The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  Everything seemed to come back to slavery, in Caermark, always. It was as though the very soul of the land was tied to that trade, one unable to exist without the other.

  Harlin could still remember Arnulf’s words, spoken in private as they camped on their long march south to join with Aenwald. They still echoed in his skull, as images of the past flayed him once again. Empty words, meaningless noise from the mouth of a liar.

  Athelmer, he may be the one you have sought these years. He is a great taker of slaves from Luah Fáil. You might say he is the taker of slaves from your island. He has balanced his books for years with the trade of flesh. This is a lucrative contract for us both. You rid yourself of the shadows of the past, I give you what I promised, and the company sees its coffers filled by royal gold.

  We will fall upon Easthold like an iron fist once the Ironbrand has gathered his men. We will take the walls and we will storm the keep and we will find Athelmer. And when you have your answers, we will kill him.

  The assault had come before long, to Harlin’s relief, the trebuchets wasted on Easthold’s walls. Word from King Aenwald had been sent out by runner to the captains of his vanguard. Harlin had waited in formation with the others for that moment, sweating beneath his armour, blinking back smoke as the land and town burned and spewed out choking grey clouds, watching Arnulf before him, ears pricked and mouth dry. Mount the ladders. Storm the walls.

  The war horns boomed as the order was carried along the lines. Arnulf’s sword rose and caught the glow of flames, its metal stained blood-red, falling in a crimson arc as he roared and ordered them forward, the braying of hounds at his back.

  Trebuchet shot flared overhead, black trails lingering once more as fire streaked through the air, flames rising balefully against the mountain screen – reaching up with snatching fingers at the twilight sky.

  The ladders rushed forth, arrows plucking out their bearers, felling many. Men tumbled from atop the walls, feathered with shafts, thudding to the ground as crews raised and secured their ladders against the walls. Men climbed up them awkwardly, shields raised, the going slow, rock and arrow pelting them from above in a ceaseless torrent. Many fell, struck by arrow or caught by stone, tumbling from the rungs, their screams lost amidst the steady crump, crump of trebuchet shot slamming into Easthold’s innards. Harlin waited with the Blackshield Dogs for their turn at the ladders, rocks clattering from his raised shield, bodies crunching into hard earth around them, heart beating out an impatient battle march in his chest.

  Men were atop the walls before long and the fighting was fierce, the walkways becoming a slippery no man’s land of blood and hacked flesh as Aenwald’s men tried to wrest control of them. The going was easier for the Dogs now the enemy was engaged, the ladders along this section of wall mostly ignored by the enemy archers, as Harlin sweated his way up the rungs behind his Shield Brothers. He remembered the excitement, could still taste it if he tried. The battle lust. The bloodlust. They sang savagely together as they raced through his veins, a duet in perfect harmony. Shield upon his back, helm upon his head, he climbed up the ladder that reached ever onward, the height dizzying at its peak.

  He came to the topmost rung, sword in hand, to the rattling thud of shields and choking cries of death, battle raging. Swirling chaos waited for him. Men were thrown from the battlements, shrieking as they fell to their death, their bodies whistling past him through air that reeked of fire and smoke, each breath burning in his throat.

  Harlin sprang from the siege ladder, sword drawn, its blade flashing through fire-red night, cleaving foes around him. Wielding his shield as a steel-rimmed bludgeon, he battered and cast those who challenged him from the wall, down into the town, over the battlements to the waiting earth.

  Their howling preceding them, his Shield Brothers lunged from the ladder-tops and hacked a bloody clearing open atop the walkway, their savagery driving Athelmer’s men back towards the stairs and down to the gatehouse. King Aenwald’s men followed the Blackshield Dogs with a ragged cheer, their forms bloodied and tired from the initial push, many of their own dead left behind.

  The Dogs took the gatehouse in a bloody tide, rushing the men posted there and leaving them as shattered things upon the stones in their wake. A few men backed themselves into a small spear wall against the gate, hafts trembling in their grip. Harlin remembered the sound one’s skull had made as he cracked it open with his shield against the stones of the gatehouse. It set his every sense tingling in a way that no woman ever could. It had taken a good few blows to his shoulder from Anselm to drag his attention away from how the man’s body twitched in death and to where their Shield Brothers were flinging the gates open. They narrowly avoided being crushed by Aenwald’s knights as they charged in like a steel tide, skewering Athelmer’s reinforcements making for the gatehouse like a living spearhead.

  The flames of Easthold’s funeral pyre were red as they towered like the earth itself spewed them forth. Harlin and the Blackshield Dogs fought on towards the keep with Aenwald’s men, leaving a gore-strewn carpet of dead men behind them. A red horde, a bloody horde – they pushed on together, relentless, even as Harlin himself felt exhaustion screaming through his muscles with every swing of his blade. Their enemy finally broke when the serjeant leading them had been cut down by Red Harry.

  They chased the fleeing defenders down the burning streets, emerging into the courtyard of the town’s grim keep – the Durestone – where Athelmer’s knights had slammed shut the great oaken doors and abandoned the men outside to the slaughter that came for them. Harlin hacked pleading men to bloody pieces in frustration, until he was red as his sword’s blade from head to foot. His mark waited somewhere within those stone walls, he had the scent of blood now, and the denial of it drove him into a loathsome rage like hounds upon a fox.

  The doors to the keep were locked and barred solidly, and men cheered as the ram came down the road behind them, crushing fallen bodies flat beneath its fat, groaning wheels. Aenwald’s men edged from Harlin though, fearful of the killer with the dark steel face and long hair, his body covered in blood. The smell of it had overpowered even the smoke of the burning town, had set something immense and dreadful thrashing inside him as if caged and straining for its freedom, louder than the thunder of ram against reinforced door, louder than the masses of roaring, murderous warriors around him.

  The doors gave way with a frightful crack, their timbers buckling, sundering and splintering beneath the ram’s iron head, and Harlin dived through the breach as the ram withdrew, carried forth by his bloodlust, the first through and into the fight again.

  Athelmer’s knights waited within, heavy armour glinting in dull torch and firelight. They came at him like a steel wall, longswords raised and ready to slice him apart. He darted amongst them, tripping feet, sweeping legs, sending bodies crashing down and swords skittering away into shadows. His Shield Brothers had described him as a black phantom when talking of how he slew those knights. He spun between men in heavy plate and thick mail nimbly, untouched, sword piercing up through gaps where armour was weak, through visors with sublime precision, and bludgeoning to death with its hilt and pommel those whose armour refused its blade.

  In his wake there had been a trail of bleeding steel-clad corpses, growing ever longer, as he had plunged on ahead of the rest of the Dogs and Aenwald’s men. His Shield Brothers said he had fought like a man possessed that day, driven forth by something other than the simple joy of the kill. Something moved within him they did not understand, could not understand, but merely observe, as Athelmer’s knights fell before him in turn. So great was his skill, so fierce his rage, his hunger and thirst to take what was his from these people, they broke in the face of his fury like the tide upon the cliff. Harlin drove them back single-handedly, their fear of the warrior in black greater than their willingness to make a man’s ending of their lives.

  Harlin chased the knights into the upper levels of the Durestone, killing those he caught or attempted t
o make a stand, the Dogs behind him moving on to find the way to the outer battlements, where archers still loosed shafts at the men in the courtyard.

  The few surviving knights led Harlin to Athelmer’s chamber door before long, a splendid thing of lacquered oak and fine gold-work, heavy, but by no means built with defence in mind. He kicked it in as they tried to bar it with furniture, sending a knight sprawling loudly onto the marble floor with a pained grunt. His sword pommel crushed the visor of the man’s helm inward as he tried to get up, and knocked another sneaking up on his side backward as he spun into his fighting stance again. The fallen knight’s helm didn’t cover the underside of his chin, and he died with a gargled shriek as Harlin rammed his sword through the mail collar up into his skull.

  The last knight had stood trembling before him as Harlin rose again, longsword clutched too tightly in his hands, tension written in every stiff backwards movement, muffled gasp and panted breath. Behind him stood a large, bald man in a rich-looking blue velvet cloak, a coat of mail beneath it hung awkwardly from his form, unbelted in the necessary places, speaking of a rushed donning and unexpected need to be used. The weight of it slouched the man’s shoulders somewhat and left it loose around his midriff, where he fussed with a leather belt clumsily, expensive golden rings adorning his thick fingers, their stones glittering in the light of torches. Lord Athelmer. He snarled, Harlin inching forward toward his last defender, shield raised, sword dripping steadily onto the marble floor.

  ‘Kill him, coward!’ Athelmer roared, shoving the knight forward by the shoulder. The knight stumbled forward off balance, unwilling to fight, landing on his face with the crash of metal on stone. Harlin’s boot turned him onto his back, a kick to the face opening the helm’s visor, unveiling youthful, unscarred features and terrified, watery eyes.

  ‘No, wait, please!’ the young knight had pleaded with a shrill, boyish voice, gauntleted hands raised before him in supplication. ‘I yield! I –’ Harlin ignored him, ramming the rim of his shield into the boy’s mouth, cutting off his words with a crunching choke of tearing flesh and bending steel. The knight’s hands clawed at his legs as his face was caved in with blow after blow, features becoming a churned red and pink mess.

  A shout betrayed Athelmer as he had come. Harlin spun to meet him, raising his flesh-speckled shield against the blow, sword ready for the counter. It was a feint, the weapon’s edge came around in a fluent, deceptive arc and smacked painfully into his sword arm, flesh saved by mail and leather, his blade tumbling from his grasp with a grunt.

  An overhand blow, telegraphed, overconfident, came thudding across his shield. Harlin grabbed Athelmer’s sword arm before he could recover, slamming his shield into the lord’s chest and knocking him backwards into a sitting position. Athelmer rose, winded and gasping loudly, reaching for his sword. Harlin’s knee drove into his stomach, knocking him back another step. Athelmer raised his face then, turning pale, the hand not clutching his stomach begging mercy as he drew whimpering, wounded breaths.

  Harlin answered by landing the hardest punch he’d ever thrown on the lord’s nose, the bone shattering beneath his knuckles. Athelmer staggered back and slumped against the wooden wall that hid his privy, groaning feebly as blood spilled around the hand pressed to his face. Harlin snatched up his sword from where it lay, advancing on Athelmer’s crumpling form, dropping his shield to wield the blade in a two-handed grip. He lunged forward with a roar as Athelmer turned towards him, and drove the point of his sword through the mail covering the lord’s stomach, feeling the flesh part, then mail tear again as it burst through his body, sinking deep into the wooden wall behind him.

  Athelmer hung there silently for a moment, impaled, wide eyes staring down at the blade in his gut, before he finally gave a shuddering cry and tried to wrench it free, palms bleeding as they slipped along its edge.

  ‘Tell me, slave taker,’ Harlin said coldly, ‘did you take my family?’

  Athelmer gave no answer other than to scream and drool blood. Harlin slapped him hard across the face.

  ‘Speak, Marcher,’ he snarled. ‘Nine years ago, did you have your ships raid Bráodhaír?’

  ‘Where?’ the lord groaned, still tugging at the blade. Harlin slapped him again.

  ‘Bráodhaír,’ he snapped, ‘the port town to the north of Luah Fáil, do not play me for a fool, lordling. You take more slaves from my people than any other Marcher bastard that ever set sail for our shores. Now, tell me – did your men raid Bráodhaír nine years ago. Tell me, Athelmer, and I will make your end quicker.’

  ‘I…’

  The lord shook his head, eyes widening at something over Harlin’s shoulder. He coughed blood, struggled for words. Harlin raised his hand to strike him again with a growl, when soft, hurried footsteps behind him made him spin on the spot.

  A metallic flash, light gleaming from a sharp edge as a knife drove down towards his chest. Harlin caught a slender wrist in his hand, a long, thin knife hovering an inch above his heart. He tilted his head at the sight of a well-dressed girl, her heart-shaped face twisted in anger as she wrestled in his grip. A small fist beat against his chest furiously, then reached for the knife in her trapped hand. Harlin wrenched her arm upward and beyond her reach, the girl screaming as her toes left the floor.

  ‘Athella,’ Athelmer coughed wetly, ‘not my daughter… not my little girl, she has done nothing to you or to your king, show her mercy, I beg you.’

  Harlin twisted the girl’s wrist painfully so she dropped the knife, catching it as it fell. She was young, he saw, as he looked her up and down. Almost the age his sister Ciara had been the last time he had saw her, of an age with himself now, he thought. Barely old enough to marry. The sight of her roused something fearsome in him, something dark, brought hurtful memories back to the forefront of his mind. She stared up at him angrily, her fear and pain well masked, and spat in his face, the globule landing on his helm’s faceguard.

  The black rage thrashing in his chest overcame him then, that cold thing that dwelt inside of him raising its dreadful head. It reached out, slinked into his limbs, into his mind, frigid tendrils gripping fiercely.

  Show him, it whispered, though its voice was like a roar in his ear. Show him!

  ‘Mercy is a virtue of the honourable, Lord Athelmer,’ Harlin said as he dragged the girl towards the lord’s bed. ‘I have no honour left in me, I am afraid.’

  The lord’s hacking cries were lost to him, his ears full of the sound of a cold, bleak and hateful voice, his limbs driven to action by something cruel and ruthless.

  Do it.

  Harlin shoved the girl onto the bed, her hands slapping at him and long nails scratching uselessly at his armour. He struck her hard with an open palm across the face, and she cowered from him then, crying freely. He cut her dress with the knife he’d taken from her, and tore it from her body as worthless silken shreds. She shrieked as he exposed her, and tried to scramble away from him over the bed’s velvet sheets. Harlin caught her by the ankle and dragged her back towards him. She went limp as his fist collided with the back of her head, dazed. Her father raged from where stood impaled, gargled meaningless words, spewed empty threats, coughed and hacked and spat blood over his expensive floor as he tried to pull himself free, weeping bitterly as Harlin unlaced the pants beneath his armour, fumbling with himself.

  She did not scream while he raped her on her father’s bed, as the dying man watched, drooling blood, his hands clutching at the blade in his gut. She struggled weakly against Harlin, sobbing loudly.

  Something made him stop though after a few minutes. Something withdrew snickering from his mind, gleeful in its accomplishments. Harlin looked down, the girl’s pale backside pressed up against him, her body heaving with every sob. She was bleeding on him, her thighs stained red and sticky with it. He felt sick, stomach twisting.

  Harlin withdrew, hitching his pants up and throwing her into the corner with a snarl, conscious of the need to keep his intimidation of Athelmer
going. She sat with her face in her hands, weeping hoarsely as he went to where Athelmer, sagged against the wall, glaring into the dying man’s eyes.

  ‘Tell me, lordling,’ Harlin snarled between clenched teeth, ‘fucking tell me!’

  ‘My ships only ever raided the south,’ the man gasped, blood trailing from his lips and into his thick beard, eyes fading as he shook his head slowly. ‘Only the south, the north… too far, too wild, too much risk for my men. We only ever took slaves from the south. Only the south…’

  Only the south.

  Harlin felt hollow as he watched the life leave Athelmer’s eyes. Dying men rarely lie. The wailing of the lord’s daughter grew in its intensity as she realised her father was dead, the noise of it grating in Harlin’s ears like shrill accusation, stirring him to action when he wanted nothing but to sit and curl up into himself. He rose, put a foot on the wall next to Athelmer’s body and pulled his sword free with great difficulty. Athelmer hit the marble floor with a sodden thump in a pool of his own blood, already congealing beneath where he’d stood. Harlin turned away from the sight, and saw the audience before the doorway.

  Arnulf, Anselm, Dag and a few of Aenwald’s men, all weary and bloodstained, sporting minor wounds, watching with mouths agape at the scene about him. A man in plate, one of Aenwald’s knights, raised the visor of his helm, the face beneath horrified.

  ‘You’re no man,’ he said, touching a hand to a sacred engraving on his breastplate, the name of one of his gods, something Marchers did to ward off evil or bad luck.

  Harlin ignored him and made for the door, eyes burning into Arnulf’s, who, for once, showed a degree of uncertainty in his own iron-hard glare. Arnulf had made a monster of him this day, unleashed that grotesque thing that lurks inside all men.

  ‘Wrong man,’ he muttered at the Lord-Captain, ‘enjoy your victory, my lord.’ He shouldered past them all and went for the door behind them.