The Twilight Reign

by Tom Lloyd

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

The perfect introduction to one of the best contemporary fantasy authors, Tom Lloyd In a land ruled by prophecy and the whims of Gods, a young man finds himself at the heart of a war he barely understands, wielding powers he may never be able to control. Isak is a white-eye, born bigger, more charismatic and more powerful than normal men ... but with that power comes an unpredictable temper and an inner rage. Feared and despised by those around him, he dreams of a place in the army and a change to live his own life, but the Gods have other plans for the intemperate teenager. Over five books we follow Isak's life and the fallout from the choices he has been forced to make - choices that may well lead to his death. This sampler contains almost the first half of STORMCALLER, the first book in the sequence, as well as three related short stories and a lengthy extract from Tom Lloyd's new series, MOON'S ARTIFICE.

Release date: July 31, 2014

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 96

Sample

Daken’s stomach growled, long and angry.

‘Piss on this nation o’ cowards,’ he muttered, ‘so fast to surrender there’s no pay for an honest man.’

‘Tole you we should’ve joined the other side,’ added his nasal-voiced companion.

Daken glared at the man trailing him and gave the reins of the horse he was leading an irritated twitch.

‘An’ I told you, Yanal, to shut the fuck up about that.’

The smaller mercenary shrank from the look and pulled his coat tighter around his body. He shivered and greasy trails of unkempt hair fell over his face like a veil. Underneath that was a streak of mud across Yanal’s face, pasting his hair down onto his forehead. He’d tripped a few hours back, trying to keep up with the pace Daken had set, and ended up lying flat on the muddy road.

That had been Daken’s only laugh of the day, and the past few as well. Yanal was getting worried; he could see a familiar set to the big man’s jaw and knew it boded badly for the next person to piss him off. They’d not been comrades for long, only a few months, but any fool could tell a penniless and hungry white-eye was a dangerous beast.

Not as tall as many of his kind, Daken had a build to rival a Chetse warrior and the similarity didn’t end there. The white-eye’s arms, as thick as Yanal’s legs, were covered in tattoos – hardly the stylised scars of the Agoste field, where Chetse veterans put recruits through gruelling tests, but displaying a variety of styles. Yanal guessed many were charms and wards Daken had collected over decades of soldiering – making bargains and trading favours with any witch or hedge wizard he met.

They walked on, Yanal keeping well back so Daken had time to calm. He didn’t have a horse of his own, had sold it weeks ago when it looked like Canar Thrit was going to requisition every horse it could. Bastards hadn’t done it in the end, but the rumour had meant he got sod all for the worm-ridden creature.

There was a light dusting of snow on the empty fields on one side of the road, nothing much but enough to make Yanal fervently hope they found some decent shelter for the night. The sky was clear and there was precious little breeze; no biting wind thank the gods, but a frost for sure after nightfall. A tangle of hedgerows skirted ash trees and young oaks away to their left, barely enough to keep the worst of the chill wind off but as much as they’d managed the last two nights.

‘Sun’s on the way down,’ Daken commented from up ahead. ‘We better start lookin’ for somewhere to sleep.’

‘Aye,’ Yanal said miserably, trying not to stare enviously at the white-eye’s thick sheepskin coat. His own was nothing like as warm. ‘Last of our food then.’

‘Should’ve learned to use that bloody sling better then,’ Daken replied sourly. He looked back. ‘And don’t you start looking at my horse that way.’

‘I weren’t,’ Yanal said sulkily, ‘you made it clear enough last night.’

‘Good . . .’ Daken took a breath as though to continue but stopped dead, jerking on his horse’s reins to bring it up. ‘Well, looks like it’s your lucky night, I won’t have to eat you either.’

Yanal flinched at the thought as Daken pointed ahead, down the road. He was as savage a fighter as any man Yanal had ever met and it was hard to put much beyond the axe-wielding madman.

‘What is it?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Someone up ahead.’

Daken was perfectly still now, weight on the balls of his feet like a hound poised to spring. Yanal moved up beside him and looked to where the white-eye pointed. He couldn’t make out much, just a dark shape that had to be another traveller two hundred yards down the road.

‘They seen us?’

Daken shook his head. ‘Don’t look like it.’

Without taking his eyes off the other traveller he reached for the axe he’d stowed on the saddle. Plundered from a recently deceased cavalryman who’d been cheating at cards, it was a long-handled affair with a crescent blade on one side and a small clenched-fist hammer on the reverse. Daken tossed Yanal the reins and slipped off the road.

‘Ride up and keep ’im talking – I’ll circle around and catch up when he’s not looking.’

Yanal nodded, eyes flitting to his spear and short sword, also bound to the saddle. ‘Bastard better have some food.’

‘Won’t help him either way,’ Daken said softly, the dangerous edge restored to his voice. He slipped off into the undergrowth and quickly the sound of his footsteps faded to nothing.

‘Aye, true enough,’ Yanal said and hauled himself awkwardly into the saddle.

A lone traveller was just asking for trouble and they could meet a lot worse than Daken. A white-eye only enjoyed killing in battle when he was worked into a frenzy; out here it’d be clean and swift. He nudged the horse into a brisk walk and started to catch the figure ahead.

Daken heard hooves on the dirt road and cursed mentally, there were no voices accompanying them despite the order he’d given Yanal. He’d wanted their victim to be chatting away, not listening for danger. Now that wasn’t happening Daken couldn’t tell what was going on. This would be a short-lived robbery if their victim was walking with a cocked crossbow, but he was fast running out of options.

He glanced behind him. The ground was pretty open, a few bushes to hide behind but none as thick as the ancient hawthorn he was presently behind. Once they passed that he’d have precious little cover if he was going to hide.

Fuck it, he thought and tightened his grip on his axe.

The hooves came closer, so close they had to be just a yard or two behind the hedge. With a snarl he pushed himself up off the ground and sprinted around the hedge towards the two figures on the road. Their horses shied and turned, forcing both travellers to grab their reigns and lose a precious second as Daken closed. Yanal was on the near side but dropped a pace back as Daken came. His companion was a tall man in a long patchwork cloak, each coloured patch edged in metal and set with what looked like glinting glass charms.

Suddenly the image changed and Yanal became the further man, then the air seemed to waver before Daken’s eyes and the two figures winked out of existence, swapping places once, then twice. Daken staggered, confused by the strange happenings, and looked from one figure to the next. Just as he focused on one they swapped again and he saw it was an illusion, each one backed by a black silhouette in the instant the images swapped. He kept going for the right-hand figure, now the man in the cloak, and the man reached an open hand towards him.

Daken charged.

A searing flash of light whipped across his eyes and the charms of protection glowed warm on his skin – then he reached the man and punched the top edge of his axe into his ribs. The man folded inwards under the blow, legs collapsing as one final burst of magic sparkled the air and dissipated. The air went still again, the gloom of evening returning as Daken blinked down at the figure doubled-over at his feet. He scowled; it was Yanal.

Bugger.

He turned, bringing the axe up and around as he moved. The tall man stepped back with unnatural speed and the weapon caught nothing, but before Daken could close the gap an explosion of white light burst before his eyes. Desperately shielding his face, Daken fell back and ended up crouched on the road; axe abandoned and hands over his eyes as knives of pain scraped his skull.

‘Are you quite finished?’

Daken cursed and growled with fury, but even as he fought back the pain he knew he could see little beyond the stars bursting darkly before his eyes.

‘I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,’ the white-eye gasped, reaching blindly for his axe.

‘Like you have your friend?’ the mage said, amused, as a moan of pain came from behind Daken.

‘Yanal?’

‘Ah Gods!’ the man gasped weakly, ‘you . . .’

Wincing, Daken shook the daze from his head and looked at his companion as best he could. Yanal was sprawled on his side, curled around his chest where Daken had struck him and whimpering. The blow had been a heavy one; even without a sharp peak on the axe-blade he would have snapped a few of the man’s ribs on impact.

‘Your friend will die,’ the mage declared, taking a step closer to Daken, ‘unless you do exactly as I say.’

Dakan finally found his axe and used it to push himself to his feet, but as he wobbled on treacherous legs something struck him on the chest and knocked him back.

‘Are you listening?’ the mage said. He stood over Daken with a strange greenish light playing around his head. When he pushed back the hood of his cloak, Daken blearily made out the thin, imperious face of a middle-aged man staring down at him like he was a beetle flipped on its back.

‘Never liked ’im anyway,’ Daken said drunkenly. ‘Still gonna fuckin’ kill you.’

The mage sighed. Through the haze Daken saw he had strange yellow eyes that made him look something other than human.

‘Very well, if you’re too stupid to play to the niceties, what’s the betting something in the packs on that horse is yours?’

Daken rolled onto his front and managed to manoeuvre himself until he was up on one knee, trying to make sense of what was going on.

‘What’s it to you?’ he said eventually.

The mage crouched down to his eye level, close enough for Daken to reach out and grab his throat, but the sight of yellow lightning crackling over the man’s skin overrode thirst of retribution. ‘Fancy having the hounds of Jaishen catch your scent?’

‘You gonna to set some dogs on me?’

The mage smiled like a snake, his teeth unnaturally neat and white in the last light of evening. ‘Jaishen is the lowest depths of Ghenna. You will need more than a juicy steak to distract them once they have your trail.’

Daken thought about it a moment. He was a savage man, but the look in the mage’s eyes chilled even him. ‘You mentioned niceties?’ he croaked.

‘So I did. I can save your friend’s life and not damn you to an eternity in the Dark Place – so long as you do me a little favour.’

He grunted and heaved himself up. He moved reluctantly, feeling suddenly like an old man with the weight of the Land on his back. ‘Okay, who do you want me to kill?’

‘Quite the opposite,’ the mage said with cold delight, ‘I want you to be a knight in shining armour, to save a lady in distress. Who knows? Perhaps it will suit you better than highway robbery – mark a new chapter in your life.’

‘Oh sure,’ Daken said, ‘White-eye merc turns hero; they sing that one all the time.’

He slung his axe through a loop behind his shoulders and tried to dust himself down, still a little unsteady. With an effort he matched the stranger’s unblinking gaze, noticing only then how the mage was significantly taller than he, a rarity in these parts.

‘So where’s the silly bitch who got herself kidnapped then?’

Daken moved silently through the neat lines of trees, a dagger ready in his hands. At the end of the row he paused and crouched, keeping to the shadows as he surveyed his next move. The estate seemed quiet for the moment, but there was no easy path in as far as he could see. Like most white-eyes Daken wasn’t a man who played well with others, but right now he wanted some backup. His kind could usually count on attracting mercenaries who knew their business, men who could take orders and didn’t panic in a fight. Ex-soldiers tended to know the value of a leader as strong and fast as only white-eyes were, just as they knew what happened when you argued with one.

Fucking damsel in distress eh? he thought, as a sense of unease grew in his belly. Still, everything he told me so far has been true. Let’s hope that continues.

The estate was a remote one, grand but belonging to another age. The perimeter wall surrounding the main grounds was newer than the house within and more appropriate to the border wars of the last few decades, but still it was old with long stretches of brambles growing up it and the nearest part fallen in. They were further north than Canar Thrit and the recent fighting had never reached these parts. No doubt the occupants hadn’t bothered with anything so costly as repairs, knowing it would be over one way or the other before any soldiers reached here.

The orchard ran almost up to the fallen stretch of wall, stopping no more than twenty yards short. It was open ground, but they didn’t seem to have anyone there guarding the way, to
Daken’s amazement. It seemed to bear out what the mage had told him; that they were guarding against a magical incursion, but still he was suspicious.

He settled down to watch and listen for patrols, content enough in his sheepskin coat that a half-hour passed easily. Twice he saw faces on the walls, with a main lookout on the topmost part of
the house watching the road and open ground to the west. The house itself was split into two parts, a grand three-storey block set imposingly on an outcrop and a smaller L-shaped north wing
beyond.

Most of the windows were dark, just a single pair of shutters in the north wing that were edged with light and two more in the main building. Around the wall however were torches set into
brackets or driven into the earth itself, burning brightly below painted symbols on the stone. He didn’t recognise the symbols, but guessed they were wards of some sort – how they would
stop a mage from walking through Daken didn’t know, but he just had to hope they wouldn’t prove a barrier to him.

Time to move.

He crept forward to the very edge of the orchard’s cover. The greater moon, Alterr, wasn’t particularly bright tonight, but he didn’t want to linger in the open in case the
guards were a decent shot. He took a deep breath and ran for the broken line of wall between the two furthest-apart torches. No warning voices cried out and soon he was at the foot of a pile of
rubble that someone had clearly made a half-arsed attempt at piling back up again.

Clearly it would fall with a gentle push, but Daken didn’t want to risk the noise. He found a stable part to hold onto and vaulted the pile, trotting forward until he was again in shadow
– this time in the lee of a rose bush that hadn’t been pruned for a few seasons. Before he could move again he heard the creak of a door open on his right. He turned to see a man in a
studded jerkin at the open doorway of a stone outbuilding set against the inside of the wall. Not waiting to be discovered, Daken charged.

He covered the ground in a few swift steps, lunging forward with his dagger before the guard had properly seen the danger. It pierced the man’s jerkin with barely a scrape of metal, the
force of the blow enough to throw him back through the open doorway.

‘What—?’

From nowhere a second face appeared on his left, a soldier reaching for his sword even as he stared down at his fallen comrade. In one movement Daken slammed an elbow into the man’s arm to
stop him drawing and grabbed him by the neck. He jerked the man forward and smashed his forehead into his nose, feeling the bone crunch under the impact. The blow drove the man backwards, sword
forgotten and lungs still filling to cry out as Daken stabbed him in the armpit. A second blow finished him off but then the first guard began to huff and wheeze in panic. Dakan stamped behind him
and felt his boot come down on the man’s chest – not enough to kill him but it winded him and bought the white-eye enough time to open his throat.

He stopped, forcing himself to be still as he listened over the hammer of his heart for sounds of alarm. There was nothing, no shouts or clatter of feet.

‘Good start,’ he muttered, dragging the first man’s legs inside the doorway and closing it a moment while he thought. Both were a lot smaller than he and dark-haired –
there was no point in attempting subterfuge when he was a broad, shaven-headed white-eye.

‘How about a bit of distraction instead?’

He looked around the outbuilding. It was pretty much empty, just a table and chairs with the light of a small fire to illuminate it – clearly they were using it as a guardroom, which meant
more would likely be here soon. With his dagger he levered a log from the fire and rolled it out of the grate. He looked around and spotted some sacks in the corner so he kicked it over to them
and, once they were alight, took one and hung it over a rafter for good measure. The thatch would catch happily enough, even on a cold night, and in a few minutes he’d have enough of a
distraction to follow the mage’s instructions.

Daken reached for the door latch and stopped, suddenly noticing something odd about the two dead soldiers in the burgeoning light. Each one had strange flowing tattoos on his face, running from
his cheeks and down his neck to disappear underneath his jerkin. The lines didn’t seem to be writing of any kind, nor any sort of God’s device. When he went to the other body he saw
they weren’t an exact match but the style was the same for certain.

‘Good,’ he muttered with a wolfish grin, ‘I was getting suspicious that fucking mage had told me everything. Whatever this is least I know what I’m lookin’ out for.
Better than findin’ out what he didn’t tell me as it kills me.’ He looked up at the burning roof. ‘Time to move.’

Peering out of the doorway he saw the grounds were still deserted. What in Ghenna’s name was going on here he couldn’t tell, but the mage had said his damsel in distress would be
occupying most of their attention. What that meant the mage hadn’t said, but it had been clear most of them would be inside, with her. Daken had guessed they were up to some sort of ritual
using her as a sacrifice and hadn’t been corrected, so most likely he was running out of time.

‘Right, find the house shrine,’ he muttered, remembering what details the mage had given him.

When he’d scouted all round the house he’d noticed a pair of thin, double-height windows flanking the house’s main entrance. While they weren’t the only grand windows in
the building to contain glass, they were dramatic and west-facing. The first light of dawn would stream through them and most likely reach the length of the imposing hallway. It would be an
arresting sight for any pious fools droning through the morning devotionals, most likely they would be there.

He skirted the back of the main building, keeping to the shadows. The Hunter’s Moon, Kasi, was behind the building, sinking fast to the horizon but Daken guessed he still had a while
before midnight. If there was a ritual to be done in darkness, most likely they’d do it as Kasi went down and the darker half of the night began. There were several doors in view, but he
didn’t bother trying any of them. Instead he went to the corner where the two distinct buildings were joined and assessed the stonework there.

There was a lead-lined gully where the roof of the lower building met the side of the larger, a pipe leading down from that to a water butt. Using the gully as a low point to aim for, the pipe
and stonework around one of the windows proved enough to allow him to scale the side. Before long he was crouched in the gully, working the numbness from his complaining fingers as he gauged the
next stretch.

Above was a protruding balcony built into the stone, too far away to reach from where he was, but the roof of the lower building sloped sharply up to his left. He gingerly walked up the tiled
roof, wincing as two cracked under his weight, until he was level with the balcony’s wrought-iron rail. Freeing his axe, he reached as far forward as he could with it, assessing the distance
he had to jump. The axe was well short of the balcony, another four feet he guessed. Considering how much run-up he’d have, Daken wasn’t confident of making the jump.

Bugger, what else is there? He looked at the axe in his hand, then up at the iron rail around the balcony. If he could maybe hook it on one of the iron bars, he’d be able to pull
himself up. It wouldn’t be easy, but white-eyes were unnaturally strong and he knew he had it in him, no matter how heavy he was. Daken picked his way halfway down again and looked up at his
proposed route.

If I fall, that’s going to make enough noise to get them all out here, he realised as he set himself.

As quietly as he could he ran five feet down the roof to get up some speed, then launched himself forward at the wall ahead and kicked up off it. Reaching as high as he could, Daken slid the axe
head through the bars and twisted as soon as it was through.

Gravity dragged him down hard, even with both hands tight around the axe handle it was almost wrenched from his grip. A sharp pain briefly flared in the wrist that took the brunt of his weight,
but he refused to release his grip and a moment later he was just dangling above the rain-gully, legs swinging freely. With a grunt he raised himself to shift one hand above the next, then hauled
as hard as he could to pull himself close enough to the balcony to grab its edge.

He hung another moment until the swing of his body under him slowed again, then shifted one bar closer to the wall to set his boot against the stone to use it for support. Within a minute he was
crouched on the balcony and unhooking his axe from the bars of the rail, ready to enter the house itself. He tried the door that led off the balcony and was unsurprised to find it bolted, but
nearby was a shuttered window with a simple latch that his knife could work open without difficulty.

This high off the ground, the window was big enough for even Daken to crawl though. He checked he couldn’t hear anyone coming to investigate then eased himself through and shut the window
behind. In the darkness of an empty room Daken grinned. The hardest part was over; now he was inside their defences and undetected. The main part of the manor house was oblong and Daken stood at
one end of that. If the hallway was as grand as he suspected it would also contain the main staircase, but in a house this large there would be servant stairs too.

He went to the door ahead of him and tried to see through the keyhole. The corridor beyond it was dark enough that he couldn’t make anything out. When he inspected the other door he saw it
didn’t have a lock, just a simple latch. Clearly this was a disused suite of rooms, all connected to each other. He stowed his axe and drew his dagger again, easing the door open with the
weapon ready. There was no one in the other room but it did have a few pieces of furniture, a large bed and looming wardrobe, all draped in dust-sheets. The next room was similar to the first
except it didn’t have an exit onto the corridor, just a musty garde-robe in the back corner, so Daken returned to the second and waited at the door, listening for a long while before he
opened it.

He found himself on a bare stone corridor that led off to the left and met another from which a faint light shone, while on the right it turned a tight corner a few yards away. He followed it
that way and was rewarded with a narrow doorway covered by a long drape that led to a cramped servants’ stair. He walked slowly up to the third floor, his only illumination the moonlight that
crept through a slit window halfway up.

There he found a similar corridor and stalked along it until it met the central landing. Somewhere down that he could hear the tap of footsteps walking slowly towards him. A single pair; walking
with the measured pace of a guard doing a circuit inside their perimeter.

He transferred his knife to his left hand, pressing his back against the wall that hid him. His practised ear told him when the footsteps were just at the corner, two steps beyond the point
where the anxiety of adrenalin screamed for him to strike. He was reaching just as the figure came within one pace – dragging himself around the corner as he brought the knife up. The guard
flinched at Daken’s sudden appearance, but had no time for anything else before the knife-blade was at his throat, its edge pressed hard enough to break the skin.

‘Move or cry out and you’re dead,’ Daken whispered, his other hand around the guard’s which in turn clasped his sword hilt.

The guard was an average-looking man who could have been anything to Daken’s eyes. He was middle-aged and clean-shaven; not as battered or unkempt as most mercenaries but clearly no raw
recruit either. After an initial moment of panic in the man’s eyes he grasped the situation with the clarity of someone who’d felt Death’s hand on his shoulder and recognised
Daken wasn’t exaggerating.

He didn’t nod of course, standing perfectly still without replying but Daken could see he understood easily enough. Keeping the knife at the man’s throat he turned around him and put
a hand to his back, pushing him towards one of the doorways off the corridor. The man realised what he was being asked to do and walked without complaint into the room.

‘Do what I say and there’s no need to kill you. Now, lose the sword belt.’

The man perceptibly sagged with relief that he wasn’t going to have his throat cut in the next few moments and fumbled to obey – taking care not to drop his sword and make any undue
noise or do anything else that might annoy the white-eye with a knife at his throat. Daken took hold of the back of the belt and pulled it away from the guard’s unresisting grip.

‘Good. Now I’ll be tying you up soon enough, but first tell me where she is.’

The guard made a puzzled sound. ‘Her?’ A moment later Daken heard him gasp. ‘The mirror? You’ve come to free her?’

The white-eye sensed the change in his prisoner immediately; body tense, lungs filling. Without thinking he wrenched back with his dagger, cutting deep into the guard’s throat as he moved
back. The man turned half around, hands rising as though to reach for Daken, but the movement was never completed as a spray of blood followed the knife and he crumpled to his knees. Daken took
another step back and caught the dead man by the arm, easing him down while trying to avoid the worst of the blood flowing out over the wooden floorboards.

‘Man wanted to live,’ he commented dispassionately, ‘until he heard what I wanted. Wasn’t expectin’ that.’

He dragged the body away from the door and considered his next move. Even loyal guards were rarely eager to sacrifice themselves in the faint hope of warning their master, and what did a mirror
have to do with all this?

‘Startin’ to feel screwed over by my employer,’ Daken said softly, a grin once more creeping across his face. He sheathed the knife and pulled his axe out.

‘Now we’re on familiar ground. So there’s a mirror involved in this ritual – most likely they’re usin’ it as some sort o’ gateway. That and a blood
sacrifice. Fucking daemon-worshippers; always eager with a virgin and sacrificial knife.’

He returned to the main passageway and cautiously headed down it. At the far end there was a solid balustrade beyond which a large wrought-iron chandelier hung. Only half its candles were
burning but they were enough to cast adequate light around a central space that seemed to extend from ground level right up to the roof. Over the carved balustrade came sharp voices, several men
talking over each other until a fist was thumped on a table and Daken heard a voice clearly.

‘Put the damn fire out, we can argue about who set it later!’ Daken’s grin widened a fraction as he heard feet scurry to obey. Unable to see any more guards on this level he
crept forward and hid behind the balustrade as he decided his next move. He’d marked the stairways leading down to the first floor already, off to the left above where he guessed the shrine
was. Flush against the back wall they came down from the sides to meet in the middle, the positioning making it clear they opened out to meet the lower stair at the second floor.

Almost on hands and knees he crept to the end of the balustrade and looked around the thick pillar at the corner. The way was clear to where the staircases met so he edged down the steps to the
next corner, keeping hidden behind the balustrade with his axe at the ready.

‘Do you think it’s him, sir?’ a man said from the hallway below, younger than the first.

‘I don’t know,’ the other said with a sigh, ‘but we’ve warded this estate with everything Parain knows and double-checked it all – I don’t see how he
could have got past all three layers of wardings.’

‘Could it be her?’

‘Don’t be stupid, man! She’s bound securely right there, go and check for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

That seemed to spark fresh panic in the younger man. ‘No! No, of course, sir – I know Parain has done his job.’

Two voices speaking frankly, Daken thought, tightening his grip on his axe handle. Sounds like that’s as clear as I’m likely to get.

Without waiting he straightened and jumped the short flight to a square half-landing, finding himself with staircases on each side leading down. In the hall ahead were two armed men dressed like
campaigning knights, staring astonished up at him as he came. A third was at the foot of the right staircase, foot poised to ascend but similarly taken by surprise.

Daken kept on straight, one hand on the balustrade as he vaulted it to control his fall. As his feet left the landing time seemed to s