The Complete Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns

26

From my encounter with Sageous in the West Yard I went straight to mass. Meeting the pagan had left me wanting a touch of the church of Roma, a breath of incense, and a heavy dose of dogma. If heathens held such powers it seemed only right that the church should have a little magic of its own to bestow upon the worthy, and hopefully upon the unworthy who bothered to show up. Failing that, I had need of a priest in any case.

We marched into the chapel to find Father Gomst presiding. The choir song faltered before the clatter of boots on polished marble. Nuns shrank into the shadows beneath the brothers’ leers, and, no doubt, the rankness of our company. Gains and Sim took off their helms and bowed their heads. Most of them just glanced around for something worth stealing.

‘Forgive the intrusion, Father.’ I set a hand in the font by the entrance and let the holy water lift the blood from my skin. It stung.

‘Prince!’ He set his book upon the lectern and looked up, white-faced. ‘These men … it is not proper.’

‘Oh shush.’ I walked the aisle, eyes on the painted marvel of the ceiling, turning slowly as I went, one hand raised and open, dripping. ‘Aren’t they all sons of God? Penitent children returned for forgiveness?’

I stopped before the altar and glanced back toward the brothers by the door. ‘Put that back, Roddat, or you’ll be leaving both thumbs in the alms box.’

Roddat drew a silver candlestick from the grey rot of his travel cloak.

‘That one at the least.’ Father Gomst pointed at the Nuban, a tremble in his finger. ‘That one is not of God’s flock.’

‘Not even a black sheep?’ I came to stand by Gomst. He flinched. ‘Well maybe you can convert him on our journey.’

‘My prince?’

‘You’re to accompany me to Gelleth, Father Gomst. A diplomatic mission. I’m surprised the King didn’t tell you.’ I wasn’t so surprised in truth, since it was a lie. ‘We leave immediately.’

‘But—’

‘Come!’ I strode toward the door. A pause, and then he followed. I could hear the reluctance in his footsteps.

The brothers began to file out ahead of me, Rike trailing his hand along the walls, over reliquary and icon.

Having secured the priest I was keen to be off. I directed Makin to oversee a swift provisioning and led Gomst back to the West Yard.

‘We should not take this Nuba-man on a mission of diplomacy, Prince. Or any other,’ Gomst whispered as we walked. ‘They drink the blood of Christian priests to work their spells, you know.’

‘They do?’ I think it was the first interesting thing I ever heard Gomst say. ‘I could use a little magic myself.’

The priest paled behind his beard. ‘A superstition, my prince.’

A few more paces and, ‘Even so, were you to burn him, the Lord’s blessing would be upon us and our journey.’

Within the hour, saddlebags bulging, we rode back out into the Old Town. Sageous was waiting for us. He stood alone by the side of the cobbled path. I drew up before him, still uneasy in my mind. He had driven a wedge of doubt into me. I had told myself I’d set Count Renar aside as an act of strength, a sacrifice to the iron will I needed to win the game of thrones. But sometimes, now for instance, I didn’t quite believe it.

‘You should accept my protection, Prince,’ Sageous said.

‘I’ve survived long enough without it.’

‘But now you’re going to Gelleth, bound on a path to strengthen your father’s hand.’

‘I am.’ The brothers’ horses snorted around me.

‘If any had a mind that you might truly succeed, they would stop you,’ Sageous said. ‘The one who has played you these past years will seek to tighten the bonds you have loosened. Perhaps the priest will help you. His presence did before. He has value as a talisman, but past that he is empty robes.’

A horse pushed against Gerrod, the rider moving beside me.

I set my hand on my sword hilt. ‘I don’t like you, pagan.’

‘What do you think scared the marsh-dead, Jorg?’ No ripple in his calm watchfulness.

‘I—’ The boast sounded hollow before I spoke it.

‘An angry boy?’ Sageous shook his head. ‘The dead saw a darker hand upon your heart.’

‘I—’

‘Accept my protection. There are grander dreams you can dream.’

I felt the soft weight of sleep upon me, the saddle unsure beneath me.

‘Dream-witch.’ A dark voice spoke at my shoulder.

‘Dream-witch.’ The Nuban held out his crossbow, black fist curled around the stock, muscle strained against the load. ‘I carry your token, Dream-witch, your magics will not stain the boy.’

Sageous shrank back, the tattooed writings seeming to writhe across his face.

In an instant my eyes were wide. ‘You’re him.’ The clarity of it was blinding. ‘You set my brothers in Father’s dungeon. You sent your hunter to kill me.’

I set a hand upon the Nuban’s bow, remembering how he took it from the man I killed in a barn one stormy night. The dream-witch’s hunter.

‘You sent your hunter to kill me.’ The last tatters of Sageous’ charm left me. ‘And now it’s my hunter who holds it.’

Sageous turned and made for the castle gate, half running.

‘Pray I don’t find you here on my return, pagan.’ I said it quietly. If he heard it, he might follow my advice.

We left then, riding from the city without a backward look.

The rains first found us on the Ancrath Plains and dogged our passage north into the mountainous borders of Gelleth. I’ve been soaked on the road many a time, but the rains as we left my father’s lands were a cold misery that reached deeper than our bones. Burlow’s appetite remained undampened though, and Rike’s temper too. Burlow ate as if the rations were a challenge, and Rike growled at every raindrop.

At my instruction, Gomst took confession from the men. After hearing Red Kent speak of his crimes, and learning how he earned his name, Gomst asked to be excused his duties. After listening to Liar’s whispers, he begged.

Days passed. Long days and cold nights. I dreamed of Katherine, of her face and the fierceness of her eyes. Of an evening we ate Gains’s mystery stews and Fat Burlow tended the beasts, checking hooves and fetlocks. Burlow always looked to the horses. Perhaps he felt guilty about weighing so heavy on them, but I put it down to a morbid fear of walking. We wound further up into the bleakness of the mountains. And at last the rains broke. We camped in a high pass and I sat with the Nuban to watch the sun fall. He held his bow, whispering old secrets to it in his home tongue.

For two days we walked the horses across slopes too steep and sharp with rock for any hooves save the mountain goats’.

A pillar marked the entrance to the Gorge of the Leucrota. It stood two yards wide and twice as tall, a stump shattered by some giant’s whim. The remnants of the upper portion lay all around. Runes marked it, Latin I think, though so worn I could read almost nothing.

We rested at the pillar. I clambered up it to address the brothers from the top and take in the lie of the land.

I set the men to making camp. Gains set his fire and clanked his pots. The wind blew slight in the gorge, the oil-cloth tents barely flapping before it. The rain came again, but in a patter, soft and cold. Not enough to stir Rike lying on the rocks some five yards from the pillar, his snoring like a saw through wood.

I stood looking up at the cliff faces. There were caves up there. Many caves.

My hair swung behind me as I scanned the cliff. I’d let the Nuban weave it into a dozen long braids, a bronze charm at the end of each. He said it would ward off evil spirits. That just left me the good ones to worry about.

I stood with my hands on the Ancrath sword, resting its point before me. Waiting for something.

The men grew nervous, the animals too. I could tell it from their lack of complaint. They watched the slopes with me, toothless Elban as weatherbeaten as the rocks, young Roddat pale and pockmarked, Red Kent with his secrets, sly Row, Liar, Fat Burlow and the rest of my ragged bunch. The Nuban kept close by the pillar with Makin at his side. My band of brothers. All of them worried and not knowing why. Gomst looked set to run if he had a notion where to go. The brothers had a sense for trouble. I knew that well enough to understand that when they all worry together it’s a bad thing coming. A very bad thing.

Transcript from the trial of Sir Makin of Trent:

Cardinal Helot, papal prosecution : And do you deny razing the Cathedral of Wexten?

Sir Makin : I do not.

Cardinal Helot : Or the sack of Lower Merca?

Sir Makin : No, nor do I deny the sack of Upper Merca.

Cardinal Helot : Let the record show the accused finds amusement in the facts of his crime.

Court recorder : So noted.

27

The monsters came when the light failed. Shadows swallowed the gorge and the silence thickened until the wind could barely stir it. Makin’s hand fell on my shoulder. I flinched, edging the fear with momentary hatred, for my own weakness, and for Makin for showing it to me.

‘Up there.’ He nodded to my left.

One of the cave mouths had lit from within, a single eye watching us through the falling night.

‘That’s no fire,’ I said. The light had nothing of warmth or flicker.

As we watched, the source of illumination moved, swinging harsh shadows out across the slopes.

‘A lantern?’ Fat Burlow stepped up beside me, puffing out his cheeks in consternation. The brothers gathered around us.

The strange lantern emerged onto the slope, and darkness erased the cave behind. It shone like a star, a cold light, reaching from the source in a thousand bright lines. A single figure cut a wedge of shadow into the illumination; the lantern bearer.

We watched the unhurried descent. The wind sought my flesh with icy fingers and tugged for attention at my cloak.

‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus.’ Somewhere in the night old Gomsty muttered his Ave Marias.

A slow horror eased itself among us.

‘Mother of God!’ Makin spat the oath out as if to rid himself of the fear. We all felt it, crawling over the unseen rocks.

The brothers might have run, but where was there to go?

‘Torches, damn you. Now!’ I broke the paralysis, shocked that I’d stood hypnotized by the approach for so long.

‘Now!’ I drew my sword. They moved at that. Scurrying to the embers of the fire, stumbling over the rough ground.

‘Nuban, Row, Burlow, see there’s nothing coming up along the river.’ Even as I said it I knew we’d been flanked.

‘There! There, behind that rise!’ The Nuban motioned with his crossbow. He’d seen something, the Nuban wasn’t one to spook at nothing. We’d watched the pretty light and they’d flanked us. Simple as a market play of kiss-and-dip. Distract your mark with a pretty face, and come up from behind to rob him blind.

The torches flared, men ran to their weapons.

The light drew closer and we saw it for what it was, a child whose very skin bled radiance. She walked an even pace, every inch a-glow, white like molten silver, making mere shadows of the rags she wore.

‘Ave Maria, gratia plena!’ Father Gomst’s voice rose, lifting the prayer like a shield.

‘Hail Mary,’ I echoed him. ‘Full of grace, indeed.’

The girl’s eyes burned silver and the ghosts of flames chased across her skin. There was a fragile beauty to her that took my breath.

A monster walked behind her. In any other circumstance it would have been him that drew the eye. The monster had been built in parody of a man, sharing Adam’s lines as a cow apes a horse. The light revealed the horror of his flesh, sparing no detail. The thing might have topped seven foot in height. It even had a few inches on Little Rikey.

Liar raised his bow, disgust on his pinched face. I took his arm as he sighted on the monster.

‘No.’ I wanted to hear them speak. Besides, it looked as if an arrow would just annoy our new friend.

Under a twisted red hide the monster’s chest looked like a hundred-gallon barrel. A set of ribs pierced the flesh, reaching for each other above his heart.

The girl’s light touched us with a cold kiss and I felt her in my mind. She spoke and her voice seemed to rise from the rocks. I heard her footsteps in the corridors of my memory.

There are places where children shouldn’t wander. I met the girl’s silver gaze, and for a moment shadows licked across her.

‘Welcome to our camp,’ I said.

I stepped forward to greet them, leaving the brothers and entering the brilliance of the child’s aura. The monster smiled at me, a wide smile showing teeth stolen from the wolf. He’d the eyes of a cat, slitted against the light and throwing it back.

I passed beauty by and stood before the beast. We had us a moment of judging. I ran an eye over the muscle heaped on his bones, crossed over with pulsing veins and hard ridges of scar tissue. I could have eaten dinner off one of his hands. He had three fingers and a thumb on each, thick as the girl’s arm. He could have taken my head in one hand and crushed it.

I snapped my neck forward, sudden-like, and jumped at him with a shout, thrusting my face at his. He flinched backward and stumbled on the loose rock. The laughter escaped me. I couldn’t stop it.

‘Why?’ The girl looked puzzled. She tilted her head and the shadows ran.

‘Because.’ I gasped for my breath as the monster righted himself.

Why? For a moment I didn’t know.

‘Because … because, fuck him. Because he’s such a big bastard.’ I pushed the grin from my face. Because he had given me pause. Because he had made me feel small.

I looked down at her. ‘I’m bigger than you. Are you going to let that scare you?’

‘I do fear you,’ the girl said. ‘Not for your size, Jorg. For the threads that gather around you. For the lines that meet where I can’t see them. For the weight, and the knife-edge on which it sits.’ She spoke in a sing-song, high and sweet.

‘You make a fine oracle, girl,’ I said. ‘You’ve got that mix of profound and empty just right.’ I slammed my sword back into its sheath. ‘So, you’ve my name. Shall we share? Do the leucrota have names?’

‘Jane,’ she said. ‘And this is Gorgoth, a leader under the mountain.’

‘Charmed.’ I gave them a little bow. ‘Perhaps your friends could come out from behind the rocks, and that way my brothers won’t feel so tempted to shoot at shadows.’

Gorgoth set his cat’s eyes on me, a narrow and feral stare.

‘Up!’ His voice rolled out even deeper than I’d imagined, and I’d imagined it pretty deep.

Other monsters rose around our camp, some of them shockingly close. Had every gargoyle and grotesque torn free from the great cathedrals and gathered to form an army, the leucrota would be that army made flesh. No two stood alike. All had been sketched on the frame of a man, but with a poor hand. None were as huge and hale as Gorgoth. Most leaked from sores, sported withered limbs, or laboured beneath growths of wart and tumour heaped in foul confusion.

‘Jesu, Gorgoth! Your friends make Little Rikey look almost handsome,’ I said.

Makin came to join me, eyes screwed up against Jane’s light. He shaded his face with a hand and looked Gorgoth up and down.

‘And this will be Sir Makin,’ I said. ‘Knight of the court of King Olidan, terror of—’

‘A man to trust.’ Jane’s high voice cut across me. ‘If he gives you his word.’

She turned those silver orbs of hers on me and I felt my yesterdays crowding at my shoulder. ‘You want to go to the heart of the mountain,’ she said.

‘Yes.’ I couldn’t deny that.

‘You bring death, Prince of Ancrath,’ she said.

Gorgoth growled at that. It sounded like rocks grinding together. The child put a glowing hand to his wrist. ‘Death if we agree, death if we resist.’ She kept her eyes on me. ‘What have you to offer for passage?’

I had to admit she was good at her game. It wouldn’t go well for them if my plan worked, and it wouldn’t go well for them if they tried to stop us.

‘I did bring a gift,’ I said. ‘But if it proves not to your liking then I can make you some promises. I’ll have Sir Makin promise you too, and he’s a man of his word.’ I smiled down at her. ‘When I saw this place on a map …’ I paused and remembered the circumstances with a certain fondness.

‘Sally …’ the girl whispered, remembering the tavern with me.

That shocked me for a moment. I didn’t like the idea of this little girl in my head, opening doors, making childish judgment, shining her light in places that should be dark. Part of me wanted to cut her down, a large part of me.

I unclenched my jaw. ‘When I saw this gorge on my map, I thought to myself “what a godforsaken spot”. And that’s when it occurred to me what to bring for barter. I brought you God.’ I turned and pointed to Father Gomst. ‘I’ve brought you salvation, the blessing of communion. I’ve brought you benediction, catechism … confession if you must. All the saving your ugly little souls can handle.’

Gomst let out a girlish scream and started to run. The Nuban caught a dark arm around his waist and hauled him up over one shoulder.

I expected Jane to answer, but Gorgoth made the deal.

‘We will take the priest.’ Something about his voice made my chest hurt. ‘We will guide you to the Great Stair. The necromancers will find you, though. You will not return.’

Some said that Red Kent had a black heart, and that might be true, but anyone who had seen him take out a six-strong foot patrol with hatchet and knife would tell you the man had an artist’s soul.

28

‘Necromancers?’ I trudged behind Jane with Gorgoth at my back. There had been nothing about necromancers in my books.

‘They command the dead. Mages–’

‘I know what they are.’ I cut across Gorgoth. ‘What are they doing in my way?’

‘Mount Honas attracts them,’ Jane said. ‘There’s death at the heart of the mountain. Old magics. It makes their work easier.’

Even the leucrotas’ caves looked ugly. When I was seven, and William five, Tutor Lundist took us secretly to the caverns of Paderack. Unknown to any at court, the heirs of Ancrath slid and slipped into the blind depths, and came to a cathedral hall of such pillared wonder that it beggared the grace of God. I carry the glory of that place with me still. The chambers of the leucrota had none of that fluid elegance, no touch of the hidden artistry that lies in the deep places of the world. We walked through corridors of Builder-stone, poured and shaped using arts long forgotten. Jane’s light showed us ancient vaults, cracked in places and scaled with lime. We wove a path around fallen blocks, larger than cart-horses, heading deeper all the time, like worms burrowing to the core, seeking the roots of the mountain.

‘Shut your moaning, priest.’ Row came up behind the Nuban and showed old Gomsty his knife, a wicked piece of ironwork to be sure.

Father Gomst let up his wailing at that, and I did miss it for the echoes had been quite haunting. I fell back for a word. That, and to make sure Row didn’t decide to carve up our gift to the monsters before we’d handed it over proper-like.

‘Peace now, Father,’ I said.

I pushed Row’s blade aside. He scowled at that, did Row, all pock-marks and squinting eyes.

‘You’ll just be changing flocks, Father,’ I told Gomsty. ‘Your new congregation might look a little fouler, but on the inside? Well I’m sure they’ll be fairer than Row here.’

The Nuban grunted and shifted Father Gomst’s weight on his shoulder.

‘Set him down,’ I said. ‘He can walk. We’re good and lost now, there’ll be no running.’

The Nuban set old Gomsty on his feet. He looked at me, his face too black to read. ‘It’s wrong, Jorg. Trade in gold, not people. He’s a holy man. He speaks for the white-Christ.’

Gomst looked at the Nuban with a hatred I’d never seen in him before, as if he’d just grown horns and called on Lucifer.

‘Well now he can speak to Gorgoth for Christ,’ I said.

The Nuban said nothing, his face a blank.

Something about the Nuban’s silences always made me want to say a little more. As if I had to make it right with him. Makin scraped at me that same way, but not so bad.

‘It’s not like he can’t leave,’ I said. ‘He’s free to walk home if he really must. He’ll just have to earn himself some food for the journey and a map is all.’

The Nuban gave me the white crescent of his smile.

I walked on, a cold voice inside me whispering, whispering of weakness, of the thin edge of a wedge, of a sharp knife cutting without tears, of a hot iron to cauterize a wound before infection spread. It doesn’t do to love a brother.

Jane’s light dimmed and flickered as I drew near. She recoiled slightly with an intake of breath. I curled my lip and imagined her falling from a cliff. It worked better than I’d hoped. She gave a squeal and covered her eyes.

Gorgoth stepped between us. ‘Keep away from her, Dark Prince.’

So I walked in the shadows, and they led us on into the mountain. We followed wide tunnels that stretched for miles, level-floored with curved ceilings. Rust stains ran the length of the passages in parallel lines, though to what end men would lay iron in such a manner I can’t say, unless these were the pipes through which the secret fire of the Builders ran.

We left Jane and all but two of her kindred at the shores of a lake so wide even her silver light could not reach across the waters. The Builders had made this place too. Stone gave away to water with a single sharp step, the ceiling stretched flat and without adornment. Jane’s folk moved away toward shelters of wood and skins huddled at the water’s edge. Gorgoth led them, one hand enveloping Father Gomst’s shoulders.

Jane paused, her gaze moving between the two grotesques who remained to guard us. She said nothing but I could feel the undercurrent of unvoiced speech as she instructed them.