by Tim Stead
“You have the right?”
“I have a paper in his own hand that says so.”
“Then we should talk,” Gordis said.
“Tomorrow at the workshop,” Deadbox said. “If you offer a fair price we can do a deal. I’m in a hurry to get home, but if you try to cheat me I’ll be forced to go elsewhere.”
Gordis looked hurt. “Cheat you? Why should I cheat you?”
“Why indeed? Tomorrow then, at the workshop. Come before noon.”
Alos Stebbar left the inn. Indeed Jerac Fane left the inn, quite a different man from the one that had waked in. Plans were forming in his head. He had a second life, a new name, and there would be money. He could buy a small house, or not. He could enlist with the Seventh Friend and learn to be a soldier. He could put his money aside for when, or if, he came back from the war.
His spirits soared. He was drunk with the blessing of youth. Some would have called it a curse. His old life had been taken from him. He could no longer be Alos Stebbar, prosperous but dull carpenter of Bas Erinor. Now he must be Jerac Fane, and whatever that might bring.
As he walked down the street he began to whistle.
66. Farheim
The pain was terrible, but Skal wasn’t going to die easily. His sword was still in his hand and he thrust upwards, his point striking home in the Seth Yarra’s gut and on up into his chest. The man was killed instantly and fell on top of Skal’s legs. That caused more pain.
He expected darkness. It should have been like before when he’d nearly died on the wall at Fal Verdan, but darkness wouldn’t come. There was only pain. Well, he might as well be rid of the spear, he thought. Damned if he was going to die with a pig sticker like that in him. He seized the shaft and pulled, wrenching it out of his body, screaming with pain and anger. He flung it away, and to his surprise saw one of the Seth Yarra go down. He hadn’t aimed at the man, and certainly hadn’t struck him with the point, but he seemed to have flattened him all the same.
The pain lessened. It faded quickly and Skal waited for death to follow, but it didn’t come. He didn’t feel as though he was dying. He didn’t feel numb. He felt good. He felt strong.
He kicked the body off his legs and pulled himself up, expecting at any moment to be felled by the agony waiting in his chest, but there was no pain. He took a deep breath.
Alive?
He faced the last Seth Yarra, and the man looked afraid. Skal didn’t think he’d ever seen a man look so afraid. He stepped forwards. He had to admit the man had courage. He faced Skal defiantly, short sword and dagger in hand. He spat on the ground.
“Farheim!” he said. “Death Born!” He dropped his sword and turned his dagger around, driving it into his own chest. Skal was stunned. He’d never had a man kill himself rather than face his blade. But it wasn’t just that. The man had seen him killed, and seen him get up again. It was enough to dishearten the bravest man. Skal himself was having difficulty coping with what had happened.
He’d been killed. He did not doubt it. No man could have survived that blow, not even Narak. Yet here he stood. He put a hand to the hole in his breastplate. The armour hadn’t done its job, but beneath the neat hole that the spear had punched his skin was unbroken.
“Lord Skal! Victory, Lord Skal!”
The few men that had followed him into the woods were heading towards him. None had seen what had passed between him and the Seth Yarra. Back on the road the fighting was over. His plan had worked. There was some relief in that.
But he was greatly troubled by what the man had said to him before taking his own life. Farheim. Death Born. He had spoken Afalel and Skal had understood. He knew the words. Somewhere in his memory they struck a chord, but he was having trouble placing them.
They pushed back through the undergrowth to the road and joined the rest of his men.
“Numbers?” he asked.
“Not yet, Colonel.” His second officer was a captain, Annard, a young man who’d worked in timber yards before the war. “But we’ve lost a few. Between one and two hundred.”
Not good, but it could have been worse. Surprise had been complete.
“Colonel! Horses!”
The cry came from the north end and Skal hurried that way. Men followed, arrows being put to the string, and he saw that his men had formed a defensive rank blocking the road. He marvelled at how well trained they were, these amateurs of the Seventh Friend.
It was Hestia. She had come back down the road when her scouts heard fighting, and brought two hundred horse with her, too late to be of any use to them. Skal walked through the ranks of his men to where she sat on her mount.
“They will not bother you again,” he said.
“You killed them all?”
“All.”
Hestia nodded. “Well, then, we shall all rest easier tonight.” She turned her mount and rode away and all but of few of the Telans cantered after her, leaving Skal standing in the road. Emmar was one of those who remained.
“Do your strategies never fail?” Emmar asked him.
Skal laughed, but there was little humour in it. “Over a hundred of my men lie dead, Captain. For them there is no success.”
“But it is a victory!” Emmar exclaimed.
“Victory comes at the end of a war, not a battle,” Skal said, conscious that he was quoting Cain.
Emmar grinned. “So gloomy, you Avilians,” he said. “Is there no corner of your philosophy that allows you to celebrate?”
“There is,” Skal said. “On the night before a day when there is no march, on the night before the day when there is no enemy left to kill, on the night before the day when I do not need to be vigilant in restraining my allies from folly. On that night I will drink with you until we fall.”
“Until you fall, Lord Skal,” Emmar said. “It is well known that Avilians cannot hold their drink.”
“Captain, will you do me a favour?”
“Ask it.”
“Lend me your mount. I need to speak with the queen.”
Emmar slipped from the saddle at once, and Skal reflected that these Telans might be impulsive and reckless, but they made fine friends. The captain held out the reins and Skal took them, climbed to the saddle.
“My gratitude, captain,” he said, and turned the horse, galloping off up the road after the Telans and their queen. He’d remembered the word and what it meant, and he’d seen that meaning in Hestia’s eye. He did not know what he had seen, a light, a colour, a reflection, but whatever it was he had understood it.
He rode quickly, and in a few minutes came to the camp. It was laid out after the Telan fashion, and so he rode to the centre, to Hestia’s tent, and left the horse there, striding for the tent flap. He found his way blocked by two guards.
He could have knocked them aside, but instead he stopped.
“Lord Skal to see the queen,” he said. He said it loud enough for her to hear. One of the guards ducked his head within the tent for a moment.
“She will not see you,” he said, his face set grim.
“She will,” Skal replied. “Ask again.”
The guard looked at Skal and there was uncertainty in his face. This Avilian had been the queen’s champion, had saved her life more that once. Skal could see it all going through his mind.
“Ask again,” he insisted. The guard nodded. His head went back into the tent and stayed there for a moment. Skal knew that he would speak with Hestia, even if he had to go through these two guards. What he had to say could not wait.
“She will see you,” the guard said, and stood aside. Skal was pleased for the sake of the guards. He pushed aside the tent flap and stepped within.
Hestia was seated, perched on the edge of her seat like a nervous child. She did not meet his eyes.
“Speak your piece, Lord Skal. I am tired.”
“Farheim,” he said.
“What?”
“You know your history, I think. What do you know of Farheim?”
“Lege
nds. There is no history that mentions them.”
“Tell me.”
“It is not your place to give orders here, Lord Skal,’ she said. She was avoiding a reply.
“Tell me,” he said again.
“God Mage spawn,” she said. “Creatures with four arms and two hearts, the warrior elite of the mage emperor. Death born, they were called.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Tell me more.”
“They could not be killed by sword or arrow, axe or lance. They lived a thousand years. Only fire could destroy them.”
“The arms and hearts are a myth,” Skal said.
“You think?” Hestia’s voice was sarcastic.
“You know,” he replied. “I see it in your eye.”
“What do you see?”
“Farheim.”
“You talk nonsense…”
“You and me,” Skal interrupted. “When Passerina healed you she did more. She made you something else. Look at yourself! You seem barely eighteen years, and you know you have seen forty. When I threw you from the horse the day Terresh died you broke your neck. One of your men saw it, but a moment later you were up and wielding a sword.”
“No…”
“Less than thirty minutes ago I was killed. I should have been killed.” He released his breastplate and held it out. “This hole was made by a spear. It went through me. Yet here I stand. One of them called me Farheim, and he was right. You and I, we are Death Born, we cannot be killed.”
“It is not true!” Hestia protested.
“You do not believe?” Skal pulled his dagger from his belt and offered her the hilt. “Take it,” he said. “Drive it into my heart and see the proof of my words.”
Hestia took the dagger, but she did not stab him. Instead she put her hand to his chest, touching the place where his tunic was rent by the spear, the cloth stained by his own blood. The touch of her hand on his skin was like amber shock, the magic spark that leapt from a caressed stone. Her touch was gentle, intimate. He felt his body shudder beneath it.
“My lord Skal,” she said.
He looked into her eyes, now so close to his. They were brown pools to drown in. Her skin was white and smooth. Her lips were slightly parted. She was stunningly beautiful.
“My queen. We are the same.” He put his hand out to cup the side of her face, felt her head respond, pressing against his palm. Then she pulled away, abruptly, violently.
“No. It cannot be,’ she said.
“We are Farheim,” Skal said.
“It does not matter.”
“Does not matter…?” Skal said in disbelief.
“I am the Queen of Telas. You are Avilian. If there is a liaison between us it will tear the army apart. My subjects will be outraged. I will lose the throne.”
“Politics,” he said, his tone was sour.
“The war,” she replied. “Nothing means anything if we do not win the war.”
“But we cannot lose,” he said. “We are Farheim, and that means that Passerina is a god mage, the true heir of Pelion. Can Seth Yarra stand against that?”
She shook her head. “I do not know. I know nothing of god mages and Farheim, but I know that I am Queen of Telas. Now leave me. In the morning we ride for the Western Chain.” She turned away.
Skal stood for a moment, frustrated, wanting to say something more, but no words came. He wanted to ask her what would happen after the war, after victory, but he was not at all sure that he wanted to hear her reply. He picked up his dagger from where she had dropped it and resheathed it.
“Until victory, then,” he said, and left her tent.
67. The Quest
Narak sat with Pascha for three days, neither eating nor sleeping, but she did not wake. The moat within Wolfguard had been drained down, the passageway scrubbed clean and the bodies carried out and burned.
Narak’s own dead, including Poor, had been identified, dressed in finery and laid side by side upon a pyre sweetened with scented oil and herbs. Every resident of Wolfguard had stood before it when Narak had touched it with fire, and they said farewell to their kin. That was how he saw it. All the people of Wolfguard were kin.
The Seth Yarra were piled on a bonfire without ceremony. There were twenty five hundred of them and the smoke could be seen for miles above the canopy of the Great Forest. The forest itself was now patrolled by wolves. They had come in their hundreds when Wolfguard was attacked, and although Narak had sent most of them back to their forest lives he had retained two hundred who roamed restlessly through the land above their god’s abode. There would be no more surprises for Wolfguard.
After three days Caster persuaded Narak to leave Pascha’s bedside, but only by volunteering to take his place. Pascha continued much the same – apparently asleep – yet none could rouse her. Her pulse continued to beat slow and strong.
Narak fetched the book he had left with Quinnial’s army. It was important. He saw that now. Since Pascha had done what she had done, and Narak still didn’t know quite what that was, he had felt better. It was not that he had been ill, but his mind had been weighed down by a thousand worries and griefs. Now he saw with a clarity he had not known for centuries. It was as though he could put aside the baggage of his history and see with new eyes.
What he saw most of all was Pascha. She was once again his reason for living, but she was not his duty. That lay elsewhere. Lady Sara’s book told him what he must do. So yet again he was torn. Hundreds of years ago he had chosen duty, and he had lost her. Now the same choice presented itself.
For all that Narak had learned and lived in the hundreds of years that separated the two events, he could not see that the choice was any different. It was only that now it was more urgent, more extreme. Centuries ago he could have discarded duty, at least in part. He could have neglected the wolves and the forest. Either choice would have cut him in half, because however he felt about Pascha he loved the other as much. Equally he felt that Pascha’s need had been more trivial, a girlish demand for attention. He had assumed that she would see the wisdom of his choice, eventually, and that there would be no problem. He had been wrong.
Now he had to choose again, and his heart chose duty. It was his nature.
Had he been another man he might have chosen to stay at her side and let the world fall apart, but for Narak the logic was coldly inescapable. If he stayed with Pascha he would lose her anyway, sooner or later. The only way he could keep her was to do his duty, to do what must be done, and hope that she understood.
The problem was not the war. The war was over. He knew that however reluctant the Bren might be they would obey Pelion’s law. They would come to Narak’s aid on the last day of spring. They would drive Seth Yarra from the kingdoms.
Yet Narak knew that they were going to do more than that. The Bren intended to exterminate Seth Yarra. They were going to attack their homeland, destroy their towns and cities, kill their women and children, and keep on killing until there was nothing left.
They were going to do what dragons had been created to do.
That was why the creature in the cave, the dragon of his dreams, had been so persistent. If Lady Sara’s book was even partly right, and to Narak it looked as though it was right in its most important aspect, then the dragons had been turned away from their destructive course by something Pelion had created. It was a gemstone. When the dragons had looked upon it they had acquired a virulent conscience. Now this creature, somehow trapped, was trying to prevent what it had turned away from centuries ago, and Narak was inclined to think that it was right.
It would have been difficult to explain it to anyone else. He had no love for Seth Yarra. They were his sworn enemy. They wanted him dead. Yet for all that they were men and women, just as the people of the six kingdoms were men and women. The rift between them was one of misapprehension and misunderstanding. They had been lied to, and however much they believed those lies, however determinedly foolish they might be, it did
not sit well with him to see them wiped out. It was wrong.
He needed the gem. It was the conscience of dragons, and might it not also be the conscience of the Bren? The dragon had the gem, or at the very least it knew where it was. He was on thinner ice here. The creature had not said so. Indeed, knowing what he now thought he knew from the book, it seemed that the dragon had deliberately avoided mentioning it. Yet everything that he had been show made no sense otherwise.
He could not stop the Bren. He could not even stop Seth Yarra. The dragon, he suspected, could stop the Bren, but in doing so it would become the very thing it had denied.
