The Sceptre of Storms

by Greg James

  “I’ll deal with you later,” he whispered.

  Mikka retook the throne and turned to face the pale woman robed in emerald green who strode toward him. Pale of face and dark of eye, the new arrival gave him a look that was too hard to signify love.

  “My Lady Warden,” Mikka said, smiling, “you are welcome to my court.”

  “To my court, Mikka,” she said testily. “We had an agreement. The city is taken. The Council are dead. You owe me. And that throne is mine by right.”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “I owe you nothing, Ianna. As you owed King Ferra nothing when you took his life, broke his bloodline and turned Venna into your little puppet.”

  Two Fellfolk came up behind her and took her arms in their hands. Ianna twisted hard, trying to get away, but their damp, dead hands only gripped her tighter.

  “Mikka, this is treachery!”

  Mikka’s lips twisted into an amused grin. “I hardly think so. I only betray you as you would doubtless have betrayed me.”

  “No. You cannot kill me after all this. Please.”

  “Please? Oh, you don’t need to beg, my Lady Warden. I intend to keep you ... as my concubine. Take her away, and dress her in attire more suitable than this. I can barely glimpse her ankles.”

  “Your concubine! I am no common slattern for your bed chamber, Mikka Wyrlsorn.”

  “Not now, perhaps, but you will be later. And, again, I’m sure that King Ferra’s first- and second-born would strongly disagree with how you see yourself. Oh, and speaking of his first-born, here she comes now.”

  Ianna’s face drained to pure white as the Fellfolk parted and one of their number marched forward to take a place at the right-hand of the throne. Mikka laughed at the look on Ianna’s face when she saw that this red-eyed drone dressed in a uniform of black was Jedda, the rightful heir to the throne of Highmount.

  “A simple matter of life and death, my Lady Warden. Jedda gave herself willingly to His Shadow some years ago, while she was in your care in the dungeons down below. Oh, you didn’t know?”

  “No ... she wouldn’t ... she could not ...”

  “She did. For Venna. To save her little sister, or so she imagined. And she died doing His bidding. Surely you know the stories as well as any child who has trembled by the hearth on the eve of Wintertide? Death is but a door, and it can lead to everlasting life in His Shadow. She belongs to Him, my Lady Warden. And soon, so shall you. Take her away.”

  Swearing and cursing, Ianna was dragged from the court chamber just as a strange cold settled about the place. Mikka straightened, his shoulders stiffening at the change in temperature, as a figure strode out of the shadows towards him. It did not bow, nor did it kneel; instead, it stood boldly before the frail man on the throne. Mikka’s tongue dried and he had to lick his lips a few times before he was able to address the figure before him.

  “I am the Hand of the Fallen, and I command you. On a mountain of skulls will He dwell, in Halls of Pain shall He listen to every soul’s scream, upon a throne made from the flesh and blood of His enemies shall He once again sit. What was will be again, and what is will become as if it never was. Now is the season of His Shadow, and every light in this world needs be put out. Go and find her—the one they call the Flame. Put out her light forever.”

  “I will, O Hand.”

  “Very good. You may go.”

  The figure departed as it had arrived, and Mikka relaxed only after the bitterness of its presence had vanished too.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah found herself standing in the midst of the desolation the Fallen One’s minions had left in their wake. The Grassland Plains were a wasteland of churned mud and rising flames stretching away to a blackened horizon. What Sarah took at first to be snow falling from the sky, smudged into dark streaks when she tried to brush it off. It was a steady rain of cooling ashes coming from the heavens above. She was standing in the shadow of the Northway Mountains, and when she turned to face them, she beheld Highmount – what was left of it.

  The outer wall was cleft by great gouges that ran from the battlements to the ground. It looked as if something had taken a series of gigantic bites out of the masonry. Through the remains of the wall, Sarah could see collapsed huts and houses. Plainstown had been crushed underfoot, rolled flat, and no life stirred there. It was worse than walking through the In-Between place. She could smell burnt meat, boiled glue, and scorched hair.

  Were they all dead? All of the people of Plainstown?

  “No, they can’t be.”

  Sarah approached Highmount and scrambled through a crumbling hole in the outer wall. Broken stone and shale scattered and rattled loudly as she did. The odours of burning and death were much stronger as she made her way through the shattered streets. Not a single building had been left standing, only the jagged teeth of a few doorframes and the charred bones of sagging structures. The falling ash covered everything with a thin grey shroud.

  “What could have done this?”

  She passed through Plainstown to the wall that divided it from Highmount itself—the villas and houses of the city’s nobles. In her mind, the pieces slotted together as she examined what had happened to the wall. It had been melted through. The centre of the wall was gone completely, leaving a roughly ovular gap edged with scorch-marks. It glistened in places where the intense heat had forged numerous precious stones.

  “A Dragon,” she whispered as she stepped through the space where the wall protecting the nobles of Highmount had once been. She walked to the edge of it, discovering no warmth at all from the stone there. The damage had been done some time ago. Reaching out, she plucked a crystal hued like a ruby and shaped like a fallen star. It was simultaneously beautiful and terrible to look upon.

  “I was meant to stop this—me and the Flame—and I didn’t.”

  Sarah heard a cry from the ruins.

  It came again, and she followed it, picking her way through the strewn rubble and feeling the ebb and flow of a life on the edge of death. Hunched in the shell of a house was a young man. He was lean-boned and pale-skinned with long black hair reaching to his shoulders. His leather armour was battered, stained, and split. His head bled and his breaths came too quickly. Sarah knelt by his side, wishing she had something that could help him. His eyes widened as he focussed on her, and his broken arm tried to raise itself from the ground. It would not move.

  “Get away ... from here ... go ... from Highmount ... it is lost ...”

  “No, I won’t leave you. I must help you.”

  “You can’t help me. I know I’ve not long left for this world. I will fall into the Wood Beneath ... as A’aron fell … and grow as a fresh seed for the Father of Leaves ... if the Mother deems me so worthy.”

  “No, you’re going to live. I’m going to save you.”

  Though she said it, Sarah had no idea how to do it. She knew that applying pressure would stop the bleeding, but she didn’t know a thing about setting bones or how to check if he had internal wounds she couldn’t see. She looked around, hoping to see something that would aid her. The soldier’s hand found hers, and then it was her turn to cry out. Sudden pain flashed through her and the world seemed to erupt in flames before her eyes.

  She saw the clouds torn by fangs of lightning and heard an ominous roar that was not thunder. Then she was falling as the ground shook and stones were hurled through the air. There was a searing heat and a blinding light. She could smell people burning and hear their screams. It emerged from the fiery heart of it all—a graceful serpent of shimmering bones and silvered black scale. Its eyes were nocturnal beacons as its fleshless jaws opened and spat a tide of luminous flames through the hole in the outer wall of Highmount. It came through. Unstoppable. Men and women were crushed beneath its feet. Blades, arrows, and rocks merely glanced off its horny hide. At its heels came the Fallen: Drujja flowing ahead of dead-faced Fellfolk and the writhing, hissing forms of Dionin. Fellhounds bounded through t
he streets, chasing people down, herding some into their homes before charging in to tear them apart as sport. She saw Phages also, with their fused bodies of iron and flesh, hacking innocents and children to ribbons.

  She struggled to stand against the fleeing tide of humanity. Bare-headed with her sword drawn, she tried to find her feet and fight. It had been time for her to take up her post as a Watcher on the wall. A great honour. A noble calling. Now, it was too late, she thought, as she locked swords with Fellfolk and did her vainglorious best to hold them back. Highmount was in chaos. The attack was a surprise. No one had sent a warning of its coming. Someone had betrayed them. Soldiers and civilians littered the streets as the Fallen One’s horde continued to pour in through the gaping holes in the walls.

  Then the blow came that split her skull, and darkness descended ...

  Sarah snatched her hand away, her breath coming heavily when she saw that her fingers were alight with the Flame. The young soldier was no longer broken and dying. His armour was still a mangled mess, but he was healed. His light-green eyes were bright, and his skin was no longer as wan as it had been. He lifted his arm, no longer broken, and flexed his fingers, his mouth open.

  “What did you do to me? Who are you?”

  “My name’s Sarah. I’ve come to help.”

  “Help? Help how?” He got to his feet. “I’m Sula. I was going to be a Watcher but then they came—”

  “I saw. A Dragon, Fellfolk, and Fellspawn.”

  “How did you see? Are you ... are you a Wayfarer?”

  “No, I’m just ... it happens sometimes ... I see things ...”

  I don’t want to lie to him, Sarah thought, but I don’t want to tell him I’m the Living Flame either. Not yet.

  “You must have Wayfarer blood then,” Sula went on. “My grandmaw became one after she healed the local Earlman. They’ll find you. Blood calls to blood, that’s what the old folks say.”

  On his feet, he wiped his face and looked around at the devastation. “It’s all gone, as if a great wind blew in and swept it all away.”

  “Did anyone survive?”

  “I remember ... people fleeing from the Dragon. They must be on the roads to the Three Kingdoms now, and the Fallen will be at their heels. They’ll lead them right up to the gates. Mother help them.”

  “What about the palace?”

  “I don’t know, but the Fallen will have taken it. Nothing could stand in their way. Only something from the old legends would be able to face that Dragon.”

  Sarah sighed and looked around. “We’d better go. If they have the palace then we’re on enemy ground here.”

  Sula nodded. “True enough. We’d best be careful as we go.”

  “We’re going to the valley first.”

  “But I need to try and overtake the Fallen, warn at least one of the kingdoms. Yrsyllor is the nearest, if we cut across country.”

  “I need to find someone, he lives in the Norn Valley and I have to know he’s okay before I go on.”

  Sula’s face furrowed, and Sarah could see the conflict behind his eyes. Duty to the Kingdoms. Duty to her—a civilian, as far as he knew, who needed protecting. And something else. He scruffed his fingers through his hair and sighed hard. “I will go with you. But once I have taken you there safely, I must go on to Yrsyllor.”

  “You have family there?”

  He nodded. “Yes, my mother is there. She’s old, too old to get away from that Dragon. Far too old.”

  “All right. I can look after myself well enough, but it’ll be better if we travel together than alone. You’re still tired from the battle.”

  “I am, and it would be better to travel with a fair-faced companion than with none at all.”

  Sarah let him lead the way so he did not see the blush and the smile that graced her face when his back was turned.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Keep quiet and keep low,” said Sula, “there are guards already outside the palace.”

  “The guards I can see aren’t the ones that worry me.”

  “The Mother shall protect us, if she sees us to be true of heart,” said Sula.

  “I’m sure she will.”

  Sula pressed a finger to his lips then, crouching, he set off in a low, scuttling run from ruin to ruin. Sarah followed his lead, keeping her breathing steady while her heartbeat hammered in her ears. Bones and other leftovers from the citizens of Highmount were scattered among the rubble. Sarah tried not to look.

  Ossen said I was the one who could stand against the Fallen One. I could—should—have saved them from this, she thought.

  She almost ran headlong into her guide. Sula had come to a stop and was peering over a ruined section of wall. He gestured to her and whispered, “Look quick, then get back down.”

  Sarah did, and she froze. Guards stood at the gates of palace, ordinary-looking men in dirty, unwashed clothes but with an unsettling slackness to their movements. A slowness. A deadness. These were Fellfolk, Sarah remembered them from the vision.

  “Be careful and quiet,” said Sula. “We must get past the gates without rousing them.”

  They ducked and ran from cover to cover, their hearts beating hard. Each breath came quickly, and Sarah could feel her skin prickling and the hair on the nape of her neck standing on end as they made their way through the ruins. The quiet was eerie. None of the Fellfolk spoke like men, nor did they walk as such. Their gait was unsteady, almost shuffling. She remembered the frenzy from her vision, how feral their faces became, the unearthly swiftness of the blows they had rained down upon those caught in their path. Now, though, they seemed slow, sluggish creatures that no one would fear at first glance, seemingly dead to the world. Soon, they came to the place where the Far Gate that led out to the Norn Valley and the Three Kingdoms beyond it had been. The gaping hole mirrored those in the outer and inner walls. Fellfolk milled back and forth in front of the wound in the stone wall.

  “How do we get past them?” asked Sula.

  Sarah gnawed at her lip and looked around. Throwing a stone wouldn’t attract the attention of all of them. It would have to be something else.

  But what?

  She closed her eyes to think.

  There was the Flame!

  “Sula, give me your hand.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  They held hands; his was warm, and she heard Sula mutter a curse as she squeezed it tighter and tighter. Sweat broke out on her brow, and her teeth ground together as she kept the Flame in her mind, shaped it in form, made it divide in two. Then she made the twin Flames retreat into shadow and darkness.

  “Truly,” he whispered, “you have Wayfarer blood.”

  Sarah opened her eyes, blinking away sweat and tears, and saw the Fellfolk moving away from the hole in the wall as spectres of Sula and herself fled through ruins, leading them away, over to the far side of Highmount.

  She flashed a smile at Sula. “Come on, Soldier. Let’s go.”

  They crept through the hole and out into the sloping countryside beyond. Keeping low, they left Highmount behind, constantly glancing back to see if they were being pursued. They were not. They were through and safe—for the time being.

  But what was that?

  Sarah was sure she had seen a dark shape moving, just out of sight as she turned around but looking like it might be following them.

  It was gone now, though.

  Best be careful, she thought, until we find some help.

  Night came on, and they gathered twigs and bracken to make a small fire in a copse. As the shadows drew in close, they heard the sounds of things in the sky. Not daring to venture out into the open, they glimpsed them through branches and leaves. Whatever they were, they were not birds. Their cries were too strangulated and piercing. They cast fearsome shadows on the face of the moon as they wheeled, circled, and were gone.

  “More of His creations,” said Sula. “The Nightlands always seemed like such a dead place from the stories. I’d never h
ave thought it could contain so many ... things.”

  “We need to stay out of the open. Those things must be spying for the Fallen One. There will be more, and there’s no telling what might happen to us if we’re seen.”

  “Let’s get some sleep,” said Sula, “and see if the morning brings us any blessings.”

  Chapter Four

  Venna was sitting in Jedda’s old cell in the dungeons when the door opened and one of the Fellfolk threw Ianna in to join her. The former Lady Warden stayed where she fell for some time, her eyes staring blankly up at Venna. The Queen-in-Waiting could see emotions vying with one another behind the older woman’s eyes. Until this morning, Ianna had been the most powerful woman in Highmount, the effective Queen until Venna reached her majority, which would not happen for another ten years. She had her future planned, and maybe that future had involved Venna’s unfortunate death shortly before she came of age—if, indeed, any deals Ianna struck with His Shadow would have allowed Venna to live so long. But now, she was defeated, and not as she thought she would have been. Venna was young, but not so young as to be unable to see how Ianna had favoured Mikka Wyrlsorn. Many nights she had been sent from Ianna’s chambers when she saw Mikka waiting at the polished oak doors. She knew that he often did not leave the chambers until the following morning. Even though their closeness had been not one of love, but of ambition and political purpose, Venna could see Ianna was wounded by the broken trust.

  Ianna got unsteadily to her feet and sat down on the bench alongside Venna, her eyes still staring ahead. She had been stripped of her finery and clad in the rough clothes of a tavern wench. She did not say a word to the girl she had held as a hostage following Venna’s father’s death, the girl she had beaten when the mood took her in the years that had followed. Venna simply watched her. She would offer Ianna no comfort, nor try to make peace with her. Now, Venna had to be strong. She alone was a daughter of the royal line, and she remembered that much from her lessons with Jedda and her father.