On its back, a man sat tall. As Elohl’s group halted at fifteen paces, he could see the strong set of the man’s shoulders, an enormous broadsword upon the man’s back. His silver-studded herringbone leathers glittered in the night as much as his horrific mount, and Elohl’s chest gripped as his Goldenmarks flared. The man’s deep hood was raised, his face shrouded, but Elohl felt that penetrating grey gaze. Those thick, dominant lips curling up in greeting, sending the darkest moment of Elohl’s past smashing into his present.
The night Elohl had failed at Roushenn Palace, and the black scorpion rider who had nearly severed his arm in the Kingswood, then captured them at Alrashesh. The memory came rushing into Elohl’s thoughts like black water. His body was suddenly vibrating, thrumming like a harp string played too violently, and his Goldenmarks blazed as he set his jaw in fury. Elohl could feel Fenton feeding off it, drawing from the Marks as Elohl shivered in wrath. A crackle of lightning spread above, illuminating the sky and hammering their ears with thunder.
The man gave a brief nod from the depths of his hood, acknowledging everything that had passed between them.
But as the lightning in the sky cleared, the line of Lhaurent’s captains parted, the hooded black rider even shuffling his massive scorpion to one side. A white horse stepped up, a man dressed in the regalia of kings riding tall upon it. Clad in armor that shone a silvered white in the darkness, the rider’s white jerkin was chased with gold, giving the man a ghostly look in the flames’ stark light. Matching sickled longknives glimmered at his hips with a longsword across his back, a massive ruby in the pommel devouring the crimson sky like it drank blood. Starbursts of gold inset with rubies were pinned to his collar, the chest-pieces of armor and the man’s shirt left open to bare his pale skin to the night.
Skin that glimmered with the Goldenmarks.
Lhaurent den’Alrahel’s smirking grey eyes found Elohl’s by the lantern-light, and another rush of Fenton’s lighting slit the heavy sky. That arrogant visage with high cheekbones and smooth lips repulsed Elohl. Carefully slicked back from his high forehead, two streaks of silver in his hair and short beard were the only things to betray Lhaurent’s age as he opened his chest-plates – baring a ripple of light in his Goldenmarked skin. Lifting his left hand, he also displayed an arm made of dark ether twisted through with golden sigils and flowing light. The spectral arm swirled with inky currents, issuing out from the Goldenmarks. An arm made not of flesh, but from the Marks themselves – like a night sky full of imploding suns.
As Lhaurent’s gaze roved Elohl, he smiled – a thing of odious and terrible delight. “Elohl den’Alrahel. At last, I meet the man with the twinning of my Marks.”
That statement punched Elohl in the gut, shocked to think that this could be the answer to the Rennkavi’s twinned blood – that there were supposed to be two of them. Elohl heard Fenton take an inhalation as well. And then let out a slow, measured breath, as if trying to control himself from simply blasting a lightning bolt at Lhaurent and burning that smug smile from his lips.
“Perhaps you weren’t fit to wear them, eel,” Fenton’s voice was hard as another branch of lightning flickered through the sky, “and the Goldenmarks chose another.”
“One more valiant than I, I suppose.” Lhaurent’s odious smile remained. “It took me a while to figure out who you were, Fenton den’Kharel. Or should I say, Fentleith Alodwine. You’ve allowed your grandfather’s toys to languish unattended. One does not need valiance in this game of nations, Scion of Khehem, but prudence; patience. Forging ties of cooperation even between those with different theories about how the world works than you. I have forged such bonds. And you have failed to do so. So what do you have? One weak Rennkavi who does not know his power, and a scant half of the forces your enemy possesses, when you could have had it all. The Khehemni; the Kreth-Hakir. Armies of many nations behind you and true belief in every heart – binding them together as one. Such as I have now.”
With the barest motion of his spectral hand, Lhaurent signaled his men. The hooded rider upon the scorpion changed his posture, just a fraction. Suddenly, behind the parlay group, a line of glittering chitin appeared in the red dark, unveiled from nothingness. A full line of massive black scorpions – over a hundred of them. Each one straddled by a man in herringbone black, hooded upon their glittering monstrosity like a line of diamond stars in the maw of death.
“Shaper of the Fields—!” Fenton breathed.
“Stand strong.” Merkhenos’ rough growl cut the night. “Do you know me, Lhaurent den’Alrahel?”
Lhaurent’s lip curled with distaste, and Merkhenos’ lack of the honorarium Rennkavi was not lost upon Elohl. “I do, Son of Illium. Long did Vhinesse Aelennia Oblitenne have a watch set upon you and your ilk. As did I. You’ll remember my agent, High Priest Khorel Jornath?”
With that, the scorpion-rider next to Lhaurent lifted his silver-studded hood and shook it down. Elohl’s heart burned with fury, seeing that dominant visage. He was the same – as if the man had not aged at all. Smooth black hair braided back with a streak of silver at each temple. Cutting cheekbones on a strong-boned face, his dark grey eyes piercing with humor and belligerence, his stature enormous as he sat upon his scorpion with his greaved hands resting upon its plated back.
A hard smile lifted his thick lips, his dark eyes even harder as they penetrated Elohl. And then his gaze flicked to Merkhenos, and he gave a nod.
“Khorel.” Merkhenos’ voice was flat. “I suppose it’s good to see you again.”
“Merkhenos.” The man said no more, but a simmering tension stretched between the Valenghian High General and the Kreth-Hakir High Priest. Khorel Jornath’s lips turned up in a deeper smile as his gaze flicked to Fenton. “The Kreth-Hakir have been searching for you, Scion of Khehem. Eight hundred years, I believe the count is now. When you would not take us up in our offer to support Leith’s original aims, we had to look elsewhere for inspiration. You’ll have to forgive us, of course. As Leith Alodwine’s most direct blood-kin, your leadership would have been our first choice. But now our Rennkavi has arrived. I’ll give you one last chance to join us, Fentleith. Abandon your false Rennkavi. Be who you were meant to be, and unleash that,” he glanced up at the flickering sky then back to Fenton, “in the way you were meant to. Help us unite the world, in strength and purpose. Just like your grandfather once tried to do.”
“Never.” Fenton’s voice was such a low, murderous growl that Elohl almost didn’t recognize it. Lightning erupted across the sky and thunder made all talk impossible for a moment. When it finally died down, the Kreth-Hakir High Priest was smiling wide, as if tremendously pleased.
But all he did was give his elegant, brutal shrug again, and say, “As you wish.”
“I suppose we’re done here.” Merkhenos’ voice was a curt snap, his Cennetian accent clipped.
“I suppose we are.” Lhaurent was gracious, giving a small nod. “Good luck to you and yours, as I shall weep when the ruby blood begins to spill from your throats. Oh, and speaking of blood and throats,” his gaze flicked to Elohl. Something terrible was written in those shining grey eyes; some knowledge that Lhaurent was simply aching to reveal. As Elohl watched, the man’s smooth lips lifted in the most satisfied smirk Elohl had ever seen.
“Speaking of blood and throats,” he repeated, “Olea’s white throat was most lovely when I slit it with my knife. You should have watched her gurgle her last. I’m sure she would have cried out for both of you, Elohl, Fenton. If she could have.”
Elohl’s mind roared; his lips fell open. He stared into that odious face and something that had been good and tempered inside him fled. His righteousness gave way, replaced by a snarl. Or perhaps it was a battle-roar, as Fenton hurled a lighting-strike straight at Lhaurent. Lifting that arm of dark smoke and wyrric sigils, Lhaurent cast Fenton’s strike away, sending it careening into a Monolith. The pillar of obsidian exploded, hurling shards of black glass out upon the battlefield as cavalry-horses reared a
nd men cried out.
And just like that, the battle began.
Merkhenos sounded a horn and the Valenghian forces charged. Khorel Jornath surged forward, his scorpion-riders with him. Elohl’s body moved on instinct as the melee crashed around him, feeling where foes came from, hewing them down, wheeling his impeccably-trained war-mount to rear and kick.
Snarling filled him; the sound of a roaring, rushing river, like a dam had broken and a highmountain lake now cascaded through Elohl’s limbs with abominable power. Elohl’s sensate sphere seared as he put down foes all around, his Goldenmarks blazing white-hot from the power of his wrath. Battle-fugue took him, red and monstrous. Like a beast that coiled in and in upon itself, his conflict was a devouring rush with no end. Fenton’s lightning was everywhere, blazing with the enormity of the wrath that filled Elohl, spilling out from his Goldenmarks. Elohl heard the man’s roars with concussions of thunder as the Scion of Khehem fought like a dervish, while Elohl’s body fought upon washes of instinct, taking down enemies left and right.
Expanding out, Elohl’s Goldenmarks were a flooding wave, wyrria seizing allies around him and making them surge into the fight, roaring for death and vengeance. But even as they did, Lhaurent cast his black-smoke hand at the Valenghian army, his own Goldenmarks blazing with darklight – making them shift and attack their own. The line of scorpion-riders darted in, causing Valenghian cavalry to turn, rounding upon their allies, cannibalizing the ranks behind. Elohl’s horse was gutted and tossed him, but Elohl rolled up from its throw, lithe on his feet. Soldiers came at him and he cut them down. Horses reared and he spun in, gutting them. Blood coated him as he slashed a quick strike across a Menderian soldier’s unprotected throat.
Fenton’s horse went down nearby, but Fenton rolled up on his feet, gaining Elohl’s side as he hurled lightning toward the scorpion-riders from his bare hands, skittering their black mounts away. A chorus of Elsthemi war-horns and Menderian trumpets blasted from the tree-line of the northern Bog, and the allied forces came pouring from the trees. Elohl caught sight of Dherran in the front of that spear as they crashed into the flank of Lhaurent’s forces. With a thundering concussion, the armies met. Snarls of keshar-cats joined the melee, war-horses whinnying in terror as cats swiped their way in.
Whinnies crunching out as horses’ faces were bitten off.
Leading the charge, Dherran roared like a boar in the brightening grey light as he gutted and slashed with a massive broadsword. Wheeling his charger, power poured from Dherran, like he was born for war – fighting with a soaring bliss in the fray and the slash, the gore and the glory. Dherran’s searing wyrria flooded his allies like a blazing sun, redoubling their passion, making the allies fight like mad banshees. Elohl’s heart roared with it, his Goldenmarks flaring and sending waves of light pounding out as he watched his best friend command the way he was meant to – as a beast of passion and battle.
That flank was rallying, despite the Kreth-Hakir Brethren who raced in to betray it. Dherran’s mad roar was echoed by horns and sharp blasts from bog-whistles keeping the charge together. With Fenton’s thunder and Dherran’s rage surging through his Marks, Elohl seized a horse and flung himself up. Dherran saw him and gave Elohl a vicious smile. A tremendous burst of energy shot through Elohl, like a leviathan freeing itself, the Goldenmarks seething from his skin and writing sigils of blinding ether in the blood-spattered air. Those sigils curled into men around him, the allies surging with vigor as sigils wrote themselves like the body of some massive beast through the battle.
But something else shivered the air, then. Like a massive gong struck by a war-hammer, a pummeling energy of silver weaves thrust through the battle. Elohl had only a moment to see a semicircle of twenty Kreth-Hakir scorpions unveil near Dherran’s charge. In a fast, coordinated strike, the Kreth-Hakir Brethren surrounded Dherran in a tight circle, their chittering black horrors cutting him off.
With a cry, Elohl turned his horse. But the solid wall of flesh left no space; he couldn’t get close. Roaring, Elohl used his Goldenmarks to hammer etheric fire into the men nearest Dherran, making them attack those scorpions. Battling five Kreth-Hakir, Fenton felt Elohl’s desperation, turning to blast his way through and reach Dherran’s side. But the glittering black beasts held their ring as Dherran roared in frustration and turned his horse in a tight circle inside, isolated.
Dherran’s woman Khenria and an older lord assaulted the edge of the ring, Khenria with fire searing up her sword, but they were battered back into the melee by the whip of barbed scorpion tails. The ring of black riders upon their clacking mounts raised their arms, as if gathering energy from the lancing sky. And then, thrust their tremendous net of silver weaves to their pinnacle member – an enormous man with silver-white braids, who cast back his hood and raised scarred and sightless eyes to the bloody sky.
Elohl screamed, knowing what was coming. When suddenly, three scorpions in the group broke rank, barreling into the others. The silver net faltered. Elohl thrust etheric sigils into the men nearest those renegade riders, aiding the confusion, and saw one rider note him. Khorel Jornath’s dark grey eyes held his and surprise filled Elohl. But before he could respond, Jornath and his renegades hammered the other Kreth-Hakir with mind-weaves, shredding theirs. A rippling black oilslick energy joined the renegades, from a lean lord with a battle-hardened visage riding a great black keshar-cat. Joining Khorel Jornath with other renegade riders, that rippling oilslick energy struck into the heart of the silver being woven against Dherran.
Scorpions went down; the circle broke. Dherran drove his horse toward the gap, almost free. When all that silver power was suddenly pulled from the Brethren by their leader. Ignoring the renegades, the blind-eyed leader reached up over his shoulder, seizing a double-terminated silver lance from a sheath, snapping it out to full length to form a seamless javelin in his strong hands. Like quicksilver threaded through the eye of a needle, all the power of his Brethren poured through his hands into the lance, blazing with pure silver light. Raising it, the blind-eyed leader hurled it with a mighty throw – piercing Dherran’s heart.
Elohl screamed, pain erupting through him as if the lance had gone through his own heart. Dherran gasped, clutching his chest where a silver burn marred his jerkin around the embedded lance. Lifting his gaze to Elohl, their resonance snapped out as the blind-eyed rider surged in – seizing the lance and ripping out Dherran’s bloody heart from his chest in a burst of silver light.
Before he could so much as topple, Dherran’s body began to unmake itself, sluicing away in an unholy zephyr of searing blue light. Shimmering sand cast him apart, pouring down over his saddle as a funnel-wind siphoned up, blue light blazing. A sound like screaming banshees filled the air, like the roar of a storm though canyons, staggering the blind-eyed rider back as wind whipped the battle. Curling white sand up into a towering desert-funnel that surged with blue light, the wind sluiced up every last grain of sand, taking it high into the lifting sky – and was gone.
Elohl’s heart guttered, stunned. His Goldenmarks flashed out, white sigils dissipating from the air in the lifting grey light. All around him, men shifted in confusion as the passion and unity abandoned them and the Menderian forces swept in. Screams returned to Elohl’s ears, scents of blood and shit hitting his nostrils as he was caught in the backlash, flooded with death, icy fingers buried in his heart. Riding on a blood-slicked white charger, Lhaurent suddenly charged through the broken pennants of the five allied nations, glowing like a comet of annihilation, his grey gaze fixed upon Elohl. Turning aside foes with a wave of his wyrric fingertips, darklight seared through him, bright and terrible, making Elohl’s horse strangle as it whinnied and fell suddenly beneath him.
Elohl rolled, hitting his shoulder hard upon the bloody stones of the Way, turning to face his enemy as Lhaurent charged in with that sorcerous hand splayed. As he came, something inside Elohl surged, roaring. Fighting for Olea’s memory; for Dherran’s passion. Rushing to the surface, the b
east of Elohl’s wyrria surged and Elohl rolled in as he charged – seizing Lhaurent’s leg with white wyrric fire and hauling him from his horse down to the stones of the Way.
Elohl’s beast rose. The creature inside him expanded as his Goldenmarks raced into the world, writing sigils of etheric fire through the air like a thousand coils in the rising dawn. Lhaurent scrambled, throwing his wyrric arm up against Elohl’s onslaught as Elohl hurled more coils of white fire, binding Lhaurent to the ground. Blistering ether wrapped Lhaurent’s black arm, ensnaring it. Elohl stormed forward, his skin searing with wyrria as he seized Lhaurent’s hand of darkness in his grip and thrust it to the red stones of the Way, golden sigils on his hand burning with power.
With a roar, Lhaurent whipped out a sickled white-silver longknife, stabbing for Elohl’s flank, but Elohl’s blade was there with the speed of instinct, catching him in a clinch and holding him off. As they struggled in the clinch, Elohl’s blazing hand pinning Lhaurent’s darklight one, a shuddering resonance passed through them both.
Digging into Elohl’s wrist at Elohl’s old self-inflicted cut-marks, Lhaurent lifted his lips in a snarl, his swirling black fingers suddenly writing onyx sigils through the passage of Elohl’s Goldenmarks. The cascade of black sigils burned like poison and Elohl screamed in a bestial roar, furious. He pushed harder, struggling in the clinch, and sigils of golden-white flame began to surge from Elohl’s fingertips, inscripting through Lhaurent’s dark black waters.
The eel screamed, but as he did, tentacles of surging darkness shot out from him, racing up Elohl’s arm like a leviathan. Acidic obliteration speared through Elohl’s body and he screamed, their knives shuddering against each other in the clinch. And as dawn crested over the battlefield, the sun’s first rays slanting beneath the heavy clouds, Elohl and Lhaurent’s gold and onyx sigils raced to consume each other – sending a pulse out into the world.
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