The Arcanist Read online

  THE ARCANIST

  GREG CURTIS

  The Arcanist

  Copyright Greg Curtis

  Ebook Edition

  July 2015

  Dedication.

  As ever this book is dedicated to my family without whom nothing would be possible for me.

  Cover Art

  Daniela Owergoor

  site: http://dani-owergoor.artworkfolio.com/

  Chapter One

  “What in the name of the Seven is that noise?”

  Whatever it was, the King thought, it was certainly irritating. But he supposed he shouldn’t let such petty irritants bother him. Not when the ball was going so well.

  The guests were having a good time, the dinner had gone down a treat – roast pork always did – and easily a hundred and fifty people were on the ballroom floor showing off their flair at whatever the latest court dance was. The King didn't actually know what the dance was. Some sort of ländler perhaps. But he didn't really care.

  He didn't like to dance and as the king he had a perfect excuse not to. Instead he could simply sit at the head of the high table, nodding occasionally, and looking dignified with a wine goblet in his hand. He could sit back and enjoy the sight of his guests cavorting around the ballroom in their perfectly choreographed dances, the women’s brightly coloured ball gowns flowing in graceful swirls. And he could listen to the music which he was quite enjoying for once. The bards were playing a lively tune full of melodic flutes, hornpipes and rapid drum beats and he was quietly tapping his feet in time. He might not like to dance but he still liked balls.

  It was going well enough that he fancied in the next few days he'd have a much happier court to deal with. And a happy court agreed with his edicts and accepted his judgements much more willingly. He looked forward to that. Maybe he would even get his levy through without protest so that the new irrigation channels could be dug and the western plain finally made arable within a year. When that was done more farmers would till the soil and the realm would further increase its prosperity.

  Of course he knew that Lord Smallbridge would oppose him. He would threaten to have his ore transported to Farring Cross to be refined instead of within the kingdom of Therion. That was his usual threat. And no doubt Count Stevenson would support him. It seemed to the King that the miners were an excessively greedy group and they could not abide paying a single copper more in tariffs than they absolutely had to. Maybe that was why they mined for precious metals in the first place? Merchants would accept tariffs even if they didn't like them. So would farmers. Miners were far less tolerant.

  But it would be a bluff. Neither of them would get any better prices for refining their ores in Farring Cross or anywhere else, and none of the other nearby realms had refineries in Therion or elsewhere. The lords would have to pay to have them built. And even if they did the transport costs would be more than they could stand.

  They would both cave in easily, and perhaps the fact that both of them were in the room enjoying the evening would help them cave more quickly. In the end the farmers would win, the kingdom would grow and the people would be happy. That would be a good legacy to leave to his sons.

  Of course neither of his sons were here. Unlike him both of them would rather be out hunting and fishing or, as he suspected they usually did, drinking. In fact they would rather be doing anything other than attending a ball. They were young and they wanted to do the things young men did. And while some considered he was too indulgent with Edmond and Drake, he wanted them to have good lives before the time came to sit on the throne and grow old and tired like him. For him this was an enjoyable event. For them it would have been pure torture.

  But the King slowly discovered that he couldn't enjoy the festivities as he usually did as the strange whistling sound grew all around him, cutting through the music. In time neither could the rest of his guests.

  At first the king had thought it was one of the flautists playing out of tune. But the whistling was becoming too loud for that and he was certain it was coming from outside the castle. The dancing slowly ground to a confused halt as one by one the bards stopped playing their instruments, and slowly the ballroom turned into a hall for the uncertain. But the king couldn't afford to worry about that. Not when he could not only hear the whistling growing louder, but also the sound of thunder. Thunder that sounded like it was coming from deep in the ground.

  “Earthquake?”

  One of the stewards asked the question out loud, and the king wished he hadn't. Shakes were very uncommon in Theria and thus the stuff of fanciful tales to scare the patrons of inns. But shakes didn't come with whistling. Everyone though looked at the poor steward as if he actually knew what he was talking about, and the boy stared helplessly back at them. He was probably fifteen at most and had been promoted to steward from the kitchens for just that evening. He had probably been stuffed into an elegant court suit and given a silver tray and a jug of wine to pass around among the guests only a few hours before. He knew nothing.

  Suddenly things became much worse as the king heard men shouting in panic somewhere outside the ballroom. Frightened men, who were supposed to be his guards. But he understood their fear as he finally recognised the sound of thunder for what it truly was:

  Big feet. Lots of them. Moving fast.

  There was only one creature in the lands that made thunder like that in the ground and also whistled: Mammoths.

  “Everyone, find safety; scatter!”

  The king shouted his warning even as he jumped to his feet, but as he did so he knew it was probably too late to do much good. When the ground was shaking this badly and the whistling was this loud, it meant that they had to be close. Especially when he could hear the sounds of steel smashing on steel, and knew the guards were preparing to defend the castle. They were preparing he knew, to defend him.

  But from what? It couldn't be an attack.

  Mammoths weren't war-beasts. They didn't like people enough to let them control them and they were too stupid to pull a wagon. What they mostly did when they encountered a man was ignore him. Or sometimes trample him into a fine paste if they felt threatened. Even among the brutish northern lands where they lived no one messed with them. No humans anyway. Annoying them was a good way to get yourself killed.

  Then the beasts hit the walls of the castle grounds and he stopped wondering about pointless questions. He heard the sound as the distant walls of the castle bore the brunt of their attack. Then he heard the crash as the six foot thick stone gave way to the living mountains of flesh and horn. He felt the explosion as the impact shook the entire castle. He heard the screams of the guards as they ran or fought. He heard the sounds of the cannon firing in the distance, and knew that they at least would do some damage to the rampaging beasts. But only some. And he heard the sounds of pistols and muskets firing, and knew that they would do the beasts no damage at all. Less than that of a bee sting. They might even make them angrier.

  His guests finally scattered then, screaming and running in all directions, elegant silk frocks and black suits with tails streaming behind them.

  “Upstairs!”

  Someone had the right idea the king thought as he heard the call. Mammoths didn't climb stairs as far as he knew. In any case, even if they tried the massive marble flights of stairs probably wouldn't be able to support their weight. Of course, being upstairs while they were downstairs knocking over the supporting walls in their rampage probably wouldn't be so good either.

  Still, he followed the stream of ball gowns and black suits making their way to the grand flights of stairs, vowing that if he survived this he would finally go on a diet. Maybe it was the sign of a grand king in good times to be a little rotund. It told the people there was plenty of food and wine availa
ble. At least so his advisers claimed. But it wasn't so good when it came to running. Still, he gave a good accounting of himself as he ran he thought. He managed to run quite a lot faster when he heard the sound of more stone walls finally crumbling under the beasts’ attack, and then the thunder as they burst into the castle itself.

  After that there was only bedlam.

  By the time he'd made it to the top of the stairs and was on the landing overlooking the ballroom and throne room, it had become so noisy that he couldn't hear himself think. But when the first of the great beasts broke through into the ballroom there was no time to think anyway.

  The front wall came tumbling down in a shower of stone, cement, dust and debris, and the first of the huge dark shapes burst through into the ballroom and stampeded their way to the far side. Things went flying – tables, chairs, people – and the sound of the great beasts was suddenly drowned out by the panicked screams of his guests. Then the rest of the herd came through, finishing off what was left of the outer walls, and proceeded to stampede through the ballroom as they chased their leader.

  Standing on the landing looking down the king could barely believe what he was seeing as the massive dark shapes rushed by beneath him, a river of dark grey. It was like being on a bridge as a massively engorged river rushed past below. He knew it was probably dangerous to look at them. This river was alive. All a beast had to do was look up and it could reach out with its tusks and trunk and kill him and the others in a heartbeat. But he couldn't help himself. He couldn't look away.

  The leader left the same way he had arrived; bursting through a wall somewhere ahead of him and the rest followed, the thunder of their tread shaking the entire castle. Soon only a few stragglers were left chasing desperately after the rest, and the worst of the immediate danger was over. Maybe that should have been a good thing. But it wasn't. One of the great beasts had obviously hit something important on his way out, a column perhaps, and the south end of the landing unexpectedly collapsed under them, sending everyone sliding down the polished floor, screaming.

  Everyone screamed, including the king, as they slid and tumbled to the ground floor, and no one gave a tinker's damn about trying to look brave. At that point they were more concerned about surviving. But the king knew as he struggled to pick himself up out of the heap of bodies on the floor that not everyone had. It depended mostly on what they'd landed on. Or on whom. There were people on top of him, just as he was on top of others, and most of them had no idea of what was happening.

  Many were crying out in confusion and fear. Some were in pain, and there was blood all around. All of them were terrified that the beasts would come back while they lay there, helpless. A few like him were trying to crawl their way out of the pile of human rubble. They had to get away. And the king knew he had to do the same. They all did.

  While there were hundreds of them gathered together in a heap at one end of the landing, many of whom were frightened and injured, that couldn’t be his primary concern. What mattered was the groaning sound coming from all around them. The sound was terrifying because he knew it was the sound of the castle slowly giving way to the immense weight of stone above it. He knew the castle was about to collapse.

  “Run!”

  He yelled out as loudly as he could, and when people didn't seem to hear him, he yelled out some more. Then, once he'd managed to wriggle his way out of the tangle of bodies and could stand on solid stone once more, he started picking people up as best he could, and pushing them toward the front entrance of the castle. Or what had been the front entrance. It was now just a pile of rubble and a massive hole in the wall stretching at least fifty paces across. But it was a way out.

  One by one he pushed and pulled at the guests, sometimes screaming in their faces as he made them understand the precariousness of their current position. A few began helping others up, while others bolted in blind panic. But as long as they ran for the outside he didn't care. He just kept pulling them free as fast as he could and yelling at them to run.

  And all the while the groaning of the tortured stone grew louder. The castle wouldn’t hold up for much longer.

  Suddenly guards joined him from out of nowhere, and he welcomed their courageous service as they began pulling people to safety. But he feared for their lives too. These people were under his authority. He was responsible for them and he didn't want them hurt. But he didn't order them to stop because there were so many more that needed their help. Instead he yelled at them to hurry.

  Suddenly it was too late. He heard the terrible crunch as the stone finally gave way and he looked up just in time to see half the main internal wall of the castle start to give way above him. Four stories of heavy stone was about to begin its descent. In that moment Byron knew it was over. He knew he was going to die. And all he could think about were the other thirty or forty guests there with him. Those who hadn't managed to get free of the crush. Those who were going to die with him. This was not how his reign was supposed to end.

  But even as he prepared himself for death someone smashed into him. A shape, a form in a guard’s uniform. and then suddenly he was being carried away from the collapsing wall in a sprint. Carried probably faster than he'd ever run in his entire life, while behind him the immense stone blocks began smashing down.

  People were killed instantly, crushed into bloody rags. Stone turned to dust all around him. The floor shook as though a giant was jumping up and down on it. And all he knew was that he was being carried away from it. Carried to safety. Although just then the world outside looked a little like what he thought the underworld might look like.

  Outside in the courtyard the guard handed him to several others, before suddenly collapsing to his knees. Possibly he'd been injured though more likely he guessed, the man was simply winded from his exertions. Either though was still a better condition than that of many others. So many others!

  As he got to his feet and surveyed the remains of his castle, Byron knew that many others were in far worse shape than him and his guardsman. Even among the survivors. But behind him, somewhere in the massive clouds of dust that were billowing out of the broken castle, were bodies. Scores of them. People who had once been his guests and his friends and his loyal servants, were now gone; killed by the stampeding mammoths and falling masonry. The outer courtyard wall was gone. An entire wing of the castle had collapsed and in the darkness he wasn't sure that the rest would keep standing. But that was only the beginning of the disaster. The beasts might have stampeded through the castle but they hadn't stopped there.

  Through the broken castle walls he could see evidence of damage done to other buildings. Even in the darkness it was obvious. It seemed that the heart of the city itself had been ripped apart by the great beasts. What once had been a city of neatly laid stone and slate and perfectly straight cobbled streets had been transformed into channels of broken ground running through hills of rubble. Clouds of dust filled the air making it difficult to breathe and as the dust slowly settled he knew it would cover the remains of many of those who had once called the rubble home. Perhaps it would hide some of the horror. In the distance he could make out where the main gate to the city used to be. In its place there was now a huge gaping hole in the massive wall that ringed the entire city of Theria.

  To add to the madness of it all he could see mammoths everywhere. No longer rampaging as the panic had apparently ended, they now stood quietly in the streets, thinking no doubt about food. It was a sight he would never have expected to see in his lifetime.

  The beasts were as quick to calm as they were to panic so the stories went. But in the distance he could still hear the sound of thunder in the ground and the screams of people as some of the beasts still ran. Even these calmer ones still looked dangerously skittish. One wrong move, one loud noise, and they would start stampeding again. And when they did chaos would return.

  “Sire!”

  Someone was addressing him and he dimly realised that the man had been doing so for s
ome time. He even had his hand on his shoulder and was shaking him as he tried to get his attention. And despite it being improper it was the right thing to do. This was a disaster and the people needed their king. Now more than ever they needed him. He could see that so very clearly in the faces of the guards surrounding him. They didn't know what to do. They needed orders. They needed something to make sense in the light of what had happened.

  “Right, get everyone you can out of the broken buildings and away from the mammoths.” He started belting out orders to anyone who would listen, heedless of the chain of command. Normally he would instruct his right and left hands and they would do what needed to be done. But his left hand was away on a trade mission and he had no idea where his right hand was. Lord Julius could be dead.

  “And no one approaches the mammoths. No shooting, no loud noises. Let the beasts calm down and pray they leave peaceably.”

  The last thing they could afford he knew, was another stampede. The mammoths would have to be encouraged to leave by themselves. But at the same time he had no idea at all how to coax a mammoth to leave their city. Still, that was a matter for later. For the moment while things were calming down, they had to concentrate on getting the people to safety and not making things worse.