Sollis’s arrow took the ape just behind the head. At such close range the shaft possessed sufficient force to pierce the creature’s neck all the way through. It convulsed in shock, letting out a choked, rasping howl, blood colouring the drool flowing from its mouth as it whirled to face him, too slow to avoid the sword stroke that cleaved its skull. The edge of the blade cut through flesh and bone to find the brain beneath. Sollis grunted with the effort of tugging it free before finishing the twitching animal with an expertly placed slash to open the veins in its throat.
He turned his attention to Verkehla, intending to check her wounds, but stopped at the sight of her hard, implacable features, eyes focused on something over his shoulder. Sollis ducked and rolled clear, feeling the rush of air as a claw slashed close to his head. His roll brought him to the edge of a gap in the roof. He crouched, sword held low as he regarded the second ape. This one was larger than the first with an extensive mane of fur covering its neck and shoulders, marking it out as a full grown male, possibly a pack leader. Meeting his gaze the male ape growled, sinking lower and tensing for a lunge. In such a constricted space Sollis knew he would have only one chance of a kill and decided to improve his odds, using his free hand to reach for a throwing knife. It was then that the stones beneath his feet gave way.
He arrested his fall by clamping a hand onto the edge of a roof beam, the impact jarring the sword loose from his grip, the blade whirling away into the gloom beneath his dangling feet. Seeing the ape’s gaping jaws loom above, Sollis prepared to follow his sword into the depths, finding the fall preferable to the teeth. Before he could do so the ape came to an abrupt halt, jaws slackening as it shook its head, huffing in confusion. It then went into an sudden, violent spasm, head jerking back and a scream of pain escaping its maw. Sollis saw blood seeping from its eyes, nose and mouth in thick torrents. It then seemed to collapse from within, deflating like a pierced bellows as its life blood flowed out of every orifice until it was nothing more than an immobile sack of fur and bones.
Sollis watched the tide of blood wash over the roof and the part collapsed stone above, trickling down to cover the beam he clung to with both hands. Realising his grip was about to be loosened, Sollis began to haul himself up. The bloody torrent was too thick, however, and he let out a frustrated grunt as his left hand lost purchase on the beam. It flailed in the air for a second before another hand reached down to grasp his wrist. Sollis looked up to see Verkehla’s face above, pale in the dim moonlight with dark stains beneath her nose and around her eyes. It appeared she had bled aplenty too.
“You’re not supposed to die yet,” she told him, groaning with the effort of hauling him upwards.
The four bodies lay in the courtyard, the features of the slain Lonak warriors marred by deep claw marks that had ripped away eyes, noses and jaws. One had clearly been overwhelmed by several attackers at once, his corpse lacking a stomach as well as a face. They had been dragged into the fortress by their fellow Lonak whilst Oskin and Smentil stood in the gate, theirs bows cutting down a half-dozen pursuing apes. Upon descending from the tower, Sollis had conveyed the bleeding form of Verkehla to Sister Elera’s care before rushing to join his brothers. However, by then the apes had retreated into the gloom. The rest of the night passed without incident, though none of the Reach’s occupants managed a moment’s sleep.
“Must’ve been near forty of the buggers, brother,” Oskin said, face grim. He turned to deliver a kick to corpse of an ape that had made it over the walls to claw a warrior to death before falling victim to a dozen or more arrows.
Closer to fifty, Smentil signed. Approached in silence from the north. The southerly wind meant Red Ears didn’t catch their scent until they were almost on us.
“It’s a miracle they only claimed four,” Oskin said. “If we hadn’t had these walls to retreat behind…” He trailed off and shook his head, face tense with a reluctant conclusion. “First the snow-daggers now this. A Dark business indeed.”
Sollis turned as an angry shout came from the base of the tower. “Ouch! You vicious bitch!”
“Keep your hound walking the parapet,” Sollis told Oskin, making for the tower. “See if his nose has any better luck in daylight. Smentil, take position atop the tower and keep watch. I’ll join you shortly.”
Inside the tower he found Elera crouched at Verkehla’s side. The shaman winced continually as the sister worked a needle and suture through her skin to seal the wound in her shoulder. “She’s deliberately taking too long,” she groused at Sollis. “I can tell. And she tortured me with some vile concoction first.”
“Corr tree oil to stop it festering,” Elera murmured, apparently unperturbed as she kept her attention focused on her work. Sollis assumed this was far from the first difficult patient she had treated. “And you refused redflower to dull the pain,” the sister added, tying off the last stitch with a swift, practiced flourish.
“The Mahlessa has decreed we shun Merim Her drugs,” Verkehla replied, teeth gritted as Elera swabbed the completed stitches with more corr tree oil. “Lest our wits become as dull as yours.”
Whilst Elera fixed a bandage over the wound Verkehla let out a slow calming breath. “How many did we lose?” she asked Sollis, slipping into Lonak.
“Four. No wounded, which is strange.”
“Apes rarely leave their foes alive. There’s a reason my people never hunt them.”
“We estimate their numbers at fifty. My brothers killed a dozen or so…”
“There’ll be more,” Verkehla broke in. “And not just apes. Whatever’s out there isn’t done with us.”
Sollis stepped closer, lowering his voice a notch. “What happened up there?” he said, flicking his eyes towards the top of the tower. “I’ve never seen a beast, nor a man, die like that.”
“It’s a very big world, brother,” she told him with an empty smile. “I imagine there are methods of killing even beyond your extensive experience.” She paused to cast a caustic glance around the gloomy interior of the tower. When she spoke again she switched back to Realm Tongue. “The Lonak fight in the open. Castles and sieges are foreign to us. But I imagine it’s something you know a great deal about.”
“I know how to defend a stronghold, if that’s what you mean.”
“Good.” She turned and called to a group of warriors waiting near the entrance, beckoning them closer. “The Blue Cloak will show you how to prepare this place,” she told them in Lonak. “You will follow his word as you follow mine.”
From the set, rigid faces the warriors turned on Sollis at that moment, he found himself wondering if their desire for the Mahlessa’s favour was as absolute as Verkehla claimed it to be. However, none of them spoke up to protest, instead continuing to stare at him in expectant if resentful silence.
Knowing any words of conciliation would be wasted Sollis nodded and started towards the courtyard. “Follow and listen well,” he told them. “We have much to do.”
“Won’t work.”
The Lonak’s name was Fehl-ahkim, which translated as ‘man of stone’, or ‘builder’ depending on the inflection. He was a both older and taller than most of the Banished Blades, his arms thick with muscle that flexed impressively as he crossed them, eying the ruins of the gate with an expert’s disdain. Before his disgrace, which apparently involved a fatal dispute with a neighbour over the ownership of a prized pony, he had been renowned for his skill in building huts and maintaining the defensive wall of his clan’s stronghold.
“Rust and rot,” he told Sollis, shaking his head. “Can’t build with that.”
“We need to close this gate,” Sollis insisted.
Fehl-ahkim shot him a sour look, jaws bunching as he sighed and cast his gaze around the innards of Morvil’s Reach. “There,” he said, nodding at a row of roofless stone enclosures that had once been the fortress’s storehouses. “Wasted stone. We could tear it down, use it to seal the portal.” He moved closer to the ruins of the gate, stroking his chin in contemplation as he touched a booted toe to one of the rusted iron brackets. “Nothing around to use for mortar, but we can buttress with these. Still some strength here, despite the rust.”
“Very well.” Sollis unbuckled his sword belt before removing his cloak, setting them aside and starting towards the storehouses. “Then we’d best be at it.”
Under Fehl-ahkim’s guidance the Lonak used their knives and war clubs to chip away the old mortar binding the stones at the base of the storehouse walls. Once they were sufficiently loosened he had them fix ropes around the top of the walls to haul them down. Within a few hours they were rewarded with a decent sized pile of building materials which the builder had begun to form into a stone and iron barrier some two feet thick at the base.
“Needs to be wider at the bottom,” he told Sollis. “Elst it’ll topple a the first blow of a ram, or whatever other contrivance is like to be hurled at it.”
The barrier had ascended to a height of three feet by the time Sollis heard the sharp, urgent call of Smentil’s hunting horn from atop the tower. Looking up he saw the brother leaning over the edge of the battlement to point west before forming his hands into a series of urgent signs. Sollis couldn’t make out the full meaning at this distance but the gist was clear enough: Enemy approaching. Many.
“Keep working,” Sollis told Fehl-ahkim before gathering up his weapons and swiftly climbing the steps to the parapet of the west-facing wall. Oskin was already there, Red Ears at his side. The hound let out a low, steady growl as she gazed at the force arrayed out of bow-shot on the far side of the river. Upon first viewing Sollis would have taken the host for a three regiment strong contingent of Realm Guard, their ranks being so neatly aligned and discipline so absolute in its lack of sound or movement. But it instantly became apparent that these were not men.
“Not just apes,” Sollis murmured, echoing Verkehla as his gaze tracked along the unmoving host. A long row of snow-daggers sat still as statues next to an assemblage of equally static white pelted wolves. Smaller contingents of black bears were flanked by mountain lions and lynxes.
“How…” Oskin breathed, eyes bright with both wonder and horror. “It’s impossible.”
Sollis heard a similar pitch of fear and mystification in the growing murmur of disquiet from the surrounding Lonak. He caught Oskin’s gaze with a hard glare and the brother abruptly straightened, offering a forced grin of apology.
“Forgive me, brother,” he said. “Heard whispers of the Dark all my life. It’s a strange feeling when a whisper becomes a shout.”
“Quiet, you worthless goat-shaggers!” Verkehla barked, pushing her way through the throng of Banished Blades. “The Mahlessa never promised an easy path to forgiveness. So put a muzzle on that grumbling.”
She came to Sollis’s side, eyes narrowed as she gazed at the beasts and grunted, “Impressive,” in softly spoken Realm Tongue. “It must have quite the gift.”
“Who?” Sollis asked.
She pursed her lips and pointed at a solitary, two legged figure emerging from the ranks of assembled animals. “I imagine we’re about to find out.”
The figure was dressed much the same as the slaughtered Kuritai they hand found back at the settlement, its cloak ripped and ragged and hair an unkempt dark mess coiling in the wind. The figure approached the western bank of the river without particular haste, coming to a halt to regard the Reach with head cocked at an angle that indicated both curiosity and amusement. After a short pause the figure bowed and opened its arms in an obvious gesture of invitation.
“A parley?” Oskin wondered.
“More likely a chance to gloat,” Verkehla said, turning away with a dismissive shrug. “Ignore it. It won’t attack until nightfall, and anyone who goes out there is likely to become food for its army.”
“You’re not curious?” Sollis asked. “Every opportunity should be taken to learn more about an enemy.”
The shaman paused, rolling her eyes. “Another lesson from your years of torture at the Order House, brother?” She grinned at his annoyed frown and turned away again, waving an indifferent hand. “Go and talk with the creature if you want. I’ll wager you a goatskin of wine you won’t learn a thing.”
He was obliged to clamber over Fehl-ahkim’s half-finished barrier before making his way around the northern flank of the Reach to the river. As he drew closer he was able to discern more details of the figure in the ragged cloak, the most salient being that it was a woman. She watched him approach with her head still cocked at the same curious angle. Sollis detected a thin smile on her pale, hollowed features as he drew closer. He judged the woman to be of either Volarian or Realm origins from her colouring, though her starved appearance make it hard to tell for sure. However, when she spoke her accent was purely Asraelin, the inflection possessed of the sharp precision of the nobility.
“That’s far enough, I think,” the woman called to him once Sollis had reached the eastern bank of the river. The rushing current that separated them was loud but not so much as to muffle her voice, Sollis detecting in it a strangely juvenile note of delight. “Wouldn’t want your scent to rouse my friends’ baser instincts,” the woman added, gesturing to the beasts at her back, all still sitting in their varied poses of statuesque immobility.
“What do you want?” Sollis asked her. He kept his hands at his sides, empty but close enough to his throwing knives for a rapid draw should he need it. He also wore his sword but had chosen to leave his bow behind. Should this parley turn ugly he would do his best to kill this woman then turn and sprint for the Reach under cover of his brothers’ bows and the Lonak archers on the wall.
“I’d guess that Lonak bitch has already told you what I want,” the woman said, the muscles in her emaciated face thrown into stark relief as her smile broadened. “The children you have in there,” she went on, pointing at the Reach. “Give them to me.”
“No,” Sollis stated, voice hard and flat. He watched the woman’s smile twist into a muffled laugh, eyes twinkling with what Sollis took for joyful anticipation.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “Even though it will certainly avail you nothing but an ugly death.” She barked out a laugh, harsh and grating. “I do enjoy these rare occasions when I find one of your stripe. So desperate for the glory of self-sacrifice. So in love with the myth of their own heroism. It’s always such a blissful moment when I look into their eyes at the end, watching their illusions fade, watching them cry and plead like any other dying and tormented wretch. Wouldn’t you rather avoid that, brother? Give me the children and you can go back to your life of pretended courage and empty invocations to the spirits of the dead who, I assure you, are quite deaf to your entreaties.”
Sollis met the woman’s gaze, watching her mirth subside into an unwavering stare of deep contempt. Sollis could see a redness to her eyes now, also a thin trickle of blood coming from her nose, calling to mind Verkehla’s visage the night before. The temptation to reach for his knives was strong. The distance made it a difficult throw but he was confident he could get at least one blade into her before he had to run. Every opportunity should be taken to learn more about an enemy, he reminded himself, suppressing the impulse.
“You have a name?” he asked instead.
“I used to,” the woman replied with a shrug. “I stopped bothering to remember it a long time ago. Instead of a name, I have a purpose.”
“And what is that?”
“It changes according to the place and the time. Once I warned a wealthy merchant of the necessity of poisoning his brother. Once I whispered to a queen of the treachery that surrounded her so that her court might run red with the blood of her nobles. I have persuaded generals to doom their armies and priests to damn their supplicants. And today, brother, I tell you, clearly and honestly, to hand over the children or you and everyone cowering in that pile of stones will die as slow and agonising a death as I can orchestrate. And…” She paused, tongue licking over her lips before parting to reveal teeth stained both red and yellow. “I’ll reserve the worst torments for the flaxen haired sister. Have you ever tortured a beautiful woman, brother? It’s a truly addictive experience, I must say.”
Don’t! Sollis commanded himself, rage sending a spasm through his hands. Every word she speaks is valuable. “Why?” he demanded, allowing his anger to colour his tone. “What do you want of these children?”
“Oh, isn’t it obvious?” The woman arched her eyebrows in mock surprise. “I want to take them far away from these barbarous mountain savages so they can be raised in a fine palace and enjoy a life of peace and comfort for all their days.”
The suddenness with which all vestige of humour slipped from her face and bearing was shocking, as if a veil had been ripped away to reveal a blank, expressionless edifice, almost as still as the beasts she commanded. “Enough talk,” she said, voice different now, deeper and richer in authority. Also her accent had changed; the noble inflection replaced by something that spoke of a far distant land. Sollis would have taken it for a Volarian accent but for the discordant notes that coloured every word, almost as if two tongues were speaking at once. “Give me what I want,” she said, “or I promise you I will carry out every threat spoken here.”
“I doubt that,” Sollis replied. “Elst why call for a parley? If your powers are so great why not just come and get them? Or is there something in there that you fear?”
The woman’s eyes flicked to the Reach for an instant before snapping back to Sollis. The cadaverous face took on a decided twitch, a snarl repeatedly forming and fading from the bleached and cracked lips. Sollis wondered if she were simply mad and lost for words, but knew whatever afflicted this woman went far beyond simple lunacy.
Deciding he had learned all he was going to, Sollis turned away and started back towards the Reach. “Besides,” he said. “I’m reliably informed that I’m not supposed to die here.”
“Prophecy?!” The word was spoken in a shrill, almost shrieking tone. Sollis kept walking, maintaining a steady gate, refusing to turn. “It’s a lie, you pitiful dullard!” the woman screamed after him, the voice almost childlike in its rage and frustration. “Know well that whatever that bitch has told you is a lie! You will die here, brother!”
Sollis fixed his gaze on the Reach, taking a crumb of comfort from the sight of his brothers on the wall, flanked on either side by the Banished Blades, each bow notched and ready. The woman continued to rant as he walked, her varied threats descending into a scarcely comprehensible babble.
“I’ll make you watch… when I rip the sister from nethers to neck… I’ll fucking make you watch - ”
Then silence. Sollis came to a halt as the woman’s dissonant diatribe choked off, leaving only the faint groan of the mountain winds. Looking up, he saw his brothers and the Lonak lowering their bows as they exchanged baffled glances. When he turned he found himself regarding an empty river bank and he caught just a faint shadowy blur as the last of the beasts crested a hilltop and disappeared from view.
“You must have been awful persuasive, brother,” Oskin called down to him, his voice coloured by an uncertain note of optimism.
“No,” Sollis said, resuming his walk. “I wasn’t.”