The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  The Blackshield Dogs detachment formed up quickly. Having arrived late to the camp most had not yet even stripped themselves of armour. They formed up before the camp’s southern perimeter with a precision that would have drawn a nod of pride from Arnulf any other day. A few of Aenwald’s men arrived and tried to form lines in their confusion alongside them, no more than a few hundred.

  Arnulf shook his head and turned away from the escalating commotion of an army in disarray. Taking his place in the front line with Balarin and Ceagga, the company banners rippling overhead, he looked south across the land. Mud squelched beneath his boots from the previous day’s rain.

  Barren with the coming of the cold and the passing of the Empire’s men, mudded plains rose slowly into darkening hills a quarter of a mile away, their mass swallowing the winding, beaten road. Atop them, something moved against a grey autumnal sky. Arnulf broke ranks, jogging forward a few dozen paces to get a closer look.

  A rider waited at the hill’s crest, their huge frame a jagged silhouette astride a dire warhorse. Something about them gave Arnulf the impression of a horned head. Two banners appeared, coming to a halt at the rider’s flanks. Both were black as night, bearing a red design that distance rendered illegible, borne by men atop bulky steeds of their own.

  ‘Is it them, my lord?’ Ceagga asked, appearing at his side.

  ‘Aye,’ Arnulf grunted forbearingly. ‘It’s them.’

  ‘But… how, my lord?’ Ceagga shook his head, fair face horrified as he looked upon the enemy banners. ‘All their tracks lead north, there was nothing that pointed to the south.’

  ‘I don’t know how, Ceagga, and right now I don’t care, only that we make ready. Steel yourself, and we’ll see this through.’

  Arnulf turned back to his men, seeing more of Aenwald’s forces scurrying from the camp to form up along the plains. ‘Close ranks and draw swords,’ he barked, slipping back in amongst them with Ceagga, shield upon his arm. He glanced discretely, uneasily, over his shoulder at the still-confused war camp. Swarms of half-armoured men pelted to and fro between the ramshackle tents. Quicken yourself, Aenwald.

  Arnulf watched the riders atop the brow of the land for a while, surrounded by the slogging thunder of Aenwald’s men struggling to form anything resembling a formation. He silently urged them on, sweating beneath his armour, muscles tensing and relaxing anxiously.

  More shapes appeared atop the hill, more riders, two hundred at least, maybe more. They closed in about that first rider between the banners. Some kind of heavy cavalry, from the look of them – their horses were tall and stout, built for the charge. Their riders carried lances, and overly broad shoulders betrayed their heavy armour. Their presence felt like a cold fist in Arnulf’s gut – they were something new, unencountered, kept secret. If they came charging now…

  Forcing down panic, Arnulf looked back at the camp, at what remained of Harron’s Ford. Between the camp, the ruins of the town and the River Harron itself, they were trapped. The bridge was broken, and the waters too deep to cross for many miles. If Aenwald’s men didn’t form up quickly, they would be driven into back into the river when the easterners charged. Drowned, or stabbed, it would be no pleasant end. Arnulf grit his teeth and swallowed a growl, trying to shove away the feeling of another Marrwood unfolding before his eyes.

  A new sound came from the south. Thump, thump, thump, thump… rhythmic, slightly off kilter with itself. The marching of thousands upon thousands of feet, a battle drum deep enough to shake the earth beneath them.

  Atop the hills, a forest of shadowed spears appeared, drawing up behind the assembled riders without hurry. Their numbers were beyond counting, and Arnulf felt, and heard, his men’s resolve flicker like a blown candle flame.

  ‘Too many,’ some whispered.

  ‘They stretch across the sky itself,’ said others.

  ‘They are just men,’ Arnulf snarled loudly over his shoulder. ‘And they will die like men if they dare come down from their perch and try us.’

  There was no question of whether it was an if, though. In truth his own resolve faltered in the face of what he saw coming for them. The line of hills stretched across the horizon for miles, fading away as they reached east and west. The easterners’ army stretched across it formidably, far enough to flank Aenwald’s entire force and swallow it completely.

  Hurry, Aenwald, you fool.

  The men of Caermark came in a sluggish trickle, forming their sloppy lines with panicked disorganisation. From the dark hills came the sound of a foreign horn’s droning, its note sweet and ghostly as it carried across the plains. The great rider towered above all others, and with wide eyes Arnulf watched him point down towards to where Aenwald’s army still formed up.

  ‘They come for us,’ Arnulf roared, ‘ready yourselves!’ He jammed his helm on to his head and strapped it tightly. The spearmen came forward, their drumming feet shaking the earth tangibly. Behind them, as the last spearheads began to descend the slopes, more figures appeared.

  Archers. Unslinging their bows from their shoulders, they formed up behind the spearmen, thousands moving forward as one. Arnulf, looked upon them, and prayed silently for Vathnir the Father, for Balen the Smith, Dothmair the Warrior to watch over them and keep them strong, gloved fingers tracing their names inscribed on his breastplate.

  The sky darkened then, and looking to where the great rider was still waiting, Arnulf saw its hand raised towards the heavens. The clouds above the hills swirled darkly in a vortex above them, like ink meeting water. Thunder boomed, and lighting arced out across the sky from the aberration, the white threads of a spider’s web flashing through the clouds. A single tendril flashed and sparked down towards the earth, towards the great rider.

  They caught it in their hand, and held aloft a sparking, flaring blade, like a splinter of captured light.

  ‘What manner of evil is this?’ Balarin quaked from beside Arnulf, voice almost lost in the tumult.

  ‘Quiet man,’ Arnulf shouted, ‘brace yourself!’

  The sky became shadow, and a cold rain began to fall that made the men shiver and chilled them to the bone, pinging from armour and helm like hail. Arnulf could hear the dismay from outside their ranks. Aenwald’s men quailed at the sight of the coming onslaught, at the sight of wrongful sorcery. Some were probably running, or soon would be. He hoped his own men kept a grip of their courage.

  The ground grew sodden, mud turning to mire. The enemy came on heedless in their endless thousands. Darkness grew heavy over the plains, stabbed infrequently by insipid lightning. The rider on the hill kept their shivering beacon held high between the banners.

  The easterners came closer with every flash, an unwavering line of shadowed faces and dark mail, their painted shields coursing with rainwater. Some of the Dogs bellowed their challenges, trying to stoke the dying fire in their bellies, quenched by the fearful odds before them, but Arnulf doubted their voices carried to the enemies’ ears through the sound of storm and marching feet.

  And it seemed then that a voice shattered the skies above, a voice that spoke through the thunder itself – at once absurd and unnatural, like something vast and monstrous, but unmistakeably that of a man.

  Aenwald, it roared, and lightning flashed again. I’ve come for you.

  From the hills, the great rider came tearing down the slopes and into the plains, cavalry at his back, the brand they clutched burning like a fragment of the sun through broiling shadow. The spearmen hefted their shields as, somewhere behind them, bowstrings snapped, and the Dogs hid behind their own as a more deadly rain fell amongst Aenwald’s beleaguered lines.

  The lines clashed, louder than any thunder above them, and Arnulf’s world became a spinning nightmare of shield, sword, stabbing spears and pained cries. The rain fell hard, and men fell beneath it into sucking mud. Far to his left, Arnulf caught a glimpse of a dark monstrosity atop a pale horse crashing into the back of its own men, trampling all before it as it stormed into Aenwald’s lin
es, a trail of white-hot sparks following the arc of its arm.

  Arnulf bit down, focussed on the man in front of him, on the glaring eyes behind a mail-work veil, on ramming his sword blade through the leather around their neck, through the ribs of the next man who stepped over his corpse, through the wrist of the hand that clutched at his shield. He killed desperately, feet sliding backwards in the mud as he fought for footing, the weight of the numbers against them forcing the Dogs steadily back, Aenwald’s men to either side of them beginning to buckle and bend under the pressure.

  There could be no victory here, no meaningful end in such folly, but Arnulf fought on, roared encouragement to his men, urged them to stand and welcome the death that came, told them Vathnir was with them in this moment, and prayed that he was.

  But where were the King and his knights? He had no time to look, with the spears flashing and stabbing in their constant waves beyond his shield, he could only hope, only kill the man before him, the one after him.

  With a slow lurch, the line shifted, pressure moving to the left, onwards and away from them. Men in the easterners’ deeper ranks turned away from the Dogs, their ghostly horns sounding somewhere farther down the left side of the lines. From somewhere behind, one of Aenwald’s horns blared out staccato notes desperately, signalling for retreat. Arnulf pulled his sword from an easterner’s stomach and spared a glance to where the sound came from.

  Above the lines, towards the east, the royal banners streamed darkly as they struck out to the east, marking the King’s retreat. The easterners surged towards it as one, breaking off from the fight to give chase, foreign voices roaring their triumph.

  ‘Break and make for the horses!’ Arnulf roared, cutting down another spearman and moving backwards towards the camp as quick as he could with shield raised. Hundreds of men still faced them through the rain, lightning flashes catching on their spearheads. There would still be no escaping this, not even with the spectacle of Aenwald in full flight to draw them away.

  Lightning flashed again, and the easterners were suddenly turned, pointing to Arnulf’s left, eastward, voices jabbering in alarm.

  The royal banners came streaking back, wheeling around from their flight, tearing above the heads of the Empire’s men. Aenwald and his knights burst through their lines, scattering broken bodies like dull splinters, their swords swinging and chopping, red cloaks trailing like bloody ribbons in the shadowed day. Easterners rushed to contain the counterattack, while others fled and dropped their weapons in the face of the Royal Knights of Caermark and their unyielding charge.

  The Blackshield Dogs broke and ran for the camp, the enemy distracted, making for the lines of panicked horses screaming and straining at their tethers. Before long, from where the royal banners raced back out to the east, the Empire’s forces in pursuit, the horns screamed for retreat once more.

  Arnulf and his men crashed through the deserted, rain-flooded war camp, following Aenwald’s banner, uncaring of who they rode over, heedless of their horses’ whinnying terror. They broke clear of the mudded plains, out into gently-hilled grassland made dangerously slick by rain, leaving the Empire’s unmounted forces behind quickly, and many of Aenwald’s own to their deaths. Foreign voices clamoured, laughed and cheered at the sight of Caermark’s defenders driven before them through the storm, fists and weapons raised into the air, a carpet of dead men in front of them.

  Arnulf didn’t need to look back to tell how many men he’d lost, the faces to his side, and the cold guilt aching in his stomach said more than enough.

  Chapter 20

  Born from the Grave of Gods

  Through silver-grey clouds of concealing mist, something moved. A vast form, shrouded and obscure, its dark outline writhing sinuously, growing fainter with distance and the gathering brume. An ear-splitting, shrieking hiss followed its departure, the reptilian sound swallowed in the depths of cloying greyness.

  On distant heights, the shadow of a mighty keep waited in its miserable, crumbling echoes of glory above a sea of mist. A faint stream of red light coruscated behind it, flecked with embers of gold, rising skyward in a narrow trickle toward an eclipsed sun, haloed in its dying flame.

  All was cold, all was pallid, shadowed and enwreathed by funereal fog. A dead world, an empty world – a husk, a shell – haunted by groaning, screaming phantoms that wound their way through formless oceans like slinking serpents. Their starved cries shuddered, a malformed thunder in a pitch-black sky, as they slithered darkly through endless, brooding murk.

  The dying sun burned weakly, swallowing the frail ribbon of light from the land below, the black disc of the eclipsing moon leering hollow and mornfully. It seemed, as he stared vacantly into its boundless, broken magnificence, that a voice spoke from somewhere far off, remote and alien.

  It came first as a whisper, through the hungered roaring of black-scaled things that wound and wormed through fog-strewn valleys of barren rock, a tickling at the back of the mind, something to be ignored. It came again between the cries – piercing, though quiet, commanding attention, demanding obedience. He fought to ignore it, compelled to sit and stare at the final days of a failing sun, to witness the end of an old world of vibrant life, and the birth of a new one, tenebrous and ethereal.

  But it would not yield, would not leave him be, was as tenacious as the coming of dawn and the falling of night, and as he stared, as he clung to the fading light in darkling skies, a word rang out, dragging his mind towards it until there was nothing else but its command.

  Rise.

  He awoke in darkness with a shuddering breath, chest heaving, throat dry.

  Rise.

  The voice came clearly now, from somewhere close by. He drew breath again with a tormented howl, lungs burning as though they had been denied precious air. His hands found his face as he wailed, cried and writhed where he lay, the flesh beneath them cold and sweat-slicked.

  He had been dreaming. Dreaming of something, of somewhere. What had it been? He tried to think, tried to rifle through the memories rapidly slipping away from him, melting into half-pictured meaningless droplets.

  But the pain. His lungs and throat burned as though scorched, his temples throbbed as if pierced through, and his stomach…

  Rise.

  He sat up and retched, the voice louder, more urgent. On all fours, he heaved dryly, shoulders convulsing. A frigid mass twisted in his stomach like a lump of ice. He vomited, something cold, thick and foul filling his mouth, spilling from his lips in clinging, putrid ropes. It tasted of earth, of old blood and death. Every heave brought up more, and more. It spread along the indiscernible floor beneath him, until finally, he knelt, gasping, in a pool of his own vomit, his stomach aching woefully from a thousand tiny knives of pain.

  He drew a desperate breath, a half-inhaled scream, shaking as his hands found the earth beneath him. Something pulsed against his palms. He drew them back, startled. What had happened to him? He tried again to piece together what he could, finding only fragments, darkness, broken images. Stumbling to his feet, he lurched, fighting for balance.

  ‘A life ended, a life begun, a pact made and writ in your own blood.’

  The voice from before, closer again, an element of pain underlining its horrid tone. He turned about, arms spread, hands and eyes questing blindly for its source.

  Soft violet lights slowly winked into life all around, a circle of them at varying heights, vanishing and reappearing at random times. Eyes. They grew brighter, intensified, till they burned as small, open flames, trails and tongues of their molten vapour reaching up into an abyssal canopy.

  ‘You stand before us now as more than what you were,’ that tortured voice called, ‘as part of something greater than you alone could ever be.’

  A soft glow drove back the darkness, gentle, green-hued light that stung his eyes, made him blink against it, and revealed the circle of hooded shadows that stood watching him. The light came from behind them, from curving walls of natural, rough stone, spill
ing from them like veins of glittering ore. Thick roots, a hand-span more or across, bulged from the walls in places, the light catching on their smooth surfaces, making them glisten sickly like exposed veins. Now and then they throbbed, as though blood passed through them. He had been here before, in this darkened chamber. Had he even left?

  A great weight settled between his shoulder blades, a dire, leaden gaze. Slowly, he turned, and beheld an obsidian throne beyond the circle of staring shadows. Atop it was a malformed, piteous thing, its useless, shrunken legs hanging feebly over the edge of its seat, a weak-looking arm resting on its swollen gut while the other, wiry and appalling, gripped the throne’s armrest with taloned fingers. A head, its eyes hidden beneath an iron band, grimaced down at him with a lipless mouth of corpse-teeth, blackened, puckered skin and scars catching the faint light.

  The cripple-king.

  ‘The time comes,’ Corrom Duhn spoke, ‘for atonement from those who wrought my children their legacy of suffering. For retribution against those who wrought your own.’

  Memories came tearing back, splintered fragments of a shattered mirror, merging, reforming, becoming whole.

  ‘No more shall you look upon your misery and despair. No more shall you carry your burden alone.’

  A red banner. A golden bull. Cold fury roused itself in the pit of his stomach. He fought to keep control, teeth clenched, chest heaving once more.

  ‘From death, you rise, no longer of your former people, no longer weakened by their ways. New blood flows through you, and with it, new kinship.’

  Whispers filled the chamber. Whispers of life, echoes of the earth’s murmuring. They drifted from the stone walls, from within the veins of light, from under the floor beneath his feet. Something pulsed, a rush of sensation, a spasm of knowledge, of knowing, of feeling.

  ‘From the bones of your former life, you will carve your next. Born from the grave of gods, they shall bear witness to all you become, all you achieve. Let what is to come cast aside your want, strip you of your need and make you whole.’