by Simon Lister
Shadow Lands
Book One
by
Simon Lister
Copyright © Simon Lister
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it was published and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
The moral right of Simon Lister to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted.
Cover photo/design © S Lister
Shadow Lands printed version ISBN: 1-897312-62-8
Causeway printed version ISBN: 1-897312-63-6
Haven printed version ISBN: 1-897312-64-4
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rick who co-wrote the earlier Shadow Land stories when we were kids and who helped editorially in these later versions. Thanks also to: Anna and Stan for Loch Tay. Tish and Bren for all the support and encouragement, and Mark too, who was there with the original inspiration back when I was doing a primary school essay, and of course my parents. Paul Biggs and Jenny Grewal for the valuable feedback, and Steve Forrow for the re-reading, critical assessments and editorial input.
Any errors that remain are, of course, solely of my own doing.
Simon Lister was born in Twyford and raised in Berkshire. He studied and lived in London for several years before travelling and working around the world. He now lives and writes on the North shore of Loch Tay. His Arthurian saga (so far) comprises of
Shadow Lands, Causeway and Haven.
For information on the books in this series
please visit:
www.simonlister.co.uk
Shadow Lands
Preface
Shadow Lands is set in a new Dark Age, thousands of years after a catastrophic event, where the world no longer revolves on its axis and where summer is six months of daylight, and winter six months of darkness.
Everything that we are familiar with in the modern world was lost in the disaster and those few who survived grew to live much as people did in 5th Century Britain with the ruins of ancient cities being no more to them than the evidence of ancient myths.
The catastrophe that unleashed such chaos, and brought Mankind to the brink of extinction, also released Merdynn from his long spellbound imprisonment and for millennia he struggled to help keep the flame of Man alive while he searched for the ancient bloodline of legend.
As the increasing threat to Britain grew he despaired of ever finding the link to the past until the day he came across the remains of a
raided village.
There were only two survivors, a boy and a girl.
Forty years later Britain stands against the darkness and that boy now leads the strongest war band in Britain.
His name is Arthur.
And war is sweeping out of the East.
The legend of Arthur continues
Characters
The Wessex
Arthur – Warlord of Wessex
Merdynn – Counsellor to King Maldred
Ruadan – Arthur’s second-in-command and brother to Ceinwen
Trevenna (f) – Arthur’s sister, married to Cei and a warrior in the Anglian war band
Ceinwen (f) – healer and ex-tracker for the Wessex war band, sister to Ruadan
Morgund – Captain in the Wessex war band
Mar’h - Captain in the Wessex war band
Balor – Wessex warrior
Morveren (f) – Wessex warrior
Ethain – Wessex warrior
Cael – Wessex warrior
Tomas – Wessex warrior, married to Elowen
Elowen (f) – Wessex warrior, married to Tomas
Tamsyn (f) – Wessex warrior, sister to Talan
Talan – Wessex warrior, brother to Tamsyn
Llud – Wessex warrior
Laethrig – the Wessex Blacksmith
Kenwyn – Wessex Chieftain
The Anglians
Cei – Anglian Warlord, childhood friend to Arthur and married to Arthur’s sister, Trevenna
Hengest – Cei’s second-in-command, son to Aelfhelm
Cerdic – Anglian warrior
Aelfhelm – Anglian warrior, father to Hengest
Elwyn – Anglian warrior and boat captain
Aylydd (f) – Anglian warrior and boat captain
Lissa – Anglian warrior and boat captain
Leah (f) – Anglian warrior
Saewulf – Anglian warrior
Cuthwin – Anglian warrior
Berwyn – Anglian warrior
Roswitha (f) – Anglian warrior
Herewulf – Anglian warrior
Osla – Anglian warrior
Wolfestan – Anglian warrior, brother to Elfida
Elfida (f) – Anglian warrior, sister to Wolfestan
Godhelm – Anglian warrior
Thruidred – Anglian warrior
Wayland – Anglian warrior
Ranulf – Anglian warrior
Leofrun (f) – Anglian warrior
Aelfric – Anglian youth
Henna (f) – Anglian healer
Aelle – Anglian Chieftain
The Mercians
Maldred – King of the southern tribes
Gereint – Mercian Warlord, brother to Glore
Glore – Mercian warrior, brother to Gereint
Dystran – Mercian warrior
Unna (f) – Harbour master of the Haven
The Uathach
Ablach – Uathach Chieftain of the lands to the North of Anglia, father to Gwyna
Gwyna (f) – Uathach warrior, daughter to Ablach
Ruraidh – Uathach Captain
Hund – Uathach Chieftain of the lands to the North of Mercia
Benoc – Uathach Chieftain of the lands to the far north
The Cithol
Venning – Cithol Lord and ruler of the Veiled City, father to Fin Seren
Kane – Commander of the Veiled City
Fin Seren (f) – daughter and heir to Lord Venning
Terrill – Captain of the Cithol
The Bretons
Bran – Chieftain of the Bretons
Cardell (f) – Advisor to Bran
Charljenka (f) - Breton child
Nialgrada – Breton child
Chapter One
Winter was coming and with it the long darkness. Andala could feel it; a sharper edge to the late autumn air as he stood on the village wall scanning the hillside. His shadow stretched out across the long grass, cast by the low sun that hung above the eastern horizon. Soon the sun would set and the land would be abandoned to the darkness until it returned once more in the spring. He stared out across the western valley floor searching for any sign of the overdue Anglian war band that was to escort them over the Causeway to Britain on the first leg of their long journey to the Western Lands.
He switched his gaze back to the hillside trying to quell the foreboding sense that something was wrong. His disquiet had been gradually deepening over the last few months. There had been no single event to trigger or warrant alarm but the steady accumulation of unexplained occurrences had brought him to the point where he would be glad to leave behind his responsibilities to his village, if only for the six months of winter darkness. With nothing definite to point at he had kept his unease from everyone but his wife, Ceinwen, who had been relieved to discover she wasn’t the only one feeling that something was amiss.
He tried to clear his mind and turned his gaze back to the hillside to resume his search but it was another long hour before he fina
lly saw the lone rider approaching.
The horseman was picking his way down the steep slope towards the river that flowed lazily from the long, sinuous lake that the village was perched beside. The horse under him skittered on some loose scree and slid forward, scrabbling to find a firmer footing. The rider jumped off and looked to be cursing the horse. Andala recognised the horseman with a sudden stab of apprehension and turned around anxiously to look at the ordered chaos within the village below him.
Every year, as the sun set in the East, the villages on this side of the Causeway and those on the other side in southern Britain prepared for the journey to the Haven and the crossing of the Western Seas. This perennial migration cut the months of winter darkness down to three and allowed for a short but critical growing season in the Western Lands. Not everyone travelled on to the lands across the sea, some would remain in either Caer Sulis or the Haven, the two main towns of Britain, but no one stayed behind to endure the harsh winter in their own village.
As head of the village of Branque, the largest village south of the Belgae lands, the unenviable task of ordering the local communities fell to Andala. Had one of his sons lived to come of age then he would have gladly passed on the responsibility some years ago despite only being in middle years himself. He had always said to his wife that at the first signs of grey in his hair he would pass on the leadership of the village and spend his days out on the lake with a fishing line but his hair had turned gradually from brown to grey and then prematurely from grey to white, and his fishing line had stayed coiled up in his roundhouse by the lakeshore.
Perhaps next year, he mused, his daughter Caja would be able to shoulder at least some of the responsibility. He looked for her and spotted her easily enough, not so much because of her long red hair but because she was always at the centre of any activity. Andala raised an arm and called out to her, ‘Caja! Rider across the river!’
She looked around to see where the call had come from and saw her father on the stockade wall. ‘Who is it?’ she called back.
‘Come see for yourself!’
She quickly finished her suggestions for tying down the covers for the wain in a burst of hurried commands and rushed towards the steps at the base of the stockade wall. The wain master looked after her with teeth clenched and lips tight together. Breward, the awkward youth standing next to him, laughed and gave him a gentle push, ‘Go on Jac, say it. She won’t hear you and I won’t tell.’
Jac relaxed and smiled, ‘No. She’s only trying to help.’
‘Only trying, you mean,’ Breward said as he finished tying off the ropes and added, ‘She’s nervous about the journey west.’
‘My gods, who isn’t?’ the older man muttered.
‘I hate this time of year.’
‘It’ll seem better tonight when we start on the harvest wine,’ Jac pointed out.
‘I suppose so. It doesn’t seem like a year has passed does it?’ Breward asked, thinking happily about how he and Caja had increasingly spent more time together over the last year.
They both moved on to the next wain and threw the cover across the top. Breward collected up the ropes then pointed towards the sun that hung low on the eastern horizon and answered his own question, ‘And yet, there’s the proof.’
‘Do you think it’s Cei coming?’ Jac asked innocently, nodding his head to where Andala stood watching the approaching rider. Breward just gave him a sour look in reply. Caja was not a girl to keep her feelings hidden and the whole village knew of her youthful infatuation with the Anglian Warlord. Indeed, it was a source of no little amusement - most of which was aimed directly at her more plausible, if less heroic, suitor.
Caja remembered her composure and climbed the steps up the stockade wall more slowly, not wanting her father to see her obvious excitement. Warriors always escorted the villagers on their yearly journeys to and from the Haven and Caja had become hopelessly infatuated with Cei, the easy natured Anglian Warlord, during the last such journey. She knew it was unlikely that Cei would be among the escort this time but she could not stop herself from hoping and in any case, the prospect of meeting and riding with the proud and strutting warriors of Britain was cause enough for excitement. By the time she got to the top Andala was grinning broadly at her.
He had married Ceinwen a year after his first wife had died in childbirth; the child, a son, had died a week later – his second son to have died within weeks of being born. Ceinwen, like many others, was unable to have children but Andala had fallen in love with her and insisted that her inability to have children was no obstacle. There had been those who had frowned upon a marriage based on such incompatibility believing that it was Andala’s duty to seek out a woman who could bear children with him but he had overridden their objections and most people had realised that Andala and Ceinwen needed each other, if for quite differing reasons. Fate gave them a daughter three years later when an Anglian warrior’s wife died in childbirth leaving the infant motherless and the father with little inclination to raise her. Cei had taken the child to them and they had named her Caja and raised her as if she were their own. Even having one child was more than most couples were blessed with and Andala had doted on her; his love for her was only matched by his pride in her. He smiled at the irony that Caja should have become infatuated with the man who had brought her to them so many years ago.
‘Wipe that knowing smirk off your face, father, and tell me who it is.’
The rider had nearly reached the bottom of the slope but he still seemed to be vilifying the horse.
‘I think he’s having words with his horse.’
Caja turned and tugged at his arm, ‘Tell me!’
‘Though the horse seems remarkably unconcerned.’
Caja cursed in frustration.
Andala casually clipped her on the back of the head, ‘That’s no way to talk, young girl.’
‘Sorry, father,’ Caja replied as she attempted to straighten out her unruly mane of hair, ‘but you know I can’t see that distance!’
‘Well then, it looks like Arthur of the Wessex war band.’ The levity had vanished from his voice and Caja’s face fell.
‘Oh,’ she said, her buoyant mood collapsing immediately. ‘Why Arthur?’ she asked, puzzled.
Andala was asking himself the very same question.
‘Well, I’d better warn the others,’ Caja said, slightly concerned by the look on her father’s face.
‘And you’d better let your mother know first,’ he said trying too hard to sound off-hand.
She climbed back down feeling both deflated and a little uneasy, her previous excitement firmly replaced by a nagging worry that perhaps she had overlooked some essential detail in the preparation for the journey west; a detail, she thought, that the Wessex Warlord would undoubtedly spot immediately.
Andala watched her retrace her steps back past Jac and Breward and he noticed their different glances. Jac braced as if expecting another outburst from her and relaxed once she was past, while Breward’s eyes followed her until she entered the village’s main hall. Caja was well aware of his gaze. Breward glanced up to where Andala was watching him and guiltily busied himself with some unnecessary re-positioning of ropes and ties. Andala made a mental note to watch Breward during the journey west – Caja’s harmless fascination with Cei was one thing but the growing bond between his daughter and young Breward was another altogether. He turned his attention back to the rider who was walking his horse towards the fording point on the river. It was unmistakably Arthur.
Taking a deep breath Andala started to climb down from the wall. He surveyed the scene before him and thanked the gods that the weather had remained dry. The compound seemed to be under a permanent haze of dust but that was infinitely preferable to the mud and standing water of the previous year when the rains had made the whole process almost impossible. Order was definitely coming out of the chaos – twenty-five wains, more or less secured and all fully loaded with maize, corn, vegetables and the vari
ous fruits of the summer harvest. The cattle, sheep and goats were paddocked inside the stockade wall and ready for the journey, their noise and smell competing with those of the people crammed too tightly into the confines of the village in preparation for the migration.
Another twenty wains were heaped with feed for the animals. Ten more were packed with dried meats and smoked fish; two others had cages of hens piled high and still more were packed with the belongings from the other four villages that had gathered here. A few remained empty to be loaded at the last minute with his own village’s belongings.
As in the other settlements to the North, and across the Causeway in Britain, villagers were collecting their harvests and preparing to abandon their homes as the summer sun set in the East heralding the onset of the long night of winter. They would return with the rising sun in the spring, once the snows and deep ice had thawed and melted, to start the whole cycle all over again. We do it every year and yet it never seems to get any easier, Andala thought to himself as he made his way out of the East Gate to meet Arthur.
Behind him word was spreading that the Wessex Warlord himself was across the river and was going to lead them across the Causeway and west. Andala could feel a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the busy villagers behind him. The boisterous levity of the hectic last few days seemed to be dissipating quicker than the rising smoke from the main hall. Andala forced himself to pick up his pace. Arthur was already crossing the ford. He decided to stop and wait for him. He had met Arthur twice before in person, though he had seen him twice each year for as long as he could remember, always at Caer Sulis in the West during the Gathering of the Tribes at Lughnasa, the harvest festival, and at Imbolc, the festival for the Wakening of the Sun.