Mordraud, Book One

by Fabio Scalini

  Mordraud and Gwern flew against the charred wall, propelled by the fearsome blow between fireball and Flux shield.

  “Awesome... Absolutely awesome...” breathed Saiden.

  The chanter was now on his feet. He was bleeding from his belly and face. He’d been wounded, probably fainted, and the attackers wouldn’t have noticed he was still alive. The noise Mordraud made to break in must have brought him round from his stupor. Saiden made the most of the moment. He glared hostilely at the chanter, and from his eyes slipped two lashes of light that coiled around the injured man’s neck. He was already attempting another chant, but the Flux inescapably strangled him. His hands clutched at thin air as they hopelessly endeavoured to seize the opalescent white twine.

  A few seconds later, Saiden poured a flood of light into him: it seeped through the pores of the chanter’s skin, his ears and his mouth gaping in a sneer of amazement. Then, before the two brothers could notice what he was up to, he released the Flux around the victim’s throat and the cords vanished.

  The chanter stood motionless. His eyes utterly devoid of all will. His skin taut and pale. He was still alive simply because it hadn’t had time to reach his heart. But he was just an unwitting illusion of blood and breath.

  “What happened?!” yelled Gwern, stunned by the impact. Mordraud failed to reply. He swivelled round suddenly and, thanks to the daylight filtering through the shattered windows, saw the chanter standing, menacingly, mouth open and ready to chant. Growling ferociously he pounced on him. He dragged the man to the ground and thrust his thumbs into his eyes. The other put up no resistance – didn’t even tense his muscles. Mordraud had all the time he wanted to ravage his face, digging his nails into his eyeballs and smashing his skull on the ground with brutal force. He didn’t even stop when there was nothing but cartilage and slack skin in his hands. Saiden had to forcefully pull him off the mangled body.

  But he didn’t succeed in keeping Mordraud still for long.

  While Gwern felt his own arms and neck in shock, astounded to still be alive, Mordraud seemed to have gone mad. He unsheathed his sword and began stabbing all the dead chanters. He ran them through, from the mouth, one by one. He smirked viciously as his sword sawed off the teeth and clenched jaws of the chanters scattered on the floor. He turned them over with a boot when they were face-down. Sometimes he ripped out his weapon with such force that part of the head chopped off by his steel blade rolled away.

  “I... hate you... YOU BASTARDS!”

  “That’s enough, Mordraud! Stop it!” yelled Gwern. Saiden stepped back again. He didn’t try to hinder him. He was more interested in observing what was happening. The Flux bundle in Gwern’s chest had incredibly shrunk. It had become minute, a teardrop of light feebly jolting behind his sternum. Both were unharmed – they hadn’t even been minimally grazed by the extreme heat and condensed flames of the harmony bubble.

  It must have taken remarkable strain to withstand that resonance, Saiden considered, rubbing his chin with a hand.

  “Mordraud!” Gwern shouted again. He grabbed his brother’s hand, but the soldier finished disfiguring the last body before listening to him. “We were frighteningly lucky, Gwern,” he panted, drenched in cold sweat and eyes wide in panic. “It missed us, otherwise we’d be dead now!”

  “Missed us?!” the boy burst out, stunned and confused. He’d had the distinct impression they’d been hit full on. It was the first time he’d come up against a war harmony. Mordraud had described how lethal they could be, but they’d both emerged unscathed.

  “It must have missed us – there’s no other explanation,” he reaffirmed. He ushered out a last kick at the first corpse within range, and only then did he slide his sword back into its casing, satisfied. “We’ll scout the house. All of it. We have to be certain nobody is left alive. No Cambrian must remain to chant in here again.”

  Mordraud ran towards the door. He bumped into Saiden and stopped, baffled. It was as if he’d forgotten he was there. Extraordinary, he considered. They were all still alive, after a blast as violent as that one.

  “Couldn’t you have done something to intervene?”

  “No, I noticed it just at the last instant. Are you both okay?” Saiden asked. His voice revealed not a shred of concern.

  “Yes... At least I think so...” Gwern answered, touching his arms again. He brushed his chest too – a movement that didn’t go unobserved by Saiden. The man smiled and bent down to look him straight in the eye.

  “Well done...” he murmured, with an amused grin. Mordraud gazed around, disoriented. Gwern too failed to work out what exactly his tutor meant. Why was he so pleased with him?

  “Well done for what?! We didn’t put a halt to the Long Winter! We don’t even know who did!” Mordraud blurted out.

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter... Well done just the same...” concluded Saiden, moving towards the room’s exit. They were through. They could return home now, he thought.

  He’d seen what he’d come to see.

  ***

  Larois was stooping down to scoop up a bucketful of snow to melt on the stove. Her cold-chapped hands were excruciating, but it was the last of her worries. Her whole body was in tatters, exhausted by hunger and hardship. Her knees barely held her up now, and she was lucky the inn had been closed for months. She’d have been in no fit state to work. The wood had run out some time ago, and now just the stove stayed lit, thanks to some panelling she’d ripped off the walls in the tavern. She still had a couple of planks, three at most. A day or two more, and then she knew how it would end. One fine morning, she wouldn’t wake up. She began hoping the moment would come quickly. She could no longer drag on like that.

  While she cupped up the snow in her hands, Larois looked about. Eld was an open-air cemetery, an old burial place deserted in the countryside, forgotten by the whole world. No smoke rose from the chimneys, no voices of families around rich dinner tables wafted from the windows. The dead were no longer counted, and weren’t even buried. It required pointless effort. Each person’s turn would come sooner or later, and there was a shortage of people still with the strength for digging.

  ‘Who knows how my boys are...’ she thought, bitterly. She hadn’t seen them for ages. She knew Mordraud was climbing the ranks in the army, and that he’d had a close brush with death a couple of times. Instead, she knew nothing of Gwern. The thought only deepened her black mood. She didn’t want to die alone. It was the worst thing that could happen to her. It was precisely as she was straining to recall the smiling face of her dear Gwern that her gaze happened to fall on the cracked stone steps leading up to her house.

  In between the crevices, a slim green stem wavered in the breeze.

  “That’s not possible...” she mumbled breathlessly.

  It was a blade of grass. A fantastic, splendid, divine little tuft of grass.

  Larois stayed a good while kneeling to contemplate that miracle. She hadn’t seen a colour different from white or grey for such a long time that her eyes were no longer accustomed to its brightness. It seemed unreal, a hallucination caused by starvation. She got up and gently touched the tiny plant. It was all real.

  The snow was retreating. Nature was struggling to surface into the light after months of pitiful segregation.

  “Spring!” she yelled, frantically.

  “Spring’s on its way!”

  Larois ran like she’d never run in her life. She crossed Eld’s silent streets, splashing in the icy puddles that were losing their firmness, laughing at the top of her voice and bawling like the insane.

  “Spring’s on its way!”

  Gaunt faces peered out of windows patched in rags. Like animals after a long hibernation, the surviving men and women ventured out of their homes in apprehensive steps, unbelieving. A wan sun tentatively peeped out from behind the clouds. “Spring’s on its way! Spring’s on its way!” they all chorused, first merely echoing their neighbours, then with swelling enthusiasm.

  “Spring’s o
n its way!”

  Those words leapt from mouth to mouth, and very soon the whole of Eld resounded with the cry and joyful singing. Larois carried on running, exhilarated with the delight. She couldn’t believe it. The winter was receding at an unnatural pace. She reached Adraman’s large villa at breakneck speed. One voice was missing in the singing by the crippled fiefdom. She found her in the courtyard, motionless before a bare tree. Drips of thawing snow were trickling from its branches. They were falling on her hair, and on her shoulders weighed down by a mound of stale furs.

  Deanna was observing, enthralled, a small green and gold bud clinging to a bough in its desperate attempt to live. Her hands were resting on her stomach and she was weeping.

  “Spring’s on its way, Deanna! It’s over! The winter’s over!”

  Larois raced towards her, stumbling in the mushy snow. Deanna turned to her, but her eyes were elsewhere. Absent.

  Extinguished by a film of madness.

  Her hands tightened on her stomach. She bent over, gritting her teeth, racked by retching. She was sick on the snow, and coughed weakly.

  Larois reached her and helped her up. Deanna was drained, pale and shaking. Only her mouth smiled. The rest of her face was a mask of pain.

  “For love of the Gods, my child...” she whispered to her, stroking her dirty dishevelled hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Oh, Deanna...”

  Larois hugged the girl to her, pitifully propping her up.

  “You’re pregnant...”

  XXVIII

  “The fog’s thinning.”

  Asaeld drew aside the tent entrance flap and studied the horizon beyond the camp. The snow had stopped falling, for some three days now. It hadn’t happened in over a year. Here and there patches of black earth emerged from the endless white shroud, bringing to light the half-frozen corpses of the dead nobody had bothered to give an honourable burial. The wind carried the vague odour of putrefaction, flesh exposed to heat, and of uncovered plants. The skies were free of cloud, and rich in such an intense blue as to be dizzying. There could be one explanation alone. Asaeld bowed his head and smirked mildly, without being noticed by the three guards awaiting his command. The army was confused, disoriented. They’d all grown used to the idea that the cold would never leave them.

  Instead it had vanished. Forever.

  The Long Winter was over.

  “Notify the section captains. The men must begin dismantling the camp, and tell everyone to be on the ready to fight!”

  “What, sir?! Is an assault planned, followed by a retreat?”

  “Oh, not exactly... We’re not attacking. The rebels will attack us.”

  The three guards stared at each other in utter astonishment and dismay. “But... they haven’t staged an assault for months. It’s up to us to strike!”

  Asaeld closed the tent flaps and approached the weapons rack. He took his sword, drew it from its scabbard and checked the quality of its cut. He’d used it little since he’d become a general.

  This was the day he’d make up for lost time.

  “Know what a bear does as soon as he comes out of hibernation?” he asked the guards, who were following him, bemuddled and in silence.

  “No, sir.”

  “He eats. He devours everything in his path...” he told them, struggling to restrain a smug chuckle. “And today we’ll be the bear’s meal.”

  “So you think...?”

  “I’m absolutely sure. Get the carts ready, pack off everything that can be transported. Load up the wounded too and send them back to Cambria. AT THE DOUBLE!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The guards rushed out of the tent mumbling to each other. Asaeld went back to inspecting his sword, unsheathed it and carved two slices through the air, just to feel if the brass wire grip was still solid. In all truth, he’d questioned himself to the last as to whether he should warn the men of the imminent attack. Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Eldain’s men would chop them to bits in any case. The rope had been pulled too tight, and now it had snapped.

  Just like he’d envisaged it would, right from the outset.

  “It was about time... And to think it had very nearly worked... Such a fine margin...”

  Asaeld smiled again. For over a year he’d put up with the cold, the poor food, the soldiers’ vacuous troubles, the continual inconclusive raids on the Rampart. A lengthy unpleasant grind. He wasn’t even interested in finding out who’d hindered his plan for the Long Winter. It might have been Eldain’s men, or maybe an internal revolt. Even better, he mused. A people’s uprising would be perfect. He would have time to think on the unwitting accomplices who’d played into his hands, by halting the Long Winter.

  The curtain was about to go up on a horrendous nightmare for the Emperor’s glorious army.

  “Thank you, Loralon... You needn’t have ushered in all the haste... This way you’ve made it too easy,” he whispered, bowing to empty space. The Long Winter had served no purpose. Except to exasperate friends and foe alike, and to make the Imperial dynasty detested by all.

  “It’s too easy this way.”

  ***

  Home sweet home.

  It was the dead of night when Mordraud went into his regiment’s tent. He’d been away for over two months, and for him it was a huge relief to find the Rampart still standing. Not a day had gone by without his thoughts veering back to the lads in his unit, to all the men huddled up under the blankets, awaiting yet another raid by Cambria. Too often his fear had been that he wouldn’t make it in time. Or even worse, that his efforts would be in vain. He’d left the army in a pitiful condition, and he found it again in a pitiful condition. But at least it still existed – that’s all that counted.

  The tent was strangely empty. The stove was out and the beds in order. His comrades’ few small possession were all present: Mercy’s two battered daggers, the horseshoe Hammer used to mark his pillow, and even poor Red’s lucky charm of an empty wine flask lay untouched. The Tower of Swords pieces were set out on a barrel top in a corner, in play left half-finished. He couldn’t wait to challenge Hammer to a game, thought Mordraud.

  The air was mild – a pleasant sensation he’d been enjoying for some time, yet still hadn’t grown accustomed to. The snow was melting rapidly and no more had fallen for many days. The landscape was not attractive. Nearly all the plants had died in the freeze, the grass was straining to show itself and an atrocious number of animal and human carcasses choked the earth, everywhere. He’d passed through many villages on his return journey, and had found nothing but empty houses and people dead in their beds. The winter was over, but it had left an onerous aftermath.

  Gwern had gone home with Saiden. They had split up to shorten the travelling – Mordraud wanted to get back to the lads to give them a hand. Although he hadn’t taken part in ending the Long Winter, he still felt he’d won. It was a personal question. Even if Cambria should put that nasty trick into practice again, he’d found out how they were able to do it. He intended to explain everything to Eldain, so he could muster units ready to comb the terrain nearest the front, to keep an eye on every possible suspect den. ‘And besides, I killed one at least...’ he recalled, smirking. ‘I hope the Long Winter died along with that shithead.’

  He pondered on what he should say. They all knew he’d set off to seek out a remedy to that curse the Empire had unleashed on Eld, and they would undoubtedly credit him with the success. Mordraud grumbled to himself. Even if he persisted in contradicting them, it was unlikely they’d believe him.

  He still hadn’t bumped into any of the camp’s men, with the exception of a couple of sentries, who however hadn’t recognised him. He’d had to insist for permission to pass. He’d listed the names of all the people he knew in the army, their nicknames, their pasts. He’d never actually realised, before that day, how many people he’d developed ties with since he’d been fighting for Eldain. It was a good feeling. Like being part of a large extended family.

  Everything was peaceful. A
bsolute silence permeated the camp, broken only by the crackling of the occasional unattended fire. His bed was there, ready to welcome him. He’d liked to have heard the sound of dice rattling in the empty cases, the natter of the soldiers on duty, perhaps even the chaotic rowdiness of a tussle. But he’d have to make do with the hush of that night.

  Mordraud lay down, savouring the soft mattress stuffed with straw. He slipped off his boots and unbuckled his belt, letting his sword slide to the floor. He still hadn’t decided what to say – he’d stay as vague as possible. He didn’t cherish the idea of taking credit that wasn’t his, but it was, after all, he and his brother who had risked their lives for the cause. He was just worried what the other lads would call him. And the awful thing was, there was nothing he could do about it. Even if he had killed merely one, nobody would give it any importance.

  Cambria’s Terror.

  Or The Chant-Choker.

  “Brr... dreadful...” he murmured, shutting his eyes. “All I need is for them to call me...”

  “SPRING!”

  The tent shuddered as if shaken by a gale. Mordraud lunged for his sword, following his involuntary reflex, and jumped to his feet. Had he dozed off? Was it a dream, or had he really heard that name, the horror of all horrors, the thing he feared most, more than death itself? Anything, but not...

  “SPRING!”

  A sea of men flowed into the tent. New unfamiliar faces, all committed to a single chorus cry.

  “SPRING!”

  “No, please don’t... No...” Mordraud stammered, his stomach in knots.

  “Welcome back, Spring!” Hammer dived onto him and lifted him off the ground like a sack. In the process, Mordraud’s trousers drooped to his ankles.

  “Put me down, you dumb blockhead piece of meat!” he babbled, red in the face. “PUT ME DOWN!”