In Solitude's Shadow: Empire of Ruin Book One

by David Green

  “Damn the gods,” he growled, eyes blazing. He glared at her a moment longer, then rolled to face the wall. “You should have left me to die.”

  Calene reached out to him, but stopped, tears welling in her eyes. Embracing her Second Sight, she saw the shadow Tilo had reduced still lingered on the Sparker’s brain. It pulsated now that he’d awoken, battling against the barrier encircling it.

  It’s twisting his thoughts. Twisting him. Gods have mercy.

  “Give him time,” Brina whispered, lacing her fingers with Calene’s and squeezing them.

  “Drok off and let me sleep,” Vettigan grunted.

  Tears dripped from Calene’s chin as she got to her feet and left the cabin, arms wrapped around her stomach. Standing on the deck, she leaned against the rail and closed her eyes. Brine sprayed her face, a weight in her stomach, as she let herself weep.

  The sun sat high in the sky, but the wind took away its heat. Calene tried to lose herself in the ship’s gentle rocking as it cut its way through the water, attempting to empty her mind of thoughts, but she couldn’t. She wanted to believe Brina, that Vettigan needed time. But she saw the shadow inside him, saw the hatred in his eyes.

  Calene reached towards the part of her mind connected with Vettigan, a tentative caress. A storm of curses and filth rushed back through their Link and she recoiled. She threw up a hasty barrier and tried not to be sick. His thoughts had never been like that before. So dark, so angry, so faithless and hopeless and violent. It felt like she’d poked a hole through something rotten and the stain of it lingered on her. Shadows smothered her friend’s mind, devouring the light and the comfort she’d always found in him.

  She leaned against the bulwark and choked out a sob.

  Vettigan may live, she thought, but the man I knew is dead.

  CHAPTER TEN

  COLD TURKEY

  ‘I’d rather throw myself overboard and plummet into the icy depths, than give up the spice. And that’s the truth.’ - The words of a drowned, Octarian spice-addicted sailor.

  Kade lay on his bunk, tossing and turning in sweat-slick sheets. The stifling heat inside the cabin and the pain from his broken ankle didn’t help his fever, nor did the bottles of Avastian brandy he’d guzzled. Kade burned, but the chill inside his bones made him shiver. His stomach twisted and cramped and the alcohol came back in acidic eruptions. He felt as though, if he reached out, he could clasp Rune’s slender hand.

  His mind flickered to the spice box falling to the street, kicked out of his reach.

  Now the spice made him pay for his clumsiness, the decision he’d made to abandon it.

  At first, the pain from his ankle had distracted him. Then came the hatchet job of repair courtesy of the ship’s cook, a muscular brute of a man—from Octaria, of all places— which only made the agony worse.

  The cook strapped Kade’s forehead and limbs to the bed. Placing his tobacco stick between his lips, he’d grunted two words.

  “Brace yourself.”

  The cook twisted Kade’s ankle like he’d wrench the head from a doll and Kade screamed, veins popping in his neck and forehead as his vision blurred and dimmed. He’d wanted to vomit. He heard—felt—the crack of bones crunching back into place. His ‘doctor’ held the ankle in place as he strapped it to a makeshift splint, then left Kade with three bottles of brandy.

  “Keep your weight off it and drink. The pain will keep you awake otherwise.”

  Since then—two days ago, Kade thought—the ship’s crew had left him alone, save for a cabin boy who brought him fresh water and food. Most of that went untouched. In his more lucid moments, Kade forced chunks of cheese and bread into his dry mouth, but his rebelling stomach soon forced it back up.

  His ankle and knees throbbed as he reached for the brandy. Grabbing an empty one, Kade flung it against the cabin door and laughed as it shattered to pieces. He fumbled for another, fingers landing on a half-full bottle. The sweet liquid trickled down his throat and spilled over his lips, mixing with the thickening stubble on his chin.

  Kade’s eyes drooped, and the bottle fell from his hand with a clatter as he slid into an uneasy sleep.

  ###

  “Why did you send me away, father?”

  Kade creaked his crusted eyes open. Arlo sat across his stomach, like he’d done as a toddler, staring into his face. He held a dagger to Kade’s throat.

  “Son, how—”

  “Were you ashamed of me? Scared your friends would find out about my elven whore mother? Did my dirty blood sicken you?”

  “No,” Kade whispered. His son’s eyes were black with hatred. A part of his brain noticed the cabin didn’t rock and sway as it had earlier, though he heard the wind howl outside and the stench of rotting meat assailed his nostrils.

  “A problem sent away, that’s what I am. One meaningless mistake soon rectified by the swing of a Banished’s mace.”

  Arlo turned his head to the side. His skull gaped open where the flesh had ripped away, exposing crushed bone and mashed brain. Blood matted his dirty-blonde hair and stained his neck and cloak crimson.

  Kade raised a trembling hand to touch his son, but Arlo snarled and plunged the dagger into his windpipe.

  He surged upwards as intense pain erupted in his throat. Choking, he gripped his neck, desperate to hold the blood inside. Kade looked around. Arlo had vanished. The pain faded and he stared at his bloodless fingers in disbelief. No wound, no blade. The stench of rot prevailed.

  “Did you love me, Kade?” a melodic voice asked. One he knew well and had longed to hear again. The voice dripped with scorn and disgust. “Or did you just convince yourself you did to ease your guilty conscience after droking a filthy elf?”

  Kade rubbed his forehead, peering through his fingers. Arlo’s mother stood in the open cabin doorway. She wore a simple, white shift; the colour standing out against her tanned skin and bright red hair. Rune stood as beautiful and elegant as he remembered and he longed for her, but the sneer on her lips turned him cold.

  “All those gifts. The dresses and flowers. You kept me like a pet. Did using me make you feel more like a man? No expectations with an elf. No chance of being tied down with responsibility to another family. You could have your fun and discard me any time you wanted.”

  “Rune, it wasn’t like that,” Kade moaned, falling from the bed and crawling to her on hands and knees. He wondered why the glass hadn’t cut her bare feet, but when he looked, he couldn’t see the shards of the broken bottle on the floor. “I loved you. More than anything. I didn’t want to keep you. I wanted to free you. I’d have traded everything for you.”

  “So you said.” Rune stepped forward and took Kade’s head in her hands. He never thought she’d touch him again. Despite it all, he leaned into her grasp. “But you didn’t free me, did you? You kept me until the bitter end. I died a slave, in a cage, and you held the key.”

  “The time wasn’t right.” He whispered the words without conviction, staring into her green eyes. “It wasn’t safe.”

  “Excuses. So many excuses. You’re craven, Kade. You always were. And now, because of your cowardice, I am dead and my son will soon join me. We could have been safe, with our own kind, or in Avastia. If we could only have escaped from you.”

  She pressed her hands against his skull and pain blossomed in his head. He felt his cranium splitting and aching from the pressure.

  “I’m sorry,” Kade gasped, vision turning red. He refused to struggle. Her words rang true; he deserved his fate.

  “You sent away your only reminder of me. Did it hurt too much to look at our son?”

  “Yes,” Kade breathed, eyeballs bulging.

  Just as he thought they’d pop, he fell forward onto his face, crashing against the wooden floor. He staggered up on all fours and shook his head, bile oozing from his mouth. The cabin door stood open. A blast of
icy wind blew through.

  “You had to involve me, didn’t you, boy?”

  A rasping, wet voice. A familiar voice. Kade turned to his bunk. The stench of rot made him gag, but he couldn’t pull his eyes from the sight in front of him even as they filled with tears.

  Bertrand lay there, a hideous ruin, stomach torn, intestines exposed and draped over his torso. Blood dripped from the mess of his body onto the floor. The old man’s lifeless eyes stared at Kade; his mouth hung open exposing a chasm of broken teeth and mutilated tongue. His voice echoed around the cabin.

  “We had to fight,” Kade said, pushing himself to his feet. He waited for his ankle to buckle but it held strong.

  “Like you battled against Nexes in the Conclave meeting?” Bertrand bellowed, dead eyes accusing. “You rolled over and showed him your yellow belly.”

  “My son. He knew—”

  “Excuses!” The dead man’s hand flopped towards Kade, a stiff, blackened finger pointing at him. “Did you ever care about anything other than protecting yourself? Do you go north to hide in the Gallavan Forests and hope life forgets you?”

  “No,” Kade growled, “I go for my son. I should never have sent him away.”

  “Correct,” Bertrand said, heaving himself to his feet.

  The smell of decaying flesh washed over Kade and his throat tightened, guts rippling, as the corpse shuffled towards him. Its entrails spilled out and swung between its knees. Bertrand slipped on the blood-slick floor, but kept coming. Kade backed away, but his gaze remained fixed on the horror moving toward him.

  “You’re a weakling. A hypocrite. You hated that we warred with the elves, yet your family kept slaves. Droked them, too. You think Rune loved you? No, she let you lust over her for a chance at survival. You despise war, but turn a blind eye even with Haltveldt decimating every duchy on this continent, and your precious Octaria in their sights. Avastia, too. They’ll ruin the world, and you’re happy to watch so long as you’re not under scrutiny. So long as no one knows your precious secrets.”

  Kade reached for the cabin door. It slammed closed behind him. Panic surged and he seized the handle, wrestling with it in the desperate hope it would open. But it didn’t and he faced the nightmare. Bertrand inched forward.

  “And what are you going to do when you reach Solitude?” the corpse hissed. “What can one man do? Hasn’t that always been your mantra, Master Kade? What can one man do against centuries of hate for the elven people? What can one man do against the mob at the gates to the Elven Quarter? What can one man do against an Empire? Why would you stand up and fight now, of all times? If you’d loved your boy, you wouldn’t have sent him away in the first place. He’s going to die. And you’re going to die with him.”

  Kade fell backwards through the doorway. Wind howled and rain battered from the black sky, so forceful it threatened to beat him into the deck. But he didn’t stand on a ship. His hands felt frigid, wet rock beneath them. Kade blinked. Although he’d never journeyed there before, he knew with utter conviction he stood upon Solitude’s walls.

  He gazed around. From his vantage upon Solitude’s highest point, at the centre of its walls, Kade saw the Peaks of Eternity towering in the distance, like splayed fingers attached to an enormous hand reaching up into the sky, curling around to squeeze the fortress at either side. Before them, an ocean of Banished, stretching back to the distant mountains. The horde screamed as one with the wind, terrible weapons raised above their heads.

  “How are we meant to stand against so many?” Kade whispered. He stood at the wall’s edge, a voice in the back of his head urging him to jump as he stared at the throng below.

  “Father.”

  Kade spun. Arlo stood across the rampart. An elf, tall and strong, an eerie echo of Rune’s blazing hair and piercing eyes and graceful beauty, draped an arm around his shoulder, but Kade knew it wasn’t her because this woman didn’t feel the same. A tall, pale man with yellow eyes held his son’s hand.

  “Son,” Kade said, taking a step forward.

  “Don’t worry,” the pale warrior said. “You’ll understand his purpose.”

  The tall man leapt from the wall, pulling Arlo and the elf with him. Kade yelled and ran to where they’d fallen. He stared into the forest beyond but only two sets of footprints in the sparse snow led into the thin woods beyond. Of the elf, he saw no sign.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” Nexes called.

  Kade drew his sword and turned to face the Master of War. “Raas damn you.”

  “You want this?” the man asked, holding a small snuff box between a thumb and finger. “You left it behind.”

  Nexes placed it on the wall overlooking the Banished hordes. Kade took a step, a lurch as the drug called to him. He staggered again and dropped his sword, falling forward and reaching out for his spice. Kade slammed into the low wall and cradled the box, lifting it to his nose as his hands trembled.

  A piercing pain bit into his spine and tore through his chest. He looked down to see bloody steel erupting between his ribs.

  “Elf-lover,” Nexes whispered in his ear. He wrenched his sword clear of Kade’s body and tipped him over the wall.

  Kade fell. For hours, spinning into a sea of faces howling and screaming and cursing him. He crashed into water and gasped as his mouth and nostrils filled with liquid. Kade screamed as he drowned in an ocean of Banished.

  ###

  “Sir, calm down.” Kade wrenched his eyes open and found himself staring at the cabin boy. Water dripped from his hair down his forehead, and he shivered. “You were screaming and wouldn’t wake when I shook you. Had to throw a bucket on you.”

  Kade fell back onto his soaking bed. A choking laugh erupted from his throat. It grew louder, and he howled and cried. The cabin boy backed away as Kade curled into a ball, his ankle protesting at the movement, as his tears mingled with the water on his face.

  ###

  Nightmares plagued him, vivid visions from his past. Arlo, Rune, Bertrand, and so many other regrets. Too many to count. Too many to name. None of it felt as real as that first night.

  On the morning of their fourth day at sea, Kade heard the cries of the sailors as the ship approached Adhraas docks, the nearest harbour to Solitude. The shouts woke him; he felt tired but free of the more severe withdrawal symptoms. The dreams had settled to meaningless nonsense and his stomach cramps had eased. His hands trembled less than before, and a pressure thumped behind his left temple, but he thought the worst to be over.

  Adhraas lay some ten miles to Solitude’s south, and Kade hadn’t thought about how he’d reach it yet. He hobbled to retrieve his cloak and fasten it across his shoulders. He grimaced when he placed even the lightest of pressure on his ankle. Ten miles might as well have been a thousand. He pictured Arlo, head caved in like it had been in the dream.

  I’ll crawl if I must.

  He left his cabin and made his way to the deck, watching as the crew brought the ship in. Seagulls cried in the icy air, and he tasted salt. Blue skies stretched for miles above, and his breath fogged from his lips. Kade rubbed his hands and waited to disembark. The captain, another Octarian, extended the gangplank, then stood speaking with a waiting messenger. He glanced Kade’s way and waved with a gentle smile.

  “A word, my friend,” he said, laying an arm across Kade’s shoulders and steering him to the ship’s bulwark facing the harbour. “Away from the crew. There’s word from the south you need to hear.”

  He peered around as Kade watched another ship cut through the harbour, bringing more people into Adhraas.

  “Why do I feel like this won’t be good?” Kade asked, managing a smile at the captain. The Octarian stared back with dull eyes.

  “Sorry, my friend,” he said, squeezing Kade’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have made an enemy of Master Nexes. His reach is long.”

  The captain jammed s
omething into Kade’s stomach. The air escaped his lungs in a rush. He tried to cough but tasted warm iron in his mouth. Saliva wet his chin. He touched it with a gloved hand and stared at it.

  Red, he thought, confused. But…

  The captain thrust again, multiple times, quick movements. Kade slumped against the rail, wrestling for the blade with blood-slick hands. His brain caught up.

  He’s murdering me.

  Kade reached for the sword at his hip. Rough hands grabbed him from behind and tossed him over the rail. He plunged headfirst into the harbour, and darkness devoured him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE CRIMES OF WAR

  ‘In war, there’s nothing more sacred than talking under the white flag of truce. Until Spring Haven became an Empire. Then it all changed.’ - From the banned texts of Eren, a historian from the old Hiberian Duchy, now part of the Haltveldt Empire.

  “Garet says they’re not attacking at full force yet,” Arlo said, his breath visible in the crisp morning air.

  “For once,” Zanna replied, “I agree with him.”

  Her apprentice had brought food and water after her nightshift on the ramparts. The Sparkers toiled day and night to ensure their magical shield remained strong. Garet tasked others with mixing fire into the shield, designed to disintegrate arrows and other projectiles that the Banished fired. Great gusts of wind tunnelled in front of the walls, keeping their attackers away.

  Zanna appreciated the modifications to the shield; the original, erected in haste, would only block magic and dampen sound. Now, they had more protection, though it came at a cost. Every Sparker poured their focus into maintaining it, day and night. No one knew how the shield would cope under a sustained assault.

  Not that the Banished appeared keen to take the initiative. Zanna watched them through her telescope, studying the swathes of fighters to the rear of their ranks, standing between the non-combatants and the Peaks. They’d spent the first day manoeuvring their people into that curious position and she still couldn’t guess why.