The Grim Company

Troubling Times

‘And what is your opinion on this matter, Supreme Augmentor?’

The question snapped Barandas out of his pleasant reverie. He glanced across at Grand Magistrate Timerus, who sat with his elbows propped up on the table and his palms pressed together in front of his face, one eyebrow raised expectantly. What had the man been blathering on about?

Ah yes, our prospects in a war with Thelassa.

Barandas cleared his throat. ‘Our navy has been destroyed. However, Thelassa has never possessed much of a fleet — and, if the rumours we have been hearing are true, the White Lady has secured the services of no less than three companies of mercenaries from Sumnia. The men from the Sun Lands have little taste for maritime warfare.’

‘What are you saying, Supreme Augmentor?’ persisted Timerus. ‘That we have nothing to fear from our neighbour in the Trine?’

Barandas sighed. ‘I am saying that trying to rebuild our navy is likely a waste of time. The White Lady will seek to invade over land, not sea.’

‘And when might we expect this invasion?’

‘Sumnian mercenary companies are famously expensive. The Magelord of Thelassa will not want them sitting idle for long.’

Chancellor Ardling raised a hand. He was a grey man, with white hair, thick silvery eyebrows and a sickly complexion. Even his magistrate’s robes were the colour of charcoal, boasting none of the devices displayed on those of the twelve other magistrates seated around the massive darkwood table in the Grand Council Chamber. He might be capable of making a corpse seem vivacious, but Ardling was a shrewd master of coin and managed Dorminia’s coffers with the deftness of a virtuoso. Money was said to be his only passion. His wife had reportedly committed suicide by leaping from the top of their five-storey mansion, and the only noticeable effect it had on her husband was his slight air of frustration at needing to hire additional house staff.

‘Our treasury is near depleted,’ the Chancellor was saying now in his monotone voice. ‘We simply cannot afford to invest more coin in the construction of ships. Last year’s harvest was poor, and a considerable sum of gold has been earmarked to pay for produce imported from the Free Cities. We still owe Emmering in excess of one thousand spires.’

‘Pah,’ spat Marshal Halendorf of the Crimson Watch. ‘Who cares how much we owe? What’s Emmering going to do, demand we hand it over?’ He winced and rubbed at his stomach as he spoke.

Barandas narrowed his eyes at the commander of Dorminia’s army. In his estimation, Halendorf was neither a socially inept genius like Ardling nor a cruel but competent schemer like Timerus. He was a buffoon. How the man had reached his current position was anyone’s guess.

‘We are not the only ones to trade with the Unclaimed Lands,’ Timerus said. ‘If we fail to pay our debts, the Free Cities will simply cease to do business with us. Any attempt on our part to bully them will be met with hostility from the Confederation. We do not need more enemies.’

‘No,’ whispered the Tyrant of Dorminia. ‘We do not.’

The chamber fell silent. All eyes turned to the wizard in the high-backed obsidian throne at the head of the table.

Three days had passed since the destruction of Shadowport, and the Magelord still appeared almost as exhausted as he had then. The colossal energies he had harnessed to flatten the city under the waters of its own bay had left a permanent scar on Salazar. And the damage wasn’t just physical. There was a distracted look in those ancient eyes.

‘The Confederation has made its position clear,’ he said. ‘Their rulers will tolerate no interference in the business of the Free Cities. It seems the brotherhood we once shared is no longer of any value to them.’

Barandas was well aware of the frustration his master felt for the cabal of Magelords who ruled the lands far to the east. The Confederation was hundreds of miles away, but the influence it extended seemed to reach into every pocket of the continent.

Salazar leaned forwards slightly. Barandas found himself inching backwards. He saw other magistrates doing the same.

‘If the White Lady desires war, war is what she will receive,’ snarled the Tyrant of Dorminia. His hands curled into fists. They were so thin and wrinkled that together with his long nails they resembled withered claws.

‘That accursed woman always was unpredictable. She sided with the Congregation when they declared war on magic.’ He paused for a moment. ‘When she finally decided to change sides, it was with a fury that would shame Tyrannus himself.’

Tyrannus. Barandas recognized that name. The god known as the Black Lord was one of the last of the thirteen Primes to perish in the Godswar. A score of mages were said to have died in order to bring him down, strangled with their own entrails or turned into piles of oozing flesh after their skeletons had been torn whole from their bodies. The image made even him queasy, and he had seen some awful things over the years.

Thurbal’s gruesome handiwork back at the abandoned temple wormed his way into his mind. Barandas closed his eyes and tried to think instead of Lena and the morning they had spent together. He still had the scent of jasmine on his fingers.

‘This is the Age of Ruin,’ Salazar intoned. ‘We cannot afford to compromise. Marius made a mistake in opposing me, but he understood the necessity of claiming the Celestial Isles. Year after year crops fail. The waters of the Broken Sea retch up as many dead fish as they do living. Our existing supplies of raw magic are almost exhausted. We cannot leach from the corpses of gods forever. We need those isles.’

Tolvarus cleared his throat suddenly. He was in charge of Dorminia’s judicial system, such as it was — a particularly sick joke given he possessed a well-known penchant for young boys. ‘My lord, I cannot help but consider the potential in a more considered exploration of the… ah, land across the Endless Ocean. I know the voyage presents many challenges, not least of which is the sheer distance one must cross. However, Admiral Kramer was adamant that with the right preparations-’

‘No.’

The Magelord uttered the word with the finality of a coffin lid slamming shut. Tolvarus blanched and looked at the floor. ‘You will not speak of the Fadelands. None of you. The next man who dares defy me on this will be sentenced to death.’

Barandas swallowed hard. Admiral Kramer had received a similar reaction when he had broached the subject a year ago. Tolvarus was either very brave or extremely forgetful.

The silence was broken by Salazar. ‘Magistrate Ipkith. I would hear your report on Thelassa, including all information pertinent to a possible military confrontation. First, however, I believe you have news to share.’

The red-bearded Master of Information ran a hand over his shaved pate. ‘I received a report earlier this morning. Farrowgate came under attack yesterday afternoon. Another magical abomination. It killed scores of villagers. Men, women and children. I am led to believe that it… ravaged them internally, my lord.’

Salazar nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘The Augmentor Rorshan had been stationed at Farrowgate. I understand he was one of those… recently dispossessed of his magic.’ Ipkith’s voice trailed off into silence.

Barandas winced. Rorshan. A good man. One of the few I have. Had, he corrected himself.

The Magelord pursed his lips. ‘We are in the process of recovering raw magic to create new Augmentors. These things take time. What news do you have of the Rift, Barandas?’

Here it comes. He had been dreading this. ‘Legwynd has not yet returned, my lord,’ he said. ‘However, I believe two of the men who accompanied the insurrectionists were Highlanders. Formidable men, I am led to understand. They apparently killed two of the Watch in broad daylight.’

Marshal Halendorf slammed a meaty fist down onto the table. ‘I’ll have their heads!’ he growled.

Salazar raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it possible two Highlanders may have overcome one of your best Augmentors?’

Barandas shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like Legwynd on a personal level, but the man was an effective killer and had always been reliable. ‘I have commissioned a ship to sail up Deadman’s Channel and investigate the Rift,’ he admitted. ‘It should be back any time now.’

The Magelord sat back and closed his eyes briefly. ‘More wine,’ he ordered. ‘We have much still to discuss, beginning with Magistrate Ipkith’s report.’

A serving girl darted over and refilled Salazar’s goblet from a large crystal decanter. Another maid appeared with a bottle of wine in each hand and passed down the table, filling the cups of each of the thirteen magistrates who governed Dorminia’s fifty thousand inhabitants in the name of the Magelord.

Barandas raised his own cup to his lips. The wine tasted sweet and fruity. He caught the serving maid staring at him and smiled back politely. There was something odd about her, he thought, but before he could think to say anything she had moved on.

‘None for me,’ said Halendorf, waving the girl away. ‘My damned gut can’t take it.’ The Chancellor also passed on the wine. Barandas suspected Ardling could drink his own piss and find it too sweet for his palate, though he had to admit a grudging admiration for the man’s determination to keep a clear head for figures.

Tolvarus coughed suddenly and violently, interrupting the Supreme Augmentor’s musings. The Lord Justice wiped his mouth with the back of one hairy hand and cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘The wine must have gone down the wrong hole. Quite unpleasant-’

His words were interrupted by another spasm of coughing. This one lasted for much longer. He bent over the table, heaving spittle over the polished darkwood.

Timerus sneered at the struggling man. ‘Someone give him a slap on the back,’ he said with distaste.

Barandas got to his feet to assist Tolvarus. He knew something was wrong as soon as he tried to place one foot in front of the other. The chamber seemed to rock around him. Paintings of long-dead magistrates leered down at him from the walls, wavering in and out of view like mischievous phantoms.

He tried to focus, saw a sight that made his heart pound. He stumbled forwards. He could hear magistrates coughing the length of the table, but he paid them no mind, intent on reaching his destination.

The Lord of Dorminia was clawing at his throat. His face had gone purple. The golden goblet he had been drinking from lay beneath his throne, its contents spilling out across the floor. Approaching him were the three serving maids, and in their hands they held silver daggers.

Salazar tore a hand away from his neck long enough to gesture, and one of the girls exploded in a shower of blood and bone.

The torches went out, plunging everything into darkness. Confused shouts and the sounds of violent retching reached Barandas’s ears over the heightened gasps of his own breathing.

The torches flickered back to life.

He was by his master’s side, his longsword flashing to sever the arm of the girl whose blade had been closing on Salazar’s chest. The limb tumbled away in a gush of blood, but the maid displayed no signs of slowing. With incredible speed, she reached around Barandas with her other arm. He gasped at the incredible strength in that grip. Her touch was like ice, and it crushed the life from him. His heart hammered as if it were about to explode…

And then the strange woman was hurled away from him, slamming against the wall of the chamber with enough force to break her spine. She slid down to the marble floor.

The remaining maid stared at him with strange colourless eyes. It was the girl who had served him his wine. She was unusually pale, the colour of milk. How had he not noticed that before?

‘You,’ she said, in a voice empty of emotion. ‘I saw you drink. You should be dead by now.’

‘What are you?’ Barandas demanded in response. He glanced to the side, where Salazar was now doubled over on the throne, still clutching at his throat.

‘Servants of the White Lady.’ The girl stared at him with no expression on her face, but her ghostly eyes seemed to see right inside him. ‘This man is a tyrant. He has murdered countless thousands.’ She paused. ‘You are not like him, nor these other men. Why do you defend them?’

Barandas stared back, shocked at her perception. How did she know? There had been times when he had wanted to hang up his sword in despair at some of the acts he had committed in the name of the city and its Magelord — this city where children starved down in the Warrens while the elite, the rich and powerful, enjoyed lives of luxury. But what was the alternative? The world was a brutal place. Dorminia needed a strong ruler to protect it from the horrors unleashed by the wild magic that ravaged the land — as well as the predations of other Magelords.

Salazar was that man. A man who had, as it happened, saved his life.

‘Duty,’ said Barandas. ‘This is my duty.’

The pale woman nodded. ‘I understand duty.’ She raised the silver dagger she held in her sallow hand. ‘Let us both do our duty, then.’ She plunged forwards, the dagger slashing down towards his neck. She was incredibly fast, faster than any man Barandas had ever faced, almost inhumanly fast.

But he was the Supreme Augmentor, and he was faster still.

His longsword burst through the woman’s chest, lifting her off the floor. She gasped, dribbling dark blood all over her chin. The blood smelled rotten, as if it had putrefied inside her. He almost gagged as he tugged the sword free. The lifeless corpse of the strange woman slid to the ground.

He immediately turned his attention to Salazar. The Magelord’s breaths came in tortured gasps, as if he were sucking in air through a reed. The Supreme Augmentor cast his gaze across the chamber, desperately seeking help.

Most of the magistrates were dead. The body of Lord Justice Tolvarus flopped on his chair, a trail of drool running from his mouth to drip onto the terrified lap of Marshal Halendorf, who sat staring at the scene in horror.

Chancellor Ardling had gone a lighter shade of grey but was otherwise breathing normally. Grand Magistrate Timerus was also alive, though he was shivering uncontrollably and appeared to have vomited most of his wine back over his robes.

Barandas stared down at the Tyrant of Dorminia. A lump welled in his throat. He held the Magelord close, tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

With great effort, Salazar looked up at him and tried to speak. Barandas leaned in close to hear his words. They came out as a faint whisper, but he nevertheless caught their meaning.

‘Fetch… the Halfmage…’