Cradle of Darkness Read online

  Black Hallows

  Tom G.H. Adams and Andrew Naisbitt

  Writing in Starlight

  Published by Writing In Starlight, Brampton, Cumbria, UK

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in

  any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of

  brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

  organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the

  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

  persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  This book has been written in UK English. Spellings in other territories

  may vary.

  Copyright © 2019 by Tom G.H. Adams and Andrew Naisbitt

  For information contact : [email protected]

  Website : http://tomghadams.com

  ‘Black Hallows’ is a trademark of Z1 Designs. All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Tayem

  1. A black rain falls

  2. On majestic wings

  3. Evil comes to call

  4. Rumblings from beneath

  5. While the laughing moon bleeds

  6. Seven sewn and seven split

  7. Waiting for the nail

  8. Ambush at the crossing

  9. Under the mask

  10. Silver spoons and golden chains

  11. Lord of dreams

  12. The temptation of Wobas

  13. Time for tea and treachery

  14. Colour me darkly

  15. One eye above, one below

  16. Unusual appetites

  17. The burning of yesterday

  18. Trysts and collusions

  19. Of fire and blood

  20. Soul grinder

  21. All flags fall

  22. One blasphemy too many

  23. A thunderstorm in the heart

  24. A change of fortunes

  25. A maelstrom of deceit

  26. A city falls

  27. The angry mountains cry

  28. Blood on the Dragon Talon Gates

  29. Tir ti rinov wurunwa di loreatis (Don't ever dream of dying)

  30. Benevolent malevolence

  31. Bereft of a kingdom

  32. Shadow of shame

  33. Path of the Gigantes

  34. At water's end

  35. The anger within

  36. Amongst the mist and shadows

  37. Dreamer deceiver

  38. The culture of hidden means

  39. Tunnel of torment

  40. A Queen's messenger

  41. For want of a soul

  42. Sojourn in the sanctuary

  43. Holy outlaw

  44. Hiding from the light

  45. Choices of the damned

  46. Keeper of evil

  47. A gathering storm

  48. The Earthshaker's gift

  49. Shout at the wind

  50. Busted souls

  51. 'Til all is gone

  52. Aftermaths

  Oga

  Characters

  About Tom Adams

  About Andrew Naisbitt

  Can't get enough of the Black Hallows?

  Acknowledgements

  Writing a novel of this length, let alone a trilogy, is a daunting task. It was eased along by the constant support and contributions of many.

  First and foremost, we would like to thank all those who pledged on the Black Hallows Kickstarter campaign and expressed their confidence in the Cradle of Darkness project by signing up. They are:

  Joranth, Richard Orbain, Adam da Silva, Anthony Dauphin, Jose Perez, Craig G, David Stockford, Carlo Striebel, Alucard, John Duxbury, Kyle Watters, Ben Wicka, Knockman, Gavin Brown, George, Ishaelle, Enzo Maini, Chris Allen, Dominique Locatelli, Flying Explosive Monkey, Francesco, Kent Reinbold, Patrick Melvin, Jimmy Segrist, Brian Hum, Matthew Ferry, Lhunaira, Luis Mari, Jonathan West, Rhel, Luke Styer, Jerry Betti, James Lynch, Cristalios, Brandon Ames, Tadgh Pound, Nathan Swift, Mark — Poet Laureate of Valoria, Christian Kirchberg, Sergi Martinez Vilaboa, Christopher W. Kowalski, Robin Mayenfels, Ols Jonas Petter Olsson, Kehlenschnitt (Miremarsh Stumpy), Roland, Graham Rymer, Tim Noble, Alexander Brethouwer, Marco Solleveld, Alexandre Boisgard, Mark, Helen R. Harkness, Joshua Mobley, Adrián Merino Martínez, Tammy Wyatt-Johnson, William Creighton, Russell Love, Thimo Wilke, Boyd Atkinson, Alucard, Robert Fanelli, Raymond Saunders, Nestor Pumilio, Craig Welsh, Brenan Flinders, Paul D. Jarman, Michael Stump, J. Dean Strohm, Derek R Boudreaux, Leokii, Andrew Hauptman, Finlay Smith, Peter Mitchell, Maggi D, Max, Benjamin, Martin Carrick, Andrew Parker, Hellcat, Ethan Malloy, Rubin Bryant, Jimmy Segrist, Doug Eckhoff, Frank Blau, T.J. Mathews, Matthew Ferry, Robert, Iain Smith, Patrick Mastrobuono, A. Hardy, David Franklin, Paul M. Reynolds, Martin Håkansson, Elijah Hanson, Jean Adams, Alexander Olney, Gary Johnson, M. Zottmann, Christopher Farrington, Mark of the Raging Blood Clan, Marcos, Violet Fermin, Benjamin, Robert, Bubba MacPherson, Luke Styer, Mick McArt

  Special mention must go to our illustrious team of beta readers – Helen Harkness, Karen Brown, Natalie Naisbitt, and Natalie Hedley, Peter Moore, Paul Raistrick, Nick Carbonaro, Victoria Adams, Brenda Wintle and Dave Wharton. Your feedback really helped shape the novel at a crucial stage.

  Many thanks to our essential grammarian and editor, Karen Brown, for the meticulous work she carried out on line editing and proof-reading.

  Our sincere thanks go to Charlotte, who acted as model for Tayem, and posed for many a photo-shoot in woods, castles and the general wilderness. It was these sessions that initiated the whole writing project. Thanks also to Jon Stynes for his expert photographic skills that produced such stunning shots.

  Tom would like to thank Helen, his ever-patient wife, for putting up with him being locked in the Dragon Cave for months on end. It was particularly taxing for her to keep quiet while recording the audio book.

  Andrew would like to thank all those who talked through plot ideas when visiting Hadrian’s Hobbies and of course Natalie, his long suffering wife for her patience and support…And last but not least the Ozzy (Oswald) the ginger tomcat.

  The authors would also like to acknowledge the wonderful hospitality afforded by a number of coffee shops where much of the first draft writing took place: Off The Wall, Mr Brown’s, Dunelm, Meg’s Tea Room, Costas, Cakes and Ale.

  1

  A black rain falls

  Veils of darkness shrouded Queen Tayem Fyreglance as she sat brooding on the grey powdered earth — residue of a hundred shattered dragon wings from aeons past. The first heavy drops of rain fell from an overburdened sky, wetting her scalp and forming beads on the iron pauldrons of her armour. Beyond this sanctified ground lay a meadow of poisoned grass, together with the occasional contorted, blackened tree clawing its way through sickly greenery, as if drawn upward by some unseen energy. Leaves shed from these arboreal travesties formed a mouldering carpet of death. Yet this inhospitable setting had a special place in her royal heart. A single tear streaked her cheek as her eyes came to rest on her father’s grave. Although it had been five sols since his passing, she had found herself drawn back here daily, the place of his final resting. The shrine seemed to beckon her.

  Beside the Queen lay her royal shield. The dragon’s eye boss at its centre seemed to blink as if in mute sympathy with her grief. A dull purple light emanated from the eye and reflected off a small pool of water lying at the bottom of a deep depression in the ground. As Tayem watched, the unearth
ly crater sent out a wisp of etheric energy, tracing its way upwards to caress the polished stone resting on her father’s tomb.

  Tayem had heard the mythos of these hallows from her father, a man whose lasting achievement was to die too soon, a victim of his failure to summon the potential from these myriad fissures in the earth.

  She followed the purple finger’s path back to its source, noticing how the pool’s surface bubbled. There was something feeding the energy there in the depths — a subterranean rupture, perhaps? Had she finally stumbled on the very phenomenon her father had quested for all his life?

  Her gaze turned to the skies once more, and she viewed the descending cataract of indigo darkness heralding the genesis of the long night.

  “I care not for this change in the weather,” Cistre said. The head of the Royal Guard stood on a small mound of earth. She grasped the hilt of her sheathed sword, always ready for unseen attacks. Tayem swore she was the living embodiment of a tightly wound spring, apt to uncoil in an instant.

  “This is not weather,” Tayem replied.

  “Then what?” Cistre did little to disguise her frustration at the Queen’s growing obsession.

  Something auspicious, Tayem thought. “Perhaps an event we should have seen coming a long time ago.”

  “You spend too much time here. These persistent daily vigils have yielded nothing.” Cistre’s diminutive stature belied the strident opinions she vocalised, often without consent. It was an annoyance Tayem tolerated given the compensations of the orphan’s unique talents and loyalty. “Why must you brood over a myth your father could never fathom?”

  “You cannot deny that this change in the air is significant.”

  “Whatever it is, I sense it will not help us.”

  “Our writings tell of a great flux of power to be released when Sol-Ar is in the ascendency.”

  “You also said they warned against becoming seduced by this outpouring.”

  “Our people need something to empower them,” Tayem retorted. “The Cuscosians exact a toll that becomes more unbearable by the week. This day has seen ten more exactments taken from us under the guise of apprenticeship.”

  “That much is true,” Cistre said. “They do little to hide the fact that our youngest are but slaves to their expanding dominion.”

  “Little Celemon was amongst their number. Barely fourteen sols old and destined to become a chattel in some Cuscosian noble’s household.”

  The exactment was something the Dragon Riders had become used to. Indeed, Tayem’s grand parents had signed the treaty that required it — an exchange for Cuscosian ‘protection.’ But Celemon had been close to Tayem, bursting with enthusiasm and a teenager’s curiosity at the world that promised to unfold. And yes … innocence. How long would that innocence last in the place they had taken her to?

  “I have said many times that we should bear this no longer,” Cistre said, a steel underlying her naturally husky voice. “Yet, this augury you were called to see, this … hallow … fills me with foreboding. I fear no good will come of you accepting its enticement.”

  “Is that what you think it is doing? Tempting me?”

  Cistre stepped down from her elevated position, cautiously approaching the lip of the crater where Tayem crouched. “You know it does. We both feel it; a promise of empowerment, the wind at our backs in the battle’s charge, a guiding strategy over our plans and the unstoppable might of a higher power, but what am I to believe when you are obsessed with your father’s legacy?”

  Cistre’s admission took Tayem by surprise. Not that it was a revelation, but that it echoed what the Hallows had communicated to her. “If this is from a higher power,” she said, “then it should confirm itself to be true.”

  She stood to her feet, the frustrations and trauma of the day’s events boiling over in a cry to the heavens: “How much longer must I wait. Give me a sign!”

  But though the rain grew heavier, no answer came from above or below.

  After minutes of unearthly silence she said, “No matter. It is as ever before. I must determine the fate of my people alone. Come. We will return tomorrow.”

  She turned on her booted heel to leave, yet as she did so she felt a tremor from beneath the ground send vibrations through her legs. Without warning, the earth shook violently as a fissure erupted in the hollow, vaporising the surface water into a violet vapour. When Tayem spun round, she observed purple energy billowing out of the crater, sending wisps of Hallows energy outward, engulfing her father’s tomb. As she watched in horror the stone statue collapsed and toppled towards her.

  Is this my sign? The thought flashed through her mind yet she remained immobile, as if resigned to the impact of her father’s falling monument. Yet before the masonry could crush her, she was shoved to one side as Cistre barrelled into her, sending them both sprawling to the floor.

  As the dust settled, Cistre said, “My Queen, are you hurt?” She pushed a crumbled piece of marble aside as she scrambled to Tayem’s side.

  Tayem muttered a muffled groan. “I will live,” she said, and stood up, her legs still shaking. Then, with a mesmerising movement, wisps of Hallows energy reached out and enveloped the Dragon Queen. The vapour’s touch energised her, sending something akin to dark fire up her spine, filling her being with a tumultuous purpose.

  This then was her sign.

  She turned to Cistre, who observed her with mouth open.

  “My Queen, what is it?” Cistre finally said.

  “Call the Donnephon,” Tayem declared.

  “At this hour?”

  “The full Fyreclave. At once.”

  Cistre bowed, jogging into the darkness and leaving Tayem to bathe in the infusion of power that now energised every cell of her body.

  Minutes later she heard the beating of drums like a heartbeat in the night. It marked the turning of the tide. The Dragonians had suffered long enough. Her legions would shake off the yoke that enslaved them and rise to claim their freedom.

  ~ ~ ~

  No matter how many times she invoked the ritual, Etezora — Queen of the Cuscosians — never failed to receive a tangible jolt, like electricity running through her wiry frame. Yet today was different. She stood, arms outstretched, absorbing a resurgent dark force rising from a jagged scar in the earth, a bleak rupture lying in the shadow of the disused Edenbract temple.

  The Cuscosians had lived peacefully with the peoples of the Imperious Crescent for generations. Now, the prophesied turning of the Hallows energised a change in this balance, a shift she knew would pit the Ruling Council of brothers and sisters against the very people who had brought about this uneasy truce.

  Standing next to her trusted consort, Etezora grew stronger with each moment. She gasped as purple-hued regenerative energy from the fissure surged through her body. It seduced her, like a living consciousness whispering promises of domination and a future where she ruled with unopposed force.

  “See how the Hallows is initiated, Tuh-Ma,” she said to the hulking warty creature in the shadows.

  “Beautiful,” he replied, the distorted words dribbling from cracked lips.

  “You are privileged to witness this, my maladroit servant. It has arisen earlier than expected, but this can only mean the realisation of my plans all the sooner.”

  “Shall I tell Eétor and Zodarin?”

  “Gorram, of course not. I need to absorb the import of this bestowal before revealing my hand. Eétor would only take advantage of the situation.”

  The blue-skin looked puzzled for a second, then shrugged. “As you wish, Mistress.”

  “Now stand back, I feel the power surging within me.”

  Almost involuntarily, she pointed her outstretched fingers to the sky. A crescendo of static built up in the air, followed by the release of etheric fury. With a deafening sound that cracked the night, jagged shards of light shot up to the clouds, seeming to tip the natural order into chaos, freeing an overwhelming darkness and vaporising the still falling rain. />
  A sound from the undergrowth startled her, footfalls crunching on garbeech nuts. “Tuh-Ma, there was one who saw. Seek them out!”

  The blue-skin looked at her with obeisant, slit-eyes and grunted an acknowledgement.

  “Now, you knuckle-crawler, or they will escape.”

  Tuh-Ma might be faithful, but he was not quick-witted. No doubt he would sulk at her admonishment later, but he recognised the rising of his mistress’s ire and bolted from the clearing. Etezora would have accompanied him but the Hallows demanded her attention at that moment.

  The electric aura from moments before had subsided, but she knew it had formed a reservoir within. “At last,” she said with unbounded malice, “I will see the fruition of all I have planned.” She revelled in the euphoria for a time, making the most of it while she could. She knew that tomorrow would be a day of freneticism unparalleled.

  Tuh-Ma’s return was heralded by a swishing of branches. He stopped, head hung in shame.

  “They got away, didn’t they?” Etezora said.

  The creature nodded. “Tuh-Ma sorry, Mistress. He was fleet-footed. But Tuh-Ma recognised him. Tuh-Ma knows where he lives.”

  Etezora smiled, an expression mutated into a sneer from the dark energy she had just absorbed. “Then our friend will receive visitors tomorrow.”

  “Tuh-Ma will crush his skull into powder,” the blue-skin said, his tone conveying the need to appease her.

  “That you will,” she said, “that you will.”

  ~ ~ ~

  To fly, to soar through silent canopies of the night and feel exhilaration from the air passing over one’s wings.

  This was the dream of so many, yet something Wobas experienced repeatedly on his forays into the Dreamworld. On this occasion, however, he did not venture to sate an appetite for pleasure. In fact, there were dangers if he remained in this state. Oft times he found himself longing to become distilled into the night, to have nothing remain of himself, not even a shadow. Such an elevation would be enlightenment supreme, but the shaman of the Gigantes had a higher purpose in mind. The keen, nocturnal eyesight of his dream avatar picked out the quarry ahead, acute hearing confirming that the beast stepped majestically through dense undergrowth.