Certainty

by Unknown

  Chapter One: The Crusade

  There aren’t many old paladins.

  Mostly we die. Spend year after year fighting everything from boggards to balors, and sooner or later one of them will take off your head. Or you succumb to rice-water fever while wandering in the bowels of a festering swamp. Or that smiling innkeeper with the dirty jokes turns out to be a secret cultist of Norgorber and slits your throat while you snore.

  Few of us last ten years.

  We don’t all die on the battlefield, though. Sometimes it’s quieter than that. Sometimes it’s as simple as a loss of certainty.

  Live in the world long enough, and you lose sight of the lines between good and evil. There aren’t many true innocents out there. Maybe none. The maiden you save from a dragon grows into a mean old drunk who harangues her neighbors and kicks her dogs. The merchant you rescue from bandits turns out to be a cheat who’s abandoned a dozen bastards around the Inner Sea.

  And evil? Evil is no easier. Most criminals are only men, and stupid and frightened ones at that. But they’re the easiest to punish; they’ve done wrong, and know it, and will pay the price.

  The great evils trouble me more. Devils are evil. Diabolists, worse: they enable the fiends in our world. But I look at Cheliax—my poor, cursed homeland—and wonder whether grim peace is not, truly, better for the commoners than the civil war they had before, or the perpetually churning bloodshed in Galt. I hear of the Gray Corsairs’ raids, and wonder whether it was worth the drowning of three galleys to strike a blow against slavers. The galley rowers were slaves too. Might they not have preferred to live, even if in chains?

  I don’t know. I haven’t known for a long time.

  I am not the first of my brethren to succumb to doubt. Ours is a high and narrow road. It’s easy to falter, easy to fall. Almost impossible to climb back up.

  Most never try.

  Some surrender to the emptiness, living out their days in a slow gray mire. Some rebel, blaming the gods for their failures instead of themselves, and seek out new, malevolent masters.

  A few join grand crusades, dying in a blaze of glory that might—might—be bright enough to blot out the stain of sin. That’s always struck me as the best way. Find the easy choices, the clear lines. Die a hero. Let no one see the doubt.

  I joined the grandest crusade of them all.

  I went to the Worldwound.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  It was a snowy, bitter morn when I came to the gates of Kenabres. For the past ten days I had been studying the wardstones in the distance. They shadowed the lines of the road like an endless march of tombstones, commemorating the thousands who had died in Sarkoris and the thousands more that would die trying to save the rest of Avistan from that fate. Commemorating me, maybe.

  Behind the wardstones the sky was smudged soot-black, stained by a fire that would roar unsated until it devoured the world. I never saw anything stirring in that poisoned air, but the red-bellied clouds were warning enough. Here lay the end of the world.

  I did not come to Kenabres alone. On the road I had fallen in with other desperate, damned souls. Some wanted to confront death on their own terms; others wanted to live, at least for one more day, and had nowhere to do it but here.

  During the journey I learned some of their names and some of their reasons. Jelani was a Thuvian sand-dancer who said she was dying of a wasting disease, though I saw no mark of it on her. Her parents lived in poverty on the far side of the Inner Sea, and even after she learned she was ill, she sent her earnings to them rather than paying a healer’s fee. She had heard that Queen Galfrey offered free healing to anyone who joined the crusade, and had come in hopes that the rumor was true. Even if it wasn’t, she said, better to die for an honorable cause than rot in a sickbed.

  Most of my companions were less noble. Robbers, blasphemers, cattle thieves. The best of the lot was a mere debtor, cast in with the others when he borrowed to fuel his gambling and found the dice fickle as ever. All of them had been offered a choice between the gallows and the Worldwound. All had chosen to go north, though few had any training in arms and none had been properly schooled in sword or lance. Not one of them expected to leave Mendev alive.

  These were my new comrades-in-arms. They made me glad I had already forsaken my oaths, and bitter that I had fallen so low. In my old life I would have sent them to the hangman or lopped their heads off myself. Now I could only hope they’d prove less dangerous at my back than the demons would be to my face.

  The people of Mendev seemed nearly as suspicious of their saviors as I was. We spotted sentries ranging ahead of us a day’s walk from the fortress town, and at the gates were greeted by bearded men in hard-used mail. Pots of acrid incense burned in the hollow merlons, draping the walls in curtains of ghostly white smoke. I smelled cedar and clove, and something else, unfamiliar, that tickled my nose and left me light-headed. Magic? If so, it was none I had seen before.

  While archers kept arrows trained on us from the walls, a priest wearing Iomedae’s radiant sword ordered us to doff our hoods, baring our faces to the cold. I turned my eyes away from the symbol of my old goddess, gritting my teeth at the touch of her magic outside me—always and forever, outside—but the priest didn’t seem to notice. He chanted over us, beseeching Iomedae to show the truth of our natures, and only when he was satisfied that we were not demon-touched did the gates open at last.

  “You must forgive us,” he said. “We have hard troubles here.”

  No one answered him. What was there to say? We all knew of his nation’s troubles. They were why we had come, willingly or not.

  Inside the walls I saw more scars from Kenabres’ long struggle. It would have been impossible to tell from walking through it that this town held the attackers, not the besieged. There were no cats in its streets, and the alleys held more rat-traps than rodents: the people had eaten their pets and were reduced to snaring vermin for food.

  Peddlers crowded every corner, doing a brisk business in amulets and potions that promised protection from demons. I saw few women, and most of those were either painted bawds or Kellid giant-hunters, as wild and dangerous as their men. Mendev’s wives and children had been sent to safety long ago. I wondered how many had become widows and orphans since then.

  The gate guards shepherded us to a long, low building that served as a barracks. Banners and pennons from a hundred nations, city-states, and petty lordlings hung from its walls in a riot of dusty color. Among them hung stranger, grimmer trophies: weapons and battle-flags taken from vanquished foes in the Worldwound. I spotted a few skeletal claws and carapaces mounted in the corners. No skulls, though. Even dead—even taken as a prize of war—no one wanted those eyes on them as they slept.

  A one-armed soldier seated at a battered desk took down our names and skills. His face had been dissolved by acid, perhaps in the same attack that took his arm; his cheeks hung down to his collar in ripples of shiny pink slag, and he looked half demon himself. Only one eye had been spared, but that eye narrowed sharply when I gave my name for his book.

  “Ederras.” He flicked a glance at my shield, then looked back at me, coolly appraising. “No title? No talents?”

  I wondered if he recognized the golden wings painted on the oak, or if it was something else that had betrayed me. Perhaps I should have discarded the shield along with my blessed sword and the helm I was no longer worthy to wear… but the shield held one of the few enchantments that still worked for me, and I was loath to face the Worldwound with no magic.

  “No title,” I said. “No talents.”

  He didn’t press me, moving on to the next man—Persil, a brewer exiled after his beer sickened and killed a dozen revelers at a Merrymead celebration. He swore it was an accident, and I believed him, but that hadn’t save
d the stammering youth from the local swordlord’s justice.

  None of the others admitted to much until the scarred soldier came to Jelani. She gave her name, acknowledged her lack of title, and smiled when he asked for her talents.

  “Fire and sand,” she said, lifting a hand. A tiny whirlwind spun, sparkling, over her palm. It seemed to be made up of gold motes rather than ordinary dust. Each speck glowed with its own fiery light. That light shone strangely on her face; at that moment she seemed inhuman, her pupils replaced by dark flame, her skin the glossy bronze of a Vudrani idol. She was not speaking loudly, yet her voice filled the barracks and quelled all other sound. “The heat of the desert wind. The blaze of the unfailing sun. Those are the powers I command, Mendevian. Will they do?”

  The soldier shrugged with his good arm, drawing a stylized flame next to Jelani’s name. “If not, you’ll soon find out. Battle magic or builder’s?”

  Jelani closed her hand. The fire died; that strange light passed. She seemed a harmless girl again. “Battle.”

  The soldier smiled for the first time since he’d seen us. “Good.” He fanned his quill over the ink to dry it, then closed his book. “You’ll get your weapons now.”

  “I have weapons,” one of the cattle-thieves protested. He was a shaggy, slope-browed brute of a man, and he carried an axe to match.

  The one-armed soldier was unimpressed. “Are they blessed? Cold-forged? No? Not likely to give a demon any trouble, then. You can swing that axe until your beard goes gray, but if you’re not wielding cold iron you won’t leave a scratch on any of the beasts you’re like to face here. The weapons we’ll give you aren’t fancy. No engravings, no gilt, no pretty little master’s mark. But they can make those bastards bleed.”

  “You’ll want holy water, too,” said a Kellid woman. Triangles and knotted circles in red ochre covered her shoulders and collarbones, vanishing into the deerskin tunic she wore. “Not little vials like you carry in the south. Skins of it. Some of the demons have acid or stinking slime. Use the water to wash it off. Use the water to kill them, too, if you lose your sword. But don’t waste it. Might need to drink it. Other water turns to poison near the Worldwound sometimes. Holy water’s safer—as long as it lasts.”

  “We won’t throw you out there like raw meat to wolves,” the one-armed soldier said, reading the fear on the faces around him. “I won’t lie: our need is desperate, and we’re not training Andoren knights here. We don’t have time to drill you for ten years in the training field. But we won’t be sending you out against balors before you’ve learned to hold a sword, either. If you’ve never fought, we’ll teach you. Until then, you’ll tend animals, help the healers, brew whitesmoke for the pots. The work we do in town is as important as anything that happens on the wardstones.

  “If you do know how to fight, however, we’ll be sending you out once you’re armed.” He looked directly at me as he said it. I returned his gaze, impassive. “Our battle never ends. This is like no war you’ve ever fought.”

  “I’ve never fought in any war,” Persil mumbled.

  “You’re in one now.” The soldier grinned. “Welcome to the Worldwound.”

  Chapter Two: Valas’s Gift

  A grim silence settled over the recruits after that welcome. When another soldier came to lead them to the armory, they followed quietly, their heads lowered like those of condemned men marching to the gallows.

  I rose to go with them, but the scarred soldier waved me down. After the others had gone, and the banners on the walls had stopped flapping in their wake, he leaned back, watching me. “Do you know why they have me greet the new ones?”

  “I presume because you can read but can’t fight,” I said, looking pointedly at the empty sleeve pinned over his shoulder.

  The soldier nodded, unoffended by my bluntness. “That’s part. The other part’s that I look so pretty.” He traced his thumb along one ruined cheek, following its acid-eaten sag. His empty eye socket stared at me, a wet red pit. “Shocks ‘em. Terrifies ‘em. That’s good. They need to know what’ll happen if they get lazy or drop their guard.

  “Every now and then, though… every now and then, we get one who doesn’t flinch. One who’s seen worse. Dealt worse, maybe.” He fixed his good eye on me again. “Like you. Who were you before?”

  “No one,” I said. My throat felt tight and raspy.

  He snorted. “I lost an eye and an arm, not my brain. Don’t want to tell me, fine. But you’re no novice to command, any idiot can see that. That bedraggled bunch of cast-offs you brought me was already yours, even though you didn’t know half their names. Men want to follow you. That’s good. We’ll use it.”

  That I could bear. I hadn’t come to be questioned, but I had come to serve. “What would you have of me?”

  “You’ll lead a company up to Valas’s Gift tomorrow. I’ll give you some new recruits, but most will be Mendevians. They know the lay of the land.”

  “They’ll follow me?”

  The soldier’s scars twitched as he tried to raise a long-gone eyebrow. The other side of his face stayed immobile, a mask of dead flesh. “They’re used to following new blood. Sudden changes of command aren’t exactly a novelty around the Worldwound.”

  “Fair enough. What’s in Valas’s Gift?”

  “That’s what you’ll be finding out. We don’t know. The wardstone nearest the village has been damaged, according to our scryers, but we don’t know exactly how. It’s bad enough that the Worldwound’s taint is interfering with their spells, though, and that means it’s bad enough for us to send a scouting party.”

  I smiled sourly. It was just like every assignment I’d ever been given back in Cheliax: uncertain troops, scant information, and the blithe certainty of my commanding officers that I’d solve the problem or die trying.

  Except Iomedae was no longer with me, and that changed everything.

  “Who are you?” I asked the scarred man, to distract myself from the fatigue of failure. “You’re no simple soldier yourself. Not if you’re giving orders so easily.”

  “We’re all soldiers here,” he said. “But, as it happens, my name is Colum Norsellen. First Adjutant to General Dyre. Now, it’s getting late and you don’t want to be a stranger abroad in Kenabres after dark. Best rejoin the others. Unless, of course, you’d care to tell me about that winged shield you’re carrying.”

  “No,” I said.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Ten of us went to Valas’s Gift: six Mendevians, the Kellid woman from the previous night, Jelani, Persil, and myself. I was surprised that Colum assigned Persil to the scouting company, since the youth scarcely knew how to set up a tent, but the adjutant insisted it was no mistake.

  “He’ll learn by doing,” Colum said. “You’re going out to scout, not fight. You can keep him safe.”

  I thought it more likely that the boy would end up as deadweight, if not simply dead, but he was so bright-eyed at the prospect of adventure that I hadn’t the heart to say so.

  We traveled on foot; the weather was too harsh for horses, and Kenabres had none to spare. Our only beast of burden was the shaggy brown mule carrying our supplies. We said a last prayer with the priest from the walls, swearing our crusaders’ oaths and accepting Iomedae’s blessing from his palsied hands. Then the gates closed.

  That morning was beautiful. There was no snow in the air, only the glassy brightness of new winter. The sun spilled gold over the wardstones, lighting the poisoned sky so that, for a while, I could almost believe that the red clouds were stained only by the sunrise.

  But as the day wore on, the illusory promise of dawn faded back into the churning gloom of the storm over the Worldwound. It seemed all the crueler for the change. After that I turned my eyes from the sky and only watched the road.

  Three days later we reached Valas’s Gift. Fields of frost-kissed stubble ringed its walls, indicating a richer harvest than I would have thought this frigid land could give. I even saw small orchards—stunted by the win
d, and bare-branched on winter’s eve, but orchards nonetheless.

  One of the Mendevians, a cheerful young priest named Adrun, caught me marveling and laughed. “It’s blessed soil.”

  “What?”

  He swept a mittened hand out. “It’s Valas’s blessing that lets anything worth harvesting grow here. Surprised you don’t know the story. With that shield, I had you figured for a paladin myself.”

  “I’m not a paladin.” It sounded less bitter than it felt.

  “Suppose that’s no surprise. We’re dreadful short on holiness here. Valas was one of the old breed, and one of the last. He fought in the Second Crusade, the heroes who beat back the Worldwound’s demons long enough for casters to build the wardstones that shield us now. They hurt him viciously, but Valas didn’t fall until the wardstones were safe. By then he was dying. His squire pulled him back to this little village, where some kind soul gave him water to ease his last moments. In gratitude, Valas blessed the village spring as he died.

  “That spring runs red as blood now. It looks frightful, but it keeps this village alive. Fields watered from it are more fertile than they’ve any right to be. Wounds washed in it don’t sicken. The water loses its magic if you try to carry it off, but even so it’s precious. Valas’s Gift helps put bread on every table in Kenabres.”

  I nodded, squinting at the village through the lowering dusk.

  Valas’s Gift looked strangely sunken behind its hard-packed walls. As we drew nearer, I understood why. Most of its sod-roofed homes and granaries slanted into the earth, burying themselves for warmth and to escape the wind. A pall of peat smoke lingered in the dips between them, mingling with the same white incense that flowed from the walls of Kenabres.

  Sheep wandered among the buildings, cropping at the withered grass that clung to the rooftop sod. Slatted pens held woolly, dark-faced pigs twice the size of any I’d seen before. We saw no people, however, until we were almost to the gates. Then a lone man scurried out to greet us, his breath puffing white around his shaved head.