A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Once, Stilharrow Deep had breathed a gentle mist at dawn, as the eastern light lifted a veil from its waters. Now smoke coughed from the many fires that licked between the corpses there. Wind ripped through its skeletal trees, scissored with dirty sleet, reeking of death and smoke.

From under an outcrop, Glorian watched her knights and soldiers fight with creatures stitched from nightmare.

A torn bedsheet of ice covered the steep and narrow valley. A horse slipped into a break and thrashed in fear, snorting fog, before a scaled wolf fell upon it and tore out its throat, darkening the blood that washed the ice. The rider went crashing into the water, shout muffled by their closed helm. Arrows rained down on the wolf from the castle.

Glorian shifted in her saddle, an ache budding in the small of her back. Over her red gambeson, a sleeveless coat of mail sheathed her from neck to thigh, covering the huge shelf of her belly. She was far above the battle, beneath a snowy overhang that kept her out of sight.

Nearby, a waterfall remained frozen, like the shroud on a great candle. She watched the stakes of ice weeping.

Inys would not survive for long after the thaw. Winter had bought a period of grace – Fýredel had disappeared, presumably to the warmer South – but his scores of foul creatures had stayed to carry on the slaughter, butchering thousands of her people by the day.

Carmentum was already gone. Whispers of its fall had finally reached Inys. One day it had been a thriving republic, and then it had ceased to exist, scattering its people to the wind.

‘Your Grace.’

Lord Damud approached on a destrier, snowflakes caught in his short curls. Behind him, the last few creatures screeched as her soldiers rode them down with lances.

‘Are they routed?’ Glorian asked. Her breath ruffled white. ‘For now?’

‘For now.’

Corpses littered the valley. Largest was the wyvern that had led the attack, grey from its snout to the barb on its tail. A boulder from a catapult had struck it from the sky.

‘No sign of Fýredel,’ Glorian said.

‘I’ve no doubt he’ll soon find us, if this is one of his.’

She nodded. It was clear that what the wyverns saw, the great wyrms came to know.

As far as the Regency Council could tell, there were three of them, each named by a different region. Orsul was harrowing the North, Dedalugun was in the South, and the last sighting of Fýredel had been in western Yscalin – yet reports claimed five had emerged from the Dreadmount. Glorian could only assume the other two were in the East.

When they came, there would be no warning. Those tending the signal fires had long since forsaken their posts for the caves.

‘We should decide where to move next,’ Lord Damud said. ‘I will summon your council, and the Lady Protector.’

‘Very well.’

Glorian glanced at the castle, where her consort was overseeing the catapults, and then back at the ice. A man crawled towards his fellow soldiers, bleeding from what remained of his body. One of them nocked an arrow and sent it straight into his skull without flinching.

The archer glanced up at Glorian. She nodded, absolving them of the sin, and turned her horse around.

****

In her bedchamber in the castle of Stilharrow, Glorian stood before the hearth. Her ladies lifted the mail from her shoulders and unbuckled the gambeson.

The firelight cast her shadow on the wall. It shook her, to see how swollen she was.

Helisent brought her a fresh tunic. ‘Glorian,’ she said, ‘how are you?’

Glorian could have wept in relief. It had been days since anyone had asked how she was and looked in her eyes, not at her belly.

‘I’m tired.’ She cradled its weight with both hands. ‘She’s so heavy.’

‘It will be done soon.’

And I may be dead.

The thought was distant and numbing. Several of her ancestors had died in childbirth, and she knew what had killed at least one of them. The tyrant had been sliced out of her mother.

Helisent guided her to a stool. Julain kneaded a few precious drops of lavender oil into her hair, smothering the smell of smoke. Glorian could feel herself nodding off. Such gentling lulled her back to easier times.

Her dreams had been silent and empty of late. The voice in her head had pushed her away, and now she could not find their stream at all. A terrible darkness had clotted between them.

Two years had passed since the voice had first spoken, and still she could not ravel out this weave of dreams, nor grasp if it was earthly or divine. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

It pained her, to be without that small comfort.

‘Glorian.’ Julain touched her cheek. ‘Glorian, you’re exhausted. Let me tell Lady Marian.’

‘No,’ Glorian said.

‘You barely slept last night.’

‘I will have all the time in the world to sleep when this is over.’ Softer, she said to herself, ‘In the spring.’

The Regency Council sat at a round table. Shutters had been locked against the cold, and a fire snapped in the hearth, but the councillors still wore the same layers they had outside. They watched Glorian like eagles, as if the weight of her belly could topple her.

‘May I help you, Your Grace?’ Lady Brangain asked, rising.

‘No need.’ Glorian took a seat. ‘I rode a horse today. A chair is less likely to throw me.’

More than one jaw clenched, though Lade Edith cracked a smile. None of them liked her riding, but her grandmother had allowed it, so long as she kept out of sight, and ostlers were on hand to calm her mount.

Marian soon arrived with Bourn. After Forthard and the bonesetter had disagreed yet again on how to deal with the plague, Glorian had separated them, sending Forthard to the north and keeping Bourn at court. Bourn helped Marian into her chair before leaving.

‘Are you well?’ Glorian asked her grandmother.

‘Yes. Just old and stiff.’ Marian patted her hand before addressing the Regency Council: ‘Since a wyvern has now seen us at Stilharrow, we can assume Fýredel will soon know our whereabouts. The time has come to choose another stronghold. What say you all?’

‘My ancestral seat would shelter us,’ Lade Edith offered. ‘Strathurn Castle is far to the north, in a valley not unlike this one, easy to defend. We should chase the cold for as long as we can.’

‘Queen Glorian can’t possibly ride to the Fells in her condition,’ Lord Randroth spluttered.

‘And the sea is too dangerous,’ Lord Damud said, calmer. ‘Better to keep to the southern provinces, though I do understand your thought about the cold, Edith. Ought we to consider a cave shelter this time?’

‘Yes. Selverpit, perhaps,’ Lade Edith mused. ‘Though the entrance is said to be so hidden that people have fallen into it.’

‘Then the wyrms won’t see it, either.’

‘Hm.’

Lady Gladwin considered the map. She had cropped her grey hair close to her skull.

‘The Dowager Earl of Goldenbirch is presently at Hollow Crag, with many people of the Leas. At last count, that was the single largest gathering of survivors,’ she said. ‘A visit from their queen would surely cheer their hearts, after so much darkness and uncertainty.’

Glorian said, ‘How many are there?’

‘Fifteen thousand souls, or thereabouts. It may be more by now.’

Marian looked unsure. ‘Do you really think it safe there, Gladwin?’

‘Nothing has caught their scent, to my knowledge. Lord Ordan has been careful.’

Glorian reached for the map and found the place on Cenning Moor. ‘Fifteen thousand,’ she said. ‘I would like to give them comfort.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Lord Randroth dabbed his red nose. ‘Offsay is close, and safe.’

‘And nowhere near my people.’

‘It is very late to ride so far, Your Grace,’ Lady Brangain said. ‘You could give birth any day.’

‘Yes, to the heir you enjoined me to conceive at only seventeen,’ Glorian said quietly. ‘I suffered the touch of an old man to make her.’ That shamed most of them into looking away. ‘Nowhere in this queendom is safe any longer. I will not tremble on the coast. If Hollow Crag has protected those souls, then it is good enough for me – and for my daughter, who may yet be born there.’ She met each of their gazes in turn. ‘I will go to them.’

A tense silence reigned. Then Marian said, ‘We ride for Hollow Crag.’