Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  Suddenly, Eleshen saw Rhennon’s cat go down from the strike of a Menderian lance, a volley of arrows turned upon General Merra beside him. Merra batted them away with her polearm, but two arrows struck deep into Snowscythe’s hindquarters. The great cat gave a wicked roar, its hindleg buckling, spilling Merra down into the battle. Rhennon and General Merra were trapped as a burning catapult collapsed around them. Hemmed in by fire and enemies, they fought in a quick dance of brutality, while Merra’s cat yowled and swiped, pacing to find a way through the fire.

  Eleshen had a moment to see Rhennon and Merra move, deadly with Elsthemi grace, before she shouted at Ihbram and reared her cat in with a roar. In one massive pounce, her cat and Ihbram’s leapt the burning debris, barreling into the soldiers that assailed Rhennon and General Merra. Smashing them, mauling them, seizing them and hurling them into the splattering flames. Merra’s great cat saw the breach and leaped in also, striking, biting and mauling in a dance of pure hell despite its injury.

  Eleshen fought with sword and longknife, standing in her stirrups, Ihbram causing havoc beside her. She saw her battle-madness reflected in General Merra’s eyes as Merra vaulted up to the saddle of her cat, Rhennon fast up behind Ihbram. Eleshen’s cat mauled one last man with a screaming hiss then turned, leaping them back across the flames, Ihbram’s cat and the determined Snowscythe leaping behind them.

  Heavy rain-clouds bruised the eastern sky, when an explosion suddenly rocked Eleshen. She realized with a jolt that the rescue of General Merra and Rhennon had put them too near the western ridge, and fire now surrounded them on three sides. A flare of gold-green flames shot up from an armory-tent, churning the grey morning as twisted lumps of shields and horseshoes hurtled past. Eleshen ducked, moving her cat into a tight spin to gut a foe behind her – when a figure walked out of the burning debris.

  Like a mirage of Halsos’ Hells, it came, writhing and shifting as it melted and formed and melted again. It was a man, but it was not – twisting with fire like some demonic beast. Screams of terror sounded nearby; the foes Eleshen fought retreated. Her dappled grey cat gave a vicious hiss, arching so hard that it shed Eleshen from the saddle, before it streaked off. Ihbram’s cat did the same, fearing this blazing effigy far more than any battle the keshar-cats had ever faced. As Rhennon vaulted up to the back of the snarling Snowscythe with Merra, her cat also backing off quickly, the burning thing approached. Eleshen and Ihbram were left alone as the cats panicked – throwing up an arm against the scorching hell and readying weapons.

  And yet. Peering through her fingers, Eleshen cut the searing light to see that the demon of gold-green fire was a man. Moving toward them, he heaved exploding pots of flame out into the camp with tremendous throws, splattering a yet-intact wain and a mess tent. And in his lean height and sinewed muscles, burning and melting, Eleshen saw a miraculous horror. Flesh knitting even as it sloughed away, muscles tightening even as they were eaten by the fire, hair growing into a river of blue-black curls even as it singed back to the scalp.

  Opal grey eyes piercing from the flames, wraithlike, even as they boiled from the heat.

  “Khouren!” Eleshen’s whisper was nothing upon her lips, and yet, he heard. Ears melting and sloughing only to be replaced, the creature arrived before her. The demon of flame stared at her with longing in his scalding eyes, and rasped three words through his charred and blistered throat.

  “I love you.”

  A Menderian soldier with more courage than most ran up with a roar, his blade swinging for Khouren’s fiery head. Eleshen dispatched him, driving her blade through his throat and letting him fall in Khouren’s flames, as Ihbram held off a party that rushed them nearby. But she couldn’t take her eyes from this man before her, this creature who burned through his own hell and the driving rain as the morning lifted in grey fury. He was both horror and magnificence, and as much as it shocked Eleshen, it also spurred her. Here was a man who stayed in all adversity. Here was a man who would stand by her, through all of Halsos’ Burnfire.

  Here was a man who would become a demon, just to protect her – to be hers.

  “I love you, too.” The words choked from Eleshen’s throat, the scorch of Khouren’s flesh billowing into her lungs. And yet, as the words left her, Eleshen knew their truth.

  A smile rose upon Khouren’s blistering lips. As if fed by her words, his opal eyes burned gold in the grey light. With a mighty roar, Khouren rushed forward, charging the net of soldiers that tried to hem them in. He was fire in the morning. He was a beast of death to their enemies, and Eleshen glorified in it for one endless moment before spinning into the carnage. Shoulder-to-shoulder with Ihbram, Eleshen saw Khouren reborn as his flames finally put themselves out from the swiftness of his healing. As they spun and stabbed, cut and swiped in a trio of death, Eleshen saw that Khouren’s hair was glossy, reaching down his back in a river of loose curls. His skin was young, clean of lines as if he’d been renewed by the flames and scorch.

  His eyes were molten like gold as he fought for the people he loved – his soul redeemed.

  Suddenly, something hammered Eleshen to her knees. She’d thought it was a horse that slammed into her, so badly did it throw her down, her sword jolted from her hand. But then black boots stepped in, separating her from Khouren and Ihbram as fighting raged all around. Eleshen was ready with her longknife, surging up – to find herself facing an enormous man in herringbone armor with an ornately shaven head.

  Pain roared through her as their eyes connected. Eleshen spasmed, her back arching like a bow. Some part of her heard Ihbram and Khouren’s shouts, saw them surrounded – by six more Kreth-Hakir Brethren. But Eleshen saw nothing else as pain ate her from inside out; seizing every sinew, mauling every limb. Unfathomable, it woke a memory in her body – of twisting beneath Abbot Lhem’s knives. The Kreth-Hakir brother used that memory as he seized her by the collar, commanding her to obey and hurt as he hauled her head up so she’d be devoured by his dark eyes. Wave after wave of silver weaves ripped into Eleshen’s mind, making her re-live Lhem’s torture, enhancing it tenfold. She shrieked, feeling his cuts again, feeling her desperation – knowing she could never escape.

  Knowing she was trapped, helpless in the dark.

  Hauling upon Eleshen’s hair, the Hakir brother with the ornately shaved head shoved her down at his knee, forcing her to watch the battle at his boot like a cur. Like an ocean of silver light, Eleshen could feel the Brethren’s terrible influence engulf the battlefield. Arresting the allies’ best fighters and whipping Menderian soldiers to frenzy, the Kreth-Hakir Brethren had rallied against the coordinated charges. Khouren trembled beneath the gaze of two, paused mid-strike. Ihbram was gripped in the stare of five, shivering like a beast on his knees in the char. Near the river, Arlen had been seized by one with a hand to the throat, Merra and Rhennon down to two more, Snowscythe roaring and swiping as a group of twenty soldiers with pikes held it off.

  Bolstered by the Kreth-Hakir’s presence, Menderians hammered in, slaughtering cats and riders at the northern line; ringing Kingsmen and isolating them. Eleshen screamed in pain and frustration, watching their line fail. Using her hair, the brute hauled her face up to meet his as his mind smashed into hers, a horrid grin beneath his ornate head-shaving and brooding brows.

  Lhaurent den’Alrahel sends his regards.

  But as his silver weaves pummeled in to annihilate her mind, a roaring sensation filled Eleshen’s head. Like the sound of surf pounding ocean cliffs, a terrible shuddering filled her. She couldn’t remain still; couldn’t control her limbs. Vibrating like a lute-string tuned too far, her body shuddered as something enormous built within her, and not from the Kreth-Hakir – with no outlet and no release. A terrible churning of conflict and horror built within her, and Eleshen screamed – consumed by something far worse than the allies’ demise.

  As silver weaves ate the dawn, a violet energy burst out from Eleshen in a flooding wave, roaring up the Hakir brother’s arm and casting back his s
ilver intentions – right into his own mind. The brother went down with a scream, writhing with his hands over his eyes. Eleshen’s mind was suddenly clear, crystalline, her vision painfully acute. Whirling on her knees, she sliced his throat so deep it took his head off. As his hand spasmed, releasing her, she was up from the mud with a battle-roar unlike any her throat had ever issued.

  Somewhere nearby, Eleshen could hear blasts of a trumpet sounding yet another Valenghian cavalry charge. The forces around her were splitting, shaken by what Eleshen had done to the Kreth-Hakir brother. She was pure motion as she used that opportunity, vaulting to Khouren. Fury raging inside her, she thrust its magnificence at the nearest Kreth-Hakir who pinned her beloved. She could see his silver weave, rolled back by her wave of violet like a tidal surge and cast into his own mind like lances. He went down, screaming, clutching at his eyes. But Eleshen didn’t pause. Throwing that enormous violet energy at the other Hakir, she charged in and decapitated him as his mind was eaten alive by his own wyrria.

  A shiver raced through the Kreth-Hakir as Khouren sprang up, longknives out, protecting Eleshen as she raced toward Ihbram. Hakir were breaking from Ihbram, turning toward Eleshen with alarm on their faces, casting a massive silver net all around her – only to have it thundered back, smiting them through the eyes and dropping them, shrieking as they twitched. With a roar, Ihbram was freed from their vile machinations. Thrusting out an enormous wave of crimson thought-energy, he enveloped Arlen, Merra, Rhennon, Khouren, and Eleshen in a burning net of protection as Eleshen cast her mind out, throwing back wave after silver wave.

  Herringbone men went down all around, clutching at their eyes and screaming. Ihbram raked his way through the fallen, kicking one in the face as he gutted others. Khouren eviscerated the men who’d held him, and Merra had bitten the ear off one assailant before skewering him in the neck. Arlen was past his downed foe as well, roaring at his Kingsmen and the Elsthemi to regroup as the next flare of Valenghian trumpets slit the morning.

  Back up on her blood-streaked white cat, General Merra gave an answering three-blast of her horn. Circling her polearm for her keshari to form up on the riverbank, they found the Menderian force now cowering back. United in their blood-soaked Greys, Arlen’s and the Abbey’s Kingsmen held steel in their eyes as they readied their blades for death.

  With another deafening three-blast, Merra sounded the charge, echoed by Valenghian horns.

  Pulling into a bristling circle in their burned camp, the Menderians defended their rear, but the combined Valenghian and allied charge was vicious. Ears ringing and muscles burning, Eleshen felt as if she’d only been fighting a minute, when she saw one last man in herringbone black rush her, silver weaves pummeling in to break her mind. Without thought, Eleshen let her fury flood her, and her violet wave rose one last time, sending all those cunning silver weaves back into his mind as she stabbed him through the eye with her longknife and kicked him to the ground.

  Suddenly, a feeling of silver cobwebs lifted from all around her, as if blown through the air on the morning wind. Utter dominance was in their sensation – as if a tremendous mind had been controlling the Menderian forces and was now blown away to nothing. The Menderians suddenly broke, sharp whistle-blasts sounding a retreat as they blinked like they surfaced from a trance. Soldiers flooded back from the allied army, retracting into a tight position inside their camp – no longer touching the keshari and Kingsmen at the river. General Merra blasted a halt as she stood high in her stirrups, watching them.

  Suddenly, Menderian soldiers began to throw down their weapons in droves. Falling to their knees, they succumbed all through the ravaged camp, some with surprised expressions, as if they had no idea what they were doing here. As quickly as their charge had begun, it was over. Ihbram and Khouren stepped to Eleshen’s side, Ihbram wiping his blooded sword on his thigh before thrusting it away over his shoulder. Breathing hard from the fight, Khouren was naked as the day of his birth, coated in other men’s blood, his eyes searing gold as he stepped close to Eleshen with lithe muscles rippling and longknives bared. Eleshen’s heart hammered, her body still engaged for more battle, though even from the blood-churned ground she could tell it was over.

  “Why are they surrendering?” Eleshen heaved, shaking out her sword-arm and catching her breath.

  “I don’t know.” Ihbram was less winded, standing up high on his toes to see. “There!”

  Eleshen followed his indication. One brawny man with sand-blonde hair and brooding eyes walked through the soldiers on their knees in the blood and scorch. Menderian General’s pins upon his collar, he motioned for his men to stay down. Glancing at a tall silver-maned woman who rode a white charger from the Valenghian cavalry, then at Arlen den’Selthir, now standing with his sword-tip planted in the ground at the head of the Kingsmen, the Menderian General moved toward the river and the keshari. The Menderians made themselves comfortable in their camp’s ruins, tending to injuries as the Valenghian woman on the white horse motioned for a few of her Red Valor captains, who broke from the cavalry, making for the parlay near the river. Eleshen, Khouren and Ihbram moved to join them, the factions meeting at the riverbank as the Menderian General tossed his sword to the stony ground.

  “In the name of Alrou-Mendera, we surrender.” The man spoke plainly. He glanced to Arlen, something like apology on his hard-lined face. “Arlen. I had no idea it was your people we were sent to rout out. When we received orders at the Aphellian Way to pass through an Alranstone to Quelsis and fight a group of insurrectionists who planned a coup out of Vennet, I never—” The man shook his head, one hand to his temple, flinching as if in pain.

  “General den’Albehout.” Arlen’s voice was cold, his blue eyes penetrating. “You and your men were duped by the Kreth-Hakir Brethren among you, the fighters in herringbone black. Duped into attacking your own people at Lhaurent den’Alrahel’s bidding.”

  “He speaks true.” Ihbram stepped forward, his face hard like a roaring lion. “Your minds have been taken by mind-bending wyrria, for some time now. You’ll have that headache for a few days, General, as will all your men.”

  “Wyrria?” A horrified expression consumed the Menderian General’s face. “Are you saying that magic has been used to make my men and I fight our own people?”

  “Wyrria takes many forms, General,” Arlen spoke back. “And all of it will break the unsuspecting. If you wish to blame anyone, blame Lhaurent den’Alrahel, who wields the spear of that vile magic used upon you.”

  Turning his head, the Menderian General spit into the rocky mud with a nasty twist to his lips. “Fuck Lhaurent. Long live Queen Elyasin, Aeon hope she lives. Vicoute,” the Menderian General sank down upon one knee, “do with us what you will. But spare the army, please. We had no idea we had been sent to wipe out our own people.”

  “I accept your surrender, and your army will be spared,” Arlen spoke tersely. “If any of your men show signs of continued Kreth-Hakir influence, however, they will be put to death. I cannot allow any exceptions.”

  “I understand.”

  Arlen gave a heavy sigh. Reaching up, he rifled a hand through his iron-shot hair. His eyes raised to someone in the Red Valor cavalry, a broad boar of a fighter with sandy hair, and he gave a hint of a smile. Then his gaze found the handsome silver-haired woman in her crimson and black battle-garb upon her white charger. The smile fell from his face, replaced by the most honest look Eleshen had ever seen.

  “Delennia,” Arlen murmured with a nod.

  “Arlen,” the woman spoke back, not quite frosty but not far from it.

  “Vhinesse, actually,” an aging lord coughed from atop a grey gelding, discreetly for all to hear.

  Arlen drew up tall, a cascade of emotions roaring through his blue eyes before they were banished. The Vicoute and the woman on the white charger stared at each other, cold yet somehow intimate. Eleshen could see instantly that these two were cut from the same cloth as the regal woman sat tall upon her mount, not about t
o give Arlen an inch of satisfaction at their win. From her austere expression, it was clear that she was going to give him hell – perhaps later, in private.

  “Vhinesse?” It was General den’Albehout who broke the silence, staring up at the Valenghian woman, stunned. “The Vhinesse?”

  “As of a short week ago.” She gave him a hard smile. “My predecessor was unnaturally dispatched. My name is Vhinesse Delennia Oblitenne, General, and I want no war with Alrou-Mendera. But I will fight to protect my lands and allies against Lhaurent den’Alrahel’s tyranny. He is a beast, and needs to be culled. The question is – are you with us, or do you need to be put down as well?”

  A long silence devoured the morning. The rain had slackened, leaving only a thin mist in the autumnal air. As the Menderian General stared up at the Vhinesse, he bowed his head. Gazing down at the stony mud, he held it a beat before his gaze came back up, his pale green eyes vicious. “I am your servant. If Lhaurent den’Alrahel wields treachery to attack his own people, then he is no King of mine. Long live Valenghia, and long live Alrou-Mendera, and long live Elsthemen. But down with the King, until Queen Elyasin rises once more.”

  “If she lives.” Arlen’s voice was hard, his gaze even more so.

  “If she lives,” General den’Albehout nodded, sober.

  At last, Arlen heaved a sigh. Placing his hands on his hips, he glanced up from the kneeling General to the Vhinesse, his gaze softer than it had been. She held it, imperious, proud, a glacier that would need tremendous thawing. But she was here, and for some reason she had come to aid him in his hour of need. As Eleshen watched, she saw something soften in the woman’s white eyes at last, the tiniest smile quirking her lips.