Kingdom of Bones

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  There were, however, countless ballistas aimed at the sky, each one loaded with an explosive tip. Proving to be one of those rare occasions, Gideon soothed Ilargo, warning him against such foolish action.

  One bolt would spell the end of us both, old friend.

  And one exhale of fire would spell the end of a hundred orcs! Ilargo argued.

  Gideon rubbed his companion’s green scales. That wasn’t the point of this. We might have failed to give the orcs pause in their attack, but at least we gave Arathor more time to evacuate Dunwich.

  Ilargo bristled. Rolan’s attack has thinned their numbers, but with Queen Yelifer’s army in Dhenaheim, Namdhor will be slaughtered, just as the orc king said.

  That fact was beyond a source of irritation for Gideon. He was angry at the queen of the north. At Dragons’ Reach, she had promised to hold her army until…

  The Master Dragorn suddenly became concerned with Reyna and Nathaniel’s wellbeing. If Yelifer had marched her army into Dhenaheim, it was likely because negotiations had failed between the Galfreys and the dwarves. Disagreeing with the dwarves usually ended in blood.

  Of all people to be concerned about, Ilargo appealed, Reyna and Nathaniel Galfrey are the most capable. Whatever has happened in the mountains, I am sure they are safe.

  Gideon sighed. I’m tired of leaving my friends to peril and death.

  Ilargo knew of his intentions immediately and banked to fly north, towards Namdhor. The army of orcs remained behind them, a black stain on the white landscape.

  Part III

  25

  The Fifth Lesson

  Alijah wandered through the darkness of his bond with Malliath. He could hear whispers coming from the inky shadows that enveloped him. The words were lost on him but he knew they were beckoning him.

  His mind was fractured. His lessons repeated over and over, bringing with them the pain he had suffered under the Reavers’ instructions. Combined with the violent flashbacks from Malliath’s past, Alijah struggled to grasp anything tangible.

  Every now and then, Asher’s horrific past would bleed through and make a mess of any picture Alijah had formed. The bond between the three of them was unnatural and the rogue’s mind was paying the price.

  Still, that familiar voice called from the ether.

  “Malliath?” he cried into the darkness.

  The whispers intensified, but they came from every direction, confusing the half-elf. If only he could reach the dragon’s mind and mature their bond, he could regain some strength and… And what? he thought. Even if his body was restored to full health there was no escaping The Bastion. No escaping The Crow.

  More than anything, he longed to join with the black dragon. Futile as it might be, he needed to be one with Malliath. It was the only thing that made any sense to him.

  As always, Alijah slipped from what little bond they had and his mind wandered aimlessly. He partially woke in his freezing cell, his mind still holding onto the reprieve that was unconsciousness.

  As always, his mind referred back to his lessons. The words scarred his mind just as the Reavers scarred his body.

  Men may die, kingdoms may rise and fall, but an idea lives on…

  The words brought with them the memory of the lesson itself. The Crow had said something he found very interesting at the time. Being half asleep, Alijah couldn’t focus on what had been said beyond the lesson itself.

  Irritated by the elusive memory, the rogue stirred until his eyes focused. Across from him, in the shadows, was Asher. Seeing the enthralled ranger, his mind sharpened and he remembered exactly what The Crow had said to interest him.

  Asher has his role to play. He has the answer inside his mind…

  Alijah lifted his head back to the wall and looked hard at Asher, then at Malliath. Whatever the answer was, it must be important, he reasoned. Something that would affect the outcome of the war perhaps. Malliath snorted his hot breath through his nostrils, grabbing the rogue’s attention.

  Alijah’s mind began to wonder then. Perhaps the ranger wasn’t the one who had the answer…

  His train of thought was interrupted when the creaky door of his personal hell was swung open. The Crow strode in, accompanied by his usual entourage of undead Reavers.

  “You’re already awake,” the wizard remarked. “No need for the bucket today, then.”

  The Reaver behind him placed the usual bucket of freezing water on the floor. Alijah kept his relief to himself, fearful that it would result in some other form of pain.

  The Crow positioned himself so that Alijah and Malliath were either side of him. “Have you heard him yet?” he asked the rogue. “I must admit, I’m curious as to what his voice sounds like.”

  Alijah averted his gaze, making sure to keep his attention on the wet floor.

  “Alijah…” The wizard called his name with an ominous tone. “Do I see fear in those eyes?”

  The rogue understood his mistake immediately. He snapped his head up and met The Crow’s cold eyes, determined to show no sign of any fear.

  “What was your previous lesson?” he enquired, a hand gripped around his wand.

  Alijah swallowed what little saliva he had. “Fear is not… real. It is simply a product… of the mind.”

  The Crow leaned in. “What is real?”

  “Danger,” Alijah replied without hesitation. He could still feel the steel of the Reaver’s blade slicing through his skin as he recited the lesson.

  The Crow nodded along and moved away. “Danger,” he repeated. “Your people are in danger, Alijah. They will always be in danger. There’s always something worse just waiting in the darkness to hurt them. Illian will never be safe. That’s why it needs you to watch over it, protect it… lead it.”

  Alijah’s attention flitted from The Crow to the Reavers, wondering which was going to hurt him first. He then naturally turned to the open sky above, his eyes darting to every corner of the broken ceiling, searching for any sign of help. He couldn’t help it. He was trapped in a corner and helpless to defend himself.

  The wizard followed his gaze and sighed as if he was just as disheartened as Alijah by the lack of any rescue.

  “They’re not coming, I’m afraid. Your friends, that is. Your parents aren’t coming to save you. Your sister isn’t coming. Gideon Thorn isn’t coming. Vighon Draqaro isn’t coming. You are alone here. In these walls, only you can decide what breaks you.”

  Alijah knew his hopelessness was close to breaking him. He could feel himself detaching from the world with every passing day. Every lesson chipped away at him, revealing something else lingering under the surface.

  With as much courage as he could muster, Alijah asked. “Is that today’s lesson?”

  “No.” The Crow gave one of the Reavers a single nod and it left the cell. “Today’s lesson… is love.”

  The half-elf shifted within the confines of his chains, suddenly terrified of what was going to happen next. Was that Reaver about to return with his parents or Inara? Had they captured Vighon?

  The Reaver soon returned with two young men and an elderly woman, all three chained together by the wrists. They were petrified, entirely unsure what they were doing in such a horrible place. When Malliath’s dark form stirred in the shadows, the elderly woman shrieked and fought against her captor. One of the men wet himself and the other stood in frozen terror.

  “Keep them there,” The Crow commanded, gesturing to the door.

  “What are you doing?” Alijah dared to ask.

  “Teaching you, of course. Today’s lesson is perhaps the most important. Those three people are nobody to you. You’ve never met them, you don’t know their names, if they have any family, where they’ve come from. But, they are people of Illian. That makes them your people.

  “You must love them, Alijah. Truly love them, each and every one. Even the ones who rise up against you must be loved. Taking their lives will always weigh on you, as it should a good king, but you will still love them. Because
they are your people,” he repeated.

  Alijah looked at the three of them, struggling, in his condition, to feel anything but pity for them. Whatever happened next, he knew they would never leave this chamber again.

  “You must love them more than your parents and your sister. The people must mean more to you than family. The king of Illian must be a servant, not a tyrant. Tyrants have desires of their own. Things that they want, that they love more than anything else. They sacrifice their own people to attain it.”

  Alijah looked from the prisoners to The Crow. “Am I… supposed to choose?” He was confused as to his own part in the lesson.

  “No,” the wizard said, shaking his head. “Today you’re going to learn that love gives you the strength to transform pain into power. Where others could only draw this from a chosen few that they love unconditionally, you will harness that strength and power from everyone around you. Your love for your people will give you the means to accomplish anything.”

  Alijah met the horrified faces of the prisoners, trapped behind a wall of Reavers. “What are you going to do?” he asked The Crow.

  “No, Alijah. What are you going to do?”

  The wizard pressed his wand into the rogue’s chest and stole his breath with a spell. The cold point of the wand became hot, but it wasn’t painful. The feeling spread through his limbs and the world began to return in more clarity than it had for some time. His breath came back and with it a surge of energy he hadn’t experienced since he fought the orcs in the streets of Velia.

  The Crow smiled and flicked his wand at the manacles around the half-elf’s wrists. They snapped open and Alijah stepped forward with real strength in his legs. He rubbed his wrists and clenched his fists.

  “What did you do?”

  “Feels good, doesn’t it? To be whole again?” The Crow lingered on the lacerations inflicted by the Reavers. “Well, almost whole. Scars are great reminders, are they not?”

  Alijah could still feel the sting of his torture, but his limbs had a strength to them that he had almost forgotten about. “Why have you done this?” The rogue put a hand to his throat, shocked by the confidence and power in his tone.

  “For today’s lesson, you need to be… limber!”

  Alijah stepped to the side and backed away from The Crow and the Reavers by the door. He had nowhere to go, but nothing could stop his legs from trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

  “Loving your people is one thing. Standing up for them is another. You must be a capable king. A warrior. With or without Malliath by your side, your people must know that standing behind you is the safest place to be. But, you must love them enough to fight with everything you have to give.”

  Another nod from the wizard and a Reaver stepped forward with a single-handed sword in a scabbard. It was an unremarkable hilt, the sheath damaged in places. The Crow took it in his hands and pulled the blade free, holding it out before him.

  “When you are capable, I will present you with a sword befitting a king. Until then, you will learn to fight with this.”

  The Crow threw the blade over and Alijah was surprised to discover his reflexes were up to the task of snatching it from the air. “I already know how to fight.”

  “Yes, you have survived battle already, a testament to your upbringing by such venerable warriors. But, as every lesson has taught you, you must be more. In this instance, you must learn to fight for more than just your life. From now on, you fight for everyone else.” The wizard turned to regard the prisoners. “If you can reach them I will set them free. Of course, every second that you can’t protect them, my Reavers will hurt them.”

  Of the thirteen Reavers, three broke away from the group and each took up position behind one of the prisoners; their personal torturer. Three more stepped towards Alijah and drew their short-swords as they fell into a variety of fighting stances. The remaining seven stood as still as statues to the side, out of the way.

  Alijah knew by their swords and stances that he not only faced Reavers, but also Arakesh. “You want me to fight assassins?” he asked in disbelief. “There won’t be anything left of me to teach.”

  “Ah, but fighting for others, especially those we love, has a way of pushing us beyond our limits. You must find your love for them in your heart and use it. Their pain will empower you, Alijah.”

  The Crow joined Malliath and Asher in the shadows, leaving a clear path between Alijah and the Reavers. On the other side of them, the three prisoners cried out as their torturers began to viciously beat them to the floor.

  Every cry was a jolt that shot through Alijah, urging him to charge ahead and bring a stop to their pain and torment. It wasn’t any love for them that drove him so, but merely the injustice of it. He hated seeing anyone in pain.

  “It’s hard to hear, isn’t it?” The Crow called from the side. “Anyone would want to intervene and help them. The difference between you and anyone else is your love for them. Find it. Accept it. Use it.”

  Alijah didn’t have a chance to assess his opponents and he didn’t have Vighon by his side. The northman had always been better with a sword and loved an opportunity to save the rogue’s life.

  Two of the Reavers advanced, leaving the third closer to the prisoners. They came at Alijah from opposing angles. Their short-swords flashed in the torchlight as they spun them around in their hands, exhibiting incredible dexterity, especially for the dead.

  Alijah raised his sword and twisted the blade forward then backward, getting a feel for the weight and balance of it. Compared to Asher’s silvyr short-sword, it was crude and poorly forged, but the enthralled ranger had the unique blade sheathed on his back and he didn’t look to be sharing it.

  Another scream from the elderly woman broke the rogue’s focus and he looked from the approaching Reavers to the prisoners. They were being beaten without mercy. They wouldn’t survive much longer unless he could reach them.

  The Arakesh Reaver to his left was the first to lash out with a corkscrewing leap into the air. The short-swords came down on Alijah one after the other, then they came back up, forcing the rogue to change his fighting stance mid-flow.

  One of the men cried out and something audibly cracked. Alijah glanced in their direction and missed the second blade cutting through the air. He yelled in pain and stumbled backward after the steel sliced through his upper arm.

  “Focus, Alijah,” The Crow encouraged. “Transform that pain into power!”

  The Reaver came at him again and Alijah ducked and rolled underneath the swing. Outnumbered as he was, the rogue came back up only to be faced by the second Reaver to have broken away from the group. He brought his crude sword up and parried three rapid strikes but, with his attention split, he momentarily forgot about the Reaver behind him. The foot to his back launched him forward and onto the wet floor in a heap of limbs and shooting pains.

  The wizard’s voice found the gaps between their screams. “They don’t have long…”

  Alijah heaved himself up and swung his sword out with wild abandon to push the Reavers back a foot. “How do I know you’ll let them live?” he shouted.

  “I told you; I will never lie to you. I said I will set them free and I will… If you can reach them.”

  The two Reavers came again, this time attacking as one. Alijah blocked the sword of one and lifted his foot to avoid the sword of the other. Vighon had always told him a good defence was pointless if it wasn’t followed up with an effective offence. With that in mind, the rogue dashed forwards and plunged his blade into the chest of the Arakesh on his left. He immediately pulled the sword free and brought his elbow up into the face of the Reaver on his right.

  The undead creature, who had just been stabbed through the chest, should have come right back at Alijah with an attack of its own. Instead, the Arakesh lay on the floor, as if it had really been slain.

  “One down, two to go!” The Crow announced unhelpfully.

  The prisoners continued to call out f
or mercy. That was when Alijah noticed that the elderly woman was silent, her body still on the floor.

  “She’s dead, Alijah. Let the injustice of her final moments burn in your soul! Use it!”

  The Arakesh Reaver recovered almost instantly from the elbow to the face and attacked the half-elf again. A primal fury erupted from somewhere deep inside, and Alijah bared his teeth and barrelled into the oncoming Reaver. He grabbed it around the waist and took the undead thing to the floor, his own sword forgotten.

  A quick headbutt threw the Reaver’s skull into the stone. Alijah gripped the short-sword in its hand and pushed the edge of the blade down into its neck. The steel cut into his fingers as he shoved the short-sword down, fighting the Reaver’s resistance. He shifted his weight to come down on the weapon with every ounce of strength he had. Eventually, the blade chopped through the Arakesh’s neck and severed its head.

  That one wouldn’t be playing dead.

  Alijah growled with a ragged breath and picked up his sword on the way back up. The third and final Reaver was standing in the middle of the clearing, unnaturally still.

  “Kill it, Alijah, and you can free them from their torment.”

  The rogue barely registered The Crow’s words. This particular Reaver was his personal torturer, the one who ensured he absorbed the wizard’s lessons.

  “Do not let your hate and anger cloud your vision,” The Crow continued. “It must be your love for the people that drives you. Fighting for anything less will make you no better than your predecessors.”

  Becoming accustomed to The Crow’s voice after so long, Alijah blinked hard and took in his meaning. As twisted as this all was, the wizard was right. He looked at the two men being savagely beaten and he imagined them to be someone’s son, their brother, a father even. To someone, they were family. If he couldn’t fight for that then what could he ever fight for?

  Coming to stand before his last opponent, Alijah refrained from charging him. Hearing their pleas for help made it all the harder, but he had to focus if he was going to free them.