A Shadow Among Legions Read online

  A Shadow Among Legions

  S.A. Klopfenstein

  Contents

  A Shadow Among Legions

  A Shadow Among Legions

  We are not many.

  We are one.

  The chancellor's hands and feet.

  His boots on the ground.

  The blade in his hand.

  The Shadows in his Legions.

  * * *

  —a mantra of the Night Legions

  * * *

  The Night Legions marched deep into the mountains of Klavash, streams of movement in perfect, organized unison.

  They were not many. They were one.

  A magnificent mechanism.

  One shadow that spread farther and farther across the New World, the dominion of the Chancellor of Osha permeating the land like a plague.

  They were the blades in his hand, created for war, their training cruel and rigorous and mind-altering. They had no family, no kin. Only the chancellor and one another.

  It was in the very heart of Klavash—a few leagues from the lone village of Harrivral, where he'd been raised—that the young soldier, Darien Redvar, came fully apart inside.

  Darien led the company, hand chosen because he knew the mountains. He had grown up in them.

  They had been trekking through the mountains three days, and his comrades, Jujen and Valeria, had joined Darien at the front of the line. General Thrain was bringing up the rear.

  They marched for their first battle, and the three Shadows were talking eagerly of the coming fray, when the child appeared.

  A tiny, spindly thing, as most Klavash girls were. She couldn't have been more than five or six years old.

  Brown doe eyes shone from behind her fur hood, bits of curly black hair poking out in messy strands like a fraying rope. Snow coated her parka, as though she'd been rolling in it.

  When she stumbled into the clearing before them—giggling, and then, at the sight of the soldiers, hushing to a whimper, scared like a poor bunny caught in a snare—the whole regiment froze.

  They had not seen a single soul in these mountains, but they knew what was expected if they did. A single cry could alert a Morgathian ranger. Darien had been all eyes for men at the edge of their path.

  But a little girl?

  She might have been no older than his own sister had been the day the Legions came for him.

  "What do we do?" Valeria whispered to Darien.

  The hell does she mean, what do we do? There's only one true answer. Only one thing we can do. Oh gods!

  He glanced around, but the General remained at the back of the line, nowhere in sight. By the time he reached the front, the girl would have shrieked or run for help. The call was on Darien, and he had but fractions of a moment.

  All were looking to him. He had been the one chosen to lead them through the mountains. He was the one that Thrain spoke to, as to a son.

  The girl was ten yards from them, trembling silently like a fawn spooked by hunters.

  Then, without command, Jujen raised his musket eagerly beside him.

  "You know what we gotta do!" he muttered.

  Jujen was grinning.

  Frantic, Darien whispered, "No, it'll alert the whole—"

  But it was too late.

  Jujen fired.

  The mountains echoed with a hollow strike of thunder. A thud resounded in the woods, like an axe head against the heart of a rotting tree.

  Jujen's aim had not faltered during the long march. It was truer than a preying falcon's.

  The ball of lead collided with the girl's chest, launching her off her feet, without time to make a sound, not even a dying whimper. She landed on her back, dead on impact, spilling red upon the snow.

  The shot echoed and echoed off the walls of the mountains, as though a dozen shots had been fired.

  And then, there was a moment of heart-wringing silence.

  And then, a shriek.

  At the edge of the clearing, a small boy's shaggy head stuck up from the ground fifty yards off. He'd watched the whole thing. Probably the girl's brother, or village playmate. The boy was no older than four, and he scrambled to his feet, tripped, then dashed for the cover of the forest.

  Suddenly, Darien felt his musket being wrenched from his hands. He was helpless to resist, as though he were caught in another world.

  Jujen aimed Darien's musket.

  And the boy, too, was painting the snow in red.

  The peaks reverberated with the last wisps of the boy's screams, mixed with the sound of thunder. They faded, swallowed up by the falling snow.

  Darien felt as though his entire body had been left out naked in the cold overnight. He moved his lips, but no sound came out. His head told his arms and legs to move, but it was as if the messengers had been taken out by the enemy.

  In shock. They all were.

  The clearing was silent but for Jujen, who whooped and cried, "Ooh, rah!"

  Then, finally, a voice.

  "Who the hell fired those shots?" It was the General, shoving his way through the ranks.

  "Jujen, sir." It was Valeria. Her face bore no expression.

  Would she have been the next to fire? Or had she been scared stiff as well?

  The General paused for a moment, staring forward, eyeing the bleeding dead boy and girl, and then his expression hardened. He turned on Jujen, and punched the young soldier in the jaw.

  "Firing a shot in these mountains, you incompetent son of a whore? The whole village will be upon us in a hare's breath. You may have compromised our entire gods-damned mission!"

  The General turned to Darien, and he flinched momentarily. But the General did not hit him. "How far is Harrivral?"

  "A league, maybe two, due south."

  "There must be outlying settlements as well. No children would venture this far on their own."

  "Aye, sir."

  He cursed under his breath, muttering, "Be swift. No delay. No unnecessary combat. Arayeva, nol teriney!" He swore in his native tongue, Yan Avii.

  Then, Thrain addressed the troops. "LEAVE NONE ALIVE, SHADOWS. NO ONE ESCAPES. WE TAKE NO PRISONERS! OUR MISSION DEPENDS ON THIS. YOU'VE LUSTED FOR BLOOD, WELL... NOW YOU DAMN-WELL HAVE IT!"

  As if in answer, a wail soared through the treetops from the direction of Harrivral.

  The villagers heard the shot!

  Darien helped Jujen to his feet, like a good comrade. "Next time, throw a gods-damned knife!"

  Thrain's regiment became a perfect machine, cogs and wheels moving in precise order through the woods, and Darien led them, the General at his side.

  There was a moment, the briefest moment, when he considered the possibility he could save the village of Harrivral, his Klavash people. Only he knew exactly where it lay, where the small trodden path winded between the meadow of boulders and then snaked between the kissing cliffs. He could lead the regiment too far east, maybe even have them stumble upon a small settlement, where they might slaughter a family or two, maybe it would even be the little girl's and boy's true family. All of Harrivral need not die.

  But that would compromise the mission, his purpose, his comrades.

  No...

  Darien let the thought slip past unknown. Forgotten as though it had never entered his mind. He found the hunter's path within a few minutes. The first outlying settlement lay past the boulder field, a small mountain farm in a clearing. Thrain sent Jujen and three others to deal with the farmers, and Darien was relieved to be rid of the boy's idiocy.

  Darien led the remaining troops down the path, between the cliffs, and down into the Harrivral valley.

  The Klavash were a peaceful people. They had been caught in the middle of many wars between Osha and Morgath, and the
people of Nunanka, who had populated the region of Morgath before it had been a kingdom, and before Osha had been a kingdom, when the gods were good and the peace was true.

  It was raw, hard country that tested the limits of a people. The Klavash lived in the mountains, facing the harsh winters and short growing seasons, because they longed for peace and loved nature. They had a respect for the land. They grieved over needless death. They were Darien's people.

  Yet, it was fitting his first mission should be among his own. His final test.

  The cry Darien heard after Jujen fired upon the children had been no war cry, as it turned out. Perhaps it was a morning hail, or the glee of a successful hunt. But the people of Harrivral had mustered no army to face the approaching horde. They were going about their morning as usual when the Shadows arrived.

  Thrain's regiment stole silently from the woods, descending upon the village from all sides without warning.

  The General did not leave Darien's side. It was Darien, Thrain, Valeria, Hollas, and Uraa. They entered the village from the south in single file, slinking behind thatch-roofed buildings.

  The first to oppose them was a boy of fifteen, his long hair pulled back and tied up in a small bun. Darien knew the boy had just come of age. Boys let their hair down until the day they turned fifteen, and became a man grown. Filled with a thirst for honor, filled with a love for family and loyalty to his kinsmen. Of course, this boy was the first to face the invaders.

  And he would be the first brave one to fall.

  As the Klavash boy approached, Thrain stepped back, as though declaring it Darien's opportunity to prove himself once and for all. The final test.

  Darien lunged forward, unsheathing his sword with a flourish. The Klavash boy was armed with a crude hunting blade, a jagged work of the mountains. The boy brandished it boldly, crying for the god Umpala to curse the horde of Shadows.

  The blade was out of his hand with a pair of thunderous blows and the boy—the brave defender of his kinsmen, the man grown—was on his back, grimacing, his fingers bleeding.

  It was at this moment, Thrain caught Darien's eye, and nodded, his eyes cold and heartless.

  The final test.

  Darien did not hesitate. He plunged the blade into the boy's chest. He felt the blow as though his own hand had entered the boy's flesh, as though his sword was part of his arm, attached by tendons and muscle, the blood pumping from his heart filling the sword with strength and precision. He sensed the pierce of skin, the crunch of ribs, the tearing of organs, and the grinding thud as his blade struck the ground beneath the boy's body. He felt the life leave the boy in a shudder of rasping breath and a final bray of curses.

  Darien would not remember the others so vividly.

  But this was his first.

  The first kill.

  The final test.

  Darien—the lone Klavash spared in the raid that slaughtered his family—had lost himself at last. Darien had become the chancellor's hands and feet, his boots on the ground, the blade in his hand.

  A Shadow among Legions.

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  S.A. Klopfenstein, A Shadow Among Legions

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