The Pariah

by Anthony Ryan

  The company’s arrival was greeted on the wharf by a dozen strong party of well-dressed folk and fifty men-at-arms clad in livery of silver grey and dark blue. I assumed these colours marked them as soldiers of the duke of the Fjord Geld, whoever he might be at this juncture. The well-dressed civilians were headed by a tall, broad-shouldered man with long ash-blond hair and a beard to match. The smile he offered at Evadine as she descended the gangway to the wharf made Wilhum’s charm seem a paltry candle in comparison to a roaring blaze.

  “Well met, my lady! Or is it Anointed Captain?” He let out a full, hearty laugh as he bowed, the other local luminaries arrayed at his back doing the same. “I, Elderman Maritz Fohlvast—” the blond man boomed on without waiting for a reply “—most loyal servant of Good King Tomas, bid you welcome to Olversahl.”

  Evadine returned his bow with a tight smile. “Aspirant Captain Evadine Courlain, my lord elderman.”

  “Not a lord, my lady,” Fohlvast replied with another laugh. “Merely a humble merchant called to governance by my fellow citizens in these troubled times.”

  “No longer, my lord.” Evadine presented my copy of Sir Althus’s scroll. “Our most gracious king, in recognition of your tireless and courageous efforts in asserting his just rights over this duchy, has named you Sir Maritz Fohlvast, Knight of the Realm and Defender of the Mid-Fjord. You will find relevant grant of rights and lands listed here. I come with the king’s warrant to submit my company to the defence of this port and its people.”

  In my experience, any man who ever called himself humble invariably proved to be the opposite, as the newly minted knight demonstrated when he took the scroll from Evadine’s hand. He managed to not quite snatch it away but was quick in unfurling it. His eyes scanned the contents with a look I recognised full well: the bright, narrow focus unique to the truly greedy.

  “I am honoured beyond measure,” he told Evadine with a creditable attempt at putting a choke to his voice. “May the Martyrs guide my path to ensure my worthiness. Now—” Fohlvast straightened, extending a hand to the other civilians present “—allow me to introduce my fellow loyal eldermen, then we shall adjourn to the Hall of the Merchants’ Council where a fine feast has been prepared in welcome—”

  “I have no time for feasts, my lord,” Evadine cut in, her tone polite but also clear in its refusal. “Nor introductions. Such things can wait until I have conducted a thorough inspection of the port’s defences and seen to the disposition of my company. I trust suitable accommodation has been arranged?”

  I saw the elderman’s face twitch a little with the sting of recognising superior authority, never an easy thing for a man of his character. But he recovered well, summoning another hearty laugh and bowing once again. “Of course, Captain. As befits a true sword of the Covenant, eh? The Shrine to Martyr Athil has more than sufficient space for your fine soldiers since most of the clerics took it upon themselves to flee at the dawn of our recent disturbances. In fact, only one Supplicant and a few lay folk opted to stay and secure the shrine’s relics.”

  Evadine’s face darkened. “A very poor state of affairs. One that will not go unreported to the Luminants’ Council. And the defences?”

  Fohlvast laughed again, less hearty for possessing some genuine amusement. “Of course. We’ll tour them now, if it please you. Though I should caution you, there really isn’t much to see.”

  The locals called it the Gate Wall, a thick, sturdy construction of granite blocks stretching from the sheer face of the cliff at the base of Mount Halthir to the rocky shoreline, standing forty feet high and perhaps a hundred and fifty paces long. A battlement stretched along its top behind a series of crenellations on either side of a watchtower positioned above the only gate. The doors were fashioned from ancient oak buttressed by iron brackets, and further protected by a huge iron portcullis that could be raised or lowered as required. Beyond lay the road, curving away into the mist drifting in from the fjord. As we followed the elderman around the wall’s meagre list of features, a few carts trundled through the gate but not so many as might be expected in such a famously bustling port.

  “One hundred and eighty-six years ago,” Fohlvast told Evadine with conspicuous pride. “That’s the last time some fool attempted to assault this wall. An outcast bandit who styled himself a king. His army, such as it was, fled in short order and his head sat on a spike atop the tower for a year or more until it rotted away.”

  “Too thick and strong for even the mightiest siege engine to breach,” Sergeant Swain commented, running an approving hand over the weathered granite of the battlement. He nodded to the road beyond. “And there’s only enough ground to allow a single company to scale the walls at any given time. Five hundred troops could hold off ten times their number here.”

  “Which raises an important question, my lord,” Evadine said, turning to the elderman. “What exactly is the strength of our enemy?”

  “I regret that it’s impossible to say with any accuracy.” Fohlvast shrugged his impressive shoulders in apology. “The ducal companies numbered close to a thousand men-at-arms in better times, but they fractured according to their sympathies and blood ties when we seized the port for the Crown. We counted near a hundred dead in the streets once the fighting was over. The rest fled with the traitors who sold themselves like whores to the Pretender, Scourge take them. Currently there are three hundred or so loyal soldiers left to us.”

  Evadine’s gaze slipped to me, receiving a fractional shake of the head in response. As per her instruction before we departed the ship, I had made a careful count of anyone bearing arms during our journey through the docks and the streets until we reached this wall. As my gaze sought out soldiery, it also tracked across more than a few sullen and resentful faces, albeit downcast and careful not to catch the elderman’s eye. I also noted the many burnt-out houses and shops, clearly victims of recent vandalism. Olversahl was plainly a very troubled place. My count of those who could reasonably be described as soldiers amounted to one hundred and eight, making it unlikely there would be anything like Fohlvast’s stated number in the town garrison. Perhaps his loyalist revolt hadn’t been as popular with the ducal soldiery as he claimed.

  “Our enemy will surely have more,” he went on. “The rebel lords were all old blood with strong family connections among the folk in the deeper Geld. Many of them went off to join the Pretender’s doomed march south, but far from all.”

  “But still no clear notion of their strength?” Evadine pressed. “Has any reconnaissance been conducted to ascertain their location, at least?”

  “Any patrol that ventures more than a few miles beyond this wall is likely never to return.” He gestured to the lone cart making its way towards the gate. “You see how paltry our trade has become. Those wool merchants who continue to bring us custom do so at considerable risk. Rebels haunt the roads and there are few among us with the knowledge of where in the wilds they make their dens. My people know the sea and the coast. The deeper Geld, however, is another matter.”

  “How fortunate then that there is one in my company who possesses just such knowledge.” Evadine’s lips formed a faint smile as she turned to regard Wilhum. “Do you not, Trooper Dornmahl?”

  I had wondered why she’d ordered him to accompany us during this inspection. Now it became clear as Wilhum gave a very small grin in response. “It’s been some years, Captain,” he said. “But I suppose I know the Geld as well as any southerner could claim to.”

  “Trooper Dornmahl’s mother hailed from the Mid-Geld, you see?” Evadine told Fohlvast. “He spent a good deal of his youth here before familial duty called him back to the duchies. He will conduct our reconnaissance.” Her smile faded as she turned to me, birthing a dispiriting plummet to the guts when I divined her next order. “And our scribe shall accompany him, since he possesses the keenest eye for numbers in our ranks.”

  She held my gaze for a fraction longer than I felt necessary, all humour gone from her bearing. I discerne
d that some form of punishment was being administered but couldn’t identify a crime worthy of such chastisement. She certainly hadn’t liked it when I’d called on the company to back her against Althus’s knights; that much had been clear. But, while it might explain her recent mood, did it merit risking my hide in this manner? It seemed poor reward for her saviour. Or was the fact that I had saved her life at the heart of this, the resentment of a burdensome debt?

  “I trust you have some suitable mounts?” Evadine enquired of Fohlvast. “Fleet but sturdy?”

  “My personal stable is at your disposal, Captain,” he assured her, inclining his head.

  “Excellent.” She turned back to Wilhum and me. “Set off as soon as you’re able, and don’t tarry over the task. I need to know what we’re facing here.”

  “If I may, Captain,” I said as she began to turn away, receiving a stern stare in response that brought a cough to my throat. “I… can’t ride. Not with any skill, that is.”

  She pursed her lips, then nodded to Wilhum. “Trooper Dornmahl will teach you. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two. Then you can set off.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice grew hard. “Unless you would care to wait and seek out a Caerith witch to cast a protective spell or somesuch?”

  The acid tone with which she uttered the word “witch” made me swallow any further protest and lower my head in acquiescence. So, that was it. Some overly inquisitive eye had seen us at the Sack Witch’s camp. Or Supplicant Delric had correctly deduced the true reason for Brewer’s recovery.

  “See to it,” she snapped, jerking her head at the stairs before turning her attention back to the elderman. “Now, my lord, with your permission, I should like to inspect the garrison. Then we shall proceed to the stores.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Wilhum described the horse he chose for me as a hunter rather than a charger, though to my novice eye it possessed more than enough bulk to make a warhorse. He was a handsome, black-coated beast with a placid nature according to Wilhum’s expert judgement, though that didn’t prevent him from casting me off his back when the opportunity arose.

  “Holding the reins too tight,” Wilhum said after one particularly bruising encounter with the ground. My lessons in horsemanship took place in the small paddock alongside Elderman Fohlvast’s stables. It hadn’t surprised me to find he possessed the largest house in Olversahl, positioned as close to the centre of the town as the grounds of the shrine and the library would allow. It was a recent construction of red brick rather than the locally quarried granite, each brick imported at considerable expense according to the aged stable master.

  “Old saying in this town,” he told us, his much-wrinkled face creasing further as he gave a conspiratorial wink. “No Fohlvast ever spent a shek where a sovereign would do.”

  “Loosen your grip,” Wilhum added as I got to my feet. “You wouldn’t like someone continually tugging at a bit shoved into your mouth and neither does he. And try to relax. You’re too stiff. It makes him nervous.”

  “Not everyone grew up in a castle with tutors in the knightly arts,” I grumbled. As I hauled myself back into the saddle, the stallion, who the stable master had named Karnic, after the Ascarlian god of the hunt, let out a resigned huff. Two days spent at this and I had succeeded in walking him back and forth across the paddock. My slip had been the result of attempting my first trot.

  “You wouldn’t have liked my tutor,” Wilhum told me. His eyes bore the reddened look of one suffering the effects of a night’s drinking while the way he worked his mouth told of an undiminished thirst for more. Liquor clearly had a hold on him now and I wondered if our mission might be Evadine’s attempt to spare him further unhealthy indulgence, at least for a while.

  “Redmaine, his name was,” he went on with an air of nostalgic remembrance. “He was too low-born to ever gain a title, but he’d spent half his life at war or tourney and the rest of it teaching what he knew to upstart whelps, as he liked to call his students. If you fell from your horse under his eye it would have meant a birched arse doused in salt water. Worse if you dropped your sword.”

  “Your father let a commoner beat you?”

  “Of course. It’s how such things are done. Knights are made, Master Scribe, not born. My father had his arse birched more than a few times as a lad, so why spare mine? Come.” He turned his own mount about, displaying what I now recognised as enviable skill in the way the beast seemed to dance at his touch. “Let’s try it again.”

  In all, it required five days of bruising lessons before I could be counted on to ride a horse for any length of time. I took some comfort from Evadine’s forbearance in allowing the lessons to proceed for so long, concluding that she didn’t want me to perish in the wilds of the Geld. However, her treatment of me remained one of curt authority and I was permitted in her presence only as long as it took to approve the relevant entries in the company ledgers. At first, I had borne her coldness with a cheerful demeanour and assiduous attention to my scribing duties. But, as the days wore on and her mood failed to warm, I couldn’t help but nurture a growing ball of resentment. Our scales were balanced now, so what did I owe her?

  In addition to the basics of riding, Wilhum also took it upon himself to school me in the knightly form of combat. “You can’t wield a halberd from the saddle,” he said, tossing me a sheathed longsword I had seen Supplicant Ofihla wearing on her back after the Traitors’ Field. Our fighting clerics took no part in looting the corpses for coin or trinkets, but their restraint didn’t extend to fallen weaponry. For reasons unknown she had apparently consented to giving up her prize, which surprised me for even I could tell it was a finely made blade.

  “I’ve never used a sword in my life,” I told Wilhum, casting an admiring but doubtful eye over the steel as I drew it from the scabbard. The metal was clean and bright for the most part, marred here and there by cloudy patches, the edge possessed of the slight unevenness that came from grinding away the depredations of combat. Its unfortunate noble owner had evidently been a man of some experience, and wealthy with it.

  “That’s to the good,” Wilhum replied. “Means I won’t have to cure you of any bad habits.”

  So, each day before taking to the saddle he would tutor me in swordplay, a more complicated business than might be expected. The sword, I learned quickly, was more than just an elongated cleaver. Using it well required a marriage of skill and strength rather than the mix of viciousness and brute force that had served me so well in my only battle. Much of my initial education was spent developing the particular concordance of muscle and sinew required to swing it around as I attempted to copy the various strokes Wilhum demonstrated. The reason for his athletic frame became obvious as he used his own longsword to describe a series of elegant arcs with seemingly effortless fluency. My efforts to do the same left me sweating and aching in previously untaxed muscles.

  “Wield it with one hand in the saddle and two on the ground. And never forget the value of a thick glove.” Wilhum demonstrated his meaning by extending his sword, holding it out laterally across his chest, one mail-covered hand on the handle, the other grasping the blade. “Whereupon, what was a sword becomes a quarterstaff.” He extended one leg, raising the blade above his head in a parry. “Now a spear.” He shifted his hips, bringing up the swordpoint to jab within an inch of my face. “Then a mace.” Stepping forward, he levered the weapon, bringing the brass cylinder that formed the pommel round, halting it just before it would have smashed into my jaw.

  He smiled as I flinched, stepping back. “You try. Then we’ll see if you can draw it while in the saddle.”

  Due to my training in horsemanship and swordplay, all this equestrian nonsense meant that it wasn’t until the afternoon before our intended journey that I managed to visit King Aeric’s Library, only to be denied access to the riches within.

  “This is not your place, southlander,” the larger of the two guards on the doors told me. He and his companion made a contrast to the ot
her soldiers in this town by being both properly attired and well armed. Their livery was also different to the ducal men-at-arms, featuring a white sash embroidered with the angular script that adorned so many buildings and statues here. They held themselves with accustomed readiness and one look at each stern, resolute face told me any attempt at bribery would be pointless. It appeared that this town put great stock in protecting its books.

  “Only townsfolk of good standing and scholars bearing a pass signed by the elderman’s council are permitted access,” the larger guard told me in response to a polite request as to why I couldn’t enter. He narrowed his eyes in a doubtful scowl. “You a scholar, are you?”

  “A scribe,” I replied. “Company scribe to Aspirant Captain Evadine Courlain, in point of fact.”

  His scowl lessened at this, but only a little. “Still can’t come in,” he said, putting a meaningful hand on his sword. “Now, get you gone and stick to the shrine precincts in future. Not everyone’s as welcoming as us.”

  Never one to pursue a hopeless cause, I inclined my head in civil acceptance and turned to descend the broad steps that led to the library’s doors. These had either been crafted by masons with little regard for comfortable proportions or were the product of an age when folk were considerably taller, for they required a good deal of concentration to navigate without falling on one’s posterior. My pre-occupation with making a successful descent was such that I failed to notice when a slender figure paused nearby.

  “I thought you had no use for old words on old paper.”

  I stopped, turning to regard a young woman with the blonde, pleated hair typical of most females here. Her eyes were a piercing blue that shone with a mix of amusement and recognition as she looked me over. She wore a plain brown dress under a grey shawl, but, like the library guards, also bore an embroidered white sash across her chest.

  “Cheated the hangman, I see,” she went on. “And now you follow an Anointed Captain, no less. A strange fate for one who once mocked the beliefs of a naive girl.”