Now read this exclusive story set in the Afterblight Chronicles universe...
The Afterblight Chronicles
Signs and Portents
by Paul Kane
In this place, he could see the past, the present... and the future.
Mostly the future. Incredible as it seemed - to him as much as anyone - visiting this land had granted him access to things that hadn't happened yet; that might never happen if he was able to prevent them. It had helped him many times, warning him about his enemies, saving his life on numerous occasions. Never, though, had he found himself flying before. It wasn't flying as he'd known it when he flew with Bill, though - into Nottingham to take the castle from the Sheriff, then taking control of the chopper himself to save Mary. Nor when he'd been delivered to the forest (again by Bill), half dead, after the assault on the Tsar's army.
This time Robert was flying without the aid of any kind of mechanical device. The wind catching his trousers and top, tugging at his hood. He felt like Superman, arms out in front, zooming through a clear blue sky with cotton wool clouds. He squinted, seeing a couple of specks ahead of him: the only things marring his view. Specks that grew in size quite rapidly.
They came up on him fast and Robert saw now they were two gigantic birds - their wingspans huge. Like a cross between mighty eagles and vultures, they began to snap with their beaks, attempting to grab him. Robert twisted this way and that, and it was only now, as he dived forwards, that he realised he wasn't really flying at all - he never had been.
He was falling.
Head down, he aimed for the closest bird and reached out. His hands found purchase, clutching at the strange feathers, and he was able to swing himself up and onto its back. The other bird was swooping in to attack, just as Robert was standing - bracing himself against the wind. He ducked, narrowly avoiding the sharp talons. Seconds later he was up again, his trusty bow in his hands. An arrow was nocked, the twine pulled back as far as it would go. He was trailing the second bird's progress beneath the first, and he let go when he was sure of the shot. The arrow found a home in the bird's left wing but it kept on coming, under and up again, swooping in as Robert readied himself for another pass.
This time as it tried to grab him, Robert's aim was jostled by the bird underneath him turning, attempting to buck him off. He had to reach down and grab a handful of feathers again just to stop himself from falling.
By this time the second bird was circling below again, and as Robert rolled across the back of the first, he leaned over the side and fired. The bird was hit by its second arrow, between the shoulder and the neck. This appeared to do more damage, because the bird spun off to one side.
It was time to end this, to put them both down.
Robert stood once more, feeling like he was on some kind of bouncy castle - the kind he'd used to hire out for Stevie's-
He shook his head: though he didn't consciously try to keep thoughts about his late son out of his mind, it was so hard to think about him without remembering the...other stuff. The stuff that followed: the coughing up of blood, watching him slip away like Joanne and-
Robert gritted his teeth, aimed, and fired two more arrows directly into the chest of the creature about to attack one final time. It reared up with those deadly talons and then just fell away out of sight. The bird Robert was riding bucked again, and he had to let go of his weapon this time in order to hang on. The bow dropped away, just as the other bird had done moments before.
Could he ride this creature to the ground? Robert looked over the side and couldn't even see the earth beneath him... His answer came anyway, when the bird flipped over, rolling deep to try and dislodge him. When that didn't work, it started craning its neck around to peck at its unwelcome human passenger. Robert reached down and found the handle of his sword, which he drew, lashing out at the bird.
A couple of his blows found their mark, leaving long lacerations that wept blood. But when the bird jerked again, Robert knew he had to act. He stood and plunged the sword into its head, through its skull and out under its chin. Like the other one, it started to dive almost immediately, and Robert was at last thrown from his perch. The bird fell faster than him, leaving Robert to witness another preview of things to come: of what would happen to him as he plummeted through these clouds.
He still couldn't see the ground, but as he passed through the last wisps of whiteness, he saw the vast expanse of a forest below - his forest: Sherwood. The rational part of his mind knew where he really was and what was happening to him, but as always this felt so real (and hadn't he read somewhere once that if it happened to you here, you felt it in the real world?). He was falling, picking up speed as he went - and now he could see the damage those birds had done to his home below, bending and breaking branches as they plummeted through the trees.
Robert would make significantly less of an impact, but he'd be just as dead when he hit: splattered red over the rich greenery. Robert crossed his arms over his face - like that was going to be any protection - and braced for his crash.
But it never came. He'd closed his eyes, not wishing to witness his own end, and when he opened them again he was standing in the forest. It was as though he'd been safely deposited there, a huge hand reaching out from the clouds to place him safely on the ground like the gods of ancient Rome or Greece moving their subjects about. Or some other gods? Those who protected the forest's favourite son? Who'd kept him from harm not only with these warnings, but by renewing his energy when it was lacking. No sooner had he thought this, than he felt energised again and began to run through what had become his natural habitat after he'd retreated there because of-
Robert pushed himself harder, in an effort to push aside those memories again. He was a different person now, in a different world, with different responsibilities. He had married again, adopted another son who looked just like Stevie would have done if he'd survived (though wasn't him, Robert was at pains to keep reminding himself). That didn't mean you forgot the past - this place wouldn't let you, apart from anything else (and Robert more than anyone understood the importance of looking back to see the way forward).
But it did mean you learnt to make your peace with it.
He forged on, faster and faster: the forest feeling good beneath his feet. As he ran, though, he forced himself to take note of his surroundings; of what Sherwood was trying to tell him. It was then that he saw the cobwebs between branches; why hadn't he noticed them before? They were larger than you'd find in the average home or shed, stretched between oaks and birches. Here and there he saw birds - much smaller than the ones who'd attacked him in the sky - trapped in the strands like flies in any ordinary web.
Robert felt compelled to keep going rather than explore what might have caused such a phenomenon. It wasn't until he got deeper into the forest that he saw something that gave him pause. Cocoons; lots of them. Big and long, hanging from the trees. They looked like they were about to break open at any moment and butterflies would emerge. Except that the closer he got, the more he could see of them - and the less they looked like cocoons at all. These were people (men to be precise) covered in webbing, as if they'd met another superhero - Spider-man, rather than Superman this time - and come off worse.
Robert started towards them as he saw the victims struggling inside. He quickened his pace, rushing to help. But as he reached them something happened to those trapped inside. Each one in turn spontaneously combusted, bursting into flames that should have set the forest alight.
He couldn't see where the fire had come from, but it no longer frightened him as much as it had done in the past; flashing back to when those men in yellow suits and gasmasks had torched his house with flame-throwers.
Something was moving through the forest, something big... Robert looked up to see it brushing the tops of trees, this thing: bending them over so that they whipped back once it had passed by. He also heard the dull roar of the creature that had probably set fire to the webbed men.
&nbs
p; He continued through the forest, knowing he could do nothing for those who'd been roasted alive. As he did, his pace quickened again - running towards the enormous thing he'd only caught a glimpse of, flashes of red between the trees.
Then, to his right, something else - almost as big - was making its way through the foliage. Could these be the two birds he'd thought he'd killed, only wounded and rampaging through Sherwood? But why the webs, why the fire? He caught sight of a hairy leg, possibly the thing that had incapacitated those other men. The closer he looked, though, the less he saw: he wasn't supposed to see any more yet. Didn't need to know what the hell it meant, just like with the birds... (Was he going to be attacked by huge eagle-vulture things? It was never that simple - always a metaphor for something else.)
The huge things were turning and moving on, away from him. All his senses were screaming 'let them go', but Robert couldn't. He chased after them, speeding up again - speeding up because, as he looked down, he found that he had not one pair of legs but two. Not feet, but hooves.
If he'd had hands, and he could reach up, he would have found antlers on his head, too. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened.
There were figures in the trees, men - living men this time. Soldiers, dressed in familiar grey garb. The Tsar's troops, the ones he'd defeated at the battle just outside Doncaster, that Dale and the others had seen off at Nottingham Castle. This was slipping into the past again, because there were also the Servitors they'd faced the previous year, hiding behind and flitting between the trees in their red, hooded robes.
But was it the past, or still the future? Were both of these threats about to rise again? Robert just had time to note that the grey uniforms were not quite the same on these soldiers before the rumbling in the forest returned. He assumed it belonged to the monsters again - because that's all it could be. But actually it was coming from man-made things, jeeps and tanks: more like the dangers he knew and had faced before. Where were his friends, he wondered, the people he loved and cared about? Why wasn't the forest showing him them?
Show me more...please! How can I be expected to do anything about all this unless-
The light was growing dim inside Sherwood, night falling...or something else. Robert, the stag-thing he'd become, looked up and saw the shape of the shadow falling over his beloved forest - could even see the outline, and the struggling brightness on either side.
That wasn't the only thing wrong, though. When Robert dragged his attention back down again, he saw another fire. Only this one had a spit over it; the kind you'd normally roast pigs on. This time, however, there was an all too familiar animal strapped to it. The antlers scraped the ground as the spit was turned by unseen hands, round and round, cooking over the fire.
As everything grew darker, Robert was suddenly aware that he had no form. That his perspective had shifted, and rather than watching the poor animal's flesh burn, he was actually on that skewer himself: the heat tremendous.
The shadows coalesced, forming a shape: a man appearing ahead of him. Robert didn't feel as though he should fear that shadow man, yet he sensed this figure would prove the most dangerous of all the enemies he'd face. Would do more damage than the rest put together, because he was following his own agenda.
The shadows were drawing in around him, and Robert realised that the edges were closing in. He was blacking out from the heat, could smell his own fat as it sizzled and popped.
When all he could see was darkness, the pain finally too much, he prayed that he would wake from this dream quickly.
Or he might never wake from it at all.
The heat was intense, but then it was meant to be.
It had to be for this to work. The man sitting cross-legged, naked apart from a small handmade loincloth, breathed in the blistering air - mixed with spices he'd added to the fire beneath the stones. It wasn't the only way for him to connect with those beyond this realm, with his guides and with his gods. He could have walked out into the wilderness, for example, fasted or starved himself to reach this state. But he knew the task ahead would require both strength and for him to begin as soon as he was able.
Inside the lodge, he'd waited until the walls began to disintegrate. Not literally, and not the walls that he'd built - but rather the walls of this reality, allowing him to talk to those he obeyed.
Those who had a special destiny in mind for him.
He saw a green land - and at first he thought it might be up in the mountains near where he'd been born and raised, the hunter's skills coming as naturally to him as eating or sleeping. But this was far away, across the ocean. To reach it he would need to fly - like a huge black bird, stretching his wings, soaring high and fast. This was where he would begin his quest, that's what he was being told: the voices of his ancestors singing to him. So it was where he began his vision quest as well, looping down into that forest to explore.
He made his way through, just as much a spirit here as those who called to him. But there were forces trying to prevent his progress: he felt that too. Other spirits that dwelt within this particular domain, that were the representatives of the local gods. Nevertheless, he saw it here: what he was looking for.
In the middle of a clearing was a huge totem pole, cut from wood not of this forest. It was made up of a number of animals: a bear, a snake curled round the width of the pole, a wolf, buffalo and a bird - its wings unfurled. The eyes of the creatures all glowed, but it was the stone at the top of the totem itself that caught his attention. That was his goal on this particular expedition, and as soon as he recognised this it began to move, loosening from its housing; moving forwards to float in front of the totem. The animals came to life then, the bird flapping its wings, the snake uncoiling, the wolf hopping down, the bear and buffalo beginning to walk.
He watched this all with fascination - knowing they were the ones who'd guided him on this quest, who'd kept him free from harm up to this point (especially when it came to the plague that had killed so many others of his brothers). The stone continued to hover in the air, and when it flashed so too did the each of the animals' eyes. It was the true stone of power, and when brought together with the others on his quest...
The animals all went their separate ways and he knew he had yet to trace all of them (though since what was known as the Cull, he had been quite busy in that respect). But his next task would be the recovery of the greatest of all the stones of power assembled here: which was even now floating in the air, pointing to the direction where it lay. The means to recover it would bring him to this forest, but where it actually was - that was another matter. Back across the ocean again, over land that was still foreign to him, but he knew took him even further east. A collection of countries that in total didn't even make up a fraction of the landmass his people had once claimed as their own.
He flew after the stone, which had settled in an icy, snowbound place. The dead stood frozen on the streets, decomposing slowly because the elements wouldn't let them go quickly or kindly to their rest. This was where he would begin his quest. The seat of 'power' for a ruler, the second such of his kind.
Without warning, he was yanked back, as if he was on a giant piece of elastic - pulled back to that forest, to stand in that clearing again. Only now, instead of the totem, he saw a man. The man he would soon have to face if he was to possess the stone. The man who would be the means to this end, because someone else wanted to possess him.
He stared at this person, dressed in green combats and a hooded top - bow and arrow primed and pointing at him. The Hooded Man possessed great strength, anyone could see that, but the seeker of the stones could also tell that it wasn't all his own. Like him, Hood had help... from the spirits of this place, almost as ancient as those from his own religion. In fact, couldn't he actually feel some kind of kinship with this person - a hunter just like him, just as skilled in the bow (more skilled perhaps? there was only one way they'd find that out).
He wasn't sure whether the Hooded Man could see him or n
ot - it was a very rare thing for this to be a two-way vision - but he was taking no chances: he didn't want to tip off his opponent in this particular game of chess.
"Fulfil your destiny, Shadow," he heard as he was scrambling to leave the spirit world. "Do not fail us."
He wasn't about to - and just as the arrow the Hooded Man was pulling back was let loose, Shadow broke free of the vision, blinking to refamiliarise himself with his surroundings. He had no idea how much time had passed since he first entered, but felt parched and would need to re-hydrate himself right away, but his first step on this new mission had been taken. He felt a sharp stab of pain in his arm and looked down. Just below his shoulder was a wound. He might have scraped it on one of the rocks as he was attempting to exit the other reality, or maybe...
Shadow shook his head. It couldn't be.
He'd dismissed the notion almost as soon as he was clear of the lodge. It wouldn't be the last time he'd need to come here, for one thing he needed to learn more about his potential target - the person who stood between him and his prize - but he'd certainly be more cautious next time. Shadow would not underestimate his prey, for to do so would result not only in his end, but more importantly the end of his quest.
As he drank from the water bottles he'd left by the side of the lodge, Shadow thought about where he was heading next. His services were needed, but he'd better wrap up warm where he was going...
The runes had told her much.
Alone in the great hall she now called her own, she'd cast the stones upon the table in front of her, watching intently as they fell, examining the markings on each in the flickering candlelight. She'd done a simple line spread, a Celtic Cross pattern and finally - the most revealing, as always - a lifetimes spread: showing her previous and future lives. What kept appearing over and over was the symbol of Raido, or communication.
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