Dark Rise: Dark Rise 1

by C. S. Pacat

  ‘You fought him,’ said Will.

  ‘I fought him,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘I fought him when no one else could. You know why.’

  He did know. He had known since he had learned of the shadows, a kaleidoscope of moments, all running together into the truth. The tremor in her hand. The way the candle holder had seemed to fall right through it. Her frequent absences from gatherings in the Hall, and the excuses Jannick had made.

  ‘You’re turning,’ said Will.

  He only half heard the shocked reaction of the others behind him. He looked into the Elder Steward’s rheumy eyes and saw her painful acknowledgement. No human could defeat a shadow. But perhaps two shadows could grapple with one another.

  He felt no fear of her, but maybe he should. Her skin was so diaphanously fine he could almost see through it; and every now and again, something seemed to flicker underneath, like the glimpse of a creature moving underwater.

  ‘His power was great,’ said the Elder Steward, ‘but the shadow inside me is greater. If I were to turn, I would be strong enough to rule this world. Yet I would be but a slave to the Dark King’s will. Even now I can feel my own will diminish … I could not complete the morning chant, or hold the sword point steady. But I have enough willpower left to remain myself long enough to speak with you.’

  The reign of her will was there in each breath, in and out, each measured word taking one more piece of her strength. She was the oldest Steward and had fought her shadow the longest. Her great strength showed now, as she held herself together for him, for them.

  ‘It is coming, Will. The events that I have spent my life preparing for are here, but I will not see them come to pass. That will fall to you.’ Another laboured breath, her eyes dark. ‘I thought we could be the star at your back. But in the end it will be as it was. The Dark King and the Lady.’ Her white hair was fine against the pillow, and when he took her hand in his own it felt even less substantial.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,’ he said – whispered. It felt like telling her his deepest secret. Her trust in him, so near to the end, hurt. He could see her weakening, each breath more painful than the last.

  ‘You must stop Simon from calling him forth. For he is very close now. The Shadow Stone has been taken. Simon need only free the Shadow Kings and he has all he needs to raise the Dark King, and end the line of the Lady.’

  The Shadow Stone. He remembered it, the dark force of it, far more frightening than Marcus’s shadow on the wall.

  ‘You told me once that I would have to fight him.’ He remembered her words at the Tree Stone. The Stewards are here to stop Simon. At all costs, we will fight to prevent the Dark King’s return. But if we fail, you must be ready.

  ‘I told you that there was more than one way to fight. The power to stop the Dark lies within you, Will. If I didn’t believe that, I would not have brought you into this Hall. I hope you will remember that, when you make your choice. I hope you remember me.’ Her hand briefly squeezed his.

  ‘Violet,’ she said. Will saw Violet lift her head, startled. Will beckoned her forward, stepping back to let her take his place at the Elder Steward’s side. He released a shaky breath as he did so, even as the Elder Steward turned her eyes to Violet.

  ‘You are the strongest fighter the Light has left. You have it in you to become a true Lion, as the Lions of old … for you have Lion blood on both sides, from your father and your mother.’

  ‘My mother?’ Violet’s hollowed eyes were dark.

  ‘Did you think your power came only from your father? You fear your Lion fate, yet the time will come when you must take up the Shield of Rassalon. Do not be afraid. In your blood run the brave lions of England and the bright lions of India. You are stronger than your brother.’

  Violet nodded, looking pale. Then, as she stepped back, the Elder Steward said the final name.

  ‘Cyprian.’

  And it was Cyprian’s turn to come forward, and he did, kneeling and bowing his head. He was the picture of the novitiate obedient before his elder. The light from the brazier seemed oddly bright.

  ‘You are the last of the Stewards. The only one left to remember. Your road will be hard, and your trials will be great. I wish I could give you comfort … Instead I must ask one more thing of you.’

  He lifted his head where he had bowed it and looked up at her with dark eyes. ‘Anything, Elder Steward.’

  ‘I have no shieldmate,’ she said. ‘My vow was to your father, and he is dead. I ask you to take his place.’ Will saw Cyprian’s face go white as he realised what she was asking. ‘Do what he cannot. Let me go into the night in peace and rest. For I am all but shadow now.’

  It was Grace who stepped forward with the knife.

  It was plain-handled, with a straight blade. Cyprian stood and took it from her. He had never shirked his duty.

  The Elder Steward looked up at him one last time.

  They seemed to share something in that moment: past and future; Steward and novitiate; part of a tradition that was passing from the world.

  Cheeks wet with tears, Cyprian lifted the knife and brought it down, and that was the end; she was still, and the light in her eyes had gone out.

  It was Cyprian who said, ‘We burn the bodies and refortify the gates.’ He said it with the same strapped-down resolution that he’d had when he lifted the knife.

  They were huddled in the Elder Steward’s small rooms. The immense citadel with its gruesome contents loomed around them, a reality no one wanted to face. The candle at the centre of the oak table was flickering. A silence opened up full of the terrors of the darkened Hall.

  Cyprian had not spoken since he killed the Elder Steward. He had blood on his white tunic, though whether it was the Elder Steward’s or from brushing against what remained in the halls was uncertain. Earlier, he had gone grimly to check the vaults.

  The Elder Steward lay in a room through a door to the left. Grace and Sarah had covered her in a shroud, folding the sides of a white linen sheet over her, preparing her to go to her rest.

  ‘We can’t burn them.’ Sarah said it in a dull voice. ‘There are too many bodies.’ Her hands were covered in white and red semicircles where her nails had pressed into her skin.

  ‘We ought to at least count them,’ said Violet. ‘If we count the dead … maybe someone survived, maybe they were outside the Hall when the attack happened …’

  ‘That was you,’ said Sarah, and her words shut everyone up again.

  Will looked at each of their faces. Horrific practicalities awaited them. Burn the bodies … how would they even gather them? Many of them were people they knew.

  Yet what was the alternative? Close up the Hall like a tomb and leave it to the rotting dead? Let the walls fall to silence and ruin, let the marsh creep in, let the passage of time take this last piece of the ancient world?

  No one wanted to be the one to give up on the Hall, to end centuries of tradition, to admit that the Stewards’ long watch was at its end.

  Alongside practicality was fear. Will thought of the creature that had seemed to flicker under the Elder Steward’s skin, and he understood why the Stewards burned their dead. He drew in a breath.

  ‘Cyprian’s right,’ said Will. ‘It’s almost dawn. If we work hard, we can be done by nightfall. One day’s work.’ They deserved that much. ‘We use that time to decide what to do.’

  If Simon has the Shadow Stone, there isn’t anything we can do. He didn’t give voice to the cold reality that faced them. If a single shadow could do all this, then what chance do we have against the Shadow Kings? Looking at the devastation of the Hall, it was hard to believe that Simon now held a greater force in his hands. But Marcus was as nothing to the terrible power of the Shadow Kings.

  With sudden fierceness he missed the Elder Steward. She had always been there to guide him. She would know what to do. He missed her wisdom and her strength, her kindness, her caring. He missed her trust in him when he didn’t trust himse
lf, and hadn’t since the night his mother had died. Promise.

  ‘The vault is empty,’ said Cyprian. ‘It was cleaned out. Simon’s men … following after Marcus.’ His voice was thick with the desecration of outsiders ransacking the Hall. Simon’s men … Branded men, thought Will. Marcus must have let them through the wards. The thought that they couldn’t return was no comfort. The violation had been done. ‘The Shadow Stone. The Horn of Truth … sacred relics of the Order, kept from harm for centuries. All of it’s gone.’

  ‘Not all of it,’ said Grace.

  There was a pause.

  Will could see Grace and Sarah communicating something wordlessly. After a moment, Sarah nodded, once, though her hands were taut in her lap.

  ‘We did manage to save one thing,’ said Grace, and she drew a shapeless bundle from her tunic, a lumpen object wrapped in soft white cloth.

  A single artefact rescued from the wreckage. Will’s pulse sped up. Was it something they could use? A weapon that could help them fight? Grace began to unwrap the bundle, and as she drew back each corner of the cloth, Will felt all the breath leave him.

  Gleaming like a dark jewel, it was the Cup of the Stewards.

  It rose from a flared stem to a curved drinking cup the shape of an upturned bell. The colour of polished onyx, it was ornately carved with four crowns. The inscription curling around the base like coiling flame read Callax Reigor. The Cup of Kings.

  Drink, it seemed to say, offering the bargain that had enticed the Stewards. Drink and I’ll give you power.

  There was a sudden scraping sound as Cyprian pushed his chair back from the table. He was standing in front of Grace, towering over her. Reacting directly to the Cup’s call, Cyprian’s face twisted.

  In the next second, he slapped it out of Grace’s hands, and it hit the floor with a heavy clang, rolling over the stones into the corner, where it rocked for a moment before it lay still.

  Will couldn’t help his eyes following it. It was the same for the others, all of them staring at it, unable to look away.

  Cyprian stalked to the doorway without a backward look.

  Will followed him out.

  He half expected to have to chase him; but then again, there was nowhere to go. Cyprian had stopped in a small courtyard with an empty fountain and a distant view of the wall. Will saw the tense line of his back where he stood on the far side of the fountain, the stained white of his tunic, the long fall of his hair.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t do this,’ said Cyprian. ‘You don’t carry the blame.’

  The words were a knife in Will’s gut. He tried to think of what he could say. What he had wanted to hear at Bowhill, stumbling through the mud, trying to survive.

  He said, ‘You’re not alone.’

  But it wasn’t true, not really. Cyprian was alone, in his grief, in his pain. The last of his kind, he carried a history inside him that was shared with no one else.

  That was what Simon had done. He had whittled them down until each of them was alone. He had carved them away from connection and from family. I don’t want to kill anyone, Will had said. But the people he cared about always died. Simon kept killing.

  And he could stop it. He was the one who could stop it.

  If he didn’t, Simon would take, and take, and take, until there was nothing in the world that wasn’t his to command, or dead.

  He took a step forward. He wanted to tell Cyprian that he would fight for him, fight for this Hall where for a moment he had felt safe.

  ‘You’re not alone, Cyprian.’

  A tremor in Cyprian’s flesh, that he immediately stilled. Steward training, thought Will. Hold the blade tip steady though your arms were aching.

  ‘I should have been with them,’ said Cyprian. ‘I should have—’

  Died with them. Will could almost hear the ringing words.

  ‘I shouldn’t be the last,’ he said. ‘Not me.’

  His body was steady, but his voice was raw, like he didn’t know what to do. He had spent his life striving to achieve Steward perfection: to follow the rules, to excel in his training, to be immaculate in his discipline, and now all of that was gone. What was a Steward without rules, without traditions, without his Order?

  ‘You heard the Elder Steward,’ said Will. ‘It’s never truly dark while there’s a star.’

  Cyprian turned to face Will, and with his long hair and old-fashioned clothes he suited this place so well, like one of its ancient and beautiful fittings. His eyes were wide, Will’s words seeming to strike something deep within him. Then his expression shuttered.

  ‘Look up,’ he said bitterly. Will followed his gaze to the battlements. He tried to understand, but saw only the empty jut of the outer wall.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Grace, arriving behind him, just as Cyprian turned and stalked away. ‘He was born in the Hall. It was his whole world.’ Her eyes were on the walls too.

  ‘What did he mean, look up?’ Will said.

  ‘The Final Flame,’ said Grace. ‘It burned since the founding of the Hall, a symbol of hope for the Stewards.’ Grace gave a strange, sad smile. Will remembered looking out of his window at the Flame on his first night in the Hall, its warm light a reassurance, a sign of safety. With an awful, dizzy feeling, he looked back up at the battlements and saw no light, only abandoned crenels and empty sky.

  Grace said, ‘And now it has gone out.’

  To clear the bodies, they had to split into two groups: Will went with Grace to the courtyard, while Violet took the corridors and inner rooms, including the great hall. Cyprian and Sarah went with her. Violet was strong enough physically to move bodies by herself, but Will had seen the hollowed-out look in her eyes. No one should have to enter inner rooms for the first time alone.

  He forced his mind to the grim reality ahead of him. Collect the bodies and bring them to a place beyond the wall. They ought to start in the main courtyard, which had been crowded, then move to the outbuildings and stables. The funeral pyre should be lit away from the main buildings. The smell from the fire would be terrible.

  He had never spent much time with Grace, but she was a hard worker. It took two of them to lift the bodies. They used a wheelbarrow. It was thirteen trips to clear the main courtyard.

  Grace took an arm of the wheelbarrow alongside him and pushed. Her lean face and spare body looked as if its lines had been carved. She was reacting very differently from Sarah, who’d taken on a nervy, flightish quality, like a spooked horse. It was Grace who had found them on the Elder Steward’s orders. When the Elder Steward had asked to die, it was Grace who had brought the knife.

  And when they stopped to take a brief rest, it was Grace who spoke.

  ‘I know she was like a mother to you.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Will.

  ‘She took me in when I was an orphan too.’

  ‘I said don’t.’

  His harsh voice ran over hers. Her words felt like a knife, pushing into him. He tried to shut them out. To focus on the wheelbarrow, the task. One foot after another. That was how you survived.

  ‘All right,’ said Grace.

  They had reached the stables. Walking this way was so familiar to him that for a moment he forgot why he was here. Farah, he thought, as though at any instant she was going to come crunching down the path, teasing him for spoiling his horse.

  Will had worked in the stables long enough to know all the Steward horses, ethereal creatures that ran like bright foam on a wave. Justice’s horse was a silver mare with a high tail. Will had fed her an apple once, when Valdithar wasn’t looking. It had felt illicit. She had whuffled it up and raced off to join the others, while they kicked up their heels and ran for the joy of it, wheeling this way and that, graceful as the flitting turns of a school of fish.

  It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.

  Silver and pearl, with soft velvet muzzles and slender legs, they lay across the muddy field like clumps of snow lingering after a me
lt. Their tails, like long, silky banners, flowed out across the earth. They would not gallop now with the wind at their back, tails high and manes flying. They were still, strewn like silver coins discarded by an uncaring hand.

  ‘She fought to save them,’ said Grace, and Will saw Farah, her face upturned, her sword knocked from her hand. Dead, of course. She hadn’t saved them. He supposed she had fought as hard as she could. He supposed everyone had.

  Exhausted, Will looked at the twelve giant pyres and the shapes that lay on them. They had dragged together all the stocks of fuel and kindling that they could find – from woodpiles to torn hangings to clothes to splintered furniture – raiding the armoury for tar and pitch and the kitchens for oil. The pyres were immense. It had taken almost as long to build them as it had to collect the bodies.

  They had worked past nightfall. The eerie marshland in the space beyond the walls but within the wards was dark. The torches that they held were the only light.

  It was enough to see the dirt and fatigue on everyone’s faces, the orange light dancing in their eyes.

  Will didn’t know the Steward funeral traditions, but he imagined it was a ceremony, a phalanx of Stewards in white bearing the body to its flame, the High Janissary speaking the ritual phrases while the Hall looked on in regimented formation.

  Instead, the five of them stood, a huddle of faces in the cold. There was no one to say the words. Cyprian took a long, shaky breath, and stepped forward.

  Will tried to imagine what he would say. You took me in, and you died for it. All those years of fighting … You did it because there was no one else. You kept the light burning as long as you could.

  So much lost: lives ended, and with them, knowledge that would pass from the world forever.

  ‘Go into the night as light, not shadow,’ said Cyprian. Above him the sky was high and cold, with a scattering of distant stars. ‘Never again fear the dark.’

  Cyprian reached out and struck his torch to the pyre.

  Fire raced through the thatched kindling, searingly fast, curling the twigs and the fabric of shrouds. Beside him, Will saw Violet stepping forward to Justice’s pyre, where he lay like a knight carved on a tombstone, his sword placed atop his wrapped body. Before Will lost his nerve, he went forward to the thatched pile in front of him.