by Colin Taber
One of those guards stood at the mighty oak doors of Saint Silva’s Cathedral, which rose to tower solid and strong as the largest church in all the lands of the Heletian League. To be offered such a watch saw him, like all his family, filled with pride, for he was a man of faith who could see no greater honour than serving at the very heart of the wide and prosperous Heletian world.
And so it was, as he stood his watch, he noted the passing of the royal carriage flying a silken crest as it passed into the gatehouse of the Holy Benefice’s Red Palace across the square.
It was unusual for King Giovanni to be seen at Benefice Verrochio’s own seat of power, even more so at such an early hour. But times had become strange, even at the heart of the Heletian League, ever since Ossard had fallen.
There was talk of threats from the High King of Lae Wair-Rae, yet those lands were so far off, so exotic, it was hard to believe that they were more than legend, let alone capable of delivering war. Besides, it wouldn’t come to that; amongst all the rumours circulating, it was clear that the Inquisition had sent a powerful force to take back the wayward city. It was for word of how that campaign had gone that the city now waited.
Thunder cracked above, it hard, sudden and setting babes to cry as dogs barked and howled. The very air seemed to come alive and buzz with fury, yet with it came only the briefest flash of lightning.
The guard started at the sound, cursing himself, but took solace in seeing others likewise disturbed across the square. That was when something wet struck his face.
Rain?
He tilted his head back to look up, and as he did another drop hit his cheek. He reached to wipe at the wetness, his fingers coming away red.
It was blood.
He stepped away from the cathedral’s grand doors, looking up past the high eaves. As he did, one of the towers that crowned the building came into view.
His jaw slackened, as he stumbled back to fall to his knees. Silent at first, his eyes bulged in horror, until he finally found his voice, cursed, and then called the alarm.
-
King Giovanni paced with irritation in the Holy Benefice’s library, the old man who hosted him sitting down in an upholstered chair with a blanket over his knees. Finally, the King said, “Why can’t we just get a word of truth?”
“As to their fate; maybe it hasn’t yet been decided?”
King Giovanni turned and scowled at the old man, “They’ve had time to arrive and take back the forsaken city – and send word! But we’ve had nothing! Nothing! And the whole city seems to know, despite my express wishes that the Lae Velsanans’ threat and the fall of Ossard remain a secret!”
“Some things were never meant to remain secret.”
King Giovanni stopped his pacing, instead gazing coldly at the old man. “Did you feed the rumour mill? For if it was you, I’ll see that you’re...”
“Don’t bother with your threats. I’m too old to care.”
The King cursed, and then sighed. He tried again. “But why no word? They’ve had time, why is there nothing but silence from the north?”
Thunder sounded outside, cracking hard and sharp.
A moment later, the door opened to the library, revealing a tall hooded figure robed in velvets of green and blue. The figure came forward without invitation, seeing the King scowl afresh as he growled, “How dare you interrupt!”
The figure stopped and pulled back his hood to reveal blonde hair and blue eyes, all about a face of fine features, but not those of a middling man. Pointed ears were the most obvious difference; it was a Lae Velsanan. “I am Forwao, the Chronicle of Yamere, and carry news of Ossard: Will you hear it?”
Outside, a lone scream sounded, along with a rising chorus of panicked calls.
King Giovanni’s face paled, as had Verrochio’s. Finally, the King said, “Give it then, for good or ill?”
“Your force returns, on this, the first day of spring.”
Both Verrochio and King Giovanni tensed, but it was the rising Benefice who asked, “Where are they?”
Forwao walked to the window, one that had been shuttered against the night. With a flick of the latch, he swung them open. “Behold, your force has failed.”
Across the square loomed the towers of the cathedral, each topped with a spire. On each of those spires, and on so many others of the city’s grand buildings, figures lay impaled. Dark blood ran to stain the stonework. Even from a distance, it could be seen that the impaled figures wore the black robes of the Inquisition or punctured armour of the Sankto Glavos.
“By Krienta!” whispered King Giovanni, as he came forward to take in the ghastly view.
The Benefice also stepped up to the window, speechless.
Each spire held a figure, usually skewered through the chest. Some held two. Down in the streets below, more and more people came, many screaming, crying or wailing; some ran away as they gave themselves to madness.
Forwao spoke again, “Your chance to take Ossard has passed and you have failed. Lae Wair-Rae will now move to claim the blighted city. I have been told to convey this message from High King Caermarou: Do not get in the way of our campaign, for if you do, it will not stop at the Northcountry, but march down the Sidian Valley to take your throne. War has come to Dormetia.”
With his message delivered, he turned and left.
Benefice Verocchio and King Giovanni turned back to the view at hand, both watching as a priest and one of the Virta Garda on Saint Silva’s roof tried to aid a figure stuck on one of the lower spires. The poor bastard was still moving.
-
Inquisitor Baltimora knew he was dying, somehow back in Holy Baimiopia, with a mortal wound that had impossibly pierced through his ribs and the flesh of his chest. He was high up, caught on a spire, with his limbs flailing weakly in the open air. The pain faded quickly, giving way to a cold numbness as his lifeblood leaked away.
Just as the damned witch had foreseen!
Birds flew about, and in particular a black crow that seemed completely unafraid. The bird circled again before landing on his shoulder, from where it looked him straight in the eye. Its beak loomed sharp and ominous.
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The End
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Continue the adventure in the next few pages!
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Ossard’s Shadow
Ossard’s Shadow
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Book Three
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The Ossard Series
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By Colin Taber
The Truths of the World
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Three races of man separated by the ages;
The high, the Lae Velsanans;
the numerous common-men of the middling nations;
and the lowly Saldaens.
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Three branches of magic, each with a league to control them;
Mind, governed by the women of the forbidden Sisterhood;
Soul, wielded by the priesthoods of the faiths;
and Heart, regulated by the Cabal of Mages.
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Three realms of existence;
Ours of soil;
the Celestial of souls, gods, and magic;
and the Elemental.
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Three stages of godhood;
Avatars, seeds within mortal shells;
the New-Born, awakened gods upon our world;
and the Elevated, those matured and raptured to the next.
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And all in a world forged by the goddess, Life,
in partnership with her husband, Death.
Yet now they are estranged and waging divine war,
a war that promises doom for us all.
Maps: The City-State of Ossard
Maps: Northern Dormetia (west)
Maps: Northern Dormetia (east)
Maps: Ossard & The Northcountry
Maps: Fletland & The Ruins (Kalraith)
A Prelude In Two Parts
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Part I: The Horn Of An
silsae
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Yamere, The Core, The Fifth And Final Dominon of Lae Wair-Rae.
Forwao the Chronicle stepped into the chilly chaos of the vortex, its opening woven of everything celestial – raw magic and the souls of both the living and dead. When he emerged from its dark, blue-streaked and swirling mouth, his first boot found not just the refined grandeur of the Lae Velsanan capital but also the Fifth and Final Dominion’s most important pillar-tower. He had arrived on the grounds of the Pasinotis, home of the Most High Royal Household.
This was the very heart of the grand and glorious Lae Velsanan reality.
He’d alighted on the main tower’s broad roof and now stood in its famed roof garden, where elemental magic protected the space from wind and let the green oasis prosper over three hundred paces above the pillar-city’s streets. From the roof’s confines of marble paved walkways, raised garden beds, hedges, small groves and ponds, a fortunate guest could look down upon the lake-crossing metropolis to see roads and bridges joining smaller, tower-studded islets that formed something resembling a god's creation of divine lacework.
Today, in all of Dormetia, and even the wider world of Unae, the pillar-city of Yamere stood with no peer.
The contrast from where he’d just come couldn't have been more stark – from the Heletians’ rough and archaic hand-worked city of stone and wood, their Holy Baimiopia, to the elemental lines of towering and magnificent Yamere.
One city was of a darker mindset, marked by ignorance, fear and mortality, reeking of death and racing time. However, this monumental city was towered in knowledge and enriched in refinement and pride. Also, if Forwao was to be honest, it was permeated with arrogance, a characteristic having its own stench as ripe as any un-sewered slum found in even the most depraved of the Heletian League’s teeming cities.
Despite such thoughts, perhaps born of a whimsy brought on by the vertigo-inducing celestial passage, Forwao knew High King Caemarou waited nearby. He, the Chronicle, was to arrive at sunrise.
Forwao planted both his boots on the roof garden’s marble under the new day’s growing light. The sun was only moments away from cresting the eastern horizon.
He took a deep breath as he refocussed, the chill of the vortex ebbing at his back just as the drifting vapours haunting the portal’s dark mouth faded. With a nod to himself and a handful of passed heartbeats since his arrival, he was ready.
It was time to get on with his duties.
The Chronicle began to stride forward.
The path ran ahead, branching off to other rooftop garden rooms that filled the tower’s levelled peak. He didn’t veer. Forwao needed only go forward this morning to deliver his news.
And then witness what would be set in motion.
A small dais sat where the path broadened at its end, presenting the beautifully carved and upholstered throne of rosewood and red leather that held its royal load – High King Caemarou. The sovereign waited with a long and expectant face, his piercing grey eyes watching, with his dark hair falling to his shoulders under a golden circlet, and his lean body robed in gold and deep blue.
Two majestic golden oaks flanked the dais. The spreading trees would normally shade the space, but now, as the sun began to crest on the horizon, their yellow leaves only hosted slanting rays at the tops of their crowns.
Three advisors stood beside the dais, on the High King’s left. Despite how they tried to hide it with facades of grim anticipation, the silk clad coterie looked tired and even a little bored.
Forwao suppressed a smile as he looked at them, fops and sycophants all. They must be endured because of family connections, blood alliances and debts.
Even the Fifth and Final Dominion’s High King could owe monies.
At the High King’s other side stood a line-up of real power – High Queen Caree, once of House Jenn and aunt of the young naval officer, Felmaradis; the ancient mage Lae Corster, the head of the Lae Wair-Rae branch of the Cabal of Mages; and the head of the Kinreda, the Five Faiths of the Lae Velsanans. This was the true might of the Dominion, its institutional power.
And today, the High King would wield his authority and exercise that power in a way the world only witnessed a few times a century.
At the marble's edge, beyond the advisors, spread a dozen attendants and an honour guard of six of the Lae Velsanans’ own celestially capable knighted priests, the Silvan Guard. These guardsmen stood tall, armed and armoured, their burnished mail dark but highlighted where it gathered the growing light of the new day. The guards exuded a magnetic presence with their powerful physiques but also something much more menacing, as if their souls and celestial talents tugged at the very fabric of the world.
Between two of them was a long and ancient wooden chest, carved and worn. Within lay the means to unleash doom, one that had already wasted a hundred cities, few since re-built, but most abandoned and all but forgotten.
And today, perhaps, Ossard would be added to that litany.
Forwao approached, all eyes on him as he neared. He came to a stop five paces away from the High King, looking up to meet his gaze as the cresting sun’s rich light crept down through the golden oaks’ crowns and into their lower branches.
The High King didn’t wait on formality, as he knew Forwao owed his loyalty elsewhere, courtesy of his divinely appointed office.
The Chronicle was answerable only to the gods in his task of recording history.
Contests born of arguments over whether the High King and Chronicle followed correct etiquette or not often ended in royal disappointment. Besides, the High King was anxious, for today was a day when they would put great plans into motion, plans that yet again would confirm the supremacy of the rising Fifth and Final Dominion.
With an arch of an eyebrow, he asked, “So, Chronicle, you have been to their dour city?”
“Yes, my High King.”
Caemarou offered an impatient frown. “And?”
“My High King, they are both stunned at the turn of events in the city-state of Ossard and terrified at what it means. I spoke both to King Giovanni of Greater Baimiopia and His Most Holy Benefice Vincenzo of the Church of Baimiopia. And, I delivered your warning in the latter's Red Palace.”
Slowly, above, the dawn sunlight crept lower through the leaves of the oaks, bringing a golden glow to the meeting.
“And?”
“They listened and did not protest. They were in a state of shock and had little to say.”
“They will not interfere?”
“My High King, when I left their city, the core of their Inquisition was impaled on the city’s spires. Aside from foot soldiers, militiamen and an army of peasants, they have little else to throw at Ossard or any force you may wish to send to take the blighted city. Their only strength is raw numbers, but most of it is unskilled and undisciplined in the ways of battle.”
High King Caemarou sat back for a moment before his face came to wear a grin. Above him, the golden light of sunrise crept further down the trees’ thick limbs, finally reaching the two oaks’ huge trunks. He leaned forward and stood, and as he did, the top of his circlet shone as it met the new day’s light.
Forwao gave a nod; it was just as he had foreseen.
The High King took a deep breath and then voiced his command, “Convene the Military Council. The time has come for them to present their favoured plans. Soon, we will be on our way to take the fallen city. Once done, we will raise it anew. Today, backed by the song of the Horn of Ansilsae, I proclaim that we will take Ossard, re-fashion it and raise it anew. I name our coming colony Lae Ossard, that is New Ossard, and declare that it will be part of the Fifth and Final Dominion!”
Those around him looked on in agreement, his High Queen giving a nod of assent, although it wasn’t required. She then called out to the attendants, “Bring forth the horn!”
Two of the attendants hurried across to the carved chest, although both of them tried to shrink away as they neared the Silvan Guards. They lifted
the long chest by its iron handles and brought it forward, putting its weight down again on the marble slabs between Forwao and the foot of the High King’s dais.
Forwao stepped back.
The High Queen commanded, “Open it.”
The attendants unlatched it and opened the heavy case, swinging the solid lid back to reveal the long silver horn within.
The horn bore fine engravings along the considerable length of the instrument, running from the narrow mouthpiece at the top then hooking sharply around, gradually widening as it ran along all three paces at a gradual bend. The silver finally found its end, but not before it curved back upwards and widened into a flare. Aside from the engraving, the horn held no decoration other than a mounted naskae, which sat in a small silver frame a third of the way along its length.
While highly polished, small dents showed on the ancient instrument, indicating the horn had not only been stored in a sturdy case nursed by velvet but had been sounded over the churned and bloody mud of battlefields, rallying armies to unleash the horrors of war. This horn had sung out not only the passage of years or centuries, but of entire ages, calling out to sing both their beginnings and, all too often, their ends.
The Horn of Ansilsae had announced the fall of cities and the rise of dominions and cried out the last sound millions had heard at the moment of their deaths.
The High King commanded, “Captain, make it sing!”
Five Silvan Guardsmen, still and silent in their ominous magnificence, all turned in unison to face the horn but otherwise didn’t move. Instead, they watched as their captain stepped forward and went to the case.
