The Dead Gods Read online

  The Dead Gods

  ~ Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow Book 2 ~

  *** By Robert Bayliss ***

  Copyright ©2015 Robert Bayliss

  Published by © Longship Books 2015

  Longship Books is an imprint of © Longship Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  Except for brief quotes in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.

  Also by Robert Bayliss –

  The Sun Shard – Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow Book 1

  Hymns of Mortality: A collection of Short Stories

  Acknowledgments

  Once again love and thanks to my wonderful wife Clare for putting up with me on the computer tapping away.

  Thanks again to Charlie Kirkpatrick - the pencil mage - for the cover, the main map and being a sounding board for ideas.

  Thanks to my beta reader Kate Adams for added flair. Or is it Flare?

  A big up to The Review on Facebook, a nicer community of readers and writers you would be hard pressed to find.

  A massive thank you to my awesomesause- coated editor, Lisl Zlitni.

  Now then, where had we got to at the end of The Sun Shard? Oh yes, I remember....

  Maps

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Maps

  Chapter 1

  Of all the cities in the world, surely the Imperial City of Taleel was amongst, if not actually, the greatest. It sprawled around the Bay of Flames in a wide arc between two rocky headlands. Upon each stood the huge gun towers: Crelesh to the north and Malstor to the east. Each cast their baleful glances over the seaward approaches, to the commercial and naval dockyards sheltered behind the long breakwaters that encompassed the bay. The dockyards themselves were centred on two artificial islands in the bay, joined to the city by tall, broad causeways, with the berths and moorings spread from the islands like spokes on a cart wheel. In the centre of each island there was a constant grinding sound, as the massive aurochs-powered winding wheels turned the central spindle that emerged from the roof. Gears and axles transferred the power, enabling it to charge many spring-ship engines simultaneously.

  The City of Taleel was built as much on war as it was on far- flung trade. For centuries her ships had plied the seas seeking conquest and profit. Her name had been a byword for terror, its shrines and palaces clad with the gold of the conquered. Ever since Taleel had united the city-states of the Island of Cyria by marriage and the sword, all had been geared towards bringing the world beyond into the Fire God’s sphere. It had been a sacred task, undertaken with fanatical zeal.

  Beyond her massive curtain walls that stretched from the coast into the hinterland, amid the farms, orchards and groves, the encampments for her armies could be found. Her legions grew in strength; once more the Fire God was beating the drum for war. These barracks had become permanent features in the landscape of the Taleeli plain. The forests that once bedecked the green uplands now clung on further up the slopes of the mountains beyond. Their green dominion had been forced to retreat in the face of the city’s constant hunger for ships and fuel. The uplands were now a patchwork of mines and quarries. Smoke hung in the valleys, as furnaces bled metal from stone. Roads spread from Taleel like a spider’s web to the other cities, towns and villages of the Imperial heartland.

  From Cyria, the flames of war had spread north through the Midsea Archipelago and beyond, to the northern coasts of the Cheama Sea. It had taken generations, but finally, through black powder alchemy, the Fire God had provided the means to conquer what was to become the Northern Holdings.

  To the west, the ships had ploughed on to conquer the Western Gates, beyond which the storm-wracked Great Western Ocean surged and fumed.

  To the south, outposts had been settled on the coast of Attana. Beyond them lay an arid desert that shrivelled throats and cooked men alive. Further, beyond this dreadful wasteland, traveller’s tales told of hot steaming forests, haunted by enormous nightmare lizards and foul disfiguring diseases.

  But east. In the east lay the lands of their great rival, Acaross. Her dominion encompassed the south and east lands, spanning the Straits of Tahlinjin. Early diplomatic missions, with the aim of opening trade lines, had been fruitless. Cruel, long established, but technically brilliant, Acaross looked upon the inhabitants of Taleel as mere upstarts and of little consequence. The eye of Acaross was drawn south and east; it cared not for the upcoming power it ignored in its shadow.

  Confusing Accarossian indifference for weakness and senility, the Taleeli had struck east, thinking their youthful vigour would surely conquer against the old power. Such hopes had proven to be terribly wrong. The Empire’s defeat at the Straits of Tahlinjin ten years previously was a weeping sore in the martial pride of Taleel. In truth, Taleel had been fortunate to extract the few troops it had, and that had been but a fraction of those who had left to carve out a new Imperial province. Many had been killed or enslaved. It was said that the lost spring ships of the fleet that had been driven aground had burnt for days on those blood-soaked coasts, their huge brass engines melting in the heat of the flames.

  Content that after such a decisive victory the threat of the upstart was removed, Acaross had turned its eye inward again, or so it appeared. An undeclared truce had seemed to exist between the rivals for ten years.

  It had been ten years of shame and doubt, a decade of pain and counting the cost of failure. But Taleel had not been idle; she had licked her wounds, but not forgotten her sacred undertaking. The fleet was rebuilt. New ideas were being developed; these were now the days of iron and steel. Taleel concentrated on her Empire, supplying men and materials, and slowly her strength returned, but all the time she had kept a watchful eye to the east.

  The ship had come into the harbour at night, guided by the lighthouse atop Crelesh. The trader had come from the winter smitten Northern Holdings with tales of dread from Northport: stories of treachery, near defeat and foreign invasion, but also of a victory, wrought by a stubborn Imperial general and a provincial admiral who refused to accept their defeat. Word spread from the sailors to the harbour workers in the early morning light, and thence to the city beyond. It seemed to run as a rumour ahead of the messenger, charged with a mission from General Broud to deliver his report to the Capitol Senate, and then on to the Emperor himself in his pleasure palace and gardens on Pelta Hill, on Taleel’s northern edge, above the noise and stink of the city.

  The Emperor was beside himself with rage, it was said. The Senate was in uproar; there was talk of black treachery and questions raised about the loyalty of some of the ruling families.

  Soon Taleeli citizens were speaking of the events and swearing revenge in the shops and wineries. Word spread to the soldiers in the encampments, and training was embarked upon with renewed urgency. Weapons were needed; preparations were deemed to be taking too long. The call for black powder reached the Guild of Alchemists in the seminary.

  ***

  Braebec Conziva stepped into the street from his quarters. He had awok
en early before the sunrise, completed his ablutions, meditated by staring into a candle flame and eaten sparingly to break his fast. He gathered his cloak about his tall, thin frame. Winter was now upon Cyria, and the sun was yet to rise in the sky high enough to warm the walls and flagstones of the city. His clean-shaven cheeks looked hollow and his eyes were deep set, with a haunted look. His dark hair had a streak of white, like a vein of silver running through dark rock. He brought up his hood over his head and set off toward the seminary.

  He strode from his quarters, past the foundries and workshops. Furnaces were being fired up and hammers already rang, beating out a regular rhythm. Carts clattered through the cobbled streets delivering coal, minerals and ores hewn from the Cyrian uplands. Industry commenced in the heart of the Empire again. Foodstuffs, both exotic and staple, were drawn by oxen from the busy port in the bay. Stinking carts carrying steaming piles of dung from the winding wheels wormed their way from the docks to the city gates. It was another day in Taleel, as any other, but the chatter on the lips of the people he saw every day was different this morning.

  People spoke with pride and anger, of near disaster averted, of the need for revenge against an enemy both within and without. Braebec listened intently, hovering ghost-like on the edge of conversations, his presence unnoticed by those on whom he eavesdropped. A picture formed in his mind from the words he stole, of bloodshed and war in the Northern Holdings, but amid the tales of bravery and martial prowess, there were whispered rumours of men who didn’t die, of shadows uncast by any sun. He remembered the shock to the guild some days ago, when the Sacred Flame had flared bright and violent and the statue of Grenteel, Taleel’s mythic founder, had exploded into shards in the sanctum that had been built around the Cave of the Sacred Flame. As yet, the guild was still attempting to decipher the meaning of such an omen. Shadows? They talk of shadows? The good people of Taleel had no idea of the horrors his order kept at bay! There were good reasons why his hair was streaked with white.

  He shivered in the cold morning air and hurried along to the seminary.

  The seminary was situated on Smilac Hill, one of the many hills now contained within the vast city. The hill had once been a rocky outcrop overlooking the bay: a lair of sabre cats, and the location of the Sacred Cave of Flames. The sabre cats had long gone but the cave remained. The whole seminary complex, archives and libraries, workshops, alchemist cells and storehouses were built around the Fire God’s earthly home.

  Braebec climbed up the road to Smilac Hill. The ascent had warmed him, and he threw off his hood. The huge walls that encompassed the seminary complex formed a separate city within a city. Above the gate, the flag of the Empire flew: an obsidian dagger on a field of flame. The Inquisition Guards, clutching their highly stylised muskets, recognised Braebec as he approached and ushered the alchemist in.

  Once inside, the general hubbub of the city faded to a low, barely discernible hum, even the hammering in the foundries below. Inside the walls the temperature was cool and constant, perfect for the mixing of black powder and concocting science and magic from the elements of the earth.

  As usual, Braebec let his feet guide him down the corridors to the central inner sanctum. The guild ensured the flame was never allowed to fade, stopping up cracks and fissures wherever the burning gas emerged elsewhere on the rocky outcrop, lest it cut the fuel of the Sacred Flame. Its dancing and writhing light always fired his imagination and washed away his doubts and fears. In the sanctum, the flame in the cave entrance burned bright.

  It was cool and damp in the sanctum, the high walls covered in moss and dark-leafed ivy. It was as if a man-made cave had been built around the Sacred Cave. High above, the domed ceiling kept the room dark, emphasising the brightness of the flame. The exception to this was the single aperture in the apex, lest the air get dangerously explosive. The aroma was strong but you got used to it. A pilgrimage deep inside the cave to where the air was thicker induced powerful visions.

  Up ahead in front of the flame, the kneeling Grand Mage was auguring, staring into the dancing light of his god. His white hair hung long around his bald pate, which was lined and grooved with age and the cares of the world. To his side, the shards of Grenteel’s statue had been reverently placed.

  “Greetings, Braebec. What has the morning told you thus far?” the Grand Mage said, not turning around. Braebec never ceased to marvel how the old leader of the Alchemist Order always knew the identity of whoever approached, however quietly they walked.

  “I have heard of loyalty overcoming betrayal; of triumph over aggression; of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat; of an Empire retained over winter seas,” Braebec replied.

  “Indeed, Braebec, indeed, but these are concerns for warriors and maybe lowly acolytes, mixing black powder for guns. What else has the morning told you?” he asked, his eyes still held by the flame.

  “A rumour of shadows, an undying one and a man snatched between worlds,” Braebec replied solemnly.

  “Ah, yes. Shadows….” The Grand Mage rose up from his knees and turned to view Braebec. The Grand Mage had a long beard, and his careworn face housed eyes that shone, belying his long years. He wore a simple brown robe, and crossing his arms, he put his hands in the opposing sleeves. “Walk with me, Braebec Conziva.”

  Braebec nodded and they walked in silence past the alchemist cells, their occupants hard at work with their experiments, incantations and formulas. The Grand Mage led Braebec out of the sanctum complex and up onto the high walls. The winter sun shone bright, catching the white wave tops that blew across the Bay of Flames. He stopped above the gatehouse and signalled that they both take their ease on benches there. Their seating position commanded clear views over the industry of the city that clustered around the docks, and the ordered chaos of the moorings around the twin islands in the bay. Around the naval berths, the sun reflected brightly on the ironclad leviathans of the new fleet.

  “I would talk of shadows in the bright sunlight where their power is dispelled,” the Grand Mage said gravely, his eyes drawn to the streaks of silver in Braebec’s hair; such marks were not the gift of age, he knew.

  Braebec nodded in gratitude.

  The Grand Mage looked back over the bay. “Last night a ship came from Northport; aboard was a messenger carrying reports from General Broud. I was called to the Senate to hear their content before the Emperor was informed.” The Grand Mage turned back to look directly at Braebec. “Unknown to us, after the Northern Holdings had delivered their muster, the eastern foe slipped into the Cheama Sea with troops, a fleet of slavers and mercenary privateers. Their incursion was supported by the treachery of the appointed dominar of the Northern Holdings, Market Sligo and his high reeve, Lord Thesk Kreven. Already the mobs surround their family houses in the city and threaten to torch them. Their occupants have fled to their family estates in the hills. It remains to be seen what punishment the Senate will devise for those guilty of blood association. Whatever political power the houses of Sligo and Kreven wielded will be crushed by the mob’s thirst for revenge.”

  “Grand Mage,” Braebec interrupted. “Was not Sligo’s alchemist the one called Holwyn, and did he not briefly attend the seminary last year?”

  The Grand Mage smiled. “Yes, indeed he did, Braebec. He was here in late spring. He attended the archives and the libraries for a week and then left for Northport again immediately afterward without any notice. Soon after his leaving I was informed by the Lord of Keys and Books that several manuscripts that were centuries old could no longer be accounted for, manuscripts that dealt with the long Northern War, and in particular the observations and studies of the magic of the Flint folk and their crystalline light daggers.”

  “The Sun Shards, Grand Mage?” Braebec said, recalling his own study of the subject. “What has become of Holwyn then, has Broud got him captive?”

  “Alas no; he was found dead in his cell. General Broud gave no indication as to the cause of death in his message, which gives me cau
se for concern. However it is clear that Holwyn was implicated in Sligo’s treason.” The Grand Mage’s face creased in pain and sorrow. “Dominar Sligo himself was accounted for and flung into the dungeons, mortally wounded, to starve to death in the dark. His rule, as well as treacherous, was less than exemplary according to the report, and he will not be missed by his former subjects. Lord Kreven is thought to have escaped Northport and found refuge with the aggressors from Acaross. Northport, unknown to us here, was blockaded and effectively isolated from both the Northern Holdings and the Empire. The admiral commanding the Cheama fleet, a man called Carnak, had suffered a devastating defeat in the initial engagement. Acaross had one of their submersible ships tipping the balance in their favour. The Empire faced losing the Northern Holdings to Acaross, or they would have descended back to their barbarous and hostile state.”

  Braebec nodded. Hostile to their Imperial overlords; us, you mean. Braebec had studied the wars of conquest. The brutal post-conquest subjugation of what would become the Northern Holdings was a shameful truth, barely spoken of in official Imperial histories.

  “Fortunately,” the Grand Mage continued, “both General Broud and this Admiral Carnak were veterans of the disaster at Tahlinjin. Not only did they expose and defeat the treachery of Sligo and Kreven, but also they developed strategies to inflict a resounding defeat on the enemy, expelling them from the Cheama Sea and retaining the Northern Holdings in the Empire. General Broud has also been endeavouring to right the wrongs inflicted upon the northerners by Sligo’s misrule.”

  Braebec smiled. “Obviously they are true patriots both; if only there were more like them. I hope their tactics will be studied prior to the ensuing campaign,” Braebec said, his voice trailing off. “But what of the shadows, Grand Mage? Did Broud’s report feature information on this, or was this merely fantastic tales told by excited sailors eager to earn themselves a free meal and a drink in the taverns of Taleel?”