Devil's Night Dawning: The First Book of the Broken Stone Series

by Damien Black

  Tarlquist led them along a narrow corridor that ended in a door guarded by a sentry. At a nod from the knight they were ushered into what Adelko supposed must be the solar of Staerkvit Castle. This was a sizeable rectangular chamber with a row of south-facing windows. The smaller west wall was taken up entirely with a black and white mural, depicting the Order’s emblem in partitioned squares at each of its four corners. The centrepiece showed a stylised knight clutching a sword in one hand and scales of justice in the other, a white raven bursting from his chest.

  The middle of the room was given over to an oblong pine table covered with maps. This was flanked by two long benches, with a high-backed mahogany chair of simple design at its head. Half a dozen knights dressed in mail were poring over the maps and arguing. Did they ever remove their armour, Adelko wondered.

  He recognised bull-necked Sir Toric, golden-haired Sir Torgun and cruel-mouthed Sir Wolmar immediately; he guessed the other knights were commanders in the Order like Tarlquist.

  The sentry announced them. As the knights turned to stare at them Adelko’s eyes fell on the one standing at the head of the table, before the chair. Like Torgun he was tall even for a high-born Northlending. He was leaner, but his wiry frame betokened a man seasoned in battle. His short cropped hair was receding, but here and there a reddish-gold lock still graced the grey. A pair of fine mustachios sprouted from his hooked nose; keen green eyes stared intently at the new arrivals while the stern curve of his mouth gave nothing away.

  Everything in his bearing said this was a man used to being obeyed, and Adelko knew at once that he was in the presence of royalty: Prince Freidhoff, High Commander of the Order of the White Valravyn and brother to the King. The man who would decide what to do with them.

  Sure enough, the guard announced the Prince and commanded the captives to kneel. Adelko felt there was something about the High Commander that was familiar, though plainly he had never met such an illustrious figure before.

  Prince Freidhoff bade them rise impatiently. ‘Enough of the regal formalities,’ he said in a gravelly voice weighty with authority. ‘We are at Staerkvit Castle, not court, so you will address me as High Commander. When I say “you” I mean you, Horskram of Vilno – yon lads shall not speak unless one of us here addresses them directly. Sir Tarlquist, Sir Toric, Sir Torgun and my son Wolmar you are acquainted with – these two are Sir Redrun and Sir Yorrick, commanders in the Order.’

  Adelko barely noticed the last two, both tall, broad-shouldered men in early middle age, as they nodded curtly at Horskram, stunned as he was by the revelation. Sir Wolmar was the Prince’s son – no wonder his father had seemed familiar!

  Peering at them both in the flickering torchlight he could see the resemblance – Freidhoff’s mouth was stern where his son’s was cruel, his jawline somewhat broader and less aquiline, the curve of his nose more pronounced, but the family resemblance was unmistakeable.

  So high-handed, ruthless Wolmar was a king’s grandson – that didn’t bode well either.

  ‘Well met, sir knights,’ replied Horskram courteously. ‘And may the Almighty watch over you and the Redeemer bless your days, High Commander – it seems an age since last we met. Pray tell me how fares the Lady Walsa?’

  ‘My cousin fares well enough, as much I hear,’ replied the High Commander gruffly, tugging at a mustachio. ‘Seems content to drive my brother mad at court with her querulousness, if the tales be true. Far more shrewish than her sister ever was, Reus rest Her Majesty’s soul. Still she can hardly pester her lord husband, Willeng, given he’s lost his wits and weeps like a babe from dawn till dusk in his seat at Stromlund. Some wasting disease that ruins a man’s mind, the Marionites say. A pity you can’t cure him as well.’

  Horskram shook his head slowly. ‘I am afraid I can only save a soul from madness when the servants of the Fallen One are responsible,’ he said. ‘But I am glad to hear that the King’s cousin now resides at Strongholm – possessions there have been few and far between, so she should be safe. Would that Her Highness had never come into possession of that accursed bauble from the Blessed Realm – an Ifrit is a powerful and vindictive spirit when released from the article that binds it! It would have been a tragedy for someone of the blood royal to succumb to such a tormentor.’

  ‘Thanks to your ministrations she didn’t,’ replied the High Commander courteously. ‘But, be that as it may... your latest story, as I have heard it, is a strange one indeed. Tintagael Forest – even that is surely a challenge too great for the mighty Horskram of Vilno?’

  ‘I make no claims to might, High Commander,’ replied the adept quickly. ‘Only such wisdom and learning as the Almighty has seen fit to bless me with. And I am sorry to say it is true that we fell foul of the accursed forest that the Elder Wizards poisoned – and lost one of our comrades to its horrible magicks.’

  Sir Wolmar scowled and appeared about to say something, but his father anticipated him, silencing him with a flick of the hand. Beckoning to a page boy standing in the corner, the High Commander ordered stools to be fetched for the captives. When servants had brought these he bade them leave with the page and the guards, ordering the sentry to shut the door behind them.

  The trio were sat in a row opposite the far end of the table facing the High Commander; on either side of it the six other knights sat, their faces turned towards them. The last vestiges of twilight had disappeared outside. Torches flickered in a chilly evening breeze offset by the firepit next to the east wall. Despite this Adelko felt shiverish as seven pairs of eyes scrutinised him and his companions. The interrogation had begun.

  They questioned Horskram closely. He answered loudly enough, giving a comprehensive account of their journey from Ulfang and the adventures that had befallen them. The part about the Headstone fragment he left out, saying only that an artefact of great importance had been stolen from the monastery by something he suspected was not mortal. He was similarly vague about the supernatural horror pursuing them, although it was true that they knew little enough about the blasphemous devil anyway. Of the Northland brigands he gave a full account, detailing their fight in the clearing by Lake Sördegil and flight thereafter. When he reached the part about their ordeal in the forest, he was circumspect again, saying only that they had been beset by numerous evils, the last of which had claimed the life of their comrade.

  When his mentor reached that part Adelko sensed Vaskrian shudder; he wondered if the old monk was being sparse with details as much to spare the squire as to preserve secrecy.

  Of their audience with the Fay Kindred, Horskram said little, despite being pressed for details. All he would say was that they had been rewarded with free passage out of the forest after despatching a rival spirit that was hostile to the faerie kings.

  At that point Wolmar got to his feet and denounced them all as devil-worshippers, only to be told sternly by his father to pipe down and be seated.

  But Sir Redrun clearly shared Wolmar’s misgivings, glaring at Horskram suspiciously throughout the interrogation.

  ‘What kind of man of the cloth seeks sanctuary in accursed Tintagael?’ he asked several times, to Wolmar’s nodding approval. ‘Many in the Temple have spoken ill of the Argolian Order – until now I had not been minded to believe them. But they say only a sorcerer of great power could ever hope to escape that place. Perhaps ‘tis true what some say, that the Grey Friars are warlocks in disguise! And warlocks are no friends to the Knights of the White Valravyn, or any god-fearing man!’

  But the High Commander waved him silent too, and bade Horskram continue: ‘You said from the outset you were headed for Rima to speak with the Grand Master of your Order – why did you change your mind and seek Strongholm instead?’

  Again Horskram answered as loudly as he could without giving everything away. At least the war offered a convenient smokescreen – it was perfectly true that they had thought it better to take ship from Strongholm rather than risk a journey through the strife-torn southlands.


  Prince Freidhoff was quick to disabuse them of that notion.

  ‘The rebels have been mustering a navy out of Port Urring for some weeks now,’ he said. ‘You’ll have as little joy travelling by sea as by land before the month is out. But there was another reason for your journeying to the capital – Sir Tarlquist informs me you were seeking an audience with the Arch Perfect. I wonder what he would make of your blasphemous journey.’

  The High Commander sounded more suspicious than outraged. It was often said that the ravens put ‘Regis before Reus’ – their very existence was founded on a legend shrouded in magic, so they couldn’t be all that pious. Adelko sensed Wolmar’s insistence that they were heathen warlocks was hardly couched in god-fearing piety either – rather a petulant prince’s son had taken an immediate dislike to mysterious travellers who defied him, and wanted to punish them under any pretext. He could feel the malice pouring off him like venom – thankfully his father, though fiercely authoritarian, seemed to be cut from a different cloth.

  ‘I realised after the horrors of Tintagael that we could not possibly hope to make it all the way to Rima on our own,’ said Horskram, dissembling around the eerie counsel the Fays had given them. ‘So I thought it wiser to seek out the Arch Perfect and consult him while arranging a ship. Though not a member of our Order, he is a wise and powerful prelate and might be able to offer some counsel at need.’

  The High Commander glared suspiciously at Horskram. ‘He is a wise and powerful prelate who has always been as critical of your Order as he has been of ours,’ he replied sternly. ‘But of a sudden you wish to breach the divide and make parley with him, as it were... There’s more to this than meets the eye, Master Horskram. I know little of Temple matters but I can see that plainly enough.’

  The knights went back over Horskram’s story in full, painstakingly making him reiterate everything he had said again to try and catch him out. But the old monk never wavered – each and every time the details were the same.

  By the time they were done the torches were burning low in their brackets, and Adelko’s belly was rumbling painfully. At least in the gaol they had been fed regularly – it must be far past supper time by now. Vaskrian was silent and subdued – the novice had feared he would butt in impetuously as he usually did, but Horskram’s recounting of Tintagael seemed to have knocked the stuffing out of him. He gripped the sides of his stool with white-knuckled hands and stared at the floor dumbly.

  If the ravens were hungry, they showed no sign of it. At last, leaning back in his high chair with a sigh the High Commander frowned.

  ‘It is evident to me, master monk, that you are leaving in enough details to impress upon us the importance of your mission, whilst leaving out enough to keep us in the dark. Just what is it you are hiding from us – and more to the point, why? Is this supposed to be for our own protection, or yours? What is so terrible that it cannot be shared with the justiciars of the King’s Dominions – and need I remind you, I could sanction force to reveal your true story... indeed is there any reason why I should not now do so, as you refuse to speak fully of your own accord?’

  That provoked another fierce debate among the knights. Wolmar and Redrun were for having them ‘chastised’ in the lower dungeons; Torgun and Tarlquist strongly opposed such a course, whilst Aronn and Yorrick suggested starving them for a day or two to loosen their tongues.

  ‘We cannot and should not inflict torment on these men,’ said Torgun quietly but firmly. ‘Two are friars and one is a man of arms sworn to service – to treat them as common criminals would be a grave injustice!’

  ‘They are warlocks, or spies, or maybe even both,’ persisted Wolmar. ‘Perhaps you are too dull-witted to see it, but I am not! To the dungeons with them I say – hot irons will quickly reveal their true story!’

  ‘Aye, Sir Wolmar has the right of it,’ put in Sir Redrun, a stony-faced knight whose head, shorn clean at the back and sides, was topped with a tuft of straggly black hair. ‘He says the Fay Folk let them go free – but only a sorcerer could compel such fiends thus. A true Argolian would never treat with evil spirits!’

  ‘What do you know of the Argolians and their ways, Sir Redrun?’ retorted Tarlquist. ‘How do you know he treated with them? Do you dare to say pagan sorcery could compel such wicked imps but the holy power of the Redeemer could not? Perhaps it was his prayers that set them free!’

  ‘Aye, perhaps,’ Sir Redrun allowed. ‘But I’m thinking something else too – perhaps this is all a smokescreen, and there was no cursed voyage to Tintagael, no foreign brigands, no night-tripping stalker... perhaps it’s all an elaborate hoax, to put us off our guard! For all we know they could be spies – sent by Thule to learn our true strength and fathom our battle plans.’

  ‘I’ve said as much already!’ chimed Sir Wolmar.

  ‘Both of you are half out of your wits with fear of the enemy, it seems,’ said Sir Torgun. The young knight, who could not have been older than five and twenty summers, never raised his voice a great deal, Adelko noticed. But when he spoke everybody, including Prince Freidhoff and Sir Wolmar, listened.

  ‘Thule knows our strength as well as he knows our own,’ the tall knight continued. ‘He has been planning this assault for months, maybe years – that much is clear. Whatever he needed to know about our forces he will have learned long since. As to our battle plans, those should be obvious enough – even now his army presses deep into our heartlands, and we must meet him in the field before Linden as soon as we can muster an army of our own. I can see no obvious connection betwixt these wayfarers and the rebels, strange as their story may seem.’

  Sir Tarlquist nodded his assent. Yorrick looked as though he might be leaning towards their view, but Aronn remained uncertain. ‘I still say a day or two without food, just to be sure they aren’t keeping anything back that we ought to know about, would do no harm,’ he mused aloud.

  ‘I say a pox on that!’ snarled Wolmar. ‘Monks fast every season! They’ll endure that easily, and yon staring squire is clearly a halfwit! The only way to be sure is to put the maiden on them – we’ll soon get the full story then, mark my words!’

  ‘I thought you said they were spies and warlocks, now they are monks when it suits you to say so,’ answered Torgun, fixing the Prince’s son with a cold stare. It was the closest to angry Adelko had seen him get. ‘Forgive me for speaking ill of your flesh and blood, High Commander, but it is becoming fast apparent that Sir Wolmar desires only one thing – to inflict pain on these strangers for cruelty’s sake alone.’

  Wolmar’s eyes narrowed, their green irises glinting with cold fury as he glared at Torgun. ‘I am serving the realm, not my own vanity,’ he replied venomously. ‘You would sooner see its enemies walk free than have anyone say your precious knightly honour was compromised by sanctioning a necessary evil.’

  At last Torgun grew angry. ‘You dare to accuse me of putting my own vanity before the defence of the realm, Sir Wolmar!’ he said, raising his voice for the first time. ‘Even for you, that is low – were it not for the rules of our Order and your blood royal, I would demand satisfaction in the lists forthwith!’

  Wolmar remained unimpressed. ‘Satisfaction you can have any time, Sir Torgun of Vandheim,’ he spat back. ‘Let us remove our surcoats and repair with witnesses to a suitable place – I’ve had enough of your more-chivalrous-than-thou prating, let’s see how well your steel talks instead!’

  ‘Enough!’ bellowed Prince Freidhoff, slamming his fist down on the table. ‘What foolishness is this to speak of? There will be no clandestine duelling between knights of the Order – its rules are there to be adhered to, not broken at will, and especially not by my own son! Now, silence, all of you, I’ll – ’

  The sound came, sudden and awful and otherworldly, stilling the angry words of mortal men in a heartbeat.

  Adelko felt a horribly familiar dread clutch his spirit with icy fingers. He had hoped never to hear that horrid cry again, but on this occasion his prayers we
re not to be answered. Vaskrian looked up and over towards the solar’s windows in the direction of the hideous sound as he broke out into a cold sweat. The knights stared at each other aghast, paralysed by the dreadful call, an avian shriek suffused with an insectoid buzzing. It was loud, very loud – it pierced the ears and transfixed the heart.

  Horskram was first to throw off the terror gripping them. Stumbling over to a window he gazed out of it. ‘Ye Almighty,’ he gasped. ‘It’s directly above the castle grounds – that’s close enough to sense us!’

  Adelko, Sir Torgun and Prince Freidhoff managed to shrug off their fear and join him at the window. The rest of the knights and Vaskrian were bent low, clutching their ears and trembling – brave men unmanned by a horror that defied mortal courage.

  ‘What in the name of the Redeemer is that?’ cried the High Commander in a choked voice. At the window next to him Sir Torgun said nothing at all, his mouth agape, his face white.

  The thing that had pursued them since the Highlands was hovering above the courtyard, on a level with the keep’s turrets just above the solar. Adelko was closer to it than he had ever been, and the clouds had parted during their interrogation to reveal a sickle moon and stars. His first clear view of the netherworld demon would leave a chill of horror on his heart forever.

  It was huge: its bat-like wings alone were each bigger than a man. Their membranous matter reminded Adelko of bees kept by the journeymen at Ulfang. Its tubular body and tail he had glimpsed at Sørdegil; at this range he could see its scythe-like point was bigger than a sword. Wicked yellow talons sprouted from myriad insectoid limbs, and a carapaced exoskeleton of deepest black served as its skin. A cluster of eyes sprouted from its featureless convex head; but where natural order would have dictated the mindless orbs of a hornet, mammalian pupils glinted with alien intelligence. Perhaps worst of all was its mouth, which opened horizontally to reveal rows of fangs shaped like giant pine needles. A horrid stench permeated the air around it, making Adelko feel as nauseous as he was terrified.