Legends Read online

  “Sorry, I realise this isn’t much,” he said as I examined the damage, “but I’ve never been wounded before.”

  Wounded? It was little more than a scratch. The arrow hadn’t even embedded, though it had dug a deep groove across his bicep in passing and the resultant cut was producing a fair bit of blood.

  “You’ll live,” I assured him. “We’ll have a healer take a look at this once we reach Arden.”

  After washing the ‘wound’ with water from the canteen, I returned to the two corpses, searching them for valuables.

  Castor looked on with obvious distaste, asking, “Is that really necessary?”

  “Necessary? No. But if I don’t do it then the next traveller who passes this way will, and why should I let some stranger profit from my work?”

  It didn’t take long. For the most part the haul was meagre: the bow a sorry thing, not worth keeping and not worth trying to sell on. In addition there were two swords, one of which was shoddily made, a few knives – none of them the equal of those I already carried – some cheap oddments of jewellery, and little else. Apart, that is, from the coin; and therein rested the surprise. Each of the pair carried, if not a fortune, certainly far more than I would have expected given the state of their appearance. Normally, brigands with this much money in their purses would have made a beeline for the nearest inn, determined to see how much ale and how many whores their funds would stretch to before they considered robbing again. Which made me suspect that this was more than just a random attack, that this pair had been hired to waylay my employer, but by whom?

  The third man, the craven who had fled almost as soon as the fighting started? Perhaps.

  I hung on to the coin and the better of the two swords, tossing everything else into the undergrowth and rolling the bodies in after. I would have preferred to round up the brigands’ horses, which were likely to be the most valuable trophies of all, but Castor had to be my priority here; he was paying for my services, after all, and the way he was looking I wouldn’t have put it past him to faint on me.

  So we proceeded to Arden without further delay. Castor was quiet for once, possibly in shock. At least that gave me opportunity to reflect on the day’s events and conclude that I might have accepted my employer’s terms a little too hastily at outset. I should have held out for more. He clearly wasn’t telling me everything, including why anyone would try to stop him from finding his brother’s remains and how much of a threat that posed to me as the hired help. I decided not to confront him with any suspicions until I had a better idea of what the hell they might be; it did occur to me, though, that his incessant chattering might have served more purpose than I’d supposed, perhaps preventing me from asking whatever I should have been hearing.

  We arrived at Arden shortly before sunset, approaching from the east and so failing to encounter the fabled falls which lay to the north of the village. Arden had grown since last I was here. Not so much a village now as a fully-fledged town.

  We found rooms and stabled the horses at The Green Dryad, an inn I didn’t recall and which, I suspect, had sprung up subsequent to the battle.

  “Do you get many visitors coming through here to see the falls?” I asked the maid who showed us to our rooms. A homely girl with a pleasant disposition, she identified herself as Lisa when asked.

  “Used to, sir, in the years immediately after the battle,” she told me. “Not so much these days.”

  So the morbid glamour of visiting the site of the great battle was wearing thin with passing time, which didn’t bode well for establishments such as this, built on the back of its attraction.

  Castor was putting on a brave face but his strained expression smacked of martyrdom and you just knew he was weeping inside. Lisa must have sensed as much too, directing us to a local healer. “He’s good,” she promised, “and his prices are as reasonable as any.”

  Feeling somewhat responsible for my employer’s misfortune, I considered paying for the healer’s time with the coin I’d taken from the two brigands, though only briefly, reasoning that Castor doubtless had a damn sight more wealth than I did. With poultice secured over the wound and a foul-smelling elixir imbibed, we returned to the inn, where Castor declared himself weary after the long journey and announced that he was turning in early.

  That suited me fine. I’d worried that he might want to see the falls straight away, without granting me proper opportunity to make my own peace with the place. If not for the shock of his ‘wound’, he probably would have done. I’m always grateful for small blessings.

  I decided to walk rather than going through all the palaver of getting the horse brought from the stables and saddled again. It wasn’t far, after all. A few folk passed me coming the other way, but the sun had recently set and evening would soon arrive to spread its cloak over the world, so I was hopeful. Company was the last thing I wanted when facing this place again.

  I could hear the falls before I saw them. It wasn’t a great roar such as they might produce in the rainy season, but rather a gentle murmur that crept up as you drew closer, so that initially you weren’t certain if it was true sound or merely imagination that taunted the edge of hearing. Yet with every step the chatter of water grew louder.

  The path brought me around a final knoll and past a small stand of trees and there it was: Arden Falls.

  I’d expected instant recognition but that wasn’t the case. The tumble of water was less than on the day of the fateful battle, though it still fell from a height of ten tall men, much as memory insisted, and the shape of the lagoon at the foot of the falls seemed subtly different, if roughly the same size. I suppose in the interim trees had grown, bushes had flourished in some instances and died back in others… It was unrealistic of me to expect that nothing would have changed, but for a moment the variances were sufficiently confusing to leave me searching for the instant connection I’d anticipated.

  It was beautiful – a fact I’d never really had a chance to appreciate when last here. Ahead and to my right lay a small gravelly beach bordered by bulbous grey rocks that glistened with spray. A tree that might have been a willow bent forward to dangle frond-like branches just above the surface of the water, and that surface rippled gently as weak waves caused by the falls lapped against the rocks and rebounded. To my left an offshoot of the nearby forest met the water’s edge, and in front of me stood the falls themselves.

  A wall of rock, layered as if by a steady hand that had patiently set down level after painstaking level, each fractionally overhanging the one below. From the cracks between the layers sprouted a plethora of different plants, long straggly grasses predominant, and among all this verdancy small yellow flowers showed like stars against a night sky. Towards the centre, a dozen rivulets of white water tumbled over the top of the rocks, to spread into a milky veil that fell into the pool beneath.

  This at least matched my recollection, and at last I knew that I truly was back at Arden Falls.

  I walked onto the small beach, gazing out across the pool to where the white spume drifted up from the falls’ disturbance. Reluctant memory stirred. The scene might have been tranquil, idyllic – the embodiment of summer and as natural a wonder as any man could ever wish to see – yet when I closed my eyes… I could picture the water red with blood and churned into rosy froth by the kicking hooves of war horses; bodies floating face down and peppered with arrows or facing upwards with agony frozen on their features and their bellies split open to let their guts spill out; I could hear the oaths and grunts of combatants, the clash of steel on steel, the screams of the wounded and the dying; I could smell again the acrid sweetness of charred flesh, the stench of human sweat and voided bowels. I could feel the exhaustion tugging at my limbs, my sword grown so heavy that I struggled to lift it, and I could recall with crystal clarity the resigned certainty that I would never leave this place alive.

  For long moments I stood there, waiting for the ghosts to speak, but none did.

  Eventually I opened
my eyes, once more acknowledging the here and now.

  I’m no saint, and have done things over the years that many would gladly see me hang for if they knew of them, but compared to the monster we stopped here at Arden Falls I was a prime candidate for deification. Malik the Magnificent he styled himself – that spoke volumes in itself. A self-proclaimed ‘sorcerer’ and a warlord of the vilest ilk, the atrocities committed in his name and at his urging made seasoned warriors quail and ensured his name became a byword for heinousness ever after.

  Had he won that day, had he defeated us, the whole of the Free States would have been open to him and the world would have become a much less pleasant place than it is, of that I’m certain. If those of us who were there did nothing else to be proud of for the rest of our days, at least we had done this.

  Dusk had fallen as I turned and made my way back towards the village. I’d barely set out when a voice called, “Hello?”

  An old man sat by the road, a broken cane by his side.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “Twisted my blasted ankle when the stick broke. I wonder, sir, could you perhaps…?”

  “Of course.” I helped him to his feet, conscious of how frail he seemed. “You live in the village?”

  “On the outskirts, this side of it; not far. And thank you.”

  To be honest, we’d have made better progress had I hoisted him up and carried him over my shoulder – he was light enough – but that would have been undignified, so I curbed my impatience and merely supported him as we hobbled and shuffled towards Arden.

  We had reached a broad meadow bordered on three sides by trees and marked by an array of crosses, circles, crescents, stars and other religious emblems – some nailed to posts, others freestanding in the ground – when my temporary companion released his grip on my shoulder and said, “Thank you. I can make my own way from here.”

  “You live in the graveyard?”

  “No, no.” His smile seemed warm rather than mocking. “My home is in the woods just beyond. Taking a shortcut through the field of peace is simply the quickest way to get there.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “Yes, quite certain, though your assistance has been invaluable.”

  I watched for a further moment as he limped slowly across the meadow, but he seemed to know what he was about, so I continued on towards The Dryad, intent on sinking an ale or two before I called it a day, and wondering whether that maid, Lisa, might still be around.

  “Casts a spell on you, doesn’t it?”

  “Certainly does,” I agreed.

  It was the next morning and we were at the falls. A good night’s sleep had seen Castor regain much of his customary ebullience. Lucky me. As soon as we had broken the night’s fast, he insisted on heading off to view the site of his brother’s demise.

  I was grateful for the previous evening’s solo excursion, which made the experience this time around… manageable. Mind you, Castor was so excited by the whole thing I’m not sure he would have noticed if I’d lain face down in the pool and drowned myself.

  We stood on the beach. We stood on the rocks. We touched and remarked upon the clamminess of the cliff face. Castor then led me further along the road, past the falls. The path wound through woodland, climbing all the while, until eventually it joined the course of a narrow river. It didn’t take a genius to work out where this was leading, and soon enough the trees drew back as we emerged at the top of the falls.

  This particular vantage was new to me, and I have to confess the view was spectacular. To our right the river hurled itself off the cliff to plummet into the pool below. Looking further out, I gazed at tree canopies and the meadow of the graveyard, with the roofs of Arden beyond.

  “Lend me your hand, will you?”

  Castor evidently wished to take a step or two closer to the edge, and the rocks here were damp and treacherous.

  “Be careful,” I advised – less concerned for his well-being than for the payment I’d miss should anything happen to him.

  “Oh I will be.”

  At his touch my hand grew unaccountably numb; a feeling that spread rapidly to claim my arm and beyond. I pulled free of his grip and stumbled back from the edge. “What…?”

  He smiled; an expression of triumph and malevolence that seemed wholly out of place with my voluble companion of the past three days.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “A minor sorcery intended to incapacitate, not kill.”

  I drew my sword but the numbness had already progressed from my left arm to affect every limb. My legs buckled and the blade clattered from clumsy fingers. Castor stalked after me, like a predator fascinated by the futile efforts of wounded prey.

  “If left unchecked the spell will eventually stop your heart, but you’ve no need to fear – I have no intention of letting it get that far.” A figure appeared, presumably from among the nearby trees though I hadn’t seen him arrive; a slender man with weaselly, pointed features and shifty eyes. “You remember Tryst, I’m sure, from yesterday’s ambush.” The third man. “A bit of theatre, that, to allay any curiosity you may have felt as to why I’d brought you along. We knew you’d see off the hired help, and if they had managed to injure you, well, we could have come straight here last night. It’s primarily your blood we need, after all… The stray arrow wasn’t part of the plan. Quite unsettled me to think how close I came to ruin courtesy of a freak accident.”

  One thing was certain: this might be a new self-possessed and confident Castor I was seeing, but he was still a talkative bastard.

  “Why?” I croaked.

  He continued speaking, either failing to hear me or choosing not to. “I spent years hunting you down you know, finding out what really happened here and then seeking the man responsible for killing my brother. Oh yes, that much of the story was true – the most convincing lies are always laced with a smattering of veracity, don’t you think? My twin really did perish at Arden Falls, and he died by your hand, though his name wasn’t Paulus. It was Malik.”

  Malik? Malik the Bloody Magnificent? I sought similarities, dredging my memories of that most despicable of human beings and comparing them to the man before me. Malik had been bearded, Castor clean-shaven, and the warlord had been stouter, more muscular… But the eyes, yes, I could see it in the eyes; the same coldness, cruelty, though I would never have associated such with the man who had journeyed beside me these past days.

  “Gerard…” I said while I still could, my face growing as numb as the rest of me.

  “Come, come, I’m aware of the official story, how my brother was slain by Gerard the Golden, but that’s a lie and we both know it. A fiction intended to enhance the reputation of ‘The Great Hero’, to perpetuate his legend so that all of you might benefit. The famed mercenary band, offered all the best commissions because you were led by that mightiest of warriors, Gerard the Golden.”

  It hadn’t been that simple. Gerard was there as well – the man was no coward, whatever his faults – we were both engaging Malik, who fought like a man possessed (and may well have been, if you give credence to such things). We were out on our feet, wounded, bloodied, exhausted… And if mine had been the fatal blow, what of it? I was more than happy for Gerard to take the credit. Why set myself up as Malik’s Bane, a target for every scoundrel keen to make a name for himself? Besides, they’d thought me dead, my comrades, slain by the warlord’s final thrust even as I’d killed him. By the time I’d recovered and put in an appearance the others had already settled on the story of Gerard’s glorious triumph, which was fine by me.

  Tryst grabbed me under the shoulders and dragged my unresisting body towards the trees. There, at the edge of the forest, hidden from view by the intervening rocks, a shape had been crudely drawn on a large flat stone. A pentagram… Really? Tryst set me down at its centre.

  Castor followed, carrying my sword. “While we were at The Butchered Stag,” he said, “you asked me how I intended to discover my brother’s bones
among so many. To give you proper answer: why bother with mere bones when I can provide him with a healthy living body instead; one that has so helpfully travelled all the way to Arden just for the occasion? Hm?”

  I glared at him.

  “My brother was unlike mortal men,” he went on, casually wiping the blade of my sword on a cloth impregnated with goodness knew what. “He made preparation against unexpected setbacks such as this, ensuring his spirit would linger, awaiting recall, ready for the day Malik the Magnificent shall rise again. Who could have predicted his murderer would prove so elusive? Have you any idea how many survivors of that cursed day I’ve had to track down before I learnt the truth of what happened? All that wasted time…”

  He seemed to have finished wiping my sword, stepping forward to peer down at me.

  “As I said, it’s your blood we need to start with.”

  He ran the edge of the blade down my right forearm. I watched, fascinated, as the flesh peeled back and redness welled out, to run down my skin and start to pool on the stone beneath. There was no pain, the numbness saw to that.

  Castor stepped back, his arms outstretched, eyes closed. The world grew hazy, the rocks melted and warped. I blinked, striving to concentrate, to fight whatever was happening to me.

  “Is he under yet?” That from Tryst.

  “Almost,” Castor replied. “It’s time to begin.” He started to intone something; a mumble too faint for me to discern.

  “Touch the tree,” a ghostly voice seemed to say.

  That hadn’t come from either Castor or Tryst. I sensed her then, a presence in this dream world that hadn’t been with us in the real one. I tried to identify it but at first could discern no more than a nebulous sense of green and an impression of femininity. Concentration brought its reward, and slowly a form coalesced from the mist, resolving into a woman; a beautiful slender girl draped in green veils. Something about her struck me as familiar, though I couldn’t place why.