The Land of All Things Fallen: Part I (The Wyvern King's Redemption Volume 1)

By D W Gladstone

This is the first part of The Land of All Things Fallen

For two hundred years, the Dark Moon of Perrefiere has blackened the northern sky. For two hundred years, the fortress of the Immortal has eclipsed the northern sun and cast the lands of Ammandorn and Eryndor in dark light. A promise of war and cataclysm to the five bloods of men and the kingdoms they have built across the inland sea. Now, that war is beginning - the weapon of the Immortal has been found.

From a council of the Archivists and the Magus Tribunal, Elle'dred, Champion of the White Wolf, has been dispatched with a fellow knight and two magus. Under the command of the Tribunal's Champion, Taedoran of Ygoth, they are to escort the weapon to the old lands of Eryndor where - with the aid of a magus steeped in ancient knowledge - it may be undone.

But the weapon, a creature - an Incarnate - the channel for all hell-fire, seems to be nothing more than a frightened animal, innocent and unaware of its true purpose. The truth of its nature, and of the war to come, will shake the very foundations of Elle'dred's oath to the Order of the White Wolf, the Archivists, and the land of Ammandorn itself.

For unknown to the Champion of the White Wolf, the arrival of the weapon and the renewed threat of the Dark Moon has awakened the drive of ruthless ambition, personal grievances and the bitterness of wounds unhealed - and a dark secret that violates the very precepts of the society they strive to protect. A secret now forced into the light.

The war of the Immortal has begun and the land of Ammandorn will fall - but whether beneath the yoke of its own sins, or beneath the crimson flames of hell-fire and the darkness of a Moon, is yet uncertain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D W Gladstone
• Release date: Nov 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370935673

D W Gladstone

D W Gladstone is an Australian born author currently residing in South Australia. A competition winner in short stories and poetry, he published his first novel, The Land of All Things Fallen, in 2015. His second novel, A Forest of a Thousand Suns, has been published in April, 2017 and continues the The Wyvern King's Redemption series.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The street was dark. The street was always dark. Strangled by buildings and choked by shadows, the street wound tortuously through the most unfrequented of the city’s districts. Myriad alleys crawled off into the depths of the dilapidated structures on either side, disappearing into their own untraceable paths that oft twisted and turned until one was either lost or had unwittingly arrived at the same place from which they had departed. Others simply found an abrupt end in the shadows.

Even in the full light of noon – when the southern sun hung high above the rooves of the buildings, decaying and preserved alike, this street was a haven for darkness. For all that liked to crawl and hunt in the darkness.

It was night, now.

Starlight, pale and fragile, glittered above the black edge of the buildings surrounding her. Scarce enough to lift the utter abyss, the pale glimmer from above served only to reduce the depths of the street to a mass of devouring shadows. The last lamps she had passed, on a main road far behind her, did not dare assault this dominion of the dark.

And she did not want them to. She was more at home in the dark.

As she made her way through the darkness of the street, her eyes glanced and glided over every alley-mouth, smashed window and open archway, long abandoned by its fulfilling doors. Calmly, carefully, she assessed and passed each black pit that might hide a waiting blade and its hunter.

She knew likely though, if indeed such a hunter was waiting for her she would not hear more than a whistled cry of the air before a blade or an arrow or a bolt drove its way into her back. She might not even hear herself scream.

– A noise.

Her stride stalled momentarily.

Keen eyes flicked to the alleyway from where it had come. Even keener ears listened for a sign of what it might be, or whom – for the soft grind of boot on stone, the subtler groan of leather straps or a glove tensing around the hilt of a weapon – or of a distant bowstring being drawn. Her eyes saw nothing in the pervading black; she doubted she would see anything asides from black.

If she was lucky, the predator that stalked her was not intending to silence her screams and her life with a quick blow from a weapon; if fortune was with her, whatever it was wanted to hear her scream. And that suited her fine; it would need to be close to make her scream, close enough to force its way inside – and at that range, even with a dagger in her ribs, she was the more deadly.

After the moment’s pause, which passed so naturally one would assume it was her intent and had always been, she continued on around the sharp bend of the street.

Her footsteps made almost no sound as she crossed the broken pavers and fine debris, lost amidst the shadows around her feet. Her feet were bound in soft cloth, designed to caress the ground on which she walked, and years of practice had taught her how to mask what little sound they did not prevent.

Still, it was not enough.

Whoever was tracking her could not mistake the delicate susurrations of her feet as anything other than a cacophony amidst the overwhelming silence of the street. And they were likely tracking her through sight as well.

– Another sound. From the alley beside her.

She paused. They were not guardsmen; no guardsman could ever be this quiet. But that reasoning also sparked the corresponding thought that it was therefore someone much more proficient in stealth. And that did not favour her chances of escape.

More than one face flashed through her mind of who it might be; she wondered if she herself had hired them before. An idle thought passed, as to how much they were being paid for her, and as to how much they had been told. It was such a fickle business.

– A skittering of stone. From the alley.

She stopped.

A gloved hand slid into the folds of her dress, and wrapped around the hilt of her knife. They wanted to be close – if they had intended to use a bolt or arrow they would have done so long before now. Although, that thought did not discount a thrown knife. She might not even see it coming – or it might be little more than a flash of steel before it drove into her eye.

She wondered if it was him.

The hope sparked again that the intent was to cripple; that they desired to touch her. She hoped most for that. The touch of bare skin.

– Another skitter. A click.

They wanted her to be afraid, they wanted her to run. To scream. They had chosen the perfect place for this; too many times it had happened here, and worse. It would look like nothing more than the usual goings-on of this place, this street. It would not help if she screamed. The street was as deaf as it was silent. And the shadows would do nothing more than smile.

She had been betrayed – she had expected as much.

Skittering – clicking – the soft pad of landing feet –

A weak, quiet squeal.

A moment later, the silhouette of the dog moved out of the alley.

She eased.

The black silhouette, darker than the darkness that had hid it, padded quietly out onto the broken pavers of the street. Amidst the lesser shadows, it appeared almost majestic and demanding, a king born of the utter abyss behind it – until the starlight caught a soft sheen across its startlingly white fur.

And on the blood coating its muzzle. It had a rat in its mouth.

The soft glint of eyes, reflecting the night’s sky, stared at her for a moment.

She stared back. She almost smiled.

The dog waited, meeting her gaze with its. Then it lowered its head, turned, and moved across the street behind her, into the again enveloping blackness of an alley there.

She allowed herself a moment of relief.

She turned back to the street, and proceeded ahead. The starlight seemed to have increased, almost daring to cast the shadows around her feet as the intangible ghosts that they were. They seethed under the pale flicker – they had been deprived of a kill, unlike the dog.

She was glad it had just been a dog. She was confident now that her motives had not been suspected; or that if they were, he had not thought to do anything about it.

The establishment crawled out of the darkness of the street with little eagerness – a beaten, aging structure long wanting to collapse from rot, wedged between two far larger constructs that had themselves been abandoned long ago; it would much have preferred to remain hidden, both unlike and alike its owner.

The decaying wood of its outer façade had years ago been bled to grey, and under the cover of night and the shadows of the two towering edifices on either side, it was remarkable that it could be found at all – or that it was as frequented as it was. Its windows on both levels were heavily boarded, and the sign that had once dangled above the door had some time ago fallen away from its chains, rusted and broken.

The owner of this place had once told her that the sign had fallen on a man’s head – splaying his skull open for all the world to see. The owner had added that he had been disappointed by the incident; the drunk had owed some very unpleasant people a very large sum of money.

The death had been too quick for him.

She had doubted the anecdote, in any case. He had far too many stories to tell, and told them all too readily. And she had heard the ones he would never tell.

She raised her hand to knock on the wood – a dull thud from above stalled her. Something had been thrown against the wall. The even quieter moan that followed, perforating the wood of the second level above, informed her it had been a person. A woman. Or a girl.

She knocked on the thick door.

A few long minutes passed before the glow of a lantern filled the cracks around the doorframe, and she heard the sounds of the myriad locks and bars being moved away from the entrance. The creak of the door’s hinges shattered the perfect silence of the street in a way that no scream here could.

She glanced down.

The owner’s face slid into the crack revealed by the door, as he peered out at her. The light of the lantern, likely on a table not far behind him, cast sharp blades of darkness across his softer, fat features. A double chin, overgrown by a scraggly beard, sat beneath cracking lips – his tongue darted out the side of his mouth and licked the top corner, adding fresh wetness to the deposit of saliva, dried white, which was ingrained there. Two dark brown, half-sunken, eyes stared up from beneath a balding scalp and a brow furrowed with lines.

You’re late. he said, irked – but grinned, I wondered if you had better things to do.

A head taller than him, she narrowed her eyes slightly as she stared down, Do you still wish to do business, or shall I leave?

His grin widened. He opened the door fully, and gestured with a plump hand for her to enter.

The lantern he had carried glared at her from its perch on the lip of the closest of the seven tables that populated the barroom. Its sallow light crowded the small enclosure with myriad shadows, hiding beneath the other tables, the chairs, or watching from the sharpness of the room’s corners.

A stairway climbed into blackness on the far wall, its beginnings beside the maw of an open doorway which led to the unilluminated depths of a kitchen. The bar itself claimed the wall adjacent to the aperture, and was rendered nearly as dark by the shadows cast there.

The tavern, or brothel, or slaughterhouse, whichever paid more, was as dilapidated on its inside as it was on its out; a stale smell pervaded the room, broken only by the slight whiff of something more unsettling – vomit, blood, semen.

The door creaked horrifically again behind her as it was shut, enclosing her in the musty sickness and light of the room. As the owner went about the task of re-bolting every lock, and laying a sturdy bar across the door, she moved over to the table menaced by the lantern and sat.

The scent of male climax caught her nose immediately, from the chair beneath her. Undoubtedly, it had been used for that recently.

It bothered her only as much as it had the first time she had entered this room – a man had sat against the eastern wall, his face flushed with alcohol, as a girl barely old enough for her trade had rhythmically rested her face in his lap; the man had glanced over at her as she had entered the tavern, given a drunken smile and puckered his lips – like the girl massaging his loins with her mouth was no more than an adornment.

She had not responded then, as she did not respond to the smell now.

Amidst the stale silence and crowd of shadows, the owner finished re-securing the entrance and turned to face the table. He did not meet her eyes. With a slight hesitation, that evinced a wariness unbecoming his bulbous gait, he moved away from the door and pulled out the chair opposite her.

A thump from upstairs, which broke the mustiness of the room, had them both glance up.

She asked the question tacitly with her eyes.

A couple of guardsmen, and a girl they had with them. he chuckled, The little slut.

She doubted the girl was a prostitute, or that she was willing. She made no comment.

Now, I believe there was some business we have to complete.

She did not utter a word in response; after a pause, she slid her gloved hand into a pocket – she could not mistake the flinch of the tavern owner as her hand disappeared from sight. She wondered if he expected a knife.

The jingle of the coins within emerged into the sallow light of the lantern, and came to an abrupt thud on the stained wood of the table, as she placed the small bag in front of her.

Her hand came to rest beside it.

The tavern owner grinned, again.

Levering his bulk out of his chair, he moved across the room and into the flickering shadows that pervaded the bar. Awkwardly, he disappeared behind it. For a moment, as the owner had when her hand had moved beyond sight, she expected him to rise from the shadows with a crossbow aimed at her breast – but unlike him, she did not flinch.

He emerged, however, carrying only a small parcel crudely wrapped in some black paper. He set the parcel on the counter, and glanced up at her. The shadows concealed the sum of his features.

Would you like a drink?

She narrowed her eyes at him. The shadows could not hide the flinch.

Well, suit yourself. – he forced a chuckle as he retrieved a glass and a bottle from against the wall.

She waited at the table across the room, patiently, as he slowly poured the deep purple liquor into the cup.

He chuckled, You know, I heard something interesting this morning. Something I thought a damned shame. he paused, You remember that girl you were asking about, last time you came to see me?

After a moment, she nodded.

He glanced at the glass, and the bottle, as he stopped pouring, Her body was found in an alley not far from her home, only a few days ago. he met her eyes – and smiled; even amidst the shadows, the cold glint of his gaze could not hide, I heard they still have not found the baby.

She met the eyes of the man in the shadows, evenly, How unfortunate.

The tavern owner chuckled, and lifted the glass to his lips. For a moment, his eyes did not leave hers.

As he drank, a dribble of wine escaped his lips and settled uncomfortably into his beard. He drained half the glass. Seemingly without noticing the wetness in his facial hair, he returned to the table with the glass and the parcel. He placed the glass down first. And alone.

She restrained a sigh.

She slid the bag of coins over to him; his free hand stretched out to meet hers. For a moment, not at all disguised as accident, he brushed her gloved hand with his coarse, plump fingers. She met his eyes – the glint shone with all the cruel sickness it had when she had first met him.

Her eyes glittered back.

His tongue darted out from the side of his mouth, wetting the white mark above his lip.

She wasn’t his type, she knew; she was far too old.

He took the bag from her grasp, and shoved the parcel across the table to her. None too eagerly, she lifted it away into the folds of her dress.

Will that be all, m’dear? he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. He flinched.

– A heavy thump at the door drew his attention away.

Damn.

They were early. Or she was decidedly later than she had thought.

Hmmm, more customers, he muttered, as he hoisted himself out of the chair, and proceeded once again to the door.

She rose a moment after – silently, and before the tavern owner had negotiated the thick, lengthy bar from the door, she had crossed the room as quietly. She secured herself in the welcoming darkness of the kitchen, beyond its open archway, as the owner began to unlock each of the iron bars that secured the entrance.

She paused a moment, to let her eyes adjust to the dark again, and could not help a glance out into the barroom – the lantern, motionless upon the table, cried foul as it clawed hopelessly after her. She was glad it was so dim. Otherwise her escape might have been noticed.

The tavern owner removed one of the last bars from the door.

Her eyes, adjusted as far as the few moments permitted, guided her through the edges of black shapes across the dark stretch of the kitchen to where she knew the entrance to the cellar resided.

A pit, only the slightest shade darker than the air of the kitchen opened up before her.

– The hinges of the door, far beyond the abyss of the kitchen, creaked like a wail of what was to come –

Hidden, and safe, she could not help a pause.

How can I help you – – the owner’s voice began, muffled by the distance of the kitchen, but was cut off by a winded grunt – as quickly overcome by the screech of table legs, the clattering of the lantern, and the painful thud of his landing on the wooden floorboards.

Heavy boots thundered in after him. And steel was drawn from a scabbard –

You raped my sister! a man’s voice snarled with grief and lethal fury.

No, wait – ahhh! – the tavern owner’s scream gurgled as the steel slid into flesh – drawn out – and hacked in again. A heavy breath was relieved, grieved and desperately angry.

Damn.

Amidst the utter darkness of the kitchen, she moved carefully down the steps in the pit – as the rumbling of feet from upstairs turned to a rolling din of boots on the staircase.

The shouting that filled the barroom, and whatever else, was muffled by distance and the intervening ground floor above her, as she felt her way along the walls to where the drain was situated.

Feeling the evenly parted bars with her bound feet, she bent down and lifted the covering grate away from her only method of final egress.

The scream of the rusty, befouled hinges, was utterly lost in the continuing commotion above.

Elegantly, she slipped down into the final depths of darkness that would ward her.

The stench of human effluence immediately assaulted her. A choking, sickening reek filled the air, trying lethargically to crush the nausea out of her.

She had no objection to crawling through the sewers in order to leave, but she would much have preferred to have used the door. It would have left fewer questions.

Slowly, carefully, she re-closed the grate above her, and began to feel her way through the complete blackness of the tunnel. The stench worsened, the further she crawled into the sewers.

She did not let it disturb her.

As she felt her way along amidst the darkness and the reek, she found herself smirking – that man, the owner, had not had a chance to use his escape tunnel. And he had gone to such lengths to hide it.

It was a pity.

That death was far too quick for him.

Though, as she placed her hand into an unanticipated puddle more solid than fluid – and paused for an annoyed moment, she was glad. There was none of his blood on her hands.

* * *

Elle’dred stared out across the frozen, interminably black sea of the Dead Mountains. From his vantage point, half concealed by the surrounding peaks, he could see the extent of the range as it stretched perpetually into the west. Uncountable peaks, serrated and sharp, like the waves of a terrible tide that would come crashing down – and bring the utter, unending night.