Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (31 page)

On a beach on the
northern shores of the Bay of Fend was a large mass of people. Atop an
overturned wagon in the centre of the crowd stood a man. He was not a
particularly tall man nor was he particularly large. His shoulders were round
and from them hung ill-fitting robes that could have once been the white of a
priest of the Temple Dawn but had been so soiled as to appear a light brown.
His body tapered to a long, thin neck, atop which was perched a head that could
only be described as pointy. Its most prominent feature was a large, hooked
nose that curled downwards like a beak before ending in a flat line that cut
the straightest path back to his face. He was speaking in a voice that was
neither too loud nor too soft but instead perfectly measured so as to carry to
the furthest edges of the listening crowd. Beccorban was too far away to make
out what he was saying but it had caught the attention of those around him and
they filled the beach, as numerous as the grains of sand upon which they stood.
Men, women, young, old, rich, poor — the crowd ebbed and flowed in parody
of the cold grey waters of the Scoldsee, anchored to the words of the speaker.

There were several ships
in the waters of the bay. They were long, sleek things, of dark burgundy wood,
each with high masts and great expanses of once-white cloth, stained an
unwholesome grey by the salt waters of the Scoldsee. Most were little more than
shapes on the horizon, already loaded and bound for safer shores, but at least
three were as close to the beaches as their keels would allow, and small
pockets of colourful motion indicated where boats were ferrying people out to
them.

“Those are military
ships,” said Loster and Beccorban nodded.

“Aye,” he agreed.
“Designed for fighting though, not ferrying peasants. Makes you wonder what
they’re doing here.”

“We don’t think we can
hold the land,” said the boy, and Beccorban looked down at him. He was young
but he was no fool.

“No, lad. I fear you may
be right.” Beccorban grunted and lowered his voice. “There are many here. We
may have to fight to get aboard a ship.”

“Not all will make for
the ships.”

“The smart ones will.”

“We could pay?” offered
Riella.

Beccorban raised an
eyebrow. “You have coin?”

“Some.”

He laughed. “Trust me,
girl, it will not be enough. People are desperate, and that means there’s money
to be made.”

“Well, what do you
suggest then?”

He twisted his mouth.
“I’ll think of something.” He looked over at Callistan who was making Mirril
laugh. The tall blond warrior had taken a liking to the young girl and now he
was holding one of the fluted ears of his horse, Crucio, whispering into it as
if he was telling the beast a great secret. Mirril found it hilarious. Riella
had tried to draw some kind of information out of him, but little was
forthcoming. The farmhouse had been his, as the grave had been that of someone
dear to him, but all that was obvious. Of his background he said nothing,
though from his dishevelled clothing and wounds — he was missing a finger
on his left hand — it was clear that he had not just been a farmer.
Nevertheless he seemed content to follow them. “Maybe we should let him do the
talking. He seems the conversational type.”

“You shouldn’t make
fun,” Riella scolded.

“No, you’re right. He
has proven me wrong. Apparently a man
can
love a horse.”

“Gods!” she shook her
head in despair and stalked from him. Beccorban chuckled to himself. He watched
her go and felt his stomach tighten as he saw how lovely she was when she was
walking away.
Calm
, he told himself
and turned back to Callistan. The blond warrior was staring at him and he was
suddenly convinced that the horseman had heard every word he had just said. He
shifted his shoulders to loosen the discomfort and swung around to face the
others.

“Ruum has fallen, as has
Kressel. We must assume that the Heartlands are lost,” Beccorban told them
grimly, trying to ignore the haunted, gaunt faces that looked at him for
direction — all, he noted, but Callistan, whose eyes were ever distant,
distracted. Beccorban had come to the decision to flee sometime earlier and it
had not been an easy one. The enemy was loose in the soft belly of the Verian
Empire and he had already seen how sharp were its blades. Though Beccorban
wanted to fight, there was no news of the army and it seemed that every major
city was either broken or besieged. “We need to get out of Veria. Find
somewhere safe and then regroup.”

He twisted his head to
stare at the hard dark line to the north.
Fend.
Beccorban’s stomach clenched at the memories. In the early days of the war
against the Respini, he had known only victory. Then he had brought his army to
the fortress at Fend, used by the elite Higard as a barracks for decades. From
Fend the Respini had lorded over the Heartlands and the Watch, keeping Veria
under the yoke. Beccorban had known that if he could topple Fend it would send
a message to the Respini and bring anyone not yet committed over to his side,
to fight for Illis and the Verian cause. But the assault on Fend had brought
him only ambush and then the anguish of defeat, of knowing that he had been
bested and that the rebellion would die with his name upon it.

Yet it did not die. Beccorban had led the broken Verian forces into the
icy passes of the Heartland Range, fleeing the battlefield but leaving Illis
behind to be captured and imprisoned. He had never meant for it to happen like
that. He felt again the emptiness, the cold fury freezing as ice in his mind as
he dragged his surviving men through weeks of lethal conditions, living off
snowmelt and rage. And other things. He shuddered. When they had emerged from
the mountains into the north of Respin, they were fewer in number, but those
left were hardened like forged steel. The first Respini city they came across
was Iss, now known as the City of Innocents for what they had done to it. Iss
did not have walls nor did it have many soldiers; most had been conscripted to
put down the Verian rebellion. His rebellion. He could still remember watching
dispassionately as his veterans poured into the defenceless city, a black flag
fluttering above their heads.

He shook himself back to
the present and looked around, wondering how much pain and suffering this land
had already seen, how much he was responsible for. Could he lead these people?
Would they follow him? Callistan seemed to sense his indecision. The strange,
brooding warrior was staring at him with that merciless green gaze, sizing him
up, seeing through his soldier’s mask into the old man’s mind that feared
failure. By contrast, Loster was looking upon him with big eyes, waiting for
his word. The lad said that he had been on his way to Kressel when his wagon
train had been attacked. Beccorban noticed that he was clad in the white tunic
of a member of the Temple Dawn. He was to be a man of the gods.
Let them help him now,
thought
Beccorban.

The speaker on the wagon
reached a crescendo and several people nearby roared with zealous anger.
They won’t all be saved,
he thought. He
turned to look at his group, a girl, two young adults and a wild man. He was
not even sure he could save them.

“Outta the way!” said a
rough looking man with greasy hair, spiking an elbow into Loster’s ribs and
shoving him roughly aside. Loster gasped in pain and staggered at the blow as
the man disappeared into the mass of people. Gentle hands pulled him to his
feet, and he breathed in the sweet smell of the woman, Riella. He looked up at
her face and saw something he did not expect there: concern. It shamed him.

“Be careful, Loster.
There’s little kindness to be had here.”

He nodded and brushed
himself down.
Next time I’ll stand up for
myself,
he thought.

“
Next time, next time!
” crowed the familiar voice, and Loster shook
his head to clear it.

“They knew!” came the
voice of the speaker. “They knew and they did nothing!” More and more people
were edging towards the speaker’s group, forcing Loster and the others further
into the mass. “The men in the black cloaks, the thralls that walk in the
shadows, they had their hands on the warnings of our elders and ignored them,
cast them aside in favour of evil service to the Unnamed.” A low murmur rippled
through the crowd at the mention of the Black God. Loster felt a chill roll
down his spine.

“Hammerman!” Loster
turned to see the tall blond warrior, Callistan, striding through the crowd
towards Beccorban. He was tugging Crucio along by the bridle and the bulk of
the horse allowed him to bully a route through the throng. Mirril, still atop
the horse, was grinning and kicking her heels into Crucio’s flanks. Somebody
stepped into his path and he casually threw them aside, facing down their
protest with a baleful stare until they slunk away.

Beccorban waited for
Callistan with his head cocked to the side, ready to hear what the horseman,
often so quiet, had to say. “What is it?”

“Trouble,” said
Callistan with an air of assumed authority. “Look, by the water,” he nodded in
the direction of a small rowing boat, just now returning from its last trip out
to one of the waiting ships. “Calm for now but it won’t last, and then it will
be chaos. There aren’t enough ships to take everyone here.”

“Keep your voice down,
man,” snapped Beccorban but Callistan continued as if he hadn’t heard.

“They’ll realise it
soon. We won’t make it to the ships if that happens.
When
that happens.”

“So what can we do about
that, besides force our way on to a boat?” asked Riella.

“The priest,” Callistan
pointed at the pointy-headed man on the wagon. “His words are poison. They will
make this crowd turn ugly faster than anything. I’m going to shut him up.” For
a moment, Loster assumed that the warrior was asking permission. It was an easy
mistake to make — Beccorban was the largest and oldest of them and they
all looked to him for leadership; it came easily to him. However, Callistan
also walked with the swagger that only a man who has been tested physically and
has come out on top can muster. A man like him was not much given to asking for
things, so he simply handed Crucio’s reins to Riella and walked off, pushing
into the crowd and out of sight.

“Where’s he going?”
asked Mirril and Beccorban cursed with a word that Loster was sure he had never
heard before. Mirril leaned down from Crucio’s back and reached for his hand
and, though it irritated him, he let her hold it nonetheless.

“He’s going to get us
all killed,” said Beccorban to no one in particular, stalking after him.

Left alone with the two
women, Loster suddenly felt very afraid, but Riella rescued him. “Come on.
Let’s go with them.” She clucked to lead the horse onwards and strode into the
rapidly closing wake left by Beccorban’s massive frame.

Callistan was angry but
he did not really know why. Perhaps it was because he felt robbed. He had been
so sure that the others were slipskins but now he knew they were not. He had
not tested them all, of course, but until they gave him reason to think
otherwise he would give them the benefit of the doubt. There was, after all,
something pleasant about being around people again.

He was still angry,
though. Perhaps it was because he knew he should be riding towards Temple,
towards vengeance for his family. Instead he was here on this damp stretch of
land north of the Watch, following a boy, a girl, a whore and an ancient. He
knew that if he stopped to think for a second he would start questioning
himself again, so he shut that part of his mind off. He focused on the now, on
the man with the pointy head on top of the wagon.

The man was familiar to
him, not by name or face but rather by reputation. What was it Runt had said? “
Banished, for trying to teach the secrets of
the Temple Deep.
”

Droswain, once a priest
of the Temple Dawn and now an exile. It had to be him. Callistan had no great
love nor hate for religious men but all too seldom since he had left Temple had
he encountered something he knew, something he could control. This was one of
those things. Besides, the Doppelganger had shown him that he was good with
crowds.

Droswain was still speaking
and discontent was spreading through the crowd like ink dipped in water.
Oratory was a powerful gift but it was often abused, and these people were
desperate. “Priest!” he shouted, elbowing his way past an overlarge woman
blocking his path.

Droswain was in full
flow, speaking now of the foolishness of the imperial throne. He turned his
head briefly to register Callistan’s approach and then looked back to his
audience.

“Priest!” Callistan
called again, cupping one hand around his mouth to direct his voice. “I wish to
talk to you!”

“Wait yer turn,”
squeaked a pretty young woman emerging from behind the vast bulk of her mother
like the sun from behind a cloud.

“Yeah,” said another.
“We’re here to listen to him, not you. Sling yer ‘ook!” An elderly man shook
his fist in Callistan’s face but the horseman just smiled disarmingly and
gently pawed the old man’s arm away without breaking his stride towards the
centre of the crowd.