by Matthew Ward
He nodded. “Brenæ af Brenæ, yr Væga af Væga.”
Fire from fire and death from death. A promise of Skanandra for those who died well. More than ever, Viktor wondered at Armund’s motives.
The vanaguards halted on the overgrown roadway. The foremost swept off her helm. A weather-beaten face stared unflinching out beneath steel grey hair.
“We come to collect tribute in the name of Ardothan, thane of Indrigsval.” She spoke Tressian low-tongue thicker and slower than Armund, heavy vowels grinding against the consonants. “Stand aside, or your blood marks the first tithe.”
“Still serving filth, Inkari af Üld?” growled Armund.
Her cheek twitched. “I serve the throne of Indrigsval.”
“And much glory has it brought you, I’m sure. Scaring farmers for a few coins.” He snorted. “You taught me better.”
“I also told you never again to step within Indrigsval, and yet here you are.”
“Indrigsval ends at the Grelyt,” rumbled Viktor. “This is Tressia.”
“The Republic has neglected the western valley. Ardothan has taken it beneath his shield.”
Viktor fought to conceal disdain. Inkari had spoken prettily enough, but the underlying truth was little different to vranakin offering a merchant’s shipments “protection”. “Valna no longer needs your thane’s generosity. It has defenders of its own.”
She narrowed her eyes. “A sightless exile and a tatter-knight?”
He met the gaze. “I was – I am – Lord Viktor Akadra, Champion to the Council, slayer of Emperor Ceredic…” That last wasn’t entirely true, for Ceredic had died of his wounds long months after, but what did the moment call for if not bravado? “… and the vanquisher of his son. I believe I’m ample to the task.”
Signs of recognition were subtle. A hurried glance between two vanaguards. A half-step back by one, checked and reversed almost at the same moment.
Inkari’s stare didn’t flicker. “I heard Akadra had lost his wits.”
“Perhaps I did.” Viktor’s shadow growled. He ignored it. “I’m feeling better.”
Armund had been right about that, however muddled the Thrakkian might have been on other counts. Viktor allowed himself to enjoy the moment. A reminder of his life – his purpose – before Malatriant had torn his world apart.
“Have you not yet tallied the odds against you?” said Inkari. “We’re not bond-axes, sold into service. I am a ceorla of Indrigsval, chosen by deed. With me stand vanaguards, proven and true.”
The rank of ceorla marked her as a member of the thane’s council. Vanaguard were that thane’s chosen warriors – as close to a chapterhouse knight as a Thrakkian came. But she didn’t want to fight. Cowardice? Distaste for a brigand’s errand? Lingering respect? Or did she simply want the business over and done, while a brawl threatened delay?
“Enough.” Viktor dragged his claymore from its slings and braced it, point down, in the moss between two flagstones. “Valna is under my protection. You’re welcome to test me.”
Armund snorted, his sightless stare not quite levelled at Inkari. “She won’t face you in single combat, lad. Honour’s gone and bargained away.”
Inkari’s face flushed. A gloved finger stabbed the air. “You’d chance to act if you wanted it otherwise, you and that sister of yours. But no, you were too busy playing at corsair, and when your father died it was Ardothan on the throne or Indrigsval swallowed up. You cast a shadow on my honour? You made yourself an exile long before Ardothan decreed you one.”
Armund scowled and gripped his axe-head tight. “Maybe I’m trying to put that right.”
Inkari gritted her teeth. Colour faded from her cheeks. “Only an exile would think that possible.”
She stalked back towards the waiting vanaguard.
“Playing at corsair?” murmured Viktor.
“It’s a long story,” Armund replied.
“Brenæ af Brenæ! Væga af væga!” shouted Inkari. “Kill them both!”
Axes gleamed like fire in the morning sun.
“Væga af væga!”
Calenne watched from among the trees, heart in her throat, as the vanaguards thundered to the charge, cloaks streaming behind. Three outpaced slower companions out of hunger for the kill. The grey-haired woman hung back, two others at her side.
Nine against two. Anger growled in the pit of Calenne’s stomach. If only she’d defied Viktor’s decree that she carry no sword as readily as she’d ignored his insistence that she remain behind. But the chance for such defiance was in the past and her shelter beneath the eaves lay a hundred yards from Valna’s gate. Even at her best, she’d never been a runner, and the winter’s illness still clung close enough that her best was but a memory.
Viktor met the ragged charge head on. A thrakker tumbled to the overgrown roadway, blood pooling beneath. An axe crashed down, but he was already turning away. The blade flashed past. A sweep of the claymore drove splinters from a haft, and fingers from the axeman’s hand. The pained howl and the clang of the weapon on flagstone sounded as one. Then Viktor was on the move once more and Calenne at last remembered to breathe.
Somehow she’d forgotten that death, more than anything, was his greatest gift.
A vanaguard’s axe whirled a tree-hewing stroke at Viktor’s gut. He leapt back. Steel wasted its force on empty air. The claymore scraped up across chainmail and sliced a ragged swath from the thrakker’s cloak. Off-balance, the vanaguard never saw the second, which spilt her drakon-winged helm and cast her lifeless to the muddy roadside.
Then the rest of the vanaguard crashed home.
An axe drove the claymore aside with a dull chime, and Calenne again forgot to breathe.
Viktor let the claymore fall wide and leapt forward. Bones jarred as his shoulder struck an armoured chest. The Thrakkian – axe raised high – thudded backwards onto the road.
Viktor leapt into the gap and brought down his heel on the man’s throat. His shadow exulted at the rattling gurgle. It begged to be set free, to run amok. Ice crackled across the claymore as Viktor forced it back into its cage. He fell to one knee, the brilliant dawn suddenly bleak.
An axe glinted above. Stifling a curse, Viktor flung himself aside, all the while knowing he was too late.
Moments crawled by. The shadow hurled itself at the bars of its cage, begging without words to be freed – to save them both from the axeman’s blade.
“Vardaga! Træger yr dogri!”
The strike of Armund’s axe followed hard behind his bellowed challenge to the vanaguard’s parentage. The man spun away with a roar of pain, the blow meant for Viktor’s skull alongside.
“Up, lad.” Armund’s fingers closed around Viktor’s forearm and dragged him upright. “Halfway there. No getting sleepy.”
“I’m fine,” Viktor lied. The shadow had receded, but it remained a pressure on his soul.
He cast about. The attackers had formed a loose ring about the roadway, their prey at the centre. Fury had made them reckless; death had been their punishment. Three from Viktor’s sword; two from Armund’s axe. The latter seemed impossible, for the Thrakkian’s eyes were as milky and masterless as ever. One kill, by chance, Viktor could have believed. Two…?
Viktor looked again at Armund, this time not with his eyes, but through his shadow. There, he beheld a second figure born of crackling forge-flame – no less stocky, but finer of feature – her hand as tight about the haft of the charred axe as Armund’s own.
Anliss watches for me from Skanandra’s forge. The axe had been hers, fetched from the pyre beneath Davenwood’s eaves. Somehow, she wielded it still.
Armund grinned. “It’ll be back-to-back now, if you want to live.”
Viktor glanced at Inkari, still distant from the brawl.
He dragged his claymore back up to guard. “Back-to-back it is.”
A wounded vanaguard crawled clear of the dead, a bloody smear in his wake. Another crawled jerkily upright, one hand limp at her side, the other
fast about her axe. Calenne drifted closer to the tree-line, anger at the uneven contest feeding the urge to do something – anything.
Thrakkers circled about Viktor and Armund, their brashness turned cold and deliberate. Abuzz with worry and frustration, Calenne reached the extent of the dawn-cast shadow and clenched her fists.
“What are you waiting for?” The grey-haired woman shoved an attendant toward the circle. “End this, and let’s be gone. No… wait!”
She stared back downhill. There, where the Indrig–Margard road made uneven passage, a small cart led by an old man. A boy of perhaps eight or nine summers sat among bulging sacks behind the driver’s perch.
“A trade,” said the grey-haired thrakker. “Two lives for two lives. Bring them!”
Her companions ran down the slope. With a fleeting glance back towards Viktor, Calenne followed, ghosting between trees as fast as she dared. She flinched at every unseen strike of steel.
The old man must have been deaf, for he paid the oncoming thrakkers no heed until the boy tugged at his arm. Wheeling in alarm, he tugged an old, battered sword from beneath the bench seat.
“Back! I’ll not—”
A gloved fist struck the old man’s wits away before he’d chance for anything more. He fell to the road, the sword skidding away. The larger of the two thrakkers clambered onto the cart after the terrified boy.
“Leave them be!” Viktor’s bellow echoed down the slope. “They’ve no part of this.”
“Nor had you,” rejoined the grey woman.
Calenne crouched in the undergrowth. Two lives for two lives. A slit throat for the boy if Viktor didn’t surrender. If only she’d brought a sword. Like so many endeavours, disobedience was worthless if pursued by halves.
But there was a sword… fallen to the roadway from the carter’s nerveless hand. She’d only to reach it. And what then? Fever had nearly carried her off scant months before. Even now, she felt more shadow than substance. But shadows could kill, if wrathful enough.
The boy yelped as the thrakker cuffed him into submission.
The grey woman folded her arms. “Lay down your sword, Akadra. They’ll go free.”
Calenne’s knuckles whitened. Viktor would yield. Soon after, he’d be dead. All because she lacked for courage. Once upon a time, she’d led an army. How was this different?
“You are the daughter of Katya and Kevor Trelan. You were the Phoenix. Act like it.”
Skirts whipped about her legs as Calenne ran headlong across the hillside, the prize of the fallen sword closer with every desperate stride. At any moment, she expected the grey woman to call out warning, for the thrakkers by the cart to turn. Neither came to pass. Then she knelt, the sword’s grips hard beneath her fingers.
She knew something was wrong as soon as she tried to stand. Giddiness not felt since winter set the world spinning. The sword, which once she’d have lifted with ease, felt rooted to the ground. She gritted her teeth. Nausea soured her throat. Cold sweat prickled clothes suddenly closer than before. But she rose, and the sword came with her.
“Release the boy!”
The thrakkers paid her no heed. Neither so much as turned. The one on the cart reeled the boy in closer, while the other watched. Calenne flung herself forward, the carter’s sword braced in both hands and her full weight behind. It shuddered as the point struck chain at the base of the nearest thrakker’s spine. The links parted, and his scream split the air.
The thrakker fell, the prison of his dying flesh all but ripping the sword from Calenne’s hands. She staggered against the horse, heaving for breath, unable to do more than meet the second thrakker’s gaze. He froze atop the cart, eyes wide beneath the helm’s eyepieces. The boy in his grasp was similarly struck, his face pale as death.
“Let… Let him go,” gasped Calenne.
But the bloodied sword was heavier than ever. It slipped from her shaking hand and fell. A heartbeat later, Calenne did the same. Palms braced against the roadway, she fought for breath that wouldn’t come, and wondered if she’d feel the axe blow that took her life.
“Calenne!”
Viktor’s shadow seethed. His thoughts swam. She’d agreed to wait at Tarona. Except… Now he thought closer on the matter, he recalled no agreement. Only his instruction, and a silence taken for accord.
“Akadra? What is it?”
Confusion crowded Armund’s voice, proof that however his sister’s spirit guided him in battle, he yet remained blind. He couldn’t see the Thrakkian moving to take Calenne’s life, the boy dragged behind him like a doll.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Discounting the two vanaguards facing Armund, there were three others – and Inkari – barring the path to Calenne. Manageable, with good fortune and a following wind, but the distance…? She’d be dead before he was halfway there. Armund too, if he were abandoned. Impossible. Or at least, impossible for a man alone.
An old oath – sworn at the height of summer, and renewed at winter’s heart – shattered. Breath already frosting, Viktor reached down into his soul and set his shadow free.
The thrakker’s scream snapped Calenne back to her senses. Axe and boy abandoned, he fell to his knees, fingers scrabbling at eyes he couldn’t reach through his helm.
She understood nothing of his babble, and cared not for her lack. Nor did she care for the other screams echoing down the hillside – all edged with that same note of stark terror – or the dull, wet strike of steel into flesh. All that mattered was the feel of the sword beneath a hand that no longer shook. Anger kindled black and filled uncertain limbs.
Rising up on trembling legs, Calenne thrust.
Blood spurted over steel. The scream died.
The terrified boy scrambled behind the cart and stared at the twitching corpse. Anger bled away. Urgent fears yielded to mundane. What if he recognised her? If he started telling tales that Calenne Trelan wasn’t dead in the ashes of Eskavord, as the world believed?
Too late for that now.
She offered a smile. “Nothing to fear. You’re safe.”
He stared blankly back. Away to Calenne’s left, the carter groaned. Even if the boy didn’t recognise her, others might. One such risk was sufficient to the day. Calenne withdrew towards the trees, exhausted, but abuzz with exhilaration.
Inkari swung, but the shadow had stolen her sight. Unlike Armund, she’d no slain kin to guide her from the halls of Skanandra. Twisting her axe away, Viktor hoisted her aloft by the throat and reeled his shadow back in. It came willingly, docile – a loyal hound, repaying largesse with obedience.
“Enough,” he rumbled. “Your sight will return, unless you force me to snap your neck.”
A scream rang out behind, marking the final vanaguard’s demise. Away down the hill, Calenne vanished among the trees. Relief and frustration flooded in. A difficult conversation to come.
Inkari went still. “What are you?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“I’m Valna’s protector. Swear to relay this to Ardothan, and you may crawl away.”
After the briefest hesitation, she nodded. Viktor dropped her at his feet.
Heavy footfalls sounded. “Not killing her?”
Viktor turned. Armund stood a pace or two away, his chainmail rent at the shoulder, and his plaited beard awry. “She’ll serve better as a messenger.”
“Your victory. Your choice. But if my brother listened to anyone, we’d none of us be here.” He shrugged. “Always wondered how you turned Davenwood around.”
The words framed an unspoken question. One Viktor had no desire to answer. Despite his shadow’s acquiescence, failure burned bright. Twice now he’d broken his promise not to use it. Twice he’d chanced losing himself in the Dark.
“We all made mistakes today,” he replied softly. “Let us hope we can learn from them.”
Twenty-Seven
Grey dawn found Sevaka hunched in the precious shelter between Vrasdavora’s crooked south tower and the mountainside, eyes
straining against the deluge. An unnecessary vigil – watchers concealed along the eastern roadway would sight the shadowthorns long before she did, but it distracted from a belt tightened to its last notch and the emptiness of half-rations. Among other things.
Vrasdavora’s foundations had been laid down shortly after Malatriant’s original overthrow, when the horrors lurking far to the south in Darkmere’s bleak, angular ruins had haunted her successors’ dreams. But such days were long in the past. The keep and what remained of the outer wall burrowed into the cliff as if seeking shelter from the bitter mountain rain. The subsided road they had once guarded lay as much in the valley below as on the mountainside.
“A miserable place to die,” she murmured.
“Then live.”
Rosa approached from the rampart stairway, every bit as sodden and windblown as Sevaka herself. But the horrific wounds taken at Ahrad were a memory, and she again a bulwark about which the dispirited soldiers had rallied.
“Easy for you to say.”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Sevaka scowled. “You’ve been busy.”
And she had. The survivors from Soraved, where death had stalked the trees. Other refugees encountered on the road. Vrasdavora’s thin garrison. Perhaps two thousand souls in all. All looked to Rosa for leadership. For hope in dark days. Ironic, really.
“Both can be true.” Rosa splashed closer along the rampart. “You’ve been distant since Soraved. Talk to me. Please.”
“You should have told me about the Raven.”
The words should have sounded ridiculous. Rosa’s guilty expression stopped them being so, and set Sevaka’s heart wallowing deeper than ever.
“I don’t follow,” said Rosa.
“I saw you together.” The accusation caught at the back of Sevaka’s throat, snared by anger pent up across long and desperate days. “And then I remembered it wasn’t the first time. He was at the pyre last year. Watching. Applauding. I took him for a hallucination. But he wasn’t, was he? I heard he only came if you offered him a coin. Then again, I used to think you couldn’t die. Now I wonder if you’ve been dead all along. The Raven’s puppet playing me for his amusement.”