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    The Silvered Mare
    The Silvered Mare
    The Silvered Mare
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    The Silvered Mare

    By Jon Jacks

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Our Queen is dead.
    Our rebellion is over.
    The Emperor is hunting us down.
    The Emperor who shows no mercy.
    My mother feared I was too young to fight.
    My fear is that I am too young to save Aedan.
    Everywhere, a new Queen rules.
    Everywhere, I find the Queen of Death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJon Jacks
    Release dateAug 8, 2018
    ISBN9780463691366
    The Silvered Mare
    Author

    Jon Jacks

    While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

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      Book preview

      The Silvered Mare - Jon Jacks

      Chapter 1

      Today, the mare was dark, brooding.

      Over the next few hours, tens of thousands would die here; men, women, children.

      Hidden amongst the shadows of the woodland, it watched with growing dismay the drawing together of the two armies.

      One highly organised, heavily armoured and ingeniously armed, yet knowing such advantages hadn’t saved other armies that had been sent to quell the rebellion.

      The other far larger, confident of another victory, just as they had conquered and laid to waste the great cities the empire had imposed upon their land, their peoples.

      Their queen was preparing to release the hare, who would let them know whom the Fates favoured.

      But today, the mare knew, the hare would lie.

      *

      Would he die today?

      Probably.

      Hadn’t every legion sent out against this queen and her army failed to stay her rebellion?

      And today, the odds were once again on her side, her army far outnumbering theirs.

      For them, it would be a defensive battle; the queen’s army must be allowed to fall upon the swords of the massed infantry.

      He and the rest of the mounted soldiers must stay towards the rear, no matter how eagerly they wished to revenge the previous day’s slaughter, when their fortified cavalry barracks had been attacked and captured. They would only be forced into an early action, it seemed, in the unlikely event that the warrior queen’s massed chariots could somehow navigate the hills and marshes protecting the infantry’s flanks.

      As for later in the day, that would depend on how well the infantry fared: if they prevailed, then the cavalry could take part in the wiping up operations immediately afterwards; if they fell, then the cavalry would either fall with them or be forced to ignominiously flee the field.

      May the Goddess Epoena keep a watch over them; or, if he fell, at least safely guide him to the other side.

      Even as he called upon the goddess for her protection, he saw her riding before him, naked and mounted upon a gleaming white mare. He almost gasped in surprise that he had been granted this view of her, both elated and yet terrified; was it a sign that she would be later welcoming him into her own world?

      If so, then he would he be accompanied by the friends gathered around him? For he could tell by their reactions – their own barely withheld astonished gasps, the sidelong glances as, like him, they sought reassurance that they weren’t imagining this glorious sight – that they had all seen her too.

      The goddess rode calmly before them, proud rather than ashamed of her nakedness. The horse beneath her shimmered, rippled like foam on rolling waves; then like those waves, it began to fluidly dissolve and disperse, until all that was left of it were bare outlines, much like the glistening sheen of a dark horse caught in the light of the moon.

      Then this vanished too, along with the girl.

      She left only a whisper on the lazily flowing breeze.

      ‘Return my land to me.’

      *

      Chapter 2

      Alanua’s head throbbed wickedly as, at last, she woke up.

      It was still dark. She shivered; she was so cold!

      No – it wasn’t still dark. It was growing darker.

      And she wasn’t at home in her bed of straw. She was lying out amongst the sleeping men, women and children of the queen’s army.

      A few of those around her shifted painfully in their sleep, groaning, even wailing piteously in agony.

      As Alanua sat up, her forehead sharply ached. She instinctively brought a hand up to where it hurt most, frowning in surprising as her fingers felt something hard, caked and flaking there.

      When she brought her hand back down, she saw that the flakes sticking to her fingers were of darkest crimson; of what could possibly be blood.

      Close about her, the bodies were still, quiet. She reached out for one of them, shocked by its unnatural lack of any kind of warmth, any form of flexibility; for it was as hard and immobile as if frozen.

      As if the darkness itself were sprouting into life, there was a sudden flurry of shadows, splitting and briefly rising up into the air, dark shapes with feathered edges that cawed furiously as they tussled over glistening scraps.

      Carrion; riving at the flesh of those ‘sleeping’ close by her.

      She saw now that the dark mounds of countless bodies stretched out in every direction, a seemingly endless landscape of a disturbed and rolling earth. Yet amongst it all there were odd signs of life; the ragged forms of weeping women searching for those they had lost, the even more ragged creatures silently grunting in joy as they found another jewel or purse the dead would neither have use for nor fight to retain.

      The swords, shields and helms that the fallen still wore were naturally ignored by these thieves, for they didn’t wish to be mistaken for warriors when the exhausted victors had recovered enough to return to the battlefield and seek out those who still clung to life.

      If she had found a helmet that had fitted her, would Alanua now be amongst the dead or those who had fled when it was obvious the battle was lost?

      The soldier who had struck her had obviously believed his harsh blow of a hilt to her unprotected head would be enough to kill a young girl.

      There was a loud snort of disgust, maybe even dismay.

      Seeking out its source, Alanua found herself staring in surprise at a red mare, a blood-red horse walking far more carefully amongst the dead than any of the far more callous humans.

      Why was it still here, when it could be off somewhere where it could rest and feed?

      There was no saddle on its back, no signs of any remnant of reins or leads. Perhaps it had broken free of one of the many war chariots that, so deadly efficient in every previous battle, had been rendered useless today by a solid wall of shields and flanks protected by hills and an impassable, waterlogged marsh.

      Such a strong, well-trained horse would be valuable to anyone who could capture her; yet no one was making any attempt to even draw close, let alone throw a noose about her neck.

      It could well be, Alanua reasoned, that once again no one was willing to risk being mistaken for a warrior, or wished to be seen denying the victors their own booty.

      There was an undoubted wariness about the robbers, however, each somehow unconsciously shying away whenever the horse nonchalantly drew near.

      The dark hide of the mare rippled in what little moonlight there was. It flowed, as if suddenly formed of nothing but reflected shards in a dark pool.

      The hide flapped, like black cloth caught in a gust of tussling breezes, becoming flickering flames of darkness.

      And, collapsing and folding in upon themselves, they revealed nothing more than a hideous construct of a flowing black sheet, topped with the peculiarly terrifying skull of a horse.

      *

      Chapter 3

      The darkness still flowed silently about this horrify artifice of a horse. Now, though, it was a mix, a mingling of rippling gown and endlessly rolling storm clouds.

      The white skull seemed to gloat over the fallen.

      Only moments ago, this repugnant thing had seemed to be a horse. Now it was revealed to be some form of witchly device, a magical guise conjured up so some wizard or witch could move freely amongst the living, and the dead.

      As if sensing Alanua’s awe and interest – sensing, in other words, something that was not as it should be – the witch turned her way.

      The dark holes of the horse’s skull seemed to lock on Alanua’s eyes, as if peering into them intently, irately.

      What was a mere girl doing watching a witch going about her business?

      Whoever this witch was, she coolly turned away, the growing darkness of the night yet again swiftly folding in upon itself as witch once more became horse.

      With a contemptuous snort, the red mare unhurriedly curled away from Alanua.

      Alanua’s head throbbed painfully, her vision blurring as her eyes filled with tears.

      Had she imagined the whole thing?

      How could a woman, even when wearing such a crude disguise, suddenly become a horse?

      Because she was a witch, keeping everyone around her spellbound?

      But then why should Alanua, a mere girl, be granted a way of seeing beyond such powerful conjuring?

      Her head was swimming now with a mingling of pain and poorly defined yet conflicting thoughts. She lowered her head, cupping her brow in her hands in a fruitless effort to ease the relentless aching of her mind.

      Across the line of her eyebrows, it throbbed most of all. As if there was a physical rather than just a mental struggling going on there.

      She closed her eyes, the agony of the pressure building up there unbearable.

      She could feel the furrowing of her brow, the tickle of eyebrow hair against the inner flesh of her fingers,

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