A family cowered behind a wyvern’s cadaver. Too slow to run, they had become trapped between the half-butchered corpse and the granite wall. The manticore screeched and twisted its head, leonine mane flying as it caught some scent over the death and decay. It bared its teeth as it turned on the trapped sgeir.

Lena picked up her axe and looked to Baumer, who shrugged.

“The beast will die soon anyway,” he said. “I’m not risking my life for it.”

“And for them?”

“They’re just sgeir.”

The manticore advanced with a feline prowl, a predator closing in on its prey. Its growl shook the air in Lena’s chest.

She set her jaw and strode towards the manticore…

*

My epic fantasy murder mystery novel, The Executioner’s Blade, is out today!

In a city where monsters go to die, the executioner Lena Sturm seeks justice for a woman she killed. But there’s more at stake than a single life, as an army threatens dragon fire, cannon shot, and secrets from Lena’s past.

We’re launching the book in person this Saturday as part of the Wizard’s Tower Press book launch at FantasyCon, 9am in the Orkney Room. And for anyone not in Glasgow, the book is up for sale now in all the usual places. Buy a paper copy direct from the publisher and get a bonus ebook of the accompanying short story collection The Executioner’s Realm.

Purchase options
You can buy paper editions from:
The Wizard’s Tower bookstore – (UK only) includes free ebook
Barnes & Noble – USA only
You can buy ebook editions from:
The Wizard’s Tower bookstore – (UK only)
Bookshop.org UK – (UK only)
Bookshop.org US – (USA only)
(see here for terms using Bookshop.org)
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon AU
Amazon DE
Barnes & Noble (Nook) – USA only
Kobo
Books2Read
(see here for more about Books2Read)

The post Out Now: The Executioner’s Blade appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

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It was late spring when a noise echoed down the mountains, like boulders smashing into screeching geese. The people of Weatherneck were used to strange sounds, especially in summer when the mammoths mated, but this was too much. As that year’s elected mayor, it fell to Tolov to trudge up the mammoth track beside the swift-flowing river and investigate.

At a pool where three streams came together, and from which the river was born, he was surprised to find a dozen people with pointed hats waving their arms. Streaks of energy made the air scream and coloured glass oozed from the dirt of the trail, forming the walls of a tower. Within that crystalline case, artificers assembled complex piping and a huge waterwheel.

Weatherneck wasn’t a big town, but a sorcerer came through every few years, so Tolov knew to show some respect as he asked what this was.

“An industrial spell weaver,” came the response. “The greatest the world has ever seen.”

Tolov asked questions, and didn’t understand the answers, even about the economic benefits for Weatherneck. The words were a jumble of nonsense, but it was important to be a good neighbour, so before he left Tolov shared words of his own, the ones his grandmother had lived by: always consider what lies downriver. The sorcerer laughed and sent him on his way

A week later, the river ran dry. Weatherneck’s mill wheel fell still, people grew thirsty, and Heram Yones almost drowned in mud as she rescued stranded fish. Once again, as elected mayor, it fell to Tolov to head uphill.

The sorcerers had dammed the pool, to increase water pressure and power the spell machine. Tolov’s mouth hung open as he watched it in action. The air opened and closed like a thousand mouths, mirrored teeth shining before reality resealed itself. The ground shook as if from a series of giant sneezes, dislodging snow and scree. Above it all hung a single swollen eye that stared so intensely Tolov thought he would be sick.

He found one of the sorcerers and explained what had happened to Weatherneck. In return, the sorcerer explained that the river would flow again in a few weeks, and if it remained weak that was fine, on account of the tower’s economic benefits. Tolov couldn’t imagine how he would bake without flour from the town mill, but he was a good neighbour, so before he left he reminded the sorcerers to always consider what lay downriver.

No one in Weatherneck had the power to resist one sorcerer, never mind a dozen, so they got by on well water until the river regained a sluggish flow. When the mill wheel still didn’t turn, they started grinding by hand.

A month later, as midsummer approached and mammoths trumpeted lustily from peak to peak, fish started dying. A few at first, but more each day, their bodies twisted and strangely coloured. River weeds, from which baskets and cloaks were woven, blackened and crumbled to silt. When people started getting sick, their elected mayor headed once more up the valley.

The air around the glass tower was even more mesmerising than before, but Tolov’s attention was drawn to the pool. Dark and shimmering currents ran across the surface, fading as they spread. The banks were bare, rushes rotting.

This time, the sorcerers didn’t even pause to listen. When he told them what had happened in Weatherneck, they waved him away. The spell weaver was too important to be turned off now, when it was generating previously unseen incantations. If Tolov wanted this stopped, he should take it up with the king, whose royal seal hung proudly beneath the ever watchful eye.

Rejected, dejected, Tolow stood at the base of the tower, staring through the magic-torn air across a death-darkened pool. He closed his eyes and listened to the mammoths’ cries approach their pre-mating peak.

Calling out to the sorcerers, he reminded them one last time to consider what lay downriver. They laughed and jeered.

Back in Weatherneck, Tolov told his neighbours that it was time. They cleared their wide main street, retreated into their low, sturdy houses, and bolted the doors.

That was when a dozen horny mammoths finished their mating songs. They thundered downriver along the tail towards their mating ground, casually smashing the glass tower, shaking the ground so hard the sorcerers’ dam broke, and galloping through the centre of Weatherneck, whose inhabitants knew where not to build.

Once the mammoths were gone and the waters flowed, Tolov walked back up the valley. Battered sorcerers were retrieving broken components from the ruins of their tower, scrabbling for some incantation that could fly them away. He considered sharing his grandmother’s wisdom with them one more time, but idiots who built towers on mammoth trails were never going to listen.

***

Something more like a fable this month, and maybe getting some things off my chest. As I said on Bluesky, writing is cheaper than therapy.

If you enjoyed this story and you’d like to read more like it, then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books. And if you’re looking for something else to read in the meantime…

***

In a mountain city where monsters go to die, Lena Sturm is hiding from her past. But when she discovers that she has executed an innocent woman, guilt drives her to seek out the real murderer. A mad alchemist, a zealous bishop, and a ruthless crime lord all become suspects as Lena investigates a mystery she’s been told to leave alone.

But Lena isn’t the only one with an interest in the crime. When an army arrives outside the city walls, using justice as an excuse for invasion, the need to find the truth becomes desperate. With dragon fire and cannon shot threatening Unteholz, can Lena save the city without sacrificing the cause of justice?

The Executioner’s Blade, a high fantasy murder mystery, coming soon from Wizard’s Tower Press. Preorder your copy here.

The post Downriver – a fantasy short story appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

In a mountain city where monsters go to die, Lena Sturm is hiding from her past. But when she discovers that she has executed an innocent woman, guilt drives her to seek out the real murderer. A mad alchemist, a zealous bishop, and a ruthless crime lord all become suspects as Lena investigates a mystery she’s been told to leave alone.

But Lena isn’t the only one with an interest in the crime. When an army arrives outside the city walls, using justice as an excuse for invasion, the need to find the truth becomes desperate. With dragon fire and cannon shot threatening Unteholz, can Lena save the city without sacrificing the cause of justice?

The Executioner’s back!

Less than a year after its cancellation by Northodox Press, my fantasy murder mystery novel The Executioner’s Blade is returning to print, with a release from Wizard’s Tower Press next month. This is a slightly revised version of the story with an exciting new cover by Ben Baldwin, who’s done such great work for other Wizard’s Tower books. As I revealed last week, Wizard’s Tower are also releasing an accompanying ebook of short stories set in this world, available separately or with copies of The Executioner’s Blade bought directly from the publisher.

Whether you read the old version or the new one, there are sequels coming next year, so now is a great time to get on board with Lena Sturm’s story and see where the dragons will take us.

You can pre-order both ebooks through the Wizard’s Tower website, and the print edition of The Executioner’s Blade will be there soon. Alternatively, if you’re at FantasyCon in October then come along to the Wizard’s Tower book launch on Saturday to get a signed copy.

As I’ve said many times, I love these books, they’re a lot of fun to write, and I hope you’ll also enjoy reading them.

The post The Executioner Returns appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

In conjunction with the re-release of The Executioner’s Blade by Andrew Knighton, Wizard’s Tower will be publishing The Executioner’s Realm, an ebook-only collection of short stories by Andrew Knighton, set in the world of the Executioner. Some of the stories feature Lena Sturm, but others follow a range of characters living in the same world, including kraken-riding pirates, scheming courtiers, and a child meeting her first dragon. From the high seas to the frozen wastes, they introduce the reader to the wider world of the books, outside of the city of Unteholz.

The book will be available for sale through all of the usual ebook platforms where Wizard’s Tower publications can be found. However, it will also be offered free to customers who buy The Executioner’s Blade direct from Wizard’s Tower.

Andrew Knighton said: “Lena Sturm’s world lives vividly in my head, and I love having a chance to explore its complexities. The Executioner novels show this place in one light, draped in the shadows of murder mystery, while these stories are a chance to illuminate it from other angles, expanding on the wonders and anxieties of a world where monsters roam.”

Publisher, Cheryl Morgan said: “I love the way that Andrew is able to convey a huge amount about the worlds of his books with very few words. Many of the stories in The Executioner’s Realm are very short, but they all feel like they are set in a full realised world.”

For further information please email: info@wizardstowerpress.com.

*

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then a lot of these stories might seem familiar. The collection brings together various flash fiction from the Executioner’s world that I’ve published here, along with two longer short stories, previously published in Uncharted and Here There Be Dragons. If you’ve enjoyed some of these stories or The Executioner’s Blade, then this will be a good way to get a wider view of that world. And if you haven’t been there yet, then it will be a great intro to the series.

I’ll share more information, including a cover and pre-order links, once they’re available. In the meantime, keep an eye out for more news about the rerelease of The Executioner’s Blade, coming really soon.

The post Coming Soon – The Executioner’s Realm appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

• Friday 3pm – Panel: Do writers owe their audience?
• Friday 5pm – Fantasy reading.
• Friday 7pm – Humber SFF book launch.
• Saturday 9am – Wizard’s Tower book launch.
• Sunday 10am – Panel: Exploring first contact in sci-fi.

Given that my story Walking a Wounded Land is up for best novella, I expect I’ll be at the awards ceremony at 8pm on Saturday too.

If you’re there, say hi! I’m always happy to meet fellow fantasy folks and talk about books.

The post My FantasyCon Schedule appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

Wayrider Tolledair trudged, leaden-limbed, at the head of the pallbearers. He couldn’t see Farlight’s bones, but he felt them through the palanquin’s weight across his shoulders. For years, the dragon had carried him, now he carried her on their final journey, across the tethering ground to the cathedral and an ornate reliquary that would cage the bones of a beast who had flown far and wide. Barefoot for mourning, he felt the well-worn ground beneath his feet, but it was hazy and distant as mountaintops seen through clouds.

It was an honour, of course, to follow the Queen of Marlesan, the High Hunter and the Archbishop, these noble leaders in Farlight’s final ride to beatification. But the ceremonies that should make Tolledair’s heart soar—the drumming, the incense, the silken robes and chanted prayers—left him unmoved. All he could think about was the glint of life fading from azure eyes.

Snorting cut through the fog. He looked up from the Queen’s dusty heels to see nobles soothing their horses, while others stared into the sky. Vast winged shapes soared out of the north, circled the cathedral, then landed around the edge of the tethering ground. Hundreds of riders found themselves surrounded by a dozen silver-scaled dragons.

“Steelbrand.” Their lineage was whispered through the crowd with an awe to which faith could only aspire.

Tolledair’s chest swelled. Farlight’s kin had come.

The patriarch of the dragons rumbled and the crowd parted like flesh beneath a blade. Even with his wings tucked in, the patriarch was a vast presence, overshadowing the tips of raised lances. Banners twisted in the wind of his breath as he stalked towards the procession.

The Queen moved to greet him, hand outstretched, ready to touch minds. Her speech out loud was for the crowd, not the dragons; words of solemn pride, that these noble beasts had come to see their own interred, a saint among steeds and an inspiration to the nation. Truly, Marlesan was blessed.

For the patriarch, the Queen’s message was conveyed in silence, her palm pressing against his jaw, her eyes closing as their minds touched. Tolledair smiled sadly, knowing what the Queen would surely offer. Farlight’s kin had come to join her final journey to the reliquary. Now Toleldair wouldn’t be the one who laid her to rest, and the loss of that was touched with relief. To him, Farlight was a warm body to rest against in winter, the beat of wings as they flew into battle, familiar thoughts when their minds joined. She deserved the honour she was being granted, but he couldn’t see her as a saint, with prayers at her shrine and miracles in her name. Better for the Steelbrand dragons to accompany her to that rest. They wouldn’t taint the ceremony with their doubts.

The patriarch drew his head high and growled. The Queen’s robes flapped. Other dragons joined in, wings spreading wide, teeth and claws bared.

Horses and riders stiffened in panic. The nobility of Marlesan might have lances, swords, and armed entourages in the surrounding hills, but these were the fiercest beasts in creation.

“What is this?” the Queen snapped, trembling as she turned to her own advisors, voice raised to cut through the storm of noise.

“What does he want?” the High Hunter asked, voice and body trembling.

“I don’t know.” The Queen shook her head “His mind is an inferno.”

The Archbishop sank to his knees, holy symbol clutched tight, praying like the Sundering had come.

Tolledair looked up into the dragon’s eyes. Instead of the pride that stiffened the backs of the Marlesan court, he saw the grief of a true mourner. Something else as well, a feeling he hadn’t dared acknowledge in himself: indignation at seeing a friend turned into a symbol.

“Lower the bones,” he called out in a voice that had commanded charges. The courtiers looked uncertainly from the Queen to him, but every pallbearer was a warrior of Tolledair’s banner, and they obeyed.

The patriarch looked at Tolledair, who raised a hand, not to reach out and join minds but to sweep back and point at the heaped bones, as he sank to one knee. The pallbearers followed his lead. To his surprise, so did the Queen, then all her court. Hundreds of spurs clinked as warriors dismounted and bowed their heads.

The patriarch prowled forward, paused before Tolledair, and lowered his ancient snout. Tolledair looked up into eyes the colour of a summer sky, framed by scales like sword tips. This face was familiar from the memories that Farlight had shared, yet alien, fearsome, proud.

The patriarch bared rows of pointed teeth, then reached past Tolledair. With surprising gentleness, he grasped one side of Farlight’s ribcage, then flapped his wings and took flight. Through the swirling dust, another dragon advanced to take more bones, then another, and another, until the last one came for the basket of claws, the smallest fragments of loss.

When their vast, winged shapes were disappearing dots, Tolledair turned to look at the reliquary waiting on the cathedral steps. It lay empty, but his heart was full, and the tears running down his cheeks came from relief. Farlight’s final journey wasn’t to a gilded cage; she was flying home.

***

If you enjoyed this story and you’d like to read more like it, then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books. And if you’re looking for something else to read in the meantime…

***

At the age of eighteen, Raul learns that he’s the lost heir to the throne, destined to liberate his people from oppression. But his birthmark was burnt onto him as a baby, his ancient sword is a replica, and the prophecies of his coming are mostly lies. Manipulated by his parents, Raul strives to fulfil a fake destiny even as his world falls apart. He’s going to learn the hard way that the only destiny is the one you make, in a story about lies, family, rebellion, and choosing your own fate.

Get your copy now:

• Kobo
• Amazon
• Publisher’s website – US
• Publisher’s website – UK

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Let’s start with a light example – death.

Writing About Death

Since humans first took up the pen, they’ve used it to address mortality. From the author of Ecclesiastes recognising that the same fate overtakes us all; through Shakespeare comparing death to everything from mud to a bosom; to The Deadlands, a whole magazine dedicated to death stories. Whether you believe that death is a void or a gateway to eternal salvation, is finality is hard to face. It’s a force completely outside our control, one that we can’t escape. All the dread and anxiety it brings, all the questions it raises, all the losses we suffer, fill an emotional inkwell in which millennia of scribes have dipped their nibs.

Some of this is about taming death. That’s obvious in a work like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, where death is softened by humour, compassion, and human foibles. The reaper loses some of his edge when he has a fondness for curry and kittens, and that builds positive emotional associations. Laughter and a fond smile diminish our dark feelings when mortality looms. Those images become a defensive deflection for both writers and readers, a way of coping with an issue that’s too big to face.

Writing and Mental Health

Another way in which writing helps us to cope is by processing ideas and feelings.

Stick with death for a moment. It’s been on my mind a lot over the past few years, and it shows in my writing.

In Walking a Wounded Land, the protagonist is coping with an old friend’s death. I channelled the thoughts and feelings I’d had about my own losses, some of which I’d not been facing. Paul’s story became a way of working through experiences, while fiction kept them at a safe distance. There were no neat answers at the end, those thoughts and feelings haven’t gone, but I understand them better, which makes them easier to accept.

Another of my novellas, All That Is In The Earth, is about people who know they’re going to die. They’re stuck on a quarantined planet with no escape and no cure. Writing characters as they faced their own mortality, and the different ways they dealt with that, helped me think through my own death. It still scares the ever-living shit out of me, but one of those characters became my example for facing death in a healthy way, lifting some of the dread.

This isn’t the first time that writing has helped me feel better. When I was suffering from depression, a counsellor recommended keeping a journal to write down what I was going through. Again, that experience helped me process my feelings, think about what lay behind them, and do the emotional work that eventually healed me (for now, at least). It released the pressure inside my mind, so that I could move past instead of being trapped in dark emotional spirals, and surfaced topics to talk about in counselling sessions. As time went on, I felt less need to journal, and that became a sign of my recovering health. It was one of the last plasters over my emotional wounds, until I didn’t need it any more.

Why Your Writing Should Be Political

This is one of the reasons why we should write about big political issues, even when we’re writing stories set in fantastical worlds.

The shape of the world we live in has a huge emotional impact. Knowing that innocent children are being bombed, that billionaires have hijacked the economy, that we can’t keep a stable government two years running, all of that is a lot to deal with. We all need to use the coping tools available to us to, not as a way of hiding but as a way of staying sane, maybe even sane enough to help change the world.

For authors, stories are a tool for processing the world, so we need to be given space to write in the face of politics.

For readers, stories are a tool for processing the world, so we need to be given pieces to read that address that politics.

The same is true for death, environmental decline, mental health, sexual awakening, whatever you’re dealing with. Stories give you space to cope, which is the first step towards doing anything else. Trying to grin and bear the weight of the world just leads to being crushed by it.

Let the words be your way of feeling more in control, whether it’s by softening a harsh issue with a cat-loving grim reaper, or by exploring the complexities of a planet full of the walking dead. Find the stories that address the big issues on your mind, whether they’re in the library or in your head.

Writing is coping.

Reading is coping.

And that’s a good thing.

***

If you’d like to hear more from me then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books.

***

When Clifford crash lands on the planet of Abaddon, he might as well be dead: a terrible plague and a strict quarantine mean that no one leaves alive.

Clifford isn’t the only dead man walking. Corporate mercenaries and desperate survivors are looking for ways to live in a hostile world. On the run from flesh-hungry monsters, there’s no chance to escape or to build something more. But when Clifford makes a startling discovery, loyalty clashes with survival in an action-packed novella about living with death.

All That Is In the Earth, out now from Luna Press Publishing.

The post Writing Is Coping appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

It’s cold in the entrance to the throne room, diffuse light narrowing to a pale line along the steel edge of Daul. She named the sword after the blacksmith who made it, a man who gave her space to rage when she was at her worst, who never judged her refusals to lead or her final choice of rebellion over family. She feels his presence as her hand tightens around the grip, as solid as brotherhood and certain as stone. She remembers his own hand, calloused and scarred.

“You’ll have your justice,” she whispers, knowing that the words come too late for him and for so many others. But the words aren’t really for them, they’re for her, words to keep her on course as she enters the den of the beast.

The sides of the room are lined with the remnants of Redeval’s sorcerous experiments, his attempts to transform other bodies as he once did his own. A lead casket gleaming gold at its corners. A tree with its upper branches turned to stone, trunk splintering under the strain. The flesh of a pig and a man combined, two bodies merged into one that could never live. They are like nothing Obran has ever seen, and appalled as she is she can’t help staring.

Redeval himself stands halfway down the room, blue-white and shrouded in a shimmering haze, starkly angular against the sunlight falling between marble pillars. The monster of a million forms is trapped in just one now, the sorcerer he was centuries before, hunched in his robes, eyes like lightless pits in a leathery face. A talon-sharp finger jabs the air, his hate fuelling the fire in Obran’s belly.

“You broke my crystal array,” he hisses.

“My army is breaking yours, and now I’ll break you.” She strides down the chamber, from shadow to light to shadow again, a path as chequered as the one that had brought her here. Daul stretches out from her hand, the blade quivering in anticipation of its next strike, memories of the last one dripping onto worn flagstones.

“Upstart slaves are no army.” Redeval’s gaze flits to the thick scar on Obran’s wrist. “That’s all you were, I suppose, another slave?”

Memories rise like a rebel wind. The heft of manacles. The crack of whips. Trudging all day long to turn the wheel that powered Redeval’s machines, an unceasing circle across the same gloomy stones. The desperation to escape not from the pain and strain, in which she found her endurance and strength, but from the crushing monotony, the same work repeated day after day with decades more still to be faced.

“Not for long.”

She lunges. Redeval steps back, smooth as a dancer, and the deftness of that movement catches her off guard. All she cuts is the mist around him, a blow no more deadly than the curse she spits.

“You broke free.” He backs down the room, clawed hands twisting as he calls on his remaining power, the strength that lies within him. “Why return? Why not settle somewhere safe and warm?”

She wants to say that it’s because freedom matters, because someone has to end this. But she swore to Daul that her lying days were over, and no oath is stronger than one to a lost friend.

“Boredom.”

She spins, stabs, almost hits. Redeval backs away through the shadows and she presses on relentlessly, despite the weariness of a long night’s march, a leaden weight dragging at her limbs. That endurance she earned in the pits below the palace is a thing beyond measure. Redeval’s own regime trained her for his defeat.

“An itch in my belly,” she continues, remembering days of idleness even as she steps past them, sword swinging. A scything blow rips Redeval’s robes but not his body, blue-white tendrils fluttering on a breeze that doesn’t pass through this plane. “The fear that, if I kept playing wife and mother, I would lose my truth.”

This time, her blade hits Redeval’s arm and she yells in savage triumph as it sweeps through.

Redeval screams, but the sound turns to laughter and he waves fingers that should lie limp on the floor.

“Could I have endured millennia in a mortal body?” He steps into the sunlight at last and she sees that the worst of the stories are true. He’s nothing more than a wraith, a ghost bound by cruelty instead of regret, the mist of his body contained by mystic threads that glitter in the light. It’s as wondrous as it is unsettling. “Steel can’t hurt me.”

She almost fell for that line before, when a sorcerer tried to bluff her with a broken charm. He was trying to take the last bread left for the infants as they fled across the desert. On that day, in a single swing of her fist, she learned that she cared about something other than herself and that caring gave her strength. It gave her guilt too, a gnawing ache for the person she wasn’t, and as the guilt turned into hate she turned it outward, a force strong enough to fight the world. Strong enough to face magic with her bare hands. Strong enough to die rather than accept defeat.

Instead of giving up, she flings herself into the attack. Her wrist aches at the long weight of battle and her scars tighten around the pain she suffered in the pits. She almost stumbles over the memories of friends lost in the struggle, of Elka’s last breath, Rodon’s ruined face, Kerl’s children gathered by his grave, and the tears clouding her view are grief as much as rage. But she is Obran, the strength of the desert, and she isn’t going to let a dead man keep on killing.

Every blow sweeps through emptiness, Redeval’s body parting and reforming while he cackles and calls down power. He shimmers as he tries to transform, twists like the grotesque shapes around the sides of the room, falls back into his own form. But while frustration creases his face, he is still powerful beyond words. White fire flares in his hands, blazes across her skin, seers every sinew with pain.

Still Obran fights.

“Please, keep going,” Redeval says. “Futility makes your hate more delicious.”

Beetles fly from his mouth, a torrent of black wings scratching at her arms, hammering into her face, clogging her nose and mouth. She sweeps them away, leaving a slick of broken shells and smeared guts across her cheek, and fights on.

She grins a feral grin. The fight has never been like this. So fierce. So desperate. So strange.

“Sooner or later, they all give in.” Redeval bares his teeth, their points a jagged trap. “But please, don’t make this too easy. I haven’t felt this alive in centuries.”

He flexes his fingers and the shadows themselves writhe around Obran, twisting up her legs, dragging her onto her knees and down, further down, towards cold hard stone. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is seeing herself reflected in him, a creature brought alive by the struggle, craving constant challenge and change. She is him and he is her, and without Daul she might have been the one to become a monster, a tyrant clothed in blood and powered by pain, tearing the world down to escape its tedium.

But she didn’t, and the screams from the streets below tell her why she is here. Summoning all her strength, she drags herself into the light again, and the shadows melt away. With a grunt, she pushes herself to her feet, ready to fight on.

They say steel can’t kill a ghost, but Obran has one trick left. Gripping Daul with both hands, she pours rage and grief and pain through the blade, not just hers but that of her followers, the agony of lost generations. They chose her to lead them, and the weight of those who died crushes her every night, but she can bring life’s promise to the rest. With a roar and a mighty blow, she slices through Redeval’s neck.

Her sword shatters as it hits a marble pillar, leaving only the pommel and guard.

Redeval stands silent for a moment, and it could almost have looked like a victory. Then he grins.

“All the misery in the world can’t defeat me.” He leans in close, his breath foul with the corpses he’s feasted on and centuries of decay. “It only grants me power.”

Obran stares at the stump of her sword, at the place where Daul’s blade had been. She remembers his final moments, blood cooling the blade, one last wheezing breath as he passed it to her, a weapon forged from death.

She could never give up her life for the promise that others would live, an act that came to Daul as naturally as swinging a hammer or speaking his mind. But if she can’t be a righteous person then she can at least choose righteous acts.

“Sorry,” she whispers to Daul’s memory, seeing how little remains of the finest blade he ever forged. “And thank you.”

Then pale fingers, bone thin and steel strong, wrap around Obran’s throat and lift her from her feet.

“I’ll kill you out there,” Redeval says, waving towards the doors and the sunlight beyond, towards the sounds of a desperate battle. “To break their hearts and their will to fight.”

Obran’s own heart hammers at the thought of the temple steps, of shattered chains and broken bodies, of hope at last and the fear that it might falter. Her fingers grip the stump of the sword so tight it hurts, feel Daul’s spirit still there, true to the blade he forged even though its metal is gone.

She rams the ghost of a sword into the ghost of a sorcerer, stares in brutal delight as one spirit slices another open. Strands of power lash out as they’re severed from each other, cold fire flaring from their ends. The energy that held Redeval together, stolen from other people’s souls and used to escape his death, becomes a blaze so bright it hurts Obran’s eyes, like staring into the sun on midsummer’s day. Then it fades, and Redeval fades with it, his ghostly form evaporating like mist in the morning, his voice vanishing into the memory of a scream.

It’s over. The sounds from the city are changing, desperate battle cries turning to triumph. Within a day, the struggle will be done, leaving nothing but an echo that will dissipate in time, just like Redeval, just like the fading afterimage of Daul’s sword. Then it will be time to rebuild. To lay bricks. To dig foundations. To plant seeds and chop wood. To go through the same actions day after day, year after year, for the good of all.

Obran remembers trudging through the gloom, turning a wheel to power the machines above, every day the same. She tells herself that this will be different, but her heart doesn’t believe.

She sinks to her knees, a victor at the pinnacle of the city she has seized, an army cheering her name in the streets below. All she feels is a broken sword in her hand and the aching emptiness.

***

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At the age of eighteen, Raul learns that he’s the lost heir to the throne, destined to liberate his people from oppression. But his birthmark was burnt onto him as a baby, his ancient sword is a replica, and the prophecies of his coming are mostly lies. Manipulated by his parents, Raul strives to fulfil a fake destiny even as his world falls apart. He’s going to learn the hard way that the only destiny is the one you make, in a story about lies, family, rebellion, and choosing your own fate.

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The post The Ghost of a Chance – a fantasy short story appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.