undying legion 01 - unbound man

by karlov, matt

  As they’d followed Bannard’s signposts through the first day and then the second, Clade had begun to wonder at the Quill’s intended route. Bannard had placed the urn’s coordinates somewhere north of Tienette Lake; yet Lissil, the town to which the road eventually led, lay on the lake’s south bank, raising the unpleasant possibility that the Quill might intend to cross the lake by boat as the final leg of their journey. Clade had spent hours wondering how to follow a boatful of Quill undetected, fighting the impulse to worry; but now, it seemed, the problem had resolved itself. He stood at the intersection and gazed toward the bridge, untroubled by any temptation to either concern or relief.

  So. North.

  We’ll need to do something about the horses.

  The village’s only inn offered food, lodging, and temporary stables for as long as one could afford. The innkeeper, a swarthy man with a guarded manner, grudgingly confirmed that a party of Quill had left their horses with him earlier that morning. By the time Clade and Terrel emerged, the group’s horses were unloaded and unsaddled, and their riding gear already bundled for storage. The mercenaries, Yuri and Hosk, sat by the roadside, Yuri scratching in the dirt with his dagger while a dozen paces away, Sinon, Kalie and Meline stood in a small huddle, their backs pointedly turned toward Terrel’s men.

  Clade suppressed a sigh. At least they’re not actually fighting.

  “How long?” Kalie asked in her rough drawl as the stableboy led the horses away.

  “Two weeks,” Clade said. “Then he’ll sell one to pay for the rest, and so on.” He started back toward the crossing. “Come on.”

  The bridge spanned the shallow gorge like a strung wire, the timber a drab, weathered grey. As Clade neared the middle, a shape swung into view upstream: a coracle, carried along by the smooth-flowing water at a surprising pace. Two men sat within, one on either side, each holding the shaft of pole, or possibly an oar. The space between them was piled high with straw and rough wooden crates, while in the front, a donkey gazed at the river like a comic figurehead, its ears flicking in the breeze.

  For some reason, the sight reminded him of Estelle. Azador is ours, she had said, as though the god were nothing more than the donkey in the boat below, proudly imagining itself master of its own course. But what if it was the other way around? What if you, Estelle, are the donkey, and it is Azador that drives you?

  But then, Estelle was surely dead by now. The god had seemed agitated the last time it visited, staying only a moment before flitting away. Searching for an explanation, no doubt. Clade turned from the rail, resuming his march next-but-last to the flat-nosed Yuri, whom Terrel had assigned as rearguard. The respite from Azador’s presence was welcome, though Clade knew it was only temporary. Once the god caught scent of the golems there’d be no shifting it.

  Up ahead, Terrel made an abrupt halt, the group gathering in a circle around him. A cluster of stones sat beside a low bush, and this time the small one pointed west and south, away from the dirt road and into the forest, parallel to the river.

  Meline grimaced. “Must we?”

  “Weeper-damned trees,” Sinon growled, kicking at the dirt beside the bush.

  Kalie gave a disgusted sigh. “For the Dreamer’s sake, Sinon. If you can’t handle the pace, go home. Otherwise, shut the hells up already.” She turned to Terrel, ignoring Sinon’s glower and swinging her arm in an exaggerated sweeping gesture. “Lead the way.”

  Terrel began ordering the party, and Clade shot Kalie a nod of appreciation. The woman had the makings of a leader, no matter her limited capacity for sorcery. Maybe if I’d made her my adjunct instead of Garrett we’d have been here weeks ago, no Quill any nearer than Lissil, and all of them oblivious to the wonders hiding across the lake.

  He’d still have had to bring her along, though. The only difference was that he’d have known her better when he killed her.

  Maybe it was better this way.

  The Quill trail wound its way through the towering red gums and the sprays of smaller bushes competing for sunlight at their feet. The ground was rocky in places, but mostly flat. Birds chirped and warbled to each other in the high branches, filling the air with their song; and beneath everything, neither strong enough to draw deep nor faint enough to ignore, the fresh, unmistakable scent of eucalyptus.

  Sera would have loved this, Clade thought as they stepped around the trunk of a particularly massive gum. Tiny yellow and white flowers peeked out from behind the narrow spearhead leaves. She’d have wanted to stop, take it all in. Pick a flower and put it in her hair, like as not. He pictured her with a blossom behind her ear, grinning her infectious grin, and smiled.

  When they stopped for a break, he drew out the woodbinding block he’d taken from her room: long as a finger but twice as wide, its surface as smooth as wood could get without being polished. You made it bend like a stalk of grass. No splits, no damage. But try as you might, you couldn’t quite make it straight again. An unnatural knob protruded from the block a third of the way down; though what exactly gave it its artificial appearance, Clade couldn’t say. The angle, perhaps. Or maybe it was just that he knew how it came to be.

  “Where’s Yuri?” The voice was Meline’s. “He was just here. Wasn’t he?”

  Clade glanced up. Terrel was looking back the way they came, attentive but not visibly worried. The other mercenary, Hosk, knelt at the edge of the clearing, examining the pommel of his sword.

  “Gatherer’s balls, I hate it when people run off,” Sinon said to nobody in particular.

  “There he is,” Kalie said, and a moment later Yuri’s flat features and braided hair came into view around a knot of trees. The man gestured to Terrel, who seemed to relax slightly. All clear.

  Sinon gave a contemptuous snort and turned away.

  “Break’s over,” Clade said, slipping the block into his pocket. “Let’s go.”

  They moved out, Hosk in front, Clade falling in behind Kalie in the middle of the group. As they marched, he found his hand returning to his pocket, his fingers tracing the marred wooden form. Though the binding was long since gone, the block still bore its scars. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get them out.

  A breath of wind set the leaves rustling high overhead. From somewhere to their right came the screech of a hunting bird, then another. He ignored them, marching with head bowed, turning the block over and over in his long fingers.

  •

  Eilwen was relieved beyond words when the Oculus party turned off the main road and struck north over the Tienette. Riding was uncomfortable enough at the best of times, but riding in pursuit of a mounted quarry was far, far worse.

  She’d stayed as close as she dared, fearful of losing touch with the sorcerers and missing the moment they turned in a new direction. On the second morning, she’d arrived at a turnpike thinking herself just a few minutes behind, only to find a queue of half a dozen travellers before her and the Oculus nowhere in sight; and for a brief, mad moment she’d thought of galloping past without paying, never mind the archer in his terraced platform beside the road. Twice she’d actually passed the group as they halted by the side of the road, and had been forced to loiter half-hidden in way-house stables as she waited for them to resume their journey.

  The previous night she’d woken in terror to the sound of drumming hoofs, convinced that the Oculus had noticed her after all and come back to kill her in her sleep. But the sound turned out to be a lone rider, possibly a Quill, travelling east toward Anstice, and eventually she drifted back to sleep, her dreams haunted by galloping horses that turned to mist moments before riding her down.

  But no more. They’d turned north, crossing the Tienette at the last bridge before the river became the lake — or the first bridge, so far as the river was concerned. And they’d gone on foot.

  Eilwen led her horse into the nearby village, scanning the ramshackle buildings on either side of the road for any place she might dispose of her mount. High whinnies caught her ear from further ahead, a
nd she followed the sound to an inn on the road’s south side. In the small yard before the stables she found a skinny boy hauling on the halter of a feisty dun courser, while a pot-bellied man, presumably the innkeeper, stood back and watched. The smell of manure and horse sweat drifted past on the light breeze.

  “Excuse me,” she called, and the innkeeper strode out with a scowl, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him.

  “If you’re looking to house your horse, you’re out of luck,” he said. “We’re full up.”

  Eilwen glanced over the rows of stalls. All appeared occupied, and many already seemed home to more than one horse. She frowned. “How about if I’m selling it?”

  He eyed the creature speculatively. “How much are you asking?”

  Perhaps sensing her determination to sell, the innkeeper offered an amount roughly half what she’d paid for the horse and gear in Anstice. Her half-hearted attempts to haggle the price higher were met with blank refusal and she soon gave them up, slipping the fistful of coins and lengths into her bag and chuckling at the stableboy’s disbelieving “What?” as the innkeeper broke the news. She retraced her steps up the road, stretching out her sore leg, grateful for earth beneath her feet once more. The sun was warm on her back without being oppressive, and the sound of the river splashing through the gorge filled her with an unexpected vigour, as though the worst was over and she could finally begin setting her life to rights.

  It was, she thought, about time.

  The trail left the road on the other side of the river, striking westward along the northern bank. Eilwen crouched beside the departure point, frowning at the trampled weeds. A group had plainly passed this way recently, their path so obvious as to give Eilwen pause. Have they joined some others? Or did a separate group come this way as well? She squinted along the broken trail, then up at the dirt road. Or did the Oculus not take this turn at all?

  Eilwen hesitated. The dirt road wound away northward, likely visiting dozens of nameless, insignificant hamlets before eventually disappearing somewhere near the mountains. The fresh trail to the west, however, led… where? Wherever it was, it seemed nobody had had any need to go there until recently. If the Oculus had just happened to come through right after some other group, well, that would be a damned strange coincidence.

  She turned, examining the dirt road. A sapling with a freshly broken branch stood a few paces before the fork. Beside it, a flattened shoot lay trampled into the road. Beyond the divergence, however, the road seemed undisturbed. Eilwen straightened, her decision made. Something had drawn the Oculus out here, and it wasn’t a sleepy hamlet in the middle of nowhere.

  Hoisting her bag over her shoulder, Eilwen set off into the forest. The trail was wide, unmissable. Surely more than seven people had come this way. Now that she thought about it, that stable back in the village had been peculiarly full. She wished she’d asked the innkeeper about his sudden influx of horses. What on the gods’ earth could attract such a crowd all the way out here?

  There was something wrong about the whole situation. She could almost sense it, like a shapeless smudge hovering just past the edge of her vision. Something is going on.

  She wondered what Havilah would make of it.

  The smell of nearby water drifted in and out beneath the fresh scent of eucalypt. From time to time Eilwen caught the sound of the river echoing from the gorge, but the winding trail never quite brought her close enough for another glimpse. A lush variety of shrubs, bushes, and ferns filled the spaces between the larger trees, forming a thick layer of undergrowth. Eilwen picked her way between them, following the path of torn fronds, bent branches, and broken scrub as it wound inexorably westward.

  As the morning wore on, she found herself reaching back to her old training to calculate the value of the timber around her. The largest trees here were massive, their boles wide enough at the base for three or four people to wrap their arms around and still not complete the circle. Deadfall was sparse, suggesting a relative absence of rot and decay. Any one of these would be worth ten or twelve times a regular tree by timber volume alone. And if we could get a woodbinder in to help fell them in fewer pieces…

  But there was no “we”. Not any more. You’re alone now, Eilwen. Best get used to it.

  She was halfway down a gentle slope when the egg stirred to life.

  Eilwen froze mid-step, grasping a branch to steady herself, and scanned the trees around her. All seemed still. Birds chirped softly above the faint rustle of leaves, but that was all. Nothing moving at ground level. Is that normal? She grimaced, uncertain.

  The sense of someone approaching grew stronger. She dropped to a crouch behind a leafy acacia, ignoring the protests of her knee, and peered through the branches. A round-shouldered Plainsman stepped into view on the trail ahead, and she loosed a soft hiss. An Oculus. He moved silently across the forest floor, knees bent, one hand on the hilt of his sword, swivelling his head like a tribal dancer. The egg pulsed against her flesh, but faintly, as though impeded by some invisible barrier. Not a sorcerer, then. Just a token-bearer.

  A good start.

  The thought came from some other place within her: the beast, its eyes slitted open, contemplating the man in the same way that she had contemplated the trees. Its casual hunger filled her, and she abandoned herself to it, allowing it to carry her along as it assessed his strengths, his vulnerabilities. Agile. Quiet. No armour. Short reach. Leads with his left side. It stretched lazily, considering its verdict. Surprise. A knife from behind. Throat or heart.

  She nodded as though it had spoken, easing her dagger from its sheath. Following was all well and good, but she was here for a reason.

  I’m a soldier on a mission. Here comes my enemy.

  The man stopped, straightening, and took a final glance around the forest. Then he shrugged and turned, disappearing back the way he had come.

  What? No! Come back! She almost called out as he passed from view, gasping as her anticipation shifted in an instant to aching hollowness. Inside, the beast howled its disappointment. The egg’s stirring quieted, then stilled completely, and she stood, rubbing her leg as she stared at the now vacant trail.

  Branches rustled high overhead. Somewhere away to her left, water rushed over stone. She was alone.

  But they were close. Closer than she’d realised. And that man will be back. He’d looked like he sensed he was being followed. Somehow or other she’d managed to divulge her presence.

  She hugged her arms to her chest, looking anew at the trees and scrub around her. She’d spent her first few years with the Guild thinking about nothing but wood and forests, but in some ways she didn’t know them at all. I can identify the most profitable trees, work out how best to fell them. And I can follow a trail, at least when it’s as obvious as this. But when it comes to moving through the forest unnoticed, I’ve got no idea.

  But then, she didn’t want to go completely unnoticed. She wanted to be just perceptible enough to have that man come looking for her again.

  I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. Sooner or later, my chance will come.

  •

  “We’re here,” Narvi said, peering down at the map in his hand and then up again. “I think.”

  Arandras pulled a skin from his bag and took a long swallow. The forest came to an abrupt end at the edge of a cliff, below which lay a wide, rocky shore. The placid surface of Tienette Lake stretched out before them, its waters glittering in the mid-morning sun. The air smelt like stone after rain.

  “I don’t see a gorge,” he said.

  “No,” Narvi said. “But do you notice the line of the cliff? That bend looks like this bit on the map. Which means the gorge should be just past that ridge…”

  “Could be something here,” Mara called from the lip of the ridge. “But it’s choked with rocks. We’ll have to go around and down.”

  Great. Arandras peered over the cliff edge at the rough shoreline. That’s a damn long way to fall. “How are we goin
g to do that?”

  “Over here.” Ienn beckoned to them from a dozen paces further along. “Looks like there might have been a path once.”

  It was the kind of remark which was both strictly true and entirely misleading. Whatever path had once existed, only a series of irregular ledges now remained, most clogged with pebbles or coated in moss, some separated from their neighbours by gaps that made Arandras’s stomach churn. There must be another way.

  “Splendid,” Fas said, nodding approvingly at the broken path. “Who’s first?”

  Narvi looked down the first segment of track, his broad face unusually wan. “Um. Perhaps we should send someone down to, uh, make sure it goes all the way to the bottom.”

  “I’ll go,” Ienn said, slinging his bag to the ground. “Don’t all run off while I’m gone, now.”

  The group spread out along the clifftop, taking advantage of the chance to rest and enjoy the view. Arandras found himself a patch of grass half a dozen paces from the edge — far enough to relax, at least a little — and sat with his arms about his knees, gazing out at the expanse of water. A few moments later Fas settled beside him with a grunt, his jaw working vigorously on a strip of dried meat.

  “Close now, don’t you think?” Fas said around his mouthful of food.

  Arandras shrugged. “If you say so.” The bend on the map was slight enough to match a hundred different spots along the shore; or it might be nothing more than a slip of the pen, made by any of the cartographers responsible for each copy of a copy since the original. I’ll believe we’re there when I’m staring the golems in whatever they have for eyes.

  “You still want one for yourself, do you?”

  “Of course. That was the deal.”

  “So it was.” Fas chewed slowly, gazing out at the horizon. “Tell you what. When we get there, you pick out the one you want. All right?”

  Arandras blinked. “All right.”

  Fas grunted, nodded, and reached for another strip of meat.