Darksoul

by Anna Stephens

  Brevis held out his hand for the knife, and Gilda drew it and slapped it into his palm. He gasped, thinking she’d cut him, but she’d reversed the blade at the last second and his skin remained intact. His lip curled at her and she smiled back, the picture of elderly innocence. Where can I get another knife? Do I dare?

  The thought was almost enough to make her laugh aloud; she dared, of course she did. Gilda had no illusions about her fate; her only plan now was to save the souls of as many of the East Rankers as she could before they killed her. Even if they were, officially, the enemy.

  ‘I will do as you ask,’ she said to Skerris, turning his order into a request. Skerris didn’t rise to it the way Corvus or Rivil would, or even Lanta; instead he nodded once and crooked a finger at Brevis to follow as he made his way up the aisle between the beds.

  ‘Don’t let her kill anyone,’ Brevis snapped at Scell as he hurried after the general.

  Gilda turned a smile on Scell. ‘You heard the Rilporian, Scell. Don’t let me kill anyone, will you?’ She laughed. ‘Anyone would think I was the mass murderer, not your priestess. Come on then, let’s see who’s next. All right, mate, what’s your name? Captain, are you? Acquitted yourself well?’

  She sat down on the next bed before Scell could answer and pulled the man’s blanket back, began to examine the bandages. ‘Did you hear me with Nils?’ she breathed. The man nodded, frightened. ‘You’re not dying, I can see that, but I can still pray with you if you want? If you’d like to try?’

  His eyes wobbled in their sockets as he eyed the tent, Scell, Gilda herself. His mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times; then he nodded.

  Gilda smiled.

  DOM

  Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Road to Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  She’d told him to cross at the West Rank’s harbour, and he had. She’d told him to walk southeast, and he had. She’d told him not to stop unless he must. He hadn’t. Now he was a week’s walk, maybe less, from Rilporin, from where he needed to be.

  Dom’s feet were blistered and the muscles in his legs kept twitching even after he’d sat down, but he was close now. Close to them. Close to Her. His left hand was healing well from the knife the God of Blood had rammed through it, and although the fingers remained stiff and slow to close, it wouldn’t stop him when it came to a fight. He could always tie his hand to his sword if necessary, as long as he remembered not to scratch his arse with it afterwards. Or his throat. He snorted.

  The fields were quiet, the winter wheat golden-brown and growing, but few people were working the land this close to Rilporin and the enemy. Dom wasn’t sure whether they’d fled or merely cowered in their homes, but their absence had encouraged the wildlife, and rabbits and hares hopped among the stems, nibbling the sweetest. Dom sat ten paces outside the edge of the field on a hard-packed track, waiting for something to jump into his snare. He had a few sticks ready for a fire and a ragged, soot-stinking blanket from Watchtown. A waterskin. His weapons. And the gods.

  Watchtown. Home of Wolves and of Watchers. Heathens. Traitors. Murderers. Dom crammed his right wrist into his mouth and chewed, gnawing away at the itch, gnawing away the scars of his blood oath. Despite the divergence of their paths in the last months, Dom had lived with the Watchers his entire life, and so he’d done what he could to lay out the dead before She had commanded him to leave. He could still feel their skin, crispy from the fire, crumbling in his hands, sliding away in the grease to reveal pink flesh, flesh that peeled in slabs from charred bone. It was still on his hands even now, fat melted into the bandage on his left, the stink still in his hair, his clothes. There was a good chance he’d never wash it off, no matter how many baths he took.

  A squeal and kick brought him back to the fields and he hurried over to his snare and killed the rabbit, ripped it from the thin cord and reset the trap. Food that wasn’t his own arm. Dom giggled. Need my strength, don’t I, my love? You said I will and look, here I am, ready for rabbit.

  He unbandaged his left hand while the rabbit roasted in the top flames and poked at the sealed wound, sniffed it for signs of the rot, then splashed it with water and let the sun dry it. The smoke from his cookfire attracted attention, and he could see figures peering in his direction, armed with sticks and pitchforks, a few scythes that should be in storage until the harvest came in. So they were still there, then, watching their crop be destroyed.

  Dom unbuckled his sword belt and made a show of putting it on the ground on the far side of his fire. Then he sat with his back to them. They wouldn’t hurt him; She’d said so.

  He hummed as he prodded the meat with his knife, his stomach growling in counterpoint. Too long since he’d eaten enough to fill him, and too long since anything other than meat had passed his lips. What he wouldn’t give for a hearty leek and cabbage stew. His hum descended into a groan at the thought. Still, he’d be there soon, and they’d have supplies to share.

  ‘Travelling to Rilporin, stranger?’ The voice came from behind, gruff but with the tightness of fear beneath it.

  Dom gestured, not turning. ‘You need to tend these fields; rabbits are making a right mess of your crop. Work the land so that when the war’s over you’ve got food to eat and sell. You’ll be dead otherwise.’

  The man came around to face him, and Dom knew there were others at his back. The stranger was tall and broad, a lifetime in the fields honing his arms and shoulders and back. He planted his feet either side of Dom’s sword; Dom’s eyes flickered towards it and away.

  ‘We’re like to be dead soon anyway, those Raider scum come this way again. They’ve taken everything we’ve had put by; you’re not the only one living off rabbits.’

  ‘Ah. Is that the problem?’ Dom asked. ‘You want my rabbit?’

  ‘What? No. Man’s going to fight the Mireces, he’s welcome to a rabbit off my lands. Just wondering if you’d any news, brought any messages or anything. You’ve come from the west – is the Rank on its way? Reinforcements? They’ve been hammering at the wall for days now, sending men up there on ladders, cutting down our woods to build siege towers. I’m no soldier, but it looks pretty desperate from the glimpses we’ve had and the news we’ve heard.’

  Dom licked his lips. ‘Going to fight the Mireces?’ he asked. ‘Why’d you think that?’

  The farmer laughed. ‘Why else would you head towards the city? You’re a scout, a messenger or a warrior. Mind you, I’ve little idea how you expect to get past the Mireces and into the city without taking an arrow between the eyes. Still, you know best, I’m sure.’

  Dom rubbed his face and paused as long as he dared, but Her instructions were quite clear. He rose to his feet and looked up at the farmer, still a head taller than him. He glanced behind: three more. ‘Rilpor’s doomed, my friend, and so is Rilporin. The Gods of Light are failing. There’s only the Blood now, blood spilt and blood sacrificed and blood in Her name. I go to join the Mireces, to pledge them my sword, my life, my everything. You’d be wise to do the same; it might spare your families when the time comes. Spare you sacrifice, or slavery. Gift them half your crops and they might let you live your lives without a collar around your neck.’

  The farmer’s mouth was hanging open, his face red with disbelief and growing anger. There were curses from behind, muttered prayers for protection, a half-choked threat. The farmer strode around the fire and grabbed Dom by his rusty chainmail, jerking him forward on to his toes. ‘You fucking coward,’ he snarled. ‘You treacherous, weaselly, snivelling little shit. How can you say that? You’re a— Look at you, you’re dressed like a warrior. Gods alive, you’re one of them Wolf-folk, ain’t you? Sworn enemy of the fucking Raiders!’

  ‘Guilty as charged.’ Dom grinned. ‘Though my feet are on the Path and it is dark and bloody and glorious.’

  ‘Get out of my fucking fields, you scum,’ the farmer roared. ‘I should kill you here and now. I should—’

  Dom’s knife took him under
the chin, punching through his tongue and into the base of his brain with a wet crack. He fell without a sound and Dom ripped the knife free, his fingers clumsy from the wound, and spun to face the others. ‘My feet are on the Path,’ he bellowed, waving the red knife. ‘Come, come and stop me. Come and try.’ Part of it was a plea, but the rest was ravening bloodlust, rage and hate. He’d kill the world if She asked him to. He’d kill them all.

  The three men clustered together exchanged identical, terrified looks and then fled, tools falling from their hands. They didn’t look back. Dom spat on the corpse and snatched up his sword. The rabbit was burnt on one side, raw on the other, but he took up the spit and wrapped it in a fold of his blanket. He stared into the flames for a long moment, in case anything looked back, but the Dancer was silent. She had nothing to say about the murder, nothing to say to him at all these days. Just as he liked it. He hawked and spat into the fire, set his back to the farmhouse and marched towards Rilporin.

  ‘My love,’ the Dark Lady purred in his ear, sending shivers down his spine. ‘My good, strong love. How pleased I am.’

  It was the same dream he’d had every night since leaving Watchtown. Those Wolves too broken to carry the fight further, who’d elected to stay in the ruins and lay out the dead, corralled between the God of Blood and the Dark Lady, Dom forming the third point of the triangle imprisoning them. Wolves for Gosfath to play with. Dying in the god’s bloody embrace. Rotting from the outside in. Screaming from the inside out.

  ‘Stop,’ Dom screamed in his turn, as loud as he could, fists balled at his side. ‘Stop it. I’ll do it. I’ll do what you want. I’ll do everything you want.’ His heart thudded slowly in his chest, as though his blood was thick as tree sap. ‘Please, Lady. My feet …’ He paused and swallowed hard as another died writhing, blackening, melting. ‘My feet are on the Path.’ A broken whisper from a broken soul.

  The Dark Lady raised one finger and Gosfath paused in his selection of further victims. At His feet eight men and women curled in on themselves in fetid death, their organs turning to mush and pus inside them even as they rattled their final breaths, outlines sloughing and melting into each other, a pool of decay. A pool of people.

  ‘What did you say?’ She asked in a voice of honey.

  Dom stared at the surviving Wolves huddled together, hope warring with terror on their faces, then back at Her. Do it. Say it. It’s true anyway, has been true for months. And it might save the rest of them.

  ‘My feet are on the Path,’ he said, knowing the disgust and terror on the faces of the Wolves – his kin – would haunt him forever.

  ‘Yes,’ She whispered, ‘they are. So you should ask yourself what you owe these people, the enemies of the true faith. Ask yourself why you care what happens to them, the men and women who’ve spent centuries killing those whose feet walk the Path. People like you, my love.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, suddenly understanding, seeing the hate in their eyes for what it was. ‘I owe them nothing.’ It was like light dawning after the blackest of nights. All his final doubts, all his lingering care, washed away in the red-tinged light of Her, the promise of Her redemption. He looked at the Wolves again, at their dying hope. It tingled over his skin like feathers. ‘You need me to go to Rilporin, my love. I will go. Now.’

  The Dark Lady put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And these?’ She asked.

  Dom bit the raw flesh of his right wrist as he studied the half-dozen surviving Wolves. Her glory was a fire that burnt and he exalted in the pain. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. ‘They’re yours.’

  The Dark Lady’s smile was radiant and warmed Dom’s belly. ‘There he is,’ She whispered. ‘There’s my true believer. My calestar. My Godblind.’ Dom bowed to Her and to Holy Gosfath, and he walked away.

  Behind him, the screams began again.

  He woke with a jolt, as he always did at that part of the dream – don’t lie, it’s a memory, not a dream – and the sky was still black, glittering with stars like the hangman’s eyes through his hood. The screams rang at the edge of his hearing: his people dying.

  Not my people. Nothing to do with me. Past is dead. Past doesn’t matter. My life is Hers, my love is Hers. All else is ruin. There is only the Path, and Her at the end of it. I will not walk that Path.

  I will run it.

  ‘I’m coming, my love,’ he said and the endless, burrowing, worming itching in his arm faded and he was left with just the pain of it, the slow-flowing blood and the great scabby holes he’d chewed in his flesh in a desperate attempt to find the source of the itch. He grinned, waited, and then laughed. It was gone.

  Dom leapt to his feet, abandoning the half-cooked rabbit carcass, and snatched up his blanket. ‘My feet are on the Path,’ he crowed, capering in the dark, ‘and my arm doesn’t bloody itch!’

  The Dark Lady’s laughter drifted on the breeze, teasing, taunting him with flashes of different images this time, of Wolves drowning, dying in the dark. Rillirin was one of them, the slave destined to save or destroy them all. She was wrapped in another man’s arms as the water flooded over their faces. He could see her screaming.

  He laughed again, rolled the blanket, and broke into a steady run. Rilporin was close now. So close. And so was She.

  DURDIL

  Fourth moon, evening, day twenty-eight of the siege

  War room, the palace, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  A muscle flexed in Durdil’s jaw. Lorca and Silais had acted behind his back and called a series of emergency councils, and now they presented him with their decision at a meeting he’d expected to be routine. A decision signed, sealed, and utterly fucking ridiculous.

  Maybe I should’ve met them when they insisted on it. I might have been able to stave this off for a while longer.

  He stared at the paper in front of him until his eyes watered, letting the thunderous silence build until it felt like the pressure in the room would blow out the expensive windows. The councillors, who had been sitting in smug, self-satisfied silence around the table, began to fidget, then to exchange glances, then gulp at their wine. In the corner, Questrel Chamberlain simpered, oblivious to Durdil’s towering rage, or perhaps just untroubled by it.

  ‘Gentlemen, Rilporin stands firm and the walls are yet intact. While the loss of the king is a huge blow, it is one we can – we are – surviving. Besides which, the enemy will have eyes on the King Gate, as they are watching all the city’s exits; any attempt to evacuate the populace will be seen and countered swiftly. It is far too dangerous to move thousands of people; they’ll be slaughtered on the road. Rilporin is the safest place for them.’

  Someone coughed to cover a laugh. ‘You misunderstand,’ Lord Lorca said, his tone affable and amused. ‘The people will stay, of course. There is nowhere else for them to go, after all and, as you say, no doubt your soldiers will triumph. But the, ah, the essence of Rilpor, the values and culture that makes our country what it is, that resides in its upper classes. We propose simply that those of appropriate position who wish it be allowed to leave Rilporin for less dangerous climes. I, for example, though my heart desires to stay and support the city, am prepared to undertake the dangerous journey to Listre and inform Tresh that he is now our king. I pledge to see him safe until such time as you have secured the country for his arrival.’

  I bet you bloody do, Durdil thought bitterly. Set yourself up as his chief adviser, orchestrate the fall of your enemies within the council, and bag yourself a nice big stack of gold, eh? All under the guise of advising him, and all while sitting safe in another country!

  ‘I, too, will visit Tresh,’ Silais said, as Durdil had known he would. ‘Our new king must be protected. Must be … apprised of the state of his kingdom.’

  ‘You want to run away with your families and all your money while the rest of us fight,’ Durdil said in a voice devoid of all expression. ‘Fine, go. I’ll not stop you.’ A few hundred fewer weak-chinned idiots roaming the city can only be a help. And despite the identity of t
he messengers, Tresh does need to know he’s king.

  Lorca’s smile was small and pained and he gave off an air of weary resignation at Durdil’s words. ‘We are pleased to hear it,’ he said. ‘Those who wish to go will assemble at East Tower tomorrow. Your force will be ready then, I presume?’

  Durdil pursed his lips. ‘Force, my lord? What force would that be?’ His tone was polite – for now. He had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming next.

  Lorca spread his hands and exchanged an amused glance with Silais. Hardoc of Pine Lock wore an expression he no doubt thought was stoic, when in reality he looked constipated. He’d ventured a small tut at Lorca’s suggestion they leave Rilporin. He was also wearing full armour. Ceremonial, naturally. No need to be silly and lug around real armour, but it did make him look so much more martial than the rest.

  Durdil coughed into his hand to hide his smile. The Haddock had decided he was a warrior, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Durdil couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when he invited him up on to the wall to repel an assault. Still, at least he wouldn’t be fleeing the city, which meant Durdil could commandeer his household guards if he needed—

  ‘The Thousand to escort us in safety to Listre’s border, Commander,’ Lorca said, pulling Durdil’s attention back. ‘We cannot be expected to ride in state without sufficient protection.’ He exchanged another amused glance with Silais, their interests for once aligned. ‘There is a war on, after all.’

  Durdil stared at Lorca in silence for a moment, trying to work out whether he was being mocked, and then he roared with laughter. He slapped the table and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

  Lorca’s face reddened and his eyes narrowed until he snapped, ‘Enough, Commander. You will explain the meaning of this outburst.’