Fall of Light (41 page)

‘Only because I am done,’ the veteran replied, coming forward to drag out the chair beside Kellaras’s own. Sitting down, she accepted from Hish a goblet.

‘Tell us your thoughts, Pelk,’ Hish said.

‘Not much worth the telling, milady. Vatha fights clouds of confusion, and half of them have been stirred up by those surrounding him. On the field, you’ll recall, he ever demanded the high ground, to give him a clear sight of things. Mayhap,’ she added, ‘he imagined that his keep over Neret Sorr would give him the same. Of course, it couldn’t, not when the battlefield is all of Kurald Galain.’ She drank, and then shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s Silchas who’s the problem, and that’s why Kellaras is here, I’d wager.’ And she turned to him. ‘Time, I’d say, to spit it out, captain.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he replied. ‘Very well. Lest the tone here harden in casting Silchas Ruin in the poorest light, he well recognizes his … extremity. More, he alone remains of the brothers, and so must weather the fear, the currents of accusation, and the general sense of malaise that now fills not just the Citadel, but all of Kharkanas. Much of the anger rightly belongs not upon Silchas, but upon Anomander.’

Gripp hissed and thumped the table, rattling what remained of cutlery. ‘Would he be anywhere but in the Citadel, if not for Andarist?’

‘You judge too harshly a grieving man, husband,’ said Hish.

‘There are many flavours to grief,’ he replied.

Pelk said, ‘Do go on, Captain Kellaras.’

Though he had known her but one day, he already comprehended her relentless streak. ‘Silchas pleads for Anomander’s return. He seeks only to step to one side. Accordingly, he asks that his brother be found, and returned to Kharkanas. He understands, of course, that such a task will be difficult, for Anomander is not a man easily swayed. He may well need convincing.’

Gripp said, ‘I shall set out tomorrow.’

‘No!’ Hish Tulla shouted. ‘He promised! Husband! You are free of him! Deny Kellaras – oh, forgive me, captain, I know it is not you – Gripp, listen! Deny Silchas. He has no right! Have you not already said so?’

‘I do this, wife, not for Silchas, but for Anomander.’

‘Don’t you understand?’ she demanded, leaning towards him. ‘He freed you. By solemn vow! Gripp, if you hunt him down, if you do what Silchas asks of you, he will be furious. He is no longer your master, and you no more his servant. The word given was Anomander’s – and that is the only one that will matter to him. Husband, please, I beg you. He is a man of honour—’

‘Who else can hope to find him and, more to the point, bring him back?’ Gripp asked her.

‘Husband, he freed you – he freed us – because that was what he wanted. It was his gift, to me and to you. Will you set it aside? Will you return it to his hands?’

‘Hish, you don’t understand—’

‘What is it that I do not understand, husband? I know these men—’

‘In many ways, yes, and better than any of us. I do not deny any of that, beloved. But it is also now clear to me that you don’t understand them in the ways that I do.’

She leaned back, expression tight, arms crossing. ‘Explain, then.’

‘Anomander will understand, Hish. Why I came, why I found him. He’ll understand, too, the words that I bring, and the necessity behind them.’

‘Why? He has no reason to!’

‘He has. Beloved, listen to me. Anomander …’ Gripp hesitated, his gaze faltering. A moment later, he seemed to tremble, and then, with a deep breath, he continued. ‘Beloved, Anomander does not trust Silchas.’

There was silence at the table. Kellaras slowly closed his eyes.
Yes. Of course. And yet…

‘Then why,’ Hish asked, her voice rasping, ‘did he ever leave?’

‘For Andarist,’ Gripp replied without hesitation. ‘They are three, yes, with Anomander upon one point, Silchas the other. But the one who binds them, who maintains the balance – that one is Andarist. Anomander is facing more than one schism.’

‘Then,’ said Hish Tulla, suddenly rising, ‘you will bring him here first.’

‘I will,’ Gripp said.

‘Your pardons,’ Kellaras said, looking to them both, and ignoring Pelk’s sudden hand upon his left arm, ‘but no. He must return to the Citadel—’

‘Captain,’ said Hish in something like a snarl, ‘we have another guest.’

‘Andarist,’ said Gripp, slumping back in his chair.

‘Then … then, Abyss below, summon him! Here!’

‘No point,’ said Gripp. ‘He would refuse you. He has claimed a wing here in the house, barricaded, the doors locked. His flight into the wilderness, away from the scene of slaughter, brought him, eventually, to us. Well,’ he amended, ‘to Hish Tulla. Who, in his moment of greatest need, had taken him into her arms, when none other dared.’ After a moment, the old man shrugged. ‘We sent him our servants. None returned to us. Presumably, they feed him, keep the chambers clean …’

Kellaras slowly sat back, dumbfounded, appalled.

‘That is why,’ said Gripp, ‘when I find Anomander, it will be here that we come. Before Kharkanas.’

Kellaras nodded. ‘Yes, Gripp Galas. Yes. Of course.’

Pelk pulled at his arm, angled him on to his feet. Confused, he swung to her.

‘He leaves tomorrow, does Gripp,’ she said, trying to hold him with her eyes.

Kellaras glanced across at Hish Tulla, and saw in her face such desolation as to blur his vision.
See me now, Oh Prazek and Dathenar? You are not alone in grieving over the discord I bring. This task of mine … I did not choose it. It finds me. Alas, it finds me.

  *   *   *

Flanked by Rebble and Listar, Wareth made his way towards the small crowd that had gathered at an intersection between the rows of tents. Peatsmoke hung in wreaths over the enormous encampment, motionless in the still, bitter cold air. Just to the south, the makeshift army’s refuse heap and cesspits were marked by a thicker, darker column of smoke, towering high and tilted like a spear driven into the ground. Ravens wheeled around that column, as if eager to roost. Their distant cries held the timbre of frustration.

‘Step aside, all of you,’ Rebble said in a growl as they reached the score or so recruits, and Wareth saw faces turn towards them, and belligerent scowls quickly vanish behind masks of studied caution when they saw who had challenged them. Men and women backed away to clear a path.

The body sprawled face-down on the frozen ground was naked from the waist up. A dozen or more knife wounds spotted the pallid back. A few had bled freely, crusting the incision made by the blade, but many others were virtually bloodless.

‘Give us room,’ Rebble ordered, and then, frowning down at the corpse, he sighed, his breath pluming. ‘Who’s this one, then?’

Crouching and wincing as his misshapen spine creaked, Wareth pulled the body on to its back. The night’s cold made the corpse stiff, with the arms extended up beyond the man’s head. Fingerprints, painted in smudged blood, encircled both wrists, from when the killer had dragged his or her victim into the intersection. While Wareth studied the unfamiliar face before him, Listar moved away, seeking heel-tracks on the thin, smeared layer of snow still covering the narrow passages between tents.

It didn’t seem likely that he would find any. This murderer was in the habit of dropping the bodies far away from the tent in which each killing had taken place, though how that was managed without anyone’s taking note remained a mystery. In any case, it was now part of the pattern, as were the successive knife wounds driven into a body from which life had fled.

‘Anyone know him?’ Wareth asked, straightening to scan the circle of faces.

There was no immediate reply. Wareth studied the expressions surrounding him, seeing, not for the first time, the ill-disguised contempt and disdain in which he was generally held. Officers had to earn respect, but the labours required lay somewhere in the future, if at all. And in this miserable company of reluctant recruits, rank alone was a flimsy framework, weakened still further by an almost institutional hatred for authority. When it came to Wareth, his reputation made the entire conceit totter, moments from violent collapse. He had warned Galar Baras often enough, to no avail.

But these were his own thoughts, his own internal pacing to and fro, upon which attended every fear, real and imagined. The voices of those fears ran the gamut of whisper to frenzied roar, and in all cacophony, they made a chorus of terror.
Most urgent music, the kind to fill the skull of a running man, a fleeing man. But all these frantic steps take me nowhere.

‘From which pit?’ Rebble demanded. ‘Anyone?’

A woman spoke. ‘He was named Ginial, I think. From White Crag Pit, same as me.’

‘Hated or liked?’

The woman snorted. ‘I was a cat. Never paid much attention to what the dogs were up to.’

Wareth eyed her. ‘But you knew his name.’

She refused to meet his gaze. Instead, she answered Rebble as if he had been the one to ask the question. ‘A killer of women, was Ginial.’ She shrugged. ‘We knew about those ones.’

At that, Rebble shot Wareth a look.

Listar returned. ‘Nothing, sir. Like the others.’

Sir.
How that word struck him, like a muddy stone to the chest. Wareth glanced away, past the blank faces with their eager animal eyes. He squinted at the towering column of smoke.

Rebble said, ‘Well, looks like we got us some volunteers. Right here, just waiting for us. Four of you, pick him up and take him to the fires – now now, soldiers, no need to fight for the privilege.’

As the woman moved to collect up one outstretched arm, Wareth said, ‘No, not you.’

Scowling, she stepped back a step.

Rebble edged close to her. ‘When the lieutenant talks to you, recruit, give ‘im your cat’s stare, and when he asks you something, hiss your words loud and clear. It don’t matter that he’s all bent and ugly. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘There,’ and Rebble smiled out through his snarl of beard, revealing startlingly white teeth, ‘now that didn’t pinch too much, did it? Just keep playing at soldier and who knows, you might climb up to become one. Maybe.’

Wareth’s new corporal, and personal strong-arm to the new lieutenant, was certainly enjoying his newly won privileges. With each day that passed, Rebble was sounding more and more like a veteran of many battlefields.
Every army has a temper. Abyss save us if it’s Rebble’s.

With the body gone, the remaining onlookers wandered off. The woman alone remained, shifting weight from one foot to the other, not looking at anyone in particular.

‘Your name, recruit?’ Wareth asked her.

‘Rance … sir.’ She lifted her head then and fixed defiant eyes upon him. ‘Drowned my own baby. Or so I’m told and why would anybody lie? I don’t remember any of it, but I did it. Wet hands, wet sleeves, wet face.’

Wareth held her gaze until she broke it. That regard of his was something he had learned to perfect long ago, discovering how easily it could be mistaken for resolve and inner strength.
Games of disguise. Wareth knows them all. Yet here he stands, his deepest secret known to us. So should he not feel free? Unencumbered? At last able to dispense with what so hungrily devoured all his energy, year after year, step after step in this useless life? The hiding, the deceptions, the endless pretence?

But no, a man such as Wareth, well, he but finds new hauntings, new instruments of torture.

Still, a rampant murderer stalking the camp will serve as a worthy distraction.

If only it did.

Still grinning, Rebble said to Rance, ‘Yes, it’s a dangerous thing, that speaking up.’

She grimaced. ‘You’re short on opinions, sir? Camp with the cats.’

‘Is that an invitation?’

‘Even you might not survive the night … sir.’

Wareth said, ‘Rance. We need squad leaders.’

‘No.’

Rebble laughed, clapping her hard on the shoulder, enough to make her stumble. ‘You passed the first test, woman. We don’t want them as are hungry for the rank. You got to say no at least five times, and then you’re in.’

‘Once will do, then.’

‘No good. You already said it twenty times in that pretty round skull of yours. You’d be amazed at what old Rebble can hear.’

‘They won’t follow me.’

‘They won’t follow anyone,’ Wareth said, still eyeing her. ‘That’s what makes it an adventure.’

Her sharp glare found him again. ‘Is it true, sir? Did you run?’

Rebble growled under his breath, but Wareth gestured the man to silence, and then said, ‘I did. Ran like an arse-poked hare, with the sword in my hand screaming its outrage.’

Something settled in her face, and whatever it was, Wareth had not expected it.
No disgust. No contempt. Then what is it I’m seeing?
Rance shrugged. ‘A sword that screams. Next time, I’ll be right there beside you, sir.’

The weapons and armour of the Hust were yet to be distributed. They remained in heavily guarded wagons, the iron moaning day and night. Every now and then one wailed through its burlap mummery, like a child trapped in the jaws of a wolf.

In her eyes he saw recognition.

Killed your baby, did you? Not knowing what to do with the damned thing, as it screamed and screamed. Not knowing how you could cope – not just that day, but for the rest of your life. So you took the easy way out. End the screams, in a tub of soapy water.

But the screams don’t end, do they? Unless, of course, your mind snaps, and it all vanishes inside. As if you weren’t even there. But for all that not-knowing, there remains a bone-deep terror – the terror of one day remembering.

‘Your killer’s killing men who hurt women,’ Rance said. ‘It’s what they all share, these victims. Isn’t it?’ She hesitated and then said, ‘Could be a woman.’

Yes. We think so, too.

‘I think you just joined the investigation,’ Rebble said.

‘What makes you think I want her caught?’ Rance snapped in reply.

‘That’s fine, too,’ Rebble answered, nodding. ‘We’re not much interested either. But the commander wants it all settled.’

‘When the last woman-killer is dead,’ she replied. ‘Then it will settle.’