The Cerberus Rebellion (A Griffins & Gunpowder Novel)

by Joshua Johnson

  There were only three levels of middle vaults and there were no lanterns to mark their entrances, only the smell of stale air and a vast, dark cellar. These vaults hadn't seen use in months, not since the chests of summer clothing and the summer pavilions had been brought down for storage and winter cloaks and blankets had been taken above.

  The first of the deep vaults, below the storage levels, had a wide open entrance more than ten feet across and ten feet high. These were the burial chambers for the most recent Clyves. Huge stone sarcophagi held the remains of Raedan's father, Grayson, and his grandfather, Ardain. Hadrian would be buried here, as would his son and grandson.

  The other deep vaults were smaller, and were sealed with oak doors banded with iron. Dust and cobwebs covered the doors for the next three levels. Those vaults stored the lesser valuables of the Clyve family: ancient suits of armor long gone out of style, minor artworks, swords and battleaxes from more than a millenia of warfare.

  Raedan stopped at the entrance to the eleventh vault. The door was made of iron. Raedan pushed against the door; the hinges screamed as the door swung open. The room was fifty feet across and reached fifteen feet to the stone ceiling above. The light from Raedan's lantern danced over the massive stone table in the center of the vault and he closed his eyes.

  He could still remember the smell of this room when Damon had lit the candles produced from his chambers. They had smelled of garlic, honey, rose, and beeswax. They had done little to light the cavernous space, but that had not been their purpose.

  The three hatchling griffins had been placed on the table and Damon had drawn an ornate dagger from an equally ornate scabbard. The blade was long, thin, and curved in a smooth arc. Runes were scrawled across the flat of the blade and the ruby in the dagger's pommel pulsed faintly.

  Damon had chanted a long, complicated spell as the mother griffin's heart was brought before him. He sprinkled powders and poured potions into the bowl. After what a young Raedan had felt was an eternity, Damon had cut the heart, first in halves and then quarters. Three of the pieces were presented to the young griffins; they had eaten with a fervor while Damon continued to chant.

  Finally, it had been Raedan's turn. He had been warned that the heart would be hard to stomach, but the taste of blood had nearly caused him to vomit. Even at thirteen he had been a willful boy and he had been able to force himself to continue. When he had finished, Damon had pressed his palm to Raedan's head and chanted a spell.

  The spell had been different than the others. It had been spoken in a throaty, guttural language interspersed at regular intervals with grunts. When Damon had finished, both of them had fallen to the floor unconscious.

  Raedan stepped past the table to stand before another iron door. This one did not have a handle, nor any visible locking mechanism. Had he tried to push the door open, he would have found the task impossible. Old magic warded the door and kept it sealed.

  He pressed his hand to the surface of the iron; the metal was cold to the touch. He whispered the spell that Damon had taught him and the door groaned open. The room on the other side of the door was less than ten feet to a side. Books occupied shelves that were crammed into the room from end to end.

  More books rested in stacks on the two small tables that shared the room. Many of them were leather-bound and inlaid with gold; they all looked to be in pristine condition. Ttheir appearances were a deception, ancient magics kept the books looking like they did. In truth, most of the books were older than the nation of Ansgar.

  They were also largely useless, at least for Raedan's purposes. There were more history books than Raedan cared to remember, and he did remember them because they had been a part of his study as a boy. There were books that recounted the history of every noble house in Ansgar and every major war that had ever been raged over the face of Zaria.

  Raedan set his lantern on one of the tables and found the books he had come for: a thick tome bound in red leather with a rune so ancient inscribed on the cover that even Damon didn't know what it meant. He picked up a pair of books bound in black leather, whispered a spell over them and spread the three out over one of the tables.

  He had just sat down to read when he was interrupted by the sound of leather shoes scraping across stone. The servants knew better than to travel into this vault and the guards would have worn boots. He touched the first two fingers to the onyx in his amulet and closed his eyes. His mind reached out into the darkness and sought out the shadows.

  He had not yet mastered seeing through the shadows, but he could feel their presence and sense the light that caused them. Someone was approaching with a lantern; someone tall and slim. Raedan drew his revolver from its holster and pulled back on the hammer.

  The distinctive click of the hammer setting echoed through the small room and into the vault outside. The soft scraping sound stopped.

  “My lord,” Auberon Strait called out.

  “You may enter,” Raedan said. He let the hammer down on his revolver and slid it back into its holster.

  “My apologies, my lord,” the half-elf said as he stepped through the doorway. “I was told that I could find you here.”

  “What do you need?” Raedan asked. He closed the tomes and stepped between Auberon and the table.

  “I thought that I might be of some assistance,” Auberon said. He set his lantern on a hook. “I know that you speak elven, but I was raised with it.”

  “Where did you learn elven?” Raedan asked. “I was under the impression that you had been raised by your mother; a human woman.”

  “I was,” Auberon confirmed. “But I was raised in the house of a noble. I learned from his advisor.”

  “My elven is sufficient,” Raedan said. He lifted his lantern off of the table.

  “Then perhaps I could help you expand your knowledge of the abilities that flow through you.”

  “What do you know of that?” Raedan's eyes narrowed as he studied the half-elf. The advisor's expression was neutral and he emanated calm.

  “I may not have mastered the gift, my lord, but I know those that have.” Auberon flicked through the pages of an open book. “You would not have come down here if you did not seek to expand your knowledge, outside of the guidance that Damon is willing to provide you.”

  “And how can you help me expand my knowledge if you have not masterd the gift?”

  “I may not be able to bend the shadows or light to my will, or heal or kill with a thought, but I have knowledge that can help you achieve whatever goal it is that you seek,” Auberon said. “I have served as advisor for several nobles throughout Ansgar and in that time I have learned many secrets.”

  “It's late,” Raedan said with a wave toward the door. “We should return to the keep.”

  “I can tell you where there are more books, books that include many different forms of magic,” Auberon said.

  Raedan stopped.

  “Tell me more.”

  Chapter 4 - Magnus

  Magnus Jarmann sat alone in his study.

  The room was large and square. Lanterns had been lit along each wall and bookshelves were pushed up against the walls. Several large tables were spread throughout the room, surrounded by luxurious leather chairs. Maps and markers covered several of those tables and the leftover plates from a late meal were still strewn over another.

  He waited until the door to his study was closed and locked before he reached for the envelope and a knife. No seal had been pressed into the blue wax, but the small blot of gold told him all he needed to know about the letter’s sender. The seal of the royal family of Nordahr would have been pressed into that wax, had the letter been an official communication from Hildegarde.

  The envelope was addressed to the Duke of Agilard and had been delivered by a diplomatic courier from the north; it had been a twelve-day journey by rail. The letter was not the first that Magnus had received in this fashion. They had, in fact, become more frequent as his plans had come closer to fruition. The letters w
ere always carefully worded, in case they fell into the wrong hands, but they had led Magnus to opportunities and options that he might not have seen otherwise.

  Magnus slid the knife through the wax seal and pulled out the envelope’s contents. The letters were never signed but the writing was thick and hard. The wording left little doubt that the letters were penned by a man.

  The time has come, my friend, the letter began. Our mutual friends have prepared to do their part, and you will have already heard of the opportunity that has presented itself. You are to follow the instructions given to you, but prepare your full armies.

  Magnus folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope.

  Short and to the point, Magnus thought as he held the envelope over a candle. The fire licked at the paper and caught. The fire danced in his crystal clear blue eyes.

  “Bad news, Your Grace?” Rorik Karsten asked. The bodyguard had leaned against the stone wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

  The Captain of Guards for the Agilard Duchy was a hand taller than six feet, with broad shoulders and thick muscular arms. His red hair was braided to the middle of his back and he had braided his usually wild beard to the middle of his chest.

  “No.” Magnus shook his head. He intertwined his fingers and pushed. The pop and snap of his knuckles made him flinch.“I was expecting this letter. Especially after the messenger from Aetheston arrived.”

  The lesser lordling that had carried Eadric Garrard’s decree had been a man of the most disagreeable sort. The lord of some small keep and the attached village who believed he was able to stand on the same level as a noble whose house was older than the nation of Ansgar. Magnus had put the man in his place with a sharp word and the threat of imprisonment.

  The decree had been plain enough in its instructions: Magnus was to collect the levies from his sworn nobles and lords and transport them to Aetheston. They would turn around and make their way back to the Forest Glen peninsula to await transport across the Straits of Steimor.

  Magnus had delayed the decision on whether or not to call his levies for as long as he could, but the time had come and he needed to send word off to Aetheston. He wanted to tell Eadric Garrard to consider Agilard and its sworn territories as no longer part of Ansgar, but the letter from his mysterious contact in Nordahr would change the way that he approached the matter.

  “Call my council together,” Magnus said at last as he stood. He was of average height at just more than six feet tall. “I will meet with them in the council chambers.”

  “Your Grace.” Rorik nodded, unlocked the door and departed.

  Magnus unrolled a map across the table, weighed it down at the corners, and sat down once more. He stroked this thick blond beard. The leather map showed the territories that he would rule once he had separated his nation from the grasp of Ansgar. At its heart was the red three-headed hellhound Gahar, the symbol of House Jarmann.

  The territory that was marked as Kerberosi was larger than the lands that his nobles held, but he had taken into account a neutral buffer between his lands and those of the Ansgari nobles that lay along his border.

  The edges of Kerberos would be further expanded to the north by the marriage of his daughter Talia to Alrik Renwyk, heir to the throne of Beldane, directly to the north. The betrothal had not yet been made, but discussions with Thorley Renwyk had been concluded. His daughter’s seventeenth birthday was all that stood in the way of the match being made official. One of Beldane’s eastern districts had become Crown Lands when the territory’s last duke had died without heir. Those lands would be granted to Magnus as soon as his daughter was married.

  Magnus had not decided to whom he was going to grant those lands, though he had several options and more would present themselves when the fight for their independence began. If only—

  A knock on the large oak door interrupted Magnus’ thoughts. He rolled up the map and shoved it into a drawer.

  “Enter!”

  Rorik stepped back through the door. “Your Grace. The council has been summoned. They will be assembled by the time we reach the chamber.”

  “Very well.” Magnus stood and pulled his cloak off of its hook.

  Agilard was so far north that its winters were brutal. Even the stones of Hellhound Castle, nearly ten feet at their thickest, could not keep the brisk winds and biting cold at bay. The city was not yet covered in snow, but it was only a matter of time before it was drowned in a thick white sea.

  The council chamber was at the base of the tower behind a pair of massive oak doors bound with steel and studded with iron. With its high ceiling and painted glass windows, the room felt like a temple. The fireplace at the end of the hall was large enough for half a dozen men to stand in; a fire blazed to warm the spacious room.

  A dozen and a half men sat in luxurious armchairs around a long table in the center of the room. Most of them were brothers or second sons of the nobles that ruled the other territories of Kerberos. Some had books and papers stacked neatly before them, others had mugs of beer or porcelain cups of coffee.

  “Please, don’t rise,” Magnus instructed as he swept around the table and took his seat. “We have much to discuss, and very little time.”

  “Your Grace, have you come to a decision on how to handle King Garrard’s demands?”

  “I have indeed, Derrick” Magnus confirmed. The gathered lords seemed to sit up a bit straighter. “We will satisfy His Majesty’s request for levies. They will be called up immediately and transported to Aetheston.”

  “Your Grace, the King’s demands are absurd. My father—”

  “If your father wanted to make his case to my court, he should have attended himself.”

  The Earl of Forest Glen was represented by his youngest son, Kreiger Mallory, a boy of average height and no more than twenty years. Magnus’ sharp rebuke caused the boy to sink into his chair.

  “We have suffered under the rule of the Ansgari king for one hundred years,” Magnus continued. “We have married our daughters and our sisters to their nobles. We have watched as the King has abused our existence and taken advantage of our lands. But the time is not yet right for us to make our stand for independence.”

  An uproar of disapproval surged from the gathered lords. Some of the elder representatives made a show of their disapproval by pounding the butts of their staffs on the stone floor.

  “Your Grace, this is the perfect opportunity!” cried Larsen Frisch, representing his nephew Stefan, Baron Ethelinde. Having just celebrated his sixty-seventh year, Larsen was the oldest man in the room. “The King is sending his most experienced soldiers and commanders thousands of miles away. The other nobles will be hesitant to call more soldiers to battle. Especially the nobles in the west.”

  “The nobles in the west will indeed be hesitant to call up more levies against us,” Magnus allowed.

  He was disappointed with the lack of foresight amongst the noble representatives. Their families had waited as long as his for the chance to wrench themselves free of Ansgari rule, but they had not born the risk of planning for the inevitable battle. He would have told them all of the plans that he had made with Beldane and Steimor or of his secret advisor in Nordahr, but they were not ready. And those plans could still be foiled if the wrong person learned of them.

  “It will take nearly a year for all of the soldiers to make their way across the Straits of Steimor and more time for them to reach Kirton,” Magnus said. He paused when the doors swung open.

  Roland Jarmann swept into the room followed by his bodyguards. The heir to the Agilard Duchy still wore his riding clothes: leather chaps over woolen pants, a black wool shirt, and a fur-lined black greatcoat. He was nearly identical to his father; even his blonde hair was the same shade as the elder Jarmann. He spent much of his time at sea in command of the frigate Eastern Honor; he was the most respected captain in the Kerberosi squadrons of the Ansgari navy.

  “Father, how unlike you to start without me,” Roland said in their
native tongue. Kerberosi was a throaty language, rough and loud. Several of the men whispered, others shook their heads.

  King William the Defender had proclaimed that in exchange for the freedom of their nobility the Kerberosi would forget their language and learn the common tongue of the Ansgari.

  “You know the laws,” Magnus reminded his son, in Ansgari, as the younger Jarmann draped himself on his chair. One leg was hung over one of the chair’s arm and one of his arms draped over its back.

  The others in the room spoke Kerberosi; they had all learned from the same secret order of priests that Magnus had. But to speak the tongue in open council was dangerous. No one knew whose guards were spies for the Ansgari throne.

  “The laws that tell us not to learn the language of our ancestors, or that we must follow the laws of a King that is not our own,” Roland continued in Kerberosi. “Those laws are—”

  “Those laws are what has kept our people safe and under the control of their own nobles.” Magnus was on his feet with a speed that no one would have thought him capable of. He slammed his fists against the table. Everyone stared. He continued in Ansgari, “We will continue this meeting without any further disruption. If anyone has a problem with that, you are free to leave now and explain to your nobles why they are not a part of my plans for this nation.”

  No one stood. No one moved. Magnus wondered if anyone even breathed in the silence that followed his proclamation. Roland straightened in his chair under the withering glare of his father.

  Magnus let his subordinates cringe for another long moment before he inhaled deeply and sat back in his chair.

  “I have plans for our nation,” he announced as if everyone didn’t know. “Those plans are not yet ready to be revealed. Nor are they ready to be set into motion.”

  The lords looked at each other. Each hoped that the other would be able to say something to convince their king to tell them what his plans were. No one was courageous enough to push their luck.