Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Abram Jaymes produced a plug of tobacco and cut a wad that he stuck in his mouth and began to chew as he asked Talle, “An’ what about the branded folk?”

  “What,” Talle returned, “about them?”

  “None had dreams,” Jaymes said. “Not one o’ them went crazy; only freemen.”

  The Inquisitor shrugged. “Branded people are not my concern. Why should they be, save they look to escape?”

  “They get killed too,” Jaymes said.

  “And more come,” the Inquisitor replied. “Evander’s prisons are full of potential exiles. God knows, we can fill this land with indentured folk once we’ve rid it of the savages and the demons. We can make it a paradise for Evander, for the Autarchy.”

  He turned away. Jaymes caught Var’s eye and spat a stream of liquid tobacco across the snow. Despite the cold, despite the residue of his fear, Var felt his cheeks flush, warming as he thought on Talle’s casual dismissal of the Autarchy’s slaves.

  Perhaps, he thought, I do become a dissident, a secessionist.

  Nathanial opened the door to Major Spelt and took the officer’s greatcoat and tricorne hat. He noticed that the major wore his ceremonial shortsword and a brace of pistols, which was not unusual in such troubled times—save that when he offered to relieve the major of such burden his request was irritably denied.

  “Where’s the governor?” Spelt demanded.

  “The dining room,” Nathanial replied. “The lady Celinda is with him.”

  Spelt nodded and stalked away. Nathanial glanced out across the yard, pleased to see that the pickets still stood on watch and that Spelt’s escort—he had no doubt but that the major had come with an escort—had dutifully presented itself at the rear door, as befitted common soldiers.

  He carried the coat and hat to the cloakroom and ducked his head into the kitchen along his way, calling that Major Spelt was come and cook had best lay on more dinner, set the table for three.

  Then, precisely as he spoke the words, as if in punctuation of his sentence, two shots rang out.

  “Alyx!” Andru Wyme levered his bulk a little upward from the chair. “It’s good to see you. Is it not, my love?” He turned to Celinda. “See, an old friend come visiting in troubled times. You’ll dine with us, won’t you, Alyx? No matter, eh? I’ll not let you say no.”

  Celinda smiled and gestured that Spelt take a chair; the major bowed elegantly. The governor of Grostheim laughed. Major Alyx Spelt, commander by the grace of God of the God’s Militia in the Grostheim garrison, drew both his pistols and shot Governor Andru Wyme and his wife, Celinda, in the heart. Then he drew his sword and set to carving them apart.

  When Nathanial appeared with worried soldiers on his heels, both the governor and his wife were reduced to bloody rags.

  Alyx Spelt laughed as his own soldiers shot him dead.

  28

  Chaos

  The first fort had been named for a hero of the War of Restitution—Jonathon Harvie, who had led the assault on Trebond’s most impressive citadel and had taken the great fortress before succumbing to his wounds. Var had met the man and thought him cold and calculating, empty of anything save ruthless ambition: Fort Harvie seemed a fitting monument.

  It sat beside the Restitution River like some squat guardian of the Autarchy’s possessions, a wooden emblem of power. The engineers had done a fine job. The walls stood twenty feet high, massive boles settled deep in the ground beneath, carved and fire-hardened to points at their tips, cut away at intervals to allow for embrasures from which jutted the mouths of cannon and swivel guns. Talle’s hex signs sat dulled by wind and weather on the timbers. A glacis had been set up before the walls, rising to drop into an outer ditch some fifteen feet across before the counterscarp was reached. Any attackers would come under the fire of the cannon, the swivel guns, and the muskets of the infantry long before they reached the sheer facings of the final defenses.

  Var checked such details automatically as they approached, and wondered why no sound came from Fort Harvie: neither shouts nor bugle blasts, only a silence that seemed to fill up the bleak day as if with clarions of alarm. He studied the walls ahead and urged his mount alongside Talle’s.

  “There’s something wrong here.”

  The Inquisitor scowled at Var and then at the fort: “I know.”

  Abram Jaymes reined in his mule and swung around in the saddle, letting loose a stream of black liquid before he spoke.

  “Save they all gone blind, they must’ve seen us comin’, no? An’ where are the sentries?” He gestured with his rifle at the high walls. “You see anyone?”

  Var shook his head. It came to him that they had last heard from Fort Harvie some time before they quit Grostheim, the messenger pigeon advising the garrison that all was well. They had been traveling for weeks now—God knew, but winter was approaching its end—and perhaps some news had been sent as they rode the snow. Or not: he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold run down his back and eased the Hawkins rifle from its protective sheath.

  “I doubt that gun shall aid us,” Talle said, and heeled his horse forward.

  Var said “Wait!” but the Inquisitor ignored him, riding up to the cutback running through the glacis, shouting, “The Inquisitor Jared Talle comes! Open the gates!”

  There was no answer. Jaymes said, “He ain’t afraid o’ much, is he?”

  And Var shook his head again and followed his nominated master down the cutback.

  Jaymes said, “Goddammit,” and spat more tobacco and followed behind.

  They rode up to the gates and found them open; rode inside and found Fort Harvie was empty of anything save bodies. They lay frozen where they had fallen, picked over by crows and foxes and rats—or even the dogs and cats that inhabited any fort, though these latter were gone now, as if scared off by the terrible emptiness filling the desolate bastion. Var was glad of the cold: the place should otherwise have stunk like a midden.

  Jaymes climbed down from his mule and stared around and said, “By God, what happened here?”

  Talle said, “Magic; madness. See?” He gestured at the corpses.

  Var fought a desire to vomit. He had seen slain men before—done his own share of killing—but never anything like this. These were men of the God’s Militia, hardened troopers, engineers, artillerymen seasoned in war: comrades. Yet they lay entangled, slain not by any external enemy but by one another. He looked around and saw a Militiaman near-beheaded by an engineer’s shovel; an engineer with a bayonet pinning him to the frozen ground; artillerymen bloody with musket fire, and the redcoats who had fired all bludgeoned and bayoneted by their fellows.

  “What happened?”

  “As I said: magic.” Talle shrugged, seeming quite unperturbed by the carnage. “These demons are, perhaps, stronger than I thought.”

  “Strong enough to do all this?” Var wondered if his voice truly rang so loud as he thought. “To turn an entire garrison on itself?”

  “It would seem so,” Talle replied, and rubbed his hands busily together. “Now do you go find us quarters, Tomas?”

  Var said, aghast, “We’re staying here?”

  “Where else?” Talle asked cheerfully. “Shall we camp out again, or sleep comfortable behind these solid walls?”

  Var had almost done the former; Fort Harvie had about it an air of menace now. He remembered Jaymes bringing in Matieu Fallyn’s body, and the presentiment he’d known then that this land seemed to offer little in the way of salvation. It seemed to him that sleeping here was akin to settling in a graveyard. He crossed his fingers and spat, wondering if the specters of men he’d known might not walk the yards come nightfall.

  But he was an officer in the God’s Militia and Jared Talle was his commander, so he ducked his head and strode away in search of rooms he hoped should not be filled with corpses.

  Talle looked to Jaymes. “And you—bring me him and him.” The Inquisitor angled stained fingers at the selected bodies.

  Jaymes f
rowned. “You want me to carry corpses for you?”

  “Yes.” Talle smiled. “I want you to bring them to the kitchens. There should be knives there, no?”

  Jaymes swallowed tobacco, coughing. “What you plannin’ to do with them?”

  “I intend,” Talle said with horrid calm, emphasizing each word, “to cut them up and seek for the magic that brought them to this.”

  Jaymes spat out more tobacco and nodded and did as he was ordered.

  Jolyon Minns wiped his mouth and took a deep breath, wondering if he was up to the task of commanding Grostheim’s troops even as he recognized he had no other choice.

  Major Spelt was dead; the governor was dead; every officer above the rank of lieutenant was dead. And Grostheim was in chaos. It was as if someone died for every snowflake that fell: soldiers turned on one another; settlers seeking shelter from the harsh winter slew one another; Trader Andyrt had shot Trader Gahame; innkeepers slew their customers, and the drinkers slew each other. Horrid riders on ghastly mounts stalked the streets by night and day, and Lieutenant Minns had no idea what was going on—save that did it continue, Evander’s foothold in the new world must fall down and be consumed.

  “Tea, ’sieur? Or something stronger?”

  Minns looked up as the indentured man appeared at his elbow. What was the fellow’s name? Jacque or Jayke, something like that. He smiled wan thanks and said, “Tea, if you will. And a tot of brandy, I think.”

  The servant nodded, the movement of his head plucking light from the scar on his cheek, and quit the room.

  Officers, Minns thought, and troopers. Traders and innkeepers. Housewives and businesswomen. But never branded folk! Why not?

  When the servant came back, bearing a tray that held a pot of tea and a decanter, Minns gestured that he sit.

  “Forgive me,” he asked, “but I forget your name.”

  “It’s Jayke, ’sieur.” The man looked uncomfortable.

  “Drink with me.” Minns wondered if he asked or ordered. “I’d speak with you.”

  Jayke looked startled. He hesitated, then said warily, “I’d be honoured, ’sieur.”

  Minns filled the glass with brandy and passed the receptacle to the servant. “You’ve seen the ghosts?” he asked.

  Jayke nodded and said, “Who’s not, ’sieur? Horrible, they are.” He shuddered and drank deep, crossing his fingers. It was clear that were he not in the presence of a freeman, he’d have spat.

  “And do you dream?” Minns wondered.

  Relaxed by the brandy, Jayke chuckled. “I’ve not the time, ’sieur. I just fall into my bed and go to sleep.”

  “And your fellows?” Minns asked. “The other …” He touched his cheek, feeling himself embarrassed now, and wondering why, save that this indentured servant was old enough to be his father. “The other …”

  “Branded folk?” Jayke finished for him. “God, no, ’sieur. We don’t dream.”

  Minns nodded, essaying what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “And did you see the savages when they attacked us?” he asked. “Did you come close to any of them?”

  Jayke emptied his glass. “God, ’sieur, that I did! I saw them close as I am to you—three of them!—and they’d have killed me if your Militiamen hadn’t shot them down. In God’s name, one of them had an arrow pointed right at my face!”

  “But you don’t dream of them?” Minns asked, reaching across the desk that had once been the property of Major Alyx Spelt to fill the servant’s glass again. “Not at all?”

  “The odd nightmare.” Jayke shrugged, lifting the glass. “No more than that.”

  “Nor any of your fellows?” Minns asked again.

  Jayke shook his head.

  Minns said, “Thank you.”

  Jayke said “ ’Sieur?” and the lieutenant smiled, wondering why none of the branded folk dreamed and went mad. Why that insanity applied, it seemed, to only Evanderans—to only freemen. He waved the man away unthinking and did not know he was gone until he looked up and found the room empty.

  He was still sitting deep in thought when two Militiamen whose names he’d never known burst into the room and stabbed him before turning their bayonets on one another.

  Then there was no order at all in Grostheim, only chaos.

  “Can he really figure out magic by cuttin’ up dead men?”

  Jaymes spilled the rough trade brandy into his cup and passed the bottle to Var. The major shrugged as he filled his own tin cup. They sat in a room cleared of bodies, the fire they’d built releasing the sour-sweet odor of blood from the floorboards. But at least it was warm.

  Var said, “I suppose so. I don’t know.”

  “Maybe,” Jaymes swallowed brandy and spat tobacco, “he just enjoys it.”

  And perhaps, Var thought, you’re right. I don’t understand any of this. He looked across the corpse-littered yard at the brightly lit windows of the kitchen, where Talle went about his grisly work. The sky was cloud-scudded this night, a waning moon glancing from between the wrack long enough to illuminate the bodies. Aloud, he said, “He’s an Inquisitor, Abram—he must know what he’s doing.”

  Jaymes decided his wad was finished and sent it tumbling into the hearth, where it sizzled horribly. At least the smell covered the odor of the blood. “You reckon so?”

  Var looked at the scout and sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know. But he is an Inquisitor, and the highest power in this land. So …” He shrugged again, helplessly.

  “You obey his orders, eh?” Jaymes grinned wickedly.

  “What else can I do?” Var asked.

  Jaymes offered no answer.

  Var said, “We’ve gone through this before, no? I am an officer in the God’s Militia and the Inquisitor is my commander—I have no choice but to trust him.” He drank brandy. “God, man! Do you know what’s going on here? I don’t!”

  Jaymes nodded. “Has it occurred to you,” he asked, “that the same thing might be goin’ on in Grostheim?”

  Var set down his cup. It seemed that cold fingers scratched each knobby ridge of his backbone. It had not, and the notion was horrifying. He shook his head in mute denial.

  “Might be,” Jaymes said dourly. “Might be these demons are havin’ the same effect there as they done here. Might be the whole o’ Salvation is fallin’ apart.”

  Var said, softly, “God!”

  Then Jaymes ducked his head at the window. “He’s comin’ back.”

  Moments later the door flung open and Jared Talle stalked in. He was smiling as he shucked off his fur coat and went to the fire. As he extended his hands to the warmth, Var saw that his arms were bloody to the elbows, and that gore splattered his shirt and black coat.

  “There’s hot water?” the Inquisitor asked cheerfully. “And food?”

  Var rose to indicate the pot boiling on the stove. “There’s no food here,” he said.

  “Ah, no; of course not.” Talle set to scrubbing his bloodied hands. “That will be in the kitchens. Do you see to it, Tomas?”

  Var nodded. “Now, Inquisitor?”

  “I’m hungry,” Talle said. “It’s fatiguing work, necromancy.”

  Newer, colder fingers trailed down Var’s spine. “And was your work … successful?”

  “Absolutely.” Talle turned from the stove. “A towel, if you will?”

  Var handed him a towel and stood waiting. Talle said, “The food, Tomas? I’ve truly a great hunger on me.”

  Var nodded again and went—like some indentured exile, he thought—to the kitchens.

  The slaughter wreaked within the confines of Fort Harvie was bad enough, but when he stepped into the kitchens and saw what the Inquisitor had done to the bodies he felt his stomach clench. He hurried past the carnage to the pantries, snatching meat and loaves he hoped remained fresh: the makings of dinner.

  Back in the room, he found Talle lounging at the table, a cup of Jaymes’s brandy in his stained hand. He appeared entirely at ease; Jaymes seemed unusually discomfited. The scout
rose and set to helping with the preparation of the meal for which Var felt little appetite. He forced himself to eat as Talle spoke.

  “These were much better than the affected ones of Grostheim,” he said. His tone was conversational. “I wonder if proximity to the wilderness does not render both the magic and its traces stronger.”

  Var forced down a mouthful of salted beef, grunting his thanks as Jaymes pushed a filled cup toward him.

  “It would seem,” Talle continued, “that a similar affliction applied—the garrison here dreamed and went mad, and set to slaying itself. But of course,” he chuckled, “you’ve seen that.”

  Var nodded silently; even Jaymes appeared disconcerted by the Inquisitor’s casual assessment of so many dead.

  “It’s the demons, of course,” Talle said. “Not the savages—who are really no more than that, save perhaps they own some crude form of magic. But this was done by the true demons.”

  “Who are?” Var gasped.

  “Demons.” Talle shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “They oppose the will of our God, no? The will of the Autarchy. So what else should they be?”

  Var asked, “How? We’ve seen only ghosts.”

  “Oh, they’ve no sure form yet.” Talle shrugged, smiling his thin-lipped smile, and reached across the table to help himself to more beef. “They seek that through communion with the savages—who are, of course, quite real. They have corporeal form in this land, and through them the demons would enter.” He chuckled. “What the savages fail to realize is that the demons will destroy them as surely as they’d destroy us. The ignorant beasts believe they’ve found allies. In point of fact, they’ve brought down their own destruction.”

  “And ours?” Var asked, feeling himself massively out of his depth.

  “Perhaps.” Talle’s smug smile disappeared an instant. “Save I defeat them.”

  “Can you?” Var asked.

  Talle nodded solemnly, and then his smile came back. “Am I not an Inquisitor, Tomas? Chosen by God?”