The Pilgrims

45

After days and nights of travel, Anfen had accepted he had the helplessness of a falling body.

He’d led castle armies through these very parts, subduing villages and militias, herding them back into Aligned cities where they’d be unable to leave, nor live so freely. He knew these lands well, had camped and hunted game in these lush green fields and scenic woods. Not far, there were places where, a few shovel-scoops deep, lay clusters of bodies just a few years dead, killed on Anfen’s own orders.

Their orders, spoken through his mouth just as he began to doubt them. But he’d spoken them anyway, while at night he’d slept badly and pondered his course, the conclusion stalking him fast, however he ducked and hid from it in fear. Oh how he had feared that truth finding him, and had run from it, for he had already done so much in their name.

Danger wasn’t the worst part of the road these days, Anfen realised; it was this, the long stretches of uneventful travel when he had no choice but to delve into himself, the last ten years eclipsing all of childhood before it so that he barely remembered more innocent and happy times. How he hated these thoughts, yet they were everywhere.

They pushed on as the countryside rolled by, crossing the road only once, sticking to the hillsides where shells of homesteads, newly burned or abandoned though they were, sat like ancient ruins. Troops still moved south in worrying numbers, as recent tracks and the not too distant thud of many passing boots sometimes reminded them. What for? Why now? Elvury was about to Align, Faul had guessed that first night as they spoke privately. She’d ‘seen signs’, she said.

They had claimed before that Elvury would fall and been wrong. The city was high up, easy to defend, and would be a terrible fight for an invasion or siege. Many had learned this the hard way, many good men sacrificed so some vain general could attempt to go down in history as one of the greats, to have taken the impossible city. It could be that such a general had convinced Vous, the Arch Mage, or some other ruler lurking in the castle’s high halls, that it was time to try again.

Three days’ march had gone uneventfully when they came to a bandits’ cave, tucked nicely away in woods noblemen had used in the past as a venue for sport hunting, with corridors through the widely spaced trees to allow horses. These woods had been given over to Inferno cultists for a time, part of the castle’s plan to discourage life outside the protection of Aligned cities. Anfen wanted to push on, but this hideout was the last good shelter for many miles, as safe as anywhere they were going to find before they reached the city.

Siel brought back two small pigs by the feet, arrows still in their backs. She’d been gone a long time. ‘Hard hunting,’ she said, dropping the pigs down. She began cutting off the meat but they were scrawny ones. They cooked and ate, not asking Loup to bless the food, for his mood had been volatile. Lalie’s too: she didn’t like being tied like a dog and didn’t like bathroom breaks while a minder watched, which Anfen thought was reasonable enough. Just as reasonably, he didn’t like Inferno cultists on the loose with swords and knives around. Call it even.

He decided they would take an extra hour’s rest tonight, given a possible war lay ahead of them. There were secret ways inside Elvury, even if it was under siege. Siel took the first watch, sitting at the cavern’s mouth. Anfen dropped to sleep with as much ease as blowing out a candle.

Behind him, Loup had been perfectly secretive when stirring a tiny amount of black scale powder he’d filched from Eric’s supply into a cup, with an inch or two of water, mixing it with his gnarled old finger, and swallowing it down. There was one choked snorting breath, then it looked like he was sleeping.

Anfen felt Siel’s hand gently shaking him. An instinct on the road in bad country was to be instantly alert upon waking, sword to hand and drawn to swing in a heartbeat. But her touch, somehow, always felt like a friendly hand. He had never lain with her and would not. Nor did he think the offer was there; she knew she’d learn things about him that would make it hard to follow him, or respect him. Still, he was no stranger to the sight of her naked body, thanks to their hurried bathing in streams, and he longed for it the way he longed for meals or hot baths not available on the road. ‘Nothing?’ he said.

‘Nightmare’s out,’ she whispered.

‘Do you believe he’s poor luck?’ said Anfen, stretching.

‘If so, he’s a few days late, for us,’ she said, slipping onto his mat so his warmth wasn’t wasted. She was asleep very quickly.

Have we been unlucky? he thought. I doubt it. We’ve been very lucky despite ourselves. He went to the cave’s mouth. Lalie slept curled in a ball. That girl looked so young and innocent when she slept … how her parents’ hearts would have broken, if they knew where she’d ended up. Loup, who could cure others’ snoring but who usually snored himself, was silent tonight, a small blessing. The breathing of deep sleepers, like lapping waves of air, made the cavern seem a peaceful cove, safe and sure: a most wonderful illusion.

Anfen leaned on the wall out front, a hand on his sword hilt. It was an old habit and a silly one, for he’d taken watch more times than he could count on these missions and only twice needed to draw a blade. Sharfy’s watch traditionally brought trouble, something they joked about.

Ah yes, there was old Nightmare, off east, not far from Hane if he judged right. It had been a while since he’d seen that Great Spirit. He remembered when a low-ranked trooper, dared by friends, was lashed for firing up an arrow at Nightmare. The arrow of course hadn’t even gone close, nor had Nightmare seemed to notice, though the story grew, as stories did on the road: Nightmare had turned his head their way, some claimed. Then his eyes had sparkled with malice. By the end of their march, some swore, and seemed to actually believe, they’d heard the Great Spirit speak.

Anfen smiled at the memory, though it was tinged with pain as well, for he knew many of those with whom he’d served, and had called friends, still served. Good men, still good men; that was the shame of it. Friends no longer. How our rulers betray us, and herd us like malicious shepherds. Is it the same in Otherworld? I must ask Eric, if we meet again.

Nightmare was still at the moment, an arm reaching down … an arm reaching down! Anfen watched with renewed interest. They’d never have tried to claim this, that old patrol, he thought. What did this mean? He tried recalling what he’d read in the scrolls and books he’d saved from burning, but little had been written in them of Nightmare; only the necromancers and ghoulish men of his cult could explain this.

So intently was Anfen watching the ghostly shimmering image, as Nightmare withdrew his arm and again began to drift, that he didn’t notice the woman in her green dress standing some way down from the cave, watching him. A small amount of light radiated about her, making her stand out in the gloom. When his eye did find her, it was with a shock that sent chills through him. A moment later, she was gone. That was real, he thought. She’s here.

Later, he would wonder: what was it that had made him draw his weapon and step out into the night without alerting the others? What instinct, what suicidal impulse — yes, he had them — what vain desire to be the band’s hero? After berating the rest of them for their lack of sense, after reminding himself over and over of the importance of getting back to the Council of Free Cities with his news, why did he now unsheathe his weapon and walk out towards the place he’d seen her?

At that moment, though, he did not reflect on any of this. His actions felt natural, logical. He felt only the blade’s grip in his hand and the calmness of his pulse, where years past had seen him intoxicated on far lesser danger than this. His pulse had been just as calm walking down Faul’s front steps to face the Invia, all four eager to kill him.

The forest was made for hunting, the trees nicely spaced, the footing sure. She hid. His ears were keen, and they picked up little cracks and rustles in the growth. The army-issue blade was a poor one, but right now in his hand it was ready to deal her death, if she got near enough and made him do it.

‘You may trust me,’ her voice. A pleasant voice, reasonable. Trust you. Far Gaze did not.

She was there, near him, close. Too close. Did she not see his weapon drawn? Backhand, his wrist held straight, the sword lashed through the air and caught her midsection lightly. He was fast, his eye good, body poised a moment later for advance and another cut, feet moving with a dancer’s speed, all instinct. Others had had to practise for years for these movements which had come to him naturally and so impressed his tutors. They had joked he must have been born with a sword in hand and cut the umbilical cord himself.

A sound passed her lips like a sigh through teeth. She leaped backwards, falling a step or two, then was gone from sight. ‘You may trust me,’ she said, a little strain to her voice now.

He could not quite locate her through her voice, but she wasn’t far. Keep her talking. ‘Did I wound you?’

‘Scratched. My dress torn. There was dead stone on that blade, was there not?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must be why I misjudged my distance from you and came too close.’ Her voice seemed now to come from several sides at once.

‘Why are you here?’ he said.

‘There are things to show you.’

Anfen went carefully towards a thick tree trunk, pressing his back into it. ‘There are things to tell me too.’

‘Time’s pressing. Ask, quickly.’ Her voice was just ahead of him now.

‘How are you here and casting while my mage rests nearby? He should sense you.’

‘He is indisposed.’ The knuckles gripping Anfen’s sword tightened. She said, ‘I have done nothing to him. He is off on a vision.’

Fool!

She said, ‘Don’t be angered. He is seeking the Pilgrims, to help them.’

‘And where are they?’

‘I don’t know. May I show myself?’ She did so, a patch of shimmering green directly before him, a comfortable distance from the range of his sword. There was a neatly sliced line of fabric above her belly, two hand-lengths long. Her hand ran along the cut lightly. He found the sight of her long finger soothing to watch, the way it traced across the dress’s slit. He made himself look away from it. He said, ‘Do you wish to travel with us? Is that why you stalk my company?’

‘I am more useful to you coming and going as I please. You aren’t aware of the many ill things I have steered away from your path.’

Anfen’s own thoughts echoed: Have we been unlucky? I doubt it. We’ve been lucky … ‘Where’s Far Gaze?’ he said.

‘The wolf? He fled. I did not hurt him, though I could have — I am greater than he.’ Anfen heard with perfect clarity what she didn’t say: I could hurt you, too. ‘He too seeks the Pilgrims, I believe, and means to bring them back. I wish he would believe that we are of the same purpose.’

‘That remains to be proven. I know only that a trusted friend has treated you as his enemy, that you have stalked my company, and that the last time I saw you, trouble befell us.’

‘I had hoped to prove myself that morning when the Invia came,’ she said, face sad. ‘There was not much time for me to do it. Arrows were fired, your trusted friend leaped for my throat. And you yourself are fast with a sword, Anfen. I’d not have liked to be an inch closer to you, just now.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘I’m not sorry. You’ve been like a distant shadow. Your magic is powerful — my mage hardly believes what he’s seen and heard. And you cast spells right on the castle lawns when all free mages have long been killed on sight. You are either in league with them, or you have abilities of a kind as yet unknown, even to those of us familiar with the old schools and their devices. Explain yourself.’

‘You’re right. It’s best to show you. You will see what I am. It requires us to walk a short way. There is an underground tunnel, not far. There are castle soldiers down there, but they won’t trouble us.’

Anfen shook his head. ‘You can tell me what you are, here and now.’

She smiled. ‘You have described it perfectly. I am a New Mage.’

He waited.

‘The castle is producing more of us, this very moment. I escaped. Unlike me, the others won’t be here to aid you. You are best to acquaint yourself with this new threat before you find your way to the Council of Free Cities, for it shall be dire. The more you know, the better you may deal with it, when the rest of the new mages are set loose.’

Anfen studied her face. She calmly met his gaze. It could not be denied: if she was as great as she seemed, she had the ability, if she wished, to kill him this very second with minimal effort. If that was her intent, why risk luring him to some other place to do it?

Luring him for capture? That was possible …

‘How long would we be gone?’ he said at last.

‘An hour.’