The Fall of Neverdark

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Hadavad didn’t have an answer and nor would he ever give one. The ground under their feet exploded without warning, separating the pair as it threw them across the street.

  That single moment of chaos and pain was instantly replaced by a variety of different feelings. The mage blinked as he tried to make sense of what had happened to him. There was no chaos or pain, no sound of orcs or any fighting at all. The cold night air of the desert was amplified to a freezing wind and the dry ground was now a field of snow.

  Hadavad pushed himself up, his robes and burgundy cloak covered in snow. His dreadlocks blew out behind him, revealing the peaks of mountains towering over him. He knew the shape of those mountains…

  The old mage stood up and looked upon The Vrost Mountains, notable for their decline from the highest mountain in the east to the lowest in the west.

  The question of whether he had just died was at the forefront of his mind, but the mage remembered the last time he had come close to death and woken up somewhere else. It took a moment longer to realise that, despite the blistering cold, he didn’t feel uncomfortable standing at the base of The Vrost Mountains in the middle of winter.

  Hadavad couldn’t help his terrified shriek when the mountains lurched forward and the land contracted. In a blur of nauseating motion, he was now standing somewhere in the heart of The Vrost Mountains. There before him, hewn from the mountain itself, was a fortress he had never seen. It rose high into the mountain with towers protruding from the rock. Its design was that of The First Kingdom.

  A bright light appeared where the fortress was, making it impossible to see anymore. Hadavad shielded his eyes and backed away, but the light intensified and advanced until he was on his knees. Between his fingers, he could see the glowing legs of a woman walking towards him. He tried to glimpse more of her, but the light concealed her features.

  Find The Bastion, Hadavad…

  The harshness of reality bombarded the mage, banishing the mountains and the blinding woman. There was, however, another woman standing over him with a wand in hand.

  A dark mage of The Black Hand.

  Hadavad reached out for his staff, curious as to why he was still alive. The dark mage whipped up her wand into a battle stance, informing the old mage that she had simply been savouring the kill. Her mistake.

  An elven scimitar cut through the air and speared the dark mage, impaling her head and pinning her to the wall. Hadavad took a breath, not entirely sure if he would have reached his staff in time. For just a moment, he had thought of using the Viridian ruby and escaping his body.

  Galanör rushed towards the building, skipping over the debris to retrieve his scimitar. The dark mage was slumped to the floor, dead. The elven ranger crouched beside Hadavad with a fresh cut bleeding down his face.

  “Hadavad?”

  Hadavad coughed and allowed Galanör to help him up. They were inside what had once been someone’s shop, though now it was blown in and strewn with debris and dirt. Outside, beyond a fallen beam, orcs crawled out of the new hole that had exploded in front of them.

  “We need to go!” Galanör hissed, gesturing to the back door.

  Hadavad collected his staff and did his best to retain the words that echoed like a distant memory in his mind.

  Find The Bastion, Hadavad…

  Alijah was the last to enter Tauren’s home behind Vighon. The pair of guards who had accompanied them spread out, checking every room for invaders.

  “Isabella! Salim!” Tauren ran for his bedchamber on the top floor.

  “Is this really happening?” Vighon asked, his sword in one hand and shield in the other. There was no hint of fear on his face, as there rarely was, but he couldn’t mask the genuine shock that they were all feeling.

  The half-elf nocked an arrow and let it rest in the bow. “It’s not not happening…” He shrugged.

  Vighon blinked slowly and shook his head. “You really will be the end of me.”

  Alijah offered a cocky smirk. “You’ll die before me if that’s what you mean.”

  Gallows humour was often at the heart of their banter before a desperate fight. Alijah found it calmed his nerves, allowing him to better aim his bow.

  A scream from upstairs pierced the house before the clash of steel. Alijah was the quickest and found his way to the top floor, only to hear the main doors burst open below. The guards stayed back to tackle the invaders, leaving Vighon to join Alijah.

  Tauren was quite the sight. Alijah had only ever heard of his uncle in battle, but seeing him now, with two short-swords spinning in his hands, the rogue could easily imagine him at The Battle of Syla’s Gate. The orcs climbing over the balcony fell one after the other to his fury.

  Vighon instinctively ran to the side of Isabella and Salim, ready to protect them with his life. Alijah fell into the rhythm that came so naturally to him and raised his bow. The twang of the string as it propelled his arrow into an orc’s face was deeply satisfying.

  Tauren retreated step by step, his blades never ceasing to parry and attack. Alijah was forced to rely on his elven heritage to track the man’s rapid movements, searching for the gaps to fit his arrows. One whistled only an inch from Tauren’s neck before finding its mark in the eye of an orc.

  Every shot gave his uncle one less foe to manage and made his retreat all the smoother. A window smashed from one of the rooms and the feral growls of more orcs echoed through the halls. Downstairs, the guards sounded to be fighting for their lives in a bid to keep the orcs off the stairs.

  Vighon turned around to face the new barrage, twirling his sword before resting it over the top of his raised shield. Alijah felt sorry for the orcs who sought to flank them.

  Tauren ducked what would have been a mortal injury and Alijah loosed another arrow, putting the orc down for good.

  “We need to get out of here!” Tauren yelled, gesturing fervently for his family to join him.

  Vighon dashed down the hall and met the first attack with his rounded shield, surprising the orc with a low slash across his belly, under the rim of its armour. The man came straight back up with a back-handed swing of his blade, slicing another orc across the face and splitting one of its horns before splattering blood up the wall.

  A kick here, a strike there, and a shield to protect him, Vighon Draqaro didn’t let a single orc past him. Alijah saw an opening and let fly an arrow, silencing the roar of an orc before it could reach his friend.

  “Alijah!” Tauren called his name urgently. “We need to go! I need to get my family out of the city!”

  The rogue agreed. Tregaran didn’t have long judging by the number of orcs scrambling out of the ground. There wasn’t a city in all of Illian prepared for this.

  “Vighon!” he yelled down the hall.

  The dying cry of the last Yellow Cloak resounded up the stairwell. They were about to be overrun.

  “Vighon!” he yelled again, adding a sense of emergency to his tone.

  The northerner hacked at the remaining orc until it relented and fell to the floor dead. He wiped the blood and sweat from his face and spat on the body.

  “How do we get out of here?” he asked, eyeing the shadows growing larger on the stairwell.

  Alijah turned to Tauren for the answer. “The north-west corner,” he replied. “This house was built with a servants’ stairwell.”

  The word he was really looking for was slave, but Alijah felt now wasn’t the time to argue the details. With Isabella and Salim between them, they ran through the house. Vighon remained at the back, ready to deal with any pursuers.

  The howls and roars of the orcs chased them every step of the way and eventually preceded them as they reached the north-west stairwell. They were boxed in.

  Isabella pulled Salim into her embrace with tears streaming down her face. It was gut-wrenching to see a mother cling to her son, believing that these were to be their final moments.

  The rage that had steadily been building in Alijah since Paldora’s Fall rose to the
surface again. The rogue offered a feral growl of his own and nocked another arrow. The first orc to round the corner or ascend the stairs was going to get an arrow through the ear.

  “To the roof!” Tauren declared.

  Trusting his judgment, and with nowhere else to go, they followed the councillor to the roof before the first wave of orcs fell upon them.

  Under the stars once again, Tregaran’s inevitable demise was clear to see. The horizon was choked with rising columns of black smoke and the air thick with death. Fires had erupted in every corner of the city and the sound of battle was matched by the sound of roaring orcs.

  “Over here!” Tauren directed them to the far side of the roof, where a long plank of wood sat under the lip of the edge. “We keep these in case of fires…” he said absently, lifting the plank into place between his house and the adjacent building.

  Alijah ushered Vighon across first, ensuring Isabella and Salim had someone to protect them on the other side. Salim required some encouragement from his parents having made the mistake of looking down. The drop would easily kill any of them, but the warring orcs and Yellow Cloaks below offered an even messier death.

  The door they had come through burst open and the first orc caught Alijah’s arrow in its neck. Tauren kissed his wife and forced her onto the plank, telling her to hurry.

  Alijah nocked another arrow and killed the second orc to emerge from the house. The doorway funnelled them, making his targets all the easier to hit.

  “Come on!” Vighon called from the other roof.

  Alijah looked across the roof of Tauren’s house to see meaty hands and metal hooks appearing on the edge. More orcs were coming.

  “Go!” Tauren ordered him across the plank.

  “You go!” Alijah punctuated his response with another arrow, picking off the first orc to climb onto the roof.

  Tauren stopped him from drawing another arrow and shoved him towards the plank. “Go, boy!”

  Alijah could see that they didn’t have time to argue anymore; the roof was crowding with orcs. The rogue turned and made a mad dash, hoping to cross the plank and cover Tauren’s escape.

  He saw Vighon’s wide eyes before he made it across the plank and his stomach sank. The rogue whipped his head around to see the cluster of orcs moving aside, making way for one in particular. It was slightly taller than the rest with two thick horns curving over its head and flicking to the sky. Black obsidian armour protected his vital areas, though Alijah’s eyes were drawn to the white V painted on its chestplate.

  “Run!” Tauren yelled.

  Alijah could see what he was about to do, but even elven reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop Tauren from kicking the plank down to the street.

  “No!” they all shouted at once.

  “Uncle Tauren!” Alijah could only watch as the taller orc approached Tauren.

  Isabella pulled Salim into her again and covered the boy’s eyes.

  The orc retrieved a wide rectangular sword from its back, the tip unusually flat. It looked to be heavier than any blade Alijah had seen before.

  With his short-swords, Tauren made the orc work for his victory. The southerner was living proof that speed and agility could best height and strength. He fought fiercely, lashing out and drawing blood from the creature with every swing of his blades.

  The larger orc brought his wide blade down like a hammer and Alijah fired an arrow, aiming for the gap between the chestplate and the pauldron. The arrow sank into the orc’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from taking another swing. Tauren rolled under the attack and brought his blades around to slash at the orc’s legs.

  Alijah fired another arrow, this time aiming for the creature’s head. For the first time, the orc moved with a swiftness he had yet to display. The creature dipped its head and the arrow bounced harmlessly off its bony ridge.

  “Get them out of here!” Tauren shouted across the buildings.

  The large orc batted one of Tauren’s short-swords away, sending it over the edge, and grasped the wrist of his other hand. Within the vice, the tendons in Tauren’s hand spasmed and relented their hold on his remaining short-sword.

  “No!” Alijah cried, unable to get a clear shot past Tauren

  The orc flicked his hand and snapped Tauren’s wrist, forcing a scream from his lips. He punched at the creature with his free hand but he might as well have been punching a wall. The orc released his broken wrist and slammed his meaty hand down on Tauren’s shoulder, driving him to his knees.

  “Uncle Tauren!”

  Isabella’s sobbing drowned out the fighting below as she cried for her husband.

  The orc smiled, raised his sword, and brought it down on Tauren.

  “NO!” Alijah was red in the face with tears streaking across his cheeks.

  The wide blade cut through Tauren’s shoulder and became stuck in his lower gut. The orc yanked his sword free and kicked Tauren at the same time, throwing him off the edge of the roof.

  All sound and sensation disappeared from the world. Alijah saw only the orc, the focus of his hate and rage. Without thinking his hands went through the motions of nocking another arrow. Two rough hands gripped his arms and pulled hard, preventing him from going through with it.

  The sound of Vighon’s voice was distant, his words beyond comprehension. All that existed was Alijah’s rage and the smiling orc.

  It was the sound of Salim crying, added to his mother’s that finally broke the rogue’s haze. They had just watched their husband and father die under the shadow of a monster…

  “Alijah!” Vighon yelled in his ear as he continued to drag him away. “We need to get them out of the city, now!”

  Alijah blinked hard to rid his eyes of the residual tears. With clarity of vision, he could see that Vighon was directing them inside the new building and back onto the streets.

  Vighon probably wouldn’t count it, but Alijah knew that his friend had just saved his life again. Had he given into that rage and challenged the orcs… well, he knew the truth of that outcome: seeing Tauren’s ruined body tumble off the edge of his own house would haunt him forever.

  Keeping Isabella and Salim between them, the two rogues found their way back onto the streets of Tregaran. Alijah had cause to fire three arrows before they rounded the first corner.

  Rounding that corner was soon added to their list of regrets. A young man, robed in black, pointed his staff at them and offered a wicked smile. Vighon held up his shield to protect them, but the spell never came… at least not from his staff. The dark mage was struck by a destructive spell and hurtled into the adjacent wall, killing him instantly.

  Hadavad and Galanör appeared haggard and bloody before them, the mage’s staff still smoking from the end.

  “Where’s Tauren?” Hadavad asked immediately.

  Isabella and Salim fell in on each other again, relying on the comfort of the other to get them through it. Their reaction was all the mage needed to understand the fate of his friend. Before sorrow could overwhelm them all, Vighon rallied the group with a reminder that they needed to find the horses and escape the city.

  Looking back one last time, hoping to sight Tauren’s killer, Alijah ran from Tregaran with a promise in his heart. If it was the last thing he ever did, he would kill that wretched orc…

  30

  A Lesson in Dwarves

  Doran Heavybelly put his name to the test as he devoured every scrap of food placed before him. Bacon, sausages, and eggs, in quantities many would struggle to count, all disappeared down his gullet.

  Seated in the larger room given to Reyna and Nathaniel, the three ate alone, though Reyna spent most of their intimate breakfast tapping her fingers against the wood.

  The dwarf wiped the tomato juice from his blond beard. “I thought we’d be eating with the queen,” he said.

  “I don’t think Yelifer does anything the way we expect,” Nathaniel replied.

  Reyna’s gaze continued to pierce the stone wall.

 
“What’s got ye in knots, me Lady?”

  The elf ceased her tapping and her eyes focused for the first time all morning. “Arlon Draqaro…” she said with displeasure.

  “He’s got under your skin,” Nathaniel commented.

  Doran wiggled a sausage in the air. “I’ve met Vighon a handful o’ times at The Axe. Nice fella! Can’t see how they’re related meself.”

  “Vighon wasn’t raised by Arlon,” Nathaniel explained. “When he was only a boy, his mother, Elena, ran away from Arlon. She fled Namdhor and eventually found herself in our path. We employed her as a handmaiden for Reyna, but she also looked after the children when we were busy.”

  “Besides the obvious, why did the mother flee?” Doran asked.

  “Arlon Draqaro was, or more likely still is, the head of a crime syndicate…”

  Doran twigged. “The Ironsworn.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Elena didn’t want Vighon growing up in that, so she took him and ran south. Both of them became part of the family really…” The knight’s last words were heavy with sorrow.

  Reyna put down her fork. “He’s found loftier heights than the head of The Ironsworn. He called himself a lord yesterday.”

  “A title only Yelifer could grant him,” Nathaniel pointed out.

  The elf shook her head. “We need more information.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find it in The Dragon Keep,” Nathaniel added. “This place is crawling with Ironsworn. The Gold Cloaks give them free reign up here.”

  “What ye need is some loose lips,” Doran said through his mouthfuls of bacon. “For those, ye need a source o’ ale!”

  Nathaniel pointed his fork in Doran’s face. “If you think we brought you all the way to Namdhor to sample every tavern in the city…”

  Doran displayed an expression of mock offence. “I only wish to be o’ service, Ambassador Galfrey.”