Shadow of the Ancients

by Pierre Grimbert

  Passing from muddy, swampy terrain to a wide mountain trail with gentle slopes was a relief to humans and animals alike. But their gratitude was short-lived and soon forgotten when the slopes steepened later in the day. To relieve the animals, the troupe and the pilgrims stepped off the wagons and walked on foot. The cold grew increasingly more bitter as one deciday slipped into the next. The frigid air troubled all but Bowbaq, whose thick furs attracted considerable envy.

  Lunch was a good excuse for a short halt, and they took it with relief. The hike only got more difficult. Not used to such physical effort, Lana struggled, and Rey tried to help her as best he could by quipping on any subject.

  The only memorable break in the monotony was seeing a pair of crowned eagles soaring in majestic flight.

  Snow appeared on the ground, first in patches and then in large swaths. Eventually it stretched wide in all directions, and the group found themselves in an immaculate blanket of white. Without the wind, the cold was less biting and cruel, but the less well-equipped voyagers soon had wet and frozen feet.

  Night fell on the exhausted travelers, but the column didn’t stop. Nakapan lit a few lanterns and asked for a volunteer to lead the way, so they wouldn’t lose the trail. Grigán offered his services, as the chief had hoped.

  They continued like this for more than a deciday, practically without speaking, everyone saving their breath for another step in the snow. Three men, who were regularly relieved, helped clear a path for the first wagon, which needed to be pushed occasionally, and the rest of the group followed in their tracks.

  By the time Yan, Bowbaq, and Anaël stepped forward to lead the convoy, the horses were exhausted, and regularly needed to be pulled along. Once again, Yan wondered what had brought him here. With snow up to his knees and a lantern in hand, he was now guiding a Rominian wagon on a barely visible mountainous pass with not a single Kaulien companion at his side. A cold gust of wind blew the nostalgic thought from his head, and Yan concentrated on the task at hand: reaching Semilia.

  His patience was rewarded when Grigán returned from his scouting trip to announce that the town was near. The warrior was greeted with sincere cheering, and the news gave the group enough energy and courage to slightly speed up their progress. Seeing the town’s lights at the top of the pass gave them even more comfort and energy, and they finished the last mile amid the sound of relieved laughter.

  Semilia was much smaller than Yan had imagined. From the top of the pass, they could see almost the entire town hidden at the bottom of a cirque. Protected by a natural shield of mountains and an outer wall much larger than the town itself, the city looked like a fortified square compared to its Lorelien brethren. Semilia had once been a simple military outpost in the era of the Two Empires. Under the protection of the merchant kingdom, it had become a principality that anchored northwest Lorelia. The task of keeping marauders at bay fell to the snowy hamlet.

  As they descended toward the gates, Yan thought that the place must be beautiful in the warm seasons. All of the hills covered in snow would exchange the white for green, making a paradise for trappers and shepherds. The mountain runoff would provide chilly water for endless creeks and waterfalls, before pooling into the twin lakes at the base of the cliffs. Even in the Matriarchy, the largest one was reputed to be rich fishing grounds.

  The young man had never thought he would see it with his own eyes. But wasn’t he jumping from discovery to discovery? Where would his companions be in a dékade?

  He suddenly noticed the similarity between Semilia’s landscape and that of Jal’dara, and he scrutinized all around, his heart beating furiously. He was looking for proof that Jal’dara was near, but even in the obscurity, he had to admit: this valley was less beautiful than the one seen through Ji’s portal. Less beautiful than a brief vision seen through a magic portal whose function they still didn’t understand.

  Entering a Lorelien city always required taxes, and Semilia was no different, even though the principality was economically independent from the rest of the merchant kingdom. Luckily, the tax collectors respected the right to free passage traditionally given to entertainers, and only checked the contents of each wagon. As the collectors waved the group through, Nakapan dropped a few coins into their hands for form.

  Semilia also had an open-farm, a generous name given to a few dilapidated buildings left to travelers passing through, since the town had few inns. The troupe, used to these kinds of arrangements, quickly set up camp inside the buildings, pulling the wagons and horses into the open barns and lighting two peat fires, which produced ample smoke and a good deal of heat.

  The grimy rooms had been used as sleeping quarters, kitchens, living quarters, and, if the smell was any indication, cesspools. Two homeless men, sitting next to a fire, grumbled when their new company arrived, then stopped when they realized how large the group was. One of them wore a necklace made of teeth.

  “This is a long way from the Broken Castle,” Rey said, sniffing the air. “What if we looked for an inn?”

  “Diplomatically, that would be a bad choice,” Corenn said. “This shelter is free to us, thanks to the troupe; to refuse it could be perceived as offensive.”

  “Maybe,” the actor insisted. “Maybe Lana might want someplace more comfortable, though?”

  “The wolf smiles but we can see his teeth,” the priestess recited with evident pleasure, which her friends soon shared.

  Rey didn’t respond and went to look for Gallop, hoping that the juggler might at least know a place where they could have a few pints.

  The two men left soon thereafter with Nakapan, his son, the clowning dwarves, Tonk, and the amuseur, along with a few others.

  The heirs decided to clean part of the room before setting their blankets and bags in a corner. Once they had changed and eaten a hot meal, the open-farm seemed less disgusting. Almost welcoming.

  Grigán was the first to succumb to sleep, surprising them all. They had gotten so used to the warrior keeping watch over them as they nodded off. Yet the journey to Semilia had been much more tiring for him than for anyone else, as he had covered nearly twice the distance as their scout. The heirs conversed in whispered voices, to not trouble his sleep.

  Time flowed by slowly, and the exhausting day would have finished nicely for the heirs if a horrible incident hadn’t sown trouble in the group.

  With a loud bang, the barn door swung open, and Tonk crashed into the room, stumbling and mumbling incomprehensibly. Dead drunk, he swept his gaze over the heirs, laughing heavily. He walked toward Bowbaq, dragging something behind him.

  Léti stood and grabbed her rapier. Yan followed and tried to remember where he had put his broadsword. Lana, Corenn, and Bowbaq sat, immobile.

  “You stole my monkey!” he yelled. “You can have the others!” And he threw three mimastins at the giant’s feet, their throats still bleeding from where Tonk had slit them.

  Bowbaq looked silently at their little, bloody bodies, still chained. Léti and Yan took a step back, not for Tonk, but to get closer to their friend.

  “That’s horrible,” Lana whispered, crying.

  “Bowbaq, he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Corenn said, trying to temper the giant’s reaction. “He’s drunk.”

  “Me, I’m not,” the giant responded as he slowly stood, placing the bodies gently to his side.

  The floor planks groaned when Bowbaq took a step forward, staring at the Rominian. Through the haze of his drunken stupor, Tonk began to understand the gravity of his mistake.

  Léti ran over to Grigán to wake him, but Bowbaq had already put his immense hands on Tonk before she could reach the sleeping warrior. She watched as Bowbaq lifted Tonk off the floor as if he were an empty bag.

  “If I ever see you again,” he said slowly, “I will do the same thing to you.”

  He held the Rominian up in the air until Tonk started to panic and gesticulate, then he set the man down with a strained look on his face. Tonk looked left and right, wo
ndering if he should gather his things, then decided it would be best if he left as soon as possible.

  “Grigán!” Léti called out, panic in her voice. “Grigán won’t wake up!”

  As she reviewed her elite troops by torchlight, Chebree realized how much she loved to watch the ordered ranks they formed. There, before her very own eyes, stood the powerful warriors of the largest army in the world. Their army. Her army, soon, if she continued to maneuver without any mistakes.

  A lieutenant followed her, naming each of the four hundred companies, represented by the four hundred men present. Their companies had, depending on their origins, anywhere from ten to two hundred warriors. Chebree enviously admired the pike men, the cavalry, the foot soldiers, the archers, the proud gladores, the thistles, the bearded ones, the dragons of Oo, the legendary Wa’r’kal, the Farikii and their horde of rats, the Yalamines, the Headless, the horsemen of Egosie, and more. They were Wallatte for the most part, but also Solenes, a few Thalittes, Sadraques, Grelittes, and a few Tuzéens.

  The lieutenant didn’t have to repeat what she already knew, and she barely listened to his droning. The only thing that mattered was to see these people from different corners of the world filing up for her, and for her only.

  Before Saat came, she had been Queen Che’b’ree Lu Wallos of a small Wallatte clan with small holdings. As Queen Che’b’ree, vassal to Gors’a’min Lu Wallos, her only ambition was to guard her small territory from attack by the Thalittes, or the Solenes, or even her own lord.

  She had rallied to Saat’s army from the first day he arrived, though at the time it was only a disparate group of mercenaries and vagabonds banned from their own clans. Yet the Goranese man had so successfully commanded the group that it struck fear into the hearts of those in even the most well-defended villages. Chebree recognized his power and chose to become his ally before she could be declared an enemy and be thrown into a conflict she had no chance of winning.

  Her secret hope had been to use the army against Gors’a’min, now Gor the Gentle, and to firmly grasp the rest of Wallatte territory. But the colossal barbarian king, celebrated for his drunkenness, his frequent raging, his sadism, and most of all his two-handed axe, thwarted her nascent plan by joining Saat himself.

  As a vassal, Chebree was forced down a rung in the hierarchy of captains who served the High Diarch. To stay at the top, she became their master’s lover, his only concubine who wasn’t a slave, and the only one to have survived five moons at his side.

  Five moons, already, she thought to herself with a clenched jaw. And still nothing.

  Saat had seen in her uncommon ambition and intelligence, and had named her Grand Emaz of a new cult, one no one had ever heard of: Somber, He Who Vanquishes, the black god of conquerors.

  Chebree invested all of her energy into building this new cult: the priesthood, the ceremonies, the praises to Somber at every captains’ meeting. She became an apostle. After only a moon, half of the army had converted to this religion that promised riches and powers to the worthy. By the time the next moon fell, all the warriors would start their days by swearing fealty to Somber, the diarchs, and the apostles.

  Emaz Chebree converted their slaves with the same success. Her discourse to the enslaved was, of course, different: Somber was still their conqueror, but the vanquished who submitted to his will would be freed when they entered the coming era of peace: the New Order.

  Saat told her he was satisfied. Saat, her master. Saat, who would soon rule all of the eastern realms, the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, the entire known world. Saat, to whom she could offer only one thing. To rule at his side. To control life and death over all humanity.

  Unconsciously, she slid her hand over the golden breastplate that covered her stomach. She thought of the man whose face she had never seen. The High Diarch, their master, who undressed only in the most profound darkness, and whose skin was as dry and wrinkled as a withered apple. He who had the body of an ancient man and the strength of a Tuzéen warrior.

  He who was waiting for a son that no concubine, free or slave, consenting or forced, could give him.

  The open-farm, so calm just a few moments earlier, was now the scene of an all-encompassing chaos. The heirs, soon joined by the rest of the troupe and the two homeless men, gathered around Grigán’s unconscious body. All held their breath watching Corenn and Lana’s coordinated effort to reanimate him.

  “He’s so pale!” Bowbaq said quietly, going pale himself.

  “He’s so cold, Corenn,” Lana warned. “We need to bring him closer to the fire and cover him in blankets as best we can.”

  Ten pairs of arms moved to lift the lifeless body, but the giant had already picked up his friend before any other could reach him. He laid Grigán down next to the hearth and backed away, leaving room for his friends to examine the lifeless body.

  “Deremin is our healer,” said one of the horsewomen. “He’s in town with the others. I’ll go find him.”

  The young woman only took the time to find her coat before heading out into the night. Léti accompanied her; she could speed things up if needed. Besides, she couldn’t stand being in that room any longer, watching the man who had saved her life, the man who had saved all their lives, fight an invisible enemy.

  In the most difficult situations, one finds true friends. Even though most of the Rominians were haughty, arrogant people, the troupe showed their loyalty by offering to help in any way they could. Some even offered up suggestions on how to treat him. What ailed Grigán was no typical illness, though. In all the world, there was no known remedy to the Farik sickness, and the healer in Three-Banks had confirmed the fact. The warrior’s only chance lay with his own ability to resist it.

  They had thought he was healed, but by appearance, they had been wrong. Grigán showed the same signs as in his previous fits, on the island and with Sapone. The sickness seemed to come in cycles: the heirs counted five days between each attack. Or perhaps it wasn’t cyclical at all, merely striking when the warrior was at his weakest, after a long day of hard work. It was irrelevant now, because either way, the warrior wasn’t moving.

  “Lana, look at his eyes,” Corenn said suddenly.

  The Maz leaned over to look at his eye while Corenn held back his eyelid. The priestess changed positions to avoid blocking the light, and then suddenly jumped back. The onlookers, including Yan and Bowbaq, pressed her with questions.

  “His eyes . . . ,” Lana responded, trying to control herself. “His eyes are completely red!”

  “It must be the fever,” Yan suggested, approaching the warrior to see for himself.

  Lana was right. Grigán’s irises had changed from the familiar dark blue to a red as fiery as cinder. Yan waved a finger in front of Grigán’s face, but the warrior didn’t respond. The young man stood back, saddened and scared, and Corenn gingerly closed his eyelid.

  Yan watched as everyone piled blankets, furs, and coats on top of Grigán, but he knew the warrior was finished. Usul had said before the year’s end. Why now? Already, after only a dékade? Why could he not survive the night?

  “Hold him,” Yan said as an idea struck him. “I am going to try something.”

  Bowbaq and Corenn each grabbed one of Grigán’s wrists, as gently as possible, without taking their inquisitive eyes off of Yan. He got on his knees, inhaled noisily, and grabbed his friend’s ankle, before brutally yanking at a toe.

  The warrior seized violently and kicked Yan in the face as he struggled like a drenched standing-sleeper. Corenn’s grip slipped, but Bowbaq held Grigán down. They needed four more men to keep the warrior down until he calmed and fell back asleep. The whole time, Grigán hadn’t recognized any of his friends.

  “He will live,” Yan said confidently, rubbing his cheek and jaw. “He’ll never stop fighting.”

  Corenn, Lana, and Bowbaq watched in silence as the young Kaulien walked away. Discovering such strength in the frozen warrior’s body was hardly reassuring. Twenty years as a fugitive ha
d changed the warrior, down to his unconscious mind, providing him with a deep instinct for survival.

  Of course, they didn’t know that he was fighting something as powerful as a divine prophecy.

  Léti and the helpful horsewoman returned shortly after Grigán’s episode, accompanied by Rey and the other entertainers who had gone out for the night. The actor and Léti were only partially relieved to hear that the warrior had shown a burst of energy. All they could see was a feverish, unconscious Grigán.

  The healer Deremin was none other than the entertainer who wore the embroidered robe and carried a golden spellbook. Though he wasn’t really a magician, spell-caster, or thaumaturge, the man still had a genuine knowledge of healing. The results of his exam brought the heirs little hope, however, as his conclusion was “Let the fever pass, let him rest, and avoid angering him.”

  If he had known Grigán and their situation better, Corenn thought, the Rominian would have laughed at his own nonsense. Since they couldn’t do anything else for the warrior, everyone did their best to get ready for bed after a difficult day and night. Bowbaq hesitated at length before approaching Nakapan to relay his message for Tonk. The colossus was not surprised by the episode, and he apologized to Bowbaq himself for it. He had sent Tonk off earlier in the night after the man had quarreled with others in the troupe, who had had enough of his belligerence.

  “If he had thrown those monkeys’ corpses at me, I would have punched him in the face,” the Rominian concluded.

  “He wasn’t armed,” Bowbaq mumbled as an excuse, before returning to his friends. The chief watched enviously the man who was so sure of his strength that he preferred his enemies have a blade, to alleviate his conscience.

  The night felt long, especially for Yan, Rey, Lana, and Bowbaq, who traded watches over Grigán. It was worse for Léti and Corenn, who never left his side. If one let the other sleep, she would be reproached for having left her friend to sleep too long. After only a deciday, though, the warrior had regained regular breathing, and a peaceful expression settled on his face. Carefully, Corenn pulled his eyes open and found that the dark blue had quenched the red that had burned before. Even so, the two Kauliennes wouldn’t leave his side until dawn.