by George Hatt
Kyn and Taer, the white and red crescents that ruled Paardrac’s nights of fasting, fled behind the mountains an hour before Mahurin’s horses hauled the sun over the eastern horizon. He blessed the divinities who had watched over him during his vigil and produced his morning ration from his satchel. He munched on a biscuit, jerked venison and a handful of dried berries and watched the stars disappear before the advancing light Mahurin brought with him. A chilly breeze came down off the mountains and wafted through Paardrac’s hair and beard. His shaven temples prickled at the wind’s caress.
“You are above, Mahurin the Mighty, and we are here below. You bathe us with your quickening light and chase the moons and stars away when their time to frolic in the sky has come to an end,” he said to the sun. He finished his breakfast and collected his ritual tools, leaving the food in central circle. “And those who worship you above all others massacre my people and desecrate our holy places. Indeed do many things come to pass.”
No visions had come to him during his time on the spur, but his mind was clear and he felt receptive. Strength and virility flooded the war chief’s limbs—more than a simple meal should have given him after a two-day fast. He drew his strength from the sky above, from the earth below and behind him. And I stand where the two meet.
Paardrac returned from the lonely spur and walked among the newly raised buildings down a dirt road leading to the gate of the Krak. Women and children ran to greet him, and several men darted up the lane and into the keep. By the time he reached the gate, Banton and Grim stood between the wooden towers of the barbican. They flanked a bear of a man whom Paardrac recognized but never expected at the Krak. The man knelt and rested his brow on the back of the war chief’s hand.
“I call for your aid,” said Bjarthor, the chieftain of Clan Riverstar. “The Castle Dwellers—the motherless ones!”
He broke down and sobbed, but quickly composed himself and looked up at Paardrac, his eyes gleaming with tears and hatred above his unruly beard. “They have burned our clan. Now the godless ones march on the Sacred Springs.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Paardrac
Paardrac led his blue-painted Helmsguard, 200 strong by now, through the wooded passes in the Stone Kingdom Mountains. Two men carried the Kingshelm in its iron-bound box supported between two spear shafts at the head of the column. Bjarthor marched at the head of another band of 100 warriors composed of the weary but vengeful remnants of Clans Riverstar and Bloodmoon. Another 100 or so stayed behind at the Krak to defend the women and children taking refuge behind its ever strengthening walls.
The combined war bands marched as quickly as they could across the forbidden wildness, sacrificing stealth for speed. Paardrac and Bjarthor agreed that the murderous Castle Dwellers were unlikely to penetrate this deeply into the wilderness.
Grim chose to uphold his vows to the Helmsguard and trusted Bjarthor with his clansmen, much to Paardrac’s relief. The rest of the Helmsguard noted his loyalty with silent approval and exuded a sense of confidence and solidarity that forged the warriors from disparate clans into a true war band. And they would need that solidarity when they met the Castle Dwellers in battle for the first time, Paardrac knew.
Solidarity. There is something to be said for that. But what we need most is the leadership of Grim and Bjarthor when we battle the Castle Dwellers, he thought.
Paardrac’s bardic eloquence and druidic charisma had helped him form his war band—had created it unbidden, in fact, of its own volition. But he was trained as a druid, not a warrior. Cackling phantoms of doubt flitted in the shadows of every decision he made, even as his Helmsguard rushed to carry out his orders. He caught himself banishing the phantoms from his mind more and more as the bands neared the Sacred Springs. There is no room for doubt, he reminded himself. A warrior I am not, but I remain a druid in my spirit. There is no room for doubt in a druid’s actions.
The war bands made camp in a wooded mountain valley two days’ march from the Sacred Springs. Their camps during the previous fortnight had been far from jovial, but this night was downright austere. No campfires were permitted, and the warriors slept in their hauberks and wrapped themselves in woolen cloaks for warmth. Fully a third of the fighting men and women kept watch or roved on picket duty at any given time during the night, lest the enemy take them by surprise as the camp slept.
Paardrac, Banton, Grim, Hredvars, Skadhi and Bjarthor huddled in council beneath the red and white moons hanging low in the clear night sky. Kyn and Taer cast dark shadows between the trees that shrouded the sleeping war bands in a mystical swirl of earth and sky.
“We must scout ahead before we commit our warriors to battle,” Paardrac said, surprised by the authority in his voice. It was the voice he had used when leading rituals as a druid of Clan Riverstar. The others nodded in assent. “I will go. Skadhi and Hredvars will accompany me. Bjarthor, who will you send?”
“I will go with you,” the chieftain of Clan Riverstar said.
“Paardrac, let me go on the reconnaissance instead,” Grim said. “You cannot risk your life so far away from the Kingshelm.”
“I am war chief,” Paardrac said. “My place is where danger lies.”
“A chieftain’s place is at the head of his war band,” Banton said. “And your war band will be here, guarding the helm. The gods chose you to keep the Kingshelm safe until it sits on the high king’s brow. Your destiny is not to die slinking around in the woods.”
Paardrac looked at Banton. “You speak wisely, though the fool in me wants to ignore your counsel. You are indeed a druid worthy of the gods and ancestors.”
“We are all here, fighting under one banner, because of you,” Banton said. “The gods chose you for a reason.”
The gods chose me to guard the helm because I am a better mystic than I am a tactician, Paardrac thought. He mentally waved the thought aside and silently prayed forgiveness for giving in to doubt. Again.
“You have a week,” Paardrac said to Grim. “If by that time you haven’t returned, I will lead the war bands back to the Krak and prepare for the fury you will have provoked upon being discovered.”
“It will be a single war band,” Bjarthor said. “My men are to shave the sides of their heads and take the vows of the Helmsguard if I do not return.”
Eight nights later, Paardrac lay on his belly with the rest of his warriors and looked on the camp defiling the Sacred Springs like an infestation. The pre-dawn blackness shrouded his war bands, and the sentries in the camp below the vengeful Caeldrynn were sluggish in the hour or so before their watches ended.
The castle dwellers were arrayed just as Paardrac’s scouts had reported. About 500 strong held perhaps 100 captives from Clan Riverstar bound to posts in a hastily constructed pen. The darkling form of a partially constructed chapel stood on the great stone platform in the silver waters where Paardrac and Banton had guided Barryn on his vision quest less than a season before.
The waters sang, raged, chanted, as they hurled themselves up from the surface of the lake and splashed down from the heart of the mountains. The noise of the springs masked the sounds of Bjarthor and his warriors as they crept toward the sentries nearest the prisoners. Paardrac gripped the standard he would bear into the coming battle. His palm sweated on the ash shaft as fear transformed first into anxiety, then to bloodlust and back into fear. The war chief did nothing to chase these feelings away save keep his breath full and calm. He let the feelings wash through him, change form, and ebb and flow. They were natural and had a place in the coming engagement. The only ones who would feel no fear during the coming slaughter was the bronze boar atop his standard—and the Castle Dwellers below who would die shortly.
Agonized screams and heathen war cries pierced the noise of the waters, and Paardrac counted slowly to ten to give the Castle Dwellers time to stumble out of their tents and rush toward the mayhem that Bjarthor’s warriors were stirring. At the end of the count, Paardrac slapped Grim on the shoulder and hiss
ed, “Go! Go!”
The command passed up and down the line of prostrate warriors, and in moments they were quietly hustling toward the growing chaos in the camp. Grim took the lead as Paardrac’s shield bearer while the former druid bore the standard in one hand and a gilt, carved horn in the other. Behind them were the bearers of the Kingshelm; the rest of the war band fanned out to either side of Paardrac and quietly hacked the castle dwellers as they crawled out of tents and blundered about the camp.
When his war band was deep in the camp Paardrac let forth a blast with his horn, and the Helmsguard followed with a bloodthirsty war cry. Tents burst into flames as his warriors set them alight with the camp’s own fires. The burning tents cast a hellish light on the broadening melee.
No longer in need of stealth, the Helmsguard whooped and hollered with a peculiar mixture of childish glee and animal ferocity. The blood and slaughter raised a fury within Paardrac that he had never felt before.
“For the Caeldrynn! For our slain children! For the Gods and Ancestors! Kill the murderous dogs! Ataracha ulla damaar chassa dars maga!” Paardrac shouted as he raised the standard high above the heads of the warriors clustered around him. “Kill the motherless dogs!”
“Kill the dogs!” his warriors cried as they carried out Paardrac’s directive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mithrandrates
The double doors separating the Emperor’s chamber from the balcony were closed against the crisp fall night.
We are everywhere. We are the Watchers of the Watchers. Those who bear the sword shall wastrel in the kenning.
The Emperor stirred in his fitful sleep. He had to piss, but could not wake up to go to the jakes. He was standing on the edge of a growing chamberpot balanced precariously atop a high tower in the moonlit night. But the pot wasn’t growing—the Emperor was shrinking—down, down, Mithrandrates shrank, the pot growing all around him until it was the size of a well, then a pond, then a lake. He fumbled with his breeches in a vain attempt to piss in the chasm, but he stumbled and recovered before he could fall off the rim.
Kim the bleeding sob. Serpents swim in the wabe. She who is we is HE and HE is your she.
Mithrandrates strained to understand the whispering voices around him, but forgot about then when he looked down. The world stretched below him, deep blue in the night. Dark silhouettes flitted madly about the tower below him. The Emperor looked closely at the careening shapes—they were a hippogriff chasing a dragon like a mockingbird harrying a vulture.
“You’ll knock the goddamn chamberpot down!” Mithrandrates shouted at the two monsters.
“And who among you is innocent?” the hippogriff shot back indignantly.
And the innocent will child a born in thee to the margraves red, the whispering winds said.
“Don’t you believe a word of this,” the dragon said, and the hippogriff was on him, clawing at the dragons’ back and delicate wings. “You’ll probably be fine.” The creatures plummeted toward the nightclad ground so far below.
What the fuck was that?
“What the fuck was that?” the Emperor said.
What for us in the waves of the realm? I know this, that you are that and down and out and around and down until you run out of ground at the edge of the town.
Mithrandrates fell headlong into the chamberpot and awoke with a start. He was naked and tied to an x-shaped cross in a dark room. Primus Bergammon knelt below him, holding the chamberpot from the dream as the Emperor emptied his bladder.
“Not a drop is to hit the ground in this high holy place,” the Primus said firmly.
Where am I? The whispering winds lingered and spoke for him. Tell me what to say and when to say it.
“That’s no way for an Emperor to talk!” barked a familiar, feminine voice from the darkness. Mithrandrates could smell incense and the dampness of an underground chamber.
I’m to be assassinated.
“Perhaps someday,” the Primus said, handing the chamberpot to a figure in a white, hooded cloak. He pulled a dagger carefully from the folds of his gold-trimmed clothing. “But not tonight. I have something to show you.”
Mithrandrates recognized the dagger—it was the same one he had found under his pillow a few weeks before the Imperial Council. He did not, however, recognize the symbol emblazoned on the Primus’ raiment. Instead of the Golden Sun of Mahurin, an open eye with beams radiating outward covered much of the front of Bergammon’s robe.
The hissing, mocking voices died down, and Mithrandrates found he had mastery of his own. He glared at the Primus. “What can you show me that will save you from the headsman’s axe after this outrage? I am your Emperor, and you shall die for this.”
“One must rule himself before he can rule an empire,” Primus Bergammon said. “And he must defend himself from the horrors of the Astral Realm before he can defend his empire from the Terrors from Beyond the Beyond. And these are surely coming, for the Chaos Moon approaches.”
A woman’s voice softly emerged from the darkness, chanting in a language the Emperor did not understand. The chanting rose in volume and intensity, and a torch bathed the room in a faint, ruddy light. Mithrandrates was surrounded by robed figures holding unlit torches. Hoods concealed their features. The torch passed its fire to one of the torchbearers, and he—or she—or it—passed the flame to the ghostly figure next to it.
And now I am surrounded by fire. The whispering, mocking winds were returning.
“All is Fire, and Light and Darkness,” the woman said from beyond the wall of flame. “There is none but these, and we are of the Light.”
“We are of the Light,” the men and women intoned in unison.
Ask them why you are here.
“Why am I here?” The flames were now pulsing with Mithrandrates’ heartbeat, and the dagger was tracing strange designs in the air a few feet in front of him. The hilt of the dagger dragged the Primus’ hand along with it.
“Astarte desgamma darute calas a sanaa,” the Primus muttered.
“There is light within you, and you will learn to wield it,” the woman beyond the torches said. “But first we must plunge you into true darkness. There is no other way.”
Where has the dagger fucked off to? Where are the humble bards when the song is fire?
“None of this is happening,” the hippogriff said. It stood in the circle of torches where the Primus once was and spread its wings in glory. Pure white light and the smell of cold, fresh air washed over Mithrandrates. A small man with pointed ears and a bright red cap sat astride the beautiful, terrible beast.
“They’re trying to kill you in the subtlest way possible,” the tiny man said reasonably. “They will drive you insane and let you do the dirty work for them.”
The ropes binding Mithrandrates to the cross turned into luminous blue snakes and writhed and bit at his arms. He gently pulled them away from the cross—he was afraid to harm the delicate, beautiful creatures that were filling his body with venom—and walked toward the hippogriff.
And the thousand snakes are makers upon my sea. Gibber now in the tides with the wandering snow.
“I will drive you crazy, for the snakes are mine,” the little man said, leaning low to stare menacingly into the Emperor’s face. The attempt looked ridiculous, and the Emperor laughed long and loud.
Mithrandrates stepped back and placed a hand on the hippogriff’s feathered head, inches away from the sword-sharp beak. He began to cry. “Mother…mother…”
“I will take you to her,” the hippogriff said. He took flight with a leap and snatched the Emperor and the glowing snakes in his front claws.
They flew through darkness, then through pure light, then nothing. “The Void,” said the little man, still riding on the hippogriff. “They will try to convince you that profound wisdom lies here. It will be one of the final lies your captors tell you in a desperate attempt to push you into madness. For if your mind is whole enough to understand the words, they will not have yet fini
shed their work.”
One of the snakes disengaged his fangs from the Emperor’s chest long enough to say his peace. “It could be true. There may yet be powers beyond your understanding within your grasp.”
The tiny man handed Mithrandrates a large gold coin. They were standing on top of a tower overlooking the world—the little man, Mithrandrates and the hippogriff. The Emperor wore a golden crown made of writhing golden serpents and held a snake-headed staff in his hand. He looked down and beheld the world. The rising sun bathed the ground below in an etherial golden-orange light and scattered rays through the boiling clouds. “Leave the coin under your pillow with this side up,” he said, showing him. An eye with rays shooting in all directions stared at him from the coin. “It’s the only way to be sure. Or you can forget any of this happened and fling it out your window.”
The sky tore open with a flash and a peal of thunder. A black void ringed with fire and bursts of purple lighting gaped in the northern sky. A single red glowing eye appeared, slit-pupiled like that of a beast, then another and another. Hundreds of glowing eyes dotted the blackness like bulbous, glowing stars. Suddenly, oily black tentacles spewed out of the chasm in the sky and grasped for the golden lands below.
“Go ahead,” the serpent-headed staff said to the Emperor in a mocking tone. “Feel the power rising in you. You alone can stop this.”
Mithrandrates opened his free hand. Fire and light blazed in a sphere dancing at his fingertips. The Emperor hurled the glowing etherial missile at the mass of tentacles in the sky. It streaked toward the black hole in the sky with a trail of fire and burst into a flash of pure light when it found its mark.
The void was gone.
Mama…
“She’s right here,” the hippogriff said, batting the air with his wings. “In the fury of the storm, the calm morning breeze, the eternal dance of the glittering stars above.”
