Mordraud, Book One

by Fabio Scalini

  “Nothing...”

  “Remember my ears are still good! I’ve heard what the women say at the market. Mordraud this, Mordraud that...”

  “I didn’t say that...” replied Adrina, shaking her head.

  “You think it though, don’t you?! And I was the one who put the boy in that house... But you should know that I couldn’t have imagined...”

  Larois clammed up, but Adrina was too curious to hear what she was about to say.

  “What couldn’t you have imagined?!”

  “Well... That it would become a problem for everyone... That’s all.”

  “Larois...”

  Adrina whispered to her, and she turned towards the door. Gwern had come in without them noticing. He was swaying, with his eyes half-closed.

  “Are you alright, Gwern?”

  The boy failed to reply, and simply went on rocking his head back and forth. Larois approached him and gripped him by the shoulders, but he was looking elsewhere.

  “He seems to be asleep,” muttered Adrina. “Does it happen often?”

  “No, at least I don’t think so... Gwern, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  “Blood raining from the skies,” he murmured. A wisp of emotionless, flat voice. “I’ve seen it.”

  “My little one, it’s normal... It’ll be the Night of Fire in a few days’ time. Do you remember it from last year? We watched it together and...”

  “Raining men’s blood. I was there, I saw it.”

  “You didn’t see anything nasty... You’ve just had a bad dream. Now come with me and I’ll put you back to bed.”

  “I saw my brother wounded by a lance.”

  “That’s enough now, Gwern! WAKE UP!” Larois shouted, shaking him so hard his teeth chattered. Yet his eyes remained half-closed and were absent from the room.

  “Nothing but blood, in the skies and on the land... Lances glimmering everywhere...”

  Larois slapped his face. Gwern’s knees wobbled and suddenly buckled. She caught him before he could fall, now awake and frightened to death.

  “Where am I? What’s going on?!”

  “Nothing my boy. You fell asleep, here with us... Now, to bed with you, it’s late.”

  “My face hurts...” he stammered, rubbing his reddened cheek. “I can’t remember what happened...”

  “You were exhausted, and you dozed off with your head on the table. To bed now, come on!”

  Gwern went off on unsteady legs and shut the door behind him after saying goodnight to Adrina. Larois returned to her seat, venting a worried sigh. The two friends looked at each other for a long embarrassed time, without finding the right words.

  “A boy’s nightmare, that’s all...” Adrina offered up, breaking the silence.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s late, maybe it’s time I...”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  Adrina put her cup back on the table and left without saying goodbye. Larois stayed sitting at the kitchen table a good while longer, wringing her hands.

  “The Night of Fire approaches,” she murmured, swallowing down the fistful of tears in her throat.

  ***

  “READY?!”

  The first captain yelled the name of his own battalion. Others copied him, one by one. The soldiers responded with a terrifying roar. Thousands of men were lined up behind him. At his side, the black cloaks of the Imperial Lances flapped in the morning breeze. The cries became a sea that swelled and foamed in rage. Asaeld was a god of war, helming one of the largest armies Dunwich had ever seen or dreamt of. Thousands of archers, an ocean of infantry, and the cavalry at the sides ready to begin. And then them, Cambria’s finest: the legendary Lances.

  “FORWARD MARCH!”

  A storm of iron feet moved in unison. The ground shuddered under their weight. Dunwich drew in a deep breath and had the urge to scream to the skies. He felt great – participating in and making history. He could almost feel the world squeezed between his hands. He’d never been so scared, and this excited him to his stomach.

  The Empire was advancing to set an end to a question that had dragged on too long.

  ***

  Mordraud was standing on the Rampart. He was slashing the scarlet-streaked black air with his sword. Small sparks showered down from the sky without scorching, fluttering around the blade like distorted fireflies. High up, above everything and everyone, danced the crimson sail that had converted the heavens into a dome of flame. The still silence was broken only by his breathing. All the animals in the area seemed to have disappeared, hiding in their dens to escape the menacing hue of that night.

  The Night of Fire.

  He was alone on the Rampart. All the soldiers had gathered around the bonfires blazing among the camp’s tents, intent on burning tablets of wood carved with various forms showing their dreams and desires. Each shape seemed tinged in countless nuances of red. The steel of the sword was scalding, as if it had just been fashioned. The air was chilly and without a whisper of wind. Mordraud went back over the times he’d gazed at the red night from his home, with this mother and Gwern. In the distance, he could just make out a trail of crimson across the horizon cloaked in night. They’d been good times. Yet seen from within, oppressed by a blood-soaked sky, the Night of Fire was quite a different thing. A magniloquent, fearful experience.

  Mordraud suddenly picked up on something on the horizon. Horse hooves perhaps, or a muffled cry. Hard to say. The atmosphere was dreamlike, muted. He stood stock-still, lowered his sword and listened carefully in the emptiness. That sound again. Mordraud noticed his left hand had started shaking. He clenched his fingers more tightly around the hilt, but the tremor spread up his arm and invaded his chest.

  “What…?”

  The sound became a rhythm. The rhythm took on the shape of a body.

  A horse foaming at the mouth was galloping frantically towards the Rampart. A man, one of Adraman’s trusted scouts, was slumped over its back. Mordraud reached a walkway and slid down, with difficulty, from the barricade. He grabbed the reins of the poor exhausted animal. The soldier had fainted from weariness, and his lips were cracked from thirst.

  “What’s happened? Are you alright?”

  “Cambria…”

  Mordraud felt the blood drain from his body.

  “What about Cambria?! Is Adraman safe? ANSWER ME!”

  “They’re coming, an hour… less maybe… The captain was informed… late… He’ll get here, but not in time… Please, some water…”

  Mordraud helped him drink from his small skin bag, and the soldier gulped the liquid down, to the last drop. “I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten… I haven’t pissed for four days… But I overtook them! I overtook them!”

  His voice was dangerously on the verge of folly. Mordraud flung away the flask and jumped on the horse. Not far from him stretched the bridge the cavalry could use to access and leave the Rampart. He took it at full speed, despite the risk of plummeting into the void below. There wasn’t much time.

  The enemy was at the gates.

  “THE EMPIRE! THE EMPIRE!” he yelled with all his might, bashing his sword’s hilt against the helmet hanging from his belt.

  “THE EMPIRE’S ON ITS WAY!”

  Wine-reddened faces peered out of tents. Little opaque patches in the Night of Fire. The dancing and music around the bonfires stopped. Mordraud screamed even louder, galloping across the camp and beating steel against steel.

  “THE EMPIRE!”

  “Mordraud, what’s happening?!” Gabor grabbed the horse, halting it with a single hand. “If this is your idea of a joke, tomorrow don’t even think to...”

  “It’s not a frigging joke! Adraman’s seen Cambria’s army! They’re on their way, and he can’t reach us! WE MUST GET OURSELVES READY!”

  “Now calm down, lad... and start again. A nice deep breath, go on!” Gabor had entirely changed in expression and tone. He was no longer the new recruits’ instructor. Not at that moment, during that night
of death. “We need to keep cool heads. How many of them? How far away are they?”

  “Less than an hour, sir,” replied the soldier sitting behind Mordraud. “I’ve never seen such a huge army. Fifteen, maybe even twenty infantry battalions... Thousands of men on horseback... and two lines of Lances.”

  “TWO LINES?!” Gabor’s voice faded in despair. “Three hundred Lances... no, more... Impossible...!”

  “I saw it with my own eyes! I overtook them by hiding in the wood... Riding as fast as I could...”

  “Mordraud, you race to the command post, I’ll start putting out the bonfires and mustering the men. NOW!” Gabor bellowed to the soldiers round him. “Douse the fires! Get your weapons! ALERT! ALERT!”

  Mordraud left the exhausted soldier on the ground and galloped off to the officers’ tents. Ice was outside with the other captains, concentrating on a rather heated game of dice. ‘We’re all drunk, damn it all!’ Mordraud realised, irate. Berg had to be there too, somewhere. Many others of Eldain’s men had left a few weeks earlier, to return to their posts at the front. Some were with Adraman.

  “Ice! Ice!” he yelled, hurling himself off the horse. The general looked at him, wide-eyed. Mordraud did not bother with formalities and darted, panting, into the midst of the group.

  “What do you want, soldier? Have you forgotten your manners?!”

  “Cambria’s about to attack! Their army will be here any moment now.”

  Mordraud hadn’t expected to receive a chorus of laughter in response.

  “You don’t believe me?! But it’s true!”

  “Come on, lad. Leave us to finish our game, and I’ll pretend I heard and saw nothing from you. Just for tonight, though. It is a holiday for everyone!”

  “It’s no joke, you idiot! We must get ourselves ready! Gabor’s already rounding up the men!”

  The laughter turned into suffocated groans. Ice had even gone paler than usual. Mordraud stiffened in dread. He’d just called him idiot. He’d practically hanged himself all on his own.

  “Are we really under attack?!”

  “I swear we are, on the heads of all the Gods!”

  The commander for the eastern allies opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it, looking around himself, panic-stricken. It didn’t last long. He immediately found his composure. He realised Adraman was away, and that he and Berg were the highest-ranking officers. He shook his head to throw off the sluggishness and at once began rolling off precise orders.

  “You two, to the cavalry. Tell them to set themselves up along the Rampart sides. BE CAREFUL OF THE FORESTS – they’ll try to get through there too. You, find Berg,” he cried, pointing to three soldiers. “Instead you, go to the infantry sections. Orders are for double lines on the Rampart. Have the spears to the ready. AND GET RID OF THOSE SODDING BRIDGES!”

  Mordraud could start breathing again, but the tremor in his hand was growing and had gone beyond his wrist. It was spreading at an alarming rate. Ice congratulated him and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Mordraud, Ice Sir...”

  “Good, Mordraud. Now go to the Rampart. You did an excellent job. I want to find you still alive tomorrow morning... so I can punish you in person for what you called me.”

  “Thank you, Ice Sir!”

  “And stop addressing me like that, you wretch!”

  ***

  “GET READY!”

  Just a few steps more.

  Dunwich could feel Asaeld’s voice quivering in his stomach. The night was like a black rock dipped in blood-soaked tar. The red sail whirled in silence in the skies. A hail of sparks showered noiselessly down on an ocean of iron-clad shoulders. The Lances moved as a single body, breaking up into two trunks. The foot-soldiers quickened their pace and began to run. The cavalry gathered into formations of cutting rams.

  “READY FOR IMPACT!”

  Dunwich unsheathed his sword. A mass of chanting rose from the Lances as they galloped. A deep dark forest of resonances. Dunwich erased everything of no importance, and focused purely on his line of chanting. The other Lances were suddenly there behind him. The pressure of the voices in perfect harmony channelled itself into a sort of intangible wall that trembled, advancing at their same speed. His heart was beating and pumping furiously to let him strain for a deadly solo. The blade edge dripped fire mingled with blood.

  “CAMBRIA!”

  ***

  The store-racks were raided. Hundreds of men swarmed through the camp’s tents, searching for weapons, pulling on protections, or simply praying tearfully. The few pieces of equipment available were in a sorry state. There weren’t enough shields or helmets, and they were quite a number of swords short too. The horsemen loaded the tackle onto their steeds. The attendants sharpened spear-tips on grey stones. The company captains bawled out orders and positions at the tops of their voices. Many drunks were dunked in freezing water and armed as best as possible, and before they could realise what was happening, they already found themselves rushing towards the front ranks.

  Mordraud was packed onto the Rampart with his fellow fighters. The ground at the horizon trembled, and coils of reddish dust rose. The night’s silence had vanished, replaced by chanting and the snapping of archers busy in action. A cloud of arrows pierced the blood-red aura. The Alliance’s army had managed to take its positions, but nobody was prepared for that majestic and deadly vision. Cambria’s power was unfurled over an incomprehensible mat of harmonies.

  “There are too many of them... too many...” a whimper came at his side.

  It was Benno. The burly blockhead whose nose he’d broken.

  “Better that way.”

  Mordraud ran his tongue over his lips, and flicked his fingers around the sword hilt. His fear had vanished, the shaking gone. Time disintegrated: moments became hours and everything stood still. The first wave of infantry reached the Rampart.

  Cambria’s choir pumped ferociously, trimmed with basses on a rapid beat, and superhuman shrieks intertwining the solos. All around appeared flashes of still and quivering blue light. They looked like spheres of sugar glass. As the soloists passed by, these balls exploded and boomed in time to the rest of the chanting. Whirling bubbles of air bowled over Eldain’s men, scattering them and hurtling them into the void. They plummeted down from the Rampart by the cartload, helplessly waving their limbs in the red night, like puppets tossed off a bridge. The silence returned for a brief instant, but the Imperial Lances gave the Rampart no respite. The attack went on with another shower of deadly resonances, which mowed down the survivors of the first thinning. Many men were curled up on the floor in tears, tormented by the lethal harmonies of the Cambrian Lances. Others attempted to silence the Empire’s chanting, by desperately squeezing their heads between their hands.

  But Mordraud wasn’t weeping. The resonances had only brushed him. He was contemplating with rapt attention the enemy’s monstrous might, absorbing it in a gaze tinged with a perverse ecstasy. Breathing slowly, he made that incredible force his. He stood motionless facing the wall of flesh and metal charging towards him, with his arm raised to shield his eyes from the reverberations of those blue flashes.

  The air swelled, riding on the cries of the first men to be wounded.

  The battle had begun.

  ***

  The impact was devastating. A tidal wave smashed against the Rampart. Hundreds of rebel spears zoomed into the scarlet light, hunting out the first frightened fish. The Empire’s infantry ploughed into the wall in a desperate attempt to scale it, driven on by the captains’ cries and the stampede. The Lances had unleashed a wall of harmony against the enemy defence lines, which made the men standing on the Rampart sway. Others still were blown away, tossed by the resonance bubbles. Yet the Imperial soldiers couldn’t draw on their advantage. The bodies hailed down, crushing whoever happened to be beneath. The hissing of the arrows merged with the choked wheezing of the dying.

  Mordraud took one of th
e long spears the back ranks were ceaselessly passing up to the front, and he stuck it deep into the neck of a young blond-haired soldier clad in leather and rags. He pulled back the shaft and thrust the spear down again. The tip traced across a bearded fighter’s shoulder, who was scrabbling around on the earth in search of a handhold. Mordraud tried again but the armour held out. When the man’s head reached the height of the first feet, the rebel squashed down with his heel, until he heard the liquid sound of a chin reduced to pulp. Another assailant was right behind. He lifted the spear again and, gritting his teeth, hurled it downwards, plunging it into a man’s back at random. The body stayed hanging on the Rampart like a rag doll.

  Mordraud burst out in wild laughter. His arm was no longer trembling. He felt he had the strength inside to lift the entire Rampart, to shake off those many tiny human scraps.

  Benno was whining and whimpering. Big and burly as he was – a born thug – he couldn’t manage to thrust in his weapon, as terror had turned his hands to jelly. A foot-soldier or two had already managed to stand up and were pushing against the ranks to make space for others. Mordraud unsheathed his sword and chopped the hands off the man who was about to slay Benno. Then he punched in the invader’s face with a compact fist around his hilt. “FRIGGING WAKE UP, WILL YOU?!” he bawled in his comrade’s face in fury, slapping him until his mouth bled. “FIGHT!”

  He had no time to waste on cowards. Other soldiers were climbing up all over the place. One of them sailed back down after a well-placed kick. Securing his sword between both hands, he sliced open the helmet and skull of a young man, who stared at him until the last, with eyes blind in terror. Somebody was gripped to his leg. Mordraud grabbed the man’s face, poked an eye out with a thumb, twisted his wrist, and smashed the handle between his teeth.

  “COME ON! UP HERE YOU BASTARD SWINES!”

  Mordraud felt the urge to laugh. But it wasn’t the usual laughter. It was a distorted howl. The tip of a poleaxe grazed his stomach. Shifting to one side, he clenched his sword and sank it firmly into his adversary’s torso.

  “MORE!” A head cracked like a walnut. “MORE!” An amputated arm still grasped a long dagger. “MORE!” Teeth scattered on the ground crunched under the soldiers’ metal soles. The earth revealed the same reddish hue as the air and the skies. All the faces looked the same.