Hello ladies and gentlemen! Inspired by the success of @ericvancewalton and his fantastic Alarm Clock Dawn (seriously, go check it out if you haven't, it's amazing) I bring you my own novel, a labor of love that's been in the making for over a decade. Without further ado, let me introduce you to the first chapter of Silvanus and Empire, my previously-unpublished fantasy novel (no, LiveJournal doesn't count).

Please enjoy!

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Silvanus and Empire

Chapter One

image from YouWall

Caddoc picked his way up the narrowing slope, leading Malcolm behind him by his bridle. "Come on, you blighted gangrel beast, we're almost there." Then maybe you'll die and leave me in peace, he thought. As if in response, the mule rolled his eyes and whuffed wetly at the young man, which sent a cloud of foul breath washing over him. Although the Cliffway was mostly laid stone, the spring rains had come early and the fifteen league trek along the road had been long and tedious. Both he and Malcolm were as sick of the journey as they were of each other.

"Think of it as an adventure," his superior had told him before sending Caddoc on his way. "A grand adventure in the same skein of those old yarns I know you've got stuffed in your pack instead of the sermons of His Exalted Holiness."

Caddoc grumbled under his breath, struggling against a patch of muck. "His Exalted Holiness, my foot," he said, pulling his right boot free from the muddy roadside. It came up with a wet obscene sound. Malcolm brayed as if pleased by it.

The road was called the Cliffway for a reason: over the past several leagues the road had been steadily climbing as it snaked its way east. To Caddoc's left, the river had begun to carve a deep ravine. While on the northern shore of the river the land was flat and green for leagues before ending at the sparkling sea, this particular road was on the south bank, with had nothing but rocky scrub and wind burnt weeds this time of year. And plenty of mud, of course.

Caddoc gazed up the straight path to the cliff's highest point. The river cascaded down a sheer drop after passing through a pair of mountain spurs that sat like bookends in the frothing waterfall. Slick with spray and moss, both were worn smooth from countless years of water running over them. The spur on the south bank jutted out across the road and ascended sharply to join a jagged row of mountain peaks; the original builders of the Cliffway had tunneled a massive passageway through the spur, bracing it with wrought-iron and setting a gate at either end of the thirty-pace-long tunnel. In the following years a guard tower and battlements had been added, and His Exalted Holiness' Eastern Waygate -- known as the Lemon Squeeze to the bored soldiers garrisoned there -- stood guard over the only route in and out of the wild mountain valley east of the falls.

Caddoc knew all this. He could tell anyone who was interested in the tale how a single company of His Exalted Guards had held against one of the longest and most brutal sieges in the Holy Empire's history nearly five score years ago, and how they held the pass against the Silvani, the wildmen of the valley. He could recount the valor of Guard Captain Gwynnird as he held the East Gate against the invaders, succumbing to his wounds only after the last of his enemies had surrendered or fallen under his blade; only then had Gwynnird himself fallen to join the ranks of the Martyred-in-Service. It was all to be found in His Holiness' Tome of Pious Deeds, for those with interest enough to read it.

But nobody was interested any more. Nobody read the old lays, and the East Gate had finally fallen - not to human enemies, but to the ravages of time. The gate lay by the side of the road, rusted and twisted like a skeletal claw and pitted with age and neglect.

Malcolm brayed again as they passed beneath the shadow of the ruined gate. The grating sound of the mule's voice echoed along the tunnel as Caddoc led the beast out and into the afternoon sunlight. The river roared away on his left.

More than a bowshot away a dark forest stood on the far bank. Another league north and Caddoc knew the forest ended abruptly in the sea cliff that made traveling west any way but through the Lemon Squeeze impossible. On his side of the river lay the most fertile country within the Empire. It stretched south a handful of leagues before giving way a jagged, snowcapped mountain range that ended at the Lemon Squeeze. Between the northern sea cliff, the waterfall, and the mountains, the only route into and out of the area was through the narrow little bottleneck of the Cliffway. Every harvest season the road was choked with farmers bringing their surplus down to the lowlands.

Caddoc sighed. Just for a moment he longed to cross the river and smell the sea again. There were no bridges across this river however, and the current was too strong to risk swimming even for someone who grew up fighting the mighty undertow of the sea as a child. Besides, Caddoc guessed that the river was fed by snowmelt and mountain streams, and was as cold as the Infinite Hells this time of year.

Oh, aye, I'm a great one for questions and guesses, he thought bitterly. It was his inquisitiveness, he suspected, which had gotten him assigned to this blighted valley. Question the Prelates one too many times about His Exalted Holiness, and off you go with your "dangerous" ideas to cool your heels in the river for a baker's dozen of seasons until you've learnt the virtue of blind obedience.

His superior, of course, saw it in a completely different light. "This is an excellent opportunity," he had told him, seated behind his massive teakwood desk. The little balding man pulled an ancient pair of spectacles from his florid face and polished them absently on his sleeve. "You're always poring over the old historical records in your free time. The Annex is overflowing with ancient documents just waiting to be catalogued and re-scribed."

"Ancient taxation documents," Caddoc had responded. "Moldy records of how many bushels some long dead farmer gave to His Holiness, and how many he kept, and how much in taxes he paid on the ones he sold. I'm a scribe, Master, not His Holiness' Imperial Tax Accountant."

"You are an apprentice scribe, and a third junior apprentice at that, Caddoc." His superior’s brow furrowed. "This is not a request; this is His Holiness' will. You have been assigned to relieve the current Annex scribe until such time that you will be relieved in turn." His expression softened. "Don't make this any harder than this has to be, my boy. It was either this or an investigation for heresy. You've too much potential to languish in apostate's prison for simply asking questions the priests dislike answering. I’ll do my best to get you back in the city before you know it, Caddoc. Just a season or two until everything blows over. Trust me."

So now Caddoc was slogging through waterlogged land for leagues upon leagues, dragging the oldest, most irascible, smelliest mule in the Holy Empire just for asking how the Exalted Purest of Theurgists, His Holiness the Emperor Jhosin I, could still be alive one hundred fifty years after he had answered the gods' summons and founded the One True Way.

"That'll teach me to open my mouth during sermons," he grumbled. He paused to stretch, knuckling the small of his back, and then fished inside his dust cloak for a moment before pulling out a flat silver disc held in place by a chain around his neck. The face was was embossed with the stylized image of a serpent eating its own tail. He held it for a moment. “Well, Father, this is another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into,” he said. He then stuffed the emblem back inside his cloak and looked down the road. It curved lazily over a small hill, and in the distance he could see the smoke of a hearth fire curling up into the deep blue sky. "Come on, you miserable wretch, we're almost there." He tugged Malcolm's reins and continued on.

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Like what you've read? Hungry for more? Well you'll have to wait. But don't worry - Chapter Two is on its way.

Until next time, follow me for more fiction!