Shadowblood

Chapter Seven

“I take it you’ve heard the news?” said Jazeray, sticking his sleek head round the office door.

Sardec tore his attention from the minutia of the supply lists: provisions, bullets, powder, all the myriad things that had to be accounted for with quartermaster’s requisitions, small foolscap boats floating down the endless river of paperwork.

“Heard what?”

“We’re getting ready to move out?”

“So soon in the season? Where are we going? Home?”

“We are not so lucky. It looks like we’re heading East. Scouts have just come in. Seems the Imperials can’t wait to get to grips with us. Their armies are already rolling over the border.”

“For certain?”

“The General believes it, and that’s what counts. The official letters of dispatch go out this afternoon but I thought you would appreciate getting the word as quickly as possible.”

“Any idea about numbers? Of the Imperials, I mean.”

“They say tens of thousands of thralls.”

“They are not afraid of the plague then?”

“Apparently not.”

“Maybe they know something we don’t.” Sardec had his suspicions about this ever since the Foragers had disrupted Jaderac’s ritual. The Sardeans were prepared to use any amount of dark sorcery to achieve their aims. It looked like it was going to be a difficult war, with plague and famine sweeping the land.

He supposed it had not been so different in his father’s day, save for the fact that then the enemy had not been other Terrarchs. During the conquest, the Exalted had presented a united front against the world. Now they fought proxy wars against each other through their human legions. It would only be a matter of time before it led to disaster.

Rulers were supposed to provide stability, certainty, prosperity. If they could not, loss of faith and rebellion inevitably followed. Terrarchs were supposed to be wiser than humans, able to take the long view, not be led astray by the clamour of mobs. His father had claimed that they were shepherds of their human charges, that they had a responsibility to them. It was only recently that Sardec had come to understand what he had meant and in some ways to share his feelings.

Jazeray said, “You’re looking thoughtful. I can tell by the blankness in your eyes. It reflects the emptiness in your skull.”

“I fear you judge me by yourself. I suppose it’s inevitable. We can only use our own experience as a guide.”

Jazeray laughed. “That sounded suspiciously like banter. You seem to be losing that famous stiffness of yours. Anyway, I had better go and let my Sergeant know what’s happening. Might as well have the troops ready for the off.”

“Your Sergeant knew about it before you did,” said Sardec.

“It never hurts to let them know we’re not completely in the dark.”

“Let me just sign these reports and I’ll join you.”

“We’re going where?” The Barbarian shouted. It was bloody typical. He had just got himself settled in this nice comfortable billet with a couple of jolly fat-bottomed whores and a decent supply of grog and tobacco and the army had to go and spoil it. It was enough to make a man sick. There were days when he really regretted leaving Segard, and this was one of them.

“We’re going East. Best get used to it,” said Weasel, looking as relaxed as he always did. He looked around the room where a dozen of the Foragers lay sprawled on their bedrolls. “Sergeant Hef asked me to spread the word. Seems like the Imperial hordes have crossed the border and are hot for blood.”

“Wankers,” said the Barbarian. “It’s bloody typical- I just got myself settled into a nice comfortable…”

“I know, I know,” said Weasel, looking like he’d heard all of this a thousand times before, intolerant bastard that he was. “Two or is it three plump lasses and a tavern with a good fire and a nice line in roasted rat, and now the army has got to go and spoil it all by giving us our marching orders. Who could have seen that coming?”

For a lanky thin bastard, Weasel did a pretty good impression of the Barbarian’s voice and manner or at least the other’s thought he did. They all laughed. The Barbarian glared around the room just to let them know he was not to be mocked, at least not by anybody but Weasel. They all looked away, abashed by his glare. They knew he could take any six of them, even though most of them were half his age. Actually he could take any ten of them on a good day and the way he felt now…

“You think we’ll be fighting any more dead men?” Toadface asked. Like all of the Foragers, he had grown heartily sick of the walking corpses. The Barbarian did not blame them. In his homeland. bodies remained decently in the ground when buried, and there was none of the need for burning you got in these devil-infested southern lands.

Weasel spread his huge long fingered hands and shrugged, pantomiming a total lack of knowledge.

Handsome Jan stopped admiring his profile in his shard of mirror long enough to say, “It seems like we’ve doing nothing else but deal with bloody sorcery since we crossed the Kharadrean border.”

“Since before that,” said Toadface, licking his lips with his long tongue. “Since the mountains and Achenar.”

The words filled the room with silence. None of them liked to remember that evil place and the Elder World demons that had filled it. They had all of them lost a bunch of friends to the spiders, and the Barbarian had come damn near to losing his life. He still carried the scars from where those huge claws had bitten into his flesh and it was not like he didn’t already have enough scars.

“I’m guessing we’ll see a deal more dark sorcery before this campaign is out,” said Weasel, always one to delight in bringing bad news. “The Sardeans are famous for it.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Toadface. “Like that bastard Jaderac up there in the graveyard, and that Nerghul thing that almost killed us all back in Morven. There are times when I think this whole bloody company is cursed.”

“Well, at least we’ve got the Inquisitor with us,” said Handsome Jan. “That fire of his put paid to the shadow-spawn.”

“I put paid to them with my blade,” said the Barbarian.

“Funny, that’s not how I remember it,” said Weasel.

“Well, I did my part, which is more than some here can say.” The Barbarian glared around, daring anyone to gainsay him, and as usual no one did.

“When do we move out?” Toadface asked.

“Day after tomorrow,” said Handsome Jan.

“No way,” said Weasel. “It’ll take weeks to get the provisions ready, and for the Terrarchs to make up their minds as to what to do.”

“Maybe the Sardeans will be here before then,” said Handsome Jan dubiously.

“Only if they come on dragon-back,” said Weasel. “It’s scores of leagues to the Eastern border, and the roads will be muddy as hell with the spring rains.”

“You don’t think they have enough dragons to move their entire army, do you?” the Barbarian asked. He didn’t mind fighting many things and he feared nothing, but the concept of roughhousing it with a dragon gave him pause.

“No. They’ll all be hibernating anyway, if our own are anything to go by.”

“Reckon there’ll be much plunder?” Handsome Jan asked.

Weasel shook his head. “Imperials will grab any they find on the way in, and Eastern Kharadrea is as poor as an honest magistrate anyway.”

“If the Imperials do have anything we can always take it from them,” said the Barbarian. He did not like to think that they might have to fight a battle without any prospect of loot. It was one of the few things that made a soldier’s life worthwhile.

“Nice that somebody is looking on the bright side,” said Weasel. “Now if I have answered all your questions, I am going to go and get a drink.”

“Smartest thing you’ve said all evening,” said the Barbarian. “I think I’ll join you.”

As ever Rena’s lush human beauty astonished Sardec. She looked lovely in the new green dress she had bought in the market. It had probably once belonged to some rich merchant’s wife. There were a lot of them selling clothing and jewellery to raise money for food on the black market. Times were hard all over.

She twirled around, raising the hem of the skirt slightly with her hands so that it swirled around with her. Her ankles were revealed, an effect which he found surprisingly erotic after all this time. He forced himself to clear such thoughts from his mind. This conversation was going to be hard enough as it was.

“What do you think?” she asked, a smile lighting her face.

“It looks fine, very nice.” Something in his tone must have told her something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We got our marching orders today,” said Sardec, making his voice as grave as he could. “The Imperials are over the border. We are going to meet them.”

Her smile vanished and she slumped down on the bed. Her hands clutched the quilt crumpling it. “How long till we go?”

“I do not want you to go,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

“You do not want me?”

“It will be dangerous. There will be very little food. There is plague in the East, far worse than here.”

“I want to go with you. Don’t you want me to come?”

“Aren’t you listening, woman?” he said, exasperation and concern making his voice rougher than he would have wanted it to sound. “I said it will be dangerous.”

“I don’t care how dangerous it is.”

“I do. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But you might be hurt, killed even.”

“I am a soldier of the Queen. It is my job.”

“And I am a whore. It is my job to follow the army.”

“You are not a whore to me,” he said, unable to say what she really was to him. If truth be told there was no future to their relationship. She was a human, he was a Terrarch. There could be no marriage. Even putting aside all the problems of birth and class, there was the fact that he might live a thousand years if he did not fall in battle. She would be lucky to live past forty, the way the world was now.

“I want to go with you,” she said.

“I can’t allow you to do that,” he said. “If anything happened to you…”

“What?” There was imperiousness to her tone that no human should ever use to a Terrarch. He ignored it, trapped by his inability to express how he really felt, to take the risk of saying what she meant to him, of putting himself in her power, of risking ridicule not from the world, but from this one particular human being.

“I just do not want anything to happen to you,” he said lamely. He forced business-like briskness into his tone. “There is gold in the purse on the dresser, and script that can be drawn on any bank.”

“So it does come down to money. I am to be paid off,” she said unreasonably.

“I just want to make sure you are all right,” he said. “That you can pay for safe passage back to Talorea when the passes are open, and that you will have enough to live on once you get there.”

“This is cruel,” she said. He looked at her, not quite sure what she meant.

“I do not mean to be.”

She stared at him, meeting his gaze in a way that none of the soldiers under his command ever could. “No, I can see that you do not,” she said softly. “You just do not understand at all.”

“Understand what?”

“What you mean to me. What has happened between us. What you’ve done to my life.”

He stepped back a little, not wanting to face what she was saying, not really understanding what she meant anyway. She was a human, after all. He was a Terrarch. What claim could she possibly feel she had on him? Even as that thought crossed his mind, he realised that she did have one, based on the simple fact that he did care about what happened to her, more than he did for anyone else in the world.

He wanted to tell her that, but that would lead to other things, to her insisting that she come with him, on a march there was every chance that none of them would come back from. The Queen’s army were outnumbered, ill-equipped and facing an enemy that had no scruples about using the darkest of sorcery. Since Kathea’s death, they lacked local allies and many of the locals would rally to Khaldarus’s cause and fight for the Dark Empire simply because he was the only local claimant for the throne. And he’d heard other rumours, that if they won they were to continue marching on into the East, to invade Sardea itself, which would be suicidal.

If he reached out to her now, he would be sentencing her to death, and he did not want to do that; more than anything else in the world, he wanted to avoid it. “You cannot come with me. I forbid it.”

“You do not own me. This is not the Dark Empire. Not yet. You cannot forbid me to do anything.”

The defiance in her tone fanned his own anger. He wrenched his feelings back under control. He was not going to argue with a human. He was not going to raise his voice to her. “Then I ask you not to do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” he shouted. “What is so bloody difficult about it.”

“I can’t go back, not to Redtower, not to Mama Horne’s, not after being here with you.”

“I will come back for you. I will find you.”

“I have heard that before.”

It was not the right thing for her to say. Sardec did not like to think about her other lovers, the human ones, the ones who paid. He did not like to think that she compared him to them.

“If I say a thing, I mean it.”

“I will not go. I will not take your money. I will follow the army.”

“No you will not.” Once again he was shouting, and the shameful realisation that other Terrarchs might hear him goaded him to fury.

“Yes I will.”

“I am leaving,” he said, stalking to the door, determined to regain his composure.

She was gone when he got back. His money was still there.

From the saddle of her stolen destrier, Tamara studied the road. An endless stream of people surged past her heading west.

Families of thin-faced peasants trudged along, all of their worldly possessions hanging in bundles from their sticks, lines of squalling children strung out behind their parents like so many ducklings following their mother to a pond. The richer ones rode on carts that in better days would have carried their produce to market.

Among the peasants were wounded soldiers, deserters, bandits. She had met their likes a few times along the road, but they had not seen through her disguise, and taken her for one of themselves. It had not stopped a few of them trying to rob her for her gear, and her horse. Those that had tried had died, quietly, wondering why breathing was suddenly so difficult and whose blood stained their chests and throats.

“Can ye spare a bit to eat, sir?” asked a ragged pimple-faced youth. A younger brother or friend leaned against him, and his tone was half-way between begging and menace. Her steed marked her out as one who might have money and the lad was simply trying his luck.

“I wish I could,” she said, pitching her voice low and keeping the accent rough. “But I’ve got nothing.”

“Ye’ve got a horse.”

“I ate horse once,” said his companion. He sounded feverish. “Tasted good as pork. As good but different.”

“You can’t eat my horse,” Tamara said. “I need it to carry me East.”

“No sense in goin’ that way, sir. There’s war in the East and Dark Empire soldiers and the Plague.”

“My families in Asterton and I got to get back to them,” she lied smoothly.

“No sense in going there, sir. It’s burned to the ground or so I heard. Soldiers did it. The place was crawling with the walking dead.”

It was not the first time she had heard tales of restless corpses while she was on the road. Every second person seemed to have one to tell, if you had the time to listen. Wicked sorcery had been used in the past few months and she suspected she knew by whom.

“They say the Shadow is spreading its wings over the world, sir, and that the last days are near and that this is a sign. The graveyards are emptying, and the sun will soon go out. Now’s not the time to grudge a man a bite of horse.”

“You bite this horse and he will most likely bite you back. A vicious tempered brute he is.” She hoped they would take the hint. She disliked senseless killing. She supposed she could just put her spurs to the beast and ride them down, but there were risks in that as well.

“Have you seen these walking dead men?” she asked.

“No but we’ve met those that have.” At least they were more honest than some.

“They say it’s the Light’s punishment on us for letting the Queen die,” said the sicker looking one.

“I heard it was punishment for her murdering her old father and trying to seize the throne away from Prince Khaldarus. He’s the rightful heir, after all.”

So even two such as these were caught up in the currents of the civil war. It seemed Sardea’s agents had done their work well.

“He’s the only heir now,” said the other, “so I guess we are stuck with him, unless the Taloreans kill him too and put one of their own on the throne.”

“Bastards wouldn’t have dared try something like that when the old King was alive. General Koth would have sorted them out.”

Tamara wanted to say Koth had been in his grave for over a century, but she doubted it would do any good. The Kharadreans had all sorts of legends about their great human General. Doubtless he was expected to return and save the kingdom momentarily.

“You’re right,” she said, just to mollify them. “They would not have dared. Now if you would just step aside I will be on my way.”

For a moment, she thought they were going to try and block her, and that she was going to have to ride them down. From the expressions on their faces, she guessed that they thought that too, at least for a moment, before their fear and fatigue won out and they stepped aside from her path.

“Good luck on your travels,” she told them as she set her mount in motion along the muddy road.

“Don’t let the walking dead get you,” shouted the sicker-looking one of the pair. His good wishes seemed heartfelt and she felt oddly grateful to him for them, even if he was only a human.

The stink of cheap perfume and tobacco hit Rik as soon as he pushed through the heavy wooden doors of the Nag’s Head. A dozen rouged faces turned to look at him, but his clothes were threadbare, and his manner down at heel. No self-respecting whore would take him for a likely prospect, but that did not stop a few of the more broken down ones sidling closer till he shook his head and pushed them away. Business must really be bad.

“Look who’s here,” said Weasel. No amount of grime or badly patched clothing could deceive his keen eyes. “Slumming again, eh?”

“Halfbreed!” boomed the Barbarian. “Could not keep away from the old company eh?”

The cheeriness in his voice showed he had drunk just enough to be overly friendly, and not quite enough to be violent. Before they could say anymore, Rik slid into the booth and shouted for a beer.

“I’m surprised they are letting you out of the Palace these days,” said Weasel, in a voice low enough to show that he had least understood the need to be discreet. On the table in front of him was a deck of cards, with which no doubt he was about to cheat the rest of the lads out of their wages.

“Yes, after the Queen got it…” Weasel’s elbow in his gut cut the Barbarian off from whatever indiscretion he was about to bellow.

“I snuck out,” said Rik, “and I don’t think this is the time or place to be shouting about from where.”

The Barbarian looked surly. “Then what is it the time and place for?”

“There’s an Inquisitor in town.”

“I know,” said Weasel. “We saved him from some walking corpses.”

“I don’t need to remind you about the book business back in Redtower and what followed at Achenar.”

“No indeed — a profitable business it was,” said the Barbarian.

“One that could get us all burned at the stake if it came to light.”

“If you came all the way down here just to remind us of that, you could have saved yourself a trip,” said Weasel. “We won’t be bringing it up with him even if he drops in for a beer.”

Rik paused for a moment and gathered his thoughts. “I came to warn you. If I disappear into the dungeons, be ready to run. You might not get much warning so keep an ear open and an eye out.”

“You wouldn’t tell on us, would you?” The Barbarian sounded almost childishly disappointed by the thought.

“He might not have a choice if they are applying red hot pliers to his nadgers,” said Weasel thoughtfully. Rik studied them carefully, measuring their response. They would tell no tales and they did not move in circles where the Inquisitors were likely to find them, but you never knew. He had done what he could by letting them know. He had no plans to be taken by the Inquisition but if it happened at least he had warned them.

“Have you heard we’re moving out?” Weasel asked. Another question hung in the air unasked, and Rik thought he’d better give them an answer.

“Yes. I suspect Asea and I will be going with you. The army will need all the sorcerers it can get if it’s going against the Sardeans, and she’s the best we’ve got.”

“Will give me something nice to think about while we’re on the march,” said the Barbarian. “Any chance of fixing us up?”

Rik shook his head. In any other man, the Barbarian’s lust for Asea would be a joke, but as far as Rik could tell, the northerner was too stupid for that.

“Want to keep her all to yourself, eh? Can’t say I blame you.”

The beer arrived and Rik took a swallow. It was not as good as he remembered, perhaps because he had become more accustomed to the fine wines available at the Palace.

“Anything else to report?” Weasel asked. “Being pursued by the hounds of Shadow? Got on the wrong side of the Old Gods? Been found in bed with the Arch-Templar’s pet goat?”

“So far I have avoided all of those things.”

“Probably just as well. A man should only bite off as much trouble as he can chew.”

“I never went looking for trouble. It just seems to find me.”

“Everybody has a gift, so they say. That seems to be yours. Fancy a game of cards?”

“With you? That’s one sort of trouble I have sense enough to avoid.”

“Some good girls in here,” suggested the Barbarian helpfully.

Rik shook his head. “I’d best be heading back.”

“Well, good to see you, and thanks.” There was a sincerity in Weasel’s voice that surprised Rik. “Watch your back.”

“You too,” he said, and headed for the door.

As he stepped into the muddy street, Rik bumped into somebody. Instinctively his hand went to his purse. When he found it was still present, he stepped back.

“Sorry,” he said, surprised to find himself face to face with a crying woman, and even more surprised to find that he recognised her. “Rena?”

“Rik,” she said, wiping her eyes, and setting her face to hardness. They had been lovers once, briefly, before she had taken up with Sardec, and he had become an agent of Asea. He found the sight of her still made his stomach clench. He was not a man who took betrayal well. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, almost managing to keep the bitterness from his voice. “I had heard you were living with Sardec.”

“And I had thought you risen too far in the world to be hanging out in soldier’s taverns.” There was a touch of acid in her manner that he did not like.

“I see you have not,” he said. “Trying to earn a little on the side, are we?”

To his surprise she started to cry again. It was not something he was prepared to deal with. She reached out and clutched his arm. He took a step back.

“I have left him,” she said.

“You have left him?” He had to try hard to keep the note of incredulity from his voice. Girls like Rena did not leave rich Terrarchs like Sardec. That was a given in the world they had both lived in. “Why?”

“He did not want me to come with him on campaign.”

“So he was trying to get rid of you?” It was not the most tactful thing he could have said, but somehow the words came out anyway. He was a little ashamed of their gloating tone.

“He said he might not come back,” she said. “He said it would be dangerous.”

Her tone was so pitiful that Rik found himself forced, almost against his will, to say something comforting. “He was not wrong there. The Sardeans are cruel and there are new plagues in the East. The dead are on the march as well, or so folk say.”

“But it’s just as dangerous here, with the walking dead, and the famine and the way the Kharadreans hate us because of the Queen.” She seemed just then to realise exactly who she was talking to. “I don’t believe you killed her. I never did. No matter what people said.”

“I am touched by your faith in me.”

“They would blame somebody like you,” she said. “You’re not one of them. You’re a human.”

There was no arguing with the truth of that statement either but this did not seem like the time or place to be discussing it. He glanced around to see if they had been overheard. No one appeared to be paying the slightest attention, which was just as well. He had no desire to be lynched by an angry mob.

“Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.

“I was going to look for room with some girls I know. They can usually be found in the Nag’s Head.”

“You have enough money?

“Yes.”

“I don’t know about any girls but Weasel and the Barbarian are in there. They should be able to point you in the right direction.”

“What about you? Where are you going?”

“I need to get back, to the Palace.”

“I heard they were keeping you a prisoner there.”

“Not quite. But it might be better if you kept quiet about that, right here, right now.”

She looked abashed, as if she suddenly realised that there might be danger in what she was saying. Her hand went to her mouth. “I am sorry, Rik,” she said.

He pulled her hand down, and said, “Don’t be. Just be a little more discreet, and don’t tell anybody you’ve seen me. I might not be the safest person to know.”

“You were never that anyway.”

“Bear that in mind,” he said. “And take care.”

He let go of her arm and strode off into the night, doing his best not to look back. He wondered what would happen to her now. He felt a certain sympathy. She was just another lost soul far from home. He hoped that things would work out for her, but he knew they most likely would not.