by Sam Bowring
Battu’s body remained where he’d left it, gazing out the window over Fenvarrow, and for a moment he stared himself in the face. Then he drained into himself, like water filling a bottle, until he was contained in his own flesh. It always seemed a little tight after travelling as a flowing shadow.
He was a large man, broad of chest, with a head that seemed too big for his body. Silken black hair hung from a flat skull, down past his ears and longer at the back. His broad nose sat above thick pale lips, and his eyes were tiny creased pits. A dark cloak billowed around him, its movement independent of any breeze. It seemed to meld with the shadows, the edges of the cloth indistinct and shifting. He blinked his earthly eyes, feeling again the cold breeze that came through the window, leaving the ledge shiny with a coat of condensation.
Battu hadn’t returned for the use of his own eyes, however. It was Fazel’s gaze he sought, the one undead created by Assidax who remained under Shadowdreamer control.
Assidax, a powerful necromancer, had cut further into Kainordas than any before her. She had been able to animate undead legions from bloody battlefields even as the fighting continued. Every death fed her army, tipping the balance inexorably towards a shadow victory. Battu had seen glimpses of those battles in the shadowdream – Kainordas soldiers frozen in terror as their once-comrades rose from the earth as new opponents. As land had fallen under Assidax’s control, the Cloud had grown to cover it. She had aimed to cover all Kainordas, but had made it only as far as Kahlay. In a desperate push the Kainordans had beat her back, and at the end of her reign, Fenvarrow was no larger than at the beginning. Remnants of her necromancy still remained, undead creatures over whom control had been lost.
When Battu had received his orders from the gods, he had put together special strike squads to move around Fenvarrow destroying undead wherever they found them. It seemed the gods preferred to add these souls to the Great Well than to leave them wandering about trapped in bones. The only ones Battu had left untouched were those pathetic souls on the border, for they made the Kainordans fear to cross.
Fazel, the mage, also remained, for he was unique amongst the creatures Assidax had created. She’d tied his soul to the throne Refectu, bound it with twines of shadow, enslaving him to whomever sat there. It was well that, in this at least, Assidax had shown foresight. Fazel made for a most powerful minion.
Now, Fazel had a bug-eye implanted in his skull, a magical parasite through which Battu could see what Fazel saw. Battu regularly put them into his servants, or sent them flitting randomly into Kainordas in the hope that they would find an unknowing and useful host. The bug-eyes were bred in vats deep in Skygrip, and Battu was never satisfied with how many he created. He sought always to widen his network of spies, willing or otherwise.
One of his eyes unfocused as its vision was replaced by what Fazel saw in Whisperwood, far to the north. The undead mage was plodding at his usual pace. He never made any more effort than necessary in carrying out his instructions, and seeing what Fazel saw usually served only to frustrate Battu. Fazel’s hood hung low and he looked at nothing but the ground in front of him. Sometimes Battu had to watch for hours before Fazel would glance up. He was sure the mage seized upon every small rebellion that the strict confines of his servitude allowed. Fortunately, he did not have to wait long this time before Fazel raised his eye.
The two goblins – Tyrellan and the other one – were walking through trees ahead. Just visible through the driving rain and dense foliage was a light. Battu saw it for only a moment before Fazel’s gaze became downcast once more. It was long enough for Battu to learn what he wanted. His minions in Whisperwood were drawing close to the prize.
•
‘Curse this rain!’ growled Dakur. ‘I can’t see a damned thing!’
‘We’re still west of the path, aren’t we?’ said Elessa. ‘We must be close, unless that healer got his directions wrong. Or maybe he “tested” some of his herbs and imagined the whole thing.’
Dakur smiled to himself. He knew Elessa must be terrified – the soft-faced girl had only just finished her training a few months ago and, while she was a talented mage, she had little real experience. Yet here she stood in much-feared Whisperwood, dress soaked through, hair slick against her skin, brave-faced and determined.
He cast his eyes about. ‘I can’t tell. It’s darker than an Ebon’s arsehole out here.’
Elessa bit her lip. ‘We’re running out of time, I think. We must hurry.’ Then she blinked. ‘Dakur!’
‘What?’
‘I saw something. A light! Just for a moment, but I saw it! Come on!’
She ran off ahead, and a moment later he saw it too, twinkling through the trees. The wind picked up, prickling him with leaves and twigs, making him shiver. There was something of presence about it, and Dakur felt like an intruder discovered.
‘Infernal forest,’ he muttered to himself and hurried to catch up to Elessa.
The wind passed on.
•
Corlas went to his son, who was sitting up in the cot looking troubled.
‘Don’t fret, little man,’ he said. ‘It’s only a storm. We’re safe in here tonight.’
His eyes came to rest on Mirrow’s pendant, lying atop the table. She’d taken it off, along with everything else, for the birth. She’d wanted to have the child outside, before the trees, but when the trouble began he’d moved her back into comfort and warmth. He wondered now if he should have moved her at all, and the thought twisted painfully in his gut.
The pendant hung on a chain of black gold and was the size and shape of a small rock. What was remarkable was the strange pattern that shifted about its surface, a coalescence of greys, blues, black and white, tinges of orange and yellow. It was not colour so much as light, shining from within the stone. The Lady had given it to Mirrow when she’d been small, and she’d worn it every day he’d known her.
‘Here, little man,’ said Corlas, slipping the chain around the boy’s neck. The boy held up the stone for inspection and was instantly entranced. ‘Bit long on you now, eh? You’ll grow into it. Now you’ll always carry something of your mother with you.’
There was a knock on the door.
Corlas was so startled he almost jumped. Of those few strange souls who dwelled in the wood, none would come calling in a storm like this. Quickly he took his axe down off the wall.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘Representatives of the Open Halls!’
An old worry, long forgotten, slammed to the front of his brain. Surely they couldn’t have tracked him down here? Surely they didn’t care enough about one man’s desertion after all this time had passed?
Maybe they were lying.
‘Go to the window!’ Corlas shouted, pulling back the curtain.
Two bedraggled forms appeared beyond the rivulets of rain: a woman in a white dress with hair plastered to her scalp, and a man with a sheathed sword wearing the badge of a blade. They were telling the truth, it seemed, but why were they here? If it was him they had come for …
Still holding the axe, he unbolted the door and stepped backwards. It banged open in the wind, sending rain flying into the hut. The woman and man ducked inside, obviously relieved to be out of the storm.
Corlas gestured at the fire. ‘Warm yourselves,’ he growled.
The two moved to the fire, but the woman seemed anxious and kept sending glances at his son. Corlas did not much care for the scrutiny in her eyes.
‘Why are you here?’ he demanded. ‘Have you wandered from the path?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman. ‘But with a purpose. My name is Elessa Lanclara and I’m a mage of the Halls. This is my personal guard, Dakur.’
Dakur nodded.
‘Why do you come to my home?’ said Corlas. ‘We do not tend to get travellers through these parts. At all.’
Elessa glanced at Dakur, who was matching Corlas’s stony expression. ‘Would you mind if I looked at your newborn?’ she asked.
> ‘Indeed I would,’ said Corlas, knuckles whitening on the axe. In truth, he hoped he would end up trusting this Elessa enough to let her inspect the baby. There was something strange about him, and she was a mage …as well as a woman. ‘Your purpose first,’ he counter-offered.
Impatience crossed Elessa’s face. ‘We’re in danger here,’ she blurted. ‘All of us. The child especially.’
‘What?’
‘The Shadowdreamer seeks your child. His forces approach even as we speak. We must move from here, now!’
Corlas rolled his massive shoulders. ‘I have heard tales less wild that turned out untrue,’ he said. ‘And if any shadow creature tries to harm my boy, it will feel my axe just the same as you.’
‘You fool!’ hissed Dakur. ‘Can you not see what your child is?’
Corlas glanced at the cot. The boy was staring through the bars with wide eyes.
‘Untrusting of you, I think, like his old man,’ Corlas replied.
‘Have you never heard the prophecy, woodsman?’ said Dakur. ‘Concerning the birth of the child of power? The one who will upset the balance between good and evil?’
Something stirred in Corlas’s dormant memories of nights spent in taverns, drinking and gambling, talking of greater things and rubbish.
‘The child who will be born with blue hair ?’ prompted Dakur forcefully.
Corlas shook himself. Those nights had been many years ago and he recalled them little. ‘I do not concern myself with popular superstition,’ he replied levelly.
The woman was staring distantly out the window, biting her lip. She did not seem to be paying attention any more.
‘Popular superstition?’ said Dakur with a scowl. ‘It has been written so for a hundred years! You cannot –’
‘Quiet, the both of you!’ Elessa snapped, her voice charged with such power that Dakur and Corlas instantly fell silent. She was still a moment, head tilted, eyes glazed. Then: ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘They’re already here.’
Three
It Never Rains
‘Stay here!’ Elessa ordered. ‘I can’t fight magic and protect you from it at the same time. If I’m defeated, you two will be all that stands between the shadow and the child.’ She stopped Dakur’s protest with blazing eyes. ‘I will call for you if I need you, Dakur. Watch over the child. And you, woodsman,’ she added, turning to Corlas, ‘you are going to wish you’d fled with us when you had the chance. If it comes down to the bones, you’d better understand that the future of this child is one that will affect the whole world, not just your little home in the forest.’
‘You think that understanding will lend me courage?’ said Corlas with a glower. ‘When my child is more important to me than the whole world!’
‘Work with Dakur,’ snapped Elessa, opening the door of the hut. ‘Remember, it is we who are your allies.’
She closed the door behind her and took a deep breath, surveying her surroundings. The hut lay at one end of a large clearing bordered by grey trees that were whipping in the wind. The driving rain hindered her sight, so she searched with the same magical awareness that had first alerted her to the presence of the shadow. They would have the advantage, for the sky was filled with clouds, making it a shadowed night. The low rumble of thunder reached her ears and for a moment her spirits lifted. Maybe she would fight in the company of lightning.
Her search stopped at a place on the far side of the clearing. There was a void there that her senses could not penetrate, large enough for one mage, or two standing together.
If it is two, she thought, we are lost.
At least she could make out those who accompanied the magic wielder – ugly little humanoids, about a pace tall, with large heads and tar black skin.
Two Black Goblins, she whispered in Dakur’s mind.
They were watching from the trees and she could almost feel their eyes prickling her skin. The opposing mage, or mages, were strangely silent. Elessa had been taught to expect all sorts of taunts and threats from hostile shadow mages, yet none came.
She waved a hand about her body, casting a ward of protection. An aura of light suffused her, but a moment later she gasped. It felt as if a monstrous claw had clenched shut over her body, dug its nails underneath the protective shine and ripped it savagely away. A shell of light fell to the ground, still shaped in her image, and quickly faded. Elessa steadied herself. The counterspell had been powerful and surprising, but she recovered quickly. If only Fahren were here …but he wasn’t. It was just her, a court-bred mage with no battle experience, fighting for all the folk of Kainordas.
‘Well, so be it!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Then I refuse to die tonight!’
As if to reaffirm the thought, her mind’s eye flashed up an image of Kessum, the cheerful young noble who always smiled when he caught her gazing at him. Kessum, who’d sent her a shining heart flower and a note on the day she’d departed for Indereen. Her courage flared. She did not intend for that to be the last silly, warm little moment in her life.
She strode forward, again waving a hand over her body to re-ignite the protective ward, this time on guard for any spells from the trees. A figure emerged at the end of the clearing, stepping from between trunks onto a coiled root. It was tall and covered by a brown, hooded cloak. Only a hand was visible, resting at its side – and Elessa saw that it was skeletal. A moment later the figure’s voice echoed in her head.
My name is Fazel, he said. And I see that you are powerful for one so young.
Elessa was surprised by the civil greeting, though she didn’t let it show. Yes, she replied, and you will taste that power if you do not leave this place.
The voice in her head gave a bitter laugh. Ah. I appreciate your spirit. But I have been a mage for longer than you, I think.
The figure raised the bony hand to its hood, grasped the folds and brought them slowly back. Elessa drew a breath. She had never seen one of the undead before and her gentle soul was mortified by the abomination before her. What flesh remained clung to his skull in rotten grey clumps, so an approximation of the face that once had been still showed through. Elsewhere mottled bone lay exposed, or dry skin cracked like bark. A single bulbous eye stared out from beneath a torn eyelid and drooping brow. He still retained some facial hair – both eyebrows, one side of a moustache, a string or two of beard. His neck disappeared into the cloak as a twisted mass of tendons and bone.
‘The years have not been kind, ’ he said, his true voice carrying across the clearing – all too human for the curdled lips it fell from. ‘My dear girl, you cannot hope to best me. You are only a child, and I …I have more than a lifetime’s experience, and the night is on my side. Have you not heard of me?’
‘No,’ said Elessa, her own voice carrying through the pelting rain. ‘And it wouldn’t matter if I had.’
‘No?’ said the creature. ‘I’m certain that Fahren wouldn’t advise you to sacrifice yourself and your two men in a pointless fight against me.’
Elessa tensed at the use of her master’s name. Had Fahren met this Fazel? Maybe this was the taunting he’d warned of? Maybe the creature was trying to unnerve her so it could launch another surprise.
Fazel’s voice hardened. ‘Surrender the child to me,’ he said, ‘and I promise you shall live to see the sun rise again.’
‘And see it rise over a worsened world, atrocity?’ she yelled back, and poured all her fear into an attack. Reaching out with her power, she seized Fazel and lifted him into the air. His cloak whipped about his flailing limbs as she spun him wildly, then brought her fist down hard. Fazel hurtled to the ground with a crunch and lay, stunned, in the dirt.
Pity, came his voice. Now there’s no time to wish you luck.
•
Dakur stood at the window, sword drawn, trying to see through sheets of water. He was her guard, damn it, and it wasn’t going to take much provocation for him to abandon the hut, whatever her orders were – especially if the dark mage’s companions entered
the fray. He might not be able to protect Elessa from bolts of energy, but he could certainly beat back blades.
‘So tell me, friend ,’ said Corlas, still standing in front of the cot with his axe ready, ‘what is your plan for my son if we survive this?’
‘He’ll be taken to the Open Halls,’ said Dakur, not turning from the window, ‘where he’ll be safe from the shadow and can be raised in the light. And then, one day, he will claim the south from the Shadowdreamer.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Corlas. ‘And his father? Where does he fit into all of this?’
Dakur remained silent.
‘Where? ’ bellowed Corlas, startling Dakur.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dakur, turning to hold Corlas’s gaze. ‘That will be for Throne Naphur to decide.’ He frowned suddenly at the man. Was his face familiar?
‘I see,’ said Corlas, and when Dakur turned away again, he ran his fingers up and down the axe handle. ‘Mirrow, my heart,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you were right – you cannot take on every danger with an axe.’ His eyes narrowed on Dakur’s back. ‘But there are some, my love. There are some you can.’
•
Fazel lay in the mud, his broken bones painfully mending. He’d been caught off guard, having underestimated her willingness to attack.
Well, well, he thought, must be getting old.
Elessa launched another attack, but this time his defences went up and her power slammed into his. He grunted as he struggled to his feet, joints creaking and exposed muscles flexing. His admiration for the girl went up another notch – she had followed up on her success without hesitation.
