Heirs of the Demon King: Uprising

by Sarah Cawkwell

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Go, Matty. He’s your da.’ It was rare that Tagan used the diminutive of her betrothed’s name, a child’s nickname that did not entirely suit the man he had become. But occasionally it slipped from her lips.

  Wyn was Mathias’s adoptive father, to be completely accurate, but the relationship cited by Tagan was close enough. Following Elizabeth’s death when Mathias had been only a small boy, Wyn— even then an old man—had made a promise to the dying woman. He would care for the boy until such time as he could care for himself.

  It had been a task taken on with great reluctance but as the years wore on, the two developed a deep and genuine affection for one another. For twenty years the pair had shared the same living space. Wyn had taught Mathias everything he knew, and in return, Mathias had brought joy to a sour old man’s life.

  ‘All right,’ said Mathias, cautiously. ‘I’ll find you later.’

  ‘I know you will.’ She kissed his lips gently, ignoring Angharad’s pointed snigger. Oddly, the sound brought some comfort to her. If her little sister could still find humour in a situation as everyday as her older sister kissing a man, then Wyn’s summons was not likely to be for anything too serious.

  Realising Mathias was still standing, waiting for some sort of formal dismissal, she gave him a gentle shove. ‘Go.’

  He nodded, and left. Tagan sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. There was a sense, deep down, that something was about to change. Clouds had begun to gather in the formerly blue sky, stealing some of the light and warmth of the day. In the distance there was a low-pitched, ominous rumble.

  ‘Storm’s coming,’ she observed.

  IN THE TWENTY years of their relationship, Mathias had always called Wyn by his given name. Never da, or father. But there was no denying the bond that connected the two men. Thrown together by the tragedy of Elizabeth’s premature death, they had stayed together through mutual respect and responsibility, and latterly, shared affection.

  Mathias ducked into the low doorway of the small cottage he shared with the old man. It consisted of only two rooms: a main living area, where they had passed many an evening in companionable silence or engaged in learning, and the small room off to the side where Mathias slept. Once, Wyn had slept in that room, but as he’d aged and the chill in his bones seeped further in, Mathias had insisted on swapping. The larger room always had a fire in the hearth. It was always warm.

  The embers of the fire were barely glowing this early in the evening, but Mathias didn’t stoke them. He knew full well that if Wyn wanted them stoking, he’d do it. Like Tagan, one of the old man’s seemingly endless parade of magical talents leaned towards the elemental. Unlike Tagan, he exhibited little fine control over it. There had been times during arguments, of which there had been many, when nearby fires flared up uncontrollably in response to Old Wyn’s temper. The winds would rattle around the eaves, and Mathias swore he once felt the ground lurch beneath his feet.

  ‘What took you so long, boy?’ The old man lay on the pallet that served as his bed. It was comfortable enough; the feather mattress had been painstakingly stitched together by some of the village women as a gift for the elder. ‘I’ve been calling for you for the whole day.’

  ‘I was delivering Llewellyn’s calf, Wyn. Then I was down by the brook.’ Mathias’s first reaction on hearing the grumbling complaint was abject relief. He knew, perhaps more than anybody, that Wyn could not live forever. It was said that he had seen as many as seventy summers, an astonishing age for the people of the valleys. There were none now living who could remember Wyn as a young man. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘Aye, brew us a drink. We have to talk. I have a tale to tell you, an important one. One more lesson for you from an old man.’

  Mathias paused in the act of collecting the mint leaves from the earthenware pot on the side where they were kept. Wyn was not a man to waste time in idle chatter; if he said it was important and had been calling for him all day, then it was most certainly going to be important.

  ‘Tea, boy!’ Wyn snapped him out of his reverie and Mathias shook himself alert. The familiar actions of filling the pot with water and setting it onto the coals of the open fire, the silence whilst he waited for it to come to a boil before dropping in the mint leaves to steep, were a comforting routine. He took Wyn his cup and sat down on the floor, cupping his hands around his own tea.

  ‘Much better.’ With arthritic slowness, Wyn sat up. He was a wiry old man with a shock of long, fine white hair that flowed down past his shoulders. Coupled with blue eyes that were still bright and alert despite the advance of old age, he still cut a straight-backed figure when he walked in the street. He was the most respected elder in the village, and with good reason. He sipped on the brew and sighed.

  ‘Have you been with that girl again? I smell the forge on you.’ He narrowed his eyes at Mathias, but the younger man merely smiled. He knew that Wyn, like Tagan’s father, approved of the match. ‘She’ll bring you nothing but misery, lad. That’s the job of women, you know. To make our lives more complicated.’

  Unsurprisingly, Wyn had never married.

  ‘Are you going to tell me this important tale of yours, Wyn?’ Mathias’s patience when it came to Wyn and the subject of Tagan was limited.

  ‘Mm. Yes. The story.’ Wyn’s eyes narrowed as if struggling or reluctant to recall. While he might have been old, Mathias knew he was still as sharp as a pin. ‘Is there more tea in the pot...?’

  ‘Wyn.’

  The old man snorted with mixed amusement and annoyance. ‘You always were so easy to irritate. You should learn to rein that in, it will get you in trouble one day. Is the door closed tight?’

  ‘Yes, Wyn.’

  ‘Good.’ He set down his cup and leaned forward, the joints in his arms cracking audibly as he did so. Mathias made a mental note to mix him some more of the joint balm later. Out of the corner of a room, a cat materialised from the shadows. Wyn encouraged cats into the cottage and it was not uncommon for three or four of them to be curled up in various nooks around their home. This one slunk into the centre of the room to take a spot beside the fire. Mathias reached out and stroked its tabby fur. It flopped over onto one side at his gentle touch and began to purr, a low, steady thrum.

  ‘I had hoped to spare you this for a little longer, but it seems that I may no longer have a choice, so listen well. The things I am about to tell you nobody else here need know.’ He waved a liver-spotted hand vaguely to encompass the village. Wyn was a natural storyteller, but Mathias had never heard the old man sound so grave. There had been many nights that he had sat in front of the fire—as a boy, and then as a young man—listening to the tales spilling from Wyn’s lips, but this was different.

  ‘What things?’ He heard the breathy catch in his own voice and felt a little embarrassed by it. What things, Wyn? Tell us another story, Wyn. The piping voice of his childhood gently teased him within the confines of his head. The young man focused. He was a child no longer.

  ‘Things about our past, boy. Things about magic that you need to know.’ Wyn’s voice lowered so that Mathias had to lean forward to hear him. ‘About King Richard and the evil that lives within him.’

  WYN CLAIMED TO have been a travelling bard in his youth, and said that he had walked the length and breadth of the isle and beyond. He had told his old folk-tales and stories in inns and taverns from York to London, and the people would gather around, ply him with beer or wine and eagerly listen. Sometimes, when he had finished, they would press money into his hand. He rarely accepted it, he said, or he would have been a wealthy man.

  When Mathias had been small, back when his mother still lived, he had trailed Wyn around, shadowing the man every bit as faithfully as the cats that stalked after him. When Elizabeth had died and Mathias had cried himself to sleep over her still body, it had been Wyn who had gently picked him up and carried him to the bed that became his for nearly twenty more years.

  He’
d told Mathias a story on the night of Elizabeth’s funeral. A child’s tale, naturally. A story of fairies and elves, of nature’s magic and all things bright and beautiful. A tale woven into a comforting blanket of peace that cocooned the bereaved, orphaned boy and brought a smile back to his face.

  Whether there was any truth to Wyn’s bardic past was unclear. He did seem to possess an unlimited capacity for folklore and fables, and could tell them in a way that was utterly captivating. But Mathias had never been entirely convinced, certain that Wyn had never left Cwm Heddychol and possessed his knowledge simply by virtue of being old. At least, that was what he had believed until now.

  Wyn took a deep breath, pressing the palms of his hands together. Mathias was about to ask the old man what he was doing when the fire leapt into life. It was brighter than it should have been, and as the young man looked around, colours, sounds and smells became sharper, more vivid than they ever had been before.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mathias asked, slightly dreamily.

  Wyn didn’t answer him. His eyes closed and his brow furrowed in concentration. Curling shapes formed in the flickering shadows cast by the fire: cavorting figures, beasts and birds wheeling through a bewildering parade of actions. They were hypnotic, one shape falling into the next, looping upon themselves.

  Then Wyn opened his eyes, revealing pits of light that swallowed the world.

  WHERE ARE WE?

  Mathias found himself standing beneath a copse of trees on a grassy hillside. It was early, the warm sun only just peering over the horizon and drawing mist from the sodden earth. Everything smelled damp and clean, as if heavy rains had only recently departed, but there was not a cloud in the sky.

  England. This is an illusion. It will show you what you need to see.

  Wyn’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. No longer cracked by age, it was strong and firm, possessed of a resonant tone of command. Mathias had never seen such powerful magic before, and Wyn had never given him any reason to believe that he could perform such miracles.

  You have never done this before.

  I have never needed to, and there were reasons not to. Now hold your tongue. This is difficult.

  Sounds filtered into the idyllic scene, half-heard and distant. They were sounds with which Mathias was mostly unacquainted, although he clearly recognised the ring of metal on metal. He heard voices shouting in defiance, voices crying out in the kind of terrible pain he had never known during his secluded upbringing. He heard screams and the gurgling agonies of dying men. He did not like it. The sounds of battle were alien to his ears and filled him with fear and horror that he had never experienced.

  Stop.

  The noise was relentless, running together into the long, discordant wail of warfare. Mathias covered his ears, but it made no difference; to his horror, he realised he could not see himself. He was simply an observer to events outside his control, forced to look on until the illusion had run its course. The roar of battle was joined by the coppery stink of blood, the stench of opened bowels, sweat, turned earth and hot metal. Beneath it all lay an incongruously sweet summer breeze, more horrible for the contrast it presented.

  Stop!

  But Wyn did not stop. The illusion continued, relentless and punishing, saving the awful sights for last. A mass of squirming, armoured bodies hacked at each other in a frenzy. Knights wheeled and charged their horses, trampling bodies into the sodden ground and opening them with blade and lance. Blizzards of arrows descended on the rear ranks, cutting men down indiscriminately around the banners of their lords. Most horribly of all, robed figures ran screaming through the mob, burning, bleeding and wailing in agony. Even among the press of flesh and steel men struggled to get out of their way, preferring death to the curse of their touch.

  Where is this?

  Bosworth. England. Many years ago. A century past. Wyn’s voice was strong and resonant, but there was a quiet sadness to it, an undercurrent of loss. I was not there, of course, but others were. These sounds, these memories are theirs and not mine.

  But why here?

  Because this is important, Mathias, in ways you have yet to understand. That is Henry Tudor’s army being slaughtered. Such a waste. So many lives, destroyed by betrayal. Those are his magi. Mathias’s attention was drawn again to the tormented, burning figures as they mindlessly shrieked in agony.

  What’s happened to them?

  She has happened to them.

  Mathias didn’t have to ask who she was. An ethereal figure strode languidly through the scrum of battle, unhindered by man or horse. It was clearly a woman; she was so achingly beautiful that he yearned to go to her, to press his lips to her, to serve her in any way he could. But as she came closer, his fascination turned to dread. The stench of blood grew stronger at her approach and he had the impression of slithering things, a sulphurous stink and the red ruin of open wounds. No longer did he want to kiss her. He wanted to run.

  You cannot flee. You are not really here.

  He knew that, but he tried anyway. It was like an old nightmare in which he was being hunted, but no matter how fast he ran he was unable to escape. He watched helplessly as the woman dipped her ghostly fingers into the chest of one of the magi and gave a delicate tug. The man collapsed, his flesh bubbling and running from him as he was wracked by terrible change. Fronds of tortured flesh peeled from his bones and lashed out at the horrified soldiers surrounding him. Mercifully, the twisted ruin of a man did not live long and was hacked to pieces by warriors of both sides. Mathias had never imagined anything so vile, but in his disembodied state had no outlet for his revulsion.

  Her name is Melusine, but she is no woman born of this world. She is a demon wearing the face of an angel, and she was there, walking unseen across the field at Bosworth that day.

  Mathias watched her walk, her movements fluid and graceful. She did not so much walk as prowl the battlefield, like a lioness stalking its prey. He watched as she moved behind another of the unfortunate magi and burned him to ashes with a touch. He didn’t ask what she was doing, but Wyn’s commentary continued.

  She stalked Tudor’s magi and she killed them. She turned their magic against them. The more potent the magic, the more terrible the destruction. Had they but known the danger...

  It was, quite simply, horrific. His eyes remained glued to the scene whilst Wyn’s words continued in his mind.

  She walked unseen on the battlefield, but all felt her presence. King Richard the Third, who sullied his family name with demonic blood, grew in strength even as Tudor’s armies failed. He loved her for the power she gave him, and yet he was afraid.

  Mathias watched her in horrid fascination. He could understand the dichotomy. Her beauty was unsurpassed and yet she was somehow completely repulsive. She appeared fair, yet her presence invoked revulsion.

  Richard bought his success that day and gave power to this creature even as she gave power to him, but the price was unspeakable. For as you know, Mathias, all things must have balance. For every action, there must be an opposite. Without balance, the world...

  ...falls into chaos. Mathias nodded. The lesson that had been one of the first he had learned, coming to his lips as easily as breathing. He watched the demon winding her way through the battlefield. But why are you showing me this now?

  Because you need to understand what is to come, Wyn’s voice boomed. Richard bought his victory with blood, but that was not all. He tainted the royal bloodline, and that taint has only grown stronger with each generation. Melusine is no petty spirit who barters for favours, she is a great power that seeks to enter the world of men and claim it as her own.

  But if what you’re showing me is true, she entered our world at Bosworth Field, didn’t she?

  No, she did not. What you see here is just a hollow shade of the demon Melusine. Mathias sensed a certain frustration in Wyn, as if the old man needed him to understand more but lacked the time to explain. However, a time is coming when she will be able to ente
r our world, and the King will lament the day his ancestors made this dark pact.

  I still don’t understand what this has got to do with me.

  The scene of battle dissolved just as Tudor’s defeated forces were attempting to flee the field, pursued by Richard and his army. This time Mathias was standing on a small patch of dark earth surrounded on all sides by black, glistening rock. The circle of sky above was a smear of unfamiliar stars and deep, rich blue. A female figure was silhouetted in the glassy surface in front of him, its exaggerated femininity revealing who it was that lurked beyond, or within, the peculiar surface.

  Few outside the line of kings know this secret. The reach of the Inquisition is long and their methods ruthless. Melusine has given Richard the tools and knowledge to hunt down those who know the truth.

  The presence within the stone pushed forward, swimming into terrible focus. A doll-like visage with smoulderingly dark eyes and rosebud lips that pouted beautifully at him. She ran a perfectly pink tongue over those lips, revealing tiny fangs beaded with blood.

  I am old, lad. Wyn’s strong voice had dropped to an anguished whisper. All these long years I have turned my magic to hiding. Keeping myself, these people and this village as safe as I can. There was a long pause. Keeping you hidden. But I am old.

  The glassy rock parted like liquid, revealing the pale visage of Melusine. Her scent poured into the little space: jasmine, honey, blood, iron. This close, she was overpowering, and Mathias knew that had this been more than an illusion, he would have been lost in moments. Soft skin, moist flesh, the taste of bile, flowing silk, the touch of a blade. A wave of agonising, conflicting sensations washed over him.

  She has found me.

  Mercifully, the illusion melted away. Mathias became slowly aware that he was in Wyn’s house, sitting on the floor by the fire. He was trembling and sweating and absently noticed that he had spilled his tea. He glanced up and over at the white-haired man he considered a father. Wyn’s head was drooping to his chest in weariness. Without being asked, Mathias crossed to the fire and poured another mug of the rejuvenating brew. He pressed it into Wyn’s hands without comment and the old man nodded his thanks.