The stormcaller tr-1

by Tom Lloyd

  'I am pleased that you understand,' Bahl said. 'Isak will need staff who can anticipate as well as organise. Too many of my nobles still say this attack is nothing more than evidence of elven insanity. Those who do recall the name Shalstik dismiss it.'

  Tila frowned for a moment, then understanding dawned. 'Shalstik; I remember that. My mother couldn't stop boasting when a Harlequin stayed as her sister's house-guest for a week over the summer. This one apparently told the Prophecy of Shalstik every night for a week. My bother said the prophecy concerned the rebirth of the last king; but surely they cannot think Lord Isak is really Aryn Bwr reborn?'

  Dahl snorted. 'No, I seriously doubt even they do, but those weap-

  ons enough by themselves to start a holy war with the elves. If they have decided their time has come, I don't know what it will take to stop them. I hope I never find out. Until then, think on what we said. There is no room in Isak's life for romantic fancies.' He stood and looked into the crackling fire. A gust of wind ran down the chimney, sending a puff of smoke out into the room. Before the curls of grey could reach Tila they stopped, hanging listlessly for a moment before fading to nothing.

  Tila shifted in her seat, tucking her legs underneath her and tugging her cloak over them like a blanket. Then a thought struck her and she twisted herself around to look at the books lining the walls. 'Isak knows so little of our myths and ancient history. Perhaps I could be of some use to him while he is away. If he has prophecies to contend with, the knowledge in this room could prove vital.' She looked up at Lord Bahl, a note of pleading in her voice.

  Bahl gave a curt nod. 'I think you are a very sensible young woman; one he will benefit from listening to.' He had said enough; now he left the room without another word.

  Two weeks later, Bahl was preparing to start his journey east. News from Lomin was confusing, but better than he had expected. The linked mages had again allowed Bahl to speak to the scion, this time to follow the enemy's movements. Vitil had fallen and had been razed to the ground, with the loss of more than three hundred men, but more than half of the population had been saved by a heroic effort on the part of the garrison. Their sacrifice had drawn in the enemy attack and allowed nearby Kohm to safely evacuate along with Vitil's civilians. Kohm's garrison saw all the refugees to the greater safety of Peak's Gate.

  With two full legions of troops there, and the townsfolk bolstering their number, the elves would not attempt to take the fortress-town of Peak's Gate. It would take months of siege to break that ancient stronghold, so the elves would be content to maintain a stand-off at

  the gates.

  When the effort had again become too much for the twinned mage, Bahl had sat in silence until everyone else had shuffled from the room-He felt a nagging guilt about sending the army off under Isak's command. General Lahk was more than competent; he would not allow the Krann to make any fatal mistake, and yet…

  And yet Bahl knew he should be out there, leading his army himself, not walking down to the Great Hall to grab a last meal before he left Tirah. If he took the high mountain paths shunned by most Farlan, he would be able to travel undisturbed to his friend's deathbed. He had failed to find any trace of the vampire they suspected was in the city; this distraction at least he would see through.

  It was evening, and muffled sounds of revelry came from behind the aged oak doors, garbled and distant, but nonetheless welcome after the empty apartments and corridors of the upper levels. He looked at the flags adorning the Great Hall: they were of similar age to his dying friend in the forest, and they looked as worn as the Abbot had been when Bahl had last seen him. Soon Bahl would have to choose replacements for both as he endured yet another lifetime.

  On a rare impulse he sat at the foot of the great stairway and pressed his temple against the cold stone of the wall. As he did so, he imagined a tremble of age pass to him from the stone, but he knew it was nothing. He ran a hand over the worn steps and looked up at the flags, wondering when his own time would come. White-eyes could live past five hundred summers; however much Bahl felt like an old man, he had several lifetimes ahead of him. It was hard to welcome them.

  In the Great Hall, the cooking fire spat and roared as a deer roasted slowly above its flames, the scent of it thick in the air. As Bahl entered, the noise waned briefly, but he ignored the faces turned in his direction and made for the fire. A maid pulled a bowl-shaped flatbread from the cauldron behind her and heaped dripping hunks of venison and vegetables into it for him.

  'You're leaving now.7' Bahl turned to see Lesarl behind him and nodded as he slipped a chunk of meat into his mouth. 'So is Tiniq,' Lesarl continued. 'He's just had a message from the Chief of Rangers; he's setting out immediately, on foot again, as always. He claims he doesn't like riding.'

  'At this hour? I take it the message was delayed in getting to him.' 'I might have kept the ranger waiting in my office a little longer

  than necessary.' Lesarl smiled. He knew Tiniq had piqued his Lord's

  interest.

  Thank you. Where is he?'

  'Pack hidden under the table, trying to be unobtrusive, behind you, door-side.'

  Bahl nodded his thanks and gestured for Lesarl to return to his own meal, then turned to spot Tiniq, who was sitting with shoulders hunched, staring down at an empty cup. The ranger rarely came to the palace; he was here even less these days as the advancing years failed to mark his face. Tiniq Lahk defied all conventions: he was General Lahk's younger twin, a normal man, not a white-eye, and one

  who should have died in the womb as twins of white-eyes always did.

  Just as a white-eye's size would kill the mother in childbirth, so the

  life of any twin would be squeezed out in the weeks beforehand. But

  somehow Tiniq had clung grimly to life, and though a sickly child,

  he had grown into a strong youth. He had had a lonely childhood,

  fostered to a forester, and grew up suspicious of strangers. He appeared

  to have taken on many white-eye attributes, and no doubt he was

  touched by magic, a little, but just how much, he kept to himself. This

  was a mystery Bahl was still waiting to resolve.

  Bahl's cogitation was interrupted as Tiniq noticed him. 'My Lord?' he said as he rose from his seat and gave Bahl a short bow.

  'I'm leaving for the Ked road now. I take it you won't be going too far off track if you accompany me part of the way.'

  The tone of Bahl's voice left no room for argument, but still Tiniq tried. 'Actually, my Lord, I am bound for Siul.'

  'A few hours will not make much difference, I think. Fetch your

  pack.'

  Tiniq suppressed a sigh and reached under the bench to pull out a shapeless canvas pack and an oilskin weapons-pouch, then followed

  Bahl outside.

  He kept his eyes low until Bahl stopped unexpectedly and spoke again. 'There are tales of the Saljin Man in the deep forest. Have you

  seen it?'

  The ranger frowned. 'Just peasants being foolish. We've got enough in our forests without borrowing the curses of other tribes.'

  'I wonder. It's a strange thing to invent when we all know the Vukotic are as rooted to their lands as to their curses. I've heard this before, when a vampire was in the city almost a century back. Now we suspect another is here, do we call that coincidence?'

  The ranger looked startled at the prospect, attempting to cover his discomfort by adjusting the baldric on his shoulder. 'I understand. I'll

  pay attention.'

  'Good. Now we should leave. You must have run with your brother, I expect you to keep up.' Without waiting for a reply, Bahl strode off through the moonlight to the stone fist of the barbican. The bridge was usually kept raised in times of war, but the guards had seen him standing outside the Great Hall and it was down by the time Bahl passed through the tunnel.

  The wide main streets and narrow alleys of the city were almost

  empty. Away to the left,
Bahl could hear the stamp of hobnailed boots – Ghosts on patrol. Even the gutter runners would be holed up somewhere warm; the sparkle of frost on the gargoyles and overhangs showed how dangerous the roofs were this time of year. Despite that, the ancient city of covered streets, archways and statues was at its most entrancing when glittering in the moonlight.

  Bahl walked easily down these cobbled roads. The many towers and complex architecture made Tirah a remarkable city to behold. In the moonlight, even the most fanciful stories set here became believable. Black shadows lurked in the covered streets, under arches and around the lights of taverns. Bahl knew that not all of the eyes above were empty stone, but there was a natural order and the predators that hunted the streets at night were wary of him. They would watch him for as long as they could, like deer following a wolf pack to avoid the chance of ambush.

  Up above the city, the two greater moons emerged fully from behind feathered clouds. Kasi – the lesser of the two, the hunter's moon – was halfway to the horizon. At this time of year, that meant there was less than an hour left until midnight. Off to the south, Alterr overshadowed Kasi's red tint with her own yellow eye. As followers of Nartis, both men saluted the lesser moon, kissing the backs of their bow fingers and touching them to their foreheads in a gesture whose meaning was lost, as so much else, in the mists of time.

  'Strange to think that there was a time when the Land could see such great events – stranger even that we might soon return to such a time.'

  Tiniq looked puzzled at Bahl's announcement, following his gaze up to Kasi. The lesser moon, which appeared in the years before the Great War, was named for that most devoted of mortals, Kasi Farlan. Legend had it that Larat, the God of Magic and Manipulation, had seduced Alterr, the Moon Goddess, and persuaded her to hide her light from the sky as a party of Parian hunters returned home. While the others found their way back, Kasi Farlan was lost in the deep forest, blinded by the darkness and hunted by Larat's assassins. When the hunters returned without her husband, the Princess of the Farlan begged the Queen of the Gods for aid. When Alterr refused to show her light again, the queen took the diamond necklace from her own neck and rolled it around the princess's ruby ring, making a single stone which she threw high into the sky to light Kasi's way home and

  save him from attack.

  The ruby at the moon's heart was bound to Alterr's own life's blood. She was ordered to throw the gem up every night as penance, and if she failed to catch it, the stone would break on the ground, and so too would her own blood run out to the earth. To prevent that from happening, Larat took the stone from Alterr's hands the next night and threw it so hard he sent it orbiting the Land, fulfilling the bond set by the Queen of the Gods.

  Now his lover need only to watch its path, and wonder whether it would ever fall.

  'Would that be something to look forward to?' The ranger sounded nervous rather than enthusiastic. 'The Great War poisoned the Land with its magic. If life is less dramatic, is that so bad?'

  'Not at all, but it was the energies spent in anger that caused the waste to be poisoned, rather than the Ages before the Great War. That much destruction must be avoided at all costs, but sometimes I think grand deeds like the hunter's moon might again have a place in life.' He changed the subject. 'You prefer to walk to Siul? It's a long way. Even for a white-eye, it would be far.'

  Tiniq cleared his throat noisily. 'I dislike riding, and horses themselves, for that matter. It's a dislike they share, it seems – I was thrown twice as a boy in the training paddock and I've never trusted them since. I know you're wondering about my birth; that's why you wanted me to accompany you, isn't it?'

  Bahl inclined his head. The two men were walking down the centre of a wide avenue through the temple district.

  'Well, I'm not my brother; that's for certain, but we have some things in common. It might take me longer to get to Lomin, but the path is more direct on foot and I can outrun any normal.'

  'You don't consider yourself a normal?'

  'Would you?'

  Bahl considered that. Tiniq might look like an ordinary man, but it was unlikely he could hide his differences for long. 'Perhaps not, but it would be a nice choice to have. How about children?'

  'Have I any? No. I've had my share of women though, so that might be one more thing in common with your kind.'

  'Magic?'

  'I…' Now discomfort was evident in Tiniq's voice. Bahl kept silent and let the man take his time. There was nowhere to run from

  the question. 'I have some sensitivity; that is the only way I can explain it. Although my brother's magic is weak, he can perform spells. In me it's different: I can hunt and fight better than I should; my awareness is heightened, my eyes are stronger than normal men's.'

  'And what is the price?'

  'My Lord?' Bahl couldn't tell whether that was genuine or not.

  'The price, Tiniq, of these gifts. Nothing is for free. The scales must always be balanced.'

  'I don't know.' The sentence was almost a whisper. 'I think I have yet to pay it. I'll have fifty summers in the new year and I don't look older than thirty – and I'm getting stronger.'

  'Stronger?'

  'My brother has noticed it too. When I saw him a few days ago, it was for the first time in two years. As I embraced him, he felt the difference.'

  'Curious.' They reached the Wood Gate that led east out of the city. The frost in the air had suspended the gentle sway of the leaves; everything was still and silent. Bahl turned to the smaller man. 'We'll run until the hunter's moon goes down. I expect you to keep up.' Without waiting for a reply he broke into a jog, slowly building the pace to keep the ranger pushing himself to catch up. The darkness of night closed around them with a soft sigh. Under the cover of reaching branches they ran with hardly a sound, the moonlit mountains flashing in and out of sight between the trees.

  After he parted company with Tiniq, Bahl met no one as he took forgotten paths through the high ground. The foothills of the mountains were the preserve of herdsmen and rangers; superstition and a lack of arable ground kept the rest away. The early winter had already sapped all the strength from the trees, leaving tired, heavy branches hanging low on the ground. Withered leaves crackled underfoot. Crabbed oaks jostled in the breeze with alders and skeletal silver birch, all hunkered down under the determined beat of rain and light snow. It wouldn't be long until the winter storms that would suspend normal life for a time.

  His destination was a small monastery in the suzerainty of Ked. It Was a harsh place to live: though hidden within dense woodland, it was high up, and plagued by the wind coming down off the mountain. It Was a far cry from those monasteries in towns, where monks and nuns figured in all parts of the common folks' lives. This was both a retreat and a training ground, providing spiritual direction for a large number of novices as they worked on whichever path they had chosen.

  Bahl was familiar with the Chaplains, the zealot warrior-monks attached to each regiment, but his contact with the other sects was limited. Lesarl dealt with the Cardinals who ran the cult of Nartis and Bahl had little time for the priests who performed pastoral work.

  It was evening when he finally caught sight of the stockade wall of

  the monastery. He'd spent the morning recovering from spells he'd

  cast the previous night: he had been unable to bear being in complete

  ignorance of what was happening further east. The elven army had felt

  like a putrid sore on his skin when he let his senses spread over the

  forests. The army was keeping to the darkest corners. Split into three

  parts, it had a network of scouts spreading out from each section, and

  trails of magic reaching even further. Each one was a thread waiting

  to be triggered when their prey stumbled within reach. Bahl hoped he

  had managed to confuse them enough over the course of the night.

  A stone gate was the only entrance, above which shivered the light o
f a fire from a small watch-room. There was a roof to keep off the snow, but the wind came in through the narrow slit that ran around the chamber. Bahl could see the huddled shape of a novice – even with the fire, it would be bitterly cold inside. After a few hours of this cold, the novice would hardly be able to raise the alarm at any-thing he saw… but a monastery was not supposed to be a place of

  comforts.

  Bahl broke into a run, silently gliding over the grassy clearing that surrounded the square compound. The novice's head was turned away, staring at the empty trees. In one leap, Bahl cleared the spiked wall and landed on the walkway that led to the gate tower.

  The guard heard the noise and fumbled with his bow as he turned, only to let it drop in amazement as he saw Bahl standing there, bow in hand and mask on. For a few seconds the novice just stared in amazement, then he gave a yelp as Bahl strode down the walkway towards him. His bow abandoned, the youth scrabbled first with the drape covering the door, then the latch, but when at last he did open it, Bahl was almost upon him. Terrified, he fell to his knees in the doorway, mittened hands clumping together beneath his chin.

  'L-l-lord Nartis,' he whispered with reverence. Bahl stopped with grunt of surprise.

  'Don't be stupid, boy,' he snapped, moving past to the ramp that led down to the stone courtyard. He stopped to get his bearings, looking around at the interior of the monastery. Five columns of smoke rose from other parts of the building, reminding him which parts were sleeping quarters. Behind him was the gate tower, flanked by wooden stables for the livestock. On either side were the dormitories, one for novices, the other for the monks. Straight ahead was the chapel, and the flicker of candles through its rose window showed that he had arrived in time: the light that still burned for the abbot would only be extinguished when the man had passed through Death's gates.