SWNOVELS Shadowblade: (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 1) – Chapter 3
IT CAN’T BE!
It has to be a dream, a nightmare. In a minute I’ll wake. The bodies lie where they fell, scattered between the houses like heaps of bloody clothes. It feels disrespectful to simply run and dodge between them while pausing only to check that my mother and sister are not among the dead, but I have to reach my house. I have to find my family––
I burst through the door and into the kitchen, my heart pounding and my mouth dry.
Empty.
A few things scattered, smashed on the floor but it is as if whoever stormed through here was in a hurry and looking for something in particular. Even in my anxiety and panic I can see this is not the aftermath of a search through every item for anything worth stealing. Everyone knows the Sylvani are not in the habit of hoarding gold or jewels, so we are not often troubled by bandits.
Maybe that’s why we’ve grown soft. The elders said we would come to regret it.
I check the bedrooms. Nothing. The dye shed. Hardly disturbed. Maybe the stink of the dye put them off. Only the barn left to search. The heavy wooden door is open, swaying back and forth in the breeze, and I’m suddenly terrified of what I might find in there.
I can hear Sahan whickering as she picks up my scent. Inside, I reach out for the comfort of stroking her glossy dark brown coat and mane, feeling her reassuring warmth.
Something still lives and breathes in this place of death.
Another warning chill runs down my spine. We may not have the sort of hard currency most bandits are after but they do steal horses if they find them. Sahan is no plodding load-carrier but she’s tall and rangy, swift and nimble enough to be of value to any ambitious robber hoping for a quick getaway.
Now I’m finding space to think, I can’t remember hearing about any band of thugs who are in the habit of murdering indiscriminately. Perhaps for reasons of practicality rather than mercy. Live victims being more likely to gather future plunder than dead ones––
Sahan twitches and pulls against my hands, trying to break free from her half of the barn but she is not heading for the door. I follow the direction of her eyes to a bundle on the floor in the far corner, almost invisible in the shadows. I run towards it, somehow knowing that this is my mother even before I turn her over and see her face.
My hand feels sticky. There is blood running from a wound in her neck and her left arm is soaked in it. She’s still warm. If I can get her stitched and bandaged she’ll be all right. We have an emergency first-aid bag stored in every building and there is one right here…
Of course. She was trying to reach it when she passed out.
I grab the bag and get a compress on the wound, holding it tight with one hand while I search for sutures and needle with the other.
Suddenly cool fingers grasp my arm.
“Ariel. Don’t. I haven’t much time. Just listen.”
I almost start crying with relief.
“You’re alive. I thought… Just hold on there and I’ll get you fixed––”
“Too late. I can feel it. So listen for once in your life.” This is another family tease and she tries to smile but the effort is too great. “The soldiers took only the young and strong. Probably to use or sell as slaves. You can find Alina and the rest of them, but you must follow my instructions.”
I want to ask so many questions but there is something in her eyes that says she has worked out exactly what she wants to tell me. I offer her my water-skin instead and wince as the bleeding from her neck gets worse as she drinks. She turns her head a little to signal she has had enough.
“Give me an empty cup or bowl.”
I rummage in the medicine bag for a moment. All I can find is a tiny flask. She takes it in her right hand and holds it to her left arm until the blood fills it.
“You must hurry. Take this to the Shadowblade. Ask for his gift. Then learn how to use the gift before you go to find your sister. I’m sorry. I had hoped to teach you these things myself.”
I’m horrified. Speechless. Not just the Sylvani are taught this. Everyone in the whole of Samaran knows to avoid the Shadowblade as if your very soul is in peril just to be near him.
Because it is.
There have always been a few, greedy for power and dominance, who have been tempted to seek his deadly gift of fighting skill and strength. But every story tells how the lust for even more extorted wealth and power consumes and destroys them, turning them into cruel monsters despised and feared by the rest of humanity until they are tracked down and killed.
Somehow I manage to unglue my tongue.
“Please. Mother. Just rest till I can get you stitched and bandaged. Then we’ll have a sensible discussion about finding Alina.”
“No.” Her breath is shallow now and she is struggling to speak. I can feel her strength ebbing with the effort. “Cautionary tales don’t tell the whole story. It is true the Shadowblade demands a life-blood in exchange. But think, Ariel. Anyone prepared to commit murder to gain that kind of currency is already a monster who will only get worse with greater power.”
She presses the flask into my hands. “This is freely given. My last gift to you. I have trained you as a healer, an artist, a lover of songs. Qualities to hold you when the Blade’s gift tries to take over your mind and your life. They will remind you of who you really are when you start to forget your heritage, your true self. That is how I have carried his deadly gift for so many years.”
She falls silent for a while and I would believe she has gone but for the faint pulse in her wrist. When her eyes flutter open I cautiously reach for the sutures again.
Her voice is no more than a whisper.
“I promised to tell you the meaning of my name. I won’t see your eighteenth name day so it will have to be now.”
Her words fade to nothing. In this moment I know she was right. It was already too late when I found her. Her secret will die with her. Then her hand moves, just a tremor, squeezing my arm. I lean down to hear her whisper.
“My name means warrior.”
I DON’T REMEMBER HOW long I sat there holding her. Somehow I manage to mumble the prayers to send her soul safely to the next paradise before the urgency of her voice insisting I should hurry invades my memory once more, forcing me to my feet. I bury my grief under the numbing cold of shock and let fear speed my movements. I have no idea how long this task will take me so I’ll need food, warm clothes and medicines. Secure village living does little to prepare anyone for such an abrupt and violent change, but I have to hope that my experience as a forest hunter will carry me through until I can find help.
Or become stronger. Don’t think too much about what you have to do to achieve that. Just do it.
As I run back to the house and start collecting and packing, I try to focus and think clearly. It won’t be long before news begins to spread about what has happened here and bandits will come to loot whatever they can find. I take a bundle of things that may be useful in future but are too bulky or heavy to take with me, and bury them in the root clamp behind the house. Plenty of space inside the clamp now the end of winter is almost here.
I clear out the few remaining roots and toss them across the grass. If any of the village pigs survived the raid at least they will have a small gift from me to be going on with before they head for the forest to forage.
Then I have to load the panniers onto Sahan. She shows the whites of her eyes and does her usual fierce twitch to remind me she will only tolerate a small load if I intend to ride her as well. I need no warning. I have no idea how far I need to travel to find Alina and the first rule of the Sylvani has always been to take care of the other lives we depend on, as they take care of us.
I lead Sahan cautiously out of the barn and cross the village street. I make myself take in the faces of those lying dead in the dust as I pass, burning them into my memory. Every thought and image must stay focused on what I have to do. And why I need to do it.
Now I’m not panic-stricken and desperate to find my family, I can see that what my mother told me is true. Only the hacked and mutilated bodies of the old and the very young are here. Everyone over the age of ten and younger than sixty has disappeared.
So why did my mother die? She was still young and strong. Why wasn’t she captured?
I stop dead in the middle of the street as the answer lies in the dirt in front of me. Gendel is––no, was––twenty four and built like an ox. Potentially the most prized slave in the village lying dead with a bloody slash opening his body from neck to belly, white ribs gleaming through red flesh. His hand still grasps the forge-hammer he could swing with such skill and strength, its iron head now coated with blood and hair and a few fragments of bone. He must have fought these raiders and surely took at least one with him before something huge and powerful brought him down.
I kneel to scan the blood-soaked ground beside him. The tracker’s sight in me identifies the deep prints of iron-shod horses and military boots. These were no bandit raiders then. My mother had said soldiers, and I assumed she meant that one of the regular royal units to pass through the village had gone rogue and turned to murder and robbery.
It hadn’t made much sense at the time. But these prints are from other soldiers, such as I have never seen before, their marks cut deep as if weighed down by heavy mail and weapons.
I whisper a sad goodbye and prayer for Gendel and lead Sahan into the forest, my breath misting in the cold air. I barely make it to the shelter of the trees when I hear voices and the sound of horses approaching on the track, coming from the direction of Seasca on the coast.
I should have left the village earlier!
This was no ordinary raiding party but something far bigger. And now the outriders are sweeping along behind, searching for survivors or resistance.
I would have escaped unnoticed if I hadn’t almost run into the pair of black and red uniformed riders flanking the main party, working their way through the forest margins. The instant they see me they turn towards me.
I leap onto Sahan’s back and urge her to a gallop, the two heavily-armed riders perilously close behind. I glance back at them, hoping to spot any detail that will help me get ahead before an arrow or spear finds its way to my unprotected back. Then I decide to focus ahead, my shoulders prickling, anticipating the sting of a weapon.
The riders have heavy mailshirts and helmets. Even their horses have plate on breasts and foreheads. If I had nurtured any hope the weight would slow them down enough to let me increase my lead I’m doomed to disappointment. The powerful destriers are three hands taller than Sahan and rippling with muscle. They are steadily gaining on me.
My only chance is to use my knowledge of the forest. I guide Sahan into a narrow ravine thick with undergrowth and low hanging branches, hoping it hasn’t grown even more impenetrable since the last time we forced our way through.
It works, but not as well as I hoped. I hear a crash and an outburst of guttural swearing in a foreign language I can’t translate, followed by another, louder, crash. I interpret this as helmeted head meeting overhanging branch and rider being scraped off destrier onto the ground.
But I don’t dare look back as we are weaving between boulders and fallen branches at full gallop. Not until I’m out of the ravine can I risk another glance behind, just in time to see my remaining pursuer fling back his arm to aim a spear in my direction. I flatten my body low alongside Sahan’s neck and the weapon whistles past my shoulder. I didn’t notice whether he was carrying more than one and the trees are closer packed here, discouraging me from turning round again.
My only hope now is the swamp and this is a worse gamble than the ravine. It has been several years since Alina and I played chicken with some of the village kids in a mad competition to see who could make it across the marshy area without getting sucked into the ooze of stinking mud. We used a rope to haul the initial route-finder back each time they started to sink, but once we had the route committed to memory and marked with tiny nicks on the trees, we would dare each other to beat the speed record across to the far side.
I have made the crossing a dozen times with no safety rope but I have no idea how much the swamp will have changed shape in the intervening years. It hasn’t rained much in the last few weeks so perhaps that gives me some margin for error. On the other hand, if the surface is too dry it won’t stop the human predator thundering along behind me.
I swing Sahan across to the left, trying to line up with the start of the safe route. The heavy breathing and snorting of the warhorse behind me is so close now I can’t afford to make a sharp turn at the edge of the water or I’ll be caught. The leaning alder trunk that marks the entrance is only a few yards away now and I make straight for the line of firm turf that stretches directly into the middle of the swamp.
I can feel the consistency of the ground under Sahan’s hooves start to change as each step sinks in a little further than the last. This is easily the wettest I have ever tried the crossing. It is the end of winter after all, hardly drying weather. Forty paces to a little rise of firmer ground, then a sharp right five paces short of the rotting tree trunk on the far side.
A splash and another curse from behind me and this time I risk looking back. He overshot the turn by a couple of paces and the horse is up to its knees in muddy water. To my horror it doesn’t stop them. The horse turns and scrambles back up the slope and finds the firm route, following Sahan’s prints in the mud.
It may just have saved me, though. The next section involves a complex series of twists and turns, guided by marks on the trees and the ground is even softer here. Without those few seconds delay I would have been overtaken and caught.
Now I might just have time to make the next few slow moves across the trembling surface. Sahan’s hooves are squelching loudly in the soft mud and I’m left worrying that each step may be her last before we sink into the murk.
The water covers her marks, concealing the secret route. If we can make it another dozen or so paces we may get clear.
Sahan is slipping badly as we scramble up the last slope to firmer ground. I drop from her back and anchor myself to a tree, trying to pull her with the reins. Maybe it helps or maybe just gives her encouragement, but we finally make it to the top.
I hear a scream from behind and turn to see the warhorse miss a step and plunge into the muddy water. It tries desperately to regain firmer ground but the quivering mud-jelly just churns to liquid slush under its flailing hooves. The rider seems to know instinctively that the animal is doomed and tries to make his own way to safety but he is weighed down by his heavy mail and is sinking fast.
I can’t move. I have to wait until I know for sure he is dead and can’t follow me. I could not face another step looking constantly over my shoulder wondering if he is going to suddenly burst out from the shadows and grab me.
The last couple of minutes are the worst. I watch as horse and rider make their final struggles, the stinking black ooze forcing its suffocating slime into nostrils and lungs.
The sense of relief at my imminent safety is mixed with revulsion at what I’ve done and I wonder now why I was so squeamish at the thought of asking for the Blade’s gift. If I had been able to fight I could at least have attacked the rider and saved the horse from a horrible death. It was no more trying to hurt me than Sahan was.
All that remains are a few bubbles on the black surface of the swamp. I turn my back on the scene and lead Sahan towards the place of the Shadowblade.