I couldn’t tell how many there were, they moved too fast and too fluidly through the sea, occasionally breaking the surface to spout a cloud of steam before diving below. It was only when they came closer that I fully realised their size, over twenty feet from nose to tail. I had seen dolphins before in the southern seas, silvery playful creatures that could be taught simple tricks. These were different, their size and the dark flickering shadows they traced through the water seemed ominous to me, threatening shades of nature’s indifferent cruelty. My shipmates clearly felt differently, yelling greetings from the rigging as if hailing old friends. Even the captain’s habitual scowl seemed to have softened somewhat.
One of the orcas broke the surface in a spectacular display of foam, twisting in mid-air before crashing into the sea with a boom that shook the ship. The Meldeneans roared their appreciation. Oh Seliesen, I thought. The poem you would have written to honour such a sight.
“ They think of them as sacred.” I turned to find the Hope Killer had joined me at the rail. “They say when a Meldenean dies at sea the orcas will carry his spirit to the endless ocean beyond the edge of the world.”
“ Superstition,” I sniffed.
“ Your people have their gods do they not?”
“ My people do, I do not. Gods are a myth, a comforting story for children.”
“ Such words would make you welcome in my home land.”
“ We are not in your homeland, Northman. Nor would I ever wish to be.”
Another orca rose from the sea, rising fully ten feet into the air before plunging back down. “It’s strange,” Al Sorna mused. “When our ships came across this sea the orcas ignored them and made only for the Meldeneans. Perhaps they share the same belief.”
“ Perhaps,” I said. “Or perhaps they appreciate a free meal.” I nodded at the prow where the captain was throwing salmon into the sea, the orcas swooping on them faster than I could follow.
“ Why are you here, Lord Verniers?” Al Sorna asked. “Why did the Emperor send you? You’re no gaoler.”
“ The Emperor graciously consented to my request to witness your upcoming duel. And to accompany the Lady Emeren home of course.”
“ You came to see me die.”
“ I came to write an account of this event for the Imperial Archive. I am the Imperial Chronicler after all.”
“ So they told me. Gerish, my gaoler, was a great admirer of your history of the war with my people, considered it the finest work in Alpiran literature. He knew a lot for a man who spends his life in a dungeon. He would sit outside my cell for hours reading out page after page, especially the battles, he liked those.”
“ Accurate research is the key to the historian’s art.”
“ Then it’s a pity you got it so wrong.”
Once again I found myself wishing for a warrior’s strength. “Wrong?”
“ Very.”
“ I see. Perhaps if you work your savage’s brain you could tell me which sections were so very wrong.”
“ Oh, you got the small things right, mostly. Except you said my command was the Legion of the Wolf. In fact it was the Thirty-Fifth Regiment of Foot, known amongst the Realm Guard as the Wolfrunners.”
“ I’ll be sure to rush out a revised edition on my return to the capital,” I said dryly.
He closed his eyes, remembering. “‘King Janus’ invasion of the northern coast was but the first step in pursuance of his greater ambition, the annexation of the entire Empire.’”
It was a verbatim recitation. I was impressed by his memory, but was dammed if I’d say so. “A simple statement of fact. You came here to steal the empire. Janus was a madman to think such a scheme could succeed.”
Al Sorna shook his head. “We came for the northern coastal ports. Janus wanted the trade routes through the Erinean. And he was no madman. He was old and desperate, but not mad.”
I was surprised at the sympathy evident in his voice; Janus was the great betrayer after all, it was part of the Hope Killer’s legend. “And how do you know the man’s mind so well?”
“ He told me.”
“ Told you?” I laughed. “I wrote a thousand letters of enquiry to every ambassador and Realm official I could think of. The few who bothered to reply all agreed on one thing: Janus never confided his plans to anyone, not even his family.”
“ And yet you claim he wanted to conquer your whole empire.”
“ A reasonable deduction based on the available evidence.”
“ Reasonable, maybe, but wrong. Janus had a king’s heart, hard and cold when he needed it to be. But he wasn’t greedy and he was no dreamer. He knew the Realm could never muster the men and treasure needed to conquer your empire. We came for the ports. He said it was the only way we could secure our future.”
“ Why would he confide such intelligence to you?”
“ We had… an arrangement. He told me many things he would tell no other. Some of his commands required an explanation before I would obey them. But sometimes I think he just needed to talk to someone. Even kings get lonely.”
I felt a curious sense of seduction; the Northman knew I hungered for the information he could give me. My respect for him grew, as did my dislike. He was using me, he wanted me to write the story he had to tell. Quite why I had no idea. I knew it was something to do with Janus and the duel he would fight in the islands. Perhaps he needed to unburden himself before his end, leave a legacy of truth so he would be known to history as more than just the Hope Killer. A final attempt to redeem both his spirit and that of his dead king.
I let the silence string out, watching the orcas until they had eaten their fill of free fish and departed to the east. Finally, as the sun began to dip towards the horizon and the shadows grew long, I said, “So, tell me.”
Chapter 1
The mist sat thick on the ground the morning Vaelin’s father took him to the house of the Sixth Order. He rode in front, his hands grasping the saddle’s pommel, enjoying the treat. His father rarely took him riding.
“ Where do we go, my lord?” he had asked as his father led him to the stable.
The tall man said nothing but there was the briefest pause before he hoisted the saddle onto one of his chargers. Accustomed to his father’s failure to respond to most questions, Vaelin thought nothing of it.
They rode away from the house, the charger’s iron shoes clattering on the cobbles. After a while they passed through the eastern gate where the bodies hung in cages from the gibbet and stained the air with the sick stench of decay. He had learned not to ask what they had done to earn such punishment, it was one of the few questions his father had always been willing to answer and the stories he told would leave Vaelin sweating and tearful in the night, whimpering at every noise beyond the window, wondering if the thieves or rebels or Dark afflicted Deniers were coming for him.
The cobbles soon gave way to the turf beyond the walls, his father spurring the charger to a canter then a gallop, Vaelin laughing with excitement. He felt a momentary shame at his enjoyment. His mother had passed just two months previously and his father’s sorrow was a black cloud that sat over the whole household, making servants fearful and callers rare. But Vaelin was but ten years old and had a child’s view of death: he missed his mother but her passing was a mystery, the ultimate secret of the adult world and although he cried he didn’t know why, and he still stole pastries from the cook and played with his wooden swords in the yard.
They galloped for several minutes before his father reined in, although to Vaelin it was all too brief, he wanted to gallop forever. They had stopped before a large iron gate. The railings were tall, taller than three men set end to end, each topped with a wicked spike. At the apex of the gate’s arch stood a figure made of iron, a warrior, sword held in front of his chest, pointing downwards, the face a withered skull. The walls on either side were almost as tall as the gate. To the left a brass bell hung from a wooden cross beam.
Vaelin’s father dismounted then lifted him from the saddle.
“ What is this place, my lord?” he asked. His voice felt as loud as a shout although he spoke in a whisper. The silence and the mist made him uneasy, he didn’t like the gate and the figure which sat atop it. He knew with a child’s certainty that the blank eye sockets were a lie, a trick. It was watching them, waiting.
