The Stormcaller: Book One Of The Twilight Reign (23 page)

The tone of Bahl’s voice left no room for argument, but still Tiniq tried. ‘Actually, my Lord, I am bound for Siul.’

‘A few hours will not make much difference, I think. Fetch your pack.’

Tiniq suppressed a sigh and reached under the bench to pull out a shapeless canvas pack and an oilskin weapons-pouch, then followed Bahl outside.

He kept his eyes low until Bahl stopped unexpectedly and spoke again. ‘There are tales of the Saljin Man in the deep forest. Have you seen it?’

The ranger frowned. ‘Just peasants being foolish. We’ve got enough in our forests without borrowing the curses of other tribes.’

‘I wonder. It’s a strange thing to invent when we all know the Vukotic are as rooted to their lands as to their curses. I’ve heard this before, when a vampire was in the city almost a century back. Now we suspect another is here, do we call that coincidence?’

The ranger looked startled at the prospect, attempting to cover his discomfort by adjusting the baldric on his shoulder. ‘I understand. I’ll pay attention.’

‘Good. Now we should leave. You must have run with your brother, I expect you to keep up.’ Without waiting for a reply, Bahl strode off through the moonlight to the stone fist of the barbican. The bridge was usually kept raised in times of war, but the guards had seen him standing outside the Great Hall and it was down by the time Bahl passed through the tunnel.

The wide main streets and narrow alleys of the city were almost empty. Away to the left, Bahl could hear the stamp of hobnailed boots - Ghosts on patrol. Even the gutter runners would be holed up somewhere warm; the sparkle of frost on the gargoyles and overhangs showed how dangerous the roofs were this time of year. Despite that, the ancient city of covered streets, archways and statues was at its most entrancing when glittering in the moonlight.

Bahl walked easily down these cobbled roads. The many towers and complex architecture made Tirah a remarkable city to behold. In the moonlight, even the most fanciful stories set here became believable. Black shadows lurked in the covered streets, under arches and around the lights of taverns. Bahl knew that not all of the eyes above were empty stone, but there was a natural order and the predators that hunted the streets at night were wary of him. They would watch him for as long as they could, like deer following a wolf pack to avoid the chance of ambush.

Up above the city, the two greater moons emerged fully from behind feathered clouds. Kasi - the lesser of the two, the hunter’s moon - was halfway to the horizon. At this time of year, that meant there was less than an hour left until midnight. Off to the south, Alterr overshadowed Kasi’s red tint with her own yellow eye. As followers of Nartis, both men saluted the lesser moon, kissing the backs of their bow fingers and touching them to their foreheads in a gesture whose meaning was lost, as so much else, in the mists of time.

‘Strange to think that there was a time when the Land could see such great events - stranger even that we might soon return to such a time.’

Tiniq looked puzzled at Bahl’s announcement, following his gaze up to Kasi. The lesser moon, which appeared in the years before the Great War, was named for that most devoted of mortals, Kasi Farlan. Legend had it that Larat, the God of Magic and Manipulation, had seduced Alterr, the Moon Goddess, and persuaded her to hide her light from the sky as a party of Farlan hunters returned home. While the others found their way back, Kasi Farlan was lost in the deep forest, blinded by the darkness and hunted by Larat’s assassins. When the hunters returned without her husband, the Princess of the Farlan begged the Queen of the Gods for aid. When Alterr refused to show her light again, the queen took the diamond necklace from her own neck and rolled it around the princess’s ruby ring, making a single stone which she threw high into the sky to light Kasi’s way home and save him from attack.

The ruby at the moon’s heart was bound to Alterr’s own life’s blood. She was ordered to throw the gem up every night as penance, and if she failed to catch it, the stone would break on the ground, and so too would her own blood run out to the earth. To prevent that from happening, Larat took the stone from Alterr’s hands the next night and threw it so hard he sent it orbiting the Land, fulfilling the bond set by the Queen of the Gods.

Now his lover need only to watch its path, and wonder whether it would ever fall.

‘Would that be something to look forward to?’ The ranger sounded nervous rather than enthusiastic. ‘The Great War poisoned the Land with its magic. If life is less dramatic, is that so bad?’

‘Not at all, but it was the energies spent in anger that caused the waste to be poisoned, rather than the Ages before the Great War. That much destruction must be avoided at all costs, but sometimes I think grand deeds like the hunter’s moon might again have a place in life.’ He changed the subject. ‘You prefer to walk to Siul? It’s a long way. Even for a white-eye, it would be far.’

Tiniq cleared his throat noisily. ‘I dislike riding, and horses themselves, for that matter. It’s a dislike they share, it seems —I was thrown twice as a boy in the training paddock and I’ve never trusted them since. I know you’re wondering about my birth; that’s why you wanted me to accompany you, isn’t it?’

Bahl inclined his head. The two men were walking down the centre of a wide avenue through the temple district.

‘Well, I’m not my brother; that’s for certain, but we have some things in common. It might take me longer to get to Lomin, but the path is more direct on foot and I can outrun any normal.’

‘You don’t consider yourself a normal?’

‘Would you?’

Bahl considered that. Tiniq might look like an ordinary man, but it was unlikely he could hide his differences for long. ‘Perhaps not, but it would be a nice choice to have. How about children?’

‘Have I any? No. I’ve had my share of women though, so that might be one more thing in common with your kind.’

‘Magic?’

‘I ...’ Now discomfort was evident in Tiniq’s voice. Bahl kept silent and let the man take his time. There was nowhere to run from the question. ‘I have some sensitivity; that is the only way I can explain it. Although my brother’s magic is weak, he can perform spells. In me it’s different: I can hunt and fight better than I should; my awareness is heightened, my eyes are stronger than normal men’s.’

‘And what is the price?’

‘My Lord?’ Bahl couldn’t tell whether that was genuine or not.

‘The price, Tiniq, of these gifts. Nothing is for free. The scales must always be balanced.’

‘I don’t know.’ The sentence was almost a whisper. ‘I think I have yet to pay it. I’ll have fifty summers in the new year and I don’t look older than thirty - and I’m getting stronger.’

‘Stronger?’

‘My brother has noticed it too. When I saw him a few days ago, it was for the first time in two years. As I embraced him, he felt the difference.’

‘Curious.’ They reached the Wood Gate that led east out of the city. The frost in the air had suspended the gentle sway of the leaves; everything was still and silent. Bahl turned to the smaller man. ‘We’ll run until the hunter’s moon goes down. I expect you to keep up.’ Without waiting for a reply he broke into a jog, slowly building the pace to keep the ranger pushing himself to catch up. The darkness of night closed around them with a soft sigh. Under the cover of reaching branches they ran with hardly a sound, the moonlit mountains flashing in and out of sight between the trees.

 

After he parted company with Tiniq, Bahl met no one as he took forgotten paths through the high ground. The foothills of the mountains were the preserve of herdsmen and rangers; superstition and a lack of arable ground kept the rest away. The early winter had already sapped all the strength from the trees, leaving tired, heavy branches hanging low on the ground. Withered leaves crackled underfoot. Crabbed oaks jostled in the breeze with alders and skeletal silver birch, all hunkered down under the determined beat of rain and light snow. It wouldn’t be long until the winter storms that would suspend normal life for a time.

His destination was a small monastery in the suzerainty of Ked. It was a harsh place to live: though hidden within dense woodland, it was high up, and plagued by the wind coming down off the mountain. It was a far cry from those monasteries in towns, where monks and nuns figured in all parts of the common folks’ lives. This was both a retreat and a training ground, providing spiritual direction for a large number of novices as they worked on whichever path they had chosen.

Bahl was familiar with the chaplains, the zealot warrior-monks attached to each regiment, but his contact with the other sects was limited. Lesarl dealt with the cardinals who ran the cult of Nartis and Bahl had little time for the priests who performed pastoral work.

It was evening when he finally caught sight of the stockade wall of the monastery. He’d spent the morning recovering from spells he’d cast the previous night: he had been unable to bear being in complete ignorance of what was happening further east. The elven army had felt like a putrid sore on his skin when he let his senses spread over the forests. The army was keeping to the darkest corners. Split into three parts, it had a network of scouts spreading out from each section, and trails of magic reaching even further. Each one was a thread waiting to be triggered when their prey stumbled within reach. Bahl hoped he had managed to confuse them enough over the course of the night.

A stone gate was the only entrance, above which shivered the light of a fire from a small watch-room. There was a roof to keep off the snow, but the wind came in through the narrow slit that ran around the chamber. Bahl could see the huddled shape of a novice - even with the fire, it would be bitterly cold inside. After a few hours of this cold, the novice would hardly be able to raise the alarm at anything he saw ... but a monastery was not supposed to be a place of comforts.

Bahl broke into a run, silently gliding over the grassy clearing that surrounded the square compound. The novice’s head was turned away, staring at the empty trees. In one leap, Bahl cleared the spiked wall and landed on the walkway that led to the gate tower.

The guard heard the noise and fumbled with his bow as he turned, only to let it drop in amazement as he saw Bahl standing there, bow in hand and mask on. For a few seconds the novice just stared in amazement, then he gave a yelp as Bahl strode down the walkway towards him. His bow abandoned, the youth scrabbled first with the drape covering the door, then the latch, but when at last he did open it, Bahl was almost upon him. Terrified, he fell to his knees in the doorway, mittened hands clumping together beneath his chin.

‘L-1-lord Nartis,’ he whispered with reverence. Bahl stopped with a grunt of surprise.

‘Don’t be stupid, boy,’ he snapped, moving past to the ramp that led down to the stone courtyard. He stopped to get his bearings, looking around at the interior of the monastery. Five columns of smoke rose from other parts of the building, reminding him which parts were sleeping quarters. Behind him was the gate tower, flanked by wooden stables for the livestock. On either side were the dormitories, one for novices, the other for the monks. Straight ahead was the chapel, and the flicker of candles through its rose window showed that he had arrived in time: the light that still burned for the abbot would only be extinguished when the man had passed through Death’s gates.

The courtyard was only thirty paces across. A stack of cut wood was piled against the dormitory walls, as if for insulation. Cracks were visible in the stonework of the buildings; the skeleton of a creeper hung down, waiting for spring. Bahl walked to a smaller door to the right of the chapel entrance which led to the abbot’s rooms. The prior had adjacent chambers running down a common wall so the large fireplaces could be shared. Privacy was not something Nartis appeared to approve of here, though certain cardinals he knew had palaces to call their own.

A rolled carpet had been placed behind the door to ward off draughts. Bahl heard the soft whisper as it ran across the floor, catching straw as it went. It opened on to a dark reception room, a traditional canvas-roll painting of Nartis the only ornamentation. It was empty and cold, normally used only for monks to sit and wait to be summoned. Three pairs of heavy fur boots were on the floor, two dropped carelessly, one carefully set perpendicular to the wall.

Bahl placed his hand on the door latch, hesitated when he heard a voice on the other side, a droning murmur of prayer, then walked in. The abbot’s study showed the desk and shelves in the unused order of a dying man. On one wall were two columns of intricate pictures: twelve icons that showed the Gods of the Upper Circle. Bahl smiled at the sight of them; they were the abbot’s pride and joy, exquisite images collected over a lifetime.

In the next room, the abbot’s bedchamber, he found the prior standing at the end of the bed, his tall slim figure and shaven head giving him the appearance of a vulture glaring down at its dinner. He rounded on the door with a look of outrage when he heard it open but smoothly changed that into a bow when he recognised Lord Bahl. The monk sitting at the abbot’s side, clearly the monastery’s healer, was less composed and gaped for a moment before following suit.

‘Get out,’ Bahl ordered quietly but firmly. The prior inclined his head and ushered the healer out with a sharp gesture. Bahl heard their footsteps go out of the study, then moved to one side of the bed. He glanced down its length to the fireplace. Through the flames he could see the prior, kneeling on the stone floor before a bow device hanging from the far wall, an imitation of prayer that would allow him to hear any conversation.

The Lord of the Farlan’s face softened as he turned to his old friend, bundled up in a nest of blankets that smelt of lavender, sickness and age. The table beside the bed that in past years had been stacked with scrolls and books now held bowls of medicine and a lukewarm broth. A strained cough from the bed summoned him; Bahl crouched down to listen. As he did so, a faltering smile broke over the abbot’s face. Bahl forced a smile in reply, hiding his shock at the near-translucent skin that looked so tired.