The Gathering Storm (91 page)

Meriam’s tone was as dry as Zacharias had ever heard it. “So we must hope.”

Beyond the fountain, along the opposite wall, Zacharias saw a slight movement, as much as a hunting beast might make when it eases behind bushes while stalking a bird. Marcus and Meriam, themselves scarcely more than shadows, took their leave and slipped away to their own rooms, but Zacharias remained, knowing it wise to linger until he was sure it was safe to move. Among the Quman, he had learned
to remain still and silent for hours at a time, hoping to escape Bulkezu’s wrath.

Yet in all that time he waited there, he saw no sign of that slip of a shadow. Who else had been listening? A breeze stirred the vines and he caught a hint of their perfume under-laid with that other, dustier scent. It was ungodly silent. He did not even hear dogs barking.

At length his legs grew tired because he was no longer accustomed to standing so still. Keeping to the shadows, he slunk back to the room. The curtain brushed his face as he slipped past, but his bare feet made no sound and no voice rose to challenge him as he lay down to sleep.

In the morning Wolfhere was missing, his pallet empty and his pack removed from the pile of baggage.

“Gone!” Marcus slammed a fist against the wall, then cursed at the pain. But his temper calmed as quickly as it had flared.

“So be it,” he said to Meriam as they made ready to leave for the ruins of Kartiako. “He has revealed himself through his actions.”

She said nothing.

Elene wept.

HE smelled the choking scent of smoldering fires long before his feet told him that they had left the loamy forest path for a grimier track through ash and dust. Charred and splintered debris crackled underfoot. Its acrid chaff coated his lips. In the distance he heard the sound of men cutting wood, echoes upon echoes of the throbbing in his head.

The throbbing swallowed everything. He couldn’t remember how long he had been walking or where he had come from or what he had been doing before being coffled together with the other prisoners.

He wasn’t cold—that was good—but his left foot still hurt. A few days ago the pack mule had trodden on it, and it pained him as he stumbled along grasping the rope that bound him to the prisoner in front of him. Besides the merchant and his two hired guards, there were six prisoners roped together and bound for the quarries—or at least, he had learned to recognize nine voices over the days of their journey, and more than once had felt the prod of the guards’ staves. He would have fallen a hundred times if not for the mercy of the two men roped before and behind him, a Salian criminal named Willehm and a captured brigand who called himself “Walker.”

“Careful, Silent,” sang out Will, addressing him by the name the rest called him. A good enough name, since he had no memory of a name, only a hazy recollection of hot tears and shouted fury. “There’s a drop right ahead of you. Take a big step and brace yourself.”

From behind the rope pulled taut as Walker leaned back to brace him.

He swung his foot out and felt it fall, and fall, trusting to Will’s directions. The foot struck loose earth, crushed leaves, and the slick remains of charcoal, and he slipped sideways, flailing. The rope snapped tight on either side of him, and he righted himself and dug his toes into the dirt for purchase. There was a reek about this place that tickled his nostrils and made his head spin and his blind eyes ache. His lungs burned each time he took in a breath.

“Get on!” The master’s whip cracked so close that air snapped against his cheek, but he’d taken too many hurts and bruises to flinch.

Walker muttered a curse under his breath as Will tugged on the rope to guide him onward.

“We’re walking through leavings scattered from two old charcoal pits,” said Will, who often described the scenery for him. “They’ve burned down to the ground and been cleared off. There’s a pit—no, two—burning off to the west. I see smoke through the trees.”

“It’s a powerful bad stink,” said Walker. “The air is nigh black with the smoke. Some kind of demons live here, I’ve heard tell. They burn iron out of the earth and smelt it with the blood of humankind.”

“Nay, that’s not so. It’s men I see, cutting wood. What are we for, then, if not to labor in the ironworks?”

“They’ll kill us and pour our blood into molten spears and swords.”

“Work us to death, more like,” objected Will. “Hauling ore. Digging pits.”

“Cutting wood, like them? That’s work that makes a man strong enough to break his bonds and escape.”

“You think they’ll give us axes, to cut our ropes?” Will laughed curtly. “No, we’re for the quarries and the shafts. I do so hate the dark.”

“I hear there’s goblins who live in the ground around here. They eat the flesh of humankind when they can get it. When a prisoner’s too weak to work, the masters lower him down into the deepest shafts and leave him for the goblins, and they pile silver and lead in buckets in exchange. They do love human flesh! They’ll eat a man, bones and all! While he’s still alive!”

“Where do you hear these tales?” demanded Will. “I don’t believe you.”

“You’re a fool not to believe me. Haven’t you seen those demons shadowing us? They look like great black dogs, a pair of them, but they have red eyes and fangs, and they feast on dead flesh! I saw the guards shoot arrows at them one evening. Haven’t you heard them barking at night?”

“Many a starving dog roams the woods. Those who don’t know the woodlands may see any kind of creature in its shadows, but that doesn’t mean they’re really there.”

“Believe what you will. I’ve lived five winters in the forests. I’ve seen dark shades prowling. I’ve seen elfshot shivering in the wind. I’ve fought off wolves. I’ve kissed forest nymphs, but their breath stank of rotting waterweed. If you’d seen what I’d seen, you’d not doubt.”

“The wolves I believe,” said Will. “My aunt’s cousin’s son got et by wolves. Torn to pieces, and him walking home from mass, he was, at Dearc.”

“Wintertide,” agreed Walker. “That’s when wolves’re hungriest. They’ll eat anything. They like fat babies best, though.”

“Hush, you chattering crows!” snarled the man roped in
back of Walker. He had a hard, nasty voice, one that stung when its sound hit you, and a particularly bad smell to him, all rotting sweet.

“Hush,” murmured Will, for the others were scared of that voice; their own voices betrayed them when they whispered among themselves at night or responded to the man’s retorts or gibes.

To understand the world around him, he had to listen. He had heard their whispered confessions; they often spoke around him as if he weren’t there. Will had stolen bread from a biscop’s table for his crippled parents; Walker had been caught with a band of starving brigands stealing a lady’s milk cow; the rest were no better, and no worse—many were hungry and the last two harvests had failed. But the one they called Robert never confessed his crime to the other prisoners, and it seemed likely to them that he was a foul murderer.

Nearby, axes cut into wood, a man shouted a warning, and a tree splintered, groaned, and fell with a resounding crash that shuddered along the ground, vibrating up through the soles of his feet. The breeze turned, taking the worst of the scorched smell with it. No birds sang.

Fear crept along his shoulders. In some other place the birds had fled, too. All gone. A horrible pain filled his belly as he wept, remembering only that his hands had been slick with blood. Where had he been? What was he doing?

Who am I?

Flashes of memory sparked.

Ships slide noiselessly onto the strand, a shining sand beach touched by the light of the morning sun rising over low hills. Because they come from the west, the ships lie somewhat in shadow—or perhaps that is only a miasma of death and destruction that hovers over them. What pours forth from them cannot be called human, yet neither are these creatures beasts. They are fashioned much like humankind, with their strange, sharp faces and the shape of their limbs and torsos, but under the sun’s light their skin gleams as if scaled with metal—bronze, or copper, or iron—and the body of each one bears a pattern of white scars or of garish yellow, white, or red paint formed into bright sigils. Fearsome dogs yammer beside them, leaping into the fray, biting and tearing. The defenders
of this quiet estate fight fiercely and with great courage, led by a handsome young lord carrying shield and sword, but the invaders outnumber them.

It is only a matter of time.

The lord’s hall catches on fire, flame racing’ along the thatched roof.

“Hey, there! Hey! You can stop now, Silent. We’re here.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it, how sometimes he seems to be hearing us, and other times it’s as if he’s gone right out of his head. Maybe he’s one of them whose soul got eaten by wights, just sucked clean out of him.”

“I pity him, poor man.”

“Well, friend, I pity us, for look and see what manner of a pit we’ve come to. A great gaping hole in the earth. Look at those pools of filthy water! Gah, it stinks! I don’t mean to spend the rest of my life here, I tell you that.”

“Hush, Walker. We’ll speak of that later when none can overhear. Here, now, Silent, sit you down. The master is talking with the foreman. God help us, this is a sour and ugly place.”

A hand pressured him downward, and he sat, numb, bewildered. Only when he dreamed could he see, and then he suffered visions of such a fearful host that it was almost a relief when darkness ate those dreams, as it always did.

Wind played across his face. Around him, the other prisoners murmured nervously. The dust of stones clotted the air, and everywhere around rang the sound of picks and shovels and the scrape of wheels along rock.

“There goes the master,” said Walker. “Bound for home, a soft bed, good ale, and the next lot of sorry men like us. He must be glad to be free of this hellhole.”

“I hate you,” said Robert.

All the prisoners shifted as the words chafed them. He could feel the placement of their bodies, three to his left and five clustered to his right, with as much space as any of them could manage between them and Robert.

“I don’t think he’s talking to you,” whispered Will.

“The wights sucked out his soul, too,” murmured Walker.

“I hate you. No. No, you’ll look! Look at the blood! Is that her bonny face?”

The anger and despair in that voice poisoned the air as surely as did the dust and the drifting ash and the stink of distant forges.

He reached, groping, and found a hairy arm, well muscled, that belonged to Robert, but a hand slapped his away, and that voice cursed him while weeping, tears and fury together. He withdrew his hand, now wet with the other man’s tears.

“Up! Up! You don’t get food for sitting on your backsides! Listen here, you men. My name is Foucher, and I’m foreman of these workings. You’ll be hauling stone from the quarry. Work hard, and you’ll get fed and in two years’ time your freedom.”

“Two years.”

Will’s breath chased along his skin, carrying the murmured words.

“I’ll not wait that long,” whispered Walker.

Willehm and Walker sat so close on either side that he felt protected, enclosed.

“Which is the blind mute? And the madman? Those two? Take them to the wheels.”

His comrades muttered oaths as footfalls approached.

“How can a blind man turn a wheel?” asked Will boldly.

“He’ll be helpless if the mad one attacks him,” protested Walker.

“Move off, you two! What’s it to you, anyway? Who better than a blind man to walk the treadmill, eh? It’s all the same to him!” Foucher snickered. “And we can’t trust the madman with any tools, so he’ll walk, too. Else he’ll earn his keep by being thrown down into the deep shafts! As will the rest of you, any what cause me trouble!”

They muttered but moved aside. A hand pinched his elbow, dragging him up, while the ropes binding him twisted and pinched his skin as they were untied, then fell loose. The others remained silent as he was led roughly away. Each step jarred up his spine to rattle his head. Pain cut so hard up behind his eyes, beside his swollen ear, that he stumbled and tripped, hitting his knees against shards of sharp rock. Agony swallowed him. All the noises faded in a blur of sound like waves crashing over rocks.

Water surges through a narrow channel cut into the rock,
then hisses along the hidden strand, a crescent shoreline composed of little more than rock and pebbles that will soon be covered by the rising storm. Here, among the isles that make up the Cackling Skerries, he and his retinue wait in a place between sea and land where neither he nor his allies hold the advantage. A pale back cuts the foaming waters, followed by a second. Rain spatters over the beach and drums against the rock columns that make up the chief portion of this islet, bones that cannot be worn down even by the endless tidal wash of the sea. Now and again through the misting rain he sees Cracknose Rock, the fist from which he launched his invasion of Alba.

Clouds and rain hide the coast, but he does not need to see what now belongs to him.

“There! Do you see that?”

“What is it, Lord Erling?”

“There!” cries young Erling, who takes a step back and at once realizes that he has thereby betrayed fear in front of the others, each one of whom is ready to notice any weakness displayed by his compatriots.

But the others, even his own kind, recoil as well. He alone does not fear what emerges from the sea.

Four of them drag themselves out of the water until only their tails remain in the surf. Waves sigh up to engulf them, then retreat with a murmur down through the rocks. Those flat red eyes betray no obvious gleam of intelligence, but this very strangeness is deceiving. They grin to display sharp teeth. Their hair twitches and churns, alive in its own way, because each thick strand boasts a snapping mouth that seeks air, or prey, or water, or some trace of his thoughts—who can tell?

The largest heaves itself up all the way onto the shore. Its huge tail makes it clumsy but nevertheless none of the land-bound venture close. The claws and teeth of the merfolk can shred a man’s flesh to rags in moments; not even the skin of the RockChildren is proof against their claws.