'Come and see.'
Blackthorne strolled across the open space towards the periphery for all the world as if it was a lazy afternoon and he had not a care in the world. The Raven followed him, the elves in close attendance.
'I had this area cleared of buildings to give us a sight zone all around the casde. The demons own everything beyond it and they know where our ColdRooms start. We understand each other. We're still thinking of building a stockade, a physical barrier would be good for morale, but raw materials are hard to come by.'
'It would make the place almost comfortable,' said Hirad.
Blackthorne shot him a dark glance. 'Never that, Hirad.'
Mages and soldiers were grouped near an area of the perimeter, facing several dozen demons. They moved aside as Blackthorne and his retinue approached. Standing with wings furled in front of them was a demon of better than eight feet in height and jet black in colour but with veins pulsing blue across his skin. His face was human-shaped but his features were anything but. He had a flat lipless slit that was his mouth, above which a single dark oval was presumably his nose. He appeared to have no ears at all and his eyes
were huge, yellow orbs covering much of his forehead. His hands ended in long-boned fingers which clicked incessantly.
'Ugly bastard, isn't he?' said Hirad.
'I'm sure he feels the same way about you,' said Denser.
'Does he really do that all the time?' asked Erienne.
'Hence the name,' said Blackthorne. He strode up to the perimeter, standing only two paces from his enemy. 'What do you want, Fidget?'
'I am Ferouc,' stated the demon looking square at The Raven, fingers increasing their speed temporarily.
'Of course, how forgetful of me,' said Blackthorne. 'What do you want, Fidget?'
'You harbour that which we want and that which we own,' said Ferouc, his voice whining, sibilant through lips unused to framing human words.
'You own nothing in this world. Theft does not denote ownership.'
'Those behind you took six who are ours,' said Ferouc. 'They will be returned or others will suffer.'
'Come in and get them,' said Hirad.
'Quiet,' snapped The Unknown.
'Brave out there, aren't you?' said Hirad, feeling his anger rising. He took a pace forward and began to unsheathe his sword. 'Come on in, let's see how big you are.'
Blackthorne waved him back. 'As you will gather, we will do no such thing.'
Ferouc looked past Blackthorne. 'Raven,' he hissed. 'In my trap now.'
'Is that how you see it?' Blackthorne raised his eyebrows and idly scratched at an ear. 'We rather think that this is a place you are unable to breach. A place that strengthens every day.'
Ferouc's laugh, if such it was, resembled the rumbling of phlegm. 'We wait. We grow. You weaken. Your soul will be mine, Blackthorne.'
'Is there anything more you wish to say?' asked Blackthorne. 'I'm a busy man.'
'Return the six to me. Give me The Raven. You will lose six of your fellows for each of those who stays in your shell.'
Blackthorne shook his head. 'The Raven do what they will and are not under my control. Something you would do well to remember. And of those in your thrall, to me they are already dead. Nothing you can do to them affects my heart.'
Blackthorne turned smartly away and it wasn't until Ferouc couldn't see his eyes that they filled with tears.
Chapter 19
Tessaya had had a great deal of time to think since his retreat from Xetesk two years before. In rotation, he had released his warriors to return to the Heartlands on leave and he had allowed himself similar time. He had returned to a land where old tribal tensions had resurfaced in those that had been left behind. And his lack of a victory had done nothing to reaffirm his influence and standing.
Tribal conflict had robbed him of warriors and more than one attempt had been made on his life during his times away from the East. That these attempts had failed reminded him whom the Spirits had chosen to lead the Wesmen to dominion over Balaia.
And so he had been able to keep his counsel during the upheaval and wait for the blood to cool and the tempers of the enraged to ebb. It had not always been easy for his people to be branded cowards in the face of provocation. But he had their unflinching loyalty after so many years of provident rule and he rewarded it again. Once the tribal struggles had burned themselves to mere sparking embers, the Paleon remained the strongest tribe in the Heartlands.
Once again the tribal lords had been driven to kneel to him. Those who had backed the opposition to him had been banished to that place where the spirit would never find rest.
With the Heartlands at relative peace and with those he trusted most ruling the tribes he most feared, he could turn his mind once again to conquest of the East. And for the first time he wondered if it would be truly possible. Mages he could wear down. Mere men he could defeat by force of arms and courage. But he had no weapon against the demons.
Worse, if they defeated the eastern mages, they could eventually threaten him and his people. It was a curious paradox. On the one
side, he had travelled back from the mage lands knowing that the rule of magic on Balaia was finally at an end. Yet on trie other, he had confronted an adversary of which die Spirits themselves were scared. He had no reason to suspect that they would attempt to invade the Heartlands but there was trouble among the dead and he had no way to calm it.
Tessaya was sitting outside his farmhouse under a porch of woven thatch that kept away the heat of the sun* as it climbed into early afternoon. It had been hot this late spring and they had been concerned about the survival of their main crop. It had been fortunate that hostilities among the tribes had concluded with enough time to see irrigation organised, the crops saved and starvation averted.
Around him, his small village was alive. A hundred farmsteads grouped in concentric circles with his at their hub. Young animals ran free in their paddocks, wheat, corn and potato crops burgeoned and swayed in the cooling breeze. Children laughed, men and women put their backs to their work.
From the small stone temple that was the spiritual centre of every Wesmen settlement, Tessaya watched his ancient Shaman, Arnoan, bustle towards him. Across the dirt road that separated their buildings he came. Tessaya called his wife and asked for more pressed fruit and spice juice. The old man would be out of breath at the rate he approached.
Arnoan was red in the face by the time he had crossed the short distance. Tessaya pulled up a chair for him and helped him up the few steps onto his porch.
'Sit, sit before you fall,' he said.
Arnoan, dressed in the heavy cream robes of his office despite the weather, waved him back to his own seat.
'It is not me you have to be concerned about, Tessaya.'
He was the only man whom Tessaya allowed to use his name without prefix, and then only in private.
'You have received wisdom, my Shaman?' He handed Arnoan the cup of juice his wife had poured. The Shaman gulped at it gratefully. The remaining wisps of his pure white hair blew about his head and the spotted skin on his face lightened visibly as he cooled. He
regarded Tessaya with those sunken grey eyes that the Wesmen lord had long thought were years past death.
'How long ago was it? That the dragons came from the stain in the sky and you told me you had no need of spirits?'