by Matthew Ward
Melanna stared at the sword. At the hair-thin runes etched across its single-edged blade. Uneven metal spurs stretched from pommel and guard, but never met. Thick black tarnish lay between worn ridges that might once have been sculpted design.
Elspeth approached the table, her fingers tracing the runes along the steel. White fire and black danced at her touch, but left no mark on her skin. “This is not of the Dark.” She looked sharply up at Naradna. “Tell me, how did you offend the Raven?”
The room went deathly still, the shadows longer than before. The men in the chamber, kings, would-be kings and warriors all, shared a common caste of expression. Men who felt the call of the pyre before their time and knew not how to answer.
Melanna grabbed at the table and closed her eyes against sudden dizziness. There were legends of the Raven’s revenants walking the living realm. There were legends concerning everything. The Dark and the Raven. One to command you in life, the other in death. To fight one was horrifying enough. To fight both…?
Soft, soothing light penetrated the darkness behind Melanna’s eyes. Dizziness receded, a little of the fear alongside. Enough that she could open her eyes. The daughters of Ashana had left their posts about the chamber’s edge in favour of new stations about the table. Silver to drive away darkness.
“We brought battle to the foe,” said Naradna. “Nothing more.”
Melanna wondered at the rumours of the firepit, and the claims of a grandsire who had met unnatural end. Had Maggad cursed his grandchildren with his final breath?
“Perhaps this is nothing more than bleak happenstance,” said Melanna’s father. “Divine children are as apt to rebellion as any other.”
Elspeth threw him a sour look. “The Raven has no children. His revenants are pieces of himself. They obey absolutely, as do fallen ephemerals who offer souls in trade for fleeting gifts. There is no rebellion in them.”
Interesting that she spoke of the Raven as a man, as the Tressians did, rather than the grim matriarch Melanna had been raised to fear.
“Have the Tressians fallen so far that they beg aid from the Keeper of the Dead?” said Cardivan.
“It should surprise no one,” Haldrane said tautly. “Tressia is built on tombs. They worship their dead as fervently as they do faithless Lumestra. No wonder the Dark has taken root in their souls. Who is to say which lapse caused the other?”
“Does it matter?” said Aeldran. “We cannot fight what we cannot kill. These ‘revenants’ reform within moments of being struck down.”
“There are ways.” Haldrane rubbed his chin. He, at least, had overcome his fear. Just one more problem for the spymaster to solve. “At least, if the old tales are true.”
“And if they are not?” demanded Sard. “We cannot fight the Tressians and the Raven.”
“Blessed Ashana,” said Devren, “but we cannot fight the Raven alone.”
“We must find a way,” snapped Melanna’s father. “I will not yield. Not to the Dark. Not to the Raven. And not to fear.”
He was losing them. Melanna saw it in hooded glances and the twitch of cheeks. Devren would follow unto death, as would Haldrane. But the others? For all its strength, Rhaled could not seize victory alone.
Elspeth smacked her palm down on the sword. Cold, black fire rose to meet it, only to be smothered by her own white flame. Her lips curled in disdain.
“Do all men so easily lose heart?”
Naradna stiffened but said nothing.
“Whatever drew my uncle out of Otherworld will not hold his attention,” Elspeth went on. “Do not allow him to distract you.”
“Forgive me, Ashanal,” said Haldrane, “but a moment to the divine can pass as an age elsewhere. What if we cannot outlast his interest?”
Metal hissed and spat beneath Elspeth’s hand. Pale steam rose up between her fingers. “You have my mother’s blessing. You have the lunassera. And you have us, her daughters. Otherworld’s shadow can no more prosper beneath moonlight than beneath the sun.”
She raised her hand. Of the revenant’s sword, no sign remained – only its silhouette on the map’s charred parchment.
One by one, the war council bore brooding thoughts out into the night. Kai didn’t resent their worries, for he shared them. When still a boy, he’d watched in stark terror as his grandfather had taken his Last Ride. Not the pale imitation that greeted the battlefield’s dead and carried them to the pyre, but the grand and terrible pomp beneath the Temple of Ravenscourt, where body and bearers journeyed into the mists, never again to be seen. For a week after, he’d dreamed of a dark shape half-seen through twitching vapour. A beckoning hand, and a promise whispered without words.
Yes. He shared their fears, deeper than they knew. But a warrior could not surrender to fear and remain a warrior.
“Daughter. Stay.”
Melanna halted at the door. “Father?”
“We should speak.”
She approached, suspicion glimmering. How easily she read him now. How long before he’d no secrets at all? “Do you believe Naradna’s tale?”
“I believe the sword. As to the rest? I’ve heard whispers of patricide. It may be the Raven’s interest is very focused.”
Kai grunted his surprise. “Let us hope so. If not, we must trust that Elspeth can keep her promises.”
Melanna scowled. “It concerns me to see her at your side.”
Kai sat heavily in the chair, already wishing the conversation done. “She prostrated herself and swore to serve.”
“And you believe her?”
He drummed his fingers on the table to conceal a sudden spasm. Melanna would see through a lie. “A bargain with the divine binds all parties. Her words.”
“Ashana once told me the same thing,” Melanna replied. “She called it the thread that linked divine and ephemeral.”
“So I should believe her?”
“That would depend on how much the daughter is like the mother. My doubts are inked in the blood of her victims.” She shook her head. “But you’ve made your choice, so perhaps we should speak of the other matter, my Emperor.”
“The other matter?”
“The one you’re avoiding.”
Kai brought his hand to rest. No. No secrets at all. “Tomorrow, I ride for Tregga—”
“We ride, you mean.”
“No. You will go south with Haldrane, and what remains of the Icansae. You will have two warbands of our shieldsmen, a cadre of Immortals, and whatever outriders I can spare.”
“I see.” Betrayal ran thick beneath the words. “How many times must we do this, Father? How many times must I prove myself? You promised. You swore we’d fight this war together! That we would face the Droshna together.” She brought her fist down on the table, setting coins dancing. “And now you’re sending me away. How could you possibly think I’d agree?”
He rose and met her glare with one his own. “That would depend on how much the daughter is like the father.”
“Now you make jokes?”
“I seek to remind you of your duty!” he roared.
He breathed deep, less to soothe his wrath than to replenish aching lungs. Where others would have shrunk away, Melanna stood firm, dark eyes flashing. Defiant. Pride and fury, and he the wellspring of both.
“Haldrane worries of forces gathering in the mountains,” said Kai. “I believe he is right to do so. If Naradna’s ambitions become a problem, I need someone I trust holding his leash. If the Raven’s interest in the south is not as fickle as Elspeth believes, then I need someone I trust to teach him to mind his own affairs. You think I’m sending you away? I’m giving you an army. Tell me I make no mistake in doing so.”
She blinked, fury fading. So he could yet surprise her, given opportunity? It wouldn’t soon happen again. Melanna had misread his mind only because she’d been so intent on a single dead tree that she’d missed the glory of the forest.
“But… I’m a woman. The others—”
He laughed, his own a
nger forgotten. “And when did that bother you before, essavim? You are my heir, named and presented to the Golden Court as such, but we both know that is not enough. You must prove yourself, and cannot do so if others think you hide behind my shield.”
“And who will protect you if I am not at your side?”
“I have an army for that. My Immortals. Perhaps even Elspeth. And I am not so old as to be borne easily into the mists. You will fight at my side again, I promise. But not now. I need a trusted warleader more than I need a daughter’s company. Scour the hills of resistance, then ride to join me. Not before.” He paused. “Will you obey me in this?”
After seeming eternity, Melanna nodded. “Yes, my Emperor.”
Twenty-Three
For all his exhaustion – for all the luxury of the former castellan’s quarters – Kai found no sleep. He told himself it was always so before momentous days, but knew the solace for a lie. The coming days held little excitement, and a great deal of logistical drudgework from which an Emperor was exempt. A momentous day had come and gone. Others would follow, but were yet distant.
As Kai dragged his weary bones onto the balcony and stared out across the dammed Ravonn, he wondered if the sleeplessness sprang from guilt. For the lie told to Melanna. A warleader he’d made her, and for all the reasons stated, but also to send her from his side.
So much could yet go awry. He’d known that even before Naradna’s tales of revenant spirits and black flame. With the Goddess gone and the prospect of armies marshalling from Otherworld… Well, if victory came, Melanna would share in it, as an heir should. But if matters turned sour, distance would shield her from the shame of defeat. The House of Saran might endure, and an Empress yet claim her throne.
Kai’s left hand shook in sudden tremor, the sensation kin to that of the early evening, but far greater. As he clenched his fist to bring it under control, the shudder raced along his arm, the spasm spreading, squeezing and tearing deep inside his chest. His pulse thickened, slowed.
He doubled over, consumed by coughing. Air that should have been cold and clear was sweet with decay, and thick with the peculiar fragrance of soft, wet soil. At last, tremor faded from his limbs, and the pain from his chest. As he steadied himself with an outflung hand, a westerly gust of wind sent mist rushing across his feet, though the skies beyond were clear. Curling leaves gathered in the crannies of the balcony wall. As the Dusk Wind ebbed, a rush of soft, scraping noises rose to prominence, sharp footsteps on stone.
A memory stirred. Half-believed tales, rousing hope in the dark. “Goddess?”
{{No.}}
The voice crackled like leaves underfoot, buzzed like a swarm of angry flies. Grating yet soft. Sharp yet resonant. A cold hand closing about his heart, Kai turned.
The castellan’s quarters lay overrun. Brambles coiled across wall and ceiling, the curling fronds woven to discordant design – a bower fashioned by drunkard’s hands or madman’s decree. The floor lay lost beneath a carpet of writhing vines, with petals shed from black roses barely visible in the gloom.
And beside the bed in which Kai had so lately taken ease, a hunched and gangling figure. Man-sized, though sharing only fleeting resemblance to man’s shape, he was garbed in a rough robe and tattered hood the colour of decay. A wooden mask that lacked all features save the dark hollows of eyes concealed his face. A likeness borne on the stones of overgrown temples, or by crooked statues guarding forbidden paths. Jack o’ Fellhallow. Lord of the Living Land.
The hand about Kai’s heart closed tight. The Raven was a secretive figure, feared from a distance; Jack was entirely something else. Tales of Fellhallow ran rife across the western Empire, and never more so than in Rhaled, whose border vanished for many leagues beneath sombre eaves. It was said to be a capricious place of shifting paths and tangled dreams. Where day and night mingled like the confluence of streams. Said, because few who trod beneath its boughs returned to speak of what they had seen. Those who did returned with minds riven and tongues wild. Yet still a handful of travellers slipped beneath the trees each year. Warriors in search of challenge and poets dreaming of inspiration. The lovelorn and the lacking. The curious, the reckless and the desperate.
Wherever Fellhallow’s eaves darkened the horizon, villagers wove protective garlands about wells and fashioned wicker sentries to stand as watchmen at ditch and wall. Mothers warned children against the honeyed words of thornmaidens who walked summer fields shrouded in pollen-bloom. And when harvest nights fell, and the whispering ones came a rat-tat-tatting at the windows, all clung close to their fires and strove not to think of overgrown villages standing testament to crumbled vigilance.
Tressians often named Jack, Jerack; Thrakkians, Livasdr. Both meant “God of Life” – a granter of bountiful harvests and strong children. A profound misjudgement. Jack was life and death, and all things in between. At once generous and miserly, and never to be trusted save where his own interest reigned.
And yet it was common belief also that Jack never crossed the Silverway, as he had that night. Another reminder that the Goddess was gone, and her protections spent.
Kai glanced at the chamber door, half-hidden beneath the vines. His sword – the Goddess’ sword – made for a better prospect, its belt hanging from the bedpost, barely touched by the thorns twitching across the sheets.
“What do you want?”
{{Is that how an Emperor greets a guest?}}
Kai forced himself to meet the mask’s empty gaze. “It is how he greets an intruder.”
Buzzing laughter filled the room, a swarm of bees about its hive. {{These lands were mine, and will be again. Your brief hour is not mastery.}} Jack paused, his head tilting this way and that. {{But if I have given offence, I seek pardon. Can one king not hail another in friendship?}}
Eyes ever on Jack, Kai circled towards the bed. “The legends of my people are littered with unhappy souls who thought themselves your friends.”
{{Friendship is barter. I do only as the bargain demands.}}
Kai took another step. “And a bargain with the divine binds all parties?”
{{Indeed.}}
Kai glanced at the sword. Still out of reach. “If it is friendship you wish, then friendship you may have.”
Jack drew closer, the sound of his stride like old trees beneath the wind. The scent of decay swirled with the sweet fragrance of heather after rain.
{{Friendship is better forged through gifts exchanged, is it not?}}
The pressure about Kai’s heart grew cold. “I’ve no need of your gifts.”
{{Have you not? Young Ashana opened so many doors, for ever turning this way and that. Always looking ahead, and never behind. And now things are different. Old days are done, and despair creeps in with the dawn. Already, my preening brother tests his freedom. He will render your dreams dust to claim his desire, and shed not a tear.}} Jack leaned close, the black hollows of his eyes dizzying, mesmeric. {{I offer aid. A pact of war between the might of Fellhallow and the Empire of the Fallen Moon.}}
The Fallen Moon. The name reminded Kai of his helplessness, as Jack had surely intended.
“Against the Dark?”
Jack crackled with laughter. {{Against the Raven.}}
The legendary hatred between Raven and Thorn. Did it really run so deep that the brothers would claw at one another even as the Dark rose to claim all?
“And the price? There’s always a price.”
{{You’re better at this than your grandsire.}} Amusement graced the buzzing words. {{I will fill the void my sister has left behind. I will grant armies of bone and briar to strive alongside those of flesh and steel. And in exchange? When the war is done, you will give me your future.}}
Kai’s fingers closed around the Goddess’ sword.
“You seek my life? My service?”
Jack straightened. {{Your future for your present. How do you answer?}}
Kai gritted his teeth. “I answer thus.”
The sword came free. White flame
banished shadows from the room and set the carpet of briars seething. Black petals fell like rain. Jack spun about. Mist spilling from his shoulders, his gangling form drew in until his hood brushed the ceiling – a withered scarecrow looming with fell promise. The eyes of his mask came alive with brilliant green flame. Crooked fingers hooked like claws.
{{I came to you in friendship!}}
His wrath tugged at hair and set robes dancing. Kai held his ground and stared up at the blazing eyes, the sword at guard between them. Though the Goddess was gone, her grace remained, and her fire brought solace even in the dark.
“And you may leave the same way,” he said. “I walk in moonlight, as my fathers before me. As my daughter will after. But you will have nothing of me, Jack o’ Fellhallow. Not one drop of my blood, nor one hour of servitude. And if your brother crosses my path, he will have the same.”
To his surprise, Jack shrank away, tattered robes ravelling back in until he was again but a hunched figure before the flame. Thorns ceased their thrashing and went still.
{{As you wish, proud Saran. But when you change your mind, you need only call my name.}}
The mist swirled, and he was gone. Kai stood alone in the chamber’s heart, the sword in its sheath, and the sheath hanging from the bedpost. Only a floor strewn with black petals and withered fronds offered any proof that Jack had ever been there.
Astridas, 2nd Day of Wealdrust
When war calls, answer in kind.
from the saga of Hadar Saran
Twenty-Four
Vapour danced across a pond purpled by morning’s approach. A reminder that Sommertide was passing into Fade, and that the months ahead would grow colder before warmth returned. Neither borrowed hearthguard greatcoat nor brandy held the chill entirely at bay, but wasn’t that always the way? Never a simple answer to all life’s challenges.
Malachi sipped from his glass and stared up at the moon. Would Ashana bestow wisdom, if asked? A heretical thought, but tempting. Lumestra had never offered succour, despite his prayers. Was it simply that his troubles were beyond even the divine? Certainly, a night’s pacing had brought no answers, just weariness that clawed at his eyes and buzzed through the blood.