by Robert Ryan
RAGING SWORDS
BOOK ONE OF THE DURLINDRATH SERIES
Robert Ryan
Copyright © 2015 Robert J. Ryan
All Rights Reserved. The right of Robert J. Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All of the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover Design by www.bookcoverartistry.com
Trotting Fox Press
1. Death or Infamy
Brand woke. His heart thrashed in his chest. His stomach churned, and the blood in his veins ran chill. But he spared no thought for any of those things.
He lay still, wrapped in his bedclothes, while his eyes strained to see and his ears to detect whatever had roused him from forgotten dreams.
It felt cold. It was dark also, being in that last stretch of night when the hours were long and the dawn, though near, was not yet come. It was that period when the human spirit ebbed lowest, where wills were weakest and shadows pooled the most deeply.
He saw nothing out of place. He heard no noise that should not have been. Yet his heart raced ever faster, and sweat, cold and clammy, trailed down his face and onto his throat like the lingering fingers of ghosts.
All through the city a questing breeze touched and pulled and tweaked at anything loose. A weather vane creaked as it turned on some high roof. A stable door banged unheeded, and in the palace where Brand lay shivering white curtains danced palely in the open windows.
He concentrated on the breeze. He did not like it. The open window near his bed looked over the city, but he saw nothing amiss far below. Yet the air was unnaturally cold on his face. Even as the thought came to him its fluttering movement stilled. The curtains ceased their billowing, and the cobbled streets below grew quiet once more.
He let out a long breath and relaxed. All he heard now was a whisper of air down the corridor outside his room and the faint creak of doors.
The warmth under the blankets began to soothe him back to sleep. The day was not yet begun. There was no need to stir. He could rest a little while longer and gather his strength for the toils yet to come.
Nor was he even wanted here, not among this foreign people. They did not like him. They did not respect him. They thought him far too young for his high position. Yet he had spilled his blood in deadly battles to serve them, defied death for their benefit, but most would still like to see his back, to see him walk off into the wild lands from whence he came.
And that was his desire – he ached to return to his homeland – to walk the paths that once he knew and to reclaim the life that had been stolen from him. Yet ties of loyalty held him, and he would not break them. The king of Cardoroth was a great man. To him he owed much, and he would serve and help in any way that he could.
Brand stirred, restless once more. Almost he had been lulled, but he knew sorcery when he felt it. Through a fog that dimmed his thoughts he forced himself to sit up in bed. His head suddenly cleared. Many in the city might wish him gone, but not the king. Gilhain trusted him. He had given him opportunity when others had not, and respect when others offered only disdain.
Gilhain! The last dregs of confusion scattered. Sorcery was afoot and the king would be its target. Brand leapt out of bed. No time he had to don chain mail or helm or the white surcoat of his station. He pulled on trousers and boots, drew the sword of his forefathers from its ancient sheath, and ran bare chested to the door.
He put his hand to the metal knob. The cold he felt there shocked him like a blow. He flung it open anyway and let go swiftly. Immediately a blast of frigid air assailed him, and as he ran the length of the corridor he saw frost on the marble floor and the iciness of it bit his unshod feet.
“Durlin!” he called loudly, summoning the king’s bodyguards who slept in rooms along the passageway.
He sprinted ahead, but he saw nobody and heard no reply.
“Durlin!” he yelled again. “To the king!”
The door to Gilhain’s chamber was now before him. The two Durlin stationed there lay slumped on the ground. A quick glance told him that they were dead, though no blood marked their white surcoats.
Beneath the door strange lights flickered, and he heard the first call of any person beside himself.
“Guards!” It was the queen. Fear gripped her voice and made it shrill.
A moment he hesitated, knowing that on the other side sorcery and mayhem filled the room and that he would likely die if he entered. But he was the Durlindrath, leader of the bodyguards, and when he swore his oath to protect the king he had done so from the heart.
He kicked with all his might. The door, built of sturdy oak slabs to protect against assault, did not budge. But the metal of the bolt that held it in place shattered within its icy casing. Shards from the ruined doorjamb flew into the air, and the door careened inward on its great hinges.
Brand sprang into the king’s chamber. The rapid breath from his heaving chest turned to mist before him.
Yet more vapor, like a roiling fog, swirled within the room. There was no frost here, for the floor was laid with deep carpet, but ice hung in ribbons from the windows and sheeted the marble walls.
Gilhain and the queen were held at bay against the far wall. The king grasped a mighty sword in his two hands while she raised high a long knife. Six figures pressed toward them. They were wraithlike, gray and vaporous as the fog that eddied in the room. They glided on tall legs and their long arms reached forward like creeping fingers of mist toward the king’s throat. The wraiths had faces: gaunt, cold-eyed and cruel. A pale light lit their hollow cheeks and glimmered silver-white in their trailing hair.
Brand had seen enough. He leaped toward them and yelled the battle cry of the Durlin: Death or infamy!
He attacked. His sword sliced and cut and stabbed. The wraiths were more solid than they looked, and he drew from them shuddering screams, yet their cries came as though from a great distance, and the creatures did not die. Instead of falling, three of the six turned upon him.
They reached for his throat, and one found a grip there. He felt the cold touch of death. But his sword was a Halathrin blade, forged by immortals, and though what would have been death-strokes to a man had not yet killed the wraiths, it certainly caused harm. He drove the blade forward into the closest figure until it staggered back, and then he jumped free from more reaching arms.
The creatures pressed their attack against him. And they barred the way to the king that he had sworn to protect. But they ignored the queen. And that was an error, for she fought with animal fury, and one of her deep thrusts slew a wraith whose misty form dispersed into the air with a shriek. The king, meanwhile, held the others off with deft strokes. But time was running out.
Brand swung and stabbed, holding the enemy off but not defeating them. Yet this much he had achieved: the enemy must now divide their attack that otherwise, concentrated on Gilhain alone, would by now have killed him.
He danced to the left and hewed at the outstretched arm of a foe. The blade did not sever it, but the follow up stroke drove deep into vaporish innards and Brand pushed the blade up and through to its hilt.
There was no heart to pierce, for these things drew no breath, and no blood surged though their bodies to enliven their limbs. Yet still, whatever sorcery gave them substance to kill by hand must needs also give them a physical form that might be damaged.
A moment the wraith was close to him. If it were a man they would have stood eye to eye. But in that haggard face he saw no gaze that mirrored his own. Instead, he perceived the flicker of lights and shadow coming to him as though through a fog, and he caught a sudden glimpse of a room, dark and shadow-laden, and he heard the dim sound of faraway chanting.
/>
Before he understood whatever it was that he had heard and seen the wraith reeled back from him, but then, even as it began to sweep forward again in renewed attack, the sorcery that held it together faltered. It hissed and faded into formless vapor.
At last he heard running feet in the corridor. Light flashed from the doorway, dazzling bright. The gutted candles flared with leaping flame. The dark hearth burst with a fury of sparks and shimmering embers. Crackling flame roared to life.
Aranloth had come. He held his staff before him, and the diadem on his brow gleamed in the flaring light. The king’s wizard now contended with the sorcery, and the room became furnace-hot. The sheeted ice dripped from the walls. The wraiths screeched and writhed, trying to evade the blades that now cut them with ease. Swift they died, or else sharp steel sent them back to the pit dark sorcery had conjured them from.
In the sudden silence Brand heard from afar the enemy that had laid siege to Cardoroth. From beyond the city wall the chanting of an army rose to a crescendo, but then trailed off into a din of confusion and discord. Their war drums continued to beat, holding order longer, but soon even their thrumming voices stilled.
Brand heaved for breath. Was any place now safe for the king? A host of mankind’s ancient enemies gathered without, trying to break in and destroy. Yet now sorcery had slipped even inside the palace. Nowhere seemed beyond the reach of the enemy who sought Gilhain’s death. And well they might, for only his brilliance and tactics had forestalled them. Without him, Cardoroth would long since have fallen, and they knew it and hated him.
Brand looked at Gilhain. It was his job, his sworn oath, to keep the man safe. And neither blade nor shaft nor poison – neither a thousand foes nor a lone assassin, not even sorcery in the night would avail against him, so long as he drew breath.
But the dead guards in the corridor reminded him that a man, no matter the strength of his will, regardless of his love and loyalty, might still be outmatched.
It was nearly so tonight. The reach of the enemy was somehow longer than it had been, and the hope of the city dwindled further. For the enemy did outmatch them.
The elug host was vast. The siege of Cardoroth could not be broken, and the enemy would likely prevail. If not tonight, then in a month, or six months. All the swifter if the king died, and that the enemy knew and strove to achieve – any way it could.
Brand sensed that the doom of Cardoroth was coming. By what means the enemy grew stronger rather than weaker, he could not guess. Sorcery had never yet struck so deep into the city. Always Aranloth and his like prevented it. Yet not tonight. Perhaps never again.
He saw the same understanding when he looked into Gilhain’s eyes. But there was determination there also, an unflinching will, and Brand admired it.
The king might die, but if so, he would not be alone at the end.
2. Too Many Enemies
Brand had many questions for Aranloth, but his first task was the king’s welfare. And the queen’s, for to her he also owed much.
He strode toward the bed where they now sat together, and the sight of them holding hands and shivering from the effect of cold, or shock, having just survived a sorcerous attempt on their lives wrenched his heart. They deserved better than this. Yet assassination attempts were not uncommon. This was not the first, nor would it be the last. That the previous Durlindrath, and every Durlin who served him, was dead offered proof enough of that.
Brand pulled up a heavy blanket and draped it over them.
“Thank you,” Gilhain said. The man still gripped his sword so tightly in one hand that his knuckles were white.
The queen did not speak. But she looked at him. It was a gaze that said much, for he was close to her counsels and understood better than most the mixed pride, love and fear that underpinned her marriage to the king. Her look told him that this was perhaps the closest attempt yet on the life of the man that she loved.
Brand knew that she was made of steel, a fit partner for a great king, but he knew also that even steel could break, and he saw the shattering recognition in her eyes that this could not go on. Sooner or later an attempt would succeed. But he knew also, both from past conversations and the glint in her eye now, that she would never give in to despair. She had her husband’s back, and Brand wished there was a girl like that in his own life.
At that moment soldiers and servants bustled into the room. It grew suddenly loud, and Brand walked away to leave them to their ministrations. He wanted a chance to think.
He moved to the hearth. The naked blade in his hand now felt out of place, but he did not put it down. He stood close to the fire and felt the first touches of warmth return to his skin. He fed more wood to the flames, enjoying both the heat and the smell of smoke. It brought back memories of childhood campfires in a land far from here.
Aranloth joined him. The old man leaned on his staff. He seemed ordinary again, shrunken back to humanity, but it was only a veil for the power that he possessed. For he was as strong and swift as any young warrior, though old as the hills and possessed of lore and magic that could not be gathered save over the span of many lifetimes.
“That marks the third attempt this month,” the old man said.
Brand stared into the leaping flames. “Yet the first of sorcery.”
“Yes, and that makes me wonder. The enemy does not possess the strength to break through the wards that I and my kind use to protect the city. The walls and gate are always at risk, for we cannot be everywhere, and they are the focus of the attack. But here, in the heart of Cardoroth, we deemed it safe.”
Brand looked at him for the first time. “Perhaps other sorcerers have joined the army?”
“I don’t think so. There are thirteen, which is a number they favor, and I do not believe they have added to it.”
“Then how have they broken through?” Brand immediately regretted that his words sounded like an accusation.
“I wish I knew. It’s your part to protect against blade, arrow and poison. Mine against sorcery. Neither of us have failed – until tonight. I don’t know how they got passed me, but I’ll discover it, one way or another.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest that it was your fault. You’ve done more than anybody to keep the king alive.”
“But it wasn’t enough tonight. If not for you, then I would have been too late.”
Brand ran a hand through his hair. “How did they do it? What were those wraiths?”
“They were drùghoth; sendings your people would call them. Something has changed. The sorcerers don’t have the strength for that. Not these ones anyway, and not over that distance. It’s several miles between where they lay siege to the wall and where we stand here.”
Brand let out a sigh. “As you say, something has changed. But if there aren’t more sorcerers, then what can it be?”
Aranloth stared bleakly into the fire. “I don’t know. But if I don’t discover the reason for their increased strength…” he paused, “or the artifact that they’re now using, then I cannot prevent further attacks. They’ll certainly try again. They nearly succeeded this time.”
Brand turned, for the king had left the servants to tend his wife. He no longer looked like a man who had just faced death. There was nothing to be read in his eyes; they held the same sharp intelligence, the same wolfish stare as always. Perhaps he was used to it by now.
“Once more you’ve saved me,” he said to Brand. “And my wife this time as well. What reward can I give you?”
Brand shrugged. “To serve is reward enough, My King. To defy your enemy, who is also the enemy of my people, is … satisfying also.”
“Come! There must be something?” Gilhain pressed.
Brand shook his head. “The one thing that I wish above all else, my family and my rightful place among my own people, is something beyond even the power of a king of Cardoroth.”
The king looked at him sadly. The wolfish gaze turned to pity.
“Those things I would give, and gl
adly, if I could, though it meant that Cardoroth lost its bravest man, and I a friend. But if I cannot give you that, then take at least my thanks, and those of the queen. They’re heartfelt.”
Brand bowed. They were high compliments, and he found no words in answer.
Gilhain turned to Aranloth. “Come, old friend. We must speak. This latest turn bodes ill for the realm, and we have much to discuss.”
Brand left them to it. He had other duties now. He walked to the doorway where the bodies of the two Durlin lay.
The others of his order had gathered there. Their faces were grim, and they did not speak. Of the thirty, the new thirty that he had himself handpicked since the previous Durlindrath and his men were killed, there were now only twenty-eight. He did not doubt that soon there would be less. And it was hard to find good men these days. Guarding the king was a job that few were suited to, and fewer still were willing to suffer its risks.
He looked down at the dead men, and the creed of the Durlin ran through his thoughts:
Tum del conar – El dar tum!
Death or infamy – I choose death!
These men had been given no choice. They were slain by sorcery in the night. Yet they had still chosen to serve the king, to protect and guard him, to swear their oaths of loyalty. In their way, they did choose death, for they knew when they joined the Durlin that Gilhain would be attacked, if not how.
Brand gazed at them somberly. How long before someone looked down at his own dead body the same way, tallying up the long record of those who had died before him?
There were too many enemies, both outside of Cardoroth and inside. For there were traitors within the walls also. Less powerful than the sorcerers, but cunning, determined and cloaked in secrecy. Yet there was honor to set against it. The Durlin were legendary, and often the mere sight of their white surcoats in the city streets brought cheers from the crowd.
