by David Hair
Once the last carriage containing decoy queen and pretend bodyguards had rumbled away, Dirklan took them through a postern gate. Basia knew the street; she and Ril had used it on Reeker Night. They followed a series of narrow switchbacks down the south side of the Heights to a tavern where another unmarked carriage was waiting. Exilium checked the driver was the man they were expecting, then settled the queen and off they went, rattling along unmade roads in a circuitous approach to the rendezvous.
Basia, seeing the anxiety on Lyra’s face, reminded her, ‘We can back out any time.’
Lyra shook her head firmly, while muttering to herself – marshalling her arguments, Basia guessed, although why she would give this rabble-rouser the time of day was beyond her. It’s beneath the dignity of her office. But Lyra had been raised as a nun, not a queen, and she didn’t always do as queens should.
It’s not worth the risk. A single arrow or well-placed spell and her reign is over . . .
It was thoughts like that that kept her on edge as the carriage drew up outside Sancta Esmera Church, a chapel once used by the imperial legions, at the edge of Esdale. Using a church as neutral ground was an old custom and as the nearby buildings had been gutted during the recent troubles, this one could now be approached openly on all sides, making it ideal. It stood alone, surrounded by well-watered lawns and its cemetery and warded by old protection spells, its enduring solidity a miracle of architecture and gnosis rather than divine favour.
The carriage lurched to a stop a hundred yards across open ground from Sancta Esmera as a gash in the clouds allowed Luna to illuminate the scene. The driver raised his lamp and swung it, and an answering light appeared on the far side, from the ruined warehouses where those they were to meet were waiting.
‘They’re here,’ Basia murmured, her throat going dry. It always did when Lyra went into danger. She scanned the area with gnostic sight, then stepped out, shielding hard. Dirklan had soldiers and Volsai in the buildings behind them: if anything happened, the area would be flooded with some of the best fighting men and magi they had.
But in the church it would just be Exilium and Lyra and her.
Exilium was helping Lyra dismount with reverence on his face. Basia thought it hilarious that he regarded the queen as a living saint, but then, Exilium lived in a world of absolutes.
No doubt in his eyes I’m a Fallen Woman. She smiled at the notion, then put all mirth aside as the immediacy of the dangers they risked took over.
Flanking the queen, gnostic shields up, they crossed the wasteland towards the front of the church. Four cowled figures – Frankel, presumably, plus three magi – had emerged on the other side and were heading for the rear of the building. The Kadens didn’t know that Lyra had no gnostic power – everyone assumed a heretic dwymancer was pretty much the same as a mage – so Frankel’s group had a numeric advantage that could be fatal.
‘Kore protect us,’ Exilium breathed piously. ‘Thy will be done tonight.’
How about my will be done, Basia thought, which is that we all get out alive . . .
*
Ari Frankel hadn’t prayed for a while. His time within the Church, seeing all the corruption and lies and cynical manipulation of people’s beliefs, had destroyed any real faith, but on nights like this, when he had no control over events, the habits of his youth reasserted themselves.
Kore, if you truly be and can speak to a man’s heart, tell all here not to betray the sanctity of this place. Tell them to respect the oaths of peace. All I want to do is talk.
Even now, advancing through the rubble of a building lost to the fires, the church a silhouette before them, he had no idea what Tad and Braeda Kaden meant to do. They’d told him they’d talked it over and decided that attacking the queen was too risky, so they’d let the parley go ahead, but he wasn’t sure he believed that.
He was also horribly conscious that everyone else in the church was a mage: if someone took offence to something, he, Master No-Magic, would been the first to die.
Before him stalked three lions, as he thought of the guards the Kadens had assigned to him: Braeda herself, a fearsome fighter, and two burly golden-maned men with bulging muscles, Schlessen brothers named Kys and Morn.
The church had been fully lit to allow both sides to check for gnostic traps earlier, although that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Between the Kaden Rats and the Imperial Volsai there’s more than enough skill, Ari worried. Walking into the building felt like putting his head in the jaws of a beast.
Braeda led the way to the back of the church with Ari, flanked by the Schlessen brothers, traversing a small vestry and emerging beside the altar at the top of the central aisle. The queen and her entourage were at the other end, at the main doors.
Ari swallowed as he saw Lyra. He’d expected her to be an idiot, but instead she was intelligent and more, possessed of moral courage. She freed me because she approved of my words. I rewarded her by inciting warfare on the streets.
The queen, her lips thinned and her eyes narrowed, met his gaze coolly.
Beside the queen were those they’d been told to expect: Basia de Sirou, the bodyguard with wooden legs, and an almost pretty Estellan knight named Exilium Excelsior, of all things. Both had hands on their sword-hilts, but the queen looked unarmed.
Braeda lifted her hand and burned some kind of scarlet rune in the air. As the Schlessens did the same, the queen’s bodyguards looked at each other doubtfully.
‘Come, don’t you recognise the old magi greeting?’ Braeda drawled. ‘The Rune of Becoming, “Angay”, to proclaim and confirm one’s possession of the gnosis.’
‘A discontinued practice,’ the female guard, Basia de Sirou, responded.
‘But then, perhaps your queen can’t actually form the rune?’ Braeda teased. ‘Not in fact being a mage?’
‘I am mage-born,’ Lyra retorted. ‘I’m not here to perform tricks, but to speak to Master Frankel.’
‘And I too am here to converse,’ Ari said, moving forward. Dear Kore, we both need this. ‘I’ll take this from here.’
He took another step towards Lyra, gambling his life – then Braeda laid a hand on his shoulder and dropping her voice, murmured for his ear only, ‘I don’t give a rukking toss what you’re here to do, Frankel. We’re here to kill the queen.’
As Ari drew breath to protest, she hurled him aside and a bolt of brilliant energy flashed from her hand, just as the two Schlessen magi also unleashed, blasting balls of fire down the aisle at Lyra Vereinen.
The queen didn’t even have time to scream—
8
Hegikaro
The Nature of Daemons
The word ‘daemon’ derives from the Lantric word for ghost or spirit and was never meant to imply any inherent evil, but the Book of Kore ‘demonised’ the word. However, while most daemons are quite harmless, and useful servants for a skilled wizard, a powerful daemon is dangerous and must be treated with utmost caution.
ERVYN NAXIUS, ORDO COSTRUO, PONTUS 722
Hegikaro, Mollachia
Febreux 936
Kyrik remembered another day like this one just a few months ago, when he’d led a contingent of Vlpa riders through the gates of Hegikaro. The streets had been lined with citizens straining for a glimpse of their new king and his strange allies, their cheering muted by uncertainty, but there had been a tangible feeling of relief in the air, because the hated Rondian tax-farmers had fled and the town was free.
Nacelnik Thraan was with me, and his eldest sons . . . They’re all dead now.
The great and good of Mollachia, led by Pater Kostyn and Dragan Zhagy, had been waiting on the steps to greet him.
They’re dead and gone as well.
Valdyr had been there too, released after so many years of abuse and captivity.
Where are you, brother?
Hajya was still with him, though: weak, shaky, often lost inside her own head, a legacy of the horrors of having Abraxas stealing her mind and body. Though cl
early distressed, recognising Hegikaro as a place of torment, she was visibly battling those memories as she sat her horse, and her courage gave him hope. She was still appallingly weak, her body unhealthily thin, and her hair was now more grey than black. But she’s coming back to me, a little more each day.
The shadows of the coronation bloodbath hung heavy over the scene as he led Kip’s Schlessen and Rothgar’s hunters, who’d joined them a few miles previously, into the town. Rothgar himself had already left with Korznici to rally the Vlpa, so all the watching burghers saw were ragged hunters and Schlessen barbarians leading some big-horned cattle. Maegogh himself had suggested that the Mantauri not yet reveal their true nature, for fear of panicking the populace.
The faces that met them were blank with distress and horror. There was no cheering. Kyrik shuddered at the thought of the hardships his people were enduring; many had fled into the countryside, but those few who had clung on in the city had been hiding in root cellars and subsisting on what remained of winter stores, sometimes for weeks on end, while daemons prowled above.
A few called hoarse greetings, but most just stared as Kip’s Schlessen warriors swaggered by, counting heads and shaking their own.
Yes, there’re fewer than a hundred of us, and we face a legion . . .
Inside the town walls were burnt-out houses and other signs of depredation. Returning burghers were trawling through the remains, piling up what couldn’t be salvaged for firewood. A street preacher was bawling out phrases from the Book of Kore, all concerning the Last Days.
‘The daemons shall inherit Urte,’ the man was shouting. ‘It’s too late to repent!’
‘Someone shut him up,’ Fridryk Kippenegger growled. One of his men did just that, with a sharp right hook that laid the man out. No one went to his aid.
But when Kyrik and his party reached the town square, it was packed, hundreds of men and not a few women bearing weapons ranging from woodsmen’s bows and axes to old family swords to crudely made spears. There were few familiar faces, so many had died, but Kyrik did recognise the man atop the steps, Milosh Nirabhy. He’d been fat, florid and stubborn; now he was a skinny man with a silver Kore dagger icon about his neck. He still looked stubborn, though.
Kyrik kissed Hajya’s hand, then advanced to face the ‘welcoming’ committee.
‘Kirol Kyrik,’ Nirabhy called warily, as the crowd hushed itself, staring. ‘Why do you come here?’ His followers moved together, barring Kyrik from the steps. Fear and mistrust were tangible.
Kyrik took out a silver coin and pressed it to his own forehead, in proof that he wasn’t possessed. He wasn’t sure that Nirabhy would recognise the gesture, but Rothgar’s hunters had been passing the word and that message must have been heard here, because everyone present did the same.
‘We’ve come to protect you all,’ Kyrik called. ‘A king doesn’t hide. He stands with his people.’
Few of the harrowed faces looked greatly cheered at his words.
‘That thought has taken a long time to occur to you, Kirol,’ Nirabhy noted bitterly.
‘No, the thought has been with me every waking moment,’ Kyrik countered. ‘But I escaped the bloodbath at the cathedral alone. It has taken time to find fellow refugees and allies, to build our strength and learn our enemy’s weaknesses, before I could return.’
Some of the crowd began to nod at that, but Nirabhy didn’t look appeased. He gazed over the Schlessen with distaste: Mollachs had always viewed Schlessen as barbarian animals. ‘Are these . . . men . . . all you have?’
Kip and his men glowered, but didn’t react; they’d known not to expect any welcome.
Kyrik strode right to the foot of the castle steps and looked up at Nirabhy and his men. ‘Milosh Nirabhy, I have heard good things of you: that you had the courage to upbraid Dragan in the throne hall. Mollachia needs your fearlessness. But I am not the enemy.’
‘Are you not? You returned from exile and daemons followed you. Perhaps if you were to just leave, the daemons would follow you and plague us no more?’
That sounds like exactly the sort of whisper Asiv might circulate to undermine us.
Kyrik let that pass. ‘Here is what I know: Asiv Fariddan contacted me a week ago. He told me he’d drive all those who remain free here, to Hegikaro, so that all his enemies were in the same place. He told me that in two weeks he would slaughter any who still stood against him. He did this to draw me out, obviously – but if I did not love my people, I would not have emerged.’
‘Leave and he will leave too,’ someone shouted.
‘Ysh, and take your stinking Schlessens and Sydians with you,’ someone else shouted from the safety of the rear, rousing murmurs of agreement.
‘I could do that, certainly – but that won’t stop Asiv from killing or enslaving you all,’ Kyrik retorted. ‘He’s coming here whether I’m present or not – and predators have to feed. The high passes are still ice-bound, so there is nowhere to run, my people. Here we fight, where we have walls to defend and stores to feed us. Here is where Mollachia stands or falls.’
That silenced them all, even the hecklers at the back, leaving only the whistle of the cold winds over the jagged battlements and broken roofs.
‘Would you rather fight alongside Schlessen warriors, born to war, and Sydian archers, the deadliest in the world – or are you too proud to ask for help?’ he challenged them.
Now Nirabhy was hanging his head and his comrades were looking at each other sheepishly.
They are just sheep, herded here by rabid dogs and penned for the slaughter.
Kyrik gestured Kip forward. ‘Some of you saw this man at my wedding and coronation: this is Fridryk Kippenegger, former battle-mage of Pallacios XIII. Many of his men marched with him on the Third Crusade and returned with him across the Leviathan Bridge. He has offered his aid – will you scorn it?’
The towering Schlessen looked like a God of War as his muscles flexed and his blade rose towards the skies, and even the doubters began to nod.
Every head slowly turned to Milosh Nirabhy, who was studying the ground as if deep in thought. Finally he looked up and met Kyrik’s gaze.
‘My Kirol,’ he said hoarsely, and with stiff pride, he dropped to one knee, and all around him followed suit. The gesture swept through the square like a ripple on water. ‘We are yours to command.’
This time when Kyrik placed a foot on the steps, those before him parted. He went first to Milosh, pulled him to his feet and said, ‘Join my council and bring all of your courage and realism.’
Milosh had clearly feared censure, for his rough features were suddenly suffused with gratitude. Kyrik still marvelled that he’d dared take on Dragan – and that he’d come away unharmed.
‘My Kirol,’ Milosh said again, in a husky voice, ‘I’m with you.’
*
It didn’t take long for Kyrik to realise what a monumental task he faced. All upkeep had fallen by the wayside once the castle had fallen to Asiv and Dragan. Every scrap of meat had been devoured by the possessed, but the granaries had been emptied too, by vermin. The daemons had unleashed their savagery on the fleeing citizens and those they’d caught had been slain and eaten, or bitten and infected. Some of the town had been destroyed by fire, including the southern section of the outer walls. Right now, fixing that was their highest priority, along with scavenging supplies from the surrounding farms.
‘We’ve got four thousand people sheltering here, with more arriving every day,’ Milosh told Kyrik and Kip at the first council meeting. There was just the three of them present; Kyrik had no time for larger, longer meetings, not when there was so much to do. ‘Most are women, children or the elderly,’ he went on. ‘We’re sending those who can’t fight into the southern heights to seek shelter.’
‘I thought there’d be many more,’ Kyrik admitted. ‘Once Mollachia numbered more than fifty thousand.’
‘Many thousands fled west down the river into Midrea after the Bloody Crowning,’ Milosh replie
d. ‘There are many refugees in the hills who haven’t returned, and won’t if Hegikaro falls.’
The Bloody Crowning, thought Kyrik. How apt. ‘How many fighting men do we have?’
‘Maybe six hundred, mostly hunters and farmers. Few have any real military training.’
‘That’s barely enough to man the walls,’ Kip rumbled.
‘And too many to feed,’ Kyrik added. ‘How are the foragers faring?’
‘The farms have already been well picked over,’ Milosh reported. ‘We can’t endure a siege.’
‘There won’t be a siege,’ Kip opined. ‘Asiv’s daemons will attack and attack, until we break.’
‘Five thousand possessed legionaries,’ Milosh groaned, ‘including whomsoever of our own people they’ve possessed.’
We’re doomed, Kyrik thought bleakly. Asiv himself is as strong as an Ascendant Mage. He and his possessed legion battle-magi could probably destroy us on their own. He wondered if Milosh had been right. If I fled, perhaps Asiv would pursue me and let my people be?
But he truly doubted that: Asiv’s predators had to feed. There would be a bloodbath here, no matter what he did. But it did raise the question of what Asiv actually wanted.
He says he’ll leave if he’s given Valdyr and Ogre, so they must be his immediate goals. Valdyr destroyed the tax-farmers’ legion, so they must consider him a threat. And Ogre once knew Naxius, Asiv’s master – perhaps he fears what Ogre knows about him?
He wouldn’t hand either of them over, even if they’d been here: that was out of the question. He glanced up at the painted ceiling which depicted his forebears slaying the draken of Cuz Sarkan: it was inside that same volcano that Valdyr had vanished.
Where are you now, brother? Why won’t you return? We need you!
The ceiling and the gods didn’t answer, so he returned his eyes to his counsellors. ‘Then we must prepare a defence that our ancestors will sing of for years to come. All our skills and cunning must go into making every step costly. Silver and sunlight are our allies, so we must use them. We must arm every soul, from eldest to youngest, because this battle is for survival.’
