by JW Webb
The Glass Throne
J. W. Webb
Copyright 2017 J.W. Webb
J.W. Webb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author to this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.
Acknowledgement for:
Susan Bentley, for editing
Roger Garland, for the illustrations
Ravven, for cover design www.ravven.com
Debbi Stocco, for book design MyBookDesigner.com
Julia Gibbs, for proofreading @ProofreadJulia
ISBN 13: 978-0-9863507-9-5 (Paperback)
ISBN 13: 978-0-9863507-8-8 (Digital)
For Captain John Gold Borden, dearest friend and fellow New South Wales Beer Drinking Champion.
‘May the wind fill your sails and your course run true...’
Part One | The High Wall
Chapter 1
The Rider
The Ptarni Plains surrounded both rider and horse, a vast expanse of featureless grey. No solitary tree or hillock broke the monotony, just mile upon mile of tall grasses, swaying and sighing, as the bitter wind carried with it the fresh promise of snow. A desolate landscape, its only occupants were wild birds and prowling beasts, and the odd thin river struggling through. Men said the Ptarni Plains were endless, or that nothing but void lay at the other side.
Olen knew better. He alone of the Rorshai people had seen the other side. A journey of many days - during which he nearly starved - had revealed dark mountains, and high amongst them an alien city high in the clouds. Olen had told no one of his journey or the arduous task he had set upon himself after taking advice from the Seeress of Silent Mountain. She had warned so long of the coming war.
Four weeks ago, he’d ridden to Silent Mountain, climbed the long-winding, wind-freezing stairs, and then entered the horse-skull adorned cave that led to her silent chamber. Once there, he had lain with her, as was expected, paying her price for counsel and warning. No one knew her age, though they said she was around in his grandsire’s day. The Seeress appeared a woman in her forties, wild-haired and dark of eye, her body sharp and lean. Her voice was husky with the potions she took to aid her inner vision.
“What brings you here, Kaanson?” she had asked Olen, knowing well the answer, her smile teasing him and long fingernails tracing a thin line of blood down his cheek. “Are the dreams taking shape inside your head?” She smiled as she loosened the drawstrings of his breeches.
“The dreams are stronger, wise one,” Olen had replied, and after they were done, he told her of his nightly visions. Dreams of war and dreams of blood. Nightmares where dark silent creatures stirred in empty tombs. And the stranger, the image in the water. The harbinger of war. A warrior, scarred of face, across his back a huge sword and in his eyes intense purpose.
“The fulcrum, yes, I’ve seen him too.” The Seeress crouched by the fire. She’d thrown a cloak over her nakedness to shield herself from the chill. She held something in her left hand. Olen couldn’t see what it was. He gasped as she tossed it into the fire and the flames roared and crackled with sudden urgent life.
“He is coming soon,” the Seeress told Olen. “He and another, arriving from the south. They bring with them the first snows of winter. They also bring death.”
“What must I do?”
“You must ride south, Olen of the Yellow Clan. But before that you must ride east.”
“East? I don’t understand. That way lies only grasses and wind and the edge of the world.”
“Not so.” The Seeress tossed another tiny object into the fire, and again the flames surged and fizzed. “Beyond the plains are mountains and past those, wide fertile lands where men and women dwell, and fight and screw and starve and hunt, much like any other land. The closest of these lands is called Ptarni, the furthermost Shen. There are others, but they don’t concern us. Ptarni does. Those ruling that land have long had their eyes on the Four Kingdoms.”
“I have heard of Ptarni of course, but I thought it myth. A place of whimsical fancies, a city in the clouds lost to dream and mystery.” The Seeress smiled her secret smile. Her teeth were perfect, though her eyes were shadowed with darker purpose. She turned toward him, her nakedness revealed again. Despite who she was, Olen felt his loins stir anew.
“You’ve seen the riders out on the plains? Where do you think they come from, fool?” The Seeress’s laugh was cold and brittle, like breaking ice on a thawing lake. Her eyes were charcoal daggers, sardonic and knowing.
“There are many lands both north and south; perhaps those riders are from these.” Olen struggled to make his point. “We Rorshai watch over the grasslands in constant vigilance. I myself have seen strange horsemen watching from afar. I deemed them merchants, or else maybe scouts from Permio, or Raleen across the mountains.”
“Raleen across the mountains?” The Seeress cackled and rounded on him, pulling Olen toward her and kissing his lips hungrily. The need was upon her again, but Olen wanted answers. He pulled away and wiped her spittle from his mouth. She glared at him in frosty silence.
“I have been out on the steppes, as far as any of our people. I once rode east for three long days, seeing nothing but wind, eagle, and sky. An empty land I deemed it.”
“You need to travel for thirty days. Then you’ll see the mountains, Olen of the Yellow Clan. Then you’ll see the city in the clouds.” She reached forward smiling again. “Come fill me again with your urgent seed, then shall I tell all I know of the threat in the east.” And so Olen had loved her again, hard and fast until she yelled out his name in sated rapture. As he stood above her, donning his garments in watchful silence, the Seeress had crouched close to the fire, whispering words and tossing rune charms into its hissing midst.
At last she had stopped, and as Olen stood waiting at her cave’s entrance, the Seeress had stood before him naked and bleeding. It was then that she told him what he must do.
That had been a month ago.
And he’d done her bidding. Ridden mile upon wind-tossed mile, over grasslands, low hills, and craggy slopes. Passing wind-torn trees and fording icy creeks that hurried to the gods only knew where. On the thirtieth day, Olen had reined in, gasping at the mountains revealed by winter dawn. Tall and stark they stood, and in their midst a golden city.
Ptarni—the fabled realm. Olen had ridden closer throughout that day. He’d stopped at the west bank of a huge brown river, its mile-wide waters sluggish, the banks rimed with ice. In the distance, that golden city glimmered some twenty miles ahead, appearing to float in the mist surrounding the mountains.
Olen gazed north along the river. A mile or so that way, a great bend stole the river from his gaze, its midst lost to willow and grasses. He turned south. Here the river flowed more or less straight. Olen shielded his eyes and stared harder along its banks. He saw shingle banks and eyots, where lone cranes stood as patient sentinels. Beyond the islands and birds, Olen could just make out the square shapes of what looked to be buildings on his side of the river.
Intrigued, Olen guided Loroshai - his black stallion—southward along the banks until the buildings revealed themselves alongside a road, a road leading west away from the river and vanishing into the vastness of the plains.
Olen urged Loroshai forward until he reached the road. To his right the building loomed high. A great storehouse it appeared. There was no one around, so Olen slid from Loroshai’s saddle and tied the beast to a stunted tree. Silent—as only his people can be - Olen stole close to the buil
ding. A single door waited ajar.
He ventured within, only now realising just how huge this building was. Huge and empty. But Olen could see where wains and carts had been stowed, as there were wheel tracks strewn all across the cobbled floor of the building. He wandered through, seeing stables and rooms with hooks and racks where tools or weapons must have been stowed.
For what purpose? Olen guessed he already knew the answer to that. Grim-faced he left the building behind, and remounting Loroshai, he urged the horse to follow the road into the sighing maze of grasses ahead.
For five days Olen followed that track. It was pitted and churned by wheel and hoof, evidence that a large force company had passed this way recently. As night fell, the track faded into the gloom of a steep ravine. Olen chose that moment to take shelter and rest beneath a quiet cluster of trees a half-mile ahead of the ravine.
He woke to the distant grumble and grind of metal on stone. Olen rolled free of his blanket and reached up to Loroshai’s saddle, where he retrieved his horn bow and a half dozen arrows; his golden-hilted scimitar was already strapped to his waist. Rorshai riders seldom parted with their swords.
He spoke a few cool words to Loroshai and then silently, and painstakingly slow, crept and crawled closer to the ravine. Behind him the sun rose glorious and bright. The creaking grew louder, announcing wagons on the move, and Olen could hear voices too. Guttural accents speaking a tongue he didn’t understand. Ptarnians no doubt.
Olen reached the point where the track channeled into the ridge. Here he left it and took to scaling the sharp rise on the left. Half an hour later, he crested that shale slope and gazed down in astonishment at the sight greeting him below.
An army was camped in the wedge between the hills. Down there a stream glittered in the morning sun; on either side were scattered bushes and clumps of stunted trees. Amongst these and as far as his eyes could see along the ravine, Olen saw men, horses, and carts and wagons of all sizes and construction.
He tried to count the wagons but there were too many. They filled the deep cut of the ravine, spanning its fifty-feet-wide basin for at least a mile until a shoulder of rock thrust across his vision and Olen could see it no longer. Instead he focussed on the men, antlike and scurrying to and fro below.
They were strange to behold. To his Rorshai eyes they appeared clumsy and awkward, weighed down by heavy plate armour of various colour and style. Their faces were mostly hidden behind chained masks hanging from the pointed helms they wore. Occasionally a man would doff his helm to wash his face in the stream, or else wipe sweat from his forehead, revealing hard faces, scarred and swarthy. Despite their apparent awkwardness, these were professional warriors.
For almost two hours Olen crouched in discomfort, watching and listening as the strange men shouted and yelled at each other and the army broke camp and made ready to move. In the distance he could see the wagons already rolling out of view. There must have been over a thousand. A thousand wains loaded with weapons, supplies, food, and ale—all the things needed by an army on the march.
He watched as the nearest soldiers saddled their horses whilst the wagon riders whooped and hollered their oxen and ponies into noisy movement. Another hour passed as the winter sun climbed the ridge behind him. Olen waited until the last soldier had vacated the ravine’s valley. Then he stood in one fluid motion, easing the cramp in his legs.
He needed to warn his people—and fast. Olen returned to the spot where Loroshai waited in the sunshine. He saddled and mounted the horse and bid him trot northwards along the edge of the ridges away from the ravine. After several miles the terrain flattened out, returning to the familiar carpet of blue-grey grasses and pale winter sky.
Olen turned west. He was well north of the host by now. He steered Loroshai closer and soon spotted the distant, endless train of wagons wending across the steppe lands. Again he tried to count their number but it was impossible. At least they were moving slowly; Olen guessed it would take them many weeks to reach Rorshai. With that last thought in mind, the lone rider spurred his war beast to quicken his trot. Olen was desperate to get back, but he must needs pace himself. Loroshai was one of the finest horses owned by the Yellow Clan, but even he needed rest and breaks from the arduous journey ahead. It had taken Olen thirty days to reach the foreign river. It took him twenty-three to return.
During that entire journey, the words of the Seeress echoed through his head. “He is coming via a dark road. You must be ready! He is the harbinger and the war cannot be won without him.”
“How will I know him?” Olen had asked her.
“By the length of his sword and the smell of destiny that surrounds him,” she had answered. And so Olen rode.
***
Rogan froze as he saw the distant trail of dust rising up to greet the afternoon. Could it be? Then he smiled, recognising the rider as their own beloved Olen, his war chief and eldest son of the Yellow Clan, or the Tcunkai (thinkers), as Olen’s father the Kaan liked to call them.
“Teret! Your brother comes and he looks in bad need of ale!” Rogan yelled laughing at a dark-eyed woman who was crouched behind him in the stockade, milking a cow’s teats into a wooden bucket. The woman stood, wiped her comely face with a sleeve and after hurdling the fence came and stood beside Rogan. Teret’s face lit up when she saw her eldest brother guide his lathered steed into the corral.
“Brother! We feared you were lost! It’s almost two months since anyone has seen you. Where have you been?” Teret ran forward to hug Olen as he slipped exhausted from his saddle. The smile fled from her face when she saw the worm of worry eating at his brow.
“What is it? What have you seen?” Teret’s dark eyes reflected his worry as she threw her brown arms around her brother, noting how weak and thin he appeared. “You need rest,” she told him.
“There is no time!” Olen shoved his sister back. “Take care of Loroshai, Teret. He needs sustenance and rest—and lots of water. We ride out on the morrow!” Teret made to question her brother but his bleak gaze left the question in her mouth. Obeying, she turned and led the big horse towards the stables behind the homestead.
Olen turned to Rogan.
“Summon the clan! We fare south in the morning.”
“South?” Rogan scratched an ear. “That’s Anchai country—they’ll not like us trespassing.” The Anchai were known as the Red Clan, due to their love of blood sports and troublesome nature. They kept themselves aloof from the other tribes. The Anchai had settled the land north of the great arm of mountain that thrust east from the High Wall ranges and marked the southern borders of Rorshai. “Why south?” Rogan pressed.
“Because that’s the direction he’ll be coming.” Olen thanked a youth who had just appeared with a large flask of ale. He downed the flask and sent the boy for another. “From the mountains,” Olen added—as though that explained everything.
“Who?” Rogan’s eyes were saucers. No one came from the mountains these days. There was rumoured a pass but the Rorshai steered clear of that region—even the Anchai. Word was that secret way beneath the mountains was haunted by an unknown terror.
That evening Olen spoke before his father, the Kaan, and the thirty war chiefs of his clan. Olen told them of his dreams, his journey to see the Seeress (many paled hearing this), and the long hard trek across the steppe lands. Nobody spoke whilst Olen recounted what he had witnessed, first from the river and later looking down into that ravine. Olen was respected here. Even the Kaan had learned to listen to his eldest boy. But it wasn’t just that. Olen had the Dreaming.
“War is coming,” Olen told them. “A pivotal strife unlike any other. The clans must be summoned at the Delve!”
“Good luck with that,” wry Rogan had muttered under his breath. Olen’s word might be respected by his own clan, but the shamans and head clan of the Delve were unlikely to be affected by his passionate words. Moreover, they probably wouldn’t even listen.
“This stranger? The harbinger of war?” The
Kaan leaned forward in his heavy chair and stared deeply into the fiery blue of his eldest son’s eyes. “What did the Seeress say about him?”
“That he comes from the southlands, but he’s no southerner. And that he brings with him a destiny that even he cannot comprehend. And hinted he was a Longswordsman and man of few words. He journeys with another—a younger brighter soul.”
“A name?”
“Corin an Fol.”
Early next morning, Olen of the Yellow Clan led his hundred horsemen south toward Anchai country. They passed the Red Clan’s lands during the starry dark of night, thus avoiding certain conflict. Two days later, the hundred reached the folds of a mountain leading to a crack in the rock from which darkness yawned like a smoky mouth.
The hidden pass. Or the haunted pass, as most there liked to call it. There they fixed camp, waiting until the appointed moment when the stranger would appear. In his tent, Olen was late to sleep. Sometime ere morning he must have dozed, only to wake minutes later to the sound of urgent thunder rolling out across the grasslands far to the east.
On instinct, Olen rolled out of his blanket and eased his way out of the tent. Away east the thunder growled and boomed like prophesy. Olen nodded in silence to the watchmen posted at the edge of their camp. Uneasy, they watched their leader stride off into the gloom. Olen walked toward the rolling doom of thunder. A mile away from their camp were only open sighing grasses and a brittle breeze lifting the long shadow of his untamed hair.
It was then that Olen saw Him. The owner of the thunder. Far out across the plains He strode, a giant figure, eyes blazing and dark cloak billowing like a cloud behind Him. For an icy instant Olen felt that heavy gaze fall upon him. Then the giant was gone, storming off into the distance. Olen paled; it did not bode well to see Borian the Wind God whilst alone in the night.