by Sam Bowring
Such strength, he thought, staring into the creature’s eyes. Such honesty.
The Unwoven frowned, crinkling up a scar on his forehead, and said something Mergan couldn’t hear.
Mergan pointed at his ears. ‘I can’t hear you!’ Then he laughed – if he couldn’t hear Scarbrow, then how could Scarbrow hear him?
Scarbrow cocked his head as if in recognition. He turned and shouted something to his companion, pointing at the window. The companion strode up, raising his sword, and Mergan withdrew. There came no sound of shattering glass, however. Peeping out again, Mergan saw Scarbrow gripping his companion’s sword arm and shaking his head.
A little girl ran past in the background, and the companion took off after her, as easily distracted as a kitten after a ball of string.
Scarbrow turned to stare through the window again. Then he cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, and in the dense house Mergan could just make out the muffled words:
‘Do you want me to let you out?’
Mergan didn’t really know what to make of that.
He cupped a hand to his own mouth. ‘Not right now, thank you.’
The Unwoven seemed surprised for some reason. ‘I will come back in a while,’ he shouted, and took off.
Mergan moved to see if he could track him, but Scarbrow had gone somewhere out of reach of the windows. Meanwhile, a general ruckus sounded from all around as the fighting continued.
A woman appeared across the street and dashed towards the house, fear shining in her eyes. It was his great love from the tavern, Mergan realised, who had looked at him with disgust and shaken him off. She gestured in panic at the front door – she wanted to get into his house? Mergan wasn’t sure if he could unseal the door quickly enough to get her safely inside and, as her eyes pleaded with him, he felt his own turn cold.
Never done anything for me, he thought.
She glanced around, gave a cry he couldn’t hear, and tried to flee. A sword spun after her, sending her face forward into the dirt. An Unwoven strode past, smoothly retrieving his quivering blade from her back.
Mergan went into the kitchen to see if there was any tea. He found some, but unfortunately there was no fire in the fireplace. There was some bread and fruit, so he sat down at the kitchen table and began to munch on that. For a while he sat in a happy bubble, not even hearing the screams outside. All too soon he was finished – there had been quite a lot of food, so how long had it taken him? The sounds from outside had died down, he realised, and he rose, uncomfortable with his predicament. Did he dare to leave? It seemed he spent his whole life trapped inside small dwellings.
A knock sounded at the door, surprising him. He went back into the living room and there, at the window, was Scarbrow, blood smattered all over his face. As Mergan appeared he grew excited, and rapped his fist on the glass. There were others with him, and they pointed as they spoke to each other. Mergan wondered if he would meet his end, finally, in this compacted little house. Did he mind? Maybe death would be a release. Certainly he had once desired it.
A small piece of berry lodged in his teeth fell sweetly onto his tongue.
Of course he minded!
Scarbrow shouted at him and he strained his ears to hear.
‘Spirit! Do you wish us to release you?’
Mergan did indeed want to get out of the house, but he wasn’t quite sure what awaited him outside. Oh well – he didn’t have many choices.
‘Yes!’ he called.
Scarbrow nodded and disappeared. A hacking started at the door, more than one sword working away. It would be hard work, Mergan knew, even with Unwoven strength behind the blows. He could always waggle a finger and part the door like a curtain, but somehow he preferred that they were the ones to make the effort. If they meant to kill him, he certainly wasn’t going to help.
Blades began to show though the wood, letting in slivers of sunlight. Soon woodchips were flying inwards, and Mergan waited with his arms folded. He wasn’t going to cringe in some corner of the house, so he may as well be there to greet them. Finally there was a hole in the door big enough for a person to step through, and Unwoven jostled to look inside.
‘Do not enter!’ came Scarbrow’s voice. ‘Out of my way!’ He muscled others aside to appear at the door-hole. ‘Spirit,’ he said, ‘can you leave this place?’
‘Stand back,’ said Mergan.
Scarbrow obeyed, and Mergan stooped to pass through the hole.
Outside Unwoven stood in a semicircle peering at him curiously, while others down the street seemed less interested. Streaks of blood painted the town – through the dust and up and down walls, and across the bodies of villagers strewn about. A little way off a smashed-in hut was on fire, and Unwoven were dragging a horse carcass onto the flames.
‘How can you be sure it’s him?’ Scarbrow’s companion asked.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Scarbrow. ‘I know his face well enough. I visited the tomb often as a child, brought offerings and spent long hours trying to hear his wisdom.’
‘I recognise him too,’ said another.
Mergan wasn’t sure what they were talking about. The tomb? Offerings? No one ever visited him there. Had they? He would remember it if they had. He screwed up his eyes.
And he did remember.
He saw the view through the tomb doorway, which neither he nor screams could penetrate. Outside, Unwoven came almost to the threshold – children and adults, kneeling in worship or laying down bundles of grass wrapped in red ribbons, strangely shaped rocks or other useless objects. Mergan raged at them, let me out, beating his chest, tearing his hair. His visitors echoed his actions, danced around, flung their hands up to the heavens. How many times had it happened?
Maybe many.
Maybe three thousand and sixty-six times.
How could he have forgotten such a thing? Had he forgotten, or had he just not thought about it for a while? Had these events been unimportant at the time, bleak and hopeless punctuations in his long internment?
Scarbrow stalked forwards and reached a hand to Mergan’s shoulder. Mergan felt the great potential in that grip, knew it could grind his bones to dust.
‘How can this be?’ said Scarbrow. ‘You are his spirit, are you not? How do you now have flesh? How do you come to be here, outside your tomb?’
Mergan began to understand. The implications of Scarbrow’s words so terrified and enthralled him, that he threw back his head and howled with laughter. They had seen him at the tomb! For centuries they had gone there to make him offerings.
They thought he was Regret’s ghost.
At the sound of his laughter, the Unwoven nearby left their smoking horse to approach.
‘Who is this?’ demanded one of them. ‘Why haven’t you killed him?’
‘Don’t you recognise him?’ said Scarbrow derisively.
They stared at Mergan hard, and some of them took on astounded expressions. They whispered to the others, who stared again with renewed interest.
Mergan felt he should say something if he wanted to bolster their misconception and avoid a grisly fate. ‘You have no doubt heard,’ he said, ‘although maybe not, cloistered as you are in the Dale … that those who once deigned to end my rule, have returned to the world. The Wardens!’
The Unwoven nodded, their expressions full of wonder. He did not hate them, he realised – he had once, hadn’t he? But now the chaos in their hearts seemed familiar. So rife was Mergan himself with corruption, and so alone, that these people seemed to share his fate, outcast and broken.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘if Wardens can return from the dead, why can’t I? It’s only fair. Thus I have finally broken from my tomb and come back to my people.’
For a moment he almost believed it himself. So often his thoughts returned to the Dale, and the Spire, and the tomb … he could never escape them, he knew that now. There was a kind of victory, also, to the idea of taking what had been Regret’s. Mergan had engineered his downfall, so why
should he not possess his things? They were his, rightfully won.
‘But your hair,’ said an Unwoven, ‘is not red. Legend speaks of Regret’s red hair.’
‘You spend three hundred years locked in a tomb,’ snarled Mergan, ‘and see if your hair doesn’t turn grey.’
This seemed reasonable explanation enough.
‘We must return you to the Dale,’ said Scarbrow. ‘Your people will be eager to meet you again.’
The smell of roasting horse entered Mergan’s nostrils, making them flare.
‘First,’ he said, ‘let us enjoy the spoils of your handiwork, my children.’
He strode towards the smoking horse and the Unwoven in his way parted. Gesturing at the beast’s haunch, he summoned a length of meat to his hand. Biting in, he found the flesh not fully cooked, but the skin was burnt and crisp around the rawness. Juice and blood dribbled from his mouth into his beard.
‘Come,’ he said, turning around, ‘will not you join me in celebration?’
The Unwoven did not need much encouragement, and quickly fell to ripping the horse apart, uncaring of the burns they earned in the process. Nearby, two of them began to rut on the ground between a couple of corpses. The sight of it stirred Mergan, made him remember again how long it had been since he had indulged in such pleasure. These people were so free! They ate and fucked and killed what they pleased, thinking of nothing but satisfying their base desires.
Mergan found he admired it absolutely.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder – a female, lithe and muscular, holding out one of the horse’s kidneys.
‘For you, lord,’ she said.
Mergan took it, and munched it messily.
‘More Plainsfolk will be coming soon,’ warned Scarbrow. ‘Some of them escaped, and will flee to other villages. Soon they may return in force. It will take us a day to get you safely back to the Dale, lord, especially if we have to fend others from our heels. We will also be carrying their dead, to build you more white fliers.’
The female ignored him, her eyes travelling over Mergan’s wrinkled old body.
‘Would my lord like to have me?’ she asked.
Mergan licked his lips.
‘Ar.’
It was like a yes, but with a mouth full of horse.
THE HOURS HER OWN
Rostigan shifted his feet uncomfortably. Beneath one of the castle’s higher balconies an enormous crowd gathered in the square, while more tried to squeeze in from the streets beyond. They had spilled into the barracks grounds, and climbed atop walls, roofs, and even up the square’s ornamental trees, which did not quite look equal to the task. Soldiers, new recruits and civilians were mixed together without order, for today’s proclamations applied to all.
‘People of Althala,’ said Yalenna, her voice carrying clearly from their height, ‘I am the Priestess Yalenna, and it grieves me to bring the worst of news.’
An undulating moan ran through the crowd – they already knew something of what to expect, and her dour tone seemed all the confirmation they needed.
‘King Braston, your beloved ruler, and my dear friend, is dead.’
Wailing greeted her words, echoing around the square.
If you had actually known him, thought Rostigan, maybe you wouldn’t feel so bad.
Yalenna waited for the anguish to subside, which it did not, so she continued anyway.
‘Let it be known that your king took grievous wounds on behalf of us all, in trying to rid the land of the evil Warden known as Despirrow.’
At mention of that name the wails turned to anger.
‘Perhaps Braston would have lived despite his hurts …’ she cast a sidelong look at Loppolo, who waited beside her, and it was good the crowd could not see his nervous expression just then, ‘… and yet Despirrow stole into our very midst to finish him off. It is he who killed the king and he who is also responsible for the strange occurrence in which we lost the night.’
Anger grew, consternation. Fear.
‘Despirrow is an enemy to every good man and woman of Aorn. He will be punished for his crimes!’
Righteousness, fury. For Rostigan and Yalenna, it was a welcome reaction. Braston’s voice had reached so many, and if they now desired revenge, perhaps they would stay true to the cause.
Would they accept the next thing Yalenna had to say?
‘We have been granted a small mercy, at least,’ she continued. ‘Althala had a king before Braston. A good king, a valiant king – a king by right of birth!’
Murmurs.
‘He has been of great help during these troubled times, and Braston valued his friendship and counsel.’
Rostigan was impressed. He had never seen Yalenna like this, booming as she told lies with conviction, despite her rage at the truth.
‘And so it is with bittersweet gratitude that I present to you – King Loppolo!’
Loppolo stepped forwards, raising a solemn hand in greeting. There were cheers for him – maybe not overawing ones, but they did seem genuine, and warm. And why not? He had been a good king, was well respected for stopping the Unwoven spilling from the Pass years ago on the Ilduin. Even though it had really been Rostigan to set his feet in that direction.
Loppolo bowed before Yalenna, and went down on his knee. Certainly he knew how to play his part, and at least wasn’t leaping about wringing his hands with pleasure. That was assuming he felt such a thing – Rostigan had the impression that Loppolo was growing to realise what he had gotten himself into.
Yalenna raised the crown high for all to see, then placed it on Loppolo’s head. He rose and turned back to the crowd who cheered again, more loudly this time.
‘My people,’ said Loppolo, ‘it is unfortunate indeed that I return to you through such terrible circumstances. Yet I also feel gladdened by being able to serve you once again. I speak not only to my native Althalans, but also to those who have travelled to join us, and take up the most desperate of causes – to stand against the evils that threaten us all. I swear to do all I can to rid the world of the Unwoven for good, and the enemies we find in Despirrow and Forger …’
Rostigan and Yalenna had counselled him against mentioning either Salarkis or Karrak. Neither, they reasoned, seemed to be causing any harm. Maybe, Rostigan had even suggested, Karrak had simply never reappeared? At any rate, there was no need to conjure up more enemies, when the ones the people faced were already terrifying enough.
‘… and then, only then, will our world be restored to rights. And to that end …’
Loppolo turned to Rostigan, whose stomach turned.
I would like to introduce you to the new commander of the army …
That was what Yalenna had wanted. She had asked Rostigan to take the army under his wing, an unfortunate turn of phrase for the once-Lord of Crows. It was touching, he supposed, that she had grown to trust him enough to offer him such control, despite an army being the very thing with which he had once caused so much destruction. He, however, had convinced her it was a bad idea. Not only because he did not personally desire the responsibility but, in a practical sense, it would trap him when he and Yalenna needed to operate freely. She had seen the wisdom of that, and thus, what Loppolo actually said next was:
‘… I would hear from one who has fought alongside both Braston and myself, and who will fight with you all in the coming days. The hero who killed Stealer, a champion among champions – I give you, Rostigan Skullrender!’
Rostigan stepped forward. Loppolo did not really understand the importance of him speaking, because he did not know Rostigan’s power to make words sink into people’s heads. Yalenna, so afraid of losing their forces to despair at Braston’s death, had asked him to consolidate their resolve, and use techniques that, once upon a time, he had wielded for all manner of ill purpose.
He was not sure she really understood what it was she asked of him.
She gave him a nudge, stirring him to speak.
‘Greetings,’ said Rostigan.
A part of him drifted into the deep place, tapping into memories of the calculating and manipulative Karrak, a man who had spoken with ease and confidence, who had convinced queens to war with kings. Who had stood before his own horde and sent out shockwaves of belief, slamming false words into the minds of good people, turning them to hateful minions.
He could do this. This was simple in comparison.
‘The Unwoven gather,’ he began. ‘You have heard the rumours, and they are true. Every day, more and more of them leave the Pass to terrorise the Plainsfolk. Soon they may break out in greater numbers, as they did once before. Some of the older soldiers will remember how we once pushed them back into the Dale – but unfortunately that was not enough. While they remain in this world, they will always be a danger.
‘But it is not only the Unwoven who threaten. We face a fight on two fronts. We have reports that Forger marches again, his army on the way to Ander even as we speak.’
Dismay at this – it could even be that some of the folk present had journeyed all the way from Ander.
‘Forger and Despirrow are also to blame for the breaking Spell.’ And Yalenna, and Braston, and Salarkis and me. ‘They should never, by rights, have returned to Aorn. They bring with them a corruption worse than their own inherent evil. We have all seen the results of this. We have seen the sun blink, seen strange bruises in the sky. We have seen the leaves that don’t stop spinning, never touch the ground. We have felt the ground quake. All is not well.’ He paused. ‘I count it lucky, in these circumstances, to have such good people before me.’
A stir.
‘Braston would not have wanted his death to stop us doing what is right. If you journeyed here in answer to his call, you are like me – not born in Althala. I stand with her army nonetheless, because I know that if I do not, the world will suffer. This is a battle that goes beyond kingdom, or fealty, or lines on a map. If we don’t act, all will unravel, all threads unspun. We must not lose heart for Braston, but take heart in what he stood for.’
