Don’t fear me, the voice said. Find me when you recover from this. I have something for you.
He summoned all his remaining strength, forcing the song into a single word. Where?
The image of the chisel and the stone returned, but this time the marble block was whole, the face it contained still hidden, the chisel lay atop it, waiting. You know where.
Chapter 5
He awoke to a smell more foul than even the sewers of Linesh. Something wet and rough scraped over his face and he became aware of a crushing weight on his chest.
“Get off him you filthy brute!” Sister Gilma’s stern command made his eyes flutter open, finding himself face to face with Scratch, the slave-hound giving a happy rasp of greeting.
“Hello, you daft dog,” Vaelin groaned in response.
“OFF!” Sister Gilma’s shout sent Scratch skulking from the bed, slinking into a corner with a petulant whine. He had always treated the sister with a wary respect, perhaps because she had never shown the slightest fear of him.
Vaelin scanned the room finding it mostly bare of furniture save for the bed and a table where Sister Gilma had arranged the variety of vials and boxes that held her curatives. From the open window came the keening of gulls and a breeze tinged with the combined odours of salt and fish.
“Brother Caenis commandeered the old offices of the Linesh Merchants Guild,” Sister Gilma explained, pressing a hand to his forehead and feeling for the pulse in his wrist. “All roads in the city led to the docks and the building was standing empty so it seemed a good choice for a headquarters. Your dog was frantic until we let it in the room. He’s been here the whole time.”
Vaelin grunted and licked at his dry lips. “How long?”
Her bright blue eyes regarded him with a moment’s wariness before she went to the table, pouring a greenish liquid into a cup and mixing in a pale white powder. “Five days,” she said without turning. “You lost a lot of blood. More than I thought a man could lose and still live, in fact.” She gave a wry chuckle, the inevitable bright smile on her lips when she turned back, holding the cup to his lips. “Drink this.”
The mixture had a bitter but not unpleasant taste and he felt his weariness receding almost immediately. Five days. He had no sense of it, no lingering memory of dreams or delusions. Five days lost. To what? The voice, the other blood-song, he could still hear it, a faint but persistent call. His own song answering, the vision of the marble block and chisel vivid in his mind. Sella’s words in the Fallen City becoming clearer. There are others, older and wiser with the same gift. They can guide you.
“I have to…” He raised himself up, trying to draw back the covers.
“No!” Gilma’s tone brooked no argument, her plump hand pushing him back into the softness of the bed. He found he didn’t have the strength to resist. “Absolutely not. You will lie there and rest, brother.” She pulled the covers up and secured them firmly under his chin. “The city is quiet. Brother Caenis has things well in hand. There is nothing requiring your attention.”
She drew back, for once her face was entirely serious. “Brother, do you have any idea what happened to you?”
“Never seen the like, eh?”
She shook her head. “No, I never have. When someone bleeds there has to be an injury, a cut, a lesion, something. You show no sign of any injury. A swelling in your brain that could cause you to bleed like that would have killed you, yet here you are. There was some wild talk amongst the men about Governor Aruan trying to kill you with a Dark curse or some such. Caenis had to put a guard on his mansion and hand out a few floggings before they calmed down.”
Floggings? he thought. I never have to flog them. “I don’t know, sister,” he told her honestly. “I don’t know why it happened.” I just know what caused it.
It was another two days before Sister Gilma released him, albeit with stern warnings about over-exerting himself and making sure he drank at least two pints of water a day. He convened a council of captains atop the gatehouse from where they could observe the progress of the defences. A thick pall of dust was rising from the workings as men toiled to deepen the ditch surrounding the city and make good the decades long neglect of the walls.
“It’ll be fifteen feet deep when completed,” Caenis said of the ditch. “We’re down to nine feet so far. Work on the walls is slower, not too many skilled masons in this little army.”
Vaelin spat dust from his parched throat and took a gulp of water from his canteen. “How long?” he asked, hating the croak in his voice. He knew his appearance was not one to inspire great confidence, his eyes deeply shadowed with fatigue and his pallor pale and clammy. He could see the concern in the eyes of his brothers and the uncertainty of Count Marven and the other captains. They wonder if I’m fit to command, he decided. Perhaps with good reason.
“At least two more weeks,” Caenis replied. “It would go quicker if we could conscript labour from the town.”
“No.” Vaelin’s tone was emphatic. “We have to win the confidence of these people if we are to rule this place. Pushing a shovel into their hands and forcing them to back-breaking toil will hardly do that.”
“My men came here to fight, my lord,” Count Marven said, his tone light but Vaelin could see the calculation in his gaze. “Digging is hardly a soldier’s work.”
“I’d say it’s most certainly a soldier’s work, my lord,” Vaelin replied. “As for fighting, they’ll get plenty of that before long. Tell any grumblers they have my leave to depart, it’s only sixty miles of desert to Untesh. Perhaps they’ll find a ship home from there.”
A wave of weariness swept through him and he rested against a battlement to disguise the unsteadiness of his legs. He was finding the burden of command, with all the petty concerns of both allies and subordinates, increasingly irksome. His irritation was made more acute by the insistence of the blood-song calling him to the voice and the marble block he knew lay somewhere in the city.
“Are you unwell, my lord?” Count Marven asked pointedly.
Vaelin resisted the urge to punch the Nilsaelin squarely in the face and turned to Bren Antesh, the stocky archer who commanded the Cumbraelin bowmen. He was the most taciturn of the captains, barely speaking in meetings and the first to leave when Vaelin called a halt. His expression was perpetually guarded and it was plain he neither wanted or needed their approval or acceptance, although any resentment he may have felt over serving under a man the Cumbraelins still referred to as the Darkblade was kept well hidden. “And your men, Captain?” he asked him. “Any complaints about the workload?”
Antesh’s expression remained unchanged as he replied with what Vaelin suspected was a quote from the Ten Books, “Honest labour brings us closer to the love of the World Father.”
Vaelin grunted and turned to Frentis. “Anything from the patrols?”
Frentis shook his head. “Nothing, brother. All approaches remain clear. No scouts or spies in the hills.”
“Perhaps they’re making for Marbellis after all,” offered Lord Al Cordlin, commander of the Thirteenth Regiment of Foot, known as the Blue Jays for the azure feathers painted on their breastplates. He was a sturdily built but somewhat nervous man, his arm still rested in a sling after being broken at the Bloody Hill where he had lost a third of his men in the fierce fighting on the right flank. Vaelin suspected he had little appetite for the coming battle and was unable to blame him.