Tower Lord

CHAPTER THREE

Reva

She ran, until her lungs burned and her legs ached, she ran. Away from the road, away from him, away from the lies, through the long grass and into the trees. She ran until exhaustion sent her sprawling in a painful tangle of sword and cloak. Scrambling to her feet, she cast about for landmarks, chest heaving from exertion and panic. He’ll come after me, hunt me down, make me listen to more lies . . .

She began to run again, tripping almost immediately as her fatigued foot found a tree root. She fell to her arms and knees, sobbing in hard, aching jerks, her mind racing. If he did exist, his bishops say he hates you for what you are . . . You were sent in search of a thing that can’t be found in the hope that I would kill you . . . A fresh martyr . . .

“LIES!” Her voice resounded through the trees, wild and feral. The trees, however, had no answer save for the creak of wind-stirred branches.

She sat back on her haunches, face raised to the sky, mouth wide as she drank the air. She knew now Al Sorna wasn’t coming in pursuit, his skills were such that finding her would have been a simple matter, but here she sat, alone. She remembered the edge of despair in his voice as he called after her, a note of defeat . . . I now deny my song though it screams at me to let you go.

Follow your song, Darkblade, she thought. I’ll make my own.

She ran a shaking hand through her too-long hair, her sluttish, Asraelin hair. Filthy, Fatherless sinner . . .

The priest! The priest will have answers to these lies. She would return to him and he would speak the truth and the World Father would once again bless her with his love, prove she was not hated, prove the sin had been beaten from her, prove she was worthy of His holy mission . . . Worthy to carry her father’s sword.

The sword. The prospect of returning to the priest without it, demanding he answer the Darkblade’s lies no less, was absurd. But if she had the sword, his face would reveal all the truth she needed. The sword was the truth.

She opened her eyes to the stars, picking out the Stag. The fore-hoof, she knew, pointed almost directly due south, towards Cumbrael, the Greypeaks . . . and the High Keep. Perhaps it was still there, lying unclaimed in a shadowed corner of the Lord’s chamber, waiting for her. If not, then she had little chance of finding it elsewhere.

The thought came to her as she started to rise, a swift treacherous whisper in her mind. Go back. They will welcome you.

“With lies!” she hissed back.

With love. When did the priest ever show you that?

“I care nothing for his love, or theirs. The love of the Father is the only love I need.”

She got to her feet, brushing loose soil from her clothes, and began to walk towards the south.

The bow was fashioned from wych elm and pale cream in colour, the centre of the stave smooth and shiny with use, the wood on either side ornately carved, one side showing a stag the other a wolf. It was different to the ash bow Al Sorna had made for her, abandoned the day she ran from him, longer and somewhat thicker, no doubt making for greater power and range.

The bow’s owner lay on a blanket of grass in the lee of an aged tree stump, several miles from the nearest road. His eyes were closed in an apparently blissful slumber, his mostly white beard stained red and an empty earthenware wine jug in his lap. At his side a bored-looking sheep-hound, all shaggy fur and dolorous eyes, gazed up at Reva with a complete absence of alarm, only angling its head in a curious manner as she crept closer to gently lift the bow from the drunkard’s arms. The quiver of arrows was too firmly wedged beneath his back so she left it. Arrows were more easily made than bows.

She had gone about twenty paces when she stopped, eyeing the carving on the stave and finding it even more fine than she first thought. On the upper side the stag stood with its antlers lowered in readiness for combat whilst below it the wolf crouched, teeth bared in a snarl. The craftsmanship was remarkable, the carvings finished to a level that told her this was an item of considerable worth.

The sword is all, the priest had said. The Father will forgive all sins committed in pursuit of the sword.

Reva sighed, retraced her steps, placed the bow back in the drunkard’s arms and sat down to wait for him to wake. After a while the sheep-hound came over, sniffing and whining for scraps of the rabbit she had snared the day before. The old man woke with a start at the dog’s appreciative bark as she fed him a morsel.

“What!” He clutched at his bow, fumbling for an arrow. “Whaddya want, ya whore ya!”

Reva watched him fail to pull an arrow from the quiver, abandon the attempt and reach instead for the small knife in his boot, wild eyes becoming still and rapt at the sight of the single gold piece she held up.

“That’s a nice bow,” she said.

The arrow smacked into the tree trunk with a sharp thwack, buried in the wood up to at least a handspan of its length. It was a practice arrow, just a sharpened yard of wind-fallen ash with no head or fletching, and yet she had found her mark from a distance of twenty paces.

The old man had named himself a shepherd although there was no sign of a flock for miles around. He claimed the bow was a souvenir from a forgotten campaign against the Cumbraelins, when he was but a lad and the lord’s men came to take him for a soldier, though his poor mother wept. Reva thought the tale unlikely. The bow was a fine weapon but it was not Cumbraelin in design. She assumed the shepherd had either stolen it or won it at gaming. In any case he had been too eager to be off with his new-found wealth to provide a fuller explanation of the bow’s origins, striding his unsteady way across the sheepless meadow, wine jug in hand and his sad-eyed dog trailing after.

She had been travelling for two weeks now, keeping off the roads and sheltering in woodland at night, hunting where opportunity rose, suppressing her hunger and always following the Stag’s hoof south. There were few people about, the drunken shepherd the first she had seen for several days. This far from the roads there was little chance of encountering either traveller or outlaw, although she kept a wary eye out for the latter.

That evening the bow reaped a moor hen, plucked, spitted, cooked and eaten before the sun fell. She knew her time with Al Sorna had weakened her, the weeks of sleeping on a full belly leaving her too much in thrall to her hunger. Every night she offered thanks to the Father for delivering her from the Darkblade’s lies and begged His forgiveness for her sinful indulgence.

After eating she drew her knife, taking hold of a length of her ever-growing hair and making ready to cut. It had become a nightly ritual, her determined purpose waning as she touched the blade to the sluttish curls, never actually cutting. She told herself she needed to maintain the disguise. Asraelin women don’t wear their hair so short . . . And she had yet to cross into Cumbrael. It had nothing to do with vanity, or the many times Alornis had said how she liked the way it caught the sun.

Liar. The priest’s voice followed her into sleep as she sheathed her knife and huddled in her cloak. Fatherless, sinning liar . . .

Another week brought her within sight of the Greypeaks, a jagged blue-misted outline on the horizon. Woodland grew thicker here, covering the foothills rising in height the further south she walked. Game was sparse, her kills amounting to a solitary partridge and a somewhat aged hare too slow to scamper out of the arrow’s path. Two nights more and she judged herself within a half-day’s march to the mountains proper. The exact location of the High Keep was unknown to her but the days when it had been forbidden for any Cumbraelin to even speak of it were long over, her father’s martyrdom had seen to that. She knew of a village situated just over the river forming the border with Asrael. The priest had indicated that pilgrims could find assistance there, for all Sons of the Trueblade must journey to the High Keep to honour the Father’s most blessed servant.

She found a pool of clean water beneath a small cascading waterfall, stripped and bathed, washed her clothes as best she could and lay them out to dry as she reclined on a rock in the sunlight, gazing up at the drifting majesty of the clouds. As ever, when her thoughts strayed, she thought of Al Sorna and his lessons, of Alornis and her drawings, even of the drunken poet and his awful songs. It was wrong, she knew, indulgent, sinful, and she always begged the Father for forgiveness afterwards, but for a short time every day, she let her thoughts wander over the memories, waiting for the moment when the treacherous voice would whisper its enticements: It’s not too late. Turn around, go north. Take ship to the Reaches. They will welcome you . . .

She punished herself with sword practice, flashing through the scales faster and faster until her vision swam and she nearly dropped from exhaustion. As the light faded she piled up some ferns for a bed and settled down to sleep, for once not bothering to hold the knife to her hair, though in truth it was now long enough to warrant a trim, just enough to keep it out of her eyes.

She awoke to screams, the sword coming free of the scabbard in a blur as she rolled to a crouch, eyes searching the blackness of the forest for enemies. Nothing . . . Wait.

Her nose picked up the scent before she saw it, smoke on the breeze, the yellow flicker of a tall fire through the trees. The scream came again, shrill, agonised . . . female.

Outlaws, she decided, rising from the crouch. Not my concern.

More screams, a babble of incoherent pleading, choked off into sudden terrible silence.

Reva thought of the outlaws she had killed at Rhansmill, of corpse-fucking Kella and the others who had not troubled her sleep one whit since.

She sheathed the sword to conceal its gleam, shouldered the quiver, hefted the bow and started forward, moving as Al Sorna had taught her when they hunted, foot raised only enough to clear the ground, strides short, crouched low. The flickering cone of the fire grew as she neared it, flames rising high from logs stacked in the centre of a clearing, dark forms moving in silhouette, a voice raised in fierce conviction.

She dropped to the ground when she got within thirty paces of the fire, crawling forward, the bow in her left hand, the string resting on the upper side of her forearm. A few moments of crawling brought something into focus, something that made her stop. A heavyset man standing with his back to the fire, eyes scanning the forest with diligent attention. He wore a sword on his back and cradled a crossbow in the crook of his arm, drawn and loaded. A sentry. No outlaw was ever so conscientious or well armed.

Reva crept a little closer, slow and careful, fingers sweeping the ground for twigs or dry leaves which might betray her, unseen by the sentry who, she now saw, wore a black cloak. The Fourth Order.

The voice became clearer as she closed, the speaker moving into view, a lean, sallow-faced man, also cloaked in black, gesticulating towards something off to the right as he spouted an unhesitating tirade: “. . . as Deniers you live, as Deniers you will die, your souls cast forth into oblivion, finding no refuge amongst the Departed, the falsehood that makes you wretched in this life will earn you an eternity of solitude in the Beyond . . .”

Reva waited until the sentry’s eyes shifted to the left then rose as high as she dared, following the direction of the speaker’s frantic gestures. There were four of them, all bound and gagged, a man and a woman, plus a little girl no more than ten years old and a beefy boy maybe five or six years older. Two black-cloaked brothers stood behind them with swords drawn. The boy was the most animated of the group, straining against his bonds which consisted of a stave thrust between his elbows and his back, lashed tight enough to gouge the bare flesh of his arms. A six-inch length of wood had been jammed into his mouth and tied in place with twine. Spittle flowed over his chin as he raged, his eyes alive with fury, not directed at the ranting black-cloak but beyond him at the fire.

Reva looked closer and saw there was a darker form visible through the flames, something blackened and vaguely human in shape, something that gave off a stench of burning meat.

“You!” the sallow-faced speaker pointed an accusing finger at the bound man who, unlike the boy, knelt in his bonds with his head bowed in dumb submission. “You who have ensnared your children in this falsehood, corrupted them with your Denial, you will witness the fate you have reaped for them.”

One of the black-cloaks took hold of the man’s hair and jerked his head back, revealing a face curiously absent of fear or rage, the eyes tearful but showing no sign of terror as the ranting brother loomed closer.

“See this, Denier,” he hissed, face twisted and red in the fire’s glow as he took hold of the little girl, dragging her to her feet. “See what you have wrought.”

The girl squealed and twisted in his grip but he lifted her easily, advancing towards the fire. The beefy boy’s scream was choked by his gag as he surged to his feet only to be clubbed to the ground by one of the brothers, a sword hilt coming down hard between his shoulder blades.

Reva’s eyes took in the scene in the space of a heartbeat, the ranter, the two by the captives, the sentry. Four that she could see, no doubt more she couldn’t, all well armed, none of them drunken outlaws. It was a hopeless prospect, and this was not her mission. The choice was clear.

The sentry died first, taken by her knife as she stepped out of the blackness, clutching at the gaping wound in his throat and falling face-first to the ground with barely a groan. Reva sheathed the knife, notched an arrow to the bow and sent it into the back of the ranter as he raised the girl above his head. He collapsed instantly, dropping the girl who thrashed at him with frantic kicks of her small legs, scrabbling free.

Reva had time for one more arrow as the two remaining brothers recovered from their shock and turned to face her, swords ready. She chose the one closest to her, the one who had been forcing the man to witness the girl’s end. He was quick, dodging to the left as she drew a bead on his chest, but not quick enough. The shaft took him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling. She drew her sword and advanced on the other, killing the wounded brother with a slash to the neck as she passed.

His companion moved from behind the captives, raising a crossbow. With a howl the beefy boy launched himself at the brother, his shoulder connecting with an audible crunch of breaking ribs, pitching the black-cloak into the fire. He screamed and flailed in the flames, tumbling free to roll on the ground, voicing his pain in a continuous torrent of high-pitched yelps.

A shout drew Reva’s attention to the left where three more brothers came charging out of the blackness, crossbows raised. Reva glanced at the boy, crouched on his knees, eyes wide and pleading above the gag.

She turned and sprinted for the trees, ducking to scoop up the fallen bow, a crossbow bolt fluttering her hair before the darkness claimed her.

She stopped after twenty paces, turned and crouched, taking two great breaths then forcing stillness into her body as she waited. The three black-cloaks were all anger and confusion, aiming kicks at the boy to vent their fury before heaping earth on their smouldering brother, babbling at each other about their next course of action, standing in a row, outlined against the fire.

Not so hopeless a prospect after all, Reva thought, raising the bow and taking aim.

The boy was named Arken, his sister Ruala, the mother Eliss and the father Modahl. The body on the fire belonged to Modahl’s mother, her name had been Yelna although Ruala and Arken called her Gramma. Reva had no inclination to ask the only surviving brother his name so kept on calling him Ranter.

“God-worshipping witch!” he cried at her from his place slumped against a tree trunk, his legs splayed out on the earth before him, slack and useless. Reva’s arrow had punched clean through his spine, leaving him dead below the waist. Sadly, his voice was unaffected. “Only with the aid of the Dark could you slaughter my brothers so,” he accused, waving an unsteady finger at her. His skin was pale and clammy, his eyes increasingly dull. Killing him would have been a mercy, but Modahl had stopped her wielding the knife the night before.

“He was going to burn your daughter alive,” she pointed out.

“What is mercy?” he said, his long face tense with fresh grief but still devoid of any anger, his eyebrows raised as if he were asking a sincere question.

“What?” she replied, frowning.

“Mercy is the sweetest wine and the bitterest wormwood,” Eliss, the mother, said. “For it rewards the merciful and shames the guilty.”

“The Catechism of Knowledge,” Arken informed Reva, heaving a black-cloaked body onto the fire. His voice had a bitter edge to it. “She’s obviously Cumbraelin, Father,” he said to Modahl. “I doubt she wants to hear your lessons.”

Catechism? “You are of the Faith?” she asked in surprise. She had expected to find them adherents of one of the myriad nonsensical sects appearing out of the shadows since the Edict of Toleration.

“The true Faith,” Modahl said. “Not the perversion followed by these deluded souls.”

Ranter said something, scattering earth with his breath. It sounded like “Denier lies!”

“Tell me if this hurts,” Reva said, reaching down to pluck her arrow from his back. It didn’t, he couldn’t feel it.

The burnt brother had also survived her attack but succumbed to his wounds before the sun came up. He had screamed for quite some time and once again Modahl had stood in her way when she went to silence him. Nonplussed, she busied herself with aiding Arken in consigning the bodies to the fire.

“This one was skilled,” she commented, hefting the legs of the tallest brother, the last one to fall. “Expect he was Realm Guard before the Fourth Order took him.”

“Not skilled enough for you,” Arken said, lifting the corpse by the shoulders. “I’m glad you made him suffer.”

Was that what she had done? She had certainly played with him a little. After the others had fallen to her arrows, he had managed to duck the final shaft, running for the safety of the forest. She met him at the edge of the clearing, sword in hand. He was fast, experienced and knew many tricks. She knew more, and was faster. She made it last longer than it should, feeling her skill grow with every parry and thrust, every scar she left on his face or arms, like a lesson with Al Sorna only played for real. She finished it with a thrust to the chest when she caught sight of the little girl weeping on the ground, still bound and gagged.

Forgive me my indulgences, World Father.

Modahl said the words as the flames grew high, calling on his family to thank Yelna for the gift of her life, to remember her kindness and wisdom and to reflect on the flawed choices that had brought these unfortunate men to their end. Reva stood apart, cleaning the blood from her sword, seeing how Arken’s face darkened as his father spoke on, glaring at him with a fury that seemed to border on hatred.

Morning brought a light rain and the sound of Ranter’s voice, rousing her from a fitful sleep. The fire had burned down to a pile of black-grey ash, the rain washing it away to reveal a jumble of human bone and grinning skulls.

“Oh my fallen brothers!” Ranter cried. “To be taken by the Dark. May the Departed cleanse your souls.”

“Not the Dark,” Reva told him, yawning. “Just a knife, a bow, a sword and the knowledge to use them.”

Ranter started to voice a reply but choked instead, coughing and rasping. “I . . . thirst,” he croaked.

“Drink the rain.”

The brothers had left a clutch of good horses, food for several days, plus a decent harvest of coin. Reva chose the tallest of the horses, a somewhat feisty grey stallion with the rangy look of a mount bred for the hunt, and scattered the rest. At Modahl’s insistence the brothers’ weapons had all been heaped onto the fire the night before, Arken making a disgusted noise when his father gently but firmly tugged the sword he had claimed from his grasp.

The family’s wagon was still intact along with the oxen that pulled it, although the contents had been badly ravaged, evidenced by the sight of Ruala crying over the ripped and tattered remains of her doll.

“We were heading for South Tower,” Arken said. “We have family there. It’s said Tolerants have less to fear under the gaze of the Tower Lord of the Southern Shore.”

“They hunted you,” Reva said.

Arken nodded. “Father is keen to speak the words of Toleration to all who will listen. He hopes to find more willing ears in the south. It seems Aspect Tendris didn’t relish the prospect.”

Reva’s gaze was drawn to the sight of Modahl laying out a blanket in the back of the wagon, casting aside sundry items as he endeavoured to clear a space. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“For the injured brother,” he explained. “We must find him a healer.”

Reva moved close to the man and spoke very quietly into his ear. “If you attempt to make your daughter share a wagon with that piece of dung, I’ll hack his head off and throw it in the river.”

She lingered for a moment, eyes meeting his to ensure he understood. Modahl’s shoulders slumped in weary defeat and he began ushering his family onto the wagon.

“There’s a village some miles east of here,” Reva said. “I’ll ride there with you if you wish.”

Modahl seemed about to protest but his wife spoke up first, “That would be greatly welcome, my dear.”

Reva mounted the grey hunter and trotted over to where Ranter was slumped against the tree.

“Will you . . . kill me now . . . witch?” he enquired between rasps, his eyes two black coals in the pale wax of his face.

Reva took a full canteen from the hunter’s saddle and tossed it into his lap. “Why would I do that?” She leaned forward, casting a meaningful glance at his useless legs. “I’m hoping you live a very long time, brother. If the wolves or the bears don’t get you, of course.”

She turned the hunter and cantered after the wagon as it trundled on its way.

The village proved a strange place, Cumbraelin and Asraelin living side by side and speaking a strange accent that seemed to accommodate only the most jarring vowels from both fiefs. It was clearly an important way-station from the numerous travellers and wagoners milling about. Wine going north, steel and coals going south. A company of Realm Guard was in evidence, the soldiers policing the cross-roads about which the village clustered, ordering diversions and clearing blockages to ensure the trade kept moving. A temple to the World Father stood on the south side of the cross-roads, facing a mission house of the Fifth Order on the other side.

“The Order will have salve for your cuts and such,” Reva told Modahl. “Best if you tell them it was outlaws. They stole but were on their way quickly. No need to trouble the guards.”

Modahl gave a slow nod, his eyes betraying a severe wariness. No room for killers in his heart, Reva surmised. Even though he’d tend to them if they lay dying. What comedy their faith is.

“Our thanks go with you,” Eliss said as Reva tugged on the grey’s reins. There was genuine warmth in her eyes, and gratitude. “We would welcome your company on the road come the morrow.”

“I’m bound for the Greypeaks,” she replied. “But I thank you.”

She guided the horse further into the village, glancing back to see Arken gazing after her from the rear of the wagon, raising a hand in hesitant farewell. Reva waved back and rode on.

The inn was the smallest of the three found in the village, a sign above the door proclaiming it as the Wagoner’s Rest. The interior was crowded with travellers and drovers, mostly men with wandering hands, quickly withdrawn at the sight of a half-bared knife. She found a stool in a corner and waited for the serving girl to come round. “Shindall owns this place?” she asked.

The girl gave a wary nod.

Reva handed her a copper. “I need to see him.”

Shindall was a wiry man with a fierce growl to his voice. “What’s this you bring me?” he demanded of the serving girl as she led Reva into a back room where he sat counting coin. “Makin’ me lose count with some boney wh . . .” He trailed off as his eyes found Reva’s face.

She placed her thumb on her chest, above her heart, and drew it down, once.

Shindall gave a barely perceptible nod. “Ale!” he barked at the serving girl. “And a meal, the pie not the slop.”

He pulled a chair over for Reva to sit at the table, his eyes fixed on her face as she unbuckled her sword and removed her cloak. He waited until the serving girl had come and gone before speaking, a hushed reverent whisper. “You are her, aren’t you?”

Reva washed down a mouthful of pie with a gulp of ale and raised an eyebrow.

Shindall’s voice dropped even further and he leaned closer. “The blood of the Trueblade.”

Reva smothered a surprised laugh, the man’s earnestness was both funny and disconcerting. The light in his eyes calling to mind the dozens of idiot heretics who had gathered at Al Sorna’s house. “The Trueblade was my father,” she said.

Shindall stifled a gasp, clasping his hands together in excitement. “Word came from the priest that we should expect news of you soon. News that would shake the foundations of the Heretic Dominion. But I never thought, never dreamed I would see you myself, certainly not here in this hovel where I play innkeeper.”

Word came from the priest . . . “What did he tell you?” she enquired, keeping her tone light, only mildly curious. That I’d be dead soon? That you had a new martyr to worship?

“The priest’s messages are brief, and vague, for good reason. If the Fief Lord or the heretic King were to intercept them, too much clarity could undo us all.”

She nodded and returned to her meal. The pie was surprisingly good, steak marinated in ale and baked with mushrooms in a soft pastry.

“If I may,” Shindall went on. “Your mission, though I would never dare ask its object, is it complete? Do we finally draw near our deliverance?”

Reva gave a bland smile. “I need to find the High Keep. The priest told me you had charge of seeing pilgrims safely there.”

“Of course,” he breathed. “Of course you would want to undertake the pilgrimage, whilst time remains.” He rose and went to a corner of the room, the one least favoured by the lamplight, bending down to lift a brick from the base and extract something from the space behind.

“Drawn on silk,” he said, placing a rectangle of material in front of her, no more than six inches across. “Easy to hide, or swallow should you need to.”

It was a map, simply drawn but clear enough to follow, a line stretching from a cluster of icons she took to be the village, winding its way past mountain and river until it ended at a black symbol shaped like a spear-point.

“Six days’ travel from here,” Shindall told her. “Not so many pilgrims these days so the way should be clear. There are friends of ours there, playing the role of beggars in need of shelter.”

“It’s not garrisoned?” she asked in surprise. She had been considering various notions of how best to sneak into the keep under the nose of the Fief Lord’s guards.

“Not since the Trueblade fell. The drunken whore-chaser in Alltor seems happy to let it fall to ruin.”

Reva finished her meal, draining the rest of the ale. “I’ll need a room for tonight,” she said. “And a stable for my horse.” She offered him payment which he refused, leading her to a room on the upper floor. It was small and not especially clean but the sight of the narrow bed, the first she had seen since leaving the Darkblade’s house, dispelled any misgivings.

“I met him once,” Shindall said, lingering at the door, eyes still fixed on her face. “The Trueblade. It was not long after the Father had saved him from the outlaw’s arrow, the scar was still fresh, red like a ruby, bright in the morning air when he stood up to speak. And his words . . . so much truth to hear in the space of a few moments. I knew then I had heard the Father’s call in those words.” His gaze was intense and the thickness in his voice reminded her of the swordsmith in Varinshold when he said, “You have his eyes.”

Reva placed her cloak and sword on the bed. “Do the Realm Guard patrol the peaks?”

Shindall blinked, then shook his head. “The lowland roads only, most likely places for outlaws. Don’t get ’em in the mountains, too cold I expect.” He placed a lit candle on the room’s only table and went to the door. “Earliest bell’s at the fifth hour.”

“I’ll be gone by then. My thanks for your diligence.”

He gave her a final glance before leaving the room, swallowing before he said, “Seeing your face is the only thanks I’ll ever need.”

She had never been to the Greypeaks before and found the sheerness of the mountains disconcerting, unassailable cliffs rising on all sides to ever-greater heights the deeper she went. The air held a perennial chill made worse by frequent drizzle or descending mist. The road ended at a broad, swift-running river tracking away towards the east. She began to follow it, the silk map having told her it provided the most direct route to the keep, the grey hunter snorting in protest as she guided him over the rock-strewn bank.

“Snorter,” she said, smoothing a hand along his neck. “That’s what I’ll call you.”

A clacking scatter of stone made her turn in the saddle, seeing another rider arriving at the road’s end. Reva sat and waited for him to catch up, a large boy on a small horse.

“Did you steal that?” she asked as Arken drew level.

“The brothers’ coin,” he said, coughing then fidgeting in his too-small saddle.

Reva sat in silence, watching him blush and cough some more.

“I stay with them one more day and I’ll kill him,” he said eventually. “And I owe you a debt.”

A faint rumble of thunder sounded overhead and Reva looked up to find a dark bank of cloud approaching from the west. “We’d best move back a ways from the river,” she said, kicking Snorter forward. “It’s like to flood when it rains.”

“He was just a wheelwright,” Arken said. “Skilled and a little more learned and Faithful than most men in the town, but still just a wheelwright. Then one day the Aspect of the Second Order came to visit the mission house and father went to her for catechism. After that, everything changed.”

They had found shelter from the rain in a narrow crack in a cliff face. It kept the worst of the deluge off but was still too damp for a fire, obliging them to huddle in their cloaks, warmed only by the breath of the horses.

“Every spare hour spent speaking to any who would listen,” Arken went on. “Every spare coin gone to pay the blocker to print his tracts, handed out for free to any who’d take them, me and my sister standing in the street hour after hour whilst he droned on. The worst thing was some people actually stopped to listen. I hated them for that. If no-one had listened, he might have given it up, and the Fourth Order might have left us alone. Your god has no Orders, does he?”

“This world was made by the will of one Father,” she said. “So we might know his love. One world, one Father, one church.” Venal and corrupt though it is.

Arken nodded then sneezed, a bead of water lingering on the tip of his nose.

“Will they look for you?” Reva asked.

His face became downcast. “I doubt it. Words were said.”

“Words are not arrows, they can be taken back.”

“He ordered us to do nothing!” Arken’s jaw clenched, his fists balled beneath his cloak. “Just sat there when they came riding out of the woods, whispering his catechisms. What kind of man does that?”

A faithful man, she thought. “What did he have to say that angered them so much?”

“That the Faith had lost its way. That we were guilty of a great error, that the Red Hand had twisted our souls, made us hate when we should have loved. Made us kill where we should have saved. That the persecution of the unfaithful had raised a wall between our souls and the Departed. One day a brother from the Fourth came to the house with a letter from his Aspect. It was polite but firm: stop speaking. Father ripped it up in his face. Two days later the shop burned down.”

Snorter began stomping the rock with his fore-hoof, head jerking in impatience. She was starting to understand his moods, and inactivity was not something he appreciated. She got up, taking a carrot from the saddlebag and holding it to his mouth as he chomped. “You don’t owe me any debt,” she told Arken. “And travelling with me could prove . . . dangerous.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “About the debt. And I don’t care about any danger.”

His gaze was full of earnest intent, and something more, which was a shame. Still just a boy, she thought. Despite all his troubles. “I’m looking for something,” she told him. “Help me find it and the debt between us is settled. After that, you go your way.”

He nodded, smiling a little. “As you wish.”

She took something from the saddlebag and tossed it to him. “Your father forgot to check the Ranter for weapons.”

He turned the knife over in his hands, pulling the blade free of the scabbard. It was a long-bladed weapon of good steel, well balanced, the ebony hilt cross-etched for a strong grip. “I don’t know how to use it. Father wouldn’t even let me have a wooden sword when I was younger.”

She peered out at the rain, seeing it was starting to dwindle into a light drizzle, and took hold of Snorter’s reins to lead him from the crack. “I’ll teach you.”

It was like playing with a child, a child half a foot taller and twice the bulk of her, but a child nonetheless. He’s so slow, she wondered as Arken stumbled past, his sheathed knife missing by an arm’s length as she dodged away. She leapt onto his back and put her own knife to his throat. “Try again,” she said, jumping clear.

She saw a slight flush on his face as he turned towards her, a flustered hesitancy in the way he hefted his knife. It’s not shame, she realised. I’ll have to stop jumping on him.

For the next four days she spent an hour at night and another in the morning attempting to teach him the basics of the knife, finding it a mostly hopeless task. He was big and strong but had none of the speed or agility required to match even her weakest efforts. In the end she told him to put the knife away and concentrated on unarmed combat. He did better at this, mastering the simpler combinations of kick and punch with relative ease, even landing a stinging blow on her arm as they engaged in some light sparring.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped as she rubbed at the bruise.

“For what? My fault for being too”-she ducked under his guard, delivered a hard open-handed smack to his cheek and twisted away before he could react-“slow. That’s enough for tonight. Let’s eat.”

She was aware allowing him to stay was another indulgence, meeting a need for human company unfulfilled since her escape from Al Sorna. Also, he had taken on the role of menial without complaint, making the fire, seeing to the horses and cooking the meals every night with an almost martial efficiency. This is unfair, she thought, watching him cut strips of bacon onto the skillet. I don’t need his help. And the way he looks at me . . . It wasn’t lustful exactly, or leering in any way. More a kind of longing. Still just a boy.

The High Keep came into view the next day, a jagged spike in the distance. From the tales she had heard of the place she had expected something grander, taller, a fabled castle fit for her father’s martyrdom, but its lack of glamour became more obvious the closer they came. There were large holes in the walls and jagged gaps in the battlements, as if some giant had come along and taken a few bites out of the stonework. The road on the earthen ramp leading up to the gates was marked by patches of broken stone and home to a herd of long-horned mountain goats, feeding on the weeds sprouting from the paving and paying them scant heed as they passed.

“It’s amazing!” Arken enthused as they stood before the gate, looking up at the walls rising above. “Never knew a tower could rise so high.”

A squeal of metal called their attention to a door set into the gate, seeing an aged face peering out from the shadowed interior. “Got nothing here worth stealing,” it said.

Reva made the sign of the Trueblade and the hostility faded from the face. “Best come in,” it said then disappeared back into the gloom.

The old man stood back as she entered. Reva found it impossible to guess his age, anywhere past his seventieth year was her best estimate from the sagging wrinkles dominating his features. He wore mean clothing which she doubted had seen a wash-stone for some months, his torso wrapped in a threadbare blanket. He carried a head-high staff, more, she suspected, for support than armament from the way he leaned on it. “Vantil,” he introduced himself. “And I think I know who you are.” He nodded at Arken, left standing outside with the horses. “Him I don’t.”

“He has my trust,” Reva said.

That seemed to be enough for Vantil as he began hobbling towards a steep flight of stone steps. “’Spect you want to see the chamber first.”

“Yes.” Reva found her heart was beating harder than it had when she faced Ranter and his brothers. “Yes I would like that.”

It was just a room. Larger than the others they passed on the way, and in a similar state of disrepair, but still just a room, chill stone and shadow, empty save for a high-backed chair facing the door. At her request Vantil provided a torch and she began to scour the shadows, playing the flame over the walls, behind the pillars, beneath the chair.

“Don’t you want to pray before the chair?” Vantil asked, clearly puzzled by her behaviour.

Reva ignored the question, completing her first search of the room and immediately starting another, then another. Every corner of the chamber examined, every possible hiding place prodded, every shadow banished with the torch. Nothing.

“How long have you been here?” she asked Vantil.

“Came not long after the Trueblade fell.”

“You must know what I seek here.”

The old man shrugged. “To offer prayers for the Trueblade. To speak to the Father in the place of his holy martyrd-”

“He had a sword. Here in this room when he died. Where is it?”

Vantil could only shake his head in bafflement. “No sword here, and I know this keep better than any living soul. Everything got taken, if not by the Darkblade’s cutthroats then by the Fief Lord’s House Guards.”

“The Darkblade didn’t take it,” she muttered. “When did the Fief Lord’s men come?”

“They come every year, make sure the place is empty of pilgrims. We hide in the mountains until they’re gone. The last visit was two months ago.”

So many miles for nothing. It wasn’t here, Al Sorna’s men didn’t take it which left the Fief Lord, in Alltor.

“Do you have somewhere I can rest for tonight?” she asked Vantil.

“The blood of the Trueblade is welcome here for as long as she likes.” He fidgeted for a moment, his staff beating on the stones a few times. “The, ah, prayers?” he asked.

Reva gave the chamber a final glance. An empty chair in an empty room. No sign of the Trueblade, not even a bloodstained stone to mark his passing. Did he ever think of me? she wondered. Did he even know I lived?

“The Father knows well the depth of my love for the Trueblade,” she told Vantil, moving to the door. “I’ll need a bed for the boy as well.”