The Magelands Epic: Soulwitch Rises (Book 7)

by Christopher Mitchell

  He extended his arm and shook the hands of each of them.

  ‘Hoi!’ cried the overseer to the crowd in the pavilion. ‘Listen, the provost will be here in a minute for an inspection before the place opens for the evening. I want ye all outside, lined up. Once the provost’s been and gone, stay in line and I’ll pay ye for today.’

  The labourers finished their ales and piled up their bowls and tankards by the entrance. As they were filing out into the field, Carrie nudged Lennox.

  ‘Who’s the provost?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘The boss,’ said Dommek, ‘of the whole town. Ye know about the Severed Clan, aye? It was them that founded this place. They marched all the way from Rahain eighteen years ago and settled right here.’

  Lennox nodded, keen to pick up anything he could without giving away how little he knew. They formed a long line by the entrance of the pavilion. The air was still and cold, but there was no wind or rain. More lamps and lanterns had been lit, and the whole field was bathed in a warm glow. The chatter quietened as a small group approached from the front of the field. At their head was an old woman, a thick, dark red robe over her shoulders clasped with a golden chain. Walking to her right was the overseer, pointing out the work each labourer had carried out.

  ‘There she is,’ muttered Dommek. ‘Provost Draewyn. On her left is Brundy, one of the Master Distiller’s sons. Old Brodie’s too old to make it for the whole event these days; leaves it to his boys.’

  Lennox watched as the small group slowly made their way up the line, nodding and offering greetings to the labourers. Next to the provost was another woman – tall, but dark-skinned like folk from the Holdings. She was young, he guessed; maybe a bit younger then him; and she was beautiful.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said.

  ‘The one with the provost?’ Dommek said. ‘Don’t know; never seen her before.’

  The workers stamped their feet in the cold as the group inched their way up the line. After minutes had passed, the overseer paused in front of Dommek.

  ‘This is my chief carpenter,’ he said to the small group.

  ‘I know who it is,’ said the provost, turning to Dommek. ‘A good job this year, as always.’

  ‘Thanks, boss.’

  The overseer gestured at Lennox. ‘And these new guys helped build the toilet block.’

  Lennox bowed. ‘An honour to meet you, lady provost.’

  The old woman squinted at him. ‘Last year my bare arse nearly froze off in the wind; there’d better not be any draughts this year, or I’ll be looking for ye.’

  ‘I promise your arse will remain draught-free, ma’am.’

  ‘Good lad,’ she nodded, and moved on. The young woman standing beside her caught Lennox’s eye for a moment and smiled, then she was gone, walking up the line past him.

  Dommek elbowed him. ‘Ye’d fucking better hope yer right,’ he said, grinning. ‘Ye don’t want to get on the provost’s wrong side. She’s as hard as a Brig’s skull.’

  They waited until the provost had reached the end of the line and entered the pavilion, then the overseer returned, and had a table and chair set up by the entrance. A couple of burly guards walked over carrying bags of gold, and the labourers queued up. The overseer wrote in a ledger as each worker was paid, and the queue moved steadily forwards. When Lennox reached the front, Dommek was still there, jingling the coins in his hand.

  ‘Lennox?’ said the overseer. ‘That’s yer name, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I have a job for you and your friends tomorrow. I need…’

  ‘Too late,’ said Dommek, laughing. ‘I’ve nabbed them already for my crew.’

  ‘But…’

  Lennox shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

  The overseer frowned as he counted out Lennox’s pay.

  ‘Here ye are,’ he said. ‘That’s twelve for today’s work.’

  ‘By the way,’ Dommek said, ‘who was that woman with the provost?’

  The overseer didn’t look up as he wrote Lennox’s name in the ledger. ‘Chief Killop’s daughter.’

  ‘Aye? Fuck me. The Chief Killop?’

  ‘Are ye deaf? That’s what I said.’

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  The overseer sighed and glanced up. ‘I don’t know. She was here ten years ago, apparently. Maybe she plans to visit every decade. Anyway, Chief Killop’s dead, did ye not hear?’

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘Aye, well he is. Now, piss off, Dommek. I have a hundred others to pay and yer holding up the line.’

  Dommek stood motionless for a moment, his eyes wide, before striding off towards the back of the field without a word. Chief Killop, thought Lennox, trying to remember where he had heard the name before. He waited until Carrie, Cain and Leisha had been paid, then the four of them set off for the north bridge. They passed through the rows of tables and onto the road that led from the town to the peatlands. A crowd had already gathered by the entrance to the field, waiting for the party to begin, and were almost blocking the road and bridge with their numbers. Lennox squeezed past the throngs of folk, the noise of their chatter almost drowning out the roar from the burn that rushed under the bridge. On the other side it was quieter, though more groups of folk were arriving all the time.

  They reached a square, the northern side of which was taken up by the main entrance to the largest building in Severton. Wagons and barrels occupied about half of the square, crowded by the wrought iron gates of the distillery. They crossed the square and continued on down one of the main roads through the town, passing a row of large mansion houses on their left, and shops and tenements on their right. The richer areas lay to the north, where presumably the provost and master distiller lived. They came to a pair of squares, one on either side of the main road, and Lennox noticed two huge statues in the centre of the one on the left.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ he said, his eyes scanning the large marble figures. ‘I want to take a closer look.’

  He turned to their left and walked toward the middle of the square. He had been told by someone that this square held the town hall, and the trading missions from the far reaches of the empire, and it was lined with tall townhouses. He reached the pair of statues, each on its own high, granite pedestal, and stared at them as his three friends walked up behind him. One was of a man, twice life-size; a warrior with a sword and shield; while the other was of a woman, unarmed, and with her hand raised, a finger pointing west.

  ‘Come on, Lennox,’ said Leisha. ‘I need a bath.’

  Lennox said nothing. His eyes moved down to the inscriptions. On the woman’s pedestal were the words: Bridget ae Brenna ae Brig – Second Chief of the Severed Clan, Herald to the First.

  ‘Bridget?’ he said. ‘Isn’t that the name of the Empress?’

  ‘Aye, I think so,’ said Carrie. ‘That can’t be her, though. It must be another Bridget.’

  ‘And who’s the guy?’ said Cain.

  ‘Killop,’ said Lennox. ‘That woman’s father.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The one that was standing next to the provost.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Cain. ‘The girl that looked like a extra-tall Holdings?’

  ‘She must be Kellach,’ said Lennox, ‘if she’s his daughter. Look, we’ve already discovered that there’s a lot we don’t know. I mean, who among us could have dreamt that there was a place like this down here? Our instructors told us it was a deserted wasteland. Why? Because they wanted us to believe that our culture hadn’t survived, that all we had was the Creator and the Army of Pyre, and so we had to dedicate our lives to them, instead of coming here; coming home.’

  ‘Very fucking profound,’ said Cain, ‘but what’s that got to do with the girl we saw?’

  ‘There must be dark-skinned Kellach; a clan we’ve never heard of. Her mother must have been one of them.’

  Leisha sighed. ‘Can I have my bath now?’

  ‘This is our history,’ Lennox said, as the others s
tarted to turn back towards the road.

  ‘Come on,’ said Carrie, smiling as she beckoned him. ‘We can talk about this after we wash and eat.’

  Lennox stole a last glance at the two statues, and followed them back to the main road.

  Two hours later, the four companions sat together in their shabby room, blankets and cloaks wrapped round them to keep out the cold. They had queued at the communal wash-house, the only room in the tenement with water, then sent out Cain for hot food, bought from one of the many vendors on the streets leading to the field where the Winter’s Day festival was taking place. They had also bought a lamp with their pay, and a bottle of whisky, to go with the skewered beef and warm bread that Cain brought back with him.

  ‘It was better sitting in the darkness,’ said Leisha from her low bed, as she gazed at the damp patches on the walls, a dripping chunk of beef in her hand.

  ‘But then I wouldn’t get to see your ugly faces,’ said Cain. He watched as Lennox opened the bottle of whisky. ‘It’s mad that we paid for a bottle when we could have drunk our fill for nothing at the party.’

  ‘But if we go,’ Lennox said, ‘then tomorrow will be murder. We’ve got a long shift coming up, and I can’t handle doing it with a massive hangover.’

  ‘And after we’ve done it,’ said Carrie, ‘you’ll be able to drink as much as you want.’

  ‘Aye, but by that time most folk will have been drinking for a day and a half; everyone will be wasted.’ Cain paused for a moment. ‘The young ladies will be wasted too.’

  Leisha raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Have you ever actually had sex?’

  Cain glared at her. ‘Aye.’

  ‘What, one drunken fumble behind the barracks in Boxer City?’

  ‘Is that one of your fantasies? Never mind my experience, when’s the last time you got laid? Obviously you’ve done it at least once, but I’ve not seen you within a sniff of action since you got back from popping out your brats in Liberton.’ He nodded. ‘I get it. Logie was the only man for you.’

  Leisha glanced away. ‘I’ve never understood why the rest of the squad hated him so much. Before I left, everyone loved Logie, but when I got back, nobody had a good word to say about him, as if he was shit you’d scrape from the sole of your boot.’

  ‘He changed,’ said Lennox.

  Leisha glanced at him. ‘You were there when he died, weren’t you? I’ve never asked you about it, but maybe I should have.’

  Lennox took a sip of whisky, savouring the taste as it warmed his throat. He remembered Logie’s death. What good would come of revealing to Leisha what had really occurred? He had never told Cain or Carrie, or anyone else, not even Libby, so desperate he had been at the time to keep his mage powers a secret.

  ‘He died a good death,’ he said, ‘trying to protect a prisoner he had been charged with looking after.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘A burning building fell onto him. He drowned in the fens beneath.’

  ‘He was an arsehole,’ said Cain; ‘a bully. His death was the best thing that happened to the squad.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Carrie. ‘Cain, can you not see Leisha’s upset? No matter what’s gone on in the past, us four are all that’s left of the squad. Today was great.’

  The others frowned at her.

  ‘Alright, so it was only building a shithouse, but the way we worked together reminded me of some of the good things the Army of Pyre taught us. There weren’t many, I know, but that feeling of connection, of being part of something bigger than just each of us on our own. I was proud.’

  ‘And it got us a better job tomorrow,’ said Lennox.

  ‘Aye,’ said Cain, ‘four hundred we’ll earn between us.’

  ‘Enough to rent a proper apartment,’ said Leisha, ‘with its own bath.’

  ‘See?’ said Carrie. ‘Nothing will break us. We’re still the Fifth, aren’t we?’

  They glanced at each other. ‘Aye.’

  Lennox refilled their tin mugs with whisky. ‘We need to find out more about this Severed Clan stuff. We don’t want to risk looking stupid when everyone else knows all about it.’

  ‘I remember a bit,’ said Cain, ‘from when we were captured by the rebels near Liberton. Didn’t that woman tell us stories about them?’

  Lennox nodded. ‘That’s where I’d heard the name Killop; he led a slave uprising in Rahain. Pyre’s arse, I’d completely forgotten that.’

  Cain tapped the side of his head. ‘I forget nothing.’

  ‘So he’s a local hero?’ said Leisha. ‘He must have brought them all here, and the Severed Clan became Severton.’

  ‘His daughter’s probably here as a guest of honour,’ said Carrie.

  ‘Or to bring word of his death,’ said Lennox.

  ‘Aye, the news certainly took Dommek by surprise.’

  ’Right,’ said Leisha, ‘so we act all sad whenever anyone mentions it.’

  Carrie frowned. ‘Things are going too well; someone’s bound to find out about us sooner or later. Our cover story in Threeways was useless. We look and act like soldiers, and folk aren’t stupid. This time, I think we’re just going to have to be honest.’

  ‘No,’ said Lennox. ‘No way. We let on about what we did in Rainsby, and we’re finished.’

  ‘What you did, you mean?’ said Cain. ‘It wasn’t any of us three that burned down a hospital.’

  The others glared at him.

  ‘I’m joking for fucksake.’

  ‘A compromise?’ said Carrie. ‘We tell people that we deserted from the Army of Pyre, which is true; and keep quiet about of any the stuff we did with Sable?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Leisha, ‘that would be a lot easier to remember. We’d need to keep Lennox’s fire powers secret too.’

  ‘I’m used to that,’ he said. ‘Alright, we’ll try it.’

  ‘They’re bound to ask us why we deserted,’ said Cain. ‘What’ll we say?’

  ‘The truth,’ said Carrie, ‘that we were sick of the atrocities and bullshit.’

  ‘And fed up with the Rahain breeding us like animals for war,’ said Lennox. ‘I mean, we had no choice when we were younger; it was all we knew, so of course we believed what our instructors taught us. It was only when we left Rahain that we realised we’d been taken for fools.’

  ‘You sound convincing,’ said Leisha, ‘but do you actually believe it?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Carrie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Leisha. ‘We were outlawed because Sable tried to kill Lennox and we stopped her.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Cain. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t for any wishy-washy moral objections. We were soldiers; death and killing were our lives. To be honest, I miss the Army of Pyre. Part of me wishes I’d stayed.’

  Lennox met his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because the army taught me that loyalty to the squad was everything, that we stick together, no matter what.’ Cain smiled. ‘Even if that means digging shitholes for a living at the arse end of the world.’

  Lennox smiled and raised his mug. ‘To the Fifth, what’s left of us.’

  ‘The Fifth.’

  Chapter 17

  The Sole Remedy

  Anamindhari, Eastern Plateau – Winter’s Day 525

  Terraced vineyards stretched for miles in three directions, covering most of the gentle hillsides that surrounded Anamindhari. On the town’s southern flank, where two rivers met, the land lay wet and marshy, before climbing to the higher peaks that marked the inland route to Rainsby; and where, behind a low ridge, the cavalry force under the command of Thorn and Keir was stationed.

  The young Holdfast mage soared his vision, gazing down onto the entire landscape, his sight picking out individual units of marines approaching the town from the west. Like an eagle seeking out prey, he thought, as the glint of their armour shone in the morning sun. They were right where they should be, he noticed; five thousand veteran marines ready to do his biddi
ng. Thorn’s bidding, he corrected himself. Their loyalty was with the soulwitch; it was for her that they had retaken Stretton Sands, and it was for her that they were marching towards Anamindhari. He had fought hard to be accepted by the cavalry commanders, with mixed success, but he was unknown to the marines except through the tales of what he had done in Rainsby, and tales alone couldn’t match what they had seen Thorn do in person.

  He turned his attention back to the town, pleased that he had a power she would never know; a power that had, over hundreds of years, won Holdings armies many battles they should have lost. Cavalry and vision mages – the twin advantages that Holdings military doctrine revolved around; and he had them both under his control.

  His sight scanned the outskirts of the town, searching for defences or lookout posts, but he saw nothing except for the results of the settlement’s occupation by the Sanang – burnt-out houses, debris strewn down the roads and blocking the canals, and bodies. Keir grimaced as his eyes were drawn to the corpses. Many had been thrown into the waterways that crisscrossed the town; others were hanging from lampposts, while dozens, maybe hundreds, of desecrated and mutilated bodies were lying where they had fallen. Beheading seemed to have been the Sanang’s preferred mode of delivering death to the Rakanese who had lived in the town, and heaps of heads decorated several of the open squares and plazas. Keir began to feel sick. The slaughter seemed so pointless, so random. Children, old folk, unarmed civilians; it seemed the entire population had been put to the sword.

  Keir’s heart burned with rage at the cruelty of it, while at the same time his gorge rose. He pulled his vision back to his body, his breath ragged. He clutched his chest, seized by a coughing fit, his throat bitter with bile.

  ‘Sir?’ said a staff officer, passing him a mug of water, as the others inside the crowded command tent watched.

  Keir swatted his hand away, then rolled onto his knees and vomited over the canvas floor, his freshly eaten breakfast spilling out of him in painful retches. A headache bloomed behind his temples then, in an instant, his pain receded and his nausea vanished, his stomach settling.