Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Kanin gasped for air, croaking incoherently, clasping a hand to his throat. He took hold once again of his own sword. Breath came at last, ragged and rough. Aeglyss was only now rising unsteadily to his feet. He was still enfeebled. Vulnerable. But there was Shraeve, quite still and calm.

  "I would regret killing a Thane," she said softly. "It would be a fell deed. But the end of the world must be a time for fell deeds, if needed, don't you think?"

  Kanin did not believe he could overcome her. Perhaps if Igris was here, the two of them together might have a chance against this raven, but Kanin knew what would happen if he challenged her alone. She was too fast, too skilled. He could hear, in his memory, the sound of Cannek's spine breaking. Once he had believed that fate could be generous to those who dared; now he was uncertain whether such laws still governed--had ever governed--the twisted world. Daring felt like recklessness, when the goal he sought was so all-consumingly crucial. He would be permitted only one attempt upon Aeglyss, and to fail in it would be to fail in everything, his entire life.

  He coughed, and folded his arms across his chest.

  "Your master seems unwell," he said. "Perhaps I should leave the two of you alone."

  He spun on his heel and walked briskly away, his heart racing, his cheeks burning with the backwash of tension and fear and anger that was now released in him. He could hear Aeglyss groaning, but did not look round. He went out into the light.

  VII

  Nyve's skin was old, with the hue of worn and faded hide. It had loosened as the years slackened the muscles beneath it and narrowed his shoulders. But still the First of the Battle had an air of resilient strength. There was enough breadth to him, and just enough firmness left in his skin, to give life to the raven tattoo that spread its wings across his shoulder blades. Theor, master of the Lore Inkallim, watched that black bird stir and ripple as a manservant drew a cloth slowly across Nyve's back.

  The First of the Battle sat naked on a low stool in the centre of the stone wash-house floor. The servant went silently about his duties, pausing occasionally to rinse his cloth in a pail of hot water. Now and again Nyve grunted at the pressure of firm fingers on some sore joint, but he made no other complaint.

  The servant carefully lifted the First's arm and stretched it out, and ran the cloth down it from shoulder to wrist. Drops of water pattered onto the stone tiles.

  "I cannot undo what fate has decreed," Nyve said softly.

  "Of course," said Theor. "I would never ask such a thing. You know how much it pains me to even raise with you matters that are internal to the Battle."

  "Yet you do." Theor could not see his friend's face, but heard the wry smile in Nyve's voice.

  "I do. It cannot be avoided. Such are the tempestuous times in which we live. Don't pretend you don't share my concerns."

  Nyve lowered his arm. The servant charged the cloth with water and then twisted it into a tight cord above the First's head. Water splashed across his scalp and shoulders. It ran down over the great welt where his ear had once been.

  "We set this horse running," Nyve said. He gave his head a single dipping shake, scattering droplets. "Too late to try to rein it in."

  "The Thane of Thanes disagrees," Theor muttered. He walked round to the stone bench that ran along one wall of the wash house and tested its surface with the palm of his hand. It was warm: hot charcoal could be fed into a hidden compartment. Carefully, he settled himself onto the bench. The seductive warmth spread through his thighs and buttocks. Outside, the snow was knee-deep. Every stream ran beneath a skin of ice. Even down in the valley, in Kan Dredar, there had been no night without a hard frost, no day without at least some snow, for two weeks.

  "When was the last time he agreed with us?" Nyve asked.

  Theor rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He truly was getting old, he thought, for how else to explain the intoxicating delight of such a simple thing? Luxuriant warmth in winter had never meant so much to him when he was young. Now, this warm stone bench filled his bones with delight, answering a need in them he had not known existed. Such were the seductions of comfort.

  "If you need to sleep, we can always continue our discussions later," Nyve said, a little louder this time.

  Theor opened his eyes and winced apologetically at his friend. The old warrior was watching him, but there was no irritation or impatience in his gaze. Nyve would understand as well as anyone what it was to find the body ageing and faltering before the spirit within had prepared itself for the change. Nyve's hands were all but crippled, bunched into claws that would barely respond to their owner's command.

  "I like this bench you've got here," Theor observed.

  "So do I."

  "I might have one made for myself."

  "Too indulgent for the Lore, surely?" Nyve grunted. "I doubt your people would approve."

  "Seeking approval does not really accord with the precepts of the creed. In any case, I find myself less and less concerned with the approval of others as the years pass."

  "Indeed," Nyve said, and then glanced at the manservant. "Help me up."

  The First of the Battle rose, only a fraction unsteady, leaning on the servant's arm. Once he was securely on his feet he dismissed the attendant with a silent flick of his head.

  "Pass me that robe, would you?" he said to Theor once they were alone in the warm, humid stone chamber. Theor hung the robe on his friend's shoulders and watched as Nyve made his careful way over to the heated bench.

  Nyve settled onto the stone with a satisfied sigh. He stared at Theor. Those eyes, at least, were undimmed, unblunted. It was still the gaze of a fierce and potent warrior for the faith.

  "You're tired," Nyve said. "You look sick, in fact."

  "I feel both. The world's as unsteady beneath my feet as a foundering boat. I am... lost, I suppose." Theor knew he should feel shame that such words were on his lips. He was the First of the Lore, custodian of the creed. Keeper of the truth. He, of all people, should be resistant to the kind of uncertainty and confusion that assailed him. Yet there was no point in pretending things were other than they were. Not in front of Nyve, at least.

  The First of the Battle grunted. "Whisper such things softly, friend. There's danger in honesty."

  "It seems to me we are beset by dangers of many kinds," Theor murmured. "There are terrible temptations in success. It all too easily breeds pride, or error."

  "I see you are entirely determined to discuss Shraeve, no matter how it pains you to walk upon the Battle's ground," smiled Nyve.

  Theor shrugged regretfully. "I must do as my heart and my faith bid me."

  "As I say, the horse is running. It is not our hands that guide it, but fate."

  "That is as it may be, but I fear Ragnor oc Gyre lays the blame for his Captain's death on our all too mortal shoulders. Temegrin the Eagle may not have been the most valued of the High Thane's servants, but neither was he entirely inconsequential. Ragnor sees our scheming, rather than fate's working, in the ascendancy of this halfbreed. In Shraeve's... accomplishments."

  "And you?" Nyve asked quietly. "I care less than I should what our High Thane thinks. Tell me what you see."

  "I see nothing as clearly as I would wish. Fiallic was a good man. Measured. You told me yourself he was the finest Banner-captain the Battle has had in our lifetimes. Shraeve is... more turbulent." He spread his hands, an almost helpless gesture. "This is not where any of us thought this track might lead. You cannot be as free of doubt as you pretend."

  Nyve grunted. "Of course. If it was my choice, I'd have Fiallic back. If these bent hands could shape things, he would have killed Shraeve. But he didn't. No message I've had from the south, no rumour even, denies that she won her rank justly, by the will of fate."

  "And the halfbreed? She has drawn up your entire host, all the ranks of your ravens, at the side of some mongrel who was supposed to be nothing more than a tool in the hands of the Horin Blood. I find myself uncertain whose purposes are
being served."

  Nyve regarded Theor pensively. He rested his hands, knuckles down, on the bench.

  "I was never much given to deep thought on matters such as this; you know that." He gestured, club-handed, at the lumpen scar across the side of his head. "Had I spent much time thinking about it, I'd likely have taken flight. Let the hound that took my ear go hungry. But the path of my life was not written that way. It seems to me..."

  He hesitated, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the right words. "It seems to me that this is what we are for, you and I. Our lives have been very simple things: to serve the creed, to follow--and foster--the descent of this world to its inevitable ruin. We have been, in every sense that matters, meaningless except in our service to that purpose.

  "So don't ask me to shed whatever little meaning I have had now, in the twilight of my life." Nyve smiled, as if feeling the glow of that very twilight on his skin. "The ascendancy of the creed is closer than ever before. By whatever means, however unexpectedly, Shraeve has restored us--the Inkalls--to heights we have not seen in many years. It is to us that the people look now for guidance, not the Thanes. If we pull back, hesitate, would we not make a lie of the long lives we have led? Would we not be denying the very purpose that has been our guide? I am too old to make such changes, friend. We both are. We've always been in the hands of fate. That the journey along the Road has become tortuous does not change that."

  Theor nodded. He understood. He felt it himself: the nagging sense that whatever doubts now assailed him were a betrayal of something precious and central to him. That if he surrendered to them, he would render himself, and the life he had lived, entirely empty. Still, those doubts were there. As was the insidious, all but heretical, fear that fate was somehow going astray from its proper path.

  "Do you sleep well?" he asked Nyve. "Are your dreams troubled?"

  There was only the briefest moment of hesitation. "I dream of violence. And of death. But I have always done so. They've been my sleep-companions as long as I can remember. And you? Is your rest uneasy?"

  "It is." Theor had to hold himself back. Some things he could not share, even with this oldest of friends. The waking dreams brought by seerstem belonged to the Lore, and only to the Lore. Yet a part of him wanted to tell Nyve how harsh and inhospitable the inner territories that seerstem opened up had become. The herb had blackened Theor's lips over the years: the smallest of prices to pay for the comfort and insight it had brought. But whatever it brought now, it was not comfort. Fear, sometimes. Doubt. It obscured where once it had clarified. The strange dreamlands that lay beyond the seerstem gate were bleak and unwelcoming. There was always the sensation of someone looking over his shoulder, or some movement just beyond the corner of his dreaming eye.

  "I'm tired," he murmured. "Perhaps that's all it is. Perhaps I grow too old and weak to face the unfolding of fate's great plan."

  "You've a few years in you yet," Nyve grunted.

  "Perhaps. I am to meet with Ragnor oc Gyre. Down in Kan Dredar. He refuses to come to the Sanctuary, which is as sure a sign as you could wish for of his fraying patience. I thought perhaps you could provide me with an escort. I hear that there is unrest in the town. Riots. Killings."

  "You shall have as fine a guard of my ravens as you wish, First." Nyve chuckled. "It will do our High Thane good to see that all the Children of the Hundred stand shoulder to shoulder in this. And that the Battle still has enough swords here to put on a show."

  Theor smiled, and in smiling tried to pull taut the old, secure strands of his friendship with the master of the Battle. But there was a looseness in them that had never been there before, and he could not overcome it. The profound agreement of their instincts had always persisted without having to be spoken. Now, he felt it to be seamed with faint flaws that could not be patched with words, or with mere affection. He secretly and fearfully mourned the loss of its perfection.

  VIII

  Taim Narran cast an experienced eye over the host of the Black Road as it edged its way up the road towards Ive. Only a few hundred, he thought, yet the knowledge brought none of the relief he might have expected. Rather, he felt an empty despair at the prospect of inevitable slaughter, and the knowledge that victory or defeat today would bring no release for any save the dead. There must be light somewhere amidst this darkness, he thought, but he seemed to have lost the ability to detect its gleam.

  "Move the horsemen out to the right flank," he said quietly. "They don't look to have any horses of their own. Perhaps we can get in behind them."

  He did not look round, but heard the riders galloping off to deliver his commands. Everyone, whether of Lannis or Kilkry stock, deferred willingly to him here. A certain martial fame--nothing he treasured or relished--had long ago attached itself to his name, and the people of Ive imagined him to be something he himself had struggled to recognise for some time: a great warrior and leader. They trusted in him to save them, and their town. It was a burden he bore without protest, but not gladly, and not lightly. Never lightly.

  There were banners and standards from several of the Black Road Bloods scattered through the approaching army, yet Taim could see little sign of ordered companies or disciplined array. The northerners came on in a jostling mass, spreading out into a long, thick rank on either side of the road. There were no obvious Captains, just these hundreds of men and women come together into one huge blood-hungry crowd. And they bore a grim forest in their van: dozens of tall spears jostling for space against the grey sky, each topped with a severed head or bearing strips of flayed skin that stirred on the wind like pennants.

  A woman, hands bound behind her back, legs hobbled, was dragged out in front of the seething army. She was wailing and struggling. Five warriors marched her a few paces forward and threw her down in the middle of the road. One of her captors spread his arms wide and bellowed wordless hatred at the ranks of Kilkry and Lannis men. Then he and the others beat the woman to death with clubs and staffs.

  Taim turned away. She had looked to be much the same age as Maira, his daughter. He had never seen this from the Black Road before. This wanton, tribal brutality. It was not how battles were meant to be fought. Or perhaps it was, now.

  The noise was new too. In all his years of facing the Black Road, he had grown used to the grim, almost unnatural, silence in which they often fought. This time, his ears rang to hate-filled roaring, like the baying of a thousand leashed hounds.

  And then those leashes were slipped, and the dark wall of bodies and blades was rushing towards him. He drew his sword, cast one brief glance up towards the clouds scudding across the sky, not knowing what he hoped to see there, and heeled his horse into motion.

  *

  Ess'yr held out a flake of greasy squirrel meat to Orisian. He took it with a nod of gratitude. They ate in silence, warmed by the little fire, while the stubby twigs of the apple trees creaked in the breeze. Heavy clouds were racing overhead, but down in the orchard, amidst the aged protection of the trees, with the comforting flames, Orisian felt safe. Almost at ease.

  Varryn would not join them, of course. He sat crosslegged some little distance away, cleaning the squirrel skin. He scraped away at the hide with his knife in silence, studiously ignoring Orisian and his sister. Ess'yr herself picked flecks of meat from a leg bone with precise finger and thumb. Orisian watched her, but when she looked at him he averted his eyes with a fleeting self-conscious smile.

  He was faintly aware of the warriors loitering beyond the trees, at the back of the Guard barracks. Theirs was not an intrusive presence, though. They were sufficiently comforted by the high stone walls that enclosed the orchard, and sufficiently trusting now of these two Kyrinin, to permit Orisian some little privacy. It was a kind of wonder, he recognised, that a Thane of the Lannis Blood could sit alone in such company without his warriors imagining or expecting disaster. Those protective walls sheltered a moment, a scene, drawn from another world, another possibility, less scarred by bitter history. Though
Orisian could not forget all that had happened, or the storms that raged beyond this island of calm, he could find here, in this company, a brief span of rest. Of stillness.

  He licked his fingers clean. The fire was burning low, sinking into its bed of bright embers. He threw another couple of sticks onto it and listened to them crackle and hiss.

  "There might be trouble coming," he said pensively. Ess'yr said nothing. She was watching him, her eyes set like polished flints in the blue frame of her tattoos. Varryn's knife continued to rasp rhythmically across the skin.

  "We think the Black Road has cut us off from the south," Orisian went on, unperturbed by their silence. "Taim's gone to meet them. He wouldn't let me go with him."

  "You are precious to him," Ess'yr said impassively.

  "Yes." Orisian flicked a sideways glance in her direction. Part of him longed to reach out to her, and lay a soft hand on her shoulder, her arm. "Yes, perhaps. Though I don't know that I'm really any safer here than out there. I'm not sure such a thing as safety's possible any more."

  Ess'yr looked down, returning her attention to the little carcass.

  "I would not..." Orisian began, but the sentence collapsed beneath the confused weight of his feelings. He tried again: "I don't know quite why you have stayed here. I am--I am glad of it, but... If you want to go, you shouldn't stay because you think you owe me anything."

  He was aware that Varryn had stopped his work and was now staring at him. The cleaning knife rested point down on the warrior's knee.

  "Owe you?" Ess'yr said. "No. Not you."

  "Inurian?"

  "It does not matter," she said. A lie, Orisian thought; or at best a kind of truth his human understanding could not encompass.

  "Our enemy makes alliance with your enemy," Ess'yr placidly continued. "We do not need to seek them out, for they come in search of you. Your fight is our fight."

  "Your brother does not agree," Orisian said.