David Gemmell - The Winter Warriors

The image had been fleeting, and she found that the more she concentrated upon it the less clear it became.

Silently she returned to the roof garden, pausing in the doorway, unseen. From here she could see the kindly wizard and the queen sitting together. Closing the eyes of her body she gazed upon them both with the eyes of spirit.

Her heart hammered, and she began to tremble once more.

Kalizkan's face was grey and dead, his hands only partly covered in flesh. Bare bone protruded from the ends of his fingers. And as Ulmenetha looked more closely she saw a small maggot slither out from a hole in the wizard's cheek and drop to the shoulder of his blue satin robes.

Backing away she returned to her room, and prayed.

Dagorian stood in the centre of the small room. Blood had splashed to the white walls, and the curved dagger that caused the terrible wounds had been tossed to the floor, where it had smeared a white goatskin rug. The body of the old woman had been removed before Dagorian arrived, but the murderer was still sitting by the hearth, his head in his hands. Two Drenai soldiers stood guard over him.

'It seems fairly straightforward,' Dagorian told Zani, the slender Ventrian official. 'In a rage this man killed his mother. There are no soldiers involved. No threat to the king. I do not see why you called me to the scene.'

'You are the Officer of the Watch for last night,' said Zani, a small man, with close cropped dark hair and a pronounced widow's peak. 'We are to report all cases of multiple killings.'

'There was more than one body?'

'Yes, sir. Not here, but elsewhere. Look around you. What do you see?'

Dagorian scanned the room. Shelves lined the walls, some bearing jars of pottery, others bottles of coloured glass. On the low table beside the hearth he saw a set of rune stones, and several papyrus charts of the heavens. 'The woman was a fortune-teller,' he said.

'Indeed she was — and a good one, by all accounts.'

'This is relevant?' asked Dagorian.

'Four such people were killed last night in this quarter of the city alone. Three men and a woman. Two were murdered by customers, a third by his wife, and this woman by her son.'

Dagorian crossed the room and opened the back door, stepping out into the narrow garden beyond. The Ventrian followed him. The sun was bright in the sky, the warmth welcome. 'Did the victims know one another?' asked Dagorian.

'The son told me he knew one of the dead.'

'Then it remains coincidence,' concluded Dagorian.

The Ventrian sighed and shook his head. 'Twenty-seven in the last month. I do not think coincidence will stretch that far.'

'Twenty-seven fortune-tellers?' Dagorian was astonished.

'Not all were fortune-tellers. Some were mystics, others priests. But their talent was the common factor. They could all walk the path of Spirit. Most could read fragments of the future.'

'Not very well, apparently,' Dagorian pointed out.

'I disagree. Come, let me show you.' Dagorian followed the small Ventrian back to the door. Zani pointed to recent scratches upon the wood, in the shape of an inverted triangle, with a snake at the centre. 'All the entries to the room bear this sign. It is part of a ward spell, protective sorcery. The old woman knew she was in danger. When we found her she was clutching an amulet. This too was a protective piece.'

'Protection against sorcery ,' said Dagorian, patiently. 'But she wasn't killed by sorcery, was she? She was murdered by her son. He admits to the crime. Does he claim he was demon possessed? Is that his defence?'

'No,' admitted Zani. 'But perhaps it ought to be. I have spoken to the neighbours. He was devoted to his mother. And even he no longer knows why his rage exploded.'

Dagorian approached the distraught young man sitting by the hearth. 'What do you recall of the crime?' he asked him. The man looked up.

'I was sitting in my room, and I just got angrier and angrier. The next thing I knew I was here… in this room. And I was stabbing, and stabbing. .' He broke down and hid his face in his hands.

'What made you angry?'

It seemed at first that the young man had not heard the question, but the sobbing subsided and he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. 'I can't remember now. I really can't.'

'Why did your mother make the ward signs on the doors?'

'She was frightened. She wouldn't see any customers and she wouldn't come out of the room. We were running out of money. I think, maybe, that's why I got angry. We couldn't afford fuel, and my room was so cold. So terribly cold.' He began to sob once more.

'Take him away,' Dagorian told the soldiers. They lifted the man to his feet and marched him from the house. A small crowd had gathered outside. Some of them shouted abuse at the prisoner.

'There is something very wrong here,' said Zani.

'Send me the details of the other crimes,' Dagorian told him. 'I will look into them.'

'You think you will solve the mystery in a day?' asked Zani. 'Or will you not be marching with the army tomorrow?'

'I leave tomorrow,' said Dagorian. 'But still I wish to see the reports.'

Leaving the house he mounted his horse and rode back to the new barracks. Once there he waited for the reports, read them carefully, then requested a meeting with his immediate superior, the Ventrian swordsman Antikas Karios.

He was kept waiting outside the Ventrian's office for an hour, and when he was at last ushered inside, he saw Antikas walk in from the garden beyond, where he had been exercising. Stripped to the waist he was sweating heavily. A servant brought him a towel. Antikas sat down behind the broad desk and drank a cup of water. Then he towelled his dark hair. The servant moved behind him with a brush and a jar of oil. Lightly he massaged the Ventrian's scalp, before brushing his hair back and tying it in a pony-tail. With a flick of his hand Antikas dismissed the man, then turned his dark eyes on Dagorian.

'You wished to see me?'

'Yes, sir.' Swiftly he told the officer of the spate of murders, and the concerns of the official Zani that some orchestrated campaign of killing might be under way.

'Zani is a good man,' said Antikas. 'He has been a city official for fourteen years, and served with distinction. He has a fine mind. What is your opinion?'

'I have read the reports, sir. In each case the killers have been apprehended, and confessed, without torture. But I do share Zani's concern in one respect.'

'And that is?'

'Twenty-seven mystics in sixteen days. And, according to the reports, every one of them was living in fear.'

Antikas rose from his desk, crossed the room and took a fresh shirt from a drawer. Shaking the rose petals from it he pulled it over his head. Then he returned to the desk. 'You are a good swordsman,' he said. 'Your moves are well executed.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Dagorian, confused by the change of subject.

'It is your footwork that lets you down.'

'So Nogusta told me, sir.'

'Yes,' said Antikas, with a cold smile. 'If he were twenty years younger I would challenge him. He is exceptional.' Antikas sat down and took a second drink from the water cup. 'I see from your dossier that you were training for the priesthood.'

'I was, sir. Until my father died.'

'Yes, a man must uphold family honour. Did your teaching incorporate mysticism?'

'Only briefly, sir. But no sorcery.'

'I think you will find that these crimes are based on rivalry among petty wizards. Even so, such actions cannot be tolerated. Find out which mystics are still alive. The true source of the murders will be one of those.'

'Yes, sir, I will try, but I cannot do this in a day.'

'Indeed so. You will remain here. I will send for you when we have crossed the Great River.'