Nights of Villjamur

TWO

It was the explosion that woke him, a bass shudder that seemed to shift the ground beneath him. Commander Brynd Lathraea opened his eyes, panting in the cold air, and looked up to realize that he was lying on the floor of a betula forest with dead twigs stabbing into his back. By his fingertips were wet knuckles of roots. He used them to help pull himself up, but his grip failed. He fell back, nauseous.

He tried to make sense of things.

Through the gaps in the trees, he watched a corkscrewing cloud of smoke, as branches swayed in the chilling wind. His ears were ringing. Strands of white hair blew across his face.

How had he got here?

The deck of a ship.

Then a blast.

He pushed himself upright, realizing how much his entire body hurt.

Next to him lay the remains of a wooden door, which he recognized as a hatch on his longship. His sabre and short-axe were nowhere to be seen. Had his knife remained in his boot? Yes – good.

Through his daze, thoughts gradually returned.

As a commander of the Night Guard he had sailed to the shore recently, following the Emperor’s useless orders. He had set out from Villiren, that sprawling mess of a trade city, their mission ensuring that Villjamur had a good supply of firegrain before the icy weather became too severe. He considered it a pointless task.

At the next attempt he managed to stand. Brynd then stumbled through the aphotic fagus forest, peering between its mottled bark for any sign of movement. His eyes caught subtleties, as he gripped branches, slipped on moss-laden rocks. At some distance on, he passed the disaggregated body of one of his Night Guard – and could tell it was Voren by the elaborate bow cast to one side. Dog-like black gheels lingered around the corpse, their triple tongues and double sets of eyes shifting in rhythmic twitches around the open wounds, in a ritual as old as the land itself. Bones crunched.

Shapes shifted in the far umbrage either side and he questioned their meaning.

He recognized the boundaries of the Kull fjord, hills towering on either side of it, then fading into the distance. This was Dalúk Point, a natural port, but one rarely heard of outside military circles. Its rocky shores led down several feet to where the deep saline waters began.

The horizon was gradually filled with black terns flying in arcs towards the north. A strange serenity, as ominous skies loomed over the snow-tipped tundra in the distance. Brynd noticed an arrangement of stones on one dark hillside, signifying an upsul. It meant the Aes tribe had already moved further west across the island, perhaps to reach their winter camps. They’d be staying there a long time.

Above the constant sound of water on stone, the screams came echoing back, along the shoreline.

He limped around a nook of the forest that leaned over the water.

‘Fuck.’

Two of his three longships had been totally destroyed. The smell of burning fuel was pungent. Tiny pyres floated on the water’s surface, shattered wood and cargo were strewn around the shoreline, once-proud sails had become burning rags, propped up by masts that were sinking even as he watched. Three Night Guardsmen floated face-down, their cloaks ballooning with trapped air. Several soldiers were still fighting on the shore. At that moment one of them fell under the incoming arrows. They were fighting in close combat, with dozens of clansmen already dead or dying at their feet.

More tribesmen kept streaming towards them from beneath the trees, axes in hand. One shambled across his line of vision, his half-severed left arm gripped in his right hand. Blood stained the man’s furs, war paint mixed with the sweat streaking down his face. Then an arrow exploded into the back of his head, shattering his skull.

Attempting to assess the situation, Brynd glanced across to the forest clearing nearest to the ships, where a few horses were still tethered to the trees.

As he shifted closer to the engagement, an arrow whipped across his face, and it skimmed across the stones to pierce the water. Following its origin, more figures were moving amongst the trees further up the shore, their axes glinting dully within the gloom.

He heaved an axe from a dead man’s head, and shambled through the shadows until he came alongside a tight cluster of four of his men fighting under the remnants of the third and surviving ship. They looked to him when they could, then followed his directions.

He didn’t recognize the attacking tribe’s origins, but they fought inefficiently. He cleaved one in the head, then snatched the man’s sword from his slackening grip. He pulled the axe free and threw it at another assailant. It wedged into his shoulder, and while the enemy was pinned in agony, Brynd rammed his sword through the front of his ribs. Warm blood poured onto his hands as Brynd tugged to free both weapons.

By now the remaining tribesmen were looking at him with wary fear – not for his fighting skills, but because of his colour.

Perhaps they assumed him a ghost.

Another approached him. Brynd managed to knock away the savage’s blade. He made a quick strike which his attacker tried to avoid, the blow splitting his left cheek. The clansman collapsed with a high-pitched scream.

One of Brynd’s soldiers, meanwhile, had his head smashed in with a mace. Another received an arrow through his eye. In his peripheral vision, Brynd could see the gheels had arrived to maul the dead, flensing, then hauling out innards, trails of intestines vividly colourful against the grey stones.

Everyone suddenly looked up and the scene became inactive.

A flaming orb ripped through the sky from deep within the forest.

Crashed into the remaining ship.

Throwing up great hunks of wood.

‘Fuck!’ Brynd yelled. ‘Get away from here!’

The Night Guard retreated quickly up the shore.

‘Head up into the forest!’

The fire spread rapidly, then another orb landed in the water. Brynd counted the time until the flames reached the cargo.

A white flash, and he pulled his cloak up to shelter his eyes, falling to the ground as the third ship exploded.

Noise saturated the air. Debris clattered on the stones around him, raked across the water, rattled the trees.

Men screamed as they were hit by burning shrapnel.

‘Commander!’

Brynd stood and pulled back his cloak as he looked up to see who called his name. He shambled up the bank, glancing around wildly, whilst his men fought on.

‘Commander,’ the voice beckoned, nearer now – from the darkness of the trees.

Fyir was lying on the ground, and as Brynd approached he noted he was clutching what was left of his leg. The stump had bloodied rags tied crudely around the end.

‘Sir…’ Fyir pleaded again, before screaming, tears covering his blackened face.

Brynd squatted beside him. ‘Lie still.’

He peeled back the rags: Fyir’s lower leg must have been destroyed in the explosion. The blond man’s ear was also missing, a fragment of skull glistening in its place. ‘Don’t think about this,’ Brynd said. ‘Think of something. Anything… Do you know who’s attacking us?’ He then slid a strip of bark between Fyir’s teeth.

Fyir shook his head, wincing as Brynd tied some of his own torn-up cloak around the wound, and he screamed again, spat out the bark, moaning, ‘Ambushed…’

‘Sabotaged,’ Brynd muttered. ‘No one was supposed to know we were here. There, that should hold it. You’ll live, so that’ll at least stop the gheels getting you. How badly does your head hurt?’

Fyir closed his eyes, squeezed out more tears, whispered, ‘Cultists?’

Brynd shook his head. ‘I doubt it was cultists. Since when do they use something as simple as arrows and axes? Have you seen anyone else?’

‘What about… orbs?’

‘Yes? What indeed?’ Brynd reached into his top pocket, pulled out a small silver box. Inside it there were several coloured powders in tiny compartments. He pinched a bit of the blue, and placed it under Fyir’s nose. Within seconds the man’s eyes rolled back and he passed out. Brynd stood up, placing the box back in his pocket. He was vaguely surprised at the severity of these wounds. The Night Guard were artificially enhanced, albeit slightly, and they were meant to recover quickly, suffer wounds hardly at all.

As he moved away, he gathered up a sword lying on the ground, a sharp Jamur sabre. Pieces of butchered flesh littered the shore like after a cull of seals, and the skies around the fjord were black with smoke.

Another arrow skimmed past, and Brynd dived to grab a ragged piece of ship’s timber on the rocks nearby. Using it as a shield, he advanced towards the archers firing from the darkness of the trees. Shafts drove into the wood or clipped the stones around his feet, as he ran into the relative safety of the forest. Casting the timber aside, he headed further along the shore to hunt down the archers and whatever it was that had launched the fire upon his ships.

On reflection, it might be foolish to attempt to eliminate personally an enemy that had obviously planned this attack in such detail.

But who? Why? All he was doing here was handling the collection of fuel. The Emperor had insisted on sending men he could trust, men for whom his paranoia was at a minimum. The Night Guard.

One of the enemy could be seen crouching at the forest’s edge, peering out across the fjord. Like a hunter, Brynd stalked wide so as to keep outside of his target’s range of vision, drew the dagger from inside his boot. The crackle of the burning ships was enough to enable some stealth in his approach, and when Brynd was just twenty yards from his target, he flung the blade through the air.

It lodged in the archer’s face and he fell silently to the ground. A second tribesman ran to his side. Brynd was on him, immediately scraping his sabre across the man’s throat.

This tribe wasn’t from Jokull, or any other of the Empire’s islands. The clothing wasn’t local for a start, and there was no adornment save the bone charm hung around the remains of the man’s neck. Brynd withdrew his dagger from the first victim, cleaned it off, placed it back in his boot.

Gheels crouched in the half-light, awaiting their moment. He decided to go back and wait near Fyir, killing only those who approached him. Revenge could wait until later.

Night-time, and in these moments Brynd’s mind became ultra-rational. Things became lists, strategies, probabilities. He knelt next to Fyir, a man in a resting state, now calm and peaceful. Whilst he’d been away, blood beetles had begun feasting on Fyir’s damaged leg, shredding the cloth Brynd had used to staunch the bleeding, and reducing his truncated leg by at least a hand span. In the process, the fist-sized insects had secreted a resin that stopped the bleeding and induced healing, so maybe they weren’t completely a bad thing. Brynd had to scrape the creatures off with a sabre, then split them down the centre of their shells to kill them.

The skies cleared, and the world became unbearably cold. He couldn’t yet light a fire because it would inevitably draw attention. Three horses were hidden deeper within the forest so they wouldn’t be stolen. What strategy now? If only he’d brought Nelum along, a man who could generate plots in his head with simplicity, but Nelum was back in Villjamur, because Brynd hadn’t thought he’d need him.

There had been several more explosions, sparks that shattered the darkness as barrels of firegrain were touched by the spreading flames, but Brynd was confident that the night ahead would be calm. Thirteen of the Night Guard were dead. That left five more unaccounted for, so he assumed them dead too.

Shadows had moved in front of flames for a while, a few hours back.

A featureless ship had rowed away.

Eerie stillness now lingered.

He could barely remember a time when the Night Guard were made to look so easy to defeat. The Empire’s forces usually dominated battles, clearing rebel islands with brutal efficiency. All those years of early confidence since he’d begun his service for the current Emperor in the Regiment of Foot, then transferred to the Dragoons, and finally to the Night Guard. For his loyalty and renowned fighting skills, he had climbed to the rank of commander. Was he really so loyal? Or, because of the colour of his skin, did he feel he always had something to prove?

He needed to show he was normal, steadfastly loyal to the Empire. That made his life easier. Being one of only a few albinos known in the Jamur Empire, he was used to being considered as a permanent outsider. True, people found him curious more than anything else. Their gaze usually settled on his red-tinted eyes, hesitating there a moment because of either fear or amazement, he’d never know – because people liked to stare, didn’t they? As a result of his abnormality, he had worked on improving his fitness and knowledge with remarkable dedication.

He stared out from the cover of the trees at the fires that still burned where the firegrain had spread amongst the debris. Most of the grain would be underwater, soaked and useless. Some of it had caught on the wreckage floating along the fjord, and small fires lit its passage to the sea as if there was a festival for the water god, Sul. He wondered vaguely if priests from the Aes would come down to the shore to look for shells as a result of these fires to supply their divinations.

And what would they tell me tonight? That my luck’s out? No shit.

He picked up an arrow he’d rescued from a dead soldier, held it close to see if he could work out its origins. Most likely it came from the island of Varltung, though there were no runes inscribed to indicate a maker. Varltung had a long history of resistance to the Emperor’s forces. Being naturally fortified by its high cliffs, it was difficult for a sea landing. But, because of the Freeze, the Council was reluctant to acquire new territories.

How could a foreign force even arrive on Jokull, the Jamur Empire’s main island, without anyone noticing? His mission here had been ordered from the highest levels in the Empire, with only the Council, its governing body, being privy to that information.

A man lurched out of the darkness.

‘Ha! Some bloody Night Guardsman you are,’ the figure said. ‘Could’ve slit your throat in a heartbeat.’

‘I noticed you over an hour ago, captain, a hundred paces up the shore. With the noise you made, I’m surprised you’re not on the rocks right now wearing several arrows.’ He looked up. ‘How long did it take you to realize I’m not the enemy?’

Captain Apium Hol ignored the jibe, instead paced around Fyir’s sleeping body. He was stocky, pale skinned with red hair. On his breast, Apium wore the distinctive silver brooch of the Night Guard, a seven-pointed star representing all of the Empire’s occupied nations, and it was only then that Brynd noticed that he’d lost his own.

‘Looks like old Fyir here bit off more than he could chew,’ Apium remarked.

‘Not even funny, captain. You should’ve seen him when he was still awake. Never seen a man in such agony.’

‘Beetles?’ Apium enquired.

‘Yes, some of it. He’d already lost up to his knee from the blast. I stopped the bleeding, left him here for a bit, and… well.’

‘At least it wasn’t gheels. So, how many of us are left, sir?’ Apium sat down on the ground beside Brynd with a groan.

‘You’re looking at us.’

‘By the balls of the dragon gods of Varltung.’ The captain shook his head.

‘I wouldn’t mention that nation’s name right now.’

‘You suspect it’s them?’

‘Ah, who knows.’

‘So, what happened to you, commander?’

‘Think I was thrown right from the ship into the forest,’ Brynd explained. ‘But the trees must’ve broken my fall. How about you?’

‘I was on the shore when your ship… went up. Saw the archers heading into the forest, so I followed them. Got one of them, saw two others dead as I came back. I looked around for a catapult – because something must’ve propelled that fire – but there was nothing to see. Just an empty clearing. There were at least four of us on the shore – like, Gyn, Boldar, Awul – but they weren’t there when I got back.’

Silence.

To see your comrades die was something to be expected in the army. It was tough, of course. You formed a close bond. Men became an extended family. You saw more of the world together than most lovers ever would. There would be mourning, that was certain, as there always was. Brynd couldn’t let it get to him right now, though, so he placed the issue into a region of his mind that he would later revisit.

‘Any idea who did this?’ Apium asked. ‘Not the clansmen, I mean, but who actually planned it?’

After a pause Brynd muttered, ‘It’s a set-up. Someone in Villjamur wanted this to happen.’

‘But why?’

‘So we’re not properly prepared for the Freeze, I guess. Otherwise, no idea, really.’

‘Leaves us well screwed,’ Apium continued. ‘Do you think we should’ve brought a cultist along with us?’

‘It’s all well and good saying that now, but everyone wanted to keep this low-key. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? Cultists would’ve only drawn more attention. And they would’ve known too, which defeats the objective. Although why all this secrecy just for a bit of fuel? I realize Johynn wants us relying on them less. You know, he even told me before we came away that he suspected the cultists would bugger off to do their own thing during the ice age. It’s not exactly classified information that he wants to be able to manage things without them, get used to them not being around. He might be a little weird at times, but there’s some wisdom there, I’ll say that much.’

‘Hmm.’ Apium wore an expression of uncertainty. ‘Still, would’ve helped though.’

‘I’m going to be asking some awkward questions when we get back home.’

‘So you think we’re going to be in trouble?’ Apium suggested.

‘It’s not by any means an emergency. There’s enough wood in the forests across the Empire to keep the home fires burning, for sure. This was more Johynn’s doing. He was convinced the firegrain was needed – and you know what his mind’s been like of late.’

Apium stifled a laugh, then he pointed through the trees.

Two moons could be seen between the tall hills rising either side of the fjord, one moon significantly larger than the other, and both an ethereal white, hanging low in the sky. Astrid, the smaller, appeared sometimes to be unnatural, as if it was made of some pale ore, out of place even – something Brynd felt an affinity for.

The men stared for several moments. There was a sense of stillness. Stars gradually defined the hillside.

‘Looking nice tonight, aren’t they?’ Apium said. ‘Strange to think they’ll do it.’

‘What?’

‘The ice age. Strange to think just the moons are causing it.’

‘When you think about it logically-’

‘You see, that’s your problem. I just said it’s weird that it comes to that. You never just think plainly about stuff.’

‘It’s not a plain world, captain.’

‘You need to get laid more often,’ Apium grumbled, lying back flat on the ground, his arms behind his head.

Brynd stood up suddenly. He could perceive movement nearby.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Apium said. ‘Touched a nerve, have I?’

Brynd gestured for him to silence.

The red-haired man pushed himself upright to follow Brynd’s gaze. ‘Can’t see anything.’

Brynd stepped to the right, his eyes wide, alert. Within seconds he knew Apium had lost him, could see the man’s gormless face lit up by the moon, even at a distance. How Apium had managed to stay alive in the Night Guard was beyond Brynd. Perhaps he worshipped some outlawed god who knew something no one else did. The injections this elite group received on their induction should have worn off over the years due to Apium’s excessive drinking.

Brynd took several slow steps over to where he had seen the foliage move. He reached carefully for his sabre. Behind a sapling, he saw him. A man, naked, covered in mud. Brynd frowned, then reached for a stone from the ground. He threw it, the stone connected, but the man didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Brynd repeated the action. Still no movement. He whistled back to Apium.

After a few seconds, his companion shambled through the forest to his side. ‘What’s up?’

‘There’s a man over there.’ Brynd indicated the figure. ‘He’s naked.’

‘Naked?’

‘I said naked.’

‘You’re right,’ Apium said. ‘What’s he doing way out here with nothing on? Bit of outdoors action, eh?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ Brynd said. Little harm could come from investigating this, surely? There was no sign of anyone else around, and he was sure they were alone. ‘Let’s get closer.’ Brynd led the way towards the naked man, who had remained still for some time. If he was aware of their approach, he didn’t show it.

‘The Sele of Jamur to you, sir,’ Brynd said, thinking the traditional Jamur greeting would prompt some response. Nothing. He looked the man up and down. ‘You, er… you must be cold.’

Apium snorted a laugh.

The man still didn’t move, just stared vacantly ahead. They stepped cautiously to within an armspan of him, noticing his face lacked blood as if totally drained of it. His eyes were slightly slanted, and they gazed directly past Brynd. There were strange wounds around his neck, then Brynd noticed that his head was shaven unevenly, so that tufts of black hair blossomed on it in patches.

‘Looks dead, doesn’t he?’ Apium remarked.

Brynd reached out, prodded the man in the chest. Still no reaction. The commander took a bold step forward and reached out to feel his wrist. ‘Well, I’ll swear by Bohr, he is.’

‘What?’ Apium gasped. ‘Dead?’

‘Yes. There’s no sign of pulse.’ He let go of his wrist, and the man’s arm slumped back to his side.

‘This is cultist work, Brynd,’ Apium warned, reaching for Brynd’s shoulder with fear in his eyes. ‘Nothing natural here. I don’t like it. I’ve no idea what they’ve done to him, but we should send this fellow on his way and stay with Fyir. In fact, I think we ought to move off a little.’

Although stunned, Brynd didn’t know what to make of it. A hardened soldier, he was used to seeing the worst of life, but this individual out here spoke of technologies he was unaware of. What options did he have? If they killed this man, there might be more in waiting. Should he provoke it? In their depleted state, Brynd considered it best to leave things be and report it back in Villjamur. ‘I think you’re right. This can wait. I’ll maybe put it in a report.’

They carried Fyir gently to the ruins of an Azimuth temple.

Little was known about that civilization, and hardly anything was left there aside from hidden and subtle masonry. One of the towers had fallen so that it rested flat against a hillside, just beyond Dalúk Point, the lower side now wedged firmly into the slope. Lichen and mosses suffocated much of it, but there were still discernible patterns, squares within squares, that were known to be traditional religious symbols. It was thought that the Azimuth had worshipped numerology and mathematical precision, a sentiment he liked: looking for beauty in the most abstract of places. Brynd pondered this reverence as Apium fell asleep alongside Fyir.

The commander sat at the foot of the tower, his knees pulled up, back resting against the stone. His sabre remained unsheathed at his side. Stars now defined the hills surrounding the fjord, and he concentrated on sounds, the way you always did on these shifts, hoping and yet not hoping to hear footsteps, maybe snapping branches, someone coming their way. But there was little activity apart from that of nocturnal birds and mammals, every one of their eerie calls reminding him how they were quite alone.

In fact, he began to feel he was barely there himself.