The Never King

by James Abbott

  Valderon pulled down his helm and prepared to engage in combat. His heart thumped. He rolled his head to loosen the muscles in his neck. Gripped his enchanted blade a little tighter. Birgitta still held her staff, still incanting. His mind began to tick: was it possible that the Voldiriks had not yet seen the advancing enemy? Valderon gave the orders and, in rows of fifteen, the soldiers of the Black Clan began to separate into five separate divisions: cavalry, archers and three blocks of infantry.

  Then, flying overhead came a sight Valderon could scarcely believe.

  Fifteen figures, each one the size and shape of a man, but with outstretched wings like those of an eagle, entered the grey skies. They formed a triangle of almost perfect proportions.

  ‘Now watch what happens!’ Birgitta declared.

  A moment later and the Akero fanned out and began to hurl objects towards the ground, right into the heart of the Voldirik army. Upon impact elemental vortexes, spirals of fire, water or wind, shot up from the earth, wrenching hundreds of enemy soldiers with them. The ground shuddered. Screams erupted. Armoured figures caught up in the fire were burned horrifically. Those who were raised into the sky on whirlwinds were scattered hundreds of yards in all directions. Great, strange tides carried others back against the city’s outer wall with a sickening crunch. Within moments, a quarter of the Voldirik and Stravir legion had been eliminated.

  The Akero continued towards the city walls and in unison they unloaded another cargo of altered witchstones. Red light sparked upwards from the walls, followed shortly by the sound of stone being wrenched apart. Soldiers and rubble were cast away like grains being scattered across a field. Valderon was agape. Only the quick-thinking of a wayseer – who peeled up the land with magic and used it as shelter – saved a hundred of the city’s defenders.

  The Akero arced skywards, and within moments could no longer be seen.

  Valderon gathered himself and gave the order. Slowly, the witches released their shadowy veil and the Black Clan was now revealed.

  Valderon nudged his horse forwards, drew his sword – the Darkness Blade – and bellowed as he led the charge of the cavalry.

  Underground

  The vibrations overhead caused alarm to some of the men. Xavir ignored the tremors. They continued in the gloom, following the light of a single white witchstone.

  ‘By the Goddess’s arse, what’s that?’ Davlor asked.

  ‘They’re fighting above us,’ Tylos replied.

  ‘For the love of the Goddess,’ Jedral said, ‘will you shut up, Davlor? I’ve had to listen to your drivel for weeks and, in these confines, for Goddess knows how long you’ve been wittering on, it’s getting the better of me.’

  ‘What if the others like my questions, eh?’

  ‘Boys, does anyone,’ Jedral announced, ‘object if I punch Davlor until he shuts up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘See?’ Jedral asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Davlor grunted. ‘Your loss.’

  Xavir smiled wryly, it was like being back at Hell’s Keep once again but he knew that this banter was just to alleviate the strain they were all feeling.

  They continued following Elysia, with Xavir at her heels, listening for anything that might indicate their presence had been discovered. Amidst damp smells and chilling breezes, they had come across nothing except the gently arcing pathways that led through the old mines. Xavir had recalled ordering that distracting routes be blocked so as not to cause confusion in an emergency. Should Cedius have needed to flee, on his own if necessary, then he could have done so with the minimum of risk.

  They walked for what felt like hours, taking only two opportunities to rest. The others complained of the absence of light, of the passing of time, the damp and cold. ‘We’re almost there,’ he said, at least twice. The second time Xavir believed it himself. The mine petered out into an old sewage network. Darkness revealed glimmers of light as the witchstone picked out pools of water.

  ‘Stinks in ’ere,’ Davlor muttered. His voice carried in numerous directions.

  Xavir urged for silence with a gesture to his mouth, and guided them along the route deeper into the city.

  ‘How come there’s no noise here?’ Grend whispered. ‘This isn’t right.’

  Xavir continued onwards once again until they found a time-worn stairwell.

  ‘Is this it?’ Elysia asked quietly.

  ‘It is one of the ways in.’ Resting his hand on the damp stone, Xavir paused to address the others, their eyes glinting in the light of the witchstone. ‘The stairwells here exit into what used to be abandoned buildings. They were part of the palace estate. Of course, Mardonius may have had the wit to make something of these properties since Cedius died, but it is unlikely. You should remain vigilant.’

  No one said anything as they nodded their agreement.

  Xavir was first to climb the stairwell, with his daughter holding up the light behind him. They spiralled upwards towards a hatch. Xavir nudged it up a fraction, resting the wooden panel on his head, and scanned the room either side: nothing beyond but darkness.

  ‘It smells strange in here,’ he whispered. ‘Elysia, if you roll the witchstone into the room beyond how long will the light last?’

  ‘Not long. Several heartbeats. Enough to allow you to see. I can run in and pick it up, or I have another.’

  ‘Quickly roll it in,’ he said.

  She leaned up and across his shoulder, and flicked the stone across the floor.

  Dead eyes stared back.

  Upside down heads and bloodstained corpses on the far side of the room.

  The light petered out.

  ‘There are bodies beyond,’ Xavir whispered down. ‘A few days old. We will need a second stone.’

  Within a few seconds, Elysia retrieved a stone and had the light activated.

  ‘I will go in first,’ Xavir said, ‘then you follow.’

  He didn’t look for her confirmation, but pushed up the hatch, jumped up into the darkness and withdrew the Keening Blades with their whispered groan of metal. No sooner had he done this than Elysia brought up the light and stifled a gasp.

  Xavir leaned down and cautioned for the others to wait. He then checked their surroundings in the unearthly light of the witchstone, looking at the two dozen heaped corpses.

  ‘Just what is going on?’ Xavir said aloud. ‘Come closer.’ He gestured for his daughter to bring the light towards the side of the room. Dressed shabbily, these men and women had mostly had their throats cut, but something did not sit right about the scene.

  The glint of a knife-blade caught his eye. It was gripped in the death-firm grip of a man in the corner. Bald, skinny and elderly, he was dressed like the others, and on the floor by his right knee was a book entitled Realms of the Goddess.

  ‘They killed themselves,’ Xavir realized aloud. ‘This was a death pact. They have all been killed in the same, quick way – severing an artery. This young boy here had his wrists cut too.’

  ‘Why would they do this?’ Elysia’s voice was full of shock and he could see the horror on her face as she looked at them.

  ‘Because it was the best option for them,’ Xavir replied.

  ‘What could be worse?’ She stumbled slightly, uneasy on her feet with either the stench of the dead or the shock of the sight.

  ‘We’ll discover that soon enough.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you holding up with all of this?’

  ‘Of course,’ Elysia replied. ‘I’m fine with it.’

  She probably wasn’t, but Xavir had no need to press the point. That she was lying her way through a despicable scene was half the inner battle.

  Xavir leaned over the hatch to call down: ‘Everyone else can come up now. Be warned, it’s not pretty.’

  One by one the men from Hell’s Keep clambered up and looked in disgust at the sight. Davlor stumbled over to the corner, where he vomited.

  ‘That smell . . .’ Jedral moved back two paces, bringing
his axe up ready. His eyes narrowed as he took in the scene.

  ‘What in the name of the Goddess happened here?’ Grend asked; the former poacher looked less affected than the others.

  Xavir explained his theory, before cutting himself short. A squad of soldiers ran by the outside of one wall, turned a corner and then passed the other wall. For a moment no one said a word. Xavir found a blacked-out shutter that had been covered with a mouldy hessian cloth and peered into the street. He could see nothing but the grubby whitewashed building opposite.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he announced.

  ‘What about this lot?’

  ‘Nothing we can do for them.’ Xavir pulled back the hessian with one hand. He levered open the shutters with his blade and clambered effortlessly out into the street. As the others followed him he inhaled the fresh, damp air of the old city.

  He regarded the familiar shapes and styles of the buildings. Memories flashed before his eyes: parading through the streets; drinking with his comrades on his first secondment; escorting Cedius on matters of national importance. He felt a paternal instinct for the rundown bricks, mortar and timber that surrounded him. This could have been his city. Instead a greedy, ambitious, selfish man had run it into the ground and done Goddess knows what to its citizens.

  There was a clamour as Davlor caught his foot on a splinter of wood and went reeling into an upturned bucket.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Xavir hissed. ‘If our enemy discovers us because of you I’ll kill you myself and spare them the effort.’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’ Davlor winced, rubbing his shin.

  Xavir stepped towards the corner of the street. A mist had crept in, but he could see a group of Voldirik rangers stationed to one side, and there were five more figures who looked a lot like the rangers, but they were garbed in more basic undecorated armour. They moved strangely, too, their arms and legs flailing ever so slightly, as if they did not have full control over their bodies.

  ‘We had heard rumours,’ Xavir whispered, ‘that citizens of Stravir City are being turned into the Voldirik people using some strange craft. Some of these figures ahead do not look natural. It is likely they are the poor products of such a transition. This is what walking death looks like.’

  ‘Who are we really fighting, then?’ Tylos asked. ‘Presumably they’ll be Voldiriks for the most part, but what if they are civilians transitioned?’

  ‘Try not think of it.’

  ‘If so then the city has surely already fallen?’ Jedral muttered.

  ‘Then Valderon will take it back. Remember now, we must remain close. Whilst Valderon leads the Black Clan, he will draw attention beyond the city walls. We have a narrow margin to put a stop to whatever barbarity is occurring here and then kill the king.’

  Xavir demanded eye contact from every single one of them. Even Elysia, who seemed wide-eyed and eager to get to work.

  ‘We continue through the back streets,’ Xavir told them and then fixed them all with a fierce smile. ‘Try not to get yourselves killed.’

  Din of War

  The very tip of the spear, Valderon led the Black Clan’s hundred-strong cavalry towards the western flank of the Voldirik army. The many thousands of bronze-clad figures were already in disarray from the Akero bombardment and were surprised to see the sudden appearance of such a large force to the south. With Grauden’s men at his back, one of whom held the tattered black banners of their force, and Birgitta following them scanning the air for signs of magic, Valderon thundered towards the infantrymen. The air was thick with guttural screams and bellows of warriors, as the rest of the Black Clan hurled themselves into battle.

  True to Landril’s earlier predictions, the Voldiriks spent their first moments attempting to realign themselves into formation. With a roar, Valderon heaved the Darkness Blade into the mass of clamouring bodies. Armour and blood spat out with ease. The enemy emitted a horrific hissing scream with every blow, as if their insides boiled over like a kettle. Helms buckled, and every Voldirik he struck crumpled helplessly. The old techniques came back to him, muscle movements ingrained over the years that expressed themselves once again with ease.

  Valderon inched his horse forwards, spiralling his enchanted blade left and right. Despite the weapon’s capabilities, the thicket of bodies led to a slow, grinding, awful business. Two of his fellow cavalrymen fell along the lines, ripped down into the bronze mass. Everything lost context now, just as it had always done; there were no people in his mind, simply outstretched arms and spears and swords. He zoned in on the details and ripped them apart with the Darkness Blade. Such was the potency of the weapon that soldiers he thought he had only grazed had their armour cleaved as if he had struck them with all his might. After the first thirty Voldiriks had been rendered useless, he had grown properly accustomed to the weapon’s ways.

  The gloom above them darkened even further: a hundred yards up the slope, to Valderon’s right, the Black Clan’s archers unleashed a torrent of arrows into the Voldirik lines beyond. Any reinforcements surging towards this side of the cavalry charge collapsed one by one to the metal-tipped storm.

  The Black Clan’s witches hurled orbs of magic into the throng. Firelight arced like meteor trails above his head and shuddered into the ground hundreds of yards further back. The stench of burning flesh reached his nose. But, lumbering through the Voldirik tide, came misshapen forms silhouetted by the inferno behind.

  Another noise, another charge: the full mass of the Black Clan infantry now drifted into the melee. Landril, presumably still somewhere among them, had held on long enough for the Voldiriks to commit their entire forces before sending the rest of his men in.

  The infantry divided into two streams, like an inverse V-formation. They spread themselves either side of where the great beasts were located. Blinding light from the clan sisters shot forwards, only to be intercepted by other flashes. It appeared that the other forces’ witches were active, or the wayseers were among them. To Valderon’s horror, only yards away the ground suddenly split open like a gaping maw. He steered his horse around it as soldiers surged with him to escape the earthcraft.

  What the hell was that?

  A red-cloaked wayseer stood nearby, one palm extended in the direction of the destruction. The air seemed to shimmer with spirals of alien symbols.

  Valderon called across to Birgitta for cover, then to his right, he commanded, ‘Grauden, to the flanks. Eyes ahead.’

  Grauden reacted on instinct and the two riders carved their way towards the magical figure. Birgitta, however, could reach only Valderon with protective shadow, and not his companion. The two riders continued on their way, deftly avoiding the clog of infantry, spears jutting this way and that, swords missing their shoulders by inches. Grauden nudged ahead and would reach the wayseer first; suddenly the man was lifted from his horse, his body glowing white like an angel.

  Grauden exploded in a red mist. Pieces of his body and armour scattered for yards around him.

  As flesh rained down upon the rest of them, Valderon – still in shadow – gritted his teeth, screamed vengeance and cleaved through the wayseer’s neck. The thing fell to the ground lifelessly and its head reeled back with a shower of blood. The hole in the ground closed up. Valderon breathlessly looked back to see that half his cavalry had now vanished into the earth.

  Choice

  The mist deepened. The mystery deepened. The capital’s streets were mostly deserted. Only a handful of Voldirik soldiers were seen, their elegant forms occasionally cutting through the whiteness. The majority of their forces had clearly been dispatched to defend the city walls.

  But that did not explain the lack of citizens.

  Buildings stood empty. Taverns, bakeries, meat merchants, lay abandoned. Nothing had been taken, no ransacking had occurred. It was as if the people of the city had simply vanished.

  The group hurried street by street, past whitewashed buildings caked in mould, and under crumbling old archways, towards the palace in which Mardonius w
ould be ensconced. Xavir was conscious that the more time they took, the more of their men outside the city could be dying. As they went, there were more Voldiriks, and surprisingly even a few officers who wore the uniforms of the legions. As they continued through the narrow passageways and along the perimeter of forgotten courtyards, another clutch of Voldirik warriors were spotted, blocking the adjacent alleyway. They wore far more elaborate clothing, their armour a glittering silver colour, their robes bright green. To Xavir’s knowledge they were barring the path his group needed to take, so he bid his daughter fire an arrow into their midst.

  ‘What do you want to happen?’ she asked. ‘Take them all out with the one arrow?’

  ‘With minimal fuss,’ Xavir replied. ‘Otherwise, there could be hundreds summoned to obstruct our progress.’

  She pondered the point for a moment and removed an arrow with a bulbous witchstone at the head. ‘I only have one of these.’

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It removes the air from around them.’

  Xavir shrugged and gestured for his daughter to fire.

  She nocked her arrow and pointed it almost directly upwards. She released the arrow, which curved in a steep arc, landing directly in the centre of the group with the sound of shattering glass.

  The figures took a step back and peered down to regard this intrusion, but within moments they were clutching their throats.

  One by one they fell to the cobbles in a heap.

  Xavir scanned the surroundings and prepared to leave, but Elysia held his arm. ‘Give it a while to make sure the air is clean again.’

  ‘Good work.’

  They lingered for a moment in the mist. Xavir listened for sounds of anyone approaching, or for the shuffle of feet on vantage points higher up where the guards might be stationed on walls or bridges.