The Tyranny of the Night

34. Stalkers' Hour

Only Arlensul's encouragement kept Svavar going. He was ready to put this whole mad world behind. People by the hundred were dying over religious differences he found incomprehensible.

Shagot only added to his misery. Grim seemed incapable of not attracting attention when he was awake. Though that problem did ease once Imperial forces settled east of al-Khazen, content to outwait their remaining enemies.

Shagot was frustrated when he was awake. The Old Ones could not locate or identify the Godslayer, though they were sure he was, probably, in the camp of the Emperor's Episcopal allies.

Shagot was little more than a draug, one of the walking dead from the legends of lands now lost beneath the ice. Svavar used his brother as a device to endear his band to Vondera Koterba and the Emperor.

Arlensul always warned Svavar when enemy patrols were nearby. If Shagot was awake, they would go kill some and take prisoners. Eventually, the enemy stayed away. But powerful incursions of another sort began to occur after dark.

The rumors were true. There were powerful sorcerers in the city. And the Emperor had not equipped himself to deal with them.

The Imperials were being lured to their destruction.

Arlensul planted that notion in Svavar's head. He could not keep that to himself. He told Grim and the rest of their dwindling band.

One by one, the men who had come when they followed the Emperor found an excuse to fade away. Soon there would be none left who could not imagine a better life.

Svavar and Shagot had been noticed up and down the Imperial chain of command. They were too strange and too effective to be overlooked.

Neither Svavar nor Shagot had any experience of sedentary warfare. They did not like it. Shagot wanted to drop everything to go hunt the Godslayer.

"We need to know where he is, first," Svavar argued. “What happens if we're wandering around these hills, hunting him, and you fall asleep? I can't protect you by myself. These soldiers won't help us hunt. They don't care. But we're better off here, where misfortune is less likely to find us, till we know where to find our man."

A MESSENGER FROM VONDERA KOTERBA CAME TO THE Grimmssons' shelter. He asked Svavar, "Is your brother awake? The Emperor may need your special skills. It's possible the crown prince has been captured by the Pramans."

"I'll try to waken him," Svavar promised. "How much time do we have?" i

"I'm just alerting you."

Events began to move soon afterward. Another messenger instructed them to join a force assembling outside the castle where the Emperor and his court had come to rest. Shagot was disinclined to respond.

Arlensul appeared in the doorway, bent because she was too tall. "He will be there."

Svavar believed her. When a goddess told you something you wanted badly to hear, you believed.

"Come on, Grim. We're there. Our man is going to be at the other end of this. Come on. Get up. It's time."

Shagot responded sluggishly, groggily. He heard but did not believe. He had had no word from the Old Ones.

When they reached the assembly point it seemed the whole army was on the move. A delegation to the Episcopals that included the crown prince had been overrun by Praman commandos during the night. Details were scant. Most of the party were believed dead, with just a handful captured.

A long column filed through the cold morning and snow, following a route marked by pioneers. Svavar and Shagot were assigned to the vanguard. They would not be cowed by the dark.

The lead troops were Hansel's best. Their progress was quieter than seemed possible, but slow. Svavar told Shagot, "Those people won't be surprised. We're headed for a trap."

Shagot grunted. It seemed likely. It seemed so probable, in fact, that Johannes ought not to be falling for it.

Maybe the Emperor knew something no one else did.

The commanders called a halt during the afternoon. Distant fighting could be heard. The crown prince's captors making a fighting retreat, Svavar presumed. But who was harrying them?

The Emperor's scouts reported. Svavar was near enough to eavesdrop.

The crown prince was alive and unharmed. The same could not be said for most of his party. Johannes seemed more interested in the fate of Ferris Renfrow than in that of his son. But Johannes knew his son was all right.

The summons came to Svavar rather than Shagot. Johannes addressed him directly. "Soultaken, do you understand my situation?"

"I do." He experienced the thing that made Johannes Ege so much more than a little man who had lucked into a great deal of power. Hansel made people feel that they were fellow conspirators.

The Emperor asked, "You understand what they want to do to us? That they hope I'll charge into a trap?"

"I see that. And I see you giving them what they want."

"Not quite."

"There's a huge accumulation of dark power behind those walls. The Tyranny of the Night is complete, though the fighters probably don't know."

"Complete? I doubt that. However. Those forces are unaware of you and your brother."

Svavar waited, calm and fearless. He felt the proximity of Arlensul. She lent him courage and confidence.

"I understand what you are. You serve the Instrumentalities of the Night. You're here to accomplish a particular task. It has little to do with the ambitions of those holding al-Khazen."

Svavar did not respond.

"If you help me here, now, I'll throw the weight of the Empire behind you in your mission."

Svavar felt Arlensul would want him to agree. "We'll help, then. In exchange. We won't tolerate…"

"Johannes Ege never…. Enough. I need entry into that city. And someone who can distract the powers there while I do what I have to do."

Svavar cocked his head, listening.

Arlensul encouraged him.

"We can do what you want done."

Whatever the denizens of the city planned, whatever engines of despair lurked behind those walls, a Chooser of the Slain was no part of their calculations.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE GRAY WALKER WAS CLEARLY VISIBLE for half a minute. Imperial soldiers saw her. Praman soldiers saw her. Mute wood and stone beheld her. Svavar worried that far powers in the Great Sky Fortress might mark her presence as well. Shagot might see her. But he had to trust her. Over the months he had become her ally completely.

Shagot remained unaware of her.

The event at el-Khazen's eastern portal was so violent that not only did the gates cease to be a barrier, the entire barbican and fifteen yards of wall to either hand collapsed. Imperial troops rushed into al-Khazen, encouraged by the Emperor to obliterate anyone and anything not Crown Prince Lothar.

Svavar and Shagot were first to enter the city, Shagot holding that demon head in front of him. Howling devil faces swarmed them – and fled away, repelled by Arlensul. The fury of the assault increased. Svavar was impressed. The sorcerers here were truly terrible. He was fortunate to have a Chooser of the Slain for a guardian angel.

He nudged Shagot whenever a course change became necessary. He was surprised that they did not need to head for the citadel. Not after they covered the first quarter mile.

The Grimmsson brothers fought inside a bubble of invincibility. That did not extend far. Outside it the battle was harsh. It was dark out there. The onslaught of the Night was terrible. The Imperials remained steadfast only because of the power of the soultaken.

As blood flowed, Shagot became more awake and alert and connected to the Great Sky Fortress. Where, Svavar guessed, the Old Ones were becoming more awake and alert and connected themselves.

Shagot carved up three Pramans in a blur of haunted bronze. Done, he asked, "What's going on, Little Brother?"

"We're helping Johannes get his son back from the Pramans." The Emperor was a short distance away, rising boldly above the chaos on his charger, Warspite. "After which he'll devote all his power to helping us find our man."

Shagot seemed doubtful. But his connection with the Great Sky Fortress was strong, now. “This way. He was here not long ago. He went this way."

Wow, Svavar thought. He looked for Arlensul, did not see her but suspected that she was the force stemming the tide of darkness rolling down from the citadel.

The Praman soldiers fled. Their dark sorcery was less powerful than that attacking them.

Shagot said, "This way. The raiders went this way."

"What raiders, Grim?"

A commando band from the Patriarchal army had ambushed Lothar's captors and claimed their prize.

Johannes flew into a scarlet rage. He sent couriers to hasten the arrival of the rest of his army. He would purge al-Khazen of the Unbeliever, then he would find his son.

Shagot entered a low, square stone building that stood by itself. It had unglazed windows and doorways without doors.

Svavar asked, "What's this?"

"A well house. The women come here to get water." Shagot looked down into the cistern. "They climbed down here." An iron ladder going down into the cistern had had the rust worn away. Blood discolored its rungs.

A face appeared below. A Praman face. It betrayed astonishment and terror. It disappeared, shrieking a warning.

Shagot swung over the lip of the well and jumped down. Svavar cursed and followed more carefully. At first, the Braunsknechts refused to go down into the earth.

The Emperor entered the waterhouse. He grasped the situation immediately. He gave orders for troops to circle west of the city in search of a storm water outlet. Below, the soultaken engaged the hindmost of those Pramans who had chased the Episcopal raiders underground.

Hansel stamped out of the waterhouse. He swung onto Warspite's back. For an instant he stared uphill, toward the citadel. He would aim the soultaken that way next.

As he flexed his wrists to shake the reins to urge Warspite forward, an arrow out of the darkness entered his open mouth. Its head severed his spinal cord as it exited the back of his neck.