Mordraud, Book One (11 page)

Mordraud
was used to being punched, but that evening Varno had with him the club he used to help him walk. It struck Mordraud in the face, on his side and on his back, relentlessly. The bowl of soup spilt on the mouldy covers. An ear was done for. He felt blood trickle down his neck. The stick splintered in two on his forehead with a repulsive crack. His shaking left arm had turned him into a trembling mass.

“
Sial’nar
!
Sial’nar
!” coughed Eglade, eyes wide.

“
Curse the day I brought you into this world! You and that repulsive reject of your brother, along with that whore, your mother!” Varno yelled, purple-faced and drooling like a dog. “She deceived me! Foul demons of the forest! Aelian children, that’s what you are! SHE THOUGHT I WOULDN’T FIND OUT...”

Mordraud
’s hand moved on its own.

“
...THAT DAMN WHORE!”

His sleeve revealed the rusty knife belonging to the village boys. He stabbed it into the heart of
Varno’s chest, thrusting it down to the base of the worm-eaten wooden handle. His father tried to shout out, but his voice died in a liquid wail. Mordraud pulled the blade out and plunged it in again. The shaking in his arm suddenly ceased. He went on piercing the flesh in silence, looking straight in the man’s eyes. Eglade ushered out an inhuman cry. He didn’t relent. He thrust the large knife into The Stranger’s neck, his stump, his arm, and dozens of times into his belly. Until he’d gutted him. Even when Varno was on the floor and no longer breathing. He disembowelled him until he reached the spinal cord.

He only stopped w
hen he saw Gwern staring at him, ashen-faced, his hands clutching his chest. His face taut in a frozen mask. Mordraud was soaked in blood from head to foot. The bed was splashed with red spurts. Eglade was whimpering, hunched up in a ball, and went on mumbling some Aelian words he couldn’t fully grasp.
Ealon
Sial’nar.

Endless N
ight.

“
Help me,” was all he said, to his brother.

Gwern moved automatically. Without uttering a sound.

Together they took her out of that massacre and settled her in their room. Gwern and their mother stayed in the bed, hugging each other, while Mordraud dragged The Stranger’s mutilated body out of the house, across the yard and into the heart of the wood. There he threw it into a deep pit gaping among some roots.

And spat o
n top.

He covered the corpse with damp earth and dead leaves.

He didn
’t look back. And he said nothing.

That wasn
’t his father.

Varno
had never come home from the battle where Cambria had slain him.

***

Eglade failed to wake up again after that night. Gwern and Mordraud stayed with her, in the desperate wait for her to open her eyes, at least one more time. But it did not happen. She died two months later. With no jolting, no pain. She simply stopped breathing. Her face tensed into one last demented smile.

Gwern
hadn’t uttered a word up until that day. His mind had stayed nailed to that night, when he’d seen Mordraud standing over his father’s body, knife in hand. He couldn’t stop seeing the scene in his dreams. But that smile finally coaxed him to cry. As if a burden had slipped away. Or he’d sunk even deeper within himself.

A tiny lead ball that had
lodged somewhere in Gwern, in the shadows.

His
brother could only hope that memory would mercifully fade, sooner or later.

They decided to bury her at the foot of
the tallest tree in the wood, in the innocent hope that this was the way the Aelians honoured their dead. They said no prayers. They knew none.

Once alone, they gathered their few belongings that could still be useful and made ready to leave.
Mordraud set fire to the house, starting from the room The Stranger had died in. The floor was stained with his black blood. Mordraud also tossed his father’s old blunt sword into the flames.

“
Where do we go now, brother?” murmured Gwern, as he felt one of his seizures coming on. They’d worsened worryingly since his father had almost finished him off with his kicks and blows.

The year was
1630. Eldain, the nobleman helming the Alliance of fiefdoms against the Empire of Cambria, was beyond middle age but was still powerful and determined to win the war. The fighting had been raging for decades now, and at just a few weeks’ walk from their village.

“
We’ll go to Eld. I’ve got to find work. For both of us,” replied Mordraud, as he stared enraptured by the flames rising from their old house. The roof creaked and collapsed, puffing out a vague cloud of searing sparks. “Someone there might know how to cure your illness. But first I need to find a way to put a bit of money by.”

He
’d do almost anything to get away from there. But he had to choose where to take them. Mordraud would rather give himself up to die than head for Cambria. He didn’t want to see Dunwich. He had other plans for him, but it was still early.

Eld
was the only place he could hope to find work quickly. And, when the time did come, he already knew what he should look for.

An employer who was always in need of manpower. One who paid well, for good workers.
And whose sole aim was to destroy the city where his brother was hiding, the capital that had taken his father from him.

The war
.

Dunwich tasted his discovery of Cambria as if living in a slow hazy dream. The first bends in the path leading him away from his home had already revealed that something different surrounded him. A particular softness of the light. The wind carrying scents that had never reached the clearing where his parents had chosen to settle. The first night outdoors was unforgettable: the skies were vaster and studded with more stars than he’d realised. The small camp fire condensed the air into a quivering bubble. Seneo, the man who’d convinced his father to let him go to Cambria, talked to him at length. But Dunwich could merely recall a few snippets of that strange detachment from reality. Images, impulses. Seneo’s way of speaking was minutely descriptive. As if he were always scrutinising a painting.

D
uring the weeks riding with the chanter, Dunwich had the opportunity to conjure up his own Cambria – an ideal city he forged from Seneo’s slow and weighty words. He pictured the safety of its streets, the cleanliness offered by its villages, the large number of soldiers patrolling in the forests and countryside. He imagined their dialects and the musical lilt of their expressions. He pretended he had reached the city, so great was his excitement to get there. He was left speechless by the size and majesty of its grey stone walls. His eyes wandered among the slim towering steeples piercing the clouds. He felt tiny and powerless before the great brass city gate as tall as ten men. Once past the first line of outer defence, the low white houses bordered orderly streets drawn with geometric precision, arranged in segments and districts enclosing all the world’s known trades. Moving inwards, the buildings grew in luxury and the first gardens began to pop up, edged by iron fencing, with large trees and well-tended hedges cropped into the most surprising shapes.

W
alking on, the visitor could see the houses suddenly disappeared. The road came to a park, and pushed ahead towards the heart of the city, skirting clear pools and waterfalls designed by a landscaper who had given creativity full rein, fashioning nature into scenes of unequalled elegance. Further ahead, the park ended, and a windowless tower – unsettling but of perfect beauty – peeked out among the treetops. A gold-plated gate was presented on both sides, as tall as the walls circling the city centre. They were rhythmed by another two turrets, identical to the first. These were the time-honoured seat to the chanters, the fulcrum of their studies and their research. Brilliant minds from all over the continent had lived and studied here.

The
golden gateway was awe-inspiring. It shone in Seneo’s descriptions with the might of a divine work. Rich in swirls and pointed tips, it could seem useless for defence, compared with the huge stone walls embracing the city, but nobody had ever ventured to knock it down. It was the oldest surviving construction in the people’s memory. Nobody knew who had erected it, or how the gold had been given that surreal effect of plasticity. A single arch sealed off by railings contrasted with its whorls, opening up the route towards the core of the capital. This was flanked by sumptuous mansions, and then reached the Emperor’s colossal residence, which was taller and more robust that all the other creations. Its balconies provided views of the mountains that, far in the east, sandwiched the Camhann River – a vigorous branch of the Hann – in a procession of bends, gorges and slopes blanketed in chestnut groves.

Dunwich
guided his imagination beyond the words of the man who would become his chanting master. He watched the city inhabitants from above as they crowded the streets and the markets. The scene was varied and bustling. Many foreigners travelled for days and days just to buy and sell the most prized wares in Cambria’s markets. The aristocracy moved around in carriages, slowly making their way through the hordes, often escorted by armed horsemen, while people quickly moved aside and the shouts of street-sellers and passers-by muted the air.

This shapeless and colourful
swarm curbed its din only when the troops heading for the front marched by. Seneo’s voice was a pained murmur. In the early years, when they still believed everything would be resolved in a brief season of bloodshed, the streets were literally invaded by sizeable bodies of well-trained cavalry protected by hefty armour. But the war had been dragging on for too long, and most of the troops were now young recruits from the countryside, attracted only by vain promises of wealth and career. More out of respect for their sad lot than fear, the crowds fell silent at their passing, bowing their heads, as some quietly recited a prayer. Eldain’s rebels were their mortal and tireless foe. They fought concealed by the lands they knew down to the smallest crag, making the most of the seasons and the rivers’ highest levels to constantly mutate the shape of the front. They knew how to convert allies in outlying villages to their cause. It was no longer a war of conquest, just a slow and harrowing slaughter.

The specta
cle was quite different when the legendary Imperial Lances passed by. Their black armour inlaid with gold and their rich cloaks flowing in the wind were a fearful yet magnificent display, worthy of their fame. There were few of them, compared to the regular troops. They were nonetheless considered the most terrifying and unstoppable battalion on the whole continent. Chanting expert and warrior merged into an awe-inspiring soldier. Emperor Loralon’s armed right hand.

Seneo
had worked with the army – he knew what he was talking about. The war raged on, beyond all predictions of an end. The cemetery south of the city walls was too small to accommodate all the fallen from good families who claimed the right to a fitting burial. Entire noble lineages found themselves with no heirs, and many granted use of their sumptuous private tombs to the less fortunate families who no longer had space in their mausoleums, crammed as they were with corpses wrapped in red shrouds or coffins crafted in dark wood. The evening air was laden with the bitter smoke the wind wafted from the pyres burning in the countryside, marking all that was left of the sons of peasants. Market streets teemed with mercenaries who had journeyed from other regions: they supported Cambria’s cause for money but neglected the slightest respect for its people. Brawls, thefts and looting were everyday occurrences in the villages. The scene that had attracted Dunwich – of clean orderly streets policed by friendly gendarmes – crumbled into a murkier portrait.

The war
’s front was a jagged and complex line spanning most of the East. Cambria had already asserted its dominance in territories stretching as far as the Telatias Mountains, the central chain dividing the continent’s North in two, down to the Inland Sea in the South. The Hann River itself traced out long stretches of the front, defended by Eldain’s Alliance that knew how to take advantage of the hundreds of patches of swampland dotting the rich surrounding plains. The line of combat snaked up as far as the Rampart, north-east of Cambria. The heart of resistance for Eldain and his supporters. Further north beyond the Rampart were mountains that stood as a tough barrier to overcome, guarded as they were by castles perching on cliff-tops and treacherous forest-cloaked gorges. Yet more than this, they were protected by Cambrinn – one of Eld’s time-honoured allies. Although it had declared itself neutral, it had already proven to be particularly loyal to Eldain’s policies.

Anyone living in
Cambria was accustomed to it, yet Dunwich had no experience of the war at all. Seneo didn’t glide over the details. Life in Cambria was deteriorating year by year. It was hard to get used to, as they’d already done in the countryside. Cambria’s people could still recall the glorious years of prosperity and well-being that had preceded the birth of the Imperial designs, and the enticing flow of wealth generated by the early conquests. The same that had fuelled the illusion of a swift, almost painless war. Nobody would have imagined, back then, that the fiefdoms’ rebel Alliance would be able to staunch Cambria’s advance. It was simply a matter of time, given the forces deployed in the fighting. But every day’s defeat for the Empire also meant men dying far away from home, left on battlefields now paved with old corpses.

The days of journeying
on horseback flew by, punctuated by Seneo’s many explanations. Dunwich was astounded by the chanter’s knowledge. Emperor Loralon was a man in the prime of his years, who’d inherited the war against Eldain from his father. He was stern in appearance, with short well-groomed black hair, and a tall sleek physique that went beyond the commonplace. His eyes were two deep dark wells drilled into an angular pale face. His dynasty was ancient, but it wasn’t the only one that had governed the capital. Nobody knew how old Cambria actually was. But Dunwich knew. It had belonged to the Aelians before these rulers, yet no man was able to recall this now.

Loralon
’s grandfather had sparked the war against Elder, Eldain’s father. When the Empire was still restricted to the countryside around Cambria, but began changing shape in the dreams of the great patriarch Loren. The borders at the time grazed the wilderness north-east of the capital: an area rich in woods, fields and mountains creating distinct natural boundaries. Those were the time-honoured offshoots of the lands possessed by Elder’s noble rebels. The western region separating the capital from the Telatias Mountains and the neighbouring plains to the north entered in agreement with Cambria, to become protectorates. Essar, to the south-west, wasted no time in falling in line. Before Loren’s ascent, Cambria stood as the heart to a huge and detailed network of fortified towns and cities supported by a multitude of inter-related aristocrats. A common practice in the whole of the East of the entire continent. No state had ever incorporated more cities. Cambria was the greatest and the oldest. It wasn’t the first time it raised its head from the trench of history to make its attack. Nelaria in the North and Essar in the South had accepted to fall under Cambria’s control to avoid being overrun by the Imperial Army. They’d lost some independence, but the local nobility was left to make the minor decisions. The right degree of compromise, which Loren had artfully and successfully orchestrated.

The regions behind the
fief of Eld had sided with the rebel nobleman: they stretched across to the shores of the Ocean of the East, and their leaders had not the slightest intention of handing their power to Cambria. These members of nobility were not related to the other rulers of the East, and were more reserved towards the outside. Centuries of trade dealings had hardened the entire strip coasting the ocean, in a vast region rich in fiefdoms, where balance rested on ancient peace. The territories in the extreme north, those at the foot of the icy mountains, as well as the plains that had once been in the hands of the capital also shifted under Eldain’s separatist guide. Bleak lands, deemed useless and uninhabitable by Cambria. The immense Telatias Mountains chain, standing as buffer between
East and West, kept out of the conflict, as did the Calhann Strait. This latter, a ribbon of land separating north from south, it depended on the excise and taxes on goods passing along its roads for its livelihood.

Seneo
’s words and what Dunwich saw on arriving in Cambria mingled into an experience that blinded his eyes with splendour throughout his formative years.

***

Dunwich settled in Cambria when he was eleven. He lived in Seneo’s house, a large apartment taking up the entire top floor of a huge historic building. The staircase alone climbing up from the entrance hall was larger than anything Dunwich had ever seen. His room was exceedingly more comfortable than his old one. All was new and magnificent. Nostalgia for his quiet home life was easily blotted out by an avalanche of new tasks and situations demanding his attention.

Seneo
accommodated another five boys in his home. The youngest of the fellow tenants was fifteen, the oldest nineteen. Dunwich looked barely six. He soon learnt his mentor was a well-known and respected figure in the neighbourhood where they lived – one of the most prestigious and costly areas of Cambria. He worked at the Academy, as a chanting master, an expert in the single fusion of the harmonies forming the basis to the arcane research performed at the institute. It was very similar to a school. Dunwich found himself attending long lessons in music theory, first merely as an observer, but after a few weeks, directly as a student. He had no trouble in memorising complex dissertations on the effects harmony could have on reality when blended with a chanter’s deep concentration. He was eager to learn more. The first months in Cambria flew by, in a fuzzy cloud of constant excitement.

Seneo
was extremely wealthy. He paid for the whole building’s security personally, and he gave free bed and board at his home to the boys he considered promising. Once they’d finished the lengthy training to shape their voices, he polished their manner to make them ready to serve the interests of the city’s richest nobility or those of the Imperial family. Rare cases would attract a request from the Lances for one of his pupils, to act as resident master – something that brought Seneo a truly sizeable sum.

The aspiring chan
ter’s study programme normally involved five years of theory and practice guided by a tutor. Students had to study all aspects of music theory during this period, and had to learn off by heart the syllables that could be used to compose songs and chants. Those who managed to develop their voices to the necessary level then continued their career by enrolling in the Arcane. From that moment onwards, every effort was channelled into tuning the student’s own will to synchronise with his chanting. This was an extremely complex process, one that only a very few were capable of mastering. Ten years or so were generally allotted to this stage, after which, further attempts at attaining this end by means of harmonies were considered pointless. This successful union of mind and music was called
resonance
.