Whispers of War: The War for the North: Book One

by Sean Rodden

  And he sang of Yllufarr, Prince and Sun Lord, returning to battle alone and without answer from Sammayal, come to find his Knights slaughtered and utterly destroyed beneath the unholy might of Ulviathon and its horrid demon-spawn.

  And then did the Prince’s voice thicken with rage and wrath, and his light dimmed, darkened, and the stone walls of Doras Serrin took a crimson sheen as though the shining of the moon had fallen upon a world awash with blood.

  Yllufarr sang of the fallen Hiath become the demon-god that the Athair called Ulviathon, the great beast that had haunted and hunted the eastern seas of First Earth, voraciously preying on ocean creatures and mariners and even its own twisted spawn. He sang of the dark and potent sorcery of Zan-zurak summoning Ulviathon to the Angar ban Gan Gebbernindh, of the beast crashing into battle against the Sun Knights of Yllufarr with countless thousands of ulviathoi. Sang of the doom and ruin the demon and its spawn wreaked there. Of the seven hundred Sun Knights that fell there, ripped and rended and trampled into the mire of their own blood.

  And he sang the name of each Sun Knight lost, one by one by one by one by one...

  Cold tears streamed down Eldurion’s cracked cheeks.

  Rundul watched the night.

  Yllufarr sang of the earth erupting and of the coming of the mighty Daradur to Gan Gebbernin. He sang of the scattering of the shrieking ulviathoi. Sang of their slaughter under the axes and hammers and mighty mauls of the Stone Lords. Of the great demon-god Ulviathon itself turning to flee before the power and might of that new enemy.

  And he sang of Yllufarr, the bereft and knightless Sun Lord, seeking and finding Ulviathon amidst the carnage and chaos of Gan Gebbernin, of the ringing challenge that burst from Athain Prince’s breast. He sang of Yllufarr, grim and glorious in his grief, standing alone before the monstrous Ulviathon, of the clash and clamour of the Angar ban Gan Gebbernindh receding as the two Immortals faced one another, the one as huge and black as a mountain of obsidian, the other a solitary sapling shining in its shadow. Sang of Yllufarr crying aloud in sorrow and rage as he sprang into battle, ablaze with Light, a long sword in one hand, a tall spear in the other. Of the ground quaking as the two fought, of the skies shaking to the roars of the demon, of the tears that spilled from the Sun Lord’s eyes as he dodged the talons and tail and teeth of the beast. He sang of the fires burning about the two combatants in their struggle, of the ebb and flow of the fight beneath sun and moon and sun again. Sang of the demon-god frothing in frustration for the fleetness of its foe, of the blows and thrusts of the Ath falling back from the steely hide of the beast in futility. Of a duel of might and muscle and magic that the Second Earth had seen neither before nor since.

  And then he sang of Yllufarr at long last launching his spear like a lance of lightning into the crimson orb of Ulviathon’s left eye, of his lithely leaping atop the gigantic beast and sinking his sword past scale into skull. Sang of Ulviathon shrieking, thrashing, threshing the air, throwing Yllufarr into the eldritch fires that burned where they fought. Of the beast fleeing the field, returning, it was said, to the distant seas, there to lie down and die.

  And lastly he sang of the stricken Prince coming in the aftermath of battle to stand before Sammayal, cursing the cowardice of the Unforgiven, calling them well-named and swearing that the deaths of his seven hundred were sins upon Sammayal’s craven soul that would never be absolved.

  And then a silence fell within Doras Serrin. The wights of night ceased their knocking as the hails softened to rain and the rain faded to fog. Even the gurgle of the bog quieted, as though the muds and sludges of the swamp slumbered at long last.

  “Thus is the Song of the Shaddathair sung among the Folk of Gavrayel,” sighed Yllufarr, Prince of the Neverborn. “The Unforgiven of Sammayal sing it otherwise.”

  Eldurion nodded slowly. Wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. Gathering himself, he stooped to retrieve his sword from the ground at his feet. When he straightened once more, his eyes were dry. He cocked his head to one side, harkening to sounds he did not, could not hear.

  “Do they sing still, Sun Lord?”

  Yllufarr shook his head.

  “Nay, friend Eldurion. The Unforgiven are silent. They have heard my song. They know I am here.”

  “Surely they were already aware. You have said as much.”

  Something like a smile curled Yllufarr’s fair lips.

  “They knew one of the Undying was come to Coldmire, but they would not have known me for myself, as I have remained cloaked and cowled, and my Light is dimmed. But now...Sammayal has heard my voice.”

  Rundul frowned deeply, and sparks crackled in his black gaze.

  “What have you done, Ath?” he growled.

  The Sun Lord shrugged.

  “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps overmuch.”

  The Darad muttered something as unintelligible as it was obscene, then resumed his stalwart vigil at the door of Doras Serrin.

  “Why, Sun Lord?” Eldurion’s voice was as oiled steel. “Why alert the Shaddathair to your presence here?”

  “Because we are in need of them,” the Ath answered simply.

  “In need?”

  “Verily, friend Eldurion. Coldmire is become an ocean of black-water and hungry muds, and we may progress no further. The lands north and east and south are drowned, and the way west is nearly so. Carricevan alone remains above the sludge. The rains have conquered all else.”

  “And you suppose the Shaddathair might guide us from this place?”

  The Prince of the Neverborn nodded.

  “How might they achieve this, Sun Lord? As you have said, Coldmire is a drowned thing.”

  A certain strangeness slid across the Prince’s fair features. “The Shaddathair are Coldmire, old friend”.

  “And why would these Unforgiven wish to aid us?”

  “They will want me removed from Coldmire. I remind them of their failings.” A pensive pause. “I am their shame.”

  Eldurion’s eyes became silvery slits in the dark of Doras Serrin.

  “And should they wish to rid themselves of you in ways other than guiding us from this place?”

  But before the Ath could answer, Rundul spoke gruffly from the aperture in the stone.

  “These Moor Walkers, Shaddathair, Unforgiven – whatever – they’re a lot like wraiths, right? More fog than form, things of shadow not substance.”

  “That is so, Darad,” replied the Prince of the Neverborn. “They have walked overlong in the Evvanin.”

  “And they wear no armour, bear no weapons, wear ragged raiment. Their beauty is lost, their strength is as withered as their limbs, and their only power over others now is fear – should one be inclined to fright.”

  “All true.”

  “And their lord,” continued Rundul, his voice a bestial growl, “this betrayer called Sammayal, he’s tall and dark and terrible to look upon.”

  The Sun Lord eyes glittered. “Indeed.”

  Eldurion frowned. “How do you know these things, Stone Lord?”

  “I know them, Fian, because I’m not blind.”

  And with no further explanation the Captain of the Wandering Guard hefted his war-axe and moved from Doras Serrin into the fog-fettered night on Carricevan.

  Eldurion directed an enquiring look toward Yllufarr and saw comprehension both brighten and shadow the glint in the Sun Lord’s colourless eyes.

  Spoke the Prince of the Neverborn:

  “Sammayal has come.”

  They were the Shaddathair. The Shadowfolk of Sammayal. They were the Unforgiven, those followers of fallen Asrayal whom so long ago had refused Gavrayel’s absolution. And they had wandered the wastes of Coldmire for centuries. They had borne woeful witness to the ruination of Eldagreen. They had shared its sorrow, had endured its pain. They who had once been Eldagreen were become Coldmire, sentient extensions of the moor’s own death-in-life existence. Such was their fate. Such was their doom.

  And this doom was now come to Doras Serrin on Carr
icevan.

  Neither Rundul nor Eldurion could ascertain the number of Shaddathair that were before them, so indistinguishable were the Unforgiven from the fogs and the mists of the marsh. But there must have been thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. They were as wraiths, formless but having form, half-shadows. And their collective essence twinkled with the gleams of little lights, like distant stars and suns, as though the Shaddathair were the very skies of night fallen to earth.

  Sammayal, Lord of the Unforgiven, towered tall and terrible before his phantasmal folk. His being was dark and ominous, like a thunderhead crackling with electrical antipathy. His countenance was cold, his lips thin and severe, his eyes white and baleful. Death itself was surely a warmer thing.

  “Why have you come, Prince Yllufarr?” Sammayal’s voice was almost lost among the resurgent seething sounds of Coldmire, so like was it to the wet vociferations of the bog.

  “I have come because I must,” replied the Sun Lord simply.

  So intent was Sammayal’s gaze upon Yllufarr that he seemed completely oblivious to the presence of the Darad and the Fian at the Athain Prince’s shoulders. The Sun Lord’s companions were not of the Undying. They were irrelevant, inconsequential. They mattered nothing.

  “And you have summoned me with my own people’s song, however ill-sung, also because you must?”

  Yllufarr nodded.

  Sammayal stared in spectral silence. The Shaddathair about him wavered like stilled whispers, mute phantoms aflutter in the fog.

  Then, “What must is so dire that you deign to summon one for whom you harbour a hatred as undying as the Athair themselves? Surely not these inferior imitations of the ulviathoi of olde. These are weak and ineffectual and pose one such as you little true peril. What then, good Prince? Two thousand years have passed since you cursed me and my folk with eternal guilt and shame for deeds we did not do. Two thousand years since last we saw or spoke to one another. Two thousand years.” A cold hard pause. “What desperate need compels you now, Prince Yllufarr?”

  Without hesitation, “We seek passage through Coldmire,” Yllufarr replied.

  The Lord of the Shaddathair glared whitely.

  “I did not rouse Coldmire against you, Prince Yllufarr. I am not your enemy.”

  Yllufarr responded with neither word nor motion. Beside him, Eldurion stood stone-still, his naked blade hidden within his cloak. Of habit, and because he knew not what else to do, Rundul tightened his grip on his war-axe.

  “Hatred, like love,” continued Sammayal, “is a thing that might go unrequited, old friend. And yours is a hatred that is wrongly placed. I did nothing to cause the fall of your Sul Athaifain at Gan Gebbernin.”

  “My Sun Knights fell precisely because you did nothing,” Yllufarr retorted. His eyes flashed with ire. “There is little to distinguish those who commit evil from those who stand idle whilst evil is committed.”

  Sammayal’s spectral arms spread in supplication.

  “Would you have had me compound the sin of kin-slaughter with that of oath-breaking? I was and am oathbound to neither bear nor raise arms in this World. That I stood idle at Gan Gebbernin was not my desire, but that of another. Had I not been fettered by my sworn word, I would have stood with you and your Sun Knights against Ulviathon and its horrid spawn. The blame for your Sun Knights’ ruin lies not with me, Prince Yllufarr, but with him whom extracted from me the oath of pacifism.”

  The ire in the Sun Lord’s eyes became pale fire.

  “You will not place this fault at the feet of Gavrayel.” Faster than the eye could follow, blades of Athain steel flashed into Yllufarr’s hands. “Withdraw your foul words, Unforgiven, else I slay you where you stand and regret only that I had not done it two thousand years sooner.”

  Eldurion’s longsword leapt from his cloak. Rundul braced his stout legs and hefted his war-axe.

  Sammayal disregarded them entirely.

  “Hold, Prince Yllufarr.” The Shaddath raised one phantasmal palm. “Good King Gavrayel is not the one of whom I speak. No, Gavrayel offered me and my folk clemency when we had no claim to it, and pardon where none was deserved. And though he required of us a pledge of peace, that we never again bring arms to bear against the Athair or their allies, he did not demand of us a pledge of absolute pacifism. Perhaps he saw that one day the sword of Sammayal might serve him well. No, Prince Yllufarr, ’twas the voice of another, one most dark and perilous, that extorted from me my most lamented promise.”

  Yllufarr’s eyes remained wild with pale wrath. But he lowered his weapons. And he said only, “Speak.”

  Sammayal’s sigh was slow and soft with sorrow.

  “I followed Asrayal to war of loyalty and love for him rather than of loathing for those he deemed his foes. In this, I was certainly swayed by Shadow, for it is ever the nature of evil to render foul event from fair intent. Thus was my love for my King become corrupt and the agent of my own damnation.

  “But another, one whom ever had Asrayal’s ear, was willingly and willfully seduced by Shadow, and his became the voice of Ilurin at the court of Asrayal. ’Twas this provocateur, this minister of Shadow, that preyed upon Asrayal’s pride and urged him to rain war and ruin upon Yriel and those who stood with him. ’Twas he, this servant of Ilurin, that first compelled Asrayal to sully the Teller’s Tale of First Earth with blood and murder.” A cold damp pause. “And ’twas that same servant that pried from me my promise of pacifism when he and Gavrayel encountered me in Eldagreen so many millennia ago.”

  Yllufarr’s eye-fire chilled and he sheathed his shining steel. Beside him, his companions relaxed their martial stances, the Darad slightly less so than the Fian.

  “As I have said, Prince Yllufarr,” the Lord of the Unforgiven reiterated, “your enmity is misplaced.”

  “Name him,” commanded the Prince of the Neverborn. “Name this agent of Shadow.”

  The shade that was Sammayal bowed, then straightened. His ghostly countenance was bleak with gloom and foreboding. His white eyes narrowed to slivers of ice in the Coldmire night.

  “We Unforgiven call him the Marralin, the King-Whisperer.” A profound pause. “You know him as Ingallin.”

  Rundul and Eldurion shared dark and startled glances, the Daradun warrior growling lowly at the memory of the Athain Chancellor’s deceit and derision.

  Yllufarr blinked once, then nodded slowly.

  “Ingallin.” The Prince’s voice was as an echo of Sammayal’s own, both word and tone. “The vileness of his nature was glimpsed at Druintir, though its depth and breadth we did not guess.” Something grim tugged at the corners of his mouth, and a darkness crossed his countenance as though he was considering his own failings. “He has been…removed.”

  The dark Lord of the Shaddathair stared coldly.

  “There is no greater peril than the one that goes unperceived, Prince Yllufarr, and few greater than those that are perceived but mistakenly believed to have been…removed.” His voice was no more than a hiss, yet the warning there could not have been more forceful had it been shouted. “Do not underestimate the guile of the Marralin. His machinations are most devious and deceptive. The possibility remains that he desired to be removed.”

  “To what end, Shaddath?”

  Sammayal shook his head slowly.

  “I know not the movements and motivations of the Marralin’s black soul. I know only that he has ever served the Shadow…and ever will.”

  The Sun Lord’s colourless eyes shone cold and clear.

  “When I have done that which I have come to do, I will deal with Chancellor Ingallin,” he vowed. “Personally.”

  Something of a smile softened Sammayal’s visage, and he turned his white gaze to the black unstarred skies. He stood thus for a moment, still and silent, then moved his eyes to meet Yllufarr’s own once more.

  “I would have you know a thing, Prince Yllufarr. I would have you understand.”

  The Sun Lord inclined his head.

  “Eldagreen did not fall t
o war, Prince of Gith Glennin,” uttered the Shaddath. His form shimmered blackly. “The ruin of Eldagreen came of the fathomless anguish of my people, and of the ancient malignance that slumbers at the heart of these marshes. Know that Coldmire is the sickly spawn of a deed I did not do, and of the deed you left undone.” His gaze shifted evocatively to the carcasses of ulviathoi sprawled at his feet in a grisly morass of mud and blood. “Understand, good Prince, that we are the cause of Coldmire. We. You and I.”

  An invisible blade scored Yllufarr’s spine and he shivered for a chill born not of the cold. But he spoke naught, and the serpent stirred and swam again beneath the pale sheen of his eyes.

  Ancient malignance…the deed you left undone.

  Yllufarr knew of what Sammayal spoke.

  He knew. He understood.

  The Prince of the Neverborn nodded his comprehension.

  Sammayal slowly lowered his chin to his chest. The movement held the sound of a sigh. He then straightened as though a great burden had been shed from his shoulders. Something of a long-forgotten and fast-fettered pride shone past the shadows of his timeless misery.

  “I would be released from the bond of the Marralin, Prince Yllufarr,” declared the Lord of the Shaddathair.

  Yllufarr saw the terrible sorrow and shame in Sammayal’s moon-white stare. He felt the Shaddath’s despair in the marrow of his own bones. But he also sensed in the roiling thunderhead of Sammayal’s essence a thing that could only have been hope.

  Nevertheless –

  “I cannot release you from your bond, Sammayal,” said the Sun Lord quietly but emphatically. “Nor can I forgive you.”

  The Shaddath remained still for a moment, and the tempest of his being was calmed. Then a tear like a molten pearl slowly slid down one sallow cheek. And he gave the slightest nod.

  “I cannot fault you, old friend,” he whispered past his shattered and broken hope. “Your loss was most grievous.”

  But the Sun Lord was not done.

  “A covenant made with the King may only be unmade by the King,” he explained gently. “And I can offer no forgiveness where there is nothing to forgive.”