“Drink this,” Huntsman said, ripping into a large root and holding it above his head so that he could catch its dirty liquid on his tongue. He handed it to Sammy who did the same, delighting in the coolness and the bitter-sweet taste.
They finished their meal in silence and then Huntsman scattered the leftovers and set about dismantling the shelter.
“Will you teach me how to do that?” Sammy asked.
Huntsman paused for a moment, sitting back on his heels. He stuck out his bottom lip and cocked his head. “My people call this a mia.” He tapped the interwoven bark and branches. “Come, watch me take it down. That way you will see how it is made.”
“Can’t we leave it for someone else to sleep in?”
Huntsman took in the surrounding desert with a sweep of his arm. “These are sacred paths. Better they stay hidden. Only for Dreamers to use.”
Sammy liked the sound of that. “We should take it down and hide the branches so that other Dreamers can find them and make their own mia.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited for Huntsman to show him what to do.
“First—” Huntsman’s gnarled hands worked at a knot of twine. “—we return parts to Sahul, like you say, little fellah. This is way of Barraiya People, and you one of us now. When next we stop, you find branches, help me build mia.”
Sammy clapped his hands with glee and Huntsman smiled.
“If you want, little fellah, I teach you many more ways of our people.”
“Like what to eat?” Sammy rubbed his tummy.
“Still hungry? Must have hollow legs. I bring you more food once mia is back to Sahul.”
“But not the maggoty things.” Sammy wrinkled his nose as he helped Huntsman unravel some plant fiber that held a large piece of bark in place.
“Ah, but they so tasty! Even better toasted over hot coals. When we finish at Homestead, I show you how to fish.”
“Yes!” Sammy yelled excitedly. Then the sadness crept back into his heart. “How much further do we have to go?”
“Not far now.” Huntsman smiled and rested a hand on his shoulder.
But the tears were already flowing again.
A TEMPLUM BESIEGED
Shader stared at the bolted double doors of the templum, back starting to ache from sitting hunched over on the pew for so long. Confinement had never sat well with him. He’d always enjoyed the great open spaces of his father’s lands in Britannia. He’d spent his childhood roaming the forests that bordered their twenty acres. Years lived in accordance with the seasons: collecting the horse chestnuts in spring; trudging through autumn’s brown carpet beneath the bare limbs of the trees; the impatient rush towards Noustide, which the family had always spent at Brinwood Priory, where Mom had friends among the brothers.
Father always grumbled about the priory stays, but always appeared to enjoy his festive drinking bouts with Frater Kelvin beside the crackling fire of the refectory. It was at Brinwood that Shader had first seen a depth to his father that had otherwise been hidden beneath his lust for adventure and excellence at arms. With his mind freed by ale, Jarl had discoursed for hours with Frater Kelvin most evenings. Shader smiled at the memory, suspecting now that Kelvin had taken these opportunities to minister to Jarl’s spiritual needs, which were seldom so close to the surface.
Jarl had proven an enigma to the youthful Shader. The man was a military giant and had dedicated his life to physical prowess. If not practicing with weapons, he was off fighting overseas or becoming embroiled in local border disputes. In times of peace, which had become more frequent as the Templum brought more and more nations into the fold, Jarl had adopted the role of marshal, hunting down petty criminals, more often than not cattle rustlers. In those times of inaction he was prone to bouts of irritability and sudden fits of temper; and yet he had always recognized these flaws in himself and took himself off on voyages of exploration, or busied himself with chopping firewood, or oiling and sharpening his weapons for future use.
Thus far, Shader could understand his father. What had puzzled him, though, was the iron code of conduct, the natural inclination for self-examination and correction that would have been the envy of any Nousian luminary. But Jarl was not a Nousian. During the final months of his life, when he lay wasting away from cancer, Shader returned from Aeterna to be at his bedside. He winced at the memory. Jarl had spouted off about the hypocrisy of the Elect—enjoying the patronage of the Ipsissimus, claiming Nousian sanctity, and yet killers of men no different to those Jarl had spent his life amongst. The only difference, for him, was that the regular soldiers were honest about what they were. Shader had been stung by the remarks and they’d parted on bad terms. At the funeral a few days later, he’d not wept. He’d felt something: an emptiness, and the weight of expectation, but he doubted either was the result of filial love.
Love, Shader thought as the memory faded and he was left staring at the templum doors. It was as simple and as difficult as that. How could a swordsman ever reach that goal without discarding everything that made him what he was? Ain, he would have tried if Rhiannon…
The train of thought was mercifully cut short by a hand upon his shoulder. Shader looked up to see Maldark following his gaze towards the doors.
“They’re taking their time,” the dwarf grumbled.
“Perhaps you frightened them off.”
“By God, I’d have taught them a thing or two had it not been for Mater Ioana.”
“I know, Maldark, and I quite believe you would have won.”
“Or mayhap died trying,” the dwarf mumbled beneath his beard. “Begging thy pardon, Shader, but something hath been troubling me since first we met. Methinks I hath seen thy face before—it is most familiar. Are you sure we hath not met at some other time?”
Shader met the dwarf’s violet eyes, felt them boring into him, saw his own distorted reflection in their dampness. “I would have remembered. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, though. This God you mention. In our Liber we are forbidden to…”
Gaston moved to stand in front of the doors. His fingers played with the pommel of his sword and his eyes never lingered long on any one thing or person. “Why don’t they attack?” He sounded like a child complaining about the rain forcing him to stay inside.
“Pray, thou tell us, boy.” Maldark planted his hammer before him as he sat on a pew and rested his hands on the haft. “Art they not thy knights?”
Shader stood and wandered back into the nave where Pater Limus tended the sick and dying who lay upon pallets, skin ruptured with pustules, thick froth fouling their chins. Limus uttered soft words of encouragement and offered them his smile, which appeared at once beatific and vacant.
Further back, in the chancel, Rhiannon and Soror Agna were engaged in animated yet hushed conversation. Rhiannon was flustered and tearful, her arms clamped over her chest as she rejected Agna’s attempts to comfort her.
Ioana turned away from peering out of a window, climbed down from the pew she’d been standing on and ambled over to Shader with Cadris clamoring behind for answers.
“Why have they chosen now to persecute us?” he asked. “Why do they just sit there? Are they going to attack?”
Ioana gritted her teeth. “Just get on with your work, Cadris. There are ill people to tend and I’m starting to think it’s because they’re sick of your whining.”
Cadris stopped, mouth hanging open, and then stomped over to the pallet-beds, frequently peeking at Ioana and Shader in case he missed something.
Frater Hugues took up Ioana’s vigil at the window, a look of grim determination on his face.
“Tell me about this statue,” Ioana said.
“The Gray Abbot told me it’s the Statue of Eingana,” Shader said. “The artifact used by Huntsman to end the time of the Ancients. After the Reckoning, it divided into five pieces, two of which are now in the hands of Dr. Cadman.”
“He was convinced we were connected with it,” Ioana said.
Sha
der pulled the black serpent from his pocket, running his fingers over the ridges of its scales and squinting at the slender veins of amber now barely visible on the surface. “I shouldn’t have brought it here.”
Ioana reached out a hand to the statue and quickly drew it back as if afraid it might bite. “It’s sentient.”
Shader raised an eyebrow and studied it more intently. “I lack your intuition, Mater, but something tells me we would be wise to keep the statue from Dr. Cadman. I think that’s why Huntsman entrusted it to me. The bard was being a bit too reckless.”
“Sweet Nous!” Ioana said, looking around. “Where is Elias?”
“Hiding in his cart,” Hugues said from the window. “I see him pop his head out from time to time. Poor fellow looks frantic.” Hugues grinned maliciously.
Ioana returned her attention to the statue in Shader’s hand. “What do you propose to do with it?”
Shader shrugged and put it back in his pocket. “Guard it as best I can,” he said, “and find a way to retrieve the Gray Abbot’s piece.”
Ioana nodded, lost in thought. “Can Huntsman be trusted?”
“No idea,” Shader said. There were a thousand things the Dreamer wasn’t telling them, but that wasn’t any different to what Aristodeus had been doing all Shader’s life. Could either of them be trusted? When you didn’t even know the rules of the game, how could you know anything? Either you acted as you saw fit at the time, or you shut yourself away and did nothing, and that wasn’t in Shader’s nature. He wandered over to the window to peer over Hugues’ shoulder.
“Keeps poking his head out,” Hugues said, pointing towards Elias’s cart.
Elias was visible as a wriggling lump beneath the dirty blankets he covered his instruments with. Sure enough, his head appeared and his eyes met Shader’s. The bard was red-faced and grimacing. He withdrew a hand from his covers and pointed frantically at the area of his crotch.
Hugues sniggered as Elias ducked back out of sight.
The knights had started to move, fanning out until they completely surrounded the templum and its outbuildings.
“Looks like they’re getting ready for something,” Hugues said, sounding every bit the battle-honed corporal.
Ioana gave him an enquiring look.
“The knights have us encircled,” Shader explained. “It seems we are under siege.”
“What does he mean ‘under siege’?” squealed Cadris, scurrying over to Ioana.
“We must wait, Cadris,” she said. “Trust in Ain.”
“But what if they break in?”
“Then we smite them.” Maldark patted his hammer.
Cadris gulped, rubbed at his glistening forehead, smoothed a few stray wisps of hair back in place, and went back to bustling around the patients.
Shader doubted they’d attack. They’d have done so already if that were the plan. He gazed out along the Domus Tyalae, scanning the trees flanking the road. They were waiting for something, he decided, but it didn’t make much sense. They already had overwhelming numbers and he doubted their inaction was due to cowardice. He caught Gaston watching him and raised an eyebrow. Gaston immediately looked away.
“I-I-I’d have ordered the at-at-attack by now,” he said, “but Justin’s ob-ob-obviously following orders.”
“Cadman’s?” Shader asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended.
Gaston winced, staring at his boots. “C-C-Cadman’s a very cautious man,” he said. “He w-w-won’t be taking any chances. Whatever’s coming, it’s not gonna be n-n-nice.”
Shader ground his teeth and shook his head, images of rotting corpses smashing their way into the Abbey of Pardes dancing behind his eyes.
“This Cadman…” Shader knew the answer even before he’d finished the question. “There’s more to him than meets the eye, right?”
Gaston blanched, his cheek starting to twitch. He nodded and finally met Shader’s gaze with wide and pleading eyes.
“No, Gaston,” Shader said, fixing him with a cold stare. “There’s no forgiveness for what you’ve done. When the time comes, I’ll fight beside you, but nothing more.”
Rhiannon was watching them, her eyes narrow, mouth curled into a grimace. She looked like she was going to be sick, but turned away as soon as Shader noticed her.
“He pretends t-t-to be fat,” Gaston said. “B-b-but really he’s just a corpse, like the others. Like the Lost.”
“The Lost? You mean Callixus?”
“There’s m-m-more. Couple of h-h-hundred, at least. I s-s-saw them. Saw him bring them b-b-back.”
“Where, Gaston? Where did this happen?”
“M-M-Mound outside the city. Deep in a f-f-forest. Fenrir, I think.”
Shader curled his fingers around the hilt of the gladius. This Cadman was a liche. Had to be, with that sort of power over the dead. A liche like Blightey and the things that served him in Verusia. He nodded grimly to himself and went back to stand with Maldark. The dwarf was twirling the haft of his hammer, the stone head grating against the floor.
“I am impatient for the battle to commence,” the dwarf said. “It vexes me to just sit and wait.”
Shader put a hand on his shoulder, thankful Maldark was with them. “I don’t think this is going to be an ordinary battle.”
Memories of Trajinot crept up from the dark recesses of his mind. When the aberrations had surged out of the trees and the advance of the Seventh Horse had faltered, Shader had felt one overwhelming emotion: terror. His stomach knotted as the corrosive onset of despair threatened once more to take hold. He’d done the only thing he knew how to do back in the Schwarzwald skirting Verusia, the thing he’d been trained for since birth. He’d charged, and seeing it as a sign of bravery, the Seventh Horse had charged with him.
Maldark looked at him with eyes that had seen their own share of horror, eyes that seemed heavy with a secret burden; and for an instant something was communicated between them. There was no give in the dwarf, Shader realized. He’d never falter, and right now he couldn’t have wished for anything more.
THE SUMMONING
Cadman stepped inside the carriage and rapped on the ceiling with his knuckles. The ever silent driver cracked the reins and they lurched away from Arnbrook House. A scattering of militiamen had barricaded themselves in the alleyways leading off of Mercator Street, watching, but taking no action against the graveyard ghouls now prowling around the Council buildings.
Cadman rubbed at his fleshy chin and pondered. He’d grown euphoric on the power of Eingana, and as far as he was concerned there was nothing more dangerous. Euphoria bred carelessness, and carelessness led to mistakes. Not only that, but it was an almost indisputable law of life—sod’s law, they used to say—that such rapturous feelings always preceded a calamitous crash. He needed to sober up, so to speak. Sober up and stop burying his head in the sand every time he heard those infernal caws and felt invisible eyes watching him. Sober up and take stock of the state of play. He’d had a good innings so far, but that usually meant time was running out until the opposition started padding up to bat. Soon he’d be forced to take up his fielding position. He just hoped it wasn’t silly mid on.
Commanding the undead marauding in and around Arnbrook House was as effortless as the automatic counting that ground on of its own accord in a detached compartment of his brain. It had also become easier to maintain his corpulent form, and his appalling parasitic hunger had retreated into the background. He no longer felt compelled to send the ghouls—or Callixus—in search of sustenance; indeed, he was starting to feel repulsed by the practice of filching, as he’d termed his feeding habits centuries ago. It was a repugnance he’d not experienced since he’d first discovered his need for the warm lifeblood of humans to maintain his precarious hold on existence. Had it been worth it, he wondered? All those decades of skulking unnoticed in the great population centers, barely daring to act in case suspicions were aroused; suspicions that every so often gave rise to fear, anger, and retributio
n. Had mere endurance ever been enough?
Cadman shuddered at the thought of the alternative, and then smiled as he recalled the promise of the Dweller: not only immortality, but self-contained immortality. No more dependence on the lives of others. No more parasitism. No more filching.
Careful, Cadman, he admonished himself. You’re getting hooked again. Caution first, caution last, caution always.
Ah, said an emboldened part of his mind that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. But you’re already in too deep. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they used to say back home before the Templum graced us with denarii and aurei. Pretentious Romanophiles.
Was he in too deep? Cadman had a vivid image of the carriage hurtling down a sheer slope, over the edge of a cliff and shattering into pieces on a rock-strewn beach. Every action has its consequences, and he’d been far too active of late; ever since his dreams had been invaded by the Dweller.
I suppose I’m to blame for that, am I? said the old familiar voice in his head.
You didn’t have to listen, said the resurgent one. But now you’ve gone this far, there’s no turning back. What’s the worst that could happen?
The carriage slowed to a halt outside Cadman’s townhouse. It was an undistinguished three-story building nestled amongst a score of similar dwellings in a quiet and not particularly desirable backwater. He wrinkled his nose out of habitual disdain for the neighborhood, but he had to admit it had served its purposes admirably.
Cadman waited while the driver clambered down and went to check for intruders. He flipped open his pocket watch and kept an eye on the front door once the driver had disappeared inside. The curtains of the house next door parted slightly, and he caught sight of his nosey-old-hag-of-a-neighbor peering out at the carriage. She saw he’d noticed and dropped the curtains back in place just as the driver re-emerged and nodded the all-clear. Thirty-two seconds in all. The man was getting faster. Cadman only hoped he wasn’t getting careless. He thrust the pocket watch back in his waistcoat, trying not to think about the sum of three and two.
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