The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

A howl cut through the night, mournful and eerie. Grub jerked his head up, listening, jam on his face and a piece of cheese sticking out of his mouth. A moment later, Garric burst in, sword in hand.

  ‘Outside!’ he barked.

  ‘They’ve caught up already?’ Osman said.

  ‘Should have eaten faster, Skarl.’ Fen snatched up her bow and hurried out. Grub looked this way and that, eyes wide with alarm, as Osman grabbed his own bow and followed.

  ‘Take Aren’s sword, Cade,’ he advised. ‘Make such an end as you can.’

  Cade looked down at Aren, at the waxy white effigy he’d become. There was no time for regrets now, only time to do what had to be done. He dug under the blankets and pulled Aren’s sword from its scabbard.

  ‘Got any tattoos for killing dreadknights?’ he asked Grub. Grub shook his head. ‘Aye, that’s what I thought.’

  He stepped out into the dark, guts churning, the blade a clumsy weight in his hand. A hard wind and a lifeless, moonlit landscape of cold stone greeted him. The others stood ready around the perimeter of the hut, searching for the enemy. As he emerged, another thin howl drifted down the mountainside.

  ‘I don’t see them,’ Keel said. The strip of lank hair atop his head blew about his face. ‘Where are they?’

  Grub pushed out of the hut, knife in hand. He had the same frightened, feral look in his eyes that Cade had seen last night, when they were backed against a gorge with the Krodans closing in. Only Cade was close enough to hear what he was murmuring to himself. ‘Grub not supposed to die here. Not yet. Not yet.’

  Cade had never really thought he was supposed to die anywhere, but he felt Sarla standing close now, and it turned his knees to water. He could barely hold his sword.

  ‘Courage, lad,’ said Osman, fingers on the string of his bow, eyes roaming the night.

  ‘There!’ said Keel, pointing.

  A cowled figure rose into sight at the top of the slope, ghostly in the moonlight. Cade’s blood ran cold as it came towards them with slow, fearful purpose.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Osman demanded, casting about desperately.

  ‘What does it matter? Shoot him!’ Keel snapped.

  Fen and Osman drew together; but Garric threw out a hand and cried ‘Hold!’

  They held, bowstrings quivering at full draw as Garric peered closer at their target.

  ‘No dreadknight I know of walks with a staff,’ he said slowly. ‘Nor do dogs suffer their company.’

  Now that the figure had cleared the rise, Cade saw that Garric was right. They carried a jagged staff with a splintered tip, and at their side was a lean, shaggy hound. Cloak and cowl were a patchwork of furs that blew and flapped about them as they approached. It was a stranger, but not one of those they’d feared.

  The stranger stopped, seeing the raised bows. At their feet, the dog crouched down, flattened its ears and let out another sorrowful howl.

  ‘Who goes?’ Garric demanded.

  They pushed back their cowl. Long black hair curled and whipped around a black and white striped face.

  ‘I am Vika-Walks-The-Barrows,’ she called. ‘I saw your light, and I would share your shelter.’

  31

  Strange is the speech of spirits. They will send you by crooked paths.

  Vika had learned that lesson well studying under Agalie-Sings-The-Dark, and during the years of wandering that followed. Everything was changeable in the Shadowlands, truth most of all. Messages from there were unclear, subject to many interpretations, and they only revealed themselves by degrees. Many times Vika had conversed with the spirits, many times they’d shown her signs and portents, but rare indeed was the vision that meant what it first appeared to. Seeking one answer, she’d often find a different one, or discover that the question itself had changed. The Shadowlands were a place of chaos and its denizens were all in some way mad.

  Yet here, on a bare mountainside on this night of all nights, she’d found these travellers. It was hard not to find meaning in that.

  ‘Is that a druidess?’ she heard one of them say. He was young, with a sturdy body, a broad face and incongruously delicate features. The wonder in his voice saddened her. He’d never seen one of her kind.

  The man who looked to be their leader had the archers lower their bows. ‘You walk a lonely way,’ he said, his voice thick with suspicion. ‘What brings you to this bleak place?’

  ‘It is in my nature to wander,’ Vika replied. She put a hand on Ruck’s back. ‘And as you see, I am not lonely.’

  It wasn’t an honest answer and he knew it, but how could she explain in a way he’d understand? She’d followed signs since leaving the Auldwood, subtle nudges from the spirits, beneath the notice of the untrained. The flocking of starlings had sent her in one direction; a grey fox had sent her in another. She’d seen black clouds over the mountains that looked like an open hand, fingers spread like a puppeteer’s. She’d bled herself into a bowl and cast the bones into it, seeking wisdom, and they’d sent her into the storm.

  At last, abandoning herself to fate, she’d walked up into the Ostenbergs, though all sense told her it was pointless. The champion she’d been shown was unlikely to be in these barren heights. She’d have a better chance staying in the Auldwood.

  As the night fell and the moons rose, a fear had begun to grow in her, for the stars and the Sisters above her now matched her vision at the Dirracombe. This was the appointed time, then; but she’d found no one, and the stain of doubt spread across her heart. Had she been a fool? Were the signs merely the addled dreams of a poisoned mind? Ruck, sensing her mistress’s mood, had become distressed and set up a plaintive howl.

  Then she’d seen the glow of a fire through the shuttered windows of a wayfarers’ hut, a beacon in the blowing dark, and she doubted no longer.

  She approached carefully, descending the slope of broken slate towards the strangers clustered around the hut. Six of them, wary as wounded wolves. She sensed the danger that clung to them.

  ‘I am Garric,’ said the black-bearded one, whose throat had been cut long ago. ‘It gladdens me to see a keeper of the faith, but you’ll find small shelter here. Dreadknights are abroad tonight and they hunt for us. You’d do well to keep walking.’

  Dreadknights. The word struck her like a blow. No wonder the night felt so ominous; no wonder Ruck had howled.

  Keep walking, Garric advised. Keep walking, as she ever had, always on the move. Dreadknights would have no mercy for a druidess.

  But what then? She knew what waited if she didn’t find the champion. She’d seen it at the Dirracombe.

  ‘My friend is sick!’ the boy blurted out. ‘Badly sick. Can you help him?’

  That made her mind up for her. She had to at least take a look. ‘Aye, I’ll help.’ She turned her gaze on Garric. ‘If you’ll let me in?’

  Garric gave the boy a dangerous glare, but he stepped aside. ‘Your choice, druidess.’

  They watched her uncertainly as she entered the hut. The warmth of the stove was blessed relief from the clawing wind, and there was the sick boy, lying on a pallet beside it. She crouched by his side and examined him, and it only took a moment to see it was serious.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked the other boy, who’d crowded in alongside her. Ruck bustled restlessly about the hut, sniffing her new surroundings.

  ‘Cade of Shoal Point.’

  ‘Heat some water for me, Cade.’ She pointed to a battered pan that hung on the wall and he set to it, pouring water from one of the travellers’ skins. Vika exposed the sick boy’s scrawny chest and put her ear to his ribcage. He’d been halfway to starving even before he fell ill. These boys made odd companions to the others, who had the air of capable warriors.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Why do the dreadknights hunt you?’

  ‘We escaped from the camp at Suller’s Bluff!’ Cade said. Even with all that was happening, she heard pride in his voice at that. ‘Aren and me and the Skarl. The others are helping us.’ He frown
ed. ‘I think.’

  ‘Grub,’ said Grub as he came back inside. ‘Not “the Skarl”. Plenty Skarls, only one Grub.’

  ‘I thought you were leaving,’ said Cade spitefully. ‘Now’s your chance.’

  ‘Grub leave when he wants,’ he said. ‘Not done with the cheese yet.’ He picked up the wheel of cheese and took a bite, his eyes on Vika.

  ‘If the dreadknights seek you, you must be someone of note,’ Vika suggested as she raised Aren’s eyelids and looked at the whites beneath. ‘Dreadknights do not waste their time on runaway boys and foreigners.’

  ‘They’re of no note,’ said Garric as he came through the doorway. The hut was small and cramped, and he seemed to take up more than his share of space. ‘Nor are any of us.’ His tone ended that line of enquiry.

  ‘There’s three of them!’ Cade said. ‘One with a hammer, one with a bow and one—’

  ‘Who carries two blades,’ Vika finished for him. ‘I’ve seen them.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘We crossed paths near Salt Fork.’ Vika was grave. It couldn’t be coincidence that she’d encountered those dreadknights hunting fugitives before. Now, leagues and months away, here they were again.

  ‘Who are they?’ Cade asked her.

  ‘Their names are Ruin, Plague and Sorrow,’ said Garric. ‘I saw them at Salt Fork, too. And I know that together, they’re beyond us.’

  Vika turned her head to him. ‘You were at Salt Fork?’

  Garric’s face showed nothing, his eyes shadowed in the shifting light from the stove. ‘You’re wasting your time with the boy. He’ll be dead by sunrise if the dreadknights find us, and we have neither the strength to outrun them nor the craft to evade them. If you have some way to help, speak now, for I’d rather not die here. If not, save your herbs and your neck, and go while you can.’

  ‘I am not yours to command, Garric, and I do what I will,’ she replied. She plucked a pouch of dried elmenthorn from inside her cloak and passed it to Cade. ‘Empty that into the water and give it a stir. Don’t let it boil.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Garric. ‘I’ve warned you twice. Let’s hope the Aspects are kinder to you than they were to the faithful at Salt Fork.’ He moved to leave, but Vika stopped him.

  ‘Your sword,’ she said. ‘Will you show it to me?’

  Garric frowned but did as he was asked. It was old and finely crafted, nicked with the memories of many battles and speckled with flecks of dried blood.

  ‘Has it a name?’ she asked, thinking of the bright sword that had burned like the sun in her vision.

  ‘Names are for noble blades, earned through great deeds,’ said Garric. ‘Ossia is no land for heroes now; not since we sold ourselves to Kroda. This sword is only a sword.’

  Vika heard bitterness and disappointment in his voice, and felt an answering anger. He was in his fifties, perhaps. Old enough to have been an adult when the Krodans came. Old enough to be cheated of all the hopes and dreams that had formed him, to stand witness as his gods and values were eroded. Maybe he wasn’t the champion she sought, but he’d been at Salt Fork, and she recognised that tone of weary resistance. Whoever this man was, he’d fought back. And that was more than she’d ever done.

  We are each tested in our own way.

  She reached inside her cloak, deft fingers plucking out a clay phial that she knew by the imprint on its wax seal. She handed it to Garric.

  ‘Have everyone take a sip of this. The barest sip, I warn you! More than that and you may not survive.’ She looked back at the boy on the pallet. ‘I will see to him now, but someone must carry him onwards.’

  ‘Grub will carry him,’ said the Skarl. Cade gave him a surprised look. ‘Grub has a lot of skin to cover yet,’ he said, and then he grinned. ‘Painted Lady has an idea.’

  ‘What is this?’ Garric asked, eyeing the phial doubtfully.

  ‘It will put strength in your limbs. Tell the others to take what clothes and food they can from this place. I see you are wearied, but we must travel hard and fast now.’

  ‘Travel where?’

  Vika felt her stomach turn over at the thought of what she intended. ‘To a place even dreadknights might not follow. If I can find it at all.’

  Garric’s frown loosened as he understood. ‘You speak of Skavengard.’

  ‘Aye. And perhaps there we will meet worse horrors than those who follow. But any chance is better than none.’

  It was a wild notion to take them to Skavengard, but if her faith had ever meant anything, if her whole life and all she believed was not a lie, then it was the only thing she could do. If she left them now, she might as well give up being a druidess. She buried her fingers in the warm fur of Ruck’s ruff, and there found the steadiness she needed.

  ‘Why would you join us, knowing what hunts us?’ The sullen suspicion had vanished from Garric’s tone as he realised she was genuine. Now he sounded amazed.

  ‘If the Aspects are silent, it is because we have forgotten how to listen,’ Vika said. Agalie’s words, spoken at their last meeting. She got to her feet and faced him, firm with purpose. ‘I’m listening now.’

  32

  The wind flayed them as they struggled along in single file, insects against the bleak flank of the mountain. They walked a ledge little wider than a man’s outstretched arms, with a killing drop to cold grey rock on one side. The sun wasn’t yet above the peaks, but the sky was a serene blue threaded with twists of cloud. To the east, the slopes were edged in bright fire.

  Let each dawn find you different. Agalie used to say that, back when Vika was just an acolyte. Every day, a person should learn something, experience something, do something that left them changed, even in a small way.

  Agalie would be proud of her today.

  Vika’s patchwork cowl flapped about her face as she planted her staff before her, leading the line up the narrow path. Her eyes roamed the landscape, searching for indications that she was still on the right track. They’d rounded the broken peak, found the leaning stone and the waterfall. But where was the cock’s-comb ridge or the cleft that led to the valley? Where was the tree and the stair and the door? It had been hours since the waterfall, and she worried she’d led them astray.

  Years had passed since Hagath had told her the way to Skavengard, and even that information was second-hand. It was Polla-Calls-The-Waters who’d actually travelled there and returned with tales fit to still the blood in her veins. Had Hagath missed a step in his explanation, or had Vika’s memory failed? It had never been entirely trustworthy, mixed up as it was with potions and dream-visions until fact and fiction blurred together.

  But she’d found the broken peak, the leaning stone and the waterfall. By the grace of the Communion, the shared lore of the druids, she had a chance to save these people’s lives. She had to believe she was on the right path.

  Have faith, Vika-Walks-The-Barrows. You always were too quick to doubt.

  She looked back along the line. Ruck was close at her heels, head down, tongue lolling. Behind her walked Cade, and behind him the Skarl they called Grub, who carried the sick boy on his shoulders. The others came after, faces flinty as the mountain. They’d walked through a night and a day and another night since their escape, with only a few hours of rest, yet there was still vigour in them. Vika’s potion had put it there. They wouldn’t feel the fatigue until later, but when it came, it would be crushing.

  ‘Is Aren going to live?’ Cade asked her, catching her eye.

  ‘With rest, he will recover,’ Vika told him. ‘But we must reach shelter soon. He will not survive the elements much longer.’

  ‘Are we close?’

  ‘I think so,’ Vika said, with a smile she hoped was reassuring. She was used to solitude and the niceties of society didn’t come naturally to her. She headed onwards, but Cade spoke to her back.

  ‘You’re afraid of Skavengard, ain’t you?’

  ‘As should you be.’

  ‘My ma told me tales of that place, bu
t I thought they were just stories. She said it was home to one of the Sorcerer Kings.’

  ‘Azh Mat Jaal,’ Vika said absently, scanning the riven landscape. ‘The Sorcerer Kings and Queens of Old Ossia wielded great power, but for all that, they were men and women like you and I. Some were noble and just; some decadent and cruel. Towards the end, there was more cruelty than justice. But even among such infamous company, the name of Azh Mat Jaal rings loud across the ages.’

  She felt a hand run up her back and stiffened. No, not her back: Ruck’s. Cade was stroking the hound as he walked. She felt a warm wash of pleasure from her companion, and it warmed her to the boy in turn.

  ‘I know not what cataclysm befell the Second Empire, nor what became of the Sorcerer Kings of old. But terrible things were done in Skavengard and the memory lingers in those silent halls and empty cloisters.’ Her painted face darkened. ‘Something walks there, it’s said. Something that does not love the living.’ Then suddenly she raised her staff. ‘Ah! That is our path!’

  Ahead, a deep, narrow cleft split the rock. It was just as Hagath had promised. Somehow she’d missed the cock’s-comb ridge, but her instincts had steered her right.

  The cleft took them out of the wind, leading them up a sheltered incline. The stone beneath their feet was uneven and sharp, gullied by old waters. They struggled upwards with single-minded purpose, grunting with effort. All their focus was on their destination; they didn’t think beyond that. These were men and women who hadn’t expected to see the dawn, and they dared not hope too far.

  They emerged from the fissure into a small rocky valley, a wound in the mountains with steep sides that stood high and close. Alone amid the lifeless stone was a tree, black and warped with age, a mass of knots and boils without a single leaf on it.

  The tree, thought Vika. Joha be praised.

  But after the tree there was supposed to be a stair, and after that, the doors to Skavengard. Yet though the valley was small enough to see to its end, there was no stair here.

  ‘Where now, druidess?’ Garric rumbled at her shoulder.

  ‘Give me a moment,’ said Vika. ‘The path to Skavengard is not easily found.’