Needle Ash Book 1: Knives of Darkness

by David V. Stewart

  “We have to,” Michael said. “They slew my father.” He took a deep breath and stepped forward, but even as he did so, the mist seemed to draw back into the wood, and the trees groaned like a great voice. A curtain of red mist obscured their leaves and branches. Michael stopped to watch. He reached to touch a tree trunk, but his hand passed through it. Frightened, he leapt backward. When he approached again, there was only mist over grasses and brush, the image of the trees like colors burned into the eyes from staring at fire.

  “What happened?” Michael said.

  “I… I only have ideas,” Sharona said.

  “They’re gone. We’ll never catch them now,” Michael said, staring wide-eyed at where the wood had just been. “Why did you stop us?” he said in a heat of anger, turning back to Sharona.

  “I… I said I would protect you, Michael. It’s my job to protect you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your father. I was… I was just…” Tears sprang up on her face. “I was just too far away. But you are what matters. If you had followed them in there, you would not have returned. The assassins, and the forest too… they were not fully here. We cannot follow them into an echo of their realm without dying. It is like a piece of the Fay, Michael.”

  Michael nodded slowly, watching the empty space where the wood had been. “Can we follow them?”

  “Not by those paths, which are made by their magic, but Elves, even dark elves, are physical beings and must reside within a tangible realm. Which means it can be reached… somehow.”

  Michael stood silent for a while, scanning the empty fields that waved in the dying light. He kneeled down and sighed.

  “I’m sorry Michael,” Sharona said.

  “You don’t need to be. This wasn’t your doing.” He shook his head and stood up. “We need to assemble a search team, scour the area. Find out if we can… get wherever they went.”

  “You will need the mage corps,” Sharona said. “Paths between worlds are a tricky business.”

  Michael sighed. That would mean dealing with Towler, one way or the other.

  *

  Sharona and Michael rode with what speed she could still muster from Rabble-Rouser, but the horse was well-winded. They slowed as they approached the great camp, now on high alert with every man armed and already many men assembling on the field in front of them. It was full night, but Michael could see many torches along the walls of Forgoroto. The gates were not shut, but many fighting men were assembled outside, as if waiting for an attack.

  “Exactly what we wished to avoid,” Michael said from behind Sharona. “Whoever those assassins were, they want these two armies to kill each other.”

  "They or whoever hired them," Sharona said. “Dark elves seldom mettle in outside affairs, I am told.”

  Michael waved to a group of guards outside the pickets, and they parted to let the pair ride into camp. They caught sight of Johan standing outside Towler’s tent, along with a gaggle of armed soldiers. Torches lit the avenues of the camp brightly, and the tension was palpable. Michael dismounted and ran forward to his brother. As he approached, Towler emerged from the tent in a device made of polished black steel that held his hands apart and in front of himself, a device he knew was meant to hold against the magic of a mage.

  Towler stood defiantly, but swooned slightly, leaning left and right as the soldiers held him up. Marolo, a tall young man with long, black hair who was a lieutenant in the mage corps, stood near at hand, whispering something incoherent to seal or negate the old man’s magic.

  Johan looked upon him with hard eyes. “I can scarcely wonder why,” he said, turning to Michael. “But then, Butler and father are dead… and war looms despite a peace treaty in hand. Who else could have brought such beings into our midsts?”

  “So they are dead,” Michael said. Johan nodded grimly.

  “Look to your brat of a brother,” Towler said in response, shaking his head as if trying to stay awake. Marolo spoke louder, the syllables in his voice seemingly random.

  “The one engaged to a queen and disinherited from the crown? Even if I didn’t know assassination to be beyond his character, that is a stretch.” Johan scratched his chin.

  “I had always assumed he was in league with Ferralla,” Michael said. “But this… This is a grim turn for all. Who the hell got to you old man?”

  “Nobody,” Towler drawled.

  Michael felt Sharona wrap her hands around his left arm and squeeze. He caught her worried look.

  “Did you search his tent yet?” Michael said.

  Johan looked over. “Yes. We found a chest full of beetles that flew away. Some books. Some oddments we ought to look into, and a respectable amount of coin.

  “Was there a box of paper?” Michael said desperately. “It was under his secretaire.”

  “I think he means this, sire,” a nearby knight said. He handed to Johan a mangled pile of paper.

  Johan handed it to Michael, who visibly collapsed as he sighed. The box was ripped apart, its edges slightly singed as if it had tried to burn.

  “We tore it open, but there was just nonsense inside,” the knight said.

  “There was paper yet inside it?” Michael said. “Where is it?”

  The knight handed him a small stack of papers.

  “What is this?” Michael said, looking through the stack. “This doesn’t look like any language I’ve heard of.” Each page was filled with what looked like a random assortment of letters and punctuation. Even phonetically it was nonsense.

  “The wizard’s box,” Sharona said, taking one of the papers. “It broke the letters by rewriting them into nonsense.”

  “I figured it was some sort of code,” Johan said. “I had thought that maybe it could be cracked.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sharona said. “This is the work of that box. This is magic.”

  “Towler’s clever,” Michael said, looking again to the shifting mage. “Maybe these are in code, but I think Sharona is right. You can look at the format and see that nothing lines up right. We might have lost the only hard evidence we had on him.”

  “You should have waited for me,” Sharona said. “But then, who would know what a paper box meant?”

  “Did you catch the assassins?” Johan said.

  Michael took a breath. “No. They disappeared into… an enchanted wood.”

  “They’re dark elves,” Sharona said. “They fled back into their own realm, probably a memory of when this place was younger.”

  “How the hell did they get here in the first place?” Michael said.

  Morolo spoke up. “They could only be brought forward with magic. You can find such places, I have heard, if you know where the other realm is and you are good at detecting the ley lines of the old creation magic, the places where the prim still washes between the worlds like the sea.”

  “How strong would a mage have to be to summon those assassins?” Johan said.

  Morolo shook his head, holding an eye to Towler as if it was a leash and Towler a defiant dog. “It would have to have been a powerful mage, sire. Very strong and with a mind so expansive as to be able to conceive of two worlds existing simultaneously.”

  “So only Towler could have done it?” Michael said.

  “Or me,” Sharona said. Johan paused to look at her, frowning.

  “Who is this woman?” Johan said. He squinted and said with sudden realization, “Is that the mage from the battle?”

  Michael waved his hands in the air. “Never mind her. She’s my… bodyguard.

  Johan squinted and said with sudden realization, “Is that the mage from the battle?”

  “Yes. She’s a good battlemage and therefore a good second.”

  Sharona squinted at Michael and shook her head. “I’m a terrible battle mage. I’m an excellent regular mage, though. I can turn your neck hair into-” Sharona caught the look on Johan’s face and stopped short.

  “Take Towler to the holding cell,” Johan said. “We will need to question him further.�
�� He watched the mage being led away, then turned back to Michael. “Do you have any idea who might have put him up to it?”

  Michael shook his head. “I thought he was in league with Ferralla… but I don’t know anymore. Alanrae wouldn’t call battle down upon herself, so soon after a treaty, would she?”

  “I doubt it,” Johan said. “Severely.” His eyes moved from Michael to Sharona. “She would not go to such lengths to lose a husband.”

  “What is she didn’t want to marry Michael?” Sharona said.

  “Of course she wanted to,” Johan said. “She told me this afternoon she fancied him. Nothing happened that wasn’t planned.” He looked hard at Michael. “Can I trust you to pursue vengeance with me? Our father was not as gracious to you as he was me.”

  “Of course,” Michael said. “Father was more gracious than you know.”

  Michael nodded. “Good. I’m reinstating you as captain-errant, now that I’m in command. Assemble your hunting party as you will.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And make sure your pet mage learns how to address royalty,” Johan said, turning away. “You can allow her to be familiar with yourself, but not with me or the peerage.”

  “Aye,” Michael said, and frowned and Sharona

  “That was really stupid,” Michael said as they walked their horses to the edge of the camp. Michael had gone to retrieve Calot and not spoken to Sharona at all. “Telling my brother it could have been you.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Sharona said. “I said only that I could have found the way to summon the men. I couldn’t have, though.”

  “You could or you couldn’t?” Michael said.

  “I could, but I couldn’t. Have.” Sharona clenched her fists. “I don’t know the area well enough to find the thin spots and move between realms. You saw with that forest how diverse the two locations are.”

  “Well, could you find those spots?” Michael said.

  “Yes,” Sharona said. “If you are willing to wait and to allow me to work.”

  “This is not the kind of time I prefer patience, but if it requires it, I shall have it.”

  “Good. We’ll get started tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Michael said. “If you have a way of finding those men, we should be working on it tonight.”

  “Your father is dead,” Sharona said quietly. “Finding them will not bring him or the general back.”

  “But it will bring me peace. I owe revenge for two. Butler is Julia’s father, and she will want to see justice done to him.”

  “I fear your peace is a long way off,” Sharona said, her voice soft. “But at the least, I will need sleep tonight. It’s essential.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Michael said.

  “Of course I’m right. You’ll need sleep, too. And time to cry.”

  “I don’t need to cry.”

  "Yes, you do. You lost your father."

  Michael took a breath that hissed between his teeth. “The funeral will be starting soon. Let’s fetch Guissali and the others.”

  “A funeral, already?” Sharona said.

  “We are already late on it.”

  The massive pyre burned bright and many colored in the night, fed by magic as well as oil. On the highest hilltop it stood, lighting all the grassland about it in flickering green-red, so that it could be espied even from the walls of Forgoroto. Most of the army stood about it, encircling it, watching and waiting. There were more would prefer to attend, for Eduardo the Black and Butler Dolanari were held in high esteem in the military, but there was still the need for guarding and battle-preparation.

  Michael stood on a hillock near at hand, sweating from the heat of the blaze. Sharona was beside him, and he could feel her leaning slightly against him. Guissali and Angelico were also close at hand, but Johan was distant, standing by himself closer to the pyre. Michael’s eyes flickered over to Guissali, and he detected eyes that were wet with more than the heat.

  “For long years have you served my family,” Michael said. Guissali caught his eye and nodded silently.

  A hush fell over the milling crowd as the high cleric, a white-haired man in loose robes, stepped up near the pyre, a great shadow against its flames. The bodies were brought up on stretchers, covered with white linen, by a group of armored knights. They paused before the fire. An artist a little ways to Michael’s left readied himself with his ink set, sitting upon the grass. The catalogue of the king’s life was drawing to a close.

  “Since when do the people of the divine strand burn their dead?” Sharona said quietly. “I thought you buried them, in the old elven tradition.”

  “We always have burned men in the field,” Michael said.

  “Since pious, my prince,” Guissali said. Michael nodded to him. “Since the deeds of Pious we have burned our dead upon the battlefield, that they may not be desecrated by having their bodies reanimated with the echo of their once noble spirits.”

  “I understand,” Sharona said. “I think. It’s just a new tradition… well, one I did not expect.

  “You’re new to the army,” Guissali said with a breaking voice. “Confusion is understandable.”

  The crowd began to murmur again. Michael looked about and saw the men parting to let a group through. It was Alanrae in a dress of black, her face pale and shining brightly in the intense firelight. She was flanked by her cousins, who were unarmed and dressed in equally dark colors. She glanced at Michael as she passed, nodding slightly, then paused near Johan, where she kneeled.

  “Peace may not be lost,” Angelico said softly. “If we can contain our honor.”

  “We must,” Guissali said.

  “I’ll see to it,” Angelico said, and stepped away, into the crowd.

  The high cleric held out his hands from his white robe, silence returned, and then he spoke, “By the grace of the twelve gods, and by my place as high cleric of the church of the divine, high priest of Artifia, I present the release of two bodies, to honor the return of the souls of two men to the thrones of the gods and the dream eternal. May they find what they sought in life.”

  With that, the knights threw each of the bodies upon the fire, and flames leapt up high into the sky, bright and eye piercing, fed by the mages who were close by.

  “So few words,” Sharona said. “The cleric didn’t even speak their names.”

  “This is how it is in war,” Michael said. “There are usually too many to name, and here in death we are all equal again.”

  Despite himself, Michael began to shudder, and fell to his knees. He wept for a man he could not understand. Through his aches he felt Sharona’s arms, trying to hold him up, and through his tears, he saw his brother's grim face, and saw the pale face of Alanrae turned to him.

  The wracking subsided, and Michael watched as Angelico brought forth a group of knights who surrounded Alanrae, and escorted her through the crow. As she passed by, she paused for a moment and gazed at Michael, then left.

  The crowd began to disperse as the flames got lower, burning through their fuel and not aided by magic.

  Michael caught the gaze of Guissali and said, his voice calm again. “We ride early tomorrow, Gui. We have much to do. I want a good group assembled by dawn.”

  "Aye, sir."

  “We do have much to do,” Michael said softly.

  “I am with you,” Sharona.

  Michael nodded and walked from the pyre, Sharona following him closely.

  End of Book I

  If you enjoyed this book, you can get the next in the series for free by joining my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/dfsQqH or at http://dvspress.com/needle-ash-list/

  About the Author

  David Van Dyke Stewart is an author, musician, YouTuber, and educator who currently lives in Modesto, California with his wife and son. He received his musical education as a student of legendary flamenco guitarist Juan Serrano and spent the majority of his 20s as a performer and teacher in California and Nevada before turning his attent
ion to writing fiction, an even older passion than music. He is the author of Muramasa: Blood Drinker, a historical fiction novel set in feudal japan, and Prophet of the Godseed, a hard-scifi novel that focuses on the consequences of relativity in space travel, as well as numerous novellas, essays, and short stories.

  You can find his YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/rpmfidel where he creates content on music education (including extensive guitar lessons), literary analysis, movie analysis, philosophy, and logic.

  Sign up to his mailing list at http://eepurl.com/cQOfWH for a free book and advance access to future projects. You can email any questions or concerns to stu@dvspress.com.

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