by Martin Davey
Phailin was on his knees, his hair carefully brushed, and he wore armour that shone bright in the darkness, a white cloak with a blazing sun and a solitary black tree embroidered on it. He didn’t rise from his knees as he turned to see her, but he smiled, happy that she had joined them. “Ysora,” he said, his smile wide on his smoothly-shaven face, but already Ysora was looking at the robed figure standing before Phailin. It too wore a robe, though this one was as black as the night that surrounded them, and the hood was pulled low over the face, nothing but darkness within. It was still as it became aware of Ysora’s presence, unmoving as though taking its time in deciding whether she should live or die. Finally it raised a hand hidden within its flowing robe and Phailin rose to his feet, even then bowing to the creature before turning to Ysora. “I’m glad you could join us, Ysora. It is past time.” And then he smiled to the figure in the robe.
Ysora followed Phailin’s eyes, and as she did, the creature raised its head to meet her eyes with its own. No, not with its own, but with Cioran’s. This couldn’t be Cioran. Cioran was dead, but here he was miles from Yerotan with his face weeping yellow and red things from his eyes and from his mouth. And the skin was flaking and white and rotten, and when Cioran smiled at her, his lips cracked and leaked and his broken teeth showed through the peeling skin.
Only then did she realize she was screaming. And only then did Phailin come to her, Cioran unmoving as he watched her, his eyes bright in his face of red blood and white bone.
CHAPTER 30
Seeing the Mahrata kneel tore at Marin’s heart like nothing he ever thought possible. As the Servants led the remnants of the army into the mountains and the home of the Blood Waishimir, he watched Jermatoah treat the Mahrata like less than the lowliest servant. She had the Mahrata fetch her water from the stream as they stopped for rest once the cloud had finally lifted, had her kneeling at her side as she drank the bitterly cold water. She had the Mahrata break her bread for her as she sat on the stool one of her knights brought for her.
Marin hated her like he had never hated anybody in his life. Jermatoah was old and stooped, her skin was wrinkled and sagged under her eyes and at her neck. Her hair reached to the small of her back, white and looking dry enough to snap like stale bread. She leaned on a staff taller than herself as she walked. Marin could easily have beat her to death with it as he watched her praise the kneeling Mahrata with a pat on her head.
Now the cloud had lifted and they climbed the hidden path into the mountains, the sky was a cold blue. There was a lot of noise behind Marin as he climbed the road, soldiers and knights and women and children all surprised, amazed to still be alive; shouting, laughing and singing. They’d left a lot of dead on the ground behind them, but still there was a joy bordering on ecstasy at still being alive.
Marin didn’t feel joy as he watched the Mahrata walk a step behind Jermatoah, her shoulders hunched and her head bowed in obeisance. Even the men and women behind him had left the banners of the Mahrata on the battlefield, even the songs they sung were from their own homes and countries, none of the songs of the Mahrata escaped their lips. It was as though they had all been playing at war in the playground and now the parent had walked in to put an end to it. But they weren’t children, he had watched the Mahrata turn a man into a bloodied pulp inside his armour, held him in the air before ripping what was left of his head from his shoulders. Why would she fetch and carry for the old crone? She had an army behind her!
So lost was he watching the Mahrata shrink inside of herself, so loud was the singing and the laughter behind him, that Retaj was almost upon him before Marin heard him shouting. Retaj’s cheek was muddied, the arm of his tunic torn, and a bloom of blood stained his hip, but still he was smiling as always. He rested a hand on Marin’s shoulder as he caught his breath.
“You’re still alive,” Marin said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. Since when did he care whether Retaj lived or died?
Retaj still had his sword at his side, the leather pommel was stained with blood and he rested his hand on it as he straightened. “Only just, quite a show you put on back there, Marin.” He was smiling, but his green eyes showed something else. What was it? Concern?
Marin turned away from those eyes, he didn’t like what he thought he saw there. “We were all going to die anyway, why delay it?” He started walking again, not that the old crone had managed to get too far ahead, her skinny arse sticking out as she leaned on her staff. The Mahrata still looked as beautiful as ever, even trying to look demure and obedient. “Where were you, anyway, hiding somewhere until it was all over?”
Retaj followed Marin’s eyes to the Mahrata and he frowned. “I managed to get a few of those bowmen on their ledge. One of the bastards got a lucky shot.” He pressed two fingers to his hip and they came away wet with blood. Again he looked to the Mahrata, his expression thoughtful. “So she can turn men to mush at a thought, can she? What’s she doing following that old biddy around then?”
“Jermatoah,” Marin said.
“Ah,” Retaj nodded. “So that’s it, is it? The Mahrata brings her army, kills the Canaristi, the drums stop and now we follow this Jermatoah?”
Marin shrugged, carried on walking. Now the drums had ended, it was as though the whole world was holding its breath, waiting, straining to listen for something on the edge of hearing.
“It isn’t right, we’re the Mahrata’s men. We fought for her, not some old woman with a stick who looks like she could drop dead any moment.” Retaj pressed a hand to his hip as he spoke.
“You need that looking at,” Marin looked at the Mahrata as he spoke. “And she will tell you we didn’t fight for her. We fought for the Paramin so she can lead him back to fight the Burned King,”
“Well I hope you don’t think we’re going back there, Marin. I don’t like the sound of that man. If the Mahrata can do that to people and still has to come all this way to find this god of hers to help her out, I think I’d like to stay as far away from that King as I can.”
The air was thinner here, the trees scrawny things with small leaves. A cloud of dust billowed in the army’s wake, the road scattered with white pebbles and lined by bigger yellow rocks. Marin had never thought what would happen once he had found the source of the drums. His entire thought had been to find what made that ungodly noise, and then after that, nothing. He had no thoughts at all about what would happen after that; all had been about the drums. He threw another ferris root into his mouth and scratched at his throat. “I never said anything about going back home with her, did I?” Though the truth of it was that he knew he had to go wherever the Mahrata wanted him to go. Even now, with her shoulders hunched and her head bowed, he knew she was telling him to quicken his step to catch up with her and Jermatoah.
Retaj kept pace, his cheeks red in the thin mountain air. The army was further behind now, and the world seemed quiet without the beating of the drums. A river, bright and white wound miles beneath them as the road rose further into the mountains. The grass here was coarse and thick and grew around scattered rocks and boulders. Footsteps crunched in gravel as Marin slowed again, the Mahrata had wanted him close but not too close, it seemed. Strange how she could control his movements with a thought. He remembered the way she had turned Beratak into a pulpy mess inside his armour, and he chewed faster on his ferris root, keeping close but not too close to her as she wished.
Marin glanced at his companion, feeling his frustrations and his tension directed to Retaj. “What will you do then, after we’ve been here? After we’ve seen the god? Turn away and go back to gambling and whoring in Casteli?”
Retaj shrugged with a wry smile. “Who says there will be a later? I thought we both seemed to think there would be no later?”
Marin chewed his ferris root and looked sideways at Retaj and walked on in silence.
“You know what’s strange?” said Retaj later as the cloud began to reappear beneath them, making it seem as though all the world was the peaks of
the mountains, cold and grey and white with thin and twisted trees all around and tough grass struggling through the thin soil.
“What?” Marin couldn’t believe the old crone was still walking, leaning on her staff but showing no signs of tiring. She hadn’t said anything to the Mahrata for a long time. The army still marched behind them, the songs and the laughter long since quietened.
“She isn’t really old at all, is she?”
“What? Who?”
“Her,” Retaj pointed to Jermatoah. “Jermawhatsit. She isn’t old at all, the Mahrata said.” Retaj shrugged and kicked a loose pebble. It skipped and rolled on the road before them. “Makes you wonder what she’s been up to to end up like that, doesn’t it?”
Marin spat a gob of brown into the loose gravel on the road. Jermatoah was still stooped, her shoulder blades sharp and bony through the loose green dress that hung to her ankles and looked like it had been fashioned from the roughest, most uncomfortable fabric imaginable. He had seen sacks woven from softer material. The two knights marching in full armour on either side of her looked rich in comparison in their brilliant red armour and long capes flowing down their backs. “Maybe she’s had a tough life.”
“All I can say is that people don’t end up looking old before their time by living good and wholesome lives, do they? She must have been messing with some serious shit to end up looking like that.” Retaj pushed his dusty red hair away from his face. “Like you, Marin.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but you look really old, with your grey hair and your grey bristle and your spotted hands...” Retaj trailed off as though he could have gone on for a long time. “But you don’t really act it. I always thought you must have had a tough life on the road, done things you wished you hadn’t.”
“No, Marin is a liar and a killer and a murderer,” the woman on the riverbank had said. Marin chewed on his ferris root and coughed. “Anyway, the Mahrata said it was the dreams that Jermatoah had that turned her that way, that she had the Sight.”
Retaj looked back up ahead. “They must be some pretty nasty fucking dreams.”
Marin nodded.
The road wound between two giant boulders standing on either side like some godly gateposts and then they found themselves at what looked like some ancient town with buildings made of grey stone. Thick green and red grass snaked up around the buildings, perhaps thirty of them with less than five having a roof of any kind. Stones were scattered about the site, left where they had fallen from the houses and barns. Here and there were signs that the town was now being used once more, a canvas sheet forming a makeshift roof here, a newly fashioned table in the shade of a gnarled tree there. Jermatoah led them into the town, a cobbled ancient road beneath their feet barely felt under the grass that had grown over it.
Retaj leaned close to Marin. “This is where that old man said they were taken, where he said he saw the people with peeled faces torturing his men, cutting them and bleeding them.” He looked around, pointed to a building taller than the rest, it looked like a lookout tower, the roof hanging askew, and one of the windows had crumbled away, stone piled beneath it. “There,” Retaj said, “He said they took them past that to where they have some stone tables, and that’s where they cut them before tying them to some things that collect blood. “ He looked almost excited at the thought, his eyes bright and his cheeks flushed.
Marin looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “He said a lot, didn’t he, this man who you were throwing rocks and sticks at?”
Retaj laughed, “Like I said, he was raving. That’s the thing about raving, people always talk a lot when they’re doing it.”
It looked like only three or four of the houses of the town were in use, these had sheets fastened across empty windows, new doors in place of the rotten old. The biggest building of all, a squat thing with giant windows and a doorway shaped like some massive-winged bird had been left well alone. The remnants of the Mahrata’s army followed them into the town, they talked quietly amongst themselves now, sinking to the ground, bags and satchels and banners falling to the floor about them. Voices were hushed in respect of the sheer age of the place.
Marin looked all around the site, the jagged peaks in the distance, the swirling clouds beneath them and the blueness of the sky above. It must have been quite a place to live all those years ago before the Keepers came to the world. Even better at night, sitting with feet hanging in the clouds, and the stars above, the giant wings of the god soaring silent through the night. A heavy hand landed on Marin’s shoulder and he nearly choked on his ferris root as he started.
“What the fuck happened back there?”
Marin turned and took a moment to recognize the man staring at him with wide, almost fearful eyes. Fenner. The man who had been with him at the start of the battle. The man who’s face had gone white as Marin left to charge into the Canaristi. “We won,” he said. “Thanks to the Mahrata.” He needed another ferris root. Was he taking more of them? What if he ran out, what then? He blinked at the man, feeling sweat trail past the corner of his eye.
Retaj came to stand next to him, Fenner sparing him only the briefest of glances. “Shit, no, not that, your face, Marin.” He reached up to touch his own face. Why did people keep doing that?
Marin sucked the remnants of the ferris root from his teeth. “What? Probably the heat of the battle, I wasn’t going to let them have the Mahrata without being by her side.” Saying her name, he looked around for her and saw Jermatoah leading her inside one of the houses, finer than the rest with a wooden roof and walls that weren’t falling into ruin.
“No,” Fenner rested a hand on Marin’s arm and Retaj stepped closer. “No, shit, I know the Mahrata calls you her Garanin, but shit.” Again he reached up to touch his own face.
Retaj reached out and gently pulled Fenner’s hand off Marin’s arm. “Yes, yes, he is the Garanin of the Mahrata, and that’s why we have to be going.”
“No,” Marin lifted a hand as Retaj stepped between them. “No,” he said again, looking at Fenner, “Why, what was it about my face?” He remembered the Canaristi screaming and fleeing before him, the shouts of horror even louder than when they had seen their leader turned to bloody mush.
Fenner looked at him over Retaj’s shoulder. He smiled in disbelief even as Retaj pushed him away. “You mean you don’t know? You don’t know?”
“That’s enough!” Retaj shouted, shoving Fenner away now, pushing him hard.
Fenner laughed, “You don’t know? You’re dead, Marin! I saw your face! You’re dead! You’re still dead, Garanin!”
Now Retaj punched Fenner full in the face, kicked him when he hit the floor and still it sounded like Fenner was laughing.
CHAPTER 31
Dead bodies. Landros was beginning to tire of the sight of them. Two farmers downstairs near the back door and then two up here, a bloody mess, the blood only now beginning to dry on the walls and the floor. They can’t have been too far behind.
It looked like the fat man and the man in black had been surprised, no sign of any weapons, the cuts in them deep and to the bone. The fat man’s fleshy neck had almost been severed, a wild slash on the thinner man’s arm showed bone beneath the cut. And the room stank of shit. Landros pushed broken chairs and tables out of the way and looked out the open window, breathed the stale air deep. Which way would they have gone and why had they come for the woman from the cliff? He gripped the windowsill, breathing more air in before he turned back to the room.
Dorian stood in a corner creasing his nose against the smell and turning the cut ropes about in his hands. Ysora had to have been here, the two men watching her before they were surprised by...by what? Were the killers, those who had killed the Guardian and these two men here, were they her rescuers or her killers? But he had the feeling that they weren’t the kind of men who would waste time. If they wanted to kill her, Landros would be looking down at her cold dead corpse by now
. He looked at the two bodies, wondering if one of them was Farmer Mashin.
“So what now?” Dorian still moved the rope in his hands, stepping about the corpses on the floor.
So what now. It seemed to be Dorian’s favourite question lately. Landros looked out the window again. Grey and miserable, but at least it wasn’t dark, at least there were no fluttering torches. He coughed and rolled his shoulders, looked at Dorian, “We’ll see if they’ve finished talking to the farmers yet. We can’t stay here forever, they’ll only be getting further away.”
Dorian nodded and tossed the rope away. “Or we could go and tell the Clerk of all we’ve seen. I’m sure he’ll want to hear about the Guardian, about one of the Keepers’ Chosen.” He crinkled his nose in disgust as he looked at the bleeding bodies.
Landros nodded and turned for the door. “We’ll see what Torra and Pascal have found out.”
Their steps were loud on the landing. Everything looked old and faded and tired. It seemed a fitting place to find death, if ever there was a fitting place. Landros pulled his gloves on tighter and took the stairs two at a time. He couldn’t shake the feeling that every dead body he saw was about to rise to its feet and call out to him. “Pray to your gods that we never meet again,” the Nameless One had said. And Landros couldn’t help feeling that death was following him, that the Nameless One was waiting in every shadow, around every corner.
He landed at the bottom of the second flight of stairs with a sigh of relief. The house was grey, tables and chairs and curtains all faded as though viewed though through a dirty window. Rugs were trodden thin, the patterns patchy and Pascal stood on one of them talking to two men, probably farmers by the looks of them. Unsurprisingly, Torra had found himself two young women, one brown-haired and one blonde; they wore long skirts and loose-sleeved shirts, their hair hanging loose to the shoulders. Torra said something quiet and one of them laughed. Nobody seemed too saddened by the news of the killings.