by Ted Neill
The guards who had been leaning against the doors lost their footing and fell into the mud. Gregor had half a mind to go down and spell the slaves into submission himself, even if the cruelty of it unnerved him.
“Well done, my lord. Will you go down to stop the rebellion yourself?”
Again, Felix showed an uncanny ability to guess his innermost thoughts. If for no other reason than to be contrary, Gregor turned on his heel and walked away at a swift clip.
“No, I will call upon the revenant. A phantom of that statue should keep them in line for years to come.”
“A wise choice, my lord,” Felix said.
Damn you, Felix. Damn you.
The revenant waited in repose in a chamber that only Gregor was allowed to enter. It was in the far northwest tower of the castle, the entire wing of which was off limits to all but he. However, he suspected some of the lower ranking Serviors, Felix’s spies, snooped through some of the hidden passageways.
Yet none of them knew the castle’s secrets like he. None of them had grown up in the place, and none of them had the freedom to explore castle and grounds as he had. It was difficult to tell where the rocks and cliffs ended and the fortress began, its own steep walls, imposing battlements, cut from the same gray-black stone of the isle. Drahlstrom offered a sinister face to the world on an unforgiving crag, the shoals of which had been the graveyard for many a ship. Dig in the shingle of the shore and one would find bones, it was said.
With the commotion at the quayside and lessons in session for the students, Gregor was confident he was alone, so he broke into a less-than-dignified run down the corridor to his private study. He entered through a heavy iron door that opened not with a key but with spells that he snapped out with a flash of his flattened palm. Then he climbed a stairwell that wound up into the highest chamber of the tower.
The shutters were fastened closed and the room was lost in gloom except for the merest cracks of light outlining the windows. This high up, it was impossible to keep out the wind that churned over the sea and piled storm clouds into the great thunderheads that poured down daily on the isle. But the revenant did not need light, nor warmth, and it required only the barest sustenance, as it was a body—in this case one of the champion soldiers who had volunteered for the honor—but mostly dead now. The consciousness of that man was gone. Gregor could see the shape, wrapped in the blue cloak that appeared dark as ink in the shadows. He closed the door behind him with his will, took a knee, and bowed his head. At the same time, he reached out with his consciousness towards the seated figure, concentrating on the blue stone clasped in a band around the neck. It was just a jewel to others, but he knew the moonstone to be a portal into his master’s mind, who was distant, in a land that even Gregor did not know.
“Master, hear me, your servant Gregor calls you.”
He repeated the plea in his mind a dozen times before the lids of the revenant cracked open with a sound like paper folding. Slits of blue stared out at him from beneath the hood.
“Speak,” the dead lips moved.
“My master, an insurrection is ongoing. A ship of slaves has broken loose, fifty or so.”
“Well within your power to pacify, my student.”
“Yes, but I thought the revenant’s appearance would intimidate them into a deeper submission.”
“More than just a boy king?”
“Y-yes my master.”
He felt a ripple of displeasure, how he felt it, he was not sure, as the revenant did not betray any movement or affect, the face itself was stiff and dry, but somehow in their communication he could sense his master’s moods, even catch flashes of where he was. Not that Gregor could ever piece the images together: the long shorelines, the tall city walls and even taller towers, the forest of masts clustered in a harbor . . . they looked like no place he had ever known. All he had ever known was Drahlstrom, and of course that one memory of a sun drenched hill, grass bending in the sea breeze, the receding shape of his family’s hut, a blue sky, empty of clouds, and so he knew that there had to be more to the world than this rocky isle and its brooding fortress. But if he would ever see it, he knew not.
“If you are to convince them you are truly Gregor Twiceborn, he who conquered death and was reincarnated, you must act like it,” his master spoke through the dry husky voice of the corpse.
“Yes, master, yet . . . yet I did not want to run the risk of failure. Felix, I fear, grows suspicious.”
“We will deal with him in time,” his master said, the corpse rising, its joints cracking as it moved towards the doorway, the smell of rot enveloping Gregor as it passed. “For now, I shall see to the slaves. Felix should at least believe that the revenant is obedient to you.”
He followed in the wake of the reanimated thing, its musculature coming to life, the stiffness in its joints lessening with each creaking step. Soon they swept into the halls of the keep where novices in training knelt down when they passed. They always knelt down for Gregor Twiceborn. He was their lord and master, but now there was an extra frisson of fear at the sight of the revenant, its flowing blue cloak, those glowing eyes that were empty and full all at once. The warrior had been intimidating in life. In death he was a horror.
Smoke was rising from the quay as Gregor and the revenant made their way onto the lower walls of the castle that overlooked the shore. The soldiers who had gathered on the battlement parted for them. To all who witnessed, it appeared that the revenant followed Gregor, at his whim, an illusion he and his master conspired to keep. The Servior looked at him, not as a child, but as a man, reborn, who could control life and death.
Gregor stopped alongside a balustrade and reached out for one of the soldier’s spears. No sooner had he than the soldier surrendered his weapon. Gregor placed it in the hands of the revenant. With a fluttering of his robes the warrior’s corpse leapt down the height of the castle walls to the ground, landing next to the fire of wheelbarrows and barrels that the slaves had kindled at the doors of the gate.
Gregor half expected his master to turn the flames against them, but that would have been a waste of their able bodies. His master knew how much they needed to repair the crumbling castle. Instead he cast a binding spell on their legs, freezing those nearest him in place. He knocked them over with ease using the blunt end of his spear.
The slaves still on the ship gathered at the gangway, ready to do battle. Gregor could see a few trying to flee, leaping into the water to swim for the shore. They would be sorely disappointed to find that they were on an island, he thought to himself. Again he noticed the same young man, lying as if dead on the deck of the slaver.
His master boarded the slave ship without hesitation. Here he indulged himself, clashing with the arms of the rebels, meeting their strikes and thrusts, parrying their attacks and casting the men to the side, knocking them into the water or against the gunwale. He must have soon realized there was little challenge with this lot, and as if growing impatient, he enchanted the weapons of the men: chains, stolen swords, maces, and axes, so that they grew red hot. The men dropped them, smoking, to the deck, then with a sweep of the revenant’s arm, he sent them tumbling over one another, pushed by an invisible force until they were crowded like goats in a pen at the stern of the ship. He bound their limbs as well and they struggled, working against the paralysis, their faces betraying their fear and confusion.
The dry, gravelly voice of the revenant spoke, “Who is your leader?”
A good question, Gregor thought. They had to have one.
The men betrayed him with their eyes, all looking to a man with a blond beard and a defiant stare. He stumbled forward, the binding spell loosed unexpectedly. He was brave, for he stood tall, his shoulders thrown back, his chin high.
“What is your name?” his master asked.
“Jacko,” he said. “And I’ll not surrender to no demon like you.”
Jacko took full advantage of his freedom and lunged for the revenant, swinging a studded mace. The r
evenant stepped aside and in the same motion he summoned a sword to his hand from one of the frozen slaves. Jacko redoubled his attack, but it was short-lived. The revenant parried his next charge off to the side and caught Jacko by his long hair. The sword came down in a silver blur and in an instant the deck was sprayed in blood. Both Jacko’s hands lay severed on the boards.
Jacko dropped to the ground, his mouth agape, a scream yet to emerge. He stared at his own bloody stumps, cowering as the revenant stepped closer, anticipating a more fatal blow.
It did not come. It wouldn’t, Gregor knew. Jacko would be spared, to be an example. The revenant spoke, “The same fate waits for any other man who attempts insurrection. Work diligently and you can earn your freedom. Now who still dares to challenge the Servior and Gregor the Twiceborn?”
No man moved. The doors of the gate opened and the Servior soldiers poured forth to restore order and dispose of the bodies of the dead slavers. His master’s work done, Gregor moved the revenant towards the port side of the ship where the corpse knelt down beside the prone young boy, lifted his head by the hair, looked into his face, then released him, the sound of his head hitting the deck echoing off the castle walls.
Curious, Gregor thought. He turned to the sergeant on his right. “Bring that slave to me, if he is still alive.”
Chapter 10
Homeward
The mountain wind cut through Katlyn’s clothes and ground through her flesh as she sat on the bluffs looking to the south-east.
That was the direction Adamantus and Gail had gone days before, following a rumor that another Rakne had been spotted. Adamantus still wanted answers, Gail revenge, a respect having grown between the two of them and their shared target, if not shared goal.
Katlyn had felt left out and had not liked it.
“Why can’t I come,” she had asked.
“It’s too dangerous,” Gail said.
“It’s too dangerous alone, that first Rakne nearly bested all of us together.”
“We’re more experienced this time,” Gail insisted, buckling her baldric.
“Katlyn, we need you here. Help the Maurvant rebuild or they will forever be a ruined people,” Adamantus said.
Katlyn had turned and walked away at that point, determined to give both Gail and the elk nothing but silence until they departed. She had followed through on that intention but it did not take long for her to regret her choice. What if those were the last words she exchanged with them? Adamantus was her friend and Gail . . . well Gail was something, even if Katlyn did not have a word for it yet.
The uncertainty of their fates burned in her chest and each afternoon she climbed up to the bluffs overlooking the village and the grassy steps beyond, hoping to catch sight of Adamantus—even Gail—returning, safe.
A week had passed without a sign. Tallia accompanied her each day, her presence soothing to Katlyn. The two of them had become nearly inseparable, Katlyn helping Tallia learn to read and Tallia teaching Katlyn the customs of the Maurvant, at least when they both were not sitting on the bluffs, waiting for news, waiting for change.
Help rebuild, Adamantus had told her. It was a circumstance Katlyn could never have anticipated: helping their former enemy in their own lands. It did bring to mind one of Val’s expressions, however: the best way to stop an enemy is to make him a friend. Friends, Katlyn had made, but her success helping the Maurvant rebuild had been limited. With so many of the tribe’s people dead, missing, or migrated, those left in the village were weak and crestfallen, the spark gone from them. After the destruction of the revenant there had been muted celebration, but the same oppressive sense of loss and despair soon returned. After all, their lost chief had been found, dead.
Katlyn scanned the clouds for Soot’s black shape. Gail had sent him back to Karrith, to Darid, with the imperative to confiscate the moonstone from King Oean before it was too late. Another mission, another loose end for Katlyn to wait on, passively, helplessly. It was no wonder she gravitated to the windy outcrop each afternoon—it was a break from the gloom of the village. After so many months of doing, the tedium of waiting was unbearable. She imagined Tallia accompanied her for the same reasons. By midday, after their morning chores were finished, a restlessness stirred in both of them. While the rest of the Maurvant settled down to pass the sad and empty afternoon in desultory silence, neither could sit still nor could they concentrate on reading lessons or doing any other tasks for that matter. The bluffs called to them.
“Staring does not cause the seed to sprout,” Tallia said as the wind flattened her hair across her face, painted this day with the barest of touches: an inverted blue V on one cheek and red one on the opposite. Katlyn took the simpler choices of face paint to be a sort of mourning sign her friend had adopted since returning to her homeland.
“Funny,” Katlyn said, driving her hands deeper into her pockets, her eyes unfocusing. “We have a similar expression: ‘A watched kettle does not boil.’”
The wind gusted between them and hissed in the grasses. Sapphire hopped from one stone to another, her tail feathers ruffled.
After a moment, Tallia said, “They will be back.”
“I hope,” Katlyn said. She turned her gaze to the path just below them. A figure on crutches was trudging up the slope with speed that belied his misshapen leg.
“Joginn is coming,” Katlyn said, but she did not move to meet him. One thing she had learned in her time in the Maurvant village was that Joginn took satisfaction in climbing the slopes above the village, undeterred as he was by his crutches. He was panting, his cheeks flushed when he reached them. He offered greetings in the Maurvant language which Katlyn was able to understand and respond to, but the rest of his message was still incomprehensible to her. Tallia, however, rose, brushing the seedpods and chaff from her skirt, her expression grave.
“Come, Katlyn, they found a carrier pigeon with news from your people.”
“Mine?”
“Yes. Maybe things are, finally, happening.”
The villagers were gathered in the hut of one of the elders, Goumri, whose son Alzod had come across the pigeon while hunting. It was a brown-gray bird with splotches of white on its neck. Alzod explained that he had been ready to capture and kill it for food, until he saw the message—a tiny piece of scroll—wrapped around its leg. He handed the scrap to Katlyn. Sure enough, its letters were in the script of Anthor, unreadable to most of the Maurvant but recognizable to her.
She read the words aloud, Tallia translating for the waiting Maurvant. “To our sister kingdom of Karrith. A plea for help. Antas city has been overrun by creatures from the dark-wood. Help is requested to save us from the monsters. Send word to our king.”
Katlyn read and re-read the writing, cursing the scrap for its small size and the brevity of its message. It left her with more questions than answers, but her fear quickly filled in the gaps. The creatures could only be the vaurgs. Had the monsters ventured north out of revenge for the attack Katlyn and her friends had delivered on them? It seemed that not even the Antan Council, who would have sent the message, had knowledge of King Talamar’s death. Had other pigeons been sent? Would Oean be in any state to answer, to respond, or was he still in thrall of the moonstone, on his way to becoming a revenant himself?
Was her family safe? Katlyn thought of her aunt and uncle, her cousins, Jessamy and Maxwell.
“I have to go,” she said, dropping the message and running out of the long-hut. The villagers remained in stunned silence, except for Tallia who followed her to their own small hut where they kept their belongings. Katlyn was already rolling up her sleeping mat when Tallia caught up with her. Without word, her companion began to pack her own things.
“What are you doing?” Katlyn asked.
“I shall come with you,” she said, her stare level, a satchel in her arms.
“You have to stay here. Wait for Adamantus and Gail.”
“There is nothing for me here,” Tallia said, her voice low as she r
ubbed the corner of her eyes with her fist.
Katlyn picked up the short sword she had carried since their time with Pathus. “It could be dangerous. I think I know the creatures that have invaded our lands. They are living nightmares, but I have to reach my family . . . to see if they are safe.”
“I can fight,” Tallia said.
The memory of her fierce expression as she had challenged the Rakne at the lake’s edge came to Katlyn’s mind.
“You’re right. You can. Help me prepare the horses.”
So expansive were these big-sky lands that oftentimes in a sweep from one horizon to the other, one could witness all varieties of weather: slanting slopes of rain draining from clouds, patches of brassy sunlight, rainbows slung over rainbows in-between, and of course there was always the wind. It blew down from the dragon’s teeth of the Rimcurs, setting all things in constant motion, grasses, hair, hems, saddle straps, and horses’ manes.
After a few days of riding, however, the wind died down, the Rimcurs were softened by distance, and the empty steppes gave way to the river lands of eastern Karrith. Katlyn and Tallia rode along branching tributaries and around isolated elbow lakes. Finally, as trees reappeared they had wood for fires and cover from view. It was a mixed blessing, in all, because despite their progress westward, Katlyn did not know what to expect in these borderlands between Karrith and Antas to the north. They saw a few bands of refugees and fewer soldiers. After reports of creatures emerging from Sidon, Katlyn did not know what else they might encounter. As two young women without an escort, she knew it was best they avoided being seen. Katlyn kept her sword and spear handy, but was not sure what use weapons would be if they were overpowered, outnumbered, or both. Although, knowing what she knew of Tallia, Katlyn was certain they would not go down without a fight.