Yet despite his fiercest efforts, the Acedens continued to advance. Valerik’s men collapsed around Cain, screams muffled beneath the boots of a relentless enemy. The sheer mass of Acedens soon ground Cain to a halt and forced him on the defensive. Spears and shields pushed him back into his soldiers where they wilted under the endless, crushing black.
An explosion rocked the air somewhere behind them. Cain turned to the main gate where soldiers suddenly erupted into the air. Their bodies scattered like rain, their shouts silenced on the stone. The nearby combatants fell silent and stopped their fighting, a strange silence amid the cacophony of battle.
A figure emerged through the smoke. He stood like a shadow among all the death and destruction. Somehow, Cain knew who this was.
Iscarius.
Cain turned and followed his retreating men back toward the main gate. He had to get over there, he had to stop Iscarius. But it was so far away.
“Do not fear,” Isroc’s voice rose from somewhere in the crowd. “He’s only a man, and we will make him bleed as one. Ready your weapons!”
Every archer readied his bow and aimed at Iscarius. His troops pulled away from the defenders and maintained a healthy distance behind their leader, shields prepared for the imminent bombardment. Could he really be killed so easily? Maybe Cain wouldn’t have to fight him. All of this could be over!
Iscarius lifted his gaze to the hundreds of gleaming broadheads.
“Loose!” Isroc screamed. Arrows launched at Iscarius in a thick cloud of steel. The arrows shattered.
Iscarius stepped through the splintering wood and metal, hands raised before him as he walked. The shocked Alliance loosed another volley, yet this fared no better than the first. Every projectile exploded uselessly off the air around him. The archers continued their panicked attack, desperate to keep him at bay.
Cain cursed, sprinting for them, arm outstretched. Those bows were useless against him, they had to get out of there! He had to save them! He finally reached the courtyard and shoved his way through the formations, shouting for men to move out of his way.
He couldn’t see Iscarius from here, but he saw the deaths. Men shot from the ground, flailing helplessly as tendrils of wind tossed them high overhead. Bodies crunched into each other. Skulls popped against stone. More men tossed into the air, as if they were tufts of dandelions plucked at a child’s whim.
The Acedens charged from the gullies and dispensed through the three gates like a great deluge. The battlefield cast in shadow and the sky turned black. The defenders glanced up as countless boulders and bolts arced through the air and descended over them. Beneath the approaching shadows, the enemy hordes charged. They stampeded past their leader and smashed into the Alliance.
The two sides met like a storm. The boulders exploded into the fortress and rocked it to its foundations. Great chunks of the walls were blown off and cast indiscriminately into the streets, grinding hundreds beneath its debris.
This was it, this was the end. Cain ordered his men to form a shield wall at their back. The command slowly passed over their ranks and the periphery of the Alliance soon formed a shining wall of shields. Acedens slammed into their formation, instantly driving them back from the impact. The defenders tightened like a ball in the cramped quarters, now pressed from all sides.
Crossbowmen aimed from the enemy phalanxes and unleashed a hail of bolts that rent clean through shields. Mighty quarrels ripped apart the Alliance formations, leaving the disoriented defenders easy pickings for the Acedens.
“We have to do something about Iscarius,” Adriel said, face wet with blood as she hacked at the enemy lines.
Cain pulled his shining sword from a body and gazed out over the battle. Everywhere he looked, soldiers clashed fiercely, fighting for their lives against their former brothers-in-arms. He paused as an entire company shot into the air. Only one man possessed that kind of power.
Adriel pulled from the fighting and stopped before him. She placed a hand on his cheek. “You can end this war with a swing of your sword. Only you can kill him.”
Cain met her grave gaze. Ceerocai cast its bloody rays against her face.
A small flame swelled in the ruby at the heart of the blade, its warmth prickling against his fingers. This heat continued up his arm until it settled in his chest. Power. Endless potential. The ability to save. Or destroy. He could feel his fear melt away. He knew what he had to do.
He stepped away from Adriel. Without a word, he made for the main gate.
The Alliance made way for Cain, forming a path that he now followed. He walked down the street, over dying men and mangled corpses.
Hate swelled within him. This war didn’t need to happen. They could have destroyed Abaddon, won their peace. Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been spared. But here they were. Here they fought and here they died. All because of one man.
The battlefield opened, and Cain stepped up to the gateway. And there, in that void of death, was Iscarius.
The Aceden leader lowered his sword and the surrounding soldiers stepped back at the sight of the two men. Everything fell silent. Smoke, blood, and embers danced in the air around them.
Cain charged. Their swords clashed in a powerful embrace, sending sparks bursting from the cerebreum blades. Cain pushed off and swung up.
Iscarius counter cut and Cain spun aside, the great backsword slicing past his face. Iscarius lunged but Cain blocked the strike, a second, a third, and jumped back. Iscarius struck at him again but Cain parried, sidestepped, and swung.
In a flash, Iscarius jumped under the strike and slammed his palm into Cain’s chest. The blast of wind sent him rocketing back to crash in a pile of rubble. His sword tumbled free, its light vanishing.
A score of soldiers launched into the air. Alliance soldiers pelted down around him, their bodies crunching against the street. Iscarius waved his arms again and more men showered down around them.
Cain crawled toward Ceerocai as bodies dropped and explosions rattled in his ears. Iscarius appeared from the destruction, hooded eyes locked on Cain.
Cain looked to the surrounding carnage, mangled bodies riddled in the wreckage. He turned and reached for his sword. His fingers wrapped around its handle and Ceerocai’s light returned with a brilliant clap. Then, the light vanished, and nothing.
The cloudless sky suddenly filled with red. The bloody heavens rippled with a thunderous crack and a column of light poured from the broken sky.
The gleaming pillar descended over the fortress and seared through a hundred Acedens, turning men to ash. The light struck the stones with an earthshaking crash.
The great beast of Abaddon shined for all to see. Every soldier gasped in awe at the otherworldly creature. Childhood games and stories became real. The myth lay before them all, flapping its four, mighty wings.
The beast towered high, its head almost level with the fortress walls. Its scales burned like the face of the sun, pulsing with every beat of Cain’s racing heart.
Seven horns adorned its head like the tines of a midnight crown and a row of bladed spines arced down serpentine body, ending at its blade-like tail. Its eyeless face seemed to somehow watch them, silent, knowing.
It lifted its wings and splayed them out like sails. The membranous tissue glistened in the sunlight with every powerful beat. The beast turned its eyeless face on the humans below like a silent judge. It made its verdict.
The creature dove into the Acedens.
It threw out its immense talons and plunged through the enemy ranks. It disemboweled, dismembered, beheaded, and butchered a hundred shrieking men in one dive.
The creature bound from the mountain of slaughter and took to the skies. A cloud of bolts and arrows descended over the beast as it swooped low, plinking like pins against its armor-like flesh. The creature ignored the volleys and smashed into the tightly-packed Acedens.
The beast crashed through an entire regiment, throwing its great horns and thrashing its tail. It shot into the
air again and hurled flailing men, throwing them the hundred yards to their deaths.
Iscarius smiled. He raised his sword and stepped through the rain of viscera toward Cain. A bloodcurdling roar boomed through the battle and he looked up to see the beast blasting toward him.
An inferno of white flames billowed from the beast’s fanged mouth. The strange flames incinerated dozens of men before leaping over Iscarius. The beast lowered its talons and dove through the fire.
It snatched up Iscarius like a falcon with its prey. Together, they crashed into a building in a cloud of fire. The explosion rocked the fortress and the debris settled, leaving trails of dust and smoke in its wake.
Iscarius stepped from the wreckage and shook his cloak of dirt. He then stepped over the bodies toward Cain.
Four wings rose from behind and shook off the rubble and bodies. The beast stepped from the mound of dust and bellowed another column of fire at Iscarius. Cain jumped aside as the flames shot straight for him.
Iscarius raised his hands and the flames scattered around him. His outline rippled in waves of heat. “Do not run from me, Taran!” He shot out a palm and sent a blinding crack of lightning at Cain. Cain swung Ceerocai into the attack, knocking it away to crumble a nearby building.
The beast pitched itself past Cain. Iscarius swung his arm and a shield of wind and rubble rose up before him. The creature smashed into the shield, tossed up and out of its trajectory. It spun and dove at the stumbling Iscarius.
Cain jumped around a corner as another blast of lightning sprayed debris over him. A geyser of flames erupted from the Aceden lines, cutting a swath through their attack and allowing the Alliance to push deeper down the road in their retreat.
The road filled with brilliant white. Every Aceden in the street vanished in an instant, their screams lingering in the broken buildings. Iscarius staggered out unscathed in a cloud of human ash and smoke. He sloughed off the flames that clung to him and charged after Cain.
Cain dove around another corner, the building blowing apart overhead. He weaved through the falling rubble and glanced over his shoulder to see Iscarius and the beast gaining on him. He sprinted through roads and buildings and over pools of blood, rubble, and bodies. Buildings shattered around him and shrapnel rained. The road buckled and bricks sprayed. Fire and lightning and wind lashed at Cain as he scrambled through the gate to the second floor.
The scarlet beast glided over the wall, spitting fire over Iscarius and any Aceden in sight, setting entire roads ablaze. The beast dove into enemy ranks, ripping apart hundreds of men to cut a clear path for Cain.
Cain fumbled through the bodies and rounded the last corner. A bridge lay at the top of the road. He had to lead Iscarius away from his men. If the beast couldn’t even touch Iscarius, what could their entire army hope to do?
Cain shook off his fear, that impending sense of helplessness. He had to fight him alone, where no one else could be hurt. He had to try.
Iscarius rounded the corner behind him in a stream of fire. The beast careened through a building from the sharp change in direction, roaring as it clawed after Iscarius.
Cain at last reached the drawbridge. He ran across it and glanced down to the deep chasm over a hundred feet below. He crossed the bridge and followed the road in a spiral around the towering lighthouse.
He soon came atop the high peak, a wide expanse of earth that stretched out before him. A single wall formed the edge of the hilltop, though boulders had riddled it with holes. The lighthouse lay in a broken mess, bodies strewn about the peak. A few defenders remained at the wall to launch arrows into the distant black masses.
The soldiers paused and turned to see Cain appear over the edge, the great beast behind him. It flapped its massive wings, filling the peak with a bloody light. Cain screamed for the soldiers to run.
Iscarius turned and swung his sword. His blade sliced through the fires and continued forward until it struck the beast’s claw. The creature bellowed and grabbed him with its talons, carrying him through the air.
Cain jumped for the ground as the beast roared overhead. The creature flew off the peak and spread its lustrous wings. It twirled and bound high into the air, clutching the bloodied Iscarius to its chest.
Cain shielded his eyes against the sun and watched the two spiral higher into the sky.
Iscarius somehow wrenched his arms free and hacked at the beast’s leg. The creature bit at him, its massive fangs chomping just past his head. Iscarius reared back as its head shot for him and swung his sword. The cerebreum blade smashed into its skull.
The beast howled with agony and dropped him. He plummeted in a freefall.
The creature threw back its wings and dove after him. It looped nimbly in the air and arced under him before unleashing an awesome torrent of fire.
A brilliant firestorm engulfed Iscarius. The flames formed a sphere around him like a sun, enveloping the hopes of the Acedens in a single, astronomical embrace.
Iscarius plunged from this destruction.
He fell over the beast and rammed his sword through its gaping maw. An unearthly roar pierced the air. Black blood spewed over its killer, drenching him in death as the two tumbled toward the peak.
The beast crashed into the peak with a deafening explosion that sent earth and stone reeling from the impact. The collision threw Cain on his back. The debris settled.
Silence.
Iscarius appeared through the fires, sword dripping black with blood. Smoke curled from his ragged clothes. He turned and looked to the great body of the beast. Its chest heaved slightly as it gasped for air. Blood gurgled from its lacerated mouth.
Iscarius raised his sword as the beast of Abaddon gave a pathetic bellow. He stabbed it through the side of the face and twisted. The creature’s chest fell still with a final growl.
The light around Cain’s sword vanished and a crippling pain shot up his spine, hammering him in the chest like hot iron to an anvil. He collapsed to the earth, body convulsing. His ribs tightened, and his lungs refused to draw in air. The hammer continued beating against his heart, pinning him to the ground as he writhed.
Then, the pain vanished. In its place was a faint warmth, like the smoldering embers of a fire not quite dead. Cain exhaled, suddenly feeling rejuvenated. The feeling quickly faded as he turned to his foe.
Iscarius walked through the flames, dripping blood with each step. He stopped before Cain and watched him through the smoke and embers. He drew down his cowl and raised his face to Cain.
The Gray Line
“Malecai?” Cain stammered in disbelief.
Malecai watched him with those bright eyes. “It is good to see that you still recognize your friends.”
“You are no friend of mine!” Cain spat.
“After everything we’ve been through?”
“When last I saw you, you fell beneath the Alar. You were dead.”
Malecai had changed little in the months since Cain had seen him last. His former friend’s face had grown gaunter than before, his sharp cheekbones accenting his angular face. Yet, his eyes still shimmered blue with a strange light of their own. They were deathly cold, wild. His hair draped his face and shoulders, jet black and smooth. He stood tall and proud, shoulders broad and clad in shadows.
A gray cloak of fine furs fell about his ankles. He wore black and gray leather and furs, held in place by a silver-trimmed gambeson. The only metal he sported were two large greaves fashioned of simple steel and embellished with silver.
“That may have been the last you saw of me,” he spoke in that familiar, cool voice. “But I have kept my eyes on you.”
“How did you survive? Why didn’t you come back to us?” Cain asked, still refusing to admit the overwhelming truth.
Malecai smirked. “I was not in the water for long. Ada Arillius pulled me from the ice and mended my wounds. My long years of planning turned out better than I could have dreamed.”
“What do you mean?”
“For all
your years, you are still just a stupid orphan boy. Can you not see the big picture, even now?” He shook his head. “No, of course you cannot. I watched you since you were an infant. I followed you your entire life. I am the one who found your family and orchestrated the attacks on your home. I am the one who laid the hints to Darius that Morven would be besieged. I am the one who convinced Abaddon into risking half his forces in attacking Morven.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you do all that?”
Malecai floated a hand over a nearby fire, watching the flames shrink away. “I did all of that… for you.”
“Me? If you wanted to kill me, why didn’t you do it when you had the chance? All those months of aiding us, of fighting with us and building the Alliance. I considered you my friend! Was all of it a lie?”
“No. Not all of it… I needed the Warriors and what you represented. You are Tarsha’s only hope; I had to make sure you remained alive long enough to rebuild the Alliance and aid in my defeating Abaddon. And… I had to ensure you were indeed the one I should place my hopes on.”
“You wanted the Alliance to win at Morven? Whose side are you even on?”
Malecai laughed and spread his arms wide. “Tarsha’s of course.”
Cain shook his head. “So you follow me my entire life, gain my trust, help me fight Abaddon, and then betray me? You’re mad!”
“I did it for your own good, Cain. For you and the sword you hold in your hand.”
Cain glanced at Ceerocai before returning his gaze to Malecai, dumbstruck. “All this for a sword? You’re the one who gave me the damned thing in the first place.”
Malecai smiled his eerie grin. “You honestly think that finding those tombs was an accident? I needed you there to finish what I had begun.
“Giving you the sword was a test, to see if you are truly the one. And you are! You have played your part and played it well. But your time has come. Now, fulfill your duty to Tarsha, give me Ceerocai and your life so that we may end this madness.” Cain stepped back.
A New Reign Page 25