Besides, there was the state of my hand to consider. I peeled my right glove off and stared at the hard black plates that had recently started spreading across my skin. When my spirit-bound knife Dissever was shattered by the god Nathair during the Black Autumn – may all gods burn! – needles of enchanted black iron had pierced my skin. In the weeks of chaos following I never did find the time to get a healer to look at it, and now it was too late. Not that my pact with that daemon, or spirit or whatever it really was, had ended. In the back of my skull I could still feel a dark and hungry presence biding its time, patiently waiting for something to come to pass. It was silent now, revealing only fragments of its bloodthirsty old self.
I flexed my hand, testing the increasing stiffness. Everybody was on a knife-edge and if their gods-damned tyrant wandered up with a magically tainted hand? In their paranoia they would see it as a sign of magical corruption and put me down without a second thought. I would if I were them.
Perhaps this suicidal mission to the Clanholds should be looked on as an opportunity. The Clansfolk boasted some of the most impressive healers I’d ever known. Their methods were crude by
Arcanum standards, but undeniably effective. It was either that or hack my right hand off here and now before the black iron spread further up my arm. And with a palsied lump of flesh attached to my left wrist that would leave me out to sea without a sail, crippled and useless.
“Worth a try, eh, Charra. Never give up, never give in. You never did.” I sighed deeply, pulled on my glove and began the trek uphill. Sod it, I was going to war.
I paused. Oh shite, was I now in charge of an army? Those poor bastards had no idea what they were in for. I certainly didn’t.
Cillian was sat alone and waiting for me when I returned to the auditorium. “I suspected you would not be gone for long.”
I thumped down next to her. “You’ve more faith in me than I do.” Her mouth quirked into a tired smile. “My faith in you was never what was lacking, Edrin. Besides, after recent events I know you are in need of something worthy to vent your anger.” Both comments were true.
I groaned and rubbed tired eyes. “I’ll do it, but I get to choose my own damn coterie to guard my back. I’ll not suffer your stuck-up wardens who’d be happy to stick a spear in me at the first opportunity. And would probably be well-paid to do so.”
“That sounds eminently sensible,” she replied. “Something that I do not often say where you are concerned.”
I eyed her. “Was that a joke, Cillian Hastorum?” “Just because I must be serious to deal with matters of life and death does not mean that is all that I am. Besides, you are not blameless when it comes to how you have lived your life. Your status as a tyrant aside, is it any wonder that many would want to stab you in the back?”
I opened my mouth to object but she talked over me. “Yes, yes, you have told me all about how Archmagus Byzant influenced your mind to twist you into this rogue of a man. It’s all ratshit, Edrin. He may have twisted your inclinations that way but you took to it like a fish to water. Blame him all you want for that, but blame yourself for staying that way. You could have changed if you so desired.”
I clamped my jaw shut before I said something we would both regret. Fuck you, I thought. How dare she sit there and be… and be right!
“Change if you want. Or don’t if you prefer. But decide now rather than later, for you can never know how long each of us have left.” She regarded a puddle of water on the floor, slush trodden in by the gathered magi. It swirled and coalesced into a hooded water snake that slithered across the floor and climbed up the bench to rear on her palm, menacing us with liquid fangs and hissing tongue. She stared at it and then clenched her hand into a fist. The water exploded, splattering everything but ourselves.
“My father died doing battle with the Skallgrim and their vile daemons. A halrúna shaman blinded him with vile blood sorcery and he suffered a spear through the skull before he could recover.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my ire forgotten. The man had been a pompous prick, but he had loved all his daughters fiercely. This was not the politician of the Inner Circle speaking to me, this was my old Cillian, grievously wounded beyond belief. Her mask of control had shattered.
She locked eyes with me. “I want all the Skallgrim dead,” she said through gritted teeth. “I want to slaughter these Skallgrim tribes and salt the earth where their villages once stood. I want to burn every single one of these Scarrabus creatures and I want to watch all of it done as excruciatingly as possible.” She shuddered and looked away. “We have been through much together, some of which I have never mentioned to the others. I know that your Gift is far stronger than any of them know. Or I, come to that. It would be a fearsome thing if you unleashed it.”
“What can I do for you?” I asked. “Survive,” she said. “I need you to keep their army bottled up in the mountains for as long as possible. Will you go to war, Magus Edrin Walker, for the Arcanum, for Setharis, and for yourself?” In a quieter voice she added, “And for me?”
Gods help me, I said yes.
She smiled and proceeded to inform me of all the arrangements: the ship we were taking, that our forces would gather at Barrow Hill in the North, and just how many Arcanum rules she was allowing me to break. This was war, and my muzzle was off. The Inner Circle needed their dreaded tyrant to wreak havoc. No questions would ever be asked as long as we were successful. It was almost like they trusted me.
It was a shame that trust wouldn’t last past tomorrow.
CHAPTER 7
I took a whole day to rest and recover and get absolutely stinking drunk, then I was up at the crack of dawn – not a natural time of day for me. Being Gifted had many health benefits when compared to a mundane human, but my physical resilience was making it harder and more expensive to get drunk, and did little to help with hangovers. A quick scouring of blades formed from compressed air across my skin and hair left me fresh and clean for the day ahead. This simple aeromancy form had been beaten into me long ago. With my meagre talent for such magics I would never be truly proficient, but recently I had begun to train hard – again, not something I was used to. Recent events proved I couldn’t always rely on my magical mind-fuckery. Black Autumn had exposed my magical weaknesses as glaring flaws that demanded correction, and the twin causes of survival and revenge proved a remorseless incentive.
I sat cross-legged on my bed and worked on the magic, twisting air into weapons that would rip enemies from their feet or blast them away – or at least that was my goal. If I was going to war I would need every trick at my disposal. I’d learnt a defensive windwall to divert arrows and a handful of weak offensive techniques, but with little time available I figured concentrating on mastering a handful of simple forms would prove more worthwhile than struggling with something complex. I kept up the practice until sweat beaded my brow and my Gift began to tremble from strain. I sighed and let the foreign forms of magic lapse into swirling motes of settling dust. I could hold them for longer now, but it still required gruelling effort to twist my own mental magic into such unnatural physical shapes.
I found body magics far more intuitive, the techniques of flushing away weariness, strengthening muscles and heightening senses came almost naturally. I could hold the basic forms for a goodly length of time, though I could never seem to harden my flesh enough to turn blades or toss boulders about like they were pebbles as a knight like Eva could.
Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to Black Autumn, to Eva raging amidst crystalline shard beasts, tearing razor-limbs apart with her bare hands. Then Heinreich’s flames engulfed her and I was forced to abandon her charred body and run for my life. I swallowed my guilt and shame. I had done what I had to, but I would have died without her help. We all would.
Banishing all that pointless brooding, I quickly threw on clothes and raked my hair back into some semblance of order. I pulled on my coat and gloves, shoved my meagre belongings into a single backpack and stepp
ed out into the chill morning air of the Crescent. The once-portly landlady was already out and brushing the front step free of slush and mud. Over the last two months I had watched her slowly slump in on herself, drained of life until she was not dissimilar to an artificer’s automaton made of wax and wire. She had lost her husband and two sons and they were everything that had mattered to her.
“Good day to you, magus,” she said by rote, not even looking up. “Good day,” I replied. “I have some news for you. I won’t need my room anymore.”
“I see.” “I’m off to war.”
That got her attention. She looked up from the step and her eyes were red from crying again. “Where are they sending you?”
“North, to fight the Skallgrim.”
Her eye ticced. She spat on her clean step and dropped her brush to grab the front of my coat. “You kill those vermin,” she snarled. “No prisoners, you hear me! I’d pick up a knife and march with you if I could, but the likes of me can’t do anything so you need to carry our vengeance with you. Never forget the fallen.” She hastily let go of my coat and smoothed out the cloth. “I… I apologise, my lord magus. I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Never apologise for that,” I said. “Do you know what I am?” Many people did these days.
She nodded, but was fearful of saying it out loud.
I grinned evilly. “That’s right. I’m a vicious tyrant, but I swear that you and yours will have your vengeance. They killed my friends too.”
The fear drained from her, replaced by cold anger. “The slicks up in the Old Town might be calling you a nightmare given flesh, but–” a ghost of a smile appeared, the first sign of pleasure I’d ever seen from her, “–you’re our nightmare I guess.”
It was oddly touching to be claimed as one of their own rather than the shunning I was used to, even if it was as their monster. I nodded and turned to go.
“Gods bless you, Magus Walker. May they keep you safe. I’ll keep the room made up for your return.”
Neither of us expected me to live for long, but it was nice for the both of us to keep up some sort of pretence.
Right in the centre of the very poorest area of East Docklands, down by the city walls and open sewers, squatted the grim stone cube known as the Black Garden, which most Setharii were proud to declare the harshest prison in the world. I’d visited a few in my years of exile, briefly, and it was certainly up there with the worst.
A moat of half-frozen sewage surrounded it, oozing downhill with the meltwaters before eventually flowing out into the bay beyond the city wall. I carefully wound my way across a charred wooden bridge that served as sole access and then pounded on the single small iron door. The thick walls bore the scars of battle: chipped stone and sooty smears, but that heavy door etched with potent wardings bore not a single mark.
Eventually a slot opened and a set of bushy grey eyebrows appeared. “What you wantin’?”
I held up Cillian’s writ and smiled. “I’m here to recruit for the army.”
He let me in, and I entered a gloomy building heaving with a rancid mass of pain, anger and despair. After a bit of wrangling the guards agreed to take me down to the deepest cells where they kept the worst of the worst: the mad and the bad and exceedingly dangerous mixed in with the folk whose only crime had been pissing off the wrong people. It was joining my coterie or this. A magus’ coterie stood between us and danger, keeping us alive while we worked our magic, and I didn’t trust my life to Arcanum cronies – they would be just as likely to stick a knife in my back as the enemy would in my front. I had my ways to make this lot of scum loyal, and nobody would ever care what I did to the likes of them.
The jailor handed me a list of inmates and I stared at one of the names. Jovian? How could my old drinking companion be here? Still, if it was indeed him and he was still whole then it meant I would be out of this dark pit sooner rather than later. My nerves were stretched thin, this gloomy prison far too similar to being buried underground again. “Him first.”
They opened the door to the depths and moist air rose to envelop me in damp, decay, and cess-pool scent. They led me down into the tunnels, passageways lit only by lantern light. I shivered and held my fears tight as the darkness and stone closed in around me. I wouldn’t be in here for long, and the way back remained open – I wasn’t trapped this time.
The jailer showed me to a hulking oak and iron cell door that looked like it could have withstood a battering ram. He pulled a large brass key from among the two-dozen others hanging on a thong around his neck, and unlocked it with a grinding clunk. The door swung open and a dozen filthy figures squinted against the lamplight, all naked and chained to a massive steel ring embedded in the centre of the floor. Several bore black eyes, bite marks and broken noses. All but one – the smallest – were pressed up against each other, edging as far away as they could get from the feral little bastard at the other side. My eyes watered at the smell.
“You don’t want this foreign scum, my lord magus,” the stony-eyed jailor spat, “this little copper-skinned bastard is a black-hearted killer through and through.” And he would have seen some dark as fuck things in his time. “He ate one of the other prisoners so he did.”
“What now, you merda,” Jovian said. “More secret assassins? Or are you finally here to sentence me and cut the head from my shoulders?” He clicked yellow teeth together and then grinned.
The slender Esbanian was a shadow of his former self: sallow-eyed and hollow-cheeked. His once-luxurious mane of black hair and glorious waxed moustache had both been shorn to stubble.
I laughed at the bold little shite. “Jovian of the Sardantia Esban – never thought I’d see you bald and wallowing in filth like the swine you are.”
He squinted into the light. “Who is that? I shall ram my hand up your bottom, rip out your heart, and you shall watch me eat it.” “That’s no way to greet an old friend,” I said. “I’m looking for hard men and women who want a chance at freedom.” And inside his head I added, Stop being a giant cūlus you pedicator and get to your feet. Do you want out of this pit or not? I have a job and I need a second.
“Walker? You pēdere! You live? Been twelve years, no? I say yes. A most enthusiastic yes and please. Thank you.”
“You are the best sword master I’ve ever seen, so what did you do to end up rotting here instead of swanning about the Old Town draped in silk and gold?”
He shrugged. “I stuck the wrong nobleman with my sword.” “You killed him?” “No, no. My other sword.” He thrust his groin at me. “His father was, hmm, unimpressed at the sight of his heir with his bottom in the air and me with only the hilt showing.”
“He was one of those sort, eh?” “Not at all, I had been sticking him too. A mistake, I admit.”
I groaned and turned to the jailor. “Set him free. And for all our sakes get the man some clothes, and a steel chastity belt if you can find one.”
After a few moments they found him some clothes. As the shackles came off Jovian snapped his teeth at the cringing jailor. He laughed, catching and donning a long shirt taken from the prison stores. He rubbed the sores on his ankles and eyed me thoughtfully. “This will be suicidal, yes?”
“Probably.”
He sighed and shrugged. “My gods-given luck has not changed.” He looked me up and down, noting the vicious scars that now marred my face. “Nor yours.”
I snorted. “Never will. If anything it’s getting worse.” Looking around at the other prisoners, I asked in Esbanian: “This lot any use?”
He spat on the filth-crusted stone and then glanced at one of the more attractive men before replying in his native tongue. “Depends what you mean by use.” He grinned. “But if you want good killers, I have better suggestions.”
We went from cell to cell collecting the names that Jovian reeled off, those that still lived. The guards hauled them all into a single large cell and locked us in there. I examined my haul: Jovian, five murderers – Coira with cheeks showing th
e scar-sign of the Smilers street gang; a big brute named Vaughn; three cold-eyed killers named Adalwolf, Baldo and Andreas who were all missing bits of ears – one hired killer and skilled poisoner named Diodorus who specialised in bow and arrow, and one mad-eyed, flame-haired habitual arsonist called Nareene. They were some of the foulest, most disreputable scum this city had to offer, myself excluded.
I opened my Gift and burrowed into their heads to see what use I could make of such terrible creatures.
Diodorus wasn’t evil or insane to his mind, it was simply that he valued gold over useless human lives. Casual atrocities were nothing to him. The hopes and fears and daily life of others were only an irritating irrelevance. He was perfect for my needs.
Nareene was a simple creature. She just loved to watch things burn, the dancing flames and roaring inferno causing an almost orgasmic euphoria. It was infectious and I’d probably have to resist the urge to torch something for hours afterwards.
The others were a mixed bag of bad and brutal with Coira the best of the bunch having taken the fall for her fellow Smilers after being cornered by wardens. Brutal but loyal.
Adalwolf had been a hunter and tracker in the wilds around Port Hellisen, happily married with two sweet daughters until he succumbed to the lures of drink and alchemic highs and needed increasing amounts of coin to feed his addictions. Barred from his own home, he’d fled to the big city one step ahead of hired thieftakers. Something had caused him to snap, a bad batch of alchemic perhaps, and he’d murdered indiscriminately until the wardens found him unconscious and choking on his own vomit and took him in.
Vaughn, Baldo and Andreas were your everyday hired muscle that communicated their employer’s displeasure with their fists and knives. They were painfully dull. Brave in their own way, but dimwitted. Vaughn was kind to animals, so there was that in his favour I supposed.
Then there was Jovian. The enigma. His mind was still and empty of all conscious thought, just a flow of experience and immediate goals. It was worrying in a way, but I knew from the old days that if you promised him an interesting time he would run into a burning building with you and laugh all the while. He was a simple man, and yet utterly unfathomable. Nothing ever dented his supreme confidence. I’d never been able to figure out how he did it. He had that twisted sense of Esbanian honour and would at least warn me before sticking a knife in my back.
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