The Lost Saint Extract

Read an extract from The Lost Saint by Rachael Craw.

Leon wiped blood and sweat from his eyes, panting and half dazed in the aftermath of battle. They had prevailed, only just, but the casualties dismayed him. He held his flaming torch aloft, searching for injured Eadin Palace soldiers they might have missed.

He shook his head, surveying the carnage. Oleg the Butcher. Not random trespassers trying their luck on the borders of Eadin Forest. But Oleg himself, leading a full company of blooded warriors. One hundred? Two hundred?

In the chaos, it had seemed an innumerable host.

The notorious Northern lord was a figure from nightmares. Leon had not dreamed of ever facing him in the field. Neither did he get the chance tonight. The Butcher, with his shaved head and distinct tattoos, had been deep in the heart of the fray, causing the most damage. The way he’d swung that obsidian axe, letting the blood of Leon’s men. Leon had fought to reach him but his way had been blocked.

He balled his fist to hide the trembling in his free hand. It was simply the ebb of battle rage being displaced quickly by a different sort of rage.

Truman Schreiber had delivered the order late last night, knowing it would irritate Leon to receive instructions from the craven prick. An obscure order based on an obscure prediction from the Council of Eadin.

Had he not despised Schreiber, would he have prepared more diligently? If he had put stock in the prediction, might he have driven his men to ride faster? Taken more care with his scouts? Anticipated the Northmen’s resistance?

Leon and Micah, his fellow lieutenant, sought confirmation from Captain Wulfryn, then rallied the men without question or complaint. Dutiful, yes. Wary, always — especially this close to the border. But the nature and timing of the prediction and the delivery by Schreiber . . . Leon was ashamed to admit, he had dismissed it as little more than Eldi-induced hysteria.

In the days since the red comet appeared in the sky, there had been a slew of wild prophecies, and matters had only escalated as the solstice drew nearer. Mystics falling into trances, clerics claiming to see visions, ecstatics emerging from the Sacred Grove, delirious from fasting, delivering riddles in the tongues of angels. Eadin Palace attracted an eccentric sort. Leon was hard-pressed to hold every revelation in earnest.

It wasn’t that he lacked faith. There were several members of the council he held in high esteem, but Leon was a practical man, his duties were physical concerns, not wrestling with the mysteries of heaven.

Yet here they had found Northern wild men camped in the very spot the council had predicted. Beware the trespassers lying in wait for pilgrims to emerge from the sacred caves. Pilgrims marked for heathen desecration. That was the prediction, according to Schreiber.

‘Lieutenant!’ Oakin came panting up the rise, a young soldier with hair like dandelion floss and a raw wound on his forehead. The blood stood stark against his pale skin, dribbling all the way to his chin, staining his teeth a violent red.

Leon raised his eyebrows and clamped his gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘You’re alive.’

The boy ducked his head. ‘I made a point of staying so.’

‘There’s a lad.’

‘Micah wants you by the caves, sir.’ The boy darted a harried look over his shoulder. ‘There’s some mischief among the pilgrims’ bodies.’

Leon patted the boy and nodded. ‘Help the medics and send messengers to Ulmenholz and Reinwald. We’ll need wagons for the wounded. Tell them what . . . this was. Burn the dead Northerners.’

Oakin grimaced. ‘Aye, sir.’

In the clearing before the cave, Leon spotted a cluster of his men surveying the pilgrims under torchlight. When they had approached the encampment, the battle had been so fierce Leon had barely registered the people stumbling from the caves.

He eyed the moss-covered rocks with wariness. This place was sacred. They should not be there with blood on their swords.

Micah seemed to agree. The tall lieutenant stared at the blocked cave entrance, his warm brown skin looking slightly pallid. When Leon joined him, the other soldiers rose from where they had been crouching, examining three bodies. Two young women and one boy killed by arrows. Bundles lay in the dirt beside them, their strange contents half spilled. Other peculiar objects lay scattered in the grass.

The bodies were mostly naked. The young women’s female parts were barely concealed by small triangles of brightly coloured fabric, laced together with string of the same hue. The boy was covered from waist to knee in breeches made from a patterned fabric that shimmered like silk. The patterns were like nothing he’d ever seen before, depictions of muscular men bedecked in red, blue and white, poised for battle, one with bared teeth and green skin.

Yet the boy himself did not possess the bearing of a soldier. Nor did he look like a farmer’s lad; his hands were smooth and unmarked. His teeth were white. The girls, too, had no calluses on their fingers, their nails rendered with tiny, shimmering works of art. Could they be nobles?

‘They do not look like pilgrims,’ Leon said.

Micah nodded, raising his eyebrows. ‘Pilgrims are generally robed.’

‘I thought there were more.’ Leon scanned the faces of the men. Their expressions ranged from bemusement to fear.

‘Several escaped,’ Micah said, his voice a deep bass, gesturing down the slope at the trees. ‘Some were taken by Oleg’s men, back towards the Namen.’

Leon studied Micah’s face. He was an exceptional soldier, scout, strategist. When Micah worried, Leon worried too.

‘What can explain this?’ Micah posed the question in his usual steady style, casting his gaze around the assembled group. Not an arrogant demand but an invitation to collaborate. He crouched and gently turned the middle girl’s face. She had black hair pulled into a glittering band, the upturned eyes and light brown skin of a people from lands far south and east.

‘Perhaps they were slaves?’ Edwin suggested, raking dirt-caked fingers through his long hair. His usually ruddy cheeks were pale as milk. He was feeling the deep strangeness of the place and the problem at their feet. Born in Modeh, a village south of Eadin, Edwin had gone through training with Leon and Micah when they were lads. He was a sensible young man, uneasy with marvels or what he’d term ‘devil’s nonsense’.

Micah crossed his arms, biceps smeared in someone else’s blood, and responded without scorn, ‘Well fed, clean, with white teeth and smooth, unmarked skin?’

‘Pleasure slaves?’ Edwin said, frowning.

‘Oleg the Butcher takes the left eye of all his slaves,’ Micah said. ‘Even if he had favoured these ones and shown uncharacteristic mercy to leave them unmarred, would he bring his slaves across the border simply to bathe with them in the sacred pools of Eadin?’

‘The Butcher fears our sacred sites,’ Leon said, his focus turned inwards as he grappled for meaning in the puzzle of it all.

‘Perhaps it was an act of desecration,’ Tabor said, an Ottoman with huge round shoulders. ‘Oleg has desecrated temples. Held orgies in gutted churches and razed druid groves to ash. That was the nature of the prediction, yes? Pilgrims marked for desecration?’

Before they could consider further, a snarling cry rose behind them. They turned to see Oakin, standing over a captive tied to the trunk of a tree, waving for them. A clanswoman, raging in the Northern tongue.

Leon knew some of the language but he lacked Tabor’s fluency. He looked to the man but did not have to ask; the Ottoman fell into step beside him.

They reached the tree, and Leon dismissed the worried-looking Oakin to his duties. The woman sat with her legs splayed, and wore animal-skin breeches and a vest. Her neck was tattooed and one side of her head was shaved to the skin. Blonde braids hung from the other, knitted with small bones and yellow thread. She snarled and launched into a fresh diatribe.

Tabor’s brow furrowed as he listened. ‘She says, we are rutting fools . . . interfering in matters that do not concern us.’

‘If it happens on our land, it concerns us,’ Leon muttered.

‘They were ours,’ Tabor translated. ‘A gift from . . . the Kjálka?’

‘Kjálka?’ Leon wondered aloud. ‘Teeth?’

‘Mouth?’ Tabor scratched his beard. ‘Maybe jaw?’

‘Speak plain, witch.’ Leon crouched beside her, keeping beyond kicking distance. She bared her teeth, releasing a stream of boiling hate.

‘The Kjálka is hungry,’ Tabor said. ‘She sent us to harvest an offering for her . . . plate, I think. Seven. She’s saying the number seven. Seven to . . . placate or appease. Seven to . . . mend. Seven to sow. Seven to . . . tear, rend?’

Seven? Leon glanced back at the fallen by the cave entrance. There were three dead. How many had been taken? And some had escaped.

‘Now you have interfered,’ Tabor translated, ‘Oleg will not rest. He will find them. His scouts will not stop until they are found. He will . . . scour this land . . . no mercy for those who stand in his way.’

She bared her teeth with a final declaration. Tabor stepped back and crossed his thick arms. ‘The Kjálka is hungry.’

‘God save us,’ Leon muttered, crossing himself. ‘Oleg wants this lot to feed a hungry mouth?’

Micah approached; he’d heard most of it. ‘I’ll form a search party.’

Leon rose and gripped his friend’s forearm. ‘Let me. This is my fault.’

Micah frowned. ‘I received the council’s order, just as you did.’

Leon lowered his voice, ashamed for Tabor to hear his confession. ‘I let Schreiber taint my judgement.’

‘None of us were expecting the Northern Butcher.’ Micah rested a hand on Leon’s shoulder. ‘We’ll take a dozen men. They will not have gotten far.’

Extracted from The Lost Saint by Rachael Craw.

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The Lost Saint

by Rachael Craw

An action-packed time travel romance, perfect for young fans of Outlander and historical romantasy like Powerless.

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