Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (32 page)

Bondeau smirked as Ramon and Kip climbed to their feet. Severine put an arm about his shoulders and whispered something, making him laugh throatily, and without a backwards glance they swayed away.

Ramon and Kip glowered at their backs.

*

Later that evening Tyron Frand sidled up sheepishly as they heated a tin pot of stew over the cookfire. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he muttered. ‘It was foolish and unkind.’

Kip and Ramon looked at each other. The Schlessen was still nauseous from being hung over the void. Ramon could have flown – Air-gnosis was an affinity – but Kip would have gone straight down.

‘Nice friends you’ve got,’ Ramon observed.

Frand looked uncomfortable. His bland face was basically pleasant, with a sensitive mouth and thinning, straight hair. He was in his mid-twenties, Ramon thought – although he was a mage, of course, so he could have been a lot older than he looked. ‘Beginnings are awkward times. When we’ve all fought together, we will bond as brothers in Kore,’ Frand said hopefully.

Ramon eyed him doubtfully, and came to some unexpected conclusions; that Frand wasn’t really all that drunk, and that he’d been deliberately missing the birds. ‘How did you end up in the Thirteenth?’

‘Every legion is assigned a chaplain – but I’m primarily a healer,’
Frand added, which explained a little; the Rondian elite considered healer-magi unmanly. ‘I help Mistress Lanna, though I’m also expected to fight if needed.’

‘How come Renn Bondeau and Severine Tiseme aren’t in a better legion?’ Ramon asked.

Frand glanced over his shoulder then said softly, ‘Bondeau is heavily in debt. And young Miss Tiseme is …
indiscreet
. She wrote a song last year mocking Mater-Imperia’s sanctification; this is her punishment.’

There might be hope for her
, Ramon thought. He leant forward. ‘What about Korion?’

Frand shrugged. ‘Of that, I have no idea.’

Kip grunted. ‘And what’s your problem, Master Frand?’

Frand looked rueful. ‘A foolish relationship.’ Ramon and Kip waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. ‘I don’t think less of you provincials, you know,’ he said, as if this were a great virtue. ‘It’s just the way of things, isn’t it? Everyone wants the mage-blood. It isn’t your fault your mother got lucky. So did mine, eh?’ He walked off without waiting for a reply.

*

Days passed, each the same as the last: they rose, ate, packed up, mounted and plodded onwards, the men marching behind them, all in time to the rattle of the drums. They couldn’t train, they couldn’t even gallop, and the initial wonder had long since been replaced by boredom. Occasionally they overtook merchant caravans hauling goods backwards and forwards over the Bridge – trade still went on despite the coming conflict – and Ramon looked out for Vann Mercer, Alaron’s father, but he never saw him. Kip and Ramon practised their Rondian on each other, and occasionally chatted to Prenton or Frand, who was going out of his way to be conciliatory to them. Bondeau and Tiseme had become the chief topic of gossip: they’d begun slipping into the wagons late at night seeking privacy. Frand said Tiseme was desperate to get pregnant so she’d be sent home. ‘Though getting knocked up by a bankrupt bastard seems counter-productive to me.’

‘Yar,’ laughed Kip. ‘I am a much better catch: I have a herd of seventeen cattle in my village.’

‘Then I’m even better,’ Ramon announced. ‘My familioso Pater basically owns my village and the countryside around it, and he gives me pretty much anything I want.’
So long as I do exactly what he wants. And so long as he still has my mother …

‘I thought she would go after the general’s son,’ Kip observed.

Ramon scoffed. ‘Seth’s such a limp-dick I doubt he could do the deed.’ He told them about Korion’s disgrace during the exams, then said quickly, ‘Keep that to yourself, Chaplain. And try not to end up relying on him to protect your back.’

Frand looked across to the campfire of the young noble-magi, who were singing along with the lute Prenton was playing. ‘I think young Seth is a lost soul,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll go and join them: I know that song,’ he added, waving farewell.

As the chaplain went and joined the circle of singers Ramon nudged Kip. ‘Come on, there’s another little “chat” I need to have with someone.’

Kip brightened. ‘Can I hit them?’

‘Only if I say so,’ Ramon warned.

Kip pulled a sulky face, then winked.

He found the man he wanted sitting in a circle of ten grizzled veterans drinking beer and staring into the embers. They were the legion’s ten tribunes, the senior non-magi officer of each maniple – and the ones who did the real commanding. None was under forty, and all had the studied irreverence of the career soldier towards interlopers. They all grudgingly rose and gave the imperial salute as the two magi approached though. ‘Magisters,’ the nearest drawled. ‘How may we serve?’

Ramon focused upon the smallest of them, a balding fellow with a face like a ferret. ‘I need to confer with my tribune.’

The circle of men frowned in surprise. Though battle-magi outranked the tribunes who commanded each maniple, they expected their tribunes to do all the actual soldiering.

‘Storn, isn’t it?’

‘Yes sir. Everything is under control, sir,’ Storn replied, trying to hide his instinctive look of consternation.

Don’t like people taking an interest, then?
‘Nevertheless, Tribune Storn,’ he replied evenly, gesturing for him to follow.
> he told Kip.

The Schlessen grinned around the circle. ‘You have beer,’ he noted. The nearest man grudgingly poured him a mug. He downed it in one swallow. ‘Yar, not bad.’ He proffered his mug again. ‘I might have some.’

Ramon led Tribune Storn away to the rim of the bridge. He noted the man didn’t look down at the dark waves crashing below. ‘So, Storn, how are things progressing?’

‘There is nothing you need trouble yourself with,’ the tribune said, speaking quickly. ‘Water is sufficient and the food adequate. Healer Lanna has the men with cock-pox under quarantine and—’

‘Si, si,’ Ramon interrupted impatiently. He met the man’s eyes. ‘Tribune, I have spoken to men who have served in the legions.’ It was true: his paterfamilias had taken some trouble to ensure that Ramon knew how a legion worked. ‘I am young but I am not ignorant. I know what the Tenth Maniple is.’

Storn made a show of flinching as if in shame. ‘We are the humblest of the legion’s units, Magister Sensini. We serve the rest. Some look down on the tenth, but we are essential.’

It was the rote answer; Ramon waved it away. ‘Storn, don’t give me that
merda
. All of the food, drink, supplies, equipment, livestock and pay flow through the Tenth Maniple, and the man controlling it all is you.’

Storn blanched. ‘My lord, I am just a humble tribune – I have no great aspirations—’

Ramon chuckled. ‘You know, I made a good friend in Pontus. You might know him. The name’s Giordano.’

A sickly expression crawled across Storn’s face. ‘Uh …’

‘Signor Giordano deals with many tribunes, and they are all are from the Tenth Maniple of their legion. He supplies them with all manner of items that the legion stores cannot source. He claims to know you very well.’

Storn floundered momentarily, then made an apologetic gesture. ‘The army storemasters are useless, Magister. Sometimes we must deal with locals.’

‘The goods Giordano supplies aren’t exactly standard issue, Storn. Some would call them illegal. And yet he has a thriving business.’

Storn chewed his upper lip. ‘Magister, where is this conversation going?’

Ramon leant against the parapet, looking out to the fading horizon. He’d had only one evening to cement the deal with Giordano, but it had gone well. He had a list of contacts for Hebusalim, and the names of the tribunes the Rimoni businessman dealt with; he’d been delighted to find his own tribune was one of them. ‘Tribune, how would you like to be ridiculously rich?’

*

Pallacios XIII reached Midpoint Tower on schedule, a week after leaving Yuros. Midpoint was the largest of the five towers supporting the Bridge, the nexus for the solar energy, and the light it radiated was so bright that the night was banished for a mile about it. Similar beacons of light could be discerned far to the northeast and southwest: Dawn and Sunset Isles respectively. Being close to one of the legendary towers was debilitating, so the legion pressed on as quickly as the men could manage. Only lesser magi were posted here, so the weather control was not as efficient, and occasional rainstorms broke through to lash the marchers. Visibility was down to a few hundred yards at best, and they were constantly wet and miserable. Bondeau used his gnosis to shelter Severine and himself, and Ramon hated him even more – he could have done the same, but it would have exhausted him within a few minutes. He longed to feel the sun on his face.

Then the storms faded and the heat started rising, growing fiercer with every step closer to Antiopia. Desiccating winds blew from the south, turning faces first pink, then red, until the burned skin started peeling. Olive-complexioned Ramon was one of the few unaffected; everyone else became irritable, and it felt like he was spending all his time breaking up fights. The soldiers were like rabid dogs, biting
and snapping at anything in reach unless they were lashed into submission. While the other young magi were oblivious to their maniples, he and Kip had decided that protecting and championing their men would win their loyalty. Rankers generally liked to kick around men from the tenth. Ramon used his position to ensure his maniple got the best of everything, but Kip was more direct. Eschewing his weak gnosis, he meted out justice with his fists, and the Schlessen was soon the best-loved mage in the legion. To Ramon’s mild disgust, the soldiers respected capacity for violence above any amount of fairness and consideration. Any illusions he might have had about the legendary discipline of the Rondian soldier gradually eroded as he realised it was violence and fear that kept the rankers in check, not patriotism and a sense of duty.

The journey felt like forever, the days dragging on as they left Midpoint behind them, but it was only a week later that the advance guard caught sight of the beacon of Southpoint, visible a few hours before the Dhassan coast appeared. The stupendous cliffs filled the southern horizon, and beyond the cliffs, brown hills shimmered in the haze. The churning waters below roared louder as the cliffs grew closer, and gulls dive-bombed the column, their clamour deafening.

By now they were all longing for solid ground, and the Bridge resounded to the tramp of five thousand men as the tempo of the drums lifted them and they raced the sun to the land. Ramon had to restrain Lu from galloping, but he grinned at Kip, whose sweating face was a mess of pink, peeling skin. ‘Almost there!’

Progress slowed when they reached the coast. All conversation was rendered impossible by the thunder of the waters below. Ramon had to restrain himself from throwing himself to the ground and kissing it. Duprey had assembled his magi and marched them to the front so they could be first ashore, then the legate made them line up to welcome their soldiers as they trooped from the Bridge into Antiopia. Relief at arriving had the rankers cheering Seth Korion as if he was his father Kaltus, and they acclaimed Duprey as if he’d built the Bridge himself.

The landing site was at the foot of Southpoint, but their camp
was a mile inland: the hardest mile of the journey. Three other legions were in the staging camp before them, preparing to march onwards. The word was passed from man to man: two days’ rest, then it was two hundred miles of dirt roads to Hebusalim – and all the waterholes were already running dry. The exultation of arrival was soon replaced with the grim reality to come.

‘Please, not Dhassa again,’ Legate Duprey prayed aloud. ‘Let us see true action this time.’

Ramon shrugged; he couldn’t be happier if the Thirteenth was held behind the lines with nothing for him to do but shake down the local traders. Pater-Retiari had plans for him, he had his own agenda, and the real war would only get in the way.

Constructs

The most controversial of all aspects of the gnosis is surely the question of constructs. Once we discovered that the gnosis could be used to fuse one life-form with another, giving us the power to create hybrids, we magi had truly become as gods. Naturally, this had to be legislated before madmen ran amok, creating nightmares that would consume us all.

O
RDO
C
OSTRUO
C
OLLEGIATE
, P
ONTUS

Restrict,
restrict!
It’s all you blinkered fools know! We have the power to do whatever we please! Why shouldn’t we?

N
OTES FROM THE TRIAL OF
A
LDUS
G
ANNON
, B
RES
, 665

Coastal Yuros
Septinon 928
3
^rd
month of the Moontide

Waking again was utterly unexpected. It felt more like being born. Alaron was enveloped in warm arms, cradled in someone’s lap and suckling on a teat. His mouth was filled with warm milky fluids, and a woman grunted painfully as he suckled hard.

I’m a child again …

Or this is just death, final memories …

Or rebirth … Ha!

Kore was wrong, we are reborn, like the Sollan drui say …

… So why am I still wearing my clothes?

His eyes flew open, and he gagged. A wall of pain hit him, especially
his throat, which was utterly throbbing where he’d been bitten. He looked up, at the faces of the Elders staring down at him.

He was still on the top of the peak, and he was being nursed in Kessa’s arms – it was her breast he’d been suckling. He felt his face go burning scarlet, and tried to thrash free of her, but her coils wrapped about him.

she sent, thrusting her engorged nipple at him again.

It was very possibly the most humiliating thing he’d ever done: to suckle a virtual stranger’s breast-milk before these strangers who’d just passed a sentence of death upon him. And she wasn’t even human – but that didn’t stop him from doing it. Embarrassment was one thing; death was quite another. He had no idea why they were now apparently intent on saving him, but if they’d changed their mind, all well and good.

After another minute of gulping down the milky discharge, she pushed him away. Her face was almost purple and she looked utterly disgusted. Kekropius put an arm on her shoulder and she shoved him away.

she spat into all of their minds.

Alaron just lay there on the stony ground, his limbs completely numb. He didn’t think he could move them to save himself. He was paralysed – but he was alive.

Movement gradually returned as the Elders came and went. He was never alone; Kekropius stayed with him, a comforting presence sending reassurances that he would recover. The minutes crawled past, and then suddenly he could twitch his toes and fingers. He wept with relief.

After that, full recovery came swiftly and within ten minutes he was sitting up. Soon after he was able to keep down the water they brought him, washing the milky taste in his mouth away with utter relief. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, but …
yuck!

‘So, Alaron,’ Kekropius said, a faint smile on his face. ‘You have traumatised my mate, but her milk contains an antidote to her venom. You are also now her son, and therefore mine. Whatever will we do with you?’

Alaron couldn’t even begin to comprehend all of that. ‘Why?’ he croaked.

‘For the word you spoke as you fell.
Hebusalim
. The Promised Land.’

His mouth fell open, but he couldn’t think of anything to actually say.

Kekropius smiled with all the warmth his reptilian face could muster, and Alaron recognised what passed for hysterical mirth amongst the lamiae in his almost impassive face. ‘Kessa has some divination. She saw you leading us to the promised land:
Hebusalim
. When you spoke that word as you fell, we Elders realised immediately that her foresight might be true.’ He paused. ‘Well, in truth, Mesuda recognised this and changed her vote. As Eldest, she has the casting vote. Reku and Hypollo still wish to eat you.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m sure Reku would be delicious in a casserole too,’ Alaron growled.

Kekropius hissed with laughter again as Alaron gingerly rubbed his neck. He could feel scabs, but the healing was well advanced. It still felt like there was one Hel of a bruise. ‘So, you’re all constructs, reptiles fused with humans, and you have some gnosis.’ He met Kekropius’ eyes. ‘You know what I’m saying?’

The lamia Elder nodded. ‘We have no training, but the gnosis fuels all we do. It even sustains our lives: without it we would die.’

‘How did they give you the gnosis? That’s impossible, surely—’

‘None of us know. It is just how we are.’

Alaron rolled his eyes. ‘Great Kore! You know, I studied Animagery at the Arcanum. They even taught us how to fuse a mouse and a bird in my final year. Mine lived about ten minutes before its heart burst. But constructs with human intelligence are illegal … so some renegade Animagus made you, then the Inquisitors found out?’

‘No,’ Kekropius corrected him, ‘we were bred by the empire.’

Alaron’s mouth fell open again. It was a day for shocks, like dying and being reborn. ‘The empire?’

‘There is a secret beastarium in Hollenia,’ Kekropius told him. ‘It was founded to research things the Kore forbade, in case the empire found them useful.’ He flexed his fingers thoughtfully. ‘You are right,
though: we are essentially reptiles. They wanted to breed a race of warriors to serve the empire in warm lands. It was an experiment, grafting human souls into reptile–human hybrids, then infusing us with gnosis, breaking all their own laws.’

Alaron rubbed his eyes, scarcely believing what he was hearing. ‘Whose souls?’ he asked sickly.

‘Slaves,’ Kekropius said softly. ‘From Hebusalim.’

‘
Kore’s Blood! You’re from Hebusalim?
’

‘The first – indeed, the only batch – were my parents’ generation. They are all dead now.’ He cocked his head, looking down at Alaron. ‘How old do you think I am?’

Alaron considered. Kekropius was clearly an adult of his kind, and an elder. If he had Water-gnosis, which gave access to healing and could be used to preserve youth, he could be even older than he looked. And the slave trade had began well before the First Crusade thirty-six years ago. ‘Fifty?’ he guessed.

Kekropius shook his combed head. ‘I am seventeen.’

Alaron stared. ‘No way …’

‘We have a short lifespan. I will die of old age in three to five years.’ Kekropius looked wistful. ‘We have short gestations, and attain full size inside three years. But we live to only twenty-five at most, and we go down fast in our last years.’

Alaron thought about Mesuda and Reku, hunched over and shrivelled up. Right now he didn’t feel terribly sorry for either of them, but Kekropius’ calm acceptance of his fate was different. He’d stuck up for him, and of course, he’d saved his life by killing Seldon. He liked Kekropius, found him strangely good company; it was almost impossible to believe that he was barely three years from dying of old age, let alone that he was younger than Alaron himself.

‘Can’t you do anything about it?’

Kekropius shook his head. ‘Short lives suited the empire’s purpose for us – we had no time to learn anything but obedience.’ He shook his head. ‘We grow swiftly and learn voraciously. Our days then were spent in weapons-drilling and lessons in obedience.’

‘And you escaped?’

Kekropius frowned, and spoke as if reciting from memory, ‘We were being readied for what they called the Holy Crusade – the First Crusade, by your reckoning. My parents’ souls were harvested from slaves and placed within the bodies the magi had made. But they were too few, so they were held back for the Second Crusade in 916. I was born in 911, between the Crusades. Our generation were taught Dhassan by our parents and Rondian by our tutors. We were trained to fight.’

‘Did you?’ Alaron asked breathlessly.

‘Yes, but not for the empire. In 914 one of the magi at the beastarium took pity on us. He informed a faction at court, hoping to have the breeding programme closed and us released. He was naïve; when the emperor realised that our existence could be used to discredit his regime, he moved quickly, intending to have us all killed. Luckily, our patron got wind of the decision and released us into the wild before the Inquisitors came.’

‘How many?’

‘We numbered in the thousands – there were many types, not just we lamiae. But the Inquisitors pursued us relentlessly and now there are fewer than seventy in our group. There may be other enclaves, but we’ve never found any of them.’

‘How did you get here?’ Alaron was having a hard time taking this in; it felt almost like a fairy story.

‘While most of the constructs took to the forests, our group headed for the coast. We’d been following the edge of the land, moving on every few months, until we found these caves. This has been our home for two years now. We had more or less decided to settle here permanently.’

Alaron marvelled that all this could be happening and yet people knew nothing of it: imperial Animagi creating abominations – yet that hardly seemed the word, not for Kekropius, anyway. ‘And the “Promised Land”?’ he asked.

Kekropius looked at him sadly. ‘Alaron, my generation is dying out. The younger generation do not even speak Dhassan; they remember only that the Crusades were to their homeland, a place promised
them by their elders. My father told me that our people are so shortlived that we are like children. We don’t have time to fully mature here’ – he tapped his head – ‘or here.’ He touched his heart. ‘We are fast losing our heritage.’

‘Write it all down,’ Alaron said reflexively.

‘We’ve never learned how.’

Alaron looked up at him. ‘I could teach you.’

Kekropius blinked slowly. Alaron had learnt to recognise this as a sign of intense cogitation. ‘We would be in your debt.’ He cocked his head. ‘Do you truly know the way to Hebusalim? We have travelled this coast for fourteen years. We don’t know our way home.’

Alaron met his eyes, heart pounding. ‘I do know the way, and I can show it to you.’

The lamia’s face betrayed a hopelessness he’d not shown before. ‘We are dying out, Milkson. Our breeding pool is too small, and the world too perilous. Sometimes I wonder if there is any point.’

‘There’s always a reason to go on,’ Alaron replied. ‘I don’t know much, but I know that.’
It’s about the only thing life has taught me.

The Eighteenth Fist gathered in a circle about Commandant Vordan and Adamus Crozier. It was dawn and the venators were hissing impatiently, awaiting the command to take to the air. Wind whipped at their cloaks, a cool dry southern breeze that cleared the cobwebs of sleep.

The tale the ghost of Seldon had told them had been almost unbelievable: some kind of snake–man creature, clearly a construct, had killed him. Vordan had admitted that some years ago there had been a breakout from a secret beastarium; the distorted creations of a renegade mage had escaped. It had been left to the Inquisition to clean up the mess; they had believed all the illegal constructs had been found and slaughtered, but it appeared that was not the case. He would report the find, he said, but tracking down Alaron Mercer remained the priority.

Malevorn nodded to himself.
That was logical, if Mercer really does have the Scytale of Corineus.

Of course, these creatures might well have slain Mercer and taken the Scytale – but if so, surely the remains of Mercer’s body would also have been found. They could only pray these things hadn’t simply lost the Scytale, let it wash into the sea.

They’d been searching the coastline for days, flying fifty miles in either direction, but they’d found nothing. This region was barely inhabited; a few communities lived on the cliff tops, subsisting by combing the tidelands when the waves receded, but that was it. Adamus Crozier turned to Malevorn. They’d been working together late into the night, the bishop using a Mysticism-link to try to scry Alaron via Malevorn’s memories of him. Such things could work, but only at short range, and there had been no tangible results. Being with the bishop alone had been uncomfortable at times – Adamus had made it clear that he wished to know Malevorn carnally, but he had refused. It might be a bad career move, but he was an Andevarion and had his pride. To his surprise, the bishop appeared to respect him more for that refusal.

‘Master Andevarion,’ the Crozier said now, ‘you were not this boy Mercer’s only classmate. Surely there are others we might summon to our aid?’

‘We were a small class, my lord Crozier,’ Malevorn replied. ‘Just seven: Mercer and Sensini, his only friend.’ He cast his mind back. ‘Gron Koll is dead.’
And unmissed
. ‘Francis Dorobon is a strong scryer.’

‘Dorobon?’ Adamus glanced at Vordan. ‘I think not. Anyway, he is in Javon.’

Ah, so you’re off chasing that kingdom of yours, Francis? Good for you.
‘Seth Korion, though I don’t remember him as being proficient.’
At anything.

‘Not a Korion,’ Adamus responded firmly. ‘Who was the seventh?’

Malevorn had almost forgotten him: fat, blathering, pompous … ‘Boron Funt.’
Not a name I thought I’d ever be saying again
.

The Crozier’s eyes lit up. ‘He is one of ours. We recruited him on Gavius’ say-so.’

‘He too is a strong scryer, my lord.’
Or so he pretended
.

Vordan looked at Adamus. ‘Do we know where this Boron Funt was posted?’

Somewhere with a blazing log fire and roast pigs on the spit.

‘Someone will know. I will send for him,’ Adamus said confidently. ‘In the meantime we will continue our search.’ He turned to Vordan. ‘Commandeer a villa and set up base. Mercer will be found, I assure you.’

But Alaron Mercer continued to elude them as the days passed, and their frustration grew.