The Seven

by Robert J Power

  The Seven

  The Lost Tale of Dellerin

  Robert J Power

  THE SEVEN

  First published in Ireland by DePaor Press in 2019.

  ISBM 978-1-9999994-5-2

  Copyright © Robert J Power 2019

  All characters, names and events in this publication are fictitious and the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.

  The right of Robert J Power to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the

  publisher.

  Available in eBook, Paperback and Large Print Paperback

  www.RobertJPower.com

  For Rights and Permissions contact:

  Hello@DePaorPress.com

  Acknowledgments

  Special thank you to Jen, Jill and Poll for all the amazing support. You ladies are just brilliant.

  For Cathbar telling me it was a good idea. True praise indeed.

  To Jean and Paul for their incredible support.

  To everyone who helped with feedback throughout this endeavour, it was greatly appreciated.

  I can’t believe I get to do this but, a special thank you to all the incredible fans who have shown such wonderful support. I really hope you guys enjoy this new world.

  For Jan.

  Without you I could never have written a line and without you I never would have wanted to.

  You are my muse, you always have been.

  PROLOGUE

  The dreadful roar of explosions filled the night, each one fiercer than the last. Beneath the cacophony of terrible thunder, two vanquished fighters stumbled down through the deserted side streets unnoticed. There was no pride in retreat, and both carried their heads low in desolation. She carried both his pack and her own. She wanted to help the old warrior more, but he was too prideful to show weakness from his injury, particularly with what they had faced only hours before.

  Anguis, The Dark One.

  Erin thought it a feeble and unimaginative title for such a beast. Whatever suitable title fitted him didn’t matter now though, for another revolution had collapsed at the final hurdle. Beside her, Rhendell tripped and collapsed against one of the alley walls, leaving a warm smear of blood upon the surface. The Dark One’s monstrous hounds could track such a stain, she thought bitterly.

  She slid down on the other side of the wall and took a few deep breaths to ease the burn of her exhausted lungs. How long had they been running? It felt like an eternity, for all time stopped when running for your life. She had discovered this peculiar knowledge early as a child, but this race was worse than before. All around them, the glow of fire and misery was giving way to the light of dawn. With the birth of a new day would be certain capture.

  “I won’t make it out of the city. I am lost,” Rhendell gasped as he tentatively tightened the tourniquet around his leg. It was a futile gesture if he continued at this pace.

  “No, sir. We are both lost,” Erin said, watching for movement in the diminishing night. “It would take the entire Dellerin army an age to find us among the ruins this miserable day. We are two bleeding wretches in a militia of scattered insurgents, and there are countless others still fighting, I expect,” she lied.

  She held her voice, lest the horror of what she had seen steal what nerve she still had. A lesser soldier might have fallen to their knees in despair knowing the size of their task, but she was wily enough to know with their allies decimated and fleeing the ruins of the city, the acolytes would still have a task on their hands hunting down and killing every single one. There was just as much pride in hiding through the unforgiving day in one of the ruined structures surrounding them as there was in retreating.

  Erin pulled her comrade to his unsteady feet. “Come on, you old fool.”

  Despite his subdued protest, she helped him across the street to a three-storied house sitting among dozens of similar buildings. Something drew her to the place, and if Erin trusted anything in the world, it was her instincts. She used to trust her platoon, but they were dead—apart from the unlucky few who survived the first wave of that dreadful black fire. She knew The Dark One’s ways. She knew they would suffer a terrible fate at his vengeful hands. Those he had captured would know it too.

  Like every other building in this quarter of the city, the house was abandoned and likely untouched for many years. The owner had left the door locked, but most of the broken windows were low enough to scale through. It was the finest deed of her night, helping her comrade climb into its engulfing darkness, alerting no battalion of patrolling acolytes. They crept through the ruined house like thieving rats. Their most precarious moments were climbing some creaking, rickety stairs. At the top floor, they found sanctuary in an old abandoned room full of ash, mould, and ruined books.

  “Yes, this will suit us. This is polished,” Rhendell declared as most captains did when successful plans not of their creation became their creation once it assured success.

  Erin smiled and dared not argue. As he made himself comfortable, leaning up against one of the ruined bookshelves, there appeared a little of the colour back in his grizzled features.

  “Though, I’ll still likely catch an infection in this grotty den,” he muttered and rummaged through his pack for a needle and thread—and maybe a little bottle of sine while he was at it. He found the bottle and administered a shot to his lips for the pain.

  “That Venistrian cur was waiting,” he muttered and shook his head.

  “That fire,” she whispered, and he nodded.

  “Those demons.” For a moment, he was lost in recent memories of horrible things. She knew this because she couldn’t stop thinking of those horrible things either.

  Erin slipped over to the one window in the little room and dared to ease the torn curtain halfway across its rail. It was not enough to notice from this far up but enough to let a little light in. If this were to be her last day, she would rather see the blue sky above one last time although, as it was, the clouds were thick and unpleasant. They matched the smoke from the many fires burning throughout the city of Dellerin, and she sighed weakly. What a waste.

  They thought they were ready, but no matter how far they marched, The Dark One was everlasting, and his wrath was eternal. Her head spun suddenly, and she stumbled away from the window and dropped to a knee in front of one bookcase. Her hand reached out to steady herself and fell upon a thick book, lined and fitted with its brethren. As swiftly as it appeared, the dizziness left her. Instinctively, Erin took the book in her hand.

  “There’s little point in setting a fire up here. Whatever books aren’t ruined with dampness will just fall to dust,” Rhendell said from across the room. He gazed upon a few books in equal disrepair. “And even if there are still a few we can burn, acolytes might spot whatever smoke we make.”

  Erin ignored him and held the book as though it was some cherished volume of Mipsey the Meddling Munket from a lost childhood. It had no title, nor decoration. Age and dampness within this abandoned room had taken its toll, yet beneath the cover, the pages felt crisp and dry. Many other books in the bookcase had rotted to ruin, yet this one was in a fair condition. It could burn well for quite a time if one were so inclined to announce themselves to a searching army.

  Erin opened its pages. As before, she felt as compelled to the book as she had the building it lay in. Beneath the first page, she read in delicate cursive scroll two words, and her min
d reeled.

  “The Seven,” she whispered.

  “Oh, here we go again—you and your tales of The Seven,” Rhendell mocked.

  Erin bit back a retort, knowing its pointlessness.

  There were some who believed the tales of The Seven. Most of those tales prophesied that The Seven might tear The Dark One from his perch eventually. They were only tales for children, but even now, she’d always felt a kinship to such a mysterious group. Whether they still lived or, in fact, ever existed at all, was something else entirely.

  The Dark One had forbidden all stories of The Seven spoken aloud. She’d heard tell on more than one occasion of bards entertaining crowds in taverns as far out as the Dellerin coast with humorous tales of heroism, bravado, and a fine bit of lewd humour involving Heygar and his Hounds. However, come the dawn, those same bards might mysteriously disappear.

  Erin had never heard the bards’ tales for herself. Perhaps this was a charmless fable from the bitter mouth of their ruler, eliciting further control of a miserable land rife with starvation, pestilence, and other ungodly things. There were numerous things considered forbidden under his laws. Who knew what wonderments he had denied her knowledge of? Erin, hardly an old maiden at twenty-three years, had no memory of a world before him. Still, she had faith—even in the darkest times, when armies marched and faded—that light would still win out. Not all things could remain secret. Not even mysterious, childish tales when they fought wars for the good of the people, nor when the words “heroic” and “nobility” were words held precious. Childish tales.

  “Well, go on. Can you make any of it out?” Rhendell asked, and Erin realised he hadn’t taken his eyes off the book either. His wound was open and fighting the alcohol he had dripped across the deep opening. In his hands were a needle and thread. He trusted no one to sew stitches, and he did not trust her now.

  Erin ran her fingers across the delicate text, and it seemed to hum in her mind as she read silently. The book itself wasn’t printed. Instead, its contents were meticulously scribed with a steady hand in dark black ink. It had a foreword.

  “They say The Seven would tear the great darkness from this shattered world, and they would do it at the right price. The darkness is eternal. So, too, must be The Seven,” she whispered and left the blank page to turn to the next. After a few moments, she tilted her head and sighed again.

  “It starts strangely,” she said.

  “Oh, just start it, Corporal. I need the distraction,” Rhendell said and stuck the needle into his skin.

  1

  The Bounty

  “You will kill him,” whispered the king, toying with the piece of fruit in his quivering hands. It sounded like an order. Most royals did not insist; they merely requested with the veiled threat of a kingdom echoing at their backs. Any in their earshot were advised to listen.

  The king had the pompous voice and imposing look, but Heygar, who was born without a noble drop of blood in his veins, was never a man to be intimidated. It should have been the other way around.

  “Will I now?” asked Heygar, taking an apple from the large bowl atop the cedar table separating the two men. He leaned back in the wooden stool and ignored the loud creak under his weight. Too many ales without a grand undertaking, he mused. And what a fine undertaking this king had presented him this evening. His Hounds would be happy.

  “I understand a man with your talents charges quite a price for this deed,” the king said as though bartering with such a man was below his stature. In truth, it was below him, but in these times, keeping up appearances meant any competent royal would do what was needed. And Heygar was exactly what was needed.

  It was good to be the king, but it was better to be a legend, and recruiting a legend was something the royal did not trust his advisers with. There was a revolution in the air—there had been for many months. All it took was a spark and, in this quiet little room, the king was attempting to blow the fires of change away from his table.

  If Heygar accepted the task, the king would no doubt appear strong and merciless. However, were the legendary mercenary to refuse the bounty, word would swiftly spread throughout the kingdom of Dellerin. Perhaps as far as Venistra. Words like this would only add kindling to the fires of discontent.

  Heygar enjoyed these moments. It reminded him exactly how far he’d come. How much respect he commanded. How much he would miss this life when it was over.

  “I think my services are a fair price.” Heygar shrugged as though bartering with royalty was equally beneath him. He heard more creaking again and decided it was his heavy steel armour that tested the stool’s stability. In hindsight, he could have favoured a heavy cloak for a secretive liaison, but when one was a living legend, one had to maintain a certain appearance. Besides, if it all went wrong, it was unlikely a cloak would protect him from a thousand royal guards and their pointy little spears.

  He caught sight of himself in the reflection of a silver chalice brimming with cherry red wine, and he thought himself rather fetching in this light. Terrifying, barbaric, and magnificent. Heavyweight or not, he decided he had made the right decision. He also chose not to drink with royalty this evening.

  “Fifty gold for Mallum’s head,” King Lemier said. A decent opening gambit. A man could find an entire year of rapture in the pleasure nests of Castra with that wealth, though he would have to live off little more than corn and grape ale for sustenance. Heygar was no great fan of grape ale, and what would Cherrie think of such endeavours anyway?

  “My Hounds would baulk at that price,” Heygar said, eyeing his secretive surroundings. He swallowed his discontent. It was little more than a forgotten nook in the middle of a grand palace. A dozen feet each way were wooden shelves bearing glass jars of preserved foods, grain sacks, and hanging salted meats. They had invited him into a storage room.

  Once King Lemier had his pledge secured, however, everyone in the court would know of Heygar’s loyalty. As young as the king was, he was already adept in the art of maintaining public opinion—at least with the lords of the court.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t feed your precious Hounds such grand meats,” the king hissed and chewed a piece of the red fruit. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he spat the mulched contents into the small fire behind them with just the right amount of contempt.

  “Thurken waste of my time,” muttered Heygar. It was a fine reply when defending his merry little group of mercenaries. “There are seven in my pack, and we don’t play well together when reaping scraps.”

  They were far more than simple mercenaries. They were renowned throughout the land. “Heygar’s Hounds” was the current title given by the masses, but to Heygar, they would always be The Seven.

  “One hundred gold,” the mercenary mumbled.

  The king slammed his fist down upon the table. “How dare you!” he snarled, letting the echo resonate around the grim meeting place. The fire danced in answer to the outburst. A spitting ember leapt from its infernal nest behind them, hissed, and then died in the grate. Heygar took a breath before replying. He was again grateful he had chosen the armour.

  “One hundred gold apiece is a fair price for such an undertaking,” he said as though he argued the price of a wedding ring in Dellerin’s market with a stubborn vendor who should really know better. King Lemier didn’t know better either.

  Rage had drawn his face flush, or perhaps he sat too near the fire. Perhaps the rich, silken gowns were too suffocating in a snug little room like this. “You dare to charge one hundred gold apiece? It is one insignificant man in an insignificant part of the world. I could get a hundred mercenaries for that price.”

  Heygar felt fine and cool in his new armour. He doubted the king would even have the strength to don such a suit. And if he could march in it, he wouldn’t have the nerve to march to “insignificant” Venistra. Few mercenaries from Dellerin would dare to. Not with the troubling reports he’d heard, anyway.

  Had there not been the whisperings
of a famine? Of civil revolt? Monsters rising? Typical whispered embellishments. Regardless, a hundred other mercenaries would make the journey, but most of them would find imaginative ways to seek their deaths along the way. The Seven, however, could make the trip with no bother at all.

  Heygar loved the art of bartering. He always knew when to add fuel to a furnace as well. “One hundred and twenty gold apiece so.” He took an apple and wiped away a blemish before holding it out for further inspection. It was a fine apple, rich and green, like the lands this king ruled over.

  Venistra, however, was a nasty pit of an island a few hundred miles off the coast, through a tempestuous ocean, gloomy and grey with an economy of wretchedness. It was a stain on the rest of the many islands off the four coasts of Dellerin. Whenever new taxes were introduced, it was always Venistra who felt most aggrieved. Though he was no scholar in any of the lands beyond the one in which he lived most of his life, Heygar knew Venistra was a country in itself and presided over by a royal house who answered to the king sitting in front of him.

  However, these last few months, Venistra had argued louder than usual, and he had even heard the hushed name of the weaver calling himself Mallum, who was growing in popularity. A fine surname from a regal house, he imagined. They were all the same, inevitably. Like most of Heygar’s targets, Mallum, too, would die under the unforgiving blade.

  There should have been a guild of assassins to remove the man quietly from this plain, but secret killings would not serve King Lemier at all. Venistra offered a resounding “no”, so the king needed to make an example, lest voices closer to home whispered these same rebellious words. Royalty were dethroned and hung for less. An invasion from the king’s royal guard on such a small island, however, would easily be construed as a considerable overreaction to a paltry crime.