Forge of Darkness

  This woman was nothing like his sisters. Her attention confused him; her interest frightened him. He suspected that she had been given this task – of escorting him – because no one else wanted it. Yet even pity felt like a caress.

  When she resumed walking, he followed.

  The others were all waiting by the fire.

  As they arrived, one of the other Borderswords grunted and said, ‘Relax, lad, it ain’t rabbit.’

  The one whose name Arathan knew was Rint seemed to scowl, before saying, ‘My sister offers you the gift, Arathan. Your father has already shared the meat.’

  Feren went over to the pot and speared a grey sliver of flesh with a dagger. Straightening, she offered it to Arathan.

  When he took the dagger from her hand there was some chance contact, and the roughness of her palm shocked him. Regretting that the instant had been so brief, he bit into the meat and tugged it from the iron point.

  It was tough and tasteless.

  Feren then handed her dagger to one of her comrades and he repeated the ritual with Gate Sergeant Raskan. The fourth Bordersword did the same with Sagander. Once this was done, hard bread was provided, along with bowls of melted lard in which herbs had been mixed. Arathan watched Rint dipping the bread into the lard and biting into it, and so followed suit.

  Unlike the meat, this was delicious.

  ‘In the cold season,’ one of the other Borderswords said, ‘it is lard that will save your life. Burning like an oil lamp in your stomach. Bread alone will kill you, as will lean meat.’

  Raskan said, ‘There was a pursuit of the Jheleck, I recall, in the dead of winter. It did not seem to matter how many furs we wore, we could not stop shivering.’

  ‘Wrong food in your packs, sergeant,’ said the Bordersword.

  ‘Well, Galak, none of your kin were accompanying us.’

  ‘Did you track them down in the end?’ Rint asked.

  Raskan shook his head. ‘We gave up after one bitter night out in the cold, and with a storm coming down from the north we knew we would lose the trail. So we returned to the fort. A warm fire and mulled wine enticed me back from death’s ledge, but it was most of a day and a night before the chill left my bones.’

  ‘It was well you turned back,’ observed Galak, nodding as he chewed. He swallowed before adding, ‘Jheleck like to use storms to ambush. I’d wager my best sword they were tracking back to you, hiding in that storm.’

  ‘That was an unpleasant war,’ Rint said.

  ‘Never knew a pleasant one,’ Feren replied.

  Arathan had noticed his father’s retreat from this easy conversation, and he wondered at what force or quality of character Draconus possessed, to ensure loyalty, when camaraderie was so clearly absent. Was it enough that Mother Dark had chosen him to be her Consort?

  Draconus had fought well in the Forulkan War. This much was known, meaning his courage and valour were above reproach. He had led Houseblades into battle, and he wore his heavy armour as if it were light as silk, and the sword at his belt looked worn and plain as a common soldier’s. These details, Arathan suspected, meant something. There was a code among soldiers – how could there not be?

  The meal was suddenly over and everyone was preparing to resume the trek. Arathan hurried over to Besra – and saw that Raskan had instead readied Hellar. His steps slowed slightly, and then Feren was walking beside him, her eyes on the warhorse.

  ‘A formidable beast,’ she said. ‘But see her eyes – she knows you as her master, her protector.’

  ‘There is nothing that I can protect her from.’

  ‘But there is, at least in her mind.’

  He glanced across at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Your father’s stallion. Oh, true enough, it is by the Lord’s hand that Calaras is held in check. But this mare looks to you. Such are the ways of beasts. Faith defies logic, and for that we are fortunate. But I see the animal is tall – here, I will give you a boot up.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked suddenly, the words out before he could stop them.

  She drew up at the question.

  ‘My father called you over – I saw that, you know. Did he tell you to be kindly towards me?’

  Feren sighed, looked away. ‘None of this is by his command.’

  ‘Then what did he say to you?’

  ‘That shall remain between me and him.’

  ‘Has it do with me?’

  A flash of anger lit her eyes. ‘Give me your boot, lad, or will we all have to wait on you again?’

  Lifting him into the saddle seemed effortless to her, and once she’d done so she turned away, returning to where her comrades waited on their mounts.

  Arathan wanted to call her back. He could hear his own tone echoing in his mind, the words sounding plaintive and thin as a child’s. A petulant child at that. But his suspicions had taken hold of him, and with them he had felt a deep, turgid humiliation, hot and suffocating. Did his father believe a woman’s attention was still required for his son? Was he to be mothered until his very last day in the man’s company?

  ‘It may be that you will believe I do not want you.’ Such had been his words in the Chamber of Campaigns.

  But you don’t. Instead, you pass me off on whomever you choose.

  ‘Student! To my side!’

  Gathering the reins, Arathan nudged Hellar into a trot. The beast lumbered, her stride very different from Besra’s loping gait. Apart from Sagander, no one else remained in the clearing.

  I would have liked her better without your meddling, Father. Not every woman should be made to be my mother. Why do you bother interfering in my life at all? Cast me away; I will welcome it. In the meantime, leave me alone.

  ‘She means you no good, Arathan. Are you listening to me? Ignore her. Turn your back on her.’

  He frowned across at the tutor, wondering at the man’s vehemence.

  ‘They carry lice. Diseases.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I am your company on this journey, is that understood?’

  ‘How soon before we arrive at Abara Delack?’

  ‘Never. We’re going around.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Lord Draconus wills it. Now, enough of your questions! It is time for a lesson. Our subject shall be weakness and desire.’

  * * *

  By mid-afternoon they were riding through old logging camps, broad swaths of level ground fringed on all sides by uprooted, burnt stumps. They were still some leagues from Abara Delack, but all tracks that remained led towards that settlement. Here they were able to ride side by side and Sagander insisted that Arathan do so.

  In a way it was something of a relief. He could see that Rint had been just ahead of Sagander when they’d been in single file, and the Bordersword could not help but have heard the tutor’s loud, harsh proclamations that passed for a lesson, though Arathan had made certain that his infrequent replies to the tutor’s questions were muted.

  Once on the wider path Rint kicked his mount up alongside his sister’s and the two fell into quiet conversation.

  ‘Weakness,’ Sagander now said, his tone both exhausted and relentless, ‘is a disease of the spirit. Among the noblest of our people, it simply does not exist, and it is this innate health, this natural vibrancy, that justifies their station in life. The poor worker in the fields – he is weak and his miserable poverty is but a symptom of the disease. But this alone is insufficient to earn your sympathy, student. You must be made to understand that weakness begins outside the body, and it must be reached for, grasped and then taken inside. It is a choice.

  ‘In all society there exists a hierarchy and it is measured by strength of will. That and nothing else. In this manner, the observation of society reveals a natural form of justice. Those possessing power and wealth are superior in every way to those who serve them. Are you paying attention? I will not accept a wandering mind, Arathan.’

  ‘I am listening, sir.’

  ‘There are s
ome – misguided philosophers and bitter agitators – who argue that social hierarchy is an unnatural imposition, and indeed, that it must be made fluid. This is wilful ignorance, because the truth is, mobility does exist. The disease of weakness can be purged from the self. Often, such transformative events occur in times of great stress, in battle and the like, but there are other paths available for those of us for whom soldiering is not in our nature. Principal among these, of course, is education and the rigours of enlightenment.

  ‘Discipline is the weapon against weakness, Arathan. See it as sword and armour both, capable at once of attack and defence. It stands in stalwart opposition to the forces of weakness, and the middle ground, upon which this battle is waged, is desire.

  ‘Each of us, in our lives, must fight that battle. Indeed, every struggle that you may perceive is but a facet of that one conflict. There are pure desires and there are impure desires. The pure desires give strength to discipline. The impure desires give strength to weakness. Have I made this plain and simple enough for you?’

  ‘Yes sir. May I ask a question?’

  ‘Very well.’

  Arathan gestured to the wasteland surrounding them. ‘This forest was cut down because people desired the wood. To build, and for warmth. They appear to have been very disciplined, as not a single tree remains standing. This leaves me confused. Were their desires not pure? Were their needs not honest needs? And yet, if the entire forest is destroyed, do we not therefore see a strength revealed as a weakness?’

  Sagander’s watery eyes fixed on Arathan, and then he shook his head. ‘You have not understood a word of what I have said. Strength is always strength and weakness is always weakness. No!’ His face twisted. ‘You think confused thoughts and then you voice them – and the confusion infects others. No more questions from you!’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘With discipline comes certainty, an end to confusion.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘I don’t think you do, but I have done all that I could – who would dare claim otherwise? But you are drawn to impurity, and it grows like an illness in your spirit, Arathan. This is what comes of an improper union.’

  ‘My father’s weakness?’

  The back of Sagander’s hand, when it cracked into Arathan’s face, was a thing of knotted bones hard as rock. His head snapped back and he almost pitched from his horse – there was hot blood filling his mouth – and then Hellar shifted beneath him, and a sudden surge of muscles jolted Arathan to the right. There followed a solid, loud impact, and a horse’s scream.

  Sagander’s cry rang through the air, but it seemed far away. Stunned, Arathan lolled on the saddle, blood pouring down from his nose. As Hellar tensed beneath him once more, front hoofs stamping fiercely at the ground, making stones snap, Arathan tugged the reins taut, drawing in his mount’s head. The beast back-stepped once, and then settled, muscles trembling.

  Arathan could hear riders coming back down the trail. He heard shouted questions but it seemed they were in another language. He spat out more blood, struggled to clear the blurriness from his eyes. It was hard to see, to make sense of things. Sagander was on the ground and so was the man’s horse – thrashing, and there was something wrong with its flank, just behind its shoulder. The ribs looked caved in, and the horse was coughing blood.

  Rint was beside him, on foot, reaching up to help him down from Hellar. He saw Feren as well, her visage dark with fury.

  Sagander was right. It’s hard to like me. Even when following a lord’s orders.

  The tutor was still shrieking. One of his thighs was bent in half, Arathan saw as he was made to sit down on the dusty trail. There was a massive hoof imprint impressed down on to where the leg was broken, and blood was everywhere, leaking out to puddle under the crushed leg. Against the white dust it looked black as pitch. Arathan stared at it, even as Feren used a cloth to wipe the blood from his own face.

  ‘Rint saw,’ she said.

  Saw what?

  ‘Hard enough to break your neck,’ she added, ‘that blow. So he said and Rint is not one to exaggerate.’

  Behind him, he heard her brother’s affirming grunt. ‘That horse is finished,’ he then said. ‘Lord?’

  ‘End its misery,’ Draconus replied from somewhere, his tone even and cool. ‘Sergeant Raskan, attend to the tutor’s leg before he bleeds out.’

  Galak and Ville were already with the tutor, and Galak looked up and said, distinctly – the first clear words Arathan heard – ‘It’s a bad break, Lord Draconus. We need to cut off the leg, and even then he might die of blood loss before we can cauterize the major vessels.’

  ‘Tie it off,’ Draconus said to Raskan, and Arathan saw the sergeant nod, white-faced and sickly, and then pull free his leather belt.

  The tutor was now unconscious, his expression slack and patchy.

  Galak had drawn a dagger and was hacking at the torn flesh around the break. The thigh bone was shattered, splinters jutting through puffy flesh.

  Raskan looped the belt round high on the old man’s thigh and cinched it tight as he could.

  ‘Rint,’ said Draconus, ‘I understand you witnessed what happened.’

  ‘Yes, Lord. By chance I glanced back at the moment the tutor struck your son.’

  ‘I wish the fullest details – walk at my side, away from here.’

  Feren was pushing steadily against Arathan’s chest – finally noticing this pressure he looked up and met her eyes.

  ‘Lie down,’ she said. ‘You are concussed.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Hellar attacked the tutor, knocked down his horse, and stamped on his leg. She was about to do the same to Sagander’s head, but you pulled her back in time – you showed good instincts, Arathan. You may have saved your tutor’s life.’ As she spoke, she fumbled at the buckle under his sodden chin, and finally pulled away his helmet, and then the deerskin skullcap.

  Arathan felt cool air reaching through sweat-matted hair to prickle his scalp. That touch felt blessedly tender.

  A moment later he was shivering, and she managed to roll him on to his side an instant before he vomited.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, using her blood-stained cloth to wipe sick from his mouth and chin.

  He smelled woodsmoke, and moments later burnt flesh. Feren left his side for a moment and then returned to drape a woollen blanket over him. ‘They’re taking the leg off,’ she said. ‘Closing off the bleeding. Cutting the bone end as even as possible. Sagander still breathes, but he lost a lot of blood. His fate is uncertain.’

  ‘It’s my fault—’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  But he nodded. ‘I said the wrong thing.’

  ‘Listen to me. You are the son of a lord—’

  ‘Bastard son.’

  ‘He laid a hand upon you, Arathan. Even if Sagander survives the loss of his leg, your father might well kill him. Some things are just not permitted.’

  ‘I will speak in his defence,’ Arathan said, forcing himself to sit up. The world spun round him and she had to steady him lest he topple over. ‘I am the cause of this. I said the wrong thing. It’s my fault.’

  ‘Arathan.’

  He looked up at her, fighting back tears. ‘I was weak.’

  For a moment he studied her face, the widening eyes and then the scowl, before blackness rushed in from all sides, and everything fell away.

  * * *

  Brush had been hacked down to clear space for the tents, the horses unsaddled and hobbled well away from the carcass of their slain companion. Ville had butchered as much horse flesh as they could carry and now crouched by the fire, over which sat an iron grille bearing vermilion meat that sizzled and spat.

  When Rint returned from his long meeting with Draconus, he walked to the fire and settled down beside Ville.

  Galak was still attending to Sagander, who’d yet to regain consciousness, whilst Feren hovered over the bastard son, who was as lost to the world
as was his tutor. Raskan had joined his lord where a second fire had been lit, on which sat a blackened pot of steaming blood-broth.

  Ville poked at the steaks. ‘First day out,’ he muttered. ‘This bodes ill, Rint.’

  Rint rubbed at the bristle lining his jaw and then sighed. ‘Change of plans,’ he said. ‘You and Galak are to take the tutor to Abara Delack and leave him in the care of the monks, and then catch us up.’

  ‘And the boy? Coma’s a bad thing, Rint. Might never wake up.’

  ‘He’ll wake up,’ Rint said. ‘With an aching skull. It was that damned helmet, that lump of heavy iron, when his head was snapped back. It’s a mild concussion, Ville. The real risk was breaking his neck, but thankfully he was spared that.’

  Ville squinted across at him. ‘That must’ve been some blow – didn’t know the old man was that strong.’

  ‘The boy wasn’t expecting it at all – Abyss knows, no reason to. Anyway, we’ll take it slow on the morrow, Feren keeping a close eye.’

  ‘And the Lord’s judgement?’

  Rint was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged. ‘He didn’t share that with me, Ville. But you know how they look on such things.’

  ‘Bad luck for Sagander. Makes me wonder why me and Galak got to take him to Abara Delack. Why not just slit the fool’s throat and stick his head on a pole?’

  ‘You worked on him hard – the Lord saw that.’

  Ville grunted. ‘Don’t want to insult us, then?’

  ‘If you like. Thing is, there’s proper forms, I suppose. Making a point about something ain’t no use if there’s no way of people seeing it.’

  ‘What about Abara Delack, then? What do we tell the monks, since this whole trip was supposed to be a secret?’

  ‘You were escorting the tutor to the monastery – they make the finest paper, after all.’

  ‘Used to, you mean.’

  ‘You tried explaining that to the tutor, but the old man was fixed on it.’

  ‘So, if he comes round we’d best be there – to tell him how it is.’