by Den Patrick
Marozvolk’s initial luck had abandoned her. Three gholes crowded in, one grasping her left arm so she could no longer parry the raking claws. Two more harried her with savage attacks, cutting her clothes to jagged ribbons, but when the blacked talons reached her skin they found nothing but stone. The gholes hissed with frustration and piled onto Marozvolk, forcing her to her knees, then pushing her over, onto her back. Her sword fell from her hand as she struggled to stay upright.
‘Kimi!’ Marozvolk shouted from lips of stone as the gholes grabbed her around the throat. Marozvolk thrashed, kicking one of her attackers so hard it fell sideways into a bed of reeds. The remaining two gholes forced her head under the turbid waters, hissing and whispering in frenzied excitement. Kimi lunged towards Marozvolk’s attackers as another ghole swiped at her; the claws snagged in her cloak but failed to draw blood. Kimi thrust the flaming torch into the cowl of the first ghole, shouting wordlessly. The creature jerked backwards and Kimi used the reprieve to kick Marozvolk’s other attacker in the head, sending it sprawling. Marozvolk needed no invitation to rejoin the fight. She stumbled to her feet with a look of rage on features carved in stone. The former Vigilant grasped the ghole that had fallen next to her and bludgeoned it with her fist, punching with such force, over and over, that the creature’s head was reduced to a stinking pulp.
‘You’ve got to remove the head,’ shouted Tief through the chaos.
‘Thanks,’ shouted Marozvolk, holding a headless ghole by the scruff of the neck. She swung the corpse in front of her, using it as a shield to fend off yet another attacker. ‘How I love it when men tell me how to fight.’
Kimi had turned her back on her own attacker to rescue Marozvolk from drowning, and the ghole seized the moment in a heartbeat. The creature took handfuls of the cloak and pulled the cord tight against her throat. Kimi coughed, struggling to make words as the ghole strangled her. She flailed blindly with her sword but failed to strike her attacker. The creature crowded in close behind her, forcing her down. It took a breathless moment to reverse her grip on the blade and the edges of her vision grew dark.
‘Frøya save me,’ she whispered, then thrust the sword under her arm, feeling the tip of the sword meet the ghole behind her. Dead flesh gave way as she thrust again and something splashed out of the wound, foul and stinking. The pressure at her throat slackened and she gasped, tasting the charnel stench of the gholes as she did so. Tief appeared with one hand extended, hauling her to her feet as he parried the slashing claws of Kimi’s attacker. The ghole’s arm came down with startling speed and Tief lashed out on instinct alone. There was a moment when the force of the blow jarred all three of them and the ghole’s arm sailed off to splash down in the swamp a dozen feet away. The ghole held up the severed limb, staring at it with mute fascination. Kimi couldn’t move, too shocked at the speed and ferocity of the combat. The wounded ghole hissed at Kimi and Tief, then sprinted away. The remaining creatures began to rout, following with alarming speed. Five of their unholy kin lay unmoving in the waters. Tief, Marozvolk and Kimi watched the retreat, breathing deeply, almost too weak to stand.
‘I thought we were dead,’ said Tief. ‘When I saw how many they were …’ He shook his head in disbelief and wiped his blade clean.
‘Thank you for saving me,’ said Marozvolk quietly to Kimi. ‘Stone skin will protect you from most things, but being drowned isn’t one of them.’ She shook her head. ‘And here I was thinking I was your bodyguard.’
Kimi smiled. ‘I’m just glad we’re all in one piece.’
‘Not quite all of us,’ said Taiga from behind them. As one they turned and Kimi’s heart stuttered in her chest. Taiga held one hand to her side where a ghole’s claws had ripped through her clothes. Her fingers were dark with blood. ‘It was going so well. The goddess was with me and then one of them charged me from the side …’ Taiga gave them an apologetic smile. ‘I didn’t notice at first and then …’ Her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped forward. Tief caught her as she fell to her knees.
‘This won’t end well,’ said Marozvolk quietly as Tief called his sister’s name over and over.
‘Don’t speak that way,’ said Kimi. ‘Find us somewhere close to camp, and find it quickly.’
Within an hour they had found a huddle of rocks and headed towards them in the hopes of shelter. Kimi realised they were not boulders but a collection of long flat stones. Each stood on its end, side by side with its kin, forming a wall of sorts, arranged in a circle just ten feet wide. There was a gap wide enough for a person to slip into the centre.
‘What is this place?’ said Kimi as she dragged her fingers across the stone. Moss fell away revealing old runes made indistinct by the passage of rain and time.
‘The folk who used to live in Izhoria made their homes of wood,’ said Tief as he sat beside Taiga. ‘They all rotted away decades ago, but their shrines remain.’ He pointed to the base of one of the stones, where moss had grown in the groove of an engraved symbol, forming a green spiral. Kimi began to make up a fire and fetched bandages from one of the packs.
‘I’m going to need boiling water,’ Kimi said, eyeing the paltry collection of sticks that they had for firewood. ‘Or as hot as I can get it.’
‘The Ashen Torment,’ said Marozvolk, ‘it’s still glowing.’ Kimi took the shattered artefact from around her neck, holding it by the chain. The fragment of stone that remained gave off a faint ghostly light.
‘They’re still close by,’ said Kimi. ‘Perhaps they’ll come for us at night.’
‘Perhaps it’s that artefact that’s luring the gholes to us?’ said Tief. ‘Maybe they can sense it.’
‘You don’t know that,’ snapped Marozvolk.
‘You should get rid of it, Kimi.’ Tief eyed the broken artefact. ‘The power is gone, Steiner saw to that.’
‘I wore this stone for five years,’ said Kimi, ‘and I commanded all the souls of Vladibogdan to do the Empire’s bidding. I’ll not throw it in some swamp to be forgotten so easily.’
‘It’s a cursed thing,’ muttered Tief. ‘You can bet your boots on it.’
‘That’s not what you said to Steiner,’ replied Kimi. ‘You wanted to lead an army of cinderwraiths across Vinterkveld.’
‘When it had power!’ said Tief. ‘When we had a chance to use it against the Empire. Now it’s just a reminder of what could have been.’
‘Stop!’ shouted Marozvolk. She glared at both of them. ‘We’ve all just come through the fight of our lives. Can we set aside the bullshit until Taiga recovers?’ Tief nodded but didn’t make eye contact with either woman, tending to his sister’s wounds. Kimi stalked away from the stone circle, glancing at the Ashen Torment in the palm of her trembling hand.
‘He’s just scared is all,’ said Marozvolk. She stood a way off behind Kimi and they watched the mist swirl about the gloomy swamp. It was hard to tell if the gholes were still prowling, but the Ashen Torment pulsed with pale blue light every so often.
‘I didn’t expect them to flee like that,’ said Kimi.
‘It seems even the dead dislike taking casualties.’
‘What if they come back in greater numbers?’ said Kimi, searching the mist for some clue.
‘Then we use more torches. Your idea to use fire as a weapon was a good one.’ Marozvolk searched the horizon for the next sign of trouble.
‘I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this,’ said Kimi after a moment. ‘You would have been better off leaving the ship with Sundra at Shanisrond.’
‘That may be true,’ said Marozvolk, ‘but Mistress Kamalov is a pain in the arse and a reminder of my past I could do without. Dying at the hands of marauding gangs of gholes is almost preferable.’
Kimi smiled. ‘I didn’t think she was that bad.’
‘Renegade Vigilants,’ replied Marozvolk. ‘You can’t trust them.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Kimi wiped off her sword now that she felt calm enough to sheathe it. ‘Answer me seriously. Why
did you come to Yamal?’
Marozvolk shrugged and her face contorted in grief before she shook her head, getting a tight grip on her emotions once more.
‘You were right, about Vladibogdan. All that time you were on the island and I never once revealed myself to you, or made sure you were looked after or protected.’
‘You were on a different side back then,’ said Kimi. ‘Things change, you’ve changed.’
‘I shunned you the same way my family shunned me when I failed the Invigilation. I want you to know I regret it, though I didn’t feel there was a choice at the time.’ Marozvolk bowed her head and closed her eyes.
‘That’s what the Empire does best,’ said Kimi. ‘It takes even the hope of choice away from us. Get some sleep.’ She nodded towards the standing stones. ‘I think we’re in for a long night.’
Marozvolk glanced at the Ashen Torment with a sickened expression. The pale blue light had grown stronger. The gholes remained hidden by the mist but Kimi suspected they were close, waiting to avenge their fallen kin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kjellrunn
‘This is disgusting,’ said Maxim as they pulled yet another threadbare and tatty cloak from the pile. ‘The smell …’ He held up a wrist to his mouth and Kjellrunn wondered if he might gag. The mess of blankets and rags the blind beggar had assembled did not resemble a bed so much as a bird’s nest. Mistress Kamalov had requested the beggar’s things be moved from the alcove in which he slept ahead of the forthcoming funeral. ‘Is he really called Kolas?’ asked Maxim when he had recovered.
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Kjellrunn. ‘That’s what he told me on the beach that night. I’m not sure he’s always lucid. Surely you understand him better than the rest of us.’
‘Sometimes he’ll tell me little snippets about the town’s history,’ said Maxim. ‘Then he’ll fall silent as if he’d never spoken.’ The boy held up a half-burned candle and a conch shell, then shook his head with a puzzled smile. ‘The stuff that he has in here.’
Kjellrunn glanced over her shoulder. The novices were watching from across the temple; they had clustered around Trine, who sneered at Kjellrunn. ‘This stinks,’ complained Maxim as he tugged on another mangy blanket and began folding it. They spent a while gathering up the bedding and taking it to the kitchens, before boiling up some water and doing their best to clean the various blankets and rags that formed Kolas’s bed.
‘What did you find?’ asked Maxim.
‘A crow’s feather and some driftwood.’ Kjellrunn remembered with a heavy heart all the times she had retrieved the very same flotsam treasures from the shores of Cinderfell. Steiner would chide her for hoarding glass fragments made smooth by the sea and pale pebbles.
Don’t collect such things, he’d say. People will think them charms and fetishes and call you a witch. How she’d give anything to be chided by Steiner right now. Even a chiding would be better than the emptiness of missing her family.
‘Kjellrunn?’ Maxim’s voice was soft with a note of concern.
‘Sorry. Just thinking on my family is all. I used to dig up things like these all the time in Nordvlast when I was a child.’ She forced a smile.
‘I’m pretty sure you’re still a child.’
‘I don’t feel like one. I haven’t felt like a child since they took Steiner.’
‘I still can’t believe Romola left them in Virag,’ said Maxim, and Kjellrunn wondered if he had read her mind without meaning to.
‘I hope they’re still alive,’ said Kjellrunn, tracing the outline of the hammer brooch and thinking of her father.
‘I’m sure we’ll hear from them soon enough.’ Maxim pushed the last of the blankets into the cauldron over the fire. The fire crackled and the water bubbled as they boiled up the filthy rags.
‘You said you saw something,’ said Kjellrunn, eager to change the subject. She closed the door to the kitchen, keen to be done with the eavesdroppers and prying eyes.
‘It sounds strange, but I dreamed it first.’
‘You had another vision?’ asked Kjellrunn in a reverent whisper.
‘Yes, it was like the time I foresaw the dragons, but I was asleep.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw the blind man holding this. Crooning to it.’ Maxim fished a small book out of the waistband of his trousers and offered it to her. It was a slender white tome with two stylised crows on the front. ‘I went to him and asked if he owned a book and sure enough he did. He gave it to me. Obviously he can’t read it on account of his eyes, so why hold on to it?’
Kjellrunn opened the book and gave a dispirited sigh. ‘I can’t read any of this. It’s all in …’ She waved her hand, searching for the word. ‘What’s the language called?’
‘Shanish, I think.’ Maxim took the book from her and pointed to each word as he read it aloud. ‘“This book is chief, ah, chiefly concerned with the lesser-known aspect of Frejna. She is well established as the goddess of wisdom and death in these parts. In other countries she is also credited with having dominion over winter and sincerity, though this volume will cover the more wrathful aspect of Frejna.”’
Kjellrunn’s heart raced with excitement. She had lived off half-remembered tales in Cinderfell, frustrated that the townsfolk were so reluctant to speak of the goddesses. And here was a book full of information, most likely set down by an old priestess of Frejna.
Maxim looked up from the book. ‘Should we take this to Sundra? It seems important.’
‘No.’ Kjellrunn couldn’t say why she answered him so, only that she wanted something for herself. ‘It’ll be our secret.’
‘But Sundra only has that book of dreary reflections, and they’re all about death. That’s the only book she had left after her imprisonment.’
‘We’ll just keep it for a day or two longer. You can teach me Shanish and we can both learn something about Frejna at the same time.’
‘You want to learn Shanish from this book?’ Maxim hesitated, a troubled expression on his boyish face. Kjellrunn took the book from him and looked at the elegant lines and clusters of dots.
‘I know it’s probably not a book best suited to learning but—’ The kitchen door opened and Kjellrunn hid the slender volume behind her back as Sundra entered.
‘Come,’ said the high priestess, gesturing that they follow. ‘We have a funeral to organise. We can’t spend all day running a laundry.’
Maxim eyed Kjellrunn, sullen at the prospect of keeping her secret.
‘We’ll tell her tomorrow,’ said Kjellrunn quietly. ‘I just want to have a look first.’
The funeral was long and Kjellrunn spent the service standing beside the wide altar, holding up a parchment of script that Sundra read from in a sombre voice. The black-clad high priestess would pause every so often and Maxim would translate for the benefit of the fifty or so mourners. At some point in the day Trine had been outfitted with black robes of her own, marking her as one of Frejna’s servants. Kjellrunn found her eye straying to the other girl often during the service, as her irritation grew. Trine ignored Kjellrunn completely, a small smile on her face, her long black hair tied back neatly for once.
‘I don’t understand why she gets her own vestments,’ said Kjellrunn after the service when the mourners had departed. ‘All she does is burn corpses. I’m the initiate.’
‘I don’t know either.’ Maxim shrugged. ‘I’m just glad I don’t have to wear them.’ They stood on the temple steps as the sun dipped towards the horizon and the heat began to fade from Dos Khor. ‘You’re not going to give that book to Sundra, are you?’
‘Why don’t we go down to the beach before the sun sets? You can try and teach me a few more words. Then we’ll give it to her later.’ Kjellrunn felt a pang of guilt as the boy smiled. They walked through the town and a trio of men watched them pass from the doorway of a tumbledown house. The men called out to them and followed their footsteps with unfriendly stares.
‘What are they saying?�
� asked Kjellrunn.
Maxim bowed his head. ‘That we don’t belong here and the temple doesn’t belong to us.’ He paused a moment. ‘And some other stuff.’
Kjellrunn frowned. ‘Go on.’
Maxim shook his head. ‘The usual sort of thing. Witches aren’t illegal here, but that doesn’t mean everyone likes them.’ Kjellrunn took the boy’s hand in her own and they kept walking. Kolas was sitting by the shore when they reached the pale sculpture of the flat hand.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Maxim.
‘Listening to the sea just like he always does. Come, sit down and close your eyes.’
‘I thought you wanted me to teach you Shanish from the book?’
‘I was hoping we could see if you get a sense of what I can feel’ – she gestured to the sea – ‘out there.’
‘My visions don’t come that often,’ said Maxim with a frown. ‘They hardly come at all.’
‘It’ll just take a moment.’
‘And then we give the book to Sundra. Agreed?’
‘Of course,’ said Kjellrunn, annoyed he was being so stubborn about it. ‘Now come and listen to the ocean.’
Maxim did as he was told and Kjellrunn listened to the waves as they met the sand and pebbles with a thousand hushed whispers.
‘Maybe Dos Khor isn’t so bad,’ said Maxim quietly into the fresh evening air. ‘I could grow to like this.’ But no sooner had he said the words than a feeling of powerful dread seeped up from the pit of Kjellrunn’s stomach. Her eyes snapped open and she hurried to her feet.
‘It’s happening again.’
‘What is that?’ said Maxim, frowning in confusion. He rose to his feet slowly, as if waking from a dream, then stared out to sea.
