Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  “And in a good winter?” Var asked.

  “Decembre to Februire,” the corporal answered. “The roads are hard going for some while after, of course. The mud, you know?”

  “I know.” Var thought of winter campaigns, of cold and snow drifts that must be dug through, of roads so thick with mud the guncarts and supply wagons bogged down. “How long have you served here?”

  “Nine years, seven months, and nineteen days.” The corporal grinned, deciding this marine major was not so bad a fellow, even was he the Inquisitor’s right hand. “Next year I get my Choice.”

  Var smiled. Service in the God’s Militia was reckoned in decades, and when the corporal’s tenure was up he would have his choice to make. The rankers capitalized the word: The Choice. In this case, it meant that the corporal could reenlist or quit the service. Did he choose the former, then he could look forward to promotion, to a sergeancy; the latter meant another choosing: either to return to Evander or to remain in Salvation. The one would mean taking the Militia pension—which was scarce enough to live on—and believing there was something or someone in Evander worth going back for, whilst the other would entitle the man to a piece of land in Salvation and two indentured exiles for his servants.

  “Which shall you take?” Var asked.

  The corporal scratched a cheek Var noticed for the first time was pock-marked, hesitating before he replied. “Well, that depends …”

  Var made his smile more friendly. “On what, eh?”

  “Well, sir.” The corporal grimaced, embarrassed. “On you, I suppose, sir. On you and the Inquisitor.”

  “How so?” Var made his voice casual.

  “Well.” The corporal fidgeted with his musket, adjusting the strap so that moonlight flickered off the polished steel of the bayonet. “On what you do about the demons.”

  “How so?” Var asked again. He saw the corporal’s indecision and looked to draw the man out. So far he had echoed Abram Jaymes, but Jaymes was committed to Salvation by choice, whilst this red-coated and suddenly uncomfortable Militiaman was in the New World by order of the Autarchy alone. “This shall go no farther,” he said, “you’ve my word on that. Listen—I’ll not even ask your name.”

  “It’s Gerry, sir. Corporal Robyn Gerry.”

  And straightened, coming to attention, musket upright against his shoulder, hand to stock and muzzle, eyes fixed on the brim of Var’s tricorne.

  Var recognized the stance. It was not uncommon, if an officer asked you awkward questions, to come to attention and refuse to meet his eyes—but Gerry had initiated the conversation and seemed quite at ease then, and Var did not think he was so terrifying an officer as to induce this sudden reluctance in the man. Save he was considered Talle’s right hand. He smiled in friendly fashion and said, “I’d appreciate your opinion, Corporal. And as I said, you’ve my word it shall go no farther.”

  “Your word?”

  Var nodded solemnly. “My word as an officer and a gentleman; as a fellow soldier.”

  Gerry laughed, which surprised Var. Not so much that the chuckling was laden with contempt—hatred even—but that a humble corporal would dare laugh at all into the face of an officer. He stared at the man and found himself looking into eyes that were curiously blank.

  “Your word,” Gerry said in a voice that was no longer his own, but suddenly guttural, “means nothing to me. Your word is smoke in the storm wind. I spit on your word.”

  Var stared at the corporal, said—knowing it even then for foolishness—“Gerry, are you well?”

  “Well?” It seemed that fire burned inside the staring eyes, behind them. And the voice was harsh thunder. “How should I be well when you come to take our land? Ours!”

  Var said “Gerry?” and stepped back a pace, wishing his greatcoat were not buttoned over his pistol and that he wore his sword. But why wear a blade in a peaceful city? Save suddenly you be attacked by a man who seemed one moment friendly and the next possessed. He looked at Gerry’s eyes and saw madness there: he began to unbutton his coat, to reach for the pistol.

  And Gerry said, “No,” in the same harsh voice, and slung his musket down, cocking the hammer. “You think to own our land, but you’ll not.”

  Var reacted entirely on instinct. He flung himself to the side as the musket dropped, rolling away as the muzzle flashed flame and the lead ball gouged a furrow in the frozen mud of the square. Mud and ice plastered his face as he clambered to his feet, still fumbling at the buttons of his coat as Gerry lowered the musket and charged him, intent on thrusting the long bayonet into his belly.

  The three other Militiamen guarding the gallows came—at last, Var thought—to see what transpired. In that instant he condemned them all for idiots, for they stood gaping as Gerry looked to drive the bayonet into his guts as he danced away, shouting, “Shoot him! For God’s sake, shoot him!”

  Gerry laughed in a voice that was not his own: “Our land! Never yours!” And stabbed again at Var’s belly.

  Var lurched sideways. Damn the long coat! Damn the protocol that denied him wearing a sword inside Grostheim’s peaceful walls! And danced another step away from Gerry’s probing bayonet.

  “Not yours,” Gerry said, thrusting. “Never yours! Ours!”

  Var backed away, seeking the opportunity to gain ground enough he might open his coat and draw his pistol. Shoot this madman who looked to stick him as the three other redcoats stared gape-mouthed at the impossible spectacle of a corporal in the God’s Militia attempting to drive a bayonet into the belly of a major.

  Gerry thrust again, and Var gasped as his greatcoat was pierced, lurched back. He felt his hand scored, like cold fire over the skin, and resisted the impulse to check the wound, springing clear of another darting attack.

  Why did those fools not fire?

  Then: If they do, they’ll shoot me. Aloud, he shouted, “Use your bayonets! Stick the bastard before he kills me!”

  The three Militiamen still gaped, numbed by that vision of the impossible.

  Var felt cold steel prick his stomach and lurched backward, turning so that he began to circumnavigate the scaffold. The corpse there dangled in dead-eyed witness of the drama, indifferent as the moon.

  Gerry thrust again and Var fell back against the wood of the scaffold’s platform. The bayonet drove into the timber and stuck an instant. Not long—Robyn Gerry was a strong man, and accustomed to bayonet-work—but enough Var had time to haul clear and open the last buttons of his coat, drag out the pistol.

  Not enough to cock the hammer or drop the strikerplate, but at least he held a weapon now. He darted back as Gerry came wild-eyed toward him, the bloodied bayonet a precursor of his advance.

  Var stumbled against a soldier, cursing the gaping man as he shouldered him aside and dragged back the pistol’s hammer.

  “Stick him, damn you!”

  He saw the Militiaman staring goggle-eyed as he dropped the strikerplate into position. Leveled the pistol at Gerry’s chest and paced back along the edge of the scaffold as Gerry screamed an inarticulate cry and charged forward.

  Var squeezed the trigger. A bloom of darker crimson blossomed on the scarlet of Gerry’s tunic. The bayonet thrust toward Var, and he deflected the blade with the emptied pistol. Gerry stared at him, still moving forward. Var elbowed the musket aside as the dying body collided with him and the mouth opened to spit out hatred.

  “Never your land! Ours! We shall destroy you!”

  And at last the Militiamen acted: they came together to drive three bayonets into the body of Robyn Gerry, so that blood splashed over Tomas Var and stained his tunic even as he wondered what strange new magic was brought against Salvation.

  16

  A Certain Power

  Hadduth sat naked and sweating, staring into the flames that lit the interior of the wa’tenhya with flickerings of red and shadow, blaze and darkness alternating in dancing patterns intricate as his thoughts. The pahé tasted bitter on his tongue, in his throat, and he felt it trac
e its delicate path through his body even as he turned to stare at the owh’jika whose eyes belled huge and terrified as the thing gazed at the Tachyn wakanisha.

  Hadduth chuckled sourly. Did Chakthi frighten him, why should he not frighten the owh’jika? Besides, the sorry creature was necessary to his task. He would satisfy his akaman—else likely, he thought, he should die when next the rage took hold of Chakthi. He was not yet ready to die; perhaps to sell his soul, if that was not already bought, but not to die. So he stretched his lips and said, “Take more.”

  The owh’jika moaned and shook its head, shuddering against its bonds. Chakthi coughed laughter into the scented dream smoke and reached across the fire to spill more pahé into its mouth, forcing it to drink. Then he watched as the thing’s eyes grew unfocused and closed, wondering idly if so much of the sacred root would kill the uninitiated. No matter: he could already feel the channels of the creature’s being as if they were his own, look into its mind at all the secrets and the fears locked there. He sighed and felt his smile draw wider as his own eyes closed and he went away into the land beyond …

  … Where he stood on a grisaille plain, the earth gray and ashy and wreathed with tendrils of dull smoke that rose like despairing fingers to falter against a colorless sky. No sun shone there, neither any moon, and were there stars they were lost behind and within the encompassing gray. He felt abruptly afraid and looked about him at a landscape that was devoid of feature—flat and stretching out in ashen parody of Ket-Ta-Witko’s prairies in all directions. Save for the sorrily rising smoke, there was no movement, nor any sign of life.

  And he realized he stood naked as a newborn babe: he moaned and cupped his hands about his groin, embarrassed and terrified.

  And then, from far away across the featureless gray plain, he heard the pounding of hooves, like distant thunder rolling remorselessly closer, and saw off in the distance the sparks of fire struck from the ashen earth.

  In moments the pounding filled up all the air and he dropped to his knees, hands pressed against his ears that he might block out that terrible thunder, but could not draw his eyes from what approached.

  It was like the sun rising between the gates of hell, like the Storm Wolf charging the Grass Boy, save he was not the Grass Boy and had turned his face from the Maker and so could not anticipate divine favor.

  And yet he could not close his eyes or turn his gaze away, for all the terrible splendor seared the orbs. He could only watch, submitted, as the dread horse galloped toward him, and see the night-dark skin, the blazing eyes, the horns and awful trappings of magnificent gold and obscene skulls, clattering bones. And on its awful back a worse rider: a man armored all in shining gold, whose hair spread loose as fire from beneath a concealing helm that revealed only eyes red as the ghastly mount’s, and locked forever firm on Hadduth.

  The wakanisha cowered, staring up as the rider reined in his mount and set it to prancing, sharp hooves sparking great flurries of flame from the dull soil. Hadduth thought his skull must be shattered and he bleed out his life in the dream land and never return to Ket-Ta-Thanne; and could not be sure that not be better than facing this creature, this majesty, he had at last summoned.

  But the rider took off his helm and shook out his flame-red mane and fixed Hadduth with those eyes that were all fire, gestured with a gauntlet that was taloned cruel as any wolverine’s paw, and said, “So, at last.”

  Hadduth ducked his head and said, “Master.”

  “Not Master but Akratil, the Master’s servant as you are mine.”

  Hadduth said, “As you will … Akratil.”

  The flame-haired man danced his terrible horse in a circle around the crouching Tachyn, his words matched to the rhythmic pounding. “I am Akratil, worm, and greater than you as is a hawk to a ground-burrowing grub. But I am not the Master. He is greater even than I. He is death and destruction. He is the dark face of that mewling god you call the Maker. Understand that!”

  “Yes,” said Hadduth from where he huddled, feeling the sparks the horse’s hooves struck up, the fire of its breath, burn his naked skin. “Yes, Akratil.”

  Akratil smiled as if a point were won—which, in truth, it was—and said, “And are you my servant, worm?”

  Hadduth said, “I am.”

  “And those sad creatures with you?”

  “They wait on your guidance.”

  “Good.” Akratil reined his horrid mount to a halt, looking down at the Tachyn. “I have waited long for this.”

  “I called on you,” Hadduth dared say, “before. But …”

  “I was not ready.” A golden gauntlet angled at Hadduth’s face and the wakanisha lurched back for fear the talons rip out his eyes. “Nor you. Now I sense you are, and so I come.”

  Hadduth ventured a nervous smile. “To conquer this new land?”

  “Not yet.” Akratil shook his head and it seemed that fire flashed from his hair. “I am yet in that other land. Why did you call on me?”

  Hadduth frowned, suddenly confused. “You know our fate?”

  “Your fate is nothing to me,” Akratil replied. “Save you serve me and do my bidding.”

  “I would,” Hadduth said. “Only that.”

  Akratil laughed. It was the sound of lightning dancing on the earth, the sound of bones rubbing together, a storm wind shaking naked trees.

  “Yet you failed me, worm.”

  “I did,” Hadduth moaned, “all you bade me. Was there failure, then surely it was Chakthi’s.”

  “Who is not here,” Akratil said, and leant from the golden, skull-bedecked saddle to put his face closer to the wakanisha’s, “whilst you are.”

  Hadduth felt the heat of those burning eyes, the mingled odors of rotted meat and sulfur that came from Akratil’s mouth, and cringed.

  “So why,” Akratil asked, “should I not slay you?”

  “Morrhyn opened the gate,” Hadduth cried. “And closed it behind the People. I could not prevent that!”

  “And it left my Breakers shut out.” Akratil snatched at the reins, setting the blood-eyed horse to prancing again. “Locked from our prey. And now you’d ask a favor?”

  “I’d bring you here,” Hadduth screamed, feeling the gray earth shudder all around him, aware of the horns and fangs that darted close. “I’d give you this world and all those escaped you.”

  Akratil reined back the midnight horse; Hadduth ventured an upward glance.

  “Think you that’s possible, worm?”

  “Within your power, surely.” Hadduth unlocked his arms from his head. “With my help.”

  Akratil snorted scornful laughter. “You help me?”

  “This is a strange land,” Hadduth said, “it is not like Ket-Ta-Witko. The People are not alone here: there are others, and they have strange powers.”

  Akratil nodded thoughtfully: “Tell me, worm, and I shall decide whether you live or die.”

  Hadduth began to speak, urgently.

  The owh’jika was drained close unto death by what Akratil took from it, but that was of small concern to Hadduth. The thing had served its purpose and that was sufficient—it was not, after all, a true human being, not even one of the People, far less a Tachyn, and it had little use now other than as a recipient of Chakthi’s wrath. Hadduth wondered if it might not welcome death as he dragged it from the confines of the wa’tenhya and left it shivering and naked in the forest chill. It was still bound and he supposed that he would—did he remember—send someone to free it and feed it, but that was not important. He smiled hugely as he dressed, anticipating his akaman’s pleasure when he told Chakthi of Akratil’s gift, and how it might be used against the enemy. That should surely please Chakthi; and it was but the first step along the road to absolute victory. Yes, he thought, Chakthi would be mightily pleased, and the Tachyn raised high.

  17

  Strangely, in the Night

  Celinda Wyme screamed when Var burst into the dining room, the glass she held dropping to the table to spread wine acr
oss the linen cloth like a great bloodstain. Her husband stared gape-mouthed at the disheveled officer, a frown forming on his pudgy face. Alyx Spelt’s was disdainful, as if he considered Var’s dramatic entrance in poor taste. Only Jared Talle exhibited no emotion, simply setting down his knife and fork and looking at Var with darkly questioning eyes.

  “Forgive me.” Var offered Celinda a brief bow. He supposed he did look somewhat disreputable: Gerry’s blood stained his coat and tunic, and likely his face. “Inquisitor, I must speak with you.”

  Talle motioned that he continue, but Wyme raised a hand that still clutched a napkin and said, “Surely not here, Inquisitor. My wife …” He gestured at Celinda, who slumped back in her chair, ample bosom heaving as a servant flapped an ineffectual hand before her face. “Nathanial—smelling salts!”

  Var said, “It were better told privately,” glancing at the servants, and Talle nodded, rising.

  “The study, gentlemen.”

  The Inquisitor led the way as if he owned the mansion, Wyme hobbling on his crutches behind, and it was Talle ordered the servant to stoke the fire and light the lamps, who bade the man leave. Wyme only slumped in an armchair, mumbling his thanks as Spelt brought him a glass of brandy.

  “So, Major, what is it? You’ve the look of a street brawler.”

  Talle settled his spindly frame behind Wyme’s desk. Var shed his coat and faced the sallow man, relating the evening’s events.

  “And the body?” Talle’s head was cocked like a crow’s; he seemed not much disturbed.

  “I ordered it carried to the church,” Var said. “I thought …”

  Talle husked laughter, cutting the explanation short. “You thought that were it possessed the holy ground of the church would hold it, no?”

  Var shrugged and nodded; Talle laughed again.

  “And the other sentries?”

  “Ordered to remain by the body. To keep the doors locked and speak with no one.”

  “Good.” Talle offered Var a thin-lipped smile. “That was wise. What else?”