Steel, Blood & Fire (Immortal Treachery Book 1)

by Allan Batchelder

  The burning took much longer than anticipated, and many of Anders’ officers at every level of command were punished as a result, with death being the least of their penalties. But the forest resisted, fought back, even went on the offensive at times. One might have assumed the End-of-All-Things felt frustrated, but in fact he gloried in the struggle. This was the closest he’d come to any kind of challenge, and it stimulated his imagination. Where he sent tens of thousands of soldiers with fire and axes, the forest responded with strange magics, living undergrowth and fey folk. While the chess match amused him and he cared literally nothing for his own forces, Anders recognized they might be hard to replace quickly and in such numbers, so he pulled them back and resorted to flaming arrows, catapults, ballistae and sorcery. Inevitably, he knew, the fire would grow too big to be stifled.

  The forest howled in fear and torment, a cacophony that could be heard for leagues and would never be forgotten by those who did. Animals, creatures and even plants fled in all directions from the conflagration. Game burst from the undergrowth with fur and flanks aflame, only to be cut down by opportunistic troops on the front lines.

  Wims watched, his thoughts and feelings in turmoil.

  Anders watched, exulting.

  The old gods watched, and they were wroth.

  *****

  Long & Company, On the Road

  On such journeys, the real talk happened around the campfire – the wishing, the dreaming, the reminiscing, the self-recriminations, and the self-aggrandizement. Fireside conversations became contests of one-upmanship in who had suffered, achieved or just plain lived the most. Occasionally, Rem would recite extended passages from various plays he’d performed in, sometimes even using multiple voices to fill out the other roles. Janks was the biggest braggart, Spirk the most nonsensical. Mardine told the most traditional tales, Long the most self-critical (the more he ruminated on his recent work as a gigolo, the more embarrassed he became). Even the merchant pitched in once in a while. Of them all, however, none commanded the group’s rapt attention like D’Kem. He rarely spoke, but when he did, his advice, his opinions, his tales had a gravitas to them the others could not ignore. One night, after Janks had finished telling the group how he’d once killed four men with a single arrow, and the giggles and guffaws of disbelief had subsided, a silence fell over the companions. The dark sky drizzled lightly upon them, and as they stared into the fire, each felt the need to fill that silence with…something, anything to keep the quiet at bay.

  “I don’t like this quiet.” Spirk complained.

  “Gives me the creeping Johnnies, for sure.” Rem added.

  “No, no.” D’Kem said. “This silence is most meet.” Everyone looked at him, sensing that more was imminent. “Do you know what tomorrow is?” D’Kem asked.

  “Lons?” Spirk guessed.

  “Aye. ‘Tis that. But it’s also First Day.” D’Kem responded.

  First Day. Of all the annual festivals, celebrations, and holy days, Long cared least for First Day. It was an observance too fraught with unanswerable questions, too haunted by the unknown.

  “First Day!” Spirk said, cheerfully. “My mum used to make an egg pudding with rum that was the pride of our village. I always hated having to wait a whole year to have more.”

  The silence descended again, the old Shaper inhaled, and Long wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what was coming on the exhalation.

  “Mayhap you’ve heard the details of the original First Day, but it doesn’t get the reflection it deserves. Its mysteries are central to our existence as a species, perhaps even our survival. And yet, we dress the day up in frippery and egg puddings.” Spirk was about to protest when D’Kem continued. “Nigh onto three thousand years ago, our forebears woke up one afternoon, right after the third bell, it’s said. They woke up, not knowing why they’d been asleep at that time of day. Not recognizing their surroundings or each other. Not remembering their own names or even their language. Imagine the chaos. Husbands and wives fought one another in fear. Children fled from their parents.”

  “This sounds like the tale of Ahklat.” Rem interrupted.

  D’Kem silenced him with a doleful eye. “You’re not the first to make that observation, but you would be the first to explain the connection, if ever you figured it out. At any rate,” D’Kem continued, staring back into the fire, “it must have been days if not weeks before anyone had calmed down enough to join hands with another in effort to settle the rest of our ancestors. They must have been like frightened pups in a thunderstorm, dashing this way and that, hiding from the least disturbance. But calm they did, eventually. Scholars write that leaders arose – warlords, holy men, even mountebanks, though what they had been before the Awakening, nobody knows.”

  “That just proves a man can remake himself,” Long offered.

  “Might be you’re right. Or it might be they were warlords, holy men and mountebanks before the Awakening. You can cast a spell on a pig turns him into a wolf, but he’s still a pig inside.”

  Long wasn’t sure if he’d just been insulted or not, so he let it slide.

  “Some of these new leaders,” D’Kem went on, “were afraid of losing their power, so they banned all forms of writing and ordered anything with writing upon it destroyed. The present and future were all that mattered, they argued; no point in fretting about a past now lost to them. There were even a few cults that made it their personal missions to eradicate any evidence of our collective past. Such stupidity! Such evil! And it has only been in the last few hundred years that scholars and politicians have begun to appreciate what may have been lost, and what still remains to be found.”

  “Like what, for instance?” Spirk asked.

  “Surely, three thousand years ago, we had great magicians, alchemists and scientists working on wondrous discoveries and inventions. Surely, there were poets and playwrights,” D’Kem said, looking at Rem, “whose work would have amazed and delighted us. It may be we were all closer to Mahnus. Or it might be we worshipped someone else, entirely.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Janks cried.

  “Is it? We have no idea how old our civilization is, no idea how long we’ve been here. There’s some think Mahnus killed our proper gods.”

  “Not likely,” Janks muttered, dismissively.

  “Not likely, is it? Impossible to prove otherwise. And other harrowing questions remain: why were we stricken thus? What’s to keep it from happening again? How can we preserve what we’ve learned if it does?”

  “If we can’t positively identify our forebears, what’s to keep us from bedding down our cousins?” Rem jumped in.

  “Ah, the light dawns at last!” D’Kem observed, looking at Rem appreciatively. “Some say that’s how the Svarren began. And might we not, over time, not knowing our origins, grow into something even more monstrous?”

  Long felt himself shiver, despite the fire’s proximity.

  “And there’s another thing bothers me: there are other sentient races in the world. Did they, also, experience First Day, or have they continued to grow and progress unabated, gaining an advantage over us that we can never hope to overcome?”

  “Ah, now you’re raving, old man!” Janks said. “I’ve never seen hide nor hair o’ these other races folk talk about.” Mardine snorted. Janks looked up at her and bit his tongue.

  “You haven’t looked very hard, then, my skeptical friend. Some final questions occur to me: was this done to us by some external force? Did another god, another race, another people somehow hex our entire species, and, if so, what’s to say they won’t do it again? How can we stop them?”

  Long pulled his cloak a little tighter around his neck and shoulders. “Happy First Day,” he said, humorlessly.

  *****

  Vykers, In Lunessfor

  “Ahklat? She’s out of her fucking mind!” Vykers complained. “The fucking Mahnus-cursed ‘City Outside Prophecy.’ What next? A tour of the countless hells?”

  You are a legen
dary warrior, Arune responded, in service to a legendary monarch, on a voyage to a legendary city. There is a certain symmetry to it.

  “I don’t even know what you just said, Burn, but I don’t like the sound of it,” Vykers answered, as he sat on the bed in a room the Queen’s Steward had provided for him.

  What would you be doing otherwise?

  “Me? Amassing an army.”

  But the Queen is amassing an army for you.

  “I don’t care; it don’t feel right.”

  So what are you going to do?

  Right now? I’m gonna take a bath. First one I’ve had in I don’t know how long. Might take hours. Then, I’m gonna find me a barber. I’m a soldier, not a barbarian. Next, I’m gonna do some serious drinking. Lastly, I’m gonna find a brothel and…

  Agggh! Arune cried out. You can’t!

  Why the hell not?

  Because I see what you see. I feel what you feel.

  What’s that to me?

  Okay, then. If you won’t cooperate, I’ll have to stop you.

  Stop me? Did you forget whose body you’re living in, Burn?

  If only I could. But if you try anything, if you so much as touch one of those women, I’ll make sure you never get stiff again in this lifetime.

  Vykers was quiet for a moment, seething. Did I ever tell you how much I hate you, Burn?

  *****

  Somehow, Vykers got back to his room in the castle and managed to tumble onto the bed before passing out. When he finally cracked his eyes open, he realized how much he hadn’t missed hangovers.

  “Nnnnnnnrrrggghhh,” he groaned.

  It lives.

  “I was hoping I’d drowned you with rum.” Vykers breathed.

  You tried, you tried.

  Can you do anything about this headache? Vykers thought, as talking was only making him more uncomfortable.

  And why would I do that?

  Stop being such a bitch! Ya spoiled half my evening’s fun, the least you can do is clear my head a bit.

  Vykers heard a low musical tone inside his skull, and as it faded, so did his pain. Carefully, he sat up, rubbed his new-shaven chin. “Better.”

  You’re welcome.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Three men, I think. Two are guards.

  Vykers pulled his gloves and boots on, cast about for a weapon, not that he needed one to kill just three men. He found nothing. Ah, well, always the hard way.

  “Enter,” he said.

  A short, bald man stepped just into the room and stopped. He was dressed in leather and light mail, with a series of belts, buckles and straps around his waist and across his chest that held more daggers than Vykers had ever seen on one person. Over all that, he wore a black woolen cloak that fell almost to his ankles. He said nothing, as if daring Vykers to speak first.

  But when it came to being stubborn, he had nothing on the bigger man. Vykers flexed his arms, crossed them and stared back.

  Does it really matter which of you can piss the farthest? Arune asked.

  Yes. Yes, it does, was all Vykers thought in return.

  Finally, the little man spoke. “I heard you were broken, damaged goods, dead even. But they do say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…”

  Vykers inclined his head to one side, considering. “And which o’ those are you calling me?”

  “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it, Vykers-the-Vicious?”

  “Aye, that’s my name. Or one o’ them. What’s yours?”

  “Kendell.”

  “And your business with me?”

  “Ahklat is my business with you, or, rather, seeing you get there and back alive.”

  Vykers laughed. Kendell bristled.

  “Let’s pretend,” he said, “even half the stories they tell of you are true. You’re about to go blundering into one of the world’s deepest, darkest mysteries. Are you really going to turn up your nose at a little extra manpower?”

  Vykers sat on the edge of his bed, pursed his lips. “What’s the offer?” he asked.

  “Five mercs.” Kendell replied.

  “And what’s the Queen providing?”

  Kendell repeated himself. “Five mercs.”

  You think it’s a trap? Arune wondered.

  No, that doesn’t make sense. She coulda killed me a hundred times over by now.

  Then what?

  Dunno, yet.

  They must be some special mercs, Arune thought.

  They’d better be, by Alheria’s tits.

  “When can I see ‘em?” Vykers asked at last.

  “How’s now work for you?”

  “Good a time as any,” the warrior replied, getting to his feet again.

  The two men walked into the corridor, where they were soon flanked by guards – not the Queen’s Swords this time, but household guards nonetheless.

  “Isn’t this where we make small talk?” Vykers said.

  “That a crack at my height?” Kendell answered.

  “Your height? You don’t look that tall to me.”

  “And you don’t look that smart to me.”

  Vykers thought he heard one of the guards suppressing a snicker. “So…you’re a knife man.”

  “And my suspicions are confirmed.”

  “Knives ain’t much good against a sword.”

  “They are if you can’t get close enough to swing it.”

  “Oh,” Vykers said, “I get close enough. There’s countless dead’d say I get too close.”

  “This is gonna be a bit of a hike. Are you planning to talk the whole way?”

  Vykers stopped. The guards and Kendell were forced to follow suit. “I was just being social. But if you forget who I am for one minute – a single minute – it’ll be the last mistake you make.”

  Kendell was good. He didn’t look frightened in the least, but it was clear he understood Vykers’ message.

  After close to an hour’s walk in and out of buildings, across courtyards, down side streets and up back alleys, the four men rounded a corner and came to the enormous gate of what was clearly a private compound of some kind. A large crest above the gate confirmed it.

  Vykers looked up and spied something unusual at its center. “What kind o’ weapon’s that?”

  “It’s not a weapon; it’s a trowel. We came up as stone masons, when time was.”

  “Stone masons, eh? It’s an honest trade.”

  “It can be,” Kendell agreed.

  “Still,” Vykers said, “I imagine you know a thing or two about Her Majesty’s castle that you don’t share with just anyone.” The cryptic smile Kendell offered in response was confirmation enough. I’ll have to remember that, Vykers thought to himself.

  “You go through this gate with me,” said Kendell, “you’ve stepped in the shit.”

  <???>

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Vykers asked. “Thought you wanted me to follow you.”

  “And I do. I’m just saying, coming through this gate is taking a side. Taking a side is making enemies.”

  Vykers queried Arune, looked around as if checking for signs of an ambush. What’s he on about?

  I’m not certain. They say the noble houses of Lunessfor engage in some fairly nasty in-fighting. You might ask…

  “You wanna explain?” Vykers asked, aloud.

  “Inside.”

  Well? Vykers asked Arune.

  There are men on the other side. But I don’t feel any immediate threat.

  “Inside it is,” the warrior told his guide.

  Kendell approached the gate, opened a small hatch and spoke something into it, or to someone behind it, and the gates began to rumble open. Without waiting or turning back to see if Vykers was following, Kendell walked through. Vykers looked at both guards, but neither was giving anything away. “Alheria’s tits!” he muttered.