The Magelands Origins

by Christopher Mitchell

  She started, and sat up, head fuggy with interrupted sleep.

  Weir stood at her bedside, a lit candle in his hand.

  ‘Time to get up.’

  She looked around. A pack was sitting on the floor near the little table, and a set of clothes, all dark greens and browns, were hanging off the back of a chair.

  ‘I’ve taken the liberty of packing some things for you,’ he said. ‘Hope that wasn’t out of order.’

  He handed her a knife, with a real metal blade.

  ‘For you.’ He looked at the astonishment on her face. ‘I’ve been busy. Get dressed.’

  He took a pace and turned away to give her some privacy.

  ‘Weir,’ she said. ‘I’m not still dreaming, am I?’

  ‘No, Captain, you’re not,’ he chuckled, ‘though you do look pretty sleepy.’

  He drew a smokestick from a pocket, lit it, and passed it back to her over his shoulder.

  ‘Keenweed,’ he said.

  She inhaled, and felt the fog lift from her mind, and her senses sharpen.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How long were you gone?’

  ‘About three hours or so,’ he replied. ‘Had to make sure all the guards in the attic were asleep first.’

  ‘How did you manage that?’ She pulled back her blanket and swung her legs off the bed.

  ‘Wasn’t too difficult,’ he went on, while she dressed. ‘Left some dullweed-infused booze in the common room where they could find it. They’re hardy buggers though, took a while to take effect. Made sure Chane got a drop too. They’ll sleep right through. Mink is waiting by the balcony for us.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

  He turned. Her dark green tunic hung halfway down to her knees, under which she wore thick brown leggings, and her cavalry boots. He was similarly dressed.

  ‘We look like Holdings farm labourers.’

  ‘One last thing.’ He pulled a long black length of cloth from his own tunic. He stepped forward, and carefully wound it around her head, leaving only a slit for her eyes, and some holes for her to breathe through.

  ‘We’re all going to wear them,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen some Sanang bandits with these on out in the forest, we might get mistaken for them at a distance, if we get spotted.’

  He helped her pull the pack on, and blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.

  They waited for their eyes to adjust to the dim glow coming from under the door, then padded out into the corridor. The light was coming from the candles in the common room ahead, and as they passed it, Daphne saw their Sanang guards, sleeping where they sat, around a table where they had been playing dice.

  They slipped back into the shadows on the other side of the common room, and went out onto the balcony. The long table and benches were bare and deserted, but they could hear the sounds of drunken laughter from the hall beneath them. The kitchens and storerooms that lay directly under the prisoners’ bedrooms were quiet, but the main hall was echoing with the riotous sounds of a feast, as Agang hosted the chiefs. They found Mink crouching over by the far corner of the balcony. He was wearing the same outfit, and also had a cloth covering his face. He looked up at her as they approached, his eyes expressionless.

  Weir crouched down, handed Mink a similar cloth, and the lieutenant tied it round the sergeant’s head.

  Weir beckoned Daphne over, and she joined them, crouching in the corner. He opened his pack, and took out a set of ropes and blocks.

  ‘I copied this from the trapdoor pulley that goes to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Stole all the bits I needed.’ He handed her a section of rope.

  ‘Stand,’ he said.

  ‘You put your foot in here.’ He guided her right leg to a loop in the rope, then wound a further section around her waist. ‘And you grip with your right hand, here.’

  She grabbed the rope where he pointed.

  ‘I’ll go down first,’ he said. ‘Mink, you know what to do?’

  The lieutenant nodded.

  Weir moved a crate over to the balcony rail.

  ‘When I get to the bottom, I’ll wave,’ he said, pulling on a thick pair of leather gloves. ‘When you see me, hop over the edge. I’ll take the strain, and lower you down. Got it?’

  She nodded.

  He jumped up to the railing, and took a good long look around the rear of the compound. Satisfied that no one was watching, he attached his pulley mechanism to one of the hooked pegs the warriors used to scale the wall. Holding onto another rope, he descended, the rope whistling through his gloves.

  Once on the ground, he took up the other end of the rope attached to Daphne and the pulley, stepped back a few paces, braced himself, and waved.

  ‘See you at the bottom, Mink,’ she said, and climbed up to the railing. She tested her weight on the loop where her foot was lodged, and it was steady. She stepped off, fell three feet, and hung there for a moment, swinging gently, suspended at the top of the wall. Weir started to release the rope in short measured bursts, and she was jerked downwards, a yard at a time.

  She stepped off with a foot to go, and leapt clear. Mink pushed the pulley from its peg, and Weir stepped forwards and caught it. He packed it into his bag as Mink, using the first rope, descended. Once he was at the bottom, Weir took the rope. He rippled it up the wall like a snake, and it slipped off its peg and fell to the ground.

  He picked it up and smiled. ‘That’ll fox ‘em.’

  Mink went to the corner of the hall, and peered round. He turned back, nodding.

  The three of them ran for the side of the workshops, dashing into the shadows under the wide canopy that ran along its length. The compound was lit with torches and storm lanterns, but they were few, and several had gone out. Looking up at the nearest corner tower, Daphne could make out the shape of a solitary sentry, up on the battlements, gazing out over the forest to the west.

  They heard a door opening in the side of the hall, and a warrior staggered out. Weir crouched low into the deep shadow of a workshop entrance, and the others followed, cramming into the booth. The warrior stumbled over in their direction. He stopped a couple of paces to the left of them, leaned against a post, and pulled up his tunic. He unfastened his belt, and unleashed a torrent of piss against the door of the booth next to the one where they were hiding.

  Crowded in next to Mink and Weir, Daphne stifled her urge to vomit and run, and made herself as small as possible, shrinking into the shadows.

  The warrior belched and grunted, gave his privates a shake, and refastened his belt. He turned, and swayed his way back to the hall.

  Weir waited for him to disappear into the building, then gestured, and they sprinted along the side of the workshops to the rear of the fort, away from the direction of the front gates. They reached the corner and halted, staying in the shadow of the low building. Across from them was the palisade wall, rows of boxes and crates stacked up against it.

  Weir stole forward, examining the crates. He paused at one, stared at it, then pulled it down and placed it away from the wall.

  In the gap where the crate had been, Daphne could see part of a doorframe. Weir kept at it, and had soon cleared the space. There was a short door embedded into the palisade wall. It was barred with a thick horizontal beam that fitted into brackets on either side. Weir lifted the bar up and out, and leaned it against a crate. He put a hand on the door, and shoved. It swung out a couple of feet, then got caught in some undergrowth. Weir squeezed through the gap, and Daphne followed. The trees had been cut back from the side of the stockade, creating a cleared area five paces wide, but bushes and thick brambles had been allowed to grow, filling the space up to the walls.

  She pushed herself along the outside of the thick palisade timbers. Mink squeezed out and joined her.

  ‘Wait here,’ Weir said to them, and went back inside.

  They waited a few moments in silence, then Weir rejoined them, a large pack strapped to his back. He stood at the doorway with his back to them, carefully
restacking the crates to block any view of their exit. He squeezed back through the gap, and pushed the door closed. Although there was no bar to lock it in place, it sat flush within its frame.

  He pointed towards the forest ahead. They followed him in the darkness through the undergrowth, thorns catching on their tunics, and scratching their legs. Weir went ahead, and Mink followed to the rear. Once they reached the cover of the trees, the blackness of the night seemed absolute. She heard Weir rummaging about, then saw a tiny spark lit, and for a moment the sergeant’s face was lit up by a red glow as he inhaled.

  ‘Pure keenweed,’ he whispered, passing the stick to them. ‘We’ll have to get as far as we can for the rest of the night, then keep going all day tomorrow.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, inhaling. Her eyesight began to pick out the dark shapes of her comrades, and then the faint outlines of the trees.

  ‘We’re going to swing round the compound, then join the road back to the bridge. We’ll need to be off the road before it gets light, following the line of the river, east.’

  He took the stick back off Mink, puffed, then passed it on to Daphne again.

  ‘We’ve got about four hours until dawn,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Happy Autumn’s Day,’ Daphne whispered, coughing as she sat down and shivered in the cold rain. They were under thick branches, but large drops fell onto them through the leaves. She pulled her blanket close. For ten nights they had been running. Stumbling in the darkness would be a more appropriate term, she thought. Each morning they buried themselves deep into the forest’s thick undergrowth, and tried to sleep, remaining motionless for twelve hours. At dusk they ate their rations, smoked one of Weir’s keenweed sticks, and set off again. She estimated that they were averaging well under twenty miles a night, half that might be a closer guess, but she had no way of telling. So long as they kept the river a few miles to their south, onward they plodded. Keeping track of the river was her job. Each dawn and dusk she would gaze southwards, find the tallest tree, and run a short burst of line-vision. The river was wide, and the gap it created through the forest was easy to find. Each dawn she would discover that they had strayed during the night, either closer to or further from the river, and they would try to correct their way the following night.

  After the sixth night, she had seen their old fort in the distance, at the edge of her vision, the clean, straight line of the undamaged rear palisade wall rising above the tree cover. They had stayed well clear of the place, not knowing if any Sanang lingered there.

  Four dawns later, when she had looked out at the river, she saw that its line was veering to the south east, towards its source high in the towering mountains that separated Sanang from the Plateau. She knew they would have to continue east, which meant giving up the river as their guide, and increasing their chances of getting lost.

  ‘Well?’ Mink asked.

  ‘By tomorrow morning,’ she replied. ‘The river will be out of sight to the south-east. We’re going to have to rely on clear skies, and an occasional glimpse of the seven stars to keep our way.’

  ‘I reckon we need to stay about a hand width to the left of the rising sun,’ Weir said. ‘We just have to find somewhere where we’ll be able to see it.’

  He opened his pack, and shared out a portion of their dwindling supplies. Salted pork, dried and shrivelled to the consistency of leather, a handful of nuts, and some bruised and wrinkled fruit. They had lost weight on the journey, but as they had all been on the heavy side while they were enjoying Agang’s hospitality, they were in pretty good shape, though always hungry. Each of them parted the cloth binding their heads, to allow themselves to eat.

  ‘Mmmmm,’ Mink said.

  ‘You want to supply the food, go right ahead,’ Weir snapped at him. ‘Sarcastic bastard.’

  The lieutenant scowled.

  ‘Wonder what Chane’s doing?’ Daphne said drinking from her cup of gritty rainwater.

  ‘She’s probably commanding an entire company of Agang’s swords by now,’ Mink said.

  ‘I don’t think they’d take orders from a woman,’ Weir said, ‘no matter how good she was.’

  ‘Savages,’ Mink said.

  ‘In a few days,’ Daphne said, ‘she’ll be at the slave market, dressed in a sack, getting to choose who survives.’

  ‘So speaks the woman who was quite happy to stand next to her,’ Mink said. ‘Right up to your sudden and convenient change of heart, you were behaving as badly as she was.’

  ‘I never said a thing that the Sanang could use against us,’ she shot back.

  ‘No?’ he said. ‘I saw they way the two of you flirted with Agang. Demeaning behaviour, ill befitting ladies of the Realm.’

  Weir frowned. ‘You had a funny upbringing, Mink, if you thought the captain’s behaviour was flirting. Chane though? Maybe.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Daphne said. ‘Chane was just being… keen. Anyway, I never once saw the slightest hint of interest coming from Agang, so even if she was, it wasn’t working.’

  ‘Maybe he only likes pale-skinned women,’ Mink said.

  ‘Never saw him with any,’ Weir said, finishing the last of his breakfast. ‘Come on, let’s burrow under the leaves here and get some sleep.’

  She awoke with a hand over her mouth. Weir’s wrapped face loomed through the leaves beside her, and he motioned with his eyes over to her right. He removed his hand, and she turned her head in the direction of his gaze. Though the bushes and undergrowth, she saw a group of six Sanang warriors, sitting around a fire, in the same little dell where they had eaten breakfast that dawn. The sun was shining overhead, high in the sky.

  She lay still, keeping her eyes on the small group. They seemed relaxed, and were talking to each other. She strained to hear what they were saying, and she made out the name Agang Garo, but not much else. They looked thin and underfed, and though they were sharing a drink from a skin, there was no food to be seen.

  As the minutes dragged out, Daphne kept herself still, though now she was badly in need of a pee. To her alarm, she saw a large snake slither through the tangled brambles between her and the dell. She froze. The serpent’s tiny yellow eyes flickered as it passed, its red diamond pattern glaring out a warning. She saw Weir’s narrow eyes follow it, as it glided alongside him toward where Mink lay. It paused at the lieutenant’s leg, which was trembling. Its tongue darted out, as if appraising the man, then it started to slither up Mink’s tunic.

  ‘Fuck,’ Weir whispered, reaching for his knife.

  There was a loud yell, and the leaf pile to Daphne’s right erupted. Mink appeared amid a shower of forest debris, his arms flapping at his tunic.

  She turned back to the Sanang, who were up and reaching for their weapons. One of them shouted in their direction, asking who they were in Sanangka. As she was flexing her right hand, trying to wake it up after hours of inactivity, Weir burst through the undergrowth, jumping over her shoulder towards the fire, roaring like a enraged stallion.

  On instinct, Daphne summoned her battle-vision, and pulled herself to her feet, feeling a powerful rush clearing her head and priming her muscles. She scanned the dell. Weir was piling into the Sanang. One was down, bloody hands grasping at a slash to his neck, but in a few moments Weir would be overwhelmed. Run, or fight?

  Before the question could fully form in her mind, she was already half way to the dell, knife out, her right arm held back. As she leapt towards the fire she hurled the knife at a warrior who was aiming a blow at Weir, taking him in the eye and knocking him backwards. She ducked a swing from a club, picking up the spear that the first warrior had dropped. She braced its butt into the earth and held it at an angle and the oncoming warrior ran himself through. She dived out of the way as the falling Sanang tumbled down next to her, snapping the spear. She yanked the broken end from the back of the dead warrior; it was a foot and a half long, its serrated flint edge dripping red. She jumped to her feet as another pair of Sanang rushed at her.
She slashed at the one on the right, ripping his throat out, while the other aimed a club blow at her head. She twisted and dodged, and the strike glanced down her left arm. She blinked in excruciating pain, as her crippled elbow took the brunt of the blow. With pain overcoming her, she punched out with her good arm, stabbing the warrior up through his left armpit, into his heart. They slumped to their knees in unison, and toppled to the earth.

  When she came to, she was propped up against a tree. She realised that her head covering had been removed, and her face was feeling fresh air against it for the first time in days. She opened her eyes to see Weir kneeling next to her, holding a waterskin, and smoking a stick. He offered her one.

  ‘What is it?’ she croaked.

  ‘Just a cigarette,’ he smiled. She took it, and he lit it for her. ‘That was something back there, Captain. When I ran at them, the only thing going through my mind was that it would be better to die fighting. You moved faster than I could see. And with only one good arm.’ He shook his head.

  She took a long drink. Her arm still throbbed, but the pain was manageable. Her healing and exercise had toughened it up.

  ‘Could you make me a shield, sergeant?’ she asked. ‘Something light, that I could have strapped to my arm?’

  ‘Could do,’ he nodded. ‘I’ll break up one of their shields, take the wood and the straps, see if I can rig something up for you.’

  Mink came over.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘About the snake?’ Daphne said. ‘Not your fault, Lieutenant, I’d have done the same.’

  Weir stared at him. ‘No toilet to hide in this time?’

  Mink looked away.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Daphne said.

  ‘That’s where I found him,’ Weir said. ‘Back at the fort, when Agang attacked, he was skulking in the water closet.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Mink.

  ‘You’re not a bad officer,’ Weir said. ‘You know how to organise, and plan, and give orders and suchlike. It’s just the fighting bit that gives you trouble. I saw you last year, at the battle for the Twinth. You just stood there with a frozen expression on your face, just like you were doing when me and Daphne were taking on those Sanang boys.’