by David Hair
Korznici sniffed. ‘Paruq was a strange man.’ She’d met him while he was doing missionary work with the Vlpa tribe.
‘I’ve been wondering if perhaps that unified energy is what Valdyr calls the dwyma,’ Kyrik went on, trying to ignore his beloved wife’s misery – then his skin prickled as Hajya’s sobs suddenly turned to harsh chuckling. She swiped her tangled black curls to one side as her face, contorting with pain at the sunlight, turned to him. Her squinting black eyes were filled with malice.
‘Kyrik,’ she drawled in the Gatti accent of Asiv Fariddan. ‘I wonder: does buggery hold the same appeal for you as it did for your brother?’
‘Get out, daemon,’ Kyrik snapped, conjuring wizardry-gnosis.
‘No, wait,’ Asiv said, ‘I’m here to parley.’
‘What have we to talk about?’ He raised his hands.
‘Because neither of us has what we need, Mollach,’ Asiv replied. ‘I don’t care about this wretched, frozen country of yours, or your woman, but I need your brother and the Ogre creature. Give them to me and I’ll give you back your woman.’ Hajya’s full mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘She loves you, to her own surprise. You wouldn’t want to throw that away, would you? Not when love is so elusive in this hard, evil world.’
She loves me, Kyrik thought. He knew that, or thought he did, but to hear it from another, even such a one as Asiv, still quickened his pulse. But I also love Valdyr.
‘You know I’d never give my brother to you, so why waste our time asking?’
Korznici nodded in approval. Gnostic energies were glowing at her fingertips too.
Hajya leaned forward, glaring at him, her daemon-eyes full of hate. ‘Then let me put it this way, Sarkany. I possess the Imperial Legion in Lapisz, and most of the citizens. The rest of your people I’m driving out – to Hegikaro, in case you were wondering, your own city you’ve not had the guts to return to.’
‘I’ll retake Hegikaro in my own time,’ Kyrik retorted.
‘Then best you do it soon,’ Asiv-Hajya leered, ‘for once all those helpless peasants are safe within its walls, I’ll march. I can barely restrain myself, with so many delectable women and children waiting for my hungry men to harvest. But I am a generous man. You have a week to come to their aid.’
‘You don’t set the terms—’
‘Of course I do,’ the daemon snarled. ‘How do you not understand that? Bring your idiot brother and the Ogre-beast to Hegikaro, or sit here safe in your sylvan hidey-hole and watch your entire kingdom be massacred, Sarkany. One week.’
Kyrik went to retort, but Asiv had left and it was just Hajya staring up at him, quivering in fear, her drool running black.
‘It’s a trap,’ Korznici stated.
‘Of course it’s a rukking trap,’ he snapped back, ‘but what choice do I have?’
*
Kyrik convened his leaders after the evening’s communal meal. Leaving the rest of his disparate people – Mollachs, Schlessen and the construct-Mantauri – to relax after a hard day’s labour constructing new longhouses, he joined Kip, Maegogh, Rothgar and Korznici to discuss the daemon’s ultimatum.
‘He’s herding every uninfected person, anyone left in the valley with an independent thought, towards Hegikaro.’
‘Can we shelter them here?’ Maegogh rumbled.
‘It could be as many as twenty thousand people,’ Rothgar told him. ‘We couldn’t fit them all into this valley, let alone feed them – and if we did try, the valley would no longer be secret.’
‘Yar,’ Kip agreed, ‘that’s clearly why he’s doing this: he can’t find us, so he’s luring us out.’
‘And I have no choice but to be lured,’ Kyrik said. ‘If he slaughters all my people, I’ll have no kingdom.’
‘They are not all your people,’ Korznici put in. ‘There is also the Vlpa clan, my kindred, sheltering in the Tuzvolg.’ There were some twenty thousand Sydian men, women and children in the tundra, preserved from the full blast of a Mollachian winter by the volcanic basin beneath Cuz Piros, the fire mountain. ‘You are also their king.’
‘I’ve not forgotten that,’ Kyrik said. He looked around the room, most especially at Kip and Korznici, whose assent he needed. He’d brought the Vlpa clan to Mollachia, and Kip’s people too. His sovereignty was meant to offer protection, but so far it had brought them only danger. ‘I have no choice: I must return to Hegikaro and rally my people. Only if they’re armed and organised will they stand any chance against Asiv.’
‘Obviously,’ Maegogh rumbled.
‘I do not command this,’ Kyrik went on, ‘I ask. I believe it is better to fight together than hide separately, so I hope you will all come with me. We must fortify the town – only by holding together will we have any chance of defeating Asiv. Remaining here might be safer in the short term, but it guarantees ultimate failure.’
Kip shared a look with Maegogh, then said, ‘You need not ask – we are the Bullheads of Minaus. Where the fight is deadliest, the blood flowing swiftest, there we stand.’
He must sing the old lays in his sleep, Kyrik thought, breathing a huge sigh of relief, for he hadn’t dared take anything as a given. He clasped the giant Schlessen’s big right hand.
Korznici was a little more grudging. ‘My people followed you halfway across Yuros and now we have nowhere else to go. We have committed to more than we ever expected, lost more than we ever feared.’ She raised her head as she went on, ‘But we will see this through, for the sakes of the fallen and those who still live. I say this as head of the Sfera; I am only one voice on the tribe’s leadership council, but in this, my voice will prevail.’
She’s more and more queenly every day, Kyrik thought, then, wondering when his own true queen would be restored to him, Will that ever happen?
‘Then I’ll send you and Rothgar to bring them to Hegikaro,’ he replied. ‘Thank you all. We are in a terrible predicament, but your support gives me hope. Pass the word. In three days’ time all who are willing will leave this haven and go to Hegikaro.’
*
Ogre glared morosely at the coal scratchings on the wall of the cave and tried to ignore Naxius’ voice as it echoed in the aether, sometimes commanding, sometimes conversational and sometimes even wheedling, as it was tonight.
I know you can hear me, Ogre. Let’s talk, as we used to.
Ogre blanked his Master’s voice and concentrated hard on the symbols. They were from the alphabets of three languages, mixed in with made-up runes. He needed to find the patterns these incomprehensible formations made. He was certain the Daemonicon di Naxius was an encryption of a tongue he knew, one he’d learned at his Master’s feet, but every word was like a fragment of some whole, as if every fourth letter was missing. It was driving him mad.
There is no thought in your head that I did not place there, Naxius murmured at the edge of aetheric hearing. All your urges and desires stem from me.
Ogre was careful not to respond, but in any case, the puzzle was engrossing. He was studying the way some patterns recurred, others almost never, trying over and over, using words in every language, real and made-up, the Master had used in the old days. ‘He must have kept one to himself, one I never knew,’ Ogre murmured, and realised his voice was rusty from lack of use.
In which case your task is impossible, the Master whispered smugly.
It was becoming impossible to tell which of his Master’s words were imagined and which an actual sending through the aether. The itch to ask him, to be the focus of that ferocious intellect’s attention again, was almost irresistible—
Ogre suddenly broke off and stomped through a low arch at the back of the cave into a new chamber, one he’d not yet showed to Kyrik. It was to here he retreated when it all became too much and he had to escape the walls of arcane symbols he’d drawn.
He lit a gnosis-light, sat in the centre and stared about him.
He’d smoothed the wall with Earth-gnosis before drawing Tarita, her wonderfully expressive, mobile, exciting
face, in every possible mood: laughing, smiling, making a point, determined, angry and impatient. Here she was tired, there exasperated, or sad, asleep, alert, focused, vague, bored, teasing . . .
You’re nothing to her, the Master told him. She’s with Waqar right now. I see all – I penetrate every veil – and I can tell you that right now his cock is in her and she’s grunting like the animal she is—
‘Shut up—’ Ogre suddenly roared . . . and that was all it took.
Ogre felt the reaching coils and slammed up a wall, shutting out the Master completely, at the cost of a splitting headache that immediately began to hammer the inside of his skull. Not sure he’d closed the connection in time to prevent being located, he just sat shaking, tears streaming down his rough-hewn face.
*
Kyrik breathed in, then exhaled, watching his breath plume in the cold evening air. He repeated it, and again, knowing he was procrastinating, gathering courage for the next bout of force-feeding his wife.
‘Are you ready?’ Sabina asked in Dhassan, then she apologised. ‘Sorry; I forget to whom I speak sometimes.’
‘I understood you,’ Kyrik told her, in her own tongue. ‘I lived a long time in the East, remember?’
‘Of course,’ she said, smiling shyly, then admitted, ‘It is good to speak my own tongue sometimes. Rondian is a struggle.’ Now that Korznici had departed for the Tuzvolg, she’d appointed herself Hajya’s chief caregiver. Their patient was visibly improving, but it remained a harrowing process. ‘Ready?’ she repeated, and when he nodded, ‘Then let’s do it.’
She bent to pick up a steaming pot of vegetable stew, fresh from the kitchens.
He took up his water ewer and together they walked to the small hut where Hajya was kept chained up during the night. She woke up as they entered, cowering away from the torch. Kyrik held her secure while Sabina forced water down her throat, but to their surprise, she didn’t struggle this time and her eyes didn’t darken. Instead, she gave a weak shudder, then swallowed the pure spring water placidly.
When she was done, she looked up at Kyrik and murmured, ‘My love . . .’
His heart thudded: these were the first words he’d heard her utter since the aborted coronation that he was sure were wholly her own.
‘Hajya?’ he started, but his throat choked up. He was about to throw himself at her, but Sabina caught his arm, checking him. He stared at Hajya, reading her aura and finding only her. ‘It’s truly you . . .’ His eyes began to stream.
‘Fetch Faleesa and Pani, please,’ he told Sabina, and when they arrived, he allowed himself to be bustled aside while the women came and went with hot water and sweet-smelling soap, blankets, even perfumes. Each time they passed him, they flashed a hopeful smile.
Kip joined him. ‘This is good, yar? We can delay the march to Hegikaro if you want?’ His voice sounded like he didn’t think that was a good idea, and in truth, Kyrik didn’t either.
‘No, we’ll still go . . .’ His mind churned, then he added, ‘I’m going to bring Hajya with me.’
‘Yar? Is that wise?’
Kyrik sighed. ‘Probably not, but I can’t let her out of my sight again. Not after all this.’
6
The Governor
The Fall of Women
A common thread runs through both the Kalistham and the Book of Kore, that a weak-willed woman cost man-kind a perfect world. Through the centuries women have been forced to endure the condescending sneers of supercilious clergymen telling us that the very gender we are born into is being punished for the crimes of the first woman. It makes me angry – to which my confessor says, ‘Anger is a symptom of your fall.’
ODESSA D’ARK, ORDO COSTRUO, 933
Norostein, Noros
Febreux 936
Ramon Sensini slid into an alcove on the covered walkway that led to the Royal Guardsmen’s barracks. All round the snowy compound, shadowy figures were moving in, but the guards remained oblivious. He glanced up at the rock-face where Jeno Commarys was now perched, wreathed in illusory shadows as she readied her shortbow and picked her target.
A taut-faced Tabia slipped into the small space behind him and a moment later Melicho squeezed his tall, angular form into the alcove opposite and raised a thumb, letting Ramon know they were ready.
The barracks were now a prison for the ‘mutinying’ Royal Guards: two hundred prime fighting men were facing a death sentence because Governor Myron feared their allegiance to the Noros Crown – this despite the fact that King Phyllios was dead and there was no heir apparent.
Ramon conjured a light illusory veil, just enough that someone would have to concentrate hard to see him, and leading Tabia and Melicho forward, pulsed out a signal. All round the barracks, others began to move with him. He was just sixty yards shy of the main doors when a guardsman above the gatehouse stopped his pacing and stared. He was reaching for the warning bell beside him when a glowing shaft took him in the chest, bursting through chainmail and impaling his heart. He slid to the ground and the alarm went unraised.
Running, they burst into the open for the final thirty yards. Ramon saw the slit in the doors open and instantly lanced a mage-bolt through it. He heard a soft cry and a thud as they dashed towards those gates. Tabia used kinesis to reach in and lift the bar on the inside while Melicho was pulsing Earth-gnosis into the stonework around the hinges and floor bolts. Only then did Ramon, using his full Ascendant strength, weave Air-gnosis and kinesis into a smashing blow that ripped the huge gates off their hinges and sent them hurtling down the passage beyond, bowling over a pair of the governor’s men.
All around the compound, Ramon’s battle-magi were hitting the walls, flying or leaping to the top of the thirty-foot barriers and flashing mage-bolts into the defenders, who were mostly ordinary men. Ramon gathered his strength – Ascendant or not, the exercise of great power came at a cost – and slipping in behind Melicho and Tabia, took the passage through the gatehouse. A soldier appeared from the right, but Melicho quickly cut him down. An arrow slashed past Tabia’s ear, glancing off her shielding, and she blazed back with gnostic-fire.
Ramon broke past the pair as the doors opposite opened and a battle-mage emerged, wreathed in the pale blue web of shields and streaming a volley of mage-bolts while roaring out orders. Ramon closed in with a blinding, kinesis-propelled leap, the mage-bolts dispersing on his stronger shields, and thrust his shortsword at the man’s chest. The Imperial mage managed to interpose the wrought-iron rod he was brandishing, wielding it like a quarterstaff, and Ramon was momentarily driven back – until he blazed a massive burst of energy along his blade which cleaved the mage’s stave in half before the sword impaled the man’s chest.
The mage was still trying to choke out a final call of encouragement to his men as he died.
Waste of a brave man, Ramon thought sourly, yanking out his weapon. Ducking to avoid a purple-wreathed crossbow bolt, he darted to the door. He sent a massive ball of fire rolling through the doorway, laced with additional illusions to attack the senses of anyone caught in the blast, and followed immediately after, wreathed in shields to protect himself from the flames now roaring up the plastered timber walls. A young woman in mage-robes was writhing on the floor, screaming that she was on fire, although she was barely singed: his illusions had completely taken her in. At least I can stop her caterwauling, he told himself as he hammered the hilt of his blade into her temple, laying her out, then he moved on. Kicking open the next door, he found a crossbow-wielding battle-mage, loading a bolt wreathed in purple light.
Necromancer . . .
Ramon blurred across the room, slashed down and shattered the crossbow, then hacked into the man’s shoulder blade. The sword crunched through muscle and bone and into something vital and a moment later the necromancer was down, choking on blood and swiftly losing consciousness.
Ramon only noticed Tabia a
nd Melicho had pushed in behind him when Melicho’s boot came stomping down on the small scarab that emerged from the mouth of the fallen battle-mage, reducing the insect – and the necromancer’s intellect – to a smear before it could dart to safety.
‘I rukkin’ despise necromancers,’ the tall mercenary grumbled, coughing from the smoke.
‘Um . . . you’re one yourself,’ Ramon noted.
‘Other necromancers,’ Melicho clarified.
‘That was a human being,’ Tabia noted, always the most compassionate of his magi.
‘Nah, it was a rukkin’ bug.’
She gave the two men a reproving look, then closed her eyes and listened to the aether. ‘We’re all in, boss,’ she reported. ‘No one down, and most of the defenders surrendered pretty quick once they realised it was us. Looks like we’re the only ones who ran into magi.’
Ramon grunted in satisfaction. ‘Tell them “good work”,’ he said, pulling the key-chain from the massive hook on the wall and flicking it to Melicho. ‘Get the cells unlocked, put Myron’s people inside, re-arm the Royal Guards and bring the captain to me. His name’s Era Hyson. Tell the lads to man the walls in case someone’s managed to warn the governor that we’ve come outside visiting hours.’
In a few minutes they had the Royal Guards freed and the surviving Imperial guardsmen locked up in their place. Ramon watched from the window, listening to the aether, as reports from the men on watch streamed into his mind.
No alarm sounding, Boss, was the message. All clear.
I doubt that, Ramon thought. I bet Myron knows. We need to move quickly.
Melicho brought in Era Hyson, a sober-looking young man with short blond hair and an uncharacteristically scruffy beard, the legacy of his interment. He immediately offered Ramon his hand. ‘Thank you, Capitano. My men and I are obliged.’ He glanced at the fallen imperial necromancer and his eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not sorry to see that one’s body, I must confess. He was a Questioner. Did you—?’