A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners Page 4

  Bluheart stood up once again and addressed the council. Alfred shook from his reverie and paid attention.

  "We with the Magus may be few, but our talents are varied. Sometimes whole species share a trait of sorcery. Sometimes an individual is born with abilities never before seen. Thanks to the shaman and sight-thieves amongst us, we can gather much from the eyes of birds and even from the ears of trees. I'm sure our Karkaren friend here can vouch for this."

  Cyrus just grunted and hunched his huge shoulders.

  "Not in years. Cannot remember."

  The Shaman Lisell sighed and gave him a sad smile. Bluheart continued.

  "Our spies have learned that the cursed family of our king have awoken. As the Riddles of Angall told us they would. They are the emissaries of all the pain that is to come. Bringers of plague and lies, saturated with foul magic. One of them, we have learned, set out on her mission. To the city of Crowburgh on the Water, east of the Bleaks. Crowburgh is a strategic town. High walled and defensible. Built on the river Reven. There is an artefact very important to our cause hidden there. Something that could be used against the Green King. So they are making their first move. Putting their pieces in place, before the invasion proper."

  The Ragle twitched his angular head and questioned.

  "Do they know, the people of Crowburgh, what is coming for them?

  Bluheart shook his head.

  "No. And we do not have an army raised yet who can intercept."

  The moss clad woman's maternal voice asked in concern.

  "So what do we do?"

  Bluheart cleared his throat.

  "We send an emissary, a lone man who can avoid their scouts, to infiltrate the city and bring this artefact back to us in secret."

  A weathered man with a huge blonde beard sat back in his chair.

  "One man? It's suicide."

  "That depends on the man" Bluheart said. "On this occasion our good friend and brother monk, Invar Ironbound volunteered for the task."

  Alfred sat up straight and stared at Invar.

  In the weeks since Invar had revealed his true identity and saved Alfred's life, he had grown to respect and admire the old paladin. Invar had been teaching Alfred about the power of the light and how his blessing may evolve into something stronger. Something he would need training to control. Since Alfred lost his old master Phillip of Tyne, he saw Invar as the true master he was supposed to have. Courageous, devout and steadfast. He did not want to lose another teacher.

  He leaned in close and whispered.

  "Master Invar, let me go with you. I can be of use."

  Invar Ironbound gave Alfred a grim glare.

  "No Alfred. You have a different responsibility. You and the other aspirants gathered here. You'll have your own challenges ahead. And, lad, I wouldn't swap places with you for all the gold in the world."

  Bluheart continued.

  "We will never have the numbers that can face the king's blackguard. We know how the Sorrow corrupts and warps the minds of men. We have to accept that we are a few lost stragglers and refugees that have found sanctuary here in this far monastery. So we have to rely on something else for our strength. Something left to us by the gods themselves. Something that only these aspirants gathered here today with Angall’s Whisper can retrieve for us."

  The blonde bearded man leaned in with curious expression.

  "What did they leave us?"

  Bluheart seemed to struggle to find the right words.

  "Weapons, of a sort. Angall's Riddles say that they turned the tide of the last war. Drove the Sorrow back into the dark. They have been hidden, buried and dormant beneath the earth."

  Alfred glanced around the room. He saw the other young aspirants shuffle in their seats. They could not look each other in the eye, in case they gave away their fear. All except the girl Deena, Alfred noticed. She sat there straight backed and breathing slow, as if in silent prayer.

  The moss woman, Morvine, spoke in concern. Her almond eyes wide and worried.

  "What are these poor hunted young people to do? What danger lies before them?"

  Invar leaned forward in earnest. His ringmail armour rattled.

  "You all know what Ironghast Monastery lays at the edge of?"

  Tangible silence fell around the room. Alfred felt the hairs prickle on his arms. In quiet voice he said what everyone thought.

  "The Torrent."

  Invar nodded and looked down at Alfred.

  "The storm of old war. A battle so fierce and filled with sorcery the great city that once lay here polluted and ruined. So poisonous to life, that in the aftermath, the gods formed a wall around it so it could not spread to the world. Nothing inside the walls of storm could leave, and nothing living could enter."

  A shadow seemed to pass across the vaulted chamber, as if some great bird had flown over them. The candles flickered. The tension in the council like a shiver passed amongst them. Alfred knew where this headed. His gift of translation had stumbled across the clues hidden in the library. He had denied it and ignored it for weeks. But whatever he did, he knew he was doomed. Invar continued in his gravelly voice.

  "That foul place has been sealed off like a tomb for a thousand years. It is a place of ghosts and demons. The foulness of the Sorrow is shut in there too. Stewing in bitterness for all those years. It is outside time and sanity. No one knows the form that nightmares take inside. Only the light of Angall and a true heart can keep you safe in that cursed storm."

  Father Bluheart took a nervous sip of his water and addressed the room.

  "If our translation of Angall's Riddles is accurate, there is only one thing that allows passage into the Torrent. The blessing known as Angall's Whisper."

  Morvine could not conceal her natural empathy. She looked at Alfred like a worried aunt.

  "But why in the world would you want to send them in there? To their death."

  Father Bluheart sat tight jawed trying to suppress his own concern for the boy. For all of them.

  "Because the weapons they need are somewhere within. The gods knew they could not allow any ordinary mortal to lay their hands on such things. Hidden in a place so inaccessible that only a select few at the right time would have access. Even then they would have to prove themselves worthy of the prize."

  Lisell the shaman slapped his fist on the table.

  "So it's a gauntlet. To weed out the unworthy."

  Invar cut in.

  "It is that. But it might even weed out the worthy."

  "How so?" Asked Lisell.

  Father Bluheart spoke.

  "The things these aspirants seek are dormant Archangels. Servants and messengers of Angall and the other gods during the darkest days of the old war. Angels are not like us, not by a long way. They choose you. But they're as likely to burn your soul to dust as help you."

  The girl Deena spoke up. Alfred's stomach fluttered when he heard her voice.

  "This Torrent sounds like a dark place. Like it needs cleansed by Angall's light. I do not fear the ghosts in there. Or the demons. But most of all I do not fear the angels. His light would only burn wicked things. I give my heart to god, and he can choose to burn or bless it."

  Invar peered at her, sizing her up. Silence in the room after Deena spoke. Her voice young but clear and full of commitment. Invar spoke up and Deena stared wide eyed in awe of him.

  "You know what aspirant paladins had to go through to become true Knights of the Blaze, don't you girl?"

  Deena shook her scruffy head. Everyone in the council silent as Invar spoke.

  "They took the essence of angels, holy spirits, into their bodies and communed with them. The spirit dissipates and sacrifices itself to become one with the aspirant. The magus Heart within us is what allows that. It is the only place in the body that can house such inhuman energy. Even with that, only about one in ten survived the process. I have watched devout, pure, holy men give their heart and soul to such a spirit. Only to burn like stars. Their screams became
motes of light that drifted into the air. In all the centuries of our order, the most we found were little scraps of spirit, scavenged from secret places and hidden temples. These things you seek, they are sleeping generals of Angall. Complete and whole. Approach them with an unworthy heart, and they will incinerate your soul. So if I was scared of anything in there, girl, it would not be the ghosts or the demons. It would be the Angels."

  Alfred watched the girl. Bewitched by the flame of her hair, greasy and unkempt as it was. For the first time he saw a flicker of doubt in her blue eyes. He saw a girl with strong faith, but he also saw a hint of fear. Her eyes faltered under Invar's gaze and she offered him a pious nod. Then she kept her head down and looked at the table in front of her, as afraid as the rest of them.

  Invar stood up tall and bunched his fists. He leaned forward on the table, supporting himself on his gauntlets like a gorilla.

  "The Knights of the Blaze formed over a thousand years ago, founded by our god Angall himself, before he left for the outer dark. Tasked to keep watch on the world. To prepare for the return of the Sorrow. Over the centuries we grew complacent, greedy and indulgent. I wonder if we even stopped believing in our own cause, thinking them myths. The king, controlled by the Sorrow, put an end to us, forty years ago. Once we remembered our true calling, we were traitors to him, nothing more. The king put an end to many things in that time. The days we know as the purges."

  Invar scanned the room. He locked eyes with the men, women, youths, and the smattering of Old Races left.

  "You've all been touched by the purges. All lost your homes or your families. He aimed to eradicate all the blood in the world tainted with magic. And he almost succeeded. A fire and light in the world near extinguished. The King and his dark cult reduced us to ashes, and the last embers seemed to go out. But a lot can rise from the ashes if one ember remains. So we here, we blessed few, we form a new covenant today. I declare us The Order of Ashes."

  Malkolm Bluheart stood up and raised his cup of water.

  "The Order of Ashes."

  Each member of the council stood, raised a cup to the group, and repeated the phrase. Each of them had fear in their hearts at the hopelessness of their situation. The remnants of dying breeds and freaks of nature. Trying to fight back against a cosmic force that had devoured entire worlds. And a once human king who commanded armies and fortunes. But what choice do we have, thought Alfred?

  He raised his own wooden cup and drank deep of the wine within.

  For the first time in a long time, he longed to be drunk.

  Alfred felt Invar’s heavy hand on his shoulder.

  "Alfred and the rest of you aspirants here. Come with me to the observatory. We need to prepare you for your voyage into the Torrent."

  Alfred felt his legs go weak. For a moment not sure if he could stand. He took another swig of weak wine and along with the other chosen, he stood up. He felt like a man going to the gallows.

  3

  Middigan Smythe, best ratcatcher in Crowburgh, slammed the gate shut on his rusted rat trap. The black rodent screeched and fought the bars. Its hairless tail whipped against the metal and it bared its teeth. A healed wound zig-zagged across its back. The smell of festering flesh.

  Middigan looked up and showed his graveyard grin to the homeowners. A little dribble of spittle frothed down his chin.

  "There ya go, lovelies. That's dada caught. Fattest I've seen in a while. My dog Trippin will have a king's banquet feastin' on his guts tonight. No surprise your larder running low with this monster skulking about yer home."

  A plump woman in sack cloth dress and headscarf edged further into the corner of the room. Her arms around a small boy who stared wide eyed at the chattering rodent. His mother squeezed him tighter. A blood soaked rag wrapped around her left hand. She ogled the caged animal with contempt.

  "That's the one that bit. I'm sure of it. It had that hairless scar on its back. He's been feasting on our dried food and stealing our breath while we sleep for weeks. Toddy woke up last night with the creature on his chest, sucking the air out his lungs!"

  The skinny boy gave him a wide eyed nod.

  Middigan gave the mother a sympathetic smile. It would not do to educate this hard working housewife in the finer points of rat culture, not in her present state. Like all good hunters he admired and respected his quarry.

  They'll be here when we're all gone, he'd often say to people in the gin houses, when in his cups. Scurrying about in the kingdom of rubbish we build for them.

  Hated and reviled by all. Spreaders of plague and infection, thieves of hard earned bread and grain. Seen as denizens of the underworld, the reincarnation of bad souls sent to plague the living. Rat catching a vocation both admired and repulsive and Middigan met these criteria to the letter.

  Just outsiders scrabbling for scraps from those with abundance. He could not blame them for that. He had lived his forty years the same. But proud of his civic duty, he never shirked or cut corners when it came to his job.

  The woman held out her wounded hand. Her face ruddy and honest but old beyond her years. The only natural light in the room spilled in from a grimy round window at the far end. Damp reeds on the floor, scurrying with lice. A small kettle of vegetable stew hung over a central fireplace. A bread oven built into the wall and several warm loaves sat inside. The yeasty smell hung even over the stench of the rat. But it didn't quite drown out the damp stench of Middigan. The rat catcher had an excellent nose, bulbous and sensitive to his prey, but no sense of his own reek.

  Middigan stood up and took her hand in his own, turning it over. He noticed the woman recoil a little and he smiled inside. Looking at his own filthy nobbled hand. The brown nails cracked and long. The skin ingrained with years of rat blood and sewer grime.

  He was used to it. As the city's most famed rat-catcher, he held an esteemed place in society. He did the jobs and tackled the vermin no one else wanted to step within a hundred feet of. Folks grateful, he got bowls of porridge given to him. Some kind family gave him a pair of sturdy leather shoes week before last. He wasn't gonna be blessing any new-born babies or invited round for supper, but Middigan was alright with that. For twenty years he had lived on his own in a rickety shack that sat atop a winding staircase. His little home in an abandoned tower above a four storey tenement, crushed and misshapen against the southern wall of the city. He'd sit there at night slurping his porridge before an iron stove then smoke his whittled pipe. A yellow lantern swung outside, and slotted into the fixture his rat killing stick, the tradesman's flag fluttering from it. A black rat on a triangle of red. He smoked and played dice with himself. Or he drank gin and looked out his little window at the stars, until the patter of feet came up the rickety staircase to his hut. One scruffy urchin or another would be breathless outside his door most nights, holding up a note. He had a retainer at many of the richer merchant's houses but there always unexpected business to be gleaned. Black rats were egalitarians and not a dwelling in any city rich or poor didn't have three or four unwanted tenants.

  The woman pulled the stained rag back from her palm. Two inflamed puncture wounds clotted with blood pierced the middle of her hand. She looked at Middigan .

  "Have I caught something? Will it spread to my family? A Plague or sewer-fever?"

  Middigan inspected her wound closer then gave her a shrug.

  "No telling . There's not been a case of true plague for over seventy years. And if sewer fever was that easy to catch I'd have been dead decades ago. But I can't say it won't get infected, like any animal bite can. I'd advise you soak it in riverman's gin for a good hour every night this week. It stops the pus and discoloration. But don't over worry, Goodwife Farence. You're a sturdy lass, if your husband won't beat me for saying so. Strong enough to have healthy boys, so I say you'll be fine."

  Mrs. Farence gave him a nervous nod and replaced the sodden wrapping. Middigan picked up his cage, stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. An instant later a little white t
errier came scarpering through from the larder. His head held proud and a dead rat clamped between his oversized jaws. The muscular little animal trotted up to his master, stubby tail wagging.

  "There he is! Little Trippin always gets his man. "

  Middigan turned back to the woman and child. A triumphant grin plastered on his craggy face.

  "That'll be the mother, and she's not been pregnant of late. So that's the last of them, Goodwife." Middigan waved his hand through the thick air like a priest. "I declare this house clean."

  The woman thanked him bowed her head. Middigan gave her a wink and then crouched down and tried to prize the rat from Trippin's teeth. The scruffy dog shook his head to and fro, loving the game but refusing to give up his prize. Middigan gave a nervous laugh and glanced at the woman.

  "Come on now lad, let's keep ourselves professional. You'll get the full slop of this in your bowl when we get home. Now let go for the nice lady."

  With a final tug Middigan freed the rodent with a wet tear and popped it in his bag. The woman rushed over and pressed a silver coin into his hand, thanking him again.

  "All part of the service madam. You have a lovely day to yerself now."

  Middigan scrunched his misshapen hat on his head and walked out into the city, whistling tunelessly.

  He wound his way through the streets of Crowburgh towards the southern end of the city. An old, shambling place and one of the biggest cities on the whole western edges of the continent. Its foundations ancient, built during the reign of Kalkalus the Third. Crowburgh, once a city of aqueducts and heated floors. It sat astride the wide brown river Reven, and had been a crucible of trade and innovation. The old town still stood, but the city had expanded more than ever imagined. With the high stone walls as limits, now a cramped urban sprawl stacked up high on many levels. Keeping it clean and disease free a civic nightmare but Middigan did his bit every day.

  Seventeen thousand people resided within the old walls. Middigan estimated ten times that many fat black rats. He knew one thing. He would never go out of business.