“The Lonak have a superstition that imbues their weapons with the souls of the enemies they kill,” he said. “They give names to their warclubs and knives, imagining them possessed of the Dark. My people have no such illusions. A sword is just a sword. It’s the man who kills, not the blade.”
Why was he telling me this? Did he want me to hate him even more? Seeing his scarred, powerful hand resting on the sword hilt I recalled how Seliesen, after the Emperor formally named him as the Hope, had submitted himself to months of harsh tutelage under the Imperial Guard, becoming proficient, even skilled with sabre and lance. “The Hope must be a warrior,” he told me. “The Gods and the people expect it.” The Imperial Guard had taken him in like one of their own and he had ridden with them against the Volarians the summer before Janus sent his armies to our shores, winning plaudits for his courage in the melee. It had availed him nothing against the Hope Killer. I knew the moment would come when the Northman would relate what had happened on that terrible day, and, even though I had heard many accounts of the event, the prospect of hearing it from Al Sorna himself was both dreadful and irresistible.
I sat down again and opened the ink bottle, dipped the quill and smoothed a fresh sheet of parchment on the deck. “The Dark,” I said. “What’s that?”
“Your people call it magic, I believe.”
“They might, I call it superstition. You believe in such things?”
There was a moment’s pause and I formed the impression he was considering his next words carefully. “There are many unknown facets of this world.”
“There are stories told of the war, stories that ascribe great and powerful magic to the Northmen, and to you in particular. Some claim it was with magic that you clouded our soldiers’ minds at the Bloody Hill, and that you stole through the walls of Linesh with sorcery.”
His mouth twitched in faint amusement. “There was no magic at the Bloody Hill, just men possessed of a mindless anger hurling themselves at certain death. As for Linesh, a shit stinking sewer in the harbour hardly counts as sorcery. Besides, any Realm Guard officer who even suggested use of the Dark would most likely find himself hung from the nearest tree by his own men. The Dark is believed to be integral to those forms of worship that deny the Faith.”
He paused again, looking down at the sword resting in his lap. “There’s a story, if you’d like to hear it. A story we tell our children to warn them against the dangers of the Dark.”
He glanced up at me, eyebrows raised. Although I consider myself a historian and not a compiler of myths and fables, such tales often shed some light on the truth of events, if only to illustrate the delusions that many mistake for reason. “Tell me,” I said with a shrug.
When he spoke again his voice had taken on a new tone, grave but engaging, a storyteller’s voice. “Gather close and listen well to the tale of the Witch’s Bastard. This is not a story for the faint at heart or the weak of bladder. This is the most terrible and frightful of tales and when I am done you may curse my name for ever having given it voice.
“In the darkest part of the darkest woods in old Renfael, long before the time of the Realm, there stood a village. And in this village there dwelt a witch, comely to the eye but with a heart blacker than the blackest night. Sweet and kind was the face she offered to the village, but mean and jealous was the soul behind it. For it was lust that drove this woman, lust for flesh, lust for gold and lust for death. The Dark had taken her at an early age and she had surrendered to its vileness with willing abandon, denying the Faith and winning power in return, the power to possess men, inflame their desires and have them commit dreadful acts in her name.