Hangman's Gate Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by R.S. Ford and Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Laigon

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Harlaw

  I

  II

  III

  17

  Randal

  I

  II

  III

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Josten

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Siff

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  ALSO BY R.S. FORD AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  A Demon in Silver

  Hangman’s Gate

  The Spear of Malice (June 2020)

  BOOK TWO OF WAR OF THE ARCHONS

  TITAN BOOKS

  Hangman’s Gate

  Paperback edition ISBN: 9781785653094

  Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785653100

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2019

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 R.S. Ford. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  WAR OF THE ARCHONS

  HANGMAN’S GATE

  1

  THE grass was wet underfoot, blades slick between her toes. She held onto that feeling, thrilling at the sensation. It was strange that such a trivial thing was so important to her. Strange because she could not remember her own name, yet neither did she care. All that mattered was the feel of that grass between her toes.

  Looking across the bright, green field she tried to remember how she had come to this place, but there were no answers. No answers in the distant mountains or the endless dark blue sky that pressed down on her from above. No answers in the river running murky and brown to her left. No answers in the wooded grove and its lush tree line to the right.

  No answers.

  And none of this bothered her. Perhaps that was the strangest thing of all.

  Despite her verdant surroundings nothing flew in the air, nothing sang in the trees, and the only sound was the breeze rushing through the grass, the gentle swaying of the boughs, the incessant trickle of the river.

  It gave the place an eerie sense of wrongness she couldn’t shake. Like a dream that wasn’t a dream. This land had a lucidity that no dream could harbour. This was reality, not the invention of her fuddled head. And yet it could not be real. How else would she have no recollection of… anything?

  The ground squirmed beneath her feet. She wiggled her toes, the grass becoming slimy underfoot. Looking down she saw her hands, skin pulled paper-thin over finger bones, nails cracked and yellowing.

  Rot.

  She turned them over, looking at the cracked and calloused palms. Likewise the flesh of her wrists and forearms was weathered, like the cover of an ancient, battered tome. Within this fertile environment it seemed that she was the one out of place. A carcass among the ripe landscape.

  When she turned her hands back over there was a spider sitting on her knuckle. Its back was blue, yellow dapples on the carapace. Black legs splayed, clinging to her desiccated skin.

  She viewed it without emotion as it moved, clambering along her hand. Even when the sharp sting of teeth penetrated her old flesh she did not react, but watched curiously as it fed, as her white flesh turned yellow around the wound, veins darkening as venom coursed through them.

  A tickle on her toes. Movement across her foot. Ignoring the troublesome spider she looked down at her bare legs. The grass at her feet roiled, churning with life. Insects squirmed, the ground alive in a writhing mass. It moved up her shins towards her knees, and she began to feel a stirring of emotion. At once she appreciated that this was real. The beasts had come for their carrion, and it meant danger.

  She moved. First, a stuttering step. Then a stumble. Then a loping run as she bent to sweep the swarm from her legs. Her hand stung from the spider venom – the sensation flowering along with the dawning of emotions.

  The sky rumbled overhead as her stumble turned into full flight. Beneath her feet the wet grass gave way to a bed of carapaces, myriad insects stretching as far as the eye could see, her footfalls crushing their fragile shells. Around her the environment was in a frenzy, chittering creatures harrying her flight, tangled in her brittle locks, creeping across her limbs.

  Panic set in like an iron choker at her throat. Where before she had felt empty, now she was filled with fear. The need to escape. It was all that mattered.

  She ran on through the muck of skittering creatures, feeling them claw at her, desperate to pull her down and feast. Her panic heightened to the point of hysteria, every fibre of her being now focused on the instinct to escape.

  As though answering her unspoken plea, she saw a pulsating light ahead. Where a moment before there had been nothing but an open field, now stood a portal. Ancient blue stone framed a doorway, surface shimmering like a pool of quicksilver.

  She ran for it. Vision focused, trying to shut out the landscape of cloying, fluttering insects that surrounded her. When she was a few feet from the portal she leapt. The doorway drew her in, clutching her from the air and dragging her through…

  Silence.

  She was submerged in a cloud of grey. The deafening noise of insects now hushed. All feeling gone from her limbs. She was floating for the longest time in limbo – or was it no time at all? – before she was dumped unceremoniously at the other side.

  Silence was replaced by the din of battle.

  The sound of metal rang next to her ear, the hum of steel momentarily drowning out all other noise. It buzzed in her head as her rheumy eyes focused on the slaughter. An axe battered against a shield, its sigil long since hacked to splinters rendering it unrecognisable. She foundered, turning away from the violence only to be faced by two men in armour writhing in a muddy pit. One forced the other’s head down into the wet, his desperate breath coming in bubbling gasps. A horse raced past, headless rider bobbing along, arms limp by his s
ides.

  Slowly she stood, watching a body collapse a few feet away, innards hanging loose from bent and torn armour. She knew she should have run, escaped once more, but she was locked in a daze, the violence overwhelming her, paralysing her with…

  Was it fear? No. She knew she was not scared, despite the peril that churned all around her in a brutal dance.

  A lance pierced the breastplate of a charging swordsman, lifting him in the air. His scream was shrill as he was raised high, impaled on the impetus of his own charge, but still she did not feel compelled to flee.

  None of the berserk warriors seemed to pay her any heed as she began to walk among them. When one charged at her, bellowing from within his helm, she stopped and faced him. At the last moment he veered, a black iron blade catching him, stifling his cry. A mounted knight came galloping, barding and armour drenched in blood, but before his steed could trample her beneath slick hooves it leapt aside.

  She seemed impervious to the combat: untouchable as she trod ankle deep in the mud and gore. A white-haired hag passing unseen among the slaughter like some goddess of death.

  In the sky above her head, something screeched.

  Leathern wings beat as dark creatures swooped to attack, claws reaching eagerly for their prey. It was as though a host of gargoyles had torn themselves from the side of some temple and were now on the hunt. A fury of fangs and talons rent armour wide, exposing flesh and bone and blood. The beasts flew amok, wings still beating as they tore their quarry apart.

  Just as it seemed the winged demons might slaughter all in their path, there came a boom like thunder. The battlefield fell silent and the two armies paused in their slaughter.

  To one side of the battle the massed ranks parted, allowing a giant to step forth. Its tread shook the ground, throwing up muck and gore as it loomed out of the fray. Its head was bald, with knobbled skin reaching down to a heavy black brow. Its face was a mass of gnarled flesh and broken teeth atop a thickly muscled body. In one hand it grasped a club that resembled the trunk of a massive oak.

  With a laboured swipe, the giant beat aside half a dozen of the winged beasts. Another beast cast aside the armoured knight on which it was feasting and leapt at the giant, claws rending, jaws biting. The giant grasped the creature in one meaty hand. The crack of its bones was audible over the din as the giant bit down and tore off its head.

  In a flurry of leather the rest of the creatures took to the sky, fleeing in fear of their indomitable adversary.

  The two armies stood apart now, facing one another over a mass of bodies. The giant waited on one side, silence overtaking the field as though heralding something new. Something even more deadly.

  Unease crept up within her. A new feeling she had not yet experienced as an unseen menace struck fear into the two warring factions.

  Just as the silence became impenetrable, a gap appeared among the ranks facing the giant. A dark figure strode from their midst. He stood at least nine feet tall, obsidian armour writhing, as though flames danced beneath the reflective surface of every plate. In one hand he held a sword, its blade a shaft of blackened lava constantly flowing, steam billowing from it in dark gouts. Atop broad, armoured shoulders sat a tall helm, spikes rising to form a crown, their tips glowing with white heat.

  The armoured behemoth stood before the giant, which glared down at its foe, brows furrowing with momentary doubt. Then the giant roared, raising his club high to smite the burning king.

  It was a blow that would have crushed an entire phalanx, but the king simply raised his molten blade to meet the descending club. A percussive boom swept from the combatants, consuming the battlefield. When it subsided the giant was left holding nothing but the smouldering stump of its own arm.

  The hag watched in awe as the giant took a step back, its foot shaking the earth. It raised its head to cry out in anguish, but the burning king was already leaping, his sword of lava raised, smoke billowing in its wake. With a mighty slash of the sword, the burning king split the giant from shoulder to waist.

  As the two halves of the giant collapsed to the earth, splashing in the mud, the king looked on at his enemies. One by one, their will crumbled, each falling to their knees in the dirt, offering up their weapons in supplication.

  The burning king was motionless as his defeated enemies threw themselves on his mercy. He surveyed them with little pity, smouldering yellow eyes scanning the field for any sign of defiance.

  Until those eyes came to rest on her.

  She was the only one left standing amidst an army of kneeling supplicants. Though she had thought herself invisible it was clear the burning king could see past the glamour that had kept her impervious to the battle. Under his gaze, she realised that those burning eyes did not glow from within a black obsidian helmet… they were part of it. The burning king wore no crown, it was his own dark skull that reached, clawlike, towards the dark skies.

  Fear gripped her heart in its ice-cold fist, and she took a step backwards. Slowly the burning king raised his arm, pointing an accusing finger at her. As one, every fighter in both armies turned their head to look at her.

  Whatever bravery had kept her here fled in an instant. She took a stumbling step back, turning and taking flight. Mercifully, no one raised a hand to stop her as she raced from the battlefield, through the mud and blood until it transformed to soft grass once more. Until the pall of mist through which she raced lifted, and she was once more under blue skies.

  She carried on running but her breath never shortened, her legs did not tire, and no matter how far she fled those icy fingers still gripped her chest like a vice.

  Though she had no clue who she was or from where she had come, she knew one thing…

  She knew fear.

  2

  The Ramadi Wastes, 105 years after the Fall

  ALL he wanted was to leave the stink of this desert behind. Just keep going, don’t look back, one foot in front of the other. Even that was getting more difficult. He needed water and fast, but that wasn’t all.

  Josten had wanted redemption. He’d worked out a long time ago that redemption was the reason he’d come all the way to this hell. It hadn’t worked out that way though. He’d managed to fuck that up as well, but then his whole life was one long list of fuck-ups. After everything he’d done, now would be a bad time to start with the regrets, but regrets were all he had left.

  Letting Randal live, that was pretty high on the list. He should have cut that bastard into pieces when he had the chance. Hadn’t though, had he? Randal was alive, walking the desert somewhere, and Mullen was dead. That was no justice, but letting Randal live had seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

  Worst of all was knowing he’d failed Livia. That innocent girl he had followed halfway across the world. Now she was gone too.

  Josten had made a vow to her. His word had never been worth much, but this time he had meant to keep it. Now it was worth nothing more than piss in the desert.

  Whatever that woman was back there, that wicked thing that had set him free, it wasn’t Livia Harrow.

  As he walked, he kept the coast on his right-hand side all the while. As long as he followed the sea he knew he was heading south. He’d looked out over the barren expanse of water more than once, thought about walking down to where the waves lapped up against the beach. It would have been so easy to let the sea take him, to swim out as far as he could until his strength gave out.

  The long walk south turned from stride to step to stumble, until eventually he was barely on his feet. It seemed like he’d walked miles but there was no way of knowing the truth of it, he could have travelled less than one for all he knew.

  When eventually he saw some kind of shanty port up ahead of him he tried to laugh, but his throat was so dry it just came out like a strangled cough.

  The closer he got the worse the place looked, and the more it seemed exactly the kind of place he deserved. He could see rickety roofs, a few mangy animals and a few mangier people
lurking in the streets. At the makeshift jetty there was a ship moored. That was something at least. For the first time since he started this journey he thought that maybe he was going to make it out of this alive after all.

  As he walked into town, Josten started to realise what a state he looked. Everyone was giving him the side-eye and in response he tried to look as confident as possible. Avoiding trouble was as much about looking the part as being the part. No one would fuck with him if they thought he was trouble, but there was a nagging voice in the back of his head telling him he looked like an escaped slave. The western coast was rife with pirates preying on easy meat. If he wasn’t careful he’d end up in chains all over again.

  As he reached the makeshift harbour there was the usual bustle. Men were loading the ship with supplies, possibly ore from the mines of the Ramadi. It was how those death cults made their wealth when they weren’t dealing in war. Slaves were traded for iron, copper and nickel, and the last thing Josten needed was to be trafficked for a few hunks of raw metal.

  Three mariners were talking to a merchant, most likely finalising their deal. Josten focused on them, trying to read what kind of men they were, but what did he need to know? They were pirates and slavers. They would kill a man soon as look at him, and sell their own mothers if it made a few coppers.

  When the deal was done the trader left the men to their conversation, and Josten picked his moment to approach. Despite his fatigue he tried to make a decent show of looking confident.

  ‘I need passage down the coast,’ he said as he reached them, trying to sound gruff enough to fit in with a bunch of cutthroats. ‘I have no money for a berth, but I guarantee once we reach Canbria you’ll be handsomely rewarded.’

  The three men looked him up and down, appraising the ragged figure before them. Then they burst out laughing.

  ‘Handsomely rewarded?’ said one of them, the tattoo of an eagle’s claw marking one side of his scarred face. ‘And we’re supposed to believe you’re some rich Suderfeld lord I suppose?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Josten replied, realising he’d probably made a mistake and any moment he was going to end up in irons.