The Dusk Watchman

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘That’s a damned . . .‘ The man didn’t bother finishing his sentence but raised his weapon and headed towards them.

  Nai saw a flicker of surprise in the man’s face as he advanced with his own empty hands outstretched.

  The Byoran got ready to smash Nai in the face with his cudgel, but before he had fully raised his weapon, a flash of light erupted from Nai’s palms into the man’s face. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air and the man reeled, dropping the cudgel and clapping his hands to his cheeks.

  Nai kept moving, drawing a dagger from his belt and punching the tip into the man’s stomach, then tilting it upwards and driving it towards his heart. Then he withdrew it and ran the blade across his throat, just to make sure. The Byoran fell without a further sound and lay spasming on the ground.

  Nai bent and wiped the blade clean on the man’s shirt before he sheathed the weapon and eased the courtyard door shut again. Amber hadn’t moved throughout the brief struggle, and when Nai returned to him he didn’t seem to have even noticed it. He stood a little taller now, holding one hand on the wall to steady himself, but Nai could see he was still in no condition to walk down the street yet, let alone run.

  ‘Another turn about the grounds then?’ He asked as he slipped under Amber’s arm and turned the soldier around. He spared a look at the corpse on the ground, a small trail of blood making its way towards the courtyard wall. ‘Let’s just hope you prove useful enough to make this worthwhile.’

  Struck by a thought, Nai stopped and passed a hand across Amber’s face, muttering arcane words under his breath as he did so. After half a minute he stopped. ‘At least the link’s still there,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not sure who will be glad to see a Menin soldier after today, but King Emin might be able to use you to track down his turncoat, Ilumene. It isn’t much of a choice, but it’s the best one you’re likely to get, and a man in my profession could always use a king owing him a favour.’

  Amber still didn’t respond and Nai’s expression turned pitying. ‘Gods, your parents wouldn’t have expected this when they named you for your lordly, albeit distant, relation – who could have? That was one of the odder sensations in my life, I think, having a name plucked from my mind – and it didn’t even involve necromancy! This life’s full of surprises, but let’s just be glad no one’s used your real name since you joined the army, otherwise I think you’d be on the ground, and undoubtedly crippled.’

  He paused a moment, wincing, and had to blink away a sudden unpleasant sense of disjointed loss. ‘How curious: it’s uncomfortable to even try and remember – very uncomfortable. Well, no matter; he must be dead by now, and I can think of him as the Menin lord easily enough.’

  He patted Amber on the shoulder again and directed him back across the courtyard. ‘And you, my friend; you’re still Major Amber, so not much has changed there really – except you’re a major in an army currently being obliterated, and you’re as fragile as a baby. Just as well I can think of a use for you, and a certain king who might pay rather well for that use.’

  They started walking, short, shuffling steps away from the courtyard gate. ‘Don’t worry,’ Nai added with forced brightness, ‘you can thank me for saving your life later. Once I’ve sold you to the enemy.’

  CHAPTER 2

  Doranei awoke with a whimper from dreams of sapphire eyes. Lost in dark corridors, exhausted and afraid, he’d followed the faint scent of her perfume for an age and more – walking deep in the bowels of some unknown castle, through bloodless corpses and shit while dead Menin soldiers reached at him from the shadows.

  Somehow he’d kept himself upright, prising cold grasping fingers from his flesh and beating them away. They’d decayed before his eyes but more rose in their place until his limbs screamed with pain and he could scarcely breathe. When Doranei woke the ache of exertion intensified and he lay there for a long while, barely able to move, every shallow breath feeling like a knife slashing down his ribcage.

  ‘Don’t complain! At least you’re alive.’

  With a groan he rolled himself onto one side to face the speaker. Veil sat slumped in an armchair, a handful of other members of the Brotherhood asleep on the ground nearby.

  ‘Did you hear me complain?’ Doranei said, wincing as he spoke. He’d survived the battle virtually unscathed, just four or five minor nicks and a whole ton of bruises.

  ‘You were about to.’ There was no humour in Veil’s voice, no space for anything more than weariness. He wore a fresh shirt and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but neither hid the bandage encasing the stump where his hand had once been.

  Thank the Gods it was his left, Doranei thought again, his eyes lingering on the injured limb until Veil tugged the blanket over it. Veil had tied his dark hair neatly back, but like the rest of them he’d had no chance yet to wash out the blood and mud.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘Hurts like a bastard.’ Veil tried to smile, or maybe he grimaced, Doranei couldn’t tell which. ‘Hopefully not for much longer. Tremal said he smelled opium in the night – went to steal it for me.’

  Doranei nodded absently. He struggled to rise, using the wall to steady himself, and stood staring down at his feet until he decided he could trust them. Diffuse sunlight shining through a window on the right told him he’d clearly slept long past dawn, however little actual rest he’d managed. His stinking, sweat- and blood-stiffened tunic was still lying on the floor, where he’d dropped it with his armour. He picked it up and inspected the stains. ‘Heard one o’ the king’s clerks say it’d be quicker to count the living than the dead.’ He looked up. ‘A sour kind of victory, this. I ain’t one for praying much, but I’ll kiss the feet o’ any God can see to it I never witness that again.’

  ‘Aye, nor lose so many Brothers again,’ Veil added. ‘Ain’t many of us left to make good on the bet.’

  ‘Bet? Who won?’ Doranei shook his head as sadness filled his heart. The Brotherhood would bet on almost anything – it was one way to cope with the strange, dangerous life they led; one way to remember those they lost along the way. After yesterday’s slaughter, even a veteran of the Brotherhood found it hard to believe anyone cared to collect on the wager.

  ‘That fucking loud-mouth white-eye,’ Veil said.

  ‘Isak? He didn’t kill—’ Doranei scowled as the ache behind his eyes increased. ‘He didn’t kill the Menin lord, whatever we’re telling the Land.’

  ‘Not Isak, the Mad Axe – that bastard was dragged out o’ the north ditch just before sundown, half-dead and brains scrambled but still claiming his win. Turns out he killed the general attacking that flank, Vrill, Duke Anote Vrill.’

  Doranei sighed and slipped his complaining arms through the sleeves of his tunic. He left the armour on the floor but buckled on his weapons-belt, now holding only the ancient sword he’d taken from Aracnan’s corpse. Then he stood still for a moment, letting Veil’s words filter into his exhausted mind. ‘Wonderful,’ he said finally, stirring himself to hunt through his pack for the cigars he thought he’d left there. ‘So now I get to live the rest o’ my life with some fucking white-eye’s name tattooed on my arse.’ He lit one from the coals and headed outside.

  He squinted at the weak sun as he gingerly wove a path through the makeshift camp in the grounds of Moorview Castle. He stopped outside the walls on the slope that led down to the moor, brought up short by the chaos of the previous day.

  There were three great pits, one still being dug. The first was already filled with bodies and wood from the forest and a column of dirty smoke was rising high in the windless sky. Images from the battle flashed before his eyes: friends falling as the Menin threw themselves forward with frenzied abandon. The Brotherhood had lost half their number, a shocking proportion that was matched or exceeded by at least a dozen legions.

  ‘Brother Doranei.’ Suzerain Derenin sat on the sloping grass to Doranei’s left, his back against the wall of his castle. His right arm was in a sling and he winced as he
gestured to the ground beside him with the spherical bottle he held in his left. ‘Join me.’

  ‘Got any food?’ Doranei asked as he eased himself down beside the Lord of Moorview. Whatever was in the bottle smelled more potent than wine

  Suzerain Derenin shook his head. ‘Couldn’t stomach it.’ He was muscular, both bigger and younger than Doranei, his long limbs and broad shoulders well-suited to battle, but he’d still been so exhausted he’d almost crawled out of the fort once the last Menin had fallen.

  ‘Your first real battle, right? You sure can pick ’em.’

  Doranei received only a grunt in reply, and when he took the bottle from Derenin he saw tears glisten in the man’s eyes. ‘Don’t matter who tells you what to expect, nothing prepares a man for what he sees on a battlefield, and that . . .’ He tailed off. None of the Narkang men had seen anything like it, experienced or not. Scree had been a place of horror and slaughter, sure enough, but it was the Farlan and Devoted troops who’d seen the worst of it. And they’d got off lightly, he now realised.

  There were tens of thousands of men lying dead out there on the moor. Someone had guessed at fifty thousand, but others thought the figure higher. And a great many of those who survived the battle would have died in the night of their wounds. Bodies were lying everywhere, despite the efforts of the gangs working to drag the dead into those great pits. The earth was stained rusty-red, and the stink of death was rising with the clouds of flies.

  ‘Can’t get the taste out the back of my mouth,’ Suzerain Derenin muttered. ‘No matter what I try to wash it away with.’

  ‘Try this.’ Doranei proffered his cigar. ‘Covers up most stinks that can be covered.’

  He watched Derenin puff away at it, grimacing at the unfamiliar taste but drawing all the harder on it for that. ‘You fought well,’ Doranei said. ‘There’s not much to feel proud about when you’re treading on the faces of the dead and sticky with their blood, but you were a hero yesterday. Never forget that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he murmured. ‘It’s right there with the screams of men I’ve known my whole life – men who were only in that hell-pit because of me.’

  ‘I’ve got no answers for you,’ Doranei replied wearily. ‘There’s no justice in war, no consolation. My best friend died before the battle of the Byoran Fens – you know why? Because we tossed a coin and he got unlucky. Much as I hate myself for it, that’s all there is, and no amount of blame’ll change that.’

  ‘And life goes on,’ the nobleman said bitterly, wincing as he shifted slightly. ‘I’ve heard men say that half-a-dozen times already this morning.’

  ‘It’s the only truth we know. You got the luck o’ the draw, others didn’t. I ain’t claiming to have worked this out myself, but all you can do is mourn and keep on living.’ Doranei paused and looked at the battlefield. When he spoke again it was with a firm nod of the head, as though he was still having to remind himself that what he said was true. ‘If I meet Sebe on the slopes of Ghain and he asks me how I lived the life won on that toss of a coin, I better have a good answer for him. Hard as it might be, we got to try.’

  He hauled himself up again and started on down the stepped gardens into the small forest of tents pitched on the moor’s edge. To the right was a second, smaller camp where the worst-injured of the prisoners were; anyone able to walk was out on the moor dragging bodies into the pits. The prisoners were a mixed lot, mainly Menin as most of their allies had fled when they felt the Menin lord’s name ripped from their minds. Some, unable to escape, had surrendered; only the Menin élite had fought to the death, but it did mean there was no chance of pursuit.

  He walked forward, drawn without thinking towards the fort where he’d made his stand at the king’s side. He was still not sure how they’d survived that crazed assault. He felt his hands start to shake as he neared it. When he reached the mound where Cetarn had sacrificed himself, his legs gave way and he sank to his knees, feeling the anguish build up inside him, but the tears would not come; no matter how much he craved the release, the outpouring of grief, it wouldn’t come.

  At a sound behind him Doranei gave a cry of alarm and tried to turn and draw his sword, but his body betrayed him and he staggered sideways, waving the weapon drunkenly until he used it to steady himself on the uneven ground. The group of soldiers behind him were enlisted men, wearing the Narkang legion’s uniform.

  ‘My apologies, sir,’ said the nearest, tugging frantically at his greasy curls of hair, ‘din’t mean to disturb you, sir.’

  Doranei wavered and his vision blurred for a moment before he was able to pull himself together. ‘I— Ah, no, it doesn’t matter. What do you want?’

  The man glanced back at his comrades. The lot of them were caked in mud and blood, and several were very obviously injured. ‘Well, sir, we was hopin’ you’d tell us what happened.’

  Doranei tried to grin. ‘We won, didn’t you hear? Can’t you smell the glory?’

  The soldier winced and bobbed his head again. ‘Aye, sir, we all felt his name taken, but no one knows what happened – some said the Gods themselves must’ve—’

  Doranei stopped him. ‘Cetarn,’ he said, ‘Shile Cetarn, Narkang’s greatest mage: you want someone to thank in your prayers, he’s the one. Him and Coran, they both sacrificed themselves.’

  ‘The king’s bodyguard?’

  ‘Aye, him, the one and only, stubborn, stupid, vicious white-eye motherless shit that he was.’ Doranei felt his lips tremble, but suddenly he couldn’t stop talking. ‘A man with no friends and lots of enemies, who liked his whores bloodied and bruised and never had a good word for any living man. The sort o’ fearless bastard you wanted at your side when it got down to the bone, one who never backed down from a fight in his life and enjoyed pain more than any fucker I ever met.’

  He took a long, shuddering breath and glanced back at the mound of earth where Cetarn had died. The earth was scorched and ripped open by the terrible magic unleashed there, the fury of an earthquake visited upon that small scrap of moorland.

  ‘And Cetarn was the best of men; ’cept for his size he had nothing in common with Coran before this. But neither one hesitated, or took a step back when the time came – they marched into Death’s bony arms, glad they were doing their duty and never a backwards glance from either of them.’

  Doranei turned his back on the soldiers’ stunned silence and looked at the killing ground between the fort and the mound. There too the grass was scorched black, the earth furrowed and seamed with white as though burnt to ashes. Crows and ravens hopped across the brutalised ground, their calls cruel and callous to Doranei’s ears. The faint smell of smoke carried on the wind and for a moment he felt his soul tug free to drift on the breeze with the voices of the dead and carrion birds.

  There were still many hundreds of bodies there on the killing ground, still lying where they had fallen. Not all could be identified, not even from one side or another, but there were enough green and gold Kingsguard uniforms to show Doranei where Coran had likely fallen. He hadn’t seen the body himself, but someone had said it bore terrible injuries – more than would be needed to kill a normal human or most white-eyes.

  Stubborn even to death¸ Doranei thought before muttering a prayer to the dead. I’ve no doubt you were a bastard to kill – you’d have had it no other way.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a group of people heading his way and his heart sank. Isak and Vesna, with Mihn in close attendance. The broken white-eye was entirely hidden by a long patchwork cloak, as though trying to hide his identity, but it was hard to mistake a shuffling seven-foot monster of a man, no matter how stooped he now was. The harsh voice of a crow swooping above them made Isak look up and follow its movement with wary intensity.

  By contrast Vesna, the Mortal-Aspect of Karkarn, looked pristine and regal. His title had been taken from him; Vesna was no longer a nobleman of the Farlan but had been dubbed Iron General by the God of War. Unlike Isak he still looked the part: his cl
othes were spotless, his hair neat and oiled, even the strange armoured arm Vesna now sported was clean and undamaged.

  Doranei sheathed his sword and turned to wait for them as the soldiers fled. He couldn’t blame them for being unwilling to loiter when Karkarn’s own approached them across a battlefield. Isak’s identity remained a secret. Even if his death hadn’t been widely reported, the horrific mass of scars on his face and body rendered him unrecognisable to anyone who might have known him.

  The King’s Man nodded as the group of Farlan reached him, not caring to do more even if they still expected it after giving up their noble titles. Seeing them here and now, he realised it meant as little to both men as it did to him. ‘Didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday,’ he said to Vesna.

  The handsome Farlan looked startled at the idea. ‘Because we charged the Menin?’

  ‘Aye, well, some of us appreciated it.’

  Vesna’s face darkened. ‘Not too many left to do so, by the time we got there. Not sure even our final stand in Scree compared to what I saw there. How many of you survived? Maybe a hundred all told, around the king?’

  ‘Easy to look heroic when there’s nowhere to run,’ Doranei said awkwardly.

  ‘No,’ Isak interrupted, ‘it would have been easy to give up – none of you did that.’

  Doranei scowled at the furrowed ground at his feet. ‘Yeah, well, sure I’ll find a knighthood in my morning porridge. What’re you doing out here?’

  ‘Walking.’

  Doranei cocked his head and looked inside the drooping hood Isak wore. The dead man’s face was twisted strangely, but whether he was trying to make a joke Doranei couldn’t tell. Isak’s expressions were forever ambiguous now: the daemons of Ghenna had seen to that.

  But there was something different about the young white-eye. Though permanently stooped, thanks to the abuse he’d received in Ghenna, Isak definitely stood a fraction taller today; it made Doranei think a weight had been lifted from those scarred shoulders. He had been born to be the Menin lord’s adversary, in more forms than one, so Isak could truly feel his purpose in life had been fulfilled.