Authors: Tom Lloyd
‘He just happens to have a Priest-Sergeant of the Ascendant God, Lord Executioner, within his household retinue?’ Sorote asked. ‘I had not realised Vanden was quite so military minded.’
Breven could only bow again at that, clearly unable to either refute or confirm Sorote’s words without telling an outright lie. Sorote was quiet a while, bottom lip caught in his teeth as he looked from Breven to Kine.
‘Very well, proceed, Kashte,’ he said eventually.
‘What?’ Narin and Kesh almost shouted in the same breath, Kesh quickest to continue as Sorote’s expression hardened. ‘That’s outrageous, my Lord! She’s servant caste now, floggings are reserved for the army or ship discipline – even then I’ve not seen one of those used on anyone but a pirate!’
‘Your concern is noted,
Mistress
,’ Sorote snapped, ‘and now you will hold your tongue.’
‘I will bloody—’
‘Kesh,’ Kine broke in. ‘Enough.’
‘What?’ she demanded, rounding on the woman as Kine began to slip her left arm from the plain dress she wore.
‘I will not argue, the decision is Prince Sorote’s.’
‘Kine, that thing will strip the flesh from your damn back! It’s a brutal weapon, I’ve seen the mess it makes.’
‘Then we should be quick about it. I do not wish to dwell on the image. Prince Kashte, if you would?’
The elegant nobleman had lost his smile, but he didn’t hesitate from taking the scourge from Breven. With his sleeves pushed up, Kashte revealed muscular arms that would be able to put a great amount of force into the single prescribed blow. Despite his usual warlike bearing the man held it reluctantly, well aware of the damage he could do with it.
‘Kine, you don’t need to do this.’ Narin insisted, catching her arm. ‘The bullwhip is more than enough to satisfy Vanden’s anger. Breven, I can see you’re unhappy with this too. Would you really report it back if we used the bullwhip?’
The man looked miserable at the prospect, but Kine shook herself free before he could answer. ‘This is how it must be, Narin.’
‘What if Kine was to take a strike of the bullwhip, enough to mark her as agreed, and I take the scourge? There would be blood enough to carry back to your master.’
‘Narin,’ Kine said firmly, ‘I was born warrior caste, whatever it now says on my shoulder. I have not fought in battle, but that does not mean I do not understand duty.’
‘This isn’t duty, it’s childish spite!’ he yelled, bewildered that only Kesh had spoken against it.
‘This is my path and I will walk it,’ Kine said. ‘I have promised as much.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The night Dov was born,’ she said, ‘when Myken carried me out of the palazzo. Before she reached me, the doctors were about to kill me. I prayed in that moment, to the God-Empress and Lady Chance, for the life of my child. They granted just that and this is their price.’
‘This isn’t their price, that’s madness. This is the price of a mortal man enraged at the direction his life has taken!’
‘Narin – think of every picture you have seen of Lady Chance,’ Kine continued calmly. ‘What does she carry?’
‘Carry? She ah, oh, you cannot mean that!’ he protested. ‘That proves nothing, it’s mere coincidence!’
‘A flail of six chains, tipped with blessings and curses,’ Kine said. ‘I feel the will of the Ascendant Goddess in this and so I agree. It is my flesh to offer and I will gladly use every scrap of it to shelter my child.’ She lifted her head slightly and adopted a more aristocratic poise. ‘Steward Breven, this will be an end of it, make sure of that. I have jewellery gifted to me by Lord Vanden still, several valuable pieces I do not intend to sell. Instead I will hide them away, so he should be aware I will always have the means for retribution, should he decide blood off my back is not enough.’
‘I shall keep that in mind,’ Breven said hoarsely, ‘should my Lord need reminding it is beneath him to pay any further attention to the life of a servant caste.’
‘May he always profit from your advice,’ Kine said with a bow of the head. ‘Now, my Lord Sun?’
Narin was left flabbergasted as Kine turned to face the far wall and slipped her underclothes down to her waist so the perfectly smooth skin of her back was exposed. Kashte stepped forward and gave the scourge an experimental twitch while the others withdrew from the vicious weapon’s reach.
‘You’re ready, Madam?’ Kashte asked.
‘Your teeth,’ Kesh called and Kine nodded, gathering up the sleeve of her dress and slipping it into her mouth to bite down on. That done she lowered her head and tucked her elbows in.
Kashte grunted and cast a baleful look at Steward Breven before returning to Kine. He wasted no time, drawing the scourge behind him and lashing out to whip the metal barbs down her back with a crisp wet crack.
Despite the bit in her mouth, Kine’s scream echoed through the room and a thin spatter of blood darted away from her to dot the great glass chair nearby. Narin flinched as it struck and then ran to Kine with Kesh alongside, the young woman already reaching forward with a clean strip of white linen.
As it touched her, Kine shuddered and shrank away, two then three and four near-parallel lines of blood blossoming on the cloth. Her cry faded to an agonised whimper and she slumped a little, Narin slipping an arm under her shoulder as best he could with Dov back in the sling across his chest. Eventually she lifted her head and somehow managed to draw her shift and dress back up so she was covered again. With Kesh’s careful assistance she stood and turned to face the men behind her, looking from Breven to Sorote with teeth gritted.
‘Let that satisfy wounded pride,’ she whispered. ‘We are done here.’
Enchei lifted his fingers gently off the wire and paused. Nothing happened – no bright flash, no fiery death. A relieved smile appeared on his face.
‘Finished yet, old man?’ hissed a voice in his ear, making him jump.
‘Breath of Winter!’ Enchei exclaimed, hurriedly pulling his fingers away from the wire. ‘Don’t do that, Enay!’
‘You’ve got twitchy in your old age,’ she chuckled, easing back and dropping down to the ground. ‘Maybe you should stay in with the baby, leave the younger generation to deal with anything that comes in the night?’
Enchei turned as best he could without falling off the ledge he perched on. He looked his daughter up and down, struck by the transformation she had undergone that morning. Even the grey cloak she wore was now one embroidered with purple and lilac. Underneath that was a dark green quilted arming jacket, cinched by a sword belt at the waist then flared like a skirt to the top of her knee-length boots. On her belt hung a plain pair of short rapiers in the House Ghost fashion while a pistol sheath sat proud across her belly in the usual Imperial way.
Everything was expensively tailored and Enay looked every inch a wealthy warrior caste – right down to the four golden constellation brooches to the Ladies Archer and Chance, Lords Knight and Shield.
Enchei gave a nod of approval. ‘Just remember your manners when you’re dressed like that. We don’t need either of you picking fights.’
She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Thank you, but we don’t really need advice on something we’ve done a dozen times before.’
‘Aye fair enough, I’ll shut my mouth then.’ He paused and doffed a pretend cap at her. ‘Siresse.’
‘Damn right you will, bloody low born,’ she snapped, accent taking a sharper tone to suit her new mode of dress. ‘Maiss is inside, dropping off the rest of our purchases.’
Enchei grunted and eased himself down to the ground. They were in one of the small communal courtyards that backed on to the rented house. The feeble sun didn’t seem to have reached these parts and Enchei’s fingers were chilled as he finished the last of his traps.
‘Give me a hand with this?’
He pointed to a length of copper-threaded twine coiled neatly on a patch of trodden-down snow. Handing one end to Enay he carried the other to a nearby wall and used a makeshift ladder to reach the hanging eaves.
‘What is it?’ she asked as Enchei fixed one end to a gutter. ‘A nightingale line? It’s like no soul trap I’ve ever seen.’
‘This old dog’s still got a few tricks,’ he said, adding, ‘Keep your end high!’ as Enay let the twine sag towards the ground again. ‘Not spent much time on the south continent then? That script’s Salamander.’
‘I know that much,’ she muttered, inspecting the short wooden tabs strung along the twine, ‘but that doesn’t mean I know what this is supposed to do.’
‘It’s a warding line. Will only keep out minor spirits like Irato’s fox-demons, but it’ll trip a hellhound coming this way. Not enough to banish it, just make it stumble a moment.’
‘And that’s useful?’
Enchei grinned and produced a metal box from one pocket. Battered and pitted with age, there was still a slight shine to it and enough to highlight the raised circular plug in its centre. ‘Means there’s a good chance they’ll pull it down to get rid of the annoyance.’
‘And pull that from the box,’ Enay said in realisation. ‘Some sort of Starflare, right?’
‘Pretty much. Tucked up inside some person or not, any shadow hound standing here is going to be hammered into the next Ascendancy.’
He fixed the box to the opposite wall while Enay carefully let the twine play out so they could string it across the courtyard well above head height.
‘The locals won’t mess with it?’
Enchei shrugged and looked around at the empty courtyard. ‘Doubt it, even the kids round here are keeping their heads down. What happened on the bridge has spooked ’em and, after the summer, they’ll stay cautious. This Starflare won’t hurt anyone, just leave ’em dazzled for an hour or so. Anyone messes with the windows it’s a different story, but that’s tough shit for any thieving bastard who tries their hand.’
Heading through several arched walkways, the pair went inside the little rented house to discover Maiss sorting through the contents of a long canvas bag in the kitchen. She was dressed similarly to her sister; warrior-caste clothes in the House Ghost style, her hair plaited tightly and fixed with a half-dozen silver clasps.
‘So what do we have?’
Maiss gave him a sharp look, but after a moment it softened and he realised there was no malice in it, just a lifetime of trusting no one but her sister. She removed a small pistol-bow with ornate gold scrollwork from the bag and placed it on the table.
‘A small sting, to keep Kine reassured. We’d have got her a proper Lady’s Companion, but what with this being a Dragon-controlled city the only one for sale was an ornate piece the gunsmith had on display.’
‘And it was too expensive, just on the hope she’d still be willing to use it,’ Enay added. ‘Especially now she’s newly low caste.’
‘Suspect you’re right there, yes. What else?’
‘Apart from our guns and new clothes? A musket and some mercenary kit for Myken, an Imperial-style longsword for Narin. We even found a veil for Myken like the sort indebted soldiers from House Greenscale wear. In the dark she’ll pass well enough for a Greenscale now her hair’s cut.’
‘Good.’ He hesitated a moment then pointed back towards the front room. ‘There’s also a sack in there, just in case we need it.’
‘If we need a sack, we’ve got problems.’
‘Inside the sack,’ Enchei continued with a level look, ‘is something I picked up a while back.
Do not
use it unless we’re in trouble, understand me?’
‘What is it?’ Enay asked, doubling back to go and investigate.
‘Careful,’ he called after her. ‘You don’t want to mess with it. I’ve rigged things so it’s safe to fire, but don’t touch it any more than you have to.’
‘Stars in heaven,’ she exclaimed from the other room, ‘is that a Stone Dragon’s lance?’
‘Aye, so if you use it, folk might notice. Obviously still being alive is more important, but don’t burn holes in the walls just because you can’t be bothered to reload your pistol. Damn thing is heavy. Irato would be able to use it, but not Narin or Kesh, and I’d prefer one of you had it before him. I don’t know if he’ll have any of those fox-demons in his head by this evening but either way …’
‘So now what?’ Enay asked as Enchei tailed off.
‘Now? We wait. I’m sure as dammit I didn’t pick up any sort of trail today, but Narin’s coming back from the Imperial Palace and it’s hard to say if they’re going to be followed. Irato’ll be watching our web of spirit traps so we should get some sort of warning, but I’m not making any assumptions. Either they come after us or, frankly, we sit here while shit happens to someone else and we find out about it in the morning. After that trap on the bridge I don’t know what’s being planned next. It’s their move and we just need to be ready to deal with it.’
Voro, Second-Major of the Firewind Exalted and last survivor of his unit, flexed his fingers and winced. Two failed to move, not broken but encased in armour that was now rigid. The slate grey carapace covered his entire body, now scored and gouged in parts, flame-scorched all down one side. The prayers carved into it were dark, but unevenly so. Some were black, others shades of grey that verged on white. Voro could not command them all and his armour served him only fitfully now. A glow arose from his arm as he tested it out, an invocation of Lord Lawbringer, and reassured him he had some weapons remaining to him.
The corridor was cold and dark; his only light the last scraps of dusk’s glow from under a bowl of grey cloud outside. Ahead of him was a wide terrace with plants in fat terracotta pots down both sides – a space reserved for the high caste ladies of Lord Mereto Dragon’s great household. In deference to winter it was unlit with no benches or tables out, just a broad space that looked on to the Tier Bridge, where Voro’s fellow Astaren had been slaughtered.
Even a warrior caste would not venture out on to that particular terrace, but Astaren were beyond caste, whatever deference they chose to offer. Voro headed out through the open archway and felt the starlight of the Gods settle on his second skin like gentle pinpricks. There was a strip of clear sky above the horizon and through it shone two Ascendants – Lord Shield leading the Order of Knight across the sky with Lady Pity in close attendance. The only Dragon in the sky, their Brother-under-Knight, was hidden by a band of cloud so neatly it seemed deliberate.
They will come for us,
Voro said to himself, a mantra he had repeated a dozen times that day.
They will come for us. I must be ready.
It had felt like an age, the course of that day. A Firewind was no lover of winter, no friend of the pervasive cold that gripped this city. For hours he had lain in the shallows of the Crescent, as still as driftwood, while the cold bodies of hunting demons drifted by. Senses scrambled by the explosions, he was unsure how long he’d called to his comrades – searching for them through the ice-bound night by every arcane manner he knew – only to finally accept the numbing realisation they were all dead.
Somehow he had been saved. Just a fraction further from the nearest building that exploded, chunks of stone had flown just past his eyes. Voro had been bodily hurled from the bridge, afforded only a single glimpse of the horror through the struts he’d somehow been hurled between while his sister-in-flame was cruelly broken around another.
Despite his burning armour, the fall to the water had nearly killed him. Voro felt his body tense and curl at the memory of striking the surface and being dragged down. The stiffening pain in his knee intensified as he remembered, the piercing sting in his ribs a remorseless reminder. Voro closed his eyes, falling back on the rituals of his training a decade past.
He pictured a flickering candle, his blade-like hands cupped about the flame. The warmth grew, intensified into pain, but a Firewind could not fear such pain. The fire was part of their very being, the heat and light echoed by the spark in their soul. It settled over his skin, searing hot but not burning – becoming part of him, drawn deep inside.
Fire and pain
he repeated, taking long slow breaths,
they are one, we are one.
He stayed motionless for a long while and when he started off again, the pain was dimmed. Still present, still insistent, but no hindrance to his movements – no distraction to the languid, deceptive grace the big Dragon could bring to bear if they attacked again. Voro pulled his grey spear from its sheath on his back and went to the terrace edge to look over.
Lord Mereto’s fortress was a solid, unforgiving building that had never before been assaulted, but something told Voro that was about to change. The Astaren of House Dragon were used to being the aggressors, the hammer-blow that stopped a brawl from spreading into a battle. That they had been attacked was unlikely enough; that they had been nearly wiped out was astonishing.
Such a thing does not happen by chance,
he reminded himself, scanning the shadowy streets below. The packed snow and ice gathered every sliver of starlight and illuminated the streets for him, but picking out the details of the dark shapes below required a brief mantra spoken in the quiet of his enclosed helmet.
Not by chance,
he repeated,
and given that this has been planned, they will be ready to press their victory.
Behind him rose a needle-sharp tower, one of two that burst abruptly from the blockish fortress. Two dozen more studded the perimeter of the central keep and the square barbicans that flanked it – almost decorative by comparison, large enough only for a pair of gunners to stand and shoot over the perimeter wall. Embedded into the walls of those towers were long sweeps of glass that faintly shone green and blue, a modest trick of the Astaren the locals marvelled at – ignorant of the wardings that were their true purpose.
That nearer tower was Voro’s domain alone now, until his call for reinforcements was answered. There, secure from the rest of the fortress, they kept an array of whispernets and hawkeyes to spy on the city, while steel panels hid armour and weapons enough to decimate an army.
But not enough to defeat these Gealann mercenaries,
he reminded himself bitterly.
If they are truly mercenaries. Have House Ghost lied to us, or were they unwitting tools to dupe us? I heard no Eagle voices there and our whispernets have snared nothing of the kind in weeks, but who else would be so determined to destroy an Astaren force? Could they really be so crazed to set that trap merely to buy themselves time?
Below him there were running footsteps in the street beyond the wall, but it was only a detachment of soldiers moving in an ordered block. For a moment he was almost persuaded that he had been mistaken and dusk would not herald any further bloodshed. Then he heard a distant howl roll across the city.
Voro kept very still, letting the sound fade as he tried to unpick the demon sounds in his mind, a second howl coming from the south of the district a few heartbeats later. The howls were subtly different to Astaren ears, one building on the other like a rising tide. A third confirmed his suspicion and in the next moment his exoskeleton began to glow. Prayers to the Gods shone out over the terrace, traced in light over the smooth stone floor, and then an arc of flame erupted from his arm to spiral down the length of his short grey spear.
In response, a growl echoed across the terrace behind him. Voro restrained the urge to dodge to one side and turned towards the sound. Spear-tip levelled he surged forward, only to find nothing waiting. The terrace remained empty, the only movement the twitching end of a canopy imperfectly secured away.
Again there came a growl, this time from Voro’s left – a stretch of ground he knew to be empty. The ball of loss in his stomach lessened a shade and the ache of his injuries faded as an unseen grin stole across his face. The stern, stylised expression on his face-plate betrayed none of that, but when he spoke the words carried unimpeded over the terrace.