by Tom Lloyd
Strange: it’s been a while since I cared much for surviving. But it looks like my body still does, no matter what my mind might think. Training only gets a man so far – I’ve seen even the best soldiers give up – but for whatever reason, it looks like some of me ain’t ready to go.
‘General!’ someone called, and Amber was reaching for a weapon before he managed to catch himself. Three figures were marching towards him, and his one remaining bodyguard immediately placed himself in front of Amber.
‘General, you have a visitor,’ the voice continued, and now Amber placed it: Colonel Dorom, one of the commanders for the legions in this camp.
‘You done?’ Amber asked the priest, starting to struggle to his feet.
‘Done? I haven’t even started yet.’
‘Well, go see to someone else for now,’ Amber said, ‘or get yourself some food. You make me cry in front of that bastard, someone here’ll gut you.’
The priest, taken aback, stared at Amber for a moment before turning to see who the newcomer was. He could make out a broad man, taller than average for the West, with a bald head and the handle of some large weapon sticking out from behind his back. He was flanked by two Menin in heavy armour. Meeting the healer’s gaze, the newcomer bared his teeth and growled like a dog, startling the man.
The priest retreated to the sound of the newcomer’s laughter, melting away into the dark towards the hospital tent.
‘You must be General Daken,’ Amber said wearily in Narkang, not bothering to rise.
‘Fame precedes me, eh?’
The big soldier looked up at the white-eye’s grinning face. ‘Something like that, Mad Axe. Can’t think of many with your reputation willing to walk into the camp of men who’d like to see you dead.’
‘Always had a forgiving nature, me.’ Daken pulled something from his belt and swung it towards Amber. ‘Brought you a present, too. Renowned for kissing up to my commanding officer, I am.’
Amber heard liquid slosh inside a flask and snatched it from the air. Using his damaged arm to pin the flask against his body, he opened it up and took a sniff. It wasn’t anything he recognised, but strong spirits needed no introduction. He took a swig and started coughing hard enough to sent fresh jagged pain shooting down his arm.
Daken laughed, the sound disconcerting amongst the battle-weary troops. ‘Aye, kills a cold stone dead too!’
‘Feels like my throat’s been coated in lime plaster,’ Amber spluttered, waving the flask back at Daken.
‘Take another. Goes down easier the second time.’
Amber did so, and admitted, ‘True enough, but most things probably taste smooth once half your mouth’s been burned out. Drink with me.’
The white-eye took two long pulls on the flask himself and squatted down before his new commander. ‘Now we’re all friends, hey?’
‘Far from friends,’ Amber said with a spark of anger in his eyes, ‘just on the same side for the time being. Forget that and we’ll kill you, orders or no.’
‘Don’t you worry about me; I’m loveable enough until I get some booze inside me.’
Amber couldn’t help but smile. This one was obviously as mad as his nickname suggested. He would cheerfully go through the Ivory Gates of Ghenna, just to have a look round, and then saunter back out again.
‘The priest says strong drink is a mocker,’ he said.
‘Fucking priests, eh?’
‘Indeed.’ Amber slowly levered himself up. ‘Well, General Daken, what can I do for you?’
‘Oh, nothing, just reporting in,’ Daken said. ‘Got me some catching up to do, looks like – we passed a whole lot of bodies on the way here.’
‘We’re making a name for ourselves,’ Amber agreed. ‘The Devoted aren’t so keen to face us in open battle now.’
‘Ah, what’s in a name, eh?’ asked the Mad Axe. ‘Send ’em King Emin’s way – he must be over the border now, and following in your bloody wake. Sends orders that you’re to hold position and let them make up ground; there’s forty legions just itching to get at these Devoted knights.’
‘We’ll hold,’ Amber said. ‘It’ll take us time to clear the rats from this run anyways.’
‘Good, then.’ Daken looked Amber up and down. ‘So: killed one of the Chosen, they say. Lord Tsatach?’
‘I did.’
‘Had to settle for your Duke Vrill myself,’ Daken said. ‘Don’t suppose I’ll get one like Tsatach in this lifetime now, more’s the pity.’
‘No one liked Vrill anyway,’ Amber said, in case Daken was looking to needle him – being a white-eye, he might not even have intended on it. ‘Man was a bastard, and only a half-decent soldier, for all he was a white-eye.’
‘Aye, pisses me off, that does – but you can only kill what’s in front of you, I s’pose.’
‘Is that why you’re in this? To cement your reputation? Or to eclipse older legends who gave you your nickname?’
Daken grinned widely and bowed with surprising grace. ‘We all have our reasons. I’ll leave you to your healing now, General Amber.’ And with that he turned and sauntered away, drinking from his flask and meeting the eye of every glaring soldier he passed.
‘Ravens sit on that man’s shoulder,’ Amber muttered to himself. ‘Marked by the Trickster? Creatures below, Litania’s a fool if she thinks she owns that one.’
He eased himself back down to where he’d been sitting, groaning with fatigue and the pain in his shoulder. ‘Wake me when the healer returns,’ he told his bodyguard.
CHAPTER 29
‘Getting a bit far from the camp, aren’t we?’
Isak looked at Carel and shrugged. ‘Wanted some space to breathe, away from all that.’
‘Without guards?’
The stooping white-eye smiled crookedly and walked on to a jutting stone, from where he had a good view of the day’s last light. Carel checked around and, seeing no one, found a seat near Isak. Guessing he wanted to talk, Carel fished out his tobacco pouch and tossed it over.
How many times did I tell that boy he was hard of thinking? Now it’s near enough true, I reckon. The effort it takes him demands more of a run-up. He fetched out his hip-flask and took a long pull. The evenings were getting colder now – it wasn’t just his old bones that felt it. In enemy territory Carel wore a hauberk whenever he was awake, getting himself ready for when he might need to fight in it again. Isak had on a long, shapeless shirt and his usual ragged-sleeved cape. He refused to wear armour now – he seemed to loathe the weight of metal on his body.
‘Ain’t you cold, lad?’
Isak shook his head. ‘Never cold,’ he said in a hollow voice. ‘The Dark Place is always with me – the stink of it in my nose, the dust and dirt ground into my skin. The fires there – they keep me warm.’
Carel shivered and fell silent again. Being in the Dark Place was bad enough, but bringing a part of it back out with you, that just compounded the horror.
And still he turns it to his own advantage, Carel realised, I taught him that – to take the bad parts of his soul and make them work for him. I’d just meant to channel his aggression, not give him a means to carry Death’s own weapon!
‘What happened to my father?’ Isak asked abruptly. ‘Did I kill him?’
‘To my eternal surprise, no,’ Carel said with a cough. ‘You gave it a good go, but he’d been possessed by a daemon at the time, so on balance it was fair enough.’
‘I don’t remember my mother, but I wouldn’t, would I?’
‘No, lad, but you never minded hearing about her.’
‘Larassa, that was her name . . .’
Carel smiled and swapped one of the lit pipes for the hip-flask. ‘That was her. She was a wild one, your ma was.’ He looked up as a sudden movement caught his eye: black shapes darting through the night, accompanied by excited clicks on the edge of perception. ‘Calling bats to you again?’ he murmured.
Isak shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t need to call them now. They can hear t
he sword’s call.’
‘Can anything else?’ Carel asked more seriously, ‘daemons, maybe?’
‘Maybe,’ Isak admitted, ‘but they’re no threat.’
‘Really? Fate’s eyes, boy, you sure about that?’
The white-eye looked up with a mournful look. ‘You’ve no idea of the power in my hands – none at all.’
‘So tell me, share the burden.’
‘The burden would flay the flesh from your bones,’ Isak said. ‘When I say you’ve no idea, I mean just that: you can’t understand the sheer power; most mages wouldn’t be able to. I can feel the Land under my skin, the slow reach of mountains, the pounding rivers, the clouds darting above them in the dark.’
Carel fixed his eyes on Isak. At last he asked, ‘Why’re we out here, Isak?’
Isak was silent for a while, then he said, ‘To find some peace. I – we – were once friends, you say. I don’t remember you, but I do remember something – someone – I trusted, and that memory calms the storm in my mind.’
‘How much longer can you stand it?’ Carel asked with dismay. ‘How long before Termin Mystt tears out your mind, rips your soul apart? I can see the toll it takes on you – half the army can.’
‘My soul’s already torn,’ Isak whispered. ‘There’s no stitching these strips back together again; they’re only good to hang on the trees at midsummer. All I have are pieces – the white-eye, the mortal, the dead man . . .’
‘The Gods-blessed champion,’ Carel added firmly, ‘the Lord of the Farlan, the Chosen of Nartis and conqueror of Aryn Bwr. Don’t make you any less of a man. Look at all of us – Vesna, Emin, Doranei, me as well. We’re all in pieces one way or another. That’s what fighting men are.’ He hesitated, bowed under by the weight of thoughts and feelings a soldier normally tried so hard to ignore.
Then he shook himself and went on, ‘Isak, we fight as a unit because together we’re stronger. Together we can do what alone we’d never manage. All us soldiers, we’re dragging the ghosts of fallen friends and chains of sin as only killers can. It steals a part of you – ’less there’s nothing worth stealing; those’re the most broken of the lot of us. One-legged men, all helping each other to the bar – that’s a soldier’s joke, ain’t it: drinking together and falling as one.’
Carel scratched his chin. ‘Anyways, point is this: you’ll not find a bigger crowd of misfits and madmen than in an army, and war only makes us worse. War takes the best of us and cuts out their best, so the only way any of us survives is with the help of his friends.
‘But it only works if you trust the man beside you, trust his shield at your side. We draw our strength from each other, Isak – it’s when we step away from the line and move on our own that we’re at our weakest.’
Isak smiled wryly. ‘That’s one lesson I’ve learned – one of yours, maybe, that I did take to heart: I remember not to be just the colour of my eyes, and I remember that without others I’m nothing.’
Carel heard the fatigue in Isak’s voice. He gave the massive young man a nudge to shake him out of his maudlin thoughts.
‘You realise half of what I said was just to shut you up? You always were a mouthy little bastard – I needed to give you something to chew over so you weren’t picking fights all the time.’
Isak laughed briefly and the tension visibly drained from his hunched shoulders. ‘I think you don’t realise how much you taught me,’ he said, sounding far more like the youth Carel had once known. ‘I hope the Land appreciates it one day.’
‘Hah! Aye, a bloody statue would be nice, yes – but I won’t hold my breath. Right now I reckon I’d settle for one sufficiently appreciative woman.’
‘Do you trust me?’ Isak asked unexpectedly.
Carel narrowed his eyes. ‘Aye, I do,’ he said firmly, ‘but if you’ve got anything nasty planned, I’d like to hear about it first.’
‘Sorry—’
—and a loud thwack broke the peace of evening and Isak was driven forward. He staggered a few steps and then dropped to his knees, a crossbow quarrel protruding from his back. Carel howled with rage and jumped to his feet, tugging his sword from its sheath as he looked for their attackers.
He didn’t have long to wait: two men broke from the cover of a tree, one discarding a crossbow as they ran, their swords drawn.
‘Back off, old man,’ the taller of the two called, ‘or we kill you too.’
‘No other way it’s going to happen,’ Carel growled. He spared Isak a glance: he was still on his knees, but his abused face was contorted with pain.
The two men didn’t respond as they charged forward with swords and daggers drawn. Both wore army leathers and hauberks; most likely they’d just slipped off the tabards which indicated their unit.
Carel backed around Isak, not wanting to leave the white-eye, but aware he stood little chance, a one-armed man against two trained fighters. As they reached Isak, both men glanced down to check on him, obviously well aware of a white-eye’s resilience. They shared a grin at the expression of pain on his face and his clawed, empty hands.
‘Looks like that stuff was worth the price,’ the leader com mented, then gestured at Carel. ‘Keep him back.’
‘Name your price. We’ll double it,’ Carel shouted.
‘Sorry, friend. Ilumene don’t like traitors – he takes it personal like.’
Without warning Isak swung around, as though taking a wild swipe at the man advancing on him.
Carel blinked as black stars burst before his eyes. A blurring sense of darkness streaked across his vision and a wet clap echoed around them. He reeled, head suddenly aching as though the air pressure had dropped in a heartbeat. It seemed that Isak had drawn a curtain through the air in front of him, a dark haze that melted to nothing as the taller attacker collapsed sideways, his entire body chopped in two. The second man grunted in shock and pain, staggering back with his dagger-hand pressed to his temple, and Carel seized the advantage.
He slashed up at the underside of the man’s hand, slicing through the soft flesh before stabbing him in the kidney. The man howled and fell to his knees, dropping his weapons.
Carel worked his sword savagely in the wound as the man screamed at the top of his lungs.
‘Who’s working with you?’ he yelled in the man’s ear. ‘Tell me, and I’ll drag you to a healer!’
The soldier’s eyes were wide with pain. ‘I don’t—’ he gasped, and then managed, ‘The coin—’
‘Coin?’ Carel demanded, but as he did so he saw a chain under the man’s collar. He tugged hard on it and the necklace came away in his hand. The soldier shuddered as the sword slid out of his back.
Carel held it up – it was just a scratched coin on a chain – and tossed it aside, and for a moment he thought he saw something akin to hope in the man’s eyes, but then Isak stabbed forward like a mantis and impaled him on the black sword.
In the blink of an eye the weapon had vanished from sight and Isak was left flexing his crabbed fingers as the corpse flopped to the ground.
‘Isak!’ Carel shouted, suddenly remembering the bolt in his back. He discarded the sword and ran over, but before he could touch the bolt, Isak raised a hand to stop him.
‘It’s not bad,’ he said, ‘really—’
‘Not bad? There’s a bloody arrow in your back!’
Isak grinned weakly and rapped his knuckles on his chest.
‘Armour?’ Carel gasped, tearing at Isak’s shirt until he could see the leather cuirass underneath. ‘You little bastard, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Wanted it to be convincing,’ Isak said. He made a small gesture and looked all around as he pushed himself back to his feet, then he returned his attention to Carel, apparently satisfied with what he saw or didn’t see. ‘There’s still metal in my flesh, though. Help me off with this, will you?’
‘We’re safe now?’ And when Isak nodded he unsheathed his knife to cut away the shirt. The bolt had penetrated his armour, the plate of stiffened leath
er absorbing most of the blow, so no more than the tip had gone into Isak’s flesh.
‘You still got lucky,’ Carel growled. ‘Reckless bastard – what did he mean about it being worth the price?’
Isak winced at the sting in his back. ‘They wanted my skin broken – the bolt was tipped.’
‘Poison?’
‘No, something Emin told me Ilumene was skilled at making: it dulls magic, so it would make any energies I tried to gather slip through my fingers.’
‘Didn’t you use magic just now?’ Carel asked, bewildered.
Isak flexed his fingers and smiled. ‘Of course – but they were just hired agents. All they saw was an unarmed white-eye and a one-armed old man. They weren’t to know nothing they cooked up could match Termin Mystt.’
‘What about me – was I just bloody bait for you? What protection did I have?’ Carel shouted, suddenly furious at Isak’s risk-taking.
‘Why would they have shot you? You’re not the threat; the white-eye mage was.’
‘They might have had two bloody crossbows!’
The white-eye just shrugged. ‘True – they didn’t, though.’
‘Oh well, thank you very much,’ Carel snapped. ‘Glad I could be of use.’
‘You were,’ Isak said firmly. ‘We knew there’d be agents in the army – how many is anyone’s guess. But I knew they wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to take me when I looked most defenceless. Better they try me, than go for one of the weaker ones carrying a Crystal Skull. You said it yourself: trust the man beside you. Well, I did, and we both survived.’
Carel stopped dead, hearing his own words turned against him. The anger remained undiminished, but he’d long since learned anger was no use when arguing with Isak. No one could compete with a white-eye there.
‘You could have told me,’ he mumbled, retrieving his sword and turning his back on Isak. ‘Trust me enough to tell me, too.’
