by Steven Poore
“The Betrayer.” Meredith’s voice was flat and cold. Cassia flinched. At that moment, if she could have willed her legs to carry her, she would have fled the warmth of the fire in favour of the darkened hillsides, just to escape from the violence behind those words. But she was far more terrified by what might happen to her if she ran, and so she ducked her head to avoid his gaze, her limbs quivering and chilled.
“Amongst other names,” Baum agreed. “So, they do at least still tell these stories in the North. Carry on, girl, and cut to the core of it.”
She took a breath and forced herself to hold it for a moment, so that she could speak again without her voice breaking. “Malessar used his sorcery to bring Jedrell into the castle unseen. Then Jedrell confronted the High King. He struck him down and took his crown, his castle, and his lands, and took Rosmer’s daughter Aliciana as hostage to bring Rosmer’s nobles under his command. After that he became the greatest High King in all of Caenthell’s history, inspiring loyalty in his allies and fear in his enemies. He conquered all the lands as far south as the waters of the Castaria, and even the mighty Lords of Stromondor sent tribute to the North. And after his last campaign in the lowlands, he returned to Caenthell and married Aliciana.”
“And then?”
She moistened her lips. “And then Malessar returned to Caenthell and destroyed it.”
Baum looked away into the darkness. “He did much more than that, girl. Oh, much more indeed. He murdered every single man, woman and child inside the castle’s walls – burned them or tore them to shreds with his sorcery. His rage consumed the very stones themselves. He pulled Caenthell to the ground and left it as a grave, fit only for rats, weeds and revenants. When dawn broke, bleeding into the valley, it was as though the kingdom had never existed at all.”
He jabbed angrily at the fire, and embers spilled out over Cassia. She swatted them away before they could settle and burn through her skirts.
“But that was not all. He cursed the very land itself, cursed it so harshly that even the gods, appalled and aghast, could not undo his work. And they feared him. The gods themselves feared Malessar the warlock and what he might do to them if they opposed him!” Baum snorted bitterly. “Do you know the curse he laid upon Caenthell, girl? Do they still whisper it in dark places, or is it long forgotten, just like the glories of the North?”
Cassia shrank back in alarm, frightened by the turn of the conversation. Just as it had earlier, it seemed to her that Baum must have seen all this happen, but that was impossible. Caenthell had fallen hundreds of years ago. Only the gods would remember it now . . .
Her mind revolted. “Please, I don’t understand,” she gasped. “Who are you?”
Apparently Baum did not hear her. “Caenthell will stay buried, and never again will the North arise, until I freely offer my sword to a true descendant of the High Kings, or one takes it from my dying hands! Those were his words. They echoed over the whole kingdom, even over the roar of the castle’s death, and they sunk into the earth and pinned Caenthell’s soul into the stones of the mountains.”
His voice subsided, though his eyes still blazed with elemental anger. “And I still hear them. They are as much a part of me as my arms, or my heart, or my mind. They course through my blood and stir my dreams. Even the blessings of the God of the North can only dampen them to whispers for a time.”
“But . . .” Cassia breathed. “But you can’t have been there. You – you were a captain in the legions – I don’t . . .”
“A soldier, and a storyteller too, in my own way. In my time I have been almost everywhere, and I have been everything a man can possibly be. But I was there, Cassia. I stood watch above the Hamiardin Pass while Jedrell and Malessar discussed their attack plans. I sat within arm’s reach of the High King’s table, at the feast to celebrate our victory over Rosmer. I watched Caenthell die, and I barely escaped with my life. Since that day I have taken employment with every army ever raised; I fought with the Eastern Hordes and against them, both defended the Empire and attacked it. I learned every discipline and craft known to man – and many others more secret and arcane. Kings, emperors, cities and countries have gone to dust, and all the long years have blended into one and become indistinguishable to me, yet I have aged little more than a score of years in the meantime.”
This time his smile was bittersweet. “Truly, Pyraete has smiled upon me, eh?”
Cassia had covered her mouth with one hand. Everything she had thought to say had been smashed from her mind. Before her, she realised, was a man who had seen what only the gods were privileged to see. He was as close to immortality as any of the greatest heroes.
“You really mean to raise Jedrell from the dead?” she managed to ask.
“That cannot be done. Death is still death, a shore from which none may return.” For a moment a shadow passed before his eyes, and then he leaned forward into the firelight once more. “But if the old High King is dead, his line still survives. I did not escape Caenthell alone, Cassia. I carried Jedrell’s heir safe, in my arms, over the northern borders and into the wild countries beyond. Out of sight, out of danger, and out of history. Until now.”
She blinked, uncomprehendingly, trying to make sense of what he was telling her. He was pointing her towards some secret conclusion, she realised, but she felt stupid. She could not see the end of the story.
Meredith emerged silently from the gloom, crouched down by the fire, and laid a pair of dead rabbits before her. “Yours to prepare,” he said.
She stared at the animals, her thoughts turned about once more. Last night he knew nothing! How could he have caught those? “I – you laid snares?”
Meredith returned her stare. “No,” he replied bluntly.
Something cried out for her attention, as if from a great distance, and she struggled to hear that voice. Meredith shifted and leaned forward, and the pendant that hung around his neck slipped into view, glimmering in the firelight. Small and golden – a mountain that rested on a closed fist. Cassia had seen that image before, and it didn’t take long for her to remember where, and when.
Pyraete’s Call to the North. It decorated the sides of the scroll; a recurring motif that had been worked into the illuminations. It was the ancient symbol of the High Kings.
The air punched from her chest as Baum’s hints made sense at last. Out of history. Until now.
“Meredith?” she gasped, and the lordling raised his head to look at her. “You . . . you’re the heir to Caenthell?”
“My flesh and blood is of the mountains,” he replied gravely.
Baum tossed another stick onto the fire. “Which is to say, yes,” he told her. “Do you find it so hard to believe?”
Cassia’s gaze flicked back to the pendant as it swung gently from its chain and reflected the firelight in several different directions, giving it the appearance of being forge-heated. “Sir, I don’t know what to believe any more. I’ve never heard any of this story told.”
Baum grunted. “Of course not,” he said. “That’s because I’ve never told it, and everybody else is long dead. Malessar intended to kill every single man, woman and child in that castle when he tore it down. Why should I risk the chance he would learn that I still live, and that Jedrell’s line was not cut short?”
She shook her head, cursing her woollen thoughts. It was obvious – what else would happen if the warlock had found out? In all the tragedies she knew, grudges were held across generations, and vengeance was always bloody.
She could not take her gaze from Meredith’s face. His skin was unlined, unworn, chiselled with sharp lines, while it was easy to see the passage of centuries written on Baum’s features. “But surely you were not both there, at Caenthell?”
The old soldier laughed, although the sound was not light-hearted. “Of course not, girl. Pyraete only saw fit to extend my own life. Jedrell’s boy lived a natural span. He took a wife, grew old, and was buried far from his rightful home.”
“As did his
son,” Meredith said quietly. “And his children after that.”
“All through those long years, I remained true to my promise,” Baum said. “I kept Jedrell’s descendants safe from harm, nursed them through their lives, until they had forgotten where their origins lay. Then I left them alone. I sought training and knowledge, to arm myself for the battle I knew would one day come. Every ten years or so, I made sure to pass through and check on the families, but I never revealed myself or let them realise who they were.”
It was an incredible story. Nothing Cassia could think of, not even the tales from the Age of Talons, could match the power of Baum’s history.
“But – where . . . ?”
“Beyond the sight of the Empire that rose up to take Caenthell’s place,” Baum said, and a note of disgust entered his voice. A long-held and deep-seated emotion, Cassia guessed, from the way that it sounded so natural. Like Rann Almoul’s contempt for her father. “There are lands far to the north of the mountains, where even the steel will of the High Kings could not reach. Civilised lands now, but very different to our own. Sometimes their ships find the docks at Kalakhadze and they trade stones and warm furs for spices or dried meats that they call exotic and rare. It was easy to settle there. Unless you wished to undertake the same arduous journey as their seafarers, the safest route to these countries was through Caenthell and the Hamiardin Pass. But the pass was blocked by the same curse that felled the castle, and I was the last man to travel that way.”
He clapped his hands and Cassia jumped at the sharp noise, her nerves shattered. “So! Now you know who we are and why we are here. What do you say?”
She hesitated, her hands slippery with blood and one of the rabbits only half-skinned. What could she say? Did he look for her approval? Surely not. Why would such a man need the approval of a mere girl? But the way he had despatched Vescar’s men made her wary of saying anything that might anger him.
“But . . . I still don’t understand. Why did you need us, sir? You have the Lord Meredith, and the blessings of a god, so why did you need my father?”
Meredith frowned. “I am no lord, girl.”
Cassia ducked her head. “Yes, sir, but if you are heir to the High King’s throne . . .”
Baum smiled. “For now, Meredith will suffice. But why do you think I decided to bring a storyteller on this quest?”
For a long moment she was uncertain, and she shied away from the more unpleasant reasons that came to mind. Who knows how or why the gods work? And why would we know how their agents work? She bit her lip and forced herself to think more positively. Think like my father does: he puts himself into his characters and acts how he believes they would. But how can I make myself into a man who is nearly a thousand years old?
She thought back, gathering up everything she had heard him say, sifting through the words for any kind of clue. One phrase – an overheard quip – circled and repeated itself, jostling for her attention.
And they always get it so wrong . . .
“Stromondor . . .” she breathed.
Baum leaned forward again. “Ah. So you heard me.”
The pieces were falling into place. “You were at Stromondor. You were the man who challenged Jathar Leon Learth!” She paused; it wasn’t quite right. “But the man in the story has no name.”
“I never gave my name,” Baum said. “You forget, the damned warlock was there too.”
She had forgotten. But still, now she thought about it, she realised she knew what Baum wanted. Just like the illuminations that decorated Rann Almoul’s copy of Pyraete’s Call to the North, he had curled sinuously around the history of Hellea for several hundred years. But there the likeness faltered. The illuminations were in the margins, true, but they were visible. Baum’s journey, if his presence at Stromondor was to be believed, had been either invisible, or undocumented.
Now he wanted that to change. He wanted to be a part of history again, part of the tales that would be told down the years about this quest to resurrect the ancient power of the North. To be acknowledged by the world once more.
“You want somebody to tell this story,” she said. “And you thought that my father would accompany you . . .”
Baum spat into the fire. “So much for that idea,” he muttered. “All this time and still I make such simple errors of judgement.”
A strange prickle crept up from the base of Cassia’s spine. There’s an opening – a chance. Even half a chance must be better than none . . .
“So now you have no storyteller?” She tried to keep her voice as flat as possible. Show no interest. None at all.
“It appears not,” Baum agreed. “A hitch, but not insurmountable.”
She drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Sir, I can be your storyteller.”
The old man stared across the fire at her, the deep lines creasing his skin highlighted even further by his raised brows. To one side Meredith looked on with little more than amused interest.
“You? But you are just a girl.” Cassia clenched her fists at her sides. But he hasn’t yet refused me . . .
She took another deep breath. What she said next could either sway him, or fall horribly flat. “And I am just a girl who can tell all her father’s stories much better than he ever could.”
Now the old man laughed, but, Cassia realised, it was not a derisive sound. He rocked back and clapped his hands together in delight. “Well fought, and well done! You have a deal, Cassia of Keskor!”
Chapter Six
Cassia woke with a start as somebody nudged her ribs with the toe of their boot. Through the weave of her blanket she saw Meredith standing over her, silhouetted in the grey light before dawn.
“It is time to rise,” he told her.
Cassia groaned and rolled over. “No it isn’t. I’ve barely got to sleep. Stop doing that.”
“No. This is your doing, girl.”
She levered herself up onto her elbows, wincing at the aches caused by sleeping on the uneven ground. “What? I don’t understand—”
“You wished to learn. This will be the only time we have spare today.”
Now the memory returned to her. A couple of days back she had asked Meredith to teach her some skill with the sword. She’d had to settle for a promise to practise with staves, but that had been driven from her mind by the previous day’s events. She noticed the Heir to the North held two long, thick staves, freshly hewn and better fashioned than her own, designed for sparring as much as for support. Meredith must have spent the entire night cutting them.
“You did not fashion one for yourself,” Meredith noted. “I have done that for you.”
“Thank you, sir. I think.”
Meredith stepped back and allowed her to stand and stretch her tired, chilled muscles, waiting silently until she was ready. Cassia found herself tidying her bed roll away more slowly than usual, wondering if she was truly ready to face this kind of test when all she had done before was clash with Hetch and his younger cronies in the dirt outside Keskor’s walls.
There was no room for her to back out. She found a sliver of relief in the fact that Baum had not yet risen. At least her embarrassment would only be shared with Meredith.
The staff was longer than she was used to, but it felt well balanced and she thought she might actually manage to surprise her new tutor if he let his guard down or under-estimated her skill. She followed Meredith out from the copse onto the damp field beyond and took up position a few yards from him, her left foot forward and her torso twisted to present a smaller target. She held the staff pointing low, to make him think twice about rushing her.
Meredith nodded. “A beginner’s stance. But you have seen these contests before. You should not guard so low.”
She was stung by the criticism. He had not even seen her fight yet, so what right did he have to make such fun of her? “Why not?”
A single step, his arms blurring across her vision, and the staff rattled from her grasp, her left arm numbed
by the impact. The force of the blow staggered her and she dropped to her knees. She wanted to cry out in pain but stubborn pride – and years of experience – kept her silent.
“That is why,” Meredith said. He moved back again. “Pick up your weapon.”
She flexed her arm to loosen the muscles, wincing at the pain. The flesh above her elbow would darken quickly to a bruise, but it was nothing she hadn’t suffered before. At least this time there was a reason for the hurt. She took up her position again, more wary now of Meredith’s speed and reach. One end of her staff pointed up at his bare chest.
He regarded her for a moment with that dispassionate stare that so unnerved her. “Now you are awake. Good. Beware also of guarding too high.”
She was on the ground again, this time flat on her back, before she could even think to lower the staff or duck away. The breath had been driven from her lungs, and the sky was tinged with strange bright lights. Meredith loomed over her – perhaps it had all been a dream, she thought hazily.
“Is it morning?” she managed to croak.
Meredith lifted her back up onto her feet, supporting her weight for a moment while she rediscovered her balance. “You are slow,” he noted, as if surprised by that fact.
“I – I’m a storyteller,” she replied, taking two dizzied steps toward her staff. “Not a bloodthirsty warrior. Or a prince.”
“Yet you wish to learn.”
Cassia pulled free of his hand, aware – too aware – of her skin prickling disturbingly under his cool, smooth touch. She hid her sudden flush by recovering her staff. “I might learn even faster if you tell me how I should stand, instead of hitting me all the time,” she snapped.
“If there is no penalty for failure, how will you learn from your mistakes?”
The question was phrased so reasonably Cassia could find no rational argument against it. Her mood already frayed by Meredith’s stings, she turned and ran at him without warning, her staff held to impale his stomach. Meredith twisted aside, dodging her attack with ease, and Cassia swung about again, unbalanced and forced into defending herself once more.
