The Heir To The North Read online

  The Heir to the North

  Steven Poore

  www.kristell-ink.com

  Copyright © 2015 Steven Poore

  Steven Poore asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  EPUB ISBN 978-1-909845-91-6

  Cover art by Jorge Luis Torres

  Cover design by Ken Dawson

  Typesetting by Book Polishers

  Kristell Ink

  An Imprint of Grimbold Books

  4 Woodhall Drive

  Banbury

  Oxon

  OX16 9TY

  United Kingdom

  www.kristell-ink.com

  For Harriet & Oliver

  and

  Holly & Jack

  Prologue

  Sorcery tore the castle to pieces around him.

  Baum had no time to dodge the stones falling from above. They thumped onto his back and his shoulders, unbalancing him as he took the steps two at a time. They rattled off his helm and he staggered and slipped, bracing himself against a wall he knew could give way at any moment. The low, primal roar that shook the stones and clawed through his bones underpinned everything.

  It could not overcome the raw screams of terror that echoed from below.

  Thin streams of energy trailed around him, seeking him blindly as he climbed. Translucent tendrils burned as they touched him, searing his skin and scorching his clothing, raising sparks from his armour.

  If this was the very edge of the warlock’s rage, then Baum dared not imagine what it was doing to those left below in the Great Hall. The screaming told enough of a tale.

  His entire world jerked, dragged a few degrees awry, and he fell onto the spiralling stairs, calloused palms broken open on the edges of the stones, his breath torn away.

  A high-pitched cry of agony. He would not have recognized it, if the sound of her voice had been less precious to him.

  Aliciana.

  Not even the Queen, he realised, numbed by the scale of Malessar’s wrath. Not even she would be spared. A vision rose into his mind: the first time he set eyes on her, a beauty blazing in the morning on the ramparts above Caenthell’s gates. He had carried that moment in his thoughts ever since. Now it was overlaid, horribly, with what he knew would be the last time he would ever see her. Rising slowly from her throne, her smile frozen and cracking into terror, the colour drained from her skin, one arm outstretched as if to ward off the approaching danger.

  This is how I am repaid? Malessar’s fury assailed the senses of all present, driving many to their knees. With treachery?

  Baum fled the Great Hall then. And the warlock had unleashed a vicious torrent of magic upon the castle.

  He didn’t understand. What had the High King done to provoke Malessar’s wrath? The warlock had been their ally for a decade – had helped Jedrell in his plans, advised him in his steady conquest of the Northern territories. Baum had been there when the two men – the two most powerful men in all of Hellea, they were called – when they stood on the high peaks above Caenthell, surveying the kingdom below, discussing how to move against the ancient, impregnable fortress. They had shared hot wine; they had laughed and jested, and divided the world between them.

  With treachery?

  But Jedrell was an honourable man. An ambitious man surely, even a brutal man at times, but treacherous? Baum could not think it of him.

  The top of the stairs, at last. Baum staggered as the tower shook. He didn’t have long, he was certain Malessar’s fury would topple the structure soon. He might have to find a different way back down, if he survived that long.

  The door hung ajar in its twisted frame. He heard two voices in the room beyond, one sobbing, the other the frightened wail of a child. He barged through the door and cast about quickly for the infant.

  The wet nurse huddled on the floor by the crib, her eyes wide with terror, pleading with him to save her. But his attention was focused on the bundle in her arms – the most important person in the castle now. The most important person in his life. His sworn duty. He had failed to protect his liege, down there in the Great Hall. Now there was only one part of his oath to fulfil.

  Even as he ripped the child – the High King now – from the nurse’s arms he was looking desperately around the room for something, anything, that he could use to speed his flight from the awful rage below. But the nursery was sparely furnished: only the crib and the nurse’s own pallet lined the walls, while the table and two chairs in the middle of the room were useless to him. That left the thick woollen curtain that had been pulled across to prevent the night’s chill touching the room.

  It was as insane a thought as he had ever had, and he could only pray the tower would fall in the right way, but there was nothing else to work with . . .

  Hands tugged his shirt, pulling him back. He tore away, backing towards the curtain, and the wet nurse fell to her knees.

  “Please, sir! Save me! For Pyraete’s sake, save us both!”

  She was young, a distant cousin of the Queen, he understood. Their resemblance usually tugged at his heart. But even so, he already had little chance of living through the night.

  A resounding crack, then a rumble from deep underneath. There was no more time.

  “I cannot,” he said simply. Pushing her away, he leapt through the curtain to the small balcony outside. The world tilted madly to one side as he moved.

  The tower was coming down – the warlock’s fury had ripped the foundations, from the ground. Baum was assaulted by tiles sliding from the roof. They smashed into his head and back as he shielded the child in his arms. His stomach lurched as his field of vision wheeled and the castle’s curtain walls surged upward to collide with the tower.

  He had only one chance, but judging the right moment was impossible with the stones flying apart around him. There was no time even for a prayer.

  He hurled himself into the air, away from the crumbling balcony, twisting his body in mid-leap. He landed hard on the rampart, skidding along on the backplate of his armour until he hit the wall under the crenelations, the infant clutched tight to his chest. His helmet flew off and disappeared over the edge of the rampart, lost forever.

  Baum gasped for breath that would not come and turned once more, keeping the child under his body as the ancient tower collapsed in on itself with a long series of shuddering roars, spraying him with stones and thick, lung-clogging dust.

  This was what a castle sounded like when it died, and he knew he would never forget it.

  He could not stay where he was – he was not yet safe. He clambered to his feet and staggered along the wall in the direction of the postern gate, furthest from the chaotic wreckage of the Great Hall. It was hard to tell – his eyes streamed as he blinked away the thick clouds of stone particles – but he thought the gatehouse still stood.

  He cast a glance behind him. The curtain wall was beginning to yaw outwards dangerously. It would not last long.

  One man could do all this? It seemed Jedrell had seriously underestimated the warlock’s powers. The High King had at last encountered a foe deadlier than himself.

  Baum summoned the last of his strength and sprinted along the wall as fast as he dared, skipping over stone blocks that had fallen onto the ramparts as the tower fell. The roaring of destruction was behind him now, and Baum thought it had lessened a little. Malessar must be tiring. Or running out of peop
le to kill. He had to keep moving. The warlock’s curse already felt heavy upon his shoulders.

  Flashes of unearthly light illuminated the gatehouse through the swirling stone dust. It was indeed intact. Malessar’s maelstrom had focused tightly on the keep and the towers so far, though Baum guessed even these outer buildings would not be left standing by dawn. He pushed the heavy door open with his boot, wincing at the squeal of protesting hinges, and descended hurriedly, past the abandoned guardrooms with their toppled pallets and chairs. The tower was deserted: the watch had already fled, the gates flung wide open. He followed, taking the road north out of the kingdom.

  There were others on the road, crying, angry, afraid, wounded. He overtook them, paying them no heed. Already he felt a sucking at his flesh, his bones, and the steel core of his strength. It had to be the effects of the warlock’s curse, trying to pull him back into the devastation. The other survivors must feel it too, and they would succumb to it. They would return to the castle, and they would die there. Baum was pragmatic enough to know he could not stop them.

  Malessar would be true to his word. He would extinguish the people of Caenthell forever.

  It took hours to force himself away from the castle, step by step. At last exhaustion took its toll on his muscles and he subsided into a weary limp as he passed the waystones marking the border of the northernmost passes. The edge of the civilized world, it was said. He no longer felt the warlock’s compulsion in his body. There was nobody else left on the road. The child had long since stopped crying and now slept peacefully in his arms. Baum lowered himself into the thin grass by the side of the road and gazed down at the boy for a while, waiting for morning to come.

  “You will never come into your inheritance,” he told Jedrell’s son softly. “Malessar has made certain of that. Your life will be miserable and incomplete. But I swear this, and I swear it to Pyraete: I will not rest until I have broken the curse Malessar has set upon Caenthell. Whether it takes one year, ten, or ten hundreds of years, I swear I will revenge the High King of Caenthell.”

  A soft breeze swept over them, and Baum thought he heard a single word carried upon the air.

  Sworn.

  Chapter One

  Just make sure you feed that bloody mule!”

  Cassia’s father hurled his leather purse at her with painful precision. It smacked into her cheek before she could raise her free hand to catch it, and spun away over her shoulder.

  Her cheek smarted, but she knew better than to protest. Norrow’s rages were like the thunderstorms that swept through the upper valleys – torrential and violent, but also often random and short-lived. If she stayed quiet, did as he said, and kept from his sight until the end of the evening, her father would have forgotten that he had even lost his temper.

  Cassia sighed under her breath as she watched him cross the muddy street and shove his way past a pair of ale-soaked old men who propped each other up outside a narrow, curtained doorway just inside the alley. With that mood hanging over him, he would likely be in the middle of a brawl within the hour. And who would have to pay for the damages?

  She twisted, reaching down for the purse, and the mule chose that moment to tug in entirely the wrong direction, pulling her feet from under her so she collapsed in a heap.

  She lost her grip on the tattered rope, and the mule trotted purposefully down the street towards the market square while Cassia sprawled in the dirt, to the amusement of passers-by.

  “Come back here, you mangy beast!” she shouted, clambering back to her feet and pausing only to pick up the purse before chasing after the mule, her ears burning. The mule paid her no mind, intent on the aromas wafting from Keskor’s market square.

  She caught up with it as it entered the square, impeded at the last by a gaggle of children who poked both the beast and the roughly-tied bundles that hung over its back with sticks. Cassia had to snatch up the bridle rope and fend off the inquisitive children at the same time. She vented her frustration by landing a few satisfying slaps until the brats ran off. A couple of the more daring ones flung curses and pebbles at her, but she’d had enough now, and she wasn’t about to let the stupid mule get away again.

  She wrapped the rope around her wrist, and checked the purse to see what her father had left her. Two silver bits, to her dismay. Not enough to buy oats for both herself and the mule. The rest was probably already in the grubby apron of one of the backstreet barkeeps.

  One of us will be going hungry tonight, she thought. And if I had my way, it wouldn’t be me. It’s not like you can tell him I didn’t feed you.

  But Norrow had a way of knowing these things. Cassia couldn’t hide the truth from him for very long. So the mule would have a bag of fresh oats while Cassia would have to improvise, take a few risks.

  Again.

  She tucked the purse into the pocket inside her sleeve and ran her free hand through her hair, wincing as her fingers snagged on knots. Too long now, and too wavy. If she could find a mirror, or even a still pool, she’d take her knife to it and hack a good hand’s worth off. Perhaps there would be time later, once her father had finished his performance, if the sky stayed clear and the moon was bright enough.

  Cassia tugged the mule – suddenly recalcitrant and contrary – around the edge of the market and headed for a clear area on the far side of the square where the stallholders rarely pitched up. The reason for that was clear. A high brick wall, pitted and scarred enough to provide an easy climb to the flat stones at the top, formed the backdrop to the town’s gibbet. Currently unoccupied, the stained wooden frame loomed over the north-western corner of the market, waiting, watching, and warning . . .

  It helped to keep the traders honest, Cassia supposed. A man was unlikely to play games with weights while Keskor’s gibbet sat at the edge of his vision. She imagined profits were on the low side whenever a corpse swung gently against this wall.

  The sun was beginning to descend from its midday heights, and though the rest of the market baked in the heat, this corner collected some welcome shade. An old man, one-armed and gaunt, sat hunched over on the corner of the gibbet’s wooden platform. He held out an upturned soldier’s helmet, occasionally shaking it and calling for alms. Cassia was certain he’d occupied the exact same spot the last time they passed through Keskor.

  She nodded courteously to him and led the mule to the back of the platform, tying the rope to a post there. The old soldier scowled at her. Perhaps he remembered her, or perhaps he thought Cassia meant to move in on his territory.

  One side of a nearby stall was piled with wicker baskets of oats. Her two coins bought a scoop large enough to keep the mule happy, though her own stomach had started to rumble by the time she hooked the feed bag over the beast’s head. She kept a handful of feed back and passed it to the beggar to keep him quiet and friendly. As before, there was an unspoken agreement that he would keep an eye on the mule if she slipped into the market for a while.

  Though she was hungry she didn’t fancy chancing the stalls right now, so she climbed the wall behind the gibbet instead. It was a fast ascent for somebody used to scrambling around, and she would have an excellent view of the square from the top. She imagined herself to be Pelicos, scaling the legendary cliffs of Kalakhadze. Pelicos had not made his ascent in broad daylight, however, and Cassia was not hampered by the weight of the virginal princess the old stories said he brought with him.

  Beyond the wall was Keskor’s school. One of the town’s most impressive buildings, it sat on the site of the old temple to Pyraete, the God of the North, which had been demolished by Imperial decree over two hundred years ago. It was built in a modern Hellean style that Cassia had seen elsewhere in the North. Students sat in lines flanked by slender stone columns and ornamental pools. The space between the building and the boundary walls was used as a practice ground for sports such as archery and wrestling, and also for the military drills that the Emperor’s Factor supervised twice a week.

  This was one part of comi
ng to Keskor that Cassia always enjoyed. The schools in other towns were less accessible, and there was rarely such a vantage point available to her. As long as she didn’t make any noise or interrupt the lessons, the tutor here tolerated her occasional presence atop the wall. Apart from the time she had got bored watching the boys shuffle in formation under their heavy rectangular shields, and started throwing stones at them for the fun of it. She’d had to take to her heels rather quickly that day.

  Today the boys in the school were quiet, bent over their tablets while the tutor recited in dry tones. Cassia strained to catch his words, but the bustle of the market behind her was a little too loud. She had a few years’ advantage on them. She probably knew just as much as they did, thanks to her natural curiosity and the upbringing – of sorts – that her father had begrudgingly given her, but the boys would quickly overtake her. It wasn’t fair that she wasn’t allowed into a school. Think of all the tales and histories she could both tell and learn . . . and, she thought proudly, she already knew how to read. That was one thing Norrow had done properly, even if it was only because he wanted to enliven the sheer boredom of traveling between villages and towns.

  “Cassia!” The shout came from below her, in the market square. She twisted around to see who called her.

  Not all the town’s boys attended the Factor’s school. Many men could or would not pay the additional fees. They saw no sense in depriving their workshops, flocks, orchards and stalls of able-bodied help, believing their boys would learn everything they needed through hard work alone.

  Hetch’s father fell soundly into that camp. It did not take more than a single glass of wine for Rann Almoul to start expounding his theories on why too much learning was a Bad Thing. A Bad Thing for Keskor, a Bad Thing for the Empire in general, and a Bad Thing most specifically for Hetch himself. The pursuit of knowledge was second only to the worship of the foreign god of the Eastern Hordes in Hetch’s father’s pantheon of Bad Things, Cassia had quickly discovered.