Ward, Matthew Legacy 01 - Legacy of Ash by Ward Matthew

Author:Ward, Matthew [Ward, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2019-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Tzadas, 6th day of Radiance

We speak of the Dark as a living being. It is far more – but also far less. Even that splinter that survived Lumestra’s wrath has the power to reshape the world, but it can only act through our flesh and our souls.

Why else would it shape others to its service?

from the sermons of Konor Belenzo

Thirty-Six

The sun did not so much rise as slink from beneath the horizon, casting reluctant light on the distant imperial battle lines. The green silks and golden scale of the Immortals. The dark robes and leathers of shieldsmen and outriders. And to the west, no distance at all across the valley’s wheat-fields, the king’s blue tabards among golden crops. Outnumbered. Doomed. Drakos Crovan suspected Lumestra wanted no part of what the day would bring. Nor did he.

“Having second thoughts?” asked Silda Drenn.

“Second, and third, and fourth,” Crovan replied. “Trastorov once wrote that we delight in breaking oaths. The ultimate freedom.”

She spat. “There’s a reason they burned Trastorov. Bugger was a witch.”

“Three factions muster below. I’ve given my oath to each, at different times. I’ve broken one already. By dusk, I’ll have broken at least one more.”

“Then rejoice,” she replied. “For you’re about to be freer than ever.”

Crovan shook his head angrily. On the field below, Tressian shields formed up beneath towering kraikons. There’d be simarka too, prowling the wheat. “I haven’t felt free since I came home. I never wanted any of . . . this.”

“Then what do you want?”

A good question. He’d wanted to fight injustice. Once, he’d had a plan. Now . . . Now he wasn’t sure how he’d even got here, or where he was going. The path ahead was steep, but the path behind was shrouded in the mist of inconstant memory, and a dark voice tempting him to ruin. How could a life change so much without conscious choice?

“To live out my days with a clear conscience,” Crovan replied.

“Can’t be done. Better to embrace it.”

Maybe Drenn was right. A few paces more; the slope would lessen and the mists would part. He’d feel the sun on his face, instead of the chill in his bones.

Drawing himself up, Crovan turned his back on the quickening battle. “We’ll let the Hadari take the brunt. We may have to fight at their side, but I’ll embrace the Raven before I let our people win Saran’s war.”

Drenn nodded and slipped away through the trees.

The phoenix re-buckled and re-sited her sword belt three times before Viktor passed her. Her neighbour in the shield wall scraped a whetstone across a dagger already sharpened to a razor’s kiss. Hands pressed to lockets, sun pendants and wedding rings. Talismans all on a bleak day where even the wind seemed stale and unwilling.

Viktor understood the rituals, but he’d none of his own. You fought, maybe you died. In the aftermath you remembered friend and foe. Until then, there was only the killing.

The twin banners of their centre twitched fitfully in the breeze. The swan banner was one of two Viktor had brought from Tressia.

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