Tempest of Bravoure: Kingdom Ascent

by Valena D'Angelis

Ahna had a head start.

  As she hurried toward the docks, she saw the flash of another lightning strike. She picked up the pace, moving between the small houses.

  When she reached the harbor, she saw Cedric’s inert body on the pavement. She gasped, afraid they had lost the captain of the shrikes. Ahna ran toward the marksman and kneeled next to him. She focused for a second, she could still hear his heartbeat.

  Close to the ships, a tall male dokkalfar was about to strike the wounded shrike lieutenant. He wore a long dark robe and was ready to launch another lightning.

  Ahna clenched her fists. “Drya kri hætta!” It was an abrupt order to stop the fight.

  The warlock turned around and plunged his glowing red eyes into Ahna’s. As he prepared to unleash his thunder again, the second patrol reached the harbor. Squadron Five charged them not a minute later and Ahna, desperately afraid to see the mission fail, did the next best thing. She had a short moment to act.

  She shed herself of the wraps around her wrists. Oh, that release!

  The smooth linen bands fell softly to the ground, and she took the riser of Cedric’s bow in her hand. When she gripped the ornate wood against her palm, an intense dirge of pain surged from underneath her fingertips. The dreadful lament echoed inside her veins through the rest of her body. She clenched her jaw and resisted the pain of a thousand sharp needles that pierced inside her skin and organs. As she raised the bow in front of her, trembling, an aura of light surrounded the bow. That’s new. It spread rapidly from the riser until it engulfed it whole. Ahna led one of Cedric’s arrows to the shelf of the rest and pulled the string back with all the strength she had left. The entire bow and arrow were immersed in the distorted light. She aimed toward the ships and shot the arrow, which then muted into a radiant blast that crashed into the first ship.

  The burst completely destroyed the hull and rapidly dashed through the second ship. A loud explosion ensued, and fire raindrops of scorched debris plummeted on the harbor grounds. Jules was propelled backwards from the shockwave, and the robed man fell to his knees in front of Ahna. She released the bow, unsheathed her sword, and plunged it into the heart of the warlock. As she recovered her weapon, she glanced at Cedric, who was looking at her from the ground. There was a lot of blood on his face from a grave head wound. He mumbled something, still looking at Ahna, and then lost consciousness.

  Ahna turned to the rest of the guards who were battling against Squadron Five. One of the swordsmen had fallen.

  “Drya kri hætta! Stop the fight,” she roared again.

  She marched toward them, making circling gestures with her hands. A power she had not felt in so long rushed through her veins. As she drew an arch into the air, a burning flame ignited from between her fingers. It grew larger and hotter and blazed along both her arms. When the enemies noticed her aggressive stance, they dropped their weapons, shouted orders in Dokkalfari, and ran for their lives.

  The swordsmen checked each other for wounds, then Lynn went to her fallen comrade. She gently closed his eyes and recited a silent Taz prayer. Diego kept on staring at the flaming shipwreck that had formed a large pyre by the docks. There were terrified civilians slowly ambling on the square. Jules rejoined the rebel squad, helping Cedric walk by supporting his captain’s arm on his shoulder. He carried the bow in his other hand. Ahna recovered her bands and hooked them onto her belt. Diego looked at her, a thousand questions in his eyes.

  “I’ll explain,” she reassured. “But we must leave immediately.”

  Diego acknowledged and signaled for the rest to retreat.

  5

  The Magi Situation

  “He’s losing a lot of blood,” Lynn said through shallow pants to the captain of Squadron Five.

  Ahna could not help but hear Lynn’s cry. The rebel unit had withdrawn back to the woods, to a small clearing, where they laid Cedric on a burlap roll. The distant village of East Haven was no longer in sight.

  The elf stood in front of the Taz woman. “I can help,” she assured, as Diego reluctantly let her come closer to Cedric.

  “What happened out there, Ahna?” Lynn asked, awed by the events at the harbor.

  The elf instructed the others to wait and went to tend to Cedric. She stood by him and was about to perform a spell of minor healing. She was no divine, she could not do better than speed the coagulation process so she could stop the bleeding.

  Ahna brought her hand above his chest, but he suddenly snatched her wrist. “Don’t you dare touch me, warlock!” he warned.

  She laid her palm on the one that had grabbed her arm, in an attempt to appease him. She hushed him to sleep with a softer voice like a mother would do to a child in distress. She paid keen attention to his heart, which calmed its pace, as she whispered to him in Dokkalfari. Cedric eventually closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed down.

  “You have to teach me that!” Lynn exclaimed as she observed Ahna.

  The elf’s hands placed on the shrike’s chest, she muttered a few words, a kind of soft ritual in old elven. “My heart to your heart. Harta mi til harta thfiins.”

  She closed her eyes, monitoring Cedric’s calmed breathing. She analysed the rhythm of his heartbeat, listened to the flow of the blood through his veins. Ahna let her magic converge to her fingertips. She then brought her left hand to rest above his head wound.

  “Liif mi til liif thfiins. My life to your life.”

  As she focused the flow of her spell, she exhaled deeply, and a soothing light shone above Cedric’s injury. The torn tissue began to repair slightly, and the blood dried around the wound. It protected it from worsening, or from becoming inflamed. When the shrike’s heartbeat had returned to a normal rhythm, Ahna stood again. She strolled away from the rebels and wrapped the black linen bands around her wrists again.

  “He’s stable,” she stated when Lynn came closer. “He wasn’t going to die, but this way we can move faster.” The lively Taz woman looked into her eyes but remained silent. “I’m no cleric, so this is the best I could do,” Ahna continued.

  Lynn stared at her. A slight smile was drawn on her face. “I guess High Commander Sand’s feeling proved to be correct. Something definitely went wrong here. I’m glad you were there to save the day!” She laid her hand on the elf’s shoulder.

  Ahna chuckled.

  Diego later joined the two women. “Ladies, we need to move. The sun will be rising soon, and I don’t want to be here when Sharr’s reinforcements arrive.”

  Lynn went to get her horse. She walked past Cedric who was now awake, retrieving his belongings and ambling to his grey steed. Before Ahna could follow, Diego blocked her path with his arm.

  “I am not letting you out of my sight, mage. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “I understand.”

  The two marched toward their horses. The squad looped back toward the barracks of Orgna, keeping Cedric under close watch.

  The entrance gates of the Resistance base were rammed open by the swordsmen. They let in Jules and Lynn who helped Cedric stagger into the hall.

  “Get me the Elder, and Brother Ylwen too!” Diego shouted to one of the novice guards.

  The young cadet sped toward the left hallway. As they rushed Cedric to the infirmary, Ahna crossed path with Kairen, who had noticed the commotion from her seat in the foyer. She rushed to her friend.

  “Ahna, what happened? Did the mission succeed?” Kairen asked, in an urgent tone.

  Ahna raised her hand as a signal for her to wait. She wanted to walk with the rest to the infirmary but was stopped by Diego.

  “No,” he barked. “You stay here while I talk to the Council.” He had a furious spark in his eyes as he rushed to the council room.

  Ahna retreated with Kairen to the foyer. As she waited there, she spotted a small elf wearing a white alb as he rushed out of the stone walls. He was followed by a tall figure with her head held high, who wore a ceremonial gown. A large white and gold cornette elegantly rested on the woman’s hea
d. It had a prismatic shape, like a marquise diamond, and was decorated with vertical ruby red strips. Her face had the valleys of an ageing soul carved in old wisdom. Ahna only caught a glimpse of the woman, but she immediately knew that she was looking at the Elder.

  “This is the Mother Divine, Astea,” Kairen began. “She’s what’s left of the Congregation.”

  Ahna observed the woman rush into the hallway with the human-elf that could only be Brother Ylwen. She turned to Kairen and pushed a long and tired sigh with her lips before she collapsed on the bench next to them. She rested her elbows on her knees and plunged her eyes against the heels of her hands.

  “Something went wrong, Kairen. They had a warlock…” she said gravely.

  Kairen’s mouth slightly opened in surprise.

  “…But we don’t have to worry about Sharr’s trade fleet anymore!”

  “Diego went to the council room, he seemed agitated,” Kairen passively inquired.

  Ahna responded immediately, “He’s going to tell them I’m a mage.”

  Kairen awkwardly chuckled. “I genuinely wonder what he’ll say when he finds out the Council knew.”

  The red-haired woman looked at the hallway, uncertain of what would come next. She knew what some rebels thought of the magi. Ahna being dokkalfar was one thing, her being a mage was yet another! But she trusted her peers and their ability to set their differences aside for the cause.

  Ahna stared at the same arbitrary point in the distance. Her mind wandered to the state the shrike captain was in. As the images of the East Haven battle passed through her mind, she remembered what she had felt when she held Cedric’s bow. That symphony of pain. Something of such tremendous power. An Item of Power. She wondered how the shrike could have gotten his hands on such an artefact…

  “Do you know why the shrikes paint their faces?” Kairen asked out of the silence. As Ahna shook her head, Kairen proceeded with an explanation. “They think it looks good.”

  A loud giggle sprung from Ahna’s throat, and she put her palm in front of her face. She felt overly shaken and euphoric from the commotion of the recent events. She had to repress laughter after Kairen’s silly words. The latter shrugged and grinned with the heart of a playful child. An impish smile spread across her face and her copper eyes sparkled with amusement.

  “No, I actually don’t even know,” Kairen said in a more serious tone. “It’s a tradition! Probably not much older than this kid, right there,” she pointed at a boy, not older than when Ahna had found her.

  The child looked determined as he swung a wooden sword at the ferocious air. The elf smiled, remembering the first time Kairen wielded a sword similar to this one.

  The red-haired woman she called sister rose to her feet. “I’m going to talk to David and get this figured out. Don’t worry too much about Diego, he’s a good man.”

  She kissed Ahna on the cheek in farewell and disappeared into the hallway.

  Diego stood behind the council room’s door. He overheard High Commander Sand speak before it opened.

  “Sharr is amassing his troops. Word of East Haven spread fast and it struck him hard. He’s letting corpses rot on the streets as a warning to whoever may rebel against him.”

  The captain waited patiently for his briefing with his own commander, and the chance to speak about the Ahna situation. When Sand headed into the hallway, Commander David Falco joined him outside, and he listened attentively.

  After Diego expressed his concerns about the mage, David proceeded with an explanation. “The Council found it best to keep her identity hidden for now, on a need-to-know basis. Obviously, sending her on this mission had a risk of exposing her, but we had hoped it wouldn’t come to that.”

  Diego strolled by the entrance of the council room. His commander revealed the true identity of Ahna, the archmage, whose real name was Meriel Arkamai. Diego was first slightly offended by this belated disclosure, but he understood David’s point when it came to the potential unrest it could have caused. He then proceeded to report the details of how the mission had gone. How the shrikes had gone into the dark, but the entire village had awoken after a tearing thunder. How the patrol at the outpost had immediately assembled after the first flash of light. How Ahna had rushed to the harbor and how, even though he could not explain it himself, she had destroyed the fleet with a single, devastating arrow from Cedric’s bow. Ahna had then driven the rest of the patrol away, and they were able to flee with the wounded Cedric. They had lost a swordsman and a shrike, and their peers were mourning as the two officers spoke.

  Commander Falco listened calmly then thanked Diego for his report. He made a few notes in his mind for the rest of the Council.

  Diego was about to leave but he turned hesitantly to his commander. “May I speak freely, Commander?” he asked, hesitant. David granted his request. “Our intel did not show the presence of a warlock. You know as well as I that this is not possible.”

  David’s shoulders dropped. “And how do you think that is?” he asked as he frowned, intrigued.

  Diego thought for a moment, then he shared his theory. “Maybe we were made to think East Haven was poorly guarded so we would go for it.”

  The commander remained pensive. “A double bluff?” he asked, referring to the fact that Sharr’s battle camps, where the Dark Lord stocked his military supplies, had been presented as such a great bait. Perhaps the Dark Lord expected the Resistance to see through this obvious deception and go for East Haven.

  “Perhaps. Maybe it was supposed to be a trap,” Diego pursued. “But nonetheless, they didn’t expect Ahna.”

  The captain fell silent. He realized something that he had not yet admitted. Without her, the mission would have failed.

  After Diego finished his conversation with his commander, he headed straight to the infirmary. When he entered the bright stonewall room, Cedric lay on one of the stretchers. The Mother Divine stood behind him, her hands relaxed on both sides of his face. She chanted a series of words in a divine language only the clerics of the Congregation were known to speak. The light from the outside beamed through the large panes on the south wall.

  Brother Ylwen came to Diego and led him to the side. “Mother Divine says he will be fine. He’s shaken, that’s all. You see, it’s not his physique, no, that is perfectly fine. They did something to his spirit. It’s a sort of...mind melt, or so to say.” The young human-elf had spoken with careful hesitation, not to alarm the captain.

  As Mother Divine finished her clerical incantation, she looked at Diego and signed for him to get closer.

  “What’s a mind melt?” Diego asked her for clarification.

  Astea took a deep breath. “He must have been struck by a cerebral charm. His thoughts were forced to fold onto themselves and cage his consciousness. I’ve unclutched his mind. He should rest for a few days.”

  The Mother Divine then strolled out of the room, and Diego was alone with Brother Ylwen. The human-elf sat beside Cedric and was tasked to keep him under observation in case something went wrong.

  “Diego,” a voice suddenly murmured. Cedric was awake. “Why do I feel like I have the most atrocious hangover of all time?” he joked.

  It seemed like he had recovered all his senses. Diego rose to his feet with enthusiasm. Cedric sat up and stretched his arms and torso. He pressed his hands against his head as if to expel a lousy headache. “So, what did I miss?” he asked, a little bit bushed by all that had happened.

  “We made it back to Orgna!” Diego exclaimed.

  Before he could continue, Cedric asked a burning question. “Did we succeed?”

  His peer paused. “The ships are destroyed,” he first reported. Then he hesitated. “What is the last thing you remember, dai?”

  Cedric fixed the wall facing him. He squinted, deep in thoughts, trying to piece together the fractured images in his memory.

  “They had a warlock,” the shrike captain stated, still absorbed. “Guan be damned!” he blurted out carelessly. �
�Ahna...”

  He jumped off the bed and took off instantly, passing a startled Brother Ylwen without seeing him, storming out of the infirmary. Diego called for him, multiple times, but the shrike was determined in his march.

  “Cedric, you need to rest!” he shouted, yet only the silence responded. Cedric raced toward the foyer.

  When Cedric came face to face with Jules, who stood by the entrance of the barracks, the latter stepped in his path to greet him. “I’m glad you’re well, Captain!” he said respectfully to his superior and friend.

  The sight of his lieutenant brought a certain calm to the shrike. He was suddenly swamped by an overwhelming feeling of vertigo. He grabbed onto Jules’ shoulder and collapsed to his knees.

  Diego caught up with the two shrikes. “Alright, brother,” he said as he grabbed Cedric. “Back to the infirmary you go!”

  Ahna quietly sat on the bench in the entrance hall. She saw Cedric join Jules and instantly drop to the ground. The captain of the shrikes still seemed to suffer from post-surgical pain. In all this distress, he did not see her.

  After Cedric was hauled back to the infirmary by Diego, Ahna remained seated, waiting for the next events to unfold. She had already heard echoes of the discovery of her identity by the other members of the Resistance. Some people looked at her with rounded eyes. They passed her, whispering, either curious, or perhaps slightly afraid. Kairen had rushed to her husband after his briefing, to push him to make an official announcement. David had finally heeded her call and gone to the high commander. Joshua Sand had then briefed the rest of the captains, and as water flowed through a torrent, so did the news through Orgna.

  When Jules returned to the foyer, the shrike lieutenant came to sit next to Ahna. He took a glance at her with careful eyes.

  “You should wash up and rest, Ahna,” he gently advised.

  The dark elf, still apprehensive of anything that would come next, remained silent, and furiously bit her lip as she waited.