by Sean Hinn
Oort thought of Shyla just then, of her own trial not two cycles gone. Even with all the wicked Elders presiding over her fate, it took one, only one, to grant her mercy. Now, on the word of one Scout and three gnomes, this general would grant his own people mercy. Oort was decided.
“I’ll keep the tunnels up. I’ll trust yer oath and trust yer dwarves to keep it. Yeh get that done, yeh’ll find shelter in G’naath. Best as we can manage, at least.”
Hatchet nodded. “Ye won’t regret it. We’ll name us a regent ’til J’arn comes back or we find his body. Not all the way sure on how we’ll do that, but I s’pose once we get settled, if we get settled, we’ll have us a vote. As o’ right now, it’ll be me. Flint,” he said, turning to the captain. “Spread the word among the captains. Looks like we might survive this nightmare a bit longer. Ye tell ’em it be thanks to King Greykin, and ye make ’em understand. And tell ’em to stretch whatever rations they got left. We march at dawn to arrest Dohr Silverstone, and it’ll be one hungry march.”
~
Nishali watched.
“Forty fires,” whispered Lanna. “Maybe more.”
“More,” Nishali said. She shifted on her knees, pointing out across the overlook. “Look there, over the second ridge. See the shadow against the horizon?”
“Ah, I thought that was a fog.”
Nishali shook her head. “No. The air is too dry, now at least. That will change at dusk. Those clouds, there…” Nishali pointed east. “A snow comes. But there…” she pointed north again, “that is smoke. There are over a thousand here. Perhaps two thousand.”
“Why do they not march? The dwarf captain, what was his name?”
“Kalder,” replied Nishali.
“Him. He said they had set out for G’naath. It is daylight, but they camp—”
“Cowards,” Nishali said. “Like their king.”
A ranger approached from behind.
“My Tenth is in position, First Ranger.”
“Good. What do they see?”
Palla Longshadow, now Second Ranger of Thornwood, displayed a frown. “Little you would call good. We can cut off perhaps an eighth of their forces if we attack from the canyon, even defeat them soundly, but once we do, all surprise is gone.”
“We can do no better?” Nishali asked.
“Not by my estimation. But…”
Nishali sensed hesitation.
“Speak your mind.”
“Very well. I am not sure that we must attack. They seem… wasted, to me. My rangers sense a melancholy within their ranks, and hunger. I am not sure how much of a threat—”
“Thank you for your assessment,” Nishali clipped. “They will be less of a threat if we cut their forces by an eighth. How many will we lose?”
Palla shrugged. “None, if we wait until dark and are cautious. We can rain arrows down from above. We would need only silence, and a bit of light.”
Nishali smiled darkly. “These we have in abundance, Second Ranger. You have done well. Would you have us take up position now?”
Palla shook her head. “I would counsel that we wait until dusk. Let me hunt a bit more for scouts and lookouts, though I expect to find none. They make no effort at even a most basic defense. Their camp—”
“Haphazard,” said Nishali. “They are oblivious to our presence and assume they are under no threat. Poor discipline. But I agree. My lack of caution has already cost us dearly.”
Lanna extended a hand to the First Ranger.
“Nishali—”
“No, Lanna. You must never disregard your failures, nor underestimate them. Swallow them whole, or they will return to swallow you.”
“Yes, First Ranger.”
“Make what preparations you deem appropriate, Palla. Do not hesitate to alert me to any concerns.”
“Yes, First Ranger,” said Palla. “I have only the one, which I have stated.”
Nishali leveled a look at Palla. “Military concerns, Ranger. Our course is decided.”
“Very well.” Palla turned away.
Nishali pulled her bow and sat back against a stone. She inspected the ash-carved weapon closely, caressing its limbs, seeking blemishes or gouges. She found none. She examined its wrapped leather grip, ran a finger along the worn rest. Finding no flaw, she withdrew its string from her cloak pocket and notched it into the tip, pulling it taut. She bent the bow by the strength of her own arms, a feat none but an elf of the Wood could accomplish, and one which Nishali did with ease. She set the loop in the bottom limb notch and gently released the tension. She watched as Lanna did the same with her own bow, noticing the shake in her arms as she strung the weapon.
“You should practice more,” said Nishali, inspecting her linen string for frays. She cast a silent enchantment into the threads, then another into the wood. She pulled the string and pressed her ear to the ancient wood, listening for creaks and cracks. The bow sang like an instrument.
“I suppose I will get plenty of practice in the days to come,” said Lanna.
“Surely. But a Ranger builds her strength before it is needed.”
Lanna nodded. Nishali had expected a reply.
“What is it, Lanna?”
Lanna shook her head. “I wish… ah, forgive me. It is nothing.”
“If it were nothing, saying it aloud would cause you no grief.”
Lanna faced Nishali. “I have never killed. I do not wish to.”
Nishali thought for a moment before replying. “Yet you were first to voice your support for me.”
“My support for you is undying, Nishali Windwillow. You are my First. The Rangers are my family.”
“These dwarves have killed your family, Lanna.”
“Not these,” Lanna corrected. “But I agree with your strategy, for whatever that is worth.”
“It is worth much.”
“I am glad. But I have spent my years nurturing life, short as they may be compared to your own. I have hunted only to eat, or to grant mercy to a wounded animal. I have not—”
“Hear me, Lanna. Hear me well. Sometimes, in order to preserve one life, another must end. It is the way of nature. Why should it be less so when the lives of elves are taken? Why should we not preserve our own kin, as a wolf might its cubs?”
Lanna set her bow in her lap. Nishali had asked the question rhetorically but could see Lanna was chasing an answer. She remained silent, allowing the young ranger to work out her reply.
“Because we are not animals,” she said finally.
Nishali stood. She offered Lanna a hand to rise.
“That, Lanna Arbarri, is where you are mistaken. And if you are not, if humanity and the animals are not the same, then we are certainly the lesser of the two.” Nishali turned to join the rest of her Tenth. “Were that not true, my Kade would still be alive.”
~
Dusk fell swiftly but lingered long over the dwarven encampment, the sun diving abruptly below the peaks to the west but taking its time to find the far horizon. An odd, yellow-green light reflected off the thinning plumes emitting from Fang; the wind had shifted westerly, an approaching storm from the east extending its blustery reach through and over the Maw, shredding the clouds of ash before it.
The unsettled silence that had besieged General Brandaxe’s army had evolved into hope as the afternoon wore on and Flint spread the word. Hope! Flint had nearly forgotten such a thing ever existed. The rosy banter between his fellow captains and their sergeants felt foreign, or at least premature, but he would say nothing to discourage faith.
And that’s all it is, he decided. Faith. Same as the faith that me Kari will find her way to the elves and deliver that axe. Same as the faith that J’arn might pop out from under a rock one o’ these days. Same as the faith he’d be any better than his brother. He crossed through a narrow canyon, stopping to speak with a young captain he found at the far end. Thump, they called him, a fitting moniker for the brutish-looking dwarf, though Flint could not quite remember his proper name
. Thump offered a rare grin through his coal-black beard on hearing the news.
“Aye, it be good news,” said Flint. “But ye keep sharp, Cap.” Flint looked to the ridges on either side of the canyon. Dark had fallen. He could see nothing out of place, but something felt lopsided. He tried to dismiss it as no more than the sense of the coming storm, but the hairs on the nape of his neck would not concede the argument. “Can’t say as I like ye campin’ here in the canyon.”
“Ah, we’re just tryna stay outta the wind, Cap. Don’t ye worry. Thanks to that Wolfslayer, ain’t no Mama anymore to come an’ take a bite—”
Blinding light came from everywhere. An arrow silenced Thump, his sentence forever unfinished.
“Cover!” Flint screamed. “Take cover!”
Cries came from all sides. Flint desperately sought cover of his own but could see nothing. All was white. He covered his eyes and fell to all fours, scrambling, listening, his hearing his only reliable sense, but his ears heard only the slicing, ripping sound of arrows through the air, through trees, through dwarves, and the terrible, hopeless screams.
Something exploded through his back, something else through his calf. The pain was lightning. He could not draw breath to scream again. A third arrow pierced his shoulder, pinning him to the ground. He opened his eyes, squinting against the cursed light to catch one last glimpse of anything. He could not.
His last thought was one of relief, that at least there were some dwarves left, here on the far side of the canyon, who would die before he had delivered to them the lie of hope.
XXXIV: FURY
THIS IS THE PLACE,” Cindra said, collapsing to her knees. “I remember these black rocks here, juttin’ out.” Cindra ran a hand along the iron wall behind her. “It’s different in here.”
“Different how?” asked J’arn. “Do ye feel somethin’? Maybe the door is here somehow, maybe it’s—”
“It’s not here,” said Lucan, breathing heavily. He cast another orb, setting the cavern alight. “It might have been, but it’s gone.”
“Well ye don’t need to quit that easy!” said J’arn. “Shyla, can ye sense anything? Anything at all?”
Shyla wandered the cavern, looking. J’arn noticed her gait; she was unsteady like the rest. Exhaustion was taking its toll. He watched as she placed a hand on Wolf’s shoulder and closed her eyes. After a moment, she spoke.
“Wolf senses somethin’,” Shyla said. “But… it’s like Luc says. Whatever it was, it’s gone.”
J’arn closed his own eyes and tried. He still struggled with his magic; he understood it—Lady Lor had seen to that—but while his mind could conceive of how to do a thing, some barrier remained between thought and execution. He concentrated nonetheless but was rewarded with only a headache. His own discomfort, however, was nothing compared to the fatigue he knew the others were experiencing. He still felt some strength within himself, his dwarven endurance not yet ready to fail him, but as they had walked the tunnels these past hours, searching desperately for this place, it became clear the others were running out of time—Cindra most of all.
“Ye gotta get up, Lady,” he urged. “Come on now, take me hand. There ye go. Let’s just walk a bit. Maybe somethin’ll come.”
“I don’t wanna walk anymore, dwarf,” she said, letting J’arn lift her upright despite the assertion. When J’arn had led her a few steps away from the others, she whispered.
“It’s time,” she said.
“My arse it’s time,” said J’arn. “Ain’t time ’til I say so.”
“Let me sleep, J’arn. Please. All I ask is yeh gimme one turn o’ rest, real rest, before yeh do it.”
“Ain’t gonna happen, Lady. Not yet, not until—”
“Stop!” Cindra hollered.
J’arn stopped. Cindra glared at him, her yellowing eyes not quite aglow, but close. J’arn sensed both her growing depravity and her shame at her inability to keep it at bay. It broke his heart.
“Lady?” asked Shyla. “What is it? Do yeh sense something?”
Cindra kept J’arn’s gaze. He nodded.
“No, Shyla. Lady just needs a rest is all.” J’arn helped her to the floor of the cavern.
“But yeh said—”
“Just a rest, Shyla,” said Cindra. “Don’t ye fret, now.”
An agonized scream sounded from somewhere in Fury. A human scream. Not Aria.
A small hand pulled at J’arn’s sleeve. “What was that?” whispered Shyla. Her fear made J’arn shudder.
“Came from this way,” said Lucan, his voice hoarse. “Back the way we came.”
J’arn turned. Lucan cast an orb down the tunnel to the right. He, Lucan, and Shyla peered into the tunnel as the orb cast aside the darkness. J’arn could see nothing out of the ordinary. Wolf moved between them, snarling, hair standing upright along his spine.
“What is it, Wolf?” asked J’arn. “Whaddya hear, boy?”
Another scream. Longer. Louder. The cackles and mewls of the horde returned, following the shriek through the tunnels. Wolf pawed once at the air. He backed away, whining.
J’arn nearly reached for his axe, an instinct to fight rising within him. Dammit. All me life I train with an axe. Now it’s no use. He clenched his fists. A third scream resounded, its pitch terrible and tortured.
A whiff of sulfur curled J’arn’s lip. “Ye smell that?” Wolf whined behind him. “Same as when we got here.”
Shyla and Lucan sniffed the air. Shyla coughed. “It’s getting’ hard to breathe again.”
J’arn grimaced, the thought of Shyla’s pain somehow worse to him than all the horrors of Fury. “Use the magic, Shyla. Like I first showed ye.”
Shyla struggled. J’arn placed a hand on the small of her back, ready to help her breathe again if he must.
Shyla turned, her pink eyes moist. “I don’t think I… Wolf! Get back!”
J’arn spun around. In the center of the cavern, just beyond the now sleeping Lady Cindra, a thin, shimmering yellow glow stretched from floor to ceiling. Wolf whimpered at it, a desperate edge to his whine. He crept around Cindra, towards the glow, his head low.
“Wolf!” cried Shyla again, louder. Wolf obeyed, padding to her side, but J’arn could see he did not want to. The yellow crack grew wider, its edges afire. A rumbling, whooshing sound from the crack grew in intensity as another scream echoed though the tunnels.
“The door!” J’arn shouted. He turned to Lucan and Shyla. “It be the door!”
“How?” Lucan’s eyes widened, his pupils dilating in the growing light. “We didn’t do anything—”
J’arn reached for Shyla’s hand. “Who gives a damn? Come on! We gotta—”
Shyla gasped. J’arn turned back around.
Lady Cindra’s eyes had come alive, matching the mustard hue of the rip behind her. She lifted her head and gazed directly at J’arn. He took a half step back. No hint of the Lady Sandshingle that was remained in those awful eyes.
This was not Cindra.
A hopeless, menacing female voice filled J’arn’s mind. Its character matched Cindra’s own; the dialect did not.
~You waited too long, Prince-that-was.~
Cindra floated to her feet.
Shyla cried out in panic. “Lady! Grandmama! It’s me! It’s yer Shyla!”
~My Shyla? Yes, I suppose you are mine.~
The bare, cold intent in the statement nearly unnerved J’arn. His courage began to fray yet still he jumped in front of Shyla, placing himself between her and the once-Cindra. He held out his hands. The tips of his fingers shone red. “Don’t make me fight ye, Lady.”
~You will not reach this door.~
“We don’t have to!” shouted Lucan. A hand from behind grasped J’arn by the neck. Lucan pulled him into an embrace with one arm, Shyla with the other.
The demonlady began to cast. A silver sphere of lightning formed between her hands, spitting and crackling. Her hair grew wild, her eyes more so. She pulled her hands back, past her waist, tur
ning, preparing to launch the deadly orb.
Shyla keened, a pitiful, unintelligible cry of despair. She struggled against Lucan’s grasp.
Lucan held her fast. “Grab Wolf, now!”
J’arn felt the ring on Lucan’s hand begin to warm against his own throat and understood. He grabbed the snarling Wolf by the tail.
As the sphere of lightning shot forth from the demonlady’s hands, as Shyla wailed, as another, somewhere, cried out in greatest agony, J’arn only just heard Lucan’s ear-splitting cry:
“Barris!”
XXXV: THE TEMPLE OF KAL
WELL DONE, MY DAUGHTERS. Let us begin.”
The Mother shrugged the sheer violet gown from her shoulders. The fine garment slithered down the Mother’s thin form like a living thing, pausing briefly to caress her hips before drifting lazily to the stone floor, the ceremonial raiment now a lifeless bundle at her feet.
Penance D’Avers, daughter of fishmonger Deahma and Lorian Prior Crago, once-wife of Samean, once-mother of Sartean, now mother of the Temple of Kal, stepped out from the pile of linen and into the Kalian circle.