Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (60 page)

They lost eight men that night, and a further ten the night after that. No measures they took seemed to daunt their foe. That fourth night, despite the risk of getting lost in the fog, Sturben set mobile patrols between the sentries at the braziers, and the night after increased the number at each fire to three. Yet, no matter what he did, their casualties escalated.

By the sixth day, Sturben had begun to rage at the mist as they marched, challenging those that lurked within it to come forth and show themselves. By now, what remained of his men were avoiding him, and even Sergeant Grimes averted his eyes on the occasions he was called forward to accept new orders. Sturben’s sword never left his hands now, and he swung it furiously at the white shroud, dispersing the faces from his past as they appeared before his eyes, their ghostly hands grasping for him.

More than half his men gone, and still days of this march ahead of them. Sturben had begun to believe it would never cease, that they marched through an eternal hell that would not end until it had claimed them all.

That night, there was not enough of them left to maintain the security measures he had initiated through desperation. Instead, when they made camp, he marched straight to his tent, ignoring Grimes’ questioning look. Nothing he could conceive of could stop their foe, he knew that now. They had not even found the bodies of any of those they had lost, so they could learn the nature of what they faced.
Perhaps they are right,
he thought. Maybe they really were being stalked by spirits attracted to the souls of the condemned. He had thought that meant the prisoners, but now he wondered.
Perhaps it is we who are damned.

When he awoke, he was not in the least surprised to find that another dozen men had gone missing in the night. He suspected that at least as many had deserted as had been taken by their unseen foe. Part of him envied them.

Twelve left. Thirteen, including himself.
How did it come to this?
He glared darkly at the outline of the prison cart. Two more there, still. Whatever foe stalked them had not so much as shown themselves to their doomed charges, not that they had admitted. He had spent much of the previous day questioning them in a frenzy, but had received nothing in return. The younger one had nearly soiled himself in fear but evidently knew nothing, while the elder had gave him nothing but insolent looks.

Not knowing what else to do, after he breakfasted, Sturben donned his armour just as he had done the five morning previous, and left his tent to resume their march. This time, he found his remaining men standing silently on the road, blocking his path. At their head was Sergeant Grimes. Sturben sighed. Somehow, he had known that it would come to this. Nevertheless, the charade needed to play out. “Fall into formation,” he called. “Reuben, Pieters, Cox, Vickers, you’re pulling the prisoners today. Look lively,” he barked as none moved.

“Not today, lieutenant,” Grimes replied softly.

Sturben nodded. “You’re decided then? All of you?”

Grimes looked abashed. “It’s gone on long enough, sir. You see that, right? If we march with you, none of us will see the morning. If we leave now, there’s a chance we might.”

“This is mutiny, Grimes.” Sturben’s hand gripped the pommel of his sword in its scabbard.

Several of the men took a step back into the fog, but the grizzled sergeant stood his ground. “No need for that lieutenant. We don’t want to hurt you, but if we have to, then...” His voice petered out, leaving it unsaid. He patted the weapon at his hip meaningfully. “You could always come with us.”

“And die in the fog like a traitorous cur?” He spat at the ground. “I got where I am by following orders. I won’t let a few cowardly bandits stop me from doing so now.” Sturben’s features parted in a ghastly grin. “When I get to Ehrenburg, Slake will learn about this little mutiny of yours, Grimes. There isn’t a rock in the Empire you could crawl under without his spies tracking you down eventually. When you’re brought to the gallows, shaking and pleading for mercy, I’ll be standing in the front row.”

The sergeant’s face hardened. “As you will, sir.” He signalled to the men behind him. As a group they moved past, back towards the fortress.

“You’re returning to Bloodstone?” Sturben blinked in surprise. That was not what he had been expecting. “What will you tell them?”

Grimes turned to look at him, with pity in his eyes. “We’ll say that the company was massacred, that the prisoners and commanding officer were killed.”

“And you think the general will believe you?”

“Why not?” Grimes turned away and began to trudge away into the mist. “By then it will be the truth.” With that, he was gone.

For several minutes, Sturben simply stood, staring into the fog. But there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. He was alone.
Almost
.

He made his way to the prison cart. The two prisoners still sat inside, watching him intently. To his surprise, the older man winked. “You’d better start pulling if we’re to make the city,” he said cheerily.

Sturben’s face reddened. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” he growled. “Damn your eyes, tell me what you know!”

“I know a dead man when I see one.” Then the older prisoner began to laugh.

“Quiet!” The command came out in a shrill screech. Sturben rubbed his eyes. The pounding noise filled his ears once again.
Must not lose control.
If the prisoners died, the whole journey would have been wasted. He reached a decision. With unsteady hands he unlocked the cage, and half-dragged the two men from the cart. When they stood before him, their hands chained, he gave them a shove along the road. “If I have to walk, so do you.”

The pair of them trudged slowly, infuriatingly so. Sturben, holding his sword in his hand as had been his custom in the past two days, prodded them in the back every once in a while, which made them pick up the pace for a few moments. He doubted whether their progress would have been very much slower had he pulled the cart himself after all.

Worst of all was the whistling. For some unfathomable reason, since leaving the cart the older prisoner in particular was in a cheerful mood. If Sturben had thought the man witless then he was sorely mistaken, he saw that now. A variety of upbeat melodies came from his lips as they marched, until Sturben found himself longing for the silence that had accompanied them up until now.

“What is that confounded racket?” he demanded at one point.

The prisoner’s shoulders shrugged. “Shanties,” he replied, before continuing his vacuous whistling.

After an hour of this, Sturben could take no more. He marched forward to the prisoner, grabbed him by the back of his neck and hurled him onto the flagstones. “Silence!” he screamed. Far from being cowed, the prisoner began to laugh as he lay on the ground. With a growl, Sturben raised his sword.
Perhaps one prisoner will be enough for Slake’s needs.

Then, from deep within the mists, the whistling resumed. Sturben turned to gawp at the younger prisoner, but he was cowering to one side. The sound did not come from him. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

The whistling seemed to be coming from behind him. He whirled around, only for it to be behind him yet again. The arm that held his sword was trembling now. All around him, the tendrils of mist seemed to take on human form. He struck out, dispersing them.

Sturben ran a few paces towards the sound, until he felt the soft ground beneath his feet. Suddenly, up ahead of him loomed a dark shape, and he swung his sword at it fiercely. With a sharp clang, his blade hit something hard and ricocheted away, sending painful tremors up his arm. He stared at the object. One of the dark stone columns that dotted the plains, nothing more.

Then, before his eyes, the mists came alive. Grey forms rose up around him. Sturben fell back, retreating back the way he had come until he stood upon the road once more.
They can’t get me here
, his brain told him, foolishly.

But the grey phantoms came on, unperturbed. Sturben swung his sword at them again, but felt the air around him move as they parted before his blade. He raved at them, jabbering insults as the wraiths circled, dancing away from his blows. Something whirled past his face, and a red rose of pain flared in his shoulder. He looked down and saw blood trickling between two plates of his armour. He redoubled his efforts, but his strikes cut nothing but the mist.

There was a rough shove at his back, and Sturben fell to the floor. As he landed on his knees on the stony road, his hand jarred and the sword flew away into the fog with a clatter. Suddenly the mist drew up in front of him, taking on the shape of a giant man. In the phantom’s hands was a great double-bladed battleaxe. “Please,” Sturben begged. But the figure paid no heed. Sturben’s eyes were glued to the axe as it was raised high.
Why would a spirit carry a weapon?

There would be no answer to this, his last question. With a grunt of effort, the pale form swung the heavy axe sharply down.

*      *      *

Caspian was kneeling down beside Captain Brandt when the sound of fighting reached them through the veil of mist. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t know, lad,” the captain replied. “It’s either friend or foe, but whichever it is I think we’re about to see an end to it at last.”

Then there was a piercing shriek that was cut off abruptly by the thud of a heavy object striking something soft. When the last echoes of the cry had faded, all was silent once again. All Caspian could hear was the sound of his own heavy breathing. His life had been a nightmare since almost the moment they had reached the Legion harbour, but even so he was afraid that what approached them now was worse than anything that had happened to him in that time.

He shrank back as grey forms walked towards them through the fog. There were three of them, he saw, standing shoulder to shoulder. Somewhere behind them, he heard the growls of an unseen beast. He tried to call out, to ask the shapes who, or what, they were, but the words caught in his throat.

One of the apparitions raised a hand to its neck. In one quick motion it twitched aside the cloak it had been wearing, revealing a familiar face.

Caspian found his voice. “Sten?” The burly crewman stood before him, his expression as stoic as ever. Caspian rubbed his eyes, wondering if the soldiers’ superstitions about wraiths in the mist were true after all. “But I watched you die.”

Sten’s head shook slowly, as his companions pulled their own cloaks aside. They were woven of material the same shade as the fog. Wearing them, the men were almost invisible. “Wounded,” the sailor replied. “Not badly.” Caspian saw that his shoulder was bandaged. “Swam for shore. Found my brothers.” He shrugged, summing up everything else that had happened to him in the intervening period.

“Brothers?” Caspian asked, as Captain Brandt climbed to his feet and clasped the crewman’s massive paw in greeting.

“Are they as talkative as you?” the captain added, smiling at the strange trio.

“Sten?” One of the other men grinned at the sailor. “These outlanders have named you well, brother.” He turned to the captain. “The one you call Sten has always guarded his words as if they were gold, too precious to spend. The rest of the Mistborn are not so miserly.”

Caspian’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Mistborn? Brothers? Can anyone tell me what is going on here?”

The warrior laughed. “There is much to tell, but why do so here? Our camp is not far. We can offer you some hot food that is better than the slop the Legion dogs have been giving you.” He spat. “Come, follow.”

As two of the grey figures disappeared into the mist, Sten tossed a ring of keys at the captain. Caspian didn’t need to ask where he had taken them from. Captain Brandt unlocked his own chains first, then did the same with Caspian’s, before the three of them left the road together.

Sten’s companions waited patiently a short distance away. Caspian saw then that one of them was leading a large cat by a chain around its neck. Its handler saw him staring and grinned. “Don’t worry, Klukka won’t bite,” he said. “Not unless she gets hungry!” He laughed as Caspian flinched.

They walked across the misty plains for ten minutes in near-silence. The warriors strode confidently through the white blanket, but still seemed to need to concentrate to keep their bearings. A short time later, they reached a small depression in the land, in which were a few bedrolls and a smouldering fire.

The five of them sat cross-legged in a circle as the evening drew in. For the most part, Caspian and Captain Brandt listened to the story they told, occasionally interjecting with questions. Not long after they reached the camp, one of the strange warriors handed each of them a wooden bowl containing a thick stew. After the Legion gruel it was very welcome. Caspian couldn’t imagine that the finest platters served up to the emperor could taste any finer than the dish he supped that night. He gulped down three helpings while the warriors took turns to speak.

It seemed that they belonged to a nomadic tribe who lived within the fog-plagued Shadowlands, the Mistborn, to which Sten also belonged. They sent out regular scouting parties to keep watch on the Legion activities at Bloodstone, and harass their patrols wherever possible. “They are not welcome here,” explained the warrior named Eilsweyr.