The Chronicle of Achren 'Thanatus': The Chronicle of Achren, #1

CHAPTER ONE

Escape

A

s he lay in the wet grass high on the downs looking at the shining lights of Rochester far away, Almund's only thoughts were on the Swan, for It was that Swan's fault Almund was about to die.

The ruins of the temple stood tall and brooding behind him, hiding the man who will now come to kill him. All because of the Swan, he was ten miles from Rochester, five to the nearest village, just silence. A sense of panic spread through him, he would be just another unnamed corpse. A body! Something of no importance, a lump on the surface of the land, who would understand, or care, of his passing.

He sat up in the grass; the pain rushing down his thigh and lower leg. In his mind questions! The temple was empty, abandoned long ago. Instead, he'd found a guard waiting inside its walls. This man had cut him. Tiw had been with him, he had escaped into the fields with his life.

He looked down, his blood gleamed dull and black beneath the clear moonlit night. Almund's leg muscles cramped. He fell back into the grass with the pain, tears sliding down his face into his hair. With gritted teeth he shrugged off his cloak and tore a strip from it, it tore like paper. It would never have made it through the depth of winter. He bound his wounds, tying them tight, grimacing against the pain, dizziness, and nausea.  Wind rattled and moaned through the grass and pines.

He tested his leg, found that he could still stand.

How stupid would it be to go back inside; Dumb like a severed limb is dumb. He knew the man lurking within the temple ruins was not a looter or squatter. He was a guard. Guards, guarded. What was he guarding, not the ruin itself? There had been nothing here since the fall of the two Kingdoms. 

The following decades of weather and stone-robbers had ruined the rest, for stonework littered the fields, the cracked rocks fuzzy with moss, holes spotted the roof, darker than the clouds. This temple to the old ways, its remaining towers reaching skyward. Were many generations, and a hard half day's walk away, from the last time anyone had ever cared about the gods once worshipped here.

The night was cold, with sporadic rain making it colder still. Yet there was a guard. Almund was onto something.

With his knife in hand, he crept towards the ruins, the only smell from the tall wet grass as it soaked his breeches. Nothing stirred except the wind through the trees. With the touch of damp stone from the crumbling wall as he edged his way forward, fingers trailing the wall. After only a few steps, they fell into space. He froze, catching his breath, it was that moment of pure cowardice that saved his life.

A man coughed, the tang of his rotten breath assaulted Almund’s nose. The guard appeared from a hole in the wall into the moon bright night. His sword in a scabbard at his waist. He gazed out towards the bobbing pines, thinking of the boy he had cut up not fifteen minutes hence curled up and dying beneath the cold boughs, bleeding as his life ebbed from his body.

The guard walked off into the long grass. Almund flattened himself against the wall, waiting for the guard's next move. As he took another step, Almund lunged forward rolling on the ground slashing at his hamstrings. The guard screamed as he fell, rolling in the grass, clutching the backs of his legs. Almund rolled away and came up in a crouched position wondering what the hell he should do next.

‘Come no closer’ the guard yelled, but Almund had risen and now had his boot on the man's ribs ‘Where is the grimoire?'’

‘What?’

‘The book! I'll cut your throat,’ Almund said. Bile rose, he swallowed. ‘You'll be but a body in the woods. Eaten like any other carrion.’

‘But I know of no book.’  The guard pawed at Almund's breeches with a bloody hand. ‘If there had been anything kept here, they would have taken it long ago.’

‘So why are you here? For the air? For the benefit of your health?’

The guard spoke, then stopped, taking a long shuddering breath he looked into Almund's eyes. ‘How Old Are You?’

‘Why I'm Thanatos and have no age.’ Almund said, regretting the monk's Greek words as he said them.

‘I'd say you look fourteen.’

‘I'm sixteen. My name is Almund Penny, I want that book, if you continue to lie, I'll be the last person you'll ever see.’

‘But I'm telling you true. It's gone. Returned to Maidstone or Canterbury I know not which, to keep it safe so it does not get burnt.’

He knelt digging the seax into the man's old leather jerkin, it's tip scraping against the guard's breastbone, the guard sucked in air between gritted teeth his eyes watery and white with fear. Almund retched, withdrawing the knife he allowed it to hover over the man's body ready to plunge it into his heart.

‘I hope this secret is worth your life.’

‘Stop! Please don't!’ The guard tried to wriggle free, pushing himself further into the sodden grass. ‘It must be in the old crypt. Downstairs.’

‘Stairs? I saw none.’

‘Inside behind the altar stone, there's a ladder. I've seen little down there but candles and old prayer books, there was wine, but I've drunk it all. If there is a book, it must be down there.’

They stared at each other in the cold damp winter air. Almund couldn't just leave the man lying here. It would be like finishing a captured rabbit or deer, just focus upon the knife. Keep your fingers out of the way, one quick cut, clean up when finished simple!

Rabbits and deer do not talk back, they didn’t plead with you, call you a murderer. Almund took a deep breath and poked the blade between the man's ribs.

‘But you promised!’ He pleaded.

‘Oh yes, and you tried to kill me.’

Almund drove the blade hard into the man's chest up to the hilt. He arched his back, kicking out with his legs, knocking Almund off balance, grabbing the knife handle again he leaned with all his weight.

The man coughed blood, his body fell slack, as still as a sail on a windless day. Almund's stomach spasmed, he threw up over the wet grass; he froze waiting for the dead man's God to smite him down, but nothing just the wind rustling through the pine needles.

How! All this because of the Swan.

HE HAD SEEN IT LAST Spring its body lay by the bank of the Medway on a slow bend, miles upstream from Wouldham, his village, a place where short skinny trees grew thick around the reed beds, so thick they blotted out the sky. Its eyes shut, feathers clumped with blood, lying there rigid, as flies whirled around its head, the fishing net wrapped, strands hanging from its neck.

This tragic death a stain on the landscape. Almund moved back into the trees, gripping their smooth silvery bark, for this was his place. There was nothing between it and his village baring marshland and ponds, a few grassy hillocks with small trees in their folds and the odd shack their roofs caved in, empty, deserted, you could hunt here for it was common ground, but other than that it was useless. 

Unless, like Almund, you had a penchant for exploring. He would spend hours walking the banks, following the small creeks that flowed into the river, skimming stones, turning over the large stones in the rock pools to see what hid there. Although he knew he was too old for such things, he did not know what to do or where to go.

Dead branches and twigs snapped just yards upstream from the dead Swan. A cloaked man in chain-mail stepped out from the trees, his tabard, displaying a badge he had never seen, the man knelt beside the water's edge, skimming away the weeds, he cupped his hands and drank, as he sat back on the grassy bank sunlight flashed upon a silver and black clasp in the image of a double tree at his throat.

After a while the man stood and stretched, then walked along the bank towards Almund's hiding place, he froze as the man stopped and drew his sword from its scabbard its blade flashing in the bright sunlight. 

Almund did not move, his breathing slowed as the man continued to stalk forward. Stopping when he reached the dead Swan, prodding it with his blade, he then slid the sword back into its scabbard, he knelt drawing out a knife and sawed at the bird's neck, pulling away the net, tossing it into the river.

He then pulled the seax across the palm of his right-hand blood forming a line as he did so, the air thickened about his hand with grey and green flecks gathering dancing around his fingers to cling to the blood pooling in his palm, as it congealed into a translucent ball.

The man lowered his hand towards the Swan's beak, as he did so the ball formed in his palm flowed into the lifeless body.

Now smiling he sat back, sucking the bloody palm. The Swan twitched once, then twice and as the man rose to his feet, a faltering, stiff-limbed bird did the same. The man stroked the bird's head; it hissed before spreading its wings in show and bluster; he laughed at that. Still hissing the Swan took to the water preening before taking to the air, not looking back.

After cleaning his knife, he put it back into the sheath attached to his belt, looked up and down the river before walking back into the woods.

Almund watched, he had a sense of what was happening, just as he smelt the cold or ether on his skin. The Swan raising to its feet and flying off showed him that this life was not the world! It was oh so much bigger, if he wanted it, wanted to wield whatever the cloaked man had drawn from the air, he would have to go search for it.

In a half daze Almund rushed back to the village, people looked at him as he asked about a cloaked man passing through, for they saw no one, Almund looked up and down the river; something had changed, for the river looked slow and narrow, the fields and woods pale, the birds were just birds and the snails and dragonflies he used to look for just bugs.

Almund lay on his pallet, sleep would not come, memories of his mother playing with lights in her hands, the many stories of his father's time as a soldier and working on the ships using his talents as a doctor.

Illegally as only those in authority and the religious orders hired these shadow weavers. It was not this that took his father away, for after his mother died, he sailed away, some ten years ago and never returned, leaving him in the care of monks from the abbey, maybe he died along the way, who knows? Sleep took hold of him.

In the morning after breakfast. He bucked up enough courage to ask the monk charged with his care about the living shadows and the silver and black tree clasp. The monk sat down and looked at Almund, after a few moments he explained that long ago before anyone now alive in Cant, shadow weaving men carried the book of 'The Plain of the Two Mists' with a silver and black tree emblazoned upon its cover, dedicated to the ancient goddess Achren.

Hunted down and killed when the Romans came, before the time of the Two Kingdoms, their books burnt from the land. He was but a novice, inquisitive by nature, leading him to track down a fragment of the book, it was long ago, and its writings made little sense, alas all lost to the ruins of time.

The monk rose from his seat and scurried off into the monastery, leaving Almund alone.

Two weeks passed. Almund at a loss went into Rochester with what little money he had, in search of the book itself,  some of his pennies spent on buying beer a mug at a time, for those he felt might help him, these scholars and priests told him that this was no grimoire! no spell book, but the holiest text of the cult of Achren, comparable to the book of Kells of the Scotia or that of the Nag Hammadi Library in Canterbury. 

All these learned men agreed that as far as they knew all copies that had been burnt if any copies survived, they would have the cover embossed with the silver and black tree.

So, what now! Low on money; out of ideas and not wanting to return to his village, he headed into the woods and up towards the downs, to track down the  ruins of one of their old temples, night was falling and the wind whispered through the trees, what strange  sequence of events connected him from the swan to this place, because of it a man now lies dead at his feet.

HE WIPED HIS HANDS and the knife on the grass he slipped the blade back into its sheath. Stood and headed back into the temple, making his way to the altar feeling around the large smooth stone at its rear. Before pushing it to one side exposing a small opening wide enough for a man to pass through. Almund peered into the gloom, the odour of musty stale air permeated from below, he recoiled at the thought of entering this space, what terrors hid in its shadows, his mind playing tricks what demons were beckoning him into their grasp. 

Shaking his head to free himself of these fears and moving forward to the hole. Picking up a stone, he dropped it into the space counting three before it clattered on the floor below.

So, it had a bottom. Looking at the time-worn rungs of the ladder disappearing into the blackness, Almund swung his leg onto the ladder, finding a rung and applying his weight, the ladder creaked but did not give way, making his way down hand over hand his body slick with sweat until he stood in a circle of light at the bottom.

Almund did not own many things worth stealing his knife and walking boots were very important to him, plus something he had made with his mother a small torchstone, looking like a piece of white marble.

With cupped hands he blew onto the stone, when he opened his hands it released a soft green phosphorus light, revealing dust caked shelves and cobwebs the look of age everywhere piles of old cloth and braziers with fuel that had burnt away long ago, part burnt candles, dust thrown into the air with his every step. 

A shelf of books sat to one side. Almund's heart leapt, but they were just common prayer books, the like of which you found in any library or bookshop in Rochester, taking and brushing off one book, stuffing it into his pack, and carried on with his search, scanning wall to wall and floor to ceiling, what had he missed? He went through the room again, checking each piece of furniture for hidden drawers, piling it in the centre of the room he uncovered a locked chest, breaking off the lock with a brick, inside a big fat nothing. 

With his waning patience, plus his waxing annoyance and despair he circled the room one more time, he came up to the ladder and looked through the hole, at the starlit sky above through the towers ruined roof and knew dawn was not far away, the guard’s relief would soon appear and finding the body of his friend cooling in the grass would search. 

For all Almund knew he may already be here and searching for the killer.

His body tired, the scabs of his cuts opened and dribbled blood with every move and gesture, he was thirsty, sore and ached all over, as the light of his torchstone diminished, the shadows thickened.

Almund sat down on an old bench looking around, his hopes contracting with the light. The winter frosts were already here, he had used part of his cloak as a bandage, used his meagre supply of coin buying non-existent information. If he returned to Rochester, he would starve or freeze to death, going back to his village would be something he would regret for the rest of his life.

The stone flickered, casting the room into deep shadows, revealing a narrow, raised section in the back wall close to the ceiling. 

Before Almund could be sure the light blinked out, pitching the room into darkness, shuffling and dragging the bench across the cluttered floor, kicking at anything in his path he made his way to the back wall, pushing the bench against the wall he stepped onto it, working his hands over the walls uneven surface until they touched the ceiling, ignoring the sharp shards of stone as they cut his fingers and hands he prized away at what felt like a raised section of stone.

With a groan, it moved and fell away with a thump onto the floor. 

The smell of old leather and parchment filled his lungs, reaching into the opening, for it was far too late to worry about what may lurk there his fingers brushed a flat, pebbled surface, he tried to move the object with one hand but could not, now standing on tiptoe with both arms extended into the crevice he gripped the object, pulling it moved, it was then that the bench broke in two.

He hit the ground hard his damaged thigh and back roared with hammer blows of pain and lay there waiting for the pain to fade to a dull throb, he tested each limb, they moved, nothing broken and there seemed to be no fresh hurts. 

By rights he could have expected to break a leg or his back in the fall leaving him trapped and paralysed in this underground chamber, it was only dumb luck he had got this far, when he should have died just a few hours ago struck down by the guards blade, but it was the guards body splayed outside the temple, his wounds done bleeding. Waiting, left until he merged with the dirt.

He sat up, checked himself once again, he was fine the guard had not killed him. A little battered, bruised and weak, blood was leaking from his thigh but what he now had in his hands was a book. He had hung onto it as he fell, even when his body hit the ground. Now, stashing it into his pack he approached and climbed the ladder.

Once up top, forgetting the danger he got the book out from his pack, laid it upon the altar turning it to face the charcoal- clouded starlight. On its cover the double silver and black tree its glass-like branches spreading into the darkness.

‘'The World Tree’. Edmund, the monk had called it. Was it real, others seemed to think so, hidden amongst the valleys and hills far to the north. Even when they had spoken Almund could not help but be sceptical; for it was so convenient for it to exist so far away,  for Achren had formed it from the ground bones of those opposed to her a tree of bone and glass, smooth and ethereal in its savage beauty that rattled in the breeze its limbs reaching out like fleshless fingers and instead of flowers it budded teeth.   

He couldn't believe it, but this book was in his hands, he let out a low almost spooky laugh, alarming himself, why not just paint the tree onto the cover? Or bind it in human skin using blood as ink? For would that not be any less ridiculous than this shining glass- like symbol made from ground up bones?

Yet he could feel its weight. It's great age. He closed his eyes and could feel its power coursing through him, the power of the cloaked man by the river used to raise the swan.

Shivers ran down his spine and goose bumps stood out on his arms. He looked up the dawn was breaking, time to get away from here, he slid the altar stone back into place covering the opening.

Ragged black clouds hung over the wooded downs to the west, Rochester was a good four hours walk for a well-rested man. Almund made his way into the woods, shuffling along a well-worn path covered by the long-wet grass. As the sun rose higher, his legs faltered. He found a low canopied tree to shade him from the early morning sunlight and impending rain.

Curled up with his pack and its gained contents he gave the book one last look before sleep overtook him, in the bright daylight the book cover appeared much less surreal, less melodramatic, less morbid but how would you find this in the wild, even if the world were a much weirder place.

Little did he know before the year was out he would stand beneath it.

CHAPTER TWO

Rochester

C

rouched down in the filth of the unlit alley, Almund laughed to himself robbery was a funny thing, for once you go to bed hungry the concept of property means so little.

He knew if the City Watch were to catch him, he would hang. Almund was not wrong to do it.

However, under no circumstances should he get caught. What rules are that weak they are enforced by death threats? When you’re starving, hanging is the least of your worries. Rochester is full of these dark narrow alleys, just like the sheep pens funnelling the unwary, so why build them if not for enterprising folk to benefit.

The heavy fall of footsteps sounded from the entrance to the alley, another drunk? Almund shrank back into the shadows. As the man weaved past Almund clubbed him above the ear with his knife’s hilt. The man fell without a sound.  Almund relieved him of his purse and a small Torc. The man was still breathing, good he'll wake up! A little poorer for sure, plus a massive headache.

It mattered little to Almund, for the penalty he would face if caught was the same whether the victim lived or died. That made little sense if he were of lesser principles it would make sense to kill the man, he was robbing ensuring no witnesses to inform the City Watch.

He opened the man’s jacket looking for a second purse Almund spotted the badge of one of the livery companies, shocked! That was one group he did not want to tangle with, they were far too close to be running the city these days. He covered the unconscious body with what rubbish he could find in the alley he left at little more than a brisk walk.

STIFF LEGGED AND SORE, his travel back to Rochester from the temple had taken two days. By the end of the first day, he collapsed by the Brook stream, burning and moaning, feverish, his mind wandering, dreams and nightmares swam through his mind’s vision. 

His fever broke before sunrise the following morning, allowing him to shuffle his way along the Brook stream, skirting the hamlet of Chatham until it emptied into the Medway to the east of the city. 

He stopped often for a much-needed rest and water. Reaching Rochester as the sun rose. 

Finally staggering into the Coopers Inn. His dishevelled appearance getting a frosty reception from the Innkeeper. He was beyond caring handing over the last of his silver for a room.

The next two days Almund spent in the shadows of the common room, darting to grab any meat or bread from their owner's platters when their heads hit the boards, or they vacated to the privy. All was going well until the young kitchen boy noticed and threatened to have him thrown out if he spotted him again, all Almund could do was return a smile, nod and take this abuse from a lad who was no older than thirteen.

Retreating to his room he spent the next day using the scurrying mice and rats as target practice knowing full well, he would never clean and spit roast them over the common room fire.

His hunger and the need for a new warm cloak drove him to think of robbing, for after everything that happened at the temple it was now survival.

He almost lost his nerve as his first target came close, but upon leaving him slumbering face down in a shit-filled alley, he found little problem turning what the man owned into what he now owned. 

This first purse gained him a new cloak and food for a week. For the time being keeping to financing his expenses, food, board, and candles to read the book by, he knew full well there was more if he needed it.

For whatever authority had given these men their wealth it was of no more substance than the good luck charms they carried, they may have felt good to carry but when things went bad, they were just medallions or a rabbit’s foot, one a piece of metal the other something unsavoury to eat and not giving much luck to the poor bunny who left home never to return.

ALMUND AMBLED DOWN the alleys to the Inn, the sound of boot-steps broke him from his thoughts, he reached for the hilt of his knife but let his hand fall. Pulling a blade in public without a title or being a member of the Arms Guild would have the City Watch getting close and personal with a whip about his person.

He turned onto the main thoroughfare diving into the first doorway as the man passed by without a second glance.

Jumpy, he thought! But how should he behave after a killing, possession of a banned book and now several serious assaults and armed robberies? Oh, that sounds so bad when you say it all at once.

Most of the time he carried it lightly, for anything done out of necessity cannot be all wrong? At other times however, it sat upon him like a heavyweight.

It was then he wished to end his existence, at these times the last breath of the man he'd killed at the temple and the robbery victims, the short grunt as they pitched to the floor haunted his thoughts.

This was becoming a problem. He had not intended to live like this when he left his village and came to Rochester, more the way circumstances forced this situation upon him.

His only salvation was inside the book if only its words held the knowledge to teach him the power the man in the cloak possessed, he would not have to look behind him when footsteps came close or risk his own life in the filth of the alleys to keep from starving.

His thoughts on this may have been a little childlike and vague on how this power could help him, he was sure that when he had it those in high places would seek to find him, opening many new opportunities.

The book was thick with over one thousand pages. Broken down into many sections, full of strange names, places, peoples, and languages he had never heard of. 

Along with childhood stories of kings, queens, wizards, sorcerers, and shaman. 

Pages full of numbers and formula, but much of it seemed pure gibberish. 

The common prayer book he had also taken from the temple helped, but only on subjects he already knew of when referencing and cross-referencing. Much of the language used was alien to him and no matter how much he tried to interpret the text it left him frustrated.

Taking to his bed angry at the lack of progress, mulling over and over what he had read trying so made sense in his own mind before falling asleep.

After more than a week of no real progress, his mind becoming more sluggish and his thinking descended into the haphazard. He admitted to himself that he knew next to nothing, so copied out the words and names foreign to him, though this meant buying expensive paper and ink from the men along the Loose Valley. 

He also bought a clean, simple doublet and hose in all costing a week’s expenses. Necessary to prevent suspicion and awkward questions, for to get caught by the watch as a vagrant and away from his village would get him a beating and a cart ride back.

He would hand over a fair sum for paper and walking into the large library in Rochester with its access too much of the gathered wisdom of the world in his present state he would be lucky to walk up the steps through the first door.

His money gone, and not wanting to risk scavenging at the Inn, he robbed again and dressed in his new clothes ate a full and hearty meal washed down with a pot of ale.

On waking, he was more than a little ashamed at the spendthrift nature of his spending and vowed to return to more frugal ways.

After copying out words and phrases from the first section of the book, he spent the next week in Rochester’s grand library.

Finding it well stocked on topics covering the past hundred years since its founding, enabling him to fill in many of the blanks regarding the history and places mentioned in the book and its beginnings.

As for the foreign words they were as distant as ever, obscure: there was, however, a link to the dialects used in Cambria and Cant, but the archaic form found in the book was so far removed from the modern dialects that any further study of the Cambria or Cantii languages was useless.

Many of the stories reminded him of The Eyed God and his ravens of the Danelaw and their gory blood eagle ritual performed on those that crossed them.

Or the strange sect carried on from Roman times to the goddess Cybele, her priests cut off their manhood and whipped themselves as they processed through the streets until they bled. Talk about shoving it in your face. 

Most faiths, he thought, could learn a thing or two in the virtue of keeping their devotion to themselves.

A wander around the old bookshops proved useful as Almund picked up a copy of the Cycle of Cantii. He spent the rest of the day reading parts of the chronicle and the first section of the book of Achren, often he thought, all he desired was within his grasp. The shadows within the book, of which a wise man may grasp from its contents, with just a hint of a world far wider than anything he had known.

But that sense of helplessness would not leave that certain emptiness of knowing so little. His trying to understand the book was like trying to hold the tide back with thought alone.

Marking the page, he headed for the common room, sinking pot after pot of ale until unconsciousness took him, waking surrounded by his own vomit, flushed and sweaty, sicker than he had ever been in his life.

Back in his room, he washed the filth off and spent the day laying on his bed sipping water, what on earth made men take to drink what weakness caused them to poison themselves so.

The following day Almund headed, papers in hand for Rochester’s Great Cathedral and its reading library. 

Approaching the main doors, a shiver went down his spine, for the headquarters of the City Watch looked down from the walled Castle opposite, the Justice Tree on the Castle Green with its latest victim swaying with blank bulging eyes staring at him.

Brushing himself down and regaining his composure he turned and walked through the Cathedral doors, met by an elderly monk who offered to guide him to the reading room. This was to be Almund’s daytime home for the next two weeks as he poured over their ancient texts under the sometimes curious, at other times hostile glare of the resident monks.

As he looked for meaning in the words, he'd never heard. Cumbriac, an old and dead language from the far north-west, from the kingdom of Cumbria’s earlier age. When the house of Rheged ruled now only found in footnotes, place names and the odd dusty tome, and the local sheepherders in Cumbria still counted their sheep in Cumbraic derived words.

Together Almund found enough matching words to know he had found their source. There the trail ended for no one had any books on Cumbriac, those who did were not telling, or locked in some collector’s private library as is the Textus Roffensis.

For now, that had put Almund’s search on hold, all he could do was continue reading the script in his stolen book, now at least he knew its title the Chronicle of Achren Queen of Prydain and Death.

The first section had been problematic, insight had brought a sense of enlightenment.

Back in his room, he read with mounting excitement, his understanding of Achren as a Goddess of Death ruling the Land of the Two Mists a place where the living and those who had past could commune a place of peace and joy, this was a heresy to those who had won in the fall of the Two Kingdoms and denounced Achren as a blood-soaked monster. 

But interpreting the text was clear and undeniable.

Upon finishing those first pages he was ecstatic, for this was clear proof that at least one thing preached by the other sects was wrong.

It posed the question. What else had he learnt based upon a lie? And how many of these lies had Almund taken on faith that would prove unfounded?  Are they aware, just hiding the truth when it does not suit them, or have they been repeating falsehoods for so long they no longer remember the difference between fact and invention?

Elated he almost raised the question with one of the old monks of Cantii he’d become friendly with, knowing as a man of learning his input would help him, something caused Almund to pause, that doubt creeping through his skull that his asking of questions about Achren would more than likely get him more attention than he wanted, for since the night in the alley when he thought he was being followed the feeling had not left him.

CHAPTER THREE

Defence

T

he attack came three nights later. After leaving the Cathedral reading room, he saw the flash of steel, moving with a quickness he never realised he had raised the Cycle of Cantii to protect his head and neck its heavy leather cover and bloated pages allowed the attacker's dagger to bury itself deep within its cover where it stuck fast.

Almund met the attacker's eyes hidden beneath his hood. His eyes as black as coal; A Marshman and would be assassin from the North Cant Marshes his thin angular face and small wiry frame more suited to plying the wetlands, marshes and tidal flats of the estuary between the Thames and the Medway. 

They made cheap reliable sailors and handy labour for the wharf men, an expendable workforce.

With few questions asked when they turned up dead, their driving need to survive bought more into the city. Hired for any dirty work, their small frames, however, meant even as grown adults they were still within Almund’s weight range.

The Marshman gave a grunt, panic flashed across his face as Almund twisted the book pulling the embedded dagger from his grasp, whilst digging his boot into his shin, followed up by ramming the spine of the book into his exposed throat, sending him to the floor.

Almund knelt on his chest, the book to one side and his knife at the Marshman's throat.

‘Not this book’ Almund said. He let out a low growl, whilst watching the knife.

‘Why me?’ He stared back, Almund felt the urge to cut his throat.

‘My instructions were to follow you.’

‘But why me?’

‘Almund Penny,’ he said.

Almund’s mind raced. It was unlikely he had any idea who ordered him, but they had his name and knew his movements around the city.

The Marshman eyed him with hatred, and a primal anger knotted in Almund’s guts as he brought the edge of his knife blade across the Marshman's throat, hot blood fanning out over his hands, he jumped back as the body bucked and then laid still, the gash in his throat steaming as a pool of blood formed beneath the body, spreading down the cobbles.

Almund cleaned his hands on the Marshman's jerkin, then wiped his knife clean, before putting it in its sheath.

He pulled the Marshman's dagger from the book and stashed it under his shirt then picked up the book. It was late, and the streets were empty, he stuck to the broadest ones, those with oil lamps helping to light the way, the few men he passed didn't look his way their hoods up intent on getting wherever they were going.

His thoughts were in turmoil, but all became clear by the time he reached the inn. He had given the chapel guard his name, his error was not making sure the man had stopped breathing before he set off to search for the book.

He entered the common room the oppressive heat hit him followed by the combined hubbub of loud chatter the clatter of earthenware and the heady smell of stale sweat, mutton, and onions, he walked towards the bar in a daze, staring at the casks and cups.

‘What’ll it be?’ said the innkeeper.

Almund turned without speaking and headed for the stairs, reaching his room he locked the door and moved a chest against it, thinking it may help.

Shaking all over he sat on his pallet, putting the two blades to one side, he thought to calm himself reading from the Chronicle of Achren but after thirty minutes of reading and rereading, remembering nothing, he snuffed out his candle opened the shutters to gaze out over the darkened street. People were weaving, stumbling down the thoroughfare, all their thoughts on remaining upright.

Not one face glanced in his direction. Nothing different from any other night.

But by morning those that guarded the Book of Achren would know their assassin had failed.

ALMUND AWOKE WITH A start. The light flooded through the open window even though the sun was up the breeze was cold. He was freezing, his eyes wouldn't function as he pulled the course spun blanket around his head.

There was something important he had to do today, his eyes opened wide at the thought, his heart racing. Yes, that was it! run away.

He collected his books, stuffing them into the pack followed by the gained dagger, his spare set of clothes, candles, and bread, he dressed in his newer clothes, though these now streaked with dirt, sour with old sweat but with no holes or patches.

He liked the innkeeper but had no time for goodbyes.  For the fewer aware of his leaving the better. Where to go!

The inn was not an option. Nor was leaving Rochester, for here lay the resources that would aid him in understanding the book. Back in his village? Hide in the woods with Wolf's heads? 

There was nothing in the village. To stay with the outlaws, nothing more than animals, dying like one, not an option.

He would stay. Rochester was huge.

The Coopers inn was quiet as he left, making a wide arc heading towards the river, the cool morning air and a stiff breeze coming from the river keeping the cities stink of packed humanity to an almost tolerable level.

He needed time to gather his thoughts, all the time checking for any pursuit. Already the bustle in the streets was building, ox carts being driven down to the docks, couriers delivering their wax stamped letters scurried back and forth, whilst others dragged themselves home to sleep off the night’s drinking.

So far there was no sign of anyone trailing him, but where to go. It was too dangerous to carry a proper blade; he had no license.

Just as well for he did not understand how to use a sword making him a bigger danger to himself rather than somebody sent by those who