‘We certainly won’t be doing that,’ he said. ‘We have some propriety, you know.’
Warin laughed uproariously, slapping his hands against his crossed legs. ‘Is better with the animals. They don’t care so much for prop-riety.’ He broke the word down into exaggerated syllables, mimicking Mathias’s accent. ‘The people of your land,’ he said, waving a finger, ‘are—what is the word—prune-ish?’
‘Possibly prudish,’ murmured Mathias. ‘Thank you for your offer, Warin. You don’t have to leave.’
‘Englanders.’
‘I’m Welsh,’ said Mathias again, feeling pleased that he heard Tagan mutter the same. Warin blinked his slow, animal blink.
‘So you keep telling me,’ he said.
A companionable silence descended, settling over the little tableau like a comfortable cloak. The stars twinkled overhead, like diamonds set against the black velvet of the night. The shadows of the tree canopy moved in a whispering breeze that blew the sweet breath of night into their faces. Warin flensed the meat from the cooked rabbits and passed it to Mathias and Tagan, piled high on a plate of bark. They ate with enthusiasm, tearing chunks off the hard, unleavened bread that Warin had also cooked on one of the firestones.
When they had finished the meal, Tagan begged Warin to shapeshift again. She had been entranced, she said. Never had she yearned for a power so wonderful. Perhaps impishly flattered by her attentions, Warin obliged. He took the form of the wolfhound first, which clearly delighted the other dog, who danced around him, barking in delight. The wolfhound melted away and a rabbit took its place. The rabbit hopped behind a bush and a mouse scampered out and ran up Tagan’s arm to sit on her shoulder.
He entertained them this way for some time until once more, the flame-haired man was sat opposite them.
‘What happens,’ Tagan said, her eyes shining with delight, ‘to your clothes?’
He gave her a cool stare and a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder. ‘The first principle of magic,’ he said. ‘It is not what you actually do, but what you make others believe you do.’ He gave Tagan a grin. It was evident that he was flattered, and was happy to answer her. ‘Now you show me what you can do.’ He levelled a stubby finger in Tagan’s direction and she looked embarrassed.
‘I can’t do anything as wonderful as change my shape,’ she said, modestly. ‘I can work metal well, though. I can forge you a sword or a piece of filigree with equal skill...’
‘You can do more,’ said Warin. ‘To shape the body of the earth using the tongues of flame, air and water is the greatest power there is.’ He said this so matter-of-factly that Tagan laughed, thinking he merely sought to return her flattery.
Warin did not laugh.
‘You’re serious,’ observed Mathias. He had enjoyed Warin’s little display, but not without the faintest pangs of jealousy. What it must be to be able to effortlessly change your form into something else. What freedom it must bring. As an animal, Warin would have no expectations placed upon his shoulders, no impossible task to accomplish...
And Mathias saw it all with a cold clarity. Why it was that Warin the Red, the Shapeshifter, chose to live in isolation within a dark, forbidding forest. Why he eschewed the company of his fellow men and women and preferred the company of animals. He looked up at Warin and found the man’s animalistic, amber eyes resting on him. The next words the red-haired man spoke were in a soft voice, barely hiding an odd yearning.
‘When last I walked amongst the world of men,’ he said, telling his tale without invitation, ‘honour still meant something. The magi still meant something. Warrior kings made war for land or glory, this is true, but they respected the magic. Now, though, magic is a tool to make life easy, or make rich, or kill others. And you tell me now magi are hunted. It is a world to which me and my... to which I do not belong.’
‘What are you, Warin?’ Mathias held out a hand and rested it on Warin’s arm. The stocky man stared at it and snatched his arm free.
‘I am the Shapeshifter.’ He closed up again, his moment of vulnerability vanishing.
‘We need you,’ said Tagan. She had been stirred to curiosity by Warin’s suggestion that she was somehow far stronger in her magic than she even knew, but now was not the time. ‘We were sent to find you and others. The Pirate King. The Wanderer. She Who Sees...’
Warin rose and turned his back on Tagan and Mathias. ‘You will leave when morning comes,’ the Shapeshifter announced. ‘And I will not go with you.’
‘But...’
‘No. I will say no more. I will not leave my forest. It has been too long or it has not yet been long enough.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Whatever it is, the answer is “no.” I have no need to return to the world of men and kings and deceit. No. You leave in the morning.’
‘But...’
Warin glared at the young couple and in a heartbeat, he shifted into the form of the wolfhound. Grauenhund barked in joy, delighted to have her playmate back, and the two of them ran into the forest, swallowed up silently by the all-encompassing darkness.
20 miles off the coast of Dieppe
France
SUNRISE BROUGHT A rolling fog that curled around the hulls of more than a hundred ships, each proudly flying the French colours. Scores of hawk-eyed boys, and several magi, stood in the crow’s nests, senses strained for any sign of the English who were said to be approaching the coast. A hastily scrawled missive from a spy in the court of King Richard claimed that the King had returned from a hunting trip stained with blood; the result, he claimed, of a failed assassination plot by French agents. He had been so outraged by the incident that he had immediately ordered the army to begin preparations, and the fleet to a state of battle readiness.
Even sped on its way via arcane means, the report had barely reached the ears of King Henri in time to get the fleet in place and the army on the march.
The sound of churning water disturbed the stillness of the morning. It was joined by the chorus of paddles biting at the sea as several dark smears appeared in the fog. The lookouts called out the alert, and within seconds, hundreds of guns were run out in readiness. Every ship was armed and ready to confront the English intruders: the frigates, galleons and carracks presented the formidable firepower of their broadsides.
Crews tensed as the sounds drew nearer. Along with the familiar sounds were other noises—metallic scrapings that were alien to the seas. A dark pall and the smell of tar and soot washed ahead of the approaching vessels. On the deck of the French flagship, a fat-bellied man-of-war dubbed the Hirondelle, the master magus and his coven prepared a spell. He firmly believed that King Richard’s notorious disdain for magic would leave the English vessels defenceless against the arcane, despite his much-lauded science.
At an unspoken command, the magi throughout the fleet acted as one, their magic pooling and dispersing in unison, ripping the fogbank apart. At the same time, every French vessel opened fire, the thunderous roar of the cannon eclipsing the noisy approach of the English. A great wave of powder smoke billowed from the guns and the crews let out a mighty cheer of defiance as their trap was sprung.
The cry swiftly turned to despair as the smoke cleared and the French saw what was bearing down on them.
Two score vessels, their hulls studded with iron and belching black fumes, churned the sea to foam. They were led by a dreadnought whose bladed prow stood half as high again in the water as the Hirondelle, its deck pierced by a forest of masts and chimneys. They were followed by an armada of barques and frigates, loaded to capacity with soldiers and horses.
Fire from the French guns met the hulls of the ironclads with a dull clang, buckling plates or turning aside with shrieking sparks but failing to inflict any serious damage. A second volley creased the air, the well-drilled crews reloading their weapons with a sudden urgency born of desperation. A few English ships stuttered, chimneys holed or paddles shredded, but the rest came on, as relentless and as apparently undaunted as the sea itself.
&
nbsp; The magi stationed on the masts began to cast their spells, hurling fire and arcs of lightning at the approaching vessels. They were answered by marksmen among the English crew, wielding long rifles and crystal lenses. What had begun as righteous defiance quickly became disorganised flight.
The master magus looked on in despair as his brothers and sisters died, plucked from their perches by unseen snipers. The captain of the Hirondelle was bellowing orders as he tried to bring the great ship about, but it was already too late. For something so massive, the English flagship moved with horrifying speed. The mage closed his eyes and whispered a quiet message to the air, infusing it with a little power. The words flew away faster than thought; they would reach the ears of one of the magi assembling with the army. It would be enough to warn them of what was coming.
He opened his eyes in time to see the iron prow of the Indomitable towering over him, blotting out the sun. Then it drove into the side of the Hirondelle and broke her open. Screams, and the sound of shattering wood, consumed his world.
‘INTO THEM!’ WEAVER roared.
The Lord Inquisitor sat astride his war horse, taking in the growing scene of carnage spreading along the beach. A line of shields and spears bristled halfway up the sand and was steadily pushing the French line back. Hundreds of arrows rained from the high ground on to the landing boats, but the wood and leather roofs of the boats kept the majority of the men safe until they were able to join their comrades.
Pockets of resistance formed around the French magi, who blasted holes in the ranks with elemental fury, crushed flesh and armour with fists of invisible force or turned the ground to sucking mud with their powers. The English outnumbered the French, but still landing as they were, they were unable to bring their greater numbers to bear.
Weaver frowned behind his mask as a broken warrior sailed through the air and plunged into the sea. Ahead of him a mage had emerged from the ranks and was laying into the English soldiery with a staff. The force of the weapon’s impacts was huge, the magically enhanced staff smashing shields to splinters and pulping men with each blow. The Inquisitor drew one of his pistols, sighted and fired in one fluid motion. The newly developed crystalline shot flashed through the air, leaving a greenish trail, and struck the mage in the side of the head, blowing half his skull away. The alchemical bullets were just one of many new weapons that had been bestowed upon the Lord Inquisitor before his departure from England. It had transpired that Isaac Bonnington was not, in fact, the useless creature many had taken him for.
The King had impressed upon him the importance of his mission. Paris must be broken before winter arrived, and Weaver had no intention of disappointing his King. He turned in the saddle as another wave of boats crunched onto the beach, this one carrying more of the esoteric weapons birthed by English science. Several units of archers and fire-lancers took up position behind hastily erected mantlets and began returning fire up the beach. The long rifles were many times more potent than the bows, but were slow to reload, so their wielders had been instructed to look for magi or nobles among the army.
A dragon’s-breath team struggled up the sand, two men bearing heavy barrels of alchemically treated pitch following another pair who handled a pump and nozzle. Upon reaching the line of shields, the first man uncovered a tiny gas light whilst the second began working the pump. A jet of black spewed forth and emerald fire raged into the enemy ranks. Men and horses shrieked and died, the flesh melting from their bones, and a pair of magi were immolated where they stood.
The French line wavered in the face of this new assault, their morale beginning to buckle. Then a huge figure descended onto the beach and the defenders gave a cry of elation. Weaver narrowed his eyes in distaste as the creature stomped its way across the sand. It could only be a mage, quite possibly the master magus of the army, but its form was entirely concealed within a hulking body of stone.
The Lord Inquisitor watched as arrows and shot clattered harmlessly from its craggy hide. It pushed through the alchemical fire, streams of burning liquid cascading in its wake, and slammed into the English ranks. Men were scattered like toys before the giant, their mangled bodies crushed into the beach, flipped into the air or broken with contemptuous ease. It stomped on the dragon’s-breath team with a crunch of breaking bones and wood, and the barrels of pitch exploded, belching a mushroom of green-tinted smoke into the air.
‘My lord, we cannot fight the likes of that.’ The armoured Duke of Suffolk looked aghast at the monster. ‘We must retreat, and bombard the coast with the ships’ guns.’
There was an uneasy murmur among the assembled lords behind the Inquisitor. Weaver turned slowly to regard the Duke. ‘There will be no retreat,’ he growled, voice echoing in his mask. ‘Any man who voices otherwise, be he lord or serf, will answer to me for treason.’
The Duke of Suffolk visibly shrank in the saddle and a number of nobles very obviously distanced themselves from him.
‘Bring up the repeater,’ Weaver ordered a runner and the boy hastened to obey.
Less than a minute later, a carriage pulled by two straining horses splashed onto the beach from the Inquisitor’s own boat. They turned in a half-circle to present the rear of the wagon to the enemy and then the canvas covering the vehicle was pulled back. Thirty miniature cannon, bound together with copper and iron, sat bolted to the floor of the carriage, attended by a pair of soot-smeared gunners. At Weaver’s direction, they took hold of a number of crank handles protruding from the rear of the weapon and began to turn, heavily muscled arms pumping in unison.
The noise, even above the clamour of battle, was tremendous.
Not all of the shots struck the stone-clad mage; several smashed through the line, killing French and English alike, while a few more failed to fire altogether, the imperfect mechanisms missing their triggers. The rest hammered the giant to its knees, chewing fist-size chunks from its hide and filling the air with the stink of sulphur and rock dust. Then one of the ballistae struck something at the core of the creature that was soft and yielding.
A mist of gore exploded from the rear of the giant and with slow, majestic grace the creature toppled backward to shatter into rubble on the beach, revealing the broken remains of a grey-robed magus. The shot had cored the man, blasting a huge hole in his torso and hollowing him out. The French broke and began streaming back up the beach toward the doomed village of Dieppe.
‘Advance,’ Weaver ordered. ‘No prisoners. Burn the town to its foundations.’
The invasion of France had begun.
Seven
Bavaria
Germany
DAWN, WHEN IT finally broke, was cool and damp and although wellrested, Mathias woke with an ache in the small of his back and a throbbing in his head, just behind the eyes. He sat up and rubbed vigorously at his face to divest himself of sleep.
The Shapeshifter was once more seated by the fire, his broad shoulders hunched over as he stirred water in a pot. He raised his head briefly as he heard Mathias moving about and grunted by way of greeting. Tagan was already awake, sitting by the fire with him. She looked as though she had not slept anywhere near as well as he had, and she gave him a wan smile as she saw him. The blanket was wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak.
Mathias stretched out his aching muscles and stepped out to join the two of them at the fire. He touched his hand to Tagan’s shoulder gently and she nodded in response.
‘I will take you both back to the circle after you have eaten,’ said Warin, clearly not prepared to waste any time—or allow Mathias another opportunity to attempt to reason with him. ‘I will send you back to your land. Warin the Red will have no part in this.’
‘Warin...’ Mathias began, but Warin raised a meaty palm. ‘We will not discuss it further.’
‘But...’
‘Ah!’
‘I just...’
The Shapeshifter unleashed a string of Germanic words that Mathias
didn’t understand, but which he was pretty c
ertain was something less than complimentary. A few moments of silence passed and Mathias’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Breakfast, it turned out, was a thin broth that tasted faintly of last night’s rabbits. It was hardly filling and probably not all that nutritious, but it was hot and turned away some of the damp that these woods seemed to bring to both body and spirit.
The three of them ate in silence, the she-wolfhound lying with her great head across Warin’s lap, soulful eyes gazing up at him. He stroked her silky ears tenderly and looked faintly annoyed when she trotted over to do the same to Mathias. The younger man smiled down at the animal and carefully stroked her head.
‘She trusts you.’ The red-headed man observed this in a flat, toneless voice and Mathias grasped on the final chance to find some common ground.
‘I love animals,’ he said. ‘I always have done. You said yesterday that there is much about my magic that I do not understand. I would dearly love to learn more.’ Warin’s eyes narrowed as though he suspected another lobbying attempt to get him to travel. When it didn’t come, he visibly relaxed.
‘You are old to start learning properly,’ he said. ‘But not so old that you cannot learn a few important things. Perhaps when you return to England...’
‘Wales.’
‘Perhaps when you return to your home...’ He glared at Mathias and the young Welshman fell silent. Tagan giggled quietly beside him. ‘You can get your father—Ardwyad?—to show you the true power that you have locked up here.’ He reached over to put his big hand flat on Mathias’s chest. ‘So much to unlock. He has shirked his responsibilities, yes?’
‘His name is Wyn, not Ardwyad,’ Tagan said, and Warin’s eyes turned to her.
He grunted. ‘Wyn, eh? Not what I expected.’
‘Why would you expect somebody to have a particular name?’ Tagan asked.
Heirs of the Demon King: Uprising Page 12
