God of Broken Things

Chapter 9

Our small army was joined by a dozen hardy mountain ponies pulling carts loaded with weapons and supplies, and we set off up the slushy track leading into the mountainous Clanholds. My coterie marched alongside a small heavily-loaded cart pulled by a grizzled pony of more use for making leather and glue than for hard labour. It shied from every puddle and kept trying to bite me. Only me. Vaughn seemed besotted with the vile creature and it was passing strange to see the big angry brute fawning over the beast, so I happily left ‘Biter’ in Vaughn’s surprisingly gentle hands. It wasn’t like I hated horses, especially the smaller and less intimidating breeds, but they all seemed to hate me.

Fortunately for the war effort, a gaggle of merchants fleeing south from the Skallgrim advance had arrived in Barrow Hill with most of what we might need to wreak havoc: sealed buckets of quicklime, oil, sulphur, pitch, pine resin, and a plethora of other liquids and powders that Nareene immediately demanded I requisition. It was legal theft but my need was greater than theirs.

Diodorus had obtained certain dried plants and seeds from a creepy old herbalist in a shack outside of town that sent him into worrying paroxysms of joy. He had been flung into the deepest pit in the Black Garden for murdering dozens, and even the merest graze from one of his arrows had resulted in an excruciating death. Now he was being given free rein to utilise his unique talents, and in fact I was blatantly pushing him to murder and kill as many as possible. Good and evil were merely social constructs, and depended heavily on perspective.

Every night the advance scouts (I assumed, given that Eva was taking care of the logistics and, well, everything else) staked out where our tents were to be pitched and where the cook fires and latrines were to be set. At least somebody knew what they were doing. I’d never considered all the details of what was involved with an army on the march. Then disaster struck! I hadn’t thought of recruiting somebody that could cook. I was forced to do it myself and use my Gift to ‘borrow’ a pot and steal the secrets of campaign cooking from members of Eva’s main battle coterie – a force easily four times the size of the rest of ours, designed to take full advantage of a knight’s skills: Eva was pretty much invulnerable to normal weapons after all, unlike my squishy hide.

I did all the cooking myself because it was safer than accepting Diodorus’ offer to lend a hand. My new knowledge was not complimented by any acquired skills but at least the food turned out edible, if a little burnt.

A constant march through snow and across frozen ground created bone-deep exhaustion and aching muscles in my whole coterie, and invited scathing looks from the better-fed wardens who were stronger and more erect than my drooping penal force. At least I had magic to stiffen my resolve, and bad jokes to fall back on.

When we reached the foothills of the mountains we pitched camp and awaited the arrival of our Clansfolk guides. Only fools ventured into that natural maze of river valleys and mountain passes without a local to lead them, doubly so in winter. Centuries ago an entire army led by the Arcanum elder Rannikus had marched into those valleys, never to be heard from again. The frozen, rocky, barely fertile area had been more trouble than it was worth to the expanding Setharii Empire, especially when greater riches and exotic goods awaited them south across the Cyrulean Sea.

With nothing better to do, I called a conclave of magi. We had all been happy to avoid each other, but now that we were entering the Clanholds I couldn’t afford their blind arrogance getting them killed before we even faced the Skallgrim and their pet daemons.

It was a freezing night under a clear, star-speckled sky when the seven of us gathered in the command tent with furs and braziers to keep the chill outside. Joining Eva and Granville, who I already knew, and Cormac and Secca that I’d met, were a tall, dark and ugly aeromancer named Bryden and a greasy pyromancer named Vincent with a long nose and sneering, narrow face I immediately wanted to punch. Both were young magi with no House name. That made four of us born from the lower classes: lesser magi in the eyes of noble House-born like Granville, and without any of the political ramifications if we got butchered on this suicidal expedition. Which begged the question, since Granville hadn’t volunteered, who had he displeased to be stuck here with me? Not that the proud git would ever deign to tell.

“I don’t know how these things tend to go,” I said, “but let’s dispense with pointless pleasantries. We are heading into the Clanholds where your smooth words and political slitherings won’t be worth a rat’s arse.” That one was aimed squarely at Granville.

“I’ll begin by saying that the Clansfolk put great trust in their reputations and in their honesty, so unless you want your face smashed in I suggest you don’t outright call them liars. Even if it’s true. Especially if it’s true.”

I rubbed my hands and warmed them over a brazier. “The other thing you need to bear in mind is that they are highly religious, and not in the same loose, indifferent way as the Setharii.”

“That is true,” Comrac added. “Every holdfast from the oldest and grandest dun to the remotest farming croft boasts its own spirit of the hearth, and every clan also makes offerings to an ancestral guardian spirit. It would be considered a grave insult not to make a small offering if you are invited to enter their homes.”

Granville huffed. “I shall not worship any crude spirit. I am not a heathen.”

“You will pay your respects if you want out of the wind and snow,” I snapped. “But you are perfectly free to freeze your balls off.”

“The ancient spirits of the Clanholds are most unpleasant if offended,” Cormac replied. “In the old places of the world they are still strong forces.”

“This is not Setharis,” I said. “Spirits don’t wither and die here, devoured by–” I had my suspicions but didn’t want to voice them, “–the very air of our home. Spirits are plentiful hereabouts, some small and weak, and others vast and mighty. Some might even be considered gods.”

“Heresy,” Vincent hissed. “How can you compare them to Lady Night, the Lord of Bones or gilded, glorious Derrish?”

I shrugged. “At least they are still here.” The long-faced prick didn’t have an answer for that, and settled for clamping his jaw shut and grinding his teeth.

I couldn’t help but needle him some more. “You also missed out Shadea, the Iron Crone.”

“And let us not forget the Hooded God,” Granville said. His glare suggested that was not for my benefit, more that he disliked sloppy and incomplete answers.

“Yes, there is that murdering prick too,” I growled, earning a few raised eyebrows. “Oh please, how do you not know that so-called god is our old mentor, Byzant?”

They all stared at me. “What? I thought everybody knew his crimes by now.” In his enforced absence I’d done my best to ruin his previously glorious reputation, but apparently had not been quite as successful as I’d hoped. It was petty revenge, but for now it was all I could do in exchange for ruining my life and trying to get me killed when I was younger.

Eva cleared her throat. “Be that as it may, Walker, do you have any knowledge of their magi or military insights into the Clanholds you would care to share?”

I nodded. “Their magi are known as druí, but they do not use their Gift in our manner. Instead they make pacts with spirits who do as the druí ask in exchange for a portion of their magic.”

Granville and Vincent exchanged horrified glances. “As for the terrain,” I added, “it is rougher than the ale in the Warrens and armies travel slowly through the valleys, but the Clansfolk know all sorts of secret paths through the mountains.

A few locals can easily stay ahead of any foreign army. You will see farms here and there on the valley floor, even small villages, but the actual Clanholds are burrowed deep into the stone of the mountains for safety. The Skallgrim won’t be able to overrun them easily or quickly and they will pay a heavy price in blood if they try.”

“What about their daemon allies?” Secca asked.

I looked to Eva, who answered for me. “The breed and number remains unknown to the Arcanum at this time. I expect the Clansfolk will be able to provide more details.”

“Speaking of numbers,” Bryden said. “How many of the disgusting overseas savages do we face?”

“Our seers estimated a Skallgrim force numbering four to five thousand,” she replied. “With at least a handful of halrúna shaman and an unknown number of daemon allies.”

“And how many do we have?” I asked. “Seven magi and a hundred wardens.”

A magus could be worth over a hundred armed wardens at times, but still…ouch.

“Pardon?” Granville said. “I thought the Free Towns Alliance was sending an army?”

Eva unfurled a scroll. “Still ten days off according to the messenger this morning. Doubtless they will not mind us killing each other before they arrive in time to drink up all the glory.”

That silenced us all for a few stunned moments, then Secca spoke. “Their own towns stand directly in the path of destruction should the Skallgrim be allowed to pass through the Clanholds. Why do they still choose to play these petty games of politics?”

Granville scowled and ignored her, “How many warriors can the Clanholds field?”

Cormac answered: “Dun Bhailiol and Dun Clachan are regarded much as we in the Old Town view the inhabitants of the Warrens and East Docklands. The other nearby holdfasts will be unlikely to offer up any sizeable force when they can fortify their own holds instead. Combined, these two holdfasts can field a thousand at most. As for Kil Noth…” He glanced to me, unsure of how to phrase it, given my family name.

“Their army cannot take Kil Noth,” I said with finality. “How can you be so sure?” Eva said, her eye scrutinising me behind that impassive steel mask.

“I’ve been there,” I replied. “No army can take it, not even one backed by halrúna blood sorcerers and daemons. There are worse things than those dwelling in the darkness beneath Kil Noth.” My mother’s ancestral home was a fucking death-trap and the place where the first druí made their pacts with ancient spirits. It was a sacred place inhabited by fanatics.

“They may have more of those devices that brought down the Templarum Magestus,” Eva countered. “If they do, then no fortress can be safe.”

I had to concede the point. Not even ancient holdfasts cut deep into the stony hearts of mountains would survive that. We discussed the known details of the expedition and learned much from Eva’s experience. She was young as magi went, but as a knight she had already seen more conflict than most wardens ever would, and a few summers campaigning with the legions overseas ensured she was one of the very few people this side of the Cyrulean Sea with any actual experience of full-blown warfare. Or she had been before last autumn.

“We are not here to win,” she said as a parting statement. “All we have to do is delay them long enough to allow Archmagus Krandus to take Ironport and advance on their rear-guard. Then the enemy will be stranded in the Clanholds with no base and no supplies, with the Setharii army behind them and the Free Towns Alliance ahead.”

It sounded like a desperate and dangerous plan, but it was all we had. Come tomorrow we would be led into the heart of the Clanholds, and there were only a few on my own side I trusted not to stab me in the back.

Surprise! Nothing ever goes to plan where good things for me are concerned: our guides never arrived.

While I trained my aeromancy, the wardens and my coterie spent their time at weapon practice and working out cramped and stiff muscles. We waited all day, and half-way through the next again before Eva called it. She didn’t even ask for her commander’s opinion, not that I had anything worthwhile to add.

“Something must have happened to them, but we cannot afford to wait any longer – we must advance into the Clanholds under our own guidance. Walker, Cormac, do you know anything about this area?”

Cormac shook his head but I grimaced and gave a hesitant nod. “I might know the way from here to Kil Noth.” The memory was mostly of a blind and bloodied flight to freedom heading in the other direction. “I’d rather head for Dun Clachan or Dun Bhailiol.”

“I’m sure we would all rather be heading somewhere else,” she replied. “But unless you know the way then we have no other option.”

I couldn’t think of any polite and reasonable response, so despite my fears, it had to be Kil Noth. I consoled myself by remembering that I was not the weak and whining man I once was, nor was I wearing the mask of a drunken wastrel that had in truth grown into far more than a mere mask. I had killed a god and destroyed monsters. Surely now I could face down my own grandmother?

I flexed my right hand, testing the increasing stiffness. There would be a steep price for her help. And if she refused, well, then I would just have to force her in my own dreadful way. That malicious viper deserved everything I could inflict upon her.

And so we entered the Clanholds without a guide.