The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  After a time, the small woman who moved with the balance of a trained warrior came and sat near them. She said nothing, watching Cho Lin with shadowed eyes. Cho Lin nodded at her in greeting, but she did not respond, and eventually she stood again and retreated to where the others had spread their bedrolls. Watching her settle beside the senior magister made Cho Lin realize how exhausted she herself was, and she held up her hand to stop the boy’s incessant questions.

  He dropped his eyes sheepishly, as if he knew that they should be taking the opportunity to rest.

  “We may speak again on the morrow, Keilan,” she said, standing and stretching her tired limbs.

  The storm had abated by the time the gray dawn lightened the sky outside their shelter. The drifts were deep, and the soldiers grumbled as they broke camp to continue the journey north. A year ago, Cho Lin would have found the thick white blanket draped over the trees to be beautiful, magical even, but now she shared the Dymorian’s exasperation with the weather. Why had men ever settled in these lands, when a thousand li to the south it never snowed and fruits hung from branches all year round?

  The journey was arduous, not only because of the fresh snow, but also because the land was growing more rumpled as they ascended into the foothills of the northern Bones. Jagged peaks now rose around them, tapering into sword points that pierced the brilliant blue above. A pair of black shapes were etched against the sky, lazily drifting on invisible currents high above. At first Cho Lin thought they must be birds, but then she realized just how large these creatures must be, and a shiver went through her. Whatever they were, she thought they could easily carry a man away. She remembered the dead wyvern the Skein king had returned from his hunt with, and wondered if those distant wings were covered in scales rather than feathers.

  Cho Lin thought Keilan might seek her out the next day, but he lingered towards the rear of their column, walking beside the sorceress on her magic circle. They were deep in conversation, and every once in a while Cho Lin saw a little flare of light as the boy summoned some sorcery. A few of the soldiers glanced back nervously when a particularly vivid or loud spell split the monotony of the march, but for the most part the displays did not bother them. The Dymorians had been conditioned to accept sorcery, which surprised Cho Lin. She had thought that all the north feared and hated magic, and yet here was evidence to the contrary. What would the empire of Menekar and its paladins think about this? The emperor had waged several wars against the Empire of Swords and Flowers because of the Shan’s open acceptance of their warlocks – how could he abide such behavior in a kingdom north of the Broken Sea?

  She was trudging along lost in her thoughts when a commotion began ahead of her. A Dymorian ranger had just emerged from the woods, his face flushed, and she quickened her pace to hear what news he had to report.

  “—it’s them,” the scout was saying, and her breath caught in her throat. “The Skein are there, m’lord. Outside a door big as a castle, set in the side of a hill. And the door . . . the door is open, m’lord.”

  The Skein were as motionless as the dead.

  They had camped near the base of the hill that climbed up to the great door, a dozen blackened campfires encircled by small wagons. The horses were still yoked to their harnesses, as if the barbarians were ready to flee at any moment. At this distance, from the top of a wooded ridge looking down on the valley below, the men around the campfires were little bigger than insects. None were moving that she could see.

  They were still alive, though, she was fairly certain of that. The gnawing in her head from the Worm had strengthened the closer they’d gotten to its resting place, until it actually felt like something was slowly burrowing its way through her skull. It was discomforting, but the sense was exacerbated among those without Talent; the rest of their band, save Keilan, were constantly shaking their heads and grimacing, as if trying to clear their thoughts after a night of drunken revelry. The Talented could sense the Ancients from farther away, but the effects were far more pronounced for those without sorcery the closer they had approached. Alyanna imagined that the Skein down there were lost in a numb haze, unable to understand the alien dreams that were infringing upon their minds.

  Had the opening of the door strengthened the emanations flowing from within the Burrow? Despite her cloak of warmth, she couldn’t hold back a shiver staring into that yawning darkness. She had seen illustrations of this place in books, and always the slab of featureless stone had been closed; in the histories of Min-Ceruth, when the Worm was slowly thrashing awake, the sorceress queen of Nes Vaneth and her trusted companions had opened the door and ventured within. They had not described the things they’d seen under the Burrow, or what had happened, but they had managed to quiet the Worm, then sealed the door again. Whatever was inside had claimed the lives of most of the Talents. It had proven dangerous to tread into the realm of a sleeping god. After, though, the Worm had remained quiet for thousands of years, and the door had remained closed.

  Until now.

  “That Skein sorcerer down there?”

  Alyanna turned. The Dymorian commander had come alongside her. He looked as if he was suffering from a terrible headache.

  “I have sought him out as gently as I can, and I have not found him. Nor do I believe the queen is in that camp.”

  D’Venish frowned. “Then that means . . .”

  “Yes. They’ve already gone inside.”

  “Do you really believe there’s some great monster in there?” His skepticism was evident.

  Alyanna returned his look evenly. “I know there is, Commander. And how can you doubt it? You can feel the gnawing in your head, can’t you? A presence pressing down on you, vast and terrible?”

  “Enough,” d’Venish said, cutting the air sharply with his hand. He tried to hide his true feelings behind a mask of anger and contempt, but Alyanna saw his fear.

  He composed himself. “We are ready to attack. Our rangers killed their lookouts and we should be able to catch them completely unawares.”

  “Good. Then there is no time to waste.”

  “But they outnumber us four times over,” d’Venish continued. “And my men are exhausted from the march. We cannot win if we charge them now. Perhaps if we wait until the night . . .”

  Alyanna shook her head. “If the Skein sorcerer is not there, then they are cattle ready for the slaughter.” With a flicker of sorcery, she lifted herself from the snow. Power surged along her limbs, crackling like lightning. The Dymorian hurriedly stepped back. “Sound the attack, Commander.”

  She ascended higher into the sky before he could attempt to argue with her. She wondered in passing if he would dare refuse to commit his troops now. It would not matter anyway, truly. These were mortal men, and she was so much more.

  Still, she was satisfied when she heard the commander’s horn rise up behind her.

  The Skein began to stir as she drifted closer. At first, they moved sluggishly, as if unsure what she was or the threat she represented, but by the time she hovered over their fires they were scrambling to reach their weapons, pointing up at her and screaming in their harsh tongue. Men in filthy furs with long ragged hair, their faces inked with barbaric designs. Alyanna sneered. This was what the glory of the north had been reduced to? These savages?

  A dozen of the Skein had drawn bows and were kneeling in the snow, and when a barked command came, they loosed a volley towards her. Some of the arrows snapped when they struck her invisible wards, while others skittered away and fell among the warriors milling below. One of the brutes hurled an ax of black iron high enough that it clanged only a few span from her face; with a thought, Alyanna wrapped the weapon in lines of force, then sent it tumbling end over end back towards the thrower. Alyanna smirked as he toppled over, the blade buried in his skull.

  More shouts and cries from the Skein, but now she could hear their panic. Good. She was a goddess, and
they were nothing.

  Alyanna drew from the Void until her body thrummed with sorcery. Then she unleashed death.

  Ropes of shimmering power unspooled from her hands. Bodies were torn asunder, flesh blackened and sloughed away from bones, blood hissed and sizzled. The barbarians shrieked in pain and fear, scrambling to evade her wrath. Snow and earth fountained into the sky as her sorcery churned the ground. Laughing, Alyanna raked the fleeing Skein, engulfing their wagons with flame as they sought shelter within. The horses screamed and kicked, straining against their halters, desperate to escape. The thought occurred to Alyanna that there was a slim possibility that Cein d’Kara or even Jan might be inside one of the wagons, perhaps collared to hide them from her senses, so with a thought she dampened the fire. The Dymorians could root out any that had hidden inside.

  Alyanna revolved slowly in the air, gazing down at the smoking devastation she had wrought. The Skein had scattered, and no more arrows reached her wards. It should be a simple matter for the soldiers to kill the survivors. Pleased, she began to descend, but then hissed when she glanced below.

  One of the Chosen stood among the dismembered corpses of the men she’d slain. Its white face was tilted upwards to watch her, though Alyanna didn’t know what it saw, as this was one of the children whose eyes had been gouged out. Black veins writhed beneath its pale skin like worms wriggling through its flesh. Alyanna glanced around quickly, looking for the demon’s brethren. She couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there.

  Her heart beating fast, she resumed her descent, until she stood in the snow a few dozen paces from the creature. It did not move or speak as she drew more and more strength from the Void, reinforcing her wards. Around her, beyond the boundary formed by the wagons, the sounds of battle swelled as the Dymorians fought the remnants of the Skein. She kept the entirety of her attention focused on the Shan demon.

  “Let’s see if you bleed,” she snarled, her fingers tightening around the ebony handle of her flail.

  Cho Lin charged across the snow, her butterfly swords unsheathed. Around her surged the remnants of the Dymorian army – haggard men in tattered armor, bellowing unintelligible war cries, their gazes fixed on the flashes of color rising up from within the ring of wagons. She reached for the Nothing, but the crackling hum in her head that had been swelling for the last few days kept her from falling into the deepness of the Self. Complete and total concentration was required, and the presence of this . . . this thing slumbering here in the north was making that impossible.

  No matter. She had still been trained by the greatest swordsmen of Shan, and she did not require the Nothing to exact her vengeance.

  Skein streamed around the wagons, fleeing the death the sorceress was hurling down from above. They staggered towards the Dymorians, more than a few with faces blackened and smoke drifting from their furs and hair. The Skein who still held their axes and swords raised them as the soldiers of the queen smashed into their midst, hacking and slashing. Cho Lin knocked aside a half-hearted swing from a bow that one of the Skein was wielding like a club, then buried her blade in his stomach. The man’s eyes, set within an elaborately inked face of some snarling beast, widened in shock. Another took his place when he slumped in the snow, a man cradling the stump of his arm as he blundered past her. She let him go, but a few steps later one of the Dymorian rangers sent a black-fletched arrow through his throat.

  Not a single soldier had fallen in this first skirmish, and a dozen of the Skein now lay dead. It had been a slaughter – the dazed barbarians had almost thrown themselves on the Dymorians’ swords to escape the charnel field the sorceress had made within the circled wagons.

  “Swords ready, scrappers!” shouted d’Venish, his face streaked with blood as he pointed his own blade towards where a larger band of Skein had appeared. These warriors did not seem as panicked as the ones who had already fallen.

  “For the queen!” the commander bellowed, and echoing cries rose up as the Dymorians resumed their charge.

  Cho Lin followed the screaming soldiers, though she was nearly thrown from her feet as a terrible explosion sounded from where the sorceress had vanished; it shook the ground and left her head ringing. A few of the Dymorians did slip and fall in the snow, but the blast knocked down just as many Skein. There was a frozen moment while all the warriors recovered, casting uncertain glances at the wagons that hid the sorceress from view. The shriek and crash of Alyanna’s sorceries had momentarily abated, as if she had killed all the Skein that had dared remain before her.

  A roar went up from the barbarians, surprising Cho Lin, and then they were rushing across the snow. The first Skein they had encountered must have been the cowards who had fled when the sorceress first attacked; these warriors, they were the ones who had only retreated when it had become clear that they could not stand before Alyanna.

  Steel shrieked as the two sides came together with jarring force. She saw a Dymorian soldier take a spear in the throat, nearly severing his head. His companion screamed and bashed that Skein in the face with the buckler around his arm, then plunged his short sword into the barbarian’s chest as he stumbled backwards. Elsewhere, a giant of a man, the knotted ropes of his blond beard swinging, held off a pair of soldiers by sweeping his great black ax in vicious arcs.

  A Skein appeared before Cho Lin, his face painted white save for smudged black rings about his eyes, screaming incoherently as he thrust with his sword. She twisted out of the way, letting his momentum take him stumbling forward a step, then with a sweeping cut sent his head bouncing into the snow.

  All discipline had broken down – the battle was swirling chaos, a collection of small skirmishes. Men screamed in rage and pain and terror, their voices rising above the constant sound of swords clashing and metal sinking into flesh.

  Cho Lin found herself in a pocket of calm. She glanced around, looking for anywhere the Skein seemed on the verge of overwhelming the soldiers, preparing to throw herself into that fight. Cho Lin was not the only one with this idea – the Dymorian commander d’Venish and a few of his soldiers were making their way towards a knot of barbarians. As they smashed into that line of Skein, a gap opened in their ranks and Cho Lin glimpsed who stood behind them – Hroi, the thane of the White Worm and the king of the Frostlands. He wore the mottled cloak of the Skin Thief, and a circlet of black bone lay upon his brow. Hroi showed no concern as d’Venish hurtled closer with his curving officer’s sword upraised, and at the last moment, the thane brought his own dark-bladed sword sweeping up to meet the commander’s sword. D’Venish followed his initial strike with a flurry of flashing blows, but Hroi met and turned each away with an almost casual disdain.

  Cho Lin began to run towards them, her heart sinking. The Dymorian commander was not a terrible swordsman, but she could tell that the Skein king was an entirely different breed of warrior. D’Venish must have realized this as well, but the Dymorian nevertheless pressed harder, hammering the Skein king’s guard with desperate blows.

  She knew what was about to happen, but she could do nothing to stop it. Hroi turned aside d’Venish’s sword, then stepped forward and slashed the Dymorian’s neck. Cho Lin burst through the fighting, arriving next to the commander just as he crumpled to the snow with his fingers scrabbling weakly at his ravaged throat.

  The Skein king was already stalking towards her, and she raised her butterfly swords as she found her footing in the snow. A dark smile twisted Hroi’s face.

  “The Shan,” he said, no hate or anger in his voice. He might have been addressing her back in the Bhalavan as she stood before his throne.

  She flicked her swords in a quick pattern, loosening her wrists. He must have seen something in her crisp movements, as his expression hardened. He reached up and unclasped his cloak of cured flesh, letting it fall to the snow.

  Cho Lin saw now that there was a second sword at his side, and Hroi’s other hand went t
o the hilt. He drew it smoothly, with no hint of awkwardness. This one was in stark contrast to the dark blade he already held, a length of rippling silver inscribed with runes. He cut the air with the sword, as if testing its balance, and a jewel red as heartsblood flashed in its pommel as it caught the sunlight.

  Then he attacked.

  Alyanna paced in the snow, walking a wide circuit around the demon child. It did not move, yet somehow it was always facing her, radiating cold malice. Even though it lacked eyes, she felt its awareness following her. Alyanna’s hand stayed on the hilt of her flail, and she felt the presence inside the ancient artifact questing out to understand the nature of the Chosen.

  “Where are your brothers and sisters?” Alyanna asked mockingly, never taking her eyes from the demon.

  She had not expected an answer, and was surprised when it replied in its ragged whisper.

  inside. they go to wake the old one. you are too late, mistress.

  Something was different. Every other time the Chosen had spoken she’d heard a chorus of hoarse voices. But this time there had been only one, and the inflections were that of a small girl.

  Alyanna glanced at the Burrow looming above them. The gaping hole set in its side drank the sunlight, revealing nothing of what was within.

  “Am I? I don’t feel the Ancient stirring.” She continued circling the demon. “You didn’t know what was inside, did you? Jan of course never read those histories, the fool.” Her fingers stroked the icy handle of the flail. “A dozen true Talents delved into the depths when the Worm was waking two thousand years ago. Five returned. Do you think two hobbled sorcerers, an ignorant savage, and a few pathetic ghosts of murdered children can survive what is within?” She snorted. “The rules of this world change inside the Burrow.” Alyanna lowered her voice. “You can’t feel them anymore, can you? The bonds have been sundered. You are alone.”