Sam Bowring - Prophecy's Ruin

Gudgeon stared hard at the man. He’d seen a portrait of Corlas Corinas in the Halls, as had every soldier who’d eaten in the barracks mess there. It could be this man bore a passing resemblance, but Gudgeon couldn’t see much beneath the hair and grime. Certainly it was impossible to reconcile the image of the great warrior Corlas with this animal. Probably the bastard was mad.

‘It matters not if you doubt me,’ said Corlas. ‘What do you search my clearing for? I have nothing left to take.’

A thought struck Gudgeon. If this wild man lived here, perhaps he’d found the pendant. Maybe Gudgeon could buy his way free.

‘A pendant!’ he said. ‘A precious stone hanging on a black chain. It will fetch a great reward for the man who finds it. A great reward! Have you seen such a thing?’

Corlas stared off into the distance. ‘It was my wife’s,’ he said eventually. ‘Then my son’s. Now, like them, it is lost.’ He twisted the axe in his grip. ‘Why do you search for it?’

‘They didn’t tell us,’ said Gudgeon, hoping the man was lying about the pendant’s loss. ‘But I do know that if you can find it, the Throne will pay dearly to possess it.’

‘I told you, soldier,’ Corlas said, ‘it is gone. Where is my son?’

‘What?’

Corlas backhanded Gudgeon across the face. He yelped, and Corlas seized his throat, constricting the next cry so it came out as a squeak.

‘Do not call out. I’ll ask again. My son. He was here with me in this wood. A mage arrived with a soldier. They wanted my boy. Then shadows came creeping. As all fought over him, I was knocked unconscious.’ He drew close. ‘Who has the boy with blue hair?’

He released Gudgeon’s throat and the soldier sucked in air, glaring with angry eyes. When he could wheeze out words again, he said, ‘ You claim to be father of the false child of power?’

‘Who took him?’ Corlas said, raising his hand again.

‘We did!’ said Gudgeon. ‘The light took him, though I’ve heard only rumours. I didn’t even know this wood was where they found him.’

‘Where did they take him?’

Gudgeon could feel a tooth coming loose in his gums and spat out blood. His mind raced – how could he appease this man? ‘Mages were spotted carrying him through Redbrook, but …he died.’

‘ What? ’

Gudgeon worried he’d made a terrible mistake, but he couldn’t turn back now. ‘A chest fever, they said. He died in his sleep.’

Corlas’s knuckles went white on the axe and Gudgeon whimpered. Instead of hitting him, Corlas laughed humourlessly.

‘Dead, is he? We’ll just have to see about that. Tell me why you called him the false child of power. ’

‘Well,’ Gudgeon said, ‘he can’t be the child of power if he’s dead. I also heard that his hair was dyed.’

‘Dyed?’ said Corlas. ‘I see.’

He tapped Gudgeon on the forehead with his axe and the man fell unconscious once again. ‘I am sorry, blade,’ he rumbled.

Corlas moved to the smoking deer and tore a leg from it, eating without tasting as a fire built in his belly. He knew his son’s hair had not been dyed, so they had to be hiding him because they believed him to be the child of power. There was only one place they would take him. Corlas finally had what he needed – a direction.

He left the fire and the unconscious soldier. The man would suffer no permanent damage, and would soon be able to call out to his comrades. Although Corlas’s thoughts ran red whenever they turned to the Halls, he could not blame an individual blade. The soldier was simply following orders, as he’d done himself for many years.

One day, Mirrow, he promised. One day I will return. But until I have our son again, there is only one thing I choose to take with me.

He twisted the axe in his grip.

Vyasinth watched from on high, displeased by the soldiers scurrying about her domain. What they searched for was gone, carried away in a charred grip, and still they disturbed the earth.

At least the man whom Corlas had caught could serve some use. Foolishly, Corlas had left him alive, but that was something she could fix. Underneath Gudgeon, the earth caved in and slowly he sank into it. Leaves settled over his disappearance and tiny shoots began to grow.

Vyasinth wondered if Corlas could ever prove a worthy champion. The Sprite blood in him was old and buried, and he’d never even believed that he had it. She hadn’t intended him to be anything more than a mate for Mirrow. Now he was her only hope.

Return with the child, Corlas, she bade him, and you will not find Whisperwood so lightly defended against our old opponents. This I swear.

A bright speck in the corner of his awareness rose and fell on high thermals and finally Fahren accepted that he couldn’t concentrate on his book. The bird’s pleasure at being aloft washed through him and for a moment he forgot his anxiety over the news it carried. Affinity with animals had always been one of Fahren’s strengths. In his younger years, when he’d served at Holdwith, he’d tracked animals of Fenvarrow to make friends with them and use them as spies. The only ones he’d failed to charm were the shadowmanders, so surprisingly hateful in their dark little hearts.

Currently most of his animals were messengers, and he’d sent out many birds in the past few days. South they had flown, to mages and cerepans and anyone who owed Fahren a favour, but all were distracted by the threat of invasion. Day after day passed without word of Tyrellan.

Fahren also kept close watch on the baby being brought to the Halls. Stupidly, his mages hadn’t thought to hide the boy as they’d passed through a village on the journey home. Fahren had ordered they return to the village and falsify the child’s death, giving out that he’d been a fake and that his hair had been dyed. It was common sense to carry something so important in secret, and his underlings were going to rue their thoughtlessness – if he didn’t simply wipe their memories.

Getting up from his table, he walked to the edge of his study where, between shelves, a missing section of the wall allowed him to stare out from the top of the Open Tower. The sundart dived towards him, its golden wings spread full span. A beautiful thing it was, always Fahren’s first choice when delivering messages to pretty ladies. It landed on his outstretched hand, chirping as he stroked its wings. He unclasped the note attached to its leg and unrolled the tiny coil of paper. Breathing out slowly, he put down the note.

The Stone had not been found.

The forest’s edge came abruptly, a line of tall trunks like a grey fence. They overlooked the Grass Ocean, a region of grassland that stretched all the way to the Great Rass and Dragon’s Sorrow rivers. The day was hot, the dry air smothering the land like a blanket, the grass bowing many heads under a lazy sun. Somewhere a solitary bird chirped half-heartedly, as though making up its mind whether or not to sing.

Suddenly it stopped.

From inside the forest came the sound of footsteps, crunching towards the tree line.

Corlas blinked as he stepped into the sun, shielding his eyes as they adjusted. How many years since he’d left the forest? His life beforehand seemed like a dream.

As he began to stride purposefully north, a beady gaze followed him from shady branches. The creature focused on Corlas’s thoughts, so intent that they pulsed clearly in the psychic landscape. The man went to find his son, a boy with blue hair, who’d been taken away to the Open Halls.