The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  ‘I bid you welcome, Lord Callen,’ the rider spoke, as Ainric knelt before him, paralysed in fear and horror, ‘to the fall of the north.’

  More figures strode through the flames all around. Tall, gangling, all hooded and cloaked in black, silver faces regarding him intently. They threw things, one after the other, to the ground before Ainric. They landed with a wet, heavy thud.

  Heads. The severed heads of those lords who had followed him here. The last one to land atop the pile was Hanton’s. The fat bastard’s jowls pale and bloodstained, beneath vacant eyes and lolling tongue, still quivering even in death.

  A dozen heads. One was missing. Where was Garrmunt’s?

  ‘I thank you,’ the rider said suddenly, ‘for bringing all these fools to me at once. Your greed has moved events on quickly, Lord Callen. You have made what is to come that much easier.’ Ainric swallowed vomit from both the sight of those heads and the sound of the rider’s voice. It sent waves of nausea through him, made him cringe, made him whimper.

  He couldn’t look at that great rider, couldn’t face it, it was easier to watch those figures all in black as they encircled him slowly, surrounding him with those hollow, fathomless eyes. Its gaze felt like knives upon his skin.

  ‘Bring me his kin,’ the rider seethed through what sounded like clenched teeth though was more akin to a hissing monstrosity.

  ‘My sons?’ Ainric finally found the gall in him to speak to the creature before him. ‘You have my sons?’ The words tumbled sloppily from his mouth, his tongue knotted and his mouth dry as cotton.

  ‘Aye,’ the rider spoke, and inclined its fearsome head, making Ainric recoil slightly away from it. It laughed softly, a hideous gurgling thing, like one would hear from the sick or dying possessed of some black humour. ‘Bring them here.’

  It was Enmar who strode into Ainric’s sight first, pushing Peyton before him, his son’s hands bound with thick rope behind his back. Bloodstained and bruised, he had taken a beating, his face cut and marked. His eyes met with his father’s as he was forced to kneel facing him, watering, terror-struck, lips a-tremble.

  Alard was brought into his sight by the man in heavy plate. Bound, beaten just as bad as Peyton. He was made kneel beside his brother.

  ‘Please,’ he trembled, finding the courage to look up the great rider, though it shook him with waves of nausea. ‘Please, they are my sons. Let them be, they have done nothing. I beg you my lord, mercy upon them, I beseech you – be merciful!’ Tears spilled down his face again. ‘Take my lands, my holdings, my estate, but please be merciful unto them!’ The rider sat there a top that pale horse, considering him with unseen eyes that gripped like an iron hand, squeezing at his temples, clawed ends wedged his skull.

  ‘Mercy, you say,’ it spoke at length, tilting its vile head slightly, as though confused by the word. ‘Mercy, you would ask – you… a great and mighty lord of the north. Mercy, for a creature like you, who followed one of your own blood into the woods, knife clutched in hand, stout men at your back, eager to strike. And for what? Earth? Water? And you would ask mercy of me.’ It laughed again, that gurgling, bubbling tumult. Ainric saw a thin smile spread across Enmar’s face, and anger burned in him alongside fear and shame. Betrayal.

  ‘You ask mercy of me, Lord Callen,’ the rider spoke loudly, the weight of its voice making Ainric cringe and shrink away. ‘Mercy that I cannot give to your kind. You are an affront to me, to the cause I serve – the cause that I bring unto you and your wretched, petty kind today.’

  Swords were drawn. The armoured man, Enmar, both raised their blades high over their shoulders, and it seemed then, to Ainric, that time slowed. Those blades, softly moving, glittered and shone with red fire as they descended. He saw them, as they met his sons’ necks, as they cut through flesh, through muscle, through bone. Headless, his sons slumped forward, blood arcing gracefully in their descent, their heads rolling to a stop at the grim pile before Ainric.

  And as he fell, face first, screaming his rage and sorrow into the bloodied earth the rider spoke again. ‘Learn now, as you see your kin die before you – to stand against us brings death and pain. Those who would see our cause undone will not be suffered. I come to cast down your putrid gods, your petty lords, your futile ways. I will cast them down with fire and steel and make of them something new and beautiful. I will make a new dawn here for Caermark, a red dawn, a bloody dawn. The ways of old will return, and they will not be stopped.’

  The rider looked down to the armoured man, whose sword dripped steadily with Alard’s blood.

  ‘Kill him,’ the rider ordered.

  ‘At once, Great Kaethar.’

  Why did Ainric recognise that voice? It was that southern twang, that arrogant tone.

  The armoured man removed his helm and let it fall, grabbing Ainric by the hair and yanking his head around so their eyes met.

  Lord Haakon Garrmunt sneered down at him, face cast red, dark eyes buried by shadows stark and voracious.

  ‘Give your cousin Deorwin my regards, Ainric,’ he said with contempt, letting go of his hair. ‘Now feed the Prophet.’

  And Garrmunt’s sword swept Ainric’s head from his shoulders.

  Chapter 4

  Bitter Ashes

  The dream came as it always did this time of year, memories flooding back to him in his repose like ghosts, uninvited and insidious. Never letting him forget. An eternal reminder of who he was, what they had done to him.

  It was more twisted remembrance than a dream, he would think in waking moments. Something made sick and corrupted by pain. A shadow of the past, its hooks and claws sunk deeper than flesh. It was always the same, again and again. An endless curse. His own demon, crouched upon his back and whispering cruel torments in his ear.

  He was eight years old again, stood with his father on the hill that over looked the port town of Bráodhaír, their family’s home. His father swung his sword in that graceful, brutal way he had had about him, tracing shapes in the air as it moved. Cunall, of Clan Faolán, a lifelong warrior, sword-sworn since childhood. Just as he would be, in years to come.

  Cunall was a tall man, a large man, broad of shoulder, fair of skin, dark of hair, blue eyed and bearded. His braided hair ran down his back to his waist, kept in golden rings at their ends that were etched with tiny wolves. They showed he had earned his manhood in blood. He was envious of them, and of how his father was the image of Cu Náith himself. His mother often voiced her own jealousy of his father’s beautiful braids, too.

  It was his morning training, his father was teaching him swordplay, shieldplay and how to fight unarmed, how to grapple with an opponent when taken to the floor. How to kill with the bare hand. He would come away bruised from it, sore, aching and tearful, but a better fighter for it each time.

  Cunall was a rough man, strict, harsh at times. He was hard with him because his own father had been hard on him, as a father must be. It was a hard land, a hard life. And a hard world. A man must be hard if he wishes to survive in it. He must be a warrior, and a warrior cannot be soft, he cannot yield. He must be hard, hard as iron, his father told him, as he saw him fight back bitter tears of frustration and pain during the lesson. Hard enough to never bend, only break. If he was broken then it was by a greater man, and in that there was no shame.

  Only the strong prevail, he remembered him saying, only the strong. A man must be strong.

  As a family they headed to the town market. His father, Cunall, his mother, Keva, his three elder sisters Elba, Ite and Ciara, and himself. They were known here in Bráodhaír, part of Clan Faolán from the highlands of the west where the wolves roamed. His father was something close to famous, and the men of the town would spend hours talking of his past glories with him, of raids against rival clans. He would listen to them and wish for his day to come. He took pride in himself as his father’s friends pointed out his bruises from training, and the stern, defiant look in his eye that marked him to be a budding young warrior. His father would grunt,
and nod, and always say he had a long way to go if he wanted to be a man. He would feel his chest swell at those words, promising himself that he would be the greatest warrior the island had ever seen.

  His mother and sisters would be away looking for whatever wares they needed and enjoying the sights – singers, pipers, that man who played the wheel-lyre with such skill and speed that you would see his fingers become a blur as they danced across the keys. They were good days. Happy days. Golden.

  Always as he dreamt he would remember the smells of his hometown. Fresh bread in the market and charring meat on spits turning over open fires. He remembered the stench of the tanneries and the hot metal tang of the blacksmiths. He even remembered the flowers his mother and sisters would pick together, always strongly scented, a heady perfume not soon forgotten. He remembered it all.

  And always in the dream it would turn in the same way, a twisted version of what had happened that happy summer day.

  Dark skies would loom above, black clouds racing in from the east. The music would die. The pleasant sounds replaced by penetrating silence. He remembered clearly they stood at the port looking out at the steely waters, fearing a storm. But he knew each time what was to come. It was always the same.

  The calm. The silence. The greyness. Always the same.

  And then the dark ships would appear on the eastern horizon, their sails swollen as they caught the wind, smashing the waves with their speed and momentum as they raced towards Bráodhaír with an impetuous, hungry fury about them.

  In the dream, they were always slow to react. Slow to flee. They all knew what those ships meant. They had been here before, more than once. Yet everyone who lingered at the grey port just stood, watching them close, their faces impassive, as though they were unaware. No matter how much he tugged at his father’s arm or shouted or screamed, none would pay attention to the boy, all he could do was watch the bleak vessels approach, unable to change their fate.

  It was not until fire raged through the town and the screaming began that the scene would shift. He would be running with his family through the hills around Bráodhaír, his sisters screaming and crying, his mother urging them on, struggling to fight back her own fear, trying to keep her voice firm and calm.

  His father was nearby, sword in hand, his shield slung on his back, covering their flight. He always remembered the way the blood dripped from the blade, how it was spattered across his father’s bare chest. Cunall had been a terrifying man in reality, yet when he dreamed of this dark day he always seemed weak, sluggish, a frightened little man when the chase began. Perhaps he had been frightened. He had not thought it possible for his father to feel fear when he was a child. But perhaps, looking back, the fate he knew awaited his wife and children was the one thing that scared him.

  There were hiding places in the green and pleasant hills around the town, purpose built for times like these. Yet they never reached them.

  The spotter’s calls joined the roaring of some twisted beast as his family crested the top of a hill. It was a man of steel that leapt into their path atop a rearing, red-eyed charger, its muzzle dripping gore, more monster than horse. The rider was always frightful to behold, like the living armour of some knight, pale eyes burning beneath the twisted visor, covered with the blood of those who had tried to fight back.

  More always came, until they were encircled by steel men atop malformed, frothing, monstrous steeds, riding around them in a loose, apathetic circle. They had hidden inland while the ships approached from the sea, rounding up those who tried to escape, like a dog will herd sheep for the shepherd. Now they jeered and mocked his family as they tried to make it up the next hill. He would always try and call for his father to fight them, strike them down, but his voice would fail, seem faint, or his mouth feel stuffed with cotton.

  One would eventually charge, a bludgeon raised high to strike down his mother who straggled behind, pushing his sisters onwards. A cruel weapon, bloodstained, shards of skull and bits of brain clinging to it.

  Always in waking and dreaming memory the crucible came now. The falling of that dread cudgel towards the back of his mother’s head. The sight of Cunall leaping forth with the roar of a man possessed, his sword carving a downward arc, severing the head from the rider’s beast in one clean stroke. The steel man had flown through the air, thrown mid-charge, and always landed in a crumpled, broken heap, thick blood oozing between armoured plates.

  ‘Take the warrior!’ another rider would roar next, ear splitting and bestial. ‘Take the warrior!’

  He could never change what came next, no matter how he tried, was always forced to watch.

  A rider broke rank, wielding a bludgeon of its own, and rode his father down as he tried to fight off two others circling his mother and sisters. A swift crack to the temple dropped Cunall, and he lay still on a bed of grass and heather, blood seeping down his face. He remembered vividly trying to warn his father from where he stood on the slope of the hill, having watched helplessly. He had thought him dead at first.

  The riders dismounted, seeing the threat eliminated. Fear and anger had struck sparking bravery, and he had run forward then, picking up his father’s sword from where it lay, swinging it back and forth at the towering steel giants, stood over Cunall’s fallen form. Their pale, burning eyes bored straight through him into his soul. Mocking him, laughing as the sword became too heavy after a few wild swings and he was unable to lift it. It was not just the cruelty of a dream that had rendered him as helpless as he remembered that day. The humiliation he had felt when he could not protect them still burned in him now. Weak arms. Weak child. Weak man.

  A weak man was not a man at all.

  A clawed gauntlet hoisted him from the floor and threw him on his back painfully. A great heaviness took him, and he could not move from where he lay. They were surrounded, a wall of steel men on all sides.

  ‘Take them to the ships,’ came the order.

  They had been bound with cruel hands, and cruel chaffing rope. He remembered he had fought back when it had really happened. But try as he might to find the same strength and courage as back then the dream would not let him, and he was but a boy, a weakling child, being carried off atop a metal shoulder, tears of shame streaming down his face. His sisters they took in the same manner, his mother they shoved and kicked before them, vicious blades jabbing her in the small of her back if she moved too slowly or cried too much. His father they tied by his ankles to a horse and simply dragged, a punishment for his defiance.

  They were taken back down to Bráodhaír, where the town burned and smoke choked the sky. He remembered the scene clearly. Men and women alike lay dead in the streets, laid in such awkward, unnatural positions he had thought that they were jesting at first. He had known many of them. But then there were the lines of those who had survived, chained together, shuffling. The steel men watched over them moving towards the harbour, their spectral eyes alert for stragglers, escape attempts, would be heroes. They knew they dealt with a race of warriors in these clansmen, and they had made a point to show what happened when they were opposed.

  They had done their work well that day.

  All was grey and hopeless. He and his family were tied to them at the back, their captors following close behind. They were shoved, corralled like cattle and forced up the gangplanks at the harbour. They watched people forced into the darkness and shadows that waited to swallow them inside those dread ships.

  It was here he hesitated, this ominous threshold, the ship seeming almost alive, like some great beast of the sea, as though he was a meal to be fed to it. Slavering, groaning, drawing in air as it tried to suck him inside it. He always tried to refuse, to fight, leaning back, digging in his heels against the wood of the gangplank. But cruel steel hands always dug into his shoulders with a crushing grip, and he was shoved inside, thrown into shadows and consuming darkness, and he fell, and fell, and fell.

  Harlin awoke with a start as something came rushing to meet him in his dream.
The darkness of his tent confused him at first, and he lay back down on his bedroll to settle himself. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He laid a forearm across his face to try and go back to sleep and found he was sweating lightly. Running a hand down his face he was not sure if it was just sweat or if he had been weeping. He felt ashamed, as he did each time he awoke in the same manner.

  It was always the same come this time of year. The same dreams. The same pain. Twelve years of it. He had tried to rid himself of it all, but still it remained – pain, cold and crushing as the grip of winter. His mind wandered frequently at this time of year. He found it hard to focus, difficult to concentrate on his duties. He would see their faces when he closed his eyes. Their voices would still ring in his ears. He could picture them all still, easy enough. Little moments of time caught in glass, fixed in place eternally. Though like glass the shade they took depended on the light cast upon them, and Harlin found that as the years went by that shade grew ever darker.

  Some hurts fade with time. Others grow with you, change with you, become more misshapen, more sour with each passing year. In the end some men sculpt themselves around their pain, or else are twisted by it, made crooked, ripped and torn at until they are unrecognisable, and their scars run down to the bone.

  Harlin’s hurts had certainly not faded.

  No. Like a seedling, they had been nurtured, cultivated and encouraged by bitter hate until their tendrils wrapped and clung like strangling ivy.

  Harlin had thrown himself into the mercenary life, losing himself in drink, gambling and the comforts of women whenever he could until they had become a meaningless commodity, and delighting in the thrill of battle at every opportunity.

  Battle. Now there was a distraction.

  If he was honest with himself, he enjoyed the fighting, he enjoyed the killing. It made him come alive, in a way – it shook off the leaden weight of depression and made him finally feel something. The heightening of senses, the anticipation, the test of skill and strength and speed – it was beautiful. There was a serenity to be found in defeating an opponent in combat. A tranquillity writ in blood.