The Shield of Daqan

by David Guymer

  Descent: Journeys in the Dark

  Terrinoth: an ancient realm of forgotten greatness and faded legacies, of magic and monsters, heroes, and tyrants. Its cities were ruined and their secrets lost as terrifying dragons, undead armies, and demon-possessed hordes ravaged the land. Over centuries, the realm slipped into gloom…

  Now, the world is reawakening – the Baronies of Daqan rebuild their domains, wizards master lapsed arts, and champions test their mettle. Banding together to explore the dangerous caves, ancient ruins, dark dungeons, and cursed forests of Terrinoth, they unearth priceless treasures and terrible foes.

  Yet time is running out, for in the shadows a malevolent force has grown, preparing to spread evil across the world. Now, when the land needs them most, is the moment for its heroes to rise.

  First published by Aconyte Books in 2021

  ISBN 978 1 83908 029 6

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 030 2

  Copyright © 2021 Fantasy Flight Games

  All rights reserved. Aconyte and the Aconyte icown are registered trademarks of Asmodee Group SA. Descent: Journeys in the Dark and the FFG logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover art by Jeff Chen.

  Map by Francesca Baerald.

  Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA

  ACONYTE BOOKS

  An imprint of Asmodee Entertainment Ltd

  Mercury House, Shipstones Business Centre

  North Gate, Nottingham NG7 7FN, UK

  aconytebooks.com // twitter.com/aconytebooks

  Part

  One

  Chapter One

  Trenloe the Strong

  The Crimson Downs, South East Kell

  Steel glinted on the hills. Trenloe shaded his eyes. The sun struck at them, low and red from across the winding snake of the Lothan River to the east. Trenloe and his mercenaries, the Companions, had spent years building his name across the southern baronies but this was his first experience of Terrinoth’s harder north-eastern edge. It was beautiful and humbling in equal measure.

  “Call me blind, but those don’t look like Fredric’s men.”

  “There are many things I might call you, were I of the mind, but not blind.” Dremmin squinted. The dwarf’s eyes were exceptionally keen at any time of day, but particularly in the small hours when a human might find theirs tricked by the dawn light. “They’re fewer in number than a Daqan patrol,” she said. “Even if we’ve crossed accidentally into Frest, which our guide assures us we’ve not, they’re flying no colors that I can see from here.”

  “How many in all?”

  “A score or less. All on horseback.”

  “Fewer than us then.”

  “There’ll be more tucked away in the fell, don’t you worry about that.”

  The Companions had crossed into the barony of Kell less than a week ago, hired by an agent of the Lady of Hernfar to reinforce the garrison at Nordgard Castle, but they had been so long on the road from their base in Artrast that summer had turned into autumn and Trenloe’s breath misted on the air. They were good warriors, motivated by right as much as by gold, but sixty tried and footsore mercenaries who had not yet been paid were not much of an army. At least not one he would want to lead into battle.

  “Should we be worried?”

  The dwarf’s taba leaf-stained lips parted for a grin made up of cracked and yellowing teeth. “The Greyfox may call herself the Bandit Queen of Kell, but her army is made up of hungry peasants, farmers and a handful of deserters.’

  South of Dhernas, he would have been lucky to find anyone, outside Trenloe’s specific circles, who had even heard of the Greyfox. Cross into Kell however and there was so much said about her it was impossible to know what, if any of it, was true.

  It was said that she could command the trees of the Whispering Forest and shape the hills of the Downs to her will, and that this explained why the armies of Kell had never managed to track her down. She was one of the Fae, some said, and the old spirits protected their own. It was said that she could turn gold and silver into bread, that she could alter her shape and communed with the beasts of the field and the wilderness to plot the overthrow of humanity in Kell. Some claimed without a shred of proof that she was the great-great granddaughter of the long dead and near-mythical founder of modern Terrinoth, King Daqan, while in the next valley over they would swear that she was an agent of the Uthuk Y’llan from the east, sent into Kell to destroy them all.

  But on the questions that were of most interest to Trenloe the rumors had surprisingly little to say.

  Who was the Greyfox actually? What did she look like? What did she want? What was her real name?

  Would she surrender the Downs, or would she force Trenloe to fight her for it?

  “They say the Greyfox can take animal shape and creep into their camps at night.”

  Dremmin chuckled. “I’ll bet they do.”

  Trenloe watched as the glimmer on the hillside disappeared into one of the innumerable creases in the heath. The hills were low and rounded, like the waves on the Kingless Coast, swathed in heathers, hair grass and coarse bracken. The locals called it the Crimson Downs. Presumably for the color.

  He thought it more a deep purple than a red, but Dremmin would often chide him for seeing the world as better than others seemed to see it. “I wasn’t expecting to see more bandits this far east. We must be practically in the Borderlands by now. I thought we had less than a day’s ride ahead of us.”

  “That’s what the townsfolk told me back at Gwellan.”

  “They must have been mistaken. Or you must have been drunk.”

  “Don’t get sour with me, lad. This country’s as foreign to me as it is to you.”

  Trenloe shook his head. “Just thinking aloud.”

  He had known Dremmin for years. He had served under her in the Trastan army for a year before the dwarf had persuaded him to strike out with her on their own. But he didn’t really know her. He didn’t know what she had been doing that far south of Thelgrim. He could only guess at her age. But then who but a dwarf could say they really knew a dwarf? And perhaps not even then. All Trenloe could say for sure about her was what he could see. Her face was craggy, with a proud cliff of brow under a winged helmet of boiled leather. She wore a long hauberk of leather scales with steel plates sewn in that stretched down past her knees. As bookkeeper and quartermaster of the Companions of Trenloe (or sergeant of the gold as she preferred her title to be) she was indisputably very wealthy, and could have afforded a harness of Forge-made steel if she had wanted it. Perhaps even a suit of runebound plate such as the greatest knights and the lords of the baronies might be fortunate enough to possess. Trenloe had once asked her why she didn’t, to which the dwarf had grunted that she was “saving.”
For what she refused to say, and Trenloe suspected he would never know.

  Mounted on her shaggy highland pony, the dwarf tracked her gaze across the Crimson Downs.

  “Nothing like home, is it?”

  “Nothing like home,” Trenloe agreed.

  “I hate it when you do that, you know.”

  “Do what?”

  “Repeat back what I’ve just said as though it makes you sound wise.”

  Trenloe grinned and leant closer, allowing his words to drawl. “Make myself sound wise?”

  “I never know if you’re pulling my leg or if you’re actually as dumb as you look.”

  Trenloe’s harness of half plate shook with his laughter.

  For a while longer they sat in silence, watching the Downs for signs of movement. “This isn’t good land for farming,” Trenloe said, in reply to the dwarf’s earlier observation. “The growing season’s too short. The nights are too long and too cold.” He nodded towards the glittering line of the river. “Not to mention the threat of having your crop burned by Uthuk raiders from the Borderlands.”

  “A bit different to looking across your border into Lorimor or the Aymhelin, isn’t it?”

  “Land like this is for grazing.”

  “I forget you were a farmer before we met.”

  “Son of a farmer.”

  “Same thing. It’s hard to imagine Trenloe the Strong milking a goat.”

  Trenloe didn’t reply.

  He wasn’t sure what he was meant to say to that.

  “Come on,” he said, after he had thought about it a bit more. “If the Greyfox is out there then it looks as though she’s content to stay there for now. We need to move. Particularly if we’re further from Hernfar than you thought.”

  “Than I was told.”

  Trenloe wheeled his horse around.

  He’d seen the big warhorses of the baronial knights at work, huge animals that could carry a grown man in full armor and lived for battle. He’d even had the opportunity to buy one once, but he loved the middle-aged Trastan farmhorse he still rode and Rusticar, as he was called, generally gave every indication of returning the feeling. He may have been slow, but he was the only animal Trenloe had ever come across big enough to carry him.

  The Companions of Trenloe were in the midst of breaking camp. Accustomed as they were to the easier climes of the southern baronies, they did so rather slowly. Corporal Bethan walked the camp in full battle harness and cloak, playing “The Rise of the Free” on her zither and liberally administering kicks to those still in their bedrolls. Quicker about themselves were the wagons full of refugees they had managed to pick up on leaving Gwellan. The town was of a size that suggested it had once been a trade destination in its own right, but the deprivation there now had been almost physically painful to witness. Everyone said it was the last settlement before Hernfar, and the Companions had stopped there for provisions. Trenloe had paid treble what the goods were worth, but still felt guilty about taking what little they had.

  The least he could do was offer escort to any who wanted to make the journey with them to the castle at Hernfar.

  And it seemed a great many of them did.

  The Darklands were apparently less threatening than the Greyfox, and Nordgard Castle more appealing than the grim reputation that the island had in Trast.

  The caravan wound around a bend in what Bethan would sometimes jokingly describe as “the Road.” A few leather-clad Companion horsemen trotted alongside, complaining about the small hour, the food and the cold weather.

  “The townsfolk look nervous,” said Trenloe.

  “Comes from being nervous folk,” Dremmin countered, reaching into her pack for a pipe.

  “They know this land better than we do. If they’re nervous then maybe there’s a reason for us to be.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like one of your old father’s sayings.”

  Trenloe nodded. “‘Listen to those as know,’ he says.”

  “Aye,” Dremmin sniffed. “I thought so.”

  Trenloe watched as the line of wagons inched their way along the road.

  “We’ll not make it to Hernfar until next year at this rate,” said Dremmin.

  Trenloe spurred Rusticar into a walk, which was close to his fullest gait. “Let’s see what the hold-up is.”

  “Aye,’ said Dremmin, sucking aggressively on her pipe and goading her pony to follow. “Let’s.”

  Chapter Two

  Kurt

  North of Gwellan, South East Kell

  Kurt ran up the hill. Dry bracken crunched under the thin soles of his boots. Cotton grass puffed into seed off the shins of his trousers. His slice of the Crimson Downs was a parcel of jumbled heathland and bare rock running from the borders of the Whispering Forest to the foot of the two hills, Old Gray and the Ram, and the gap between them. His modest steading stood in the cleft as far from the Forest as could be. The hunched back of Old Gray sheltered it against storms from the east. A freshwater trickle from somewhere encircled it on three sides and turned a small wheel. Kurt’s feelings towards the place were complicated. He loved it because it held onto the memories that Kurt refused to. But for its meanness, its cold, its thin scrag of chalky topsoil, for its short days and its deep lonely nights he hated it utterly. It cost him more in taxes and other dues to his lord than it could earn him with wool and cheeses. He had eaten better in the army. Even at the end.

  At the hill’s crest, he slowed.

  He crouched on one knee amongst the short grass, nocked an arrow to his flatbow. The sun was rising slowly over the row of hills to the east, scratching the lowland downs with shadow. Whoops and screams carried eagerly on the fierce, cold wind. Plumes of smoke dotted the vista. The thunder of hoofbeats trembled through the ground under his knee.

  The bandits were coming out of the Whispering Forest. The realization appalled him. Only the Greyfox could have been so bold as to tame those haunted bowers, or to turn those who followed her wild enough to be accepted by the spirits of the old wood.

  A group of riders was descending the slope of the neighboring hillock. Kurt’s training took over, pushing the small niggle of fear deep into his chest. He breathed himself wide, drawing the bowstring back, past the tooth he had broken in a fight when he was young, past his ear and taut.

  He sighted along the length of the shaft.

  Kurt let out his breath and loosed.

  The arrow leapt from the string with a twang, and he grunted in satisfaction as it thumped into the rider’s shoulder. The brigand pitched from his horse with a wail and fell into the bracken. Kurt nocked another, drew, and loosed. That was how they taught it in the army. It was all about the rhythm. It stopped you from thinking too much about the fact you were killing a man. The arrow punched through thick leather plates and into a second horseman’s belly. The bandit fell from his saddle with a cry, but one foot became caught in the stirrup and his horse dragged him on down the sward, before veering back towards the forest.

  “Go tell your friends!” Kurt yelled after him. “This is Kurt Stavener’s land and the Greyfox can’t have it.”

  The rest of the horsemen swerved and broke. Kurt allowed himself a relieved breath, but kept his eye on them as they disappeared into the heath, running in the direction of Larion’s Steading. He let them go gladly. Larion could spend her own arrows. He turned back. The bandit with the shoulder wound was still writhing in the bushes.

  “Boxer. Whisper.”

  At his command the two dogs tore off down the hill.

  They were shepherd dogs, trained to chase rather than kill. But of course, the brigand wasn’t to know that. Kurt smiled to himself as the wounded man picked himself up and hobble-ran screaming back into the heath.

  He nocked another arrow.

  At the sound of a horse charging up the hill behind him, he swung his aim
around, only to then ease back on the string and turn the arrowhead towards the ground.

  His youngest son, Elben, fifteen years old that last summer, struggled to rein in the black, sixteen hands-tall charger that Kurt had “borrowed” from his former garrison at Bastion Tarn. The boy looked ridiculously tiny in the high saddle, like a confused gnome still dressed in his nightclothes.

  “Get down from there,” said Kurt; love, fear, and old army habits lowering his voice to an unexpected snarl. “That horse is too big for you.”

  Elben looked hurt. “But you asked me to bring him.”

  “I asked you to bring him. I didn’t tell you to ride him. Get down.”

  The boy was about to argue, but just then Boxer and Whisper came bounding back from the heath. They yapped excitedly, sitting a few feet away from Kurt and beating the ground with their tails. Boxer licked his lips and barked.

  Elben dismounted.

  Kurt scratched Boxer’s ears, praised Whisper for being good and quiet, then took the reins from his son and climbed with some difficulty up onto the great horse’s back. He swayed a moment while he found his balance. He was a competent rider rather than a happy one, but his land was too hilly and broken for him to cover it on foot.

  “I could come with you,” said Elben, and gestured towards his father’s flatbow. “I can shoot.”

  Allowing himself this one moment of appeasement, Kurt leant down and handed the boy his bow. Like the horse, it looked ludicrously overlarge in his hands, but he glowed. Kurt smiled briefly, because there was more pain there than pleasure.

  He wished there was some other skill he could share with his sons.

  Anything but this.

  “Go back now,” he said, fighting to get the combative animal to turn. “Take the dogs and help your older brother defend the house. There shouldn’t be too many coming this way now. I’ll be back soon. Yah!” With that, he kicked the horse into a thunderous canter that carried him over the top of the hill and down.