The Broken Isles lotrs-4

by Mark Charan Newton

  SIXTEEN

  The flight to Villiren was rough. A harsh wind came from the north, rocking the transportation cage so hard that even Brynd thought they stood a good chance of falling to their deaths. Two rows of his regiment were facing each other in one part while, towards the back, men from the Dragoons sat hunched, holding on to ropes: they were above the wing muscles, and were getting the most vicious treatment. It had been fine coming south, flying with the wind in their favour and almost gliding the last stretch. Things weren’t even this bad for an oarsman on one of the larger Imperial longships. At least three of the Night Guard soldiers threw up and only Tiendi, the woman, seemed to be at all easy, moving around and talking to people as if this was some cosy tavern.

  A few holes in the roof of the vast, wood and metal cage permitted enough light inside to indicate that they still had a little while left before nightfall.

  ‘How long’s left, sir?’ Brug called across to Brynd.

  ‘About another hour at least, given these winds,’ he replied.

  Everyone’s face was glum. They just wanted the flight over. Understandable, Brynd thought, as another blast of wind rocked the cage.

  ‘How are you holding up, investigator?’ he called across to Fulcrom, who was sat a couple of places to his left next to Lan. ‘Glad you accepted our offer of a ride now?’

  The rumel tried to laugh. ‘Well, it’s quick at least. It beats sitting on a horse for days or being tossed about on the waves for just as long.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Brynd replied. ‘Lan, are you coping all right?’

  ‘I’m good,’ she replied. ‘I used to work as an entertainer — as far as I’m concerned, it’s the only way to travel.’

  ‘Are these otherworld people — are they OK with you using this method of transport?’

  ‘It was their idea,’ Brynd said.

  ‘Seem like good people, these ones,’ Fulcrom replied.

  Another leading question, Brynd thought. He’ll do all right. ‘They’re certainly very positive in working with us.’

  ‘What happens when we get back?’ Fulcrom asked.

  ‘First we’ll ride into the city, and send outriders ahead to announce our coming. We’ll do the usual post-battle propaganda before briefing Jamur Rika on the latest events.’

  ‘Would she not want briefing first?’

  Brynd paused and contemplated a diplomatic response. ‘In an ideal world, yes. .’

  Not even boredom itself is as dull as this, Randur thought.

  He decided that he had found a new place beyond boredom, a part of the emotional spectrum that he would not wish on his worst enemies.

  And what the hell has become of me?

  As he so often did after dinner, he headed along the corridors to chat to some of the serving staff, to see if he could glean a little juicy gossip about the mechanics of the building; despite his new-found position near the top of the remnants of the Empire, he still preferred to mix with people who had a few stories to tell, who had a little spirit about them, but there was precious little gossip to be found. Apparently since the departure of the former portreeve of the city, everyone had been on their best behaviour.

  He noticed tonight that Rika had eaten very little at dinner, but afterwards, when he was in conversation with one of the administrative staff, he saw Rika marching by with a strange pace about her. His curiosity was piqued and he moved around the corner to see where she was going. She strode confidently along the stone-paved corridors on the ground level of the building, heading towards one of the rear exits.

  Now where’s that lass off to?

  He threw on a thick cloak, managed to find his sword that he had stashed away, and decided the most productive thing to do would be to follow her.

  What else, he thought, is there to do?

  The element of subterfuge had brought a sudden burst of excitement back into his life.

  It wasn’t as cold as he thought it would be tonight, and the sounds of Villiren were enticing once again. His blood was pumping properly.

  It felt good. He could hear the sea in the distance, grinding against the geological forms of the bay and harbour; he could hear people talking, glasses being smashed, dogs barking. Comforting sounds for someone if they were used to them.

  Quickly, he trotted down some steps, and around the corner where Rika had gone; there, he scanned the immediate streets for any signs of her.

  He caught a glimpse of her — in that same dark, military-style garb she had taken to wearing. Her black hair had been cut even shorter, her skin growing abnormally pale, so she wasn’t hard to recognize in the light of some of the ornamental beacons flaring around this district.

  The place was less of a mess than before. Rubble was gradually being cleared by community teams; a lot of travellers provided cheap labour to help out with odd jobs around the city. Taverns were doing a good business, too, which was a promising sign.

  Citizens here seemed more of a threat than the average person in Villjamur. People there may have wanted a fight or two, but in Villiren the challengers looked as if they might actually win a fight with him.

  Rika seemed to have no destination in mind, just taking a random route around the city. Though the streets were no longer constructed according to any available map, she wandered about the place as if she was drunk or overdosing on arum weed. She would head down one street, only to round a corner and head back along a parallel street. She took full circles and went down some only to come straight back up as if she’d met a dead end — except she was free to pass through.

  And this woman is to lead the new Empire? Randur thought. She can’t even lead herself at the moment. It doesn’t really bode all that well.

  Whenever she passed citizens, she would veer into their path and scrutinize them before lurching away again, leaving them startled and hurrying on.

  Is she looking for someone? Over the course of a few minutes, Rika became increasingly animalistic, he noticed: her stance might become a crouch, her walk would transform into a scuttle.

  Suddenly she disappeared from sight. Shit! He ran along the street down the entrances of every alley to see if he could spot her, but he found little but rotting food waste, cats, or old men urinating up against the wall. He continued for several minutes and, as time passed, his search seemed increasingly futile. Eventually, assuming he had lost her, he decided to head back the way he had come to the Citadel.

  But then there, in one side street behind a destroyed theatre, where the old buildings of the Ancient Quarter met the debris of war, he spotted her hunched over in a corner. She was doing something, but in this light he couldn’t quite see what. He walked to the end of the street and cautiously poked his head around the corner from a slightly different angle.

  She had something in her mouth, and he thought for a moment that she might have been eating litter, but it was something far worse.

  Randur was agog.

  You are shitting me. .

  Rika was eating through an arm — one that was still connected to a corpse. She nibbled into it like a fevered fox. It seemed for a moment as if the ambient sounds of the city had fallen away entirely, and Randur could hear the sounds of delight and little groans of pleasure that Rika was emitting as she dined upon the dead flesh.

  And the victim was indeed dead — he had been a young male with blond hair, still in his teens by the look of it. The dead boy’s head tilted backwards and both his mouth and eyes were open in an expression of sheer horror. His throat had been cut cleanly, marked by a line of blood, and a gore-covered blade lay beside his body on the ground. The sleeve of his coat had been ripped or sliced open to expose his arm, and a cap had fallen to one side.

  Randur was vaguely aware that it might be a good idea to tell someone about this, and soon, but he couldn’t help but stare at the gruesome display. He waited to watch enough of what was going on to be utterly sure, to be confident that he was indeed watching the former head of the Jamur Empire chewing on human fle
sh.

  Once the initial shock had worn off, Randur became entranced by her actions and tried to work out what she might be actually thinking. She was no longer normal — they all knew this — but how could a girl of religious purity transform in such a way?

  Rika continued for several minutes, hunched as she devoured the flesh. She had begun with the arm, then moved on to one of the boy’s legs, which, Randur supposed, were logical, fleshy places if this was a wolf attacking, so was she genuinely hungry? He made the connection with her lack of appetite at dinner, though that was a bit vague.

  She froze. She looked up.

  Randur’s heart seemed to stop, and he tried to turn back before she could see his face, then sprinted along the street, jumped up on a crate, grabbed a piece of guttering and slithered into a concealed position on a flat rooftop.

  His heart was racing and he was out of breath. But at least Rika had not seen him. Well, hopefully she had not seen him — he couldn’t be entirely sure.

  Randur lay there for some time, for ten or twenty minutes, maybe even longer, every now and then peering over the side to see if she was still there.

  Satisfied that he was safe, he slid back along the roof tiles and flipped himself down over the edge. He made his way back to the scene of the crime, curious. When he looked around the corner, Rika was no longer there. Randur approached the body and pushed it over with his boot: the neck wound was clear to see, as was the absence of flesh in certain areas. She had eaten her way through half an arm and just a little thigh.

  This would need reporting.

  He walked back to the main thoroughfare and eventually attracted the attention of a Dragoon out on city patrol. After a hurried explanation, he guided the slender, young soldier back towards the body, which was still there.

  ‘You sure you didn’t do this yourself, eh? Guilty conscience n’all that?’ the soldier replied.

  Randur explained who he was, the companion of Eir, and where he had come from. ‘So I have better things to be doing with my time than chopping up strangers in dark alleys.’

  ‘Right you are, sir, I’ll get the lads to bring a stretcher and we’ll record this. You sure you didn’t see who did this?’

  ‘No,’ he lied. Randur waited for the logical question of Then how did you come to find the body? But it seemed this soldier was not the brightest of sorts.

  ‘OK,’ the soldier said, shaking his head. ‘You would’ve thought after all the fighting people would’ve seen enough killing, wouldn’t you?’

  Randur walked hastily back towards the Citadel, constantly checking over his shoulder. The night was deepening, and he had been out for well over a couple of hours. He realized Eir would probably be worried and, no doubt, would berate him for not letting her know where he was going.

  As he reached the streets within a few hundred yards of the approach to the Citadel, he could see there was something of a lively atmosphere growing. People were here in their hundreds, milling about the streets expectantly — and there were quite a few military types too. The noise grew. It seemed peculiar since a little while ago there was nobody about. Randur pushed his way forward, glancing to and fro to locate gaps in the crowd.

  He turned to a middle-aged couple. ‘What’s going on here? Why’s everyone out and about?’

  ‘The Night Guard is back,’ the man replied. ‘There is news of their arrival tonight. They say they saved the lives of many thousands of people on Jokull.’

  Randur thanked the couple and continued on to the Citadel.

  The crowds were at their most dense immediately outside the front ramp, so he pushed his way around the side to one of the other entrances. He made his way inside, nodded to those guards he knew on the door, and quickly tried to process what he would do.

  I’ll tell Eir — I’ll have to, he thought. It won’t be easy but there’s no other choice.

  Up the stairs and along the corridors, he continually brushed past administrative staff busying themselves for the arrival of the Night Guard. Eir would, perhaps, be readying herself also. Breathlessly, and sweating from the adrenalin buzz, he went along the higher levels towards her quarters. The guards let him through swiftly, and he knocked on her door before entering.

  Rika.

  There she was, sitting opposite Eir at the table; Eir, now dressed in an ornate blue dress with heavy woollen shawl, stood up to greet him.

  ‘Randur, where have you been?’ she asked. ‘Have you not heard that the Night Guard are approaching the city? They were victorious! Brynd did it.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard talk of it and came back.’ Randur couldn’t take his eyes off Rika. He just kept staring at her, trying to gauge whether or not she knew he had been following her, and that he was aware of her vile secret. ‘I, uh, I needed some air. I’m sorry. I should have told you.’

  ‘It’s nothing to apologize about — I simply wondered. Are you feeling OK? You look a bit distressed.’

  ‘Nah, I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘So, was Rika out as well?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eir replied, ‘both of you it seems have become creatures of the night.’

  Creatures of the night. . That sounds about right. Monstrous witch.

  ‘What did you get up to, Lady Rika?’ Randur asked as innocently as he could manage. He sauntered around to her side of the table, trying to get a closer look at her face, to see if there were any signs of her nocturnal habits.

  ‘I had a minor discussion with local business representatives. They were not trivial matters.’

  ‘Is that so.’ Randur eyed her a little longer, but there was nothing in her expression to suggest her terrible secret. For a brief moment, he began to doubt that he had seen her out at all, and that it had been his imagination playing tricks on him.

  ‘Randur,’ Eir said, ‘you’d better get ready for the arrival of the Night Guard. A impromptu ceremony is being organized. You’ll need to look your best.’

  ‘An easy enough task,’ Randur replied. He was wary about leaving Eir in Rika’s company, but he decided that Eir would be able to look after herself. He moved in to kiss Eir on the cheek before heading to their quarters.

  Randur wanted to find something smart enough to wear, but not so ostentatious that it would feel out of place. He was beginning to understand what being partnered to royalty was like — that he would only really be an important person when in close proximity to Eir.

  He was aware it was a vaguely effeminate sensation, but it wasn’t the first time he had been accused of such things. And he was eating well, had a great lady on his arm, and he didn’t mind an excuse to throw on a breathtakingly outrageous pair of trousers.

  Just that psychopathic, flesh-eating sister to deal with, then. To be honest, Randur, you’ve probably had stranger ex-girlfriends.

  These stone chambers were cold: he had spent a few moments getting a fire going, which he’d appreciate later once everyone had gone to bed and he returned to a warm room. He splashed some water on his face and hair, brushed the thick dark strands back, and began to take off his shirt in exchange for one more suitable for the occasion.

  Standing before the open wardrobe, he thought, Black, very definitely something black after a war. Sombre. Memory of the fallen brave heroes. Besides, everyone looks good in black. Just hurry along — you don’t want to leave Eir that long alone with Rika. .

  He was about to reach for something when he heard a scuffle against the brickwork, and paused to listen carefully. Certain it was not something in the fire or outside his room, he considered the chimney breast. He took cautious steps around the place. The noise would stop for a few seconds, only to start again, like a bird or a rat scurrying along the walls outside. There was no balcony to this room, so it was probably something trapped within the brickwork or a bird stuck in the chimney, or perhaps even rats down below somewhere. No, very definitely coming from outside. .

  He opened the window to see if he could fathom just what the noise was -

  He jumped back, gripping his swo
rd hilt.

  It was Rika, her face pressed up against the glass, her eyes wild. She gripped the edges of the window frame and he had no idea why she had not already fallen below. Within a heartbeat she vanished to one side, leaving only a circle of steamed-up glass where she had breathed against it.

  She knows, Randur thought. Shit, she knows. .

  He had to do something tonight. He had to tell the commander before Rika intercepted him.

  The witch will not feast on my flesh.

  From the alien camp south of the city, where the Night Guard had landed back on the safer soil of Y’iren, they waited for the remnants of their own army to congregate. There, those who could took to horseback and began the journey back to Villiren. The rest would have to continue on foot and join them later.

  The Night Guard ploughed through the dark countryside and Brynd, not for the first time, was acutely appreciative of the benefits of his enhanced vision. The wilderness opened up in front of him, bleak and desolate, community after community struggling to make an existence in the harsh weather. The road north was relatively straight and flat. The hours passed slowly. Grass became farmland became villages until the urban sprawl that was the southern tip of the city, the Wastelands, appeared. There was little in way of celebration at their return to this sector of Villiren and, where people had gathered, they simply looked on in curiosity.

  But the Night Guard rode into the older parts of the city as heroes. Their victory had travelled ahead of them, via garudas and outriders, who had done a good job of spreading the news far and wide. Hundreds of citizens turned out to welcome their heroes home, running alongside the obvious routes to the Citadel; then, as they neared their headquarters, people came in their thousands.

  The gathered masses began to cheer and whistle, and trumpets sounded, in a rare display of Imperial pomp. There were dozens of beacons lighting the route, and some of the older army standards had been raised above the Citadel, flapping in the breeze above the crenellations.