Sam Bowring - Prophecy's Ruin

If indeed she discovered a child with blue hair, she would take it as quickly as possible to the Halls – no matter what the parents wished. Despite the potential presence of the enemy, it was this thought that worried Elessa the most. Surely, she thought, the parents will see that a child destined to break the balance between shadow and light will be hunted by the forces of evil . It must be protected from the Shadowdreamer. She almost lost her footing as she clambered across sprawling roots. And surely they must already love their child and not want anyone to take it away. As should be their right.

She silently prayed that the Shadowdreamer had no knowledge of this blue-haired woman. Reports said Battu had instigated a series of skirmishes along the border. Many conjectured they were the precursor to a full-scale invasion, stronger than when Battu had attacked the Shining Mines four years before. Mages and soldiers had been sent to the border in droves, which had made it difficult for Elessa to find support along the way. She hoped Battu was distracted with his warmongering and his gaze was far away from this place.

She knew it was a foolish hope. Battu’s net reached far and wide.

She wondered whom he had sent.

Slashing through the undergrowth, Rhobi’s mood grew fouler as steadily as time passed. He was drenched, but it wasn’t that that angered him – in his homeland, the cold and damp were as common as air. No, it was his commander who made him grind his claws inside his fists, raking furrows into the skin of his black palms. Hiding his hatred had become almost impossible.

Tyrellan was his commander’s name, but if Rhobi had his way it would never be written on any gravestone. The thought made him grin in the dark, and rain pooled atop his black lips. Maybe he could control his hate after all; he just had to remember that Tyrellan was as good as dead.

The rain slated at all angles through the forest canopy. A few paces ahead Tyrellan pulled back a large fern, flinging droplets on himself but making little difference to his already wet stare. He remained silent as he stared off through the trees, his orb eyes as black and still as deep water.

Rhobi struggled to hold his tongue, but his patience evaporated faster than a teardrop on a fire. ‘Anything there?’ he asked, barely managing to keep terseness from his voice.

Tyrellan ignored him completely. Rhobi scowled, his claws curling around the pommel of the sword at his side. He longed to unsheathe it, to ram it into Tyrellan’s back and deliver a blow that would leave him enough time to realise from whom it came. That was important – Rhobi didn’t want Tyrellan’s soul floating away before he had a chance to gloat.

Rhobi was from a noble family, one of the highest amongst the Black Goblins. Despite this, Tyrellan extended him a lack of regard he’d never experienced before. You imagine yourself protected by a hierarchy of titles, Tyrellan, he thought. You underestimate the hierarchy of blood.

Still, Rhobi knew he had to pick his moment wisely. He’d wait until they got the child safely away from the wood and then, on the journey home, Tyrellan would die. All the glory for the mission’s success would go to Rhobi. Fazel wouldn’t care. Fazel didn’t care about anything and had no need for glory.

‘What do you see, Tyrellan?’ said Fazel now.

Rhobi glanced at the mage curiously. Only a few had ever seen Fazel’s face, and Rhobi knew that if they ran into opposition tonight, he would be one of them. Rain rolled over the brown cloak that enveloped the mage, his hooded gaze turned downwards, as ever.

Tyrellan turned his head slightly at Fazel’s question . ‘There’s a light,’ he said. ‘Not far.’

You never ignore Fazel , thought Rhobi. And he’s nothing but bones and rot. Soon enough, you will be too.

For a moment the wind picked up, whipping Rhobi’s stringy hair into an orgy of snakes, ripping apart falling raindrops and turning them to spray. The gust passed on, howling through the trees like a maddened spirit. Rhobi shivered.

Fazel sighed.

Battu travelled back to Skygrip quickly, speeding up the tower to the sceptre peak, to the long window that ran the length of the throne-room wall. The throne room itself was long and rectangular, the roof but ten paces high. At one end was a dais on which stood Refectu, throne of the Shadowdreamers. Beside the throne was an arch veiled by a curtain of shadow, the entrance to the Shadowdreamer’s private study. Opposite the dais was the throne-room entrance, a simple doorway leading to a winding corridor. The rest of the room was largely featureless. The walls were smooth though not flat, as ripples and imperfections showed in the surface of the rock. Cut into the walls were alcoves in which stood goblin guards, their faces shadowed beneath heavy helms, still as statues.

Battu’s body remained where he’d left it, gazing out the window over Fenvarrow, and for a moment he stared himself in the face. Then he drained into himself, like water filling a bottle, until he was contained in his own flesh. It always seemed a little tight after travelling as a flowing shadow.

He was a large man, broad of chest, with a head that seemed too big for his body. Silken black hair hung from a flat skull, down past his ears and longer at the back. His broad nose sat above thick pale lips, and his eyes were tiny creased pits. A dark cloak billowed around him, its movement independent of any breeze. It seemed to meld with the shadows, the edges of the cloth indistinct and shifting. He blinked his earthly eyes, feeling again the cold breeze that came through the window, leaving the ledge shiny with a coat of condensation.

Battu hadn’t returned for the use of his own eyes, however. It was Fazel’s gaze he sought, the one undead created by Assidax who remained under Shadowdreamer control.

Assidax, a powerful necromancer, had cut further into Kainordas than any before her. She had been able to animate undead legions from bloody battlefields even as the fighting continued. Every death fed her army, tipping the balance inexorably towards a shadow victory. Battu had seen glimpses of those battles in the shadowdream – Kainordas soldiers frozen in terror as their once-comrades rose from the earth as new opponents. As land had fallen under Assidax’s control, the Cloud had grown to cover it. She had aimed to cover all Kainordas, but had made it only as far as Kahlay. In a desperate push the Kainordans had beat her back, and at the end of her reign, Fenvarrow was no larger than at the beginning. Remnants of her necromancy still remained, undead creatures over whom control had been lost.

When Battu had received his orders from the gods, he had put together special strike squads to move around Fenvarrow destroying undead wherever they found them. It seemed the gods preferred to add these souls to the Great Well than to leave them wandering about trapped in bones. The only ones Battu had left untouched were those pathetic souls on the border, for they made the Kainordans fear to cross.

Fazel, the mage, also remained, for he was unique amongst the creatures Assidax had created. She’d tied his soul to the throne Refectu, bound it with twines of shadow, enslaving him to whomever sat there. It was well that, in this at least, Assidax had shown foresight. Fazel made for a most powerful minion.

Now, Fazel had a bug-eye implanted in his skull, a magical parasite through which Battu could see what Fazel saw. Battu regularly put them into his servants, or sent them flitting randomly into Kainordas in the hope that they would find an unknowing and useful host. The bug-eyes were bred in vats deep in Skygrip, and Battu was never satisfied with how many he created. He sought always to widen his network of spies, willing or otherwise.