Firemoon (9 page)

She kept her eyes closed for a little while and went over what she knew with cold reason.

“We were careful,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster. “We did nothing to draw attention to ourselves these last two days.” She was silent again. “I can’t see how the Brotherhood could have known beforehand that we would visit these Shades. It’s possible that Vajan entered the village and saw me without me seeing him in turn, but if so he certainly gathered men for a major attack on short notice.”

She opened her eyes and felt a certain inner calm.

“It is... very unlikely that this was because of us.”

“Yes,” her mentor replied. “So don’t torment yourself.”

“So they were attacking the Shades. Unless they somehow benefited from burning a small farming village.”

“Probably.”

Katja exhaled and tilted her head back.

“They probably felt safe. Probably felt they had been careful enough in spite of having such dangerous neighbours.”

She paused briefly and stroked her belly.

“I thought I had killed Vajan,” she said. “I thought I had settled that matter once and for all.”

Vajan had almost killed her in the forest near Moon Cape. It had been the first time she had truly stood before death, and if Serdra hadn’t used the Sentinel Flame to heal her, her career would have been very short indeed. Such a feat was dangerous, something only older Redcloaks could do without risk of dropping dead.

Only that had saved her and the memory wouldn’t leave her be.

“Have you heard of the Brother’s War?” Serdra asked.

“What?” Katja said.

“I didn’t expect you to,” Serdra said. “It is mostly forgotten these days and wasn’t even that big in its day. But when I was young two powerful half-brothers, Markus and Agust, quarrelled over a bountiful land. Both gathered an army and let metal clash. Markus’ army was scattered in a battle and so Agust could lead his forces to his brother’s stronghold and begin a siege.”

“I myself was staying at a large inn in a village a few days’ journey from the battlefield. I had arranged a meeting with one of our brothers and ended up waiting for him for eight days, but one evening I took to chatting with another guest that had arrived earlier that day. He had been part of Markus’ army and been separated from his comrades, when Agust’s riders drove them into a forest. His sword had broken in the fighting and he threw his shield away while fleeing. So he was left with naught but his clothes and a knife.”

“Rain starting pouring down as the day passed. He was wet, hungry, exhausted and afraid, but as evening fell he found shelter in a small deserted village. There he camped in a relatively intact house. However, during the night he woke up to one of Agust’s divisions also setting up camp  within the village. It was too small to house all but the officers and wounded got roofs over their heads. One of them was the same one this soldier had chosen.”

“He lay in the darkness and gnawed the back of his hand with terror as a group of men entered the house and lay down, but none saw him. After a while all had fallen asleep and he dared to crawl from hiding and try to get out. One man had fallen asleep before the door so it could not be opened. The soldier managed to kill the man quietly with the knife, carefully moved the body aside and exited.”

“But things did not improve for him, as the tents blocked the only ways out of the village. He resorted to hiding under a half-collapsed house, hoping that the men would leave come daybreak. But they did not leave. And once the body was discovered the men were up in arms and searched the village and its surroundings. The man expected death at any moment, but only one thought to peek under the ruin. He was slightly apart from his comrades, ducked his head under the fallen roof and got a knife to the throat for his trouble. The desperate soldier managed to kill him without making noise and drew the corpse into his hiding place. He acquired a sword in the process, but knew very well that it would be of no use if he were spotted.”

“It’s safe to say that the search was not relaxed after the disappearance and neither did they decamp. The soldier lay there with the dead body until darkness fell and they finally gave up on finding a hidden enemy. The soldier was limp with hunger and could bear his stay with the corpse no longer. It had started to rain again, so he dared to crawl out of hiding and bind his feet with pieces of his tunic to soften his footsteps.”

“He made it to a campfire by the tents and got hold of a burning stick. He used it to set fire to the tent several men slept in, and while everyone’s focus was on the blaze he snuck to another circle of tents and stole some food. He then crawled into an old ditch and hid under dead vegetation. He scarfed down the wood and then fell asleep, quite against his will. He awoke some time after sunrise and still no-one had found him and still Agust’s men remained encamped.”

“He hid for the rest of the day and was now half-mad, as he admitted freely. He had overheard where the captain was sleeping and snuck in there and slew him and two others. He hoped that would suffice for them to decamp and finally leave. Those hopes were in vain, and again men searched for him in the ruins and almost found him. Finally as evening fell he could stand no more of this, and as three searchers approached his hiding place he rose from the muck and ran screaming towards them with the sword in hand.”

“He made it between them and by sheer luck only one man stood in his way as he came to the campfires. He struck that man down and fled into the night. They gave chase, but lost him in the darkness.”

“That was some experience,” Katja said and shook her head.

“Yes,” Serdra said. “He was a nervous wreck when I spoke to him and did not hesitate to admit how terrified he had been all along; surrounded by a mass of enemies and as good as dead if he made one single mistake.”

“And for such a long time at that. No wonder he was a mess.”

“I never met him again, but three days later I did meet men from one of Agust’s companies. They had been ordered to camp in a deserted village and await further instructions. And then someone or something began preying on them. They did not hesitate to admit how terrified they had been of the unseen enemy who resided in the darkness and snatched men away. Who killed as silently as death itself and then vanished into nothing. As time passed they were jumping at every sound, and only fear of being hanged for desertion kept them in the village. Finally he appeared to them as a screaming, mud-covered madman with wild eyes and a bloody face. Yet again he killed one of their comrades and vanished into the night. They were not willing to wager he had gone for good and grouped together outside the village, around large fires and all stayed awake until morning. Then they finally got a message to continue on their way and the nightmare was over.”

Serdra fell silent and continued walking without looking at her student. Evidently the story was over.

Mindful of the earlier part of this conversation, Katja hesitated to ask about the point of it. She would have to figure it out on her own.

She looked ahead and so saw the reddish-yellow glow on the horizon.

A fire.

“That would be the fort,” Serdra said.

6.

Katja wanted to say something but could think of nothing clever. Serdra couldn’t know any more than she about what had happened. Vajan’s band could hardly have been large enough to take a fort, even a small one.

Had the invasion begun? Had Valdimar’s army surprised everyone with some brilliant scheme?

They walked in silence, with a significantly different mindset than before. They could very well be heading towards an entire army and Katja could only turn to her imagination for the answers the flames called for.

Perhaps someone was careless with a candle, she thought without really believing it and managed a slight smile. That one would certainly get an earful.

They climbed a short distance up a rocky slope to be able to walk across a forested hill and the fort would clearly be waiting for them on the other side of it. Katja heard no screams or sounds of firefighting, no panicking animals or the marching of an army. Nothing but the cruel voice of a feasting fire.

It was eerie.

The hill did not let them through without a fight but after a few bumps and scrapes Katja made it to the top. She walked a few steps to the south to see past a pine tree and beheld the flaming fort.

The defensive wall was made of stone, as were about half of the walls within it. The rest burned, along with every single roof. The gate stood wide open and the light of the fire illuminated the corpses scattered about outside of it. The men seemed to have been cut down while fleeing.Not a single army was in sight, nor anything else living.

Katja looked at Serdra. The woman just nodded and they clambered down. The journey was rather easier this time as the rocky sides were less forested and after a short while this all became a reality right before her.

The corpses were of soldiers and many of them wore night tunics. Some lay near a weapon, others did not and many had clearly been dealt the killing blow after being brought down. And just like the fire the violence was recent.

They carefully made their way to the gate and Katja soon noted that it was undamaged. It had not been broken through and nor did she see any ladders up against the wall. It did not compare to a proper city wall, but would still pose a challenge to a raiding party.

Perhaps they had inserted a traitor in the soldiers’ ranks. A traitor who had opened the gate at night and let the enemies in. The thought implied some disturbing things about the planning for this invasion. If Valdimar’s men were indeed to blame. They stood by the open gate and Katja thought she sensed a hint of something unnatural from the red-yellow inferno that waited beyond it.

“Do you have an opinion?” Katja asked before the gate that had served so badly.

“I mean to reserve assumptions until you have examined this event,” Serdra answered.

Katja felt a momentary chill in spite of the fire’s heat. Many had died here and very recently at that. She had never looked at such a thing but knew it would be terrible.

I need to thicken my hide
, she thought with a numb part of herself.
I need a thick hide to take these kinds of things and I will only get it through practise.

They walked through the gate and Katja held a hand over her face due to the heat. Most of the houses had been burning for some time. The wooden ones lived a half-life as partially collapsed skeletons and the stone houses were somehow reminiscent of faces, with the flames coming off the roofs playing the role of hair and glowing windows and doors posing as eyes and mouths.

The corpses were most concentrated a short distance within the gate. The defenders had probably stood their ground against the attackers there and lost. Still, they could be seen almost everywhere. Cutting down so many men was not a moment’s task and those who hadn’t made it out the gate had died searching for salvation within the wall. Most of them seemed to be wearing night tunics.

There was no way to search for clues inside of buildings and in spite of rolling over several corpses on their way deeper into the fort they found no-one who wasn’t wearing either a night tunic or the Pine City colours. If any of the assailants had fallen the bodies had been moved.

Once they came to the middle, a large open area that had probably been used for drills, a strange sight awaited them.

Up o
n a tall flag pole fluttered a yellow flag displaying a bull next to an oak tree. A few feet away lay four men face-down around a hole. Their hands and feet had been bound and the tops of their heads faced one another, so they formed a cross of sorts.

Katja walked closer. If anything she sensed the un-nature more keenly closer to the pole, and she kept a hand on her sword. Corpses did not always stay down.

She arrived at the hole and though the nearest fire was some distance away she had enough light to see that a large piece of hide had been placed down in the hole, which had then prevented the blood from seeping into the dirt. The man had all had their throats cut in a ceremony of some kind.

Katja examined the bodies. Their wrists were red and torn. They had struggled in utter desperation.

This is a bad way to die.

“Does this... mean anything to you?” she asked out loud.

Serdra came over and examined the four men. To Katja’s surprise her mentor was silent a little while and stared down into the bloody hole.

“Yes,” she then said. “I have heard of such a thing. But only heard. The world has not seen this in a long time.”

Something about Serdra’s demeanour caught Katja’s attention and held it in spite of their dreadful surroundings. She was very wary of the woman’s next words.

“This is a certain ceremony that the Brotherhood of the Pit performed in the old days,” Serdra explained. “When they raided Jukiala territories. After they took a fort or a town with their sorcery and monsters they would murder four captives, just like that, to honour the Dragon.”

Katja was silent a moment.

“The Dragon? The leader of the Brotherhood? But it hasn’t had one since the fall of Vendyha. That’s why they are... so... fractured.”

Katja’s words reached her own ears and she realized their significance.

“Indeed,” Serdra said. “And now something evil has entered the world by the Inner Sea. Something Agla the Black has never sensed before. Agla is just over three hundred years old. Vendyha fell in 387 by the old calendar, long before Agla’s birth. And Roland was not present for the final battle. He was never close to anyone who held the title of the Dragon in the shape of man.”

“But...” Katja went over her lessons in her mind. “But it was more than just a title. I know not much is known about it, but it required some kind of ritual!”

“A ritual devised by Zakari Manso,” Serdra said and did not take her eyes off the blood. “And since he managed it then so can others. Or perhaps someone had deciphered the old texts.”

“Can...”

Katja meant to say ‘Can this be?’ but managed to stop herself. Anything could be, no matter how unfortunate. She had learned that lesson around the Death Lord incident.

“There may be some other explanation,” she said instead.

“It has always been my experience that the Brotherhood cling to their traditions and this sacrifice has not been performed since the invasion of Revsaka seven hundred years ago. It seems that either a new Dragon has entered the picture or someone has convinced the Brotherhood of it. Either way, that person is in a good position to unite the Brotherhood under their leadership.”

Serdra finally looked at her. Katja was pretty sure Serdra was making sure she realized the severity of the matter.

Then the older woman pointed at the ground.

“Examine.”

Katja did not allow herself a sigh. She did not allow herself desperation and hesitation. Negativity and doubt were her enemies in this task.

She began breathing in a calm, measure way as she was in the habit of doing to reach a trance-state. She found a relatively comfortable spot on the ground, lay on her back and crossed her arms on her chest. Then she closed her eyes, let the present slide from her thoughts and opened herself to the past.

It was like falling into boiling water. Pain, fear, rage, desperation and grief came from all direction, from so many sources. Katja screamed on the inside and perhaps out loud as well as dead men screamed in the past and she tried to stand on a cliff in a raging sea.

The battle was difficult and agonizing and at times it seemed unwinnable. Katja lost her bearings at least once and was blown about without place or time or body. She was on the edge of either losing herself or being flung into the present, but with a monumental effort she managed to isolate herself from the horror without ending the vision. And she saw.

It began with the fog. It was as thick as soup and blinded the guards on the battlements. They were startled by three strangers in common clothing who walked up to the gate and asked to speak with the captain about an important matter. It took some convincing but the men were unarmed and eventually the gate was opened the captain woken. The men followed him into his private chambers and the evil aura of sorcery began to emanate from the house without anyone being aware of it.

The captain exited alone, pale, stiff and generally strange. He ordered the gate opened wide and would answer no questions about what would come next. He just summoned every waking man to the drill square and then stayed silent with a rigid look of terror on his face.

And then the assailants came out of the fog. The captain gave no orders so his men took the initiative when enemies began flooding through the gate, weapons in hand. But it was too late. The guards were too few to withstand the wave that hit them and their sleeping compatriots woke with a start. Men wearing the tunics of Valdimar’s professional soldiers broke into the barracks before anyone could organize a defence. This wasn’t a battle. This was a slaughter.

The unarmed trio exited the captain’s chambers and selected four captives as those in the tunics upended everything in search of something useful. The four were sacrificed in honour of the Dragon and Vendyha.

Vajan and his riders arrived around the time of the first fires. Vajan had a few words with the three men and shortly after the fort was abandoned. The raiding party went up into the hills the road to Pine City cut past and Vajan rode away.

Katja opened her eyes, both within and without, and again lay in the dirt close to the flag pole. She was sweaty, exhausted in spirit and so also in her body and felt as if she’d been torn apart and sown back together.

This had been the worst one yet. The vision up on Flat Top had offered more hideous anguish and cruelty, but those events had also been much older and affected far fewer and so not been as hard to digest.

Serdra did not offer her a hand up and Katja understood why. She sighed and managed to direct strength into her arms and push herself up into a sitting position.

“Br... Brotherhood,” she said. “The Brotherhood.”

She took a few moments to collect herself and then went over what she had seen.

Serdra looked up into the hills. The first light was ascending into the sky and so one could see the hills were quite forested.

“This wasn’t exactly subtle,” she said. “This is visible from far off and word will get around in very short order. Tell me Katja, if you were a soldier in the border fort and heard of this, what would you think?”

“I... I would suspect that,” Katja closed her eyes and felt ever worse as the situation became clearer. “I would probably suspect that Valdimar’s army had taken some wilderness route past me and was currently heading for Pine City.”

“And what would you do then?” Serdra asked.

“Send a part of my forces south to aid the city.”

“So leaving the border fort less defended. And
then
Valdimar’s army comes and breaks through. And the forces sent south get hit from behind.”

“And we know for a fact that the Brotherhood is involved.”

“Yes,” Serdra said. “And if they have truly given up on hiding, then their sorcery can give Valdimar’s army a great advantage. Especially if the information I have been given about the power of the Dragon is accurate.”

Katja rubbed her head. This was some situation.

“A new Vendyha? Hasn’t that always been their dream. The Brotherhood means to take power and Pine City would make a good starting point.”

“Indeed.” Serdra looked in the direction of the coast. “The city has already separated from the Golden Plain and declared independence. No ruler would be bound to come to its aid.”

The flames were close to burning out and their crackling had grown quiet enough for them to hear hoofbeats. There was nothing left for Vajan and his men but they nevertheless hurried to the gate, ready for more fighting. It was Garan who showed up, along with four horses.

The man stared slack-jawed at the destruction.

“There is nothing left,” Katja said and pointed behind herself. “Not even those responsible.”

“What in the world is going on? Has the invasion begun?” Garan asked, alarmed.

“It is about to begin, at any rate,” Serdra said and motioned for him to dismount.

They went over Katja’s vision and explained the conclusions they had drawn from it as they put on shoes the man had brought.