by Ross Kitson
***
The funeral procession wound like a black snake through the Thetorian town of Eviksburg. It paused periodically to increase its size as mourners wandered from their crooked houses.
From the vantage point of the hills that lay to the north of the town, Aldred Enfarson could make out that the procession numbered at least four dozen. It wasn’t a bad turn-out for the town’s eldest baker, Aldred thought. He would have been happy if he managed half that number.
Daily life still bustled away down in Eviksburg, albeit with due respect for the loss of one its great grandfathers. The bells of the two churches sang their lament. The birds atop the statue of Mortis, the Father of All, matched the peals with their incessant twitter.
Aldred sighed as he turned to his riding companion, Livor Korianson. Livor was an enthusiastic fifteen year old like Aldred and eldest son to one of Aldred’s father’s principal lords.
“Still struggling with the funerals, Aldred?” Livor asked. He was chewing on a handful of dried fruit whilst his horse lapped at the water in a small pool.
“That’s fair to say, Livor. If I’d known it was old Eli’s send-off then I’d have suggested we ride south to chase the maidens in Oldston.”
Livor patted Aldred’s shoulder and then nodded towards the north where clouds the shade of tempered steel were gathering.
“We could retrace our trail back over Evik’s Moor and with luck we could be back to Blackstone by early afternoon.”
“What says that of our initiative?” Aldred asked. “I feel like a bit of excitement to lift my spirits from the pall of Eli’s funeral. What say we hop the brook and ride over the crest of the hills and then down past the old fort?”
Livor laughed nervously. “Come on, Aldred, that’s a fair leap on these horses. I don’t want to be explaining to the baron about a lame drowned gelding, especially with his moods at the moment. Besides that, my father would flay me senseless for upsetting your old man.”
Aldred frowned and then grinned. He dug in his stirrups, turned his horse and galloped at the foaming brook. The horse began to shy so he jabbed the metal into its sides and reined it tight, guiding it towards the water.
For a second he thought he had misjudged it and that the slick rocks would dash his head open. A buzz of excitement tingled in his chest as he vaulted the stream and his horse’s hoofs clattered on the far bank.
He turned and yelled to Livor. “Nekra take my father’s moods. It’s time he realised life is for living. Come on, vault the brook, Engin is with us this day.”
His companion’s eyes darted from the brook to Aldred and back. Aldred smiled—Livor dressed like a noble Thetorian in his crisp white shirt and stylish leather trousers, yet he did not act like one. True Thetorians were men of passion and impulse, men who would hang the consequences and act.
“I’m afraid that my riding is not on a par with yours, Aldred,” Livor said. “It would appear that I should retrace my steps and catch you up near Unger’s Common.”
Aldred shrugged, waved and then cantered away along the rocky crest of the hills. In truth, he was glad for some time alone. Livor’s common sense and wisdom far exceeded his years; Aldred begrudgingly admitted to himself that his friend was correct about his discomfort with funerals.
It had been fourteen months ago that his mother had died. A wasting sickness had taken her slowly over a five-month period. That summer he had rushed through every lesson, every sword practice and every scroll he had to scribe, just to attend her chambers for another precious minute. With every sunny day that passed she seemed to diminish. The colour of her warm cheeks became more and more like the rocks of the hills that surrounded the barony. Whilst he sat there holding her frail hand, his pride damming his tears, he willed the summer to last forever; he knew that as the golden days shortened so his mother’s life would too.
But Harvestide had arrived and she had departed, her soul rising like the dust from the reaped corn in the fields. She had left him to rest with Mortis, the Father, God of Light. The funeral procession had journeyed the fifteen miles from Eviksburg to Blackstone Castle to pay their respects. They had descended into the gloomy crypts and Aldred had watched as a part of his father, the baron, left with his mother.
Livor had also not been mistaken about Aldred’s father’s moods and temper. The baron had always been a harsh man, cast from the same iron that his subjects mined from the northern hills of his land.
Yet since his wife’s death he had become a feared master, prone to outbursts, and the servants scampered like dogs before his rage. Lord Korianson had sought to occupy Baron Enfarson with forages into the hills at the west of the barony. They would travel from there into the South Khullian Mountains, Korianson evidently hoping that the exertion of killing goblins would distract him from his excess of black bile. Even that had proven futile, though they returned with armour stained with green blood and saddlebags brimming with treasures.
Aldred guided his horse Greymane down a pebbled track. It descended towards the fields that ran to the western edge of the hills. About a quarter of a mile ahead were the ruins of an old fort, its aged stones jutting like the ribs of some ancient dragon skeleton. He slipped off his mount and tied the reins to a crooked tree that leant against the wall of the fort.
The fort would once have been sizeable, agreeably not on the scale of Blackstone Castle, yet imposing enough. Long grass and brambles had worked their way through every gap. Aldred clambered across the mossy stones, pausing to consider the fort’s layout. If he remembered his history lessons correctly then this would have been the outer wall: a strong two-layered barrier, built with the precise geometry of the Imperial engineers.
He smiled with satisfaction as he entered the fort; his memory had been correct. He had learnt something in the history lessons about Thetoria in the time of the Second Empire after all. This fort had been the residence of the Imperial custodian for the region, which would have equated to Aldred’s ancestors’ lands. It had been sacked during the civil war that ended the Artorian Empire, its mighty stones shattered by explosions of magic and boulders hurled by catapults.
Aldred entered the bailey and walked across the sloped ground, pushing through the grasses and nettles. The central keep rose before him, its flat roof now caved in. Streams of dusty light shone through like long prying fingers. Most of the upper floor’s boards had long ago rotted, but Aldred still felt an admiration at the compact might of this structure. The Artorian Empire had ruled Thetoria for nearly three hundred years. Its influence had permeated every aspect of life in the country, having spread like the wasting rot that had consumed his mother. Its legacy was everywhere: in the buildings, the language and the culture, even in the organisation of the king’s army. How ironic that the First Empire, the Eerian Empire, which had occupied Thetoria four centuries prior to the Artorians, had only left a language, a calendar and some damn fine roads.
The ruined hall of the keep was in front of him. Even in age it had grace, nobility, and conveyed a sense of the golden era in his country’s history. The remnants of statues flanked Aldred as he entered the hall. Weeds had worked through the flags, splitting them like skulls on a battlefield. The statues were famed warriors of the Empire, emulated for all eternity in stone. Their faces had worn smooth with the rains and the winds that came often from the mountains, but Aldred could still sense their grandeur. Would any man make statues of him in days ahead or would his only likeness be in the crypts of Blackstone Castle?
He paused at the fragmented mural on the east wall; its tiny ceramic pieces flaked onto the flagstones. Artorians had not been lovers of paintings and tapestries in the way the Eerians had been. Instead they had depicted scenes of valour and war in vast intricate murals. This one was of a great battle, perhaps the subjugation of his country. He could see the faded kings bowing to the might of the Artorian war machine, a metal onslaught cast in the forges of mighty Erturia.
Yet the Empire was long gone: fra
gmented, shattered and now but a dusty memory for the history tomes. It had been destroyed by the greed of its rulers, finished by a civil war that had ended with cataclysmic magic in its very core.
Aldred stroked the tiles of the mural, feeling the rough edges under his fingers. As ever the Thetorians had survived, their royal lineage returned to power after centuries of living as minor nobility to the Emperor’s governors and custodians. The lineage stretched into the mists of time, back to King Thetoria the First. Their nation had been founded in the ashes of the Trimenal lands, a vast country split by the two Wars of Brothers into becoming Goldoria, Feldor and Thetoria.
Aldred smiled as he considered that many centuries of marriage and inter-marriage had linked almost every noble house of Thetoria with the other such that Aldred was probably eight hundredth in line to the throne.
Bored now, Aldred turned to exit the keep and return through the bailey to his horse. Like one huge family, he mused, and like one huge family it squabbled incessantly. Barons fought barons over lands whilst dukes played their games at court and the king did as he fancied, leaving the scraps for the nobility like an elder brother would leave hand-me-down clothes. His vainglorious children Dulkar, Altred, Meara and Gwyn played with courtiers’ lives as if in a game of Kirit’s eye and then fought one another at any opportunity. Aye, Thetorians liked to fight, whether against Goldoria over mines or with each other in pointless battles and duels. They were never far from a good scrap.
Aldred emerged into the bailey and then froze, his hand slipping to his longsword. Atop the crumbling wall was a large bird, its ebony eyes staring at him. A trickle of fear ran down his spine: it was a black-hawk. The size of a bird of prey, its feathers were the colour of charcoal and its beak a wicked hook of black pain. The old tales he recalled from his wet nurse spoke that the birds were born from the souls of murderers, so foul that the Dukes of the Pale would not give them succor in their halls.
Aldred stared at the large bird and noticed it had a tiny scroll tied around its leg. Curiosity got the better of his wisdom and Aldred stooped and grabbed a stone then slung it at the bird. The bird took flight as if anticipating the missile and the rock clattered along the wall.
Aldred vaulted across the boulders and out to his horse, cursing his poor aim. The black-hawk was flying towards the distant River Eviks that traversed the barony. The river ran from the Khullian Hills past the castle, past Eviksburg and then east to the neighbouring baronies and ultimately south to Birin.
He rode his horse down the slope, but the bird had gone. At the base of the hill he found a track that wound between fields occupied only by corn stubble and occasional grasslands. The serfs knelt as he passed but Aldred did not acknowledge them, occupied as he was by his own thoughts.
After an hour he saw Livor waiting patiently at Ungor’s Common, situated on the north bank of the river. His friend waved and greeted him as he approached.
“Ho, Aldred! It would seem that even my meek steed manages a better time than your royal bred stallion. Did you doze in the old fort?”
Aldred gestured at the gathering clouds that were darkening the lands around them.
“I thought it prudential to return before we were obliged to swim home. I didn’t want you to ruin your best riding clothes. After all I’d hate for you to show me up when we go to Thetoria City in the New Year.”
“My lord father may not have the wealth of the baron, but he shall provide me with enough finery to charm the city girls. Besides you shall have three years to try to outdo me with the ladies there!”
Aldred’s moody face broke into a grin. The prospect of going to Thetoria City for three years to complete his education was the beacon at the end of his gloomy life at the castle. The pair rode from the common, following the track that ran west to the castle along the riverside.
“Maybe we could find a temptress to put a smile on the face of Quigor?” Livor said. “Draw him from his catacombs to the warm thighs of a woman!”
Aldred laughed at the jest and tried to imagine the pasty flesh of his father’s advisor entwined with that of a buxom city girl.
“I fear he would find more pleasure in the crumbling limbs of the cemetery’s residents,” Aldred said.
The two lads chuckled as their horses galloped into the grounds of Blackstone Castle, its walls looming high above the river that lay at its feet. They slowed to cross the Blackstone Bridge, which arched over the wide River Eviks and trotted onto the stones of the main road that ran from the castle to Eviksburg.
Blackstone Castle lay on the south bank of the wide river like a slumbering mountain giant. Its dark walls had stood for a millennium, erected in the time of the First Empire to guard the north-west corner of Thetoria against the goblins and ogres that teamed in the mountains. Its outer curtain wall was wide, encircling a vast grassy bailey in the centre of which stood the main castle. This sat atop a small hill and comprised of a collection of towers and turrets that reached high into the air above the lower keep and halls. Having been added onto over the centuries its structure was confusing at times. It reflected the fancies of the many barons who had ruled from here during the changing times of Thetoria.
Its black stone made for many shady corners. They had never seemed sinister to Aldred as a boy, but in the wake of his mother’s death the shadows had grown deeper. Something had happened during the baron’s forage into the hills and his mood had never lifted since.
Two months later Quigor had arrived to take on the role of advisor after Helgint, the baron’s old counsel, had abruptly retired to the town of Eviksburg. Quigor had some connection with Baron Enfarson’s second cousin, a merchant in South Artoria whom Aldred had only heard referred to as ‘the runt.’ With Quigor there seemed to arrive a gloom at the castle, as if the stones were sapping the delight and life from its inhabitants. In fact when his father had suggested he finish his education in Thetoria City he positively leapt at the chance to leave his home.
The pair came through the gatehouse in the outer wall and trotted across the green. They passed the small collection of houses in the bailey, ascended the slope of Garan’s Motte, and continued through the inner gatehouse of the keep. They dismounted in the courtyard and handed the bridles and reins to the two stable boys who waited shyly.
“M’lord, the baron asked for you to attend him when you returned,” one said, staring at the cobbles of the yard.
“That’s fine, err… Hinkir,” Aldred said. “Make sure Greymane is brushed down, the long grass irritates him.”
“M’lord,” the boy said and lead the horse off to the stable. Aldred clapped Livor on the shoulder and strode in through the entrance hall, slipping off his cloak and tossing it on a vacant chair. He was sweaty from riding so he undid the top few buttons on his shirt and took the stairs two at a time. He ascended rapidly to the second floor and then froze as he passed a slit-like window.
Perched on the tip of the south tower was the black-hawk. It was resting beneath the flag that bore the banner of the House of Enfarson: a black castle on a gold field. It preened its feathers, oblivious to or uncaring of his attention. Aldred cursed once more, turned to ascend to his father, and ran straight into the slight figure of Quigor.
Aldred let out a yell in surprise and then jumped back at the furious glance that Quigor shot him. In an instant the expression was replaced by a sly smile, so rapidly that Aldred began to doubt he had even seen the glower.
“Always in such a rush, my lord. The impetuousness of youth, how I long for its thrill,” he said.
“Master Quigor. You move like a shadow around my father’s castle.”
“There are many shadows in the dark stone. I seek only to diminish their toll on your father’s heart.”
Quigor was shorter than Aldred, with lank ginger hair that trailed from his shiny bald crown. His eyes were a light brown—not the warm brown of the earth but rather the mottled brown of rust. He was an Azaguntan and this fact did nothing to endear
him to the baron’s friends and troops.
He glanced out of the window. “I see you have spotted a black-hawk, my lord. What a magnificent bird it is. I am sure you concur?”
“They are said to be ill omens in Thetoria, master Quigor, not that this house needs any more of those.”
“In Azagunta we believe they are dispatched by Engin to symbolise a time of change. Perhaps it comes to wish you well on your journey.”
“My journey? I am not sure I understand you, Quigor?”
“Oh how careless of me. I do beg your pardon. Your father is to send you to Thetoria City earlier than planned. This weekend it would seem. But I’ll allow you to hear it from his lips. By your leave…”
Quigor bowed and then slipped away down the steps.
Aldred’s mind whirled as he took in the news. Part of him was glad to be rid of this mausoleum that passed for a home, yet another part ached at the ease with which his father sought to send him away. Did he feel pain inside when he saw Aldred’s face, a face so like that of his mother? Or had his love been replaced with something darker and more consuming?
Aldred ascended the stairs contemplating Quigor’s words. Like it or not the Azaguntan was correct: it was all going to change.