The Hollow King, page 16
Leragrais bristled and looked as though he were going to spit a fresh retort. Then he looked around at Valentin and Cado. His eyes glittered, his lip curled, but he turned and walked away, his robes dragging over the damp stone.
Damascene looked as though she too were about to leave, but Cado raised a hand. ‘My rings,’ he said.
Damascene began to shake her head.
‘We had an agreement,’ said Cado.
‘I know,’ she said, and he was surprised to hear weariness rather than anger in her voice. ‘I would honour it, but I cannot do that alone.’ She glanced at the spot where the magister had stood. ‘You see how it is. Once there was a Council of Worthies to make these decisions. Now there are just the two of us. It is easy to reach agreement as a pair and twice as easy to become mired in an argument.’ She gave a snort of dry laughter. She turned and sat on a seat beside the stone table, then reached up and lowered the hood that covered her head. Her hair was blonde, with strands of grey winding into the plaits that coiled at the base of her neck. The lines around her eyes had only just begun to spread. She must have carried no more than forty winters. She pulled the comet crest from her scalp. She looked at it for a second, then placed it on the table. Cado saw the tiredness in her then.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.
‘Because it is here. Because people are here. There does not need to be another reason.’ Damascene hit the table with her fist. He studied the hardness in her face. There were supposed to be others here with her. The greater crusades sent from the great cities into the wilds took small armies with them, Stormcasts, wizards and warriors. Whatever strength had come to Aventhis, it had gone now. Now there was just this woman, the last symbol of her God-King’s intent to reclaim the lands of the dead for the living.
This is the strength of this city, he thought, and the weight of it bears down without relenting. She does not sit on a throne, but she might as well. The burden is the same because they try to do what only a fool would do – rule and protect in a cosmos that is defined by cruelty.
Damascene tapped a large sand timer that sat amongst the rolls of parchment and paper on the table. All but a pinch of sand had drained from the top to the bottom of the glass.
‘I am sorry,’ she said simply. ‘It seems that for all my suspicion you keep your word, and we, the pious mortals, only fail to keep ours. I do not have your rings. Leragrais is keeping them. When he returns, I will… talk to him.’ She looked around at them. ‘I cannot promise, but I also cannot say that part of me is not glad that the bonds of our bargain remain. We are a city in need of all the help we can get.’
‘This is not my fight.’
‘You are a mercenary, any fight is yours for the right price, correct?’
‘What are you offering?’
‘The same as before – the return of the rings, and to that I will add my help to find whomever you are looking for in the city, if they are here. All I ask is that you fight for us when the time comes.’
‘You do not have the rings, and without them you do not have the means of paying me.’
‘I have two of them, and Leragrais will not give the rest back to you without my help. So we are at an impasse. I, and this city, need your help to survive what is coming. You need my help to get what you want. That’s a fair exchange, I feel.’
‘You said I should burn, and now you want my help?’
‘You all but said we are doomed, but you are going to fight for us. Things change.’
She stood and moved around the table, to where rolls of parchment gathered damp from the passing mist. ‘You do not have much choice unless you want to relinquish what you care about. And neither do I.’
Cado held still. She was right on all counts.
‘I may go free about the city?’ he asked.
‘Within reason, yes. Vaux will see to it. But you will not harm any of the people here. Not for any reason.’
‘You trust me to do that?’
‘I trust that you understand our agreement, and the consequences of breaking it.’
‘You can’t do that.’ It was Valentin, all but forgotten beside the two as they talked. Cado looked around at the man. The trust had gone from his eyes. There was anger there now. Simple, direct anger. ‘You can’t do that. First he…’ The smith jerked his head in the direction Leragrais had gone. ‘First, he begins to think about those aelves, those… monsters as allies, and now you are going to give him’ – he shot half a look at Cado that did not connect – ‘freedom so that he can fight for us? Do you even know what he is, what he really is? Because I don’t think you do. I think you have heard about the blood leeches and the night-kin like the rest of us, but you have no idea.’
Cado stayed silent. The man was frightened. Very frightened. His world had been simple, and his worries scaled to fit. Cado had seen it that night in the forge. Heat and hammer, that was the logic of Valentin’s world; skill and patience applied with slow care. He was alone with two children to raise in a city surrounded by things that would kill them all. But if he could hold that danger at a distance and make the world stronger one tap of the hammer at a time, then that was enough. That was gone now. He had seen and understood, and the trust and naivety that had somehow lasted this long was gone. The cosmos had brought its hammer blows down on the smith, and his soul was cracking. Cado did not blame the man. It was fear and guilt. He had let Cado into his house – had let a creature who could call the dead talk to his children. And now he was hearing that armies were coming for his home, his family and all their souls. Given that, anger was almost the best response he could have had.
‘I saw,’ said Valentin. ‘You know how he escaped the aelves? The dead came to him. He pulled them from the ground and air. The Bonereapers know him. They warned him that this city was theirs, not his. The enemies you fear think that he is a creature who wants to make us cattle, and you think you can hold him like a dog on a chain?’ He stopped, blinking as though surprised that the words had come from his mouth.
Damascene looked at the smith. ‘As a loyal follower of Sigmar, I thank you for your service,’ she said. ‘You are released and may go about your business with the thanks of the city.’
Valentin looked as if he might say something, but the fire had gone from his eyes and tongue. He fumbled a bow and walked away. One of the guards went with him. Damascene waited until their steps had faded.
‘He is right,’ said Damascene at last. ‘I should kill you or drive you out. That is what the witch hunters and the fanatics of the Sigmarite creed would say. That is what every part of my mind and soul are telling me to do now.’ She sighed. ‘But missionaries and those of us on the edge of things have to learn to see things differently. Sigmar is said to have once called the Lord of the Dead an ally. Is our need any less than his was? So now, what will you say? Will you serve us and yourself?’
Cado was still for a long moment. Events had boxed him in, he knew. This follower of Sigmar had judged him well and placed just the right pressure to get what she wanted. She was desperate, it was true, but there was something else.
‘You and Leragrais agreed with each other before…’
‘We agreed for many years, on many things.’ She gave him a keen look. ‘I understand – I wanted you imprisoned before and now I want an alliance. What has changed?’ She looked levelly at him, and there was no attempt to hide the tiredness in her eyes. ‘Necessity. Our great Lord Sigmar made many alliances to secure the Mortal Realms. As he did, so it seems his servants must.’
Cado did not respond. She gave a tired smile. ‘You think that we are playing you, Soulblight? That our disagreement was a way of creating a way to coerce you into doing more than was agreed?’
‘It had crossed my mind,’ he replied.
‘And it crossed my mind that despite your protestations, you might be here to claim the city for your own before the Ossiarchs and now these aelves of light. That does not make either of those thoughts true.’ She shook her head. ‘Leragrais is a great man and has done more to protect and build this city than any other, but he is old and afraid. He spends more and more time alone, in whatever private sanctuary he has for himself. He was high in the Arcane order, you know? A scholar of magic and how it bound the realm together. Why he came here to a settlement on the edge of nothing… I wonder if sometimes he wishes that he had not come at all.’
Cado felt himself blink slowly.
Why he came here…
He thought of the mask in the ashes, and the words of the witch hunter.
‘You cannot trust anyone or anything under the stars.’
How could the disciples of the Burning Hand be here, and have killed and wormed their way into the people, militia and spire without a wizard like Leragrais noticing something?
Pieces began to slide into place in his mind.
He knew the answer, or the beginning of it, and he knew what he had to do. He just needed a little more time.
He nodded to Damascene.
‘Very well,’ he said.
Damascene reached into her robes and pulled out a silver chain. Two of Cado’s rings hung from it. She put them on the stone table.
‘Yours,’ she said again. ‘Returned as promised.’ Cado looked at them and then at the cometarian. She returned his gaze and gave a small shrug. The hard set of her lips flicked the grim beginning of a smile. ‘It was what was agreed. You kept your word, and I keep mine. For my part, you are free.’
Cado nodded. He picked up the rings and slipped them free of their fastening.
‘We are all made of fire and the wish to destroy,’ she added. He looked up again. Her face was set sincere, as though she were speaking from a need that had nothing to do with the organising of walls or people.
‘Even creatures like me?’ Cado asked.
‘Above creed or curse there are our choices, and in those there is always a way to be more than others’ judgement of us.’
‘I have met many of your faith who would disagree with you.’
‘And I have never met a blood-tainted warrior of the night who would begin to listen.’ The flicker of the smile returned for an instant. ‘It seems that often things are not as we assume they will be.’
Cado gave a slow nod. He slipped the rings on. Pain flared up each finger at the touch of the iron.
‘What are they that they mean so much to you?’
Cado closed his hand and looked at the black metal circling the pale skin of his fingers.
‘Family,’ he said.
Damascene raised an eyebrow, but then shook her head. ‘I am afraid I have no idea where Leragrais has gone or why – we share responsibility for this city but little else. He vanishes often. That is a wizard’s prerogative.’ Cado saw something flash in her eyes, a hard snap of emotion quickly controlled. Anger? Bitterness? Fear, even?
‘I wish you fortune. May stars and comets light your path, and Sigmar guide your way,’ said Damascene.
‘I doubt the blessings of your faith are intended for the likes of me, mistress.’
‘Perhaps not, but take it all the same.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Damascene nodded, pulled up her cowl then turned and walked towards the stairs, her twin guards falling in beside her. And far down on the walls of the city, the gongs began to sound. The cometarian looked at the sand timer that was draining its last grains. ‘The Bonereapers have come for their reply. I shall go and give it to them.’
‘No,’ said Cado. ‘I will.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cado rode from the city before the sun rose.
~Family.~ Solia’s voice reached after him as he rode into the fog. ~Or vengeance. It’s the old choice, my prince.~
Behind Cado the shadow of Aventhis sank into the bruised light of dawn. The horse tried to turn back as they curved around a spire of stone. He pushed the beast on with will and reins. Above, a clack of dry lightning flashed ochre light through the murk. The magical distortions were getting worse. Time was running down to the last grains. He had lost the trail of the Burning Hand. He had lost his rings. He had lost the protection of anonymity, and he was losing the time he needed to get them back.
~The city might hold,~ said Solia, when Cado did not reply.
‘It will fall,’ he replied.
~So certain? What did I teach you about outcomes and will? If–~
‘It will fall, Solia, and when it does the trail will be lost. Everything will be lost.’
~There could be ways of salvaging the situation. If the Ossiarchs’ controlled the city, you could negotiate. They might even help you sift through Aventhis for the Burning Hand’s disciples. They would return the other rings to you.~ He did not reply. ~You will have considered it, I know. It would be a king’s choice – the least terrible of the options available. Make the move now. Their herald agrees you give them the city and they help you. They deny the Lumineth, and whatever magical horror they want to commit is averted.~
He thought of Valentin striking iron in his forge. It all meant nothing in the end. That was the great lie the Sigmarites spread: that there was space in existence for hope, and the small acts that made that hope. Hammer blows on iron, buildings repaired, children fighting about who had hit whom, rain and crops and things made for unborn generations. All a lie. All a skin of false hope over the truth that the darkness had won long ago. The gods warred not over the future but the scraps of the past: dead souls spooled into darkness, worship, and power over the patches of resistance. There was no future, not for this city, not for the greatest enclaves of mortals. Those that stood for longer were just delaying the inevitable. Death or damnation, those were the only futures that would come to pass for the mortals hunkering behind their walls and hoping. Solia was right. Better that he make the king’s choice, the choice that followed the contours of reality rather than dreams.
‘Do you believe that is right?’ he asked. Around them the dawn fog flew past as he rode.
~I serve. I advise. I lay out the choices you know already and perhaps some you do not. But I am dead, my prince. I do not believe anything.~
Cado saw a shadow in the fog ahead.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
~What have you decided?~ asked Solia, but Cado touched the ring and her presence folded out of being.
The rider came out of the fog. Its banner rattled with each stride of its steed. It was not Xericos but another of the Ossiarch constructs. It halted. Cado slowed his own mount. The spire’s lower walls were a quarter of a league behind him and hidden by mist and the bulk of one of the smaller spires. They were far out of sight or earshot from the walls. The rider cocked its head. Perhaps it was an affectation or a memory echo from the soul that animated its shell; either way it seemed inhuman. The surprise was clear, though. The rider had neither expected Cado to be there or to meet so far from the walls.
It gazed at him. The fingers of the hand holding the banner tapped the pole. Cado wondered, as he had before, if the removal of mortal habits from the Ossiarchs was as efficient as they thought.
‘I am the herald of Xericos, Liege-Kavalos of Lyria. I come to receive the tithe from the city yonder. You are Cado Ezechiar. You are known to our lord and our legion. To what end do you come to meet me, grave-lord?’
‘The city has gathered no bones for you,’ said Cado.
The rider nodded once. Vertebrae creaked in its neck.
‘The judgement was that their compliance was unlikely. The legions will come, and the tithe shall be taken.’ The rider fixed Cado with the star glow of its eyes. ‘But why are you here to relate these facts, Hollow King?’
Cado held the rider’s gaze.
A king’s choice…
‘You will take no tithe from this city. It is not and will not be part of the empire.’
The light in the rider’s eyes flared brighter. Its finger clacked on the banner pole.
‘Grave-lord,’ said the Ossiarch. ‘You were warned not to press claim to this–’
Cado leapt from the back of his horse. His sword was in his hand as he arced through the air. The rider’s mount reacted faster than it, rearing up to try to meet Cado with its fore claws. It was not enough. His sword struck the rider. The magic in the blade met the bone and sliced down through breastplate, ribs and on through the spine of the mount beneath and out through its back. He landed. The split halves of rider and mount scrabbled and twitched as ghost-light bled from them. Then they collapsed. Cado wrenched the rider’s head free from its spine, looked up at the enfolding mist. Arcane lightning crackled in the distance. He held the head up. Emerald sparks were already flickering in its sockets as the magic inside searched for the rest of its body.
‘Here is your Bone-tithe,’ he said and threw the head towards where unliving eyes would be watching.
‘We will come for you and for them…’ came a dry breath of a voice from the distance. He sheathed his sword. He had picked his path. Now he just needed to walk it.
‘So be it,’ he said without looking back.
‘No,’ said Vaux. Cado looked at her, unblinking. She met his gaze and smiled. Coldness bled from the expression.
‘Damascene agreed that you would help me find the followers of the Dark Gods in your city.’
‘The cometarian has made a bargain with you, not me, and to say that I argued against it does the act a disservice. You are dangerous, you are not to be trusted, and you will get no help apart from what Worthy Damascene has ordered you receive. She may have bought your help, but you have not bought ours.’
They were in the shadow of the gate. Men and women lined the parapet top. Most had the barest semblance of armour and uniform. Some held their weapons as though they were holding a snake that was about to twist and bite them. Others clutched them like they were their salvation. They had started pressing the people to bulk the militia. Cado wondered how long any of them would stand when the Ossiarchs attacked, or the Lumineth tore the world apart with sunlight. All of them were staring out beyond the walls. They were waiting for the Bonereapers’ herald to appear, a herald to whom Cado had given Damascene’s reply with the edge of his sword. It was already one bell past dawn, but neither a rider nor an army had appeared.
