by Sean Rodden
Back to the place from which he had so recently and so fitfully fled. Back into the rock and stone. Back to where it had all begun.
Into the black belly of the Bloodshards.
9
THE FIRES OF THE FALLEN
“The captive is set free,
his manacles are sundered,
the greasy blindfold is removed –
and the world he knew
is now no more,
altered beyond recognition;
but it is not, in sooth, the world
that is so very different – rather
the captive has died
and knows it not.”
An etching on a pillar in the dungeons of Tomen Tho
The thin black hour before dawn blanketed the capstone of Caramel Dark in a last lingering film of night. A stubborn, clinging darkness, much like that found in the final moments of dreamless sleep, or behind the shuttered eyes of beasts born blind. A winding sheet about the world, a shroud for the soul.
Captain Bronnus Teagh stood at the eastern edge of the cuesta, gazing out and down, seeing little more than nothing. The enemy camp was there, he knew, in the distance, sprawled like vast cancroid sore upon the Northern Plains. He could feel them. A strange numbing of his skin not sourced in the chill of the autumn air; a buzzing beneath his grizzled cheeks, like so many swarming fire ants before the biting begins. He squinted against the darkness, pressed his deadened face to the cold black glass of night, but all he could discern were shades of misted things, furtive phantoms that were likely mere conjurations of his weary mind.
For he truly was weary, mind and body.
There is a fatigue, a certain lassitude that comes close and quick upon the bloodied heels of battle. Gone is the exhilaration of the fight, lost is the euphoric glee of victory, replaced by an all-encompassing enervation that saps the strengths of both sinew and soul. Throughout the war-ravaged history of Second Earth, soldiers of a thousand armies of a thousand nations had referred to this weariness by a thousand different names: The Rhelmen called it ‘the black coldness’; the Roths, ‘the sweet sorrow’; the Erelians named it ‘sundowning’. The fatigue was as much withdrawal as it was exhaustion. A hollowing, a voiding, a carving out of the spirit. Much like the stupor felt by the glossy-eyed, rot-toothed, spotted-tongued worshippers of the woohoo pipe in the broken alleys of the Old Quarter in Hiridith, or like the prolonged torpor of the drunkard after a night of either too many or too few. A warrior must take care, lest he become as addicted to battle as the unwise wine merchant is to his own wares.
The Iron Captain grimaced. He was not sundowning. He was simply… tired.
Battling things with tusks and tentacles will do that to a soldier.
Putting his back to the vast invisible wound on the prairie, Bronnus picked his way among the men sleeping beneath bundled cloaks and blankets on the cold hard stone of Caramel Dark. The day had been long, the night had been longer – the men had earned their rest. Some slept soundly, deeply, in dreamless oblivion; others tossed fitfully, shuddering and muttering in their slumber. The Captain made a mental note to speak with those who seemed most restless. A few words should be enough.
Maybe just a smile.
Better yet, a scowl.
As he walked, Bronnus wiped repeatedly at a blemish in the bronze of his breastplate. Stray demonic spray had eaten at the burnished metal, pocking the polish, sullying the sheen over his heart. No amount of rubbing, buffing, seemed to help. Frustrated, he lowered his hand, deciding that he would seek a skilled armourer as soon as this war for Eryn Ruil was done, was won. For he had determined that the fight would be won. He had met demons – demons! By the Teller’s twisted Tongue! – in the darkness, and had destroyed them. Most utterly. And had emerged unscathed.
Well, but for that damned acid burn upon his cuirass.
Can’t win them all.
Grumbling to himself, the Iron Captain walked to where his brother’s grey mare stood vigilant guard above the slumbering form of her master. The horse welcomed Bronnus with an eager bobbing of the head, a warm whicker and a quick flick of the tail, then pressed her long lean face to his chest, heedless and uncaring of the damage done the metal there. The Captain patted the animal’s cheek, and both man and mount sighed silky white streamers into the black chill of aging night.
“You always did warm my heart, girl,” the Erelian whispered as he felt something crunch quietly underfoot, “if only for loving me better than does my own brother.”
“If my horse loves you more than I do, dear Bronnus,” mumbled Axennus from beneath his blanket, “it’s likely only for the fact that you are not standing on her hand.”
The elder Teagh frowned down upon the stirring figure of the younger. He shifted his weight slightly until he heard a satisfying yelp.
“If you didn’t take your rest on the – ”
“A soldier takes his rest when and where and for however long he can, dear brother,” Axennus explained as he rose from his bed of unforgiving rock. He shed his blanket, stretched, then made quite a spectacle of flexing and relaxing the fingers of one aggrieved hand, leaving one specific digit upright a fleeting moment longer than the others.
The Iron Captain responded with a satisfied smile.
Axennus briefly brushed dust from his arms and thighs, then placed his hands on his hips and glared reprovingly at his horse. Mutely, he mouthed the word traitor.
The mare neighed.
Casually, and to no one in particular, the Southman said, “You know, the Nothirings eat their horses…”
“And you wonder that the beast prefers me, Axo.”
“Oh, I don’t wonder. You always had a rather… intimate… way with animals. Wonder? No. Worry, perhaps, but no wonder.”
The Captain’s smile failed, fell. But before either his ire or his fist could rise –
“We did well, Bron.”
A heaving sigh, a hand unclenched, a frown wiped smooth.
“We did, Axo. Exceptionally well. Better than we could have hoped, though we do have a number of wounded. They are with the healer now.”
Upon mention of the Diceman the Commander felt an oddly familiar fog rise at the back of his brain, a cloying cloud, not very unlike the hypnogogic and hypnapompic hazes that hover in threshold consciousness. Misted beginnings, etheric endings, and naught betwixt the two, save sleep most sound.
Axennus stretched once more and yawned the fog away.
“And what do we do with these?” A wave of his hand indicated the stone slaughterground upon which dead demogorgai lay heaped in their hundreds. “They are starting to stink.”
“Starting? Examine your nose, little brother. Those ugly things stank long before we slew them. But small matter, and soon to be none at all. Harlastian assures me the demons suffer sunlight no better in death than they do in life, and will be little more than dust in the wind before the new day is old.”
Axennus nodded, smiled. “Ah. Yes. Harlastian.”
“Magnificent, was he not?”
“More than magnificent.” There was awe, reverence in the Commander’s tone. “I wonder, will we ever know what truly transpired in those woods this night? There is a tale there, Bronnus, one that requires telling, but the Fiannar are not a boastful folk, and the Watchcaptain is no exception. Far from it.”
“Yes, well, some things are better left to the imagination, I suppose. Sometimes not knowing is the simpler thing, the easier thing. Not all tales need be told.”
Axennus blinked, stared at his brother. “Bron… is that you? You sound, I don’t know… insightful.”
“And you sound like an ass.”
The Commander’s teeth glistened in the dark. “That’s more like it.”
As though she comprehended the brotherly banter, the horse slowly shook her handsome head from side to side.
The Iron Captain grunted, then jutted his chin toward a somewhat loud and raucous knot of burly Nothirings nearby.
“The N
orthmen fought… effectively. Like absolute maniacs, but quite productive nevertheless.”
“I am not surprised. I well remember the Mad Earl from the victory celebrations following Rhille-haven on the Delta. I recall having heard wild stories of his battle prowess – improbable tales, however entertaining – but until this night I had never actually seen him fight. And indeed, it was a terrible thing to behold.”
“The Thyric priest was the more terrifying.” Bronnus closed his eyes, shook his head. “Chain lightning – literally. One of those things I was telling you about.”
“What things?”
“Those about which I would rather not know.”
Axennus chuckled. He then raised a hand to his smooth whiskerless cheek, pressed his fingers against an odd numbness gathering there, and an expression of solemnity came and claimed his malleable features. His hand lowered, and there was a glinting in his gaze.
“Yes, Bron, sorcery is certainly an alteration to our reality to which we must become accustomed. And the sooner the better, I’m afraid.”
The Iron Captain heaved a sough of pale resignation into the cold night air atop Carn a Mil Darach.
“I will do this, Axo,” he surrendered. “I will adjust – though I would much rather suffer a life of penial servitude.”
The Commander bit down on his tongue. Hard. Perhaps a little too hard.
“Penal, dear Bronnus,” he managed past the flaring pain in his mouth. “The word you want is penal.”
“If you say so.”
Axennus Teagh smiled, slipped a long arm about his brother’s broad shoulders and gave the burly man a gentle shake, his hazel eyes veritably sparkling with impish delight, two little stars atwinkle in the night.
“Oh, I think you would insist that I say so, dear Bronnus.” Twinkle. “In fact, I am certain of it.” Twinkle, twinkle. “Almost.”
And with a conspiratorial wink and a nod to the lean grey mare, the legendary March Fox turned away from his bemused brother and strode off to seek treatment for his badly bleeding tongue.
Behind him, the horse’s whinny sounded so very much like laughter.
The Unchained Celebrant cackled.
The sound reminded Ingvar of the laughter of the witches in the opening verses of Cam Elisa – a disturbing tale by the renowned Shiverlance about a doomed Rothic prince, a story the young Earl-to-be had been forced to read over and again during his imposed education at Ithramis. The harsh shrill mirth of the witches had often worried young Ingvar’s dreams as he tossed and turned in his blankets behind those cold stone walls so far from home. He had learned since to not dream. Or at least to not remember his dreams. The wicked things that stalked the bizarre misted world of the Other Side were not particularly to his liking.
Cackle, cackle.
Slap!
Tilbeder raised a skeletal hand to his reddening cheek. His chain rattled.
“What was that for, my jarl?”
The gigantic blond warrior grunted, a sound of satisfaction, but did not answer. He was Ingvar Dragonsbane, the Mad Earl of Invarnoth, and he would ever owe no man an explanation for either word or deed, save his King only. And his King was not there.
“Clean your chains, Celebrant,” he ordered gruffly. “They will be needed again soon. Today, predicts the Southman, and I am inclined to agree with him.”
Tilbeder frowned, muttered something incoherent, then returned to the task of rasping the corrosion from his chains. But as he worked he mumbled again, and then again, until he attracted the Earl’s attention once more.
“Is something bothering you, priest?”
“Maybe.”
Ingvar held his battle-axe up before him, eyed the blades intently – the steel had endured surprisingly well against the hard chitin of the squid-things, notches notwithstanding, but the edges needed a good sharpening.
“Must I hone my axe-blades on your brittle bones, old man?”
A sudden crepitus in his pinched chest, a jarring eructation, and the Thyric priest hacked up a great glob of brownish phlegm, attempted to spit it out, failed miserably, the amorphous splodge tumbling over his lower lip and catching in his stringy beard.
“The Southman, he – ”
“Thyr’s big balls of thunder! Will you leave off the Southman? I did not climb to the summit of the Himmilen glacier in the middle of a blizzard and cut your chains just to hear you complain endlessly about this, that, the other thing and the Southman. You will desist, Celebrant, or I will hobble you right here and now, drag you right back up that mountain of ice by your our Odwen-cursed chains and shackle you there again myself!”
A murmur only, soft, beneath the breath.
“What was that, priest?”
“I said it wasn’t a blizzard,” the old man pouted. “Just a little winter weather.”
A gap-toothed grin. “Remember it as you will, old man.”
Mumbling again.
“What? Speak clearly or not at all!”
“It was only halfway up. And you did not break my chains – that was the work of the god’s lightning.”
“Of course it was.”
Tilbeder scrubbed irritably at the stubborn black rust marring a link in one chain. The vigourous movement shook the globule of sputum somewhat free, causing it to ooze down and elongate like a long wet worm dangling from his wispy chin.
“I recall it well, my jarl. I recall many things.”
Ingvar stared silently at the old man. The Earl’s eyes were discs of blue ice in the night. Cold and glistering. He then turned away, back to his battle-axe, its notches, the dulled edges. He stowed his words, his displeasure, for another time. He was powerfully aware of the strange deadness spreading throughout his chilled cheeks. He knew that which it signified. That which it was. And so he determined to leave the Unchained Celebrant to his blackened links, his wobbling gob and woefully ignorant misconceptions.
Because the Southman was indeed correct.
The old priest would be needed.
“What do you need, sir?”
Rather than risk an incoherent and quite messy reply, Axennus pressed his lips tightly together and merely fluttered his fingers toward the closed flaps of the hospital tent.
Lionnus glanced back over his shoulder, cleared his throat, shuffled his booted feet on the pale stone.
“Are you injured, sir? The Doctor is with – ”
Axennus Teagh stared at the outrider, the Commander’s grey-green gaze emanating a cool heat, his countenance become as hard and as implacable as the Iron Captain’s had ever been.
The outrider flinched.
“I…sir…I will…”
But the Commander of the North March Mounted Reserve had already ducked past the lanky young soldier and disappeared into the Diceman’s domain.
The air in the infirmary tent was strangely cool, a little humid but not clingingly so, more a damp and soothing closeness, like a soft wet cloth pressed upon a burning wound. Rather than being rife and rank with the bodily reeks of blood and guts and gas, the place smelled of pleasantly pungent herbs and floral perfume, of sweetlick leaves, mint and spice. Especially conspicuous by their absence were the moans and groans and piercing cries of pain common to battlefield infirmaries and surgeries. That did not necessarily mean, however, that the place was exactly quiet…
“It’s the chicken, you idiot!”
“Bollocks! It’s the egg – it has to be.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Maddy. I’m with Dec. I’m thinking it’s the chicken. And just what exactly are bollocks anyway?”
“Something you don’t have, mate.”
“Hate to admit it, Whitey, Riff, but the little prick with the funny accent has a point – the chicken did come from the egg, after all. So it’s gotta be the egg.”
“Not you too, Ruby! Teller of the Tale! You morons deserve each other. The chicken laid the egg!
“Well, who laid the bloody chicken then?”
“He has a point there, Dec.”
&
nbsp; “He does at that, Whitey.”
“That’s too easy, you idiots. The rooster laid the chicken. Obviously. How do you think eggs become chickens anyway?”
“So that’s it, then… the bleeding rooster came first!”
“The rooster! Of course!”
“Had to be!”
“That must be why they call it a cock!”
“Makes perfect sense!”
“Sure does!”
“Does sound reasonable, Maddy, I’ll give you that much. It’s gotta be the rooster. No doubt about it. Glad we settled that.”
“Me, too!
“And I.”
“Same.”
The four veteran soldiers sat in gratified silence upon the bench in the waiting chamber, their backs a few strides from the entrance to the tent. Wide white smiles brightened their faces, each man immensely satisfied with himself and his comrades. And for good reason – had they not just solved the most baffling conundrum to ever confound the cerebral collective of Mankind? Too right, they did! They were entitled to a certain smugness.
Then, by reason of a strange and shared intuition – a peculiar tingling of their arms, the raised hackles on their necks, a sudden shivering in their souls – they turned as four with one mind toward the tent’s entrance.
And saw there the tall lean form of their glorious Commander.
A mad and rather inglorious scrambling to their feet ensued. Fists flailed at breasts in an unfortunate mockery of salutary synchronization. Or synchronized salutation. Whichever. Either way, those gifted diviners of the world’s most ancient ambiguities were no masters of martial discipline.
“Com – ”
“ – man – ”
“ – der!”
“Sir!”
The March Fox stood there, perilously quiet, his handsome face set of the stainless steels of sobriety and solemnity. His grey-green gaze glimmered, glittered, the everpresent amusement that danced therein become oddly oblique and obscured. Taut lips twitched at their corners but did not part, and no word did the Commander speak as he raised his hand to his bronze breast and tapped, with seeming reluctance, once, twice. The rare reticence of the man, his aberrant dourness, was a physical force, an oppressive pressure in the heart and throat of each soldier there.
