Healer's Ruin (19 page)

Zalan, too nervous of the Rovann's power to argue, glanced at Jolm and then turned, striding into the mist. When he had gone, Jolm sighed.

'So, slinger. Look at you, master of a whole city, with an army at your beck and call!'

'Not precisely,' said Chalos, lowering himself down onto a chunk of masonry and massaging his calves. Though healed, his body still screamed with pain, though there were periods of respite. 'They have no minds and no hearts. All I do is control the flow of energy that feeds their existence. If I relax it, and let it roar into them, they become animated and ferocious. If I tighten my grip, they become like dolls.'

'Do you mean what you say? That you will wage war on us if we take a step beyond the Dallian Woodland?'

'Yes.'

'Then I suppose I should ride back and send message to the King with all haste,' the Krune said. 'Tell him he has a new enemy.'

'I'll let you choose the wording of your message, lieutenant.'

'Heh. It's Duke now, actually.'

'Congratulations,' said Chalos, trying not to sound half-hearted. 'He died in battle with the golems?'

'That's the story,' Jolm said with a shrug. 'The truth is, after the death of Agryce the Tarukaveri fell in behind me, leaving him with little or no real authority. After the last golem fell, I found him in his little mobile fortress, nursing minor wounds. I had a little conversation with the bastard, and then I cut his head off.'

Even after everything Chalos had witnessed, Jolm still had the ability to shock him. The healer let out a dry, rattling laugh.

'So you're the master of all the Black Talon, then? Well, good for you. Perhaps that will bring peace to the Krune tribes.'

'Oh, that's the first step of my plan,' Jolm replied, before changing the subject. 'Can I ask you something, slinger?'

'Um, fine,' Chalos replied.

Here it comes. He's going to ask me to let his forces through, try and negotiate a deal to help him conquer this land. Or maybe just try and gain a foothold in this city of mine...

But it was not that at all.

'Where are you from?'

'From?' Chalos raised his brows. 'True Kaneen, in Yusadan, east Rova. Under the shadow of Mount Nuri. Why?'

Jolm grunted and sniffed, shifting his weight as he prepared to leave. His Baldaw mesh slithered over his thick arms and torso.

'You're part of my legend now, slinger,' he said. 'When, in times to come, the elders of the Krune tell of me, they will also tell of you. And it is important for the details to be correct.'

'I see. You should be careful,' Chalos said, sensing that the discourse was coming to an end and rising to his feet with a grimace. His arms and legs still burned as though immersed in fire. 'The King does not like rising stars.'

'The King has lost enough of his power to make him weak,' said Jolm. 'He's brittle now. Even his Fenc have been proved vulnerable. He won't be able to withstand a united Krune army striking at the very heart of his empire.'

The healer was struck dumb by Jolm's words. In his mind's eye he saw a horde of Tarukataru and Tarukaveri spreading outward from their homeland, amassed with whatever other tribes existed in that brutal part of the southern empire, seizing the homelands of the Ektan, the Sanul, the Phaeron... and hammering at the gates of the cities of Rova. What kind of masters would the Krune be? The sudden chill in his blood was the only answer he needed.

But is the Ten Plains King any better?
Chalos asked himself.
At least the Krune will care for their own. The King cares for none but himself. After all, his servant the Duke sent me to die with the Tarukataru as if I was nothing. Samine, too. It's his fault she's dead. So why do I feel like a traitor?

'Oh, the south will tremble beneath our boots! But don't worry for your people, slinger,' Jolm said, as he turned away and strode towards the mist with his curiously graceful gait. 'I find that I have a liking for Rovanns now.'

With that, he was gone, swallowed by the mist. Chalos remained for several moments, staring after him, aware that another story was beginning somewhere far away, a fresh legend in which he would be a mere footnote, a few words in the prologue encapsulating his wretched life with all its fleeting joys and prolonged agonies.

The last of the southern warriors had left the Dallian Woodland, retreating slowly in a sulk across the Doyu basin to the coast where their vast ships waited. The Riln of Dallian watched them go from their high perches in the towering trees, whistling coded messages to each other and wondering if this was indeed it – the end to the bloody stalemate.

Nestled beneath wide emerald leaves, Ona remembered how it had felt to see the invaders cut a path through her homeland. She remembered the pain they had inflicted upon her flesh and that of her comrades. Even now, the pain of those wounds remained, locked within her. There were still nights when she awoke with a start, expecting to find herself skewered on the barbed shaft of a crossbow bolt, only to remember that the wound had been sealed.  There was not even a scar beneath her dull green tunic.

He healed me.

To the north, the healer lived in his ziggurat, surrounded by voiceless dead warriors. Since General Zalan's audience with the Rovann slinger, no Riln had dared approach the place even in the clearest daylight for fear that the icy and impassive resolve of the grey warriors might break and their shrouded horde loose itself upon the land and its war-exhausted inhabitants.

But she knew that this would never happen. There would be no sudden war, no clarion sounding from the Ruin signifying the start of a fresh empire spread by the long dead of a forgotten people. For the master of those dead men was not a killer. He was an agent of Life, not Death.

Swinging from branch to branch, longbow strapped to her back, Ona made her way back to camp, finding a vine that enabled her to slide down to the mossy ground. There she found a dozen of her kin, their faces bright with joy, eyes sparkling.

'The foe is leaving!' one said.

'The war is over!'

She smiled at them and joined in their songs.

That night she climbed to the top of Ergulfr, the High Tree, and broke through the canopy of wide leaves. A parrot, nudged from its slumber, flapped its wings with an angry squawk and dropped down a branch or too. Apologising, Ona raised herself up and sat, cross-legged, on the highest bough. She could see the top of the Woodland, its emerald leaves a dark grey under the moon's wan light. The Woodland stretched on for a remarkable distance, giving way eventually to the featureless expanse of the Riln Plains.

She could not make out the details of the Ruin, of course. It was too far, even for a skilled archer's eyes. But she could see a single pinprick of light high above the shadowy line of the horizon. It hovered like a faint star.

Keep warm tonight, Healer,
she thought.
May your dreams be pleasant enough.

She waited until the distant light went out and then sighed before lowering herself back down to earth.

The night is the worst time. It's a cell full of pain.

Herbs help, and the rice wine the plains people bring me, furtively in the dawn, as if they are buying the appeasement of a god. But always the pain returns.

In the realm of magic I see my own eyes staring out at me. It's a bad sign. My soul is lost now. I've spent too much time immersed and now I can't escape.

But it's not all bad. I have a constant source of power. My body will never wither however broken my mind becomes. If need be, I will hold onto the reins of this army of ghosts until the end of time.

There will never be war again between the south and the north. This keeping of the peace is all I have left.

That, and the bones gathered at the foot of my bed of animal hides, and the tiny fragments in the nest on the windowsill.

Goodnight, Mysa. Goodnight Samine.

Let me know in the morning of your dreams.