The Sword in the Stone: Excerpt

Prologue: An End to Adventure

Clancey’s hands once held treasures of untold value. Now, those same hands trembled to grip an oily old dish rag. “Another drink then?”

Marcus downed his fourth ale for the morning. “How else am I s’posed to get to sleep? You try restin’ your head on a pillow when the sea’s been batterin’ your legs all night, old legs at that.” Marcus handed over his tankard, the same one he always brought from home, soaked with the stench of a thousand ales.

“I hope you caught us some better fish this time. Half the villagers are still getting over last week’s haul. My stomach shares the same grief if you follow me.”

Marcus grimaced. “Damned fish. Swam in from the tainted shores of Taperel, I’ll wager. Can only hope them pricks in Nellore share the same wretch,” he spat into the trough, the thought of Nellore bitter on his tongue. To the northwest, Nellore was a proper port village, boasting bigger ships with nets of silken rope and brawny men fresh from their teens to wield them. Here in Porthos, the men were older, and fewer of them—men of aching limbs from rowing stout oars, with bellies too fat to fit a door sideways, too frail to pull up anchor alone. But many had known the seas for forty winters, the swells where the fish would gather, the ropes to pull for the wind to carry their sails, and the wood that shaped their boats was richer than any that built their homes. The prominent fisherman was a knight in stature here. To stand in the White Seas and watch the sunrise beyond the ocean horizon… the men would tell you it warmed the heart like nothing else.

“’Sides, you needn’t be worried. Gods’ know folk don’t come ‘ere for that broth your cook heaves out,” Marcus scoffed. “This ale of yours be the only reason the men bother headin’ back to land at all, no lie in it.”

“Your wife would be grieved to hear that.”

Marcus groaned at the mention of his wife. “That blasted woman always complains I come home smellin’ of piss. Give your moans to the gods, I say; take your pick of ‘em. This drink’s the only thing that makes her bearable to live with. You heard me. Thirty-one years and I can’t think of a day she hasn’t shouted her shame at me, thirty-two come winter.” His words ended in a wet gargle.

“It’s a good ale true, but what about them stories of his?” Arvin intervened, a fisherman as aged and boisterous as Marcus. “Used to be folk would travel far for a listen; hardly a day would go by without hearing one. Less are the tales these days of Clancey, famed treasure-hunter of Heldorn.” He spoke it like a royal title.

Clancey gave a modest grin. “There are few tales left to tell, I’m afraid, and I doubt I’ll make any new ones at my age.” For decades, he joked he could never grow old, that he didn’t know how. Even in his fiftieth year, his muscles were still wanting, eager for adventure. Now past sixty, his hair grew grey, his legs staggered more than they strode, and those copper eyes to turn a lady’s gaze now squinted. Some days the world was a blur. But his prominent feature remained strong, his commanding voice, a necessary tool for recounting his many endeavours. As a youth, he encountered dragons, suffins, nymphs, and fought an ogre with his bare hands; at least that’s how he would tell it. In truth, he ran away faster than a cat when the thunder roars, but the lie entertained people more. He discovered elven cities lost to the ‘asteroid that destroyed the world’, battled an army of undead creatures, even found himself imprisoned by the Arch-mage of the Arcane Order—not the first prison I found myself in.

There was that time I stopped a volcano from erupting too. No one ever believes that story.

Those days were gone.

Now he worked the tavern, a barman wiping ale spilt from wavering tankards, oils smeared from fishermen’s fingers, drool dripping from thirsty beards. It was another life now.

“Is it true them Alduainians are heading this way?” Arvin broke his chain of thought.

“Aye,” Clancey nodded. “Should be here a few nights from today—old friends of mine, and plenty of them by my reckoning. Will be a party the likes you’ve never seen.”

Marcus shared no such joy. “On their way to Corcadia, no doubt. Always trouble ‘cross them borders. Shouldn’t be botherin’ us honest folk. Ruun don’t need their kind swaggerin’ ‘bout in their steel, scarin’ our youngens. S’pose that’s why you’re scamperin’ ‘bout like some eel stuck in a trough.”

Clancey ignored Marcus, counting what was left to do. “I still have the extra barrels to bring from the farm. Northern folk will no doubt have gotten word there’ll be a party, and you know how deep their stomachs are. I’ve got to prepare the rooms upstairs, come to think of it. If the lads don’t get here soon, I’ll be up to my neck in tasks, I fear.”

“Serin’s boys can’t help you forever,” Marcus told him. “Timothy’s old enough to get a trade up north— with them wood lovers, no doubt. Then there’s that one with his head in a book every time I see him. No use for it, I tell him. The boy’ll likely become a notary or scribe under some arrogant lord if he keeps at it—from Porthos, of all places.”

He spoke of Landau, the only youngling in the village who could read. It amused Clancey that Marcus found it a useless trick. “Scribes are old men sitting in cold chairs complaining about their backs. Landau has a mind for adventure, no doubt, as do all the kids. Let them play with their sticks and pretend they’re knights. Why should they grow so early?”

“My da had me skinnin’ fish when I was in me sixth year, shoved the knife in me hand and said, ‘get on with it’. Those boys should take life more seriously, even in a village so small, teach ‘em to work a good life. No sense waitin’ ‘til your cock gets hard.”

The man has more complaints in him than ale.

Elliott soon tottered into the tavern. He was just ten years old, yet moved with the strength of an elderly man, the largest of Serin’s children, with a belly fitting for a spoilt royal. His red hair curled in no orderly fashion, wearing clothes borrowed from younger kids, soiled, and stretched tight across his waist.

Clancey gave him a wary eye. “Good gods, boy. It’s not yet noon and look at you… look like you dug yourself out of a grave! I’ll wager Serin has no inkling of what you’ve been up to. Where are the others?”

“Timothy’s out choppin’ wood for the fire, and Landau’s with his da, I think.”

“I should have you chopping wood, boy; there’s too much of you if you follow me. I’m surprised Serin can have you so well fed.”

Marcus turned to the lad. “Don’t listen to the ramblin’s of this old bore. A village that prides itself on the finest fish shouldn’t leave a boy so thin. Not like them layabouts over Nellore way, you seen ‘em? Skinnier than an imperial’s cock they are.”

Elliott covered his mouth; every time the boy heard a swear, he couldn’t help it. The village Elder Serin taught the younglings never to use foul language, so much as threatened that Daeyna, goddess of voices, would take their voice in their sleep, keeping them silent for all eternity.

“I doubt half the fishermen here could walk so far as Nellore to know if that were true,” said Clancey. “Even in the finest weather.”

“You’re no sprite either,” Marcus pushed clumsily from the bar to relieve himself out back.

Elliott grabbed an apron from the hook, too exhausted to reach his tubby arms behind his back to tie the strings together. In the end, he left them loose. “When are them soldiers s’posed to get here?”

“Ahead of the fall, if they know what’s good for them,” only men from Skellian know a chill colder. Clancey knelt to remove the boy’s apron. “Listen, before you start, tell Timothy to head to my farm and bring three more barrels from my cellar, four if he has the strength. And if you see Landau, tell him I’ll need his help earlier than usual if his father will allow it.”

“No problem, sir.” Elliott ran to the door with his mind on the floor, trying to remember all the tasks given to him.

“And clean yourself, boy. The soldiers will think we have you ploughing fields,” but he was already gone.

Arvin tilted his head back as if it made the ale go down quicker. “Do you think Nicholas will come?”

Clancey returned a blank stare. “Nicholas can do as he pleases. He has only his pride to argue with.”

Arvin finished his drink to make sure Marcus hadn’t collapsed in a pool of his own piss. “Be a shame to miss it.”

-- o – o --

A few days later, the commonly quiet streets of Porthos began to resemble the bustling towns in the north. Landau burst from his home in childhood wonder. Many of the visiting villagers gathered outside his house, massed beneath the Great Oak, a towering tree at the heart of the village. The trunk rose thick and tall, with wayward branches that shadowed the rooftops in the day, barely high enough for any soldier on horseback to ride beneath. Tonight, lilies and lilacs hung from its branches, fastened to strings in a playful dangle. Folk sat on benches by its roots, and all day, foreigners chatted by his window, sharing news of their towns and the gossiping’s of its people, despite father’s warning to mind his own business. Horses and carriages cluttered neighbouring farms, and homes became storage for the more encumbered travellers. Near the stream, folks waited for the soldiers, eyes on the northern hills while the sun still shone on them. Landau wanted to join them; be the first to lay a glance upon these men who wore silver metal and wielded swords, things he’d only read about. But he promised Clancey he’d help in the tavern early tonight. The old man assured him he could watch the soldiers from behind the bar—after my chores are done, that is.

He ran to the market square. On a normal day, there were five stalls, with rudds, carp, and longfin, the usual fish that swam in the southern seas. Mr Hammon had the best turnips but didn’t give them freely, while Desmin the hunter sold game found in the western woodland, and when she wasn’t weaving rope for nets, Mother Maybird baked a delicious pumpkin pie. But now the market bustled with makeshift stands from Bunbury and Nellore, selling spices, beans, and honey from the north. Peddlers stood on wagons spraying perfumes sweeter than a jasmine petal while men breathed tobaccos all the way from Beaufaunt. Landau darted through the crowd like a cluttered garden. Thick foreign fabrics brushed his hands and cheeks, filling his nose with odd smells as any flowering garden. He charged up the Winding Road, which twisted around a towering hill to a lone manor owned by Serin, Elder of Porthos village. The manor sat tall as a lighthouse upon the summit. Daisies and waxflowers crowded its yard like snowfall, while vines of ivy pressed against the outside wall. In the morning, robins would come here to feed and cheerily sing; the locals came to call it ‘Whistling Mountain’.

Inside the estate, the Elder was with guests, men with large stomachs who could afford to eat well. Serin wore a blue robe over a butterscotch shirt with buttons shaped like roses, struggling to keep his belly from showing. The man had been bald since Landau could remember, which revealed how strangely pointed his face was, with an arrowhead nose, oval jaw, and leafy ears to match. He offered Landau a cheeky smile as he entered, his attention kept to a grumbling guest. Elliott found him, and together they ran to the edge of the summit, where the sounds of the village rose in chorus. Rignar’s dog Toby resembled a constant drumbeat, barking along to a tavern song and the clapping of a hundred hands and more. Landau was desperate to join, his hands twitching for a clap all their own. From here they could see the northern road for miles, where Clancey promised the Alduainians would come, but now the night sky and the hills beneath it became a wall of darkness, and no sign yet of any army.

They next headed to the docks, where the usual smell of fish became overpowered by a smog of darkleaf. People spilled out from the crowded tavern, sat upon crates and barrels brought from the ships in anchor. Wood creaked beneath the weight of a hundred guests, but Porthos wood was strong, as Dad would say. None better than the tavern door, a solid door of warm oak with a rounded top, set on iron hinges, beneath a barrel hanging from a sea-battered bracket, etched with the words, ‘The Floating Barrel’. It was Clancey’s tavern, the most famous tavern in the south, and its door had hung outward since morning.

A roaring fireplace kept the sea chill at bay. Folks from Footrot farm bore stringboxes and lutes on the northern stage, belting out every ode known to the south. Simple Jim danced like a boy whose clothes were burning, smiling his toothless grin at the attention. In the corner, men rolled their fire-dice, shouting colours of red and yellow, gasping when the black turned upward. Others toiled with cards, rounds of Demon’s Den or Devil’s Dance; he couldn’t remember all the names. Rignar sat among them, the village guard, boasting his deck, with a bristled beard as black as soot, always with an axe dangling from his belt. The eldest of Serin’s foundlings, Timothy manned the bar alone, tall and tanned with buttery hair. The boy had just reached his eighteenth year. His brow glistened from an arduous sweat to keep up with serving so many patrons. Landau joined him with Elliott, but with the noise too loud to speak over, they each bore a look that asked the same question.

“Where’s Clancey?”

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