scarred and white, Vesna’s a black metal gauntlet. They interlocked like some esoteric symbol, a curious symmetry that seemed to hearten Vesna.
‘Let’s hope history doesn’t think me a fool, then, wallowing in my personal misery when the fates of every man, woman and child hang in the balance.’
‘You are far from a fool, my friend,’ Isak said. He hauled Vesna up and pushed him towards the house. ‘Only a monster wouldn’t feel the pain.’
The pair slowly made their way back to the front of the house. It was a large building, considering the remote location, and looked as if it had been abandoned for several seasons. Rampant creeper swarmed over the nearside walls, so thick that when someone inside tried to opened the shutter, the mass hanging off the roof obscured their face entirely. Isak watched as the person hacked away at the worst of it while Hulf stalked the twitching trails at the base of the wall with geat delight.
On the other side of the building was a half-collapsed barn and animal pens, none of which looked safe to enter. Daken was standing beside the barn, surveying it, then he gave the whole thing an almighty kick and hastened its downfall. The groan and snap of timbers seemed to satisfy the destructive little child in him and he turned away with a wide grin.
‘Ain’t running out o’ firewood today,’ he commented brightly, accompanying them inside. ‘Piss and daemons; this the best we could do?’
Isak inspected the interior over Vesna’s shoulder. It was not so very different from the cottage by the lake where he’d lived so recently. The smell was more the musty scent of slowly rotting wood, but there was no stink of bodies, human or animal, nor mould. There was little furniture beyond a broken table and two benches, but it was an improvement on spending the day out in the open. He knew Zhia at least would agree with him. ‘It’ll do for the day,’ he said out loud, prompting nods from several others.
Veil had already collected a great armful of kindling which he was unloading into a brick-walled firepit at the back of the room. A rough clay chimney had been incorporated into the wall behind. Isak took the largest pieces of kindling and lit them, holding them just below the chimney; when the smoke rose up freely and he was sure it was clear he dropped the sticks into the pit, let Veil put the rest of the kindling down, then watched as Doranei deposited two logs on top. He lit the lot and watched the flames start to hungrily consume the wood, for a while losing himself in the dancing orange flames.
‘I don’t understand,’ Fei Ebarn said as she came in ahead of Tiniq. ‘This house looks sound enough — so why was it abandoned?’
‘Most likely the owner got marched off for some transgression or other,’ Shinir said darkly as she rooted through her pack, ‘and out here, there’s no one to take the place once it’s empty.’
‘Marched off where?’
‘Slave camps, though they’re not called that, o’ course. No one’s allowed to own another human in Vanach, but they say everyone belongs to Alterr, so some — lots — get taken off to serve their Goddess in whichever ways the Commissar Brigade chooses. They don’t want anyone but the Carastars within a couple days’ ride of the border; makes it simple to work out if you’re fleeing the benevolent fellowship.’
‘So this land’s used for nothing?’
Shinir nodded. ‘You’ll see: two days of riding and we’ll reach the first town. From there on, nothing’s allowed more than one day away from any local administration. You grow crops past that, you’re trying to evade the moral guidance of the commissars — and by extension, the priesthood and the Gods themselves-’
‘-which means you’re a heretic,’ Vesna finished, ‘and we’ve seen enough of that talk in Tirah to guess how they treat heretics here.’
‘This farm must have been used by a commissar in recent years,’ Shinir said. ‘The edict for the protection of souls was issued ten years back, well before this place was abandoned.’
Isak crouched down in front of the fire as the flames continued to rise. ‘“The protection of souls?” Vorizh really is mad.’
‘If it was he who issued it,’ Zhia said quietly from behind Isak, ‘then he has much to answer for here.’
Isak turned and saw the dark, angry gleam in her eyes. ‘You don’t think he did?’
‘My brother might be mad, but capable of self-delusion? I’m not so sure. We were all cursed to feel the suffering of others, and even now I feel a sickness in my stomach for what we might find around this first town. If he is the one issuing orders from the heart of Vanach, he will be constantly pained by the suffering he is causing.’
‘I can tell you what we’ll find,’ Shinir growled, unafraid of the expression on Zhia’s face, ‘guarded farms, where slaves must pray all night and work all day, where it must be their fault if the crops fail — it can’t be the soil suffering without crop rotation because Alterr’s light nourishes all. The women get raped as often as the guards want, and strangled if they become pregnant, because a baby’s a divine blessing which no heretic would get. It can’t be the rape that gets her that way, so she must have been consorting with daemons instead, and so she’ll be carrying a daemon-child.’
‘Do not think to lecture me, girl,’ Zhia said, taking a step forward, ‘and do not think my rage is any less than yours, when the Gods have cursed me with always knowing the pain of others. My point is solely that mortals need no vampire ruler to inflict such horrors on each other. You are all quite capable of it without anyone’s help.’
Vesna stepped forward and placed himself between them. ‘Enough, both of you. Let’s get some food and sleep; it’s been a long-enough day without picking fights amongst ourselves.’
‘Oh let ’em fight,’ Daken grinned, ‘I like that idea.’
‘Fuck yourself, you white-eye shit,’ Shinir snapped, drawing her khopesh and pointing the sickle-like weapon at him.
‘I said enough, all of you!’ Vesna demanded, his voice suddenly full of the War God’s divine authority. It was enough to make anyone who’d fought in battle stop dead, even a blood-mad white-eye like Daken, who inclined his head and turned away with a small smile on his face.
Vesna realised belatedly that Daken had spoken up to keep Shinir from getting herself killed — she was a vicious woman who didn’t know when to back down from anyone, even when she was out of her depth. Luckily, someone so quick to anger was also easily deflected.
‘Sleep,’ Isak echoed as he headed for the corner where Mihn had deposited his baggage. ‘Save your fights for the morning — I’m sure I heard that once.’
‘Not from someone who’s travelled all night,’ Zhia pointed out before she headed into the back room, where the shutters were still closed and the dawn light would not disturb her. ‘Someone wake me when there’s food.’
Both Veil and Daken opened their mouths as Doranei moved to follow her, but Vesna raised an admonishing finger before either of them could speak. ‘I said enough. Your jokes can also wait.’
Their first day in Vanach was uneventful. Word of their arrival travelled slowly in the empty borderlands of the Carastars, so they all managed to sleep before dusk came and they set out again. That night they encountered a second band of patrolling mercenaries camped across the road: two low-ranking commissars accompanying nearly fifty men. They had met Commissar Yokar’s rider and come to investigate for themselves.
They were probably a raiding party, Vesna thought, armed for war. Doranei and Veil had to work hard to control themselves, having seen the results of such raids, but Isak was more interested in the less-deferential attitude of the two commissars leading them. As soon as they had passed on by, the white-eye spurred his horse forward to join Zhia at the front of their column.
‘Tell me again about your brother’s journal,’ he asked the vampire.
She gave him a level look. ‘The answer you’re after is no.’
‘You didn’t hear the question yet.’
The moon was again bright overhead; Alterr’s eye was a day away from waxing full and shone all too clearly on Zhia’s exposed teeth as she smiled humourlessly. ‘I heard it easily enough; one learns to read people after the first few lifetimes.’
‘And your answer’s no?’
She turned away. ‘No, yes and no. No: there was nothing contained in the journal that specified divisions or branches within the Commissar Brigade; yes, I saw the bone clasp on the scarf was a different colour; no, I do not know the significance.’
‘But,’ Doranei supplied from Isak’s other side, ‘considering they claimed the same rank as Commissar Yokar, it’s still significant, even if it only tells us they’re marked according to what job they’re doing. The ones in charge of
