Paul Kemp: Shadowrealm

Reht made his expression neutral, stepped out of the tent to face them. They blinked in the rain. "Vors is dead. A spear through the gut."

Expressions turned angry, fists shook. No one had liked Vors except his fellow priests, but he had been one of their company.

"Someone pays for this in blood," boomed a voice from the crowd, and the four other Talassans in the army, their unkempt hair flattened against their heads by the rain, wild eyes glaring, elbowed their way through the press.

Reht stepped forward to meet them, cut them off from entering Vors's tent. The big warpriest almost bumped him. Almost.

"Agreed, Kelgar. But it happens my way, and only on my orders."

The tall warpriest's wild eyes fixed on Reht. Spit flew when he spoke. "And who are you to me?"

Reht eased forward into Kelgar's space, nose to nose. The men watching fell silent. The priest stood a hand taller than Reht, and a stone heavier.

"Your commander, which means you follow my orders. Understood?'

"A Stormlord is dead, murdered." More spit.

"He is. But in this army, you answer to me first, to your god second. Otherwise, you ride off now. Find the slaughter you seek somewhere else."

"You disliked Vors. We know what happened on the last raid."

"I hated him passionately," Reht said, eliciting a growl from Kelgar. "But he was a soldier in this army. My army. That is all that matters."

The Talassan stared into Reht's eyes, measuring him. Reht gave no ground.

Finally the priest smirked, stepped back, and nodded. No spit.

"Well enough… Commander."

Reht stepped aside and let them through. "We'll have a council with all the junior commanders in one hour. You are to be there."

Kelgar grunted agreement and entered the tent with his fellows. The moment they saw the carnage they shouted curses and blood oaths.

Gavist and Othel cleared out of the way and Reht stood in the tent's doorway as the warpriests honored their dead by howling over his body and destroying his possessions, overturning tables, shattering glass, slashing carpets and bedding. Reht had seen it before. Talos reveled in destruction and battle. So did his priests. The Talassans would pile up the wreckage and set it all aflame with a summoned lightning strike before dawn.

As if in answer to the funereal rage of the Talassan warpriests, the sky rumbled with thunder, a lasting peal that reached a booming crescendo.

"Double the men on guard duty," Reht said to Gavist, and the young junior commander nodded.

"You think the assassins might return?"

"I don't. Vors, at least, looks to have been personal. But we may as well take precautions. Taking Forrin could be a precursor to an attack."

Mennick, the army's most powerful wizard, strode through the men as the Talassans within the tent unleashed their own storm. Magic kept Mennick's dark robes and gray-streaked hair shielded from the rain.

"You've heard?" Reht asked.

Mennick's eyes clouded over. He'd known Forrin for many years. "Yes."

"Mages are at work in this," Reht said. "Shadovar mages. Do what you can to prevent this from happening again."

"I can raise some wards," Mennick said. "I should start with you."

"Fine. Inform the overmistress via sending, then find out who did this and where they are."

Mennick nodded and looked over and past Reht in thought, his brow grooved.

Lightning flashed and his eyes widened. He pointed at the horizon.

"Look at that."

Reht turned to see pitch devour the eastern sky, swallowing stars. Not storm clouds, but a churning fog of impenetrable night. Streaks of green lightning sliced through it at intervals. An uneasy murmur went through the gathered men as the darkness expanded.

"Not natural," Mennick said.

"Shadovar?" Reht asked.

Mennick shrugged. "Seems likely."

"Shadovar troops could be moving under cover of that storm," Gavist said.

"Possible," Mennick said. "They take Forrin, thinking to disrupt our command, then attack under cover of darkness."

Reht nodded, thoughtful. The storm was moving west toward them, bracketing Reht's army between it and the Saerbian forces. He liked it little.

He decided he would not sit idle while his enemies determined the field of battle. He had thought to march against the Saerbians, but now he had a different target, one whose agents had attacked his camp.

"Sound the muster," Reht said to Gavist. "Get the men geared up. We're moving into that storm. We take the fight to them."

Gavist saluted, and headed off.

"Scouts forward with half hour reporting," Reht shouted to Gavist's back. "And double the scouts to the rear. I don't want the Saerbians taking us unawares. And get some scouts in the field looking for Lorgan."

A raised hand acknowledged the orders and the camp soon erupted in activity.

Reht walked among his men, watching the approaching storm. It was still hours away, given its slow advance. In his mind's eye, he imagined the Saerbian forces marching from Lake Veladon, thinking to catch Reht in a vise.

"No, no," he said. He would engage the Shadovar as soon as possible. After defeating them, he'd turn and finish the approaching Saerbians. He had the forces to do it.

Behind him, the Talassans ignited Vors's body, possessions, and tent. Their roars of rage chased the smoke into the dark sky.

The next day would bring battle.

Once, the prospect would have lit a fire in his belly. Now, it kindled only a spark. A long life of soldiering had shaped Reht into a certain kind of man, and sometimes he tired of himself. He'd almost been apprenticed in his adolescence to a cartographer but the man had taken on another instead, a nephew. Reht had always loved maps, still did. He wondered what his life would have been like had he spent it as a map-maker. Would he have married? Had children? Certainly he'd have had fewer scars.

He shook his head, rebuking himself for being sentimental. He had made his choice, had put aside maps for steel.

Donning his helmet, he put cartography and regrets out of his mind and saw to the preparation of his army.

1 Nightal, The Year of Lightning Storms

Cale and Riven materialized in darkness as thick and black as a pool of ink. A cutting wind gusted from the east, and knifed through their clothes. Rain pelted them, and carried down from the black sky the musty smell of old decay. Tangible swirls of shadow turned the cool air thick, gauzy.

"Where is this place, Cale?" Riven asked over the wind.

"Home," Cale shouted in answer. "For a time." It was also in the center of the storm. They stood in the meadow not far from the small cottage where Cale had lived with Varra. The sentinel elm, towering over them, whispered and creaked in the wind, sizzled in the rain. The furniture Cale had made from deadwood lay overturned in the grass. The wildflowers Varra had planted were browned and dead on the stalks. The window shutters and door of the cottage flapped in the gusts, all of them beating as if in anger against the cottage's walls.

"Varra!" Cale shouted. "Varra!"

His voice barely penetrated the howl of wind and rain. Lightning lit the meadow. The downpour and wind hissed against the trees in the surrounding forest.

"You feel that air?" Riven shouted, and drew his blades. "Same as in the Calyx."

Cale nodded, and drew Weaveshear. "Same as in Elgrin Fau." He rode the darkness into the cottage. "Varra!"

He found their old home empty, their bed unmade. The wind shrieked through the open windows and doors. Blankets, utensils, pails, and broken pieces of clay lamps lay strewn about the floor, dislodged by the wind. He tore open cabinets, trunks, piles of linens, looking for any sign of what might have happened.

"Varra!"