"Most have gone. You get going too. Hide your weapons, and remember the curfew starts soon, so don't linger." He jogged away.
Their target had been well chosen. Being comparatively small, the garrison was a mite easier to overcome than some of its better manned counterparts would have been. And its location, just beyond the outskirts of Taress city, meant it was conveniently isolated. Not that they could afford to ignore caution. There were likely to be patrols in the area, and reinforcements could be quickly summoned.
Outside the fort's broken gates the last of the raiders were scattering. Donning various disguises, they left in wagons, on horses and, mostly, by foot. The majority would head for Taress, taking different routes, and melt into the capital's labyrinthine back streets.
Haskeer grumpily declared that he wanted to make his way back alone. Stryke was happy to let him. "But mind what Brelan said about the curfew. And stay out of trouble!"
Haskeer grunted and stomped off.
"So, which way for us, Stryke?" Coilla asked.
"Haskeer's going that way, so…"
She pointed in the opposite direction.
"Right."
The course they chose took them through a couple of open meadows and into a wooded area. They moved at a fast clip, anxious to put some distance behind them. At their backs the fort burned, belching pillars of black, pungent smoke. Ahead, they could just make out Taress' loftier towers, wine-red in the flaxen light of a summer's evening.
Not for the first time it struck Coilla how much Acurial's rustic landscape differed from that of Maras-Dantia, the ravaged land of their birth; and how it so resembled their adoptive world of Ceragan.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Stryke was puzzled. "About what?"
"Losing the star you trusted me with, probably to Jennesta. I feel such a fool."
"Don't beat yourself up about it. I lost the other four to her too, remember. Who's the bigger fool?"
"Maybe we all are. We were betrayed, Stryke. It must have been somebody in the resistance who took the star I had."
"Could have been. Then again…"
"You can't mean somebody in our band."
"I don't know. Perhaps an outsider took it."
"You really believe that?"
"Like I said, I don't know. But from now on we keep things close to our chests."
She sighed. "Whatever. Fact is we're still stuck here."
"Not if I can help it."
"What d'you mean?"
"I aim to get the stars back."
"From Jennesta? From the whole damn Peczan empire?"
"There'll be a way. Meantime we've got our work cut out riling the humans."
"Well, we struck a blow today."
"Yeah, and the orcs of this world are waking up. Some of 'em anyway."
"Wish I had as much faith in them as you do. The resistance's gaining a few new recruits, true. But enough for an uprising?"
"The more the screw tightens, the more we'll see joining the rebels. We just have to keep goading the humans."
It was nearly dusk and shadows were lengthening. With the curfew looming they upped their pace some more. The edge of the city was in sight now and lights were coming on. Patrols were a real possibility as they got nearer, and they had to move with stealth. They crossed a stream and began skirting a field of chest-high corn that waved in a clement breeze.
Neither spoke for some time, until Coilla said, "Suppose… suppose we don't get the stars back. If we're stuck in this world, and whether it has its revolution or not… well, what's here for us? What place would we have?"
It was a thought that plagued Stryke too, although he was careful not to voice it to those under his command. His mind turned to what he would lose if they really were trapped in Acurial. He pictured his mate, Thirzarr, and their hatchlings, kept from him by the unbridgeable gulf that separated the worlds.
"We'll endure," he replied. "Somehow."
They turned their eyes skyward.
There was a light in the firmament, bigger than any star. It had an ethereal quality, as though it were a burning orb seen through many fathoms of water.
Stryke and Coilla knew it to be an omen. They wondered whom it bode ill for.
2
On the other side of the city, beyond its periphery, the terrain was less fitted to growing crops. There were moorlands here, and large stretches of bog, where not much more than scrub and heather grew.
It was a place with a reputation. This was partly due to its poor fertility compared to the verdant land thereabouts. Although poor was not quite the right way of describing it. Perverse would have been a better word. There was something less than wholesome about the flora that bred here, and the animals that roamed were chiefly carrion eaters. The magical energy that coursed through the world had become corrupted in this spot.
The area also had a bad name because of certain artefacts it housed. These were scattered about the moor in an apparently senseless jumble, though there were those who thought they saw a pattern. The ruins were called monuments, temples, shrines and moot-places, but nobody really knew their true function. Certainly none could guess at the purpose of some of the more perplexing and bizarre structures.
The artefacts were fashioned in stone brought somehow from a distant quarry, and they were immensely ancient. No one knew who had built them.
One particular stone formation, by no means the most extraordinary, stood at the bleak heart of the moor. It was an arrangement of columns and lintels, standing stones and ramparts, that made a whole yet seemed strangely at odds with geometry. Not in a way that could be seen, so much as it could be felt. Through design or decay sections of the edifice were open to the elements — notably a ring of stone pillars the colour of decaying teeth.
Inside the circle, a light burned.
A block of polished stone, chest-high and weighing several tons, was set in the centre. It was worn smooth by age, but the smothering of arcane symbols it bore were carved deeply enough that they were still visible. And now a copious quantity of blood, seeping from a pair of eviscerated corpses, made the markings even more distinct. The sacrifices, one male, one female, were human, opportunely provided by a summary judgement of felony.
A lone figure stood by the altar. Those who favour the night and the creatures that walk it would have called her beautiful. She had waist-length, jet-black hair framing a face dominated by dark, unpitying eyes. The face was a mite too wide, particularly at the temples, and the chin tapered almost to a point. Her well-formed mouth was marred only by being more than usually broad. But her skin was perhaps the most startling feature. It had a faint silver-green sheen resembling that of tiny fish scales.
In short, her beauty was confounding, yet undeniable.
As dusk slipped into full night she undertook a profane ritual.
On the altar before her, alongside the gutted bodies, lay the five instrumentalities stolen from the Wolverines, and which the warband had coined stars. They were small spheres, each of a different colour: sandy, green, dark blue, grey and red. All sprouted radiating spikes of varying numbers and lengths. For the sandy sphere they numbered seven; the dark blue had four, the green five, the grey two, and the red nine.
The instrumentalities were made from an unknown material — unknown to all but a sorcerer elite, that is — and the Wolverines had found them indestructible.
Next to the instrumentalities stood a small, unembellished silver casket, with its lid open. It contained a quantity of material that was, impossibly, both organic and inert. The substance's texture was part waxy, part old leather, part lichen. It was unpleasant to the touch, but had a sweet aroma. In the parlance of wizards it was known as Receptive Matter. Sorcerers using it for benign purposes sometimes called it Friendly. But never Safe.
The sorceress recited invocations of tongue-tying complexity, and performed certain other rites both intricate and dreadful. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow. She briefly wondered if such a spell m
ight be too taxing even for her.
Then, at the ritual's climax, she thought she heard the instrumentalities sing.
She had a moment of fusion with them. There was a kind of symbiotic connection, a melding, and brushed by their energy she glimpsed a fragment of their power. What she felt, and saw, was terrifying. Or would have been to any except those who lived by terror. She found it heady.
The Receptive Matter accepted the transfer. It divided and began transmuting into the required shapes. Not long after, exhausted, she gazed at the fruits of her toil and reckoned herself satisfied.
It was not entirely true to say that she was alone in the stone circle. Several others were present, standing at a respectful distance. But as they were technically dead the question of their presence in the normal sense was debatable. They were her personal guardians and fetch-its, the select few nearest to her, whose loyalty was unflinching because they had no other option.
Outside the circle, far enough away for privacy, stood a ring of more conventional protectors in the form of a detachment of imperial guards. Farther back still there was a road, or more accurately a rough track, on which a fleet of carriages were parked. In one of them, two men conferred in whispered tones.
To the conquered orcs of Acurial, Kapple Hacher was known as Iron Hand. He was Peczan's highest representative in the province. Or had been until the empire sent the female they had been waiting for. But for all her hints and threats he remained, at least in name, governor; and commander of the occupying army, with the rank of general.
He was entering his years of later maturity. There were lines on his face and hands, but he was as fit as many a younger man, and had seen action before climbing to his present position. His hair, close-cropped, was silver; and he went against tradition somewhat in being clean-shaven. He was a meticulous individual, ramrod-backed and always clad in a pristine uniform. His rivals, and every official had critics in the mire of imperial politics, saw him as being too much in thrall to bureaucracy.
Where Hacher represented the civil and military authority in the province, his companion embodied the spiritual. Brother Grentor was something like half the general's age. It was a measure of his ability that he had risen to become prominent in the Order of the Helix in so short a time. Unlike the general he sported a beard, albeit close-trimmed, and an ample shock of blond hair. The expression he wore was invariably solemn; and as dictated by his title of elder, he always dressed in the simple brown robes of his order. Grentor had his own detractors, and they held that he too jealously guarded the Order's secrets and privileges.
The soldier and the holy man personified the twin pillars on which rested the Peczan empire. Inevitably, there were tensions between these factions, and a continuous tussle over power and influence, making Grentor and Hacher's relationship occasionally fraught.
Grentor had a lace kerchief pressed to his nose and mouth. He said something, but the words were muffled.
"For the gods' sake speak clearly, man," Hacher told him.
The elder gingerly removed the cloth and made a face. "I said, how you can stand this vile smell of rotting vegetation?"
"I've known worse."
"It wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't been forced to endure it for so long." He glanced towards the stone circle. "Where is she?"
"More to the point, what's she doing?"
Grentor shrugged.
"I would have thought you of all people might have known. She is the head of your order, after all."
Grentor gave a short, mirthless laugh. "M'lady doesn't take me into her confidence. I'm only the elder, after all."
"I've never heard you sounding so disrespectful of such an important personage," Hacher needled gently.
"I give respect where it's due. But in this case…"
"I did try to warn you about her."
"No amount of warnings can prepare you for the reality of Jennesta."
"I'll concede that. But seriously, what do you think she's up to out here? Between ourselves, of course," he assured him.
"I don't know. Except that it's something important to her, and obviously involves the Craft."
"It must be vitally important for her to be spending so much time here when there's rising trouble on the streets."
"Ah, so you're no longer insisting it's all down to a few hotheads?"
"I still think the number of rebels is comparatively small. But a few can make a lot of trouble."
"I know. My order's bearing the brunt of it."
"Along with the military, Brother," Hacher replied with a trace of irritability. "We're all having to deal with it."
Grentor looked to the stone circle again. "It could be that whatever she's doing has a bearing on the situation."
"Some magical solution, you mean? A weapon, perhaps?"
"Who knows?"
"I think it more likely that our lady Jennesta's pursuing some goal of her own. She often seems to put herself before the interests of the empire."
Grentor didn't take the bait. There was a limit to how far anyone in his position would dare go in criticising Jennesta. "You've heard what the creatures here think about what's happening in the sky, no doubt," he said, steering the subject into somewhat safer waters.
"I know they have a name for it. Grilan-Zeat."
"Yes, and my order has undertaken some research on the matter."
Hacher nodded. He knew that in the sect's vernacular so-called research often involved torture. "And what did you find?"
"It's appeared before, apparently. More than once. And there seems to be a regularity about it."
"I daresay that's of interest to scholars, but what do the comings and goings of heavenly bodies have to do with us?"
"The populace see it as a portent. Or at least some do."
"Comets are just one of Nature's oddities," Hacher responded dismissively.
"Signs in the sky should never be ignored, General."
"Such matters are in your province. They're of no concern to the military."
"The important thing is how the populace reacts. If they believe it to be an omen — "
"No doubt the rabble-rousers will exploit the masses' superstition. That doesn't mean we can't handle the disturbances."
"Which will get worse, given the way Jennesta's clamping down on any hint of dissent. She's stirring things up."
Hacher stiffened. He didn't want to be drawn into the stormy waters of politics any more than Grentor. "Please don't involve me in the internal machinations of the Order."
"I'm not trying to. I'm just saying that her actions affect us all. Don't pretend you think she's not making things worse. I don't believe in leniency any more than you do, but we're holding down an entire nation here, and we're few in number. What sense is there in provoking them?"
"You might as well provoke a flock of sheep."
"Did you know there was a prophecy attached to the appearance of Grilan-Zeat?"
"No, I hadn't heard that particular piece of flummery."
"It says that the comet is accompanied by a band of heroes. Liberators."
Hacher snorted derisively. "Heroes? The orcs are too spineless."
"Not all of them, evidently."
"We're talking about a small group of… freaks. Generally these creatures are meek. Why else do you think we occupied this land at so little cost?"
"Our research suggests that might not always have been so. The records are far from complete, but they hint that the orcs had a martial history."
"And you think their fighting spirit could be revived somehow."
"It's possible. Again, it turns on what they believe."
"Omens, prophecies, a lost warlike temperament; you're seeing too much in this, Grentor."
"Perhaps. But isn't it better to be prepared?"
"Planning for contingencies is good military practice, agreed. But you're petitioning the wrong person. Our lady Jennesta holds all the cards now."
Grentor tugged at the general's sleeve and
nodded to the carriage's window. "Talking of which…"
"At last," Hacher sighed.
Jennesta was returning. She wasn't alone. Three of her personal bodyguards were with her. They were human. Or had been. Considered challengers to her power, they had been consigned by Jennesta's sorcery to an undead state and made utterly obedient slaves. Their eyes were set and glassy, and lacked any vestige of benevolence. Such skin as could be seen was stretched tight, and was of an unwholesome, parchment-like colour. The zombies were combat-dressed, in black leather and steel-toed boots, and they were armed with scimitars. One of them carried a steel-banded chest.
Hacher and Grentor were out of the carriage when the little procession arrived. Close to, the zombies stank, and the elder had his kerchief out again.
"Were your endeavours successful, ma'am?" the general asked.
Jennesta shot him a look laced with suspicion before replying, "Yes. The energy is particularly strong here, and of a… flavour I find gratifying."
She turned away from them to supervise the loading of the trunk into her carriage. From the way she scolded her minions it obviously contained something significant. Not that Hacher or Grentor would have dared ask what.
For his part, Hacher was glad that whatever she had undertaken seemed to have gone well. He thought it might improve her temperament. It was a hope swiftly crushed.
Satisfied that her precious cargo was safely stowed, Jennesta brought her attention back to the pair. "I'm displeased," she announced.
"Oh?" Hacher responded. "I thought — "
"Don't. It doesn't become you. There's been more trouble on the streets. Why?"
"A minority inciting the rabble, ma'am. Nothing more."
"Then why can't you stamp it out?"
"With respect, we can't be everywhere. The territory the imperial forces have to cover — "
"It's nothing to do with numbers, General, as you said yourself. It's what you do with those you have. These upstarts should be hit hard. I know orcs and their inherent savagery, and I've always found that brutality is the best course in a situation like this."
"If I may be so bold, my lady," Grentor ventured hesitantly. "Isn't it possible that harsher action might further aggravate the insurgents?"
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