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

by Damien Black

  They were shown to a wooden bench running the length of the antechamber’s east wing, where a row of great arched windows looked out onto the harbour, its teeming warships and the roiling seas beyond.

  A gaggle of people thronged the chamber. Some were merchants, tradesmen and other city dwellers, but there were also many who were clearly from out of town: groups of ragged peasants stood or sat about the chamber, many of them caked in mud and dirt from the road. Many more bore the ugly signs of war: here and there a bloodied bandage told of a lost eye or severed limb, and many of the low-born women wept openly. Looking on their inconsolable faces, Adelko did not like to dwell on the cause of their grief – young as he was, he knew full well some of the worst wounds of war need not always be inflicted with cold steel.

  The guards on duty had cleared a space around them to separate the important guests from the more ordinary petitioners. Many a liege would have simply ordered noble arrivals with urgent news brought through immediately, but King Freidheim insisted on hearing out those he had already admitted to court without interruption.

  As liveried servants brought a small mahogany table to them and set this with a roast chicken, small tomatoes, chopped parsnips, a wedge of cheese, a loaf of bread and a jug of watered wine with silver trenchers and goblets, Adelko found himself thanking the King’s sense of justice for the delay.

  But surrounded as he was by the poor, destitute and hungry, he could barely manage more than a few morsels for guilt, famished though he was. He was grateful when Horskram, clearly thinking much the same thing, bade the guards surrounding them distribute the rest of the food among the poorer folk after he and Vaskrian had also taken a few bites. The knights had a table of food set before them as well; at Tarlquist’s behest they did likewise.

  ‘You set us all a worthy example with your Palomedian charity, master monk,’ said Tarlquist, wiping his mouth before taking another sip of watered wine.

  ‘It will make little difference to their ruined lives, I fear,’ replied Horskram unsmiling. ‘But I do as the Redeemer would have me do – indeed, ‘tis all one can do when faced with adversity and temptation alike.’

  Tarlquist nodded as if weighing these words. ‘Indeed,’ was all he said, before turning in his seat to gaze out of the window.

  Vaskrian followed his gaze. A couple more warships could be seen making their way across the choppy seas of the Strang Estuary to join the rest of the fleet in the harbour, a motley array of cogs and galleys. Some would be independent contractors, seaborne mercenaries who were little better than pirates in peacetime, but suddenly very useful when war beckoned – if one could afford them. The rest would be seafaring vassals of those loyalist lords who owned coastal demesnes. He searched for Lord Aesgir’s standard amongst the bristling sails, but couldn’t make it out. Perhaps he had not arrived yet. He would though – like the other lords of Efrilund, including his own liege Lord Fenrig, he was loyal.

  The latest arrivals looked to be from Vandheim, the coastal jarldom where his hero Sir Torgun hailed from. Vaskrian glanced at the blond knight to see if he had registered their arrival, but he was staring grimly at the huddled refugees, a mingled look of sorrow and anger on his rugged face. Beside him Sir Wolmar affected a dandyish boredom, as though he had seen it all before. The chequered twins sat stiff and silent, saying nothing. Vaskrian wondered how their hair colour had come to be so different, when they were identical in every other way. In some lands it was said that people applied dyes to their hair in the way that a tailor would to wool and cloth, but such an effete custom was unknown in the Northern Kingdoms.

  Quite right too – what kind of nancy would colour his hair? Doric and Cirod were real men, there had to be some other explanation.

  He turned his attention back to the ships. The new arrivals at harbour would have come in answer to the summons put out by Prince Thorsvald, the King’s younger son and Sealord of the Eastern Reaches: it was his job to muster the ships commanded by loyal barons to fight the rebel navy for mastery of the Wyvern Sea.

  Vaskrian silently hoped the King’s second son would make a better fist of his duties than his first: half the southern Dominions seemed to have fallen before Prince Wolfram had made a stand at Linden.

  He didn’t like to think how demoralising that must be for the loyalist forces struggling down south to defend the realm from further invasion. He didn’t like to think ill of the heir to the throne either, but it was common knowledge that Wolfram was too reckless by far – though no one doubted his courage.

  Then again, that was what most folk said about him: that he was reckless and hot-headed. But he was just a lowly squire and a commoner to boot, so what did it matter how he behaved?

  He felt the old familiar bitterness welling up inside him, and did his best to suppress it. Now wasn’t the time for self-pity.

  At least it looked as though his fortunes might improve, here on the threshold of an audience with his King and a full-blown war coming hard on its heels. His service to the monks was done – he’d got them to Strongholm in one piece. Judging by everything he’d seen and heard, they were fighting some great supernatural evil, something you couldn’t kill with sword or spear. Not easily at any rate.

  He chose not to dwell on it. He didn’t like the idea of things he couldn’t fight. Best to let the Argolians deal with their sorcerous quest in their own way – that was their job after all.

  He preferred to focus on the coming war, something he could understand. Something he could profit from. Surely he would get his chance to distinguish himself, to prove to them all that his self-belief was justified…

  Just give him that chance, and he’d show all those bluebloods his true worth.

  He was just about to ask Sir Tarlquist something about the royal war fleet when he was interrupted by the sound of silver trumpets blowing and the herald calling out: ‘The King will now see Sir Tarlquist of Gottenheim, Commander in the Order of the White Valravyn, and his entourage!’

  Adelko hardly had time to draw breath before the chequered guards that had sequestered them from the common mob were escorting them through the crowded chamber towards the double doors.

  The herald, a shortish heavy-set man in early middle age, stepped up and addressed their party in a stentorian voice: ‘You will approach the King and kneel at the foot of his dais! You will not speak if he does not address you directly – unless he gives you leave to speak freely! You will rise only when he bids you! You will not turn your back on him, unless it please him that you do so! You may meet his eyes once he begins discourse with you, but not before!’

  Adelko had the distinct impression that the unsmiling herald’s words were aimed at himself and Vaskrian – doubtless his mentor and the raven knights were familiar with court protocol. The authoritarian instructions did little for the young monk’s nerves as the herald stepped aside and motioned for two liveried pikemen to open the doors.

  As the bronze face of Thorsvald V parted to reveal a first glimpse of the royal throne room, Adelko steeled himself and prepared to meet his King.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER I

  The Priest And The Pretender

  From where he lurked in the shadow of a tent the urchin could hear the sounds of war subsiding for another day. No one in that vast camp knew his name, and most likely none would ever ask it.

  Not even the strange and frightening foreigner who approached him now, his sea-green robes dully catching the fading light of the sun as it dipped ever closer towards the western mountain ranges. The flat plains that lay south of the Vyborg River allowed the eye to roam far and wide across the lush green earth of the King’s Dominions; they also made Linden Castle, a mighty holdfast situated atop an incongruous knoll, difficult to assail.

  Even the urchin knew that: the past ten days’ blood and toil had told him that much.

  The foreign priest who had commissioned his services drew level with him. In his miserable ten summers’ existence as a beggar and cutpurse
on the filthy streets and side alleys of Lindentown, the urchin had seen and endured much that might have made grown men quail – yet even so his new employer sent shivers down his spine.

  Small wonder, the ragged boy thought as he looked timorously up at the tall, lean Northlander who stood before him, staring down at him balefully with his one good eye. But it was the other one the urchin feared most – though it was cloudy and sightless, he could not shake the feeling that it was seeing right through him, peering into his very soul.

  He didn’t like that, not one jot.

  The ‘sea wizard’ they called him, but the urchin had heard him called other things too: warlock, devilspawn, cursed. Staring at the strange fish-like scales that covered the blind half of his face, he could well believe it.

  ‘Do you have it?’

  The voice was thickly accented but the warlock-priest or whatever he was spoke fluent Northlending. He spoke it better than the urchin if the truth be told, but then he supposed he was an educated man this priest, pagan or not.

  ‘Course I do,’ replied the urchin, trying to sound confident. ‘Where’s me money?’

  ‘You’ll get your money – I want a look at it first.’

  This time the words were spat out with contempt – well, the urchin was well used to the distaste of his betters. The Northlander was a paying customer, so what did he care?

  Reaching inside his mildewed jerkin the urchin produced a folded scrap of cloth and handed it gingerly to the strange priest. His hands were ice-cold as he took it from him and opened it up. Gazing at the contents he nodded, wrapped the cloth again and put it in the deep folds of his glaucous mantle.

  ‘And you are sure he didn’t notice?’

  The urchin felt himself swell with a rare sense of pride. ‘What did I tell you, mister? Been doin’ this since I was old enough to walk – ‘e didn’ notice a thing, just turned over in ‘is sleep is all. Can’t say as I ever ‘ad to nick - ’

  The priest cut him off sharply. ‘That is enough. Your opinions are of no interest to me.’

  Reaching into a leather purse at his belt – a peculiar affair, fashioned of knotted hemp interwoven with dried seaweed – he produced two silver marks and pressed them into the urchin’s outstretched hand.

  ‘And you are still willing to do me the other service?’ he asked. ‘The one we spoke of before?’

  The strange warlock’s voice betrayed no emotion as he asked this, but all the same the urchin felt a wave of unease come over him. He’d mulled this part over but he still wasn’t sure...

  ‘Five silver marks, you said?’ Even now, with all that money on the line, it didn’t seem quite right.

  But the priest was inexorable. ‘I sense your reluctance,’ he replied in the same flat voice. ‘Shall we make it ten? Perhaps that will put your mind at ease.’

  The urchin wasn’t sure about that, but it did settle the matter. Ten silver marks was a lot of money. ‘Done,’ he said, before he had a chance to regret it.

  ‘Wait here,’ said the priest.

  He was not long gone. During that time the urchin contented himself with loitering beside the tent, glancing from the two silver pieces that glinted in his palm to the serjeants and other soldiers passing to and fro.

  The booming sound of the mangonels firing pellets at the outer wall of Linden had stopped as the sun began to draw level with the mist-wreathed Hyrkrainians. The camp became increasingly busy with the bustle of knights and men-at-arms returning from the battlefield; their clamour mingled with the groans of the wounded being brought back on stretchers, whilst the chirurgeons, cooks, whores and washerwomen began to prepare for another working night servicing a besieging army.

  There’d be a fair number of his own kind working the camp too – just as he had been before the serjeant he was robbing had caught him running a blade along the bottom of his money pouch. He’d nearly robbed the urchin of his life on the spot for that – but the strange foreigner had suddenly stepped in and ordered the man to release him and sheath his steel.

  The serjeant had been a burly fellow and battle-scarred, but he’d gone pale at the sight of the Northlander. After that no one had dared lay a hand on him – but it also meant he had a guvnor now, a benefactor who expected to be obeyed.

  It had occurred to him to run – to flee back to town and hide himself amongst the ordure of his old familiar haunts. But somehow he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it – the promise of pay and a peculiar sense of adventure stopped him.

  Or that was what he told himself it was anyway.

  Towering over him again the Northland priest blocked out the sun’s dying rays. He handed the urchin two items and told him to cover them up immediately. Wordlessly the urchin obeyed.

  The priest’s voice was dark and hushed now, a mere shadow of a whisper. ‘You remember what I told you to do with these?’

  The urchin nodded, his gimlet eyes meeting the priest’s with difficulty.

  ‘You wait until the last of the sun’s rays disappear over yonder mountains, and not before, then you do it just like I told you – do you understand?

  The urchin swallowed nervously and nodded again.

  ‘Very good,’ said the priest, slightly more loudly this time. ‘If you serve me well in this, you shall have your reward directly. You are to stay here when the work is done – I will meet you with the rest of your pay. Is that clearly understood?’

  ‘Y-yes,’ the urchin stammered. He felt as though he could barely speak.

  Without another word the priest spun on his heel and walked towards the pavilion at the other end of the clearing formed by the ring of tents. It was only then that the urchin really noticed the three-pronged trident he carried, its points curving inwards so their tips nearly met. It was fashioned of a strange silvery-blue metal and covered with peculiar markings, which seemed to move when its owner did.

  Krulheim son of Kanga, self-styled Prince of Thule, prepared to address his war council. It was dark in the tent; the inchoate light of the braziers that had just been lit was only beginning to augment the fading light outside. Around a pine table topped with a model of Linden Castle and other crude representations of the armies and lands surrounding it stood his allies: men of power who thirsted for more of it, and had chosen to gamble everything they owned – including their heads – on a chance to further their worldly ambitions.

  Sir Jord, Marshal of Thule and de facto commander-in-chief of the rebel forces (although that title officially belonged to his liege lord), was first to speak.

  ‘The palisades are finished, Your Highness, so our mangonels should be able to harass them with impunity from now on. We are building a covered way to protect our vanguard for when we assault the outer bailey walls, and our engineers are constructing belfries too. Those should be ready within a tenday.’

  ‘A tenday?’ Lord Aelrød, a tall, wiry man in middle age, spoke up. As the Prince of Thule’s most powerful ally, he felt it behoved him to voice his opinion in all matters. It was a duty he adhered to far too often for Jord’s liking. ‘Why wait so long? The covered way will be finished by then – that means we can take a battering ram to the outer gates. Why, we’ll be storming their inner walls by the time the belfries are completed!’

  ‘I was coming to that, Lord Aelrød,’ said Sir Jord, doing his best to conceal his impatience. The Baron of Saltcaste was a titled lord, whilst he was but a landed knight who served the Jarl of Thule as marshal – and until very recently he had not even had his modest holdings to call his own. All that meant he had to defer to Saltcaste – but that didn’t change the fact that the man’s knowledge of battle tactics was clearly inferior.

  The Marshal continued: ‘The covered way will indeed be finished before the siege engines – in a week’s time by my reckoning. That means we can begin to storm the gates before we send the belfries up to harry their walls as you rightly observe, my lord – but in the meantime we can also begin sending squadrons of foot up the sides of the hill to mount escala
des here and here...’ He moved pieces across the table to demonstrate.

  ‘Our archers will provide them with covering fire from the palisades – that should keep their crossbowmen pinned, but each detachment will have extra soldiers with them armed with kite shields just in case. These can then of course join their comrades in the escalade should it prove successful.’

  The thick-set Marshal said this last part rather as if he were explaining the basics of siege warfare to a green squire, which was exactly what he felt he was doing at times. Lord Aelrød was a canny politician and not unskilled with sword and spear, but like many of his kind he seemed to believe that knowledge of the battlefield came with blue blood. It was attitudes like that which led to blood of all hues flowing all too often.

  ‘You have excelled yourself and left no stone unturned as always,’ said the Prince of Thule, nodding. Somewhat shorter than the Northlending average but powerfully built with broad shoulders, Krulheim was handsome enough in a rugged sort of way. His grey-green eyes burned keenly with an unquenchable fire. His brown wavy hair tumbled about his shoulders in ringlets and his incipient beard and moustache looked bristly and sparse by contrast.

  He had begun growing the latter at Jord’s insistence. ‘Look like a king, and men will respect you as one,’ he had told him. Right now though it made him look more like what he was in reality – a self-styled prince, a pretender to a throne that was far from won.

  Thinking this the Marshal reflected that perhaps his liege had been wise after all to stop short of having himself crowned King of Thule – Krulheim had insisted that he would only bequeath himself this accolade once he was sitting on the Pine Throne in Strongholm Palace, a conqueror.