Heartwood

by Freya Robertson

  Slowly, Dolosus moved to the edge and looked down. He gasped. There, as far as the eye could see, were Darkwater soldiers readying for war; some drilling, some practising with swords and other weapons, too numerous to count.

  Thalassinus nodded. “And one day, my son, they will all be under your control. You will be High Lord of Darkwater.”

  Dolosus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Suddenly, he realised what Valens and Procella and the others had not – the invasion was not just going to come at Heartwood; it was going to come across the whole of Anguis. Darkwater warriors were going to rise out of every natural piece of water throughout the land. All the people, the defenseless peasants, all the innocents were going to die.

  He was horrified, and yet some small part of him admired the Darkwater Lords and the height of their ambition. If, truly, he was half water elemental, he thought, then it was natural he sympathised also with the Darkwater Lords, that he felt this strange attraction for this mysterious underwater world, wasn’t it?

  Was Thalassinus speaking the truth? Did he really mean to make Dolosus High Lord after him? Was it really possible one day he could be in control of everything he could see from the top of this palace?

  He turned and looked down on the glittering settlement that sprawled on the ocean floor. Darkwater glowed like a beacon in the dark, drawing him, changing him. Dolosus flexed the fingers on his right hand, felt the strength within him he had missed for so long. Could he really go back to being the one-armed Dean at Heartwood? The place where he had been so unhappy. Was that really his destiny?

  He looked across at Thalassinus, the High Lord of Darkwater. His father.

  And he smiled.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I

  Chonrad stood in the atrium of the Temple, quietly watching the ceremony being carried out in front of him. He had looked all over Heartwood for the Imperator and his Dux, and had not found them in the Baillium, nor investigating the defences, nor in the Barracks. His final option had been the Castellum, and on slipping through the great oak doors held open for him by the waiting Custodes, Chonrad had realised that Valens and Procella were taking the opportunity to carry out a quick ritual before the furore of the coming, inevitable battle.

  Valens had been badly wounded in the fight against the Komis warriors. One foe had obviously spotted the weakness he had in one leg, and had concentrated his attentions there, and eventually Valens had received a sword thrust to the muscle above the damaged knee. Solum had only just saved him from the Komis warrior’s final blow, and when Valens went to stand he could not put his weight on the leg.

  Now, he could just walk by leaning heavily on a cane, but it was clear the knight’s battle days were completely over. Chonrad thought they had probably been over before that, but it was only now that Valens fully accepted it. Chonrad had thought this realisation would make the Imperator angry and resentful, but if anything Valens seemed calmer, more resigned to the fact that he must completely hand over his physical as well as mental role of Dux to Procella.

  Chonrad waited reluctantly in the shadows as Procella and Valens paid homage to the great tree. Silva was there, too, and several Militis also watched from just outside the inner circle, their attention focussed on the Arbor and those doing the ritual within.

  Valens sipped Acerbitas from a cup, then passed it to Procella. He approached the Arbor, limping heavily, with Procella at his side. Procella knelt, and Valens sat in a chair, holding their oak leaf pendants in their right hands. Heads bowed, they murmured their prayers as Silva chanted quietly, her hands raised in supplication to the tree.

  Unseen, and as yet unnoticed, Chonrad did not move. They would have welcomed him in the inner circle – in fact, would have been thrilled if he had joined them in their ritual, but he had no wish to do so. He looked up at the dying oak tree and felt tightness in his chest and the taste of bile at the back of his throat. The Arbor was now completely void of leaves. Its branches hung towards the ground instead of reaching up to the dome of the Temple. The great tear down the middle of the trunk had caused the tree to sag to either side. Silva insisted the tree was still alive, but now Chonrad wondered whether that was just wishful thinking. It looked dead, and like the decaying corpse of a creature on the side of a road, it disgusted him.

  His feelings would have greatly upset the holy knights, which was why he had so far kept them to himself. And it was also why he now kept in the shadows. He did not want them to see the look he could not keep from his face, the look of disgust that played upon his features. From the beginning, he had found the tree abhorrent, and now, in its present state, he could not bear to be near it.

  Were it not for the fact that Valens had called for him, Chonrad would have gone back outside, albeit into the rain – anything to get out of the oppressive and depressive atmosphere of the Temple. But in the inner circle, Procella was pushing herself to her feet and Valens was rising stiffly, so Chonrad sighed and waited.

  Watching Valens limp towards him made Chonrad think of his own retirement one day. How would he feel when the time came when he could no longer ride for too long in the saddle and his own reactions grew too slow, making him a hindrance in the battlefield? For a knight who had known no other life, such a verdict would be a slow death, he thought.

  They turned, and Procella saw Chonrad immediately as he stepped forward into the light. She smiled and beckoned for him to come closer. He did so reluctantly, but stopped at the gate to the Sepulchrum, even though it was open.

  She beckoned him closer, but he shook his head. “I would rather remain here,” he said.

  Procella’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing. She and Valens crossed the inner circle to stand next to him.

  “You wanted to see me?” Chonrad asked.

  Valens nodded. “How goes the morale around Heartwood?” He had given Chonrad the task of speaking to the visitors in Heartwood to find out how their spirits were holding up. Valens liked to think he could judge the mood of his Militis. The Wulfians had mainly returned to their land, but there were still lots of knights from Laxony and some Wulfians and Hanaireans present, and he wanted to find out how they were faring.

  “As is to be expected,” said Chonrad, turning his back on the lifeless tree. “They are missing their families. There is some resentment that they are here when they feel they should be at home, protecting their kin.” He did not say this was how he felt, but Procella’s forehead furrowed, and he sensed she understood.

  Valens nodded. “And are they hopeful of a positive outcome?”

  Chonrad said nothing. Valens nodded sadly. “I thought as much.”

  “And yet they are steadfast,” said Chonrad, feeling he had to carry on at the hopeless look in their eyes. “Though they miss their homes, they are adamant that they will not let Heartwood fall easily to the invaders. They are prepared to die in the defence of it.”

  Valens nodded. He turned away, and Chonrad sensed the Imperator could not trust himself to speak. Procella met Chonrad’s gaze. Her face was solemn, her deep brown eyes filled with concern. Chonrad wished he could console her, tell her she mustn’t worry, that everything was going to be all right. But he found he couldn’t do that, because he didn’t believe it, and he didn’t think she would want empty platitudes.

  Valens cleared his throat. “I had a dream last night,” he declared. “Of Dolosus.”

  Chonrad’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

  Valens turned to look at him. “I dreamed I awoke in my bed and he was standing before me, looking down at me. I smiled and spoke to him, but before I could move, he leaned over me, and suddenly I saw he was holding a dagger. He plunged it straight into my heart. The blade pierced my skin and muscle; I swear I felt it go right through to the bone. He leaned over me as I looked up at him with horror, and he laughed. He laughed at me. Then… I awoke.”

  Chonrad blinked, looking from the Imperator to Procella and back. “It must have been quite chilling. But still, it was only a dream
…”

  Valens shook his head. “It was a portent. An omen. Dolosus has turned traitor on us. I can feel it. The Pectoris is lost. The Arbor will not regain its life.”

  Confused, Chonrad looked back at Procella. Was Valens serious? Did he truly believe in this night vision? Immediately, however, he could tell from the look on her face that not only did Valens feel he was speaking the truth, but Procella believed it, too.

  “Then all is lost?” she asked quietly.

  Chonrad glared at them. “Of course all is not lost! It was just a dream.”

  “We believe Animus speaks to us through our dreams,” said Procella sharply. “We believe they can be visions of what is to come. Do not mock our beliefs.”

  Chonrad bit his tongue. He must not pour scorn on their religion, especially when standing in front of the Arbor. Briefly, he thought of Dulcis’s words; that there were Militis they had taken on that she regretted. Had she been referring to Dolosus?

  Still, it didn’t mean the knight would definitely defect, he thought. “Even if that were so,” he said as patiently as he could, “it does not mean there is no hope. Beata may yet return with the Virimage. Or Nitesco might find the fifth Node. The future has not yet come to pass – a vision can only be one possibility of what might happen.”

  He could see from their faces they did not understand. To them, Valens’s dream was a truth, as set in stone as the oak leaf carving above the Porta. And who was he to argue with them?

  There was a movement behind them – the creak of the old oak doors and a draught around their ankles, and they turned to see Solum standing in the doorway. As was commonplace now, he was soaking wet, his hair plastered to his head and the tunic beneath his mail skintight on his arms, but it was the look upon his face that drew their attention.

  “It is the Flumen,” he gasped, his chest heaving, clearly having run all the way from the Porta. “It has finally burst its banks.”

  Chonrad pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and followed the others out of the Temple and down the central road to the walls. If it were possible, his spirits felt even lower than before. If the river truly had finally broken free, it could only mean the Darkwater Lords were on their way, and their annihilation was just a matter of time.

  Reaching the Porta, he and Procella ran up the curving staircase to the top. Valens followed them very slowly, his leg clearly painful and stiff. Chonrad ran on ahead, his powerful legs pushing him just a few steps above Procella.

  Reaching the top, he paused before exiting the stairwell, letting himself be identified by the guard. The guard motioned him forward, and so he crept up the final steps then moved quickly to stand behind one of the battlements. Procella did the same. Slowly, carefully, they peered around the stone wall.

  The vista was a grim one. The low clouds gave the countryside a greyish, dull hue as if the rain had washed away all the strong colours, leaving only shades of black and white. To the south, the fields and roads of Laxony lay sodden and dripping, a landscape of marshes and quagmires through which people were increasingly scared to travel, made doubly dangerous now by the Komis army, which had spread itself like a disease across the surrounding land. Beata would have no hope of returning now, Chonrad realised, if she was indeed on her way; there simply was not a clear passageway through to Heartwood.

  He wondered, however, how long the Komis would be able to hold out under these conditions. Their tents had been placed on the few areas of higher land but the flooded areas were increasing rapidly, and Chonrad knew from experience there was nothing more depressing for a soldier than an inability to keep oneself dry.

  It was a fairly large army, maybe ten or twelve thousand, from what he could make out from the amount of tents and horses, enough to make a sally from within the grounds a foolish notion.

  He wondered how the tree-faring folk were feeling in such alien territory. There were few trees immediately surrounding Heartwood, as the land had been cleared in previous centuries to make roads for easy access for transport for the Exercitus to other places, and for supplies into Heartwood itself.

  However, looking round, Chonrad realised it was possible that it was not the Komis who was the most immediate threat. Directly to the east, Isenbard’s Wall stretched away into the distance, a heavy grey line cutting across the land. To the north of the Wall, the Flumen – swollen from weeks of rain flowing down from the mountains – had finally overflowed its banks, like a person whose overeating stretches his stomach until his trouser button bursts. Water had spilled across the plain flanking the Wall, and the Wall itself had diverted the flow, causing a torrent to spill down past Heartwood itself. The moat level was rising, and eventually, he knew, it would overflow, and then the waters would be pressing at the walls, and Heartwood itself would be in jeopardy.

  Behind him, he felt Valens finally press up against the wall, and the Imperator peered over his shoulder to look at the view. “So, it has happened,” the older man breathed. Chonrad turned and was startled to see there were tears in Valens’s eyes. “The end is nigh. The Darkwater Lords are massing, and soon, we shall be like the sand at the bottom of the ocean, and there will be none left to stand in their way.”

  II

  Damaris, the water elemental who now had control of Dolosus, stared at himself in the silver mirror hung on the wall of his chamber. Thalassinus had showed him to his rooms, claiming he had recently had them decorated in honour of the imminent arrival of his son. They were certainly impressive, grander than any place Dolosus had ever stayed. They consisted of a series of five hollow coral spheres around a central larger sphere, which was his main living chamber. The walls were carved intricately with patterns and scenes from Darkwater legends, which had been painted with iridescent colours of blue, purple, silver and gold that stood out in the blue-green seawater like stars in the night sky. His furniture was made from large seashells and woven reeds, anchored to the coral floor with gold hoops. When he thought of the dormitory in Heartwood, the large room he shared with the rest of the Militis who worked in the Castellum, he laughed. Talk about progress!

  Staring at himself in the mirror, he strapped on a breastplate of iron-hard shells over a thick reed jerkin, surprised to feel it move as he moved, although he had been told that, in spite of its flexibility, it would repel any sword or spear. Standing beside him, his father handed him the golden sash, which announced his birthright. Damaris lowered it over his head and buttoned it at his waist.

  He stared at himself in the mirror. The part of him that was Dolosus, the earth elemental, was buried deep within the water elemental’s form, sinking deeper every second. And yet although he had two spirits, he was still one person, with access to the thoughts of both water and earth elemental.

  Somehow, he felt his watery spirit had always been stronger than his earth one; he was sure that was why he had felt so out of place and had struggled so on Anguis. Damaris and Dolosus had been fighting for superiority ever since he was born, and finally, Damaris had won.

  He closed his eyes. Around him, he could feel the gentle but insistent pull of the ocean. It had been growing stronger since his arrival at Darkwater, and at first, he had thought it was because he was adjusting to life under the sea. He had only just connected the feeling with the fact that the High Moon was approaching. Now, he felt the presence of the satellite in the sky, even though he was miles below the surface of the ocean, as if she were urging him to rise, as if he were attached to her with watery threads and she was trying to pull him out of the sea. Above him, he knew the tides would be at their highest, the waters gnawing at the cliffs on the coast and rivers straining at their banks. With the continual rain, the time was ripe for invasion.

  Inside him, Dolosus squirmed. Damaris smiled. He could feel his alter ego’s torn loyalties.

  Then, inside his head, he saw a flash of the face of Valens. His smile faltered.

  His relationship with the Imperator was a long and complicated one. He was well aware Valens saw in him
the son he had never had, and that had always puzzled him, for it was hardly as if he was the epitome of the Heartwood knight, a shining example of a Militis. But he knew little of Valens’s past and had come to the conclusion the older man had had some similar problem when he was young; perhaps he had rebelled against his upbringing, or had been resentful or impatient in his youth. Dolosus had tolerated Valens’s subtle attentions, thinking it was nothing to do with him, and if it in any way granted him a quieter or easier life, then he might as well cultivate the relationship.

  However, as time had gone by, he had come to admire the quiet but steadfast knight. The Imperator demanded nothing from his Militis he was not capable of himself; he expected them to be physically strong, devout and honest, brave, unflinching in the face of danger, resolute in the presence of evil. And gradually, Dolosus’s feelings for him had deepened.

  He could not bring himself to say he loved the old knight. Dolosus did not consider himself capable of that emotion. But he did admire him and until now had considered himself loyal, and suddenly, the thought of advancing on Heartwood with a thousand Darkwater Lords in tow struck a chord within him that resonated through both earth and water elemental.

  He had always thought Heartwood in no way meant the same to him as it did to the other Militis. He had not been chosen in the Allectus, had not grown up there, and did not seem to feel the same draw to the building the others did. He carried out the rituals with the others because it was required he do so, but they meant little to him, and he was not a deeply religious person.

  The Arbor… He thought of the tree, and his insides twisted. He did not know what he thought of the Arbor. If asked, he would have said it meant nothing to him; it was just a tree, a symbol for the Militis to focus on. But inside, he knew it was more than that. He had touched the tree and felt its heart beating; he had drunk the tea made from its leaves; he had watched the Veriditas and seen the Arbor grow, and it had changed him without his knowing.