The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (2 page)

‘White-eyes are pretty much the same, whatever the tribe,’ he continued, tapping out his pipe on the rail beside him. The curl of a smile hung on his lips as he fixed a fond gaze on the youth. ‘You remember I told you about Sergeant Kulet? Now that one was a bastard, the worst white-eye I’ve ever met. Man killed his entire family when he was sixteen - well, ‘cept his mother of course, but we can’t blame any of you white-eyes for the size you were as a baby. The ones to blame are the Gods, and most folk aren’t that stupid.

‘Anyway, the Swordmaster wasn’t allowed to execute Kulet. The high priest of Nartis stepped in and said a birthmark on his face showed Kulet’d been touched by Nartis.’ Carel gave a snort of scorn. Touched by a daemon more like, if you ask me, but that birthmark was as blue as a temple door, no doubt about it. We kept him just drunk enough to spend most of the day telling jokes - the bugger could make me laugh even more than your foolery can - otherwise he’d get bored and start a fight in the barracks. But when you saw him on the battlefield - well, merciful Death! If you had Kulet next to you, you were glad. He fought like a man possessed, never gave ground, never left the man next to him vulnerable. You knew you were safe in his lee.’

Carel took a long pull on his pipe, then tapped Isak on the head with it. ‘Smile; you’re one of the blessed. You’re all violent, insolent, brooding and heartless. You make the best soldiers because you’re twice as strong and half as caring. Don’t take that wrong, you’re like a son to me, but I’ve known many. Behind the eyes you’ve all got something barely under control. P’raps it’s worse for you - your father never was good at taking orders either - but no white-eye was ever as meek as a lamb. Obey your father till the spring and then you’re free, promise. Just keep your temper until then.’

‘I hardly feel like I’m blessed.’

‘Ah boy, the Land is harsh. It’s a cruel place and it needs white-eyes to tame it. The Gods knew that when they made the first of you to be born. The last of the Farlan line was their model, and scripture tells he was no court jester.’ Carel clapped a hand on Isak’s shoulder and tugged him round to look him in the eye. There was an almost wistful tone to his voice when he spoke again. ‘Our Gods might be great and powerful, but they’ve never needed to be subtle.’

Isak recognised the words: an old soldier’s favourite mantra.

The veteran smiled. ‘Come on now, get that scowl off your face. The lecture’s over.’ He put his feet up and leaned against the wooden frame of the caravan, content in the sunshine that they wouldn’t see for months once they arrived home.

Isak shifted in his seat and settled down for a long and uncomfortable day. As his mind wandered, he tried to count the months until he reached adulthood. Whether he was good enough to join the Ghosts or not, next year he would be able to do as he pleased; not to be dragged back like a rogue mule when he left. His father had made the most of the law regarding childhood, but he couldn’t hold on to Isak forever.

Becoming a Ghost was still a dream to Isak, but one thing
was
sure: he could better Carel with a sword. He had nothing more to learn. If the Swordmasters were like the wagoners, he would go elsewhere - perhaps become a mercenary like Carel was now and travel to distant cities. Many of his kind did that, and some never found employment to be proud of, but white-eyes didn’t become hermits and live in quiet humility. Their nature was not so peaceful.

Isak was still lost in daydreams of military glory when a sound up ahead broke through his reverie. Heads appeared from almost every caravan and wagon in the train, anticipating something to break the monotony of the journey. The spiced breeze was still detectable, but it did nothing to cool faces red under the onslaught of the sun. Most people wore wide-brimmed hats of some kind, but Isak rarely bothered. His skin was as fair as anyone’s, but it never peeled or burned, just as any injuries healed quickly. In those ways he
knew
he was blessed. It was the rest of it that made people nervous.

Off to the left Isak saw a pair of wood pigeons perched on a branch, eyeing the wagon-train with lazy interest. He started to reach for the crossbow slung behind him, but stopped when the sound came again. It was a voice calling. He pulled himself to his feet on the wooden seat for a better look.

From his vantage point Isak could see a horseman approaching, plaits swinging in the air and a spear held aloft.

Carel had spotted the rider too and had already slipped on to the back of his own steed, which trotted patiently alongside the wagon. The stock pony was nothing like as impressive as the horses he had ridden in the Ghosts, and it bore little decoration bar the tattoos of breed and a charm to Nyphal, the Goddess of travellers, but it had served well over the years. With one hand on the pommel of his sword, Carel indicated for Isak to rein in before urging his stock pony forward.

The wagon-train ground to an eventual halt behind them as an uneasy silence descended. This was untamed land for the greater part, and people mixed curiosity with caution. As Carel reached the horseman, figures appeared from behind the bend in the road. Six men were coming towards them, five of them the train’s guards, mounted on stock ponies like Carel’s own, and one man, a stranger, on foot. The five on horseback towered above the newcomer, but they looked curiously cowed in his presence.

Carel stopped and dismounted once he was past the lead wagon. While he waited for the man to reach him he looked around, scanning the terrain. He didn’t see anyone else, but he kept his hand on his hilt as the man approached - he appeared calm, but a stranger alone and on foot was more than unusual out here.

Isak found himself digging his nails into his palm in apprehension. The stranger was taller even than Isak, who himself looked down on the rest of the wagon-train occupants. He was clad in black from head to toe, and the hardened leather and heavy, scaled armour he wore showed that he was not a native of these warm parts, where the guards wore little or no protection. Despite his height, the man was clearly not Parian, nor from any other tribe Isak had seen on their travels.

Worryingly, the man had his sword drawn, yet Carel paid it no attention. He left his own weapon sheathed as he moved in close to speak to the man.

Isak realised suddenly that his attention had been caught by the blade itself, not the man who held it, which went against
everything
Carel had taught him.
The sword tells you nothing about what your enemy is going to do; keep your eyes on it and you’ll watch it all the way i
nto your belly.
Even knowing this, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from weapon: its shape and colour were unlike any he had seen before.

Faint bursts of light pricked the black surface so gently that he almost dismissed them as fancy. Just the sight of that blade made Isak shiver, as if some primal fear stirred inside.

The stranger said something, too quietly for Isak to hear.

‘We’re just traders returning to Tirah. We don’t want trouble, but we are prepared for it.’ Carel replied in a loud voice, so that those wagoners with weapons would reach for them. Isak could see that Carel looked puzzled, and a little apprehensive: this situation didn’t make much sense - who travelled alone and on foot out here? Was this an ambush of some kind? He glanced back inside Carel’s caravan to make sure that the mercenary’s spear was within reach.

The stranger was hairless, and terribly lean, but there was no sign of illness; rather, he had about him an unnatural vitality. Pale parchment skin looked stretched to fit the skull underneath, and his eyes were completely black. For the first time Isak saw why people feared the differences in his own face.

‘There is one here who is not like you, one who should come with me.’ The man spoke clearly this time.

‘We have a white-eye with us; what of him? He’s young. What use would you have of him?’ Carel sounded dismissive.

‘He should come with me to seek his future.’

Carel stepped back, away from the stranger. ‘You think I’m just going to hand him over to you? You look like a sorcerer to me.’ He took hold of the charm around his neck, carved with the rune of Nyphal, protector of travellers, and muttered a short mantra under his breath.

‘Get back into the wagon, Isak. Keep out of sight,’ hissed Horman, a concerned look on his face. He had approached Carel’s caravan out of sight of the stranger; now he motioned his son off the driver’s seat. Isak climbed down quietly and slid back into the dark interior without a word while his father cocked his crossbow.

‘What does he want with me?’ he whispered.

‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’ll give you to him if you don’t shut up.’ Horman scowled at his son and turned his attention back to Carel.

Isak did as he was told, fearing the stranger and his father’s anger equally. Horman had never been a patient man; he blamed much of his misfortune on his supernatural son, from the inevitable death of his wife giving birth to Isak to his exit from the cavalry following an accident. Horman had no tales of heroic battle and near-fatal injuries overcome with which to enthral his grandchildren by the fireside. Instead he had lost his livelihood thanks to a simple drill manoeuvre gone wrong the day he learned of his wife’s death. Now even ants crawling on the supplies were Isak’s fault.

The stranger looked over at the wagons, his eyes moving down the line until Isak felt his gaze lock on to him. Suddenly a cold presence was all around, as if bitter winter had just invaded, and Isak fell back in surprise and alarm. He felt a surge of panic at the alien mind filling his thoughts and, inexplicably, hatred beyond anything he’d ever known before. In the next instant, the contact was broken off, so abruptly that Isak flinched in surprise.

‘He’ll kill me,’ Isak moaned, his hands trembling uncontrollably. ‘He’ll kill us all.’

Horman turned with a frown and gave Isak a clip around the head to shut him up. ‘He’ll have to get in line then, now quiet!’

Isak ducked down as the stranger’s gaze rested on the western horizon for a moment before turning back to Carel: ‘My name is Aracnan. I am just a mercenary, like you. My task was twofold; the second part was to deliver a message to the boy if he would not come. Tell your men to put their bows away. My employer is more powerful than you can ever imagine. Here is the message.’

Carel found his hand full, and then Aracnan leapt up on to the rocky bank above him. It was a jump far beyond the capability of any street acrobat, but he landed so lightly that not a stone nor chunk of dirt was dislodged on to the stunned men below. Then he was gone.

They tried to track him, but once they had scrambled up the bank they couldn’t even guess at which direction Aracnan had taken, and the ground held no clues that any man had walked there. Finally, unwilling to waste much more time chasing ghosts, the wagon-master called off the futile hunt and they recommenced their journey in near-silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Isak jumped when Carel leaned over to whisper in his ear, some hours later, ‘Nyphal was looking down upon us, I’m sure; I felt her presence.’

‘Was that what I felt? A Goddess?’ asked Isak, unsure whether he could have described what he had felt as divine. The mercenary nodded, his eyes fixed on the western horizon, where the Gods lived. He’d seen Aracnan’s anger, contained though it was, and had no doubt the Goddess had intervened for them. ‘We’ll stop at the next shrine and sacrifice there. I’m not sure what Aracnan wanted with you, but he meant you no good - of that I’m certain.’

He kept his frown for a moment, then shook it off and nudged Isak with a laugh. The Gods were looking down on you, boy, so maybe they’ve plans for you after all. You might find out there are worse things in life than bales of cloth.’

Isak sat with his lips firmly set, determinedly looking north to the cool, wooded valleys and mist-shrouded mountains the tribe called home: the land where the God Nartis raged in the sky above a city of soaring spires and the dark-haired Farlan tribe; north, to the Lord of Storms.

Tirah, the seat and heart of an autocrat’s power: a city that slumbered warily at the heart of the Spiderweb Mountains. Crowned by seven great towers and wreathed in curling mist, Tirah was famed throughout the Land as the oldest of human cities, and one of the most beautiful. Dark cobbled streets led directly into the tendrils of forest that reached down from the mountain line. The rangers who patrolled up in the mountains described the grey mass of Tirah as besieged, a great standing stone slowly succumbing to the creep of moss. No one else went up there - it was a place where Gods and monsters walked. In three thousand years, the Parian had spread well beyond Tirah’s streets and into the dense expanse of the Great Forest, but it was far from tame.

This night, a creature far from home had ventured on to those streets, driven there by desperation and hunger. As a hero of the Western Tunnels, the most vicious battleground of a long-standing war, he’d been chosen as a seeker, for only the strongest could survive the rituals that entailed. Despite the risk posed by humans, the seekers were sent out in small bands to all corners of the Land, following the trail of magical artefacts their people needed so badly. Whatever spells the priests of home had burned into his flesh, they had made him aware of magic, leaving him as tormented as an addict by its bitter Perfume drifting on the wind. Barely thinking, he’d trudged on, intent on his search, even as his comrades fell to the creatures of the forest, it was loyalty that had taken them north in the first place, and it was loyalty that brought them, enfeebled and afraid, to their deaths in a land of cloying scent, numbing cold and constant rain. No God would claim their souls and he feared that this place was so distant it would be impossible for any of them to join their forebears in the Temple of Ancestors, to guard over the next generation.

The daemons stalking him had caught the scent once more. Their chilling calls went up even as he found cobbles underfoot. The child in him wanted to turn and shout, beg for some respite, even as his aching heart strained to keep tired limbs moving. The warrior in him said
run or die.
The blanket of fog brought their wail from every direction, and from an indeterminate distance. But they were close. He could feel them.

He ran, blindly - but it was a dead end, and at last there was nowhere else to go. Blank stone walls rose up on either side; the only window he could see was too high to reach. A low wooden storehouse hugged the left-hand wall, but he was too exhausted to climb. The time had come. Panting, trying to fill his tortured lungs in the choking, sodden air they had here, he allowed himself one moment to remember the warm taste of home, then readied his claws for battle. Drawing himself up to his full height, he called out his battle-honours with what strength he could muster. The long list declared his prowess even as it summoned the beasts to him.

Then he crouched, his withered limbs tense and ready, and a sibilant snarl cut the night’s mist. It scarcely had time to die as three leapt on him as one and bore him down. So much for his pride. Now empty eyes ignored his limp body being torn apart; unhearing ears were deaf to the guttural snorts as his flesh was devoured, his blood licked up.

A figure watched the dying, but he felt nothing for the outmatched and pitiful creature. He knew nothing of the Siblis race except that that they were unsuited to these parts. A long cloak billowed out behind him as he ghosted over the cobbled ground. But
something
had compelled the Siblis to come so far, into so inhospitable a place. Curiosity stirred. Gliding over to the jerking body he threw back the huge wolves with ease and bent down to inspect what remained.

The beasts, baulked of their prey, snarled as they retreated a step. hackles raised and ready to attack. Then they realised what he was, and that recognition elicited a whimper of fear, but the man ignored them. With heads down, and bellies brushing the ground, the wolves backed away until, at a safe distance, they turned and fled back to the forest. They had melted into the mist before they even made the tree-line.

The man knelt down and placed the bow he was carrying to one side. It was a beautiful weapon, fully six feet in length - the man was extraordinarily big and could draw it with ease - and slightly recurved, with an intricately painted design down its entire length. The grip and tips were finished in silver but it was the hunting scene tracedwith infmite care in blue and white that made the bow a work of art. ‘The last of the Siblis.’ He was glad to make some noise again after a day of silent tracking, even if he was speaking only to the night. He had found other bodies during the past week.

‘And this one was the seeker,’ he went on to himself.

The war must be going badly if they have revived this practice, but what in the name of the dark place brought it here?

He knew the Siblis were engaged in an almost eternal war with the Chetse, a slow, bitter struggle that drained both sides and left no one a winner. Now it appeared the Siblis were desperate enough to curse their own soldiers with a craving for magic, a craving that would drive them to the brink of death as they sought weapons for their outnumbered warriors. There were runes cut into the corpse’s torso, still open and weeping, kept that way by magic. Did they understand the agony they were putting their servants through?

‘I think you go hungry tonight,’ he called out suddenly, looking up sharply at a form watching from the rooftop. A mutter cut through the mist - soft, but certainly not human - and then it was gone. Whatever had been watching would not return; seeing him was enough to guarantee that. He turned the corpse over, noting the length of the sharp bony protrusions extending from each wrist. A prod revealed how little meat was on the creature. They had all been starving in this alien environment. Its skin was rough and scaled like a lizard’s, much tougher than human skin, but he could still count at least a dozen cuts and abrasions that had only half healed.

Picking the corpse up by the ankle, he threw it on to the roof of the small storehouse the Siblis had died against. The corpse wouldn’t be disturbed tonight, at least. Gargoyles were mainly territorial, and hunted by sight, not scent: that one would not return soon, and no others would be drawn into claimed territory. A muffled cry came from the main building as the owner heard the commotion outside. A weak light flickered in the window above and then a round face appeared, a man’s, his several chins shaking in anger. A woman was shouting in the background.

‘What in Bahl’s name is going on out here?’ The man blinked the sleep from his eyes and peered down at the street, a candle in one hand and a club in the other. ‘You, what are you doing? Get away, before I call a patrol!’

The giant slipped back the hood of his cape to reveal the blue mask underneath. His eyes blazed suddenly as he brought the bow up from the floor with a thought. The merchant gasped and dropped the club on to the floor, wincing as it fell on his bare toes.

‘My Lord, forgive me, I did not realise-‘

The giant held up a hand for silence. He was not in the mood for conversation.

‘Return to your bed. If that wife of yours continues to screech I’ll have the Ghosts cut her tongue out.’

Lord Bahl, Duke of Tirah and ruler of the Farlan tribe, marked the wall so a night patrol could retrieve the corpse later and continued on his way. This night was special to him. He didn’t want anything to intrude on his memories of a birthday long forgotten by others, just to be alone with the past in his beloved city. Outside, he forgot his loneliness and bathed in the night, remembering the happier time before he had become Lord of the Farlan, when duty had not been his only purpose.

A low moan escaped his lips; it grew and rose up into the night sky. ‘Only one thing I have ever asked, only one,’ he prayed through the sudden waves of choking grief that rolled over him. ‘I have ever been loyal, but-‘ His voice trailed off. Forsaking the Gods would not bring her back; all that would achieve was harm to the nation that was now his life’s purpose. He stood and made a conscious effort to subjugate those feelings, drive them back into the deepest reaches of his heart. On this night only, the date of her birth and her death, the Lord of the Farlan allowed his dreams to be of her.

Off to the north, the Golden Tower caught his eye. The half-ruined landmark still shone in daylight, but now it was little more than a black presence that Bahl felt as much as saw against the night sky. Squatting near the tower’s base was a tavern, the only glimmer of happiness in the entire district. Bahl could hear a dulled chatter coming from within. This was a poor district nowadays; the warehouses and workshops meant few people actually lived here. The patrons of the tavern would be labourers and wagon-drivers, men without homes who followed the work. They were always amongst the first to hear news from abroad.

He eyed the drab, graceless tavern. It backed up against a larger building and faced into a crossroads, a good position even in this mean quarter of the city. A statue stood at the centre of the crossroads, probably for no reason other than that there was space. Bahl wondered how many men these days would recognise that the statue before him was a monument to Veriole Farlan, the first king of their tribe. How many would truly care? The city was covered in statues of lords and Cods as well as scowling faces said to ward off evil spirits. Though there were very few creatures like the gargoyle watching the people below, the city’s grim and ancient grandeur meant tales persisted.

Taken by a sudden thirst for beer and cheerful voices on such a dismal night, Bahl drifted towards the tavern, changing his appearance as he did so. He felt the clammy night air on his scalp as he pulled off the close-fitting silk mask he wore. A simple glamour gave him dark hair with three copper-bound plaits. No magic could alter the colour of his eyes, but a mercenary white-eye would probably be ignored. Lifting the hem of his cloak, Bahl gave it a quick violent twitch; when it fell back to touch his calves it was a dull green - only the rich wore white cloaks. The simple enchantments left behind a familiar rushing tingle, a seductive reminder of how little he used his prodigious skills.

The combination of age and dirt obscured whatever picture adorned the sign that moved stiffly in the night air, but if Bahl’s memory served correctly, this was The Hood and Cape. At least it was not one of the many taverns in Tirah that liked to have his head swinging in the breeze. The tavern was dingy, but light shone merrily enough through the window, an invitation to passers-by to leave the chill open air. Bahl didn’t think the welcome would extend to him, but he thumbed the latch and pulled open the door anyway.

Pipe smoke tickled at his eyes as he ducked through the doorway into a large room illuminated by two fires and several oil lamps. Rough tables stood in no real order and the ground was sticky with spilt beer and mud. A short bar opposite the door was manned by a drowsy man who had a paunch fitting to a barkeep and a scowl for the new arrival.

A man of about fifty summers sitting by the fire was apparently the centre of attention in the room. Rather dirty, with unkempt hair and his right leg resting on a stool, he was obviously in the middle of regaling his audience with a story, something about an encounter on the road to the Circle City. The tall white-eye kept his head bowed as he crossed over to the bar. He picked up the tankard of beer that was placed wordlessly before him and dropped a silver coin in return. The barkeep frowned at the coin for a moment, then swept it up and went in search of change.

Bahl hunched down over the bar, leaning heavily on his elbows to make his great height less obvious and facing away from the focus of the room. When the barkeep returned with his change, a motley collection of copper pieces, Bahl gave the man a nod and found a bench on the furthest side of the room from the storyteller. There he could sit and listen in peace.

Bahl almost laughed at himself. Here he was, sitting and sipping at his beer - surprisingly good for such an establishment - but what
was
he doing? Sitting alone in a tavern in one of the city’s less salubrious districts, scarcely half an hour’s walk from his palace - perhaps he’d finally gone mad? Then he heard his own name mentioned by the storyteller, and Aracnan’s, and every nerve in his body came alive. He’d not been paying the man much attention, so all he caught was that Aracnan had demanded to speak to the teller’s son. Now why would that be?

He sipped the beer, no longer tasting it. There was something in the air that disquieted him: first the seeker, following his death to Tirah, then the casual mention of Aracnan. Bahl could almost see a thread weaving its way through the streets, snagging on his shoulder and drawing him into its web. It was a string of unlikely or inexplicable events … some agency was at work here.

The man holding court claimed that he had seen the mercenary slipping into the palace when he had been a member of the cavalry there. Then, with a self-important ring to his voice, he added that he had been told to forget the whole incident by the Chief Steward himself when he raised the matter with him.

Bahl wrinkled his nose, unconvinced. He doubted even the most alert guard could notice Aracnan’s passage if Aracnan didn’t wish to be seen, and his Chief Steward tended to threaten his subordinates in a more direct fashion. It was strange to hear the storyteller use Aracnan’s name, though: Bahl had been acquainted with Aracnan for more than a hundred years, yet he knew almost nothing about the man. Even the rumour that Aracnan had been the one to teach Kasi Farlan, the first white-eye and last of King Veriole’s line, how to use a sword was unconfirmed. That was before the Great War, seven thousand years ago. Bahl could believe it. Immortals kept their secrets close, and no mortal had eyes like Aracnan’s.

The little Bahl had picked up about this current story was enough for him to want to meet the boy Aracnan had apparently wanted to talk to. Aracnan had his own agenda, but sometimes he was commanded by the Gods themselves; whatever his purpose, it was always worth investigating his actions.