The Path of Anger (12 page)

‘There’s a legend that tells of a man who stood alone at the Saltmarsh and set fire to our army.’

‘I am Dun-Cadal Daermon, of the House of Daermon! Remember that name!’ he cried as the shadows threw themselves at him.

Without moving a foot, he parried a blow from the left, then a blow from the right. His breathing became slower, quieter, as cool as the wind caressing the grass. He felt the life all around him, each sprig, each tree, each heart beating in those surrounding him. He blocked the blows aimed at him and struck in his turn, hacking and slashing with his sharp blade, punching with the pommel of his sword. There were always more opponents, still more coming
for him, and in the distance, the shadows of the archers lifting their bows to take aim.

His heart slowed, his vision became clearer and it was as if he were everywhere at once, hearing each of their breaths, feeling the blood run from their wounds. He was ready.

‘It’s no legend, I fought him . . . and I fled before him like the others.’

He knelt and struck the ground with his sword’s hilt, one single blow. And a powerful blast spread from it, like the wave caused by a pebble thrown in a river. His assailants were flung backwards a dozen yards. The arrows turned on their archers, the flames grew larger, the tents swayed, the catapults collapsed on their sides.

‘He caused more damage than the assault on Aëd’s Watch by ten thousand of his men! Him, we feared . . . because he was no mere general . . .’

Over in the grass, soldiers lay moaning. Some of them were only dazed. The general used up his last remaining strength reaching the corral.

‘If there was one hero in the Saltmarsh, just remember his name . . .’

He set off at a gallop, dashing into the night like a phantom, leaving a landscape of devouring flames and limp bodies behind him. When reinforcements reached this section of the camp, the survivors with their livid faces and trembling hands could only utter the name:

‘Dun-Cadal Daermon.’

6

A SON

How ironic:

I was always so good at sowing death.

But I was never able to sow life . . .

‘Words are like knots around a package, you know . . .’

His wrinkled old hands surrounded a tankard filled with wine. His gaze was lost in the blood-red liquid as if he was hoping to drown his memories there, those fleeting but sharp-edged images, those figures he had hated, loved, despised, protected . . .

‘Many things are said, many things told. Words can be a far cry from the truth.’

There was a scraping sound as Viola pulled her chair towards her before sitting down. It had been easy for her to find him again, sitting in the same tavern where they had spoken the night before. After chasing the assassin, Dun-Cadal had given up, shaking all over. Right here he’d found the means of quelling his mental as well as physical pains . . . or at least put them to sleep. He was already working on his second jug of wine. Apart from the young woman and himself, the only other customer was some poor old man seated at a table by the big window, silently laying down cards from a tarot deck.

‘Words dress everything up.’

Slouched forward, he looked up and his features softened when his gaze met the young woman’s placid green eyes. She was so calm, beautiful and sweet, her cheekbones sprinkled with small freckles. Although her pink lips were half-opened, she did not utter a single word. She simply listened, to him, the relic from a glorious bygone era, as useless as a blunt sword.

‘I heard it told,’ he said with an embarrassed laugh, ‘that I fought
no less than three hundred men when I fled from the Saltmarsh.’

He lowered his eyes, pensive, and shook his head.

‘I counted them, you know. I’ve always been able to take a quick count . . .’

His voice was muffled, as if he were no longer addressing anyone but himself.

‘There were fifteen of them. Fifteen boys, barely twenty years old. No combat training. Fifteen boys, two of whom hung back to shoot at me.’

Once again, his gaze met Viola’s serene eyes.

‘And it was as if I had become a legend . . . without winning any battles. Just putting the devil of all fears into them. The story spread from mouth to mouth, village to village. Like a tumble of snow becoming an avalanche. Words dress everything up. A mere trifle becomes a . . . a titanic deed . . .’

He paused and raised the tankard to his mouth. He grimaced as the edge of the drinking vessel caught on his chapped lips.

‘So here is your historic figure, Viola I-don’t-know-who from the Republican city of Emeris . . .’

He emptied the tankard in a single gulp and placed it back on the table with a thump. Everything inside him seemed to be breaking up and his body was so dry he couldn’t even shed tears over his fate.

‘Teach me . . . I’m not ready.’

His thoughts wandered aimlessly through a past that had been torn apart, in pieces . . . and still bloody.

‘A councillor was killed in plain daylight,’ Viola said at last. ‘A man of the Republic was assassinated.’

‘And he won’t be the last,’ Dun-Cadal snarled.

‘The Republican Guards are looking for the assassin.’

‘And they’ll still be hunting for him tomorrow . . .’

Delicately, she placed her hands on the table and blinked as if she were trying to soothe some sort of annoyance.

‘You know who he is, don’t you?’ she surmised.

‘The councillor?’

‘The killer.’

He leaned back in his chair, perplexed. This was something far removed from the concerns of a historian. Had she developed a new-found passion for justice?

‘And if that were the case, what would it change?’

‘There’s a connection somewhere with your personal history, isn’t there?’

Her lips were pinched and there was a gleam of mischief in her eye.

‘And I am a . . . historian,’ she added.

‘What about the rapier?’

‘You’ll give it to me. I can be persuasive,’ she said, leaning forward slightly. ‘But your story interests me too.’

He picked up the jug on the table and filled his tankard with a sigh.

‘And what makes you think I have any desire to tell you my story?

‘Because you’ve already started the telling . . .’

He put the jug back down with a faraway look in his eyes. She was right. Painfully right. Her lavender scent had bewitched him; he felt the urge to confide in her with no thought at all as to the consequences. Mildrel had warned him against it but he didn’t care. Something about Viola made him trust her. Or perhaps he really wanted to confess it all, drain away everything that was weighing him down inside and preventing him from moving on. She looked at her now joined hands with a pensive air and took her time, as if measuring each of her words before uttering it. Dun-Cadal saw her hesitate and was curious. At last she said:

‘People still believe in the
Liaber Dest
. As for me, I’ve never been able to decide if I should believe in it or not. Being a daughter of the Republic and all . . .’ She gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘But ever since I left my village, I’ve met people who referred to the Sacred Book. It always seemed strange to me . . . that they believed in something they had no proof even existed. And it’s still more complicated for me, now that I am a historian. The Order of Fangol does not like the idea that we might re-examine history, which previously they alone had the right to recount. They even said that we wanted to – how did they put it? – oh yes, that we “dared to rewrite history” . . .’

She stifled a nervous giggle. Dun-Cadal listened to her patiently, unsure where she was heading. He watched her search for the right words and felt no pleasure doing it. He simply waited, feeling somewhat dazed.

‘In short . . . all I mean to say is that I really have no opinion about the
Liaber Dest
, or about your beliefs,’ she continued. ‘Even though I know very well that someone like yourself has always kept the old
faith. So if what they say about the
Liaber Dest
is true, if the destiny of men is inscribed there, then everything has already been played out in advance, am I right? So it was written that the great Dun-Cadal would end up here, at death’s door.’

‘You think I’m at death’s door?’ he asked mockingly.

Her glance at his full tankard gave her answer. And then she seemed to abandon her reticence.

‘You have the keys, at least,’ she said simply. ‘All these years, since the fall of the Empire and during your wanderings, haven’t you dreamt of someone like me? Haven’t you ever hoped someone would take an interest in you? In what you did? You were important! If the moment came, when someone was ready to listen to the whole story, would you really let the occasion pass by? Don’t you think it was written that one day General Daermon would tell his true tale?’

He looked away. She had an answer for everything and how could he refute that? For years he had tried to forget what he had been, and what he was becoming. She demanded he lead her to that ancient sword, to the emblem of a fallen empire. Nevertheless, if the rapier was her main goal, she was also interested in the man. He would have denied it if anyone asked, but her interest touched him deeply. No one, except Mildrel, worried about his fate and, worse still, no one in Masalia cared about the ordeals he had endured in the course of his long life.

‘So you want me to tell my tale, hmm?’ he sighed. ‘Where do I start . . . ?’

‘Why not begin with Frog?’

Suddenly it seemed her green eyes were all he could see. The tavern had disappeared, his blood ran hotly in his veins, and his entire body felt like it was enveloped in cotton. Only that shining gaze seemed to keep him afloat, like a lighthouse guiding a lost mariner.

‘Frog . . .’ he agreed slowly.

And he told her.

He told her of meeting the lad in the marshes, of the months spent in the Saltmarsh waiting for his injured leg to heal before their mad escape one starry night. He told of the escape itself without dwelling on details he judged to be of minor import, and narrated how he found Frog waiting for him out on the plain that spread beyond the forest. His memory of events returned as if they had
happened yesterday. He saw the face of his young apprentice again clearly, twisted in pain. It was not a physical kind of suffering, not at all. The lad had killed a man and could not forget his stunned expression, fixed forever by the point of a wooden sword planted in his neck. It had torn into the flesh, allowing a continuing flow of red to spill forth, a steaming and sticky stream. The general had known full well that the image of the blood running from the body, and with it a man’s life, would mark the boy’s mind forever. He used only a few words to retrace their journey to Emeris, passing quickly over their stay in Garmaret where the Imperial Army had taken up position after it had been expelled from the Saltmarsh.

No, only their arrival in Emeris really mattered . . .

‘How big is it?’ asked Frog.

‘How big?’ his mentor laughed.

It had just been a year since they first met. Riding along a track lined with oak trees they looked like two weary travellers, their large black cloaks stained with mud. The young boy’s frail figure had filled out and one could see the makings of a man; the child had been left behind in the Saltmarsh, with the body of a bald captain. Beneath his hood, the gaze was still dark but the features of his face had been subtly reshaped.

Dun-Cadal, too, had changed. The cheeks hollowed by months of hunger in the marshes had recovered their original form. The new beard on his face bore witness to their recently rejoining the road, after a halt during which he had enjoyed the comforts of food, a warm bath, a good shave and a soft bed . . .

Two months had passed since their escape, and a month since their stay in the fort at Garmaret. These past few weeks they had crossed the former Kingdoms and were discovering that the rebellion had spread like gangrene, reaching all four corners of a badly shaken Empire.

They’d taken part in some of the fighting. They’d confronted many dangers . . . but only their arrival in Emeris mattered to them. And during their journey, he and the lad had come to understand one another.

Day after day, Frog made progress. Day after day, he drew a little closer to what he had sworn to become. And, day after day, Dun-Cadal felt a pride he disguised behind a gruff exterior. He gave
no praise or encouragement, limiting himself to a few satisfied nods of the head. The lad displayed no anger over this.

‘Is it twice as big as Aëd’s Watch?’ Frog asked.

Dun-Cadal gave him a wry smile over his shoulder.

‘Three times as big? Ten times?’ the boy suggested in growing wonder.

‘That’s up to you to say when you see it, lad.’

Between the trees, drawn up like an honour guard, the path vanished before them. But, as they advanced, the sinuous track reappeared, descending a wooded hill like a serpent slithering through the oaks. Down below, bordering a cliff from which a misty torrent cascaded, an immense city rose, shining and proud, with high silvery towers overlooking circle upon circle of tall buildings. The radiance of the noon sun sparkled off the summit of the highest tower. Frog’s jaw dropped in silence. Since their escape from the Saltmarsh, he’d had the chance to see cities in the West which were twice as big as Aëd’s Watch, his town of birth being his sole reference point for comparison. But this . . . this exceeded anything he could have imagined. Water from the falls foamed at the feet of the capital and flocks of birds with wide-stretched wings followed the course of the river before they swooped down to its surface. Then they climbed back up into the sky to fly over the great forest which spread for miles until it reached the mountains.

‘Well?’ asked Dun-Cadal in mock surprise. ‘Have you lost your tongue, Frog? Or are you trying to figure out how many Aëd’s Watches it would take to contain that city over there?’

Chuckling to himself, he urged his horse into a trot with a dig of his heels, moving away down the track. When Frog finally tore his eyes from Emeris, the knight was already descending the hill, zigzagging between the trees. As Dun-Cadal expected, the lad was quick to catch up, arriving out of breath.

‘It’s . . . it’s huge,’ he stammered as he approached his master’s side.

‘There’s another word to describe it,’ Dun-Cadal replied.

He was remembering the first time he had crossed the bridge over the torrent. He would never forget the dizziness that overcame him when he had advanced beneath the great gate in the white walls surrounding the city. He had been about the same age as Frog . . . and he had left the Daermon family home in the West behind, never to return.

‘What word is that?’ his pupil immediately asked.

‘Imperial . . .’ murmured Dun-Cadal in a surprisingly grave and respectful tone.

Yes, he could understand what the lad must be feeling, since he’d discovered the city in somewhat similar circumstances. His uncle had sent him to the military academy, fulfilling his nephew’s desire to leave the West. Just like Frog, he had fled a life that did not suit him, that of a minor and unimpressive lord ruling a small feudal holding of no importance, surrounded by people lacking any ambition. The House of Daermon was relatively recent; its history only dated back to his grandfather and its interests depended on maintaining a sort of humility which Dun-Cadal considered to be craven. The less the House of Daermon was spoken of, the less it risked attracting the wrath of the Imperial family. As a child, he had seen his dreams of glory diminished until he could bear it no longer, and when the opportunity finally presented itself to serve the Empire in a worthy manner, he sought his uncle’s consent to send him to the right school. That opened up a glorious road for him that he decided to stride with self-confidence and ostentation, shrugging off the habitual diffidence of the other members of his house. His destiny had started at Emeris, the symbol of success, for it was here the fate of the world was decided . . . It was the head and the heart of an immortal Empire.