The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  ‘Some way yet, nordlandtser,’ the Gausseman drawled. It meant northlander. Said with a touch of venom, it seemed to be something of an insult in Gausselandt for men of Caermark. ‘A mile or more at least, for sure.’

  ‘If you’re lying to us, Gausseman…’ Hroga prodded him threateningly in the small of his back with his sword, making Kellig jump slightly.

  ‘You have my word as Kynaz of Gausselandt,’ snapped Kellig. ‘Just make sure you keep your own, and my rittenbruden are kept unharmed. We all know the lies nordlandtsers grow fat on. If you touch them, my father will crush you like he would a tiny beetle.’ He clicked his fingers, the effect rather diminished by his bound hands.

  ‘Your father,’ Hroga snarled, jabbing him in the back again, ‘has been too scared to march his men north for the last ten years, my little Princeling, for every time he does the men of the Shattered Marches have booted his fat, royal arse back where it came from. So don’t threaten us with him, boy, just make sure you don’t have any of your pig-worrying, moustache-stroking friends waiting for us at the end of this trip.’

  Another jab drew a yelp from Kellig.

  ‘Enough, Hroga,’ Arnulf said loudly, glancing pointedly over his shoulder at him. ‘We are trying to build trust here. This is a new beginning for our peoples –’ Kellig snorted loudly next to him ‘– a chance to form new friendships. And besides, Kynaz Kellig here wouldn’t dare try anything so foolish, not with his cousin Pepin amongst his interned… rittenbruden, was it?’

  Kellig nodded reluctantly. Sweat beaded on his shaven head.

  They pressed on slowly down the crevice, a narrow wedge cut in the wall of a plateau in the Valley of Dead Kings. Footing was perilous along the way, the pass shaped something like an upended arrowhead, wide enough only for two men abreast at some points, and Arnulf more than once scraped a spaulder against the rising cliff face where it narrowed even further. Cold wind blew gently in their faces from somewhere ahead.

  The Gaussemen had been a handful to capture when they had tried to flee from the Shield’s keep. They had injured six Shield Brothers by the time they had reached the keep’s entrance hall. Two of them, it seemed, would not recover from their wounds. It had taken a great force of will for Arnulf to spare them. The men had wanted torture and a public execution in the inner courtyard, both for the crime of drawing their brothers’ blood, and for the crime of being Gaussemen. He had fancied their deaths himself, as well, had very nearly given the order, but something had stayed his hand, had clapped them in irons instead of slipping the noose about their necks.

  Curiosity, it seemed, was what Kynaz Kellig had to thank for his life, and those of his men.

  There was a reason the Gaussemen had been in Celdarin’s Shield, a reason why they had hidden themselves in the servant’s quarters while the Blackshield Dogs searched the keep for survivors, and a reason they had tried to fight their way out when discovered.

  For a Gausseman, Kellig had proven most willing to cooperate. Well, he had once Arnulf had made it clear he’d have his men’s heads atop pikes before the day was done, at least. He had even offered to personally lead Arnulf to what had brought them to Celdarin’s Shield, if it would convince him to spare him and his men the hangman.

  Whatever it was, it had to be something important if Gausselandt royalty had come to oversee it. Though what Lord Rebacht was doing playing host to the Kynaz of Gausselandt and his bodyguard, Arnulf could not fathom. It was something King Aenwald most certainly could not have been aware of – his wife’s cousins breaking bread and sharing salt with Caermark’s direst enemies was treachery most high as it stood, let alone one of their number being the heir to the throne of Gausselandt. Kynaz Kellig dur Wassedrach, also known as Kellig Fuerhart, or Kellig Fireheart, when translated.

  Judging by the sweat that rolled steadily down the young heir’s shaven head though, Arnulf had come to think whatever fire the man possessed had been doused for the time being.

  The sheer walls about them pressed in so close eventually they were forced to proceed in single file. Arnulf leading the way with his torch, Kellig behind him, snorting quietly with laughter whenever Arnulf stumbled on loose rocks and scree, yelping whenever Hroga prodded him with his sword for it.

  Someone in the back of their line began to whistle a marching tune, its sound piercingly loud between the close walls about them. It was an uncomfortable sound.

  ‘Will you be quiet, you nordlandtser pig?’ Kellig snapped quietly over his shoulder at the whistler.

  ‘Cheeky, cousin-marrying, sausage-eating…’ The sound of a sword being drawn replaced the whistling, the scrape of it leaving its scabbard excruciatingly loud as it screeched from the pass’s walls.

  ‘Stop that,’ Arnulf hissed, ‘there will be no murder here tonight.’

  ‘Yes, milord,’ a voice from the back answered, voice falling to a just above a whisper, the clack of the sword slotting into scabbard making them all jump. Behind Arnulf, Kellig harrumphed gently in satisfaction.

  ‘That goes for you as well, Gausseman,’ Arnulf said softly, ‘I don’t want to hear another word out of that mouth of yours, unless it is to tell me which way to go.’

  ‘There is no need to be upset, Harr Arnulf,’ the Gausseman said haughtily, ‘we are nearly there.’

  The pass opened suddenly into a wider area, the broken overhangs of plateaus blotting out most of the night sky above them, and only faintest moonlight illuminated the tops of the straight walls that ran its length. Further on, sections of them had collapsed together, creating a mass of debris that towered beyond the light of their torches. A jagged archway gaped out at them from it, full of abyssal shadows.

  Kynaz Kellig had them halt before it. The men stirred uneasily as they looked within, it seemed as if no light would penetrate beyond a few feet.

  ‘What is this place, Kellig,’ Arnulf said, voice hushed, there was something unsettling about the look of it all. It looked ancient. He peered into the shadowed opening with a distrustful eye.

  ‘You will see, Harr Arnulf. This way, it is not far now.’ Kellig gestured with his bound hands to his left, stepped into the shadows, Arnulf lighting the way. He shivered as darkness washed over him.

  Inside, the darkness seemed to press in against their torches, as though trying to swallow them. The flickering light illuminated cracked, slanted stone walls, draped with miserable-looking grey roots.

  The sky above them emerged slowly in rough patches, its stars almost glaringly bright, and before long the walls ran straight again, guiding them onwards beneath a white-speckled strip of violet night sky.

  ‘Tell me, Harr Arnulf,’ Kellig said suddenly, making each of them give a start despite his soft tone. ‘Do you know the history of this land?’

  ‘To a point,’ said Arnulf. ‘Though that is not much, if I’m truthful, other than it has ever been a place of war between our peoples and endless skirmishes.’

  ‘Hm… correct,’ said Kellig, ‘but I mean before all that, nordlandtser.’

  ‘No.’

  Kellig smiled to Arnulf’s side in that self-satisfied way that people often do when they know something someone else doesn’t and want them to know they do, as if confirming his belief the men of Caermark were imbeciles.

  ‘There are things then, Harr Arnulf,’ the Gausseman said, ‘that you will not know, will not understand, about this land. About this place. Things so ancient they have passed from the memory of men.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Arnulf said, annoyed.

  ‘I talk about the days that came before, nordlandtser, the days before the Empire made your ancestors slaves to drive their machine of conquest.’

  The passage opened out then into a wide, empty space, sandy ground giving way to a stone floor that ran far beyond their flickering lights, its slabs worn with age beyond reckoning. The Valley’s broken plateaus circled the skyline, silhouetted against the night sky. Some looked almost as if they had once joined with each other overhead like natu
ral bridges. Immense fragments littered the floor in places, the craters of their impact like bowls of shattered stone. The party crossed warily, such a place unexpected. All except for Kynaz Kellig, that was, his confident stride giving Arnulf the distinct impression that the Gausseman had been here before.

  ‘Tonight, Harr Arnulf,’ Kellig said then, his voice echoing through the cavernous expanse, ‘you will learn of what once was.’ He pointed somewhere ahead of them with his bound hands, the sight bringing all to a halt. ‘Mordelandt.’

  Before the party stood an enormous gateway, its carved lines highlighted by their torches. It seemed hewn from the earth itself, set into a natural rock face that stretched away out of sight on either side of it. It was vast, perhaps a hundred feet tall and a quarter as wide, though its housing was utterly empty. Its stone gates were crumbled into piles of rubble, strewn upon the ground before and beyond it. It was as if something gigantic had smashed or ripped them apart in a vicious frenzy. The gap they left formed a yawning rectangle of darkness.

  Arnulf didn’t want to imagine what was capable of unleashing such destruction, it reminded him far too much of what had happened to Thegnmere, and he found, against all attempts at maintaining a steel exterior for both the men and the Kynaz, that his hand touched the inscription of Vathnir’s sacred name on his breastplate.

  Behind him, the men spoke loudly of their fear of the place. ‘We should turn back, my Lord Arnulf,’ said Hroga, ‘we have come too far and listened to much to this Gausselandt sausage-eating pig as it is. There are some places men should not tread, some places best left alone, and that is most certainly one, my lord. We should make for the Shield before some evil befalls us.’

  ‘Ach, do not speak with your coward’s tongue, nordlandtser,’ spat Kellig, Shield Brothers murmuring their agreement with Hroga. He yelped loudly as he was jabbed for the first time in a while. Arnulf ignored them all, too busy taking in the sight before his eyes. It was… majestic, to say the least. Beautiful, even.

  Above the gateway was carved a long-bodied creature, coiled sinuously upon itself so its open maw hung over the centre of where the gates would have once met. A serpent of some kind, its scales picked out in fabulous detail where they remained against time and neglect. Its glaring eyes seemed to follow Arnulf unsettlingly as he moved.

  Beneath it, either side of the empty gateway, were stood giant statues of men, facing forward, their open palms raised as if in challenge of the newcomers before them, spears clutched in their other hands. Mirror images of each other. Warriors or champions, perhaps, of days long gone, Arnulf thought they must be, maybe former sovereigns, kings or lords. There was a regal quality to their massive faces.

  ‘What is this place, Kellig?’

  ‘The doors of Mordelandt, Harr Arnulf,’ the Gausseman replied, stepping forward. ‘The Murdered Land, as your people would say.’

  ‘The Murdered Land?’ said Arnulf, following after him with torch held high. His men followed reluctantly, grumbling and cursing along the way.

  ‘Aye,’ said Kellig with a small nod, mounting the small flight of rubble-choked steps to the gateway. ‘A dead city, in other words. This is why I am here in your pissy little strip of land.’

  ‘The dead should not be disturbed, Gausseman,’ Hroga commented. Kellig sniffed as if amused and ignored him.

  Arnulf followed Kellig around piles of shattered gate. On the more intact fragments rich carvings could be seen, curling, curving patterns, swirls and sharp edges, something that looked like part of an animal, another that could have been a man’s arm, though what the whole image might once have been, Arnulf could not tell.

  ‘Once,’ Kellig panted, slightly ahead of Arnulf as he climbed over a carved block, ‘there were men here, nordlandtser. Men of craft, and skill.’

  ‘That I can tell,’ said Arnulf, lighting the Kynaz’s way.

  ‘They came long before your people settled these lands,’ Kellig went on, ‘long before the Empire came from across the eastern sea. And long before your gods forbade sorcery.’

  Arnulf and his men stopped dead. Kellig ruffled his moustache in annoyance.

  ‘Sorcery, Kellig?’ said Arnulf, masking his alarm.

  ‘I’ll not trifle with any blasphemous powers, Gausseman,’ Hroga snarled behind the Kynaz, brandishing his sword. ‘This ordeal grows more twisted the farther we go. I’ll not set foot in some witches’ den, Moustache, you hear me?’

  Kellig looked down at his dark moustache for a moment in annoyance, top lip pouting, as if trying to decide whether Hroga’s new name for him was offensive or not. The Shield Brothers about them added their voices to Hroga’s, refusing to enter the place.

  ‘We do not abide by sorcery in Caermark, Kellig,’ said Arnulf, ‘it is a dangerous thing, and I’ll not have my men tainted by whatever lurks beyond these old doors. Such things are better left forgotten, and are for the gods to deal with.’

  Kellig rolled his eyes. ‘Wisdom save me from the foolishness of nordlandtsers,’ he sighed. ‘I assure you it is quite safe, Harr Arnulf. Whatever sorcery was once here is now as dead as the people who worked it. I myself have been past these doors, do I not still draw breath? Do I look befouled by devils or possessed by fell powers to you?’

  ‘Aye, you’re an ugly cunt and no mistake,’ one of the Shield Brothers at the back grunted from beneath his helm. ‘I’m not going in there if I come out looking like you.’ Arnulf fought down a smirk as his men roared with laughter that echoed through the darkness. They quickly fell to silence at its disquieting intensity in this place, as if a thousand terrible voices laughed back at them from the darkness.

  ‘Civil, if it would please you, Shield Brother Larc,’ Arnulf snapped, forcing his face into its usual stern mask.

  ‘Forgive me, milord,’ Larc said quietly, ‘it’s not often I get the chance to insult a Gausselandt prince to his face.’

  ‘As I said,’ Kellig picked up, face visibly red even in the torchlight, ‘I have been inside and suffered no harm. There is nothing to fear, Harr Arnulf. Regretfully.’ He shot Larc a meaningful look. ‘But there is everything to gain, if you join me. If not, then cut these bonds, give me a torch and I will venture inside alone while you ride back to your stolen fortress, cowering in fear of your gods.’

  Arnulf grit his teeth and stared into Kellig’s eyes, both in thought and to break the man’s resolve. Kellig’s gaze shifted after a few heartbeats, sweat beading again upon his forehead. He shuffled uncomfortably beneath Arnulf’s stare, though still tried to return it, more than what most men could manage.

  ‘It seems,’ Arnulf said, ‘my curiosity gets the better of me, and of my faith. As you were, Kynaz.’ Kellig’s eyes lit up, moustache a-ruffling.

  ‘Lord Arnulf!’ Hroga said incredulously, mouth falling open and head shaking frantically at his lord’s potential blasphemy.

  ‘You have my permission to turn back at the first sign of witchcraft,’ Arnulf said. ‘All of you do,’ he added, looking at their fearful faces, ‘and I will proceed alone with Kynaz Kellig. You will not be punished should you choose to flee. Only, perhaps, you will suffer the shame of knowing a Gausseman will tread where you will not.’

  Kellig nodded at Arnulf with something almost like respect, his moustache pursed bravely. ‘Come, Harr Arnulf,’ he said, and turned away, Arnulf following him up the steps. Behind him, Hroga cursed loudly, spat in distaste and ordered the men to follow their lord. They stepped into darkness once more.

  Their torch light was swallowed once more, barely highlighting the smooth walls that ran either side of them down a long, rectangular passage. It was a road or thoroughfare of some kind, wide enough for two carts with space in between. Its surface was marred in places by fallen masonry from black depths above. Empty doorways appeared on either side of their path as they went deeper inside, glowering oblongs of black ink torchlight refused to penetrate.

  Arnulf shuddered, forcing himself to look into the sheer darkness ahead beyond their frail circle of
light, trying not to think what could be lurking anywhere on any side of them. He heard swords leave scabbards from the vicinity of his men, and said nothing, loosening his own. Kellig sniffed amusedly at the sound.

  ‘Why would you come to a place like this, Gausseman,’ Arnulf said bitterly after what felt like an age of walking an endless path. ‘This is a bleak place if there ever was one, and I have no love for it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Hroga said behind him, voice cracking anxiously.

  ‘This was once a thriving city, Harr Arnulf,’ Kellig said, giving him a sidelong look. ‘A place of knowledge and power, and a centre of trade. We do not know much of who its people were, unfortunately, only that they were to begin with, if you understand, and were men of great wisdom and learning.’

  ‘What kind of man would choose to live underground?’ asked Hroga, voice barely more than a whisper.

  ‘The industrious kind,’ said Kellig, and pointed to a faint oblong of light in front of them. The Shield Brothers whispered nervously to one another of sorcery, spirits and demons, but none fled, though their tread became yet more tense and cautious.

  It was a doorway, Arnulf saw, as they drew closer. A pale, blue light formed a faint corona from somewhere beyond it. He and his men gave a small start as their torchlight touched upon a grim sight near the carved frame – bones. Ancient, grey skeletons were strewn in tangled masses, dust and silt laying upon them in thick layers. They looked as though they had been fleeing something from their position. One sat against the wall, empty eye sockets following their approach, the top of its skull smashed in.

  ‘There was murder done here,’ Arnulf commented at the sight.

  ‘Aye, Harr Arnulf,’ said Kellig, ‘a great deal of it. There are more such sights the deeper you venture, and much more gruesome. Not a single thing here lives. Hence, Mordelandt.’

  Kellig stepped through the doorway without sparing a glance for the ancient bones, pausing with his back to them, silhouetted by the soft, steady glow beyond. ‘Behold, Arnulf,’ he said as the Lord-Captain joined him, ‘the echoes of what was.’