Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Surely something did move ahead, coming up the slope toward them, and instinctively Taza drew his knife. He thought for a moment of lifting Debo up into the branches, telling the boy to climb, then discarded the notion. If he were to die here, then Debo would surely starve. He grinned cynically, wondering if he grew fond of the youngster, and gripped his knife tighter as the sound grew louder, peering out through the overhang.

  Shapes moved through the shadows and Taza thought of questing wolves. But there were none of the sounds wolves made, and soon he identified the shapes as men. They made little effort to conceal their approach, save they moved with the silent efficiency natural to the People. And when one passed through a pool of moonlight he saw plaited hair and buckskin shirt, breeches, the bow in the man’s hand.

  Tachyn! They had to be Tachyn, for surely none others of the People dwelt in these dense woods, and he was confident he remained ahead of any pursuit. Even so, caution seemed advisable: it should be ironic were he to be slain now, by some wary scout. So he waited until he saw five men halt atop the low ridge and confer, as if debating whether or not to continue their search. Then he heard the name Chakthi spoken and could contain himself no longer.

  “I am Taza,” he called, “and I bring Chakthi his grandson.”

  Five faces swung toward his hiding place, bows rising, strung with nocked arrows.

  “Don’t shoot!” Taza called. “I’ve Chakthi’s grandson here.”

  “Come out,” a warrior called.

  Taza answered, “Let down your bows then.”

  The spokesman nodded to the others and they lowered their bows, waiting as Taza emerged from the shade of the pine, Debo on his heels. He took the boy’s hand and walked slowly toward the waiting men. He held his head erect, proud of himself and determined to show no fear.

  When he was within a few paces of the group he halted and said again, “I am Taza. I have come from beyond the mountains to bring Chakthi his grandson.”

  The man who had spoken before nodded as if this were nothing unusual and said, “I am Besdan; we have been looking for you. Hadduth said you were coming.”

  Taza smiled, hiding his surprise. Did the wakanisha of the Tachyn know of his arrival, then surely Hadduth must communicate with the golden-armored figure—and be a most powerful Dreamer. “Then take me to him,” he declared.

  Besdan grinned and said, “We take you to Chakthi. Hadduth answers to him.”

  “No!” Debo recognized the name of his grandfather now and tugged on Taza’s hand, shaking his head. That name was spoken seldom in Ket-Ta-Thanne, and always with loathing. Debo did not wish to encounter so detested a person, and began to cry. “No!”

  Taza said, “It’s all right. We’re safe now; there’ll be food and a proper fire.”

  Debo went on tugging at Taza’s hand, trying to drag him away from the unknown warriors. “Take me home!” he wailed. “I want to go home.”

  Taza said, “You are home.”

  “No!” Debo shrieked. “I don’t want to meet Chakthi. I want to go home!”

  He broke free of Taza’s grip and began to run back the way they had come. Besdan chuckled and went after him, snatching the boy up across his shoulders, where Debo beat his small fists in futile protest against the man’s broad back.

  “Be quiet,” Besdan commanded, “else I shall whip you.”

  Debo was so startled by the threat he ceased his struggling and lay inert over Besdan’s shoulder as the Tachyn started down the slope.

  “Come,” he said to Taza. “Chakthi awaits you.”

  “We must walk wary,” Davyd said, smiling his thanks for the tea Arcole passed him. Dawn light fell on his face and the air was warm with morning’s promise, easing his aches somewhat. “These forests are full of Tachyn.”

  “We knew that,” Rannach grunted, disturbed by the notion of delay. “What of Debo?”

  “He’s alive,” Davyd said. “At least, as best I know.… My dreams were strange, as if there’s a power here that clouds them.”

  “Chakthi’s here, and Hadduth.” Rannach spat. “As is my son!

  “And are we slain, what chance has Debo then?” Arcole demanded. “Listen to Davyd, Rannach.”

  The Commacht sighed and made an apologetic gesture. Davyd said, “Warriors seek us, that much I know for sure. Haste shall be our enemy now; lest we go careful, we shall all die.”

  “Then lead us,” Rannach said. “Show us the way.”

  Davyd nodded and drank his tea, then clambered wearily to his feet. He felt not at all rested, for his sleep had been filled with strange dreams that he could not understand. Save that danger threatened—such as might well see the three of them slain, but also a far greater hazard that might well engulf all Ket-Ta-Thanne and Salvation, both.

  26

  Ghost Winter

  Grostheim ran out of quicklime that winter, and for every bonfire warming the streets it seemed there were three pyres beyond the walls consuming the corpses of the possessed. Folk lived in fear again: at first of the rumors, then of the reality—or its fantastic counterpart.

  At first it was only soldiers of the God’s Militia—possessed by the dreams, by the voices—who attacked their officers. Var suffered five assaults, two of which left him with cuts that pained him in the growing cold; Jared Talle cloaked himself in magic and defeated no less than nine attackers; Alyx Spelt was attacked four times; after one assault, Wyme refused to leave his mansion without an escort of twenty men.

  Fear filled the garrison, breeding dissent. Officers took to wearing pistols at all times, and kept their swords ready. They trusted no one, and the garrison troops resented the mistrust that spread and wondered if the madness might not affect them. When old friends turned mad, no one knew who should be slain next, who next succumb to this strange madness, and often civilians became the targets. Once a squad of Militiamen guarding a well-stocked granary turned their muskets on a growing crowd and slew thirteen men and seventeen women. Another time, nine soldiers entered a tavern with drawn bayonets and slaughtered six men, seriously wounding eleven more before they were overwhelmed—four of them beaten to death by angry citizens before the remaining five were shot by Var’s marines.

  In all of Grostheim, it seemed that only Var’s marines were unaffected. They remained true to their duty. Until, at least, the snow grew deeper and the full weight of Salvation’s cruel winter settled over the city.

  The Restitution froze. Ice settled solid over the water a half-mile beyond the rebuilt docks. Floes drifted angry as winter’s teeth against the incoming tides that raged storm-driven against the harbor, and all the land beyond the walls was cloaked in white, snow layering deep as a tall man’s waist. It was a hard winter. Indentured folk were set to clearing the streets, scraping clean the rooftops, setting braziers to burning in the streets while outside the pyres blazed on Talle’s order, consuming the slain possessed.

  Food grew short, and then settlers—mostly those come into the city to escape the harsh winter—began to attack the soldiers. It was, Var thought, a pattern similar to that first seen. Questioning these people—too often under Talle’s cruel supervision—revealed that those suffering the madness had encountered the “demons” and spoke as Danyael Corm had, in voices of guttural protest. They spoke of driving the newcomers from “their” land, of the inhabitants of Grostheim and all Salvation fleeing before they were slain for their effrontery.

  Then it got worse.

  Ghosts were seen in the streets: dread riders on horrid mounts whose clawed hooves left burning imprints in the snow. Folk ran crazed from the apparitions, screaming that devils—even worse than the demons of the last year—were come amongst them. Talle went out, escorted by soldiers he did not trust, to assure the citizens that all should be well, that his magic and the might of the Autarchy must surely overcome this strange new invasion, and was not believed. Folk turned their backs on him; once he was pelted with snowballs, another time with mud and harder missiles. Riot threatened. Tall
e and the Autarchy were held responsible for the citizens’ dire plight, and when answers were demanded of the Inquisitor, he had none to give. For he did not properly understand what happened here, Var knew, and closeted himself away, dissecting bodies and seeking answers to a magic he could barely comprehend.

  He forgot his plans for a winter campaign. Indeed, it seemed to Var that he forgot the far-flung forts guarding the forest edge, for when carrier pigeons came in with word of similar apparitions seen about and inside the forts, Talle offered no response save that each garrison must hold firm and wait on his occult investigations. Var thought the man consumed by his inquiries—as if his delving into this weirdling mystery preoccupied him and rendered him forgetful of his first duty, which was, Var felt, to the people of Salvation who suffered under this strange new onslaught.

  And did Var speak with the man, Talle only bade him wait and trust—that answers should come in time and the demonic assaults be ended. And Alyx Spelt hid within his quarters, or ventured out only under escort of trusted men who had not faced the demons, and that only seldom. And the governor shut himself inside his mansion with his plump wife and advised anyone who dared ask that the Inquisitor Jared Talle must answer their questions and accept responsibility for what befell Grostheim.

  Var saw the ghosts twice.

  The first time he was come out of a tavern where he had been drinking with Abram Jaymes and stepped down into the snowbound street with one hand on the butt of his pistol and the other on his saber, glancing around for fear there be some red-coated Militiaman maddened to kill him, and saw a creature he could scarce describe, save it bore resemblance to an amalgamation of lion and lizard charging at him. He saw, atop the horrid thing, a figure dressed in antique armor, shining under the cold starlight in rainbow hues, a great curve-headed ax raised high and swinging down to take off his head.

  It was dream and reality combined. Beast and rider were ethereal: he could see the flames of a brazier flickering through them, the houses beyond, lit windows, but even so … They were possessed of such immediate presence that he drew his pistol and fired even as he snatched his sword from the scabbard—and saw his shot go through the lion-creature’s snarling skull as he swung his blade against the rider’s down-swinging steel.

  There should have been the sound of metal on metal—the clash and the jarring of arms—but there was nothing: only confusion as the beast and its rider passed by, phantasmic smoke trailing in their wake.

  Var heard a shot, and turned to see Abram Jaymes spitting a fresh ball into his Hawkins rifle, trailing the apparition that was already gone into the winter night like wind-drifted snow. None others had ventured out from the inn.

  Var sheathed his sword, somewhat embarrassed, and set to reloading his pistol. He looked at the draggle-haired frontiersman.

  The scout shrugged, and said, “I saw it, so I guess you ain’t mad. Less’n maybe I am, too.”

  Var said, “Perhaps we both are.”

  “Well then, we ain’t alone,” Jaymes said. “You want some company?”

  Var nodded: he felt no wish to walk alone this night.

  “What are they?” he asked as they trod the silent, snowbound streets. Overhead, the sky was a sullen gray, snow-laden cloud obscuring the stars and whatever moon might have risen. “I don’t understand this.”

  Jaymes laughed and spat a stream of tobacco onto the snow. “Nor me,” he said cheerfully. “I never seen anythin’ like them afore.”

  “Don’t they frighten you?” Var asked. “By God, they make me wonder.”

  “Wondering ain’t the same,” Jaymes said. “There’s a difference between being frightened an’ wondering.”

  “Yes.” Var ducked his head in agreement. “But even so …”

  “It cross your mind,” Jaymes asked, “that there’s been nothin’ like this until you an’ the Inquisitor arrived here?”

  Var shook his head. “What are you saying?”

  Jaymes shrugged. “I don’t rightly know, save that last time we got hit by livin’ creatures—demons if you like, but they could be killed—an’ now it seems like we’re attacked by ghosts. Only they can’t hurt anyone, only scare folks.” He spat a stream of tobacco. “Me, I’m more concerned with what can do me harm.”

  Var put that argument to Jared Talle, after the second time he saw an apparition.

  He had inspected his men and made his way to the governor’s mansion, and halted at the gate when out of nowhere a fanged horse with skin the color of darkest midnight and eyes burning the same fire that gusted from its mouth reared above him. It seemed more solid than the other beast. Surely, he believed the clawed hooves that struck at his head might easily crush his skull. Instinctively, he ducked below the creature’s pounding hooves, instinctive, snatching out his pistol and saber at the same time, slashing, the pistol blasting.

  On a saddle of gold, hung with gilded skulls, a rider in golden armor laughed at him from under a golden helmet and pointed a wide-bladed golden sword at his throat.

  You’d defy me? You pride yourself man You are nothing! You are a worm, crawling in the dirt to be crushed and severed Do you understand?

  Var rolled away from the pounding hooves that trampled fire out of the cleared ground and sparked like blazing moonshine on the piled snow. The horse—a horse? He had seen no horse like this before, not with horns and tusks—trod him down, clawed hooves tramping him. He screamed in anticipation of the pain that did not come, and flung his emptied pistol at the thing’s face as it snarled at him and ducked its head on the rider’s command to drive its horns down into his chest.

  He screamed again as the golden-armored rider pointed his sword and leaned out of his magnificent saddle to drive his blade into Var’s skull.

  Var felt a terrible cold invade his body, and at the same time a feverish heat. Then all was gone and he felt only embarrassed as servants and soldiers came running to the commotion of his shouting, where there was nothing save the Inquisitor’s right-hand man—the Inquisitor’s dog—rolling in the empty street, his saber slashing empty air.

  “So you saw a ghost.” Talle took the decanter from Nathanial’s hand and waved the branded man away. “Tell me—exactly—what you saw.”

  Var drank the brandy, warming his chest where the hooves had struck, easing his head where the golden blade had gone in. He felt cold, as if ice were placed inside him, and told the Inquisitor everything.

  “Like the rest,” Talle said. He rubbed his hands, and it seemed to Var that sparks of darkness fell from his fingers, matches to his lank hair and crow clothes. “Like all of them.”

  “I saw,” Var said, reaching uninvited for the decanter, “what I saw.”

  “Which,” the Inquisitor said, “were only ghosts. Phantasms; images.”

  “I thought,” Var said, slowly, his voice clogging in his throat, “that I was dead. They seemed most real to me.”

  Talle said, “They would,” calmly. “They’ve powerful magic, these folk who oppose us. It confirms my belief that we must mount a campaign against them.”

  Var said, sipping more brandy, not liking at all what Talle was saying, “In this winter? I thought you’d given up on that notion.”

  Talle shook his head, and said, “Not a military campaign, my friend. Only a small expedition—you and I, and your frontier scout friend; perhaps a few others.”

  “Against …” Var shrugged, helping himself to a fresh measure of brandy. “Whatever these things are?”

  “Would you grant them sway?” Talle sat behind Governor Wyme’s ornate desk, his fingers steepled. Var saw blood ingrained beneath his nails, in the ridges of his knuckles, and wondered at his practices. “They bring this new magic against us, and I—we!—must fight it, no?”

  Var nodded, reluctantly.

  “And what magic they bring,” Talle said, “they deliver from out of their forests, no?”

  Again, Var had no choice but to duck his head in agreement.

  “And we are only serv
ants of the Autarchy,” Talle said. “We are sent here to resolve such … problems.… So, do you go find your scout and bring him to me?”

  Var hesitated; Talle cocked his head, again reminding Var of a carrion crow anticipating a feast.

  “What?”

  Var mustered his thoughts. “You and I and Abram Jaymes?” he asked. “Perhaps a few others? How many, Inquisitor? And to do what?”

  “A … sortie, wouldn’t you put it? A small venture to identify our enemy; not so many men as shall make us noticeable, but enough to find their weaknesses.”

  “And how shall we do that?” Var asked.

  “Why,” Talle said with disturbing calm, “we shall go out to the border forts and find us a savage. Take it alive, learn what it knows. I can do that, Major Var, have I one living to question.”

  Var felt no doubt but that the Inquisitor could. He ducked his head a third time and went to seek out Abram Jaymes.

  They made an odd trio, Jaymes thought, the Inquisitor and the marine major and the scout. They sat ensconced in the governor’s study, the fire burning merrily, logs crackling sparks up the chimney and over Wyme’s carpet, a decanter passing between them—used mostly and lustily by Jaymes. The windows were shuttered against the Candlemas night and the door locked against intrusion. Talle sat still behind the desk, clad all in black. Var sat erect in his blue marine’s tunic, sword and pistol at his side. Jaymes lounged, legs stretched and wide, in dirty leathers, his shirt unbuttoned against the heat.

  “An’ you want me take you into the woods,” he said, cradling a goblet of imported glass loose against his chest. “Take you into the—what do you call them now? Demons, territory?”

  “Savages,” said Talle. “They are only savages.”

  Jaymes shrugged, seemingly careless of the Inquisitor’s black-eyed gaze. “Savages, demons—call them what you want, they can still kill you.”