CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: A FIGURE AS DARK AS A MURDERER’S SOUL
CHAPTER TWO: AN ORCHESTRA OF WAR DRUMS
CHAPTER THREE: A HELMET DISCARDED IN QUICKSAND
CHAPTER FOUR: AN UNREACHABLE SHORE
CHAPTER FIVE: A RAVEN LET LOOSE FROM ITS CAGE
CHAPTER SIX: A FUNERAL WITHOUT A BODY
CHAPTER SEVEN: A REFORGED BLADE
CHAPTER EIGHT: A MAN OF THE PEOPLE
CHAPTER NINE: A FAT LOT OF GOOD
CHAPTER TEN: A LINGERING CURSE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: A FLYING START
CHAPTER TWELVE: A PREDATOR ON THE HUNT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A GHOST OF THE PAST
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: A THING OF STONE AND IRON
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A BRIGHT KINGSDAY MORNING
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A GRUESOME AND PECULIAR CASE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A MIRACULOUS SIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A GATHERING OF THUNDERCLOUDS
CHAPTER NINETEEN: A BLOOD RED SHADE
CHAPTER TWENTY: A REFUGE FOR ROGUES AND SCOUNDRELS
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: A PALE WHITE FACE AND A GRUESOME RED GRIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: A RAPTOR AND A TYRANNOSAUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A HAUNTING FAMILIARITY
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: A CURIOUS EYE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: A STUDENT OF THE DARK ARTS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: A GLIMMER OF HOPE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: A BOOK OF DIVINATIONS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: AN ABSURD NOTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: A CRIMSON SUNSET
CHAPTER THIRTY: A THOUSAND QUESTIONS
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: A FOREBODING SHADOW
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: A FINAL ENDEAVOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: A LOST EMPIRE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: A HUNTING EXPEDITION
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: A VILLAIN TO THE CORE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: A HEART OF DESTRUCTION
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: A PATCH OF BLACKENED EARTH
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: A NEED FOR VENGEANCE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: A HARBINGER OF THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT PAGE
Books in the Paladero series:
The Riders of Thunder Realm
The City of Night Neverending
The Edge of the World
The Champions of the Blade
(coming in 2019)
For Simone and Max
CHAPTER ONE
A FIGURE AS DARK AS A MURDERER’S SOUL
JOSS stared in numb horror at the blood on his hands. There was a ringing in his head like someone had struck an iron gong, its corroded tones reverberating in his skull and drowning out all other noise. The crackling of flames. The sound of towers collapsing. The roar of unearthly creatures. They all faded into silence as Joss crouched on the ground, fingers splayed wide for him to study, while his mount kicked weakly beside him. Its life was pouring out in a syrupy red gush, and there was nothing Joss could do to stop it.
‘No. Please no,’ he whimpered like a child, leaning forward to clutch the animal’s wounds as if that might be enough to stem the bleeding, to keep death at bay. But death would not be so easily denied. With a final anguished cry, the thunder lizard slumped over. Gone.
Shaking, Joss withdrew his hands and looked to see the destruction that was unfolding all around him. Rampart walls were consumed in flame. Stockyards were burning. Bodies lay in the field, as motionless as the animal laid out before him. In the distance, he could see the men responsible for all of this, the largest of them holding a still-smoking weapon.
Joss leapt to his feet, drew the Champion’s Blade, and ran for them.
But then, from the scarlet fires, there emerged a figure as dark as a murderer’s soul. His black feather cloak twitched with his every step. His stone mask drank in the firelight. And the sword he carried was as twisted as the tongues of the winged monsters that wheeled overhead.
‘Josiah Sarif!’ Thrall boomed. ‘You’re too late, boy. See how your world burns!’
CHAPTER TWO
AN ORCHESTRA OF WAR DRUMS
Several weeks earlier …
THE mammoth herd charged blindly forward, mustered across the snowy fields by the three Bladebound prentices at their backs. Coiled in his saddle, Joss held tight to his tundra bear’s reins with one hand, while with the other he gripped the spear he’d been given on his first day of training at Starlight Fields. And what tough training it had proven to be.
Every morning he and his brethren had been up before sunrise, shivering against the cold as they saddled their tundra bears for the day ahead. While Drake had been allowed to keep his bear, Pietro, as his mount, Hero and Joss had to rely on the beasts that Starlight Fields had stabled for the use of its prentices. That included Buckminster, a grizzly old thing with dark grey fur and a gloomy temperament. The beast fought against every command he was given, and Joss struggled to keep him under control as he and his fellow prentices ran drills and practised their signalling.
‘Still not ready,’ their instructor, Sur Fabian, would tell them as they left the training field each day. ‘But maybe tomorrow you’ll be better.’
It was weeks before they had so much as approached their first mammoth. And as old and slow as Buckminster was, Sur Fabian had somehow found the one mammoth who was even older and slower, and even more cantankerous.
‘How can you stand it?’ Joss had asked Drake one night after a particularly gruelling session. They had been clustered around a small coal stove, their scratchy woollen blankets pulled tight around their shoulders. ‘You’ve been mustering mammoths as a prentice for years now. This must be like starting all over again.’
‘In mustering mammoths, the first lesson to learn is patience,’ Drake replied with such maddening serenity he was lucky neither of his Bladebound brethren thumped him for it.
When they’d somehow managed to get the old mammoth to follow their commands, they progressed to working with a dozen-strong herd. The lumbering beasts proved even more wilful when grouped together, content to munch their feed while watching the prentices try in vain to get them moving. But with practice, and more than a little effort, Joss and the others bent the animals to their will, moving them from one icy paddock to another and back again.
Finally it had come to this, the final test before they could progress to the next step of their training: mustering an entire herd of a hundred mammoths around an eight-league circuit without losing a single one. Working in formation, they had driven the herd across the treacherous terrain, passing over snowy knolls and frozen lakes, watching with mounting concern as the ice had started to crack beneath the mammoths’ weight.
Only the galamor will stand when all else fall. Joss thought of the words that had become like a battle hymn through the hardships of his training. And rise when all else kneel. It was an ambiguous prophecy, one he’d uncovered weeks ago in his mother’s journal, which had sat among the sunken ruins of Daheed for nigh on a decade.
Daheed.
Just the name gave pause to Joss’s heartbeat. In the few moments that he hadn’t been busy riding, mustering or snoring, Joss had been consumed with thoughts of Daheed. All his life he’d believed his childhood home to have been destroyed, just as the world had told him it had been.
But then he’d discovered the island-city preserved at the bottom of the ocean, a hidden refuge for phantoms and malevolent cultists. There he had been reunited with his long-lost father, only to discover that the man who called himself Naveer Sarif was instead a changeling, a supernatural impostor. And yet somehow Joss had managed to make peace with the creature only moments before it had sacrificed itself to sav
e his life.
How mad it all sounds, he thought, marvelling at the extra dimensions his life had taken since he’d first set out to become a paladero. Despite the oath they took to protect the kingdom in times of crisis, paladeros’ lives were mostly spent mustering thunder lizards to market and training to compete in the Tournament, with the odd tale of adventure thrown in for good measure. But even with those legendary stories filling his head, Joss still would never have believed the strange course his life would take.
Perhaps if he’d had his mother’s journal, containing the prophecies she’d translated under the title The Rakashi Revelations, he might have better anticipated what was to come. Not that he had any clue about who had first written these predictions or how much trust to place in them. All he knew was that whenever he found himself in a challenging position, reciting the words to himself provided a sense of reassurance that he would make it through, that there was a greater purpose waiting for him, that he may yet prove to be the champion it described. All he had to do was refuse to give up – and pray that this cursed ice would hold.
Ushering the herd onward, the prentices mercifully made it across the frozen lake to find themselves in the home straight of the course. Colourful flags billowed at the finish line, promising triumph. The only obstacle remaining in their way was a thin bridge carved from permafrost, which ran across a gaping ravine spiked with craggy rocks. The smallest mistake here wouldn’t just be disastrous for their chances of finishing. It would be deadly.
Hero signalled to Drake. Drake signalled to Joss. Maintaining the brisk pace they’d set, they guided their tundra bears closer to the herd, forcing the mammoths to group in closer together. Or at least that’s what they’d be doing if Buckminster would obey Joss’s commands.
‘Don’t do this to me now, you stubborn cuss!’ Joss swore as he applied all his strength to the bear’s reins, which the animal was straining against. ‘Move!’
Buckminster huffed and growled, but submitted. In single file the herd hit the bridge, following one another along its length. The prentices shadowed them across, driving them along the permafrost one treacherous step at a time. Joss held his breath the whole way, eyes scanning everywhere for potential disaster.
Only the galamor can bring light to the oncoming darkness, the words reverberated in his head. And draw hope from a dying dream.
The herd proved sure-footed, and within minutes they were on the other side of the ravine, whole and unscathed. Allowing himself a moment to exhale, Joss quickly withdrew again to the outer flank to ensure the herd didn’t fragment at the last minute. Buckminster plodded slower than his rider would have liked, but was swift enough to keep the mammoths from straying as they came to the final gate.
It was here that they had begun their trial, and it was here that their fate would be decided. Joss could just make out Sur Fabian and Lord Oric in the stone pavilion on the outermost edge of the frozen field, with Edgar’s pink little face blinking beside them.
The lad had been with Joss and his brethren through this whole endeavour, proving himself to be a diligent steward. Every day he would wake before Joss and the others, ensuring their riding leathers were wiped down and their mounts were fed and watered. He would then serve as assistant for Sur Fabian, fetching and carrying anything that was needed throughout the training session before retiring to his cot for the evening.
On more than one occasion, Joss had heard the lad cry out in his sleep. It was always an anguished cry, and it spoke volumes of the ordeal Edgar had suffered at the hands of Admiral Ichor and his pyrate followers. Not that he was alone in that struggle. On particularly cold days, Drake would rub his injured hand, the one Ichor had stabbed with a dagger, thinking that nobody noticed him doing it. But every time he did, Joss and Hero would share a look of concern, both of them unsure of how to address the ghost that haunted them all.
The pounding of mammoth feet pulled Joss back to the present, the noise like an orchestra composed entirely of war drums. Sur Fabian and Lord Oric appeared completely unmoved by the sound and fury, neither of them showing any reaction as the prentices guided the beasts past the gates and into the field.
Joss and Hero moved fast to circle around the herd as Drake hung back to close the barrier and bring the muster to an end. The screech of a rusted hinge, the clang of metal, and the day was done. As fieldservs and mechanoids spilled into the paddock to feed and water the herd, the prentices rode their tundra bears along the perimeter wall towards the pavilion.
For the first time, Joss noticed the tremendous ache in the small of his back, the tension that had gathered in his calves and thighs, the throbbing pain in his palms from holding both the reins and his spear so tight. He had managed to block out all of this during the muster, but now it came crashing down on him with a vengeance.
‘You all right?’ he heard a voice beside him, and looked across to see Drake staring back at him with concern.
Joss grimaced. ‘I’ll be a lot better when we find out if we passed,’ he replied, before tugging at Buckminster’s reins to keep his mount from bolting off to the left. ‘And once I’ve relieved myself of this miserable old bear!’
Buckminster grumbled, and Drake laughed. ‘From the way you handled him out there I could swear you’d been born in the Northern Tundra. You and Hero both.’
‘Born in the Northern Tundra?’ Hero said, slowing her mount to ride alongside the others. ‘Perish the thought.’
Their shared laughter was short-lived, as they soon drew rein and presented themselves for Lord Oric’s judgement. The leader of Starlight Fields, Oric looked like a tundra bear who’d broken free of the pack to try his luck at being a man. He was big and broad and bearded, his grey hair striped with white, his considerable mass loaded into a hoverchair to ease the pain of a lifetime’s worth of broken bones that had never had the chance to properly heal.
Sur Fabian stood at his right hand, curling one end of his long black moustache, while Edgar was on his left, the young prentice beaming down at Joss and the others with enthusiastic glee. One sideways glance from Lord Oric was enough to make the boy affect a more formal bearing, leaving Joss nervous about what kind of judgement was to be handed down.
Lord Oric winced as he inhaled, resettled his considerable weight, then punched a button on the illuminator beside him. The air in front of the prentices shimmered as a recording of their efforts was projected before them in colourless pixels. Joss risked a peek at the illumicamera that had tracked them through the field, squinting against the sun’s glare to spot it circling like a pterosaur on the hunt.
‘Slow start,’ Lord Oric said, drawing Joss’s attention back to the recording as it depicted him and his brethren struggling to get the herd going. ‘But you got them up to pace. Eventually.’
The playback kicked into double-speed, then triple-speed, as Lord Oric fast-forwarded through. ‘You let ’em break ranks more’n half-a-dozen times,’ he said, and again the recording landed on each occasion where the mammoths had wandered off and had to be pulled back into line.
‘But you recovered well.’ He paused the footage as a fieldserv ran up the stairs to provide Sur Fabian with a note. The paladero read it, dismissed the fieldserv, then turned to whisper in Lord Oric’s ear. The lord nodded. ‘And I’m told that the headcount is in.’
Joss tensed. So too did Drake and Hero. If a single head of livestock had been left behind, there’d be no appealing the decision. They’d be lucky to get the chance to start their training over again. Worse than that, they could be immediately sent back to their respective orders to wait for another chance to be considered as a paladero. Not that such a chance would be likely to come anytime soon, if ever.
‘Every mammoth is present and accounted for,’ said Lord Oric, and leaned back in his chair with a small facial twitch that passed for a smile. ‘Congratulations. You’ve passed the test.’
The prentices broke out in a cheer. Drake and Hero almost fell out of their saddles as they reached out
to hug each other, while Joss shared a massive grin with Edgar. Even Buckminster seemed pleased, puffing out his chest and rumbling, though given what Joss knew of the old grey bear it could just be that he was suffering from indigestion. But that didn’t change the fact they had passed, which lit up Joss’s spirits like a bonfire in the heart of winter.
Their training in the Northern Tundra was at an end. They were returning to the Kingdom of Ai’s mainland, one crucial step closer to achieving their shared dream of becoming full-fledged paladeros. But most exciting of all was what the next step involved.
They were going to Hero’s home order.
They were going to Blade’s Edge Acres.
They were going to learn how to fly.
CHAPTER THREE
A HELMET DISCARDED IN QUICKSAND
FROM the shore, the town of Stormport was little more than a wharf with a smattering of timeworn taverns and supply stores all heaped on top of each other like shipping crates. But the town didn’t end there. In the centuries since the royal fleet had first landed on its pebbled shores, Stormport’s buildings had crept up along the icy cliffs that surrounded the secluded bay, forming a vertical village that now resembled a thick crust of barnacles.
Sheltered from the easterly squalls that raged along the coastline, the townsfolk lived and worked across a network of gantries and gangplanks that were connected by rickety elevators and winding staircases. The icy wall and its mass of buildings stretched up so high that visitors to the Northern Tundra had to swap their sea legs in favour of a head for heights upon stepping from their ships, much as Joss and his brethren had done when they’d arrived in the harbour over thirteen weeks ago.
Now they were coming by wagon from the opposite direction, passing through the outskirts of town high up on the frozen shelf that overlooked the bay. Large crowds were massed at the cliff’s edge, loading their trunks and crates into massive steel cages, which served as elevator carriages that ran down the cliff face directly to the wharf.
The Edge of the World Page 1
