She swallowed, and her gaze was distant, blurred by tears of horror. ‘Beyond the wasteland there was a city, a sprawling vileness upon the parched earth, with avenues of sinew and towers of bone and knuckle. The stretched and screaming faces of those who’d died to build it still yawned on the walls of its cathedral. Rivers of blood and body fluids spilled in falls from aqueducts of gristle. It steamed in the heat of the rising sun, and cackling things ran in the streets, imps of the Abyss and worse, and worse, and worse.’
She came to a stop; she could say no more. She wiped tears away, irritated at herself for letting them fall, and waited for Agalie to speak.
‘You were right to come,’ said Agalie at length. ‘Matters are grave, if what you have seen is to be trusted.’
‘If,’ said Vika. ‘The spirits deceive, and never more so than now.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Agalie. ‘But I, too, have seen omens. I walked beneath a storm and watched lightning carve the sign of Azra into the sky. I dreamed I heard pounding beneath the earth, as if some great creature fought to be free of its prison, and when I awoke, the pounding still shook the forest. Nor am I blind to what is happening in our land. And now you bring me this news.’
She handed the skin of liquor to Vika, who swigged from it. Heat bloomed pleasantly in her chest and she recovered a little.
‘Then give me wisdom, Agalie. If it’s news, I don’t understand it.’
The flames made shadows in the lines of Agalie’s face. ‘The dark figures you saw, the mutilated horrors with flayed skin – you were visited by the Torments.’
‘The Torments do not cross the Shadowlands.’
‘Not for many years. But that is how the Lorekeepers described the Torments to me; though I remember little else they said about them.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. If my mind made perfect records, I would be a Lorekeeper myself.’
Vika took another swig of liquor to stave off the cold thought that she’d seen the keepers of Kar Vishnakh, the citadel on the far side of the Shadowlands that guarded the way to the Abyss. Kar Vishnakh, which hung suspended on chains over an immense and bottomless pit where the Outsiders languished, imprisoned for eternity.
‘These are black days, when the Torments themselves leave the Citadel of Chains to bring us warning,’ she muttered.
‘The Outsiders stir in the Abyss and Azra the Despoiler strains at his bonds. All that lies ahead is death and war and destruction,’ Agalie said despondently. ‘These are black days indeed.’
‘What I saw … the ruin of the land … they were showing me the future?’
‘A future, perhaps,’ Agalie threw another stick of wood on the fire. ‘Once, there was only chaos upon the face of the world. The living and the dead shared the same earth, and nothing was certain.’ Her eyes became distant and her voice took on the tone of a recitation. It was a story well known to them both. ‘It was the Age of Chaos, when the Outsiders ran amok and brought corruption and disorder to all the Creator had intended. Joha saw that nothing good could thrive there, so he drew the Divide across the world, the great chasm separating the living and the dead.’
‘To the living, the world beneath the sun,’ Vika murmured. ‘To the dead, the Shadowlands.’
‘But the Outsiders resisted, so Joha led the Aspects in war against them. For a thousand years they fought, till at last the Outsiders fell. For their actions, Joha condemned them to the Abyss and set the Torments to watch over them.’ Agalie plucked a steaming potato from the pan and bit into it. ‘But they have never stopped coveting the light. Always they are seeking their freedom, and vengeance upon those that took it from them. If they are ever released, all you have seen will come to pass.’
‘Something has changed, then,’ said Vika, frowning. ‘It has been a century since last they threatened the world of the living, and we’ve heard nothing of them since. What new danger brings their wardens to warn us?’
‘That is what we must discover,’ said Agalie. ‘Perhaps the champion you saw can provide the answers.’
‘I did not see their face, Agalie. How am I supposed to find them?’
‘The Aspects will give you guidance.’
Vika shook her head sadly. ‘It has been long since I heard their voices.’ She watched Ruck worrying at her bone in the firelight. Here in the forest, with strong drink in her belly and Agalie next to her, she felt a soft, sad yearning for a simpler life. No more wandering, no more hiding from Krodan druid-hunters. All she wanted was fire, food and good company, with Ruck at her feet. It wasn’t much to ask. Better that than all this doubt, all this supplication, with only silence as an answer. Better than bearing the burden of faith.
‘I think the gods have left this land, Agalie,’ she said. It was the first time she’d spoken it aloud, and it was like a stone laid on her heart. She looked over at her mentor, the woman who’d trained her in the ways of the druids. Tears came to her eyes, loosened by liquor. ‘I’m not sure they were ever here at all.’
‘They are here,’ said Agalie, with that calm certainty Vika had always envied. ‘Do not despair. This is their land. In Ossia they first made themselves known, and from here they spread throughout the world. They are in the very earth beneath your feet and the air you breathe. If the Aspects are silent, it is because we have forgotten how to listen.’
‘But I heard them before!’ Vika cried, surging to her feet. Ruck raised her head, startled, as she stalked away from the fire in agitation. ‘I heard them clear as a bell! They appeared before me, as real as you are now!’
‘I know,’ said Agalie. ‘I remember the day I found you. A child whom half the village thought touched by the gods, and the other half thought possessed. They didn’t know whether to worship you or drown you.’
‘And you took me, and taught me, and sent me out to teach those who would hear what wisdom we had.’ She came back to the fire, snatched up the liquor and took an angry swig. ‘And my reward? The Aspects stopped speaking to me. I dedicated my life to them, and now they lie supine while some foreigners’ god sweeps through the land, razing all our faith has built.’ She threw out an arm, as if to take in the whole of the night. ‘So tell me, Agalie: those visions I saw in my youth – were they just some hysteria of the mind? All these portents and omens, is it the gods and spirits that grant them, or the poison herbs we drink? Are we all mad? Did the Apostates have the right of it?’
‘Do not speak such foolishness!’ Agalie snapped, rising to her feet and snatching up her staff, eyes hard with fury in the firelight. With her red-streaked face and the goat skull suspended in the dark beside her, she was suddenly fierce. ‘Doubt the Aspects if you will, but do not invoke the Apostates! They have corrupted and perverted everything we stand for, and I will not hear it from one whom I thought wiser!’
Ruck was on her feet, barking now. Vika held Agalie’s gaze in defiance for a moment, and then looked away, ashamed.
‘Forgive me,’ she said quietly. ‘You are right. I spoke in haste.’
She walked to the edge of the stream and stared across it to the far bank, where the trees gathered close and the glowflies blinked in the darkness.
‘A month before you found me,’ she said, ‘I met Hallen in the fields and walked with him. He told me it would be a good harvest, and that the blight would end that year, and so it did.’ She looked over her shoulder sadly at her mentor. ‘I know I saw him, Agalie. He was there. Tall and blond, with a crown of wheat and barley, a cup in one hand and a sickle in the other. Just to be near him was a comfort and happiness so profound I will never again experience the like. I knew the Aspects existed then, as sure as I knew there was ground beneath my feet.’
She felt a wet nose as her hand, then a warm tongue. Absently, she scratched the top of Ruck’s head.
‘Five times I was visited by the gods. Five times, and then no more. Can you imagine that? To be so blessed and then … not to be?’
‘I have never seen them,’ said Agalie. ‘Only their signs and agents. Be gr
ateful for what grace was given you. We are each tested in our own way.’
Vika looked into the babbling water. She was no longer angry, but sad instead. Her moods had always surged and faded suddenly. Emotions crashed upon her like stormy waves on the rocks, and it was hard to know how much of it was her and how much a result of the potions she’d been taking most of her life. You didn’t get to walk in the Shadowlands without paying a price.
‘I believed you had been sent by the Aspects that day,’ she said to Agalie. ‘I think, if you had not come, my neighbours would have killed me.’ She gave a faint smile. ‘Now I think of it, you did not look much younger then than you are now. Twenty-five years, it has been, but you’ve hardly aged a day in my mind.’
Agalie laughed. ‘You’re no Lorekeeper, either,’ she said. ‘Your memory plays tricks on you, I think.’ But Vika heard mischief in her voice, and she wasn’t so sure.
She put a hand on Vika’s shoulder. ‘Doubt is healthy, but do not give up hope,’ she said gently. ‘The Creator did not put us here to solve our problems for us. The giants cursed the Long Ice, I suspect, yet from that disaster came the Six Races. Once, we were all enslaved by the urds, and then came Jessa Wolf’s-Heart and soon we had built an empire. Each setback makes us stronger.’ She squeezed Vika’s shoulder in encouragement. ‘The Torments are the servants of the Aspects. It matters not that the gods did not show themselves in person. You were chosen as the bearer of great tidings; do you not see that?’
Vika nodded. She felt churlish now. For all her complaining about the Aspects’ silence, she’d seen them five times more than most. Others with stronger faith had never been shown such proof.
‘Why do they not call a Conclave?’ Vika asked helplessly.
‘We will know when they do. Perhaps your news will inspire them. I will spread the word, as should you.’
‘It will be too late by then,’ said Vika. She tipped her head back, her hair falling away from her face. Few stars were visible through the knotted canopy, but Vika didn’t need to see the sky to know the night. ‘The Communion is breaking. It took me longer than I expected to find your druidsign and track you. The stars in my vision were those of an autumn night not long from now. Whatever is coming will happen then.’
‘Then you must go at first light,’ said Agalie. ‘Go out into the land and let your feet lead you where they may. The Aspects will guide your steps. Your fate will not find you in the deeps of the Auldwood.’
Onward, ever onward. Vika felt the stone on her heart grow heavier. ‘And what will I do, Agalie? Out there, in the land?’
Agalie smiled. ‘You will find our champion.’
20
The next day was Festenday, and morning found the prisoners lined up in the yard for convocation. Festenday prayers to the Primus were obligatory for all subjects of the Empire, and most forms of work were forbidden. Despite the tragedy that had befallen them, some of the prisoners still grumbled at their luck that the mine was closed on a day which they were due to have off anyway; but they were cheered by the rumour that mining wouldn’t resume for at least a week while the engineers made it safe again. They sang to the Primus with gusto after that, though the Krodan hymns they’d been forced to learn by heart meant nothing to most of them.
Aren stood among them beneath a bright, cold sky, listening to the priest give his sermon. To outside eyes he was anonymous in the crowd, another pale figure in ill-fitting grey clothes, shivering and underfed; but today he felt transformed, steely with purpose.
‘Do not grieve,’ the priest was saying, ‘for your brothers have joined the Primus in His light. And was it not said by Tomas that if a man toil for the glory of Kroda, whether he a farmer or warrior be, let all men call him noble?’
Aren stared at him with loathing. He was a soft, portly man with the milky look of someone who’d been roundly bullied as a boy. He wore beige and red robes, beige for parchment and red for blood, stitched with Krodan rays across the shoulders and chest. The blade and open book of the Sanctorum hung round his neck, wrought in gold.
Shut your mouth, he thought fiercely, heated by defiance. All your talk. What does it mean? They didn’t believe in the Primus, those men who died. You put them there, you and your people. You killed them. And you nearly killed Cade, too.
‘Their toil is ended, their earthly sufferings over,’ the priest continued. ‘They are beyond the reach of the Nemesis now, and the crimes that brought them here have been burned away in the radiance of the one true god. Let those of us who remain honour their memory with the strength of our backs, and redouble our labours in service of the Empire, that their sacrifice will not be in vain.’
Overseer Krent lowered his head in pious agreement. Captain Hassan swept the assembly with a keen gaze, alert for signs of dissent. The guards surrounding the yard fidgeted and looked bored, while the archers up on the wall kept an eye on those below. Nearby stood the scratched and bloodstained pole where uncounted prisoners had been eaten alive, clawed to pieces by Krodan skulldogs.
Aren stopped listening and turned his mind to his plan.
There were two gates out of the prisoners’ compound, one to the east that let into the guards’ section and one to the south that opened onto the bridge over the river and the village beyond. Both were heavily guarded and securely locked when not in use. Carts were searched going in and out. He’d briefly wondered if they might smuggle themselves to freedom that way, but it would require Rapha’s cooperation, and he’d have nothing to do with that pirate. He was still angry at him for giving ragweed to Cade. Besides, he had nothing to offer in exchange, and the risk was too great that Rapha might betray them.
No, they were going over the wall.
Sneaking out after curfew would be easy; the camp was dark at night and the patrolling guards were simple to avoid. Getting past the vicious skulldogs was the challenge. The area they patrolled was divided up into fenced sections, with three dogs in each to ensure they were evenly spread around the perimeter; but three skulldogs were still three too many, and all they had to do was bark to raise the alarm.
Still, if they could get past the dogs, it wouldn’t be hard to clamber up the wooden scaffold to the archers’ walkway on the inside edge of the stockade wall. During the day, the archers were alert and watchful, but at night, when their commanding officers were abed, they drifted about idly and chatted. With luck and guile, they might slip past them in the dark, but he had to reckon on facing at least one, and they were all big, well fed and carrying shortswords. Perhaps he and Cade could overpower a man like that with surprise on their side, but he wasn’t at all sure of it.
Once past the archers, they’d have to get down the outside of the stockade without breaking a leg. That required rope, and time enough to tie it. Then all that was left was the escape through the mountains, with guards and skulldogs tracking them, and winter closing in. They’d need food, warm clothing, weapons and supplies, and even then the chances of survival were slim.
But it could be done.
‘The Primus loves not the laggard!’ said the priest. ‘He grants no favour to the prostrate man who pleads. But he who has the will and strength of character to strive, on him does the light of the Primus shine!’
I’ll strive, alright, Aren thought, addressing the Primus. I’m going to strive right out of this hell you put me in, and I’m taking my friend with me. Stop me if you can.
It felt good to shake his fist in the face of a god. He’d always been afraid to before, scared that some misfortune would befall him if he questioned what he’d been taught. But misfortune had befallen him anyway. What good was piety, then, if it won you no favour?
He brought his mind back to the matter at hand. Scorning the Primus and his servants got him no closer to his goal. There were things to attend to before he could put his plan into action, and the first of them was Grub.
He found the Skarl in the crowd, and felt hate and fear stir in him. The marks of their last encounter were still br
ight on Aren’s body. Stealing his cheroots had only been the latest in a long line of abuses and humiliations. Aren never knew when Grub would turn up next, to take his food, to rob him or beat him. Maybe next time he’d take something really vital, or put Aren in the infirmary.
Grub had come to the camp soon after Aren, and as near as Aren could make out he had no friends here. He did, however, have plenty of victims. Aren was only spared worse bullying because Grub picked on weaker prisoners more often. He chose the young, the feeble and the unpopular. Cade had been overlooked because he made other men laugh and they might decide to defend him; Aren had no such protection. He’d mostly kept himself to himself, because he believed the other prisoners were traitors and criminals who likely deserved to be here. Because he believed Krodan justice didn’t make mistakes. Unwittingly, he’d made himself an easy target.
If his plan were to even get off the ground, that ended today.
The prisoners dispersed once convocation was over. Without work, most of them would be gambling for contraband, cutting deals, hustling for survival. Others would talk, pray to the Aspects or tell tales. The little things that kept them human, in this inhuman place.
Aren watched Grub as the crowd broke up into groups, and when the Skarl headed into the alleyways between the longhouses, he followed.
‘To overcome your enemy, you must first understand him.’ Master Orik’s favourite maxim. It was time to put his teachings into effect.
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