Crimson Valley

by Hausladen, Blake;

  They agreed and carried me toward the forge. I tried to bite through the silver bar jammed into my mouth and kicked against the lashes around my legs. I called on the Shadow and tried to sing them all to sleep. They knocked my magic away and started me up toward the wide mouth of the cauldron. The air was impossibly hot. I lost my breath and my eyes burned.

  They laughed at me and banged my head upon the iron bars of the rising stairway.

  I looked up at the ceiling of rock and wished it away. I wished for the strength to call the ceiling down upon us. I flung the noun up at it in desperation.

  basalt

  Mika laughed at me. “Gifting us a noun will not earn you any more time. Get him up here.”

  They might throw me in, but someone else could still kill them all.

  BASALT

  I sent the word out with all there was left of me, and the sound of it must have carried all the way down the valley.

  “You wretched fool,” Mika shouted. “Hurry! Lose the mercury.”

  The men with the satchels tossed them up and into the molten cauldron. The chamber began to fill with the terrible gas of the burning mercury.

  The first tumble of rock was distant. The second was closer, followed a rumbling as the rocks Geart tore away fell somewhere distant.

  The ceiling fell in with a blast of dust and debris. I was crushed between Mika and the stairway until the broken rock was flung up and away.

  My limbs and jaw were smashed, and perhaps the back of my skull. Deaf and blind for the moment I struggled to understand what happened next. The pressure changed. A song broke over me and the world came slowly back into focus.

  Geart had dropped me upon a blasted shelf of rock where the palace had stood.

  “You need someone to talk to?”

  He was sipping a small handful of mercury, extracted perhaps from the molten lead it had been pour into.

  “You’ll not get much more than that. They worked hard to destroy the last of it.”

  He stood and sang a wild song of words I did not know. Noun after noun as beautiful as any very I’d ever heard or dreamt of.

  When he was done he knelt down, drew a heavy knife, and cut off my hand.

  “My bones will be of no use to you. Nor my blood. Your purification song saw to that.”

  A small bird landed on his shoulder. Then another. Time rolled on, while he removed the bones from my severed hand and rolled them between his hands as if hoping for a different end to our story. I laughed at him.

  “The world does not like us, Geart. We are doomed to fail.”

  He said nothing and waited. More birds and a gray fox arrived. Then a young deer. An albatross was next followed by animals of all kinds.

  Back down the ramp of meat and stone, a shuffling inspired me to turn my head.

  People approached, half naked and starved. Forced to walk from Yud or Dahar or whatever place they had been taken from.

  Geart rolled my bones around again and again, and began to sing a new song. A light mist drifted up from the handful of bones.

  He was pulling the touch of the Vastness free. It would take time, but Geart had found a way. He had everything he needed.

  “Give me your words,” he said to me, and I told them all to him, one after another.

  70

  General Leger Mertone

  The Battle of Alsonvale

  “Have the Chaukai been able to understand the songs being sung inside the city?” I asked Barok as we looked down upon Alsonvale. The spot was one I had camped at the previous year. It overlooked the thick walls and the buildings of its renowned garrison. We’d seen no sign of the 2nd division yet. The men upon the walls were something else, and not one bluecoat scout had studied us as we approached.

  “No. Too many verses banging around. Evela moved the druids further back to keep the verbs out of their ears.”

  The city had had seven days to prepare for us while we recovered after the Mother Earth’s furious upheaval. The gates were closed tight and either arrows or magic was shot at those we sent forward. The broken ground that had been the flat roads north of the Kaaryon prevented any fresh word arriving from Rahan or Evand. Neither of us could abide being blind to what happened on our flanks. Yarik or worse could be only days away for all we knew. I had scouts out as far as I could get them with relay fires ready. The Hemari 2nd was out there somewhere.

  I would not have advanced us so rapid otherwise. The enemy in front of us needed to be dealt with swiftly before we fell into some well-laid trap.

  The Chaukai and soul-irons signaled that they were ready. Barok was pale. I did not comment on his condition, and instead thanked him and gestured to the heavy iron bladder he’d filled during our approach.

  “Make this quick,” he said as he helped me sling it over my shoulder upon a thick chain. “We need to make the turn to Bessradi.”

  I nodded and started down. The city was doomed. Gern believed they would surrender to me and save themselves. Lady Jayme called him a fool. What mattered for their survival was how they responded in the gathering moments. There was only one answer that would suffice.

  The iron bladder began to glow red as I withdrew from Barok and approached the gates. Arrows struck the breast of my armor and caught fire. A green liquid splashed me and a mist filled the air. The men above the gates cheered until I stepped through the cloud.

  “Alsonvale,” I said up, “It is Leger Mertone, General of Edonia and loyal ally of your lord Rahan Yentif. Open your gates to us now and place yourselves under our command. Do so now or you will be destroyed.”

  A red hat yelled down, “Bayen keeps us, demon. Go back to the pit the whores of Enhedu spawned you from.”

  Arrows pelted me, and my armor glowed purple and yellow.

  “Throw that priest over the wall,” I said. “The red hats are finished in Zoviya.”

  “The prophets decry you,” he screamed and continued screaming. I began to chuckle at the poor man and the many reasons he thought me damned. A healthy piece of his litany was straight from the writings of Khrim Zovi. As he screamed I began to hear the hollowness behind his voice.

  He was a thrall.

  The thought was my last before the moist earth beneath me crumbled to ash. I fell into the burning froth and almost slid beneath the surface. I got hold of the edge of the pit and heaved myself up back onto solid ground.

  My patience expired. I trotted forward and began to strike the gates with my fists. They began to burn hot and mean while the songs of priests cut the air around me. The flaming gate bucked when I kicked it and I moved up into the gatehouse, accompanied by flames and ash.

  Men charged me as I pushed through. They died badly as my flames and sword moved up onto the wall. The priests gathered there were shrouded in darkness, and their magic crashed around me as I charged across. I was struck again and again by bits of this and that and did not like the heavy glow of the bladder as their magic tore at me.

  I was the wrong tool. These were men long taken by the Shadow. Soma had not touched this place, and one snap of her fingers could have ended the battle. The thralls sent their magic at me, and then their bodies.

  A blow cleaved my helmet and tore it away. Their songs flared as they imagined triumph. They came at me from all directions, and the tortured smears of their colorful magic flashed and boiled. My sword was a mercy compared to the end the Shadow had in store for them. The crackle of their burning bodies was the only sound until I got back down and heard the approach of our horses. Barok had no patience. The Chaukai and soul-irons had been unleashed and he was moving closer.

  I found Gern in the mix of them charging through the gates. He rode Clever, who was not pleased by his rider. He twisted around as Gern brought him to a halt and snapped at his leg. The bit of iron there looked well chewed.

  “Clever is as impatient as Barok,” I said to him. “He should withdraw.”

  “You are in danger and we are attacked on our flank,” Gern said and pointed towa
rd the heart of the city. “Something like Hessier, they move on us now. There.”

  A form, metallic and monstrous, flashed in and out of view as it raced through the streets.

  “Rally,” I called, and the tumble of my flame-shrouded brethren came quick. “Gern, horses to the left. No room for them here. And will someone please knock Barok out the saddle and keep him clear of this!”

  Gern detached his ghosts, and our flaming eyes searched the many roads that emptied onto the fields between the city’s streets and the burning wall. The city looked oddly deserted, and the empty buildings began to tremble. Windows shattered and loose tiles started to cascade from roofs. The air began to brighten as though the sun had emerged from behind the heavy bank of clouds above the city, but the cloud layer had not moved.

  Far to my right, the sky was slashed with yellow smoke by a flight of flaming arrows. They carried over the wall toward the living Chaukai and whatever foe had struck their flank. I growled and focused on the strange foe before me.

  The house opposite us exploded out then and silver shapes roared as they charged through. The tumble of debris pelted the field like grains of sand.

  They were three great bulls, their bodies made of ivory and silver.

  Disbelief held us still a moment longer than it should have as the last of the broken bricks and timbers clattered down.

  Silver was a device of the Spirit.

  The thought was my last clear one before the silver beasts charged us.

  “At them,” I called and our blazing red wall collapsed on the silver beasts. Iron and silver collided. My sword lanced deep into the flank of one before I was struck and tumbled back in a confused pile. I rolled and righted myself. The glow of the iron bladder was gone.

  Back in the mix, the beast raged and bucked. Bits of armor tumbled free as ghosts were torn apart by the blows. Deep wounds marked their heads and flanks, and one wore a long spear straight through its skull—all to no effect.

  “Gern, knock them over. Go for their legs. Hack them away.”

  Clever shrieked as Gern brought his soul-irons in. The great horse reared and screamed, danced in amongst the bulls and spun free on the far side, gnashing and shrieking. The bulls turned to follow and the rest of Gern’s ghosts smashed against their flanks. Two toppled over and were swarmed as their legs were hacked away. I looked up to see Clever and his reluctant rider face the last bull alone.

  Its silver horns carried forward in a dash, searching for Clever’s side. The stallion spun out of the way and his iron hooves shot out of the tumbling black ash to strike the thing’s head. A man-sized hunk of silver tore free and the mass and ghastly animal fell.

  The other two were on their sides. My Chaukai tore at the legless things and globs of silver rained upon the ruins of roads and buildings.

  The magic let go of all three and blood began to pour from the silver. It became a river that extinguished the flaming debris and formed a growing pond. On and on it flowed until all that was left of them was twisted masses of silver and a lake of blood that washed through the nearby streets.

  I worried for the deserted city. “Whose blood had they used?”

  “Leger,” Gern called, and I spotted the flight of Chaukai arrows headed in toward the source of the yellow smoke.

  Another soul-iron upon the wall yelled, “They’ve struck us hard. Many are down where the smoke lingers.”

  “Gern, go! They must not get another valley.”

  He and the rest upon horse broiled the air with black ash. I worried they would go too far away from Barok when a company of Chaukai galloped though the gate behind us, Barok in the lead.

  “What are you doing?” I called.

  “Better here than where those arrows are falling.” Then he got a look at the blood and silver and slowed. “I stand corrected.”

  “Never mind them. They are finished. This way.”

  I kept pace with Barok’s horse as we followed the cinders of Gern’s company toward a hill overlooking the town and river. A tithe tower of gray stone stood above it all. Barok did not yell for Gern to stop, and brought the Chaukai to a halt.

  “There,” I said and pointed to a wisp of yellow halfway down the hill from the tower.

  On we went, setting some small fires as we carried over abandoned carts and possessions.

  We found Gern at the next intersection recovering from having advanced so far from Barok.

  He pointed at the gates he’d smash in. Yellow smoke spilled into the street and down the hill. The broad field and garden inside the walls was littered with bodies. A yellow fog lingered about the bodies despite the breeze. Chaukai arrows had reached the field but few of the bodies had been struck.

  “There,” Gern said and I was stopped by the bizarre scene upon the wide steps of rising building.

  A vat lay on its side, cracked and spewing its yellow contents over the silvery forms of the men who’d tended it. Blood poured from them down the stairs and across the bodies of the archers who’d died as the spill carried down the slope. Their metal eyes had swollen and popped. A silver puma missing its hind quarter pulled itself toward one of the silvery corpses. Another smaller cat bit globs of silver from a man’s leg, and gulped them down like water.

  Gern threw his spear and the heavy shaft caught it upon the shoulder. It came apart in a splatter of blood and unbound silver. The puma fell apart on its own.

  “This one’s alive,” one of the men said, and I drifted over the twisted fleshy mass. The man’s head came around. His eyes had dissolved, and his silver face was steaming with boiling blood.

  “Whispers. The whisper…”

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “Bayen, save me. Your words, my god, give me more.”

  I stabbed his head to the stairs before another of the Shadows gifts made matters worse.

  From that high vantage of the stairs I saw the results of their attack upon us behind the walls. A group of silver men and charged out to attack through the deadly smoke. They struck us hard, and may have carried through the ranks as more of the yellow smoke had been set against us.

  “Check the grounds for other creatures and withdraw. Strike the city, leave no building standing.”

  They swung through the streets, and as Barok ordered us to reassemble behind the walls, flames rolled high above the remains of Alsonvale.

  We gathered the bodies of the men struck down by the yellow smoke and the armor of the 32 soul-irons the bulls had claimed. A pyre was lit before the dawn and we started east toward Bessradi.

  Chaukai scouts raced ahead of us in search of what other wrecks of magic or madness the Kaaryon had in store.

  What they brought back instead was a message from Evand. Its many important details were lost to a single line that turned our ordered move east into a punishing fast march.

  Your children are here in the Kaaryon,

  somewhere between Yarik and Rahan.

  Also by Blake Hausladen

  Ghosts in the Yew - Vesteal Series Volume One

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Beyond the Edge

  Part 2 - Opposing Oaths

  Part 3 - Reckless Borders

  Part 4 - Bayen’s Women

  Part 5 - Falling Tides

  Native Silver - Vesteal Series Volume Two

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Sutler’s Road

  Part 2 - Forgotten Stairs

  Part 3 - Thrall’s Wine

  Part 4 - Corsair Princess

  Part 5 - Tanayon Born

  The Vastness - Vesteal Series Volume Three

  This omnibus volume includes:

  Part 1 - Silent Rebellion

  Part 2 - The River War

  Part 3 - The Blinded

  Part 4 - Crimson Valley

  Part 5 - Singer’s Reward

  About the Author

  Armed with an English degree from Ripon College and an MBA from Chicago’s Stuart School of Business, Blake has delved
for twenty years through the shadowed realms of the financial industry. He currently solves financial crimes during the day and gives life to wild fantasies during the blackest hours of night.