The Black River Chronicles: Level One (Black River Academy Book 1)

by David Tallerman

“You thought to rebel,” his father said, “but that rebellion is done. No more wasting your time at that grubby academy of imbeciles and paupers; no more playing with bows and arrows. Soon you'll forget that these past months ever occurred. We'll go home now, Durren. And this will be the last you'll ever see of the world outside my walls.”

  Durren knew his father's words were true. As badly as he might wish to resist, he would be dragged from here, back to his miserable former life, to train for a career he already despised. Nothing he did would change that fate. He'd been a fool to imagine even for an instant that he could control his life, that anyone but the man before him might dictate his future.

  Except that something was distracting him. Something in the corner of his eye threatened to draw his attention. A part of Durren insisted that, whatever it might be, it couldn't possibly matter. Probably it was to do with those three companions he'd had briefly, that futile quest they'd been on—and what was all that but a dream he was now waking from?

  Still, Durren found himself looking. Perhaps he was only trying to buy an instant's reprieve from the moment when his father would haul him from this room and all his hopes would evaporate forever.

  A number of the priests still stood about, none of them appearing quite sure of what was happening or how they were meant to respond. Tia was still curled in the corner, her jaw locked rigidly in a silent scream. Hule was flailing and babbling at something only he could see. And Arein was walking towards the pedestal in the centre of the room.

  She crossed the floor as calmly as though she were in the great dining hall of Black River. Reaching the centre, she placed a hand on either side of the curious stone perched there and lifted it free.

  In the moment she did so, Durren felt as though a vast weight vanished from his shoulders. He found that he could breathe properly once more, and only realised then that he hadn't been able to before. Too, he could move again. Of course none of that meant he'd be able to talk his father round, but perhaps he could flee, maybe come up with some scheme to—

  Wait, his father? How could his father possibly be here? What had made perfect sense only instants before now defied all explanation. And sure enough, when Durren glanced back, the person nearest to him was a stooped and grey-haired priest. Urden Flintrand was nowhere to be seen.

  Something strange had just happened, that much was clear. But there was no time to consider. The priests were muttering among themselves, only now seeming to grasp the fact that one of these young interlopers had snatched away their precious Egg. Arein, meanwhile, having secured the prize they'd come all this way for, was simply standing there, staring at the stone and rotating it between her hands.

  At least, she was until Tia—on her feet now and apparently fully recovered—caught hold of her sleeve and heaved her towards the leftmost arch. Seeing them go shook Durren from his reverie. “Come on!” he bawled at Hule, who was still eyeing the room warily, as though at any moment something might leap from a corner.

  Together they dashed past the pedestal, towards the exit through which Tia and Arein had vanished. Only as they drew close did Durren see the drop to the monastery's slanting rooftop. Barely hesitating, he took the fall at a run and landed with a jolt, only just keeping his footing on the mossy tiles.

  Ahead, Arein and Tia had already reached the building's end. Only as he and Hule hurried to join them did Durren think to wonder where Tia's plan went from here. Yes, they had the Egg, and yes, they'd escaped from the tower, and that was all fine and good—but it still left them trapped on a roof, the ground a distant blur below.

  The priests, having clambered down after them, were spreading out in a line that cut off any hope of escape back into the building. Yet, having done so, they kept their distance. In fact, aside from the fact that the younger acolytes had now caught up with their elder brethren, they didn't make for a particularly intimidating crowd.

  Then again, the thing about being an order of corrupt wizards with no qualms about abusing your power, Durren supposed, was that you didn't need to look intimidating. After all, it hardly matter what impression you gave when you could melt the flesh from someone's bones with a few words and the wave of a hand.

  Still, that didn't mean they couldn't be reasoned with—or that it wouldn't be worth trying, when the alternative was an unwinnable fight. “Maybe,” Durren said, “if we give the Egg back they'll let us go. I mean, they don't have any reason to kill us, do they?”

  “We're not giving the Egg back,” Tia said.

  She spoke with such adamant certainty that Durren wondered if the two of them were really in the same situation. Did she understand that they were high on a rooftop with a horde of murderous priests before them, a fatal plummet at their backs?

  “Tia…” he began, but didn't know how to continue.

  “The mill pool,” she said. “The water's deep there.”

  By then, Durren's thoughts were so muddled that he could barely piece together the significance of what she'd said. Why was she talking about mill pools? What did it matter how deep some water was? Then he saw how she was gazing over the edge of the roof, how she was taking half a dozen quick steps back, and finally he understood.

  “There's my rope—” Durren tried.

  But by then Tia had already jumped.

  Gulping down his shock, Durren stumbled to the edge. He'd never exactly been afraid of heights, but that wasn't to say he wasn't afraid of falling from them, and it took all his courage to glance over.

  At first he could see no sign of Tia. Then her head breached the surface of the large pond beyond the waterwheel. A moment later and she was swimming with confident strokes towards the far bank.

  Durren turned back, ready to tell the others that Tia was all right. However, it seemed that Hule had read as much from his face—or else hadn't the sense to wonder—for the fighter was already making his own run-up. An instant later and he was dashing past, with a triumphant bellow that continued until the very moment he hit the water far below.

  That left only Arein. She was a few strides from the edge, and eyeing it as though it were the rim of some fathomless abyss. “I don't know if I can do this,” she said.

  “There's no choice,” Durren told her. He spoke the words as persuasively as he could, because he was also trying to convince himself.

  The priests were finally beginning to advance—though uncertainly. Perhaps they imagined that their uninvited guests were now flinging themselves to their deaths. In mere instants they would reach Arein, and then this would all be over. Durren wondered if he should lead by example, but he couldn't shake the conviction that if he left her alone, Arein would stay just where she was. And would she be so wrong to? Just because Tia had survived, that wasn't to say either of them would.

  Then Arein was running, and he realised he'd misjudged her yet again. For he'd never seen such naked terror in a face, not even Tia's back in the tower, and still the dwarf girl didn't hesitate. She flung herself from the edge, arms and legs scrabbling at empty air.

  Durren could see no choice but to follow her example. He retreated four swift paces, ran and leapt.

  The fall was worse than he'd expected. It seemed to go on for longer than it had any right to, long enough for him to understand with perfect clarity that he was plummeting from a great height. Everything was a blur, he wasn't even sure he was the right way up, and the first point when he was certain he was falling towards water and not solid ground was when his feet struck the mill pool. Then he was sinking—and sinking fast.

  He could see nothing, could hear only a colossal rushing like a cataract. The water, dark and heavy, closed upon him like a coffin lid, intent on pushing him to its deepest depths. Only as the last air was squeezing from his lungs did he remember which was up, which was down. Then, with barely a thought, he was thrashing towards the surface. As he broke through, Durren gasped, at the same time sputtering foul-tasting water.

  Jumping off a building might not be something he had much experi
ence of, but swimming was another matter; he'd spent enough time in the warm waters off the coast near Luntharbour. As soon as he had his breath, Durren started towards the bank with assured strokes. But he'd hardly begun when he realised that the commotion to his left was Arein, floundering; she paddled like a three-legged dog. So as he passed, Durren caught hold of her arm and drew her with him.

  The mill pool wasn't wide. Even with Arein flapping behind, it didn't take Durren long to reach the far bank. There he helped Arein haul herself onto the slippery stone and then clambered up himself. Hule was energetically ringing greenish water out of his undershirt, while Tia was watching Arein intently, oblivious of her own dripping clothes.

  “Tell me you've still got it,” she said, her voice tense with forced calm.

  Arein reached into her sopping robe, rummaged around. When her hand returned, she was clutching the Petrified Egg. Durren's heart lurched at the sight, and for an instant he found his eyes darting, certain he'd see his father approaching. But no, there were just the four of them. Clearly, whatever had happened before, the phenomenon had been tied not just to the Egg itself but also to the pedestal, or even the entire tower.

  Durren looked back towards the monastery. He had half expected the priests to come leaping after them, but apparently none were quite that determined. A few of the most elderly adherents were watching from the rooftop; the rest were surely hurrying even now back down those many stairs. It was a decidedly long way around, and they'd have to divert even further to cross the river via the bridge. For all that, they were sure to catch up in a minute or two.

  “We need to go,” Tia said. She pointed back up the hill in the direction they'd arrived from, towards where the ground broke into slabs of jutting stone amid knotted clumps of ambergale.

  Tia led the way and the rest of them fell in behind her. When Durren glanced back, the first priests were just rounding the corner of the monastery. He could hear their cries as they called to their companions. They didn't seem to be much for running, but there were a lot of them, and they surely knew this area better than Tia did. Not only that, but who could guess what dark magics they had at their disposal? After what had occurred in the tower, Durren's respect for sorcery was at an all-time high. Had the sky abruptly begun to rain fire or the ground opened to swallow him, he would barely have been surprised.

  Beyond the brim of the hill, the landscape grew inhospitable: a plain of broken ground split by chasms and great, jumbled boulders, with among the wreckage a few stubby trees and bushes grasping at the sky. It was the sort of terrain where the priests might easily overtake them, especially if they knew routes that weren't immediately obvious.

  “I think we might do better to hide,” Durren suggested. He didn't entirely like the idea, not when for all he knew there were spells that could be used to sniff them out, but it was still more appealing than the thought of spending the next hours being hunted through that labyrinth. And if they were going to find a place then now was the time, while the hillside still hid them from view.

  Nevertheless, he'd thought Tia would argue. Perhaps it was her sopping robes that made her mind up rather than any respect for Durren's opinion. “I'll find somewhere,” was all she said.

  They carried on, picking their way carefully over loose shale. Durren found himself unable to keep from peeking over his shoulder, certain each time he'd see the priests closing in. Then, just as he was convinced that any chance they might have had was gone, Tia called, “This way.”

  She had spied a narrow channel, slanting to cut a deep gash through the ground, and had already scrambled halfway to its bottom. Hule and Arein followed, though without such ease or grace, and Durren brought up the rear. He could immediately see Tia's logic. Not only did the gully hide them from view, at its end it tunnelled beneath a cluster of huge rocks that had toppled together in ages past, offering cover from the ridge behind.

  Seconds later, after much difficult clambering, Tia said, “Here.” Then she was vanishing into a narrow triangular fissure in the rock wall.

  The hole she'd found was larger than Durren would have expected from the outside, and larger, too, than its barely navigable entrance suggested. By any other definition, however, it was tiny. The space was just sufficient for the four of them, and even then was more intimate than he would have liked. Jamming himself into a gap just within the opening, he had Arein's foot against his thigh and Hule's elbow wedged into his side.

  Still, Tia had certainly found them a hiding place, and—unless there really were magical means by which to track them down—one that wouldn't be easily discovered.

  Durren could just see, too, that Pootle had taken up position at the centre of their tangled group and was rotating steadily. “Homily, paradigm, lucent,” he tried. However, the observer only considered him gravely. Evidently it was true that the spell would only work when they were completely free of danger. That policy seemed back to front, in Durren's opinion; at best it suggested that the tutors were more concerned with the safety of the academy as a whole than that of any individual students.

  At any rate, they were trapped. There'd be no escaping by magical transportation, and the obvious drawback with hiding was that they were sure to be cut off soon, if they hadn't been already.

  Certainly, Durren could hear the priests moving around outside. Sometimes it was the rattle of pebbles skittering; sometimes they called back and forth to each other. They sounded worried, but Durren was unable to make out individual words. Every time he convinced himself that they'd given up, he would catch a distant shout, or a clatter of falling stones that might represent someone clambering nearby.

  Durren did his best to make himself comfortable, while at the same time moving in perfect silence. But his attempts proved futile. Any space that might have eased the cramp in his limbs was taken up by some part of one of the others. There was nothing to do but endure, and to wait—until they could be sure the priests had finally called off the hunt, or until they were discovered.

  10

  O

  utside, the light was fading. Evening was drawing in. But within the small cave, darkness had already fallen, and all Durren could make out of his companions was shapes amid the gloom.

  He had been straining his ears for hours now—hours that felt like days. Twice he'd tried whispering the recall spell, but to no effect. Perhaps Pootle hadn't heard, but more likely the observer was still aware of danger close by.

  Yet a long time had passed since Durren had heard anything other than the most distant and ambiguous sounds. Perhaps that shrill hoot minutes before had been a signal, but more likely it had been only a bird call; maybe that rattle of gravel had been set loose by a careless foot, but just as probably it was the ancient stones above them settling. In the deep silence, every small noise was all too easy to misinterpret.

  “I think they're finally gone,” Arein whispered. She sounded both relieved and exhausted.

  “I'm going out to look,” Durren decided. He had reached a point where murderous, magic-abusing priests seemed preferable to one more agonising moment of confinement.

  Before anyone could argue, he was crawling back through the hole. Outside, the sun was gone from view and the sky a glowering red. Durren could see no one, and when he listened, all he heard was the sighing of the wind and the back and forth whistles of small birds in a patch of nearby bushes. So far as he could tell, the four of them were alone.

  When he glanced back, Arein's head and shoulders were halfway through the gap. The opening beyond the cave was far from large, walled as it was by monolithic rocks to every side, but after his hours of constraint, the space seemed immense. Durren perched on an outcrop, and after they'd each slithered free of their hiding place, the others picked their own spots and sat massaging outstretched arms and legs.

  Durren knew that the thing to do now was to pronounce the transport spell and get the four of them back to the academy as swiftly as possible. Yet he couldn't find in himself any real sense of
urgency, and none of the others seemed concerned either. It was pleasant to be outside, breathing fresh air, stretching limbs confined for far too long. More than that, though, he felt that a great deal had happened in the last few hours, and only now did he have the opportunity to consider those events with a clear mind.

  He looked at Arein, who had sprawled on the ground with her back to a sheet of rock and her legs stretched before her, and was now busily polishing her glasses with an edge of her robe. “What happened up there, to Tia, Hule and me…” he began.

  Arein squinted at him, and then slid her glasses back onto her nose. “It was a spell,” she said—confirming what Durren had already come to suspect. “But it must have been powerful; I never knew something like that was even possible. From the way you were all acting, I'd guess the enchantment was designed to confront you with your worst fears.”

  “Spiders,” Hule muttered, half beneath his breath.

  “Spiders?” Arein echoed.

  “Hule hates spiders,” the fighter insisted, and the disgust with which he spoke the words left no doubt of how serious he was.

  “I saw my father,” Durren said, before he could stop himself. The memory of what had happened up in the tower had been haunting him through every moment of their imprisonment in the cave, and he realised only now how badly he needed to share the experience with someone. As much as he'd been shaken by encountering his father like that, by hearing the words he'd dreaded for so long, the revelation that the entire episode had been only the conjuring of his own frightened mind had made it somehow worse.

  After a moment, he realised how the three of them were looking at him. “I mean…I saw…” But none of the lies that came to mind were at all persuasive.

  “What do you mean,” Tia said, “you saw your father?”

  He was caught. Somehow Durren knew that even from that small clue she would work out the rest, sooner or later. You didn't decide to study as a rogue unless the instinct to pry out secrets was a significant part of your nature. Yet the truth felt like a stone in his throat, too large to cough loose.