Death punctuates this pilgrim’s path. He should have known that all along.
* * *
‘Dissension among the commanders!’ cried the ancient lord, his knees now stained with mud, his hands strangely blue with the cold. He’d placed a number of the lead soldiers in a circle behind the ranks. ‘Dismay has stolen the First Son’s heart. Others hold him back – he would rush down to that dying man, the only one left. Sleet and fierce winds buffet them! Winter freezes their tears! He strains, fearless against the terrible sorcery!’
Wreneck stared down at the small figures to either side of the ditch. The advance had involved scant few of the soldiers, as the lord had insisted that champions must magically duel first. In the midst of frantic rolls of the knucklebones and triumphant cries from the old man, the sky lowered, and frozen rain began to pummel them. Shivering and miserable, Wreneck sat hunched beneath the torrent. Again and again he glanced to where he’d set down the spear, watched the ice growing upon its iron point, water trickling across the wooden shaft. In the meantime, the old man continued his tale.
‘Here then,’ he said in a ragged voice, ‘is where the heart breaks. Old standards are raised. Honour, loyalty. Even … ah, that is most sorrowful, is it not? To lift high this last virtue, to utter its lonely name, and in its sweet shadow, ah, Wreneck, I see soldiers toppling by the score.’ He fell back on to the slope of the ditch and stared up into the blackened sky, the sleet slashing at his weathered face. ‘Shall we hear their words, then? They stand, almost alone. They face each other, and all that once bound them now unravels. And yet, such decorum! Such … dignity.’ He reached up filthy hands to claw at his face.
Wreneck studied the soldiers, and saw now that the old man had moved his ‘dying’ champion to the side of his fallen comrade; whilst upon Wreneck’s own side of the ditch, his lone champion remained standing, ankle-deep in the mud. Do I push him down too? Are we done with these ones, then?
The thunder was gone, the last of the lightning had flashed and now sunset and gloom fought a silent war in the sky. The column of ghosts continued on, too many to even comprehend, but heads turned to watch them as they passed.
‘One day,’ the old lord muttered as he eyed Wreneck, ‘you will become a man – no, make no spurious claim. You may wear the accoutrements. You may wield that artless spear and play at the dead-hearted, and make dull coins of your eyes, but these masks you don are too fresh. Your face is yet to settle into the mould it would so bravely display.’
Wreneck lifted his head, frowned across at the man as he continued.
‘Cast in fire-hardened clay, an empty space defined, simply awaiting all that is malleable. By this means we pour our children into adulthood. Alas, too many of us prove unskilled in the shaping of that mould. Or careless, or so bound up in our own torments that all we make becomes twisted in its own right, a perfect reflection of our malformed selves.’ He waved weakly down at the soldiers. ‘Yielding this.’
‘The world,’ said Wreneck, ‘needs soldiers. Things were done. People were ruined. A soldier gives answer. A soldier makes right.’
‘You describe an honourable pose.’
‘Yes, milord. Honour. That must be at the heart of a soldier, or a guard, or a city watch. You keep honour inside and it becomes what you defend – not just your own, but everyone else’s too.’
‘Then I must ask you, Wreneck of Abara Delack, does honour wear a uniform? Do describe it, boy.’ He waved at the lead soldiers. ‘Blue or green? Does honour wear a skin’s hue? Black or white? Blue or grey? What if it wears all of them? Or none? What if no uniform can make such a claim for the one wearing it? It’s naught but cloth, leather and iron, after all. It protects one and all and cares nothing for virtue.’ He sat up suddenly and leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘Now imagine a new kind of armour, my young friend. One that does care. Armour of such power that it changes the wearer. A mould to challenge the set ways of the grown man and woman, a mould that forces their bodies, and the souls cowering within them, to find a new truth!’
Wreneck rubbed at his face, feeling his cheeks stinging with heat. ‘Gripp Galas told me that Lord Anomander’s Houseblades is a company that demands the highest virtues of its members. So the uniform does have a virtue.’
The lord made a face and settled back. ‘Until it’s lost. Iron is hard but words are soft. You can squeeze words, all those spoken virtues, into any mad and maddening mould. You can make honour drip blood. You can make honesty the destroyer of lives. You can make conscience a weapon of fear and hate. No, young Wreneck, I speak of an unyielding truth – look here, see my Hust Legion! I have discovered something, about my swords and my armour. The reason for their screams, their howls. It’s not pleasure. Not bloodlust. No glee in the midst of slaughter. It’s none of those things.’
‘Then what is it?’
The lord’s face suddenly crumpled, folded in on itself with grief. He fell back as a sob took him.
Wreneck stared down at the lead soldiers. He knew about the Hust Legion. He knew about swords that were said to be cursed. And now there was armour, too. He glanced back at the spear lying on the ground, the shaft and point now crusted with frozen rain.
He wanted to be away from this old man and all his tears and confusing words. Soldiers were needed, for when things went bad. For when people needed protecting. Blue or green? Is the only difference the side they’re on? What happens when soldiers stop protecting people? When they start protecting other things? And what if those things are awful, or cruel or selfish? What happens to honour then?
‘Dignity,’ the old lord muttered again, as he began to weep in earnest.
‘Milord?’
A frail hand waved carelessly, ‘Advance your cohorts, child, and see us break like chaff before the breeze.’
‘But milord, nothing has changed!’
He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and then shook his head. ‘Everything has changed, my young friend. The game drips blood. Upon my side, priests buckle beneath the weight of their doubts. The goddess has no face – her darkness swallows all. Upon your side, the light blinds. We wage a war against our own irrelevance, which is what gives it such a nasty edge. Do lead your troops down into the valley. We can ignore the dragons for now.’
Dragons? ‘Milord, tell me more about the First Son. Why does he argue with his companions? I don’t understand.’
The old man wiped at his face, smearing it with mud. ‘He is made to feel useless, with that sword he would draw. He is witness to a priest’s death, torn apart by Kurald Liosan’s indifference. He sees how power ignores the righteous; how it can be grasped by anyone – a blade in the night, a gesture that kills. His soul quakes, young Wreneck, and now the Consort arrives, and anger swirls, but dignity holds. Do you comprehend the cost of that?’
Wreneck shook his head. ‘I don’t understand dignity, milord. I don’t know what it means, or what it looks like.’
The lord’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed on Wreneck, and then the old man grunted. ‘I see it well enough,’ he said in a mutter.
After a moment, Wreneck began moving his soldiers down into the ditch’s uneven base. Runnels of rain pooled in pockets here and there, where the frozen sleet gathered to build crystals, raised up like tiny castles. He knocked down many of these icy forts as he arranged the toys into something resembling a line.
‘We’ll see the mud red,’ the lord said. ‘Bodies will make their own rain, crimson and hot. Cowards and heroes get lost in the mix …’ He began moving his soldiers down to meet the enemy. ‘Meanwhile, the highborn curse one another and then withdraw, exposing my flank on that side. They deem themselves clever, you see. Unlike the Hust, they hold to the privilege of choosing. If hearts break among them, they fail in turning this tide, this wash back into the sea of the future. Gone, Wreneck. I lie exposed. No matter, the Consort will take his Houseblades and ride to meet you. That clash proves a shock, for no other soldier is as well trained, or as fierce behind their lord.’
The old man leaned closer to Wreneck, his own eyes suddenly fierce. ‘He had no choice, you see. You have to see that, don’t you? Tell me that you understand. He had no choice! Nor did the First Son! They are of a kind, mirrors of honour.’ He leaned back and set two soldiers on the ridge and made them face each other. ‘Here, like this. Remember what you see here, Wreneck. No sculpture will render them in this pose. No painter will stroke their likeness on this day. Not paint, I say, nor marble nor bronze. Not thread, not song. No poem to capture this moment. Nothing, my friend, nothing but you and me. Their eyes meet and they accept the other, and now they ride down into battle, to reconcile themselves with failure.’ His voice caught in another ragged sob and he wiped viciously at his tears.
‘Will you cast the bones, milord?’
‘What? No. No need. Cowards and heroes, the wise and the fools, the red mud takes them all. No matter. I once came upon a hare caught in a snare. It fought that trap. It sought to leap away, again and again – and when I knelt there beside it, I saw how its efforts had stripped the skin from its ankle, down to the very bone. And looking into its eyes, I saw something. A truth. Anguish, my friend, is not exclusive to people. Anguish is a language known to, and shared by, all things that live. Battle strips away everything until only anguish remains – even the triumphant cry betrays the echo of what is lost. Relief comes in tears to match any sorrow. The living bemoan their luck, the dying curse theirs. To survive is to stagger away in disbelief, and see before you a life spent in flight from this moment, the memory of this day and others like it. You run, my friend. Every veteran runs, on and on, to their dying day.’ He flattened both hands over his eyes, clawing at his brow. ‘Oh my, who dares face the tragedy of this? The survivors who must live with this … this loss.’
Wreneck watched as the lord, pulling his hands away from his face, began toppling his soldiers, slowly, one by one. Without the cast of the die, without a single triumphant cry. And now Wreneck too was weeping, though he was not sure why.
‘Build your estates,’ the lord mumbled. ‘Clear the land. Plant your crops. Let loose your herds. Into your cherished rooms bring the finest furniture, the most beautiful tapestries. Thick rugs upon the floor, wood for the hearth, the squeal of playing children and mouths to the tit. Poets and minstrels to visit, feasts to invite, wealth to display. While in the dead of night, before ebbing flames, you sit alone, fleeing behind your eyes. Fleeing, and fleeing, for ever and for ever more.’ He sent another soldier falling into the mud. ‘Pity the victors, Wreneck. In winning, they lost everything. In killing, they surrendered their own lives. In all that they won, they murdered love, the only thing worth fighting for.’
‘I fight for love,’ Wreneck whispered. ‘I mean to, for Jinia, who they hurt.’
The lord blinked at him, his face grave. ‘Leave your spear,’ he said. ‘Run to her. Give back to her whatever she lost.’
‘But – how?’
‘Vengeance shrinks the heart, Wreneck. It is not a worthy path.’
Wreneck wiped away his tears, studied the toppled soldiers in the ditch.
‘It’s done,’ the lord whispered. ‘Strike the flag. Draconus has fled, his Houseblades cut down to the last. He weeps in rage, and darkness devours him. The Hust – my beloved Hust – almost half gone. A coward came to the fore, seeing the exposed flank and imminent slaughter. He rallied his fellow convicts and, with extraordinary fortitude, he led them into a withdrawal. Many who would have died now live thanks to him. Toras Redone – ah, my sweet Toras – I cannot say her fate. I dare not. The poet soldiers live still – the First Son will be pleased to discover that, I’m sure. They fought well, as expected, and now, unhorsed by battle, they walk with their fellow Hust. Weapons sheathed, the iron silent, they lick their wounds and look upon one another – it was the ritual, you see. That terrible ritual. It took away the virtues – every one of them. Honour, integrity, loyalty, duty – flung them away! Not one soldier among them can find comfort in the lies they would tell themselves. Those so very necessary lies, the ones that keep a man or a woman sane. My poor Hust!’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Wreneck.
‘Each soldier now faces the truth, inside and out …’
‘Milord? What truth?’
‘Only this: for all that they have done, there is no excuse. None. Justification sloughs off each and every deed. Nothing holds, nothing hides. Deceit is impossible. They have taken lives! Not just in this battle, but in all the battles they ever fought – the ones that sent them to the mines, the ones that wounded so many, the ones that made so many people – loved ones – suffer for what they’d done! This is why the iron mourned, you see. It knew what was coming.’ He leaned forward once more, his eyes wide. ‘Take a man or a woman, strip away all the lies they tell themselves, until they stand naked unto themselves, their souls utterly exposed. Then, make them soldiers. Tell them to kill. Do you see? No armour can defend them. No sword can be other than what it is – a length of sharpened iron that steals lives. Now,’ he added in a hoarse whisper, ‘see them walk from the field of battle. See their faces, there beneath the helms. See their eyes. I tell you, Wreneck, you cannot imagine the anguish writ there. You cannot. Nor can I. And yet, and yet I see it. I see it! ’
They sat in silence for a time, unmoving, although it seemed that waves of pain struck the old man, making his face twist. Wreneck looked away from the distress. He scanned the lead soldiers lying in the ditch. In his mind he heard the wails of the wounded and the dying. He saw soldiers reel from the field, and just as the lord had described, there was something shattered in their eyes. While elsewhere others shouted in brittle triumph, as if each was somehow trapped into doing something they thought they were supposed to do. That pleasure. The satisfaction.
But the old man had spoken of relief. The wonder of it, and the quivering disbelief, to have survived by luck what took down so many. He remembered his own failure, yet again, lying on the ground outside the estate, curling up round the wounds in his body.
The sad thing was, he now knew, the dying still had things to do, things to say. The dying still had faces they wanted to look upon one more time. Pleasures they wanted to reach for, holding tight. The dying longed for all the embraces that would never find them, and theirs was a world of sorrow.
He thought he could hear the grieving swords of the Hust, the moaning helms and keening hauberks. They crowded each and every soldier of the Hust as they filed from the valley, in lines ragged and broken, with many helping their injured comrades. The iron gave voice to exhaustion, and all the things lost on this day.
For a moment, his will to go on faltered. When adults stumbled this badly, what was the point in looking up to them?
‘Wreneck.’
He looked over at the old lord, and saw how one side of the man’s face sagged, as if being pulled down by unseen hands. Even the utterance of his name had come out muddy, muffled. ‘Milord? What’s wrong with your face?’
‘Mask. Broken. Listen.’
‘Milord?’
The old man was slipping to one side, his right arm limp. ‘Go then. If you must. Go. To your battle. Tell them.’
‘Tell who? What?’
‘My Hust. Tell them. I’m sorry.’
‘Tell them you’re sorry? Sorry about what?’ Wreneck moved over to collect the spear. The shaft and its crusted sheath of ice bit into his palm, but as he tightened his grip, the ice melted.
The lord lurched to one side, closer to his line of lead soldiers. He struggled, face straining, to drag his left arm – the one that still worked – closer to the toys. And then, with one careless sweep of his forearm, he knocked the rest of them down. He settled on to his side then, head on his arm as if ready to sleep. When he opened his eyes, the left one was red, leaking. ‘Sorry,’ he said in a whisper. ‘All done. All done.’
He fell asleep.
Wreneck hesitated, and then set down the spear once more. He crossed the ditch, pulling off his own wax
ed cloak – the one given to him by Lord Anomander himself – and settling it over the lord.
The wind clawed through the weave of his tunic. Shivering, he retrieved the spear and then stiffly regained the side of the road, joining the mass of ghosts still marching along it.
By keeping to the road’s verge, he was able to avoid passing through too many of them, and once he quickened his pace, the cold went away.
TWENTY-SIX
AS THE FIRST FLASHES OF SORCERY LIT THE EASTERN SKY, THE historian Rise Herat fled the tower’s roof. Boots on the spiralling steps downward, taken at speed, a dizzying descent. Once upon the main level of the Citadel he traversed little-used passages and corridors, encountering no one, and then resumed his descent, until he found himself in the cavernous hall crowded with the failed sculptures of the past, the heaps of rolled-up, rotting tapestries, the forgotten portraits. Ignoring the bronze monstrosity of the snarling hounds – that had so haunted him the last time he had been here – he made his way to the stacked tapestries.
Some mindful cleric had tagged each roll, and in faded script had written the title and what was known of each piece, along with an index number of some sort. If the Citadel’s archives held any master list, Herat knew nothing of it. Kneeling, he worked his way through the leather tags dangling from the ends of the rolls, squinting at the embossed script where the ink had faded to almost nothing. At last he found the one he sought.
It was a struggle pulling the tapestry from the stack, and his efforts sent many rolls sliding and spilling out to unravel upon the floor. The dust stung his eyes, made his nose run. He felt more than saw moths fluttering about, brushing his skin when he dragged the tapestry clear. Finding a stretch of unobstructed floor, Herat unrolled his prize.
Lanterns were no longer necessary. Darkness failed in hiding a thing. More’s the pity. He stood and stared down at the vast scene stitched into the fabric. ‘The Battle of The Storm in the Founding Age’, artist unknown. He had last seen it more than thirty years ago, though he could barely recall the context. Perhaps it had been found in a storage cupboard, during one of the many refurbishings of rooms that had occurred as the Citadel’s population burgeoned with acolytes, priests and priestesses. Or upon a wall in some long-sealed chamber that had been reopened. The details hardly mattered, the title even less.
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