RAVEN’S WAND

Book one of the Dark Raven Chronicles mixes fantasy with augmented reality, and has received five-star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon!

Chapter One – Seventeen Shillings. Solvgarad, Eastern Europe

Today was Davey Warner’s eighteenth birthday and finally his age exceeded his salary. Seventeen shillings was a good salary for a squire, but since joining the Illuminata’s ranks a year ago he had become a superstitious young man and the number seventeen gave him the shivers. His first knight had been killed on April 17th, his first battle injury required seventeen stitches, and his first flogging was seventeen lashes. Yes, it was fair to say seventeen was an unlucky number. Many of the Illuminata Knighthood’s squires were superstitious, but with good reason perhaps. Theirs was the only military order in the world created to fight witches.

In the last year he had ridden alongside his knight, or sometimes under his huge metal feet, on five occasions. Granted, the enemies had only been rival knights competing for the Illuminata’s crown, but the bullets and cannons were just as deadly. Today was different, however. Today he was riding to face a coven of witches for the first time. He told himself all would be well because he was no longer seventeen, but that didn’t stop his hands from trembling.

“Warner, saddle not stirrups. You make too big a target,” someone commanded.

He sank back into his saddle and looked about to see Captain Ross. “Aye, sir.”

“One day you’ll get your fool head blown off and I won’t be around to tell you about it,” Ross grunted.

The twenty-strong party continued towards the ragged limestone pinnacles known as the Vesturor, meaning the ‘Giant’s Palm’. He disliked the name because that’s just what it looked like: a giant hand waiting to clench around them.

“We’ll stop here.” Ross decided, already dismounting.

The rest of the company followed and tethered their horses where they could, which wasn’t hard because this dank corner of Romania bristled with pines, while the endless forest seemed shrouded in perpetual twilight.

“That’s it then, sir. The coven?” Warner slid his rifle from his shoulder.

“In there, yes.” Ross retrieved a short telescope and inspected the rocky fortress. “Intelligence has it there are fifty of the snakes living in there.”

“Good place to hide. It looks like a maze, sir.”

He snapped the telescope closed. “Maze is just what it is. And deadly too.”

“With a coven at the heart of it.” Warner imagined them like a fat spider brooding at the web’s centre.

Ross turned to the rest. “From here on bayonets fixed, eyes quick and lips tight.”

They all signalled their understanding and so began their witch hunt.

There were two ways into the Vesturor, one east and one west. Ross’s company were taking the western path with the intention of penetrating the coven and driving the witch scum eastwards at bayonet point. When the rabble exited the Vesturor’s eastern wall they would find a little surprise in the form of the Knighthood’s finest company, ready there to greet them; forty Knights piloting their towering kraken steamsuits, and two hundred infantry and squires, led by Knight Superior Krast himself. The witches of Solvgarad were going to be stabbed, crushed or shot. Any method suited Ross. He still got paid and there would be fifty less ‘Jiks’ in the world. A very tidy result.

Warner noticed it first. “Are those paintings?” he whispered.

Ross had been too focused on the forest to notice, but now he saw what Warner meant. There were dragons painted all over the sheer cliffs. “Aye, dragons.” “Why dragons, sir?” “Huh, you are green, aren’t you. The Jiks worship a pair of them, Hethra and Halla or suchlike.”

“You mean like the one cast out of Eden?” “Is there any other kind?” Warner swallowed a lump. “You mean they worship the Dev –,”

“Shh!” he hissed. “Don’t speak that word here of all places. Now, eyes front and mouth shut.”

Warner did just that and as they crept forwards through the bracken his rifle began to feel heavier and his throat drier. The impressive rock formations were shaped like great blades thrust up out of the earth, but they concealed countless passages and corridors. A natural trap, he thought darkly.

Ross stopped and knelt in the bracken, quickly appraised the cliffs and selected the one where the earth was beaten and the rocks shiny with passing hands. “That’s it. That’s the way in.” In the next instant he was up and running. Warner and the rest fell in behind, following their captain to the tune of thumping boots and

Witches run, they don’t fight

rapid breathing. At the Vesturor’s entrance they stopped and Ross pressed a finger to his lips. From here on their mission was stealth. After a quick inspection of his rifle and revolver Ross slipped between the towering rocks and out of sight. Warner came next and one by one the whole company vanished inside the formidable coven of Solvgarad until not a man was left.

Unseen by all, a raven sat watching intently from the branches high above. As the last man slipped through the serrated rocks he cawed once, launched himself into the air and was off. He had an important message to deliver.

Inside was just as he’d feared. Warner found the going dark and narrow, with only enough room for them to advance single file. The soil was compacted by passing feet – witches’ feet he told himself – while the vertical rocks reminded him of giants’ tombstones. He touched the silver cross around his neck. “Deliver us from evil,” he murmured.

“Shh!” Ross jabbed his rifle backwards and butted him in the belly. “Keep it down.”

“Sorry captain.” Penned in between the opposing walls, Warner could hear his frightened heart echo back to him and his breathing sounded taught and metallic. He tried to keep his eyes front even though all he could see was the back of his captain’s head, but the wall paintings repeatedly drew his gaze.

“Worship us,” the dragons seemed to tempt him. “Worship at the altar of the aeons, before man had even dreamed of god.’ Dragons or devils they might be, but Warner couldn’t dispute their eerie beauty. The beasts flowed across the cliffs, reaching up from this murky world to where the sunlight hurt his eyes. There were dragons everywhere, but he saw only two types: both had horns like twisted tree boughs but one had scales of oak, the other of holly. Hethra and Halla, he thought, wondering who was who.

“Yes, I am Hethra, the dreaming dragon of oak. My twin sister is Halla. We were here before man and without us man would cease to be.”

Warner shook his head clear, wondering whose thoughts were rattling around up there.

Ross looked around. “Don’t go weak on me private.” “Sorry, captain,” he gulped. Red and green dragon’s eyes stared down at him and Warner didn’t care for their quiet accusations. “Have you come to kill us, Davey Warner?”

“Witch scum,” he muttered and blew a drop of sweat from his nose. He was cleansing the world of wickedness, he reminded himself. “Only Jik scum.” The rifle in his hands felt hotter by the minute and he wondered if Satan’s imps were stoking the fires for the souls who would go there this day. “But whose souls?” the dragons teased. Eighteen. He thought stoically. Seventeen’s gone, and all my bad luck’s been used up. Seventeen’s gone.

Without knowing he marched right into the captain who spluttered angrily, “Damn it Warner! You trying to get us caught?”

The column halted and Ross raised his revolver level, and jabbed a finger to where the rocks swept around a blind bend. His message was clear: the coven was through there. Just as he advanced a raven called from out of sight. Warner thought nothing of it and instead followed his brave captain into the heart of Solvgarad coven.

The smell was so unexpected that it took him a moment to place it. Someone was cooking food, he was sure of it. For a few seconds all Warner could see was the captain’s back, and then the rocks peeled away from each other and opened into a natural amphitheatre. They were inside the coven.

As Warner moved from behind his captain and into the large clearing he caught sight of a cooking fire with a large pot strung across it. The smell was coming from there. We’ve caught ’em having a meal! The ordinariness of it all startled him, but if he expected stewing limbs he was in for a disappointment. The broth smelled like plain old vegetable and it somehow offended him to find that it smelled good. “Captain?”

“Fan out.” Ross swept his revolver across the clearing, anxious for something to shoot at.

Warner saw a grassy glade surrounded by small huts. There was even washing drying on a line and he frowned when he saw the small tunics and shirts. There were children here too. The little garments unsettled him more than if they had been flayed skins. In the grass he saw what were unmistakably skittles and a wooden ball. Close by there were rows of cabbages and other crops. It reminded him of his grandmother’s garden back home. The glade was wide and airy, there were even wild flowers growing in the tall grass, and the surrounding walls were again decorated with dragons.

“Smith, Howell.” Ross directed two men to check a large wooden hut. “Where’s everyone gone?” Warner drew close. “Dunno.” Ross turned slowly, searching, but not seeing a soul. “Ambush?” he suggested fearfully. “You’ve a lot to learn, lad,” Ross gave him a cynical smile. “Witches run, they don’t fight.”

“Maybe they got wind of us and just left,” he hoped.

Smith and Howell emerged from the hut and waved their arms to signal a negative. “Nobody home,” Ross muttered. “They must’ve gone days ago.” “And left a pan on the boil? Pull the other one.” Ross directed his revolver to the cliff tops, but there was nobody there either...

To find out what happens next, pick up Raven’s Wand, published by Boddington & Royall (RRP 10.99) – and available from www.darkravenchronicles.com