The Ragged Man Read online

  The riders approached at leisure, two with arrows nocked on the off-chance she might find the strength to try the slope again. Teeth bared and weapons raised, they formed a half-circle as the woman cringed behind the stone. Her face was covered by a tattered shawl and her fingers tapped the stone’s surface, as if seeking reassurance in its strength.

  At a guttural command from the leader one rider awkwardly dismounted and lurched towards her.

  The Elf was more deformed than most of his kind, his shoulders twisted so that his shield almost dragged along the ground, but his spear was swept back, ready to stab. She flinched and peered up at him through a long tear in her shawl. Her fingers were still dancing over the stone. As he neared he heard a frantic whisper, too quiet and hurried to make sense of, but he guessed what it was.

  ‘She prays,’ he announced to his comrades, sharing a grin with the nearest. ‘Do they hear, human?’ he called out to her in poor Farlan, his malformed throat mangling the flowing sounds of each word. He switched back to Elvish. ‘Where are your fucking Gods now?’

  Abruptly she stopped.

  He cocked his head at her, suddenly aware of eyes like pale blue ice shining up at him through the twilight gloom. Her hands flat against the stone, she pushed herself up with a strange, crab-like movement, stopping only when he levelled his spear and held it inches from her face.

  ‘Where are my Gods?’ she repeated softly, peering out through fronds of matted grey hair. ‘I am more interested in your Gods now.’

  He took a step back; she had replied in perfect Elvish, something he had never heard from a human before. The Elf glanced back at his commanders, the warleader and his sister, the mage. Sensing danger the mage wasted no time in summoning the spirits bound to her; three wispy forms like puffs of smoke, one black, two white, appeared in the air near her.

  ‘And there they are,’ the old woman announced with a smile. She offered the spirits a bent-backed bow.

  ‘Kill her,’ ordered the mage.

  The soldier turned and lunged, but the old woman dodged his spear somehow. As the shaft slipped past she caught it and tugged it, jerking the soldier off-balance and within reach of a backhand slap that sent him crashing to the ground.

  ‘We are not so different,’ the crone mused as she turned to the others.

  The two archers drew back their strings as she edged forward, grinning toothily. One bow shattered in the hands of its owner. The other managed to fire before his did likewise, but he snatched at the shot, and it skewed a yard wide. A spear was thrown, but she twitched it aside with a flick of her long fingers and it buried itself deep into the soft earth. When no more were thrown she took a step forward and grinned down at the dazed Elf at her feet.

  ‘Not so different indeed,’ she continued. ‘Both once tied to the Gods, both now free to learn a new way.’

  She hesitated, her tongue flicking out like a snake catching a scent on the breeze. The fallen Elf touched a grimy hand to his face then held it up for inspection. His eyes widened as a discoloration on the skin deepened before his eyes and swelled in an instant to become a bleeding sore.

  ‘And how well have you learned!’ she cackled, gesturing towards the spirits circling the mage. ‘You have found new Gods, ones weak enough to be controlled and enslaved - and so you become the thing you hate most.’

  The Elf at her feet began to keen in fear, pawing at his face as the disease spread, ravaging the skin faster than the eye could follow. He tried to howl, but his throat was already ruined and in moments he was unable to even whimper like a dying puppy.

  None of the rest noticed; they were transfixed by the sight of the old woman shaking out her ragged clothes and straightening. Her appearance changed in seconds as she grew taller before their eyes. A thick stink of putrefaction filled the air and her skin paled to the chalk-white colouring of a corpse as her body juddered like a plague victim. Then the transformation was over and she looked up, her blue lips twisted into an uneven smile. A tarnished crown appeared in the tangled thicket of her hair.

  ‘So I shall learn from you all,’ the Wither Queen announced to the terrified Elves. The quickest-witted of them wrenched his horse around to flee, but the Wither Queen was faster. She raked her nails through the air in his direction and was rewarded with a scream from his horse. She followed it with a flurry of slashes directed at the remaining soldiers and in a heartbeat they were all lying on the ground, some crushed, others merely dazed. The Wither Queen spat on her palms and flung the spit out with an incantation and riders and horses alike coughed bloody foam. The horses reeled, sinking jerkily to their knees.

  Only the mage was left, almost paralysed with terror as she cringed in her saddle. She was oblivious to the bound spirits darting frantically around her head. The Wither Queen stepped forward, a terrible hunger in her face. The mage’s horse collapsed and she was tipped forward to sprawl flat in the dark forest mud, senseless for a moment. When she came to, she tried to scrabble away from the advancing Goddess, knowing it was far too late. Convulsions began to wrack her body.

  Above her the spirits raced around in frenzied fear until the Wither Queen reached out a hand, fingers splayed as though to pluck them like fruit. The spirits stopped and hung in the air above the mage’s corpse, their shapeless forms coalescing into vague shapes of smoke. They sank to the ground and submitted without a fight, offering obeisance until they were mere puddles of mist.

  ‘They find themselves new Gods and bind them like slaves,’ the Wither Queen whispered with cold tenderness to the spirits. ‘That shall be their undoing. The dead one sought to use me, then leash me. I could smell his betrayal even as I could see Death’s hand reaching for his shoulder, but I will be a slave no longer. He freed me. He forced me to learn new ways and now he is not there to limit me.’

  She reached down and stroked her fingers through each of the spirits in turn, bringing a piece of each to her mouth to suck down eagerly.

  ‘There are more of you, so many more - enough to carry my plagues to every corner of the Land,’ she said to her new Aspects. With them following at her heel, the Wither Queen began to drift forward on an unseen breeze, her body fading like mist until it was barely an outline in the shadows. By nightfall the first Elven encampment had been scoured of life.

  PROLOGUE - PART 3

  Doranei watched as shadows stole through the streets below, slipping through the alleys and coalescing into darkness. He blinked, and the curved avenues of Byora faded from his perception as the stepped city was swallowed by the dark.

  Been taught my whole life to look for shadows, he thought. Now they’re all I see. ‘I saw another prophet today,’ he said aloud, the sound feeling out of place in the high, silent room.

  ‘I’m sorry? You saw what?’ Zhia Vukotic came closer, her sapphire eyes shining in the light of a single candle.

  ‘A prophet, didn’t you hear?’

  She ignored the edge in his voice. These past two weeks there had been an ever-present air of anger and antagonism about the Narkang man, even in bed. The scent of violence would have frightened any normal woman, but Zhia feared only for him. She tried to remember how long it had been since grief had consumed her every thought.

  ‘I was watching your face,’ the vampire admitted; ‘I wasn’t paying attention to the words. Tell me about the prophet.’

  Doranei remained silent for a time, his face twitching slightly, as though words were fighting to get out but couldn’t quite force their way through. Tsatach’s eye had only just sunk behind Blackfang and the striated clouds over the mountain were tinged a startling burnished orange. It was a beautiful sight but Zhia realised he saw nothing, barely noticing even the bulky silhouette of a dragon, rising to circle on the high thermals like a hunting hawk.

  There was a black need for destruction fizzing through Doranei’s blood, not unlike that in the maddened beast Kastan Styrax had awakened and left to devastate the Circle City. Zhia and her brother, Koezh, had caused its slumber; the spell
they used had corroded what had already been an unknowable, unpredictable intellect. Now hatred filled its mind, arbitrary and unquenchable.

  ‘A man this time. It struck him in the middle of the street,’ Doranei said abruptly, no louder than a whisper. ‘No warning. I thought he was drunk when he staggered into a wall.’ Unconsciously he raised his goblet and drank. She saw his lips twitch just before the rim touched, a name spoken silently.

  They stood alone in the high room on the topmost level of a whorehouse known as the Velvet Cup. Doranei had pulled open the shutters on one side of the room to watch the sun set - at least, that was what he would claim. Zhia knew it was the sight of the Ruby Tower wreathed in shadow that obsessed him; that and watching the junction where his friend Sebe had died. The choice of vantage point had been pure chance, as was the direction Ilumene and Aracnan had taken as they went to lead Byora’s soldiers against the Farlan. When you were angry at chance, and Fate had been murdered mere miles away, who could you take it out on?

  ‘That’s something I have never witnessed, not in all my years,’ Zhia said, ‘but I do not envy you it.’

  ‘He didn’t hurt anyone,’ Doranei continued, more to himself than in response. ‘There was a detachment of Ruby Tower Guards at the crossroads; one of them laid him out as he made for a beggar. They manacled him to a pillar while they sent for orders, he stood there for an hour snarling like a rabid dog before they worked out what to do with him.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  Doranei turned to face his vampire lover. Zhia frowned under his scrutiny as Doranei appeared to search for something in her face. Her black hair was tied up in a way he’d not seen before, braids woven together and bound by a thin copper band on the top of her head. It wasn’t quite the style many mercenaries used, but it was similar.

  ‘It was fast, too fast to follow properly. I only heard one scrap.’ He gestured at the Ruby Tower, now just an outline in the evening gloom. ‘What your friend will have to say about it I don’t know.’

  Zhia didn’t rise to the bait, knowing he was looking for an excuse to rage, to vent the grief he felt over Sebe’s death. He didn’t want to hurt her, she knew that, and anyway, any confrontation between them would leave Doranei injured, not her, but she suspected he’d prefer a beating to the pain of grief.

  ‘Ruhen is not my friend; you know that’s not the reason I cannot join your assault.’

  Lord Isak’s death had resonated throughout the Land with enough force to turn a dozen men and women in Byora alone into prophets, but it was a death less than an hour before Isak’s that had cast this veil of anguish over the King’s Man. Zhia had seen the destruction of the junction of roads not long after; she could easily picture the wild storm of magic unleashed there by a maddened Demi-God. Buildings had shattered at Aracnan’s touch; the cobbles were torn up as though fifty-foot claws had ripped through the street.

  Sebe’s body was buried in the devastation, and the wrecked houses were still burning fiercely when she returned to the city and found Doranei, filthy and soot-stained, tearing his hands on the rubble, alongside dozens of others. Only fifty bodies were recovered in the end; hundreds more, Sebe amongst them, had been lost to the ferocity of the flames.

  Zhia had dragged Doranei to safety, all but imprisoning him in the tavern’s cellar to keep him off the streets, but he had barely slept since. He would lie in the bed they shared, his eyes wide; staring at nothing, while she lay powerless to help. At times he looked almost frantic, bewildered, as the tears refused to come, undone by a lifetime of stoicism and detachment.

  From his own position three streets away Doranei had heard Aracnan’s crashing response to Sebe’s poisoned arrow, increasing in violence as the seadiamond venom burned ever hotter in the Demi-God’s veins. It was a weak poison compared to most, but Aracnan had made the mistake they had been counting on. When he’d been struck in the shoulder he’d realised the bolt might be poisoned, and had used magic to counter the effects - but this particular venom was magnified by the presence of magic.

  Witnesses had reported the stones cracking under Aracnan’s feet as he screamed in agony - the flesh of the nearest bystanders had blackened and burned even before he started lashing out with arcs of fire. The house where Sebe was positioned, most likely levelling a second crossbow at Ilumene, had exploded under the magical assault. Only Aracnan’s collapse into unconsciousness from the mounting pain had saved the district.

  Zhia’s voice forced its way into his thoughts. ‘Doranei, what did the prophet say?’

  The King’s Man looked down, knuckles white as his hand tightened on the window sill. ‘A great lord falls, a new God rises.’

  CHAPTER 1

  A whisper of evening breeze off the lake brushed Mihn’s face as he bent over the small boat. He hesitated and looked up over the water. The sun was about to set, its orange rays pushing through the tall pine trees on the far eastern shore. His sharp eyes caught movement at the tree-line: the gentry moving cautiously into the open. They were normally to be found at twilight, watching the sun sink below the horizon from atop great boulders, but today at least two family packs had come to the lake instead.

  ‘They smell change in the air,’ the witch of Llehden commented from beside him. ‘What we attempt has never been tried before.’

  Mihn had noticed that here in Llehden no one called her Ehla, the name she had permitted Lord Isak to use; that she was the witch was good enough for the locals. It was for Mihn too, however much it had confused the Farlan.

  Mihn shrugged. ‘We are yet to manage it,’ he pointed out, ‘but if they sense change, perhaps that is a good sign.’

  His words provoked a small sound of disapproval from Xeliath, the third person in their group. She stood awkwardly, leaning on the witch for support. Though a white-eye, the stroke that had damaged her left side meant the brown-skinned girl was weaker than normal humans in some ways, and glimpses of the Dark Place hovered at the edges of her sight; a shred of her soul in the place of dark torment because of her link to Isak. Her balance and coordination were further diminished by exhaustion: Xeliath was unable to sleep without enduring dreams terrible enough to destroy the sanity of a weaker mind.

  Mihn had been spared that at least; the link between them was weaker, and he lacked a mage’s sensitivity.

  Together they helped Xeliath into the boat. The witch got in beside her and Mihn pushed it out onto the water, leaping aboard once it was clear of the shore. He sat facing the two women, who were both wrapped in thick woollen cloaks against the night chill. Mihn, in contrast, wore only a thin leather tunic and trousers, and the bottom of each leg was bound tight with twine, leaving no loose material to snag or tear.

  Mihn caught sight of an elderly woman perched on a stool at the lakeside and felt a flicker of annoyance. The woman, another witch, had arrived a few days earlier. She was decades older than Ehla, but she was careful to call herself a witch of Llehden - as though her presence in the shire was on Ehla’s sufferance alone. She had told Mihn to call her Daima - knowledge - should there be a need to differentiate between them. For almost fifty years Daima had laid out the dead and sat with them until dawn, facing down the host of spirits that are attracted by death in all its forms. She had a special affinity for that side of the Land, and had ushered ghosts and other lost souls even to the Halls of Death, going as far within as any living mortal Ehla knew of.

  The old woman had reiterated again and again the dangers of what they were about to attempt, particularly marking the solemnity and respect Mihn would need to display. That she was presently puffing away on a pipe as she fished from the lakeshore did not exactly impart the level of gravity she had warned them was imperative to their success.

  With swift strokes he rowed to the approximate centre of the lake and dropped a rusty plough-blade over the edge to serve as anchor. Once the oars were stowed the failed Harlequin took a moment to inspect the tattoos on his palms and soles of his feet, but they remained undamaged, the
circles of incantation unbroken.

  ‘Ready?’ the witch asked.

  ‘As ready as I ever will be.’

  ‘The coins?’

  He could feel the weight of the two silver coins strung on a cord around his neck. Mihn’s extensive knowledge of folklore was serving him in good stead as he prepared for this venture. It was common practice for dying sinners to request a silver coin between their lips, to catch a part of their soul. Whoever sat with them until dawn would afterwards drop the coin in a river, so the cool water could ease any torments that might await them. Daima had provided this service often enough to know where to find two such coins easily enough.

  ‘They are secure,’ he assured them.

  ‘Then it is time,’ Xeliath rasped, pushing herself forward so that Mihn was within reach. The young woman squinted at him with her good right eye, her head wavering a moment until she managed to focus. She placed her right hand on his chest. ‘Let my mark guide you,’ she said, stiffly raising her left hand too. That, as always, was half-closed in a fist around the Crystal Skull given to her by the patron Goddess of her tribe. ‘Let my strength be yours to call upon.’

  Ehla echoed her gesture before tying a length of rope around his waist. ‘Let my light keep back the shadows of the Dark Place.’

  Mihn took two deep breaths, trying to control the fear beginning to churn inside him. ‘And now — ’

  Without warning Xeliath lurched forward and punched Mihn in the face. A sudden flash of white light burst around them as the magic humming through her body added power to the blow. The small man toppled over the edge of the boat, dropping down into the still depths. Ehla grabbed at the coil of rope fast disappearing after Mihn.