Dark Oak
Book One
By Jacob Sannox
Copyright © 2017 Alan O’Donoghue
All rights reserved.
Terms and Conditions:
The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, by any method, nor make copies of it, nor any part of it, to distribute freely.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
Cover by Plumstone Book Covers
Map © Arkolina – www.arkolina.com from original artwork conceived by the author and illustrated by Arkolina.
Typeset by Polgarus Studio – www.polgarusstudio.com
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
For my long-suffering parents and my sons.
Table of Contents
Map of the World
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgements
Map of the World
Also available at www.jacobsannox.com
Chapter One
This is not a story about a Dark Lord, though there was one, and his name was Awgren; there were once creatures that could be described as inherently evil, moulded at the time of the Devising; there had been black and white, good and evil, light and dark.
But Awgren was about to die. The woodcutter, however, was not – not yet.
A thousand years had passed since Awgren drove the survivors of mankind from the Old Continent, but although they had started new lives in other lands, they had never given up hope of returning home. Their descendants built their strength in secret, and as the centuries passed, Awgren paid the exiles less heed.
In time, a fire kindled in the dry grass of his complacency, and when Queen Cathryn landed her troops, Awgren found himself outmatched. The armies of mankind marched once more across the wastelands of the Old Continent. The monstrous Creatures of the Devising stood to meet them in a final battle, commanded by Awgren himself. He supplemented his army with enslaved men from the Hinterland, who were forced to fight against their own kind.
Morrick the woodcutter was one such a man.
He had spent the final days of the battle charging up and down the front line, roaring at anyone who took a step backward, hurling those who faltered back into position, and shouting ‘hold the line’ so many times that the words echoed in the cellars and back rooms of his mind until the day he eventually died.
As the lone regiment of human conscripts amongst the unruly horde of Awgren’s Devised, the men of the Hinterland had initially been positioned at the centre of the battle line, but though they had fought hard and gained ground, the same could not be said of Awgren’s troops on either side of them. The Devised were an undisciplined mob, as likely to turn on their own as to stand against their enemy, and though the Combined People, ruled over by Queen Cathryn and her consort, Lord Lachlan, were far fewer in number, their soldiers were well-armoured, regimented and hardy; their superiority began to tell.
The human cavalry harried Awgren’s flanks, throwing the lines of Devised into disarray. So it was that Awgren divided the regiment of the Hinterland and sent the two halves to the flanks, leaving the defence of the centre to his innumerable but unreliable Devised.
Morrick and his fellow pikemen saw off the horsemen, driving the points of their long pikes into any mount that charged them. As sweat dripped from their brows and their muscles began to fatigue, the men quietly hoped their opponents would be victorious; that their liberation was at hand.
Victory for humanity was close. Lord Linwood was the most powerful of the queen’s lords, and he saw not only the danger to his heavy cavalry on the flanks, but also the new weakness at the centre.
He charged into the Creatures of the Devising and decimated their ranks. Cathryn and Lachlan rallied their people and led the infantry into the chaos at the very heart of Awgren’s army. They toiled hard at their blood-work until, finally, Awgren strode to meet the queen and her consort. Together, they struck the Dark Lord down, and the Devised fell back in dismay. Pursued by the queen and her lords, they fled in all directions as they sought escape, trampling all in their way; even their slaves, the menfolk of the Hinterland.
At the exact moment Queen Cathryn’s spear pierced Awgren’s throat, Morrick was sleeping.
He awoke only when his tent collapsed, and his cot overturned, depositing him in the thick mud. Morrick rolled on to his side as the sound of roaring voices and trampling feet raged around him. His world had been reduced to darkness. He struggled to find his way out from under a press of canvas, crawling and feeling about him for his axe, but to no avail. Finally, he found the edge of the tent, and his head emerged into the dim light before the dawn.
The Creatures of the Devising were rampaging through the camp, snarling, slashing and falling over one another in a ferocious, surging retreat. The stampeding remnants of Awgren’s army crushed each other underfoot in their haste to force a path before them, and in their wide, panicked eyes, Morrick saw a glimmer of hope for himself and his people.
They’re fleeing, he thought. It’s over. We’re free.
Morrick lumbered to his feet, tottering slightly, and rather than follow his first instinct to warn off the approaching creatures with a roar, he chose instead to gather his weapons and hope not to be jostled or stabbed as the Creatures of the Devising passed him by. They had been unwilling allies for many years, but Morrick and all of the conscripts knew never to trust the Devised; a warning shout might be provocation enough for them to turn on his whole regiment. There was no time for relief at the overthrow of the Dark Lord or his new found freedom, not when Awgren’s creatures were bearing down upon his men, utterly without regard for human life.
He searched through the wreckage of his tent and found his wood-axe underneath his smashed cot. He snatched up his leather helm, glad he had slept in his breast and backplate, but left the rest of his possessions where they lay. So armed, Morrick looked about him.
His men were in similar states, either drawing themselves out from collapsed shelters or hurrying out into the open as they rubbed sleep from their weary eyes. Several were wandering aimlessly and looked at risk at being carried off in a tide of Devised. Others were trampled underfoot or cut down by the creatures as they fled.
Having spent less than a second weighing up the risks, Morrick listened to his gut. He hollered above the din of the retreat, holding his wood-axe aloft.
‘Men of the Hinterland- Stand to your arms! Form up on me! You there – form up on me!’
The closest of his men paid heed and they in turn shouted out to those further away. In the coming moments, Morrick could pick out some fifteen men in ruddy woollen tunics forcing a path through to where he stood.
‘Well done, lads,’ he said, looking at each of their faces in turn before guiding them into formation.
‘Ranks of three. Keep your weapons drawn. Audric, you’re my right-hand marker.�
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The men scurried into a block with Audric on the right of the front rank. Only two of them carried their pikes, the rest were either unarmed or carried short swords or daggers. All had followed his advice and slept in armour.
Good, he thought. Good lads.
‘Right-hand file, face the Devised,’ Morrick shouted, and Audric echoed the order, his booming voice carrying across the din. The men obeyed. Morrick moved ahead of the block.
‘Prepare to march, advancing to the front. March!’ he shouted and was once more echoed by his right-hand marker. Their feet moved as one, and the block began to advance across the face of the Devised towards the front line where the rest of the regiment had been posted. Morrick gripped his axe in both hands, looking all about him, ever watchful. As they moved, feet slipping in the mud and the salt of their sweat stinging their eyes, more stragglers joined them and swelled their numbers. The right-hand file that faced the enemy grew from five to ten men, still three-deep as they sidled onwards. Morrick stood to the lee of the block and picked another steady man.
‘You there, Elmick, go to the rear. Keep the men steady there.’
Elmick nodded and bustled into position. Thus satisfied, Morrick addressed his men as they shuffled onwards.
‘We force a path through to the front and join the rest of the regiment. Does anyone know what’s happened?’
‘No, Sergeant.’
Morrick nodded, expecting as much.
‘It looks as though the centre has broken. If so, Awgren’s army has been divided in two, and even if we aren’t killed by the Devised, we’ll shortly be surrounded by the Combined People. We must look to strength in numbers and to ourselves now. We must find the rest of the regiment. Courage now and keep your eyes about you; the Devised could turn on us at any time.’
The way was slow and treacherous; they steered a course around an upturned wagon and picked their way between Awgren’s fallen beast-riders. Morrick noted broken pikes embedded in some of the mounts. This did not bode well and he clung to the fervent hope that if his regiment had been forced to engage Awgren’s own cavalry, that they had come off better and retreated as a unified body; certainly though there were dead men at his feet, there seemed not enough to suggest utter carnage.
From where he marched on the lee side of the block, he was protected from the swarm and could watch as the horde tore onward; their filthy reek hanging in the air, joining the dank odour of the battleground and the smell of rotting flesh that seemed ever present. Mercifully, the rampaging creatures let them be and began to thin out as the block drew near to the rest of the regiment. Morrick was able to see a little better in the direction from which they had flown.
Sure enough, the enemy cavalry were driving the Devised towards them. He could see their banners flying and their helms gleaming red under the rising sun. A sea of horsemen rushed in to fill up the ground between Morrick’s side of Awgren’s army and the other, now divided and asunder. Far in the distance, Morrick knew, the other half of his regiment was isolated and in a similar predicament.
Where is Awgren?
But of the Dark Lord there was no sign. Of course, Morrick could see very little and concentrating anew, he set about the task of finding the main body of his half of the regiment. It was a great relief to see the ruddy tunics ahead of him nestled under a crown of pikes. They had charged for horse, circled around the drums, facing outwards with the points of their pikes angled to impale any approaching horses. The Devised were still paying his men little heed, but to Morrick’s dismay, he saw that the half of the regiment not fending them off were under attack. Lord Linwood’s cavalry charged towards the pikemen and slashed at their weapons as they tried to force a way through. Seeing the regiment near surrounded, Morrick’s men began to curse, sob or fall stone silent as they marched, each according to their constitution.
‘Courage now,’ he said, the words barely audible as a feeling of dread settled upon him. He could not be certain if he was reassuring the men or himself.
A cry came from the assembled regiment, and Morrick recognised a fellow sergeant standing amongst the conscripts, now just mere yards away from them.
‘Prepare to open the line and let them in!’ the sergeant cried as he waved, halberd in hand.
It was at this moment that a phalanx of Awgren’s Devised, seeing their path to escape narrowing as the two groups of men closed together, set about Morrick’s right-hand file with claw, blade and cudgel, trying to force their way through. The uproar of war was renewed with fresh screams, shouts, the shriek of iron upon iron and the sounds of butchery. Skulls smashed, bodies punctured and Morrick’s men began to fall.
‘Fall back to the regiment! Fall back!’ Morrick called, and those of his men not already facing the pikemen began to wheel, stepping backwards towards the opening gap in the line, fighting and dying as they went. Morrick ran towards Elmick who, as the farthest man out, had the longest distance to travel to safety.
He thrust his axe skyward as he reached the boy, checking the downward stroke of a Devised’s mace. Morrick threw off the weapon, pulled back his own and drove the head of it into the beast’s neck. Boiling blood spurted into his face as the axe stuck fast. The creature contorted as it stood pinned. Morrick worked the axe free and roared into the faces of his new enemy as he backed away, hewing at any who dared approach his men.
There was no call to fear the threat of the routed Devised for long. The enemy cavalry, heavily armoured and bearing the banners of the Combined People, dashed through the fleeing horde, ploughing them under from the flank as they swept around the bunched pikemen.
His block within the relative safety of the charged pikes, Morrick turned to the south to be sure that the Devised were not doubling back towards them. But as he did so, he was thrown forward by a blow to the back of his head. It sent his brain hurtling against his skull. He grunted once and blacked out before his body slid into the mud.
The feet of Awgren’s defeated army stamped him into the mud as it retreated and his face sank into the wet dark as the battle drew to a close.
And so the reign of Awgren failed upon what became known as the Field of the Scarlet Grass. Lord Lachlan and Queen Cathryn carved Awgren’s body into many pieces as he lay pierced and defenceless, struck down not merely by spear and blade, but by his own complacency in facing them alone.
Their heavy cavalry, under the command of Lord Linwood, drove the Creatures of the Devising from the field and hemmed in those that survived, to be dealt with when battle was done. Their steadfast warriors fought hard and suffered great loss as they battled those Devised who still stood their ground, amongst them monstrosities ten times the size of a man, but eventually all of Awgren’s creations were slain or, in the case of those with the capacity to do so, surrendered, throwing down their arms in realisation of defeat. Thousands of Awgren’s creatures turned from overlords to prisoners in the passing of a single hour.
Mankind stood bloodied, but triumphant.
Most of mankind.
Chapter Two
The Hinterland
A small boy found the girls on the banks of the Whiteflow; his mother and her sisters. All three were naked, partially eaten, despoiled and inexpertly hidden with a covering of sand, pebbles and dry brush.
Days later, Rowan found the small boy on the banks of the Whiteflow, dead of exposure. Then she discovered the girls.
The door to the main lodge at the centre of Northall, the Hinterland’s largest settlement, burst open, making the overseer and his companions start in their seats at the long table.
‘More dead!’ she shouted as she stormed towards them.
The overseer should have got to his feet, and the guards should have intervened, but all of them were still reeling from the force of the entrance. As they hesitated, Rowan went for them.
‘We have spoken at length, have we not?’ she railed. ‘We have come to agreements time after time. You gave your word.’ Her words rose almost to a howl, her eyes bloo
dshot from weeping.
The overseer regained some semblance of composure and got to his feet. The guards began to move, but he held up a hand towards them.
‘What’s happened?’
She reached the table and leant over it as she snarled at him.
‘Three girls dead and one wee boy, barely off the breast, and now to go under the ground. Do you know of this?’
He shook his head. The overseer’s voice came out at a higher pitch than he would have liked.
‘How?’
It was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. She propelled herself back from the table in disgust and pointed at him as she spoke.
‘There will be no more of this, I promise you.’
She strode back out of the hall, calling back to them before she went.
‘Four dead and by your hand at one remove. The Devised go. All of them. Hear me?’
‘I hear you, Rowan, but what would you have me do? My hands are tied!’ He sounded feeble as he called after her, but it was of no consequence.
She was already gone.
He sat and turned to the others around the table.
‘What do we know of this?’
The council members shook their heads in silence as they sat in thought. One of the guards cleared his throat from the shadows at the side of the hall.
‘Beg pardon, Overseer.’
The overseer looked round and saw the guard step forward.
‘Beg pardon. Not my place to say, sir. But there was some talk at the barracks this morning.’
The overseer sighed and rubbed his eyes.
‘What kind of talk?’
The guard looked nervous and he exchanged a look with one of the others, who was at first reluctant to be seen meeting his gaze.
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