The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set

by Graham Austin-King

  They turned to see the two horsemen bearing down upon them. Both men were heavily armoured in an all-over steel plate that Klöss had never seen the like of. If it were not for the horses bearing them, he doubted the men would be able to stand under the weight of it.

  “Scatter!” he roared, leaping to one side, as the first horseman thundered past, swinging down with an odd hammer-axe but finding only empty air. Klöss rolled, as he'd been taught and sprang back to his feet, readying his sword and shield as the horses wheeled and began the charge back to them.

  Dallan, he saw, had not been so lucky and lay face down on the grass. Tristan stood over him, his fearsome axe in hand.

  “Go for the horses,” Klöss called across, and saw Tristan nod in response.

  They spread apart, wide enough to force the horsemen to split up, and then set themselves. Klöss planted his feet firmly in a low stance, his shield held up and slightly to the side of him. The mounted man was coming in at the perfect angle, his weapon raised as he leaned slightly into the stroke.

  Klöss caught the axe on the way down. His shield was angled and the hammer-axe scraped along the wooden face, before biting and almost tearing it from his grasp. He used the force of the blow to turn himself and hacked hard as the horseman passed. The horse screamed as his heavy blade hacked into its rear leg, before falling heavily to the ground and throwing its rider, who landed with a metallic crash.

  Klöss wasted no time and ran past the flailing horse that rolled screaming in the grass. The rider was on hands and knees, struggling to stand in his heavy plate. Klöss dropped his shield and swung his sword with two hands at the base of the man's helmet. The thick steel stopped most of the force, but Klöss's sword was well made and sheared through, cutting deeply into the neck. The man dropped like a stone, pulling the sword from Klöss's hand.

  Klöss stooped and pressed hard with one boot, as he yanked the sword from where it was caught in the armour. He heard Tristan finish the other horseman with a sickening crunch. A quick check on Dallan revealed a sizeable dent in his helmet, but he seemed to still be breathing. Tristan threw him over one shoulder, like a sack of grain, and they made their way into the trees.

  Dallan came to after a few more moments and was able to walk, though his eyes looked glazed and Tristan doubted he could be trusted if it came to a fight. The distant sound of combat was easy to follow and they caught up quickly as they ran through the trees.

  It was hard to see how many of the raiders were left, but Klöss could see enough to see they were outnumbered. The oarsmen flowed easily around the trees, while the soldiers were clearly more used to fighting in ranks. It was probably a matter of training, Klöss thought, as he readied himself. The oarsmen were taught to fight individually. These men were clearly trained to be part of a unit.

  The three of them charged silently, weapons at the ready. Some might say there is something dishonourable in stabbing a man in the back, but these are not the men who are in danger of being slaughtered to a man. Klöss and the others tore into the packed mass of men like a tornado into a wheat field and the effect was instant. The oarsmen moved easily, not holding to a unit and taking advantage of the gaps as they fought with sword and axe, but still just holding their own. Klöss had evened the score but the fight was far from won.

  Then Verig was there. He flew into the fight like a man intent on suicide, spinning and striking, with axe in one hand and sword in the other. To the layman, he looked like a lunatic but to a swordsman, there was a beauty in his movements. He never overextended or took more effort than necessary. Where Klöss and the others hacked, he would slash lightly. Cutting just deep enough to do the damage required and no more. Where they buried their weapon into the enemy up to half its length, Verig dipped his sword into his foe almost delicately. Around him, men fell gently to the earth with tired sighs and, almost between one breath and the next, the tide was turned.

  The oarsmen went to with vigour and, within moments, the last of the enemy lay screaming between the trees. Verig pointed through the woods with his bloody sword, “Go!” he gasped, his arm pressed tight against his chest.

  To say it was an orderly retreat would have been a gross overstatement. They numbered fewer than twenty now, and Klöss couldn't see any of the trainees, other than Dallan and Tristan, as they lurched between the trunks. In the distance behind them, a line of fires burned on hilltops leading into the distance. As he ran, he wondered how they hadn't noticed them on the way into the village. Verig swore and cursed beside him, as they fled for the beach.

  ***

  Aiden stood on the stone steps and waited. The cold wind caught his long black cloak, tossing and whipping it behind him. He reached back, absently, and caught an edge with one gloved hand.

  “A little fine for a reaving, isn't it?” Rhavin called out to him, as he approached the steps, leaning heavily on a polished oak staff.

  “What?” Aiden replied, confused.

  “Look at you, you're as well preened as a girl at her first dance.” Rhaven gestured at Aiden's clothes and laughed a rough laugh.

  Aiden looked down at his freshly oiled, black leathers, which had been buffed until they shone. His chest and forearms were covered in a polished steel plate, inlaid with gold scrollwork.

  “It's expected, I suppose.” He shrugged. “Are we prepared?”

  “It's as I told you,” Rhaven replied. “The merchant's council met last week. It was touch and go but, broadly speaking, the First of Merchants will support you in this.”

  “Broadly speaking?”

  “There was some opposition,” Rhaven admitted. “There were those that said we should try simply trading with the Farmed Lands and other nations like Dern.”

  “Do they suggest what we might trade?” Aiden scoffed. “I'd not like to try and haul iron through the Vorstelv, and that's the only thing we have in any quantity. As for Dern, they have more than enough of their own iron.”

  Rhaven smiled. “These are the kind of merchants you despise, Aiden. They know little of the Vorstelv, let alone the problems of shipping goods through it.”

  Aiden grunted and looked up at the huge stone building, surmounted by a dome and spires. “Shall we, then?”

  Rhaven left him at the door and made his own way through the maze of hallways to his seat at the back of the merchant's circle. Aiden paused for a long moment by the glowing brazier inside the main door and held a hand out, as he tucked his gloves under his belt with the other. It wouldn't do to appear cold and shivering before the council.

  Finally, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, before making his way along the short corridor, with its plush red carpet, towards the double doors at the end. He had been in the Thane's palace a thousand times for council meetings. This was one of the few times, however, that he would be speaking as a petitioner, and he found himself oddly nervous. The doors were swung open without a word by the guardsmen posted there, and Aiden stepped into the antechamber and stood by the black and gold clad guardsmen at attention with their long halberds before the two massive gold-inlaid doors.

  “Seamaster Aiden Kurikson, to address the Thane's council,” he said, unnecessarily, to the black-robed attendant behind the long desk that filled one side of the chamber.

  “Not Frostbeard this time then?” the attendant said with a small smile.

  “Not this time, no.”

  “Very well then, Seamaster, if you'll follow me? I will announce you.”

  The attendant joined him in front of the guards and nodded to one, signalling them to pull the doors open. Frostbeard followed him into the massive chamber. The doors led onto a gently sloping path that led upwards, towards the centre of the hall. On either side of the path sloped walls revealed rows of benches rising towards the back of the room.

  Aiden glanced to his left, knowing Rhaven would normally be seated far at the back of the chamber, with those of little influence, before remembering he would more likely be with the First of Merchant's this t
ime. Both Rhaven's and his own reputation would rest on the outcome of this petition. The thought did little to calm his nerves.

  The attendant touched his arm softly and bade him wait, while he stepped forward into the circle of light at the centre of the room, which was formed by cunningly-wrought lamps positioned around the raised platform.

  “Seamaster Aiden Kurikson begs permission to address your council, my Lord Thane,” his deep voice made thunderous by the acoustics of the large room.

  “Then let him approach and he will be heard,” the ritual response was returned. Aiden knew the voice was not that of the Thane. It was just a servant, positioned close to the throne. The Thane was probably asleep by now.

  He walked forward into the light, as the attendant stepped to the side and melted into the gloom. The chamber was designed to impress and overawe. The rows of benches were all filled with council members. Aiden could see red-robed merchants and the First sat in the centre row, his gold chain of office glinting in the faint lamplight. To his right, the Sealord sat, surrounded by his fellow Seamasters. Behind him would be the rows of the Keeper's council, formed of farmers, fishermen and miners. Aiden nodded minutely at the Sealord, turned his attention to the end of the chamber and gave a deep bow.

  The throne was raised upon a stepped dais covered in thick red rugs and bordered with tall scarlet drapes climbing up into the darkness towards the roof of the chamber. The Thane himself appeared to be an old man, though Aiden knew him to be little older than himself. A succession of illnesses had aged him prematurely and he was a pale shadow of the vigorous man Aiden had once known. He sat, dressed in a simple white woollen robe with a plain iron circlet about his forehead. Peering down at Aiden with uncharacteristic interest in his pale eyes, he leaned against one side of the throne.

  “My Thane, Lords and members of this council,” he began, his deep voice spreading easily to fill the chamber. “I come before you to discuss the reaving. For more than two hundred years, we have survived on these Barren Isles by eking out an existence using the skills of our farmers and fishermen,” he said, gesturing towards the Lord Keeper, “and the reavings.” He said the last with a nod towards the Sealord.

  “The times are changing. It is time we changed with them. Our people grow hungry as the reavings begin to fail. Our docks and alleyways groan with beggars, whores and thieves. Our farmers and fishermen struggle to feed us all. It is only a matter of time, my Lords, before we outgrow our islands, if not in terms of land then in terms of their ability to feed us.” He saw eyes narrow in thought as they shifted nervously. He was touching on truths that they all had considered, but that none spoke of openly.

  “Thirty years ago, I stood as the Shipmaster aboard the first vessel to face the Vorstelv and return. The reavings of the Farmed Lands have provided for us, given us new sources of food and riches. Some, including myself, have prospered. I tell you now, this will not last much longer. Already our reavings face greater opposition. More and more boats return to our isles with empty places in the oarpits. Are we to constrain ourselves, then? To limit our growth when our nation touches the edges of its true strength? I say no! I say we travel to these lands, not to reave, but to conquer. To take new lands for ourselves and to settle them. Why do we live crammed into our isles when there are lush green lands, ripe for the taking? Where our farmers can work to their potential and our children need not go hungry?”

  He paused to draw breath and a voice from the darkened benches took advantage of the silence. “So you suggest we stop the reavings? Turn our back on centuries of tradition and honour to become simple farmers? Has your blood grown so thin, Frostbeard? Where is your honour?”

  Aiden turned, seeking the speaker but the bright light he was surrounded by made it impossible. “I do not suggest we stop the reavings. I tell you that they are failing. We face opposition in the Farmed Lands, enough to question whether the reaving is worthwhile. The Storm Coast and Dern are poor alternatives.” He paused again and took a long breath before continuing.

  “There is one other thing also that I would ask my Lords and council members to consider. The Vorstelv itself is the only thing that prevents ships from the Farmed Lands from following our reavers back to our own islands. We face increasing opposition with every reaving. How long do you imagine it will be before these people discover for themselves the technique to passing through the icy waters? How long before we must face them in our own waters? On our own shores?” He fell silent. The quiet filled the chamber for the length of a long breath, before it erupted in chaos.

  He stood in silence as council members shouted from bench to bench, even as the Sealord and Lord Keeper stood to call for order. A clashing of steel on steel brought silence and wide eyes. The Thane handed the sword back to his guards and stood leaning heavily on a polished oaken staff.

  “I would know your meaning, Frostbeard.” His voice was weak but in the sudden hush it easily carried to the farthest edges of the hall. “Is it your intention to conquer these people and bring them under my rule? I fail to see how adding more mouths will solve the problems you have presented here.”

  Aiden took a moment before replying. The Thane rarely spoke up in council meetings and the power rested in unstable alliances between the factions. “My Lord Thane,” he began in a respectful tone. “I do not suggest we conquer the people themselves. Rather that we drive them westwards, taking their lands for our own, where we can build settlements and farms.”

  “And what honour is there in that?” a voice shouted from the benches.

  “Silence!” roared the Thane, drawing to his full height and showing a light in his eyes that Aiden had not seen in thirty years. “I will not have our future decided by squabbling children in the guise of farmerfolk and shopboys!” He lifted the iron circlet from his brow and waved it in the air above his head. “I am Thane here. The rule is mine!”

  A black-robed advisor stepped close to whisper into the old man's ear, but the Thane turned and glared at him so furiously that he faltered and stepped back, muttering apologies.

  “This session is at an end. The council will have no vote on this matter. I will receive the Sealord and the Lord Keeper in my chambers, along with the petitioner.” Howls of protest followed his announcement, but the man was clearly unmoved. He stepped down from the dais and moved around it, towards the back of the chamber, flanked by his guards. Aiden stood, stunned, for a moment before he was ushered along by the Sealord towards the doors and the Thane's private chambers.

  Aiden raised his eyebrows at the Sealord as they entered the chambers and saw his own surprise mirrored back at him. Whilst the Thane still had the power to rule as he wished, he had handed more and more decision-making powers to the council. In recent years, almost the entirety of the governance of the Barren Isles had been conducted by the three Lords and the council.

  The Thane's chambers were surprisingly plain and utilitarian. Where the council chambers and the anterooms were dripping with opulence, these rooms were comparatively spartan. Aiden found himself ushered along into a simple room with a large, well-polished table in the centre. The Thane lowered himself down into a wooden chair and fixed his pale eyes upon him “Talk,” he said, as Frostbeard and the others were settled into seats by a trio of servants.

  “My Thane,” he began, but stopped as the old man held up his palm.

  “None of that. That's fine for out there but in here, we're just men.” He eyed Frostbeard until the man nodded. “Now, tell me your plan and what you think you would need.”

  “It would need to be a sizeable force,” Frostbeard began, cautiously, as the others at the table leaned in to listen.

  Chapter Seven

  The goat bleated again, loud and insistent. This time, the door to the cottage opened and a man stepped out into the daylight.

  “I'm coming!” he called out, as he made his way gingerly across the grass to the small barn that housed the animals. He walked slowly, like a man not far from his dotage but he wa
sn't old, not in the normal sense. His was an age born of endless fatigue and it showed in his pale blue eyes, his frequent heartfelt sighs and the lines on his face. His was the kind of face that comes from bearing an endless, relentless responsibility that knows nothing of respite.

  He made his way into the barn and climbed in with the animal, reaching a stool and pail in with him, and settling down to milk her.

  “All that fuss, hey?” he said, soothingly. “I was barely awake when you started all that noise. You'll wake the neighbours!” He chuckled at his own joke.

  He hummed as he worked and the milking was soon finished. He moved mechanically, then set the pail aside and moved around to the side of the barn, opening the doorway to the fenced in paddock and letting the animals out to graze.

  “Do you think I can have some breakfast myself now?” he asked the animals, as he tossed a scattering of grain out for the chickens.

  “Never a word of thanks, either,” he tutted, as he made his way back through the barn and out into the clearing. It was simply a hole in the forest. No visible paths led into it or to the cottage. The paddock sat next to a well-worked square of land with vegetables growing in orderly rows.

  He walked back to the cottage and set about putting some water on to boil over the iron woodstove. The building could have been mistaken for a ruin from the outside. It looked like nothing more than a pile of branches and twigs that had somehow combined to form walls and a roof. Moss and ivy grew freely over the structure, and it seemed far more like a part of the forest than any form of dwelling.

  Inside, it was orderly but plain. A simple cot to sleep upon and a serviceable kitchen took up much of the space. A chair by the small fireplace and a corner filled with a cluttered desk and bookshelf were the only home comforts.

  He waited until the water began to boil before dumping in a double-handful of oats and a splash of the goat's milk from the pail. As he stirred the porridge, he stared out of the window, his thoughts far away.