Vergence

by John March

  Vergence

  Vergence Cycle, Volume 1

  John March

  Published by John March, 2015.

  Twelve Years Earlier

  UBEZ LED HIS RIDERS directly out across open ground, following the scout swiftly over the white, frozen valley. A dark shadow, half concealed behind gusting icy veils, resolved into a line of trees, and there they saw the first outline of hulking pack animals nudging forward into the forest.

  Fanning out into an extended line behind Ubez, his men pushed their trikawi into a ragged gallop, the breath of the three horned mounts streaming out, dragged away along with the whisper of their long legs cutting through drifts.

  Stinging flakes struck his exposed skin like small darts. The sound of his harsh breathing masking the hiss of the wind, loud inside his helmet behind the mouth guard.

  Snow plumes blown from the trees angled across their path as they closed, concealing them until they were on the heels of the fleeing men.

  They caught stragglers from the merchant caravan at the edge of the forest. Their mounts crashed through the dense foliage at the edge of the tree-line, hooves slipping and scrambling for purchase on layers of loose snow and fallen waxy evergreen needles.

  The force of the charge carried them forward into an open area under taller trees. Indistinct figures on foot scattered, abandoning their goods, and ran into the deeper gloom. Ubez recognised the distinctive long-haired pack beasts as burawi, favoured by travellers in the wintry northern land for their strength and steady invulnerability to cold. Now heavily burdened, they were an obstacle for his men.

  In a moment the forest filled with echoing sounds of the fearful animals grunting loudly as they wheeled in circles, hoarse shouts of panicking merchants punctuated by the snap of bows and shrill calls of trikawi scenting fresh blood.

  Ubez reigned his mount in, slowing to a ungainly trot. His hand-picked squad of skirmishers remained by his side. Now they needed to find the woman quickly and finish, before the settling darkness allowed her to slip away.

  The skirmishers were usually lightly armed with missile weapons, their role to provide a screening force in battles, protecting the flanks and rear of friendly forces, and to harry those of the enemy. Ubez's had been selected for their ability to shoot accurately from the saddle, and for this reason he now held them back for the critical moment.

  Equipped with barbed darts and arrows, they'd been tasked with neutering the abomination from a safe distance. The heads of their missiles were made of valuable sevyric iron, and such weapons were not to be wasted on slaughtering common sinners such as the wretched merchant.

  Ubez stood up in his stirrups to make himself visible. “Mulluz on me, fall your men in.”

  A loud bellow from one of the towering pack beasts overwhelmed his final instruction. It's hindquarters had collapsed, impaled by a short lance, forcing it to a seated position. It produced a series of panicky bawling sounds, eyes rolling, and froth flying from its lips as it struggled to regain its feet.

  A brown-clad figure, wearing the flat topped hood of the northern merchant clans, dashed from behind the wounded animal, and scrambled for cover behind a tree. The two pursuing soldiers broke off their attack immediately, and wheeled back towards him.

  With the rear of the merchant column dispersed, Ubez pressed forward, following the churned up snow and torn undergrowth produced by the main body of the caravan as it followed a winding path between the trees.

  A few hundred paces on, where the path curved along the base of a slope to their left, they passed larger groups of heavily laden burawi, milling about without their owners.

  He pulled back the flap of armour covering his mouth. His triple plait, worn much shorter than fashionable for his rank, had come loose during the charge, and now swung freely as he turned his head.

  There was a growing exultation in his chest — no exile to the Kquitik swamps awaited him at the end of this journey. Twice the abominations had escaped, disgracing the troops sent to hunt them, condemning their officers to a lifetime posting in that disease infested outpost.

  His orders came directly from the inner circle of the Triumvirate, the instructions very precise: the ones they hunted must be killed immediately, without hesitation. They were to hold no trial, to have no public execution.

  The scout stopped and pointed. “Inquisitor, there are tracks.”

  Ubez nudged his trikawi closer, wheeling his mount round to see in the closing light. Three sets of footprints in the snow led up the slope, one set closer together and smaller — a child's.

  “These are the ones,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. He gestured at his skirmishers, waving them forward. “Pull their claws.”

  As he mounted the crest of the slope at the head of his main company, he heard the snap of bows firing. A thin line of trees at the top of the slope gave way to a wide clearing. In the centre of the clearing stood a single shoulder high tree-stump, and leaning against it a woman with hood pushed back to reveal unkempt long dark hair surrounding a face nearly as pale as the snow.

  An arrow had taken her in the thigh, and another she clutched at with her hand had gone through her side. The body of a merchant, source of the third set of footprints, lay face down in front of her with two arrows in his back, and behind her the shadow of a smaller shape, a boy partially concealed behind the stump. All this Ubez's experienced eyes absorbed in a moment as he spurred forward raising his bow. The skirmishers had done their task well, and now galloped around the periphery of the clearing in pairs to cut off any escape.

  As he rode close to the woman, drawing an arrow back to his cheek aiming for the throat, she raised her head, and met his eyes.

  In his time he had seen many executions and recognised the expression on her face. She had already given up hope for herself.

  “Please—” she said.

  The arrow struck just above the point where her collar-bones met. It's broad razor-sharp head passed through and erupted between her shoulder blades.

  She collapsed slowly, soundlessly, arms dropping and knees folding, slipping sideways to slide down the tree-stump until she lay turned away in the gently protesting snow, with her face barely a hand's breadth from the boy's feet.

  The boy stepped backwards, away from her body, his hand brushing a fine spray of blood on his face into a smear. He shared her pale skin, and dark hair. His eyes, hollowed out and empty, watched her quivering legs as they performed faint kicking actions against the frozen ground.

  A hurled javelin skipped off the surface of the stump, an arms-length from his face, yet his expression remained unchanged.

  As a rider pushed past Ubez, drawing back an arrow, a tremor went through the boy's small body and something dark, and bitter settled silently over the clearing.

  In an instant the air between them filled with a blizzard of tiny black shards. Sparkling with obsidian malevolence, they projected outwards across the clearing, travelling impossibly fast, like a deadly hail, and where the shards struck they pierced metal, and fabric, and flesh.

  Scores of fragments penetrated deep into Ubez's body, scything through viscera and bone. Beneath him, his trikawi bucked once, and froze. The agonisingly cold splinters held him, unable to move, as if pinned to some vast invisible wall.

  For a moment there was stillness, only trails of windswept snow moved across the clearing.

  The man in front of Ubez dropped his arrow from nerveless fingers as each of the shards sprouted, and grew.

  Orim sifted through the collection of small stones in his hand, sensing the resonance from each in turn, trying to find the one which most felt like this place. The journey to Kurbezh would undoubtedly be difficult and tiring, and his destination contained unknown dangers, so it would be wise to make the return
as easy as possible.

  Although time was precious he'd learned from experience that good preparation could often be the vital ingredient for success. In common with his Haeldran brethren, Orim absorbed the value of detailed attention with his mother’s milk. Even a simple fishing trip could prove fatal in the icy flows of his homeland, if one did not attend to equipment, and changes in the weather with a keen eye. In a land where the word for dead man in the language of his people was also the word commonly used for foolhardy, Orim had been considered capable before he was a teenager.

  Identifying a satisfactory piece of flint, he wrapped it carefully in a small section of cloth, and eased it into a leather pouch hanging from a cord around his neck. Pushing the pouch back under his clothes Orim fastened the face flap of his hood before pulling his gloves back on.

  He'd dressed from head to foot in bulky silver-grey furs and heavy leather, providing protection against the bitterly cold wind blowing off the ice to the north. An odd tuft of red hair escaped the confines of his hood, falling at an angle across his forehead. Despite his large build, he felt confident his furs would provide some concealment against distant eyes.

  Daylight would be fading soon, the low sun now casting lengthening shadows from nearby trees and rocks. Orim had selected the location, in the extreme North of Fyrenar, to most closely match what he'd read about his destination in the library that morning.

  He stood facing obliquely towards the setting sun. To his right, in the far distance, a thin grey line marked the beginning of the great northern glaciers, and a league away to his left the start of low foothills — climbing rapidly to a range of tall mountains.

  In between lay a bleak and desolate snow-covered landscape. The nearest principality would be at least a score or more days good riding to the south, and he doubted even the hardiest of the native Furbeg would be found living in conditions as harsh as these. Orim bent to check the binding of his snow shoes, then slipped his snow pole loops around his wrists.

  Time to go.

  He took one last good look around to fix this place in his mind, reinforcing his mental image of the view – the position of rocks, trees and the shadows now extending outwards across the plains from the mountains — driven by the setting sun, noting the crisp breeze biting into the exposed part of his face, the smell of snow in his nostrils, and the insistent cold pushing its way through his heavy boots.

  Confident he'd memorised an impression of this place as detailed as possible, he set off at a steady pace towards the west. As he walked, he began to feel outwards, stretching his awareness across the world skin, searching for points of contact, sifting for similarities.

  He stepped cleanly beyond the bounds of Fyrenar, the snow thickening, and wind driving harder as elements of his destination replaced those he left behind. Gossamer hints of rainbow colours, twisting like ribbons through the air, marked his passage through the between.

  When the last of the familiar aspects of Fyrenar had faded, Orim relaxed. The larger, redder sun and odd faint metallic taste in the air suggested he'd arrived at the right place. He stopped and looked around, finding himself in a broad plain similar to the one he had left in Fyrenar. He'd chosen his starting point well.

  The sun lay low, with long shadows extending like dark fingers across the snow. In the indistinct gloom he could make out a low range of dark hills half a league to his left, and a dark smudge — undoubtedly a tree-line — a similar distance on his right. He was confident he'd managed to find his way to somewhere north of the Great Circle Sea, which is where he'd wished to be, but he now faced the problem of locating a woman and boy in this vast wilderness.

  Orim closed his eyes and quietened his mind, stretching his senses out, feeling for the faint trace, a tiny spark that would reveal another power somewhere in this wilderness. Nothing.

  If the woman had not already died, she was either too far away to detect, or avoiding the use of any casting. Reluctantly, he unleashed one of his two remaining shape-bound scaehrum.

  Released from the form of an armband on his wrist, it dissolved, flowing like black smoke through his outer garments, adopting its natural appearance — a large headless bird of prey, with a ragged body, and wings of dark swirling vapour.

  His creature, sensitive to the faintest residue, would be drawn to any form of casting within a dozen leagues as unerringly as a death crow to a battlefield feast. It flew upwards immediately, arcing towards the north-east, and flapped away. Moving slowly enough to follow if he pushed hard.

  Hours later, as the first light of dawn touched the uppermost branches of the surrounding trees, Orim arrived under the weaving scaehrum.

  He watched its spiralling flight with a hint of regret. At sunrise it would soon fade. Already it had started to lose its form, appearing increasingly transparent, like a black rag blown about roughly in a strong wind.

  But now Orim could feel for himself the faint prickling that suggested something terrible and powerful had happened nearby recently. Like the faint rumble of a distant thunderstorm the remaining traces only hinted at the raw force it must have contained. This close he would need no help tracking to its source.

  A few dozen paces on he found himself walking on churned-up snow. He angled right to follow the direction the mess of footprints and animal tracks had taken, quickening his pace. The trees were widely spaced here, the distance between each set of prints indicating a disorderly flight, and pursuit.

  A short distance further the tracks separated. The main party had headed to the right, while a few sets of footprints and those of the pursuing mounts had peeled off to the left, heading directly up a steep slope.

  He started to feel an edge of concern. In the growing light it was clear that one of the sets of footprints was lighter and smaller than the others. It looked like a child had come this way, and the disturbance he'd detected lay directly ahead of him now.

  Mounting the crest, Orim stumbled over something concealed in the snow. Clambering back to his feet he found he'd tripped on a partially hidden helmet. He appeared to be on a snow-covered rocky outcrop, a few hundred paces across, roughly circular in shape, and devoid of trees, apart from one solitary man-high stump standing in the centre.

  The bodies of armoured men and their trikawi lay scattered in all directions.

  Moving cautiously, he made his way into the clearing. The soldiers appeared to have dropped directly where they were, hunched over in their saddles. Their mounts sprawled on the ground, legs sticking out at odd angles.

  Close by, one soldier had tumbled backwards in his saddle, but remained seated, his face frozen halfway between an expression of surprise and something else. His helmet had come loose as he had fallen, and lay on the ground next to him.

  Clearly whatever had happened here had slaughtered an entire company of men in a heartbeat, killing riders and trikawi together where they stood.

  Orim paused at the body and examined it closely. The rider appeared to have died without any obvious injury. Troubled he scanned the clearing for signs of the woman or the boy.

  Near the stump he noticed two other shapes lying half covered by snow — neither small enough to be the boy. He moved closer, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. A few paces before the stump lay a body, face down with arrows in its back, dressed in the heavy brown layered felt and rigid flat-topped style hood common to Kurbezh merchants.

  The second body, he saw at once, was the woman he sought. And sitting pressed up to the stump next to her, a smaller figure dusted in white with the faintest trail of frosted breath coming from under his hood.

  Orim stepped past the woman and knelt quickly, pulling the boy's hood roughly back, and checking for injuries. The boy's eyes were shut, and he shook uncontrollably, his breathing ragged, and uneven. Orim pulled off a glove to touch his face. Even accounting for the cold it felt much too hot.

  The head of a nearby javelin caught his attention. It glittered with the characteristic grey-blue sheen of sevyric iron in the d
awn sunlight, and there would be enough in all the weapons here to suppress casting as far as the edge of the clearing. This had not been some casual hunt, the dead men scattered around the stump were clearly well equipped elite soldiers.

  Orim glanced round the clearing, considering. Something terrible had happened here, and whatever caused it might still be lurking in the trees. If the woman had been powerful enough to do this, surrounded by sevyric iron and riddled with arrows, he would almost certainly have known of her.

  With the boy building a fever, he needed to get back to Fyrenar as quickly as possible, but to attempt to force a passage here might be hazardous. Wayfarers were at their most vulnerable in the moments they stepped between worlds, briefly stripped of all power. Any attack in that moment could be catastrophic.

  Quickly reaching a decision, he stowed his snow poles, scooped the boy into his arms, and headed in the direction of the shortest distance to the edge of the forest.

  Orim knelt briefly behind a tree just beyond the clearing, and drew out a pinch of yellow fire powder. He'd been warned to expect more than one party hunting the woman, and instinctively he sensed danger.

  His strong affinity for flame meant he seldom needed any assistance beyond invocation and gesture, but the nature of the element made it unpredictable, and liable to flare out quickly. Here he wanted to produce living sparks, and hold them ready.

  The powder flared and blew from his hands in a shower of bright points, some dying immediately as his summoning finished. The others he infused with a primal hunger for the living wood in the trees, and they swarmed around him like a cloud of incandescent insects.

  A ward would have been safest, but impossible to take with him for any distance, and the blended motes of were-flame, which danced and trailed after him in a loose cloud, could be easily turned to many uses.

  A hundred paces further into the forest Orim felt something, a prickling sensation against his skin like the trembling of a spider's web. He sensed power there too, carefully shielded to appear like an empty space a less skilled caster might have easily passed over, and under the concealment he detected a small group moving towards him.