by Ben Galley
‘If Elessi had magick in her, she would be aflame right now,’ Hereni said.
The mage had to steady herself while the Vanguard’s sails billowed. The bookship yawed, taking a closer route to the shoreline. She could feel the force of spells in the air as the wind mages made patterns with their hands and went to work. Her gold hair whipped about her face. Seawater sprayed past the lower bulwarks.
Grieve by doing. The Rogue’s Armada unwittingly followed Hereni’s advice. The fear of the leviathans and the stress of being stuck on strange waters weighed less when there were spells to hold, rigging to climb, and currents to ply.
Together with Bull and the dragon, Hereni silently watched the Cape of Glass disappear behind them. Her eyes were narrowed, her mind busy. Rings of fire snaked around her fingers.
‘Ships like I never seen!’ Mephin cried for the dozenth time. The skiff swayed back and forth as the dolt continuously moved about on the skinny mast.
Fifty years spent on the Cape’s waters as a fisherman, and the motion was still beginning to make Fletcha sick.
‘He’s your wife’s brother. He’s your wife’s brother,’ Fletcha muttered to himself. He clung to his mantra. Once more, his eyes crept to various items around the boat he could solve his problem with. A fish-club. Several oars. The knife. A rock. Even the ocean itself. ‘He’s your wife’s—’
‘Surely the lobster pots can wait, Fletcha. Come now, let’s chase them! You never seen a ship like that before. Must have been as tall as the cliffs.’
Why Fletcha had agreed to take the bald moron out on the skiffs that day was a confusing combination of spousal blackmail and a wild promise made while far too drunk. He stared after the huge bulks and their retinue of warships. He had seen plenty. Their wakes made his job even more troublesome.
Mephin prattled on. ‘Arka maybe? Look like they been in a fight. I don’t see no green flags or hammer…’
The man needed a job, Fletcha’s wife had said. A skill. Something to get him out of the town and out from under people’s feet.
‘Black sails look like pirates though, and they got dragons too…’
It used to be peaceful on the skiff alone.
‘Come, let’s follow them, Fletcha! Everybody else is!’
Fletcha gripped the tiller so tightly, some tendon in his forearm twanged in protest. His restraint unravelled the more he spoke. ‘Well, they look to be leaving now, and they’re much faster than us, so why don’t you do me a favour, if you would be so kind, and do your bloody job, Mephin!’
The man was stunned to silence. Leaning out from one hand around the mast, he stared down at Fletcha with a child’s pout.
‘Seris said you’d be mean.’
‘You also said you’d listen and stay quiet.’
‘But the ships.’
‘I don’t care about the bloody ships! I care about my pots and getting the lobsters out before they escape or begin to eat each other. Before I don’t make any coin at market. Before I beat you blue because my family’s got nothing to eat tonight.’
‘You know what?’ Mephin began to climb down the mast. He couldn’t even do that right, falling the last third with his foot tangled in a line. ‘You know what?’
Fletcha was on his feet before Mephin was. ‘What? Go on. Spit it out. See where complaints or insults get you on my boat.’
‘I’m tired of everyone thinkin’ I’m stupid, or calling me idiot.’
Before he could stop himself, Fletcha found himself shoving the man against the mast. ‘Then stop being one!’
‘Get off me!’
Fletcha saw a fist swinging. He sprang away and raised an oar, ready to bash some sense into the fool.
Mephin truly was an idiot. He raised a pointing finger, face aghast at something conveniently behind Fletcha.
‘How old do you think I am, man? You stupid dolt. I’ll be doing your sister a favour—’
Between the waves crashing along the cliffs of glass and rock, Fletcha heard a rising roar of water.
‘Look!’ The shrill horror to Mephin’s voice and the way all colour had vanished from his face told Fletcha this might not be a trick after all.
The fisherman turned around just in time to see the horizon blotted out by a gaping maw of crowded fangs, each longer than the oar that dropped from his shaking hands. Darkness enveloped them. The skiff was swept into a torrent throwing Fletcha and Mephin into the air, screaming. Just as it looked as they might escape the monster’s maw, as though only the skiff might be swallowed, the other half of its jaws burst from the sea and closed around them with a rending crash. Fletcha was still in the midst of drowning when he was swallowed.
The leviathan barely slowed to enjoy its meal. Burrowing beneath the waves to the screams of other fishermen, it set a course south. The two sinuous giants followed in its wake.
CHAPTER 11
DATHAZH
If you enjoy the wide rolling plains and clear views of the open ocean, then don’t come to Golikar. The place is infested with trees. The forests creep about, I tell you. Trees appear in places they never stood. Paths close up around you. Tis a place of madness that the irascible Golikan seem to pleasantly endure. I will not travel this far north again.
A LETTER TO THE LADY RIRK OF NORMONT, WRITTEN BY HER HUSBAND. THIS WAS THE LAST MESSAGE SHE RECEIVED FROM HIM BEFORE HIS DISAPPEARANCE
‘Out of my way, curse you!’ roared the rider to the guards barring the gates of ogin bone. There was torment in his voice. Every thud of his cow’s hooves on the grass was a shuddering pain through his arse and back. The struggle paled in comparison to his task. A cloud of seed husks and dirt fled behind him. The rider clung on, slavering just as much as his beast through bared teeth.
‘Fucking move!’ the rider yelled once more, shortly before sending a guard flying with a barge from the cow’s thick shoulder. ‘I have business with the High Cathak!’ was the only apology he offered.
The tent-lined path through camp swiftly cleared a way for him after that. The day was still dawning. Fur-clad figures with sleep in their eyes scattering before his cow’s horns. The rider bent towards the grand pavilion in his saddle and urged the last scraps of energy out of his piebald mount.
Utterly spent, the cow collapsed in the dust, its scaled snout coming to a rest on the steps of the pavilion of canvas and leather. Crows squawked as they gathered in curiosity. The rider tumbled from his saddle and sprawled in the dust. He pushed himself to his knees, clutching a shoulder that felt suspiciously out of its socket.
Cries and yells from the rider’s mad dash had brought High Cathak Tartavor from his sanctum and to the pavilion’s door. With a savage burn still healing across the right side of his face, the High Cathak looked even more threatening than usual. His black and silver scythe towered above those of his guards. Their blue, woad-daubed faces were scrunched in concern.
‘Who are you?’ Tartavor demanded.
The rider prostrated himself on the sun-bleached steps. ‘Vhazar, milord! One of your son’s guards.’
‘What news? Does he return with the sinners?’
‘I’m… I’m afraid not, High Cathak.’
Swift boots closed the gap between them. Strong hands hauled Vhazar up by the collar of his sweat-damp coat. ‘Speak! Or I shall have the Dusk God curse you!’
‘He killed him, milord!’ Vhazar blurted, all tact forgotten in the pain of his shoulder. ‘The man in red and gold you wanted, he cut Oselov’s throat without mercy.’
Tartavor’s grip tightened, beginning to strangle the rider. ‘You lie.’
‘I wouldn’t dare, High Cathak! Dusk God swear it. We found them at the Spoke. Your messenger arrived after them. We told them to surrender. Had them surrounded…’ Vhazar trailed off. His own memory of the events were a blur. All he recalled was seeing the plains turn red and turning tail at the earliest opportunity. He had watched Oselov’s murder from shamefully far away, but that detail didn’t need to be admitted to the High Cathak, of course.<
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‘And then?’ The High Cathak’s eyes had strayed to the gates, where other Cathak were hot on Vhazar’s tail. Their dust cloud was a column in the eastern sky. The lowing of their cow mounts was constant. ‘What of the dragon?’
‘No dragon, milord. The foreigner threw a knife. A foul trick. He knocked Oselov from his firn. Before we could reach him, the man of red and gold…’ Vhazar didn’t want to say the words again.
The rider was summarily dropped on the steps. The High Cathak stumbled past him to the dirt as other riders thundered through the camp. Crows scattered in their dozens.
‘High Cathak!’ hailed the head rider.
‘Is it true? My son is dead?’
With reverence, the riders dismounted their cows and slowly lowered a body wrapped in a blood-soaked cloak to the earth. Tartavor fell to his knees at his dead son’s side. His hands pawed at the cloak, revealing just a portion of Oselov’s white face and one bloated eye. It was all Tartavor could bear.
The rider had taken a knee, but was staring flatly at Vhazar.
Vhazar scowled back as he listened to the rider’s explanation with growing trepidation.
‘The foreigners have dark magick in them, milord. They were too strong. They killed Oselov and his firn. Half of the herd fled in fear and left your son defenceless. Just like Vhazar over there.’
‘You filthy liar, Novod!’ Vhazar spouted.
But Novod continued. ‘After the foreigners escaped, those of us who fought on returned to fetch Oselov’s body. We knew you would want to give him to the Dusk God, High Cathak.’
To Vhazar’s horror, Tartavor stood and turned to face him. The unburnt side of Tartavor’s face had turned as red as the scorched side.
‘It’s not true, I swear!’ Vhazar exclaimed. His knees struck the dust once more. Before he could explain himself, he found the hands of Tartavor’s guard gripping his shoulders. He writhed in pain.
‘You were my son’s guard, were you not?’
‘Yes, sire,’ answered Vhazar truthfully.
‘Then you failed not only my son, but yourself, and your god. May the dusk feast upon your soul for a thousand years!’
Tartavor let fall his scythe, driving the blade through the top of Vhazar’s skull and cutting his screech viciously short. He left the weapon in the corpse and staggered up the steps to the darkness of his pavilion. His voice was a broken roar.
‘Ready the herd! We go east!’
In Troughwake there had once lived a fellow named Able. He’d earned the name from being a smart chap, capable of fixing most things and suggesting solutions half of Troughwake would never think of. An oddball, Mithrid’s father had called him. Able had worn spectacles he built himself from polished seaglass. Always with a book, was Able. He would read constantly, even as he walked, head down and deep in concentration. This ultimately proved his undoing the day he accidentally marched off a cliff, book in hand and eyes lost in script. They found his body in the surf, somehow his spectacles still intact.
Farden was Able in that moment. The mage had walked for a day straight with the inkweld open in his hands. Every now and again, he would look up from the blank pages to notice their surroundings, and down his head would go.
‘Anything else?’ Mithrid asked once more.
‘No. Elessi has gone silent,’ came Farden’s usual response.
Silence passed between them for a time before Mithrid broke it. ‘Are they sailing east to meet us?’
‘No. I told them to stay put. Stay safe. Sailing east would threaten them all. Without them, there’s no Scalussen.’
‘But can they beat these leviathans? Or outrun them?’
‘Why do you care so much?’ he asked gruffly.
For all the challenge she heard in Farden’s voice, she saw the simple question on his face.
‘I told you. Scalussen was my home. For a short while, of course, but despite that, it felt like home. Bull and Hereni are my friends. I don’t want any harm coming to them.’
‘Hereni,’ Farden chuckled. ‘And I thought she was the strong-willed one. You proved me wrong.’
Mithrid posed the question she had been working towards. ‘Can I speak to her? Or Bull?’
‘Tomorrow, maybe.’
Farden dismissed some inner worry with a shake of his hand. He looked up from the inkweld at the mountain that stretched before them.
Mithrid followed his gaze. Alone, the mountain sprang from the grasslands suddenly and without the polite introduction of foothills. Its sheer sides ascended from the plateau of golden grass at a sharp angle. Small settlements like barnacles covered its slopes, abodes of grass thatch and rock. Smoke curled from their chimneys and brought more of the dung-fire stink that had now become almost comforting. More sheep and goats peppered the rocks.
‘So this is Eaglehold. Now all we have to do is find its roots and the shimmer of a serpent,’ Durnus said from behind them. The vampyre had improved much since the Bronzewood. He barely hobbled now. His pale eyes, although ringed with red and set in dark hollows, were sharper than before, and his face had less of a sickly sheen to it. His Weight-burned hands were beginning to heal.
If only Farden had shown such healing. If anything, the mage worsened with every encounter and dying sun. His skin had taken on a grey pallor. His stubble had turned into the scraggy beginnings of a beard. Mithrid knew his age exceeded his looks, thanks to his immortal armour, but much to her concern, the years seemed to be catching up.
The grasslands changed around the foot of the mountain. The Sunder Road curved around its edge and between meandering fields of tors sprouting from the grass. They followed it on, filling their eyes with sun until it began to die beneath the yellow mountains behind them.
As they turned around a bluff of stone, they found themselves stumbling to a halt with wonder. A giant pine tree stood in the scree of Eaglehold’s slopes. The tree had roots that stretched over the rocks for hundreds of yards. A whole village had been built in its branches. Rooftops extended above its foliage at severe angles. The tree had bent under the pressure over the years, but it was still tall enough the reach halfway up the Frostsoar, if that tower still stood.
‘What in Emaneska…?’ Durnus stopped himself. ‘What in the world is that? I have heard tales of the giant eastern forests, but until now I did not believe them. That tree must be two hundred feet tall.’
‘In the far south, beyond the tip of Paraia, they talk of trees this large and even larger,’ Aspala said breathlessly. ‘Trees large enough for whole cities to roost in, boughs as wide as roads.’
‘Just a tree,’ surmised Farden, continuing to walk into the pine’s shadow.
‘Not impressed?’ Mithrid asked.
‘No,’ said Farden flatly. ‘You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all.’
By the time they had drawn level with the giant’s trunk, the light of sunset had become strangely coloured, a mishmash of green and gold. Night’s dark gradually ate into every colour.
‘Where go you?’ cried a voice from a watchtower clinging onto a flimsy branch. ‘Here for the Tourney?’
‘We search for Sigrimur!’ Durnus yelled back.
The laughter was loud and mocking. Even the branch bobbed ever so faintly.
When the guard had recovered himself appropriately, he shouted, ‘You’re several thousand years too late, but if you’ve come for the homage…’
The guard, barely a thumbnail in size, pointed them on their way. East, past the mountain’s scree and on to the forest. There, the mountain slopes spread into rumpled lowlands. A broad, silver slick of river cut a meandering path through the grasslands. They had been too fascinated by the tree to notice it. To the south, it stretched into a sprawling estuary that ended in what appeared to be a sea, bathed in orange sunset. Ahead, the Sunder Road led to a glittering smear of dark buildings. It huddled against the only bridge to cross the river’s expanse. Beyond the river’s banks lay a forest of the giant pines, stretching up like a plateau of
sage green and umber wood.
Their stillness suggested to the guard they had no idea what a homage was, and he would have been right.
‘You’ve got no idea what I’m saying do you? Dathazh. That city right down the mountain where the Sunder Road ends? That’s the capital of the Rivenplains. You might want to start there, where the Scarlet Tourney begins. Ask around and you’ll soon find the homage. Now move along, stop clogging the road!’
‘So that is Dathazh,’ said Durnus as they turned away to face the city lights.
‘And it sits before a serpent’s shimmer: the river,’ Aspala added. Her finger traced the weaving of the river. Mithrid tutted at herself for not realising.
‘Then we’ll spend the night in the city and see about this homage. Hopefully it’ll lead us to where Sigrimur died, and then we can move on,’ Farden decided for them all. His voice was low and empty of tone. His eyes flitted between the copper skies and his unarmoured hands. He kept clenching and flexing them. Mithrid swore she could count more wrinkles in his hands.
‘Aye,’ Aspala agreed, stepping ahead like a scout. Mithrid wondered how she was still so loyally determined. She never had a single question for her proclaimed king.
Warbringer was the one who seemed reticent. ‘Pink-flesh cities like this don’t like minotaurs. Never have,’ she grunted when asked. ‘Uncomfortable. Dangerous.’
‘Dangerous for anyone who means you harm or insult, more like,’ Farden told her.
The minotaur shrugged. Mithrid had never seen her act in such a way before. Warbringer followed, shoulders stooped and Voidaran low in the grass, muttering in the harsh tongue of her clans. Mithrid only heard the word, ‘Efjar’.
All she could think of was another crisp ale and something sturdy beneath her arse instead of her feet. She willed the city closer with every step.
The architects of Dathazh appeared to be an unimaginative bunch, both in ancient times as well as modern. Though it appeared a cramped town at a distance, the closer the Sunder Road led them, the more they realised the sprawl and height of Dathazh. And yet, there was a tedious uniformity to the place. Almost every building was of the same design and made of the same grey wood or brown clay brick, only varying in size and age. Square, was the rule of architecture here. Square edges and square bricks. Square roofs of square wooden slates and tiles of dry river clay. Square streets each meeting at perpendicular crossroads.
