The Righteous Blade

7

There was only silence. A downy white haze enveloped him. He was cold, and felt weightless.

Slowly, he gained a sense of self. But there was no awareness of

who

he might be. Or where. Then he became conscious of rushing air. It prickled his skin and tousled his hair; it stung his eyes and made them water. A tingling rippled the pit of his stomach. Blood pounded in his ears.

He was falling.

The clinging whiteness disappeared. As he tumbled, he saw that it had been a cloud, high above him now. Then a glimpse, higher still, of blue velvet powdered with stars. Spinning, twisting, he caught sight of the earth, so far below he could make out its curvature. He plunged headlong, serenaded by the whistling wind.

He had no control over his descent, yet it seemed he began to move with purpose. No longer did he simply fall. He flew.

The land beneath him grew, its features becoming more distinct. Snow-dusted mountain peaks, silvery rivers and verdant pastures. Sweeping plains, lush valleys, the emerald froth of mighty forests. Diving ever lower, he saw, here and there, the hand of Man. Land ploughed and cleaved into meadows; granite farmhouses, wooden lodges, the scars of roads. A giddy swoop took him down to one

such track. Flying higher than the tallest trees, he followed it.

A large group of riders came into view. Armed men, galloping hell for leather. He shadowed them, negotiating the road’s bends and turns with no effort on his part. In this way he kept pace for many miles. Then it dawned on him that they weren’t the only ones travelling in that direction. Something else moved in the riders’ wake; something that flew as he did, but at a greater altitude and to his rear. It wasn’t chasing the horsemen. It accompanied and drove them.

Whatever it was that traversed the troubled sky could be sensed but not seen. Perversely, it was both a pack and a single intellect. He knew this, without knowing how he knew. As sure as he felt the malignant force it radiated. A wave of menace that beat at him and kindled the purest dread.

His fear acted as a spur. A swift acceleration took him forwards, outstripping the riders and the horror trailing them. He moved with jarring speed, the landscape beneath passing in a blur, a daze of green smudged with brown. Lakes like mirrors, patchwork fields, copses that drank the light. Until he came at last to a remote region where the land was untamed, and he slowed.

He hung above a clearing in a wood. It was occupied by four or five straw-coloured bubbles. A moment went by before he realised they were roundhouses, thatched and built of timber. A handful of people tended the camp. Somebody was hauling a bucket from the well, while another cut logs. Most stood guard. Some livestock was corralled, and several horses were hitched to a post. There was a nagging familiarity about the place. And when he started to sink down towards it, helpless to resist, his unease increased.

His coming to ground was gentle and noiseless. He expected to be challenged. But there was no turning of heads, no rushing guards. He could see, but not be seen.

The first thing he saw was that these people were of his kind.

A scream rang out. It came from a smaller hut, set apart from the others. No one in the camp looked that way. Instead, they

snatched up their weapons and nervously scanned the surrounding woods. The scream came again, high-pitched, more drawn out. He made for its source; unseen, as though a ghost.

The interior of the hut was in semi-darkness, lit only by the soft radiance of hooded lanterns. As his eyes adjusted he could make out a small group, huddled together around something on the earthen floor. Two were matriarchs, wise women, with a novice serving them. The remaining person was an old man of indeterminate race. He, too, seemed strangely familiar.

He went further into the hut, and saw that they ministered to a woman of his ilk, stretched on rude sacking. Her woollen shift was gathered at the waist, revealing the ripe swell of her belly. Strands of lustrous black hair plastered her sweat-sheened forehead. Her pearl-white teeth were exposed, clenched in exertion. Even contorted by pain, even in the half-light, he thought she was beautiful.

He watched mesmerised as they tended her. But almost immediately it became obvious something was wrong. The woman’s writhing grew more intense, her screams more prolonged. Her attendants exchanged anxious glances. Their efforts became increasingly frantic. Powerless, a disembodied observer, he could only look on as all their midwifery skills were applied.

Once delivered of her boy child, the woman fell back and was silent. A silence more ominous by far than her cries had been. The babe itself was no less quiet; a small, seemingly broken thing, it took no breath of air. As the women worked to stem the mother’s copious flow of blood, the old man lifted the baby. Swiftly, he cut the cord with a silver sickle, as tradition dictated. Then he hoisted up the blue-tinged youngster, dangling it by an ankle, and slapped its hindquarters. He did it twice more before the child gulped air and started to wail.

There was no rekindling of life for the mother. She lay inert, already beginning to pale with the chalky whiteness of death. Her mouth was slack, her eyes glazed. The despair of her helpers was palpable, and it gripped him, too. A clamp fastened on his heart.

His veins coursed with ice. Feeling a sense of loss far greater than the sorrow of a mere onlooker, he moved nearer.

He was stopped by a chorus of shouts from outside. The old man clutched the new-born tighter to his chest. With fearful expressions the midwives turned their heads to the door. The shouting was louder. He stared at the occupants for a second before leaving the hut.

Outside was all commotion. Men running, yelling. Some throwing saddles onto horses; others already mounted and wheeling, churning mud. Through the trees he glimpsed the riders he’d seen on the road. A multitude, closing at speed. The men of the camp, hopelessly outnumbered, scrambled to face them.

A few gazed at the sky. It was filling with a presence, a brooding. But only he could truly see the malevolent horde of black wraiths gathering overhead.

The old man came out of the roundhouse. He held the child, wrapped in a bloodied blanket. Pausing for an instant, he surveyed the scene, and looked ruefully to the ominous skies. Then, hugging the bundle, he sped with surprising agility into the woods, away from the attackers.

Suffused with a blistering radiance, the shadow beings loomed overhead. They were malleable, assuming an infinite variety of grotesque forms. As they dived, blinding currents flowed ahead; terrible energies that rent the air itself. Bolts of fire sloughed from them, and lethal radiances pulsed. They fell as a living rain of death.

And as above, so below. The horsemen were sweeping into the clearing. They came with dreadful cries and scything blades. Few as they were, his kinsmen stood ready to meet them. From the land and from the heavens, battle was joined.

Flame and steel rolled in to engulf him.

He came to, biting back a scream.

Someone’s hand was on him. He snatched their wrist and held it like a vice.

‘

Ow!

You’re

hurting

me!’

Caldason blinked into focus. ‘Kutch? What the

hell

are you doing? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to-’

‘You were shouting fit to bring the house down. I heard you from upstairs.’

‘I…I’m sorry.’ He let go.

Kutch rubbed his wrist, looking pained. ‘What was it? Another one?’

‘Yes.’ He sat up and shook his head to clear it. ‘A…dream, or whatever they are.’

‘Sounded bad.’

The Qalochian nodded. ‘And different.’ A thought struck him. ‘What about

you

? I mean, did you see anything? Were you-’

‘No, I didn’t share it. Not this time. It’s happening less now I’ve stopped spotting so much.’

‘You still think there’s a connection?’ He swung his legs off the cot and stiffly rolled his shoulders.

‘Well, it started when I began training as a spotter. I can’t think of any other way I’ve changed.’

‘You’ve changed in lots of ways since we came here, Kutch.’

‘Have I? How?’

‘Mostly for the better.’ He put on a weak smile.

‘You said it was different. The dream.’

The smile faded. ‘Yes. Some of it was familiar.

Too

familiar. But there was something new.’

‘What?’

Caldason stood and walked past him to the window. It was early light, and Valdarr’s streets were already bustling. For the most part, genuine humans milled below. But there was much of the phantasmal, too. Many illusions were obvious. Others might be mistaken for flesh and blood by a casual observer. Bursts of light marked the appearance of new glamours. Equally numerous were the implosions of non-light

indicating their demise. A flock of birds flew across the grey sky. Perhaps they were real. He couldn’t tell.

‘Reeth?’

‘The visions have shown me my death many times,’ Caldason said, his eyes still on the scene outside. ‘Well, what should have been my death. Now there’s something else.’

‘Whatever it was, you seem pretty shaken by it.’

‘I think I saw how I came into the world. And how my coming into it killed the woman who birthed me.’ He turned to face the boy. ‘I was responsible for my mother’s death, Kutch.’

High above, the birds flapped lazily towards the rising sun.