Shadowless

by Randall McNally

  As much as it would have satisfied him to witness the ultimate demise of the high priest, Lauterbur realised that with the alarm having been raised, he had only seconds to escape. He ran to the door, opened it and fled.

  Sprinting down the corridor, Lauterbur passed by doorways with sleepy guards standing in them, rubbing drowsiness from their eyes and not completely sure what was going on. With the girl’s screams for help and now the sound of footsteps ringing in his ears, Lauterbur emerged into the courtyard at the centre of the keep.

  As soon as he ran outside, the guards appeared as if from nowhere brandishing their halberds. Ignoring them, he kept going towards the open gates to the outer keep where two more guards emerged, blocking his escape. He skidded to a halt and spun on his heel to return the way he came, but more guards came through the doorway, weapons at the ready.

  Lauterbur dropped his knife and put his hands in the air in surrender.

  Just as one of the armed men seized him, the unit of Shadow Watchers came charging out of the doorway, half-dressed and readying their weapons. While the guard held him still, the Shadow Watcher captain roughly searched him and found the folded parchment in his pocket.

  ‘We can take it from here. This is our prisoner. We will be taking him back to the capital,’ the captain said in a loud staccato voice, trying to stamp his authority on the situation.

  Lauterbur uttered a curse under his breath. If everything that was written on the parchment was true, and he had no reason to doubt it, then this was the one thing he did not want to happen.

  The keep’s guards did not immediately back off.

  The captain spoke again.

  ‘In the name of Prince Tiberius the Pious, heir to the throne of Varahil, I command—’

  ‘You are not in Varahil,’ a voice interrupted the captain. ‘And I give the commands around here.’

  The captain turned to see a tall, thin man with dirty-looking, long grey hair and a jaw dotted with stubble. His gold-trimmed, dark-purple robes implied importance.

  He strode forward from the tower doorway, a large guard sergeant by his side and a personal bodyguard of eight more armed and heavily armoured men in close attendance.

  The old man and his entourage walked up to Lauterbur.

  ‘Well, well, well, what do we have here?’ He looked the prisoner up and down.

  The captain stepped between the old man and Lauterbur.

  ‘Lord Denowai, this thing must return to the capital with me. It’s extremely dangerous, and we don’t know the full extent of its power.’

  The old man put one hand up. He looked to the guard restraining Lauterbur.

  The guard stood to attention before snapping into action, snatching the parchment from the captain’s hand and presenting it to Lord Denowai.

  ‘This is the man we found dying outside the main doors last night,’ the guard stated, his voice muffled by his helmet.

  The old man read the parchment, glancing up at Lauterbur periodically as he did so. A smile crept across his face.

  ‘Interesting, very interesting,’ he said slowly and emphatically, then turned to his guard sergeant. ‘Spare the prisoner, kill the rest.’ He stepped back as his sergeant rushed in.

  ‘As you command,’ the sergeant bellowed.

  ‘No! Wait!’ the captain pleaded, falling to his knees and wringing his hands.

  His men looked frantically at each other.

  The keep guards levelled their halberds in unison. They sliced and gored the unit of Shadow Watchers, aiming for the areas where they were unarmoured, due to their hasty wakening.

  Lauterbur watched in horror as the blue-cloaked guards were disembowelled and decapitated.

  The captain’s fate was no different from that of his men. As he knelt pleading for his life, the keep sergeant, a man nearly a foot taller and several stone heavier than him, grasped him by the neck and began ripping at his lower jaw. After a few seconds, the bones snapped and came away along with the surrounding skin and blood vessels.

  Surveying the carnage he had ordered, Lord Denowai strolled towards Lauterbur, over the bodies of the dead and dying men. He issued commands to his sergeant, who was still carrying the captain’s jaw, in a serene manner which seemed surreal to Lauterbur.

  ‘Burn everything they have that is flammable, especially the cloaks. Smash the prison wagon and smelt their weapons and the priest’s skullcap. Cut up the bodies and feed them to the hounds. Everything else, bring to me. They never existed; they were never here,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ growled the sergeant, beckoning to his men then pointing to the bloody bodies.

  The keep guards got to work, dragging the dead away and slitting the throats of the dying.

  Lord Denowai then turned his attention to Lauterbur.

  ‘What do we have here? A man without a shadow who…’ he looked at the parchment in his hand and read from it. ‘Returns from death with the first rays of the rising sun.’

  ‘Now, is that not interesting, Sergeant Rorex?’

  ‘Very interesting,’ barked the sergeant in a deep, rumbling voice.

  As Lord Denowai and the sergeant approached, Lauterbur tried to back off, but felt the sharp point of a halberd in his back.

  ‘Fetch the necromancers, Sergeant,’ the old man said with a grin. ‘We are going to see just how immortal our Mr Hess really is.’

  A sick feeling formed in the pit of Lauterbur’s stomach. The kind of feeling that told him he was in deep trouble.

  Chapter III

  The Cold Kiss of Kayan Faelström

  The spiral staircase wound downwards, deep into the bowels of the fortress. Four guards carrying torches descended the stairs to the dungeons. The stairwell was cold and every surface glistened with a layer of frost, causing the walls to sparkle where light fell on them, and making the steps slippery.

  The last of the guards, a boy in his late teens, and by far the youngest of the group, looked around him in awe. He had never been to this part of the fortress before, and was trying to take in as much of his surroundings as possible. His intention was to re-tell the story to impress the handmaidens who served the lord of the fortress.

  Oleg had worked in Fort Tarinhelm along with his mother since he was a young boy. His days were spent in the armoury sharpening swords and axes or beating the dents out of plate mail. The work was tedious and tiring, and Oleg craved some adventure in his otherwise dreary life. And so, when Lundar, the head of Lord Tarinhelm’s guards, had told him he would be assisting with the transfer of a prisoner from the dungeons, he was filled with excitement.

  ‘You weren’t joking when you said it was cold down here,’ Oleg said, rubbing his bare arms vigorously. He could see his breath as he spoke.

  ‘We told you to wear furs,’ scowled Björn. ‘You’re not in the armoury now, boy.’

  ‘Easy, Björn,’ said Lundar as he led the way. ‘We won’t be down here long, Oleg; we just needed a fourth person at short notice.’

  Björn, a tall man with ginger hair and a beard, fired Oleg a look of contempt over his shoulder.

  The boy muttered a few swear words under his breath as he followed the others down.

  Why did I open my mouth? he thought. I was told to say nothing, follow orders and to wear furs. Still, I didn’t think it would be this cold.

  Reaching the bottom of the steps, they fanned out into the corridor. Oleg felt something scrunch underfoot and saw in the flickering light of his torch that the floor was covered in snow.

  ‘That’s impossible… we’re inside. How can there be…?’

  ‘Shut up, boy. Are you trying to get us all killed?’ Andres snapped in a low voice.

  ‘Oleg, look at me,’ Lundar said, clicking his fingers in front of Oleg’s face. ‘You remember what we talked about earlier, yes?’

  ‘Er, yeah. Don’t look her
in the eye. Don’t speak to her, and under no circumstances, let her touch me.’

  The guard chief patted Oleg on the shoulder.

  ‘We all get a bit twitchy our first time.’

  Lundar picked up a long metal rod that hung on the wall. It had a pair of semi-circular pincers at one end, a chain running up its shaft and a worn, leather-bound grip with a lever at the other.

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  The four men stalked through the snow. Oleg could see a faint blue light at the far end of the corridor, about thirty yards away.

  We’re deep underground, he thought. How can there be snow on the floor and daylight coming from the other end of the corridor?

  ‘Are you afraid of the dark, Oleg?’

  A young woman’s voice echoed through the corridor. The men stopped, drew their clubs and looked all around them.

  Gripped with panic, Oleg swung his torch in different directions, trying to see where the voice had come from. He held it up in front of the other three guards. The fear on their faces told him that things had just become a lot more perilous.

  A freezing gust of wind laced with hailstones whistled up the corridor, extinguishing the torches. The icy salvo caught Oleg unaware, knocking him to his knees. Curled up in the snow, he felt the other men gather around him and crouch down, pulling their furs up for protection. The hailstones battered the group, blinding them temporarily.

  Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.

  A sinister laugh came from the other end of the corridor.

  Björn got out his flint and steel and re-lit the torches. Oleg cowered in the snow, his legs freezing and his head spinning from the impact of the hailstones.

  ‘Have you come to warm me up, Oleg?’ the voice asked. ‘Have you come to thaw my frozen heart?’

  The three men straightened up and Andres pulled Oleg to his feet by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘We’ll smash your fucking head in if you don’t stop this witchcraft at once,’ Björn shouted.

  The three men charged down the snow-covered corridor towards the voice, with Oleg in pursuit.

  Reaching the end of the corridor, Oleg saw the eerie blue light again, shining through a small, barred window in a door. Lundar signalled to Oleg and Andres to stand on one side of the door, backs against the wall. He and Björn positioned themselves similarly on the other side. Catching his breath, Oleg watched as the light’s reflection on the corridor ceiling slowly got brighter then dimmed.

  ‘What sort of lamp has she got in there?’ he whispered to Andres.

  ‘She doesn’t have a lamp. She just makes the ice glow, no one knows how.’

  ‘Pipe down,’ Lundar whispered. ‘We know what we have to do, let’s get on with it.’

  Taking a small mirror from under his furs, Lundar crept to the door and crouched beneath the window. He positioned the mirror so that it allowed him to see between the bars and into the room.

  ‘Come on now, Kayan,’ he commanded. ‘Stand in the centre of the room, with your back to the door, and look at the ground. Lord Tarinhelm wants to see you. Do as we say and no one has to get hurt.’

  A sniggering came from the room.

  ‘I don’t feel like talking,’ the voice inside said.

  Lundar sighed and shook his head.

  ‘Kayan, I’ve been sent down here to fetch you. Now, one way or another, the four of us are coming in there and taking you up to see Lord Tarinhelm.’

  ‘I don’t know if you heard me correctly, but I just told you that I don’t feel like talking. So you can come through that door if you want, but I promise that not everyone who enters this room will be leaving it alive,’ Kayan said.

  The sincerity of the statement was not lost on Lundar’s men, who looked at each other nervously.

  ‘Look, I’m only following orders, Kayan, so either you get into position or we’ll pump boiling water into your cell again. And you know what happened the last time we did that.’

  Lundar rotated the mirror and watched the girl shuffle into the centre of the room and turn around.

  ‘Björn, Andres, get going,’ he commanded.

  The two men unhooked small picks-axes from their belts and began breaking the ice that had formed around the edge of the door. Digging the spiked tips of their tools into it, they prised the ice off quickly, cracking and splintering it.

  Oleg held his torch as close to the door as he dared, trying desperately not to get in the way. Having felt the back of Björn’s hand before, in the armoury, because of an incident involving a blunt blade, it was not an experience he yearned for again. He watched the breath of the men as they puffed heavily while removing the ice. The dull thudding sound made by the picks when they struck the door told him that it was made of metal – and thick.

  How can someone be so dangerous that they need to be kept down here, in the freezing cold, behind a thick metal door? he wondered.

  Oleg and the other servants were not allowed in the dungeons. It was always made clear to them that if they were found there they would be kept there. Even so, he had heard the rumours; stories pertaining to a girl found out on the ice sheet by a long-range patrol. A girl who was not like any other. A girl who did not have a shadow.

  ‘Right, stand back,’ Lundar ordered, as the last piece of ice was pulled from the door frame.

  Taking a large key from his belt, he put it into the lock and turned it, grunting with exertion. Screeching in protest, the ice within the long-dormant lock began to break as the mechanism strained. The key slowly cranked round as the frozen tumblers began snapping back into action and, with one final jolt, it unlocked. Lundar took a few steps back and then charged at the door, kicking it with all the force he could muster.

  Loosened by the impact, a layer of frost fell off the door and it swung open.

  Oleg peered into the cell; every surface of the room was covered in ice. Faint blue and white glowing lights, no bigger than coins, were moving within it; some drifted up the walls, others across the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, boy, move,’ Björn barked, shoving him in the back.

  Oleg snapped out of his daze and went into the cell, watching wide-eyed as the three men surrounded a gaunt, scrawny figure, dressed in dirty grey sackcloth standing in the centre of the room: Kayan.

  Her feet were filthy and her bedraggled black hair hung limply over her face and upper body. Oleg thought she looked about his age. Perhaps a little younger, maybe sixteen.

  ‘Hurry up, Oleg,’ Björn thundered.

  Positioning himself in front of Kayan, Oleg looked at Björn and Andres, who were standing at either side of her. They had their torches in one hand and clubs in the other, raised aloft, seemingly ready to bring them down on Kayan at any second. Fear etched their faces.

  How can they be so afraid of her, she’s just a girl, Oleg thought, but not wishing to incur a further scolding from Björn, he too raised his club above his head.

  Behind Kayan, Lundar positioned the pole with the pincers against her neck. He squeezed the lever. Nothing happened.

  ‘Hurry up and put the restraint on, Lundar,’ Björn said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’m bloody well trying,’ Lundar said, struggling with the mechanism.

  ‘The ice has frozen the chain; here, hold it over our torches,’ Andres suggested.

  Björn and Andres held their torches together while Lundar rotated the pole and began warming the chain.

  While the other men were arguing about the best way to thaw the frozen restraint, Oleg stared at the skinny girl standing before him. She was wringing her hands, and he noticed her long black nails. Slowly, Kayan brought her hands up to her face.

  ‘There’s no point holding the flame to the chain, it’s the locking mechanism that’s frozen.’

  ‘But the chain needs to be thawed out too.’


  ‘Look, just hold the flame steady and let me do the rest.’

  Oleg leaned to the side to get a better view of what was happening.

  How hard is it to melt the ice? he thought. If only they would—

  ‘Oleg,’ Kayan whispered.

  Surprised, Oleg dropped his guard for a split second and looked.

  Kayan had parted the hair from her face and was looking straight at him. Her ice-blue eyes seemed to pierce his very soul, captivating him instantly. The details of everything else in the room faded to a blur, everything except Kayan. Her eyes and smile transfixed him; her lily-white skin radiated beauty from every pore. Oleg was powerless to resist her mystical allure – he was besotted, enchanted, lost.

  ‘Oleg,’ she whispered. ‘You’re mine.’

  Beguiled by her cherry-red lips, pursed in a perfect bow as she blew him a kiss, Oleg’s head began to spin and he fell helplessly under her spell. He had to kiss her. Dropping his club and torch, he walked forward into her embrace.

  The second their lips touched, Oleg realised his terrible mistake. Bitter cold fused his lips to hers. Pain shot through his head and down his body. He stared in horror as Kayan’s eyes filled with hunger and deathly cold spread down his neck and into his chest. Trying to pull himself away, he glanced down in dread to see his arms turning to ice before his eyes.

  Kayan grasped his head in her hands and sucked the remaining life force from his body.

  ‘No,’ Andres shouted, lunging towards Oleg.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, you fool?’ Lundar barked, grabbing Andres and restraining him with the help of Björn.

  ‘He’ll die,’ Andres yelled.

  ‘He’s dead already,’ roared Lundar.

  The veins in Oleg’s arms and head turned purple before splitting open. His eyes glazed over and his skin turned blue as Kayan turned the water in his body to ice.

  When she was finished, she calmly took her lips from his and pushed him away. Frozen solid, Oleg’s lifeless body fell backwards, hitting the ground and shattering.

  The three men stared aghast at the chunks of Oleg’s corpse that were now littering the floor.