Shadowgod (35 page)

Your road has been long and hard, Suviel, daughter of my daughters, yet your fight is not yet done, your song is not yet sung.

“I do not understand,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “Who am I?”

You will learn all that eventually, little by little. For now, I have a small task for you to perform. Look.

Opening her eyes she raised her hand in time to see a young, slender woman with long fair hair appear some distance away.

Go over to her. I will tell you what to do and say.

Suviel Hantika sighed and it was a sound as empty as her memory. Then she got to her feet and did the Earthmother's bidding.

A word and a sign,
In the deep, desolate dark,
Where bones and broken banners,
Litter the ancient stones.

—Calabos,
Beneath The Towers
, Act 4, 15

Snow was falling steadily. Outside the city walls the air stank of burnt earth and badly charred flesh. The acidic smell raked at Nerek's nose and throat as she rode out of the Shield Gate with Yarram's one hundred knights. The first thing she saw was a wide section of wall along from the gate where blackened blocks of stones were still smoking despite the barrels of water poured down from the parapet. Nerek had been dozing in her room in the palace when the attacks began, but it took her only moments to get dressed, armed and armoured and hurrying from her chamber. Then she had paused, remembering the note sent last night by Bardow which almost ordered her to be at his chambers by dawn. But she reasoned that this attack would be over before then, and resumed her dash through the palace.

By the time she had reached the city walls, sheets of flame were leaping up as high as the battlements. Although everyone on the wall worked frantically to douse the sorcerous fires, at no time did they seem to be a genuine threat. But when the bands of enemy riders emerged from the chill gloom, and other fires started to break out all along the riverdocks and waterfronts, the intent became clear – terror. Up on the wall Nerek had heard first-hand accounts of how lone figures had come stumbling out of the wintry night then, by the light of battlement torches, ran screaming towards the wall where they burst apart in a hideous eruption of crawling flame. The thought that this had started happening within the city put looks of dread on the faces of the men and women guarding the wall.

When word went round that Yarram was soon to take a cavalry company out to harry the enemy, Nerek descended from the walls and hastened to the Imperial barracks. She had been accorded the status of a knight with the Protectorate Order, which was how she came to be riding forth now into the icy darkness. Yarram's knights were intended as a deterrent to the roving enemy bands reported in the vicinity. Less than a third of them were light cavalry, garbed in padded armour and carrying short bows. Five of them, Nerek noticed, were women who wore their hair short beneath soft grey cowls while the male bowmen wore the more usual leather caps or half-helms. They were all grown women and looked so sombre and unsmiling that Nerek felt an inexplicable kinship with them.

“Never seen them afore?”

A brown-robed rider had edged closer to her, a young fair-haired woman who seemed to be unarmed. She was also vaguely familiar.

“No,” Nerek admitted, then recognition came. “You're the mage who rode with Mazaret's patrols….”

A nod. “Terzis of Ornim,” the woman said.

“Nerek….just Nerek. So – who are they?”

Terzis leaned a little closer and lowered her voice.

“They're all women who have lost children or husbands to either the Mogaun or the Shadowkings' attacks. They're known as the Daughters of the Fathertree – some of them used to be with the Hunters Children until they fell out among themselves, others fought with the Valemen in the northern Rukangs…”

Nerek was about to ask why they were called the Daughters of the Fathertree when Yarram halted the column and split it in two, which left Terzis and herself separated and the Daughters divided. One group would ride up around the northern part of the wall while the other, Nerek's, would patrol the southern part then, assuming no serious encounters, head south down the Grainway in the hope of meeting reinforcements sent from Sejeend a day ago.

As they rode Nerek could see that the majority of the fire blackenings marked the west-facing stretch of the wall which made her wonder if the enemy had hoped to burn out the gates. But it was the strange absence of enemy raiding bands which pricked her unease – they came across recent hoof tracks through the snow and the mud, all churned well as if by the passage of a great many horses. Nerek and her fellow riders seemed to be the only living things moving through the freezing, shadowy dark.

Trying to keep the city walls always in view, the column of knights followed by the light of their torches a drover's track which led round to the east. At one point it climbed a long ridge between two copses and from the crest they could just see over Besh-Darok's wall to catch sight of the fires still burning over at the waterfront. Nerek saw the three bow-women in her column mutter among themselves, then pause when they noticed Nerek's regard. One of the Daughters, a tall, raven-haired woman with pale eyes, stared back with open dislike, spat to the side and rode on in silence with the others. Nerek shrugged and looked away.

The column reached the south-eastern end of the wall without incident. The massive fortification, some forty paces thick at this point, came to the brink of the headland and turned north along the cliffside, its foundations laid solidly in the ancient rock. Strong breezes were blowing from the north, hurling flurries of snow down on the riders so they scarcely paused before turning their mounts southward. Their commander was Yarram' deputy, Chaugor, a burly, bearded no-nonsense Dalbari who let them know that they would head for the shelter of Crownhawks Wood, in case the weather worsened.

Once they left the field and farm trails for the straight and well-made Grainway, their progress became swifter, but even with torch-bearers riding ahead this was seldom more than a canter in the enveloping night. Once or twice, Nerek glimpsed lights far away to the west but these soon disappeared, obscured by the heights and dips of the landscape. Occasionally, the passage of their horses would stir a bird from its perch in bush or tree, but other than that the land seemed cold and dead.

By the time they reached the edge of Crownhawks Wood, it was snowing more steadily. There was also a yellow light visible through the leafless tree and the blur of the snow. Nerek had heard that the Grainway curved through these woods before coming to a gorge beyond which lay the plains and low hills of Eastern Khatris. The light grew larger as they rode and Nerek knew it had to be a fire of some size, as did Chaugor for he slowed the column and ordered his light riders forward to scout. They numbered eleven, six armed with bows, four with spears and shields, and Nerek who readied her buckler but kept her sabre sheathed. As they rode on ahead, the main body of the column followed at a distance, torches doused.

Nerek could not help but feel alarmed at this tactic, which seemed to make the scouting party a tempting target. Then the fire came into view and caught all her attention. A pair of open wagons sat burning on the road with motionless bodies scattered all around them. Further along was a box wagon lying smashed on its side, smouldering and stinking of death. Then suddenly they heard it, the clash of weapons mingled with cries coming from further on, where the road entered the gorge. Their officer, a sergeant who was one of the spearmen, ordered one of the bowmen to ride back to Chaugor with the news while the rest waited by the blazing wagons. But even as the messenger was cantering away, the sergeant changed his mind.

“Let's find out what be happening up there,” he said, and they continued along the road at the trot.

They had gone little more than a score of yards when the sergeant's folly became apparent. The rapid thud of hooves came from their left and Nerek turned to see at least twenty masked riders, some with torches, charging out from a gap in the trees and straight towards them. Two men without masks led them and one of them she recognised immediately as Mazaret, and so pale and gaunt that it could only be one of the rivenshades. The sight of the other man was like a blow, wrenching at the pit of her stomach, almost causing her to drop her reins. It was Byrnak.

For an awful instant their gazes locked, then the dread peril they were in came upon her in a rush as the panicking sergeant roared to follow him. She dug in her heels and her horse leaped forward, along with five of the others. The rest were caught up in a brief, brutal fight which left two spearmen and bow-carriers cut down and slain. Nerek looked round to see that two Daughters of the Fathertree had reined in to a halt not far from the scene of slaughter. Calmly they readied their bows as the enemy riders turned their attention to them.

The sound of fighting from further along the road was louder and Nerek turned her horse about, wary of being caught between two groups of enemies. Then the masked riders began cantering towards the Daughters, all of them shadowy figures limned with the glow of the fires. In the next moment, however, the mass thunder of hooves heralded the arrival of Chaugor and the rest of his knights, galloping hard, their furs and cloaks billowing behind them, their horses exhaling pale gouts of vapour.

Nerek saw all this despite the darkness, for a strange alteration was sweeping across her body, a tingle of power that raced through her from neck to loins, from fingertips to tongue and caressed her ears and eyes. Wellsource power, rich and alluring. She could see that Byrnak and the Mazaret rivenshade had slowed their riders, and that
he
was staring across the night-veiled distance at her, his lips smiling and moving…

Join us, Nerek...there is a special place for you at our master's side...can you feel the power of the Wellsource once more? - such is his regard for you that he has had certain barriers removed...Why not cast off those doomed ones and return to us...return to
us…

The bond faded a little and as the knights came riding on with swords bared, the masked horsemen turned aside and dashed into the woods. A cautious Chaugor resisted the temptation to follow, instead gathering his men together with torchbearers outermost as he waited for the survivors of the scouts to rejoin them. Nerek urged her mount into a trot but her head was spinning with a confusion of thoughts as her very senses continued to quiver in the flow of that power.

It had not been Byrnak, after all, she realised but his pet warlord Azurech, the one that Mazaret had been hunting. Bardow and Atroc had mentioned him…

Suddenly, she realised that the bow-women were riding off the road and into the trees. She called after them but the only response was a contemptuous backward glance. The sergeant was drawing near, as was Chaugor who rode up with a torchbearer and an angry face. Once he heard what had happened, he stabbed a finger at the sergeant, Nerek and one of the spearmen.

“You three – go in there and tell those harridans that I'm ordering them to return to the road immediately. Go!”

Wet undergrowth cracked under their mounts' hooves and dislodged snow made quiet sounds. They were about fifty yards into the trees when shouts and the clash of fighting came from behind. She glanced at the sergeant, then twisted in her saddle to look back at the torchlit road but all she could see was flickering movements. When she turned back the sergeant's horse was there but he was gone. Her newly-enhanced awareness fed her instincts and she ducked in her saddle while swinging to one side…a spear came flying silently out of the darkness, cutting the air where she had been.

There was a thud from the shadows as it struck wood, startling her horse which set off through the trees. She swung her other leg over, then dealt the beast a sharp slap on the withers and dropped off, rolling to a crouch while the horse crashed off through the brittle, snow-laden undergrowth. Her eyes showed her more with the Wellsource now at her beck and call. She could see other hoof tracks leading deeper into the woods, evidence of the two Daughters, and just smell their taint on the air. She could also hear those who hunted her, three in number, creeping carefully but not, to her hearing, soundlessly in the dark. It was the work of a moment to cloak herself in silence before setting out after the Daughters' mounts. Her pursuers, meanwhile, chased hers which was heading northeast, back to the road.

Nerek felt warmer, as if some quiet fire was spreading through her limbs. She almost felt clothed in the power of the Wellsource, such was its ubiquity, but she also sensed its ceaseless eagerness, its unrelenting need to be
used
.

Snow crunched underfoot but made no sound. Black leafless branches rattled together as she pushed by in unbroken silence. Emerging into a clearing on a slope, she saw the signs of a struggle, dark swathes of disturbed snow and a moment later she found several bodies, two horses, one of the enemy mask riders and one of the Daughters. They had been dead a very short time, and the surviving Daughter had left tracks and a definite taint of blood in the air, proof of a wound.

The tracks led up the slope and along to a large tree that hung at an angle over a gully and a frozen stream. With sharp eyes she could see the Daughter sitting at the foot of the tree bole with the stump of a spear jutting from one thigh while both hands held a readied bow as she stared out at the darkness. Nerek decided to circle around to the other side of the tree rather than risk becoming a target.

She was half way round when the darkness shivered and a tall shape lunged at her with a long blade. She spun away from the attack, swinging out her own sword in a savage mid-torso cut...just as an arrow whirred past her head. She heard her assailant grunt, then a light snapping sound. Under her focussed gaze the shadows seemed to dissolve a little and the face of Azurech-as-Byrnak came into view. He was smiling as she backed off several paces, seeking cover from the bow-woman.