Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1)

by Alan Ratcliffe

  Snowfall completed, the crowd in the square began to disperse. Festivities were dotted around the city, and most people would probably visit several over the course of the evening.

  Elise and Odette made their way to the forum, an outdoor theatre sunken into the ground. This year, the bottom of this arena had been filled with water, which had frozen solid to create an icy surface for the braver revellers to skate across.

  Wearing strange leather footwear with sharp metal struts fixed to the sole, the pair of them laughed and shrieked with a dozen other young men and women, and they slid across the ice. Unsteadily at first, but gradually growing in confidence. After an hour, Elise even attempted a small spin, and was nearly sent flailing into the stone steps carved into the sides of the forum.

  Perhaps it was the atmosphere of the day, the revels or the Ball to come just the next day, but she had never been happier. It was with regret that she left the ice just as the sky was darkening.

  “Elly, you can’t be leaving already,” Odette cried. “We haven’t even made it to the winter market yet. They sell a hot spiced wine there that will make the tips of your ears glow.”

  “I have to go, Ode,” she replied. “Father told me to return by dark, and I dare not anger him now. If I’m any later, I’ll be left wearing that sack to the Ball after all!”

  “I’m insanely jealous, you know,” Odette said with a grin. “Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, it’s not far.”

  “Catch a prince for me, then, dearest Elly. If you don’t I shall be bitterly disappointed.” With that, she turned and skated back out onto the ice. Elise smiled, and made her way back to the streets that led eventually to the noble quarter.

  As she hurried, nervous that she would be too late after all, her fingers groped for the pendant at her neck. She clutched it in one hand as she plunged down paper-strewn avenues. Once or twice she bumped accidentally into other revellers, several of whom had apparently celebrated a little too freely and swayed from one side of the street to the other.

  At one junction, Elise was faced with a decision. Biting her lip, she turned away from the main street, which was lined with torches even now being lit by Legion soldiers, and stepped into a narrow, darkened alley between two buildings. It was the most direct route home, she knew, but she regretted leaving Odette on the ice. Brave Odette, who would have laughed to see her nervousness. Instinctively, she rolled the crystal between her fingers and began to feel somewhat better.

  Elise was halfway down the alley when a noise from the rooftops above made her glance up. The eaves of the houses were silhouetted against the night sky, and for just a moment she thought she saw a shadow flit behind a chimneystack.

  Deciding against calling out – even if the shadow had been a figment of her overactive imagination, who knew who or what else she would stir by attracting attention to herself – Elise instead put her head down and hurried onwards.

  Clink.

  This time, there was no mistaking the sound, a footstep upon one of the roof tiles overhead. “Is anybody there?” she called out in a tiny voice.

  There was no response but silence. Yet Elise sensed a presence behind her, and almost feeling that she was in a dream, turned to face it.

  A shadow she had seen on the roofs above, and a shadow stood before her now. A figure the height of a man, wreathed entirely in black.

  Elise opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word, there was a flash in the dark alley, a glint of moonlight on metal. The shadow struck out at her in a blur of movement. There was a moment of sharp pain, and then a warmth that flowed down her chest.

  Her legs gave way beneath her. As she fell, she looked into where the stranger’s eyes should have been and felt that in her last moment she must have lost her mind. All she saw was her own startled face staring back at her from a pool of darkness.

  When she landed on a cushion of paper flakes, which slowly changed from white to red all around her, the shadow was gone.

  The young woman with dark, lustrous hair as black as a raven’s wing was the first to die in such a manner that winter.

  She was not the last.

  CHAPTER 13

  Raven awoke with a jolt, biting back her cry before it reached her lips. Her night had been filled with images of fire and death, and phantom screams still echoed in her ears.

  It was the same dream that had haunted her childhood; a village burning, bodies with familiar faces lying still all around her. She had run as fast as she could, her willowy, coltish legs seeming to fly across the ground, yet it was never fast enough to escape the flames, nor the unblinking, unseeing eyes that stared out from faces twisted in agony.

  She wiped her palms, slick with sweat, absently against her clothes. It was many years since she had last experienced that dream, and she wondered why it had come to her again now.

  As Raven looked around, she realised she was just able to make out huddled shapes around her, though the fire had long burned down to embers and gave no light to speak of. Dawn. She had slept through almost the entire night. Soon, the camp and the land around them was bathed in thin grey light.

  Cole was still asleep nearby, beneath a mound of blankets and spare clothes as had become his custom. Harri was nowhere to be seen.

  Taking care not to disturb Cole, Raven rose carefully from her own bedroll. It crackled with frost as she moved. Winter had caught up with them at last. She shivered as she stood and rubbed her upper arms briskly to warm them. Her breath misted out in front of her numbed face.

  Before them, the Ice Fens stretched away as far as the eye could see. They had been aptly named. The shallow pools of still water glittered as the sun began to peep over the horizon, their surfaces frozen.

  It was their second day in the mire, and thus far the crossing had been as arduous as Harri had predicted. The grassy pathways between the pools were few and far between, often leading into dead ends or curving around away from their destination. Instead, at least half their time was spent wading through the mire itself, the thick mud sucking at their boots with every step.

  And they had no recourse but to trudge on foot. Knowing the nature of the journey they faced, Harri had insisted upon sending their mounts back to Hunter’s Watch. “We would have to lead them anyway,” he’d told them, “and there are plenty of places where a horse might stumble and break a leg.”

  “But send them back?” Cole had been aghast. “What about reaching the mountains? It will take twice as long at least if we’re carrying our packs the whole way.”

  Harri smiled. “Even if we dragged them all the way through the marsh, at the end of it there’s a two hundred foot climb standing between us and the Spiritwood. Tell me, Cole, what is your plan for getting your mare to the top of those cliffs?”

  “We could circle around the forest, perhaps...”

  “Nay, doing so on horseback would take just as long, if not longer, than cutting through the fens and wood on foot. And you would still face the difficulty of getting unseen past the Dawn Tower.” Harri shook his head. “Take it from one who knows these lands well, Cole, it is better to send them back now. Be grateful that your mount helped us reach the marsh more quickly, but they can do us no more good. Storm will see them safely back to the Watch, where they’ll be looked after until you return.”

  Harri had patted the flank of his pale grey horse, and that had been that. Raven had seen the sense of Harri’s words, but Cole appeared quietly distressed as they watched the three horses heading back the way they had come... and not only because he’d lost a means of making his journey less taxing. Over the weeks, she had seen him form a close bond with the animal.

  But there was little doubt that the need to carry their own heavy packs added to the difficulty of negotiating the fens. Harri knew the safe routes, the ones that wouldn’t drag you down into the liquid mud before your companions would even realise you were missing, but even the dry pathways they were able to take offered little resp
ite from the slog. The fens were populated by a strange grass she had not encountered before, which seemed to stick to their feet almost as much as the mud. “Glue grass,” explained Harri. Bending down to examine the clumps more closely, she saw that each blade was covered with hundreds of tiny barbs, that fastened onto anything that brushed past. After just a few hours of trekking through the fens all their footsteps began to drag.

  The mood of the company was as sombre as their surroundings. Those two brief exchanges aside, Harri had been subdued and distant since the night at the peat miners’ huts. Whatever had passed between he and Cole had left the blonde hunter reluctant to even meet her eye, while any attempts at conversation were brushed aside. For his part, Cole was also quiet and withdrawn, although he appeared simply lost in his own thoughts.

  With a sigh, Raven crossed to the nearest pool. Her feet crunched across the brittle grass. Thankfully the frost at least seemed to rob it of its adhesiveness.

  She knelt down and brushed the surface of the water with her fingertips. Frozen, as she had guessed, but the ice was thin and moved easily under pressure. She pushed down gently, cracking the ice, and cupped her hands. If you took care not to disturb the mud lying at the bottom, then the water of the fens was quite clear. It was freezing, however, and she felt her palms begin to numb. Bracing herself against the cold, she splashed the water over her face. The sudden chill made her gasp, but after the initial shock she felt refreshed.

  Raven felt her mind start to clear. The icy water chased away the lingering fog of sleep. She thought again of her dream. Perhaps it was Cole’s presence, and the story of his escape from the Order’s island fortress. Hearing about the man with the bright green eyes, now risen to become Archon, had reopened old wounds; not healed, merely scabbed over with the passage of time.

  She stared down at the surface of the water, which had become still once again. Her reflection stared back, the face so familiar and yet strange to her. Black, unkempt hair cut short, hacked without care by her own hand and blade. Her face was older then she expected, the expression it wore stern. Sometimes, she still felt like the young girl with skinned knees who ran home to her father at the forge every night. Lightly, her fingertips traced the line of the scar that ran around her throat, long-faded but still visible. The intervening years had not been kind.

  Abruptly, Raven stood and stalked back to the camp. Her muscles ached dully with inactivity. She felt restless.

  Snores were emanating from Cole’s bedroll, and she nudged the mound with her foot. When that didn’t elicit any response, she aimed a harder kick. This time she was rewarded with a muffled groan.

  “Get up, it’s time to train,” she said, addressing the unruly thatch of brown hair that emerged from the muddle of blankets.

  “If I’d known it would be this cold here, I’d have taken my chances with the soldiers at the entrance to that blasted forest,” Cole grumbled. All the same, he did as he was bid, rising to his feet with a yawn. He cast a baleful look at their surroundings. “At least the swamp is looking particularly lovely this morning.”

  Raven smiled and threw him one of the training swords she had made. She’d refused to use their weapons for training; the risk of injury was too great. Instead, she had availed herself of one of the peat miners’ remaining chairs and fashioned a serviceable pair of wooden batons the length of a sword. They were too light, but would serve until a better alternative presented itself.

  By now, Cole was used to their drills and she was pleased by the ease with which he dropped into a combat stance; weapon held lightly in front, his weight on the balls of his feet in readiness. He was learning.

  As was customary, they began with Cole trying to evade or counter Raven’s attacks. She didn’t put her full force or speed into the strikes, but all the same it felt good to work the muscles in her back, arms and shoulders.

  Suddenly, without quite knowing why, Raven lashed out with her full strength and dealt a surprised Cole a hard blow to his shoulder. He cried out in pain. “What was that for?”

  “You’re moving well, but a real opponent would attack far quicker,” she said. It was an excuse, she knew, but no less true for that. “Now that you know how to tell where a strike is coming from, it’s time to learn how to turn your opponent’s attacks to your advantage. Now, try a lunge.”

  Cole obediently took up an attack posture, then lunged forward with his baton. Before it could make contact with her, Raven batted it to one side with her own, and in one fluid movement jabbed the end of it into his neck. “See? When you know where an attack will come from, you can turn defence into attack quite easily. Use the flat of your blade to deflect a strike, and counter before your foe can react. Again.”

  This time, Raven stood side on, with her right hip facing Cole. This time, when his lunge came, she deflected it the other way, the tip of the baton facing down, and then with a jerk of her elbow brought the butt of it to Cole’s face. “In a fight, you would stun an opponent with the pommel of your blade, leaving him wide open for an attack of your own.”

  Cole stared at the end of the baton less than an inch from his nose. “That seems like a bit of a dirty trick,” he said.

  Raven sighed and lowered her arm. “It’s not about being fair, Cole, it’s about survival. Do you think a bandit on the road cares about fighting with honour? You do what you need to win. Stun with the pommel. If you’re wearing a mailed glove and the opportunity presents itself, grab his blade. If he’s off-balance, stamp on his leg or kick him over. Gouge his eyes, if you must. Fights aren’t duels. They’re brutal, bloody and short. The longer it goes on, the less chance there is that you’ll live to see another one. Now, it’s your turn.”

  They continued to train, switching roles so that Raven would lunge and Cole deflect and counter her strikes. She started slowly, and gradually added other moves until they settled into a pleasing rhythm of attacks and counters that flowed into one another. After a while, they both fell panting to the ground.

  “You did well today,” she told him, her breath forming a fog between them. “You almost had me a couple of times.”

  “When it comes to not hitting people, I’m one of the best there is,” Cole replied with a grin.

  They both sat catching their breath for a few moments, when Cole turned to her again and asked, “So how do you know him? Harri, I mean.”

  “What?” The question took her off-guard.

  “At Hunter’s Watch, when he arrived back from the forest, you spoke as if you were familiar with him, more so than most. And the way you act with each other...” Cole shrugged. “It doesn’t feel like it’s the first time you have travelled together.”

  Raven stared at him, debating with herself. Then she smiled. “You’ve been waiting a long time to ask me, haven’t you?”

  “A week, at least.” Cole grinned again. “I held off until there was less chance of you ripping my head off.”

  Raven stood, and paced around the camp. “It’s... complicated,” she said, kicking out at a loose stone and sending it rolling into the mire. “Or not. I don’t know.”

  “You’ve known him a long time?”

  She nodded. “For the past twenty years I’ve travelled most of Callador, never staying in one place for very long. Ten years ago, I found myself at the Watch.” She trailed off.

  “Harri was there,” prompted Cole.

  Raven nodded. “He was training with the other boys. Or showing off, to be more precise. The village girls were fawning on him, and a few noses were put out of joint when he came over and introduced himself to a girl with long black hair, stood in the market square selling wild hares she had poached.” He had looked every inch a chieftain’s son, she recalled. His chest and shoulders were strong and broad, and his hair had run like molten gold in the summer sun. There had also been a swagger, an arrogance to him. Of all the young hunters, he was the best of them; the strongest, most skilled with the blade and bow. And he had known it.

  Cole broke her rev
erie. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I stayed until the end of the summer, and then I left.” It sounded simple, put like that. It had been anything but.

  “What?” Cole’s mouth gaped wide. “Why?”

  Raven shrugged. “Because I couldn’t give him what he wanted.” The lie, oft-told, came easily, but the words rang hollow even after all these years. Could not... that makes it easier to bear, somehow. Would not, that is the truth of it.

  “And what did he want?”

  “A wife. Someone to cook his meals and bear his children. No doubt it was partly his father filling his head with notions of what was expected of a chieftain’s son. But I did not want those things for myself, and so we parted. I had business of my own away from the Watch, and that was the end of it.”

  “I guessed that you had history, but I did not expect...” Cole shook his head slowly. “And you had not seen him again until a week ago?”

  “I’ve returned to Hunter’s Watch many times, but I had not spoken to Harri again until the night of the moot,” Raven replied. “There was nothing left to say between us.” And it was easier that way. For us both.

  Cole was about to say something further, when there was a splash behind them. Turning, they saw Harri wading back to the camp through the mire. He grimaced as he saw they had been talking, as if he suspected he was the topic of conversation.

  “You’re awake,” he said stiffly when he reached them. “Good. We have come further than I thought last night, Valdyr’s Mirror lies barely half a league yonder. Provided there are no problems crossing it, then there’s a chance we could reach the cliffs by nightfall.”

  Valdyr’s Mirror turned out to be a long, wide lake that stretched from the cliffs that marked the edge of the Spiritwood to several leagues into the fens, stabbing into its heart like a colossal spearhead. It may not have been far from their camp, but took over an hour to reach; there had been no option but to cut a direct path through the mire itself, every footstep accompanied by a thick squelch of liquid mud. By the time they stood on the western bank of the lake, the sun was already high in the sky above the horizon.