'So,' he said to Sol eventually, 'you got a promotion too, did you?'
'It's not how it sounds,' said Sol. 'I'm just an occasional spokesperson for the ordinary Balaian. People come to me with problems; I try and sort them out.'
'I think you're being a little modest,' said Diera. 'He brokered peace with the Wesmen; he's set up trade agreements with the elves on Calaius that brought us the food and wealth to rebuild; and he chairs the meetings between the colleges, lords and barons. Someone has to see fair play.'
Sol smiled at her and she stroked the top of his head, pride in her eyes for a change.
'Shame I believe in dead people walking though, right?'
'King,' said Hirad. 'Well that sounds about right, I reckon. And in how ever many years it is they haven't built you a palace? Very poor. And what's more, you're still working behind a bar.'
'All right, Hirad,' said Sol.
'I suppose it keeps you in touch with the common man. What do they call your courtiers? "Bar staff", is it?'
'Hirad. Enough.'
'And no crown, either. For the best. Must be hell trying to keep it on that slippery bald head of yours.'
Denser cleared his throat. 'The point is, Sol can calm people down by being outside and strolling around. Making it seem like nothing untoward is happening until we have a plan of some kind.'
Hirad snorted. 'And you think dead merchants possessed by old Raven souls is out of the ordinary, do you?'
Denser smiled. 'Maybe just a little.'
'I just can't believe you are swallowing any of this nonsense,' said Diera.
'I know what this must sound like to you-'
'I'm sure you do, Hirad.'
'I'll prove to you I am who I say I am, Lady Unknown, I promise. I can't ask you to trust me but do one thing.'
'What's that?'
'Be ready to leave.'
'No one's leaving,' said Denser.
'Just be ready,' said Hirad. He glanced at Denser. 'Just in case.'
Chapter 6.
No one wanted to get so close but the men and their machine were not going to stop.
Gresse, Blackthorne and thirty riders drew up on the downward slope of the outermost of Gresse's vineyards. The invaders had not paused. Behind the machine the devastation stretched as far as the eye could see and the totality of it was breathtaking. The expansion north and south continued, like a creeping disease. Nothing but scorched soil, blackened trees and broken walls was left behind. Of people and animals, there was no sign whatever. Consumed in the fires that burned so terribly hot.
'And do you still feel your tactic is right as you stand here?' asked Blackthorne.
The debate had gone on for the entire ride. Both men had to raise their voices. The clanking of the machine was echoing from distant valley sides and its alien rumble underfoot made the horses skittish. While they watched, another cloud formed. Another wash of heat. More obliteration of Balaia's beautiful land.
'Look at them, Blackthorne. A bunch of Wesmen waving swords is something I understand. This . . .' he waved a hand at the approaching party '. . . casual harvesting is something else. It suggests supreme confidence, does it not?'
'So why would they stop to talk to you?'
'A couple of reasons. One, everyone is open to a bargain of some sort and I cannot believe we have nothing to offer them. Two, if they don't, I will attack them. They are not setting foot on my land.'
Blackthorne raised an eyebrow. 'So you've said a dozen times. But we are not equipped for a fight. Gods drowning, I'm here on a relaxing wine-drinking break. I have none of my regular soldiers with me, and my armour is trail dusty at best.'
'What choice do I have?'
'Well, let my mages take them out from a distance. We need never get involved. You know it makes sense.'
'I'm surprised at you, Blackthorne. You were always a man who liked to negotiate.'
'That was before the demons came.'
'These are not demons,' said Gresse.
'How can you be sure? And if your feelings are to be believed, they're even worse.'
Gresse's eyes narrowed. 'This isn't like you, Blackthorne. How would it be if they were approaching your vines, eh? Kill from a distance, is it? It's like you've lost your nerve.'
Blackthorne felt a surge through his body and bit back his first words. He leaned close to Gresse, his eyes boring into the older man's bright gaze.
'Damn right I lost my nerve. I watched the demons take my lands, my town and the souls of my people. I heard them battering on the doors of my castle. I had to stay strong for the ever-dwindling number of survivors. I lost my dearest friends, my closest advisers and I lost my Luke. Taken from right under my nose.
'Right up until the end they hammered and picked and gathered ground. Each day they gained strength while we weakened. We were alone, barricaded into the kitchens in the final days. Twenty thousand reduced to a paltry handful. Men so terrified by the relentless grind and the knowledge that a single touch meant perpetual torment that it was only memory that kept them going, kept them fighting.
'All the while, the demons delighted in our suffering. They knew our souls were as good as theirs and they waited for the inevitable. They could taste the fear; they breathed it, exulted in it. Day after long, tortured day. Night after desperate night. No respite, no rest, no salvation. No hope.'
Blackthorne's hands were clutched tight around the reins of his horse and trembling violently. He straightened in his saddle, trying to calm himself. But the visions flooded him. The masses outside his defensive spell ring, clawing to get in. The demon master, Ferouc, chilling and determined. The hordes of baying minions waiting their chance. His people standing with him even though they must have known he could not save them. Fighting and falling at his side. Luke, cold and dead in a place Blackthorne had told him was safe.
'But you did it. You won.' Gresse's voice was quiet and gentle.
Blackthorne scoffed. 'Won? It was not victory. Not for us. Survival of the very few because The Raven did what had to be done and laid down their lives for us all.'
'It is what we all had to do,' said Gresse. 'Just try to stay alive and pray someone would do something to free us. We had to make sure there was still a Balaian people to rebuild. We had to make sure there was something left.'
'I cannot shake the nightmares, Gresse. I have forgotten what a peaceful night's sleep is. They left so little behind. And that is why we cannot afford to talk to those who would take what we still have. That is why you should be pounding them with Cleansing Flame and Winter's Touch. Ripping their flesh with IceBlades.'
Gresse reached out a gloved hand and squeezed Blackthorne's forearm through his riding coat.
'I will be forever sorry I was not standing with you, old friend.'
'You had your own battles to fight. Though I would have gained strength from your presence,' said Blackthorne. He sighed. 'You must do what you feel to be right. These are your lands.'
Gresse nodded. 'But all the same, should I fail, at least you have a plan, eh?'
'Yep. Cast everything I have and run for it. Some plan.'
'See you back at the lodge for that fine dry white I was talking to you about.'
'Don't die,' said Blackthorne. 'After all, I don't know where you keep your best cut crystal.'
Gresse took his twenty men and set off down the slope. So easy to be brave when you had the advantage of height and the buffer of distance. But this was like riding into the shadows of mountains. Gresse had not grasped quite how big the invaders were, how vast their machine or how immense their beasts.
His horses, a quarter the size of the other animals, would not close further than a hundred yards. Gresse couldn't blame them. Down here, on the flat and even, the reason for the invaders' confidence was clear enough. They dwarfed everything else. The vibrations through his feet shook the vertebrae in his back. Each footfall of a beast rattled the earth under his boots. Each drag of the machine was like the thrum of a thousand horses. Each blast of the machine's infernal workings was a rake of fear dragged across his heart.
The stench was powerful, nauseating. It brought tears to the eyes and a turning of the gut. This close, the ambient heat of the machine brought sweat to his brow. But he walked as steadily as he could to within fifty yards and stopped outside the line of his first vines. His men gathered about him, some casting guiltily envious glances at the three left behind to keep hold of the horses.
Watching the men and their machine approach, Gresse was acutely aware that, should they decide not to stop, there was little he could realistically do to save his party from being trampled underfoot. They might be able to bring down the walkers but halt the machine? Hardly.
Gresse was too in awe of the scale of those approaching to be truly frightened. But the moment he realised the giants had taken notice of him, he began to shake. It wasn't dramatic but it was there, in his heart and in the deeps of his courage. Anyone able to look into his soul would see his fear.
Only ten yards from where he stood the central figure waved a hand, a languid gesture in keeping with their unhurried, strolling gait. The mighty beasts snorted, shook and bowed their heads, bellowing their displeasure. The sound startled man and horse alike. Gresse heard a shout and the thundering of hooves.
'Looks like we'll be walking back to the lodge then,' muttered a guardsman.
'The exercise will do us no end of good,' said Gresse. 'Face forward. Don't flinch.'
The machine halted and fell silent. The quiet was almost as shocking as the noise had been. Gresse could not hear a bird. But as the heat haze began to fade in the machine's wake, he had his closest glimpse yet of what was being done to his country. The accompanying anger did nothing to quell his dread.
The three figures approached. As Blackthorne had guessed, they were a good eight feet tall. Every stride ate up the space, the thud of their footfalls like tolling bells.
Those boots, their leggings and breastplates were all like leather but not. Apparently flexible yet burnished the way only metal could be. The designs upon the armour, if such it was, were as alien as anything the Calaian elves might dredge from their long and isolated history. A homage to ancient Gods perhaps. There were supplicating hands, spears of fire and great open maws wrought in chaotic fashion across the centre of each wide chest. And surrounding the images were either letters of a language he could not begin to fathom or angular scrollwork.
'They look like mathematical symbols,' he said.
'Beguiling, almost, my Lord,' said his captain.
The designs were picked out in a silver-coloured material that seemed to shimmer, even move, as the figures took each stride. It was not until the three of them stopped just five paces away that Gresse saw that his eyes had not deceived him. The silver settled to a gentle pulsing, only hurrying around those disturbing full-face helms as they looked down upon him.
Gresse could discern nothing about the figures inside. The narrow eye slits betrayed nought but shadow. More of the leather-like armour hung from the base of the helmets to cover the neck completely. The face plates themselves were carved with more of the symbols and with mouths open to scream. Of hands clawing for mercy. Livid images of pain.
'You are on the borders of my lands,' said Baron Gresse. 'I would know your intention before requesting you turn aside. You may not bring your machine any further.'
The figures did not respond at once. The three heads angled towards one another and moved as if they were conversing, yet without words. Gresse exchanged a glance with his captain, who shrugged his own uncertainty.
'I will have a response,' said Gresse at length.
The centremost figure turned back to him.
'My . . . apologies. Your language is seldom heard and less well understood.'
Gresse was startled. The words flowed like music, though slightly discordant. Symbols on the figure's clothing shone briefly. The figure cleared his throat and this time was beautifully in tune.
'That is better. We cannot accede to your request. Our route takes us one way only. If you stand on your lands as you say then we shall be walking across them. The lines of energy dictate such. But have no concern. We will take nothing that we do not need. We are simple foragers but we must collect or many will perish.'
'Collect what?' asked Gresse, transported so far by the gorgeous tones of the figure's voice that he found it hard to be angered by the rebuff.
'Material for our fight. Energy for our weapons and strength for our armour. Our foe grows more powerful and our need grows with it. If we are not to be defeated, we must bring fuel for our fires. Clear the path. Our time is precious.'
Gresse held up both hands, the spell of the glorious male voice broken.
'Whoa, whoa! I don't think so, forager. These are my lands and I decide who crosses them. And you will turn aside and you will not operate that machine in my country. You are destroying our lands and that cannot be allowed.'
The forager glanced back over his shoulder. Gresse thought he might have seen the ghost of a shrug.
'Damage is temporary. Your vegetation will regrow.'
Gresse gaped. 'Temporary? You bastard.' He jabbed a finger at the devastation. 'People lived out there. They won't regrow, will they?'
'People must learn to avoid the compass of the vydosphere. Until then, there will, unfortunately, be casualties.'
Gresse looked briefly at his captain. The soldier stared back, shaking his head, mirroring the baron's disbelief.
'And you think I'm just going to let you amble across my lands and swallow your temporary damage and unfortunate casualties, is that right?'
The forager straightened; Gresse hadn't realised he was leaning forward. The other two turned their heads and there was another silent exchange.
'We consider that you have no choice. We are Garonin. Stand aside. Our conversation is at an end.'
'Damn right,' said Gresse. 'Captain, let's cut these bastards down to size.'
Gresse heard the noise of the machine roaring back into life. He heard his captain order the attack. He even drew the sword one of Blackthorne's men had lent him. And the last things he remembered clearly were the sensations of swift airborne travel and of heavy impact.
'Take them down, take them down!' yelled Blackthorne at his mages.
The baron was already running towards Gresse, who had landed in a heap and rolled three times before coming to a stop. Action was all that prevented Blackthorne from refusing to believe what he had just seen. A brief conversation, plenty of finger pointing and, latterly, drawn swords. But never mind all that. Lines on the armour of the figures had blazed with light which had lashed out at Gresse and his men.
The invaders themselves didn't so much as move a muscle. Yet Gresse was hurled fully fifty yards back and he was the lucky one. Others who had rushed in more quickly were lying dismembered amongst the first row of vines. A few had survived the initial onslaught and were being ignored by their attackers while they screamed their agony clinging onto the stumps of hands, fought with boiling entrails or stared wide-eyed at terrible gashes. And all in the blink of an eye.
The invaders moved on. One stopped to brush what must have been gore from his boot and then all reassumed their long, casual stride, the machine following in their wake.
'Get messengers back to the lodge. Every mage to be ready. Every horseman saddled and awaiting a message to take out to the cities and towns.'
Blackthorne shouted his orders over his shoulder as he ran headlong down the slope, using vines to break his speed. Gresse was moving but it meant little. One leg was broken at the knee and jammed under his body at a sickening angle. There was crimson staining the dry earth. The enemy would roll right over him.
Every fear that Blackthorne had for Balaia surfaced once more. Every nightmare revisited him in those few moments while he slipped and slithered to his friend. And all that Gresse had said so recently hung in the air to taunt him.
The air flashed yellow. Blackthorne turned to see God's Eyes arcing high towards the enemy. Six of them, moving fast.