Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1)

by A. J. Grimmelhaus

  ‘Perhaps it is as you say,’ the angel replied. ‘My kind do not belong on your world; its very air is poisonous to the Anghl’teri. Yet I am not dead yet, and my kind heal far quicker than your frail species. All is not yet lost.’

  ‘Poisonous?’ I asked. ‘How can that be? Why are we not affected?’

  ‘One creature’s nectar is another’s bane,’ the angel replied, ‘and so it is with my people. We can endure many pains, many poisons, that you humans cannot.’ The angel coughed, and smiled sadly. ‘It is somewhat ironic that an element in your world’s air has no ill effects on your kind, yet will kill a creature as myself in days.’

  ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ one knight asked.

  ‘What about your people? Can’t they come and get you?’ asked another. But it was the eighth of our number, the outsider, who asked the most important question. ‘If the air of our world kills you, where the blazes are you from?’

  Galandor raised an arm and pointed at the orange moon hanging full and bright in the night sky. ‘There,’ he said, lowering his arm as another coughing fit seized him.

  ‘A messenger of the gods,’ Sir Patrick announced, ‘sent from the very heavens to save us.’

  The angel was quiet for a moment, his expression troubled as if he wrestled with some inner demon. ‘No,’ Galandor said at last, ‘but that is what people must believe if your race is to remain free of the Gurdal and their Demhoun masters.’

  ‘Demon,’ Kur corrected, grinning broadly.

  *

  Tol stopped reading as the full import of the last paragraph washed over him: no, Galandor had said, denying he was a messenger from the gods. But it was more than that; the angel’s simple denial called into question everything Father Michael and the church had tried to drum into Tol over the years. If angels weren’t servants to a god, then the Maker whom thousands of people worshipped… Tol let the book fall back to his lap, pages zipping past as the cover swung shut, its bold, black letters proclaiming the book’s contents to be irrefutable truth. Tol glanced at Kalashadria next to him and saw pity reflected in her golden eyes, a gentle sadness that no words could convey.

  ‘The Maker’s not real, is he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why?’ Tol lurched to his feet, pacing up and down as the anger grew. ‘Why let us believe a lie? Why would he do that? Is it funny? A trick for some winged bastard’s amusement?’

  Kalashadria rose and placed herself in front of Tol as he marched back to the elm. ‘I do not know,’ she said, one hand resting gently on his shoulder, ‘but I think your book may hold the answers. We will find them together.’

  He peered up at her. ‘You didn’t know about any of this?’

  ‘No, Tol Kraven. I did not know what to expect when I came here, but this is far worse than I might have imagined.’

  ‘And you’re sure you’re not the Maker’s chosen? If I’m not supposed to know you could just wink or something.’

  Kalashadria’s lips twitched in a smile. ‘I am sorry, Tol, but it is not true.’

  ‘But the book said that if I called your true name you would come, and you did. That part was right. Maybe… Maybe you are the Maker’s instruments after all, but just don’t know it, or maybe he made you forget so we would have to have faith.’

  The expression on her face told him how ridiculous this sounded, although deep down Tol already knew.

  ‘We would know,’ she assured him. ‘I came not because of any divine being, or magic. I am here because Galandor instructed Alimarcus to listen to the people of your world, to listen for the names of my people.’

  ‘Who is Alimarcus?’

  ‘Alimarcus is the worldholme within which we live.’

  ‘Heaven,’ Tol breathed, ‘the place you live, we call it Heaven.’ He shook his head, hoping that it might jumble up all the thoughts into some kind of sense. ‘World home… I don’t understand - it’s a place but it can listen to people, to everyone?’

  ‘Think of it as a mind,’ the angel said after a moment, ‘a very big mind that controls… a giant city that once drifted between stars.’

  ‘A city?’ Tol laughed. ‘You’re just teasing me now.’

  Kalashadria smiled. ‘I think it is dark enough now, if you want to travel through the night again.’

  ‘A city,’ Tol repeated, chuckling to himself. He shook his head with a smile as he imagined Karnvost disentangling itself from the plateau and floating off into the sky. ‘That’s just silly.’

  37.

  The guards entered the Unhomed Wanderer just as Katarina was seating herself for breakfast. There were four of them, she saw, and it seemed an unnecessarily large escort for a man who looked to be a fair match for a half-starved vagrant. His clothes were in tatters, spotted with mud and blood and snot. Greasy black hair hung loosely in strands, framing a sallow face. As the guards approached her table, Katarina locked gazes with the man. A split-second was all it took for her to realise that judging the prisoner on appearances could be a dire and possibly fatal mistake. Death, she thought, that’s what lurks in those eyes.

  ‘Remove the shackles,’ she told the guards.

  One of them bent himself to the task, while another delivered a message from the duke. ‘His Grace asked me to remind you of the consequences should he fail to reach his destination,’ the young man said, his eyes flitting nervously from Katarina to the prisoner and back.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, waving away the man’s concerns. ‘I am not likely to forget. You may tell Tirian that I will keep my word.’ The shackles were free now, Kartane rubbing his wrists and staring down at his new captor. ‘Leave us,’ she told the guards as her shadow unceremoniously dumped their packs on the floor beside her table. Stetch dumped himself onto the seat next to her with a similar degree of elegance.

  ‘Sit,’ she told Kartane.

  He stood there, staring at her with a blank expression, and Katarina sighed. ‘You look like you could use a good meal or seven. Have a seat and stop playing the barbarian; it suits you ill and we three know you are so much more than that.’

  He remained standing another couple of seconds, as if to make his point, but Kartane dropped into the vacant chair facing her, Stetch seated between them on Kartane’s right.

  ‘I suppose I have you to thank for my liberty.’

  ‘A temporary thing,’ Katarina told him after finishing a mouthful of fried potatoes. ‘But you are no longer destined for the gallows.’

  Kartane offered a surprised grunt. ‘You have my thanks.’

  ‘Oh, how wonderful. Suddenly the world seems a beautiful place.’ A serving girl arrived with another hearty breakfast, laying it in front of the fallen knight at a gesture from Katarina. ‘Once we are out of the city we are going to have a little talk about a certain word, and about your young friend. Until then I would counsel silence if you wish the Reve’s secrets to remain as they are.’

  ‘I have no friends.’

  ‘Accomplice, then. I assume you would like to know what has befallen him? Give me your word that you will not seek to escape and you shall know the truth, this I swear by the Prophet.’

  ‘And if I decline?’

  Katarina smiled. ‘Then Stetch will cut your throat from ear to ear and the duke will be a happy man.’

  ‘You have my word, such as it is.’

  Katarina nodded, and resumed her breakfast. A fallen knight’s word was a worthless thing, but the curiosity in Kartane’s eyes as she mentioned Steven, that had guaranteed his compliance. At least until he learns the truth. That, however, was a problem for another day.

  *

  Although Katarina was keen to be away from the frozen north and return to her homeland as soon as possible, their departure from Karnvost was delayed. Appalled at being seen in public with someone as dishevelled, dirty, and malodorous as Kartane, she had led the knight and Stetch to a number of establishments between the Unhomed Wanderer and the city gates. First had been a modest barber shop where Kartane’s
locks had been trimmed. A shave with a cutthroat razor followed, the poor barber so nervous under Kartane’s iron gaze that he nicked his customer twice, much to Katarina’s amusement. Unfortunately, this exacerbated the Norvek man’s foul temper, and Kartane promised the barber in quite graphic detail what would happen to him if the razor slipped again.

  An entirely unremarkable tailor’s was the next stop. Nowhere Katarina would ever shop for herself, but it served well enough for Kartane. He uttered not a word of thanks when Katarina purchased several sets of clothes, repaying her only with a dark look.

  Last, but far from least, was an armourer’s of good repute and here, at last, the broken knight’s careful mask slipped.

  ‘You mean me to choose a weapon?’ Kartane asked gruffly.

  ‘That is the general idea. Unless you prefer to fight swords with words?’

  He made a quick pass of the weapon racks then Kartane drifted back along and selected a plain hand-and-a-half sword. He drew it in one smooth motion, perfunctorily testing its balance and weight. ‘This one,’ was all he said.

  The trio left the shop and city in silence, Stetch sulking that his prisoner was to be allowed a weapon, and Kartane just generally ill-tempered and sour. Katarina pondered her next step as they reached the plateau’s eastern edge, a long slope of mud descending into an apple orchard clustered around its base. She stopped at the top, the vista beyond the treetops sprawling in front of her like the Prophet’s own reminder of how truly small people were in the face of nature. Leagues and leagues stretched east in the hazy light of a mid-morning sun. At the edge of her vision a dark smear announced the Demon’s Teeth, the range of mountains bisecting Norve from the far north to deep into the country’s southern, and marginally more temperate, region. Several days of travel lay ahead, and with dangerous company, one of whom was still something of an unknown factor.

  ‘You have her eyes.’

  The words were so quiet, softly pronounced that for a moment Katarina thought she imagined it. Kartane stood next to her, peering down at her with what could almost be described as tenderness. To her left, Stetch bristled, his fingers dancing as though itching to draw his blade, step forward and across her to decapitate the knight in one motion. Hopefully, she thought, stopping the swing of the blade before it parts my head also. It was, Katarina knew, why the Sworn man had positioned himself on that side, giving him the advantage should it come to violence. Unless, of course, Kartane decides to go through me rather than adjust his stance.

  ‘Sadly, you have your father’s grand nose.’

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘You were smaller last I saw you.’ Kartane held his hand out at navel height. ‘About so high. Judging by your age… Katarina, I would think. The most precocious of the Black Duke’s daughters as I recall.’

  ‘You knew my parents?’

  ‘Once, briefly,’ said Kartane. ‘Can we get out of here before Tirian changes his mind?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, setting off down the half-frozen slope. ‘We have much to discuss, starting with that word you used.’

  ‘Ah, and there was me thinking you were a hopeless romantic, saving me to avoid an unhappy ending.’

  ‘Endings are neither happy nor unhappy,’ Katarina said. ‘They are simply endings; final.’ Kartane held his silence, perhaps taking a lesson from Stetch’s conversational playbook. ‘Lady Sarah asked me to intervene on your behalf,’ she admitted.

  ‘But your first question is about the word,’ Kartane said after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s a big risk, getting involved in Tirian’s business without cause; the word was what decided things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He chuckled. ‘Always thought it was some joke she told me, probably meant “I like boys” or some such thing. Never thought it’d work.’

  ‘You don’t know what it means?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Where did you hear it?’ Katarina demanded. ‘And I want the truth!’

  ‘Do you, girl?’ Kartane asked mildly. He hesitated, a cruel grin twisting his weathered face. ‘Your aunt.’

  Katarina stumbled, strong arms reaching for her from both sides and preventing her fall. Aunt Selene? Surely not… Yet when she snatched a glance at Kartane there was no deception she could see, just a faintly lecherous look, the cause of which Katarina decided it was best not to dwell upon.

  ‘Tell me how you met Steven.’

  ‘Steven?’

  ‘Tol,’ Katarina corrected with a wave of her gloved hand, ‘Tol Kraven, your accomplice in that stupendously foolish debacle that led to your present situation.’

  ‘Ah, him.’ Kartane’s face crinkled in thought, the process looking somewhat painful to Katarina’s eyes. Perhaps it is, she thought.

  ‘You’re the one he met on the road, you and your man here. I remember you now; saw you leaving Soltre after the boy killed a man for you.’

  Katarina nodded. There had been something familiar about that haggard face she saw in the castle. ‘You were looking for him,’ she realised. ‘Searching for him. Why?’

  ‘I was asked.’

  ‘You broke out of Westreach, and came back to a city where you knew you would be recognised and likely hanged because you were asked?’

  ‘If the right man asks in the right way, a fellow will do almost anything. Besides,’ Kartane grunted, ‘it’s not like I had much left to lose.’

  ‘But why?’ Katarina asked, losing patience. The truth of Steven’s quest was so close at hand, yet this knight was no fool, despite appearances. Kartane was renowned across the lands – even in the distant Sudalrese Isles – as a killer, as a fornicator. Yet he was more than that, Katarina had quickly realised. Quick to anger, faster to act, but thoughtful also. A dangerous combination. ‘What is it the Band of Blood seek?’

  Kartane adjusted the straps of Katarina’s cumbersome pack, now seated upon his shoulders, but remained silent. A minute passed, and then another, the trio emerging from the orchard with the straight road before them and fields of wheat on either side. Stetch glanced at Katarina pointedly, the meaning on his face clear. She shook her head, waiting as the knight beside her seemed to ponder how much to reveal. As they put the orchard further behind them, Katarina’s patience waned.

  ‘He was bound for Kron Vulder,’ she said, ‘to find the Seven and deliver whatever he holds, that much I know.’

  ‘Fool,’ Kartane muttered. ‘Was?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Much happened while you were within the duke’s dungeon. You know whom I serve, and Stetch is of the Sworn. If the boy still lives he may need help in his task. With the Reve marching east, Stetch and I may be the only allies he might enlist.’ Katarina glanced at Kartane, but his face was unreadable granite, eyes focused straight ahead. ‘I do not offer aid lightly,’ she told him, ‘nor do I risk my life without good cause.’

  ‘You will tell me what happened after I was caught?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Secrets,’ the knight sighed, his voice heavy. ‘The church has secrets, child, and as the Reve guards the church so it must also guard its secrets.’

  Katarina snorted. ‘Priests lining their own pockets with donations is hardly a secret, nor is their taste for fine wine and rich food.’

  ‘Not those kind of secrets,’ Kartane said. ‘Secrets that could damage the church, perhaps even unmake it entirely.’

  ‘Ah,’ Katarina said quietly, ‘those kind of secrets. I understand now why he has a demon on his trail. If the Gurdal and their demon masters get hold of such information, they could win the war before their army crosses the Spur. Without the church to unite the nations, resistance would be minimal, allowing the Gurdal to swarm through the Desolate Cities, up the Spur and straight into southern Meracia.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Kartane frowned. ‘Kraven still lives?’

  ‘I believe so.’ Katarina relayed the details of what she had happened after Kartane was captured: Steven escaping over the wall, evading his pursuers in the twisting st
reets, only to appear later at the city gates, a beaten woman in his arms.

  ‘He saved her,’ Katarina told him, ‘rescued her from a rapist then led her to the city gates.’

  ‘He should have left well alone,’ Kartane grumbled.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted, ‘but the gate guards were too preoccupied about collecting the reward for the rapist’s capture to wonder why a young man was leaving in the middle of the night even as patrols scoured the city for a man fleeing the castle. It seemed to work in his favour.’

  ‘He made it out, then?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  38.

  Katarina set a punishing pace. Despite shorter legs than her companions, she maintained a quick march throughout the remainder of the morning, her unwieldy pack now carried by Kartane. She led them along the straight path of the East Road, Kartane silently brooding on the news of an angel’s arrival on Korte, and Stetch, well, he was just silent. They passed less than half a dozen people on the road, few travelling far at winter’s end. Katarina spoke to none of the other travellers, and the dark looks smeared across the faces of her travelling companions guaranteed that none were asked of her. The air of dark menace that surrounded her finally diminished as Kartane and Stetch spied an inn ahead.

  ‘I walk faster after ale,’ Kartane announced, blunt as a hammer. An aggressive grunt from Katarina’s other side proclaimed Stetch’s agreement.

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ she said. Still, she thought it was possible they might learn something of Steven and his new companion. If not them, then the Band of Blood who, by all accounts, had fled Karnvost in the wake of the demon’s defeat. Innkeepers were, after all, the scholars of the road, more knowledgeable of events far and wide than the intelligence networks of many lords, and even the occasional king. After a token protestation, Katarina agreed to a brief stop at the inn – purely for information gathering, she explained – and had to almost run to keep up with her two wayward men as they miraculously found reserves of strength that lasted as far as the inn’s door. By the time they left, Katarina knew as she hurried after them, those reserves would be mysteriously spent. And then there’ll be more sulking.