by Jon Kiln
Vekal saw a moment of deepest, darkest blue and grey. He was holding onto the railings with all of the deep Inner Sea underneath him, looking down into a seemingly bottomless chasm of watery night. Smaller shapes like barrels, casks, cups and even some struggling, humanoid figures were tumbling forward, down into that abyss. Vekal thought that he even saw other forms—a few distant shapes like seals or serpents darting in the depths under their wreck; mermaids or even stranger mer-creatures—come to scavenge what they could of the storm’s great bounty.
“Get up!” Ikrit seized the priest’s addled mind as he was thrown back into the world once more. The Emerald had dipped into the rising wall of water but its natural buoyancy had thrown it back upright again, its decks much emptier than they had been before. “Cough out that salt water, you fool! In the unholy name of all that never sleeps, I won’t let us die out here.” Vekal felt his lungs and throat spasm as sea water spewed out of them. All traces of his unnatural strength was gone as he slumped on the deck of the swaying Emerald, worn out beyond even the evil’s ability to empower him.
“Devil!” someone hissed behind him. It was Plunkett, the once badly-mouthed brandy-thief. He must have seen what he had done to Kraggers.
“Get up and breathe. It’s only a light drowning, nothing special,” Ikrit was cajoling him, but even Vekal’s possessed body felt flat and at the end of its limits.
“By the gods, it’s true,” said a new voice, and out of the storm behind Plunkett lurched Captain Jons. His face that had once been so transfused with pride and glee at having a ‘pet miracle healer’ was now transformed into one of horror. “Kraggers was right,” the big man whispered, as Vekal could see all of the things that the big man had told him replaying through his mind.
“’E’s no holy man,” Plunkett summed up the captain’s conclusion. “’E’s a sorcerer. ‘E’s cursed.” The sailor started jumping from one foot to the other as Vekal started to shake his head.
“No. Threaten them. Tell them if they don’t obey you, then you’ll reveal their secrets.” Ikrit was desperate.
It won’t work, Vekal thought grimly, as all of the crew’s awe and admiration turned to fear and dislike in an instant. The storm was still raging, and they all knew that any bad turn could be the end of them yet.
Sailors are a suspicious bunch, the priest thought, as the captain roared.
“Seize the priest! Throw him overboard before he brings down bad luck on us all!”
Vekal tried to struggle, and even managed to add a few new broken teeth to Plunkett’s almost beautiful smile, but even he, in his current state, could not out-fight all of the remaining crew members of the Emerald as the boat rocked and pitched, and all they had to do was manhandle, push, shove, and kick him over the side through the splintered railings.
He hit the dark water with a heavy splash, and sank like a stone as if all of the sins of the world were dragging him to hell.
30
“Ready… now!” Talon shouted as he raised his flag to the other defenders of the forward gate, and up and down the line on either side of him he saw the second-officers and lieutenants bellowing at their men.
Moving almost as one, the row of pike-men amongst the wall defenders stepped forward with their twelve-foot long spears, which held a curled and barbed metal prod at the end. They pushed out and down at the long ladders that the Menaali attackers were raising towards their wall, engaged in a perilous battle of push and pull, tens of feet above the heads of the battle below.
“Push! Push like the mother that birthed you!” screamed the nearest second-officer, a burly soldier with the gold sash indicating that he was only one rank below Suriyen. After a grunt of dissatisfaction, the second-officer joined the two other pike-men defenders at the pole and added his strength to their efforts.
Talon, from his position at the very center, watched as the pike connected with the top few rungs of the wall-ladder and started to push outwards, toppling the ladder backwards to the mass of Menaali shields below, to clatter and splinter over the side of the boat-bridge and into the drink.
“Hurrah!” the second-officer started to shout, but the boy didn’t have any time for celebrations—there were still other wall-ladders being raised, and the inevitable hidden archers were once again stepping out from behind their comrades’ upheld shields.
“Heads! Volley!” Talon called as the Menaali fired up at them. Most of the arrows went wide or sparked harmlessly off the walls, but a couple found their mark. One pike-man, still leaning out with his weapon, was struck, tottered, and fell to the waters below. Even though this was but one death, there was a mighty ripple of cheering from below. Talon watched as two more wall-ladders were passed up through the ranks to the spot where the pike had been lost.
“Ladders! Two more to you.” Talon waved the flag at the second-officer, who nodded brusquely and started screaming for volunteers to find him some more pikes, and to do it quickly before the hordes got there.
They had been going like this for the entire day, sending up ladders, pushing them away, trading volleys of arrow shot and boulders. Although there was a pall of pulverized rock dust over the walls, and cracks in the masonry as thick as Talon’s arm, neither side appeared to have the upper hand. The boy had watched as the Menaali had swept through the cattle markets on the far side of the river with ease, the forward units of Fuldoon crossbowmen doing little more than annoying the mounted riders who had taken the small shanty town.
Then had come the battle for the boat bridge, while the impossibly tall siege towers of Dal Grehb had continued to move closer, and pummel the city beyond the walls with boulders. Suriyen, to Talon’s surprise, had refused to sally forth to defend the bridge, despite her closest second-officers asking to be at the front.
“No glorious deaths for us, ladies and boys,” she had shouted grimly. “We’re in for the long, hard crawl. That’s what I want from you all.”
Talon didn’t particularly think that it was a very inspiring battle speech, but now, half a day later, he could see why she had made it. The boat bridge was wide enough for a couple of carriages to travel easily side by side, and with more on foot besides, but it still acted as a natural funnel for the might of the Menaali horde. They took the bridge with ridiculous ease, forming walking boxes of interlocked shields as the wall defenders shot arrows down at them, thrown rocks, and anything else that they could get their hands on.
The latter part of the day had been an ongoing struggle to repel their attempts to either climb the walls or break the doors, and the drawbridge and gated door below was already braced with a forest of timber. Even without any experience at battles, the boy could see that the attackers weren’t going to get through that tonight, at least.
And so despite the deaths, despite those killed by thrown shot, boulder, arrow or dart, the defenders of Fuldoon had lost surprisingly few soldiers compared to the Menaali below.
But there are always more. Talon looked down at the tide of tribesmen at the base of the wall. The horde was so big that they could afford to fill the ground and the bridge in a solid, seething mass of fighters and have the majority of their army encamped out and around the cattle market on the far side of the river. Talon had watched as at least three waves of Menaali had jogged to their front line below, joining the fighters as hundreds or maybe even a thousand were killed by the wall defenders above.
“And still they keep coming…” Talon murmured, as he blinked and shook his head. Someone was calling his name.
“Talon! Boy!” It was the second-officer, pushing another small, thin man up through the press of people to the point where Talon stood. “Swap over,” the vaguely rat-like man said over the din of screams and shouts, looking almost pleased to have been given the position of forward lookout.
“What? Is it time already?” Talon was confused and bewildered, as he felt hands of the heaviest guards around him guiding him out of the way, and shoving him none too gently towards the nearest wicker cradle. In
just a moment, the noise of battle was muted as he slumped inside, next to a healer treating three wounded men. The cart-sized wicker box was lurched and lowered to the ground many stories below.
“Help me with these, boy,” the healer snapped. She was a plump woman with a face already grimed with dirt and sweat. Talon, too tired to argue, found himself agreeing, picking up first one moaning man with her and then another, taking them to the cart which would in turn drive them safely to one of the parks further in the city, away from the threat of arbalest and catapult.
As the healer’s cart rattled off, and the wicker basket started to winch its way upwards once more to retrieve more of the walking wounded, Talon suddenly wondered just what it was he was to do now. Sleep? Should he have gone with the healer? Should he try to find another job?
“Talon, get under here before they drop a rock on your head,” said a familiar voice. He turned to see an aging woman with grey wavy hair, deep wrinkle lines and dark skin. She had decided to wear a heavier studded jerkin now, but had obviously thought it pointless to wear a helmet.
“Aldameda,” Talon said. It was Suriyen’s mentor, and the woman that she called the ‘Mother of the House’ of their religion. Talon could see the simple charm even now, a bull bearing a wheel between its horns.
“Come, the world is falling to hell, and we might all be dead and damned by morning, but at least have some food in that belly when it does.” Aldameda tutted as Talon staggered over towards her. She gestured to a long line of makeshift tents and mess halls sitting right under the wall.
“This close to the wall, they think that the boulders won’t get them,” Aldameda said cynically. “Although they have yet to see what will happen if the wall itself is knocked down on us.”
Inside were long bench tables, at which sat tired and weary looking people; mostly messengers, second-officers, lieutenants and lookouts like himself, Talon noted. They were working their way through a bowl of stew, a flagon of wine, or some were merely sitting grateful of a moments rest and staring a thousand yards into space.
“Poor souls probably will only realize what has happened to them when it’s all over, one way or another,” Aldameda whispered, pointing to a table of large sealed camp tureens, ladling out a bowl of broth, a hunk of cheese and bread into Talon’s hands and pushing him onward, deeper into the maze of tents. “They’re not too far gone, and when their rest is done they’ll go back up there and do the same all over. But mark my words, each one will never sleep sound again.” She spoke to Talon as if he were her student, and the boy wondered if she thought that he was going to suffer the same traumatized fate.
“Aldameda? What are you doing here?” said a voice, not from across the room as Talon would have thought, but unexpectedly, from below them. Talon looked down to see that a wide tunnel had been dug and reinforced with wooden beams, down which a ladder was extended and lit with lantern light.
“Suriyen!” Talon smiled for the first time all day.
It was his friend, the guard who had become a wall-sergeant, with her frizzy hair tied back and her piercing eyes looking angrily up at the older woman, before shrugging and smiling at him. “Come on then, get down here before they drop a boulder on us.”
Talon and the older woman found that they were climbing down into an occupied and fortified water tunnel, which Suriyen told them was originally a part of some overflow system if the river ever flooded its banks. But now it was being used to protect the captains, leaders, and counselors from the arrows and attacks of their enemy. Within just a few moments, he found that he was walking into a wide, low paved stone cellar like a wine cellar, echoing and full of people poring over maps and arguing.
“Welcome to the war, Mother,” Suriyen said sarcastically.
“Hmph.” Aldameda wasn’t impressed. “Where is he then? Our friend the counselor,” she said the word heavily, catching Suriyen’s eye.
“Maaritz?” the wall-sergeant replied. “There are half a dozen counselors here at the moment, and we’re all deciding what to do when they break through the wall. Because they will, you know. We haven’t got time for any friend business right now.”
Aldameda hissed through her teeth, loud and venomously enough to make the nearest soldiers and leaders turn in alarm. “Then make time! You know as well as I do that what we are doing is more important than the fate of one city.”
“Mother…” Suriyen started to say, looking nervously from her senior to the other captains and generals nearby who knew nothing of what they were talking about. But Aldameda was adamant, crossing her arms in front of her in a gesture that said that she would stand and shout them all down if she had to.
“Fine.” Suriyen relented, indicating a corner in the water tunnel, where the Counselor Maaritz was pouring over a map of the nearby coast of the Inner Sea. When he saw them approach, he gave a nod to Aldameda and a tight smile.
“Suriyen, Mother, Talon,” he greeted them all. “I have been searching, and I think that if we land a force on the coasts behind Dal Grehb, we could divert attention away from the wall.”
“Enough of your war. You will do what is best to defend the city, I am sure.” Aldameda snapped at all of them, and it was only then that Talon realized just how much power the old woman had here amongst the religion of the Friends. “I have heard word from our friend, the Herald Allura,” she said, and Talon remembered the woman who had helped drive them to the Counsel House before all of this started; another devotee of their bull-and-wheel religion.
“She has picked up the trail of the devil, and he has left the city,” Aldameda said heavily.
Maaritz frowned. “One devil. The same one that you were searching for earlier? The one inside the Sin Eater from Tir?” He looked stunned that the woman would come all of this way, surrounded by all of this danger and bloodshed to tell them that. “And?” he said dazedly.
“And the Herald Allura caught someone else trying to leave the city. Another devil by the name of Sadgast,” Aldameda said.
“Sadgast!” This time the reaction from Maaritz was profoundly different, as he clenched his fists and spat. “I couldn’t tell you the years that I have spent trying to root out that little canker from Fuldoon,” the counselor growled.
“I know. Allura told me you would be glad to hear it.” Aldameda explained to the others. “Sadgast was like a smuggler for all of the dark sorcerers, imps, and fiends that came through the city. Every time we started to unearth some nasty little plot or spell, a thread would always curl back to Sadgast. He is a devil, possessing some old sword-for-hire. Anyway, Allura captured him, and made him talk.”
Talon shuddered. How does a person make a possessed man talk?
“He says that the devil’s name is Ikrit, and that Ikrit has taken Vekal to the Isle of Gaunt, on a vessel called the Emerald,” Aldameda said in a heavy voice, eyes boring into Maaritz.
“The Isle of Gaunt? It… It knows?” Maaritz started to shake in horror. “But how did it know? Where… Who…”
“What under the heavens are you talking about?” Suriyen looked first from the old woman to the counselor. It was the former who informed her old charge of the danger.
“There has always been a reason why our religion has a chapter house here, of all locations, and why we have friends even amongst the highest of places.” Aldameda nodded at Maaritz, who still appeared shocked by the news.
“Nearby to here, not so close as to be easy to get to, but nearer this city than any other, lies a tiny island just off the Shattering Coasts, called the Isle of Gaunt. It was little more than a spit of rock with a few trees and a handful of dirt on it, but I guess you could say that it has its isolated charms.” Aldameda’s voice lowered to a murmur, and Talon could feel Suriyen straining to hear what might come next.
“What few have ever remembered is that it was named after the Saint of Gaunt, a woman of such rare holiness as to be the purest human who ever walked the Garden. Or so it is said. She retreated to this little spit of an islan
d and died there, and when she died the locals built a shrine to her memory.”
Talon was confused. “I can see why Vekal would want to go to a holy shrine, he is a priest after all. But why would the devil Ikrit decide to go along with him?”
“Ha. Well put, young man,” Aldameda said. “The reason being, that it has always been rumored amongst our kind that the relics of the pure can form a special gateway straight to the abode of the gods. The heavens. Paradise… and the holiest relics of the holiest person in all of the world?” The mother raised her hands skyward as if seeking benefaction.
“The demons have a name for these relics, but before, we never thought that they knew where they were. They called them The Lockless Gates because they might be a gateway straight from this realm to the home of their arch enemies, the gods. Imagine what will happen if Ikrit gets to the Isle of Gaunt and opens those gates? The cycle of life and death could be destroyed. Every devil and imp, demon and prince of hell will take their war straight to heaven.”
Suriyen opened and closed her mouth, then looked at her feet, before looking back at Aldameda. “Are you suggesting that Ikrit, this creature that has possessed the Sin Eater, is going to try and sneak into paradise and kill the gods there?”
The Mother nodded. “All of this…” She gestured around them to the water tunnel, and the distant thuds and reverberations of war far above. “This is all a distraction. Keep the gods and the humans busy and their attention elsewhere, while Ikrit performs the worst, vilest, evilest crime in all of history. That is exactly what I fear. What other reason does a devil have for seeking out heaven?”
31
Vekal spent a long time not-existing. All around him was blue and silver and black—an eternity of floating or flying, without body nor form, nor weight or hindrance.
He wondered if, finally, he had died. He wondered if this was all that awaited him after his time in the mortal and earthly Garden. It was strangely peaceful, in a nothing sort of way.
