Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (23 page)

“A desp’rate move,” Jan agreed. “As he retreated north before the might of the emperor’s army, his troops fell upon the farmlands. They took all the crops they could carry, the people too, and set everything aflame behind them. He hoped he could starve the invaders, give them nothing but cold ashes to fill their bellies, before crushing them at the Pass and sending them back to Ehrenburg with their tails between their legs.”

“It almost worked,” said Nikolaj bitterly.

Jan snorted. “Rot,” he replied, heaving a gob of phlegm into the fire to emphasise the point. “He was doomed from the start. The Legion was too strong, and they hadn’t been forced to march through ashes far enough, not nearly. He’d wanted them starving, but by the time they got to the Pass all he’d done was rile them up. Even so, he’d chosen his ground well. The Granite Pass is narrow, the ground between loose and liable to trip a man if he’s not careful. At first, the battle went Caderyn’s way. The Legion could only approach slowly in narrow columns, where the northern infantrymen kept them bottled up easily. All while their archers, up on the high ground, fired down on those behind. For a while it was like driving piggies to the slaughter.” He shook his head. “There were just too many of the swine.”

“What would you know of it, pup?” Nikolaj shot back, hotly. “You weren’t even born. I was there, standing shoulder to shoulder with my comrades. Caderyn’s plan was sound. He wasn’t to know what the Bloody Prince was plotting.”

“Prince Adelmar?” Caspian asked.

“I was just getting to that, you old codger,” Jan grumbled. He turned back to Caspian. “Just when Caderyn thought the battle won, Adelmar hit them from the rear. When he’d seen what the northmen were doing in the farmlands, he’d taken his vanguard through the foothills and across the Dragon’s Back. How he did it so quick I’ll never know. A born soldier, that one. Still in his teens then, and already won more battles than I’ve got teeth.”

“I heard he was born with a sword in his hand,” chipped in Dorric. “Cut his own way out of his mother’ womb.”

“A lie, but not too far from the truth,” Jan replied. “She died giving him birth, but there was nothing unnat’ral about it. He came into the world covered in blood, and has remained so ever since. The north was lost the moment he arrived on the battlefield, its last great army caught between the hammer and the anvil. Poor bastards didn’t see it coming.”

Nikolaj prodded the flickering fire with a stick, his mood sombre. “It was a massacre,” he said quietly. “Caderyn had stationed all his fighting men at the entrance to the Pass, to hold back the Legion. He left all the others behind us. To protect them.” he grimaced. “The farmers, the women and children, the old and the sick. When I saw Adelmar’s vanguard falling on them from the hills, that blood-red armour of his leading the charge, I pissed myself.”

Jan snickered, and the first mate shot him an angry glare. “You’d have done the same, boy, and worse. We saw our deaths, then, as they fell on us. The farmers and their families were first, the Bloody Prince and his men hacking at everything that moved. It happened so fast. The screams...” he closed his eyes momentarily, before continuing. “The Legion felt our fear then, and fought like demons at the Pass. We stood firm at first, but they overwhelmed us. A few men fled, then others joined them. We were broken. King Caderyn tried to rally us, but it was chaos.”

“How did you survive?” asked Caspian.

Nikolaj didn’t meet his eye. “Many ran, though we were surrounded. When it was clear that we’d lost, we threw down our swords.” He stared into the flames. “Most people think that when two armies meet, there’s nothing left of the losers but carrion. But it ain’t like that. It’s not about killing every last foe, it’s about who breaks first. We lost a thousand soldiers, or thereabouts, one in five men. But the families...” the first mate’s voice began to crack. “Thousands killed, in the blink of an eye. Defenceless. It was seeing them fall that broke us.”

“What happened after that?”

Jan spat into the fire once more, where it evaporated with a hiss. “Caderyn’s army was decimated, is what happened, and the last northern king’s head ended up on a pike outside the walls of that bloody great fortress the emperor built to mark his victory.”

“War’s End,” said Caspian. Jan nodded, but there was a snort of derision from the first mate.

“
Pfeh
,” Nikolaj growled. “Found a way to boast while spitting in the eye of the north and making sure we was all kept bottled up. He was always a sly one, was Old Bones.”

Caspian’s brow wrinkled. “Old Bones? I’ve not heard that before. Where’s it from?”

The grizzled first mate’s eyes glittered in the firelight as he looked up and held Caspian’s gaze. “What were they teaching you on that godsforsaken rock?” he asked, with a hint of bemusement. “Have you never heard the Lay of the Quiet Lord?”

“No,” Caspian replied. “But I’d like to.”

“Aye, well, it’s a cheerful ditty,” said Nikolaj, slightly mollified. “Just the sort of rhyme to brighten a night such as this.” Then, in low tones, he began to recite a few verses, the telling of which made Caspian shiver.

Old bones upon a throne of gold,

Whispering halls long since grown cold.

At rest, yet withered, creaking hands

Grasp tight a rusted iron band.

From deathly slumber ne’er to wake,

The haunted lord stirs not nor breaks

The silence of his vaulted tomb,

Nor senses the impending doom.

In tower high is done the deed,

Betrayal born of jealous need.

Two hearts arise from silver pool,

One fair and just, its brother cruel.

The blade strikes true, the circlet falls,

A new lord rules the shadowed halls.

The mourning son in fear takes flight,

And seeks the dawn to end the night.

“And that’s about the emperor?” Caspian asked, when the first mate fell silent.

“Aye, and his sons,” Jan agreed. “The Bloody Prince and the sneaky one.”

“The young are quick to speak with conviction about subjects of which they know nothing,” Nikolaj retorted. “It was my own ma who first told it to me, and that was back in Fat Fredi’s day. Maximilien was still a young man himself then.”

Captain Brandt shifted his weight before the fire. “It’s true, it’s an old rhyme in these parts. Nevertheless, some parts ring true and the nickname has certainly stuck. It’s a braver man than me that repeats it to his face, though.”

“Then who is it about?” asked Caspian, his interest piqued.

The captain shrugged. “An old king, perhaps, one long-forgotten. It’s not too surprising if parts of it seem to hold relevance today. There’s nothing new under the sun, or so they say.”

“Does you want to hear about The Lady, or not?” Jan demanded suddenly, clearly nettled by the interruption in his tale. He shot a meaningful glare at the first-mate, who for his part ignored his young ship-mate and continued to stare into the crackling flames, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Yes, of course,” said Caspian. “But what does it have to do with the emperor’s bastion?”

“I was getting to that,” Jan replied irritably. “The point
being
, that’s where we are now. If you climbed up those cliffs behind us, you’d see The Scorch all around. Most of the lowlands recovered over time, and the farmers eventually returned, but around the Pass the soil was too thin. Once everything had been burned off, there was nothing left to grow back. It’s just rock and ashes for dozens of miles in either direction. Nothing grows in the Scorch, and nothing lives... save those poor souls in War’s End.”

“Not a duty I envy, manning those walls,” Captain Brandt interjected, taking another swig from the bottle. “That land is cursed.”

“That’s what they say,” Jan went on, with a nasty grin. “And I can’t say as they’re wrong, either. Before Caderyn’s firebugs passed through, there were farms and villages here. The soil was thin and working it was hard, and those that lived here were the same – thin and hard. But they got by. A long time ago, before my grandfather was even born, The Lady was one of them.”

“Who was she?”

“Nobody knows for certain. Some will tell you that she and her husband were merchants in one of the towns that were here back then, others say that they were actually lord and lady of this, that or the other. But all agree they were nobility or close to it, and wealthy either way.”

“I heard he was a ship’s captain,” Dorric piped up.

“And do I live in a big manor house, then?” Captain Brandt said with a laugh. “More like he was a ship owner, and occasionally travelled on board one of his vessels.”

“Most like,” Jan agreed. “For that’s what happened on this one fateful day. He was sailing down this very stretch of coast, when a sudden squall become a colossal storm, the likes of which have never been seen before or since. Those that saw it thought the sky would tear itself apart. Waves as tall as these cliffs battered the ship, until there was nothing left but matchwood.”

Caspian shivered as he thought about their own narrow escape from the storm. “What happened then?”

“The Lady had seen the storm from her manor house, and knowing that her husband was at sea was already fretting. Then, when word reached her of the shipwreck, she ran out into the rain and raced for the cliffs as fast as the wind. These very cliffs above us now.”

At that moment, a fork of lightning crackled across the dark clouds and lit up the sky. Wind howled across the mouth of the cave. The flames dimmed momentarily, before flickering back to life.

“When she stood on the cliffs, looking down upon the sea, the wreckage of her husband’s ship was still being tossed between the waves. They say her screams of anguish were heard all the way back in the town, and mothers crossed themselves with the sign of the Divine when they heard it.”

“Poor woman,” said Caspian. “Did she see her husband?”

“There was no sign, but when she saw the wreckage she knew he was lost. Unable to contain her grief, she threw herself from the cliffs onto the rocks below. Unfortunately, she didn’t look down before jumping.”

Jan paused, as he leaned forward, and tested again whether the meat was cooked through. Caspian found himself holding his breath as he waited for the sailor to settle himself back against the rock. Eventually, he continued, “If she’d a had, she would have seen her husband washed up on the shore, right there, outside this cave.” He pointed into the darkness outside. “He was still alive, just barely. They say that in her last moment, their eyes met one last time.”

The bottle had made its way to him again, so Jan took a long draught. “To this day, if you walk among these cliffs and caves, you can hear The Lady calling out, looking for her lost love. That’s why this part of the coast is called The Whispers. If you’re quiet, you can probably hear her now.”

Jan fell silent, and Caspian strained his ears. Above the gentle crackling of the fire, right at the edge of his hearing, he thought he could make out another whisper.
Caaaassssss...

Without warning, Jan spat a stream of booze into the fire. The flames roared out in a sudden blast of heat. Caspian screamed and jumped to his feet. Jan howled with laughter, and even Captain Brandt smiled.

“You scrub!” Caspian shouted, his eyes bulging. “Is any of that even true?”

Captain Brandt stood, and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Settle down, lad. They do tell the legend of The Lady in these parts, and we
are
in The Whispers. As to whether it’s true, who can say?”

“But the voice... I know I heard something, back there,” he pointed towards the rear of the cave.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt that you did. Where do you think the name comes from?” He sat back down, as Dorric began to remove the roasted meat from the fire and pass it to the men seated around. “Personally, I think it’s because of the way the wind blows across all these holes. The rocks along this part of the coast are riddled with them, for some reason.” He glanced up at Caspian and raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed them.”

*      *      *

Hummmm

Caspian’s eyes flew open in the darkness. A few glowing embers were all that remained of the fire, just enough for him to make out the slumbering shapes all around him.

He’d been dreaming of home. Not the Crag, the place that he had thought of as home for most of his life, but the place he was born. He’d been back in the room above the weaver’s shop; a grown man this time, in place of the child he’d been the last time he’d seen it.

They had all been there, his brothers, sister, mother and father, only they looked the same as they had the day he’d left. His mother was sat in a wooden chair by the cold, lifeless fireplace, face hidden in her hands, weeping. The children were comforting her, their backs turned to him, but his father stood up to face him as Caspian approached. His face was dark with fury. “Why are you here?” he demanded.

“I-I just w-wanted to come back, d-da,” he stammered. “I just w-want to come h-home.”