by David Benem
And some hope I will, as well.
“What…” she whispered. “What is it you need of me?”
Karnag stood and circled the fire, his broad form shifting the shadows the fire cast. All the while his face stayed fixed on the flames. “War is upon my realm,” he said, voice resonant with unyielding conviction.
“Your realm, Karnag? Forgive me, friend, but these things you say and the way you say them do not sound like things that’d come from the mouth of the Karnag I know.”
Or knew.
The flames blazed in his flint-colored eyes, somehow seeming brighter than the firelight they reflected. “We will not travel to Raven’s Roost, for a war awaits me. Their so-called Spider King… Ha! He clothes himself with the titles and trappings of power, but he rots from within. He dares bring death to my door? He dares lay claim to my instrument? No. He will be made to understand that mine is the hand that delivers the ending of all things. Mine and mine alone.”
“Karnag…”
Karnag turned from the fire and seized his massive sword. He moved it slowly over the tongues of the campfire, fanning the flames. “I will deliver a maelstrom of blood and broken bone. The Spider King will hear my song, a great song of woe, and he will cower. The Spider King will see all the deaths he has written to be a mere verse beside my song, and he will shiver.”
Fencress sighed. Is he lost forever to this madness?
Karnag hoisted his sword skyward. His massive chest heaved and his sinews flexed. “I come for you, Thaydorne!” he screamed, shattering the night. “You will learn death is mine alone to wield!”
Fencress retreated from the fire and wiped aside a rare tear with her gloved hand. She looked again to the tall grasses, wondering where Drenj and Paddyn had fled. “And what of them?” she asked, gesturing. “What of Paddyn and Drenj?”
Karnag looked skyward once more, quiet for a disturbing moment. “They may leave if they wish.”
Fencress smirked, at once happy for her companions’ reprieve but heartbroken at the thought of being left alone at Karnag’s side. “They’ll be glad to return home,” she whispered, her gaze finding the fire.
“I do not need them, but they will die if they stray from me. All of you will.”
“By your hand?”
“Not mine, but those of others. I cannot choose what I see, and know not all possible fates, but I know we are hunted. Retribution is sought for the deaths in the Sanctum’s Abbey, and for what I have taken from them. I know not all who hunt us or when we will be found, for forces cloud my vision. I do know I will possess the strength to defeat these hunters, but you will not. If you wander, you will be slain.”
“You are sure of this?”
Karnag’s heavy brow arched. “Only truth is upon my tongue. Deception is a tool of the weak.”
Fencress looked again to the vast field of tall grasses swaying beneath the moonlight. “I must tell them.”
“Tell them we ride tomorrow,” Karnag said. “I will have horses. Be ready at dawn. We will ride to war, and death will be visited upon all deserving.”
He said no more, then sank into the black of night.
Fencress spotted Paddyn and Drenj beneath the heavy eaves of a lone oak. The massive tree stood silver in the moonlight and her companions seemed silhouettes of disembodied heads floating amongst the foxtails. She tugged at her cowl, finding the image disconcerting with Karnag undoubtedly stalking about in the night.
She kept low and silent, hoping to steal a few moments beyond Karnag’s dead stare. The boys showed no sign of having heard her approach so she rustled the grass with a gloved hand. Paddyn tensed and turned. His eyes found Fencess and his frightened expression seemed to shift to one of pensive dread.
Fencress slipped into the tight clearing beneath the tree and sank between her companions. “Boys,” she said, forcing humor to her tone. “Lovely evening, eh? All quiet beneath the twinkling stars with nary a care in our hearts?”
Paddyn scratched at his short hair, his dreary look unmoved. “I’ve known Karnag a while, now. Not nearly so long as you have, Fencress, but a while nonetheless. He’s become a demon.”
“You see that look in his eyes,” Drenj said, drawing close to Fencress. “He’s mad. And more, he’s cursed.” He stared out into the night, dark eyes stained with tears. “I saw a man, once. In Khaldisia, in my youth. A trader from my village sailed the Ebony Sea to the jungles of Rimgald, seeking rare gems. When he returned, he carried a purse full of glittering rubies and he boasted of having looted them from a wizard’s tomb. That very night, though, he ran screaming though the village and collapsed, weeping, in the market square. We all gathered about and the elders tried to soothe him. But he would not be soothed. He wailed of the wizard cursing him in a nightmare, and claimed the wizard’s form took shape in the shadows of his dwelling. The elders told him he merely dreamed this, but I saw a look in his eyes. An emptiness. The trader shook with sobs, then pulled a dagger across his own throat.” Drenj shuddered. “He was cursed, Fencress. Cursed from the grave, just as Karnag is.”
Fencress gave a rueful smile. “A most heartwarming story.”
“There’s the same kind of evil at work here,” Drenj said quietly. “Evil in its purest form.” He looked to her. “Don’t tell me you don’t fear him.”
She pressed a stray curl of hair back into her cowl and then sat quietly. “I am afraid of him,” she said after a time. “I’ve been afraid of him ever since we killed the Lector. I’ve been afraid, and I wager I fear him more than the both of you together.”
“So we leave him, then?” Drenj whispered, an eager look in his eyes. “We could leave now. There’s no need to endure another moment!”
Fencress swallowed back the sour spit filling her mouth. “I’m staying by his side so long as I think there’s the slimmest chance of saving him.” Her voice softened to a near whisper. “I have to trust in chance.”
“But what of me?” Drenj asked. “What of me and Paddyn?”
She shrugged. “You are free to go, but he claims we’ll die if we leave.”
“What?” the Khaldisian squealed, his long-fingered hands upraised. “He’ll hunt us down?”
“No, not him. Someone else. He says we’re being hunted for what happened at the Sanctum.”
Paddyn’s jaw sagged. “How could he know this?”
Fencress shook her head. “I don’t know that he does, but I fear odds are he can foretell some things yet to be. I’d not bet against him. Not with my life, anyway.”
“But I didn’t kill anyone at the Sanctum!” Drenj pleaded. “I killed no one!”
Fencress regarded them glumly. “It doesn’t matter whose hand killed them. We were there, we were a part of it all. The Lector, Tream, the Dictorian, Merek, all of it. It’s just as they’ve always said. Dark work brings dark rewards.”
4
THAT HINT OF DANGER
The sun sagged toward evening when Lannick first caught sight of Kevlin’s farm. A stone farmhouse and a wide barn lorded over a hill squeezed by pens of scrawny livestock. Two dozen or more horses wandered inside a corral, and a matching number of men drifted about the structures.
“Looks like a good many of the lads made it,” said Brugan from the creaking cart, blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his shoulders. He’d not been feverish and the wounds appeared clean, though his wide face seemed drained of its usual cheer.
Lannick nodded, feeling for an instant like he’d rather tug the horses’ reins and turn the cart around. As much as he relished the notion of exacting revenge, a sense of uneasiness gnawed at him over facing so many certain to think so little of him. He shook his head and urged the horses forward. “How are the shoulders?”
Brugan worked his arms about, wincing as he did. “They’ve been better but I’ve had worse.” He smiled. “I’ll soon be cracking skulls with the best of ‘em again.”
“Fane’s Scarlet Swords will no doubt tremble before your hammer, my friend,” Lannick said,
though he suspected it false. They were older, now, and old bones didn’t heal in the way of young ones. Lannick felt aches of his own, the occasional twinge in his hip from Silas’s blade, the grind and crack of his jaw from his beatings at the hands of Fane’s men. His will and wits might have sharpened but the burdens of age had dulled just about everything else.
And while they’d grown older the weight of their task had grown heavier. The High King had died and there were revelations from Lannick’s erstwhile Variden companions that Arranan’s Spider King kept the counsel of Necrists. Lannick added to that his increasing certainty that General Fane intended to lose this war.
The task had indeed grown heavier, and it seemed it’d be one borne upon backs bowed by time and infirmity. He sighed and drew his hands into fists.
Bear it we must, though, for there can be no failure.
“Ah!” said Brugan, his bright tone stirring Lannick from his thoughts. “It warms the soul to see so many familiar faces! Ulder, Cudgen, Hanner, Arleigh… I never dared hope so many would join us. You’ve stirred something in these men, Captain! This is how great victories are born!”
Lannick grimaced and looked to the men milling about the farm, their features now discernible in the dying light. Many had grown too fat or too thin in the years since Pryam’s Bay. None seemed younger than a few dozen years, and most looked to be a number of years older with graying hair painted white by the fading rays of the sun.
From this distance they had the look of farmers or craftsmen, like common folk accustomed to the toil of labor rather than battle. But as they neared there could be seen that hint of danger lurking beneath the veneer of practical purpose. The odd scar or missing part whispering a familiarity with violence, a cold glint in the eye that told of having borne witness to death.
Lannick knew these men, though youthful eagerness had long given way to age and cynicism. He spied Cudgen Ashworn, a thin man with sunken cheeks and a neatly-trimmed beard who’d proven a most deadly archer at Pryam’s Bay. Beside him Kevlin deKray, a square-jawed brute who’d killed three men with just his shield. Arleigh Lay leaned against the barn, his mess of black hair darkening a face curled in what seemed a permanent scowl. His one remaining hand fingered an ebony jerkin that surely hid a long dagger. There were many others, too, all members of the cohort Lannick had commanded.
Lannick smiled weakly, remembering for an instant how they’d looked before Pryam’s Bay those years before. “Captain!” they’d hailed, clad in oiled mail with swords held high.
They would look to him differently, now, he knew. After seeing a number of them a few weeks back, he knew their faces would no longer alight with admiration or confidence, as they once had, but rather would dim with disdain. They were eyes he didn’t fancy facing, but his task left him no other choice.
No half-measures and no turning back, he told himself, trying to give the phrase the ring of truth in his head.
Lannick guided the horses and cart between a couple of fenced corrals and up the easy slope. The men on the hilltop started shuffling toward them, taking notice of their arrival. Sour grimaces wound into grins.
“Brugan!” several called. None shouted Lannick’s name.
Brugan shifted about the cart, grunting as he did. “Well met, lads!” he said, his big bellow undiminished. He gingerly hauled himself over the cart’s side once Lannick drew it to a halt, then lumbered toward the top of the hill and the growing throng of old soldiers.
“Me ol’ friend!” roared Kevlin, striding over to Brugan. A wide grin stretched across his square face as he grabbed Brugan in a hearty embrace. Kevlin had always been known more for his brawn than his brain, and furthered that reputation by smacking Brugan squarely upon his bandaged shoulders.
“Oof!” Brugan flinched and moved his shoulders in a slow shrug. “Go easy on me, lad! Seems I’ve taken the first wounds of our new war. Soldiers conscripting along the road.”
“Sorry to hear,” came Cudgen Ashworn’s voice. His beady eyes grew beadier as they found Lannick. “You wounded on account of protecting our esteemed captain?” The last word sounded soaked with sarcasm.
Lannick’s felt his heart quail with that awful unease. He kept his eyes level, though, knowing that letting those feelings show would only worsen matters.
Brugan turned his lumpy face to Lannick, his smile falling to a look more thoughtful. “Hardly,” he said, voice steady and earnest and kind. “Captain Lannick there saved my skin. I’m ashamed to say it but I got unhorsed and some bastard of a soldier had me on the tip of his blade. Captain put an arrow in him and killed two others. They were hard-edged soldiers—fine warriors—but Lannick bested them all the same and with little help from me. As fine a swordsman as he ever was.”
Lannick winced at his friend’s puffery, even thankful as he was for the man’s kind words to a crowd certain to carry a hearty share of skepticism. There’d be no undoing his mistakes, Lannick knew, but he was determined to fill the other side of the scales with deeds both righteous and overdue.
Cudgen’s narrow face eased somewhat, but after a moment his thin mouth curled disdainfully. “Sounds like he might have been sober. For once.”
Brugan turned to Cudgen, his big, bandaged form appearing to grow to an even more imposing size. “Captain Lannick saved my life, Cudgen, and he’s a changed man from what he’d been. I’ve witnessed it myself. If any man wants to claim something otherwise,” he said to the gathering, “he’ll be having a hard talk with me.”
Cudgen’s sneer diminished, though scorn lingered in his eyes. A few of the others—dark-browed Arleigh Lay the most obvious—held on to their scowls and murmured unheard words with gazes fixed on Lannick.
Lannick shifted on the cart’s seat, doing what he could to keep his eyes from falling from those who mocked him. He focused his thoughts on his purpose. First on the grinning skulls of his wife and children, faces torn from the bones beneath them. Next upon that smug, scarred face and those demented eyes that reveled in the pain he inflicted.
On General Fane and his hatred for the man.
On the hope of stilling his black heart with my sword.
The thought steeled him and he straightened his spine, his expression daring the doubters to challenge him. His heart thundered as he did, though for a moment at least he felt his shame cower before his resolve.
He refused to be that dog that’d skulk away to a corner when kicked.
Not this time.
Not anymore.
After a time some unheard jest brought snickers and smiles to a clutch of the men. Soon the company seemed themselves again, sharing old tales and old boasts in the manner of old friends. They smiled and spoke with each other, and most seemed content to leave Lannick entirely alone.
For now, perhaps that’s just as well.
Laughter rolled across the hilltop, seeming to press away the night’s heavy darkness.
“And you lads remember what came next!” Brugan bellowed from atop a stump at the group’s center. Wounded though he was, his good humor rose undiminished on his broad face. “Hanner was chased from that whorehouse by two women twice his size! They said his cock was so small they had to do all the work—so he owed ’em double on account of it!”
“Not true!” shouted Hanner Hale, a barrel-chested fellow with a salt-and-pepper beard. His face flushed crimson in the light of the flickering fires.
The men laughed ever louder.
Lannick felt a slight smile stray to his face. Brugan had told the story many times before, though the lads laughed all the same.
The laughter settled at last. The men resumed their talk about the several fires, grins greasy from the pig Kevlin had roasted. They downed their supper with tankards of ale.
Lannick sat alone—without the ale—atop the splintering fence of a corral a dozen or so yards from the gathering. He didn’t enjoy the thought of facing those dubious stares in such abundance, and a rare moment to himself with his supper seemed a fine thing. Yet he’d cle
aned the meat from the ribs he’d taken and now his task’s urgency loomed over him.
He knew he needed to take hold of this thing. He needed to explain to these men that the whole fate of the realm now rested upon their unsuspecting shoulders, that General Fane and the Spider King were very likely working in concert with Rune’s most ancient enemy.
That this wasn’t simply about revenge, but about saving all they held dear.
He flicked the bones to the corral and looked about. After a time, his eyes strayed to the shadows dancing across the hilltop, those stretching from every man gathered about the fires. He watched as those dark swaths painted their way across the farm before becoming lost in the night, weaving together into an impenetrable black.
He thought of the Necrists and reckoned they hunted him still. He was Fane’s promised currency in his bargain with the Necrists and they knew him now. They knew him by the scent of his flesh and the cast of his shadow, as it was said.
He wondered what they had in store for him next.
He felt it best to move. He pushed himself off the fence and began making his way toward the throng of old soldiers. As much as he dreaded the doubting stares he dreaded the shadows all the more.
“Alright lads,” Brugan barked, standing tall. He waited as the chatter faded. “About our business, then. Word is thousands of soldiers have deserted the army, with most sticking together rather than making their way home. They’ve gathered along the Silverflow not fifty leagues from the fight. Tomorrow we begin our ride to their camp to see if they’ll follow us to victory.”
“You’re certain these are true deserters, Brugan?” Cudgen Ashworn called. “Not just some ruse of General Fane? You sure they’ll not gut us on arrival?”
The big barkeep pinched his lumpy face in apparent thought. “I’ve heard a fair bit, some of it nonsense but much with the taste of truth. These are lads who’ve seen their brothers fall. They’ve seen them fall on account of those same mad choices we all know Fane capable of making. These lads have witnessed what is supposed to be the finest army in the world lose battle after battle to a bunch of wild horse thieves.”
