Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Debo trotted toward the big tree. A shaft imbedded in the trunk and he crouched. And from the brightening shadows behind them a voice shouted: “Not the child! Chakthi wants him alive.”

  Davyd shuddered at thought of why and cocked his musket. A man showed and he fired: saw the warrior flung back, a shadow redder than the waning night’s spread across his chest.

  Another fell with one of Rannach’s arrows in his throat; a third blown down by Arcole. But still there were too many, spreading like ravening wolves through the timber, closing on the three men.

  “There are six of them left,” Rannach said. “We must kill them all, else …”

  He need say no more, nor had the time, for the Tachyn closed in, intent on their kill.

  Two were braver than their fellows—they charged screaming, with raised hatchets and knives in their hands. Arcole shot one; Davyd missed the other, who ducked under Rannach’s flighted arrow and came on shrieking his war cry, like some demonic shadow running out of the night.

  Rannach dropped his bow and drew his own hatchet. Ducked under the Tachyn’s swing to sink his ax hard and deep into the Tachyn’s ribs, rising up to propel the warrior over his shoulder so that he thudded against the tree behind which Debo hid. Rannach turned, arm lofted, the Grannach blade spinning from his hand to descend into the Tachyn’s skull, splitting bone so that blood and brain matter spread sticky across the tree.

  The remaining Tachyn sent arrows flying. Then rifles barked from out of the night and pained screaming from behind the beleaguered defenders, and the arrows ceased. The rifles echoed again through the trees and a voice shouted in Evanderan, “This way, eh? Come in slow.”

  Rannach said, “What’s this?”

  “Friends, I think,” Davyd said. “Perhaps the Maker favors us.”

  Rannach stared at him with doubtful eyes. “Here? In this strange land?”

  “They’ve slain our enemies, no?”

  There was no more sound from the Tachyn: perhaps he was right. Surely, he prayed it be so.

  “I’ll see. Wait here with Debo.”

  The Commacht akaman retrieved his hatchet and slipped away. Moments later he returned to announce that all the Tachyn were, indeed, dead. “I do not understand this,” he said.

  Davyd shrugged. “We can find out.”

  “You comin’ in or not?” the voice asked.

  Arcole said, “He’s Evanderan, and there were two guns firing. They might be soldiers in the God’s Militia.”

  Davyd shook his head, not quite sure why he did—only knowing that he felt safer now—and said, “What choice do we have?”

  Arcole said, “You’re our guide—what do you say?”

  Davyd said, “Let’s talk to them.”

  They went forward, and Arcole hesitated as he saw Tomas Var standing beside a long-haired man dressed in filthy rawhide, his mouth working disgustingly on what was obviously a wad of tobacco from the stains decorating his straggly beard. Both held long rifles cocked and aimed.

  Var gasped. “God, is that Arcole Blayke?”

  “Var?” Arcole returned. “Tomas Var?”

  “What in God’s name,” Var asked, “are you doing here?”

  And Arcole said, “I might ask the same question of you.”

  “You know him?” Abram Jaymes looked from Var to Arcole.

  Var nodded; Arcole nodded, and both said, “Yes,” together.

  Jaymes said, “Well, make your reunion later, eh? The noise we made’ll likely bring us some more hostiles, unless they got somethin’ better to do. So we’d best get out o’ here.”

  Var stared at Rannach, clearly suspicious, and Arcole said, “He’s a friend, not one of them,” stabbing a thumb back at the trees. “Rannach’s his name, and he carries his son—Debo. You remember Davyd?” And when Var shook his head: “From the ship. He was with me and Flysse.”

  Var shook his head again, perplexed. Jaymes said, “Dammit, you plannin’ to stand here talkin’ until them hostiles arrive?”

  “There’s a fort nearby, no?” Davyd’s question surprised them all. “We’d best go there.”

  “It’s deserted,” Var said. “Everyone slain.”

  Davyd said, “We shall be safe there. For a while, at least.”

  Arcole said, “Trust him—he’s a Dreamer.”

  Debo was set astride Jaymes’s horse and Davyd on Var’s. The others went afoot, trotting beside the animals, urgent through the fading night until they came to a wide avenue of cut trees, the ground wagon-trammeled underfoot, and ahead bulked the lonely shape of Fort Harvie. They reached the gates and ran between them, Var and Jaymes pausing to shoulder the heavy timbers closed, Arcole slamming the great crossbar into place.

  He stared around, eyes widening as dawn’s early gray revealed the contents of the fort. Death hung fulsome in the air, redolent of what had transpired here.

  He said, softly, “God!” and heard Davyd groan, and went to help his comrade down from the winded horse.

  Davyd’s eyes were wide as his own, and he felt the young man shudder as they both stared aghast at the relicts of carnage. He stared at the corpses littering the ground and felt the day press horrid omens on him.

  Davyd seemed incapable of movement and he clasped the youth’s shoulder, forcing his voice to a confidence he scarcely dared trust. “God knows it stinks, but it might hold them out.” He chuckled cynically. “And we’ve nowhere else to go, eh?”

  “No.” Davyd shook his head and jabbed a finger at the bodies. “Save to join them.”

  Chakthi raged at the descending moon and the rising sun. His men had come back with nothing—neither news of Debo recaptured nor Rannach caught. He tore at his hair and ripped at his face until blood streamed his cheeks and tainted spittle flecked his mouth. He screamed his anger so that none dare approach him save Hadduth.

  “There’s another,” the wakanisha said. “And it must be done this night.”

  “Another?” Chakthi rounded on his Dreamer, bloodied nails clawing at Hadduth’s throat. “Did you not tell me it must be Vachyr’s son? Did I agree to that sacrifice for nothing? The blood of my son’s son, you said! That should deliver me all I want, you said!”

  “It were better Debo,” Hadduth said, lurching back, dodging a flailing fist, “but if not him, then another. But tonight! It must be on the waning of the New Grass Moon—when it happened before. Only now can Akratil come to us in body, with all his Horde.”

  Chakthi stared hard at the man who had promised him everything: revenge and dominion. He wiped blood from his cheeks and contemplated slaying his wakanisha. Save perhaps the man might still deliver him his goals: “Tell me.”

  “It depends,” Hadduth said, “on coincidences—on the moon and the time—on things I cannot properly explain. We need one raised in Ket-Ta-Thanne, who’s come through the Grannach ways. Debo was the choicest—mingling Tachyn and Commacht blood—but we’ve another.”

  Chakthi scowled and asked, “Who?”

  “Taza,” Hadduth said. “He’s not Commacht, but Lakanti—but even so …” He shrugged. “He looked to slay the stranger, Davyd, and brought us Debo. He came through the Grannach tunnels with Akratil’s aid: he’d do, I think.”

  “He could bring the Breakers here?” Chakthi asked.

  “I think so,” Hadduth said.

  “Then do it,” Chakthi commanded. “Now!”

  Taza was drunk on the tiswin. His head swam so that the crescent of the moon shone trebled before his swimming eyes and the trees seemed to shift before his gaze as he lounged beside the fire. He could not feel entirely sorry that Debo was rescued—he felt a certain fondness for the child—but he wondered how that escape might affect his standing with his new clan.

  He found out when Hadduth approached, Chakthi at his side and warriors in escort.

  He opened his mouth to ask if Debo had been found and gasped as he was lifted up and hauled bodily to the center of the camp. Suddenly he felt very afraid; more so when Chakthi smiled.
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br />   There was a pole erected before the central fire, decorated with the symbols Hadduth had promised to explain to him: he was abruptly lashed to the post. He began to scream, protesting this indignity. Chakthi snarled and struck him across the face, the blow hard enough he was stunned. By the time he recovered his senses, he was bound by feet and hands, tight against the pole. He was tied naked, paint daubed on his chest and abdomen, his face. And Hadduth was studying the moon, a knife in his right hand, his mouth moving as he spoke.

  Taza heard him say, “Akratil,” and began to scream again, but then the blade slid down his chest, tracing the outlines of the sigils painted there. It went across his belly and his screaming shrilled. He wished he’d never come to this place, never betrayed the People. Then the blade landed across his throat and only a bubbling sound came out, washed away on the flow of blood.

  Abruptly, as if ignited by the gore spilling from Taza’s severed throat, he was consumed by flame. It began where his windpipe was cut, and spread swift as wildfire over his body. It burst from his eyes and his mouth, from out of his nostrils and his ears. He became a torch, flames rising incandescent into the night, a great swirling pyre that outshone the fire behind him as if that were a mere candle dimmed by the greater brilliance. In moments he was gone and where he had stood there was a great corona of flame out of which rode a dread warrior armored all in gold, with skulls hung from the saddle of his weirdling horned mount, whose eyes, like those of its master, seemed to shine with internal flame, as if they reflected the pits of hell.

  Akratil looked down on the gaping Tachyn and smiled from under his golden helmet.

  “You have done well.”

  He walked his dread mount forward. Hadduth and Chakthi cringed as he loosed the helm and shook out his flame-red hair. Hadduth mumbled, “Master, welcome.” Akratil laughed and paced the sable horse on, clear of the flames.

  Trees scorched in that blaze, pine sap crackling as it burned, cones popping; lodges took flame and the Tachyn howled in awe and terror.

  And then, as Akratil raised a beckoning gauntlet, the Horde came through the fire, out of Ket-Ta-Witko into Salvation.

  33

  The Terror Again

  Jared Talle stirred in his sleep, disturbed by the images of his dreaming. Unpleasantly familiar figures stalked the avenues of his nocturnal imagination, prompting him to twist and turn in the unkempt bed, sweat starting on his sallow brow, his heart pounding arrhythmically. He was not a Dreamer, but deep within the confines of his soul he knew that what he dreamed now was true—that the ghostly figures that had wandered the streets of Grostheim were become fleshed: were come to Salvation.

  Abruptly, he woke, wiping at his sweat-streamered face with a sheet that was no drier as he forced his mind to calm, demanded that the terror subside. Slowly, by sheer effort of will, he made his breathing and his heartbeat slow, and he rose, tugging on one of dead Andru Wyme’s opulent dressing gowns. He snatched at the bell cord that would summon a servant, and when the indentured man appeared ordered that the fire in Wyme’s study be built up and coffee brought him there. It was, he noticed when he glanced at the window, a little after midnight, and the moon was a narrow slash of curved light against a cloudless sky all filled with twinkling stars. Both the moon and its attendant satellites seemed to him fiery, as if some vast conflagration reflected against the sky. For a moment he thought he heard the pounding of clawed hooves vibrate the floor beneath his feet, and the howling of myriad savage voices; and then, as if the dreams were reborn, he saw again, vividly, the dread riders pouring out of fire, spilling like some awful bloody flood into the lands of the Autarchy. He shook his head and poured a glass of water, frowning irritably as the surface rippled in his trembling hand.

  Dear God, he thought, grant me strength against whatever comes. I am Your servant and do Your will: be with me. Then he dressed and went to the study.

  The nervous servant—Talle had never bothered to learn his name—had built the fire and lit the lamps. A woman came with a silver tray bearing a pot of coffee and a cup. Talle waved them both away and they scuttled out, glad to be dismissed. He knew he frightened them, and savored their fear: that was only just—he was, after all, an Inquisitor. But what disturbed him this night was the fact he felt afraid. He knew what came toward him—into Salvation and toward Grostheim—from his necromancy. The raised spirits of the dead Tachyn had told him what these creatures were and what they intended, and he had thought to harness that power to move between worlds to the Autarchy’s yoke, to shape an alliance. But now …

  He swallowed coffee and paced the chamber, thinking on his dreams and all he’d seen in them, known in them. The raised dead had talked of hope, of ambition, of revenge and dominion—but that was no more than fanciful dreaming. Those pitiful savages were doomed as any others the Breakers had conquered and destroyed. Talle knew this, surely as if it were writ in stone: the Breakers were destruction incarnate; they would use the Tachyn and turn against them sure as some farmer might raise a pig and slaughter the animal when it grew fat. And they would come against Grostheim, such dread warriors as could traverse the paths of time and space, dependent on man’s perfidy.

  Jared Talle paced the floor, contemplating such power. Could he but own it, place it in the hands of the Autarchy … why, all the universe might be delivered up, and he forever hailed as the greatest Inquisitor of all time. But how? Should he wait for them to come, or go to them? He drank coffee as the sky grew light and birds began to sing, his mind racing, formulating and discarding plans until he hit upon the one he thought might succeed.

  Fire climbed the sky, dimming moon and stars as if all the wilderness took flame to ignite the heavens. There was no sound, but still it seemed the very earth trembled. It seemed to Davyd that a great thunderclap shook the world, and he cried out, staring at the blazing sky. The flames reminded him of all the old fears—forgotten since he’d come amongst the People in Ket-Ta-Thanne, but now returned manifold. He saw again the burnings in Bantar and felt the old terror: he began to shudder.

  Abram Jaymes said, “What was that?”

  Debo began to wail. Rannach held him close, stroking his hair as he looked to Davyd for answer.

  Davyd said, hoarse, forcing himself to speak through the dryness in his throat, “They’ve brought the Breakers back.” He repeated the statement in the tongue of Evander, that the others understand.

  Rannach cursed and invoked the Maker’s name; Arcole asked, “What do we do?”

  Davyd shook his head, unable to say more.

  Tomas Var said, “These are the ones Talle would communicate with?”

  “Talle?” Arcole asked. “Who’s Talle?”

  “An Inquisitor.” Var scanned the terrain beyond the walls. Their pursuers appeared to have gone, dissolved into the shadows or returned to the fire. “His name is Jared Talle. He’s …”

  “A sorry, miserable bastard,” said Abram Jaymes, “who’s made Salvation his province worse even than that fat cripple Wyme. He raised the dead here.”

  “He thought to …” Var shrugged, hesitating. “Communicate with the … Breakers? He thought to utilize their powers on behalf of the Autarchy—that together they might conquer worlds unknown.”

  Arcole said, “He’s mad.”

  Davyd only shuddered, wondering what had come into this world and what he might do to halt it.

  Rannach frowned and said, when their words were explained to him, “The Breakers kill everything! They slew the Whaztaye and half the Grannach, they would have slain us, had we not fought them and Morrhyn opened the gate to Ket-Ta-Thanne. They must be stopped, and if this Jared Talle believes he can deal with them, then he is corrupted as Chakthi and Hadduth.”

  “Likely he is.” Arcole barked a cynical laugh. “He’s an Inquisitor. But what can we do? The Maker knows, we’re stranded here in this damn fort, and if Davyd’s right, then they’re come.”

  “Davyd is right,” Rannach gave him back. “Davyd is a wakanisha suc
h as we’ve never known, and he will find an answer. Morrhyn believes in him, no? Should we not?”

  Davyd heard their words dimly through the tension that seemed to vibrate his body. His heart raced, and it was as if his bones shuddered so that every wound, each scar, throbbed with pain. The very air seemed to him to bear the taint of evil, washing acidic over his skin. He knew the night was cold, but his face burned. He felt old and weary and would have sooner curled up and gone away into death’s sleep than face what he knew must lie ahead: it seemed too much, too many demands on his tired soul. He wished Morrhyn were there to advise him. He said, in both tongues, “I must sleep.”

  Abram Jaymes said, “I don’t rightly understand much of this, but we should be safe here awhile, so why not? You surely look weary.”

  Arcole said, “Here, I’ll help you,” and took Davyd’s musket away and put an arm around the snow-haired young man and led him down from the parapet to a room where he lit a fire and set Davyd to rest on blankets and makeshift pillows and left him there.

  … Where Davyd dreamed.

  … Of fire and blood and the Horde, and Var’s blue-coated marines fighting alongside the People; and of a terrible fire that consumed the world, and all the worlds; and of branded folk striding alongside soldiers, and of himself lashed to a stake as the flames took hold and filled his nostrils with the stench of his own burning flesh …

  … And of confrontation with a warrior armored all in gold, mounted on a dread horse, who brought a great, curved sword sweeping down against him …

  … And finally of Morrhyn, who strode a familiar tunnel, lit by the Grannach’s magic, his seamed face determined, as if he moved toward some terrible conclusion. It seemed to Davyd that the Prophet marched at the head of an army, as if all the warriors of the People followed behind. Davyd saw Yazte there, and Kanseah, and Dohnse; Colun and his sturdy Grannach fighters, and—dimly, this confusing—Flysse and Arrhyna, each dressed in warlike garb, with weapons that usually the women of the Matawaye did not carry. Then the images blurred, as if flame filled the tunnel and in their place was a vision of the Horde riding in such fire that consumed all else, as if worlds burned on their arrival.