by Luke Scull
Yllandris pushed open the mould-ravaged door of the building and raised a hand to her mouth as the stench of waste hit her nostrils. Not just waste; there was sickness in the air, too. A dozen small faces turned to stare at her – fewer than she had expected.
‘Who are you?’ asked a young girl sitting in a bed of filthy straw. Her hair was matted with dirt and her clothes were little more than rags. An older boy moved to stand beside her, a protective brother watching out for his younger sister. Yllandris would have liked a brother or sister. Maybe if her father had had a son he wouldn’t have drowned himself in drink; maybe her mother would still be alive.
‘My name is Yllandris,’ she replied. ‘I…’ She choked on the words she was about to say.
‘What’s wrong? Are you crying?’ The young girl tried to get to her feet but was too weak. Yllandris saw then just how emaciated she was; another victim of the wasting sickness: the disease that had taken so many of Yllandris’s friends when she was a girl. Judging from the smell and the visible condition of the children huddled around the mill, at least half would not live much longer than a year. The other children must have sensed the danger and found somewhere else to stay before they too got sick.
‘I’m fine,’ Yllandris said. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. ‘I’m a sorceress. Sorceresses don’t cry.’
The girl’s brother spoke. ‘You’re a sorceress? Prove it!’
Another boy coughed nearby, a hacking sound that told of some illness in his lungs.
Yllandris held out a trembling hand, palm facing up. She drew upon her power, evoked a small flame that danced back and forth across her fingertips before it fizzled out. In another time and place, the gasps from the watching children might have made her smile.
‘Show me some more! I want to see more magic!’ cried one of the foundlings. Another clapped happily.
‘Not right now. There… there’s a magic show about to start outside the Great Lodge,’ Yllandris lied, hating herself. ‘But there’s only room for three more children.’
‘I wanna go! Me! Me!’ A chorus of voices piped up, broken by a few racking coughs. Yllandris wanted to scream, to tell the children that it was a lie, to order them to flee town and not look back. But that too would be a death sentence – they would freeze out in the wilds.
She stared around the room with desolate eyes. The young girl’s condition was the most hopeless, followed by the boy with the cough. Who else? Did it even matter?
‘Let me take my sister,’ the boy said. He met Yllandris’s teary gaze, and she could read what he was thinking in the sadness behind his eyes: She’s going to die. I know she is. Let her see the magic show before she’s taken from me. Give her that much. Please.
Yllandris tried not to sob.
In the end, she selected the young girl and her brother, and the boy with the cough. They accompanied her to the Great Lodge, Yllandris carrying the girl in her arms. She was shockingly light.
There she put on a magic show for them all. Though the two sorceresses didn’t really get along, Rana volunteered to help Yllandris. Together they produced a spectacle that had the three children laughing with glee.
Towards the end of the show, Yllandris cast a spell to put the orphans into a deep magical slumber – one from which they would never awaken. Shortly after, the Herald arrived and whisked them away. That was the last time they were ever seen alive.
Later, Yllandris learned that the girl’s name had been Jinna. Her brother’s name was Roddy, and the boy with the cough had been called Zak.
She said a prayer for them every night. And whenever she slept, their faces haunted her nightmares until she awoke, screaming.
Her eyes shot open. She screamed.
Or at least she tried to scream; her throat was so raw from crying and thirst that she made only a choking sound. As always when she woke, she reached up and brushed her fingers against the wound on her face. It was sticky and wet and felt warm to the touch. It throbbed constantly, a dull ache that occasionally intensified into a stabbing pain. When that happened, she would huddle helplessly against the side of the wicker cage and sob until the agony eased. The wound resisted her efforts to magically heal it; it had been inflicted with demonsteel, and though the Shaman had been able to knit the wounds Krazka had inflicted on him back together, she was no Magelord. She would carry that terrible scar for the rest of her life.
Please let it end. I want to die. Please let me die.
She shifted slightly, attempting to stretch her legs in the little space the cage allowed. The movement caused the effluence that had collected in the prison to squelch beneath her. The soft bed of shit and other waste kept her warm during the coldest parts of the night. Kept her alive, though she prayed for an end to her misery.
Perhaps when winter came the cold might finally claim her. But it was only the start of autumn. The promise of a quick death was still months away, if indeed the Butcher King would even allow such a thing. He might decide to have her moved from this open cesspit and placed elsewhere.
The thought of spending the rest of her life in a cage made Yllandris want to tear out her hair and scratch out her eyes. Two weeks in this nightmarish prison, and already she was going mad.
She heard Magnar shift in the cage opposite. He had been imprisoned for two months. Somehow he seemed to have retained his sanity, though of late they rarely talked. There was little to say to each other.
Magnar spoke then, his voice a rasp. ‘Yllandris.’
‘Yes?’ she answered, her own voice weak and despairing.
‘I never told you that I’m sorry.’
Yllandris turned to face him. She could see the wounds Krazka had inflicted on his naked torso; the jagged scars where his nipples had been sliced off; the stumps of fingers that had been cut from his hands. Magnar’s muscles were beginning to waste away and his handsome face had grown gaunt. The remarkable grey eyes she had found so enchanting had lost much of their lustre.
Like her, Magnar was covered in waste. The shit and piss that occasionally rained down to cover them had horrified her at first, but now she had become numb to it. Unlike the terrible wound on her face, dirt was nothing water couldn’t wash away.
‘You’re sorry?’ she repeated, suddenly confused.
He nodded. His dark hair had been recently chopped off, leaving stubble that barely covered the bumpy, scabbed mess Krazka had made of his scalp. The Butcher King beat him terribly at least once a week.
‘I grabbed your hair and hurt you. Just before the Herald attacked Heartstone. You’d angered me.’
Yllandris tried to recall that night. She and Magnar had been in bed together, resting after their lovemaking. She had unwisely brought up the day he watched his mother burn on the Shaman’s pyre.
‘I swore never to lay hands on a woman,’ Magnar continued. ‘I broke that promise.’
Yllandris remembered her own father’s treatment of her mother. He had beaten her bloody more times than she could count. Before the final time, when he had gone too far and no broken apology or promise to change could ever bring her back.
‘I forgive you,’ she whispered.
Magnar was silent a while before next he spoke. ‘You asked me how I could allow my own mother to be consumed by fire. The answer is that I couldn’t. My mother’s alive, Yllandris.’
Despite everything that had happened, Magnar’s words still managed to shock her. ‘How?’ she gasped.
‘The Shaman needed to make an example. My father had betrayed him. The chieftains already resented me for my youth, and because of my father’s actions I had become the son of a traitor. The only way to appear strong was to appear ruthless. The Shaman wished to teach my father a lesson and to reinforce my own position with my chieftains. I had no choice but to agree. My aunt was guilty of inciting rebellion. No one deserves to perish in flames, but I had no choice.’
‘I saw your mother burn.’
‘The Shaman used magic to change my aunt’s appearance
to match that of my mother. It was my aunt who burned.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You must have wondered what kind of monster could sacrifice his own mother. I wanted you to know that I am not that monster. I never wished to be king. I thought I could perhaps use my influence to do some good, to show my father that I was worthy of his name. I just wanted make him proud. Can you understand that?’
Yllandris stared at the man in the cage opposite her. The pain in his eyes threatened to choke her, and she knew then that she truly loved him. Before she had merely loved the King. Now, she realized, she loved Magnar Kayne.
‘Yes,’ she replied, her voice threatening to break. ‘I understand.’
‘I’ll make you proud,’ Yllandris said. She hugged her mother close: close enough to hear her heart beating.
‘You already have, child,’ her mother replied, running trembling fingers through her hair.
Would her mother be proud of her now?
There was movement above, at the edge of the cesspit. For a moment she feared another bucket of sewage was about to be emptied over them, but a rickety rope ladder was lowered and then Yorn climbed down into the pit. The Kingsman had a pack thrown over his broad shoulders. Their provisions. They were fed every other day, just enough to keep them alive.
‘Here,’ the big warrior grunted, reaching into the bag and pulling out a loaf of old bread and a fresh skin of water.
Yllandris stared at Yorn. His bearded face was troubled; his dark eyes looked as though they were wrestling with some impossible decision. He was a decent man, she knew. This couldn’t have been easy for him. ‘The King wants me to fetch some foundlings,’ he blurted out, much to her shock. He was the taciturn sort. It was unlike him to show such emotion. ‘The Herald spoke words in his head. It needs another sacrifice before it can summon more demons from the Spine.’
At Yorn’s words, Yllandris went cold. In her mind’s eye the faces of Jinna and Roddy and Zak stared at her accusingly. ‘No…’ she whispered. ‘You can’t…’
Yorn’s teeth were grinding together. ‘The hell did I end up doing this sort of shit?’ he roared suddenly. ‘I just wanted to be a Kingsman! Like my uncle!’
‘Don’t do it, Yorn. Please,’ Yllandris begged.
‘I ain’t got no choice. If I don’t, someone else will. The iron man, or Wulgreth, or that bastard Ryder.’
‘Yorn… there’s always a choice.’ It was Magnar.
The Kingsman turned to stare at the deposed king. ‘Those were your father’s words. He told you what happened at Red Valley?’
‘Yes. He told me. He told me that you were true, Yorn. I made you captain of the guard because of your actions that day. Because my father respected you.’
The big warrior frowned and stared off into the distance. Remembering events long ago, no doubt. Yllandris knew only a little of what had happened at Red Valley. Her own father had come back from that place a changed man.
Yorn seemed to make a decision then. He unsheathed his broadsword. ‘Screw this,’ he muttered. ‘This ain’t right. None of this is right. I’m getting you out of there.’ He began hacking at Yllandris’s cage.
‘Someone will hear you!’ Yllandris whispered.
‘The King’s locked in council with the chieftains,’ Yorn grunted, his breath coming in hard gasps. ‘Reckon we’ve got a few hours to get you out of here.’
‘Get me out?’
‘The west gate. I should be able to convince the guards to let you pass. Shit, almost got it…’
With a mighty swing of his broadsword, Yorn finally broke through the cage. He sheathed his blade and then grabbed hold of the slashed bars, pulling on them with all his impressive strength. They began to creak and then split. With a final, enormous grunt, he tore away a large section of the prison. It came free in his hands with a loud crack. Yorn tossed aside the broken wicker, then reached down a scraped and bleeding hand and helped Yllandris to her feet.
‘Now you,’ Yorn puffed, turning to Magnar’s cage.
‘I’m staying.’
Yllandris wobbled and almost fell. After a fortnight caged in that awful prison, her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. ‘But we can free you—’
‘No. Every second you waste here puts you in danger.’
‘Magnar—’
‘I’m weak, Yllandris. I wouldn’t make it far. And when Krazka discovers I’m gone, he will send half the town out searching for me. Go now. Save yourself.’
She met his eyes, those beautiful pools of iron grey she had spent many a moment gazing into as they lay together on his bed in the Great Lodge. They’d talked of having children once. She remembered that night, every last detail.
‘I won’t leave the foundlings behind,’ she said suddenly.
Yorn grunted and shook his head. ‘They’ll only slow us down. We can make it to the Greenwild if we hurry. The Lowlands are beyond the forest. Even Krazka won’t follow us there.’
‘I won’t let that bastard hurt a single one of those children,’ she said, an edge of steel in her voice she had never known she possessed. ‘We leave with the orphans. Or I’ll kill as many of Krazka’s men as I can before they cut me down.’
‘Go with her, Yorn,’ Magnar whispered. ‘You’re a Kingsman. As your rightful king, I command you to see them to safety. Please.’
Yorn hesitated. Finally, he nodded.
Yllandris met Magnar’s eyes one last time. ‘I love you,’ she said. And for the first time in her life, she meant it.
They climbed out of the cesspit, Yllandris’s arms screaming with the effort of scrambling up the rope ladder. Then they hurried to the Foundry. The streets were almost empty – it was still early, and if anyone thought it odd to see a sorceress covered in shit trailing after a grim-faced Kingsman, they did not mention the fact.
Yllandris waited outside the great building, lurking in the shadows while Yorn went inside to fetch the children. The big warrior was herding them out of the door, the blond-haired Corinn at the front of the group, just as Braxus arrived.
Yllandris tensed, readying herself for whatever she must do to silence the old blacksmith. But he merely stared at her. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the wound on her face. He turned to Yorn.
‘Gonna be a nice day, by the looks of it.’
‘Aye,’ replied Yorn.
‘Good day to take the little ’uns for a walk, I reckon.’
‘Aye.’
Braxus raised a meaty hand to his mouth and stifled a yawn. ‘If anyone asks, they were gone when I arrived.’
‘Thank you,’ said Yllandris. The old blacksmith merely nodded. Then he glanced up at the rising sun and went inside the Foundry.
Yorn led the way towards the west gate. Yllandris pulled her soiled shawl up to hide her face as they neared the exit.
‘How did you get that terrible wound?’ whispered Corinn beside her. The fifty children they’d gathered at the Foundry trailed along behind. Most of them were still sleepy. A few looked excited at the prospect of going on an adventure, such as Milo – the boy who had roused her in the Foundry the day all hope had died.
‘That doesn’t matter now,’ Yllandris replied. ‘We need to get as far away from Heartstone as possible. You’re the oldest child. I’m going to need your help. Can you do that? Can you help me?’
Corinn listened. When Yllandris had finished speaking she nodded, her expression focused and determined.
The guards on the gate recognized Yorn as he approached. While they eyed the children suspiciously, they knew better than to challenge a Kingsman. They opened the gates, closing them behind the group afterwards.
There was still a slight chill in the morning air as they passed the pit where the dead had been piled and left to rot. Yllandris waved at the others to continue while she descended to look for the bones of the foundlings that had been sacrificed to the Herald. She gathered them up and placed them carefully into a sack, which she slung over her shoulder. They wo
uld be her burden to bear and hers alone. The children watched curiously, all except Corinn too young to make the connection between the bones in the pit and the recent disappearance of their three friends. Yllandris had told them they had gone to a better place. The lie still made her want to curl up and die.
As they turned south towards the Green Reaching, which lay so many miles distant, Yllandris glanced at Heartstone one final time. Like many sorceresses, she possessed a very faint gift for foresight.
Just then her gift was telling her she would never see Magnar or the capital again.
Changing Times
Sir Meredith’s back was killing him. The four men sitting at the King’s table in the Grand Throne Chamber had been locked in discussions for hours.
And by ‘locked in discussions’, the knight thought sourly, what he really meant was the ignorant posturing of feral dogs barking at one another. The art of civil discourse was lost on his countrymen.
He didn’t say as much, of course. He was paid to guard the King, not offer his insights into the uncouth politics of this damnable country.
Things had been so very different back in the Lowlands. After he had helped the Rag King win back his throne Sir Meredith had accompanied his liege lord on many a diplomatic mission throughout the Shattered Realms. The unpleasantness with the Duke certainly couldn’t be blamed on Sir Meredith – and yet because of that series of unfortunate events he found himself back in the High Fangs, standing guard over a one-eyed loon while his armour chafed him raw and his lower back sent throbs of agony racing up his spine.
The words shot out before he could stop them. ‘A pox upon the whoresons responsible for this debacle!’
‘What was that, iron man? You say somethin’?’ grunted the warrior beside him. Red Rayne’s nose was half-ruined by the endless jhaeld he snorted. A terrible habit, Meredith reflected – the sign of a man lacking both self-control and confidence in his own prowess. He himself had never felt the desire to partake of the resin of the infamous fireplant. A knight such as Sir Meredith triumphed through superior swordsmanship and a cool head, not berserker savagery brought on by mind-altering substances.