by David Benem
Lannick set off in the direction of the harbor. He glanced repeatedly over his shoulder, seeking the black-robed figure, but there came nothing of the sort. After a time he wondered whether the troubles of the last month were causing his head to play tricks.
Soon the road was descending to the sea and the air was scented with brine. He looked again behind him and saw nothing, and slowed his pace. He inhaled deeply though his crooked nose and then breathed out, feeling his shoulders sink. My head is a mess.
As he walked he opened his satchel and retrieved it. Not his Coda, but the flask of whiskey he’d taken from the safe house days before. He opened it and brought it to his lips, his hand suddenly shaking. He took a long draw and felt the familiar burn in his throat.
Just to help me sleep.
19
A SIMILAR MONSTER
ZANDRACHUS BALE SURVEYED the forested valley before them and the black outline of mountains beyond. The Ghostwood was an old forest, untamed by men and rumored to be haunted by uneasy spirits and stalked by all manner of dangerous beast. It was known to be place full of peril and seemed as far from the cozy corridors of the Abbey as any place could ever be.
Bale wondered again if he’d ever make it home.
They stood on a rocky outcropping overlooking the valley, and from this vantage Bale could see smoke rising in gray pillars far to the east. There was also the echo of distant drums and the faint ring of weaponry, and Bale was certain he could feel the ground trembling beneath him.
War.
Thankfully, Keln had proven a skilled woodsman, catching the scent of war parties on the wind, and discovering the subtle signs of their passage in brush and soil. The Scarlet Swordsman had found trails that kept them at all times on the flank of the Arranese army, and at a great enough distance that Bale had only caught a glimpse of Arranese soldiers on one occasion. And then I nearly soiled myself.
What Keln possessed in forestry, though, he lacked in camaraderie. Bale was never one for talk and much preferred keeping to himself. This, though, was an angry silence, a quiet tension they shared. Keln regarded him with varying degrees of suspicion, disgust, and abject hatred. Bale could not recall being less comfortable in the presence of another, short of General Fane himself.
“South?” Keln growled.
“Yes, yes,” answered Bale, speaking too quickly and tucking a strand of hair behind his ear with a nervous hand. “Well, south by southwest, actually. The spells I’ve cast revealed signs of the Lector’s location, and although the Arranese have forced us to depart from it to some degree I believe we’re still on the right course. I’m not entirely sure of the precise distance, but—”
Keln shouldered past Bale with a grunt, nearly knocking him over. “I needed no more than a yes or no, spooker,” he said, pulling himself astride his massive black horse. “I have no desire to hear any more of your nonsense than is absolutely necessary.”
Bale nodded and followed, and after several clumsy attempts he found himself atop his white stallion. The horse followed Keln without a word from Bale, making clear who was its master. They descended a switchback trail from the outcropping, into the deep forest.
Bale crouched before the fire, one hand balancing an oblong object—a seeking stone—upon an upraised palm, the other slowly dispensing a powdery ash into the flame. He spoke words of enchantment over and over again, waiting for the old powers to grant him an answer. Thus far, late into the evening, nothing had come.
Keln sat opposite the smoldering fire, hunched forward and drinking from a wineskin. He took a swig and spat upon the fire, causing the small flame to hiss and diminish.
Bale cleared his throat, frustrated. “I cannot accomplish this without the fire,” he said.
Keln grunted and spat again. The flame vanished.
Bale hurriedly huffed at those embers that yet glowed, and at last a flame kindled. He looked up at Keln, who wore a smug grimace. “I said I need the flame to make this work. This will only take longer if you insist upon wetting it.”
“You spookers are such fools,” Keln said, shifting about before settling against the mossy trunk of a fallen tree. “Lost in your little world, ignorant of the reality about you. Your entire lives spent with books and prayers. Ha. You are a useless bunch, capable of no more than frightening children and simpletons.” He took another swig from his wineskin. “Look at you. So weak and afraid, so utterly lost outside the walls of your Abbey. You wouldn’t have lasted a day in this wilderness without me.”
Bale glared hard into the soldier’s eyes before averting his own. He did not answer, and instead concentrated again upon the seeking stone. After a time he resumed casting the ancient Spell of Divination. Lector Erlorn had told him it was one of the Sanctum’s most potent incantations, the first given to them by the Sentinel Castor. If one possessed a part of a thing, one could divine the thing’s location anywhere in the world. The part would seek the whole.
He scattered a pinch of ashes onto the fire. They were the ashes of the Lector’s hair, pulled from a comb he’d left at the Abbey, and hopefully enough of a bond to his person to make the spell succeed. As he did this he stared at the oblong stone in his other hand, waiting for it to shift to reveal a direction. He chanted quietly, speaking the words of power.
Keln spat again, jolting Bale from his task. “Tell me, spooker, do you have any idea where the Arranese war bands are raiding this night?” he asked. “No? Nor do I, which is why it’s best not to signal them with a big, blazing invitation. I wouldn’t at all mind seeing you gutted in your sleep, but I’ll not have that happen to me. Keep the fire low, or keep no fire at all.”
Bale did his best to ignore the Scarlet Swordsmen, clearing his mind of all but the stone. After a long while, the seeking stone shifted almost imperceptibly in his hand. Then it jerked and shifted again and came abruptly to rest, disclosing the direction. He clasped his hand about the stone, seizing its energy and willing his mind to seek the pole to which it was drawn. He stilled himself and shut his eyes, and soon his conscious mind rose above the eaves of the forest. His thoughts found a path beyond the wooded expanse and he envisioned a clearing far away, a place where his answers would be found. The flame flared suddenly.
“Dead gods,” said Keln. “Have you no sense?” He kicked at the campfire, sending a shower of sparks and embers at Bale.
Bale yelped and jumped upward, frantically brushing the burning bits from his robes. A few holes grew in the rough cloth, smoking and glowing a deep orange. Bale patted them out and after a time was satisfied he wasn’t about to burn to death.
He looked at his thin hands, noticing he’d dropped all but a pinch of the ashes. He’d be unable to cast the spell again with any measure of potency. He sank to a seat and hung his head, wondering if he’d be able to remember the incantation’s disclosures, or whether he’d forget the precise direction and become lost in the wild.
Keln laughed gruffly and settled again against the trunk. He took a long drink from his wineskin, eyes glittering dangerously in the dark. “You needn’t worry, spooker. You haven’t much time left.”
Bale regarded Keln, his brutish appearance and the many trappings of soldiery. How I despise this man, and those of his like. He so resented those who intimidated through physical presence, who threatened with raw violence, who had no conception of complexities they could not resolve with their fists.
He looked again at his frail hands, squeezing the last flakes of ash with only a mockery of strength. As he stared, his thoughts turned to memories of his youth, to images of his father’s hands. They were a stark contrast to his own, thick and calloused from working the plow and corralling the pigs. He thought of those hands upon his throat when Bale’s prolonged bout with red fever had left him too weak to help with the harvest. He recalled those hands pummeling his mother for teaching Bale to read when she could have been patching the leak in their thatched roof. He remembered those hands as they’d seized him by the shoulders when he’d inquired a
fter spellcraft, and how they’d cast him from the home forever as an embarrassment to the blood.
Bale’s eyes returned to Keln.
This man is a similar monster.
The forest was cut by a myriad of hunting trails, tight paths winding through the old, creaking trees. The trails held only briefly to a particular direction, and Bale found it difficult to maintain the fixture of his destination in his head. The heavy foliage made it hard to discern his heading by the sun, and after a time he was looking for the location of moss on trees and struggling to remember what he’d read about such a thing revealing direction. Moss always grows on the southern side of trees. Or is it the northern?
“You know where we’re headed, spooker?” asked Keln, as though guessing Bale’s thoughts.
Bale nodded assuredly, although he wondered how long it would take the Scarlet Swordsman to realize his deception. He’d gathered Keln wasn’t as cunning as General Fane, but he reckoned the man was just as capable of bringing his life to a uniquely miserable end.
“The horses need rest,” Keln said. “There’s a clearing ahead. We’ll stop there.”
Bale looked ahead and saw nothing but the deep green of the forest. “I don’t—” he began, but then saw a pillar of moss-covered stone through the trees.
Soon they were upon the clearing, and within it stood a ruined relic of an older time. Eight stone pillars rising in a circle, one for each of the Sentinels and another for the High King. In the center of the pillars was a well, crumbling at its edges and strangled by ivy.
Bale dismounted and rushed to behold the ancient shrine. He touched each of the pillars and then rounded the Godswell, awestruck. “This must be many centuries old,” he whispered, “or built by someone who understood the folly of the High King.”
Keln grumbled something as he set about tying the horses to the nearby trees.
Bale walked reverently about the rustic shrine. His mind wheeled and he tried to temper the pace of his thoughts, taking time to inspect the details of the structure. Seven pillars for the Sentinels: Castor the Wise, Valis the Watchful, Lyan the Just, Thaydorne the Strong, Sienne the Quick, Kressan the Kind, and Pastine the Nurturing. Then one more for the line of the High King.
He felt breathless. He’d read many books concerning the Sentinels, yes, but to see them venerated by a physical monument was something else entirely. It seemed a validation, a lingering proof of the Sentinels’ prominence in the Old Faith. This place was a relic of an older, nobler time, for all known structures like it had been razed when the Sentinels were banished from Rune.
He stood before the pillar bearing a faded carving of Castor’s old symbol, the eye within an eye. Wisdom, the ability to behold unseen truths. As he studied the symbol a feeling grew within him, an overwhelming sense the Lector had been at this very place before his death. For a moment he could feel Erlorn’s presence and he stepped back, coming to rest upon the lip of the Godswell.
He was shaken from his reverie by a hand upon his shoulder. He turned to see Keln, a finger pressed to his lips. Keln nodded toward the ground, and Bale followed his gaze. There were spots of what seemed to be blood near the base of one of the pillars. Blood newly spilled. As he looked he saw other driblets nearby, a trail of them leading toward the brush at the far side of the clearing. Keln gestured for Bale to retreat toward the horses, and Bale complied without a word.
Keln moved slowly toward the brush, drawing his sword from its scabbard as he did. “I am not a patient man,” he said, his tone threatening, “and I do not enjoy playing children’s games. Come out of the brush at once, or my sword will be coming in.”
There was a crackle of twigs snapping and leaves crunching. The brush rustled and shifted, suggesting the movement of a large form. After a moment, though, the brush grew still again.
“Show yourself!” Keln growled, sinking to a predatory stance so menacing Bale found himself more frightened of the Scarlet Swordsman than whatever it was lurking in the brush.
Just then two men, wretched and wounded, stumbled from the brush. Keln threw them to the ground where they collapsed into a heap. Their chainmail hauberks were ripped and stained, their armor plates battered and broken. They wore the red sashes of Rune, though judging from the agonized looks on their faces they no longer wanted any part of the kingdom’s war.
“Stand up, soldiers,” Keln said, his sword dipping but still at the ready.
“Mercy,” groaned one of the soldiers, struggling to rise to a knee. The other remained prone, drawing rattling breaths. Bale recognized the men were badly hurt, and likely suffering from infection. He frantically pulled his travel pack off his shoulder, knowing they required the healing arts.
“Stand up, boys,” Keln said, rolling the prone soldier over with the toe of his boot. The man had three dark wounds in his chest, each of them wet with blood.
“These men are badly hurt,” Bale said, starting forward. He stopped just as quickly, though, when Keln regarded him with a vicious gaze.
“You will stay clear of this, spooker,” he said, derisively spitting out the last word. “On your feet, soldiers! That’s an order from an officer.”
At last the soldier who’d gotten to his knee forced himself upward upon unsteady feet. His eyes were feverish, his lips split and bleeding. Bale noticed a wound in the man’s side, the chainmail there shredded. The wound was bandaged, but the blood had soaked through.
Keln regarded the man sternly. “Do you always respond to orders so slowly, soldier?”
The soldier looked at the clasp fastened upon Keln’s red cloak and snapped to attention. He hurriedly nudged the prone soldier with the toe of his boot. “Piter,” he said. “Get up! This fellow’s a captain!”
“Identify yourselves.”
“S-Sir,” the soldier stammered, “I am Corporal Stevran, of the First Division of the Third Column. Him there,” he said, “is Private Piter, also of the First of the Third.”
Keln lowered his sword near Piter’s throat. “You’re deserters?”
“Dead gods, no, Sir,” Stevran said, his voice thick with emotion.
Keln’s expression softened unexpectedly. “What is it, son? What brings you here, so far from the fighting?”
Stevran swooned and nearly fell, but Keln caught him by the arm. “We were routed,” Stevran said. “Routed at Blackvale.”
“The entire division?”
Stevran nodded. “What was left of us, but at least a six hundred soldiers. General Fane himself arrived to lead us. Told us he wanted to take Blackvale, telling us it would cripple the enemy if we did. I’d scouted Blackvale days before, and knew it to be nothing more than an abandoned town with a few dozen starving cows. But by the dead gods he wanted it.” He began weeping.
“Slow down, son,” said Keln, his voice gentle. He directed Stevran to sit. “Don’t worry. You’re with friends now.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stevran said, sinking to a spot near the motionless Piter.
“Tell me what happened.”
Stevran sniffled, his eyes fixed on his wound. “The general ordered half the division into Blackvale, while the rest of us held back.” His eyes were distant and he was quiet for a moment. “The road into the place was narrow, with steep hills on either side. The Arranese knew we were coming, and they’d set an ambush with fire, oil, and archers. Our men were funneled right to the points of their swords. Half our division, slaughtered to the very man. And we just watched it happen.”
“And then?”
Stevran pounded the earth with a fist and blinked away tears. “General Fane ordered us in after them, telling us there was strength in numbers. Telling us the dead gods favored us. Ha.” He sobbed and rubbed snot away from his nose. “We didn’t stand a chance. We fought atop the bodies of our countrymen, the ground slick with their blood.” He swooned again and seemed about to faint.
Bale pressed forward. “He’s suffering from a terrible infection. He’s been gravely wounded. I should tend to these men
or they will die.”
Anger colored Keln’s face and he gritted his teeth. “You will do nothing of the sort, spooker. Mind yourself.”
Bale did as instructed but with great reluctance. How I hate this man! The soldiers would die if he didn’t act. His hand moved to his robes, finding there the knife he’d stolen from the governor’s palace in Riverweave. Sometimes saving a life means taking another. His mind raced with the possibility, wondering whether the neck or the back would be the better place to stick the thing, whether he would be able to move subtly enough to be thought of as harmless. Do I possess the courage?
Keln returned his gaze to Stevran and spoke again with a kind tone. “It’s alright, son. Speak freely. We’re just talking soldier to soldier.”
“There…” Stevran began, but his voice failed him. He breathed deeply and began again. “There’s talk, sir. Most of the soldiers are too scared to spread the word, but it’s made it round. Soldiers are saying the general’s gone mad, sir. There’s whispers he’s talking with devils, speaking to a black skull he keeps in his tent. I know a man who saw it himself.”
Keln stood in silence, his expression unreadable.
“The men are afraid of him. They say he’s possessed by a demon and soldiers are talking of revolt, sir. One of our captains questioned the general before we marched on Blackvale, but the general had him put him to the sword. Right before us. Then we marched, just as we were told.” He shuddered. “There was so much blood… Piter and I barely escaped with our lives. We fled, hoping to find help.” His legs were seized with a sudden spasm and his whole body shook. For an instant the life seemed to drain from his eyes.
“You had no other choice,” Keln said, his tone paternal. His eyes, though, flared with cruelty.
