by Danie Ware
Roderick picked up the goblet. The sunlight from the windows caught his hair making it glow almost purple – the rich, dark colour of his Tundran blood. “This is all connected, somehow, somewhere. Dear Gods, Rhan...”
“Of course it’s connected, I’m not damned blind. I’ve called the Council to meet at the death of the sun. Before that, I want to see the evidence for myself – and I want you to come with me. Bear witness, if you like. With a little wit and some – ah – vocal dexterity –” he grinned “– I think we can make this work for both of us. Kill two daemons with one holy object, as it were – what the rhez was that?”
A sudden commotion had come from outside – from the deserted, grass-grown streets of the skirting. There was a cough of dust, and a loud rumble of crumbling stonework.
Rhan was at the door, his skin suddenly pricking and his elemental awareness shivering the sounds in his ears.
There, in the corner of two walls, at the base of a pillar, something stirred.
The building was a tithehall, a long, low shadow – it hadn’t been used in returns. Once, it would have been one of many nodes upon the city’s outskirts, the central storage points for the incoming farmlands’ grain and meat and crafting. Once, there would have been a foodhall here, a gathering point, a fiveday bazaar, a centre for the complex filaments of distribution that spread the tithed goods throughout this local part of the city. There would have been soldiers, traders, travellers, and clerks. Pirates. Poachers. Opportunists.
Now, there was nothing. Only the cold store, lined in stone, and a shocked concussion that was rippling outwards through the morning air, the grass. A straying scavenger snarled and fled.
And there was something over there, something that stank of decaying air.
Behind Rhan, Roderick was on his feet, hand instinctively going for a weapon he hadn’t carried in returns. A shock of real fear ricocheted through Rhan’s form.
And a lightning shock of exhilaration.
Then there was the chilling scraping of stone on stone, the sound of something heavy being dragged.
There was groaning – a deep grumble of pain.
Rhan could feel the noise, like an avalanche or tree falling, a rumbling through his belly and the soles of his feet.
The Bard had moved for the window. Through the doorway, Rhan could see something, something low to the ground as if it had fallen.
It was trying to move.
Samiel’s...
The thing was huge, but only half complete: head and torso and arms, sprawled on cracking tiles. Each hand was blunt like a shovel but more powerful than an earthquake. It dug them – slam – into the ground and tried to drag itself forwards, a handspan at a time. It was terrifying, somehow tragic. It had no expression on its stone face. From the grim slit of a mouth came the rumbling throb of pain that carried through the city’s stonework. The noise was in the bones behind Rhan’s ears; he could taste it in his throat.
It dragged itself a little further, piteous despite its size. Behind where it struggled, two huge stones had exploded, apparently spewing this thing out of the wall. The stones below had different markings – if this thing’d ever had legs, they’d been spat out somewhere else.
Everything was covered in stone dust and rubble.
Slam! It dug one hand downwards, splitting the tiles end to end. Slam! Fighting for every centimetre of ground, it dragged itself to the front of The Wanderer, looked up.
Rhan didn’t need his elemental vision to see the tiles splintering beneath its weight. It was pure stone, a wall carving come to life. And it reached one hand up towards the window where Roderick stood silent.
The Bard stared, bereft of speech and breath.
“Wait!” Rhan was tense, almost shaking. He came forwards, slowly, his elemental awareness screaming alarm.
But he laid one white hand on the creature’s head.
“I’m here,” he said softly. “This is Fhaveon and I will never leave her. Your time is long gone. Rest.”
The thing paused, struggled to lift its torso so it could look at him out of an eyeless stone face. Gently, Rhan stroked its head.
“Rest,” he repeated.
It made a last, huge effort, held its hand out to him.
Then it collapsed into sand with a sigh that might’ve been relief.
* * *
Back in the taproom, Roderick flicked his violet gaze at the Seneschal.
“Rhan,” he said softly. The tone of his voice sent shudders down the Seneschal’s back. “What the rhez is going on?”
14: MERCHANT
THE GREAT FAYRE AND THE HALLS OF LARRED JADE, ROVIARATH
Triqueta hated the rain.
But in the aftermath of the fighting, it suited her comedown. It hammered relentless, gusting across the plains wind. It soaked through her garments and made her skin sting with chill. Her overhood was flapping in her eyes and hair was smeared to her face in itchy strands. If she lowered her head, water dripped from the front of her cowl onto her saddle pommel, running down the darkening leather.
She had no bridle – she was lifelong Banned and had no need of one. Her hands clutched her cloak in a vain attempt to keep sheltered.
Stupid Grassland weather. You don’t get this in the desert.
There were just occasions when Triq forgot that, desert blooded she may be, but she’d actually never crossed the Yevar Mountains and seen the Red Sands for herself.
Under her, her little mare was equally dejected, her head down and her mane sodden. As the wind caught it, it fluttered hopeless like a palomino-coloured rag.
The monsters seemed like a dream, a lifetime ago. Triq’s energy had been soaked through and was running down the mare’s legs to be lost in the soaking grass that rippled like a great, grey ocean.
She peered at the darkening evening sky and muttered curses.
Throughout the day, the clouds had risen before them like great wings, mantling vast and grey over the mountains. Squalls of drizzle had harried them like harbingers. They’d pushed their pace as fast as they dared, confronted by breaths of cold that worried at hems and hoods.
Loosed across the massive emptiness of the open Varchinde, a storm could be a terrifying thing.
We’ll stay off the trade-road, Ress had said, Run parallel. Less trouble.
He was right – this close to the Great Fayre, piracy was rifle and the ribbon-towns notoriously opportunistic. And if Roderick’s theory was right, no other predators would come anywhere near where the monsters had been.
So they were still in the grass.
The main roadway ran by the river to the south. If the air had been brighter she could’ve seen it – a line of grubby, brown shanties that grew slowly more sturdy as they came closer to the city itself. But already, it was darkening. Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun was sinking to a swollen red death upon the distant peaks of the Kartiah and the sky was deepening to a rich, dark indigo that swelled like a bruise.
Yep, Triq was in a really lousy mood.
As they came to the city, to the filthy patchwork sprawl of the Great Fayre, the rain rallied and attacked anew. It hissed with fury, sharp and fierce. Hunching even further, Triq swore, lowered her head and grabbed her cloak. Over them, the rocklight shine of the Lighthouse Tower became a smear of grey.
On his cart, Feren loosed fevered pain.
Life still fluttered in his heart; in his head, there were figments tormenting him.
The rain squalled and battered at them all.
“Go left!” Ress bawled. The cart chearl had lowered his head, blowing snot and water.
Yowling in the gaps in the walls, the wind swung sharply round to the north and the grass tops surrendered, shimmering flat to the soil.
Triq shouted above the noise, “What? Why?”
The voice of the river was rising.
Ress pointed. “Flag on the gatehouse!” he said. “City’s on Watch!”
Feren called aloud, unintelligible syllables.
“I see it!” Triqueta spat water and blinked it out of her eyes. “Go, we’re with you! Jayr?”
“Yes!” Beside her, disdaining cloak or overhood and soaked to her skin, Jayr stroked the injured gelding’s nose and he nudged her with his shoulder, nearly pushing her over. In spite of his hurt, he paced forwards, ears up, as if he knew that help lay ahead. Jayr said softly, barely heard, “We’ll get you some help, we will.”
“More likely we’ll get him boiled down for glue.” The blackening wind snatched Triq’s sceptical comment and threw it skyward, unheard.
* * *
Grown like a fungus round two thirds of Roviarath’s walls, the Great Fayre was the trade hub of the Varchinde, focus of the plainlands’ perpetually transient population – and there was a rhez of a lot of it.
Triqueta knew the Fayre well: she’d worked here, loitered and plotted and diced her way through its staff and its stalls, earned its respect. Here, you could barter for your home or your soul, trade your life or your time or your skin; here, you’d find wine, company, thievery and every manner of scheming. Teeming with the urgency that lurked outside the city walls, the Fayre had swollen into a cheerfully dilapidated mess that welcomed traders from all across the world.
It thrived, even under the savagely driving rain.
Scholar or no, Ress was unbothered by the filth and the chaos – his returns had taught him a thing or two about markets. Jayr, however, eyed it like some sprawling predator, her scars bright with water and tension. Triq hoped she wouldn’t do anything loco.
They moved through it slowly, watching.
The noise was incredible.
Around them, the Fayre was a melting pot of hope and ambition and poverty and decadence. Desperation and opportunism followed them – beggars and panhandlers, wide-mouthed children and despairing, discarded humanity. Under the rain, hands were held out from all sides, pleas for help and attention. Several times, Ress had to forcibly repel a grip from the cart.
They slowed to a crawl, swamped by bustle and motion and racket.
“Padeshian dyes, lady? The finest in the central plainland!”
Between the stalls, Triq caught a glimpse of flame – guttering under the weather. A flamboyant woman in bright scarlet carried fire on her open hand, breathed it from her lips. She’d gathed a small crowd – mostly children, tugging at their parents’ hands. Jayr gaped for a moment, but Triq chuckled – genuine elemental attunement was even less likely than...
...than monsters.
The children laughed and clapped and Triqueta turned away.
Her mare was jumpy, hooves precarious amid squealing vermin and squawking wildlife, the occasional fallen drunk. Haggling was common, it was vicious and occasionally violent – Larred Jade’s soldiery did not patrol the Fayre and bursts of roughhousing were frequent.
A male voice called to Jayr to join him in an unlikely physical exploration. Jayr coloured, but ignored him. Triq snickered.
As they moved closer to the city, so the stalls became sturdier and more wealthy – their wares better quality and their garbage and chaos significantly less. Here, the city’s defences rose above the morass and Jade’s archers prowled warily, their eyes open.
Ress glanced back at Feren, and they picked up the pace.
Around them now, shouts offered rare and wondrous metals from the blind craftsmen of the Kartiah; stone from the mountains; wood from the forests that blanketed their feet. From the north, there was food and ale; salt from Fhaveon; spices from Amos; rich fabrics from Padesh and the cities of the far south. Wines flowed from Annondor; from Idrak came the prized hides of the racing arqueus. And everywhere, there was terhnwood, fibre and resin and fragment, the critical life of the Varchinde plains.
Fhaveon had might and Amos wisdom – but traditionally, Roviarath was the Varchinde’s hub. She stood strong at the centre of the Grasslands’ motion and wealth.
Sod that, Triqueta figured, eyeing the mucky mass of stalls. Right now she stood strong at the centre of the Grasslands’ mud. It was everywhere, a sea of it, churned with grass and filth and rubbish.
By morning, the Fayre would be rotting garbage and liquid shit.
Triq’s mare blew water and shook her soaked mane. The wheels of Feren’s cart lurched and splashed.
“Not far!” Ress called.
Jayr grunted and cursed – she was almost wading, the mud caked on her boots. Her scalplock hung heavy, like a horse’s tail, and the rain seemed to run along the lines of her scars.
Triq shivered.
As they came towards the rampart and the gates, rocklights were beginning to flicker, defying the rising dark. In there somewhere, among the pens and the pickets and the flapping stall roofs, there was music, drums and laughter. She could hear the traders calling banter and wares. Here, there were artists and storytellers, sheltering in the lee of the city.
One of them called out as they came past, “Look! Banned! They’ve come to deal with the monsters!”
“Tell the CityWarden!” called another. “There are fires in the farmlands and monsters loose in the plains! Our tithes are failing because our harvest burns!”
“Gods,” Triqueta muttered, spitting water. “It’s everywhere.”
“Yep.” Jayr slipped as her horse buffeted her again. “Will you stop that?”
Strapped in the cart, Feren called at the glowering sky. A frisson shivered through Triq’s hunched and sopping form.
Monsters.
* * *
Roviarath’s gatehouse was built of wood, once mighty but now split and cracked with age and weather. There was no archway, no rampart – the building sat snug between soil battlements that offered a sheltered walkway around their top. In better weather, you could tour the Fayre from above.
Now, though, the walkway contained only archers, dejected in the downpour.
As Triqueta and the others came closer, thumping to a stop with the rain now driving into their backs, they could see the watch-flag, hanging sodden and fluttering occasionally like a dying bird.
Triq shook her hood, wiped her face. She called into the hammering weather, “Triqueta of the Banned! I bear injured!”
“Picked your night for it!” The archers’ commander, their tan, grinned down at her. “Gate’s open, go on in. Did you find your dice?”
“Don’t yank my rope, Cohn.” Triq gave the guardsman a rude hand gesture. “If you know who took them – !”
“No, Triq, I don’t. But I do know I wouldn’t be letting you in city limits if you still had them on you.” His comment was greeted by guffaws from further back.
“Why the watch-flag?” Ress called from the cart. “You got pirate problems?”
“Nah.” The commander took a tiny block of wax from a pouch and rubbed it carefully down his bowstring. “The wild herds’re on the move – they’re much closer to the walls. And it’s not only them – Deep Patrols say bigger beasties have shifted territory, they shot a lone bweao not half a day from the waterside.” He grinned. “Don’t tell me you lot haven’t noticed?”
“Bweao?” Ress chuckled. “They kill it?”
“Fat chance!” The guard commander rolled his eyes, still grinning. “It was a young one, I think – they scared it off.”
Triq spat water. “Storyteller said something about fires?”
“Not in this weather!” The tan laughed at her.
Triq groaned, and then, quite clearly, Feren cried out, “We see all but nothing!”
She turned, but Ress was already moving the cart forwards.
“Kid needs help. Must get to the hospice!”
“No problem!” The commander drew a shaft from the quiver at his belt and notched it, though he didn’t draw the string. He nodded affably as they passed between decaying wooden jaws. “We’ll send a runner up to old man Jade. Hope your lad’s all right, there. And stay out of trouble!”
If he heard Triqueta’s answering chuckle, he made no sign.
* * *
Larred Jad
e, CityWarden of Roviarath, was a tall man, lean and curved and canny, eyes as blue and clear as the summer sky. In spite of the rain that beat on the windows of the rocklit hospice, his skin was tinged with sunlight. Dark hair was caught in a gleaming metal band at the nape of his neck. White strands glittered through it, like the bright edges of his awareness.
Warden Jade was as sharp as a good blade and a fireblasted hard man to fool. Standing a head taller than his frowning apothecary, he was watching the dying boy that now lay, blood black and parchment white, upon the cool haven of the pallet.
He said, “Monsters.”
Wet garments still stuck to her, dripping rainwater from her hem stitching, Triqueta turned to face him. Her hair was stuck to her like molten metal and the stones in her cheeks flashed, a warning – or a plea.
She said, “I know how it sounds –”
“It’s crazed.” He was tapping long fingers against his thigh – artisan’s fingers, fingers for weaving success. The CityWarden was a merchant, and a very successful one; his knowledge of his craft was absolute.
“I know.” She caught his eye, shrugged at him with deceptive innocence, then her expression sobered. “I saw them, Larred, we all did. I’ve never had anything like that under me. It was like riding a... riding a storm.”
The words were inadequate to the thrill that sang in her blood.
“Address me as Warden Jade.” It was reflex, his tone was both thoughtful and wary. He said, “Half human, half horse, lurking at the borders of the city.”
Watched by a fidgeting Ress, the apothecary was carefully soaking Feren’s bandaging away from the boy’s wounds.
“Too long in the open grass, Triqueta of the Banned, plays games with your sight and memory – and that’s without all the ale,” the Warden said.
“Maybe,” she told him archly, “but it’s not a game when you tear out its cursed throat, feel its blood run down your arm. When you’ve got it under you and you’re fighting for life, for control.” Her hand tensed with the memory – the adrenaline, the fury, the savage and primal release of strength. Her voice alight she said, “I don’t know what they were, Larred, but they’re out there. And the bweao know it – why d’you think that flag’s on your gatehouse?”