Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (3 page)

“I am told your brother
is dead. Is this the truth of it?” Even on this subject his tone was one of
boredom.

Loster nodded.

“How?” Malix leaned
forward and rested his chin on a manicured hand.

Loster swallowed and
bowed his head. When he began, his voice was a whisper. His father snapped for
him to speak up so he did. He told him of the climb, of the door in the flank
of the Widowpeak. He spoke of the mural and Barde’s dirk and the descent into
darkness. When he came to the altar and the Temple Deep, even his father grew
pale, his jaw set in bonds of iron.

The story of the
Guardian and Barde’s violent demise brought the moment back to him. Raw emotion
welled up in a hot rush and Loster sank to his knees, aware that he was shaming
himself but too tired to care.

After a while, Lord
Malix stepped down from his high seat and approached his last remaining son.

He paused before Loster
who was unsure what to expect. His father usually carried out his ‘lessons’ in
private, yet he would not be surprised if he chose to simply beat him here and
now, in front of his vassals.

Loster fought to control
his tears and managed to stem the flow to a sob. His father reached down and
gripped him by the chin with a soft, strangely feminine hand. The unsavoury
heat from his father’s fingers was a hard contrast against the cool metal of
the rings he wore and it made Loster feel sick. He winced in anticipation of
the blow to come. Did his father blame him? If he did the punishment would be
unbearable.

Yet the strike never
came. Instead there was a brief stab of pain below his eye, followed by a warm
rush of blood.

For a brief and
gut-wrenching moment Loster thought his father had gouged out one of his eyes.
However reason quickly overtook thoughtless sensation and the young boy
unscrewed his eyes and looked up.

Before him Lord Malix
stood staring at something pinkish that he held between his thumb and
forefinger.

It was a sliver of bone.

Three years later…

The snow fell like
blossom from an iron sky, landing silently to form a white blanket on the
forest floor. Each snowflake floated and twisted on its own lazy journey,
spiralling down between the tall pine trees standing row upon row as sentinels
in some kingly hall.

The Forester sighed, his
hot breath steaming out before him in a great plume. He had not expected the
snows for several weeks yet, even this high up in the mountains. It could only
mean that winter was upon him. It was too early. He was not ready.

He had grown up near a
forest such as this and knew the importance of preparation. As a boy he had
gotten lost in a high pass one winter. The sun had set before he could find his
father, and so he had been forced to seek shelter by himself. He had spent a
night and two days in a small cave, huddled against the howling wind and unsure
of where his father was or whether he would ever be found. Eventually the old
bastard had stumbled across him, only finding him because of the hunting bow he
had dropped. Weak and exhausted as he was, it did not stop his father from
beating him bloody as a punishment for his carelessness. His father had always
been good with his fists. But that was only a memory, lost in the muddle of a
hundred such moments.

The Forester reached
inside the many layers of furs he wore and opened a small pouch. He grabbed a
piece of dried and cured meat and stopped with it halfway to his mouth. He
hadn't eaten in over a day. He'd missed his opportunity yesterday. The shot had
been lined up, and then a branch had given way under its snowy burden, crashing
to the ground and startling the timid deer he was hunting. His arrow had gone
wide, slicing through the undergrowth whilst the deer sprung away. He put the
meat back in its pouch and ignored the protest from his stomach.
The smell might scare the deer away
, the
cautious part of his brain told him.

He pulled the cloak he
wore underneath his bearskin up under his nose for warmth and trudged on. It
was eerily quiet in the forest, the only sound coming from the delicate crunch
of his boots on packed snow. The Forester walked briskly but carefully,
avoiding loose twigs and icy patches, his senses alert for any sign of his
quarry. There was no point in looking for tracks in this weather. Without
combing under the surface layer of snow, they would be impossible to see. He
knew that luck would have to be with him if he was to find a meal before the
weather closed in.

Something caught the
Forester's eye, contrasted against the brilliance of the snow. It looked like
blood. He pushed through a thin screen of bare branches and knelt. The cold had
given the blood a ruby sheen, hard on the surface and glistening. It was
relatively fresh, uncovered by the fallen snow but frozen nonetheless. There
was bound to be more nearby.

The Forester pulled one
of his gloves off and let the cool air dry the sweat between his fingers. He
swept his hand gently over the loose snow near the blood, feeling for spore.
There, about a knuckle's breadth beneath the surface, was a hard depression. He
lowered his face to the snow and blew, dusting the loose crystals away. Sure
enough there was a faint dent in the snow, large enough to be from a deer's
hoof. He spent the next few minutes searching for more tracks. There were
several, patterned in an erratic line. Some were deeper than others. He
grunted. The deer was badly injured, then, favouring one side over the other.
He stood slowly and slid his bow from the oiled leather tube strung across the
small of his back. Placing the stave between his thighs, he bent it, taking a
coiled bowstring from another pouch on his belt and looping it over the top. He
checked the arrows in his shoulder-slung quiver.
Four. More than enough.

The Forester took small
measured steps, bow held low, eyes scanning the ground ahead and to the side
for any more blood. A few specks led him toward a steep rise broken by some
exposed rock. He crawled up the slope on his hands and knees, trying as much as
possible to keep his furs dry. If they were to get wet and then freeze again,
he wouldn't last long out here.

It was against every
fibre of his being to skyline himself as he crested the rise. The trees would
break up his shape a little, yet his time as a soldier had taught him to view
every situation by what could go wrong, what could make him vulnerable.
Nevertheless, he was tired and had not seen another soul in months. It was
worth the risk. He needed to find something soon or today would be another
waste of energy. Doing his best to keep as low as possible, the Forester
crossed the lip of the rise and half-stood, silhouetted against the sky.

The point at which he
stood was not just a fold in the land but actually the rim of a deep bowl. It
was completely open to the elements at the bottom, with only a few trees
ringing it. The snow was falling more heavily now, floating serenely down into
the middle of the clearing to settle on what was left of the deer. The Forester
swore and slid carefully down the inside surface of the bowl, slinging his bow
over his shoulder. He knelt next to the carcass and surveyed the damage. Wolves
had taken the greatest share, gnawing the gentle beast down to the bone. It had
probably — mercifully — been dead when they started to feed, since
there were no signs of a struggle and very little blood. With a ragged sigh the
Forester took a small paring knife from his belt and sawed off a few loose
threads of flesh, storing them with his dried cuts of meat. The wolves had not
taken everything. He would be able to make a meal or two from the remains but
it wouldn't last very long. His winter survival would be based on grain and
black bread.

He frowned. He must have
scared the pack off before they could pick the bones clean, yet he had not
heard a commotion. That was not unusual in this weather. However it was unlike
them to leave anything behind.

Something caught his
attention at eye level. He laid his bow on the ground and clambered up the side
of the bowl, digging his fingers in to the packed snow to find purchase. Now he
was at the top, he couldn't see what had seemed so out of place from below. The
Forester wrapped his hand around the rough bough of a pine tree and hauled
himself up to balance above the icy slope of the bowl.

There, sprawled on its
belly and half-buried by a snowdrift, was a wolf. The Forester knelt and ran
his hands through the coarse, frozen fur. He looked for blood or obvious wounds
but there were none. Taking off his other glove, he pinched and probed along
the wolf's spine, feeling for lumps or breakages. Nothing. Finally he slid
forward to the wolf's maw, still pink with its last meal. Gripping the snout
and lower jaw, he prised it open. Other than some blood and flesh between the
fangs, there was nothing that would explain its death. Unless...

With a start the
Forester stood, crashing through the thin branches above his head. He ran
forward a few paces through a thick cluster of pine and into another clearing.
There lay the rest of the pack, a dozen wolves frozen in various poses of
agony. He turned and stumbled back to the bowl, tripping on a branch and
falling headlong down the slope, landing hard next to the body of the deer.

With frozen fingers and
a knot of apprehension in his gut, he reached underneath the corpse. Despite
its eviscerated state, it was still heavy and partially frozen to the ground.
There was a great ripping sound as the body came free, and he flipped it over,
leaving several ribbons of hide pinned to the ice. Sticking out from the flesh
just above the hind legs was a crossbow bolt. As the deer had fallen it had
driven the bolt as deep as the leather fletchings.

He gripped the bolt by
the little that stuck from the skin and, with practised ease, twisted it and
pulled it out. It was followed by a sluggish dribble of blood and a viscous
black ooze. He dipped a finger into the mess and touched it to his tongue. It
was bitter and acrid, and he spat it out with a scowl. Who would use poison to
fell a deer? Certainly not someone who planned to eat it. He pulled the thin
strips of meat from his pouch and scattered them on the ground, tossing the
dried cuts after them with a curse.

Poison was an assassin's
weapon and could only mean one thing. He was no longer alone in the forest. It
seemed that his past had finally caught up with him. He had convinced himself
that the days of fear and waiting were behind him, but that had been a fool's
hope. The Forester pulled on his gloves and hefted his bow.

The cold and hunger that
had been the centre of his existence a moment before now felt distant and
transitory.

Winter was near and the
wolves were coming.

“We will need to stop
soon, Lommocel.”

Lommocel Barin sighed
irritably and gripped the pommel of his sword more tightly. It wasn't enough
that he was frozen to his core, he had to have this miserable little prick
making helpful suggestions every ten paces. “We will stop when our guide
decides and not before." Barin pulled his thin cloak about his body so
that he resembled a great owl.

“I understand that, sir,
but the weather is closing in and the sun sets in a few hours. In this part of
the world—"

“Yes, thank you, Sarif
Morn." Barin glared at the junior officer next to him. “I do believe that
I am in command here and that I make the decisions. Is that not so?"

The young man hesitated,
perhaps tempted to ask what role the mysterious Guide played in all of this.
“Why, yes, but—"

“Well then do please
keep your opinions to yourself. They are duly noted." The young sarif fell
into silence and stumbled back into rank.

Barin clenched his teeth
to stop them from chattering, though he was not sure whether it was from anger
or cold. That fool Gain had assured them the snows were weeks away. Barin vowed
to give him a beating when they got back to Kressel. He would then stamp the
so-called seer's engraved knucklebones into dust, gods be damned.

Ahead, the Guide trudged
onwards. Barin shivered. The man unnerved him. Tall and cloaked in black, his
face covered by a mask, the Guide was an intimidating figure. He rarely spoke,
and when he did his voice was peculiarly sibilant and had an accent that could
not be placed. Barin was happy to simply do what was asked of him and avoid the
strange man as much as possible. After all, this mission was a directive of the
Empron, the Guide presumably a friend or trusted advisor. It certainly
explained the funds he had at his disposal. And Barin needed them. Gods, how he
needed them. A summer of gambling and whoring in Lanark had worn him down to
his last few gold coins. His lommocel’s wage had never been able to cover his
expensive tastes, and the Barin estate could not stretch to a winter campaign,
let alone another month or two of debauchery.
No,
he decided,
it would not
be wise to upset somebody so close to the declining sanity of the Imperial
throne.

It wouldn't be so bad if
he didn't have to humour that simpering quim Morn. Worms like him were born to
their wealth; had a veritable well of it that never ran dry. Did a group of six
soldiers really need two officers to control them? If he was smart, he would
have let Morn do the dirty work, while he stayed in comfort in Kressel, living
off the credit this job would bring him. He could have been drinking fine wines
from Asperia, dining with the Empron on his visit to the second city. He
grimaced to himself. On second thoughts, maybe not. Empron Illis was not
himself of late. He rarely made public appearances and had ordered the deaths
of two courtiers within a day of his arrival, seemingly at whim. All courtiers
and noblemen had been ordered to stay and watch while the courtyard of
Kressel’s High Palace was desecrated by a hurried public execution. The stench had
been overwhelming, like burnt pork mixed with something unsavoury. The oily
fumes from the pyres had coated the lommocel’s tongue and no amount of
expensive fine wine could wash away the taste. The masked man’s offer had come
along at just the right time.

All he had to do was
find and kill an old man.

Kiren stared at the back
of Shume's head. As they trudged up the mountain path, between tall trees and
mounds of snow, it helped his balance to focus on the gangly baker's son's
greasy hair. It poked out from under his crimson helm like straw from an old
mattress. Kiren stumbled as his scabbard tangled in his legs and earned him a
glare from the Sarif. They were supposed to be quiet and look to their weapons,
since every blade, arrow, and spear point had been dipped in a black poison
before they set out. Dreng had tested it on a deer that had the misfortune to
cross their path and each of them had been delighted and slightly appalled at
the speed with which the poisoned bolt had brought down the animal. Kiren could
only thank the gods that they hadn’t needed to bring shields. He didn’t think
he would have been able to manage with the huge lump of iron-bound birch and
oak on his back.

Morn hadn't said a word
since his rather public rebuke from the Lommocel, and they had been marching
for over four hours without rest, trudging sulkily behind the officers and the
curious cloaked man at the front. Whatever the foppish Barin's faults, lack of
stamina was certainly not one of them.