Connal has survived the ordeal against Orthen’s champions and reclaimed the Rigsról, the banner of his people. But Orthen is more than he seems, and is about to reveal his divinely ordained mission.
New to the series? Looking for a table of contents and map? Click the button below:
CONNAL RIPPED INTO his meal like a wolf its kill. The people of Gallodel dined well, he had to admit. This was better by far than any feast held under the arched timbers of Rigtalla. He wondered between hearty bites of greasy pheasant and thick beef stew whether it was this luxuriant fare that led to their softness. For in the same glorious hall in which Connal had bested nine of Orthen’s strongest knights, they now sat to dinner, the floors scrubbed clean of sweat and blood, sword and shield giving way to silver fork and silken serviette.
He sat at Orthen’s right hand, a place of honor. To Connal’s own right sat the whole of the Ellani crew, save for a few whose task it was to guard the ship. For a while, neither king nor warrior shared a word, leaving Connal to sate his ravenous hunger with the seemingly inexhaustible platters of boar and venison, eel and pheasant. The king exchanged pleasantries with the lords on his left, occasionally casting a searching glance Connal’s way.
“How are your wounds?” Orthen asked at last.
Connal grunted. “They are fine.”
“Good, good. You did not accept my offer of a physician?”
“No,” he said. “I have no need.”
Connal had examined himself already when he had washed before dinner. Changing from battered mail to a fresh tunic, he had checked his body for wounds and saw only scrapes and bruises, hideous and purple like grapes trodden in the vineyard. The mail had done its work. And with Kierran’s warning ringing in his head, he would not trust himself to the king’s physicians with their knives and potions.
“And your knights?” Connal asked. “How do they fare?”
“They will survive. Though some with more pain than others.”
Connal laughed and took a hearty bite of the king’s white bread. He had never tasted anything like it—so soft and airy. He noticed most of the knights he had faced sat at table. Baldren was close to the king, just a few seats to his left, dining beside the other beaten and battered champions of Gallodel.
“You fought well,” Orthen added.
“I know,” Connal said. He took a long deep quaff of the blood-red wine.
The king smiled at his response. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
Connal shrugged. “The islands are a hard teacher, king. And when you’ve fought with creatures such as I have faced, then fools such as these knights pose little challenge.”
Orthen frowned. “These are not fools, Lord Connal. They are Gallodel’s finest, the flower of chivalry.”
“That may be so.” Connal flashed a smug grin. “But your ‘flowers’ were fools to face me.”
“If you had faced Sir Farras, you might sing a different tune. He is a fearsome swordsman, a knight of great honor.”
Connal stuffed the rest of the bread into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Swallowing loudly, he responded, “I would have cut your Farras to the ground, same as his fellows.” He took another drink of wine. “And I did not need your interference. I would have defeated all twelve. And any others that would face my blade.”
Orthen smiled. “So you would have.”
Connal felt a building irritation. He did not like this boy’s patronizing smile. Turning away, he indulged in a large bite of succulent pheasant.
“And what is next for you?” Orthen asked.
“Next?” Connal said, his mouth crammed with meat. “I return home.”
“And what awaits you when you return?”
“The bloody crown awaits me. With the Rigsról in hand, I will be hailed king of Cregeirann.”
Orthen’s look was puzzled. “You are not king already? I thought you were the Craedon’s son?”
“We do things differently in the Islands, lad. The Suid decides on the next king. A man does not receive the title merely by birth. It is his deeds that speak for him.”
“Yet you are certain of the crown? Do your deeds speak so well?”
“Yes.” Though in his heart Connal felt the cold bite of fear, remembering his mother’s warning.
Orthen nodded. Was he impressed? Skeptical? He was hard to read, this young royal. But why should Connal care what this beardless youth thought? He pushed this foolishness from his mind and drank more wine, enjoying the warm sensation spreading through his limbs. Wine was a rarity in Cregeirann, even for those of royal blood. He would have to remember to bring some home with him
Connal looked about the hall, surveying the revelers as he took in the minstrels’ soothing music. He turned to Orthen and studied him a moment. In truth, he was not really a boy, only a few years younger than Connal himself. Yet his shaven chin, the thinness of his body and his long, curled hair gave him a fragile look, like a man with but one foot in this earthly realm.
“And what of you?” Connal asked, shifting attention from himself. “What do you do now that you’ve squashed your brother and taken his throne?”
Orthen winced and looked away. Yet it was only a moment. The young king met his gaze once again, and his eyes were ablaze with zeal.
“There is much work to be done. Evil does not rest and nor can we. The War of Princes, as men call it, is over, but the war for the soul of Moralann, of all the world, is just beginning.”
“What war is this then? You going to conquer the world? Overthrow the Telian emperor?”
Orthen smiled. “Perhaps. Whatever it takes to end the Silence.”
“What silence?”
Orthen squinted at him incredulously. “The Divine Silence. Surely you know of it?”
“Honestly, lad, I have no bloody clue what you’re talking about.”
Orthen stroked his chin. Then he rose suddenly from his chair. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“I have something to show you.”
Connal watched as the king dismissed his guards’ protests with a smile and a wave of his hand. Then Connal downed the last of his wine and got up to follow. He saw Kierran shoot him a warning look but chose to ignore it.
He followed Orthen away from the circular hall and into an adjoining cloister. Soon, Connal found himself in a long corridor, opening on his left to a spacious green courtyard. It was quieter here, away from the din of the feast, and, compared to the hall, it seemed a small space. Yet for all that, it was vast, high arched, and wide as a ship. The floor was of polished marble, reflecting the light of the mounted torches like glassy pools. Along the stone wall to his right, there were statues: grim, lifelike men in liquid, flowing robes. Before one of these figures, Orthen halted.
“Do you know who this is?” he asked.
Connal squinted at the statue before him. It depicted an older man, perhaps in his sixties, clean-shaven, with narrow, disquieting eyes. He wore long billowing robes and carried in his right hand a staff, topped with a sphere from which rays of light seemed to emanate. And on his head there sat a pointed miter, like the ones adorning the saints in the stained glass windows of the hall.
Connal shook his head.
Orthen’s eyes went wide. Then he smiled. “Of course. I must remind myself you are not of our people. Every Eburnean youth with a smattering of education knows this image.”
Connal shrugged. “Was he some kind of priest?”
“That’s putting it rather mildly. This is Saint Yldegrance, Aonemb of Gallodel.”
Connal shifted his gaze from the king’s expectant face to the bishop’s statue, then back again to Orthen. “Should this name mean something to me?”
“Heavens, yes!” Orthen’s voice trembled with characteristic passion. He paused a moment, visibly struggling to master himself.
“And why’s that?”
“Well for one thing, he was the last to hear the Voice of God.”
Connal raised his brows in exaggerated astonishment.
“For over a hundred years,” the king began in a haughty, scholarly tone, “the Aonembs were a conduit for the Divine. Through them, God spoke, revealing his mysterious oracles, wisdom to guide the kings of the land. Arfast was the first with the gift; a blessed saint, he led King Athelbreg to the Faith. Then the power of the High Kings grew. They subdued Eburneum’s petty kings, bringing even Logren under their dominion. And so too did the influence of the High Priests grow.
“Until at last, in the wicked days of Marrok III, as Yldegrance burned incense on the God Stone, the Voice spoke to him, bestowing a word for the impious king. Yldegrance came before the throne of Marrok, rebuking him for his sins: how he cavorted with harlots and dabbled in the arcane mysteries of the Telian heresy. It is said the king grew hot with wrath and drew his sword. And there, before the drooling sycophants and drunken whores that thronged his court, he set upon the blessed saint, cutting his head from his shoulders.
“For his crime, the king paid dearly, and with him the whole of Eburneum. Within five years, he had perished, his body wasted by a dreadful pox. And as the flesh fell from his bones, so too the kingdom fell to ruin. For in the days of Daras I, his son, a would-be pleaser of all men, the barons rebelled and Logren fell away. The High Kings of Eburneum were high in name only, ruling over a shadow of their fathers’ kingdom.
“Yet this was not the greatest calamity to befall our people. For with the martyring of Yldegrance, King Marrok had brought an evil more far-reaching than his wine-clouded eyes could ever see. The office of Aonemb sat empty during those five years, as open debauchery was celebrated across the halls and castles of Eburneum. And Daras his son continued to tolerate the impious magic of his father while also seeking to please the Faithful by installing a new High Priest. This he did, choosing Celegan, a man of good character by all accounts. But what was done could not be undone, and Celegan found no answer to his prayers. No Voice communed with him. All prophecy had ceased. And so, cursed of Aonel, our vassals rising up against us, we descended into Silence.
“Under the shadow of a silent heaven, the people turned with greater frenzy to their sins. Soon, the dark arts of our godless ancestors proliferated. And new depravities emerged, inspired by the arcane scholars of ancient Telum.
“It was amid this hotbed of strife and iniquity that Branok, my father, rose to the throne. He brought to heel the rebellious lords of Eburneum, the stubborn giant-kin of Norick, even the wild heathens of Logren. Yet he did not reform the wicked ways of Marrok his predecessor. Instead, he sought to harness the powers of evil, using Adhlac’s new sorcery to crush his enemies, to create a new class of knights more powerful than any that had come before. Wyrmcrafters, they came to be called. Bloodquenchers. Sorcerers. Drunk on dragon’s blood, wielding charms of scales and powdered wyrmbone, they outstripped one another in feats of strength.
“But it was the sorcerers who held the greatest esteem. Of these, the most revered were Adhlac’s Athwyr, the first of the wyrmcrafters, able to summon fire and raise the dead. With their aid, Branok trampled his enemies underfoot, and soon all of Eburneum yielded to the High King once again. The wild men of Norick too paid us tribute, swearing oaths of fealty to Gallodel. And Logren, troubled Logren, with its ancient superstitions and savage beauty, even Logren he subdued through the power of the acolytes. King Branok raised up great fortresses to cow the native people while Adhlac erected monuments of his own, queer edifices for the furtherance of his occult study. There was peace now, for a time.
“But this new order was unsustainable. For evil’s appetite is ravenous, and those who have tasted its wine thirst for ever stronger drink. And so, the knights of Branok turned upon each other and upon their liege lord, as their desire for fame and power grew. In the tournaments that stood in place of warfare, bloodquenching knights unleashed the full force of their hellish powers. Gone were the days of chivalry, of honor in the lists. Many a nobleman fell in those contests, never to rise again, his body crushed beneath a demigod’s blows. And the Athwyr, those who professed the greatest mastery over the mysteries of the Drakau, turned maddest of all, their wills bound to a false god’s reckless hate.
“Adhlac himself came to recognize the trouble, the festering rot within Branok’s kingdom. He came to me one evening as I sat reading in the library. He told me what I had already come to fear: my father had lost all reason; the Drakau had too strong a hold upon him. Adhlac had witnessed it firsthand among his own acolytes—and in his own tortured soul. The power the Athwyr had harnessed was no passive thing. It bent them to its relentless will with a strength no one had guessed.
“‘You must be king,’ Adhlac told me. ‘If there is to be any hope for the people of these lands.’
“For my brother Daras is his father’s son—brave, noble, yet lusting after the same false and wicked power. That is why, you see, I had to take the throne. It wasn’t for ambition, as the lords of Eburneum presume. I would gladly have let Daras inherit the crown, have contented myself with a life of quiet contemplation. But that was not the burden I was chosen to bear. No, Aonel has a purpose for me, outside any monastery. I must break the power of evil in this land and cleanse it of all idolatry.”
♚ ♚ ♚
At last Orthen had finished his story. While the king talked, they had strolled along the cloister, passing a colonnade of Eburnean statues. They found themselves in the courtyard now darkened by dusk’s lengthening shadow. And Connal took it all in silently. Bits and pieces of this story were familiar, yet, to hear the whole tale laid before him was something different entirely. He wondered at the youthful king, so eloquent, so full of passionate intensity, so unlike the boy he had thought him. He turned his gaze again and found that Orthen’s eyes were upon him. Measuring. Probing.
“So there you have it,” the king said. “My burden. My purpose.”
“By Gaillag,” Connal cursed. Then after a pause, he added, “What do you mean you will ‘cleanse the land’?”
“God does not speak to us, because we have fallen away to serve the Bardor. Our offense is so great, the stench of our sin so pungent, that he will not draw near to us. We must cleanse the land of all heresy, every trace of wyrmcrafting and Dragon-worship. Only then can we break the Silence.”
“And how do you know this? I thought your priests couldn’t hear him?”
“They can’t.” Orthen was nearly giddy with excitement. “But I did.”
“You?”
“Once. More than a year ago now, while my father still reigned. I was riding in the woods alone, when a great force knocked me from my horse, and I lay there for some time, a full day before the squires found me. But in that time, he showed me something.”
“What?”
“I saw this island, all of it stretching before me like a map. And I saw a beast—a dragon. It was vast beyond measure, the tips of its wings stretching to the farthest reaches of Moralann. It had three heads: one reaching to the west, one to the north, and another to the south. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Behold your foe. A serpent of many names: Defiler, Seducer, Avarice, Pride. Arise, take up your sword and slay.’
“I rose and found myself standing amid a vast desert, an endless stretch of grey and barren rock. In my hand was a shining sword and before me the fiery beast. For eons it seemed I battled, defending against the sting of its fangs and the blaze of its breath.
“Then I heard the sound of trumpets, like the singing of heaven’s angels. And on my left and on my right, three men came riding upon steeds of radiant white. One was bedecked in a coat of burnished mail, brandishing a sword in both hands. Forth he went with boundless courage, cleaving one of the Serpent’s snapping heads.
“And another, wearing blood-red surcoat and gleaming helm, drove his horse like a man born to the saddle, a champion of tournaments. He whirled about the writhing devil, piercing his scales again and again until at last the second head was slain.
“And the third, he was a man of righteous fury, teeming with holy violence. He fought the dragon’s middle head, the greatest of the three. Deep in the monster’s throat he lodged his sword, then with his mace he beat the dragon, again and again, until the creature’s body turned to dust. And for a moment, he turned upon me, bearing a terrible aspect, the ferocity and evil of the beast itself. But it was only a moment, a fleeting instant. Soon he was man again.
“In the twinkling of an eye, I stood upon the heights of Gallodel, looking over the City of Kings. The heavens opened and I saw light stream over all the earth. And the Voice spoke again, clearer and louder now: ‘Hear my words again O renegade people. Cast off all iniquity, and I will draw near to you.’
“Then darkness fell and I awoke to find my squires at my side, rousing me from that glorious vision.”
Silence followed Orthen’s words. Faintly, Connal could hear the faraway strains of the minstrel’s lute, the muffled hint of merrymaking.
“Your dreams sound dramatic,” he finally said.
Orthen smiled. “Let me tell you something else, Connal. The first man of my vision, the one who severed the dragon’s western head: do you know who it was?”
Connal felt an eerie tingling in the back of his neck. He shook his head.
“What if I told you I see his face again? Here and now.”
Connal swallowed. He felt his thoughts clouding. “I’d say that’s quite a coincidence.”
Orthen smiled. “There are no coincidences. Only the will of Aonel.”
The king took a step towards him and murmured, “And now, Lord Connal, tell me: when you are king, have you given thought to your allies?”
Connal met the king’s gaze as he continued. “Moralann is changing. Since Branok’s death, Eburneum has fractured, as divided as it was before the unity of the High Kings. The old alliances, the old loyalties, are passed away. And not only in Eburneum. Logren, Norick, even your very own Ellthiar—all these are thrown into chaos, a wheel without a hub. I hold the throne through battle, yet the kingdom lies divided by the barons; untethered by fealty, they look only to grow their own power and wealth. They will wait to throw in their lot with whoever emerges as hegemon of the realm. But I have need of real allies, men of honor and of courage. Men like you, Connal.”
Connal snorted. But he felt a strange thrill run through his soul. “I will be no man’s thrall.”
“No,” Orthen said. “I would expect nothing less. An ally. That is what I put to you.”
“Why? My father sided with Daras against you.”
Orthen waved his objection aside. “That was of the past. And unfortunate. For you have more in common with me than my brother, I assure you. But through this all, God has seen fit to cross our paths. And I believe we will accomplish great things together.”
Again, a chill ran down Connal’s spine. “And what use has Cregeirann of such an alliance? It is the custom of the Iron Rock to tend to the islands and leave mainland squabbles to the mainlanders.”
“And yet you are here.” Orthen laughed. “Do you think mere chance has led you to Gallodel? Besides, I have made study of your people. When first Adhlac put the burden of kingship upon me, I knew I must learn as much as I could of the lands surrounding Eburneum. And I know that there is discord among the islands. Between man and Cuarr. Between Cregeirann and Bròn. You have a rival in the West Isles, yes? Ganwae?”
“Ganwae,” Connal spat. “He is a vicious cur. A heathen devil. My father did not stamp out his people when he had the chance. But I will make no such mistake. One day I will burn his halls to cinders and put his strong men to the sword. And mount his pagan head upon a spear.”
Orthen was unfazed by the violent outburst. “And if such is your goal, you have need of allies. Do you think this Ganwae is not, even now, himself engaged in diplomacy, in forging a web of fealty with the princes and barons of Moralann? Honor and courage you have in abundance, my lord, but honor and courage alone will not protect your people from harm. A man cannot stand alone in this world. He needs allies. The future of these lands will be built upon a web of loyal fellowship.”
Connal paused, weighing the young king’s words. “My people would little care for such alliance, I think. After all, the blood of Craedon is on your hands.”
“As much mine as Daras’s. He is the one who led your people on a doomed campaign. And is the blood price not yours to exact, Craedon’s son?”
“It is.”
“Then if you are satisfied with the ordeal of this afternoon, it is paid.”
Connal nodded, then frowned again. He did not like how quickly this Eburnean king moved, how expertly he breached his guard and rushed in. It made his head, already dazed with violence and with wine, reel like a drunkard’s.
“I will think on it,” he said at last. He felt his vision clouding, his feet swaying uneasily beneath him.
Orthen smiled. “That is all I ask of you.”
They stopped in the middle of the courtyard, standing before a fountain at whose center rose the statue of a great warrior. Long tresses and a curling beard fell over his hauberk, and he leaned his right hand upon a tall axe while his other rested an oval shield against the granite base.
“And who’s this then?” Connal asked. “Doesn’t look Eburnean to me.”
Orthen laughed, looking up into the marble warrior’s face. “This is Bordcina, king of the Eormen, father of Eburneum. Have you heard the tale of how he first threw off the Telian oppress—” Orthen spun round, his eyes wide. “My lord, are you well? You look ashen!”
“Aye,” Connal said, “I am well.” But as the words left his mouth, he stumbled to his knee. Pain throbbed all along his side, beside his liver. It radiated outward like the tributaries of a river, flooding his whole body in agony. He opened his mouth to speak again and found himself falling into a black and endless abyss.
NOTE: Paid subscribers get access to each chapter one week early. This next chapter will be available to free subscribers in one week.
This novel is being serialized freely here on Substack. If you’d like to support my work, paid subscribers get early access to chapters, occasional bonus content, and a free copy of the finished ebook. Your support helps make long-form fiction like this possible.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.