by Robert Earl
The sight of his comrades waiting for him was the sweetest he had ever seen. His face split open in a smile of relief, and, even as he laid Dannie down, he let out a sob of relief. The petru shot him a cold look, and then knelt down to examine Dannie.
“He saw the Old Father, then,” the old man said, as he began work on the wounds in Dannie’s arms.
“Yes,” Mihai said, suddenly feeling a little dizzy himself. “How did you know?”
“His hair,” the petru said as he smeared some ointment onto the wounds.
Mihai’s mouth opened to ask what he meant. Then he saw. In the pale light of the setting moon, he realised, for the first time, that the black mane of Dannie’s hair had turned completely, flawlessly white.
“Well, young man,” the petru told the unconscious patient as he bandaged his arm. “It seems that you are a petru after all.”
With that, Dannie was hoisted up, and the five of them hurried away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Judge a dog by his master and a master by his dog.”
– Strigany saying Averland’s audience chamber was not a cheerful place. It was a cold, austere room, dominated by an empty fireplace. There was a great table in the centre of the room, which had once groaned beneath Averland’s ancestors’ enthusiasm for feasting, but now remained always empty.
The current elector count didn’t believe in gluttony.
Even the figures on the tapestries seemed miserable, their expressions faded by the joylessness of the place. The huntsmen and animals, and wenches that cavorted through the old wall hangings had been commissioned by rowdier men than the current Aver-land, who, apart from the occasional shriek of rage, went through his life with the anxious solemnity of a professional mourner.
The elector count sat, silent and morose, at the end of his audience chamber. In front of him, a yellow parchment had been pinned to an easel, the towns, rivers and roads of the Empire inked onto it. Here and there, marks indicated where his men had found and dealt with Strigany caravans; those Strigany caravans that had been small enough for the cowards to handle, anyway.
Averland felt his anger welling up at the thought of all those that his men had allowed to escape from his lands. The knowledge that so many had escaped, disappearing like sand through an hourglass, filled him with a black despair. It eclipsed the joy that he should have felt at the number of the filthy creatures that had been dealt with.
It was all his retainers’ fault: all their fault that the exhilaration that had marked the beginning of this great quest had curdled into the depression that lay so heavily upon him now. Averland felt like a fisherman who had found the greatest shoal of his life only to discover that his net had been destroyed by the incompetence of his servants.
Unfortunately, even punishing them hadn’t helped to lift his mood. After the last of them had been flogged into bloody ruins, the fact remained that Averland was perhaps partly to blame for the failure. After all, he had hired the fools in the first place.
So it was that he had summoned the man, who stood before him now, almost as an act of contrition.
Blyseden, he was called. Marshal Blyseden he had been once, and then Witch Finder Blyseden. Now, after one of the many disputes that had marked the mercenary’s career, he was just plain old Blyseden again.
He was short and stocky, with a peasant’s lumpen face, and a butcher’s meaty arms. There was something of the butcher in the way he bore himself, too. He had the quiet confidence of a man who has mastered an important trade.
Perhaps, Averland thought vaguely, he might be as competent as he seems… Perhaps.
“So,” he said, finally deigning to acknowledge the man, “Blyseden.”
“Yes, my lord,” Blyseden said. His beard jutted as he lifted his head, as if proud at the very mention of his name.
“Yes,” Averland sighed, gesturing towards the map. “See that, Blyseden? That’s a map, and those marks are where my men have managed to wash it of Strigany.”
“Yes, my lord,” Blyseden said, nodding. “I have heard about their endeavours.”
“Endeavours,” Averland said, laughing bitterly. “Yes, I suppose you could call them that.”
The elector count lapsed back into resentful silence as he thought about the caravan that some of his hirelings had lost just two weeks ago. They had found it poisoning some villagers, but when they had tried to inflict justice upon it, the idiot captain had got himself killed, and the rest of his men had fled.
Averland dwelt upon the bittersweet memory of the flogging he had rewarded the survivors with. He had thrown up afterwards: all that blood.
Blyseden watched the expressions that played across the elector count’s face, impassively. He had the natural patience of the born predator. He would wait all day, or all week. It made no difference to him.
“The Strigany,” Averland said at last, dragging himself back to the matter at hand, “are a cancer within the flesh of our lands. Don’t you agree, Blyseden?”
“Yes, my lord,” Blyseden said without the slightest hesitation.
“Yes, my lord,” Averland repeated. “Agreeable fellow, aren’t you?”
“Yes, my lord,” Blyseden agreed.
Averland looked at him, and was seized with a sudden, horrible suspicion that he was being made fun of. Well, he’d soon see about that.
“Tell me, Blyseden, what happened when you were a marshal?”
“I killed my lord’s enemies,” the man said simply.
“Very commendable,” Averland said, “and what else?”
“There was little time for anything else, my lord.”
Averland, whose patience never stretched to games of cat and mouse, scowled.
“I mean, why were you removed?” he snapped.
“I had to burn a so-called shrine where some of my lord’s enemies had taken refuge,” Blyseden said mildly, “and, in order to burn the shrine, I had to burn the town around it. I couldn’t take the risk of any of my lord’s enemies escaping, so I ordered my men to kill every living thing that came out of the flames.”
“Women?” Averland asked. “Children?”
“Yes, my lord,” Blyseden nodded, speaking with the satisfaction of a man who has done a difficult job well. “Some of my men mutinied, so I killed them too.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about Grenborst. How many did you kill in all?” Averland asked.
“All of them, my lord. I am very thorough.”
Averland shifted on his throne, and scratched at his chin. He was starting to cheer up.
“All of them, hey? Well, well done, and yet still you were removed.”
“Politics, my lord,” Blyseden explained with a shrug. “I don’t bear a grudge.”
“Very decent of you.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Then you were a witch finder, apparently. What happened with that? Not your true vocation, perhaps.”
“I don’t have a vocation, my lord,” Blyseden told him, “unless it is to be as good a workman as I can be. I had to leave the business of witch finding because I hated to see work done so badly.”
“Really?” Averland asked with a hint of disappointment. “One of these people who disagree with their methods, are you? Wouldn’t have thought you’d be the sort.”
“It was the sloppiness I couldn’t stand, my lord,” Blyseden told him. “They would burn one or two people, but not their family, or their village. Sorcery’s like lice, I reckon. To get rid of one you’ve got to get rid of them all. Anyway, I finished my contract by doing what should have been done in the first place. It worked, too, my lord. As far as I know, there have been no further reports of witchcraft from the province where I worked.”
“No,” Averland mused, “I suppose there wouldn’t be any more accusations if the accusers knew that… Well, never mind.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Averland sucked his teeth, and thought about what he had heard. He thought about what he knew. The Grenborst massacre w
as infamous, and, as to Blyseden’s time as a witch hunter, the number of his victims was quite astonishing. One report said that the fat that melted from his quarries’ burning bodies had run thick enough to grease the square of an entire town. Other villages had been slaughtered to the last inhabitant.
It took a lot to be called overzealous by the Empire’s witch hunters, but Blyseden had managed it. Yet here he stood, recounting these atrocities with no more emotion than if he’d been discussing the weather.
Averland suspected that, at last, he had found a worthy tool for the work that lay ahead.
“Tell me, Blyseden, how do you feel about the Strigany?”
“I don’t feel anything, my lord,” Blyseden said.
“What?” Averland asked, his voice flat with disappointment.
“I never feel anything for my employers’ enemies, my lord, no more than a rat catcher thinks about the vermin he deals with.”
Averland smiled with relief. He had been right about this man after all. For a moment, his expression took on a warmth that eased the bitter wrinkles of his face, and he almost looked handsome.
“It would seem, Blyseden,” he decided, “that you are indeed the man I need. Looking for a job at the moment?”
“I am indeed, my lord.”
“Good,” Averland said. He cast off his cloak and bounded out of his chair. His depression had vanished like dew beneath the heat of his renewed enthusiasm, and he gripped Blyseden’s shoulder with the sudden, bubbly joy of a child. “Come take another look at the map,” He said. “Your work will take you south, to a place called Flintmar, and, I think that it will make you a very rich man.”
Averland began to explain his plan, his gestures becoming more expansive and his tone more excitable by the minute.
Blyseden was impressed. This aristocrat might look like the usual weak-blooded fop, he thought, but, by Morr, he thought big.
CHAPTER NINE
“May you live long enough to bury your children.”
– Strigany curse Malfi rode alongside the wagons as they hurtled along between the tangled hedges. The wagoners were intent on driving their horses forwards, their cries lost between the bounce and sway, and crash of their vehicles along the rutted road.
The domnu hung back so that the caravan could overtake him, and then glanced up to see if the flock of ravens still circled overhead. They were, and he muttered a blessing, thanking them for the luck that they had brought today This morning had almost been their last: almost, but not quite, not yet.
He looked back, and counted the broken arrow shafts that still stubbled the last few wagons. He let them overtake him, and noted the axe stroke that had scored the back door of the last wagon, the blow a white crescent against the varnished wood.
“Any sign of the peasants?” he called as he fell in beside the rest of the caravan’s outriders.
“Not since that ford, domnu,” one of them told him, raising his voice to be heard above the clattering wagons, “but they can’t be far off. Unless they’ve given up.”
“No,” Malfi said, shaking his head, “they won’t give up, not unless we make them.”
Another of the Strigany grinned, baring his yellow teeth in a humourless smile.
“Make them give up, is it, domnu? And why not? By Ushoran’s tail, you’re getting quite good at that. Maybe you should thank Averland for the education.”
“Oh yes, I’d like to thank him, and the pig’s sphincter that made him, both,” Malfi said, and, despite the sweat that slicked their bodies and the blood that had spattered some of them, his men laughed.
“Right,” the domnu said, turning in his saddle so that they could all hear him, “I reckon we should set up an ambush of our own. Those cowardly bastards drew us into their town before the attack. We’ll return the favour from the next bit of forest.”
“Where is it?”
“Just up-” The domnu broke off. Over the shoulder of one of his men, he thought that he’d seen the first of the ragged mix of watchmen and volunteers that had pounced upon them earlier. Then he realised that he must have been mistaken, and carried on.
“Just up ahead,” he said, “these hedges give way to woodland in about a mile. I say we wait there, give them a bloody nose, and then follow the caravan.”
“Sounds good,” one of the men said, nodding with bloodthirsty anticipation. “I saw one of those wretches shooting Anja. He’ll regret it.”
“They all will in time,” Malfi said, “but this isn’t a battle. We just hit them hard, spill some blood, and go while the going’s still good, yes?”
“Yes, domnu,” his men chorused, and, satisfied, Malfi spurred his horse back up the line to tell the wagon drivers what was going to happen.
They accepted the plan without argument or surprise. Since they had first prised the proclamation of banishment from the dead mercenary’s hand, their lives had degenerated into a string of desperate measures, one following so quickly from another that their lives had become a blur of action and reaction.
Malfi knew that other caravans would have fared better. The problem was that his people were so few in number. With barely three dozen adults, every baron, bandit and burgermeister was willing to try to loot them, and all in the name of civic duty.
Not that any of them have succeeded, Malfi thought with a grim pride.
He reached the lead wagon to find Chera holding the reins.
“Take them through the wood as fast as you can,” he told her above the squeak of the harness, and the clatter of hooves and iron rimmed wheels. “We’ll hold back a bit. See if we’re still being followed.”
“I want to stay with you,” Chera said, looking down at her father. “Any of the children can drive a wagon. I want to fight.”
Malfi winked at her in a way that had infuriated her ever since she’d been a little girl.
“Want all you like, my dear,” he told her, “your job’s to lead the caravan.”
Chera scowled, and Malfi felt a sudden stab of gratitude for the fates that had gifted him with such a lovely daughter. She was perfect, beautiful. Always had been, and always would be.
He felt a sudden surge of gratitude for Petru Maria, too, and for the miracle that she had worked on Chera’s complexion. Despite the rigours of their flight, the old woman had worked a powerful cure on Chera’s plague-ravaged countenance. The scars had vanished and the pock marks filled. Her complexion had become as beautiful as her character, as beautiful as that little girl they had rescued on the day they had learned of their exile. Such a shame that the child had run away just the night after.
That was a shame. She had been such a sweet little thing.
“Anyway,” he told Chera, dragging his thoughts back to the task in hand, “you’ve always been able to get the best out of the horses, especially now that we’re so near to Flintmar, and you know how many young men must be waiting there for you.”
“Shut up,” Chera said, and, too her father’s delight, she blushed, a rosy glow suffusing her smooth cheeks.
“Now is that any way to speak to your domnu?” he asked her ingenuously, and she smiled in spite of herself.
“Go on off, then,” she told him with a sniff. “Have all the fun, while the women are left to do the work as usual.”
“Yes, my dear,” he said, and, as the approaching woodland came back into view between the hedges, he rode back down the line to where his men were waiting. Their swords were loose in their scabbards, and those with crossbows already had them strung and drawn. The last of the hedges had collapsed back into the common land that surrounded the wood, and, for the first time, Malfi could see quite how wide the forest was. It stretched from horizon to horizon, a tangled wilderness, wide enough to hide an army in.
“Maybe we should start tying off some tripwires and nooses,” Malfi mused as the first wagons of the caravan passed the outlying trees, “or maybe, some of us should try to lead them off into the forest. I bet it’s easy to get lost in there.”
&
nbsp; Before anybody could answer there was a sudden commotion from the front of the caravan.
Malfi froze in his saddle at the scream of a falling horse, the crash of a toppling wagon, and a chorus of savage cries. One after the other, the rest of the wagons crashed to a halt, some of them slewing around, as panicking horses tried to escape.
Spurring his horse forwards, Malfi skittered around the wreckage and confusion as he made his way back to the front of the caravan. It wasn’t until he stood in his stirrups to look over the wreckage of another toppled wagon that he realised what a terrible mistake he had made.
There was to be an ambush in the woods, as he had planned.
What he hadn’t planned was that his people would be the victims. Their pursuers, natives of this land, had somehow reached the wood before them. Now, they streamed forwards from the trees, galloping down the line of jammed wagons like wolves around a herd of cattle.
Malfi ignored them as he rode wide, trying to see which of the wagons he had heard crash. He knew which of them it must have been to have halted the entire column, but was hoping that he was wrong, please, that he was wrong.
He wasn’t. Chera’s wagon lay on its side, the wheels still spinning. One horse lay dead in the traces, a flight of arrows embedded in its flank. The other, bloodied and panicked, was kicking and biting as it tried to get free from the traces.
There was Chera. Malfi felt something in his chest tear as he saw her standing there, perched on top of the wagon. She held a whip in one hand, and, although she never so much as brushed the horses’ skin with it, she showed no qualms about using it on the men who surrounded her. The raw hide flicked and hissed, blurring through the air with a serpent’s speed to flay strips of skin off her attackers.