Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides

by David Hair

  Gatoz led him down a winding stair into the bowels of the rock. Dampness and the smell of stale air thickened about him, cloying his lungs. The Hadishah mage said nothing until they arrived in a small room where a guardsman stood beside a bolted door. He bowed, and at Gatoz’s gesture, immediately unlocked the door, revealing a corridor lined with more barred doors. It was clearly a dungeon.

  Gatoz flicked his fingers and the door on the right unlocked and fell open. Bewildered noises came from within, and a tentative enquiry in a strange tongue, a young woman’s voice. It was quickly echoed by others.

  Kazim followed as Gatoz walked into the cell.

  There were four prisoners, all female, all Keshi, chained to the walls by the hands; the manacles forcing them to stand. All had sun-blackened skin and poor clothing. The room stank of urine and faeces, the floor filthy and wet. Their eyes were hollow with fear, the presumption of suffering and death to come.

  ‘These maids tended the Ordo Costruo magi loyal to Meiros,’ Gatoz said in a cold voice. ‘They are collaborators with the enemy.’ He drew a curved dagger.

  Kazim’s skin immediately formed a sheen of sweat. ‘How can a maid be a collaborator?’

  Gatoz watched him warily. ‘They would not spy on their masters. Those not with us are against us.’

  One of the maids, an older woman, raised her hand. ‘But we—’

  Gatoz bellowed, ‘Silence!’ and backhanded her across the face. Her head cracked back against the stone wall and she whimpered weakly.

  Gatoz jabbed a finger at Kazim. ‘You refuse to utilise all that you are for the shihad.’

  ‘I would die for the shihad,’ Kazim replied defensively.

  ‘Die, maybe, but you will not use the gnosis,’ Gatoz retorted. ‘You’re too squeamish to do what must be done for the glory of Ahm.’ He raised his blade to the throat of the woman he’d struck. ‘On the journey here you aided Molmar in flying. That is double-standards, boy. We must clarify your thinking.’ The woman shrank from his knife as he caressed her skin with it, ignoring her pleading eyes. ‘You need to replenish yourself.’

  ‘No.’ The word was out before he could stop it.

  Gatoz’s eyes narrowed. ‘I see through you, Kazim Makani. You think with your gnosis depleted, you will not be tempted to use it. You wish to be the Souldrinker who does not drink, an empty vessel, freed from the option of using the power you fear.’

  It was as if Gatoz was seeing into his soul – or Molmar did, and told him. Kazim felt himself go cold.

  ‘It doesn’t work that way. Hunger will grip you – not for food but for the energy that sustains the gnosis. You depleted yourself flying: that usage is already gnawing inside you, a thirst that increases as your reservoir of power runs dry.’ He looked hard at Kazim. ‘You are feeling it now.’

  Kazim stared. It was true that despite the feast, a strange emptiness filled him, a need for more than the meal could give. He swallowed uneasily.

  ‘I will make a bargain with you,’ Gatoz said. ‘Drink this woman’s soul and these others can go free.’ He sounded utterly indifferent either way.

  ‘No – you cannot—’ He tried to look Gatoz in the eye. ‘Ahm would never give his blessing to such a thing.’

  ‘Shall I call Haroun and ask him what Ahm would command? Your Scriptualist friend thinks as I do.’

  That this was probably true only deepened Kazim’s horror.

  ‘You are running away from your true nature,’ Gatoz went on. ‘You have a strong body, but a weak mind. You suffer fear and call it conscience.’ He turned to the older maid, his eyes pitiless. ‘Decide.’

  ‘I cannot,’ he pleaded.

  The knife slashed and blood fountained. The woman convulsed, but with her hands fastened tightly to the wall, she could do nothing. The other three women howled as her lifeblood gushed from her.

  Kazim stared helplessly, then, without conscious thought, he moved.

  Get away from her, his mind screamed, and he flung his hand up. Gatoz was pushed bodily backwards, striking the door hard enough to concuss a man, and though his shields flared about him, softening the blow, still he fell awkwardly. The blade clattered from his hand and he shook his head, dazed.

  Kazim went to the dying woman, meaning to try and save her – but he had no idea how; just wanting was of no use this time. Unlike flying or throwing people about, healing required skill and knowledge, neither of which he had.

  He lifted the woman’s chin and tried to pump energy into the cut, but the blood only flowed harder and his hands became slick with the scarlet fluid. ‘Please, heal!’ he shouted at her as her eyes went dim. ‘Please!’

  But the woman went limp; her face lost all focus and as she sagged she exhaled and a diaphanous mist oozed from her mouth and nostrils. He could almost taste it; he knew what it would be like to take it in. He could inhale all this poor woman’s life, all the memories, her loves and passions, the suffering and fear; they were his to consume, and they would make him strong.

  The three women watched him, their hearts in their eyes, their lives at stake.

  *

  ‘You were stronger today,’ Molmar told him at the end of the next night’s flight north into Javon. Perhaps it was meant only as a compliment; perhaps the pilot-mage truly knew nothing of what Gatoz had done. Kazim couldn’t tell, but he could no longer trust anyone. He shut Molmar entirely from his mind.

  I saved three lives, he reminded himself, but it was the life he’d taken that filled his mind. Her name had been Wimla. She was a mother of two, a good woman, blameless. Her children would now grow up without a mother, as he and Huriya had. And to him, her name would always mean one thing: capitulation.

  8

  The Tide Lands

  The Tides of Urte

  The tides of Urte are an extremely important factor in understanding the lives of the people and the flow of cultures and civilisations. Coastal living is precarious and sea-travel impossible, such is the magnitude of the tides. The distance between high and low tidal marks is never measured in less than hundreds of feet, and the force of the waves on even the gentlest day would demolish a castle wall in minutes. The lakes and rivers have tidal influences that can imperil the unwary; the largest lakes in Yuros, like Lac Siberne in Andressea, have tidal shifts of more than thirty vertical feet in the cycle, and building within a mile of shore is perilous. Despite this, the sea remains important to the coastal villagers, who will scavenge the tidepools daily, and literally reap a harvest of fish, though freak waves and sudden squalls often take a deadly toll.

  ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS

  Eastern Silacia, Yuros

  Julsep and Augeite 928

  1st and 2nd months of the Moontide

  Alaron clapped a hand over Anise’s mouth just as she opened it to scream. He wanted to cry out himself at the torrent of fire and dazzling white lightning pouring from at least half a dozen magi above. The Rimoni wagons were ablaze and the people caught in the circle were crying out. Then dark shapes began to drop from the winged beasts. They floated downwards, their armour and swords gleaming in the flames. Their tabards bore the Sacred Heart of the Inquisition.

  ‘Niy-niy-niy!’ Anise shrieked, the sound muffled by his palm. ‘Ferdi!’ Her eyes pleaded at him to go out there, to perform miracles and save her people.

  All his inadequacies hit him at once. These are Inquisitors. I wouldn’t last three seconds!

  It felt like cowardice, but he wrapped his arms around her as she thrashed against him. His eyes flew back to the wagons, though his mind pleaded with him to run. Then he saw Ferdi, Anise’s little brother, outside the wagons, beaten back by the flames. Above him, the constructs circled lower, squealing malevolently. Two Inquisitors landed right behind the little boy: one was a woman, her golden hair curling about her beautiful, cold face. But it was the sight of the other that stopped him dead. Malevorn Andevarion.

  While Alaron’s brain froze at the sight of his college nemesis, Ferdi panicked and trie
d to run.

  The golden-haired woman barely moved; she leaned forward, then back, her face showing complete indifference as her sword-tip plunged through the middle of Ferdi’s back.

  Alaron cradled Anise to him as her brother slid off the woman’s blade. Her teeth closed on his hand and he felt them tearing his skin until they grated against bone, but he hung on and sent a pulse of mesmeric-gnosis into her, an unsubtle blast of darkness that overwhelmed her and shut her mind down. Her limbs were suddenly jelly and her face fell slack. Together, they slumped to the ground.

  The Inquisitors’ constructs landed behind them, filling the night with their huge wings, and he thought surely someone would see him, kneeling on the edge of the light, holding the girl in the white blouse. But then a crowd of men burst from within the circle of wagons, waving weapons. Only one wasn’t burning already: Jeris Muhren.

  Alaron leapt to his feet as the Inquisitors swung to meet the onrush. He opened his mouth to bellow a charge and join the fray when Muhren’s voice rang through his mind.

  *

  Drink had killed Jeris Muhren’s father when he was still young. Now the damned stuff was going to kill him too.

  Not that he was drunk, but he’d had just enough, and that combined with the conversation and celebration swirling about him had blinded him to what should have been obvious: a scrying. Watching the dancers, wrapped up in an intense discussion with Mercellus, he had failed to realise the danger.

  As he blinked in the aftermath of the scrying, Mercellus looking at him worriedly, he suddenly realised that this time the spell had not come from miles away but from directly overhead. But it was already too late; the moment he saw the winged giants descend in their close-ordered flight, he knew what they were facing.

  We should never have stayed here, he railed against himself.

  He’d faced death many times in the Noros Revolt, and no few times since, policing the backstreets of Norostein. But Inquisitors were a different matter from footpads and muggers, or even legion battle-magi. ‘Run!’ he shouted at Mercellus as the Rimoni headman drew steel and rose. Mercellus roared in his own tongue and his people scattered, mothers scooping up children and the menfolk seeking weapons. Muhren sought Alaron, then remembered the boy had already gone to their campsite. As I must. We have to escape. But before he could move, the circle of wagons went up in an all-engulfing ring of flame, heat washing over the Rimoni as they ran like rabbits, seeking a way out. Dark shapes swooped overhead, randomly spewing fire and lightning.

  He glanced sideways, mentally farewelled Mercellus, comrade of countless scrapes in the Revolt and so many wonderful evenings since, drinking and laughing about things that would otherwise make him weep. Then his mind went to Alaron and the Scytale.

  Don’t try to help us, Alaron. Just run.

  He summoned his gnosis and hurled one of the blazing wagons aside, risking revealing himself to carve a path out of this blazing circle for the Rimoni. ‘This way!’ he shouted to the trapped gypsies, and though they didn’t understand the words they got the meaning and poured after him.

  ‘Attenzione!’ one of the Rimoni men yelled, pointing skywards as the dark shapes of the Inquisitors started dropping from their mounts in a leisurely fashion. Their cloaks flared about them like wings; their armour glinted orange in the flames. A mage-bolt transfixed a woman in front of him and fire washed overhead. The air was filled with swirling smoke. Somewhere in front of him someone screamed a Rimoni war-cry that became a choked cough. He stumbled over a fallen child and rolled to his feet in time to see a young golden-haired beauty in an ermine-lined Inquisitor cloak bury her broadsword in the back of a young boy. Her cold, perfect face seared itself in his mind. Then his eyes flew past her and he saw Alaron on his knees at the edge of the fields, cradling Anise.

  he sent as a heavyset, bearded Inquisitor ran at him, thrusting his blade at his face. He nudged the blow aside and kept coming, struck shielding, shorted his foe’s wards to one point by slamming a gnosis-lit fist at the man’s face, then swung low, where the shields frayed. His blow hacked apart the man’s left ankle and as he went down Muhren leapt over him and slammed his heel down, breaking the man’s neck. Then he reached the golden girl who’d stabbed the boy and crossed blades with her. She moved with almost blinding speed, but he read her blows and instinctively blocked and shoved. Though she was considerably smaller than him, Earth-gnosis anchored her stance and she didn’t budge.

  she crowed.

  Answering minds clamoured,

  He blocked another blow and leapt for the sky. The young woman’s blade slashed past his feet as he left her earthbound – then a massive winged shape roared and flew at him.

  Up, spin and slash. He rolled past the point of a lance that was spewing gnosis-fire and swung two-handed at the figure holding the weapon as the snapping jaws of the construct creature crunched by his ear. He struck the lancer’s shield-wards square on, their opposing speeds lending the blow superhuman power. The Inquisitor’s shields failed and Muhren’s blade cleaved right through his nose-guard and smashed his face to pulp. The force of the impact spun him away as the construct ploughed on, its rider slumped in the harness.

  a woman’s voice screeched from his right, warning him in time to turn and see a ball of fire coming at him; he blasted it away with a mixture of his own Air- and Fire-gnosis. Jaws opened in the flames and he had to lurch away from the construct’s maw, barely escaping having his leg ripped off. The sallow-faced young woman riding the beast peppered his shields with mage-bolts as he dropped beneath her mount and hacked brutally at the leading edge of its wing. Bone crunched, blood sprayed and the thing yowled and spun towards the ground. He dropped free of the falling beast and whirled on, bursting into the open – and was suddenly exposed to attack.

  Lightning struck him from both sides at once. The air filled with vivid white light and he was held motionless in the sky, absolute agony eclipsing all other sensation. He dimly heard the shrieks of the constructs, glimpsed their snapping jaws, then a lance-shaft burst through the stars all about him and punched through his belly. He lost his sword as both hands grabbed the shaft. He coughed up blood as numbness that was worse than the pain spread through him.

  ‘Alive!’ someone bellowed. ‘Take him alive!’

  Never.

  There was a spell, one of the few necromancy spells he knew, that they’d all learned during the Revolt. Soul’s End, they called it: the spell to obliterate your own soul at the point of death, so that other necromancers couldn’t bring you back and question you. The only thing was, it destroyed your soul utterly. If there truly was a paradise beyond the skies, you would never know.

  Paradise. He’d never really believed in it anyway. It was just a another lie the Kore told.

  He spoke the spell before the spreading numbness took his one chance from him. Darkness became light, became fire, became smoke …

  Then the wind blew the smoke away.

  *

  Alaron ran, Anise’s limp body in his arms. He felt completely overwhelmed by everything he’d seen, from Ferdi pierced by the golden woman’s sword to the human torches that had been dancing Rimoni men and women only moments before, to Jeris Muhren, transfixed on a lance. All the while he fled he was never more than a heartbeat from collapsing to the ground, sobbing; or turning and running back into the midst of the enemy, waving his sword like a drunk.

  Instead, he followed Jeris’ last order: Run, you fool, run!

  He lurched into the campsite. The trees hid the flames and dulled the noise, but still images from the attack kept assailing him. He forced them away; right now he had to get away from that place. Prancer was edgy, but he used his animagery-gnosis to calm the animal, then put Anise into the saddle and tied her in place so she wouldn’t slip off. He re-saddled Mallet, then bundled up his bedroll and attached it to the saddlebag. The horse was puzzled, but he quietene
d him. His mind was still bursting with the horrors of the attack, but there was solace in movement, in action.

  Malevorn was there … he knows me … Stay calm, he scolded himself. He’s not God, and he never could do Clairvoyance. It had been Malevorn’s lance that slew Muhren. He added it to the list of things for which he wanted vengeance.

  I have to go east. Cym went that way. He walked both horses forward, using animagery as well as the reins, and even remembered to use Earth-gnosis to erase the traces of his passage. Malevorn was the only one of his pursuers who knew him, and maybe they didn’t know he was there. Maybe he could get away.

  Darkness swallowed them, but he exerted his gnosis for some night-sight and soon found the road. He dared not gallop for fear of the sound of the hooves, so he walked the horses instead. Every now and then he glanced behind, and caught glimpses of flames: Signor Torrini’s villa was on fire too now. Guilt at his helplessness warred with absolute hatred for those who had perpetrated this obscenity.

  Finally the flames fell from sight as he rounded a hill a mile to the east, back the way they’d come. He checked Anise, found her merry face deathlike, but she still breathed. He left her tied there, then returned to Mallet.

  The horse looked at him resentfully. ‘Yes, I know we rode all day,’ he whispered brokenly. ‘But we’ve got to go on.’ He kicked his heels to Mallet’s flanks and with Prancer following, they trotted through the moonlight into the eastern darkness.

  *

  He rested at dawn, finding the thickest copse he could to conceal them from the air. He picketed the horses on a short rope. Anise was stirring, so he laid her down, fighting to quell his stinging tears as he helped her mind throw off the spell he’d used to stop her screaming.

  Her eyes opened and for a second she blinked up at him blearily and smiled, as if imagining that they’d dozed off together beside the stream. Then she looked about her and sat up fearfully. ‘Alron—?’