Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1) Read online

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  Stetch slid the window down behind him, the hiss of sliding wood reminding him of the demon’s creaking wings. The candle was still burning, though mostly gone. He padded silently across the floor, glancing at Katarina and seeing the regular rise and fall of her chest. He leaned against the room’s wall, her bed in front of him. Stetch slumped down to his rump, snow sloughing off his clothes as he brought his knees up to his chest.

  ‘You are a most troublesome man.’

  He froze, recognising the voice. Not asleep after all.

  ‘It concerns me that after repeatedly warning me of dangers to my person, you then render me unconscious and see fit to go gallivanting off into the night, leaving me alone when I am utterly helpless.’

  ‘Door was locked,’ he sighed.

  ‘Well, even so, that does not excuse your—’ Katarina broke off her rebuke, hearing something different in his voice. She rolled onto her side, peering at Stetch carefully. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her tone softening. Her eyes widened. ‘You went to the convent, didn’t you?’

  She seemed almost pleased he had disobeyed her. Stetch knew he couldn’t win; if he did as she asked, he lost respect in her eyes, and if he didn’t, well, either she was furious or pleased. It was like shadowing a mercurial drunkard: no pattern, no rules.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She said nothing for a moment, peering at him suspiciously. About five seconds passed before she finally lost patience. ‘And?’ she demanded.

  ‘Saw a demon.’

  She was quiet a long time. ‘That’s what left that strange footprint at the abbey next to the old man?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you think it was the same one?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You think there’s more than one?’

  She shook her head, although lying on her side it looked to Stetch more like a nod. ‘Just curious.’

  ‘Killed all the nuns.’

  ‘Perhaps they deserved smiting. These followers of the church seem very keen on their smiting.’

  Stetch shook his head. ‘Not like that.’

  She was on her feet in a heartbeat, kneeling at his side in another two, a concerned frown on her face. ‘You look terrible,’ Katarina told him. ‘Even more so than usual.’ she hauled him to his feet. ‘You will sleep on the bed tonight.’

  He liked her even less when she was being nice. It worried him.

  12.

  Tol paused once he reached the shelter of the first trees, the dark embrace of their shadows hiding him from view of those who had chased him. An ear-splitting scream tore through the sky and he turned back, staring up at the convent’s walls. He heard nothing further, and reluctantly left the grounds behind. He made it a mile into the woods before the screams started, and this time it wasn’t a single voice. It sounded like the whole convent.

  Tol turned round. The trees hid the distant lights from his sight, but he could hear the nuns, a rising dirge of pain and fear that carried far on the cold night air. He took a step, then another. If I got there sooner, he thought, I could have made her listen. They could have escaped.

  This is my fault.

  He bunched his fists at his side, forcing himself to hear the sounds of terror. They didn’t deserve this, he told himself as the voices rose in volume, a whole choir of unbridled terror and panic. He couldn’t bear to think what the Band of Blood were doing, but he made himself listen to the death rattles floating on the wind. He longed to race back, to fight whatever it was that had inflicted this, but his oath held him still. What Maker would allow women to suffer so? he wondered. How is it I am alive, cursed as I am, yet those who could truly serve the Maker and his angels are crowfeast? Is there even a Maker in the skies above? The Names of Salvation claimed He lived among his angels upon the moon of Ammerlac, but in the face of such screams of pain and fear it was hard indeed to believe any god could allow such torments visited upon his most faithful devotees. Tol stood glaring into the gloom, shaking with anger as the screams rattled on for another few seconds, ending as abruptly as they had begun, the choir’s voices stilled one after another. He uncurled his fists, breathing heavily. For a long time he stood there, shaking in the silence. The temptation to go back, to kill as many of them as he could was overpowering, like a heady perfume that filled the nose and befuddled the brain. With great effort, Tol turned away and resumed his journey south. A knight would not have fled, he told himself. A knight would not have fled.

  Tol trudged onwards. So many people had already been killed, and for nothing more than a book. What could possibly be in it? he wondered. Whatever it was, the Band of Blood wouldn’t give up. Tol thought they might wait until morning before resuming their pursuit, but he couldn’t be sure. Well rested, they could cover more ground in the daylight, but risked losing his tracks if they tried to follow him through the night. He didn’t dare stop though; if he was wrong there was a good chance he’d wake up to find someone using him as a pincushion, and the thought drove him onward, winding his way through the forest. Darkness pressed in all around him, the treetops high above keeping out the pale moonlight. Again and again Tol stumbled over roots, rocks, and uneven ground. Soon he grew too hoarse to curse aloud, and settled for cursing inwardly instead. As the night grew old even that ceased as Tol was forced to concentrate on the land underfoot. Even so, he stumbled many times, and when his foot caught in a tendril of a tree root and sent him sprawling flat on his face for the third time, Tol decided enough was enough.

  A short while later he sat cross-legged in front of the meagre fire, his back against a tree trunk as Ammerlac peeked out from the clouds above. His pack lay on the ground next to him, and Tol found his gaze kept returning to it and the burgundy package stowed inside. I wonder what the book’s about? The abbot had taught him that books were valuable, sources of knowledge that documented history or martial ways. Some, Tol had learned, were rare, their contents known only by a few. This must be one of them, he thought. But why kill for it? How could written words be dangerous? Magic, perhaps, but Tol didn’t believe in magic, and even Father Michael said it was nothing more than a trick done well.

  He reached into the pack and withdrew the cloth-covered package. There was a really easy way to find out. Tol had promised to deliver the book, but the Reverend Mother never made him promise not to read it. Although she did say it had driven men mad. That gave him pause; any book that could drive men mad was not to be opened lightly. He thought back to the screams from the convent. If I’m going to get killed for this, he decided as he picked up the package, then I deserve to at least know why. He unfolded the cloth carefully, the cover clear in the weak firelight. In rough Norvek script was scrawled the book’s title, Angel’s Truth, in finger-high letters. Beneath it was the author’s name and Tol’s heart skipped a beat as he read it: Sir Hunt Valeron. He sat staring at it for a full minute. Sir Hunt Valeron, a name of legend, a name known to all. The man who led the Angel’s Defence, who slew the demon Vidirika as it sought to kill the High Angel Galandor. Sir Hunt Valeron, first of the Seven.

  Just one page, he promised himself. A single page can’t drive a man mad.

  Meracian was the language used by most scholars, but a simple knight had written the book in the only language he knew, the jagged runes of Norve. Tol licked his lips, his finger tracing its way across the page as he read aloud, ‘Galandor Sinis-Nor k’Ganedrin is the true name of the High Angel who brought us together. Speak not the angel’s name aloud unless your need be dire, for its utterance may bring the regard of demons as well as angels.’

  Tol groaned. Why start like that? Could have given the bloody warning first! His eyes slipped to the canopy above, wondering if angel or demon would visit him. After a few nervous moments with no noise beyond the soft rustle of brittle leaves, Tol returned his attention to the book. ‘For two hundred years from the time of the battle against the Gurdal the High Angel shall hold the watch over Korte and its people. Speak the angel’s true name and, if you
r heart be true, it may aid you. We eight who stood Galandor’s defence earned the truth of our cause and from the angel’s lips we heard it in full. Let no man bereft of faith or not stout of heart read further, for in this account I shall reveal the truth behind our war with the Gurdal. Such secrets as we hold sit heavy on me, and though sworn to secrecy I cannot let the truth wither. The brotherhood we have set in motion must fight for Galandor and his kin, yet I believe those who lead it must also have the full truth, that which cannot be shared with the world at large.’

  Tol tried to digest what he had read, but it was so confusing. Two hundred years had passed since the Angel’s Defence… which meant that Galandor’s watch was over. Perhaps he hadn’t heard his name then? But Tol needed help, and calling on an angel seemed like a sensible, and easy, option. Then there was the matter of the Seven. History said that seven men stood the Angel’s Defence, seven knights from different nations who followed Sir Hunt Valeron’s example. Why, then, did the man himself claim there were eight men? Tol’s ancestor Kur Kraven had been one of the Seven, and though he had murdered Valeron his name had not been struck from history – he had still been one of the Seven. So who was the eighth? And why weren’t they mentioned?

  Tol turned the page, squinting as he tried to make out the writing in the fire’s pale light. ‘Galandor, first among the High Angels, has revealed to my companions and I the names of those who shall follow him in holding watch over Korte and its people. Two hundred years each shall stand before the watch passes to another. The second angel is Kalashadria ni-feln k’Priamus.’ The words were out of Tol’s lips before he realised their import. He groaned, and shook his head at his own stupidity. He half expected an angel to come bursting through the trees but after several minutes nothing had happened. Even so, he read the list of angels who would hold the watch silently, mouthing the words but putting no sound to them. The list took up the whole second page of the book, and by its rough writing Tol guessed that Valeron had copied the names down as Galandor recited them. So the angels are real, Tol thought with growing wonder. He closed the book and glanced up through the canopy. Ammerlac hung high above him, the orange moon half-obscured by grey clouds.

  The angels are up there.

  13.

  Tol woke as weak sunlight lanced down through the canopy onto his face. He shivered with cold and his thick furs shed iced dew. It was morning, his fire down to embers. Tree trunks around him sparkled with iced moisture. For a long moment he revelled in the possibility of angels’ existence – not just a myth – until reality came crashing back down with a frost-rimed thump. It’s too quiet. He hadn’t noticed straight away but the silence was thick and expectant; no birdsong, no scrabbling squirrels, not even a breeze. Tol shivered again, furs shedding more icicles, and saw droplets form in his misty breath – form and fall earthward. The air seemed thinner and at last Tol heard another noise like the distant crumpling of a thousand scrolls. Fast freeze!

  He staggered to his feet, teeth chattering. It was coming from the north, leaves whitening as the temperature plummeted. A wave of sparkling ice was forming, glimmering planes forming on trunk and branch and grass. It was harder to breathe now, the chill fast approaching. Tol thrust the cloth covered book in his tunic and hurriedly shouldered his pack. He stumbled south, numb limbs propelling him away from the danger. His rational mind was arguing that it was too late in the year for a fast freeze, while another much more sensible part of him was telling him in florid curses to stop thinking and move faster. His arms and legs were already numb, and only the thought of getting caught in the heart of a fast freeze kept him moving. They only happened in the far north, but a fast freeze was as dangerous as any sword and killed slow as a gut wound. Tol had seen a man caught in one once, and the image of the man’s frozen rictus kept bubbling to his mind’s surface even as Tol struggled to draw breath. It comes quick, does the fast freeze, his father told him once. Something to do with the air; it changes, thins, and drops like a stone. Bitter cold becomes deathly frozen, and anything in its path – man, beast or tree – caught in its brittle heart dies. Slow and painful, his father had told him, his eyes misting over with memory. I found a pig once, caught on the edges, its hind legs frozen like stone. There’s nothing like a screaming pig to strike fear in a man.

  Tol couldn’t argue with that. At Icepeak once the student entrusted with the job of slaughtering one fell short of the mark; the pig had died slow, but not before giving half the students a song of screams that left them pale and sickened. For two weeks Tol had been woken by their nightmares.

  He stumbled forwards, the crinkling of leaves hounding him in his wake. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, the air thin and cold, but Tol fought on, gradually building to a lung-bursting shamble. Everyone in the north knew about fast freezes, but Tol realised nobody had ever mentioned how long they lasted. Surely not much longer? he thought. My lungs will burst if I go on any longer. There were red spots in his vision now and the cold was creeping over his shoulder like the hand of Death itself. I cannot fail. Tol’s focus narrowed, every part of his mind occupied with the next step, and the next, and the next. He heard a tree behind him crackle, and found a sudden burst of speed, fearing the sap would explode, frozen shards spraying outward like a thousand knives. He felt rather than heard the concussive roar and a wave of pressure slammed into his back. He stumbled, falling forward but pushing himself off the ground with one hand. One more step. And another. The air changed abruptly, and Tol could breathe again, sucking in great gouts of cold air as he slowed to a weaving stagger. Pitspawn, that was close! Father Michael said that fast freezes just fizzled out, much like rain or snow, but it had felt like the very world was trying to kill him. Can’t say I’d blame it, Tol thought. Not many’d miss me. Another thought struck as he rambled on: Is it the angels’ doing? Punishment for reading the truth? It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was one he couldn’t shake as he stumbled out of the woods and onto the rough road that snaked south towards Karnvost, Norve’s second city and home of the king’s brother, Duke Tirian, Lord of the West. A city that large had to have Knights Reve, Tol was certain. If he could find them then he was halfway free of his oath.

  The road snaked languidly around a tree-decked hillock and Tol came to a halt, a grey stone wall ahead, its surface glimmering with diamond-like frost and capped with a crown of snow. Behind the city’s wall he could see the spires and pinnacles of buildings. Karnvost. His destination was in sight and the last couple of miles passed quickly as Tol’s spirits lifted. The wind whispered in his ears like a lover as he drew closer and began to make out details: the cracked mortar in the city wall, the crenellated battlements crested with snow and bereft of guards’ leaning elbows, well-worn tracks leading into the city where the snow had turned to slush.

  Tol remembered little of the settlements back home on Havak, and beyond Icepeak the largest place he had gone was Findhel. The city, he realised, was a fortress, well-suited to siege. The forest encroached on either side as he reached the gates and Tol couldn’t help the grimace that crept across his face. Poor work, he thought. Any attack from the forest will give cover to the attackers – there’d be no warning till the first ladders crest the wall. And that would be far too late if the commander knew his business. Far too late for the people behind the wall. A half-decent guard commander would see the forest cut back a couple of hundred yards at least. Still, familiarity breeds laziness, as Father Michael often said.

  The two guards leaned against the opened gates, their gazes slow and sullen as Tol reached the wall. One eyed him carefully as he passed between them, fingers shifting their grip on his polearm. The other barely noticed him at all. Tol stopped as he saw his first glimpse of the city: the main thoroughfare led straight and true to the city’s heart, veins and arteries of alleys spreading outwards to caress the edge of the wall. The road was little more than frozen mud, the houses and shops no different to those that might be found in any town of Norve. It was, all in all, thoro
ughly disappointing.

  ‘Move along, boy,’ one of the guards called from behind him.

  ‘Anyone’d think he’s never seen civilisation before,’ said the other.

  ‘Probably hasn’t. Looks like a bloody savage.’

  Tol turned back. ‘Just disappointed,’ he growled. ‘I thought Karnvost would be bigger is all.’

  The two men damned near soiled themselves, pitching over double and laughing riotously. Tol snarled and left them to it, dragging his weary feet along the main road. He passed a tailor’s, a baker’s, and a store before reaching the first inn. A faded sign creaking in the wind above the door proclaimed it to be the Hanged Man, and it carried an illustration in case anyone didn’t know what one looked like. On second glance, the man in the noose looked startlingly familiar, like looking in a mirror. Tol passed the door, albeit reluctantly, and carried on further. A few doors down another sign swung ponderously in the morning breeze as the city’s inhabitants drifted up and down the lane like apparitions. This inn looked better than the first, snow cleared from its step and the façade smooth and free from cracks. Maiden’s Watch, the sign declared. It had a painting, recently recoloured, of a buxom maiden wearing a bodice that left little to the imagination. She peered out of the sign, one shoulder nudging the sign’s corner while her bosom threatened to break out entirely. Tol stopped in his tracks, staring at the sign. A man passing by laughed at him, and a woman glared at him, her cheeks colouring. There. Tol thought it had been a trick, but he could see it alright. A small tattoo on the maid’s shoulder, almost obliterated by bosom. Tiny, but clear to someone who knew what to look for: the symbol of the Reve, a winged sword in front of the amber moon. Tol hurried forward, flinging the door open and staggering inside.