The men gathered around him, forming a pocket of calm amidst the chaos of the battle. Though he could not hear his words the Journeyman knew Drysden was issuing orders, readying a plan of retreat.
A moment later Drysden was spurring towards the north, flanked on either side by his retinue. They crashed through the center of the valley, knocking aside the tangle of footmen and cavalry still engaged there. Then they were within the wall of fog at the opposite end of the defile, the only evidence of their passage the churned ground and the sound of their disappearing hoof beats.
As soon as Drysden was out of sight a jolt ran through the Journeyman. If the lordling had quit the field then the battle was lost. The last of the Vallénci would be ridden down and slaughtered, their carcasses left to molder in the damp and cold. If this was to be the fate of an entire army then it could be his just as readily. Grabbing Silke by the wrist he tugged her to her feet.
The paramour jerked against his grasp, her eyes wide, her teeth bared. The Journeyman grabbed her by the shoulder. “When they’ve finished with the Vallénci they’ll comb the hills. We must be gone before they do!”
She did not resist him further. Together, Journeyman and the paramour took to their heels, scrambling from the mayhem and slaughter below.
28. AFTERMATH
The air was still and quiet. The clouds, having returned to their place in the sky, hung motionless overhead. They had grown darker, blotting out what little light remained. Along the fells a preternatural dusk had fallen. The Journeyman stared into the distance, watching the shadowed peaks to the west through a screen of pines. Beside him Silke sat hunched over, her arms wrapped about her middle.
“I can hear it grumbling.” The Journeyman turned his gaze from the striated layers of mountains with their veil of mist. Brow furrowing, he regarded the paramour.
“My stomach,” said Silke, “I can hear it complaining. It wants to be fed. I can’t see why, not after...”
His brow smoothing the Journeyman hunkered down beside her. “The first time I took a man’s life I was barely twenty. In the mountains of the Vallén I was set upon. I killed two of the men who attacked me. When I finally stopped shaking I realized that my hands, my tunic, my face were covered in blood. After I had heaved up everything in my stomach I sat down and listened to it tell me to feed it again.”
Silke turned towards the Journeyman, her expression dark. He went on. “Your stomach forgets the horrors your mind holds on to. We saw hundreds of men die, but all your body knows is that it has not been fed. Don’t hate yourself for what you cannot control.”
“Spare me,” said the paramour. “If I hear another word from you I’ll be sick all over my boots.”
So saying she turned and looked off towards the south. There the clouds lay against the horizon in the same uniform pall. To the Journeyman it seemed they had lingered since first he and Silke had met. In that time he had seen more death and bloodshed than he had thought humanly possible. Perhaps the clouds sought to hide the horrors of the last few months from the eyes of the gods. If indeed gods there were. Would such creatures be as appalled as he was by this endless succession of atrocities?
Getting shakily to his feet the Journeyman stretched, his joints crackling. Gods or no, his own stomach was growling right along with Silke’s.
Here in the wilderness, at the end of a severe winter, there was little hope of finding game. Even if they came across an errant deer or a lone hare, what would he use to bring it down? For that matter, did he dare risk a cookfire? The Journeyman thought not. The only hope they had of finding food was to return to the valley. With a sigh he set his boots to the north.
“No,” said Silke, rising to her feet.
The Journeyman looked back at her over his shoulder. “You can leave,” he said. “You no longer need me and I no longer need you.”
Silke staggered backwards as through struck.
“Was that not what you said to me in the tailor’s shop?” asked the Journeyman.
Silke did not respond. She simply stood and glowered at him.
“You sought to cast me off,” he said, “now you wish to keep me from leaving. I’m hungry and I know where to find food. You may stay on the top of this hill looking out at nothing if you like, but I’m going.”
“I will not go back there,” spat Silke, her voice thick with emotion, her hands balled into fists. “I will not loot the bodies of the dead.”
“Then stay,” said the Journeyman.
Silke’s mouth opened then shut again.
Atop the jagged ridge, amidst a grove of gnarled pines, the Journeyman and the paramour stood and regarded one another. As the minutes stretched on the silence became almost palpable. Still neither could find the will to voice what passed between them. The Journeyman felt the twin urge to pull the red-haired young woman into his embrace and to simultaneously cast her from him. In her eyes he could see she felt the same.
The Journeyman sighed and tossed his hands in the air. “We needn’t plague each other any longer. I have no designs on you. Un-less you wish to try and kill me, our business is concluded.”
“No,” said Silke, “we needn’t remain together.”
The Journeyman shook his head. “If we are to survive there is only one place I know of where we can gather supplies.”
For a moment he thought the paramour might vomit. Her eyes filled with tears, but they did not spill over onto her cheeks. She kept her composure and sucked in a deep, quavering breath.
“Come if you will, or remain here,” said the Journeyman. “I am going.” He then turned away and began his descent.
They were dead to a man. Lying atop one another in heaps, or alone, face down in the mud, not a one of the Vallénci stirred. There were no moans, no cries for help, no writhing mass of wounded. The only movement was that of ravens come to pick the bones of the fallen.
As the muted light crept across the valley the Journeyman moved with it, picking his way slowly through the mounds of corpses. He averted his eyes from the faces of the dead and stepped carefully over heaps of spilled viscera and scattered limbs. Even before the slaughter had drawn to a close the ground had become saturated with gore. In the chill mountain air the blood had begun to thicken, the cruor darkening as it settled. It pooled in the low places, a thick ichor that gave off a metallic stench. The Journeyman breathed shallowly and through his mouth. Try as he might to avoid it the smell of the corpses filled his nostrils and constricted his throat.
Thane’s cavalry had utterly broken the Vallénci. After they had ridden down the retreating troops the lancers had returned and finished those who had not been slain outright. Between the bodies were boot prints and the marks of brief scuffles. The survivors had had their throat cut neatly and precisely.
Though it was possible that some of the Vallénci footmen had escaped, darting off by ones and twos, they would be on their own now. Their commanders had fled, their comrades put to the sword. Alone in the wilderness they would fall victim to the elements or bands of Huuls. Survivors or no, Drysden’s army was gone. Those that had not died in Lyvys lay here amidst the rocks and scrub. They were strewn about the bottom of an unnamed valley at the foot of the Drakkenhuuls. Here their bones would remain; overgrown by moss and lichen, armor consumed by rust.
The sound of Silke coughing up bile made the Journeyman turn. The paramour stood several meters within the field of carnage, bent double, her hair cascading down around her face and shoulders.
“Go back,” he said, and his voice echoed from the surroundding walls of stone. To his ears the sound seemed almost to profane this place of stillness and death.
Silke raised her head and wiped a hand across her mouth. She nodded, then turned and picked her way back towards the periphery of the field. The Journeyman returned his gaze to the ground.
In their haste to slay the Vallénci the Imperial troops had not bothered to loot the bodies. Most had fallen with their packs still strapped to their backs. The hasty retre
at from Lyvys, however, had not accorded the Vallénci much of a chance to gather provisions. Though the Journeyman searched every pack that was not hacked open or covered in blood he found little food. What he did manage to procure he tucked within a satchel that he slung over his shoulder. In place of the staff he had lost so long ago in the fight with Torr he now carried a spear. To possess the weapon was a violation of guild law, but the Journeyman was far beyond caring. If his Guildmaster wished to chastise him for appropriating such an item, then let him. Possession of a spear was far from the worst of his crimes.
Of water skins there were plenty to choose from. Drysden must have ordered the men to fill and re-fill their vessels from the many streams that wound their way through the fells. Several bottles of wine and one of thick, dark ale supplemented the skins. These he tucked into the satchel despite their weight. The alcohol would warm him and help keep despair at bay.
As he went, the Journeyman felt cold fingers creep out of his gut and up around his heart. They seemed to tighten their grip with every step he took. He was not surprised to find that he had reached the upwards limit of his endurance. Soon he would have to start back the way he had come or risk being strangled by his own fear and repulsion. If he did not those cold fingers would hold him immobile, the unaccustomed dread rooting him to the spot. This gnawing sense of dread seemed to cut him off from the world at large. The feeling of being alone, utterly and completely, was only compounded by the presence of the dead. They stared accusingly up at him, admonishing him for his pilfering.
Clenching his teeth the Journeyman turned and began picking his way back towards Silke.
When he reached the place where she sat, straight backed, her face pale in the wan light, he divested himself of the satchel and joined her. Together they looked out over the heaped bodies. They watched as the ravens pecked and fluttered from one corpse to the next, occasionally letting out a harsh, desirous croak.
“They will move against my people next,” said Silke. Her tone was matter-of-fact, devoid of emotion. “The Hegemony knows… everything. Our alliance with the Vallén, the location of our armies, the plans we set in motion. Everything.”
The Journeyman said nothing.
“They will march on us en masse. We will not be able to stop their advance. We will die like these men here. When the Hegemony is done with the Erstemenschen, we too will be so much rotting meat for the ravens.”
Pressing his lips together in a thin line the Journeyman leaned over and reached into his satchel. From it he pulled a second bag, this one smaller and made of finely tooled leather. He began to fill it with rations, adding one of the bottles of wine for good measure. When he was done he offered it to Silke. The paramour took it and set it upon her lap. With one hand she brushed a stray lock of red hair from her face. “Thank you,” she said.
The Journeyman nodded. He then rose and stretched, working the kinks out of his back. Shouldering his satchel he took several steps towards the mouth of the valley, then stopped. Turning back towards Silke he said, “I wish you well.”
The Paramour raised her bloodshot eyes to him. They held one another’s gaze until the Journeyman turned and again began to walk.
29. THE JOURNEYMAN, REFRAIN
As the day grew long and the light more diffuse, the Journeyman made his way through the fells. At last the sun broke through the shelf of clouds and hovered just above the jagged line of the Drakkenhuuls. Spears of orange sunlight cut their way across the rugged landscape, making the stones appear to smolder. Long shadows crept up the sides of the foothills and through the clefts and ravines, the patches of light and dark standing out in sharp contrast.
As he moved along the flank of a westward facing slope the Journeyman watched as the sun first touched the mountains, then slipped behind the serrated escarpments. He swallowed, remembering the sunset he had seen from the top of Torr’s pyre. Below had been a band of grinning Huuls, torches in their hands. Now, on the slope below there was nothing save brush and heaps of stone. The Journeyman again raised his head, his sharp eyes fixed on the southern horizon.
He would make his way south until he drew parallel with the ford that had serviced the town of Ghul. After that, he would set his back to the mountains and move east. He would leave behind the rundown river crossing, the ruined settlement, the bodies that Torr and his raiders had left in their wake. The Journeyman would retread the same ground he had covered when the year was still new and the snow swirled in icy rivulets about his cloak and boots. He would, for a time, put from his mind the things he had seen, and his own complacency in the Hegemony’s war.
The brief Imperial campaign against the Erstewald had swept before it any who had thought to oppose them. The rumors of war that had rippled through the empire had now been confirmed. The Vallénci had been punished for daring to occupy the First Forest. Next, the native Erstewalders would be rooted out and expelled from their homes. To the Hegemony the flood that had driven the peas-ants and landholders to such desperation that they would welcome the Vallénci as liberators had been irrelevant. The farmers and herdsmen of the First Forest had allowed a foreign army onto Imperial soil. To those who intone He Who Sees Us All such a betrayal was a death warrant.
Now that an entire Vallénci army had been broken and a clear message sent, the Hegemony could turn its attentions to the Schlachtvalt. Silke’s people had sought an alliance with the Lords of the Vallén; had sought to march on the Imperium from the north and the east. Their war would have been on two fronts, sapping the strength of the Empire, dragging down that massive, rotting edifice. They had not counted on Thane or the single missive the Journeyman had carried.
When Silke had delivered the false message to her masters they had done exactly what Thane had desired. The Vallénci and the Schlachtvalters had split their forces and moved to intercept an Imperial army that was simply not there. Thane had outmaneuvered and crushed the Vallénci at Lyvys. Next would be the redheaded barbarians from the eastern mountains.
The thought of the carnage Thane would wreak in those distant crags dragged at the Journeyman. With every step he took the twin hounds of action and consequence went round and round in his chest. They nipped at one another; cause and effect spinning in an infinite circle, mimicking the brand of the Ouroboros burned into the flesh of his left forearm.
Tightening his jaw the Journeyman thrust these thoughts from him. He would have to find shelter soon or risk spending the night in the open. Come morning he would again return to setting one foot before the other, moving overland, back the way he had come. When he reached the Imperial border he would have to decide whether to return to his guildmates and face their justice, or live as a fugitive. Until then he would continue to walk, his gait steady, his strides even and measured.
EPILOGUE
She could see the sun through the drifting layers of fog. It was not far from the eastern horizon; a perfect circle of pale white-gold that hung suspended in the sky. She watched as the clouds drifted slowly before that muted, glowing disk. On her face she could feel a slight spray, a gentle misting that clung to her hair and lashes.
“Cinder?” The voice came from her left. She turned and blinked. Droplets of water dappled her cheeks. She wiped them away with one slender finger.
“Come,” said Dafina. “Get yourself some breakfast.” Turning from the newly risen sun Cinder walked the few paces back towards the small cookfire. She seated herself on a long beam that had been propped up by two flat stones. It was set before the fire along with a backless chair and several stumps. Together they made a cozy ring around the makeshift hearth.
Dafina handed Cinder a wooden bowl and a spoon. She took it carefully in two hands. Steam rose from inside, wafting into the chilly morning air.
“Put up your hood,” said Dafina without looking up from ladling porridge out of the small iron pot that hung over the fire. Cinder set the bowl aside, raised her hood, then sat looking down at the matron. Dafina raised her eyes and paused with the spoo
n half way to the pot.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now eat before it gets cold.” Cinder smiled and lifted the bowl.
From the direction of the wagons came a cough and a grumble, then the sound of someone gobbing into the weeds. Cinder wrinkled her nose. Dafina just shook her head and continued to ladle out porridge.
“If he could refrain from sucking on that awful smelling pipe he wouldn’t have to spend his mornings coughing up phlegm.” Here she paused and shook her head. “Though, I suppose he’s old enough to do what he likes. If I ever manage to make such a ripe old age perhaps I shall take up smoking as well.”
Again Cinder smiled. She lifted a spoonful of porridge to her lips, blew on it, then took a dainty bite. It was hot and tasted of oats and berries. Greedily she scooped out another spoonful and shoveled it into her mouth.
At this hour only the two women and several of the younger pages were up and about. Another cookfire had been lit not far off and Cinder could see the red-haired boy who drove the bullocks for another of the carters going about his morning chores. He too was readying breakfast for both his master and the oxen.
Taking another spoonful Cinder raised her eyes to the burned out hulk that stood a few dozen meters from the campsite. Only two walls remained, their insides blackened, their façade peeling and falling away. They were held erect by beams that had collapsed inward as the structure burned. These had fallen in an interlocking pattern that supported itself, if just barely. Were a single one of the timbers to be removed the whole mess would collapse in on itself.
Dafina followed Cinder’s gaze. After a moment she shook her head and went back to serving. “Best if you don’t dwell on what happened to that place.”
Cinder looked quizzically at the matron. Dafina met her eyes. “It was a brothel; that’s what the carters that were here when we arrived said. The soldiers that marched on Lyvys burned it on their way to the Erstewald. The carter said it was revenge for harboring
Journeyman in Gray Page 17
