The Blighted City (The Fractured Tapestry)

by Scott Kaelen

  “Quickly, the pair of you, get in!” Sabrian’s call echoed down the hallway, followed by a rustle of activity as the door closed and a deadbolt was slid into place.

  A drenched Jalis stepped into the room, shrugging off her cloak. She paused as their eyes met, then crossed quickly to stand before him. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. The nausea was passing. “I’m fine.” To avoid meeting Jalis’s gaze, Dagra took her cloak and crossed to a coat-stand in the corner of the room. As he draped the garment on a peg, from the corner of his eye he caught Oriken entering the room. Oriken’s arm was pressed stiffly to his side, one eye was purple and half-closed, and blood was splattered all over his clothes. “By the gods, man,” Dagra said. “What happened to you? And where’s your hat? You look like you’ve been dragged through the Pit face-first.”

  Oriken winced. “That’s a fair approximation. Look, Dag, the shit’s about to hit the sidewalk and we have to be ready to get out of here.”

  The undead, Dagra thought. “I saw you both.” He looked from Oriken to Jalis. “I saw you running. And the corpses. At least I think I did…”

  “First things first.” Jalis took hold of Oriken’s jacket and eased it over his shoulders. “Let me see that wound. Sabrian”—she turned to their host as he stepped into the room—“do you have needle and thread?”

  Sabrian nodded and turned on his heel.

  Jalis helped Oriken out of his shirt. Dagra frowned at the slash across his friend’s shoulder. His eyes fell to the jewelled gladius at Oriken’s hip, and suddenly he understood. The screams. The king. There was a dull sense of knowledge that Mallak had passed – or was passing – and that something had occurred between Oriken and the king. “What did you do? By Cherak’s stones, Oriken, what have you done?”

  “Later,” Jalis said. “There are bigger problems right now.”

  Dagra frowned. “Aye, lass. I know. It’s our fault, and it’s only right that we help.”

  Sabrian returned and handed Jalis a needle and a length of thread. “The blame sits on a multitude of shoulders,” he said. “You are not the only ones at fault in this. It is not your fight.”

  “We fought through that horde once before,” Dagra said. “Just the three of us. We can lend our blades this time, too.”

  Oriken quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly in the best shape at the moment, and neither are you.”

  “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of the graveyard’s denizens swarming into the city as we speak,” Sabrian said. “Practically the whole cursed lot of them.”

  “Except for the legless one we saw on our way back in.”

  “Really, Orik?” Jalis sighed as she stitched his wound.

  “Please,” Sabrian said, “wait in my home and let the Lachylans deal with the denizens; they are… better equipped than any of you. No offence, of course. Dagra is in transition and still weak. Oriken is wounded. And Jalis…” He shrugged. “It is senseless for you to risk your lives.”

  “Actually,” Dagra said, “I’m feeling stronger by the minute. If we hadn’t come here at all, this would not be happening. Oriken can stay here. Jalis, you too. But I will fight.”

  “Are you sure, Dag? After last time—”

  “I recall it all too well,” he said. “But it changes nothing.” He patted the shabby old gladius at his hip. “Are we tail-tuckers or are we freeblades?”

  Sabrian smiled. “Well said.”

  Jalis sighed. “It does seem there are some folk who might benefit from our assistance.”

  Oriken’s hand moved to the pommel of the sword at his side. He shook his head, but said, “Fine. My sword arm’s uninjured, so count me in. A team’s a team.”

  Dagra eyed the jewelled scabbard and marvelled at its silver and gold craftsmanship, at how the metals gleamed between the specks of dried blood, at the assortment of gems embedded into the sheath and haft and crossguard. A clearer picture of what had transpired filtered into his mind. He glanced at Sabrian before regarding Oriken with a soft grunt.

  “Yeah.” Oriken said. “So that happened.”

  Dagra nodded. “What’s done is done. I take it you’ve learned how to use that thing?”

  “I had a rather pointed lesson.”

  “Good. Then we’ve got an unwritten contract to fulfil.” To Sabrian, he said, “Coming?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Jalis finished sewing Oriken’s wound closed, then tied a knot in the thread. He pulled his shirt and jacket back on and they followed Sabrian from the room.

  At the front door, Dagra looked out through the fine drizzle at the dozen or so corpses along the length of the street.

  “Having a change of heart?” Oriken asked.

  Dagra drew his sword and stepped into the rain. “This city’s not falling to those creatures,” he said, touching the pendant of Avato at his neck. “Not while there’s breath in my body.”

  Eriqwyn crouched behind the low wall, waiting for a chance to move. Her eyes darted over the ghouls as they filed down the street, ensuring that none turned her way. As several of the creatures wandered past her hiding place, she noted that the horde seemed to be heading in a general direction towards the south of the city. Risking a glance over the wall to the street behind, she saw that the nearest of the approaching ghouls was far enough away.

  Without a pause she vaulted the wall and sprinted away, dipping into a side path. Her steps brisk and silent, she nocked an arrow to her bow as she neared the end of the pathway. Pressing her back against the wall, she inched along to peer out onto a large courtyard, and stared agape at the chaos before her. Ghouls were everywhere, but they were not the only creatures in the area; dotted amongst them, Eriqwyn spotted not one but several figures which clearly were not ghouls but humans. Each wielded a weapon, each fought separate from the others, battling through the horde with fierce skill. Her mind raced through the possibilities. These were not members of her group. Even at a distance she recognised none as folk from her village.

  More outlanders? she wondered.

  Most wielded wide-bladed swords, the likes of which hung as decorations on the walls within Albarandes Manor, reminders of a violent, bygone age. But the garments they wore… Like the depictions in the archives of life before the blight. Their blades danced and gleamed under shafts of storm-pierced sunlight. Ghouls lurched around them, seemingly incapable of deciding who to target. Eriqwyn watched as one of the fighters fell beneath a swell of the creatures. Bur, rather than linger upon their prey, they quickly moved on and the man pushed himself to his knees, dark blood spurting from his lacerated throat. The blood slowed and the fighter rose to his feet, wiping a hand across his neck and running to rejoin the battle. That wound severed his jugular, Eriqwyn thought. He should be dying. The blood should not have coagulated so quickly. “It cannot be,” she whispered.

  Intent on the fighter, Eriqwyn’s attention had wavered from the rest of her surroundings. She glanced the other way in time to see a group of ghouls crossing the courtyard not far from her. One turned its twisted features in her direction and she raised her bow to take aim. A young girl darted into view wielding a pair of thin, straight-bladed swords. She was dressed in a tight black tunic and black leggings, her raven hair clasped into a loose tuft at the crown of her head. Without pause she ran straight for the ghouls and tore into them as if they were nothing but training dummies.

  By the goddess. The girl is a whirlwind. Eriqwyn lowered her bow and eased off the string. Within the space of a minute the group of ghouls were writhing on the floor, their legs either hamstringed or completely severed below the knee. The tips of the girl’s blades lowered to her ankles and she turned to Eriqwyn, locking the Warder with a piercing blue gaze. The moment stretched. As if reaching a decision, the girl raced off into the city.

  “Who are these people?” Eriqwyn muttered to herself. They cannot be here. Generation after generation living within the city for three centuries? We would have known. But the w
alls of Lachyla were high and thick, enough so to conceal and mute any activity within, certainly with the vast graveyard before it. It was possible, but why remain inside all this time? Somehow, bizarrely, it was easier to understand the presence of the ghouls; reports of such sightings had trickled through the village since its founding, since those who fled the city had first flocked around Albarandes Manor and began to build. Even in recent decades, despite the Gardens being the Forbidden Place, the occasional curious villager had reported ghastly sights and sounds beyond the gates of the mist-filled graveyard at night. They had become a part of folklore as much as the goddess Valsana herself.

  Pushing the disbelief away, Eriqwyn plotted a course between the ghouls to the south side of the courtyard. Returning her arrow to the quiver, she drew her hunting blade and made a dash for it, weaving around the clusters of creatures and ignoring the few humans that fought them, and soon she was out of the courtyard and entering a pathway that snaked between the gardens of manor houses. Slowing to a brisk pace, she passed between the low walls and skeletal remains of ancient trees. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that two of the creatures were entering the pathway behind her. Breaking into a jog, she returned her attention to the front and screamed as she ploughed face-first into a ghoul that had appeared out of nowhere. Falling over the creature, she rolled from its grasp and staggered to her feet.

  My knife! She had dropped it in the struggle, and the weapon now lay beneath the ghoul, which was clambering to its hand and knees, ooze drooling from its mouth to the flagstones. It began to rise, hunched over like an elder crippled with the rheumatism. Eriqwyn kicked hard into its face. The head snapped backwards and the creature flopped over onto its side. She snatched up her blade and ran, turning through an open iron gate and slamming it shut behind her, driving the latch into place.

  The enclosed patio was empty, the large house ahead dark and hushed against the backdrop of distant fighting. She took a shuddering breath, then crossed the paved area and dropped to squat with her back against a stone well. In the temporary safety, the horror of it all washed over her, catching up with the instinct for survival. Her head swam and bile rose in her throat. Swallowing it down, she ran a hand over her forehead. She thought of her sister, and sent her a silent apology.

  This is beyond my training as a Warder. Far beyond. How did it come to this?

  Cursing herself, she climbed to her feet and continued through the garden and out onto an empty boulevard. Off to her right, a distant procession of ghouls filed down a main street, and she turned to look in the direction they headed, a grim chill coursing through her as she beheld the castle of Lachyla.

  If that is their destination, then it is mine also. Perhaps I will find the outlanders there. She pressed her lips together and broke into a jog. Along the street, an armoured fighter clattered into view and spotted her, but, like the girl in black, he ignored her and ran off towards the procession of ghouls. They don’t see me as a threat, she thought. Or, rather, they ignore me because they have a larger and more immediate concern with the creatures. Who these people truly were was a problem she would have to face, but, like them, her core mission remained in place.

  The deadstone nestled against her back beneath the cloak seemed almost meaningless compared to the legion of undead that coursed through Lachyla. Terror, Eriqwyn now knew, was something she had never fully experienced, not like this. And, for the first time in a long time, surrounded by monstrosities and strangers, her group lost and possibly overwhelmed, she felt truly alone.

  As Jalis slammed her heel down onto a corpse’s spine, Dagra stepped in and hacked his gladius into its neck. The pair shared a grim nod and waited for Oriken and Sabrian to dispatch the last of the stragglers within the king’s plaza.

  “How’s the shoulder holding up?” Dagra asked.

  Oriken forced a grin as he wiped a sleeve over the sweat and drizzle that coated his forehead. “The exercise is just what it needs. Where to next, Sabrian?”

  “The larger mass of the denizens are headed down the main boulevard. The castle doors are closed. The knights and a group of cityfolk wait to hold them off at the steps, but the numbers need to be thinned from the flanks.”

  “Then that’s where we’re headed,” Dagra said.

  “No. We will not put Jalis and Oriken at the heart of the battle. That would be suicide. Dagra, I admire your courage, but there are many more denizens elsewhere other than the main bulk.”

  “I’ll second that,” Oriken said. “I don’t fancy being pulled apart by an undead legion. Not today.”

  Dagra blanched. “Then lead the way,” he told Sabrian.

  As Sabrian turned to move, a tremor shook the ground, hard enough for Dagra and Oriken to lose their balance. As Dagra went to one knee, he looked up at Sabrian. “What on Verragos?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sabrian said as the tremor subsided. “But I think it might be—”

  “Teuveyr!” Dagra yelled, staring up beyond Sabrian and the statue of King Mallak behind him, to the sun-dappled clouds of the abating storm. “The Arbiter!” he cried, pointing at the light and dark shape into which the stormclouds and sunlight had coalesced.

  “Oh, my,” Sabrian exclaimed.

  “You see his sword-axe?” Dagra said to his companions. “All shadow-etched and gleaming, like it’s written?” He turned to Oriken. “You see that?”

  “Yeah, Dag, I see it.” Oriken grimaced as he climbed to his feet, just as a second tremor vibrated through the flagstones.

  “The Battle God!” Dagra cried. “All this carnage. It’s awoken him!”

  Oriken slid his sword into its sheath. “I don’t give a rat’s hindquarters about the pretty shapes in the sky, nor so much about what’s causing the ground to tremble. You wanted to do this, so let’s do it. Or has the sight of the Battle God put you permanently on your knees?”

  Dagra’s jaw dropped open as he glared at his friend, then he snapped it shut. “Damn you, no it hasn’t.”

  “Then get your soft arse up off the floor.” Oriken grabbed a fistful of Dagra’s shirt and hauled him up. To Sabrian, he said, “Ignore Dagra's imagination. Let’s go.”

  Sabrian nodded. Glancing at the statue, his eyes widened and he backed away.

  “Oh, come on,” Oriken exclaimed. “Not you, too.” Behind him, Dagra issued a curse and then backed into view alongside Sabrian. “Oh, for the love of— Jalis, can you slap a little sense into this pair?”

  “Get over here, Orik,” Jalis said.

  The tone of her voice gave him pause and he looked over his shoulder. A ball of light the size of a man’s head was drifting down towards the crown of the statue. “I don’t like the look of that,” he muttered, turning on his heel and running to join his friends who already were putting distance between them and the statue. “Hey!” he called. “Wait for—” A deafening crash filled the air, sending Oriken sprawling to the ground in mid-run. The sky flashed behind him and he scrambled to his feet, half-running, half-staggering to where his friends crouched, shielding their eyes from the brightness. No sooner had it begun though, than it was over, and when he reached the three he turned to stare at what remained of Mallak’s statue – its upper half aglow like a blade in a forge, the head melting onto the shoulders.

  “I told you!” Dagra blurted. “I said it was Teuveyr.”

  The colossal apparition was still in the sky, the Arbiter’s glistening weapon etched with shifting thunderheads. The flagstones beneath Oriken’s feet vibrated with a steady thrum-thrum. Giving Sabrian a sharp look, he said, “Is that what I think it is?”

  Sabrian nodded. “Someone is displeased, but it is not Teuveyr.”

  “Who, then?” Jalis, asked. As she stepped in closer to Sabrian, he regarded her with a steely look.

  “It is the Mother.”

  Eriqwyn slashed her knife across a ghoul’s face and slammed her boot into its knee. As it toppled, she drove her heel down onto its jaw, then swiftly retreated to scan the area and asses
s the situation. In the middle distance, the wide street was lined with battle as humans fought the procession of the undead. And how they fought! Even the elderly among them fought with a tenacity and skill equal to – no, surpassing – that of Lingrey. They fought well, but for every human there was a score and more of the undead. The outlanders were not among their numbers. Nor had she seen any sign of Wayland, and feared for his safety. Splitting the group into two had made sense from a hunter’s perspective, but she now doubted its validity. Hunting deer was a far cry from fighting a legion of ghouls.

  Holding her balance as the shaking ground increased in intensity, she wheeled about at a noise behind her. From around the side of the nearby building a figure staggered into view. As she raised her bow, Eriqwyn recognised the scant attire that clung to the woman’s body, and stayed her hand. Shade took a faltering step forward, then stumbled against the wall and slid down it to a sitting position, resting her left arm in her lap. As Eriqwyn crossed to her, Shade looked up.

  “One of them got me.” Shade’s voice was weak as she held her arm out for Eriqwyn to see the four deep welts that ran down her inner forearm onto her wrist. A rain-mingled scarlet droplet fell from her fingertip.

  “You have lost much of your lifeblood,” Eriqwyn observed.

  Shade nodded. “I know.”

  “The bleeding needs to be staunched.” Eriqwyn knelt to cut a strip from Shade’s dress, but the woman shook her head.

  “It’s too late,” she said. “Just… Hold me, Eri.” She reached out to her. “I know you hate me now, but you didn’t always. Please.”

  Eriqwyn stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. She glanced around to ensure no ghouls were heading their way, then sheathed her hunting knife and took Shade in her arms.