by J A Essen
“Agreed. Grab only your swords, bows, and quivers. Leave everything else behind. Everyone form up on Edana. She’ll lead us out.” Wallace gives out the commands.
With Edana at the front and me right behind her, we make our way back up the slimy stairs to the door hiding our position this entire time. Unlocking it and checking the hallway first, Edana motions for us all to file out. Once again, two-by-two we follow along behind her and before long we are at the archway leading into the Grand Entrance. There is plenty of moonlight coming from the full moon and shining through the massive front glass windows. The stairs are centered in the room and just as Taranis said; there are two guards at the top.
To both the left and right of the archway we’re waiting at, are pillars casting shadows. Shadows that we can use to cover our movements as we set up for our shots on the two elves.
Ivan, William, and myself move to the front as I whisper, “The two of you take the first pillar to the right. Line up with one crouching and one standing as tightly together as possible. I will take the next pillar.”
Slowly we creep out of the archway, our backs pressed against the wall, barely able to keep eyes on the elves. As we reach the first pillar, the two men slide in within the shadow and take up position behind the pillar. I continue on to the next and repeat the same process, hiding my movements from the guards, careful not to draw attention.
Edana was right, I have a perfectly clear shot to the right and between the other two, they should have no problems with a set of arrows. Watching me reach into my quiver, William and Ivan mimic me and do the same. I lay the nock of the arrow into the string and lay the shaft across the top of my thumb, drawing the spine all the way back to the bow. The others are set and ready and just as I’m ready to give the command, Ivan slips on the smooth floor, losing his footing and falls sideways. The guards notice him, and as one casts some type of a magical orb at him I shout, “Now!” and lose my arrow as does William. I watch in slow motion as the arrows travel across the distance between us, mine striking a mere blink before William’s. The right guard slumps forward over the top railing, and the left is knocked off his feet, an arrow through the throat. William has already strung, drawn and released another arrow before I can even say anything and catches the slumped elf through the right side, sending him flat down on the stairs; motionless.
We rush to check on Ivan, but it’s a hopeless maneuver. There are scorch marks down the side of his face and onto his chest. Death came instantly. I run my fingers over his wild eyes, closing them. “Your death will not be in vain.”
“Let’s go,” Wallace says flatly. “We have a mission to accomplish. There will be plenty of time to mourn his death after our victory.”
As we move up the massive stairs, the warm blood of the two-shot elf trickles past us, steam rising up against the cold stone surface below it. It smells metallic. It smells of death. And it’s a pleasing smell to my senses right now.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I can actually hear the drip, drip, dripping of the other guard’s blood as it hits the floor below his lifeless body.
Moving around him, we head to the right and form up outside the doors leading into the library. The barrier standing between us though is massive. There is absolutely no hope of kicking it in.
“So, anyone have any ideas on getting through this beast of a door?” Wallace sounds disheartened.
“Stand clear and leave it to me.” Edana waves us to the sides of her as she stands in the center of the hallway in front of the door. Balling her hands together and then releasing them separately in front of her body forcefully she shouts “Spionnadh!” splintering the door clear back to the hinges.
We rush forward and although the elves are caught off-guard, they are quick to recover and stand together, blocking the path to Brennus, who I can just see around them at the front of the room standing in the bright, white moonlight.
“Attack!” Commands Wallace and the four guards rush the elves, swords drawn. They are on them quickly and force them into a physical fight. It is two-on-one in both cases, and our men are still not faring well. That is not for me to worry about right now, though. They know their duty and Wallace and I know ours. We lock eyes with King Brennus and move into the room.
“What’s the meaning of this?!”
Brennus is loud and imposing, to say the least. He stands every bit of seven feet tall, and you can tell he was once a very well-built warrior, but time has taken its toll on his body, and he’s softer now.
“How dare you attack me with so few. It’s an insult. Taranis, take care of these two.”
Taranis draws his longsword from his sheath, but rather than starting towards us, raises his sword, ready to charge the king, announcing, “This is for the queen, you traitor.”
He’s too far away, though, having been overlooking the troops below. Brennus casts a force spell and sends Taranis spiraling over the railing of the balcony to the ground below.
As he turns to face the two of us, Edana pushes in between and stands her ground.
“Edana!” Brennus is shocked to see his daughter standing defiantly in front of him. “What do you think you’re doing, daughter?”
“You,” she looks him up and down, “are no father to me.” She spits in his direction. “What kind of father conspires with another king to have the mother of his only child murdered?”
He takes one step backward, in a slightly less aggressive manner. “So, you know then.”
Smiling in a manner that makes my stomach turn he continues. “I don’t regret it, and I would do it again.” He begins to chuckle and then bursts out into a full maniacal laugh. “As a matter of fact, I’m doing it right now; to your step-mother. Both of those weak women were unable to provide me with a male heir to the throne. Pathetic excuses, the both of them.”
He turns his back to us and paces around the planning table, placing his hands on it as he leans into it. “So what is your plan now? You’re down three more already.”
I turn and look. The elf guards are down, but Rowley is the only man of ours left alive, and he’s down and wounded.
That leaves me, Wallace, and Edana to take on King Brennus. I don’t like those odds; not one bit.
“Flank him,” Wallace offers.
“As soon as we begin our move into him he will cast on one of us,” I note back to him, “and you saw how easily he handled another elf; his own lead guard.”
“So,” Edana steps forward, taking the attention off of us slightly, “did you ever love me?”
“When you were born, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. When the clerics delivered you into my arms and told me you were my daughter, I loved you unconditionally. But when the news was delivered days later that your mother had suffered beyond their healing abilities during the delivery and would no longer be able to bear children, I despised you. You. This tiny, little insignificant being had destroyed my chances of having a son and one-day heir to the throne of Robor. So to answer your question more appropriately and succinctly, yes I loved you… for about four days.”
Edana’s knees are weak at this bastard’s admission. How could anyone be so completely heartless? I move in alongside her to steady her.
“How sweet is this? The Ujnart is helping the poor, little elf girl. Laughable is what it is.” Brennus’ look is cold.
Edana straightens herself up and takes another step forward toward Brennus’ position. “He’s not some Ujnart, father. We are Joined,” she begins rubbing her stomach, “and I’m carrying his child.”
“Blasphemy!” He points his palm in my direction, and I see a bright green orb forming.
As he releases it, I know this is the end for me, and I look at Edana as I see her mouth something.
“Sciath!” The swirling green ball crashes into some sort of invisible barrier an inch from my face, smoothing away and absorbing along into it.
He unleashes another, and she shouts “Spionnadh!” sending the ball
flying wildly to the side, crashing into a wall of books, destroying them.
“I’m impressed, daughter.”
“I’m not here to impress you.”
“Clearly.” Brennus’ face is hard set.
Wallace and I side step Edana, getting ready to take flanking positions on the king. Edana stays in the center and will do her best to protect us.
“Oh and by the way,” I drop my hand to the side of my body, “Edana’s not the only one with impressive skills. SOLAS STRìOCH!” I cast a wall of flame between the king and the three of us, temporarily blinding him to our movements and giving Wallace and myself the time we need to enact our plan.
Chapter 28
Edana
I shield my eyes as Faudron casts, and a blue wall of flame erupts from the floor, right in front of Brennus’, blocking him from view. Faudron yells across for Wallace to move up and the two men fan out from me, moving close to the ends of the licking flames.
“Uisce!” King Brennus bellows and the wall begins to falter and then fade away, smoke and steam rising from where his water spell dispersed the flames. He’s shrugging out of his royal robe which has been singed from the flames when my hero and Wallace both charge into him.
“Tintreach.” I flick my wrist, my first two fingers extended and a streak of red energy flies across the room toward my father. He throws up a protective shield absorbing my spell and simultaneously sends an orb pulse in Faudron’s direction, impacting the floor just ahead of his steps, and knocking him backward. Wallace makes it to the king with sword drawn but meets the block of Brennus’ staff.
Faudron is quick to regain his footing and shake off the disorientation effects, retrieving his fallen sword and charges in to help Wallace. Seeing my father’s staff begin to charge, I cast “Sciath,” throwing up a protective shield between the two of them. As my father impales the staff into the shield, it erupts in a shower of golden sparks as he drags it along the length of the barrier, destroying the crystal at its tip.
One issue dealt with.
Faudron manages to clip Brennus as he attempts to spin and avoid the downward arch of the sword; a small red stream of blood emerging from the wound on his arm.
“Spionnadh!” he grunts, spreading his arms wide and knocking both men backward, spiraling toward opposite walls. “Tintreach.” He aims his open palm toward me and a bright green searing bolt streaks past my head, singeing my hair.
That son of a bitch.
Balling my hands together and rotating them over one another, I focus my energy and “Spionnadh!”, cast a concentrated burst of energy at him, pushing him back near to the edge of the balcony.
Dammit. Not enough.
I slump onto my knees; that last cast making me slightly woozy.
Faudron is already up and sprinting across to check on Wallace. He helps him to his feet, and the two men charge at Brennus at full speed, shoulders down, trying to plow into him while he’s still off balance. It’s like charging into a stone wall, though; he doesn’t even budge, and he’s able to get his hands on them as they recoil.
Both men are lifted completely off of their feet by their necks. Brennus chucks Wallace back into the room, freeing one of his hands which he uses to grab a thin-bladed dagger from his waistband. Pulling it slowly up towards Faudron’s throat he snarls, “So you thought a mere Ujnart could be my undoing? Fool.”
From somewhere deep inside I can feel myself scream, but nothing comes out of my open mouth. Instead, my wrists connect in front of my body, palms spread, and a flickering white orb of energy forms and then explodes; waves of energy flowing in all directions sending everyone sprawling and thankfully freeing Faudron from my father’s grip.
“Enough!” he screams. “Athraigh!”
As if dealing with his imposing elven form wasn’t bad enough, now he has shifted to rhino form. The thick hide will be nearly impossible for the men to slice through; assuming they can even get a clean attack.
Scraping his front foot across the ground twice, he charges at Wallace who spins, but gets a brutal side head-butt and is sent down on all fours, screaming in pain; the impact must have shattered several ribs. Whirring across my vision, Faudron sends an arrow flying that impacts the hide on his rear haunch but falls ineffectively to the floor. It gets Brennus’ attention, momentarily and I cast another stream of red plasma streaking, connecting with his face, and scorching one of his eyes.
I smirk.
Brennus, enraged, ducks his head toward Wallace and brings the gray tusk up brutally from the underside of his hunched over body, spearing straight through, tinging it with red as it rips through the flesh of his back. Raising his head to full height, Wallace’s limp body hanging from it, I stand in horror.
Faudron fires off back-to-back-to-back arrows, landing two in the softer skin of this neck, and the other ricocheting off the shoulder. Brennus merely shrugs them off and angles himself toward Faudron. I see Faudron reach his hand into his quiver.
I begin to tremble at the thought…
“Edana, I’m here for you, my child.”
I think I must be daydreaming, but an apparition of my mother appears beside me, hovering just inches off the ground. Time. Stands. Still.
My father’s head is down in a position ready to charge, and Faudron’s hand is suspended mid-air with an arrow gripped, ready to be brought into his bow.
“Mother! How? Wh-what?”
“My ‘little fire,’ I told you I would be there in your moment of most dire need. The time of the reign of tyrants is over.” She places her hand on my shoulder. “Feel the power of my Vanyali flow into you. Harness it. Use it. I love you my daughter; I have always loved you. End this, here, now, and forevermore.”
I close my eyes and take in a sharp breath as I feel a wave of something indescribable wash over me. There is a new fire burning within me, begging to be unleashed. Letting my breath out slowly, I open my eyes and turn to my father; time is slowly returning. I make a wide sweep with my arm, the same motion I use when skipping a stone across the water, only when I release the ‘stone,’ a bright, sparking lance of royal purple energy is discharged. As time returns to normal, the deadly force hits my father in the side, tearing straight through his hide from one side and back out through the other, dropping him on his face and sending his limp form sliding on its side, lifeless.
The situation is just too much. Everything goes sideways as my knees buckle, and I fall to the floor. I manage to brace myself with my arms as the ground rushes up at me. Through the haze I can see my hands; hands that are glowing, pulsing with brilliant purple and whitish energy. Looking up, I see Faudron’s form rushing over to me, “It’s okay, I just got hit with a wave of dizziness. I’m not hurt.”
“Thank the gods for that, Edana. What happened? Where did that come from?”
“My mother. She was here.”
“What are you talking about. There was no one but you, Brennus and myself. One second I was reaching for an arrow and the next second he was on the ground with a sizeable portion of his midsection missing.”
How could he not have seen her? I know she was here. “But I spoke with her.”
Chapter 29
Faudron
I definitely owe Edana my life. That much I’m completely sure of. But her mother being here? I don’t know what that’s all about. I was in the process of getting ready to notch an arrow and pray I could penetrate something to slow him down, when all of a sudden he just collapsed and slid across the floor, a large, gory section of his body missing.
“You’re absolutely certain you are alright?” I ask Edana as I place my hand on her stomach. “And this?”
“Yes,” is all she says as she places her hand on top of mine.
“How could you even know? We’ve only known one another for such a short time.”
“The Joining. It’s a certainty.”
I lift her chin and brush the hair from her face, then run my thumb across her lips. She’s just too much goodness f
or one person. I lean in and gently slant my lips across hers, cupping her chin between my thumb and forefinger.
Rowley. I completely forgot about him.
“Where is Rowley?” I ask as I start looking around. I spot him at the broken banister on the balcony, looking over it.
“Rowley, are you alright?”
“I’ll recover sir, but the king’s forces have broken through and are nearing the castle entrance. I can see King Nathair on horseback, riding just behind the main line. He’s arrogant and thinks himself invincible.”
Edana is already back on her feet and moving to leave the room.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
“Well, I sure as hell am not going to sit here and let him destroy the castle.”
“Rowley, can you make it out?” He’s still leaning over the edge.
“Yes, but I need your help first.”
“Edana, just wait one minute. Let me get Rowley up and then we’ll deal with the forces. Perhaps I can talk to Nathair.” She halts her progress, at the splintered remains of the door. I walk over to Rowley, figuring he needs help righting himself, but then I see why he hasn’t stood up.
Taranis is hung up on a broken pillar, from where King Brennus blasted him off of the balcony.
Edana will be ecstatic.
Rowley has one hand, and I reach over to grab his other, and a handful of his garb to pull him up. It takes every bit of strength the two of us have, but we finally manage to lift him high enough that he gets a foothold and is able to climb up and over me.
“Taranis!” Edana screeches as she tears across the open library at breakneck speed. She leaps and grabs him around the neck, surrounding him in a mighty hug.
“Oof! Princess please, I have several broken ribs.” Taranis looks strained but alive.
“Sorry.” She flushes red, embarrassed by her actions.
Looking over at the king’s dead body, Taranis speaks, “Who? How?”
“It’s still a mystery to me, Taranis. One moment he was charging me, and the next minute Edana’s hand were glowing and his lifeless body was lying there.” I fill him in on the very truncated version of the story.