Take the Darkness...: Epic Fantasy Series (13 page)

Chapter 28

They walked up the roadway, and as they did, it was slowly becoming more and more solid and defined. There were actually stones for them to walk on, the standing stones next to the path were becoming more frequent. She knew they would soon reach the stronghold of these things. She was surprised that they had built anything at all. Their homes, such as they were, were extremely rude and plain. Basically a circle of stones and a killing table.

Seraphina reached down and took the silver woman’s hand as they walked. She looked at her in a strange way, but allowed it.

‘What do we face, when we arrive?’ Seraphina asked.

‘My mother and her loyal ones, but after your display, we might have to do less fighting than I thought,’ she said.

‘Why do we need to fight her at all?’ She asked.

‘She’s old, bitter and evil, she should have stepped down when my powers of the word were developed, but she clings to her power, and she leads my people to paths of wickedness.’

‘Is she the queen?’ Seraphina asked, as she believed this woman could easily be a princess.

‘Not a queen like in your land, more like the high priestess. ‘Beloved of the Moon’ is her title, but she disregards the moon’s teachings and uses only its power.’

‘Why not just command her to step down, in fact, why don’t you just tell these ones to follow you?’

The silver woman laughed. ‘You think I haven’t thought of this? I need you because my mother has the silver tongue as well, and her power is greater than mine. I can’t command her or her followers, and she can’t command me, but I’ve never had a champion before, and the marks you carry will terrify her.’

Seraphina had seen the marks on Seth’s hands, and they now were burned into her own, but she had no way of using their power as they were just an illusion... but maybe she could fake it if she knew what they were meant to do.

‘They do anything, they just appeared.’ She said.

‘Don’t try lie to me, I know you held the coins of power, and they are a part of you now,’ Silver said.

Seraphina almost lost her breath. Seth had never told her that’s what they were. Fucking hell, with those marks he could travel back and forth from this world to the other in a moment. She knew that he was following her along and she just had to stay alive long enough to get back. She felt herself fill with hope for the first time in years. She’d been travelling with this woman with no real hope to survive or escape, but now she knew she could.

‘Why will they scare her? Is she afraid of me going back or bringing more people?’ She asked.

‘Stop talking so much,’ said Silver. ‘We’re here.’

She looked up and realised that they had passed much distance as she talked, and she looked at the silver woman’s passive face, trying to read her. In front of her stood a huge black stone wall like that of any fort or city she had seen a thousand times. This one was poorly constructed, and with a noticeable lack of style or craftsmanship but impressive due to its size alone. The walls stood at least twenty feet high, and at the top she could see the near white forms of the silver-haired who guarded it. They had faded uniforms and weapons in the form of long pikes with black metal blades that looked ancient.

As they passed under the gates, four of them approached Silver and Seraphina. Unlike a normal city, there were no people trading or selling things to be seen, just soldiers and guards. Maybe this was the actual home of the mother.

‘Take us to her,’ Silver snapped at one of them.

Seraphina tried not to look at the creatures as they approached her. Their sight still sickened her. These were no exceptions, except thankfully they wore some basic armour to cover their fat pale bodies. They were still huge and frightening, but they looked at her in the form of Seth with fear, as clearly they had been told what she could do.

‘Yes, Silver,’ one of them said and led the way.

Now that they were inside the wall, she saw that there were others living here as well. There were no houses or circles, but from nowhere at all they were soon being trailed by an ever growing group of them. Lumbering along and nattering to each other in a dark language she couldn’t understand. One thing she did notice was that there were no children: every one of them was fully grown, or overgrown.

‘If this is their city, where do they live, where are their houses?’ She whispered.

‘We don’t sleep and they don’t rest: they are my mother’s thralls.’ She said.

Seraphina was feeling an ever growing fear. She was literally surrounded on all sides by these things. They stayed a safe distance back, but she got the feeling she was a prisoner being led to an execution. Why had she gotten involved in all this? Whenever that idiot Northerner was involved, it always ended badly for her.

Silver gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Fear not, champion: you won’t have to kill all of them,’ and then whispered on. ‘But it’s best for them to think we can. Do you think you can use your sun power to clear the snow?’

She’d known it would come to this, but not this soon. She had no idea what the markings were supposed to do, really, but she could cast an illusion strong enough that anyone nearby would see it. She imagined the sunlight shining in on her as she read a book back in the manor house with her uncle. Imagined the warmth of it and the bright yellow glow of the rays reaching down to her. She centred it just on herself and Silver until they were walking in a small halo of bright sunlight. She heard the hisses of fear and saw the crowd of creatures all lunge back to give them room. It was like a force pushing them back, she knew they feared to even touch it.

‘It doesn’t burn me?’ The Silver woman asked with surprise as she was bathed in the yellow light.

‘I don’t want it to,’ Seraphina said back, knowing full well it couldn’t burn anyone.

The guards led them to the centre of the vast empty space inside of the wall, and now Seraphina understood. This huge wall was in fact a massive circle of stones like the ones she had seen before. As they approached, she saw a huge stone platform with roughly cut back stairs that went up to a large stone area which looked like it was meant for receiving guests; at the far end were five stones chairs and a stone killing table right in front of them. It was a grisly sight. The stone table was literally covered in the stains of old blood which could be seen against even the black stone.

The guards stopped at the bottom of the stairs and actually bowed to Silver, and then backed away. She walked up the large flight of stairs and Seraphina followed, the halo of light letting the now gathered crowd of at least a thousand pale skinned monsters see them clearly. She couldn’t make out what was at the top of the stairs, only the outline of people or creatures in the chairs.

Her feet went one after one up the rough black stone stairs and she tried not to trip on the rough uneven steps. She heard a loud hissing before they got to the top, and when they finally standing over the killing table and looking at the seated people, she could see it was the main woman making the sound of derision.

She looked exactly like the silver woman, except that she was imperfect in every way Silver was perfect. On her head was a rough circle of black metal and she wore long flowing robes covering her body from neck to toe, even her arms were covered to her wrists. Her body beneath the clothing must have been massive, and she strained to fit her her body in the cold stone chair that held her. She was at least three times bigger than Silver in girth, and a good foot taller. Seraphina heard Silver hiss back at the sight of her clothing. She was fully naked except for her sword belt.

‘Daughter, you’ve returned and you’ve brought a treat for me and my court.’ She said in a different voice. It was completely cold and did sound very old. The others besides her were also horrible, fat and rotting: of all the ones she’d seen, these five were the worst. The sight of them almost made her throw up in her mouth. She could almost smell the stench of rotting meat from them. She imagined they must be some primitive culture that actually viewed their fatness as wealth or power.

‘A treat, hardly; I’ve brought my champion here to kill you,’ she said with a smile. She was like a spiteful child, and Seraphina actually liked her a bit more for it, as she herself had been quite a bratty and spoiled child. If this was her mother, at least she’d done well to rebel. Nothing like a good bit of regicide, the Dark Guild always felt.

‘Is that true, boy? Are you here to kill me?’ She asked, addressing Seth.

Seraphina could understand them as they were speaking a very old Northern and she’d taken a Northern lute player once, and had his gift of language. Still, the pale-skinned monster who called herself a queen spoke like a drunk and slurred her words. Her eyes were cloudy and they wandered around as she spoke, trying to concentrate.’If my lady commands me to,’ she said simply, and with a small bow.

Silver smiled, she guessed that was the right answer.

‘What if I told you to kill her instead?’ She asked, and the words hit her like a punch in the stomach. She could feel the power of them trying to take control of her mind and sink in. She’d never felt this with the daughter, and understood the horrible monster in front of her was much stronger. She fought the urge to please and love this woman, and let it pass. She was still able to push past it with her own magic of lies, as the Wolvern called it.

‘I’d rather not; I’m growing fond of her,’ she said back.

The woman stood, enraged. ‘What? What? Nobody denies me. The very earth does as I command, and you will not stand against my will!’

Silver started laughing at her mother’s tantrum. ‘Sorry mother, he’s had my blood and our bond is unbreakable.’

‘Except in death!’ She yelled. As she did, the four pale-skinned men stood and from next to their seats, drew free matching swords of black metal and attacked.

Chapter 29

Dressed in a Twin Plains uniform that really didn’t fit her properly, Josette and a group of other archers stood before the hidden entrance in the black stone wall as the night began to fall. Grimm stood with his own group of motley men in the near darkness. All she could see was the outline of his body, beard, and the huge axe he’d brought with him. He’d picked the roughest looking of the Cold Death men to play the part of mercenaries, and the fresh faced young ones to be the Twin Plains levies.

‘The plan is simple. These fuckers are having a fake fight tonight and we’re going to make it real. Mercenaries and soldiers hate each other anyway and it’s going to be easy enough to make them draw real blood. You know your roles and we’ve discussed them at length. Above all, if no one gets killed and I’ll be happy, even if we only take one of these pigs down. Now get to it, and be back before sunrise; we have a man in the door, you know the knock.’

While the Northerners had a reputation for being mindless animals in battle, she knew from personal experience that they were used to fighting against much larger groups of enemies and wouldn’t shy from the fight. That being said, they also wouldn’t charge headlong into suicide, but would hit a weaker part of the force, retreat, and come again: they would see no shame in winning through guile.

She walked brazenly down the path with her group of ten or so uniformed soldiers. She wished she was in her archer’s garb and able to slink in the shadows, but Grimm had faith in her acting ability and wanted to use it as well. There were three groups of them. She would infiltrate the Duke’s army, stir what resentment she could, and then really attack. Grimm would do the same with the mercenaries, and the third largest group would hide in the shadows and try to take down as many as they could from either side to try and provoke the fight.

The night had truly fallen when she walked with her troops past the sentries of the Duke’s camp. She gave them a quick nod which they returned, and they were in. There was a cluster of different camp fires, and the men and few women of the Twin Plains army stood or sat around muttering to each other.

‘Now we go to work, so split up and do try not to get killed.’ She said to her comrades, and then walked to the nearest camp fire. The others did the same, walking in various directions, and slowly made their way through the camp.

Josette sat down with the nearest group and regretted her choice straight away. The men who sat around her were all much older and they all had the black sash across their tunics, which meant they were Dark Guards. There were around twenty of them, some sitting by the fire and others in little clusters talking. As she sat down by the fire and started to warm herself, one of the men looked at her and snorted.

He was big for a Pellosi and had a big scar across his face. ‘Fuck off, girl, this isn’t a conversation for a levy like you. I can’t believe they are so desperate to take children.’

Josette just stood up and nodded. ‘Yes sir.’

The men laughed at her as she walked away, her face turning the red of her hair. As she walked off quickly with her head down, she walked right into a skinny young boy and knocked him over. She muttered ‘shit’ and, reaching down with a hand, helped him up from the dirt.

‘Oh it’s fine, don’t worry about those ones; come sit with me and my friends if you like. I’m Micker,’ he said, shaking her hand excitedly. He kept staring at her eyes and face, love struck in a moment. This would be easy.

‘Thanks, Micker, I’ll do that.’

He led her through the sea of camp fires until they found one which was right at the edge of the camp. The misfits. She sat down with them and looked at their faces. They were all young, nervous, and had uniforms so clean they looked to have been washed that same day.

‘So our first battle!’ She said and clapped her hands with glee in exaggeration.

They laughed and Micker spoke up. He was clearly the leader even though he was a nervous one, too. ‘Not a real battle. They will be here in a few hours and we’ll go over and clash swords around, and then we go home.’

Now she started laughing hard; ‘If only,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’  He asked, the rest of them hanging on her words already.

She could tell that it would be very hard to fire up the bloodlust in these. She had a much better chance in just getting them to run. But maybe she could awaken something inside of them: everyone deep down had some pride and fight in them. She herself had once been weak-willed, but life and Dagosh had lit the fire in her.

‘Those black shirts are furious! You think they want to lie down and pretend we’re getting beaten by one of the worst and cheapest mercenary troops there is? Already they are in their camp bragging about how they will make fun of us and laugh about how they defeated the Twin Plains army. It’s a disgrace to our name and lands.’

‘We’d beat them if it was a proper battle,’ said one boy.

‘Yeah, they are just lucky it’s not,’ said Micker.

‘Well I for one am going to make those pricks bleed; sure, we’ll let them win, but I intend to take one or two of them down first,’ she said.

‘What, you plan on actually killing someone?’ Micker asked, shocked.

‘It’s a battle!’ She cried. ‘You think that Keep won’t have spies watching the fight? Won’t have people searching the battlefield for the fallen afterwards? There needs to be some bodies for them to find and I tell you what, it’s not going to be me, they can’t use me as fodder.’

‘They won’t let us just be killed to make it believable!’ Cried one of the boys.

‘No? You just wait. if they put us in the front line, that’s exactly what they intend to do,’ she said back.

...

‘Where are you coming from, friend?’ the mercenary guard said, in a threatening voice. The man stood with his bow drawn, and pointed at Grimm and the ten or so men with him. He’d picked the toughest looking of the Cold Death and they looked the part. His troop was still walking into the camp from the wrong direction.

Grimm just laughed and, reaching into a large leather bag he had hanging over his shoulder, he pulled out a green glass bottle filled with spirits. ‘Oh, just seeing what those rich bastards had laying around.’

The guard and his fellow laughed as Grimm tossed the bottle to them. The second man grabbed it from the air. ‘An expensive bottle... you sneak into an officer’s tent?’

‘You kidding, they are giving these to every man, calling it shame pay.’

‘What the fuck is shame pay?’ The first guard asked, lowering his bow and taking a swig of the strong liquor.

‘Apparently, those little cunts think losing a battle to us is an embarrassment, and they need to be paid extra in order to take the shame away,’ he spat the word out with hostility.

‘Those rich little pricks, they are bloody lucky it’s not real or we’d carve them up,’ the guard said.

‘Not only that, they all get two extra gold pieces,’ Grimm said, and holding out his hand, he showed two gold pieces that were splattered with blood. His, but they didn’t need to know that.

‘You’ve got blood on that money, friend.’ The guard said.

‘I’ve done a lot worse for a lot less,’ he said with a shrug.

The first guard laughed at that. ‘Come with me, I have a few friends I’d like you to share this news with, and maybe we can make tonight more profitable than initially planned.’

Grimm spent the next few hours with his Keep friends, going from camp fire to camp fire and handing out the strong bottles of spirits, talking big about how rich the other side was and how much shit they were talking about the Red Bastards. By the time the call came for their mock battle, he could see his work had been worthwhile and the slightly drunken men were frothing at the bit for some payback and some looted gold.

The pretty captain of the Red Bastards came riding through the camp to the cheers of the men who stood from their fires and got themselves ready. He waited on top of his striking white horse until they had formed up in rough lines. There were around a thousand of them and they were split into companies. Grimm joined one near the front, filled with men he’d been drinking with. Good thing about troops like this was that men came and went with regular timing, so a new face was nothing new as long as it looked the part, a good beard helped.

‘So I’ve heard a lot of shit tonight about these kids we’re facing, how they think it’s a disgrace to fake a loss to us. They have money in their pockets, they have wine in their tents. Look, we have a deal with the Duke and we’re not going to fuck it up by letting ourselves get carried away. I don’t want anyone killing any one of these little pricks, so just swallow your anger and in a week’s time we’ll own that Keep and all be rich.’

As he said the words, he started a slow trot on his horse to the point where the battle was to be joined.  Grimm felt his own blood rising in him as the men marched. They were still angry, but he could feel them listening to their captain’s words. He almost laughed, that would change.

***

Josette was marching as well. Her own efforts had been less successful as the men of Twin Plains were more farmers more than killers, still, she’d done what she could to light fires in them. Their own captains, not the Duke of course, had come to lead them out. He spoke to them, as well, as they lined up before the march.

‘Right men, I know some of you think this is a bit of a disgrace, pretending to lose to these men, but it’s part of a greater plan. People will know we were clever, not weak. They will know we had the discipline to follow through. Do this right and we’ll be marching home in a week. So let’s get it done and get home to our families in one piece.’ 

Josette looked at the man and marked him. He looked nice enough. Moustache, refined, like other officer types she’d seen. They marched across the barren land singing songs about Twin Plains as they went. She’d left Micker and his friends behind. As they marched, she slowly made her way closer and closer to the outside of the group, and soon she broke and ran with her other archers, hiding nearby.

***

Grimm was taking the more risky route of being in the actual battle, but had commanded her to take to the outside and use her arrows as best she could to fire them up.

Soon the two armies were facing each other on the field. There were slightly more men in the ranks of the Red Bastards, but being mercenaries, they were less well equipped and ordered. They stood like a motley group of mismatched weapons and armour, most with axes, short swords, and hacking weapons. The force of the Twin Plains was well ordered, with groups of different weapons, but long flat pikes being the favoured. They even had archers ready on the sidelines, which was a mistake for a mock battle.

‘Why do they have archers?’ Grimm shouted loudly, the words soon running though the troop.

Grimm stood right in the front line, marching as they got closer and closer, until he could see the very faces of the Twin Plains men. Most were young and fresh. Not people he wanted to fight, but people he had been fighting already. They were the ones who had fired arrows over his walls, he knew, and he did his best to fill himself with rage.

They saw the two Captains shake hands from horseback and exchange a few jokes, and the tension that was radiating between the two groups was slowly departing. Then it happened.

Josette and her small group of archers were crouching low in the bushes to either side. They were quite far from the action, but she was a good shot. Another group of archers were also crouched nearby. She could fire from the direction of the Twin Plains bunch and then the mercenaries.

She looked at her target and smiled. It was the smug-faced Bastard himself. She aimed her arrow and, firing it high, watched it spin through the air. As it did, another ten arrows flew. Hers was first and it hit the Bastard hard in the shoulder, throwing him from his horse. The captain of the other side was hit in the throat and a man next to Grimm sank with one in the chest. Both sides just looked at each other stunned, and then Grimm made his move. Rushing forward with his axe raised, he charged at the other men, screaming ‘Traitors’. He had two other men from the Keep with him who ran in as well, and that was all they needed.  He heard the sound of shouting voices and pounding feet behind him as the rest of the force rushed in to get vengeance for their beloved captain.