The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  Aenwald smirked at that, and turned, leaving the tent with Baine and Garan following behind him. Outside, he found a serjeant.

  ‘I want him burned at the stake like the heretical shit he is,’ he barked at the man, a finger jabbing mailed chest. ‘Nightfall, for all the men to see. A grand fucker of a spectacle to finish off the day, understand?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty!’

  With a grunt Aenwald stalked away to find food. And wine. Lots of the fucking stuff.

  As night fell, many of the men gathered on the northern edge of the army’s camp. Torchlight showed Haakon Garrmunt tied to a wooden stake planted in the ground, left lower leg a congealed, red and black mess. His head hung low, and he did not flinch as Aenwald’s men poured oil over him and onto the bundles of wood and branches gathered about his feet.

  Haakon Garrmunt died a screaming, shrieking death as fire consumed him, flesh peeling away as it washed over him in orange waves. He called out for his new god, for Aboroth the Red Handed Prophet, and still he burned, and burned, until all that remained was a wretched black shape where Haakon Garrmunt had once been. Aenwald watched intently. A smile dimpled his cheeks beneath his beard as he sipped a cup of that fine red. Perhaps, he thought, the fool was right – there is serenity in fire after all.

  Yet as the flames climbed higher and higher over the traitor lord’s shrivelling form, the cheers of his men reaching a steady roar like that of the fire, he frowned – as for a moment he fancied that he saw something within that inferno.

  Eyes. Watching him. Staring back at him from within the depths of orange clouds, man’s eyes, filled with a black rage within them like nothing Aenwald had seen or felt before. Hatred lurked tangibly in them, like hooked, flaying blades. And hunger, wretched, hateful hunger that pinned Aenwald where he stood.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ a voice behind him spoke, making him spin around on the spot with a start. He breathed a sigh of relief, seeing one of the serjeants of his household that he knew by sight but not by name busy kneeling before him.

  ‘What, man!’ he roared, gathering himself. ‘Can you not see I am busy enjoying the spectacle?’

  ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty!’ the serjeant said, looking up, ‘but I bring urgent news for you, from riders who have just arrived in the camp, Sire.’

  Aenwald grimaced at him and glanced over his shoulder, back at the fire, now dying off, the flames subsiding. Garrmunt’s corpse hung withered, crisped and blackened. The eyes were gone. Had he imagined them? Had the traitor filled his mind with fancies like this Graxis had done to Haakon? He shook himself.

  ‘Well, out with it then, serjeant!’ he snapped. The man swallowed, mouth fumbling for words before he finally spoke, sweat visible on his brow even in the flickering firelight.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he began. ‘Celdarin’s Shield has fallen.’

  Chapter 13

  Celdarin’s Shield

  The market was busy, even at this late hour, the people drawn out by the long, late summer night and the scents and sights in the enormous inner courtyard. Spices from the south, silks from the east, foods from every corner of Caermark and beyond, all sold in one place at a hundred or more different stalls by a hundred or more different merchants.

  Nobles, courtiers and the simply wealthy or well-to-do, all strolled freely around, dressed in fine garbs, mostly of the fashions of the south of Caermark. Men in fine shirts, velvet tunics and gold-threaded leggings tucked into knee-high leather boots. Women in wide, flowing dresses, fitted bodices, hair braided into tight tails or elegantly layered coronets set with white flowers. Some even took to wearing similar garb to the Gaussemen beyond the nearby border – men could be seen wearing dark, quilted doublets trimmed with gold and silver cuffs and collars, or decorated with glittering stones woven into the fabric. Tight, brightly coloured hose covered their legs and delicate, almost feminine shoes were upon their feet. Some wore floppy-looking muffin hats, plumed with brightly coloured feathers, that were both absurd and eye catching at once. Fashion was an odd form of sophistication only the noble or highborn with too much money or time on their hands understood, it seemed.

  The Shield is a strange place, Arnulf thought as he looked about him. A mishmash of Caermark and Gausselandt, similar, he supposed to everywhere that lay upon the Shattered Marches – a land of blurred borders and mixed cultures, as much as one of constant raiding and burning.

  A world within a world, it felt like, a tiny bubble of culture, contained within towering stone walls, sheltered from the wars and fighting and nonsense of Caermark and Gausselandt beneath a square of bright southern sky.

  Arnulf roamed between the stalls, draped in the drab, grey cowl of a priest of Vathnir. They had entered the fortress two days prior under the guise of merchants and their bodyguards as planned. Arnulf had exchanged his peddler’s garb for a more discreet one of grey cloth – all the more easy to scout the town and its defences.

  Balarin was not far off, he and a group of ten Shield Brothers had set up shop in the market some ways back, hawking bundles of treefox furs they had purchased from a hunting outpost just south of the Shalefells. Seemed they were actually turning a profit on them, too, judging by the amount that were changing hands.

  Hroga was prowling elsewhere, he and nineteen of his men masquerading as a steel merchant and his entourage from the Middenrealms, swaddled in expensive furs and rare leathers, armoured bodyguard glaring at any who came close, all playing their parts well.

  The sun was fierce today even as it died, the air warm despite the steadily reddening sky. It painted a pretty sight, Arnulf thought, milling crowds of young nobles moving to and fro, their slashed velvets and bright smiles shining.

  He almost felt guilty for what he was about to unleash upon the place.

  Darkness first. Then we strike.

  Arnulf strolled near to the imposing curtain wall, where inner and outer wall merged into one, pacing its length towards the keep, hand clutching a walking staff, his sword hidden beneath his robes, mail quietened by a padded gambeson. The heat of the southern sun was terrible, and his sleeve was damp from him dabbing at his face constantly. It seemed to make him all the more convincing though, as the guardsmen he passed by offered him water from their barrels, which he accepted and muttered false blessings for them in return, touching them lightly as they bowed their heads in gratitude and uttered their thanks.

  The garrison was light, as Arnulf had suspected it would be, Rebacht was not suspecting an attack on his stronghold. Nor would he have had reason to, no one in their right mind would ever consider trying to take the Shield. Perhaps Arnulf himself was insane in attempting to undertake such a feat of stealth and subterfuge. There were some old sayings about bravery and insanity walking hand in hand with one another, he recalled vaguely.

  Rumour on the road said that Lord Rebacht had taken most of his levies north to join with King Aenwald’s host fighting in the Middenrealms. It seemed true, the garrison here was much lighter than Arnulf had expected, sparse even. Their scouts had reported very few fighting men were to be seen in the outlying settlements around the Marches and Valley, barely enough to enforce the law in a half-grown town, let alone mount any kind of armed response.

  It is almost time.

  The sun was at the horizon now, Arnulf saw, climbing a stairway to stand atop the wall and stare out across the Valley from the battlements.

  This little bubble of culture was deceptive, he thought. A community thriving behind a wall, full of life and vibrancy, while outside them lay a vast scar in the land carved from naught but barren rock and stone.

  For miles around all that could be seen were the bare stones of the Valley of Dead Kings, a jagged cleft cut through the midriff of the Shattered Marches flanked by grim fells and foothills. A red glare settled over the area like a halo of blood, the air strong with the stink of castle life and the mixed scents of the market below. Atop plateaus and rocky hills, an army of dead trees stood in solemn watch, their blackened ranks
rising like burnt, bristling spears up the foothills of the Valley.

  It was a dead land, made deader by endless war. The crumbling skeletons of burnt buildings and constructs were a common sight on the road through the Valley, as were the charred bones of those who had dwelt there. The woods had seen so much fire it was as though the earth had simply given up and retreated, leaving only the once lush corpses behind atop scorched, calloused stone.

  The only greenery to be found was among the few farms below, scraping a living from the thin soil that covered parts of the Valley’s floor. He could see them from here. Small wooden dwellings, huddled tight together as though for protection, sticking close to the lazy stream that trickled southwards. The more prosperous among them had flimsy-looking palisades surrounding them for some protection, though Arnulf doubted how much it would deter a raiding party from Gausselandt looking for blood and plunder. He doubted, too, how much food such places could actually grow. Most of the food in Celdarin’s Shield seemed to be brought up from grain barges along the Southscar River and down through the valley from farms further north. An expensive venture, no doubt, and an unreliable one with the Gaussemen looking to cause any kind of disruption or annoyance they could along the Shattered Marches.

  It was a shame, Arnulf thought with a sigh. Perhaps this place once was beautiful, before the men of Caermark and Gausselandt had come to clash heads over it. It was even said that mighty serpents once stalked these lands and the grim peaks that rose above them. The tales of them were ancient, almost mythic. Stories of when there was still magic that roamed free in the land, before the old gods came to men and punished them for their arrogance and evil, and drew such things from the earth like poison from a wound.

  There were some, even, that said the gods had sent the Emperors themselves from across the sea to punish them.

  Whatever grain of truth there may have been in such tales, it was no doubt lost to time and the waning memories of men. But then, there were stories of enormous bones that were occasionally found in the deepest shafts of the local mines, ones that could not belong to any creature that still lived.

  A hand upon his shoulder shook him from his daydreaming.

  ‘What’re you doing up here, preacher?’

  Arnulf complied as the hand turned him about, finding himself staring into a guardsman’s suspicious, though not too intelligent-looking eyes.

  ‘Forgive me, my good man,’ Arnulf said, a hand touching his forehead in apology, feigning a southern accent and doing his best to look bent and decrepit. ‘I merely wished to watch the sun set over the land, so many of our men have marched off to join the King’s war, it seems apt the Valley be stained blood red.’

  ‘The walls are off limits to civilians, holy man,’ said the guard, quite brusquely, puffing himself up in the way only those with an overt sense of their own minor authority can muster. ‘You should know this. See yourself down from here, quickly, I don’t want to have to drag a priest into his lordship’s dungeons. Bad for the soul, so I’ve heard, and my lot with Vathnir is bad enough already.’

  It was falling dark about them now, as Arnulf was glowered at with a gloved hand set firmly on his shoulder, and he wondered why the man hadn’t felt the hardness of the armour beneath his cowl, or seen the bulk of his frame this close, despite how he stooped. The market had fallen mostly quiet, colourfully-dressed people leaving the inner ward in a steady stream, some merchants beginning to collapse their stalls. Torchlight showed him where the other guardsmen where along the walls and in the courtyard below, as he heaved a compliant, resigned-sounding sigh.

  The knife took the guard beneath the chin before he knew what was happening, and he grunted his last faint sound from between clenched teeth, eyes wide with surprise and horror beneath the wide brim of his kettle helm. The guard fumbled for the hand that held the blade as Arnulf drew himself up to his full height, standing several inches taller than the guard. He turned, driving the guardsman by the blade buried in his chin, as his eyes grew dim and his struggling lessened.

  A rustling thump met Arnulf’s ears a few seconds after he tipped the guard silently over the battlements and into the shadows below.

  He spun to the sound of footsteps on the stairs behind him, bloodied knife concealed in the folds of his sleeve. A bulky figure in dark, slashed velvet topped them, his lack of grace approaching awkwardness as he took off his floppy hat and bowed politely, the emerging moon glinting from mail protruding from beneath his ruffled sleeve.

  ‘Is it time, my lord?’ Hroga asked. Arnulf nodded, breathing deep, bracing himself to utter the most outrageous orders he had ever given his men.

  ‘It is time,’ he said quietly. ‘Send Balarin to me and then take your men to seize the gatehouses. The Shield falls tonight.’

  With a simple nod Hroga left him standing by the wall’s stairwell alone, mind racing, heart thumping. Had he made another blunder by bringing them here? If his plan went wrong they would be trapped and slaughtered to a man, ended completely. If they were victorious then the shockwaves would be felt through not only Caermark, but Gausselandt too. The impact of what they did here tonight would be the birth cry of a new day. If they were successful, that was.

  Were the risks worth it?

  If we do not succeed here, then we die anyway. Today, tomorrow, a year from now, it does not matter. The Emperors come once more for us. If we die here, then we die in glory and they will sing songs of our foolish valour until the end of days.

  He shook himself then, as tramping footsteps heralded the coming of Balarin and his men up the stairway.

  We will not die here today.

  Balarin came to him silently, his armour donned and disguise dropped, holding before him Arnulf’s shield, hidden amongst their fake wares along with their own. Their sigil was too widely known for them to have worn it openly before they made their move. After tonight, it would be more infamous than ever. The thought was quite thrilling.

  Arnulf shook his cowl free from his shoulders, letting it fall, and hefted the shield onto his arm, looking about at the men surrounding him. Ten of them. Darker shapes in the falling night, moonlight glittering from helm and mail faintly. Twelve men, counting he and Balarin, just twelve men with which to begin their attack upon the greatest fortress of the south. It sounded like the beginning to one of the great follies or tragedies the bards in taverns sang of.

  Let’s hope it’s not, he thought.

  ‘Hroga has cleared out the courtyard, my lord,’ said Balarin, ‘nice and quietly, too, and makes for the inner gatehouse unopposed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Arnulf, and drew his sword, ‘then let us begin.’

  They moved across the walls like slinking, rustling shadows, keeping low and to the battlements. The first guards atop the eastern wall fell without a fight, a Shield Brother’s sword opening his throat, the element of surprise staying with them as they moved towards where it split into inner and outer.

  They had killed twice their number when the first sounds of fighting came from below, from where the inner gatehouse lay, faint at first, then growing, as shouts of alarm and warning began to resound across the fortress. From where he stood, Arnulf could see groups of guards bearing torches jogging along the walkways, making for the stairs to descend upon the gatehouse from both sides. Hroga was about to be caught in a pincer.

  ‘Cut them off!’ Arnulf called, rising and sprinting towards a group of some dozen or more spearmen rushing to reinforce the gatehouse from the outer wall. The men let loose their howling battle cry, bursting from the shadows and falling upon the guardsmen as they reached the inner wall and smashing into their flank.

  ‘Men atop the walls!’ one of them bellowed to the courtyard before Balarin’s blade took him in the face beneath his helm. A clamour came from below as the sounds of fighting grew ever louder, the struggle intensifying in the gatehouse. Bodies tumbled into the courtyard as Arnulf’s men finished the last of their opponents, and somewhere in the towers of the keep a bell bega
n to ring with an urgency that crept down Arnulf’s spine like slithering ice.

  ‘To the outer wall!’ he cried to his men, wrenching his blade from a fallen spearman, feet pounding as he thundered across the walkway ahead of them, sword levelled and shield braced.

  A slow trickle of reinforcements moved towards the inner gatehouse along the outer wall still, their torchlight betraying their presence, and blinding their eyes to the night as Arnulf came crashing from the shadows to bludgeon with shield and cut with blade. Most he batted aside, his need to reach the outer wall driving him forward with a roaring fury, the steel boss and rim of his shield more bloodied than his weapon. Balarin and the rest followed in his wake, sticking swords in those Arnulf felled that still moved, exchanging blows with those who managed to rise.

  The sounds of fighting were lost behind him, the inner gatehouse long out of sight, the alarm bell still ringing from somewhere above. He prayed that Hroga and his small band would hold for the time being. They had too, things were moving faster than he’d planned for. He’d meant for them to take the outer gatehouse before the alarm was raised, to take the men on the walls by surprise.

  So much for that, he thought, this will be a bloody affair.

  He knocked aside another spearman who shouted a challenge his way, the man tumbling down into the darkness between inner and outer wall with a stupefied gasp. A spear jabbed out at him, caught in moonlight, and he turned it aside with his sword, the tip clipping his armoured shoulder and tearing a thin gash in his black cloak. Sparks flashed briefly in the night as his backswing caught the brim of a kettle helm, a dull grunt following as his opponent went to his knees, another as Arnulf’s blade pierced him between shoulder and neck, the man’s gambeson ripping loudly.

  Stooping to grab a fallen torch, Arnulf sprinted atop the outer gatehouse and looked out into the night, breathing hard. Outside the fortress walls all was black, save faint outlines picked out by light from a purpling, moonlit sky. He panicked at first, seeing nothing save darkness, the sounds of ringing steel behind him growing louder as he raised the torch aloft.