by Katy Winter
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Quon and Saracen faced their own horrors. Leth stood proudly at the gate, his mud hellions surrounding him, salivating and hopping about feverishly. Leth wasted no time. As the gate swung open he was very quick to act. He had clouds of fine earth he continually flicked in a stream about the two men. They had to fight to even breathe. Their nostrils became clogged. Their eyes stung and flooded in a way that blinded them. Their lungs heaved with the effort to get minimal air while their throats were dry and became raw as they coughed.
At the same time as Leth did this, mud quels, burrowing creatures with gaping little maws, nipped at them and clawed their way up shorter bodies so they could breathe sulphurous vapours into their faces. Quon and Saracen couldn’t retreat. There was only the narrow landing and the gate beyond through which Leth strode as the two men choked. As he stepped menacingly closer in an attempt to dislodge the men from the landing, he gestured at soil particles. They came alive. On contact with the men they swelled into giant puffs that reeked as they spat at their foes.
Quon and Saracen stumbled. They were separated by oozing mud devils that popped up and down in fetid pools hurling venomous and acid spit into faces become barely recognisable. Quon clawed at his throat. Solid boulderings appeared at their feet, trapping them so they had nowhere to get to while lava demons danced about the feet of two men as well. Their laughter was as mocking as Leth’s. Quon and Saracen, pushed apart so each was on his own, struggled to survive the onslaught and to support each other at every level of their beings. Their feet burned.
Leth’s minions had them confined and slowly began to suffocate them. Quon’s staff flared but he didn’t have the air to either act or chant. Slowly the staff, held aloft, came down as Quon sank to his knees. With a huge effort, Saracen managed to take in enough air to enable him to stretch across a bouldering and grab the staff. He brandished it high above his head. The gesture was futile as he, too, began to sink to his knees. Almost overcome by vapours he managed to say a few words loudly enough for Quon to hear.
“The earth spirits!”
Then the Dom heard, more urgently,
“With me, Dom! With me!”
Quon tried to see through the swirling clouds of dust but all he saw was Leth’s smile. Then he heard, so faintly he barely caught it,
“It’s me! Believe! Quon, believe!”
“Jepaul,” whispered Quon.
The mud quels were all over him. The lava demons ignited his clothes and hair. He suddenly felt Saracen finally, gasping, reach him by crawling as he tried to fend hellions off with his bare hands. Quon touched him, his wheezing audible as he managed a few words.
“Now, Saracen. Call the earth spirits with me!”
The earth spirits were suddenly there. They attacked the clouds and broke them into little wisps. They devoured the mud quels, chewed them, then spat them out as wriggling, writhing little pieces that squeaked; they couldn’t reform as they were scattered by raging spirits. The spirits went for the mud devils, heedless of their own mortality. They caught them as the devils hurled themselves upwards and threw them in all directions but mostly towards Leth. The devils screamed with rage.
With the cloying atmosphere beginning to clear Quon and Saracen staggered to their feet and began to breathe deeply. Quon raised his staff. It blazed with renewed strength. The runes flared with considerable brightness that threw Leth and his minions into stark relief against darkness and let the Dom and Grohol see what they’d confronted. With his energy returning, Quon began to chant. So did Leth. With the earth spirits, Saracen tried to cope with the lava demons that moved about very fast and burned as they attached themselves wherever they could. Earth spirits died. But many more gathered. They reformed and re-shaped loose, choking soil particles. They used them as blankets to smother the lava demons who shrieked and now choked in their turn as they tried to escape back towards Leth. The spirits chased them down.
Quon, battered but indomitable, raised his voice above Leth’s, his voice powerful and carrying. Saracen, in support, urged him on, chanting now in unison with the Dom, their powerful chanting increasing in volume to such an extent it made Leth infuriated. His voice rose to a scream in an attempt to match theirs. The runes on Quon’s staff writhed with their own life and the staff itself, above Quon’s head, moved in a dance of rapid movements.
Leth, now with lava demons seeking refuge with him and igniting him as he tried to counter Quon, stamped burning feet and looked behind him to see where the gate was. He had a distance to retreat. Quon began to advance, Saracen still beside him, his support unwavering. Quels and mud devils yelled and milled about Leth’s feet. They slowed his progress to the gate, his every step backwards hampered. Saracen saw the gate open.
He also knew Quon was almost spent. He immediately and instinctively raised his voice. He did so with such forceful authority that Leth was startled, swung round, stumbled, missed his footing and fell among the lava demons. His chant faltered. He looked behind him to see the gate begin to slowly close, caught desperately at it and barely made it through.
Saracen and Quon fell at Jepaul’s feet. Jepaul instantly stooped to lift a frail bundle into his arms and cradled Quon. Tears poured down his face. Knellen lifted Saracen as if the Grohol weighed nothing.
“Are they alive?” asked Sapphire weakly, the Dom propped wearily on an elbow.
“I hope so,” snapped Knellen.
“Belika?” pleaded Jepaul, Quon still held protectively.
Belika bent her head to Quon’s chest, her face grave. She stayed so for a long heart-stopping spell.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her head. She saw Jepaul’s face. “He’s alive, Jepaul, but his breathing is shallow and his pulse weak. He needs rest, now.”
“So does Saracen,” said Ebon curtly, his hand to Saracen’s wrist. “We need to get back to Baron/Kelt, urgently.”
“Not the way we came,” said Dancer, his eyes on Quon.
“No,” agreed, Javen. He eyed Jepaul. “Jepaul, can you get to Baron/Kelt?” Jepaul nodded, his expression puzzled. “Knellen, you and Quon said the Grypans would come.”
“Yes, that is so. They have.”
“Well, would Lesul help us now?”
Knellen frowned thoughtfully at Javen. He looked dubious. Jepaul, however, stared at Javen for a long minute, then he nodded.
“Care for Quon,” he said abruptly. Javen responded, the limp figure carefully and tenderly transferred. “I’ll go. We must get help for them.”
The Grypans, very satisfied with their day’s work, had settled around Baron/Kelt in a half-circle, their wings folded and their huge beaked heads rested on the ground. Some were hurt but uncomplaining and they even let wary Varen from the city tend them. Their dead lay on the battlefield too. It was a resting Lesul who unexpectedly lifted her head, swinging it from side to side with the beady eyes acutely alert. She watched Jepaul materialise in front of her.
“Line of the Progenitor!” she crowed, amused. “You see we came to Dom Earth’s call. The Varen Knellen also asked us to. He is always very polite, if distant. As he’s us, what else could we do?”
“You have our deepest gratitude, Lesul.”
“So why are you here, child you still are?”
“Quon’s hurt.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Doms have battled at the gates.”
“Are they all alive?”
“Yes. Quon was the last to fight. He was at the fourth gate in the inner aethyr.”
“And our Varen?”
“Knellen fought with Dom Air. He recovers.”
“Why are you here?”
“To ask your help for Quon.”
“If he fought Anti-Spirit Leth, he’ll be –” Lesul broke off. “Was he alone?”
“His Companion was with him as Knellen was with Wind Dancer.”
“Where are they?”
“In a clearing in a valley not far
from here.”
“Why there?”
“It was the entrance to the stairs.”
Lesul gave an involuntary shiver.
“State your request, child of the line.”
“I need to get the Doms and Companions back to Baron/Kelt.”
Lesul looked long at Jepaul, her beady eyes bright and searching.
“You may be of his line, but you are most unlike him. We come.”
Lesul and four Grypans landed not far from the resting Doms and Companions. Saracen had come round but Quon was still unconscious. When he was carried by Knellen to Lesul, she stared down at the white-faced figure.
“Always foolhardy, but he has never lacked courage. You may ride with him, Varen.” That was her only comment. When on arrival at Baron/Kelt, Knellen clambered down her side still holding Quon, she spoke harshly.
“The battle only begins, Varen, be assured of that. Will he live?”
“I believe so, Lesul.”
“We need him. Shalah needs all of you. Look to the Doms and to yourselves.”
There was huge unspoken relief in the city at the knowledge the Doms and Companions were back. But there were also whispered comments that some sort of dreadful confrontations had occurred between them and ancient foes only known about from tales of antiquity. This caused grave concern. All saw Jepaul, but none had seen the expression on his face that was there now. All commanders, meeting up with the Doms and the Companions for the first time, saw how all were subtly altered and the Doms all looked as if they’d taken an indefinable step away from Shalah. There was a new transparency and detachment – a remoteness that made them untouchable.
The Doms and Companions spoke long with the commanders, the Doms mostly content to let the Companions take the lead. It was clear the final battle for Shalah was imminent and a reality. All faced their mortality. No one under-estimated what faced them. As they listened, leaders didn’t need to be told that the Elementals would face the legendary bane of Shalah, Sh’Bane and his Riders of Aeyr, in a conflict at the fifth and last gate. They knew, now, that this gate was all that stood between Shalah and annihilation. As Quon told them, it was a gate that circled extremely close to Shalah in the inner aethyr. No one voiced their deepest misgivings.
They also knew, from what the Companions told them, that when the entry to Shalah, the fifth gate, opened in the inevitable confrontation, all the gates would open and Shalah would be flooded by any creatures of Sh’Bane’s not already through. Shalah would be assailed. The Doms didn’t mention Cilikas or Huyuks, though already they were active on Shalah and wreaked havoc wherever they went, nor did they speak of others, now awake, who would respond to Sh’Bane and his Riders. They were dormant remnants of the hordes brought to Shalah by the Progenitor, some of them even created by him to do battle and they owed allegiance to both Nedru and Sh’Bane.
The battle for Shalah began again, nearly a week later. The Nedru led it this time, the Red Council challenging those of Baron/Kelt to a final showdown they fully expected to win. They glided about the camps, their robes swishing and their hissing breaths audible from some distance. They knew Sh’Bane was close. They were ready to answer him. They finished off their Cynases in front of the army, Jamir’s and Grone’s last moments awful to witness and listen to. The Nedru used their deaths as a warning. No one answered.
At the sound of the Nedru’s wheezing challenge and then the trumpeting, the Doms and Companions went to the city battlements where they stood, waiting. Hundreds watched them do so. It was Jepaul, white-faced but resolute, who held the Ariel lightly in one hand, the other rested on Quon’s shoulder. He turned to Belika, said a few words to which she nodded, then strode forward to the edge of the battlement on his own. Those watching saw him raise his staff and the runes blaze as, unbelievingly, many saw a winding staircase appear directly in front of him. Without hesitation he stepped forward, the Doms and Companions crowding behind him. Those observing them blinked. They and the staircase disappeared.
The tunnel was long. The steps were very narrow but shallow so treading up them was easy. Jepaul led the way, his steps firm, his figure erect and alert. Traversing the winding stairs was a silent affair, each person there wrapped in their own thoughts and apprehensions. None faltered. Jepaul came to a sudden and abrupt halt. A gate, solid, wrought iron and with huge bronze hasps, materialised in front of him. Jepaul turned to the others on the landing with him.
“Doms?”
“We’re ready, Jepaul. Take your time,” responded Quon calmly and with an affectionate smile.
“Companions?”
“We are ready with you, Jepaul, as we always will be,” answered Knellen, in his deep unruffled voice.
Jepaul stepped deliberately to the gate. He opened the Ariel. He removed the key. The Ariel immediately became ash that fluttered to the ground. Grimly, and uttering a challenge that made the Companions involuntarily shiver, Jepaul inserted the key. He turned it. As the gate swung open the Doms knew all other gates did so as well and swarms of hellions would launch themselves onto Shalah.
They all waited. Sh’Bane materialised, laughing. His dark eyes were full of mocking amusement and his staff was raised in what looked like a salute. Jepaul raised his in response. He was aware, as Sh’Bane wasn’t, that a faint silver light which was a thread clinging to the gate, slowly strengthened as it slipped like a shadow to him. It was only the Doms who witnessed the last of their original Five touch Jepaul. Spirit, called Islasahn, continued to shine, the sliver becoming a shimmer as it quickly rose to reach the staff. The Doms stood still in desperate hope. At that moment Sh’Bane was reinforced by his Riders of Aeyr who gathered behind him, their lips drawn back. It was they who saw the light. In unison they uttered a warning to Sh’Bane.
He leaned forward to strike at and absorb the last sliver of Spirit with his staff but the sliver, with an opalescent shimmer, reached the base of the staff. Jepaul felt a surge go up and through the staff. It was so strong he almost lost his grip and took a step back, while the Doms gave a combined gasp of sheer, unmitigated pleasure. They sensed even more powerful oneness. The Companions felt it too.
It was overwhelming. Islasahn, the last of Spirit imprisoned for aeons, was released. She gave increased strength and support to Doms weakened by battles and whose grief over her loss almost paralysed them for so long. She knew that burden had been carried by them without respite – their prison, in a sense, was no less than hers. Jepaul felt the joy and relief wash over and through him. Sh’Bane snarled. He uttered another challenge at Jepaul. The two clashed.
To those who stood and watched them, Doms and Companions who could do nothing as Spirit and Anti-Spirit met, it looked as if nothing happened. It was in the inner aethyr that conflict erupted. Jepaul’s light crashed into Sh’Bane’s redness, sometimes creating a halo round it or a hole of illumination within it. The staffs flared. The runes were bright. At moments the Doms thought, agonised, that the light became an indistinguishable pinprick before it surged back to swallow some of the dark nimbus and red centre. Flares of redness and flashes of white light spun off into the aethyr. Some arced off each other in sparks.
Those watching saw both Jepaul and Sh’Bane swing their staffs, never touching each other’s but circling, the runes on each now blindingly brilliant and ever-changing. The Doms saw Jepaul’s lips start to move. His body movements became increasingly more assertive and challenging as he began to take slow steps towards Sh’Bane. The latter was now through the gate. He advanced confidently on Jepaul, his staff above his head and whirling in threatening motions. Jepaul’s staff stayed still above his head. The Dom’s sensed Jepaul’s pain with each step but also his indomitability.
In the aethyr, Sh’Bane’s redness flickered. It was a huge disc against a blackness of nothingness which Jepaul’s whiteness danced about it like a forming corona: each step he took on the stairs strengthened the enveloping corona of light. When Sh
’Bane took a step, the redness pulsed with ferocity and heat. It sent needle-like shafts into the whiteness that briefly recoiled before steadying and solidifying to push ever harder into the redness. When Jepaul finally began to whirl his staff, small splinters of whiteness pierced the red disc. It made Sh’Bane howl with anger. Jepaul’s staff almost began to have a life of its own as the two forms got closer and closer. The Doms held their breaths. The Companions sweated.
It was now that Sh’Bane, enraged, called on the Riders. They came forward uttering guttural, menacing challenges at the Doms who instantly retaliated by raising their staffs and voices in chorus. The Companions became alert. They immediately allied themselves with their Doms as Sh’Bane’s minions joined the Riders. Battle was fully joined. It was Knellen, with his foresight and heightened senses, who could warn the Companions and Doms when they should withdraw and regroup time and again.
Through this ability of Knellen’s they were able to anticipate what a Rider might do, something the Riders couldn’t comprehend and which infuriated them. It was also Knellen who’d warned Jepaul to watch for what was left of Islasahn and what to expect at the gate, because he instinctively knew she’d boost his personal strength. Knellen also warned that this last gate would decide the fate of Shalah. The Doms already knew it. Knellen couldn’t, though, see the outcome any more than the Doms could.
As Jepaul fought, his jewellery from the Grohol repeatedly warned him of a new onset or dangerous tactic of Sh’Bane’s. It also now warned him of the Riders who attacked. He could, but only briefly, warn the Doms linked with him so they could counter assaults. Cadran, his jewellery flaring likewise, was invaluable to the Companions in the same way.
Sh’Bane and his Riders, battering Jepaul and the Doms, suddenly felt an overwhelming and quite unexpected strength from newly empowered Maquat Doms that came from their union with the last of their Fifth. And they were with Jepaul. The Five were powerfully supported by junior master Elementals whose talent was abruptly unleashed as they came, at that instant, into their own. They too challenged the Riders and their minions.
Sh’Bane’s advance stopped. Jepaul also halted. In the aethyr the whiteness fully encompassed the red disc. As Sh’Bane had tried to absorb Jepaul, so the Riders, with their minions, tried to do the same to the Maquat Doms. But it was a very real struggle against newly empowered Companions who fought against them with the Doms, but also determinedly kept the minions clear of the Doms.
As the battle raged on the stairs and in the aethyr, the fight on Shalah was savage. Huge metal objects were projected with considerable force from both sides. They were flung through the air while below these missiles, defenders and attackers alike died as they clashed head on over and again. The aerial battles were terrifying as creatures not seen in the first battles fought against projectiles and Grypans who seemed inexhaustible, their floods of acid rain the only relief for the defenders from continuous assaults from all sides.
Succubi, Wraiths and Cefors were significantly weakened and fewer, but the surviving Maekwies and Sabbiths, reinforced with hellions who poured through open gates, now grappled with demoralised Shalahs. The Grypans flew at multiple minions. They battered and drove them lower to the ground where mimoses, ready, had hands up to grasp the nasty little creatures. Then they squashed them under foot. The Grohols bravely tackled them too, size for size, and slew many of them as they fell to earth.
It was when Sh’Bane and Jepaul paused, that the Doms sent out another call. It was to all sentient life forms on Shalah to now rise up again and fight for the survival of their world. Sh’Bane and the Riders sent out a call to their minions resident on Shalah. On Shalah there was a sudden shuddering as the world began to heave with creatures now fully awake in answer to their masters.
As they did, so did angry elemental beings. Air-storms and Air-winds began to stir, water began to foam and churn as torrents formed. Rain nymphs mistily appeared and allied themselves with the Air-stormers and Air-winds who fanned newly gathered Cloud-gatherers. They joined with the emerging Lightning-flingers and molten Earth-guardians who began to move.
Sapphire’s Water-people emerged. So did Dancer’s Storm-riders and Cloud-walkers. Ebon’s Fire-giants and Quon’s Earthquake-makers responded with one accord. They all began to converge on the outskirts of Baron/Kelt, more and more of them until the ground shook and the air was electric as they prepared for the final battle. Some had already fought. Many had been lost. But the combined ranks were formidable. They were enraged by the treatment meted out to their Doms; they’d all felt it as battles raged at each gate.
In support of Sh'Bane and the Riders, those like the Cilikas rose from the water again and strode the waterways. Some fell and drowned but many more escaped. They were crablike creatures, six-legged, and they were draped with stinging tentacles that were poisonous and could paralyse. They advanced on Baron/Kelt. They could survive for long periods out of water and covered ground very fast, their tentacles slashing at all as they went.
With them came Geysermen who erupted with considerable power. They’d even smashed through Grohol towns en route to the battlefield and swamped them in huge mud pools, the little people only surviving because the Venes felt the eruptions in time to act. The Geysermen were immense. They had huge powerful arms, their breath choking as they strode and crushed all beneath them. Their strength was legendary.
The battle for Shalah now took another turning. Those preoccupied at Baron/Kelt couldn’t immediately see far beyond them, until suddenly they saw a sight that made men’s blood run cold. They waited for the unholy descent on the city, but instead saw the eruption of a battle, beyond them, unlike anything anyone had ever seen. It was terrifying as Shalah shook and shuddered, the ground trembled and the skies darkened. The very basis of the world was rocked to its very foundations. Shalah teetered and tilted. Surviving Sabbiths left Baron/Kelt to join in.