Steel and Shadow
LaJonn O. Klein
PUBLISHED BY:
Midnight Sun Publishing
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 1
“What are you?” The muscular blonde Adonis in leathern armor hissed as he held a bloody sword up between him and the kneeling boy that didn’t look quite ten and six.
Behind the warrior stood over forty men of his own ilk, blooded, and ready to fight. Unfortunately, before them, and quite dead, were over a hundred more bodies of such men. All who had attacked the small community now smoldering in dying flame and thick smoke. The villagers dead to the last man, woman, and child.
Except for this pale, thin creature that looked up at him with sad, dark eyes.
“Sgt. Markes,” a younger warrior hissed from behind one of the few older warriors to have survived. “I vow, he must be a shadow!”
“Superstitious tripe,” the big warrior growled, and raised his sword. “If you’ll not lend your tongue, boy,” he swore. “Then I’ll carve out your…..heart,” he faltered, feeling the cold, hard steel he had just buried in the boy’s thin chest pierce his own chest.
“H-How,” he choked before falling dead despite the fact there was not a mark on him. Or his intended victim as his blade fell free of that thin chest. Again, without leaving a mark.
“Nay,” the young warrior who had spoke earlier when several crossed themselves in the Maker’s name, and started to lift their own weapons. “You cannot slay a shadow with mortal steel,” he warned them as he moved forward to stand between his surviving comrades, and the still silent boy that knelt virtually naked before him.
The attacks on him had left no mark on his pale flesh, but they all but shredded his clothes. What little he wore.
Jengus Sanz was a man raised on the frontier of faraway lands, far from the civilizing teachings of priests and scholars. He still knew, and followed the old ways. He knew a spirit walker when he saw one. Even if the lad were not aware of it himself from the look of him. Just as he knew the villagers must have feared and abused him, too, from the look of his scrawny body.
For they might not have been able to touch him, but that did not mean they had to care for him, either.
“Lad,” Jengus pointedly buried his own blade in the bloody mud before him before reaching out his empty hand to him. “What’s your name?”
The hollow eyes looked up at him, and the young boy sighed as he eyed him in what seemed resignation. “I don’t know,” he said in a voice so soft, so low, it almost went unheard.
“Have you forgotten,” Jengus asked as he knelt before the shadow when the boy did not reach for his offered hand.
“I….was never named,” he said in the same quiet manner.
“Were your parents here,” he asked, looking around the ravaged village near the border of the kingdom he and his fellow mercenaries were supporting in these raids into enemy lands. By ravaging their fields, and destroying supply lines, they made sure the cities and garrisons would soon be weakened, and fall easy prey to the coming sieges when the king that hired them moved his legions into place.
“I don’t know.”
“You did not live with them?”
His head dropped a little more, and he gave a tiny shake without saying more.
“Come with us, lad,” he told him impulsively. “You cannot stay here. ’Tis not a fit place for anyone. Not even you, young spirit.”
The dark eyes rose to search his face again. “How is it, you do not fear me?”
“I know of your kindred. In the high mountains of the north that my own folk call home, we know the ways of the winds, and we still heed the cry of manbeasts. We listen to the spirit-talkers, and ever regard their wisdom concerning those who walk betwixt worlds. As you, young spirit,” Jengus concluded, his companions listening to every word without commenting.
“I do not know myself,” he admitted.
“I can tell you what I know of your kind. And I can offer you food, and sanctuary. Just as I can promise that none of these men here will try to harm you. Aye, lads,” he turned to demand of the men left with him.
They all eyed their fallen comrades, and while they were devout, and honest men for the most part, warriors had their own codes and superstitions.
They quickly echoed his vow without hesitation.
“Come,” Jengus told him, rising to hold out a hand again as he stood before him. “At the least, we can feed you ere we march again.”
“Warrior,” the lad asked as he reached out to take the muscular man’s gnarled, calloused hand. “Why do you fight?”
“Ah, well, lad, the reasons for that vary. Still, at the heart of the matter, we are paid this time around. Paid by men that do not wish the initial dangers of invasion themselves. Being men paid to fight for others, we therefore fight.”
“Why?”
Jengus easily tugged the slight young man to his feet as he stared at him with bright, blue eyes common to his race, and to few others, and said somberly, “Because, lad. Long ago, my folk learned ’tis all too easy to die in the mud if you can not, or will not stand on your own feet. Better to die fighting, my ancestors decided, than to live and die in chains.”
The dark head nodded thoughtfully at that.
“So,” Jengus smiled. “Will you come with us?”
“Aye. I would ask a boon of you, though, warrior. If I might,” the lad said as he stared up at him with those seemingly empty eyes.
“What could I offer you other than knowledge,” he asked honestly.
“Skill,” the lad said with sudden determination. “Teach me to fight. I shall serve you as long as you will it if you teach me to fight,” he said with surprising conviction.
“After seeing this day’s work, you wish to learn war’s art,” he asked him plainly as his comrades murmured behind him as Jengus gestured blatantly at the carnage about them.
“After living in mud and alleys all my known years, I wish to learn how to stand,” the lad told him grimly.
Jengus nodded soberly. “Now, lad, you sound like a man. Come. We shall scavenge what might be found that the flames have not yet claimed, and then leave this pesthole to the carrion eaters,” he told his men, taking command by virtue of his boldness.
Such was the way of their kind.
No one complained that much of the plunder came from their own fallen comrades. That, too, was the way of their kind.
“Back to the borderlands, dogs,” Jengus shouted after loading the horses with their plunder, and leaving the dead for others to tend. Be they survivors that might have fled, or scavengers of another kind. “We’ll let them stew in their fear ere we return for Trylls,” he said, naming the small trading post not much farther away from the farming village they had just leveled, along with the crops that were fated for the enemy king’s legions.
The pale, hollow-eyed lad was set on a warrior’s horse with a borrowed cloak from a fallen man now covering his thin, pale body. He followed without a word as he watched the men around him in silence. Simply watching.
X
“You c
alled me a shadow,” the lad said as they sat around a fire later that evening.
He had not been commanded, but he had helped gather wood, water the stock, and even tend the fire that now roasted the venison from a slain doe when the men set camp late that evening. Now he sat with the thirty-and-nine warriors, staying close to Jengus, as if unable to take his eyes from him.
Jengus heard some of the men complaining he had cursed himself with a second ‘shadow,’ but none of them touched the boy. They had all seen Markes’ blade stab deep into his heart. They all saw the bold sergeant fall dead without a mark on him as his blade slid bloodlessly from the boy’s flesh. This, they had to concede, was a creature beyond their experience.
“I shall tell you a tale of the northern mountains,” Jengus said, as the men around him listened just as closely.
Priests might command nobles and freemen in the cities and towns of men, but warriors knew you listened to experience just as closely when traveling the wild barrens beyond the touch of civilization. They had long since learned there were indeed things in the world that even priests and scholars could not explain. Things they often refused to even admit were real. Likely because they feared them, too.
“When I was but ten and two, I saw another like you in my village high in the peaks of Xandara,” he said, naming a land far to the north of the flatlands where they now rode. “He came out of the night, and walked among my people, and he was revered by those that understood. For my people are, as I said, close to the land, and listen to the winds. That wisdom taught them of manbeasts. Of spirits, and….shadows.”
“Tell me of those,” the lad asked quietly.
“Shadows are spirit-walkers. That is, they are more spirit than flesh. Usually, they are born after one of two means. First, they might be summoned into being by someone that desired their service. Someone, such as a powerful mage, might wed spirit and flesh as one to create a shadow to serve him.”
Jengus eyed the boy, and shook his head. “As you recall naught of family, or service, I rather doubt that happened with you unless someone slew them ere you could rise to protect them.”
“And the other means?”
“Ah. At times, some say, a spirit newly dead refuses to go on to the Great Maker’s hall, and wanders the lands seeking new life for itself. It can sometimes take flesh anew if it finds a sickly, or newly dead form not bound to another soul.”
“My…..first memory is about my fifth year, when I woke in a dirty alley, and looked up at the stars visible in the night sky,” the lad told him in the same quiet tone.
Jengus only nodded.
“Then ’tis more than possible you are such a spirit.”
“I remember nothing but that moment,” the lad commented, looking up at the sky again through the trees around them. “And growing up with the contempt of those around me,” he stated solemnly.
“Flatlanders are guided by witless priests, and pampered nobles who know little of the world beyond their own walls,” another warrior drawled, tearing off a strip of the roasting meet with a dagger to hand him. “Lad, wisdom means different things to different people. But Jengus is right. If you wish to be a man, then you stand up, and spit in the eyes of those that would damn you.”
For a moment, raw fury burned in those dark eyes, and Jengus almost smiled.
Here, he knew, was a very valuable ally.
“I will teach you a warrior’s art, and skill, lad,” Jengus told him. “For it occurs to me that you would make our ranks the most feared among all the nine great kingdoms with a man like you amongst us.”
He only nodded, looking as somber as ever.
“Tell me, Sir Jengus. What do shadows do in this world? And how do I do the things that….?”
He gestured helplessly, and looked to him for answers.
“Shadows, or spirit-walkers, are as I said. More spirit than flesh. Because they…. Because… You simply are. Thus, mortal weapons cannot touch you. Any weapon, be it fist, or steel, put upon you is sent back to the bearer. ’Tis your best defense, but not your most potent. I have heard some shadows that labor for certain powerful mages could even steal the very breath from an entire legion’s lungs with but a draw of his own nostrils. You, however, are young, and not likely forged for such feats. Not that it matters. I think you are actually more human than shade, which is good, and likely why you returned to this world as you did. All the same, many men, especially in these ‘civilized’ lands, do not understand your ilk, so best not to reveal who or what you are too casually.”
“The men in the village feared me. They once kicked…. Or beat me.”
“Only to find themselves struck down, I wager,” Jengus nodded.
“Aye. They even had a priest try to burn me when I was ten.”
“I can wager what happened to him,” the gruff, grizzled warrior to his right snorted.
The lad looked away, his offered meal yet to be touched.
“Some men deserve their fates, lad,” Jengus told him. “Sometimes, for a man to stand, another must fall. Either in shame, in chains, or…. Aye, even in death. ’Tis the way of this world.”
“That I know,” he said quietly.
“When we reach Argus,” Jengus told him. “We’ll find you suitable garb, and a blade worthy of the name so we can begin teaching you its use. If you’ve half the will I’m guessing, you’ll learn well enough,” he nodded.
“He’ll need a proper name,” the older man near Jengus said blandly.
“What did the sheep we sheered call you,” another asked the lad.
“Nay,” Jengus murmured when the lad only looked grim at that. “He needs a telling name. One to set his enemies on guard from the start. A name ’twill mark him as strong, and dangerous. One to warn others that here…. Here be their doom,” he grinned at the lad.
“Call me as you have named me,” the lad said after a long pause. “Call me Shadow.”
“Too obvious, and too simple, lad,” Jengus murmured. “We’ll call you….Darke. Koa Darke.”
“Koa,” another echoed. “Dark, I get, brother, but….Koa?”
“Darke, you lackwit,” Jengus grinned at his companion. “In my native land, Koa Darke means ‘prince of shadows,’” he smiled at the lad. “Considering what is hidden in your own flesh and spirit, lad, I thought ’twould be a fine name for you.”
The newly named Koa nodded.
“I like it. Thank you, Sir Jengus,” he nodded. “I shall strive to be worthy of the honors you have granted me.”
“I’m sure you will, lad,” the warrior of just over twenty winters nodded. Then he turned to his men, lifting a battered tin cup with only water in it just then. “Lads. Welcome Koa to the ranks. Welcome our new brother to the ranks of warriors and mercenaries,” he grinned. “Far more honorable a pastime than nobles or guilders will ever know!”
The men cheered, and for the first time, Jengus saw the faintest hint of a smile on that pale, drawn visage. It would be the first and last sign of such an expression on that somber visage for many years, he would learn.
Chapter 2
“My lord,” the steward moaned, staring at his gaunt, fearful master. “The invaders are at the walls. A full half legion of the king’s own failed to even slow them.”
“The bloody black legion,” the duke’s son hissed. “’Tis said a true demon of hell rides with them. That he cannot be slain, nor even touched,” the portly young lordling said in dread.
His father, a leaner, gaunt man who had been riding with the king’s own until recently, only stared from his chair without comment. His pale, haunted visage flitting between the two as he asked his freeman servant, “What do they want?”
“Unconditional surrender,” Sir Deakes told him grimly.
“Do it,” Lord Andrus Clarke nodded decisively despite his haggard appearance. “Tell them we yield.”
“Father!”
“My lord, surely if we hold out…..?”
“You cannot hold out against the devils
we face. The Black Wolf of Xandara rides out there, Deakes. And he rides with a shadow! A very shadow of death!” He eyed his son, then rasped, “I have seen it. Aye, I’ve seen it with my very own eyes. What need of those mercenary devils with demons when they command a shadow!”
“A…..shadow,” his son Freddie asked.
“A spirit made flesh right out of the old tales,” Robbie Deakes shuddered. “’Tis said such creatures cannot die. That trying to strike at them only brings you down. That to even curse them is to curse yourself.”
“Ha! Like as not ’tis but a barbarian trick. Those Valdorans….!”
“Half those men are Xants, and Mountain folk,” his father cut in with a cold growl. “And the shadow looks like a man of Kanlys. Aye, Kanlys! You think I don’t know what I am saying, young lackwit! I saw that devil stride across the field, cutting down any man before him without raising a hand. Without. Raising. A. Hand. And when he did draw steel…..”
The duke shuddered in terror.
“’Twas like watching the very Hand of God reap flesh and blood from the earth. Nay, we cannot stand against such a creature. Yield, Robbie, and pray the mercenary bastard that guides that shadow will not loose him upon us.”
“’Tis why you returned when the legion you rode with fell in glorious battle?”
“Bah,” the duke spat at his son. “I have seen little glory, or honor in this war. Just death, and too much of it. King George stirred a hornet’s nest this time when he violated his own treaty with Valdor. Five years of peace and prosperity since the last war, and for what? So the king could shatter his own lands in his senile rage.”
“Treason,” his son gasped. “Father, you must be wary…..!”
“You think such matters when Death itself pounds at your door? George has led us to ruin, boy,” he called his son. “Ruin!”
He turned and looked at the now pale Robbie, who knew the duke was usually a stanch and loyal man that defended the king.
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