The Fractured Portal

By R. B. Watkinson

War spreads further into Dumnon despite the coming of winter, and even more Murecken priests are on the hunt for those with power in their blood.

Coryn now trains young warriors in Storr Haven in the use of magic, but he still searches for Katleya, the woman he lost.

Two young Londoners, Evie and Alan, are flung through a Portal into

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claret Press
• Release date: Jun 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781910461266

R. B. Watkinson

R B Watkinson (Rosa) was raised on myths and legends, and now loves fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mystery, and so much more. Her tastes in reading and film watching are nothing if not eclectic. She's held down a variety of jobs: IT, publishing, teaching in special needs education. She also acts, and sings, and will continue to do so until she's asked to stop. She studied for a Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford University from 2009-2011, which ran the gamut of long and short fiction, poetry, plays, films, travel, and biography. She is the author of The Cracked Amulet, which was listed for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award in 2017. It is the first of her Wefan Weaves Trilogy. The Fractured Portal is her second, The Ruptured Weaves will be her third. She is also a narrator and producer of Audiobooks: Ghosts of Tomorrow by Michael R. Fletcher, The Last Dragon Rider by Errin Krystal, The City of Kings by Rob Hayes. Many more are in production. Find her at SFF conventions, say 'hi', she is approachable and friendly. Her blog is here: https://rbwatkinson.wordpress.com/

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Endorsements

A wide ranging fantasy tale … bags of imagination on display … strongest in its world building and magic …

Mark Lawrence, author of The Broken Empire Trilogy, The Red Queen’s War Trilogy, The Book of the Ancestor Trilogy.

There are some exciting scenes, battles and fights and the magic is interesting - there is more to it than at first you realise.

G.R. Matthews, author of the Corin Hayes series.

Watkinson has great fun with the world-building and the tropes of epic fantasy. With The Cracked Amulet she writes a series opener that recalls the scope, breadth and darkness of Tad Williams and JV Jones.

Steven Poore, author of The Heir to the North Duology.

Watkinson kicks off a promising series with this winning first instalment to the Wefan Weaves trilogy ... Captivating characters, mythical creatures, and exciting battles make this a treat for fantasy readers.

Publishers Weekly

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my three wonderful children, Nick, Greg, and Suzy.

Without their love and support it would never have come to be.

Map of Dumnon

CHAPTER 1

His spyglass to his eye, Coryn watched the valley, his shoulders hunched against the mountain downdraft. He scanned the scrawny pines rooted in the thin soil of the ridge opposite, the boulders stacked around the ravine mouth below where half the Storratian guard hid, looking for anything that didn’t fit.

‘Where are you? Damned Murecken bastards.’ He shifted, tried to roll the tension from his shoulders.

A tree-spirit, smaller than his thumb, emerged from the bark of a nearby sapling, crept along a branch, and hung onto its tip. Coryn followed its line of sight and spotted a tiny water-spirit splashing in a puddle. His smile turned to a frown as he scanned the ravine mouth again. There was no sign of the dog and everything seemed still and peaceful. Even the twenty shivering archers, more soldiers of the Storratian Guard, were quiet, hunkered behind boulders and trees on the slope nearby. Twenty bows readied, copses of arrows stuck in the ground near each for easy pulls.

He’d got the measure of these soldiers over the tendays they’d been riding together. They knew their job. Coryn reckoned their fear a good thing considering what they faced.

His skin itched. Something felt wrong.

‘Are you certain they come?’ the Moder asked again. She kept her voice low, but it sounded loud in the silence.

‘I’m certain you should’ve stayed behind. These mountains are no place for those who don’t know how to fight.’

‘You think me a liability, Sire Coryn.’ The Moder gave him a hard look.

‘It’s reckless to my mind, what with Mureckens on the prowl.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘Spies will have let them know about your being here by now.’

‘I and Dame Liandre might not have seen actual combat, but do not be so hasty to believe us incapable of defending ourselves.’ The Moder’s voice was as hard as her stare.

Coryn closed the spyglass and slid it back into its tube on his belt. ‘It’s your blood the Mureckens are after and it’s these soldiers lives as stand between those blood-suckers and you two.’

‘I am well aware of the situation, as are these soldiers. It is, after all, their purpose.’ The Moder shifted as if to join him.

‘They’ll come down that ravine any time now if they keep to the pace they set earlier,’ Coryn said quickly.

The Moder gave him another look, then nodded and left. She moved near as quiet as Katleya, and Coryn’s heart stuttered at the memory of her. He locked it away fast, firm. He needed his mind clear for what was to come.

‘Damned Murecken,’ he whispered, half to the spirits. He picked up his bow, checked its pull, sighted down to the valley. ‘You think they’ve any guilt about the lives they’ve taken, the homes and farms they’ve destroyed, the blood they’ve drained? Think they ever consider it, even for a moment?’

Neither spirit responded. They rarely did, but for a moment Coryn wondered if there was some sort of sympathy buried in their eyes. For those suffering in Murecken chains back in his homeland, Kalebrod. Or for his own family, corpses left to bleed out into the mud so long ago. The likelihood was low.

With a prickle of spirit-magik, the tree-spirit faded, sinking back into pine. The water-spirit winked an emerald eye and disappeared, a sparkle of gold left to drift on the water in its wake. He shook his head, now was no time to be distracted by spirits.

A trio of mule deer, feeding their way down the slope, froze. Ears perked they looked towards the ravine then fled, tails flagging alarm. Enough warning for any man with wit to notice. Coryn drew in a breath as the Mureckens appeared.

First came five grey-uniformed soldiers and three black-cloaked and hooded blood-priests. One was a Bloodhunter. Coryn was surprised to see a pair of grey-skinned writhen leashed to his saddle with long iron chains. They wore only loin cloths and their yellowed tusks were sawn off. Leashed writhen were a new thing, but Coryn had no time to think on it. He felt the uncomfortable spike of blood-magik gnaw at him though the blood-priests were still distant.

‘See that one there? The horse with that leather bucket over its muzzle?’ An archer to his left whispered. ‘That there’s a clear sign its rider is a Murak-damned Bloodhunter.’

‘We know, Lisst,’ another hissed back. ‘We’ve all ‘eard the captain’s bloody lectures. How them buckets are soaked in oils to stop their horses from scenting their stink and panicking.’

‘Mureckens are chaining their writhen now? another whispered, no doubt thinking himself quiet.

‘Mebbe they’re fightin’ back these days. Mebbe them Murecken ‘ave less control over ‘em.’

‘Yeah. Could be that’s why these ain’t got no tribal marks decorating their skin, and got their tusks sawed off,’ Lisst muttered. ‘No fetishes neither, nor belts to hang ‘em from.’

‘Mebbe the blood-suckers’ power is failin’ eh.’ The soldier chuckled. ‘That’d be somethin’ ta drink to!’

Before Coryn could tell them to damn well shut up, Captain Yagden hissed for silence.

A narrow high-wheeled prison cart appeared. Another blood-priest sat next to the driver and a second squad of soldiers rode behind. The cage on the long cart held nine, maybe ten prisoners, a mix of adults and children.

‘Damn the stinking blood-suckers and their rotting god!’ Coryn muttered. He hawked and spat the foul taste from his mouth.

‘Aye, I’ll second that,’ whispered the woman to his right. Lainer, a big woman with a burn scarred face.

The Bloodhunter rode into a dip in the trail and dropped out of view behind a birch copse. Coryn measured the distances. When the Mureckens came out from the copse they’d be a shade over a hundred yards away, an easy distance for his bow. He rose and stood alongside the pine. Angling his body, he drew until he felt the fletching brush his cheek, sighted down the arrow.

Captain Yagden whistled the high call of a buzzard three times, the signal for his archers to start loosing.

The Bloodhunter appeared first along with his writhen. Coryn felt the spike of blood-magik strengthen and saw the blood-priest’s whip writhing with tentacles of oily, red-tinged, black smoke. The deadly blood-magik in action.

Coryn overrode a shudder of fear, felt for the wind, adjusted his aim. He released his breath and arrow as one.

He’d shot a shade too high. Feathered through the throat, the Bloodhunter catapulted from his saddle and his blood-magik whip collapsed. His horse bolted back up the ravine, crashing through the other horses, spooking them. The two chained writhen turned on their master with claws and fangs. Red light exploded from the man’s chest, flaming the writhen. They screeched, fleeing towards the ridge and the hidden Storratians, skins afire.

Coryn turned his attention back to the Bloodhunter. He was covered in red-tinged smoke. It meant he still lived, even if only just. The arrows sent his way burned up in the blood-magik before they could do any harm and Coryn knew he’d have to get up close and personal to kill the bastard.

Screams and neighs racketed around the narrow valley as more arrows and quarrels found their marks. At shouted orders from their officer, the Mureckens wheeled kicking their horses towards the slope and the archers, weaving to avoid the arrows raining down on them. Bursts of blood-magik fire from one priest burned up many before they reached their targets.

Captain Yagden whistled another series of notes. The ten soldiers burst from boulders near the mouth of the ravine and galloped up the trail toward the copse.

‘Don’t stop now, you arse-wipes,’ he yelled. ‘Keep shooting the bastards! Some arrows are sure to get through!’

The Mureckens pounded up the slope, short spears lowered. One blood-priest’s whip cracked out an astonishing length and snaked around an archer’s arm. He screamed, his arrow flying wild.

A pair of Captain Yagden’s soldiers ran forward as he struggled against the coiling blood-magik and hacked at the oily tentacles with their swords.

‘Go for the damned blood-priest, not his magik, you gutter-slime,’ Captain Yagden shouted, deflecting a spear and chopping through a Murecken’s thigh with his axe. ‘Go for the eyes, or cut their stinking heads off!’

A soldier screamed cut short, the whip wrapped around her neck. The stink of burning flesh spread between the trees as her head dropped to the ground and her body folded over it. An arrow took the blood-priest in the eye. The red gem he wore around his neck, boiled with smoke. It writhed up to the man’s face but wasn’t fast enough to heal him. The blood-magik faded fast as the priest’s body toppled from his horse.

Another blood-priest threw a pair of smoking lava-like balls up the slope. They sailed high, twisting in the air to find dodging archers. One smacked clean into a man’s back, burning through hardened leather armour and reaching chain mail before another kicked the blazing mass off. It smouldered on the ground and tendrils of blood-magik crept over rocks and grass. An arrow took down the blood-priest as he readied another pair of fire-balls. The blood-magik died with the man’s death, its smoke faded, taken by the wind.

Another of Coryn’s arrows took the hat from the driver’s head as he struggled to turn his carthorses back toward the ravine. Panicked, he turned it too tight, too fast. A wheel mounted a rock, wood snapped and the cart crashed on its side. The captives screamed, but they’d only be bruised and broken, not tortured and bled to death in some damned Murecken ritual.

‘Murak damned bastards! Learning new tricks.’ Coryn ran over to the mass of blood-magik, still reaching out tentacles though its creator was dead, and pushed against it with his Wealdan, until its power failed.

Captain Yagden and his squads now fought the Murecken soldiers in clusters staggered between the copse and the slope. Both writhen lay still, riddled with quarrels, but there could be more. There were always more.

Coryn notched and released an arrow, a Murecken fell. He notched another, all the time scanning the sides of the valley and the entrance to the ravine, moving down towards the copse. He was all too aware the blood-magik still wrapped the Bloodhunter, that the bastard still lived.

Dog trotted out of the ravine, sniffed the air, turned its head to look straight up at Coryn. It sat and raked a hind-foot through the bristled fur of his neck. A sign no more Murecken or their filthy beasts were coming from that direction.

Leaving his bow, Coryn scrambled downslope, pulling his sword free as he approached the Bloodhunter. He still wasn’t ready to rely on his Wealdan entirely. As he approached, he pushed against the blood-magik, squeezing it back into the red gem it poured from. Slowly, the Bloodhunter was revealed

His body wavered, became indistinct, started to change. The blood-magik spiked again, strong, stronger than Coryn could fight, and he stumbled, almost falling to his knees. Sweat slicked his skin and he gasped, struggling to hold to his Wealdan as he fought against the blood-magik.

Before his eyes, the Bloodhunter changed, became a lacert. The huge, half-hound, half-lizard beast struggled to its feet, blood seeping from the wound in its neck, Coryn’s arrow still deep in its flesh. Silent, it bared fangs longer than his fingers.

‘Murak’s hairy balls!’ Coryn swore.

He leaped forward, slashed his sword down, aiming for an eye. The blade caught on a scaled brow and skittered off the beast. The lacert lurched into a jump, aiming for Coryn’s chest. Coryn dodged to one side, keeping low, the point of his sword scoring the softer skin of the lacert’s belly. It twisted mid-air, snapping at Coryn’s arm. Its fangs pierced the thick leather of his coat, found his flesh.

Coryn screamed, dropped his sword, pulled out his knife. Then Dog was there, closing its jaws around the lacert’s back leg. The lacert’s jaws slackened and Coryn thrust his knife into its eye, pushing the blade deep into the brain. It dropped like a stone, jerking as it died, its fangs tearing from Coryn’s arm. Coryn dropped to his knees next to the beast, holding his arm close to his chest, trying to push past the agony.

‘Get the Moder down here, we’ve need of healing,’ Captain Yagden ordered a soldiers. He knelt by Coryn and offered him water from his skin. ‘You’ll be right soon enough, lad. Hold on there.’

‘One lucky bastard, that Kalebrodian,’ Corporal Wenzel drawled as he passed Captain Yagden. ‘Them women will be all over him now more ‘an ever with them lacert teeth marks to show ‘em.’

‘Lucky?’ Captain Yagden rose, burly and taller by a hand than Coryn. He looked at Wenzel with disgust. ‘Lucky, my arse! Go find the other scouts!’

Coryn grunted and looked at the remains of the lacert. Made him sick, thinking of the rituals, all those that’d bled to death on Murecken altars to create a Bloodhunter.

‘Do any priests live still?’ the Moder rode up beside Coryn and dismounted.

‘Wouldn’t hold out much hope, Moder.’ Coryn winced as she helped him out of his jacket. ‘But at least those folk are safe now.’

‘We can thank Lehot for that, as I am sure they do too.’

‘Could be,’ Coryn said, thinking they’d be more likely thank Captain Yagden and the Storratian Guard than any god. He winced again as the Moder ripped open his sleeve and began inspecting the punctures and rips in his arm.

‘Messy. These lacerts are formidable creatures.’ The Moder touched her focus-crystal with one hand while the other hovered over Coryn’s arm. ‘To see a Bloodhunter turn into his lacert form is even more astounding.’

The tingle of Wealdan-healing prickled deep into his flesh and Coryn bit down hard against crying out. He slumped as the healing drained his energy.

Done, the Moder turned to Dame Liandre who was tending to a soldier sitting on the ground nearby. ‘How does the woman fare?’

‘I can save her leg, Moder.’ Dame Liandre had sliced up the leather trouser-leg revealing the Lainer’s pale skin. A long, red line of weeping burn coiled from ankle to knee. Lainer whimpered with the pain, but at least she lived. As Dame Liandre Wealdan-healed, the burn shrank and the redness faded.

‘More flamin’ burn scars.’ Lainer groaned and slumped back to the ground. ‘Piss poor luck as ever!’

‘Interesting to see how effective the Ascian, the blood-magik as you like to call it, is in battle.’ The Moder frowned at the woman’s leg then back at the lacert.

‘Murak’s festering balls to interesting!’ Lainer swore.

A pair of soldiers, lifting a dead comrade lying headless nearby, scowled at the Moder, but said nothing. They headed to the nearest of the pyres hastily being built.

Coryn managed to stop himself from hawking up spit. He swallowed and pulled his fingers through his hair. ‘Reckon you’ll be wanting the blood-priests’ Blodstans.’

‘Yes, thank you, Sire Coryn.’ The Moder smiled a fraction, nodding her head. ‘Studying them will be of great benefit.’

‘Thanks for the healing.’ Coryn grunted, scratching at the fresh scars, relieved when the Moder mounted again and rode towards the prison cart.

‘Damn magikers everywhere I turn these days.’ Wenzel reined in his horse. Two other scouts halted their mounts behind him.

‘Range to the north, Corporal. See if you can keep your mouth closed and your eyes and ears open. There are bound to be more of those bastard blood-suckers sneaking around out there. Try and capture any horses you find too. The locals could always do with more of them,’ Captain Yagden ordered. Dismissing Wenzel, he turned away. ‘Sergeant, get those captives out of the cart and up on the spare horses, pick a squad to double up with the rest. We’ll head back to the village soon as the pyres are set.’

‘Useless locals couldn’t find their own backsides, what with all their damned spirit worshippin’, I say,’ Wenzel grouched. ‘Should be sendin’ in more troops from Storr to protect the borderlands for these grassland-mongrels, ‘cause they sure as Murak’s hells ain’t, an’ I...’

‘That’s enough, Corporal! I thought I told you to go search for more enemy, damn it, man,’ Yagden barked, his face turning almost as red as his hair. ‘The Manomish are doing their best, so keep your foul trap shut and your brain on the job. Always supposing you can find it.’

‘I’d search the reeking area between your legs first.’ Lainer snorted and winced.

‘Now ain’t that the truth,’ another soldier muttered behind Coryn.

‘Aye, sir.’ Wenzel grumbled something unintelligible under his breath as he swung up onto his horse again. ‘Liff, Weip, with me.’

‘Catch up with us soon as your done, before nightfall in any case, Corporal.’

‘Aye, sir.’ Wenzel saluted and turned his horse.

The two veteran trackers urged their horses to follow Wenzel towards the ravine. They wisely kept any comments they might have to themselves.

The man behind Coryn had his horse with him, bow and quiver already strapped to the saddle. Favouring his right arm, Coryn found, cleaned, and sheathed both his sword and knife. He mounted and wheeled his horse toward the prison cart.

The Moder and Dame Liandre were checking the captives over for any injuries, four adults and seven children. The youngest was barely six, she and a young boy were the only ones not wearing an iron collar. Coryn clamped his jaw at the fear and pain he saw in their eyes. He swore to himself he’d find the damned blood-suckers’ leader and kill him, slowly.

‘Those collars will be removed soon,’ Dame Liandre assured them.

Taking the blood-magik filled iron from necks was no easy job, and Coryn was too tired from the healing to do it now. Besides, the valley wasn’t safe, not by a long stretch.

Along with the Moder, Coryn studied the lacert. A trace of blood-magik spiked at his awareness and the red gem hanging from the beast’s neck flickered then died. He pulled the gem’s chain over the lacert’s head, found the iron whip handle nearby and passed them both to the Moder. Grim faced, she nodded her thanks, wrapped them in a cloth and placed the bundle in one of her saddlebags.

•••

As the sun rose to its noon high, they rode down the valley and away from the ravine. Coryn concentrated on the lie of the land ahead, watching out for danger. He kept an eye out for standing stones too. Portals, the Moder called them. He marked their positions on a map and hoped one day to find the key to them. It was the main reason he’d agreed to join this group. He was determined to find Katleya again.

He pressed a hand against the three knives she’d left behind, feeling the comforting shape of them where they hung on his shoulder belt. Part of him knew he was a fool to think Katleya alive. After all, how could she have survived a throat-cutting by a blood-priest, or being dragged through one of those damned Portals. Why his gut told him she lived still, he’d no idea, but he’d survived so far listening to his hunches and he wasn’t about to stop now. The hope drove him.

The desert dog glanced up at Coryn as it loped past him and on up the trail. Accompanied by the clink of harness, the thud of hooves, and the groans of wounded, they rode up the ridge and out of the valley, leaving the stench of Mureckens and writhen behind.

CHAPTER 2

Am I dead?

She floated, lost in darkness, silence pressed in all around. No, not utter silence. A thrum, more felt than heard, trembled through the core of her body.

Who am I?

Fragmented thoughts flickered through her mind. Dreams and memories wove together. Questions without answers sparked and faded. A distant pain fretted for attention.

Do the dead feel pain?

She pressed a hand against her chest, felt the pressure of her palm and fingers, felt the coarse linen of her shirt and beneath it the ridges of her bones. Gripped in her other hand was her knife, the weight of it, the smooth polished wood of its haft, a comfort.

‘I’m Katleya. This is me!’ Katleya’ voice made no sound. She screamed, ‘I am blasted well alive!’

Still soundless.

She gasped in a breath and opened her eyes. Silver flows wove past her in all directions, pulling her this way then that, a leaf at the mercy of currents weaving in a vast sea.

I’m in the Wefan-flux.

Memories returned. She’d been fighting Leveen in Manom by the standing stones, had fallen through one and dragged the desert woman with her. Katleya’s fingers tightened around her knife. She twisted about, searching for Leveen.

Blasted woman! I’ll gut her and…

The memory of the blood-priest’s blade tearing across her neck seared through her mind. She slammed a palm against her throat, felt the gaping wound.

Spirits! How am I not dead? Why doesn’t it hurt?

Blood drifted from her neck in a long red skein of fine droplets, dark against the silver of the Wefan’s flows. How much had she bled? How long had she floated in the Wefan-flux?

Spawned from the flows, fine silver worms fed on the drops of blood, headed for her, closed on her neck.

‘Spirits! Get off me, I’m not blasted well dead yet!’ she yelled, her fear swelling. But her voice remained soundless. Her wind-milling arms and sharp knife barely effected the crowding worms.

She needed healing fast, but how? Her heart hammered, her breaths came fast and shallow. She wasn’t ready for death, not if there was a spark’s chance it could be avoided. Katleya kept her hand against her throat, protecting it from the blood-suckers. Her skin crawled at their prickling touch.

Tentatively, Katleya reached for her Wealdan. Shocked, she found it open.

You’ve rats’ piss for brains, girl!

How else had she been able to see the Wefan all this time? How else had she come through the Portal? Impatient at her stupidity, Katleya spat out a few choice words, frustrated at their noiselessness in the Wefan-flux. Screaming obscenities was the best way she knew to vent anger and fear, but she couldn’t even do that here. Pulling herself together, she closed her eyes and concentrated, using her Wealdan-sight to inspect her throat.

Within a vision in her mind she saw the damaged Wefan-patterns deep in the flesh of her neck. Horror shivered through her. How wasn’t she dead? How could she heal herself? She’d collapsed the last time she’d tried healing her body. Not something Katleya relished happening in the Wefan-flux. Out cold, she’d probably get sucked dry by the Wefan-worms and never wake again.

I’ll get sucked dry by the blasted worms either way!

It was try or die. She’d no other options. In Black Rock, she’d seen Laru mend her thigh, and in the desert mountains she’d studied Dame Mureen’s healing of Coryn’s wounds. Hopefully she’d learned something.

‘Right, you piss-poor little bastards. Take this,’ she muttered and sheathed her knife.

She reached for the blood-sucking Wefan-worms. Both Laru and Dame Mureen had painstakingly pulled strands of Wefan from the wood, rocks, or plants nearby, weaving them along with their own Wefan and feeding them into the damaged patterns in the wounds. No plants or rocks here, but no shortage of actual Wefan here in the Wefan-flux.

Katleya grinned, a mix of excitement and terror, running through her as she used her Wealden to steal from the Wefan-worms the same way they’d stolen from her. She found it hard to draw the threads of Wefan at first, but as she got the knack of it the energy poured into her in a rush so powerful it felt as though her body would explode.

Gasping, she stopped the flow. Every Wefan-worm had disappeared. Surprised she’d managed that and steadying her thoughts and breathing, Katleya fed the silver energy into her neck thread by thread. With her Wealden-sight she saw the Wefan-patterns heal with little guidance from her. She felt the layers of flesh and skin mend.

Spirits!

She gasped with amazement. Easier, so much easier than she’d dreaded. Katleya felt stronger, healthier. All the Wefan-patterns in her body glowed brighter in her Wealdan-sight than ever before. There was no pain, no exhaustion, no feeling of imminent collapse. Was this painlessness a gift of the Wefan-flux?

Katleya’s fingers hesitated a hair’s breath from her neck, afraid she’d imagined the healing, doubting her Wealdan-sight.

Stop being such a rat-hearted coward.

Her searching fingers found smooth, scar free skin. The relief burst from her eyes in wet, salty runnels.

Impatiently, she scrubbed the tears away and looked around. Now to find her way through these wild flows, find the Portal that led back to Manom. Get back to Dame Mureen and the children.

As they’d travelled through the Shafi Desert and the Amalla Heights, Katleya and Dame Mureen had discussed the standing stones near Eage al-Shafi. The old woman had been fascinated and listened intently to Katleya’s telling of how she’d almost stepped right through its surface. Dame Mureen had told her she’d been studying the Portals and the Wefan-flux since discovering some diaries belonging to a past Moder of Ostorr Haven.

Now Katleya turned her attention fully on the silver currents. She saw huge crystals scattered between the weaves of the Wefan-flux, hard to see at first as the silver reflected on their faceted surfaces. All hinted at the shape and size of standing stones.

With shocking suddenness, the constant background thrum changed and turned into a constant screech. It sawed through her skull, splintering her thoughts. The speed of the flows quickened, surging and twisting. They dragged her to a place where the Wefan-flux created a vortex around a crystal. Dizzy from the motion, she kicked, thrashed her way out of the maelstrom and fell into a pocket of space surrounding the Portal.

The crystal was almost split in two by a fracture and from its base ran a great rip in the fabric of the Wefan-flux. Through it, Katleya saw into the darkness of an abyss. The ruptured flows all along the edges of the rip writhed, bled silver mist, and screeched.

Like animals in pain.

A horrible thought. She floated closer and saw threads form from the bleeding mist, twisting into cords, weaving into intricate braids, reaching out to close the rip. Well before they succeeded, fog-like tentacles coiled up from the abyss and tore them apart. The weaves bled silver and the fog fed. Again the threads formed, wove, stretched over the abyss. Again and again the fog-tentacles shredded and devoured them.

Was it possible to Wealdan-heal the ruptured weaves as she had her throat? Katleya examined the rupture, seeking answers. At the other end of the rip, she spotted a ball of bluish light, and moved closer. An emaciated woman lay where the rip ended. She wore a sea-coloured crystal on a silver chain much like Dame Mureen’s Focus-crystal, though blue rather than yellow. Another Lehotan-adherent. How had she got here? From the Focus-crystal a cord of light led to a woven cocoon surrounding the woman. The fog-tentacles flinched away from this shield. Hundreds of golden-tinted filaments of Wefan glittered around the woman’s legs and arms, tying her down like a stitch to stop the rip from growing.

Spirit-magik?

Katleya examined the woman more closely. Her Wefan-patterns were faded to almost nothing, her skin felt cool, and her pulse faint. She didn’t know why, but Katleya felt the woman’s spirit wasn’t all there, her body almost a shell. How long had the poor woman been there?

She knew she couldn’t leave the Lehotan-adherent to die such a lingering, lonely death.

I can do this.

Without thinking more on it, Katleya drew more Wefan from the flows and fed the energy into the woman’s body until her Wefan-patterns had a healthy glow. Still, the woman did not stir.

Let’s get you out of this blasted place!

Katleya’s blade cut each golden filament easily enough, but it was like slicing a beam of sunlight and just as pointless. She sheathed her knife and grabbed handfuls of the Wefan, tearing it from the woman’s body. For a moment, she thought she was succeeding, but the golden threads soon reappeared again. Then she remembered again how she’d broken the Wefan-patterns in the blood-priest’s heart with her Wealdan.

You’ve no more sense than a tenday old rat’s corpse, Kat!

Just as she reached for her Wealdan, a flicker of movement caught Katleya’s eye. She whirled and saw a shape flow towards her, all flickers of gold and silver. The shape stopped and a beautiful face formed. Emerald eyes glittered, red lips curved into a smile, and every inch of golden skin rippled with tiny flames. Formed as a woman taller than her, it was the largest fire-spirit Katleya had ever seen.

Call me Subrahima. The spirit’s words sounded inside Katleya’s mind.

‘What?’ Katleya hovered above the woman, bewildered.

Subrahima stretched her arms wide and spun. In response, thousands of worms birthed from the Wefan-flows beyond the pocket walls and swam into her body. Her flames lengthened, became gold threads that whipped around Katleya, wrapped her arms and legs, pulled her down to the rip. Before she could react, Katleya was lashed to the flailing weaves half way between the Lehotan-adherent and the Portal. Another stitch holding the rupture together.

‘I hope rats eat your tits, you bitch!’ She screamed uselessly as the threads burned into her skin, sucking the Wealdan from her, using it to make them stronger.

The last thing Katleya saw before darkness stole her sight were fog-tentacles reaching for her.

‘Rats piss on that...’

CHAPTER 3

‘‘You have disappointed me in the past, Raston.’

‘Forgive me, Master.’

‘This time you will not.’

‘Yes, Master. I mean no, Master.’ Raston shook. He feared what lay ahead. Not the pain, for pain was life and life was pain. It was the slow erosion of his mind and spirit that terrified him. He knew it would happen within that terrible place, despite the thick Ascian-bloodsheath covering his skin.

He began counting. He counted his fingers, then his toes. Three on one foot, four on the other. He counted the six blood-gems in his Master’s crown. Then each of the six times six human bones from which it was made. He counted the twelve braziers ringing the plateau, the eighteen links that made up each of the chains attached to the altar, the forty levels of blocks that made up the Tower of the Vessel. Eventually his shaking eased and his breathing slowed.

Anger rushed in to overwhelm the fear. He forced his face to be like stone, for the Priest-king must not see what he felt. That he felt.

He must suffer this journey again because of a Lehotan-witch and that foreign brood-bitch, Ethlinne. As he remembered the Lakshan girl, his control almost slipped. Ethlinne had been his Master’s most favoured Vessel, but Raston was proved right in his distrust of her when she escaped from the Tower of the Vessels. She had fled to Kalebrod carrying the Priest-king’s burgeoning seed within her body. Raston and two other Bloodhunters had tracked her and the priestesses she had travelled with. They found them, but too late.

A whimper broke into Raston’s thoughts. It came from the sacrifice, spread-eagled on the altar. A Temple-priest stepped forward and moved his hands over the runes cut into her body, muttering the ritual words as he worked. It needed great skill to keep the sacrifices alive for these lengthy ceremonies. A necessity, for it ensured the link between Wealdan and spirit remained viable. Only with the link in place did Wealdan-bearing blood stay potent and able to enhance the potency of Ascian-bearers.

Raston studied the blood covering him like a second skin, smelled its strong, metallic scent. The combined weavings of Wealdan and Ascian kept it fresh, viable. It glistened and flowed across his skin as it had when newly bled from the sacrifice.

It had taken two years for Murecken spies to uncover the name of the thief. Birog Llawgoch, once a Moder of Ostorr Haven, a lair of Lehotan witches. It was discovered she had researched Murecken prophecies and histories for many years and had disappeared some moons before the girl-child’s theft. The same Murecken spies found a brother, a Healer and teacher. Raston had added the information together to form a possibility. He had travelled to the Healer’s College in Bimunts and had lain in wait.

‘Stand quite still, Raston.’

‘Yes, Master.’

An acolyte draped a cloak over Raston’s shoulders taking great care not to rub the protective blood-sheath from his skin. Other acolytes poured blood over his Master’s arms and hands, layer after layer, just as they had done over Raston’s entire body.

Raston’s long wait had been rewarded when the Lehotan-witch rode towards the college before daybreak one morning. The girl-child had sat in front of her, a tiny but almost perfect image of the Vessel Ethlinne. He had leaped forward, but the Lehotan-witch, sensing him, had kicked her horse into a gallop, aiming for the hills. He had taken a moment to allow his lacert-symbiote dominance over his body, and the great speed of the beast meant he reached the Lehotan-witch as she pressed the girl-child’s hands a standing stone. He had snapped a mouthful of her cloak, but the Lehotan-witch, far stronger than he expected, had dragged him through the Portal and into the terrors of the Wefan-flux.

‘I rely on you to succeed this time, Raston.’ The Priest-king’s eyes bored deep into Raston’s head. ‘The scryings have revealed that my girl-child will open the Portal on the longest day of that world’s year. That day comes, so you must be ready. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, Master. I am ready. For you, I am always ready.’

Standing behind him, the Priest-king pushed Raston close to the Portal, so close he could feel the misting of Wefan that leaked through the fracture. Its disturbing tang was a reminder of what awaited him on the other side and he shuddered.

‘I will not fail you, Master.’ Raston poured all the faith and fervour he possessed into his voice. ‘This I swear. May the Great God Murak witness my oath and slay me with a thousand cuts should I prove false.’

‘He will witness, do not doubt it, Raston. Let us pray to the Great God Murak that you do not fail, for His sake, for the sake of Mureck and all faithful Mureckens. For your own sake also.’ The Priest-king hissed the words into Raston’s ear, his breath dry and hot. ‘Bring my girl-child back to me, Raston. Do not disappoint me.’

‘Yes, Master. It will all come to pass just as you scryed. Exactly as the Prophecy foretold.’

Determination seethed within Raston, the need to succeed an imperative joined his anger and burned. He had marked the Portal through which the Lehotan-witch had sent the girl-child before fleeing his attack. Marked it with a chip from his Blodstan hammered into its surface. His Blodstan might not sense the girl-child within that other world, but it could find a piece of itself through the Wefan-flux, or so he had hoped then. Hoped still. ‘I will not disappoint you, Master.’

‘Pray you do not.’ Priest-king Chayed placed one hand against the Portal and pressed his other against Raston’s back.

Fear coursed through Raston, debilitating, weakening his resolve. ‘Master, I...’

Shoved forward, ice ripped through Raston. He plummeted into the life-deadening fog, an endless fall, but within moments he tumbled through the other side of the Portal. Uncontrolled, he floundered past the quiet pool and into the Wefan-flux. Wefan-worms latched onto his skin, but this time he had a blood-sheath to protect him and they failed to suck his Ascian away, but they burned. Oh they burned. His Blodstan pulled him away from Elucame’s Portal, the yawning abyss by which it hung, and the maelstrom of its encircling Wefan-flux.

Within the great weaving flows the silence was so deafening he could not hear his own screams.

CHAPTER 4

Lightning shocked and thunder shuddered. Both excited and scared by the storm, Evie watched the clouds stacked over the river and the city for another strike.