The Curse of the Mistwraith

The Wars of Light and Shadow

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Curse of the Mistwraith

Janny Wurts

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Prologue

I. CAPTIVE

II. SENTENCE

III. EXILE

IV. MISTWRAITH’S BANE

V. RIDE FROM WEST END

VI. ERDANE

VII. PASS OF ORLAN

VIII. CLANS OF CAMRIS

IX. ALTHAIN TOWER

X. DAON RAMON BARRENS

XI. DESH-THIERE

XII. CONQUEST

XIII. ETARRA

XIV. CORONATION DAY

XV. STRAKEWOOD

XVI. AUGURY

XVII. MARCH UPON STRAKEWOOD FOREST

XVIII. CULMINATION

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By Janny Wurts

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

The Wars of Light and Shadow were fought during the third age of Athera, the most troubled and strife-filled era recorded in all of history. At that time Arithon, called Master of Shadow, battled the Lord of Light through five centuries of bloody and bitter conflict. If the canons of the religion founded during that period are reliable, the Lord of Light was divinity incarnate, and the Master of Shadow a servant of evil, spinner of dark powers. Temple archives attest with grandiloquent force to be the sole arbiters of truth.

Yet contrary evidence supports a claim that the Master was unjustly aligned with evil. Fragments of manuscript survive which expose the entire religion of Light as fraud, and award Arithon the attributes of saint and mystic instead.

Because the factual account lay hopelessly entangled between legend and theology, sages in the seventh age meditated upon the ancient past, and recalled through visions the events as they happened. Contrary to all expectation, the conflict did not begin on the council stair of Etarra, nor even on the soil of Athera itself; instead the visions started upon the wide oceans of the splinter world, Dascen Elur.

This is the chronicle the sages recovered. Let each who reads determine the good and the evil for himself.

I. CAPTIVE

All for the waste of Karthan’s lands the Leopard sailed the main. s’Ilessid King then cursed s’Ffalenn, who robbed him, gold and grain.

stanza from a ballad of Dascen Elur

The longboat cleaved waters stained blood-red by sunset, far beyond sight of any shore. A league distant from her parent ship, at the limit of her designated patrol, she rose on the crest of a swell. The bosun in command shouted hoarsely from the stern. ‘Hold stroke!’

Beaten with exhaustion and the aftermath of battle, his crewmen responded. Four sets of oars lifted, dripping above waters fouled by oil and the steaming timbers of burned warships.

‘Survivors to starboard.’ The bosun pointed toward two figures who clung to a snarl of drifting spars. ‘Quick, take a bearing.’

A man shipped his looms to grab a hand compass. As the longboat dipped into the following trough, the remaining sailors bent to resume stroke. Oar shafts bit raggedly into the sea as they swung the heavy bow against the wind.