Shadowgod (7 page)

“Well, now, Keren - that’s the second time that Byrnak’s failed to have you killed,” said Gilly who was leaning leisurely against a pillar in the corner. “Mayhap he will tire of the game.”

Keren glared at him. “This isn’t a game.”

“No,” Nerek said, staring down at the dead woman. “He will never stop. Never.”

* * *

On the great balcony which overlooked Five Kings Dock, Yasgur stood to the left of the throne dressed in full furred cloak and ceremonial armour which spoke as much of his Mogaun heritage as it did of his adopted home. A roar of cheering, stamping and clapping came from the citizens who crowded the tiers and enclosures in their thousands. The chants of the choriants could hardly be heard and when the Imperial barge floated in past the open doors the thunderous din rose still further and clouds of petals began drifting down from the rafters.

On the other side of the podium stood Abbess Halimer, now recognised as High Priestess of the Earthmother faith. Yasgur glanced over at her - she was a tall, matronly woman with a steady yet imposing presence, which almost compelled others to be equally calm and even-tempered. He wondered what the Abbess thought of the many rumours about the Earthmother, that she had appeared in the Spire during the height of the battle to take back the spirits of the dead. He wondered if it were true. His own patron god was Vaarut, Lord of the Hunt, and there had never been tales of him stepping forth from the sagas to speak with mortals, apart from the delusions of the weak-minded. Perhaps he should convert, offer up oblations to a goddess who actually took a hand in the affairs of mortals.

Then Yasgur thought of what his senior officers might say and do, and smiled sardonically. Perhaps not. He was already walking a thin line with regard to the feelings and loyalties of the Firespear clan, especially since the start of these cowardly beatings meted out to a growing number of his warriors by masked ambushers. Murmurs of discontent were passing around, along with the notion that the Firespears had been tainted by this alliance with their former vassals. But their ingrained distrust of the other clans and tribes, coupled with the terrible dishonour committed against the spirit of Hegroun by the Shadowkings, was sufficient to maintain their discipline and loyalty to Yasgur. For now.

The crowd kept up its full-throated roar as the ceremonial barge let down its gantry and Tauric, wearing a long, pale blue cloak, crossed to the flagstoned wharf. Two men and a woman, known as the Keepers of Anointment, approached and bowed. Yasgur had gone over the rituals of the Low Coronation with the stewards, but some of the details had been unclear.

“In times past, my Lord, it was a senior priest of the Rootpower faith who stood to the left of the throne,” one had told him. “Under the circumstances, it seems appropriate for one of the Lord Regents to assume this role. So we thought.”

“What ritual words must I speak?” he had asked.

“None,” was the answer. “Only the heir speaks, once the coronation has taken place and then only to the citizens.”

As Yasgur watched, Tauric lowered his head and the woman stepped forward to place a seashell amulet around his neck. Tauric straightened and handed her a coronet woven of flowers, then the two men came forward, one giving him an iron lantern, the other a polished bull’s horn.

Yasgur frowned. Many signs and tokens were sacred to the Mogaun, and he knew that the iron lamp was a symbol of the Lord of Twilight while the bull’s horn was that of Orrohn, Lord of the Forest. The seashell, too, was familiar but beyond recollection for the moment. Not for the first time this afternoon, he wished he had ignored the palace advisors and brought Atroc with him.

Led by the three Keepers, and followed by his retinue, Tauric walked towards the stairs that rose in two flights to the great balcony. Red, yellow and blue petals lay like a fall of leaves over everything and very long, thin banners of a fine, gauzy material had unfurled slowly from the ceiling and were floating and undulating on the warm updrafts rising from the still-cheering crowds.

The small procession finally reached the foot of the podium where Tauric bowed to Abbess Halimer and gave her the bull’s horn, then bowed to Yasgur and gave him the iron lamp. The young man’s metal arms shone in the rich golden light of a hundred torches and Yasgur stared at the lamp in surprise for a moment, then remembered his next part in the ritual and went down on one knee. The female Keeper placed the Flower Crown on his head, and when he stood it was Tauric’s turn to kneel at the foot of the podium. All the Keepers moved to the rear of the balcony as two smaller figures stepped forward, a boy and a girl aged about ten, who climbed nervously up to the throne on which a large wooden crown lay. It looked dark and finely grained and had the dull sheen of something that had been through many hands over many years.

By now the noise of the crowds had diminished to a subdued rhythmic chant as the children carefully carried the crown between them down the steps. Tauric’s face was calm, almost serene as he bowed to each in turn, and when he straightened Yasgur noticed a small pendant protruding from the buttoned seam of his dark brown velvet doublet. It was only visible for a moment before it slipped back inside but Yasgur saw that it was a rearing horse cast in bronze.

Then the children were lowering the wooden crown onto Tauric’s head to an accompanying mass roar from the crowd. As the young heir turned to face the exulting thousands, Yasgur reflected wryly that in sixteen years they had never once cheered like that for him.

Tauric stepped up to the balustrade of the great balcony and raised his arms, one metal, one flesh and bone. Flanked by blazing pole-cressets and framed by heraldic banners, Tauric truly had the bearing of a monarch. After a moment or two the clamour subsided and he began to speak. This was the cue for Yasgur and the Abbess, and the others, to retreat to the shadowy rear of the balcony. Once there, Yasgur slipped between the dark, heavy drapes and emerged into a long, low chamber.

He was passing the Flower Crown and the iron lamp to an Earthmother priestess when there was a touch on his shoulder. It was Ghazrek, his friend and First Captain, looking sombre as he bowed smartly.

“My Prince - Lord Commander Yarram has returned unexpectedly. He has disturbing news.”

Yasgur snorted. “Disturbing enough to bother me with, eh? Why isn’t he at the palace, talking to Mazaret’s second?”

“It is do to with Mazaret, my Prince.”

Ghazrek’s face was grave, which made Yasgur stop and consider.

“Very well. Take me to him.”

In a small room off the main state conclave chamber, Yarram was standing by an arched window, peering through meshwork shutters at the city outside. As he turned, Yasgur could see the strain etched in his features, as well as the dust and grime that marred his clothing.

Yarram bowed. “Milord Regent.”

“Lord Commander,” Yasgur said. “What brings you back to Besh-Darok with such haste?”

“Lord Regent Yasgur, my men and I have for the last four days been harrying the brigands responsible for the many raids on either side of the Girdle Hills. Yesterday, we came face to face with their leader.” Yarram gazed levelly at Yasgur. “Milord, I am not a man given to flights of fanciful rumination, so please accept that there is no embroidering in what I am about to relate.”

“Your honesty is known to us, Lord Commander. Continue.”

“We followed the brigands into the Girdle Hills southwest of Besh-Darok. Our pursuit brought us to the ford of a river swollen by the snow and rain, but we arrived to find that the brigands had wrecked the bridge and were waiting to defy us. As we approached, their leader emerged on horseback - from where we were I could see that it was a woman, garbed in a winding gown as pale and hueless as her face and hair. She rode slowly out onto a flat boulder and said ‘Who commands?’.”

“I said nothing but urged my mount forward to the grassy bank of the spated river. Only when I halted by the river’s edge was I able to discern the woman’s features.” Yarram paused. “I am certain that you never met Suviel Hantika, the lady mage who was my Lord Mazaret’s beloved. I, on the other hand, saw her on many occasions - ”

“The woman is dead,” Yasgur said bluntly. “Or so that turncoat sorceress Nerek insisted. But you saw her alive and leading our enemies, is that what you’re saying?”

Yarram nodded. “She looked more wraith than living flesh, but it was her face that I saw and her voice that I heard speak, I am certain.”

Yasgur inhaled deeply, thinking -
Atroc, you should be here to advise me
…

“What else did she say?”

“She said - ‘Tell your masters that Death has many doors and they cannot lock them all. And tell Ikarno that I shall await him at Blue axe Ridge’. Then she and her followers turned and rode off.”

Yasgur felt the hairs on his neck stir, and a chill go through him. In the Mogaun sagas there were many tales of the power of the words of the dead.
The Shadowkings are close to us, stretching out their hands, sending forth their creatures to taunt us. And those words were meant for Mazaret - what will he do when he hears them
?

He clenched his fists, burning with the need to act. “There is little sense in waiting here,” he said. “Let us return to the palace with all speed, and I shall call the High Conclave to meet - ”

“An excellent idea, my lord,” came a voice at his back. “I have already sent several people ahead to prepare for just such a gathering.”

It was Bardow, his eyes bright with purpose, his mouth curved in a small, hard smile.

“Greetings, my Lord Regent, Lord Commander, and my apologies for intruding, but I bring word of unsettling developments within the city itself.”

“A timely interruption, ser Archmage, as I have just received a disturbing report from the Lord Commander here. I suggest that we hasten to the palace and share around each others' dread news as we travel.”

“Mayhap one will cancel out the other, my lord,” said Ghazrek, grinning darkly as he went to open the door.

Bardow uttered a dry laugh. “An unlikely event, captain.”

The roots of meaning and memory,
Are a deep, dark tangle,
Which holds love and hate,
In eternal, unbreakable bonds.

—Avalti,
Augronac’s Lament

In the sharp, grey cold of dawn, Ikarno Mazaret sat on a wide rock on a snowy hillside overlooking the former Duchy of Patrein, thinking of the two occasions on which he had slain the Warlord Azurech.

Or at least of the blows he had struck the man, blows that would have killed any
ordinary
warrior. The first time had been in the burnt-out ruins of Tobrosa during a rainstorm, hunting Azurech and his guards through black, wet streets. Catching him unawares and alone, Mazaret had beat aside his sword and dealt him a thrust of such fury and might that his blade had punched through the man’s mailed shirt near the heart and impaled him from front to back. Mazaret remembered how he wrenched his dripping sword free, and how Azurech had swayed then retreated but a single step before collapsing to the ground, apparently dead. With shouts coming near through the hissing rain, Mazaret had taken to his heels, seeking concealment in a wrecked taphouse from where he looked back.

And stifled a curse when he saw Azurech’s form stir and sit upright, then shout for his men.

The second time was by sunset at the King’s Gate Pass, when Mazaret and his knights were returning to Besh-Darok. They had just cleared the pass when the Warlord’s warriors fell upon them from either side. Battle was furiously joined and Mazaret was forcing his way through the press of men and horse, slashing to left and right with his battleaxe, when he found himself confronting Azurech himself.

Clad in ornate black armour and a snarling wolf’s-head helm, the Warlord blocked Mazaret’s first blow with a night black shield from which a circle of curved spikes protruded. Then he swung a serrated broadsword which Mazaret only just managed to parry before spurring his horse up against Azurech’s mount. He pushed his own shield into Azurech’s face, at the same moment bringing his axe down on the man’s lightly armoured thigh. His hold on the axe was white-fist tight and the blade edge bit through mailed leather and flesh, jarring as it clove the bone. The Warlord’s horse screamed as its flank took a cut, and reared away from Mazaret but not before he saw what he had done. Azurech’s leg was hanging by scraps of flesh and leather, with blood gouting forth, a blood that was black.

The ambushers had broken off the attack, retreating back through the Kings Gate Pass to the wastes of central Khatris. Mazaret had conducted a search of the bodies afterwards but Azurech’s was not among them. It had seemed that the Warlord could only have ridden off to die, but three weeks ago word came that he had returned to Khatris with the avowed intention of dragging Mazaret all the way to Rauthaz in chains. In response Mazaret sent out more spies and consulted with Bardow but although the Archmage was able to see further with the Crystal Eye, the Shadowkings and the more powerful of their servants remained hidden. However, it transpired that a band of slavers were abducting refugees from the ruined citadel of Alvergost and selling them on to Azurech. Mazaret listened closely and laid his plans accordingly.

From where he sat on that bleak hillside he had a panoramic view of the white emptiness of southern Khatris. To the south, the deserted city of Tobrosa - its towers now blackened and gutted hollows - was just visible as a dark blotch on the horizon while to the east the Rukang Mountains presented an ashen barrier of unscaleable peaks and ridges. The surrounding plains looked near-featureless beneath the recent snowfall; this had once been rich farm land but the whiteness hid a multitude of ravages and ruins.

Mazaret’s knights were encamped at the foot of the hill, in a small gully behind a copse of leafless, skeletal trees, but his gaze was fixed on the slight figure standing by a drystone pen down and off to his left. Terzis Kommyn had incurred Bardow’s anger by volunteering to accompany Mazaret on his forays, but she had proven her worth so convincingly that the Archmage had relented. Now, she was using her talents to scry movements in the distance and the unseen aspects of the great arena they would soon enter.