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

by Alan Ratcliffe

  The pair of them trudged slowly, infuriatingly so. Sturben, holding his sword in his hand as had been his custom in the past two days, prodded them in the back every once in a while, which made them pick up the pace for a few moments. He doubted whether their progress would have been very much slower had he pulled the cart himself after all.

  Worst of all was the whistling. For some unfathomable reason, since leaving the cart the older prisoner in particular was in a cheerful mood. If Sturben had thought the man witless then he was sorely mistaken, he saw that now. A variety of upbeat melodies came from his lips as they marched, until Sturben found himself longing for the silence that had accompanied them up until now.

  “What is that confounded racket?” he demanded at one point.

  The prisoner’s shoulders shrugged. “Shanties,” he replied, before continuing his vacuous whistling.

  After an hour of this, Sturben could take no more. He marched forward to the prisoner, grabbed him by the back of his neck and hurled him onto the flagstones. “Silence!” he screamed. Far from being cowed, the prisoner began to laugh as he lay on the ground. With a growl, Sturben raised his sword. Perhaps one prisoner will be enough for Slake’s needs.

  Then, from deep within the mists, the whistling resumed. Sturben turned to gawp at the younger prisoner, but he was cowering to one side. The sound did not come from him. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

  The whistling seemed to be coming from behind him. He whirled around, only for it to be behind him yet again. The arm that held his sword was trembling now. All around him, the tendrils of mist seemed to take on human form. He struck out, dispersing them.

  Sturben ran a few paces towards the sound, until he felt the soft ground beneath his feet. Suddenly, up ahead of him loomed a dark shape, and he swung his sword at it fiercely. With a sharp clang, his blade hit something hard and ricocheted away, sending painful tremors up his arm. He stared at the object. One of the dark stone columns that dotted the plains, nothing more.

  Then, before his eyes, the mists came alive. Grey forms rose up around him. Sturben fell back, retreating back the way he had come until he stood upon the road once more. They can’t get me here, his brain told him, foolishly.

  But the grey phantoms came on, unperturbed. Sturben swung his sword at them again, but felt the air around him move as they parted before his blade. He raved at them, jabbering insults as the wraiths circled, dancing away from his blows. Something whirled past his face, and a red rose of pain flared in his shoulder. He looked down and saw blood trickling between two plates of his armour. He redoubled his efforts, but his strikes cut nothing but the mist.

  There was a rough shove at his back, and Sturben fell to the floor. As he landed on his knees on the stony road, his hand jarred and the sword flew away into the fog with a clatter. Suddenly the mist drew up in front of him, taking on the shape of a giant man. In the phantom’s hands was a great double-bladed battleaxe. “Please,” Sturben begged. But the figure paid no heed. Sturben’s eyes were glued to the axe as it was raised high. Why would a spirit carry a weapon?

  There would be no answer to this, his last question. With a grunt of effort, the pale form swung the heavy axe sharply down.

  * * *

  Caspian was kneeling down beside Captain Brandt when the sound of fighting reached them through the veil of mist. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know, lad,” the captain replied. “It’s either friend or foe, but whichever it is I think we’re about to see an end to it at last.”

  Then there was a piercing shriek that was cut off abruptly by the thud of a heavy object striking something soft. When the last echoes of the cry had faded, all was silent once again. All Caspian could hear was the sound of his own heavy breathing. His life had been a nightmare since almost the moment they had reached the Legion harbour, but even so he was afraid that what approached them now was worse than anything that had happened to him in that time.

  He shrank back as grey forms walked towards them through the fog. There were three of them, he saw, standing shoulder to shoulder. Somewhere behind them, he heard the growls of an unseen beast. He tried to call out, to ask the shapes who, or what, they were, but the words caught in his throat.

  One of the apparitions raised a hand to its neck. In one quick motion it twitched aside the cloak it had been wearing, revealing a familiar face.

  Caspian found his voice. “Sten?” The burly crewman stood before him, his expression as stoic as ever. Caspian rubbed his eyes, wondering if the soldiers’ superstitions about wraiths in the mist were true after all. “But I watched you die.”

  Sten’s head shook slowly, as his companions pulled their own cloaks aside. They were woven of material the same shade as the fog. Wearing them, the men were almost invisible. “Wounded,” the sailor replied. “Not badly.” Caspian saw that his shoulder was bandaged. “Swam for shore. Found my brothers.” He shrugged, summing up everything else that had happened to him in the intervening period.

  “Brothers?” Caspian asked, as Captain Brandt climbed to his feet and clasped the crewman’s massive paw in greeting.

  “Are they as talkative as you?” the captain added, smiling at the strange trio.

  “Sten?” One of the other men grinned at the sailor. “These outlanders have named you well, brother.” He turned to the captain. “The one you call Sten has always guarded his words as if they were gold, too precious to spend. The rest of the Mistborn are not so miserly.”

  Caspian’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Mistborn? Brothers? Can anyone tell me what is going on here?”

  The warrior laughed. “There is much to tell, but why do so here? Our camp is not far. We can offer you some hot food that is better than the slop the Legion dogs have been giving you.” He spat. “Come, follow.”

  As two of the grey figures disappeared into the mist, Sten tossed a ring of keys at the captain. Caspian didn’t need to ask where he had taken them from. Captain Brandt unlocked his own chains first, then did the same with Caspian’s, before the three of them left the road together.

  Sten’s companions waited patiently a short distance away. Caspian saw then that one of them was leading a large cat by a chain around its neck. Its handler saw him staring and grinned. “Don’t worry, Klukka won’t bite,” he said. “Not unless she gets hungry!” He laughed as Caspian flinched.

  They walked across the misty plains for ten minutes in near-silence. The warriors strode confidently through the white blanket, but still seemed to need to concentrate to keep their bearings. A short time later, they reached a small depression in the land, in which were a few bedrolls and a smouldering fire.

  The five of them sat cross-legged in a circle as the evening drew in. For the most part, Caspian and Captain Brandt listened to the story they told, occasionally interjecting with questions. Not long after they reached the camp, one of the strange warriors handed each of them a wooden bowl containing a thick stew. After the Legion gruel it was very welcome. Caspian couldn’t imagine that the finest platters served up to the emperor could taste any finer than the dish he supped that night. He gulped down three helpings while the warriors took turns to speak.

  It seemed that they belonged to a nomadic tribe who lived within the fog-plagued Shadowlands, the Mistborn, to which Sten also belonged. They sent out regular scouting parties to keep watch on the Legion activities at Bloodstone, and harass their patrols wherever possible. “They are not welcome here,” explained the warrior named Eilsweyr.

  Slowly, Sten enlarged on his tale. The arrow meant for his heart had caught him in the shoulder instead, and the moment it landed he had thrown himself into the water before another followed it. He swam for the coast beyond the harbour, where Eilsweyr and the other warrior, Agga, had happened upon him. “We watched as your ship was set aflame,” said the latter, sadly. “There was nothing we could do.”

  Sten’s wounds had been tended to, as they kept watch on the fortress. When the Legion procession had
left for the capital, taking their prisoners with them, the trio followed closely behind. Each night, when the Legion troops camped, they did what they could to disrupt their march. First, Klukka had been loosed on the commander’s horse, then the following evening Eilsweyr had struck down the first sentry and thrown his body from the ridge, which distracted the soldiers so that Agga could sneak into the camp and steal the ox.

  “I thought I saw something that night,” Captain Brandt mused. “Whatever happened to the poor beast?”

  “It made a fine stew,” Eilsweyr replied, grinning.

  The soldiers had been lost as soon as the mists had descended and not cleared. The Mistborn were true to their name; they lived almost their entire lives in the relentless fog that apparently covered the Shadowlands for most of the year. Caspian doubted if any fighting force in the world could match them in such a land. Their progress slowed, the Legion found themselves being gradually picked off each night, until eventually the remainder deserted rather than face their comrades’ fate.

  Caspian had reached the end of his third bowl of stew. At last, his stomach felt satisfied. “So, what happens now?” he asked.

  “We will return to the tribe and report what has happened,” Agga said. “You would be welcome to join us, my friends, but I think you have business elsewhere.”

  “That we do.” Captain Brandt put down his own bowl. His hand groped towards his breast, but then dropped. His coat and the pipe that had always sat within the same pocket were both lost, taken by their captors. “Our path remains the same, though this time we’ll walk it as free men.”

  Caspian frowned. “You mean we’re still to go to Ehrenburg? What for?”

  The captain stared into the mist with a faraway look. “Revenge, lad,” he said sadly.

  CHAPTER 25

  A crisp, cool breeze blew across the cave mouth. Cole stood at the opening, shivering as he peered out into the bright sunlight beyond. Another gust rose up, tugging at the end of his cloak. He wrapped it tighter around himself, still thankful that he had been wearing it when he and Raven were plucked from the balcony of Frosthold.

  That was his sole comfort, however. His spare clothes, blankets, the remains of their food... in their panicked flight from the Archon’s colossal manservant, even his sword had been left behind.

  Despite the chill, Cole smiled wryly. How quickly circumstances could change one’s priorities! Less than a day earlier, he had been fearing for his life, contemplating whether to jump from the top of a mountain or face being cut down by an invincible foe. Yet now, here he stood, begrudging the loss of a few crumbs of hard, stale bread and a spare pair of gloves. He did miss his sword, though. I have the feeling we’ll need it. Idly, he wondered how Bear would react to his losing the gift so carelessly.

  Cole leaned forward from the cave, his eyes roving across the rocky mountain ridge beyond, but it was no good. The peak that contained the dusty, abandoned halls of Frosthold was hidden from view. Quite possibly, he was facing the wrong way entirely. He had lost his bearings during their escape, after which the strange bird-like creatures had deposited them inside the cave. They were still within the Dragon’s Back range of mountains, he knew, but which direction they had flown in he could not say.

  Grudgingly, Cole turned away and trudged back into the cave. Inside, it was a large open space, but not especially deep. The ceiling was also low; he was just able to stand up without bashing his head against the rock. “What do they want with us, do you think?”

  Raven sat leaning against one wall, her knees drawn up to her chin. At her shoulders, her cloak was torn, just as his was. The claws of the creatures that had taken them were sharp. She laughed bitterly at the question. “That depends. How hungry do they look?”

  Cole blanched. It was only half a jest, he knew. When they’d first arrived at the cave, his eyes had been drawn to the bones that littered the floor. He’d been slightly relieved to find that, judging by the skulls, all seemed to belong to animals. Goats and sheep, predominantly, he believed... though he was far from an expert. Not that such a revelation was any comfort to Grume, whom no amount of cajoling had been able to coax out from his pouch.

  “Should we try to escape?”

  Raven shrugged. “And go where? When we were brought in I saw steep cliffs on each side. Besides,” she added, “if we’re prisoners then this is the strangest cell I’ve ever seen.”

  He took her point. There was no door preventing their leaving the cave, nor bars. There weren’t even any guards that he could see, though he knew from previous experiments that if he tried to leave he would soon be surrounded by a throng of flapping, squawking creatures that would only disperse when he moved back inside. It was clear they wanted them to stay, but the Aevir, as Raven called them, had not attempted to use force.

  It left Cole feeling a bit useless and rather confused. “I just wish I knew what they wanted with us,” he said, with a heartfelt sigh. “They must have brought us here for a reason.”

  “Who knows why mindless animals do anything?”

  “Are they animals, though?” Cole asked. The Aevir had the look of large birds, much bigger even than the great eagles he’d read about in the Crag’s library. There were differences, however. He’d noticed several claw-like appendages at the end of each creature’s wing, jointed so that they could serve a similar purpose to human fingers. There also seemed to be a light of intelligence in their eyes that he hadn’t seen in other birds. If not for the feathers that covered their heads and bodies, they would not look entirely unlike the dragons of legend, albeit far smaller. “They can’t talk, not that we’ve seen anyway, but there seems to be a purpose behind their actions.”

  Raven snorted. “Most like they saw the sun glinting off my sword or the giant’s arm, came to investigate and took the opportunity to snatch their next meal off that balcony.”

  Cole felt that his companion was wrong about that, he was certain. The longer they spent in the cave, the certainty grew. “Then why bring us here, but not our foe?”

  “Probably because he was a lot heavier than us, especially with that arm of his.”

  That much could have been true, Cole reflected. But he was quite sure that one of the skulls he had found belonged to a cow. Judging by their size, big as they were, it would take two or more of the creatures working together to carry out such a feat. That was just further evidence, as far as he was concerned, that they were not mere beasts. If they could bring cattle here, they could have brought him, he decided. “You said that about Grume, you and Harri,” he told her. “You called him vermin, but he’s not, is he?”

  Raven eyed the pouch around his waist. “I’m not sure the case against has yet been proven,” she said sourly.

  “Look,” Cole protested, “I know he isn’t a brave fighter like you, but-”

  “Vermin, is I?” muttered a voice from within the pouch, in offended tones. The boggit’s hairy face emerged, for the first time since they entered the cave. “And as for the other, see ‘ow brave you is when one of these fevvered brutes could swallow you up ‘ole and not even ‘ave ter chew.”

  “You’d do better to worry about us,” Raven replied, with a wicked glint in her eye. “If they don’t feed us soon we might have to take matters into our own hands.” She licked her lips theatrically.

  With a yelp, the boggit disappeared from sight once again within the pouch. “You shouldn’t tease him,” Cole chided her.

  Raven shrugged. “Another day here like this, and it might not be teasing.”

  As it turned out, they did not need to wait for long. A few minutes later there was a sound outside the cave of fluttering wings, and a soft thump as something landed. Cole and Raven both stood and went to the cave mouth to investigate. Standing there, blinking in the sunlight, was one of their bird-like captors. It was smaller than some Cole had seen, including those that brought them here. Its head moved in curious twitches as it regarded them with a pair of wide, dark eyes. “Boy!” The creature�
�s voice was a dry croak, but the word was still recognisable. “Mother see you now.”

  Cole glanced at Raven, who was frowning. His own mouth hung open in surprise. “You can talk,” he said.

  The Aevir’s feathered head twitched to one side and then the other. “Some,” it croaked. Then it ruffled its feathers and pecked at one wing with a sharp-looking beak. “Mother teach,” it continued after a few moments. “You come now. Both.”

  The creature moved off in a strange hopping gait. The ground outside the cave was flat, but on either side of them was a sheer wall. They appeared to be at the bottom of a narrow ravine on the upper slopes of a mountain, above which sprouted several tall rock pinnacles. Cole could see large, dark shapes gliding in slow circles around these.

  Seeing no alternative available to them, Cole shrugged and followed the creature, Raven trailing a few feet behind him.

  He ran to catch up with it. “What is your name?” he asked.

  A cacophony of bird-like croaks and caws greeted his question, and the creature seemed amused by his confused reaction. “Hard for boy-man to say,” it said. “In your tongue, I am Glides-on-Summer-Breeze.”

  “That’s a... very nice name,” Cole replied gallantly. The creature said nothing further as it continued to hop along the pass, but he thought that it appeared pleased. As they walked, Cole glanced up at the rock walls and spires that towered above them. The surface of each were pitted with regular holes. In a few of those lower down, he could see other feathered forms hunched within, watching their progress. “Who is it that you’re taking us to see?” he asked. “Who is this Mother?”

  “Wise one,” the creature croaked, without breaking its pace. “Leader. Very old.”