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  Barranos moved his stool so he could sit beside him.

  ‘Look, as long as we’re careful and don’t do anything stupid, we’ll be fine. We’ve managed this far without being found, have we not?’

  The boy nodded his head, his hands trembling.

  ‘Arpherius, you really need to listen to me. The rules that I set out for you are for your survival. When I tell you not to go near the sea, when I tell you to run from strangers, I do so for a reason. One day, people will come looking for you. They will want to execute you because of the threat you pose to them.’

  ‘Threat?’ Arpherius looked his uncle in the eye. ‘I’m just a boy, what threat could I be to anyone?’

  Barranos sat up straight, stretching his back and shifting on the stool before continuing.

  ‘Helystus wasn’t always the capital city of Narquiss. For centuries, it used to be a coastal city called Artoria that stood on the edge of the Verboten Sea. Its people were strong and proud, and when they found out that one of their fellow citizens was born without a shadow, they refused to give her up.

  ‘They rallied together within the confines of their walled city and defied the will of the gods. Kröm became enraged and used all his might to bring a terrible wrath and destruction upon the city. He sent tidal waves hundreds of feet high against the people of Artoria. For five days and five nights he pounded their city with mountains of water, wave after wave, surge after surge, until its defences crumbled.

  ‘He ripped the walls from their foundations and tore the buildings to the ground. It is said that he killed the girl on the second day, but kept up his attack to punish the inhabitants of Artoria for their defiance. Since the day the capital fell, Arpherius, every realm and kingdom has decreed that those children born without shadows must be hunted down and killed, lest they incur the fury of the gods.’

  Arpherius sat on the stool in silence, and Barranos wondered if the boy was starting to regret asking about his shadow.

  ‘What happened to my mother?’ he said.

  ‘She died moments after you were born. She held you in her arms, smiled and then passed away.’ Barranos’s voice broke.

  It was the first time Arpherius had ever seen him give way to emotion.

  ‘Afterwards I went to my family’s farm in the West, and when you were old enough we came here, to my father’s old tower. Far away from the gods and far away from prying eyes.’

  ‘You said the dark storm hit Helystus twenty-four years ago,’ Arpherius said.

  A wry smile formed on Barranos’s face and he nodded.

  ‘I can see that nothing escapes you, Arpherius. Yes, you’re right. The storm did hit Helystus twenty-four years ago,’ he paused, and then put his hand on the boy’s shoulder to comfort him. ‘Arpherius, you have been alive for twenty-three summers. You couldn’t walk until you had seen six, it was ten before you uttered your first word. At the rate you’re aging, it could be another thirty or forty before you become a man.’

  ‘But how can this be?’ inquired the boy. As if everything he had heard up until now had not been enough of a shock.

  ‘Children spawned by the gods live for centuries. The gods are immortal, perhaps you are too.’

  Arpherius stood up and walked to the pump with his mug. He stopped halfway there and turned around.

  ‘Are there others like me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Barranos answered immediately. ‘But remember, every time a god fathers a child it weakens them. Just like the water being poured from the flask into the mug. And if the god fathers more than one child then that’s two mugs’ worth of water he’s lost.

  ‘The power that the god invested grows as his offspring matures, which may take hundreds of years. They get that power back no matter who kills their offspring or how they die. And so they are always on the lookout for their children, which means if there are others they’ll most likely be in hiding, too. Hiding from the priests who act as the eyes and ears of the gods, hiding from city guards, and hiding from bounty hunters and assassins.

  ‘They’ll be like us, Arpherius, living in far-flung, remote corners of the Northern Realms, uninhabited areas where they can exist without fear of persecution and, more than likely, living as hermits.’

  Arpherius yanked the iron force-rod until water spurted from the nozzle of the pump. He filled his mug and returned to the table, a nagging feeling in his mind. He did not quite know what it was, but he felt like there was one question he had not yet asked.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ his uncle said, and with that he got up and went to the bench to start preparing the fish he had caught earlier.

  ‘I guess so,’ Arpherius muttered, still confused.

  He watched his uncle cook the fish and lay the table as he put his chin in his palms and tried to process the information he had been told as best he could.

  Over dinner Barranos talked to the boy about things a little less severe, he told him about his mother and the farm they had owned. He described the vineyard and the orchard and how he and Arianne used to spend long summers’ evenings talking before watching the sun set; he told a story of how his wife had loved to watch swallows return home to their mud nests high in the eaves of their barn. He told Arpherius of what it was like for him growing up on his own family’s farm and how he used to ride horses and herd cattle.

  They sat long into the night. Only when Arpherius’s eyes started to close did his uncle insist that he turn in, and so up the winding stairs he went to bed. He could hear his uncle’s heavy footsteps behind him. Arpherius crawled into his bed, under his thin quilt, and propped himself up on his pillow. His uncle tucked him in and then turned to leave.

  I’m so glad there’s no story, thought Arpherius. I’ve heard enough for one night.

  Then something twigged in his mind, the one question he had forgotten to ask.

  ‘How come you know so much about the gods?’ he asked, as Barranos was walking out of the room.

  His tone made it sound like an accusation. He had not meant to say it like that.

  Barranos stopped walking and turned around. He stood in the doorway, his hands against the frame, staring at the boy. His brows were furrowed and his nostrils were flaring. The seconds passed, awkwardness gave way to tension and his uncle slowly walked back towards the bed.

  Arpherius shifted quickly away from him, any tiredness dissipating in a flash as his anxiety levels rose. There was a look on his uncle’s face that he had rarely seen before. It looked like anger.

  As he reached the bed the boy could see that his uncle’s fists were clenched and his knuckles were white.

  Barranos sat on the edge of the bed and spoke in a low voice.

  ‘Listen here, boy, I’ve answered as many of your questions as I’m going to. I risk my life every day that you draw breath and all because of a promise I made to your dying mother,’ he said as he leaned closer to Arpherius. ‘You’re not my flesh and blood and if it were up to me, I would have thrown you to the sea twenty-three years ago.’

  With that, he got to his feet and stormed towards the doorway. Kicking the stool that kept the door open, to the side, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Arpherius was in shock, not quite sure what had just happened or how his uncle’s aggression had escalated so quickly.

  Why did Barranos react that way? he thought. Is there something he’s not telling me?

  Arpherius could feel his eyes welling up and then one solitary tear rolled down his cheek. It was the first tear he had ever shed and he swore it would be the last. He dried his eye on the back of his hand and pulled the quilt up to his neck.

  Lying thinking about what had just happened, Arpherius’s head hurt from everything his uncle had told him. The range of emotions he had experienced had left him shaken and scared.

  Life had become a lot more serious.

  As his e
yes started to close and sleep crept up on him, he nodded off never having felt as helpless or as lonely as he did that night.

  Chapter II

  The Twelve Deaths of Lauterbur Hess

  The inside of the prison wagon was cold and damp. It had straw on the floor and several chains, which were anchored to the centre by a heavy iron bolt. Light came in between the bars across a small window in the wagon door. Lauterbur sat hunched against the side of the cell, his hands chained to his feet with cold, heavy manacles. He blew his fair hair away from his face and tried to peer through the cracks in the wood panels to see what was going on around him. Not that it was easy trying to see out of heavily swollen eyelids.

  Hearing gruff voices and the clatter of armoured men outside the wagon, he wondered how it had ever come to this. He spat a mouthful of blood on to the straw through bruised lips that were swelling with every passing minute. Wriggling as close to the side as his chains allowed, he pressed his ear against a crack in the wall of the wagon and listened.

  ‘Move the wood down to the river and be quick about it.’ A clip-clopping sound accompanying the voice suggested its owner was on horseback.

  The ensuing grumbling and moaning of the guards, along with what sounded like weapons and equipment being moved or readied, and the squelching sound of heavily burdened men struggling to walk through wet mud, told Lauterbur the camp was preparing to move out. The wagon unexpectedly jolted, sending him reeling towards the back. The chain fixed to the iron band around his neck snapped tight, opening up a wound in his throat that had only just started to close.

  Falling on his back and gasping for breath, Lauterbur tried to bring his hands to his neck to alleviate the tension, but the short chains only allowed him to get them as far as his chest. Coughing, he manoeuvred himself onto his side and struggled to push his way to the front of his mobile cell, trying to take in a lungful of air when the tension on his neck restraint became anything other than extreme.

  The wagon bounced on the hill path, making Lauterbur career into the wall each time one of the wheels hit a rock. His already bruised and battered body slammed into the sides and floor, causing him to wince in pain no matter how much he tried to brace himself.

  How hard is it to avoid the rocks, you idiots? he thought, wondering if the cart was being steered over them on purpose.

  For a second, the sun’s deep orange light poured in through the barred window and he could see his blood-stained shirt. He was not sure which wound the blood was from, not that it mattered.

  In a lull in the erratic drive he crawled into the corner and managed to wedge himself there.

  How the hell did I get caught? I’m usually so careful. It has to have been a trap, the Shadow Watchers showed up far too quickly, he surmised, inspecting the gouges that the manacles had made on his wrists.

  The prison wagon seemed to crest a hill; Lauterbur felt it level out and then tilt forward. He no longer had to brace himself in the corner and the tension in his chains became slack. The path had also become a lot less rocky, judging by the easier nature of the passage.

  Sitting against the back wall, he looked out of the window and saw trees go by, as the prison wagon made its way down the hill before coming to halt.

  Lauterbur felt a rocking sensation as if someone had dismounted, and heard the chatter of a group of people. He could also make out the noise of rushing water from a fast-flowing river and a hammering sound. His stomach started to churn and he got a feeling that whatever was going to happen would be soon.

  Through the cracks between the wood panels, he saw someone approaching the wagon. A loud creak came from the outer step. Two rough, dirty hands grabbed the bars and a chubby face appeared at the window.

  ‘Master Hess, are you all right?’ The voice sounded excited.

  Lauterbur smiled, wondering how this looked when his teeth felt as if they were coated in a mixture of saliva and blood.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ he declared.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Why, I am just great, Bralvadier,’ Lauterbur snapped back sarcastically. ‘I mean, apart from the bruises and cuts and these,’ he lifted up his hands so Bralvadier could see his shackles, ‘I can honestly say I’ve never been better.’

  Bralvadier stared into the prison wagon. His freckled, cherub-like face bore a look of confusion that betrayed the fact that he was not sure if Lauterbur was serious. A lad in his late teens, Bralvadier had spent most of his short, sheltered life herding his father’s sheep.

  ‘I’m joking,’ Lauterbur admitted, as loudly as he thought was possible without arousing suspicion. He looked up and shook his head in desperation, not quite believing that his life was in the hands of this simpleton.

  ‘You’re not the brightest star in the sky, are you?’ he muttered.

  The swelling in his mouth made his words slur. He was usually well spoken, but was now only able to speak clumsily, over-pronouncing his words. He sighed and then spoke again, before Bralvadier could ask any more foolish questions.

  ‘Look, just tell me that you have the key.’

  ‘I couldn’t find it, Master Hess, must be on the captain’s belt.’ The boy spoke in a hushed voice.

  Lauterbur slumped back in the corner of the wagon. He brought his knees up to his chest and in an act of resignation, put his head in his hands. Any fragment of hope he had been carrying, no matter how small, had been extinguished. Dread descended upon him.

  It looks like number eleven will be happening sooner than I had hoped, he thought.

  ‘I asked you to do one thing, Bralvadier. One thing. You couldn’t even do that.’

  ‘It’s all right, Master Hess, you’ll be back. I’ll wait for you tomorrow,’ the boy said, his curly auburn hair bouncing as he nodded his head.

  ‘How is it going to happen this time?’ asked Lauterbur.

  ‘I think they’re gonna burn you, Master Hess,’ Bralvadier said. ‘You’ve never been burnt to death before, have you?’

  There was an unmistakable excitement in his voice.

  ‘Fuck off, Bralvadier,’ Lauterbur snarled, straining at the chains.

  If he could have throttled the life from the boy, he would happily have done so.

  ‘I’ll wring your ginger fucking neck if I ever get out of here, you demented little bastard.’

  ‘Aw, don’t be like that, Master Hess. I’m only havin’ a laugh, you know I don’t mean it. Just as well you won’t remember too much of this, eh? If I’d a gold piece for every—’

  Bralvadier’s words were cut short. Lauterbur felt the wagon rock as his friend jumped off the back. He must have started running as he heard several men shouting after Bralvadier, followed by the sound of a key in a metal lock and the creak of the tumbler mechanism.

  This is it, he thought, taking a deep breath.

  The wagon door swung open, leaving Lauterbur temporarily blinded as light from the setting sun filled his cell. Three guards wearing light-blue cloaks ran into the wagon and seized him. The largest of them drove his mailed fist into Lauterbur’s nose. There was a sickening crunch and blood spewed forth. The guards laughed as Lauterbur lay on the floor, struggling to breathe.

  The guard that had struck him knelt down at his head.

  ‘It’s that time, I’m afraid.’

  Swapping his chains for ropes, they bound him and dragged him to the door of the wagon then pushed him down the step on to the short grass of the track.

  The cold evening air stung Lauterbur’s face. His shoulder-length fair hair was matted with congealing blood from his scalp wound. He glanced at his once-white shirt, now torn and stained red. Closing his mouth, he inadvertently exhaled through his nose and a bubble of blood started to expand where the air was escaping. The pain caused him to open his mouth and spit on to the grass.

  The guards turned him and began marching him down the hill to a c
learing beside a river. His vision became blurred as warm, sticky blood flowed down his neck from the wound there. His hands, which were tied tightly behind his back, started to go numb.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.

  ‘Why?’ one of the guards repeated. ‘Why?’

  He grabbed Lauterbur’s hair and yanked him in the opposite direction to the way they had been walking, away from the sun. Caught off balance, Lauterbur stumbled, falling to his knees.

  ‘How many of us are there? How many shadows do you see?’ the same man shouted, pushing his prisoner’s head closer to the ground.

  Lauterbur knelt there limply, gazing at the shadows of the three guards on the grass. His was missing. Blood dripped from his face, falling onto the grass. He wondered how much more punishment his body could take before it gave up.

  If I can provoke one of these idiots into attacking me with their sword, maybe he can give me a quick death, he thought. A quick death is better than being burnt alive.

  The guard pulled Lauterbur up by the hair. The shock and blood loss had caused his body to weaken, but his mind was still razor sharp.

  ‘You’re a shadowless abomination,’ the guard said, ‘a freak of nature that never should have existed. It’s our job to send you back to hell.’

  Barely able to stand, his head hanging to one side, Lauterbur looked at the guards. Then, he gave the biggest, fakest laugh he could muster: a huge, bellow that seemed to last for an age.

  The guards looked at each other in disbelief, which quickly turned to anger. The biggest of them, the one who had punched him, moved slowly towards Lauterbur, his hand on his sword.

  Lauterbur smiled; it had worked. He filled his lungs with air, then tensed his aching muscles and braced himself for the inevitable.

  ‘Stop.’

  The shout came from behind them.

  The guards turned to see their captain atop a chestnut cavalry horse.

  ‘Don’t kill him, bring him down.’

  The large guard gave Lauterbur a look of contempt and pushed him down the remainder of the incline from where the full scene unfolded itself in front of Lauterbur. As he was forced into a clearing, a loud cheer went up from the crowd assembled there. It seemed to him that the whole town was here; at least three hundred and fifty people.