Soul's Reckoning (Broken Well Trilogy)

by Sam Bowring

  ‘Strange, don’t you think?’ said Losara. ‘That after all this, our armies do battle without us? Mine with the real mander, of course.’

  Bel wheeled Taritha about and brought down the reins.

  Upriver

  As Bel rode off in an ever-increasing blur, Jaya scrambled from the tent to her feet. She headed over the grass to the main army, where Brahl’s tent stood tallest amongst the other officers’. As she approached, a guard at the entrance barred her way.

  ‘The gerent is sleeping, Miss Jaya.’

  Jaya fixed him with an intent stare. ‘As sure as Arkus shits fireballs, he’s going to want to know about this.’

  The guard looked uncertain, but ‘What is it?’ came a voice from inside. A second later the flap was pulled back to reveal a blearily blinking Brahl. ‘What goes on?’

  ‘Losara has made off with the mander as Bel feared he would,’ she said quickly. ‘Bel’s taken Querrus and chased after it, to try to stand in its way.’

  Brahl frowned thoughtfully. ‘So there’s no lizard guarding the shadow?’ He stepped out of his tent, straightened to full height, and peered off for a moment at the shadows in the distance. The mander was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Officers awake!’ he bellowed suddenly, making Jaya start. ‘Ready the troops!’

  It was loud enough for troops nearby to hear for themselves, and activity spread right away. Soon officers were running about shouting orders, and Jaya was amazed at how quickly the army rippled to alertness. She hovered on the edge of the officers’ camp, watching as Brahl strode about shouting, wondering what she was expected to do with herself. Everyone except her knew precisely where they fitted in to the military machine.

  ‘The enemy approaches!’ came a shout, taken up and carried down the line.

  ‘What?’ snapped Brahl.

  Jaya followed as he went to look. Across the field, in the dim light of early morning, the Fenvarrow horde was starting to march.

  ‘Well,’ announced Brahl, ‘if it’s a fight they want . . .’

  He fell silent as something emerged around the eastern flank – something long and scarlet and cruel. Slowly he turned to Jaya.

  ‘I thought you said it was gone.’

  Jaya stared perplexed at the shadowmander, as behind it Tyrellan appeared on a horse. He drew up alongside the troops, and several mages converged to protect him.

  ‘Querrus said it was,’ she murmured. ‘Bel took him and they went off after it.’

  ‘Some foul play,’ said Brahl, grimacing. He pointed his sword at the approaching creature. ‘I have heard the tales of that thing, but you’ve seen its work first-hand – tell me, is there any hope we can stand against it?’

  Jaya remembered fleeing from Holdwith as the mander slew soldiers with complete disregard for the arrows and fireballs bouncing off it.

  ‘No,’ she said baldly.

  ‘Piss and blood and fire! Curse magic and all who wield it!’ He turned to one of his commanders. ‘Fall back. And,’ he pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘Jeddies must be evacuated. Have them bring whatever supplies they can carry without slowing them too much.’

  The commander nodded, and disappeared.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Jaya.

  ‘Get away from that thing.’

  There was a roar across the field, and the shadow army charged.

  ‘Retreat!’ blared Brahl. ‘Abandon the camp!’

  As much as she had been impressed by how fast they’d risen to arms, Jaya was dismayed by how long it took the army to get moving. As the mander came within five hundred paces of the melting front line, her survival instincts kicked in, and she left Brahl to flee through the crowd.

  ‘Lightfists!’ she heard him call. ‘Cover our retreat!’

  She was faster than most, unencumbered by armour, dodging and weaving around running soldiers. To her right she saw Syanti Saurians knocking others from their feet with their rippling tails. She steered away from them, into the heart of the army, pounding across someone’s bedroll and narrowly avoiding getting buffeted into a smoking fire pit. Ahead, the crowd streamed around an unmanned catapult – were those to be left? What choice did they have?

  Somewhere behind, someone screamed – then another, and another. She knew she was hearing the sound of the mander’s first victims. A burning smell reached her nostrils. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the tops of flames. A great plume issued up as fire consumed the catapult she had just passed.

  ‘Not yet, you fool!’ a lightfist shouted, backhanding another who looked fresh to robes. ‘After our people go by!’

  So the lightfists were burning the camp, and there was nothing a shadow creature hated more than fire.

  She jogged on until she could no longer overtake, and fell into a groove as part of the great sweaty press of moving flesh. A long time seemed to pass, and she could have sworn they’d come further when she saw the outskirts of Jeddies. People were fleeing from the town, being swept up into the army. The sounds of the enemy fell away, yet officers still called out continuously to maintain the pace. As the sun moved higher in the sky, she began to think of the waterskin she had left behind in her tent. Some way along the river past Jeddies they finally slowed, and officers set about trying to impose a semblance of order on the enormous, jumbled mass. Jaya slipped between them with no regard for the commands being given, making her way to the rear.

  Smoke rose from where their camp had stood, but no great fire raged – shadow mages and their icy ways would have seen to that quickly enough. There was no doubt the shadow now held Jeddies, for its vast numbers surrounded the town as if they meant to swallow it, and were streaming into it from all sides. The shadowmander was briefly visible leaping over a wall, and there came the distant shriek of someone unlucky enough to have been left behind.

  She spotted Brahl, and moved towards him.

  ‘There,’ Brahl was saying, as she sidled up next to his group of officers. ‘I saw blue hair, I am certain. The dreamer has returned. Hopefully that means Bel is not far behind.’

  ‘What is our plan, sir?’

  ‘Let them follow us, if they like. We will keep our distance, but only as much as we must. I want Bel to find us quickly when he returns. We can move more swiftly than before, now that we’re free of all our cumbersome earthly possessions.’ Jaya wasn’t sure if the expression on his face was a grin or a snarl.

  And so it went, for the next couple of hours. The shadow advanced, but it had been delayed long enough by fire and the taking of Jeddies for the Kainordans to keep ahead. Lightfists remained vigilant to the possibility that Tyrellan might speed ahead of his troops bringing the mander with him, yet no such attempt was made. Jaya stayed close to Brahl, listening for any news. The gerent was on horseback now, but surrounded by soldiers on foot, so it was not difficult keeping up with him. He seemed to know she was shadowing him, but said nothing.

  ‘If we keep on this way,’ she heard one of the phalanx commanders say, ‘they will drive us up against that ghostly wood.’

  ‘He comes!’ sounded a cry. ‘The blue-haired man returns!’

  Jaya felt relief sink in, but was surprised to hear some dispirited muttering around her. It seemed that some of the soldiers felt Bel had abandoned them, that it was somehow his fault they had been forced to flee the camp.

  ‘Idiots,’ she muttered to herself. ‘If not for him, you would have been mander mash days ago.’

  She followed Brahl to the army’s edge, and spotted Bel right away, galloping in on Taritha from the east.

  ‘Must have circled around,’ muttered Brahl.

  As he got closer she could see he had a face on him like storms brewing. Holding onto him limply, Querrus looked drained, as did the horse.

  ‘A trick,’ Bel spluttered furiously, bringing Taritha to
a rough stop.

  ‘So it seems,’ glowered Brahl.

  ‘Illusions,’ spat Bel, though he seemed not to wish to go into it any further. He did not catch her eye, but swept his angry gaze back and forth across the army. ‘You had the good sense to retreat, I see. How many lost?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ said Brahl. ‘A few hundred at least. The mander could not follow us far, for we set fire to the camp, thus holding Tyrellan back for a time. Plenty of gear is gone, not to mention our catapults.’

  ‘I see carts,’ said Bel, gesturing.

  ‘Some were saved,’ said Brahl. ‘We are not in the habit of keeping our supply carts on the front lines. But some were left behind, for the sake of lives.’

  Bel nodded, then finally looked down to see her.

  ‘How are you?’ he said shortly.

  ‘All right,’ she said, though the tremor in her voice threatened to contradict her.

  Bel dismounted abruptly, leaving Querrus rocking in the saddle. ‘We will set up again, then,’ he said. ‘As best we can. Here. They may have gained a little ground, but that is all.’

  They have crippled us, thought Jaya, but she kept it to herself.

  ‘What chance of resupply?’

  ‘Erling’s Vale is close enough,’ said Brahl, ‘and some smaller settlements also. We shall not want for food, but the rest will be harder to replace. There will be plenty of bodies sleeping on hard ground.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Bel. ‘It will not be lightly that I go chasing off after lies again.’

  Brahl nodded and turned away. Jaya went to Bel, who was looking out at the approaching shadow.

  ‘We are to return to a stand-off?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Should never have left,’ growled Bel.

  ‘You weren’t to know.’ She reached out to hold his hand, and after a moment he took it tightly.

  ‘The path was telling me to return,’ he said. ‘I ignored it.’

  He seemed to have a thought, and craned his head to the north.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We must be close to . . .’ He drifted off, and though she followed his gaze, it was impossible to see anything past the thousands of soldiers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whisperwood,’ he said, in a tone of voice that was hard to read.

  •

  Across the Nyul’ya, from the shade of willows, three figures watched the two armies.

  ‘They’re setting up again,’ said Charla.

  ‘But they’re closer to us now,’ added Nindere.

  Corlas didn’t answer – he was staring at the distant figure standing on the field in plain view of all. It had been too long since he had seen his son, and the fact that he couldn’t simply go to him was resting hard upon his heart. And in the shadow’s midst, somewhere, was his unknown boy, Losara.

  ‘Let us go further along the river,’ urged Charla, her eyes bright.

  ‘No,’ said Corlas. He did not like to be the cause of the disappointment in her eyes, but he knew she understood the reason. Although Charla, Nindere – and many of the others, for that matter – had never ventured far from Whisperwood, they knew that the further they all got from the seat of their power, the more vulnerable they would be.

  He brushed Charla’s hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Some day soon,’ he promised. ‘When all this is settled. When Old Magic can survive in the world once more.’

  He said it as if it was fact, belying the doubt in his mind. The assembled forces before him were maybe the greatest the world had ever seen. Even with Old Magic on his side, it was not lightly that he chose to tangle with them.

  Charla pouted, but Nindere nodded. ‘We should listen to Corlas,’ he said. ‘It would be a shame to be captured so early in the game.’

  Early for you, perhaps, thought Corlas wryly, though he was glad for Nindere’s level-headedness.

  ‘When do we attack, then?’ asked Charla. She did insist upon calling it attack, even though that was not quite what they planned to do.

  ‘Patience, forest flower,’ he said. ‘For now we must content ourselves with watching and waiting. We will know when it is time. Now come,’ for even now he could feel his power beginning to wane, ‘we must return.’

  Begrudgingly, the other two turned away.

  As for Corlas, he found it harder than ever to take his eyes from his boy.

  Soon, he promised himself. Soon.

  Part Two

  Sunny Days

  And so we watched each other across the gulf, like a scaled-down version of what had been going on for centuries, our new border worn clear in the grass. In retrospect it seems something akin to looking in the mirror – but is that mole on the right side of your face, or the left? Is the shadowmander a hindrance, or a help? I suppose it depends on where you stand, and whether you are what’s real, or what’s reflected.

  At any rate, there we sat – one who could see the path, the other left to navigate as best he could, alone in the dark, on those sunny days.

  An Unfortunate Encounter

  As she stepped through the inn doors, Elessa was relieved to be out of the sun. Although she did not feel its touch, she imagined it drying the flesh that still clung to her, hastening her towards desiccation. How soon until she became like Fazel, as she remembered him? She had thought of him often during these days of fast travelling across Kainordas. Long had he lived in this same suspended state, almost a hundred years without pleasure or comfort. Pain there was still, she had come to understand, but only in her bones, where she herself resided underneath her old flesh, no longer really a part of it. How had he coped? He had not been given any choice, she knew, but the thought of being trapped so long surpassed all previous notions of dread. Fahren had promised to release her as soon as he could, but his words did little to relieve her.

  It was not that she did not try to be strong. In the days following her resurrection, traces of her old self had bobbed to the surface. She had been an Overseer, charged with finding the right and wrong of things. That sense was muddied now, for while objectively she knew Fahren was doing what he must, necromancy was outlawed for good reason and her own personal dismay was proof of why. To be ripped from such peace, attenuated into this form . . . and yet she reminded herself that if the light failed, there would be no Great Well for her to return to. For her own sake, and the sake of countless others, she had to go on. Making up her mind to do so brought some respite, and she was now sometimes capable of not thinking about her own situation for a moment or two at a time.

  Despite being glad to escape the sun, she felt uncomfortable here. Until now Fahren had avoided settlements, and Elessa was not sure if he hid her, Battu, or both, but she had not protested – she didn’t want to be seen. Yet he made this exception, bringing them to this little village because they had run out of supplies. Or rather, Fahren and Battu had, since she did not need to eat.

  The inn was small, neat, and as conspicuously empty as the village, and indeed most of the land they had travelled through. Many had gone to join the army, it seemed. The innkeeper, behind the bar polishing a mug that didn’t need polishing, looked pleased to see them. Battu had cast an illusion on himself so that he appeared to be Varenkai, and Fahren had one that hid the Auriel and turned his robe the red and gold of a lightfist. The three lightfists who travelled with them remained as they really were, while she – well, she still looked normal, for now.

  ‘Gentlemen, ladies!’ said the innkeeper. ‘Welcome to my humble inn. Travelling to the battle, I suspect?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Fahren. ‘Though we will break our journey here. Can you sleep six?’

  ‘At a room apiece,’ said the innkeeper. ‘Not much trade for the likes of me at the moment, as you might imagine. Was good for a bit there, but I think most of the folk journeying to join the g
reat Blade Bel have been and gone. But even during such bare times, for the defenders of Kainordas, I will happily reduce my rate.’

  ‘Very generous, I’m sure,’ said Fahren blandly.

  As he and the innkeeper settled down to working out the particulars, Elessa heard footsteps approaching from outside. A moment later the tavern door banged open, and with it came a voice she recognised with startling certainty . . .

  ‘All right, soldiers, I suggest you make the most of this – there’ll be no taverns at the front. Don’t overdo it, mind! We need to be sharp tomorrow.’

  She couldn’t help but spin around, even as she tried to stop herself. Leading a band of soldiers, a cerepan now by the badge on his leather armour, was – Kessum! Remembered as a young noble her own age, here he was grown into a man! They had never kissed, never held hands, had only just started the very beginnings of courtship – and yet thoughts of him had kept her fighting in Whisperwood on the last night of her life. Out of the wreckage of her soul sprang a horror that he would see her like this. Everything in her screamed hide, and before she knew it she had cast an invisibility spell on herself. Too late, for Kessum stood stunned, his soldiers bumping into him as he came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, staring aghast at the place she had been.

  ‘Elessa?’ he murmured, his face ashen.

  Elessa backed away, quaking. Fahren? she sent.

  Fahren broke off his conversation with the innkeeper – whose eyes had lit up at the unexpected overflow of custom – and glanced between her and Kessum with growing realisation. The Throne could still sense her, as all the mages could, and Kessum noticed him looking at the space where she had just disappeared.

  ‘You, lightfist,’ he said. He came forward, his soldiers spilling into the room behind him. ‘Did you see a woman just now, standing right here?’

  I don’t want him to see me, she pleaded.

  It’s all right, my girl, came Fahren’s reply, though his worry was apparent.