Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1) (35 page)

‘That’s better. Thanks.’ Jillan picked his way past the unconscious blacksmith and joined Aspin on the top board. Feeling a bit woozy, he asked, ‘Got anything to eat?’

Aspin passed him a small slightly shrivelled apple. Jillan swallowed it in a few bites. It would do until they stopped and ate something more substantial.

‘He hasn’t woken up at all then?’

Aspin shook his head. ‘Hasn’t even moved. And he looks awfully pale. I haven’t gone too close to him, obviously, but he’s clearly in a bad way. Nearly all his hair has fallen out now, and there’s blood on his lips and around his nose. Unless we can get him to eat something, he’ll only get weaker and weaker, and then he’ll die. But I don’t want to touch him, so we can’t feed him either.’

Jillan rubbed at his forehead, a stabbing headache between his eyes making it hard to think. ‘If he comes round, the Saint will be able to see us through his eyes too. He’ll know everything we say and do, where we’re going, everything.’

‘That settles it then,’ Aspin said through tight lips.

‘What does?’

‘We’ll have to leave him somewhere.’

‘What? We can’t just leave him!’

Aspin looked at the younger boy as if he was crazy. ‘Of course we can. It’s not our fault he’s got the plague. There’s nothing we can do to help him. And the longer we keep him, the greater the chance we’ll catch it too.’

If only he didn’t have this headache. ‘Look, it’s just not right. Don’t you understand? We took him from the town just so we could escape. If we’d left him with the physicker-woman, she might have cured him. We’re responsible. We can’t just leave him by the road, knowing that will kill him.’

‘Everything dies, Jillan,’ Aspin replied flatly. ‘It’s just his time, that’s all. Perhaps you’re too young to understand. Or just squeamish. Have you ever seen a dead person before?’

‘I didn’t hear you saying I was too young when I rescued you! And of course I’ve seen dead people. I’ve
killed
people! I bet you haven’t.’

Aspin’s face became scornful. ‘I’m a warrior and a hunter. I understand fighting and killing better than other types of people. And, anyway, I’d have escaped without your help.’

‘You liar!’

‘I am no liar. You’d better not be insulting my honour. You’d better be careful.’

‘Honour?’ Jillan sneered. ‘How is leaving a man to die by the road honourable? You’re just a murdering pagan!’

‘Take that back!’ Aspin snarled, putting his hand to his knife. ‘I’m warning you.’

Jillan drew on his magic, the headache exploding through his mind. Seeing only red, he flung Aspin off the wagon. He saw the warrior’s heart beating in his chest, saw how easy it would be to burst it. Yet that would be too quick and not at all satisfying. He would make the pagan suffer first, pouring more and more into him. He felt so strong, so
right
, when he burned with power like this. Surely now he would become one with the Saviours and ascend to godhead. At last, he would rule all the People of this pathetic world.

I will not let you destroy me like this
, the taint rattled, trying to deny Jillan its magic.

‘Yes!’ Jillan belched in the Saint’s voice. ‘My will is all powerful.
I
rule here!’

Jillan felt himself being torn apart as the taint and the power of the Saint’s blood warred for control; as his magic demanded release, the Saint sought to kill and his mind begged him to save Aspin. He was going to die like this!

‘Jillan, stop!’ Aspin pleaded from where he lay on the road, lightning arcing and crackling wildly around him. ‘I’m sorry! We’ll take the blacksmith with us.’

The blacksmith! Jillan turned towards the dying man and deliberately unleashed the pent-up fury within him. With that energy gone, the energy that had sustained him as much as it had poisoned him, Jillan was left helpless. He pitched off the wagon and onto the road next to Aspin.

‘Wow, that’s some temper you have,’ the mountain warrior observed. ‘Remind me never to get into an argument with you again, eh? Jillan? Jillan?’

Children and villagers alike chased along behind Minister Praxis as Torpeth led him up through the lower village of the mountain people. Most wore furs or goatskins, the warriors tending to go bare-armed and bare-legged. They were full of curiosity, the women stretching to feel the material of his coat, the children shouting questions at him and the men deliberately standing in his path to see if he would challenge or step around them. Nearly all of them had wide flat faces, blunt noses and heavy brows.

Inbred savages, the Minister thought to himself, slapping away a few of the hands that pawed at him, causing general merriment among the crowd. How could such people even be worth saving? Surely they could add nothing of value to the Empire except, perhaps, as slave labour. Yet even then they looked too clumsy and unruly to be worth the trouble of supervision. How could such vermin actually be a threat to the Empire? Ah, but the Chaos was subtle and cunning. Appearances were always deceptive when it came to the ancient enemy. Simple they might look, but that was sure to be some disguise for their devious and divisive nature. These people had secrets, secrets that he must discover for the Empire. How else could they have resisted and survived for so long?

There didn’t seem to be a level path anywhere. A twisted and crooked place, just like its people. His calf muscles were soon sore and burning, but he refused to stop amid this rabble. He kept his head above them, where the air was no doubt cleaner. At least he and Torpeth had divested themselves of the mule upon entering the village, so the moody beast was no longer around to add to the Minister’s vexation and torment. With luck, one of the savages would make a stew of it, boil its bones down for glue, or some other suitable punishment.

Between the stone hovels in which the savages lived the Minister spied an occasional area of roughly turned and raked ground. Very little grew here in the cold and among the stones, however.
Even the earth is loath to support these corrupt creatures
, the Minister decided. Nothing of beauty could ever grow here. On the slopes above the village some terraces had apparently been cut, but they seemed abandoned. He looked more closely at some of the people. They seemed well fed nonetheless. There didn’t appear to be enough goats around to feed them all, and surely there wasn’t much game to be found in this inhospitable environment. It was plain to him, therefore, that the pagans either regularly descended into the Empire to steal food or consumed their young. After all, did the Chaos not multiply wherever and whenever it could? These mountains would have been buried in pagans were it not for their apparent cannibalism. Furthermore, did not scripture say that all corruption ultimately consumed itself?

Evil, unholy creatures. How could they laugh and smile, knowing what they’d done? Grinning ghouls. Perhaps they were eyeing him up even now for their cooking pots. Trying to get a measure of the length of spit they’d need to roast him. Blessed Saviours preserve him. Was there no end to their shamefulness?

‘Torpeth, wait for me!’ he called, lifting his long legs in as spritely a manner as his cramping calves would allow.

This caused the villagers much hilarity and they all tried to mimic his ungainly gait. Torpeth stopped to watch, twining his beard through his fingers. ‘Perhaps you have hidden talents, lowlander. For all your strange aloofness, it seems they like you. Share some of your magic with me and I’ll rethink that curse I’d intended for you.’

‘You would think to lay a curse on me?’ the Minister asked in outrage. ‘How dare you! My faith need have no fear of you or your curses.’ Then he considered for a moment. ‘Yet I will share some of my … magic with you in return for your secrets.’

Torpeth stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it about vigorously. Examining the end of it, he tasted it experimentally and mumbled, ‘I’ll think on it. You want to taste some of this? It’s good, although not as good as pine nuts. Suit yourself. This way then.’

They moved up through the village to the large hovel at the end. It seemed to sit across the path that wound up into the peaks.

Torpeth tried to drag his fingers through his hair and only succeeded in getting his hands caught. He jumped and skipped as he tried to yank them out. At last they came free, but with clumps of hair ripped from his scalp. Next he spat in his hands and wiped his hair as flat as it would go, which wasn’t flat at all. Finally he grabbed an old piece of rope from somewhere and tied it around his waist, the ends dangling between his legs and almost covering his manhood.

‘How do I look?’ he asked the Minister anxiously.

‘Er … like a haystack?’

Torpeth nodded. ‘Good, good. What’s a haystack? I can’t remember. Never mind, it sounds exotic.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Always does well to look one’s best for the headwoman, if you know what I mean.’

The Minister nodded.

‘But don’t get any ideas, you hear!’ Torpeth added fiercely, waving his dirty finger beneath the Minister’s pinched nose. ‘I’ve been wooing her for decades. I saw her first. I’ve known her since she was a child. I won’t have any outsider coming in here with his fancy ways and sweeping her off her feet. And don’t go using any of your magicks to befuddle and infatuate her, neither.’

‘My friend, how could I ever be a rival to one such as you, you being such a fine example of manhood and all?’

This seemed to mollify the pagan. ‘True enough. Not everyone seems to have your clarity of vision, for some reason.’

‘Well, they’re self-deluded fools, my friend, self-deluded fools. You should pity them. Yet there is a problem I foresee.’

‘There is? Where?’ Torpeth asked, looking all around, inside men’s tunics, under women’s long dresses and into children’s hats, scaring most of the villagers away.

‘Come here and listen. If this headwoman has captured the heart of such a fine man as yourself, then surely she must be a wondrous beauty.’

‘Oh aye, she is.’

‘Well, then, it will surely be hard to keep my wits about me to resist her charms, no? I suspect you are asking a very great deal of me.’

‘Ah, I see. Yes, perhaps I am. Would it be easier for you if I removed your head? Or blindfolded you? Or both?’

‘It would be a shame to kill me when you are still desirous of my magicks, would it not? And surely a blindfold would not work when her voice is no doubt as beautiful as her visage.’

‘Then should I break your ears? A few stabs with a long needle would do it.’ Torpeth nodded. Then dubiously, ‘Or cut out the headwoman’s tongue?’

‘No, that would be messy and unsightly. You do not want to drip blood in the headwoman’s home, do you? No, there is only one way. Listen, my friend. With the proper motivation, I am sure I could find a way to resist her. I will make my determination central to my character and faith. But the motivation must be great indeed and therefore help me with my holy task, a task that defines me. You must agree to share your secrets with me so that I may better fulfil my task.’

Torpeth looked troubled. He jumped from one foot to the other. ‘There is no other way? Either I tell you my secrets or she is lost to me? Ah, the gods are yet cruel! Why must they still test and punish me like this? Am I not already a naked warrior? But my crime was so great there could never be a punishment great enough. At last I understand why the gods brought you here, lowlander. It is to see to my further punishment. And my people continue to suffer for it so that I must witness the ongoing consequences of what I have done. That is why you have come – to create division, visit pain and heap misery on us – is it not? That is your holy task, I now see.’

‘I regret to say it is so, my friend, although it grieves me.’

‘Ah, payment is ever due!’

‘Yes, payment is due.’

‘I knew it!’ Tears left clean tracks down his cheeks, probably the first water they’d seen in a good while. ‘Very well, you will have my secrets, as long as you leave me my love. She is all that is left to me, all that I have … except for my pine nuts, and no one seems to want those anyway. Come then, lowlander.’

They passed over the sill of the headwoman’s large stone dwelling, stepping into a smoky interior. Minister Praxis thought he saw shadowy figures before them, but the smoke shifted and they were gone. He was immediately on guard. If this was a place of unholy spirits and demons, then they would by no means find him easy prey. The headwoman was likely to be a witch. How else would a female have risen to any sort of position of power? Who else would be able to command the naked and noisome pagan at his side? Yes, a place of pestilence and perversion. After all, it was outside the Empire. It was probably the gaping maw of the very Chaos itself.

The Minister licked his dry lips, feeling more than a little trepidation despite the strength of his faith. Sweat trickled from his brow and he tugged at his collar. He was infernally hot one moment and cold to the marrow the next. The laws of nature and order did not operate here. Perhaps the smoke was the breath of the Chaos. It was filling his lungs even now, seeking to take hold.

‘We’ve entered the mouth of a dragon!’ He shuddered.

‘Don’t be daft, lowlander,’ Torpeth coughed. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing? Sal puts herbs on her fire upon occasion to help with her visions and that. It’s probably run away with you is all.’ Then he shouted, ‘Beloved, I’m here!’

‘Who’s that?’ croaked a voice that sounded anything but human. ‘Some old goat who should know better that’s got curious and wandered in from outside?’

Torpeth cackled as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ‘Beloved, here is a lowlander come to bring us great suffering. Will he be admitted to the higher village?’

‘And why exactly would I permit such a thing, eh?’

Torpeth pulled Minister Praxis towards the sound of the toad somewhere in the rolling smoke. If it was able to speak, the toad had to be a Chaos creature that had swallowed down some unfortunate wanderer. Perhaps he was next! The pagan was leading him towards a hungry, wide-mouthed monster. Once it had devoured him, it would be able to speak in many tongues, in many voices. It was legion! An impossibly long and sticky tongue was about to come snaking out of the gloom, wrap itself around his neck and drag him into its insatiable bottomless maw. He would fall, and fall, and fall, forever! Spinning through the eternal void and emptiness that was the Chaos.