“Now,” Thyss said, kneeling down to his level, “shall I continue with the right foot for symmetry? Or would you prefer the left hand?”
* * *
Cor sat in shocked silence. “You want to do what?”
Cor had been in the place he usually handled his day to day tasks, upon the hill at the Dahken’s table, when Geoff climbed the grassy slope. He had greeted the boy warmly, as any interruption was a respite from signing property documents and taxation agreements, and to be honest, Cor had no idea what he actually signed; the man Queen Erella’s exchequer appointed handled it all. Geoff’s dark face and quiet somber tone told Cor something was amiss, and they retreated back to his rooms to discuss it.
“Lord Dahken Cor, I need to go east of the Spine, into Losz,” Geoff repeated. “I cannot fight it much longer. With each passing day, the urge becomes greater and greater.”
Cor searched the boy’s face long and hard for a hint of anything, duplicity, fear, anger, but could read nothing. The boy’s face was haggard, tired; the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and his eyelids themselves looked swollen and painful. Geoff perpetually had rings under his eyes, giving him a tired appearance, but now they were darker, deeper. Cor had watched Geoff for months, ever since they left Byrverus, as he gazed to the east, and he remembered every time he felt the pull on his own blood, the last of which only a few short months ago when he discovered Rael resurrected. It was a need the likes of which he couldn’t clearly explain to anyone even himself, a hunger that could not be sated. Geoff was like a lodestone, inexorably attracted to some piece of iron that he could not see, only feel.
Cor sighed and then said quietly, “Geoff, I understand, and I know you can’t tell me what it is you seek. But if I let you go into Losz, I let you go to your death.”
“My ghast will protect me from harm,” Geoff answered. “It will stand against an army of Loszians.”
“A very sure, even arrogant statement when you don’t know how to control it,” Cor retorted, and he thought for just an instant, anger flared in Geoff’s eyes. “I don’t know how your power works, Geoff, but I do know what happened last time the ghast appeared. What if you can’t make it appear? What if it doesn’t manifest on its own when you need it? Would you take that risk with your own life?”
Cor took a deep breath. Geoff opened his mouth to answer, but Cor silenced him with an upraised hand.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Cor asked resignedly. “If I deny you, you will simply leave anyway and find another way through the Spine, won’t you? Don’t bother answering me one way or the other; I can see it in your eyes. If you’re sure you need to do this now, then you may leave as soon as you are ready. I can spare no one to go with you, but I will see to it that you have a horse, silver and supplies for two weeks or so. I hope you know how to live off the land; you’ll need to do it as much as possible.
“Geoff, I don’t know what you go to or how you will get past Lord Menak and his garrison, but when you return, if you return, we will welcome you back as Dahken Geoff.”
Cor stood from his chair and clasped arms with the young man who was only three years his junior. He motioned toward the door, and as Geoff left, Cor returned to his chair, sitting heavily and rubbing his eyes. Now more than ever, Lord Dahken Cor wished to return home, to the simple life of a farmer or even a sailor on the Narrow Sea. He wondered what became of his parent’s home, the farm he had known as a boy, and of his friend Captain Naran, the huge Shet from central Tigol. But the world would not allow Cor Pelson such a simple life, for even he had made enormous claims and plans, and all of this was just one more step along the way. As Cor left his quarters to return to his normal vantage point, he asked himself why he simply didn’t disappear. He looked to the south in the vain hope that he may just see Captain Naran’s sail on the horizon despite the thousand miles of land that separated Fort Haldon from the Narrow Sea.
16.
Thyss silently cursed the dead Loszian almost constantly as she trudged across the rocky terrain dragging his scorched corpse behind her. Once content that he had no more information to offer, she decided to end his life mercifully and return to Fort Haldon. She thought it best to bring his body along, just in case anyone doubted her story, and started by carrying him across her shoulders. However, this did not work out as she had hoped; even with her well developed sinews, his weight wore her down quickly, and the ground was treacherous.
She instead used her rope, the black cord woven from the silk of a great creature in her homeland, to tie the Loszian’s feet together, and she dragged him across the rough terrain. More than once she turned to see the grisly trail his corpse left behind as the rocky ground tore through clothes and charred flesh, and more than once she yanked his body over a hill or off a small ridge to watch it fall to the ground with a sickening thud, bones cracking. Over the trek, the Loszian’s skull cracked upon the rocks, and gray matter slowly oozed its way out onto the ground. The entire scene made Thyss at once grimace in civilized revulsion and smile in wicked satisfaction.
Something else had bothered her on this outing into the Spine, something she could not understand. The entire affair seemed slightly more arduous than usual, and she found herself feeling somewhat queasy on more than one occasion. She ate irregularly and even vomited once right after, an action and accompanying sensation in which she was wholly inexperienced. She vomited again on her trek back to Fort Haldon, hauling the twisted carcass, and she cursed her body’s betrayal.
The longer she dragged the dead Loszian, the more she realized the irrationality of saving his body, since she knew that Cor would never doubt her word. Regardless, she felt a need to show him the dead Loszian, and the further she pulled his corpse, the closer she was to Fort Haldon. After a few days, Thyss finally dropped into the pass connecting Aquis and Losz across the Spine, the early afternoon sun overhead warming the day substantially. She rested briefly, feeling the sun on her face, before starting the last few miles back to the fort.
As Thyss approached Fort Haldon, a horn sounded from the granite battlements that were steadily replacing the old wooden palisade. The new wall was a massive feat of modern engineering, towering dozens of feet over the original palisade, and it seemingly interlocked perfectly with the cliff faces that created the mouth of the pass. The horn sounded again, and Thyss knew it was to inform Lord Dahken Cor of her return. One of the massive doors opened inward to admit her and her prize.
Cor sprinted toward the gate, toward her from across Fort Haldon’s compound, weaving between workers and soldiers as his black hauberk reflected the afternoon sun. When he came to a stop before her, he lifted her in pure adoration as far into the air as his arms would stretch and turned so that the golden sunlight shined through her golden hair. Thyss laughed, and as he lowered her, she locked her strong legs around his waist and kissed him fiercely, the Loszian’s corpse forgotten. They cared not for the scene they made. After a long moment, she released her leg’s hold upon him, dropping her feet lightly to the dusty ground, but they held the kiss until a voice broke the spell.
“I am ready to leave, Lord Dahken Cor.”
Thyss turned from her lover to see Geoff standing only a few feet away, looking exhausted and worn with a drawn face and swollen eyelids. The ever present dark rings under his eyes had deepened to shades of black and purple like she had never seen among the living. All this, combined with the gray pallor of his race, had an effect to remind Thyss of the walking corpses raised by the Loszian necromancers. Geoff was dressed for traveling and held the reigns of a horse that stood patiently behind him.
“Then go safely, Geoff, and I hope that you find your way home soon,” Cor said, and Geoff merely nodded and led his horse through the still open gate.
“Where is he going?” Thyss asked, jerking her chin toward Geoff as men quickly closed the door behind him with an echoing boom.
“I don’t know. His destiny I’m afraid.”
“I don’t believe in destiny
, Dahken Cor,” she replied, and Cor could hear the curse in her voice.
“Perhaps not, but there’s no point in discussing it now. There is one thing I want to ask you,” Cor said, and he pointed to the charred, broken corpse Thyss had dragged with her from the Spine, likely only devoid of flies and maggots due to its burnt status. “What in the gods is that?”
“A present, my love,” Thyss answered with a wicked smile.
It was late in the afternoon when Thyss related her tale, starting when she knew the Loszian followed her, less than an hour after leaving Fort Haldon. At her suggestion, Cor called Thom and Keth to the future site of the Dahken hall, the latter of which brought the young Marya with him. Seeing the state of the corpse she brought with her, Cor very nearly sent the girl away.
Thyss stopped him saying, “No, allow her to stay. Make her grow strong.”
The Loszian’s name was Jor’lek. He was a servant to Lord Menak on the other side of the pass, a grandson of the lord in fact, though the Loszians never claimed their Western descendants as blood. He had ranged the Spine for years, reporting to Menak anything out of the ordinary, simply keeping an eye on the border with Aquis, but his task had changed recently. Lord Menak had sent Jor’lek to specifically spy upon Fort Haldon and report any activity, no matter how small. He took great pride in his duties, some nights getting so close to the palisade as to hear the archers above talking or snoring. When he reported that ground had broken on a keep and that the wood wall was being replaced with a true granite curtain wall with battlements, Lord Menak showed no surprise. Jor’lek thought his master expected war, and soon.
All this he told Thyss in earnest in between his screaming fits as she slowly burned away his digits, hair and flesh. As Jor’lek screamed, she promised reprieve if he told her everything she wanted to know, everything he knew, which was surprisingly little. By the time she was done, he was barely alive with every inch of his flesh charred black, and his voice gurgled out from its disfigured face begging for mercy. Certain that no man could endure such pain without speaking honestly, she finally ended it with a sword thrust through his right eye and into his brain. His hands twitched frenetically in a most disturbing fashion until she pulled the blade free.
Cor sighed deeply and slowly tilted his head to one side while turning his face the other way as if to crack his neck. He looked in turn at the face of each person seated, all of whom had become trusted lieutenants with the exception of Marya. He was convinced the girl should not have heard the story Thyss related with such relish and gruesome detail. Thom grimaced slightly as his hard stare pointed at the table’s mahogany top, while Keth remained almost perfectly impassive.
How like Rael, Cor thought. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he will tell me if I ask.
He looked to Marya last, having almost forgotten the girl, and found himself surprised. How old was she? Twelve? Thirteen? The girl looked in awe upon the beautiful Thyss, and on her face was a vicious smile, not too dissimilar from the elementalist’s own. Keth spent much of his time working with Marya, and he had told Cor of her rather tenacious personality. She was bright, he knew, but she was constantly asking Keth to spar with her using live steel. She was a little girl who’d discovered strength, and it seemed she longed for an opportunity to use it. Cor decided he needed to spend more time with Marya and the other young Dahken.
Thom was the first to speak, “I don’t see that this changed anything Lord Dahken Cor. Long before your arrival, we lived here under the assumption of imminent attack. So the Loszians watch us. We watch them as well. I have men in the mountains, overlooking the Loszian side of the Spine, and should an army capable of invasion begin to form, we would be the first to know. We also have more men than before, trained soldiers, but commoners as well. With the advance warning, I know we can hold for reinforcements.”
“You’re very certain Thom,” Cor stated. “I wish I could be. Keth?”
“Lord Dahken, I barely know battle, and I don’t know anything about war. You gave me back life and the lives of Marya and the others, and I’ll follow you to my end.”
“I’ve never asked for that Dahken Keth, and I never will,” Cor sighed, looking up into a sky that glowed orange in the afternoon light.
“Lord Dahken Cor, there is one other thing to consider,” Thom said. “I have never met anyone as extraordinary as yourself and Lady Thyss. Together, the two of you led a band of children past a trained garrison of Loszians, swords, pikes and crossbows, not to speak of black sorcery. Your people have a power beyond my ken, and while I’ve always been too pragmatic for faith, I know you must be gifted by the gods. My Lady, I know not of your land, but I know that you summon fire and command it to work your will. In a short time, I have already seen you do the impossible. Surely, no Loszian host can defeat Fort Haldon so long as you both are here.”
Cor, Lord of the Dahken and Fort Haldon, breathed deeply as he mulled over Thom’s words, and he closed his eyes as he considered them. He knew he needed to tell Thom he was wrong, to tell Keth to take Marya and any of the other young Dahken away to live a quiet life somewhere. He questioned himself and his decisions that led him and a group of children to the least safe place in Aquis. Cor had always told them to go where they will, live as they choose, but they always followed him. They followed him from Losz, straight away into danger and death, and he realized then that they had no choice to make. They were children looking for a parent to protect them, and he offered the only security they would find. Cor opened his eyes and looked at Thyss, his beautiful, deadly and even malicious Thyss.
“And you?”
“Let them come Lord Dahken Cor,” she said, her dulcet voice a barely audible whisper. “Let the Loszians come, and we will burn and hew our way through their legions. When faced with our fury, they will run, and they will hide in the shadows within their purple towers.”
“And what if they don’t run?” Cor asked. He could see the flames burning deep in her eyes, and he knew the answer that was forthcoming. Just as her mouth opened, she was interrupted by a younger voice from further down the table. It was a bit higher pitched and less melodious.
“Then we’ll kill them all,” Marya said.
17.
It did not take Geoff long, only into his second day crossing the Spine, to curse himself, Keth and the gods themselves. The more he tried to remember about his days before being frozen by the Loszian necromancer Taraq’nok, the less he could recall. All he knew was that traveling alone with limited supplies was absolutely miserable work, and he almost wished he had let Keth kill him. Actually, he wished he had called forth the blood ghast and slain Keth. It would have been easy to explain; drunk, Keth attacked him out of jealousy, and Geoff purely defended himself. He sighed with the knowledge that it was too late for what could have been.
The weather was the only thing that made the trip remotely bearable. The days had been warm as of late, even in the mountains, and it cooled substantially as he made camp the second night with threatening clouds overhead. He awoke the next morning to find the clouds had passed by harmlessly, loosing only a few drops of rain to help keep the dust down, and the air retained its cooler temperature. As such, he didn’t feel the need to draw on his water supplies as often. He really could use a large quantity of wine; it had been a long time since he had been this sober, and he did not like the feeling.
Geoff tried to remember back to the last time he traveled this pass in the hopes of recognizing any landmark, any sign to indicate how close he was to the Loszian side. Unfortunately, it was to no avail; he could remember nothing of that harrowing night except exhaustion and the sense of danger as the sounds of Loszian soldiers closed the distance behind them. The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t understand how they had all survived that night. Well, almost all - one little girl had died, but who was she?
It was late into the third day that he reached the end of the pass. The sun had begun to set, having already disappeared behind the mountai
n peaks and casting shadows across his path. A great wall wrought of black stone with battlements and four square towers blocked the way ahead, and Geoff knew the last time he had come through its iron portcullis was in the middle of the night some months ago. As he approached slowly, still out of crossbow range, a cry went up from the wall to announce his presence to all on the other side. Uncertain as to how he should proceed, he halted his horse; at the least, Geoff knew he did not want to be filled with crossbow bolts like a pincushion.
With a familiar sound of steel chains quickly scraping stone and metal, the black portcullis began to open and out came over a dozen men, most of whom were armed with crossbows and clad in black chainmail. Geoff considered that he may have made a mistake by coming here, and he turned his horse with thoughts of escape. As he did so, two men dressed in supple leather appeared from behind fallen rocks and brush, and they too were armed with crossbows, a smaller sort that was held easily in one hand. Geoff could not ride his way out of the trap, lest he make himself an easy target for the scouts who had snuck up behind him, and he dismounted under the assumption that he had no choice but to fight. One of the approaching soldiers held up a black gauntleted hand, and they all stopped, their crossbows still trained on Geoff. He prepared to defend himself, but the apparent leader spoke.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 02 - Fire and Steel Page 15
