Blood Song

He was led to a large room which served as the mission’s meal hall and ate a plate of stew Brother Artin had brought up from the kitchens. After the meal the Brother Commander unfurled a large map on the table. “The most recent effort from our brother map-makers in the Third Order,” he explained. “A detailed rendering of the borderlands. Here,” he pointed to a pictogram of a walled city. “Cardurin. Directly north will take you to the Skellan Pass, fortified and permanently manned by three companies of brothers. A truly unassailable barrier for any fugitive. The Lonak gave up on it decades ago.”

“How do they make their way south?” Vaelin asked.

“The foothills to the west and east. It’s a long journey and makes them vulnerable to pursuit but they’ve little choice if they want to keep raiding. How can you be sure your brother will venture into Lonak lands?”

He’s my brother no longer, Vaelin wanted to say but held his tongue. He felt a profound anger whenever he thought of Nortah and it would do no good to voice it. “Is there a safe way in?” he asked the Brother Commander, avoiding his question. “A way a man travelling alone wouldn’t be seen?”

Brother Artin shook his head. “The Lonak know whenever we venture into their lands, alone in the dead of winter or in a full company of brothers in high summer, it makes no difference. They always know. Something Dark about it, I reckon. Make no mistake, brother, if you follow him in there you’ll meet them, sooner or later.”

Vaelin scanned the map, from the solid mass of jagged peaks that formed the northern mountains and the heart of Lonak lands to the Skellan pass, fortified a century ago when the Renfaelin Lord decided the Lonak were a real threat rather than a continual nuisance. It was when he turned his attention to the western foothills that the blood-song flared. His finger picked out a small, unfamiliar pictogram on the map. “What’s this?”

“The fallen city? He won’t go there. Even the Lonak don’t go there.”

“Why?”

“It’s a bad place, brother. All ruins and bare rock. Only ever seen it from a distance and it gave me the frights. Something in the air…” He shook his head. “Just feels bad. The Lonak call it Maars Nir-Uhlin Sol, the Place of Stolen Souls. They have plenty of stories about people going there and never coming back. There was a party of brothers from the Fourth Order about a year ago, come in search of deniers fleeing north. It was after the appointment of their new Aspect and our Order’s refusal to assist any longer in the Fourth’s denier hunting. They insisted on going to the fallen city, claimed they had intelligence leading them there, although from where they wouldn’t say. They were deaf to my warnings, ‘Servants of the Faith need fear no savage superstition,’ they said. We only ever found one of them, or rather part of him, frozen solid in the snow three months later. Something had been at him. Something hungry.”

“Perhaps they simply got lost and froze to death. A wolf or a bear could have come upon the body.”

“The man’s face was frozen, brother, in a scream. Never seen such a look on any man, alive or dead. He was eaten alive, by something bigger and far meaner than any wolf. And bears don’t leave marks like these.”

Vaelin turned back to the map. “How many day’s ride to the fallen city?”

Brother Artin’s shrewd eyes regarded Vaelin closely. “You really think he’s there?”

I know he’s there. “How many day’s ride?”

“Three, if you push hard. I’ll send a bird to the wall for a party to accompany you. May take a few days. You can rest here…”

“I’ll be travelling alone, brother. In the morning.”

“Alone into Lonak lands? Brother, to say that is unwise is a gross understatement.”

“Did the Aspect’s missive contain any injunction against me travelling alone?”

“No. It merely ordered that you be given every assistance.”

“Well,” Vaelin moved back from the table and clapped Brother Artin on the shoulder, “a good night’s sleep, provisions for the journey and you will have assisted me very well.”

“If you go in there alone, you will die,” Brother Artin stated flatly.

“Then let’s hope I complete my mission before I do.”