Wrath of Kerberos (2 page)

“You know,” he said. “It would save us all a lot of time if you just spilled my blood right here. You could say I resisted arrest. It would be so much easier, in the long run.”

“I don’t think so,” the commander said. “Brother Sequilious was quite adamant that he wanted you all taken alive.”

A hood was thrown over Stanwick’s head and he was hustled from the room. He fell twice on the steps up to the surface – once so badly that he sprained his ankle – and by the time he was bundled through a narrow door and onto a bench, his leg was singing with pain. He bit back tears, not wanting the Swords to witness his grief, but he couldn’t stop a sob escaping his lips.

“Stanwick? Stanwick Tassiter?” a voice said, close by. A hand fumbled into his. “Yes, it’s Stanwick, all right. I’d recognise those soft academic’s hands anywhere.”

It was Alex, the blind weaver who lived not far from Stanwick.

“Alex, what are you doing here?”

He knew full well that the weaver regularly paid his dues at the local church. He couldn’t begin to imagine how the old man had come to the attention of the Swords.

“It sounds like the whole of Westbay is being rounded up.” Alex said.

The room lurched and there was the sound of wheels rumbling over cobbles. Stanwick realised then that he was surrounded by people whimpering and praying. He recognised many of the voices amongst the multitude, all people he knew would never consider defying the Final Faith. Why had Makennon ordered this mass abduction?

The carriage travelled for about ten minutes before coming to a halt. Stanwick could now hear the sound of waves pounding against rocks and, just below that, voices raised in song.

The door of the carriage was opened and Stanwick was herded out, along with the rest of the villagers. Alex still held his hand, until it was batted away by the flat of a blade. Chains were looped around Stanwick’s wrists and ankles.

With a shouted command and a sharp tug on the chains, a slow shuffle began up a steep and uneven path. An icy wind blasted against Stanwick’s left side and he sensed a sheer drop just a short distance from the path. Men and women of the Order of the Swords of Dawn ushered their captives on and Stanwick was appalled to hear the voice of Westbay’s own priest amongst them. Despite his misguided beliefs, he had never struck Stanwick as a particularly cruel or duplicitous man.

“Henry,” he called out, “please tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry, Stanwick. Really I am.”

The singing was louder now and Stanwick was taken aback when he realised that the words were elvish. Why were the Final Faith using a song of that ancient race? More importantly, what were they using it
for
?

They seemed to be entering a vast echoing chamber now and he could taste magic in the air – burned cinnamon and wet stone. When his hood was savagely torn from his head and he finally saw the choir, Stanwick gasped.

Twenty-five pale young boys sang with the voices of angels. From the pitch of their song, he supposed that they had been emasculated. Their flesh was heavily scarified and tattooed; the designs seemed to dance to the ethereal cadences, and Stanwick felt a deep nausea as the illustrations held his gaze.

A knife prodding into his side soon snapped him out of his reverie.

“Move along. You’re holding up the line.”

Stanwick looked at the blood beading his trews. He left a trail of red dots as he followed the rest of the captives.

The choir stood on a natural balcony cut into the chamber wall and a slope led past them, down into the main body of the cave. The roof of the cavern was far above their heads and at the far side was a brilliant blue lake, its water slowly undulating to the distant sound of waves. Stanwick looked around him as the hoods were pulled from the prisoners. The frightened faces that greeted his tugged at his heart and the stench of fear – even in this vast space – was stifling. It wasn’t just the men and women of Westbay the Faith had taken; there were children here too, and a makeshift corral had even been constructed to house the village’s modest collection of livestock.

Behind them all, the choir’s song rose in volume as the torches ringing the lake were lit.

A man stood in front of the line of torches. He was tall and thin, even emaciated. His skin was smooth and pale, his head hairless, and as he disrobed, Stanwick saw that the rest of his body was the same. He passed his garments to a young man, who knelt briefly to receive a blessing before hurrying away with his bundle.

The thin man knelt, and a priest – Henry – came forward and placed an unsteady hand on the thin man’s head. Stanwick saw by Henry’s gestures that he was performing the ceremony of absolution. He wondered what sin the stranger had committed, that he sought forgiveness. Maybe, he considered with a start, he was seeking forgiveness for a sin that he was about to commit.

The ritual over, the priest withdrew and, at a gesture from the gaunt, naked man, the choir fell silent. The only sounds now were the whimpering of the prisoners and the lapping of the lake against the shore. A cadre of priests moved through the crowd, flicking pungent oil from silver sprinklers.

Stanwick’s stomach clenched as he recognised the smell.

It took him back to his mother’s deathbed – more than twenty years earlier – and the look of terror in her eyes as a priest had anointed her with the oil to ease her soul’s passage to Kerberos. Stanwick’s mother had never been a believer, but his father was, and it had been he who’d insisted she take the last rites. The ceremony had done little to relieve her terror, though, as her life slipped away and she had stared into oblivion.

Stanwick knew something of his mother’s fear now and he pulled at the chains that bound him, but there was no give in the links.

They were all going to die.

B
ROTHER
S
EQUILIOUS STOOD
staring at the chained villagers gathered before him as he prepared the spell.

“What have we ever done to you?” someone in the crowd shouted. “What has the Faith got against Westbay?”

The fact was that the Final Faith had nothing against Westbay, but this coastal settlement was small enough that the disappearance of its populace could easily be covered up. Bandits would be blamed, or maybe the Chadassa.

Brother Sequilious closed his eyes. Behind him, a last small wave lapped at the lake’s shore before the water became unnaturally still. Sweat began to bead his forehead as he envisioned the wheel of dark energy that he turned with his gestures. The temperature in the cavern dropped and flames erupted from his open palms and raced across his body, although he was not burned. Instead, the fire seemed to tease his flesh. With a stifled groan, he climaxed; where his semen jetted onto the stone floor it hissed and spat.

The cries coming from the prisoners were louder now, but nothing could break Brother Sequilious’s concentration. The words that he spoke had been memorised from a fragment of Chadassa manuscript. He had never before used the magic of the sub-aquatic race and, as the last of the glottal syllables died away, he braced himself for a backlash of arcane energy. Instead, he felt a thrumming of power deep within, and his hands blazed with an intense, pure light. If he held onto this power for too long, it would consume him, and so he unleashed the tide of living fire over the huddled villagers.

They burned so fiercely that they were reduced to little more than bundles of blackened sticks within seconds. Yet still they stood, held aloft by the terrible magic that filled the chamber. The intensity of the passing of so many souls strengthened the spell and Brother Sequilious began to weave the final threads of the enchantment together.

Turning his back on the devastation, the sorcerer stared into the calm waters of the lake, channelling the energy surrounding him into its depths. At the same time, he envisioned the
Llothriall
– the vastly-treasured ship that Katherine Makennon had tasked him to retrieve.

A cool wind blew against his face and he could hear the crash and hiss of rolling surf. At first, just the merest sketch of a ship was visible above the lake, picked out in pale silver lines. If Brother Sequilious squinted, he could just make out the prow, rearing above him as though cresting the swell of a wave. But then it was gone, and, as the wind dropped, the sorcerer desperately clutched for the contact he had briefly made.

There it was again.

The sound of the sea was suddenly, shockingly loud, and Brother Sequilious staggered back as mountainous waves rose up all around him. He mustn’t lose his focus though, else the
Llothriall
would be forever lost. He stood in two locations at once – one below the ground, one above the waves, far from here – and, as the last of the villagers burned out behind him, he tried to bring these worlds together.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

T
HERE WAS NO
escape from the heat. For over a week now, the
Llothriall
had been becalmed, the sea an emerald mirror upon which they sat, seemingly unmoving. As the days grew longer, the temperature began to rise, and the crew escaped below deck, although even here there was no respite. With not a cloud in the sky, water had to be rationed; often, tempers would fray. Several times, Dunsany and Ignacio got into blazing rows, some so intense that Silus had to intervene. Once, when Katya had tried to calm Ignacio herself, the ex-smuggler had turned on her, shortly thereafter finding himself incapacitated and locked in a store room. Four hours confined in the stifling darkness had insured that Ignacio never lashed out again

“Can’t you use your magic or something?” Ignacio asked Kelos one morning, as they lay on the deck, futilely praying for rain. “Can’t you just conjure up a wind to fill our sails and rain to fill our cups?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” the mage said.

I
N THE END
Kelos didn’t have to attempt any such sorcery, as they were struck by the mother of all storms.

No one saw it coming. Once it had passed, two of the sails had to be repaired and the hull had to be patched below the waterline. The only blessing was that the sudden change in weather had finally broken the back of the heat.

I
T DIDN’T LAST.
The temperature climbed again, the cloud cover boiled away and they were caught once more in a swelter upon a still sea.

W
HEN THEY WERE
on the edge of despair, when they were down to their last few cupfuls of water, the storm slinked back in, pacing the ship far to starboard, before rushing in and lifting the
Llothriall
high on the back of an enormous wave.

There had been a time when this would have posed little threat, when the
Llothriall
had been empowered by the magical gemstone at its heart and the song of the ship’s eunuch, Emuel. But the stone had been lost and Emuel no longer had any reason to sing. As they were tossed from wave to wave, all onboard thought that this would be the storm that finally pulled the
Llothriall
apart.

A
SHOUT FROM
above had Silus racing for the stairs leading up to the maindeck, only for the boom to be the first thing that met him; the broken spar swinging round and sweeping him over the side.