The Stormcaller: Book One Of The Twilight Reign (6 page)

Isak craned around, peering at the hall’s ornaments, recognising a handful of the emblems from his travels. They’d probably been won in the battles recorded on the wall tapestries. Though the hangings were faded and soot-stained, he was still able to make out the lines of troops and enemy formations. He turned back to the guard, who pointed at one of the servants, then stepped back inside the passage and closed the door. Isak stared after him; clearly they didn’t care that he’d killed a man. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense - but nothing had this evening, and Isak wasn’t about to cry over spilt blood.

The servant wore the traditional Farlan costume of wide loose trousers bound down at the feet and a thick paral shirt, neatly arranged and tied at the waist with a belt the thickness of a man’s hand. It looked as if he were about to leave for the temple to take up some candle-lit vigil, except the man’s belt was decorated with Lord Bahl’s eagle rather than any divine symbol.

The servant glowered at Isak; he too said nothing, but pointed at an empty table and left, returning shortly with a bowl of steaming venison stew, a flatbread draped over the top. Isak fell upon it ravenously, eating as fast as he could in case there’d been a mistake and it was removed before he’d finished. He’d barely started to mop up the last of the gravy when the empty bowl was replaced by a second, and accompanied this time by a flagon of beer. He ate this helping more slowly, but he was a growing boy already well over six feet tall and it took a third large bowlful to satisfy him.

Finally he settled back, wiped a smear of juice from his lips and looked around at his surroundings. It was the first chance he’d had to properly inspect the room. The tapestries, he could now confirm, were indeed scenes from famous battles, with the names of the actions woven into each picture in a variety of ways: in one it was spelled out in the shading of the trees in the background; a second was embroidered on a general’s banner. Isak remembered Carel’s tales of these very engagements: most featured Lord Bahl at the forefront of the action, riding a dragon or a rearing stallion, always leaving great swathes of dead in his wake.

The tapestries were displayed around the room in chronological order, as far as Isak could see. The oldest, which happened more than two hundred summers ago, was positioned behind the top table at the right-hand end of the hall; the most recent engagement was sited by the grand main door - Isak knew Carel had taken part in that one shortly after joining the Ghosts. He spent an idle few minutes looking for a figure that could have been the white-haired old man in his youth, but most of the soldiers were just blank shapes rather than people. It gave him some comfort to think that some of those soldiers had been white-eyes: at this distance they all looked the same, and they had fought together, as a team.

He smiled, thinking of Carel as a young man like himself; unsure quite what he should be doing, keeping close to the veterans, trying to absorb everything he could see while also keeping himself alive. Now he had the luxury of time to think, Isak wondered again why Carel had walked away at the palace gates - how could he just assume that Isak would be accepted here? Even Isak knew this was not how men were recruited to the guard. What in the name of Death was going on? For that matter, what had sent his father into such a rage? Isak knew his father was quick to anger, but he’d never seen him like that, or his friends. They had been like feral dogs, worked up into a frenzy; something must have happened to make them like that. Isak felt a shiver run down his spine. Somehow he knew it was to do with that strange mercenary, Aracnan.

Now he looked around at the other men in the hall, searching for a friendly face. They were a motley collection; the handful of Ghosts were clean and neat in their uniforms, but most of the diners were forest rangers, dressed raggedly in dark woodland colours. Though their hands were clean for eating, mud still stained their clothing, and he could see a couple of dressings that looked hastily wrapped. One ranger had blood dried into his mess of hair and stained down his tunic. The rangers were all lean, tanned by sun and wind; they lacked the obvious bulk of the palace guards because their battles were not fought with armour and pikes, but with stealth and camouflage and swift arrows flashing out from the trees.

Those who bothered to look back at Isak spared the boy only a moment’s disinterested gaze. Perhaps they knew why he was here, perhaps not: the only thing Isak knew was that he had much to prove before he would be accepted. No one appeared to care about the colour of his eyes - that made a change, for it made most people keep their distance. He wasn’t totally ignored, though, for now the dogs roaming the hall came to greet him, licking at the mud and blood on his bare toes and sniffing up to the empty plate, but once satisfied there was no food left for them, they returned to loiter by the great open fire where they panted and stared longingly at the spitted joints of meat that perfumed the hall.

 

High above, at the very top of the Tower of Semar, Lord Bahl paced in his quarters as the gifts destined for his new Krann called out through the lonely night. Whatever they were, they gnawed at his mind, but Bahl was a disciplined man, one who knew well the corrupting nature of magic. He had no intention of letting magic rule him as it had Atro, the previous Lord of the Farlan.

Lord Atro had ruled the tribe for four hundred years before Bahl killed him. An evil man even before he came to the palace, he had delighted in his newly found power and had murdered, tortured and defiled as he pleased. Raiding tombs and desecrating temples had fed his addiction for magical artefacts, and the more he loved them, the more they called to him. By the time that Bahl fought his celebrated duel with Atro, the old lord had been barely coherent, but even so, the battle had nearly cost Bahl his life.

‘My Lord, please calm yourself. The boy is down below, but he can wait. I need you to relax, or we will lose our new Krann in a matter of minutes.’ Lesarl, Bahl’s Chief Steward, stood at a table to one side of the room. Bahl was not one for fine surroundings: the chamber, the smallest and loneliest room at the very top of the tower, was unimpressive by anyone’s standards. Bahl was content with simple but sturdy furniture - a small oak table, a pair of overfilled bookshelves and an oversized bed that took up much of the remaining room. It was a retreat from life as much as from the opulence in the palace’s public rooms below. Apart from that, all that could be said for it was that it commanded the best view of the mountains - on those days when mist didn’t obscure the city.

‘Why today?’ He looked at his steward.

‘I have no idea. A test for you?’

This elicited only a grunt, but Lesarl hadn’t expected much more. He poured a glass of wine from the jug on the table and held it out to his lord until Bahl sighed and took it. With Lord Bahl in this mood he was capable of anything. Getting a jug of wine down his throat might actually help matters.

‘I was wondering whether you would return tonight. You’ve never spent so long in the forest before today.’

‘I always return.’

‘Is it worse?’

‘Always worse.’

Lesarl warmed his hands in front of the fire and looked up at the only painting in the room. What was most remarkable about the painting was not the artistic detail, nor the undeniable beauty of the woman who lay beside a stream, but the contented smile on her lips, for these were the lips of a white-eye. Lesarl had never - he thanked the Gods - actually met a female white-eye, but they were known to be as selfish and aggressive as their male counterparts. All white-eyes were born with violence in their blood, and no matter how lovely, how serene she looked in this picture, this woman would have been a real danger when roused.

‘Lesarl, stop staring. Your place is not to remind me of the past,’ Bahl growled, his hand reaching for the ring hanging from a delicate chain around his neck. Ineh, the girl in the painting, was pictured wearing that very ring. The painting and the ring were the only things Bahl had kept.

‘I’m sorry, my Lord,’ the Chief Steward said, turning back to face Bahl. ‘Her face always distracts me. I swear those eyes follow me down every corridor like a nursemaid.’

‘A nursemaid? She should have been mother to her own children.’ For a moment Bahl forgot the boy and the God’s gifts below and was drawn into a happier time, but the call of the present - or maybe the future - brought his attention back to Lesarl. ‘So, are you going to tell me what you took down there with Lord Hit? I can feel something unusual, nothing I am familiar with. There is ...’ His words tailed off.

‘Are you sure?’ began Lesarl.

‘Yes, damn you,’ roared Bahl, ‘I think I know my own weaknesses well enough! Your place is not to lecture me.’

Lesarl shrugged, hands held out in a conciliatory gesture. He could not argue with that: it was Lord Bahl’s ability to turn those very weaknesses into strengths that had rebuilt the Farlan nation. ‘It’s a suit of armour and a blade.’

‘And?’ demanded the white-eye. ‘I can tell there’s something more - I feel it grating at my bones.’

‘My knowledge is limited, my Lord, but I don’t believe there can be any mistaking them. Siulents and Eolis, the weapons of Aryn Bwr, are back.’

Bahl inadvertently spat out his mouthful of wine and crushed the glass to powdered crystal. Aryn Bwr: the last king. His crimes had caused his true name to be expunged from history. Aryn Bwr, first among mortals, had united the entire elven people after centuries of conflict, and the Gods had showered him with gifts - but peace was not the elven king’s true motive. Aryn Bwr had forged weapons powerful beyond imagination, powerful enough to slay even Gods of the Upper Circle, and he had led his people against their makers. The Great War lasted only seven years, but the taint of the horrors committed by both sides lingered, millennia on.

‘Gods, no wonder Ilit didn’t come to me ...’ His voice tailed off.

‘I couldn’t believe it, holding Eolis in my hands ...’ Lesarl’s voice was shaking too.

‘Is our new Krann fortunate or cursed?’ Bahl wondered.

‘Who knows? The most perfect armour ever made, a blade that killed Gods - I don’t think I would want them at
any
price. But blessed or cursed, what does it mean?’

‘They will make him the focus of every power broker and madman in the entire Land. That is something I would curse few with.’ Bahl frowned, brushing fragments of glass into the fire.

‘How many prophecies mention them?’

‘Neglecting your studies, Lesarl?’

He laughed. ‘I cannot deny it - but in my defence I
have
been running the nation, so the omission is hopefully forgivable. The whole subject is beyond me, in any case. I can work with the stupidity of people, but prophecies, no, my Lord.’

‘It is the most complicated of sciences; it can take a lifetime to understand the rambling mess they come out with.’

‘So what are we to believe?’

‘Nothing.’ Bahl laughed humourlessly. ‘Live your life according to prophecy? That’s only for the ignorant and the desperate. All you need to know is what others believe: the cult of Shalstik, the prophecy of the Devoted, of the Flower in the Waste, of the Saviour, of the Forsaken ... Know your enemy and anticipate his attack. With the unexpected arrival of this new Krann, the eyes of the whole Land will be upon us. The longer we can keep his gifts a secret, the better.’

‘Will that be possible?’ Lesarl looked dubious. ‘When the Krann is seen without gifts, half the wizards in the city will become curious. I don’t know what their daemon guides will be able to tell them, but power attracts attention. Someone will work it out, surely. The Siblis - they could sense them from who knows how far away?’

‘The Siblis used magic so powerful it was killing them, I doubt anyone else will be making so great an effort. But yes, you’re right: at some point someone will work it out, but any delay helps us. If the mages get there first, at least they will probably come to you for confirmation. Flatter their intelligence and wisdom, then make it clear that people will die if it becomes common knowledge that Siulents and Eolis are back in play. We’ll decide how to deal with anything the priests might say some other time. For now, let’s go and see whether the boy is worth all the trouble he brings.’

Isak dozed at the table, his head resting on his arms, despite the constant rumble of conversation that filled the room. The bitter scent of fat drifted over from the fire and in his soporific state he licked his lips, tasting again the venison stew with which he’d filled his belly. Meat was a rare pleasure in Isak’s life, for hunting rights were exclusive to those folk who paid for permission. Nomads, travellers, the poor - they could only supplement their usually meagre diet with birds shot on the wing, and that was difficult enough without the clatter of a wagon-train to scare them away. It was one of the few times that Isak’s natural skill and keen eye served his people well: bringing down a goose or wild duck for the communal cooking pot was one of the rare times his father ever came close to praising him.