by Meg Cowley
“But if this is just a prophecy, we’re going to win, right?” asked Harper.
Aedon laughed. “I don’t think that’s how prophecies work, Harper. You cannot just sit back and wait for the outcome. You still must take part in your own destiny. You must ‘stand true’, ‘beware the Tainted Star, and ‘heed the Shadow’... whatever that means. And it seems we might need a Dragonheart, which is nigh on impossible–”
“Thanks to you,” said Erika.
Aedon glared at her. “You’re welcome! We would not have escaped Tournai alive had I not used their energies for our benefit.”
“Regardless, we’ve given our word that we will follow the könig to battle, for better or worse,” interrupted Brand. “At least forewarned is forearmed. We cannot be quite sure what we are dealing with, but he is clearly more powerful than even we thought. We ought to be more cautious on that basis.”
“I’m not sure we can be cautious facing a maniacal half-elf who has the magic of the Dark One and a mountain full of goblins...,” said Aedon glumly.
Harper was inclined to agree, but they had given their word.
Thirty-Nine
He could not help but check upon her. Dimitri’s heart sank when he found Harper outside the safety of Keldheim, camped upon the road amongst a great dwarven host that sprawled into the forest.
Their purpose was unmistakable, albeit hopeless. They come to retake Afnirheim. Saradon will kill them all. If they even reached Afnirheim, for the pascha planned to send out a great host of his own to further expand the reach of his domain.
Dimitri dithered on the fringes of the valley, hidden by the ridge of trees. Do I warn her? He had already tried to tell her to leave, but now it was even worse. Now she walked to her certain death. He would not have it on his conscience. Never mind that everything else seemed to be spiralling beyond his control. This, he could avert. They did not need to die. He looked over the valley and the thousands of dwarven warriors. I have to try.
He sought her out, flitting through the veils of the world until he came upon her, once more in the company of the confounded elf and their other companions, though the dwarf was absent. He waited until she excused herself a little while later to relieve herself, following her through the trees. On her way back, he appeared before her.
She swore and stumbled back, her hand reaching for her dagger before she recognised him. “Gods! I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she snarled. “Stop following me! What do you want?”
He longed to make a sarcastic retort, but checked himself. There was no time. “Harper, I came here to warn y–”
“I’m not going anywhere, Dimitrius,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him.
He could not help but smile at her stubbornness, foolish though it was. “Clearly. But you have to listen. You’re walking into a trap. The goblins plan to march from Afnirheim to Keldheim soon. You’ll run straight into them readying for battle. It will be a massacre – and not in your favour.”
“Why tell me? You’re a part of this,” she said accusingly. Her gaze seemed to strip him to his core. “Are you trying to trick me?”
“No, I promise.” He faltered. For a moment, he gaped, before he swallowed and spoke. “Look. Perhaps I’m foolish. I don’t even know why I care. Perhaps I feel I owe you after what happened.”
Harper narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I stole the Dragonheart from the king,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to the ground.
She stiffened, her eyes widening. “That’s why you sought us out, kept me safe. That’s the reason you let me escape in the end, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Why did you take it? And why send it to me?”
“That part was an accident,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to send it to you. I stole it to...” Dimitri frowned. “I was chasing rumours, I suppose. But in the end, for better or worse, I unleashed Saradon. I was blinded by it all.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I think I made the wrong choice.” Colour rose to his cheeks. Why was he standing there, babbling on like a fool – to her, of all people.
“You’re a bloody idiot,” she snapped. He was glad she saved herself from shouting, though just barely, knowing they were too close to the camp for comfort. Instead, she closed the gap between them and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Did you have any idea what you would do?”
“Of course not! I wanted to build a better Pelenor, but not...not like this.”
“Then you need to fix it.”
“Believe me, I wish I could. I’m bound to him now, Harper. I gave my word and my magic. I cannot.” With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realised the true implications of that. He was bound to Saradon’s will, whatever the cost.
She scoffed in disgust. “Typical. You’re just like any other noble. Wash your hands and be done with it. Someone else’s problem. Did you see inside Afnirheim?”
“I did,” he said quietly.
“Did you help him?”
“Of course not! I had no idea. I never dreamed he would ally with goblins, much less sanction that. I was furious with him, but he does not care one whit for my opinion.” Dimitri hung his head.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself,” Harper hissed, bringing her face close to his until he could see the flash of anger in her grey eyes. “My friend nearly died because of you. A city full of his kin did die because of you. We are going to fix your mistake, and you’d better not get in our way.”
She made to push past him, but he grabbed her upper arm, not allowing himself to be shaken off. “You won’t heed my warning?”
“We gave our word to the dwarven king that we would help them in whatever way we could.” Her voice tremored just a little.
She’s scared, but she’ll do it anyway? He admired her pluckiness.
“They will kill you all, Harper.”
“Not if the könig knows they’re coming. Have you not seen how many thousands he has massed? The goblins stand no chance.”
He hoped she was right, for the dwarven warriors held a fearsome reputation, but he had seen the pascha’s horde – a never-ending flood of unearthly creatures passing through Afnirheim’s halls and onward to battle.
“Why are you so invested, Harper? This has nothing to do with you or your companions.”
Doubt flashed in her eyes, which she swiftly covered with defiance. “It has, more than you know.”
He waited.
“My companions have dealings with him, of a sort,” she said. “My connection is of a more...personal nature. I admit, I’m partly curious. I have to seek the truth.”
“The truth of what?” If one of them did not speak in riddles, it seemed the other did.
“I am Saradon’s kin.”
He sucked in a breath. “I beg your pardon?”
No. Icy dread consumed him. It cannot be so!
Forty
“I’m his great-granddaughter. The dwarven seer, Vanir, showed me.” She trailed off, as if there were more she did not wish to say.
“Beyond any doubt?” he asked, desperate for any shred of hope that it wasn’t true, that she would not be pulled into the middle of the maelstrom with him.
“Beyond any,” she whispered.
He grasped her shoulders and met her gaze, trying to instill his urgency. “Then you must go. It is all the more reason to flee! He must not find you!”
She struggled in his grip, but he did not let go. “I don’t understand.”
“He knows, Harper. Even if he is not certain, he has strong suspicions. Enough for him to seek you. He wants you. If you go to him, you walk to your own doom. Please heed me. Please leave – with or without the dwarves.”
“Harper?” Brand’s deep voice rang through the trees.
She stiffened and her head whipped toward the direction of camp. “I have to go.”
Dimitri reluctantly released his grasp. It would not do to be found. “Please leave, or at least warn the dwarves.
I cannot be any more clear. To continue spells disaster.” He faded into the shadows as the glow of a burning brand through the trees grew closer. Harper stared at him for a moment, before turning away and moving toward the light.
He watched her go, staring until she had long disappeared between the trees. The icy chill still froze him. She is his kin. He could not begin to fathom what that meant, only that it spelled disaster if Saradon obtained her. Now he had all the more reason to keep her away from him, to keep her safe.
He hoped she would heed his words, but he did not hold out much conviction.
He disappeared to run back to his unwittingly acquired master. It would not do for him to be discovered helping the “enemy”.
Forty-One
“What’s wrong?” Brand asked when he saw Harper’s frown and her distraction. “You were gone a while...”
She looked up at him, but did not answer.
“Harper?” Brand’s expression became more guarded, and from the way he shifted, she could tell he itched to place a hand upon his weapon, sensing a threat.
“Dimitrius just appeared,” she whispered.
Brand growled, his hand falling to the handle of his dagger.
“He came with a warning.”
He stopped. “Come. Tell us all.”
“Away from the dwarves,” she urged. They did not need to hear of it.
He nodded. They returned to their companions, motioning them to a quieter corner of the camp.
She recounted the bare minimum of their encounter, omitting how she had told Dimitrius of her heritage and the strange protectiveness he seemed to have developed toward her.
“We cannot leave them now,” Brand said. “We gave our word.”
“As I told Dimitrius,” Harper said, folding her arms.
“We must tell the dwarves.”
“How? They cannot know that I met with him.”
“A vision,” said Aedon. “It’s the only way. You have seen a vision of a great goblin host in the valley before Afnirheim. You saw it once. You can describe it again.”
She nodded. “But won’t they want Vanir to verify the truth of it?”
“We are far from Keldheim now. There is no time to dally,” said Brand. “The könig will seek to press onward, not fall back, lest the element of surprise be lost.”
They rushed to Jarl Halvar, who camped close to them with his command. When Brand murmured their purpose to him, he took them before the könig at once. Harper recounted her “vision” in short order to the könig, who did precisely as predicted. Ground his teeth and vowed to press on.
“I thank you for sharing the vision with me, Harper of Caledan.” He still refused to call her by her House title, though she could understand why. “It changes our path not, only that we are now forewarned and forearmed. We knew there would be battle. Better it be upon the open fields where we may form ranks and sweep the blight away. If they are to be drawn from Afnirheim, it means the halls will ring empty – for our return.”
He sounded far more confident than Harper thought he ought to. He had seemed to discount Saradon entirely, which she felt was a great oversight. Dimitrius’s uncharacteristic uneasiness and even shreds of fear and doubt he had begun to show her, knowingly or not, were a far greater testament of the true danger of the half-elf than anything else.
Does the könig realise Saradon’s power? she wondered.
CONFIRMATION ARRIVED the next morning with the return of Korrin’s scouts.
“Your vision was indeed true. We did not need Vanir to verify. A great goblin host skulks before Afnirheim, massing on the plain. Though they will surely retreat into the dark halls with the return of day, they will as surely return when cover of darkness strengthens their daring.”
“We are still to march, König?” Jarl Halvar asked what they all dared not to, what was not their place to question.
König Korrin nodded. His smile was grim with the pleasure of the battle to come. “Aye. I know the lay of the land and the halls of Afnirheim. The scourge of goblins stands little chance when we know when and where to position and manoeuvre. Form up, Jarl Halvar. We march at once. I want every dwarf in position to strike after next dawn.”
A tangle of nerves fluttered through Harper. Halvar bowed and departed at once to send runners through the camp with the könig’s orders.
THAT NIGHT, THERE WAS little merriment in camp. Fires were prohibited, lest their position be given away to the scourge of goblins they could hear screeching through the valleys. Their harsh calls bounced around the valley, until it seemed they came from all directions.
Harper felt sleep would not be had that night. Though she sat in a tight knot with Aedon, Brand, and Erika between the trunk of a giant tree and a rocky overhang, she did not count herself safe. The rhythmic rasp and scrape of Erika sharpening her twin blades was the only sound from their little group, though the clanking of other metal elsewhere in the camp signalled that she was not alone in her ministrations.
Brand had laid all his weapons – the giant blade none of them could hope to lift, a surprising number of knives he had concealed upon his body – upon the rough ground before him. He checked them all meticulously, cleaning and sheathing them to check he could draw them all with ease.
Harper clutched her dagger, the one Aedon had given her, and a slim, short blade she had briefly trained with in the dwarven halls in their scabbards before her, unsure and unwilling to unsheathe them, to acknowledge the threat that was to come.
“Are you all right, Harper?” Brand murmured, pausing for a moment.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “I just feel a little nauseated.” And scared, she thought, though she did not dare admit it.
Brand chuckled quietly. “I understand that. Even for me, the time before a battle is filled with no small amount of apprehension.”
“It’s just...” Just what? Was it the threat she knew they were to meet? The risk to them all? The dark of the night amplifying all her fears? “It’s just everything,” she decided.
“The scouts watch with extra vigilance tonight. We are safe. Tomorrow with the dawn, the threat begins, but we will stand together, as we have always done, and we will weather the storm.” He glanced at his other companions and gave a small smile. Harper knew they had fought together many times before.
“What if we don’t?” she whispered. To voice her worst fears aloud scared her even more.
“Then, Harper of Caledan, an honourable death in battle we shall have had. But I will do all in my power to see it is not so. My time in this life is not done yet. I have more to live for.”
His eyes flicked to Erika and back again, almost imperceptible in the dark. Perhaps she had imagined it.
“As do you,” he added. “What did Vanir call you? Harper of Caledan, of Pelenor, of House Ravakian, Mother Blessed, and Fated One? The Frelsa?” He gave her another small smile. “It would seem you are most blessed of us all to survive.”
“I’m not half the warrior you are. Or a quarter. Or even a hair’s breadth,” she said, disheartened.
Brand laughed. “We will stand with you, Harper. Fear not.”
MORNING, AND BATTLE, arrived too soon for comfort. The dwarven host, uncharacteristically silent, stood in unbroken lines threading through the trees above the cleared land before Afnirheim where the battle-dead still lay. The stench wafted across the valley – of death and the scourge of goblins – further turning Harper’s stomach. Already, she trembled, unable to contain her nervous energy, not even with Brand’s reassuring presence beside her.
The goblins’ shrieks still echoed across the valley as, with the rising sun, they retreated into Afnirheim in disorder, trickling back into the dark halls.
The dwarven horns rang out, rich, strong, and fierce, and with that summons, the dwarven warriors broke into a run. Their line swept forward as they descended upon the valley floor, roaring their attack.
The melee was upon them all in short order as the shrieking goblins, caught of
f guard by the sudden and unexpected attack, met the charge, spilling forth from Afnirheim with haste and urgency. They seemed to emerge in greater numbers, until the valley before the dwarven city was full of bodies, and din, and stench.
Behind the dwarven king, who led the charge, and the front ranks of König Korrin’s strongest warriors, Harper and her companions surged forward, meeting the goblin defence as the front lines of their attack parted and the first dwarves and goblins fell.
Brand’s great blade emerged, sweeping away all before him, whilst Erika’s twin blades were a blur, soon spewing black blood into the air as she felled those who dared come close to her. Aedon’s own blade darted hither and yon. Between the scything dwarven axes, they crunched and squelched in fleshy targets.
Harper stood between them all, wielding her own blade where needed, charging it with magic that burned and sizzled her targets as she struck, sending them either squealing to the ground or falling back in retreat. In the midst of battle, there was neither time nor energy to waste on fear, for every step brought a fresh challenge.
Harper soon lost herself in an uncharacteristic haze, somehow finding all her senses deafened, overloaded, yet having a clarity of mind and rhythm in her limbs that seemed a strange, deadly dance. Somehow, all her training seemed to come to fruition. She had enough grace, skill, and nerve to attack and defend with a semblance of competence, then enhanced her attacks with magic that bit into the onslaught of goblins.
The ground ran slick and muddy with red and black blood, the host of dwarves having no choice but to clamber and stumble over the corpses. It made for a difficult advance, but Korrin’s banners called them all forward as he progressed the dwarven battalion upon the fallen city.
Their assault was inexorable, pushing back the goblins, who hated the growing daylight that made their vision barely passable, just as Korrin had said. Still, goblins spewed from the mouth of Afnirheim, and Harper found herself wondering when the horde would end...if the horde would end.