departed…”

  Keren looked past him to the bridge district, a jumble of houses and angular roofs that extended over the water and further down the western embankments where they merged with the shorebound houses and yards. A pair of two-wheeled, horse-drawn traps had emerged from a wooden archway and were following a stilt road round to where it met solid ground. One of the trap drivers waved as he approached, and Keren pointed him out to Medwin. Looking relieved, Medwin turned to murmur to Captain Redrigh who nodded and hurried off towards the ship once more.

  Some moments later the small carriages, each with a tattered, caneframe leather canopy, rolled to a halt in the mud before them. The leading driver, a pale young man wearing a long hooded coat of some coarse green and brown weave, climbed down and bowed.

  “Ser Medwin, Ser Cordale, Lady Asherol, greetings,” he began. “My name is Astalen and my fellow driver is Broen. I am honoured to be Trader Golwyth's secretary and it pleases me greatly to see that you have arrived safely. Normally I would take time to enquire about your journey and your well-being but I fear that we must proceed to Eastbank with all speed.”

  “Is there some kind of emergency, Astalen?” Medwin said as the young secretary guided them to the horse carriages. “Are we in danger?”

  “I would give a qualified yes to both your questions, ser mage,” Astalen said. “You see, every year at winter - ”

  “Ah, the bodush,” Gilly said suddenly. “Is it the bodush tourney? I know it can get a bit rough at times…”

  Astalen was shaking his head. “When did you last visit Scallow, ser Cordale?”

  “A little over ten years ago,” he admitted.

  “I'm afraid the game's character, shall we say, has changed for the worst since then.” So saying he ushered them into the carriages, Keren and Medwin riding with Astalen and Gilly by himself in the second. Astalen flicked the reins, the carriage jolted into movement and he steered it round and back along the muddy road. Keren noticed a number of sullen glances turned their way, openly resentful faces watching them leave. She felt a quiver of relief as the wharf slipped out of sight.

  Once the low docks were behind them, they passed by a succession of warehouses and timber yards bearing merchant sigils and guarded by nervous-looking swordsmen and spearmen. At a fork further on Astelen turned left towards the bridges district and as the carriages passed onto the wooden stilt road the wheels began to rumble loudly. Then it was up a curved incline and along a level stretch before dipping down and round a curve with black water lapping only feet away. Wooden buildings rose to either side, connected by a maze of walkways and gantries, each one a strange amalgam of styles and shapes with some balconies and floors appearing have to have been added as afterthoughts. A few looked to be tilting dangerously and had been shored up with heavy supporting beams, some of which had themselves been strengthened with iron strapping. There was also a low, incessant chorus of creaks as if the entire timber town shifted with wind and tide.

  The stilted road sloped up and became a narrow bridge across a small area of open water between the crammed, shadowy buildings. To the right a row of four evenly-spaced poles jutted up from the waters. Wide cartwheels had been lashed to the tops as platforms and on the first three Keren could make out fleshless, sun-bleached bones. On the fourth was a body being torn at by a full-grown crownhawk while a few small birds circled overhead.

  “A Mogaun of the Stoneheart tribe, which is apparently in control of Choraya,” Astalen said, slowing the carriage. “They sent a raiding party across the Bay of Horns and our mounted altasti only caught up with them after they'd pillaged and raped their way through several northern villages.”

  “I'm surprised not to have seen more like that one,” Keren said, remembering some of the towns they had passed through on their journey, especially the ones that had suffered badly under the Mogaun. Their retribution had been openly savage.

  Astalen glanced over his shoulder. “That is because those we t
ook prisoner were drowned, my lady.” He looked forward once more. “Ceremonially, of course.”

  Of course, Keren thought wryly. But who is this meant to warn - Scallow's enemies or its citizens?

  There were some people out on foot, but they were staying away from the main streets and mostly using the narrow dogwalks that clung to upper storeys or curved across from eave to eave. Keren noticed that there was more activity down on the water channels which passed beneath them, coming into view now and then. She saw laden canalboats being poled along by hard-eyed boatmen or being unloaded at tiny landing stages jutting from the barnacled waterlines of great buildings which creaked on their submersed supports.

  A succession of smells spoke of crafts and artisans - the rich yeastiness of a brewers, the woody smoke of a fish-curer, the aroma of freshly-baked bread. But all these were whipped away on an icy wind as the carriages came out from among the dense buildings and up onto a small, stone wharf on one side of a open canal. On the other side a stout wooden drawbridge stood up almost straight, held there by thick, taut ropes wound through a train of gears and winches manned by nervous-looking wharfers. A blunt-bowed barge was slowly passing through the channel, its crewmen using heavy staves to steer it clear of the sides while four guards with crossbows kept a tense watch on deck.

  “Wonder what their cargo is?” Gilly muttered from the other carriage.

  Keren would have answered but for an odd sensation that flickered through her, like some faint sound or the slight hint of an odour, there in one instant and gone the next. Frowning, she turned to look along the canal and as her gaze came round a figure on the towpath opposite quickly stepped back out of sight.

  “Interesting,” she murmured.

  “Indeed, my lady,” said Astalen. “Was that person watching the barge or us?”

  “I expect we'll know soon enough,” Medwin said evenly, staring across the white-capped waves of the Sarlekwater, north to hidden lands.

  Once the barge was through, the suspended bridge came down on its creaking hawsers and once a few people had hurried over on foot either way, the carriages continued across. Astalen kept them to an open road which crossed a number of short bridges and another larger swing bridge before finally reaching the solid ground of Eastbank. Throughout this eastward journey Keren noticed the growing prosperity, the better houses, the bigger, busier wharves, and the more frequent guard patrols. As the carriages rattled side by side along a cobbled street away from the ship-crowded main docks, Gilly asked Astalen how life was in Wracktown.

  “Difficult,” was the reply. “Many good people have moved away while all manner of villains and brutes have made their lairs there. The submerged hulls of some of the ancient ships have rotted through and their lower decks have flooded. It is said that new, lethal kinds of fish and eel are breeding in the darkness down there, but I have seen no evidence of this.”

  Gilly sighed. “A great pity. Wracktown had such character and life when I was there last.”

  At a junction Astalen steered towards a narrow street, forcing Gilly's driver, Broen, to fall back into single file. The buildings here were straight and well-made and beyond several courtyard walls Keren spied small, luxurious gardens, ornate gazebos and balconies and pillared cloisters. All of which was in stark contrast to the outer facades of these residences with their plain stone walls, few windows and unremarkable front doors. So different, she thought, to the timber buildings of the Bridges district.

  “Astalen,” she said. “Did we pass through Wracktown on our way here?”

  “No, m'lady, Wracktown is the westerly part of South Bridges - it would be instantly recognisable from its dilapidated appearance, the roving gangs of feral children, and the reek of decaying refuse.”

  Keren exchanged an amused glance with Medwin and whispered, “So it's not on our itinerary, then…”

  Medwin coughed and said aloud, “Friend Astalen, am I right in thinking that talks between the Moon Council and the rebel septs are due to take place very soon?”

  “That is so, ser mage. As a matter of fact, the discussions were almost abandoned since some of the rebels wanted to fight now and talk later. Then the Hevrin announced that he would attend and the others followed in his wake.”

  Keren looked up, frowning. “The Hevrin.”

  “Well, his given name is Rikketh Cul-Hevrin, but as the High Chief of Hevrin Sept he is simply referred to as the Hevrin.”

  “I see,” she said, feeling the hard outline of the codex in its satchel under her arm. “Before leaving Besh-Darok, I met a merchant named Yared Hevrin. I wonder if there could be any connection.”

  Astalen glanced round with new respect in his eyes. “Yared Hevrin is well-known and much-respected in Scallow, m'lady, and happens to be a half-cousin to the Hevrin himself. However, because he supports the Moon Council he is a figure of loathing and contempt for Hevrin Sept and its allies.”

  “No blood is as bad as that between warring relatives,” Medwin said. “Is that likely to have a bearing on the talks?”

  “Without a doubt, ser Medwin,” said Astalen. “Yared Hevrin is expected to arrive sometime tomorrow, and is bound to have his say.”

  A cold wind blew in from the north with a light rain that pattered on the carriage's leather canopy. Keren shivered, thinking on all that Astalen had said and wondering if her part in this task was really necessary. She knew nothing of Dalbar or Scallow and its politics, and her confidence in her own fighting prowess was not what it once was. As for her sorcerous abilities, they seemed little more than vestigial to her for the optimism expressed by Bardow and Medwin. The Archmage was convinced of her potential, and at intervals during their journey Medwin had devoted several to teaching her the rudiments of Lesser Power cantos. Yet a part of her still yearned for that absent power, the ancient, implacable might of the Daemonkind, a part of her that would always play traitor to her loyalties.

  The rain was coming down in gusts of hail as they drove through a market square. All around the townsfolk were laughing and ducking under stall covers or stepping into doorways for shelter as the hail came down with a hissing, rattling din that sounded especially loud under Keren and Medwin's carriage canopy. They were almost at the other side of the square when a group of bedraggled men wearing green sashes and carrying sticks came running out of an alley to the right, Keren's side. The leader made straight for the carriage, leaped onto the running board and leaned in close enough for Keren to smell ale on his breath.

  He was young with coal-black beard and rain-matted hair, his face full of a casual hostility that faded when Keren pushed aside her cloak and half-slid her sword from its scabbard. Astalen was cursing him and ordering him off, but he ignored the tirade, sneered and banged his stick once against the side of the carriage, then uttered an odd howl before jumping lightly off. Other, different sounding calls went up behind them as Astalen began lashing the horse into a swift canter.

  “It will be safer if we hurry,” he shouted above the racket of the wheels on the cobbles. “The Bodush factions will soon hold all of this district.”

  “What about Gilly?” Keren said, but Medwin was already turning to pull aside a cotton flap in the rear of the canopy. Together they squinted through the gap, and Keren gasped to see Gilly's carriage brought to a halt by a crowd of rain-soaked people wearing red sashes. An argument between the crowd's leaders and Gilly's driver, Broen, led to him being dragged down from his seat under a hail of fists.

  “Mother's name,” Keren said, angry at this brutality and wishing vainly that they had waited for Redrigh and his men.

  Then she almost cheered when Gilly climbed over into the driver's seat and grabbed the reins, stamped on the fingers of a man trying to get on board then lashed the horse into motion. Members of yet another bodush faction, in white sashes gone grey in the rain, had emerged from a side street to taunt the red sash faction while blocking the road behind Astalen's carriage. Gilly yelled at his horse, yanking on the reins to turn its head and
move off to the side, still hemmed in by howling, stick-brandishing bodush players.

  “Astalen,” Keren cried. “Gilly's in trouble.”

  “So are we.”

  She just had time to see a mob in yellow sashes hurrying along a muddy alley towards them before the carriage suddenly leaped forward, throwing Medwin and her back into their seats.

  “Greatest apologies,” Astalen called out. “We will have to go by another route, and with some haste.”

  Buildings sped past, windows and doors a blur. Dogs ran yapping in short-lived pursuit and startled townsfolk shrieked curses and shook fists in their wake. The carriage swayed and rattled as it hurtled along, sometimes giving a banging jolt as it ran over a hole or a jutting cobble in the road. Keren had not thought Astalen capable of such skilfull charioteering but the way he took them round several narrow corners made her revise her opinion.

  They managed to leave behind most of the yellow faction mob in the first five minutes, apart from a few dogged individuals who knew the back roads and alleys well enough to keep the carriage in sight for another ten minutes before being outdistanced. Astalen slowed the pace, following streets which curved around the southern flank of the hill occupied by Scallow Castle. Keren's tense alertness was just starting to ease when they rolled to halt before the tall, iron-banded gates of Golwyth's compound a short while later. Astalen called up to someone in the guard tower and as the gates began to open he turned to Medwin and Keren.

  “Once Trader Golwyth learns what has befallen Ser Cordale and Broen he will send some of his guards out to find them.”

  Medwin nodded wordlessly, as if resigned, but Keren could feel her anger rekindling.

  “Tell your master that I have to go with them,” she said.

  The carriage moved through the inward-swinging gates. The trader's compound was a high-walled enclosure with several storesheds along one wall, stabling and a barrack hut opposite, and a larger 2-storey building against the far wall. Before the building was a long, weather-beaten table around which were gathered a dozen leather-armoured men, all laughing uproariously. As the carriage came to a halt nearby, a familiar grinning figure stood up from amongst them and toasted Keren and Medwin with a sloshing cup of ale.