The Dark Lord's Handbook Read online

  His dragon seed was a powerful thing, and when planted could be hard to bear. Most mortal women died in a shuddering, pain-filled, ecstatic, thrashing bundle, but not Jesobel. She had brushed her skirt down and pinched his cheek. He was more used to being begged for death by the recipient of his recent attentions, the pain and ecstasy too much to live through.

  “Are you feeling well?” he had asked.

  She had looked at him, a hint of a smile on her cherry lips. “Much better for a good seeing to, my lover.”

  “No pains? Headaches? Spasms?”

  Her brow had wrinkled. “No? I don’t mean to be rude, but although I’ve no complaints, I’ve had better.”

  After that, he hadn’t been able to perform for six months. Not that his wife had noticed. Dragons only mated among themselves every twenty years or so. It had taken a scullery maid to die in legs akimbo bliss for him to regain his confidence.

  That any fruit had been born of this tryst with the barmaid was a further surprise and also problematic. It wasn’t as though he could tell the wife he was expecting an heir. He wasn’t that sure how the child would turn out. What he was certain about was that he had better be there for the birth, if for no better reason than he was insatiably curious. Moreover, if a dragonling of his was going to take its first breath, and doubtless fry the mid-wife, he wanted to be there to see it.

  Then there was the small matter of the Naming.

  He had only just made it in time. Standing outside the door, Jesobel’s panting and screams were all too clear. The birth would be soon. He hadn’t brought flowers and a faint flicker of remorse played across his black heart, but there was no surviving a dragon birth so there seemed little point. The one concession he did make was to alter his appearance; he didn’t want to frighten the poor girl.

  He pushed the door open and recoiled. The smell was like being mugged by an outhouse. He stepped in and was met by a ghastly tableau. The room was hot, cramped and filthy. Bedding was strewn around with fleas so big he could see them hopping in the tallow light. Two ugly young girls held a woman’s legs high and apart, a skirt between them. A hag was kneeling in the gap, rummaging between the legs.

  “Nearly there my lovely,” crooned the hag. “I can see his head now.”

  Everyone was too busy with what was going on in Jesobel’s nether regions to take notice of him.

  “Shut the door behind you, Harold,” said the crone without turning round.

  Deathwing took a step into the room and closed the door behind him. Let her think what she would. He peered over the hag’s shoulder to catch a first glimpse of his son. He expected the hag to recoil in shock and fright as his son’s lizard head made its appearance but it was he who was repulsed. Rather than black scales he could see a patch of black human hair.

  In a surprisingly short time, the baby popped out in a mess. The way the hag managed the process that followed with a dexterous hoist, slap, snip, knot, swaddle combination was impressive. She had obviously done this before.

  Jesobel had in the meantime been returned to a more dignified position and was craning over to catch a glimpse of her newborn when she caught sight of him at the door. He managed a weak smile. He was still in shock. Was this child his after all?

  “Oh my! It’s you!” she exclaimed.

  This got him the attention of the hag and her two helpers.

  “Who are you and what you doing here?” demanded the hag.

  The child had been wrapped and was being passed up to Jesobel. Deathwing had heard enough human runts around his palace to know they were forever crying, but not this one. Jesobel instinctively pulled away her dress top to reveal a full bosom. He stepped closer.

  The baby’s eyes were tightly closed and its mouth worked hard in search of the teat that was proud and waiting. Jesobel took the child and lifted it to her breast where its thirsty lips started to suckle.

  The hag and her women were taken by the sight and ignored him, once more to assume a fawning ensemble. They muttered all manner of nonsense.

  “Oh, how sweet.”

  “A good head of hair and no mistake.”

  “He’s a big one, isn’t he?”

  “Like his father.”

  As the baby took its first urgent sucks there was a collective sigh, though Deathwing’s was more of annoyance that he had come all this way to see a human baby born.

  Then the baby’s eyelids shot open and it let go of the teat and screeched. Jesobel screamed.

  Curdled milk oozed from Jesobel’s teat and ran from the baby’s mouth. The hag and her helpers joined the mother’s hysteria, which amplified when they caught sight of the baby’s eyes; they were black pits in the baby’s skull. Jesobel fainted clean away when her son flicked out a forked tongue.

  Disappointment fled Deathwing faster than a peasant caught stealing.

  He had a son!

  Deathwing reached down and picked up the child. He held him close and whispered in his ear so that no one but his son could hear, and gave him his True Name.

  He then held up his son to take a better look. Malevolent dark eyes stared back, a keen intelligence in them that even Deathwing found disturbing. There was no question from whose loins this lad had sprung.

  Satisfied, he returned the baby to his mother’s arms. The hag and her helpers were frozen, eyes wide in fear, staring at him.

  “Help her,” he commanded. “Feed the child warm blood until he can take solids, and then only meat. Look after him well or face my wrath.”

  The women didn’t move. They were clearly terrified.

  “Get to it!”

  There was a flurry of activity and Jesobel was brought round. For a moment, she seemed unaware of where she was and what had happened but then she saw the baby and screamed.

  “Enough!” ordered Deathwing. He knelt at her side and spoke to her. “This is your child. He will be like no other. You must look after him.”

  She stared at him, uncomprehending. “You can’t leave me. What am I to do?”

  Deathwing reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a purse. He wrapped her hand over it. “This will help. He will have…special needs.”

  He kissed her forehead and placed a spell of forgetfulness on her and stood. She would not remember what had happened and see nothing but a normal baby boy. From another pocket he took a chain with a small dragon pendant and put it around his son’s neck.

  “He wears that always,” he told Jesobel. It would not only protect his son but make him seem more human. “Now I must go.”

  “But what shall we call him?”

  Deathwing stopped at the door and turned to take a last look at Jesobel and his son. He had given his son his True Name but that was never to be spoken. He needed a human name.

  “His name is Morden.”

  Chapter 4 A Dark Lord

  Your Will is your strength.

  The Dark Lord’s Handbook

  Morden sat on his throne and surveyed his realm. All that he could see was his and it was good – in the sense that it was his. In reality, it was a long forgotten store room that he had come across while exploring the school. Little used, it had been ideal for a lair from which to direct his empire. He had it in mind that these days something bigger would be more in keeping for someone whose interests extended beyond the school and spread across a larger part of the Western Reaches. Not much was brewed in these lands without him having a share of the profits. A storeroom, not much bigger than a cupboard, tucked away off an outer yard of the school was not ideal for a criminal genius such as himself, but it was where he had started and it had a special place in his heart.

  There were times such as this, when he sat and brooded on his throne, that it didn’t seem that long ago that he had been sent to this school. He had known from an early age that he was not like other children in the village. He wasn’t weak like the others and he had a way about him. Nobody liked an eight year old who instilled despair and fear. He was an oddity and reviled by the rest of the v
illage. Takings at the inn had plummeted and his parents had little choice but to send him away. He bore them no ill will for doing what was necessary. His abandonment was understandable; he would have done the same if his business was suffering.

  Kristoff had been given the task of delivering him to town, being well travelled and worldly wise. The pouch of money that Jesobel had been given at his birth contained more than enough for the fees, with a little over for a new jerkin for Harold and frock for Jesobel. Morden had been waved off; his parents looked dapper in their new clothes and the gathered villagers were in good spirits as he left. Crows flew overhead and cawed as the cart made its way down the rutted road.

  When Kristoff had asked him if he was going to miss his parents it took him by surprise. Was he supposed to miss his parents? It was a notion that had not occurred to him. He remembered frowning as he thought about it. Kristoff had misread him and had said it was all right to cry. Instead Morden had laughed and said he was grateful for the opportunity he was being given. Kristoff had kept quiet for much of the rest of the journey to Bindelburg.

  First word from the school was that, although precocious for his age, Morden had settled in well and had established himself among his peers, who seemed to respect him greatly.

  And he had indeed settled well. When Morden had dictated the letter home to Master Jeffrey he had wanted his parents to have no cause to call him home. He was more than satisfied with life at the Bindelburg School for Young Masters and Prospective Brewers. The Monks of the Order of Divine Brewing had proven more than pliable. And the beer wasn’t bad.

  Ten years later, here he was, sitting on his throne, surveying his realm and pondering. Though over the years he had acquired much – power, influence, and a stack of brewing yeast that was mysteriously in short supply throughout the region – he wanted more. Trappings came to mind. What was he if he was short on trappings? To this end he had already commissioned and taken delivery of his throne but was that enough? He didn’t think so.

  Not that he wasn’t more than pleased with his throne. It was an icon of his power and had taken a good deal of making. He had been lucky to find an able carpenter in Pilfew; there wasn’t much Pilfew couldn’t do with a wood chisel and dove-tail joint. The boy had been reluctant to offer his services, but once Morden had discovered Pilfew’s taste for torturing small animals it was only a matter of convincing the school cat to catch him mice. The rodents had bought his throne. He especially liked the hand rests carved as skulls. They gave the throne a certain style.

  He remembered the first time he had sat on his throne and brooded. Brooded deeply. It was all well and good having a throne but there was something missing. It was a feeling he had always had. When he had left the village for Bindelburg, and waved goodbye to his parents, it was not with sadness but with hope that perhaps this hollow in his being may be filled.

  Over time he had become adept at brooding. No one in school could brood like he could. He took it to levels where a single brooding stare could turn away even a schoolmaster. It was all in the eyebrows. But a truly great brood had to be done sat on his throne, hands clasped over the skulls, staring into a space beyond…well, just beyond.

  His rise to power had come when he had been set upon for the first time by Billard and his cronies. Billard was big, stupid and had fists that were calloused from the beatings they had given. Morden had been on his way to class when he had rounded a corner to see Billard coming the other way, Mjecki and Klonker in tow (twins from Krisling on a cultural exchange).

  The corridor was narrow and offered no opportunity to pass safely. Morden had snapped into a brood but it was as though Billard was too stupid to understand.

  “Look who we have here,” said Billard, planting his feet so that his enormous bulk blocked Morden’s way. “If it isn’t crow boy.”

  Morden hated that nickname. Though no one dared to use it now, when he had first come to the Bindelburg School for Young Masters and Prospective Brewers, it was one he had been labelled with almost immediately. His sharp features and straight jet black hair may have been reason enough for the name, but the truth was that it was the crows that followed him everywhere that were the real reason. He had grown accustomed to the crows; they had been there as long as he could remember. Wherever he went there was always at least one crow in attendance, sitting on a fence pecking at a snail, or flying above his head, like a dark angel watching over him. In the country it had taken a while for anyone to notice as there were always birds around, and even then they had paid no attention to it. It was common for certain animals to take a shine to a person. Milly the cow maid attracted mallards and Old Bill Plenty always had a badger not far off. Morden’s escort of crows was not remarkable.

  When Billard had stopped him, somewhere outside a crow had cawed.

  Then the fists had started to fly. Morden had shielded his head as best he could and took the beating. He had clutched at the medallion around his neck instinctively, as he tended to do in times of stress, the miniature dragon quite distinct in its feel, and calm had settled over him. Curiously, the beating hadn’t hurt much at all and the lack of pain allowed him to take in exactly what was happening. Later he would sit in his lair and brood upon it and this time dark fruit would come from the brooding. Previously he had brooded in an undirected fashion but in this instance he had a serious subject to brood upon: the idea of doing violence on a fellow.

  It was a matter of will.

  Billard inflicted pain to no end other than to make his peers fear and dislike him. He had no will to inflict real pain. He was a child playing at cruelty; he had no idea what real pain was or what it may achieve.

  Morden had gone to Billard in the dead of night. He had taken Billard’s finger and bent it over until he could feel it snap at the knuckle. Morden’s free hand had stifled the screams and he had whispered what he would do the next time if Billard ever gave him cause.

  The next day he had sought Billard out. The bully had held his hand and flinched when Morden stopped to speak.

  “Follow me,” Morden ordered, and Billard, Mjecki and Kronker did so.

  He had taken them to his room, and sat them on the floor and brooded at them for a while. Then he had done something new. He had bent them to His Will and made them His.

  He had realised that all Billard wanted was to have attention, feel important, and inflict pain. Mjecki and Kronker were far from home and lived in Billard’s shadow to be safe. Morden could offer each of them what they wanted and in return have their unswerving loyalty.

  Until then, Billard had been a hazard to be navigated in school life. With Morden’s guidance he became a brief and violent reign of terror. Cuffs around the ear were a forgotten luxury next to bloodied noses, dead legs and vicious nipple twists.

  The weak were cowed and the strong found their footwear would mysteriously go missing or their clothes go pink in the wash. Everyone got the message that Morden was in charge, and the faster they recognised the fact the sooner life would get better for all.

  And with compliance came reward. He could get things most found nigh impossible. A chocolate for a sweet tooth? No problem. A kiss and fondle with Mercy the scullery girl? A suitable fee and she was yours.

  Ten years on, life was indeed good but the hollow in his being was still there; a hunger, a void that demanded satisfaction.

  “I’m going into town,” he announced and stood.

  Kronker fetched him his coat, an ankle length black wool affair with a hood that allowed him to pass unrecognised in town; at least as unrecognised as a six foot black cloaked figure could be. Morden had grown quickly, and if he could bulk out he would be happier, but he was still a commanding figure.

  Slipping out of the school – unnecessary as the monks wouldn’t hinder him for a second but he enjoyed the slipping part – Morden navigated the quagmire in the alleys with a deft step and headed towards the centre of town.

  It was autumn – Morden’s favourite time of year as it heralded t
he bringing of death by winter while not being too chilly. Today, however, there was the first hint of the coming winter frosts and Morden plunged his hands into his sleeves for warmth.

  The centre of town was impressively built. The town’s wealth was evident in the two and three story stone buildings, and the flourishes in their masonry – a rose here, a gargoyle there. Each addition of detail would have cost that bit more. Morden had developed an eye for costs. Nothing was free. This town had money to burn and Morden could smell it. Bindelburg’s wealth came from its position. Situated on the river Clud, and at a crossroads, it was the trade hub of the region. Lord Wallee was ruler in name but it was the merchant houses that held the power.

  Morden pondered this as he crossed the town square. There was no market today, and the chill kept many indoors, so the square was empty. Morden decided he needed to warm himself and headed for the Swan Inn – or Slap and Tickle as it was often called, for reasons that had begun to interest him.

  A lone beggar thrust a rusty can at Morden as he passed under the statue of King Ribald IV, which dominated the centre of the square.

  “Spare a penny for a poor orc,” coughed a voice from under a mass of rags.

  Morden was in mid-stride and almost tripped when he heard the request. A poor orc? Morden had heard every line from a thousand beggars and thought he’d heard them all: need a penny for a night in the shelter, a penny for a potato, a penny for the last cart home. Spare a penny for a poor orc was new.

  According to their history teacher, Brother Pinchard, orcs had been rendered almost extinct five hundred years ago in the last great war in which Prince Theo the Marvellous and his general, Uther the Merciless, had brought ruin to the last Dark Lord the world had seen, Zoon the Reviled. Orcs had passed largely into legend, along with dragons and the other mythic creatures. Trolls no longer lived under bridges but in the imagination.

  Morden rummaged for a penny. “Did you say orc?” he said, reaching to toss the penny into the beggar’s tin cup. He didn’t want to get too close; he knew how far fleas could leap.