by David Hair
‘He . . . praxis . . . no air,’ Dash panted. ‘Blacked out.’
Vidar snorted, then grinned savagely. ‘Well, that was fun. But you could’ve warned me.’
‘I did warn you,’ Dash croaked indignantly, then added, ‘Well, I tried.’
‘When?’ Vidar demanded. ‘Deo on High, Cowley, that man was a blasted praxis-mage – the whole kragging empire will come looking for him, and that means I’m a feckin’ outlaw now – no, we all are. And to think I was going to retire on what he was contracted to pay me.’
‘He wasn’t going to pay you,’ Dash replied. ‘He was going to kill you.’
‘How the feck d’you know that?’
Dash didn’t reply; he’d just realised his daughter was in shock. He put his arms round her and pulled her close. Her eyes, round as saucers, were saying, ‘Dear Gerda, I nearly killed a man.’ Practising with a wooden weapon was a world away from using a real one with intent.
He looked up at Vidar. ‘I tried to tell you – I read Perhan’s journal while you slept. There really was stuff he didn’t tell Gospodoi – big stuff.’
Vidar stared. ‘What the krag are you saying?’
‘The “Moonfire”?’ Dash said, ‘the “old flame” – do you get it now?’ He stroked Zar’s back and kissed her forehead. ‘Better now?’
Vidar was still looking puzzled. ‘Nope. Don’t get it.’
‘I got it,’ Zar sniffed. For a moment she brightened, then she caught a glimpse of the corpses again and went white.
‘Got what?’ Vidar demanded. ‘This better be feckin’ good, Cowley, ’cos we’re surely going to hang for this when they catch us. I’d like to know why I’m dying an outlaw’s death beside a man I don’t even know.’
‘Oh, it’s good,’ Dash replied, keeping his voice calm. He’s a bearskin: if he loses his temper again, he’ll rip my head off. ‘Moonfire is slang for istariol and a “flame” is a nickname for a Ferrean. I was trying to tell you that this Ferrean cartomancer had found a lot of istariol he hadn’t told Gospodoi about.’
Vidar stared. ‘I thought you were telling me about some piss-headed girl you once shagged.’
Zar snorted.
‘You, shut it,’ Vidar told her. He fixed Dash with a glare. ‘You, talk.’
Dash settled Zar in a chair, then picked up the journal. ‘Your cartomancer found istariol traces in a river in Verdessa, according to his personal diary. But he obviously didn’t want Gospodoi to know, because he told Gospodoi his readings were negative and he wrote in Ferrean. The moment I confirmed Gospodoi’s suspicions, he was going to kill all three of us.’
The Norgan started mouthing curses.
‘I guess this means we’re going to have to move again,’ Zar grumbled.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dash told her, ‘but I had no choice.’
‘Then I’d better start packing – and just when I was starting to like it here,’ she added sarcastically. She clambered up the loft-ladder, deliberately avoiding looking at the bodies.
Dash turned to Vidar and, composing his words carefully, started, ‘I’m sorry about your money, Vidar, but believe me, you weren’t going to be collecting.’ Then he fixed him with a confident smile. ‘However, we can still come out of this rich beyond your brightest dreams.’
‘My dreams can get pretty bright,’ Vidar growled. ‘Istariol, you say? That damned cartomancer found istariol and hid it from Gospodoi and me? That means that only he, you and I know . . .’ He paused, taking that in.
‘Exactly. But Perhan’s beyond help now. I’m sorry if he was your friend.’
‘Barely knew him, but he seemed a decent sort.’ Vidar pulled a face then asked, ‘So what about this istariol, then?’
‘Well, I know where he found the traces: a lake at the foot of some mountain ranges. Does that sound familiar?’
‘Aye – that’s where the cartomancer hurt himself, right at the edge of the Iceheart. But the only thing he tested there were the waters at the mouth of a river running out of the Icelands.’
Dash thought about that. ‘In that case, I reckon we need to follow that river to the source. There’s a motherlode of istariol out there, Vidar Vidarsson. We can find it, mine it, sell it and make a fortune.’
‘You’re dreaming, Otravian,’ Vidar growled. ‘Verdessa is claimed by the empire and there’s already a garrison there. Even if we got there undetected, how would we mine it? That takes men. And anyway, istariol is only valuable to a sorcerer and they all serve the empire.’
Dash whispered, ‘Cognatus, animus,’ and felt the rush of energy as his familiar spirit sparked into life on his shoulder in emerald-hued Shadran parrot shape, invisible to anyone here but him. He traced a figure in the air: Ignus, the fire rune. Cognatus channelled energy and a tongue of fire formed on his fingertip, dancing prettily but not burning him.
‘Not all sorcerers serve the empire,’ he said, watching Vidar’s reaction.
‘I’m going to be a sorcerer, too,’ Zar called, sitting on the top step of the loft-ladder.
Vidar stared from father to daughter, scepticism warring with greed.
Greed won.
‘Gerda’s Fanny! You think we can actually do this?’
He said ‘we’, Dash noted. ‘It’s possible. Think, Vidar: we could be richer than kings.’
The bearskin looked skywards. ‘You two are going to be the death of me, aren’t you?’
Probably, Dash thought. I’ve been the death of most everyone else.
2
Who’s with me?
You want to find bodies, follow the crows, Dash’s father always used to say. The old man had fought the Urstian raiders twenty years ago, when Dash was a boy; he’d been a colonel when the Bolgravs tried and failed to conquer them the first time.
‘They thought they could try us,’ his father used to boast, ‘but Otravia was ready.’
But we weren’t ready when they came back, were we? Some of us even opened the kragging doors to them.
But that was of no moment now. What mattered was burying the bodies before the crows found them and brought other carrion-eaters. He and Vidar Vidarsson took the soldiers’ standard-issue diggers and carved out a trench in the shade of the trees out the back, while Zar cooked a hearty breakfast from purloined rations.
It was hot work despite the cold and the two men quickly stripped to the waist. Vidar was thickset, a slab of muscle going to fat and scarred with a dozen old wounds, but whip-lean Dash had a few scars of his own.
‘So,’ Dash said, leaning on his shovel as he caught his breath, while the Norgan laboured on, ‘who is Vidar Vidarsson?’
Vidar hesitated, then answered, ‘I was a regular in the Norgania Royal Army – a scout – till I got into a stupid duel with a nob. Killed the fecker, then had to run. Ended up in Bolgravia, where they were re-tooling their army for conquest – I was there when Tempeskov came up with the idea of the rolling volley. Transformed warfare, he did. Turned the flintlock from a curiosity for scaring peasants to a decisive weapon. I got officer rank – they used me to train the conscripts – but when they decided they were going to conquer the world, men like me got busted back to the ranks so that their gentry could get the glory.’
Dash spat on the churned turf. ‘You fought for the Bolgravs during the conquests?’
‘Nah, I left when it all kicked off. Never fired a feckin’ shot on their behalf. Our unit came upon this village near Consadyne, in Magnia – it’d already been captured, but the Bolgravs lined up the survivors, men, women, children, even babes in arms, and speared every single one of them as an example to the rest of the old kingdom. So I settled some scores and got the hell out. Now there’s a price on my head in half the empire.’ He grimaced. ‘It ain’t much though, before you get any ideas.’
Not as much as my own bounty, I’d warrant, Dash mused. He nudged Vorei Gospodoi’s body with his foot. The blackened headless corpse stank. ‘Did he know who you are?’
Vidar gave a guttural laugh. ‘Neve
r used my real name in Bolgravia. He didn’t know me from a turd and his argents were as good as anyone’s. Or would’ve been – I was supposed to be paid when we got back to Falcombe.’ He spat, then looked up. ‘So what about you, Cowley? What’s your story?’
‘Short version: when the pro-Bolgravian faction seized power in Otravia, back in ’30, four years ago, I took my daughter and got out.’
‘You must’ve been pretty senior in the rebellion, being a sorcerer and all,’ Vidar guessed.
Dash shook his head. ‘No names is safer.’
‘Fair enough. But why come here?’
He had a point: the Pelarian coast was as bleak a place as could be found on the mainland, a land of sleet in winter and creeping mould in summer.
‘Feckin’ miserable place to hide out,’ Vidar added.
‘I guess this is as close to the edge of the empire as you can get without leaving civilisation behind entirely. Out here, people don’t talk to imperials, and they don’t dob each other in.’
‘So I’m guessing your head’s worth more than mine – not that I’d cash you in, either.’
‘Then let mutual silence be our bond,’ Dash suggested drily.
‘Aye, I’m all for that – and istariol. The price of the blood-dust never stops rising.’
‘True, that.’ Dash nonchalantly placed both hands back on the handle of his shovel, in case the next question caused offence, before asking, ‘So you’re a bearskin?’
Vidar’s face hardened. ‘Aye. Is that a problem?’
‘It is with most folk – but I fought alongside one or two in Colfar’s rebellion.’
‘I got it mostly under control, if that’s what you’re wondering.’
Mostly . . . Dash gave the man a sympathetic look. Bearskins generally didn’t live long. They were a dying breed, a legacy of the Mizra Wars, and those who were left were mostly to be found hiding on the fringes of society. Vidar looked to be in his forties, and that spoke of considerable self-discipline.
Although I still had to knock him out.
A bearskin was an asset though, by and large, and despite the confusion, Vidar had sided with him in the recent bloodbath. They weren’t yet friends, but Dash felt they might become so. He slapped the shovel handle and said, ‘Let’s finish up here, then we can talk properly.’
They returned to work with grim energy, digging as deep as the root system permitted, then rolling the thoroughly looted corpses into the hole. Out of respect, they dug a separate grave for Lyam Perhan, the Ferrean cartomancer. He had likely been forced to serve; that was how the Bolgravs operated.
When he was patting down the cartomancer before burial, Dash made an important discovery: a tiny crystal vial of reddish water, barely as long as his little finger, pushed into the hem of his shirt. Behind Vidar’s back, he held it up to the light and smiled, then pocketed it carefully.
When they had filled the graves, he said, ‘Stand back.’ With Vidar watching curiously, Dash muttered ‘Cognatus, animus!’ and his familiar appeared to his sight, although not Vidar’s. Cognatus, in his customary parrot-form, settled on Dash’s shoulder, then plunged into him. Dash’s vision changed, showing him an extra layer of life: the water seeping into the foliage, the insects and worms infesting the dirt and the sunlight pulsing through it all.
He traced Terra, the rune of earth, and said, ‘Renovare, nunc.’
The ground seethed with sudden energy: seeds burst into life and grass swelled up to cover the grave. Once he was satisfied, he concluded with, ‘Abeo, Cognatus amico,’ dismissing the familiar, his magical guardian and partner.
The unseen parrot reformed on his shoulder and nuzzled his cheek as his sight returned to normal, then took flight, circling Vidar unseen and unheard before shooting into the trees. Dash had trained Cognatus to keep his distance, for one never knew who was watching: unless they took care, a sorcerer could sense another practitioner’s familiar.
Vidar eyed the now-concealed graves uneasily. ‘Ain’t never been comfortable around sorcery,’ he muttered. ‘The Bolgrav military had plenty of enlisted sorcerers and damned scary buggers, they were.’
‘I don’t use it lightly,’ Dash assured him.
Vidar ran his eye over the graves, which had all but disappeared; the next rainstorm – pretty well a daily event here – would render it invisible to even the most careful eye. ‘Good work,’ he conceded, offering his hand. ‘If we’re to be partners, best we shake on it.’
A partner . . . Aye, I’ll definitely need one for this.
They clasped hands, then pulled their shirts back on before going through the loot: three flintlocks and a pistol, with plenty of powder and shot; the gemstones they’d prised from Gospodoi’s rapier and dagger hilts; a few silver argents the noble had in his purse, and of course, Perhan’s journal. Dash helped himself to the journal and gave Vidar the Bolgrav’s purse. ‘If you’ve been pressed into service you deserve it.’
Vidar gave him a grateful smile, then gestured at the guns. ‘Two each?’
‘Sure – you choose.’
‘I prefer to get in close,’ the bearskin growled, ‘but I’ll get a decent price for a couple of long-barrels.’
‘I’d hang on to them – we’ll need them if we’re going to try for the istariol.’
‘Fair enough.’ Vidar picked up the flintlock pistol and tossed it to Dash. ‘I s’pose a nob like you thinks a gun’s a coward’s weapon?’
Dash sighted at a nearby tree. ‘I got over the whole “glory of war” thing years ago. All that matters on a battlefield is surviving.’ He spun the pistol by the trigger-guard and thrust it into his belt. ‘I’ll take this and a musket. Haven’t had a gun since I left western Pelaria.’
They were sharing out the gemstones when Zar, clad in a boy’s travelling clothes, appeared with breakfast. ‘If we’re moving on, we may as well have a decent meal first,’ she said.
‘Don’t s’pose you’ve got a second keg of that rye stashed away?’ Vidar asked hopefully.
‘Nope.’
‘Then may Gospodoi burn for ever in the Pit.’
They wolfed down the food, washing it down with river water. There was no rain for a change, but the wind was surly and intrusive. There were good reasons why few people dwelt on this forbidding coast, and the climate wasn’t the least of them.
When they were done, Vidar thrust his bowl at Zar. ‘You go and wash this – your father and I need to talk.’
‘I’m not a serving girl,’ she flashed back.
‘My daughter and I share domestic duties,’ Dash told Vidar.
The Norgan frowned, then grunted, ‘Huh. Otravians.’
‘There’s nowhere else where women are treated as fairly,’ Zar declared, ‘and—’
‘Zarelda,’ Dash interrupted, ‘this is not the time to be playing “my country is better than your country”. No one ever wins. Vidar’s going to be with us for a while, so let’s be civil.’
‘Only civilised people can be civil.’
‘Zar!’ Dash turned to Vidar. ‘Sorry. She’s in a bad mood because we’re going to have to move again. The last few years have been one long journey for us.’
‘And wars,’ Zar added tersely, then she tsked and said, ‘Sorry, Dad’s right.’
Vidar chuckled. ‘I’m sure you’d be much happier at home in a castle with a dozen pretty dresses to your name,’ he said, and when Zar began to flare up again, he barked out a laugh. ‘Just teasing you, girl.’
‘You and I are going to be deadly enemies,’ Zar told the Norgan, but her eyes were twinkling. ‘Well, unless you do everything I tell you, starting with serving me hand and foot.’
‘Suspect it’d be easier to just be your enemy,’ Vidar snorted.
‘Let’s stay on topic,’ Dash interrupted. ‘We really do have plans to make.’
‘Fine,’ Zar chirped, ‘but does this primitive even know what istariol is?’
‘Is she always this mouthy?’ Vidar sniggered. ‘Of course I know about the
blood-dust.’ Then he hesitated and added grudgingly, ‘O’ course, I don’t know how much of what I know is true. But I do know that you need it for powerful sorcery; that it’s worth more’n gold, and that you have to mine it. And it’s rare.’
‘That about sums it up,’ Dash replied. ‘If we can find even a small amount, the journey will be worth it. But Perhan’s journal suggested a lot of istariol – a motherlode – and that could be worth a king’s ransom. By the Pit, it could be a country’s ransom!’
‘Then it’d be too much to carry,’ Vidar noted.
‘True, but you won’t make your fortune on just a sack-load,’ Dash told him. ‘And the Bolgravian Empire takes a very close interest in istariol. We start selling it, we need to do so from a position of strength or some bastard will just take it off us and put our heads on a block.’
‘Then we just tap it occasionally,’ Vidar suggested. ‘Just enough to tide us over.’
‘While tramping in and out of the wilderness?’ Dash shook his head. ‘No, that won’t work either. From the moment we start selling, we’re going to be marked. Istariol isn’t a game you go into halfway. You’re either all in, or not in at all.’
Vidar scowled and spat. ‘Gerda’s Tits, is it worth it?’
‘Oh yes, for sure. If there’s enough of it, we can buy ourselves a kingdom. But we can’t do this alone. We’ll need people. I’ve got a friend or two I can call on, but we’ll need lots of bodies to make it work.’
Vidar looked troubled. ‘We can’t just noise it round that we’ve found istariol. Someone will go straight to the governor in Sommaport and we’ll soon be hunted down.’
Dash had been thinking about this very thing himself. ‘I’m not so sure,’ he replied now. ‘Teshveld is a frontier, of sorts: the edge of the world. This region is full of refugees, people who’ve lost everything. I reckon we can pull together enough folk to run a mine, and defend it too. There isn’t a man out here – or a woman, from what I’ve seen – who can’t handle a weapon, and none of them love the empire.’
Vidar looked sceptical. ‘I thought you’d only just got here and were laying low? How d’you know anyone?’