The Gauntlet and the Burning Blade by Ian Green

Author:Ian Green [Green, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800244085
Publisher: Head of Zeus

9

FRACTAL GALLOWS

‘Knight-Commander, Captain Sorren has hanged another dozen villagers, though the rest of the village appears to have been allowed to flee. There is no name for this place on our map. We met a tinker on the road. They claimed the Stormwall is under assault, and Fallow Fen has potentially fallen once more. Captain Sorren and his troop must have met the same news. They have stopped two days now in the nameless village, presumably deciding a next step. The self-appointed cleanser of the Northern Marches must now face his duty; he was sent to scout and report on rumoured rust-folk refugees farming and working amongst our own, and the trail of blood he has wrought is perhaps too strong for him to face his superiors in Aber-Ouse. Each night the strange orbs fly overhead, and the unease is palpable even within my own team. Of his forty men, I cannot say how many are loyal to him. My team is small and we must be surgical in our excision of this corruption.’ – Third report on the massacre at Crowpit, Agent Haysom, Third Moon Trading House

The next hours of sailing wore on Tomas’s nerves. The commandos had arrows nocked, and the sailors who hadn’t perished in the attack of the night before wore heavy cutlasses at their belts. Artollen was everywhere, checking each commando, murmuring support. The three skein-mages he had been assigned asked him for orders and he drew his focus back to them. All so young. He couldn’t remember their names. Moira? He was having trouble focusing. Since his connection to Varratim’s dagger, being able to see the skein everywhere was endlessly fascinating but it seemed to take a portion of his focus, always. He would drift as people spoke to him, coming back to concentration with a snap having missed questions or whatever else they wanted. I will learn to control it. I must.

‘One on the fore, one on the aft, one in the crow’s nest,’ he said, more to get them out of his hair than anything else. Little Jozenai was scratching at the top of his basket to be let out. His basket? Her basket? Tomas wasn’t sure. He couldn’t articulate the comfort the little cat brought him, and resisted trying. He didn’t want to find a reason to let it go. It was alone, just like me. He clutched his satchel tight and went to Benazir, who was stood behind the captain at the ship’s wheel on the aftcastle. She looked half-frozen, with heavy bags under her eyes.

‘You need to get more sleep,’ he said, and she curled her lip.

‘That is the trouble with goblins,’ she said, ‘they never are considerate. I like your wand, by the way. Very shiny.’

Tomas smiled and cut a half bow. Benazir had never seen one of the ancient runewands in action until the night before, a sheet of flame turning goblins to char, a wave of his hand and a focus of the skein extinguishing where it might have caught the deck, the rigging.

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