The Dusk Watchman

by Tom Lloyd

  After he’d finished eating, Veil lay back against his pack with a satisfied sigh and loosened the adapted vambrace that had been made for him, with its twin prongs extending past his wrist. ‘So what happens to the people of Vanach once we’re done here?’ the King’s Man asked. ‘If this place is built around a lie, does the lie collapse?’

  ‘Not if Isak plays it right,’ Zhia said through the open entrance to her tent, which had been angled away from the sun to keep her from being burned. She watched her lover pull a cigar from inside his brigandine and blew a kiss towards him; a wisp of smoke drifted through the air and settled on the cigar’s tip to light it for him. ‘Only the commissars know what to expect at all, and all they know is what Vorizh has left for them on the inner walls of the ziggurat.’

  ‘So we sell them another lie?’

  Zhia raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless you have a spare army hidden about your person? We give them hope, something these people have lacked in a long time. The commissars can hardly argue with their mysteries being fulfilled and their saviour leaving to pursue the work of the Gods – certainly not if it leaves them in charge with an even greater mandate than before.’

  ‘How long does hope last?’

  ‘Ten thousand days,’ Isak mumbled, lost in the lazy glow of the fire’s embers, ‘longer than good intentions.’

  Mihn reached out and put up a hand on his friend’s arm, but only succeeded in startling the white-eye; his flinch prompted Hulf to wake and wriggle up closer, thumping his tail against the ground until Isak reached out to him.

  ‘Long enough for the Land to have changed,’ Mihn said with finality. ‘Whether or not we are left to see it, the faith of Vanach will be overturned by what comes. There will be no exceptions.’

  Before anyone could respond Legana began to click her fingers. With no time to bother with the slate hanging from her neck, the Mortal-Aspect pointed out through the trees with an urgency that needed no words.

  Leshi was guarding that flank of the camp; he was already moving silently from tree to tree. He worked his way forward, bow at the ready, but he made no attempt to draw it fully yet. The others went for their weapons. A muffled curse came from Zhia’s tent, but Doranei turned to the entrance and motioned for her to stay where she was. If her help was truly needed at this point in the journey they had sorely underestimated the Commissar Brigade; they didn’t want to risk her getting burned by sunlight anywhere there were religious fanatics.

  Isak closed his eyes and opened himself to the magic in his Crystal Skull, but before he could reach out to the Land around them he realised Zhia was doing the same. With a deftness that astonished him, he felt the vampire’s mind sweep past him and catch him in her wake, bringing his thoughts with her as she danced between the trees. Her touch was as cool and smooth as the emerald set in Eolis’ hilt, as unyielding, but just below the point of discomfort.

  He fought the urge to resist, knowing she was the stronger and posed him no threat, but it proved nearly impossible: her perfume filled his nostrils and grew thick in his throat, but it could not obscure the scent of a vampire that his white-eye soul screamed to kill. It was a faint and ancient odour, the tang of old blood mixed with the more familiar taste of magic, and something else he couldn’t identify.

  For a moment he managed to block out Zhia’s nature, and he glimpsed a party of men in black hoods advancing on them from the left, but then it all became too much and he had to tear himself from her magical grasp. He fell to his knees, gasping and shivering as he tried not to retch.

  Zhia returned to her scouting; it took her only a few heartbeats to sweep the whole area; with his senses still open to his Skull Isak could almost follow the slight disturbance of her mind through the afternoon air.

  ‘Ten coming in on our flank with crossbows,’ she said in his mind and pointed Isak towards the group he’d seen, ‘and another twenty spearmen moving from the north.’

  Isak repeated the words out loud and Vesna pulled his breastplate over his armoured arm and let Doranei strap it around his body. ‘Daken, Mihn, Tiniq – flank the crossbows; Ebarn, you draw their attention, and Shinir, get up a tree with a bow.’

  The Farlan woman nodded and grabbed her weapons. She had been born with some natural magical talent, but her tough upbringing had made her an Ascetite rather than a mage, turning the magic inwards and giving her unnatural physical skills instead. With little apparent effort she scampered up the bare trunk of the nearest pine and found herself a good position from which to shoot. Leshi, their other Ascetite, had already half-vanished into the forest; crouching in the lee of a great pine trunk, the ranger’s mottled brown cloak blended into the bark, and combined with his preternatural stillness made him easily missed by any scanning eyes.

  ‘Legana, stay here and look helpless in case any slip past,’ Vesna ordered. She was beautiful enough that they’d most likely want to capture rather than kill her, and anyone coming within reach of those knives was as good as dead.

  ‘Doranei, Veil, keep close behind me; Isak, head away on our right flank. We go as fast as we can. I’ll punch through the spear-men and we’ll come at them from the back while Isak lights them up.’

  Nods all round and weapons drawn showed his orders were understood. Each of them looked serious, grim-faced. Without a mage the attackers were never going to win the fight, but that wouldn’t be much consolation to anyone who lost a friend in the process.

  ‘Let’s move.’

  Isak watched Vesna lead the way across the needle-carpeted forest floor. The Mortal-Aspect moved as silently as the tattooed King’s Men, running at a crouch in the direction Zhia had indicated. Isak went slower, knowing he was less stealthy than the others, but making sure he’d be in position when Vesna attacked. The enemy had split their forces: they no doubt wanted to spread panic with the crossbows first, so the larger group wouldn’t be expecting to be attacked themselves.

  Behind him Isak sensed Ebarn embrace the energies in her Crystal Skull, her magic unfolding like a flower with its sharp tang overlaying the forest’s resinous scent. He stumbled and nearly fell, his mind alive with sudden memories, as Doranei ducked down behind a tree, sword held low at his side. For a moment he was on the south trail, east of Helrect, where he’d first seen Doranei’s black sword, where he’d first tasted magic filling his mind.

  I’d been hoping for the scent of pine again, the forests of home no different to these. In his mind there was a blank emptiness at the heart of his memories, a picture torn in half where a man he couldn’t remember was lost from his memory.

  Carel, his name was Carel.

  Reminding himself didn’t matter, however; the memory was lost from Isak’s head no matter how much Vesna or Mihn told him of the veteran Ghost. A dull throb flourished in the back of his head, the numb pain of ice pressed against skin that always came on when he tried to remember things that were lost, as if the holes in his mind opened onto a void where even warmth was dead. A part of him feared the cold would consume him if he tried to look into that void too long.

  I’m dead to him; he’s dead to me. ‘Balance in all things,’ Isak whispered.

  The pain fled and he found himself blinking out across the forest floor at the still figure of Vesna, half-armoured, half-God.

  ‘We must find balance,’ Isak continued as though repeating a charm against sickness, ‘before hate, before rage or revenge. I’m nothing without control and the Land’s a wasteland without balance.’

  He forced himself to continue, moving sluggishly at first but quickly recovering himself as the white-eye’s anticipation of a fight began to sing him his blood. He couldn’t tell how close the enemy were now, and tried to gauge it from the three ahead of him. They advanced steadily, covering the ground quickly before the shooting started elsewhere, using anything they could as cover, fallen trees and dips in the ground serving where bushes or bracken did not.

  After fifty-odd yards they stopped and Vesna looked back to check on Isak’s position. The
Farlan hero gestured to let him know that the enemy were approaching and Isak raised Eolis in acknowledgement. Where Leshi was they couldn’t tell; the ranger had vanished from sight, but Isak knew he’d be close. He could hear the Vanach soldiers now, the faint brush of bracken betraying their presence not far off. He put his hands down to the Skull at his belt and saw tiny threads of lightning crackle over his scarred fingers. He might be free of his obligations to Nartis, but the spirit of the Storm God lived on inside him and he could feel the magic hungering to be released.

  As one, Vesna, Doranei and Veil broke from cover and charged. Isak followed, and saw Vesna reach the enemy first, his armoured fist encased in spitting green energies as he cleaved through the spear of the nearest and spun to shoulder him out of the way. He caught a second shaft with his left arm and it exploded into matches while he chopped through the mail-covered thigh of another.

  Before any of the men could react Doranei had arrived with his enchanted blade, his long, graceful sweeps parting shields and men in a single blow. Veil followed his Brother, not looking for the killing blows as he slashed with a longsword, just putting them down: one he winged, another managed to deflect the blow with his spear, but was caught with a punch to the ribs from Veil’s spiked arm. The twin spikes were barbless and came away freely as Veil passed. Isak saw a bloody wheeze of air expelled from the man’s pierced side: he was no further threat.

  As the three pushed on through their enemy, the line folded inwards to follow them. On their left flank a man suddenly staggered drunkenly, and Isak saw an arrow protruding from his neck just as a second shot from Leshi struck the next in the chest and knocked him over. Isak could see their uniforms now, and he launched a coruscating lance of magic at the black longsword stitched onto a pale leather surcoat, which ignited when the bolt struck. The lightning wrenched the first man around and grabbed the next in its teeth too fast to avoid; then another was taken by the spitting energy, striking with the force of a ballista bolt and smashing them to the ground where they convulsed, screaming as their black swords burned yellow on their chests.

  Now Vesna turned and attacked from the other side. He stepped between spear-points and cut left and right before the soldiers even saw him. Limbs were severed and bodies dropped away, but he didn’t wait to see; he was already moving on to the next. The quickest of the Black Swords dropped their spears and pulled out their own swords out, but Vesna adapted in a heartbeat, turning away their weapons with a duellist’s flicking skill, then stepping in for short, lethal thrusts.

  Isak did not bother with artistry but trusted to the edge of Eolis and his own supernatural speed. Holding his sword in two hands, he turned an outthrust spear and stepped in to decapitate the owner. Seeing Isak was inside his guard, another soldier slammed his shield into Isak’s side, trying to throw him off-balance. Isak rode the buffeting and slashed back, chopping the wooden shield in two and eliciting a scream of pain.

  The Black Swords fell like wheat, unable to meet the skill of their attackers or resist the power of their swords. Isak punched one soldier with a magic-wrapped fist and the man’s head snapped back, his face shattered, while another, bewildered and terrified by the storm of blood all around him, stood still and stared aghast at the arrow protruding from his chest. Doranei glided past him as he looked down, caught in a dance of his own and barely noticing as he lopped the soldier’s sword-arm off—

  And then there was only one.

  Vesna struck the last a glancing blow, his armoured fingers whipping across the soldier’s face and sending him crashing to the ground, and at last he could be still: his sword outstretched and ready for another blow that was not needed. He looked around at the squirming injured at his feet and peered intently at each, then stalked over to one lying face-down and kicking weakly.

  He rolled the soldier on his back and found the yellow scarf around his neck denoting a commissar. One of them had opened the man’s belly and the pock-cheeked man was gasping like a fish even as he tried to scream. Vesna ended his pain and moved on to the next, assessing the man’s injury before putting him out of his misery.

  Isak checked those near him: the closest two were dead, but the man who’d hit him with a shield was still alive. He lay on his back, his face contorted with pain as his life’s blood pumped from the stump of his arm, spurting weakly with every panicked breath. The man was little older than Isak himself, but the white-eye felt nothing inside as he kneeled to inspect the injury.

  Mihn said I did this once for Carel, he recalled. The man stared up at him with horror in his eyes, right hand clamped around what remained of his arm. Did he thank me, I wonder, or was it my fault to begin with?

  He reached down and touched two white fingers to the spurting wound. The soldier shrieked then fainted as searing flame encased the end of his arm, blessedly passing out as his blood steamed and the fat sizzled with the stink of bitter pork.

  ‘That one still alive?’ Vesna called. Isak cocked his head, for a moment unsure, before he nodded to Vesna.

  ‘Good, that gives us two – that’s enough to find out who among the commissars doesn’t want a saviour.’

  ‘Two?’ Leshi asked with a humourless laugh. ‘Don’t reckon so.’ The ranger walked to where Vesna stood over the man he’d struck across the face instead of killing him. ‘You’ve got something of the white-eye about you now, Iron General.’ He rolled the soldier over with his foot and pointed. The man’s jaw, nose and cheek were shattered and bloody. There wasn’t quite the impression of a hand in his head, but the damage was clear. No one needed to check if he was still breathing. ‘See?’

  Vesna stared down at the corpse, then flexed his black-iron fingers with a worried expression. There was blood smeared over the ornate metal.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Isak called, ‘you get used to it.’

  ‘I barely caught him,’ Vesna muttered. ‘It should have just knocked him over.’

  ‘Try getting an accidental elbow in bed,’ Doranei muttered darkly as he bent to wipe his massive sword on a corpse. ‘Pretty sure Zhia broke my rib once when she rolled over in her sleep.’

  Isak hauled up the unconscious Black Sword and draped him over his shoulder. Before moving off he turned to view the bodies of the rest. ‘Not one thought to run.’

  Leshi said grimly, ‘Unless their commissar’s dead, they don’t dare. Better to get massacred than have your name reported back. The Black Swords are faithful soldiers o’ the Gods, the first tier o’ the Blessed. They’re encouraged to have families and raise the next generation of devoted warriors.’

  ‘And if the parents are found wanting, the children must be defective too?’ Vesna guessed.

  ‘You run from battle, you’re defying the word of your God – heresy through cowardice, and that means they make ’em face their death.’ The stoical, otherworldly ranger shivered and looked down. ‘Saw a mechanism for it in a core settlement, made just for executing cowards. They strapped every member of a family into the frame and swung down a bar with two spikes – impaled ’em through the eyes, one by one.’

  With that Leshi turned and headed away from the slaughter to see how their friends had fared. Isak found he couldn’t tear his eyes off the dead bodies, it was only when Vesna started to go through the jacket of the commissar that he seemed to jerk awake.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ Vesna reported after a short while. He fingered the dead commissar’s scarf. It was fastened by a white leather band just below the man’s throat.

  ‘I’d swear Yokar’s wasn’t white,’ Vesna said, looking at Dora nei, who had been closest to the man.

  Doranei nodded in agreement. ‘It was darker, hard to tell exactly what colour at night, but certainly not white. Reckon this indicates a faction within the brigade?’

  ‘There are markings on it, a script maybe? It’s not Elvish or any I recognise. Some sort of designation I’d guess. Who watches the watchmen, eh?’

  The King’s Man sheathed his sword and started back towards the
ir camp. ‘Aye, keeps ’em all in line, then, recruiting the worst for secret internal security. Not so far from my job as I’d like.’

  Back at the camp they found their comrades all healthy and unharmed. Though Daken was liberally sprayed with blood, the white-eye’s cheerful expression told them it wasn’t his own.

  ‘You took a prisoner?’ Mihn asked, as they approached. He glanced back at Daken. ‘Somehow we managed to forget that bit.’

  ‘Bring him in here,’ Zhia ordered. ‘I’ll find out what he knows.’

  Vesna gave a cough of shock. ‘Hey, hold on now – just what are you proposing to do?’

  Isak deposited the unconscious soldier on the ground out side Zhia’s tent and looked from one to the other as Zhia, peering through the flap, stared Vesna down. The rest of the party took an imperceptible step back, with the exception of Mihn and Doranei. The King’s Man stood his ground, but Isak saw dismay on Doranei’s face rather than anything antagonistic. He guessed this was an uncomfortable discussion the lovers had already had.

  ‘You disapprove?’ Zhia murmured.

  ‘I’m asking what you’re planning on doing.’

  In the shadows of the thick shawl that shaded her face, Zhia raised an eyebrow. ‘And yet in a way that makes me think you don’t really want an answer. How about this: nothing worse than the murder you’ve already done and the torture you were likely planning for the boy.’

  ‘You’ll feed on him?’ Vesna persisted. ‘Turn him with your curse? Gift this place with one more of your kind – most become blood-hungry monsters when they’re turned, no?’

  She glanced at Legana. ‘My dear, what lurid stories have you told them about our exploits in Scree?’ There was a playful edge to Zhia’s voice, but in a way that reminded Isak what parts of a sword were dangerous. ‘How I live isn’t your concern, Iron General – be glad I have joined your cause when your lord was one of those to flay my soul with this curse!’