by Danie Ware
Roderick said, “We carry messages for the Lord Seneschal in Fhaveon, sealed by Nivrotar of Amos. Perhaps you’d offer us escort, and we can… discuss the matter of damages?”
“Who are you?” The grunt had his blade halfway out of its sheath, and was backing up. “You’re not a messen—”
“You don’t know me?” Now, Roderick’s laugh shimmered with mischievous humour and was almost more chilling than the bass-speaker throb. Ecko found himself wondering if Mom had driven the man right over the fucking edge – hell, he’d been a coupla marbles short to start with.
But he was still speaking, weaving words and air and cloud and light. “You know me, Talyen of Fhaveon. You’ve known me all your life. I’ve seen you work, play, fight, drink. I’ve picked you up when you’ve fallen; I’ve restored your weapons when you’ve been too ruined to find them for yourself. I’ve traded for your beer, and your stories. I’ve sung with your tan, I’ve clapped you on the back and called you brother. I’ve commiserated with you when you lost your love and I’ve helped you when your heart called for someone new. And at the end of the night, I’ve pushed you from my door in the last moments before the birth of the sun. I’m not a messenger? I’m the Grasslands’ final messenger, Talyen. I’m the messenger who knows every face, and every name, every voice that the wind has ever carried. Do you not know who I am?”
He spoke like the sky itself, like the touch of the wind. As he raised a hand to push his hood back, to lower the scarf and expose his throat, Talyen could only stare, his blade still half-drawn.
“You’re the Bard, you’re the cursed Bard! What the rhez happened to you?”
The bass laugh sounded again, but only for a moment. “Everything.”
And that, Ecko realised with a shiver, was what Mom had given him – was why his throat, his ears and the fuck knew where else had been wired to buggery. He had a voice that could pull the clouds right out of the fucking sky.
Whoah.
Mesmerised, the soldiers had given up. Talyen shoved his blade back into its sheath and muttered that of course he’d escort them into Fhaveon, and how was he to know that Roderick the Bard was out and on foot, and what the rhez had happened to the tavern anyway.
That question didn’t get an answer.
As the grunts – six of them in total – began to bring up mounts and kit and pitch for the night, calling one to another in loud and foul-mouthed jesting, so Ecko found himself thinking about his sojourn with Tan Commander Pareus, soldier of Fhaveon. Back in his fireside spot, still not eating the roast beast that gradually went cold beside him, he realised that his thoughts were wandering down a very singular road. Past Pareus to Tarvi, a soldier herself at first, and on to the wild living fire of Maugrim’s Sical.
And to the tale that the Bard had told.
It triumphed, white fire and glory… Guarded always by the Promise of Samiel, Fhaveon brought us prosperity.
There won’t be enough left of us to make a greasy smear.
And he began to understand the severity of what Nivrotar had asked them to do.
6: MONSTERS
TRADE-ROAD, ROVIARATH
They caught her at the edge of the Great Cemothen River, in among the angles of the trees that clung to the edges of the water. She’d known they were there for the last half day, loitering like mischief at the limits of her awareness, but she’d been sure she could outdistance them – she was Banned, by the rhez, born in the damned saddle. They were no match for her.
But the afternoon had come like the long slow death of the sun and the trees stood silent, twisted to bones by the ceaseless plainland wind. Their last leaves clung desperate; their roots spread wide and angled into the brown river, swollen now with the rains from the Kartiah Mountains to the west. The water was angry, churning at roots and banks alike as if to pull them down and never let them go.
And Triqueta realised she’d made a mistake.
I don’t think you should go. Not alone. Not all that way…
As the fat red sun sank towards its shadowed mountain death, its last light dazzling as the sky ignited to a glorious burning, streaks of lavender and pink, Triqueta contemplated the flooded ford.
“Bollocks.” She said the word aloud, though there was no one to hear her. Only her mare, the skewbald gelding laden with tack and kit. Only the ever-present aperios.
Not with all the… y’know… critters an’ stuff…
She’d been trying not to think about Ecko – his awkward concern, his touch on her skin, her reaction…
Not the time, idiot!
Behind her, there were five of them, filthy but well armed, still hanging back out of bow range – her single shot had arced up into the winter sky, then spiralled lazily down to fall short. Perhaps they were just waiting for a passing bweao to do the dirty work for them.
She was going to be robbed, raped and her throat slit – and very possibly not in that order.
I’m going alone.
By the rhez! Stop it!
The water was impassable, certainly with the kit she had – the previous tributary had been less flooded; she’d been able to cross by looping briefly north. This one came southeast from the Scar Lake itself and was full and furious.
She was trapped, and her pursuers knew it.
She could see them out there, lingering, shadows in the rising dark. Her hand on her bow was white at the knuckles.
Come on, then, you bastards. I’ve faced worse odds than a bunch of damned thugs!
They’d fanned outwards into a loose line, curving at the edges like an arqueus’s horns, pushing her back towards the water. She strung a second shaft, waited.
“What’re you waiting for? Spring?” Her challenge was loud, clear and fearless.
They waited, five silent shapes. A leaf lost its fight for life and was torn free, turning over and over in the wind.
The first shaft that came for her was wide – she knew it would miss. She made no attempt to move – then realised she’d misjudged as it hit the gelding solidly in his shoulder. He snorted, stamped, tried to back away, but his lead rein was tied to the pommel of the mare’s saddle and for a moment, Triq thought he would pull it – and her – completely free. The mare stumbled, whinnied her displeasure.
A second shot missed, skimming the gelding’s ears.
Triqueta held the mare tight with her knees and, sitting down hard in the saddle, she loosed the shaft.
With a sharp cry, one figure toppled to the dirt.
“One!” Her hands were nocking another even as the first had left the string. “I can get at least two more before you get close. Want to risk it?”
An easy laugh answered her. “I’ve got three shafts on you, girlie. Leave both mounts; leave your packs and bags. I’ll let you take a waterskin. You behave, you might even make it.”
Her reply was another shot.
The light was poor now, but her hands were sure and she heard the shaft thunk home. The speaker groaned, started to say something else and toppled slowly sideways.
“Two. Anyone else?”
The remaining three shifted uneasily. Triq turned the mare this way and that, her own aim not flinching, but nothing came her way – there was no telltale slice of air.
“You’ll leave me be,” she said, her grin clear. “And when I get to Roviarath, the Banned won’t—”
She was cut short by a thin, high-pitched wail.
What…?
Chillflesh shivered down her arms and back. It was a horrifying, terrifying noise that curdled her blood and closed a fist about her throat. She’d never heard it, but she knew exactly what it was.
Oh dear Gods.
Every person in the Varchinde was taught the sound as a child.
Taught it meant fear.
No, it can’t be…
Her hammering heart redoubled, her mind scrambled in disbelief. For a moment she heard Ecko again, critters an’ stuff, and she thought in a crazed wheel of denial, This can’t happen, not to me, not here, not now…
Ahead of her, the remaining riders called to one another, suddenly a lot less sure of themselves. The wail had been close – too close – and they knew, too, that the creature would tear all of them to tiny, bloodied shreds. Breathing hard, genuinely scared, Triqueta looked over at them, their mounts now panicked, spooked and restless. She was vaguely aware of the injured speaker hauling himself back into his saddle, calling to the others to come away now.
Her own mare was rigid, ears forward and body trembling. She snorted, agitated, throwing her head. The skewbald stood with his head down, unresponsive to the creature’s howl. Triqueta’s mind spun loops. The beast was downwind – the horses couldn’t smell it – and it must be tracking the rich blood scent coming from the men she’d shot…
Surely that was enough of a distraction?
Gods, who was she betting? She had no idea what the damn thing would do.
She was still backed against the flooded ford. The mare might swim it, but the injured and laden skewbald didn’t have a cursed hope. The only way…
By the Gods.
Her solution was apparent, and gruesome.
For a moment, she looked at the gelding – he was brown and white, a strong and solid little runner. He’d whuffled at her hands, been a warmth in the plains’ emptiness… Triqueta was Banned-born, and these weren’t just animals, pack-bearers, burdens – they were friends, and all of them had characters of their own.
The noise came again, closer.
The thing was moving – it was this side of the river, somewhere to the northeast. In the dying light, she almost imagined she could hear it breathing, closing, its heat and teeth and savagery right behind her, crouched and waiting, wanting her to run.
Shuddering, she made herself turn to look.
But if it was there, she couldn’t see it – the trees were twisted shadows upon the bloodied sunset of the plain.
The riders had gone, a clatter of hooves and voices. If she looked that way, she could just about make out the man she’d shot – an unmoving rock on the barren ground.
Had she heard somewhere that these beasts preferred the chase; that they liked to hunt?
Hunt human prey?
By the Gods, this was no good; she was scaring herself out of her wits.
Triqueta turned to the skewbald, pulled a couple of packs from the back of his saddle. Then, biting her lip, she untied his lead rein. He raised his head to look at her, snorted almost as if he would speak.
Mouthing, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as if he could understand, she backed the mare away from him and turned her towards the ford.
The sun was a diminishing red spear; the light silhouetted the mountaintop to a jagged black tooth biting at the air. If she was going to cross the water, she had better cursed well do so now.
Before the bweao caught her.
* * *
It was full dark when she realised the beast was still behind her.
The mare was tiring, shivering from the cold of the water – but she had caught either scent or fear from her rider and she was running still, her hooves slashing at the grassless plain. Starless, the moons narrow and like fingernails, the dark was utterly swallowing and Triq had only the noise of the river and the mare’s instinct to guide her. She watched the blackness ahead for the faintest glint from Roviarath’s lighthouse tower, for any hint of the light of home.
But there was nothing.
She’d heard the cries of the pirates, and the scream as the skewbald died – a single, awful noise that had torn the sky from top to bottom, torn through her ears. She’d gasped, guilt and horror, almost screamed herself. The mare had heard it too and her speed had increased, shudders of panic coming from her shoulders. Triqueta could smell horse sweat and terror.
She’d slung her bow – there was no movement in the blackness that she could see – and drawn her blades, but they felt tiny, the incisors of some smaller predator, faced by the might of the plains’ greatest terror.
And they ran.
The mare was labouring now, her gait uneven and her breathing hard. If she missed her footing, if her hoof found a burrow or hole…
The wail came again, the terrible hunting cry.
Triq laid her chest on the saddle pommel and whispered to the mare, “Come on, lovely. You can do this. We can do this together.”
Then, there it was, the faintest glimmer of white in the blackness. Like the Fhaveonic legend of the fallen star, like the tiniest glimmer of hope, it gave the pure night focus and scale, made everything diminish to its normal size. The wail was still there, but the light pulled both of them like an elemental rising, like some—
The wail deepened to a snarl, right behind the mare’s heels.
The mare leaped, kicking, and something went past her; there was a sensation of heat and teeth. Neck lowered now, the horse was running in a flat-out bolt, homing in on the light as if it were the only point of sanity in the smothering dark.
Triq wished she believed in the Gods she was praying to, and her hands tightened on the blades.
Okay. I can do this. Redlock faced one of these bastard things single-handed. I can do this.
Now.
With a fluid motion she’d learned as a child, she turned in the saddle and stared out over the mare’s rump, out into the featureless black.
Were those eyes? Teeth?
The bweao was close, she knew it. There was something right there in the darkness, right—
Then she became aware of another noise, something else between her and the river.
Nearly choking on her own fear, she strained to see, but there was nothing, no movement, no hint of what it could be.
It was big, bigger than she was, its breathing heavy. It seemed to be closing behind her, as if it too was going to chase the little mare to the very outskirts of Roviarath itself.
Triqueta’s heart was screaming in terror. Her breath was sobbing in her throat. She was muttering, over and over, I can do this. I can do this…
In a flash decision that surged ahead of any kind of sense, she slung both blades and reached for the panniers on the mare’s rump. She scrabbled in the darkness; things were falling and being lost and she didn’t care and she knew what she was looking for and then her hands found them and she was striking, striking for that spark…
There!
A wash of light was in her face, suddenly blinding her and she blinked as a tiny circle of plain came into view. Red flared, shadows were edged in malice, and concealing horrors danced without name – but she saw it, just for a moment.
Bweao.
Smaller than she’d realised, a low, lithe body that seemed slung between its high-kneed legs, claws like scythes, needle-teeth that gleamed in the light. Its eyes were glittering red. It blinked at her.
And it grinned.
She hadn’t thought that the little flame would chase it away, but—
Dear Gods!
Then something else was between her and the crouching bweao, something unfamiliar, something huge.
And her thoughts froze cold, as if she couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
It was bigger than the bweao, bigger than she and the mare combined. It was chearl in body, massively powerful but misshapen somehow, as if a human body had been crammed onto the creature where its head should have been, some bare-backed and muscled warrior with his hair knotted and filthy and red in her little light…
He was facing the bweao, his heavy chearl body bigger than a horse and rearing, his great foreclaws twisted…
For a moment, he turned, his human teeth bared and filthy. He had no words, but he knew who she was. He met her gaze with a single, searing look, and then turned back to the bweao.
No longer caring if she was screaming or not, Triqueta fled.
* * *
CityWarden Larred Jade came to his feet at the sight of her, reaching out a hand, as if to catch her before she fell. But she stood there in his wooden hall on her own two cursed feet. She’d made the
heart of Roviarath with her skin intact…
Just.
Triqueta clenched her fists, knowing she was shaking – from exhaustion, shock, from the long loco run across the empty winter plain. From the short walk through the city, from the wide eyes of the frightened people.
From the damned centaur.
Had she dreamed him, for Gods’ sakes, out there in the dark?
“Get Syke in here.” Jade flung the command like a knife and he was gripping her shoulders, searching her face with a gaze that asked her every question, demanded every answer. He looked tired, older; there were long lines down his cheeks and he was too close, too intense. She pulled away, holding up her hands… only to be hurled to the floor by a shout and full body tackle that she knew all too well.
“Oof! Get off me, you damned thug!”
Family.
Syke bounded back to his feet. He was grinning, helping her up and hugging her to his chest, thumping her on the back hard enough to make her cough.
“You dozy mare, where the rhez’ve you been?”
For just a moment, she wanted to throw herself into his brotherhood and forget it all – Redlock, Ecko, Kas, blight, everything – just let the whole cursed world go away and fend for itself…
Family.
But Aeona’s nightmares had cast an unexpected darkness across her heart, and the memory tasted sour, like doubt. She pulled back.
The blade in her cheeks, the blood from beneath her opal stones. Her sire. Kicking and spitting.
No. Not going back there. Not ever.
She found her voice, her grin. “I’ve got messages, cargo – well, some.” She’d scattered mud and filth and the Gods alone knew what all over Jade’s polished wooden floor. “Nivrotar sent me with… things.”
But Jade brushed filth and concerns aside, held out a steaming tankard of something spiced and herbal that a curious youth had slipped into his hand. Syke was still slapping her shoulder, all insults and ribald concern.
“You pick your time, girl. How’d you get here with your skin still on?”
After the empty plain, the desolation of the winter Varchinde, the cold sky, it was too much. They were too close, the smell was too strong – she was finding it hard to think, to draw breath.
