by D. P. Prior
Bollocks! He thrashed the strings. He should have been able to protect her, should have saved her family. If he’d used the statue sooner…Even now he could feel its warmth pulsing in his pocket.
‘Don’t look so worried, my friend,’ Limus said, limping towards him. ‘No point troubling yourself with past…’ There was a pause as Limus sought the right words and then gave up.
‘Beautiful evening for music.’ He gestured towards the mandola.
Elias smiled and began to pluck a melancholy ballad whilst Limus settled himself on a bench a few yards from the cart. The old priest closed his eyes and swayed gently to the music.
As he finished the song, Elias swung his legs over the edge of the cart, leaving the mandola on the seat. His hand instinctively felt for the statue.
‘There is no evil in what you carry.’ Limus sounded half asleep.
‘What?’
‘I sometimes sense these things. Forgive me. Since my accident I can discern the thoughts of…What were you saying?’ Limus rubbed at the shiny yellowish patch on his forehead, the scar-tissue from his accident. ‘You are leaving us…brother…?’
Elias sat beside him, looked off into the distance, not at anything in particular; just replaying scenes—Yeffrik, Jessy, a pang of guilt about little Sammy. Wishing he’d done more. Tearing up over Rhiannon. ‘Elias, Pater. The Bard of Broken Bridge.’
‘That’s right. I won’t remember, though.’
‘Yes,’ Elias said. ‘I’m leaving. Off some place new, never time to let the dust settle.’ Except he’d travelled nowhere for decades, and the thought of giving up his shack set his heart racing in a way that couldn’t be good. Couldn’t go back, though. Not just the risk, either. He’d never be able to live with himself, with all the reminders.
‘You’ll not stay with the girl?’
Elias thought for a moment before shaking his head. ‘No, Pater; she’ll be safe or she won’t. Nothing I do will alter that.’
‘And that thing you carry?’
Elias took out the black statue and showed it to Limus. Its coils rippled with amber radiance and Elias thought he could feel it breathing.
‘It’s a…oh!’ Limus shook his head in frustration.
‘Snake?’
‘Yes, that’s right. One of the children of Nous. There were three you know.’
Elias smiled with good humour. ‘Who says they’re from Nous?’
Limus appeared not to hear him. ‘Will you say goodbye to the others?’
‘I’m no good with adieus, and besides, the perimeter guards probably won’t let me out. I could be back before you can say “neo-capitalist-monomaniac-tech-whore.” ’
Elias vaulted into his cart and snatched up Hector’s reins, squinting at something scuttling over the lip of the tray.
‘What is it, brother?’ Limus asked.
‘Nothing. Just an insect.’ Or a spider, he mused; and a large one at that.
Elias drove out onto the Domus Tyalae and turned into Ishgar Terrace. A golden-haired child stood in the road, holding aloft a sliver of glowing amber.
‘Sammy?’
The child turned and ran. Elias lashed Hector in pursuit. The boy headed left into Haldegon Road, the cart rattling after, tipping onto two wheels as it took the corner too quickly. Elias swung his weight to one side and the cart crashed back level, bouncing along the cobbles. It seemed, no matter how fast Elias went, the child maintained the same lead. He scampered right into a winding road, forcing Elias to swerve around a heavily laden death-cart. Slowing Hector to take the bends, Elias reached an intersection with a branching sign-post. The child waited on the right, midway between Draco Road and Wharf Way.
Suddenly, he dashed inside a boarded-up house on the other side of the street. Elias pulled up outside and leapt from the driving seat without straightening the cart in the road.
The door to the building was open, the entrance hall beyond unnaturally dark and clogged with thick cobwebs. His heart was pounding, his mind racing with reasons not to enter. Had the child been holding a piece of the Statue of Eingana? One of the fangs? Why show him? Was it a trap? Course it was. Must’ve been. But what if there was a chance…? He thought about Sammy fleeing from the house after the killing of his parents; cringed with shame at his failure to go back. Gripping the statue tightly in his pocket, Elias stepped inside.
THE AID OF THE FALLEN
The waters of the Soulsong rippled red in the setting sun as Shader spotted the tents he’d passed on the way to the abbey. Bare-chested soldiers were digging atop a low mound, whilst others bathed at the river’s edge. Fiddling with the knots on his prayer-cord, Shader crossed the bridge towards them.
‘Nousian!’ bellowed a sentry on the other side.
The soldiers washing their wounds scrambled for weapons, blood still swirling on the surface of the river. The others ceased their digging for the dead, strewn hacked and bloody around the camp, and glared at Shader with hard eyes. He started to fasten the buttons on his coat, then realized it was a bit late for that. They’d already seen the Monas on his surcoat. No point denying what he was. The shame that he’d even considered it was already nagging at the back of his mind. ‘What happened here?’
The sentry stepped back drawing his sword.
‘Put it away.’ Shader held up a hand. ‘I’m not your enemy.’
Half a dozen soldiers ran up to the bridge with weapons ready, a single archer notching an arrow and taking aim.
‘Don’t I know you?’ said a burly man with a wiry ginger beard. ‘You spoke with Cap’n Janks when the Fallen passed.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Buried, along with half our troop.’
‘Mawgs?’ Even as he said it, Shader knew it hadn’t been mawgs. The bodies were too intact, still recognizable as human.
‘Cavalry,’ said the sentry he’d first approached, a scrawny youth who’d taken a gash across his cheek, just beneath the eye.
‘Evil shogging bunch,’ Ginger-beard said. ‘Nousians by the look of ‘em. Leader wore a white cloak with the same symbol you’ve got on your surcoat; fought like a demon with two swords.’
The chill of recognition touched Shader.
‘Ploughed right through us as we broke our fast,’ the sentry said. ‘Headed straight for Sarum. With any luck the plague will get ‘em.
‘Why would they…?’ It was obvious these men wouldn’t know. They looked as bewildered as he felt. Shader tilted his hat back and met Ginger-beard’s eyes. He tried to connect, reassure him, but it wasn’t something he was good at. Ginger-beard must have seen that look others had told Shader about. There was a shift in his demeanour, a widening of the pupils. He didn’t want any more trouble. Might just as well have put his hands up and backed away. ‘I’ve business there, too. Will you let me pass?’
‘What…’ Ginger-beard cleared his throat. ‘What business?’
‘Something was stolen from the abbey. I believe it’s been taken to the city.’
‘You’ll not get out again. Sure you want to chance it?’
‘Don’t see I have much choice.’ The Grey Abbot was ailing fast. Without the amber eye set into his Monas he’d be lucky to last out the week. And besides, Callixus needed to be dealt with. Evil like that couldn’t be allowed to roam free.
Shader pulled the Liber from his coat pocket. ‘But first, may I pray for your dead?’
The soldiers exchanged looks, muttering to one another. Ginger-beard fixed Shader with a sullen stare.
‘Best save your breath; don’t reckon they’ll listen.’
***
Within the hour, Shader strode through the empty streets of Calphon, Sarum’s northernmost suburb, the weight of recollection heavy upon him. Calphon had been his route into the city the last time the Grey Abbot had sent him. That was when his belief in non-violent resistance had been beaten out of him outside the pub. He could almost feel the fists hammering his face to pulp, the kicks smashing his ribs. He could still taste the vengeanc
e, brutal and demonic, eating at his faith until he’d assuaged it that night in the Mermaid.
The outer suburbs had altered little since the Reckoning: squat buildings, broad avenues, empty plazas. Many of the roads were divided by islands and flanked by colossal metal posts topped with glass globes, some of which glowed orange in the grey dusk. Tawdry eateries, taverns, and stores lined the great concourse leading to the central district, many of them shuttered, some doors daubed with black snakes, the Sahulian symbol of death.
Shader headed for the one place in the city he knew well: the Templum of the Knot.
He walked for perhaps an hour along streets piled with shrouded bodies, passing masked figures lurking in doorways or scavenging like rats.
Just beyond the metal bridge spanning Wharf Way, Shader came to a crossroads. There was a hastily parked cart in Martyr’s Street, lone horse stamping and snorting outside a looming wooden townhouse. The façade was in poor repair, flecks of greenish paint peeling from the timbers. A rusty lantern hung above the open doorway, swathed in cobwebs.
The cart was laden with books and musical instruments. A few hessian sacks had been placed towards the front, the fabric torn and spilling dried herbs and what appeared to be powdered mushroom. Shader stroked the flanks of the cart horse, rubbed its ears.
‘Hector?’
Nostrils flaring, eyes wide, the great beast tried to move back from the building, but was restrained by its tether.
What was the Bard of Broken Bridge doing in Sarum? Shader had never known Elias Wolf to travel further than the Griffin.
Moving to the entrance, he became aware of a rhythmic whisper drifting down the hallway like a malignant prayer. He stepped inside, keeping close to the wall, clumps of spiderweb clinging to his coat. A tottering hatstand stood back from the door, a pile of scuffed and filthy shoes at its feet. He inched his way along the narrow corridor, the walls stained with damp, plaster hanging from the ceiling to reveal the slats of floorboards above. The air was thick with sulphur, and dust motes swirled in amber beams spilling from the cracks of a door at the far end.
As Shader crept closer, the susurrus took on more clarity: four words in a language that could have been Aeternam, but accented strangely, repeated without variation, seemingly coming from within his skull. Libera nos a malo. Libera nos a malo. Shader cursed himself for not listening during Adeptus Ludo’s classes. Free us, maybe. Something about evil. Other sounds came from beyond the door: guttural growling, sharp hissing, and a voice dripping with malice clamoured above the urgent calling in his head.
‘Leave your clothes, human.’
A mawg—grinding out words ill-suited to its thick tongue. As far as Shader could tell, it was a female.
‘We’ll find what we need once we’ve feasted on you.’
Typical mawg. They’d maul their prey, ripping flesh and grinding bone, disgorging anything they couldn’t digest. Once sated, the creatures would search through the regurgitated mess and pick out jewellery, coins, and anything else of value.
Another voice, quavering yet lyrical, sounded from the other side of the door. A voice Shader knew, swiftly cut off.
‘Mouth! Shut it! That’s better. Yours is puny magic to a shaman.’
Shader had encountered mawg shamans during his liberation of Oakendale: sorcerers of awesome power, revered by their tribe as avatars, links to their dark and distant god.
Fearing he might already be too late, Shader drew his swords and kicked the door open.
The first thing he saw was Elias Wolf shining like a small sun, amber effusing from his coat. The bard was cowering at the centre of a pack of mawgs, lumpy hides tufted with coarse hair, knuckles scraping the floor. A huge female towered above them, long black tussocks braided with gut; bare breasts, flaccid and empty, drooping to her midriff. Her snout was pierced with shards of bone and rusty iron rings.
The mawgs turned snarling to face Shader, the shaman crouching and making strange clutching movements with her hands. Elias fumbled for something in his pocket and then all eyes were back on him as he raised the statue of a snake above his head; it was bursting with amber radiance. The shaman let out a gasp and pointed with a clawed finger. The mawgs pounced but were met by a blast of light that slammed them back. At the same time, Shader heard a chilling caw that seemed to come from another place entirely. Elias must have heard it, too, for he thrust the statue back into his pocket and turned to flee.
The shaman let out a curse and Elias slipped, tumbling in a heap. Baying like wolves, the other mawgs surged towards him. Shader bellowed and charged, his longsword glancing from the back of one creature, the gladius skewering another through the neck. For an instant there was confusion enough to allow Shader to pull Elias to his feet and drag him towards the doorway. The shaman roared dark spells that blurred the entrance hall and filled it with gouts of flame. Elias’s clothes caught fire, but Shader was spared, not even feeling the heat. He lunged at the shaman, striking air as she sped towards the ceiling in the form of a bat.
Elias threw himself to the floor, rolling to smother the flames. Shader took up a position between him and the mawgs.
Ducking beneath a vicious swipe from a claw, Shader spun on his heel and slammed the gladius into a mawg’s belly. Sensing movement behind, he back-slashed with the longsword, which bounced from hide as tough as a cuirass. Enraged, the creature grabbed his coat and wrenched. Shader lost his footing and skidded towards it. In desperation, he rammed the gladius to the hilt in the mawg’s chest. It released its grip, black blood bubbling over Shader’s hand. He regained his feet, hacking down with the longsword and cleaving the creature’s skull. His left hand snaked out, ripping the gladius free.
A quick glance showed him Elias was still alive, eyes glazed with shock, clothes charred and smouldering.
Shader rolled beneath a bludgeoning arm, slicing into flesh and sinew with a back-swing as he passed. Something swooped down, the shaman suddenly reappearing behind the mass of mawgs, weaving her hands through the air and barking strange words. Shader was thrown against the wall by a blow from behind. Another mawg raked at his shoulder, claws bursting the links on his chainmail and gouging the skin beneath. Vision blurred with pain, Shader flailed lamely about with the longsword, the gladius thrusting and cutting with a mind of its own. He was tiring, his shoulder burning as if acid, not blood, gushed from the wound. He’d no idea how many he’d killed, but, undaunted, the others piled on top of him. As he went down, he glimpsed another figure enter the room and pass unhindered through the flames. The shaman froze in mid-spell, and the mawgs fell away from Shader, turning to face the newcomer. Panting for breath, Shader peered through the milling mawgs and saw a short burly warrior in a white cloak, grey hair trailing beneath a horned helm, eyes of violet lightning glaring from his thickly bearded face.
Pushing back his cloak to reveal bands of iron armour underneath a brown habit, the dwarf raised a huge war hammer and brought it crashing down with a clap of thunder. The mawgs broke and fled to the rear of the building. The shaman squatted down and ground her claws together, spitting and hissing. ‘Curses on you, Fallen. I’d suck the flesh from your bones if that wasn’t what you desired.’
Darkness swirled about her, and then, as a black rat, she scampered away.
A white-robed woman, thick-set and middle aged, moved to stand beside the dwarf.
‘See,’ he said, ‘thou shouldst trust thy senses, Mater. Thou art graced.’
Mater Ioana. How could she have—?
Ioana frowned. ‘Did you not hear it?’
The dwarf tapped the head of his hammer, faced the woman and shrugged. ‘I am lacking in grace.’
‘Mater Ioana,’ Elias said. ‘How did you know?’
Shader approached the trio, swords trailing beside him dripping black blood.
Ioana’s eyes lighted on him even as she replied. ‘Something called me, bard, but it wasn’t you.’
‘Whispering,’ Shader said. ‘Words I should have recogniz
ed.’
Ioana pursed her lips and rolled her eyes—it was that old familiar expression that said she didn’t fully understand, but she had an inkling. ‘Prayer,’ she said. ‘Prayer for deliverance.’ She shook her head, brows knitting in a frown. ‘Deacon Shader. I didn’t expect to see you in Sarum again.’
The dwarf cocked his head to one side and studied Shader. He covered his mouth with a beefy hand, tapping his cheek with one finger. Shader switched his gaze to Elias.
‘Something was stolen from the Grey Abbot—an amber eye set into a Monas.’
Elias put his hand in his pocket. ‘One of the Eyes of Eingana?’
Shader nodded and turned to Maldark. The dwarf was squinting at him, looked like he was going to say something, but gave way as Shader spoke first. ‘Thank you…Maldark, isn’t it? Maldark the Fallen?’
The dwarf sighed. ‘So ‘tis said. I hath borne the epithet a long time.’
Ioana placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘A dwarf of the Dreaming—or should I say Aethir, the world dreamed by the Cynocephalus?’ Elias circled him as if inspecting a prize bull. He dipped his head and raised his eyebrows for Shader’s benefit. ‘Funny how much truth there is in myths.’
‘Not everything on Aethir was dreamed,’ Maldark said.
‘Ah,’ Elias wagged a finger at him. ‘Sektis Gandaw. So, tell me, what creatures did he cross to make you lot?’
Maldark’s violet eyes smouldered beneath heavy brows.
‘Why were the mawgs afraid of you?’ Shader asked.
‘I know them of old. I was not the only one to arrive from Aethir.’
‘Come,’ Ioana said. ‘Let’s go back to the templum. There is someone there, Frater Deacon, you should meet. What about you, bard, do you still wish to leave?’
‘Plague gives me the creeps.’ Elias plonked himself down on the body of a mawg. ‘But mawgs scare the proverbial…Ugh!’ He leapt back up and dusted himself down, stepping away from the corpse and wrinkling his nose. ‘Well, I think I’ve got a phobia. Call me a pusillanimous old codger, if you like, but the sooner I get out of the big smoke the better.’