The Shadow of the High King
The Weaving Shadows Book One
FRANK DORRIAN
Copyright © 2016 Frank Dorrian
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Jason Nguyen
www.jasonnart.com
ISBN – 978-0-9955184-0-7
Published by Impaled Monarch Publishing
Liverpool, UK
frankdorrian.wordpress.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the kind help, assistance and encouragement of a number of people, to whom I am, and will always be, eternally grateful.
Firstly, my alpha reader Tiffany Davis, of Dothan, Alabama, for the months of reading, kind words, discussion and patience during the initial writing process, as I strove to carve the meat of a story from the bones of an idea.
Gordon Shure for guiding and encouraging me through the self-publication process and shedding light into the darkest corners of my cluelessness.
Emma Bromiley, my proof-reader, for her tireless, indispensible efforts in locating errors and flaws in the book’s manuscript, her helpful suggestions and for spreading the word of its impending release.
Sharon Ann Dawson, for educating me on the finer points of self-publishing and marketing that I would have otherwise stumbled blindly into and made a mess of.
And, last but not least, my good friend and training partner Stephen Jones, for the endless discussions, arguments and debates on European middle ages history, swordfighting – and fighting in general – that were of great help when it came to writing the book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frank Dorrian was born in 1987 in Liverpool – his hometown, a post-industrial cityscape, served as poignant inspiration for his creative efforts. He would commence writing in earnest during his teenage years, composing stories to sate desires of both expression and introspection.
Today, Frank is a qualified mental health nurse. He works in the field with people suffering severe psychiatric and psychological disorders, and additionally offers private mind coaching sessions for those needing a refreshing take on life’s trials.
When not writing, Frank spends his spare time reading, playing computer games and attending a martial arts gym. He has previously competed as a fighter domestically in the UK and abroad in Thailand.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
To the memory of my father, Robert Francis Dorrian, who taught me the joy of reading.
Chapter 1
A Night of Fire
The rain fell hard over Thegnmere in the night. The summertime had been poor so far and tonight was no exception. The streets of the fortress-town were deserted, a great gale billowing through them that chilled to the bone, and the trees of the surrounding Marrwood were bent nearly double as they struggled against its onslaught. The town’s namesake, the River Thegn, swelled on its path through the town and threatened to burst its banks. Overhead, dark clouds swallowed the moon from sight and lightning stabbed through the northern sky above the distant Silverpeak Mountains.
Despite the cruel weather, atop the great stone walls that surrounded Thegnmere, twinkling lights showed the men of the night watch moving to and fro in their endless patrol. One in particular cursed his luck more than the others. He cursed his gods too, and his old bones for aching so frightfully in such cold weather. But he cursed his captain most of all for putting his name down for tonight’s watch.
Artim hated the rain, especially during the summer. The night watch was normally plain sailing, a comfy way to earn your coin in the warmer months – but on nights like these Artim felt fit to strangle the first person who looked at him wrong.
Well, if it wouldn’t cost him his job, of course. He had his grandchildren to think about, after all.
They called him Old Arty, the other guardsmen. He found the ‘old’ description a bit insulting at times, despite their good humour, but he supposed he was old now truth be told. At least older than he was, at any rate, and most definitely far too old to be working on nights like this – all he could think of was his fire he had left behind at home.
There was nothing he could do about it of course, it was either suffer or starve, but it helped to moan a bit about it, inwardly at least. Only weaklings whine of their ill luck to others. To whine of having work to do would be as bad as whining of the white in his hair and beard that spread further with each passing year. He wasn’t too happy about that either, now he thought on it, but again, what could he do? So, he pulled his cloak tighter about him, as he sat inside one of the wall’s western towers, and spat into the crackling brazier before him – again, cursing his foul luck.
The days had caught up with Artim, it was true – they said he was long in the tooth now, and at times he felt as though they kept him around on the watch simply due to the length of his service to Thegnmere and Lord Marreburg. The lines in his face spoke of a harsh life.
He had been a soldier once, a serjeant for the longest time, before age and wounds had made Lord Marreburg retire him from the front and send him home with honours and a small pittance for such lengthy service. It had been enough to buy his home and feed his grandchildren for a while at least – he was grateful for that.
The town watch were not so picky over their recruits as Lord Marreburg was of his fighting men and had welcomed a grim, grizzled veteran of the north into their ranks. They had made him serjeant over a detachment of men, in honour of his prior experience. Mostly he just helped to train the younger lads in the watch these days, unless he was assigned to guard duty like tonight.
Well, if you could call it training, that is. They were no soldiers these boys, at least not most of them. An easy job in times of peace, most saw it as – walk the streets and walls in cheap mail, spear in hand, impressing the local whores with the lord’s colours emblazoned on your breast, beat beggars, thieves and scoundrels down into the mud like shit, then collect your day’s coppers from your captain.
Aye, easy enough, Artim supposed, nodding as he watching the brazier’s coals spit and crackle.
He often wondered how long these lads would last in a real fight. Age may have changed Artim’s face, but it had not slowed his sword arm – which he kept as sharp as the steel that hung at his side. They didn’t last long with him in their sparring sessions, with either spear or sword, barely more than a minute, in most cases. Piss in the wind, he usually said of them when asked.
To be truthful though, he had grown fond of some of them, though brutes and braggarts, most were. He had no time for such people, especially not in these, his later years. He shook his head and warmed his hands over the brazier one last time. It was almost time for him to do his rounds. He steeled himself and drew up his hood.
He stepped into the storm, spear and oil lantern in hand, his legs almost buckling as the chill gale beat against him. It was harsh up here atop the walls. The wind was cruel at the best of times in the north, but atop the walls it was something else, having nothing to bar
its path. Artim paced forth, suffering its might and heading to the next tower, gripping the stones of the wall with gnarled hands.
A glance over the wall showed him nothing but the shimmering darkness of the Marrwood, treetops lit by sparse moonlight, rippling like a sea of leaves in the wind. He could see nothing of the ground below. It was pointless him being on patrol on a night like this, it was too dark to see anything, potential attackers could be setting up ladders beneath where he stood and he wouldn’t have been able to spot them. He shuffled on, swearing aloud with each step and reached the heavy door to the next tower.
Inside was warmth, a brazier crackling in the corner, casting its orange glow through the room. Stowing his spear in the tower’s weapon rack and setting his lantern down on a table against the far wall, Artim toasted his hands above the glowing embers. The feeling returned to them with the tell-tale after-ache of numbness. The wind still howled outside, the rain still fell bitterly, and Artim swore to himself and decided to stay in the warmth to rest a while, rounds be damned. There were other men atop the walls tonight, men he knew. He unclasped his sodden cloak and held it before the brazier, vapour rising from it in the heat.
The adjacent door opened with a curse and a shuffling of stumbling feet. Bringing a sheet of rain into the room was a foulmouthed member of the watch, dripping water steadily as he shouldered the door closed. ‘Evening, serj!’ he said with a loose, half-hearted salute as he rest upon the door, a puddle steadily spreading from his boots and cloak.
‘Jerral,’ Artim grunted back with the faintest of nods at the young lad. This was one of the more likable ones he was in charge of and his company not too unwelcome. ‘Afraid of the rain, are we?’
‘Too bloody right, serj,’ Jerral said, joining him at the brazier after stowing his own spear, ‘it’s wetter than a whore’s arse for a gold coin.’ Artim laughed briefly.
‘Aye, and wetter than yours for a copper one, no doubt.’
‘Right again, serj!’ said the young watchman, laughing in turn. ‘I’ve barely enough copper between the cheeks of my arse to catch the whores down the local tavern with! I’m a growing lad, serj! I need to get my wenching done, it’s known – don’t get your wenching done, grow up with a small cock as useful as tits on a carthorse! That’s what I grew up being told, and I’m not one for sacrilege, as you know.’
Artim let himself laugh properly at that, age hadn’t lessened his crude sense of humour. ‘Take yourself down to the merchant’s district, then,’ he said. ‘Hear the brothels pay good coin for comely lads with no coins blocking up their shitter. Should get enough copper for your whoring, then – as long as you don’t go jamming them up your hole.’ Jerral roared with laughter that rebounded from the walls of the tower into Artim’s skull.
‘Best get my arse down there before I get paid then!’ He shook with mirth, his windswept hair dripping water.
‘Good,’ Artim answered him, adjusting his cloak over the brazier, ‘because your arse won’t be getting buggered any more by a fat cloth merchant than it is by Lord Marreburg.’ They laughed loud and long together, drying themselves, heedless as the wind raged against the tower walls.
They stood together in silence for a time, gazing into the glowing embers, the tower somewhat oppressive now devoid of laughter, the night feeling somewhat off. Had it felt that way before?
Or was it just as they stood here, drenched then drying, listening to the wind howling and scraping at the tower walls, as though it sought what hid from it inside. Artim shuddered. Probably just the storm unsettling him, it sounded so ferocious. It seemed to suck the very humour from them.
Artim jammed more wood into the embers from a supply kept in the corner, hoping to be dry before he braved the walls again. If he braved them again, that was, now he thought upon it. The gales and downfall make for perilous footing at such height. Only sailors died in storms, and Old Arty had no intention of joining them, the captain could take his bag of coins and shove them up his lack-wit arse if he thought Artim would be going back out there in a hurry.
Not that there was anything to see out there anyway – it was blacker than a shadow’s prick beyond the walls.
‘Seen any of the others?’ said Artim, eventually, mostly to break the miserable silence that had descended upon the room after such hearty laughter. Jerral was slow to answer, his gaze entrapped by the crackling wood in the brazier, his young face lined by the stark light cast from it.
Gods, this night is bleak, thought Artim, shivering.
‘Renn and Fael,’ said Jerral slowly, ‘Glossley at the start of the watch. All as piss-shit miserable as us, by the looks of things, serj. My guts tell me Captain Howsen chose us deliberate like, for tonight. I reckon he must have a touch of those islander’s witchcraft in those balls of his, how else would he have known the weather would be so shit when he decided to put our names down for tonight?’
Artim smirked to himself at that. None were too fond of the captain of the watch. Captain Howsen was often referred to as Captain Whoreson. Or Captain Arsefun.
Or, quite often, just the Cunt.
‘Now Jerral,’ he said sternly, ‘our gracious, copper-bollocked captain is not to be ridiculed, I am sure its mere luck of the draw we got shovelled shit for tonight and not his aforementioned weather-telling balls.’ They laughed together again, and it seemed to chase away the gloom of the weather.
‘Go fetch us both a stool, Jerral, are we fuck going back out there again. Even Arsefun would be running after them copper bollocks of his trying to tuck them back in his pants with that wind.’
‘Aye,’ said Jerral, bringing them two stools to sit on, ‘fuck that for a laugh, sit our arses here for the night why not, can’t see bugger all anyway.’
Artim reached into his pouch and drew out his hipflask. ‘This’ll make the night go quicker,’ he said, and took a swig. The liquor was most welcome on a night like tonight. ‘Westglenn’s best brown fire this lad,’ he said after, offering it to Jerral. ‘Straight from the source, Honeyed Iron they call it.’ Jerral sniffed at the spirit.
‘Smells like shit,’ he commented, frowning and wrinkling his nose at it. He took a swig all the same and coughed viciously as the liquor burned its way down his gullet. ‘And tastes like it and all!’ he croaked.
‘Tavernhound my pale arse!’ Artim spat, ‘never touched a real man’s drink before? Or did your father give you goat’s milk to put hairs on your chest?’
‘No,’ Jerral answered, grimacing, ‘but he didn’t have me drink pitch neither, you crazy old bastard, serj.’
‘Well Old Arty’s glad he’s made a man of you at last. Someone had to do it. You can think of me when you finally get your end away. You can make the whore call you Artim for me, as well.’
They laughed again and shared the liquor as they sat keeping the embers ablaze, joking and telling tales to while away the miserable hours of their watch.
If you could call a ‘watch’ two men sitting in a stone tower getting drunk besides a merrily cracking and spitting brazier that is.
Artim listened to Jerral’s story of how he joined the watch – a choice between holding a spear atop the walls of Thegnmere, or a life of hard labour on his father’s farm outside the Marrwood with only sheep for company. He had chosen the spear, in the end – there were more women to be had, after all.
‘Probably best for the sheep, too,’ Artim had to say on that one.
Artim spoke of his time as a soldier. Of the border incursions by other lords of Caermark, of the raids into the south to seek revenge against Middenrealm lordlings who had taken to stealing Lord Marreburg’s livestock and crops and of the great Battle of Greylake.
‘I’ve heard of that one,’ Jerral said of it when he heard Artim speak the name. ‘Great victory for Lord Marreburg they say, crushed the traitors up at the mountain side didn’t he?’
‘That he did lad,’ said Artim, sipping from his flask. ‘And at the King’s behest. Well, we were the ones who did the butcher’
s work. But it was his idea to approach the town under the flag of peace to get us inside those walls, too well defended.’
‘Must have won yourself some glory while you were up there!’ Jerral said admiringly, shaking his head in awe. The battle was a legend here in the north.
Artim felt his face darken.
‘There was no glory in that battle lad,’ he muttered, spitting in the brazier. Jerral frowned at him.
‘You’re joking, surely?’ he said, seeming puzzled. Artim laughed sourly.
‘In killing your enemy, yes. Glory by the arseload. But killing their women with their babes in arms? What glory is there in that? That’s murder boy. No two ways about it.’
He still thought of that day sometimes, though he had tried to push it from his mind. He shuddered.
The King’s handling of traitors was not gentle.
He could still smell the fires. The bodies piled high and burned. The stench had stuck to his clothes for days.
He forced it from his mind again. The night was dark and cold. It brewed darker thoughts. It wasn’t long before Jerral was back to cracking lewd jokes, though.
Artim was glad of the company on a night like tonight, he realised. The night watch could be a lonely affair at the best of times and Jerral’s youthful humour was a good remedy for its misery. As was the liquor, their laughter raucous now as it went to work loosening both bones and tongues.
‘What a whore, eh,’ Jerral spoke as they stifled their laughter from another joke, ‘a dark fucker of a night, this is. Can’t remember me a shitter summer.’
‘Aye, dark indeed,’ Artim answered, nodding and looking into the crackling fire again, his chin in his hand. ‘Hopefully the harvest stands up, I don’t know what I’ll do if there’s no ale in this shithole of a town.’
‘They say there’s been more men spotted in the woods,’ Jerral said suddenly after a pause. He looked suddenly older, stressed. Artim glowered at him, but he had heard the same.
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