Prologue
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"We are not far now,” reported Huslen as the sun began to dip below the horizon. “Tosont should be no more than three miles away.”
“Good riddance,” sniffed Dagun, taking a swig from a wineskin before continuing. “A man my age should not be sleeping out in the wild.”
The fact the Khormchak envoy spoke from within a great horse-drawn palanquin of silver and silks seemed to be lost on him, and Huslen allowed himself a small smile when he was sure Dagun-noyan was not looking. Even in the darkening hours the midsummer woods about them were oppressively humid, and with the coming dark the flies that fell upon those not riding in the palanquin were unending in number and spitefulness. The tail of Huslen’s horse swished to and fro, slapping away handfuls of the wretched biters, but all the keshik bodyguard riding it could do was grit his teeth and uselessly wave his hand before his face.
“I dislike this country - more so at dark,” complained Baiju, who rode at the head of the column. “Who did that noyan think he was, ordering us out like that? We should scale his walls and cut that pig’s throat when we return.”
Huslen shared the lancer’s sentiment, and saw Dagun nodding along, entertaining the idea with a smile. The horsehair banner that Baiju held stiff in his stirrup should have set all men on their path to their knees in respect for the Great Khan’s envoy. Such had been the case, until they had come to the city of Bayan. There, the local noyan of the Quanli tribe had barred the gates and set archers along the walls. And so instead of spending the night drinking and feasting as guests of honor, they now found themselves hurriedly making their way across the border and towards the next town along their path before dark, at Dagun’s request.
The Quanli tribe and their noyans could afford to be defiant, but the subject Klyazmites certainly could not - if one of their boyar lords turned their band away, then the entire country would bleed white just as it had twenty years ago. Even the bandits who plagued the forest roads knew better and scattered before the white banner. And besides the looming threat of the Great Khan’s wrath, the envoy Dagun was in the company of thirty keshiks, the khan’s own bodyguards. Iron and leather-clad was each man, with a lance at his side and a bow holstered close by - they were all veterans of a hundred battles, and they feared nothing beneath the Eternal Sky.
Until now. Something felt strange to Huslen, tromping through the darkening woods of the Klyazmite borderland. A chilling breeze blew along the tops of the trees, and when their branches rustled it sounded as though they were whispering. Ever since they had left the native steppe, it felt as if a heavy pall were hanging over their heads - or perhaps a sword, dangling from a fraying string.
No one else in the company seemed put off; but then again, none of them had the blood of the Modkhai forest people running through their veins as Huslen had. None of them could see the world as he did. They didn’t perceive the spirits who lingered in every clump of soil and every blade of grass. Those same spirits that were at present strangely silent - as though they had fled…or died. And worse than the silence of the earth, Huslen felt that he, and everyone in their column, was being watched.
It was not the spirits, always kind to Huslen and indifferent to everyone else. The presence that Huslen felt was a terrible force that loomed suffocatingly vast, yet was unseen - still, he felt it, like a giant predator lurking just out of sight. His head was on a swivel all through their ride in the woods, and while he could bring himself to forget about it for a time, the presence always came back, creeping in from the corners of his mind.
A darkness. A terrible, drowning darkness, lingering in places cold and unkind to men.
The sudden sound of thundering hooves set him on guard, and a dim splash of color came up around a bend in the forest trail. Huslen only let his breath loose when he saw it was the plume of the herald they’d sent on to announce that the illustrious Dagun-noyan, envoy of the Horde and tax-collector of the Klyazmites, was in a foul mood and expected wine, a bed, and a girl - and that any delay would be punished by steeper tithe. But the look on the messenger’s face as he rode up to the palanquin was not that of a man who’d been sent kindly on his way.
Both messenger and horse were exhausted, and there was a look of fear in the man’s eyes as he pulled up beside Dagun. “My lord…something is amiss at Tosont.”
The old noyan poked his head out from the palanquin window, scowling. “Speak up, man! What’s wrong now?”
“Everything’s…silent, my lord,” spoke the messenger, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Everything’s…dark. It’s all strange, dark as night, and I heard no voices, saw no men on the walls. The gates were left swinging open, my lord.”
Huslen felt his blood run cold, and the aged leather of his gloves creaked as he gripped the reins of his horse. He did not bother to hide his fear now, but Dagun took no notice.
“Feh,” sneered the envoy as he shifted in his seat. “Does the sight of an empty village unman a keshik? The rats are probably hiding - their lord probably fled.”
The envoy made to take another swig from his wineskin, then frowned as it came up empty. Scowling again, Dagun tossed it aside. “Either way, I tire of making camp beneath the stars. We ride on - and if there are any Klyazmite rats we can scare up, there will be hell to pay.”
Huslen set his mouth in a hard line as the messenger fell back into line with the column. They had all served under Dagun-noyan long enough to know he was not a man that listened to the counsel of those beneath him. There was nothing they could say - the order was given, and the blood-sworn of the Great Khan were bound to follow.
As they went on, what little light remained quickly died away. And in the growing gloom of the evening, the darkening sky seemed to be split in two by a thin, pale line that cut across the heavens. The falling star that marked their trail had burned across the sky seven days ago, yet the tail lingered long after that brilliant flare had disappeared, guiding them all west.
By the time the column rode into view of the waiting town, the world had become nearly pitch-black, illuminated only by a few stabs of moonlight through thick clouds, and the bright tail across the sky. Huslen loosened his sabre in its sheath as the silhouette of the wooden ringwall came into view. His heart froze when he and the company saw the gates, creaking loudly on their iron hinges as they swayed.
“What’s going on?” came the call from within the palanquin as Dagun poked his head out once more. “Why have we stopped?”
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A loud neigh came up from the column, followed by an angry shout. One of the keshiks called back, “My lord, something has spooked the horses - they won’t go further!”
Dagun tilted his head up to look at the walls, the swaying gates. Neither words nor defending arrows came down from the battlements - there was just…silence.
Huslen dismounted from his steed, patting it on its muscled neck as he pulled his bow and quiver free from their holsters. Ten other keshiks followed suit, donning their shields and drawing sabres, maces, and axes to the ready. He signaled for them to walk by his lead, and then treaded carefully towards the open gates, squinting in the looming dark. The ten of them passed by the gates without a sound, and Huslen tilted his head up to look into the guard towers on either side. Empty.
A chill came upon the keshik as a breeze blew against him, but even when the wind had passed, the cold lingered. The wind blew with it a rank smell, one the warriors were all familiar with - the smell of death, though no corpses could be seen, yet. The streets of the town were empty, and Huslen spied no lights, not even a candle, flickering in any of the windows. All was dark against the horizon, the buildings all blending into a single gloomy mass. Only one shape broke the silhouette of the empty town - that of a tall, sharp spire that loomed over the rest of the peasant hovels.
No - there were no great towers in Tosont.
The hairs on Huslen’s arms and neck stood up as his heart thudded in his chest - the wardrum of fear beating so strongly it felt as though his chest would break apart. Dagun-noyan was calling, but his voice suddenly sounded muffled, as if he were many miles away.
The flies had disappeared.
“Everyone!” hissed Huslen, shouldering his bow and drawing his sword. “To me! Now!”
There was the slither of iron plates and the creak of leather as the keshiks drew ranks together, their shields raised all about them as their eyes darted everywhere. They all felt it now, he saw it in their eyes. There was a heaviness over them - the darkness about them was not of nature’s will, else the stars should have shone in the clear skies above.
The darkness pressed in closer about them, creeping along the ground like flooding tar. Consuming. Suffocating. The keshiks shuffled like huddled sheep back towards the gates as Huslen brought up the rear. The silence was pressing in about them as well. He could hardly hear the sound of his own panicked breathing, but he heard the call of his fellow keshik when the voice piped up from behind him.
“Huslen," his comrade called - the great warrior’s voice sounding small and scared. “The gates are closed.”
Huslen spun around to look upon the town gates, and saw the iron-banded doors were shut, fast. Immediately, one of the keshiks fell upon the door, straining as he tried to push the great doors apart. Two, three men went to help, but they might well have been pushing against a mountain for all the good it did.
The darkness was drawing closer, lapping at the edges of their huddled group. Baiju thrust his lance into the approaching darkness, as if it were some wild beast to be warded with steel. Where the tip of his lance scraped the darkness, black tendrils exploded out from the spreading pool. A thousand tiny arms wriggled hungrily up along the shaft - but before they could touch the keshik, Huslen wrenched the weapon free from his hands and cast it into the darkness, where it was swallowed without a sound.
“Climb the gate!” shouted one man. “Start climbing!”
“It’s too high up!”
“Damn it all, keep pushing! Get these fucking doors open!”
Huslen helped Baiju up to his feet when he saw a tendril - thin as wire but pulsing like a vein, coiled around the leather and holding him fast.
“It’s got me!” the lancer shrieked. He kicked and stomped, but the darkness didn’t loosen - it pulled. Then, faster than blinking, it sprang. Tendrils shot up from the pool in a sickening blur of movement. They wrapped the keshik’s ankle, his legs, his chest.
“Huslen, pull me out, pull me-”
Then the darkness yanked, and Baiju disappeared. Swallowed whole without a sound - as though he had never existed.
The terror rose to the keshik’s heart - primal, like a fox escaping a flooding burrow. It consumed the others too - each man began to push and shove, screaming for help that would never come. Huslen shoved his way to the gate as the others fell into their mad panic. He slammed his fist against the wooden doors, and roared, “Aruktai! Tahar! Someone, anyone, help! Get this damn gate open!”
Silence.
The voice came like a knife. It cut an icy line through Huslen’s heart, and silenced the shouting throng of keshiks clamoring at the door. Huslen turned to look, and saw something stirring in the black expanse. The voice. A face - no, a mask. A leering face surfaced from the void, followed by a body as the darkness folded itself into the shape of a man - tall and lithe, angled and bent, unnatural in shape, like something trying to imitate a person.
Do not flee from beauty. The voice echoed inside Huslen’s mind, clear and sharp. Do not flee from salvation. Come, come with me. Come, and see.
Two arms detached themselves from the darkness, fingers crept up along the surface of the mask.
Come, and see.
The mask came off, and a brilliant flare of pale light turned night into day. Huslen blinked the scattered dots out of his eyes, and saw the face beneath the mask - a window of starlight. Swirling colors, shimmering clouds of dust, and in the space between spaces, brilliant dots of light that seemed close enough to touch, yet hopelessly far. He grasped towards the enthralling sight, even as another part of his mind struggled to pull him away.
Come and see.
That part of his mind which screamed against his own body was failing. In the corners of his sight, the keshik saw the heavy shadows pressing in all around him. His men had fallen silent - had they even existed? Nothing seemed to matter, not Dagun-noyan, not his men…not the tendrils that he half-sensed curling around his chest, pulling him into the shadowy embrace of the thing. Nothing else mattered except the divine sight before him. And then…nothing at all. Nothingness became his whole world.
The keshik closed his eyes.
“Spirits, protect me.”