by Martin Davey
On his last word there was a great crash from above. A shower of glass scattered about them, light spilling all around from the room above, and then a man, a big man falling from the window, his red coat scratched and torn. He hit the ground with a sickening thud, dust billowing about his body and his sword falling from his hand with the impact.
He stirred, groaning and reaching for his sword, rolling around onto his stomach, grass and dust sticking to the back of his coat.
“It seems my sister’s patience isn’t getting any longer,” Phailin said. He put his foot on the sword before the struggling man could get his fingers to it. “I’d leave that if I were you, young man.” He reached down and picked up the sword, hefted it in his hand, eyeing the blade critically. The man of the Watch rose to one knee, his hair falling about his face and curling about his collar. Ysora’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized the man who had beaten Gerard.
A man in black armour leaned out of the window above, his hair damp and mussed as though he had just removed his helm. “Hold down there,” he shouted, whether to Phailin or the man in the red coat, she wasn’t sure. Two more men in black armour ran out of the door, swords drawn. Seeming to recognize Phailin, the knights slowed their step, hesitation which Phailin seemed not to notice as he levelled the sword at the bleeding man’s neck. “Stay, young man. You find yourself in quite a pickle, I’m afraid.”
The man in the red coat stayed on one knee, looked up at the two of them standing over him. The cuts in his arms and legs and neck didn’t seem to bother him at all. He looked down at the ground, sandy hair sticking to his forehead, curling about the collar of his coat, and then he looked back up, looked at her from grey eyes, and there was recognition there. He knew her, had seen her before. But then he looked away again, back to the ground, trying to hide the fact.
“Good,” Phailin said as he saw the man not trying to rise to his feet. “Good boy.” He pressed the sword to the man’s neck, hard enough to draw blood. The man didn’t move, staying on one knee, eyes fixed once more on the ground before him. “Take him,” Phailin said with the briefest of glances over his shoulder. Three knights marched forward, breathing loud in their helms, two of them grabbing the man’s arms, his eyes stayed fixed on the ground as he was dragged to his feet.
He seemed bigger than she had first thought, and Ysora wanted to push his hair away from his face to see him better. His legs arms, neck and chest were covered in cuts from the fall through the window. He did lift his head now to look around, almost as though he was thinking about trying to fight his way free. He had grey eyes, clouded as the Sea in a morning, thick and dark; and when his eyes met hers, they stayed there, almost as though something, recognition perhaps, held them in place. A moment which seemed to last for minutes and then he looked away again, dismissing her, trying to ignore the recognition that had been there. He must have recognized Phailin as the leader. “My men, “ the man said, his voice deep and rich, cooler and more cultured that she would have thought after the violence that always seemed to surround him. “Where are my men?” His men? He seemed too young to be calling them that. She remembered the old one who had been with him at the farm, the one with the grey hair and the grey stubble, she would have thought him to be the Captain.
Phailin stepped closer to the man, stooped a little to meet those grey eyes and the man in the red coat struggled and pulled at his arms to be free, both knights holding him staggered and strained to hold him in place. His strength was frightening after his fall. Not the brute strength of a Rhodry, more a controlled focussed strength, all the more powerful and dangerous because of it.
The knights finally got him under control, and Phailin stepped even closer, his face almost touching the man’s. “Have no fear, Captain Landros, your men will be well looked after.”
Captain Landros. Captain. So this would be the man who was giving the orders to take her to the Clerk? The one who gave the orders to chase her all the way to Yerotan and Farmer Mashin’s house? She looked at Landros again, at his sandy hair curling about his ears, at his long straight nose and his strong chin, at the way he kept his emotions under control even with the knights pulling at his arms, even with Phailin’s face close to his, even with the fires of Yerotan sending the shadows about them to flickering and dancing, every face and helm a shifting mask of light and shadow. She could see the fury simmering beneath his face even though he seemed to be doing his best to hide it, his eyes an approaching storm sweeping across the Sea.
“Well looked after?” Landros looked at the sword still in Phailin’s hand, held loosely, carelessly. “Like the Guardian in the temple? Like him? I saw how you looked after him.” He wasn’t struggling now, but Ysora barely paid any heed to that, her stomach felt cold and bile rose in her throat. Cioran, poor serious Cioran with his cool eyes, grey like Landros’s. But where Landros’s were vengeful storms racing across dark skies, Cioran’s were cool misty mornings in the mountains with a babbling brook close by. She couldn’t think of Cioran hurting anybody, and he had died thinking, knowing she had betrayed him. Phailin didn’t even glance her way at the mention of the Guardian.
“Or the people in the village, cut down and burned to ashes.” The fury and the sick contempt was plain in Landros’s voice. “I’ve seen the work of you and your Master. You worship death, it is all your kind know.”
Now Phailin did turn to Ysora, and he raised an eyebrow at her. He looked cultured and refined and uncomfortable in his silver armour, his white cloak limp on his back, a strange sight before the primal force of Landros. “Death?” Phailin said, turning back to the Captain, “Or freedom? We worship freedom, freedom from your gods and your Clerks.” Phailin held the sword to Landros’s throat again, “Though what is death if not freedom? Didn’t our forefathers choose death in battle rather than kneel before the invaders? Didn’t they take to the battlefield knowing that death was around the corner ready to embrace them and didn’t they run to that embrace rather than kneel before your gods and your Clerks?” Phailin’s sophisticated demeanour was beginning to slip, his grey face had become twisted, a gob of spit formed on the corner of his lip as the light of the fires shifted about his face, the sword in his hand held to Landros’s throat was dark, bright, and then dark again. The sword pressed tighter, a speck of blood appearing on the Captain’s throat, then hidden again when the flames and the shadows shifted. “Or were your forefathers Kneelers from the beginning? Going to the Keepers and begging them to take their freedoms, begging them to take our world?”
Landros didn’t flinch from the blade, let it cut his flesh, he stood straight and looked into Phailin’s eyes. “Then I hope you enjoy your freedoms when the Keepers learn of your crimes.”
Phailin lowered his sword, his smile fading away like snow at the end of winter. “The time for hiding is at an end, already the Keepers come to us. They will be here before the day is done. This time we shall not fail.”
“Not if you ever find the time to stop talking.” A woman in silver armour the same as Phailin’s, her hands clasped in front of her, stepped out of the tall double doors of Farmer Mashin’s house. She came down the steps with a straight-backed grace, more comfortable in her armour than Phailin.
The fires of Yerotan burned bright in the distance. Smoke, thick and acrid drifted toward the farmhouse like a dire warning. The woman ignored the chaos about her and strode toward Phailin. “I see you’ve met Captain Landros. A very stubborn man.” She sounded like a disapproving parent. Ysora was beginning to feel she had been forgotten and wondered if she should slip away. She stayed where she was. And no, she hadn’t been forgotten by everybody, Captain Landros watched her, staring at her with a frankness that made her look away as their eyes met.
“Laraine,” Phailin said. “I hope you are well, sister?” Phailin stepped around Landros and the knights holding him, and held out his hands to the older woman.
Laraine nodded, the slightest movement of her head, her eyes tight and watchful. “She is
here?” She looked excited despite her attempts to remain aloof.
“Right here.” Phailin held out an arm to Ysora. “Right here. As I told you she would be, sister. When are you going to start trusting me?”
“On the day we are seated on the Griffin Throne, then I might begin to trust you. Our lord is here?” She had already started to walk toward Ysora, her brother hurrying alongside her. Laraine’s white cloak billowed in the breeze.
“Our lord grows weak, Ysora. He has spent too much time in this world.”
“And Jermatoah?” Laraine’s strides were long and sure, the chains of her mail chinking as she walked. The light of the fires of Yerotan flickered in her thick grey hair.
“No news as yet.” Phailin seemed somehow younger and less assured in the presence of his older sister.
Laraine nodded once, already looking to Ysora. “So this is the one?” She looked down her long thin nose at Ysora.
“This is Ysora,” Phailin confirmed, “The one who dreams the old gods.”
Ysora could see the breath rising in the older woman’s throat see her cheeks flush, but still the woman tried to retain control of her emotions, gather them back inside and try to swallow them. Laraine reached out and took Ysora’s hands in hers, the fingers long and thin and hard, three jewels on each hand glittering in the light of the fires. “Thank you for joining us, Ysora. Our work is great, and the road will be long and arduous, but you will bring joy to the world with your visions. You will show us the path to greatness.”
Phailin waved a hand and the knights dragged the Captain of the Watch away.
Ysora felt her heart quicken, were they taking the poor man to be killed? All he had been doing was following orders. She remembered his outrage when he had found Gerard clawing at her clothes. He was a good man. “I think you must be mistaken.” She didn’t look at Laraine as she spoke, she watched them drag Landros away, kicking and thrashing at his captors until they were out of sight round the corner of the house. “My dreams don’t bring joy. They bring visions of pain and death.”
For the first time, Ysora saw some emotion in Laraine’s eyes, hidden behind the cool demeanour; impatience, was it? Frustration?
“You poor child,” the older woman said, still holding Ysora’s hands. Her hair shimmered gold and silver in the light of the distant fires.
Gold and silver? Ysora dropped Laraine’s hands and looked over her shoulder. The sky was ablaze. Ablaze, not with the light of the burning village, but with a gold and silver light that hurt the eyes to look upon. It was beautiful and it was terrifying.
The light spread for miles around, turning the blackness of night into a searing gold and silver, but the source of it was close to Yerotan, far above the flames and the smoke, and it was moving, coming towards them. Moving slowly, it looked like the source of an explosion of light, an explosion of all that was good and feared in the world, and Ysora could only look at it for so long before she had to shut her eyes and turn away from the brightness and the glory of it.
There was a song too, heard more clearly when she closed her eyes, and it came from beneath the light. A song, or a chant, and it spoke of glory and it spoke of victory.
And Ysora’s heart faltered as she knew what that song meant. She remembered Maronghavian and his words of the gods, she remembered Solphin, “and all the people fell down and prayed.”
And Ysora Siran fell to her knees as people ran all about her and screamed.
The Keepers had come to Yerotan.
CHAPTER 33
Marin touched his face and chewed his ferris root, felt the thread in his throat tighten each time he ground his teeth. “Marin is a dead man,” the woman on the riverbank had said. “You’re dead! I saw your face!” Fenner had said before Retaj had beaten him.
But the dead didn’t walk and talk. The dead didn’t feel the mist of the clouds on their face, didn’t feel the cold air on their cheeks. The dead lay still and silent and Marin couldn’t stay silent anymore. He chewed his ferris root until black gunk was oozing down his throat as he watched the house the Mahrata had entered with Jermatoah. The houses here were tall and thin, made of round grey stones, the windows black and empty.
No, Marin couldn’t stay silent anymore. He scratched at his throat and stepped quickly enough so that he wouldn’t have time to change his mind. Quickly enough to think the Mahrata couldn’t turn him around with a thought if she wished. The power of the blood. He raised his hand to knock on the door, thick and made from a wood that could only have come from much further down the mountains. He stopped after pulling his hand back to knock. No, he would walk straight in. Was that thought his own? He chewed the last of his ferris root, swallowed it and coughed against the bitter taste. He lifted the pouch from his pocket. Empty. He licked the flavour from his teeth and pushed the heavy door open.
The house was silent enough for him to think the door should creak. It didn’t, only whispered against the floor as he pushed it wide open. One last look back to the town; the excitement of Fenner’s beating had died down. The rest of the Mahrata’s army wandered about the town, peering through the clouds at the mountain peaks about them, unpacking bags and comparing battle wounds. The clouds were getting thicker now, moving about them with a foreboding slowness.
Marin couldn’t wait any longer, he turned back to the house and stepped in, closing the door behind him. Three torches fluttered on the walls, smoke thick as the cloud outside drifting about the room. Thin rugs no thicker than a blanket roll were scattered about the floor and a simple hard-backed chair was the only furniture that allowed for any comfort. All the room was taken by cabinets and shelves which covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Bowls, jars, vases and mugs were crammed onto each shelf, some dusty and ancient, others newer, but all painted in different colours and with different patterns. Marin remembered the Mahrata’s own cabinet in her tent, remembered the bowls there, remembered the one she had held under his throat as his life’s blood spilled from his body. He remembered the way she had trailed a finger along the edge of his sword after he had cut Beratak.
An image flashed before his eyes; Beratak lifted from his horse, suspended in the air before his men, turned around to face them, his arms spread wide, his scream of pain and terror enough to shake the very mountains until blood gouted and spouted from his helm, until his helm was ripped from his shoulders, blood leaking and pooling about the armour as it crashed to the floor.
The power of the blood. The Paramin. The Blood Lord.
Marin reached into his pocket for his pouch of ferris root. Empty. Cold sweat clamoured on his forehead and around his eyes.
“Marin?” The way she said his name could make his heart miss and his stomach ache with need. She looked at him with a questioning smile, her forehead slightly creased. She looked like a young woman who would shirk at crushing a spider.
Marin looked at her, the torchlight dancing on her smooth pale cheeks, and he knew he could never question her. Why had he even thought to come here when she was busy with Jermatoah? “What have you done to me?” The words came out barely more than a whisper, the thread in his throat seeming to tighten and tear with each word.
Eyes that were brown and gold and copper narrowed for the merest of moments, an expression of, what? Anger? Frustration? Passing across her face for an instant, so quick that it might only have been imagination.
“Rebekah? Rebekah, we’re not finished.” A woman’s voice from the other room, and the Mahrata lowered her hand. Marin hadn’t realized she had raised it as he staggered from the effort of speaking.
The Mahrata turned in the doorway, every movement a display of grace, and the crone appeared at her side. Jermatoah’s back was bowed and her shoulders slumped, still wearing the green dress that looked as though it should rub her skin raw at a touch.
Her teeth bared at the sight of Marin and he saw they were broken and yellowed, set at angles like rocks on a barren hillside. “Karranoh,” she hissed at him, holding the Mahrata’s ar
m but never taking her eyes, dark as coal, away from Marin. “What have you done, Rebekah? What have you done? You bring a Karrranoh here, to the birthplace of our Lord? Send it away, send it away now!”
And Marin would have fled then, would have fled back out into the town where the clouds swirled and smothered, and if his legs would have taken him, he would have fled all the way back down the mountains, away from this crone and her hatred and her fear which filled him with terror.
But instead he stood where he was, unable to move, staring at the crone, bitter tears stinging his eyes as both women looked at him like some vile creature in a cage. It was the Mahrata who broke the spell, walking over to him, and even now Marin watched the way her hips swayed in her red dress as she walked to him, her arms slender by her side and a red jewel on a golden chain resting on her breasts. Her smile was sympathetic and her brow was creased as she lifted a hand and stroked his cheek. Marin leaned into the touch and the Mahrata smiled, her eyes brightening in the smoky room. “I found him that way. I felt him calling to me as soon as we reached these lands.” Still she touched his face, and Marin closed his eyes, his whole world was that touch, that smell, blood and jasmine and oakenroot. “How could I leave him wondering alone and lost? He became my Garanin, my reborn. Without him, I would never have got here, never found you and our Lord.”
“Garanin.” The word sounded like a curse on the old woman’s thin lips. “You always were a child, Rebekah, playing with what you have no right to be involved in. You think you know of the Blood Lord and the reborn, and you know nothing. Have you had the dreams? Have you seen the gods?”
Marin opened his eyes to see Jermatoah level her staff at him. “That,” every word was rank with hatred, “I have seen its like before and it is nothing to be toyed with Ysora, not another of your trinkets to make yourself pretty or pretend you are something you aren’t and can never hope to be.” She made no move to enter the room, looking at Marin like a wary cat watching a dark corner. “This thing comes from the darkness that awaits us all, a darkness you have never seen, Rebekah. And you bring it to the cradle of your Lord?” Jermatoah sneered and it was an ugly thing with her broken teeth. “Get rid of it, it has no place here.”
