by David Hair
*
Three days later, Larch Hawkstone nudged his mount into motion and the sixty Borderers at his back followed him in a heavy thud of hooves, flowing down the slope towards the clearing where Dash Cowley – or whatever his real name is – lived. Eight dead men and four dead horses lay scattered about the yard, stripped of weapons and left to the elements and the wild dogs. There were a dozen of those, snarling at the newcomers; they only scattered when he fired his pistol over their heads. Birds rose from the trees, squawking indignantly, but no one appeared from the hut.
‘As I thought,’ he grumbled. ‘The bastard’s legged it.’
The governor, unnerved by the news that Cowley was a sorcerer, had dithered for a day, and another full day had passed while he’d authorised the release of men and a pair of praxis-sorcerers, summoned from the nearby Bolgravian port of Gollostrad.
Hawkstone wasn’t overly troubled by Cowley’s absence – in truth, he’d not been overly anxious to face the sorcerer again – but what did alarm him was that most of Teshveld appeared to have vanished as well.
We’ve seen no one in the last five miles – every farmhouse and hovel we’ve passed has been deserted, he worried. What’s going on?
This was serious: by his count some forty or fifty families were missing, and that meant lost tax revenue for the governor: it meant no provisions for winter, fodder for men and beasts, or tavern girls to make this Deo-forsaken place halfway bearable.
Even my daughter has vanished . . . That thought rankled, even though the girl was a burden on Hawkstone’s purse. Though he’d never have admitted it, the few times her mother had allowed him to hold her, to be a father to her, were like balm on his chafed soul. That he might never see her again was a hideous thought.
I don’t mind never seeing Cowley again, but I want my girl back . . . And I want to know where everyone is.
Sweat formed on his brow as he reined in before the hut. The door was hanging open and the wagon was gone.
Governor Veterkoi’s going to blame me for this, I just know it.
‘The feckers ’ave feckin’ run off,’ Piper wheezed through his bruised windpipe. ‘All’ve ’em.’
‘Obviously,’ Hawkstone growled. ‘Search this place – rip it apart. I want to know where they’ve gone.’
While his men dismounted, he turned to the praxis-sorcerers the governor had assigned him: surly blond-haired Bolgravian brothers just out of the academy. ‘Can you find them, Lords?’ he asked, hating having to be deferential to the foreign conquerors.
The young men glanced at him. ‘Yuz,’ they chorused in low, accented tones, before going back to their own discussion and pointedly ignoring him.
Fuming, Hawkstone directed his men, but the search was brief and fruitless. Cowley was gone, but who knew where? Morosely, he went from corpse to corpse. These were men he’d led: yes, for the most part they’d been mindless thugs, but he was accountable for them.
Veterkoi’s going to have my warrant for this.
Just then, hooves thudded and he turned to see a lone horseman coming down the slope towards them at a gentle trot. The rider wasn’t a big man and he was unarmoured, but even confronted with sixty heavily armed men, he appeared utterly indifferent, and that gave Hawkstone pause.
‘Halt,’ he called, glancing at the Bolgravian sorcerers, who were muttering and tracing finger-patterns on the air. His Borderers grasped hilts and unstrapped weapons, but the rider didn’t react, just continued his slow advance.
‘I said, halt!’ Hawkstone warned.
This time, the rider reined in and raised his right hand, displaying an iron medallion.
He wasn’t close enough yet for Hawkstone to make out the two-headed eagle of Bolgravia engraved on the metal but he had no doubt that’s what he would see.
‘Which one of you is Capitan Hawk Stone?’ the stranger asked, his voice wooden.
He was both ordinary and strange: not high Bolgrav, but one of the lesser tribes of that vast land, with dark hair and a pale, sunburnt face. He was clean-shaven, with big watery grey eyes and an oddly guileless expression, as if he didn’t appreciate the danger he was in.
‘It’s Hawkstone – I’m he,’ Hawkstone said. ‘Who are you?’
The rider looked him over unhurriedly, as if considering whether he was worthy of that information. ‘My name is Toran Zorne,’ he said at last, in well-enunciated Magnian. ‘I am an Under-Komizar of the Ramkiseri.’
The Bolgrav secret service—
Hawkstone saw the two sorcerers exchanging a worried look, then they touched their right fists to their hearts, and that was alarming because usually sorcerers deferred to no one, not even the governor. But of course, Ramkiseri agents were also sorcerers – and they were infamous.
This Toran Zorne is probably four times the magician my Bolgravian twins are.
‘How . . . uh . . . how may we serve?’ Hawkstone croaked, noticing that his men had already found other things to look at.
Zorne gazed about him, his expression as flat as his voice. ‘I am seeking a man named Jesco Duretto, a Shadran mercenary. He was under surveillance in Falcombe until recently, when he disappeared. Have you seen him?’
Hawkstone didn’t know the name, but there’d been a Shadran here a few days ago, an oily, olive-skinned killer with a smarmy tongue. ‘I may know him,’ he said carefully.
‘There is no “may”: you know him, or you do not. Which is it?’
Hawkstone swallowed his impatience; you didn’t lose your temper around a Ramkiseri agent. ‘There was a Shadran here a few days ago, but I never learned his name.’
‘It is your business to police this land,’ Zorne replied, in that strange, disconnected manner he had. ‘Why did you not identify him?’
Because he had a flintlock trained on me . . . ‘I’m sorry, Komizar—’
‘Under-Komizar. Why was he here?’
‘Uh, he was with a man called Cowley – Dash Cowley, who lives here with his daughter, a skinny girl, about fifteen.’ The Bolgravian gave no indication of knowing the name. ‘There was a Norgan as well.’
‘Describe these people.’
‘Cowley’s a physicker, dark hair, lean build, nose like a rudder on a riverboat. His daughter’s called Zar – she’s a skinny reed. The Norgan was a big bastard, over six foot tall – oh, and he was a bearskin, by Gerda.’
‘Dash Cowley.’ The Ramkiseri agent pondered, then said, ‘That is not his name, but I believe these are the people I seek. Where are they now?’
‘Gone.’
The Ramkiseri agent looked at him like he was a stupid child. ‘Gone where?’
‘We don’t know.’
Under the man’s expressionless gaze Hawkstone found himself blurting out the whole sorry story, concluding, ‘—now it looks like the whole damned district’s gone missing. Could be as many as three hundred folk.’
‘And you let three men face down you and your men?’
Hawkstone swallowed. ‘You weren’t there.’
The Ramkiseri man heard that in stony silence, then, somewhat surprisingly, said, ‘You did right to withdraw. They would have killed you otherwise, because they are more competent than you.’ He looked around the circle of hard-faced men, then focusing on the two Bolgravian sorcerers, fired a string of curt, atonal phrases in their native tongue at them.
Turning back to Hawkstone, he asked, ‘Why did you confront this man in the first place?’
Hawkstone flushed, unused to being questioned like this by anyone but the governor, and never in front of his men. There would be heads cracked if anyone thought this meant a lessening of his authority. But that was for later.
‘A Bolgravian lord named Gospodoi was reported missing and it is known that he visited Cowley.’
‘I know of Lord Gospodoi.’ Zorne frowned. ‘What business would he have with Cowley?’
‘Someone in his party was ill, according to the innkeeper. Cowley is a physicker.’
‘He’s not a healer. He
’s a dissident and a rebel. Where is this tavern owner?’
‘Gone, with the rest.’
The Ramkiseri agent’s face flickered with mild annoyance, the most expression he’d hitherto shown in the conversation. He dismounted, reverted to Bolgravian and conversed with the young sorcerers. After a minute he turned back to Hawkstone and said, ‘Take your soldiers one hundred yards down the road and out of sight, Captain. Then return here with one of your men. On foot.’
Hawkstone noticed his men watching beadily, to see if he’d take the order. He ached to refuse, but keeping his anger hidden, he said curtly, ‘You heard the Komizar—’
‘Under-Komizar,’ Zorne interrupted.
‘Under-Komizar . . . Come on, you lot, shift your arses.’
He herded his men up the road and over the rise. The first person to say anything about taking orders from that fish-faced Ramkiseri prick was going to get a fist in the ear, but he hoped they knew better. Foreign lords came and went, but he was still their captain.
Piper threw a look over his shoulder, then snarled, ‘Hope that bastard strings Cowley up by the balls.’
‘He will,’ Hawkstone growled. ‘Those Ramkiseri agents are trained trackers and master torturers. Cowley’s got a world of hurt coming. So, I’ve got to go back and help out the Under-Komizar. You lot wait here and don’t do anything stupid.’ He scanned the faces and picked the one he’d miss the least. ‘Piper, with me.’
Piper gave him a nervous look. ‘Er . . . what d’you want me down there for?’
‘Because that Under-kragging-Komizar wants someone with me, and I want my best man.’
Piper wasn’t even close to being his best man, but he was too stupid to know that.
Hawkstone put Simolon in charge, then led the way back down.
‘Damned praxis gives me the shits,’ the burly trooper whined, dragging his heels.
‘Both of us,’ Hawkstone muttered. ‘Keep your mouth shut and do whatever Zorne says.’
Whatever that is. He licked his suddenly dry lips. Nothing’ll happen. We’re all on the same side here . . .
They re-joined the three Bolgravians in front of Cowley’s abandoned hut, nerves jangling even more when they saw that the two young sorcerers had carved a triangle within a circle in the dirt. Hawkstone felt sweat bead on his forehead, but Piper was visibly trembling.
‘Ah,’ Zorne said as they approached, ‘come. You, Captain, stand here.’ He indicated a spot outside the shapes carved in the dirt. ‘And you, your name?’
‘Uh, Piper . . . Piper.’
‘Then come, Piper-Piper,’ Zorne said, his wooden voice stripping the misunderstanding of mockery. Some other quality had crept into his voice though, because Piper obeyed unhesitatingly, and Hawkstone almost followed. The two blond brothers took up positions on the points of the triangle, leaving the third one free.
Zorne walked Piper into the middle of the triangle within the circle.
Hawkstone had a horrible sense of foreboding. He went to speak, but found he couldn’t.
‘Stand here, yes, just here,’ Zorne said, looking up at Piper’s rough, battered face with his bland eyes. ‘We are going to find Lord Gospodoi, but I fear that if he came here, then he is dead. The man you call Cowley, he is not a good man. I am commanded to find him. I have never failed. Never.’
‘Uh . . . good—’ Piper began.
‘Silence. You will listen. We are all capable of a higher purpose: this I am taught and I believe it. Mine is to find and eliminate wrongdoers. Yours is to shed blood for your lord, yes.’
‘Yes,’ Piper repeated blankly.
‘Yes, we are agreed. But Lord Gospodoi is missing and I must find him. Will you shed blood, Piper-Piper?’
Don’t, something screamed in Hawkstone’s mind, but his throat – and his whole body – had gone rigid. The two young blond Bolgrav sorcerers leaned in, chanting under their breath.
Zorne’s eyes flashed pale blue, like a beam of sunlight through ice.
‘Uh, yes . . .’ Piper mumbled.
‘Excellent.’
Zorne’s gaze didn’t move – but his right hand slammed up under Piper’s jaw, his hand folding under as a punch-dagger emerged from a concealed forearm sheath and impaled the Borderer through the bottom of the mouth and into the brain from below. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Shansa mor . . .
If Hawkstone could have run, he would have, but his feet were rooted to the spot. He could only watch as Zorne laid Piper on his back and calmly slit his throat. Blood pumped from the gash and ran into the furrows in the ground until a wet scarlet circle and triangle were fully formed.
The chanting of the sorcerer twins rose as Zorne took his place at the third corner of the triangle and added his own voice to the ritual. Hawkstone knew little of the praxis, but he’d heard of spells requiring blood or even a life. Minutes passed while he trembled on the edge of flight, terrified that he’d be next and petrified that the only way to stay alive was to not draw attention to himself.
Though it was mid-afternoon, the air around them darkened, the light becoming hazy and dim and shadows forming, though there was nothing to cast them. Piper’s body visibly withered as he emptied of blood, becoming a dried husk, parched skin stretched over bones, eye sockets empty and teeth bared to the sky.
Then the ground shuddered and a path of sunlight formed, running straight towards a copse behind the hut.
‘Ah,’ Zorne said, with satisfaction, lowering his arms.
The two young sorcerers reeled, sagging to their knees and breathing hard as Zorne stepped from his position and came to Hawkstone’s side. ‘Blood price will be paid for your man,’ he droned. ‘Regrettably, necromancy requires a death, and only such magic can find the dead.’
‘So you knew . . . Gospodoi was dead?’ Hawkstone stammered.
‘I suspected.’
Only suspected – so Piper would’ve died for nothing if he was wrong. Holy Deo—
‘What now?’ he managed.
‘We will see what we have found,’ Zorne said, and led the way to a pristine-looking clearing. He spoke a praxis-spell while tracing a dark pattern that hung in the air – and the ground suddenly churned as if pierced by a giant plough, sending dirt and leaves swirling up to clog eyes and noses.
Then the sickening stench of rotting flesh struck them; even Hawkstone, used to such things, found himself retching, but by the time he’d recovered, the spell had done its work and the dust and debris had flowed fully aside, revealing a tangle of bodies: Lord Gospodoi and his party, still clothed. Feeding beetles swarmed over them. The head of the Bolgravian lord’s corpse was lying beside his body in the pit.
‘See, Captain – your man Cowley? He is not a good man at all,’ Zorne said. ‘I will bring him to justice – and you will help me.’ Turning to the Bolgrav twins, he said, ‘Find their trail,’ and the two young sorcerers began to trace new furrows in the dirt.
For a horrible second, Hawkstone feared that this next spell would require his death, but Zorne said, ‘Captain, you now serve me. Bring your men. We have work to do.’
Looking into his emotionless, implacable face, Hawkstone was struck by the notion that the man had been born without a soul.
*
‘Did you feel that?’ Kemara Solus blurted, then she flushed.
Interesting. Raythe looked at her. ‘Aye. I’m surprised you did, though.’
They were standing at the lip of a rise, looking at a dirt trail winding into the northern forests. Below them spread the Teshveld Valley, a patchwork expanse of fields hemmed into the coastline by rugged, forested peaks. The sea was a distant glimmer of grey-green beneath a sullen sky. The trail, the beginning of the Ghost Road, wove into the trees in a general northwestern direction; the caravan of wagons and mounted men and women was following it into the valley below. Kemara’s small overloaded cart, drawn by her recalcitrant mule, waited beside Raythe’s, with Jesco, Vidar and Zar loitering nearby. They were at the rear
for a very specific reason.
Kemara looked like she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. ‘Before I entered the Novitiate, I studied in a Nyostian Academia,’ she admitted.
Ah . . . Now her bitter manner felt explicable. ‘You’re a failed sorceress?’ Raythe exclaimed, immediately wincing at his thoughtless words.
‘Feck you very much for the reminder,’ she snarled, glowering. ‘Yes, that’s why I’m just a lowly backwater midwife and healer and not some preening hollyhock with a free pass from Deo to do whatever I fecking like.’
‘I’m sorry. Sometimes my tongue works before my brain.’ He thought of Zar and smiled. ‘It’s a family trait, you’ll have noticed.’
‘And is sorcery?’
‘Not usually.’
While sorcery did very occasionally run in families, it was more likely to crop up randomly. The talent for sorcery came from personality and drive, not blood: it required a certain type of mind, one which could reconcile a kind of crazed conviction that one could alter reality with the analytical discipline and imagination to make it happen.
In many ways I’d prefer Zar not to have this ‘gift’, he admitted to himself, but of course I’d be proud if she did.
‘I take it they cauterised your gift when you failed the tests?’ he asked.
‘Aye. I have no regrets, mind – the whole thing gave me the shits.’
He wondered at that. For one thing, Cognatus was fascinated by Kemara. The invisible familiar, in cat form today, was slinking around her, sniffing. Non-sorcerers were usually of no interest to him.
Perhaps they botched her cauterisation?
But before he could enquire further, Jesco sauntered up, cradling his flintlock, his hair immaculate as ever. ‘What’s happening?’ he purred. ‘Anything exciting?’
‘Someone just used the praxis,’ Raythe replied. ‘Possibly at my old hut.’
Zarelda edged closer. ‘What did they do?’ she asked.
‘It’s impossible to say, but the governor has a pair of Academia graduates – twin brothers called Jorl and Karil,’ Raythe answered. ‘They might have been trying to find us. What I just sensed was High Praxis, something big and involved. I think it’s safe to assume that they’ve realised that most of Teshveld has vanished and they probably want to know where to.’
