War of Kings and Monsters

by Christopher Keene

They had to land somewhere. The gray skies appeared to be ablaze with stars so close that they could actually hit you. They weren’t stars but flame-tipped arrows shot skyward by the longbows of the Terratheist archers. They stood alongside cloaked callers, undoubtedly Master Morrow’s students, each one summoning a Melkai from a glowing pact item.

  Aisic swooped down as another volley of arrows rushed toward them, but he used his own flame to destroy them. They flared up into nothing as Aisic’s massive body burst from the flame and landed, his giant tail swatting the soldiers away. Nathan slid down it, landing and confronting those attacking.

  “Stop!” He took off his chain mail hood. “It’s me, Nathan!”

  The archers pulled back and fired another volley. They were too close, and Aisic didn’t have enough time to blow them away. However, an electrical charge passed through the air, and they quickly dropped to the ground.

  One of the cloaked figures emerged out from the group and stood in front of them, blocking their path. Seeing the tall, frail figure under his robe, Nathan already knew who he was.

  The old man pulled back his hood and turned to the other callers. “Stop this! He’s one of our own!”

  The younger callers shouted out to their Melkai, and the fighting paused for a moment.

  Aisic returned to his human form and sheathed his sword. “Nathan, who’s that?”

  Nathan grinned. “He’s my teacher, Master Morrow.” But then he asked, “Morrow, why is the king doing this? Avatasc is under new rule now; there is no threat anymore!”

  For a brief moment, Morrow’s eyes dropped to the ground, his brow furrowed. “Dragon’s Breath! That confirms my suspicions. The king passed on several weeks back. Michael has succeeded him.”

  Nathan halted when he heard the name of his old friend again.

  Morrow told him of the events that had taken place during his absence. Michael was now King of Terratheist and keeping to his own counsel, and Laine had taken Morrow’s place as the leader of the court callers.

  His mouth opened in shock, unable to form words. He had been best friends with Michael, who had treated him like a younger brother from the moment they first met, for most of his life. Michael hadn’t been like the other stuck-up, young nobles. He had been jovial with everyone, even going so far as to treat his father, the king, as a friend. Yet now he was acting like the world itself had turned against him.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  Michael couldn’t have changed that much—could he?

  He looked up again to see a soldier pulling back his longbow and taking aim at Morrow’s back. “Look out!”

  Morrow turned and swiftly raised his hands, opening a seam to the Melkairen as the fired arrows flew into it. “These soldiers seem to believe talking to you is committing an act of treason. I thought something fishy was going on. This war has been far too quiet.”

  Suddenly, several Melkai, each of the first and second circles, growled behind the archers, ready to attack Master Morrow as well.

  Teeth bared, Nathan scanned the faces of the callers. Once he recognized them, he was completely unsurprised by how they were acting. He had shared many lectures on pact making and Melkai control with them and learned that most of them were only trying to become callers because they were pressured into it by their noble parents. Expectations were high for nobles to have at least one Advanced Summoner in their family, and if the father failed to become one, they were sure that the son would. All it would’ve taken for the student to turn on their teacher, their kingdom, or even their parents, was the promise of getting power of their own, if just to break away from those expectations.

  Having grown up as an orphan, Nathan could understand but couldn’t relate.

  Morrow flashed a look back at Nathan. “You knew Michael better than any of us. Go to him. See if you can talk some sense into him.”

  “What about you?”

  The old man smiled. “I’m not so rusty that I can’t handle these novices by myself. Now go!”

  If someone were to tell Nathan that Morrow had been brought up on the street or during a time of war, it would not have surprised him.

  He nodded to his master and got a smiling nod in return. Morrow still trusted him to do what needed to be done.

  “Okay!” Nathan said, but as he went to move on, he remembered Tarros and Durian. “Oh, and if you see two Senadonians come by on a wolf, they are on our side. Just say you are with King Nathaniel Armalon, and they’ll know.”

  Master Morrow laughed. “Finally worked it out, huh? I always knew you had it in you to find out for yourself.”

  “Really?” Nathan shouted. “I’m surprised you managed to keep that a secret for so long.”

  “Believe me, Nathan, it nearly killed me.”

  “Well, don’t die for my sake just because I know now, all right?”

  “Yes, well . . .” He turned back to the other callers. “Advanced Summoners don’t die so easily. Senadon and Armalon though . . . now those are two names I haven’t heard in the same sentence for a long time.”

  Nathan shook his head. Morrow hadn’t just known about his lineage, but the history of their connection to the Akai uprising.

  With Aisic following him, Nathan ran down the barricade and into the courtyard. The buildings were cracked and crumbled. The fountain in the courtyard had stopped flowing, the gardens were pulled out, the flowers dead, but the biggest change was the darkness from the clouds that hovered overhead. Nathan felt like he was searching a ruin rather than the most beloved city in the land, not just with the drab look of the place, but also with how all the colors from the garden to the curtains had been removed.

  He searched the castle balconies. He barely recognized the place. For nearly a decade, Terratheist had been his home, a place he loved to explore even when he was forbidden to do so. However, now the foreboding felt much grimmer, like poking his head into an off-limits room would now have him fighting a bloodthirsty Melkai rather than being given a tongue-in-cheek telling off.

  “I don’t understand why Michael’s doing this,” Nathan said as Aisic caught up with him. “It’s out of character for him, almost like . . .”

  “He’s become someone else.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Then I suggest we prepare ourselves for the worst.”

  They approached the stairs that led up to the castle’s gated tower, and Nathan stopped. Despite the chaos going on all around, unlike every other building around them, the chapel was lit with candles. As children, he and Michael had used it as a meeting place. Waiting on the butt-bruising pews before planning to sneak into the castle gallery sprung to mind. If it hadn’t been for Michael’s prompting, he never would have known his mother’s face.

  Turning from their original path, he dashed toward the large, steeple-topped tower.

  Aisic spun and caught up with him. “Nathan, where are you going?”

  Nathan didn’t stop. “He’s in there. I know he is. He wants to meet.”

  They ran down the wide pathway and arrived at the chapel doors. He hesitated a moment. Something told him Michael was in there, but that same feeling was telling him not to go inside. He ignored it and shoved the doors open. They swung wide and he slowly stepped in.

  He was right. Standing at the back of the chapel was the prince . . . no, the King of Terratheist, but not as Nathan remembered him.

  He squinted in the candlelight. It was Michael, but like the city, he was barely recognizable. From his pallid complexion, whatever had infected the castle appeared to have also infected him. In fact, further studying his friend’s baleful expression made Nathan start to believe that he wasn’t infected, but rather that he was the infection.

  As he saw them, he smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that Nathan remembered. It was more crooked, and his narrowed eyes topped off the sinister look. A sudden pulse of air blew out the flames along the walls and caused the doors to creak shut behind them. Th
e reddened moonlight outside bounced off the plates of his armored shoulders.

  “Michael . . .” Nathan said, advancing cautiously. “What’s going on? Why did you start this war?”

  Michael’s head dipped, his face becoming bathed in shadow. “You still don’t understand, even now?”

  Aisic stepped in front of Nathan like he was expecting Michael to attack him, but Nathan raised a hand. “What are you talking about?”

  Red glowing eyes flashed from the shadows. “Tell me, child; did you bring the key?” Michael raised a grasping hand. “Give it to me.”

  Nathan knew he had seen those red eyes somewhere before, but it wasn’t until he saw it alongside the palm-up, grasping gesture that he realized where he had seen it.

  “You’re . . . not Michael, are you?” he asked.

  Those red eyes were exactly the same as the first Melkai he and Michael had come across when their journey had begun.

  “Who . . . who are you?”

  The thing wearing his friend’s body asked, “Who am I?”

  Aisic stepped forward, drawing his sword, but not yet attacking. Nathan understood why Aisic would need to be ready. He knew this wasn’t Michael anymore. But he had to hear it from his own lips before a fight broke out.

  “Like your friend here, I have been locked in the Melkairen for the past five hundred years.” The Melkai inside of Michael glared in irritation. “But I suppose you want a name.”

  “Ramannon,” Aisic growled.

  Nathan took a step back, looking from Michael to Aisic and back.

  Using Michael’s face, Ramannon smiled. “King Ramannon.”

  Chapter 25: The Gate

  From up on the battlements, the fight had appeared organized and under control, but down amongst the people and the chaos, the battle painted a completely different picture. Where before she had a good idea of where everything was, now she felt as lost as any citizen looking for shelter.

  Although the summoning had come from the king himself, she was disgruntled to have to cross from the city’s outer walls to the castle, which was no leisurely stroll. The castle and neighboring chapel rested at the top of the highland the city surrounded. She would have to climb the hill until finally reaching the inner wall, separating the commoners from the castle, and then ascend the many stairs through the arch of the keep’s walls to finally reach the castle courtyard where she could veer left to the tall church.

  As she rushed through the cobbled streets, she was forced off her path as a battalion of armored soldiers marched down it toward the gate. In her panic, she noticed women and the elderly fleeing from the gate. This usually meant one thing; a breach.

  After what she had seen from up on the wall, this change in the battle didn’t make any sense. However, when she saw a plume of fire erupt behind her, it suddenly dawned on her that a Melkai had joined their enemy’s ranks.

  She took a side street, panting as she dashed through a crowd of people cowering under a stone veranda. Although she wanted to warn them that it wasn’t the safest place to hide with Melkai possibly charging through any second, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get them to move in time, and by then she would be caught in the thick of it herself.

  Gritting her teeth, she pulled her cloak from around her shoulders and tossed it into the air. With a flash, Terachiro landed before her, causing several of the huddled peasants to scream in fear.

  “Take to the air!” she shouted to be heard. “Find me the empty passages to the castle! I’ll follow you!”

  With a sharp huff, Terachiro flapped its wings and took off, darting through the sky in the direction of roads that were less crowded. Like a regular bat, Terachiro was able to use sound to see things that were not visible to the eye. Seeing it circle a distant area, Laine rushed down an alley and found a smaller side street that wasn’t so packed. She dashed down it, her heart racing in her chest as she looked up to see Terachiro circling another area of the city.

  Following Terachiro’s directions, Laine eventually found a way leading up to the castle’s inner walls. She had left the redhead, Reshal, in charge of this area, and she hoped the girl had managed to keep the battlements unmolested by the enemy. As she made it to the gatehouse and shouted up for them to open the gates for her, the voice that returned was Reshal’s.

  In a trembling voice, the redhead called, “Please . . . wait, Master! I’ll—” then was cut off by the rattling of the drawbridge being lowered.

  Laine ran in and was met by the girl. The rings around the girl’s eyes from her rubbing them were redder than her hair, and Laine could tell she had been crying.

  “What happened?” Laine demanded. “Did you manage to hold the inner wall?”

  Reshal shook her head. “Izzy . . . my Melkai . . . and Tuttle’s too. The dragon killed both of them!”

  Laine winced. She had known her fliers were inexperienced but thought having two of them standing sentinel on the inner wall would make up for that. It appeared that, when fighting a dragon, the number of Melkai you commanded didn’t matter.

  “I ordered Blake to send back up. Did his wyvern . . .” She stopped as she saw that Reshal looked like she was about to faint. The girl was clearly catatonic from losing her Melkai in the battle. Laine ran in and slapped her. “Get a hold of yourself!”

  Instead of snapping the girl out of her sorrow, tears just welled in Reshal’s eyes and she bawled. She raised a shaking hand to her cheek and fled back into the gatehouse battlements. Laine hoped the weak girl would at least lift the gate back up when she made it inside.

  She groaned, realizing she couldn’t trust her with that in her current state, and if the enemy had Melkai, they could be arriving at any moment. “Dragon’s breath!”

  She followed Reshal inside only to see her cowering next to the steps with her knees pulled up to her chest. The girl was a lost cause. Laine would have to do it herself. She climbed the stone steps as a sudden impact rocked the walls and she was forced to stable herself.

  “What was . . .” She shook her head, realizing it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t make it to the gatehouse’s wheel, and continued on.

  She reached the top and found the wheel that would raise the drawbridge. From the size of the thing, she wouldn’t be able to spin it by herself. Then, in the shadows, she noticed a large young man peering out of the slit window. It was Tuttle.

  “What are you doing?” Laine asked.

  Tuttle spun, his face pale, but then calmed at seeing her. “M-Master, my Garuda! Morrow, he . . .”

  Laine realized he was talking about his bird Melkai and figured it had suffered a similar fate to Reshal’s. “Yeah, okay, just help me with this wheel, will you?”

  He nodded, and they both grabbed the levers to drop the drawbridge. Laine assumed he had been the one to open it before, for his strong arms made quick work of the task.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Head to the castle and rally any callers you can find.”

  Tuttle nodded, hands shaking. “And what about you?”

  Laine’s lips pulled inward. “I have to go find the king.”

  She fled back down the stairs, heading to the chapel to receive her orders from King Michael, though at this stage she didn’t know what to expect other than to prepare for a siege of the inner wall and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

  As she ran up the stairs to the castle courtyard, circumventing the castle’s main entrance in favor of taking the exterior path to the chapel, she gasped as an explosion filled the air above her. She peered up and saw an old man using some kind of dome of magic—glowing a similar blue to her own blade spell—to block the arrows of several archers as armored men with halberds closed in on him.

  He was using abilities Laine had never seen before, and, as he was the enemy, she was not eager to catch his attention. She stayed close to the wall where he wouldn’t be able to see her.

  There was a bright flash above, and soldiers ca
me flying down from the walls. Despite one of them landing with a clatter very close to where she was running, she didn’t hear a single scream. In fact, it looked like the armor had saved him for he proceeded to silently rise and march his way back to the wall.

  She was almost past the fight. However, she then spotted Terachiro landing on the wall near where the old wizard was fighting. She couldn’t have her companion, mixed up with such a dangerous caller.

  “Terachiro, to me!” she shouted.

  Her large bat glided down to meet her, settling around her shoulder as her pact item. She waited a moment, worried the old man would send a Melkai after them, but he was too busy with the soldiers to notice her below.

  Laine bared her teeth and continued her way to the chapel. Whatever the king had to tell her, she hoped it was good news for their defenses, because things were not looking good outside the walls.

  She had just made to the wide path surround the large building when she noticed someone rushing through the chapel’s front doors.

  Chapter 26: Adversary

  Only now did Michael’s hostility after defeating the second-circle Melkai make sense. Ramannon, the tyrant king who had ruled five hundred years ago, whom Aisic had locked in the Melkairen, had returned and was controlling his body.

  “I didn’t want to admit it.” Aisic bowed his head and growled, “But I couldn’t fool myself! Of course you were the reason for this war! Who else could cause so much chaos and misery so quickly?!”

  Ramannon sneered. “It may have taken me five hundred years, but I finally found a way to escape.”

  “Then why didn’t you kill me and take the key when you were in Michael’s body that day?” Nathan cried out, grasping at straws.

  “It took a while to take control of his body completely, but the weaker the barrier became, the more my influence over him grew.” Ramannon peered out the window at the red moon. “In the forest, when the moon was a crescent full, I had enough power to come forward and take over completely.” He spun and held out a gauntleted hand. “You are going to give me the key . . . or should your death come first?”