Shadowgod (8 page)

A dark dot in the grey sky slowly until it was seen to be a small bird winging madly towards the hillside. At the end of its flight it swooped down to alight perfectly on Terzis' upraised hands. She drew it close and bent her head, remaining thus for several moments before tossing it into the air where it darted off into the east. Wiping her hands on her woollen cloak, Terzis then began climbing towards Mazaret.

“So,” he said. “Where is he?”

The female mage gave a half-smile as she came and sat beside him on the wide rock. “I know what route Azurech is following, but I did not see him – my little spy would not go anywhere near his procession. But by my reckoning, he should cross the Westerly Way late in the afternoon, perhaps an hour before sunset.”

“And our allies?”

“Domas and his men left their hideaway an hour ago, “ she said. “They should reach the meeting place by mid-morning.”

Mazaret had been wary on receiving Domas' offer of alliance over a fortnight ago; Keren’s account of the man’s deeds as a mercenary in Alvergost were still fresh in his mind. In his missive, Domas had claimed that an argument had led to a fight in which the mercenary captain and his main supporters were slain. After that, the mercenary company elected Domas their leader and took on the role of protecting the refugees from the Red Priests and the slavers who appeared to be working together. For a short time they had been successful, driving off several raids and protecting a train of supply wagons sent secretly by farmers in the eastern dales. Then, about a month ago, the slavers had launched an attack on Alvergost, supported by skilled, well-armed troops that Domas had never seen before. So ferocious was the attack that Domas and his men abandoned their camp and fled east into the dark ravines of the Rukang Mountains. It was soon after this that Domas made his offer, which Mazaret had accepted only after a face-to-face encounter with the man on a hilltop near the King’s Gate.

Mazaret stood and stretched, surveying the land before them and the sky above, and breathing in the cold air.

“Time we were leaving,” he said. “It would not do for the knights of Besh-Darok to be tardy in such an undertaking.”

Together they descended the snow-clad hillside, crunching through clumps of frost-laden grass and stepping carefully across iced-over streamlets. As they approached the encampment, Mazaret beckoned over his Captain of the March and ordered the camp struck. A short time later everyone was on their mounts and when the handlers strapped the last baggage to its pack horse, Mazaret led the column at a steady trot up from the gully and out from behind the cover of the copse. As they rode out into the wintry plain, Mazaret tugged off one of his leather gauntlets then felt beneath his tied cloak and inside his jerkin. He found the flat, palm-sized square of ivory which he kept there and brought it out. It was a single leaf from what would have been a small bound book, and on it was inscribed –

He had found the ivory leaf two months ago, in the mud near a razed farmhouse east of Tobrosa, and since then reading it once a day had become a private ritual, his own silent keening.

“Suviel,” he whispered as he slipped the leaf back into its inner pocket, then, with a raised hand and a cavalryman’s cry, urged the column into a swift canter across the snows.

The meeting place was the great Rootpower temple at the market crossroads town of Nimas. Its builders had burrowed deep into the side of a rocky outcrop overlooking the town, using that sheer mass of stone to help support soaring pillars, high walls and an immense arched roof. But fire had burnt out the temple’s heart, pulled in its roof and shattered the walls, leaving only the part that was hewn from the rock. Since the pillage of Khatris, and the slaughter of the chieftains at the Battle of Besh-Darok, most of the population had fled and now Nimas was utterly abandoned, its sad vacant houses looking dark and choked with snow and ice.

From doors and windows some of Domas' men regarded the knights approach along the main street. Mazaret saw that they had quartered their mounts in the shell of a granary near the cross. Those of the mounts that he caught sight of were brown, shaggy ponies but there was also a mixture of sway-backed mares and underfed plough horses. More men gathered to watch, darkly ragged figures, all with the hard-bitten look that spoke of many battles. In all, Mazaret reckoned they numbered little more than two score.

At the cross Domas himself emerged from a half-demolished inn. Mazaret dismounted and the two leaders clasped hands in the warriors' grip.

“Well met, lord of Besh-Darok,” Domas said. He was a rangy man, almost as tall as Mazaret, with black hair and full beard and pale eyes which gave the newcomers a quick appraisal. “Your knights are finely attired and well-armed, my lord. I look forward to seeing them fight.”

“Have no doubts, Domas. My men will not be found wanting.”

Mazaret nodded to his Captain of the March, who gave the order to dismount, then passed his horse’s reins to one of the handlers before walking with Domas up towards the temple.

“My mage tells me that Azurech will reach the Westerly Way by late afternoon,” Mazaret said.

“Sooner,” said Domas. “The dog has changed his course in the last hour, turning onto the Sunplain Road which take him close to Prekine.” Domas spat on the ground. “Two hundred captives he has in those wagons, more than half of them children.”

At this, Mazaret felt a cold anger. He had heard many rumours and tales about what the Acolytes had done to children in Trevada before the Daemonkind Orgraaleshenoth clashed with them in the High Basilica. Now it appeared that they had resumed their vile atrocities.

“This is ill news,” he said. “Can we catch them?”

“It is possible,” Domas said, beckoning a short, hooded figure over to join them. “This is Qael – he is one of my eyes in the wilderness, and has just returned from tracking Azurech’s caravan. Qael, tell the Lord Regent of our enemy’s strength.”

The spy was a short, wiry man swathed in a grubby brown cloak. From with a tattered cowl birdlike features smiled and glittering eyes regarded Mazaret for a moment before he spoke. “Of the Gidreg slavers there are no more than thirty, half ahorse, half with the wagons. There are also two dozen riders like the ones that fell upon us at Alvergost, each one with a little lamp hanging from his saddle. But those following Deathless number more than six score, all mounted and well armed. A pair of those Mogaun shamen also ride with him.”

Mazaret frowned. “Deathless?”

“We have heard of your own encounters with the dog, so one of my captains coined that for him,” Domas said. “Then we found out from an escape captive that he has the same nickname among his own men.” The former mercenary sent Qael off with a few murmured words, then gave Mazaret a wry grin. “So now the odds are laid bare – daunting, are they not?”

There was a challenge in his words, and the hint of a taunt, and Mazaret gave him a sidelong glance as they strode between tumbledown buildings.

“And I say again – can we still catch them?”

“They may have altered their route, but they’re escorting slow wagons and have to keep to the road.” He paused by a fallen piece of masonry and quickly sketched lines on its flat, frosted surface. “There is the Tobrosa Road, which we thought Deathless was going to take, and here is the Sunplain Road. There is one place along it which is perfect for an ambush, a long shallow gully between rocky slopes impassable to wagons…”

“Which we attack from either end after they enter it,” Mazaret said.

“Just so. The night’s cold will be rising by then so we may be lucky enough to have the falling snow to mask our approach. I will take my men and follow them up the Sunplain Road, while you and your knights ride round to come at them from the north. Qael will be your guide, if that is agreeable.”

“It is a simple strategy, and surprise should help even the odds,” Mazaret said. “But what are your thoughts on those shamen?”

Domas shrugged. “How good is this mage of yours?”

Mazaret gave him a sharp look. “Every one of us would trust Terzis with his life. I shall tell who we face – she will know what is required.”

They were almost at the Rootpower temple, ascending wide shallow steps that were once shaded by trees now reduced to hacked and charred trunks. Mazaret’s knights had gathered at the foot of the slope with their mounts, who were enjoying a well-earned feed and watering.

“Time is against us, my lord,” said Domas. “We should depart as soon as possible. In the meantime I thought you would like to visit the temple’s sanctoral.”

They had reached the head of the steps, from where a broad path led to the temple’s once-massive doors. But the doors were long gone and a knee-high line of broken stone was all that remained of the mighty east-facing wall. The tiled expanse of the temple floor was open to the sky and wet with foot-stamped slush. Snow lay atop the shattered stumps of pillars and, at the west wall, the wide chalern dais, the place of holy discourse. Mazaret knew that there would be steps leading down into the sanctoral, a deep, long recess in the top of the chalern. There would be wall-carvings, floor tiles covered in symbolic patterns, and three altars near the west wall where a living tree should be growing up from the hidden earth, up the wall and out of the carefully constructed roof.

But from where he stood he could see the black charring which ran all the way up the wall like a scar, and knew that the sanctoral was nothing but a shell. He turned to Domas.

“Why did you think I would want to come here?”

Domas was taken aback. “But your knights are of the Fathertree order – ”

“And the Fathertree and its spirit died,” Mazaret said bluntly. “And the Rootpower too was destroyed. There is nothing to pray to here, Domas, nothing to honour or contemplate. The mysteries are dead and there is no hope of intercession.”

Domas surprise had given way to resentment. “Yet you have not changed the order’s name, my lord.”

“Most of the knights do not share my views, and that I must respect. But there is nothing for me in this place – I will not pay homage to the memory of what was.” Mazaret turned to retrace his path. “Send your man Qael to me, Domas. We shall be ready to leave soon.”

But as he descended the steps, his thoughts were in a turmoil of self-reproach.
Liar! Hypocrite! What else is that ivory book leaf but a worship of what is dead?

Suviel was dead, and the Fathertree was dead, while a host of abominations lived on. Like Deathless Azurech.

Deathless
, he thought grimly.
I shall turn that name into a black jest
.

A short time later Mazaret was in the saddle once more, leading his knights past the temple, the scout, Qael, to his left, riding one of the shaggy-maned hill ponies. Terzis rode on his right, her tense features betraying an inner trepidation. When he had outlined the enemy’s strength and the presence of two shamen, she went pale. Now, as he observed her with a sidelong glance, Mazaret’s own doubts began to gnaw at him.

Then he grew angry. Why burden himself with ghostly what-ifs? Terzis had promised that she would devise a way counter the shamen, and he trusted that promise.

For the next two hours they rode swiftly across the low, rolling whiteness of central Khatris, guided by Qael. On horseback the breezing icy air nipped at exposed skin and most of the knights fixed flaps of their cloaks across their faces below the eyes. But still the aching cold seeped into every extremity.

Through a world of white fields, skeletal woods and ice-capped ponds they rode with wary purpose. Qael was careful to avoid towns and villages, and even roadside guard posts, no matter how deserted they seemed. Occasionally they would draw near low hills, or a wooded dale, and the hooded scout would dart on ahead to spy out the land, then return to show the way. They were starting along a long and gentle hogback ridge when Mazaret saw darker clouds in the middle distance and snowfall advancing like a wide grey wall across the plains towards them.

“Our veil,” said the scout Qael with a feral smile. “We shall be the unseen.”

“Where is the gully?” Mazaret said, voice raised above the drumming of the hooves.

Qael grinned. “Beyond it.”

Not long after, the first white motes came fluttering down. Moments later the snowfall proper swept over them on a rising wind that drove large icy flakes into their faces as they rode. At first Mazaret was pleased, almost exhilarated at the snow’s arrival but then the blasting chill of it increased. The visible distance was growing steadily shorter and he realised that their ability to fight on horseback would become severely hampered.

At the far end of the ridge the trail dipped into a long depression in the terrain which ended with a path that rose and curved along the flank of a steep hill. Qael brought them to an abrupt halt here. Mazaret felt a stab of foreboding at the confusion in the man’s face.

“There should be scouts here to greet us and say when the enemy will arrive,” Qael said.

“Did Domas send them ahead from Nimas to observe,” Mazaret said, “or was he going to wait till he was in position?”

Qael was sombre. “He intended to wait.”

“Then he has been waylaid, or has suffered some other misfortune. We may have to follow the route back – ”

Then sounds came to them through the rushing snow, cries and the clash of weapons. Qael immediately leaped from his horse and dashed up the hill, falling to hand and knees to crawl the last yard or two. Mazaret was close behind and heard the man curse before reaching his side.

“Poor fool,” Qael muttered.

Mazaret was filled with dread at what he saw. From the dozens of corpses, human and horse, that lay scattered across the gully it appeared that the enemy had caught the advance party in the open. After a bloody battle only two of Domas' men were still alive, one prone and bleeding on the ground while the other stood over him with a quarterstaff and weakening visibly as he held off his terrible assailants.