The northern gulfs of the Shallow Sea no longer thawed. Colonies of sea people no longer existed east of the Ormo Strait. In fact, the mer were almost extinct. Only a few colonies, much diminished, survived in the Andorayan Sea, around underwater wells of power still leaking feebly.
Most all Andoray lay beneath the ice. North Friesland, likewise. During winters the Ormo Strait threatened to become covered with great arching bridges of ice.
The tidal currents were too fierce for the strait itself to freeze. Their power would be tamed only after the level of the seas fell a lot farther.
Where there was any warmth at all hardy men held on, confident that God would turn the seasons. That the wells of power would wax strong again. As in legend they always had.
The Chaldareans of Duarnenia and principalities east of the Shallow Sea had withdrawn to Guretha and other coastal cities established by the Grail Order. Many continued on, desperately, following the Shirstula River south into countries where they would be unwelcome because of their desperation. Clever kings and princes used some to begin clearing lands abandoned since the plague-ridden end days of the Old Empire, when populations had fallen by more than half.
A strange, small army came to Guretha, out of the icy wastes. All thin folk with bones and skulls in their hair, carrying standards made of flayed manskin and totems built of human heads and bones. They seemed half dead themselves. There were no elderly among them. They brought their women and children right up to the edge of the fight. Their eyes were empty and hollow. They reminded their enemies of the draugs of yore, the dead who rose against the living. They did not talk. They attacked. They took food where they found it.
Guretha resisted. Of course. The Grail Knights fought. They committed great slaughters. But wherever resistance solidified something irresistible soon appeared. It wore the shape of a man but had seven fingers on its left hand, six on its right. It was a foul, pale green with hints of brown patches. Its skin appeared polished. It had hard cat’s eyes and smelled of old death newly freed from the ice. It carried a cursed two-handed sword so ancient it was made of bronze. Though soft metal, that blade did not yield to the finest modern steel. It broke through the stoutest shields and breastplates.
The Grail Knights were veterans of long wars. They did not waste themselves on forlorn hopes. Two encounters convinced them they could not overcome Krepnight, the Elect, hand-to-hand.
They stopped fighting. Gurethens who were quick retreated into Stranglhorm. Laggards fled across the bridges to the south bank of the Turuel. The city militias held the bridges. The invaders tried to flank them by crossing over in captured boats.
Krepnight, the Elect, stalked the Grail Knights to their fortress. Archers and crossbowmen kept the accompanying savages at a distance. They were a mob, not an army. What drove them? They were starving, yet seldom allowed themselves to be distracted by food or loot.
The Grail Knights withdrew, over the great drawbridge spanning the dry moat in front of the fortress gate. Engines atop the wall laid missile fires on the attackers. Krepnight, the Elect, suffered several hits. The savages yanked the offending shafts out of him. He forged ahead, undeterred.
Fierce, panicky shouting broke out inside the gate. The drawbridge had risen but a foot when its chains jammed. Then the outer portcullis fell five feet and refused to descend any farther.
Shrieked, frightened orders rattled around inside Stranglhorm. Get the inner portcullis down! But the backup refused to budge.
Decades had passed since the machinery had been asked to do anything but sit and rust.
The attackers cried praises to the Windwalker. They wanted to swarm across that drawbridge. But they would not move ahead of Krepnight, the Elect.
Krepnight, the Elect, would open the way.
The weird thing stepped up onto the drawbridge and crossed, sharp teeth betrayed in triumph. A Grail Knight in full battle gear, astride a huge charger, appeared behind the partially descended portcullis. He bellowed an order that it be raised so he could couch his lance and dispose of the monster. But the portcullis would not rise, either. The Grail Knight turned away, swearing by the body parts of the Founders that he would slay the monster once it came into the forecourt.
Krepnight, the Elect, advanced like confident doom. Today would see the end of Stranglhorm, Guretha, and these faint champions of a spineless southron god.
Krepnight, the Elect, ducked the portcullis and strode forward, charmed sword tasting the darkness of the passage.
Came a roar like all the thunders of a vast storm unleashed at once. Pale, eye-watering smoke billowed out of the gateway. Savages fell by the score, slashed into chopped meat.
The Grail Knights and their hardy foot swept beneath portcullises miraculously healed, then across a drawbridge suddenly fallen into place. The butchery began. Man and boy, mother and child, no mercy was shown. The heathen had shown none themselves. Few escaped. Only a boy named Boogha lived to carry news of an inexplicable defeat. And he died cruelly for having disappointed the Windwalker.
5. Lucidia, Tel Moussa: Sorrowful Truth
Nassim Alizarin faced the visitor across a low table. The meal was the best he could provide. That it was a sad failure would tell this boy too much. Would give him something to carry away with him.
The Mountain remained carefully composed. His age and former status left him unschooled for accepting a boy of sixteen as his superior. Birth meant little among Sha-lug. The slave warriors began as equals and established status by deeds. But this was Azim al-Adil ed-Din, grandnephew of Indala al-Sul Halaladin, upon whose sufferance the Mountain depended. The great Indala’s not so secret ambition was the unification of all al-Prama into a single kaifate that could concentrate fully on the liberation of the Holy Lands.
Amenities complete, it was time to approach the point. But the boy demonstrated a decorum beyond his years. “The Arnhanders of Gherig. How do they behave?”
“The current crop are pirates, not holy warriors. They extort bribes from every caravan coming through from Dreanger or the coast. And call it taxation.”
The boy laughed. “We do the same. And charge every Chaldarean a head tax simply for being Chaldarean.”
Nassim missed the point. That was a “So what?” That was as God Willed it. “Mark me. One day Rogert du Tancret will overstep. He has no respect for God or al-Prama.” In this Nassim said nothing that even the Crusader lords did not whisper among themselves.
Rogert du Tancret was a powerful warrior but not a man given to considering the consequences of his actions. He was lord of a crucial border bastion, in continuous contact with the enemies of his religion. Having not one diplomatic bone in his body, he was not the man to occupy so delicate a post. The Crusader lords all agreed.
But they would do nothing to move Rogert out of the crucible. It mattered not if he was a dangerous fool or a drooling idiot. His patrimony could not be denied. Further, Rogert had blood connections with most of the grand families of the Crusader states and many in Arnhand. Not to mention, he stood high in the affection of the Brotherhood of War, for title to Gherig and its dependencies would pass to the fighting priesthood on Rogert’s death.
By right, of course, the way those people saw things. The Brotherhood had chosen the site for Gherig, had designed the fortress, and had provided the captive artisans to build it.
Nassim shook off his reflections. Rogert would face his hour in time. It was Written. He needed to attend this pup from the warlord’s clan.