The Fall to Power (11 page)

She sifted through the memories, taking pleasure in every nugget of information she gleaned about the girl, forgetting her own defences, not bothered that the shaman was learning as much about she as she was about her, focused instead entirely on this mystery before her.

A valley. High in the foothills of the North. Cold. Frost. A land of wolves and hardened fair-haired people eking a life from the looming and inhospitable mountains.

A gathering of like-minded folk, holding fast to traditions of yore, a clandestine society that descended a hundred years from humble beginnings, rising from the ashes of tragedy to rebuild themselves anew with a sole purpose in mind.

Retribution. No, more than that.

Seeking to reclaim something lost to them.

A figure coalesced in the mind’s eye of the petite girl in front of her. In front? Nay within now, their essences, their souls almost merged such was the state of their unholy communion.

A figure, tall, mighty, yet not the King, no. Older, timeless even, a true immortal blessed by the elements.

This figure turned, looking at Ceceline even as she realised the impossibility of such a thing, before speaking, his voice one with that of the Avatars he served.

Leave this girl. She is not yours.

A cataclysm of raw elemental power blasted the two women apart, sending the Seeress hurtling back, knocking the decanter of wine into the fire where it hissed and spat, before landing in her chair.

The two women sat, staring at each other in confusion and exertion, sweat glistening, their slender bodies trembling with the force of their separation, their souls and thoughts struggling to reassert their individuality once more. The arcane warding symbols on the walls gently hissed in
protest at the power that had suddenly bypassed them, their influence still in flux as the ancient magicks were in disarray, in the manner of the ripples in a pond after the splash of a rock breaking the surface.

Moments passed, then Gwenna leapt up, into action, speeding her way to the open window on the far side of the room.

“Guards!” Ceceline shouted out, even as she rose to her feet in pursuit, raising her hands to cast the crippling dark lightning at her escaping rival. But the connection was still too recent and Gwenna predicted her act before she’d even thought it herself, raising her own hands, feeling the welcoming rush of the elements as they sought to aid her through the weakened barrier wrought into the castle walls. Her own lightning, pure and natural, leapt forth, forming a link between the two sorceresses, as the bolts of energy, one white, one black, met and fought, lashing about the room, smashing furniture to kindling and setting alight the beautiful tapestries that bedecked the walls.

The door to the chamber burst open and the Clansmen from before took two steps in before being beaten back by the sight of the eldritch energies that clashed, unsure what to do.

Gwenna moved backwards, one step at a time, till she was perched on the open sill of the tall window, high in the Seer’s Tower, the city of Merethia sprawled hundreds of feet below.

The Seeress lowered her hand, the connection between the two breaking off in a crackle of dispersing energy as she watched with confused interest the girl who stood, precarious on the edge.

The red-headed shaman smiled, some of the Seeress’ cold humour still lingering to the fore of her mind.

“We should do this again sometime.”

With that, she dropped backwards over the edge, to vanish, plummeting into the night sky, away from the cold stone walls and their ancient, stifling wards.

***

The Seeress stood at the window of her chamber, gazing out into the night sky, spying the raven that flew, graceful and free, heading North from the Pen in the light of the three moons.

             
Her body and mind still trembled with the lingering vestiges of the battle she’d just fought.

             
She closed her eyes, willing the feelings to remain, even as they drifted away. Such an experience, to fight on every level, to pit herself against someone in an evenly matched contest using every scrap of their very beings. So intimate, so sensual; attempting to destroy someone and they you, yet doing so by sharing each other utterly and completely in a way no mere lovers could hope to imagine. She wondered whether the other girl was feeling the same way.

             
The last remnants of the connection faded away and, with a snort of disappointment, Ceceline turned to the confused Clansmen who still stood, hesitant and wary at the entrance to her chamber. There were matters to attend to. She had a feeling she hadn’t seen the last of the shaman.

             
“Marzban.”

             
The warrior snapped to attention, his eyes darting guiltily to her face having been roaming her figure while her back was turned.

             
“Yes, milady?”

             
“Have the King meet me in the Council Chamber. I have a feeling we shall be calling upon the Huntsman and his Hounds.”

Chapter Five
:

His calluses screamed at him like little pin-pricks of fire on the palms of his hands, yet he pushed the pain to one side, for he knew that to stop in his toil, even if just for a moment, would be to invite further punishment from the cruel whips of his masters.

             
His back still sang the tune of his previous encouragement.

             
The stone block before Jafari was dark grey as to be almost black, and perfectly smooth, its flat surfaces finely hewn by the myriad expert masons levied from across the kingdom in recent months. Yet this smoothness didn’t lessen its hideous weight, as Jafari’s – and those others to his sides – screaming leg muscles would testify as they heaved its bulk further up the ramp.

             
For the Beacon of Unity was well underway, the monolith looming already a hundred yards above the sharp rocks of the Isle of Storms, Jafari’s team of three only one of hundreds, thousands even, that swarmed the blighted rock, shifting by virtue of fear and willpower the building blocks that would form Invictus’ vision of hope.

             
Hope, pah; no such term applied here, in this place.

             
Another spray of ice-cold brine as the howling wind smashed yet another rearing wave against the side of the Isle, blasting hundreds of feet up, gnawing away at the unyielding rock as a dog with a bone. This cold, he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t get used to it. How he longed for the hot, desert haze of his homeland.

             
His people.

If he were not so dehydrated, perhaps he might shed yet another tear in their memory. Where were they now? He remembered the roaring cries of the Barbarian Hunters as they’d descended on his makeshift village, their Clan steeds swapped for camels to cope with the ever-shifting sands of the Western Deserts.

Such horrific, despicable luck, that their paths should cross; his people were nomadic, never settling for long in one place, roaming the dunes from oasis to oasis, hawking their wares and learning the news from the people they met. He’d heard of the King’s enterprise, the folly of the giant lighthouse of emerald and he knew that the slavers were abroad. But who could have expected them to find him, his family, his friends? The desert was vast, untamed, its ever changing dunes wracked with storms of sand that blotted the sun and turned you about in an instant.

What were the odds?

Yet some dark fortune had caused the Huntsmen to stumble on his family, in the dead of night, howling their battle-cries in that Barbaric Steppes tongue as they waved their scimitars in the air. They’d not gone down without a fight, of course; he remembered with grim satisfaction defending his terrified sisters, picking up a spear and hurling it into the stomach of an approaching rider, sending him crashing to the ground.

An instant later, a net had swept over him and tightened, throwing him to the floor where he was dragged across the cool, night sand, before smashing senseless against a rock.

His sisters, where were they now? He shuddered, trying not to think of the awful stories he’d heard of the court of Invictus, where slave-women were gifted to war-weary warriors upon their arrival, to do with as they pleased.

Even worse, those who bid in the markets to purchase people, as though they were objects; for the needs of a soldier were base and easy to understand. But those with wealth and time on their hands? They often descended into darker, seedier routes in search of their pleasure, thinking nothing of wasting the life of a slave to satisfy some craven whim…

Jafari flinched, realising that he had stopped in his task for an instant, slackening off his effort as he’d lamented his family. The sharp crack of a whip split the night sky, leaving a burning red line of agony down his bare back, bringing him back in an instant to harsh reality.

“Urgh!”

He grunted through gritted teeth, not crying out, denying his foreman the pleasure of his suffering, before heaving forwards once more on the block in front. The slave to his side, a tall, lean fellow with blond hair, a northerner, looked sidelong to him, concern in his eyes, a silent bond between all those forced to endure these hardships together despite the language barrier of their lands. Jafari gave a nod to show that he was alright.

Finally, the ramp levelled out, the burden easing somewhat, as they no longer fought the pull of gravity. With a grinding squeal of stone on stone, the block finally slid into its allotted place, amongst its brothers and sisters, one tiny, tiny piece in an ever growing edifice that rose, like an accusing finger, into the stormy sky.

This one block, heaved up many hundreds of feet of ramp from the bottom of the tower; the sole fruit of an entire day’s labour for the three, tired, aching slaves. Yet, as he leant forwards, hands on his knees as he struggled to regain his breath, Jafari was certain that it wouldn’t be their last.

Their toil would endure, at least as long as they would.

How would they get back down? The route up had been narrow, precipitous and he’d seen no other slaves making their way back past them. There must be another route. Yes, that’s it; there must be an…

With a creeping sense of dread he noticed his fellow slaves standing, trembling, as they surveyed the line of blocks that stretched out on either side of them. The lightning flashed, illuminating the wrathful skies and flashing into visibility for an instant the horror of the scene before them.

The slaves had never made it down. And neither would they.

The stone blocks, that each group had broken their backs to haul for unappreciative masters, were held together not with mortar of sand or mud, no.

But the mortar of human flesh.

Limbs outstretched in plea for mercy, faces contorted in final agony; the corpses of all the  previous slaves that had gone ahead lay cold and lifeless atop the blocks they’d pushed into position, ready to affix by virtue of their own organs and juices, tomorrow rows of fresh blocks hauled up to these heights by unwary slaves.

Jafari stumbled backwards a couple of paces, wide-eyed with the unthinkable horror of what he was seeing, but the creak of bows made him turn, with his two fellow slaves, to the foreman who stood, flanked by Clansmen, to their rear.

Arrows loosed, but a flash of lightning bleached the scene and, powered by adrenaline, Jafari leapt to one side, even as his fellows were cut down. Amidst the deafening roar of thunder, the foreman cried out, the Clansmen reaching for fresh arrows to halt his flight, but the Nomad had fear lending him wings.

If only they had been literal.

He reached the edge of the ramp, looking down to the vertiginous drop below, the crashing ocean surrounding the island of unforgiving rock, swaying, arms flailing, as a gust of wind nearly took him over the edge. He looked about, frantic, seeking a path to flee, but seeing none; the ramp was guarded by the foreman and his warriors, with more rushing up to join. He ducked, as another arrow streaked past him, missing by inches, before turning back to the drop.

There, in the gloom of the stormy night air – a wooden scaffold, rising high and rickety, clutched to the side of the towering lighthouse like ivy to a tree. With one last desperate look at his would-be killers, the slave took a couple of steps back, before taking a deep breath, quelling his fear at the madness of what he was about to do, before running and leaping with all his might.

The comforting solidity of the ramp beneath him disappeared, in its stead the yawning emptiness of air. He fell, leaving his stomach above him, but his momentum carried him forward, foot by foot till he reached, with a crash of splintering wood and the tangling of ropes, the scaffolds he’d aimed for.

Jafari clung, like a newborn monkey to its mothers fur, to the wooden structure, laughing out loud in disbelief that he’d made the jump, before an arrow thudded into the wooden post an inch from his head and, with a gulp, he shuffled his way, precariously, further into the structure, swinging his way down, feet and hands slipping on the wood slick with rain, making use of whatever ropes he could find to keep him from falling as he made his way down, down, down into the darkness below, every rung, every handhold taking him further and further away from the arrows of the Clansmen and the cracking impotent whip of the bawling foreman.

***

The worsening rain obscured their vision, even the structure of the scaffolding tough to make out now in the storm.

             
“Do we pursue?”

The question was almost rhetorical, for it would be madness to climb down the wooden tower in this weather. The foreman shook his head, his rage slowly dissipating like smoke dispersing on a breezy day.

              “No. He is but one slave, no need to risk Clansmen. Even if the fool makes it down the tower alive – which I highly doubt – he won’t last long on the Isle of Storms.” He grinned evilly as he extracted some satisfaction from the following observation. “If the sea doesn’t claim him, then the beasts will…”

***

Joltan narrowed his keen eyes as he scanned the darkening forest all about him, ever watchful for shadows, his bow in readiness, only one hand on the reins of his disciplined steed.

             
The hounds, big, burly brutes, were quiet. This unnerved him.

             
Two weeks now they had been here, high in the foothills of the Arragonians, the mountains of the North, seeking this hidden valley he’d heard his commanders speaking about. Two weeks of boredom and tension, with only the rabbits and deer upon which to vent his frustrations, communicating with his fellow Marzbans leading the other parties by Steppes-Falcon, messages tied to their legs. He’d sent his last Falcon two days ago.

             
It still hadn’t come back.

             
The hills here had eyes, of this he was certain. He could feel them watching him, feel the itching at the back of his neck that you always felt when someone was staring at you behind your back.

             
He hated this place.

             
Catlyn snorted beneath him, showing her disdain for the place too, and he patted her on the side of the neck, drawing comfort from the fact that she was with him, ever loyal. A Savaran had a bond with his steed that few could understand, and Catlyn, all sixteen hands of dappled grey mare, had seen him through thick and thin over the years. She had a nose for trouble, warning him of danger.

             
And right now, her nostrils were flaring, streamers of breath misting the cold forest air.

             
The Clansmen behind him were spread out in the traditional arrowhead Hunting pattern, each man keeping an eye on the warrior in front, with the two stragglers riding side by side, keeping look out for each other. Despite his paranoia, nothing could happen here; they were veterans.

             
The dogs prowled the forest floor, darting off here and there out of sight, noses asniff for any scent that might be out of place, a hint of man that might lead them, finally, to their goal. Not for the first time Joltan wondered where the Huntmaster himself might be; respected as he may be by the Clans, Joltan and his fellow Marzbans had seen neither hide nor hair of the Councilman since the expedition had departed from Pen-Argyle, a fortnight ago.

             
Their bearded leader was probably up to his neck in Plains-women, thought the warrior, ruefully. Pen-Argyle, the wooden city rising up, like a sore, like a wart, from the smooth, green grass of the Northern Plains. A base for the Hunt as it roamed the northern lands, plundering the villages of its peaceful inhabitants to be taken back to Merethia to be sold as slaves, to be hunted for sport, or to be forced to participate in the Games.

             
He could picture now the huge chariot of his master parked outside the Hall of Argyle, the immortal and his corps of Huntsmen feasting and drinking, partaking of the slave-women that abounded the sorrowful city of once-proud Plainsmen, his slavering hounds sitting loyal at his side, snarling their rage at any servant who dared venture too near.

             
Why was there leader not here, with them, hunting their quarry? Were they the vanguard? The… bait? Perhaps that was it; the Huntmaster was scared, frightened off by the tales, the rumours of the killer that stalked these woods. Men snatched away in the night, only to be found, dismembered and strung about as warning to trespassers. Entire raiding parties, vanished, their steeds returning, riderless, to the gates of Pen-Argyle.

             
Joltan snorted in forced humour, as much to convince himself that they were fairy tales, as anything else. Stories made up to scare the children.

             
But Clansmen weren’t children. And parties
did
go missing.

             
He quashed the thoughts before they could unsettle him further. Besides, Kurnos was a Councilmember; could one of the Immortal Few even feel fear such as an ordinary man could? What scares an immortal, one who languished in the presence of a God-King?

             
No. The Lord of the Hunt would have his reasons for holding back, staying his hand. Of that he was sure. He frowned for an instant. Where were the hounds? He pushed the thought aside; they would be back when they saw fit.

             
They entered a clearing in the woods and the Marzban turned to Nong, his second, riding behind him and to the left.

             
“Nong, the light is fading. We stop here. Get the men to set up camp.”

             
His lieutenant nodded, opened his mouth to reply. Then was gone.

             
In shock, Joltan span his steed about, even as the other Savaran burst into action, circling the spot where the rider had vanished, horse and all. The Marzban dismounted, running over, skidding to a halt on the frosty ground at the edge of the pit that had been hidden with expert care beneath a thin layer of branches and snow, gazing down into the darkness to spy his friend and comrade of ten years lying, impaled and still, on sharpened wooden stakes at the bottom of a ten foot drop. His horse yet lived, whinnying its fear and pain, but its legs were shot through with splinters and its lifeblood slowly spilled out to stain the frozen earth of its tomb.

             
Anger and grief wracked the Clansman, but he was a warrior of the Steppes and such things happened on the Hunt. He quelled his pain, nodding over at a soldier standing opposite.

             
“End the beast’s suffering.”

              The Barbarian took his bow in one hand, reaching over his shoulder to his quiver to fetch an arrow. He paused, a puzzled look on his face, before bringing his hand back in front. His fingers were stained with fresh, crimson blood.

             
Even before the Savaran had fallen, face first to the floor, an arrow protruding from the back of his neck, Joltan was roaring his troops into action.

             
“Ambush! To your steeds!”

             
A hail of arrows as the Clansmen bolted, climbing with practiced ease back into their saddles and drawing forth their own bows to return fire.

A rider ventured off, away from the group, scimitar raised high as he charged an enemy that stood, unmoving in his path, curiously out in the open. The Clansman was smashed to a pulp by a log that swung from a rope, tethered high above them in the forest canopy. One second there, the next not, steed and rider a smear across the clearing, beneath the log that gradually slowed its pendulum swing, its grisly work done.

Another Savaran, caught in the throes of terror, urged his steed to a gallop, hoping to flee the battle. A fence of spikes swung, as though propelled by a spring, from the other side of a tree as he passed, leaving him stuck and screaming as the spikes pierced through his chest and out his back, his horse fleeing into the darkness of the woods.

Circling the pit, Joltan stared into the depths of the forest about the clearing, hoping to distinguish some glimpse of their attackers.

              There, by a tree; a shape, cunningly disguised in a shroud of white fabric and leaves.

             
He loosed an arrow and was rewarded with a yelp of pain, the white fabric slowly spreading with crimson as the shape rolled on the forest floor. He grinned, turned to his men, roaring his triumph, hoping to encourage them to victory despite the cowardly tactics of their foe.

             
His exultations fell on deaf ears, for about him in the clearing, his men lay dead, their horses wandering riderless. Like a scene from a fairy tale made up to scare Clansmen to sleep.

             
Heart pounding in fear, an emotion he was unused to feeling, the Marzban kicked Catlyn into action, the steed powering him from the clearing in great thundering bounds, his eyes peeled for trickery and traps. If he could escape the ambushers, if he could make his way back to Argyle, he could tell his superiors the truth; the forest was indeed haunted, but not by spirits. By men. Vengeful, skilful men.