Gilead's Blood Read online

  ‘I think he was right, anyway. Even a life of pain is not worth wasting. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps… I am here, am I not?’ Gilead added after a pause.

  ‘So what will you do with your life after this is ended?’

  Gilead spurred his horse on. ‘First,’ he answered, ‘I will see if there is to be a life after this has ended.’

  *

  THE BLADE OF his knife was dulled with ash so that the moonlight would not catch it. It went through four throats and slid in between the back-plates of three cuirasses as his left hand tightly stifled cries. By midnight, he was over the main wall, a shadow running the length of the ditch towards the mansion itself.’

  There was a high window above the inner dyke. Pausing to hide as another guard went past, Gilead unslung a silken rope and with a deft throw looped its end over a waterchute. The stone of the wall was black and sheer, wet with slime and moss. His feet found every toehold as his arms pulled him upwards.

  On the ledge of the window, he coiled his rope again and drew his longsword. Below him, in the hall, he could hear singing and merrymaking, the croon of viols and pipes, the clink of glasses.

  ‘Now,’ he breathed, and dropped inside. He landed in the middle of the main table. The light thump was enough to bring the merrymaking to a sudden halt. There were thirty in the hall: nobles, women, servants, warriors and musicians. They all stared in dismay at the armed warrior in their midst.

  At the head of the table sat Lugos, a withered old human in yellow robes. He smiled.

  ‘Another elf?’ he chuckled. ‘Two in one week. I am honoured.’ He nodded to his men, who were already scrambling up and drawing weapons. The servants and woman backed away in fear. ‘Let’s see if we can’t kill this one outright. I’d hate for him to get away and bleed to death in the woods like the last one.’

  Gilead was transfixed by the cruel glee in Lugos’s face.

  They rushed him. But you cannot rush one who is suddenly shadowfast. Gilead was abruptly in a dozen places, his sword whispering as it scythed. Two dropped, then four more. There were screams and cries, the clatter of falling weapons, the patter of blood.

  Lugos frowned, observing the slaughter before him. He turned to his aide, who stood quaking at his side. ‘Wake Siddroc.’

  ‘But master-‘

  ‘Wake him, I say! This one is a devil, much more than the last fool! Wake Siddroc or we are all finished!’

  Gilead cut left, thrust right. He severed a sword arm and decapitated another fighter to his rear. Blades flurried around him like grouse beaten from cover. Some broke against his flashing longsword like shattered mirrors. Others rebounded, blocked, before the ancient longsword stabbed in under loosened guards.

  Gilead rejoiced. It had been so long, so long since he had felt fire, felt purpose. His sword arm, his warrior soul, had slept. He spun again, cut, thrust, sliced. And they were all done.

  Gilead turned, eyes bright and sword red, and faced Lugos down the length of the long table. The only sounds were the spitting of the logs in the fireplace, the moans of the not-quite dead and the drip of a spilled wine flagon as it drained.

  ‘You are Lugos?’ Gilead said.

  ‘I do hope so,’ the human said calmly, ‘or else you’ve made a terrible mess in someone else’s hall… elf.’ He pronounced the word as if it were a curse.

  Gilead stepped forward. ‘Speak before you die. Confess the nature of your crimes.’

  ‘Crimes? What proof do you have? Believe me, elf, the very best of the Empire will hound you out for this affront to my estate. The White Wolves, the Knights Panther… you will be hunted and torn apart as a murderer.’

  ‘Such things do not scare me. I can smell the evil here. I know you are a dabbler in the black ways. I know your crimes. Will you confess them before I make you pay?’

  Lugos raised his glass and sipped. To Gilead he seemed almost supernaturally calm for one of his short-lived, frantic race. ‘Hmmm, let’s see… as a young merchant, I travelled far and dealt with many traders, dealing in many fine objects. One day, a necklace came into my possession. It was finely wrought and very old, the crafting of some ancient place. Liking the look of it, I placed it around my neck!’

  Lugos’s face grew dark. ‘It was cursed. Cursed by the Dark Gods of Chaos. At once, I was in their thrall.’ He pulled open his tunic and showed Gilead the metal traceries buried within scar tissue around his throat.

  Gilead remained silent.

  ‘You see, I have no choice. I deserve some sympathy, don’t you think?’

  Still Gilead said nothing.

  ‘There’s more. Since I was cursed I have ordained countless human sacrifices, murdered dozens of innocents, arranged the foul deaths of any who stood in my way-‘

  ‘You are a monster!’ Gilead said plainly.

  ‘Indeed I am!’ Lugos agreed with a hearty laugh. ‘What’s more, I am a monster who has been keeping you talk-‘

  The doors at the end of the hall behind the merchant burst open. A snuffling giant shambled in: a huge, inhuman thing clad from head to foot in barbed green armour the colour of a stagnant pool.

  Gilead froze. Raw evil emanated from the creature. Its visor was pushed back and it appeared to be eating, its great jaws chewing on bloody gobs of flesh. A rank smell filled the room.

  ‘This is Siddroc,’ Lugos said. ‘He’s my friend. My guardian. My dark masters provided him to keep me safe.’ He looked round at the vast creature and tutted melodramatically. ‘Oh, Siddroc! Have you eaten another of my aides? I’ve told you about that!’ The creature turned its huge head and snarled. ‘Very well, this intruder has caused me a great deal of trouble. Dispose of him and I’ll give you all the flesh you can eat.’

  With a reverberating growl, the creature shambled forward, casting aside the last scraps of the unfortunate aide. In his right hand he whirled a chain attached to a spiked ball the size of Gilead’s head. In his left, he held a curved cutter-blade that surrounded his meaty knuckles with spikes.

  Gilead leapt clear as the first blow came down and demolished the table. The elf landed and rolled aside hastily as another shattered the flagstones where he had sprawled. For all its immense size, the abomination was fast. The elf side-stepped another huge blow and cut in with his own, but the longsword rebounded from the creature’s armoured shoulder with a ringing chime.

  The thing called Siddroc knocked Gilead off-balance with a sideways chop and the flat of the cutter blade sent him flying, blood spraying from a slice to his jawline. He landed hard in the hearth, crushing two viols that the musicians had left there in their haste to leave. He barely had time to get up and clear before the spiked ball destroyed a bench and the iron fireguard.

  Gilead flung himself forward again, trying to find some opening. This time, his beloved blue-steel sword caught against the cutter blade and broke, leaving him with about a foot of jagged blade. The creature started baying - laughing perhaps, it was impossible to tell - and charged the elf.

  Gilead thought fast. He faced certain death unless he tried to evade. But death… death was what he wanted! At this moment he could do anything. Even if he failed, he would still be rewarded with the thing he most craved. Calm swept through him.

  Gilead did what Siddroc least expected. He met the charge head on. The jagged end of the longsword stabbed into the visor slit of Siddroc’s vast helm. There was a pneumatic pop and a crack of bone, and stinking black ichor spurted out of the neck seals. With a monstrous scream, the great creature toppled.

  Gilead rose unsteadily from the great, twitching corpse. Once again, he noted darkly, death had chosen to take his side. He looked around. Lugos was gone.

  GILEAD CAUGHT UP with him in the main yard of the mansion. The gates were open and the servants were fleeing, taking whatever they could with them in their panic. Gilead ignored the humans as easily as if they were sheep.

  Lugos was face down in the dirt, impaled by a crossbow bolt. Betsen stood over him.

/>   ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ she asked the elf, her whole body shaking.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied simply. ‘And that is your vengeance served.’

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you… but it doesn’t feel anything like enough.’

  ‘It never does,’ said Gilead Lothain.

  AND FOR GILEAD, it truly never would. But for a while, the determination of the human girl, Betsen, had shaken him out of his dark despair. The cold touch of death in his veins had faded a little, driven back by the heat of purpose.

  He stood in the ruined main hall of Tor Anrok, alone. It was dawn and the light was watery and thin. He fixed his eyes for the last time on his father’s golden throne. A few minutes before, he had lain a twist of thorn-roses, as scarlet as the ancient livery of House Lothain, on Cothor’s grave.

  He took little from the tower: a few trinkets and keepsakes, three or four of the oldest texts from Taladryel’s decaying library, a few last flasks of the rare elven vintage from the cellar. His own possessions were few.

  His father’s longsword was a regal piece, its platinum guard encrusted with rubies. But it was not for him. He left it, locked in its casket, in Cothor’s chamber - where it still lies, so I believe. Gilead chose a more suitable weapon to replace the precious blade he had left shattered in Lugos’s hall: Galeth’s sword. It was the twin of his own: a long, slim blade of blue-steel with dragon beaks flaring from a hilt set with a single scarlet ruby.

  Gilead nodded a last, silent farewell to Tor Anrok, strode out into the tower yard and reached his horse.

  On his own steed, to one side, Fithvael watched him, leaning low in the saddle to ease the ache of his healing wounds.

  ‘I never thought…’ he began.

  Gilead swung up into his own saddle and took the ancient elf’s hand. ‘The past is dead, Fithvael. It is gone. You showed me that much. I do not know what I have in my future, but I will continue with it… until I find death at last.’

  ‘Then let me ride with you until that day dawns,’ Fithvael said quietly.

  They spurred away into the morning mist. Behind them, Tor Anrok stood forlorn. Protected by its ancient charms and wards, shrouded by the mysterious forest that only elven skill could penetrate, it would never be seen by mortal eyes again.

  3

  GILEAD’S CHOSEN

  There is too much magic in this place!

  WHAT? WHERE DID they go after that?

  I’ve whetted your appetite, I see. Pass me that wineskin and let me think now. The stories have been in my head for fifty years, and they were old before that. They flutter around in the dry attic of my skull, waiting to be let out again. I remember only scraps. Forgive me.

  Leaving Tor Anrok for the last time, Gilead and Fithvael set out upon an almost aimless voyage into the world. There was some business with a great, horned beast in the savage wilds to be found to the east of Marienburg, but the details I have forgotten. And raiders too, I recall, practising banditry on the high passes this side of Parravon. They did not live to regret their mistake in stopping two lonely horsemen.

  What else? Damn my memory for a musty thing! Wait… wait… two whole seasons below ground? Yes, in lightless catacombs, at war with the rat-kin! Such deeds there, such a tale! But I have sworn never to tell it in full. Some stories carry a curse and that is one of them.

  As the tales were told to me, this was a better time for Gilead Lothain, despite the dangers. Consider this much - he owned a wounded life: the death of his twin, the desolation of his ten year quest for vengeance, the misery and gloom that followed. But his companion, Fithvael, had brought him salvation of a kind. First, by spurring him to hunt the damned merchant-lord, Lugos, and then by persuading him to abandon his ruined birthplace where nothing remained save ghosts. Their wanderings gave Gilead purpose, be it bandits, beasts or the foul skaven-things. There was valour and combat and justice enough to stave off the clammy hand of doom that reached for him, across the abyss, that old rapport with Galeth which persisted now and touched his soul with death.

  The companions shared a degree of happiness, comradeship, endeavour. A worthy time. But Gilead’s heart was still tainted and darkened, and the misery that dogged his life would not remain at bay forever. Ah yes, a good and worthy time. It would not last, and once it was gone, it would never return. Merciful gods, I knew I had it. Now I recall what transpired next. Fill up your cup, sit back, and I’ll tell you the story of what followed. But there’s no happy ending, I warn you.

  First, I must tell you about the voice.

  THE VOICE HAD begun to call soon after Gilead had first turned his back on Tor Anrok. Gossamer-faint to begin with, he would hear it fleetingly, just the once, and then not again for months at a time; a very infrequent chiding whisper in the dead of night. Over the months and years, however, it grew, becoming stronger and more frequent. First it seemed to be the voice of his father, then his brother. Then it became a single, crystal-light, intonation in his mind, the voice of an elven woman. Eventually it was a voice Gilead felt he had always known, a voice of the past, and of the future.

  Gilead had by then resolved to seek out any remnants of his kind. Veteran Fithvael, at his side day and night, privately believed this to be a fool’s quest. The old kind had gone from these shores, its spaces usurped by the crude, short-lived humankind or the loathsome subhuman races. But he humoured his companion. The notion of the quest calmed Gilead, made him eager, curious, determined. It made him alive, and for that little comfort Fithvael was deeply grateful. As I believe I said, this was a good time for them both.

  As it started to come to him more frequently, Gilead found himself beginning to follow in the direction of the voice, taking Fithvael with him, until they reached a tangled region deep in the Drakwald where none lived for fear of beastmen. Only now Fithvael faltered, but Gilead was resolved. There was one of their kind here somewhere, one with the power to enter his mind and lead him. He would follow it, to his death if need be.

  Now, each long, dark night, her voice filled Gilead’s dreams. When she came to his mind he welcomed her gladly. Ever since the promise of his young life had been taken from him, he had seen nothing in his future. It seemed like a lifetime since he had dreamed like a young man; dreamed of desire, dreamed of a lover, a wife, an heir even. The voice in his mind made him feel such things were possible again.

  Pressing on through the tangled forest by day, he concentrated now only on following the voice and finding its owner. He thought nothing of what might happen beyond meeting the elf-woman who called in his mind.

  ‘Do we continue eastward again today?’ Fithvael dared to ask one morning as they broke camp and made ready to move on.

  ‘Eastward until I learn otherwise,’ Gilead answered.

  ‘And what do we seek in the east?’

  ‘A life,’ replied Gilead, mounting his steed and turning her head toward his chosen route.

  Fithvael did not pursue this conversation, just as he had not pursued so many like it in the preceding weeks. He had begun to mistrust the eager purpose that infused his friend. For so long they had simply wandered idly, sometimes making a little progress, sometimes casting huge circles in one remote area. Gilead seemed now to know precisely where he was going, but he had shared no information with Fithvael. The old warrior well knew the vagaries of Gilead’s mind when it was disturbed. Yet now, Gilead had a kind of calm about him, coupled with a channelled energy so different from the murderous frenzy that Fithvael had so often feared to see in his companion.

  So Fithvael followed Gilead’s lead and waited for a better time to question him.

  TWO DAYS LATER, at that time of day when the forest colours became one uniform dull grey hue in the fading light, Gilead turned to his companion. They could not see each other’s faces as they sat side by side in the gloom, but Fithvael could sense the thrill surging through Gilead’s body.

  ‘We’re very close now,’ said Gilead, as if this explained everything.
/>
  ‘Close to what?’ Fithvael asked.

  ‘Not to what,’ his friend said, ‘to whom! The voice that calls to us!’

  With that, he spurred on through the deep grey shadows of the primeval woodland. Fithvael smelled the churned up loam, the moss, the bark-rot in the trees. He heard the rheumatic creak of ancient timbers, the snuffling of wild boar some hundred paces away, the whirr of glossy beetles in the mulch beneath their boots. Yet he heard no voice, except the one in his own head that told him: Turn back now and leave the young fool to his insane quest.

  Fithvael stroked his steed’s mane, loosened his blade in its sheath and, knowing he was liable to regret it, urged it to trot on after Gilead.

  HER NAME WAS Niobe. She made herself as small as possible in the filthy, stinking place into which she had been thrown.

  She dared not open her eyes for fear of what she might see around her. She concentrated hard, trying to cut out the cries of her fellow captives, the inhuman wails and screams that filled her ears and echoed in her head. She tried to block out the deep grunts and growls of the bestial guards. She closed her mind to all that she had seen and done.

  It was to no avail. The hypnotic, charismatic charms of Lord Ire ran through her soul like poison in blood. She knew what he was doing and why he had brought her here… her and the others.

  There was nothing she could do except make herself small, shut her eyes, block out the sounds - and call.

  When Lord Ire and his foul beastman brood had first dragged her to this grotesque place, with its sense-churning architecture and its hideous stench, she had set a part of her mind aside. She had locked it shut and poured all the energy she could muster into its solitude.

  She knew that Lord Ire was using her magic, harvesting it and putting it to some dark use. And she knew that if he drained away all of her arcane powers, she would have nothing left to fight him with, and nothing left with which to reach out into the world.

  Her mind-magic had always been strong, even as a babe in arms. It had made her blessed and special in her father’s tower. Now she portioned off a tiny part of that magic and used it to send out a plea for help. If there was any of her kind within a thousand leagues of her, any of the ancient race prepared to listen, then that plea would reach them and perhaps bring them to her rescue. It had been so long now. Months, years even, alone in the darkness, her magic forever ebbing as it was drained away. Yet she called again, knowing it would not be long before she could call no more.