Tom Lloyd: The stormcaller

'He'll kill me,' Isak moaned, his hands trembling uncontrollably. 'He'll kill us all.'

Horman turned with a frown and gave Isak a clip around the head to shut him up. 'He'll have to get in line then, now quiet!'

Isak ducked down as the stranger's gaze rested on the western horizon for a moment before turning back to Carel: 'My name is Aracnan. I am just a mercenary, like you. My task was twofold; the second part was to deliver a message to the boy if he would not come. Tell your men to put their bows away. My employer is more powerful than you can ever imagine. Here is the message.'

Carel found his hand full, and then Aracnan leapt up on to the rocky bank above him. It was a jump far beyond the capability of any street acrobat, but he landed so lightly that not a stone nor chunk of dirt was dislodged on to the stunned men below. Then he was gone.

They tried to track him, but once they had scrambled up the bank they couldn't even guess at which direction Aracnan had taken, and the ground held no clues that any man had walked there. Finally, unwilling to waste much more time chasing ghosts, the wagon-master called off the futile hunt and they recommenced their journey in near-silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Isak jumped when Carel leaned over to whisper in his ear, some hours later, 'Nyphal was looking down upon us, I'm sure; I felt her presence.'

Was that what I felt? A Goddess?' asked Isak, unsure whether he could have described what he had felt as divine. The mercenary nodded, his eyes fixed on the western horizon, where the Gods lived. He'd seen Aracnan's anger, contained though it was, and had no doubt the Goddess had intervened for them. 'We'll stop at the next shrine and sacrifice there. I'm not sure what Aracnan wanted with you, but he meant you no good – of that I'm certain.'

He kept his frown for a moment, then shook it off and nudged Isak with a laugh. The Gods were looking down on you, boy, so maybe they've plans for you after all. You might find out there are worse things in life than bales of cloth.'

Isak sat with his lips firmly set, determinedly looking north to the cool, wooded valleys and mist-shrouded mountains the tribe called home: the land where the God Nartis raged in the sky above a city of soaring spires and the dark-haired Farlan tribe; north, to the Lord of Storms.

Tirah, the seat and heart of an autocrat's power: a city that slumbered warily at the heart of the Spiderweb Mountains. Crowned by seven great towers and wreathed in curling mist, Tirah was famed throughout the Land as the oldest of human cities, and one of the most beautiful. Dark cobbled streets led directly into the tendrils of forest that reached down from the mountain line. The rangers who patrolled up in the mountains described the grey mass of Tirah as besieged, a great standing stone slowly succumbing to the creep of moss. No one else went up there – it was a place where Gods and monsters walked. In three thousand years, the Parian had spread well beyond Tirah's streets and into the dense expanse of the Great Forest, but it was far from tame.

This night, a creature far from home had ventured on to those streets, driven there by desperation and hunger. As a hero of the Western Tunnels, the most vicious battleground of a long-standing war, he'd been chosen as a seeker, for only the strongest could survive the rituals that entailed. Despite the risk posed by humans, the seekers were sent out in small bands to all corners of the Land, following the trail of magical artefacts their people needed so badly. Whatever spells the priests of home had burned into his flesh, they had made him aware of magic, leaving him as tormented as an addict by its bitter Perfume drifting on the wind. Barely thinking, he'd trudged on, intent °n his search, even as his comrades fell to the creatures of the forest, it was loyalty that had taken them north in the first place, and it was loyalty that brought them, enfeebled and afraid, to their deaths in a land of cloying scent, numbing cold and constant rain. No God would claim their souls and he feared that this place was so distant it would be impossible for any of them to join their forebears in the Temple of Ancestors, to guard over the next generation.

The daemons stalking him had caught the scent once more. Their chilling calls went up even as he found cobbles underfoot. The child in him wanted to turn and shout, beg for some respite, even as his aching heart strained to keep tired limbs moving. The warrior in him said run or die. The blanket of fog brought their wail from every direction, and from an indeterminate distance. But they were close. He could feel them.

He ran, blindly – but it was a dead end, and at last there was nowhere else to go. Blank stone walls rose up on either side; the only window he could see was too high to reach. A low wooden storehouse hugged the left-hand wall, but he was too exhausted to climb. The time had come. Panting, trying to fill his tortured lungs in the choking, sodden air they had here, he allowed himself one moment to remember the warm taste of home, then readied his claws for battle. Drawing himself up to his full height, he called out his battle-honours with what strength he could muster. The long list declared his prowess even as it summoned the beasts to him.

Then he crouched, his withered limbs tense and ready, and a sibilant snarl cut the night's mist. It scarcely had time to die as three leapt on him as one and bore him down. So much for his pride. Now empty eyes ignored his limp body being torn apart; unhearing ears were deaf to the guttural snorts as his flesh was devoured, his blood licked up.

A figure watched the dying, but he felt nothing for the outmatched and pitiful creature. He knew nothing of the Siblis race except that that they were unsuited to these parts. A long cloak billowed out behind him as he ghosted over the cobbled ground. But something had compelled the Siblis to come so far, into so inhospitable a place. Curiosity stirred. Gliding over to the jerking body he threw back the huge wolves with ease and bent down to inspect what remained.

The beasts, baulked of their prey, snarled as they retreated a step. hackles raised and ready to attack. Then they realised what he was, and that recognition elicited a whimper of fear, but the man ignored them. With heads down, and bellies brushing the ground, the wolves backed away until, at a safe distance, they turned and fled back to the forest. They had melted into the mist before they even made the tree-line.

The man knelt down and placed the bow he was carrying to one side. It was a beautiful weapon, fully six feet in length – the man was extraordinarily big and could draw it with ease – and slightly recurved, with an intricately painted design down its entire length. The grip and tips were finished in silver but it was the hunting scene tracedwith infmite care in blue and white that made the bow a work of art.'The last of the Siblis.' He was glad to make some noise again after a day of silent tracking, even if he was speaking only to the night. He

had found other bodies during the past week.

'And this one was theseeker,' he went on to himself.

The war must be going badly if they have revived this practice, but what in the name of the dark place brought it here?

He knew the Siblis were engaged in an almost eternal war with the Chetse, a slow, bitter struggle that drained both sides and left no one a winner. Now it appeared the Siblis were desperate enough to curse their own soldiers with a craving for magic, a craving that would drive them to the brink of death as they sought weapons for their outnumbered warriors. There were runes cut into the corpse's torso, still open and weeping, kept that way by magic. Did they understand the agony they were putting their servants through?