Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  Most of the men had recovered by then. A few of Allystaire’s own men stepped back, shaking, but one of Fortune’s mercenaries let loose with a fearful howl, yelling, “Sorcery! Foul magic!” and drawing back his bow. In his haste, the first shot went well wide of the giant that Gideon was projecting into the middle of the field.

  His second shot never left his bow, because as he drew the arrow free from his quiver, Idgen Marte’s sword bit into the arm that held the string, only seconds before Ivar’s spear was driven into his knee. He collapsed, his yells gone to incoherent, pained babble.

  Following their commander’s lead, the Iron Ravens raised their weapons, spears and polearms mainly, and advanced. Allystaire bellowed once more. “LAST CHANCE. TO BE ARMED IS TO DIE!”

  He joined them in the advance, rushing in on a mercenary who threw aside his bow and drew an axe and a dirk from his belt, only to throw them to the ground. Amidst the moans of the two wounded men and the crackling flames of Gideon’s giant, the mercenaries surrendered.

  The Ravens began to gather up the discarded weapons. After some sharp-tongued prompting from Renard, the villagers joined in. At spear and sword point, the mercenaries even tossed away their sheathed daggers, watching as they were thrust through the belts of the men who began to herd them into the center of the field.

  Few of them could tear their eyes away from the giant that stood amongst them, though Allystaire could see its edges flicker and its body begin to waver.

  It looked down upon the defeated men beneath it, and spoke once more, the volume of its voice dying slowly away.

  “Remember what you saw. Tell all who will listen that those who would do harm to the Mother’s people must face me. Those who come to the Mother in peace are under my guard. Make it known.”

  Then it raised its hands, palms out, and began to dissipate, dissolving into streaks of light that flew upward into the night sky.

  “Which one of these sorry cowards is in command?” Allystaire addressed his question to Idgen Marte, having slung his shield and stowed his hammer. The anticipation of the fight still hammered away at him, his limbs jostling with energy. Beneath the wave of it, though, he could feel the gaping trench of fatigue that was going to swallow him sooner or later.

  Idgen Marte, her sword still out, began searching among the captives, even as the Ravens began to clasp a hotch-potch of manacles, ropes, and improvised cordage around wrists and ankles. Once or twice she encouraged one to move out of her way with the flat of her sword, finally tapping the point against the chest of a tall and sturdy looking bearded man who remained unbound. He wore a coat of mail over leather, and appeared a few years younger than Allystaire.

  “This’s the one who talked business with our man,” Idgen Marte said. “I heard one call him Altigern,” she added.

  “Tell me, where is my man Evert?” Allystaire said, addressing Altigern. After a beat, he added, “I hope for the sake of you and your men he is still alive.”

  The man drew himself erect and lifted his head slightly. “It’s no concern of mine what happens to those who consort with dark and unnatural powers.”

  Allystaire sighed, then began tugging the glove off his left hand. “I am not a patient man tonight, Altigern. Cowards and would-be assassins ruining my sleep do nothing for my mood.”

  The man spat near, if not quite on, Allystaire’s boots. “As if killing a warlock in thrall to some child witch could be anything but a good night’s work,” he snarled.

  Allystiare pinched the bridge of nose and tried to find some fresh store of patience within himself, but even as he tried, the other man gained momentum.

  “What’re you going to do with us? Hang us upside down beneath the new moon and flay us? Or simply spill our entrails for your witch-whore’s magics?”

  The anger, the frustration, the pent-up tension of waiting and worrying for the whole of the village suddenly welled up within Allystaire the instant the man said “witch-whore.” Before he knew it, his right hand curled into a fist, his arm bent at the elbow, and his body torqued as he drew back his fist and then hurled it, with the short, compact movement of a beautiful punch. It traveled less than a foot before it exploded on Altigern’s jaw.

  The force, delivered through his iron-banded glove, dropped Altigern to the ground like a man struck dead. Allystaire felt the impact jar his hand, heard the man whimper in pain as he went to the ground.

  Bending over the prone form of the mercenary, Allystaire reached down and grabbed him by the collar. Though Altigern swam on the very edges of consciousness, the sudden shaking, and Allystaire’s angry voice, stirred him awake.

  “This need not end in blood. My man. Where is he?”

  Allystaire instinctively pushed out towards the man with the Mother’s compulsion, and was astonished to find it drawing forth a response through broken teeth and bloodied lips.

  “Dead,” Altigern moaned. “No men t’guard ‘im, no use for ‘im.”

  “At your command?”

  “Aye,” the man confirmed, before slumping to the earth, finally giving into oblivion with a clatter of teeth falling from his mouth.

  Allystaire’s fists curled in rage. He gave thought to simply caving the man’s skull in with his fists, or to drawing his sword and taking his head. Idgen Marte probably sensed the bloody thoughts, or at least read them in his body language, for she stepped between him, shoving him away from the unconscious mercenary.

  “Go,” she said. “Before you murder them all in a haze. Sleep. Renard and I’ll see to their disposition.”

  “We need to recover Evert’s body,” Allystaire replied. “And—”

  She cut him off with a curt shake of her head. “I said we’d handle it. Go. I don’t want t’spend the rest of the night digging graves.” And take Gideon with you.

  He nodded, turned, plodded heavily back to the edge of the tilled earth and down the slight hillock to where Gideon and Torvul still waited. The alchemist’s unguent was starting to wear off and darkness was impinging on his vision, but he could see Gideon resting heavily upon one knee, a light sheen of sweat on his face despite the night’s chill.

  Allystaire lowered a hand upon the boy’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “You did well, lad. We took them all with no death.” He paused, then added, “No more deaths.”

  “I was just tellin’ the lad that more than one hardened man out there is likely walking around in wet trousers,” Torvul added.

  Gideon nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “I was…sloppy. The flames did not need to be flames in truth. Merely the seeming would have done,” he said, half to Allystaire, half to himself. “It was a waste of energy.”

  “Remind me in the morning to ask what it is you mean,” Allystaire said wearily. “If you explained it now, like as not I would not remember it. We are off, Torvul,” he added, giving the dwarf a nod.

  The two of them walked with increasing weariness. By the time they’d reached the Temple field, Allystaire’s eyes had lost all of the brightness Torvul’s potion had magicked into them, and the night was night once more.

  “Why’d you hit that man, their captain,” Gideon suddenly asked as they stopped between Torvul’s wagon and Allystaire’s tent.

  “I snapped. Spent all that time waiting for a fight, some part of me needed one to happen, and the man said something that cut straight to that need.”

  “It didn’t look good to his men.”

  “Gideon, in the morning, we may hang them all. They meant to murder as many folk in the village as they could, starting with us. They killed one of Ivar’s men, who was trying to protect us.”

  The boy frowned. “We can’t kill every would-be murderer.”

  “No, Gideon. Not all of them; only those that we find. Goodnight.” With that, Allystaire turned, lifted the flap of his tent, and barely managed to tear off his outer garments and set his hammer
down by his bed before the abyss of unconsciousness rushed up to claim him.

  Chapter 23

  An Old Trick

  Morning was like a blade to the eyes, a hammered fist to the mind. Allystaire woke up with a start and swung his legs out of the cot, the walls of his tent already letting in bright sunlight.

  “Overslept, you old fool,” he said aloud, before forcing himself to stand. Ivar is going to want blood, he thought as he dressed and armed himself for the day. And I may damn well give it to her.

  No sooner was he outside than Cerisia, maskless but in formal white-and-gold silk vestments, was sweeping upon him in a rush. Though her lips were painted, her eyes highlighted, and other cosmetics he couldn’t name were applied to her face, there were taut lines along her cheeks from the tension in her jaw.

  Fear. She never showed me fear before. She addressed him with a hand laid upon his arm.

  “Allystaire,” she said, her voice as tight as her skin, on the far edge of panicked. “What happened last night? I did as you asked and did not leave my tent. But I could feel the power that was unleashed. What did you do?”

  He tried to force a cold distance into his face and voice. He found, to his surprise, that it wasn’t difficult.

  “I did nothing, Cerisia. What you felt? That was the Will of the Mother. Surely, as observant a plotter and a watcher of men as you did not fail to notice that there were five Pillars to Her altar, and yet you met only four of Her servants? Did you not find that curious?”

  That bought him a moment of her stunned silence, and he turned, pulled his arm from her grasp, and began striding away. She crossed the distance with hurried steps and grabbed for him again.

  “What will happen to those men? Surely you can’t mean to kill them all.”

  “You mean surely I cannot plan to do to them what they would have done to this village?” Allystaire turned on her again. The furnace of anger that had built within him the day before no longer roared as it had, but its embers stirred. “No. I will not do that. There will be no murder done. Yet they will face the Mother’s Justice.”

  “You would smear your people’s hands with their blood then, and confirm all the worst fears of my temple, of Braech’s—”

  “I do not give a frozen damn for your temple or Braech’s. And as for reddening their hands? No.” He shook his head, took a step closer to her. “Only my own. I will make you this promise—if I sentence any of your would-be murderers to die I will knot the rope or hold the blade. They will die quickly, as mercifully as I can manage. And believe me, Cerisia, I know that work like a smith knows his forge.”

  He turned again, only to be brought up short once more as she called out.

  “You cannot. I forbid it. They are Fortune’s agents, under my—”

  She was brought up short as he whirled around once more, lowering his face towards hers, his cheeks livid with rage. When he spoke, however, instead of the roar she probably expected, his voice was as quiet and deadly as a sword clearing a scabbard.

  “You will forbid nothing in this place,” Allystaire whispered. “You, whose word on the conduct of her people was proven dross, you have no power here, no word. I deny you and your goddess and all her servants any authority here. Speak again if you wish to chance hanging with those men.”

  Cerisia was silent for a moment, but she bore up under his threat and spoke. “You will not hang me. I was as deceived as you, and came here as an honest envoy. And you, Allystaire Coldbourne, will not hang anyone who has done no violence. Especially not, I think, a woman.”

  Damn her. Allystaire could make no reply, so instead he turned away, pushing his anger down and choking on it, counting on longer-legged strides to outpace the priestess till he reached the dwarf’s wagon. He pounded a fist against the side, and before he could knock a third time, Torvul stuck his head out of the door.

  “Make a mark on my home and it’ll be the last thing you do, boy.” The dwarf stepped out into the morning, wearing his thick blue robe and no boots, his gnarled, wide-set feet slapping heavily against the wood of his wagon steps. He turned and saw Cerisia following hesitantly, spat into the grass, and let out a short string of Dwarfish curses. “He might not be willing to hang you, but I’m not decided yet. I’ll not trade any further words with you. Out of my sight before I get angry.”

  The priestess retreated, but with a slow, deliberate pace, maintaining her regal bearing.

  Once she was out of earshot, Allystaire said, “I would not let you hang her.”

  Torvul shrugged. “I know that. She doesn’t. You’re the one who can’t bend the truth to suit his purposes. Now, for business. Idgen Marte and Renard simply tied the lot of ‘em together and let ‘em sit out in the night, wonderin’ what was to happen to ‘em. I’ve an idea on how to proceed. Wait here.”

  The dwarf disappeared into his wagon, re-emerged shortly, and tossed Allystaire a small, hard, cloth-wrapped bundle that he neatly caught. He unwrapped it, found the hard, grainy surface familiar, and snorted.

  “A whetstone? That old bit, then? Go sit there and sharpen my sword while they sweat? That lot has seen it before, Torvul. Cold, half of them have probably done it.”

  The dwarf snorted. “I’m insulted, Ally, that you’d think that such a prosaic bit of theater would be the best I could do. Well, of course, you are going to go sharpen your sword. But that’s only the start of it. We’re going to be feeding them breakfast, y’see, treating them decently—”

  “I will not have you poisoning prisoners.”

  “I’m no common poisoner! Never touch the stuff. Professional pride as much as ethics. Just a little power of suggestion. They aren’t going to be seeing a man in musty leathers sharpening a sword, that’s all.”

  “What is it they will see, then?”

  Torvul smiled toothily. “The Arm of the Mother readying the judgment of their very souls.”

  * * *

  Growing up on the Spirit Islands well north of Keersvast instilled a healthy respect, if not precisely fear, in men like Altigern. They worshipped Braech because the Sea Dragon was Strength Against the Storm, proof that courage was always a man’s best option, a reminder that the strength of the arm was a real and a powerful thing. Yet Braech’s church and his rough, seafaring priests seemed to have no answer for the spirits of his island home, the spirits of the wind and the night.

  And Braech surely had no answers for a giant of light and flame, and so Altigern spent the night of his captivity—after the dwarf had set his broken nose and given him something to take the edge off the pain of his shattered teeth—alternating between prayer to the Sea Dragon and a frantic, gnawing fear for his soul.

  When he and the other men had been roused by the dwarf, he’d been too numb and too hungry to refuse the bowl of porridge offered. Besides, he’d thought the dwarf seemed kinder, perhaps, than the leader, this Allystaire they’d come to kill.

  After eating, their hands were bound again. They remained guarded by men in black mail and grey cloaks, armed with spears and halberds, who aimed dark looks and muttered at the swords-at-hire and temple guardsmen who were Altigern’s companions. This tension increased as, shortly after daybreak, the body of the man he’d ordered killed had been brought back.

  And just when one of those warband soldiers, with cracked teeth and an ugly, fierce countenance, spat on the ground and looked like lowering her spear and coming for his blood, Allystaire came back to the field.

  Only, Altigern thought, he was changed. Taller, broader, somehow more terrifying, wearing a glimmering suit of armor that threw back the sun in brilliance and clung to his muscles like a second skin. He unlimbered an enormous sword—Altigern doubted he himself could lift it—and began sharpening it with a huge block of stone in his other hand. His face shown with a kind of radiance that was hard to look at.

  Sparks fell from the blade with every stroke, in red and
orange and white and green, and Altigern swore he felt the sword itself reaching for him.

  He meant, Altigern was sure, to murder them all, to take their heads, and quarter their bodies and bury them out of sight or hearing of moving water.

  My soul will not know the way to the sea, he thought in growing horror. I will be left locked in earth till Braech’s tide washes all before it.

  Altigern summoned all his strength and looked to the uncovered face of his would-be executioner, forcing himself past the pain of it.

  And instead of the grim joy he expected, he saw regret. Anger, to be sure, but an anger that he was being driven to this, a sadness, an unwillingness to do this task if there were any other way.

  And then Altigern heard a voice tell him to beg for mercy, to ask this huge, gleaming figure, this angry goddess’s judge, for a clemency he hadn’t thought was possible.

  It was only then that the Islandman realized the voice he heard was his own, and not the only one; all around him, his men were falling to their knees, watching in fascinated horror. Some, strong men, men he knew were hard and bloodied, wept. They wept for their souls and their lives, and some, only some, wept for the first dawn of self-knowing.

  The fear Altigern felt for his soul somehow turned into revulsion. Somewhere deep down, he knew that if this shining knight before him took his head and butchered his remains, it was probably no worse than he had earned.

  And then, amidst the babbling appeals for mercy, the knight, the man he had come to kill—no, to murder—sheathed his sword, stood, and raised his hands for silence.

  Then he spoke a miracle of forgiveness.

  * * *

  Dwarf, I do not know what you did, Allystaire thought, hoping Torvul could hear him, but I hope their minds are not permanently addled.

  He had done precisely as Torvul had suggested: strolled into the field as the prisoners finished their meager breakfast, unlimbered his sword, and sharpened it. Tried that once before on a captured Harlach spy, ten years ago. Maybe more. He laughed at it, Allystaire had thought, when he began.