The Winds of Strife (The War of the Veil Book 1)

by John Donlan

  The Winds of Strife

  By John Donlan

  Book one of the War of the Veil

  Copyright: John Donlan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Chapter One

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  Chapter Two

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  Chapter Three

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  Chapter Four

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  Chapter Five

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  Chapter Six

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  Chapter Seven

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  Chapter Eight

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  Chapter Nine

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  Chapter Ten

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  Chapter Eleven

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  Chapter Twelve

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  Chapter Thirteen

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  Chapter Fourteen

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  Chapter Fifteen

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  Chapter Sixteen

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  Chapter Seventeen

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  Chapter Eighteen

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  Chapter Nineteen

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  Chapter Twenty

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  Chapter Twenty-One

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  Chapter Twenty-Two

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  Chapter Twenty-Three

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  Chapter Twenty-Four

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  Chapter Twenty-Five

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  Chapter Twenty-Six

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  Chapter Twenty-Seven

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  Chapter Twenty-Eight

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  Chapter Twenty-Nine

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  Chapter Thirty

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  Chapter Thirty-One

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  Chapter Thirty-Two

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  Chapter Thirty-Three

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  Chapter Thirty-Four

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  Chapter Thirty-Five

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  Chapter Thirty-Six

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  Chapter Thirty-Seven

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  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  One

  The stallion snorted and white mist drifted up from his nostrils briefly, his breath chilled to a light frost by the bitter air. He didn't like the cold much. His head shook and his hooves drove flurries of snow up from the covered trail.

  His mount leaned forward in her saddle to stroke his thick mane and he quieted, reassured by her presence, as he always was. She had ridden daily him almost since she was just a girl, and their bond was a strong one. Shortly, however, he would have to do without her, at least for awhile.

  Queen Lysena climbed down from her mount and dropped to the thick snow below. Her heavy, furred boots sunk into the snow almost to her ankles, but she didn't notice. Her gaze was trained on the narrow, winding trail that cut up into the steep slopes above, towards the shadowed forests that littered the lower mountains. It was not much of a trail, covered as it was in the thick snow of late autumn, and it was barely visible now. She was tracing her route; she knew it by heart, despite only having come this way once before. It was a rough and treacherous path, but one which she had no choice but to follow.

  She tore her gaze from the view with some difficulty and turned to Captain Jaran Olmsfard of the royal guard who had dismounted from his own horse and was standing silently nearby. “I go alone from here,” she told him.

  His face registered his displeasure, and perhaps even before he had realised he was doing it, he was speaking his objection. “My queen, that would be far too dangerous. Wolves prowl these mountains, and there are other, far more...”

  “I go alone,” she repeated, and her tone was enough to confirm that she would brook no argument on this matter. It was out of character for her, and all those present knew it. She was fair-minded of nature, and her normal course would be to listen to the advice of those in her service who might know better. This time, it was not an option.

  She shivered and pulled her fur cloak tighter around her shoulders. It was insufficient to the task at hand, she had realised too late, but it would have to do. She could not go back to the city. If she did, she knew would never return here. The thought was a worryingly comforting one.

  Her father, before his death, had taken this pilgrimage yearly. Nobody in his service knew why, or where he went, but Lysena – his only daughter – knew the reason. He had told her last year - before the sickness truly took hold of him and pulled him down into fragility and senility and eventual death - what the purpose of the trips were. She had been astonished, disbelieving at first, but in the end, she had trusted his word, and promised to keep up the ritual when her time came around.

  Now, more than ever since taking the throne, she knew the importance of this journey. She could sense the dark clouds of war starting to gather on the horizon, and she needed to know how it was all going to start, and more importantly, how it would end. She was fairly certain that she already knew the answer to that second question; it was almost inevitable. Her small kingdom was woefully unequipped to deal with the duel threats it faced.

  “As you wish, my Queen.” The captain bobbed his head – a little stiffly, if Lysena was any judge – and stepped back to the side of his horse. It would take her a full day to complete the trek up the slopes and into the woods. The captain and the men he had brought to protect the Queen would make camp here, in the valley, until she returned.

  Lysena unsaddled the pack from her horse and slung it over her shoulder. It was not heavy. A few provisions for the journey, a water skin, a lantern and a flint and steel. She was hoping she would not need the latter, as her plan was to reach her destination before darkness fell, but it never hurt to be prepared.

  Without another word, the Queen of Arrenissia started away from her horse and her soldiers, and began the hazardous climb up the side of the mountain. She never looked back, only ahead.

  * * *

  “She has the gift of Sight,” her father had told her. “One of the few left alive who possess the old magic. You might scoff, daughter, but it is the truth. Her words have never led me false, in all my years on the throne. That is why you must continue after I am gone. To do otherwise is to risk disaster for us all.”

  She had met the revelation with the disdain it deserved, and her father had taken it all in his stride. He had expected her disbelief and derision. The old magic was long gone; everyone knew that. It had waned as belief and devotion to the Gods had waned. Certainly there were temples and covens in the capital still dedicated to the practice and worship of that forgotten sorcery, but they were decaying shells of their once former glory, surviving by clinging to ancient traditions that were difficult to eradicate completely. And nobody believed that any of those worshippers could still perform magic of any description.

  But as her father had continued to speak and tell her of the prophecies the old mountain witch had passed on to him, she began to believe. By the time he was finished, she knew he spoke the truth. Everything the hag had told him had come to pass. And they had not been small things. Great decisions had been made on the back of her wisdom, and the kingdom had prospered as a result. It was one of the reasons Arrenissia still survived, sandwiched between two of the greatest empires the continent had ever known, when so many others had fallen to conquest or ruin.

  What choice did she have, then, but to follow in his footsteps and continue the pilgrima
ge so that she could learn what the crone had to tell her? None at all.

  The snow made the progress difficult, but it was part of the ritual. The journey had to be made at the same time each year, at the end of autumn when the first snows began to fall. Why that was, she had no idea. Her father had not known the reason either, only that the witch insisted upon it. And so he had obliged. And so would Lysena.

  She reached the edge of the thick woodland and passed beyond the line of trees into the shadows beneath the canopy. The snow was not as thick here, but the darkness clung to the branches and trunks of the trees like a living entity. She could sense it, whispering, plotting against her. Or so it seemed to her as she stood on that thin line that separated light from dark. A battle had taken place here a long time ago between her ancestors and the degenerate tribes that had lived in these mountains, and the forest now thrived on the bones of the dead. Thousands of corpses lay buried beneath a thin layer of dirt and snow. In the warmer months, when only the topmost peaks of the mountains still held snow, one could come up here and brush away the dirt to find bones and skulls and ancient trinkets poking up from the earth. Thinking of it made Lysena shudder in revulsion. But she pushed onward, following the route that had been passed on to her by her father.

  She passed the first landmark an hour later. An ancient, enormous oak, long dead, lying on its side in a clearing. It was covered in snow and almost buried, but it was not easily missed. She passed it by swiftly, and moved on through the trees, determined to reach her destination and escape the bitter cold that bit at her flesh.

  When she reached the old stone cabin hours later, she was beyond weary. Her limbs ached and she could not feel her fingers or toes any more. She thought how difficult this journey must have been for her father in his advanced years and squared her shoulders as a result.

  The cabin sat beneath the boles of the trees like a squat toad. Dead ivy still clung to the walls, though it was withered and decaying, and the snow was piled thick on the ancient thatched roof. A bitter and acrid plume of smoke rose from the chimney; a black, coiled snake that drifted up lazily towards the skies, perhaps a conjuration of the woman who dwelt here. Lysena knew little of how the old magic worked, but she believed it possible.

  She approached the door in trepidation and rapped her gloved fist against the worn surface. It was pitched and scratched, but still sturdy. It swung open on her second knock. The gnarled form of the witch stood inside, hunched and frail, but with eyes that hinted at eldritch and blasphemous knowledge. Lysena felt a shiver of revulsion run through her, but she sucked it down into the deepest pit of her stomach as she crossed the threshold into the gloom and dour surroundings of the cabin.

  “I have been expecting you, great queen,” the hag said as she shuffled across the crude hides and furred rugs that covered the stone floor. She was dressed in rags, and furs, and hastily cured animal skins that hung from her withered frame like the tattered clothes of a scarecrow. Her hair was long and lank and filthy, and decorated with black raven feathers and pieces of bone. Her face could have been sculpted from melted wax; jowls hung down around the corners of her thin lips, and her eyes were almost hidden beneath her sagging flesh. Long fingernails adorned the tips of her wizened, bony digits, blackened and chipped. Her limbs were thin to the point of emaciation, and her legs were so scrawny that Lysena wondered how they even supported her frail old body. The queen had no idea how a woman this ancient could live here, in the wilderness, where life was hard. But somehow, she did.

  Lysena frowned and knocked clinging snow from her boots. She did not like the tone of the woman's voice; it suggested mockery, a sense of self-importance. She pushed her anger down. It would not do to antagonise this old crone now, after she had come so far to seek the woman's aid.

  “You know of my father's death?” Though the king had died some three months ago, she was surprised to learn that this woman, so far removed from civilisation, would have known of the passing. She found it hard to believe that the woman ever left this wretched hovel.

  “Of course I know, child,” the woman said. She crossed to the far side of the small room, where a large iron pot hung over the crackling flames of a fire. Something black and noxious boiled within the pot and acrid fumes billowed up from it into the chimney; the source of the black smoke she had seen from outside. The smell was almost strong enough to make Lysena retch. She held it back with some difficulty. “I told your father on his last visit that it would be his final year of life. I read it in the entrails, heard it whispered on the wind.”

  Lysena held back a snort as she joined the woman at the fire. Bubbles broke and hissed on the surface of the rancid liquid. The smell burnt her nostrils and made her light-headed and nauseous. “You... told him? Of his own death?”

  “Why would I not? He comes to me for visions of what is to come. He bade me hold nothing of importance back. He wished to prepare, to ready himself, and so I gave him knowledge of his end. But that is not why you are here, is it, queen?”

  Lysena straightened her back and took a deep breath, despite the foul smell assaulting her senses. “No, it is not.”

  “You have what I need?”

  Without a word, Lysena took her pack from her shoulders and reached inside. She brought out a small glass vial that was filled with a thick and viscous red liquid. She handed it over to the woman who opened the bottle and sniffed the contents.

  “It is yours, yes? The magic will not work if it comes from another.”

  “It is mine, crone,” Lysena said. She freed her hand from her glove and held it out, palm up. A small scar crossed her flesh. It was still healing. She had drawn the blood only the day before, as requested.

  The witch glanced at the wound briefly and then emptied the contents of the vial into the pot. The black concoction hissed and belched for a moment before settling again.

  The old woman leaned over her brew and stared into the inky blackness of the contents. She studied it for long moments, breathing deeply, and then whispered a few brief words in a language that the queen did not understand. Lysena stared at her, and was shocked at the sight of the witch's eyes turning a milky white colour. The pupils vanished, replaced by that revolting maggot-coloured film. Lysena reared back and then caught herself. This was why she was here, to witness the old magic at work.

  “What do you see, witch?”

  “Patience, child. The Gods do not reveal their secrets quickly or willingly.”

  Her blind, white eyes looked back into the pot, and almost instantly, the witch recoiled in horror. A gurgling whimper left her lips and she shook her head in despair at what only she could see.

  Lysena felt a shiver of trepidation run through her, and she almost turned and ran. Something, however, kept her rooted to the spot. A curiosity she had never experienced before.

  “What is it? Tell me!” Lysena knew that the news was not good. She could see the fear and terror etched deeply into every line on the old woman's face. “Is it war?”

  “War?” The witch stepped away from the pot as though afraid that whatever she had seen within would reach out and tear her heart from her body. “War is the least of the things you need worry about, child,” she hissed. “Yes, war is coming. A great and bloody war. The most terrible war imaginable. But there are other dangers! A terror... an ancient horror... it is coming, my queen, it is coming for all of us, and there are but a few chances to stop it; if it even can be stopped! Even the Gods cannot see all outcomes.”

  Lysena reached out despite her revulsion and tightened her fist around the hag's bony wrist. “Tell me how? What must I do?”

  The woman seemed to shudder brokenly, but then nodded and peered back into the roiling black liquid in the pot. Her eyes bulged at what she was witnessing, and Lysena felt the arm beneath her hand start to quiver and shake.

  “There is just one way...” the witch said. “One way to...” Her voice broke, failed her. She pulled her hand away from Lysena with surprising strength and stagg
ered back away from the source of her vision. “It saw me. She saw me!” The woman was shaking her head and her breath was coming in rapid, terrified gasps.

  Lysena made to go after the witch, to drag her back to the pot to finish what she started. But before she could take more than a single step, something terrible and wretched surged up out of the black liquid. It was formless, shapeless, a blackness so complete it seemed to defy reality by its mere presence. It writhed and twisted in the air above the fire like an enraged asp ready to strike. Lysena thought, for a moment, that she could see her own death written in the shifting cloak of darkness.

  Lysena fell backwards away from the apparition, whispering a broken prayer to whichever of the Gods might be listening.

  The shapeless horror that had been conjured from the sickening ooze of the witch's brew had no head, no face, nothing to identify it as a living, sentient thing. But even so, Lysena sensed that it was not mindless, that it could reason, and that its focus was the witch. It had been drawn here because of her, because of what she had seen.

  The old woman screamed piteously and turned to run, her face a mask of pure and unfiltered horror. The entity followed, streaming down towards the witch silently and fluidly, like smoke on the wind, although no smoke had ever moved with such resolve and purpose before. It was a silent, pitiless agent of death, and it had come for the hag. Its amorphous shape swarmed over the woman's body, covering it completely. The witch screamed again, but this time it was one of pain and agony, not of fear.

  Lysena wanted to cover her ears to blot out the sound, especially a moment later, when another, even more horrified noise joined the first. It was the sound of flesh being torn from bone, and of bone splintering and cracking, and of the marrow being sucked from the broken bone. It was the sound of a living creature being ripped asunder. It was the most hateful, terrifying sound the queen had ever heard.

  Lysena could stomach no more. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the door. She dared not look back, lest she garner the attention of that awful, monstrous entity. If it became aware of her at all, she would share the same fate, of that she was certain.