Part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To us—richer and cleverer than everyone else!” – Scott Lynch, ‘The Lies of Locke Lamora’

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

The old verbiage goes that if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. So, it’s my job to make you believe.

 

I’m sitting at the bar in a tavern, not my local, as I’m from the Bronx, and I’m stood beside a beautiful woman who is pretending to be my wife. Why, might you ask? Well, that’s a story for another time. Right now, you need to focus on the man to my left. He is a wealthy merchant from Queens, and when I get up to use the men’s room, he will try to coax my wife, who isn’t my wife, nor originally a woman, I might add, into bed.

 

She’s been flirting with him on and off when I’ve been going toilet throughout the day, and her batting eyes are giving him the come-hither vibe.

 

Let’s watch and see what happens, shall we?

 

“Where are you going, honey?” asks Belladonna.

 

“Gottatake a leek, babe.” I kiss her cheek and stumble off to the toilet once again, and glancing back, I see the merchant shuffle over and take my seat.

 

We already organized the final conversation. The nail in the coffin. Right now, Bel’ is saying how mighty fine the man’s suit is, and how much a fine suit like that might cost? And what a gal must do to see a man out of a suit like that. And the man, let’s call him Mark, since he is the mark, after all, is giving Bel’ the eye, gliding his hand down the back of her dress, along the outside of her thigh.

 

The ring, look at the ring, as she places it so ever blatantly on the bar, and she flashes her shiny smile also.

 

The man leans in, whispers in her ear, telling her sweet nothings, of how he’d love to see her out of the silk dress, because it is silk, we don’t skimp on the outfits. She blushes, and slaps his chest playfully, telling Mark that she’s a newly married woman.

 

And that only serves to make him hungrier, because a man only wants what he can’t have.

 

He slips her his room number and tells her to get rid of the ball and chain. Then he takes his drink and wobbles up the stairs, for we’ve plied him with drink. Our drinks are watered down, as I slipped the barman a hundred earlier to do so. I’ll tell the truth, I don’t normally drink, but the con demanded it of me. I can’t deny that I miss it though.

 

I meet Bel’ by the stairs and swap the ring on her finger for a cheap imitation, then kiss her on the cheek and slip out the back.

 

I wait in the back alley for ten minutes.

 

The skyline from Brooklyn is a thing of wonder. The old Brooklyn Bridge still stands majestically over the waterway, which if polluted before, is sure to be today. What it must have looked like a thousand years ago? When the streets were filled with business, with life, and not the wasteland it is today, a shell of a ghost, ripped apart by nuclear war and a thousand years of crime afterward.

 

Anyway. I need to keep my mind on the con, so I climb up the fire-escape and I can peek in through the window. I see them on the bed, ca-noodling, as Bel’ calls it. She’s left the window open, and I silently open it, go to the man’s discarded coat, find his set of keys, copy each one by pressing them into wax tablets I have readied, and then I go to the window and clear my throat.

 

Bel’s a Grade A actor. What we in the business call a Beguiler. She jumps up from the bed and begins pleading with me, telling me it was just the drink, that it didn’t mean anything, and I fake a tear. Mark stands by the bed, judging on what to do, whether to flee or not, but I rip the ring from Bel’s finger and tell her to get stuffed, that I want nothing to do with her.

 

After all, marriages haven’t been a thing for a thousand years, as there is no religion anymore, so if we say it’s a dead thing, then it surely stinks of carrion.

 

Bel grabs her things and runs from the room. I turn around and face the window.

 

“And this piece of crap can go too!” I shout, ready to fling the jewellery out into the street. Mark shouts for me to stop.

 

He is a merchant after all, prone to greediness. He’s had a good look at it the entire night, and to think of wasting money…

 

“What?”

 

“For Christ sakes man, don’t be daft!”

 

I hold the ring out, looking down at it with tears in my eyes.

 

I’ve rehearsed this moment at least a dozen times in my mirror.

 

“I can’t keep it. It reminds me of her.”

 

“Then… Then sell it. I’ll give you a fair price. How about a hundred?”

 

I clench my fist around the ring. “A fair price? You know I paid three for it, my wife let every fool in Brooklyn know how much I parted with.” I take a step towards him, anger flashing across my face.

 

I’m a big guy, after all.

 

“I’ll pay more than what you paid,” Mark says quickly, “two hundred, the extra for causing you any trouble.”

 

“Three is better.”

 

I watch as Mark goes to his discarded clothes and takes out his wallet. Note how I didn’t just take his money and exit the room. There’s a reason for that.

 

He counts out three hundred bucks and offers it to me. There’s at least another five in his pocket. I did check, after all, I’m still a thief at heart.

 

I go and take the three, then open his pocket and count out another three. I’m not greedy. “For being a cheating, pompous asshole.”

 

Mark nods his head. “C-Can I have the papers?”

 

“The papers?”

 

“Of… authenticity?”

 

“Right.” I take the papers, forged of course, and place them on the bed beside the ring. I open the door and look back.

 

“I hope it brings you better luck than it has me.” I gently shut the door closed behind me, leaving the sweating mark alone in the room.

 

He thinks he’s gotten himself a deal, as the ring in my pocket is worth at least a thousand in materials alone.

 

I swiftly flee the bar, slipping the bar man another hundred as arranged earlier, and meet Bel’ outside. We take a carriage back into the Bronx. The bridge creaks and moans as we pass over, the water gurgles by beneath, and the empty streets so late at night seem filled with a presence, as if the ghosts of the city still inhabit this dwelling, one thousand years on.

 

Some said it had been a total global disaster, but then how had we survived? The remnants of society clung to the cities now, walled and warding off all mutants who riddled the plains between the places of humanity.

 

My home wasn’t perfect. But at least it was safe. From mutants. Otherwise, it was a crime infested den.

 

But it was home.

 

*

 

People always ask me why I do it? Stealing, conning, etc. And in a way I want to say it’s for my little girl. You see, the water is radiated, as is the foraging where we can find it, and most of the animals outside of the city are mutated, as are those unfortunate enough to live there. We grow crops on farms places throughout the city, as is livestock raised. So, I steal in a way for her, to feed her, give her the medicine she needs, buy the rations and clean water.

 

But at the end of the day, I just like to steal.

 

There are a few other cities which we could live in, of course, Boston, Detroit, but those are run by other organizations. Say what you will about criminals, but at least they look you in the eye when they take what’s yours. Politicians on the other hand tax you and expect you to kiss their ass for it. No, I’ll lay my hat with the criminal every time.

 

The New York that I know and love is run by five crime lords, each one rules it’s borough like clockwork—if that clock was prone to snatching tax jumpers from the dead of the night and leaving their bloated corpses to fester in the Hudson River, I mean.

 

The crime lords guard their identities, and you could only guess who ruled the boroughs, silently, of course, for it wouldn’t do to be caught in a tavern naming off the most notorious men and women in the city, now, would it?

 

Me, I’m small time. But I choose to keep it that way. I pay my taxes, stay under the radar. Yeah, I put some away for a rainy day, but who doesn’t? Just in case me and my daughter have to skip town suddenly, but the thought of the two of us trekking across that mutant ridden land keeps me up at night.

 

The five boroughs are each surrounded by a wall, and the five crime lords’ man each wall, respectively, guarded by men armed with flintlock rifles. The crime lords might disagree about a lot of things, violently, but it warms my heart to know the most vicious men and women in the immediate vicinity care about the city’s inhabitants.

 

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Where were we? Oh yeah, the con…

 

*

 

I guess this is where I should introduce you to the gang, right? After all, it wouldn’t do for one of them to mistake you for a mark and try slipping their hand into your pocket.

 

You’ve met Belladonna, as dangerous and beautiful as the plant she’s named after. I know Bel’ since before she called herself Bel’ and went by the name of Benjamin. She’s still one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met and can stun most men in the city with one glance. Bel’ used to be an actor on Broadway. Yes, it’s still in existence, a simple nuclear war won’t stop the theatre, as Bella jokes.

 

Then there’s No-Name, who won’t tell anyone his real name, even me, the cheeky git, but since he is one of the best Disguiser's I’ve ever met, I let that slide. You’ll meet No-Name soon enough, but you won’t know it.

 

Thirdly there’s Gamma, she’s the brains, or so she likes to think. Anything that happens, Gamma knows about the day before it happens, and she knows everyone in the city. I mean everyone. She sorts out the keys, susses out the maps, works out the kinks, and all that boring stuff that a con man like me doesn’t have to, because we have people like Gamma to do it for us.

 

The last person, I can’t introduce you to yet, as I’m still getting to know you, and can’t trust you. But that might just change after the job.

 

Let’s get going, shall we?

 

 

Tale of a Blackbird

 

By R.C.J. Dwane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.”

 

 

 

- Philip Pullman

 

 

 

Prologue

 

The city of Mala was on fire.

 

Burning bodies fell from the spire like cinders from a flaming chimney, a high tower dominating over the layered districts of the city spat out its inhabitants like shooting stars in the night sky. Screams, smoke, clashing of metal, it all wafted along the air current into the Clerics Palace, where he watched his plan unfurling with a smile. By now the last of the Black family would be cornered in the upper spire, being put to the sword, and soon the other eleven cities would know of their downfall.

 

Let them be afraid, they will all meet the same fate.

 

“Master,” a masked man announced himself. “I have bad news.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“I’m afraid the Black heir wasn’t found among the bodies.”

 

He turned on the masked man. “Then find him, find Maddox. Seal the port. Do not let him escape!”

 

Outside of the palace the army amassed and were soon to be sent down to slaughter all uprising citizens in the lower districts. In the lower districts the loyal citizens to the Black family had put all local officials to the sword and hung the bodies from the lampposts. Beyond the high walls that enclosed the city of Mala and to the south was a port, where a man and woman hidden in a crate were lifted and stowed away in the hold of a ship bound for the mainland. In the woman’s arms she cradled a bundle of rags that stirred, but the woman rocked the baby until it fell back to sleep. The ship cast off and waves rocked the sleeping child further, who dreamt of screaming shadows, safe in the arms of a woman who was not her mother.

 

The ship drifted away, leaving behind it a city without an identity. Leaving behind it a tower of death that had once been their home, with halls filled with corpses that had once been their family.

 

Mala was the past.

 

Days passed into weeks to months as the man and woman fled into the distant mountains, away from the clutches of their enemies. A house was built and became a home, where the child grew into a curious little girl who never shied away from the hard training placed upon her. Three years passed when the man received a piece of paper which arrived tied to the leg of a raven.

 

He left and never returned.

 

Chapter 1: The Unknown

 

“Wake up, my little blackbird,” a sing-song voice merrily called from the distance, making the boat rock and landscape fade. Her throat was parched, skin slick with sweat, but even though she realized it was a dream, Birdie struggled to keep hold of it, to make sense of it. But it was gone, like a shadowy room when the curtains are thrown open—which was just what happened. Bella pulled them aside and let the daylight flood in, making Birdie moan and block the light from her eyes with her hands.

 

“Do you have to do that every morning, Bel? It’s my birthday, let me sleep!” Birdie pulled the bedcovers back over her head and groaned as her aunt’s footsteps came closer.

 

“And you think the evil in this world cares that it’s your birthday? Evil creatures, demons, it’s her birthday! Please wait until it’s a time more suitable. Get real—or more importantly—get dressed!” A hand grabbed the blanket and Birdie kicked at it, but to no avail, as the blanket was ripped off and flung to the ground.

 

Birdie shielded her eyes by looking between her spread fingers, seeing if the blanket was a lost cause or not, but Bella had her hand on her hips, a sure giveaway. Birdie yawned and stretched, wiped the sleep from her eyes.

 

“Come on, I let you sleep past sunrise. Get dressed and meet me outside.” Bella turned and left the room, taking the blanket with her and opening the window for good measure.

 

Using the wash-basin in the corner, Birdie washed and dressed into her training clothes, tying her tousled hair back into a tight braid. In the main room of the cottage a steaming pot of porridge hung over the fire, which she ladled into a cup along with a spoonful of honey and brought outside with her.

 

The surrounding woods were alive with activity, birds chirruped from the trees as they swayed, creaking and knocking against each other. Bella stood by one of the workbenches by the woodshed, sharpening her knives. Birdie ate the porridge as they set off along the trail, walking adjacent to the river where a lone beaver was once again making repairs to the dam, and entered the treeline, passing by the archery range and coming to the Knife Tree.

 

It didn’t look anything like a knife, really, and was only called that due to the fact that it was a dead elm tree that they used for throwing blades at. It was situated just before a steep decline, and Birdie had spent many hours during her life searching those thorny bushes for misaimed weapons.

 

There were other trees they could have used. Hundreds, in fact. But that would be easy, and if there was one thing that Bella hated more than anything, it was doing things the easy way.

 

The first time Birdie had confronted her aunt over the Knife Tree’s location—or more correctly the scratches and stings gained from searching through those bloody bushes—the only answer she’d gotten was ‘It builds character’. Builds bloody calluses, more like.

 

“You first,” Bella said, putting her hands on her hips. Birdie took the three throwing knives from her belt and took position. They hit, the second just making the trunk.

 

“Not bad,” Bella said sucked her teeth. “But you’ve been slacking lately. Try again.”

 

Birdie pulled the blades out of the trunk and re-took her position, but hesitated.

 

“Is something the matter?” said Bella.

 

Birdie twirled the knife in her hand. “You’ll never answer.”

 

“Questions, is it? Go on, it being your birthday and all.”

 

“I was dreaming of Maddox last night, his face was hazy after so long, in shadow. You know the dream I told you about before, when you fled in the boat?” Bella nodded and Birdie closed her eyes, trying to bring it up in her mind’s eye. “But there was something else, before that. Something new, someone new.”

 

Birdie peeked and saw Bella had lifted an eyebrow, a rare mark to show that she was intrigued.

 

“I didn’t see a face, but he was looking at the spire. It was there in my dream, just like in the books, and he was… happy. He was happy about the people being killed, about the people that were jumping out of the spire. He was responsible for their deaths, and he didn’t care.”

 

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Birdie. If it’s who I think it is, he’s a long way from us now.”

 

“You know him?”

 

“I never knew him. But Nefaro was the ring-leader behind that night. He’d organized everything. I guess that must be who you’re seeing.”

 

Birdie didn’t like the thought of the murderer of her family infiltrating her dreams.

 

They remained throwing knives for an hour before moving on to archery. An hour later they went back to the cottage and Bella dished out Birdie’s favourite, trailhead soup. After she’d devoured three bowls of the spicy soup, Birdie didn’t have to wash up and had a nap beside the fire.

 

She dreamed of tree-sized bushes that kept chasing her around the house, throwing knives at her.

 

Upon awaking, the fire was almost out and Birdie put a few logs onto the dying embers. Bella wasn’t anywhere in or outside the cottage. Birdie noticed a package on the workbench outside. Picking it up, she read Bella’s note on the parchment.

 

Happy sixteenth birthday, little Blackbird.

 

Birdie untied the ribbon and opened it.

 

Inside was a beautifully hand-crafted knife, with a hickory handle and polished steel blade. A bird had been carved into the hilt, which had been painted in a midnight black. While Birdie wasn’t one-tenth as good at forging weapons as Bella—and that was being generous—she had been painstakingly put through the basic lessons, and at least could respect the time and effort the woman had put into her gift.

 

After checking outside for her aunt and finding a note by the woodpile it read ‘patrolling area’. Birdie decided to go fishing. Shouldering her rod, she set off down the path and followed the river until it joined a larger one.

 

It was unusual for her not to be on patrol with her aunt. Birdie often patrolled the south and eastern boundaries. Not many people ventured this deep into the forest, so far from civilisation, but Birdie knew they were still being hunted.

 

She felt a small bit guilty about shirking her duties, even if it was her birthday. But with the sun shining down on her face and the river gurgling by, the smell of fresh grass strong in her nose and the anticipation of catching a fish, she wasn’t complaining.

 

Birdie sat by her favourite spot near the moss-covered boulders, and was about to cast, when something caught her eye. Not fifty paces downriver she found torn clothing, with blood stains covering the fabric, and more blood drops led away from the river and into the trees.

 

It looked like it was from her aunt’s clothing.

 

Following the blood trail into the trees, a figure sat slumped against a pile of rocks. Birdie couldn’t see its face, the figure facing away from her; only a bloodied hand that lay limp by its side. Steeling herself, she walked around to get a better look.

 

It was a man.

 

He had short cropped hair turned scarlet from the two gashes running down his scalp and forehead. Two familiar throwing knives stuck out from his chest, one of which looked like it had pierced his lung. She picked up a stick and poked him. Feeling braver, Birdie held a hand in front of his mouth. Not breathing, so she checked his pulse. Dead.

 

Birdie left the corpse and searched the area, finding another trail of blood that led away from the river. She found her aunt’s body crumpled by a dead-fallen tree, its bark all rotted and covered in a sickly black fungus that smelled of puss. Her clothing had been ripped open, revealing her chest, and scratch marks covered her upper torso, neck and arms. Birdie’s hands shook as she reached down to check her aunt’s pulse.

 

“Thank the Gods, you’re alive,” cried Birdie, as Bella gave a choking cough, spitting out a mouthful of bloody spit.

 

“Birdie, is that you? Don’t… Don’t touch the man. He… He’s diseased. Don’t touch him, or you’ll get it too.” Bella cracked open one bruised eye, registering the panic rising in Birdie’s face. Birdie frantically wiped her hand that’d touched the man on a moss-covered tree.

 

“You touched him?” Birdie nodded and Bella let her head drop. “Shit-balls.”

 

* * *

 

On entering her aunt’s room, the stench made Birdie gag. The incense did little to cover the putrid odour that crept over her aunt, like maggots to decay. For days now Bella’s skin had been breaking out with more of the white spots. They ran down her neck and chest, leaking puss onto the stained sheets. Old spots were now surrounded with a dark and peeling rash, veins turned green and swollen, lips a dark, dry grey. For some reason the disease had not stricken Birdie ill, yet. It could only be a matter of time.

 

Steeling herself, Birdie soaked the cloth in a bucket of water and wet Bella’s forehead, then threw the rag into the bucket and picked up the bowl. “Bella, I’ve made soup.”

 

After some time, Bella’s eyes opened. “Blackbird?” her voice was weak and croaking, like the toads by the river. Eyes dark shadows, sunken and tired.

 

“Yes aunt, I’m here. You need to eat some soup. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

 

“There’s no time. You need to leave, before I fall back to sleep. They’re coming, he was only a scout.”

 

“Bella, you’re ill. It’s the fever. It will get better if you please just eat some of this s—”

 

A high-pitched scream cut off her pleading, it echoed through the woods outside. Bella grabbed Birdie’s hand, nails digging into her flesh. “Get to the woods. Don’t look back!”

 

“Come with me. We can make it out together.”

 

“No, I’d only slow you down. Look for Maddox… in Mala. Don’t trust anyone. Take this...” As Bella took off her necklace and handed it to Birdie, she began to cough a black froth that drooled down her chin. “Go,” she rasped. “Run!”

 

“I’m not leaving! I’m not!”

 

But Bella pushed her away, still stronger even in her weakened state. Bella stumbled out of bed, forcing Birdie from the room, banging the door shut. Birdie tried to push the door open, but it didn’t budge. She slipped the necklace over her head and ran from the room, deciding to get outside and see what was happening. The walls passed by in a blur, and as she left the cottage another scream echoed through the surrounding dark forest.

 

It sounded closer.

 

Her foot tripped on something and she tumbled into the log-pile in front of the woodshed.

 

“Run,” Bella screamed from inside the cottage. “Don’t look back!”

 

Birdie saw lights deep in the forest. She ran across the open meadow, away from the lights. Another scream pierced the night, making Birdie look back instinctively, and her foot caught on a mound of grass. The ground went tumbling over, grass-blades filling her mouth and blocking out the curses dribbling from her lips.

 

Silhouettes appeared behind the cottage, moving between the trees, holding torches. Hundreds of popping sounds echoed through the clearing, as if the trees were possessed—as if they had come to life and were slowly moving, creeping closer.

 

Her legs felt like giving way as she wobbled on, but she made it to the edge of the clearing. Hiding behind a tree, she looked back, seeing the figures move closer to the cottage, seeing the torches they held thrown onto her home and its thatched roof catching light instantly.

 

Birdie turned away and wiped her eyes, held her hands over her ears, trying to block out the distant screams of her aunt. She took a step forward, leaving everything she had ever cared for and loved behind.

 

The shadows of the forest hugged her in a dark embrace as she fled into the unknown.

 

* * *

 

Birdie awoke from the nightmare drenched, her fingers digging into something hard.

 

In her nightmare Bella had been lying on her bed covered in flames and men’s faces smiled and jeered at her cries for help. It took Birdie a moment to recall where she was. Another moment to realise it hadn’t been a nightmare at all.

 

It had been all too real.

 

Pressed up against a tree, sap streaked across her face and hands. A small grey squirrel on a nearby branch looked at her curiously, before fleeing as she began climbing down. The days gone by since fleeing her home were a series of blurred memories. Hunger was a numb sensation in her gut, overshadowed by fear, senses numbed by shock and cold.

 

The years spent training with Bella had saved her, her body purely moving through instinct. Those winter nights spent avoiding her aunt’s detection had sharpened her eyes and ears, kept her alert to shadows not belonging to the forest.

 

Birdie came to the first marker, a birch tree with a broken branch, followed its direction, then hours later a small pile of rocks built like an arrow. The wind occasionally carried sounds through the trees; sounds not of the forest and that had no place in them. Smells of acrid smoke stung at her nose, cries from far off, and once she’d caught the stench of sweat, but had given its owner a wide berth. Her step was light and gaze watchful as a white deer of the north.

 

Bella had always told her that when you thought you were safe, that was when the enemy would get you.

 

The words stung at her heart. She remembered the necklace and checked if it was still there, which it was. Birdie tucked it away as she walked into a clearing and approached the ancient willow tree at its centre.

 

In her younger days she had spent many days out here climbing the old tree. A squat mossy wall ran up and over a hill beyond it. She sat down by the willow tree, taking her boots off and squeezing the damp from her socks. She grunted as she tore fabric from her soggy pant leg to wrap her blistering feet with.

 

Boots and socks back on, Birdie stood up and took a long look at the tree, running her fingers over where they’d both carved the letter B. She stopped beside it, felt the worn grooves beneath her fingers, felt the pendant’s cold surface pressing against her skin, and with a last lingering glance behind her, she left the tree behind, following the wall up the hill.

 

The old trail that marked as far as her and Bella had ever gone came to an end far too soon, passing out through a tangle of trees and bush. It crossed a ditch and opened out onto a dirt road. The sign which was supposed to give her directions had been burned, but she needed to go west, or was it east?

 

“Shit-balls.”

 

Focus.

 

Birdie shivered as Bella’s voice floated through her mind, as if she was still there with her. Checking the sky, Birdie made sure the directions were correct, then placed her foot to the edge of the road, aware that with one more step she would be leaving the safe circle she had spent her entire life in. Her hands shook.

 

What lay ahead of her? Would she be better off staying at the wrecked cottage, and try to rebuild?

 

But there was no turning back. Not now.

 

Not ever.

 

The path didn’t give way beneath her boot, and the road didn’t open up and swallow her whole. It also had no fresh tracks, which was always a good sign. Routes around their home were scarcely used as the woods were believed to be haunted. A legend created by Bella’s relentless harassing of any traders who used to pass through the area.

 

But were they just stories? Those things last night had to be spirits, demons even.

 

“Get yourself together, Birdie,” she chided. “There’s no such thing as spirits or demons, or magic for that matter. It was lies people tell little children to scare them to bed, and you’re not a child, so stop filling you mind with absolute...”

 

Birdie stopped walking. She had smelled something just then, something burning. Smoke from a fire, or somebody cooking in a house, perhaps? Further down the path, she saw a smoke column rising above the trees and decided to leave the path, instead creeping through the trees. Through the gaps, across the clearing, was a smouldering village. Birdie began moving around the clearing, from one tree to the next, being as quiet as possible. There were no signs of life; not even a farm animal called out from the ghostly sight.

 

At the other side of the village, she crouched in some thick ferns and was about to walk into the clearing to get a closer look, when a hand grabbed her from behind and pulled her back down to the ground. Another hand covered her mouth before she could scream.

 

“Keep quiet or I’ll cut your throat,” hissed a voice close to her ear. Birdie looked up at the figure kneeling over her. Two bright blue eyes shone from a woman’s face covered in mud. Her hair was braided and caked in mud also. The woman put her finger against Birdie’s lips before taking her hand away. “They might still be around,” whispered the woman, standing.

 

“Who?” Birdie sat up slowly, rubbing her neck, also noting that the knife was still very close.

 

“Who do you think?” the woman jabbed her knife at the village. “Lie down. If I hear you moving…” The woman held up the knife, so Birdie nodded, lying down amongst the thick ferns. The woman disappeared from view, her faint footsteps quickly fading.

 

Minutes passed. “Come on,” Birdie whispered. Drops of light rain fell, increasing to fat beads, dripping into her eyes, sticking her tangled hair to her scalp all the more. More silence, her heartbeat the only companion in the world. It drummed in her ears as the moments stretched out.

 

The sound of a breaking twig came from behind her. Birdie froze as she felt something tug on her foot and a man’s voice growled something unrecognisable. Birdie could only give a pathetic squeak as she felt a hand grab her leg and was dragged out of the ferns.

 

A man built like a bear had three scars running down over one discoloured eye, yellow teeth revealed as he frowned down at her. The man spoke again in a language she didn’t understand. He looked around and smiled as he settled his gaze back on her. He pulled out a jagged, badly forged knife from inside his fur coat and whispered something.

 

Birdie tried to push herself away from him, snatching at the ferns and grass for something sharp or heavy to use as a weapon, cursing herself for leaving her knife behind in the cottage. He snatched up a short coil of rope from his belt, pulled loose the knot, and tried to grab her leg again. She kicked it away, but the man growled and lurched at her, punching her into the ribs, folding her up like a blanket. He’d the rope slipped over her ankle and tightened in a heartbeat, and she was still trying to suck in air as he pulled her along the forest floor, sliding over rocks, sharp throns which scratched at her arms and neck. 

 

“No, get off!” Birdie croaked, searching for something to use as a weapon, but all her fingers found were grassy clumps and edges of embedded rocks that wouldn’t give way. She managed to slip her arms around the end of a fallen log. He tugged on the rope, making her leg burn with the tension. As she blinked up at him, Birdie couldn’t help the fear that rose in her. It bubbled up and clawed its way out of her throat in a whimper.

 

The man smiled wider.

 

She kicked her legs at him as he closed the distance between them. “Get the fuck away from me!” she screamed, aiming a kick at his groin, but he blocked it with his leg, returning a kick into her gut, making her gag and curl up once more.

 

The man laughed as he pulled away her arms, putting the knife’s tip against her cheek. The world spun then as he pounced on top of her, forcing the air from her lungs like a bellows. He backhanded her into the face with his free hand. Its sting was unnatural, turning the world above her into a spinning chaos of colour. As he pressed the knife’s point into the hollow of her collarbone, she could feel blood trickling down the side of her neck. He grabbed her by the hair and went to cut the fabric of her tunic, when a voice spoke from behind him. The man glanced back and stood up.

 

Air felt like icy shards as it rushed back into her lungs. She tried to push herself up, to get away, but her legs were too weak and she just collapsed onto the log. Using it for support, Birdie crawled away from the man and spat out bloody spit and lumps of dirt. Strange voices were speaking in that piggish language, but she didn’t care. All that mattered right now was getting away.

 

Birdie stopped crawling.

 

One of the voices was familiar.

 

Looking back, the woman with the mud on her face smiled, pointing around at the woods, then at Birdie. The man laughed and slid his knife into his belt, rubbing his hands together before glancing back at Birdie and nodding, thumbing his chest. There was an easy expression on his face as he spat into his hand and offered it to the woman. After they released hands, he moved towards Birdie.

 

Her breath heaved in her chest as they moved closer, the man sliding out his knife once more, lips cracking to reveal rotted teeth. They were both on the same side. She was going to die.

 

He reached out for her with dirt-caked fingernails, jagged blade getting closer, and then there was a swishing sound. His eyes bulged as the sword sliced through the flesh and bone of his neck, ripping tendons like fishing line, and his head went spinning up into the air, landing with a horrible squelching sound, rolling along the forest floor and coming to a rest beside Birdie.

 

The eyes were still rolling, lips twitching. Streams of blood spurted out from the gaping wound where his head had been, turning everything in its immediate vicinity red, which included Birdie. His decapitated body stabbed at empty air, but thankfully with limp arms which widely missed anything and she jumped back.

 

The body dropped to its knees. Blood spurted up from the gaping hole once more in a final jet. The woman kicked the body onto the ground, lifted her sword and drove it through the man’s back, piercing the heart and stilling the twitches.

 

Birdie vomited, getting it all down the front of her clothes and her filthy boots.

 

The woman pulled her blade free and kicked the man's corpse. “Fuckin’ pigs,” she growled, and then looked down at Birdie. “You OK?”

 

“You’re not with them?” Birdie wiped her mouth with her sleeve, allowing herself a small shiver.

 

“No, I’m not.”

 

“You’re not going to kill me?”

 

“Maybe, maybe not.” The woman spat onto the man’s corpse. “Damn animals, surprised they don’t bleed shit.” The woman leaned down and cleaned her sword on the man’s clothes.

 

“W-Who are you?”

 

The woman ignored her. “You live ‘round here?”

 

“My house was… was burned, like the village. My aunt… she’s…” Birdie couldn’t say the words.

 

The woman nodded. “We need to move. You fall behind, I won’t wait. Put these on.” The woman tossed her the man’s boots and a cloak from his pack, both of which were too big, but mercifully dry. Birdie didn’t complain about the smell.

 

The woman nodded once more and wiped her nose. “Well, I guess you’d best stick with me then, ‘til we get to an outpost at least.” She walked away into the woods, not looking back. Birdie checked that she was out of view, before kneeling down and taking the dead man’s knife. She cleaned it on him, and then spat onto the corpse for good measure, before turning and chasing after the woman.

 

 

Prologue

 

The Sea of Circles is in turmoil.

 

The Hangman, leader of the pirate fleet and People’s Alliance’s health is failing.

 

His lover, Ubba the Powder King, has lost grip on reality and his mind is spiralling out of control. He grinds horns against Lord Scarlett, who fitting his self-centred personality has chosen to throw a tournament on his island of Tore, inviting the greatest warriors in the world to answer his call, promising wealth, fame and fortune to one winner.

 

Supreme Nefaro has been slain by his protege, Kassova Kye, who now rebels and seeks to destroy all remaining footholds of the Ministry of Faces.

 

Plague has swept through the city of Mala, wiping out families in their dozens and a floundering Maddox Black tries in vain to stifle the disease’s hold.

 

All the while Birdie Black remains in her castle stronghold, training, resentful towards her father and uncle for both their betrayals in her trust.

 

A year goes by and the situation worsens, her contact with Maddox is slim-to-none and she decides to travel to the mainland with her close-friend, Leek.

 

And lurking in the corners of the Sea of Circles is a shadow, awaiting its chance to strike…

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

The ship’s dark blue hull rocked through another wave, sending the spraying water up into the woman at the helm’s face. She kept her expression placid as the man struggled up onto deck, trying once more in vain to find his sea legs.

 

“Much further?” he shouted over the tumultuous roar of the water, wiping the long red hair from his eyes.

 

“Another hour, maybe two depending on the wind.”

 

“We really should’ve chartered a ship instead. You didn’t have to sail, you know.”

 

“Where’s the fun in that?”

 

The sails fluttered in the wind above, canvas and hull the same camouflaged hues. Leek gripped onto the railing tighter, as a large wave came rocking toward them.

 

“I forgot how much I hated this.” He wiped away the spray once more.

 

“Here, you take the helm!” Birdie moved aside and Leek had to jump to grab and stop the helm from spinning out of control, as a rogue wave came at them.

 

“You’re just like you’re damned uncle!”

 

Birdie pinched his arm in response. She slipped out a wineskin from inside her cloak. Birdie offered it to Leek, who also took a swig.

 

“Thanks.” Leek looked sidelong. “Isn’t that Maddox’s favourite wineskin?”

 

“Sure is.”

 

“Won’t he mind you stealing it?”

 

“He sure will.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“He’ll be OK.”

 

“Um-mmm.”

 

“Not like he’ll be at the castle or anything anytime soon.”

 

“Sure.”

 

Birdie stoppered the wineskin. “I mean, he’s been gone to see Ariss for weeks now.” She pushed a few loose strands of hair from her eyes, flicked the long black braid over her shoulder. “Between him overseeing Mala and seeing Ariss, we never bloody see him anymore.”

 

“I guess you’re right there.”

 

“How hard would it be to spend a bit more time with us?”

 

“Not hard at all, considering he has you training night and day.”

 

“Exactly.” Birdie hid the wineskin back underneath her cloak. “To be honest, since the situation with Kye he has barely spoken to me.”

 

“To us,” reminded Leek.

 

Since they’d freed Birdie’s father, Maddox had been dropping hints that he knew they’d freed him. The previous Sword of Mala had made no attempt to hide the fact he still lived, having been around the Sea of Circles many times, bringing the proverbial sword down on all those still loyal to Nefaro’s old regime.

 

The Ministry of Faces once ruled Mala, Stadarfell and High Shoals with an iron grip, but no longer. Kye had single-handedly brought down the Unholy Trinity of islands and since tossing the old tyrant off the spire the threads Nefaro worked so long to hold together had totally unravelled.

 

The Clerics Palace had once again taken control, as much as they could with the alliance breathing down their necks, and the Black Shadow, namely Birdie’s uncle Maddox, constantly checking in and making sure no one attempted to return things to the way they were before.

 

And good riddance, she supposed. Things had been horrible in Mala. She had the scars and nightmares to prove it.

 

“Copper for your thoughts?” asked Birdie, looking sidelong at Leek.

 

“Just thinking back to the way things were.”

 

“In general?”

 

“Namely Mala.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“I wonder what it’s like there now.”

 

“Not good, I heard.”

 

“I mean, Paste, you know my friend I told you about?”

 

Birdie nodded.

 

“Well, he was able to get a note out to me every once in a while. I won’t forget your uncle and what he’s done for him since the plague struck the city. With the quarantine on going, it’s been hard for him. People are dropping like flies, those that survived the spire burning, I mean.”

 

Birdie’s hands tightened on the railing, making the blood drain from her fingers.

 

After freeing Kassova Kye from the prison cell in Mount Lena, Kye had been found by the Order of Mist and had made his way back to Nefaro. But at least he’d kept his word about not returning to help, instead plunging a knife through the old man’s heart and tossing his body off the spire for good measure.

 

If Kye had left it at that Birdie would’ve bloody applauded him. But instead of leaving and never showing his face like he’d promised her, he’d set fire to the spire with barrels of the dreaded Skyfire, burning many in the upper sectors of the city.

 

“It’s not your fault, you know?” Leek gave her a smile.

 

“It is, Leek. All those people who died that day died because I was too weak to leave my father to his own fate. I should’ve left him to fight Maddox. One life, no matter how painful it might’ve been to lose, was much better than losing hundreds of innocent people.”

 

“But you couldn’t have known what he’d decide to do.”

 

She shook her head. “I was a fool to trust him. A mistake that I won’t make again. I’ll make him pay for what he’s done, no matter how long it takes.”

 

“And what does Ariss think about all this?”

 

Birdie looked at him.

 

“I… just noticed you’ve been sending each other letters.”

 

“Did you read any?”

 

“No!”

 

“I know how curious you get.”

 

“I swear, I didn’t.”

 

“Good. A woman’s mind is her own to know. Ariss and I deserve some privacy, instead of always being questioned and annoyed by you and Maddox.”

 

“But you haven’t spoken to Maddox.”

 

“He annoys her. You annoy me.”

 

“We’ve been pretty much locked away together in that castle for a year. Bound to annoy each other eventually.”

 

Birdie gave him a scolding look.

 

“I meant sometimes. Annoy each other sometimes… Not always.”

 

“Shut up, Leek.”

 

*

 

Maddox entered the hall and was surprised to find it almost empty. Only Ariss occupied the long marble table, seated at the head chair. He sat next to her and took her hand. She looked up from holding her head in her hand and smiled.

 

“Tough day?”

 

“Tell me about it.” Ariss groaned as she sat back. “I thought things would get easier once we defeated Nefaro and his lackeys. But it’s had the opposite effect.”

 

“My father always said the best captains always got the longest voyages.”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re doing a great job, is what I’m trying to say.”

 

“Oh.” Ariss took a sip of cordial. “Because right now it feels like I’m bailing water with a thimble.”

 

“Things will get better.”

 

“Will they?”

 

Maddox noticed then just how tired she looked.

 

“I mean, the Hangman, or Joshua, isn’t getting any better. And once he dies, who’s going to keep things in order between his pirate crews? They’re a bunch of lawless rogues at the best of times. I’m afraid they’ll turn to their old ways once he’s dead, and who will keep the navy in check then?”

 

“I know.” Maddox nodded. “Without supplies from the mainland and other islands we’ll be cut off.”

 

“We need him. Without him we’re finished. And now Ubba’s ran off to King City, getting ready for this tournament with Lord Scarlett.” She groaned and put her head back in her hand. “I mean, is it the more powerful the man, the more childlike the mind?”

 

“I think I’m quite mature, for a young man,” smiled Maddox.

 

“Shut up, you old fool.” Ariss leaned in and kissed him. “You’ve been great though, I must say. Without you by my side at the council meetings I feel like I’m just shouting at blank walls.”

 

Maddox squeezed her hand. “Take a break. Once Birdie and Leek return from their trip let’s go and relax at the castle stronghold for a few weeks. It will do you some good to get away from here for a while.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“No maybe about it. We’re going.”

 

Ariss sighed. “I wonder how they’re getting on.”

 

Maddox looked around the room and grimaced as two officers entered carrying stacks of correspondence. “Better than us, I dare say.”

 

*

 

The ship docked into the mainland port. Birdie left Leek to tie off the ship and speak with the dock captain.

 

It was strange, as the last time Birdie had gone through this port she’d been in cuffs and had got abducted for her trouble almost right off the pier. But now, handing in her papers with the actual real name on them and not the thousand aliases her uncle had created for them all, it was surreal in a way. Not to be hiding.

 

It was… nice.

 

“What’re you smiling about?” called Leek, as she made her way back along the pier and helped Leek load up a cart they’d hired.

 

“I was just thinking of how much has changed.”

 

One of the stevedores bobbed their head to Leek as he took the bags and loaded them onto the back of the cart.

 

“You can say that again. I’m not used to this treatment. I’m more used to being ran after and shot at.” Leek laughed. “Though I prefer this much more than the latter.”

 

Birdie helped Leek haul up a crate. Peeking inside she found about ten tomes Leek had ‘borrowed’ from the castle stronghold. He’d turned out to have a penchant for studies and had impressed Maddox with the concoctions he could create the last time her uncle had visited the castle stronghold. He not only could create potions now that would knock out a whale, but also remedies that surpassed the ones taught to Birdie by her aunt Bella.

 

Bella.

 

Birdie’s stomach lurched at the thought of her.

 

How long had she longed to return to the woods? To visit the cottage and just… be there.

 

“I can’t wait to get there.” Birdie finished helping Leek load the cart and they climbed onto the driver’s seat.

 

“Yeah, me too.” Leek wiped back his hair. “I wonder if my mother’s still there.”

 

“It will be good for the both of us. We’ll get some closure.”

 

“M-hmm.” Leek shrugged. “You’re more hopeful than me, Birdie. I just want to be able to say I went, and nothing was there and now I can move on with my life.”

 

“Me too.”

 

Leek gave her one of his withering stares. “Birdie, I bloody saw the blueprints for the cottage you’re planning on rebuilding. You have me wondering if you’re even planning on coming back.”

 

“Of course, I am. I don’t plan on building the new cottage just yet. But one day.”

 

“You really miss the woods, hmm?”

 

Birdie picked up the whip and set the two horses going with a flick. “Kind of. I guess the training has me drained. I can’t wait to get some fresh air and just… breathe. You know?”

 

Leek smiled and reached back, pulling out a tome and flicking it open to the bookmark.

 

“You’re bloody hopeless, Leek. Do you know that?”

 

 

The Gods Wait

 

So, you come from this world, my friend? We are travellers through time, peeking through the mists of yesterday, discovering a world well removed from our own. I am but an old God who has foot in this world, and another in the Otherworld. I am set aside and forgotten, but I watch these lands, like a father’s spirit who cannot leave his still living child. I watch the lives that roam here, and the fates that are being put into play. This was a land of mystery before it was named. Gods came down from the sky and built their temples from stone and earth, and the ignorance of man was at an end when they crossed the land bridges from their ancestral homes. 

 

Man built temples for the Gods, worshipped them, and sacrificed to them. But the Dark Ones came—some said that they were dark Gods, others thought them monsters. The land was plagued by darkness, and any inhabitants unfortunate enough to survive here told tales of the Dark Ones for generations after their disappearance. After the fall of the Gods, the Druids fought to rid the land of this plague, and order of men and women devoted to the Gods, but it was the White Lady who brought safety to her people. Some say that the White Lady is the last God. But who knows?

 

A young man, a young woman, both bound by destiny to walk a path that is shrouded in mystery, flanked both by bright and dark magic.

 

This land is changed, now the folk speak of dangers looming on the horizon, the flames have reappeared on the water, and the White Lady roams these grounds no more. All that is left of the ancient strength of man is but mere ruins.

 

Until now . . .

 

Chapter 1: The Black Signal

 

Reaching out, he twirled his hand through the air, letting the warmth soak into his scarred and dirt-blackened flesh. Magic was thick in the air tonight. Around him the rain pattered, the mud sloshed down in thick streams over rocks and pebbles, crows cawed from the cloudy air, and the creatures of the forest stepped lightly over the moss strewn undergrowth beneath the dark canopy of trees, avoiding the ill omen that was the fire of man. But Knox was safe from the elements, hidden beneath a fallen tree, covered with vines and leaves to keep him dry.

 

Knox bit into the flesh of the hare, spitting out another morsel of grizzle for Tapa—his companionable wolf lying beside him. The old girl loved these moments, just the two of them soaking up the precious heat from the small fire. Some years ago, Knox had found the lone pup near death and had taken it onto himself to nurse and feed it using a pregnant wolf-bitch’s milk, and over time the wolf had grown strong and healthy.

 

“Don’t get used to it, mo cailin,” my girl. Knox rubbed her furry head, trying once again to undo some of the shaggy knots on her thick skull. Tapa eyed him for a moment, then his near-devoured hare—but seeing as Knox wasn’t parting with the bones just yet, she lay back down and eyed the flames silently, brooding as was her way.

 

“I hear you, I don’t want to go either, but we were called, and we’d best not ignore the Black Signal.” Knox bit hungrily into the meat. It’d been two days since he’d managed in snaring a hare, times were hard, but this was taking the piss. It was OK for Tapa, she could hunt like the Gods themselves. Two days ago, the thin trail of black smoke rose from Capard Hornbeard’s mountain, the Black Signal, as many of the Grey Wolf clan called it.

 

Juices ran down his chin and over his fingers, making Tapa lick her lips at the scent of it. “Odd, the Black Signal lit before the Cold Days are here.” Tapa’s ear perked sideways, but then turned back to the surrounding trees. “Not good omens for sure.”

 

Tapa simply lay her head on her paws and took the food for a hopeless cause. He threw the carcass to her then, and Tapa bit hungrily into the bones, matching the crackling flames and cracking of stick with the splitting of bone. He eyed the wolf, who was putting on a bit too much weight. Lucky for her the snares made no difference, that wolf could find a hare if she were struck blind and deaf. Her wolf blood made that she were lean most time, but the idleness of the recent times made that she had feasted in Capard Hornbeard’s Hall during the Warm Days too much for her own good. Knox patted his own lean stomach beneath his thick cloak and supposed that a warm hall and the hope of unearned meat weren’t too much to complain about. The Gods knew that the warmth of some girl in a straw pallet wouldn’t be frowned upon.

 

Knox took out his dagger and began cleaning his nails from dirt and grease.

 

It’d been three moons since he’d seen the Black Signal wafting up over the trees, calling Capard Hornbeard’s men home. Any folk from the Slieve Bloom Mountains had to fight for the old man; some of the Valley Folk too answered the signal, but not many these days. Since the arrival of the Bronze Men from the south more people had taken to sheltering along the seas, in their high cliff forts and high stone walls. Knox had seen the sea once, and that amount of water made a man unsteady. His feet were mountain feet, better suited for rolling hills of forest. He’d never trusted the Bronze Men, with their dark faces and darker minds. No, he’d rather keep to himself up here, pilfering and scavenging what he could from the timber-wolves and the foxes. The mountain folk were a nomadic people, men who preferred solitude to northerners’ small huts in their villages and queer ways, but the Bloom folk banded together when danger raised its head over their homeland hills.

 

Tapa finished the last of the bones and looked at Knox for more. Being greedy at a feed was her way, as was the way of all her kind. He gave her head a tussle and stuck his dagger into his belt, finished cleaning his nails. Taking out his pipe, he stuck a pellet of the measly stock of Blue-Weed that he had left. Taking an ember from the fire, he stuck the burning mound into the pipe and toked down on it, turning the pale blue-green moss aglow. Blowing out the pungent smoke and lying back on his bed of wreathes and dry grass, Knox thought about what the next few days would have in store.

 

Capard Hornbeard by now would be setting all of his hearths alight, getting his hall ready for the folk to take council. The casks would be rolled out from the under-vaults, benches aligned and banners hung. ‘In old times,’ Hornbeard would say, in his drunken and merry voice, ‘we had two handfuls of strong banner clans. We fought the western Tuccock clans back from our hills, when they came with flame and fury.’ Old Capard Hornbeard was a relic of the lands, more suited to when the stories of the Old Times were still remembered vividly by old warriors. But the ancient ruins that scattered the land had fallen to rubble and grass, and tales of past Gods living among men were nigh but dead. Knox had to bite his lip at that, as a boy in the hall he’d been fond of listening to the old warriors' tales of fables old and strange.

 

“Tapa, did I ever tell you about the Ring of Mountains?”

 

The wolf looked at him sideways, giving him her Not again, please look, as was her way.

 

“Ten Warrior Lords drew as one, my girl, a strong circle of clans that banded together when the Dark Ones came. The Dark Ones chased the Highlanders down from the north, spreading out their strength into weak bands, burning all what they could in their wake. None could stop them. The Dark Ones were but shadows, no foot shown in mud, no wisp of mist that gathered when they neared was disturbed when they struck. Each Warrior Lord had their own reasons to band together, each man strong but greedy. Each knew that they wouldn’t last an attack alone. They would have fallen too, if the White Lady hadn’t rose from the Silver Lake. She rose from the mist, roaming the lands as the Dark Ones neared her people. The land the White Lady walked was found burned when the people followed, and screams came through the night, from where nobody knew. No man alive saw the creatures which screamed, but the Dark Ones passed from the land and the White Lady stepped back into her watery realm. And since then the Dark Ones are afraid to come back. It’s why old Capard Hornbeard hangs a white woman on his banner. He’s the last of a line, girl, the last dying embers of the Old Magic.”

 

Tapa’s eyes had long closed, but Knox spoke for more his own comfort, as was his way. He took one final pull from the pipe and emptied the embers out into the sloshing mud beside him. Staring into the flames, Knox imagined the old tales, of White Lady’s and men who did not fear the Dark Ones. Of tribes living in the company of Gods. Knox dreamed of living in the old tales, but there weren’t any tales any more, only mountains and strife, and hunger, and tribute. Knox’s eyes closed, and he let them. Sleep would bring the morning all the sooner.

 

And tomorrow, who knew what tales he would know.

 

 

Part 1

 

Deep are the caverns of the human soul; for through the strife that is life, we must all delve deep, into the depths of madness, for it is in that lone place that true genius lies…

 

 

 

Chapter 1: The Dream

 

Once there was a place of learning. A school of sorts, only ever entered through dreams.

 

There were no enrollment methods. No letters of application.

 

You either dreamed your way into the college, or forever wandered that midnight realm beyond its wonderful doors of imagination.

 

This is its story.

 

*

 

Philip was a normal boy. He did well at school, had friends, but when these dreams began, he did not understand them.

 

There was a room. A dark room.

 

He would awake during the early hours of morning, covered in sweat, not understanding why this dream recurred, and nothing would change, except each night he would take a step, one step, closer to those great double doors, and the sconces on the walls would never flicker to life.

 

Each day he would think about the door, what lay on the other side?

 

Days turned into weeks, until one night, he reached the door, and placing his hand upon the cold metal handle, he turned it…

 

A great hall stood before him. As dark as the darkest gemstones, lurking beneath the deepest mountain caverns.

 

A voice called to him then.

 

*

 

Philip awoke.

 

Once again he was covered in sweat.

 

He checked the time on the clock, and yes, it was three o’ clock in the morning. The same time every night he would awake at this accursed hour, but why?

 

He did not fall back to sleep, but thought about the voice. It was not human. It was full of dark intentions.

 

Slowly the sky outside turned bright.

 

He washed the thoughts of the door, and the hallway, and the… voice away by taking a shower.

 

“You OK dear?” his mother asked him, as he sat at the kitchen table, eating the pancakes.

 

“Yep, why?”

 

“You look pale,” his mother, Jane, placed a hand to his forehead. “My, you’re burning up. Maybe you should stay home today? Get some sleep.”

 

Philip shook his head. Sleep was the last thing he wanted.

 

So he took his bag and he kissed his mother goodbye, and went on his way to school.

 

His school was an Old Catholic monument to a relic of a past that was quickly fading into the cracks of history. With its priests for teachers, who were quick with the ruler should you not know your times tables, and he had the marks on his palms to prove it.

 

But even though the hallways of his school were chilly, the windswept classrooms bare and Spartan, they were Heaven upon Earth compared to that dark, eerie hallway.

 

*

 

Nighttime. Philip sits on his bed, Googling medication that could help you stay awake.

 

He had a credit card, not much money on it, his mother only worked part time, but the medication was cheap, so he ordered some.

 

It would take three days to arrive.

 

He would just have to sleep for the time being, and there was nothing he could do about it.

 

So setting his alarm for seven o’ clock in the morning, Philip lay his head down on the pillow, and dreams soon encased him once more.

 

*

 

You should not be here, the voice hissed.

 

The hallway was long, with great chandeliers covered in cobwebs hanging from the ceiling.

 

Philip tried to take a step through the doorway, but found his feet frozen in place.

 

See, boy, you do not possess Magick. You should turn back…

 

But Philip was not afraid of the voice. It was warning him, so it therefore could not be maleficent, could it?

 

Philip willed himself forward, and he floated up from the ground.

 

Hmm, perhaps you possess some will power, boy, but this is a place for those who contain knowledge, vast knowledge, and you do not…

 

Philip put out his hands, and felt a tingling sensation beneath his skin. Lights appeared, like fireflies, floating beneath his palms.

 

Well that’s just great, isn’t it?

 

A figure appeared then before him, its appearance was blurred, as if seen through water. But Philip thought that it was a man, and now that he really thought about it, the voice was also masculine. Why hadn’t he noticed it before now?

 

Because you are only beginning to tap into your Magick, the voice replied.

 

“You can read my thoughts?” said Philip, his voice echoing through the hallway, and the sensation that shivered down his spine was one of danger, that great things inside of this place would soon know he had arrived.

 

Philip still floated on the precipice, between the room behind him, and the long hallway before him.

 

The image of the man, the blurred man, became more distinct. And he looked ancient, but not in an old way. His clothes were that of long past eras. His hair long, to his shoulders, and his face was aquiline.

 

“Aquiline?” the man laughed. “What does that even mean?”

 

“Who are you?” Philip asked instead.

 

“I am the caretaker here.”

 

“And where is here?”

 

“Here is here, and nowhere else. One should know where one is at all times, don’t you think?”

 

“I’m dreaming,” said Philip, more to himself than the man.

 

“Yes, I would think so. How else would you be here, if not through a dream? You really don’t know where you are, do you?”

 

Philip floated back down to the ground, his feet returning to gravity. He took a step forwards.

 

The hallway erupted into light, the chandeliers flickering to life, and a thousand candles lit up a dreary sight.

 

The man, this caretaker, was now fully distinct, his eyes were fully black. His hair was greased back and his clothing while ancient was made of good fabric.

 

“Why thank you,” said the caretaker.

 

“Stop reading my thoughts.” Philip couldn’t help but feel annoyed.

 

“Sorry, it becomes a habit of sorts.”

 

“So are you going to tell me where I am?”

 

The caretaker smiled, revealing silver teeth, sharp teeth. “Why you are in Delvere, my boy, the greatest school of Magick that ever has been or will be. And it may just be your undoing, now, if you please, come this way…”

 

 

Part 1

 

They will never count me among the broken men…

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1: A Good Death

 

Today is a good day to die. But tomorrow was better.

 

I am Skral, son of Skorm. Far have I travelled from my homeland, far have I come from the halls of my father’s castle, with only my sword and my shield to bear witness to my misdeeds of fortune. This life we live of death, this death we hunger for with honour, the only thing more important than a man’s name is his death, or so it is said.

 

The camp stretches over the hill, where I watch from atop, staring out across the land without a name but only coloured red, or so the omens have said. For tomorrow the two armies shall meet, and the true king of Ovartt shall be decided.

 

The seers of my father’s land foretold of this war, of two brothers locked horns, and as the twin moons rise on the horizon, I can’t help but wonder if I have chosen the wrong side.

 

Goroth the Second’s pavilion stands just beyond mine, surrounded by his elite circle of guards, their plate mail catching the last glimmers of the sun as it dies and spills blood in the sky. I have been called upon.

 

“Sire,” I kneel as I enter the tent. He sits upon his throne, a heavy chair made from the bleached bones of his enemies.

 

“Rise, Skral, son of Skorm.”

 

I stand.

 

“I have decided that I shall accept my brother’s offer of a duel of champions.” Goroth’s voice is strong, his face graceful, more like his mother than late father, and it was said that Garrem, the eldest of the twin princes, had gained their father’s temper along with his looks. I bow.

 

“Yes, my lord.”

 

“Do not fail me, Skral, the future of your father’s lands rests upon your shoulders.” And with a flick of his hand, I am dismissed.

 

I sit beside my fire, alone, staring out into the land between two armies, at the circle of grass being cleared for the duel tomorrow. My thoughts turn to my father, to his ailing health, to the empty chair beside him where once my mother used to rest me upon her knee.

 

I must bend the knee to Goroth, my father had last said to me, on my thirteenth name day, when a boy becomes a man. We live in his lands, and though Garrem is the stronger of the two brothers, I believe Goroth’s mind to be as sharp as his sword. Go now, my son, bend the knee to your prince and prove to the men of Ovartt that the house of Skorm still holds sway upon the fate of our people.

 

It had been five years since I had last set foot in my father’s land. Five years of war between brothers, of specks of blood on my blade flowing to rivulets, to pools. I had carved my name upon a branch of fortune and cast it to the wind, to the seas, and with one more fight beneath my sword I could finish what I had set out to do all those years ago.

 

I pray to the Gods, old and new, to keep my arm steady.

 

*

 

It is said that a man’s sword when he dies must rest upon his palm, gripped in his fist, for to die without a blade in your hand would be to forsake the ways of our forefathers, and your spirit would forever wander, unwelcome by your brothers of war in the Halls of Villach. I sharpen Breathtaker once more, check my shield, helm, chainmail. My father’s lands are poor and even though I am champion to a prince and have been fighting for five years, I still cannot afford plate armour or a horse. The prince has claimed those trinkets mostly gleaned from fighting for his elite soldiers.

 

It does not bother me, for I prefer the agility chainmail offers.

 

I have slept well, as much I do before battle, and do not have the nightmares that plague me most nights. The twin moons lower to the horizon, the sky shows first signs of light, and I know my time is almost upon me. I feel the whispers of ten thousand men around me weigh me down, their fate now rests upon my shoulders also.

 

It is said that men know fear most when faced with death, but the fear of a death in shadow scares me more. To die of old age, far from my father’s halls, without a sword in my hand or name for those I love to sing for me as my soul wanders.

 

My whetstone scrapes along the iron, and finished, I raise Breathtaker to my lips and place a kiss upon the cold metal.

 

Goroth raises his banner of war over his pavilion as the sun shows its scarlet face, and I know my time has come. The time for thoughts is over, now was the time for violence.

 

*

 

Goroth saddles his warhorse and nods to me, then spurs his horse past me. I watch as the last of his elite guard leave camp and begin their way down the hill. On the opposite hill, Garrem and his escort are also snaking their way along through the palisade.

 

I begin my walk down the trail, men slap my back as I pass, wish me well in the fight to come.

 

As I approach the circle, both brothers sit upon their mounts at opposite sides, the circle is made up of men holding shields. I see the enemy champion approaching from his side, and he shares a brief word with Garrem before entering the circle. He is outfitted in plate, carrying a two handed sword, abandoning the need for shield was foolhardy.

 

I stalk past a watchful prince, past his men, whose dark eyes stare out from behind visors, sizing up this thin wretch which they must think of me.

 

I enter the circle.

 

Both hills are flooded with watchers, the soldiers cheer as both champions stare at one another, and I size up my foe.

 

I only know him by reputation, Oakenfist they called him, breaker of men and maker of widows. His two handed sword is as tall as me, and the man stands a good two heads higher than I. But I have fought bigger men and lived.

 

The elite guard close around us, linking shield to shield to make a closed wall, and I release Breathtaker from her scabbard, the hiss of death scraping bloody promises.

 

We encircle eachother for a moment, my footstep steady, my sword tilted downwards, my heart thumping in my ears. Oakenfist comes screaming at me, longsword catching the sun as it rises into the air, and I dodge, not wanting to collide blades and risk notching mine. The big man swears as the tip of his sword strikes the ground where I stood, and I go to strike his unguarded side, but he brings the sword whipping back around, flinging dirt into the air, the tip of the sword whistling past my helm as I falter back.

 

He moves fast and is far stronger than I. His reach is longer, so I must tire him.

 

I dance around him, avoiding lunge after thrust, thrust after lunge, and soon my chainmail is moist with sweat. He wields his longsword like a hammer, and I would not offer myself up as an anvil willingly.

 

But when I lose footing and trample into a shield, I get shoved from behind, of course I do for it is a guard of the enemy.

 

I lose grip of Breathtaker as I hit the floor. My visor is filled with grass, and as I look up, I see Oakenfist’s sword flashingdown at me, and only just manage in getting my shield between me and it. The sword collides against the tempered metal and it bulges in, my arm loses all strength and the shield knocks against my helm, but I roll away, and the men scream around me for my blood.

 

I scrabble to my sword and grip it, Oakenfist is mere paces away, and I have no choice but to bring up my blade, and his bites into mine, and my palms vibrate from the force of it, reverberating up my wrists and almost making me lose grip once more. I hold steady to my weapon, but arms lose strength, and I am spun around from the sheer force of it.

 

I see Breathtaker is notched midway along its edge, and I curse him, for no man can mistreat my lady. Oakenfist comes at me once more, sword flashing sideways, and it glances off my shield as I step back, bringing my blade out and around, down, spinning, my eyes lock onto his right leg as I come around to face his back, and I aim for between the plate armour, and my strike is true.

 

Oakenfist lets out a shout as he limps away, and I flip open my visor and lick my blade, tasting his blood, and smile.

 

“The rumours were right about you,” says Oakenfist, flipping open his visor. “You’re a demon, boy, a drinker of souls. But my fists of oak will tear your skull apart.” And with that promise he flips closed his visor and tosses away his longsword, instead unsheathing the twin blades on his belt.

 

I close my visor, but the smile doesn’t leave my face. Oakenfist flashes one blade at me, and the short weapon lacks the weight of his last instrument, and it harmlessly glances off my shield. I knock it away and aim a kick at his leg, but he pounces back a step, and it misses. I growl, whipping my sword up and around, but he catches them on the cross guards and we find ourselves entangled. He soon overpowers me, and rips my sword from my hands, and I back away, unsheathing my own blade on my belt.

 

Breathtaker is paces behind Oakenfist. So I try to sidestep around the man, but he laughs as he steps onto my blade, trying to bend or snap it. I scream, seeing red, and lunge at him, bashing my shield at him, knocking him off balance, I drop my blade and reach for my sword, but Oakenfist rushes in before I can close my fingers onto the pommel and he kicks my shield, knocking me flat onto my back. I bring the shield up as the blades come down, one blade knocks off the damaged shield, but the other was aimed at my leg, and the sharp tip pierces through the padded leather of my britches.

 

I can’t stifle the scream.

 

Oakenfist tries to wrench the blade in deeper but I bash him away with my shield and roll sideways, regaining my feet. The wound spits blood as I pull it from my leg, and we both are wounded now. We limp around eachother, wary now, he with one blade, I with only my shield, but I’m mere paces away from Breathtaker when Oakenfist comes at me once more, blade flashing up into the air, colliding against my shield. The impact knocks the blade from his grip, but he grabs hold of my shield with both his hands, and we struggle, his size once more overpowering me. I let go the shield and roll, then leap through the air, snatching up Breathtaker and face Oakenfist.

 

I swish the sword through the air as I sidestep around the circle, taking care to keep away from the enemy shields. But instead of me attacking the unarmed man, Oakenfist roars as he comes storming at me, bashing the shield at me, knocking away my first attack, then the second, denting the shield all the more, and when I strike one more time, the worst happens.

 

I hear a sickening crack, and my sword… shatters in half.

 

Oakenfist takes advantage of my hesitation, as I stare down at the jagged edge of Breathtaker he smashes the shield into my helm, sending me reeling. I find myself on the ground, staring up at him, and he leans down and rips my helm from my head.

 

He lifts my helm to the watching men and shakes it, and they scream again for my blood. Oakenfist goes and picks up his longsword, limps over to me, and my head is beginning to clear of the haze, only realizing that Breathtaker isn’t in my grip.

 

“No, wait!” I cry, but it is too late. Oakenfist brings his sword down, catching my sword arm below the shoulder, and the pain is excruciating. My world goes black.

 

*

 

It was on my eleventh name day that my father first brought me to the outskirts of his land. It was his duty to defend his people from the brigands who inhabited the land to the western valleys, on the mountainous ranges of Inis Mor. We had been walking for weeks before we came upon the village, its cinders for roofs long extinguished.

 

The brigands had put all men and boys to the sword, raped the women and girls, slit their throats, and lay their heads on pikes in the middle of the village for us to see.

 

Father had spent days chasing them down, not at home among the narrow passes, snowdrifts and dark caves that the brigands inhabited. Inis Mor was said to be haunted, and as we passed through those caves I thought to myself that these rumours were true, for no men could live like this, more akin to the wild bear of the far north than mankind.

 

We’d found no trace of them besides the stacks of bones they’d left in the caverns, the few discarded bits of rags they called for clothing, or stone tools.

 

But it was on the fourth day we found the woman.

 

Her leg was shrivelled, and it seemed she’d been abandoned by the brigands, for the crying babe in her arms had been the only way we found her in the maze of caves.

 

Father had slit her throat without hesitation, and smashed the babe among the rocky floor.

 

After two more weeks of walking we found ourselves back at his castle stronghold, and it was the first time he let me sit among the warriors and share in an ale.

 

Do you know why we didn’t spare the woman? My father had asked me.

 

I nodded, bringing one of his many lessons to mind.

 

Mercy is weakness, father.

 

He smiled at me, probably the only time he ever had before or since.

 

Mercy was weakness.

 

*

 

I awoke to the sound of screaming. It took me a moment to realize they were my screams.

 

I was being dragged away from the circle, blood leaking from my open wound, where my sword arm had once been.

 

The two men dragging me tossed me against a palisade and strode away.

 

It was then that I saw Goroth approaching me.

 

“I should kill you, Skral, for failing me.” The prince unsheathed a dagger from his belt and held it up against my throat. His eyes bored into mine, filled with icy hatred. “You lost. Now I am exiled.”

 

His ragged panting evened out, and he let his dagger drop away from my throat, and I could only let out a moan of regret,for what was I without my sword arm?

 

“No, Skral, you shall not be so lucky.” Goroth stood and looked down at me. “Before I leave into exile, I have one more bit of business. I’m going to take everything from you like you have from me, boy. Your father is the one to blame for your failings.”

 

He turned.

 

“No…” I said, reaching out with my arm, but my pleas fell on deaf ears as I watched my prince, the man I had given everything for, walk back toward the circle.

 

I looked back down at my wound, which was still bleeding profusely, and then leaned over and vomited.

 

*

 

I awoke once more lying against the palisade, the sun lowering in the sky, so I must have slept for some time. A woman was sat beside a fire ten paces away, and as I moaned in agony, she came to me and offered me water. I drank.

 

“What happened?” I croaked. “Where are the princes?”

 

The woman smiled sadly. “The war is over, Skral, son of Skorm. Garrem has won, Goroth is to flee without his army from the kingdom, on punishment of death.”

 

“And me? Why am I still alive?”

 

The woman stood and shook her head. “It’s not the place of a simple healer to know the minds of princes, here…” She reached into her cloak and took out what remained of Breathtaker. “If you should pass during the night, a man would want the touch of his blade to guide him through the nether realms.”

 

“Aye… Thank you.” I took the sword from her as she went back to her fire and held it tightly in my fist. Looking up to the twin moons, I could only imagine their pockmarked faces to be those of the twin princes, or now should I say the king and the exile. I cursed them, and swore that if Goroth should touch a hair on my father’s headI would slay him, prince or no.

 

*

 

It was many moons ago that my father, when my mother was still among the living, brought me along on the pilgrimage to the far northern wastes, to the Temple of Skursk, the ancient monument a lone tower among the frozen plains, a piercing spire of granite and ice.

 

We spent three moons sitting in silence, not eating, not drinking, only the thumping of my heart and whistling, roaring wind outside to tell me that I had not yet died.

 

On the fourth night the twin moons rose as blue as the icy wastes surrounding us, a good omen, my father said.

 

My father was always a man of few words, but many omens.

 

*

 

I knew I was not dead when I felt a man’s hand among my chest. I looked up, expecting to gaze into my father’s face, but instead staring up into a heavily scarred face of a stranger.

 

“By the Gods, he’s alive!” barked the man, jumping.

 

“Water…” my throat was parched.

 

“No water for dying men,” smiled the man, revealing a handful of yellow teeth. He began pulling off my chainmail then, and I was far too weak to stop him. “I suppose you don’t want this back?” smiled the man, turning and reaching into a sack. He pulled out an arm… my arm.

 

“You sick bastard,” I coughed.

 

The man took the chain mail from my arm too and tossed away the limb, then placed the armour into the sack. He bent and reached for Breathtaker.

 

“No!”

 

“A dead man doesn’t need armour or weapons, fool.” The man tried to claw my fingers from the pommel and I held on with every shred of strength I could muster.

 

“Leave the man to die with his blade!” a voice barked.

 

The scarred man turned and I saw it was a priest who had spoken in my defence.

 

I turned and spat what little spit I had left onto the ground, for my father held priests in low regard.

 

“What business is it of yours, priest?” growled the scarred man.

 

The priest leaned on a staff and pulled down his hood. He was an old man, hair turned grey, the sign of a life not spent in battle, for only the legends of the battlefield earned the right to it.

 

“I have the ear to the king, thief, now take your ill-gotten gains or you’ll find yourself inside of a gibbet before nightfall.”

 

The scarred thief growled as he shouldered the sack with my chain mail inside of and walked away.

 

The priest approached me, reached inside of his cloak and took out a water skin. “Here. Drink!” he ordered, and after a moment of hesitation, he sighed and unstoppered the skin, then put it to my lips. “Drink or die, fool.”

 

I shut my eyes and took a mouthful of what I thought was water, but as the burning liquid went down my throat I gagged.

 

“What in the world is that?” I cried.

 

“Wine, from the distant sun lands to the south. Not like the vulgar ale you heathens drink.” The priest took a long drink from the skin and offered me more.

 

“Will it kill me?” I said, eying the skin suspiciously.

 

“Yes, but not half as quick as a sword cut, you fool, now drink!”

 

I drank.

 

The burning liquid filled my belly like a lake of lava. “It’s… not bad, I guess.”

 

“It will kill the pain somewhat.” The priest stoppered the skin and secreted it away once more inside of his cloak. “Can you walk?”

 

I looked down at my arm, which I foundto be bandaged. “I don’t know.”

 

“Come on, boy, they cut off your arm not your leg. Stand!” The priest grabbed me by my arm and pulled me up. My legs shook like grass in a strong wind, but I kept my balance with his aid, only just. “Let’s go get you seen to by a real healer, eh?”

 

We set to stumbling up the hill. I saw that most of the elite guard from Goroth’s hill had left camp. The palisades were being taken out of the ground and carted down the hillside where they were building fires, and much revelry was ongoing. Men who’d wished me well only the day previously now looked away as I passed by, all avoiding my gaze, stepping away from the priest and I as if we had the plague.

 

But my father always told me that a loser’s presence is as welcome as an empty larder come winter.

 

We stumbled our way down the other side of the hill and set off south west, to the nearest village. Upon entering it we found it to be also filled with party goers, the taverns bustling with activity.

 

Outside an apothecary’s the priest bid me wait and went inside alone. I surveyed the street while waiting. Soldiers wearing the colours of both armies drank arm-in-arm with one another, and only for my sacrifice these men, half would be dead by now.

 

I cursed them silently as the door opened and priest bid me follow him inside.

 

The smell of herbs was strong and made me dizzy. A woman ordered me down onto a cot and began undoing my bandage. “This will sting,” she said, before daubing an ointment onto the wound, and she was right, but I did not cry as tears stung at my eyes. She finished daubing the ointment and wrapped herbs in fresh linens, wrapping them around what was once my most valued limb.

 

“I was expecting far more work in the coming days,” the woman muttered under her breath.

 

“Be it for a healer to woe at men being merry instead of carrion,” sighed the priest.

 

“Woe my arse, one man’s coin won’t fill my larder for the winter, will it?” growled the healer, before exiting the room.

 

The priest smiled down at me as he handed me the wine once more. I drank it this time with far more eagerness.

 

“Why are you helping me?” I asked the priest.

 

“The Gods love all men, Skral. It is not my place to ask why you were placed in my care, nor why it cost you so much for so little.”

 

“Riddles, all you priests are the same.” The wine was working well, much stronger than the measly rations of ale allotted to us in the army. It was making me sleepy.

 

“I must… I must go home,” I sighed, eyes closing. “Father is ill. I must return to him.”

 

“Yes you shall, Skral. But be it on your head.”

 

I frowned at that, but the wine was making me groggy, and before I could put more mind to it, I drifted off to sleep.

 

*

 

I have not always been good with a blade. On my fifth name day father first paid me a visit in the courtyard, where for the last two months I had been practising swordplay with a wooden baton with one of the many armourers in the castle, a fat bellied man by the name of Froik. Father had told the man to not hold back, and I had tried to hold my own against a grown man, but had soon found myself face down in the dirt, covered in bruises.

 

Father had approached me then, offering me his hand, and it had been the first sign of affection or help ever offered to me by him. But as he pulled me to my feet, he held back his hand and slapped me across my face.

 

Never disgrace me again, boy.

 

By my next name day, I had moved on to blunted steels, and Froik was replaced by a boy more to my own size.

 

It had been a lesson, I know now. He had shown me that even though I was his son, that he would not go easy on me, no, actually the opposite, and expected me to experience twice the hardship than the next boy.

 

And I never complained, instead putting my anger into what I knew.

 

My training.

 

*

 

The sound of music is akin to the sound of war.

 

Or at least this is what I told myself as I lay on the bed, listening to both the healer and the priest sharing in both wine and song. They asked me, as the wine had begun to take effect on my mind, as well as the potion the healer had given me, and I foolishly obliged.

 

“My land was once a land of wealth, a place to fit a king,

 

But tides of war and marching boot have laid my land to waste.

 

My hearth is dark, my larder empty, my wife cannot bare,

 

A babe is lost, to winter nights, the cold it claws its way,

 

Into my home, where warmer nights, were promised once a time.

 

I watch as those I love lose life, and in my hand I hold,

 

A blade to shield the frosts away, to march beyond the veil,

 

Come war or death, I’ll meet my end as I have naught left but strife…”

 

The healer cannot understand the native tongue of my land. But the priest looks on with tears in his eyes, and I cannot help but think that he has spent some time in our lands if he knows this ancient song of ours.

 

I won’t lie, I cried as I sang it, for it had been so long since I spoke those words of home. To speak in Cannish is looked down upon in the midlands of the kingdom. My people are little thought of more than pig farmers and scythe wielders, ignorant are the people of this land of my people’s ancient warlike craft, and songs of mirth and war that speak to our blood fuelled history.

 

“Beautiful,” spoke the priest.

 

“You understand Cannish?” I ask him, hoping to converse in my home tongue.

 

“Yes,” he speaks in Cannish. “But to hear it sung by one of your homeland is far more poetic.”

 

I nod, letting the wine warm my stomach, letting the threads of dreams once more encase their loving embrace on my pain filled mind.

 

*

 

It is three more moons before I build up enough strength to travel. The priest surprises me the day I am to leave by showing up outside the healer’s home with a mule and a pack filled with dried meats, a heavy cloak, and a wineskin, which I wink at him for parting with, for I had grown fond of the spirit these past few days.

 

“Your aid will not be forgotten. Forgive me, but I haven’t even asked your name, priest.”

 

“I am brother Assov.”

 

“Well, brother Assov, you are most welcome in the Cannish lands. My father’s castle is a fine place to last out the winter nights.”

 

The priest nods. “I fear the cold nights will soon be upon us, but I must return to my order to the east.”

 

I smile sadly. “I wish you well, brother Assov.”

 

“And you, Skral. Travel safely, and keep your sword hidden. Even though it is shattered, many won’t be quick to forget the blood that Breathtaker has spilled. Many fathers and sons would only be too happy to slit your throat and even the score.”

 

I clap hands with the old priest. “Wise words, I shall keep them in mind.” I nod down to my sword arm, where it once was. “Though I think my days of wielding her are truly over.”

 

“Well, Skral, there are better ways to die than holding a blade.”

 

“Such as?” I smile.

 

“Such as helping those in need. If you ever want to take up the cowl of our order, just look to the east and search for the Temple of Avern. There you will you find a welcome place for a mind like yours.”

 

“Thank you, once again, for everything!” I call, as I give my mule the spurs and we begin our way from the village, which has now emptied of soldiers, as the king was rumoured to be heading back north west to his castle.

 

“Keep safe!” calls Assov, and I turn my eyes to the road. To my future. To home.

 

 

Part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Revenge is a dish best served cold…”

 

Chapter 1 – The Temple of Avern

 

Days pass me by as I spend my time rotting away in the cells of Ienbrook. My father, Skral the Broken, has been slain by the hand of a woman once thought a friend. But then friends were only an opportunity to be stabbed in the back.

 

As days turn into weeks I spend my time remembering my father’s lessons. How he told me that revenge would be ours, and I would fulfil his blood oath and spill the blood of Goroth, as well as Chaos.

 

Gone are the days remembered so fondly, of hunting with father and his huntsmen in the forests to the west. Of climbing the cragged peaks of InisMor and hunting down the tribesmen who encroached on Cannish.

 

Footsteps outside draw my attention, and as keys are put into the lock of my cell door and the door is pulled open I can’t help but shield my eyes away from the light spilling in.

 

“Quickly now,” a voice hisses.

 

“Who is it?” I say.

 

“My name is Brother Assov, and I helped your father out once upon a time. Now it is your turn. Quickly now, we must flee!”

 

I stand, my shackles are unbound. I stumble out of the cell and into the corridor. There are two men in cloaks, one old and the other young like myself.

 

“Who are you?” I say, ill at ease at these men’s appearance, for I expected no aid from anyone in Ienbrook.

 

“There is no time for questions, wear this cloak and shut your mouth. With any luck we’ll make it out of here before anyone is any the wiser.”

 

This Brother Assov drapes a cloak of a priest around me and motions for me to follow. We make our way through the corridor, coming out onto a stairwell and climbing it. I pass a dead soldier on the stairwell, his throat cut open.

 

We pass through the corridors as silent as death, avoiding the footsteps that appear here, ducking into a doorway when a soldier appears there. The two men are light and sure of foot, and I find my own step wearing, as I am out of practice and woe betide the man who tries to creep through a fortress of enemies after weeks spent in a dark cell.

 

We come upon courtyard, and Brother Assov leads the way, and we climb onto the driver’s seat, and he picks up the reins. As the horses guide us through the gateway, the soldier there inspects a scroll the brother hands him. He nods.

 

“You sure you don’t need an escort, the roads aren’t patrolled as well as they used to be,” says the soldier.

 

“The Gods will be our protection,” says Brother Assov, and after being handed back the scroll he guides the cart out of Ienbrook.

 

I can’t help but look back at the place I’d been kept to rot these past weeks, a feeling of joy swelling in my chest.

 

*

 

We head east along the King’s Road, and that first night we load the cart into a barn and go inside of a tavern. Brother Assov pays for our room and food, and I wolf down a watery stew as if it was the greatest meal ever cooked. The ale tastes as sweet as nectar as it washes down the meal, and I can’t help but smile.

 

The two priests watch me closely all the while, and I check to make sure we’re out of earshot of anyone, which we are.

 

“So, why did you help me?” I ask Assov.

 

“I was a friend of your father, as I have already mentioned. I would not see it fit for someone as such as yourself to be rotting away in the cells of Ienbrook.”

 

“You killed a soldier.” I held no tone of accusation in my question, merely curiosity.

 

“Aye, we did. You were to be executed in two days’ time.” Assov took a sip of wine from his wineskin.

 

“Then you have my thanks. I owe you my life.” I hold out my empty palms. “Though I have nothing worthwhile to offer, you have my oath that I will repay the favour.”

 

“I’m sure if you are one tenth the man your father was then I have nothing to fear in that regard.” Assov stoppered his wineskin and slid it back inside his cloak.

 

“What about you friend?” I ask the silent priest. His eyes are sharp, blue, face gaunt and pale, with close cropped black hair. “Why so quiet?”

 

“Brother Cammon has sworn as vow of silence. He does not speak through piety.”

 

I nod. “So be it.”

 

We go to our room where three cots are allotted. I climb into the one in the corner and sleep takes me almost immediately.

 

*

 

I remember the first time I took a life. It had been on a hunt to the frozen north, past the Temple of Skursk, on my second hunt with father. The first time I had missed my shot, and the stag had gotten clear of the treeline. Father had told me there would be other opportunity’s to prove myself.

 

I remember the spear in my hands. The outline of the white bear coming closer, the snow falling like winter leaves. How the cold numbed my skin, how my heart beat in my chest, how I tasted blood from biting my lip so hard as the bear noticed our scent.

 

And father’s words in my ear as the bear came roaring at us.

 

Hold steady, my son, he had said. Aim for the heart.

 

The bear had reared up on its hind legs and I plunged the spear into its heart.

 

I had become a man that day, in father’s eyes…

 

*

 

I awake to the sound of a voice.

 

I shield my eyes at the light spilling in through the window, and forget for a moment that I had escaped Ienbrook, and that I was not in the cell anymore.

 

Brother Assov is in the privy, Brother Cammon sitting on his cot.

 

I sit up and Cammon offers me a skin of ale, which I drink from.

 

“Why did you have to swear an oath of silence?” I ask him. He simply shrugs. “Be it for the New Gods to wish a man to suffer such as that.”

 

Cammon smiled and nodded. For I worshipped the Old Gods, many a time I had went with father north to the Temple of Skursk, to pray of seek omens.

 

We set off east, and days pass by in silence, with only Assov’s humming to say that I had not fallen deaf.

 

“Where are we headed?” I ask on the fifth morning, after a night spent sleeping under a tree.

 

“Why home, Skorm, son of Skral.”

 

“This is not the road to Cannish lands.”

 

“No, it is not. We are taking you to the Temple of Avern, where you will begin in your training.”

 

“I am no priest, Brother Assov, and do not wish to become one.”

 

Brother Assov simply smiled. “You think we are but simple priests?”

 

*

 

The Temple of Avern is situated on a southern slope of hill, bordering a sheer drop off, overlooking a lake below. A town is located on the upper side of the hill, which we now passed through. People nodded in respect to the two priests as we passed by.

 

Inside of the temple, men in cloaks passed here and there, some carrying parchments, others buckets.

 

“Brother Cammon, I believe Brother Farrow seeks your aid as soon as you were to return.”

 

Cammon nods and climbs off of the cart, and with a final nod to me he turns and disappears around a corner.

 

“What do we do now?” I ask Assov.

 

“First you will shave your head, and adorn the cowl of apprenticeship.”

 

“I already told you I don’t want to become a priest.”

 

“Ah, but don’t you want to earn revenge on your enemies?” he asks me coyly.

 

“It is all I want.”

 

“Then let us go and make yourself ready to see the council members.”

 

I follow Assov after he hands the reins to a man in a cowl and we walk through the studded doors, into a great hall lined with books, scrolls, men sit at tables, inspecting these.

 

“The Temple of Avern is a place of learning, my boy.” Assov turns right and I follow. “A place of hard training, but you are your father’s son and I know you will find a place here.”

 

“My place is in Cannish lands,” I say through gritted teeth. “Leading my people against the tyrant Goroth.”

 

Brother Assov stops and turns to me. “Then be smart about it. Be smarter than your father was, for all his skills in swordplay it didn’t stop the knife plunged into his heart, now, did it?”

 

I can only stare. Assov leads us into a room, where he tells me to sit. A man appears and begins shaving my head, then I am told to disrobe and am given a light blue robe, like some of the younger members of the temple I had seen wearing.

 

“Now, Skorm, son of Skral, it is time to meet the Council of Avern…”

 

 

For Ava and Melanie,

 

Blood of my blood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” – Stephen King 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

It was a regular day at the park. A single white cloud crept slowly over the green expanse as the picnickers lounged on the rising hill. The playground below was filled with creaks and groans as the rusty joints twisted and turned. The children chased each other through throngs of families in a widespread game of manhunt. An ice cream van pulled off and headed down the road, towards its next destination, tolling its anthem once more for the children’s amusement. Seated near the crest of the hill sat a couple. They doted on a little boy sat in a pram. The baby kicked his chubby legs in delight as he licked the ice cream from around his mouth.

 

“Johnny’s so adorable, I love it when he makes that face,” the woman said, lifting her sunglasses over her forehead to get a better look at him.

 

“Yeah, well…” the man said quietly, peering around as he leaned towards her. “I hope he doesn’t get the squirts!”

 

“Ben!”

 

“Just saying, I remember my brother Larry once ate a whole tub of ice cream, shit himself right on the couch when the folks caught him.”

 

Ben blew on his arm for dramatic effect.

 

“Stop it with your filth! I know how you Well’s boys eat so it’s no doubt he gobbled it down in one bite.”

 

She shook her head, smiling at him.

 

They'd been together for nearly a year now, met at a mutual friend’s party and hit it off straight away. He still had the trousers she’d spilled a glass of merlot on by accident.

 

It's a bit early to be trying to get in my pants, he'd joked.

 

Ben had fallen in love with her instantly, and she loved him more because he hadn’t been scared off in the least because she had a kid. He’d been the perfect gentleman, even if he was a bit rough around the edges.

 

“So, what you want to do later, get something to eat, see a movie?” said Ben, stroking her leg.

 

“A movie sounds great.”

 

“And maybe get some food to bring home?”

 

She lay back putting her head on his lap. “Ummm, sounds yummy.”

 

Ben rubbed her head and they lay there enjoying the silence until a series of coughs and splutters emerged from the pram. Looking over, Ben could see Johnny vomiting up ice cream.

 

“Ellen he’s choking!”

 

Ben lifted Johnny out of the pram, tapping and rubbing his back gently. Ellen got up and wiped Johnny’s face. Ben saw something inside Johnny’s mouth. Wiping his finger, he opened Johnny’s mouth carefully and felt around inside. 

 

“I think there’s something in his mouth, but I can’t… wait, ah!”

 

Johnny bit down on Ben’s finger, he tried to pull it out, but the sharp teeth held tight, digging in deeper.

 

“Ahh!” Ben was red in the face. “The little man’s got a grip!”

 

Ellen grabbed Johnny’s mouth and pried it open.

 

Ben slid out his trembling finger and saw that the flesh on the index was torn from knuckle to nail. Blood trailed down his hand in rapid streams.

 

Taking Johnny from his arms, Ellen put him back in the pram. She pulled some cloths out from a bag and wrapped them around Ben’s finger.

 

“Keep applying pressure, hold it here. We have to go to the hospital Ben, that’ll need stitches.”

 

Ben could feel the sweat forming on his forehead. He looked down into the shaded enclosure that was Johnny’s pram and saw blood dribbling from the baby’s lips.

 

“That’s not nice Johnny, you can’t bite!” he snapped before he could help himself. Johnny’s lip quivered and he began wailing, reaching up for Ellen. 

 

“Stop it Ben, you’re upsetting him!” She frowned. “It was a mistake, that’s all.”

 

Ellen crouched down and rubbed Johnny’s head, soothing him until the crying stopped.

 

Looking around, Ben noticed the eyes watching him. A few changed direction, but most didn’t.

 

“It was just an accident, nothing to worry about.” He gave the best smile he could manage, but the eyes seemed to fill more with disdain.

 

An old woman sat nearby shaking her head at him.

 

“Ben look, my pearl earring was in his mouth. How the hell did it get in there?”

 

Ben turned to see Ellen crouched in front of the pram, holding a small ball in the centre of her palm.

 

It was reddened with blood. Ben bent down to get a closer look. 

 

“Poor thing could have cut his gums open!”

 

Poor thing my ass, thought Ben, looking at the blood-soaked cloth wrapped around his finger.

 

As he squinted at Johnny, the pram was momentarily silhouetted against the blue sky as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. But before Johnny was fully hidden in the shade of his pram, Ben could’ve sworn the baby was grinning at him.

 

 

For you, dear reader, for braving the dark and lonely hallways of Horror.

Chapter 1

Ellen Wells was a killer, but only in the eyes of the law. In the mental hospital, she was merely a ghost.

She bit her nails as the door opened, scratching the scab on the back of her neck once again and threatening to open the old wound. They’d let her blond hair grow since the last time she’d freaked the fuck out, and she swished it back as she surveyed the room. Doctor Rennell sat behind the desk, wiping his round spectacles on his white lab coat. His appearance was chemically clean as usual, from his tightly cut gelled hair to his trimmed nails and whitened teeth. It sickened Ellen to speak with him, but if there was ever a chance to escape from this prison where rocking inmates shit themselves on the daily, it was by talking with Doctor Freak.

“Hello, Ellen. How are you today?”

“Fine,” she smiled.

Besides the fact that I want to slit my wrists and choke you to death with the blood.

“Please, take a seat.”

Ellen sat, ignoring the ripped fabric beneath the arm rest. He placed it there to see if the patient was nervous, a technique she’d picked up on week one of lock-down.

“You’re looking well.”

“It’s in the name,” she laughed at the old joke, as stale as a month-old bucket of piss, and Freak gave her a wide grin.

“It surely is. Tell me, how has group been going, in your opinion?”

“Good. I’ve been a leading example in sharing with everyone, and it’s been months since my last outburst.”

“I can see. The record’s show you’ve dealt with your history quite well these past few months. And how do you feel about your memories now?”

“I can separate fact from fiction. I know it wasn’t real. None of it.”

But it had been real. All too real . . .

Ellen had watched as an evil power had taken hold of her son, first turning her against her husband, Johnny’s stepfather, Ben, then it had taken both their lives. She had fled as far as a tank of gas can get a woman on the freeway, but the authorities had caught up to her eventually, and had placed the blame on her.

Johnny’s body had never been found, but they still locked her away for two counts of murder anyway.

So, Ellen was a killer, in everyone’s mind but her own. All she had to do was bide her time.

Time was all she had.

“Ellen?”

Freak snapped her out of her daydream.

“I’m fine, just thinking how lucid those memories were. I know now there was no monster. That it was me. I took their lives. No one else is to blame.”

“Very good, Ellen. Acceptance of our sins leads to absolution. In the eyes of God no one is perfect, but He loves us all the same, despite our many flaws.”

Ellen smiled and nodded as she zoned out of Freak’s usual bullshit ideologies, spurting God this, and love that. All Ellen wanted to do was get the hell out of this place and find that fucking monster, put a slug between its green eyes, and finish what she should have done long ago.

But Ellen had been scared. She had been weak and had fled from the house as the flames bit up along the back garden and took hold of her home. All she remembered was Ben swinging from that rope, and their faces through the window as she drove away. Everything else was a blur. Doctor Freak said it was shock, that the act of taking the lives of the ones she loved had split her mind in two and one part shielded itself away from the other. She couldn’t remember them finding her in the car, covered in blood, or taking her to the psychiatric hospital, or the months that followed.

But piece-by-piece she had slowly come back to herself, and the past was like watching a movie, someone else’s life flashed inside of her mind, a different woman, one who had been happy.

Happiness.

She forgot what it felt like. And meaning in life. Besides group therapy and these interviews with the doc’, she had nothing in her life and no one.

But something clawed at her subconscious, a forgotten memory, or one taken from her, as she’d been drugged up more than a sixties rock band in the first year she was placed in White Spring’s Psychiatric Hospital.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Ellen?”

Ellen nodded. “Yes, of course I believe in second chances, Doctor Rennell.”

“That’s good. Because thirteen years is a long time to be locked away and in denial. You’ve shown yourself to be an example to the other patients. And I’m glad to say you might just be moved to lower lock.”

Thirteen years was a long time. But the rest of her life was longer. If getting into the lower lockdown unit meant more freedom, and perhaps some TV, then whoop-dee-fucking-doo. She’d been sentenced to life in the loony bin, so that was about as good as it got in here. There were no second chances for her. Only therapy.

*

That night she had the dream again.

Flaming trees, the dark shadow prowling above. Ben hanging from the rope, his eyes wide. Johnny below, face hidden beneath the hood, but his eyes, glowing green, not their usual blue.

Alien eyes. Monster’s eyes.

Then the scene had changed, and she was surrounded by blurs, white and blue blobs, and there were screams all around her. Everything was a mass of confusion.

Remember…

But the blurs distorted, and the screams echoed, until the dream faded, and Ellen woke up in her bed, the room empty, and silent.

*

Sidney Portley was turning thirteen, and he had the moustache to prove it.

Staring into the mirror, he gelled back his hair and snapped a double gun salute with his fingers, before running down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Morning mom,” he called, as he snatched the waffles from the toaster and ran for the door, grabbing his schoolbag from the table as he went.

“Sid, sit down and eat!”

“Gotta go. I’m meeting the guys!”

His sister was sat at the high stool and flipped him the bird as he went by. He banged out the door, picked up his bike from the front garden and swung his leg over it. The street was busy with traffic and Sid rolled down the hill behind a red sedan, swinging a right and then a left. Terry appeared from Pitcher’s Alleyway on his bike and cycled beside him.

“Morning Siddy-Sid,” he said, swinging right-to-left on the bike, as they both made their way to their friend Josh’s house. They rolled past, but had to double back, as Josh was standing on the lawn and waved them down.

“Fucking chain snapped,” he said.

“You’re riding bitch,” said Terry. “Jump on.”

Josh got onto the back of Terry’s pegs, and they made their way to school, pulling up to the clock-tower as the minute hand showed five-to-nine. They locked up the bikes and made their way to class. The day gruelled by like always, with the monotony broken up by ball-practice during lunch. Sid was the star batman for his high-school junior team, and his coach had told him he drove that ball higher and further than anyone he’d ever seen.

Sid slung his bat onto the side of his bag as he unlocked the chain on his bike and met the guys by the clock-tower.

“What’s the plan, boss man?” Terry said.

“You guys wanna grab a cola?”

“Victor’s it is.” Josh jumped onto the back of Terry’s bike, and they cycled across town to Victor’s Diner, the local hangout spot for all delinquents and teens alike. They chained their bikes outside and stepped inside, grabbing their usual seat by the jukebox at the back.

“What’s it today, guys?” Victor called through the window behind the counter, his thick eastern European accent slurring the words.

“Just three cokes,” called Terry, looking at Josh. “You’re buying.”

“I got the last ones!”

“No, you didn’t.” Sid sat on one side, Josh and Terry sat on the far side.

“I did.” Josh frowned. “Just because my mom gives me money doesn’t mean I need to buy the drinks every time.”

Terry clapped Josh’s shoulder. “That’s why we love her. That and her massive rack.”

“Fuck yourself,” said Josh, forking out a few bucks as the waitress, Tracy, brought them their drinks.

“Thanks for the tip,” she muttered, sliding the crumpled notes from the table and walking away.

“You guys hear about Walton?” said Terry, watching Tracy sidle away.

“Walton Hews?” asked Sid.

“Uh-huh.”

“No, what?”

“Jason Bukowski beat the shit out of him last night.”

“For what?” asked Terry.

“Word is he was with Jason’s girlfriend.”

“Amanda’s a slut anyway, everyone knows that.” Sid took a drink from the cola bottle. “Being a track star, you’d think he’d just run away.”

“Don’t let Jason hear you say that.”

“I think he knows Walton’s a track star.”

“I meant about calling his girlfriend a slut.”

The school knew Jason Bukowski and Walton Hews hated each other’s guts and had since freshman year. Jason was quarterback of the football team and his sweetheart, Amanda Stokes, was the team’s head cheerleader. Every school had that Barbie and Ken couple, and this was Colden’s Highschool’s version, one a steroid-toting meathead, and the other a well-known floozy who stuffed her bra. Walton Hews was the school’s track star and held the county’s record for one-hundred-meter dash.

Sid shrugged. “Well, she is.”

Just then the doorbell jingled, and who should walk in but Miss Stuff’s Her Bra.

Amanda Stokes was blond, blue-eyed and beautiful. The three teenagers watched as she leaned over the counter and grabbed some napkins, then sat up on the high stool.

“Go talk to her,” Terry nudged Josh, who was the self-proclaimed lady’s man of the trio.

“I like my face the way it is,” said Josh. “You go talk to her. Your shit-ass ugly anyway.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll go talk to her,” said Sid. Walking over, he cleared his throat and Amanda looked around.

Sid’s sister, Courtney, had been best-friends with Amanda in middle-school. But after Amanda stole kisses from Courtney’s then boyfriend, they hadn’t spoken since.

Amanda looked Sid up and down. “Can I help you?”

“Hi Amanda. I’m Sid, Sid Portley.”

A blank stare.

“Courtney’s little brother?”

“Oh, yeah.” Amanda looked back at the menu. “What do you want?”

“Uh… I… I just wanted to know if it’s true?”

She glanced sideways at him. “What?”

That you stuff your bra.

“That Jason and Walton fought?” he really asked.

“Wasn’t much of a fight. But they’re meeting today to settle everything.”

“What you mean?”

She sighed. “I mean they’re fighting in the quarry.”

“When?”

Amanda glanced at her watch. “In about ten minutes.”

“Aren’t you going?” asked Sid.

She looked at him and smiled, and there wasn’t anything nice about her smile. Except her pink tongue, that was kind of nice.

“I only want the winner, Sid. Let them figure out which one of them that is.”

“Right… Gotta go.”

Sid waved the two guys to follow him.

“What is it? What she say?” asked Terry.

“Shut up, we need to get to the quarry.”

“Why?” asked Josh.

“’Cos Jason and Walton are fighting, now!”

They jumped on their bikes and hauled ass.

*

The quarry was abandoned in the late seventies and had fallen into disrepair. It was rumoured to be haunted. A rumour that gained some merit after the Shirley twins disappeared one summer day when they went exploring. But then, the town of Colden was always prone to superstition. The surrounding terrain of the town was thick forest, and rumour had it—there was that word again—that in the olden days, when the town was first being settled, the townspeople believed that the trees were haunted.

But Sid put all that nonsense to the back of his mind as they tore down the dirt road and down the hill, over the rocks and along the gravel. There were more interesting things to think about, like who was going to kick seven shades of shit out of who?

“Ten bucks says Jason leaves Walton in a body bag!” Terry called back to them.

“That’s a fools bet,” said Josh. “I’ll bet five against it that Walton brains Jason and leaves him mentally brain-dead.”

“You’re on.”

Sid ignored them and pedalled faster, overtaking Terry and leading them up the ridge, through the old gateway which had been tore down decades before, and down towards the quarry. A gang of people were stood around the old gravel pit.

“Did we miss it?” Terry called.

One of the older boys looked around and shook his head. “You’re just in time.”

Sid pulled up to the edge of the gravel pit to see the two young men below. Jason was bare chested, a jaguar tattoo discernible from here on his upper right arm. Walton was wearing a white t-shirt, swinging his arms around.

“I mean, she wanted it,” Walton was saying. “It’s not my fault your girl likes me better.”

“You’d best shut your mouth, Hews, or else I might not leave you breathing.” Jason took a step towards him, and Walton backed up, edging around the gravel pit. Walton Hews had done boxing as a youth, Sid knew, and he danced around Jason, throwing jabs which Jason laughed at.

If Walton floated like a butterfly, then Jason Bukowski was a fucking sledgehammer crushing down on the poor creature.

Jason growled as he pounced, trying to pull Walton into a bear hug, but only managing in wrapping one arm around his neck as Walton ducked. He brought Walton into a chokehold and began punching him with his free hand. Walton deflected the punches as best he could, but the third punch burst open his nose and blood splattered onto the dark gravel. Walton brought up his elbow and drove it into Jason’s gut, making the big guy lose his hold and stumble back.

Walton wiped away the blood and smiled, his teeth a bit smeared red. “You hit like a fucking sissy.”

“I’ll show you,” said Jason, taking a step closer and raising his fist. Walton lurched forwards, his fist a blur as he smashed it into Jason’s left eye, catching him off-guard. The big guy stumbled back a step, and Walton drove his right fist into Jason’s nose, knocking back his head. Jason was backed up against the edge of the pit now as Walton tore into him with a combo, trying desperately to block the punches. Jason lashed out with a kick, making some room, and he growled as he turned and grabbed at a rock embedded into the wall. He pulled at it, making the tendons on his neck stand out, and before Walton could stop him, he had the rock out and swinging in the air. Jason ran at Walton, making him run from one side of the pit to the other as he kept hurling the rock at Walton’s head.

“That’s not fair!” one of Walton’s friends shouted, and took something from his pocket, tossing it down into the gravel pit.

Sid saw it was a Swiss Army Knife.

Walton dived under another swing of the rock, and Jason was tiring, as he snatched up the knife and flicked it open. Jason backed away and raised his rock, breathing heavy.

“Want to call it a draw?” asked Jason.

“Not a fucking chance,” growled Walton, taking a step closer and swishing the knife through the air.

Jason threw down the rock and held up his hands. “OK, you win. You can fucking have her.”

Walton took a step closer to Jason, putting the knife up against his cheek and slicing across it. “That’s so you won’t try anything again.”

A noise made Sid turn, and he saw a police cruiser driving in through the quarry gateway.

“Cops!” called one of the boys, and they scattered. The last Sid saw was Jason and Walton running for the pit’s edge, then he was turning away and cycling for one of the exits.

*

They met back up at Victor’s Diner, and Sid’s legs were burning from the frantic pedalling. Amanda Stokes was still sat at the counter, and she glanced at the three boys as they entered.

“Well?” she asked Sid. “Who won?”

“Walton pulled a knife,” said Sid. “Wasn’t really a fair fight, as Jason was trying to cave in his head with a rock.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” said Amanda.

“You know,” said Josh, leaning against the counter. “For a girl as pretty as you, you sure can be a bitch.”

Amanda frowned at him. “I’ll make sure to remember it.”

The doorbell jangled and who should appear at the diner, but Jason Bukowski, his cheek still sporting a smear of blood.

“Pass me some tissues, babe,” he said to Amanda.

She ignored him. “So, who won?” she asked the four of them. The three boys remained silent, and Jason looked at each of them as if daring them to speak. “I take it that means Walton.”

“He pulled a knife!” snarled Jason.

Amanda smiled as she stood. “I guess that means you shouldn’t bring a rock to a knife fight then, doesn’t it?” She kissed her fingers and placed it on Jason’s bloody cheek as she passed. “Bye.”

The doorbell jingled once more as she left.

“Damn bitch,” said Jason, watching her cross the street outside.

Victor leaned out through the window and pointed at Jason. “Hey, your girlfriend, she no pay. You pay!”

Jason could only shake his head.