Firemoon (4 page)

Vajan remained in the clearing and turned back to the dummy.

“I have already proven myself,” he whispered.

3.

They walked. There was little more to say about the journey. The forest was so wild and difficult that Katja usually had to focus on where and how she trod, when they weren’t flat-out reduced to climbing, so there weren’t many opportunities for chat.

They did stop on occasion to eat from their supplies and rest briefly, but Katja used those opportunities to familiarise herself with landmarks. She may have to traverse this route on her own someday, after all. Perhaps even when all other now-living individuals were dead.

Well, this is certainly a good place for a secret meeting.

Katja touched the necklace she had made two years earlier. In it hung a pebble she had taken from the grave of her cousin Maria the day she left home. They had been best friends through childhood and Maria’s death really had ensured that Katja agreed to leave.

She stroked her finger up from the shirt collar and to the choker around her throat, made from artfully braided leather strips. Linda had made it and given her as a parting present. Would they be able to meet now that Katja was in the country? Such things had no priority whatsoever but perhaps they would have a moment in-between dangers.

Once noon was around the corner they arrived at a narrow river Serdra said would lead them to their destination. The forest around them was now truly old and following the river was not always easy, but there was peace and quiet beneath the roof of leaves and there was no risk of losing it.

Around the time she began to notice the dimming of the light she also suddenly began to think of her first meeting with Serdra. There was some feeling, some familiarity which awaited her. She hadn’t understood the feeling then but she remembered it.

“We are getting close,” she said out loud and then felt like a fool for stating the obvious.

“Yes.”

She could glimpse people through the trees but immediately lost sight of them. She considered calling out but refrained. They continued along the river and after a little longer they came to rock formations where the river spewed down in a tiny waterfall.

Beneath the rocks stood two men and a woman and Katja immediately knew they were all Redcloaks. She
knew
it. She
felt
it, almost like she felt her own limbs. The
Flame
burned within them just as within her.

A man sitting on a rock was closest to her. He shared Serdra’s strangely ageless look but had just gotten the first white stripes in his pale brown hair. The face was sharp and the body long. He carried a short sword in his belt but had a long axe in his lap.

The woman leaned up against the rocks. She had thick, snow-white hair which had been woven into thick locks that did not reach her shoulders. The face was round and pale, the lips narrow and the eyes were the darkest Katja had ever seen. She had two different swords sheathed at each hip and Katja guessed the glaive propped up against the rocks belonged to her.

Katja looked at the other man and immediately knew he was the oldest. She would have known as much even though he had dyed his white hair, which went down to his shoulders. As with the woman his demeanour and gaze was reminiscent of Serdra, except even more unnerving, if anything.

In the middle of Amerstan City stood a marble statue of a general who had reclaimed the city from the clutches of the Death Lords in the fourth war. The sculptor must have been a genius, given the focused determination he had managed to imbue his creation with. The general stared ahead with absolute, steadfast fearlessness and gave the impression of being the hardest and most dangerous man who had ever lived.

If the statue had stepped down from the plinth and called to war Katja could imagine it would have had this man’s demeanour. This one had seen ages and Katja looked away from his gaze and examined the rest of him.

Three horizontal scars marked his left cheek, as if he’d been scratched. The wound must have been recent, as Redcloaks healed perfectly.

All wore unremarkable clothes just like she and Serdra and seemed to have travelled a considerable distance. Light luggage lay in a bundle between them.

The scarred one inclined his head slightly.

“Greetings, Serdra,” he said in a strong voice every bit as chiselled as his look.

“Greetings, Roland,” Katja’s mentor replied. “Agla and Lindor.”

The oldest one looked Katja in the eyes and again she thought of her first meeting with Serdra.

“And you are Katja, youngest and most inexperienced.”

Katja had never felt the truth of those words more.

“But prettiest,” she answered but felt her wit lacked energy.

From the corner of her eye she saw the younger man smile slightly.

“I am Roland the elder,” the scarred one said.

“I am Agla the Black,” said the pale woman with a feminine version of Roland’s inflectionless voice.

“And I am Lindor of Spjata,” the younger man said.

“Greetings, all,” Katja said. “Will more be coming?”

“We are ever few,” Roland said. “We only gather for major meetings when the Death Lords stir. We three received Serdra’s call and in time we will spread the subjects of this meeting to the others.”

Katja fell silent and waited for Serdra to say something more but the moments passed slowly beneath the gazes of these people and the woman was in no damn hurry.

Is this another test?

“Do you know of... the occasion?” she asked hesitantly.

“This spring’s events were related to me by our allies,” Lindor said. “I already told them.”

“You found a Death Lord,” Roland said. “After three centuries of searching you found the resting place of one of them by coincidence and he sank to the bottom of the Inner Sea before you could slay it in torpor.”

Katja bit her teeth together. The Death Lords, that ancient dread that had gone into hiding after the seventh apocalyptic war they waged against mankind and the Redcloaks, was mostly forgotten by the general populace. Just as they wanted it. As the unity Jukiala had given the world vanished ever further into the past, and mortals ever more considered the Death Lords a past problem of earlier generations, the scales of the next war were ever more tipped in favour of the monsters. But they merely slumbered, so the senses of the Redcloaks could not find them.

Katja and Serdra had been handed a unique opportunity to end one of them without it costing a terrible war. But they had failed.

“We did all we possibly could,” she said and heard the defensiveness in her own voice.

“The war has its fluctuations,” Roland said with the same focused tonelessness. “Gavin Bloodhand originally came almost as close as you two did. But the servants of the Lord did not manage to move him to a new hiding place and we know that as the next war begins a Death Lord will walk on land by the Inner Sea. That knowledge will be useful to us and it is important for our siblings to hear every detail you found out. But much else needs to be determined. You were right to call this meeting, Serdra.”

Serdra nodded.

“Shall we not start with the account?”

“Yes.”

They went over the series of events together. Katja was glad to take full part in it, but then it mattered to get as perfect a picture as possible. The people listened without comment until they came to the Death Lord himself.

That terrible, fateful event had only lasted a few moments, but still most of the time went into describing it and answering questions. Katja felt there really was quite little they could add to the knowledge of this enemy but Roland and Agla both took everything in very seriously.

Lindor had the least to say but showed the most obvious interest. He was after all younger than Serdra and so had not participated in the Death Lord wars himself.

“After that we swam ashore,” Serdra finally said. “It was quite laborious and we simply do not know exactly where the sarcophagus sank.”

“We do know that the depth in that area is too deep for any man,” Katja said before Serdra would. “All the fishermen we spoke to agreed on that.”

Roland was silent for a few moments and watched Katja. She found it profoundly uncomfortable. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, or being trapped in a cage with a lion content to sit still for the moment.

“In ages past the Lords stayed awake between wars,” he then said. “They sat in their forts outside the light of civilization and planned, while we strengthened Jukiala from the inside to the best of our abilities and guarded the borders. The playing field changed with the fall of the One Nation. This deathly torpor, this long wait, is a new trick and Gavin’s testimony has long been our only information on it.”

“Just what did Gavin Bloodhand experience?” Katja asked. Serdra had mentioned it briefly but suddenly she wanted to hear it from a man who had been alive at the time.

Roland turned back to Serdra and Katja still didn’t understand whether it was due to disapproval or whether he was searching for something.

“Initially we did not understand how the rules had changed after the Dusk War,” Roland then said. “We knew they had come up with some new way to hide from us and those we could spare looked into it. Gavin followed a rumour to an isolated mountain hamlet. It turned out to be a stronghold and training camp for the Night Hand, as well as a lair for one of the Death Lords. Half of them threw themselves at Gavin while the other half sped their master to safety. We believe that since then the sarcophagi have been kept away from the servants of the Lords to prevent another such incident, and we have modelled our search accordingly.”“It turns out you were right,” Katja said,

“Yes.”

After that they moved on to what Katja believed to be customary Redcloaks topics. They talked about distant lands and individuals. About old problems that were either re-emerging or had petered out once and for all. About how the power struggles of mortal men went, what effects those might have on the Silent War and what was generally out of view of ordinary folks.

The most interesting bit of news came from the east, from the Outskirts.

“I received news of Mia, the Seer,” said Lindor of Spjata.

“Is she still lost in visions?” Serdra asked.

“She evidently still sees little other than the future and its endless possibilities. And she has made no improvements in articulating her messages.”

“That is a pity,” Serdra said.

“But she did say something along the lines that the demon that came out of the Rocky Valley and harried Outer Fort four years ago has not been slain for good.”

“Outer Fort?” Katja said. “Isn’t that a city?”

“The Outskirt’s main bastion of the old wisdom,” Agla said. “The fall of that city would be fateful.”

“Fateful but perhaps unavoidable,” Roland said. “I always had doubts about the taming of the Outskirts and half my life later it remains a half-finished task. It is too close to the Wastelands and the final holdouts of the Vegraine tribes.”

“So will Mia have to tend to this herself?” Agla asked Roland. “I know of no-one who is free to travel east.”

Katja cleared her throat.

“It is my understanding that... we are few enough and our work important enough that we cannot afford to lose anyone.”

“Serdra’s words,” stated Roland and looked at Katja and then her mentor. “They are usually true, but I still consider it debatable whether Mia’s exaggerated future sight is a gift or a disability.”

He looked at all who were present.

“Veratsa Mor was the only one to ever approach it and the madness she succumbed to cost us dearly. Mia is still young and inexperienced and either the weakest of us or the strongest. She and the Outskirts must manage on their own and so prove themselves. Do not abandon the core to help her defend that land.”

“If I understood everything correctly she intends to tend to this her own way,” Lindor said.

“By seeking out and pulling on the correct strings of fate,” Serdra said.

“Yes. She said something about Erolas sowing his destruction with his salvation. Then she mentioned bridges and ravens but the one I spoke to understood no more.” He smiled slightly. “My mind and sight do not tread the same tracks as the Seer’s.”

“You have future sight?” Katja asked with some surprise. “Is that your specialty?”

“Indeed,” Lindor said. “It is up to me and a few others to peer into the future and steer our course.” The smile stayed on. “I have learned to live with it. That burden strengthens the shoulders.”

“For me it is the Flame itself, as with your mentor,” Roland said before Katja could look his way. “I burn demons and revenants out of this world.”

“For me it is the present,” Agla said. “I am a bloodhound and a sensor.” The pale woman drew her shoulders back a bit and those black eyes were like knives. “And I sense corruption,” she said severely. “Something has entered the world here by the Inner Sea. Something powerful and dangerous that has not been seen in a long time, as I have never sensed this before in my life.”

She turned that sharp gaze on Lindor and did not need to say the command out loud.

“A war is coming.” he said and Katja saw his smile had vanished. He was silent a moment and his eyes turned as distant as those of a dead man. “I hear the stomping of legions,” he said quietly. “And the din of arms and screams of the wounded. I sense no doubt. Valdimar will send an army south.”