CLASSIFIED: SECRET PROJECT

Adam Lofthouse's new grimdark fantasy

A first look at my secret project — a grimdark fantasy for readers of Joe Abercrombie, John Gwynne and Jay Kristoff. Below is the unedited prologue, "The Not-Dead Man," and the first three chapters. Let me know what you think.

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Please note that below is unedited, therefore may contain the odd typo. Any errors in it are of course, entirely my own.

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PROLOGUE

THE NOT-DEAD MAN

‘Shields up!’ he bellowed, and at once two hundred shields snapped together. ‘Second rank, ready spears!’ His second rank took a step back from their comrades to give themselves some space, then aimed their spears at the cloudless sky.

‘Loose!’ A collective grunt, and then the sky darkened as hundreds of spears rose and fell, landing on the enemy with a sickening wet crunch. ‘Good job lads! Get the next ones ready!’

Luchen had been a general ten years. A soldier for twelve more. He knew what he was doing. A half smile danced across the lips of his bearded face as he watched his men perform the manoeuvre without a misstep. Ask any man in the Augustan empire, they’ll tell you the Fifth legion were the best of the lot.

Competition wasn’t what it was, of course, but still, the ‘Fighting Fifth’ was the best combat unit in all the world. Well, apart from maybe the Borans, they were pretty ferocious. Just the sight of their red cloaks put the shiver of fear right through him.

The Kelions too, their Sacred Band were a match for anyone. The Nadrians always put up a good fight. So too the Merinons. The Ysseins even, but you couldn’t rely on pampered southerners like them to hold the line when it counted. The easterners though, men from Troyes and Xigo, now, they could fight.

But apart from all of them, Luchen reasoned, the Fifth were as good as they came. Certainly better than the Northmen they were slaughtering anyway.

They came like a pack of mindless animals. Which is what they were, when it came down to it. No strategy, no intelligence. Just a mindless charge fuelled by bloodlust and ale. Mainly ale, truth be told. Luchen smiled again, teeth showing this time.

The second wave of javelins stopped the enemy in their tracks, gave his men time to form a proper battle line. The front rank knelt, the second raising their shields above their comrades. Third rank had their shields high above their heads, so on and so forth all the way back. They were as unbreakable as Luchen’s faith, and his love of God was one that could not be broken. ‘Send them to their Hall of the Slain!’ he bellowed at his men, steering his mount along the rear of their formation as they prepared to receive a final charge.

And a final charge it would be. The enemy had begun the day with a lot more pride than what they carried now. There’d been a lot more of them too. But as the sun had passed its zenith, Luchen’s men had snatched more lives than winter. And it was always winter in the north.

The Northmen hit the Fifth’s shields with everything they had left in them. It wasn’t enough. The line held firm and spears and swords snaked out to take life after life. Artor’s Pass was the battlefield; the same place battles always took place between the Augustan’s and the Northmen. Artor had held the line there once with just three hundred men for five whole days before he was finally beaten. Luchen could hold it for one with a couple of thousand.

There was an argument to build a wall, rather than leaving the mountain pass open. It had been debated in the Emperor’s Council countless times, but the cost had never been signed off. Why build a wall when the army had never lost a battle there? Luchen had thought it silly at the time, but now he was the one fighting to defend the pass, he was pleased there was no wall between him and his glory. He would be granted a triumph through the streets of Augusta; he could feel it. How could the emperor refuse?

Had he not been ordered north by His Highness in person? Pleaded with to hold the line against the pagan filth of the north? Yes, he would be lauded. Enriched. No more slumming it in some two-bed apartment on the edge of the Subrara. He would buy himself a house on the Palatine, just down from the palace. Perhaps then the emperor would allow him to dine in his presence on the odd occasion. Other generals did. Luchen had never quite understood why the offer had always evaded him.

‘Step forward on the whistle!’ he called, and his junior commanders fixed whistles to mouth, awaiting his order. He raised a clenched fist and held it a moment. All eyes were on him, and he allowed himself the pleasure of relishing it. Life was for living, after all. He dropped it with a flourish, and at once whistles sounded and his men heaved into their shields, forcing left feet forward as they forced back the Northmen.

It was over in a heartbeat. The enemy had little left to give, and they gave that up cheaply enough. ‘I want prisoners!’ he called, dismounting and throwing his reins to a waiting slave. He drew his sword. Didn’t know why really, he had no plans on blooding it. But it felt better to walk towards a beaten enemy with sword in hand. Felt right. He looked up to the mountainside. Framed by sunlight was a colossal statue of Artor himself.

The myth, the legend, the hero, whatever he was, had a sword in his hand, round shield in the other. Helmet lowered over a round nose and prominent chin; his face was set in a snarl. Luchen wasn’t sure who had carved the statue out the rock. Must have taken a hundred men. A thousand even. It was taller than the palace back at Augusta, and that place could house giants.

Maybe that’s who they had been, before the volcanoes across the wheel of the world had spat out enough lava to cover it all in ash. They’d had to start again, then. He often wondered what it must have been like. One moment you were living your normal life, next moment all was fire and ash, and then there was civil war and strife. Food became a luxury, water even rarer.

But from the chaos a man from Gael had formed an empire. Augustan. There were enough statues of him left in the West. The man had built an empire in half a lifetime. His descendants had lost most of it.

They were going to win it back, though. The emperor had said so himself, hadn’t he? Last Augustan day he had addressed the people from the rostrum, his voice carrying on the wind. One last crusade, all the way to the Holy City of Troyes in the east. Oh, to walk the streets on which the Redeemer had lived and died. To stand on the ground where the Wheel had been planted, and the son of God himself nailed to the rough wood with iron nails. To run hands through the soil His blood had spilt on…

‘Sir! They are surrendering!’ the officer said with a salute, eyes fixed on a point above Luchen’s head.

‘Right. Yes, very good,’ he muttered, shaking his head to bring him back to the present. He pushed his way through his men. The road through Artor’s Pass was old as time, the cracks between the cobblestones deep as graves. Rivers of blood ran downhill, back south towards the empire. Fitting, Luchen thought, that imperial lands would be fertilised with the Northmen’s blood. ‘Round them up!’ he ordered and waited patiently as around fifty warriors were disarmed and forced to their knees in a line.

‘Any man here speak our tongue?’ he asked, pacing in front of them, sword flashing in the sunlight.

‘I do,’ one said. Luchen turned, stalking a young-looking man with curly dark hair. He grabbed the Northmen’s chin and forced the man to look him in the eye. Luchen had thought to intimidate him, but as he stared into eyes blacker than midnight, he saw ten lifetimes worth of pain and suffering stare back at him. ‘What is your name?’ Luchen asked.

‘Hraf,’ the youth said. ‘My friends call me Three fingers.’

‘You are aware a nickname should be shorter than your actual name, are you not?’

Hraf shrugged. ‘Missing two fingers on my left hand. Only natural the name would stick.’

‘How did you lose the fingers?’

‘Not sure, actually,’ Hraf said, those dark eyes scrunching as he spoke. ‘But then a lot of things happen that I can’t remember.’

‘Were you dropped as babe?’ Luchen let go the man’s hairless chin, already bored with him.

‘Something definitely happened to me as a babe. Not sure I was dropped though,’ Hraf squinted in thought again. ‘Unless I was dropped from somewhere really high…’

‘I tire of this,’ Luchen snapped. ‘Hraf, since you speak our tongue, I shall give you a choice.’

‘Nail me to the Wheel. Let the rest here go back to their families,’ Hraf said.

‘How did you know that was going to be the choice?’ Luchen asked, fingers twitching on the hilt of his sword. There was something… off about Hraf, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what. There he was, on his knees, disarmed, at the mercy of his enemy. But he was as calm as a man buying flowers at market.

‘Same choice you imperial folk always give, I reckon,’ Hraf shrugged. ‘So I’m told, anyway.’

‘And why are you so keen to die for your friends here?’ Luchen pointed to the others with his sword. These men shivered in fear, a few had even wet themselves. That was much more like it, far as Luchen could see.   

‘It won’t hurt me as much as it will them,’ Hraf shrugged, which seemed to Luchen an awfully weird thing to say. ‘Do me a favour though? Don’t nail me to a wheel, it will take me days to die. Make it quick. A sword through the heart. I’ll take my mail off and everything.’

Luchen was taken aback. In all his years of war he had never met a man like it. ‘Y-yes. Yes, of course we can make it quick.’

Hraf rose to his feet, walked over to three other young men on their knees and clapped each on the shoulder, whispering something to them in his own tongue. He scooped an axe off the ground and gave it to one, presumably it was his. Luchen guessed the three were close friends of him. Perhaps the axe had been handed down from father to son. He would permit the lad’s friends to take it back. Made no difference to him, anyway.

Hraf turned from the three men, each looking up at him through tear-stained eyes. He shrugged off his mail, and then curiously, he ripped off the left sleeve of his tunic, revealing a well-muscled arm, full of tattoos. It was writing, Luchen realised, in Northern, etched on Hraf in blue ink. ‘What does it say?’ Luchen asked.

Hraf just shrugged. ‘What do you care? Come on then, where do you want me?’

Luchen watched speechless as one of his officers led Hraf over to a boulder that sat head height on the side of the road. He pushed Hraf up against it and bade the man stand still. ‘Any last words?’ the officer asked as he drew his sword.

‘Last words?’ Hraf scoffed. ‘If I had a gold coin for every time I’d been asked that.’ The Northman looked down at the tattoos on his left arm, as if checking they were still visible. Then Luchen’ man plunged his sword straight and true, and Hraf dropped lifeless to the ground in a puddle of blood.

The men of the Fifth raised their swords in triumph and cheered. Luchen felt oddly hollow. There was something about the young warrior that unsettled him. The ease at which he had gone to his death. He stared at the corpse an age, as if expecting the man to rise and continue their casual conversation. Nothing happened of course. Dead men didn’t speak. Luchen shook his head once more, this time it was a shiver of fear he was shifting, rather than dreams of future glory. ‘Free the remaining prisoners,’ he found himself saying to one of his officers. ‘Bury our dead, leave theirs for the crows. Let us be gone from here.’

He turned and walked away. Once he reached his horse he snapped his head back, as if expecting the corpse to have vanished. But Hraf’s body was still there, a good deal paler than it had been in life. Another shiver ran down his spine. Something was definitely wrong. He longed to be back in the south. Back in Gael, where the sun was warmer and crops ripening in the fields. Where summer was in full bloom, unlike the north of Breton, where winter ruled all year long.

Eyes fixed on the south now; he mounted and sat stiff backed in the saddle. He did not look back again. He was General Luchen of the Fifth legion, and once more he had fought and won for his empire. Wealth and status awaited him, nothing less would do.

***

Grago always waited for nightfall before emerging from his hut. He’d learned early in life that people were not to be trusted. Growing up it had been just he and his Da, and his Da had always told him to stay away from people. ‘Folk ain’t as kind as they used to be,’ he always said. And in the end, he had been proven right, a Northman’s axe splitting his skull on a crisp winter’s morning.

Not an easy thing, watching the face you had loved and trusted your whole life get split like firewood, just for the sake of a skin of water and a few strips of dried meat. That’s all Grago and his Da had on them for the man to steal.

Fifteen winters had passed since then, and Grago had not been out in the sunlight since. He didn’t have a mirror in his little hunter’s cabin. Didn’t have any glass. If he did, he might have noticed how pale he had become, how his eyebrows had grown so long they curled in tight circles. How his teeth were molten yellow and rotting.

But Grago was oblivious to it all. No one to tell him. No one to care for him. To the Northmen he was an Augustan, a product of an empire that had tried and failed to submit them to their will since the dawn of time. To the Augustan’s he was a Northman, a savage pagan unwelcome in even the darkest of taverns.

He was an outlaw. And life as an outlaw was all he knew. His hut was just a short walk from Artor’s Pass, and he had heard the cacophony of battle as he sat in his small hut, putting the final touches to a new winter cloak of sheep’s wool. He’d waxed it himself, first time he had done so, and was mightily proud of it.

It was moments like that in which he missed his Da the most. The big man would have given him a grin as wide as Artor’s Pass itself and pulled him into a hug. Moonlight glimmered on bare rock as he passed under the giant statue of Artor. Grago’s Da had told him all about Artor. The bastard son of God that rode dragons and fought off the vile creatures of the night his evil brother sent south through the pass.

The God war, his Da had called it, fought a thousand years ago when the air hung heavy with magic and the land was walked by legends. Grago missed his Da’s stories more than he missed anything else. The man could have narrated the process of making a stew and turned it into a saga for the ages.

It was with a sorrowful frown Grago looked down on the abandoned corpses that littered the pass. Blood dried on the ancient cobbles, its tang stinging Grago’s nostrils. The dead had been stripped, more was the pity, but Grago spent some time rifling through pockets anyway. He found a few bronze coins, though he had little enough use for them. What he really wanted was a small pouch of salt or herbs. He could hunt well enough, and there were enough sheep, deer and other game in the hills around Artor’s Pass. But when winter drew in he would need to preserve as much as he could.

From the corner of his eye, he saw another body just off the road. Curiosity peaked he strolled over, leaning down to get a better look. This man had been executed rather than killed in combat, so Grago thought anyway. His mail had been removed, as had, oddly, the left sleeve of his tunic. Grago couldn’t read. His Da had always told him there wasn’t any point. Letters didn’t help a man hunt, or mend clothing or repair leaking roofs.

Grago moved the body a touch, just to get a feel around the back, to see if there was a pouch strapped to the man’s belt. He grabbed the dead man’s wrist and was about to pull, when he noticed something that made his blood freeze.

A pulse.

He dropped the wrist without a word and took a step back. He had an axe at his waist and he snatched at it, eyes not leaving the not-dead man on the ground before him. He tried to think back to his father’s stories. Night walkers he had told tales of, dead men the Underworld had spat back out. Dead men though, had no pulse.

‘Urrrggghhhh,’ the not-dead man groaned, pale hands coming up to rub a bloodless face. Grago didn’t dare breathe. ‘Urrrggghhhh. Not this shit again,’ the man mumbled, rising unsteadily to his feet. ‘Right.’ The not-dead man looked around. Not-dead eyes finding Grago.

‘Hello there friend. What’s your name?’

‘Grago,’ Grago said, unable to keep the fear from his voice.

‘And… what’s my name?’ the not-dead man brushed not-dead hair from his not-dead face. There was a gaping hole in his chest, a sword wound right through the heart. The not-dead man followed Grago’s quivering eyes to the wound. He offered a flat smile. ‘I know it looks bad, but by dawn I’ll be as good as new. Promise. Ahh,’ the not-dead man smiled as he saw the tattoos that covered his left arm. He began to read. ‘My name is Hraf! I need to get to the Raven’s Roost in Hadsburg. You know where that is?’

Grago shook his head. ‘Hadsburg is that way,’ he pointed north with a trembling finger. ‘Don’t know the way though.’

‘Fair enough,’ Hraf sniffed, and then shook his arms and legs, as if brushing off the brief inconvenience of death. ‘How far do you reckon?’

Grago shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Says all that on your arm, does it?’

‘Seems so. Got a feeling this happens quite a lot. Strange, but some things come to me clear as day. Others are like wading through mud.’

‘Like your name?’

‘Guess so,’ Hraf shrugged. Grago didn’t know what to do or say. He didn’t know much about the world, just the stories his Da had told him as a child. He’d never left the hills around Artor’s Pass. Never needed to. He could see the lights of Caer Lundrene in the south from the heights. Some nights when it was warm he would sit and stare, wondering what was happening in that far off town. Wondering if there were more people like him there. Or just a person. One person, who might want to be his friend. It would be good to have a friend. Someone to talk to.

‘You want to come with me?’ Hraf asked, and Grago’s bushy eyebrows rose to the night sky.

‘Me? Go with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean, leave here?’

‘Well,’ Hraf scratched the mortal wound in his chest as if it irritated him. Probably was quite irritating, to be fair. ‘Yes. Can’t see how you could both stay here and come with me. So, yeah, do you want to come with me and leave this place? Can’t much see the appeal to it myself.’

‘It’s quiet,’ Grago said.

‘That it is. Is it too quiet though?’

Grago had never considered that. ‘The wind speaks up on the peaks.’

‘I’m sure it does. Wind won’t buy you a pint of ale though, will it? Come! Come north with me. You look as though you are a man in need of some adventure in your life.’

Grago never thought he would be getting life advice from a man who until so recently was clearly dead. But, he reasoned his Da must have been about a bit. Where else would he have heard all the stories he’d passed down to his son over the years. Eyes squinted, he looked through the darkness to where his small hut sat on the shoulder of the mountain, just beyond Artor’s statue. He couldn’t see it, but he knew where it was.

‘I will come,’ he found himself saying, almost as surprised as Hraf was.

‘You will? Brilliant! Come then, Grago, let us be off on our noble quest! To the Raven’s Roost, and the answers to our questions!’

With that, Hraf was off, a spring in his step despite the hole in his heart. Grago shuffled after, head on a swivel. He wasn’t sure how they were going to find the answers to their questions. He didn’t even know what the questions were.

ONE

BUSY LITTLE BEES

CATIA

‘What do you mean, magic?’ Catia scoffed.

‘Magic girl! Real magic! I’m tellin’ ya! Saw it with me own eyes I did!’

‘Bollocks you did,’ Catia rolled her eyes. ‘Next you’ll be telling me they’re riding dragons through the mountains in the north!’

‘They might be for all we know! The stories ‘av to come from somewhere, don’t they?’

Catia rolled her eyes. Every day was the same. Barden would spout some nonsense he’d heard whilst half cut at the alehouse the night before. Catia would have to tell him it was horseshit. A tough job, true. But someone had to do it.

‘Tell me about this magic then,’ she sighed, brushing her red hair from her face. She was eighteen years old, an orphan from the Subraran slums across the bridge in downtown Augusta. She’d been nine when a mystery woman turned up at the orphanage door one day and said she would be taking Catia uptown. Nine years later and she still thought about that day every waking hour.

How different would her life have been if someone else had been chosen?

‘So, there were two doors, one either side of the stage, right?’ Barden said.

‘Following so far’ Catia said as they weaved their way through the crowd. They were walking through the crammed streets of the Merchant district in the northwest of the city. The Spicers Guild had their grand headquarters just to their front, their name written in golden plate above the twenty feet high iron barred doors. Theirs were the only ships welcome in the ports of the Hoy Land of Parsia. They were unafraid of showing off the wealth their trade brought them.

Past them was the Iron Guild, then the Carpenters Guild. On and on they went, ending with a row of banks. These were fortresses, rather than buildings, with armed guards stalking battlements under banners depicting the signet of the bank. Catia thought it an empty gesture in the confines of the city. They were surrounded by walls thirty feet high, with one of the empire’s ten legions always on patrol. The whole upper city was near on impregnable.

‘And the guy, this magic guy-

‘Magician? I believe is the word you’re looking for’.

‘Right, yeah. This magician walks through the left door and closes it behind him. An instant later, the right door opens, and the same man walks through on to the stage! Those doors are thirty feet apart at least!’

‘Twins,’ Catia rolled her eyes. ‘How pissed were you, exactly? It’s obviously twins.’

‘No it isn’t!’ Barden said, jumping up and down in protest. ‘Few of us went behind the doors and checked. There was no one else there!’

‘God’s tits,’ Catia mumbled. ‘The first man ran away, or hid! Couldn’t have been that hard to hide from a few of the local drunks. Fuck sakes, Barden. This magician could have covered himself in a white cloak and you and your mates would have thought him a ghost.’

‘I’m tellin’ ya!’ Barden said, agitated now. ‘I know what I saw!’

‘Barden, you once told me you had seen a woman sawed in half and then magically put back together.’

‘Yeah, well, to be fair that was really well done.’

‘And the man that magically pulled the rabbit out that hat?’

‘How was I supposed to know the hat had a false bottom?’

‘And the guy a couple of weeks back using dice to guess people’s electoral numbers? Only after each person had given him their full name first, of course.’

‘Bloody racket that was. Four o’ the fuckers. Reckon they got a fair share of silver out o’ us before we caught on.’

‘We? As I remember it, the barman watched the one man signal the numbers to roll to the other over the tops of your heads, whilst the man rolling toyed with the loaded dice he had secreted up his sleeve. A trick as old as time, Barden. Honestly, you and your mates need to lay off the ale.’

‘Yeah, well,’ it was Barden’s turn to sniff then. ‘I don’t do it for the drink, not really. Just the company, you know? Keeps me occupied.’

Catia stopped, eyes scrunching shut as she winced with regret. ‘Oh Barden, I didn’t mean it like-

‘I know, love! Don’t get all soppy on me now. Been through a bit, ‘aven’t I? And you’re right, I’ve got too reliant on the ale. I’ll slow down, I promise ya.’

Barden was a big man, tall and broad. Bald as the day he’d been born, he had a network of tattoos running down his arms and, on his neck, all keepsakes from his days in the legions. He had been a husband once. A father too. Not the best husband or father in Augusta, but he had loved his family. He’d told Catia enough times back in the day, when she was still learning the ropes out on the streets. Barden would swoon over his wife and daughter. And if he was a little late home most evenings after a quick pit stop at the nearest tavern, that didn’t mean he loved them any less.

But a fire had swept through the city one summer’s day, and Barden had been outside the walls, working. It was dark by the time he found out he had been widowed.

‘Just promise me you won’t give these charlatans any coin,’ Catia said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘There ain’t no such thing as magic, Barden. Just cheap tricks and those with the quick hands to use them. Look, we’re here.’

‘Here,’ was a five-storey block of flats. The building was wooden framed, red bricked. Squinting up, Catia could just make out the terracotta roof tiles sitting on top. ‘Nicer than I expected,’ she said, looking around.

‘It’s a good area,’ Barden said. It wasn’t cheap to live near the Merchant Guilds and the banks. They owned most of the buildings, after all, and were strict on who they leased them out to. ‘I ‘ad a pal that lived just down the road there once. Can’t remember his name.’

‘Close then, were you?’ she rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, let’s get this done. You know I hate these sorts of jobs.’

‘What? You think I like ‘em? Why can’t she come and do some of her dirty work herself?’

‘Careful,’ Catia said, eyes roaming the street as they entered the building. ‘She has eyes and ears everywhere.’

They climbed three sets of creaking wooden steps, arriving on a narrow landing, four doors, numbers painted on each in red. ‘Number twelve,’ Catia whispered. She pulled free a knife from inside her cloak. Turning back to Barden she saw he had a hatchet in one hand, a short sword in the other. ‘Fuck sakes, Barden,’ she hissed. ‘This is meant to be subtle. Make it look like suicide was the order!’

‘You can kill yourself with an axe, can’t ya?’ Barden shrugged. ‘Come on.’ He approached the door and knocked with the pommel of his sword. Stepping back, he hung his head out the open corridor window. ‘Shit!’ he snarled as he ducked his head back inside. ‘The fucker’s going to escape out the balcony!’

‘Bollocks!’ Catia grunted, red hair in her eyes as she flung her own head out for a look. Sure enough, ten paces to the left, was a small balcony. Empty, apart from a wooden table and two chairs. Oh, and the tied-up bed sheets knotted to the railing. A patchwork of colour running all the way down to the street below. About halfway down was a squat man, balding, eyes round as coins as his head came up to see if he had been spotted.

Barden was hacking at the door with his axe. Catia sheathed her knife and clambered up onto the windowsill, her feet on the bottom, hands gripping the top of the window, she squatted, half inside the building, half out.

‘Bollocks,’ she breathed, feeling her breakfast coming back at her as she looked down to the cobbles far below. ‘Bollocks.’

“Ope you’re not about to do anything stupid!’ Barden called through ragged breaths. He was kicking the door now; the wood splintered around the lock. ‘Almost there!’

That was all well and good, but as far as Catia could see, their quarry was almost done shimmying down his makeshift rope. She didn’t know what she disliked the thought of more, leaping thirty feet to her death of going back to ‘her’ and having to admit they’d failed.

‘Bollocks,’ she said, one last time. Just because it was her favourite word, and what was the point in having a favourite word if you didn’t get to use it just one last time. And then she jumped.

She had been aiming for the metal railing of the balcony, and in fairness she did hit it. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite get hold of it, and she felt the cool metal slip from her sweaty palms as she was plunged down. That’s the problem with gravity, awfully reliable, isn’t it?

A wordless scream on her lips, Barden howling from above. All of it not particularly helpful. What was, though, was the length of tied up bedsheets swinging gently under the weight of their quarry. She snatched at it as she fell, missed the first time, succeeded the second, and then she was screaming in pain as the skin of her palms burned and tore, and her shoulders fought tooth and nail to keep her arms attached to her torso as she skidded to a halt.

‘Bollocks,’ she said again, eyes wide with the knowledge she was still alive to say it.

‘Good job’ Barden called. ‘Hold tight now!’ He was on the balcony, heaving the bed sheets back up. Looking down, she saw their quarry still clinging on to his escape rope, all but quivering in fear as he started moving in the wrong direction.

It wasn’t lost on Catia that she hadn’t achieved much at all. Barden had got through the door. If she had waited then there would have been two of them on the balcony pulling one person up. Instead…

‘Fuck me! You… weigh… more… than… you… look!’ Barden panted.

‘How dare you!’ Catia pouted. ‘I’m as lean as a kitten.’

‘Big… fucking… kitten. Ahh!’ Reaching the top, Catia rolled over the railing and landed on the wooden floor of the balcony in a heap. ‘Thanks Barden,’ she said breathlessly. Rising to her feet, wincing as she glanced at her bleeding palms, she looked over the railing to see their quarry almost at the top.

‘Nowhere to go!’ she called to the man. Pointless thing to say really. Obviously there was nowhere to go. Unless…

‘Don’t you think about jumping! Pull quicker!’ she this last to Barden, still heaving bed sheets over the rail.

Their quarry’s head craned up and down so fast it was as though he was nodding along to a beat. The face looked up one last time, the man’s eyes resigned. ‘Don’t!’ But of course, he did. Letting go of his rope, the man fell, soundless, lifeless, hitting the cobbles below with a wet thud. Someone screamed, then someone else joined in. Within moments there was a clutch of panicked people all looking up at Catia and Barden, as they stared dumbfounded over the railing.

‘Bollocks,’ Catia said.

‘Indeed,’ Barden said. ‘Though we were told to make it look like a suicide, right? Let’s just say he jumped.’

‘There must be twenty people down there looking up at us you idiot,’ Catia bit. ‘Word will have got back to her by the time we do. On that you can bet.’

‘How do you think she finds out stuff so quick?’ Barden said.

‘Magic,’ Catia sneered, pushing herself away from the railing and heading for the stairs.

***

‘What part of ‘make it look like a suicide’ did you two fuckwits not understand?’

Catia gulped. They’d not even got their cloaks off and already she was on them.

‘Now, in our defence,’ Barden started.

‘In your fucking defence?!’ Judith snapped, the air seeming to swirl around her. ‘Well I wasn’t aware you had a defence. By all means, come in, have a seat, take the weight off. Why don’t I make some coffees whilst you two light your pipes. You can tell me all about it when you’re ready.’

‘Well, if you don’t mind-

‘Of course I fucking mind you mindless prick!’ Judith thundered, and for a moment Catia could have sworn the flagstones beneath her feet shook ever so slightly.

They were in the dungeons of the palace, a cold chamber cut deep into the bedrock of the Palatine hill in the centre of Augusta. Judith could have had any chamber she wanted really, except maybe the emperor’s private quarters. But she had chosen the cold, dark, dungeons to make her headquarters in.

She was the emperor’s Master of Offices, that was her official title anyway. In reality, she was a spymaster, a general, judge and executioner. When a Councillor needed a favour, when they wanted to get something pushed through or brought to the emperor’s attention, Judith was the one they went to. When they needed something buried, a scandal kept from the local criers, she was the one they went to.

She was a fixer, could turn her hand to anything. She was also absolutely terrifying. ‘And what the fuck are you gawping at?’ she turned on Catia, who was stood silent as snowfall by the door.

‘Nothing, ma’am,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘I’m very sorry ma’am.’

‘I fucking bet you are!’ She wasn’t tall, Judith. In truth she came only to around Catia’s shoulder, and she herself could not be considered tall. But Judith had an aura. She was on the larger side, with heavy breasts and a round belly, all hid under a faded blue cloak she wore come rain or shine. She stared at Catia, empty hands resting on hips. In a blur of frustrated movement she whirled her arms in front of her, and when they stopped there was a pipe in one hand, a flint box in the other. Catia had no idea where they had come from.

Judith casually flicked the pipe into the air and caught it between her lips. The flint box was struck and a moment later her pipe was smoking away. Judith always seemed to have magic hands, though Catia was the only one that noticed. Whenever she tried to mention it to one of her colleagues, they just laughed it off. ‘The inside of her cloak has more pockets than the post office. She’s got quick hands, no doubt, but that’s all’, Barden had told her once. And if even Barden didn’t think there was magic…

‘Fuck sakes girl snap out of it!’ Judith clicked her fingers, the flint box suddenly gone, Catia had not seen her discreet it. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Catia spoke. There were ten of them in all. Judith’s ‘busy little bees.’ They carried out whatever tasks Judith had for them. Sometimes it was following a cheating husband or wife and reporting back. Other times it was vandalism, followed of course by framing whoever Judith wanted blamed for said vandalism. A few times they had tasked with the beating of someone Judith said deserved it. Then there was the tobacco smuggling that Judith kept publicly vowing to end, whilst privately continuing to both fund and assist. Judith had one of her fat fingers in every steaming pie Augusta’s underworld had cooking. Catia finished her story, saying how their quarry had chosen death over capture. She didn’t think Judith had blinked the entire time she had been speaking.

‘But we weren’t going to capture him, were we? Why did he think he was going to be captured?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ Catia said.

‘Hmmm. You?’ Judith turned to Barden.

‘Don’t ask me,’ he said with a shrug. He had removed his cloak and was taking his axe and sword from his belt.

‘Well, done now I suppose,’ Judith sighed, sucking on her pipe. ‘He’s definitely dead, though? You went and checked? It is very important to me that the man died. Even if we didn’t quite make it look like there was no other party involved, as I asked.’

They had not checked. ‘Of course,’ Catia said.

‘Absolutely,’ Barden nodded. The man had fallen thirty feet onto a cobbled road, Catia assured herself. There was no way he could have survived.

‘Fine, we move on,’ Judith said through a smile as warm as winter. ‘What are your plans for the rest of the day?’

‘We’re picking up a shipment of tobacco later on this evening, but until then we have nothing. That’s why we’ve come here, ma’am,’ Catia said.

Judith sucked on her pipe, smoke billowing out her mouth to fill the low-ceilinged chamber. ‘See, this is why you two are my favourite,’ she winked, walking over to her desk and rummaging through some papers.

‘Always pays to ‘av your best people on your most important tasks,’ Barden said, puffing out his chest.

‘I didn’t say you were my best,’ Judith said without looking up. ‘Just my favourite.’

Catia scowled, Judith continued to rummage, eyes scanning paperwork until she found what she was after. ‘You are aware of Councillor Bissilia?’

‘Of course,’ Catia nodded. Bissilia was one of the most prominent members of the Emperor’s Council and was known to have the ear of the emperor himself.

‘He has sent me a message to say one of his slaves overheard three men speaking of a conspiracy to kill the emperor down in a whorehouse in Subrara. I’m fairly certain its nonsense, but if you could take this, go and question Bissilia’s slave and then head down to said whorehouse and snoop about, then I can put the matter to bed.’

Barden sighed as Catia took the note from Judith. ‘There’s always someone in Subrara who wants to kill the emperor. As long as there ‘av been emperor’s there ‘av been Subraran’s trying to kill ‘em.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ Judith muttered, lips twitching around the stem of her pipe. ‘Just ask some questions and feed back to me. If we need to bang some heads together then that’s what we’ll do’.

Catia was about to leave when a breathless messenger in imperial purple appeared at the doorway, knocking on the lintel. ‘What?’ Judith said without looking.

‘His Imperial Majesty requests your presence, ma’am,’ the messenger said.

‘Now? Tell him I’m busy.’

‘I…I-I don’t think I can do that.’

‘Urgh,’ Judith sighed a lungful of smoke. ‘What does the fat fool want?’

The messenger gawped and paled, Catia sniggered. He was young, she didn’t think she had seen him before. It usually took them three or four trips down to the dungeons to get accustomed to Judith.

‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ the messenger said.

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘N-no.’

‘Why not?’

‘He… he is the emperor, ma’am.’

‘For now,’ Judith muttered. She smacked her pipe on the corner of her desk, embers falling to the flagstones. Some smouldered on the hem of her cloak, but if she noticed she paid it no heed. ‘Fine, I’m coming. You can come with me,’ she pointed at Catia.

‘Me? Why?’ This was new. Catia had never been summoned to the emperor’s presence before.

‘Because I said so. Come, let us not keep the ungrateful bastard waiting.’

And with the messenger still gawping at her insolence, Judith stormed from the chamber, her faded blue cloak trailing behind her.      

***

‘Where exactly have you heard this, Your Highness?’ Judith asked, barely concealing the scorn from her voice.

‘From an informer,’ the emperor said in a haughty tone, looking down at Judith from his golden throne.

Emperor Aurelias was approaching his sixtieth year, and his twelfth as emperor. Not many men got so long as sixty years. Not many emperors reigned for as long as twelve. Since the great Augustan, whose military brilliance and sheer force of will had united the countries of Gael and Breton and formed the beginning of a brave new empire, emperors had come and gone with varying degrees of incompetence.

For a time, the Augustans got on just fine. The wildlands north of Artor’s Pass had been a step too far for the empire to hold onto, but the navy, under the command of the Emperor Neron, had sailed east to Cretos and captured the five major cities of the island. It had been Vespasias, ruling nine years after Neron’s passing, that ventured further east to the Holy Lands of Parsia, where the Great Redeemer himself had died for the sins of his followers in Troyes.

Since Vespasias, who had fought and died in the Holy Land with his men, the empire had stumbled from one bumbling emperor to another. Each had the blood of Augustan in them, some more than others judging from the busts that lined the walls of the throne room. None, though, had been able to build on the foundations laid out for them.

‘What informer?’ Judith said impatiently. ‘I’m your informer. If you are getting information from another source I want to know about it.’

‘I don’t think you should be speaking to me like that,’ Aurelias sniffed. His nose was bulbous and purple, his cheeks a ruddy red. That, coupled with his growing belly, were all the signs one needed to be sure the man was permanently sotted with wine.

On the coast at the north of Breton, seals would often shimmy onto the shingle beaches to sleep. Catia had seen it a few years past. The only time she had left the city of Augusta in all her life. Seeing the emperor on his throne brought Catia to mind of the seals, struggling to shift their weight over the sharp stones.

‘I’ll speak to you how I damn well please,’ Judith said, her voice flat. ‘We both know where it was I found you. Believe me when I say it won’t take much effort for me to see you back there.’

Catia allowed her eyes to roam around the throne room, anywhere but on its two other occupants. She felt like she was listening to her parents have an argument, acutely aware she shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Except she had never known her parents, and she was standing three feet from the emperor and Judith, and in plain sight, so she was hardly eavesdropping. Still, felt like she was listening to something she most definitely shouldn’t be. Judith often muttered things that seemed to make little sense. Hearing her say she had ‘found’ the emperor was a new one though. And something Aurelias didn’t seem to be denying.

‘Yes, well. Perhaps you are right,’ Aurelias said, waving a casual hand. He pressed on. ‘Anyhow, what I’ve heard is that an army is being readied to sail west and take the city. I need to know if our defences will hold out to a prolonged siege.’

‘There won’t be a siege,’ Judith rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, how often do we hear rumours of the Cretons marshalling to come west? Once every other year, at least. And guess what? They never do! Their ‘democracy,’ or whatever it is they have going on over there won’t allow them. Everything has to be debated in Kelios for days on end, no one makes a decision. It’s ridiculous!’

‘They say Nyr has united them, that the Borans are sharpening their spears, ready to lead the attack.’

‘Nyr,’ Judith rolled her eyes. ‘That bitch couldn’t lead a sheep to the slaughterhouse. Honestly, leave this with me, I’ll have someone over to Cretos and back within a week. Then we’ll have our answer. I need to know, though, who it is feeding you this nonsense.’

‘Why?’ Aurelias asked.

‘So I can put a stop to it, of course. You are emperor of the Augustan empire! It should not fall to you to answer every half-baked threat that comes our way. That is why you have me. Remember?’

The way she said the last made Catia wince. It was almost as if it were Judith in charge, and not Aurelias at all. ‘I do,’ Aurelias said, and did he gulp after? Catia really wished she was somewhere else. ‘It was Gadrion,’ he said quietly.

‘The Creton merchant whose cock you’ve been sucking? I don’t believe it,’ Judith buried her face in her hands. ‘Leave it with me. Just do me a favour.’

‘Yes?’ Aurelias asked. The man was sweating. Sweating. The revelation that the ruler of the Augustan empire liked a cheeky bit of cock and that he was as terrified of Judith as the rest of the population was too much for Catia to take in.

‘Say nothing to no one about this. Is Gadrion still here?’

‘No, he sailed for home yesterday. He didn’t say when he would be back.’

‘I bet he didn’t. Don’t fret on it. The Cretons will never unite. They hate each other much more than they hate us. Was there anything else? It’s just that I have rather a lot to do…’ Judith raised her eyebrows expectantly.

‘Oh… oh of course you do! Wouldn’t want to keep you longer than necessary.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t,’ Judith offered a grin sourer than a bucketful of lemons. ‘We’ll be off then. Come Catia, we have much work to do!’

Catia scurried from the chamber in Judith’s wake, the woman’s stride impossibly long for one so short. She glanced back as she left, getting one last look at the sweating emperor on his throne, already reaching for a cup of wine.

‘What are we going to do about the Cretons?’ she asked as they walked down a corridor lined with portraits of long dead emperors. All had the same round, bulbous nose as Aurelias. Proof if ever she supposed that each of the emperors were indeed of Augustan’s bloodline. A sudden thought struck her as she gazed at the portraits. Judith did not look entirely dissimilar to some of them, Augustan especially. It wasn’t just her nose, something in the jawline too…

‘What do you mean we? You are going to cross the land bridge to Subrara and find out who down there is plotting to kill the emperor. I am going to send another of my busy bees over the sea to Cretos. Though doubtless it shall be a wasted endeavour. There is more chance of me bending over and letting fat Aurelias bugger me from behind than there is Nyr uniting the four cities and sailing to make war on us. Each city values their freedom too much to bend the knee and allow another to lead them in war. Mark my words, Catia. This is nothing more than a baseless rumour that will waste a day or so of my time. Subrara is the real threat!’

TWO

THE REAL THREAT

NYR

Nyr stood on the shoulder of the hill, her army sprawled out on the plain below. Fifty thousand soldiers, all told, the finest men and women the Free Cities of Cretos could put in the field.

She felt a stirring in her gut, a flutter of butterflies around her heart. Such feelings she had not felt in… a long time. Closing her eyes, focusing on her breathing a moment, a small smile crossed her lips as she revelled in the feeling.

‘We are ready, Archon,’ a voice said, and she opened her eyes to see Demetrius, the young leader of Nadr, waiting with his head bowed.

‘And the ships?’ she asked.

‘Will be with us by noon, Archon. I think we could get half the army boarded by nightfall, and they can begin the journey around the coast to Bora.’

‘Very good, Demetrius. See it done.’

The sun beat down as she made her way down the mountainside, summer in full bloom. The fields were awash with colour, the air alive with the buzz of insects. Soldiers knelt as she walked past, she deigned to acknowledge the gesture. To the soldiers of Cretos she may aswell have been made of stone. A pillar of strength was how she saw herself, and that was how she must remain.

Years it had taken her to reach this position. Years of work, of back-alley deals and manipulation. It had helped that the rumours of an impending invasion from the Augustans had intensified, and she’d had no small part in that, too. And then Emperor Aurelias had spoken to the people of Augusta himself from the rostrum, promising the return of Cretos to the empire. Nyr had made sure copies of his speech were distributed across the island. Every person, highborn and low, was made aware of what was coming. It had been easy then, to raise the armies of the Four Cities, to unite a people that for so long had been too focused on killing each other.

And now finally, all was in place. For generations the people of Cretos had been living in fear of another surge east from the Augustans, almost two hundred years since they had won back their freedom in battle. Instead of waiting for another attack, they were going on the offensive and taking the war to the Augustans.

It felt good, felt right. And finally, Nyr was going to get the opportunity to settle old scores. She was halfway down the hill when a rider hailed her. An aging man with a salt and pepper beard and a cloak of fine blue. He dismounted, offered the Archon a scroll with a small bow.

Nyr looked at the mail station markings on the scroll. The letter had come from Avburg, passing through Nadr on the way. There was only one person it could be from, only one person in that far northern city that would be writing to her at such a time. And she had no interest in hearing from him.

A cook fire flickered just off the path to her right; she leaned over and dropped the scroll into the flames. Watching the fire a moment, she half expected the flames to turn green or to blaze suddenly, but nothing untoward happened. The scroll blackened to nothing, the fire consuming all. She put it from her mind and continued on her way.

The west coast of Cretos was stunning in summertime. Grassy hills gave way to broad sandy beaches. The eastern coast was full of cliffs and sharp rocks, and she had often wondered how different the island’s history could have been if the west coast was the same. But it was not, and she could do nothing to re-write her people’s past. Their future, though, was in her hands.

‘Are you ready, Themi?’ she asked as she approached a man. Themi was the leader of Merino, the city on the southern tip of Cretos. A sea like people, it had been Merino that had supplied all the ships for their expedition.

‘Archon,’ Themi gave a deferential nod. He was a man of middling years, a body slightly run to fat sitting snug under his bronze trimmed cuirass. Fair haired and green eyed, he was beardless, a rarity among the men of Cretos. ‘We are. The ships are on the way, and the army of Merino stands ready to go. What is our plan of attack?’

Nyr smiled at the man. ‘Come, let us go and catch up with Demetrius, we can talk more then.’

They made their way onto the beach, the wind blowing up the skirt of Nyr’s keton. She ignored it. The men of Cretos knew well enough what would happen to them were any unwanted advances made towards her. The women too, for that matter.

In general, the people of Cretos were unashamed of their nakedness. Games were held yearly in times of peace, where athletes would compete naked in a variety of sports from javelin throwing to wrestling. Nyr usually competed in the long distance running herself, though she was careful to never win by too much. Being seen as one of the people was important to her future plans.

A tent had been erected on the beach, a stone’s throw from the water. Nyr poured herself a cup of wine and waited as Themi and Demetrius did the same. She gave both men a smile when they were ready. ‘So, we are ready to move out. As you know we go north first, to Bora, there to meet with the last of our army.’

‘Have you word from Antenor?’ Themi asked.

Nyr shook her head. ‘No. But he has promised us that the Borans will march with the rest of us. They may number only ten thousand, but we all know how important it will be for the morale of the army to see their red cloaks marching with us.’

The Borans were widely regarded as the finest fighting force in the world. Not any of the Augustan’s ten legions were a match for the bronze shields and red cloaks of Bora. They were undefeated in battle; their city having been taken by treachery when the Augustan’s invaded the island. And the warriors of Bora were kept busy, fending off raids of the Northmen from across the narrow stretch of sea that separated them from Stradsburg.

‘When did you last receive word from him, though?’ Demetrius asked. ‘We had received nothing in Nadr before I departed, and I had sent messages to him by land and sea.’

‘Nine days past,’ Nyr said, the lie rolling off her tongue. Practice made perfect, after all.

Demetrius nodded, though she could see the young man was still unsure. The coming winter would be just his twenty fifth, he had risen high and fast in the short time he had been in politics. Nyr thought he must have been the youngest leader any of the assembly’s had had since they fought on these very shores to evict Augustan troops from their land.

‘All will be well,’ she assured him. ‘Once we are all together, and all our army is assembled at Bora, my plan is to sail north, and not east.’ She stopped there, allowing the news to sink in. They were going to war with the Augustans, not the Northmen. But Nyr knew her enemy well and knew a direct assault on the eastern coast of Breton or Gael would be costly. Perhaps too costly.

‘Artor’s Pass?’ Themi asked, eyebrow raised.

Nyr nodded. ‘Think on it. We fight in the phalanx, with spear and shield. Every time we have fought the Augustan’s it has been on an open field, and their legions have been able to turn our flanks. But if the mountains of Artor’s Pass protect our flanks for us? Then they have to attack our front. If we make them fight on our terms, I don’t think we can lose.’

She waited as the two men digested the information. Nyr didn’t need their approval, she was Archon of the Four Cities, voted by the leaders of each to lead their army into war. Once the fighting was done and victory assured, she would be expected then to hand back the power granted to her. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

‘And what happens when we land in the north?’ Demetrius asked. ‘I do not think our ships will be welcome at Stradsburg.’

‘I will send a message to Leif the Red,’ Nyr said. ‘Though I do not plan on seeing Stradsburg. We will beach and camp just west of Artor’s Pass, and march around the mountains. With luck, we will not be spotted.’

‘With respect, Archon,’ Themi cut in. ‘We will be seen by anyone who cares to look from the walls of Caer Lundrene’

‘True enough,’ Nyr said, a knowing smile on her face. ‘But if there was a way of making sure there was a friend on the walls, then we may beach our troops without word spreading.’

‘You have that sort of influence?’ Themi asked. He was sceptical, of course, cautious. Much would depend on their army being able to reach Artor’s Pass before being engaged. If they were spotted too soon, or too late for that matter, it could be disastrous.

‘I may,’ Nyr said, not wanting to give too much away. ‘Let a lady keep some of her secrets, Themi.’

Demetrius was chewing his lip. ‘What say you?’ Nyr said to him.

‘I say if you can make it happen, then let it be so. Attacking the east coast of the empire is folly and we all know it. Too many legions based north of Myrddin Forest, too much open ground south of it.’

‘Augusta is south of it though,’ Themi said. ‘Why not attack the city head on? Cut the head from the snake, so to speak. The docks are not easy to defend.’

‘True, but the docks lead only to Subrara, and the rat run alleys of those streets would be a tough nut to crack. And even then, all we would have won is slums. The emperor would simply blockade the land bridge to the rest of the city and have his legions man the walls. We wouldn’t stand a chance.’

‘What about the river running through the forest? Could we not make use of that? There must be roads through the trees we could use?’ Themi said.

‘Too many variables. And when we come out, we would have legions to the north and south. As I said, getting caught in the open is the last thing we need.’

Nyr went over to the wine jug and filled the other two’s cups. ‘So, gentlemen, do we have a plan?’

***

Having plans was all well and good. The fact that they went to shit the moment you made contact with the enemy though, was a truth as old as time.

Nyr’s ship rounded the southern tip of the peninsula on the northeast coast of Cretos. If she shielded her eyes and looked west, she could just make out the west coast of Breton, and the peaks of Artor’s Pass just north of it.

She was not, however, looking west. Due mainly to the shit show playing out just to the north. Raiders. The Northmen were known as the wolves of the sea for good reason. They were scavengers, opportunists, and they hunted in packs.

There must have been a hundred of their shallow hulled ships in the water, sleek and fast, they cut through the waves like swords through skin, bearded warriors leaping from hulls to attack her army as they boarded Creton vessels.

Nyr cursed. Cursed her own stupidity more than anything else. The soldiers of the Free Cities had boarded their transport ships without their armour or swords. Panoplies and swords had been left heaped in leather sacks, each bearing the name and unit of each soldier. These packs were being shipped separately. Nyr had allowed herself to be convinced it was the most efficient way of doing it.

Right now, it was the most efficient way of losing valuable soldiers. Knuckles white on the ship’s rail, she watched on, helpless, as more and more ships ahead were boarded by the raiders. ‘Archon! What do we do?’

‘We must turn around, Archon!’

‘We cannot allow you to be captured, Archon!’

Seemed to her a hundred different voices clamoured for her attention. All she wanted was a moments peace. In the end she did nothing. Numbers told, and the majority of her ships made it through the raiders to the shores of Bora, where a wall of bronze shields and red cloaks waited for any Northman foolish enough to beach their ship. None did.

She had been silent for what felt like years when it became apparent two enemy ships were making for hers. Holding a hand up for silence to pre-empt the clamour of voices about to erupt behind her, she kept her eyes fixed on the closest ship. Sure enough, a familiar face appeared at the prow.

‘Archon Nyr!’ a cheery voice called across the waves. ‘Been a while!’

Nyr suppressed a sigh. ‘Leif the Red! Well met. I hear you are Jarl of Ulfstad these days. Perhaps I should offer a bow?’

‘I have that honour! Though a bow will not be necessary. Perhaps, though, you would do me the honour of accompanying me back to Stradsburg? Maybe when we are there you can tell me why you have brought so many soldiers so close to my lands!’

‘I’ve no quarrel with you! Nor you with me! How about you go about your business and I’ll go about mine.’

Leif shook his head, offering a flat smile across the rolling sea. ‘Would be that I could! But word has reached my ears that you plan on landing men on my shore! What sort of Jarl would I be if I let a slight such as that go unchallenged?’

Nyr chewed her lip as she weighed her options. ‘Fine. Take your men home, Jarl Leif, and I shall follow. But if another Creton soldier dies then I promise you, you shall share their fate.’

‘Ha! Big words from one with as little options as you. But I shall do as you say, my hall at Stradsburg awaits you.’

It was dark when she got there. Refusing to bring a guard, she walked from the shingle beach up the incline, beneath the sea gate built into the wooden walls, and into Stradsburg itself. The capital of Ulfstad, in truth the only city of consequence in the Jarldom,

Torches lit the narrow streets of the city as she walked through, attracting stares as she went. Nyr was a striking woman, something she was very aware of. Blonde hair, piercing green eyes and cheek bones you could sharpen a sword on, she had melted many a heart in her years. It had been a long time since anyone had held a special place in hers, though.

A man called something to her in Northern, a tongue she had never bothered to master. The crude gesture the man made left little doubt as to what his words alluded to, but Nyr paid him no heed. She didn’t carry a sword, there was a knife concealed in her boot if she felt the need, but she didn’t think she would. Jarl Leif had promised her safe passage. That ought to be enough.

The city was quiet, far more subdued that she thought it would be. The city’s raiders should be celebrating a job well done out on the seas, with feasting and singing and games. Instead, the streets were quiet as graves.

Leif’s hall was in the centre of the city, a squat, ugly wooden structure in dire need of knocking down and rebuilding. Rotten timber and decaying thatch, it seemed to Nyr to epitomise the stagnate state of the Northern lands. A people too focused on fighting each other to unite and grow. At least the Cretons had found common ground in democracy since their break from the empire. The Northmen had been stuck in the same cycle for generations. Two guards sat on stools outside the iron barred doors; they rose as she approached.

Wordlessly she held out her arms and allowed one of the men to grope her for an entirely unnecessary amount of time. She made sure to make her face a mask. The man would have been ordered to make her feel uncomfortable. She didn’t want to let him know he had succeeded. Once her chest and groin had been thoroughly checked for concealed weapons she was waved into the hall.

The first thing to hit her was the smell. Stale fish, rotten bowels and sweat were the overpowering odours. Nyr thought she detected a faint undercurrent of blood too, and her stomach turned at the thought that it was the blood of people.

Wood smoke curled slowly to the rafters, the long, narrow fire in the centre of the hall flickering. It was warm, too warm for the time of year. It didn’t exactly get hot in the far north in summer, but it was too hot to be couped up in a hall dominated by a blazing fire.

The atmosphere within was as subdued as it was out on the streets. Men murmured as she walked past, not looking left or right. Bear skins hung from the walls, the banners of slain jarls from the ceiling. Leif had never been politic, seemed his rise to prominence had done nothing to temper him.

‘Well if it isn’t my favourite Archon! Was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.’

Leif sat on a high-backed wooden chair on a raised dais at the rear of the hall. Nyr wouldn’t go quite as far as saying it was a throne, but it was about as close to being one as a chair could get. He was wearing a ripped tunic and brown trousers; his right leg hooked over the side of the chair. A twin headed axe rested on his shoulder; he grinned at her, his face unshaven, eyes mischievous.

‘I always keep my appointments,’ Nyr said. She stopped just short of the dais, her eyes never leaving his, though she noticed all too well the warriors rise from their tables, weapons naked in palms as they stalked towards her. ‘I thank you for the warm welcome, Jarl Leif,’ she offered a mocking bow, arms sweeping before her. ‘Truly, I am blessed to be summoned to your presence.’

‘The fuck you doing at Bora with that many ships?’ Leif sneered, not bothering to acknowledge Nyr’s sarcasm. ‘I thought we had an understanding, us and you Cretons. The seas belong to us; the land and all your little villages are yours. You went back on your word,’ he pointed his axe towards her. Nyr didn’t flinch.

‘You and I have no agreement at all,’ she said, stepping lightly onto the first step up to the dais. ‘I made an agreement some years ago with Jarl Ragner,’ she paused then, frowned, looked around thoughtfully. ‘Funny, but I don’t see him here. Tell me Leif, where is your lord? The rightful Jarl of Ulfstad?’

‘Burned his body just around the corner there,’ Leif pointed carelessly with his axe in a vague direction. ‘You want to go and pay your respects? His wife and daughter are working in one of the whore houses down by the docks if you want to pop your head in on them on your way back to your ship. They’ll even get you off for a couple of bronze coins.’

‘Takes quite a lot to get me off,’ Nyr raised an eyebrow. ‘Many have tried. Few have succeeded.’ Leif offered her a sickly grin. ‘My point, Jarl Leif,’ she said with all the sarcasm she could muster. ‘Is that you and I have no agreement at all. Four hundred and fifty soldiers I lost today, give or take. Another sixty in hospital beds, no guarantees they’re all going to make it. My people and yours have known peace for over a generation, and you threw all that aside in one afternoon. I do hope it was worth it.’

‘I’m hearing a lot of yapping, little dog,’ Leif said, raising a laugh from his men. ‘But nothing of any substance. I saw a chance for a raid, and I took it. We are raiders, here, after all.’

‘My point,’ Nyr cut in. ‘Is you are a fool who acts before he thinks.’ There was a sharp intake if breath in the hall. Leif hefted his axe. ‘You slew your lord Ragner when you became impatient with his careful negotiations and peace treaties he signed with my people and the Augustans. Peace treaties that kept my phalanxes and Aurelias’ legions off your lands.’

She was three steps up to the dais now, just two more to go. Leif’s men had formed a loose semi-circle behind her, but were so far keeping their distance, which suited Nyr just fine. Leif still hadn’t moved, though his axe was ready in his hands.

‘And, not content with that, when one of your seaborn spies told you of my transport ships rounding the headland nears Bora, instead of minding your own fucking business and being about your day, you decided you would sail out and meet us and take whatever plunder you could get your hands on.’

‘What’s your fucking point?’ Leif spat. ‘My men are raiders! Raiders! Farmers need to grow shit; merchants need to sell shit. And raiders? Well, they need to fucking raid!’

‘But what of the consequences?’ Nyr asked. She had climbed the last two steps and stood just three feet from Leif. ‘Ragner would have thought of the possible repercussions. He would have sent a man to speak with me, to gain intel before he did something…. Regrettable. You? Well, that’s not your way, is it? See an opportunity and take it. Deal with the consequences later.’

Leif grinned. Leif the Red, men called him. He’d fought the Augustans at Artor’s Pass ten years back, in one morning he had killed one hundred and twenty men from the Second legion, according to the songs anyway. Left the field red with their blood. Northmen were always giving themselves stupid names. It was a status thing, childish pride, and Nyr thought them all pathetic.

‘I’ll ask again,’ Leif said, that evil grin still fixed to his face. ‘What’s your fucking point?’

‘My point,’ Nyr said, matching the Northmen’s grin with one of her own. ‘Is that now is later.’ Quick as thought her hands blurred through the air in front of her, and before anyone else in the hall knew what was happening there was a knife in her right hand. Another blur of motion and the knife was spinning through air, cutting all in its path.

Leif managed to get his axe up just in time, the blade screeched off the side and spun out of sight.

Then three things happened at once. The doors to the hall burst open, revealing a wall of bronzed shields outside. Smoke drifted lazily from the rotten timber walls, curling up from the rank rushes on the floor and infiltrating lungs. And Nyr moved like liquid through the hall, flooring three men that hadn’t even seen her coming, before she was among the shields outside on the street. ‘Any issues?’ she asked Themi as she appeared beside him.

‘How do you move like that?’ he asked, breathless.

She offered him a shrug. ‘I can get a shift on when I need to. Anything I need to know?’

He shook his head. ‘All went to plan.’

‘Good. Bar those doors and get the hall burning. I want us gone from here.’

Hell hath no fury like a woman, and whilst Nyr had good reason to not believe in hell, just then it was a saying she could get behind. She had wasted no time once her ship had reached land. Her transport ships had been sent straight back into the water. She knew Leif well enough, knew him to be nothing but an arrogant fool. He had not bothered to leave scouts in the water behind him. Thinking the fight won he had retreated back to his stinking hall, awaiting the arrival of the terrified, beaten woman.

Instead that woman had shipped an entire army over to his lands in one afternoon, and they were camped just a few miles to the west. Leif may well have cost her a small portion of her army, but she would damn well make sure she cost him everything he had.

‘Burn it all,’ she said to a Lochagos as she passed. He commanded a unit of one hundred men, and he and hundreds others like him were the backbone of her army. The man nodded, flaming torch already in his hand. He was giving orders out to his men before Nyr had passed from earshot. Before she had walked fifty paces her nostrils were full of the smell of wood smoke and people’s screams. There was no part of her that felt bad. Sometimes an example needed to be made. This was such an occasion.

She left Stradsburg via the eastern gate and did not look back at the destruction behind her.

THREE

WHAT DA USED TO SAY

HRAF

‘God’s children ruled the world once. They lived among the people, guided them, fought for them. Artor was one such man. A true warrior. He and his men kept the north clear of monsters. Until one day, he went into battle just between the mountains that separate what we call Ulfstad from Breton, and there he was killed.’

‘By who?’ Hraf asked.

Grago shrugged. ‘The monsters.’

‘What monsters?’

‘Sanguivores. Skinwalkers. The Undead. Call them what you want. My Da says the hills of the north used to be full of them.’

‘And how did your Da know that?’ Hraf scoffed, though he cast a wary look at the surrounding trees all the same.

‘Because his Da told him, and his Da told him. For generations the men of my clan have passed down the stories of their forebears. It is our history, and our future. Though I guess it all ends with me,’ Grago said sadly, sighing heavily.

‘Why’s that then?’ Hraf asked. He rubbed absently at his chest, where until so recently there had been a gaping hole.

‘I have no sons to pass the stories down to. I can’t read nor write, so I don’t see how they will live on when I pass back to the earth.’

‘You say some weird shit,’ Hraf said. ‘Who ‘passes back to the earth?’’

‘What my Da used to say,’ Grago said. ‘We take from the earth, and then when our life is done, we give it our bodies as payment. The Augustan Church symbolises it with the Wheel. Guess that’s where they got it from.’

‘Are all you hill folk as batshit as you?’

‘I am the only one left,’ Grago said.

‘How can you be the only one left?’

Grago shrugged again. ‘The Augustans killed the others. There was a purge, years back, the emperor sent a legion to clear the hills.’

‘Why?’

‘There is precious metal under the mountains. They wanted to mine it. My people were in their way.’

Hraf whistled. ‘How did you survive?’

‘My Da had a hunting hut, just above Artor’s Pass. He ran, took me with him. We hid there three days, until he thought it was clear. When we went back to our village…’ Grago trailed off, and Hraf had no need for him to finish.

‘Tell me more of God’s children,’ he said, moving on, not wanting to get bogged down on genocide. ‘I want to hear more stories of them.’

‘There were five in total. You are familiar with the Wheel symbol of the Augustan Church?’

‘I am,’ Hraf nodded. He still wasn’t sure how he knew some things and yet others remained hidden in locked parts of his mind, but he was learning to accept it. He didn’t know where he was from, for example, or why he was fighting at Artor’s Pass in the first place. But he did know the Wheel of the Augustan Church. ‘Wait, the wheel has four lines running through it, not five?’

‘Ahh,’ Grago showed his yellowed teeth as he grinned. ‘Four straight lines crisscrossed through it, yes. But what of the line around the outside?’

‘Well there wouldn’t be a wheel at all without the line around the outside, surely?’

‘And without the fifth son, there would not be five sons of God,’ Grago said. ‘I had this same discussion with my Da when I was young.’

‘Five sons, hey? So much for girl power,’ Hraf said.

Grago nodded. ‘Five sons. Artor, Phoebus, Judas, Tor and the Redeemer himself.’

‘The Redeemer have a name? Just calling him ‘The Redeemer’ makes it sound like a nickname given to him in some tavern one night. Did he ‘redeem’ himself by buying everyone a round?’

‘No. By dying for our sins,’ Grago said, which Hraf rather thought killed the mood.

‘How do I know he died for our sins? What sins were so bad that he had to be killed to cleanse us of them?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Grago said through a wince. ‘Officially it was one of his brother’s that sinned, but when questioned by his Holy Father, the Redeemer refused to betray his brother’s trust.’

‘Which brother?’

‘Judas.’

‘What had he done then?’ Hraf massaged his temple. All this talk of God’s children was more complicated than he could have imagined.

‘He had betrayed the Redeemer to a pack of savages. A mindless bunch of men that were killing for fun.’

‘Who were they? Outlaws?’

‘Augustan soldiers,’ Grago said. ‘Their emperor had been killed in the siege of Troyes, and they wanted revenge on every man of fighting age they could get their hands on. The Redeemer was given up by his brother and hung to a wheel on the beach outside the city. He was there three days before he died.’

‘And no one tried to save him?’ Hraf asked, astonished.

‘People did,’ Grago nodded. ‘But Augustan soldiers filled the beach, angry men looking for any excuse to kill. You must remember, although this was a long time ago, these events happened well past the age the sons of God walked among the people of the world. On His orders had His sons retreated to the shadows, living as ordinary people, and watching the race they had helped grow slowly consume itself. So the Redeemer may well have said who he was, but the soldiers on that beach would have paid him no heed.’

‘So you’re telling me a son of God just hung on the Wheel until he died, for no real reason at all? Surely he could have used some of his power to get off?’

Grago offered a thin smile. ‘Who said the sons of God had power? Immortal they may have been, but in none of the stories my Da passed down to me did they possess powers that could be used to their advantage.’

‘What would be the point in being the son of God if you had no powers?’ Hraf rolled his eyes.

‘Immortal life is a power in itself, is it not?’ Grago asked.

Hraf could feel the man staring at him. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he said, a hand coming up once more to rub the healed wound in his chest. ‘But I’m no immortal. At least I don’t think I am,’ he muttered.

‘I have not finished my story,’ Grago said. ‘The Redeemer was buried in a shallow grave on the beach, the grave covered with large rocks to prevent scavengers uncovering the body and feeding from it. Three days after the Redeemer had succumbed to his body’s needs and passed, a shepherd was walking past the graves, when he noticed one had been disturbed.’

‘Here we go!’ Hraf slapped his forehead. ‘Let me guess, the Redeemer had risen from the dead, just as I did. That’s why you agreed to come with me, isn’t it? You think I’m a descendant of the Redeemer or something?’

‘How else can you explain what happened to you?’ Grago asked. ‘It is a miracle. Heaven sent. There can be no other explanation.’

Hraf had stripped off in the murky light of pre-dawn and washed himself in a shallow stream. It was only then he had noticed the lattice of white scars that crisscrossed his body. Whatever had happened to him, he was certain it was not the first time. Why else would he have his name and Hadsburg tattooed on his arm? And what would he find when he got there?

They walked in silence for a time. Hraf was hungry, but not willing to admit it. Grago seemed as though he were made of stone. Nothing seemed to bother him, nothing fazed him. The expression on his bearded face didn’t move an inch, no matter what Hraf said.  

‘Long way, ain’t it?’ Hraf huffed. Dawn had broken at some point; he couldn't quite remember when. All he could remember was the road, the endless trudge. He just wished he knew where he was going.

‘Our road is a long one,’ Grago nodded. ‘Let us hope it is a safe one.’

‘There you go with the weird shit again,’ Hraf said. ‘Why would the road not be safe?’

‘Ulfstad is a dangerous country,’ Grago said. ‘It is ruled from Stradsburg, though I’m told that is three days walk from here. It is largely lawless; the men of the north are hard to govern.’

‘They are my people, I think,’ Hraf said, looking around. They had emerged from a stand of trees into a windswept, open valley. Far to the north, snow peaked mountains dotted the horizon as far as Hraf could see. Impassable, instinctively he knew they marked the end of the world, that nothing could exist beyond it. To the south there was open countryside, the sea sighing onto a shingle beach in the distance.

And to the east, to his front, a sweeping panorama consisting of stands of pine, and open grazing land, as far as the eye could see.

‘Aye, I would say they are your people,’ Grago said. ‘Though if you have Hadsburg tattooed on your arm, I’d say you were from Ironthwaite rather than Ulfstad.’

‘Ironthwaite,’ Hraf said, rolling the word around on his tongue. ‘That feels… familiar to me.’

He thought desperately as they walked on, though it seemed to Hraf the harder he thought the more obscure things came. He was still battling his mind when he noticed Grago had stopped. ‘What is it?’ he asked. The big man said nothing, just pointed southeast.

Hraf followed his finger and nearly choked on air. Ships, smoke, flames, and a shit load of soldiers. He wasn’t sure which one alarmed him more. ‘Who are they?’ he asked.

‘Cretons,’ Grago said.

‘How do you know that? For some man that lives in the hills on his on you sure seem to know a lot.’

‘My Da-

‘Yes, yes! Your Da told you! Fine, tell me how you know they’re Cretons.’

‘Bronze,’ Grago said. ‘They have no access to iron on Cretos, the Augustans make sure of that. So they’re weapons and armour are made of bronze.’

Hraf could well see the bronze helmets, cuirass’ and spear tips from where he stood. The greaves on arms and legs. Again, there was something buzzing at the back of his mind, some form of recognition he couldn’t quite reach.

‘It was iron, wasn’t it, that the Augustans wanted from your clan’s village.’

‘Aye. Iron it was,’ Grago said. ‘And they control the supply. Some goes north to your people, though most iron in the world comes from Ironthwaite, so they don’t need much. Some goes all the way east to Parsia, to the Holy Lands themselves. Cretos, though, gets access to none.’

‘The Augustans want them to be weak,’ Hraf said, filling in the blanks. ‘To stop them… well, presumably doing this.’

That the bronze army was headed to Artor’s Pass there could be no doubt. And there could only be one reason why an army would be approaching Artor’s Pass. ‘You are right. More and more I grow certain there is some of God in you, Hraf.’

‘Huh?’ Hraf said, eyes still fixed on the army of bronze.

‘If I had not met you, I would still be in my hut at Artor’s Pass, and there I would have been when this lot turned up. There’s no way an army of this size would have missed me.’

‘Did the army I was with miss you?’ Hraf asked.

‘Wouldn’t really call it an army. Big raiding party perhaps? You were unlucky, from what I saw. If the Fifth legion hadn’t happened to be in the area, I do not think you would have needed to fight. Come, we should get off the road.’

‘Why?’

‘Before we are seen.’

‘They’re miles away! And there’s only two of us. No chance we would get their attention.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that!’ said a voice from behind them, and Hraf and Grago turned wordlessly to see two riders emerging from the stand of trees they had just passed through.

Resplendent in bronze panoplies, the two riders looked down at Hraf and Grago from the length of the spears they held out before them. ‘Hands where I can see them, please,’ the one that spoke before said.

‘You speak good Northern,’ Hraf said, raising his hands. He took two steps towards the horses, who shied and backed away, their riders kicking them back forward.

‘I do,’ the soldier said. ‘Name’s Chio, and I’m a rider of Kelios.’

‘I can see that,’ Hraf said, once again wondering how it was he knew such a random piece of information. ‘Your city’s symbol is on your shield there. And Kelios is known the world over for its cavalry.’ Kelios was indeed known to breed the finest horses and have the best cavalry in all the world. The front of their bronze shields was covered in leather, painted black with a rearing white horse.

‘Well aren’t you well informed. Who are you? And where are you going?’

‘Now that,’ Hraf said, arms still raised, trying to look around and appear casual. On the north side of the road was a drop of thirty feet, fast moving water thrashing on rocks below it. ‘Is a more complicated question than you might think.’ He tried to make eye contact with Grago, but the big man was staring up at Chio like she was some sort of goddess. Fuck sake, Hraf realised, the man was practically drooling. He guessed the man from the clan of one didn’t get to see many women.

‘And why might that be?’ Chio said with an eyebrow raised. She turned and shared a look with her colleague, Hraf guessed somewhere between boredom and amusement.

‘He is a son of God,’ Grago said before Hraf could speak. ‘And he is going to Hadsburg.’

A silence followed, in which Hraf cursed Grago for a fool whilst edging closer to the rapids on the north side of the road. Grago had the nerve to pat down his wild hair and beard, as if Chio might suddenly come to her senses and realise she wanted to milk him dry. And Chio’s face went from one of amusement, to shock, a frown of confusion, and then an ear-splitting grin, followed by heaving laughter.

‘Yep, that’s right. Son of the big man, right here,’ Hraf said with a wink, prodding himself in the chest. ‘I’m immortal too,’ he said. ‘Psst,’ he hissed to Grago, and when he finally tore his eyes away from Chio, he gestured for the clansman to come stand next to him. ‘We’re going to jump for the water,’ he whispered.

‘Huh?’ Grago looked down at the thrashing white waves below. ‘Why?’

‘So we don’t get caught in whatever’s going on here. And these two don’t take us somewhere we don’t want to be.’

‘Why would they?’

‘Because that’s what soldiers do!’

‘What if I want to go where they’re going?’

‘Trust me, Grago. You don’t. That’s it! Nice deep breaths!’ he called this last to Chio, who was wiping her eyes as her mirth calmed. ‘I know, I know. Not every day you get to meet a god, is it?’

‘I’ll tell you something for nothing,’ Chio said, still chuckling. ‘That’s the most I’ve laughed in an age. We’ve had a rough couple of days.’

‘Why’s that then?’ Hraf asked.

‘None of your business,’ Chio said, face a mask once more. ‘Now, who are you and where are you going?’

‘I’m Hraf, and this is Grago, and we really are going to Hadsburg,’ Hraf said. He was inches from the drop. Just a little further…

‘I’m afraid the road east is blocked. I need you to head south until you reach my colleagues on the road. They’ll be able to direct you from there.’

‘Could you not come with us?’ Grago asked before Hraf could stop him.

‘And where is it your colleagues will direct us too exactly?’ Hraf asked, shooting daggers at Grago. ‘Slave pens perhaps? Where you can then herd us onto your ships and sail us to Parsia and sell us in the markets of Xigo or Troyes? Funny, isn’t it, how people always call us Northmen the raiders. But I’d wager there are more pirate ships off the coast of Creton then there are Viking ones in all the north.’

‘Clever little fucker aren’t you,’ Chio said, nudging her horse a little closer. ‘Look, I like the two of you-

‘Oh thanks!’ Grago said, beard splitting into a grin.

‘Fuck sake,’ Hraf muttered. If he hadn’t had his hands raised above his head, he would have palmed himself in the face. Or Grago, for that matter.

‘But you are not continuing on the road east. My Archon gave me explicit orders, and she is not to be let down. Understand me?’

Hraf offered a small bow. ‘I do. Honestly. I know how it can feel to be trapped working for someone who has little respect for you.’

‘I never said that,’ Chio said, frowning.

‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry! I just thought, you know. The main army is all the way down there. I guess your Archon is with them, surrounded by all her favourite people. And here you are, up here in the arse end of nowhere, just one person for company. Well, you can’t score high on the Archon’s good list.’

‘My relationship with-

‘And then there’s the fact that the two of you are closest to Artor’s Pass. I mean; I’m assuming that’s where you’re heading? So, if there was an Augustan legion at the pass, the two of you would meet them head on. Two against, what? Five thousand in a legion? Not great odds, is it? And yet your Archon would risk you. Seems to me she doesn’t think much of you at all.’

‘Right listen here you little-

Chio whipped her spear around, and seemed about to skewer Hraf, which would have put a dampener on his day, but he cut her off before she could strike. ‘Right! I’ve heard you! We are not to take another step on the eastern road. We hear you, we understand. Don’t we Grago.’

‘Err. Yes?’ Grago said, his heavy eyebrows knitted together in a frown.

‘We do. And not a step we shall take on this road,’ Hraf said, stamping his feet as if to re-affirm his point. ‘We do, however, need to continue east. So…’ He looked behind him once, taking in the dizzying drop and brackish water. Somehow it didn’t quite seem the brilliant idea it had a few moments ago. ‘All that is left is for us to do is wish you both a good day, and…’

He jumped. Chio screamed ‘nooooo’ as he did, which he thought was a nice touch. Turning in the air, giving in to gravity, he saw Grago falling above him, and just had time to offer a smile, before he hit the water with wettest of wet slaps, and everything went dark.....   

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