by Anthony Ryan
Nortah… The anger returned, fierce and implacable. How could he do this? HOW COULD HE? It had been building ever since Dentos related the tale, ever since the sickening realisation that he would have to hunt down and kill his brother. He found himself unable to muster much regret over Battle Lord Al Hestian’s severed hand, it was hard to pity a man intent on venting his grief on helpless captives. But Nortah…He’ll fight, he knew with a dread certainty. He’ll fight, and I’ll kill him.
He ate a breakfast of dried beef and set off through a light morning drizzle, leading Spit on foot as the ground was too rocky for riding. He had gone only a few miles when the Lonak attacked.
The boy leapt from the rocks above in an impressive display of acrobatics, turning over in midair and landing nimbly on his feet in front of Vaelin, war club in one hand and a long, curved knife in the other. He was bare-chested and lean as a greyhound, Vaelin guessing his age at somewhere between fourteen and sixteen. His head was shaven, with an ornate tattoo above his left ear. His smooth, angular face tensed in anticipation of combat as he voiced a harsh challenge in a tongue Vaelin had never heard.
“I’m sorry,” Vaelin said. “I don’t know your language.”
The Lonak boy evidently took this as either an insult or an acceptance of his challenge since he attacked without further delay, leaping in the air, war club above his head, his knife hand drawn back for a slash. It was a practised move performed with elegant precision. Vaelin side-stepped the club as it came down, caught the knife hand in midslash and knocked the boy unconscious with an open-handed blow to the temple.
His hand went to his sword as he looked around for further enemies, eyes scanning the rocks above. Where there’s one, there’s more, Brother Artin had warned him. There are always more. There was nothing, no sound or scent on the wind, nothing to disturb the faint patter of rain on rock. Spit clearly sensed nothing either as he began to nibble at the unconscious boy’s leather-clad feet.
Vaelin pulled him away, earning a near-miss kick from a forehoof, and crouched to check on the boy. His breathing was regular and there was no blood coming from his ears or nose. Vaelin positioned him so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue and tugged Spit onwards.
After another hour the gullies gave way to what Brother Artin had called the Anvil of Stone. It was the strangest and most unfamiliar landscape he had seen, a broad expanse of mostly bare rock, pocked by small pools of rainwater and rocky tors rising from the undulating surface like great deformed mushrooms. He could only marvel at whatever design of nature had produced such a scene. The Cumbraelins claimed their god had made the earth and all it held in a blinking of his eye, but seeing the weather-fashioned channels in the tors rising above, he knew this place had taken many centuries to reach such a state of profound strangeness.
He remounted Spit and headed north at a walk, covering another ten miles before nightfall. He camped in the shelter of the largest tor he could find, his cloak once again tight around him as he sought sleep. His eyelids were drooping when the Lonak boy attacked again.
The boy raged in his unfathomable language as Vaelin tied the rope around his chest, his hands already bound behind his back. A livid bruise marred his temple and another was forming beneath his nose, where Vaelin’s fore-knuckles had found the nerve cluster which sent him senseless.
“Nisha ulniss ne Serantim!” the boy screamed at Vaelin, his bruised face rigid with hate. “Herin! Garnin!”
“Oh shut up,” Vaelin said tiredly, pushing a rag into the boy’s mouth.
He left him writhing in his bonds and led Spit onwards, careful of his footing in the dark although the half-moon was bright enough for him to make his way without misstep. He kept going until the boy’s muffled cries were no longer audible and found shelter next to a large boulder, lying down to let sleep claim him.
The next day brought his first glimpse of sunlight, intermittent rays breaking through the clouds to play across the frozen rock of the Anvil, drawing huge shadows from the tors, their weathered surfaces seeming to shimmer. Beautiful, he thought, wishing he had come here on a different mission. His heavy heart seemed to forbid enjoyment of simple things.
The Anvil stretched on for another five miles, eventually giving way to a series of low hills dotted with the stunted pine, which seemed to proliferate in the north. Spit spurred into an unbidden gallop as soon as his hooves touched the grass, snorting his relief at leaving the unyielding rock of the Anvil. Vaelin gave him his head and let him run. Spit was ever a mean-spirited animal and it was a novelty to feel the joy in him as he raced up and down the hills, churning sod in their wake. By nightfall they were in sight of the broad plateau where the fallen city waited. Vaelin found a campsite atop the last of the hills, affording a good view of the approaches and cover from a cluster of pine near the summit.
He tethered Spit to a low-hanging branch and gathered wood, arranging it within a circle of rocks, adding pine shavings for kindling. He struck his flint and blew softly on the flames until the fire built. Sitting cross-legged, his sword still on his back and his bow within reach, an arrow already notched, he waited. He had become aware of being followed in the early evening so there seemed little point in observing Artin’s stricture against lighting a fire.
Night came on quickly, the clouded sky making the darkness deep and impenetrable beyond the firelight. It was another hour before the soft scrape of hooves on sod told of a visitor. The man who walked into the camp stood at least six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms, his chest confined within a bearskin vest that reached to his waist, where a war club and a steel-bladed hatchet hung on his belt. He wore deerskin trews and leather boots. Like the boy who had attacked Vaelin earlier his head was shaven and tattooed, an intricate mazelike design that circled his head from temple to temple. More tattoos covered his arms, strange whirls and barblike shapes stretching from shoulder to wrist. His face was lean and angular, making it difficult to judge his age, but his eyes, dark and hostile beneath a heavy frown, spoke of many years and, if Vaelin was any judge, many battles. He was leading a sturdy pony that bore something slung across its back, something writhing and moaning in tight-bound rope.
The Lonak pulled the hatchet and war club from his belt in a quick and skilful movement Vaelin almost didn’t catch. He watched the man whirl the weapons expertly for a second or two, feeling the rush of displaced air and resisting the impulse to reach for his sword. The man’s eyes never left his, studying, calculating. After a moment he grunted in apparent satisfaction and laid both weapons on the ground near the fire. Taking a step backwards, hands raised, his expression no less hostile.
Vaelin unbuckled his sword from his back and placed it before him, also raising his hands. The Lonak grunted again and went to the pony, pulling the bound boy from its back and dumping him unceremoniously next to the fire.
“This is yours,” he told Vaelin, his words thickly accented but clearly spoken.
Vaelin glanced at the boy, his mouth securely gagged with a leather strap, eyes dim with exhaustion. “I don’t want it,” he told the Lonak.
The big man regarded him in silence for a moment then moved to the opposite side of the fire, spreading his hands to the warmth. “Among my people, when a man comes to your fire in peace it is custom to offer him meat and something to slake his thirst.”
Vaelin reached for his saddlebags and extracted some dried beef and a waterskin, tossing them to the Lonak across the fire. He took a small knife from his boot and cut a strip from the beef, chewing and swallowing quickly. Drinking from the waterskin, however, made him grimace and spit on the ground. “Where is the wine you Merim Her love so much?” he demanded.
“I rarely drink wine.” Vaelin glanced again at the boy. “Aren’t you going to let him eat too?”
“Whether he eats is your choice. He belongs to you.”
“Because I defeated him?”
“If you defeat a man and don’t deign to kill him, he is yours.”
“He will lie here until he starves or the beasts come to claim him.”
“I could just cut his bonds, set him free.”
The Lonak barked a harsh laugh. “There is no freedom for him. He is varnish, defeated, destroyed, worth no more than dog shit to my people.” The man’s gaze was fixed on the boy now, a fierce, implacable glower. “A fitting punishment for one who disobeys Her word, who allows his misplaced pride to blind him to his obeisance. Cut his bonds and he will wander here, weaponless, friendless, my people will shun him and he will find no shelter.”
His gaze swung back to Vaelin, the tension of his jaw and the set of his lips telling of something more than anger, something too keenly felt to be hidden. Concern. He fears for the boy.
“If he’s mine,” Vaelin said, “then I may do with him as I wish?”
The Lonak’s eyes flicked back to the boy for an instant. He nodded.
“Then I give him to you. A gift of thanks for allowing me to cross your lands.”
The Lonak’s face remained impassive but Vaelin could read the relief in his eyes. “You Merim Her are soft,” he sneered. “Weak and craven. Only your numbers give you strength, and that will not last forever. One day we will sweep you back to the sea and the waves will turn red with your blood.” He rose and went to the boy, using the boot knife to sever his bonds. “I’ll take your worthless gift, since it’s all you have to offer.”
“You’re welcome.”
Free of the ropes, the boy was listless, sagging as the Lonak dragged him to his feet, whimpering as the big man slapped him awake with a chorus of curses in his own language. Once roused, the boy’s gaze swung to Vaelin, the same hatred and bloodlust colouring his features again. He bridled, tensing himself for another attack. The big Lonak struck him, a hard, backhanded cuff across the face, drawing blood from his lip, then pushed him roughly to the waiting pony, hoisting him onto its back and pointing sternly back down the hill. The boy favoured Vaelin with a last glare of naked animosity before spurring away into the darkness.
The Lonak returned to the fire and reached for the dried beef once more, his face sombre as he ate.
“A good father suffers much for his son,” Vaelin observed.
The Lonak’s eyes flashed at him, the hostility shining once again. “Do not think there is a debt between us. Do not think you have bought passage through our lands with my son’s life. You live because She wishes it.”
“She?”
The Lonak shook his head in disgust. “You have fought us for centuries and you know so little of us. She is our guide and our protection. She is our wisdom and our soul. She rules us and serves us.”
Vaelin recalled his dream-meeting with Nersus Sil Nin in the Martishe. What had she said about the Lonak? I should have known the High Priestess would find a way. “The High Priestess. She leads you?”
“High Priestess.” The Lonak spoke the words as if tasting unfamiliar fare. “As good a name as any. Your bastard tongue does not fit easily with our ways.”
“You speak my bastard tongue very well. Where did you learn it?”
The Lonak shrugged. “When we raid we take captives, although they have little uses. The men are too weak to work the seams for more than a season without perishing and the women bear sickly children. But once we took a man in a grey robe. Called himself Brother Kellin. He could heal and he could learn. Came to speak our tongue like his own in time, so I made him teach me his.”
“Where is he now?”
“Sickened last winter. He was old, we left him out in the snow.”
Vaelin was starting to understand why the Lonak were so widely despised. “So your High Priestess told you to let me pass?”
“Word came from the Mountain. One of the Merim Her would come alone into our lands, their greatest warrior seeking the blood of his brother. No harm will come to him.”
The blood of his brother…The High Priestess sees much it seems. “Why?”
“She does not explain. Words from the Mountain are not to be questioned.”
“And yet your son tried to kill me.”
“Boys seek renown in forbidden deeds. He had visions of defeating you and winning glory, the keenest sword of the Merim Her taken by his knife. How could I have angered the gods so that they visit me with a fool for a son?” He hawked and spat into the fire, glancing up at Vaelin. “Why did you spare him?”
“There was no need to kill him. Killing without need is against the Faith.”
“Brother Kellin spoke often of your Faith, endless lies. How can a man have a creed but no god to punish him if he breaks it?”
“A god is a lie, and a man cannot be punished by a lie.”
The Lonak chewed some more beef and shook his head, he seemed almost sorrowful. “I have heard the voice of the fire god, Nishak, deep in the dark places under the smoking mountain. There was no lie in it.”
Fire god? Obviously the man had confused an echoing cavern for the voice of one of his gods. “What did he tell you?”
“Many things. None of them for your ears, Merim Her.” He tossed the beef and waterskin back to Vaelin. “It’s ill luck for a man to seek the death of his brother. Why do you do it?”
Vaelin was tempted to ignore the question and sit in silence until the Lonak left, there seemed little left to talk about and he certainly didn’t cherish the man’s company, but something made him voice the feelings that pained him so much. Easier to unburden yourself to a stranger. “He’s not my brother in blood, but in the Faith. We are of the same Order and he has committed a great offence.”
“And so you will kill him?”
“I will have to. He will not let me take him back to face judgement. Did the High Priestess tell you to let him pass also?”
The Lonak nodded. “The yellow hair rode through seven days ago, making for the Maars Nir-Uhlin Sol. You intend to follow him there?”
“I have to.”
“Then you’ll most likely find a yellow-haired corpse waiting for you. There is only death in those ruins.”
“I’ve heard. Do you know what it is that deals death in the fallen city?”
The Lonak’s face twitched in annoyance. Fear was clearly a touchy subject. “Our people do not go there, haven’t for more than five winters, even before then we didn’t like the place, there’s a weight to the air that bears down on a man’s soul. Then the bodies started appearing. Seasoned hunters and warriors torn and rent by something unseen, their faces frozen in fear. A shameful end to be taken by a beast, even a beast of magic.” He glanced up at Vaelin. “You go there, you’ll soon be as dead as your brother.”
“My brother isn’t dead.” He knew it, felt it in the constant note of the blood-song. Nortah was still alive. Waiting.
Abruptly the Lonak reached for his weapons and rose to his feet, fixing Vaelin with a hostile glare. “We’ve talked long enough, Merim Her. I’ll soil myself no longer with your company.”
“Vaelin Al Sorna,” Vaelin said.
The Lonak squinted at him suspiciously. “What?”
“My name. Do you have one?”
The Lonak regarded him in silence for a long time, the hostility fading from his gaze. Eventually he shook his head. “That is not your name.”
Then he was gone, into the blackness beyond the fire without a sound.
The tower must have stood over two hundred feet high and Vaelin could only imagine how impressive it had once looked: an arrow of red marble and grey granite pointing straight to the heavens. Now it was a broken and cracked road of weed-dotted rock leading him to the heart of the fallen city. Looking closer, he noticed that the rubble was adorned with fine relief carvings showing a myriad collection of beasts and frolicking, naked humans. The stone friezes that decorated the older buildings of the capital were all martial in character, warriors fighting forgotten battles with archaic weaponry. But there were no battles here, the carvings seemed joyous, often carnal, but never violent.
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br /> The morning sun had dawned behind a thick layer of cloud, bringing flurries of snow driven by a stiff wind he knew would only gain in strength as the day wore on. He closed his cloak against the chill and urged Spit onwards. Although he was less fractious than usual, there was a tension in the animal Vaelin hadn’t sensed before, his eyes were wide and he nickered nervously at the slightest sound. It was the city, he knew. The Lonak and Brother Artin hadn’t exaggerated the oppression in the air. It thickened as he drew closer to the jagged outline of the ruins ahead, a dull ache building at the base of his skull. The blood-song was different too, less constant in its tone, more urgent in its warning.
He began to guide Spit towards a central archway near to where the fallen tower appeared to have had its base. They had only gone a few paces when Spit began to tremble, his eyes widening further, rearing and casting his head about in alarm.
“Easy!” Vaelin tried to calm him with a soft stroke to the neck but the horse was uncontrollable with fear, giving a shrill whinny and tipping Vaelin from his back with a sudden lurch then thundering away before Vaelin could grab at the reins.
“Come back, you bloody nag!” he raged. The only answer was the distant drum of hooves. “Should’ve cut his throat years ago,” Vaelin muttered.
“Don’t move, brother.”
Nortah stood beneath the part-collapsed archway. His blond hair was longer, reaching nearly to his shoulders, and the beginnings of a youthful beard showed on his chin. Instead of his brother’s garb he wore a set of buckskin trews and a leather jerkin. Apart from the hunting knife in his belt he was unarmed. Vaelin had expected defiance, plus a modicum of the usual scorn and mockery, so was surprised that Nortah’s expression was one of grave concern.
