Darksoul

Dom rubbed his face and paused as long as he dared, but Her instructions were quite clear. He rose to his feet and looked up at the farmer, still a head taller than him. He glanced behind: three more. ‘Rilpor’s doomed, my friend, and so is Rilporin. The Gods of Light are failing. There’s only the Blood now, blood spilt and blood sacrificed and blood in Her name. I go to join the Mireces, to pledge them my sword, my life, my everything. You’d be wise to do the same; it might spare your families when the time comes. Spare you sacrifice, or slavery. Gift them half your crops and they might let you live your lives without a collar around your neck.’

The farmer’s mouth was hanging open, his face red with disbelief and growing anger. There were curses from behind, muttered prayers for protection, a half-choked threat. The farmer strode around the fire and grabbed Dom by his rusty chainmail, jerking him forward on to his toes. ‘You fucking coward,’ he snarled. ‘You treacherous, weaselly, snivelling little shit. How can you say that? You’re a— Look at you, you’re dressed like a warrior. Gods alive, you’re one of them Wolf-folk, ain’t you? Sworn enemy of the fucking Raiders!’

‘Guilty as charged.’ Dom grinned. ‘Though my feet are on the Path and it is dark and bloody and glorious.’

‘Get out of my fucking fields, you scum,’ the farmer roared. ‘I should kill you here and now. I should—’

Dom’s knife took him under the chin, punching through his tongue and into the base of his brain with a wet crack. He fell without a sound and Dom ripped the knife free, his fingers clumsy from the wound, and spun to face the others. ‘My feet are on the Path,’ he bellowed, waving the red knife. ‘Come, come and stop me. Come and try.’ Part of it was a plea, but the rest was ravening bloodlust, rage and hate. He’d kill the world if She asked him to. He’d kill them all.

The three men clustered together exchanged identical, terrified looks and then fled, tools falling from their hands. They didn’t look back. Dom spat on the corpse and snatched up his sword. The rabbit was burnt on one side, raw on the other, but he took up the spit and wrapped it in a fold of his blanket. He stared into the flames for a long moment, in case anything looked back, but the Dancer was silent. She had nothing to say about the murder, nothing to say to him at all these days. Just as he liked it. He hawked and spat into the fire, set his back to the farmhouse and marched towards Rilporin.

‘My love,’ the Dark Lady purred in his ear, sending shivers down his spine. ‘My good, strong love. How pleased I am.’

It was the same dream he’d had every night since leaving Watchtown. Those Wolves too broken to carry the fight further, who’d elected to stay in the ruins and lay out the dead, corralled between the God of Blood and the Dark Lady, Dom forming the third point of the triangle imprisoning them. Wolves for Gosfath to play with. Dying in the god’s bloody embrace. Rotting from the outside in. Screaming from the inside out.

‘Stop,’ Dom screamed in his turn, as loud as he could, fists balled at his side. ‘Stop it. I’ll do it. I’ll do what you want. I’ll do everything you want.’ His heart thudded slowly in his chest, as though his blood was thick as tree sap. ‘Please, Lady. My feet …’ He paused and swallowed hard as another died writhing, blackening, melting. ‘My feet are on the Path.’ A broken whisper from a broken soul.

The Dark Lady raised one finger and Gosfath paused in his selection of further victims. At His feet eight men and women curled in on themselves in fetid death, their organs turning to mush and pus inside them even as they rattled their final breaths, outlines sloughing and melting into each other, a pool of decay. A pool of people.

‘What did you say?’ She asked in a voice of honey.

Dom stared at the surviving Wolves huddled together, hope warring with terror on their faces, then back at Her. Do it. Say it. It’s true anyway, has been true for months. And it might save the rest of them.

‘My feet are on the Path,’ he said, knowing the disgust and terror on the faces of the Wolves – his kin – would haunt him forever.

‘Yes,’ She whispered, ‘they are. So you should ask yourself what you owe these people, the enemies of the true faith. Ask yourself why you care what happens to them, the men and women who’ve spent centuries killing those whose feet walk the Path. People like you, my love.’

‘Nothing,’ he said, suddenly understanding, seeing the hate in their eyes for what it was. ‘I owe them nothing.’ It was like light dawning after the blackest of nights. All his final doubts, all his lingering care, washed away in the red-tinged light of Her, the promise of Her redemption. He looked at the Wolves again, at their dying hope. It tingled over his skin like feathers. ‘You need me to go to Rilporin, my love. I will go. Now.’

The Dark Lady put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And these?’ She asked.

Dom bit the raw flesh of his right wrist as he studied the half-dozen surviving Wolves. Her glory was a fire that burnt and he exalted in the pain. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. ‘They’re yours.’

The Dark Lady’s smile was radiant and warmed Dom’s belly. ‘There he is,’ She whispered. ‘There’s my true believer. My calestar. My Godblind.’ Dom bowed to Her and to Holy Gosfath, and he walked away.

Behind him, the screams began again.

He woke with a jolt, as he always did at that part of the dream – don’t lie, it’s a memory, not a dream – and the sky was still black, glittering with stars like the hangman’s eyes through his hood. The screams rang at the edge of his hearing: his people dying.

Not my people. Nothing to do with me. Past is dead. Past doesn’t matter. My life is Hers, my love is Hers. All else is ruin. There is only the Path, and Her at the end of it. I will not walk that Path.

I will run it.

‘I’m coming, my love,’ he said and the endless, burrowing, worming itching in his arm faded and he was left with just the pain of it, the slow-flowing blood and the great scabby holes he’d chewed in his flesh in a desperate attempt to find the source of the itch. He grinned, waited, and then laughed. It was gone.

Dom leapt to his feet, abandoning the half-cooked rabbit carcass, and snatched up his blanket. ‘My feet are on the Path,’ he crowed, capering in the dark, ‘and my arm doesn’t bloody itch!’

The Dark Lady’s laughter drifted on the breeze, teasing, taunting him with flashes of different images this time, of Wolves drowning, dying in the dark. Rillirin was one of them, the slave destined to save or destroy them all. She was wrapped in another man’s arms as the water flooded over their faces. He could see her screaming.

He laughed again, rolled the blanket, and broke into a steady run. Rilporin was close now. So close. And so was She.

DURDIL (#ulink_44572996-e404-57e9-bd6d-b7d7d6abbeab)

Fourth moon, evening, day twenty-eight of the siege

War room, the palace, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

A muscle flexed in Durdil’s jaw. Lorca and Silais had acted behind his back and called a series of emergency councils, and now they presented him with their decision at a meeting he’d expected to be routine. A decision signed, sealed, and utterly fucking ridiculous.

Maybe I should’ve met them when they insisted on it. I might have been able to stave this off for a while longer.

He stared at the paper in front of him until his eyes watered, letting the thunderous silence build until it felt like the pressure in the room would blow out the expensive windows. The councillors, who had been sitting in smug, self-satisfied silence around the table, began to fidget, then to exchange glances, then gulp at their wine. In the corner, Questrel Chamberlain simpered, oblivious to Durdil’s towering rage, or perhaps just untroubled by it.

‘Gentlemen, Rilporin stands firm and the walls are yet intact. While the loss of the king is a huge blow, it is one we can – we are – surviving. Besides which, the enemy will have eyes on the King Gate, as they are watching all the city’s exits; any attempt to evacuate the populace will be seen and countered swiftly. It is far too dangerous to move thousands of people; they’ll be slaughtered on the road. Rilporin is the safest place for them.’

Someone coughed to cover a laugh. ‘You misunderstand,’ Lord Lorca said, his tone affable and amused. ‘The people will stay, of course. There is nowhere else for them to go, after all and, as you say, no doubt your soldiers will triumph. But the, ah, the essence of Rilpor, the values and culture that makes our country what it is, that resides in its upper classes. We propose simply that those of appropriate position who wish it be allowed to leave Rilporin for less dangerous climes. I, for example, though my heart desires to stay and support the city, am prepared to undertake the dangerous journey to Listre and inform Tresh that he is now our king. I pledge to see him safe until such time as you have secured the country for his arrival.’

I bet you bloody do, Durdil thought bitterly. Set yourself up as his chief adviser, orchestrate the fall of your enemies within the council, and bag yourself a nice big stack of gold, eh? All under the guise of advising him, and all while sitting safe in another country!

‘I, too, will visit Tresh,’ Silais said, as Durdil had known he would. ‘Our new king must be protected. Must be … apprised of the state of his kingdom.’

‘You want to run away with your families and all your money while the rest of us fight,’ Durdil said in a voice devoid of all expression. ‘Fine, go. I’ll not stop you.’ A few hundred fewer weak-chinned idiots roaming the city can only be a help. And despite the identity of the messengers, Tresh does need to know he’s king.

Lorca’s smile was small and pained and he gave off an air of weary resignation at Durdil’s words. ‘We are pleased to hear it,’ he said. ‘Those who wish to go will assemble at East Tower tomorrow. Your force will be ready then, I presume?’

Durdil pursed his lips. ‘Force, my lord? What force would that be?’ His tone was polite – for now. He had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming next.

Lorca spread his hands and exchanged an amused glance with Silais. Hardoc of Pine Lock wore an expression he no doubt thought was stoic, when in reality he looked constipated. He’d ventured a small tut at Lorca’s suggestion they leave Rilporin. He was also wearing full armour. Ceremonial, naturally. No need to be silly and lug around real armour, but it did make him look so much more martial than the rest.

Durdil coughed into his hand to hide his smile. The Haddock had decided he was a warrior, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Durdil couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when he invited him up on to the wall to repel an assault. Still, at least he wouldn’t be fleeing the city, which meant Durdil could commandeer his household guards if he needed—

‘The Thousand to escort us in safety to Listre’s border, Commander,’ Lorca said, pulling Durdil’s attention back. ‘We cannot be expected to ride in state without sufficient protection.’ He exchanged another amused glance with Silais, their interests for once aligned. ‘There is a war on, after all.’

Durdil stared at Lorca in silence for a moment, trying to work out whether he was being mocked, and then he roared with laughter. He slapped the table and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

Lorca’s face reddened and his eyes narrowed until he snapped, ‘Enough, Commander. You will explain the meaning of this outburst.’

Durdil looked around the table at the affronted, pompous faces and the last dregs of his mirth drained away, along with the last reserves of that day’s energy. ‘You’re serious?’ he asked. ‘You think the city is going to fall and so you want to run away and save yourselves under guise of meeting Tresh – all right, I understand that. It’s a natural reaction. You want to take your families for the same reason; again, I understand. But you also want me to send a fifth of my defenders with you, further weakening the city’s defences and leaving the people staying behind without adequate protection?’

Durdil waited for a denial or a protest that he had misunderstood their request; none came. ‘No. No, my lords, there will be no armed force accompanying you. If you wish to go, then go; your household guard will have the job of keeping you alive, though by rights every one of them should be mine to aid in the defence. Not a single man of the Palace or South Ranks, or the City Watch, will accompany you. Their charge is the safety of this city, and the thousands of citizens within it. They will discharge that duty and no other.’

Lorca opened his mouth and Durdil held up his palm. ‘Let me be very clear,’ he said. ‘Without a king, heir or any single member of the royal family in residence in Rilporin, defence of this city, the country and the faith falls to me. You all agreed to suspend the ordinary governance of this city in return for martial law. You placed me in power, my lords, and I plan on discharging that duty to its fullest. And my duty is to preserve the lives of as many of our citizens as possible.’

Lorca made to interrupt again and so Durdil slammed his palm down on the table, the flat crack making them all jump. ‘No, my lords. If you would go, then do so and may the gods preserve you, but you will be going alone. If you elect to stay, then war-room discussions will be confined to military matters only. Now, if none of you have anything serious or pertinent to the defence of Rilporin to discuss, I have a wall to defend.’ He pushed up from the table.

Posturing, sycophantic, arrogant, pompous little—

The door burst open. ‘Commander, there’s a bridgehead on the allure between the gatehouse and Second Tower. Fierce fighting, sir; they’re pushing hard and throwing more men at the ladders. Easterners and Mireces both. Colonel Yarrow requests more men.’