Death had surely come.
Footfalls crunched dirt and rock. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw two grey forms against a darkness that seemed to stretch. Each form carried a long, rounded length that stood taller than they were. Halberds, Andrew thought to himself. Soldiers, but from where?
“I told you it was not just washed-up debris,” the grey form on the right said, before kneeling and looking into Andrew’s eyes. “Dead eyes though. Poor sod.”
“Shove him back to the sea,” the other grey form seemed to say. “He is of no use now, and I will not be lugging him.”
No, I am… Andrew let the words trail off. The grey forms did not turn their heads; it was as if they had not heard him. I thought it. I cannot speak, I—
“The captain wants every wanderer questioned, that is what he said,” the first grey form insisted. “I am not mucking up soup pots again just because you cannot be bothered.”
“Look at the bastard,” the second said, his voice grating. “I have not seen a bigger sod in all my life, still wearing plate and all, but wait, what is that?”
The first grey form seemed to latch a hand on the hilt of Doom. No, that is my sword, Andrew tried to mouth, but it was just a thought.
“Picking spoils from the dead?”
The soldier loosed his hand from Doom’s hilt and stood aside. A third grey form, shorter than the other two, knelt before Andrew.
“Lord Commander,” the second voice blurted out, Andrew was sure. “It is naught but a corpse.”
The third form seemed to relinquish his gauntlets, and bare, cold hands pressed over Andrew’s face. “He may be, but not yet. Take him to the healers, and I will forget your derelictions of duty.”
The first two grey forms hurried to Andrew, lifting him up on their shoulders and dragging him across the dirt. Lord Commander, who are…
Darkness consumed him.
Andrew could not move. He was lying down on something soft and enveloping. Stone walls surrounded him, grey against the endless gloom. Voices rang from across the chamber, though he could not turn to see who spoke.
“How is he?” a stern, deep, and familiar voice asked.
“Lord Commander,” a softer, serene voice began, “the islander still draws breath, but he will not wake, no matter what herbs we employ.”
Lord Commander Rafael Azail, Andrew remembered. At the shore he ordered the soldiers to bring me here, but why?
“The imperator will not be pleased,” the lord commander said gruffly, his words laced with disdain. “He has wanted to learn much of the islanders for years, and now that we have one of them, you cannot rouse him?”
“We have done all we can, my lord,” the softer voice said, much more cowed. “There is no more that can be done for him.”
An imperceptible stillness hung in the air. Andrew strained his ears, but there was not even the slightest inkling of movements or bated breaths. Are they daemons, all of them? Sorcerer spawn?
“Leave me with him.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
A grey form sauntered across the chamber, and Andrew thought he saw the outline of armor and a sheathed sword.
“I know who you are.”
And I know that—
“Shipp’s first mate, his right hand,” the lord commander pressed on, as if Andrew’s words died in the dark and shadowy realm. “And a man whom Damian trusts. Or is it trusted? What did you do to be tossed to sea?”
I tried to stay the madness, I…
“When you wake, that is what you will tell me,” Rafael continued, “and then you will tell the imperator all you know about Damian’s fleet. I have lost too many men and women to your overlord; I shan’t lose another, not any more.”
The voice of the lord commander died, and the mass of grey that was his face lay as still as a lingering fog. Andrew tried to move, but he could not, and his wrists chafed. Bonds, though I do not blame them, he thought to himself. I would not have done much different.
“Then,” Rafael began to say, his voice broken by anger. “Then with the islanders dead and gone, King Marcus will find a bloodied seat very hard to sit.”
The lord commander slouched against the wall, let out a sigh, and unsheathed his long sword. Whilst he turned the blade in his hand, his face remained a grey visage. Yet Andrew thought the lord’s gaze pierced his mind, trying to see what manner of man he was, and what could have brought him to the shores of the waste.
He wanted to tell the Isilian lord that their intentions hardly differed.
The lord commander stepped forth, the long edge of the blade held outright, stepping willfully towards the bed. Andrew tried to scream out, to escape from the bonds, but it was for naught.
He lingered there, alone, at the mercy of Lord Commander Rafael Azail.
Madness has come to these shores, Andrew thought, struggling still against the bonds. I—
“Lord Commander,” a soft voiced called out, though not the same as the first that spoke. Rafael sheathed his steel and crossed the room while the voice continued. “There has been another raid, farther up the coast. It—”
“Enough,” the lord commander scoffed. “These are not words for a house of healing. If they think that …”
The words slowly drifted away. Stubbornly, Andrew tried to move once more, but he could not, no more than he could before. Will I die here? he asked himself. Has Damian won, has he—
The soft patter of slippered feet crossed into the chamber. Against the darkness, a slender grey form stood at the foot of the bed, fabrics whooshing from a light breeze.
“Death is not what the Great Fate has intended for you,” a voice said, sharp and slithery. “There is much for you to do before then.”
You heard me?! Andrew tried to say, but the words simply echoed in his mind.
“I can, yes,” the voice replied. “This realm, all of it, was given to my governance.”
Release me. Andrew did not think the words would sway this, whoever it was, but sword and strength were of no use here.
“Once you are reminded of just who you are.”
Darkness consumed Andrew.
He was on one knee, looking up at a dark monolith where three grey forms lingered. The grey form in the middle leaned forward, as if scrutinizing fruit from the market, and then spoke. “So you shall serve my imperium, Andrew Dunctap; my sword in the night, my shield against the encroaching dawn, and my wrath upon the seas. Rise.”
Andrew did so without thought. He knew where he was: at the foot of the Mountain, swearing fealty to Imperator Argath Diomedes. Voices murmured softly behind him. The court is here to bear witness.
“My lord,” a stiff and stern voice said. Andrew looked towards the voice, but it was another grey form, all save for what he held: a scabbarded great sword.
“Hold your steel once more,” the imperator commanded from atop the Mountain. “Doom may have been forged by command of the overlord, but his hubris will turn the seas red.”
Tightening his grip about the hilt, Andrew withdrew Doom and placed the tip into the ground. It felt right, familiar; an extension of his arm.
Eyes from about the court were grey as their forms, but they seemed to linger on him, and the imperator’s most of all. He knelt and looked to the Mountain, to Imperator Argath Diomedes.
“Do you have aught to say, Lord Commander Rafael Azail?” the imperator asked.
The rattle of plate echoed across the chamber as the grey figure to the right of the imperator shifted forward, back bent a little, his right hand on the hilt of a sheathed sword. “This man’s mettle I shall never doubt,” the lord commander declared, while straightening his back and turning to the imperator. “Yet his loyalty I shall gainsay until Doom is drenched in the blood of the islanders.”
“Not much longer, Lord Commander,” Imperator Argath declared. “It is drawing near when the veil is lifted and Damian suffers the strength that Eovald forged.”
My imperator, if I—
“The Black Storm and the Black Wrath,” the imperator said cuttingly. Andrew realized his words were thoughts, that even when he was awake his speech was dulled. “Thunder has rumbled in a sky dark as death, the hammer shall shatter timber, and even this precocious overlord will know obeisance.”
The grey form that Andrew knew to be the imperator rose from his chair, treading down the steps of the Mountain. “I have reigned far too long without wrath, without strength to do as I will, as Eovald always intended.”
A chillness seeped through Andrew’s bones. He averted his eyes from the imperator, briefly, and saw there were no other grey forms. There stood only the stalwart Mountain and the man who sat atop its pinnacle, slowly descending.
“This is the turning of the tide,” Imperator Argath continued, the steps he took loud and resounding. “Treasures he has acquired, treasures he has lost, and treasures that he shall lose. And you, my Black Wrath, shall take them from him.”
Andrew felt bony fingers grasp his chin, and he raised his eyes to the grey form. So close, it was if a wind passed through the imperator, his body a blur of grey and shadow.
“Doom has come.”
Andrew struggled for breath. Flailing about, he could see only darkness. He did not want to, but he struck at where his
imperator was, but only darkness consumed the blow.
Then a laugh. A fierce, unmistakeable laugh.
And a pair of yellow eyes.
Who are, who …
The words were naught but thoughts, and the laugh returned once more, and words hotter than steel from the forge.
“A thrall bound to a nest.”
No, I—
The eyes shut.
Darkness consumed Andrew.
“No, I will not—”
The words echoed in his ears. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he could not believe his eyes: he sat atop a small, scratchy bed inside a cramped hovel. There stood a small table by the far wall, and a short pot of bubbling water further away. Robes of a pristine white lay stretched out upon a line, but no man or woman dwelled inside.
Andrew threw the blanket off, and as he turned to put his legs on the ground, pain laced through his body. Fingers groping his gut, he felt linen bandages wrapped around his body, with only the faintest discolouration.
Then he remembered.
“Aerona gutted me,” he said softly. “I should have gone after her first. Then her traitorous father.”
“If you had heeded Mother God, you would not be on my bed half dead.” A tall but portly young man sauntered into the hovel, grasping a leathern sack. He was dressed in a long, draping grey robe without markings or design. “There is not much in the waste, little more than weeds. I do hope these herbs shall help.”
There was aught amiss; Andrew felt it in his gut. He looked to the white robes hanging on the line before glancing at the man who just walked in. The man grasped a fistful of herbs, placing them into a mortar. “You are a priest,” Andrew said. “In the waste.”
“That I am,” the priest replied in a calm tone. “I am not the only one.”
That seemed improbable, but Andrew let it be. “Did you find me?”
The priest crushed and mixed the herbs while answering. “I did. I was out wandering, and there you were, far away from any town or village, bleeding out. I staunched the wound as far as my skill allowed. I do not know how you still live, truth be told. Mother God must have a plan for you.”
None of it made any sense. Andrew took a breath, slowly remembering that harpy taking him down a strange passage, deep beneath the waste. He looked at the priest once more. There was more fat than muscle to the man.
The priest had to be lying.
Andrew wanted to stand, strike down the priest, and cut the snivelling head from the pious shite’s neck. Leaning forward, he felt the pain lace from his gut, and thought better of it.
“You have my thanks,” Andrew said reluctantly. “Can I stand?”
“Not yet,” the priest said, hurrying over with the mortar and pestle. “I must see the wound once more, let me …”
The priest unwrapped the bandages and scraped away dried blood, pus, and what else, Andrew did not know, nor did he want to. His wound had a pungent smell, but the priest smiled slightly, applying a salve before wrapping it with fresh linen.
“Be gentle about your movements,” Stephen said, clearing the mortar and pestle away. “You will be swinging that monstrous sword before you know it.”
Eyes bulging, Andrew swept the room looking for Doom. It leaned by the door, sheathed, just beyond the bed. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to the priest. “My thanks, Father.”
“Stephen will suffice, Andrew Dunctap. I know you are not one given to faith.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Even in Dale we know of a reaver taller than most men, wielding a great sword only a few could carry. The fact that you turned your cloak makes you stand out all the more.” Stephen walked towards the boiling pot and ladled up some soup, smiling as it went down his throat. “It is nearly done. I will bring some to you. Do not move quite yet.”
The priest kept to himself, not uttering a word, stirring the soup with the ladle. Andrew sighed. The explanation made some sense, but this Stephen seemed to know too much. “How long have you wandered the waste?”
“Not long enough to incur the wrath of the imperator, if you are concerned at all.”
Andrew was not. “If the sentinels discover you—”
“They do not, and will not,” Stephen replied with a grin as he ladled the soup into two large wooden bowls. “Tell me, my new friend, what do you see when you look upon your southern villages?”
Andrew did not answer right away. He looked at this portly priest sauntering towards him, with a naïve, disarming smile. He accepted the soup. It smelled of carrots and turnups, but far more broth than aught else. “I see people labouring for the imperium.”
“That is not what I see,” Stephen replied, pulling a chair from the table. “I see poverty and neglect. I see little children running about in rags, women no more than skin and bones, and men pock-marked and weary. I do not think your imperator cares a whit for the villages, lest they no longer haul up fish in their nets.”
Andrew sipped the soup from the bowl. It was good. Mayhap a little too hot. “And yet you saved the imperator’s Black Wrath.” He hated himself for saying that name, but he needed to know how deep the priest’s knowledge went.
“You are a man, Andrew Dunctap, one of Mother God’s children. I would have tended to the imperator himself, if he was wounded.”
Andrew laughed. “He would cut your throat soon as he awoke.”
“I would still do it.”
This priest longs for death, Andrew thought, continuing to sip on the soup. It seemed so long since he had real food. “I should bring you before the Mountain,” he said after a time.
The priest wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his once-white but now grey robes and put his bowl aside. He looked at Andrew, eyes wide and resolved. “I do not think you will, but if that what Mother God wills, then I accept my fate.”
Gulping down the last of the soup, Andrew presented the bowl to the priest. “I must travel north.” He slowly rose to his feet, cringing slightly at a shot of pain.
The priest simply smiled. “You shall have need of your armour. It is there, at the foot of a bed.” He pointed with his finger. “A horse, too, I would think. Come. You may have mine.” He then stood and walked out of the hovel with nary a word nor deed.
Andrew rose slowly and put on his undergarments and boiled leather. Meandering to the hovel door, he cinched Doom to his back. Old friend, he thought, holding onto the hilt. The imperator will not like our words when we return. He left the hovel.
The sun was halfway down the horizon. The air was chilled and a light wind sent dust and dirt swirling about his feet. ‘Tis the waste, at least the priest did not lie about that, Andrew thought, looking for Stephen, w
ho stood just around the corner with hands clasped behind his back.
“This girl has been faithful to me, e’er since I arrived here,” Stephen remarked, without averting his eyes from a strong looking chestnut mare. “Alice will see you to Isil. I only ask that you give her to a good master.”
“I owe you a life debt, priest,” Andrew remarked whilst extending his arm. “I will do that at least.”
Stephen extended an arm in answer, and when he clasped, Andrew felt a shooting pain in his arm. It is only the scar, it is—
The priest recoiled, but still smiled broadly. “I did not think I had such strength. Forgiveness, Black Wrath.”
Andrew grunted and moved towards the horse. She was already saddled, and he patted her neck. Alice whinnied and turned her head.
And Andrew unsheathed Doom.
He stared, perplexed. The eyes of the chestnut mare were not brown and black as others of her kind were. They were crimson, no, darker, and aflame.
Turning, he faced the priest. Stephen stood as he once did, shuffling his feet and smiling widely. “What is the matter, Black Wrath? Has poor Alice spooked you? She is kind and endearing, that I assure you.”
Andrew forgot the horse; she was a poor animal, a pawn in the throes of this false priest, this sorcerer. “I was not wounded in the waste. I was led beneath by a girl too big for her britches, past a door I still do not understand, where her father awaited. They left me for dead, both of them, and you will answer me now and clearly priest: how is it that you brought me here? I should be dead!”
The priest seemed unmoved. “You should be dead, Andrew Dunctap, but not yet. There is a role for you left to play, and I would not see the curtain fall quite yet.”
Sorcerer. “Who are you?”
The waste was gone. The chill was gone. The dust and the dirt were gone. Darkness swelled and surged, shadows torrenting like a maelstrom, and in the midst of it, stood the priest.
Against the ensorcelled dark, Andrew pressed forth, his grip on Doom tight, pushing towards the sorcerer.
“You are strong,” the priest seemed to say, but it was not his voice. The voice was familiar, but Andrew could not place it. “’Tis why you were chosen for this task.” The chestnut mare, Alice, appeared by the priest’s side: crimson eyes, saddle and all. “Your mount, Black Wrath, to hurry toward the imperator’s side.”
The Prelude to Darkness Page 35