The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  ‘Fight well, a muirnín,’ she said, her false affection grating, and kissed him upon the cheek. He nodded gruffly.

  ‘I will fight like Cu Náith when he slew Luw’s Hound.’ It drew a smile from her. ‘Now take your place, Ceatha, and be ready. Stay out of sight.’

  Harlin tilted his head as she slipped away silently, listening to the sounds his Weaving brought him from afar, amplified by the strange life that flowed through this circle and its land. ‘Not long now,’ he muttered to himself. He knelt, placed a hand to the ground, heard the song of hoof upon earth, the music of a horde driven till exhaustion.

  Harlin rose, and turned away from the narrow trail that led through the woods to the Sombrewine. He breathed deep again, and let his plans run through his mind, checking everything was in place, was as it needed to be.

  The thing with revenge is that it must be cold. There is no other way about it. It must be meticulous, absolute. It must be planned out exactly, and to the most final, minute detail, if you would reap its black harvest fully. There is no room for error, not when your vengeance is to be taken upon a man known for his own ruthlessness and cold-hearted calculation. Some men go so far as to say it is a science in its own right, an exercise in probability, of clinical methodology and cold exaction. There are some, though, who say it merely boils down to passion, that one’s anger is focused until it is like the edge of a razor and cuts at the slightest of touches.

  Perhaps both were true. Harlin only cared that his carefully laid plans were not unravelled, as he and Graxis had unravelled Aenwald’s together at Redda’s Motte.

  Graxis, though… he was a problem for another day. There were more pressing concerns than what his dealings with the Kaethar would spell for him in the future. He felt the rumble from afar grow stronger, the sound like rushing, distant waters. It was almost time. He drew a long breath.

  Harlin lowered his helm onto his head, shadows falling over his eyes as the faceguard slid past them, mail aventail rustling as it draped over his neck. He leant back against one of the standing stone’s sides, stretching, folding his arms across his chest against the winter’s chill.

  He waited, lost in the time-worn images thrown up by his mind. He felt cold inside, numb, now that the reality of it all was finally here and headed straight toward him. It unreal, knowing that after so long, so much pain, that here today, it would finally end – whatever that end would be.

  The roar became thunder, closer now, louder than a falling mountain. Harlin closed his eyes, took solace in the circle’s tranquillity, let anxiety leave and steel envelope him.

  ‘Halt!’ The voice carried authority, strength, iron. The thunder of hooves stopped in a rippling echo as the order was carried backwards.

  Quiet descended over the clearing. Warhorses whickered, torn between anxiety and their natural bad temper. They feared this place. Muted whispers carried to Harlin’s ears in soft echoes. A cough. The clank of steel plate.

  ‘Harlin.’ Arnulf’s voice sounded far off, muffled. It took a moment for Harlin to realise why he recognised it, forcing himself to concentrate – it was easy to ignore everything about you here. He turned toward the sound of Arnulf’s voice, and saw what had come for them.

  A host of knights sat atop their uneasy, exhausted mounts, flanks lathered and breath steaming, steel plate reflecting golden morning light. Their column stretched down the trail and probably beyond into the Sombrewine. At their head was Aenwald, fully armoured, his plate exquisite, a statement of royalty in itself, all gilded edges and masterful artistry in the golden bulls charging on the pauldrons and gauntlets, etchings of broken chains catching the eye in other places. There were enough scars on that armour to boast the quality of its craftsmanship, and of its regular use. As Harlin had expected, the face beneath the lifted visor, sculpted into the image of a crowned bull, was one of dark rage. All shadows and sharp lines and pale-eyed hatred.

  To his right Arnulf sat atop his mount, breastplate still dented, head bandaged. The Black Dog’s glare had once been legendary for its ferocity, but the man that Harlin looked upon was weary, broken, anxious-looking – a bag of troubles and fears. He wondered for a moment if Arnulf’s armour was the only thing keeping him sat upright, as the man’s gaze sought to escape his own. He looked ten years older since leaving him on the battlefield only a few days ago.

  ‘Welcome, honoured guests.’ Harlin opened his arms wide, hospitably, a welcoming smile hidden behind his helm, broadening as he watched Aenwald bristle inside his armour.

  ‘Who are you,’ the King said quietly, voice full of cold threat. His hand lay gently upon the hilt of his sword.

  ‘I have many names,’ said Harlin, cheerfully, ‘I gather more as time passes, it seems. I am Harlin of Clan Faolán, son of Cunall. My people call me High King of Luah Fáil. Yours know me as the Black Wolf of Easthold. I am sure I will have another soon enough.’

  There was a ripple of nervousness behind Aenwald. Hands touched sacred inscriptions on armour and made signs of warding, mouths muttered prayers beneath closed helms. They all knew the story of the Black Wolf.

  ‘So,’ Aenwald said venomously, ‘you’re the savage that killed Athelmer and fucked his daughter. I remember you, though I took you for a simple mercenary lout – not some… High King over a handful of vagrant mongrels. Where are my sons, fuckwit? I swear on Vathnir’s fiery prick, if you’ve touched them, I –’

  ‘You are not in any position to make threats, Aenwald,’ Harlin snapped, cheerfulness gone. ‘We will get to your sons in time, King Marcher. There are matters you and I will discuss first.’

  ‘You would dare order me, you putrid shit?’ Aenwald stormed, face purpling beneath his helm. ‘I am King of Caermark, I am the Ironbrand, and I take no orders from you, you braided cunt! Release my sons! Now! Or I will trample you into the earth and burn this heathen garden to ashes!’

  The King’s sword rang shrilly from its scabbard, the noise screaming through the circle’s unnatural air. With a shriek like screeching, tortured metal, the host of knights drew steel after him. Arnulf sprang into action, shouting and riding back and forth before them. ‘Stop fools! Stop! Do not provoke him! You know not what you do, you doom your Princes! Stow those blades!’

  He rounded on Harlin, face beseeching, eyes watering with terror as the knights moved forward slowly, following Aenwald’s lead. ‘Harlin,’ he trembled, ‘stop this, I beg you. Release the Princes, think of your people! Aenwald will find and slaughter them all if you harm them!’

  Harlin watched Aenwald and his knights slowly moving to encircle him, cocking his head in interest as he tracked their movement.

  ‘Slaughter,’ he laughed, ‘is entirely what my people came here for.’

  Arnulf’s face dropped, and Harlin gave the call. ‘Scoileadh bás othu!’

  He saw confusion form in the line between Aenwald’s brow, then realisation, as the first of the arrows sunk into his horse’s side.

  Had they fought in the field, Harlin’s men would have been fodder for the regiment of knights – a bared, spread arse with a target painted on each cheek. But here, in the narrow confines of this spectral woodland, where Aenwald’s cavalry were cramped and trapped, too close to move freely – the slaughter the clansmen unleashed was among the bloodiest Harlin had ever seen.

  Dian and Orin’s rangers unleashed volley after volley from between trees, from the undergrowth, from perches high up in shadowed boughs. Arrows bounced and spun from the knights’ armour, their bows too weak to pierce it, but horses reared, screaming and flailing, their exposed flesh riddled with shafts. Riders were flung from saddles, crushed beneath collapsing mounts, sent flying as horses panicked and bolted, crashing into tree, shrub and tearing thorn bush.

  Harlin watched with amusement the chaos they unleashed. He felt the prickle in the air, the twisting, changing, as Ceatha wrought her Weaving upon Aenwald’s host from her hiding place. It descended upon them like a pall of darkness, blinding them, panicking what steeds
remained and releasing the horrors found in each man’s mind upon those who had dragged themselves to stand amidst the broken bodies. The screams reached Harlin’s ears like a symphony of howls, and he could not help but laugh out loud, as men in steel armour squealed and cried and begged for mercy from things only they could see, tripping, falling and rolling on the ground as Ceatha shredded their minds.

  From the depths of the woodland, voices gave birth to a chorus of battle cries, and the warriors of Luah Fáil burst from shadow and undergrowth like steel-faced spectres, their blades catching the shafts of sunlight as they fell upon Aenwald’s force. Those who could fought back, Ceatha’s Weaving fading as she withdrew, exhausted, the song of steel ringing out through the woodland as fighting began.

  Harlin dragged his eyes away from the melee raging along the woodland trail. Movement. He focussed, the air of the stone circle making things seem distant, removed. He saw a figure not far from the circle, dragging something off between the trees into shelter. Anselm. Arnulf had been knocked unconscious by a fall from his mount, the beast writhing nearby, pierced by arrows. Anselm hid him amongst dense undergrowth before drawing his sword and racing through the trees toward a steel-clad knot of resistance.

  Something else moved nearby, groaning as it lurched to its feet.

  Aenwald rose not far from where Harlin stood, dragging himself from beneath his dead horse, unscathed, incredibly. He wore a confused look as he turned towards the sounds of battle, hand fumbling for his sword.

  It is time. Black tendrils flexed. Feeling as though he had swallowed a lump of ice, Harlin moved from between the stones. Aenwald stumbled a step forward, making to assist his knights, when Harlin’s voice rang out through the clearing.

  ‘Aenwald!’

  The King stopped where he was, hand tightening upon the hilt of his sword. He turned slowly aboutto glare at Harlin from the depths of his sculpted helm.

  ‘Treachery,’ the King muttered, dazed slightly from his fall. ‘Where are my sons, savage. If you have harmed them –’

  ‘Twelve years, Aenwald,’ Harlin interrupted. The King’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have waited for this day. Twelve years.’ The King squinted, pained and confused, shook his head after a moment and raised his sword.

  ‘My sons,’ he said, straightening, ‘give me them now, and I will leave. I will forget this, savage, I –’

  ‘Some men forget,’ Harlin uttered, ‘I do not.’ He breathed deep, controlling the tremor that threatened to wrack him. ‘Twelve years ago, Aenwald. Do you remember Bráodhaír, or did the places where you took slaves from matter even less than the people whose lives you destroyed?’

  ‘Your people were coin,’ the King spat, wiping blood from a split lip, ‘coin for my coffers. You are fit for nothing else – you live in wooden huts and worship heathen gods and kill one another for cattle. Too violent for civilised society, too stupid to speak our tongue. You practice ill-gotten magics. You are a worthless race, save for the flesh markets, and now that there are none of you left you are not even fit to make me coin. You are nothing.’

  Harlin ignored that stab of the King’s tongue. ‘There was a town called Bráodhaír on the northern coast of Luah Fáil,’ he said calmly. ‘My family lived there. Twelve years ago, your ships and your knights landed upon its shores and burnt it to the ground. Those they did not kill they clapped in irons and had taken into the east. My family was amongst those unfortunate enough not to die that day. As was I.’

  Harlin took a step back, watching the King’s face. Eyes bright, clear, sword trembling slightly in his hand, lips a thin line beneath his beard. Aenwald was a big man, made bigger by his armour, but something seemed small about him now, vulnerable, even.

  ‘Have you ever been to Parathet, where they sell your slaves, Aenwald?’ Harlin asked, as he slipped back between the circle’s carved stones.

  ‘No,’ the King mumbled, beard twitching.

  ‘Then you will not know of the fighting pits they have there.’ Harlin grinned wryly, the memories sour as they lumbered forth again. ‘There are places where children have knives placed into their hands and made to fight until one, or both, are dead. Men go there and wager money upon them. They often start the day’s entertainment in those places before the older fighters enter the pits.’

  The King winced. ‘What they do in those eastern shitholes is –’

  ‘I killed more children when I was taken there than I can remember.’ Harlin breathed deep. He could feel the sand beneath his toes again, smell the blood, feel the weight of the knife in his hand. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, voice fading, ‘I still hear their screams.’

  The King opened his mouth, face contorted furiously, and Harlin cut across him again. ‘I killed a child a day in that place. As I grew older they gave me men to kill. I even saw my father die there. I take it you will know nothing of their brothels, either?’ The King’s mouth closed slowly, and he glanced over his shoulder at the sound of another of his knights being cut down.

  ‘In the brothels of Parathet,’ Harlin said distantly, ‘they give the whores esterman spice. It encourages them. Makes them keener, more pliable, and dependent upon their master to stave off the pains that torment them when they do not take it. My mother and sisters ended their days in such places after your knights took them there. Drug-addled wrecks.’ He sighed.

  ‘My mother slit her wrist. From here –’ he put a finger to his own ‘– to here.’ He drew his finger up to the crook of his arm, Aenwald’s staring eyes following the movement. ‘Twice. She died so drained of blood she looked a withered husk. My sisters… they each died as well as she, a hollow, addicted wreck. They were beautiful, each of them, and there was no evil to be found in them, only kindness. And they died so you could have a few more coins atop your hoard.’

  He let his arm fall, as he himself fell into silence, and watched Aenwald.

  ‘Do you have any idea, heathen,’ the King drawled, ‘how much coin it takes to keep a kingdom like this from tearing itself apart?’

  Harlin shook his head.

  ‘More than you can imagine,’ the King sneered, ‘so much coin you could lose yourself in its depths forever, so much you could drown in it. Caermark is a broken land, and coin slips through the gaps in its seams every hour of every day, and the more that slips away, the more difficult it is to keep it from falling apart all together. Do not think that I cannot see the irony that we were once slaves ourselves to Imperial filth – but if the flesh of your worthless race keeps my land held together, keeps it in one piece and my arse upon its throne, then I would have every last one of you given to the slaughterhouse and sold as beef in our markets.’ He flashed a malicious grin. ‘I am a king, Harlin, a true king, not some pretender over a ragged band of wanderers.’

  The thing inside Harlin twisted in blind fury, begging release. He bit down against its wild urging, forcing himself to concentrate. He could not afford to lapse, not yet.

  ‘Now,’ Aenwald said, drawing himself up, regal confidence returning. ‘Give me my sons, unharmed, and we will leave this place, and forget that this… incident, this treachery, ever transpired between us.’

  Harlin nodded. ‘You can have your sons.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Aenwald demanded, voice betraying hope. Harlin grinned to himself again. He turned to his right, and called up into the trees.

  ‘Dian! Orin!’ He pointed, suspicion birthing in Aenwald’s face as he followed Harlin’s finger.

  ‘No.’

  Harlin felt goosebumps as Aenwald’s voice broke and quaked, the sound of him falling to his knees sweet and warm as honeyed milk.

  Up in the lowest bough of a redbark tree on the clearing’s edge, some two dozen feet above ground, Dian and Orin stood on a branch so broad they could have danced an ale-soaked jig upon it and not feared to fall. Between them were two ragged figures, gagged, hands bound behind backs, and nooses looped over their necks – their lengths tied around the branch
beneath them.

  The two Princes looked down from the height silently, forms trembling as they fought to keep themselves steady on battered legs.

  ‘My boys,’ Aenwald whispered thinly. ‘What do you want from me, savage? Gold? Lands? Titles?’

  Harlin shook his head as he approached the grovelling King. ‘Such things hold little interest for me, these days.’ He stood before Aenwald’s weakening form. ‘Do you think twelve years of suffering will be undone by a pocketful of coin? That gold can mend everything you destroyed that I cared for?’ The King winced as Harlin roared, his voice echoing through the woods, stirring more shadows amongst the trees. ‘I want to know if you’re capable of love, Aenwald.’

  ‘All men are,’ the King replied, swallowing. It began to snow then, the first flakes landing gracefully atop Aenwald’s raised visor. Harlin sneered beneath his own steel face.

  ‘Are they,’ he said bluntly, no trace of a question, ‘then let us put that to the test, Your Majesty.’

  He moved away beneath the shadows cast by the bough above where the Princes shook and shuddered. ‘What would you have me do?’ the King spoke, eyes watering.

  Harlin’s answer was simple.

  ‘Watch,’ he said, and spread his arms wide.

  There was a cry of pain above. Then another. Two grunts, then two snaps, and the sodden, squelching sound of meat tearing, splitting and ripping. Blood showered Harlin, and he raised his face up to it, bathing in it like sweet rain.

  Aenwald’s scream could have split the skies, even against the din of battle, and Harlin watched with satisfaction at the broken, sobbing mess before him, face grinding into the earth as he wept and screamed alternately. Above were two dangling bodies, trailing looped ropes of entrails.

  When men are hanged from ropes too long, often their heads will be torn off by the ferocity of their fall when the rope eventually snaps tight. Aenwulf and Aenfeld’s heads were still attached, but their necks were stretched and wrenched almost comically, the skin torn and meat beneath exposed and glistening. Their entrails hung wetly, still dripping blood over Harlin. It was a gruesome method, cutting a man’s stomach the moment before he is hanged. The fall makes the belly split wide open, resulting in complete and utter disembowelment. It was a horrific form of execution, one Harlin had witnessed with the Blackshield Dogs – and he was glad to see that Dian and Orin had not shied from their task.