After a moment, the burly man shook himself and rose to his feet. His attention fixed once more upon the Higher Grace, he said, ‘Captain—’
‘That rank no longer applies,’ Finarra cut in.
‘There will be survivors. Must be survivors. They will need you.’
‘They have Calat Hustain.’
‘And he will not find you a blessing to his grief?’
Bitterness opened within her like a wound. ‘Warlock, the war is lost. Urusander has won. Kharkanas will open its gates to him. We Wardens, well, we were never relevant. We patrolled the Vitr. More to the point,’ she continued, ‘we were the ones who brought T’riss into our realm. Let us judge our demise a just reward for our carelessness.’
He turned from his study of Sheccanto and gazed at her. ‘Will you not return to Calat Hustain?’
‘I see no point,’ Finarra replied. ‘The Vitr remains. It will not subside or cease its assault. Calat will begin again. But I will not.’
‘We do not resent your presence,’ Resh said. ‘But you must understand. Caplo is not as he once was. My friend is now unknown to me. He says he will accompany me to Kharkanas, to the Terondai, and, perhaps, to an audience with Mother Dark.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I fear such a meeting.’
‘Then refuse him,’ she replied. ‘The Terondai can wait. You have other concerns.’
‘Skelenal would summon all the brothers and sisters,’ Resh said. ‘He says we must prepare for war. But we have no cause to defend, no reason to fight beyond the pathos of vengeance.’ He shook his head. ‘The children are dead. The forests have burned. If we possessed any authority over the Deniers, it is now abrogated. We did not defend them. Indeed, we did nothing.’
The arguments were old. Finarra had heard them too many times. ‘And this is the way of things, warlock, the means by which evil thrives, and every terrible deed is justified. The dead are already dead, the fires have long since burned out, and the blood now hides beneath rich soil. Each act, if unanswered, unchallenged, breeds the next, and when it is all done, evil stands triumphant.’
‘Can you not see that we are weakened?’ Resh demanded, wringing his hands as he stood before her. ‘Why fight for the Andii, when by Mother Dark’s hand our god was slain? The transformations upon either side now set us apart. We are neither, and yet we are nothing.’
She looked away, vaguely disgusted. Her frustration was growing talons and the urge to strike out grew day by day. ‘Caplo Dreem may well attempt to kill Mother Dark. And this time, the First Son is not there to stand in your friend’s way.’
‘There is Draconus.’
She shot him a searching look. ‘Not for long, I should think.’
‘At the very end, Mother Dark may defy Urusander. She may refuse everything they demand of her. She is a goddess, after all. How do you envisage the power behind that ascension? Is she now stripped of her will? Her independence? Is she helpless, her mind deafened by an endless roar of prayer, beseeching desire, wishes unending?’
Finarra Stone’s eyes narrowed. ‘You believe your faith emasculated your own god, don’t you? You made your god unable to defend itself. Made it helpless.’
‘Faith belongs to the mortal mind,’ said Resh, ‘but one look in the mirror will tell you that it is a lamb in the care of the wolf.’
‘And now you are flayed by guilt, left crushed by your own recriminations? I did not think self-pity could be made sacred, but it seems that you have managed it easily enough, warlock, and would make indulgent weeping its libation. And what is to be your sacrifice? Why, only yourself, of course.’
He snorted. ‘Speaks the woman who tramples upon her own rank. Who tells me that Calat Hustain has no more need for her.’
After a moment, Finarra offered a wry shrug. ‘Then we find comfort in our company.’
Resh looked away. He sighed. ‘I have no leash to bind Caplo Dreem. Must I deliver another crime into the presence of Mother Dark?’
‘He is your friend, not mine.’
‘Was. Now, I am not so sure.’ He met her eyes. ‘Do you seek to guard against his treachery? Will you draw your blade to defend Mother Dark?’
‘Against a dozen beasts? Death will come swiftly.’
‘Then why refuse my desire to send you away?’
‘I will travel to Kharkanas, warlock, in your company or alone.’
‘What do you seek there?’
She said nothing. The truth was, she had no answer to his question, but she felt bound to the fate of the Shake now, like a leaf joining a mass of detritus, impelled by the gathering of its own weight as it swung into the current. But what waited downstream remained unknown. Resh sought a purpose for his brothers and sisters, and believed that he would find knowledge in his study of the Terondai.
And what of Caplo Dreem, blood-tainted and, these days, almost emptied of words? A feral promise glimmered in his eyes. He was now a man quick to bare his teeth. Only a fool would not fear what he had become.
‘The sorcery,’ said Resh, cutting into her thoughts, ‘now pours like blood from a fatal wound. If we are not careful, captain, Kurald Galain will drown in its flood.’
‘Then use it, warlock. Use it up if you can.’
‘A dangerous invitation.’
‘Are you a child, then?’ she snapped. ‘Unmindful of constraint?’
‘A child?’ He seemed to consider the suggestion, indifferent to the challenge in her tone. ‘Yes, I believe. All of us now. Children. Crowded into a small room, and upon the floor in its centre, a chest filled with knives.’
Suddenly chilled, Finarra Stone turned away, gathering up her gloves and cape from the bench near the door. ‘Will you just stand there? Am I to be Caplo’s only escort, then?’
They were startled by a sudden racking cough from Sheccanto. The nurse, sitting almost forgotten beside the bed, lunged forward to catch the old woman before she fell. Rocked by the jostling of the nurse, Sheccanto said, ‘The royal blood is thinned, but I taste it still. The Watch withers in his solitude, a prince dreaming of his sister. She will know the sword in her hand, and she will rise at the day’s end, and so be known as Twilight. Neither monk nor nun, but one of the blood. The Shake must have a queen. Upon the shore … a queen.’ Her eyes widened and she stiffened in the nurse’s arms. ‘Oh bless me! My children do not deserve that!’
She slumped back, head lolling. ‘Let the Vitr take it,’ she mumbled. ‘Silver fire … the flesh from the bones …’
Resh advanced towards her. ‘Higher Grace, do you speak prophecy?’
She lifted her head with sudden strength and met the warlock’s eyes. ‘Prophecy? Fuck prophecy. Immortal shadow, I see the reasons. He is forever restless. You’ll know him by that habit.’ Then her seamed face stretched into a tortured smile. ‘Oh, clever boy. I give him that.’
‘Higher Grace?’
‘When the First Son comes to you, answer his need. Die for the love you have never known, and never will. Die to save what you will never see. Die in the name of children not yet born. Die for the cause not your own. Go, lover of men, go. Nine assassins await you.’ Then she pulled an arm loose from the nurse’s grip and pointed at Finarra Stone. ‘She knows the sword in her hand. Warlock! Kneel to Twilight. Kneel to your queen.’ An instant later, Sheccanto slumped back once more, eyes closing.
Resh leaned closer.
The nurse shook her head. ‘Sleep, warlock, that is all.’
Reeling, Resh pulled away. He faced Finarra with fevered eyes.
‘It means nothing,’ Finarra said. ‘Pay her words no heed. Come, the day is nearing its end. We must set out now, or wait until the morning.’
When she quitted the bedchamber, Resh followed. He said nothing in her wake, but Finarra’s mind was filled with the look he had given her, its raw need, its terrible thirst.
Monks and nuns, witches and warlocks, sisters and brothers. All titles for those who would believe. But I am not one with any such need. Not one to run from shrine to shrin
e, altar to altar, desperate for communion. Higher Grace, your mind is truly gone if you see anything in me.
Out in the compound, the winter’s chill was fierce as the day died. Seeing them appear, Caplo swung on to his horse. He was swathed in dark furs, as if to mock himself. He fixed his feral gaze upon Finarra, and then Resh. ‘You’ve not forbidden her?’ he asked. ‘This is our journey, warlock. The two of us, in the name of the Shake.’
Reaching his horse, Resh paused to study his old friend for a moment, and then he said, ‘Your words are a comfort, Caplo, if you still count yourself among us.’
Caplo Dreem frowned. ‘Of course. Why would I do otherwise?’
Resh mounted his horse and gathered up the reins. ‘She rides with us now. As you say, Caplo, in the name of the Shake.’
‘Warlock,’ Finarra warned.
But he simply shrugged. ‘Twilight is upon us, I see. All to the good.’ He kicked his horse into motion, swinging the beast round towards the gate.
Cursing under her breath, Finarra mounted up and followed Resh and Caplo. They would ride through the night. She looked with envy upon the dark furs riding Caplo’s back. Already she was cold.
* * *
In the wake of the snowstorm, the air had slowly surrendered its bitter chill. Riding winds from the southeast brought burgeoning warmth, softening the sculpted dunes of snow until the faces they showed to the sunlit sky seemed pocked with rot, and the old track upon which Kagamandra Tulas rode blackened with mud and pools of water.
That he trailed other travellers in this season was clear, and while some rode horses, most were on foot, leading burdened mules. Thus far, he had not yet come across any makeshift graves, and for that he was thankful. Since parting ways with Calat Hustain and his Wardens, Kagamandra had met no one. He had not expected to. Winter was mercurial, like a cat hiding its claws, and this spell of warmth meant little. The season would hold for months yet.
He had been gaining on the refugees – if that was what they were – but without haste or any sense of urgency. He had no reason to welcome company, or take upon himself the burdens or needs of anyone else. In any case, he was himself half starved, his horse little better. His father’s estate, now his own, was a cold inheritance. He could not even be certain it was still occupied. In his absence, his staff, most of whom had served his father, might well have yielded to the vicissitudes of neglect or, perhaps more likely, ennui. It was entirely possible that he rode to an abandoned ruin. No refugee would find succour there.
The way ahead haunted him with its familiarity. As a youth he had often ridden far from the estate, fleeing the shadow of sire and siblings, seeking solitude in denuded hills, dried lake beds and sweeps of withered prairie. These were the half-formed urges of youth, groping in ignorance, not yet comprehending that the solitude he sought already existed, buried deep in his own mind. Every jarring sense of being different, every fear of exclusion, every instant of estrangement from his laughing brothers and their companions, these were the things setting him apart, pushing him into a world solely his own.
If in his imagination he sought to visualize that empty world, which circled round him at a crawling pace, he saw what now surrounded him, as his horse plodded through slush and mud, with the sky overhead a soft white, and the wind smelling of sodden grass. In that respect, he was already home.
For that reason and others, he felt no urgency to end this journey. If he could twist this trail into a vast loop through the wilderness of the south, he would have no cause for complaint.
But necessities posed their own demand. His horse was dying under him, and the hollowness in his gut had given way to a deep lassitude that had spread through his entire body, broken only by the ache in his joints, flaring up like fire whenever he straightened in his saddle.
His father had been right, he now reflected, to have seen so little in him.
Sharenas Ankhadu, why do you appear again and again in my thoughts? What is it you speak, with such expressions of derision? I see your lips move, but no sound finds me. I conjure you before me, to give a proper guise to my messenger – who must attend to me in cruel honesty, in the name of worth – but I remain deaf to your words.
She would, he suspected, mock his self-pity. She would castigate his lethargy. She would, with brittle exasperation, demand his obeisance to his betrothed, and call upon his honour in the name of Faror Hend. Find her! she would say.
But there was no one to find. His betrothed was a promise, nothing more. Such things broke with a single careless word, a lone gesture hinting of dismissal. Standing before Faror Hend, Kagamandra would remain mute, his limbs frozen in place. He would think only of the hurts he could not help but deliver, in the absence of anything one might call love.
The track lifted towards a rise, and upon reaching the top, Kagamandra saw in the shallow valley beyond those he had been following. The party had moved to one side of the trail, clearing a space of snow in which to camp. A roped corral to one side also revealed yellowed grass, where three horses and four mules now cropped the dead stalks.
As Kagamandra drew nearer, he was surprised to see, among those now rising from dung fires to greet him, men and women wearing the uniform of the Wardens.
He continued on until he reached the camp and then reined in as two Wardens, a woman and a man, strode up.
The woman was the first to speak. ‘My name is Savarro. I was once a sergeant. If you track us at Hunn Raal’s bidding, tell him our war with him is done. Tell him,’ she added, ‘it never existed, but for the ambitions of Lord Ilgast Rend. Above all, tell him to leave us alone. The Wardens are no more.’
Kagamandra leaned on the horn of his saddle. ‘Where do you ride, Savarro?’
‘This concerns him? Away. What more does he need?’
‘Upon this track, Savarro, lies an estate. Perhaps it offers – in your mind – a company of Houseblades who might welcome you in its ranks.’
The man shifted at Savarro’s side and then said to her, ‘Does he speak true, sergeant? Do we journey to a highborn’s estate?’
Behind the two, the others were now gathering, intent on the exchange.
Savarro shrugged. ‘I had no thought of us joining the ranks, Ristand. But our food is almost gone. The animals need shelter. The warm spell will not last much longer. The bitterest month of winter is soon upon us.’ She waved a hand. ‘The estate might take us in as guests.’
‘Guests! They’ll see us coming and lock the gates! Look at us, no better than marauders.’ Ristand was a big man, shaggy and broad-faced, and if not for the black hue of his skin he would have revealed a flushed countenance, wind-burned and filled with temper. ‘You said you had for us a destination – but you said nothing about a highborn’s shit-smeared estate! Sweet bung-hole, Savarro!’
‘Will you ever cease your complaints, Ristand?’ She faced Kagamandra again. ‘The lord isn’t even in residence. Lost his wife years ago. No children. We’re as likely to find the place abandoned as anything else, and if so it’ll serve us fine to wait out the season.’
‘What of forage and food?’ Ristand demanded.
Her head snapped round again as she glared at her companion. ‘Maybe they took everything when they left, maybe they didn’t. At the very least, it’s shelter!’
‘And what if there’s Houseblades and all the rest? What then?’
‘Then,’ Savarro said as if speaking to a child, ‘we ask kindly, Ristand. Meaning, a league from the gates, we bind and gag you. Sling your flea-bitten carcass over a saddle. That at least will give us a chance at some hospitality!’ She swung back to Kagamandra. ‘Now, leave us be, will you?’
Kagamandra studied her for a long moment, and then he lifted his gaze past her, to the score or so Wardens now gathered on the track. He saw children among them, and servants, cooks and maids. ‘You have come from the season’s fort, sergeant?’
‘We went there first, yes,’ she replied. ‘To take the news, and bring with us whoever wanted to come.�
�
‘Yet you and these others – you were at the battle?’
‘Late to it. Too late to make a difference. We were patrolling Glimmer Fate. Meaning we never drew blades against the Legion.’
Kagamandra was silent, but then gathered his reins and said, ‘Make room on the trail. Sergeant, I am not here at Hunn Raal’s bidding. You speak of a battle I know nothing about. You say Ilgast Rend commanded the Wardens? Then this is his problem.’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Hunn Raal executed him,’ Savarro said. ‘Why do you know nothing of this? From where have you come?’
‘I spoke to Commander Calat Hustain,’ Kagamandra said, seeing how this now caught their attention. ‘He was riding back to the fort, with news, one presumes, of events at the Vitr. But of that I can only surmise, as he was not forthcoming on the matter. He had wounded and dead in his company. I would think he has already arrived, only to find his base abandoned, and no answer as to why.’
‘Not true,’ Savarro said, confusion now clouding her features. ‘A few chose to remain behind.’
‘Ah. Well, then, lest you desire Calat Hustain to deem you deserters, hadn’t you better return to the fort?’
Voices rose then, arguments erupting. Pushing his mount forward, Kagamandra rode through the press. Once clear, he coaxed his horse into a slow trot, and before too long the shouting began to fade into his wake.
Houseblades. Do I even have Houseblades?
* * *
The winter fort of the Wardens bore a planked walkway along the length of the walls, accommodating patrols that, to Bursa’s mind, had never served much purpose, and even less so now. He stood at his post, feeling a fool, his gaze fixed upon the black wall of the Glimmer Fate’s high grasses, or, rather, upon the battered gap in its otherwise unbroken line, and the dragon that occupied it. Motionless as a massive boulder, with scales that, at this distance, looked no different from iron plates of armour, the creature appeared to be slumbering.
Snow covered its spine. Ice sheathed its folded wings, with long icicles, now dripping in the unseasonal warmth, depending from their ridges. The dragon had preceded the troop’s arrival by four days, according to old Becker Flatt, the retired Bordersword who had elected to remain when the survivors of the battle reached the fort with their terrible news. The man was in the habit of telling everyone that he had nowhere else to go, and the half-dozen others who had stayed no doubt felt the same. In any case, the dragon had been discovered the morning after the storm. Lying in a gap made by its own massive body, its eyes shuttered, conjured up into a sculpted nightmare, waiting like a promise.
Fall of Light Page 57
