The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath, page 20
The commander shook his head and drank from a pewter goblet, and then wiped at his whiskers with his sleeve, blinking slowly.
‘I think you’d best be heading to Undal City,’ he said, ‘and seeking the wisdom of the council on this.’
Tomas’s smile faltered at that. He turned to Floré and gave a slight shrug. Clearly he had expected his red tabard to grant him some special treatment, but the Ossen-Tyr commander wore the grey of the City Watch and commanded a garrison of blue Lancers. The Commandos meant little to him.
‘Sometimes,’ Tomas began, slowly, ‘we must act independently of the council when speed is of the essence—’
Floré blew a breath through her nose and cut him off, pushing him aside firmly with one hand.
‘Commander Hearns,’ she said, bowing slightly. ‘We were not properly introduced, not fully. I was Sergeant Artollen of the Forest Watch, yes, but that is not who I am. I am Bolt-Captain Artollen of Stormcastle XII, Stormguard Commando. My duty is to guard the Skein-wreck Janos, the Salt-Man, the only skein-wreck the Undal have known in three generations since Hussain the Blue fell to the disciples of Ihm-Phogn. I am his sworn blade.’
With a flourish she pulled her sword free and into a crisp salute, and allowed herself a twitch at the corner of her lips as she saw the commander’s eyes flick to her sword-knot, the red silk with the white stripe, damp, forever damp. She sheathed the blade.
‘We seek the orbs of light. Heasin son of Luasin, of Shardkin Tullioch, seeks youths abducted from the reefs of the Wind Sea. He has been sent by his people to investigate. Every youth taken from them was a skein-adept, and they lost livestock and farmers to this menace. The Antian Voltos Thirdskin was military advisor to Knight-Commander Starbeck, who now sits on the Grand Council, and Thirdskin now advises Commander Benazir Arfallow who leads Stormcastle XII; it was Commander Starbeck who promoted me to Bolt-Captain, and who presented me with the red-and-white knot of Mistress Water’s silk for my actions beyond the wall at Lothal’s bones. I was there at the reclamation of Fallow Fen. I was there at the fall of Urforren.’
She waited a moment for him to think that through. What happened at Urforren was rumour and legend in the Stormguard. She saw his jaw move as he thought on it.
‘We are not trifling, sir,’ she said, evenly, ‘or playing at adventure. We need information; fresh horses; supplies.’
Floré stood at ease, and felt a surety of purpose, an iron in her voice. It was like being back, back at the wall with Benny and Janos and a team of men and women waiting for her word, any word, waiting with heavy fists and sure hearts, silver daggers in their belts, steel on their hands. She hated herself for the thrill that ran through her, a thrill that in Hasselberry had faded with each passing day of peace. I am doing this for Marta, she thought. I won’t go back.
‘Suffer no tyrant, Commander. This threat stinks of Ferron. We need a whitestaff, so we can track the orbs. They are killing entire villages; they are stealing children in the night, each child a skein-adept if we are correct. You say the whitestaffs have left the city. When? Headed where? Are none left at all?’
The commander sat back and looked appraisingly at Floré, and she held his gaze. Yarrow returned with the requested maps, and Commander Hearns gestured to a long table at the side of the room.
‘We are on the same side,’ he said slowly. ‘I meant no offence. I did not perhaps realise it was so… urgent as all that.’
They gathered around the maps showing Ossen-Tyr and the country to the north – farmsteads, small market villages, mile upon mile of hill and dale, high moors cut by streams and valleys. It was perhaps fifty miles of hard country before the ruins of the old Antian tunnel; east of there the Antian had their surface redoubt. North again were many more miles of sparsely populated grazing lands, and then the citadel town of Aber-Ouse. Yarrow brought candlesticks and weighted the corners of the map down, the yellow light of the beeswax candles casting flickering shadows across the landscapes of ink and parchment.
‘Here, here, here, and here,’ Commander Hearns said, leaning down and pointing at small hamlets and villages. ‘Each of these villages has reported orbs of fire in the sky. Livestock dead at those first two, strange bloody wounds, deep, cuts like runes but not a language we know. Always the orbs of fire or light seen in the night. A child missing from the third village. Two older women missing from the northernmost village the night after the orbs were seen, and in their beds, the Forest Watch found goblins. North, the witnesses all said.’
Drawing his finger up north of Ossen-Tyr, past the Antian redoubt, following the river Unerdan, his hand stopped when he was pointing at the mountains east of Aber-Ouse.
‘North towards the Blue Wolf Mountains,’ he said, ‘past the Antian, and Aber-Ouse. A boat from Blue river port said they had seen lights in the sky east of there, towards Glen Driech, but there has been no word from the town there, none I’ve heard.’
Hearns stood straight and stretched his back, and cast a sidelong glance at Heasin, who loomed over an entire edge of the table, flexing his claws and tilting his head to get a good view of the map. Floré stared at the mountains on the thick parchment, jags of dark ink. She had seen the Blue Wolf Mountains once, at a distance, when she spent a summer on the Tessendorm border embedded with the Lancers. Six months of skirmishing with slavers and bandits weighted down by cumbersome armour and shield, six months away from Benazir and Janos. She remembered the mountains, granite teeth rising from the plains, wreathed in cloud. Squinting at the map, just north of where they were now at Ossen-Tyr, she saw Tollen. Home. She had not been back there since she was a child. She did not allow herself a moment to dwell on it. Hasselberry and Janos and Marta are home, she thought, and bit her lip.
‘The whitestaffs?’ Floré said, not looking away from the map, and the commander rubbed his hands together.
‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly, ‘truly. These reports all came in the last three days. Two days ago, after we met to discuss the first report, the whitestaffs left in the night. I’d had some of them advising on… all of this. Gate guard said they were headed south on horseback, fast, but since they left, no rider I’ve sent has found them or word of them. The road south to Undal City, perhaps, but for them to leave with no word worries me greatly. I have sent riders to Undal City in pursuit of answers, but no word back yet. There was a whitestaff north of here, in a town servicing the folks on the high moors, but he is nowhere to be found. The man I sent looking found an empty house.’
Heasin said something sibilant and slow in some dialect of Tullioch and stalked away from the table, flexing his claws, and Voltos removed his eyeglasses and rubbed at them worriedly.
‘What are we going to do?’ he said at last, looking at Floré and Tomas, but Floré ignored him, staring at the maps.
‘Floré,’ he continued, ‘maybe north isn’t the right move. We might need more soldiers, whitestaffs, skein-mages to deal with this. We might need an army. We should go to Benazir. You know she would help you.’
Floré kept staring at the map and did not answer, and Tomas let a heavy breath out. The commander looked at them all and then at the map again.
‘I can’t give you the lancers,’ he said. ‘If these orbs come here we must be able to defend the mines, and if they are attacking the villages we will be overrun with refugees within a week. I could give you a squad at most, and supplies of course.’
‘If they come,’ Tomas said, ‘you should shelter in the mines. Lancers won’t stop what is coming, by all reports.’
The commander rubbed at his whiskers and frowned. Floré just stared at the map, and tried to picture finding Marta alive.
‘I go north,’ she said.
~
Benazir stared out across the Slow Marsh from the tower atop Stormcastle XII. Night had long since fallen, and with it all heat had fled from the air. The winds of the rotstorm to the west of her pushed out and tugged at her tunic and cloak but she ignored them, did not give the storm the satisfaction of a glance. It roiled and tumbled behind her, majestic and horrifying as always, but instead she stared at the peace of the Slow Marsh, the isolated specks of distant crofts through the fen and bog.
‘Wine, Commander?’ her squire asked, and Benazir did not turn around.
‘Leave it with the maps, Whent,’ she said, ‘and then I have no further need of you tonight.’
‘My thanks, Commander,’ he replied, and within seconds her warmed wine was poured and he was hurrying down the steps, doubtless planning on helping himself to the rest of the carafe. Benazir smiled, and went to the table.
The tower was roofed in wood and tile but open on all sides, a stone rampart scarcely chest high even on her frame and then open air beyond. A stone fireplace was full of warmth and flame, surrounded by stone benches, and past those Benazir had set a table on one side, a map of the protectorate weighed down by her silver dagger, her gauntlets, and a stone. Her wine steamed in a pewter mug next to it, and Benazir went and squinted in the firelight at the map as behind her a peal of thunder rolled through the rotstorm and dissipated out across the Slow Marsh.
Affording the storm a glance Benazir saw it churn, but the winds were mild as they went, and the lightning not so frequent. She smiled at the memory of spitting from this tower wall, cursing the storm with her fellow cadets. She had been drunk that night, drunk as she’d perhaps ever been. Floré had kept her steady.
Benazir’s smile faded. Turning, she briefly checked from her vantage up and down the Stormwall. Repairs to the breach by XI, she thought, third patrol tomorrow north need to meet with the cadets from XII. The list in her head was endless, the machinations of a castle on siege footing against the very rotstorm itself. Food, water, repairs to the castle, repairs to the Stormwall. Training for cadets, training for soldiers, training for officers. Discipline for all. Starbeck’s cryptic warnings from the Grand Council of forces gathering in the storm, but no intelligence shared. And now the new threat…
Benazir sat on a stone bench by the fire and drank her wine, facing east over the protectorate, and she waited as she had the last three nights. They came, eventually.
The orbs were flitting embers on the periphery of her vision, one to the north that appeared and then seemed to be gone, barely a spark. Another, closer, to the south and east – perhaps near Laga? That one danced and spun, but then away it sped to the north. Benazir rose and went to the wall and peered into the darkness, and then two figures emerged from the stairs to join her.
It was the skein-mage Nostul, and the Lady Kelvin. Nostul bowed slightly to her, showing her the top of his thinning red hair, and the Lady Kelvin grinned and waved. She was young, only eighteen summers, and wearing leggings and some sort of velvet doublet. The style was apparently all the rage in the City.
‘Mind if we join, Boss?’ Nostul asked, and she waved them to her side. The three of them stood facing the Slow Marsh in silence, and Benazir finished her wine. It was a sour red, a bad vintage from the east of Isken. She had been gifted the bottle by old Hovarth on his now annual caravan along the wall, but the sentiment and exoticism weren’t enough to hide the sour taste. She still drank it, and apologised her squire had taken the rest and there was none for the skein-mages. Perhaps another ten minutes passed, Benazir poring over her maps as the skein-mages watched the stars, and then the Lady Kelvin let out a low whistle.
‘There!’ she said. ‘North and east!’
She pointed into the darkness and Benazir rushed to the wall, Nostul straining his eyes.
‘Do you mind if I kill the fire, Boss? Might see better.’
She nodded and the skein-mage whipped around, his slight frame curling elegantly down to the ground. Without a moment of hesitation he reached a fist into the flame and then the fire was gone, only a tendril of smoke remaining. Smiling, Nostul returned to the two women at the rampart and the three of them watched the orb.
This one flew closer, far closer than distant sparks. It grew in the eye, first a spark then a mote and then a thumbnail.
‘Closest yet,’ Benazir said, and Lady Kelvin let out a whoop.
‘It might come to visit!’ she said, grinning. ‘Whatever it is, I want a look!’
‘Perhaps best not to wish that,’ Nostul said, staring out at the orb. It was the size of a fist now, and seemed to be heading straight towards them, growing in size unerringly fast. The Lady Kelvin’s face fell and Benazir reached for her wine but it was empty.
‘What is it Voltos said when he left?’ she said, eyes not leaving the orb. It was the size of a cartwheel now, north of them, still over the scrub hill and rock north of the Slow Marsh, but heading towards the wall.
‘Orbs of light, dead of night, hide your eye, something something.’
Nostul closed his eyes for a long moment then shook his head.
‘Can’t feel it. And it was take your flight, Commander, that last line. Take your flight.’
Benazir nodded and the orb suddenly was closer, again, larger, again, and growing.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shit. Kelvin, wake the mages! Nostul, rouse the troops! I want the wall manned and everyone armed and sharp. This thing is too close for my liking.’
The two mages nodded and moved to run to the stairs but then Benazir saw the orb cut west, towards the Stormwall. It was still north of the Stormcastle, but how close was impossible to say. This was as close as one had ever been, cold white light glowing from it. She had read the reports, of course…
‘Wait,’ she said, ‘a moment more…’
And then without ceremony the orb cut across the Stormwall, and into the rotstorm beyond.
The three of them stood in silence for a long moment, and Benazir licked her lips. She could still taste the sour Isken wine.
‘Belay that last,’ she said, ‘but double the watch tonight, and from now on. I don’t like this. A mage with every watch, as well.’
Nostul nodded and departed, and the Lady Kelvin sat on one of the low benches and scratched at her nose.
‘What does it mean, Commander?’ she asked at last, poking the ashes of the hearth-fire with the tip of her boots.
Benazir stared into the rotstorm and down at the wall below her, such a flimsy thing. Stone at the castle, stone and palisades of wood north and south. Strong here, but so weak elsewhere.
It crosses our border, she thought. It doesn’t care for us at all. As if we weren’t even here.
‘I don’t know what it means, Kelvin,’ she said at last, and found herself to be utterly tired. ‘I don’t think anyone knows.’
~
Petron eyed the dagger at Varratim’s belt, but couldn’t bring himself to lunge at it. He still couldn’t feel the skein except as a jumble of chaos, and the man before him was so utterly calm it unnerved him. Patience, he thought, patience. Cuss was always the patient one, slow where Petron was quick. He had always thought it a weakness of his brother but here in this place he could imagine Cuss calmer than he, patient and slow and methodical.
After showing Petron the cavern from the balcony where they had emerged from the cells, Varratim led him down a steep rock stairway and they walked among the black-clad men and women with the wizened faces, and the goblins dressed in shorter black robes attending to the bizarre stone discs, each the size of a wagon, each standing on thick legs of metal.
‘What are they?’ Petron asked, his gaze cutting between the humans, the goblins, and the strange metal discs, and Varratim gave him a long stare.
‘They are my people’s past, Petron, and your people’s future,’ he said calmly, and pointed at the black-robed men and women wandering between the discs, inspecting them and directing the goblins in opaque tasks.
‘You see my brothers and sisters?’
Petron nodded and Varratim gripped the nearest strut supporting a disc, gripping the metal and pressing against it. It did not move. He looked so young, Petron thought, compared to all the others.
‘It takes a toll, to fly the orbs of Ferron across the sky, to shoot the flame and the force. It takes a toll, all from the pilot. My brothers and sisters take that toll willingly, Petron. They do so because they understand it is necessary.’
Petron looked again at the disc of dark stone. Was Varratim saying that these were the orbs he had seen flying over Hasselberry? One of the goblins ran to Varratim and spoke quickly at him in a language Petron did not understand. Petron leaned back and took half a step behind Varratim; he had never seen a live goblin before. Its black orb eyes shone wetly, and its slate grey skin was scaled and rough. It was short and stunted, arms twisted, and its fingers were bent and crooked, but it was wearing black cloth robes unlike the pelts and skins Petron had seen on the dead goblins Sergeant Artollen had shown him last autumn back home. Its nostrils were slits, and there was no hair on its head, small holes instead of ears. It turned to him briefly but seemed focused on Varratim.
Varratim reached forward and pressed a hand to the goblin’s face gently, almost lovingly, his long fingers cupping its angular cheek. It looked up at him and its mouth opened slowly, a thick black tongue slipping out over rows and rows of jagged teeth.
‘Vosh, Russ,’ Varratim said, and the goblin closed its mouth and scarpered away.
They continued to walk, past the strange discs, and a door in the stone wall coruscated open wetly, revealing a small figure beyond sat on a thick rug.
‘Petron!’
The voice was high and soft, and then Petron was on his knees wrapping his arms around her and felt great breaths and sobs as she gripped at his chest.
‘Marta, little one,’ he said. ‘Oh, Marta. Are you hurt?’
He held her at arm’s length to take stock of her, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his sleeve. The strange fabric of the clothing he had been given was soft against his face. Marta was dressed in the same black strange cloth as himself, similarly barefoot. Her ashen hair had been cropped almost completely away, and her amber eyes welled with tears as she looked at him.
