Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (71 page)

“She could not have known,” Ellara replied from the bed. It was a grand construction, a large hardwood four-poster frame with red velvet hangings. “If anything, I should take some of the blame. Sir Ghyle mentioned that Lady Lyria is very devout, but I was so concerned with making sure all our belongings were brought up I didn’t fully grasp his meaning.”

“It’s not your fault.” Adelmar slipped between the silk sheets, which were pleasingly cool. He rubbed his eyes, feeling all the fatigue from their journey descend upon him at once. “It is not hers either, I realise that. If it had not happened tonight, it would have done at another time. It is a trial we must endure.”

Ellara patted his arm soothingly. “I am sure that all she needs is time. I will keep a close watch on her while you are away, and ask that Lyria be a little more circumspect in her faith when around the girls.”

Perhaps it was dredging up past memories that evening with Sir Ghyle, but as he slept that night, in his dreams Adelmar found himself once more upon the battlefield. He stood upon a tall hill, flanked by a thousand of his most trusted warriors. The anticipation in the air was almost palpable, and he took time to savour the moment, gazing down upon the massed ranks of an enemy still blissfully unaware of their presence.

All was as he remembered it that day; the sting of the frigid air upon his cheeks, the stony soil beneath his feet. The way the sun glinted on the sharp blade of Duty, his sword, forged just weeks earlier at his father’s behest, to commemorate his son’s first command. At his back were the mountains, whose wind-swept passes they had spent days traversing. All had been leading to this moment.

He saw faces below turn in their direction, and soon panic began to spread in their ranks. The northern forces had done what they believed to be prudent, keeping the women and children, the old and infirm behind them while their soldiers kept the Legion bottled up at the Granite Pass. They had thought them safe.

They were wrong. As the people far below began to break, fleeing for their lives while their desperate wails reached his ears on the wind, Adelmar raised Duty high above his head and roared the command to charge. They swept down upon their enemy like a hurricane of divine wrath, a maelstrom of righteous fury. Adelmar was at their head, his shining blade singing through the air as they reached their prey. He cared not who stood in his way, cleaving necks and limbs with grim fervour. Distant shouts over the heads of the doomed civilians told him that his ploy had been successful. The northern forces were dividing, their lines descending into chaos as they struggled to decide which threat to face first.

Soon enough, his sword began to meet steel instead of unprotected flesh as his vanguard fought their way through to the rear lines of Caderyn’s army, but they still met only token resistance. Here had been placed the most inexperienced soldiers, or the most venerable: auxiliaries only intended to fight as a last resort. Adelmar was merciless as he cut them down, the Legion soldiers around him bellowing his name as their battle-cry; the golden boy who was leading them back to glory after decades of ignoble stagnation.

In his dream, Adelmar was aware of what he had not known at the time, that as he hacked his way through towards the northern general who had ignited this rebellion, the rest of his forces had already breached the Granite Pass and were even now doing the same from the opposite direction. Many northerners had already begun to throw down their weapons, seeing that their cause was lost; they had been caught hopelessly between the hammer and the anvil.

Eventually, they reached him, Adelmar and his vanguard. The rebel lord sat upon a grey horse, looking down in dismay upon the decimation of his army. While his warriors engaged the general’s bodyguard, Adelmar shouted out a challenge. The general’s stag-horn helmet swung in his direction and he dismounted, just as he had in the past.

Their fight was different in this dream, however. Then, Caderyn had been a beaten man by the time they locked swords in combat; Adelmar, twenty years his junior, had been strong and fought with a ferocity that stemmed from unshakeable belief in the righteousness of their cause. It had been an anti-climactic contest that ended with the northern lord on his knees in the muck, disarmed and defeated.

In the dream, though, the enemy general fought like a wild beast. Their swords rang out above the sound of the battle taking place all around them. His strength was immense, forcing Adelmar back upon his heels. Through gritted teeth, Adelmar realised he would lose. Here, in the dream, he was old and riddled with doubts, just as Caderyn had been a quarter-century earlier, while the rebel general, his face hidden behind the visor of his helmet, fought with almost inhuman vigour. A gauntleted fist crunched into his chin, knocking him from his feet. A moment later his stomach exploded with white-hot pain as the enemy general’s blade pierced his armour.

Adelmar felt his lifeblood drain from his body. He could only stare helplessly as the general raised a hand to lift his visor. In place of Caderyn’s sad blue eyes, the face that grinned down at him was his brother’s. As the last of his strength left his body, Duty dropped from Adelmar’s hand and fell to the ground. His eyes dancing with glee, Jarrod leaned closer to his face. “Just because you do not play the game,” he whispered, a ghastly leer twisting his features, “does not mean that you cannot lose.”

A woman’s scream pierced the night. Together with thoughts of his brother so recently in his mind, for a moment after waking Adelmar almost thought he was back on the road, camping outside the inn.

He was on his feet in an instant. Ellara sat upright, alarmed, as he raced from their bedchamber, his nightshirt billowing behind him. It took him but a moment to take in the two most pertinent details; that while Rosalynd was stirring in her bed, the one next to it stood empty, and that the door to their chambers hung open.

When he reached the corridor beyond, he heard sobs coming from the floor below, and raced towards the sound. The door to the castellan’s chambers, where they had supped only hours before, was also open. One look at Sir Ghyle comforting his wife, her neck bare, told him everything. “Where?” he yelled, startling the couple with the ferocity of his tone. The castellan raised a shaking hand and pointed back up the stairs.

Fear gripped Adelmar’s heart. Only two levels remained above his family’s own apartments, a small guardroom that housed the watchmen who maintained the beacon and the roof where the signal fire burned.

There was a clatter of boots as guards hurried up the tower to investigate the disturbance, but Adelmar did not wait for them. He turned back the way he had come, and sprinted up the stone spiral staircase, taking the steps two at a time. The hatch that opened to the top floor of the tower stood open, and when he emerged through it saw a handful of guards hovering uncertainly nearby.

Adelmar ignored them. All his attention was focused on the small figure that stood beyond the roaring signal fire. A strong breeze blew across the roof, tugging at the girl’s nightdress. Time seemed to slow as he edged closer. Amelie turned to face him. When their eyes met, she took a small step backwards, until her heels brushed the very edge of the parapet on which she stood. At her back was open space; a three hundred foot drop down to the ocean. Adelmar could hear the whisper of the waves far below. He stopped then, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He said nothing, just held her gaze steadily, too afraid even to blink. A distant part of his mind was crying out a forlorn hope that this was just another part of his dream, but he knew it was not so.

Amelie broke the silence first. She smiled beatifically and held her hands, clutching an unseen object, up to her chest. “I can hear it again, father,” she said, her eyes alight with joy. “I can hear the music again. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“There is no music, Amelie,” Adelmar replied, keeping his voice calm. “Please, step away from the edge. Come back to me.” He held his hands out beseechingly towards her.

Her clothes flapped in the wind. A small frown wrinkled her brow. “No, you’ll take it away from me again. I won’t let that happen.”

Adelmar risked a small step forward. He was within perhaps six feet of his daughter, his arms outstretched. Close, agonisingly so, but still too far. They may as well have been standing on opposite sides of the world for all the difference it would make, if... “I promise, I won’t take it away this time, child,” he said, closing his mind to the ugly thought that had surfaced unbidden in his mind. “If you come back to us, this time you can keep it. All that matters to me is that you are safe.”

The girl’s head tilted slightly to one side, as though listening to something he could not hear. “He says you’re lying,” she said accusingly.

“Who does, child?” He didn’t dare look around and break the eye-contact with his daughter. “There is nobody here but us.”

“The green man,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “He says that you’ll take it away as soon as I go back. I won’t let that happen!” The final words came out in a scream.

Adelmar had stood unflinching upon countless battlefields, but in that moment, for the first time, he knew what it was to feel fear. He understood then that his daughter had lost her mind, and nothing in his life had prepared him to deal with such a situation. “Please, come back,” he repeated, at a loss of what else to say. “There is no green man. Whatever you want will be yours, I promise.”

“There is so, father.” Amelie clutched the crystal even tighter in her hands, until her knuckles were white. “I saw him in my dreams, and even now he whispers in my ears.” She smiled. In the moonlight, the expression was almost gruesome, more a grinning skull than the face of the daughter he loved. “He has a message for you.”

“For me?” The girl’s eyes closed for a moment and Adelmar took another small step towards her. “What does he say?”

“He says goodbye. Isn’t that silly, when you’ve never even met him?” She giggled, the sound of it grotesquely at odds with the situation. “Oh, I wish you could, father. My dreams are so beautiful now. I sometimes wish I would never have to wake up.”

Adelmar could feel his world spinning away beneath his feet. His head swam. “Amelie, listen to me,” he managed to say, his voice becoming choked. “I want you to take a step towards me.”

The girl held his gaze and smiled sweetly. “Do you think it is true?”

“What is?”

“That when you die it is just like falling into a sleep that lasts forever?” Her eyes closed, and she stepped backwards.

“Amelie!” Adelmar screamed, leaping towards his eldest child.

She fell.

CHAPTER 29

F
or three days and nights, they rode. They kept an uneven pace, which at first surprised Cole, but he soon came to see the sense of it. While the blanket of snow that covered the ground gave it the impression of being smooth underfoot, the truth was the terrain of the lowlands was in many places rocky and loose, or covered in grassy tuffets that threatened to unseat an unwary rider.

He quickly realised that galloping from Strathearn to Ehrenburg, trying to reach their destination as quickly as they could as he had originally envisaged, would have only served to kill the animals they rode long before they saw the gates of the imperial city; either through exhaustion or by breaking their legs on perilous terrain. Instead, where the ground became difficult they walked and, on the few occasions the land was flat, Raven allowed their mounts into a bracing canter, though never for very long. Most often, they rode at a brisk trot, a pace the eager young colts that the duke had gifted them seemed able to maintain almost indefinitely.

Their progress was agonisingly slow to begin with, but by the time the sun came up the morning after they left Strathearn, the city walls were already out of sight. Yet, a pall of smoke hung in the air to the north, a reminder of the chaotic scenes they had left behind. Later that morning, they rode alongside a great lake. Light glinted off gentle waves that lapped at its banks, and a light mist clung to the surface.

“Loch Daigeir,” Raven said by way of explanation when Cole asked where they were. “The Lannair divides not long after passing through Strathearn; the Lannmor flows east to the sea, and the Lannbeg south, where it feeds into this lake.”

“It’s beautiful,” Cole said with sincerity.

Raven gazed out across the water. For some reason Cole couldn’t discern, there was a sadness about her. “There is much beauty to be found in the land,” she said after a long pause. “We have seen precious little of it on this journey, but it’s there. It can be easy to forget that, sometimes.”

Whatever the lake was called, it was peaceful, Cole knew that much. Other than themselves and their mounts, the only other signs of life they encountered that morning was a stag and its doe, who looked up in alarm from the gorse bush they had been nibbling upon as their horses thundered past.

Not long after the sun eased its way above the horizon, they stopped to break their fast beside the lake. They tied their mounts to the branch of a fallen tree and sat near the bank as they ate some of the provisions the duke had ordered be placed in their saddlebags. Bread rolls that were still fresh, a soft, pale cheese inside a waxy skin that proved to be creamy in taste and texture and a stoppered bottle that contained a thin but refreshing ale. It was not the most luxurious fare, but Cole wolfed it all down contentedly.

Even Grume allowed himself to be coaxed out into the open. As they ate, he sat upon a wide, flat rock, shivering slightly in the cool winter air. He gnawed sullenly upon a hunk of dried, salted pork but, underneath his usual curmudgeonly demeanour, Cole could tell that the little creature was pleased to feel the sun on his skin after days of concealment among the Aevir and the people of Strathearn.

Cole gazed out across the lake. There was a plop nearby and a ring of rapidly disappearing ripples as a fish snatched an insect from the surface. Sitting here, you could almost believe that all was right with the world. But, perhaps inspired by Raven’s words earlier that day, his thoughts turned to all he had seen during the past weeks; bandits upon the road, the fell beasts of the Spiritwood, the terrible fate that had befallen the lost villagers of Faerloren and the riots upon the streets of Strathearn. “Has it always been like this,” he wondered aloud. “Have I just never seen it for myself?”

Raven’s mind had evidently been running along similar lines. Having already finished her meal, his companion had turned her face towards the sun and was basking in the faint warmth it provided. “I’ve journeyed across the realm for the past twenty years, and in all that time it has never truly been at peace,” she said, raising herself onto her elbows and squinting in the sunlight. “It has never been as bad as this, though. Everywhere you go, there is something. Tensions, strife... dark creatures abroad.” She shook her head sadly and looked out over the water. “It sometimes feels as if there is a sickness upon the land.”

“Not sickness. Poison.” They both turned towards the stone and the boggit that sat upon it. He picked a fragment of meat from his teeth with a tiny claw.

“What do you mean?” asked Cole.

“Weren’t always like this,” answered Grume. “Biggers have their problems, nuffin new there, but this... diff’rent.” The little creature shrugged. “We’s could feel it in the swamp, sumfin growin’, spreadin’ deep down below. Sumfin that shouldn’t be there. Sumfin bad.”

“Grume,” said Raven quietly. “What happened to the others, your people?”

The boggit’s yellow eyes fixed on hers. “Gone,” he replied, simply. “Too many died or got sick, too few kits bein’ born. All gone now.”

They did not press him further. Instead they rested, taking turns to snatch a few hours of sleep, before setting off once more. That day set the pattern for the rest of the journey; they would ride four or five hours, break for food and to rest their mounts, and then start off again. They slept only when they could ride no further. It was exhausting but effective, and before the day was out the tranquil Loch Daigeir disappeared behind them.

Even while riding at night, it was impossible to become lost. When the sun was down, their destination was always marked by a canopy of thick black clouds that swirled with an unearthly green light. Faint columns of green fire were also visible in different directions. The exception was the way from which they had come.

“Do you think the duke brought down the crystal, like you asked?” Cole wondered on the second night, when the night sky behind them had remained dark.

“Yes, I believe so.” Raven sounded relieved. “It seems as if the lords of Caer Lys and Creag an Tuirc followed his example, as well. I haven’t seen any signs of green fires in the night sky to the north.”

Cole relaxed. “They are safe, then?”

“I doubt the north will ever truly be safe, not while Maximilien lives,” she said ruefully. “However, it seems that whatever threat these stones present has been alleviated in their cities for now.”

Cole thought about the unrest they had seen on the streets of Strathearn. “Do you think those other cities suffered riots as well?”

Raven shrugged and climbed back into the saddle, as they prepared to resume their journey. “I hope not, but it’s possible. The Order hasn’t been able to gain a foothold north of the mountains. Leaders like Yaegar have stood firm against them, and are too distant from Ehrenburg to really worry about the emperor’s reaction. But you saw just two nights past what is happening in places where people have been forced to accept them. Hopefully Lords Hyland and Carlyle took down the stones before the situation could get out of hand.”

By the morning of the fourth day, they could see their destination even in daylight. The Spire, the almost inconceivably tall tower built by the Order, dominated the horizon. It stood proudly, as pale as a skeletal finger, and with about as much warmth and charm as well. At its peak, it seemed almost to tickle the underbelly of the thick clouds that gathered above it. As Cole watched, green lightning struck the top of the tower and seemed to shimmer momentarily across its surface.
Whatever is going to happen, it will be soon,
he thought.

Not long afterwards they reached the Spine, the wide, paved road that served as the main thoroughfare connecting the north and south. They had kept away from the road from Strathearn, wishing to avoid any undue attention they might attract. For the same reason, they had taken care to give a wide berth to the many farms and smallholdings that dotted the landscape. But it appeared that was no longer an option. Unless you arrived by ship, the only way to enter the imperial city was by road, and the Spine was the most widely used of them all.

Cole watched the steady stream of wagons and carriages warily. “What now?” he asked. “I hope that our plan is not simply to march up to the guards at the city gates and say ‘hullo, we’re here to thwart the emperor’s chief and most trusted advisor. Now if you’d be so good as to let us pass’.” He grimaced. “It seems a shame to have come all this way just to lose my head and have it mounted on a pike outside the palace.”

Raven pondered the question for a moment. “It’s possible that we wouldn’t have to say anything. Even if they have been asked to watch for you, what could they have been asked to look for? A young man with brown hair? If they arrested everyone that fit that description, the city’s dungeons would be full and its streets empty.”

“Are you saying I look ordinary?” Cole feigned offence. “I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Raven smiled. “It might be the perfect disguise. They may have been told to watch for a young Brother of the Order, but as you told me before, you haven’t worn your robes since leaving Westcove.”

Cole glanced down at his attire. It was true. He was wearing clothes borrowed from Captain Brandt, the ring-mail shirt Bear had given him and a grimy, worn travelling cloak. There was nothing left that would mark him out as belonging to the Crag. “They may be on the lookout for a pair of wanderers, a man and a woman,” he pointed out. “The Archon’s giant has seen both of us together, and may by now have reached a place from where he could send a message.”

“He may not even be far behind us,” Raven said with a grim expression. “I doubt he would care about riding horses to death. If he reached Strathearn and took ship there, he may even be back at the Archon’s side already.”

“Now there’s a cheery thought.” Cole stared off towards the city, as if expecting to see a hulking figure standing atop its walls, waiting for them. “I presume you have a plan of some kind, then? I’d really like to put off meeting that brute again for as long as is possible.”

For over an hour they remained there, Raven’s eyes scanning the road. Cole was beginning to grow restless when, at last, Raven found what she was looking for. She pointed towards a carriage heading in their direction. It had perhaps once been grand to look upon, but whatever glory it had once possessed was long gone. Its sides were scratched and chipped, its wheels mismatched where one had broken but no effort had been made to find an exact replacement. The faded crest upon its door showed a clenched fist holding a blacksmith’s hammer. The overall picture of dilapidation was completed by the pair of horses that pulled it, whose mangy coats did little to conceal their ribs and thin, sallow flesh. The coachman who sat hunched over behind them was as threadbare as his charges.

Raven nodded to herself as it neared, then spurred on her horse to meet it. With a shrug, Cole followed.

The carriage rolled to a halt as Raven reached it, whereupon the snout of a loaded crossbow was thrust unceremoniously through the open window. Raven stopped, but did not seem unduly concerned. The end of the weapon seemed to quiver, as if the hand holding it was racked with nerves or uncertainty. Beyond it, Cole could see unkempt grey hair and tatty clothes.

“Lady Talgarth?” Raven called out.

There was an indistinct command from within the carriage, and the crossbow withdrew. In its place appeared a middle-aged woman whose dress, like the vehicle in which she rode, spoke of a noble past but reduced circumstances. She eyed Raven with suspicion. “Yes? Do I know you, young lady?”

“Not personally, my lady. Your husband the viscount once commissioned a piece of work from my father, many years ago.”

“He did?” The woman blinked in surprise. “What is he, your father? An artist, perhaps, or a bard? It’s been a long time since we had a need for either of those.”

“He was a blacksmith, my lady,” Raven answered, allowing the past tense to hang in the air for a moment. “It was a fine breastplate that he made, for your son William on his coming of age. Blacksteel, bearing your family’s sigil worked in gold.”

“Yes... I think I remember,” Lady Talgarth said vaguely. “You are from Blackridge, then?”

“No my lady. But a small village not far from it. I was but a girl then, but I remember your husband saying that he did not trust his own smiths with such a work. ‘They can bash out a pick that won’t fall apart in a miner’s hand, but ask them for anything finer and they’ll stand around scratching their backsides before handing you another pick’. Those were his words, I believe.”

Lady Talgarth smiled faintly at the coarse language. “That does sound like Hugh,” she admitted. “Well, it was a pleasure to see you again, my girl.”

She was about to signal the coachman, when Raven nudged her mount forward another pace. “If you can spare a further moment, my lady, I thought I might be able to render you some assistance,” she said. “I could not help but notice that you ride towards Ehrenburg without an escort.”

There was a low growl from inside the carriage. “What am I, chopped fucking liver?” Cole looked past the noblewoman, and saw another seated beside her; a dishevelled older man with a greying beard in general appearance much like the gorse bush he had seen the deer grazing on two days before. The crossbow lay across his lap, but was held in such a way that indicated its owner could wield it again at a moment’s notice. The man leered, revealing black holes where a number of teeth were missing.