White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend

CHAPTER FOUR

FOR BRAYGAN IT WAS THE SINGLE MOST TERRIFYING MOMENT

OF HIS life so far. He had become a priest to escape the horrors of a world threatened by wars and violence, droughts and starvation. Now, before he was even twenty, death was marching towards him.

More than twenty of the thirty-five priests were already fleeing through the rear gates, running out towards the sheep paddocks and the woods beyond. He saw Brother Anager emerge from the main building, a canvas sack upon his shoulder. Braygan stood very still as the cook came alongside him. ‘Come with us, Braygan. It is futile to die here.’

Braygan so wanted to obey. He moved several steps towards the paddock, then glanced back to where Abbot Cethelin was standing beneath the gateway arch.

‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘Fare you well, Anager.’

The other priest said nothing. Hoisting his sack to his shoulder he ran out to the paddock. Braygan watched him labouring up the green slope.

In that moment a feeling of peace descended on the young acolyte. He took a deep breath and walked slowly to where the abbot waited. Cethelin turned as Braygan arrived. He smiled and patted the young priest on the arm. ‘I saw a candle in my dream, Braygan. It stood against the onrushing darkness. We will be that candle.’

The crowd were closer now, and Braygan saw the tall, lean figure of Antol the Baker, his dark hair held in place by a bronze circlet, his protruding eyes wide and angry. Beside him was the Arbiter who had punched Braygan to the ground, and then been stopped by Brother Lantern. Braygan flicked a glance at Lantern, who was standing very still, his face impassive.

‘Bring out the criminal Rabalyn,’ shouted Raseev Kalikan. ‘Or face the consequences.’

Cethelin stepped closer to the milling crowd. ‘I do not know of what you speak,’ he said. ‘There are no criminals here. The boy Rabalyn is not within these walls.’

‘You lie!’ bellowed Antol.

‘I never lie,’ Cethelin told him. ‘The boy is not here. I see you have officers of the Watch with you. They are free to search the buildings.’

‘We don’t need your permission, traitor!’ yelled the Arbiter. The crowd began to move forward. Cethelin raised his thin arms. ‘My brothers, why do you wish us harm? Not one of my brethren has ever caused you ill. We live to serve…’

‘This is for traitors!’ shouted Antol, suddenly running forward. Sunlight glinted from the long knife in his hand. Cethelin turned towards him.

Brother Lantern leapt across Braygan’s line of sight. Cethelin staggered and Braygan saw blood on the knife blade. A woman shouted from the crowd. ‘Spill his guts to the ground!’ Braygan recognized the voice of Marja, Antol’s wife.

Braygan caught Cethelin as he fell. The abbot had been stabbed just above his left hip, and blood was soaking through his blue robes. Antol tried to reach him for a second thrust, but Lantern caught his arm and twisted it savagely. Antol screamed and dropped the knife. Lantern caught it with his right hand, then twisted Antol round to face the crowd.

Then Lantern spoke, his voice harsh and powerful. ‘Death is what you came here for, you maggot-ridden scum, and death is what you will have.’

He looked towards Marja, a round-faced, plump woman with short-cropped greying hair. ‘You called for guts to be spilled, you hag.

Then here they are!’

Antol’s back was towards him and Braygan did not see the terrible strike with the knife. But he heard Antol scream, and he saw something gush from his belly and flop to the ground. The sound that screeched from the disembowelled man was barely human, and chilled Braygan to the depths of his soul. Then Brother Lantern dragged the man’s head back and slashed the knife across his throat. Blood spurted over the blade.

‘No!’ screamed Marja, stumbling to where her husband’s body lay.

Brother Lantern ignored her and strode towards the crowd. ‘Is that enough pleasure for you, or do you desire more? Come, you gutless worms.

More can die.’

They backed away from him — all save two black-garbed officers of the Watch who ran forward, sabres in their hands. Lantern moved to meet them. He swayed as the first blade lanced for his heart. The soldier stumbled back. Braygan saw that Antol’s knife was now embedded in the man’s throat. And somehow Lantern had the dying officer’s sabre in his hand. He parried a thrust from the second soldier, rolled his blade, then plunged it through the man’s chest. The soldier cried out and staggered back. The sabre blade slid clear.

Lantern stepped back from the man and swung away. Braygan thought he was about to return to where Cethelin lay, but he suddenly spun on his heel, the sabre flashing through the air. It took the officer in the side of the neck, cleaving through skin, tendon and bone. The young soldier’s head struck the ground while his body stood for several seconds. Braygan saw the right leg twitch and the headless corpse crumple to the earth.

There was not a sound now from the crowd. Lantern had both sabres in his hands and he walked along the line of waiting men and women. ‘Well?’

he called out. ‘Are there no more fighting men among you? What about you, Arbiter? Are you ready to die? I have stitched your wounds — now let me give you another. Come to me. Here, I shall make it easy for you.’ So saying he plunged both sabres into the ground.

‘You cannot kill all of us!’ shouted the Arbiter. ‘Come on, men, let’s take him!’

He rushed forward with a great shout. Lantern stepped in to meet him.

His left hand caught the Arbiter’s knife wrist and twisted it. The Arbiter grunted in pain and dropped the weapon. Lantern moved his foot beneath the falling weapon, flicking it back into the air. He caught it with his left hand, then rammed it through the Arbiter’s right eye socket.

As the body fell he stepped back and swept up the sabres. ‘The man was an idiot,’ he said. ‘But he was quite right. I cannot possibly kill you all.

Probably no more than ten or twelve of you. Do you wish to draw lots, peasants? Or will you rush me all at once and check the bodies later?’

No-one moved. ‘What about you?’ asked Lantern, pointing the sabre at a broad-shouldered young man standing close by. ‘Shall I spill your guts to the ground next? Well, speak up, worm!’ He suddenly moved towards the man. The townsman cried out in fear and forced himself further back into the crowd. ‘What about you, councillor?’ Lantern raged, making towards Raseev Kalikan. ‘Are you ready to die for your beloved townsfolk? Or do you think there has been enough entertainment for today?’

He advanced on the hapless Raseev, who stood blinking in the sunlight.

The crowd moved back from the terrified politician.

‘There has been enough… bloodshed,’ whispered Raseev, as the blood-covered sabre touched his chest.

‘Louder! Your miserable flock cannot hear you.’

‘Don’t kill me, Skilgannon!’ he pleaded.

‘Ah, so you know me then. No matter. Talk to your flock, Raseev Kalikan, while you still have a tongue to use. You know what to say.’

‘There has been enough bloodshed!’ shouted Raseev. ‘Return to your homes now. Please, my friends. Let us go home. I did not want anyone hurt today. Antol should not have attacked the abbot. He has paid for it with his life. Now let us be civilized and pull back from the brink.’

‘Wise words,’ said Skilgannon.

For a moment the crowd did not move. Skilgannon turned his ice-blue gaze upon the nearest man, and he backed away. Others followed his lead, and soon the mob was dispersing. Raseev made to follow them.

‘Not yet, councillor,’ said Skilgannon, the sabre blade tapping at Raseev’s shoulder. ‘Nor you, captain,’ he added, as Seregas backed away.

‘How long have you known?’

‘Only a few days, general,’ said Seregas smoothly. ‘I spotted the tattoo when you thrashed the Arbiter.’

‘And you sent word to the east.’

‘Of course. There is three thousand raq on your head.’

‘Understandable,’ said Skilgannon. Then he returned his attention to Raseev. ‘I will not be here after today,’ he told the councillor. ‘But I will hear of all that happens after I am gone. Should any harm befall my brothers I shall come back. I will kill you in the old way — the Naashanite way. One piece of you will die at a time.’

Skilgannon turned his back on the two men and moved towards where Braygan knelt, cradling Abbot Cethelin. As he approached them Marja reared up from alongside the body of her husband. ‘You bastard!’ she screamed and ran at Skilgannon. Spinning on his heel he swayed aside.

Marja stumbled and fell face first to the earth.

‘By Heaven, I never did like that woman,’ said Skilgannon.

Dropping to one knee he examined the wound in Cethelin’s side. Antol’s knife had slashed the skin above the hip, but had not penetrated deeply. ‘I will stitch that wound for you,’ he said.

‘No, my son. You will not touch me. I feel the hatred and the anger radiating from you. It burns my soul. Braygan and Naslyn will take me to my chambers and attend me. You will join me there in a while. I have something for you.’ Braygan and Naslyn lifted him to his feet. The old priest looked at the bodies and shook his head.

Skilgannon saw tears in his eyes.

Skilgannon stood silently as the two priests helped Cethelin across the open courtyard and into the buildings opposite. His hands were sticky with blood. Wiping them on his robes, he moved to a stone seat in the gateway arch and sat down. The woman, Marja, stirred and struggled to her knees. Skilgannon ignored her. She looked around, saw her dead husband and began to sob. The sound was pitiful. She stumbled over to the corpse and knelt beside it. Her grief was real, but it did not touch Skilgannon. She was one of those people who never gave thought to consequences. Marja had screamed for guts to be spilled. And they were.

Four more souls had been despatched on the long, dark journey.

Two years of suppressed rage had been released in a few terrifying heartbeats. Brother Lantern was a role he had tried so hard to play. His father’s face appeared in his mind, as he always saw it, the broad features framed in a bronze helm, a transverse horse hair plume of white glinting in the sunlight.

‘ We are what we are, my son.’

Skilgannon had never forgotten those words. His father, Decado, had not been wearing the armour of a mercenary when he had spoken them.

He had been on one of his rare visits home, recovering from a wound to his upper thigh and a broken wrist. Skilgannon had been sent home from school in disgrace after fighting two boys and knocking them both senseless. ‘Blood runs true in our family line, Olek. We are warriors.’

Decado had chuckled. ‘People are like dogs, boy. There’s the little, tubby fat ones everyone likes to pet, and the tall, rangy ones we watch race and bet upon. There’s all kinds of house dogs with wagging tails. Then there’s the wolf. It is strong. It has powerful jaws, and it is ferocious when roused.

We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are. And all them little waggy-tail beasts best walk wary around us.’

Two months later his father was dead.

Trapped on a ridge by two divisions of Panthian infantry Decado had led a last charge down the slope. The few survivors talked of his incredible courage, and how he had almost reached the Panthian King. When the main body of the army arrived at the battlefield they found all but one of the corpses impaled on stakes. Decado was still sitting his horse, which had been tethered nearby. At first the relief force had thought him to be alive. When they reached him they saw he had been strapped to his saddle, his back held upright by three lengths of wood. His swords had been sheathed at his side, his rings still upon his fingers. In one closed fist they found a small gold coin, bearing the Panthian crest.

A rider brought the coin to Skilgannon. ‘It is the toll for the Ferryman,’

he told the boy. ‘The Panthians wanted to ensure that he crossed the Dark River.’

Skilgannon had been horrified. ‘Then what will he do now? You took the coin from him.’

‘Do not worry, lad. I buried him with another coin — one of ours. It is still gold and the Ferryman will accept it. I wanted you to have this one.

The Panthians honoured him, and this is the symbol of that honour.’

‘ We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are.’

Skilgannon the Damned was who he was, and who he would always be.

Hearing movement behind him he looked back, and saw the runaway priests returning, moving sheepishly back into the main building. It is all a nonsense, he thought. In all likelihood only Cethelin truly believed in the all-healing power of love. The rest? Naslyn wanted redemption, Braygan safety. Anager and the other runaways had probably chosen the priesthood as one might choose between being a tailor or a bootmaker. It was just a profession.

He could not find it in himself to hate Raseev Kalikan or the captain Seregas. At least there was purpose in their actions.

Skilgannon had stood beside Cethelin, and almost convinced himself that he would stand passively by and let the mob do as they would. The world would not be a poorer place without me, he had thought. Yet when the foul baker had stabbed Cethelin something had snapped inside Skilgannon. The darkness had been released.

Brother Anager crept alongside him, saw the bodies before the gates and made the sign of the Protective Horn. ‘What happened here, Brother?’

he whispered.

‘I am not your brother,’ said Skilgannon.

He walked back to his room and pulled the narrow chest from beneath the bed. From it he took a cream-coloured shirt of linen edged with white satin. It was collarless and sleeveless. He draped it across the bed and pulled clear a pair of leather leggings and a broad brown belt. These he laid alongside the shirt. Stripping off his blood-drenched robes, he tossed them to the floor and put on the clothes from the chest. He tugged on a pair of knee-length brown riding boots, then stood and stamped his feet.

The boots felt tight after two years of wearing open sandals. Lastly he lifted clear a riding jacket of greased buckskin. This was also sleeveless, but long leather fringes, tipped with silver, had been placed over both shoulders. The silver was tarnished now and black, as were the silver rings

— five on each side — which decorated the outer sides of his boots from knee to ankle. Donning the jacket, he strolled from the room without a backward glance.

Brother Braygan was waiting in the courtyard. ‘It was a nasty gash,’ he told Skilgannon. ‘Naslyn stitched it. I think he will be fine.’

‘That is good.’

‘You are leaving us?’

‘How can I stay, Braygan? Even without the deaths they know who I am.

Hunters will come, killers seeking bounty.’

‘So you really are the Damned?’

‘I am.’

‘It is hard to believe. The stories must be… exaggerated.’

‘No, they are not. Everything you have heard is true.’

Moving away from him Skilgannon mounted the steps to Cethelin’s chambers. He found him upon his bed, Naslyn beside him. The black-bearded priest rose as he entered and left quietly. Skilgannon approached the bed and looked down at the grey face of the elderly abbot.

‘I am sorry, Elder Brother.’

‘As am I, Skilgannon. I thought my dream meant a candle of love. It did not. It meant a warrior’s flame. Now everything we set out to do here is sullied. We are the priests who killed to save ourselves.’

‘Would you sooner have died out there?’

‘Yes, Skilgannon, I would. Or rather the priest that I am would. The man that I am is grateful for a few more days, months or years of life. Go to the closet over there. At its base you will find a bundle wrapped in an old blanket. Fetch it here.’

Skilgannon did as he was bid. As he touched the bundle he knew instinctively what was hidden within it. His pulse began to race. ‘Open it,’

ordered Cethelin.

‘I do not want them.’

‘Then take them from here and see them destroyed. When first you gave them to me I felt their evil. I hoped that you would become free of the dark power. I watched you suffer, and I took pride in the strength you showed.

But I could not discard them, or sell them as you suggested. It would have been like loosing a plague on a troubled world. They are yours, Skilgannon.

Take them. Take them far from here.’

Laying the bundle on a nearby table Skilgannon loosed the thongs that bound it and lifted clear the blanket. Lying there were the Swords of Night and Day. Sunlight from the window gleamed on the carved ivory handles, and glinted upon the single polished black sheath. Taking hold of the silver-edged baldric connecting both ends of the sheath he swung the weapons to his back. There was something else in the bundle, a bulging leather pouch. He hefted it.

‘There are twenty-eight golden raq in that pouch,’ said Cethelin. ‘All that remains of the money from the stallion I sold for you. The rest was used to purchase food for the poor during the drought year.’

‘Did you know who I was when I came here, Elder Brother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why then did you let me stay?’

‘No man is beyond redemption. Even the Damned. It is our duty to love the unlovable, and by so doing open their hearts to the Source. Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. You recall I asked you if you would grant me a favour? Do you still hold to that?’

‘Of course.’

‘I am sending Braygan to the elders in Mellicane. Go with him and see him safely into their charge.’

‘Braygan is a pure soul. Do you not think he might be corrupted by my evil?’

‘Perhaps. Yes, he is pure and unsullied. He is also untried and understands little of the harshness of this world. If he can walk with you to Mellicane and remain pure then he will be a better priest for it. If he cannot then he should seek a future outside the church. Farewell, Skilgannon.’

‘I preferred it when you called me Brother Lantern.’

‘Brother Lantern died outside these walls, Skilgannon. He fled when the blood flowed. One day he may return. I will pray for that day. Go now. The sight of you offends me.’

Skilgannon said no more. Turning away from the old priest he moved to the door and stepped outside. Naslyn was waiting. Reaching out, he gripped Skilgannon’s arm. ‘I thank you, Brother,’ he said.

‘For your life?’

‘For giving me the courage to stay.’ Naslyn sighed. ‘I am no philosopher.

Maybe Cethelin is right. Maybe we should just offer our love to the world and let the world rip our hearts out. I have no answers, man. But given the choice between having Cethelin in this world, or that foul baker, Antol, I know which I’d choose.’ He looked Skilgannon in the eye. ‘You are a brave man, and I respect you. Where will you go?’

‘First to Mellicane. After that? I do not know.’

‘May the Source be with you, wherever you journey.’

‘He and I are not on speaking terms, I fear. Take care, Naslyn.’