Hallowed Knights: Ghosts of Demesnus Read online

  ‘If you have taught them well, they will not be.’

  Yare laughed. ‘Let us hope.’ He turned his blind gaze westward. ‘What you seek is there, Gardus. I am sure of it.’

  ‘Then that is where I must go.’

  ‘Do you wish for company?’

  Gardus smiled and clasped the old man’s shoulder. ‘No, my friend. You have done enough. But when I am done – when I have found what I seek – we will sit and debate.’

  Yare patted Gardus’ forearm. ‘I look forward to it, my friend.’

  Demesnus had grown, since Gardus had last seen it.

  It did not come as a surprise – Yare’s letters had said as much – but reading about something and seeing it first-hand were two different things. But despite the changes, he still recognised the city he had once loved.

  The roots of Demesnus were sunk deep in the mud of the Quamus. It had grown from a scattering of simple bulrush huts, to a thick palisade of marsh-oak and, finally, a city of imported stone, banded on two sides by wharfs and quays. A city of weavers and fisherfolk, ruled by the descendants of the inhabitants of those first bulrush huts.

  Gardus forced himself to walk slowly. To amble, rather than march. He let the old smells fill him – the stink of pitch-lanterns and burning moss; of dung and fish; the distinct pong of the tanneries and the wharfs – hoping they might stir his sluggish memories. As he left the river behind, the reek of commerce gave way to the smell of baking bread and flowering orchards. The patter of street vendors duelled with the catcalls of the broadsheet urchins. The folk of Demesnus had an abiding interest in the written word, despite the average citizen being only nominally literate. Yare’s fears in that regard seemed unfounded, from what Gardus saw.

  The boarded streets of the riverside gave way to flat stones, or rutted dirt paths, carving crooked trails between buildings that still bore the scars of fires set centuries before. It was exactly as he remembered, and yet unfamiliar. There was more green, for one thing.

  Demesnus had never truly recovered from the various assaults and sieges that had befallen it during the Chaos incursions of the past century. Unable to rebuild, or simply unwilling, buildings had been left as ruins. And as was common in Ghyran, what mortals abandoned, nature soon reclaimed. Whole blocks of the city now faltered under the weight of old growth. Broken structures slumped beneath spreading trees and clinging vines, which created impromptu parks. Many of these had become orchards, or communal gardens. Others were seemingly avoided, and left to whatever vermin might choose to call them home.

  Despite this, the city had prospered visibly in recent years. With trade once again flowing along the Quamus, the city’s population had swelled. Every street was crowded with throngs of people, laughing, talking, buying, selling. Living.

  As he moved through the crowds, tatters of memory stirred, and his head echoed with the dolorous hymn of a hospice – coughing and moaning, prayers and whispered pleas. The sounds of the sick and the dying. The street around him wavered, like a desert mirage, and for a moment, he stood elsewhere. The same spot, but many centuries ago.

  He smelled again the acrid stink of burning pitch, and heard the ringing of the great river-bell. The ground trembled, as soldiers thundered past, their faces white with fear. The streets were flooded, water pouring down the lanes, as the river broke its banks. The enemy had come, on barques of bone and gristle, sailing a blood-dimmed tide.

  Almost against his will, he turned, watching as the echoes of the past raced through the present, overlaying it in his mind’s eye. Ghostly fires burned, as street-vendors hawked their wares. Soldiers raced towards the wharf, through heedless carts and crowds.

  Garradan… help us…

  He pressed on, trying to escape the tangle of recollection. But the past held him tight. He felt a wash of heat, as a building collapsed, spilling burning slates across the street. The air was split by the shriek of primitive artillery – he looked up and saw comets of greasy flame, trailing smoke, arc overhead. He heard the dull boom of the siege engines, assailing the landward gates.

  Garradan… please…

  Gardus stumbled, narrowly avoiding a tinkerer’s cart as it trundled down the street. He stepped back, into an alleyway. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The hospice. He had to get to the hospice.

  Garradan… where are you…

  Around him, the city wavered between what it had been and what it now was. The streets twisted around him, and it was all he could do not to simply freeze in place. The horizon rippled, birthing familiar turrets and towers, that vanished moments later. It was as if the world were in flux, caught between past and present, but only for him.

  Garradan… save us…

  He found himself walking down a familiar crooked lane, lined with marsh-lanterns. Even at midday, they glowed with a pallid light, casting long shadows on the brick walls to either side. The lane widened into a plaza, its surface broken by a carpet of thick, winding roots that stretched in all directions. Twisted trees, with full boughs, rose from craters of broken cobblestones, and birds sang amid the branches.

  The sounds of the city were muted here, swallowed up in curtains of green. Ivy snaked across the walls of nearby buildings, and swaddled the weatherworn statues that overlooked the street. Gardus found himself holding his breath, as he walked over the thick patches of weeds and wild bramble.

  At the other end of the circular plaza, nestled between buildings to either side, was a crumbled facade. He recognised a high archway of imported stone, rising atop a semicircle of rough-hewn steps, worn smooth in places. The great wooden doors, so visible in his memory, were now nothing more than a few splinters attached to rusty hinges. The two great lantern posts were still there, to each side of the doors, though they were now rusted through. And the carving of the twin-tailed comet over the archway.

  Garradan… where are you…

  Gardus stopped, and stared. Remembering. He remembered watching as the comet had been chiselled into the stone. He could feel the weight of the lantern posts as he helped set them into place. He remembered that first day, as he’d welcomed his first patient – a carter who’d been trodden on by a horse. The man had cursed loud and long, as his fellows helped him up the steps. How he’d screamed, as Garradan had set his leg.

  Garradan… help us…

  Overcome, he sank down, head in his hands. He could hear them all, the voices rising, asking, pleading, thanking, cursing. The wind in the trees sounded like the whispers of the dying. They filled him, drowning out all thought. He closed his eyes, and the words came to his lips. Canticles, prayers, the armour of faith.

  Then, a new sound. The birds fell silent. The wind died away. And the bells rang. He remembered the bells – it had cost him – cost Garradan – the last of his inheritance to have them fashioned, but it was worth every coin. Great bells of bronze, to accompany the songs of the faithful…

  He blinked back the beginnings of what might have been tears, as the low tones echoed across the plaza. The bells were still here. After all this time. Still ringing, even after so many years. He stumbled to his feet, and towards the steps, drawn by the sound of the bells. He had to see them again, to hear them above him.

  But as he passed through the archway, he heard something else, beneath the bells. The sound of voices, raised in a hymn. The broken stones of the foyer were covered in a carpet of dried rushes, and curtains of the same now occupied the doorways beyond. Braziers of incense smoked in the corners, and mortal forms were huddled along the walls.

  Gardus stopped. There were people here. Living ones, not ghosts. But perhaps not for much longer. Beneath the fug of incense, he smelled the stink of sickness. Of death and the dying. Instinctively, his hand fell to his sword, but he fought the urge to draw it. The sickness he smelled was unpleasant, but natural. Familiar. Moss-lepers and marsh-lung. Wracking coughs accompanied him across the foyer and to
the archway that led to the heart of the hospice. Eyes and muted whispers followed his progress, but none of those in the foyer made any move to stop him.

  There were more of them, in the entry chamber beyond. Once, it had been filled with cots and pallets, with the sick and the dying. The sick were still here, but they were not alone. A crowd knelt or sat, filling the chamber, their voices raised in song as the bells rang.

  Pilgrims and penitents, devoted and zealots. He saw crones, clad in sackcloth, and men who had carved the sign of the comet and the hammer into their flesh. Others were clad more sedately, in blue robes that they had obviously dyed themselves. There were men and women and children as well. Infants cried softly as their parents sang.

  At the opposite end of the chamber was a statue. It was stained with dirt, but he recognised his own face – or what had been his face, once – lifted to the ceiling, where the remains of the ancient murals a grateful patron had commissioned still clung. It was him, but not – an idealised version of the man he had been. Tall and strong, bearing a great two-handed blade over one shoulder. He stared at it, wondering when it had been carved. And who had done so. Was Garradan remembered, then?

  He wanted to speak. But something held him back. Was it fear? Or regret? Who were these people? And why were they here, in this forgotten place?

  ‘It’s you.’

  Startled, Gardus turned. The woman he’d rescued on the wharfs stood behind him, staring. So preoccupied had he been, he had not noticed her approach. ‘Yes,’ he said softly, so as not to disturb the prayers of the other mortals. ‘I am glad to see that you are unhurt.’ Gardus smiled. ‘I am Gardus.’

  She hesitated. ‘Dumala. You’re not mortal, are you?’

  Gardus avoided the question. ‘Do you… live here?’

  ‘We do. Saint Garradan called to us, and we came.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I saw him once.’ Gardus looked at her, and she hastily added, ‘In a dream, I mean.’

  ‘Oh? Did he speak?’

  She flushed. ‘It wasn’t that sort of dream.’ She looked at the statue, and made the sign of the hammer. ‘I… saw him, as he must have been. Ministering to the sick. Feeding the poor. Striking down daemons with his silver blade.’

  ‘It was a candlestick,’ Gardus murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. And so you came here?’ He had heard similar stories before. The Devoted of Sigmar often followed in the footsteps of holy men and women who had come before, and long since passed into celestial sainthood – most were warriors like Orthanc Duln, the Hero of Sawback, or martyrs like Elazar Tesh, who had brought down the pillars of the Red House upon himself and the hounds of slaughter. ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you. He called to me. He called to all of us. So we came to sit and pray, as he did, until our purpose reveals itself.’ She looked at him. ‘Does he call to you as well?’ She motioned to the statue. ‘They say Sigmar raised him up, and set him in the sky, so that he might always watch over us.’ She peered at him. ‘Your face… it is familiar, I am certain.’

  Gardus turned away. The song had ended, and the bells had fallen silent. People had noticed him now, and he felt a twinge of unease as he felt their attentions. ‘I doubt it. This place… it used to be a hospice, didn’t it?’

  ‘That it did, stranger.’

  Gardus turned to see a small figure approach, wrapped in rags and bandages, leaning on a pair of canes. He could smell the stink of illness wafting off of the newcomer. A familiar odour – the soft pungency of moss-leprosy. He could see the grey-green stains on the rags, and the fuzz of moss, peeking through the bandages.

  The cancerous moss ate away at flesh and muscle, leaving only clumps, clinging to pitted bone. It was a common ailment here, and throughout the Jade Kingdoms, and one Gardus remembered well from his mortal life. Long had Garradan of Demesnus laboured among the moss-leper colonies, isolated in anchored ships along the river. Thankfully, the lepers could feel nothing as their bodies dissolved.

  ‘I am Carazo, friend,’ the leper said, his voice a harsh, wet rasp. ‘Might I know you?’

  ‘I am Gardus.’

  Carazo peered up at him, his eyes a bright blue within the mass of stained bandages that hid his face. ‘A fine name.’ He hunched forward suddenly, coughing, his frame wracked by tremors. Instinctively, Gardus reached for him. Carazo twitched back. ‘No, my friend,’ he wheezed apologetically. ‘No. Best not to touch me. What’s left of me might well slough off the bone. Very messy.’

  ‘You should not be standing.’ Gardus looked down at him. ‘How are you standing?’

  ‘Sigmar gives me strength, friend. As he gave Saint Garradan the strength to fight against the slaves of darkness.’ Carazo fumbled in his rags, and produced a tarnished medallion, bearing the twin-tailed comet. ‘Sigmar guided me across many battlefields in my time, and this is but one more.’ He chuckled. ‘Though I rather think it shall be my last.’ He looked around. ‘It is a good place, though.’

  ‘You were a warrior-priest,’ Gardus said.

  ‘I had that honour, once. Now I’m just a humble pilgrim, tending to this most holy of places.’ Carazo turned to look at the statue. ‘I first heard of him when I was a novice in the temple here. He cast down a hundred foes, to defend those he had tended, and when he fell, the enemy wept to see such courage.’

  Gardus did not remember them weeping. The Skineaters had not seemed to possess the capacity, nor the inclination. And he had not killed a dozen of them, let alone a hundred. ‘And you… venerate him?’

  ‘Just a few of us, for now. But our numbers grow.’ Carazo coughed again. Dumala stepped to his side, not quite touching him. There was a concern there, like a child for a parent, and Gardus could not help but wonder at the connection. ‘Soon, he might reveal why we are here. When enough of us have come to this sacred place.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Until then, we pray and sing, and make do as best we can. Hardship is the whetstone of faith.’

  ‘Some hardships are more difficult than others.’ Gardus looked at Dumala. ‘Those men who accosted you earlier, on the wharf…’

  Carazo stiffened. ‘They attacked you again? Why did you not tell me?’

  Dumala looked away. ‘I did not want to worry you, or the others.’ She glanced at Gardus. ‘He saved me,’ she said. ‘Maybe the Saint sent him to help us.’

  Gardus looked back and forth between them. ‘It has happened before?’

  ‘They think we bring sickness,’ Dumala said. ‘Many of our number are ill – Saint Garradan watches over the sick – but we keep to ourselves. We grow our own food, where there is space. We endanger no one, save ourselves.’ Her voice became heated. ‘They have no right to try to drive us from this place! I – we – will not go!’

  Heads turned, and people murmured as her words echoed. Carazo waved Dumala to silence. ‘It will be well, child. The Saint watches over us. He would not have called us here, merely to see us turned out.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Regardless of why you came, I am grateful to you for saving her life.’

  Gardus bowed his head. ‘I could do no less.’

  ‘Even so, you have my thanks. And I welcome you here, brother. Stay, if you wish. We have food, and there are pallets for those with nowhere else to go. We ask only that you abide by the peace of this place, and perhaps pray with us, at evensong.’

  Gardus paused, considering. Then he nodded.

  ‘It would be my honour.’

  Gardus sat on the steps as night fell, weaving rushes.

  Though he had not done so in a century or more, he found that his hands remembered the way. So he wove, and let his mind wander over what he had seen. The pilgrims had been welcoming of him, if wary. Their days were spent weaving bulrush baskets, or fishing nets, which they sold in the markets to feed themselves. When not at work, they cared for the sick among them, or sang hymns and prayed, seeking enlightenment.

  A
peaceful existence. And yet, one that left him ill at ease. Why had they come here? Something had drawn them, but what? Did they hear the same voices he did? And if so, what did it mean? He shook his head. Too many questions, but precious few answers.

  They were weak with hunger, ravaged by illness, and seemed to subsist as much on prayer as scraps of bread and watery soup. In that regard, they were little different from other pilgrims he’d seen. Hardship was their proof of faith.

  Carazo wasn’t the only leper among them. Others coughed blood, or shook with fever and chills. A few of them, like Dumala, were healthy, but the rest were almost at the liche-door. They’d come from as far away as Aqshy, hoping Saint Garradan would heal them.

  A rush snapped in his hands. He paused.

  ‘Was that why I was drawn here?’ he murmured, selecting a new rush from the pile beside him. ‘To minister to the sick once more?’ A part of him leapt at the thought. But surely Sigmar would have told him, if he was to be released from his oath of duty. Then, the ways of the God-King were, at times, mysterious.

  No. There was something else. He could feel it, like water running beneath the earth, or the air just before a storm. As if he had arrived just before the rain began to fall.

  He stopped again. He felt eyes on him.

  A familiar face peered at him from a side street. The man he’d thrown off the wharf earlier. And he wasn’t alone. Others sidled into the plaza, until there were more than a dozen sellswords lounging among the trees, watching him. A muttered comment elicited harsh laughter.

  The laughter died away, as he looked at them directly. He considered asking them what their business was, but decided to err on the side of patience. He went back to his work.

  A few moments later, his patience was rewarded.

  ‘Rushes are wonderful things. Utilitarian. Practical. You can use them to make seats for chairs, or to fill out coats and pillows. They can be peeled, and the hearts boiled or eaten raw. Their pollen can be used to thicken flour, for making bread. The local broadsheets use them for paper. Why, the earliest settlers of this place even made their homes from them. Just goes to show, anything can be made useful, with a bit of effort.’