The Tears of Sisme
Book One of The Kivattar Bridge
Published by Peter Hutchinson at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 by Peter Hutchinson
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook should not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One: Homeland
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two: The Great Highway
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part Three: Convergence
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Four: The Tears of Sisme
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Maps
Author’s note
Book 2: The Ninth Mihexe
ChapterOne
About the author
Prologue - The Hunters
Empire: The Cold Coast: Samphe Castle
Snow whirled high over the battlements and melted as it touched the grey stone of the guard walk. Winter always hung on to the bitter end on the Cold Coast. Shilli’s Teeth, he hated this weather and with the alert on he was out in it for the full watch. No huddling round the brazier in the guard room. They’d hanged one of the new guards for that last week. Hanged! He still couldn’t believe it. This ‘Terrechar’ threat had really put the wind up the Baron. Talk about being scared of shadows. It was as if someone had said to the most powerful man on the Coast “The hobgoblins are coming to get you” and he’d panicked like a six year old with bad dreams. Fifty new guards and discipline like they were at war. What a waste of time! Two whole months of it now and not a whisper of trouble. No stranger could get within thirty miles of this god-forsaken place without being spotted, let alone into the castle: and once in, it was just as hard to get out.
Hunched below the parapet Charkin turned his head to the left. He could barely see twenty yards, the next guard well out of sight. It was the same the other way. The great signal beacon loomed half-seen between swirling gouts of snow, but no guard.
There was something though. Hard to make out, but yes, there it was again. Man-size. So Helsiter had decided to do his job and patrol his full section. Unlike the lazy bum to do anything he wasn’t forced to; just like the rest of the auxiliaries, he’d never be taken on as a regular unless he shaped up. Well, might as well go through the motions. He pulled his hood tighter as he straightened up and walked steadily towards the crouching figure.
“Anything to report, Helsi?”
No reply. Insolent bugger, he’d….. The unnatural stillness of the hooded figure suddenly made him uneasy. No one could freeze to death in this weather, surely, not even an Eastener like Helsiter.
He took a quick couple of strides forward and was reaching for the man’s arm when he heard it. A low sing-song, hardly more than a murmur, the same words over and over. Helsi was singing to himself. Then Charkin’s heart gave a great bound and the next breath just would not come. Terrechar. The assassins’ song, just like in the stories. Every muscle in his body tensed to flee, but the singing had fallen over him like a net and he could not move. He was wondering how Ruka and the baby would manage without him, even as he saw death rise with unhurried grace and reach out for him.
Minutes later the clangour of an alarm rang across the castle and sent guards scurrying in all directions, clustering at last on the west wall. The Castle General arrived fat and angry, hot on the heels of Guard Captain, adding two more witnesses to the bizarre spectacle on the western battlements.
The huge signal beacon was alight and burning fiercely, ringed by a semi-circle of guards standing well back from the heat. They all straightened up as the officers arrived, but not one of them took his eyes off the blaze for more than a second.
There was a man in there, in the heart of the flames. He had stopped screaming now, but his head had been pushed out through the side bars and was still recognisable. Baron Firrimax of Samphe would need guarding no longer and the reason was plain to see. On his forehead in bold black strokes was the notched sword, the ancient symbol of the Terrechar.
The Castle General’s utter helplessness swiftly turned to rage, a cold killing rage that those serving under him had reason to know well. Men were despatched running in all directions to seal the castle: no one, from nobles to laundry maids, no one was to be allowed out. A ring of guards was left around the baron’s funeral pyre, while the whole watch from every sector of the castle was assembled to be questioned by the Guard Captain under the General’s pitiless scrutiny. He did not believe this Terrechar stuff. Fairy stories from the past: the Terrechar had been exterminated hundreds of years ago. Someone was using it, to good effect, and he intended to find out who. First of all find out which of the guards had been bribed.
A couple of hours later six men had been flogged and one sent to the rack just to terrify the rest: yet only one clear fact had emerged. Charkin, the head of the West Watch, had completely disappeared. No one else questioned had seen a thing. The sections on either side of Charkin’s had been patrolled by auxiliaries, both of whom the General had detained for his own personal examination. One of them at least had something to tell. A poor specimen with lank black hair and hunched shoulders, he’d been sweating ever since they had brought him in: he’d been deliberately kept back till last and by this time he was unable to hide the tremor in his knees. Probably been asleep all watch and petrified at being found out.
“Out with it, man, or d’you want the rack? Tell me true and you’ll not be punished.” The General was an accomplished liar.
Stammering in his terror, the auxiliary was not easy to understand at first. It turned out that it was he who had sounded the alarm and he was scared to death now of being the focus of everyone’s attention, particularly the General’s.
The General stopped fiddling with his gold rings and sat still. No one knew who had rung the alarm and he’d assumed it to be the killers’ final piece of insolence. So what had the man seen? Was the beacon alight? Yes it was, just, but the guard had not noticed the grotesque gargoyle who had been silent at the time. It had been the sight of a man jumping over the battlements which had sent him running to the alarm triangle, thinking there was some kind of raid afoot.
To frighten the auxiliary further, the General let his disbelief show. The west wall fell into the sea, straight into the sea: masonry above, cliffs below, a stupendous drop unbroken by the smallest ledge. Unless of course it had been a suicide mission. He had heard of such things. It was worth sending the Captain on a quick search before he had the man’s story checked under torture.
Helsiter - that was the auxiliary’s name - led the Captain to the battlements a mere fifty paces from the dying beacon and its circle of guards. There was nothing to see. Snow still fell out of a rapidly darkening sky, gusting in over bare wet stone. Apart from that nothing.
The Captain swallowed and started to rehearse his report for his superior who had a habit of venting his displeasure on the bearer of bad news. Unhappily this was one day when the General decided to live up to his reputation and the rehearsal was wasted.
A few days later the man called Helsiter walked out of Samphe territory on the road to Skutt and the mountains. When he had told the new Guard Captain that his mother had died, he had been given instant leave and a month’s pay in advance. The General’s approval had marked the auxiliary for promotion - ‘the only man in the castle with his wits about him’ - and the Captain was not about to argue.
Anyone else might have smiled as he strolled across the border, reflecting on the stupidities of his fellow men and on a job well done. But Djeff-Tor-Tau was too experienced a member of the Terrechar to feel even the urge to smile. When a group of Barons had paid a staggering price to have Firrimax killed, the Dagun had given Djeff-Tor-Tau the honour of being the first to send an open signal to the world that the Terrechar had returned. That was enough.
The nations had forgotten the Terrechar, just as they had forgotten The Talisman. All they had ever seen were false versions of both. It was time wake them to the truth - and to terror.
Esparan: Tesseri Borderlands
The horsemen came from nowhere. First one, trotting down between the houses, arrogantly ignoring hens, dogs, even people who hurried out of his way. Then twenty. Then a hundred. Each with a wicked steel-tipped lance and a short bow. They stopped by the last house and dismounted, while six of them walked their mounts back up to the open space in front of the forge, watched by every pair of eyes in the village.
Spring had come late here in the shadow of the mountains after a bitter winter. There were still patches of snow in the surrounding meadows and higher up the passes would be closed for another month. So where had the strangers come from? And why had they chosen to travel across such desperately difficult country, when the Great Highway ran a scant hundred miles further south? Only one of the inhabitants had ever seen anything like this and curiosity overcame their fears, bringing them hesitantly out of their homes.
One of the six riders called out several times, turning his head this way and that to see if any of his listeners understood him.
"They're Borogoi," the old woman said shakily to her granddaughter. The tremor in the aged voice raised an instinctive alarm in the girl, redoubling the stirrings of dread caused by this name from half-remembered tales. "Quick. Find your mother. You must hide." But time had already run out.
With a few gestures the horsemen indicated that they wanted food. Food for a hundred? The little knot of villagers in front of the forge was aghast and conveyed their poverty with spread palms and shaking heads. Everyone went very still as the leading rider slowly lowered his lance until the tip touched the breast of the nearest man, the smith, and held there for a long suspended moment. The smith was a courageous man, but he quailed from the sharp point and the pitiless menace in the rider's yellow eyes.
Abruptly the squat horseman gave a harsh bark of laughter, wheeled his horse and kicked it into a run. Within a few strides the lance point dropped and speared straight through a scurrying dog. He lifted the dying animal high like a standard and gave a howl of triumph as the blood ran down the shaft. Whooping madly more and more of the riders joined the game, scattering the villagers and killing every dog in sight. Then the goats. Then the pigs, the cows, the donkeys. They carried the slaughter through pen and byre and barn, oblivious to the pleas and protests of the villagers who saw their livelihood being destroyed in a few wild minutes.
By the time the riders were left milling around with no live quarry to pursue, there was not a single inhabitant in sight. But the Borogoi’s bloodlust was still running hot and the only prey remaining was human. The next stage in the terror began with people being driven ruthlessly from their homes. When the strangers could not break in, the house was simply set alight. Soon half the village was ablaze, while the terrified villagers huddled together inside a ring of weapons, wondering who would be the first victim.
At an order from their leader a dozen of the horsemen leapt down and dragged to the front every boy they could find in the shrinking crowd. The captain walked his horse slowly forward and lowered his bloody lance towards the nearest youth. And then a curious thing happened. A single word from the rider of a grey horse behind him brought the deadly Borog to a halt. Without turning or shifting his weapon, he replied in a burst of angry vehemence; but when the hoarse voice behind him repeated its command, he waited brooding for a moment, then wrenched his horse around and went pounding down out of the village. His men streamed after him, leaving the grey and its rider confronting the petrified villagers.
Good killers, the Borogoi, Kulkin thought to himself as he looked down at the frightened children. But useless for the subtler business he was engaged in now. He had only hired them to get him as quickly as possible through to the Lake, where his team should already be waiting for him. He himself knew the pleasure in killing, but for these riders indiscriminate slaughter was simply a habit. The savages knew he was searching for a boy and had decided to join in by murdering every male child they came across. For amusement.
The man brought his horse close along the line of boys, stopping to peer intently at the smith's son, a sturdy lad of twelve who squared up to the inspection bravely. Then with a strange wheezing laugh the rider shook his bald head and rode off.
"I thought they were going to kill us all," the smith said hoarsely hours later, his arm about his son. The fires were out now and a small group of villagers had paused to talk about the raid, before going on with the hopeless task of sorting out the wreckage of their lives.
"If it had been left to them Borogoi murderers, that's what they'd have done." The old woman's voice was thin and clear and the others listened. Her wisdom was valued here.
"What d'you mean, grandma?"
"Him that stopped them, that was no Borog." The bystanders shook their heads in disagreement. "Maybe you didn't get a good look at him, but I did. Pale blue eyes and his face all bony and bare like his skull; nothing like those moon-faced devils. Didn't do any killing himself, but he really enjoyed watching it."
"So why'd he stop them then?"
"Not kindness, I can tell you. No, those yellow-eyed savages are up to something and he's in charge of it all. He's got something bigger on his mind than our village."
"No grandma," the smith contradicted respectfully. "That was just a raiding party. My grandfather told me about one that came this way when he was a lad."
"Aye, I'm one of the young girls that ran off and hid in the woods that day. I know more stories about them than you do. But ask yourself, if that was just a raiding party, why’d they bother to fight their way through the passes this way when the snow's still deep? They know there's nothing worth having in these mountains. And why did they pull the lads out in front, when it's always been the women they wanted?"
When no one could think of an answer, the little gathering broke up to join their despairing neighbours in the salvage work. Only the old woman remained, staring down the valley where the riders had disappeared. The checking of the frenzied horsemen was more frightening to her than the orgy of bloodshed which had preceded it: the chilling purpose shown by the blue-eyed rider meant trouble for somebody. She sighed and turned to go home. Anyway it was not their village or their children who were in danger now.
'Boys', she wondered. 'Why boys?'
Part One - Homeland
Cha
pter 1
The foundation of Esparan, coming just twenty years after the end of the Independence Wars, marked the beginning of an unprecedented period of prosperity and peace for the new union of the Lake peoples. And the Espar-Tesseri Accord a few years later made the country strong enough behind its natural defences to be left alone by its large and belligerent neighbours. For the next three centuries Esparan was able to sink into happy obscurity, considered merely an interesting diversion from the world's main trading route.
A Brief History of Esparan by Entan Dirr
Esparan
Sunlight streamed into the gorge, flickering through pale birch leaves as they stirred in the breeze, baking spray from the boulders and sparkling on the surface of the pools where the stream flowed swift and smooth between flat polished slabs. It was afternoon and the shadows were deep.
The boy lay on a rock where a large pool narrowed to swirl down into the next, his sandy hair hanging over his face and almost touching the surface. One arm was braced under him, the other he held down in the water up to the shoulder. He was utterly still, looking down where the bottom was dark in the shade of the trees above him, ignoring the inquisitive fly tickling his bare brown back.
Colour bloomed among the black. A flick and it was gone. He had seen it, but not even his eyes moved. Another long minute went by. Again a gleam in the corner of his eye. It hung in the flowing darkness near his hand, then slowly drifted to him. In one sudden movement he was up on his knees with the water he had thrown up showering back on him and a fat trout flopping and turning on the stone at his side.
This was about as good as it could get, Caldar thought. Tomorrow was his birthday, the day he was going to escape. For now the sun was shining, he’d just caught his lunch, and no one knew where he was.
He was wrong about that. Cold eyes observed him from the thickets across the stream. The watcher made no move, while Caldar cooked and ate his catch, then lay down in a patch of sunlight and closed his eyes. With a patience born of long practice the hunter waited another twenty minutes to make certain the boy was asleep. Then he stood up and began to move silently forward. He needed to get up close without waking his target. Suddenly he stopped and shrank down into the undergrowth mouthing a silent curse: someone was coming down the gorge, fast and careless, straight for the sleeper.
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