by David Hair
Severine walked to the lip of the gully, her face shaky but determined. A waft of foul air from below made Ramon retch, but he clenched his stomach muscles and held down his rising gorge. Severine was not so strong; she went white, leant sideways and vomited over the edge. But her freckled face was still filled with purpose, a young women inflamed by a cause. ‘I’m going down there,’ she said through gritted teeth.
Ramon glanced at Kip, then said, ‘Watch the horses, Coll.’
Severine began to clamber unsteadily down into the gully, sending loose rocks and gravel sliding before her as she descended. The air was filled with the cacophony of crows, and the yapping of many, many jackals. The stink of rotting meat got worse, and Ramon had to call on his Air-gnosis to filter it just to breathe. Severine was clearly doing the same, but she was still sobbing as she led the way. Kip followed, panting heavily, but apparently of much stronger gut; he had no Air-gnosis at all, but he showed no sign of being about to vomit like the others.
They caught up with Severine at the edge of a blood-fouled pool, beside which was a mound partly covered with sandy earth, one end of a row some fifty yards long. There were more than two dozen jackals here, slavering menacingly as Severine faced them down. ‘Will they attack?’ she asked fearfully.
Ramon shook his head, though he had no real idea what they would do: the jackals were hungry and frightened, and that was never a good combination. He exerted his animism-gnosis, sending a threat straight into the animals’ brains, and the jackals whimpered and backed away twenty or thirty yards, running into each other as they fled. The crows rasped their own anger as they took to the air, revealing a bloodied mound of tangled flesh. Severine whimpered softly, while Kip swore in Schlessen.
What had been uncovered made the charnel yards behind Butchers’ Row in Norostein look pristine. Tangled limbs and bloated bodies had been dragged out of the burial pits by the starved scavengers desperate to get to the meat. Ripped bellies spewed innards that had been dragged out, the tangled, chewed skeins now blackening in the heat.
‘Those bastards,’ Severine panted, gagging.
Ramon found himself staring, speechless. The rational part of his brain estimated that the jackals had got to a dozen bodies, those in the first five yards of trench. He tried to do the numbers, came up with one that was horribly high, and stopped. Surely his maths must be off …
‘What did you scry?’ he asked Severine softly.
Severine spoke in a hollow voice. ‘That bald man with the brand: he went from man to man. Every one of them he kissed on the mouth; and they dropped dead, screaming inside their minds as they did.’ Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘Then they fell completely silent.’ She closed her eyes. ‘This place is dead now; even the spirits have fled this place.’
Kip surprised them by nodding. ‘Yar, it is as the frau says.’ His eyes gleamed with faint purple light: the colour of necromantic gnosis, a common affinity for an Earth-mage. ‘There are no spirits here, no ghosts, not one. They are all gone.’ He frowned. ‘That is not usual.’
‘Every time he killed, the bald man’s periapt flared up, a violet and green colour,’ Severine whispered. She wrapped her arms about herself, hugging herself as if to give herself some comfort. ‘It lit up his face with a horrible light.’
‘A magister at our Arcanum told us there is a necromancy spell in which the soul is consumed,’ Kip commented, his voice hollow. ‘We were not taught it: the spell is verboten.’
‘Why was he branded?’ Ramon wondered aloud. ‘Delta – I wonder what that means.’
He looked at one of the jackals, the pack leader, which was edging closer. It barked furiously, and the others joined in, becoming bolder again. ‘Time to go, I think.’
They fizzed some mage-bolts into the sand in front of the pack, clearing themselves a path out of the pit, and as they climbed, the jackals boiled back into the gully with a crescendo of satisfied canine growling, and returned to their gory feast. The crows spun about them like a dark tornado.
‘We can’t tell Duprey,’ Ramon reminded Severine and Kip as they remounted. ‘We’re not supposed to have come here.’ He glanced at Coll and put a finger to his lips, but the scout was already tapping the side of his nose, winking solemnly.
Once they were close enough to the column but still out of sight, they parted company, Kip leaving first, hurrying back to his maniple. Severine lingered, looking at Ramon uncomfortably. ‘You stood up for me in front of the Inquisition Fist. That takes guts.’
Ramon shrugged. ‘So does writing ditties about Saint Lucia.’
Severine said ruefully, ‘No, that was just stupid. I’d be safe at home in Mouneville if I’d not been such a fool.’
‘Some truths should be told, especially about Her Holiness.’ He jerked a thumb in the rough direction of that hideous gully of death. ‘We’ll talk about that back there too, one day. To the right person.’
‘You might. I just want to forget it now. Duprey is right. Those bastards would pull my lungs out through my mouth for the sheer fun of it.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘I’m going home, as soon as I quicken.’
Ramon looked her up and down with his cheekiest expression. ‘You’re aiming too high: all those high-bloods are nearly sterile. You need a nice low-blood if you want better odds of conception,’ he said, and winked mischievously; truth was, she wasn’t so bad, not once she’d mislaid all her airs and graces.
Sadly she found them again. ‘Go screw yourself, rodent.’
*
Severine’s nightmares got worse, and now she awakened screaming, every third night or so, from visions of the branded mage. As she became increasingly erratic, she tried everyone’s patience. Then she started getting struck by the visions in daylight too, and they increased in frequency as the column wound its way east and refugees became more and more common on the road.
Still the relentless march continued. Jonti Duprey came back from a legates’ meeting and reported that Kaltus Korion’s column had sacked Galataz and his men were now pouring towards Istabad. The duke was angry at being upstaged: so far the southern Keshi cities were like ghost towns, vast, and virtually empty. The advance scouts had seen a few Keshi cavalry units, all of which fled when detected, but mostly all they found were refugees, walking eastwards in endless lines. But refugees couldn’t run forever, and the largest cities, like Sagostabad, Peroz and Vida, were now overflowing with the homeless destitute. Disease was rampant, hundreds dying every day, and their bodies had to be burned because there was nowhere left to bury them. Echor left a legion outside each city to contain them, but he kept his soldiers away from the miasma of death, for their own protection. Inquisitorial Fists circled the stricken population like crows.
Still there was little or no fighting. In the towns of central Kesh there were no healthy young men, and the Keshi who remained, the women and children and the elderly, merely hid their stores and begged for mercy. The less disciplined of the legions stole and raped their way from settlement to settlement, and Pallacios XIII’s mutineer rankers might well have done the same, but they were the last in the line and there was never anything left by the time they reached each town. Baltus Prenton’s prediction that there would be no real battles for them was coming true.
Kip was disappointed. ‘This Crusade, it is like a holiday stroll,’ he commented morosely while wolfing down bread and gruel. His face was peeling badly from too much sun.
‘And all the better for it,’ Ramon replied.
‘It’s not like a proper war.’
Ramon glanced at his friend. Kip was a few years older than him and had been involved in tribal raiding among the forest Schlessen since his mid-teens. ‘What is a proper war like?’
Kip grunted uncomfortably. ‘Brutal. Dangerous. You feel … more alive than you’ve ever felt before, but you are surrounded by death. Every man you face, you must kill or be killed.’ His voice trailed off, his eyes faraway. ‘I’ve seen close friends butchered. I’ve lost control and done things
…’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe it is better that this is not a proper war, yar?’
‘Si, much better. Let’s just see it out, make some money and get out alive.”
At his regular officers’ meeting, Duprey passed on news of isolated skirmishes: the windship-borne magi who’d destroyed an ambush near Peroz, and the storming of a fortress near Falukhabad that had been found to contain Keshi soldiers. By the time Echor’s legion arrived, the Kirkegarde had already taken it and were busy rounding up every inhabitant to be taken as slaves.
Duprey had one last item on this morning’s agenda. ‘The duke has demanded that we increase pace. The long-range scouts have found Salim’s army – they’re apparently retreating from Peroz towards Shaliyah. Echor wants to catch them and take Salim hostage.’
The tribunes all groaned. The pace was already too fast. Echor was trying to get fifteen miles a day from the legions, but the sapping heat was taking its toll: heat stroke was rife, and they were losing too many of the draft animals. The mules and oxen were keeling over, exhausted and dehydrated, and there were no replacements to be had, even for gold. Ramon met Tribune Storn’s eye. They were lower on food and water than was wise too, and the maps suggested that the lands between Peroz and Shaliyah were desolate.
‘And some good news,’ Duprey added: ‘A captured Keshi revealed that Salim’s treasury has been moved to Shaliyah.’ His eyes lit up. ‘He said the Keshi nobles have given all their wealth into Salim’s hands to protect it – and all that gold is going to one place, lads: Shaliyah! Salim is planning to move the gold on to Mirobez after the rainy season, but the Duke’s going to trap him in Shaliyah before that.’
That cheered the commanders up and they strutted out into the sultry evening in better spirits, joking how they would spend their share of the spoils. There’d been few pickings so far, and the men were grumbling.
Ramon inhaled the fragrant evening air. The days and nights were growing a little cooler, and in the west, high clouds were forming.
Kip pointed them out. ‘What is these strange white puffy things in the skies? I seem to remember them from somewhere, but I can’t recall.’ The giant Schlessen chuckled at his own wit.
Ramon half-smiled. ‘They are called “clouds”. In some places they cover the skies entirely for months on end.’
‘Yar? Incredible!’ He scowled. ‘Not here, yar?’
‘The wet season is coming. Coll tells me it rains here in Decore and Janune – but that’s two months away.’
‘It will still be dry as we cross the desert to Shaliyah then? Echor should delay. The soldiers are tired and weak. They need to rest.’
Ramon agreed. ‘The food wagons are only half-full, and we’ve even less water. We’ve been burning through our stocks trying to keep up this pace. We should be waiting out the season in Peroz and pushing on in Martrois, fully stocked.’
‘Why don’t we?’ Kip asked.
‘Greed. Echor wants the gold that prisoner claims is being moved east. If there really is any gold.’
Kip grunted unhappily. ‘There better be.’
Ramon looked around and nudged Kip. ‘On the bright side, Storn’s got promissory notes from the rest of the column, and a clutch of them from Kaltus Korion’s forces as well. We’ve got everyone’s gold, everyone’s promissory notes, and ten wagons full of opium.’
‘When will you destroy it?’ Kip asked, looking at him intently.
‘When we’re out in the desert.’ Ramon caught Kip’s sceptical look. ‘I swear it, on my mother’s name!’
‘You had better,’ was all Kip would say in reply.
*
A hand shook Ramon awake and he blinked his eyes groggily. He’d not even realised he’d fallen asleep. Storn was snoring softly a few yards away. He focused on the small shape wrapped in a blanket kneeling beside his cot. ‘Wha—?’
Mind you, I probably don’t smell too fresh either, Ramon admitted to himself. Bathing had long been a luxury they couldn’t afford the water for.
She shook him again, as if to focus his attention.
She tugged on his sleeve.
He wondered vaguely what she wanted. Stifling a yawn, he rose and followed her outside. ‘What?’ he whispered irritably. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’
She leant into him. They were of a height, and her breath teased his earlobe. Her voice came out filled with an almost despairing exhaustion. ‘I had another vision today – it’s like I’m attuned to them: the more I think about them, the more they find me.’
He felt his stomach clench. She looks dead on her feet. She’s not sleeping at all, is she?
‘The same thing?’ he whispered.
‘It was just three Keshi this time, all children. A branded mage bent over them and kissed them dead.’ Severine clutched his hand. ‘But it was a woman this time, with a shaven skull. Not Siburnius’ bald man.’
‘You said she was branded too?’
‘With an Epsilon,’ Severine breathed. ‘And just a few minutes ago, I had another vision, of a big half-Dhassan or Keshi: and he was branded with a Theta! He kissed a legion deserter dead. The deserter was chained to a wall somewhere northwest of here. There were Inquisitors watching.’ She grabbed him and pressed herself to him, trembling. ‘Ramon, you are the only one who’s listening to me—’
He tentatively hugged her back, though the reek of sex repelled him. It had been many months since he’d slept with Regina, back in Pontus, and after having to help Healer Lanna cure the genital pox on hundreds of rankers, being anywhere near a woman was somehow not as appealing as it had been. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked at last.
‘I don’t know. Maybe we can go to Duke Echor? He might listen.’
I sincerely doubt that. But this was destroying Severine; he had to do something. He thought for a moment. ‘There’s only one person in this legion the duke might listen to.’
She looked up at him, the moonlight gleaming in her eyes. It was strange to be so close to someone he really didn’t like. ‘Who do you mean?’
‘The Lesser Son: Seth Korion.’
‘He won’t help,’ she said despairingly. ‘He despises us both.’
Didn’t fall for your charms, huh?
‘I heard that,’ she scowled, pulling away, and he let her go with a mixture of regret and relief.
‘Sorry. Look, Seth Korion’s got family in high places. I could ask him for you.’
‘Doesn’t he hate you?’
‘Si, but he’s a little scared of me too.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Why?’
‘I know secrets about him.’
‘Like what?’
‘If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?’
‘I think secrets are despicable.’
‘The best ones are. Listen, I’ll talk to the Lesser Son. We might need to show him more bodies, if you can find one.’
‘Duprey won’t let me look. He keeps me busy all day, communicating with the other legions.’ She dropped her voice again. ‘One of the other legion farseers has been getting visions too. He’s a Brician. His legate won’t investigate either. He says the Kirkegarde are taking over the slave caravans too, and most aren’t reaching the pens outside Hebusalim.’
‘What pens?’
‘I thought you knew things? The legions are supposed t
o be sending all the able-bodied Keshi west to Hebusalim, to be slaves for the rich Palacian families. But the Brician says he’s heard from a cousin in the Church that most aren’t arriving.’
‘That sounds like a lot of people.’
Severine nodded faintly. ‘Thousands.’
‘I’ll talk to Korion.’
Severine squeezed his forearm. ‘Thank you for helping. You’re not so bad for a lying Silacian sneak.’
‘You’re welcome. You’re the nicest arrogant Rondian sow I know.’
She curtseyed ironically. ‘To know me is to love me.’ A smile ghosted across her face like cloud across the moon, and then she was gone, leaving him awake and alone.
*
‘I don’t care,’ Seth said. ‘Echor hates my family. He wouldn’t listen to me anyway.’ He sat uncomfortably on his khurne, the only one in the column, beside a charred farm building on the edge of a blackened field. The horned steed stood placidly, though Ramon and Severine’s horses had been so distressed by the stink and the heat from the still smoking field that they’d had to be left hundreds of yards away. Crows swarmed and swirled over a clutch of half-burned bodies, eight Keshi dead lying on a barely smouldering pyre. Bodies took a lot of fuel and there was little here except for animal dung. The bodies had scarcely been touched by the flames, let alone consumed.
Ramon and Severine stood beside the pyre and looked up at Korion. Severine had found it three nights after her midnight conversation with Ramon, after another vision. Ramon hadn’t actually seen her since then, but she was constantly inside his mind, telling him of new scryings, and conversations with her farseer friend in the Brician legion.
