The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  Good, they muttered to him.

  Harlin fell endlessly, tumbling, twisting through a lightless abyss. His screams of fury were unending, growing only more bestial the further he fell, his mind spiralling through images of his dead family. There were voices amongst them. His father’s, his mother’s his sisters’. Others, too, he could not remember, only that they assaulted his mind relentlessly. And that they urged him to kill.

  Through it all the cold thing, the dark thing that forever lurked in the pit of him, slinked through his body and his mind, its gleeful, snickering laughter reaching its zenith, until his pain consumed him entirely, poison-cold spreading from heart to fingertips, and in its sharp-edged grip he knew no more.

  Chapter 19

  Breaker of Skies

  Harron’s Ford was a smouldering ruin. ‘They’ve been and gone, Lord Arnulf,’ Balarin said, returning from searching the far end of the town with his men.

  ‘So it would seem.’ Arnulf sighed to himself. Frustrated, he kicked a stone into the blackened remains of a house. ‘Anything else to report? Anything at all?’

  ‘Nothing, lord,’ Balarin said, a pained look on his face, ‘just more bodies. All cut to shreds and burnt in great piles, same as most of the others.’

  Arnulf nodded, tiredness weighing heavy upon him. ‘The town is nothing but a corpse-pit. Gather the men, we leave this place with all haste.’

  ‘At once, my lord.’ Balarin left him with Ceagga and their detachment of Shield Brothers. Arnulf sat down on the surviving half of a burnt barrel and knuckled his smoke-reddened eyes. The town stank of burnt wood and charred flesh. He breathed deep and spat into the mud between his feet.

  ‘The same every time,’ he muttered. ‘They spare none. They take no prisoners, no slaves. They capture neither town nor fort. They just destroy. I do not understand it, there is no value in this.’

  ‘They are madmen,’ Ceagga grunted, taking off his helm and wiping his ash-stained brow. A handful of Shield Brothers murmured their assent. ‘No god could will this.’ His face darkened.

  Arnulf nodded and pursed his lips, remembering the first corpse-pile they had found. It had been particularly abundant in children for some reason. Cut like animals for slaughter, piled atop men and women, the flesh blackened and melted so their features were tortured, distorted masks. Ceagga hadn’t taken it well.

  ‘We will find them and kill them, brother,’ he said comfortingly, ‘I give you my word.’ Ceagga nodded, and Arnulf caught the look of doubt that lay in his glance. He felt almost shameful saying it, felt a liar, but he had to say something to give strength to his men.

  The easterners eluded them still. Weeks now they had been chasing them across the Middenrealms. Brief skirmishes had taken place on the way to Harron’s Ford, never more than a handful of lightly-armed easterners in the field at any one time, scouts, they had thought, perhaps a screening force. A dozen villages they had come upon, decimated like Harron’s Ford, but no trace of an army could be found, no matter how far they sent riders looking or tracing the tracks left in their wake.

  ‘They are like ghosts,’ one of the men said, jerking Arnulf from his reveries.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed another. ‘They are worms that scurry beneath the earth, it is as though they can feel us coming.’

  Arnulf laughed. ‘Perhaps they can,’ he mused, ‘who knows what these easterners bring with them from the Empire.’

  ‘Wizards, and spinners of wrongful things,’ Ceagga said sourly. ‘It will not go well for them when we have them cornered.’

  ‘No, Ceagga,’ Arnulf agreed, ‘that it will not.’

  He hoped that was true.

  Balarin returned sometime later with the rest of their men. They were all pale, sickened-looking. Arnulf did not chide them for it, nor bid them to find a stronger stomach – the town turned his own enough.

  The dead were everywhere – literally, everywhere. The burning piles were just the start. Some were found hanged from the rafters of buildings, cut open and bled as though in ritual. Others were skewered upon the ground and left to writhe until death took them and their corpse-claws gripped the spears and stakes shoved through them.

  ‘What is the point of this, my lord?’ Balarin said as they made for the collapsed town gates, seemingly talking to himself as much as to Arnulf. ‘Why do they not capture the holdings they assault? Why do they leave them so? Where is the benefit in this?’

  Arnulf chewed on that sometime, thinking upon what both Aenwald and Kellig had told him of these people, and what he knew himself. The Kaethars of the Empire had forever been conquerors, subjugators of the vanquished, with a bestial hunger for land that nothing would sate. It truly made no sense, economically or tactically, that they would debase themselves so far into utterly destroying everything they encountered. Unless they really had succumbed to some religious fervour that demanded it of them. Could they be so deeply indoctrinated as to forsake sense? He shrugged, unable to make head nor tail of it.

  ‘There is no greater mystery,’ he finally answered, ‘than the reasons for what men do in the depths of delusion. Particularly if that delusion is a god who offers them reward in return for their madness.’ He saw Balarin’s unsatisfied look as they passed by dead men that were hanged from the rooftop of a building still half-standing. Their bellies had been opened by carrion birds, and the stinking loops of their entrails swayed in time with the rest of them in the cold, late autumn wind. Crows pecked strips of flesh from them between suspicious glances at Arnulf and his men.

  ‘Save yourself the frustration of thought, Balarin,’ Arnulf said. ‘New god or no, these men are of the Old Empire, and they have always been a bit mad. They once worshipped animals, don’t forget. The ram in particular, of all things.’

  ‘You could say they worshipped their dinner,’ one of the men jested from the back, the ensuing chuckles lightening the men’s spirits briefly.

  ‘Aye,’ Arnulf said with a laugh, ‘and what sense is there in a man who worships what he is about to eat?’

  ‘None,’ a few of the men nearer to him laughed.

  ‘And what is there to fear in such men?’

  ‘None!’ a rough chorus came from behind him, the clatter of sword on shield echoing after. Arnulf smiled to himself. Confident men fight well, he needed to keep their spirits up. They needed to fight soon, too, and fight properly. Chasing the Empire’s ghosts cross country for much longer would only serve to keep them frustrated. Frustration bodes ill for fighting men, who are inclined to snap easier than others, even in the best of times.

  It made no sense, though, as little sense as the Kaethar’s path of random destruction. They had found the tracks left by their enemy easily – an army as large as the Empire’s being inclined to leave a trail in its passing much like a snail’s, and just as easy to follow.

  But they seemingly led nowhere. Or nowhere that made any sense, at least. The Dogs’ scouting parties had oft reported that the tracks led around in a circle and doubled back on themselves, or that they led south, towards paths and passes well-guarded by local garrisons that remained yet untouched. The scouts were currently following the tracks that led from Harron’s Ford. They led north.

  Why head back north when they had been consistently pushing south? There was little left in the north that hadn’t already been despoiled, surely, most certainly nothing of any worth. Their pattern had been a roughly southerly wedge of destruction – they came, they burnt, they moved on and repeated. Why head back to lands they had already done the same in? It made no sense at all, and Arnulf had an ill feeling about the whole thing.

  In truth he had had an ill feeling since he had made his agreements with Aenwald. They had been at the forefront of everything – Aenwald’s little vanguard, his men frequently likened it to. It was both insult and honour rolled into one. He could see the King’s banners now, as he and his men left Harron’s Ford. Red and gold glittering bright against mud-drowned plains and scorched hills ravaged by war and the looming
of winter.

  Arnulf had reassured himself many times, along with others, that Celdarin’s Shield would be secure for the winter. The last letter Arnulf had received from the fortress had suggested as much, too. The local mines were reopened, the market still flourished despite the chaos of their usurpation, and thanks to Kynaz Kellig’s… promises… gold and silver were tinkling into their coffers under the watchful eye of Berro, Hroga, Garric and a few other trusted Oathbound, as dangerous artefacts were gratefully taken away from the deep places of their land. Still, he could not help but fret. He hoped to return once winter was through to a land slowly growing fat after years of emaciation and neglect, one that held some promise for the future, some promise for all of them.

  ‘Shall we report to the King, my lord?’ Balarin’s voice roused him as he again mused silently to himself.

  ‘Yes, Balarin,’ he said, looking to the sky. ‘It grows late. And I do not think we should linger in this land. Something in this affair feels amiss.’ He said that last part quietly, not wanting his men to hear. Balarin nodded solemnly in agreement. Something, Arnulf could not say what, dragged his mind back to the Marrwood. He rubbed at the small headache nibbling at his temples.

  King Aenwald had drawn his army up to camp near the banks of the River Harron, the town’s namesake for the bridge that spanned it and ultimately led to the settlement’s former market district. The bridge now, however, was nothing but two broken ends reaching mournfully toward one another, like the hands of lovers wrenched apart. Their burnt, broken timbers spoke of the flames that had consumed it, as much as the scorched ends jutting from the rushing waters below. Beyond, in the market district, just within sight, piled bodies still smoked, and spat fat like meat in a hot pan.

  The King’s pavilion stood tall in the camp that was springing up, a majestic rotunda of red and gold silk, the royal banners flapping angrily on either side of the entrance. ‘The King will not be pleased with us,’ Balarin rumbled as they made for it. Arnulf dismissed the men for the night, bidding them rest well, but kept Balarin and Ceagga with him.

  ‘The King is not usually pleased with anything,’ he said as the men left. ‘Fuck the King. He will growl and bawl and do nothing, for he needs us as much as we need him.’

  ‘We need him, my lord?’ Balarin said, eyes mere slits. Arnulf nodded. ‘How?’

  ‘He is a king, Balarin,’ said Arnulf, ‘and more than most who claim that title. For all the ills he heaped upon us, for all his vile betrayals, he is a great king, whatever can be said of him. Greater than those whose footsteps he walks in. Twenty years he has kept this patchwork land in check, and kept it well.’

  ‘Through fear, threat and bloodshed,’ Balarin commented.

  ‘Yes, those are his tools, and while they are execrable, he wields them well. More than well. He is an artisan with them. They are things needed in a land like this, where every man with coin schemes to usurp the next, and knives wait behind the backs of all who bare smiles. Fear is all that will restrain such men. And if fear fails, then all that will work is to make an example of them before others whose minds run in similar measure. He has kept this land quiet mostly, since he took the crown, and kept it whole, and free. He has also kept his head, and taken those of his dissenters and countless pretenders. If ever a man was born to be King in Caermark, it is Aenwald.’

  Balarin harrumphed. ‘They say he killed his father for his crown. The man is a kinslayer.’

  ‘Yes, he is a kinslayer, Balarin,’ Arnulf agreed. ‘His father, Aengrath, was a weak king, and the nobles made him weaker for it. Weakness brings hatred. Aenwald did Caermark a good turn, putting the man out of his misery, and putting down the lords who wrenched too much power from the crown. There were almost twelve Kings of Caermark in those days, instead of just the one.

  ‘I hate the man, Balarin, more than anyone I have ever hated before. Truly, I do. Every time I look upon him I see my family hanging from the rafters of my hall again, and my hands yearn to be around his throat wringing justice from it. But for now, we need him and hate must be set aside. For the time being, at least. The easterners will come for us eventually, there is no escaping that fact, not if what Kynaz Kellig told us is true, and I have no reason to doubt the man. We are few and weak, where they are many and strong, and I would not be surprised to find they bring more numbers from their homeland to bolster the losses they have suffered.

  ‘We cannot stand against them on our own. But Aenwald… Aenwald, in the face of surprise, without knowledge of their arrival, after suffering betrayal and immense loss of manpower and land, has held them in check. Their advance has slowed from what it was, even if they elude us still. He decimated their vanguard in the summer and slew the traitor Lord Garrmunt, and that cost them dearly. He is a great warlord, as well as a great king – with capable men under his command. If anyone can defeat this Empire again, it is Aenwald. Without him, the lords of this land would scatter and flee, grovel, beg mercy and hide like squealing rats. There are few as ruthless and thorough in their talent as Aenwald, and none who could keep these silk-draped children stood fighting alongside each other.’

  They came to the pavilion. Two of the King’s Red Cloaks were stationed outside, and eyed them loftily from within the cover of their helms as they approached. The grimmer-looking of the two led them inside, without proper address or respect, to where Aenwald was busy at a table discussing their next day’s course with Lord Ruric Eordain. Two of the King’s sons, the Princes Aenwulf and Aenfeld, were sat sipping wine together in a corner, younger images of their father and just as foul-tempered and bloodthirsty. The pair gave Arnulf a long, challenging stare before turning back to their wine, uninterested in the goings on around them.

  The escorting knight announced Arnulf, pointedly missing out his title, making the King turn with a furious look upon his face.

  ‘Sellsword,’ he said, dismissing the Red Cloak. ‘Report.’

  ‘The town is a graveyard, Your Majesty,’ Arnulf said quickly, ‘no survivors that we could see, if there are they have long since fled the area.’ The King growled like a dog beneath his breath at that, stroking his beard, and staring into space. Beside him, Ruric glowered at the news, the look in his eyes screaming failure.

  ‘And?’ Aenwald barked after a moment, ‘have you sent men to find where they have gone?’

  ‘North, it seems, Your Majesty,’ said Arnulf, ‘if their trail is anything to go by. There is no evidence of them heading south or across the river to the west.’

  ‘North?’ the King repeated sceptically, face reddening.

  ‘Why would they venture north, mercenary,’ said Ruric. ‘There is nothing there of value. All signs lately have showed they push ever southward, why would they suddenly change?’

  ‘We have no idea,’ Arnulf said tiredly, itching his beard. ‘They’ve done this before on the journey here. Tried to lead us astray, make us double back on ourselves. This is most likely the same, my men have not yet returned – they are either dead, or still tracking them. In either event, it is unlikely we will find where they are truly headed with the way things stand.’

  ‘So you are clueless as to how we should proceed, then,’ Ruric stated, rounding the table towards Arnulf with a smile playing on the corner of his lips, beard braids twitching.

  ‘Almost as clueless as yourselves, yes,’ Arnulf countered, smiling himself while Ruric reddened, the insult he had no doubt prepared beforehand failing him.

  ‘Do not insult me, mercenary,’ Aenwald said, ‘I can do without your contempt and irreverence for the moment. We are missing something here, something is not as it should be. Kaethar Graxis took his time here, from what my men tell me, and smoke still rises from the town. I expected to meet him here and crush his force against the river if I could.’ He leant forward on his knuckles, face dark, the table creaking beneath his weight. ‘Instead the land is deserted for miles around and there’s not a single survivor to bear witness to what took place here. When we fought Garrmu
nt their forces were located swiftly and kept track of without problem. But now… how can an army of such size hide itself so easily, and move so quickly across foreign soil?’

  ‘Impossible,’ Ruric snorted and turned away, returning to the table. ‘It would take witchcraft for such a feat of logistics. I think, Sire, that poor scouting and… roguery are what holds us back in this matter.’ He looked pointedly at Arnulf.

  ‘At Thegnmere,’ Arnulf said, ignoring the Councillor, ‘their attack came unnoticed, and the town fell in near silence. It was only when the smoke of the fires was seen that the surrounding villages emptied and made for Farrifax.’ Ruric looked up at him from over the table. ‘Something foul gives these men its aid. Something that wishes us to fail. There is a purpose written beneath all this, a hidden hand. Caution is needed here, whatever you decide.’

  Ruric snorted. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Shut up, oaf,’ Aenwald snapped at him, and turned his keen eye back to Arnulf. ‘And what do you think this… something… could be, sellsword?’

  He hesitated. His private talks with Kellig after their return from the Mordelandt running through his mind. ‘I have only suspicions, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And I would hear them.’

  As Arnulf opened his mouth to answer, one of the Red Cloaks came crashing through the entrance flap, making Ruric leap to his feet with hand on sword. ‘Your Majesty!’ he spat, ‘riders spotted to the south!’

  ‘South,’ Aenwald repeated dumbly, ‘our scouts return so soon?’

  ‘No, Sire!’

  There was a moment’s silence that stretched forever within that tent as the knight’s words struck them.

  ‘Sound the horns,’ Aenwald said.

  ‘Gather the men,’ Arnulf barked at Balarin and Ceagga, ‘quickly!’

  It was a minute or so before the first horn droned out three times, and longer before men began to rouse themselves after settling in for a night of relative peace. Serjeants and officers ran frantically about the camp screaming desperate orders, and men bemusedly dragged on mail shirts and hefted weapons as they formed ranks before the camp.