23. Fear
Chapter 23
Fear
10 th Day of the Blood Moon
Salme, western villages of Illyanara – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Dahlen ran his hand along the length of splintered wood that, only hours before, had been part of Salme’s palisade wall. Now it jutted from the mud, shattered and broken, dried blood staining its surface.
Another night, another assault, another stay of execution earned through sheer desperation and unwillingness to die.
The wind snapped, and he pulled his coat tighter. His fingers trailed the wood, brushing over the splintered end as he watched two men pulling a broken body from beneath a dead horse.
The body – if he could truly call it that given its current state – belonged to a man who had seen no more summers than Dahlen had. Dahlen had seen him trudging through the gates that morning, tired and hungry, one of the refugees from a farming settlement on the other side of ?lm Forest. That afternoon, they’d filled his belly and given him a place to bathe in warm water. That evening, they’d found him a cot and blankets. That night, they had put a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. And now they dragged his lifeless corpse across the mud, legs so broken that one pointed west and the other east.
More people flooded into Salme every day, but by each following morning, the population had grown by only a handful. The Angan his father had promised had arrived a few nights prior, and he’d sent a call for aid but heard nothing back. At any other time, he would be drowning in the not knowing if his father and Erik were all right. But all he could do was push that thought to the back of his mind and pray to Heraya that she hadn’t taken them into her arms. He needed them to be all right. In part because the thought of a world without them was one that threatened to consume him, but also because he himself would be dining in Achyron’s halls within a fortnight if aid didn’t come.
The sound of squelching footfall drew Dahlen’s attention away from the two men tossing the young man’s body into the back of an already brimming cart. Thick black smoke rose up over the walls, the smell of burning flesh filling the air as the Urak bodies were set aflame.
“Lord Captain.” Thannon inclined his head, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword, his silver plate dripping with freshly shed blood.
Dahlen frowned but returned the greeting. Ever since the council had put him in charge of Salme’s defences, the Belduarans had given him that title. It hadn't been long before the people of the villages had taken to the moniker also. Even some of the Lorian soldiers used it. He didn’t dislike the title. In truth, hearing it gave him a certain warmth. But it was hard to take pride in something so frivolous when men and women were dying by the score each night.
“The Alamant has started work on the northern section of the wall.”
“Good.” Dahlen let out a long sigh. “When he’s finished, have him do what he can here. I’ll arrange a warm meal and some mead for him.”
“Understood, Lord Captain.”
The Alamant – Oaken Polik – had arrived a few days back, half-starved and barely clothed. His power in the Spark was limited and he tired easily, but without him Salme’s walls would have been nothing but splinters and mud. Gods know the Lorian mages wouldn’t lift a finger for something so far beneath them. Dahlen had only met a few Alamants in his life, and most could barely light a candle, so Oaken was a very welcome sight.
Just as Dahlen made to return to surveying the damages caused by the night’s Urak assault, Nimara’s voice rang out. “Dahlen!”
He turned to see Nimara sprinting towards him, the many rings in her hair glinting with fresh blood. “Fuck. Again?”
When Dahlen, Nimara, and Thannon reached the northern section of the wall, the place was a tinderbox waiting to ignite. At the centre of it all was Erdhardt Fellhammer.
The mountain of a man stood with a muddied sword in his hand, the tip of the blade pressed to Exarch Dorman’s neck. Erdhardt’s hammer rested in the mud beside him.
The other two surviving mages and a number of the infantry stood at the mage’s back, weapons gripped in their fists. Everything about the language of their bodies told Dahlen they were more than ready to spill blood.
A number of Illyanarans – along with some of those from Belduar – were positioned behind Erdhardt, the same tension in their bodies.
“Do it.” The Lorian Battlemage leaned forwards, pressing his neck against the steel. “Do it and see how this ends for you. I can guarantee it won’t end the way you think.”
Dahlen stormed through the gathered crowd. He shoved the first few men and women out of the way, the others parting before him, Nimara and Thannon moving at his back.
“Stand down!” he roared.
Exarch Dorman turned his head, but Erdhardt kept his eyes forward, staring at the man’s neck, the muscles in his jaw tensing.
Dahlen stepped between the two, slapping Erdhardt’s blade down with one hand and pushing him backwards with the other. The man barely moved an inch, his stance so strong it was like he’d grown roots.
To Dahlen’s right, Dorman took a step forward. But Dahlen dropped his hand, snatched a knife from his belt in reverse grip, and pressed the steel to the man’s throat. “Take another fucking step and I promise you this will end exactly how you think it will.”
The mage glared at him, tensing, but stepped back. To his left, Erdhardt leaned forwards, pressing into Dahlen’s palm.
“That goes for you too,” he said to Erdhardt.
The stare Fellhammer gave him was calm and cold. He grunted and leaned back, tossing the sword into the mud.
All the while, Dahlen’s heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer. Dorman could end his life with a thought, and Erdhardt could likely snap him in two with little effort. Dahlen was sure he could take either of them with him to Achyron’s halls, but then he’d still be dead. And dying didn’t sound particularly appealing.
“Speak.” Dahlen lowered the knife, gesturing to Dorman. He could feel Erdhardt’s gaze weighing on him as he allowed the Lorian to speak first.
“They left us to die.” Exarch Dorman made to move closer to Erdhardt again, but one flick of the knife in Dahlen’s fist made him think better of it.
Dahlen narrowed his eyes, looking to Erdhardt and then back to Dorman.
Dorman continued. “We executed the agreed upon plan. But just as the Bloodmarked began their charge, this fucking prick pulled his forces out to the right and left us completely exposed. Six good men are dead. Six good men that should still be breathing. Six good men that will never see their children grow old.” His voice lowered to resemble a growl. “I will not stand for it.”
“The flank was collapsing.” Erdhardt gestured towards the section of wall that had been destroyed by the Uraks, dead bodies still pressed into the mud. “If I’d not called for the move, it would have fallen apart entirely. I wasn’t going to let my people die.”
“But you’ll let mine?”
“With a smile on my fucking face.”
Both men lunged for each other.
Dahlen held his ground, his feet squelching in the mud as he shoved Erdhardt and Dorman back. Both were taller than him by a head and broader, but they were off balance as they moved.
“What is wrong with you?” he roared, opening his body and turning, addressing the crowd as much as the two men. “We are limping. Every night, we lose more lives. Every night, we come closer to collapse. The Uraks don’t give a fuck. They don’t care if you are an Imperial Exarch or a fucking farmer.” He stared at Dorman, emphasising every word. “They. Do.” Dahlen switched his gaze to Erdhardt. “Not. Care. And if they get past us, if they get past these walls and into the homes beyond, it will be the children they will tear limb from limb. The elderly whose skin they’ll peel from their bones. The sick and the weak whose throats will be ripped open. I don’t care about anything else, but I will not let that happen.”
Dahlen stood in between Dorman and Erdhardt, casting his gaze around the crowd, studying the blank stares and open mouths.
“Whatever shit there is between you, bury it. We are not Lorian or Illyanaran here, we are just people trying to survive. We are the only thing that stands between Salme and ashes. When this is all done, tear each other to pieces for all I care, rip each other apart. But here, now, you pull your fucking shit together, and you stop acting like children. And if you can’t, we can give you enough food and water for two days and you can try your luck on the road east, because you’re nothing but a liability to every other soul defending these walls.”
He made a point of looking to Erdhardt as he said those last words.
“What will it be?”
Erdhardt grunted, then grabbed the shaft of his hammer, swung it up onto his shoulder, and marched off towards Tharn Pimm and another man Dahlen didn’t recognise.
“And you?” he said, turning to Dorman.
The Battlemage clenched his jaw, but Dahlen could see the fury ebbing from his gaze. He moved closer to Dahlen. “I appreciate what you’re saying, ‘Lord Captain’. So I will do as you ask, for now. But I need you to understand I will not stand around and watch the men and women under my command be left to slaughter. If he pulls another stunt like that, I will personally snap his neck.”
“Hmm.”
“You should’ve left Fellhammer to it,” Thannon whispered as Dorman left and the crowd dispersed. “One less Lorian in the world is never a bad thing. Six less is even better.”
“Have some respect for the dead.” Dahlen looked around at the bodies still left to be collected. In his mind’s eye, the world shifted back and forth between the calm of now and the chaos of the hours before. The soft whistle of the wind and the screams and roars as steel carved through flesh and shattered bone.
Thannon tensed. “Yes, Lord Captain.”
Thannon had as much right to hate the Lorians as anyone – more so than most. They had destroyed his home, slaughtered his people. Dahlen understood that, he understood the hatred. But they couldn’t afford to hate anything or anyone but the Uraks.
“Thannon, fetch Camwyn and the others, and watch over Oaken while he makes the repairs to the wall. I’ll ask Kara Thain and her spears to watch the other section.”
“As you say, Lord Captain.” Thannon dipped his head and turned to leave.
Dahlen grabbed Thannon’s shoulder. “We do what we must to keep those we love alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“We do what we must,” Thannon repeated, his expression softening.
“You handled that well,” Nimara said, moving to Dahlen’s side.
“We’re just one wrong word away from doing the Uraks’ work for them. One mistake, one fuck up, and we’ll all be food for the crows. And every Lorian left defending the walls is a Lorian who can take a spear to the heart in place of one of my warriors.”
Nimara nodded sombrely. She drew a short breath. “One day at a time. That’s all we can do. That and pray to Hafaesir that your father gets here in time.”
“He will.” Dahlen folded his arms, staring out into nothingness. He and his father had their problems – many of them – but there was one thing Dahlen believed without question: Aeson would give his life for Erik and Dahlen in a heartbeat. His father would not leave him to die.
Beside him, Nimara nodded to herself, the rings in her hair glinting in the crimson moonlight overhead. Even through the blood and dirt caked into her hair and dried onto her cheeks and neck, Dahlen couldn’t help but take in the dwarf’s beauty. Not just her beauty, but her strength. She was ferocious on the field of battle, uncompromising. And in the aftermath, she was a rock, anchoring him in the present.
“Enjoying yourself?” Nimara didn’t turn her head to look at him, but the corner of her lip turned up in a smile.
Since arriving in Salme, Dahlen and Nimara had shared a bed more than once. He couldn’t understand how a woman who had seen him in nothing but his bare skin could cause his cheeks to redden with just a few words. But she could.
“I’ve got a few more hours on watch,” Nimara said, turning to face him. The dwarf looked up into Dahlen’s eyes, holding his gaze for a few short moments. “This place and all the people in it would be dead if not for you. Don’t dwell on what we’ve lost, dwell on what we haven’t.”
She gave his hand a brief squeeze and set off towards the eastern wall.
Dahlen watched Nimara walk away, his gaze lingering until she vanished behind the wall of a stout log home.
He turned his attention to the breach in the wall that Oaken was repairing with his magic, shattered lengths of wood lifting into the air, fibres mending and twisting. What Dahlen would have given to have such control over the world.
The Spark terrified him to his core. No matter who wielded it, friend or foe, the simple notion that someone could snap his neck from ten feet away and there was nothing he could do about it… That chilled his bones.
He could practice the sword for hours a day, every day for the rest of his life, and even the weakest of mages could snuff him out like a spent wick if he wasn’t careful.
Dahlen watched Oaken work for a few moments more, then turned and made his way towards the small hut that was his home in this place. He would welcome sleep with open arms.
Sodden earth squelched beneath the weight of Dahlen’s boots as he walked through the streets of Salme towards his hut, the occasional howls of wolfpines echoing in the distance.
The town had grown into the beginnings of a city since he’d arrived. Refugees from the other villages had swelled the population, erecting makeshift homes left and right. The sheer speed at which the town had grown, along with the heavy rain, had turned the streets to nothing but churned mud.
He marvelled at how the people of Salme had taken in the refugees from the other villages. There had never been a question about it, never a hesitation. Sure, the elders squabbled and spat, but the people of these villages looked after each other. Even the Belduarans had been welcomed with open arms. It was a type of kindness, a type of community, Dahlen had never known, and one he thought he could get used to.
He nodded as two men passed him in patched leather jerkins, gloved hands wrapped around spear shafts.
“Lord Captain,” they said in sync, carrying on their way.
As though from nowhere, Anya Gritten appeared before him, white apron smeared with a mixture of wet and dry blood. Somehow, despite the dirt and blood, the woman still managed to smell of fresh flowers.
“Lord Captain,” she said, dipping her head ever so slightly. “May I walk with you?”
Dahlen gave her a half-smile, then gestured for her to join him as he carried on. “How are the injured?”
Anya rubbed her hands in a linen cloth she pulled from the pouch of her apron, the blood turning the white fabric a dull pink. “Better than they were the night before.” Her expression didn’t shift, and she kept her eyes on the muddy ground. “Though I fear there are three who won’t make it through the night. I’ll make them as comfortable as I can. I’d heard tales of Lorian mages who could heal as though they had the hands of gods. But either none of the three present have the ability or they simply refuse to.”
Dahlen nodded slowly. “Do what you can. We can’t ask any more than that.”
They walked a while, silence hanging between them.
“What can I do for you, Anya? I’m assuming you didn’t seek me out for my riveting conversation. Is it about Erdhardt?”
“No,” she said, a half-smile flickered on her lips. “And I didn’t come for Erdhardt. From what Tharn told me, you dealt with that as best you could. Erdhardt has lost a lot… He’s trying his best to look after us.”
“I know.” There was nothing more Dahlen could say. He could see the pain in Erdhardt. The man did nothing to hide it. But Erdhardt was also a behemoth on the battlefield, and Salme’s defenders looked to him with nothing short of reverence. Dahlen respected him, but he also couldn’t allow the man’s rage to undermine everything they were fighting for.
“I actually came to ask you about Calen.” Anya continued to rub her hands with the linen cloth despite having already scrubbed the blood from her skin. “Tharn and Erdhardt told me what you told them… He is the Draleid? The one all the bards and merchants have been speaking of?”
“He is.” Dahlen clenched his jaw.
“Is he all right?” Anya looked up at Dahlen, just for a moment, as though she didn’t want to see an answer in his eyes.
Dahlen wasn’t sure how to answer that. “In truth, I’ve not seen him in a long time. But from what my father has said, he is well. Both him and Valerys. They’ve been through a lot, but they’re well.”
“Valerys…” Anya whispered the name. She stared at the ground for a moment, then gave Dahlen a weak smile. “Thank you.”
“It’s what he was born for.” The words left Dahlen’s lips without much thought. And in a way, they brought a sense of relief with them, something uncoiling in the depths of his mind.
Anya gave him a curious look.
“Calen. He’s a good man…” Dahlen swallowed. “Having spent time here, I can see why he is the way he is. He’s also stubborn as a mule.”
“That sounds like him all right.” For the first time since Dahlen had met the woman, the laugh she gave felt genuine.
As they walked, Dahlen caught sight of a shadow shifting in the alley between two of the older log homes. He stopped, his hand dropping to the knife at his belt.
“What is it?” Anya whispered.
Dahlen pressed his finger to his lips, then stalked towards the alley, carefully weighing each step as the mud sloshed beneath him. The pink moonlight drifted into the alley, diffused by the clouds above, painting a small silhouette against the wall.
He slipped the knife from his belt.
A hand rested on his shoulder.
“Put that away.” Anya pushed his knife hand down, her fingers brushing against the flat of the blade as she moved past Dahlen and into the shadowed alley.
“Anya,” he hissed before relenting and following.
With his eyes adjusting to the dark of the alley, he found the woman on her haunches with both hands cupped around the cheeks of a young man. He looked as though he’d scarcely seen sixteen summers, golden hair caked with mud and gore.
“Is he all right?” Dahlen dropped a knee into the mud, looking over the boy’s face.
“Where hurts?” Anya lowered herself to her knees, lifting the boy’s head and checking him for wounds.
“I’m… I’m…” The boy’s voice trembled, his hands shaking as Anya lifted them.
That was when Dahlen realised who it was. “Conal? Is that you? What happened?”
The boy had been a porter in Belduar and had come with them when they’d left Lodhar. He was a good lad, strong and sharp.
Conal looked up, blinking mud from his eyes. “Lord Virandr… I…”
“Look at me,” Anya said, pulling Conal’s gaze towards her. “I need you to focus. Where are you hurt?”
Conal shook his head, swallowing hard. “It’s not my blood.”
“What happened, Conal?”
“The Uraks.” Conal turned his gaze to his hands, his palms open. “I know I wasn’t meant to be out there, but I couldn’t just stay behind. I couldn’t. I’m old enough… I can hold a spear…”
“Fuck,” Dahlen whispered, moving closer. “I ordered you to stay back for a reason, Conal. You could have died out there. What about the others?”
Almost forty children had come with them from Belduar, some as young as six and seven, and there were many more besides from across the villages.
“Only myself and Tora went. We got spears from the armoury, and… We thought we could help. We…” Conal shook, his hands trembling. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…”
“Tora…” Dahlen breathed, realising what had happened.
“I couldn’t save her. That thing, that big Urak… It just… it just picked her up, and… she was everywhere… bits of her.” Conal looked up at Dahlen, tears streaming from his eyes. “She screamed for me to help, but I couldn’t. I can still see her.”
Dahlen set himself down into the mud beside Conal, resting his back against the house’s log wall. His gaze met Anya’s, her eyes wide with sympathy. She, too, had seen firsthand what kind of damage the Bloodmarked could do to a human body.
“There’s nothing you could have done.” Dahlen pulled his knees towards his chest and rested his forearms on them, letting out a sigh. “Take it from me. If you’d tried to save her, you’d only have joined her.”
Looking down at Conal beside him, Dahlen couldn’t help but remember his father comforting him the first time he’d taken a life. The first time he’d seen the light dim in someone’s eyes. It had been an imperial guard in Holm, a man of about twenty summers. Dahlen had been a bit younger than Conal. His father had told him to honour the man’s life by never forgetting his death. He had told him to feel the guilt and that if he ever stopped feeling it, to put the sword down and never take it back up again. This wasn’t quite the same, but guilt was guilt.
“I just can’t stop seeing it in my head.” Conal put his face in his hands, weeping, his shoulders trembling.
Dahlen understood viscerally. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept peacefully without memories of Belduar and Durakdur plaguing his dreams. Even then, as he sat in the mud, images of the battle that night flowed through his head like a moving picture. “It’s all right to be afraid. Fear reminds us what we have to lose. It forces us to think, to question our choices. What’s important is that we embrace our fear, but never let it control us. Do you understand?”
Conal nodded slowly. “I think so.”
“Will you do something for me? Will you promise to never forget this night? Promise to never let Tora be forgotten? Promise to think of her whenever you’re not sure why we’re fighting?”
Conal’s expression grew harder. “I promise.”
“Good.” Dahlen reached behind Conal’s head and ruffled his hair. “Nothing about battle or war or killing should give you joy, Conal. Most days, it gives us nothing but darkness, and on the best days, all we can hope for is a sense of relief. We do it because we have to. We do it because of what would happen if we didn’t.”
Conal nodded, sniffling.
Dahlen pulled himself to his feet, then reached his hand down and lifted Conal after him. “Meet me tomorrow after I’ve done my rounds. I don’t want you on the front lines, but everyone should know how to protect themselves.”
“Are you going to teach me how to use a sword?”
“Even if we had enough to go around, wielding a sword is something that takes endless practice. We’ll start with the spear.”
The boy looked a little deflated at that.
“Come.” Anya rested her hand on Conal’s back, motioning him towards the main street. “There are some hot baths running. Let’s get you cleaned and rested.”
She turned to Dahlen. “You should do the same. Exhaustion is as likely to kill you as a blade.”
“Not quite.”
Anya gave Dahlen the same unimpressed look his mother had often given him.
“I’ll sleep. But first I need to tell Tora’s father. He lost his wife in the attack five nights ago. I want him to hear this from me.”
The look on Anya’s face melted away, and she let out a mournful sigh, her eyes closing. She nodded. “You made a difference with him,” she said, gesturing towards Conal, who stood at the end of the alley waiting for Anya. “He looks up to you.”
“I had a good teacher.”
Dahlen still lay awake by the time Nimara slid into the room, her steps tired but careful.
“Let me help,” he said at the sound of her struggling to remove her armour in silence. He grunted as he dragged himself from the bed and helped her remove her breastplate.
“What are you doing awake?” Nimara let out a sigh of relief as the plate came free. She removed her gauntlets, then pulled her gloves from her hands and pressed her fingertips to his cheeks. “Nightmares again?”
He shook his head, then gave her a broken smile.
“Two of the older children took spears and went to fight at the walls.” He cupped her hands in his.
“Shit.”
“One of them lives, but he watched a Bloodmarked tear the other one apart. She was only fourteen.”
“Dahlen…” Nimara gripped the back of his neck and pressed her head into his chest.
“Her father just broke when I told him.” Tears wet Dahlen’s eyes as he thought of Tora’s father, one of the Belduaran Kingsguard, wrapping his arms around Dahlen, shaking and sobbing. Dahlen pulled away and leaned his head back so he stared at the wooden ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“You need to sleep.” Nimara brushed her thumb across his cheek.
He pressed his fingers into the creases of his eyes.
“Come.” She took Dahlen by the hand and put him to bed before undressing and climbing over him to lie at his back.
“My brother and my father are off somewhere fighting a war I should be fighting, and I have no idea if they’re dead or alive.” He stared across the dimly lit room as he spoke, curtains drawn to keep out the morning sun. “When my mother was dying, I promised her I’d look after Erik. Swore it to her as she lay there all broken, her skin all covered in those black marks. She didn’t cry. She just smiled at me…” He shook his head, a tear rolling over the bridge of his nose to drip onto the sheets. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Nimara didn’t say anything, but she wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against his back.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost them.” For as long as Dahlen could remember, he and Erik had fought beside their father all across the continent. From Vaerleon to Cardend, to Arginwatch, Khergan, and Antiquar. And for that entire time, they had felt invulnerable. Aeson Virandr was a living, breathing legend. He was a Draleid of old, one of the greatest warriors to have ever lived. And he was their father. What harm could come to them with a father like that? A father who had trained them to wield a blade with his own hands.
Somewhere along the way, that fantasy faded. His father was a warrior of legend, a master of the blade, a hero… but he was mortal. And mortal men could die.
“It’s all right.” Nimara pulled Dahlen tighter, her breath warm against the back of his neck.
“No, it’s not,” he whispered. “I wanted so desperately to prove that I could be what he had always trained me to be. That I wasn’t a failure. I wanted it so badly that I left him to find Erik on his own. Then I marched halfway across Epheria… If they die because I’m not there…”
A sharp pain flared in Dahlen’s left ear and he spun around in the bed, glaring at Nimara. “What the fuck was that?”
“I flicked your ear.”
“Why?”
“Because you were being an idiot.”
Dahlen turned back around and shuffled into the mattress, letting out a frustrated sigh.
A few minutes of silence passed before Nimara spoke again. “The people of Salme are alive because you are here ,” she whispered. “You have nothing to prove to anyone. The men and women of this place would lay down their lives for you in a heartbeat because of who you are… So would I.”
Dahlen didn’t answer, but he intertwined his fingers with Nimara’s where her hand rested over his chest, and for the first time in two days, he slept.