Fall of Light (138 page)

A short time later T’riss caught up with her, and swung a bright face to Threadbare. ‘I had no idea they could go so fast!’ she shouted, and then yelped with laughter.

‘Get away from me, you lying witch!’

Surprise flashed in the Azathanai’s face. ‘I never lied, my dear, I but confused. There is a difference, you know!’

‘Why, damn you?’

‘Well, to keep you alive, I suppose. I like you, Threadbare. I like you a lot.’

Abyss below, she’s fallen for me! Stupid woman!

T’riss angled her horse closer, until almost within reach, and said, ‘But I admit to wondering, with not a little trepidation.’

‘What?’ Threadbare snapped.

‘Those Eleint, of course. Worse than vultures, those things.’

What?
‘They weren’t summoned?’

‘Summoned? Dear me, I certainly hope not!’

‘Then what the fuck do they want? A field of corpses to feed on?’

‘Not corpses, Threadbare. Magic. They feed on magic. Alas, there’s far too much of it about, these days.’

‘And whose fault is that?’

T’riss blinked. ‘Why, mine, I suppose.’

‘I should kill you!’

‘Oh, don’t think that – you break my heart! Besides, if it all gets out of control, you’ll want me there.’

Threadbare glared ahead to the storm-wracked clouds, the incessant flash of lightning, and the now endless drum roll of thunder.
If it gets out of control?

‘Either way,’ T’riss continued, ‘let us hope that no more dragons come to the fray.’

‘Meaning you can handle three of them?’

‘Of course not, but if others come, there will be a storm like none other, and that wouldn’t be good. No, never mind, my dear. Rather, let’s think more pleasant thoughts, shall we?’

‘Oh I am, T’riss. Believe me, I am!’

‘Your expression breaks my heart!’

  *   *   *

His body filled with agony, bruised and battered bloody, Endest Silann crawled towards the motionless form of Cedorpul. Steam rose from the deep furrows gouged into the slope of the valley side. Overhead the sky convulsed, the black clouds splitting apart to flashes of blinding light. The darkness itself was rent with strange slashes, through which the afternoon’s setting sun cut without obstruction. Whatever sorcery had been cast upon the land by Mother Dark was now wounded.

The distance between them seemed vast, as if Endest had set upon himself the task of crawling across an entire world. The pain rolled through him in waves, still echoing the barrage of assaults he had just weathered. Upon the opposite slope, Hunn Raal was down on one knee, head hanging. He had flung wave upon wave of Light-filled, coruscating magic, tumbling it down the slope, tearing up the ground as it crossed the valley’s basin, until it rolled up the slope in a surge to hammer into the two priests.

But they had held.

Until now.

The armies lining the crest upon either side had yet to move. Endest wondered what they had just witnessed. The sorcery, when at last it struck him, had at times lifted him from the ground, until he hung in the air, tendrils of actinic light tearing at him as an enraged child would savage a rag doll.

But for all that, nothing slipped past. Dark and Light swirled in deadly embrace, spiralling skyward to convulse in the clouds overhead. Flung back to the earth, Endest Silann had fought on, and a hundred paces to the west, Cedorpul had done the same.

Until the latest waves had crashed into them. Endest Silann had heard Cedorpul’s scream, the sound like an iron blade scoring slate. He had caught flashes, amidst his own torment of defence, of Cedorpul’s suspended body spraying out horrifying volumes of blood, and when at last he fell back to the ground he was limp, broken.

Still, Endest crawled towards his old friend, watched by thousands.

He could excuse it. Shock was a terrible force. Horror stole all strength from flesh and mind. Nothing was left. Every choice seemed impossible. The world had just tilted, and every soul upon it struggled to regain balance.

This is the death of innocence. The child’s world is gone. Torn to pieces. What follows? None can say. But see me here, squirming like a broken-backed snake. See me here, in your stead, my friends. Such power as you witnessed has brought us low. Every one of us.

His grasping hands leaked thick, sluggish blood. His palms pressed down upon the broken, steaming mud and stones. He blinded her with every reach, but even that no longer mattered. Endest felt himself to be dying, and a dying man should be left alone.

‘My lords, we have failed you. Soldiers of the Hust, Houseblades, we have failed you. Forgive us.

‘But no! Disregard this self-pity. We fail from a crisis of faith. Violent defence revealed the truth of that, just as Hunn Raal impugns the glory of Light. Ah, such weak vessels …’

He crawled onward, as strange shadows swept over him. Head twisting, he peered up at the heavy clouds, squinted as he saw massive dark shapes wheeling through them.
My love, are you there? Turn away now, please. Do not look down.

Simple truths are often the hardest ones to bear. Dying alone is the only real way of dying, after all. The most personal act, the most private battle. Leave me to it, and if my strength holds I will reach my friend’s side. I ask for nothing more. I seek no other solace.

Death punctuates this pilgrim’s path. He should have known that all along.

  *   *   *

‘Dissension among the commanders!’ cried the ancient lord, his knees now stained with mud, his hands strangely blue with the cold. He’d placed a number of the lead soldiers in a circle behind the ranks. ‘Dismay has stolen the First Son’s heart. Others hold him back – he would rush down to that dying man, the only one left. Sleet and fierce winds buffet them! Winter freezes their tears! He strains, fearless against the terrible sorcery!’

Wreneck stared down at the small figures to either side of the ditch. The advance had involved scant few of the soldiers, as the lord had insisted that champions must magically duel first. In the midst of frantic rolls of the knucklebones and triumphant cries from the old man, the sky lowered, and frozen rain began to pummel them. Shivering and miserable, Wreneck sat hunched beneath the torrent. Again and again he glanced to where he’d set down the spear, watched the ice growing upon its iron point, water trickling across the wooden shaft. In the meantime, the old man continued his tale.

‘Here then,’ he said in a ragged voice, ‘is where the heart breaks. Old standards are raised. Honour, loyalty. Even … ah, that is most sorrowful, is it not? To lift high this last virtue, to utter its lonely name, and in its sweet shadow, ah, Wreneck, I see soldiers toppling by the score.’ He fell back on to the slope of the ditch and stared up into the blackened sky, the sleet slashing at his weathered face. ‘Shall we hear their words, then? They stand, almost alone. They face each other, and all that once bound them now unravels. And yet, such decorum! Such …
dignity
.’ He reached up filthy hands to claw at his face.

Wreneck studied the soldiers, and saw now that the old man had moved his ‘dying’ champion to the side of his fallen comrade; whilst upon Wreneck’s own side of the ditch, his lone champion remained standing, ankle-deep in the mud.
Do I push him down too? Are we done with these ones, then?

The thunder was gone, the last of the lightning had flashed and now sunset and gloom fought a silent war in the sky. The column of ghosts continued on, too many to even comprehend, but heads turned to watch them as they passed.

‘One day,’ the old lord muttered as he eyed Wreneck, ‘you will become a man – no, make no spurious claim. You may wear the accoutrements. You may wield that artless spear and play at the dead-hearted, and make dull coins of your eyes, but these masks you don are too fresh. Your face is yet to settle into the mould it would so bravely display.’

Wreneck lifted his head, frowned across at the man as he continued.

‘Cast in fire-hardened clay, an empty space defined, simply awaiting all that is malleable. By this means we pour our children into adulthood. Alas, too many of us prove unskilled in the shaping of that mould. Or careless, or so bound up in our own torments that all we make becomes twisted in its own right, a perfect reflection of our malformed selves.’ He waved weakly down at the soldiers. ‘Yielding this.’

‘The world,’ said Wreneck, ‘needs soldiers. Things were done. People were ruined. A soldier gives answer. A soldier makes right.’

‘You describe an honourable pose.’

‘Yes, milord. Honour. That must be at the heart of a soldier, or a guard, or a city watch. You keep honour inside and it becomes what you defend – not just your own, but everyone else’s too.’

‘Then I must ask you, Wreneck of Abara Delack, does honour wear a uniform? Do describe it, boy.’ He waved at the lead soldiers. ‘Blue or green? Does honour wear a skin’s hue? Black or white? Blue or grey? What if it wears all of them? Or none? What if no uniform can make such a claim for the one wearing it? It’s naught but cloth, leather and iron, after all. It protects one and all and cares nothing for virtue.’ He sat up suddenly and leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘Now imagine a new kind of armour, my young friend. One that
does
care. Armour of such power that it changes the wearer. A mould to challenge the set ways of the grown man and woman, a mould that forces their bodies, and the souls cowering within them, to find a new truth!’

Wreneck rubbed at his face, feeling his cheeks stinging with heat. ‘Gripp Galas told me that Lord Anomander’s Houseblades is a company that demands the highest virtues of its members. So the uniform
does
have a virtue.’

The lord made a face and settled back. ‘Until it’s lost. Iron is hard but words are soft. You can squeeze words, all those spoken virtues, into any mad and maddening mould. You can make honour drip blood. You can make honesty the destroyer of lives. You can make conscience a weapon of fear and hate. No, young Wreneck, I speak of an unyielding truth – look here, see my Hust Legion! I have discovered something, about my swords and my armour. The reason for their screams, their howls. It’s not pleasure. Not bloodlust. No glee in the midst of slaughter. It’s none of those things.’

‘Then what is it?’

The lord’s face suddenly crumpled, folded in on itself with grief. He fell back as a sob took him.

Wreneck stared down at the lead soldiers. He knew about the Hust Legion. He knew about swords that were said to be cursed. And now there was armour, too. He glanced back at the spear lying on the ground, the shaft and point now crusted with frozen rain.

He wanted to be away from this old man and all his tears and confusing words. Soldiers were needed, for when things went bad. For when people needed protecting.
Blue or green? Is the only difference the side they’re on? What happens when soldiers stop protecting people? When they start protecting other things? And what if those things are awful, or cruel or selfish? What happens to honour then?

‘Dignity,’ the old lord muttered again, as he began to weep in earnest.

‘Milord?’

A frail hand waved carelessly, ‘Advance your cohorts, child, and see us break like chaff before the breeze.’

‘But milord, nothing has changed!’

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and then shook his head. ‘Everything has changed, my young friend. The game drips blood. Upon my side, priests buckle beneath the weight of their doubts. The goddess has no face – her darkness swallows all. Upon your side, the light blinds. We wage a war against our own irrelevance, which is what gives it such a nasty edge. Do lead your troops down into the valley. We can ignore the dragons for now.’

Dragons?
‘Milord, tell me more about the First Son. Why does he argue with his companions? I don’t understand.’

The old man wiped at his face, smearing it with mud. ‘He is made to feel useless, with that sword he would draw. He is witness to a priest’s death, torn apart by Kurald Liosan’s indifference. He sees how power ignores the righteous; how it can be grasped by anyone – a blade in the night, a gesture that kills. His soul quakes, young Wreneck, and now the Consort arrives, and anger swirls, but dignity holds. Do you comprehend the cost of that?’

Wreneck shook his head. ‘I don’t understand dignity, milord. I don’t know what it means, or what it looks like.’

The lord’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed on Wreneck, and then the old man grunted. ‘I see it well enough,’ he said in a mutter.

After a moment, Wreneck began moving his soldiers down into the ditch’s uneven base. Runnels of rain pooled in pockets here and there, where the frozen sleet gathered to build crystals, raised up like tiny castles. He knocked down many of these icy forts as he arranged the toys into something resembling a line.

‘We’ll see the mud red,’ the lord said. ‘Bodies will make their own rain, crimson and hot. Cowards and heroes get lost in the mix …’ He began moving his soldiers down to meet the enemy. ‘Meanwhile, the highborn curse one another and then withdraw, exposing my flank on that side. They deem themselves clever, you see. Unlike the Hust, they hold to the privilege of choosing. If hearts break among them, they fail in turning this tide, this wash back into the sea of the future. Gone, Wreneck. I lie exposed. No matter, the Consort will take his Houseblades and ride to meet you. That clash proves a shock, for no other soldier is as well trained, or as fierce behind their lord.’

The old man leaned closer to Wreneck, his own eyes suddenly fierce. ‘He had no choice, you see. You have to see that, don’t you? Tell me that you understand. He had no choice! Nor did the First Son! They are of a kind, mirrors of honour.’ He leaned back and set two soldiers on the ridge and made them face each other. ‘Here, like this. Remember what you see here, Wreneck. No sculpture will render them in this pose. No painter will stroke their likeness on this day. Not paint, I say, nor marble nor bronze. Not thread, not song. No poem to capture this moment. Nothing, my friend, nothing but you and me. Their eyes meet and they accept the other, and now they ride down into battle, to reconcile themselves with failure.’ His voice caught in another ragged sob and he wiped viciously at his tears.