Ghost of the Wall

by Jeff Mariotte

  Both stared at him, he realized. Waited for him to answer. Uncomfortable, he picked up a pebble, turned it in his fingers, and hurled it toward the top of the hill. “I believe I am making progress,” he said.

  “How?” Klea asked. “What kind of progress?”

  Kral felt his face flush, surprised at his own embarrassment. “I have been . . . visiting Koronaka. The settlers have been building a wall, which seems intended to keep us on one side and them on the other. I have been doing what I can to disrupt the building of that wall, and at the same time trying to find out who has the Teeth, or where it is.”

  “Trying to find out . . .” Klea echoed.

  “I have been killing them, one by one,” Kral announced. “Questioning them to find out what they know, if anything, then leaving them dead for the others to find. Teaching them to fear me.”

  Klea looked astonished at his revelation, but Mang just nodded with grim satisfaction. “Good,” he said. “The more of them dead, the better.”

  “But have you learned anything this way?” Klea asked.

  “I believe so,” Kral replied. “I think I have a clue. Tonight, I will follow up on it.”

  “Perhaps you should wait before going again,” Mang suggested. “When the clans have united—”

  “It will be too late,” Klea interrupted. “You said it yourself, the more dead the better. And if Kral thinks he can find the Teeth this way, he needs to continue on with it.”

  “It sounds very dangerous,” Mang pointed out.

  “It is,” Kral said. “I’m not afraid of danger.”

  “A little danger is a small price to pay if he can find the crown,” Klea observed.

  “I am happy for Kral to kill as many settlers as he can,” Mang countered, addressing her as if Kral weren’t sitting right there. “But I worry that they will decide to move the crown away from Koronaka if he continues with these raids. If he were to wait until we have a unified force that could invade their fort, with the same fury and overwhelming numbers which with they must have attacked us, then—”

  “Then their defensive wall may well be finished,” Kral cut in. “I don’t know if it’s just an effort here at Koronaka, or all across the borderlands. But I fear that it means a greater effort at holding us off, perhaps a return to the days of all-out war. Waiting is no option, Mang. As much as I respect your age and wisdom, I must insist that you let me keep up what I’ve already begun.”

  Mang leaned forward, picking up a stick, and began to doodle in the dirt. “My only worry is that you will be killed,” Mang said. “Then where will we be? Unless you tell us what you have learned, and how to continue, all your efforts will have been for naught.”

  “Very well,” Kral acknowledged. “Listen, and I will tell you everything . . .”

  16

  “TELL ME THIS again,” Lupinius demanded angrily. He was on his feet, pacing his flagstoned courtyard. Sharzen sat on the steps with the scroll on his lap and a hangdog look on his face. “He refuses us the funds?”

  “And insists that we reinstate the truce,” Sharzen added. “‘I sent an ambassador to the borderlands to cement the peace, not to destroy it,’” he read. “According to Malthus, the king was furious. I’m glad I wasn’t there myself. Malthus thinks he was ready to tear someone limb from limb.”

  “Once a barbarian,” Lupinius said. “What do you expect?”

  “So, should we abandon the wall?” Sharzen wondered.

  Lupinius threw his hands in the air. The governor was so helpless without him. “Of course not! The wall secures the peace. The only way to guarantee peace with savages is to limit contact between them and civilized people. The wall is the best way to accomplish that.”

  “But . . . without financial help from Tarantia, I don’t know how we will be able to afford to continue,” Sharzen moaned. “We have already put so much of our treasury into it, counting on reimbursement from the king.”

  None of Lupinius’s private funds had gone into the wall project, and he intended to keep it that way. But he wanted Sharzen to keep the wall going, didn’t want him to decide that it had been a bad idea from the start. To admit failure might give Sharzen the idea that he didn’t need Lupinius after all.

  Anyway, his own financial situation was perilous enough as it was. He had to pay a household staff, plus all his Rangers. He had been counting on some treasure from that Pictish hoard, then come out of it with nothing but a stupid crown of bones and teeth. His brother had always been good for emergency loans, but now he was dead. Invictus owned an estate back in Tarantia, but Lupinius had no way to know what that was worth, if anything. It had been years since he had seen it. And now this—a barbarian king who couldn’t even see the future when it was handed to him on a platter.

  Living like a gentleman out here on the border wasn’t nearly as costly as doing so back in the city, but there were still expenses. His head whirled as he tried to figure out his next step. It didn’t help that Sharzen slumped on his steps with his eyes liquid, looking like a whipped puppy.

  “I don’t care how you pay for it,” Lupinius growled. “Raise taxes if you need to. Financing is your problem, Sharzen. I need to think about how best to continue, and to get the other settlements to join our effort, in the face of this . . . this minor setback.”

  “Minor?” Sharzen echoed. “Malthus said the king was furious.”

  “And a thousand miles away!” Lupinius reminded him. “He can’t hurt you, Sharzen.”

  “I serve at his pleasure,” Sharzen pointed out. “Need I remind you that Aquilonia appoints the provincial governors? He could recall me in an instant.” He shuddered violently. “Recall me to Tarantia, in fact. Where he could reach me. Or just throw me in prison for the rest of my life.”

  “You overreact dramatically,” Lupinius said. He thought the sight of the man’s panic would make him physically ill. He turned to gaze at the cloudless indigo sky over the roof of his home. The sun was almost down, streaks of pink shooting into the dark sky. Another night, another opportunity for the Ghost of the Wall to strike. “I think you should go home, Sharzen, and let me think.”

  “If . . . if that is what you want,” Sharzen agreed. “But if you have any ideas, be sure you let me know right away.”

  “I always have ideas, Sharzen. You should have learned that by now, if nothing else.”

  “I know,” Sharzen said as he rose from the stairs. He rolled the scroll and tucked it away in his robes. “I am only afraid that this time, your ideas may have brought ruin to both of us.”

  THE GUARDS WERE accustomed to Kral’s taking his victims from on top of the wall, or in front of it. Since it was his intention to keep them guessing, never to let them figure out his next move, he decided to do just the opposite.

  Tonight, he was going inside the wall.

  He went to one of his usual spots to examine their defenses. There were two guards stationed together every fifty feet or so, some with dogs on leashes sniffing at the breeze. Torches were mounted on the wall’s surface between them, and firepots to illuminate the night on the top above every pair of guards. The gateway Kral had burned had already been rebuilt, and four guards surrounded it.

  Getting past a force of that size would be nearly impossible.

  On the other hand, they clearly expected him to try anyway. So he would. He would accomplish the impossible, just not the way they thought he would.

  He wouldn’t go over the wall, after all.

  He would go around it.

  The settlers had been building the wall away from Koronaka as quickly as possible, then once the structural base had been laid, building it up with a combination of stone and logs. But it was still little more than four miles long. Kral melted into the wooded shadows and made his way to the northern end of the wall, then continued for another half mile or so. The guards were posted the length of the wall, but not into the forest beyond that. In the woods, he heard night birds, the strident complaints of crickets, the rustle of
small animals. Those creatures didn’t even pause in their activities, so silent was the young Pict.

  Once he was sure he was well past the end of the wall, he cut to the southeast, taking him onto the Aquilonian side of the wall. Again, he traveled much farther than was absolutely necessary because he wanted to make sure he was past where the guards would be stationed. He traveled quickly, with the easy pace of one raised in the woods.

  Still certain that he had been unobserved, Kral turned back to the south, in a direction that would bring him toward Koronaka. Toward the most developed section of the wall. After a short while he could hear noises from the wall—voices, laughter, the sounds of hard-bitten men trying to keep themselves alert through the long, cool night. The trees continued to shield him from view as he approached the wall from the side he had not yet seen. When the flickering of torches and the steady glow of lanterns began to be visible through the foliage, he stopped to survey the scene and figure out a plan of action.

  From here, the construction looked very different. The wall was buttressed on the inside by a series of logwork braces. Small timber buildings had been thrown up, as well, particularly in the area of the gates. They looked like small cabins, built up against the wall itself, using that structure as the back wall of each cabin. The roofs of the cabins were flat, and could serve as expanded parapets for soldiers to look out over the top of the wall.

  The cabins seemed quiet. Kral suspected that they were barracks, where soldiers could sleep when they weren’t on duty. The torches and lanterns were kept away from those, and guards were keeping their distance—so as, Kral guessed, not to awaken those slumbering within.

  Both facts told Kral that those cabins were where he wanted to be.

  The idea crystallized in his mind as he weaved through the trees toward the nearest of the cabins. He had been trying to create an impression among the settlers of a mysterious force of nature, someone who could attack anytime, anywhere, without warning. The doubling and redoubling of the guards showed that his plan was working, at least on some kind of overall, strategic level.

  But what he also wanted was for the average soldier to be personally terrified of him, so that when he did single one out, that soldier would rather tell him what he wanted to know than try to resist.

  Instead of trying to pick off alert guards, who were watching one another’s backs closely, he would drop in on sleeping soldiers.

  The last fifty feet before the door to the barracks was clear ground—some tall grass and a few bushes, but no trees. Kral took the bow from his back and set it beside a tree, then added the quiver of arrows. He would be up close to his enemies tonight. Knife distance. Calera root distance.

  He dropped to a crouch before he left the cover of the trees. The moon cast a silvery glow on the grasses, but Kral knew the focus of the guards was toward the other side of the wall, not this side. He dashed to the nearest of the larger bushes. Flattening himself, he crawled through the tall grass, oblivious to the scratching and clawing of thick stalks, rocks, and other objects against his bare, painted flesh.

  He didn’t try to rush, but made sure that his progress was steady and unobserved. As he got closer to the barracks, he stopped frequently, raising his head to look out and make sure no one’s attention was turned toward him.

  Finally, he was within a short sprint of the barracks door.

  Checking once more to be sure he was clear, he rose for the last dash. Reaching the door, he stopped and pressed his ear against the wood, listening. From within, he could hear only an erratic snoring. No way to tell how many men he would find inside. At least it didn’t sound like anyone was awake.

  Pushing against the door to keep noise down, he worked the latch and opened the door just enough to slip inside. The interior was dark, but he had been out in the night for long enough that he could see fairly well by the dim light that filtered in through cracks in the hastily built wall and the one small slit of a window. There were six bunks, three occupied at the moment. In one of them, across the room by the window, the snoring man lay on his back with one knee bent, sticking up in the air. Nearer, a slender young man slept on his stomach, one arm hanging off the side of the bed and scraping the floor. In the bunk beside his, a burly, grizzled veteran snoozed with his mouth open.

  The rest of the room was open and plain. Weapons ranked against one wall, shelves and hooks for clothing and armor. The soldiers no doubt prepared food and ate by the fire pits outside.

  Kral decided to concentrate on the veteran. He would rather have chosen the younger soldier, who was the closest to him. But the veteran would put up a fiercer battle than would the young one, and it was possible that the young one would be terrified into silence if he woke up. The snorer was just too loud, and Kral was afraid that he would make a racket. So he moved quietly through the room, the sound of his passage drowned out by the man’s raucous breathing.

  Standing at the snorer’s side, Kral drew his pouch from his girdle and bent over the man. He reached out and closed the man’s nostrils with the fingers of his left hand. The man instantly woke up, eyes wide, gasping for breath. Kral blew a handful of calera root powder into the man’s open mouth. With his left hand, he squeezed the man’s nose, holding his head still. The man struggled for air, inhaling the powder as he did. He made a soft gagging sound as the powder took effect.

  That was enough to alert the old veteran, however. He snapped awake and began to sit up. Kral moved faster. He drew his knife and knelt on the man with one leg. Pressing him back down against his bunk, Kral dug the knife into his neck just enough to make it clear that he could dispatch the man quickly. The younger soldier snoozed on, unaware.

  “You have a commander whose name begins with Lup,” Kral whispered. “Who is he?”

  The soldier’s eyes were bright and liquid in the faint light. Kral smiled, satisfied that his reputation had indeed spread before him. “You know who I am, right?” he asked.

  The soldier nodded his affirmation.

  “Then tell me what I want to know.”

  The soldier’s neck twitched as he swallowed back his fear. “Figure it out for yourself, you son of a misbegotten cur.”

  Kral increased the pressure of the knife’s point and brought his face very near the bearded Aquilonian’s. “Last chance,” he hissed. “Who is Lup?”

  In the next bunk, the young soldier stirred and turned. “Lupinius?” he suggested, still mostly asleep.

  “Quiet!” the veteran barked.

  Kral knew his control of the older man was slipping by the second. The man reached for his wrists, so Kral shoved down hard on the knife, driving it into the soldier’s neck. The powerful man bucked and threw Kral off him. Rolling out of the bunk, he snatched up a sword he had hidden under his blankets.

  Kral scrambled to keep his balance on the floor but his legs shot out from beneath him. His knife was gone, jammed into the man’s neck but apparently having missed any vital points. The soldier yanked it from his neck, threw it behind him. Blood ran from the wound, but not in the jets that Kral had hoped for.

  In the other bunk, the young soldier was coming around, realizing that there was trouble. “Narth?” he asked.

  “Go fetch the guard,” he said. “Raise an alarm. I think we’ve caught the Ghost of the Wall.”

  “You think you can hold me?” Kral asked. “I am a ghost, after all.”

  “You look human to me,” the one called Narth said. “Go, Vincius.”

  Kral knew that he had only seconds before this turned into a very bad situation indeed. Once Vincius was out that door, he would be surrounded and vastly outnumbered within moments. He should have killed the young one as soon as he had come in instead of counting on fear to paralyze him.

  Now he had to stop the man before he opened the door. “Stop, Vincius!” he pleaded. Vincius hesitated as if unsure whether or not to obey.

  From atop his bunk, Narth scowled down at Kral with his short sword raised to strike a killing blow. “You
’re in no position to give orders, little Pict.”

  “Narth, should I . . . ?” Vincius began.

  Narth started to growl an answer, but Kral kicked out with both feet, into the bottom of the bunk on which Narth was still supporting most of his weight. The bunk tipped over and sent Narth sprawling. Vincius stayed where he was, as if rooted to the spot.

  Kral leapt up to take instant advantage of Narth’s fall. He plowed over the bed and threw himself on Narth, preventing the soldier from reaching the sword he had dropped when he fell. Narth struggled furiously, but he was already weakened from the neck wound and dizzied from the fall. Gripping both of Narth’s wrists, Kral bashed him in the jaw with his own forehead. Each blow drove the soldier’s head back against the hard-packed dirt floor. Narth grunted with pain, spittle flecked the corners of his mouth. Finally, Kral dared to release one of Narth’s arms and grabbed the soldier’s wounded neck instead. Narth let out a pained whine, but Kral kept the pressure on until the man lost consciousness.

  Instantly, he released Narth and turned his attention to Vincius. The younger soldier still hadn’t left the barracks. Instead, he had chosen a pike from the rack of weapons by the door. When Kral turned to face him, Vincius was bearing down on him with the point of the pike. Kral was still straddling Narth’s lifeless form.

  As Vincius lunged with the long weapon, Kral ducked under it and scooped up Narth’s short sword. He brought the sword up in time to block a second thrust. Vincius poked at him a third time. This time Kral turned and let the pike’s head slide past him, then grabbed the shaft and yanked on it. As the inexperienced Vincius lost his balance and teetered forward, Kral drove the short sword up and into his breast. Vincius started to scream, but Kral released the pike, rose, and clapped his hand over the man’s mouth. He shoved the young soldier down onto the nearest bunk, drew the sword from his chest, and drove it home once more.