Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Jaymes kicked the door shut and crossed to the stove. “Sounds like it’s not much fun, except maybe for him.”

  Var shrugged again. The screaming echoed off the fort’s walls. “The savages take heads, no?” he asked dully. “Don’t they torture prisoners?”

  “Sure, but they’re savages.” Jaymes shrugged out of his furs and turned his back to the heat. “Aren’t we supposed to be civilized?”

  All Var could think of by way of response was to ask, “Is there any brandy left?”

  They emptied the bottle as the screaming went on. One man died—both Var and Jaymes recognized the sounds of dying—and then the other began. Jaymes tossed meat and vegetables into a pot, constructing a stew that neither man ate, their appetites quite lost. The moon rose over the fort’s walls and spilled cold silver light across the yard, the frozen bodies lying there, and the screaming went on. Then ceased abruptly.

  Jared Talle came out, shrugging into the fur coat that seemed to dwarf his frame. In the moon’s light shadows stretched dark across his face that, as he came through the door, Var saw were great splashes of blood. He carried his jacket and shirt in his hands, and his bare chest was boltered worse than his face. He was smiling.

  “Hot water, excellent.” He tossed his clothes aside, gesturing at his chest and face. “I need to wash, no?”

  It was Jaymes who asked him, “What did you find out?” Var felt too benumbed to speak.

  “Much.” Talle set to splashing water over the blood, sluicing it carelessly off, so that slews spread over his breeches and through his hair. He seemed not to notice, or to care, as he pulled on his shirt and jacket and found a place at the table, waiting as Jaymes handed him a bowl; then eating with hearty appetite. “Listen …”

  He spooned up stew before he spoke again. Then: “These savages call themselves Tachyn. They came here from across the mountains, but before that they dwelt in another place, another world.” His predatory face grew animated. “They came here by magic! Not by land, or boats, but by magic! Think on that, eh? If we could learn such skills, then the Autarchy might go anywhere … conquer all the worlds there are!”

  “You’d like that?” Jaymes asked.

  Talle looked at the scout as if he were mad. “Of course! To own such power?”

  “Why?”

  “Because we can,” Talle said. “Because with such magic we might cross the mountains and own all the land beyond. Past that—all the worlds.”

  “Ain’t that,” Jaymes asked, “somewhat like what the demons want to do? An’ what are you planning to do about them?”

  “The savages are Dreamers,” Talle said. “Some of them, at least. The demons enter their dreams and show them how to influence us—that’s how”—he flung a careless hand at the window, indicating the bodies—“they achieved this; what they did in Grostheim. They can make men dream and go mad.”

  “Then surely we must defeat them,” Var said. “Face them with this knowledge and drive them—savages and demons, both—out.”

  “Save we can gain their knowledge.” Talle’s thin face was animated. “I’d have that knowledge for the Autarchy. Think on it! Could I only learn how they transport themselves across the worlds, what might we not conquer?”

  Jaymes said, “Who knows?” and looked at Var.

  Var held his expression carefully bland. “What do we do next?”

  “Return to Grostheim,” Talle declared. “We must go back with this news and send it home. Then more Inquisitors shall be sent, to plumb all the depths of this land. After that? Why, we shall mount a great expedition that shall capture savages and demons and learn everything they know.”

  “I thought,” Var said, “that the demons are not physically in this world. How then, shall we capture any?”

  Talle laughed. “They’re coming! There’s a sacrifice the savages intend to make that shall deliver them here. And then …” He went on laughing.

  Var asked, “What sacrifice?”

  “I’m not sure,” Talle said. “A child? Some link with that world they came from. My … subjects … were not entirely clear. But when the sacrifice is made, the demons shall take form here, and we can capture them and learn from them.”

  “What,” Var asked, “are they planning to do here?”

  “Conquer,” Talle said, beaming as if he entirely approved of such ambitions. “They’re dedicated to conquest.”

  Like you and the Autarchy, Var thought.

  “And can we not defeat them?” Var asked. “What then?”

  Talle stared at him as if he were mad. “We are the Autarchy,” he said. “The Autarchy! We rule the known world—how can we be defeated?”

  In that instant, had he not known it before, Tomas Var recognized that the Inquisitor Jared Talle was entirely insane. He did not know, in that instant, that he threw in his lot with Abram Jaymes; only that the Inquisitor was crazed, and likely as great a threat to Salvation as any demonic invasion.

  He nodded politely and said, “Of course,” and looked at Jaymes, who raised an eyebrow, then back at Talle to ask, “What next?”

  “We leave for Grostheim in the morning,” Talle said. “We must mount an expedition in the spring. That’s when the demons shall come.”

  “Likely there’ll be savages before that.” Jaymes studied the exhilarated Talle with calm, cold eyes. “We left tracks they’ll be followin’ soon as they find out about your … subjects.”

  Talle frowned; Var, his military training to the foreground, asked, “How soon?”

  “Can’t rightly say,” Jaymes answered cheerfully. “It’ll depend on when they find our tracks an’ work out what’s been done. But I tell you this—they can travel a lot faster than us, so we might have a fight on our hands, ’less we can lose them.”

  “Can we?” Var asked.

  Jaymes shrugged. “Maybe; maybe not.”

  Talle said, “I can use magic. I can set hexes around this fort.”

  “An’ we sit here,” Jaymes returned, “like chickens in a coop, waitin’ on the foxes?”

  “No!” Talle shook his head irritably. “We must get back to Grostheim.”

  “Then we best ride fast,” Jaymes said.

  Var thought the man enjoyed the situation, the Inquisitor’s discomfort, and asked, “How can we escape them?” He glanced at Talle. “Without the use of magic?”

  “I can bespell our trail,” Talle snarled. “I can confuse them.”

  “Does your magic not attract the demons?” Var said. “I thought it brought them to us.”

  Talle’s sallow face darkened in a furious scowl. Jaymes asked innocently, “Ain’t that right, Inquisitor?”

  Talle’s scowl grew deeper, his cheeks darker as he nodded.

  “Then best we only ride,” Jaymes said. “An’ you do exactly what I tell you.”

  Talle seemed ready to argue: Var stepped into the breach. “So tell us how we escape.”

  “It won’t be easy,” Jaymes said, “not if they pick up our tracks an’ decide to come after us. But …”

  “I’d thought you our scout and guide,” Talle interrupted. “I’d thought you entrusted with our survival in this wilderness. Was that not your promise?”

  “Sure.” Jaymes was not at all daunted. “An’ if you shut up an’ listen, I’ll tell you how we might get away safe.”

  Var watched Talle frown and knew the balance of power was subtly shifted. He did not recognize quite how, save in terms of simple survival, and at the same time knew it ran deeper than that. He could not define it, save that Abram Jaymes had slighted the Inquisitor and forced the man to recognize a greater authority—that he knew Talle must resent and seek to revenge. Don’t get yourself hanged, Abram, he thought.

  Jaymes said, “Listen …”

  They quit Fort Harvie in the still, cold hour before dawn, when the sky hung gray above and no birds sang. The air, for all winter ended, was chill, breath steaming and frost riming the walls and all the unburied corpses between. They went out
down the cutroad through the glacis and headed straight for the Restitution. Var liked Jaymes’s plan not at all, but could think of no better alternative. Talle made no comment, and Var wondered if the Inquisitor sulked as he sat his horse, for he was slumped in the saddle and only followed.

  The river stretched wide before them, a gray-sheeted barrier flanked with drifts of snow and frozen floes that bulked in great icy splinters against the north bank like the bulwarks of some primeval fortress. The far bank was lost behind gray and misty air. Var studied the width and could not help but doubt the wisdom of Jaymes’s plan. Winter was ending and spring approaching: the ice they’d crossed to reach this side looser now, beginning to split and break up.

  “Can we do it?” he asked.

  “We don’t have much other choice,” Jaymes replied. “Look back, eh?”

  He gestured at the wilderness edge, beyond the fort. Riders showed there, coming out of the trees—upward of twenty men, Var estimated—mounted on hairy horses that plunged eagerly forward through the snow, urged on by their riders. Var wondered if he truly heard the whoops of triumph, or if that was only his imagination.

  “No; let’s go.”

  Jaymes laughed and took his mule down the bank.

  He led the way, Var behind and Talle in the rear, to where the tumbled floes ended and the breaking crust of the river began. The ice was thicker along the bank and for a while they traveled safely, even did hooves skid and slide on the uncertain surface and the animals nicker protest. Then the ice broke up and they must take different paths, not follow Jaymes but seek separate ways across the splitting crust.

  Var saw Jaymes’s mule go through the surface and come up with a great snort, Jaymes shaking his head and shouting the animal on. Then Var’s own mount stumbled and he was lost in dark and icy water that took away his breath and numbed his whole body, so that when the beast fought its way out he was trembling with the chill that seemed to pervade his entire being and could not imagine ever being warm again. He forgot anything other than survival then, until he realized his horse stood shuddering on a wide slab of ice that shifted beneath them and that he must drive it on again or freeze to death—or fall to the savages now closing on the north bank.

  “I’ll get a fire built. Warm you, eh?”

  Jaymes’s shout came back to him like a promise and he drove heels hard against the ribs of the trembling horse and forced the animal to jump the floe, to the next, to the one after that, ofttimes swimming between, convinced the cold must kill him.

  But he reached the south bank and was hauled to his feet by Abram Jaymes. His teeth chattered uncontrollably and he could not stop shivering. He looked back to see Talle emerging from the river, and knew the Inquisitor had used magic to keep himself warm.

  Jaymes said, “I’ll build a fire. Can you use that rifle?”

  Var nodded, quite unable to speak, not sure he could use the long gun; knowing that he likely must. Their pursuers were closing fast on the river.

  The scout said, “Shoot anyone who tries to cross, eh?”

  Var pulled off his soaking gloves and took the Hawkins rifle from its protective casing. He replaced the priming and the shot and tried hard not to shudder as he set the barrel across a fallen branch and endeavored to focus his eyes on the farther bank.

  “Let them get about halfway over,” Jaymes said. “Only fire when you’re sure of your target.”

  Var did his best to say “Yes,” but only managed a stuttering answer.

  Talle, miraculously dry, said, “I can destroy them.”

  Jaymes said, “Sure you can, but then we got demons on our trail, so leave this to us, Inquisitor—that, or help me build a fire.”

  Var was surprised at Talle’s agreement. He leveled his rifle and did his best to fight the numbing cold.

  The savages—what had Talle said they were called, Tachyn?—reached the far bank. Var had forgotten time in his chilly misery, and consequently not noticed that the sun had risen and driven off the mist. The north bank of the Restitution was still little more than a gray-white blur, but on it he could see horsemen urging their animals out onto the ice. He waited.

  Three ventured out. He waited until they were in midstream before he squeezed the trigger of the Hawkins, and as the drift of occluding smoke got blown away, saw a man was down. He was reloading by then, the action automatic—a reflex born of training and war. His second shot took the horse out from under the second man, and the rider slid between the breaking floes, screaming as he was sucked under. Var wondered why that had not happened to him as he set to priming the Hawkins again.

  Then a third shot rang out and a Tachyn was plucked from his saddle.

  “I’ve not lost my touch,” Jaymes said over Var’s shoulder. “An’ there’s a fire built: go warm yourself. The Inquisitor should have some food ready before long.”

  Var was too cold, too numb, to argue. He only nodded and stumbled away through the snow as Jaymes recharged his own Hawkins and set to picking off the venturesome Tachyn daring enough to attempt the river under such horribly accurate fire.

  “I must go back.” Var had drunk tea and taken food; in a while, he thought that he might even feel warm again. “I can’t leave Abram to fight them alone.”

  “Why not?” Talle asked. “It appears he can handle the savages, so leave him.”

  Var stared at the Inquisitor and asked, “To what? To face them alone?”

  “To your duty,” Talle said. “To your duty to Evander and the Autarchy.”

  “We need him,” Var said, “to get back to Grostheim.”

  Talle waved a dismissive hand. “No; we can get back without him now. Leave him!”

  Var said, “I can’t,” and went back to the river. It did not occur to him to do anything else: Abram Jaymes was his friend and might die without help. Jared Talle was … God! Jared Talle was a black crow who strutted over riven corpses, who enjoyed too much the exercising of his power. He no longer cared what Jared Talle thought of him or might do to him: he felt mightily relieved.

  Tomas Var threw himself down beside Abram Jaymes and thumbed back the hammer of his Hawkins rifle.

  “Not too many left,” Jaymes said, “an’ the ice is all broken, so they won’t likely attempt crossing too much longer.”

  Var said, “No,” and knocked a man off his horse.

  “Nice shot,” Jaymes said. “How’s the Inquisitor?”

  “Angry,” Var replied. “He wanted me to leave you.”

  “But you didn’t,” Jaymes said as another Tachyn was dropped from his mount into the cold water.

  Var said, “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?” Jaymes asked.

  “I don’t know,” Var answered. “Tell me.”

  Jaymes laughed and said, even as he sighted on a rider coming over the ice and smashed the man from his saddle with a single shot, “You work it out.”

  Var said, “I can’t,” as he took another rider down.

  “You will,” Jaymes said, priming his long rifle. “God willin’, in time you will.”

  The Tachyn were defeated and could not cross the river, for fear of the deadly rifle fire and the killing ice: they gave up and let the three men go.

  And the three returned to Grostheim to find chaos awaiting them.

  30

  Choices

  Downstream, the breaking ice that cluttered the farther reaches of the Restitution relinquished its hold to the gray swell of the tidal current. The water churned surly and sullen as the sky above, nor was the snow much better as it, in turn, gave up its hold in acknowledgment of spring’s approach, becoming a watery slush that clung to hooves and boots and threatened to transform the ground beneath to cloying mud. Random shafts of sunlight struck through the scudding gray cloud, lighting the river and the land with fleeting promises that disappointed in their brevity. A cold, wet wind blew in from the bay. Grostheim loomed ahead, alternately lit and shadowed as the cloud played games with the sun, squatting beside the river like
… Var was no longer sure, save that when he looked at the walls he wondered why they were manned by so many of his own marines, not the red-coated Militia Alyx Spelt commanded. He shivered inside his furs, sensing a wrongness.

  “Something has happened here.” It was the first time Talle had spoken in hours. Indeed, for most of their return journey the Inquisitor had gone silent, clearly angered by Var’s refusal to desert Abram Jaymes. “I sense the dimensions of magic.”

  “You would.” Jaymes spat a stream of tobacco that got lost in the slush, and grinned. “You bein’ an Inquisitor, of course.”

  Talle glowered. Var said nothing, only wished his friend might keep his mouth shut and not provoke Talle further.

  Talle said, “Do we go see, then?” And heeled his mount on. Var and Jaymes followed.

  As they came closer, Var saw muskets aimed in their direction and rose up in his stirrups to halloo the citadel.

  “I am Major Tomas Var, and I ride with the Inquisitor Jared Talle! Do you hear me?”

  From the walls came an answer: “Approach slowly, else we fire.”

  Var recognized the voice of Captain Jorge Kerik and shouted back, “Jorge, do you not know me?”

  The response was cautious, torn between suspicion and hope: “Major Var? Is that truly you?”

  “Who else?” Var shouted. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “I recognize very little these days,” Kerik returned. “Come on slowly, eh?”

  “Enough of this.” Talle mouthed a curse and drove his horse forward, his voice lifting to a magic-enhanced bellow: “I am Jared Talle, the Inquisitor, and do you oppose me I shall see you hexed and hanged, and hexed again so that your soul shall never rest.”

  The shout seemed to echo off the walls, dinning loud in the blustery air. Var saw its effect on his men: some lowered their muskets, accepting, whilst others took surer aim, as if quite untrusting of the three approaching riders. He wondered what had transpired during his absence.

  Talle appeared unconcerned, bringing his mount plunging through the melting snow to confront the wide gates that remained closed.