The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set

by Graham Austin-King

  “Then leave this paper to Lek.” Tristan shrugged.

  “I can’t do that Tristan. The sealord—”

  “Did he not just leave by ship?” Tristan interrupted.

  “Well, yes but—”

  “Then I do not see this problem.”

  Klöss stared at him for almost a minute before his smile grew. He turned to Gavin who stood watching the exchange. “Let me have another look at that dagger. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”

  ***

  They travelled north in bands of twenty. It made sense to keep the parties small and working independently of each other. The sun had been with them for the past three days but now the rains had swept in and Klöss glared at the back of Tristan’s head as they walked. The road was not much more than a mud track but it made sense to follow it while they could. They were far behind their own lines and speed was more important than stealth for the moment.

  He’d thought of Anlan as lush when they’d first caught sight of it on that training raid all those years ago. The trees here were broader and more numerous than the thin pines of Bresda, but for the last day or so they’d made their way through a featureless plain and the rain had lashed at them driven by winds that seemed intent on reaching every last dry patch of skin that remained.

  “Remind me why I’m here again?” he called over the winds.

  Tristan didn’t turn. “You need more fun in your life.”

  Gavin snorted at that, earning his own black look, but he seemed as impervious as Tristan. Klöss glanced around at the others, noting more than one barely suppressed smile.

  The days dragged, and what had begun as an escape from the monotony of dealing with administrators and dealing with petty issues soon became its own chore. The rains pushed them on, refusing to let up and their nights were as bad as the days as they huddled in tents and tried to ignore the pounding of the rain on the treated canvas.

  The trees came as a blessed relief when they reached them and by the second day under the canopy Klöss was close to forgiving Tristan. He glanced at the map again and thrust it back into his pack. “We’re probably another three or four days away from Skelf,” he said to Tristan. “Form the men up in scouting pairs in clusters of four.”

  Tristan nodded and began passing the word. Each pair would act independently of the group as a whole but keeping within reach of one other. If they were forced into combat the pairs would form up into groups of four as they fell back and reformed into the company. If truly pressed the company itself would fall back and try to meet up with another of the scouting parties. He’d planned this well and the men were used to this procedure. Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary. They were here to scout and gather information, not to fight.

  He moved through the trees and undergrowth as silently as he could. Though he’d never make a tracker himself the time he’d spent in Anlan had made him stealthier than he’d once been. Tristan walked beside him, oddly silent despite his huge size. Ahead of them the grey-green ghost that was Gavin drifted through the trees, making less noise than a passing breeze as he scouted ahead from the noisier pair.

  It was slow going but Klöss was glad for it. If the force that had attacked Skelf were still close it wouldn’t do to blunder into them. If the force that attacked Skelf wasn’t human it definitely wouldn’t do to blunder into them.

  He found that the tension moved in cycles. He’d been an oarsman three years before he was trusted with a crew, working his way through oarsmaster to shipmaster in short order. He’d seen more than his share of blood and raids gone badly and he was well used to the fear that all men find in the silence of themselves before a battle. That was nothing to this. The things he’d seen on the reaping both fascinated and terrified him and the fear of blundering into them made him overcautious as he moved through the trees.

  What started as caution gradually built into a fearful walk as his eyes darted about, trying to watch everything at once. No man can maintain that level of anxiety for long though, and he soon drifted through calm and into complacency until a cracked twig underfoot brought the cycle back around again.

  Sleeping in watches in a cold camp made for poor sleep and stiff muscles. By the third morning it was beginning to show on the men, which Klöss knew meant it would be twice as bad as it looked, and he found himself almost hoping they’d encounter Anlish troops.

  It was late afternoon when the call of a moonthrush sounded ahead of them. A runner emerged from the trees slowly. The moonthrush was rare, even in the Barren Isles, and so made a good signal, but a wise man moved out slowly. Rash scouts didn’t tend to live long.

  “You have news?” Tristan asked, not lowering his handbow. Identical to the larger arbelest in every way but its size. Klöss had arranged for every man on the mission to carry one.

  The scout answered to Klöss though he hadn’t asked the question. “We’ve reached the village, my lord,”

  “I’m not a lord…” Klöss began but Tristan waved him to silence.

  “It’s abandoned,” the man said. “It’s…” He glanced at Tristan and swallowed. “You’d be best seeing it for yourself, I think.”

  Tristan and Klöss exchange a look before waving the man on. The village proved to be only be an hour away from them, a distance they covered all the more swiftly knowing the way was clear. The other scouting parties rejoined them as they walked, until they were at half their company strength by time the walls came into sight.

  Skelf was not much of a village. A single street housing the inn and a smithy, and then cottages packed tight to fit within what had been the wooden palisade. It was the standard first-stage village for Bjornmen settlers.

  Klöss made his way to the wreckage of the gates. He sank down to one knee and picked at the splinters as he examined the scene. “What do you think?” he asked Tristan over one shoulder.

  “Odd,” the man muttered. He looked to Gavin and the scout who’d led them in. “Give me your hands for this?”

  Together they hauled one side of the gate out of the mud and back up against the edge of the palisade. He looked closely at the muddy poles. “No marks.”

  The other gate hung loose, sagging on one remaining hinge. Klöss examined it quickly and turned to shrug at Tristan.

  “It’s obvious isn’t it?” Gavin spoke up, looking from one to the other. The gates weren’t bashed in. They were forced open from the inside. If it hadn’t been raining so much you’d be able to see the footprints. As it is all that’s left is this.” He pointed out the large depression in the mud just behind where the gates would have met.

  “If they wanted out why not just lift the crossbar?” Klöss asked the thief.

  “I don’t know. They obviously didn’t, or maybe it was more that they couldn’t.” He shrugged. “The only thing I can think is that they were pressed so tight to the gates that there just wasn’t room.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell between them as they each imagined the panic and fear it must have taken to push enough people against the eight foot wooden gate to force it open. The crossbar hadn’t moved, instead the hinges had given way.

  “What else?” Klöss said as he walked into the village itself. “Survivors?”

  “None, Shipmaster,” the scout told him. “Some fouled tracks heading north is all we’ve found. Aside from the bodies that is.”

  There was a tone in his voice that made Klöss ask, “Bodies?”

  The scout avoided his eyes and looked vaguely sick as he motioned them through the village to the wreckage of the other gates. They had been pulled from their hinges and torn apart. Thick posts from the gate were stacked to one side, their intended use was obvious.

  The corpses were piled high, impaled on thick posts taken from the ruined gates. Men and women had been stripped naked and then rammed down over the spiked end of the posts that had been driven deep into the earth. Flies were already thick around the grisly scene and the stench was rising in the late afternoon sun.

  Klöss to
ok it all in with a stony expression. He was no innocent but this was sick. The tortured faces of the bodies showed that some, at least, had still been alive when they’d been impaled. It wasn’t just that it was barbaric, it was senseless. These people weren’t warriors, they were simple farmers. He was honest enough with himself to admit that, if he’d attacked this village, then they probably wouldn’t all have survived. He’d have burnt the place to the ground, but if they’d chosen to flee he’d have let them. He glared at the line of posts whilst, behind him, Gavin retched noisily against the ruined palisade.

  Chapter Six

  Skelf lay a day and night behind them. Klöss had to fight against the temptation to have it burned to the ground. The villagers deserved something better than they’d been given but there was no sense in announcing their presence to everything within thirty miles. In the end they’d left the dead where they were. They hadn’t the time or the tools to dig the posts out, and cutting them down wasn’t an option. There is little noise that carries better than the sound of men chopping wood. The dead wouldn’t complain. They seldom did. It is the living that worry about the dead, and there was nobody left in Skelf to care.

  The scouting parties fanned out again, forming into a rough arc with Klöss and his group at the centre though he’d halved their number by doubling their size. The sight of the corpses of Skelf had stuck with the men and his order for the scouting parties to stay closer together had been received with more than one satisfied nod. They were here to scout he’d reminded them, not to fight. If it came to it he’d rather run than get bogged down in a meaningless skirmish.

  Gavin led again, with two others working to each side of him. The man had an ability with tracks that was almost uncanny. Considering his life had been spent on the streets of Hesk it had taken him little time to adjust to the woods of Anlan. He moved quickly, eyes down at the leaves and bushes as he followed the trail.

  Rather than take the roads the villagers seemed to have headed into the woods, breaking their own trail through the brush. Though he’d lost it a few times even Klöss could spot the occasional footprint.

  The woods were quiet. There was an occasional burst of birdsong but most of the time it was just the sound of the wind in the treetops or simply silence lurking behind the slight noise of their own passage. Klöss glanced up to try and catch sight of the sun and gauge the time but the thick canopy made it all but impossible.

  He’d been enamoured with these thick leafy trees when he’d first seen them. There was a world of difference between seeing them and being between them, however. The woods seemed dark and oppressive, with thick stands of nameless bushes that seemed to have grown up in any space large enough to hold them. The rare sound of a small creature in amongst the leaves was enough to make him jump almost every time. Frankly, he’d have given a lot for an honest fight on a beach or in an open field.

  Gavin’s hand shot up, warning them to still their feet but Klöss had already heard the noise, a sharp rustling as something darted through the leaves in the bushes ahead of them and off to their right. He looked to both Tristan and Gavin, motioning for them to spread out and approach from the left whilst the others took the right. Drawing his sword felt good, the stress bleeding away in expectation of something more honest than skulking through the trees.

  Tristan was already moving, crouched low and with feet more sure and quiet than Klöss had ever managed. He pointed into the bush and waved them forward, breaking into a run and crunching through the dry leaves underfoot as he crashed through the thin branches that sought to stop him.

  It was the sound that stopped him. A thin mewl of terror that a wounded animal or a terrified child might make. A flash of brown scrabbled back away from him, deeper into the bush, and then Gavin was there, appearing from nowhere to grab a pale arm and yank hard.

  The woman he dragged howling from the bush was filthy. Mud streaked her long, dark hair that hung lank and heavy where it wasn’t stuck to her face. She screamed and twisted weakly in Gavin’s grip, reaching to claw at his wrist until Tristan took her other hand.

  “Damn woman, calm it down,” Gavin told her as she howled and screamed. “We’re not going to hurt you!”

  Then Klöss saw the blood. Her dress had probably once been a dull green or grey colour at one point but the mud covered it so thoroughly that now it was hard to tell. A dark stain he had first taken for more mud spread from her waist, streaking down past her knees and blooming up over her belly.

  “Let her go,” he said, repeating himself as they gave him odd looks. She didn’t wait for them but instead wrenched her arms out of their grip and lay on the ground with her chest heaving.

  “Were you from Skelf?” he asked, crouching down to her level.

  She looked at him then, pure misery and anguish on her face.

  “Were you?” Gavin persisted. She glanced at him but stayed silent.

  “Answer the bloody question, woman.” Klöss snapped. They didn’t have time for this. He needed answers.

  “She cannot, Klöss.” Tristan murmured.

  Klöss looked at him in irritation. “What?

  He spoke with a pained look. “It is not that she keeps silent. She cannot speak, look.” Klöss looked back to her as she opened her mouth in an anguished wail and what remained of her tongue glistened wet and angry in a mouth stained with blood from where it had been crudely hacked out.

  “Lord of Midnight!” Gavin breathed.

  Klöss tried a different approach. “Can you understand us?”

  She nodded once and wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of her dress. It didn’t help and streaked the mud and dirt on her face.

  “You were at Skelf?”

  She nodded once.

  “The attack, was it the Anlish?”

  She shook her head and buried her face in her hands as sobs overtook her. Gavin moved to take her into his arms then, letting her sob into his neck as the other two looked on awkwardly. “I think I know what it was,” he said to her, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve seen them too. Was it the monsters?”

  She pulled back away from him, her face was incredulous as she looked at Gavin like he’d just sprouted wings, but then nodded.

  Klöss motioned Tristan aside as Gavin continued to question her and the two of them stepped back away from her. “What are we going to do with her?”

  Tristan winced, and then shrugged.

  “That’s not much help,” Klöss muttered. “We can’t very well take her with us and there’s nothing to send her back to.”

  “They took about thirty of the villagers,” Gavin said, interrupting them. “I can’t get much more out of her with nothing to write with but I get the impression it was mostly young women, though there were a couple of men too. She made it pretty clear they’ve been making free with the women every time one of them can’t keep up.”

  “Making free?” Tristan asked, confused, and then held a hand up to stop him. “No, I understand now.”

  “We can’t take her with us, Gavin,” Klöss said.

  He nodded, looking back at her. “I know. We can’t just leave her here like this though.”

  Tristan sighed and made his way back to her. “It is dangerous where we travel to,” he explained. “We will follow these creatures and seek out where it is they come from. You cannot come with us. Can we leave you with anything? Is there anything you need? Some food?”

  She shook her head, as her eyes filled with tears, and pointed to his belt. Tristan looked down, “You want a belt?”

  She shook her head again. “Iyfff!” she said in little more than a whimper, pointing at the belt again.

  He looked at the others helplessly.

  “She wants the dagger.” Klöss said.

  “No,” Gavin said as the woman shook her head. “She wants to die.”

  They looked at her then, raped and bloody, tongue ripped out by something so far removed from humanity that it was closer to monster than man.

&n
bsp; Gavin pulled out his own knife. “Nobody wants to die alone. I’ll stay with her. Go on ahead and I’ll find you.”

  She looked at him gratefully and he settled down beside her, speaking in low comforting tones. Klöss met his eyes and gave a grim nod as he waved the trackers ahead.

  It was three hours before he caught them. His eyes were flat and hard. They did not speak of it.

  They came across others on the trail, broken bloody things that had been discarded. None were still living and Gavin’s eyes flashed at every body they found.

  ***

  They moved at what felt like a snail’s pace for the next few hours. Gavin was visible, not much more than twenty yards ahead, picking his way through the ferns as he moved from trunk to trunk.

  The faint sound tore through the trees like a scream at a wedding, echoes of an agonised howl that cut off with a silence that was as savage as the scream had been.

  Tristan met Klöss’s eyes. They were close. Possibly too close now. He shifted towards Klöss, whispering directly into his ear. “We should wait now, wait for darkness.”

  Klöss considered it briefly. The scream couldn’t have been that far away though it was hard to judge how far it might have echoed. Normally he’d have agreed. Night was the perfect time to scout an enemy’s territory. The guard relaxed, no matter how well disciplined the men. Those on watch soon became bored and spent more time longing for hot food and a warm bed than keeping an eye on the darkness beyond the camp.

  The battle where Verig fell though, that had taught him a lot. These creatures clearly had no problems seeing in the darkness. He shook his head and moved his lips to Tristan’s ear. “No. They are not blind in the dark like us. I’d rather we could both see than just them. Let’s send Gavin in. He’s the quietest anyway. Send Kest and what's-his-name to pass the word to the other groups as best they can. Scout the perimeter and try to get an idea of their numbers. I want only our quietest out there.”