[Stefan Kumansky 01] - Star of Erengrad

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  “Ulric’s toil!” Stefan exclaimed, running over. “Let me look at that.”

  Bruno looked up, attempting a smile. “I’m supposed to say it’s just a scratch,” he said, his voice weak.

  “Some scratch,” Stefan commented. He peeled back the tattered and bloodied shirt to reveal a deep wound running the length of Bruno’s forearm.

  By now Elena had joined them. She turned Bruno’s arm gently between her hands, inspecting the jagged fissure in his flesh. “That will need to be properly bound,” she said emphatically, “But it will need cleansing, too. Otherwise you risk losing your arm.” She scanned the forest floor around her. “I’ve seen hempwort growing here. We must find some—it’ll purify the wound.”

  “You said we needed to get on,” Bruno protested, gritting his teeth. “This is going to delay us. It can wait till we set camp.”

  Stefan exchanged glances with Elena. “No, it can’t,” he said. “Some things are worth the delay.” He put an arm about Bruno’s shoulder, and drew him towards him. He felt his comrade’s exhausted body begin to sag against his own.

  “Bravely fought, old friend,” he said, quietly. “Bravely fought.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Light Among

  the Shadows

  He had no memory of how long he had dwelled within that forsaken place. Even now he could not remember whether it had been a place of light, a place of sounds, or of solid shapes. But he knew that the name of the place was death, and he knew that it had claimed his soul.

  Varik curled a smile from lips which he still barely knew as his own. Once more, he had cheated death at the very last, and had returned to the world to walk again with the immortals. He still did not know who he now was. His body felt powerful, yet not young. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he glimpsed a memory of himself as a warrior, born of the Norscan lands, cunning and cruel. A body that had won many battles, and earned many scars. At that moment, his new identity was of no matter to him. What mattered, above all else, was that he had been redeemed. As the light of his soul faded in the Tombs of Morr, his Lord Kyros had not forsaken him. He had intervened, as Varik knew he would, to restore life everlasting unto his faithful servant.

  He bowed his head in supplication. He stood in a place of silent darkness but he knew that the mighty Kyros was near. “My noble lord and redeemer,” he said. “Your humble servant pledges his soul anew in your eternal service.” The words felt strange and clumsy on his tongue. But there would be time enough now to mould this living flesh to serve the master’s will as he had moulded that of countless others.

  Yet something was different this time. It was as though another voice was speaking inside his head; the shadow, perhaps, of the soul that had been expelled when this flesh had become his.

  The other voice inside his head now spoke, slurred and slow, but still powerful.

  Not yours, it said. Ours.

  The emissary shook the thought away. “My lord,” he said again. “Mighty Lord of Transfiguration. I am here to meet your will.” His words echoed inside the dark and boundless space before the Dark Lord replied.

  “You have disappointed me.”

  Varik forced his new body down upon its knees, a chill of fear electrifying his spine. “Merciful master,” he stammered. “I shall double and redouble my toil in your service until that debt of shame is expunged.”

  “You shall,” Kyros concurred, “else the worms will feast upon your body and death will chain your soul.”

  Varik bowed still lower until his head was resting upon a floor of marbled ice.

  Unbidden, inside him, the second voice spoke again. Who are we?

  Varik slammed a fist into the ground, anger momentarily obliterating fear.

  “Who am I?” he shouted, furiously. “Who am I?”

  “You are no longer sole keeper of your destiny,” Kyros told him. “For I have joined you with another. This single body shall host two souls. Two souls to serve me in dual purpose.”

  Varik raised his head from the ground. He could now clearly sense the presence of the other. Something was stirring inside him, feelings and sensations that were not his. A yearning; an evil, cradling hunger that threatened to consume his being. The feeling both thrilled and appalled him.

  “Tell me what your first purpose shall be,” he said, quietly.

  “My plans for taking the city are still thwarted,” Kyros glowered. “My enemies still snap like dogs at my heels.”

  “Erengrad will surely still be yours,” Varik muttered, humbly. A crack like breaking thunder shook the chamber in response.

  “Promises are no longer enough!” Kyros roared. “I will see the fruit of these labours, or I will not bear the price alone.”

  Varik cowered until the storm began to subside. He clasped his hands together and raised his head once more towards the brooding presence of his master.

  “We must marry certainty to our mastery of the laws of chance,” Kyros continued. “If strategy and subterfuge does not achieve my purpose, then we shall crush the Kislevite cur with strength alone. I shall raise an army to march upon the walls of Erengrad. There, the doors of the city will be thrown open to us, else we shall trample them beneath our feet. You shall lead that army.”

  “We shall serve in any way you command,” Varik said, “but—”

  “You are a creature of loathsome cunning, Varik.” The sonorous voice of the Chaos Lord cut across him. “For all that you have failed me, I still have need of your guile. But, for the purpose of war I have melded your soul to that of a warrior, a remorseless bringer of death. Together, as one, you will deliver Erengrad.”

  Varik felt a strange, adrenalin rush of animal lust. He could almost taste the blood in his mouth. For a moment he felt a delicious drowning as his head filled with images and thoughts that were not his own.

  Our second purpose? the other voice demanded. He heard himself repeat the words out loud.

  “Ah,” the Chaos Lord murmured. “For here is your reward. Your second purpose is the common thread that binds your two souls to their quest.” He paused. “The quest for revenge.”

  A new image floated into Varik’s mind. An image from the final moments of his last life. An image of a young man coming at him, blood-smeared sword held in both hands. The blade falling, cutting the air before his eyes. And the light of life ebbing away upon a sea of pain.

  A name came into his mind. Kumansky. Stefan Kumansky. Suddenly Varik realised that the pain and the anger he felt were no longer just his own. They had fused with the furious rage of another; a murderous hatred which would not abate until Kumansky was dead. Varik had never felt such strength inside him driven by the lust to kill. In the dark, he ran unfamiliar hands across the contours of an unfamiliar face. There was something strange about this face, something that linked it to the hatred that still boiled within him.

  “Who are we?” he asked. Out of the darkness, a gleaming panel of mirrored light opened up. Varik walked towards it, approaching his own reflection. He stared at the profile of the man who would conquer Erengrad, flexing his face experimentally. It was a face growing towards age; nearly forty summers, he would guess. But beneath the skin grown slack and lined with age and the thinning crop of corn-blond hair, there was still the strength. The strength of single-minded purpose. To kill and keep on killing.

  All the time, the name kept echoing through his mind. Kumansky, Kumansky, Kumansky. Now the cursed swordsman had been given name, he could not keep it from his thoughts. The image in his mind darkened and melted. Something else was replacing it now. He saw the storm-lashed coast of Kislev drawing closer as his people hauled their boats towards the shore. The village yielding before them, the houses in flames. And he saw the small boy, kneeling amidst the ruins of Odensk, cowering but defiant. The knife in the boy’s hand had been concealed; too late he now saw the blade that plunged toward his face.

  Varik turned this new face the other way, exposing the left side to the mirroring light
. For a moment all was inexplicable darkness again. Slowly, he lifted one hand to his face and touched the socket where his left eye should have been. Finally he turned and faced the light head-on, and stared at the blackened, pitted flesh where the eye had been gouged away. Now he truly knew who he was. And how sweet revenge would taste.

  Bruno had been right. Tending to his wounds had set them back. Not for long, perhaps, but the hour spent was a cost in time they could barely afford. Even allowing for the speed with which unnatural night fell upon the forest, Stefan was still taken aback by the suddenness with which the day was extinguished. As they moved towards the centre of the dark woods the span of daylight seemed to be growing ever briefer. Far above their heads the sky spread out in a pane of pure azure blue, but below the high branches of the trees, no light now penetrated.

  Reluctantly, Stefan turned his horse to straddle the path, signaling a halt to the other riders roped in line behind him. By his calculations, they were close to the very heart of the mighty forest.

  All five of them had grown so familiar by now with the process of pitching camp that they could have done it blindfolded. That was as well, because, even with all five storm lanterns lit, only the feeblest of glows lit the air to help them at their work.

  Each laboured alone, save for Bruno, whose arm was heavily strapped. Stefan worked with him, helping to lash the canvas awning against the overhanging branches of the closest trees. Both men worked in silence, but Stefan sensed that some fragile part of the bridge between them had been restored. The time for talk was perhaps close at hand. For the moment, he would wait and let Bruno find a time of his choosing.

  Tomas sat for a while by Elena while they ate, but he found he had little appetite. He told himself it was boredom with the plain diet they were obliged to survive upon, but in his heart he knew it was more than that. Feeling restless, he got up and walked, holding his lamp low by his feet to find a path through the tangle of roots and fallen branches. To his surprise, he saw he was approaching a second lamp, invisible in the impenetrable dark only a few moments before. He found himself standing over Alexei Zucharov, head bowed down close by the side of the storm lantern, writing upon a sheet of paper.

  “Oh!” Tomas said, taken aback. “I didn’t realise you were there.”

  “Well,” Alexei replied, without looking up, “I am.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tomas added. “You’re busy. I’ll leave you in peace.”

  Alexei turned his head in Tomas’ direction. Tomas, barely feet away, saw his face as a blur of grey, tinged orange by the light struggling from the lantern. “No,” Alexei said, his tone warmer, more conciliatory now. “Sit down here a while. I’ve nearly done with this.”

  Tomas hesitated, aware of the nervousness the big man still inspired in him. Then he fumbled his way forward in the darkness and set his own lantern down upon the ground near to Alexei’s. He climbed down next to it, and sat down next to Alexei while he continued to write.

  “So,” Tomas began, tentatively. “What is it you’re writing?”

  “A letter,” Alexei replied, simply.

  “A letter?” The idea seemed odd in the extreme. “A letter to who?”

  “To my sister, Natalia,” Alexei said. He laughed. “She worries over her big brother.”

  Tomas sat for a while, pondering the improbability of getting a letter back from the Forest of Shadows—or anywhere else they were headed—to Altdorf.

  “How do you—how do you know it’s going to reach her?” he asked, finally.

  “I don’t,” Alexei said. “In fact, I doubt that it ever will. But that’s not the point.” Alexei put the letter away and held the lantern up close by Tomas so that he could see his face.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  “No you don’t,” Tomas replied, uncomfortably.

  “Yes,” Alexei persisted. “I do. You’ve every right to hate me, yet you don’t seem to bear even the slightest of grudges. Tell me something—do you really think I’d have had you put to death back on the road to Middenheim?”

  “Of course not,” Tomas replied, denying his doubts. He waited for some kind of affirmation from Zucharov, but none came.

  “The truth is,” Alexei said at last. “You’ve acquitted yourself well, not once but twice now. I was wrong about you. Doubly wrong.”

  Despite the cold, Tomas flushed. He felt stupidly proud, and was glad of the cloaking darkness around them. But after a while the warmth faded, and the worm which had been gnawing at his stomach returned. He hesitated, unsure of how his words were going to sound, then said, “Shall I tell you something about myself?”

  “What’s that?”

  Tomas swallowed hard. “You called me a drunk,” he said. “And the truth of that is, you were right. I was a drunk. A stumbling, good-for-nothing, washed up wreck of a drunk.”

  There was no judgment in Alexei’s voice. “You’re not a drunk now,” he replied, evenly.

  “No,” Tomas agreed. “I’m not. But I’ll tell you what. Without the drink, I can’t hide from what I am, anymore. It’s like someone’s taken away my shield, left me without any defence. Whatever’s left underneath, that’s all there is of me.”

  “Which is?”

  Tomas hesitated, and drew down a deep breath, struggling with the words. “A coward,” he said at last. “Fear. That’s all I can feel, inside of me. I’m afraid, Alexei.” He stopped, waiting for Alexei’s reaction, scorn or disdain. All he could see in the half-light from the lantern was the outline of his face in profile, and his breath like ice-clouds on the freezing night air.

  “So are we all,” Alexei said at last. Tomas snorted in disbelieving derision.

  “You? Afraid? Yes, you and Stefan both, I’ll wager!”

  “I’ll wager it too,” Alexei replied. “It’s part of what tells us we’re alive. Without knowing fear, we can never know courage. Fear is the shadow to the light of our bravest deeds. The drink may have numbed you to fear, but it did you no service.”

  Alexei paused, and laughed, acknowledging the deeper truth. “The time to start worrying,” he said, “is when you stop feeling afraid.” He pulled closer with the lantern until the two men were only inches apart.

  “Shall I tell you why you’re here?” he asked.

  Tomas nodded. He was still trying to work out if Zucharov was simply trying to make him feel better, and why he should want to do that anyway.

  “Treasure,” Alexei said simply. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Treasure?”

  Zucharov nodded. “Treasure. Riches and reward. Believe me, wherever there is conflict there is a prize to be won. This time will be no different.” He set the lantern down. “The prize at the end will be different for every man. But, trust me, somewhere out there on the field of battle, your treasure awaits. Yours, and mine too.”

  Tomas felt his heart beating faster in his chest. “So what will your treasure be this time?” he asked.

  “That’s the thing,” Alexei told him. “I don’t know. Yet.”

  Tomas sat quiet for a while, trying to find in his imagination what shape his prize might take. Alexei reached inside his pocket for his flask. Almost automatically, he offered the flask towards Tomas, then hastily pulled back.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologised, “That was stupid of me.” The bigger man stood up, and stretched his limbs. “Time for sleep,” he counseled. “Our treasure will wait that long at least.”

  As soon as his eyes had flickered open, Bruno knew that something was wrong. He was enveloped in darkness; there was no sign of anyone, or anything, surrounding him. He assumed he had succumbed, finally, to sleep and then reawakened. It must have been the middle of the night, yet Bruno felt no sense of the crippling chill. On the contrary, he felt as though he was on fire, his entire skin, his whole body, burning with a fever. Fumbling blindly in the dark, he climbed unsteadily to his feet. He was dimly aware of his wounded arm, a dull throbbing pain at his side. That must be it. The wound ha
d started to poison him, set a fever raging inside his body. For all he knew, he was dying. He reached to his neck, and touched the silver icon of Shallya that he wore there.

  “Sweet goddess of redeeming light,” he whispered, gasping for cool air to soothe his lungs. “Spare your follower this night.”

  He knew he must find somebody. Find Elena, before his flesh burned away.

  Head pounding, he took a few steps, stretching a hand out in front of him. Even the trees had vanished from view now. It was as though every last glimmering of light had been swallowed whole. Darkness was total.

  Wait a minute, Bruno told himself. I’ve been here before. This is more than fever. This is the dream. It’s happening again. He pulled the short knife from his belt and, bracing himself, touched the point of the blade against his wrist just below the bandage. The stab of pain told Bruno he was very much awake.

  He called out to the others, but there was no response. The silence was as all-embracing as the darkness. He waited for his eyes to adjust, give some faint, groping semblance of vision. But nothing altered. The blackness remained absolute, and Bruno began to realise that he was marooned upon an island, with neither sight nor sound to guide him.

  It can’t stay this dark forever, he told himself. He would find his lantern somewhere upon the ground and relight it. Then he would find the others. He got down upon his knees, groping blindly for the lantern that he assumed must have toppled and failed. All he could feel between his fingers was damp earth and the prickling of thorny roots. It’s here, he told himself. It has to be here. Everything must still be here, somewhere.

  Suddenly, from out of the black heart of the forest, a stream of brightness spooled outwards like a cloud of fireflies, settling upon the ground ahead of him, a corridor of light winding through the darkness. Bruno stared at the light in disbelief, expecting the darkness to reassert itself at any moment. But the light remained, threading a golden path through the dark folds of the forest. Gradually the realisation came to Bruno that it was waiting. Waiting for him.