Mordraud, Book One Read online

  Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time. Somebody would come to her home, sooner or later. Her mother, one of the elders she’d assisted as handmaid, or a guard. Perhaps even Aris, who indeed nearly stumbled on Varno the night she and he met for the first time. She wanted no tragedy to take place. She could understand her people’s spirit of hatred, but she couldn’t fully identify with it. Part of her was simply curious – a feeling the other Aelians seemed to have forgotten in the shadows of the Endless Night.

  “I have to leave here... I’m healed now, and the longer I stay, the more danger you’re in.”

  It was a clear cool evening. They were drinking some herbal tea next to the small window in the one room, concealed behind pulled curtains. As always, they’d chatted until late, but with heavier hearts than usual. Both knew their time had run out. That morning, they’d come close to being discovered when an Aelian had dropped in on Eglade to say hello before going off hunting. She’d made the first excuse that came into her head to not invite him in, and it was only by chance he didn’t insist. Varno had spied on it all. The Aelian who waited at the door was taller than him, with grey hair and almost white eyes. An enormous bow was slung over his shoulders. So huge it seemed an imitation. He also had a sword with him, and Varno felt, without understanding why, that he wouldn’t have the slightest chance of surviving in a struggle against the visitor.

  The Aelians were able to instil such a strong sense of his own helplessness that he lost any trace of confidence in himself.

  “Where will you go?” Eglade asked, sadly.

  “I’ll head home, south of Cambria. Then... I don’t know.”

  “I...”

  “Don’t even consider it!”

  “But...”

  “It’s final,” Varno repeated, struggling to say nothing else. She wanted to go with him. But he knew it was a ridiculous idea. Where would they live? What would his people think? What would the Aelians do?

  He couldn’t put their lives at risk.

  Even though just the thought of leaving was more painful than any spear thrust into his shoulder, or any arrow embedded in his thigh.

  He was going to set off that night. He’d made his decision.

  Without her.

  ***

  Aris was heading for the forest border at a fast pace, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Still at that accursed night with the Khartiars, when one of them got away right under his nose – the first time in his life.

  The idea drove him mad.

  ‘He vanished into thin air near Eglade’s house. The rain helped him... He was a lucky wretch,’ he mused.

  Several months had gone by since then, but he hadn’t forgotten a detail of the lengthy blood-hunt, the tracking, the storm. A memorable day yet his secret smear. The elders had praised him in front of all the other guards. They’d even presented him with an ancient dagger. As a sign of respect and high esteem. It had once belonged to Cambirir, exterminator of the Khartiars and son of the great Cambirian. If they’d known of his blunder, they would certainly have divested him of it. And Cambiryon, the last of the grandsons, would have humiliated him in front of everyone, shouting that he hadn’t shown himself worthy of his grandfather’s blood. A legend among the Aelians.

  “How I’d like to stab it in that Khartiar’s back!” he muttered in annoyance as he slipped through the forest’s tangled trees. There hadn’t been any other intruders since that night. Normality, he thought, in boredom.

  ‘Those swine should fight near our borders more often...’

  He was passing near the glade with the oak, where Eglade lived alone. Accustomed as he was to keeping an eye on everything, he surveyed the candlelit window sealed by white lace curtains. A few freshly chopped logs were stacked in front of the woodshed.

  Aris stopped in his tracks, drawn by a new detail. A memory from that night of blood, one he hadn’t given much thought to, absorbed as he was in the frenzy of the hunt.

  The woodchips scattered in the clearing before the house.

  ‘Just a handful, now... and only near the shack. While that night...’

  Aris made an effort to remember as precisely as he could. It was raining when he reached the woodshed, and the ground was covered in sawdust and slivers of wood. He’d heard them under his boots, and he’d seen them everywhere. Something that happened when the logs were prepared for the cold months, and a whole family was seeing to the task.

  ‘But a young woman alone... in spring... straight before a storm...’

  He had to appease that little doubt, before pressing on to the border. He’d only think on it, relentlessly. He left the path and reached the woodshed, looking carefully about, on the ground and among the clumps of fresh grass. He opened the door and shifted a few logs, trying not to make a sound. Eglade could get frightened. And she had very good hearing, like all Aelians.

  Aris didn’t know exactly what he should be looking for, or what to do if he found it. He moved the lumps of wood about haphazardly, he checked the floor, he carefully moved the cut branches until he got down to the bottom rows. The oldest ones.

  The ones that, more or less, must have been cut that night of the storm.

  He found them after searching hard, in silence. And he didn’t only come across dry branches and sawdust.

  ‘I should have suspected as much... All those times she openly criticised the elders’ opinions...’

  Blood on the wood. A few drops, and a faint faded and darkened streak.

  It was enough to override any doubt.

  ‘Let’s see if she’s been so stupid as to keep a Khartiar in her house... And if he’s not there, I’ll make her tell me where he went.’

  At any cost, he thought.

  ***

  Eglade jumped when she heard someone knocking on her door at that time of night. Varno turned pale and looked around at once in search of a hiding place. The only place was under the bed. A lame solution.

  Particularly when there wasn’t even time to use it.

  “Can I come in, Eglade? It’s me, Aris.”

  Varno didn’t understand a word of their tongue but when he saw Eglade’s face become ashen, he realised the situation was desperate. “What should I do?” he whispered to her.

  He tried to pull himself up to get to the bed, but at that precise moment the door flew off its hinges with a horrifying bang. Eglade yelled in terror.

  Varno also burst out with a piercing scream.

  One of the archers from that blasted night. Right in front of him, sneering in satisfaction.

  “You’ve really been a fool, Eglade.”

  Hair of onyx. Eyes of the most intense green. A perfect face distorted by an insane euphoria. Tapered slim hands on the hilt of a long curved sword. No armour, just a comfortable dark leather outfit.

  “Please Aris, don’t do it!” Eglade yelled in despair. “The Khartians are not like you think!”

  “Really?! So you say they’re not dangerous?!” snarled the Aelian in rage. “They’ve only ruined our lives! Have you forgotten what is said about the Endless Night, eh?!”

  “Nobody really knows what...” Eglade attempted, but Aris interrupted, seizing her arm roughly. His fingers left black shadows where they’d squeezed the flesh.

  “There’s no point in you trying to stick up for him – you’re already done for! He’ll pay for everything, also for polluting your ideas with his foul poison! GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

  Eglade took a step forward and blocked his path. Varno understood nothing of what had been said, but he couldn’t help noticing how similar Aelians were to humans, when it came down to it. The same anger, the same grudges, the same urges. Only it was all wrapped up in a vaguely perfected body and a superior mind.

  Human sentiments, after all.

  “You’ll also have your fair punishment, Eglade. Now let me pass!”

  “NO!”

  Aris struck Eglade with a slap to the face. She flew to the wall in a heap. The shelves shook, the earthenware recipients
, pestle and plates toppled down with a thunderous crash. The floor was sprinkled with broken painted pottery.

  Varno froze in fury, eyes wide. He reacted without thinking. He yelled in rage and hurled himself at the armed Aelian, who was caught off-guard by his ardour. Varno succeeded in hitting him with two punches full in the face and a violent head-butt. Aris didn’t retaliate, stunned by the Khartian’s improvised reaction.

  “Never been in a real fight, you sodding arsehole?!” Varno bellowed, laughing wildly. They fell to the floor, clasping each other tightly. Eglade had passed out in a corner. A trickle of blood drooled from her mouth.

  Aris found the man’s hands at his throat, and roared with staggering savagery. Varno squeezed and hammered his head on the ground. Once, twice. The Aelian lost his sword but managed to land a punch in the face.

  His might was utterly unbelievable.

  Varno’s eyes were blinded and scorched by sparks. The blow had been so brutal that the pain didn’t come straight away. Like being hit on the forehead by a hammering ram.

  ‘Strong... so strong...’

  The fear kept him miraculously awake. Sightless and as stunned as a dumb-bell, Varno squeezed even harder. He smashed the head down among the broken crockery again. More punches came.

  Then, the liquid sound of a fruit bursting between his fingers. Varno shuddered in distaste.

  Aris was no longer thrashing.

  When his sight returned, Varno found he was clinging to the Aelian. The floor was thick with blood. He lifted the other’s head. A long sharp earthenware shard was sticking out of the nape of his neck. His green eyes stared lifelessly, swollen with disgust.

  Those two emerald spots burnt through his eyelids, branding themselves into the human’s soul.

  Varno hurried to Eglade with great effort. He sighed in relief. She was still alive. She awoke, trembling in his arms and, even before seeing the Aelian’s body laying face-up on the floor, understood what had happened. The house was a mess. Blood was everywhere.

  They didn’t need to speak to decide on what to do. They had no choice now.

  Eglade gathered together what little she could take with her in such haste, and did all she could not to look at Aris’s still body. It stared at the ceiling with its face overwhelmed by a mask of distorting detest. Eglade wept and murmured something in her tongue, perhaps an apology for what had happened, or maybe just a long and yearned-for goodbye.

  To her house, to her land.

  To her people.

  Varno and Eglade fled into the night, enveloped in a silence heavy with pain and fear.

  III

  The cool breeze slid in through the half-closed window shutters. A blade of reddish light painted faint reflections on the bases of the pans hanging on the wall, above the washbasin with the dishes. Eglade had just finished making the dinner: a stew with vegetables she’d picked that morning from their patch behind the house. Outside, a dog’s barking broke the silence of crickets and foliage fluttering in the wind.

  ‘Varno should be back from the village soon,’ she thought with a smile. Her hand subconsciously slipped down to her belly. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d be with them any day now.

  Her son kicked in eagerness to be born.

  Six years had passed since their flight into the night. They’d left the Aelians’ forest behind them and had trekked for days, following the most secluded and winding paths. They’d managed to get far enough away before Aris’s murder was discovered. But they didn’t know where to go. Varno had merely a handful of coppers in his pocket. He’d hunted what little he’d managed to catch with his bare hands to provide for her. She’d never eaten so many squirrels in her life. He was extremely nimble at grabbing them, she mused, moved by the memory.

  As she deserted the only place she’d ever grown to know, Eglade wept miserably. She’d dreamt many a time of travelling in the outside world, but only in her imagination. She never thought she’d actually find herself outside her tiny and pointless realm, with a Khartian, on a quest for a new home for them. When she spoke out loud about that period, she felt like she was narrating an improbable fairytale.

  “We walked so long...” she murmured. Varno had no precise destination in mind, she even less so. They’d simply gone on moving, avoiding the villages, the taverns and any place frequented by the Khartians. He was constantly tormented by the idea that somebody would notice her. She’d cut a strip off her cape to make a scarf she could tie around her hair. He never slept, except for the rare times he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. He’d watched over her for countless nights, his sword ready on his knees. He’d used more energy and marched harder than when he’d gone to war. It had been tough, terribly tough. But it had also been the most exciting moment of their lives.

  Fear, sorrow, curiosity and wonder. Eglade had never experienced so much all at the same time. Each day was new, and full of hope. Each night, she and Varno would steep their dreams in everything they would do and achieve, together.

  The first predicament to deal with was finding a home. They solved this one when they came to a circle of rubble near an anonymous village, many weeks’ walk from the battlefield where he’d been injured. They’d had to cross Cambrinn’s mountains, hiking along the most inaccessible paths to avoid the defence posts manned by the rebels of the east, who had set up the most northern front of the war in that area. They’d stopped at the first quiet settlement to draw some water from its well. Combing the zone, Varno had uncovered the remains of an old abandoned dwelling. Far enough away not to attract attention, close enough to the village to avoid feeling too cut off. They were a great distance from the Aelians’ forest, on the eastern slopes of the cluster of mountains dominated by Cambrinn, the fortress once under Cambria’s control. But above all, they were inside the Rebel Alliance territories. About north-west of Eld, the fiefdom helming the resistance against Loren’s Imperial Lances.

  Varno was convinced the best option was not to side with anyone, but to stay near the area governed by Elder, the nobleman leading the rebels. Although they were in one of Cambria’s enemy territories, those lands were of no particular strategic interest, nor did they stand in the path of likely Imperial attacks. Cambrinn, behind them, was a brake on Loren’s army, in this wearying war of position. It was much safer and simpler to live there as outcasts, rather than as free citizens within the Empire. The regions dominated by the ancient Aelian capital were heavily policed by guards and tax collectors – something that would have made it difficult for the pair of them to mind their own business and live in peace.

  And so they decided to settle. Varno had managed to erect a sort of tent beside the ruins, by amassing old canvases and ropes collected from the traps he’d come across in the woods, and he’d soon set to rebuilding the tumbledown house. He had also started working as a woodcutter for a carpenter in the village, to scrape together some meagre earnings, and every coin of his wages was used to purchase materials and builder’s tools. It had taken months, but in the end he’d succeeded in shaping a few rooms covered by a makeshift roof.

  From that moment on, they added the rest piece by piece.

  ‘We’ve got a vegetable patch, a woodshed and three lovely large rooms...’ Eglade considered, proudly. Getting used to Khartian life hadn’t been that hard. It wasn’t so different to that of her people. She would get the dinner ready, see to the chickens and the vegetable garden, and pick medicinal herbs in the woods to make some infusions to sell down in the village. She would go there herself, even though Varno had emphatically objected to her desire for contact with other humans.

  “And if they found you out?” he’d protested, deaf to her proposals.

  “With a shawl, a long dress and a bit of care, nobody will notice...” she’d repeated to the verge of exasperation, until one day Varno finally relented. Very reluctantly.

  Time had proved Eglade right. Apart from her intensely blue eyes, she looked like any other woman when she covered her copper hair with a he
adscarf. Extremely beautiful, yes, but there was nothing truly out of the ordinary about her. In the meantime, he’d found employment working the land, then as a blacksmith. It wasn’t much money, but it was enough for them and the life they’d chosen.

  The only ingredient missing was a child.

  Oddly, however much passion they dedicated to the task, Eglade failed to fall pregnant. She, who perceived time’s passing differently to Varno, had never seen this as an obstacle. But for him it was becoming a tragedy.

  “Maybe we can’t have children...” he repeated over and over, desolately.

  “Why ever not?! You’re always saying the Khartians and the Aelians are not really that different...”

  “Yes, in many aspects, but not all of them! Look at you: you’re still a young woman, with no marks, no blemishes – nothing. I’ve already got a few wrinkles on my forehead...”

  “Then we’ll have to try more often... and for longer!” she would always say, with a mischievous little smile. A love of life that was hard to resist.

  After long and zealous efforts, Eglade was finally expecting. It was 1603. The pregnancy had exceeded the natural term for humans by a few months. Varno was increasingly concerned and puzzled. But luckily there wasn’t long to go, it seemed. Eglade knew, she could feel the birth was drawing closer.

  And she also knew she was carrying a boy.

  Varno came into the kitchen and hugged her, fondly caressing her stomach. The sun was dipping behind the trees, while a hint of moon grew on the horizon.

  “Each time I look at you, here in this house, I ask myself what made you want to flee with me that night.”

  Eglade didn’t answer straight away. She was observing the trees at the edge of the garden, reflecting on how similar her new world was to the one she’d deserted in following Varno. Yet, no Aelian seemed ready to accept that simple fact. There weren’t different worlds, there was no wall separating them. The Aelians failed to realise they’d been cheated by themselves, by the terror of something they hadn’t seen with their own eyes: the Endless Night, Ealon Sial’nar as the Aelians called it. The event that had destroyed their empire, leaving the way free for domination by the Khartians, Varno’s people.