Shadowgod (25 page)

“By what right do your masters invade this domain?” Yasgur said abruptly.

“By the most ancient right of the Lord of Twilight who with his bride ruled all these lands and others in the dawn of the world, before the usurper came. But now a new crown shall rule and a new nobility shall know glory and the fruits of loyalty.”

Yasgur glanced at Atroc who smiled and cleared his throat.

“Whiteclaw clan, eh?” he said. “Weren't they settled in northern Honjir?”

But Azurech ignored him. “Yasgur, I bear a message from your fellow chieftains, Welgarak and Gordag. They say - 'Why have you betrayed your people, Yasgur Firespear? Return to the Host, friend. Repudiate these worshippers of a dead god for it is not yet too late. The clans are waiting to rally to the son of Hegroun's banner and sweep away the past'.” Azurech smile was like a dagger aimed at Yasgur. “Do you have an answer?”

“Only this - in the last battle for my city, the clans lost a great throng of warriors as well as many chieftains.” Yasgur stared back. “I don't believe that you have the army which can take those walls.”

Azurech met the Lord Regent's gaze with open amusement.

“Your ignorance is profound, Yasgur. The people of Yularia and Anghatan flock joyously to my masters' banners. Their armies swell by the day and shall soon be sufficient to darken all this countryside with their numbers.”

“Then why, I wonder, were you buying slaves stolen from refugee camps in southern Khatris?” Atroc said. “Perhaps this flocking is not joyous, eh?”

For the first time Azurech look at Atroc, who felt satisfaction at the fury that shone from those eyes.

“I had hoped to confer with the Archmage Bardow,” he said. “I do not need to waste my time with a petty dowser.”
“You honour me,” Atroc said. “I shall wear your contempt like a scar of honour.”

The man with Byrnak's face turned back Yasgur. “We do not require your answer now. Take stock of your situation, ponder the consequences of your actions, and if by dawn tomorrow you agree to our demands, fly this from your topmost tower.”

From within his grey robe he took a folded wad of cloth. A flick of the wrist and it unfurled into a large square banner of vivid green, its device a rayed golden sun impaled on an upturned black sword set. Carefully, Azurech hung the banner over a crook in the tent's central pole then turned to the three hooded figures still waiting outside.

“If you will not listen to my words,” he said, beckoning two of them into the tent. “Then heed some more familiar voices.”

Atroc steeled himself as two cowls were pushed back to reveal the faces of Ikarno Mazaret and the woman he had confronted at the gates of Gorla, the one named Suviel.

They were only rivenshades of the original people, one captured and one dead, but knowing that did not make this sight any easier to bear. Their skin and hair were a chalky white and their eyes were pale grey, calm and unblinking. Their breath came in streams of vapour so thin it was as if they were themselves cold to the bone.

“You should listen to him,” said the Suviel rivenshade. “Whatever weapons you have, be they sorcerous or iron and wood, they just will not be enough.”

“It's true,” said the one with Mazaret's face. “I have been inside both of the citadels and seen the armies quartered there. Valour and skill would be of little use against such a host,”

There was curious hollowness in their voices and as Atroc listened he understood the aim of this puppet show. Rather than trying to persuade, it was saying - 'Look - this is what we have done to your best and bravest. What hope is there for the rest of you?'

“A great change is coming,” the Suviel rivenshade said.

“All the realms will flow into one another,” said the Mazaret, “and from it will arise a world of enchantment and unsurpassable beauty.”

“You could decide to be part of what is to come,” the Suviel said. “Or…”

She shrugged and glanced at Azurech who nodded at her, smiling. An icy draught passed through the tent and as the rivenshades pulled their hoods back up, Azurech looked to Yasgur and the other with a malign satisfaction,. But before he could open his mouth, Yasgur suddenly spoke.

“You will not take Besh-Darok easily - every yard of ground, every building, every street will be watered with the blood of your troops should you come against us,” he said.

“This we know,” Azurech said. “From our encompassing walls to the shoreline, these miles of fields and farmlands shall become a floodplain of death and havoc if we ride to the attack. But you can prevent that happening, Yasgur Firespear.”

Turning, he stepped outside and laid one hand on the shoulder of the fourth and thus far unhooded member of the group.

“I leave you with this final argument,” he said, then he and the two rivenshades were walking away, returning to their horses, watched by every soldier and officer in the fort. The fourth person stood unmoving, cowled head slightly bowed, arms crossed with hands buried in long sleeves. Atroc frowned and approached the stranger who, he realised, was just visibly trembling.

“Who are you?” he said warily, aware of Azurech and his companions, now remounted and trotting down the path from the ridge. Then Atroc noticed something about the silent stranger which made his skin prickle.

“Has he said anything, old man?” said Yasgur, emerging from the tent with Yarram at his side.

“Wait, my prince!” Atroc flung out one hand to the Lord Regent who halted abruptly. “There is black evil afoot here...”

Everyone froze, still upon the ground, and every eye was fixed on Atroc as he reached out and pushed back the stranger's hood.

It was a man, his head utterly hairless. He stared fearfully at something unseen and his scalp and face were beaded with perspiration. His head was quivering and Atroc watched the sweat trickle down from brow to jaw to chin, there forming droplets.

“What is your name, ser?” Atroc said quietly. “Where are you from?”
The man's head jerked up, burning eyes regarding Atroc.

“Search….Domas said search for….Deathless….” The gaze drifted, as if seeing memories. “Caught me, though….no longer Qael….I am….I am….” Veins stood out on his skull as he drew a deep breath and bellowed, “Warblood!”

One hand came out from the enveloping sleeves bearing a wickedly curved knife. Atroc cried out and lurched away, lost his footing and sprawled on the ground, yet the knife went up to the man's own throat. The cut was swift and unerring but it was not blood that gushed forth, but liquid, silver fire.

It poured down his chest and immediately the front of his robes was ablaze. There were curses and gasps of horror from all who watched, and Atroc stared, dumbfounded, as the fiery blood kept coming and enveloped the man in a raging shroud of flame.

Yet he seemed unharmed - his skin did not blister and crack, nor were his eyes seared from their sockets. He just stood and stared and shook violently as if in the grip of a terrible ague. Then he sank to his knees with a web of bright lines spreading across his head and face like fractures. Atroc began to back away as the man raised his pain-wracked face to the sky with an agonised moan coming from between clenched teeth.

Then, unexpectedly, Yarram stepped forward with sword bared and before Atroc could speak, he hacked the man's head off with a single blow. The fiery body went out like a snuffed candle and toppled over to lie motionless. The still-burning head Yarram neatly flipped away with the tip of his sword, and to everyone's surprise it split open in a flaming coruscation even as it spun through the air.

“Friend Yarram,” Atroc said hoarsely, getting to his feet. “What made you act? How did you know - ”

“I knew nothing, seer.” The Lord Commander's face was a picture of anger and tiredness. “I found it...hard to bear seeing my Lord Mazaret and his lady dishonoured so by that filth Azurech. Then they left this poor wretch behind to die before our eyes...I had to put him out of his misery.”

“Your heart is good, ser,” said Yasgur who came to stand near the smoking, headless corpse. “You've kept some of us from death this day.” He looked at Atroc. “Are you familiar with this, old man? Is it an artifice of war from some bygone age?”

Atroc shook his head. “No, my prince. This is a newly made weapon.”

Yasgur glared down at the charred body. “I had feared as much. Which leads me to wonder how many others like him are already in the city.”

Atroc met his masters uneasy gaze with growing alarm as the implications began to dawn.

* * *

In an elevated alcove overlooking the broad, ceremonial corridor, Keren sat with the mage Medwin and Cordmaster Doreth, watching the main body of delegates file into the Keelcourt. The majority of them were anxious, worried-looking Scallowmen while the rest were angry or sullen Islesmen captains from the rebel ship-clans, plainly resentful at being here. Only the High Chief Hevrin seemed at ease, his steady gaze surveying the passageway and the balconies to either side. For a moment his eyes met hers, startling her out of her preoccupied thought. Then he was past, striding through the main doors.

As the last of them crossed the threshold, a pair of aftmasters pulled on the heavy, ponderous doors which swung shut with a solid thud.

“He's late,” Medwin murmured, voice low and tense.

“Patience, good ser,” said Cordmaster Doreth, a pudgy man in his forties. “He will be here.”

It was the merchant Yared Hevrin they referred to, but Keren's thoughts were centred on Gilly. It was over an hour since he had gone haring off after someone who might have been Ikarno Mazaret's brother. At the time she had recounted Gilly's suspicions to Medwin and Golwyth, and the master trader offered to send some of his men off in search of the hunter and his quarry, and Medwin gratefully accepted. But thus far there had been no sign of either Golwyth or Gilly, nor any news.

Apart from some muffled voices filtering through from the Keelcourt, the high-walled corridor was strangely peaceful. Keren could just hear the sound of flutes from down in the main hall as he watched a House attendant on the opposite balcony carefully refilling one of the ceiling oil lamps. On either side a series of banded poles were bolted to massive roof beams and the oil lamps moved to and fro on intricate runners….

Approaching footsteps broke into her reverie and she turned. What she had taken to be a wall hanging at one end of the balcony was bunched over to one side, revealing an open archway. The newcomer came into the light and leaned on the table where they sat. It was Yared Hevrin.

“My profoundest apologies, sers!” he said with a rueful smile. “I was forced to take a different route to the High House and once here decided to seek you out via the Foremasters office.”

Grinning, Medwin clasped hand with him. “Well met, ser Hevrin. And was the overland passage fortuitous?”

“It was, ser mage. Without a doubt.”

Medwin nodded and sat back, seeming to Keren both satisfied and relieved. Hevrin smiled at Doreth and exchanged greetings, then looked straight at Keren. “Your gown is most comely, Lady Keren - you wear it as naturally as a rider's garb.”

“You are most kind,” Keren said, annoyed at feeling a rush of heat to her face.

“Have you had that sagasong translated since we last spoke?” he went on.

“I brought the book with me, ser,” she said. “But have not been able to have such a task undertaken, as yet. I did leave a copy of the song with a friend in Besh-Darok before leaving - perhaps she has been more fortunate than I.”

Hevrin frowned slightly. “I see. I also took a copy of it before gifting it to you, and purely by chance we encountered during our journey to Dalbar a party of scholars returning to Oumetra. One was a Master of Parlance who very kindly rendered it into Khatrian for me, and pointed out some oddities. It makes for interesting…” He smiled. “But we can talk on that at length later, once we've seen this anger-and-thunder performance through.”

Everyone rose and followed him along to the archway. Keren paused to look back down at the corridor but saw no-one, and went with the rest.

Beyond the curtained entrance was a curved, narrow passage between the main outer wall of the Keelcourt and the high clothscreen back of the tiered seating. Hevrin showed them to a balustraded staircase which sloped up to the rearmost seats.

“That is where guests and visitors can sit and watch,” he told Keren and Medwin quietly. “While you find yourselves places, I must enter the Court by another door. Till later.”

Hevrin and Cordmaster Doreth continued along the passage and out of sight round the curve. Keren followed Medwin up carpetted steps to find seats on a long, hard bench from where she could survey the entire Keelcourt. The chamber itself was oval-shaped but the tiers of seats were arranged in two long, curved blocks facing each other with a small third block set at one end. In front of that was a dais with an elaborate carven pedestal from where speakers could address the assembly.

All of which contributed to the appearance of a great open ship. At the other end, standing over the court's double doors, was a large stone statue of a bearded, bare-chested man holding a gnarled staff in one hand and a cluster of sea creatures in the other. Keren wondered if it was meant to be a representation of the Fathertree, perhaps in his sea-dwelling aspect. She would ask Yared Hevrin later, once the matter of Gilly was resolved.

The atmosphere in the packed chamber was very tense. There were other conversations and arguments going on around the tiers, and the man speaking from the dais was being constantly interrupted from all sides. There seemed to be different factions among the representatives but from where Keren sat, at the top half-way along one of the side tiers, the only clearly-defined one consisted of the Islesmen and their leader, the Hevrin. He sat on one of the bottom benches near the dais, seemingly motionless, his feet planted apart, his big hands resting on his knees.

A roar went up when Yared Hevrin entered by the ceremonial door in the corner by the rear of the dais. He acknowledged the welcome and shook a few hands before assuming a seat almost directly opposite his cousin, the chieftain. The speaker tried to continue but a rising tide of barracking forced him to conclude and surrender the floor of the Keelcourt. There were more cheers as Yared Hevrin rose and stepped up to the pedestal. The din faded into silence as he sombrely surveyed the ranks of faces on either side.