Servant: The Dark God Book 1

by John D. Brown

  The dreadman galloped even with the hindquarters of another of Argoth’s riders. He raised his sword and slashed the animal’s rump. The horse faltered, and the dreadman pulled even with the rider.

  The rider parried two blows from the dreadman, but the third took him square in the face, knocking him into the grass.

  This couldn’t continue: the dreadman would kill them all.

  Argoth cried out a challenge.

  The dreadman saw him and turned his horse.

  Argoth was not fully multiplied. But he didn’t care. This bare-chested piece of rot was going to be strung up with his own guts.

  The dreadman put his heels into his horse, and, within a few strides, he and Argoth rode full gallop at each other. Relish gleamed in the dreadman’s eye. Then the diseased goat-lover grinned.

  Laugh now, Argoth thought, because your joy is at an end. He took his sword in his left hand, drew his bodkin, and then, with all the strength he could muster, threw it.

  The bodkin flashed in the sun. The dreadman saw it and tried to swerve, but the blade buried itself in the horse just below its shoulder.

  The horse stumbled and cast the dreadman off balance. But he didn’t have time to leap away.

  Argoth swung his sword in a backhanded arc that sliced the man in the side.

  The dreadman cried out and fell.

  It was not a mortal blow. But it was a start.

  Argoth pulled his reins and turned around for another charge. He put his heels into the horse’s flanks and shot forth, sword held ready to strike.

  And that is when the dreadman made his second mistake. He should have run. Instead he turned to face Argoth. One of Argoth’s men had kept his bow. And it only took a moment for him to draw, release, and speed the shaft deep into the dreadman’s back.

  The dreadman arched, twisted. A second arrow followed the first and struck him in the ribs. Then Argoth thundered down upon him. The dreadman turned, the joy replaced by hate. He raised his sword, but it was too late, and Argoth drove his own weapon deep into the man’s chest and left it there.

  He galloped a number of yards farther and turned his horse, waiting for the dreadman to fall. When he did, Argoth’s remaining men converged.

  Argoth whistled and signaled for a portion of those remaining to find and help the ten who had split off from the main group to chase the others.

  The men would hack the dreadman’s head off to ensure he was dead. Then they would remove his weave, although none would dare claim it. It was impossible to know what traps might be worked into any given weave by looking at it. And even if the men knew the weave had no traps, they would still handle it with great care.

  Weaves were endowments, created by a special order of Divines called Kains, and bestowed upon a man or woman for a special task. Sometimes the Divines bestowed a weave upon a group, a family or company of men, who shared its use. There were many types of weaves. Some were crowns, others arm bands, others necklaces or piercings. There was even one made by the Mungo Divines that was a coat of grass. Some weaves were given for healing, some for sight, some to allow its bearer to speak to the dead.

  Some needed a loremaster to use them. Others, called wildweaves, could be used by anyone. Varro had been given one of these—a ring that would magnify its bearer for war.

  Whatever the purpose of the weave, only those included in its covenant could wear it. And then they were allowed to use only the specific weave given them by the Divine. To use a weave outside a specific covenant was high treason and punished by death.

  Argoth turned to ride back to Varro.

  Just a little over a year ago Varro had been recommended by the Shoka warlord to become a dreadman. It was a great honor to him and his family, but it was also a burden. Dreadmen wielded immense powers, but they were expected to fight more frequently and with greater valor. Placing oneself in so many battles exposed a man to enormous risk, even for a dreadman. And so it was that while a weave might claim a long genealogy of heroes, those heroes often very quickly ended up maimed or dead.

  Argoth hoped Varro had escaped that fate today. He was one of the best men Argoth had ever commanded, and that was well before Varro had been called to the covenant.

  A Bone Face with a wounded leg tried to crawl away through the grass. Argoth motioned at the man and said, “Bind him for questioning.” Then he went to Varro, dismounted, and knelt at his side.

  Varro was more than just another fine asset, he was a friend, who was now bleeding from a deep slice in his gut. He obviously had not gone down without a fight.

  Argoth wanted to use Varro’s bodkin to loosen the bindings on his wrists and ankles, but it was not in its sheath, so he looked about and found a stick instead. Then he used it to work loose Varro’s knots.

  Varro groaned and looked up at Argoth.

  “Are you alive, man?” Argoth asked. It was a joke among his troops to ask this, for if the man were dead, it was said Argoth would reach through to the other side and punish the man for slacking. Not even death would hide his men from discipline and drilling.

  “Only a scratch, mind you,” Varro said and winced. “I believe I’ve got a jig”—another wince—“or two yet in me.”

  Argoth smiled grimly. The cut into Varro’s bowels might prove to be his death. Yet another life consumed by this weave.

  “What were you doing, running like that?” Argoth demanded.

  “The weave,” said Varro. “It failed.”

  But that was impossible.

  Argoth picked up Varro’s hand and looked at his ring.

  The ring was gold. Cursed gold. Not black with magic, not even gray. Grass, silver, or gold, it didn’t matter what the weaves were made of—when the Kains drew Fire into them, the device turned black as a crow. The more power that went into it, the blacker the weave. But this one was now nothing more than a ring.

  Argoth finished untying Varro. It was possible to damage a weave so that it leaked Fire. Argoth asked Varro if he might remove it, and Varro consented. Argoth held it up in the light, acting like he was inspecting it, and probed it with his own magic. There was no flaw. The Fire had simply been used up. The magic was gone.

  There were only three other such weaves among the Nine Clans with any blackening at all. All the rest had run dry. And Argoth could not fill them. Not because he didn’t know the secrets. He knew the forbidden lore and had secretly bled his Fire into a number of the weaves. He’d bled Fire into this one, but he simply didn’t have any more Fire to give. He’d already sacrificed enough Fire to reduce his life by tens of years. Measuring the Fire of a man’s days was an inexact art; he feared if he gave anymore, he would forfeit his life. And he couldn’t gather Fire publicly. The Clans would rise up and kill him for that.

  “There will be more,” said Varro. “What are we going to do?”

  He meant the Bone Faces, coming in the dead of night, with only a crust of moon in the sky, dozens of galleys scraping up on the beach. They would come, their dark faces painted white as bone. They would come like they had for the last four years.

  Except this time they would easily overpower the force of the Nine Clans because the New Lands had no Divines. All they needed was one Fire Wizard, a Divine who could fill their weaves of might, but they had none, which meant they also had no dreadmen.

  “Mokad will send a Divine,” he told Varro. “Why would they abandon us? Now muster your strength. We’ll get you back to the fort and have the surgeon look at you.”

  The Bone Faces had come last year with dozens of dreadmen in their armies. Only Argoth’s seafire had saved the Nine Clans. But it would not save them this year. The Bone Faces knew about the fire that burned on water. They would not make the same mistake of letting their ships be caught on the sea.

  But even if they did, with dreadmen at their oars, they would easily outdistance the clan galleys. His ships might be able to spew fire, but they’d never catch their prey.

  Argoth cursed. Lumen, the land’s only Divine, h
ad disappeared last year. And Mokad had not sent a replacement. Unless the boy Glory of Mokad, the overlord of the Mokaddian Divines, sent help, those in the New Lands would stand unmultiplied before their enemies, and they would fall. The boy Glory had failed to subdue the islands of the Kartong, failed to heed advice and prepare for the famine that blasted Mokad a few years ago, failed to protect them against the Bone Faces. Weren’t his failures proof enough that the Creators had nothing to do with the selection and raising of Glories and Divines?

  Argoth ordered his men to make a litter. Gut wounds were evil and tended toward corruption. They could only wait and see if Varro would survive. Of course, if they’d had a Divine or a working healing weave, they might be able to better Varro’s odds.

  Argoth was tempted to work some lore right now on Varro, but knew it would be unwise. So he stood and turned to the three Bone Faces lying on the ground. He needed information, and he needed it now. He commanded that the two prisoners who seemed likely to survive their wounds be stripped and bound to a tree at the edge of the meadow. While the prisoners were being dragged off, he helped Varro onto the litter.

  At that moment a company of men on horse galloped out of the ravine and into the meadow. Argoth turned. He immediately saw it was Shim, the warlord of the Shoka, Argoth’s Clan. When they came closer, he saw that Bosser, a captain from the Vargon Clan, rode with them.

  Shim pulled his large chestnut horse up in front of Argoth. It was slicked with sweat and tossed its head. Shim was not a large man, but wiry, weathered like an old post, and cunning as a snake. His voice was as dry and raspy as old weeds.

  “Always in haste,” Shim said. “Can you never wait for us?”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Argoth. “I believe it’s in my Lord’s nature to be like a blister: always showing up when the work is done.”

  Shim grinned.

  Bosser, who grew the short-haired moustache on both sides of his mouth down to his jaw, laughed.

  But Argoth did not feel the humor of his own joke. “Varro’s weave is as gold and shiny as a lady’s ring.”

  Shim’s face soured. He grunted. He motioned at the Bone Face prisoners with his chin. “At least I’m not too late for that.” He turned in his saddle and addressed one of those behind him. “Bring my tools.” Then he rode to the prisoners who were each tied up at a tree. A moment later his man brought him a leather bag.

  Shim removed a pair of tooth pliers from the bag and turned to the Bone Face who seemed to be holding out the best. One of Shim’s men spoke the Bone Face language. Shim turned to him. “Tell him I want to know where their island base is. Tell him he’s got one chance.”

  The translator relayed the message. When he finished, the Bone Face spat at Shim.

  Shim narrowed his dark eyes. “So be it,” he said. He turned to his captain. “Get the wedge.”

  The Captain withdrew from the bag a brass wedge used to force a man’s mouth. Argoth took the Bone Face by the hair to steady his head, then worked the wedge into the man’s mouth. With the man’s mouth open, Shim gripped one of the Bone Face’s molars with his pliers.

  The man groaned and bucked, but Shim was not a man to play games. The Bone Faces had slaughtered thousands for no other reason that that they could. Shim squeezed the pliers, and with a sharp yank, pulled the tooth out.

  The Bone Face cried out. His head lolled down with the pain. Blood mixed with saliva and drooled out the corner of his mouth. He looked up, rage in his eyes.

  Shim held the bloody tooth out for him to see. “I’m fully prepared to hold you prisoner for a future exchange. But it’s going to cost you some information. I am not a man that will be delayed.”

  The translator relayed the message in that sour, Bone Face tongue.

  The Bone Face replied.

  The translator arched an eyebrow. “He says only a woman would think of taking a tooth.”

  Shim simply shook his head. “Perhaps we should cut off something more important to him.” He pointed at the man’s groin. “Tell him we’ll take one, and if he still doesn’t talk, we’ll take the other.”

  The translator relayed the message.

  Arogth looked at the second man. Shim’s performance was having its intended effect upon him.

  “Where is your ship?” asked Argoth.

  The translator spoke.

  At that moment, a messenger rode into the meadow at full gallop. He called out to two soldiers searching the saddle bags of a Bone Face horse for the location of the warlord. One pointed in Shim’s direction. The messenger galloped through the tall grass to Shim and pulled up to a halt.

  “What is it now?” Shim asked.

  The messenger looked down at the prisoner. “My lord,” he said. “May I suggest a more private place?”

  Shim sighed. “Probably more council instructions. Very well.” He turned to one of the men with him and pointed at the Bone Face who had lost a tooth. “Lay out all our tools for them to see. A little think should do them good.”

  “Forgive me, Lord,” the messenger said. “But I was asked to give the message to Lord Bosser as well.”

  “Very well,” said Shim. He turned to Bosser and Argoth. “Why don’t you both come?”

  They walked a number of yards away and stood in the grass.

  “What is it then?” asked Shim. His voice was so dry it made Argoth thirsty.

  “Sleth have attacked at the village of Plum,” said the messenger.

  Argoth tensed. That was where Purity, one of the members of the Order, lived. Had she been exposed? Lords, had she revealed the Order?

  The messenger then related to the three of them how the territory lord of the Fir-Noy had organized a hunt, how the children of Sparrow the smith had escaped, and how a nightmare creature had killed one of the families in the village.

  With every word Argoth’s heart sank.

  When the messenger finished, Shim told him to take a message to Lords of the Fir-Noy and dismissed the man. When the messenger rode off, Shim whistled through his teeth.

  Bosser grunted and stroked his moustache the way he did when he was in deep thought.

  “What do you think?” asked Shim. “Yet another Fir-Noy scheme to purge the Nine Clans of the Koramites, or have the Bone Faces begun to move their wizards?”

  Bosser shook his head. “I do not trust the Fir-Noy, but even they wouldn’t make something like this up.” He spoke in the common Mokaddian, but his Vargon accent was still thick, rolling his r’s and turning his v’s into f’s. He sighed. “Dreadmen with failing weaves, Koramite spies, sleth. We’re a kingdom of dust. Perhaps it’s time to flee these shores.”

  Shim’s anger rose. “Flee? By all that’s holy, I will stand my ground. I’ve spilt my blood here, sired children on these hills. I will triumph or die trying. I will hear no talk of flight.”

  “There are young ones with full lives ahead of them,” said Bosser.

  Argoth knew Bosser was thinking of his own children. The Bone Faces would make them chattel. They would rape the women and force those they thought were pretty into being concubines. And when they had finished, they would draw the Fire of the people to build their armies. They would levy taxes of Fire until people begin dropping like flies.

  “Perhaps it isn’t Bone Faces at all,” said Bosser. “Maybe the stone-wights have produced this.”

  Argoth wondered. The stone-wight ruins had never been fully explored. When the first settlers had arrived in this land, they found a number of ridges and cliffs riddled with the ruins of extensive warrens. The Teeth, a six-mile ridge of limestone hills that looked from a distance like the maw of some fearsome fanged animals, was the biggest. These weren’t nasty holes in the ground, but long passages with many chambers. Over the years, many parts had eroded and fallen in. Pools of water stood in what once must have been grand halls. Bats littered the floors in many chambers with mounds of excrement. But what was left showed that the mysterious race had carved with intelligence. For lack of a
ny other name, the settlers called the vanished race stone-wights.

  Nobody had seen a living stone-wight. The carvings and bones found in the warrens gave a good idea of what the creatures looked like. They walked upright, some with the long hair of a musk ox, but they were clearly not any breed of human. Their heads were too long for that, as were the short tusks found in a few of the skulls.

  Some said the stone-wights were the same type of creature that inhabited the desolate solitudes in the lands of the Kish. The Kish called those creatures ungar. But Argoth had tracked one many years ago, back in his dark days. He’d never caught the creature, but he had glimpsed it, and it looked nothing like what was carved in the walls of the stone-wight caves. Some saw evidence the stone-wights had worshipped Regret and claimed the other Six Creators had obliterated them for their wickedness. This had led Koramite and Mokaddian parents to tell dreadful tales of stone-wights to their children to keep them obedient.

  But if the stone-wights had been so wicked, so dedicated to undoing the creation, then why had they delighted in carving so many beautiful things of the world above their lairs? Argoth had seen a people vacate a land because of pestilence or drought. Perhaps this same thing happened to these ancient inhabitants. Argoth suspected the woodikin, who inhabited the wild lands beyond The Gap, knew the true tale, for woodikin were recorded in at least one of the carvings. But humans had not been able to extend their borders much into the wild lands. But even if they could learn how to survive those places, there was too much hate between human and woodikin.

  It was true what looked to be records had been found in the stone-wight caves, but nobody could interpret the language. It was as foreign as the tongue of fishes. The stone-wights were a race whose history had been swallowed up by time.

  Yet something did live in the caves. The warrens were uncanny places. Odd lights were seen in some of the windows. It was said some passageways whispered. But that did not deter the curious. A scattering of treasure was found along with the bones of odd beasts. But as the first settlers delved deeper, people began to enter and never return.