Tom Lloyd: The Dusk Watchman

There were still many hundreds of bodies there on the killing ground, still lying where they had fallen. Not all could be identified, not even from one side or another, but there were enough green and gold Kingsguard uniforms to show Doranei where Coran had likely fallen. He hadn’t seen the body himself, but someone had said it bore terrible injuries — more than would be needed to kill a normal human or most white-eyes.

Stubborn even to death? Doranei thought before muttering a prayer to the dead. I’ve no doubt you were a bastard to kill — you’d have had it no other way.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a group of people heading his way and his heart sank. Isak and Vesna, with Mihn in close attendance. The broken white-eye was entirely hidden by a long patchwork cloak, as though trying to hide his identity, but it was hard to mistake a shuffling seven-foot monster of a man, no matter how stooped he now was. The harsh voice of a crow swooping above them made Isak look up and follow its movement with wary intensity.

By contrast Vesna, the Mortal-Aspect of Karkarn, looked pristine and regal. His title had been taken from him; Vesna was no longer a nobleman of the Farlan but had been dubbed Iron General by the God of War. Unlike Isak he still looked the part: his clothes were spotless, his hair neat and oiled, even the strange armoured arm Vesna now sported was clean and undamaged.

Doranei sheathed his sword and turned to wait for them as the soldiers fled. He couldn’t blame them for being unwilling to loiter when Karkarn’s own approached them across a battlefield. Isak’s identity remained a secret. Even if his death hadn’t been widely reported, the horrific mass of scars on his face and body rendered him unrecognisable to anyone who might have known him.

The King’s Man nodded as the group of Farlan reached him, not caring to do more even if they still expected it after giving up their noble titles. Seeing them here and now, he realised it meant as little to both men as it did to him. ‘Didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday,’ he said to Vesna.

The handsome Farlan looked startled at the idea. ‘Because we charged the Menin?’

‘Aye, well, some of us appreciated it.’

Vesna’s face darkened. ‘Not too many left to do so, by the time we got there. Not sure even our final stand in Scree compared to what I saw there. How many of you survived? Maybe a hundred all told, around the king?’

‘Easy to look heroic when there’s nowhere to run,’ Doranei said awkwardly.

‘No,’ Isak interrupted, ‘it would have been easy to give up — none of you did that.’

Doranei scowled at the furrowed ground at his feet. ‘Yeah, well, sure I’ll find a knighthood in my morning porridge. What’re you doing out here?’

‘Walking.’

Doranei cocked his head and looked inside the drooping hood Isak wore. The dead man’s face was twisted strangely, but whether he was trying to make a joke Doranei couldn’t tell. Isak’s expressions were forever ambiguous now: the daemons of Ghenna had seen to that.

But there was something different about the young white-eye. Though permanently stooped, thanks to the abuse he’d received in Ghenna, Isak definitely stood a fraction taller today; it made Doranei think a weight had been lifted from those scarred shoulders. He had been born to be the Menin lord’s adversary, in more forms than one, so Isak could truly feel his purpose in life had been fulfilled.

‘Just out for a walk? Picked a funny spot for it.’

‘As have you. Maybe we’re doing the same thing, though: remembering the dead.’

‘Lost many friends yesterday, did you?’

Isak’s head bowed for a moment, then tilted towards Vesna. ‘Some. Others I just heard about.’

Doranei hesitated. Just before he’d crashed out yesterday, someone had mentioned an assassination attempt on Vesna, one that had left Lady Tila dead — on her wedding day. It hadn’t surprised him at the time, not after the horrors he’d just witnessed, but now it seemed sick and unreal — that beautiful young woman no different to the brutalised corpses all around him. He shook his head as if to clear the image from his thoughts.

‘What now for you?’ he asked.

‘Now? Now we’ve a war to win.’ Vesna’s black-iron fingers flexed disconcertingly. ‘The worst may be yet to come.’

‘You make it sound like all this was nothing!’

Mihn stepped around Isak and placed a hand on Doranei’s shoulder. ‘This was far from nothing, my friend. The man created by the Gods to defeat Aryn Bwr was beaten, and that in itself will be remembered as one of the great feats in history. But your war was not always with the Menin lord.’

‘Azaer,’ Doranei said, finally getting it. ‘Do you have a plan?’

Mihn gave an apologetic little smile. ‘Nothing quite so simple, I’m afraid, but there is much work to be done.’

‘Where do we start?’

‘The king wants you to interrogate the Byoran prisoners — there are men of the Ruby Tower Guard claiming they have information for the king, if he is the one who sent men to assault the tower.’

‘I better get to it then. There aren’t many of the Brotherhood left who know what questions to ask.’

Mihn stopped him as he turned to leave. ‘Afterwards, come and find us at the Ghosts’ camp,’ he said, pointing to where the Farlan tents stood in neat blocks. ‘We have something else you might be interested in, you and all your Brothers. If you would gather them and anyone else you consider bound to the Brotherhood?’

‘Why?’

The small man glanced back at Isak. ‘I do not want to promise too much in advance, but there is a common saying: “a burden shared is a burden halved”.’ He scratched at his chest where the witch of Llehden had burned the heart rune into his flesh. ‘I am hoping the same does not go for gifts.’

There were three of them, two captains and a major, filthy and bedraggled in their torn uniforms. Buttons and braiding had been ripped away, most likely removed when they were disarmed, and they’d been relieved of any money they might have had. One of the captains was in a bad way, his right arm as poorly splinted as the gash in his shoulder was stitched.

Only one looked up when Doranei approached, but it was enough for him to see the misery of a cowed dog.

Ignoring the Ruby Tower Guardsmen surrounding him, Doranei advanced on the officers and squatted beside them. There were two Brothers behind him, Cedei and Firrin; neither were close enough to save him if the mob went for him, but they all knew the remaining regiments would be butchered if they did any such thing.

‘The Menin’s dead,’ he started in a quiet voice.. ‘You came here as allies of his, against your will, I’m sure.’

The battered captain nodded briefly, and returned his gaze to the ground.

‘So we don’t care much about you right now — no one wants the effort of imprisoning or slaughtering you all — but you’re soldiers and you know how easily that can turn. You all killed a lot of our countrymen getting here.’ He waited a few moments to give them time to think about that, then continued, ‘So this is me asking nicely so I don’t have to bother showing you how nasty I can get: tell me everything you know about Sergeant Kayel and the child, Ruhen.’

The captain’s fear fell away for a moment. ‘That scar-handed bastard? Gladly — the kid too. There’ somethin’ unnatural about the pair of ’em; the duchess is my liege, but when that Ruhen’s around she ain’t all there.’

Without warning a soldier leaped from the huddled mass, a short knife in his hand. For a moment Doranei didn’t react to the sudden movement, his exhausted body failing him, then he saw the knife-tip pass him by and something went click in his head as he saw the man reaching for the captain. Doranei launched into the slimmer man and knocked him sideways, then scrabbled to get his fingers around the man’s wrist. They crashed together into the injured captain, who cried out as they flattened him.