A Rising Darkness

by Nikki Dorakis

  Markos’ face flushed in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “It would not be the first time a Morlan Prince has done so,” he answered angrily.

  “Perhaps not!” I retorted, “But like as not it would be the last time for you!”

  Dthor-Aid’n reached over and placed his hand on my arm withdrawing it almost at once as he saw the full extent of the outrage burning in my eyes. Whatever he might have been intending to say died before the words even reached his lips.

  I turned my full attention back to the royals. “This is unbelievably naïve of both of you! Now, get to your watches and do not address me again until this ridiculous infatuation is dead!”

  I turned away from the princes as they hurried away red-faced and grabbed up their weapons from the rack by the billet door. I sat heavily and took a heft swig from my quaich. What in Zoar’s name could the pair have been thinking? Well, clearly they were not thinking—at least not with their heads.

  Dthor-Aid’n moved to my side topping up my chalice from his own. “That was harsh, lad.” He said quietly. “Those young men think the world of you. It is only natural that they should fall in love and want to . . .”

  “It is so critically important to your survival that you do not complete that sentence, Captain.”

  “You did not have to humiliate them in front of the men.”

  “I intended that they should come quickly to their senses.” I answered, “We have had more than enough romantic drama on this mission and the sooner the Princes come to their senses the better I shall like it.” I finished.

  “Love and sense are not often found in each other’s company, lad.” Dthor-Aid’n said topping my chalice once more. “You have never felt like the Princes have you? That love or desire?”

  “No,” I answered, “I do not seem to need those things.”

  “Then I am sad for you, Meriq. Not because you do not need them, but because you will never be able to understand those who do, even with all your wisdom and power. And you will hurt those who love you because of it.”

  He rose then, clipped his quaich to his belt and strolled out into the night and in the wake of his departure came the sense that even as he left, part of my heart had left with him, and I suddenly felt more alone than I had felt since Anubis died.

  We left Delos at dawn eight days after our victory. The Deloi were extremely generous in providing us with supplies and a couple of extra packhorses. In addition six Delon cavalier-archers requested to join the ranks of Ul Kyr-Garrin and six additional riders, three Zetan and three Morlan volunteered their services bringing our number to twenty-four.

  Janis and Keelan both had wanted me to take more men but I declined mainly because I wanted to be able to move quickly to Polis and a larger force, particularly one with infantry, could only move as fast as the slowest foot soldier. Dthor-Aid’n and Aenar, though they said they would welcome the extra swords, supported my decision as strategically sound and in the face of a united front from the two ranking officers the Monarchs agreed. And while we rode on to reconnoitre Polis the fort town of Delos would become the first staging post for the final assault, the army moving forward to Polis if the city still survived.

  The end of our first day found us halfway to Polis. We had made good time without pressing the horses too badly. The men were uncharacteristically quiet as they set about establishing our camp and more than once I noticed conversation faltering to a halt when either I or one of the Princes passed by the various groups. Even our new members seemed ill at ease.

  With the camp set and guards posted Jae’nt and Markos crouched by the main hearth peeling and chopping roots and tossing them into the cauldron. I walked over to them slowly using the time to order my thoughts.

  “Gentlemen.” I nodded a greeting as I reached the hearth putting up my hand as the princes went to rise. “I owe you an apology for my earlier conduct. I hope you will forgive it, but I was a little surprised,”

  “Then I would hate to see you a lot surprised, Ez’n,” Markos answered, a slight smile teasing at the edges of his mouth.

  “I have seen him a lot surprised, Markos,” Jae’nt said “and as you suspect, it is not pleasant. I still have the stiff shoulder to prove it. He throws like a Morkopian wrestler—trust me.”

  I extended my hands to the princes who took them cordially as I joined them by the hearth picking up a spare knife and taking up a nearby tuber. And as the three of us prepared the evening’s meal conversation and laughter seemed to bubble up from the surrounding hearths as the troop’s mood lifted.

  I sat staring into the flames of the main hearth watching the bright orange tongues licking at the logs. Overhead silver stars glinted like fire lit coins in the cloudless sky, and around me the hush of the night wind mixed with the gentle whispering breaths of the sleeping soldiers. At the far edge of the camp Aenar and Kylos sat watch staring out into the darkness to the north, Jae’nt and Markos were crouched at the south and four of the Deloi reclined at east and west.

  Around the remaining hearths soldiers lay together huddled under their cloaks. I smiled to myself noting how Morlan had paired with Zetan at a couple of the fires some even wrapping each other in a close sleeping embrace.

  “War makes unlikely bed-fellows does it not Ez’n?” Dthor-Aid’n said as he joined me at the hearth. “Does sleep elude you, lad?” he asked passing me a cup of mulled wine.

  “Not particularly,” I replied sipping the beverage and savouring the spicy tartness, “I was just thinking. No. Nothing specific.” I added as the soldier raised an expectant eyebrow at me, “Just idle thoughts of the night and of the cold.” I shivered as an icy breath of wind blew on my back.”

  The captain regarded me seriously for a moment. He opened his cloak and stared out into the darkness at the edge of the camp. “It is not wise to become chilled, lad.” Dthor-Aid’n turned his clear blue eyes on me glancing into his open cloak. I gave the man a cynical look, “I promised the king I would keep you safe, lad.”

  “So this is purely an act of duty then, captain,” I stated as we doubled our cloaks and he pulled me into his side

  “Rest assured, lad, you need have no concerns regarding my intentions. You will sleep warm and safe with me,” he said quietly, giving me a smile that made my breath catch in my throat. “Relax, lad.” The soldier grinned as he felt me tense beside him at the sound of movement at an adjacent fire, “there are only loyal friends around you. There are no evil tongues or prurient minds in the Kyr-Garrin.” He shifted slightly pulling me closer so that I was tucked against his side with my head resting on his shoulder. “Sleep now, my little dragon,” he whispered.

  Dawn broke behind a cloak of icy mist. The freezing fog swept in just as the moons were setting in the middle of the night. It was a thick cloying mist full of ice crystals that settled in a sparkling diamond crust on our hair, eyelashes and cloaks before melting into a bone-chilling film.

  I lay for a while listening to Dthor-Aid’n’s breath my head rocking gently in time with the slow, soothing motion of his chest as he slept.

  So far our numbers had been sufficient, but, as Aenar pointed out, turning the tide of a fight against a hundred using magic and the element of surprise was a far cry from meeting a full platoon of the Black Army head on with twenty-three fighters and a wizard.

  “Ever the optimist.” Maegor commented as he stoked the main hearth. He leaned over and passed me a bowl of thick porridge.

  “I am a realist.” The provost returned.

  “You are depressingly dour,” Kylos stated, “and you have no sense of adventure.”

  Aenar raised his eyebrows and stared around the hearth “No sense of adventure?” He grabbed the archer and pulled him close. “I courted you did I not, you unspeakable little demon?”

  “True,’’ Kyle agreed, “but that of course was just unadulterated madness.”

  “I think we are all beginning to realise that!” Ursus said as he joined us to break fast. “The fog seems to be lift
ing, T’pahq,” he added

  “Then we strike camp as soon as we have eaten,” I answered.

  As we rode away from the camp the sun was just starting to penetrate the fog more strongly giving us fresh hope that the Lady of Fortune would once more smile on us and the mist would be burned away before we reached the fortress town.

  “By Morgul, this is unbearable! “Markos growled as he trotted up beside Dthor-Aid’n and me. “We need to make haste,”

  I could not help but agree with the prince and said as much: but in order to make haste we needed the fog to disperse. To take the horses at a gallop across the Polisian Veldt when we could not see ahead was foolhardy and I was not prepared to risk either the riders or their mounts in such a venture.

  “What about that?” Aenar said pointing to Golgoth’s staff where it rested in the javelin holster by the cantle of my saddle. “Can that not cause wind as well as lightning and fire?”

  I nodded. Indeed it could but I did not yet know how to use it properly and my knowledge of thaumaturgy was rather limited. It was not something Anubis had taken much interest in and had mostly left me alone to experiment with weather magic, only taking to time to coach me when I asked him for assistance.

  I had not, however, managed the more extreme conjurations, though I had managed a lightning strike which subsequently smashed the windows of my room and destroyed a flagpole on the roof of the Deloi governor’s mansion.

  The setting of the glyphs was quite complicated arranged as they were in three ranks with twelve symbols in each rank representing the different states of the elements to be summoned—that much I had managed to work out. The top rank seemed to govern intensity with the others somehow controlling direction and flow. It was not simply a matter of pointing the stave at a target and firing it like a crossbow. The fingering was complicated even for the basics and it only needed me to misplace a finger or activate the ciphers in the wrong order and we could all be consumed in a firestorm, encased in ice or flayed alive in a cyclone. This was not a fate I welcomed, and when I had finished explaining the complexities to Aenar he readily agreed that it would be sensible to wait until I had had more time to study the weapon.

  So it was that we plodded on through the fog picking our way carefully to the top of the hills overlooking the Polisian steppe, and as we crested the hill we suddenly found ourselves standing in clear sunlight looking out over a swirling ocean of fog.

  Some eight cords in the distance the towers of Polis rose like glimmering ivory tusks from the sea of mist and between the towers columns of black smoke rose swaying in the still morning air like striking kingsnakes—Polis was besieged.

  “T’pahq, there!” Orrin’s voice brought me back from surveying the city. He was pointing to the land below where there was a faint yellow glow slowly advancing towards us.

  Beside me Aenar sat as if he was carved from stone, his jaw set hard, his eyes burning with rage. He turned very slowly to face me. “If they have harmed my wife and daughter I will kill every last one of them with my bare hands.”

  Kylos placed his hand on the veteran’s forearm. “Then you will not do so alone.”

  “Aye,” I agreed. I turned to Orrin. “Can you get the numbers of the squad below us without getting yourself killed?”

  “It wounds me that you should ask such a question T’pahq.” The kayet answered with a smile. “Consider it done.”

  The troop we had spotted moving through the mist was nothing more than a scouting party of ten men. We disposed of them quickly keeping two for questioning. Leaving the interrogation to the Morlan contingent whom I considered would be far more intimidating than I, I despatched Orrin once more to reconnoitre the city.

  He left me at the edge of our encampment with his usual “Consider it done, t’pahq” and melted into the mists. I stared after him for some time with a mixture of admiration and trepidation. Of all of the men under my command I still found his presence the most disturbing and the hardest to warm to despite his repeated demonstrations of loyalty and reliability. I supposed there must be an element of distrust because of the way that Anubis had died, even though I had no firm evidence that a kayet was responsible and despite the fact that my rational mind told me that such an involvement was unlikely. But regardless of my misgivings, I had to admit that Orrin was an invaluable asset and one that would be sorely missed should he fall in the conflict.

  By the time I returned to the men Ursus and Tomas had finished their somewhat violent interview with our prisoners. Bereft of their magical armour and weaponry the men displayed little in the way of either military resolve or general strength of character preferring instead to throw themselves on our mercy in return for their lives and by supplying whatever information we demanded.

  I listened carefully to what Tomas had to report concluded that if the intelligence extracted from our prisoners was accurate then, just as with Delos, the force attacking Polis was relatively small numbering about one hundred and fifty men; and again, as with the attack on Delos, the Black Soldiers were steadily gaining ground thanks to their armour and swords.

  Having stripped the men of their armour and weapons I had the men drive them off into the mists before gathering the squad to me.

  “The opposition numbers are strong, Ez’n,” Aenar said as we gathered in the mists to discuss strategy.

  True enough, I thought, but this time we were more thoroughly prepared. I now had four archers each with a quarrel of forty arrows the heads of which had been dipped in gold. The last hand span of the shafts and part of the arrowheads had been coated with a concentrated paste of Bitter Sage and Bane Briar so any wound inflicted on the invaders would be fatal regardless of where the arrow struck.

  “For a dedicated pacifist, Ez’n, you have an incomparable genius for warfare.” Dthor-Aid’n told me as we urged the horses on towards Polis.

  “Is that admiration I hear in your voice, Captain?” I asked.

  “No. It is terror,” he answered with a slight smile.

  †

  CHAPTER 21

  OLD DEBTS—NEW PATHS

  ORRIN MATERIALISED like a ghost from the shadows of a buttress as we stole along the outer wall of the city. His report was rapid and succinct. There were five guards posted at the gates two with swords and two with crystal tipped lances. He assured me that they would not be difficult to despatch and we need have no worry of attracting any unwanted attention should we lose the element of surprise though he thought this unlikely since the men were not being particularly attentive to their responsibilities. I nodded. It seemed that over-weaning confidence was the single greatest weakness of these so-called soldiers.

  “You should not dismiss them too lightly, t’pahq,” Maegor advised quietly as we approached the gates, “They are still formidable fighters while they are protected by their armour.”

  “That they are, Maegor,” I agreed, “But I do not intend that they shall possess their armour for any longer than it takes for our arrows to reach them.

  We disposed of the four guards at the gates in short order since they were paying little attention to their duties and were playing dice when we fell upon them. They died with scarcely time to draw breath as Maegor and Aenar took all four heads in as many sword strokes. Tomas seized up a lance giving me a broad and rather chilling smile.

  “Now I feel a little more like myself,” he said sheathing his crystal sword.

  We moved on, creeping through the mists, drawing ever closer to the sounds of the fighting.

  Behind me I could hear Markos and the Morlans cursing the fog that engulfed us and which slowed us to a walk until I pointed out that reduced visibility was actually a blessing. The Black soldiers would not easily see us, but we could locate them quite easily from the glow of the blades in the half-light and even if we were detected the glow of our own captured blades would serve as a decoy and the Black Legionnaires would not realise we were enemies until it was too late.

  As we rounded a sharp bend and the st
reet opened out into the fortress parade ground the sounds of the fighting became suddenly much clearer and closer. I despatched the archers to locate suitable vantage points from where they could act as snipers. “We will be firing blind, Meriq.” Faedron said as he and his cohort strung their bows in readiness.

  “I know.” I answered. “The best you can do is aim for the glow of the swords.”

  Aenar tapped me on the shoulder handing me Gorgoth’s stave as I turned to face him. “Or you could use this to summon a wind and clear the square.” And seeing my reticence he added, “As a great and brave king once asked; If not now, then when?”

  I took the stave turning in my hands. “To your places. Go!” I told the archers. “Go all of you. Go to the edges of the square. If this goes wrong I would have it that only one of us falls.”

  When the men had gone I turned my full attention to the stave. The sigils of wind and air were easy to recognise as were the symbols for tornado and zephyr. I needed a focussed wind that would clear the area to give my snipers a clear shot at our enemies.

  Placing the fingers of my left hand carefully over the sigils in the middle rank I placed my right hand over the bottom and twisted them. There was a soft popping sound and a gust of wind breathed down from sky in an almost palpable column. The air around me cleared and I was suddenly standing in the centre of a small pocket of sunlight. I twisted the band of glyphs again and the wind gained strength, increasing the expanse of clear air around me. I tilted the stave towards the sounds of the fighting and the clear circle swirled into an oval before resolving once more as a circle. One more twist expanded the clear space further and more of a tilt moved me further from the centre of the space as the column of air travelled across the square.