The Last Volari, page 6
Durrano was an ally, but a poor one in both the strength of his house’s numbers, and the strength of his thinking. The others might think of the curse soon enough, but he didn’t need to bring it up, and that made me want to kick his fangs in. I reined in that impulse, and interrupted him instead.
‘A curse seems unlikely,’ I said. ‘Shadas has found no signs of hostile magic.’
‘Shadas.’ Magdalena said his name dismissively. ‘I don’t care about the necromancer. I care about King Corsovo. There’s something afflicting him, so bad that you won’t let us see him. Despite how many times I’ve asked.’ She tilted her head, studying me carefully. ‘I came here days ago, brought by rumours of strange happenings in the Grey Palace, and I’ve not been allowed to see my Kastelai brother. I don’t even know if he still lives.’
Fury flicked through me, but my mother was speaking, fast and certain, and her words cut through the anger.
Now it’s her turn to bait you. But she doesn’t want to fight.
‘She accuses me of killing my father, the man whose blood made me, and you say she doesn’t want to fight?’ I had to keep my teeth locked together to keep the words inside, and I knew my mask of cold aloofness had slipped, that the red in my eyes was betraying my fury. But I held myself still, waiting for an answer.
No. She wants to see if you can control yourself. If you can’t, you prove that you’re either guilty of something or that you’re too dangerous to be your father’s proxy.
Her words made sense, but that didn’t matter to my stirring heart. We’d barely begun this meeting, and I already wanted to give up, to just challenge them all and smash them down with my blades.
But then I’d be showing Magdalena she was right.
‘Of course King Corsovo lives,’ I said. ‘He will live forever, because of his blessed blood.’ The words were a little hard, but with every one I pressed my anger back, and I could feel my mother’s approval. A feeling that almost made me want to rebel and give in to my rage, but I fought that impulse too. ‘You may meet with him if you wish, after we’re done.’
‘After we’re done doing what, exactly?’ Salvera asked. ‘Making you queen?’
After Magdalena, that barely touched me. ‘No. Corsovo is our ruler, since we came here, forever.’
‘But he cannot rule us now,’ Salvera said, leaning forwards in his chair, his eyes glittering. ‘So someone else must.’
‘I am his daughter,’ I said, meeting his eyes.
‘You’re his,’ he said, beckoning with his fingers. One of the dire wolves, almost twice the size of the others, came to him and Salvera ran a claw along the exposed bone of its skull, down the blood-matted fur of its ear. ‘You’re his the way this beast is mine.’
‘Are you saying I’m his attack dog?’ I said, my fingers touching the pommels of my swords.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m saying you’re his pet.’
Mother didn’t have time to say anything. I was already up, starting to draw, and I would have been on Salvera if Arvan hadn’t caught my shoulder. He was strong, stronger than me, but my hands were up, twisting his wrist before he could react and I was free, shoving him away. The moment it took me, though, was long enough for my mother’s voice to crack through my head, sharp as my swords.
Will you let him win?
‘I will not let a dog shit on the floor of my father’s house,’ I said, answering her, Arvan and Salvera all at once.
Then answer him right. Call challenge.
I stepped into the centre of the circle of red. Overhead, Evigaine was already touching the other side of the oculus, the little moon continuing its rapid run across the sky, but its red light still spilled down over me. ‘Lord Salvera. You have done insult to me, a fellow Kastelai.’ He sat in his chair, watching me with glittering yellow eyes and shining yellow teeth. Salvera’s lips were curled back, his pointed ears pressed tight to his skull. Eager? Afraid? Both, probably, but I would soon make him know that only his fear was valid. ‘And for that, I will call–’
I stopped. Arvan had caught my arm again, and when I ripped it away I almost brought my fist around into his face. But he was shaking his head, pointing at a bat that was flying over the ring of chairs. ‘Shadas is coming,’ he said, his voice strange.
‘Shadas?’ I said, confused. My blood was moving through me, my heart beating, my body eager to fight. This was the best I’d felt since coming back to the Grey Palace, and I wanted to move, to take Salvera’s blood and leave him crying for mercy on the tiles. ‘What is he doing? He’s supposed to be with–’
There was a clatter of boots at the door, and Shadas was there, his pale face sweaty, his breath ragged. ‘Lady Volari…’ he managed, then he looked around at the silent crowd of vampires. We were all standing now, still as statues as we waited for the one mortal among us to get his breath back and speak.
‘Honoured Kastelai,’ he finally said, drawing himself up straight. ‘The king…’ His eyes came to me, and then fell, staring at the crimson floor. ‘King Corsovo is dead.’
CHAPTER SIX
Sugar crested another hill and I could see them in the valley below, the round hide-and-wood shelters the nomads called daciums built along a curve of the Irewater. A tall pole sat in the middle of the nomad camp, a pennant flying from it, yellow with a serpent stitched in red.
‘The band of the Biting Flames.’ Celasian reined in beside me, staring down at the camp. ‘These are the ones you’ve spent so much time on, Captain Takora?’ His face was its usual hard mask, but I guessed he was unimpressed.
‘They’re one of the largest bands on the Broken Plains, abbot-general,’ I said. ‘Our numbers being what they are’ – because we’d been abandoned here, unsupported, for thirty years – ‘we needed allies. Your arrival changes that, but they still won’t hurt. And much better they come to us than join with the Soulblight vampires of Temero.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘Better anything than that.’
I kept my face impassive as he dug his heels into the ribs of the poor horse we’d finally found him and started down towards the camp. The people there were gathering, watching us. I didn’t want Celasian here. To be honest, I didn’t want to be anywhere with him after Neria, but here especially – today was the culmination of years of diplomacy, dealing with the nomads’ suspicion and pride. Having him here felt like bringing an ogor into a glassworks. I watched Celasian move down the hill, trailed by his guard in their gleaming white, and decided I would probably be lucky if the band below was still speaking to me at all by the time we were done.
In the centre of the camp the Biting Flames had erected a circle of carved wooden supports that held up a roof of hides dyed crimson and yellow. The shelter was bigger than any of the daciums, its sides open so that the people of the band could stand outside and listen to us talk. There were two of us from each side seated in the shelter’s shade on woven carpets, the nomads on one side, Celasian and me on the other. To my surprise Celasian drank the vesfire, the rough liquor that the nomads made from the thorny vesin trees that grew in the hills of the Broken Plains, easily. He made no complaint about the communal cup the nomads passed to us, and I wondered if I might be able to salvage something from this meeting after all.
‘You offer us much, Captain Takora.’ Rhysha, leader of the Biting Flames, sat easily despite her white hair and the deep wrinkles that marked her skin. Her voice was strong but harsh, made that way by the smoke she breathed out of her dragon-carved pipe. Her son, Shyn, sat beside her, watching us with open suspicion. ‘Good blades and luxuries from far Hammerhal Aqsha. But we wonder, will you make us trade our freedom for things?’
In the gathered crowd behind her there were mutters of agreement. The nomads always did their negotiating in the open, letting their people listen, and listening to their people. A cumbersome custom, but at least it meant that I had Galeris and a group of my best from the 39th at my back, along with the abbot-general’s guard. I could see how the nomads watched them, especially the Spears of Heaven. Maybe the sight of Celasian’s pretty troops would help bend the fractious nomads towards alliance.
‘I’ve told you, Rhysha,’ I said, ‘the plains are yours. We ask nothing from you but your help in driving out your true enemy, the corpse king that lays claim to the Grey Palace.’
‘So you say,’ she said, as her people whispered and Shyn favoured me with a suspicious frown. ‘So you say.’
‘I do say–’
That was when Celasian spoke.
‘Do you still remember Celas?’
Rhysha took a long pull from her pipe. When she finally spoke, smoke spilled from her mouth and drifted back into the nomads, who were watching us now with surprised silence. ‘Celas and his Fist. That was years ago, but we still tell his story.’ She looked at Celasian, her eyes sharp despite the haze of cataracts. ‘What do you know of him?’
‘The Fist,’ he said. ‘Five bands, united in one. The nomads of the Broken Plains haven’t formed an army like that since the Siege of Maar.’
‘He was powerful,’ Shyn said, his first words since we’d shared drink. ‘His Fist tried to drive us from our territories.’
‘But he fell, and the Fist crumpled with him,’ Celasian said.
‘And we took back what was ours.’ Rhysha took another pull from her pipe. ‘You know some of our stories, servant of the Storm God. How?’
How. That was my question. I was staring at Celasian, confused. What did he care about some dead nomad warlord? How did he even know his name? I’d seen little evidence that he had read my reports about the Broken Plains, so how did he know about… whatever this was?
‘Because I lived them,’ Celasian said. ‘Celas was my father.’
The silence vanished as the crowd around us spoke all at once, questioning, demanding, trying to understand what was going on. I barely heard them as understanding swept through me. His father. That meant… Damn me. That meant nothing but trouble.
Rhysha raised the hand holding her pipe until her people slowly fell into silence. ‘Tell your story.’
‘I’ll tell you all you need to know.’ Celasian pitched his voice so that it carried to the people gathered behind Rhysha. ‘I was a child when the Soulblight vampires came to us. They sent their queen, a monster with a beautiful face who promised my father gifts if he would slave the Fist to them. When he refused, she put her teeth to his throat.’
Celasian stopped, his pale eyes distant. ‘I saw her, biting him, and I burned her for it. I’ve come back to see them all burn for that.’
‘You’ve come back for revenge,’ Rhysha said.
‘Revenge,’ Celasian said, ‘and the glory of Sigmar. They are one and the same in me.’
Damn me, I thought again, and wished they were still passing around the liquor.
‘So that is why you ask for our help?’ Shyn asked. ‘For your revenge?’ He was staring at Celasian, his armour, his silver spear, and in Shyn’s face I could see a mix of envy and jealousy. ‘Why don’t you and Sigmar do it yourself?’
‘We will,’ Celasian said with absolute certainty. ‘You want a gift? Here it is. Join us, now, without begging for swords or carpets. Join us, because we are right and we will cleanse this land and take it for Sigmar.’
Whispers ripped through the crowd, but they were drowned out when the Spears of Heaven lined up behind Celasian spoke at once, their voices echoing through the camp, ‘For the glory of Sigmar!’
The shout quieted the nomads, but I could see the mix of fear and anger on their faces, expressions that promised trouble, and I cursed silently to myself. Revenge. Celasian and his Spears weren’t here to save the 39th, or the Broken Plains. They were here to destroy the Soulblight vampires of Temero, no matter the cost to anyone else.
Across from me, Rhysha was holding on to her pipe with white-knuckled fingers, and I could see the edge of fear in her old eyes. She understood how close this meeting was to riot. She started to stand, to speak, but her idiot son spoke first.
‘This is how you come to us? Like conquerors?’ He pushed himself up, standing over Celasian. ‘We didn’t ask for you, or your god. The Broken Plains are ours. They are not for you to take, whoever your father was.’
Many outside the tent stayed silent, confused or frightened, but there were enough of them who agreed with Shyn to make a roar that followed his words, a cry of defiance that echoed over the plains.
Celasian ignored the sound and stared at Shyn, his eyes as flat as a snake’s. ‘If you are not with us,’ he asked, his cold voice a warning, ‘then whom are you with?’
‘We are with our own,’ Rhysha snapped, still trying to stop the ruin that was coming. ‘We are the Biting Flames. We have no allegiance to the vampires.’
‘And why not?’ Shyn turned towards his mother. ‘At least when they come to us, they offer us their blood, their power, their immortality!’
‘They offer you their curse,’ Celasian said. ‘They offer you their evil.’ There was nothing in his voice now but certainty. No pity, no anger, just that, and I started to speak.
‘Abbot-general. I think–’
He heard not a word. ‘They offer you that,’ he continued, his words rolling over mine, over the angry voices of the crowd. ‘And you consider it. And so you are damned.’
Celasian was on his feet, his armour not slowing him at all, aiming Heaven’s Edge at Shyn’s chest. Sparks danced along the weapon’s length, and from its tip a bolt of lightning cracked out. The white-hot arc smashed into Shyn and his skin burned black and split, the blood beneath flashing into steam, and before he could even scream, his body tore itself apart. Scalding shrapnel of burning flesh and melting bone flew back and struck the people gathered outside the shelter, searing into them.
Then the screaming began.
The day was fading, the light dissolving behind the haze of smoke that rose from the ruins below, and I stood on the hillside, trying to ignore the last screams.
Sugar snorted, tossing her head. The smell of smoke and blood made her uneasy – she wanted to go back to her stable in Gowyn, and I felt for her. I wanted nothing more than to turn my back on this day, this place, to ride back to that wretched port, get on a ship and leave the Broken Plains forever. But Sugar was stuck waiting for me just as I was stuck waiting for Celasian, and damn me, I didn’t know which of us was more trapped. Sugar snorted again and I swore under my breath. Down the hill, Galeris was leaving the shattered remnants of the Biting Flames and walking towards me.
I threw him a waterskin when he got close enough, and he took a long draught. His face was streaked with sweat and ash, and he stank of smoke tinged with something else, something uglier – the smell of burnt meat.
‘Is he done?’ I asked, when Galeris had finished drinking.
‘Almost.’ My lieutenant’s voice was thick with smoke and emotion, and he didn’t look at me. He stared out at nothing, his thick fingers tightening and loosening on the neck of the waterskin. ‘He’s killed every adult and thrown their bodies on a pyre.’
‘At least he didn’t kill the children.’ That… Gods, I hadn’t even been aware of how afraid I was of that.
‘No,’ Galeris said. ‘He wants them to help grind the bones to powder after the fire has cooled enough so there’s nothing left for the vampires to raise up. He said it was his first lesson for them – that sometimes the greatest mercy is death.’ He finally looked at me. ‘We didn’t stop him.’
We didn’t. I didn’t. There was no accusation in Galeris’ voice. There didn’t have to be. The accusation rode the smoke that filled the air, along with the thin sound of a child crying somewhere below.
Shyn’s smoking body had still been falling when the warriors of the Biting Flames drew their weapons. I’d jumped up, shouting at them, shouting at Celasian, my hands out, trying to stop it all, and across from me I had seen Rhysha trying to do the same thing, her pipe still clutched in one hand as she stood screaming at her people to stand back. They had already been charging, though – until another bolt of lightning from Celasian’s holy weapon had turned them into burning, screaming meat.
It had been blood and chaos then, the crowd exploding, some attacking, most running. The Spears of Heaven had rushed forwards, slamming into the mob that was coming for Celasian, their spear tips thrusting out, driving them back. I had seen Rhysha fall to the ground bleeding, her fallen pipe smouldering on a carpet, and then Celasian’s boot heel had smashed down, crushing it into nothing as he sent another lightning bolt sizzling into the nomads.
I’d pulled my troops together as the Spears of Heaven drove forwards, spears flashing. I remember Galeris shouting at me, asking what we should do before he had to kick away a nomad who’d rushed us with a sword. I’d looked past him, at Celasian standing in the centre of the shelter, Heaven’s Edge blazing in his hand like a storm. The abbot-general’s eyes had been as dead and empty as a skull’s. I’d seen that and taken myself and the rest of my soldiers and left.
We’d walked out of the camp, careful to avoid the nomads fleeing the slaughter, taking our horses and moving away up the hill. We waited there, silent.
‘I didn’t stop him,’ I said. ‘He is an abbot-general of the Church of Sigmar.’
‘He’s…’ Galeris said, and then shook his head. ‘What are we supposed to do, Captain Takora?’
‘Do?’ I said. ‘We go back to Gowyn. We wait for the rest of the Spears of Heaven to arrive. Then we go and kill the monsters that’ve trapped us here for so long. And when that’s finally done, we leave these cursed lands and forget this damn place ever existed.’
‘You think you’ll forget this?’
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. ‘No,’ I said, finally, almost silently.
He didn’t answer, except to move away to the little knot of soldiers from the 39th. Sugar pressed against me, and I turned to rub her ears. As I did, something caught my eye. A tiny message, stuck to my saddle. Similar to the one I’d found at the ambush site, but this one was meant for me. I snapped my head around, but there was nothing, no one. I was alone.
