[Stefan Kumansky 01] - Star of Erengrad

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  He hesitated for a just a few moments longer, then took a first few tentative steps along its length. With each step taken the snaking path pushed out further ahead, simultaneously fading into nothing in his wake. Bruno found himself having to walk ever faster to keep pace until he was running in pursuit of the light, not caring where it led so long as it took him out of the darkness. Wherever it was taking him, Bruno realised there would be no way back.

  He ran on, anxious to reach whatever it was that lay ahead, the raging fever now forgotten. Then he heard the sounds. Faint, at first, like the distant cry of a child, but so, so familiar. Then Bruno remembered; remembered the sound and what would happen next. He stopped running. His heart was hammering inside him, and his face was running with sweat.

  “No!” he cried out loud. “Please the gods, no. I can’t go through this again.”

  And yet he knew that, this time, he would have no choice. As he stepped forward, Bruno released the breath pent up deep in his lungs. As he exhaled, he felt himself break free of his body and float apart from it. He gazed down at himself, running as though his life depended upon it, knife clenched in one hand, all trace of his wounds vanished.

  Looking down, Bruno knew where this would end. And he knew how it would end. He saw himself enter the mouth of the cave. Saw the woman, her long gown torn and tangled upon the rocks. Saw the raw fear in her eyes, and the murderous expression of the orc that held her in its grip. And he saw his other self draw back the knife and take aim. The long moment was about to unfold again.

  Bruno saw the knife turning as it corkscrewed through the air. Almost a thing of beauty. Time had slowed down; the churning blade seemed to hang almost motionless, fixed upon the air. No, Bruno prayed. Not this time. Not again.

  A sound filled his ears. A sound of screaming, then deadening silence. Bruno felt himself falling back towards his own body, becoming whole once again. A juddering blow shook through his body as he fell upon the forest floor.

  He got up, slowly, the pain throbbing once more through his arm. There was no cave now, no shimmering path of light. A hand touched lightly upon his shoulder, and he turned.

  The fear had gone from her eyes, but Bruno recognised her instantly.

  “Do you know me?” she asked him, gently.

  “You’re dead,” Bruno said. His voice sounded thick, distant. “I killed you.”

  The woman nodded. Her face was transformed; tranquil, at peace. She took Bruno’s hand. “I know,” she said. “That’s why we are here with you now.”

  Bruno pinched himself again, but the dream refused to end. “What is this about?” he whispered. “What do you mean, we?”

  The woman said nothing, but reached out her hand. Her fingers brushed against the icon hanging at Bruno’s neck, and in a moment all pain, all trace of fever vanished from his body. She gazed upon him once more and smiled.

  “You understand now,” she said, softly. “The Goddess Shallya speaks to you through my soul. She is here to tell you that it is time to bury the past.”

  She held out her hand. “Come.” Tentatively, Bruno took hold of her hand. It was suffused with a gentle warmth that flowed into his body, replacing the storm that had gone before.

  “It’s time to forgive,” she said, smiling upon him. “To forgive yourself.”

  Bruno shook his head. “No,” he said. “I killed you. It’s my fault you died. I can’t forgive myself that.”

  The woman looked away from him. For a moment a wistful sadness filled her eyes. “My life ended the moment the creature trapped me in the cave,” she said. “Nothing you could have done would have saved me. It was already too late. But you did all that you could. And no one could ask more of you than that.”

  Bruno stood at her side, transfixed. She was surely some kind of spirit, or trick of his imagination, yet the flesh clasping his own hand felt so real, so—human.

  He felt a weight, like a heavy stone, stir and lift away inside of him.

  “What I ask of you is this,” the woman continued, “honour my memory by your deeds in life.”

  “You wish me to atone?”

  “No,” the voice said. “To celebrate. Celebrate each new day as a victory over darkness, and never abandon the struggle. Do that much, and my death will not have been in vain.”

  When Bruno finally awoke, it was from a sleep that seemed to have lasted for half his mortal life. Gradually, he came to, lying face down upon the floor of the forest. As consciousness returned he struggled to remember where he was, and how he had got there. All he could remember at first was that he had been asleep, deep within a world of dreams that was now locked away. He moved his hands and legs, gradually stretching his muscles, working the life back into a body that felt as though it had been drugged by some potion. But he was alive, for sure. That was the least of it.

  Gingerly, he flexed his forearm where the wound had been bandaged. His arm felt stiff and heavy, but free of all pain.

  Bruno turned his head and lifted it, and felt a glowing warmth upon his face. He opened his eyes, slowly, and immediately screwed them closed again. The light was too much, blinding after what seemed like an age inside the gloom of the forest. Shading his eyes with his hand, he opened them a second time. As he did so, memory began to return. He was lying in the same clearing in the forest that they had set camp in the night before. The ashes of the fire, long burnt out, were just a stone’s throw in front of him. Elena, Stefan, Tomas and Alexei—all of them were there, all sleeping or stirring from their own dreams.

  Tired and confused, and in no mind for puzzles, Bruno tilted his head back and drank in the greatest wonder of all: the morning sun in all its magnificence, flooding down into the forest from the skies above.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Gathering Storm

  Far beyond the eastern rim of the forest, across the barren marshlands that stretched on into Kislev, Petr Illyich Kuragin was sunk deep within dreams of his own. He found himself standing by the gates of Erengrad, shivering in the bitter wind blowing in from the steppe. Tears froze against his face as he ran his gaze across a blighted land. Everywhere the dark was closing in. Erengrad was crumbling; soon her motherland, Kislev, would crumble with it.

  From the horizon a rider on horseback approached the gates, a giant warrior mounted atop a giant steed. Petr Kuragin knew that the rider was Death, knew that he must stop Death from entering the city. He strained against the pitted wheel that would push back the open gates, but his arms and hands were frozen solid. The cold had set hard ice inside his limbs, locking his bones so tight that he could barely move. Every lost opportunity, every squandered moment from a lifetime of chances was running through his mind, mocking his frenzied efforts. With every second that passed, the dark rider raced closer. Kuragin screamed an oath to the gods and laid his shoulder against the gate-wheel. An icy sweat glossed his brow. Gradually, inch by tortured inch, the gates began to close.

  But it will be too late, a voice inside his head told him. All your efforts will be in vain. He shut the words out of his mind, trying to push aside the poisonous doubt that sapped his strength. The pounding of the hooves was like a thunder in his ears. He looked up into the face of Death, eyes glowing like red coals behind a dark mask. Death was riding through the gates to claim Erengrad for his dominion.

  Not while I live! Kuragin vowed, pushing every last ounce of strength from his body in a desperate effort to force the gates together.

  The hammering of the horse’s hooves became the beat of his own heart. Death’s horseman loomed large and terrible in the too slowly narrowing gap. Petr Kuragin prepared to meet his daemons.

  He woke with a start, his body drenched from sweat. Already the intensity of the nightmare was evaporating, vanishing from memory like a thief. But the sense of danger, close at hand, lingered in the chill air of his chamber.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom of the single lantern, he saw that he was not alone. His manservant, Dimitri, stood in the open doorway
. Behind him stood another man that Kuragin did not at first recognise.

  “What’s the matter?” he called out. “What is the news?”

  Dimitri bowed his head, apologetic. “I’m sorry, master. This man demanded to see you.”

  “That is becoming all too commonplace,” Kuragin remarked, sourly. He peered at the somehow familiar figure standing behind Dimitri in the darkness.

  “He said that you would be angered if he were turned away,” Dimitri explained.

  “Did he indeed? Let him come forward,” Kuragin ordered, vexed that his sleep should be disturbed, yet equally relieved to be set free of his dreams. He climbed from the bed, wrapping a robe around him. “This had better be good,” he observed.

  The man stepped forward, into the halo of light shed by Dimitri’s lantern. Kuragin saw at once that it was Martin Lensky, the sole voice to have spoken out against Rosporov in Katarina Square. The ostler looked out of breath, as though he had been running for his life, and his face and shirt were streaked with blood.

  “Forgive the intrusion, your lordship,” Lensky began. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t desperate.”

  “It’s all right,” Kuragin replied, mildly. He remembered the ostler’s courage in the square, and a pang of guilt stabbed through him. He would minister to this man’s needs if he could. “What is it you want?” he asked.

  Lensky staggered, and would have fallen had Dimitri not been at his side to support him. He rested his weight against the back of an oak chair, and stood breathing heavily for a few moments. “It’s begun,” he said at last. “Evil has risen, and staked its claim to the city. Erengrad is at war.”

  The image of the dark horseman flashed into Petr Kuragin’s mind. Death. Death was loose upon the city. Dimitri started to speak, but Kuragin brushed him aside. He strode to the bookcase on the wall of his study and located a map of the city, which he spread open upon the desk. “Show me,” he said to Martin Lensky. “Show me where the trouble has begun.”

  The ostler stared at the parchment drawing for a few moments, struggling to make sense of the cartographer’s work. “This is our commune,” he said at last, pointing to a place at the northern end of the city. “In the district they call White Barrow.” He turned to look at Kuragin. “We that live and work in the Barrow are good men all,” he said. “And loyal to the true cause of Erengrad.”

  He placed a second finger upon the map and traced a line encircling the warren of streets that formed the district. “They are all around us,” he said. “Too many of them to number. They’re setting flame to our homes. Those of us who don’t burn they put to the sword. The women, and our children, too.”

  Kuragin stared down, horror and rage starting to boil within him. Rage that his people were dying, unprotected. Horror because he knew that their murderers had not come from outside the city walls, but from within.

  “We beg your protection, lordship, for the city militia are nowhere to be seen. My kinsmen lack no courage, but courage alone is no match for axes and swords.”

  The sergeant of the Household Troop appeared in the doorway, summoned from below by the sound of commotion in his master’s chambers. Kuragin waved the man in. “How many men-at-arms can we muster?” he demanded.

  “How many men? Apart from those on guard around the walls?” the sergeant asked.

  “No, damn you!” Kuragin shot back. “How many men in total?”

  “Near thirty in total, lordship. But that would leave the Kuragin House undefended.”

  Thirty men. It seemed a pitiful number to pitch against the marauding mob that Rosporov had set upon the streets. Yet somehow it would have to do.

  “Tell your men to gather their arms,” Kuragin declared. “Tell them I shall lead them myself.”

  “My lord, this is a dangerous course,” Dimitri counseled. “A dozen men left behind would at least secure the house.”

  Kuragin looked from Dimitri to Martin Lensky. “We don’t need thirty men to save White Barrow.” He said. “We need fifty or more. But we will take every man that we have. I will not sit safe behind these walls and watch my countrymen die.”

  Not any longer, he swore. Not for one day longer.

  Count Vladimir Rosporov had sat, watching and waiting, until the first rays of the rising sun began flooding the city with orange light. It was a sign, he told himself, a portent of the time soon to come when purging fire would range the length and breadth of Erengrad.

  He had taken no sleep that night; he had chosen instead to sit and await the news of events as they unfolded through the hours of darkness. And the news was good. The waking servants of Chaos had risen up and become the catalysts of destruction that night. The Scarandar had sown the seeds of insurrection; weariness and despair of a broken people had done the rest. His time was close at hand, he could sense it. He wanted to be alert to savour its every moment.

  The count had a visitor, an ambassador from beyond the city. They served the same master, his visitor and he, but Rosporov formed his allegiances with prudence, wary of trusting any man. He greeted the newcomer with a stiff, formal bow.

  The visitor was a northerner, a Norscan probably, broad and thickly muscled as well as tall. The mark of the Changer was clear upon him. What struck Rosporov immediately was his eyes—or, rather, his right eye, for the left was entirely covered by a leather patch. It stared out at Rosporov, deep and piercing. Somehow it seemed not to belong to the man’s body. It was like another being enclosed within him, looking out with that cold and pitiless stare.

  The big man looked around the cramped furnishings of the room with evident suspicion. “Not much by way of chambers for a count, is it?” he commented, sourly.

  “You forget,” Rosporov replied. “I am a man of the people now. A champion of the common man. Trappings of wealth do not sit well with protestations of humility.”

  The Norscan grunted, unimpressed. “Anyway,” Rosporov continued, eyeing the ungainly bulk of the man with growing distaste. “If we are to judge by appearances, you make a poor case for an emissary.”

  The Norscan swore angrily and aimed one meaty fist towards Rosporov’s face. The count grasped the fist in his own right hand, and for a moment, the two men stood locked in a trial of strength. Rosporov’s puny limb looked like it would surely snap in two, yet, somehow, he was managing to hold the Norscan back.

  My resistance surprises him, Rosporov noted. I have hidden strength. I have the body of the cripple, and the strength of a madman. He smiled, and slackened his grip.

  “Things are not always what they seem, my friend.”

  The Norscan cursed him, but backed off. He may have the look and manner of a murderous oaf, Rosporov mused, but the eye tells a different tale. He knows exactly what I am worth.

  “We’ll waste no more time,” the visitor said. “I’ve come a long way, and taken a great risk to be here.”

  “Of course,” Rosporov concurred, “for is not risk but brother to change? Our Lord Tzeentch loves both his children equally.”

  “Don’t try mocking me with clever words,” the Norscan warned him. “I am the first servant and emissary of Kyros. Fail to satisfy me, and you will answer to him.”

  “Kyros would not find my answers wanting,” the count snapped back. “I am close to delivering my part of the bargain. Closer, I’ll wager, than you are to yours.”

  The single eye turned and fixed, cold and unblinking, upon the count. “Tell me what you have achieved.”

  “The uprising has begun,” Rosporov said. “The north of the city has already fallen.”

  “Do you have the Star?”

  “No,” Rosporov conceded. “Not yet. Kuragin clings to his charm like a child to its doll. But it is only a matter of time before he is taken, and with him the icon.”

  The big blond man slammed his fist upon the table. “Time is what we do not have!” he thundered. Rosporov granted him a tight-lipped smile. How was it the servants of Change seemed so rarely able to grasp its subtle mechanisms?<
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  “The city is in a state of flux,” he continued. “The seeds of insurrection have been sown. All we need do now is wait for the harvest. Parts of the city are already ours—parts, even, of the city militia.”

  “Not the parts that I encountered,” the Norscan growled. “I had to pay my way in blood and guile to penetrate within the walls.”

  “You haven’t come here to impress me with your bravery,” Rosporov countered, coldly. “What message does Lord Kyros’ emissary bring?”

  “He comes to tell you this,” the Norscan said. “Comes to tell you that in two days, three at the most, he will return to Erengrad at the head of an army. And icon or no icon, insurrection or no insurrection, the city will yield to its might.”

  “I savour the coming of that moment,” Rosporov told him. “Indeed, I shall be there in person, to greet you at the open gates.”

  The tall warrior got to his feet, drained the wine from his cup, and pulled his cape around his shoulders. “And I tell you this,” he said, his hand upon the door. “If you yet fail our cause, you may count yourself amongst our enemies once the final reckoning starts.”

  They had spoken of many things during the days that followed, but talked little of the events of that night in the forest. But Stefan had read and gauged the look upon his comrade’s face, and realised that in Bruno something had changed. The wound he had suffered in combat had all but healed overnight; that was wonder enough. But there was an even more wondrous change to be observed in Bruno’s spirit. It was as though a great, crushing weight had suddenly been lifted from him. Now, when their eyes met, Bruno would nod, clearly and affirmatively, as if to signal that the time to put differences aside was close at hand.