The Judgment of Thieves

Chapter 1

Ander moved slowly, head bowed, his gaze focused on the ground in front of him. He had been walking for days—at least it felt like that long—making his slow inexorable way across a vast sea of bones. With each step, a fine plume of white dust erupted around his feet. His legs were covered in ash and it was all he could smell or taste. Pale bones crunched beneath his boots; finger bones, rib bones, leg and arm bones, and more skulls than he could count. He recognized some as human, others as orc, goblin, kerram, and ogre. There were some he couldn’t identify, and he mused on what creatures they might be, where they had come from, and how they had gotten here. And where exactly was here? That was the most important question. When Jankayla called Ashendraugnir back from the dead, she must have summoned him from this place. The sorceress had opened a door; Ashendraugnir crawled out of it and Ander fell in.

In the mythology of the Dreamland, Tironed-dum was the place where creatures who had done great evil went when they died. There were other worlds the dead went to, other places with other names, but Ander couldn’t remember them all. Leave it to the elves to come up with multiple heavens and hells instead of just one of each. Loth seldom talked about his beliefs, but Ander could remember one or two conversations on the topic. In Tironed-dum, the dark gods were forever at war, pitting armies of the dead against one another. Were these the bones of their fallen armies?

Ander shook his head. Thinking was difficult. His limbs were leaden and he could barely lift his feet, but what other choice was there but to keep walking? He could either walk or he could lay down and die. He had considered removing his chainmail hauberk and casting it aside, but in this place he might never find another, and he was bound to need it. So, he continued on, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other. The monotony of it was almost as boring as the landscape through which he traveled. The sky was gray. The land was gray. The light that shone down on him was perpetual twilight, never wavering, never changing. A man could go mad in a place like this.

He was hungry. There was a hollowness in his belly that he could do nothing about. Worse than that was the thirst. His lips were parched and his throat was so dry he could barely swallow. If he didn’t find water soon, he would die anyway. And what would become of him then? His bones would join those already here, but what of his immortal soul? Would that remain in Tironed-dum as well, or would he be transported to the realm his own gods inhabited?

According to the beliefs of Ander’s people when a man died, he was sent to the Halls of Nennaumin to reside with Onar and his hosts. If he was an evil man, he went to Ildurnio, to the eternal flames ruled over by Sura, the goddess of fire. Ander considered himself a good man—well, mostly—and he anticipated that one day he would see Nennaumin, but now he wasn’t so sure. Was it possible two different religions could both be true at the same time, that Ildurnio and Tironed-dum could both exist? Every religion Ander could think of subscribed to the concept of an afterlife, of a person’s soul travelling to another world. They just called them by different names. Why couldn’t there be more than one place for the dead to go? But how did the soul know which was which? Was it possible to end up in the wrong place? Ander sighed. He was no great philosopher and these were questions better answered by priests and prophets. In the end, it didn’t really matter. All he knew for sure was that he was here now and he had to contend with that. The rest was out of his hands.

Ander still remembered the look of horror on Portia’s face as he fell. If only he had been stronger, but it had been a difficult road to reach the summoning hall. There were so many foes aligned against them. Ander had tried to prevent Portia from going to Arrom’s Rock in the first place, but she refused to be left behind. She had strength in her, that was certain, and a stubborn streak as long as a river. He wondered what happened after. The situation was desperate, but he and Loth had survived worse. Loth would get Portia and Finn out. He would protect them and see them to safety. Ander wanted to believe that. He had to. Because any other outcome was too terrible to contemplate.

Ander raised his eyes, looking at the horizon. He could still see the castle in front of him. It appeared larger now, but still a good distance away. It was not a comforting sight. It was an impossibly tall structure, all dark stone and spires. The walls must be a hundred feet high. Between him and the castle was a line of hills that he hadn’t noticed at first. It was strange but the existence of those hills gave him hope. Those hills meant there was an end to the bone sea, a boundary he could cross. Maybe there would be water there. There had to be. Otherwise, he wouldn’t live long enough to reach that castle.

Ander dropped his gaze, noticing something on the plain ahead. He blinked, not sure if what he was seeing was real. He stared for a long time, deciding at last that it was. There was a camp of some sort, not more than a hundred yards away. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it sooner, but he hadn’t really been looking until now. Ander quickened his stride, moving with renewed purpose. There were people there, a fair number of them by the look of it, and he could see something moving, dark shapes against the pale landscape. There were wagons too, and tents, red canvas stretched across wooden poles. As he drew closer, he could see a trail, a narrow line that might have been a road. It ran perpendicular to his path, disappearing into the twilight. In another place he might have called it a caravan route.

As he reached the outskirts of the camp, Ander paused, feeling his momentary excitement dwindle. The tents, situated here and there, were in shambles. The figures that had occupied them lay sprawled in the dust, slashed, torn, and unmoving. The wagons contained boxes and parcels, but all of them had been ripped open, smashed, broken, and their contents removed. The horses, or whatever beasts that had pulled the wagons, were gone, probably stolen by the same marauders who had done the rest.

The group was made up mostly of women, but women the like of which Ander had never seen before. They were tall, taller than any man he had ever known, raven haired with lustrous blue skin. Upon closer examination, he could see that their eyes were cat-like and that they had teeth sharpened to fine points. Whatever they were, they weren’t human. Their blood was black. It pooled on the ground beneath them and dripped from their claw-like fingertips. There were a few human males as well—lean, heavily muscled figures clad in little more than loincloths and leather collars. Ander surmised they must have been slaves.

Whatever had happened here had happened recently. From what he could tell, the travelers had paused to rest during their journey and had set up camp in the middle of the trail. Not an odd choice considering the lack of any cover or notable landmarks in this desolate country. Whatever had attacked them had come from the hills and had returned to them thereafter. Ander wondered if the marauders had come from the castle. It seemed likely.

The movement he had seen turned out to be monstrous carrion birds, larger even than the average vulture, and more bat-like than bird-like, with long leathery wings and furry bodies. Their small wolfish heads turned to regard Ander with crimson eyes as he approached. They seemed to have no fear of him whatsoever. Ander was careful not to interfere with their feasting. He skirted the scene, moving cautiously along the periphery, circling the tents and peering inside each of them. In the opening of one, he spotted a leather bag. The owner of the bag lay on the ground, arms thrown wide, head missing. One of the scavengers stood on the woman’s back, tearing at the soft flesh between her shoulder blades. Ander cautiously reached forward and pulled the bag toward him, then he withdrew.

Among the dead woman’s possessions, he found a cloth-wrapped bundle of what looked like strips of dried meat. What the meat was he didn’t know nor did he care. It was food and would fill an empty belly. A bit more searching among the tents revealed a wine skin that was half full.

With these trophies in hand, Ander retreated to a safe distance. He sat down, his naked broadsword laid across his knees in case any of the carrion birds should take an interest. He tore into the dried meat, doing his best to chew slowly. The meat was tough and stringy, but that hardly mattered. He had eaten worse. The wine was sour, but he drank it without complaint, thanking every god in every pantheon he could think of for the life-saving repast.

Ander rested a while, thinking. Some creatures in Tironed-dum must require food and drink, and that was encouraging. At the very least, he might be able to steal what he needed to survive. Ander glanced at the tents. In some ways Tironed-dum was no different than any other nation he had visited. Here, too, were warring tribes that routinely preyed upon one another. When Ander was still a boy, his uncle Rothgar had once told him that war was the natural state of things and that peace was rare and illusive. Wherever there were people, there would be conflict. In all his wandering, Ander had never found a place where that wasn’t true.

Ander stood and sheathed his sword. He drained the last of the wine and slung the skin across his shoulder, hoping he might be able to fill it again at some point. He felt better after eating, and with a little wine in his stomach, he felt confident he could make it to those hills and beyond. He would find that castle. But what then? He shrugged his massive shoulders. That was a question for later and he still had a long way to go. Ander turned his back on the camp and resumed his march.

The story continues in The Judgment of Thieves, The Drakonor Chronicles, book 2

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