The Seven Seals
Thorne’s Conquest
Text © Matthew Cuthbert 2019
Cover illustration © Teresa Guido
Inside illustration © Rebecca Schmeer
First published in Great Britain in 2019
Printed in the UK
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-1-5272-4750-5
To Becca, my best friend, the love of my life, my Elvish Princess. Thanks for putting up with me while I stayed up until 3am every night doing crazy things like this instead of doing the washing up. I promise I will do it at some point.
Chapter 1
Thorne looked out across the water to the shore with his black, merciless eyes. Saw the waves crashing against the rocks that had been moulded into vicious daggers by a thousand years of the Isonian Sea’s malevolent assaults. Saw the red walls of the castle blazing against the twilight sky: a symbol of pride and vanity, a symbol to the world of the power and bloodlust of the monsters to whom it belonged. The Chronian Kingdom. A proud, isolated people who believed themselves safe and strong, secluded in their giant island of barbarism and idolatry. The castle reached high into the sky, calling out to their false god; ballista lined the walls; archers patrolled among the turrets in quiet ignorance. Thorne felt bile building in his stomach as his disgust and repulsion grew. The castle had long been thought to be impregnable: no invading army had ever managed to navigate their ships past the unforgiving maws of the bay, or managed to make a dent in the gargantuan walls, or even sailed close enough to leave their boats and make it to shore. Until today.
As the sea roared and fought beneath the ship, Thorne barked orders to his crew. His flagship was a deadly masterpiece. Its wood was painted with Ars Chameleus, an enchanted blue liquid that allowed the ship to blend seamlessly with the water, becoming one with the waves. The sails stretched wide enough to catch the wind in every direction and focus it into an engine of unparalleled speed. They shared the same enchantment, simply looking like a wave of mist passing over the water- surely too fast to be anything other than a natural phenomenon. Only the soldiers could be seen, but they were trained in the Mystic Arts. Even the less seasoned sailors could command the fog, swirling it around themselves to cloak them from even the most eagle-eyed archer. In Varrasian, the ship was called the Mors Crescilia, but those who spoke common Visyrian would call it the Wave of Death. For now, it remained stationary, just over the horizon from the castle walls. Keeping it still in these hostile waters would have posed a challenge for the most seasoned captain, but the discipline of the Varrasian crew was steadfast. Some even said that Death himself would not dare raise his hand against Crucius Thorne, the Hand of Vengeance, the Butcher of Arkathor, the Black Sword. Even now, fear and awe radiated throughout the ship; Thorne bathed in it, drawing strength for the coming slaughter. He turned to see the fleet behind his ship, ready and waiting for the invasion: 200 ships carrying 30,000 men, a force of nature.
Feeling the wind change ever so slightly, Thorne used his terrifying command of the magic to read the air, feeling the changing patterns and currents as his insurgents manipulated it leagues away, sending him the message that they were ready to initiate his masterplan. He sent his own iconic signature back through the wind: a cold icy wind that tore through the souls of lesser men. Then he drew his sword and placed it firmly against the bow of his ship, turning back to his crew. He used the Art to magnify his voice, giving it a demonically rich, powerful tone, “Varrasians! Out there on the shore, the barbarians drink and laugh while their people starve. High in their blood-stained towers, they look on their land with ignorance and indifference, dooming a race to suffering and torment as they bleed the land dry. Today we bring death to the heathens and liberate their sons and daughters. No longer will their poisonous hearts corrupt the souls of the world. No longer will their false god be praised. Today, we are death!” The small host of soldiers answered with their war chant in Varrasian: “Summus Mortem!”, “We are death!”
With another shout, Thorne ordered the ship to set sail, tearing across the water like deadly lightning towards the bay. As they drew into the sightline of patrolling archers, all that was seen was a mist speeding towards the coast from the sea; a dozen others harmlessly dissipated into the air and water, but this one would be the death of a Kingdom…
Thorne had spent the last two years studying Chrone in preparation for war. In that time, he had quickly figured out that the people were importing supplies and resources from neighbouring island states to sate the ravenous hunger of their aristocracy. Jewels, exotic foods and spices, new weapon technologies and mystical trinkets were regularly brought into the country. No one, however, knew how. The ships only moved at night and nowhere on the coast of the island could a single harbour be seen. The ships simply vanished into the cliffs and appeared from the misty shores. Curious, Thorne had sent scouts to survey the coast and discovered the one weakness in the Chronian defences. They smuggled the supply ships through tiny canals dug into the cliffs that went on inland to various underground lakes and reservoirs. Most coastal castles seemed to be built on reservoirs such as this, a weakness that would cost thousands of warriors their lives today. Thorne’s plan was simple. He had devised a weapon. A weapon of black magic and alchemy. A weapon he had named Black Fire. When exposed to a spark’s malicious touch, it would explode in an arcane shockwave of flame and death, burning everything it touched, blasting stone and earth apart. That was what Thorne had accomplished today. He alone had the power to undo God’s creation and blast apart the very earth. The message he had given to his insurgents on the coast was to row down through these canals in longboats loaded with the volatile liquid. While Thorne had assured them there would be enough time to light a fuse and get away before it caught fire, in actuality, he had no guarantee. Collateral damage was part of war, and the soldiers knew the risk…
In glorious triumph he cried again to his men, “Summus Mortem!” and they answered, their voices digging into the hearts of Chronian warriors who did not even know where the noise had come. As the ships drew close into the bay, they turned to a halt, careful to stay out of range of the lethal rockface. Water mages then dived into the water, creating a current that would take the soldiers into the shore. One by one, thousands of battlemages flew through the water, landing just close enough to put their legs on the ground and walk onto the beachhead.
Thunder! Earthquake! Fire! A catastrophic roar broke out from within the castle, like the terrifying scream of a Leviathan. Thorne’s troops on the shore stood back a little as they saw the majesty of his plan unfold and the castle split in two, each half falling as the cliff tore apart. The Chronian warriors panicked. Fear seeped from them like sweat. Running, falling, crying, they shrieked and screamed as the castle continued to fall apart around them. The initial blast had created a rift deep in the heart of the stone foundations and the shockwave had toppled many of the castle’s great towers. Debris fell from the sky like deadly rain. The warriors who had survived the explosion were mostly dying, yelling torturous curses as their legs were crushed under red stone, or their bodies were half-melted in the fire of the explosion. The Varrasians drank in their fear, laughing as they cut down those unlucky enough to have lasted until now. This was but a taste of the war to come. This easy, thoughtless slaughter was an appetiser for the great struggle that lay ahead. As Thorne made his way onto the shore he stopped to gaze upon his victory. He was the Master of Death. Even nature bowed to his will.
Once the castle
was destroyed and its people were exterminated, Thorne and his army would have an outpost to attack the city it had protected. Galantine was a small, but well-fortified city and its hostile people would respond vengefully to the destruction of Galant Castle. For now, however, Thorne simply relished the ability to murder people who had no idea what was going on or how to retaliate. It was delightful.
When he was alone in the labyrinth of the decaying castle, he found a Chronian, bleeding and howling at the pain from her chest where the spire of a tower had impaled her. Thorne admired her resilience in staying conscious through the pain. “Your name.” He said in common Visyrian, manipulating the woman to answer him with his Power.
“Osira Karn.” The woman answered soullessly, the pain subsiding for a moment as her mind was probed. She knew nothing of relevance to the war effort- only the trivial information of a common foot-soldier.
“Hush now, Osira. Death calls you home.” With these words, Thorne cut the woman’s jugular with his dagger and proceeded to drink the blood that gushed out. His fellow soldiers would have been horrified, but none of them knew the true source of Thorne’s unrivalled command of Magic: Thorne was the true heir to the Throne of the Dead.
Chapter 2
Queen Helsifer drank a tankard of mead as the musicians played for her in the Great Hall of the Castle of Disideris, the Chronian Capital. The whole Royal Court was here to celebrate the birth of her daughter: jugglers and fire-breathers put on shows for the nobles; the roar of drink-addled conversation billowed against the sound of the fire from the central hearth. This was the birth of her first heir, Elrya. She had four children with her husband, the Queen’s Consort, Odyneus Kaar, but they were all male and bound to lives of submission and servitude. In Chrone- as in Varrasia- only the strong ruled. The difference between them was that the Chronian people were descended from a female warrior race 1,000 years old, where the men were weak and fragile.
Over time, the countless generations training for war and fighting had created a battle-hardened monstrosity. A society in which women pillaged and plundered, invading countless islands in their vicinity, bleeding the land dry in order to obtain wealth and food for their insatiable hunger, and the men remained at home, raising their children. But the height of their gluttony and vanity was epitomised in their Queen: the embodiment of sin and debauchery. She ate and drank herself into a grotesque abomination, slept with countless men besides her faithful husband only to leave them- even having some killed so no other women would ever touch them.
The celebration today was supposedly to mark the birth of the Crown-Princess, but was actually an excuse to make up for all the alcohol Helsifer had missed out on over the past nine months. When her advisor had warned her of the dangers of drinking during pregnancy, she had gone into a rage and stabbed his right eye with her thumb, half-blinding him forever. It seemed, however, that her body listened where her mind had not. The taste of wine and beer went toxic on her tongue and she gave up drinking for the remainder of her pregnancy. But now, two weeks after the birth of her daughter, her tongue turned back to its perverted, ravenous taste.
Somehow though, despite her great size and disgusting lifestyle, Helsifer was still one of the greatest warriors in Chrone. On the battlefield, the mace and chain she wielded became a whirlwind of blood and death and her strength was unparalleled even in her greatest commanders. The last time she fought one of the rebellious island states, it was rumoured that she tore a woman’s head from her shoulders using nothing but her bare hands. More accurate reports, however, mention that she had already bludgeoned through half her neck with her terrifying mace. Magic, on the other hand, could not be found in her or any of her warriors. For some reason, the Great Power chose not to lend itself to the Chronian race, and it was because of this that Crucius Thorne had decided they must be eradicated. The God of Death favoured only the strong, and Thorne’s power convinced him of his self-righteous indignation; the barbarians must be slaughtered no matter the cost. Their people must be liberated from the oppressive rule of their grotesque leaders. They were heathens. They worshipped a god of their own making, an idol of the moon they believed granted them fertility and protection. Instead, it would grant them only death.
A scout burst in through the doors of the hall and signalled the musicians to halt so that a message could be announced to the Queen. All eyes turned and silence echoed through the room. “Speak!” Came Helsifer’s deep, authoritative voice, cutting through the hall in disgust that her drinking had been interrupted.
“A Varrasian fleet has attacked. They sailed to Galantine and they…” she hesitated, unsure how to describe what she had seen that horrifying night, “They destroyed the Castle, my Queen. At least 10,000 Varrasian soldiers have invaded our lands. They’re using Galant Bay as an outpost to mount the full invasion. More ships are coming in every hour carrying more and more men. I- I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Silence again filled the hall. This was unheard of- invasion? Who would dare invade Chrone, and worse still, who could succeed? The Varrasians were feared across the world since Thorne’s conquest of Arkathor two years earlier, but no one believed he would be capable of mounting an attack across the Isonian Sea. No outsider had set foot in Chrone in a thousand years and now an army was on their shore! The Queen was incensed, outraged, but deep beneath her anger and fury was something she had never felt before. As she looked towards her crying daughter beside her, she felt something haunting. A great, aching terror that threatened to overwhelm her.
Gathering what strength she could, she stood and roared to the scout, “How? I want a full report of the invasion! I want our armies gathered! I want all the coastal cities to double their patrols-” She paused, remembering what the scout had said. “What do you mean, they destroyed the castle?” All eyes once again turned to the scout in quiet dread.
“Th- They burnt it, my Queen. No one knows how. Before the ships were even in the bay the castle was broken in two by some terrible black magic. We had no chance. We-” She stopped before she could say we have no chance. Although Helsifer seemed to sense where her words had been headed. Cold and indignant, she went silent, in awe of the terrible description. Magic capable of breaking a castle in half! She had never heard of such a thing. The only magic in Chrone was primitive alchemy and potion-making held by a select few men, most of whom had been executed. Nothing like this. That same terror she had felt before tore its way through her heart. She was going to die. But she was going to kill as many people as she could before that happened.
***
Arkham Vex sat at the table of the Council of Grandmages, his hand on the Grand Sceptre, looking across to the others. He was old, 184 years old, but he had used magic to sustain his decaying form and prolong his life. He was still the most experienced Grandmage, and in his hundred years as Archmage, he had seen enough for twenty lifetimes. His power, however, was waning, and subduing the ever-growing fire and fury of Crucius Thorne was proving to be difficult. The attack against Arkathor had been an unprovoked act of aggression, and the war that followed had led to the death of countless innocents. Thorne, however, had been shrewd and efficient, claiming the reason for his invasion was that the Arkathi had secretly been taking slaves and forcing them to work in their mines to increase their yield and boost their economy. Atrocious as this was, it was not for Varrasia to intervene. They should have waited and observed, not decided to take the fate of the country into their own hands as Thorne had done. Their Gift was not for conquest, only for subtle, diligent manipulation to keep the world from Chaos.
Or so he thought…
Thorne’s ruthlessly efficient campaign against Arkathor had wiped out their resistance within the year, and Thorne had even spared their king, keeping him as a puppet ruler to satisfy the people and so that an experienced leader remained in charge of the vastly complicated economic empire. And in the two years since, the economy has only grown, the people live better lives, slavery has been eradicated, and t
he Varrasian Isles now have access to an empire of almost unfathomable wealth. Many of the other mages were on Thorne’s side, saying that they needed to change their stance, take a more active role in shaping Visyria. But Arkham Vex remained faithful to the Power. He understood its great, terrible will. He knew it was only given to serve, not to take; to shape, but not to instigate change; to manipulate, but never to force. And he was going to remind the council of this.
“Mages,” He began, in a weak, old voice, weary with pain and strife and exhaustion, “We must act. Thorne is out of control. He has no respect for the great traditions of our order and his insatiable appetite for destruction will plunge the world into Chaos. His reckless disregard for the principles we teach, the order we impose, the purpose we serve, will bring about the death of our most Holy order. His arrogance, his pride and vanity; his ruthlessness, his merciless rage and ter-”
“The order must die.” Said Caecilius Thar, his powerful, intelligent voice cutting through the ancient man’s dreary monotone. It was well known that Thorne had been a pupil of Caecilius, whose ideals were often questioned by the other mages as radical and even abhorrent. Eyes turned towards him, looking for an explanation. “Our order has sat. Nothing else. Just sat by, looking on at a falling world. As the Chaos overwhelms it, breaks it apart, corrupts its very soul, we have sat and talked and done nothing. The truth of our purpose, Archmage, has been lost in the years of your fruitless lead. Your experience, your wisdom, is like a library gathering dust. Looked at but never used. Admired- nothing more.” Arkham felt rage building in him. This was too far, even for Caecilius. Insulting an Archmage was unforgivable and yet he carried on as if he had not given it a moment’s thought, “Thorne has given us an example of the power we truly possess. Power to build empires or bury them in the sand. Power to keep the world in a permanent harmony, to extinguish Chaos and bring about an everlasting world order. In seven years on the Mages’ Council, he has accomplished more than any Archmage in a hundred years of service. His power is unrivalled. You know, Archmage, that our God will only respect true, raw power. Thorne knows this, and a new order must be reborn to serve this truth. You have forgotten the truth of God and must be reminded!” With this Caecilius raised his hand and sent a wave of shadow crashing into Arkham, but the other mages quickly restrained him; he let them. He had only intended to prove a point. After years of old age, devoting magic to self-preservation rather than letting another take the Sceptre, Arkham Vex had let weakness take a hold in the council.
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