The Return of the Vanguard

Return of the Vanguard

Michael Conrad

Copyright © 2017 Michael Conrad

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 9781973185833

Table of Contents

Chapter One - Midtown

Chapter Two - The Gathering

Chapter Three - Coras

Chapter Four - The Great North Road

Chapter Five - The Sunset Road

Chapter Six - Bear Dogs of Lek Marn

Chapter Seven - The Nightmare Man

Chapter Eight - The Puddletown Pirates

Chapter Nine - Qaral Mar

Chapter Ten – Golem

Chapter Eleven – Dreamweaver

Chapter Twelve – Terror’s Waste

Chapter Thirteen – Mountains of the Moon

Chapter Fourteen -  Zaral Mar

Chapter Fifteen – The Mark of Time

Chapter Sixteen – The Unicorns

Chapter Seventeen – Aiyleah

Chapter Eighteen – The Circle

Chapter One - Midtown

This one was called Ran. The place is Midtown.

Both were abbreviations. The place was once Middle Gate Town, though by the time anyone started calling it a town the gate had long gone, as was the wall it had pierced. Many of the stones had gone into the building of Midtown; others had been laboriously hauled up the great twin guard towers to be hurled at each other by warring robber barons.

The arch of the gate itself formed one gable wall of an Inn now called the Gate Tower. Local legend had it that the great iron gate itself had been smelted into swords and sold to Bandotash, Rakeemer and Dunsland, where they still fuelled internecine wars, preventing either country from mustering an army to take the pass the gate once guarded.

Only Ran knew he had been named Randolph, none now lived who knew his birth name, named for a father he had hated too much to carry his name. He was also the only living person who knew that the gate had been too heavy to haul to a furnace, and too thick for any tool to cut up. It lay where it had fallen, buried by weight and time, covered with crushed stone, it now formed the Gate Tower’s low beamed cellar floor.

Ran sat brooding in his apartment. Built on the roof of the Inn proper it was positioned under the curving peak of the old gate arch, so the apartment was shaped like an upturned boat inside. A lightly smoked glass panel was set into the top of a raised stone table; it allowed him to look down into the bar and spy on the predations of his staff. From below the panel was hidden in shadows. The panel was hinged, it could be lifted to be cleaned, or to allow a crossbow to be fired down into the bar.

The apartment had three doors. One opened to the passageway that led past the guest room doors to the stairs at the other end of the Inn, dropping down to a small reception area between the kitchen and the office. A second door opened to the bathroom, the Inn had been built before the Plumbers Guild became just another fond legend, and all the rooms boasted a working bath and toilet.

The third door was hidden; it opened to a crawl way over the tops of the guest rooms. There were cunning spy holes that had afforded Ran considerable amusement and opportunities for gain over the years. There was also access to a shaft into which the baths and toilets drained; iron staples allow a man to climb down into the brick lined sewage system that took Midtown’s refuse into the Connaught.

A man who knew prisons Ran appreciated a bolt hole, it was what decided him to buy the place from the impossibly evil old woman whose father had built it. Ran paced the one room apartment, originally it had been four small rooms, he had had the dividing walls torn down, small places made him nervous. Three windows pierced the three exterior walls, east through the Connaught Gap into Calren, north and south to the sulking twin towers, their great keeps soaring up from the rubble civil war had made of the fortress towns once at their base. Behind each tower loomed the thunderous masses of the central mountains, already flogged with snow to their waists. A steady cruel wind blew from the north, laced with the breath of trolls and yetis.

Apart from the evil keen of the wind the only sound was the clatter of cartwheels and the mutter of voices as traffic passed by on the East Road below the south window. Convoys of Free Traders and caravans of the Conglomerates wending their way east to Calren and west to Border Town, at the junction of three warring kingdoms. Calren, that nation of philanthropist farmers, bought its own survival by feeding the armies of its enemies, ensuring they always had the strength to fight each other.

At a profit, of course.

Ran paced restlessly to the west window. And to think that the kingdoms despised Calrens as bumpkins, ant like farmers steeped in cowardice and manure. He sniffed the air, wondering if the wind might be shifting, standing on his toes to get his nose to the gap where one of the small panes was broken. He was always meaning to get a mason to convert the windows into the opening kind, but at heart he was still a thief and caution won out.

Ran did not like periods of change, they made him uneasy, restless. The Connaught Gap was high enough so that winter, when it came, was brutal. Ran did not mind that; the billowing seas of snow would add a charm to Midtown it did not deserve. Paintings of the Twin Towers guarding the snowbound Gap were favourite adornments for the great houses in Calren.

The Gap was not a popular winter spot to visit for them; it was too far from the Calren towns that tend to cluster to the safer east of the country to attract the sporting rich. But hardy young nobles and lordlings from the kingdoms would come in bell festooned sleighs that were actually converted war chariots, stopping over on their way to the hunting lodges in the mountains where they would track moose with short bows of horn by day and drink mulled wine and plot against their elders by night.

The more daring would course higher and deeper into the ranges, hoping to take a troll’s head home as a trophy, some would end up as the guest of honour at a troll banquet, confirming what Ran often thought: that even a troll’s peanut brain was superior to that of a prince.

But during the snowbound months the Gate Tower would undergo something of a renaissance, gone would be the dull agents of the Calren Bureau of Agriculture, staying three or four to a room and haggling until the last copper farthing screamed, filling the bar with earnest talk of the price of parsnips. In their place would come the hangers on of the lording's who did not relish the crude cabins, for whom the Inns of Midtown were “quaint” and “rural”.

Exquisite courtesans would hold court in the lounge, smiling and conducting savage games of power where the bedroom was just another battlefield. Penniless Knights lurked in the shadows of the tap room and servants hustled on secretive errands. Ran’s chef would emerge from his summer sulk and store away his big stew pans, Doris would produce beautifully hand-written menus slipped into leather holders polished to a rich gloss. Wine and exotic spirits would be hauled up from the cellar.

Ran returned to his pacing, the wind blew firmly from the north. When it shifted to the east it would bring the first snow. He paused at the table to peer down into the bar, from here he could see both the lounge and the tap room as they were only separated by a wooden screen that stopped short of the ceiling. It was mid-morning, the kitchen was closed after the brief rush to breakfast the guests and hand out Doris’ famous bacon rolls and coffee to hungry Midtown labourers on their way to the stables, forges and warehouses that supported the traffic on the East Road.

Only three guests remained, they were due to leave later in the day, they were in the lounge, nursing coffee laced with rum and casually watched by Anton under the pretext of cleaning and re-stocking the bar with the little beer bottles most Carlen’s of note preferred. There had been a good crowd last night; Waggoner’s paid off for the imminent winter and on their way home. All three remaining men were wealthy Calren farm owners, come to pay off their staff, conducting business from the Inn for the last two weeks. They had argued and re-argued over the cost of their lodgings to the point of anguish. Ran had warned Anton to watch them, Carlen's were apt to filch what they could when leaving if they felt they had not got the best of a bargain.

Ran eyed them a jaundiced glare, he knew they had travelled to Midtown so that they could pay their men in hard Trader currency rather than Calren dollars, gypping their own people on the exchange rate. Carlen’s! He resumed his pacing, the urge to just go was excruciating. Just grab the pack he always kept ready under his bed, raid the cash box and just go. It was always worse now, waiting for the first snow, knowing the roads would be closed for a while afterwards. The Connaught Gap was usually the first hit, but the others would soon follow, white curtains falling to shut down the highways. A lone traveller would become an inviting target, if he survived the natural hazards.

He kicked the pack as he passed it, it was new but looked old and battered. Looped through the straps was a walking staff that had cost him more than this Inn, though it had been in another lifetime.

The bed was rumpled on one side, his lovers complained he hogged the bed, but alone he slept and woke at the edge, maybe they lied.

It was – what? Two years now since the bed had known anyone else. That had been Telixer, a dainty Lady-in-Waiting from Dunsland, with the heart of slave trader and the morals of a half-starved vulture. Oh my, but she had been good, never had a woman sought to please him with such enthusiasm and with such skill. There had been times – nights – when he wondered if he would live to see another day under her experienced ministrations.

And toward the end, when he finally admitted to himself that he loved her, but she despised him, then he had not wanted to see another day. “You deserved her!” Doris had told him with her usual solicitude. “All those girls you have ruined!”

Ran conjured all those girls’ faces now, though in truth it was their bodies he recalled better. Ruined indeed, barmaids and spinsters who saw themselves as the landlady of the Gate Tower. Doris had usually driven them away; Doris who watched him so avidly during his frequent long immersions in his own stock, who solicitously made sure the glass was never empty for him.

She planned to outlive him, to see him into a sot’s grave and own the Inn. Ran suspected one of the documents she had him sign was a will in her favour. In Midtown that and the support of a couple of strong men would be enough.

Ran loosened the leather strap he wore over his right wrist and caressed the smooth device beneath it. Doris would be a disappointed lady, one day she would probably get tired of waiting and make her move, poison, or a knife.

He just hoped it would not hurt.

*

Fabien did not know if he had sold his soul, but there was no denying he had sold his body. By noon the wind had become a freezing wall rolling down off the mountains; it sliced at his left ear as he climbed up into the Connaught Gap, with the Connaught itself chuckling down in the opposite direction. The normally boisterous river was calming down as the mountain springs which fed it froze up. Soon it too would freeze, though there would always be a core of free water in the depths, feeding Border Town.

The demon did not like the cold wind, it was draped across his shoulders like a fox fur stole. The claws on its bat like wings were tucked into his armpits and sunk into his flesh, the needle fangs were clamped to his neck and the demon took the occasional sip of warming blood.

Fabien was as aware – and unaware – of the demon as he was of his undershorts. The demon was not in the business of hurting Fabien, not directly anyway, but sometimes it forgot itself. Last night, as he camped below the Gap, the demon had left him to hunt. It had not been successful, he knew. It had come back frustrated and attacked his horse as Fabien saddled it in the dawn.

The horse had fled in screaming panic with the demon clamped to its throat, the demon visible to deliberately terrify the creature and flavour the blood. The horse had plunged into the chasm the Connaught cut for itself and been swept away. With it went his saddlebags with his warm winter clothes.

He angled his head slightly to try and protect his ear and tugged the riding cloak tighter about him. Cloak and demon affected each other not the slightest, in its resting state the demon was as ephemeral as a night mist.

As a Skarsdale Fabien should have been no stranger to cold, but he had been a student in the capital, accustomed to warm fires in cosy studies and heated dorms. Contrary to popular belief not all Scarsdale’s liked to wrap themselves in wolf skins and follow reindeer herds across the tundra. Besides, for a day and a night all he had eaten was the jerky he kept in his pocket for snacks while riding, and the demon had been steadily thinning his blood.

Pausing on the outskirts of Midtown Fabien debated his options. He had a banker’s note in his wallet he could only cash at a Calren clearing house, the nearest was maybe three days hard hiking away on the other side of the pass. He had enough copper to buy a meal, or a second-hand warm coat, not both. Neither would be enough to see him to his destination alive. The weather was turning foul, he would probably die before he even made it through the Protectorate into Calren, a slow freezing to oblivion.

Or he could call into the Gate Tower and ask Ran for help.

It was a tough choice.

The demon stirred, perhaps it sensed his thoughts and wanted to air its own opinion, or perhaps it was just reacting to his lack of movement. In the five years since he had summoned the demon in his arrogant folly, he had never been able to decide if it was intelligent in the real sense of the word. It impeded on his thoughts sometimes, at least he hoped it was the demon’s thoughts, but could it read or interpret his? Fabien often thought so, then there would be incidents like that with the horse and he would decide it could not possibly be so. If Fabien died here the demon would be unable to keep its ability to take corporal form and hunt, it would become a toothless shadow to haunt at the edge of Nightmares.

Midtown is not large, except in the late summer and early autumn when wagon traffic is at its peak, then a small city of tents and wagon homes surround the town, and fairs and Markets abound. About a dozen Inns vie for traffic on the road, most little better than doss houses for wagon crews wanting a cheap, dry place to flop. A brewery and a couple of bakeries send up aromatic smoke. There is no defensive wall anymore, like Border Town Midtown exists on sufferance in a no-man’s land, laughingly called the Protectorate, meaning the surrounding Kingdoms had fought each other to exhaustion trying to possess the strategic crossroad and Gap. Today Midtown was just a scruffy huddle of jetsam left by centuries of war and the necessity of trade.

Fabien looked at the clean lines of the guard towers, Saral and Taral Mar. As a student of history, he knew the local tradition that they guarded the borders of the old Empire was wrong, the Empire had had no fixed boundaries, it had been a construct of trade and communication. The chain of great Guard Towers, of which the twins were just a part, watched key points on the road system. When the Empire fell a series of warlords controlled the twin towers and exacted a toll from the road users. They grew increasingly avaricious, raiding east and west when traffic began to divert to avoid the tolls. Fifty years ago, two brothers ruled, one in each tower. With typical low cunning the almighty Calren Board of Trade offered to pay just one brother for safe passage of their wagons. Ten years later the towers were gutted and deserted, the wagons passed freely without paying toll and Midtown slowly grew.

Like a tumour.

A descendant of one of the brothers nominally ruled Midtown and arbitrated a local court, he was permitted by the Calren Board of Trade to extract a small toll to keep the road in good order.

Since the demon Fabien tried to avoid even villages when he could, if the demon revealed itself he would be stoned and burnt at the stake. The superstitious people believed a man possessed by a demon was driven by it to commit rape, the demon would pass to the woman during the deed and the male seed would give the demon power and the ability to exist without a human host.

Fabien sighed and made for the Gate Tower Inn, easily identifiable with its commanding facade at the highest point of the Gap. “What are friends for?” He asked the wind aloud. “If not to turn up expectantly and shit all over you!”

*

Still pacing his room Ran gravitated back to the glass covered murder hole when he heard the front door bang as the wind snatched it. He viewed the apparition that entered the lounge bar without surprise, it seemed that it had come in summons to his dark mood.

The newcomer was preternaturally tall, betraying his Skarsdale origins, and the gauntness of the man emphasised it. The Calren farmers had gone, hurrying to beat the threatening weather. There were a dozen or so garrulous old timers in the taproom, playing dominos and hugging personal tankards kept behind the bar for them. In the lounge a half dozen local dignitaries drank at the bar and flirted with Doris as they decided on supper. To a man they stared openly at Fabien as he shook out his cloak unconcernedly.

Under the black cloak he wore an expensive black silk shirt and travel-worn black woollen trousers, bloused down over tall boots. A wide leather belt held a tiny crossbow, of the sort carried by some women when travelling; the little bolts for it were ranked along the belt in tidy groups.

Doris had come from behind the bar and was offering to take the cloak. Fabien refused and gathered it neatly back around himself. After a brief converse Doris ushered him to a chair close by the fire. Before he took a seat, Fabien glanced about the room, his eyes scanned the ceiling also and stopped, appearing to look directly into the hidden glass.

Above him Ran looked directly into that gaze, the glass panel would be invisible in the subdued light, recessed as it was among the beams, but Fabien nodded slightly, as if in greeting, then he sat, stretched out his long legs and fussed some more at his cloak to cover himself.

Ran sighed and murmured, “What are friends for, if not to turn up out of the blue and shit all over you?”

He had a bad feeling he had left it too late to follow his instincts and run from this place. Well even a thousand-year-old man can screw up.

*

The mad monk disturbed the Knight’s habitual caution.

The brown robed figure with blood shot, fanatical eyes and hands like talons gripping his staff had been standing at the crossroad on the Sunset Road, elevated above the light traffic on the stone basins offering water to the oxen and horses that pulled freight along the road.

“God is sleeping!” The monk had shouted at the drivers and those on foot, no one was paying attention to him, they had their heads down except to cast glances at the sky and the harsh weather that was coming.

“God is dreaming, and we are his dreams! God is mad!”

‘You got that right,’ the immortal Knight thought ironically. ‘God is barking mad; God is shithouse-rat mad!’

As if catching his thought the monk pointed his gnarled staff at the Knight. “But God will wake, and we will answer for our sins! All of us!”

Martin flipped a coin at the monk, the man ignored it and it plonked into the beast muddied water beneath his feet. “You cannot buy God’s forgiveness!” The monk shrieked at the passing Knight. “The world will die under fire and ice unless you atone!”

Martin glanced back, startled, even alarmed. But perhaps he had dozed, because there was no monk on the elaborate monument. But the words followed him as he left the main road and slowly climbed up the Connaught, his horse automatically following the switch backs.

“Well, even a thousand-year-old man can screw up!”

Martin heard Ran’s mocking words so clearly, he looked around for him even as his horse buckled beneath him with a scream. Jerking free of the stirrups he leapt and rolled clear as the heavy charger collapsed onto its side, the scream fading into choking gasps.

“Actually!” Martin spoke aloud to the memory of Ran. “The longer we stick around the more opportunities we have to not just screw up, but to really, royally, screw up!”

On the third roll he came up to a crouch, sabre in his left hand and dagger in the right. His horse was unmistakably breathing its last now over on the road to his left, his rolls had taken him away from the rough scrub at the side of the road where he judged the attack had come from and onto the rocky side by the reduced river.

“Drop the sword, pretty boy, or you get the next one!”

“Conversely,” Martin advised the invisible Ran. “Being around for a long time at least teaches us how to get out of the poo!”

The voice had been angry, upset even, confirming what he guessed even as the horse fell, he, not the horse, had been the target, poor dobbin had been the lusted after prize. “Which tells us,” Martin lectured Ran. “That yon Bushwhacker is not very skilled, so it is a crossbow he is probably armed with, it would take a skilled man with a longbow to bring down a big carrot chomper so fast. And note the effort in the voice? Mister bad man is re-cocking the crossbow!”

“I think not!” He called out loudly, wanting the bandit to look up from concentrating on reloading. He threw the dagger hard at the patch of gorse the voice had come from and sprinted after it. There was a satisfying thock and a yell, then he was leaping the bush, mister bandit was scrambling away, a half-cocked crossbow in his hands and an ugly Mark on his forehead where the hilt of the knife had hit. Martin landed astride the man, knocking him right down, one foot pinning the crossbow. He smiled pleasantly. “Aren’t those things just the very devil to cock while you are trying to hide?”

The man gaped, then grabbed for a knife at his belt.

“Ah, no!” Martin admonished mildly, saddened at such stupidity in a fellow human being. He tapped the point of the sabre on the man’s breast. The man drew the knife anyway, so Martin ran the point of his sword up the sternum, under the ribcage to the heart.

“Survival,” Martin addressed the air, speaking to both Ran and the departing foolish spirit. “Is so often about the decisions we make. I might have killed him anyway; these footpads are such a nuisance! But then again, I might not, I was always a sucker for a sob story.” He bent to retrieve his dagger.

“Bastard!” There was the unmistakable dull twang of a crossbow releasing and the whine of the bolt going over his head. Had he not bent the bolt would have nicely impacted between his shoulder blades.

Martin remained bent for a moment, the dagger in his hand. “Luck,” he admitted aloud. “Luck has a great deal to do with it.” Straightening he turned with dagger and sabre ready. It was a boy, a younger version of the bandit, he had stepped onto the crossbow stirrup and hauling at the cocking lever. “Now that is sad,” Martin observed. “A fine role model daddy bandit was, though one can take the view that at least this lad was taught a trade.” He watched critically as the boy struggled with the lever and sighed. Angling the sabre across his chest in the classic prelude to the sudden strike his instructor had called the whip. “Make your choice,” he told the boy.

*

About mid-afternoon the constant northern wind began to fade into serrated blusters and died. A few half-hearted gusts wafted from the east, the first tendrils of the assault about to hit Midtown.

Wendy urged her leggy Mare into a canter, the road began to cut back and forth as the slope steepened closer to the Gap, crossing the Connaught on solid looking bridges whose stones bore the stamp of the Empire. As they climbed higher toward the crest the eastern sky came into view. She appeared to be seeing all the way across Calren to the Eastern Moors, but knew those grey hills were actually piled clouds, both mare and woman scented the eastern gusts, the taste of snow filled their throats.

“We are going to catch it!” She carolled joyfully, her horse was fast and her great white cloak with its lamb’s wool lining streamed like a banner, the air was clean and clear, life was good and even the snowstorm she sensed could not dampen her spirit, she was free from disgrace and confinement and she would watch this storm through a window in Midtown while sipping mulled wine. She might even – she laughed, again, and it rippled along with her like a tambourine of golden bells – she might even stay at Ran’s place; provided he had finally learned to keep his hands to himself.

The mare caught it first and slowed to a cautious walk, a few moments later Wendy scented it also and shucked back her sleeves. Her slender arms were pale as marble, except for her right wrist, about it was clamped a seamless bracelet with a flat face four fingers wide, as she rode prepared for trouble the bracelet began to glow in shades of blue and green.

They rounded a curve in the road and found the horse. A big muscular stallion rigid in its last rictus of agony. The steel flukes of a crossbow jutted slightly from its chest.

The mare whiffled a mingle of grief and fear. Wendy looked over to a patch of bushes where the delicious scent of human death was as tangible as a rising cloud of smoke.

The horse had been stripped, she could scent a hot saddle somewhere close by, someone had cached the riding tackle close by, intending to collect it later, the robbers or the rider? She soothed the mind of the mare and urged it to move on. “With caution pretty one, there is a mystery here, but it is not ours to solve.”

The wind blew the aroma of a living human male to them as they left the scene, he was ahead of them on the road, and unless she missed her guess, he had recently been made horseless and might be looking to remedy that.

The strands of her hair began to separate from each other, ballooning her white mass into a crackling cloud, blue and green sparks dripped from it to crawl over the mane and tail of her horse. A few minutes later they spotted the figure ahead, he turned, hearing the hoof beats.

Wendy saw a tall human male with broad shoulders and chest and jet-black hair tied back into a short ponytail. He wore neutral coloured leather jacket and trousers, a long cavalry sabre slung at his waist; a pair of heavy saddlebags were tucked over one shoulder.

Martin saw a small young woman with billowing white hair and fragile features that made her seem barely into her adolescence. Her eyes were set wide apart and slanted, her thin lips were colourless, she looked like a young girl emerging from a wasting illness. She was pretty, but in a peculiar way, she stirred a faint instinctive feeling of unease. As she drew closer she smiled and her teeth were tiny, white, and pointed.

He raised his hand in both greeting and caution, his left hand on the hilt of his sabre, he noted the sparks in her hair and the glow at her wrist. The sleeve of his raised hand fell back to show a bracelet similar to hers, but it shone red, a dull red like the last ember in the fire.

“Tethys!” He both greeted and challenged.

“Mars, I know thee!” She called back with voice that both thrilled and horrified, enticed and warned.

She rode up to him and sat looking down at him with mischief in her eyes, close up they were green with cat like black pupils, she licked her lips, the tongue too was pale, bloodless.

“Hello, soldier boy, you seem to be going my way, want a ride?”

She stretched out her left arm, Martin gripped her wrist with his left, felt the steel in her little fingers as he leapt, she hauled him effortlessly over onto the back of the saddle free horse, her crackling hair filled his senses, clung to his face and hair, the heady aroma of it made him giddy, tired. Carefully he smoothed it down and coiled it into the hood of her cloak, keeping his motions slow and deliberate, struggling with the drowsiness. When he had finished, she turned her head to look at him, her neck twisting impossibly far so that she faced him eye to eye, he met the gaze, felt his soul being drawn deep into the green depths.

“See something you like, soldier?” She whispered. Her breath was spring rain on pine trees, her voice the croon of a lullaby.

“I don’t taste good,” he told her flatly. “And I suppose our meeting like this is too much of a coincidence?”

Her white eyebrows were almost invisible against her marble skin, but he saw them rise. “Coincidence! You have been spending too much time with humans, my Prince of Mars!”

“I am human,” he reminded her.

She laughed. “You look like one of them, it is true, but my mother danced with your father.”

She turned back to face forward with a flick that caused the coiled hair to escape the hood and lie like a dangerous snake in his lap, it moved with a goose bump summoning motion against him, he carefully gathered it back into the hood. “I have so missed those vague little Islander bits of nonsense. My father was a King, and your mother was a whore who bedded every sailor drunk enough to fall victim to her doubtful charms!”

Her laugh tinkled up into the cold air. “So, no one is perfect!” she slipped her mind into the mare’s and urged it on with a promise of a warm bed for the night and food, the mare complained about the extra weight but calmed when promised it would not be for long. The response caused Wendy to throw her head back and her high laughter echoed about the mountains.

“I don’t suppose you would care to share it?” Martin grumbled, reluctantly slipping his arms about her waist and trying to concentrate on something other than her lithe body.

“My mare thinks you a poor excuse for a stallion!” She giggled. “She wants to know how you are to please me if you cannot even walk on your own feet!” She writhed deliberately and the movement transmitted to Martin through his arms about her and his legs against her, he closed his eyes and concentrated on recalling all he had ever learned about the design and construction of crossbows.

*

Fabien was surprised Doris did not recognise him, it had been years, true, but surely not that many. She was still a handsome woman, when she brought him a bowl of thick herb stew and a slab of the black rock that passed for bread in Midtown, she returned his gaze with a thoughtful stare of her own, then gathered her shawl about herself, shivering despite the close proximity of the fire, she retreated back behind the bar.

The other customers continued to cast him uneasy looks, even in a town which existed to cater for strangers Fabien cast a haunting and uneasy shadow.

He forced himself to eat slowly, pausing to soak the iron hard wayfarer bread and nibble chunks off it. They baked it hard for the Waggoner’s so that it would last for days in all weathers, but eating it was a jaw aching experience, with little in the way of taste for compensation. But it was cheap.

His eyes traced the old stones around the fire, the unmistakable work of Empire artisans, around it the poorer work of modern masons, the rough-cut stones, crumbling mortar and shoddy pointing. He wondered what had happened to the gate, from the hinge scars still visible in the walls it must have been massive, they would have used bronze or iron, as much as eighteen inches thick, some scholars now scoffed at that, claiming no foundry could turn out such work. Scholars who had never journeyed to the great iron castle of Aaral Mar in the far north, or down the Great North Road past the borders of Calren. Most indeed fared no further that their university grounds.

It was his fascination with the architecture of the Empire that started his history studies, his dissatisfaction with the works available that set him wandering to see for himself. But the more he learned the more he thirsted to learn. He joined the University of Ka-Vane at sixteen and forgot to eat and sleep in its great library, spurred by references he journeyed to the other libraries, all of them remnants of those that existed in the days of the Empire. And he began to follow the trace of a new fascination, something far less tangible than the stone of the Empire.

Magic.

At eighteen he wrote a thesis on the architecture of the Empire that earned him a research scholarship. A year later he compiled his work into a book that was still the standard text on the Empire. He went on expeditions to remote Empire outposts and wrote more books about architecture and building techniques, he became the recognised expert on Empire buildings, but once he started to lead his own expeditions he returned to his true fascination.

But as his success increased so did his disillusion. Empire magic was not magic at all. He made that final conclusion in the Bonridden Glacier excavation. Magic in the Empire was as real as fire and tools in the modern world, there was nothing mysterious and god-like about it. His discovery dismayed him, Empire Magic, Old Magic as it was known in this age, was a thing of artefacts, of powers bound up in tangible objects. The power was strange, inexplicable, but that was only because they had lost the knowledge now, there was no magic, no more than there was in the lighting of a match. He had composed his denunciation of the myths.

His final book was never published, the university disowned him. His new work was derided, he came to be regarded as an eccentric crackpot, he cared not at all, steeped in his own disillusion he resolved to explode the myth for all, if he were to lose his fond dreams then let everyone. He invested nearly all he had in an expedition to the Southern Continent, the lost heart of the old Empire.

Fabien looked into the flames, he felt the demon slide down to lie at his feet like a contented dog, basking in the heat.

Well, he had been warned. On that journey his fire had rekindled, his enthusiasm revitalised. Because it turned out there was magic, older than the Empire, an ancient magic the Empire knew of but with all their science and engineering could not explain. They knew of other races that used it, Wendy’s people, for instance, and remnants of an ancient people who ruled the land before the Ice.

He had found it.

Wendy, she had warned him, the ancient magic was not a tool to be analysed, collated, catalogued, filed, probed as he had done with the instruments of the old magic, it had its own motives.

And it had traps.

Doris brought him a small glass when she came to collect the stew bowl. Fabien accepted it hesitatingly, wondering if he had enough to cover it and the pauper’s meal. The liquor shone like dark gold in the light of the comforting fire, but when he raised it to his mouth the delicious heady scent of cherries filled his being. Gold cherries. On a warm afternoon he had sat in a garden in front of a white house, the orchard had been in front of him, trees laden with cherries the colour of gold. The sea had been sighing somewhere close by, the same sea that washed the beach where the sand was as gold as those cherries.

He raised his eyes, Doris was looking down at him, the pot still in her hands. “I did not recognise you, you have changed, Wizard.”

Fabien smiled at the old University nickname, but it was a bitter grimace. He sipped the cherry brandy and warmth flooded into every fibre. Islander Brandy, who would imagine Ran stocking such a treasure?

“It has been a while, Doris.”

“Seven years, but I think it has been longer for you,” she was looking at the lines engraved on his face, thinking how he had still been a young man seven years ago, younger than Ran by far, yet now he could pass for his father.

“Is he still here?” Fabien asked.

“He is!” Catching her tone Fabien held her eyes with that so penetrating and knowing look of his. She looked away. “It did not work out.”

“Ah,” he sounded sad.

“It tends to happen,” she heard her voice trembling. “When you take your second-best choice!” She dashed back to the kitchen.

“Make your choices,” Fabien murmured. He felt eyes upon him other than those of the patrons, he looked down and the demon was staring up at him with its red eyes, its fox face laughing silently.

He savoured the brandy very slowly, dreaming and dozing a little as he watched the fire consume the mix of iron logs and coal.

“It did not work out,” she had said. They should use it as an epitaph for all of them. Somehow all of their personal dreams had woven into a single quest down there on the Southern Continent. All of their hopes and ambitions manifested in one man, in Finyar, the immortal General of the Empire. They had followed him, fools all of them, not to realise they had a madman for a guide.

It did not work out. Not just for them, for all the lives they touched then or since, such as Doris. He drew back his cuff of black silk to stare at the armband; his eyes still saw the flames of the fire, superimposed on the blank face. Slowly they seemed to sink in, to coalesce into the depths, forming a ball of flame and terrible, paradoxical cold. The cold was echoed in his heart and the fire in his demon raddled mind.

“Oberon.”

Ran was sitting opposite him, looking away from him into the fire. Fabien did not know if either of them had actually spoken the word aloud.

Ran had changed little, still the thin wiry frame that helped make him such an excellent cat burglar. The ingenious little boy lost face that had the older women he used to enjoy preying on come running to him, perhaps they still did. His clothes were those of a Bandotash fop, an embroidered satin blouse and loose pantaloons, gathered at the calves with desert puttees, his small feet in canvas sailor boots.

Looking closer Fabien saw lines of care about the eyes and a hardness to the mouth. Ran no longer looked as though he could bring laughter to any gathering, the natural life and soul of any party.

“You are passing through?” Ran spoke to the fire.

“On my way to Calren. My horse died on me.”

“Careless of it,” Ran spoke tonelessly.

Anger flared in Fabien; it came easily since the demon. “We all made our choices!” He snapped, then frowned in puzzlement, why had he said that?

Ran started, the words seemed to echo loudly in the air between them. They were both aware that the afternoon drinkers had paused their own chatter, were listening.

Fabien struggled to cool the sudden anger. Once it had been like iron wood, slow to ignite and steady in the burn, now it was kindling, flaring violently to consume anything within reach.

Ran was looking back into the flames. “Damn you,” he said quietly.

“Too late,” Fabien sighed.

They sat in silence for a long time. Finally Ran spoke. “I’ll speak to Doris; you are likely to be stuck here now for a few days.” He stood up, hesitated as if he wanted to say more, then walked away.

A little later Doris brought him a metal key with a wooden tally bearing the number “3”. She refilled his glass and left the dark bottle on the table. She stood silent for a moment, following his gaze into the fire,

She was thinking of a campfire a lifetime ago, looking it as now and slowly realising her eyes had passed through it to one of the men sitting opposite, and he was looking back at her with such naked need and sorrow.

Fabien slipped a hand into hers without looking up and squeezed it, as if sharing her memories. “You are welcome here, Fabien,” she said it in the old way, the way he had told her about when she would sit enthralled to the tales of years long ago when the world was a kinder place. Ran had been there too, making her laugh despite herself with his own vulgar interjections to the soft-spoken tales Fabien regaled her with.

Fabien, working up to admitting he could not pay, relaxed, he was just thankful it was Doris, not Ran, that made him a guest, he did not mind being beholden to her.

*

By the time they reached the outskirts of Midtown the grey clouds had swallowed up half the sky and an early sooty evening was falling. Martin was dozing as only an old cavalry man can on horseback, though he had never had such a comfortable pillow as Wendy before.

He woke reluctantly when she reigned in, it seemed long weeks since he last slept properly. Realising where they were he slid off the horse, politely helped Wendy down, she graciously making it appear she needed such a service.

Wendy looked at the mare, the mare looked back. The horse and tackle vanished. In its place a white rat with a tiny leather collar about its neck. Wendy bent and the rat hopped onto her palm, she fed it pieces of dried meat and seeds with the other hand, clucking and cooing at it.

When it was replete the rat briefly washed its whiskers and scampered up the sleeve of her robe.

“You would think it would at least need to eat as much as a jolly old horse!” Martin observed.

“Now you sound like Fabien,” she chided, she mimicked the scholar’s deep resonant timber perfectly. “The laws of the Conservation of energy tell us the two beasts should at the very least weigh the same!” She even caught the plaintive note Fabien adopted when faced with something he could not explain away, Martin laughed.

Wendy patted his cheek with her little doll hand. “It’s magic, soldier boy, and you cannot expect magic to follow any rules but its own!”

Since she had spoken his name it was no great surprise to either of them when they entered the Inn and saw the scholar sitting in deep thought in shadows by the fire, a bottle of his favourite cherry brandy close to hand.

*

Diana rode up from the Calren side of the Gap.

The slope was gentler than the west and there was no Connaught River to complicate things. The East Road climbed in long lazy loops. Way stations were spotted here and there to rest animals hauling up the heavily laden wagons. Most of them were run by the conglomerates who kept relief teams stabled in them to get their produce to Market as fast as possible.

Most were now closing in preparation for winter, using the returning empty carts to ship out all the contents. Masons were already bricking up the doors and windows, Carlen’s wanted no lost and freezing travellers squatting rent free.

Her horse plodded steadily, Diana resisting the urge to try and outrace the storm; the beast was built for endurance, not speed.

With Diana for a rider that was a must.

In her bare feet she stood a head above most tall men and massed twice as much, all of it muscle. Diana preferred her hair short, but a professional gladiator has to pander to the crowds, her blazing gold hair fell in a shock of curls to her shoulders, she wore a beaten gold band to prevent it falling across her face. The gold was not vanity, gold did not tarnish and discolour her hair, she spent most of her life on the road between events and it had to withstand the rain. It had also become something of a trademark and gimmick in the arena, “Who can seize the golden ring?”

There was a time she had tried to hide her unique stature, even disguising herself as a man, she still kept a wolf skin coat and made a passable Skarsdale in it when the mood stirred her. But these days Diana was well enough known that she preferred to advertise, there were lucrative little side jobs to be had on her travels.

She had ridden across Calren after competing in the Moorland Autumn Equinox games and was dressed as much to shock the staid Carlen’s as in any hope of being hired to escort some wealthy merchant. A short leather bodice left a lot of flesh bare and barely contained the heavy breasts which men noticed first about her, usually because they were at eye level and about a foot closer than the rest of Diana.

The matching leather skirt fell modestly to her fur lined boot tops, but was slashed scandalously high to make riding easier, and show off long muscle sculpted legs. A short cape known as a twister in the gladiator trade, made a valiant effort to cover her Herculean shoulders.

The saddle kit was tailor-made and hung with the tools of her trade. Pride of place was a great Skarsdale war axe, but looped securely into straps were also swords, ranging from the short Gladius to a two-handed broad sword. There was a short horn saddle bow and a huge Long Bow, a crossbow inlaid with silver and mother of pearl. Her weapons ranged from a device as simple as a slingshot to a gleaming construct of chain and steel, an antique Moorland siege breaker.

Diana looked back east as a loop in the road gave her a clear view across central Calren. The sky looked as solid as the ground and all colour had been leached out so that for a dizzying moment she seemed to be looking down into a great chasm.

Unless it blew on over to fall as rain on the kingdoms there was going to be one bitch of a snowstorm, it would be just her luck to be stranded at Midtown this early in the winter, later the less than idle rich would be hiring guides with handsome bonus’ for experienced troll hunters. Diana giggled, it was a very girly giggle for such an Amazon and always startled people. Oh yes there was good scratch to be had taking the terrified sons of Dukes troll hunting.

She did not spend long on the view, she had passed a number of wagons heading down, many full of crews celebrating their end of season bonuses, some would be looking to supplement it by preying off others. To the more stupid she might just look like a woman alone and easy meat.

Perhaps she should stop and change, right now that wolf skin would be welcome for both warmth and to guard against unwanted attention. The hell with it, if she made it to Midtown before the storm broke she might still be able to push on to Border Town this side of the Gathering Festival Games preliminaries.

The Gathering Festival did not pay much, they were mainly demonstrations of weapons and athletic skills, but the big companies would be there, particularly the Weapon Dukes, sponsorships were to be had for the winter games, and gold medallists in winter could name their own terms in the spring spectaculars.

Next year, next year she would make it big.

Diana carried only one weapon on her actual person, a pair of leather greaves on her forearms. They appeared to be studded, but a closer inspection showed each stud was in fact a razor-sharp tooth, in skilled hands the greaves could become buzz saws. She had bought them two years ago after seeing a condemned man kill two bear dogs in the arena, armed with nothing else.

Diana appreciated anything that could kill bear dogs.

By the time she reached the crest the clouds had arched over to bring an early evening, they were so low that she felt if she stood up in the stirrups, she might touch them. But so far not so much as a single flake had fallen and she began to hope she might make it down to Border Town yet.

Midtown was visible as a collection of lights; she wondered if that obnoxious son of a gnome Ran was still at the Gate Tower. She had been working there as a maid-come-stable-hand, come god-dam-slave, when Ran bought the place, and seemed to think he had bought her too. Ran, the runt, had lusted after her from day one. Ran enjoyed unusual women, and challenges. Diana would represent a challenge to a tall man, to a midget she was a giantess. Between his lechery and Doris’ jealousy her life had been made even more of a misery than it had been under the old harridan who used to run the place. Ran did not even seem to mind when she resorted to violence to keep him off her. The only good thing you could say about him was he never held a grudge.

Then one night, drunk as a lord, he had given her a bracelet. He had been at the bar, she had been cleaning the floors, but he had her stop and sit by him. They had been alone, Doris was in Border Town buying supplies, the last customers had fled from Ran’s self-pitying ramblings, Diana had been a captive audience.

She had turned the bracelet over in her hands, it was beautiful, seamless, apart from the hinge, no apparent catch. Polished to a black mirror but when you looked closely strange lights like stars glowed deep within it.

“Put it on,” he urged her. “If you want that is. Do, or do not. The choice is yours.”

She hesitated, despite his inebriation he seemed very intent, she suspected he was up to something more than to try and bribe his way into her bed. But Diana had had too little in life not to accept a gift, she made to put it on her left wrist but Ran tapped her right wordlessly and she settled it there. The bracelet snapped home to form a perfect circle, then it seemed to shrink to fit her wrist perfectly.

“Magic!” She thought in panic. “The bastard has put a spell on me to make me his slave!”

She was plunged into darkness, for a moment it was total, and she floated through it in sheer terror. There was no sense of anything, she was not aware of anything touching her, she did not seem to be sat on the stool anymore, there was no sound. Nothing.

Then she cried out because a billion lights exploded around her, stars. More stars than she had ever seen at night, even in the clear skies of the Conaught Gap. These stars did not twinkle, they glowed with a hard light, and all the colours of the rainbow.

“Make your choice.” The voice was not Ran’s, this voice was deep with inhuman harmonics.

“What am I choosing?”

The stars whirled about her for answer. She was to choose one of them.

“Suppose I choose nothing?” She demanded.

“That choice has already been made.” Again, that deep timbered voice.

“I don’t know what I am choosing!” She cried out. But that was not true. Though there were millions of stars some of them were calling to her seductively, promising...

Promising something for which there were no words, only a tug at needs deep within her. Power, an end to grief and sorrow. Revenge. Revenge against those who harmed her. Revenge, hate. Power over evil men.

One call was growing over the others, she looked toward it and it rushed toward her, the song encompassing her. The star grew into a sphere, but its glow faded so that became a glorious pearl glowing before her, a pearl strangely mottled, etched with shadows.

“Luna!” The voice intoned thunderously. “Queen of madness, ruler of women, huntress of the night, mistress of wolves.”

And the voice then spoke again, but this time the echoes were clear, the voices of others joined into one. “Welcome sister!”

The darkness shrank, the world and the stars rushed away, a border appeared, the world of the lounge bar. She was back, looking down at the armband. Amid the tiny points within it was one milky bright sphere dominated, shining in the darkness.

She looked up at Ran. “What have you done?” She whispered.

“Not me!” He denied. But he looked ashamed. “Your choice!”

Diana turned off the main road at the edge of town, heading for the deserted warehouses. She knew the service roads all arced away and then re-joined the road at the other side of town, this way she avoided meeting anyone, she had no friends in Midtown, no one she would be pleased to meet, they would just be a reminder of a life she wanted to forget.

She turned between two flat roofed single storey structures and her horse stopped with a startled snort.

The shadows were deep between the buildings, but it was not yet truly night, a grey corpse light filtered down. There was a small shape on the ground and the horse had halted rather than step over it.

Shock keen as a sudden drenching rushed over Diana and then into her, she felt her bowels loosen. It was a doll. A poorly made doll, crudely stitched from slave rags and stuffed with a girl’s hair. A happy face had been painted on with the juice of crushed berries.

In the poor light eyes played tricks on her, the doll seemed to sit up.

Warm urine filled her cotton pants and flowed down her leg. The doll really had sat up. The painted mouth twisted, it emitted a shrill cry, a young girl’s cry. “I can’t run anymore, truly I can’t!” The voice was filled with terror and exhaustion.

Diana’s breast heaved as she drew in a ragged breath to scream. The scream echoed off every building in Midtown, she heard it, people would be running to her. But she had not screamed, not really, she only heard it in her mind, all which came out of her mouth was a hoarse croak.

“Diana!” the doll shrieked. “Diana, help me!”

She could not draw another breath, her heart was labouring on the point of bursting, her lungs had collapsed.

Mad giggles sounded above her, echoing and re-echoing between the buildings. She looked up and the roofs were lined with rag dolls, hundreds of them, all pointing down at her and laughing. Then the one on the ground started to bark, a child’s imitation of a dog. “Woof, woof!” The other dolls started to bark too, but now they did not sound like children, the barks were deep, savage, they sounded like bear dogs hot on the trail of escaped slaves, homing in for the kill.

The sky wheeled about her and she fell hard from the great horse.

Chapter Two - The Gathering

Large flakes of snow began to drift onto the town. Children ran whooping through the streets, already planning the next day’s activities: snowmen, sledding, snowball fights.

Adults toured their homes and businesses, winter rarely came gently to the Connaught Gap, the wind was apt to shift suddenly back to the north and whip up days of blizzards. Even the relatively gentle easterlies could dump such quantities of snow that Midtown would be isolated for weeks at a time, though that was rare this early in the season.

Doris checked the stables in the courtyard they used as a wagon park. In summer storms, when the roads flooded, the independent Wagoner’s would reluctantly pay to lodge their horses and sit out the storms under their own wagons, rather than pay out room rental for themselves.

Now the only occupants of the stables were the Inn’s own two horses, snugged down for the night, safe from the probable premature winter storm. Walking to the rear of the Inn, through the now fallow vegetable and herb gardens, she checked the doors on the outhouses, the largest of which housed the high sided cart and the sleigh, occasionally deliveries failed, and they had to make their own stock runs, particularly in winter.

She entered Ran’s room without knocking, found him lying on his bed, fingers laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling. For a wonder he was not drunk. “It’s snowing.” She told him.

“Wow,” he responded tonelessly. “Must notify the world, shock horror, it’s snowing in the Connaught Gap! Whatever next?”

“We’ll be busy tonight,” she persisted. Ran did not respond, it was true enough, the tap room would fill with old timers predicting the coming winter and mulling over the ones they had known, the lounge would do a roaring trade with the local businessmen bringing in their wives to boast to each other how well they had done this year. In Midtown the first snowfall always signified the end of the financial year.

“Martin is here.”

Ran did not react.

“There is a woman of sorts with him, I think it’s the one you and Fabien used to talk about, the one from the South.”

“Small,” Ran sighed, looking at the ceiling rather than her. “Long white hair?”

“What does it mean, Ran? Have you arranged this, are you going away again?”

Ran did not answer. Doris made an explosive sound of impatience and slammed the door on the way out.

Martin asked her for two rooms and she gave him four and five, not bothering to ask how long they would stop, the Inn had twenty rooms, and four large suites, they would be lucky normally to rent any this side of mid-winter, then they would be cramming them in three and four to a room and their servants would sleep in the stables. The Knight paid in advance, saying he would probably leave very early.

“You are looking well, Doris,” Martin told her gravely. “Is your cooking still up to standard?” He gave her a small grin she could not help but echo.

“The chef banned me from the kitchen!” She joked, recalling her first attempt to cook for them, over an open fire with hard rations, she had damn near poisoned the lot of them. “I’ll get the apprentice chef to fix something for you, it will be scratch I am afraid, the kitchen does not open for another couple of hours yet, the chef is not here.” She indicated a table close to Fabien. Despite the proximity to the fire the scholar sat alone still, the half dozen people already at the bar had felt chill draughts and gravitated away.

Fabien watched Martin and Wendy approach with dread, particularly Wendy. The demon was already aware of her, it had scrambled back onto his shoulders as soon as she entered the Inn and was now pulling faces at her.

But though she searched his face closely as they sat close by, she gave no sign of being able to see the creature. “You look ill, Fabien.”

“You look beautiful as always,” he replied, thinking how ironic it was she should appear, when he had the taste of cherries in his mouth and the trailing wisps of the memory of an orchard. He held out his left hand to Martin and the eternal soldier shook it with his. 

“Thanks, old boy,” Martin grinned. “Actually, I was thinking Wendy looks okay, but you are right, I am gorgeous.”

Fabien could not help but grin. “Up yours, horse boy, what brings you here?”

Martin unclipped his sabre and put it beneath his chair, hooking the strap over one ankle. “I was heading for Trogarth, but my horse met with an accident and I had to hitch a lift.”

“Seems to be catching,” Fabien noted. “Horses dying around here. But I missed out on the getting rescued by an exotic maiden bit.”

Wendy pouted. “I cannot be everywhere, so many men in distress, so little of me.” Fabien looked at her. “So, you did not… Uh,” he made a vague gesture.

“I would never dream of ‘uhing’ anything!” Wendy retorted, pretending to appear shocked. “And by the way, I also did not summon you.”

“It is a coincidence?” Martin asked doubtfully. “You, me, Fabien, and this is Ran’s jolly old gaff, seems a bit odd.”

Wendy looked heavenwards. “That word again, I never said it was a coincidence, I just said I did not summon you.”

Martin winked at Fabien. “She is doing that thing again!”

“What thing?” She demanded.

“Annoying!” Both men chorused together. The other patrons stared as the three dissolved into laughter. Fabien got himself under control reluctantly, oh but it felt good to laugh again, he felt the demon’s enraged confusion.

Wendy gathered herself. “You humans! We Islanders have manners, we would never dream of volunteering information not specifically asked for.”

“But we are thick,” Martin explained. “You have to allow for that and just tell us.”

“Okay. Sol summoned us.”

Glass rattled briefly as Fabien refilled his glass. “Finyar,” he snarled. “Just great!”

Wendy looked to the heavens again. “I said Sol.”

“Sol is Finyar,” Martin asserted. “The First.”

“Don’t pull that Empire bullshit on me again!” Fabien snapped. “Finyar is as mad as a mouse setting up house in a cat sanctuary and I for one am not attending the housewarming!”

Martin emptied the glass of wine he had been warming himself with while waiting for Doris and filled the glass from Fabien’s bottle, pausing to savour the aroma, his eyes glittered with anger at the insult to his former commander. “So, writing another book, professor? What is it this time? Great metaphors I dazzled the world with?”

“What exactly did your horse die of Martin? Boredom at your moronic conversation ability or stabbed by your razor wit?”

Martin’s knee jerked, the strap at his ankle whipped the sabre into his hand and the blade hissed free of the scabbard in one smooth move as Martin kicked back his chair and flowed to his feet. The tip of the blade was at Fabien’s throat at the very same split second Fabien’s miniature crossbow pressed into Martin’s groin. Both men glared at each other, the Inn had gone dead silent.

“Why boys!” Wendy drawled, not in the least concerned. “No need to fight over me, plenty to go around!”

The demon was yammering in Fabien’s brain, driving out rational thought, filling him with the desire, the need, to kill, to pull the trigger and drive the bolt into the soldier. He swallowed hard and felt his Adam’s apple kiss the razor-sharp steel of the sabre. Steel held as still as if Martin were a statue.

Wendy was on her feet, she touched her fingers to the flat of the sabre and pushed it away, her strong hands were now on Fabien’s shoulders, turning him toward her. Her lips quirked and she glanced down.

“Is that a crossbow or are you just pleased to see me?” She murmured.

Fabien gaped, looked down and saw his crossbow had moved with him and was now pointing at her groin.

The demon’s greedy howls suddenly stopped in confusion, tears streamed down his cheeks as he began to laugh helplessly, easing the spring on the crossbow trigger carefully. Martin sheathed his sabre with that stylistic gesture that was as much a part of him as a sneeze. He felt his hand shaking slightly, what had come over him to react to such a harmless insult? He had borne far worse from the ill-tempered scholar in the past.

“Okay, okay!” Wendy declaimed in a petulant tone. “If you won’t fight for me how, about tossing a coin?”

Martin started to laugh with Fabien, the other customers turned to each other, grumbling about stupid foreigners and their idiotic games.

The three sat back down, Wendy saw that Fabien collected himself quickly, but Martin was going slightly grey with shock. She had sensed something was wrong with the soldier the moment she had met him on the road, but had put it down to the fight he had obviously been in, but now she realised he was exhausted in mind and spirit, what on earth could have worn down such an indomitable soul?

The back of her head itched, she scratched it, the itch stayed. She looked around, careful not to turn too far and frighten the humans at the bar. A boy had entered the Inn and was standing uncertainly in the doorway to the lounge.

“Oh my!” She breathed.

*

Valletta arrived at Midtown in a vile temper. She had been on her way home to Glenn Farland in Moorland from Tac Bakance. Originally, she had intended to head across through Skarsdale, but as she headed south, she had decided to on a whim to carry on and cut east through the Gap instead, reasoning there was less chance of hitting an early snowstorm that way.

She was still several hours from the crest when the clouds came boiling through the Gap and spreading out into the kingdoms. Halting the fast horse she considered the clouds, there was a lot of snow in there, the gap was going to shut soon and stay that way for a while after, time to cut her losses and switch back to Plan A.

It was only when she put her back to the Gap and urged her horse back toward the Sunset Road that she actually felt the Summons that had been drawing her unknowingly.

“Son of a bitch!” She screamed in fury, startling buzzards up from a dead horse nearby. She cast her mind inwards, ruthlessly barging through her own psyche to find it, subtle, placed weeks ago, and behind it a yellow sun.

“Finyar!” She howled to the mountains. “Finyar, you sorry arsehole, I’m gonna tear you a new one!” She sat motionless as her cry bounced off the mountain face nearest her. It would be getting dark by the time she could reach Ran’s place and that would end the Summons, but if she tried to ignore it the bloody thing would nag and trick her into somehow coming back. It would not stop until she either turned up or Finyar cancelled it, and he had shown himself a very persistent man in the past.

Some more buzzards had settled close by, in the bushes, squawking and arguing over something. As she watched one of them tugged a human hand briefly into view. “Party animal!” She cheered. “Chow down on that sucker, sister!” Reaching down she unclipped the rapier from her saddle harness and transferred it to the chain belt at her waist. She was wearing a one-piece doeskin suit, very supple. Matching boots were turned down to show snow leopard fur and the hilts of two sheathed stilettos. She travelled light, her horse un-laden, she had not planned to do any camping on the way home.

“Stay right there!” She told the buzzards. “Momma is going to get you some desert!” She urged the sprinter on up the road.

She slowed the horse to a walk on the outskirts of the town as a bunch of kids went whooping along the road, peering through the gloom to get her bearings she heard the clopping of heavy hooves and goggled at the apparition that trotted into view from a side alley.

“Man, you are some serious chunk of dog food, baby!” She crooned at it. The beast halted and she kicked her own horse over and grabbed the reigns. “Whew, you looking for a war or what?” She admired the weaponry, frowned in puzzled recognition at the ancient Siege Breaker. Tugging the monster horse after her she set off back the way it had come, her curiosity piqued. The big horse seemed happy enough, even edged up to lead the way into the warehouse district.

Valletta drew her rapier, regretting her impulse as tall dark buildings crowded around her, this just reeked of ambush.

The body was a lump in the shadows, a big lump, just the right size for this walking arsenal. She raised her right arm, putting her wrist above her eyes so as not to dazzle herself. “Calypso!” She whispered.

Blue light scorched into the alley, she blinked, there could not be many women that size and it sure did look like the former drudge come rookie gladiator, apart from the long hair. “Shit, baby, you had a makeover or something?” She stepped her horse over to the girl. “Luna? Luna what you doing lying on your big fat arse in a dirty alley, girl?”

“It’s a career move,” Diana groaned. “I think I broke my arm, give me a hand up, will you?”

Valletta dimmed her light. “How are your legs?” She asked solicitously.

“Okay, I think.”

“Then get yourself up, you fat cow, you want me to rupture myself or something?”

*

The boy was much too young for the big sword he was carrying. His clothes were torn and battered Calren peasant garb, but the backpack and harness were beautifully tooled, though worn leather. The scabbard hung awkwardly, looking likely to trip him up. He had typical Calren black hair, but it was tousled and long, Carlen’s wore it short and neat normally. He looked frozen and starved and utterly wild. He blinked around the room, shivering, obviously looking for someone. Then he suddenly flew forward, propelled by a hard shove from behind he crashed to the floor in a welter of limbs and sword.

“You are in my way, farm boy!” Valletta roared as she strode into the lounge, rapier naked in her hand and gleaming wickedly in the lanterns and fire light. “Finyar!” She bellowed. “I need a new saddle, and your hide just volunteered! Front and centre you sorry shit, it’s butt carving time!” She pushed rudely through people at the bar, glaring into corners.

The boy scrambled up, backing away from the angry woman he bumped into Diana as she ducked in through the door. Diana shrieked as he collided with the arm she was cradling gingerly, and she smacked him with her good hand up the side of his head. The force of the blow sent him sprawling again, glassy eyed, he slotted nicely into the gap in the bar and fetched up against the shelves with an impressive and sustained crashing of bottles and glasses.

Valletta had spotted the trio at the fire and stumped on over. “Where is he?” She demanded loudly.

“Hi, Valletta,” Wendy greeted lightly. “Love the outfit, but the hair needs some work.”

Valletta automatically touched the tight bang of carefully tended blond hair and flushed as she realised what she was doing. “Shouldn’t you be sitting on a toadstool somewhere?” She snarled.

Moaning tragically Diana slipped into a free chair, it creaked in protest. “Hi gang, I hurt my arm, thanks for the sympathy, umm! Cherry brandy, thanks!” She made a grab for the bottle; Fabien was too late and Diana slurped a sizable proportion of the expensive liquor straight from the neck and banged the bottle back down with a singular lack of respect. Fabien hastily swept it out of her reach. Diana raised her voice. “Hey Anton, looking good honey, spots nearly cleared up, how’s the rash on your dick? There are two nags out in the yard, do what you do best and sort them out. Doris!” The amazon spotted the woman peering round the door. “Hey Doris, you put on weight, but don’t worry, it suits you!” She beamed around at the others.

“So, what’s new gang?”

Anton and Doris ejected the boy from behind the bar and Anton rather sulkily went to deal with the horses. Doris began sweeping up the mess, scowling at Diana.

Still unsteady on his feet the boy had spotted them and staggered over. “Hey, do you...?”

Valletta put her hand over his face without looking and shoved, he flipped over backwards, a chair went flying and a woman screamed as he crashed over a table where a small party had gathered to study the menu. Valletta planted her fists on the table, the rapier jutting from one like a steel exclamation Mark. “Okay, here it is I am here, I am pissed, and you guys just sit there, now I am getting these ‘I don’t care about Valletta’s delicate feelings’ vibes, and I just want to… Oh you know… KILL SOMEONE!” She howled the last words.

The boy had got back to his feet and was advancing again. “It's just I really need….”

Valletta whirled and kicked, her boot connected solidly between the boy’s legs, his eyes rolled up and he sank to his knees with a sound like a kettle boiling.

“And to cap it all!” Valletta raged to the Inn at large. “This smelly bloody peasant keeps trying to MOLEST me!” She slammed the hilt of the rapier onto the table and Fabien caught his bottle and glass as they jumped. “WHERE IS FINYAR?”

“Really do not know, old girl!” Martin told her mildly. “Sit down, Valletta, you are scaring the yokels, they do not know the real, sensitive, you, we know and love.”

Valletta sheathed the rapier and slumped into a chair. “Okay,” she grumped. “Service!” She called. “Food! Booze, entertainment! Hey, do they do really disgusting floor shows here? You know, girls, men, snakes?”

“Doubt it,” Martin replied. None of the three seemed in the least concerned at the woman’s ranting.

“Hell, thought this was Ran’s place, felt sure that horny runt would have porno shows going. Hey! Wench! Beer, now!”

Doris popped up from behind the bar where she had been scooping up broken glass, she looked furious, but apparently decided beer might shut up the garrulous Moorlander.

“Is that Doris?” Valletta asked in a mock sotto voice. “Is she waiting tables? Whoa! Bad career move, shagging the boss obviously does not help.”

“Behave,” Fabien groaned. “This is the best bar in town, believe me, you would not like the others!”

“Heeey, wizard man!” Valletta greeted, as if noticing him for the first time. “Got any good aphrodisiac spells? I know this rich old guy over in Krane, if I can just get him to get it up, I could Marry him and screw him to death and live the life of Riley as a merry widow.” She grinned as Fabien flushed.

The boy was crawling back toward Valletta, his face suffused with rage, he grabbed the edge of the table to pull himself up enough to face her. “You….”

At the other end of the table Diana slammed a huge fist down, the table leaped and cracked the boy under the chin, he went down senseless.

“Friend of yours?” Martin asked Valletta, indicating Diana.

“I know her, she fights for money, so she is okay in my book. Don’t you recognise her? She used to be a scruffy bint who swept floors here, Ran gave her a little nick-nack one day and she went off to seek her fortune.”

The others glanced automatically at the woman’s wrists, but the greaves covered them.

“Welcome sister,” Fabien said with very heavy irony.

“My arm hurts,” she responded.

Stony faced Doris put tankards of the local beer onto their table, stepping over the boy without comment.

“That is not enough! Bring some pitchers,” Valletta told her rudely. “And food, lots of food. Roast this farm boy if you are short of meat, just make sure you scrub him first!” She downed most of one tankard in one gobbling swallow, wiped foam off her mouth with a doeskin sleeve, put her feet up on the table and let forth such a loud, sustained, belch that she brought the bar to a stunned silence again.

“What?” She demanded, glaring back at the shocked locals. “It was not me, it was her!” She pointed at the diminutive Wendy.

“So, Valletta,” Fabien queried. “How is the job of ambassador going?”

“Not bad,” she shrugged. “You get a lot of dweebs kissing your butt and all the bribes you can spend.”

“She got expelled from Bandotash,” Diana confided, sipping her tankard, held delicately in her good hand.

Valletta, in the act of draining her tankard, choked. “That was your fault!” She accused, spraying beer and spit over the table. “Dancing on the tables at the official reception like that!”

Diana shrugged then winced. “Party needed livening up, is there a doctor in this berg? I think it might just be dislocated after all.”

“What about you?” Valletta demanded of Fabien. “You look like shit, what does a failed wizard do for a living anyway?”

Fabien’s flush darkened, the voice of the demon started to yammer in his mind again, he fought it down, recalling the scream of the horse as the demon attacked. “Studying,” he answered shortly, he diverted his attention to Wendy. “You are a long way from home, did Finyar drag you all the way up here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell, if you have plenty of time a Summons can be really subtle and hard to detect. I did not actually get back home until three years ago, took me that long to get up the nerve to try and patch things up.” She grimaced. “I had to do some serious grovelling, thanks for that, guys!”

“So unreasonable of us not to stay for dinner,” Martin noted archly. 

Wendy ignored him. “Anyway, I was on an errand for dad, part of my penance, when this storm blew up at sea and …. Yatter yatter yatter, you get the picture, here I am.”

Fabien watched her through half closed eyes, so far as he could tell that was the first time the Islander had ever lied. She was hopeless at it.

Doris arrived with a huge platter covered in what the Calrens call “Kutchi”, chicken cut up and prepared by deep frying in a variety of spiced batters and served with fried potatoes and sticks of vegetables and fruit, both raw and cooked. She placed it in the centre, but Valletta promptly pulled it to her and started in with both hands. “Great!” She mumbled through a mouthful. “What are you guys having?” She indignantly slapped Fabien’s hand when the still hungry scholar tried to claim a piece.

“Bring us what you have,” Martin told Doris, who was watching Valletta shovel in food with a horrid fascination. She nodded and headed back to the kitchen in a daze, Valletta threw a gnawed chicken bone at her back. “More beer!”

“So, no one has actually seen Finyar?” Martin ventured.

Blank looks all around. “Great,” Valletta mumbled. “Arsehole drags us up here and does not even bother to show up, wonder where the hell he is hiding?”

Wendy coughed delicately. “Perhaps if you stopped hitting that boy and asked him, Valletta? After all, he is wearing Finyar’s sword.”

There was a shuffling pause as they all peered under the table at the unconscious boy, they all noted the dirty bandage wrapped around his right wrist and straightened back up.

“Something tells me Finyar is not going to show,” Fabien noted.

“Who is Finyar?” Diana asked.

“Was, is now truer, I think,” Martin said with deep sadness. “He was the First, the general and champion of the Empire. And my friend.” His face hardened. “Excuse me.” Standing he hauled the unconscious boy out from under the table by the scruff of the neck and dragged him effortlessly outside.

“First of what?” Diana wondered aloud.

There was a long silence before Fabien answered shortly. “Us.”

*

Full darkness had fallen. A steady sheet of fat snowflakes fell vertically in the lights of the lanterns set around the Inn and stables. Already a light dusting had settled on the ground. The boy’s tough leather soles scraped as Martin dragged him across the courtyard to a stone water trough, a thin rind of ice had formed, and the snow had speckled it white and black.

Martin slammed the boy’s head down and the ice broke with a light tinkling and a swoosh of freezing black water.

The boy gurgled and struggled frantically; Martin held him firm for a few seconds then heaved him back up. The boy fell to his knees, vomiting water and struggling for breath. Martin put the flat of the sabre blade against the boy’s cheek, despite the cold of water freezing on his face he felt the deadly steel and focussed on Martin, keeping still apart from involuntary shudders.

“Finyar,” Martin said, his voice devoid of any emotion.

“Dead,” the boy replied, his teeth chattering. Martin detected the soft drawl of the Eastern Moors; he waited but the boy kept still and said nothing more. Martin approved, many would be reduced to gibbering incoherently, the boy blinked as snow pecked at his eyes.

“How. When?”

“Saturday, I think three weeks ago, been walking since, from Riverside.”

“How?” Martin repeated.

The boy’s shudders increased. “Demons, monsters. I don’t know, like vultures, but part men.”

Martin was watching the eyes, even in the gloom and the hypnotic swirl of falling snow he felt sure the boy was telling the truth. “Why are you here?” He moved the sabre to remind the boy it was there.

“Finyar sent me. He knew he was going to die, I was to speak to… to someone.”

Martin pondered, letting his gaze drift up from the shivering boy to look out into the night. He was thinking of rare snowbound nights in the country of his birth, of times of peace and calm, when as a boy he would build snowmen with his brothers and hunt deer with bows. He sighed so deep it was a groan. Was he to be denied his final rest?