Pale Kings (Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  Farden found a ladder and propped it up against the hatch. He pulled Elessi towards him, who in turn grabbed somebody else, who did the same again, until a chain of dirty hands was slowly forged. ‘Wait for me, and mind the arrows!’ Farden shouted over his shoulder. He could hear their muttering and frightened whispering. Somewhere in the darkness, a baby cried. The mage winced.

  Farden wriggled onto the deck and snatched another look over the bulwark. He swiftly ducked down again as a swarm of arrows simultaneously thudded into the side of the ship, clattering like the impatient feet of an armoured centipede. ‘Okay then,’ he said, more to himself than to the maid. The mage clenched both his armoured fists and the air shivered around them, crackling with magick. ‘Stay close,’ he said.

  Shimmering with power, Farden stood and met the arrows and slingstones head on, his thick shield spell turning the air around them into transparent steel. With clangs and screeches, the missiles ricocheted off the mage’s spell, and with every one Elessi flinched and ducked and whimpered. Farden stepped up onto the bulwark and jumped onto the other ship. Cold waves lurched and roiled beneath him, calling to him, willing him to slip and fall. Elessi followed, hating every minute. Farden met the men sword first, holding his spell until the last minute. Blood sprayed the deck as the mage slashed at them. He stamped his foot and a shockwave spread across the deck, shattering planks and hatch covers alike. The deck became a splintered canyon, and the remaining men, twenty or so, fell dazed into the cavernous hold below, where they met the revenge-hungry hands of the people below. Farden watched as they were literally pulled apart limb from limb, battered by countless fists and strangled by countless fingers. More arrows hissed through the air. One caught him on the leg, glancing off his shining greaves and ripping a wide hole through his cloak, while the rest met another of his shield spells and rebounded harmlessly, littering the broken deck like autumn leaves. A few spells flew at him, thrown wildly by a handful of mages on another of the ships, and they too bounced off his protective wall of magick. But Farden’s head was beginning to throb from the concentration. Magick pounded in his veins. Behind him, he heard the sound of splashing as people began to jump from the first ship, hungry for freedom. Farden hoped they would be safe on the shore.

  But then, he heard a sound he did not want to hear.

  The sound of beating wings.

  The sound of dragons.

  Farden looked up and his heart sank for the second time in as many minutes. A huge contingent of glittering dragons were tumbling out of the sky, as deadly and as sharp as falling swords. Before Farden could do anything, they fell upon the last ship in the line. Fire sprayed from their jaws as bowstrings yelped and ballista arms clapped. Three dragons fell into the water, their armour crushed and pierced by heavy ballista bolts, while the others rained fire on the ship’s sails and wooden, tar-painted decks. The attack was over in a blur of flame and noise, and the following explosion was so large it surprised even the dragons.

  Farden simply stood aghast.

  The billowing ball of flame burst orange and blinding into the sky, ripping the ship completely in half and swallowing the sails as if they were mere scraps of parchment. The screaming of the splitting wood and the people was deafening. Sails dissolved like burning hair. The masts and rigging snapped like the strings of a tortured harp. Suddenly it was no longer a ship but a roaring and hissing ribcage of black wood. Black bodies rolled with the waves; tar-stained bones and burnt skin, soaked in seawater and sewage and oil. Nothing and nobody had escaped the fireball. Elessi covered her mouth and nose. Farden shouted and yelled at the top of his lungs at the dragons but he was nothing over the noise of the waves and the fire. The soldiers on the other ships, smiling grimly at their success, wound the handles of the ballistas and nocked more arrows to their bows, caring little for their burnt comrades.

  ‘Move!’ Farden snarled at the gawping people climbing out of the hold. They didn’t, and he barged them aside all the same. The mage ran to the stern and threw a fireball high into the sky, hoping the dragons would take notice. They didn’t, and the mage could see them swarming and circling, getting ready to dive again. More were on the way. An arrow flashed past his face and cut a line across his bloody scalp. Farden ignored it and continued frantically waving his hands in pure desperation. He was out of ideas.

  ‘Farden, do something!’ shrieked Elessi, eyes still clamped onto the burning shell of a ship.

  ‘They can’t see us!’ he yelled back. And then it happened again: the dragons began to dive. Farden howled and screamed and bellowed and shouted to no avail.

  Suddenly a dark shape flew out of nowhere and skimmed over the mage’s head, so close he felt its claws brush his hair. The soldiers on the adjacent ships went wild, yelling and pointing at it, and desperately tried to shoot the thing down before it got any closer.

  But the dark shape wasn’t interested in the ships.

  Instead, Ilios met the dragons head on. He whistled and shrieked at them and instantly the dragons changed their tack. It was not a moment too soon. The dragons, flying dangerously low and incredibly fast, flared their wings at the very last available second, ripping the sails and rigging apart with their claws as they thundered overhead. One unfortunate dragon plummeted straight into the water, while a handful more crashed into the ships themselves, flattening men and ballistas alike and snapping masts and bulwarks with their pained thrashing. Shouts and cries of dismay joined the roaring flames of the dying ship while the trumpeting of the dragons drowned it all.

  Farden leapt from ship to ship and swung his sword like a wild man. Green light shimmered in his spare hand and the sounds of cracking armour and bones joined the cacophonous din. Ilios was there in the middle of the fray as well; wings arched, fearsome beak ripping skin from bone, strong claws breaking bows and spears in half. The tide had turned.

  It didn’t take long for the remaining soldiers to fall to their knees and cry out for mercy. At first Farden wasn’t inclined to give it to them, and the first three he came across found a sword in their windpipe, or a shimmering green fist inside their skulls. Elessi shouted to him, and he relented. The mage let the red mist in his eyes die away and he slowly sheathed his sword.

  A lithe green dragon flew close and hovered in the air above Farden. Glassthorn and his rider, Reyk, were bleeding from countless arrow cuts and scrapes.

  ‘We had no idea!’ began the dragon, staring at the people crawling up out of the bowels of the ships, but the mage held up a hand.

  ‘There’s no time for that,’ he said. ‘Where’s Farfallen, or Tyrfing?’

  Reyk jabbed a spear at the city. ‘North, at the gates, helping our army breach the wall,’ she informed him, briskly and breathlessly.

  Farden nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘If you see my uncle, tell him I went after Vice.’

  Glassthorn was incredulous. ‘But you cannot go alone, remember what your uncle said…’

  Farden glared at the dragon. ‘It’s about fucking time somebody listened to me for a change!’ he snapped. ‘Tell him, or don’t tell him, it’s up to you. I have a halfbreed to kill.’ And a princess and child to find.

  ‘So be it,’ Glassthorn replied, turning away to follow the others. Farden growled. Beside him Ilios clacked his beak and looked on disapprovingly, as if he knew what the mage was thinking. Even so, he knelt down so Farden could climb onto his back. The mage patted his feathers.

  ‘Where are you going?’ came a shout from behind. Farden turned to see Elessi clambering over the fallen rigging, eyeing the dead bodies around her.

  Farden did not lie. ‘You know what I have to do,’ he said quietly.

  Elessi shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. But whatever it is, you’re going to do it, and I hope that for a change, it’s the right thing.’

  Farden looked around. Everywhere he looked, dishevelled people were climbing out of hatches or standing nervously on the swaying decks, staring wide-eyed at the smoking carnage. He recalled the night th
e Spire had burnt down, and the cold numbness he had felt then. Sometimes, in anaesthetised moments like these, all people needed was for someone to point them in the right direction, to shake some life back into them. Farden pointed at them. ‘I need you to stay here, and help these people to the shore. They need someone like you, Elessi.’

  Elessi shrugged. ‘At least somebody does,’ she said, and turned her back on him. The mage watched her help an old man to his feet before sighing and climbing onto the gryphon’s back.

  ‘Take me to the Arkathedral,’ muttered the mage.

  In the end, the screaming had died away. There was no longer any reason to scream. Blood painted the sheets a disturbing red, and in between the rolling hills of cotton-white and crimson creases, a princess lay dazed and weak, and empty. Her skin, a pale colour akin to the pillows that supported her head, was drenched and glistening with sweat. A nightdress, rumpled and soaked, lay around her waist; Cheska was too tired to pull it down, too preoccupied to be self-conscious. A gaggle of nervous maids stood in the corner, their job now done. They held their bloodied towels like shields. Some goggled at the war outside the cracked window with frightened expressions, the rest gazed at the pink bundle in the seer’s arms. They didn’t dare whisper. They didn’t dare move.

  Vice stood like a marble effigy of himself. Only his hazel eyes moved, and moved they did. They roved over the tiny body before him with an avaricious hunger. Lilith crouched between the princess’s legs. Carefully, she folded the towel around the little thing, supporting its hairless head, and with her free hand took Elessi’s little dagger from her pocket. It glowed even in the light. With a flick of her wrist, she cut the twisted purple cord that stretched from the baby’s navel to her mother. Cheska didn’t know it, but that was the last time they would ever touch.

  ‘Give her to me,’ said Vice. His sudden voice was loud against the awkward silence of the princess’s room. The seer stood and as careful as could be she handed the little bundle of towels to the Arkmage. He took it so tenderly that for a moment he looked like a different person. Gentleness was as foreign to him as fire was to ice, yet here he was, holding the newborn as if it could crumble at any moment.

  ‘A girl,’ spoke the seer.

  ‘And a strong one at that,’ replied Vice, feeling the child’s legs and arms between finger and thumb. The child opened her eyes and saw the Arkmage staring down with hungry, varnished eyes, and she stared straight back with a calm pair of piercing blue-green ones, like two glass marbles glittering in the torchlight. Vice took a moment to stare into them, as if mentally imparting instructions to the child, and then held her out so the seer could take her back. She took her gently, and held her against her neck, wrapping her tightly in the towels.

  ‘You know what to do,’ said Vice, to Lilith still staring at the child as if he were speaking to her instead.

  The woman nodded and smiled a strange smile. ‘I do,’ she said.

  On the bed, Cheska coughed hoarsely. ‘I want to hold her,’ she croaked. Vice ignored her, while the seer fixed her with a narrowed look. ‘Please,’ begged the princess, holding out a weak and shaky hand. ‘Let me see her.’

  ‘No,’ said Vice, coldly. ‘You’ve already done your part.’

  ‘Give her to me!’ Her voice cracked as she moved to sit up, but she was too weak. Her eyes were frantic. Vice ushered Lilith and the newborn towards the door. He whispered orders in her ear. ‘Make sure you use the back roads. Head north like we discussed and wait for me in Gordheim…’ he hissed. He opened the door and found a sweaty, heavily-breathing Agfrey standing in the corridor with two Written and two soldiers. The four men were helmeted and armoured and carrying heavy packs on their shoulders. The only things visible through the slits of their steel visors were their impassive eyes. The group of maids quickly slid past Vice and Lilith, mumbling their apologies, and ran back to their rooms.

  ‘About time,’ Vice spat at Agfrey.

  The Skölgard general bowed. ‘The gates, your Mage, they’re under siege.’

  ‘I am aware of the situation, you incompetent fool. I have eyes,’ he replied.

  Agfrey puffed out her chest. ‘But the Sirens, Arkmage, there are many more than we had anticipated…’

  ‘Well, after you have escorted this woman and this child safely out of the Arkathedral, then you can go and take care of them, can’t you?’ replied the Arkmage, sarcastically silky and dangerous in his tones. Another hoarse shout came from behind them, but once again Vice ignored it.

  ‘Vice! Give me my baby!’

  Agfrey looked to the tall, dark-haired woman and abruptly realised what she was carrying. She nodded eagerly and bowed again. ‘Yes your Mage, of course. We must hurry.’

  ‘That we must,’ said Lilith, in her own snaky voice.

  ‘And where is Modren?’ inquired Vice.

  Agfrey could only shrug. She was preoccupied with staring at the child. Vice swore.

  ‘So be it,’ he said, as a deep boom echoed through the Arkathedral. ‘It is time you left,’ he said to the seer, but before she turned to leave Vice grabbed her thin, withered arm and breathed in her ear. ‘Don’t let me down, Lilith. You hold everything in your hands, everything, do you understand me?’

  She nodded slowly and smiled. ‘Completely.’

  ‘Vice!’ came another shout.

  ‘Then I shall see you in three days,’ he said, staring once more into the child’s eyes. She looked back at him with her marble eyes, and didn’t make a sound. Lilith walked away, cradling her against her shoulder. The four men surrounded her and together with Agfrey they marched down the dimly-lit corridor and disappeared from Vice’s view.

  A loud wail came from behind him, and he turned to see Cheska writhing frantically on the bloodstained bed. ‘Where’s my baby, Vice?’ Cheska screamed at the open door and at the tall man standing in its arch. His nonchalant face filled her with rage. He looked down the corridor and smiled.

  ‘Safe,’ he said quietly.

  Cheska shrieked and flailed like a woman possessed. ‘You snake! You lying bastard, I hope you die! I hope that army marches in here and cuts you to pieces! You’re the son of a slave whore, Vice, you’re a treacherous bastard… I hope I get to watch when they string you from the walls by your heels and leave you to bleed!’ Cheska spat. ‘And, and you know what? I hope that Farden finds you first, you…you scheming piece of worthless shit!’

  Vice turned back and looked down at the princess swearing and spitting at him. Her face, now flecked and blushed with colour, was contorted with fury. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess. He watched as she tried ineffectively to grab at his robes and drag him closer, the key tattoos on her wrists momentarily fluttering into life, too weak to be dangerous. The look in her eyes would have melted a lesser man, yet they hid a crystalline, hopeless, fragility. Deep down, Cheska already knew she was dying. ‘I wish I could see the look on your face when Farden rips you in half…’ she breathed, venomously. ‘Give my daughter back, you bastard.’

  Vice looked down at the blood drying on her legs and stomach, and at the fresh blood still leaking out of her. Vice wondered if he should put her out of her misery. But he only smiled. ‘She was never yours to begin with,’ he said, and with that, he closed the door behind him. He spread his hand over the wood and inlayed silver. The door flinched and swelled, and stuck fast.

  Had Vice not locked the door, and instead spared a moment to go to the window and look out over his city, he would have seen a chaotic canvas spread before him, a vast artwork painted with reds and greys and yellows, etched with black shadow and glistering steel.

  To the north the fields between the city and its walls were awash with a metallic grey; the fighting there raged like a fever. Bright fire splashed the thick walls as winged streaks of colour swooped in and out, every now and again falling and crashing to the ground with a burst of flame and a muted roar. Reality shimmered like no paint ever could. Vice would have smiled as he watched his seemingly-endless forces f
low from the city like tributaries to some great river and drive back the invaders. He would have squinted at the motley crowds of soldiers clamouring to break his city, at the colours of their foreign flags.

  To the south, the waves of the port were a dull green and a cobalt grey. A dozen huge ships fought for space as they made for the harbour’s mouth. Their sails were dirty squares of white. An explosion, a sudden smear of yellow and orange flame, momentarily bespattered the scene. A cloud of pitch-black smoke followed in its wake. There were black specks in the water.

  Above he would have spied dragons pirouetting in and out of the low clouds. Here and there, the dawn light caught a section of armour, or a sword blade perhaps, or a frosted roof-tile, and the city sparkled like it hadn’t in months. Viewed from high above it was almost serene. Vice would have surveyed it like an admirer gazing at a fresh, wet portrait, and smiled.

  And if Vice had looked down, past the crowded parapets and the sheer marble of his fortress, he might have glimpsed a small force of bedraggled men sneaking through the streets towards the Arkathedral.

  But he didn’t.

  Modren crouched behind a barrel. The centre of the city was disturbingly empty. Wary, he looked at the tall buildings leaning over them. There was a clatter as an arrow tumbled down from the sky and became lodged in a lofty drainpipe. Modren frowned. Someone tapped him on the back. He turned to find Olger crouching behind him, a wicked looking kitchen knife in his hands.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.

  ‘North,’ said Modren, ‘or in there,’ he added, pointing to the end of the long street, where the walls of the Arkathedral rose out of the cobbles. Squinting in the dim dawn light, the men stared up at the lofty turrets and parapets. They could see nothing at first, but the longer they stared, the more apparent it became: the fortress bristled with soldiers. They crouched behind the battlements, quiet and still, blades low and waiting. The huge gates at the base of the fortress were tightly locked and barred, and behind a makeshift barricade of stone and broken carts stood a large contingent of Written. They patrolled its perimeter, armoured and ready. Even from that distance, Modren could feel their magick swimming through the air like a current, shivering, pulsating, making his blood tingle. The others, thankfully, were oblivious to it.