The Brazen City

by Torsten Weitze

  Ahren frowned and placed his hands on his hips in irritation. Why were these people so stubborn? The young man had been so proud of his plan, and now this? His eyes scanned the clearing in search of inspiration. Some of the mercenaries were in the process of burying their fallen comrades. Jelninolan and Khara were treating the wounded. Falk and Uldini were standing beside each other deep in quiet conversation, and Trogadon was standing among the mercenaries talking shop and cracking jokes. Culhen was nowhere to be seen, but Ahren could feel through their connection that he was still in a sulk because Ahren had taken his booty away from him. Then he spotted Selsena and he had a brainwave.

  He quickly walked over to the Titejunanwa and pressed his head towards hers. A wave of affection flowed over him, which also seemed to contain some kind of question. Ahren realised to his own surprise that he seemed to have acquired a feeling for Selsena’s empathetic communication too. He indicated to Selsena that she should follow him, and the Elfish charger trotted with curiosity alongside the young Paladin.

  He led Selsena into the middle of the sceptical mercenaries. ‘I think this might persuade you that we are who we say we are’, was all he said before unstrapping Selsena’s head armour. With the headpiece removed it was clear to all the onlookers that they weren’t looking at a horse in impressive armour, but rather a real-live unicorn. Ahren remembered how impressed he had been the first time he saw Selsena, and he hoped that the presence of a magical figure, who for most people only existed in the old tales, would persuade the doubters among them.

  Awestruck faces looked at Selsena’s mesmerising head with its bone plate, its spiral horn glittering white, and the smaller razor-sharp lower horns. Some of the veterans even had tears in their eyes, and a dumbfounded silence hung over the clearing. Then Selsena stood up on her hind legs and let out a shrill whinny, shaking her mane and kicking the air with her hooves.

  Culhen, who had been watching proceedings from the undergrowth, let out a deep, terrifying howl and trotted over to Ahren’s side. There was no way he was going to let the unicorn have all the limelight.

  The mercenaries around them sank to their knees until only the Loom was left standing in front of Ahren. She stretched her hand out towards him, her eyes continually darting back towards Selsena. ‘I think we have an agreement’, she said drily. Silently but gratefully Ahren shook her hand.

  The travelling party spent the rest of the night on horseback, slowly retracing the steps they had taken the previous day. The mercenaries had headed towards the north, after promising to take the quickest route to Castle Falkenstein. Uldini had given them extra gold for the journey with gritted teeth and had pointed out that he wasn’t made of money.

  Ahren ignored the Arch Wizard’s protest and basked in the knowledge that he had transformed twenty highwaymen and women into sixteen followers. The four dead mercenaries saddened him, but he was beginning to understand that there were battles where he couldn’t guarantee that all his comrades would survive. His good mood evaporated, and he fell into a melancholy rumination as he considered how many more he would see die before his task was finally achieved.

  ‘Such a sad face, lad?’ the cheery voice beside him was so loud that he almost fell off his saddle. Trogadon had ridden up beside him unnoticed, and now he grabbed the unsteady Forest Guardian by the shoulder and steadied him with a spirited laugh. ‘Careful, Ahren’, he snorted merrily. ‘What an inglorious end it would be if you fell off your horse and broke your neck. Especially now that you’re beginning to make a name for yourself.’ The twinkle in the dwarf’s eye took the bite out of his sarcastic tone, and Ahren couldn’t help giggling as his mood improved.

  ‘Tell me what’s bothering you’, said the warrior, and now he was being serious. ‘Your little trick worked brilliantly, and you should be singing out your happiness into the night.’

  Ahren frowned. ‘I was thinking how many lives our war has yet to claim’, he answered in a gloomy tone. He pointed back to where they had left the mercenaries. ‘Sixteen are still alive, but four didn’t make it. What will happen in the Dark Days that are coming if only four out of five survive? How many are going to die?’

  Ahren felt a lump in his throat and fell silent while Trogadon played thoughtfully with one of his beard plaits. ‘The only advice I can give you is this’, said the dwarf warrior in an unusually grave voice. ‘Concentrate on trying to keep the loss of life to a minimum, and take heart with every life you save. If you concentrate completely on the dead, then you won’t be able to help the living.’ He gestured with his large, calloused hand towards where they had helped the mercenaries. ‘You did something amazing today. Enjoy it. Take satisfaction from it. Draw strength from it so that you will be ready for the next battle you will undoubtedly face. Only in this way can you always give your best and not fail in your mission.’ Trogadon’s customary merriness and light-heartedness had returned, and he began singing a lewd song that Ahren had heard him sing so often it no longer made him blush. The dwarf gestured to him to join in, and so Ahren sang, albeit hesitatingly, along to the chorus. The squat warrior gave a nod of approval and belted the next verse out into the forest and gradually Ahren’s spirits rose. Soon they were bellowing exuberantly together about the assets of the pretty miller’s wife and her three daughters.

  Uldini observed the carry-on and shook his head. ‘If their caterwauling doesn’t frighten off our pursuers, then I really don’t know what will’, he whispered to Falk spitefully, but he too was humming along and a moment later had joined in the song.

  ‘Well, if we fail in our mission, we can at least earn a living as the evening entertainment in a tavern’, muttered Uldini poisonously to himself, once the ladies too had joined in. Culhen, infected by Ahren’s exuberant joy, let out a triumphant howl.

  Chapter 9

  The further south they travelled, the more barren the landscape became. The forests of Hjalgar gave way to bushy hills, whose vegetation became ever sparser until only occasional trees and low, thorny bushes bedecked the low elevations. The countryside seemed to be yielding to an invisible, all-oppressing power, and was becoming flatter all the time. The green turned to brown, and the sand which was everywhere found its way into every crack and fold of their clothing. Farmhouses or any other signs of humanity were now few and far between.

  Had Ahren the time to look at his surroundings, he would undoubtedly have found them depressing. But Falk still hadn’t forgiven him for his solo actions, neither for his impetuous ride back to the endangered mercenaries, nor for his later push to employ them in his service. A merciless training programme was now the order of the day for the apprentice, one that was aimed at the young Forest Guardian’s two weaknesses: riding and maintaining patience.

  And then there was the sword training on horseback, where Khara always had the upper hand. He could just about parry her thrusts, and a counterattack was out of the question.

  Falk’s advice was both simple and depressing: ‘With your limited riding skills you’re faced with two options if you’re attacked while on horseback: use your bow or fall off your horse and fight on foot. If you try fleeing or pull your sword, any half-decent rider will knock you off your horse no problem by catching you from behind or throwing you off balance.’

  Despite the hard words, his master stubbornly tried to give him an understanding of the interplay between man and horse. But to little effect.

  Those workouts proved frustrating, but the other half of the day was worse. Falk had brought the old leather ball along that he had used at the beginning of Ahren’s training, and now he introduced the diabolical object in a most creative and malevolent manner. Its purpose seemed to be to both torture the apprentice and to test his patience to the limit. Ahren’s task was to shoot an arrow at the ball as soon as Falk threw it into the air. Under normal circumstances hitting it would prove no problem, but the catch was that his master might wait half the afternoon before flinging it the first time! By the time that happened Ahren would be bat
hed in sweat, and his hands and back knotted with tension from holding the bow and arrow at the ready, having done nothing but watch the small, hateful object as his master tossed it lightly from one hand to the other. And then to cap it all, when it was finally hurled through the air, Ahren would miss three out of five times. He was ready to burst into tears with rage.

  After two weeks Jelninolan finally took pity on him by riding up to him and explaining to him what he had to change. ‘You tense up too much because the task is taking all your attention’, she began, and Ahren stared at her with a look of incomprehension. Jelninolan gently took the bow out of his shaking hands and gave him a reassuring look. ‘The trick is to remain calm. A bow shouldn’t be constantly extended, or it will become loose through wear and tear. The same applies to your body and your mind. It’s like what Trogadon tried to explain to you, except that he was talking about your feelings and your soul.’

  Just at that moment Falk tossed the ball over his shoulder, and Ahren, still completely tensed up, let out a warning cry. But the elf had already reacted. With a relaxed, almost lazy movement she let the arrow fly and it hit the ball in mid-air slap in the middle, before nailing it into the dusty ground.

  Culhen pounced on the leather and brought the practice object back to Falk. Ahren had been continually developing his connection with the wolf and could formulate the most basic wishes subconsciously. Falk gave the animal a good-natured slap and Ahren turned to look at the elf again as she gave him back his bow. ‘You’re missing the Void, and that’s no bad thing. You had become too dependent on it as if it were a crutch, and that has held back your progress. It suppresses your feelings, but it would be better if you could master your emotions yourself.’ She pushed a finger into his chest and looked at him forcefully. ‘You have to learn to carry out actions from a position of calm. You just need to focus at the moment of action, and this transformation from waiting to acting must be seamless.’

  The young Paladin looked doubtfully at her. ‘How is that supposed to work?’ he asked in a voice that sounded sulkier than he had intended. These mind games really annoyed him and his young spirit longed for action. ‘And how could that possibly be good?’ he added grumpily.

  ‘Swarm Claws!’ shouted Falk and threw the ball, hitting Ahren’s head. Befuddled, Ahren held his burning face and stared accusingly at his master.

  Falk looked back at him, his face serene. ‘A Swarm Claw attacking from the sun’s shadow, might give you a heartbeat’s more time than that, but then you’re dead because it will have cut your throat. And there are over a dozen equally quick Dark Ones out there. You have to be ready at all times and yet without wearing yourself out’, he said in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  Ahren was on the point of exploding with rage. Every time he thought he was making progress another, more difficult lesson would appear before him, which made everything he had learned before seem easy as pie!

  ‘Khara has spent half her life fighting, but even she has to keep practising so that she can master her reactions perfectly’, added Jelninolan. She could see the young man’s face darkening.

  Ahren paused for a moment. The one-time slave girl had stiffened up at her mistress’s unintended rebuke and she was blushing.

  Somehow Ahren felt responsible. ‘I’m much slower than Khara. When she’s fighting she almost seems to consist of water or air’, he said as a compliment, hoping that her mood would improve. Unfortunately, it ended up sounding grumpier than he had intended. Still, he saw a triumphant smile beginning to form on Khara’s face before he turned away.

  Falk and Jelninolan glanced at each other and the priestess raised a questioning eyebrow. Falk merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘At least he’s learning a few things, even if only slowly.’

  Then they both laughed, leaving a confused apprentice behind them. He wondered what exactly it was he was supposed to have learned.

  The grime was getting in everywhere. In Ahren’s nose, in his ears, in every cranny of his body, even where he was saddle-sore. Every intake of breath tasted of dust, and they had all tied strips of cloth around their faces to stop the fine particles from going into their lungs. The land through which they were riding now was even drier now, and with the exception of the few bushes, pushing their dried branches up through the poor topsoil as if they were the last remaining living creatures, there was hardly any vegetation to be seen. The brown surface of the lifeless earth stretched as far as the eye could see, and water in this part of Jorath was a rare and precious commodity.

  Uldini and Falk had, before they entered this inhospitable region, purchased all available provisions from the farmers at outrageously high prices, and filled every waterskin they possessed to the brim. Now Ahren understood why. The horses’ heads drooped even before the sun was at its zenith, and the young Paladin was eternally grateful to the animal that carried him through this wasteland without once complaining. The thought of having to travel through the Plains for days on end was a nightmare, and he hoped he would never be stranded without a horse in such a place. Culhen was becoming increasingly irritable and unbearable with all the dust that was gathering in his fur, and every evening, out of pure necessity, Ahren was resorting to brushing his friend’s fur by the campfire and ridding him of the worst of the dust. At least that way he had some respite from the constant nagging of the animal in his head. Conversation among the travellers was at a minimum and almost exclusively took place on windless nights around the campfire when it was possible for them to take the cloth from their mouths and breathe normally.

  ‘Why do they call this country Sunplains?’ asked Ahren on one such occasion. ‘It’s not particularly warm, and you hardly see the sun on account of the dust clouds. Dirtplains would be a more suitable name.’ He spat some dust out and immediately regretted his decision when he felt his mouth constricting with the dryness.

  ‘Good point’, interjected Uldini morosely. He turned to the apprentice, casting a distrustful look over the barren landscape as he did so. Its blurred outlines didn’t look any more attractive in the deepening darkness. ‘This part of the Sunplains is widely known as the Dead Hills. A big battle took place here in the Dark Days. It was, to be exact, one of the three main battles waged in an effort to drive the armies of the Dark Ones towards what are now the Borderlands. That was after the fall of Geraton, and just twenty summers before we finally managed to chain HIM, WHO FORCES under the Pall Pillar.’ Uldini coughed for a moment and when he spoke again his voice sounded raw and rough. It comforted Ahren to know that even the ageless Arch Wizard could be afflicted by something as banal as dust. ‘Damned dirt!’ he cursed. ‘If we didn’t have to worry about this Glower Bear, I’d take action against it.’

  ‘Don’t!’ warned Jelninolan. ‘I can sense that he’s still on our trail. We don’t want to make it easier for him to find us, do we?’

  Uldini looked angrily at the elf but silently followed her advice.

  Ahren gave a slight nod. ‘You wanted to say something about the Dead Hills?’ he asked, steering the Arch Wizard back to the original topic.

  Uldini nodded and pointed at the shallow, undulating hills around them. ‘All this was once a respectable green spot of land. Not a paradise but there was water, there were little woods and green bushes, and the earth was as smooth as silk. A powerful High Fang cast a dastardly charm once it became clear that he was going to lose the battle and his army. He used the essence of his own soldiers to lay waste to the surrounding countryside.’

  Uldini paused and Ahren realised to his own surprise that the hard-nosed Arch Wizard was fighting hard to control his emotions. Two heartbeats later and the childlike figure had everything under control again.

  ‘It was the most horrific bloodbath’, the Arch Wizard continued. ‘Every single Low Fang and every Dark One perished on the spot. Their blood seeped into the ground beneath them and caused a powerful, supernatural earthquake. Faults with razor-sharp edges appeared, whole rivers and lakes were swallowed up by the earth
and the vegetation withered within moments. Any of us who hadn’t fallen down a fissure or been impaled by a jagged earthwork had to run for his life and flee into greener climes, while this swathe of country reared up into a fight to the death and killed anyone foolish enough to remain. All our supplies were destroyed by the earthquake, and as the countryside offered neither food nor water, there was nothing left for us but to retreat. It was true that we had defeated the Dark Ones, but the last spell of the High Fang set us back many summers.’

  Uldini fell silent, and Ahren thought over what he had heard. In order to distract himself from the abominations described and remembering through Uldini’s choice of words something that had been puzzling him, he decided to ask a harmless question. ‘Why do you always count time in terms of summer, and we do it in terms of winter?’

  Uldini didn’t answer. He seemed to be caught up in the old, terrible memories. Much to Ahren’s surprise it was Khara who responded.

  ‘I asked Jelninolan the same questions when I was learning to master the Northern language. It’s down to the weather. Winter is the hardest time of the year in the north, and that’s when most people die, in the south that happens during the summer. In Middle Jorath both terms are in use.’

  Ahren nodded in gratitude. He was glad that he wasn’t the only person who asked such banal questions. ‘What became of the fissures and the jagged edges?’ he asked to nobody in particular. ‘There are only hills here.’

  ‘The greatest enemy of all overpowered them’, answered Jelninolan wistfully. ‘Time itself. It’s always very windy here as I’m sure you’ve realised. Over the centuries the wind carried away the earthworks and filled in the fissures. Land heals itself, divides up its burdens until finally everything balances out.’ She picked up a handful of the brown earth and let it slide through her fingers. ‘I can sense the memory of life in the earth already. As soon as the water returns, life will too.’