Shadow Lands Trilogy

by Simon Lister

  She stopped by the entrance to a passageway that led up into the semi-darkness and tried to remember the route she would have to take. It was not a quick route but it might lead her to the house in time to discover who might be meeting with her father and she was growing more curious about that the more she thought about it. She was concentrating so hard on remembering the right route through the underground labyrinth that she had no idea that someone was behind her until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She jumped and whirled around expecting to see one of the guards or Commander Kane himself but it was Terrill and he looked as surprised by her reaction as she was by his sudden appearance behind her. She put a hand over her heart as if physically trying to calm its runaway beating. She thought wryly to herself that it had been through quite enough already.

  ‘What are you doing creeping up on me like that?’

  ‘I was going to ask you what you were doing creeping around the top of the valley.’

  ‘Well, I asked first,’ Seren said and Terrill thought he heard a trace of her former childish petulance. He was a year or two older than Seren and all through their childhood he had acted as if he were her older brother. With the recent revelations he had forgotten just how young she still was and his attitude towards to her softened.

  ‘I was concerned about you going to see your father.’

  ‘More concerned that I might not go and see him you mean.’

  ‘Both are true, Fin.’

  He had not used her name like that since they were children and her defiance melted away instantly.

  ‘I went to see him but the guards turned me away. The guards! Me!’ She did not feign the feeling of outrage that had been growing steadily since being denied entrance to the house.

  ‘Why? Is he in council?’

  ‘Yes, but who would they want to keep me away from? That’s what I want to know.’

  Terrill looked curious despite himself as Seren continued, ‘And I want to find out. And what’s more, I am going to find out. You remember the old tunnels? The ones that can take us back to the one that leads into the house?’

  Terrill did remember them but it was not his place to question whom Lord Venning might or might not be meeting. Still, he was the Cithol Captain and the guardian of the Winter Wood and he had been excluded from this council. He was more than curious; he felt affronted.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ Seren asked.

  Perhaps it was his childhood memories of the games they had played when they explored the tunnels that prompted him or perhaps he felt bad about the high-handed way he had been judging his friend but whatever his private reasoning Terrill agreed to go with her. She took his hand and together they stepped into the half-darkness of the tunnels.

  The first tunnel climbed steeply upwards. It was more than wide enough for them to walk side by side and the floor, while not as smooth as the paths around the houses on the lakeside, was still even and easy to walk along. The in-set crystals that lit the underground city were spaced along the tunnel roof as well but here they were set apart at wide intervals and there were long stretches of darkness between the dim pools of light.

  Seren felt the years slipping away and imagined that they were children once more exploring the endless tunnels that honeycombed the Veiled City. She cast a glance at Terrill to see if he was feeling the same way but the dimness of the passageway hid the features of his dark-skinned face and she suddenly felt alone. Her happy memories of childhood were instantly stripped away. She was not the child and the child in her womb would not tolerate the child in her heart. She realised that she had to banish any temptation to wallow in her own childhood now that she was soon to be a parent herself. Inevitably her thoughts turned to Arthur and as Terrill led her along the increasingly ill-lit tunnels the tears began to silently spill through her eyelashes again. She desperately wanted to see Arthur, to somehow explain everything and to somehow recapture the expectations she had held. Once again she found herself hoping that it would be Arthur who was secretly meeting with Lord Venning.

  Even as Seren was hoping that he would be with Lord Venning, Arthur was arriving at the grove that looked down on the Winter Wood. He had decided to rest the horses for a few hours before making for the Causeway. As Seren and Terrill felt their way along the darkest of the tunnels, Arthur and the warriors of the South stood on the hillside and watched as the first of the sun’s rays radiated across the land from the western horizon.

  Seren and Terrill knew nothing about the beginning of the spring sunrise above them but ahead of them, at the end of the last tunnel, they too could see a growing light. The narrow passageway that they were inching along led directly onto the tunnel that descended from the Winter Wood and down to Lord Venning’s more private council chambers. Ahead of them they could see the flickering light of burning torches from around a curve in the tunnel. Terrill realised that the brands must have been used to light the tunnels for the unknown visitors and he put a gentle hand on Seren’s arm to stop her.

  Suddenly the sound of voices carried to them. They could make out Lord Venning speaking to Commander Kane but then a third person spoke and something in that voice immediately chilled their souls and they stood rigidly still. Long shadows stretched across the tunnel floor and bent obliquely upright against the wall ahead of them. One of the shadows stopped and turned. It seemed to be staring directly at them. Neither of them breathed and then the shadows were gone. The torchlight faded as the group moved on upwards to the Winter Wood.

  Seren realised she had stopped breathing and took in a long breath. Terrill wiped his palms dry on the sleeves of his tunic and clenched his fists to stop his hands shaking. They stood in silence both trying to understand the sense of dread and foreboding that had momentarily stole upon them. Whoever it was who had been with Lord Venning and Commander Kane was clearly very powerful and very dangerous. They were both scared by what they had sensed and it was nothing like the childhood frights that they had shared before in these tunnels. This was a fear that pierced deeply and touched their hearts. The stranger’s will had a malign elemental force to it and both of them were pathetically grateful that only a fraction of it had turned their way.

  They stayed standing silently in the cold tunnel until they heard the returning voices. Terrill put a finger against Seren’s lips then whispered quietly to her. She nodded her understanding. Ahead of them and to their left was a small channel that they could crawl along and which would lead them into one of the top rooms of the chamber. They were relieved now to have missed the visitor to their city but they were even keener to learn what they could about him.

  Neither of them were sure if they would be able to fit into the tight channel. As children they had had no problem scampering along it but neither of them were children now. After some minutes of quiet frustration and doubt Seren finally found the opening and crawled into it.

  It was only about thirty-feet long but it seemed to take an age for them to scrape and wriggle their way to the end where it opened up into the room. Seren had a panicked moment of claustrophobia when she thought the end had been blocked up but it was only the detritus of disused furniture that had been stacked against the wall and she pushed it to one side. She scrambled out and began to help Terrill, understanding now why her knees and elbows had always been scraped or grazed when she was a child.

  They both stood in the semi-darkness of the storeroom brushing the dust and dirt from their clothes. As Seren softly walked to the doorway to listen for the voices below, Terrill stood caught in indecision. His sense of duty and obedience fought with both his loyalty to Seren and his anger at being excluded from whatever had been said in the chamber below them. He would have claimed that it was his loyalty to Seren that won through but in truth it was his fear of the stranger and the need to learn more about him that ultimately led him to join Seren by the doorway.

  They could hear voices. Seren strained to hear what was being said but could not make out any of the conversa
tion taking place in the room below. To Terrill’s increasing anxiety she softly crossed to the top of the stairway. She knelt there concentrating on the sound of the voices then turned to Terrill and beckoned him over. Despite his misgivings he crossed to the stairwell to join Seren who unnecessarily put a finger to her lips. He knelt by her side and tried to still the sound of the blood thumping in his ears. Finally he too could hear what was being said below. It was a moment he would spend the rest of his life regretting.

  Chapter Seven

  Leah was dying. Ethain knew this and was surprised how little he cared. He had more important things on his mind. Right now Cei was deciding who should go on the small boat back to Wessex to bring back the larger fishing boats that could rescue the trapped Bretons. Leah may be dying from an infected wound but he could still be safe if only he could convince Cei to choose him as one of the three to make the crossing to Wessex.

  He was squatting down by Leah’s side and she stirred again, her head rolling from side to side on the bundled cloak that served as a pillow. Her face was sheened with sweat and her hair clung wetly across her forehead and cheeks. She looked, and was, desperately ill and Ethain wondered what it was about her that had attracted him so much. Whatever it had been it was gone now and gone for good. He knew for certain that she would not be among those who might escape from the fortress. He was beyond caring who did. All that mattered to him was that he should make it back to Wessex. He had made the point to Cei that he was the only one amongst them who came from Wessex and he might be best positioned to persuade the fishermen to make the journey across to the Breton coast.

  At the time he had understated the point, sure that Cei would be unwilling to risk failure by not including him, but as the deliberations had continued he fretted and worried that perhaps he had not made his point strongly enough. He occupied himself by thinking how he could effect his escape from the current nightmare if Cei did decide to send him across on the skiff.

  So far he had come up with two plans. The first would mirror Cei’s plan up to the point where he would be expected to return with the fishing boats, supposing they could actually find a village willing to help them. He had no intention of returning to the Breton coast, quite the opposite. He would wave off the fishing boats, wishing them good fortune, under the pretext of immediately returning to Arthur’s war band that would undoubtedly be at the Causeway. He could argue that his duty lay with his warlord and the defence of Britain. It might work. There was no real reason why they would disbelieve him. Once the boats were gone he would travel west, not east, and hide on the moors or go even further west, to the ends of Wessex if necessary. The problem with this plan was that should Cei and the others eventually make it back to Arthur then his absence would be questioned and unexplained, which is why he was leaning towards his second plan.

  Ethain had not yet openly thought through the details, or examined the implications, of the second option and it remained unrefined and gnawing away in some dark corner of his thoughts. It would guarantee his safety but only at the expense of condemning everyone else and he would also have to silence those who travelled with him on the skiff. In the same dark corner of his mind the voice of the scared youth who had escaped from the Adren attack on Eald cried out in horror at contemplating the betrayal of so many. As he squatted by the fevered Leah he wondered how he could have changed so much in so short a time.

  *

  Cei and Merdynn were in agreement that they had to despatch the boat soon or it would be too late. What they could not decide upon was who should make the crossing. Ethain was wrong when he claimed he was the only one there who was from Wessex. Trevenna too was from Wessex but she had lived in Anglia with Cei for the last twenty years so it was questionable who would recognise her among the coastal villages and Cei did not want to appear as if he were just getting her away to safety. Cei thought that Ethain should go. Merdynn thought it should be Trevenna and argued that as the sister of Arthur and wife of the Anglian Warlord she would be recognised and that she would be more convincing than some young unknown warrior would. Cei thought that Ethain would be better placed as he had previously accompanied Morveren back to her home among the Wessex fishers.

  They had already decided that Cuthwin should go as he was by far the best able to handle the small boat. Merdynn too would go, as he had to get word to Arthur that their quest east had failed and that the Adren would still be getting their supplies from the Shadow Land City. There was no doubt that Merdynn would be recognised in Wessex but most of the villagers held him in deep suspicion and they would be unlikely to sail across the sea at his request.

  There were obvious merits to either argument but they realised it was more important to leave quickly than it was to dwell on whether Trevenna or Ethain should go so Merdynn picked up a stone and hid it in one hand allowing Cei to choose and for fate to decide. Fate decided that it should be Ethain.

  Once that had been settled they went to inspect the rushed preparations of the boat. It was indeed small with only just enough room for three people and the supplies they would need. Although the boat had a small mast and canvas sail Cei thought the crossing would still take the best part of three days. The larger fishing boats would take perhaps half that time to return, which meant that they would have to hold the Adren at bay for five or six days.

  There had been no more attacks since the previous large-scale assault on the cliff paths and the sea ice was now too broken and unstable for the Adren to risk any further attacks from around the base of the cliffs. Their only point of attack now was over the high wall and Cei had put three quarters of the remaining Bretons there in an attempt to fool the Adren that they still had more than enough people left to defend the fortress.

  There were just a hundred of them left now and Cei had decided that only twenty-five could rest, sleep and tend the wounded at one time, the others were on the wall to defend against any attacks. Cei was surprised that the Adren had not pressed their attacks after so nearly overwhelming them during the last one. The only explanation he could think of was that they did not know just how close they had come to victory.

  As he neared the boat he saw that Cuthwin was standing back and surveying his work.

  ‘Is it ready?’

  ‘It’s as good as when it was first made. Better even.’ Something in Cuthwin’s voice told Cei that the young man’s usual confidence was faltering.

  ‘Is that good enough to get you across the sea to Wessex?’

  Cuthwin looked at him before replying, ‘It’s a small boat, Cei. It depends which way the winds blow and how strongly.’ He shrugged then grinned, ‘It’ll be exciting if a storm blows up.’

  Cei clapped him on the shoulder, ‘You’ll be fine. You’ve sailed out storms before and you’ll have Merdynn and Ethain to help you.’

  ‘Ethain, eh?’

  ‘He might know some of the villagers you come across. It’ll help to have a friendly face among you. Merdynn could scare them into putting out to sea but he won’t be with them on the return journey and they might just turn back once he’s gone. You know the Wessex lot, unreliable at the best of times.’

  Cuthwin smiled but he was wondering how reliable Ethain would prove to be. He had his doubts about the young Wessex warrior. ‘When do we leave?’ he asked.

  ‘Now. It will take about five or six days for you to get back here and if the Adren attack in force, well, the sooner you get back the sooner we all get away from here.’

  For the first time Cuthwin truly realised what was being asked of him and he felt the responsibility weigh heavily on him. If he could not bring back the fishing boats then everyone left in the fortress would die. He looked at the boat once again and wondered if it really was up to the journey. He wondered if he was.

  Cei saw the doubt and said, ‘You’ll be fine. Just do your best and that will be more than enough to get you there and back. Get some of the Bretons to give you a hand with this down the cliff path and I’ll go and tell Ethain he’s
going.’

  Cuthwin gathered some help and they put the boat on a cart and wheeled it off to the steps that led down to the harbour. Cei made his way to the hall where the wounded were tended to. He found Ethain by Leah’s side.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘The old woman says that it isn’t good. She doesn’t expect her to live,’ he replied and looked back down at her desperately trying to calm himself. Inside he was screaming to know if he was going or not but he fought to keep his expression disinterested.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do here Ethain. Let the old woman look after her. The best thing you can do for her is bring the fishing boats back quickly.’

  Ethain’s heartbeat quickened further. ‘You want me to go to Wessex?’

  ‘Yes. With Merdynn and Cuthwin. And it’s time to leave now.’

  He did not trust his voice or eyes so he simply looked down at Leah and silently nodded. Cei misread his actions and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, thinking he was loath to leave the girl he had become so close to and who was balanced on the edge of life. Ethain bent down and kissed Leah’s hot forehead and then left the hall struggling to keep the spring from his steps and the smile from his face.

  *

  Cei watched from the headland as they rowed the small boat out from the harbour along a dark channel between the broken ice sheets and on out towards the open sea. They were lost to sight in the sea mist before they even cleared the ice floes. He hoped that the drizzle and mist hid them from the Adren too.

  He turned to head back to the hall to ask the healer how the wounded were. He tried to put the small boat and the three who sailed in her from his mind. There was no more he could do other than wait and hold the Adren at bay. Halfway to the hall he changed his mind and walked to the wall instead. The fatigue from the battle was taking its toll and he wearily climbed the steps up to the top of the wall. Aelfhelm and Trevenna were at the top of the stairs.