Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1)

by Greg James

  “I won’t die, Yrena.”

  “Yes, you will. You will die, or become lost to me. Oman said the same words to me, don’t you understand? You think because you’re young that this is the first time, that it’s a sacred mission, a hero’s quest and only you can do it, no-one else. Leste, there are no more heroes, and there never were many to begin with. You are riding towards pain and death, not hope and glory. You want hope? It is here in this house with me. You want glory? Do you not remember the nights we’ve spent together—is that not enough for you? See this? Here is my hand. Feel it! It is warm. It is as real as my love. It is as real as the feelings in my heart. What you are fighting for, these things are not real. They are the dreams of men, and you are a woman. Why do you have need of them? You only think they are real because that is what you have been told all your life by Murtagh.”

  Leste wound her fingers through those of Yrena. The older woman felt so fragile, her skin looked pale and translucent as a moon-butterfly’s wings. No tears fell from Yrena’s eyes; her pain and fear was all held in her face and voice.

  Leste wanted to open her lips and say that she would return, and that this was just something she had to do. But she couldn’t. She could not be the poison in the wound. She let Yrena’s hand go. They went to bed together and spent long hours sweating and moaning in each other’s arms, until they were both well spent. The next morning, while Yrena slept, Leste set off in pursuit of Khale.

  Chapter Eleven

  Leste came to the Pig Gate before dawn and saw, as Murtagh had promised, that it was guarded.

  The Pig Gate was small, not much higher than the door of a poorhouse. It was the gate used by the destitute, by vagabonds and thieves, to get into and out of the city. The other gates could not be opened by one person alone – but this one could.

  No-one remembered the original, intended purpose of the Pig Gate. The North Gate was called the Marching Gate, as it opened onto the Kingsway that led to the foot of the earthwork hill and the castle’s bailey. The West and East Gates were called the Barneth and Farness Gates, as they each opened onto borderlands of the neighbouring Small Kingdoms. The South Gate was the Keth Gate, as the river that fed into the moat around the castle ran beneath it. The Pig Gate was the Pig Gate, and no-one knew why it was there.

  The Pig District reeked of human waste. There were no houses, only hovels made from old stone and worm-eaten wood, which were crushed together, many on the verge of collapsing into their neighbours.

  A storm could lay this entire district low, Leste thought, as she rode through it. Her horse’s hooves were quickly coated in the district’s leavings. The gutters were overflowing, making the narrow roadways and alleys into gutters themselves, through which the poor of Colm waded ankle-deep. The fumes issuing from the crudely-cut smoke-holes in the hovels smelled no better than the district itself. Smoke hung over the area like a faecal fog, and made Leste gag and cough. She had not often crossed into the Pig District, for there was little to steal here and its people were too broken by life to murder or to fight much. There were no taverns, just the occasional hovel, usually dirtier and more smoke-clogged than the rest, with shadowy forms clustered inside to drink barely-fermented beer.

  The district was the one route to the Pig Gate, and when Leste came to the gate itself, she saw that it was guarded by Hethe—one of the oldest and most grizzled men in the Watch. Murtagh must have known she would try to leave Colm this way. He had not trusted it to one of the young.

  Hethe saw her and raised his halberd to bar her way.

  “No further, Leste, or I run your horse through and drag you back to the cells.”

  Leste made no reply to his words. She tugged on the horse’s reins, bringing him to a halt, and then dismounted. Her eyes never left Hethe as she drew her sword from its scabbard and faced him.

  “You don’t need to do this, Leste. You are a sister of the Watch. I am your brother. If I draw your blood—”

  “What makes you so sure that you will, brother?”

  Hethe’s brow furrowed and his eyes glinted. “Sister,” he said, coldly, “if you come at me with sword drawn, I will defend myself. I will not let you pass.”

  Leste nodded and stepped forward, her sword readied. “Guard yourself, brother.”

  “Very well, sister.” Hethe rested his halberd against the rotten timbers of the Pig Gate and drew his sword. “Guard yourself well.”

  Leste waited and so did he, neither making a move for some minutes. Then, Leste stepped forward and feinted with her blade. Hethe saw her eyes move and her shoulders relax, and he parried the slash that she made. The flat of his sword scraped against the edge of hers, dulling and notching the blade. She cursed and backed away as Hethe made a riposte that would have cut her sword arm open.

  Her horse snorted and stamped. Leste parried a lunge and thrust from Hethe. His eyes never left her, and she could not read him as well as she wanted to. The tension in his muscles ebbed and flowed, not telling her how he was going to strike next. He was as old as Murtagh and knew how to fight. When he slashed, he turned his blade as she parried him, so that it did not lose too much edge. He turned a parry into a riposte with a flick of his wrist, forcing Leste to move swiftly or lose a calf. Her responses to him became tired and slow. Her breath caught sharply in her throat and tasted of copper.

  “Do you yield, sister?” he shouted, as he hammered her blade’s poor swing aside with the flat of his own.

  Leste shook her head. Her mouth was dry, and her arms, weak.

  “Yield, Leste,” Hethe said. “I will not ask again.”

  Leste held her ground and pushed him back with a lunge driven more by force than skill. Hethe stumbled in the muck and his sword slashed out, lightly cutting the neck of Leste’s steed. The horse snorted, whinnied, and reared.

  Despite herself, Leste screamed, “No!”

  The horse lashed out, one hoof taking Hethe in the face and the other striking him hard in the chest. His sword fell from his hands as he crumpled to the ground. Leste grabbed at the reins, pulling the snorting animal down to earth. She held it hard with one hand as she stroked its withers and neck. She pressed her own face against the steed, letting her breathing quicken in time with the horse’s and then slow. The creature’s muscles pushed against her, but she held on and continued her slow breathing until she felt the horse’s breaths begin to match her own. Eventually, she felt able to let the reins loosen, and the horse rumbled softly to itself, the tension passing out of its body.

  She then went to Hethe, where he had fallen in the filth, and knelt beside him. But there was nothing to say or to do. He was already gone. His skull was broken and a pulp of blood and soft matter bulged from the wound. His chest was sunken and loose where the horse had kicked him. There was nothing to be done.

  There was no turning back for her now.

  Leste went to the Pig Gate and opened it. Looking back, she saw grubby faces peering from doorways. They had seen, but they would do nothing until she left. For some reason, that did not make her feel better about things.

  She mounted up and rode out of the gate. She kicked the horse in the side with her heels, driving him to a gallop. She did not let the horse slow until the animal’s breathing began to keen and whistle. By the time she let it slow to a trot, and then rest, she was done weeping.

  Chapter Twelve

  Khale and his captive came out of the West, making for the line of mountains that separated Colm and its neighbour-kingdoms from the desert known as the Heart of the World. Some called these mountains the Crown of the World, though none knew whether it truly encircled the wastes beyond or not.

  Khale knew better; those mountains were raised from the earth in the days before mages were spat upon and burned at the word of Church-preachers.

  Neprokhodymh might be damned these days, he thought, but it was once all that stood between these fool-kings and jester-lords and a true majesty that few could comprehend.

  But the shadows of the past w
ere of no concern to him right now. There was a real shadow out there, breaking the line of the horizon and he was heading towards it. For it was angular enough for him to recognise it as a creation of men, rather than nature.

  It was a henge of hewn stones.

  He set down his burden. She still slept. The glamour he had placed on her would wear off soon. He wondered what dreams might be troubling her, and then he looked around at where they were. The uprights were crudely cut with sigils and signs that were little more than scars made by crude pieces of flint. It was not a place of the Four, or the Thoughtless Ones, and that was why he had chosen it. His men should have left a horse here and some supplies for travel to Neprokhodymh.

  But there was nothing.

  He passed among the stones and looked all about for a steed and saddlebags. There was no sign the henge had been disturbed.

  Fuck them, he thought, and the mothers they came from. I’ll have their guts for this.

  His scars, hidden underneath his furs, began to itch.

  The bastards never came. This is because of what happened to Ihlos and the others. I’ll kill them for this, every last one.

  Without a horse, it would be an even longer and harder journey. He could not afford to run himself into the ground.

  As he continued to walk among the stones, a chill seemed to ebb into him from out of the ground itself. He took in the stones around him. Some were leaning precariously or altogether fallen, broken, and wearing away into the dust. A great slab of stone barred the way before him. It was laid across the opening between two uprights with a third set above it as a mantel; a way into catacombs beneath, where the men who once raised the stones were doubtless interred.

  He approached the stone slab, flexed his fingers, put his full weight behind it, and then pushed—hard. At first, nothing. He let out a roar, spat on the obstruction, and pushed hard once more. This time, there was a deep grinding of stone. Then, there was a cracking, a sound of sundering, and the stone slab crashed down unlit steps into the depths below. Khale listened as echo followed echo down there before disappearing into the dark. They could shelter below if need be, though, truth be told, he was curious to see what was down there. If there was something to kill, it might take his mind off things.

  He was distracted from his discovery by a cry.

  Milanda was awake.

  *

  “What happened to me? Where am I?”

  Khale came into view, and she recoiled from him.

  “You. I remember you from a dream. Your head, your face, your voice, and I was in a devil’s fog. Who are you?”

  “I am Khale. I took you from your bed, and we are now about two days ride or so from Colm.”

  He stood over her, making sure that she could see the hilt of the two-handed sword strapped to his back. He needed her to know that running was not wise.

  “You took me?”

  He nodded.

  Her eyes were wide and white. She was trembling, though he could see her muscles tensing here and there. She was trying to master herself.

  Your blood is not so weak, Alosse, he thought. Maybe even with a few seeds of strength born in it.

  “My father will send men to rescue me.”

  “He will not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s dead. I killed him.”

  He watched her lose herself. The trembling shook her from head to toe. Tears ran from her eyes and she cried out bitterly, “You, why?”

  Always that word, that question; they could never think of anything else.

  “Because he asked me to.”

  “Lie.”

  “Is it? Do I look like a liar to you?”

  “Liar! Evil bastard! Cunt!”

  Khale’s lips curled, amused. Some strength and language he had not expected from a King’s bloodkin. “Well, forgive me, my Lady, but I’ll be sure to wear my finest silks and most embroidered cloth next time I speak an untruth so that you will believe it of me.”

  “My father wouldn’t ask to die,” she croaked. “He wouldn’t.”

  “Would he not? Did you know him so well? Did he love you so kindly over the years?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Then you admit I could be speaking true?”

  “No,” she said, tears wetting her eyes. “I don’t care if it’s true. He was my father!”

  She threw herself at him.

  He caught her by the wrists and held her, careful not to break bones. He did not want her wounded. He continued to look at her, unblinking, showing her the sick yellow of his eyes.

  “Stop staring at me with those ... stop it ... leave me alone.” She kicked at him but her slipper-clad feet did him no harm.

  He put her down and waited, letting her weep as much as she wished.

  After a time, she asked him a question, “Why did you do it?”

  “I told you, girl, because he asked me to.”

  “But you didn’t have to listen to him. You’re not one of the guards. You’re a brigand, and you don’t follow orders, do you?”

  “I did it because he was my friend once, when he was young.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Aye, we rode together before things in the world got this rotten. We hunted, we pillaged, and we stole. Don’t believe your father, the good King Alosse, could be a thief, do you? Well, he was. All kings are thieves; it’s how they get to where they are. People, land, ideals: you’ve got to steal these things yourself before you can convince someone else to believe in them and fight for them on your behalf.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “And I don’t care if you do or you don’t,” Khale said. “It never did him any good in the end. He got old, and he hated himself for it. I put my knife through his heart and I could see it on his face. What I did for him was a mercy killing.”

  “... bastard ...” Milanda whispered.

  “You’ll have to come up with something stronger than that if you want to hurt my feelings, girl. I’ve heard them all. I’ve been called just about everything else there is under the sun. Not that we see much of the sun these days.”

  Milanda sat in silence with her arms wrapped tight around her body. Her eyes were fixed on a point somewhere in the middle distance. Her fingers occasionally twitched. The toes of her slippers scratched in the dirt. After a time, she laid down. She wept quietly and then passed into sleep.

  Khale sat down on a fallen slab of the henge and took out a small whetstone. He unslung his two-handed sword and began to work the blade with it. The hairs on the nape of his neck were prickling.

  He would soon have need of a keen sword.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everything was ice-cold, wet, and slippery when Milanda awoke; shivers passed through her as a rarefied electricity. Getting to her feet, she found that she was naked and covered in a dripping layer of clear, oily residue. Her head hurt. Her eyes burned. Her tongue felt heavy, embalmed by bitumen and bitter mineral salts. She wiped clots of a cloying substance from her eyes to better see where she was.

  It was an undersea cathedral, with stalactites descending from above, and with grottoes and alcoves creating strange echoes here and there from the most minute of disturbances; water falling, ancient stone crumbling and scattered pieces of limestone and chalk forming natural mosaics across the ground. The sides of the cavern were coated with sea-slime and over-ripe fungus. There was a whisper of salted breezes to the air, a rich draught wafting out from adjoining networks of catacombs.

  The surface underneath her bare feet was slippery, soft, and pliant. It gave way when she put all of her weight on it, sometimes crackling, sometimes hissing as buried gases escaped—for there were dead bodies everywhere, all crushed together and somehow interred in this deep abyssal place.

  For reasons she did not know, she had risen from among them without memory of what came before. A black space existed where the past should have been inside her head. She tried to remember but could not. Pain was a ghost. Hurt
was an echo.

  She walked across the broken spines of the lifeless. The quiet was suffocating and oppressive. The pressure in the freezing air was a tangible weight.

  She wondered how deep under the world this stately carven hall of nature was?

  How many fathoms pressed down upon this time-sculpted space?

  The cavern stretched on before her into a distance where a tinged mist hung as a veil; drawing nearer to the shifting greyish obscurity, she glimpsed something there, hidden beyond. Its size was considerable, and it was not human.

  Milanda made her way towards it, and then paused as the mists cleared somewhat, drawing away to reveal a colossus.

  I am one of the dead, she thought, and should not fear this thing. What can it do but tear me limb from limb, a sensation I will not experience, being extinct of feeling.

  What do the dead have to fear from further harm?

  Nearer and nearer, she came to it—a maggot crawling over the backs of other maggots before the ponderous goliath. She was in the presence of a true leviathan. Infinitesimal crystals of dirty ice and eldritch frost that had been cast off from the creaking hide of the thing formed the damp shroud of mist that hung over it. The light source in the cavern was its eyes: tumour-hued bulbs set in the mottled grey flesh of the titan. It was hunched over, curled like a foetus in a womb.

  She came to a halt before it. Unbidden, she fell to her knees and prostrated herself before it. In her mind, she heard a word—could it be a name?

  ... Juular ...

  *

  Milanda awoke with a start. She saw that she was at the henge still. She was covered by a layer of Khale’s furs. She could see him standing close by in his time-worn leathers; the scarred meat of his arms looked like engraved stone rather than flesh.

  “What’s wrong?”