The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) (11 page)

“Good people, I am condemned and come here to die. The fact of my treason is known to you, and my consenting thereunto. But of my desire and will to do wrong by those of you who would see the Three Kingdoms rightly defended against the coming darkness, I wash my hands and state my innocence. I would see you all saved, and if this comes to pass by my death, then let it be done.”

A hush fell before the gathering darkness of the storm, disturbed only by a few sobs from men and women alike. The square was a tableau, only the flames of the torches seemed to move at all, threatening to be extinguished by the damp gusts of wind. As Jedda’s eyes travelled over the waiting crowd, she saw a pale-faced girl with strange eyes that shone like amethyst jewels. The girl was watching her and Jedda found her mouth moving of its own volition, forming four words.

We will meet again.

Then, the girl was gone.

Who was she?

“Men of the Black Hood, do your duty,” Ianna said before bowing her head.

Jedda wrinkled her nose at the false gesture of penitence and spat upon the ground. Looking around, she saw that all heads were bowed. Reassured, she allowed herself some tears as she uttered a last private prayer. Then, the torches touched the kindling, and fire, fierce and sweltering, burst upwards. Tongues of scarlet and yellow, sparking with flecks of gold, ate at wood and cotton, and then flesh and bone. Screams carried into the Norn valley and out across the Grasslands on the wind, and the stains left by the ashes that fell from the three stakes were something the rains could never quite wash away.

~ ~ ~

Later, a company of three made its way across the first stretches of the Grassland Plains and away from Highmount. The companions were Sarah Bean, Ossen Wayfarer, and a slight figure swathed in black cloth from head to foot, so that only the eyes were visible. Three was the number of Highmount, as it was of Norn and the valleys. The number of fortune and fair journeys, and so their party came to no more than that.

Ossen had told Sarah that their nameless companion was a warrior from an order called the Sworn. Their names were abandoned as a part of their initiation, as well as their sex and gender. They were ghosts and assassins. Sarah was to address the warrior only as “O Sworn” and nothing else. To use any other name or title of familiarity was to show disrespect. The eyes of the Sworn looked straight ahead across the Grassland Plains. Sarah followed the gaze and felt a queasiness pass through her stomach lining. The land was so flat and dry and barren compared to the valleys of Norn, even now with the blight upon them. The air she breathed in was dusty, and her eyes stung from the grit that blew into them.

“Which way, O Sworn?” asked the Wayfarer.

The Sworn nodded ahead, dug its heels into its mount’s flanks, and led the way into the Grassland Plains.

Chapter Fourteen

On the first night in the wild, Sarah saw eyes peering out from between thickets not so far away. No moon illuminated the land around them, and the stars were covered over by clouds. The darkness was near total, except for the light shining from those eyes, which were embedded in a shadow that did not seem to move, only to watch and to wait. Grass, dry as old bones, rustled and crackled too loud in the still hours, which passed slowly as Sarah watched the eyes. The eyes watched her in return.

Was it a ghost? Did they have such things here?

But the shadow seemed so dark and solid that she was sure it could not be.

Was it Him?

Sarah’s breathing became hard and laboured, and her heart hammered. She should do something. Shout. Scream. Throw a rock at it. Wake up Ossen and the Sworn. But there was an air about that bright-eyed shadow she dared not disturb—that of a predator ready to pounce upon its prey. Even with Ossen and the Sworn so close, she felt more alone than she had since she came into this World. A tremble passed through her. She tried in vain to steady her breathing.

What are you?

Those eyes, lit by limpid fire, continued to watch her in silence, seeming to dare her to move, to cry out or to disturb the others. Trembling overtook her, more violent this time. She felt that those eyes were hungry for her. For the Fire within her.

Sarah closed her own eyes, breathed deeply, and then opened them.

The eyes in the night were gone.

~ ~ ~

Sarah did not tell the others about the shadow. She should have done, perhaps, but something held her tongue. Some vague sense, some trace of that feeling of being prey watched by a predator. If she spoke of it, treated it as more than a nightmare, it would come true, and that shadow would rise up out of the dark on the following night and consume them all.

“There are secrets in the Grassland Plains.”

She jumped in her saddle. The words were Ossen’s.

“Are you okay, Sarah?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m ... fine, Ossen.”

“Good. As I was saying, there are secrets in the Grassland Plains. This is a place of bandits, thieves, and old ruins. We must try to be secrets ourselves as we cross it. We must become ghosts in the night.”

Did he know? Had he been awake when the shadow had come? No,
she thought,
he couldn’t have been. I heard him snoring.

They rode on at a steady pace for five days, camping at night, using the warm bodies of their steeds as shelter against the winds of the plains. They encountered nothing and no-one in this time. For almost a week, there was nothing to see but the steadily undulating grassy plains and sparse brush, marked only by animal tracks and the ruts left behind by passing trader wagons. To not be under cover or in enclosed space for so long, made Sarah feel strangely exposed. She found herself looking over her shoulder, peering into the distance, hoping for a break in the monotony—as much as she feared the trouble it might bring down on their heads.

“Has it always been this way, Ossen?”

“No, Sarah. No. These plains are where the Three Kingdoms used to stand before their people were driven over the Northway Mountains by war. It was the Three Kingdoms, as they were of old, who drove the Molloi and their Iron Gods back into the Mountains of Mourning. They were great then, the Kingdoms; now, they are so small and petty and riven by bitter politicking. They argue even over whether the Fallen One should be fought. Fools!” Ossen grumbled in his throat, muttering, and then went on. “We will come to the town of Trepolpen by evening. We will rest there tonight and gather supplies tomorrow. We must set out for the Mountains of Mourning thereafter.”

Sarah felt a chill at the name, and she saw the Sworn stiffen.

“If there were another path to the Fellhorn, I would take it, believe me, but there is none. We go on to the mountains.”

There was a slight tremor in his voice that made Sarah feel no easier about what lay ahead.

Chapter Fifteen

A saying was carved into the blonde ash arch over Trepolpen’s fortified gate.

By Trepolpen shall ye know us,

By water, land and homestead free,

And by us shall thee know the Pathway onwards,

And thus shall we know thee.

The town stood on a hill, overlooking the broad expanse of the Sybylyn Lake. The town was a simple place, as with many of the homesteads, outposts, and villages that dotted the trade routes, cracked highways, and mud paths of the Grassland Plains. It had been standing for more than a generation or two now, and some said that if it stayed in place longer then the Grassland Plains could start to become something more than an expansive crossroads for the fiefdoms of the world. But this was only speculation and gossip, the idle kind. For now, it was enough that Trepolpen stood there upon the shores of the Sybylyn, and that Sarah, Ossen, and the Sworn would find shelter there.

~ ~ ~

The air over Trepolpen tore open as they approached. Whooshes, bangs and thunder-cracks shattered the silence. Colours and light. Furious sound and blinding brilliance. Sarah’s moment of fright melted into a smile—the first she’d had in some time.

Fireworks!

Fountains sprayed out scatterings of rainbow. Screaming darts of gold, silver and bronze. Flashes flickering, dancing, and dying away. For a short time, deepest night became brightest day, and Sarah was as happy as could be.

“They’re beautiful,” she said.

“Yes,” agreed Ossen. “I had forgotten it was the Eve of D’nai. Come along, there are festivities ahead, and we should join them while we can.”

“What’s the Eve of D’nai, Ossen?”

“A night when true love is meant to show its face to those who seek for it. A few hours of warmth, light and laughter before the first day of winter comes to pass.”

Sarah followed at his steed’s heels with the Sworn’s horse behind. Despite the glory and beauty of the lights overhead, Sarah noticed the Sworn’s head continually turned back as they rode up the hill to Trepolpen.

Yes,
she thought,
let's join the fun, as I don’t think it will last for very long.

They came to a tavern called
The Water Mark
and, after dismounting, passed their reins to the waiting stable boy by the door. The bar room was packed with men, women, and children. It was a jovial, bright space scented with sugar and spices that mingled with the aroma of wine, mead and ale, which sloshed into waiting flagons and cups. All were absorbed in their conservations; none noticed Ossen, Sarah, and the Sworn.

Young girls, just coming of age, passed from table to table. Blackwort, feather’s last kiss, bloodberry and witch’s nose were woven into their hair. It was supposed that a girl could meet her soulmate during the festival of D’nai by wearing such herbs and flowers to attract him and repel those whose intentions were not true.

The three of them were given a room to share by the innkeeper, Master Jez. A slim man with a shaven head and the firm manner of an ex-soldier. Sarah and Ossen would sleep together in the bed, and the Sworn would take the watch. They needed to gather supplies from the stallholders, merchants, and traders the following day before setting out for the mountains.

“There will be no hunting in the steppes as we cross them, and if we are forced inside the mountains, the going will be much, much worse. We must be prepared for the worst, for it may well come,” Ossen said.

But that can all wait for tomorrow,
thought Sarah, as she joined the people of Trepolpen to watch the fireworks blossom in the night sky. Dragons fought there. The forms of angels and demons were traced out amid the stars. And she was sure she saw faces from back home, in Okeechobee, Mom, Kiley
…Dad…
shimmer brilliantly for a short while and then fade away.

~ ~ ~

The following day passed without incident, although Sarah was still uneasy around the Sworn. The warrior never spoke, except with gestures. The steel-grey eyes were young, Sarah knew, but she couldn’t decide if they were male or female. What she did know was that such a hard, silent person was difficult to be around. It made her feel tight inside, as if her skin was tensing whenever the Sworn moved or motioned as they walked through the town or picked supplies from the market stalls. The people of Trepolpen also seemed ill-at-ease with the black-swathed figure passing snake-like along their streets. But Ossen maintained they needed the Sworn, and Sarah could not disagree. The Sworn was the only trained warrior of the three of them, and they would need someone who could fight on the journey.

Yes, she was sure that they would have need of the Sworn very soon.

Evening was setting in when they returned to
The Water Mark
, footsore but ready to depart the town on the morrow. After enjoying a hearty dinner with Master Jez, they retired to bed.

~ ~ ~

It grew dark outside, and quiet inside, as Master Jez made for the inn’s door to lock up for the night. He reached up to secure the bolts. The rattling rain outside had come on at nightfall, but seemed to be falling harder and more persistently now than before. Jez felt suddenly cold down to his bones and could not catch his breath. The cold spread through his limbs until his hands spasmed and refused to do as he wanted.

Then, looking down, he saw the smoking blade that had pierced the wood of the door. He sprang away from the door as the blade swept from side to side, carving through the wood as if it were paper; shattered, smouldering pieces fell all about him as the five Shades strode into the bar.

Master Jez met them with steel of his own.

A swordsman of Highmount in the war against the Far Isles, not so many years ago, he skilfully feinted, countered and struck as the five blades that had been smelted in Nightland Forges sang and wailed around him. Tables were overturned. Chairs and stools were kicked over or flung at the wraiths. Soon, Master Jez was panting and red-faced with exertion. The Fallen-born were slowly manoeuvring themselves closer to the stairs that led to the first floor and the bedrooms above. Despite his ailing strength, Master Jez leapt onto the bar and ran its length, knocking flagons and ale mugs towards the Fallen-born. He jumped from the end of the bar to the foot of the stairs, where he continued the fight and shouted up the stairs,
“Ossen! Awake, Wayfarer. Get up and flee the town. Now, for the Mother’s love. Go!”

Turning his face back to the Shades, he saw an opening and swung his sword into it, hoping to take at least one of the fiends down so Ossen and his charges could escape. But something happened that he did not expect.

The blade struck the shadowy form, which then seemed to fill out and harden as he watched. Armour, angular and studded, sprang forth from the darkness. The iron it was fashioned from smoked and reeked like the Fallen-born swords. And he saw their faces, wasted and rank, with fangs that were also plated with the same blackened, ever-burning iron.