War Against the Realm

by Sherri Beth Mitchell

  Silvia’s heart beat faster. A slip in her facial expression caught the god’s eye. “Back away from us.”

  One of the beasts landed on the roof of the wagon, nearly toppling it. The top splintered and the creature roared at them from outside.

  Eerich smiled, and a chill went up her spine. “What’s wrong, Queen Silvia? Have you never seen a predator play with its food before it eats? My little pets like to play.”

  “They will not touch him, and neither will you.” The threatening tone in her voice made the god pause.

  “I will do as I please,” he growled. He started towards the king.

  With a cry of outrage, Silvia flung her arms towards the god. Her magic slipped from her palms and fingertips and knocked the god through the door of the wagon. He landed hard on his back, gawking at her in surprise. The monsters surrounding the wagon seemed to hesitate, sensing their master’s distress.

  But Silvia knew they’d go right back to hunting for food. She looked outside, seeing Dalton and the others running full speed towards her, yet knew they wouldn’t get to her in time. The wagon began to shake again; there wasn’t much time. She bent over and scooped Keelan into one arm and grabbed her sword with the other.

  “Firayis, wake him! Wake him, please!” she screamed.

  “What name did you just speak?”

  Silvia gasped, not realizing Eerich had moved so fast—he was at the doorway, glaring at her hatefully, his massive body blocking the entire frame.

  The fox in her arms moved, and she saw that Keelan was waking up. At the same moment, the creature attacking the top of the wagon broke through.

  Everything seemed to happen in a blur. Keelan leapt from her arms in shock, still somewhat out of it from his long slumber. The creature screeched and opened its stomach in anticipation of food. And then, right below Silvia, the floor of the wagon disappeared and she fell into a hole that emptied into a tunnel in the ground. She didn’t know how far she fell, only that as she screamed in shock Eerich peeked down the hole after her.

  “I never lose!” he cried.

  Then she hit the bottom of the tunnel and lost all consciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Mortals and Gods

  Dalton and the others were caught in the midst of the creatures, slashing this way and that with every sharp object they could lay their hands on. The beasts seemed to be concentrated around the place where their meeting had been held and around the queen’s wagon. Had this been planned? What wickedness was behind this?

  Beside him, Cambry slid a blade into the mouth of one of the creatures as the slim blonde fighting girl called Brielle swiftly cut open its stomach with double blades. They laid waste to the monsters, but not fast enough for Dalton. He could scent Silvia still, but her scent was fading and he needed to get to her.

  “Come on!” he yelled. “To the Queen!”

  They troupe ran off, but were hindered by more beasts and soldiers along the way. Body parts were strewn about as though the great monsters had bitten them off, or their stomach had regurgitated them. Dalton swallowed nervously, but none of them smelled like Silvia. She was alive for the moment.

  They were drawing close to where the wagon was located when a figure burst through the door, landing on his back.

  Firayis ran with them but stopped short when he heard Silvia’s scream render the night. “Firayis, wake him! Wake him, please!”

  The God of Dreams uttered a short curse, knowing she would not have asked this if she were not in trouble. He reached out with his powers and went into Keelan’s mind, stirring his soul. “Wake up, King of Mortals…we need you here.” He felt the king awakening and ran on to catch up to the others. The figure had already regained his feet, and Firayis did not need to be any closer to know who it was. His heart raced furiously in his chest as he watched the God of the Dead re-enter the wagon. One of the hideous creatures seemed to have broken through the roof of the wagon at the same time and was leaning in. The men reached the wagon but the beasts made it difficult to get inside. As they began to fight the creatures on the outside, Silvia screamed shrilly from within.

  The sound sent chills up every inch of her comrades’ spines…not because she had cried out, but because her cry had rapidly faded away until they couldn’t hear it anymore. Another voice roared after her, though it was hard to discern what it was saying.

  The worm came crashing down upon the wagon, smashing it into a thousand pieces. A red blur barely escaped the flying debris and stumbled towards them. It quickly transformed into the Lystian King, who looked quite dazed.

  “Give me a weapon!” he yelled. “The Queen fell inside some sort of hole under the wagon!”

  Brielle threw him one of her swords and Keelan caught it with sure fingers. He was just in time, for one of the creatures was heading straight for him. Indeed, the creatures had now surrounded the entire group and were closing in on them with shrieks of hunger. The worm which had broken through the wagon was now moving the debris to the side with its body, revealing the gaping hole in the ground. It screeched loudly into the depths of the hole as it peered inside.

  “No…” Dalton whispered, looking over his shoulder at the worm.

  The monster shrieked one last time and toppled into the hole head first…and as soon as it was out of sight, the ground trembled, and the hole closed up.

  The Lystian Queen was trapped below with the monster.

  Dalton bellowed with rage, changing into his dragon form. He drew in a deep breath and scorched the remaining beasts with flames. They screeched in agony, writhing on the ground as they burned to death. When he saw that he had gotten them all, his breathing calmed and he changed back to his human self.

  They men and women regrouped, the gods all standing together solemnly.

  “The ground…it-it swallowed her,” Dalton said in a shaky voice.

  “I can still feel her,” said Aldoa. “She is still alive, Prince Dalton.”

  “But for how long with that creature in there with her?”

  Lord Cambry stepped forward. “We must discover a way in there.”

  “We will not rest until she is found,” Keelan growled. “We’re wasting time standing here. We’ve got to move.”

  “Then let’s search for an entrance to one of their tunnels,” Dalton said. “Spread out and take as many as you can with you. The Queen’s survival rests upon our shoulders.”

  Larette adjusted the shutters on her window. The wind was blowing so hard that they’d burst open, soaking her room with rain. The glass from the window had shattered the day before, hit by a piece of debris flying about in the air.

  The storm scared her. Her beautiful city had swiftly become flooded, with people taking to higher grounds. Crops had been lost. Livestock had perished. Those who were not strong enough to fight the waters in the lower sections of the city had been swept away…She knew not how many had been lost thus far. Sometimes the rain slowed down to a drizzle, as though teasing them; at other times, it was as though the sea itself had crossed over Rohedon’s Realm to lay waste to Lordale.

  As her fingers thrust the wobbly latch back into place, her husband entered the room. She wheeled her chair around to face him. “Is it as bad as it appears to be?” she asked softly. The look on his face told him everything she needed to know.

  He tugged on his black beard. “You might say that.” He ambled over to her and grabbed the handles on the back of her chair, wheeling her away from the window. “You should’ve waited to re-latch the window. Now your whole front side is wet.” He stroked her flawless mahogany face gently. Her beauty was well-known throughout their lands, and how she seemed to grow older without the appearance of wrinkles and baggy skin. One would think her in her thirties instead of her early fifties.

  Larette smiled warmly. “You always care more about others than you do yourself. Take care, husband, that this does not bode ill for you at some point.”

  “I am a king,” Rordar stated. “I am supposed to put my people before
myself, and you most of all.”

  “Have you been to see Hemet?”

  Rordar hesitated as he pushed her over to sit in front of the small fire. “I have.”

  “And what says our most important carpenter?”

  The Lordalen King took a seat across from his wife of nearly four decades. “The war machine cannot be used at this time. Even in the barn it is flooding, and the weight of the contraption combined with the muck from the floods, has insured that it will not budge until the waters recede.”

  “Then we wait,” she said with conviction. “This storm will blow away. It cannot last forever.”

  “But if it was the witches who summoned the rain, then I worry about how long they can make it last. The water does not have to keep rising for our city to fall. We need to be extra cautious…and we need to come up with another plan.”

  “Lucky for you, I think ahead,” his wife said coyly.

  “You’ve thought of something else?” he asked.

  She smiled, but he noticed it didn’t go all the way to her eyes. “Yes, I believe I have.”

  “What is the flaw in this plan? I can read your face too well.”

  “The plan requires sacrifice, Rordar…the ultimate sacrifice.”

  “We are not giving in to those heathens, if that’s what you mean,” he snarled.

  “No, that is an option which neither of us has placed upon the table to be discussed. It is completely out of the question.”

  “Then what is your suggestion?”

  “I have a way to kill the witches, husband. I only need someone to get me very close to them.”

  “How close?” he asked suspiciously.

  Her eyes watered. “Close enough to ensure that they do not escape what I will do, Rordar.”

  Rordar stood up as the realization hit him. “No. I refuse to let you do this.”

  Larette reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him to her. She kissed the rings he wore on his fingers, ones she had gifted him many, many years ago. “You must let me do this, my darling. You are our king, and we must do all that we can to protect you. All the same, you and I must do everything we can to protect our people. Let me go to them, Your Grace, and end this once and for all.”

  He squatted down on his haunches and took her face in his hands. “I cannot lose you, Larette. I cannot rule without you by my side. I…I cannot live without you by it either.”

  “But you must,” she whispered. Sparkling tears trickled down her face. “This is the way it has to be. My very life was made for this moment. Do not let me pass it by. I have been confined to this chair for a long time, and have not been out helping our people as I should be. This is my last act of passion for the people who are dying because of this war. They need to see one last time how much I care for them and what I would do for them. Let me die protecting those that I love, Rordar. To save you and our people, I am obliged to pay this expense with my life. If you love me as you say you do, then you cannot deny me this honor. Let me go.”

  Rordar bowed his head. “As you wish,” he whispered in a broken voice.

  Saris was in a dreadful mood. She knew the battle had ended quite poorly, and despite Eerich’s efforts with his creatures she had a feeling that the army would survive that as well. The large crack in the wall beckoned to her, but she didn’t really feel like going to see him. A mixture of emotions ran through her and she decided she’d go for a walk to clear her mind.

  The halls of the mountain were sparsely populated at this hour of the night. Most of the servants were asleep in their rooms. She let her mind wander as she walked, and her thoughts went to her sister. She found her feet drawing her closer to Natosha’s bedchambers, and soon she was knocking on the door.

  Natosha opened it seconds later, an untrusting look on her face. “Hello, sister.”

  “May I come in?”

  “You’ve not bothered to ask the past few times, so why bother now? Do what you will.” She walked off and sat in a chair next to the fireplace. Saris noted her bulge in the front; their children had always gestated so fast. In a couple of weeks, if not sooner, the baby would be born.

  “How fares the child within you?”

  Natosha humphed. “What do you care? You’re convinced I am your enemy now.”

  “Not completely convinced yet, but close enough,” Saris admitted. “I worry about your decisions, sister.”

  “You need to worry about other things. My decisions will benefit us in the long run and strengthen us. I just wish you’d trust me enough to know that.” Natosha grimaced and placed her hand over her stomach.

  Saris’ eyes flickered to her twin’s stomach. “Your child is growing quickly,” she stated. She purposefully ignored Natosha’s statement about trusting her. A twinge of discomfort twisted her stomach; her body could no doubt feel her sister’s pain and nausea. She tried to separate herself from feeling warmth from that knowledge.

  Natosha looked at her with cold eyes. “Yes, very quickly. More rapidly than usual, it would seem.”

  “And when the child arrives, what will you do with him or her?”

  “What do you think I’ll do with it?” Natosha asked. “A rhetorical question if ever I’ve heard one. The child will be raised as all of our other children have been raised.”

  Saris shook her head. “Your child will be singled out and treated as the outsider that it will be. Your other children, as well as mine and Clea’s, will all know that your child does not belong here. He is not of Rohedon’s blood. They will hunt him down, Natosha.”

  “They will not know of the father.”

  “They will know it is not your husband’s and that, my dear sister, is enough to warrant the child’s death. And if they should learn that the father is our sworn enemy…well, I wouldn’t want to be that child. Or his mother, for that matter.”

  Natosha chuckled darkly. “Have you now resorted to threats against me and mine?”

  “No, not threats. These are merely warnings of what is to come.”

  “You know, I used to value your opinions. Now I find that they rather annoy me. You think you are on a higher pedestal than me, and you are wrong.” A wave of nausea hit her and she leaned forward, holding her stomach as she retched into a bucket next to the chair.

  “Am I wrong?” Saris arched an eyebrow. Her stomach lurched, and she swallowed hard. She was determined to be the stronger one.

  Natosha stood up, and her eyes flashed angrily as she confronted her sibling. “Take care, sister. Though I may carry the child of our enemy, I have not strayed from our cause. I know where my loyalties lie. With you, however, I am not so sure. I believe that your perception of me has greatly changed these past few weeks. I am not so assured of your allegiances at this time, especially given my treatment. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you deem yourself in a position of higher authority than me….that you have more power.” She stepped closer to her twin. “That, my dear sister, would be a deadly mistake.”

  “And now you are you threatening me?” Saris asked sharply.

  “You threatened the life I carry within. This is not a threat but a promise. I am giving you the same treatment that I have been receiving, but when the tables are turned you get quite ill-tempered. Why is that? Perhaps it is because you know you are stepping out of line.”

  “I never step out of line.”

  “Really? Hmm…that’s interesting,” Natosha said. “I would have to disagree with you on that. You’ve been quite insubordinate to me. Remember where your powers came from, Saris.”

  Saris shoved her finger hard into her sister’s breastbone, driving her back. “I remember exactly where my powers come from—the God of the Dead himself. Not you, Natosha. You have gifted me nothing except a husband that betrayed us before we were even his. And have you stopped to think about how often your powers have failed you as of late? All the while, my magic remains strong and consistently grows. You say insubordinate; I say…I have grown more powerful than you.”


  A sharp pain dug into her stomach and she cried out in surprise.

  Natosha quickly backed away, watching her warily. “Why is your stomach so large, sister?”

  Saris looked down, utterly shocked to see that her stomach was distending further and further as the pains inside her grew. She glanced back at her twin, unable to speak. She hadn’t been feeling Natosha’s pregnancy pains—she’d been feeling her own.

  Natosha stood near the fire, one hand lightly resting on a fire poker. “Whose child resides within you?” she whispered.

  The blonde woman gaped at her before saying, “It’s a spell. It’s a spell that’s gone wrong, and nothing more.”