Xandor stood above Jules, his feet to the side of his body, his sword raised vertically above his chest. Jules closed his eyes and braced for impact.
“No, Xandor!” a faint murmur called.
From behind him, caged in an iron cell on a cart, a smaller elven man stood, his hands on the bars. Xandor, annoyed by his brother’s whimper, kicked the shrike in the head and left him unconscious.
In the distance, he saw his panicked soldiers try to escape the flames of the encampment set ablaze. Further away, at the edge of the canyon, he spotted the rebel troops charge to overpower his unprepared soldiers at the frontline. He sighed deeply as he turned and walked to his brother in the cage.
He squeezed the heavy iron key in his hand and led it to the lock. “Time to play your part, Thamias,” he grimly declared.
He grabbed his brother by his long white hair and threw him to the ground. Thamias, terrified, attempted to crawl his way out of Xandor’s grasp. But Xandor seized him by the hair again and brought his sword to his neck. He forcibly made him rise to his feet. He led him past the dead shrikes, through the burning tents, toward the edge of the canyon, where Orgna had stood but a few days prior. The rebels charged down the mudslide, toward Xandor’s army. They fought relentlessly, killing his men one by one.
The dokkalfar prince threw his brother to the ground at the back of his battalion. Thamias attempted to crawl away again, but Xandor crushed his back with his foot. He held his brother on the ground when his grand vizier appeared from the battlefield. Sodiln, who marched in the silversteel armor of the Dwellunder, dragged a long sword that scraped the mud as he walked.
Xandor lifted his brother and held him in place close to him. He blocked his head between his hands and forced him to face Sodiln. When the King nodded, Sodiln clenched a fist and struck Thamias in the jaw.
The Dragonborn’s head snapped back from the thwack of the grand vizier’s fist. Xandor let his brother loose, who fell to the floor, bleeding out of his mouth. Thamias panted as he frantically tried to wipe the blood off his face.
The King signed to Sodiln again. The grand vizier readied his fist, prepared to strike Thamias one more time.
“Xandor! Hætta!” the voice of his sister shouted from behind them. There, by the burning tents, Ahna stood with a bow in her left hand. Xandor turned to her.
She seized the riser in her palm, clenched her fingers around the ornate wood as the dirge of pain began to sing through her veins. But before she could raise the bow, she had to dodge a cone of fire.
A pyromantic warlock had stepped out of a burning tent, leading a cloud of flames behind him that slithered as his hands moved. He wore the faceless white mask of the Defaced. Two cowled warlocks joined him, each armed with staffs marked by the Magi Academy’s seal. They aimed their weapons at Ahna. The elf saw the warlock about to hurl his cone of flames toward her. She swiftly dodged again and pulled an arrow out of her quiver.
As she planted a foot in the ground to anchor herself, she stretched her body and the bowstring. She could not be moved by the sting of a thousand sharp needles that pierced through her skin as the Cursed Bow flashed with arcane light. When she released the glowing arrow toward the pyromancer, he threw himself at the ground to avoid the blast, but the devastating burst turned the other two warlocks to ashes.
Ahna lowered her arms again, the painful symphony rang no more. The masked warlock stood back up and led more flames from the burning tents into his scorching mist creature. He finished the summoning incantation with a final murmur. Ahna raised her head to the infernal creature that developed above the pyromancer. He summoned an avatar of flame, a fiery serpent that growled and scowled at her.
To her left, on the slope by the end of the valley, the battle raged on. Thamias, who had been struck another time by Sodiln, now thrust his fists into the muddy ground. He growled in anger and rage as he spat more blood out of his mouth. When Sodiln dashed to strike him again, Thamias arched his back and snapped his arms open in a bright shockwave. Sodiln was thrown back, and his spine shattered when he crashed far away from the Dragonborn.
Thamias’ bruises were healed and, kneeled on the ground, he looked at his hands that shimmered with a golden light. When Ahna saw what was about to happen, she gripped the bow’s riser again and aimed at the flame serpent. With an arrow that transformed into a destructive projectile, the avatar was split in two. The flames were propelled in all directions.
A few seconds passed, and what was left of the fire avatar merged back together into a new slithering body. It fiercely charged in Ahna’s direction. The elf latched the bow onto her quiver and quickly raised her arms in the air. She drew a cross with her hands opened wide. She pushed forth a protective barrier of energy. The fire blasted against the magic wall.
As the heat became too intense to bear, she rotated her hands and pulled her arms back in, forcing the flames to sink within the fold of the barrier. She brought the fire closer to her, to overpower it and win control. She pivoted in the direction of the warlock, who struggled to keep his focus on the heat serpent.
In wild shriek, Ahna thrust her arms forward and released the column of fire toward him. The man screamed and was burned alive.
When she recollected her thoughts, Ahna quickly hasted back to the tail of the battlefield, to her brother. Xandor had left the premise and was nowhere to be found. Thamias, swaying back and forth on the ground to control himself, glowed in divine light. She collapsed to her knees beside him and seized his hands in hers.
“Thamias, focus with me,” she tried to appease him. “Don’t let the rage take over.”
She wanted to take his face in her hands, to soothe him. His amber eyes were lit with the rage of a thousand dragonborns before him. He suddenly rose to his feet and, in a loud roar, submerged in a veil of light from inside his skin.
Ahna was pushed back against the ravine’s wall at the opposite side. Thamias, drenched in radiance, stood up and faced the battlefield. He began to mutate into the contours of a holy beast. Bright golden wings that spanned over the canyon’s width spread wide, and the long neck of the dragon stretched into the air. His amber eyes burned with the redness of induced rage. Glaring upon the soldiers who fought on the slope at the edge of the canyon, Thamias beat his wings downwards and took flight.
The rebels were losing soldiers.
More of the dokkalfar horde had risen from the destroyed encampment and rushed to battle. They pierced through the rebels one by one, as though it was too easy for them. The Resistance fighters had the advantage of the higher ground on the slope, but on the valley floor, they were quickly overrun, despite most of Sharr’s men having been blown away by the cannons or burned by the arrows.
Kairen held her blade fiercely and slashed through another one of Sharr’s men. In her blind fury, she suddenly felt a blow to her rear that knocked her forward. Kairen staggered, but she could quickly anchor her feet in the mud to retrieve her balance. When she turned around, another rebel had been killed. On the battlefield, more rebel soldiers fell, there were but a few remaining. With a ferocious kick, Kairen flanked the nearest dokkalfar soldier and hit him in his side. He fell backwards and smashed his head against one of the rocks. The red-haired warrior marched to the dead dark elf’s face and crushed it with her boot.
As she searched for David, she saw Luk Ma had fallen in combat. She raced to him. The sindur had been struck by a blade to his shoulder. A dead dokkalfar laid beside him. Kairen pulled the man-lynx away from the field, dragging him back up the slope. Luk Ma yelped. As she struggled to get him uphill, he laid his paw gently on her shoulder.
“Leave me, Aquil! I will be fine,” he declared.
Kairen pulled him behind a large rock surging from the slope. She handed him one of her daggers she kept attached to her boot. “You’d better stay alive, Councilor. One of us has to.”
And she raced back down the slope to find David.
In a sudden gust of harsh wind, an explosion of light blinded
the battling troops. Down the hill, the roar of a godlike creature echoed across the canyon walls. She saw a golden beast soar into the sky.
At the foot of the slump, she spotted David who laid on his back among other of Sharr’s soldiers. He had been thrown off by the pulse of mighty wings. When the dragon reached the height of the valley’s top, he cast a loud roar that shook the ground beneath them. All soldiers began to run. The rebels raced uphill, some of Sharr’s men pursued them, and the rest retreated to where the encampment had burned to ashes.
All that was left of the Resistance fighters swirled uphill, looking for cover among large rocks or fallen tree trunks from the rockslide. Some pushed Sharr’s soldiers back as hard as they could before the dragon soared into the sky. The enraged beast scowled at them with the most terrifying growl.
As he beat his wings vigorously, he raced toward the slope where the rebels sped. Diego caught Lynn’s hand and dragged her with him to the side of the slump. They heard the furious roar of the dragon behind them. Upon their trail, they ran into a female dokkalfar who rushed to the bottom of the slope. The silversteel soldier did not even look at them. They fell to the ground and sought protection in a lower area adjacent to the slump.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it!” Diego conceded as he panted next to Lynn.
“I put my faith in Ahna now,” the Taz woman responded as she looked back to the dragon in the distance. “Once Ahna gets this dragon out of the way, we charge back down!”
“What makes you so sure she’ll manage?” Diego asked, flabbergasted by the events and Lynn’s resolve.
“She has to. Otherwise, I don’t know what to do!” The Taz woman admitted.
The majestic beast had almost made it to the edge of the canyon where they stood. Diego turned to Lynn, urgently.
“If these are my last words, I have something to say, Lynn!” he exclaimed.
Lynn laughed awkwardly. “Save it for after we win!” She turned quickly to the cliff to see how far the dragon was.
Diego grabbed onto her arm. “I love you, Lynn,” he said with a grave and honest voice. “I’ve loved you ever since you joined my squadron.”
The woman plunged her gaze into his. She wished so sincerely for this moment to last forever, but the dragon’s next roar pulled her back to reality.
“Take cover, Diego,” she finally directed.
Her captain nodded, and the two rushed toward a large boulder in the distance.
Kairen waited halfway up the hill for David. She swung her sword at one of the dark elf soldiers, while another one rushed behind her. She swung the blade behind her back, under her belt, with a dexterous wrist whirl. The other hand she placed on the pommel and pushed it backwards, violently in the other assailant's chest. She called for David when the dead dokkalfar dropped to the ground.
Her husband climbed the hill and rejoined her. They raced to the top of the slump together. Behind them, the dragon roared again. They looked around them for their peers. Many Resistance fighters had fallen, the rest attempted to get out of the dragon’s path. Their cannons and fire arrows had taken out a large portion of Sharr’s army, but dozens of soldiers remained amassed in the canyon.
Kairen and David looked to each other, with a grave light in their eyes. At this precise moment, they felt there was no way they would win this battle. They felt as though this was to be the end of the movement. But a slight smile drew on David’s face. He thought of what Kairen had said, back at Fort Gal. Should this be their final moments, it would be the end of this rebellion. People would rise up again. This generation of survivors would gather and find a way to survive some more, as they had done after the failed Uprising, as they had done after the loss of Bravoure.
Amidst their final thoughts, the Dragonborn roared again. They turned to him and braced for what would come next. But the whistle of a heavy arrow caught Kairen’s attention, and they heard the shattering sound of a projectile crash on the dragon’s scales.
Ahna, who stood on the canyon grounds behind Thamias, had launched a crushing arrow at his flank. The dragon howled from the shock of the Cursed Bow. But the blow had barely shaken him. Irritated, Thamias tilted his wing to turn gracefully and raze the ground beneath him with heavenly fire.
Ahna ran for cover under the cliff, and she was greeted by Xandor’s palm. The dokkalfar prince emerged out of the darkness and smashed his hand against Ahna’s chest. She let go of the bow and fell to the ground.
She rolled to the side to dodge the edge of her brother’s sword. Once she stood back up, he scowled at her and marched in a circle around her. She followed his movements, and they both stared at each other relentlessly.
“We meet again, dear sister,” Xandor said with his hoarse voice. “There’s that dokkalfar flame in your eyes again, that rage.”
Ahna unsheathed her sword and swung it in a cross as a martial salute. Xandor clenched his hand around the pommel of his rapier.
“We don’t have to fight, Xandor, we can end this peacefully. No more souls have to die!” his sister implored.
The Prince of Mal marched toward her rapidly and clashed his sword into hers. The hammering sound of the colliding blades almost deafened them. He shifted his weight toward her, forcing her to bend backwards. She was locked underneath him.
“You swing your blade at your own kin, you doom yourself. Call off the vermin, and I will have your life spared,” Xandor sternly declared.
Ahna seized her brother’s shoulder. She pulled herself up, close to his face, and as she plunged her gaze into his, she uttered the arcane words in old elven.
“Katl a frumur.”
Xandor, nervous, pushed her in anticipation and she fell on her back on the valley floor. A twisting slink of flickering lights coiled around her arm and reached her hand aimed at the false king. A bright lightning bolt surged out her fingers and crashed into her brother’s shoulder. Despite his protection of gold alloys, the shock thrust him backwards. Ahna stood up again and called another lightning around her arm. But before she could aim it at Xandor, Thamias glided over them and headed back toward the ravine at the edge of the canyon.
When he flew above them, the gust of wind from his wings destabilized Ahna, and she lost focus. Xandor, who seized the opportunity, grabbed his sword from the ground, then rushed to his sister. He attempted to overpower her once again, his heavy blade against hers, crushing her under his weight. Because she would not budge, he released his sword in a feigned surrender. As she straightened herself, he immediately smashed his palm into her chest again. She fell to the ground, disarmed, with no escape.
The false king came to stand over her, his weapon erected above her breast. As he stretched his back for more momentum, he wanted to dive in, to plunge his blade in her, but a sudden burst of distress overtook him. His blood slowly began to congeal inside him as he was about to execute her.
He was petrified.
He had to throw his sword at the ground to be able to move again. When Ahna dashed to the side to bring herself up, she saw, by the hill, their brother shine with might in the light of the sun.
The Dragonborn’s eyes lit with the holy fires of the Domain of Stars, and as he stretched his neck back, he held his talons forth toward the hill. He beat his wings horizontally to keep himself static in the air. He was about to blow, to unleash the flames of the divine. The rebels who still stood in the open prepared for a baptism by fire. Diego, Lynn, Kairen, David, Ahna, all looked to the majestic creature that was about to eradicate an entire movement of half a century.
Yet in the wild echoes of war, a loud, ghastly screech pierced through the air and reached the rebels’ ears. The cry was followed by a profound silence of distress. From behind the higher mountains, the monstrous shadow of an ungodly beast appeared and dived toward Thamias, claws first. A void dragon, black as night, with torn wings made of dark flesh filaments, that descended from the sky. It charged the golden dragon and hit it with full force. Its sharp fangs pierced through the D
ragonborn’s neck and the two bodies of darkness and light crashlanded in the hills away from the valley.
The roars of a clash of titans then shattered the walls of the canyon. Thamias, who was able to escape from the black dragon’s grasp, soared into the sky again and faced the scaleless monster with a holy blast. The obsidian fiend followed him, and a burst of funeral flames met Thamias’ divine firestorm.
18
Beast of War II
Ahna, who witnessed the arrival of the dark beast from the canyon, grabbed her sword from the mud and charged at Xandor. The dokkalfar prince dodged the blow.
Could it be…
Her thoughts shortly lingered on the shrike captain’s dark fate, but right now, she had more pressing matters. Xandor rolled to the floor and seized his sword again. He was about to cut through her parry.
Above them, Thamias was driven further into the air by the black fiend and its razor-sharp claws. The two dragons cast a long shadow over the valley, above the rest of Sharr’s horde. His soldiers had no choice but to compulsively stare at the ferocious duel in the sky.
Ahna quickly veered to the right. She stretched her left arm at the void and glanced at the ornate bow that sprung from the ground. As she exhaled, she focused on the weapon. The Cursed Bow unlodged itself from the soil and shot like a boomerang back in her hand. Ahna took an arrow, pulled on the bowstring and aimed straight at Xandor.
“Stop, Xandor, or I’ll blast you into the air,” she uttered as she stared at him with the flame of resolve in her eyes.
But Xandor laughed. He noticed Ahna’s struggle to hold on to the weapon.
Spasms upon spasms overtook her arm as the pain of the Cursed Bow sang too loud in her blood. Yet she gripped the riser with her head held high. The light of retribution radiated from the curved wood. The distortion caused by the bright mantle made it seem like the bow stood in the air on its own.
Tempest of Bravoure: Kingdom Ascent Page 23