Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1) Read online

  Treasure. It was the only thing that made sense, a hoard of gold or jewels the Reve held somewhere; something men would die for.

  Tol glanced to his right, the mountain curving south away from him as it circled back round towards the abbey. He shivered as the wind lashed him again.

  When they fail to find what they seek here they will go next to St. Helena’s.

  Tol stopped, remembering those four words he’d heard as he entered the old man’s study. We have been betrayed.

  He swore softly. There was a single road east through the forest, and if the abbot was right any survivors would be coming round from the other side of the mountain.

  Tol could see the forest ahead, a mile of open ground between him and the trees. Even if they’re not looking for me, Tol thought as he hurried towards it, if any of them survived they’ll be coming this way. The road lay further south, but he’d stand out on the open ground, easily visible a mile or two away. Tol felt exposed, naked. There was a tingle between his shoulder blades, like he was being watched. He forced his frozen legs to move faster, the edge of the forest still hundreds of yards away. He expected to hear shouts at any moment, or feel the impact of an arrow.

  The convent no longer felt like a reprieve.

  It was starting to feel like another punishment.

  *

  The Norvek people had a saying, cold kills sure as a blade, and right now the cold was doing its very best to kill Tol. He felt like winter itself, every part of him turned to ice. Exhaustion had set in as he reached the forest, that last spurt of pace taking what little energy he had left.

  He turned south-east a half-mile in, and cast one last look over his shoulder. There had been another light snowfall the day before. The boughs above him had kept most of it from the ground, but a light dusting still covered patches of the icy ground. He could see faint impressions in the ground behind him, marking his path for anyone with eyes and wits.

  Tol cursed through chattering teeth and pressed on, the abbot’s task weighing heavy on his mind. A strange message - how could the truth ever be in peril? - the arrival of armed invaders at a church stronghold, and the presence of three knights who, if the monks were to be believed, should be heading east to join their brethren in Kron Vulder.

  The temperature plummeted further as the sun set. It was eerily quiet, only the faint chattering of his teeth and the occasional misstep on frozen ground breaking the silence. Occasionally the orange moon, Ammerlac, peeked out from the clouds, its faint glow casting momentary light on ice-crusted trunks.

  I should have found the road by now, Tol thought. He glanced up as the moon emerged again, and remembered the abbot’s parting words. May angels guide you true, the formal parting used by priests the world over.

  Chance would be a fine thing, Tol thought as he saw the moon disappear behind another dark swell of clouds. If the angels were up there, as the Church’s holy book promised, they weren’t watching. If the Maker himself truly was up there with them in their citadel on the amber moon Tol didn’t think he cared. Tomorrow would see a new year, a new century, and a new angel to stand watch over Korte and all its people.

  But not my family, he thought. Some sins can never be forgiven.

  The cold was wearing him down, every hundred yards taking longer than the last, and Tol was fairly sure he was lost. He’d been abandoned at the abbey eight years ago, eight winters on the mountain long enough to know he wouldn’t last the night, even if the men didn’t find him. His teeth had stopped chattering now; that, he remembered, was a bad sign.

  He was starting to think his family really was cursed.

  A sharp crack broke the silence. A hundred yards behind him or a thousand; sounds travelled far in the cold night air and Tol couldn’t judge the distance. He recognised the sound though: the unmistakable crack of a twig snapping.

  I am not alone.

  They were in the woods, following his trail.

  4.

  Kartane glanced at the fire to his right as a log popped and sizzled. The provost’s cabin felt large after another day in the cramped tunnels of Westreach mines. This can’t be good, he thought. The provost was a creature of habit, and an audience with the man was never a good thing for a prisoner. Provost Hink was staring at him like a sullen child contemplating the fate of a beetle, pale fingers caressing a curled scrap of parchment. Kartane didn’t think it was a good omen.

  ‘A letter arrived for you today,’ the provost said. ‘Your first, I believe?’

  The fire crackled again, casting long shadows over the provost’s rickety desk and the letter twirling between his fingers. Kartane glanced at the letter and nodded. This wasn’t going to end well.

  ‘I wonder who it might be from. Your brother perhaps? News of some terrible misfortune that has befallen him?’

  Kartane remained silent, his eyes following the folded parchment as shadows played across its surface. There was a dark smudge on one side; an unbroken wax seal. One hand twitched, his manacles rattling.

  ‘Don’t deserve a letter,’ Spalbow growled behind him, the guard’s fetid breath on Kartane’s neck. ‘None of ’em do.’

  ‘No,’ Hink agreed, ‘the damned souls we keep have no need of such things.’ He studied Kartane a moment. ‘Could you quote the book?’ the provost asked.

  Buxom Mary? Kartane wondered. Buxom Mary lived with her two sisters. He muffled the laugh with a cough. ‘Which book?’

  ‘The Names of Salvation,’ Hink snapped. ‘Can you quote the first page? Have you ever even read it?’

  Kartane closed his eyes. The campfires stretched out below the plateau like an ill omen. The travelling priest sat by his own fire, a small dim thing in comparison to the myriad heralds below. Tomorrow he would bear witness to the meeting of two armies, but tonight he would once again pity the nature of man.

  He looked away as a breeze stoked the flames, a deep voice ringing in his ears.

  ‘I would sit with you, priest, if you would have the company.’

  The priest wept at the voice, for it was the sound of love requited, of rapture, of sweet spring rain on fertile flowers. It was the voice of an Angel. Before him stood an ivory figure, white wings rising proudly over broad shoulders.

  ‘Weep not for those who die tomorrow,’ the angel told him, ‘salvation awaits those deemed worthy.’

  Kartane opened his eyes as Spalbow struck him from behind. ‘Answer the provost!’

  He studied the provost for a moment. ‘No.’

  Hink smiled. ‘No, I did not think you had. But I am going to let you read the letter, and do you know why?’

  Kartane remained silent. Angering the idiot would serve no purpose.

  ‘Because,’ Hink continued, ‘it is my dearest hope that in this envelope is a tragedy so terrible your life here will be even more miserable.’

  The provost spun the letter towards Kartane and he watched it skim off the desk and flutter to his feet. The folded parchment landed face down, the seal graven in red wax one he hadn’t seen for a long time. A lifetime ago, he thought.

  Spalbow’s cudgel jabbed Kartane in the ribs, a reminder of the guard’s presence. The next strike, he knew, would be to incapacitate him so Spalbow could retrieve the letter before Kartane could read its contents. The wax seal was staring up at him like an accusatory eye, the device in the wax one he had tried very hard to forget. Why now? Kartane wondered. He hesitated, unsure whether he really wanted to read the letter within. He felt a stir of air behind him, Spalbow readying another reminder, and sank slowly to his left knee with a sigh, body shielding the envelope from the guard. He snatched up the letter, quickly breaking the seal with a ragged thumbnail and tearing it open as he rose. Kartane got to his feet slowly, his manacled hands working quickly to unfold the letter while keeping it close to his body. He knew how these men thought: give him a glimpse of the letter then rip it from him before he could read it all. What they didn’t know was that a letter like this was never long, whatever message within i
t brief and to the point. Two seconds is all it took, his tired body still rising as he read the rough Norvek script. He sensed movement behind him, Spalbow’s hot breath as he readied his cudgel. Kartane crumpled the letter in one soot-stained fist, and tossed it towards the fire with a flick of his wrist.

  He glimpsed its high, looping arc just as Spalbow hammered him in the kidney with his cudgel. Kartane dropped to his knees with a grunt of pain. He heard the scrape of the provost’s chair, Hink's eyes on the missive as he scuttled towards the fire.

  Behind him, he saw Spalbow’s eyes tracking the crumpled ball as it dropped towards the fire’s grate.

  Kartane smiled, and took advantage of the guard’s momentary distraction as Hink dropped to his knees in front of the grate where the letter rested, corners already browning in the heat.

  Five seconds, he thought as he lowered Spalbow to the floor. Not bad. Still got the touch.

  He started towards the fire as Hink picked up the letter, switching it from hand to hand as the heat seared his pudgy pale fingers.

  The provost smiled. ‘You missed!’

  ‘No,’ Kartane said, ‘I didn’t.’

  The provost twitched, not expecting him so close. Hink turned his head, placing his face perfectly into the path of Kartane’s rising boot. The crack of the provost’s nose breaking echoed through the cabin as Hink collapsed to the floor. It sounded like the fire, just as the snap of Spalbow’s neck had.

  Kartane dropped to his haunches beside the provost and and struck Hink in the ribs as he struggled to rise, one decisive jab. He rolled the provost onto his side and peered down. ‘Three years,’ he said. ‘Three years and I never once tried to escape this place. Did you ever wonder why?’

  The provost opened his mouth to answer, a puzzled expression appearing as his lips moved without sound. Kartane reached down and pulled the letter opener out from between Hink’s ribs. He pointed it at his tormentor.

  ‘I had nowhere else to go.’ He swung the blade to and fro, watching Hink’s eyes follow its progress. ‘That letter changes things. Now,’ Kartane said, ‘now I have a purpose again.’

  The provost tried to speak, but it was already too late for that. The makeshift knife had pierced his lung and Kartane figured his chest was already filling with blood. He’d have liked longer with the man, but silencing him was a more pressing concern. Can’t have everything, I suppose. He’d tried that once before, and that had got him sentenced to the iron mines.

  Kartane rose and went back to Spalbow’s body, divesting the dead guard of his boots. He unhitched the sword belt next, tugging it free from under Spalbow with a grunt and baring the blade. Unlike the guard’s cudgel, worn from untender use, the blade was pristine, its edge keen. Kartane cinched it around his waist, plucked the guard’s keys and made his way back to the provost’s desk. He unlocked the manacles and dropped them on desk. ‘Unfortunately for you,’ he said, ‘I need a distraction to get out of here.’ He picked up the oil lamp, killed the flame and started trailing oil across the cabin floor, a snaking line that passed under the provost’s nose. Kartane squatted down beside him. ‘The good news for you,’ he said, ‘is that you’ll be dead before the fire burns you.

  ‘Probably,’ he added as he rose.

  Kartane walked towards the door, spared the provost one last look then tossed the lamp towards the fire. He slipped out into the darkness as the fire took hold, a bright orange glare that would bring the guards from their posts and leave Westreach’s gate unguarded.

  He smiled. Somebody, somewhere, needed killing, and Kartane was inclined to oblige them, along with anyone else that got in his way. Just like the old days.

  5.

  There were three of them, spread out in a line as they approached the fire.

  The central man stopped under a tree. He could see the fire now, the source of the weak light less than thirty yards away. He made to take another step, but hesitated, tilting his head as he peered at the fur-wrapped figure in the distance. He reached up and brushed away fresh snowfall from his shoulder.

  Now!

  Tol dropped from the branch just as the tracker realised his mistake and looked up. He landed on the man’s back, driving his dagger into the base of the man’s neck as he struck. The dagger was almost wrenched from his grip as they crashed to the forest floor, but Tol held on, pulling the blade free as he scrambled to his knees. The tracker looked up at him, lips working soundlessly.

  It worked.

  His furs were wrapped around a shattered tree stump next to the tiny fire he’d built with numb fingers. Another lesson learned from the abbot: choose your battlefield and use it to your advantage. Sometimes the old man knew what he was talking about.

  Left or right? Tol flipped the dagger in his hand, not even glancing at the blade as he did so, its weight and balance clear in his frost-tinged brain. He cocked his arm, sending the blade spinning at the one coming from the left.

  Tol turned away as he heard a cry. He reached down, and fumbled with the tracker’s scabbard - his own sword frozen solid in its scabbard. He glanced up as the tracker’s blade slid free on the third attempt. The other man was almost upon him.

  Finish this quick, he told himself, raising the pitted blade above his head into the high guard favoured by knights; dropping a blade was ever quicker than raising one.

  He stepped forward, pulse pounding like a waterfall’s roar in his ears. His teeth were chattering, arms numb.

  The man struck, a heavy blow that sent Tol stumbling back as he blocked it. Another followed, and a third, and he blocked them awkwardly, arms juddering under the force of each strike.

  ‘Your friends put up a better fight, coward,’ the man snarled. He attacked again, a flurry of strikes in quick succession, and Tol fell into the familiar patterns learned under the abbot’s tutelage. He was so cold he could barely think, but his muscles remembered enough. His opponent had read those first hurried exchanges, misinterpreting exhaustion for lack of training.

  They killed the abbot.

  The man struck again, a powerful overhead strike to end it quickly. Tol met the blow, angling his blade to divert the strike with a metallic screech as one blade squealed against another. He rolled his shoulders as the attacker’s blade went narrowly wide - worrying close to his right knee - and guided his sword back up into the high guard while his off-balance opponent tried to recover his balance.

  Never over-extend your reach. Another of the abbot’s sayings.

  No mercy. That was his own.

  Tol brought the sword down fast into the base of the man’s neck.

  The force of the blow drove the man to his knees, the blade buried halfway through his neck. The sword bit deep, deeper than Tol was expecting. He heard the third man’s boots crunching in the snow behind him and tried to wrench the blade free as the dying man jittered but it was stuck fast. He tried to wrench it free again and the hilt slipped from his fingers as the man pitched forward onto his front, sword still stuck.

  Tol turned to face the last man. He reached for the sword at his side. It was still stuck firmly in the scabbard.

  The man was limping, Tol’s dagger wedged in his upper thigh. The old man would be ashamed of a throw like that, Tol knew. Frozen fingers wouldn’t be an excuse.

  Except he’s almost certainly dead, Tol thought. They all were.

  He tugged at the sword again, grunting with effort. The last man was close, sword already in his hands. Scars criss-crossed his face, features distorting as he saw Tol’s predicament and grinned. He didn’t rush towards him though, and that was worrying; he’d learned from those scars.

  Tol remembered the moment the abbot had picked up the sword, fingers curling around the hilt as if he was going to draw it and check the blade. A former knight would probably do that.

  Tol tightened his grip on the hilt. It could be a final trick by the old man: give him a solid lump of wood painted to look like a sword. Punishment for every time Tol had disobeyed him; punishment for being the
last descendant of the world’s most hated man.

  Please, he thought, as he drew in a deep breath, the last man almost upon him. He closed his eyes and gave the hilt one last desperate tug. Please!

  The sword slid free with a chime, high and crystalline like a jester’s bell. Tol opened his eyes as the blade, light in his hands, flicked upwards into high guard with barely a twitch of his muscles. His attacker’s grin vanished, replaced by a snarl as he lunged forward, sword point spearing at Tol’s abdomen. Tol brought his sword down fast across his body, the gleaming silver blade shimmering in the glare of the falling snow as he diverted the strike. Tol grunted, his right foot pouncing forward as he flicked the blade back up and right, cutting a diagonal slash through the air. He saw flecks of blood rise in a sputtering arc, but didn’t stop. He brought the blade back down, the pattern of strikes and parries memorised in his muscles. The swing petered out as the mercenary toppled forward. He landed with a dull thump, a scarlet pool spreading out across the ice-speckled grass.

  He stood there for a long time, staring as the stain slowly spread.

  I survived. Three men, and I survived. He stared at the sword in his hands, turning the blade experimentally and seeing a blurred face echoed in the steel, one that was almost unrecognisable as his own.

  I killed three men.

  There had been no choice in the matter – kill or be killed – but it did not lessen the sickness he felt as the last moments of the fight played back through his mind, every drop of blood, every ragged wound in all its terrible glory.

  His gaze flitted across the corpses as his mind played back the desperate fight again and again, only ceasing when his eyes alighted upon the last attacker’s sword. It had fallen from the dying man’s grip, the corpse landing atop the pommel and hilt. The blade itself was in two parts, the tip and a hand’s length of steel resting a foot away from the rest. Did I do that?

  Tol shook his head; he couldn’t believe he had the strength to shatter steel. He had heard, though, of winters so cold that swords would break at a maiden’s tap; heard but thought it a flight of fancy. Now, it seemed, he was mistaken. He looked at the sword in his hands, examining it for any signs of damage. It was pristine, not a scratch on it. Well-maintained, too, because the steel was as good as any Tol had seen, and shone as though polished daily. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what the abbot did, he thought. Father Michael, for all his flaws, had been a fastidious man and had trained every boy in the abbey to look after their weapons with an obsessive fervour. Look after your sword, and it will look after you. Another one of his trite sayings; the abbot seemed to have one for every occasion.