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Sweetspring

A Tale of the Sun's Shadow

Part I

“And in thy name and thy service, Sunsword, I pray that you grant my allies with clear sight, so that even in the darkness of deep night they may be able to strike down those cursed beings that stalk by shadow, to cleanse the land of this plague which besets it. In thy name and service, Sahar-Sunsword, so mote it be.”

The late afternoon sun seemed to shine a little more warmly on the clearing, gilding the armor of the men who broke down their camp so that for a moment each metal plate and ring and buckle seemed to be wrought of gold rather than steel. Alberich did not see this as he lowered his head, having kept his eyes closed as he faced the sun during his prayers, but he felt the gentle, reassuring warmth that told the paladin his goddess had heard and granted his request. He kept them closed until he slid the goggles he wore back down over his eyes. Only once the dark lenses were in place did he open his eyes and survey the clearing.

Thirty men- twenty warriors, nine squires, and a single anxious-looking farmer, bustled about the clearing, folding up bedrolls, stowing supplies, saddling horses and a handful of pack mules, and extinguishing the two small cook fires. It was the last man on which Alberich's gaze settled.

“Wilhelm,” he called. “A word, if you please?”

The farmer handed the lead reins of the pack mule he'd been loading over to one of the squires and came over. He was a square, blocky sort of man, his hair and eyes the same rich brown as the soil in which he worked, his large square hands calloused from hard work. A big fellow, Wilhelm looked down upon the slight paladin who had summoned him.

“Yes, Paladin Sunshadow?” he asked. His eyes flicked over Alberich's face, not quite sure where to settle now that Alberich's eyes were hidden by his goggles. “What can I do for you?”

Alberich gestured for the farmer to follow him as he walked around the perimeter of their camp, collecting the eight palm-sized orange-gold crystals he had laid out in a protective ring at the cardinal points and the cross-points. “How far is it to this village of yours?”

He scratched his chin, pondering the question. “Depends,” he said. “There's a narrow deer trail we might could take that'd get us there in an hour, but it's too narrow and rough for these big horses your men ride. Yours, mayhap, but not the others. By the road, it's nearly three.”

Alberich shook his head. “No use trying a track we can't take. We'll take the road. You and I will take fifteen of the warriors and push on ahead. The rest will stay with the squires and pack animals and come as swiftly as they can. I'll tell them not to travel by dark- if they don't make it to Sweetspring by sunset, they'll have to camp somewhere defensible and catch up in the morning.”

“Won't that be dangerous? The monsters-”

“Will focus on the village before they'll focus on a party with armed men.” Alberich's voice was grim. A village of unarmed commoners would be much easier prey for the foul creatures that stalked them. While there was a chance they might go after his men, at least his men were armed and knew the foes they faced and knew what precautions to take. “It's imperative that I and at least some of our fighters get there before sundown if at all possible. Things will get ugly after dark, I can promise you that much.”

Wilhelm shuddered, his face going pasty under his tan. He had seen first-hand just what awaited them in Sweetspring and knew that the danger came only at night. “I'll get your horse, m'lord,” he said. With an effort, he drew himself up, straightened his tunic, and marched off to collect the paladin's mount.

A faint smile touched Alberich's lips as he packed away the protective crystals and went to give Captain Alder his orders to choose four of his fighters and stay with the squires and pack animals. Alder only nodded in reply. This was his fourth such rescue mission under Alberich's command, and he knew well the reasons for letting the men with the faster horses go on ahead. In an excellent parade-ground bellow, he barked the names of four warriors. The chosen four were all big men who rode very large, powerful warhorses, each with experience at guarding moving groups like merchant trains and supply wagons. They would remain with Alder, while their fellows moved on to Sweetspring under Alberich's command.

Wilhelm brought Alberich's horse over, and with a nod of thanks he mounted up, pulling himself into the tall gelding's saddle. He waited only long enough for his warriors and their guide to mount as well before giving Alder a salute and shouting the order to move out. Together, seventeen men and horses raced down the road towards the besieged village of Sweetspring.

Even as they rode, Alberich measured their pace in his head and tightened his jaw grimly. It would be close, but they might just make it to the village before nightfall. He sincerely hoped so- it would be so much easier to set up defenses if they had a little daylight left. The forest here grew thick and close to the narrow road, blotting out the sun as it sank towards the horizon enough that Alberich was able to push up his goggles from his eyes and see clearly without pain from over-bright light. The steady rumbling of their horses' hooves filled his pointed ears, a sound that reassured and worried at the same time.

The rhythmic sound was broken by a horse's sudden squeal and a series of hoofbeats out of step with the others. Alberich called for a halt and wheeled his mount to see what the problem was.

One of the horses, a steel-grey mare ridden by a young, dark-haired man named Briar, was limping, favoring a front hoof. Briar himself was sliding off her back and crouching next to her to inspect the foreleg even as Alberich drew up beside him.

“What's the matter?” Alberich asked, pale brows knitting in a frown.

Briar ran his hands over the foreleg, carefully lifting the hoof to inspect the bottom. “Looks like she took a bad step and wrenched something,” he said. “Doesn't look too serious, but she won't be able to keep up with you lot.”

The paladin bit back a muttered oath. He didn't need complications right now, but Briar was right. The injured mare would not be able to make the speed they needed in order to reach the village by dark. They would either have to slow down to let the mare keep up, or leave her and Briar behind.

“Don't worry about me, sir,” Briar said. “The others will be along soon. We'll make our way after you as best we can and join with the rest when they catch up.”

“That puts you out here alone with an injured horse after dark,” Alberich pointed out, though he approved of the young man's bravery. “I'll not put any of my men at such risk. Cornel, I want you to stay with Briar. If worse comes to worst, he can ride double with you.”

Cornel nodded and drew his mount out of line with the other horses so he could stand with Briar.

“Don't press your horse to go faster than she's able,” Alberich said. “Stay together and stay sharp. If it gets too close to sunset and Captain Alder's group haven't caught up yet, start making your way back down the road until you find them. Be careful, understand? You've got the special gear.”

The two warriors nodded their understanding.

“Sunsword guard you both.” Leaning over, the paladin rested a slim, dark-skinned hand on the shoulder of each man in silent blessing before he straightened in the saddle and resumed his place at the head of their now smaller column.

They rode on, following the narrow road as it wound along the side of an increasingly steep hillside. Breaks in the trees showed glimpses of a valley that grew more shrouded in evening shadows each time it came into view. As darkness fell, Alberich became more and more aware of a very peculiar sensation, itching at the edge of his awareness.

This land was sick. A few years ago, a dragon shapeshifted to human form had married the King of Archfleur, murdered him, and taken the throne for herself. To fuel her powers, she had demanded sacrifices- the Fairest, those remarkable people of pure heart and soul and being. She had tormented them, drained the energy that their pure souls generated, and stolen the magics of the land that were linked to those women and men.

It was this last that had sickened the land. The natural magics, the underlying forces of the realm, were wrenched from their proper channels and were tainted by the torturous deaths and poisoned by the spilled life-forces of the Fairest given to Queen Damia. Had the dragon-queen been stopped after a few weeks, a few months, a year, even, the damage would have been limited to unsettled weather and a few years of poor crops while the land recovered.

Damia had managed to work her foul magics for four long years. In that time, the corruption of the land magics had grown worse. The dragon-queen had been overthrown and the rightful Queen of Archfleur had taken the throne and for a time, the worst of the damage had been concealed, held barely in check by the bond of sovereign to land, the ancient ties of blood and crown that caused the health of one to be reflected in the health of the other.

But something had gone wrong. Less than three years after becoming queen, Rose Red had vanished, along with her wizard-consort, leaving her cousin Hare of Rosedemer on the throne. He'd been assassinated by agents of his rather unstable mother and replaced by his brother Briarson.

That last spilling of royal blood had been all that it took to utterly destroy the fragile state of Archfleur's magics. Wrenched from its proper paths, spilling across the land like fouled river water breaking a levee, and poisoned by years of blood-magics and deaths, it now lay over the kingdom like a fetid cloud. Sicknesses spread. Crops grew poorly. The magical creatures of Archfleur, the Selkies and the dwarves and the dark men known as feardorcha, hid away from the human settlements in their own strongholds.

Worst of all, the corrupted magic, drawn most strongly to focii of death and decay, settled on the bodies of the dead, warping them into monsters that rose of their own accord.

Half a world away, Alberich had received a vision of the Goddess he had served for his entire life. Her orders, that he immediately take leave from his position with the Tomb Wardens who protected the ancient city of Reliquary and the equally ancient necropolis complex that lay beneath it and set sail for Archfleur.

Alberich, having received a few similar directions in the past from Sahar, Goddess of the Sun, knew better than to argue and had immediately made arrangements, relieved that the Wardens and the Temple he worked out of were used to paladins occasionally having to drop everything and hop to so they could leave on some quest or another at the orders of their gods. He specialized in dealing with the undead, so it had been no stretch to figure out why Sahar had picked him for the task. He just hadn't realized how bad the underlying problem of the corrupted magic had been until he'd set foot in Archfleur.

Still, there wasn't a lot he could do about that, beyond writing to Reliquary and asking them to send a few wizards to help deal with the problem. He had a few magics of his own granted by Sahar to better serve Her, but they were not the sort of magics that would let him heal this poisoned land. His task was to do the best he could, to train defenders of human settlements to fight off the undead scourge and to deal with the worst problem areas personally.

That was exactly what Alberich Sunshadow was going to do.

The last of the sun's rays were fading behind the hills as the road finally broke free of the trees. The riders could now see the valley below, a fertile strip of land tucked between two chains of steep hills. Farms stretched along the valley floor, while at the north end of the valley lay a cluster of buildings, lights shining in the windows.

It was very quiet below. Though the darkness was no hindrance to him, Alberich saw no people moving about on late-evening chores, no one tending to cattle or horses in stables, no women tossing out scraps to be fed to pigs in the morning. His sharp ears picked up no distant trace of conversation, none of the sounds of people. The quiet wasn't that of a ghost town, abandoned by its inhabitants. It was the quiet of a forest glade when a rabbit freezes in place, hoping that the hunter might pass it by. The only sign of life that he could see were were lights in windows and faint, distant streaks of warmth above the homes- currents of hot air from lit fires, channeled through chimneys. The cold, slimy feeling that prickled the hairs at the back of Alberich's neck was stronger now, and when he closed his eyes he could just start to sense that feeling coalescing around a few particular clots of ,i>wrongness in the valley below them.

“We're too late,” Wilhelm whispered from Alberich's left.

“Not yet,” he replied, glancing at the stocky man, seeing his face lit from within by his body heat rather than outlined by the light of the rising half-moon. “We need to hurry, find whoever is in charge, set up defenses-”

A child's scream split the night.

Description
Sweetspring

A Tale of the Sun's Shadow

Part I

“And in thy name and thy service, Sunsword, I pray that you grant my allies with clear sight, so that even in the darkness of deep night they may be able to strike down those cursed beings that stalk by shadow, to cleanse the land of this plague which besets it. In thy name and service, Sahar-Sunsword, so mote it be.”

The late afternoon sun seemed to shine a little more warmly on the clearing, gilding the armor of the men who broke down their camp so that for a moment each metal plate and ring and buckle seemed to be wrought of gold rather than steel. Alberich did not see this as he lowered his head, having kept his eyes closed as he faced the sun during his prayers, but he felt the gentle, reassuring warmth that told the paladin his goddess had heard and granted his request. He kept them closed until he slid the goggles he wore back down over his eyes. Only once the dark lenses were in place did he open his eyes and survey the clearing.

Thirty men- twenty warriors, nine squires, and a single anxious-looking farmer, bustled about the clearing, folding up bedrolls, stowing supplies, saddling horses and a handful of pack mules, and extinguishing the two small cook fires. It was the last man on which Alberich's gaze settled.

“Wilhelm,” he called. “A word, if you please?”

The farmer handed the lead reins of the pack mule he'd been loading over to one of the squires and came over. He was a square, blocky sort of man, his hair and eyes the same rich brown as the soil in which he worked, his large square hands calloused from hard work. A big fellow, Wilhelm looked down upon the slight paladin who had summoned him.

“Yes, Paladin Sunshadow?” he asked. His eyes flicked over Alberich's face, not quite sure where to settle now that Alberich's eyes were hidden by his goggles. “What can I do for you?”

Alberich gestured for the farmer to follow him as he walked around the perimeter of their camp, collecting the eight palm-sized orange-gold crystals he had laid out in a protective ring at the cardinal points and the cross-points. “How far is it to this village of yours?”

He scratched his chin, pondering the question. “Depends,” he said. “There's a narrow deer trail we might could take that'd get us there in an hour, but it's too narrow and rough for these big horses your men ride. Yours, mayhap, but not the others. By the road, it's nearly three.”

Alberich shook his head. “No use trying a track we can't take. We'll take the road. You and I will take fifteen of the warriors and push on ahead. The rest will stay with the squires and pack animals and come as swiftly as they can. I'll tell them not to travel by dark- if they don't make it to Sweetspring by sunset, they'll have to camp somewhere defensible and catch up in the morning.”

“Won't that be dangerous? The monsters-”

“Will focus on the village before they'll focus on a party with armed men.” Alberich's voice was grim. A village of unarmed commoners would be much easier prey for the foul creatures that stalked them. While there was a chance they might go after his men, at least his men were armed and knew the foes they faced and knew what precautions to take. “It's imperative that I and at least some of our fighters get there before sundown if at all possible. Things will get ugly after dark, I can promise you that much.”

Wilhelm shuddered, his face going pasty under his tan. He had seen first-hand just what awaited them in Sweetspring and knew that the danger came only at night. “I'll get your horse, m'lord,” he said. With an effort, he drew himself up, straightened his tunic, and marched off to collect the paladin's mount.

A faint smile touched Alberich's lips as he packed away the protective crystals and went to give Captain Alder his orders to choose four of his fighters and stay with the squires and pack animals. Alder only nodded in reply. This was his fourth such rescue mission under Alberich's command, and he knew well the reasons for letting the men with the faster horses go on ahead. In an excellent parade-ground bellow, he barked the names of four warriors. The chosen four were all big men who rode very large, powerful warhorses, each with experience at guarding moving groups like merchant trains and supply wagons. They would remain with Alder, while their fellows moved on to Sweetspring under Alberich's command.

Wilhelm brought Alberich's horse over, and with a nod of thanks he mounted up, pulling himself into the tall gelding's saddle. He waited only long enough for his warriors and their guide to mount as well before giving Alder a salute and shouting the order to move out. Together, seventeen men and horses raced down the road towards the besieged village of Sweetspring.

Even as they rode, Alberich measured their pace in his head and tightened his jaw grimly. It would be close, but they might just make it to the village before nightfall. He sincerely hoped so- it would be so much easier to set up defenses if they had a little daylight left. The forest here grew thick and close to the narrow road, blotting out the sun as it sank towards the horizon enough that Alberich was able to push up his goggles from his eyes and see clearly without pain from over-bright light. The steady rumbling of their horses' hooves filled his pointed ears, a sound that reassured and worried at the same time.

The rhythmic sound was broken by a horse's sudden squeal and a series of hoofbeats out of step with the others. Alberich called for a halt and wheeled his mount to see what the problem was.

One of the horses, a steel-grey mare ridden by a young, dark-haired man named Briar, was limping, favoring a front hoof. Briar himself was sliding off her back and crouching next to her to inspect the foreleg even as Alberich drew up beside him.

“What's the matter?” Alberich asked, pale brows knitting in a frown.

Briar ran his hands over the foreleg, carefully lifting the hoof to inspect the bottom. “Looks like she took a bad step and wrenched something,” he said. “Doesn't look too serious, but she won't be able to keep up with you lot.”

The paladin bit back a muttered oath. He didn't need complications right now, but Briar was right. The injured mare would not be able to make the speed they needed in order to reach the village by dark. They would either have to slow down to let the mare keep up, or leave her and Briar behind.

“Don't worry about me, sir,” Briar said. “The others will be along soon. We'll make our way after you as best we can and join with the rest when they catch up.”

“That puts you out here alone with an injured horse after dark,” Alberich pointed out, though he approved of the young man's bravery. “I'll not put any of my men at such risk. Cornel, I want you to stay with Briar. If worse comes to worst, he can ride double with you.”

Cornel nodded and drew his mount out of line with the other horses so he could stand with Briar.

“Don't press your horse to go faster than she's able,” Alberich said. “Stay together and stay sharp. If it gets too close to sunset and Captain Alder's group haven't caught up yet, start making your way back down the road until you find them. Be careful, understand? You've got the special gear.”

The two warriors nodded their understanding.

“Sunsword guard you both.” Leaning over, the paladin rested a slim, dark-skinned hand on the shoulder of each man in silent blessing before he straightened in the saddle and resumed his place at the head of their now smaller column.

They rode on, following the narrow road as it wound along the side of an increasingly steep hillside. Breaks in the trees showed glimpses of a valley that grew more shrouded in evening shadows each time it came into view. As darkness fell, Alberich became more and more aware of a very peculiar sensation, itching at the edge of his awareness.

This land was sick. A few years ago, a dragon shapeshifted to human form had married the King of Archfleur, murdered him, and taken the throne for herself. To fuel her powers, she had demanded sacrifices- the Fairest, those remarkable people of pure heart and soul and being. She had tormented them, drained the energy that their pure souls generated, and stolen the magics of the land that were linked to those women and men.

It was this last that had sickened the land. The natural magics, the underlying forces of the realm, were wrenched from their proper channels and were tainted by the torturous deaths and poisoned by the spilled life-forces of the Fairest given to Queen Damia. Had the dragon-queen been stopped after a few weeks, a few months, a year, even, the damage would have been limited to unsettled weather and a few years of poor crops while the land recovered.

Damia had managed to work her foul magics for four long years. In that time, the corruption of the land magics had grown worse. The dragon-queen had been overthrown and the rightful Queen of Archfleur had taken the throne and for a time, the worst of the damage had been concealed, held barely in check by the bond of sovereign to land, the ancient ties of blood and crown that caused the health of one to be reflected in the health of the other.

But something had gone wrong. Less than three years after becoming queen, Rose Red had vanished, along with her wizard-consort, leaving her cousin Hare of Rosedemer on the throne. He'd been assassinated by agents of his rather unstable mother and replaced by his brother Briarson.

That last spilling of royal blood had been all that it took to utterly destroy the fragile state of Archfleur's magics. Wrenched from its proper paths, spilling across the land like fouled river water breaking a levee, and poisoned by years of blood-magics and deaths, it now lay over the kingdom like a fetid cloud. Sicknesses spread. Crops grew poorly. The magical creatures of Archfleur, the Selkies and the dwarves and the dark men known as feardorcha, hid away from the human settlements in their own strongholds.

Worst of all, the corrupted magic, drawn most strongly to focii of death and decay, settled on the bodies of the dead, warping them into monsters that rose of their own accord.

Half a world away, Alberich had received a vision of the Goddess he had served for his entire life. Her orders, that he immediately take leave from his position with the Tomb Wardens who protected the ancient city of Reliquary and the equally ancient necropolis complex that lay beneath it and set sail for Archfleur.

Alberich, having received a few similar directions in the past from Sahar, Goddess of the Sun, knew better than to argue and had immediately made arrangements, relieved that the Wardens and the Temple he worked out of were used to paladins occasionally having to drop everything and hop to so they could leave on some quest or another at the orders of their gods. He specialized in dealing with the undead, so it had been no stretch to figure out why Sahar had picked him for the task. He just hadn't realized how bad the underlying problem of the corrupted magic had been until he'd set foot in Archfleur.

Still, there wasn't a lot he could do about that, beyond writing to Reliquary and asking them to send a few wizards to help deal with the problem. He had a few magics of his own granted by Sahar to better serve Her, but they were not the sort of magics that would let him heal this poisoned land. His task was to do the best he could, to train defenders of human settlements to fight off the undead scourge and to deal with the worst problem areas personally.

That was exactly what Alberich Sunshadow was going to do.

The last of the sun's rays were fading behind the hills as the road finally broke free of the trees. The riders could now see the valley below, a fertile strip of land tucked between two chains of steep hills. Farms stretched along the valley floor, while at the north end of the valley lay a cluster of buildings, lights shining in the windows.

It was very quiet below. Though the darkness was no hindrance to him, Alberich saw no people moving about on late-evening chores, no one tending to cattle or horses in stables, no women tossing out scraps to be fed to pigs in the morning. His sharp ears picked up no distant trace of conversation, none of the sounds of people. The quiet wasn't that of a ghost town, abandoned by its inhabitants. It was the quiet of a forest glade when a rabbit freezes in place, hoping that the hunter might pass it by. The only sign of life that he could see were were lights in windows and faint, distant streaks of warmth above the homes- currents of hot air from lit fires, channeled through chimneys. The cold, slimy feeling that prickled the hairs at the back of Alberich's neck was stronger now, and when he closed his eyes he could just start to sense that feeling coalescing around a few particular clots of ,i>wrongness in the valley below them.

“We're too late,” Wilhelm whispered from Alberich's left.

“Not yet,” he replied, glancing at the stocky man, seeing his face lit from within by his body heat rather than outlined by the light of the rising half-moon. “We need to hurry, find whoever is in charge, set up defenses-”

A child's scream split the night.