Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Orisian looked at Yvane in concern. She narrowed her eyes.

  "I don't know," she said. "I can't tell what's happening."

  Eshenna jerked, almost as if she was trying to pull away from K'rina, but she did not--or could not--release her grip. Her spine curved and flexed, snapping her head back then down again into her chest.

  Orisian saw Yvane wincing, her brow creasing. She shrank away from the other two na'kyrim.

  "What is it?" he asked her.

  "Something..." she whispered, then shook her head sharply, as if beset by a host of biting flies.

  Orisian could hear--or feel--a roaring, like a distant waterfall, or a storm blowing through trees. But it was inside his head, not outside, in the bone of his skull and the substance of his thoughts. It bled darkness from the edges of its sound, blurring shadows across his vision. The world was tumbling away from him, or he from it. The cramped shed around him swelled, rushing out to become a vertiginously immense space.

  "Separate them," he said, reeling at the dizzying sense of dislocation. He reached out and took hold of Eshenna's arm, trying to pull it away from K'rina. "Help me," he hissed at Yvane.

  There was an instant of reluctance, a hesitant fear, and then Yvane too had hold of Eshenna, and was murmuring urgently to her.

  "Come back, Eshenna. Come back. Can you hear me? Come back to yourself."

  Orisian could barely hear her above the rushing within his skull. The sensation of falling was sickening.

  It was only with the greatest difficulty that they could part the two of them. K'rina slumped limply to the straw. Eshenna fell back into Orisian's arms. He laid her down as gently as he could. She was calm now, though tremors still inhabited her hands, and when her eyes struggled open, her gaze was unfocused. Orisian found himself cradling her head, and could feel the dampness of sweat in her hair. Her stone-grey eyes blinked up at him.

  "She's empty," Eshenna gasped. "Nothing there, just a pit that falls away for ever. Into nothingness. It wanted to take hold of me, and I could not prevent it. But it didn't know me. That's the only thing that saved me. It's made for someone else, waiting for someone else, or I would have been lost. Swallowed up and caged in there for ever."

  She was crying, though whether it was from pain, or fear, or relief Orisian could not tell.

  "Be still," said Yvane. She spoke to Eshenna, but it was K'rina she was looking at, in the flickering light of the candles, and it was a look of suppressed horror or perhaps grief.

  "Was it Aeglyss?" Orisian asked.

  "No, no," Eshenna said, casting a desolate glance towards the prostrate na'kyrim. "It's what's in her; what's been made of her. She wasn't meant for us. We should never have taken her. We should never have interfered. We've ruined everything."

  There were voices outside in the yard. Footsteps on the paving stones, a muttered conversation, and then a rapping at the door that shook it on its old hinges.

  "The Black Road, sire," Torcaill shouted. "They're on the road south of here, close enough to reach us tomorrow from the sound of it. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands."

  "All right," called Orisian. Then, more softly: "I'm coming."

  He cast a last worried glance at Eshenna and met her tear-filled eyes.

  "I have to go," he said.

  "It's true, what I said before," she breathed.

  "What?"

  "Someone has to kill him."

  VI

  Kanin hated the sight of Hommen. This miserable and meek little town was where word of Wain's death had first reached him. It was here that he had watched Shraeve win leadership of the Battle in combat, and save Aeglyss' life in doing so. It was here that his life and his faith had been brought to ruin. And perhaps all the world with them. On his journey north, he had seen plentiful signs of the dereliction into which a once-noble enterprise was slipping.

  He and his company had skirted the edge of the vast army sprawled around the landward walls of Kolkyre. Like ants teeming about a corpse too thick-skinned for their jaws to pierce, the forces of the Black Road had spread themselves across great swathes of farmland. A stench, of burning and death and animals, hung over the fields and camps. Riding through the fringes of this disorderly host, Kanin saw bodies lying bloated by the side of the track; men and women howling with glee as they mobbed together to beat a Tarbain tribesman; a warrior kneeling in the mud, weeping uncontrollably, hands resting limp and upturned on his thighs.

  Beyond Kolkyre, they made camp for the night a short way from the road, and in the freezing darkness a band of looters, reckless or starving or mad, tried to steal their horses. They killed two of Kanin's guards before his warriors could be mustered to drive them off. His Shield took one alive, though only because Kanin intervened to preserve the man's life for a time. He questioned the prisoner himself, but got little sense from him. The man was of the Gaven-Gyre Blood, a carpenter from Whale Harbour. He would not, or could not, give his name, or that of any captain he followed. Nor could he explain how the faith and duty that led him to leave his home and march to battle had been corrupted into banditry and murder. Kanin cursed him, and struck him, and walked away. He heard Igris behead the carpenter as he stooped back into his tent.

  As they followed the road along the bleak shoreline towards Hommen, they passed through a broken, almost deserted, land. Many of the farmsteads and hamlets bore the black scars of fires. Doors hung loose or had been torn away completely. Outside an isolated cottage, a dead child, a boy, was impaled on a stake. Frost had laid a crisp white veil over his face. Crows had taken his eyes and opened his nose and shredded his lips.

  Waves lapped along a coast littered with broken-backed boats that had been thrown ashore after coming free of their moorings. There were sea-softened corpses that lay pale and fat on the pebbles. A pack of dogs was tearing at one such piece of the war's debris, surrounded by a patient audience of gulls and crows. A bone-thin grey hound tensed and growled when Kanin reined in his horse to watch.

  There were few of the living left in this ruined land. A handful of sick Gyre warriors who had taken refuge to recover or die in a mill looked on with rheumy eyes as Kanin passed by. A solitary woman stumbled along beside his horse for a way, until she tripped and fell to her hands and knees in the snow. She said not a word, but laughed feverishly, desperately. In a field, a dozen or more enslaved villagers scrabbled in the snow and soil for half-rotted vegetables that should have been harvested long ago, watched over by grim-faced men who stared suspiciously at Kanin's company.

  And Kyrinin. Three times Kanin saw woodwights. They roamed the higher ground inland from the coast, falling away behind the shelter of ridge lines almost as soon as he caught sight of them. Had they been closer, he might have led his warriors in pursuit of them, hunted them. When his father had agreed to the alliance between his Blood and the White Owls what felt like a lifetime ago, it had been meant to last only as long as did the Kyrinin's usefulness. That they still lingered, with impunity, in the lands the Black Road had reconquered was an insult. A corruption of what should have been. A sign of how thoroughly Aeglyss had twisted everything.

  Amidst all this emptiness, Hommen itself was an island of life. As he drew near, Kanin could see the smoke of scores of cooking fires. There were countless tents amongst the houses, ranks of tethered horses being fed and watered, crowds of men and women from every Blood. And to Kanin it was still more hateful, and reeked still more pungently of death, than the desolation that surrounded it.

  He left Igris to find shelter and food for his band of warriors and walked down through the crowds to the crude wooden quay. The masses of men and women who thronged Hommen's streets barely intruded upon his awareness. He recognised no one. He heard the babble of voices as the empty noise of birds. He felt no bonds of faith or purpose or intent with these people.

  He stood on the planks of the quay, close to the spot he had been standing when the rumour of Wain's death first found him. He looked west, across the grey, dead expanse of th
e estuary towards the limitless sea. And so bright was the sinking sun that lay white and cold on the horizon, so piercing its light, that he had to close his eyes. He heard seagulls overhead, laughing.

  "What happened to my sister, Shraeve? You were there, in Kan Avor, when she died. You must know what happened."

  "She was fortunate enough to leave this world. That is what happened. She will wake in a better one, and you will see her there, Thane."

  Shraeve and Kanin stood outside the little hall that lay beside the main road through Hommen. It was an island of comparative calm, the space in front of the hall's doors, for Shraeve's ravens had cleared it. Twenty of them stood in a wide half-circle, keeping back any who sought to draw near without permission. Onlookers were clustered beyond that silent cordon, eager to catch sight of the great and the powerful who were gathering here.

  "Not good enough," Kanin hissed. He took hold of the Inkallim's upper arm as she walked away from him. It was like grasping rock. He turned her to face him, and she met him with cold contempt.

  "I am Banner-captain of the Battle Inkall, Thane," Shraeve said softly. She glanced at his restraining hand, and he let it fall away from her; not through fear, or respect, but because his purposes would not be served by fighting with her today. Shraeve would have to die as well as Aeglyss, he realised with new clarity, but not now. Not yet.

  "I want to know what happened to my sister," he said. "There is no shame in such a desire."

  "Shame? No, perhaps not. But it serves no purpose. Mourning is but self-pity. You know it as well as I do."

  Once he had known it. Now, it sounded like a hollow platitude, vindictively crafted by the lips of an enemy.

  "Let the dead go, Thane," Shraeve said. "We will join them soon enough, in the better world."

  Men and women were filing past them into the hall. Leaders from the Gyre and Gaven and Fane Bloods; Lore Inkallim, led by the shuffling, hunched, black-lipped figure of Goedellin; Cannek, who studiously avoided Kanin's gaze as he settled his two hounds down to await his return from the council.

  "It's time," Shraeve said, and turned away from Kanin.

  He followed her into the musty gloom of the hall. It was empty save for a single table at its centre, lined with chairs. Serving girls--whether brought from the north with the armies or prisoners pressed into service, Kanin could not say--were lighting torches along the walls and setting out beakers of wine and ale and plates. At the far end of the hall, standing by small doors that must lead to the kitchens or other antechambers, were White Owl Kyrinin. They were hateful in Kanin's sight, and he averted his eyes from them.

  One or two of those already seated regarded him with curiosity, perhaps even suspicion, as he took his place at the table. He ignored them. They were nothing to him, these latecomers to the war his family had started. Not one of them had offered his father any support; not one of them had crossed the Stone Vale until they, or their masters, caught the scent of victories already won, and of spoils and glory to be claimed. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared fixedly down at them, watching his fingertips redden as the tension within him tightened its grip.

  He heard the wide doors of the hall scrape shut. The last of the daylight was excluded and they were left with the yellow flamelight and the scent of smoke. The servants went out, one by one, past the woodwight sentinels, and a heavy silence descended.

  "Where's the halfbreed?" a man asked at length. Kanin had met him once or twice before, long ago: Talark, Captain of a castle on the southern borders of the Gyre Blood. A relative, by marriage, to Ragnor oc Gyre himself.

  "He will join us shortly," Shraeve said placidly. She had taken her twin swords from her back. They rested in their scabbards against the side of her chair. "He is preparing himself."

  "For what, I wonder?" Cannek asked, almost mirthful, as if some unuttered jest was pleasing him.

  Shraeve ignored the Hunt Inkallim. "There are other matters to talk of first. Kilvale. Kolkyre."

  "Food, if you've any sense," Talark muttered irritably. "Half my warriors are starving. Most of my horses have gone into their bellies."

  "All the more reason to keep moving on. Conquest will feed our armies. Every town we take, every village, has stores laid in for winter. That promise, and the strength of their faith must keep them --"

  "They have stores only if they don't burn them or empty them before we get there," Talark interrupted her. "And if the farmers and villagers who flee before us haven't already eaten them."

  "The Battle has arranged for supplies to be brought down through the Stone Vale," Shraeve replied. "A hundred mules, all fully laden, reached Anduran only two days ago."

  "Mules!" Talark scoffed. "It's wagons we need, and oceans of them. Not a few mules."

  "Perhaps if the High Thane, your master, gave more than half his heart in support of us, you could have those wagons."

  The Gyre warrior glowered at Shraeve. "It's difficult to get wagons across the Vale at this time of year. You know that."

  "Indeed. Yet you sit in the hall of a Kilkry-Haig town. It seems we--those who came before you, Talark--have already proved that even the impossible can sometimes be possible. If the will is there. The faith."

  One of the Gaven-Gyre warriors cut short the burgeoning argument by rasping her chair back across the floor and rapping the back of her hand on the table.

  "If it's conquest that concerns you, our time might have been better spent busying ourselves with that task instead of riding all the way back here to indulge in petty disputes. There's more than enough chaos already, without our absence to help it along."

  "She knows that," Talark grunted. "She's got her ravens out there taking charge of everything while we're dragged back here. This serves no purpose save that of the Children of the Hundred."

  "No purpose?" Shraeve snapped, anger colouring her voice for the first time. "There is only one purpose in any of this. The service of the creed. Raising it up until all the world falls beneath its shadow. None who would dissent from that, none who doubt that the moment has come for all other concerns to be set aside, have any place in this endeavour. There must be unity. That is why we are gathered here now. Not to indulge in dispute, but to end it."

  "Don't question my faithfulness to the creed," Talark said, though his tone lacked the steel of conviction.

  "There must be unity," Goedellin murmured. All looked towards him. To Kanin's eyes, the man looked more frail and weary than ever before. He spoke slowly, heavily, his seerstem-darkened lips sluggish. "There must be unity, and certainty. Doubt is the enemy of faith. Yet these times are... confused. Few things seem as clear as once they did."

  "Success is clarity," Shraeve said. "It answers all questions." She was firm, but her manner had shed its confrontational edge. It was good to see, Kanin thought, that the Battle's confidence and arrogance had not yet become bloated enough to crowd out some vestigial respect for an Inner Servant of the Lore.

  "Indeed." Goedellin nodded. "Indeed." And then: "Perhaps."

  "When Kilvale falls, all doubt will be undone," said Shraeve with cold certainty. "When we hold the Fisherwoman's birthplace, the birthplace of our creed, then the fire will burn brightly in every heart. Nothing will quench it then. None will be able to argue fate's intent."

  "Oh, there's always room for argument," Cannek interjected lightly. "It's in our nature to be disputatious."

  Kanin groaned inwardly. Why taunt the woman? Why so brazenly flaunt his opposition? But, of course, Cannek was one of those who found such liberation in the Black Road that he feared nothing, found nothing troubling. He would dare anything, and greet the consequences of his daring with equanimity. Such sentiments, once familiar, were beyond Kanin's reach now.

  At the far, gloomy end of the hall, the Kyrinin were moving. One of the doors opened. Kanin held his breath, and sensed the same sudden expectation taking hold of everyone else at the table.

  The na'kyrim entered, and whatever feelings had been stirring in Kanin tu
rned to disgust at the sight of him. Aeglyss was a wasted figure, emaciated and gaunt, coming unsteadily forward on the arm of a tall woodwight. The halfbreed's colourless skin was scabbed and slack. Kanin grimaced.

  Yet when he looked about the faces of the others gathered there, he saw entirely different emotions portrayed. A hint of unease now and again, but fascination too. Even Talark watched Aeglyss approach with a pathetic, wide-eyed touch of wonder.

  There was an empty chair at Shraeve's side. Aeglyss settled gingerly into it. He looked so small. Kanin imagined that the halfbreed's neck would break with only the gentlest of twists. The Kyrinin warrior who had escorted Aeglyss to his place remained standing there, just behind him.

  "Must we have woodwights in attendance?" asked Talark, recovering a fragment of his previous antagonism.

  "This is Hothyn," Shraeve said. "He is the son of the White Owl Voice, and leader of the warband that accompanies Aeglyss. His presence is a sign of our strength, not our weakness."

  Yet I saw these same White Owls killing one another in the streets of Glasbridge, Kanin thought. Even in them, Aeglyss could not command the unity you hope for. Not until those who contested it had been killed.

  "Do not be distressed by my appearance," Aeglyss suddenly said. His voice grated in his throat. "I am engaged in a struggle, every day, to contain and to shape what burns within me. It takes its toll. Flesh and bone were not made to bear such burdens. A river that rises in its greatest flood will ruin and break its banks, and so it is with me. The flood is in me. Once I master it, I will repair its ravages."

  He smiled, and Kanin saw yellowing teeth, black veins of corruption and decay spreading from them through white gums. He imagined that were he close enough he would catch the stink of rot from that foul mouth. The smile faded, and Aeglyss closed his eyes.

  "I can smell the spice-thick air of Adravane's Inner Court," the na'kyrim murmured. "I feel the sand beneath the hoofs of a Saolin running on the Din Sive shore. I remember the Whreinin; can reach out and know what it was to be of the wolfenkind. The Anain raised a forest to drown a city with trees, yet they flee from the shadow of my mind as I move through the Shared. But they cannot flee far enough, or fast enough. Even them I can taste. Their age, their thoughts running like blood through veins of leaf and bough. All of this flows through me, and I flow through all things."