Fallowblade by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

apartments, and tracery decoration in gold.
    King Warwick was holding a war council with his sons and several officers in one of the chambers of the royal pavilion, when they were interrupted by a commotion at the entrance. Vexed at the interruption, Crown Prince William strode to the portal and pushed aside the curtain of purple silk, saying sternly, ‘Who disturbs the king’s council?’
    On the grass outside the pavilion half-a-dozen pikemen saluted and stood to attention when they beheld the king’s son. In front of them a dirty, dishevelled horseman in the livery of Narngalis doffed his helm and threw himself to his knees at the prince’s feet. ‘Your Royal Highness,’ he said, ‘pray forgive me. I bear tidings of the gravest importance.’
    The brow of the prince darkened. ‘Enter and speak.’
    The rider took a few paces forward, onto the patterned carpet. At his back the silk curtain swished shut. After saluting his sovereign and the council members the newcomer declared, ‘Two messengers from the far north have come riding in haste. They arrived in King’s Winterbourne this very morning, bringing urgent news.’
    King Warwick was seated at a trestle table covered with maps, ink pots and quills. Above his head a bronze hoop-chandelier hung from the ridgepole, unlit. ‘From the far north, you say?’ he demanded, his eyebrows bristling and all his attention fixed on the man.
    ‘From the watch stationed at Silverton, my liege, and the other hamlets around the Harrowgate Fells. The sentries, the villagers—all are fleeing from the district, calling for the weathermasters. They are being pursued, pursued by . . .’ The messenger stammered, hesitated, took a deep breath and blurted, ‘Great numbers of eldritch beings are issuing from the Northern Ramparts, and it is reported they are mounted on nightmarish steeds. No one knows what species of wight they are, though it is certain they are of the same unseelie kind that has been haunting that region these past weeks. By night they travel, under starlight and moonlight, but it is said that on cloudy days when the sun’s light is weak they conjure eerie fogs to obscure it even further. In darkness, or surrounded by these mists they move swiftly. They are deadly. They mow down all who encounter them.’
    Warwick’s officers had been standing silently around the table. They stirred, muttering exclamations of astonishment. ‘What are these creatures that kill with such gruesome expertise?’ one of them wondered again. ‘It was bad enough when there were but a few of them striking down folk who travelled by night. Now they seem to have multiplied and found mounts for themselves! This threat could not have arisen at a more inopportune hour.’
    ‘Describe them!’ the king demanded of the messenger. ‘And tell us how many!’
    ‘None can tell what they look like, sire, nor estimate their numbers. It is impossible to discern them in the shadows and fog, and those who get close enough to do so never live long enough to pass on the knowledge. If people try to escape, they are ridden down. It is conjectured that these riders are mountain wights, the dreadful gwyllion, pouring out of the ranges in unprecedented numbers, as if they have been mustering in secret amidst the heights.’
    The officers interrogated the courier further. When they were content that he had told them all he could, he was dismissed, and the pavilion’s occupants subsided into silence, awaiting the king’s pronouncement.
    Sombre of countenance, Warwick said, ‘This news is surprising and most disturbing.’ He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. ‘If what this messenger says is true, and not an exaggeration born of panic, it would appear that we are now interposed between two active assailants. A calamitous coincidence indeed.’
    ‘The gwyllion are murderous,’ said Lord Hallingbury, ‘but they can be defeated.’
    Prince William said, ‘If they advance only by night or by dim