Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (36 page)

He reached out to stroke
the beast’s muzzle but Crucio drew his head back and snapped at Loster’s
fingers. Loster swore softly and tried to focus on Crucio. The horse was terrified
of something. He was pawing the floor and his eyes were wide and white. Crucio
whickered and snorted again and then something nearby hissed like a snake.
Loster felt his skin explode into goosebumps. He dropped low into a crouch and
held his breath. Crucio too had fallen silent, though Loster could hear him
moving about restlessly in his pen. The hiss came again, further away this
time.
A cat?
he thought.
No, warhorses don’t fear cats
.

“
Turn back
,” said Barde. “
This
is man’s work and you haven’t the stomach for it.
” Loster clenched his
teeth. The nape of his neck was wet with fear-sweat; he could feel it dripping
down his back.

He stood and his legs
threatened to give way underneath him but he pushed on, whispering one last
assurance in Crucio’s direction. There was a dim light in the hold, courtesy of
the crack between the two great doors in the ceiling. Loster could make out
barrels and wooden boxes, coils of rope and sacks of foodstuff, all packed
neatly in piles as high as two men. There was a wending path through the middle
and it would carry him straight through that curtain of light. Somebody above
shouted as metal rang against metal, and Loster felt a stab of fear in his gut
at the thought of losing. If Beccorban was killed, it would not be too long
before those tall grey knights made their way down here into the shadows. If
that happened then this chase would all be for nothing. It was like being back
under the Widowpeak and he felt like he was going to vomit.

Something heavy fell
across the doors above and the light was cut into two thin columns. Loster
quickly stepped through, sticking to the shadowy patch in the middle. Ahead was
another low doorway. There was no sign of the lantern light ahead. The door in
front of him was a circle of wood with a high lintel that he had to bend almost
double to step over. Once inside, he found himself in a small compartment with
yet another ladder leading down into soupy darkness. “
Down, down, down you go, little Loster
.
Nothing but rats and the black down there.
”

Quickly he climbed below
and gasped as he discovered that the last few rungs were in cold seawater. He
had reached the bilges. There was nothing now between him and the Scoldsee
except a few planks of swollen wood and a layer of pitch. Something fizzed behind
his eyes but he knew he could not go back now. He shivered and his breath tried
to escape him as he stepped down into the water. It reached up to his thighs
and lapped with sharp knives at his genitals. Carefully he waded forward,
trying to be as quiet as possible. He imagined that he was in the lair of some
great spider and any ripple would alert it to his presence. The wood beneath
his feet was slimy with something and he nearly slipped more than once.

Ahead was another
circular door but this one was wreathed in a halo of orange light. Whoever he
had been following, whatever had hissed at him in the darkness of the hold was
behind that door. The hull beneath him began to curve inwards and upwards as he
neared the stern. This was it. A dead end.

“
Nowhere to run
.”

As he approached, he
could see that the door was partly open. A sawing sound was thrumming through
the open gap. Loster placed one hand on the door and eased it fully open. There
was the sailor, bent over one of the huge rudder cables, a rope as thick as a
grown man’s waist. He had read somewhere that the orphans of Kressel twisted
the great ropes from hundreds of individual strands of hemp. Now the sailor was
doing his best to cut through their hard work, hacking and slicing with a
serrated blade.

“
Go on. Say something…
”

“Stop,” he said aloud
and the sailor tensed as if struck. “Why aren’t you on deck?” He knew the
question was absurd in the circumstances but he needed to say something if only
to boost his confidence. In an echoey room in his mind he could hear Barde
laughing.

The sailor stood and his
arms hung loosely by his side. He was powerfully built, like some ape from the
Heatlands. He turned to stare at Loster and his eyes were bright with
lantern-lit madness.

“Back away, Loster,” said
a voice behind him. He twisted his head to see Riella, knife drawn, one hand
still gripping the ladder. Loster stepped backwards and the sailor followed,
mouth open. The sailor hissed again and Loster cried out with fear.

His heel caught on
something and he fell backwards. He crashed down into the icy bilge water and
it poured into his open mouth. He pushed himself up above the surface and spat
it out. Something rushed past him and he blinked to clear his vision.

Riella ran forward,
knife raised, but the sailor blocked her attack with his forearm and rammed the
heel of his hand into her breastbone. She flew backwards and landed with a
splash next to Loster, dropping her blade into the murky liquid. She sat up,
spluttering, but the sailor was on her straight away. He struck her with the
back of his hand and she fell under the water once again.

Loster scrambled
backwards and tried to stand. His hand curled around something hard and cold
and he realised it was Esha, Riella’s knife.

“
Use it! Use it! Use it!
” Barde was screaming.

Loster staggered to his
feet and tried to make out what was going on in the darkness. Riella and the
sailor were no more than two shadows writhing around each other. He could not
be sure which was which but he knew he had to act. There was another splash and
a gasp of someone fighting for air and then one more splash.
He’s drowning her!

He reached out with one
hand and felt coarse cloth and the bunched muscle beneath. He twisted his hand
into the fabric and then drove the blade into the space beneath. There was
another hiss, this time of pain, and a flailing arm smashed into his face. He
spun away to come up hard against the ladder, just as a huge shape plunged into
the water next to him, joined quickly by another, smaller shape.

“Loster?” came
Beccorban’s voice and Loster breathed out with relief. A strong hand gripped
him by the arm and pulled him up. A lantern was shone into his face. He blinked
with the pain and then Callistan swung the lantern out in an arc to reveal the
scene. Riella sat up to her waist in the water, the corpse of the strange,
hissing sailor across her lap. Esha jutted from his back.

Loster sighed and then
dropped to his knees with a splash. He vomited in a hot rush that scorched his
tongue.

“
Pathetic
,” said Barde. “
You
should have let it kill you.
”

The last of the human
prisoners died before nightfall, succumbing to blood loss and shock and
whatever other suffering had been visited upon him. They burned the ship. The
men of the
Lussido
told themselves it
was out of respect but Riella knew that they also felt cleansed by it. She did
too. She hadn’t seen the benches and the chains and the cruel iron spikes, but
she had seen the men — what was left of them — as they were carried
from the bowels of the enemy ship and laid out on the bloodied deck to die.

The burning ship would
act as a beacon, so the Captain ordered them to set sail and then entrusted a
lone bowman to start the blaze from afar. The smoke billowed out to join the
fog which had been steadily thickening since midday. It felt like a cloak that
the Blue God had placed over them to aid their escape. They saw no more sign of
pursuit.

Riella tried to spend as
much time as possible on deck. She couldn’t be confined in her tiny cabin, not
without going mad. She knew she should be looking after Mirril but the girl
seemed happy to irritate Droswain by sleeping on his bed, and he was just
awkward enough around womenfolk to be utterly helpless. Riella’s body was still
bruised and her chest ached with every breath — the legacy of the
traitor’s weight kneeling on her breastbone. No one really seemed to know why
he had tried to cut the rudder. That he was an agent of the enemy was clear but
his motive was not, although Riella suspected Beccorban knew more than he was telling.
Callistan had carried the misguided sailor’s body on to the deck of the enemy
ship, making sure it would be consumed by the funeral flames that took the
others. Nobody had questioned him. It was as though they were ashamed at their
shipmate’s betrayal and would sooner his memory be buried in the Scoldsee.
Since then, the blond horseman had been withdrawn, even more so than usual, and
often disappeared below decks to tend to Crucio. She grimaced. Maybe Beccorban
was right. He did spend an awful lot of time with that horse. She laughed and
then caught herself as Loster eased past with his new entourage.

She rubbed her chest and
nodded politely at him and he flashed her a nervous smile before marching on to
wherever Droswain was taking him. To listen to the priest was to think that
Loster had single-handedly saved them all. True, he had helped her — had
rescued her, in fact — but she felt uncomfortable about the whole thing.
He was still a scared little boy to her, no matter what Beccorban or the priest
said. She sighed. Maybe she was being too harsh.
You should show some gratitude,
said a voice in her head. And how
would she do that? She had only one thing that men wanted and those days were
behind her.

Riella pushed herself up
off the rail and brushed down her leggings. She touched something hard, and
felt within a fold in her tunic. It was the little wooden horse that Callistan
had dropped on the field by the farmhouse. She held it up to the light. It had
been crudely but lovingly carved, the fine details of the tail and eyes
engraved with care and then painted by a fine brush. She turned it over in her
hand. It felt warm, and it made her feel odd. The tips of her fingers burned as
she touched it. This horse was not hers. It belonged to Callistan, the strange
man that had saved her life. One side of its face had been badly damaged, the
paint scraped away and the soft wood rubbed smooth. “You look as beaten up as
your owner,” she whispered to the little wooden horse and immediately felt
foolish. It was a mystery to her why she had kept it so long but she told
herself that there had not been much time to return it to its rightful owner.
Yes, that was it
. She looked around and
tucked the toy back into her pocket. There was nothing for her to do up here.
She went to go and find Callistan.

The smell of horse was
comforting but it was more than that, he knew. Crucio was a bridge between his
two worlds, the familiarity of his past and a companion for his future. The big
warhorse whickered softly as Callistan scratched behind his ears and Callistan
smiled.
Good horse.
He took a swig
from the black bottle he held and winced as the raw liquid burned his throat.
He had not had to steal it this time. One of the men had offered it to him
freely and he had taken it with a nod of thanks. These were good men. They had
fought hard and yet it could have ended so differently. It had been brave of
the boy to tackle the slipskin by himself. Stupid but brave. In a way the boy
reminded him of Runt, young and eager. He had not had time to truly get to know
Runt but he had many opinions on Loster, and he had never considered courage to
be one of the boy’s virtues. At least not until now. Apparently many of the
crew felt the same way. Whereas before the young acolyte was ignored, now he
was patted on the back or smiled at whenever he walked by. He deserved as much.

Callistan felt the need
to consider the slipskin creep back into his mind, so he took another swig from
the bottle, seeking to distract himself with the pointy end of sensation. He
did not want to think about slipskins any more than he had to but the events at
the farmhouse were still an open wound in his mind. There were more of them out
there and he would not suffer any of them to live. They were a threat, more
sinister and deadly than a thousand tall knights. He had to get back to Temple,
to erase the abomination that wore his features, to claim revenge for his
family and the theft of his life. He took another swig.

A flash of memory darted
across his eyes and he saw again the thing masquerading as his son, a small boy
tumbling in the grass. “
Please, Papa! Let
me go,
” said a childish voice and he imagined that he could feel the rain
beating down on him, for his face was wet.

“I’m sorry, I can come
back.”

Callistan spun away from
Riella’s apology and cuffed angrily at his face. He coughed and tried to prop
his voice up with steel. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I
just wondered how you were. We haven’t seen much of you since the battle.”

“I am fine,” he said
more harshly than he meant to. “I just prefer my own company.”

She fell silent but he
could hear the sound of her breathing and it was deafening. “I found this,” she
said at last, holding something up. It was dark in the hold but there was a
lantern nearby and he unhooked it and held it up. She was holding the small
wooden horse that belonged to Farilion, his son. He had thought it lost.

Gently he took it from
her. “Thank you, Riella.” She looked up at him, and the lantern light caught
the planes of her face, the high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes that
promised sensuality and wisdom both. It was as though he was seeing her for the
first time and he realised then that he wanted her. He blinked and suddenly she
was Raiya, her long red hair glinting in the light, and then changing, morphing
into a mass of wormlike tendrils, as pale and milky as exposed cartilage. His
face grew grim and he hung the lantern back on the wall, marching from the hold
without looking back.

“They are called
Echoes
.” Droswain waved a hand vaguely
in the air and then continued. “I suppose that is not their real name —
as we know, an echo is something that has been left behind. It is, however, the
only reference I could find a source for, so I have little idea what else to
call them. They are an elder race who walked this world when mankind was in its
youth, and they are supposed to be long gone. The most recent mention of them
is from a scroll dated during the reign of Overmarch Quenn of Dalvoss. For
those of you who don’t know your history, that’s nearly twelve hundred years
ago, before Veria was even a thought.”

Loster looked down at
his feet. He knew he should say something, say that he had seen the tall
knights before, tell them what he had found in the Widowpeak, but he could not.

“
Hold your tongue, little Loster,
” said Barde.

“What do they want?” he
asked instead. It was hot in the cabin and he could feel the sweat beading down
his back.

“That is an even harder
question to answer.”

Beccorban grunted. “What
does anyone want? Land? Slaves?”

Droswain nodded. “That
would make sense, especially since they captured Loster rather than killed him.
However, I don’t think this is about slaves. Not in the sense we understand.”

“Speak plain, priest.”

“I do, I speak as plain
as I can.” The small man winced as if in pain and then turned as the door
opened behind him. Callistan stepped into the room and stood with his hands
behind his back, leaning against the wooden bulkhead. The horseman caught
Loster’s eye and gave him a wink. Loster tried to manage a smile in return but
knew it would look more like a grimace. He could not help but feel
uncomfortable around Callistan. The man was a predator.

Droswain spread his
hands. “There are stories. Stories that speak of an ancient race. A race of
blood drinkers.” He paused, as if he was waiting to be interrupted. When he was
not, he quickly masked his surprise and went on. “They were servants of the
Black God, practitioners of blood sacrifice. In his last work, Yulethon speaks
of great altars called bloodforges dotted around Daegermund. These were the
centres of their power. With these, somehow, they ruled absolutely.”

Loster felt a heavy thud
deep in his belly. An image flitted into his mind of the great dished block of
stone in the bowels of the Widowpeak. Is that what he and Barde had stumbled
upon? A bloodforge?

“
What did we start, little brother? Was it truly us who unleashed the
Echoes?
” Loster could hear laughter deep in his mind and it made his skull
vibrate.

“What happened to them?”
asked Beccorban.

Droswain shrugged. “They
were overthrown. From what little I have read it seems that men — led by
those we know as the ancient Dalvossi — found a leader and rebelled. They
threw off their chains, seized the bloodforges, and drove their overlords from
Daegermund. The rest is a mystery.”

“And you think the
Echoes are this elder race?” said Beccorban.

“They could be.”
Droswain sighed. “In truth, I have not had time or the resources to investigate
fully, but the stories…the stories speak a truth that none here can deny.”

Beccorban, standing with
his arms folded in the centre of the cabin, grunted. “One spoke to me,” said
the hammerman, “back in the Dantus.”

“Truly?” The priest was
surprised. “He spoke Verian?”

“At first, then
something else, a tongue I couldn’t decipher. He told me that something
terrible was coming, that we had been careless. He called them something like
‘those that have been forgotten.’”

“Echoes,” said Droswain
softly. “It is all happening as I feared. They are afraid of you, Beccorban,
and your spawn. They sent men to kill you. It fits the poem.”

“I have a hard time
believing that a children’s rhyme is a prophecy, priest.”

“But you said yourself
that the tall one… what do you call him?”

“Antler Helm.”

“Yes, Antler Helm. He
pointed at you, Beccorban. He knows as well as I do that there is more truth to
those words than any of us had ever imagined. It is the same with all the songs
we sing to our children, in a manner of speaking. True, some serve no other
purpose than to delight or teach, but others are warnings. We speak the words
as our parents passed them down to us but we do not understand the meaning.”

Nobody spoke and there
was a creak as the door opened again and Riella crept in. She walked across to
stand by Beccorban, refusing to look up at any of them.

Loster cleared his
throat. “I don’t know what you think you’ve read,” the youth looked up at
Droswain, “but I am no hero. I can’t even wield a sword.”

“
That’s it,
”
said that
dark voice in his mind
,
“
lead them away from the scent. They’re getting
too close to us.
”

Beccorban grunted.
“That’s the easy part, lad.”

“Yes, you see? Beccorban
will teach you. What greater teacher in the ways of war than the Helhammer
himself?”

“But my vows…” Loster
began.

“Your vows swear that
you will protect the harmony of the land, Loster. I know, I too have spoken the
words.” The priest suddenly approached him and squatted down so that he could
stare him in the eye. Though they were crammed together in a small space, it
seemed as if they were the only two in the room and Loster suddenly felt very
unwell. “I know you think it is just a rhyme but believe me when I say that
these words have power. They are hacked into a piece of stone older than the
Empire and Veria itself and that means something. It has to, Loster, for
without you we are lost. I don’t know everything about the Echoes but I know
that they are stronger than us and are aided by dark, terrible powers. Some of
us have even gone over to their side, it seems. I have been searching for a
long time and I truly did not know what it was I was looking for but now I have
it. I have found you Loster, and you have already saved everyone aboard this
ship. All I ask is that you trust me.” He stood. “You too, Beccorban. I would
ask your help.”