Finally one soldier called out impatiently: ‘Let me get this straight, cleric; you want us to accompany some old priest across near-impassable country, by a route you won’t disclose, to an old ruin inhabited by the burnt ashes of a five-hundred-year-old corpse, then to stick all manner of sharp things into it, and burn it again. And then, if it looks like rising to life again before the year’s out, to let this chatty foreigner destroy it by some means not even he knows of?’
‘He will know by the end of it,’ replied Appa. ‘That’s a promise.’
‘A promise made by your god – the one who appeared to you in a vision. You expect us to believe that?’
‘I know it sounds a tad unlikely, but it is true. That’s all I can say.’
‘Nice talking t’ you,’ said the mercenary, and calmly walked out of the room too. Those at the head table then had to look on helplessly as most of the rest rose to their feet and, without a word, followed his example. As the last man disappeared through the door, the company found themselves staring at a gathering of just two. These were the flamboyant Methuselech Xilvafloese and the grim mercenary with the disturbing stare.
‘Armholes!’ Gapp swore under his breath.
To either side of Nibulus there was a squeak of chair-legs across the stone floor. ‘I’m sorry, old man,’ Bhormann muttered as both he and Stufi got to their feet.
‘You too?’ Nibulus exclaimed incredulously.
‘Well, you know how it is . . .’ Stufi replied awkwardly, and the pair of them shuffled on out of the hall.
Words could not describe the absolute despair and bitterness that descended on those remaining at the table. Crushed and defeated before they even set off, they buried their heads in their hands.
‘How incredibly embarrassing!’ Nibulus breathed. This was not how he had expected his first campaign to begin. Or end.
Then he became aware of other eyes fixed upon him, and looked up to see Methuselech and the mercenary eyeing him patiently, waiting for him to say something more. Nibulus merely stared in silence at the swirling spirals of dust dancing in a beam of light slanting through the window, and listened idly to the scratching of a mouse somewhere nearby.
‘Well?’ he said eventually, with a hint of vexation in his voice. ‘What are you waiting for? Council’s over. No point in hanging around here.’
He felt a little guilty at treating his old friend Methuselech thus, especially after all the miles the man had travelled just to get here. But there was also a feeling of resentment that Methuselech should be dragging his humiliation out like this.
But the southerner, with pride in his bearing, loyalty in his eyes, sympathy in his smile and warmth in his voice, replied simply: ‘We await your orders, my lord.’
‘Come again?’ Nibulus gasped, wondering if the man was serious or if this was just another example of incomprehensible Asyphe humour. Then he turned his gaze to the other man who had stayed on. Though he could not make out the mercenary’s eyes beneath the shadow of the dark grey hood, a silent nod bespoke sufficiently of the man’s willingness to join their party.
‘So,’ Finwald announced quietly in his ear, ‘it looks like we’ve got our army.’
Nibulus just stared in front with a glazed look in his eyes, and muttered, ‘Oh, Shogg’s Arse!’
TWO
The Dream Sorcerer
BETWEEN NORDWAS AND THE high, bleak hills where Appa had prayed the previous night, the well-ordered fields and meadows gave ground to a large wood. Many small tracks threaded their uncertain way through it, parting the dense, thorny undergrowth of bramble, nettle and fern, crossing stony streams of cold, clear water, and winding through the irregular ranks of knurled trees. The folk of Nordwas depended on these woods for much of their livelihood: fuel for their fires, timber for their buildings and furniture, and nuts, fruit and game for their tables.
But despite the bounty that these woods – the remnant of a much vaster forest in ancient days – had to offer, the good people of Nordwas were loath to pass beneath its murmuring boughs. For the Aescals – the predominant race of Wyda-Aescaland – were not forest-people. They regarded such places as uncivilized, and for the people of Nordwas these woods were a reminder of wilder, more savage times, times when strange forest-cults held sway: an era of shamans, sacrifices and primeval, night-born terrors. In short, they were seen as places of fear, and only the outer reaches were trod by them.
Aescals, though, were not the only people who lived in these parts. It was just in the last few centuries or so that they had moved up from the South, dispersing an older race – one that had been here since before records began – to the fringes; banishing them to the drear hills, the cave-ridden gullies, and here to the wild woods.
But there were some places in the shadowed depths of this primordial forest where not even the older race walked. Some, even, which had never been visited by Man since the world began. It was not that they were all guarded by terrible beasts or shades – though some were, to be sure. But they were sacred, hidden, and fey, and there was something about them that forbade any disturbance by the wasteful plundering of these two-legged upstarts. The only sounds to be heard in these gloomy yet beautiful places were the moaning of the treetops in the breeze, the creaking of ancient boughs, the dull thud of falling cones upon mossy ground, the furtive rustle of unseen creatures through the fallen leaves and the scraping of beetles in rotten tree bark. Now and again the cawing of a crow would filter down through the leafy roof of these woods, but even this was rare.
Today, however, there was something – or someone – in the hallowed depths of the forest. Whether man or beast, it was impossible to tell, for though it walked upright, it was covered in shaggy grey-brown fur and moved with a stealth not seen in even the wildest, wiliest hunter. There was something in its footfall, causing neither sound nor any disturbance of the leaf-mould, which told of an instinctive oneness with its natural surroundings. Not one twig was snapped, not a blade of grass bent, nor even the fragile, dew-hung threads of a spider’s web shaken, as this unseen, unheard and unsmelt prowler stalked through the closely intertwining foliage.
Then it stopped. Crouching upon all fours, it began to crawl forward, more bestial than human now. Padding silently over the ground, it took in everything with its quick eyes: the red-and-white toadstools that forced their way up through the moist, worm-broken soil; the pale, fungal remains of a burst puffball, its cloud of brown dust spiralling up through the one pale beam of light that illumined the glade; even the hair-thin legs of a harvest spider that carefully tested its weight on a blade of grass. Not one thing went unnoticed.
But it was neither fungus nor invertebrate that this lurker sought on this day. There was something terrible in these woods that it desired; something more dangerous than the quick-tempered boar with his ripping tusks, or the ferocious Hikuma-Bear, whose arms might crush a man just for sport; something more terrible even than the solitary Monoceros, whose single horn could pierce any material known, or the flying Jaculus, that evil serpent who could launch herself from the trees to deliver a bite poisonous enough to dissolve both flesh and bone.
This silent prowler was looking for the deadly spirit known as the Bucca.
The Bucca? Its reputation and legend were known well by the men of the North, and they avoided it at all costs. By the superstitious Aescals, mumbling sterile prayers in their stony temples, it was feared even more than the Ferishers that would at times rise in packs from their rivers in the Old Kingdom to plague the northwest marches with their disgusting practices. As for the Peladanes, those braying men of the West with their shining iron implements, they refused even to believe in it. But the Torca, the original men of this realm, they alone of all the peoples of Wyda-Aescaland knew its true nature; and it was for exactly this reason that they, too, avoided it.
Few had ever seen a Bucca, and would not have recognized one even if they did. But it was believed that they dwelt somewhere in the pathless depths of these woods, f
or every now and then some poor fool who had strayed too deep would come running back to town screaming insanely, clutching his bleeding ears and covered in a horrid slime, only to die within hours.
The Bucca’s secret glades were also said to be guarded by wood-demons and wraiths. But the figure that hunted it on this day knew far more about it, and its dire companions, than did anyone. And though this hunter knew the full extent of the Bucca’s powers – and was thus the only being in these parts that had real cause to be afraid – it also knew its weaknesses, and how it could be snared.
Raising its head, the seeker sniffed. Yes, this was the place; the only glade in the woods where hawthorn, oak and ash would grow together, and thus a place of Fey. The hunter did not have to see these trees to know their kind; their smell, the sound their leaves made in the air, their very aura, these things told it all it needed to know.
Protected by a garland of blessed bay leaves to ward off evil spirits, it had stalked through the dense foliage and clammy undergrowth quite undetected, heading into this night-shrouded circle of bare earth where only the three sacred trees grew: the domain of the Bucca. The hunter could not be touched by the creature’s guardians now; only by the Bucca itself.
Crawling out of the cover of the undergrowth, it could now be seen that this hunter was, indeed, a man. A man on all fours, clad in a great, shaggy pelt of wolfskin, tattered at the edges, but uncanny in the way it truly bestowed upon its wearer the semblance of a live wolf. This pelt had the animal’s head still attached, which served as a grisly, snarling hood that stared ahead with unseeing cold, grey eyes. The eyes of the wearer himself were green, leaf-green with earth-brown flecks, and stared out from under a straggle of wild red hair beneath the covering of the wolf-mask. The intruder’s ruddy face bore an expression of the utmost concentration, for he knew well that he now needed a focusing of all his mind and instinct for the task ahead. His breath came out steaming in barely perceptible swirls in the dank air of that forever-sunless glade.
This hunter was not of the same race as the folk of Nordwas. He was a Torca, whose kind had dwelt here for thousands of years before the present-day occupants of these lands invaded from the south or west, bringing with them their new religions. Very few Torca there were now, pushed out as they had been by the bright, purging sword of Pel-Adan and his proud followers, driven north towards the Blue Mountains or west to the Old Kingdom where forest, river and the old ways still held sway. Here, in what was now called Wyda-Aescaland, many Torca had turned to hard drink, and their religion had all but vanished except in this untrod fastness of the forest’s heart where it still hung on. They did not properly understand, those degenerate outlanders, the language of the trees, the music of the roots, or the whisperings of the wind. They ran in fear whenever they heard the song of the forest-wolf, or felt the silent watching eye of the snake or the lizard upon them.
He could see the Bucca now, alone in its circle of mossy earth, unaware – as yet – of the intruder’s presence. Long he stared at it, and marvel was evident in his face. But he was not beguiled, for he had earlier rubbed his eyes with an ointment of Vervain, and was thus protected against every sort of Fey-glamer.
To the gaze of the common man, the Bucca appeared as nothing more than a tiny, delicate flower, similar to a daisy but smaller, and with an inky-violet disc that was surrounded by a ray of thin, pale-mauve petals. Actually, had a man the opportunity to study it for any length of time, he would realize that its colour was unsure, swimming before his eyes until it confused his brain. For these were the unique colours of Fey, and only the Torca shaman had eyes able to discern this particular shade of the spectrum.
And once the colour was seen, so too was the true form behind it: the Bucca was in fact not a flower but a tiny, tiny little man. A stem-thin, androgynous body of untouchable delicacy, with shifting hues of translucent violet and the smoothness of gypsum, was crowned by the disproportionately large and incongruously grotesque head resembling a wizened old man’s. Above the high forehead, a thin straggle of pale-mauve hair stuck out around its otherwise bald pate. As it stood still, swaying slightly like a man in a trance, or a flower in a breeze, its bulbous eyes remained closed under heavy, veiny lids like those of a newly hatched chick. The creature’s nose was tiny and sharp, its ears long and pointed, and its mean little mouth turned down at the corners in a perpetual grimace framed by a long, wispy beard that stank of stale carrion.
Hardly causing a stir in the air, the hunter reached into one of the many little folds of his clothing and carefully, delicately, scratched an itchy patch at the top of his thigh that had been growing more distracting by the second. Thus prepared, he waited, having already made the incantations that would ensure him the self-discipline to carry out this task. All he needed to do now was pause a while to summon up his courage, awaiting just the right moment.
Though he tried to concentrate, a hundred thoughts and images flashed through the wolf-man’s head as he stared at the manikin in front of him. That very morning he had been foraging in the woods for some hemlock to make a poultice for one of Warlord Artibulus’s servants who was suffering from rheumatism. And then, while still searching for this rare plant, the shaman had noticed something lying on the ground. It was a sprig of hazel, the holy tree of his cult. Strange, he thought, since there were no hazel trees around here, the soil not being chalky enough.
He picked it up and noticed that hanging from the smooth brown skin were eight catkins: eight soft lambtails of bright red, as though they had been dipped in the blood of the Earth Spirit himself. He had looked up to see where the sprig had fallen from, and smiled in recognition at the black shape peering down at him from a lofty branch.
It was a raven, known to those who revered him as one of Erce’s messengers. It was the raven that had dropped the hazel sprig: an omen if ever there was one. He had not hesitated then, for this portent meant something really important was up. And exactly what it signified could be discovered only by casting the runes. For each catkin on the sprig, one rune should be cast, and eight runes indicated things must be extremely urgent. He would have need of powers greater than his own to divine the intention of Erce the Earth-Spirit . . .
And what better powers than those of the Bucca?
That is how Wodeman, the sorcerer of the ancient cult of Erce, came to be here in this sacred, terrible glade.
Suddenly he knew the time had come. If he were to do it at all, he must do it now. Deftly he drew out ten foxgloves from a pouch, and slipped them one on each finger. Immediately the Bucca was aware of the proximity of the fairy-thimbles but (so Wodeman prayed) not yet aware of who wore them. Its purple eyelids snapped open, revealing two huge, featureless orbs of clear green, and a thin whine escaped its mouth. Slowly, still undulating like a flower in a breeze, it drew nearer, unable to prevent itself.
Closer, Wodeman entreated. Closer . . .
Then with lynx-like agility, he suddenly leapt out of cover and dived straight into the glade. Immediately the game was up and he had to work fast, for the Bucca knew what had happened as soon as the predator made his move – and Wodeman’s life was now in danger. He could see, hear and feel pandemonium breaking loose all around him. Before he had even grabbed the tiny body the Bucca began screaming, its deathly keening searing the very air, sending shudders of pain and protest through each fibre of every plant and animal within half a mile. As Wodeman sprawled belly-down upon the vibrating earth, trying to get a good hold on its slippery body, he saw the ugly, bulbous head of the Bucca suddenly expand to the size of a pumpkin, its now-cavernous mouth opening so wide it threatened to engulf the sorcerer’s head. The diminutive captive shrieked with a fury so diabolical it sent the trees and bushes all around swaying violently back and forth, their branches whipping the air in frenzied anguish and silently screaming in their agony.
Wodeman desperately fought with the hideous huldre, and finally gained a vice-like hold upon it. While it writhed, screeched, blew vile little raspber
ries, and near-turned itself inside out in its efforts to break free, the sorcerer continued howling out the occult incantations that would complete his spell. Though he had harvested Buccas before now, he still gasped in amazement at the awful power the little creature could release in its madness to free itself of its assassin. It even managed to prise Wodeman’s great hands apart just enough to shoot, from the vicinity of its navel, a spray of the most revolting, vile and sickening emission straight at the sorcerer’s chest. It felt as if he had been hit by an entire cauldron of this bile, and he beseeched Erce that his spell would be complete ere he was forced to draw breath once more.
Still he persisted, bawling out the last words of the spell, while wrestling with the squirmy little monstrosity with all the strength his wiry muscles could summon. Even the lifeless wolfskin he was wearing seemed reanimated under the arcane power of the Bucca, its fur bristling and jaws snarling unnaturally as it tugged and quivered upon the sorcerer’s back.
But Wodeman fought on and, with one last effort of mind and muscle, he finally ripped the minuscule body away from its massive head, the sinews tearing apart like the snapped roots of a flower being pulled from the soil. Immediately the howling of the Bucca ceased, and the woods all around, released from the power of the huldre, at last settled back into an uneasy stillness.
Nature red in tooth and claw – there was little of subtlety in the Way of Erce.
Tightly gripping the decapitated, worm-like body between finger and thumb, Wodeman booted the rapidly deflating head into the undergrowth, then ripped his own clothing off in a spasm of disgust. Still inhaling through his mouth, he writhed about on the earth to rid his body of the worst of the Bucca’s slime.
He collapsed finally onto his back, and let out a deep sigh. For a long while he lay there, resting his shuddering body and silently offering a prayer of thanks to the Earth-Spirit for protecting him. Then he got back to his feet, wiped his grimy brow, and studied the tiny strand of violet jelly that lay motionless in his palm.
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