The Gauntlet and the Burning Blade Read online

  the

  Gauntlet

  and the

  Burning Blade

  ALSO BY IAN GREEN

  The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath

  the

  Gauntlet

  and the

  Burning Blade

  IAN GREEN

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,

  part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Ian Green, 2022

  The moral right of Ian Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Runes and border on maps © Shutterstock

  ISBN (HB): 9781800244115

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781800244146

  ISBN (E): 9781800244085

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For Mum and Dad

  Contents

  Also by Ian Green

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Maps

  The Story of the Rotstorm

  Prologue: The Swamp Witch

  Act 1: The Broken Blade

  1. A Knot of Red Silk

  2. Three Daughters of the Mist, Unkind

  3. New Temples, Old Trees

  4. The Curse of the Bear

  5. Blade of the Matriarch

  6. The Wind Sea

  Interludes: Obeisance to the Mountain

  Act 2: The Frozen Blade

  7. The Weight of the Dead

  8. A Witness in the Dark

  9. Fractal Gallows

  10. The Citadel

  11. The Ur-Blade

  Interludes: Obeisance to the Highmothers

  Act 3: The Burning Blade

  12. Applied Chaos Theory

  13. Blood and Teeth

  14. Draw a Line and Burn a Ditch

  15. The Salvation of Flame

  16. Claw Winter

  Epilogues: Obeisance to the Forest

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Maps

  Map of the Undal Protectorate after Ferron invasion, year 312 from Ferron’s Fall (1123 Isken) – Private collection, Knight-Commander Salem Starbeck

  Map of the Rotstorm and Ferron ruin, year 307 from Ferron’s Fall (1118 Isken) – Stormcastle XII archive, Commander Benazir Arfallow

  Reckoning of the lands of Morost, year 312 from Ferron’s Fall (1123 Isken) – Castrum library, Commissar-Mage Inigo

  THE STORY OF THE ROTSTORM

  The devils of Ferron planned to murder the god-bear Anshuka. They wanted to save their people from the cursed hell of the rotstorm in one fell swoop, fuelling their brutal plot with the lives of children sensitive to the pattern below the world, the skein. Reluctant warrior Floré stopped them, but the rust-folk still seek sanctuary from the unholy rotstorm and even older enemies linger in the shadows.

  Floré’s daughter Marta is dying from the terrible skein-magic she inherited from her father. The protectorate is weakened by the absence of the whitestaffs, the mystical order of healers and sages. They fled from the threat of Ferron’s strange orbs of fire and light that cut through the night, retreating to their island citadel of Riven. Now Floré and her comrades must race to find a cure for Marta, to discover the truth of the whitestaffs’ betrayal, and to fight back against the encroaching children of the storm. But the ancient dagger that could kill a god has been stolen by forces unknown…

  Can Floré save her daughter from a foe that can’t be seen? Can she push back the forces of the storm that are burning a bloody swathe across the protectorate? Can she discover the truth of the unseen foes before it is too late? Steel alone might not be enough.

  PROLOGUE

  THE SWAMP WITCH

  Brude drank from a chalice of tarnished crystal, a remnant of the old empire. One of the eel wranglers had found it in the mire of the rotstorm. He had cleaned it with rag and tallow before presenting it to her earlier that day with murmured honours – thanks for vengeance against the Salt-Man and something about a brother or a son, or maybe both, lost at Urforren. She had been on her way back from the kitchens, hurrying through a slick of ice rain. High above the town, the rotstorm was wailing wind – a spiralling bruise of black and purple cloud cut through with the glow of lightning far beyond – and low thrums of thunder that stole the man’s words even as he spoke. Brude did not want to speak to the eel wrangler, but she forced herself to stop and smile and to take the chalice with a solemn nod, looming over him. He did not meet her eye.

  Back in her rooms she had gotten warm and dry and then she had used the storm within herself to press against the patterns of dirt until they rose from the surface of the cup, three centuries of peat water and probing root stains scoured clean in moments. It was so easy to sink into that storm of energy suffusing everything, to use it for the smallest of tasks. It was a seductive tempest, a churning power that could always be reached since the night the ghost-bear had cursed her – changed her. The old empire had called it the pattern; the Undal called it the skein; both studied and probed and made their notes. Brude knew it was a storm; it was instinct and feeling, not measurement, but to overindulge was to lose oneself. Brude cleaned the chalice and then held herself from the storm, stepped back from it. The storm was always there down to her very marrow, but she could always step away. Not like Varratim.

  Thinking of her dead commander, his failed mission, his hubris, Brude poured thick mead from the Talpid hives, honey-gold and clouded. She drained the mead from the chalice, feeling the sweet liquid coat her teeth, and, blowing a sharp breath from her nose, she went to throw the delicate crystal against the wall. She stopped herself at the sound of footsteps in the corridor.

  ‘Ceann Brude, are you home?’ called a voice, and Brude twitched her head to one side. Ceann? Surely not. A smile tore across her face and she put down her goblet, snatched up the flickering candle and rushed up from her nest of blankets to pull aside the heavy cloth that was her door within the ruined fort of Fetter-Dun.

  ‘Amon?’ she called, turning up and down the dark corridor. The candle threw light along the damp stone of Fetter-Dun, catching on crags and imperfections and the trailing vines that had probed their way into the fortress. She saw him emerge from shadow. Amon was not touched as she was, the god-bear’s ghost had not caught him as it had her and so many other children lost in the ceaseless storm. Caught and changed. To Brude, Amon looked perfect. She stooped over him, her elongated spine bent to keep her head safe from the low doorframes of the fort, and she hunched awkwardly to try and shrink herself lower as her thoughts of his perfection reflected into a visceral awareness of her own twisted form.

  Fetter-Dun was empire built, back when nobody grew as odd and tall as she, before the ghost-bear took its toll. Brude ducked back inside her room, holding open the heavy cloth door and gesturing for Amon to join her. With a smile he edged past her, his head level to her chest as he turned sideways in the doorway. She could have enveloped him then, in her long arms, and she longed to pull him close. But Brude felt sick at the thought of touch, of the reality of her skin, her bones twisted to numinous relics of a foreign god even as she still lived and breathed. She inhaled sharply and caught the scent of his hair.

  After Amon passed her she hurried back to her perch of blankets and waved for him to sit, but he was too excited, pacing nervously up and down across the broken rushes strewn on her floor.

  ‘What is it, Amon?’ she asked at last, her face flushing, and he stopped pacing and stared at her. In the dimness of the candlelight she took in his face: the heavy brow and strong jaw, skin pocked with stubble and endless tiny scars. His hair was long and dark, tied back behind his head, and he wore the stained leather and thick oiled cloak of someone accustomed to traversing the rotstorm and its acid mists. Thick leather gloves were tucked in his belt and his hands were bare, his hands with their perfect fingers that danced as he talked.

  ‘I come from the reeve,’ he said at last, with a half-bow, ‘with news of your ascension, Ceann Brude. My congratulations.’

  Brude huddled on her nest of blankets and pressed her back against the cold stone of the wall. Ceann. War-leader. Commander of the rust-folk. The last ceann had been Varratim, Varratim with his genius and his madness and his schemes, his wondrous machines of stone and iron and crystal unearthed from the empire’s past. Varratim who was now dead and failed.

  Brude slicked her hands over her hair, the shock of deep red still wet from the rain outside. Her fingers were so long that with her palm on her face she could feel the back of her skull – the twisted long fingers of a crow-man. A demon, she thought, remembering her fingers, her own normal fingers and hands and knees and body, not the twisted thing she
had become. She remembered thunder, and the figure of the bear spirit hunting her as she fled through mire and mist. She remembered falling. Ceann.

  ‘I had not hoped for this,’ she managed to say at last, and Amon laughed at her sudden meekness, so out of character.

  ‘And why not, Brude? You killed the Salt-Man. You flew the orbs as well as any. You helped us smash the wall north of Fallow Fen, and took the pains that came with it. The reeve knows your worth, Brude; you are a burning torch to take us to freedom. He wants to see you.’

  Brude leaned forward and looked at Amon, his face and hands and arms and legs, his body so whole and normal, not twisted and wracked like hers. The storm has ruined me; I will never be free, she thought, and bit down into her tongue. She wanted him, or wanted to be him, or like him, and it was all too much to think about. Varratim had planned to undo the storm, to turn goblin and demon to human again by killing the god-bear Anshuka. When a Judge, a great spirit, was killed, all their work was undone. Every child of the rust-folk knew this, knew that the arid fields of Berren’s Valley had once grown crops enough for all, knew that Jurron’s great light sculptures had faded as Nessilitor fled, dying, to her watery grave in the Storm Sea. But Varratim was dead, and Brude knew it had only been a dream. She could never go back to what she was.

  ‘Ceann Brude,’ she said, savouring the words, ‘Ceann Brude to take fire to the Undal, to take our people from the storm?’

  Amon smiled at her and reached out his hand, and Brude stood and gripped it with her own, her oddly jointed fingers and knuckles enveloping his perfect hands – scarred and callused but perfect. In the candlelight she loomed over him and cricked her neck, sniffed.

  ‘It is a hard thing, Brude,’ Amon said. ‘They have an army, troops trained. We have two orbs, the goblins, the rust-folk from the deep storm. The diggers have said they will come from the west, from the Talpid ruins. The reeve has word on the last of the wyrms. All are restaging to take the north, the port of First Light. The Undal will not let us leave the storm without a fight.’

  Brude licked her lips and remembered the silence of the orb surrounding her as she killed the Salt-Man Janos, the scourge of Urforren. She remembered the righteous fire in her stomach, and felt the embers stir within her. She closed her eyes and felt for the storm. There. A roiling churn of chaos, always waiting. Why did the bear gift me such a weapon? She did not understand it. Brude opened her eyes and felt the ache in her shoulders, her spine, her hands, her feet. Always the ache of bones too long and sinews stretched.

  ‘I think it is time to see the reeve,’ she said, clasping Amon by the shoulder and pointing him towards the hallway. ‘We have a war to win.’

  *

  Together they left the tunnels of Fetter-Dun, where once a great castle of Ferron had stood. The storm above churned, a dance of fractal lightning through roiling cloud, and Brude pulled her hood high.

  ‘Please!’ a voice called down, and she turned to the row of crow-cages. There were ten of them, twisted iron cages hanging from wooden gibbets fresh built but already pitted and rotted from the acid mists of the rotstorm. The metal of the cages was flaking rust and scabbed thick with blood from the prisoners within.

  ‘These gibbets won’t last the week,’ Brude said, and Amon shrugged.

  ‘They don’t need to,’ he said. ‘The reeve has already questioned them. All that’s left is letting the kelp grow high.’ Brude sniffed and looked at the prisoners. There were seven left, Stormguard shivering in their red tabards. At the base of each gibbet, five feet below in the mulch and dark soil, tendrils of sinuous rotvine danced as they sought the hot flesh above. The vine was too short, but it grew fast. Brude reckoned it would reach the cages within a day, perhaps two. The commandos would claw at it, would bite it, would do all they could. The vine would not stop until it had fed.

  ‘Please!’ one called again. His Ferron was passable, even if his accent was ridiculous.

  ‘This is pointless,’ Brude said, and Amon shrugged again. She cast her eyes across the soldiers, some men and some women, all soaked and shivering and bloodied, scabrous sores growing wide around wounds as the acid mists of the rotstorm ate at their very flesh.

  ‘It seemed to incentivise the answering of questions,’ Amon said, gesturing at the weaving tendrils of rotvine, ‘but there is no more to learn. Do they deserve more? Stormguard dogs. Let the vine have them.’

  Brude stretched her neck and licked her lips, tasting the acrid mist of the rotstorm. Even behind the tumbled walls of Fetter-Dun the wind pulled at her, brought motes of acid rain and mist to settle on her skin. The air tasted sour, ferrous, like old meat.

  ‘I am Ceann Brude,’ she said, and flexed her fingers, felt the tendons straining in her palms and the ache in her knuckles. ‘If we are to bring death, then let us bring death.’

  With a sure movement Brude drew from her waist a wand of black iron, tipped in a red crystal, faceted and intricately runed. The Stormguard began to yell but she did not listen to them. With a moment of focus she found the storm within her soul and the pattern for flame in the ancient wand, and Brude burned the cages, one by one, stepping slowly down the line. The flame was a brilliant gold, tinged with red and orange at its ragged edge. Colours of the sun beyond the rotstorm. The light hurt her eyes and Brude remembered the first time she flew in Varratim’s orbs above the clouds of the storm, how bright it had been, the sun a great eye that saw her completely. The Stormguard died screaming, and the rotvine below their cages strained upward towards the hot metal and charred flesh.

  Brude sheathed her wand and stood with Amon in silence, watching the rocking crow-cages, the plumes of black smoke rising from the charred bodies within.

  ‘Are you ready to see the reeve now?’ Amon asked, and Brude did not look at him. She did not want to see the fear in his eyes. With a nod she turned, and together they stalked away from the flesh and bone and flame.

  ACT 1

  THE BROKEN BLADE

  Throw them back into the storm our god has raised.

  Draw a line and burn a ditch.

  Never again will we be shackled.

  Declaration of liberation of the Undal Protectorate,

  Knight-Commander Jozenai

  1

  A KNOT OF RED SILK

  ‘I have gone to war in the rotstorm. There are monsters in the storm, monsters beyond belief, but there are people as well. People the same as you or I, save the chance of birth. “Preserve the freedom of all people in the realm. Suffer no tyrant; forge no chain; lead in servitude.” What are we if not tyrants? We send adult and child alike back to face a god’s nightmare, and we offer no clemency. To turn away the refugees of the storm is to swing the sword ourselves. How many generations must they suffer in penance to their ancestors’ crimes?’ – Break the Stormguard’s chains! Lillebet Arfallow, year 312 from Ferron’s Fall (1123 Isken)

  Floré ran sprints in the south courtyard until she could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips. She ran across the dust and weeds along the base of the five walls of the pentacle courtyard in Protector’s Keep. At the end of each circuit she stretched her arms up the wall and drew in deep gouts of air, focusing on the sensation of her lungs filling with cold. Her right ankle ached deep in the bones, and the rune-scar on her right cheek stretched tight as she grimaced with exhaustion. Five long spans of healing and still she felt weak. The wounds were freshly healed, seams close to bursting, the muscles of her right thigh a knot of scar tissue where the runewand of Varratim had cut so deep.

  Floré ran the circuit again, and the pain in her ankle and leg was joined by the aching twitch of pain in her right arm, old wounds reminding her always of the rotstorm and its lightning. There were trees in each corner of the courtyard and their leaves hung brown and gold as autumn bore down, early fallen leaves crunching beneath her boots as she ran. They had fallen and frozen where they lay, though it was only the first span of autumn. Too cold for autumn. Floré finished her circuit again and stopped to breathe, felt the chill on her skin of sweat going cold the instant she stopped moving. Even in this courtyard hidden deep in Protector’s Keep, the cold from the Wind Sea seemed to permeate everything. An unseasonal cold. An unnatural cold. As Floré pressed her palms against the rough stone of the wall she stared up and saw the tendrils of branches above her. Dying leaves still clung to most, but others showed no leaf or bud or shoot. Cold and still.