Dusk arrived quickly in the Clanholds, the sun dipping below the mountains to paint the snowy slopes a burning bronze. It was breathtaking; you had to give these barren and icy lands that. With the sun slumbering, Elunnai’s silvery light sparkled all along the valley, a silvery path enticing us onwards to Kil Noth, the accursed holdfast of the druí.
The campfires were eerily quiet tonight, devoid of the music and song I’d been led to expect of armies on the march. I opened my Gift to seek out the answer – they were dwelling on the enemy’s massive numbers, and after seeing the work of their flying daemons our men were now also nervous of the open sky. My leadership only made things worse, but Eva’s relentless efficiency and martial power seemed to counter that in their minds. I knew that I was pretty much just here as a sacrifice – Kil Noth wanted me back for some reason, and they were happy to use this war as leverage. They knew I would never return willingly, not unless the fate of all Kaladon hinged on it. I was a confirmed black-hearted bastard but even I wasn’t that selfish.
I couldn’t get to sleep, tossing and turning and mind racing with a thousand different thoughts; mostly dreading tomorrow. I gave up and threw on my overcoat and thick cloak, then pulled on my boots and gloves and headed out into the snow. With my Gift it wasn’t difficult to move unseen, or rather, disregarded; I wasn’t actually invisible. My footprints in the snow proved the only troublesome aspect, convincing the sentries to continually ignore them while I was away.
It was undoubtedly a stupid decision to leave camp without my guards, given we were at war and daemons were loose in these hills. But I didn’t give a rat’s arse, I needed to be alone and free of the morass of stray thoughts pressing in on me. People kept so much locked away in their heads, unsaid and unacted: flashes of anger and disgust, images of punching some annoying git in the face for scraping a metal spoon across a pot or for chewing too loud, hints of lust and filthy images… all sorts of impulses that they would never act on in reality. And yet I knew it all. People were never exactly what they portrayed on the outside – Eva was not the only one to wear a mask.
I tramped a fair way towards Kil Noth until I glimpsed the mountain it was burrowed into, all limned in silvery light. A few columns of smoke rose from unseen fires somewhere deep inside its subterranean halls. I stood in the snow, thinking and occasionally sipping my whisky for warmth. Eventually I became aware of a quiet presence off to one side watching me intently. I reached out to investigate and found a human mind curled up tighter than a snail in its shell. Eva.
“Want some?” I held my flask of whisky out towards her without looking in her direction.
A white cloak rose from the snow to reveal the armoured form beneath. She took her time approaching, emotions as inscrutable as ever behind her steel mask. She took the whisky from me but didn’t drink.
I yawned into a glove. “Did you expect me to run and hide?” Her single green eye studied me. “I was ordered to stop you if you did. We made a very specific deal with the Clansfolk druí.”
“Not what I asked.”
It took a while for her to answer, never a good sign. “No,” she said finally. “Not now.”
I’d tried to flee before, more than once when faced with the Magash Mora and the Skallgrim. “And why now?”
“Nowhere to run to,” she said. “Everywhere is at war, with daemons and gods and fuck knows what else popping up everywhere. You would be hunted with a ferocity that no rogue magus has ever seen before.”
I grunted. “True enough.”
“And you have seen true horror,” she added, the words oddly soft in her cracked voice. “In the end you did not shirk that terrible task. You faced down daemons, the Magash Mora, a god, and the Arcanum itself to do what had to be done. What is this petty little skirmish in comparison to that?”
Unexpectedly, I laughed. How had she managed that? “You make it all sound so easy.”
Now it was her turn to laugh, a harsh hacking. “What do you make of this place?”
I shrugged. “The Clanholds is a backwater, but not without its charms. It’s an impenetrable maze to outsiders and all those stones make me nervous, especially the ones marked with three eyes. This place harbours a hundred ancient mysteries. Have you ever heard of the myth of the God of Broken Things?”
She shook her head. “It’s a local legend around these parts, but unusually this one is about a god instead of giants or spirits so perhaps the tale bears some kernel of truth. There is supposed to be a sacred valley around here that only the despairing can find, hidden from the sight of all the rest. There, a god makes its home. It is said that the broken can find succour and safety there. Wish we could find it. I wouldn’t mind having a god on our side right now.”
“Sounds farfetched to me.” She turned away and eased her mask up to take a drink.
“There’s no need to hide,” I said. “I have seen horrors beyond compare and your scars were gained protecting us. Without you we would all have been lost to something worse than death. Your wounds were earned in righteous battle, not like…” I traced the scars running down my right cheek, “…not like mine, earned from naive stupidity. I appreciate a good mind more than the meat we wear.”
My breath misted the air for long moments until she chose to turn back to face me. I could only see her lower face, but that was enough to know exactly what she suffered. Her nose was missing and the left side of her face was a tapestry of black and red ruin with bone peering through in patches. The lips were gone to expose bare teeth. Her right side was better, but still a mass of angry burn-scars. She opened her mouth and poured in a goodly amount of whisky. Her single eye pierced me, defiant and expecting comment. I made none.
She stoppered the flask and tossed it back to me. “So now you know.”
Her scars didn’t matter to me. Without thinking, I reached towards her and stroked her scarred cheek with my hand. The moment I touched her I knew it was a mistake. She slapped my hand aside, a whisker away from breaking my arm, then hastily slid her mask back down into place. Her hands shook with fury. “How fucking dare you, I should break your face.”
Words were crude things at times. I let go of my emotions, Gift radiating exactly what I was thinking and feeling. She lurched backwards, swamped in my unfiltered admiration and respect. Anger at what had been done to her, yes, but not a single bloody smidgeon of pity. No, I wouldn’t run, and not because I had nowhere to run to – that had never stopped me before – but because of her. I wished to possess even half of her brave heart and iron will. Again, her ruined figure clad in half-melted armour stood before me during the darkest hour of Black Autumn, spirit-bound sword in her hand and duty in her heart. In agony, she did what needed to be done. Me? I just followed in her wake. She had saved me, and I owed her. I intended to pay her back in kind. I would be something better than I was. I was here to fight at her side and her ravaged body did not dissuade me – it was her mind I was attracted to.
A strangled choke from behind the mask, and then she fled as fast as knightly body-magic could propel her, a blurred shape blasting through the snow and out of sight in seconds before the waves of snow had even settled.
“Oh well done, you fucking arse. Handled that well, eh?” I had no idea how she was feeling and as usual I’d just done whatever I wanted without a thought in my stupid head, and damn what anybody else felt about it. “Walker, you absolute shitestain.” But now she knew exactly how I felt about her. Surprisingly, this was also the first time that I did as well.
Jovian was awake and waiting for me when I returned, a disapproving look in his eyes. I said nothing and tossed him the last of my whisky.