The Path of Sorrow Read online

  10.

  Felipe longed to rest, to sink into a deep sleep undisturbed by dreams, but the Grand Master would not let him. Every night since he left the hut of the fisherman Nassur had been the same. Almost as soon as his eyes closed he would find himself alone on a blasted heath, and then Fulk would appear.

  The Grand Master’s staff, slender and twisted and carved out of some greasy dark wood, seemed to possess a malevolent intelligence of its own. Felipe had the uncomfortable feeling it was studying him, stripping away the outer layers of his personality to pick at the soul within.

  Fulk only ever spoke of one subject—Sorrow, and the pressing need to find him. He gave Felipe directions and advice and urged him to make haste.

  “The future of our land depends on it,” Fulk was fond of saying—the same words, over and over—until Felipe thought he would go mad. “You must find him. You must bring him to me. Find him. Find him.”

  In response Felipe would curse and swear and do his best to tear his hated master’s dream-body to pieces. Fulk’s body was like a wraith, an intangible mist the Templar’s sword passed through harmlessly. It seemed that nothing had any substance in the dream-world, except the staff.

  Five days and nights had passed since he left Nassur, and every night he had experienced this dream. Felipe was sick of it and knew no rest, for if he lay down and slept he knew he would find himself back on the lonely heath. He had taken to sleeping as little as possible, barely three or four hours a night, and spent his days in a kind of half-waking trance. The world around him became a vivid, narrow, disquieting place, and his exhausted mind conjured up all kinds of horrors and dangers lurking just on the edge of vision.

  Felipe trudged on, following the directions given him by Fulk in his dreams. His goal was the distant line of mountains, rising from behind a curtain wall of fogbound hills. Those mountains were barren and desolate, occupied mainly by goats and snow leopards and a few scattered clans of savage warriors. Or so Fulk informed him.

  There was no reason or sense to pursuing some phantom child in the middle of a foreign land, but Felipe pressed on regardless. It was all he knew how to do, for a true knight-errant never gave up the quest, and there was nothing else left for him anyway. So he waddled painfully along, miserably footsore and weary, on legs unused to walking long distances.

  The land around him had softened since he left the marshes, becoming more green and lush as he steadily climbed upwards into pleasant rolling hill country. It was warm, but not oppressively so, and bees hummed and flickered in the bushes and hedgerows. The hills were carpeted with thick woodland just beginning to ripen with the onset of spring. Felipe trudged through the forests and occasional patches of cleared arable land, blind to the beauty around him, weighed down by the shadows of the past and his own fevered imagination.

  As a parting gift, the fisherman Nassur had given Felipe a full water skin and a parcel containing enough hard bread and dried fish to last him several days. When this supply began to run out, Felipe resorted to other methods. The hills were dotted with lonely farmsteads and shepherd’s cots, and to an old campaigner like Felipe it was simple work to boot down the door of such places and intimidate the terrified peasants inside into handing over the best of their victuals. A good roar and a shake of his sword usually did the trick.

  Many of his victims took this bellowing unkempt vagabond, taller than most Temerian men, with his ragged beard and white skin and blazing blue eyes, to be some kind of demon or malignant spirit. They bowed their heads to the floor in terror rather than offer resistance.

  One evening Felipe was sitting on a high ridge eating stolen bread and goat’s-milk cheese for his supper. He had chosen an excellent spot to witness the sunset, with a glorious view of the hills and forests gently falling away to the vast plains and river valleys of General Saqr’s lands to the south-west. The sun was a flaming golden disc slowly sinking into a wash of pink light, tinged with crimson and framed by the deepening blue of the evening sky.

  Felipe had rarely seen such beauty, save maybe in the far north of the Winter Realm, but had no cause to welcome it. The onset of night meant the onset of sleep and his nightly trials. Locked in a futile battle against his need for rest, he was nevertheless determined to stay awake as long as possible.

  His gaze picked up on a vivid reddish glow, like distant fires springing up from the edge of the horizon. At first he thought it must be a trick of the light, or of his tired mind, but as he studied them the fires seemed to grow in size and intensity. Felipe remembered General Saqr’s city of Hasan, which he had never seen, lay somewhere in that direction, and was reminded of his dream of the shining city of silver and gold drowning in a storm of blood.

  Felipe could only assume Hasan was burning. General Anma’s troops, tiring of the siege, must have stormed the walls and overcome the remnants of Saqr’s army.

  He knew the pain that the city must be now enduring. Shadowy reminisces of some of the sieges he had witnessed and participated in flitted through his mind. Burning towns and castles; soldiers turning coward, throwing their weapons away and begging for quarter; houses and shops looted; dead-eyed women brutally raped over and over; children slaughtered in the street. The sack was always the same, but especially brutal if a town had offered resistance. Then the normal rules governing the conduct of war were tossed aside, and the invading soldiers behaved more like beasts than men. How long the pillage and slaughter lasted depended on their mood and how much the town had to offer.

  Unconcerned, Felipe swallowed another mouthful of bread and cheese. He had witnessed far too many atrocities in his life to be much disturbed. Besides, he had little cause to love the people of Temeria or to care what horrors were visited upon them.

  Nor was he averse to committing a few. Just below his ridge was a cottage, a crude place of wattle and thatch. It had been the home of a poor wood-cutter and his wife, but they had made the mistake of taking Felipe for a man rather than a demon. The couple had tried to defend their home and now lay sprawled outside it with their brains decorating the grass. Felipe did not think of himself as a particularly cruel man, but his patience was long since expended. And nobody kept him from his supper.

  He finished the last of the bread and cheese and climbed down from the ridge. The reddish glow of evening was now falling into darkness, leaving only the fires of Hasan’s distant torment to light the night sky.

  The Templar spent an uncomfortable night in the flea-bitten bed of the murdered couple. For a long time he lay staring into the thick velvet darkness, but at last could keep his eyes open no more, and so entered the dream-world.

  * * * *

  In his chamber in the heart of Silverback, Fulk the No Man’s Son showed no signs of emerging from his long sleep. He lay stiff and immobile as any corpse, eyes closed and with his hands neatly folded on his chest. Only the faint pulse of his heart and the occasional fluttering of his eyelids gave hope to the one person who loved him.

  Day and night Edith kept her vigil, sleeping on the hard stone floor at the foot of Fulk’s bed and sitting beside him during the day. She allowed only her most trusted personal servants into the room to coax liquids into Fulk’s body and remove his bodily waste, and refused entry to any of the Templars.

  “Lady,” her chamberlain informed her one cold, comfortless morning, “this cannot go on. The senior knights demand admittance to see their Grand Master. They have obeyed you so far out of respect to your sex, but their patience is running out.”

  Edith’s lovely face was drawn with worry, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. The chamberlain, a kindly man with grown daughters of his own, noticed that she had stopped wearing cosmetics.

  “Tell them he is sick,” she said in a tight, fierce voice. “Tell them the danger of infection is too great, and none may enter.”

  “Lady, the knights are not all fools. They see the servants coming back and forth every day. I have heard them muttering to each other. The general opinion is that th
e Grand Master is dead, or at least disabled, and that a new man should be elected from among them.”

  She rose from her stool, baring her teeth, and for a second it seemed as if fire flashed from her eyes.

  “I shall place a curse on any that crosses the threshold!” she yelled. “Tell them that, and let my words carry through the whole of this miserable cave. I was not a priestess for nothing, and my curses still carry weight. Let any man who cares nothing for the safety of his soul try to enter this room!”

  The chamberlain bowed politely and made good his escape, leaving Edith to her lonely vigil.

  While she watched Fulk’s still and silent body, his spirit roamed through dreams.

  * * * *

  The citizens of Hasan were outnumbered, underfed, and convinced they were all doomed to die. The unbearable pressure and anxiety of their situation drove many mad, and the otherwise desolate streets rang to the mournful cries of naked flagellants who had stripped themselves of physical possessions and personal dignity. In this way, so they hoped, their desperate appeals for aid would filter through to the High Gods who would take pity and succour them. Some few, even more ragged and filthy and desperate, took to furtive worshipping darker gods.

  Such an atmosphere of doom, with gangs of fanatics wandering the streets and honest citizens staying indoors to pray, inevitably cramped the morale of the garrison. The sound of bells tolling inside the many temples, dedicated to the numerous Gods of Temeria, rolled through the streets and rubbed against the already frayed nerves of the soldiers.

  “If the enemy attacks now, I cannot guarantee the men will stand,” was the frank assessment of the garrison commander, a former cavalry colonel named Samshi. Hoshea had promoted him. The decision was an easy one since no other officers of equivalent seniority and competence had survived at the White Bull.

  He and his council met every morning in one of the smaller oak-panelled rooms just off the Ancestral Chamber, a vast oblong-shaped chamber where General Saqr used to hold court and hear petitioners. The walls of the chamber were covered in huge alabaster panels carved with exaggerated images of the military conquests of Saqr’s dynasty. Rows of pillars of cedar and pine, decorated with bands of silver and gold, supported the shadowy arch of the roof. Despite its gloomy magnificence, the chamber was a monument to discomfort, which was why the council preferred to meet elsewhere.

  The thud and boom of enemy artillery pounding the outer walls of the city could be heard like distant thunder. Onagers, catapults, and bolt throwers battered the city from sun up until sun down, chipping away at the ancient yellow stone.

  “Let be, let be,” said Hoshea, stifling a yawn. He was permanently exhausted now since he spent all his nights until the early hours wrestling with the dark arts and communing with the Maker. “I have taken steps.”

  “Steps,” repeated the chief of the city’s small army of High Priests, a wizened and wheezing old aesthete who ate no meat and seemed to be composed mainly of beard. “What steps, Master Secretary?”

  Hoshea gave the priest a nasty look. He was going to have to do something about his title now he was ruler of the city since General Saqr had taken such spectacular leave of his wits. As long as he was merely the Master Secretary, the rest of the city elders and councillors could patronise him as a jumped-up clerk with ink on his fingers and ideas above his station.

  “You will find out soon enough,” he replied irritably, “and I would appreciate a bit more trust and support. None of you, the supposed city fathers, volunteered to take charge of affairs in the city’s hour of need. Indeed, some of your colleagues attempted to cut and run.”

  There was an uncomfortable shifting of chairs and clearing of throats. The council was small—just four members including Hoshea, for the rest had indeed attempted to flee the city when General Anma’s army first appeared outside the walls. Most had been caught and the life dragged from their bodies in various gruesome ways. Anma’s troops had catapulted their severed heads back over the walls of the city they had so dismally failed to defend.

  “Bickering avails us nothing,” said Samshi. “I tell you we cannot hold the walls long against any determined assault. My advice is to abandon them and withdraw such of our soldiers who will fight back to the palace. Let the enemy have the streets.”

  “Or give them General Saqr,” said another councillor. This one was a representative of the merchant class, a pinch-faced man almost lost inside his rich furs and costly silks. “General Anma may be merciful if we give her the body of her rival.”

  Hoshea made an effort to defend his master. “No, I will not countenance this kind of talk,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I will not allow you to throw our master to the wolves outside, as if he were a lump of meat.”

  “But that is exactly what he is,” said the merchant. “The surgeons tell me he has lost the power of speech.”

  Hoshea pulled aside his collar to reveal his bare shoulder. “Do you see that?” he cried, pointing at the mark of a circle branded into his flesh. “There is my Slave-Sign. It was burned into my body moments after my birth to act as a constant reminder that I was Saqr’s sworn servant until death. I have served him to the best of my ability, all of my life. Though he is witless and drooling, I will not abandon him now.”

  He knew instantly he had made a mistake and cursed inwardly, blaming it on his tiredness. The rest of the council, with the exception of Samshi, could barely hide their contempt.

  “Thank you, Master Secretary, for reminding us of your base origins,” said the High Priest. “Speaking for myself, I am no longer inclined to obey the word of a slave. I propose we put the fate of General Saqr to a vote, excluding Hoshea.”

  There was a murmur of assent. Hoshea looked to Samshi for support, knowing that he was of peasant stock, but the former cavalryman merely knitted his heavy brows and frowned.

  That left one option, even though it was one he had been determined to avoid. Almost as soon as he made the decision, forbidden words of power started to form inside his head demanding to be uttered.

  “I will not be set aside,” he announced, rising, “I rule this city on behalf of General Saqr, our rightful lord and master. We will defend it on his behalf, until our last breath.”

  The councillors looked at him, astonished, for his tired voice was full of sudden purpose, and his small wiry body trembled, as if he had imbibed some powerful stimulant.

  The priest was the quickest to recover his poise. “And how do you intend to enforce this authority you claim?” he demanded, his sunken cheeks flushed with anger.

  “Be silent, relic,” Hoshea growled, “keep your forked tongue behind the rotted fence of your teeth. Be silent, I say!”

  That did it. No one had dared speak to the priest in such a fashion for decades. “Gentlemen, it occurs to me that here is one slave long overdue a whipping!” he squawked. He struggled to his feet, as though he meant to carry out the threat himself, and waved his staff of office at Samshi. “Commander, get some of your men in here. It is time we were rid of Master Secretary. Thrash him, weigh him down in irons, and dump him in a dungeon somewhere, until our further pleasure.”

  Samshi hesitated, the priest and the merchant babbled and fell to arguing, and Hoshea seemed to swell and grow in size. The hot stinking breath of the demon seemed to brush against his face, and his tongue curled around the first syllable of an incantation.

  The door to the chamber was flung open with a crash, breaking Hoshea’s concentration. He looked around, all thoughts of sorcery flown from his mind, and saw a kitchen slave standing in the doorway. The man was barefoot and wringing his hands in agitation.

  “Masters, oh masters, come and see!” he cried. “Our enemies have fallen to fighting each other!”

  * * * *

  From the battlements of the Tusk, the highest tower of the donjon guarding the outer gates of the city, Hoshea watched with quiet joy as the besieging army disintegrated. The councillors standing next to him and the soldie
rs manning the walls observed the miracle in silence.

  Only he knew what had happened. General Anma had been assassinated in her tent by his creature. The knight of the Winter Realm should have died, since no worldly medicine could seal up his wounds, but Hoshea’s sorcery had breathed new life and strength into him. A mockery of life, true, derived from the darkest of dark arts, but even a mockery was sufficient. The golem that was once Jean de Riparia would be far away by now, following the second of the commands Hoshea had whispered into his ear.

  The army mustered by the late Empress was a feudal host, drawn together by the lesser generals and satraps that held lands from Anma in exchange for military service. Only her powerful personality and success in battle had held the disparate host together, and the discovery of her headless corpse had almost immediately led to chaos.

  On being told the shocking news of Anma’s murder, every one of her sub-commanders had laid claim to leadership of the army and the Imperial Crown with it. A heated row had ensued, accusation and counter-accusation, followed by the inevitable drawing of daggers, and a bloody brawl erupted between the contending officers and their bodyguards outside Anma’s tent. Her corpse had been laid out on a blanket nearby and during the fight was trampled on and spattered with blood.

  “Thus ends the reign of the Empress Anma. May it be long forgotten,” murmured Hoshea, breaking the silence on the battlements.

  “Look there!” cried Samshi, pointing to a part of the enemy camp where men could be seen uprooting their tents and streaming away from their posts, ignoring the shouts and blows of their officers. One enraged sergeant rode into the middle of a group of mutinous troopers and lashed at them with his vine rod; in response they dragged him from the saddle and repaid the compliment with the butts of their spears. Violence and confusion also reigned in other parts of the camp. The brawl around Anma’s tent broke up, the surviving combatants swearing vengeance.