by Paul S. Kemp
The large, armored man he had shot loomed over him, the arrow still sticking from his chest. The man leered behind his beard, raised a booted foot.
“You should be dead,” Gerak muttered.
“I am,” the man said, and slammed his heel into Gerak’s face.
A crunch as his nose shattered, a flash of pain, more sparks, then darkness.
Sayeed grabbed Gerak by his cloak and dragged him through the mud toward his brother.
“What do we do with this one?” Sayeed asked.
The cats looked up from their torture of Minser, hope in their eyes.
Zeeahd looked at the woman prone at his feet, her eyes rolled back into their sockets and showing only whites, her mouth thrown open in a scream she’d never utter.
“He seemed fond of the woman,” Zeeahd said. “Let them have each other.”
The cats looked disappointed and left off tormenting Minser. The peddler lay huddled on the ground, weeping, bleeding from dozens of bites.
Zeeahd hopped off the deck and nudged the peddler with a toe. “Now you will take us to the Oracle.”
Minser’s face was still buried in his tunic. “I told you I don’t know where the abbey is.”
Zeeahd nodded at Gerak. “Then why did you tell him that you won’t take us, rather than can’t?”
Minser went still. He turned and looked up, his face bloody, tear-stained, one of his ears bleeding freely from a cat’s bite.
“Don’t bother to lie to me, peddler,” Zeeahd said. “I know what I want is in your head. I’ll have it.”
Minser, bloody, muddied, somehow found the strength to summon a last bit of defiance. His double chin quivered when he spoke. “I’ll die first.”
“No,” Zeeahd said, and kneeled to look him in the eye. “I won’t let you die. Instead, I’ll inflict pain. The cats will inflict it. My brother will.”
Minser’s lower lip joined his chin in quivering.
Zeeahd continued, “Pain today. Pain tomorrow. And the day after that, until finally you do exactly as I’ve asked. Is that what you wish?”
The cats gathered around the peddler, eyeing him, meowing. Minser began to shake. Sayeed saw terror root in Minser’s eyes. It would live there the rest of his life. And yet still the peddler did not acquiesce. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Zeeahd sighed like a parent exasperated with a child. “Start cutting off his fingers, Sayeed. Then feed them to the cats.”
Sayeed drew his dagger and seized Minser’s sweaty hand. The peddler shouted, tried to resist by balling his hand into a fist, but he could not hope to match Sayeed’s strength. Sayeed locked the peddler’s arm in place, pried his fist open, and put the edge of his blade to the base of Minser’s index finger. The peddler shrieked. His body and breath had a stink born of terror. The cats gathered near, meowing excitedly.
“You are not men! You are not men!”
“Cut it off,” Zeeahd ordered.
Sayeed let the blade bite just a little, and whatever little bits of resistance Minser still possessed crumbled.
“All right! All right! The gods forgive me, but I’ll show you! Don’t cut off my fingers! Just don’t! I’ll take you as far as I remember but that’s not all the way. The Oracle sees when the worthy seek the abbey. He sends an escort and they lead followers through the pass. None know the whole way but them.”
“A pass?” Sayeed asked. “It’s in the Thunder Peaks?”
Minser hesitated, swallowed visibly, nodded.
“How far from here?” Sayeed said, shaking the fat man. “How far?”
“I think . . . two days’ march,” Minser said. “Maybe three.”
“I told you, brother,” Zeeahd said, triumph in his eyes. “We find the Oracle and he’ll tell us where to find Erevis Cale’s child. And then the Lord of Cania will free us of these curses.”
“You are cursed,” Minser said, weeping, head bowed. “Cursed in spirit. More devilish than those cats.”
“Shut your mouth,” Sayeed said, but only half heartedly. He could not work up any anger. He felt something he had not felt in decades, something alien, something he’d thought lost forever long ago: hope.
“What about my mule?” Minser asked diffidently. “What about Gray?”
“Your mule is coming with us,” Zeeahd said. “My cats are carrying him around in their bellies.”
Minser wept.
Growing fatigue slowed the pilgrims. Vasen, Byrne, Eldris, and Nald did what they could to keep spirits and strength high, but the encounter with the Shadovar riders had put a seed of fear in the pilgrims that flowered in the dark Sembian air. Eldris carried Noll, although it was plain the boy was healing.
Byrne, Vasen, and Orsin walked in the front of the column. “This pace is too much,” Byrne said. “They are failing.”
“We can’t let them,” Vasen answered, eyeing the terrain ahead. “See to them. Word will get to Sakkors or Shade Enclave quickly. More Shadovar will come. We must get them to the Dales.”
“And then?” Byrne asked. “War awaits them there.”
“I know,” Vasen said. “But what else is there, Byrne? This is the world.
We just have to get them through safely.”
“Aye,” Byrne said. “This is the world.”
Vasen put a hand on his shoulder. “Walk among them. Tell them stories. Give what solace Amaunator’s blessings offer. And take comfort from what comfort you give.”
“Yes, First Blade.” Byrne faded back into the column, leaving Vasen and Orsin alone.
“You said you wanted to speak of something,” Vasen said. “So speak.” Orsin walked in silence for a moment, perhaps deciding where to begin.
“Your Oracle can see the future, yes?”
“‘See’ is a strong word, but yes. He has glimpses of future events.” “And yet he sent you—us, all of us—from the abbey at a time when he knew the boy would sicken, when he knew we would encounter the Shadovar riders.”
Vasen shook his head. “‘Knew’ is too much.”
“Either he’s a seer or he isn’t.”
To that, Vasen said nothing. Shadows made slow turns around his flesh.
“Why would he take such a risk? An encounter with the Shadovar puts the entire abbey in peril. The worship of any god but Shar is outlawed in Sembia. And the Shadovar discourage travel unless it has official sanction. What if you had been taken?”
“I would never speak of the abbey to the Shadovar.”
“Byrne? Eldris?”
“Neither would they.”
“Well enough,” Orsin said, accepting that. “But why take the risk? Did his vision fail him or. . . ”
Vasen stopped and turned to look into Orsin’s face. “Or what? Do you think he would risk the pilgrims’ lives for nothing? Ours?”
“Not for nothing, no,” Orsin said. “But I think something is happening. I think he sees it coming.”
Vasen recalled the conversation he’d had with the Oracle outside his quarters. It must have shown on his face.
“You think it, too?” Orsin asked. “Don’t you?”
They started walking again before the column caught up.
“I don’t know,” Vasen said, looking up at the sky. “Things have been strange of late.”
“Yes,” Orsin said, nodding. “My journey to the abbey. Our meeting.” “You think the Oracle arranged it?”
“Now you use words that mean too much. ‘Arrange,’ no. ‘Foresee,’ yes. But what does it mean? What did he intend?”
Vasen shrugged. “The spirits in the pass, too. That was odd.”
“Yes,” Orsin said. “They spoke to you of your father.”
Vasen nodded. “And you know of my father. You follow the same god he did.”
“And you and I met and here we are. There’s more afoot here than we can see, Vasen. Maybe more than the Oracle could see.”
“Possibly,” Vasen said. “I’ll ask him when I see him again. For now, the pilgrims are my concern.”
>
Orsin seemed about to say something more, then said only, “Agreed.”
Each walked alone with his thoughts for hours, pushing the pilgrims, monitoring the sky, the plains around them. Most of the day passed with nothing more eventful happening than Noll trying to walk on his own. Although weak, he managed, and his recovery brought smiles and brightened spirits. Elora rushed to Vasen and hugged him so tightly she momentarily took his breath.
“Thank you, goodsir,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving my son.”
Vasen felt his cheeks warm. The shadows around him swirled, caught up Elora, although she seemed not to care. Byrne and Nald grinned at his discomfiture, and discomfited he felt.
“You’re welcome, milady.”
“Thank you for your prayers, goodsir,” Noll said to Vasen, all seriousness.
Vasen smiled, disentangled himself from Elora, and mussed the boy’s hair. “I’m not sure it was the prayers. You’re a tough one, Noll.”
The boy smiled, his face still pale, and went to his mother’s side.
The Dawnswords pushed the pilgrims as far and hard as they dared, then camped in a pine-shrouded declivity.
“No fire,” Vasen ordered, and received groans in response. “Crowd together for warmth. I’ll take first watch.”
“And I’ll take second,” Orsin offered.
Byrne looked skeptical at that. “First Blade, I should take second watch. And Nald or Eldris third. Orsin is not one of us.” He nodded sheepishly at the deva. “And I mean no disrespect.”
“I take none,” said Orsin, as implacable as a statue.
“He’s one of us in the ways that matter,” Vasen said. “And he can see in the dark as well as me.”
“As you say, First Blade,” Byrne acknowledged with a nod, and walked back to the pilgrims.
“Go eat, Orsin,” said Vasen. “Then sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
“As you say, First Blade,” Orsin said with a nod and a mischievous wink, then walked off to join Byrne with the pilgrims.
That night, while the pilgrims lay on the wet ground and shivered in the wind, Vasen sat alone at the edge of the camp. He stared out at the inky plains. His father had known Sembia before the Shadovar had shrouded it in perpetual night. His father had fought to keep Sembia in light.
And, in the end, his father had failed.
You must not fail, Vasen.
The words that plagued his dreams.
Vasen pondered events until the end of his watch, then woke Orsin and fell asleep.
The next day they plodded on. A light rain fell, summoning exasperated sighs from the pilgrims. Notably, Noll kept his mouth clamped shut.
Three hours into the trek, Orsin put his arm before Vasen. “Stop.”
Vasen’s hand went to the hilt of his blade. He saw nothing, but held up his hand to stop the column. “What is it?”
Orsin cocked his head, as if listening. Vasen heard nothing but the soft patter of the rain.
“Why are we stopping?” Byrne called from behind, his tone overloud in the quiet.
Orsin stared into the distance. Vasen followed his gaze and saw it at last.
Black dots wheeled through the sky ahead, visible against the dark sky only because of their motion.
“It’s the Shadovar again,” one of the pilgrims, an elderly woman, said.
“No,” Vasen called back. “Not the Shadovar.”
“Crows,” Orsin said.
“Yes,” Vasen said. “Crows.”
The wind picked up, carrying the caws of the birds, the distant sound as faint as a whisper. He and Orsin moved back to the column.
“What is it?” Byrne asked.
“Carrion birds,” Orsin said.
“Something has died,” Elora said, and put her hand to her mouth.
Vasen resurrected a smile and put a hand on Elora’s shoulder, pleased to see no shadows dancing from his skin. “Take heart. It could be the carcass of a beast. Crows out here will swarm a dead deer.”
Elora looked doubtful, her eyes worried in their nest of wrinkles. She put her hands protectively on Noll’s shoulders. The other pilgrims, too, seemed uneasy, sharing concerned glances, whispering among themselves. A few looked up into the dark sky, perhaps fearing Sakkors itself would materialize out of the darkness, perhaps fearing another Shadovar patrol would happen upon them.
“Be at ease,” Vasen said to them all. “There’s nothing to fear.”
He pulled Byrne aside. He felt Orsin’s eyes on him all the while.
“There’s a village on the other side of that rise.”
Byrne chewed the corner of his moustache and nodded. “I know. Fairelm, it was called.”
“It is called Fairelm. I’ll go ahead and have a look. Keep the pilgrims here for now.”
Byrne took Vasen by the arm and pulled him around. “Perhaps we should just avoid it. I don’t want to compromise the safety of the pilgrims, and the doings of Sembia are not our concern.”
“True,” Vasen acknowledged with a tilt of his head. “But if something has happened to the village, someone there could need help. Our calling is more than just escorting pilgrims, Byrne.”
“A light to chase darkness,” Byrne said softly. His hand fell from Vasen’s arm. Distant thunder rumbled, as if the sky disputed Byrne’s sentiment.
“A light, indeed,” Vasen said. He thumped Byrne on the shoulder.
“I still dislike putting the pilgrims at risk.”
“As do I,” Vasen said. “Take them over to that wood.” He pointed at a nearby stand of broadleaf trees that swayed in the wind, leaves hissing. “Do what you can to put their minds at ease. I’ll return quickly. The light keep you.”
“And you, First Blade.” Byrne turned and started gathering the pilgrims.
“Come, folks,” he said, filling his voice with false cheer. “Rain is coming. Let’s get under those trees and take a meal . . . ”
As Byrne shepherded the pilgrims toward the wood, Vasen hefted his shield, turned, and found himself face to face with Orsin.
“Gods, man. You move like a ghost,” Vasen said.
“I’ll accompany you,” Orsin replied. “Not hungry, I suppose?” Vasen asked with a smile.
“No,” Orsin answered with a grin. “Not hungry.”
“I’ll be grateful to have you.” Vasen signaled to Byrne that Orsin would accompany him. Together, the two of them hurried toward Fairelm. Orsin dragged his staff behind them, carving a temporary groove into the whipgrass and mud. The caw of crows pulled them onward.
Vasen smelled the faint, sickly odor of death before he and Orsin reached the edge of the rise.
They crouched low, and looked down at the village, maybe a long bowshot away. Small plots of farmland surrounded a core of single-story, sturdy wooden buildings, themselves built around a central commons and a large pond fed by a small stream. Several ancient elms stood here and there throughout the village, a dozen maybe. Vasen imagined the trees predated the Spellplague; they appeared to have come through unchanged. Two small rowboats bobbed on the wind-whipped water of the pond.
“There are many dead here,” Orsin said, his voice a somber whisper.
A child’s swing hung from one of the nearest elms, swaying eerily in the breeze, as if ridden by a ghost. The elms’ canopies whispered in the wind.
“I see them.”
Pieces of bodies lay scattered among the buildings. Vasen could make out heads, arms, torsos, the bloody flotsam of a slaughter. He noted the twisted forms of women and children, even livestock had been torn apart. Blood pooled in dark puddles on the road, stained the grass, spattered doors and the sides of buildings.
“What happened here?” Vasen whispered.
Orsin said nothing. He simply stared, as still as a statue, as still as a corpse.
Crows gorged on the feast, their cries a grotesque accompaniment to the quiet of the dead. Now and again a few would take to the air, cawing at one another, before they again alit and feasted.
“This isn’t the work of an animal,” Orsin said.
“No,” Vasen said.
“The Shadovar, then?”
Vasen shook his head, shadows curling around him. “When the Shadovar wish to teach a lesson, they do so with magic and leave no doubt of their involvement.”
“What, then?”
Vasen didn’t know. There were many predators that prowled Sembia’s dark plains, but this, this was something else . . .
Whatever had attacked the village had reveled in blood, in murder. He looked back to Byrne and the pilgrims. He could barely see them, huddled as they were under the broadleaf trees. A soft light flared—Byrne’s holy symbol, light in the darkness. Perhaps he was leading them in prayer.
Vasen stood and drew his blade. Anything to be done in the village would require hard steel, not soft prayer. The weapon’s edge glowed faintly in the shroud of Sembia’s shadowed air.
“Come on,” he said, and started down. Shadows gathered around him, a reflection of his anger. To keep himself centered, he concentrated for a moment and put his faith in his shield until it began to glow. The soft, rosy light warmed him but did nothing to dull his anger.
“If the attackers remain, they’ll see your light,” Orsin observed.
“Let them see,” Vasen answered.
They walked through fallow barley fields, under several of the towering elms, and into the bloody streets. Somewhere a loose shutter or door slammed repeatedly against a window sash, like a pulse, like the dying heartbeat of a dead village.
The crows took wing, cawing in anger, as Vasen and Orsin neared the first of the bodies—an elderly man pressed face down in the mud. They kneeled beside him and flipped him over. His abdomen had been ripped open, his throat shredded. His wide, terrified eyes stared up at the dark sky.
“The claws and teeth of something large,” Orsin said. “But he is not fed upon except by the crows.”
“Just murder, then,” Vasen said. He removed his gauntlet, placed a hand on the elderly man’s brow, and with his other hand held his glowing shield over the man’s face so that its light reflected in his eyes.
