Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
World Map
Epigraph
Eye of the Storm
The Wise Ones
Northolt
The Witch
Passion and Fire
Awakening
The Taint
Betrayal
Reunion
Whitemount
The Lesson
Blight
Right of Vengeance
Only a Hope
The Spark
Connect with Author
Appendix
Calendar
UNTOLD TALES is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s overactive imagination or are chimerical delusions of a tired mind. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely due to the reader’s wild imagination (that’s you).
Copyright © 2015 by Sabrina Flynn
Smashwords Edition
Cover art © 2015 by Annelie Wendeberg
www.anneliewendeberg.com
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Justin,
my friend whose joy is sorely missed.
I wish you could have known how right you were.
Truth and lies are the warp and weft of legend.
—Minnow, Sage of Mearcentia
Eye of the Storm
Frostmarch, 1992 A.S. (After the Shattering)
THE SOLDIER ADJUSTED his fur mantel, tugging loose the top most lace to let the air find his skin. Virgin powder sparkled beneath the noon sun. The sky was clear and pine filled his senses, sharp with cold and fresh with life. For now.
Farin Thatcher eyed the circling scavengers in the sky, like a whirlwind of black marking death. He nudged his mount in the vultures’ direction and his men followed in his mare’s path, moving steadily towards the gorge.
It went without saying that whatever was rotting wouldn’t be inside the gods’ forsaken Scar. But Farin hoped it wasn’t on the edge. He didn’t like the endless tear in the earth, or for that matter heights, especially with the recent wave of earthquakes. Unfortunately, there were too many birds for a deer corpse, and he couldn’t call himself a scout of the Empire if he didn’t investigate.
He signaled his scouting party to dismount, ordered one man to guard the horses, and strapped the wide snow nets on his boots. The soldiers fanned out, approaching the area like a net of their own—alert for bandits. Travelers were common enough in Northolt—even this time of year—and supply caravans had been constant for the past twelve years. With the Fell invasion at an end, it’d be a shame for a wayward caravan to fall into the hands of bandits. Supplies were scarce, and so were people.
The soldiers closed in on the area below the circling birds, moving swiftly over the snow, crunching with every step in the muffled quiet. Their path took them ever closer to the gorge. Much to Farin’s dismay, the eye of the storm lay at the edge. He signaled a hasty halt, and crouched behind a tree to gaze at the split in the earth. Snow and ice and trees flowed right up to the sudden drop, as if the earth simply gave up, and collapsed.
The vultures were screeching above, circling, but not landing. How odd. Farin signaled for his men to wait, and crept forward in the snow, from trunk to trunk, towards the queasy edge and a great tree that had clung there for millennium.
Farin Thatcher froze. The ancient tree was half dead. White patches mottled its wide trunk, spiraling upwards, as if it was fighting its demise. Some branches were bare, while others were full and thriving. Farin recognized the tree. A week ago, the magnificent pine had been as healthy as ever, standing the test of many harsh winters.
Farin had never seen such a thing. His gaze travelled to its base, where the roots wrapped around the edge of the gorge. The tangle of thriving bark and dying white battled here, too. His heart skipped, and he tensed. A woman stood in the tangle of roots and snow—she was naked.
The scout narrowed his eyes. The woman’s hair was the flare of autumn leaves, and her skin was touched by the sun. She faced the tree, nearly hugging it, exposing a spine that flowed into a delicious backside. He thought of a summer peach, and his mouth began to water. Farin’s body was confused: all at once, heat rushed to his loins, and a shiver ran up his spine. He edged closer, cautious but eager, unable to take his eyes off the woman as he rounded the next tree trunk. His new spot afforded a better view. There was a mark on her back, a tattoo of a sprawling oak.
The soldier followed the woman’s curves to her ankles, and his eyes widened with fear. Her feet were roots and her arms were inside the trunk.
The startled soldier nearly pissed his pants. A witch—on his watch. Farin cursed his luck. As the witch stood facing the tree, a blackness crept over the earth between roots that were slowly turning white. She had put some kind of curse on the tree. And he did not know what to do.
He signaled sharply at his men to ready themselves. They rushed forward, not silently, but not loudly either. Still, the witch did not turn. He had never seen a Blight hag before, but he had heard plenty, and he feared to find what the beautiful witch’s face would look like—probably warty, or worse, a man’s face. But with that backside—Farin shook the thought from his mind and focused on his task, or tried to at any rate.
When his men were in position, each as wide-eyed as he, Farin burst from behind his cover, arrow notched, prepared to draw his bow. “In the name of Emperor Soataen Jaal, stand back from the tree, Witch.”
The witch did not move, did not acknowledge his presence. Farin shifted on his feet in the snow, and cleared his throat, trying again. “Stand back and surrender!”
Still, no movement, not even a tilt of her head. The soldiers looked to their sergeant. Taking a deep breath, Farin edged forward, poised to draw and fire. With every footstep, he saw the blackness spread over the ground like ink, surrounding the tree and seeping from the earth. The vultures were directly over the gorge, circling, but not diving towards its darkness. Rot assailed his nostrils and he nearly gagged.
The stench was unbearable. He dared not take a step closer. Farin raised his bow, drew back the string, and let loose his arrow. It hit the target, a knot in the trunk, directly in front of the witch. The twang snapped her from the ritual. She jerked in surprise and took a step back, hands returning to that of a normal woman. The roots released her legs. She staggered back on bare feet, dazed and shivering in the snow.
From there, everything went horribly wrong.
The ancient pine quivered, its bark bulged, as if something living sought exit from its innards. The pine turned white and began to bleed. Inky backness seeped from its lifeless bark, running rivulets down its length. Its needles fell like ash, and where they touched, the ground turned black.
The witch scrambled back as the snow melted. Something writhed beneath the soil, wiggling, moving, the ground was no longer solid. A soldier screamed. Farin glanced towards the sound. One of his men was caught in the earth, blackness crawling up his flesh, swarming over him and dragging him down.
“Run!” Farin yelled. He staggered back from an inky patch as the witch climbed to her own feet. He found himself running with her, away from the pulsing tree. Her face was not warty, or that of a man’s, but as beautiful as the rest of her body. Her eyes were like leaves, and they held the essence of spring, and fury.
She quickened her pace, running for the forest.
“Stop!”
The witch did not stop. Farin lunged, reaching with his bow, catching her ankle between string and wood. She trippe
d, slamming hard onto the earth. She twisted, opening her mouth, but before she could speak, Farin clubbed her over the head, silencing whatever ritual she was about to unleash. The witch went still. However, the earth did not.
Desperate, Farin hoisted the witch over a shoulder, and bolted after his men as the earth heaved, rising like a wave.
Farin Thatcher ran, and he did not look back.
The Wise Ones
Wintertide, 1993 A.S.
OENGHUS SAEVALDR SHIFTED on the ridge. The foliage cracked under his weight and the branches overhead creaked with cold. In response to the frigid landscape, the kilted berserker’s tender bits wisely shriveled up for protection.
“What do you make of it?” a deep voice whispered in his ear.
“Never seen anything like it.” His eyes were bright in the chill, focused on the valley below: the barren basin and the castle crowned hill. The land between the ridge, from valley to castle, was black and waxy like a frostbitten limb. Twisted trees reached from the earth like white bones from flesh.
“It’s not Blight, then?”
“Don’t know,” he answered.
The distant castle appeared untroubled—the walls were intact at any rate.
The dark man at his side cursed under his breath.
Oenghus glanced at Captain Gaborn Oakstone. “I’ve seen a lot in my time, but I’m not all knowing.”
“It was the ‘Wise One’ part that gave me hope.”
“Well, aye, the wise part tells me to walk in the opposite direction of—that.” Whatever that was.
“And we’ll walk right into the headsman’s axe when we tell the Field Marshal we turned tail,” Gaborn pointed out.
Oenghus snorted. “I’ll fight an army, but this is better suited for—”
“Someone with brains,” the stout woman on his other side finished.
“Or a death wish,” Oenghus mumbled.
“I, for one, am tired of lying on this frozen ground.” Morigan Freyr climbed to her feet, smoothed her skirts, and checked that her tightly coiled hair was in order. Oenghus had a sudden urge to unpin his companion’s hair. When Morigan let her hair down, she plowed like a razor beast in heat. He stood to hide his reverie and reluctantly pulled his thoughts towards the rotted earth.
Brains, he reminded himself, the Emperor needed brains. Then why the Void had the Field Marshal of Kambe sent Oenghus Saevaldr to scout the pass?
Morigan marched down the ridge towards the waxy blackness. He caught up to the stout healer in a few, quick strides, and placed a large hand over the shorter woman’s shoulder. She turned a dark glare on the giant.
“Hold up, Mori” he hissed. “At least let me go first.”
Morigan glanced at the watching soldiers gathered on the ridge. “We certainly can’t spoil your reputation, now can we?”
Oenghus scowled at the healer. Hoisting his shield and hammer, he strode down the hill with Morigan on his heels. Both Wise Ones stopped at the base, standing ten paces back from the black earth.
“It’s creeping,” Morigan observed, “like ice along a window pane.”
Slowly, but steadily, the rot was spreading. But Oenghus wasn’t sure if it was rot or ice or even oil. He sniffed the air. Sharpness pricked his throat from the chill.
Morigan lifted her skirts and moved cautiously forward, right up to the line. She cracked a frozen branch from a tree and extended the tip towards the border of unknown.
The tip pierced the earth. “It feels like a bog—or decay.” She withdrew the tip, but the waxy ground clung to the stick like strands of a spider’s web.
“I don’t like this,” Oenghus grumbled, stepping beside her. He scowled at the expanse and the distant castle. His hand flexed around the handle of his war hammer. He preferred an enemy he could bash, not one that ate the earth.
Morigan leaned towards the tip of the stick, squinting at the substance. She summoned the Lore, a low murmur that flowed from her lips. With her free hand, she wove a ward against disease, and then traced a complicated pattern over the tip of the stick.
Runes swirled to life, encasing the blackness. The enchantment throbbed, the weave expanded, pulsing once before stiffening. The runes turned hard in the air and shattered like ice.
Morigan straightened in shock. A trickle of blood seeped from her nose.
“You all right?” Concern cracked the barbarian’s facade.
“Well enough. A slight backlash.” She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief, and shook herself, letting the stick fall into the unnatural ground. The stick moved, first one end, and then the next, until the tip disappeared beneath the surface. The trio watched with growing unease as the ground swallowed it.
Morigan shook herself from the trance.“It’s not Bloodmagic. It’s not Blight—”
“Void,” Oenghus cursed.
“I think so,” Morigan agreed. “We should get help.”
“You two are the help,” Oakstone reminded the Nuthaanian woman. But just the same, the captain fingered his bow nervously, itching for a target of flesh and blood, of a land with trees and rivers.
“I’m not much help with this sort of thing,” Oenghus admitted.
The blackness spread another foot, and Morigan took a hasty step back. “I agree, Oen. I can heal people—not the land, but at this rate, it’ll reach the next stronghold in a week.”
Oenghus scanned the countryside, taking stock of the valley. This tip of land was a spike from Kambe that had driven a wedge into Nuthaan before the two empires had made peace. Northolt was aptly named. It stood guard over the borders of the Fell Wastes, Nuthaan, and Le’Entas, at the edge of Kambe’s northern most border.
“It may have already spread into Nuthaan,” Morigan added softly.
“Right, then.” Oenghus shouldered his targe and gripped his war hammer with both hands.
“Oen—” Morigan’s warning fell on deaf ears.
Oenghus summoned the Lore with a thunderous chant that shook the valley. Blue energy crackled to life around the weapon and he brought it down, slamming steel and power into the ground. The waxy shell cracked with a spray of sludge. A jagged line rippled from the hammer’s head, ripping the earth apart, lancing the wound to reveal the rot beneath.
“Oh, dear,” Morigan huffed.
A thick mass of black maggot-like creatures writhed beneath the earth, bodies bulging with their feast. These were no ordinary maggots, unless the flies that had laid them had been as large as eagles.
Oenghus wrinkled his nose. He glanced down at his boots, and quickly shook one of the creatures loose. It fell into the healthy soil and burrowed beneath the earth. Blackness began to spread from the burrow like spilt ink on parchment.
“Some kind of Voidspawn,” Gaborn spat the word from his tongue.
“Not Voidspawn, but tainted, I fear,” Morigan sighed.
“So what’s tainted these things?” asked Oenghus as if he fully expected her to know.
“It’s our job to find out,” Morigan said. She scanned the healthy earth and moved over to a grouping of boulders. Oenghus stomped over to her, eyeing the snow covered rocks.
Long time companions that they were, Oenghus sensed her line of thought. “The Void eats life, and so do maggots.”
“After a fashion,” she corrected. “And you claim you have no brains.” Morigan pointed at a large stone and Oenghus obediently hooked his hammer on his belt and bent to lift the rock. He carried it to the edge of blackness and lobbed the stone onto the ground. It landed with a sickening squelch, but held.
“That’s a lot of stepping stones, Morigan.”
“You would,” she sighed. Before Oenghus could formulate a retort, Morigan summoned the Lore, tracing an armor weave, layering stone over air and a loose bind. With a steadying breath, she stepped into the dead land.
Oenghus tensed, ready to drag her back to safety at a moment’s notice, but her theory held, and so did the earth. The Void-tainted maggots ignored her presence. Healer, berserker, and captai
n let out a breath of relief.
“Can you manage the weave on the whole squad?” Gaborn asked.
Morigan glanced at the twelve waiting warriors. “I’ll make do.”
“Right before you die on your feet.”
The stout Nuthaanian smiled at her towering kinsman. “The only way to die.”
Oenghus grunted in agreement.
Northolt
NIGHTFALL WAS NEVER far off in the north. The days were short and the sun never seemed to reach its goal, tiring and falling from the sky just shy of the heavens. A line of soldiers trudged through the bleakness, boots sticking to earth that was as black as tar.
The castle loomed closer, and Oenghus slowed, eyeing the open gates in the fading light. The castle on the hill had its arms open wide, its battlements were empty and arrow loops dark. Unease prickled the back of Oenghus’ neck. He stopped, and the line of soldiers followed suit.
Oenghus did not like standing out in the open, but there was nowhere else to go. As the captain and Morigan stopped at his side, Oenghus felt as if the castle was made of eyes.
Gaborn was half crouched, arrow notched, itching for cover as much as the next soldier. “It looks deserted,” he noted. The lean Kamberian’s pointed ears were as sharp as his eyes.
“Abandoned,” Morigan added.
“I’ll send men to scout.”
Oenghus stopped the captain with a heavy hand. “Nightfall is a tick away. No use wasting time.”
“I suppose,” the captain relented. “We’d all rather have stone at our backs when night falls than this rot.”
No one voiced the words that lingered in their thoughts. Whether spawned or tainted, creatures touched by the Void thrived in the dark. Even if the scouting party had waited until first light to cross, the taint would have spread, making a crossing in full daylight impossible.
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