‘Hmph,’ she sighed. ‘You can hope. He will merely turn more towns into outposts, send more hunting parties, more mages, more daemons. We burn one Arka watchtower, two others sprout up. It has grown futile.’
‘You know as well as I do that it can’t be forever,’ he replied, staring at the smoking corpse of the daemon. Modren’s tired gaze matched the dragon’s. ‘We will have our war. No other option remains. In the meantime, we fight for who and what we can. That is our calling. It weighs as heavy on me as it does you, believe me.’
Kinsprite growled softly. ‘Our king most of all, it seems.’
‘He has plenty on his mind with running this rebellion.’ Modren tapped his vambraces. ‘With our little ruse, perhaps we help him. Finally antagonise that stubborn fuck of an emperor into coming north, where there’s a spike waiting for his head.’
‘I hope you’re right, mage,’ she tutted, but thankfully turned her mood with a wink of one great silver eye. ‘Or should I say, Outlaw King?’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Modren chuckled and hoisted his hood up with a flourish. ‘The road calls us onwards.’
‘Road, he says, as if we’re walking,’ Kinsprite grumbled as she crouched, wings flared and poised. ‘I’m the one who has to do all the flying.’
Modren was seizing the opportunity for a much-needed piss when he saw it.
Where one of his spells had ripped through the armour of an empire mage, raw skin was left bare to the cold. Between the blackened threads of cloth and molten plate, Modren could see a black and disturbing shape.
‘What do you see?’ Kinsprite asked, sensing his caution.
Modren didn’t answer. He moved slowly towards the corpse as if it were plagued and gingerly examined it with a dagger blade. Four lines branded the man’s neck, burned by a salamander’s tongue. Normally Arka mages wore three.
Etched into the man’s pale skin in ink and needle was an elaborate rune. It looked scarred, the skin around it tortured, but it was plain and unmistakable. Modren could feel the faint magick still smouldering within it.
Kinsprite cleared her throat with a puff of smoke. ‘When did—’
‘I don’t know,’ Modren snapped. He couldn’t bring himself to hear it aloud. ‘What matters is they’ve already done it.’ He slowly inched a dagger from his belt and pressed it against the skin. ‘The king has to see this. No matter how dire the news, he needs to see it.’
The dagger blade slipped into the still warm skin and began to slice. It was an ugly cut and a grisly task, but Modren had no choice. Wrinkling his lips, he folded the scrap of bloody skin and wrapped it in cloth from his haversack.
‘Charming,’ muttered Kinsprite.
‘Necessary.’ With a heavy heart and numb fingers, Modren climbed the dragon’s side and lashed himself to the saddle. ‘West it is. We’ll meet the Revenge on the coast.’
In a cascade of pine needles, the dragon leapt into the air and vanished into the snow-laden night, leaving only the moon and guttural flames to watch over the corpses.
CHAPTER 2
THE WRECK
/. From this day, the practice, manipulation, study, collection and wielding of magick or magickal items shall be forbidden throughout Emaneska.
//. Any soul found defying this decree or allowing it to be defied shall be hung by the neck until dead.
///. This decree shall last forever more, for the Arka shall never diminish. By order of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Malvus Barkhart.
THE DECREE OF MAGICK, YEAR 907
Bare feet slapped the sand with a fervour and excitable abandon that only the youthful can muster. Grit flew from pale soles, ash black and tide wet. Sandworms were trampled mid-gasp as they reared from their holes for air. Great clouds of dappled waders took flight as hollering filled the unbroken, dawn air. Wordless cries of effort, challenges, and insults; they all rose to the granite-coloured sky. All save for laughter.
For this was a race.
It was said in the cliff-towns that the tides eventually return all that has been lost at sea. All one had to do was wait for the right tide. That morning, in the wake of the lashing winds and rain, the sea had regurgitated all kinds of lost treasures and delights.
The storm had broken the day before. It had besieged the Hâlorn cliffs for a week before its gales became a spent wheezing. Hurricane, the elders always called it: a storm god that roamed the seas, causing havoc on coasts and ships alike. He had brought ice rain and waves taller than the greatest pines, but the thunder, the lightning, they had not been Hurricane’s doing.
Mithrid Fenn had glimpsed the ships through shutters and rain-soaked glass, refusing to blink should anything be missed. She and every other child in the cliff-village of Troughwake watched while the elders had cowered behind bedposts and cradled rusty weapons. Two vessels duelled between the roiling waves. At first, they seemed to exist only in the lightning flash. Then, as fires began to burn across rain-lashed decks and rigging, amber light sketched their shapes.
One ship she swore was as large as an island, square and fat. Likely some trick of the storm. The other had been smaller, an Arka warship. They were a familiar sight in Hâlorn, where the view was naught but a seascape. Always patrolling the waters, guarding the coasts from the rebels, as the elders told her.
For hours, the ships had battled. Lightning fell not from the sky but was traded between decks. Fire streaked the night. Unnatural colours painted the storm clouds.
As the storm died, so had the battle. The larger vessel limped away, listing to one side as it chased the winds north. Crippled, the Arka warship met its doom on the fanged reef beyond the narrow beach. Now its black carcass lay broken and awkward in the surf.
Mithrid bounded over a driftwood log. Sand scattered as she landed, causing the racer behind her to trip, blunder over the log, and get a face full of grit for her troubles. Mithrid was now a clear second. A boy with a tangled mop of black hair was out in front. Bogran Clifsson was nimble for somebody who closely resembled a toad.
With a quick shove to Bogran’s back, she sent him reeling into the shallows, kicking icy water until he tumbled into the water and seaweed. Mithrid smirked as she sprinted past him, claiming the firmer ground. Father told her frequently how she had the legs of a marshdeer, and, more often than not, the flitting mind of one to match.
She fixed her eyes on the charred wreck. Pieces of its hull and innards had made their way ashore. The slate-grey beach was littered with wreckage, from splinters of wood and discarded boots to great chunks of hull and rigging. One section of mast had somehow righted itself in the sand, still doing its duty in vain. It looked like the surviving flagpole of a burnt-out fort.
Remina Hag was gaining on her. Mithrid could hear her desperate snuffling. She snatched a glance, and saw Bogran catching up, too. Mithrid lowered her head and forced her gangly legs to move faster. Copper hair streaming behind her, she hurtled for the finish line: a broad piece of ship’s hull.
As Mithrid stretched out, ready to slap a hand onto the charcoal wood in victory, Remina threw herself forwards in a mad dive. Her arms flailed like an airborne squid. Bogran slid on his backside, toes pointed.
Thunk.
Slap.
‘Shit!’ Mithrid cried as she punched the wood in third place. It blackened her knuckles instantly.