Scarred Man (4 page)

‘What is that?' Korbinian asked.

‘Warrior's Claw,' he said, without raising his eyes.

‘You're fast with it,' Korbinian commented. ‘Until you dropped it.'

Slave grunted, wondering again about the rage and this weapon. How could they be linked?

‘You don't say much, do you?' Korbinian said.

Slave raised his eyes to stare at Korbinian, waiting for the flinch as the former slave caught the full impact of the silver eye. He did not merely flinch, but actually took a step backwards while raising his hands defensively.

‘Are you the Beq?' Korbinian whispered.

‘The what?'

‘The Beq, who will come before.'

‘Before what?'

Korbinian dropped to his knees. ‘I have heard of you, the Scarred Man, the Beq. Stories of Vogel, of the Place …' His voice tailed off as Slave rose from his crouch. ‘Why are you here, Beq?'

Slave shook his head and began to walk away.

But Korbinian sprang to his feet to grab Slave's arm.

‘Beq? Why have you saved us, just to leave us here to die?'

Slave tried to shake the hand off, but Korbinian held tight. ‘You are nothing to me,' Slave snarled. ‘Go your own way.'

‘We will follow you, Beq,' Korbinian said, releasing Slave's arm and dropping again to his knees. ‘It is better to be at the left arm of chaos than in its way.'

‘What does that mean?'

Korbinian lowered his face onto the icy ground. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with fear. ‘The great Revenant has risen. We of the visions have known it, and feared it. The Tahir of our clan has seen a strange thing — the Beq who comes before bears the mark of the Great Revenant, but follows it not. The Beq will raise the Revenant's Claw, show its army the way, release the Revenant, but will be surrounded by peace.'

‘Ha!' burst out Slave. ‘I cannot be this Beq. I know no peace.'

‘Being surrounded by peace is not the same thing as knowing peace.'

Slave hesitated, turned and stood over Korbinian, looking down at the man's back. ‘I don't understand any of what you are saying,' he admitted finally. ‘But I think I should.' He stooped and gripped the man's shoulder. ‘Would you walk with me a while? You can tell me about the Revenant.'

Korbinian rose slowly. At full height, he towered over Slave. With his pale skin, brown eyes and dark hair, he looked not unlike Ileki. ‘I will walk with you, Beq,' he said.

‘Call me Slave.'

Korbinian nodded. ‘The others?' He gestured at the other released slaves. They were standing motionless, watching the exchange.

‘What about them? They are free to do whatever they want.'

‘They are all my clan.' Korbinian turned away to stare at them. ‘They are all that is left of my clan. Can they come with us?'

Slave shrugged and started to walk south, towards Leserlang. If they wanted to follow, it was their decision.

‘The Great Revenant,' Korbinian started, ‘was summoned by the Scaren race to wipe out the Mertians, their implacable enemy. Their battles had been unending, dating back since before the Eleven Kingdoms. A Scaren sorcerer somehow called up the Revenant and set it to battle, but in a cruel twist of fate, the Mertians summoned something to stand for them also. In the destruction that followed, both races were all but annihilated, leaving only a few scattered remnants. A strange mystical sect calling themselves the Acolytes of Varuun awakened the Sixth Waste and were able to entrap the two …' Korbinian hesitated, as if unsure what word to use, ‘things and imprison them.'

‘How?'

‘I don't know,' Korbinian admitted.

‘Where?' Slave pressed.

‘Beneath the city that is now called Vogel, on the southern edge of the Sixth Waste.'

Slave shook his head and looked down at the hard, icy ground beneath his feet. ‘Imprisoned? Not killed?'

‘No, not even the Sixth Waste could kill such things as those.'

‘What can?'

Korbinian shrugged and gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Perhaps the Seventh Waste, but how would I know? What do I look like, a Reader?'

Slave considered that for a moment before nodding. ‘Yes, you do.'

‘In my clan, I would normally have to challenge you for such an insult, but I have seen you fight. I think I will overlook it this time.'

‘And me? What is my part in all this?'

Korbinian sighed. ‘I don't know that, either. Only our Tahir would have known that, and he is dead now.'

‘How?'

‘A few days ago. He woke screaming that the army of the Beq would arise from the earth and wreak chaos on the world. Naturally, we started to look for the hidden meaning in his words, but he was being literal for once. A small troop of Duregs tunnelled under our camp and killed him while he slept the next night. They all bore scars like yours and either had no left eye or wore a silver eye patch.'

Involuntarily, Slave raised his hand to the silver orb that the creature beneath Vogel had given him, along with the scars and ‘his blessing'. At least now he knew what that creature was — the Great Revenant. Not that that knowledge meant much yet.

Korbinian watched Slave's hand, but looked away when Slave returned the look.

‘The mark of the Revenant's Beq,' Korbinian muttered.

‘What's a Beq?' Slave asked.

‘Scaren warleader.'

‘Am I Scaren?'

‘Unlikely. They were all killed in the Gurrig, the great purge that followed the entombment of the Revenant.'

‘What do you know about the Eye of Varuun?'

Korbinian stared up at the grey sky and wrapped his thin clothes tightly around him as if warding off a sudden chill beyond the already bitter cold.

‘She is a pureblood Mertian. Her mind is able to survive the insidious poison of the daven and interpret the Seeing, her visions. There are fewer and fewer left in the Eleven Kingdoms, so even such poor seers as us have become sought after for our weak visions.'

‘And you had a vision of me?'

Korbinian lowered his eyes and braved Slave's silver eye for a moment. ‘Yes, our Tahir did, just as I told you. You are the Beq who comes before, who bears the mark of the Great Revenant, but follows it not. You will raise the Revenant's Claw,' he gestured at the weapon tucked into Slave's jerkin, ‘and show its army the way. You released the Revenant, but you will be surrounded by peace.'

 

Korbinian's clan walked close together, several paces behind Slave and Korbinian, talking quietly among themselves. They stripped everything from the slavers and left the bodies — and the wounded — to the elements. The clothes were shared among the women and children, the weapons among the men and the food carried by the two horses who had survived unhurt.

They walked south-east towards Leserlang. Slave walked ahead with Korbinian a pace or so behind, to his right. At first, Slave believed it was something to do with fear or distrust or suspicion, but as the day passed, he began to wonder.

‘Why are you walking there?' he asked.

‘As Beq, you march ahead.'

‘You said yourself, I am not Scaren. So I cannot be Beq.'

Korbinian nodded, but did not shift his position.

‘I don't understand,' Slave went on. ‘This Revenant will bring chaos and destruction and you say I am supposed to have released him, yet you treat me with reverence. Why not just kill me? Surely I deserve it.'

‘Our Tahir said you would be surrounded by peace,' Korbinian said. ‘If chaos is upon the world, I think standing beside one surrounded by peace would be a good place to be.'

‘You said that it would be better to stand at the left arm of chaos than in its way. Is that how you see me? The left arm of chaos?'

‘Yes.'

Slave fell silent again and walked without speaking until the sun started to sink in the west. With people around him, his apprehension at the open sky, the shifting air, the confused scents had faded, but he felt the nervousness start to build once more with the approaching dark. He could feel his senses become confused as the sky overhead changed colour. The sheer instability of the world outside of his changeless cell still managed to unnerve him.

With the dark came the cold. And with the cold came the wind and the open sky. Knowing that above him was nothing save the mysterious points of light and the two moons struck him with a fear that gnawed at his gut. He reasoned that
nothingness was, rationally, nothing to fear. Yet all that nothingness terrified him.

The clan gathered around Korbinian, leaving Slave on the outer, which suited him. Being in a crush of people was uncomfortable enough without black nothingness above him as well. He sat at the edge of the gathering and listened.

The conversation was subdued and Slave could not make sense of anything. After a short time, he gave up and wrapped his cloak tight around his shoulders. The wind carried the scent that he had come to recognise as ice. This night promised to be as cold as the previous, but with less wind.

What wind there was had become light, shifting direction and strength without apparent reason. Sitting on a folded blanket, wrapped in his cloak, hood pulled up over his head, Slave was thoroughly miserable.

However, as long as he stayed miserable, focused on feeling so bad, he was able to keep his mind off the vast expanse of nothingness stretched above him. So he shivered in the cold and cursed the shifting wind, the frozen ground and the inadequacies of his boots. And stayed in control of his fear.

 

He started awake at the sense of someone approaching. His eyes snapped open. Footsteps, soft and uncertain, were coming close from behind. He listened, thankful that the cursed wind had dropped for a moment, as the small person crept up on him. A scent drifted ahead of … her. She was unwashed, hungry and had been asleep, but definitely female. A woman, not a child.

She stumbled. ‘Ice and wind,' she muttered.

Slave rolled over and swung his legs around, taking her feet out from under her, sending her tumbling to the ground. The impact drove the air from her lungs and before she could react, he was sitting astride her chest, Claw at her throat.

‘What do you want?' he hissed.

The woman stared up at him with fear in her eyes. Despite the darkness of the night, Slave could see that her gaze was not directed at his silver eye as he had expected, but at the softly glowing Warrior's Claw pressed against her skin. She tried to swallow.

‘I thought you might want some company, Beq,' she whispered.

Slave rose from her chest and stepped aside, offering her his hand. She took it and he helped her to her feet. Appearing to take his hand as an offer, she leant into him, wrapping his arm around her back.

Slave pushed her away. ‘Do not stay near me,' he snapped. ‘It is unwise.'

‘Don't send me away,' she said. ‘I am afraid.'

‘No.' He stepped further back as a waft of wind brought a new scent to his nostrils. ‘No,' he repeated.

‘Why not?'

Slave grimaced. ‘I need to get moving.'

‘What? It's the middle of the night.'

‘I need to get away from you all, now, before they get here.'

‘Before who gets here?' The woman turned, looking into the darkness. ‘I can't see anyone coming.'

‘But they are coming.' Slave tucked his Claw into his jerkin and went to run, but she grabbed at his arm and held him back. ‘If you want to live,' he said, ‘run. Now.' He pulled her hand away from his arm and held it briefly.

‘Run where?' she asked.

‘In the opposite direction to me. Stay as far away from me as possible.'

A scream, not of fear or pain, but of simple madness, cut the night. The woman looked around, her fear shifting into terror.

‘What was that?' she said.

Slave sniffed the air. Long-term unwashed, blood, death, underground as well as surface dwellers.

‘An army.' His shoulders drooped. ‘My army.'

‘Yours?'

‘The one I am supposed to lead.'

Her eyes widened.

‘Go. Go now,' Slave urged. He could now hear the sound of running feet. Many feet. Along with the rushing feet came the cries of manic chaos. Incoherent shouts, roars of mindless frenzy mingled with the clatter of weapons. The noise of approach shifted into the sounds of battle as the army of the Beq crashed into the sleeping clan.

Above the screams, the cries of agony, the metallic scrape of weapon on weapon, Slave heard one coherent and controlled voice roar an order.

‘Kill them all!'

Slave was torn. He knew the danger, but could he now run into the dark and leave these unarmed people to their fate? A scream that could only be
the agonised cry of death rose into the night. It was a woman. Slave stopped thinking and drew his Claw. The black rage enfolded his mind in chaos before he even reached the melee.

 

Dawn was near when Slave awoke again. The sky was showing signs of lightening with the softer indigo creeping into the black. Struggling against the stiffness and pain in his body, he raised himself to sit. The sight that greeted him made him close his eyes again, but even that fleeting glimpse was seared onto his mind. His stomach heaved. The scent of death filled his nostrils.

For a long time, he just sat, not moving, barely breathing, trying to remember what had happened after the black rage had come upon him again. Brief flickers of memory, fleeting images of carnage, of blood splashing and bodies falling before his sweeping Claw. He could feel the warm, sticky blood as it spattered from each victim. The screams, the hideous sounds of metal meeting flesh, the other, less identifiable sounds and smells of battle, all flashed through his cringing mind. Tears trickled down his scarred cheeks, washing narrow paths through the blood. Stained red, his tears dripped unhindered onto his clenched, shaking fists. He opened his eyes, just narrow slits to allow himself to see the blood covering his hands.