The Longsword Chronicles: Book 01 - King of Ashes

by GJ Kelly

  Rage suddenly flooded through him, and he felt a berserk power racing through him. Were it not for the cloak, and its arrowsilk lining, he would be dead, Morloch the victor. Blood flew in wide arcs as he cut a swath around him, advancing to where Martan lay bloody and being kicked mercilessly on the ground. Still the dwarf's hammers flashed this way and that, slamming into shins and ankles.

  A crossbow bolt whizzed past Gawain's shoulder, and slammed into the chest of a Ramoth woman as she raised a boulder above Martan's head. She screamed and fell backwards, the rock dropping harmlessly. Gawain swung his blade with all his strength, slashing his way to his fallen comrade as another slamming impact smashed into his back, the cloak saving his life a second time. He'd just reached Martan when a bell sounded, and the grim realisation of what it meant cut through Gawain's bloodlust like a knife. He dived flat on his face across the old dwarf, and one kick landed on his thigh before a crackling blast of aquamire light scythed the air above him, and was gone.

  When he stood, ashes marked the passage of aquamire energy through the throng, and there was one black rider less than there had been moments before.

  The Ramoths suddenly found their numbers considerably depleted, and as Gawain leapt to his feet, they hesitated. The warrior reached down, dragged Martan upright, and they backed away towards the great dark lens. One or two braver followers charged forward, only to be cut down. The rest became less enthusiastic to join battle. Except for the masked creature, levelling its crossbow again. Gawain whipped his cloak around Martan and was nearly rocked off balance when the bolt struck. Again, rage filled his veins and charged his muscles. When he looked around, the black rider had discarded its crossbow and was drawing steel, steel tipped with Elve’s Blood.

  "Enough!” Gawain screamed, and yelling "The Fallen!" raced towards the creature, ashes billowing in his wake, a poignant reminder of Raheen...

  The mighty blade slammed down onto the creature's shoulder, raking a huge gouge in its armour. The force of the blow rocked it back and onto its knees, and on the backstroke, Gawain took its head off. This time, the death-screech was like music to Gawain, and when he screamed "Raheen!" the word was lost in the thing's death-blast.

  It was too much for the Ramoths. Far too much. They turned as one, and fled towards the tunnel and the promise of daylight and safety waiting at its end. Gawain surveyed the carnage, and with a curious detachment noted that other Ramoths, carrying tiny lamps and tiny phials of aquamire, were still quietly entering from the far tunnel, still tipping their vile cargo into the great lens behind him.

  Martan groaned, and hugged his ribs.

  "You live?" Gawain asked, breathless with battle.

  Martan nodded. "I reckon.” Then he nodded up at the dark lens. "That what we came for?"

  "It's a start." Gawain said, his voice echoing coldly around the chamber.

  He helped Martan up the steps to the raised platform, and to the mouth of the tunnel. "You'd best go, friend Martan." Gawain said firmly. "I know not what will happen when I destroy this."

  "Don't matter, Longsword. Here now, or on the farak gorin, or at home in Tellek. I bloodied the bastards' noses, didn't I?"

  Gawain grinned coldly. "And now it's time to kick Morloch's arse to the moon."

  "And yonder?"

  "And yonder."

  Martan held out a bloodied and bleeding hand, and Gawain clasped the old man's arm gently. "Honour to you, Serre, come what may."

  "Honour to you, friend Martan, come what may."

  Martan sank down to the ground, his back to the tunnel wall, and Gawain turned, longsword in hand, to face the dark lens of Ramoth.

  "I 'eard what you said, Serre, when you cut that black-armoured bastard down. Done my 'eart proud when I seen them cavalry all them years ago. Done my 'eart proud now, seeing one of 'em again."

  Gawain paused, his back to the dwarf, the lens before him. He nodded once, and stood tall. He was Gawain, son of Davyd, King of Raheen, and if he was to die, then it was in good company, with friends at his back, and the enemy before him. He strode forward, and cut down a Ramoth lamp-bearer, and stood before the lens.

  It was of some clear crystal, hollow, and filled with aquamire. In it, visions swam, and he felt curiously drawn. As he gazed into its blackness, he saw pictures and scenes, people and places. Some he recognised. Flashes of Callodon, of Juria, and the farak gorin outside. A forest, and perhaps a glimpse of an elf. Dozens of images, one after the other. Then he realised what he was seeing. Pictures, through the eye-amulets of Ramoth emissaries. Dozens of them, all across the southlands.

  "I see you all." Gawain muttered, and the visions swimming in the aquamire seemed to become clearer. A sudden thought struck Gawain, and he said quietly, "Where are you, Morloch? I want to vex you some more."

  The aquamire shimmered, and new vision formed in the blackness. The Teeth, but not the southern side, bathed in weak winter sunlight. The northern side, in shadow. The shadows seemed to writhe, lazy, creeping, and Gawain froze in horror as the image crystallised.

  Thousands of black clad men, attacking the Teeth with hammers, chipping away at the sheer rock face. Thousands of them, clambering carelessly over the bones and bodies of their fallen comrades to attack the rock. A terrible sense of despair seemed to fill Gawain, and a dread realisation began to form in his mind. Then the vision swam, and moved, further inland...

  A great lake of bubbling brown slime, almost primordial. The landscape around it was barren, lifeless as far as they eye could see. Men and women, in black robes, chanting, making patterns in the air around the lake...other men, dressed in black tunics and hose, guiding naked and shaveheaded people to the lakeside, and then casting them in. Occasionally, a cloud of blackness seemed to bubble up from the lake, and shimmer, and then flash skyward...Gawain's stomach lurched.

  Then the image moved further north, rushing, speeding towards a great dark castle hewn from rock, rushing to a tower...and there, sitting on a chair, staring back at him with lifeless black eyes, Morloch.

  The dark wizard seemed suddenly confused. Then suddenly terrified. His crumbling jaw dropped, exposing the remains of long-decayed blackened teeth. Black veins suddenly pulsed in the obscene head.

  "I have killed you twice!" Morloch cried.

  "I told you I would come." Gawain screamed. And raised his sword, twisting his body, summoning all the energy and power of his battle-hardened frame. A word was forming on Morloch's lips, a gnarled and twisted hand reaching forward as if to ward off the blow.

  A single word formed in Gawain's mind too, just as a distant bell tolled. The word cried for justice, and vengeance, for Raheen. As the mighty longsword scythed through the air and slammed into the crystal lens, the word filled Gawain's mind, and screamed from his lips.

  Burn.

  oOo

  22. Darkslayer.

  Gawain felt the impact as the blade smashed into the crystal lens, and then time seemed to stand still. His muscles were shuddering, driving the steel through a morass, and then something seemed to jolt through him, this time through his entire body and not just his arms. He was vaguely aware of a tremendous screeching and crackling, and closed his eyes, and waited for death.

  Martan, his eyes filled with tears, watched in horror as the longsword warrior was enveloped in an impenetrable black cloud that seemed as if it would draw the very sun from the heavens. A blast of black light shot down the far tunnel, heading for the far side of the rip. The ground shook, dust and rubble began to fall from the roof, and Martan watched, and waited for death.

  What they could not see defied description. The bolt of pure aquamire energy unleashed from the lens shot through the tunnel, setting off a chain reaction, liberating the energy from tiny phials in the human chain that ran down the chasm's walls, across its deep floor, and up the other side, each liberation leaving a cloud of burnt ashes in its wake where once a shaveheaded follower had stood.

  The main beam flashed through a duplicate lens at the far sid
e of the chasm, blasting it asunder, its liberated energies joining the devastating pulse as it fired north through the base of the Teeth. The chain reaction kept pace with it, flashing west through a human chain of phial-carriers to a vast reservoir of aquamire so carefully horded over the centuries. When this erupted, the shaft of black light that shot skyward literally dimmed the sun.

  The main beam flashed ever north, arrow-straight towards Morloch's tower. But at that precise moment, the lake of brown fermenting aquamire erupted a fresh shimmering bubble which rose, and intercepted the beam, and exploded, firing the vile brown lake, incinerating the wizards at its edge, diverting the blast.

  In his castle tower, Morloch screamed, in agony and rage and despair. The ground shook, dust and stone falling from the tower's ceiling.

  Gawain saw all this in his mind's eye, as though he'd ridden the blast of light himself.

  In Threlland, the quaking earth had dwarves rushing from their stone-built houses and from the mines, and gazing north in awe. A massive black pillar of burning black light was flickering and dancing skyward towards the sun, blasting through the snowfall, burning through the clouds.

  In Elvendere, elves slipped down ropes and gathered in clearings, and gazed at the northern sky as if this were their last day in the world.

  In Juria, animals skittered nervously across the plains, and the crowned heads at court gasped in wonder as Allazar pushed them all aside to fling open the stained glass windows, only to fall to his knees, tears streaming as the pillar of black fire flickered like a far distant tornado.

  In Mornland and Arrun, people clung to each other, and stared at a sun wreathed in a black shroud, and in Callodon, Brock frowned as daylight suddenly waned, and when the windows began to rattle in their panes, he glanced to the north, and braced for Morloch's Breath...

  Gawain opened his eyes. Dust fell, and there was a curious dark tint to everything. At his feet, the shattered remains of clear crystal, and scorch-marks. The tunnel leading to the chasm seemed a lot bigger than he remembered, and was pitch black.

  "Longsword!" A voice cried, distant, muffled.

  He gazed down at his blade, still light as a feather, lighter, if anything. But black as night, the blackness swimming in the steel, shimmering, almost crackling with energy. He held it closer to his face, looking for his reflection, but saw nothing. Just the deepest blackness swimming in the steel, the length of the blade.

  "Longsword! Run!"

  Gawain turned. A familiar figure was beckoning urgently. Martan. The dwarf looked terrified, and so Gawain, stunned and half-deafened, hurried across the rock-strewn ground to the tunnel.

  "By Morloch's stinking breath! Your eyes!" Martan cried.

  "What about them?" Gawain asked, confused, and sheathed his blade.

  Again, Martan looked shocked, and blinked. "Nothing...I thought...they looked like Morloch's eyes..."

  The ground shook again, more violently.

  "Run!" Martan cried, pushing Gawain towards the tunnel's distant opening.

  Gawain vaguely understood, and together they began running. But Martan was sorely wounded, and soon hobbled to a halt. Gawain paused.

  "Run! Leave me, Raheen, or die when the roof goes!"

  That name galvanised Gawain, and he lunged forward, grabbing the old man by the collar at the scruff of his neck, and began running for his life, half-dragging and half-carrying the dwarf with him.

  The earthquake grew, the ground moving forward and then back, pulsing, terrifying. In the open air at the mouth of the tunnel, a great scree slope angled gently down towards the farak gorin, and at the bottom, a wagon, bearing two Ramoth emissaries, half a dozen shaveheaded followers, and standing agog, four armed guards.

  Gawain lost his footing and they fell forward onto the scree, over the edge and onto the slope. Martan rode the scree feet-first sliding skilfully in spite of his broken ribs and wounds, but Gawain tumbled and rolled, and were it not for his cloak would have suffered terribly.

  Behind them, the tunnel roof collapsed with a roar that was muffled by the rumble of the earthquake, and clouds of dust and rubble blasted from its mouth. When Gawain found his feet, dazed and bruised, he found himself staring at two Ramoth guards. They, and the Ramoths in the cart, were staring skyward, jaws slack, terror etching their features.

  Gawain suddenly remembered who he was, and who they were. Heads swung in his direction as he slipped the longsword from its sheath. Again, the world seemed to take on a faint black tint, as the woman Ramoth Emissary pointed at him and screamed:

  "It is he! The Darkslayer!"

  Guards fumbled for weapons as the eye-amulets on emissary chests opened.

  Gawain cut them down, all of them, and then collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily as the earthquake subsided.

  Martan knelt in front of him, and offered a leaking waterskin. "Not much left, Serre. Lost the other one in the fight. We still got the farak gorin an' all."

  Gawain drank. "I'm tired."

  "I ain't surprised. Not too chirpy meself now's you mention it. But best get on, away from this lot afore the ground quakes again."

  "Where are we?"

  "On the scree of the Teeth, some twenty mile west o' where we started."

  Martan sat down with a groan, clutching his ribs.

  "You are injured." Gawain sighed. "I'm sorry."

  Martan chuckled. "Better'n being dead, I reckon, and I thought we both was. You recall what 'appened up there?"

  "Vaguely."

  "What did 'appen then, if you'll pardon me asking?"

  "We burned a nest of bloodflies."

  "Ah. That'll explain the smoke then."

  Gawain glanced up at the fading column of black fire that shimmered and flickered high above them. "Aye.”

  "Come Serre, snow's a-falling. Put up yer sword, and let's away from here."

  Gawain sheathed the longsword, and rose unsteadily. The ground had stopped shaking, but every step they took was tentative, as if the ground would move or disappear before their feet touched solid earth. The feeling lasted for hours.

  The farak gorin was spiteful as ever, but great cracks and chasms crazed its surface in the aftermath of the earthquake, and snow formed a welcome crunching barrier between their boots and the bitchrock surface. Darkness fell, and snow fell heavier. It was cold, and soon they both stopped, and sat.

  Martan groaned as he lay on his blanket. Gawain was not so fortunate, he'd lost his pack somewhere in the melee. But the arrowsilk cloak and the layer of snow that blanketed the farak gorin provided a modicum of comfort.

  "Is it winter already?" Gawain asked in the darkness.

  "Aye.” Martan replied wearily. "By the moon, I'd say we been gone near two months. But that's a good thing, I reckon."

  "How so?"

  "Means we'll be back afore mid-winter's day."

  Gawain gazed up at the sky, peering at the misty moon where it broke through clouds from time to time.

  "Is Morloch dead?" Martan asked.

  "I doubt it."

  "Ah. Must've been a cloud then, flying over the moon, and yonder. Hoped it'd been his arse."

  Gawain smiled. Then something seemed to break inside him, and the smile turned to a grin, and then to laughter, and then to tears.

  Memories, flooding back in. Home, loss, grief, friends lost, friends gained. Elayeen. Morloch. Everything. Martan sat up, concern on his wrinkled and bloodstained face, as great wracking sobs shuddered through Gawain like the earthquake triggered by the aquamire blast.

  "Oh my friend Raheen!" Martan gasped, "Wait ails thee?"

  The stone that lay cold and hard in Gawain's chest shattered at that, and an ineffable agony of grief washed over him. "Raheen!" he cried, and gasped for breath between great wracking sobs, "My home!"

  Martan eased Gawain up from the cold and unforgiving rock, and held him close, tears streaming down his own wizened face while the young warrior's grief-wracked body heaved with sobs, until finally they subsided, and Gawai
n slept.

  When dawn broke, Gawain awoke to find the old man's chest serving as a pillow, and both of them wrapped in Gawain's cloak. The first rays of sunshine were breaking across the eastern slopes of Threlland, and Gawain slipped off his cloak and stood on shaky legs to greet them.

  Behind him, he heard the old man stir. The sun was weak, a pale mime of its full summer glory, but Gawain had not thought to feel it on his face another dawn, and so he welcomed it, and closed his eyes, and remembered.

  He would've wept, but his tears had been spent in the long hours of night. When he opened his eyes, and turned to the north, the Teeth looked far away, and there was no black shimmering beyond them. The fermenting lake of distilling aquamire was nothing but ashes now. Like Raheen. Morloch's great storehouse of the vile stuff was gone, liberated. Morloch was all but powerless, his own lands wasted and blasted, like Raheen. Justice, and vengeance, had been served. Yet Morloch lived. So too did Gawain, and he silently prayed that the vile dark wizard would greet this morning with the same crushing sense of loss and bereavement as he himself did. It would be fitting.

  Martan coughed, and struggled to sit, clutching his ribs. His face was puffed and bruised from the Ramoths kicking, and he did not look well.

  "Sorry if'n I disturbed you, Serre." the dwarf croaked.

  "No. You did not disturb me. You don't look well."

  "Not surprised, Serre, these bones are a bit too old to withstand too much pushin' an' shovin'."

  "Can you stand?"

  "Dunno, but I'll give it a go, if a certain Raheen warrior will lend me 'is arm?"

  Gawain helped the old miner to his feet. "Forgive me, friend Martan, but I cannot bear to hear that name. It is too painful to me."

  "Then forgive me for a blasted old fool, Serre, who only hoped to do honour to you and yer people."

  Gawain smiled sadly. "I have no people now."

  Martan nodded, and said softly "I know." Then he drew in a careful breath, which clearly pained him. "We're both of us a long ways from 'ome, Serre. I don't believe I shall see mine again."