Journey of Shadows (The Palâdnith Chronicles Book 1)

by Sam J. Charlton

  A short while before sunrise, the exhausted men and horses reached Seacliff. A jumble of whitewashed wooden houses perched on the cliff edge; the village had been established centuries ago as a collection of shepherds’ huts. The villagers tended flocks of sheep and goats on these windswept hills before transporting them to Dunethport on flat-bottomed barges. A winding pathway led down the cliff-face to a narrow jetty.

  The three men took shelter on the outskirts of the village under the lee of a grassy hill. A creek flowed here and both man and beast gratefully drank from it. They saw to their horses and left them to graze. Then, Darin, Kal and Seth slumped, exhausted, on flat rocks at the stream edge. Around them, a light frost had settled in a glittering veil over the land.

  Eventually, Seth looked across at his friends’ haggard faces. He was sure that he looked the same, if not worse. For a while, none of the three men had the energy to speak. It was Kal who spoke at last.

  “What hunts us?” he asked. “I can still hear that scream in my head.”

  Darin shook his head. “I didn’t see it, but no man screams like that, and no man can keep up with a galloping horse...” his voice trailed off.

  “It nearly had us all,” Kal replied. “Osforth… Garth…”

  Seth sat, hunched with cold, and remained silent. He listened to Darin and Kal’s hushed voices and felt his stomach coil itself even tighter. The memory of the tall, cloaked figure as it strode towards Marshal Osforth, and the thin, whispery voice, made Seth’s palms sweat.

  Around them, the sky gradually lightened. The first rays of sun peeked over the rim of the world to the east and chased away the night. Never had Seth been so relieved to see the dawn. They roused themselves and led their horses into Seacliff. Smoke rose from the chimney of the only tavern for leagues around. It was a squat, whitewashed timber building with a thatched roof and numerous outbuildings. Still, it was a welcoming sight. They tied their horses outside and closed the door on the frosty morning.

  An elderly couple ran the tavern. They did not have many lodgers and were pleased to welcome in the three strangers for breakfast. The tavern owner’s wife plied them with plates of freshly baked bread, butter, honey and tankards of mulled cider, while her husband saw to their horses. If she noticed their pinched, haunted faces and trembling hands she did not comment on it. Instead, she left them to warm themselves by the fire.

  Seth swallowed a large mouthful of bread, butter and honey and curled his chilled fingers around his tankard. He looked across at Darin and Kal, who were attacking their breakfast. He needed to tell them about the voice in his head.

  “I think it’s after me,” he said quietly.

  Darin and Kal looked up from their plates.

  “Why?” Darin asked, his gaze narrowing.

  Seth took a deep breath before replying. “After it killed Osforth and came after me, it… it spoke to me – but not as I am speaking to you now. I heard its voice in my head.”

  Kal stopped chewing and his eyes grew huge. “What?”

  Seth took another deep breath.

  “I heard its voice in my head,” he repeated, looking glumly towards the floor.

  “What did it say?” Kal pressed.

  Seth gave him a pained look. “Sentorân. You are mine.”

  Darin’s frown deepened. “What?”

  Seth gave an incredulous laugh, although his insides felt twisted in knots.

  “It sounds as ludicrous to me as it does to you.”

  He took out the amulet, and held it out to show his friends.

  “In the Golden Galleon, I met a Sister of Sial who told me this was a Sentorân charm that protects its wearer. She said that since my mother gave one to my two older brothers as well, we are all in danger.”

  All three men studied the charm carefully. As before, Seth detected nothing unusual about the amulet – it appeared nothing more than a shiny black stone with a few illegible inscriptions on the back.

  “She wasn’t more specific?” Darin asked.

  Seth shook his head.

  “Typical of a Sister,” Kal snorted. “That’s not much use, is it?”

  “Probably didn’t help that I’d downed a few,” muttered Seth in response.

  Silence fell then and they finished their breakfasts. The tavern owner’s wife cleared their plates and refilled their tankards. In no hurry to leave the tavern’s warmth, the three friends lingered in front of the fire.

  “So what will you do?” Darin finally asked.

  Seth raked his fingers through his hair. His head hurt from thinking.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I can’t just run. Someone’s got to warn my brothers.”

  “Is that wise?” Kal asked, frowning. “You’ll just lead whatever’s hunting you to them.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Seth admitted.

  “You need to leave as quickly as you can,” Darin spoke up, his blue eyes sharp with intensity. “See if one of the barges here can take you to Dunethport today. Maybe, you can find passage on one of the trade ships; the ones that go north to Marl and beyond to Nothwirren.”

  “I can’t just leave without warning Eni and Val,” Seth protested. “I may not have spoken to either of them in ten years, but I don’t want their deaths on my conscience.”

  “We could go in your stead,” Kal suggested. “Where are they?

  Seth stared back at Kal in surprise.

  “I remember you mentioning one of your brothers lives in Catedrâl – and the other?” Darin added.

  “Last I heard of Eni he was apprenticed to a weaponsmith in Catedrâl. Val was working as a librarian in Tarrancrest.” Seth eventually replied, his gaze flicking from Darin to Kal. “This is too much to ask of you. They’re not your brothers.”

  Kal shook his head. “You can’t warn them yourself. No arguments Seth – it’s settled. Besides, what else would we do now?”

  Seth leaned back in his chair and looked at the dancing flames in the fireplace. His temples were now pounding. This was wrong – all of it.

  “I wonder what they’re up to these days,” he murmured. “Those two are so different from each other that you wouldn’t think they’re brothers. They fought like dogs until they left home – leaving me alone with our bitter, cantankerous father.”

  Seth trailed off, as memories of his childhood rushed back. He had followed Eni everywhere, and even took his side in arguments with Val. When Eni left home without a backwards glance, Seth had felt betrayed, abandoned.

  “We’ll do our best to find them,” Darin promised. “In the meantime, get yourself as far away from here as you can.”

  Seth got to his feet. He was reluctant to leave the soothing warmth of the fire but his friends’ words had reminded him that it was unwise to linger. He reached for his cloak and pulled it about his shoulders. He still felt a loss for words – his friends’ generosity had touched him. Kal and Darin also rose to their feet. None of the three men spoke as they walked out into the street.

  It was a bright, crisp morning. The sky was cloudless and the Ocean of No Memory was an endless swath of deep blue against Seacliff’s jumbled white skyline. It was the perfect day to set out on a journey but Seth felt no excitement at the prospect.

  Seth turned to his friends. “Are you sure about this? I will understand if you change your minds.”

  Kal shook his head and slapped Seth on the shoulder. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Darin shook his hand, his face solemn. “Stay safe Seth. We’ll find your brothers.”

  Kal and Darin watched Seth’s tall, dark figure disappear round a corner.

  The two men exchanged looks.

  “I know,” Kal sighed. “I should know when to keep my mouth shut.”

  They turned and went to fetch their horses. A short while later, they rode out of Seacliff. A narrow road led them from the village through fields of grazing sheep. Presently, the road met up with the Northern Highway. Here, Darin and Kal stopped.

  “We
ll, which one do you want?” Kal asked.

  “Let’s toss a coin to decide,” Darin replied. He produced a tarnished silver drac from his pocket. “Heads I go to Catedrâl, tails you do.”

  The silver coin flipped into the air and winked in the sunlight before Darin caught it and slapped the drac down on the back of his hand.

  “Looks like I’m off to Catedrâl,” Darin announced with a grim smile. “You, my friend, have a trip to Farindell.”

  Chapter Five

  Gibbet’s Corner

  Eni Falkyn leaned against his cell wall and listened to the sound of approaching feet.

  They were coming for him.

  The sound of heavy boots scuffing on the mildewed floor outside drew closer. The moment he had been dreading had finally arrived.

  In the days of his incarceration, Eni had spent many hours raging at the injustice of it. He had shouted his innocence to the guards waiting outside his cell until his throat ached and he had lost his voice. He had beaten his fists against the door until he drew blood. Still, no one came to listen to him. It appeared that to the eyes of all he was guilty. They had not even given him a chance to defend himself.

  Worst of all, Lydia had done this to him. Even now, Eni could not believe the woman he had once shared his home with had lied so outrageously, so viciously. Did she hate him that much?

  The key grated in the lock and the heavy iron door swung inwards. Eni blinked as torchlight in the corridor beyond stung his eyes. After days in fetid darkness, even the murky light levels deep under Haladyn Castle caused him discomfort. Disoriented, Eni did not fight the rough hands that yanked him out of his cell and herded him down the narrow corridor.

  They led Eni out of the dungeon and up a long flight of mildewed steps. His legs were shaking when he finally emerged into the stable yard. The guards manhandled him into an iron cage that perched on the back of a horse-drawn wagon. An entourage of the realmlord’s personal guard surrounded him. Eni leaned against the rusted iron bars and looked up at the pale sky. The day was even colder than when they had brought him here. The horse-drawn wagon rumbled out of the castle and through Haladyn Park.

  Standing in the narrow cage atop the bouncing cart, Eni gripped the bars to keep from falling, and watched the frozen landscape pass him by. The biting air cleared his head and brought him out of his numbed state. Eni looked at his hands gripping the bars in front of him. Days locked up in a black cell away from his forge had healed the numerous welts, abrasions and burns that went with his trade. The skin was white and his fingers thinner than before. Eni tightened his fingers around the rusted iron until they went even whiter. He would never feel the heat of the forge again.

  Crowds awaited him at the gates leading out into Catedrâl's streets, despite the cold. People loved a hanging, especially after a long, tiresome winter. Teenage boys baited him and pelted his cage with stones, turds and rotten eggs. Women screamed insults and men heckled. Eni stared back at them, unflinching. This rabble cared not if he was guilty or innocent. He was merely a bit of amusement; an opportunity for them to water the seed of malice which flowered within them.

  “Murdering dog!” screeched an old woman as he rode by.

  ***

  Snow lay thick on the ground when Darin Mel rode into Catedrâl. Since he and Kal had parted at the end of the first day, bitter weather had dogged him the whole way up the coast. Fortunately, he carried a few silver and bronze dracs sewn into the lining of his jerkin – and the money had permitted him to stay at inns and taverns for most of the journey. He had only slept rough one night, and had been forced to move on after a few hours, such was the bone-numbing chill.

  Darin’s spirits lifted as he rode through Catedrâl’s outskirts. It was exciting to be somewhere new and he wondered whether he might find employment here. There was no point in travelling back to Dunethport once he had delivered his warning. Spring was just around the corner and a new life in Catedrâl beckoned.

  The capital of Cathernis appeared vastly different to Dunethport. Darin’s home-town climbed up bush-clad hills around a long, narrow harbour, whereas Catedrâl gleamed white and spread out over a wide plain. There seemed to be more sky here, and it was harder to get one's bearings. In Dunethport he had used Mount Caligar as a reference point. Here, there was the faint shadow of the Starwalden Alps to the west and nothing more than a hazy horizon to the east. Catedrâl was at least twice the size of Dunethport, its buildings taller and sharper. Unlike the rough white plaster and slate used in Dunethport, many buildings here were made of gleaming Omari sandstone, mined in the hills to the south of the city. Even against the crisp, white snow, the buildings glowed as if they held moonlight within them.

  Darin urged his horse into a trot along the avenue that led into Catedrâl's centre. He had spoken with a merchant the night before who had informed him that if it was a weaponsmith he sought, he would make his search easier by starting in the Castlewatch District, just south of Haladyn Park.

  The quarter was easy enough to find but once inside it was a labyrinth of tightly-packed two and three-story buildings. Castlewatch sat on one of Catedrâl's few hills. As Darin rode through the district he caught intermittent glimpses of snow-crusted roof-tops beyond.

  He passed a few forges, and was surprised to see many of them closed. Further up the hill, he discovered one or two that were open for business. Waves of heat emanated from the doors, turning the snow on the street into slush. The ‘clang’ of metal and ‘hiss’ that followed as the hot metal was plunged into water echoed off the walls. Most of the smiths had their names on signs outside but, not wanting to waste time searching aimlessly, Darin stopped to ask directions.

  He chose a tiny workshop where a stout bearded man sweated over the forge.

  Upon hearing Eni Falkyn's name, the weaponsmith scowled and eyed Darin up and down.

  “You a friend of his?”

  “No... of his brother.”

  The smith grunted. “So Falkyn has a brother eh?”

  Darin did not reply, hoping silence would bring a suitable answer. He had not ridden days through ice and snow to indulge this man's need for gossip.

  “What do you want with Falkyn?” the smith peered at him.

  “That's my business,” Darin snapped. His patience, short at the best of times, was starting to wear thin. “Where can I find him?”

  The smith's heavy-lidded eyes narrowed, as if he was considering whether to be obstructive or not. Finally he shrugged as if the prospect of getting into an argument with this travel-weary stranger was no longer amusing.

  “He’s to be strung up at Gibbet’s Corner today at noon,” he sneered, “so I guess you'll catch a glimpse of him then. I’m about to shut up shop and make my way there.”

  Darin could not believe his bad luck. He'd ridden like a man possessed to warn Eni Falkyn that he was in danger, and here he was as good as dead anyway.

  “Can I ask what his crime was?” Darin asked, checking his rising temper.

  The man's face twisted into a grin. “Word is that he murdered the realmlord’s elder son.”

  ***

  The wagon bounced down the main avenue leading to Gibbet’s Corner. Ahead, Eni could see the gallows casting their grisly shadow over an impatient crowd. A high wooden scaffold reared over the street. There had not been a hanging for a while and so the two bodies dangling over the crowd were badly decomposed. One had been pecked clean by crows and was nothing more than a desiccated jumble of dried sinew, bone and tattered rags – all that remained of the man’s robes. The man had strangled three townsfolk before robbing them. The second corpse was of a woman accused of poisoning her lovers. They had tried and hanged her at the end of the summer. Eni remembered both hangings vividly, although he had attended neither. They would string him up next to the woman, who many whispered had been innocent. Not that it mattered now.

  The Realmlord’s guard had erected a platform underneath the gallows with wooden steps leading up to it. The horse-drawn wagon
cut its way through the crowd. Guards had to whip and beat over-excited onlookers to clear their path and keep them away from Eni. They unlocked the cage and hauled their prisoner out. Women spat, rotten vegetables pelted him and fingers clawed. They manhandled Eni through the mob and up the stairs.

  Atop the platform, Eni had an uninterrupted view of his surroundings. He could see Lord and Lady Valense sitting atop a podium at the far end of the crowd. Realmlord Valense was pale and hatchet-faced. He was here to have vengeance, not entertainment. Beside him, Lady Valense appeared thin and sickly. Mattias stood to the left of his parents, his blond locks – so like his dead brother’s – shone, despite this dull day.

  The crowd bayed, impatient for the hanging to be underway. Eni closed his eyes as something nasty splattered against him. With his eyes shut, the rest of Eni’s senses intensified. He could feel the bite of the chill air, smell the stench of the refuse the crowd pelted him with, and he could hear the inhuman sounds of a keening mob, along with the rapid thudding of his heart. Eni took a deep breath to still the rising terror as the guards fitted the noose around his neck.

  When Eni opened his eyes again, he felt his gaze drawn to the faces in the crowd. He knew many who had come to watch him hang. Some were townsfolk with no reason to wish him ill: the fishmonger who sold him salted cod every Friday, the cobbler who made his work boots. Although Eni knew he was lacking in charm, he had never crossed these people and yet here they were; their faces tight with excitement at the thought of watching him swing.

  Of course, those he had fallen out with were at the front of the crowd. Fain was yelling insults and getting those around him worked up into a frenzy.

  Lydia was nowhere in sight.

  Bitterness soured Eni’s mouth. Lydia had not lacked the courage to stand before the realmlord and lie. She did not mind sending him to his death for a crime he did not commit, but she did not have the stomach to watch him hang. He would never know her reasons, and soon it would not matter.