Tower Lord

CHAPTER SIX

Vaelin

He found it impossible to gauge the Eorhil woman’s age. Somewhere between fifty and seventy was his best guess. Her face possessed many lines, her lips cracked with age and her long braids iron-grey. But there was a leanness and evident strength to her that bespoke an ageless vitality, her back straight as she sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, her bare arms strung with knotted muscle. Behind her the great gathering of Eorhil warriors waited, some dismounted, most not, over ten thousand riders come in answer to the Tower Lord’s call. The Eorhil woman’s name, translated by Insha ka Forna, was unusual amongst her people as it consisted of but one word: Wisdom.

“You ask much, man of tower,” the young Eorhil had cautioned. “Not since war with beast people do so many come. Then they knew old tower man, you they don’t. Wisdom will decide.”

They had been sitting like this for much of the afternoon, the woman staring at him through the smoke rising from the fire. He heard no note from the blood-song, she possessed no gift, at least none it could recognise. Ten days’ march had brought them here to the lake the Eorhil called the Silver Tear, a small placid body of water shining amidst the great expanse of the plains where the Eorhil were already waiting with their full number.

“Al Myrna wanted a quiet life,” Wisdom said finally in flawless Realm Tongue, Vaelin starting at the sudden break in the silence. “A man with many battles in his past, tired of war. Our trust in him was built on that weariness. It’s the man of energy who hungers for war, and you, Vaelin Al Sorna, are a man of considerable energy.”

“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I’ve seen enough battle also. It pains me to lead so many to war once more.”

“Then why do it?”

“Why does any man of reason go to war? To preserve what is good and destroy what is not.”

“The Volarians seek to destroy your homeland. But that is far from here.”

“Your forest sister has seen the hearts of these people. They will not stop at my homeland. And I have seen what they did to the ice people. They will take all they can, from the Seordah, the Lonak and you.”

“And if we give you our warriors, the bright promise of our youth, how many will return?”

“I do not know. Many will fall, I do not deny it. I do know that the Eorhil will have to fight the Volarians, either on these plains or in my realm.”

“To reach your realm we must travel through the forest. You expect the Seordah to allow this?”

“I expect them to heed the words of the blind woman.”

Wisdom gave a start of her own, stiffening as her gaze narrowed. “You’ve seen her?”

“And spoken with her.”

The Eorhil woman’s mouth twitched and he discerned she was fighting fear. She got to her feet muttering, “We named you wrong.” She stalked back to her people, casting her final words over her shoulder. “We will ride with you.”

“Wisdom,” Vaelin read slowly, pronouncing each syllable with care.

“Good,” Dahrena said. “And this?” Her finger moved on to the next word.

“Aah-greeed?”

She smiled. “Very good, my lord. A few more weeks and you won’t need me at all.”

“I very much doubt that will be the case, my lady.” He reclined in his chair, yawning. The evening drill had been hard, far too many men still stumbling about with faint notion of the difference between right and left, clumsiness made worse by fatigue from the day’s march, but there was no other choice if they were to have a hope of facing a disciplined enemy.

They were four days from the lake, the Eorhil scouting ahead and covering the flanks as they moved south towards the forest, now no more than a week away. Dahrena fretted over the fact they were yet to meet any Seordah but he told her to stow her worries, forcing more certainty into his tone than he actually felt. Just tell them you met a blind woman from several centuries hence, and they’ll throw their arms wide in welcome? he asked himself. Do you really suppose it’ll be that easy?

But the blood-song was unchanged; the route to the Realm lay through the forest. So he marched his army, trained them for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, suffered the grumbling and doubts of his captains and spent a blessed hour before slumber learning letters with the Lady Dahrena.

He was finding a joy in the words the more he learned, the poetry his mother had tried to impart now laid bare, the emptiness of the catechisms glaring and obvious when captured in ink. It gave him a deeper appreciation of the gift enjoyed by Brother Harlick, the power and the beauty of it, to have an entire library in one’s head.

Dahrena sat at the table they shared, adding the final words to the treaty formalising the Eorhil’s alliance to their cause, including an unasked-for grant of ownership over the northern plains in perpetuity. The treaty would require ratification by the monarch of the Unified Realm, assuming they could find one. Vaelin had ordered Brother Harlick to draw up a list of those with a legitimate claim to the throne should the Al Nieren line prove extinct. It consisted of just four names.

“King Janus lost much of his family to the Red Hand,” Harlick explained. “Many of the survivors perished in the wars of unification. These”-he held up the list-“are the only blood relatives still living in the Realm, to the best of my knowledge, since it’s several years since I lived there.”

“Anyone of note?” Vaelin asked.

Harlick considered the list. “Lord Al Pernil is a famed horse-breeder, assuming he still lives. My lord, you may have to consider the possibility that there is no surviving heir to the throne of the Unified Realm. If that’s the case, other options will have to be considered.”

“Options?”

“The Realm is not the Realm without a monarch. And in a time of chaos people will look to the strongest man for leadership, regardless of blood or station.”

Vaelin studied the man’s face, wondering if some fresh design lurked behind his eyes. “More honest and unselfish intent, brother?”

“Merely the observations of a well-read man, my lord.”

“Well, confine your observations to those subjects I ask you to consider.” He moved to the map table, his eyes picking out Alltor, the blood-song flaring as it always did whenever his thoughts turned to Reva. Recently there had been a change in the tone, an ominous counterpoint to the usual compulsion. They come for her, he decided. And she won’t run.

“The population of Alltor?” he asked Harlick.

“The King’s census ten years ago put the total at some forty-eight thousand souls,” the brother replied without hesitation. “Though, in times of siege it could be expected to double.” He paused. “That’s where we’re going?”

“As fast as the men can stand it.”

“The distance . . .”

Vaelin shook his head. “Is immaterial. We march to Alltor, even if it’s only to survey a ruin. That’s all for now, brother.”

Four days’ march saw a dark uneven line appear on the horizon. It thickened as they marched, growing into a great wall of trees, stretching away on either side as far as eyes could see. Vaelin ordered the army to camp a half mile short of the forest and bowed to Dahrena. “Allow me to escort you home, my lady.”

Nortah guided his horse closer, Snowdance padding alongside. “We should go too,” he said. “The sight of a war-cat may ward against anger at your intrusion.”

“It’s more likely to provoke it,” Dahrena told him. “In any case, my people will not harm us. I’m sure of it.” Vaelin detected a wariness to her gaze as she eyed the forest, indicating a lack of conviction in her own words.

“If you don’t return?” Nortah asked.

Vaelin was tempted to offer a flippant response but seeing Dahrena’s unease decided on a reasoned reply. “Then I name you as my successor, brother. You will lead the army back to the tower and prepare against siege.”

“You imagine these people will follow a simple teacher?”

“A teacher with a war-cat.” Vaelin grinned and spurred Flame into motion.

The blood-song swelled as they neared the forest edge, not in warning, but welcome. It subsided to a soft contented note as the trees closed in around them, the air cool and musty with the myriad scents offered by all forests. Dahrena reined to a halt and dismounted, her face raised to the canopy of branches, eyes closed and a faint smile on her lips. “I missed you,” she said softly.

Vaelin dismounted and left Flame grazing on a patch of long grass, his eyes scanning the trees and finding a man standing between two elms, watching him with a deeply furrowed brow.

“Hera!” Dahrena gave a joyous yelp and ran to the Seordah, jumping to embrace him.

The man seemed less joyful as she drew back, his smile of welcome strained. His hair was long and streaked with grey, swept back from a hawk-nosed face stirring Vaelin’s memory.

“Hera Drakil,” he said, moving towards the man. “Friend to Tower Lord Al Myrna. I . . .”

“I know who you are,” Hera Drakil said, his accent thick but clear. “Beral Shak Ur, though I had hoped to be hunting in the dream age when your shadow fell on this forest.”

“I come with friendship . . .”

“You come with war, ever the way with the Marelim Sil.” The Seordah laid an affectionate hand on Dahrena’s cheek and turned away. “Come, the stone waits.”

There were a dozen Seordah chiefs waiting, five women and seven men, all of an age with Hera Drakil who sat in their centre of their line. He had led them to a small clearing some miles into the forest, in the centre of which stood a stone plinth. The shape and height of the stone reminded Vaelin of one he had seen before, although whilst the stone in the Martishe had been overgrown with weeds and creepers, this was free of any vegetation, the carved granite seemingly unmarked by age or weather. In the trees beyond he could see many other Seordah, faces concealed in shadow, but he made out bows and war clubs amongst the shifting silhouettes. Warriors, he thought. Waiting for something.

Vaelin and Dahrena sat before the dozen chiefs, finding no welcome in any gaze. One of them said something, a woman with a crow feather in her hair.

“We give you no leave to enter,” Dahrena translated. “Yet here you are. She asks for a reason why they shouldn’t kill you.”

“I come to seek your help,” Vaelin replied as she related his words to the chiefs. “A great and terrible enemy has attacked my people. Soon they will come to the forest, bringing fire and torment . . .”

Hera Drakil held up a hand and Vaelin fell silent as the Seordah spoke in his own language. “Your people could not take this forest from us,” Dahrena related. “Though they tried. Why should we fear these newcomers when we do not fear you?”

“My people saw wisdom in making peace. Our enemy has no such wisdom. Ask your sister, she has seen their hearts.”

The chiefs’ gaze turned to Dahrena who nodded and spoke at length in the Seordah tongue, no doubt relating what her gift had revealed of Varinshold’s fate and the Volarians’ nature.

“You face a cruel foe indeed,” she translated when one of the other chiefs responded to her tale, a wiry man with a foxtail hanging about his neck. “But it is your foe, not ours. The wars of the Marelim Sil are their own.”

Vaelin paused, pondering how best to phrase what he hoped would silence their doubts. “I am named Beral Shak Ur by Nersus Sil Nin. I tell you true that I have seen and spoken with the blind woman. She has blessed the course of my life. Can any here claim the same?”

He saw some flickers of uncertainty on the faces of the chiefs, but no shock or fear, and certainly no change of heart.

“If the blind woman blesses you,” Dahrena related the words of Hera Drakil as he pointed over Vaelin’s shoulder, “she will hear you now.”

Vaelin turned, regarding the stone for a moment then getting to his feet. “You don’t have to.” Dahrena moved to his side as he approached the stone, looking down at the smooth flat surface with the single perfectly round indentation in the centre. “Let me talk to them. With enough time, they’ll listen.”

“Who am I to deny them a show?” he asked. “One I suspect they’ve been expecting for a long time.”

“You don’t understand. Seordah have been coming here for generations, usually the old and the sick, some the mad. All come to touch the stone and seek the blind woman’s counsel. Most just touch it, wait for a time then leave disappointed, but some, only a very few . . . Some it takes, leaving their bodies empty.”

“Except you,” he said. “You said you had seen her.”

“After my husband died . . .” Her eyes went to the stone, clouded with sorrowful remembrance. “My grief was such I didn’t care if I lived. I came here in search of some kind of answer, some reason. If that was denied me then I would happily accept death. The blind woman . . . She showed me something to live for.” Her hand reached out, hovering over the surface of the stone. “It put me back in my body, because she willed it.”

“Then,” he said, stepping closer. “Let’s hope she finds me similarly worthy.”

The granite was cool under his palm, but he felt no other sensation, no change in his song, but when he looked up Dahrena and the Seordah were gone. It was night and a woman sat at a fire, face turned away from him but he knew her instantly. “Nersus Sil Nin,” he greeted her, walking to the fire. She was older than he remembered, lines deeply etched into the flesh around her red marble eyes, her hair entirely white. She blinked and glanced up at him.

“You’re older,” she said. “And your song is stronger.”

“You said I should learn its music well.”

“Did I? It was so long ago. There have been so many visions since.” Her hand reached down to the stack of firewood at her feet, tossing some branches into the flames. “Still serving your Faith?” she asked.

“My Faith was a lie. Though I think you knew that.”

“Is a lie really a lie if it is honestly believed? Your people sought to make sense of the world’s many mysteries with their Faith. Misguided perhaps, but based on a truth not fully revealed.”

The thing that lived in Barkus, the cruelty of its laugh. “A soul can be trapped in the Beyond.”

“Not all souls, only those with a gift. This power, this fire that burns in you and I, doesn’t cease burning when our life fades.”

“And when it slips into the void. What then?”

Her aged lips formed a smile. “I suspect I’ll discover that myself before long.”

“Something lives there, in the void. Something that takes these souls and twists them, making them serve its purpose, sending them back to take the bodies of other gifted.”

Her eyebrows rose in faint surprise. “So, it grew after all.”

“What grew? What is it that lives there?”

She turned her blank eyes to him, face heavy with regret. “I do not know. All I know is that it needs. It hungers.”

“What for?”

She voiced her answer with a flat certainty making doubts redundant, “Death.”

“Can you tell me how to defeat it?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “But I can tell you it has to be fought, if you care about this world and its people.”

He looked up at the small patch of night sky visible through the branches above, seeing the seven stars of the sword. This high in the sky meant it was early autumn here, though how many years before his time was an unfathomable mystery. “Has it happened yet?” he asked. “Have my people come to take this land?”

“I’ll be many years dead before that happens. Though I’ve had enough visions from that time to make me thankful for it.”

“And the future? The future of this land?”

She stared into the fire for some time and he suspected she wouldn’t answer, but eventually she said, “You are as far into the future as I’ve seen, Beral Shak Ur. After you, there is no future. None that I can see.”

“And yet you would have me fight?”

“My gift is not absolute. Many things remain hidden. And in any case, what else would you do? Give up your hope and sit waiting for the end?”

“Your people require persuasion to grant passage through the forest. What do I tell them?”

Her brow creased into an amused frown. “Tell them I said they should. That might help.”

“And that will be enough?”

Her frown turned into a laugh, bitter and short. “I haven’t the faintest notion. The people you find in this forest may speak my language and share my blood, but they are not my people. Those who come to touch the stone are shadows of former greatness and beauty. They gather in tribes and pursue their endless feuds with the Lonak, myth and legend has replaced knowledge and wisdom. They have forgotten who they were, allowed themselves to be diminished.”

“If they don’t join with me, then even that shadow of your greatness will be gone, along with any chance that it might one day be rebuilt.”

“What is broken remains so. It is the way of things.” She turned to the stone. “We did not craft these vessels of memory and time, they were here long before us. We merely divined their use, and even then they prove fickle, taking the minds of those they deem unworthy. Once a people far greater than the Seordah crafted wonders and built cities the length and breadth of this land. Now, even their name is lost forever.”

She turned back to the fire and fell silent, features sagging with fatigue. “I had hoped our final meeting might be joyous, that when you came it would be with tales of a wife and family, a long life lived in peace.”

He reached for her hand, knowing it would feel nothing, but let it hover there for a moment. “It grieves me to disappoint you so.”

She said nothing and he sensed that her vision was fading. He returned to the stone, extending his hand then hesitating. “Good-bye, Nersus Sil Nin.”

She didn’t turn around. “Good-bye, Beral Shak Ur. If you win your war, return to the stone. Perhaps you’ll find someone new to talk to.”

“Perhaps.” He pressed his palm to the stone, daylight returning in an instant, banishing the night’s chill. He drew a breath, forcing authority into his voice as he turned to address the Seordah. “The blind woman has spoken . . .”

He trailed off when he saw their gaze was elsewhere, all twelve Seordah chiefs now on their feet staring at something to the side of him. Dahrena stood nearby, eyes wide in wonder. He turned and the song surged.

The wolf sat on its haunches, green eyes regarding him with the scrutiny he remembered so well. He couldn’t recall its being so large before, standing at least as tall as he. After a moment it licked its lips and raised its snout, a great howl rising to the sky, loud enough to banish all other sound, filling the ears of all present to the point of pain.

The wolf lowered its snout, the howl fading and for a heartbeat silence ruled the forest, then it came, rising from the trees for miles around, the answering howl of every wolf in the Great Northern Forest. On and on it went as the wolf rose to trot forward, its great head level with his chest, nostrils twitching as it sniffed him. He could hear its song, the alien tune he remembered from the day Dentos died, the music so strange as to be baffling, but one note was clear and unmistakable. Trust. It has trust in me.

The wolf nuzzled his hand, its tongue lapping once, then turned and bounded away, a blur of silver in the trees, soon vanished from sight. The great howling faded with it.

Hera Drakil and the other Seordah came forward, forming a circle around him, the shadowy warriors emerging from the trees to surround him, men and women of fighting age all holding their war clubs out before them as one. Hera Drakil raised his own club, holding it flat and level. “Tomorrow,” the Seordah chief said, “I will sing my war song to the rising sun, and guide you through this forest.”

“No fires are to be lit, no wood cut, no game taken. All men will remain in their companies and not wander away from the line of march. We walk only where the Seordah tell us.”

He saw some of his captains exchange wary glances, Adal’s face betraying the most unease. “And punishment for transgression, my lord?” he asked.

“Punishment won’t be needed,” Vaelin said. “The Seordah will enforce these rules, of that they have left me in little doubt.”

“I would be remiss, my lord, if I did not report the temper of the men,” Adal went on. “Open dissent is quickly quelled, as per your order, but we cannot still every tongue.”

“What is it now?” Vaelin ran a weary hand through his hair. The meeting with Nersus Sil Nin had left him troubled, the scarcity of knowledge she could impart leaving an irksome uncertainty. Also, he was coming to realise why he had never relished command. They’re always so endlessly malcontent. “Boots too hard? Training too tough?”

“They’re scared of the forest,” Nortah said. “Not that I blame them. Scares the life out of me and I’ve yet to set foot in it.”

“I see,” Vaelin said. “Well, any man too craven to walk through some trees has my permission to leave. Once they’ve surrendered their arms, boots, supplies and any pay they’ve received to date, they can make their way home and wait for a Volarian fleet to appear and enjoy the ensuing spectacle of slaughter. Perhaps then they’ll consider the true price of cowardice.” He rested balled fists on the map table, sighing through gritted teeth. “Or you could just give me a list of the most vocal grumblers and I’ll have them flogged.”

“I’ll speak to them,” Dahrena said as the captains fidgeted in uncomfortable silence. “Allay some fears.”

Vaelin gave a wordless nod and gestured for Brother Hollun to give his daily report on the state of the supplies.

“What did she tell you?” Dahrena asked when the captains had been dismissed. From outside the tent came the noise of the camp breaking up as the army prepared to march into the forest. “To have befouled your mood so.”

“It’s more what she didn’t tell me,” he replied. “She had no answers, my lady. No great wisdom to guide our path. Just a tired old woman suffering her final vision of a future she hates.”

Dahrena said nothing for a moment, but her gaze lingered on his face. He noticed it had done so since they returned from the forest. “The wolf,” she said. “You’ve seen it before.”

He nodded.

“So have I. When I was very little, the night father found me, it blessed me with its tongue . . .” Her gaze was distant, almost trance like. She blinked, shaking her head and rising. “I should go and make some speeches.”

In the end there were none who refused to enter the forest, Dahrena’s words once again carrying sufficient weight to ensure loyalty. They love her, Vaelin decided, seeing the ease with which she moved amongst the men, the laughter she exchanged, seemingly able to recall every face and name without effort. He knew it was not a gift he held, most men who had followed him had done so out of duty or fear. He could only hope their love for her and fear of him would be enough when they finally met the Volarians.

The North Guard were first to enter the forest, dismounted and leading their horses through the trees, dozens of Seordah warriors on all sides looking on in stern silence. Vaelin led the First Regiment of Foot next. He had divided the army into ten regiments of about a thousand men each, numbered accordingly, though he had allowed them to decide on their own banners. The First were mostly miners and had adopted a banner showing crossed pickaxes on a blue background. They were led, albeit with much assistance from a North Guard sergeant, by Foreman Ultin from Reaver’s Gulch.

“Me, walking the great forest,” he said in wonder, eyes wide as he stared about. “Commanding a regiment at y’lordship’s side, too. And my old dad said I’d never climb no higher than emptying the foreman’s piss-bucket.”

“How long since you left Renfael, Captain?” Vaelin asked him.

“Just Ultin, if you please, m’lord. Even the lads can’t keep a straight face when they call me captain.” He glanced back at his men. “Ain’t that right, you disrespectful dogs?”

“Kiss my hole, Ultin,” one of the men in the front rank said. He blanched a little at Vaelin’s stare and quickly looked down. Vaelin stilled the rebuke on his tongue, seeing the sweat on the man’s forehead and the fear on his comrades’ faces, their eyes constantly roaming the trees.

“More’n fifteen years, m’lord,” Ultin said. “Since I left the old stinkhole I called home. Can’t say as I miss it much. Just another mean mining village, full of mean people paid mean wages by a mean lord. One day I heard about the Reaches from a tinker, said a miner could earn four times as much there, if he didn’t mind the cold and the savages. Got meself on a ship soon as I had enough for a berth. Never gave no thought to goin’ back, till now.”

If there’s anything to go back to, Vaelin thought.

Each regiment was given a Seordah guide, Hera Drakil leading the First, his communication confined mostly to pointing or holding up a hand to signal a halt. He seemed even more reluctant to engage with Vaelin than he had at their first meeting, avoiding his gaze and keeping to his own language, forcing Dahrena to continue as translator. The wolf, Vaelin surmised. They don’t appreciate being made to feel fear in their own forest.

The Seordah chief led them to a clearing around a shallow creek where they would camp for the night. In accordance with Vaelin’s orders no fires were started and the men were obliged to huddle in their cloaks, eating cold hard-tack with some cured meat. There was little talk and no singing, men often starting at the sounds of the forest.

“What’s that?” Ultin asked in a whisper as a faint wailing came to them from the surrounding blackness.

“Wild cat,” Dahrena said. “Looking for some female company.”

Vaelin found Hera Drakil perched on a large boulder in the middle of the creek. The water was shallow but the splashes gave ample signal of any visitors, the Seordah’s eyes narrowing at Vaelin’s approach. He offered no greeting and went back to unstringing his bow, a flat-staved weapon with a thick leather-wrapped centre. Vaelin noticed his arrows were headed with some kind of dark shiny material rather than iron. “Can you pierce armour with those?” he asked.

Hera Drakil took one of the arrows and held it up, the edge of the head catching the moonlight and Vaelin saw it was glass rather than flint. “From the hill country,” the Seordah said. “Have to fight the Lonak to get it. Cuts through anything if you get close enough.”

“And that?” Vaelin nodded at the war club placed within reach. It was about a yard long, double curved like an axe handle with a notched grip and a blunt head resembling the misshapen head of a shovel. A wicked ten-inch spike protruded from the wood an inch short of the head. “Will it hold against a blow from a sword?”

“Why not try?” The Seordah looked him up and down. “Except you have no sword.” He laid his bow aside and picked up the club, holding it out to Vaelin. He took it and tried a few swings, finding it light, the grip comfortable. The wood it was fashioned from was unfamiliar, dark and smooth, the grain hardly perceptible under his fingers.

“Black-heart tree,” Hera Drakil explained. “Wood is soft when it’s cut and shaped, grows hard like rock when placed in fire. It won’t break, Beral Shak Ur.”

Vaelin inclined his head and handed the club back. “You haven’t asked what the blind woman told me.”

“She said we should join with you. Her visions are well-known to the Seordah.”

“But you were going to deny her words.”

“Your people have no gods, neither do mine. The blind woman lived many years ago and had visions of the future. Most came true, some did not. We are guided by her, we do not worship her.”

“What do you worship?”

For the first time the Seordah’s face showed some sign of amusement, a grin coming to his lips. “You are standing in what we worship, Beral Shak Ur. You call this place the great forest, we call it Seordah, for it is us and we are it.”

“To fight our enemy you’ll have to leave it.”

“I’ve done so before, when I went to see your land with the last Tower Lord. I saw many things there, all of them ugly.”

“What you’ll see this time will be uglier still.”

“Yes.” The Seordah put his club aside and rested back against the rock, closing his eyes. “It will.”