The Chaoswar Saga: A Kingdom Besieged, A Crown Imperilled, Magician’s End

‘As good a name as any.’ He gazed out of the window, then said, ‘We are what is left of a very large organization that has been reduced to what you see here, a small band of desperate men and women. Let me indulge myself in a short history, if I may.

‘Three hundred years ago, a baker by the name of Shamo Kabek resided in a small town a day’s wagon ride from the City of Great Kesh. He and his two sons were plagued by a tax collector who had designs upon Shamo’s young wife. Despite appeals to all and sundry, the tax collector continued to make unwelcome advances. One day returning from the mill with his week’s flour, Shamo found the tax collector had assaulted his woman, in front of two very small and frightened boys.’

Sandreena frowned; this story was designed to appeal to a member of her Order, she knew, but what did it have to do with her current situation?

‘Shamo confronted the tax collector. He was Keshian Trueblood, Shamo was not. Shamo assaulted the man and was sentenced to carry out hard labour for twenty years.

‘As is common in such circumstances, he never lived long enough to regain his freedom, dying in a mining accident six years later. But he left behind two very angry little boys.’ The man paused and poured himself a flagon of wine. ‘When they were little more than boys, the two slipped into the tax collector’s house and cut his throat while he slept. Apparently someone else in the household awoke, for the next morning a city watchman found everyone in the house dead. The boys had been fast, efficient, and merciless. The tax collector’s wife, daughter, small son and three servants all paid the ultimate price for the tax collector’s uncontrollable lust.

‘Thus were the Nighthawks born.’

‘True?’ asked Sandreena.

‘True enough. There may be an embellishment or two. The boys may have ambushed the tax collector on the road and hit him over the head with a rock for all I know. But that is what we are taught when we pledge to the Brotherhood of Assassins.’

‘You’re Nighthawks?’

‘Nighthawks, yes. Black Caps as well. And we have several other names as well when it suits us. I am Nazir and my title is Grand Master, much as your Creegan is in your order.’

‘Rumour is you were wiped out some years back in northern Kesh.’

‘A rumour that suited our purposes.’ He sighed. ‘We were for nearly two hundred years a very small organization. While it may seem a great many people in the world need killing, in fact there are far fewer than you might think; and even more to the point, there are even fewer who are willing to pay for the service. But there are always enough that a handful of trained killers can make a decent living. For years we traded on our reputation and made a good living. When we were not out plying our trade, we lived in a small town in the North of Kesh, the name I will not share in case this discussion does not bear fruit. We had families; we trained our sons, and our daughters were permitted only to marry those young men we brought into the Brotherhood.

‘A hundred years ago that changed.’ He sighed as if it were a personal memory he was recounting, instead of lore. ‘What do you know of the Pantathians?’

Sandreena paused. She had eaten too fast and her stomach was starting to object. She sat back. ‘Little. A race of serpent men, had something to do with the Great Uprising of the Dark Brotherhood, something like that?’

‘Something like that,’ he said dryly. Sandreena could sense that something in this man was profoundly tired, almost defeated. He continued to look out of the window as he said, ‘They are an interesting people.’

‘Are? I was told they had been obliterated.’

‘Yes, you would hear that.’ He turned to face her. ‘The Pantathians were a created race, raised up from snakes by a being named Alma-Lodaka, of a race called in their tongue the Valheru. Our lore speaks of them as the Dragon Lords.’

Now he had her full attention, her meal forgotten. ‘Few know about these things.’

‘In the common population, yes,’ agreed Nazir. ‘But as in all such organizations, the Brotherhood of Assassins has a strong dedication to tradition.’ He sighed. ‘But that tradition was subverted, distorted, and eventually used to enslave us, as we became a cult of demon worshippers.’

‘Dahun,’ said Sandreena.

‘Yes,’ said Nazir with a smile. ‘You were there, when the gate was destroyed by the magician Pug and his … what do they call themselves? The Conclave? It is no matter. Many of us died, but there were others there as well.’

‘What does this have to do with the Pantathians?’

‘I’ll return to that in a moment. Those you call the Black Caps are those in the Brotherhood who eventually rejected the demon worship and tried to return to our old traditions.’

‘Tried?’

‘Demons and their servants do not brook betrayal with grace. We were not permitted to withdraw quietly from their company, and many of our brotherhood were true believers. In short, we became less trusted, less privy to the inner workings of Dahun’s servants’ plans, and we were watched. Moreover, we were forced to take into our ranks mercenaries with no bond to us whatever. In short, it was an unhappy circumstance.’

‘Not to sound indifferent to all this, but why is it of any import to me?’

‘Despite your belief in your goddess and her plan for you, I assume you would prefer to live, rather than the alternative?’

‘A fair assumption,’ said Sandreena. Between her unexpected healing magic and this meal, she felt ready to fight again if the need arose.

‘Then imagine how it was for those of us in the family to realize when we were children that our parents had bound us to serve a demon with our lives if need be. We were promised chieftaincies, eternal life, and …’ He waved his hand. ‘The usual demented nonsense.’

She said nothing.

‘Over the years, there were those of us who recognized in each other that same sense that we were trapped in madness. A group of us managed over time to create a separate brotherhood within the larger one, a brotherhood dedicated to one thing: survival.’

‘Why not just leave?’

‘Leave? Just walk away from our families and heritage?’ He chuckled. ‘A few did, those whose temperament was ill suited to our trade and practices. Most were relegated to support roles, as cooks, menial labour, and tradesmen: useful in many ways, especially as eyes and ears throughout the Empire and Kingdoms.

‘But at our heart we are family; even after the influx of those not related by blood we still felt a kinship, because despite our differing reasons for being in the Brotherhood, by birth or recruitment, we swore an oath.’

‘To Dahun?’

He shook his head. ‘Before Dahun. We swore an oath to one another.’

‘And those who tried to leave?’

‘Hunted down and executed.’

‘Hardly a familial act.’

‘Betrayal is the ultimate insult. And while you of the Shield of the Weak may be more kindly disposed towards those who elect to leave your ranks, not all templars are: the Hunters, the Arm of Vengeance?’ Those were the martial Orders of the temples of Guis-wa, the Red Jawed Hunter, and Kahooli, the God of Vengeance.’

She shrugged. Martial Orders of the temples often had their differences, sometimes ending in bloodshed. In ages past her own order had been involved in a years-long armed struggle with the Brotherhood of The Hammer, servants of the God of War, Tith-Onanka. ‘What am I to do with all of this? Why haven’t you just hit me over the head and dropped me over the side?’

‘There’s use for you yet, Sister Sandreena.’ He put his hands on the desk and stood up. ‘We have no wish to bring the temples down on us. Sparing you may gain us a slight advantage in the future. Chaos runs amok across the lands, and armies are on the march. We of the Brotherhood of Assassins not caught up in that madness seek less strife, not more. Moreover, even were we to find a tiny corner of the world in which to hide, a jot of land no one else wanted where we could reside in relative peace and comfort, it would be small consolation to us that we were the most peaceful, comfortable inhabitants of a world when it came to an end.’

‘End?’

He sighed, sat back and held up a finger, ‘And that brings me back to the Pantathians and to why we need you alive, and to the ultimate point of all this: I know why Dahun was trying to come to this world.’ He sighed. ‘And I need you, because there is something out there that terrified a Demon King, and we must eventually face it together.’

• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#ulink_0e78fc38-e142-5721-aba3-65724e0b97b3) •

Evacuation (#ulink_0e78fc38-e142-5721-aba3-65724e0b97b3)

MARTIN SHOUTED HIS COMMAND.

Every bowman on the walls fired down into the surging mass of Keshian soldiers storming the gate. For two days the gates had smouldered, as townsmen doused the back of them with water, slowing the burn, risking injury or death as the Keshians continued to hurl rocks at their target.

The second night Sergeant Ruther had quipped there probably wasn’t a rock left on the beach a man could carry.

When the gate gave way, it collapsed suddenly. Martin barely had time to order the retreat into the keep. The last three days had been unnerving. Martin had read histories of sieges, specifically the previous siege of Crydee by the Tsurani, but they had lacked the great siege engines Kesh employed.