by Ryan Cahill
Aeson caught Calen’s gaze. “He’ll live. The hall.”
“He’s hurt! I’m not letting—”
“Calen! Now is not the time for this.” Aeson glared at Calen, his cold eyes unwavering. He turned his attention to Dann. “Can you keep going?”
Dann gave a half-hearted nod. Calen wanted to argue again, but his words got stuck in his throat as a Lorian soldier charged him with a spear outstretched. Calen’s feet were planted, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough. He took in a deep breath.
In a crimson flash, the man’s body split in two from shoulder to hip, slopping to the ground mid-run. Calen looked up to see an acknowledging nod from Asius. “You go to the hall. I am needed here. The battle teeters on the edge.” The giant did not wait for a response. He waded through the thick of the bodies, swinging his axe in measured strokes.
“I’m glad he’s on our side,” Dann said, wincing as he puffed out his cheeks.
Calen held Dann’s gaze. “Dann, are you sure you can—”
“Calen. I’ll be okay.”
Slow and steady, the four of them cut their way to the foot of the steps that led up to the great hall. Valerys loped along beside them, clawing at legs and tearing through men who were unfortunate enough to have fallen in his path.
With each foot gained, Calen grew to appreciate Ellisar’s presence. The elf was stuck to him, never allowing him to drift more than two or three feet away. At any other time, Calen would have complained; not now. Ellisar had kept Calen’s heart beating more than once, where otherwise he would have been lying on the cold stone, having never seen the blow coming.
Bodies littered the steps that led up to the keep. The acrid smell of death was more pungent when it wasn’t mingled with the heat of battle. An involuntary heave made Calen catch vomit in his mouth, but he choked it back down.
He twisted his body sideways as a warning flashed in his head from Valerys. A searing pain burned through his side as the blade bit into his skin. Calen stumbled backwards from the shock. His fingers fumbled for purchase on the handle of his sword as he moved to block the next strike. A whoosh passed his head as an arrow plunged into his attacker’s eye, spurting blood as he fell to the floor. He shook for a moment, then lay still.
Calen’s heart hammered against his chest so hard that it hurt. Valerys stood beside the man’s head. A deep growl bubbled in his throat as he watched for signs of movement.
Therin bounded up the steps. He pulled another arrow from his quiver and nocked it as his eyes swept the landing. He lowered it ever so slightly when he was satisfied. “Are we going in?”
Aeson nodded.
Calen felt a hand on his shoulder. “What’s in there, Calen?” There was a look on Dann’s face that Calen hadn’t seen before. Fear. His eyes were sunken, his shoulders were drooped, and his hand was clasped against his ribcage.
“The king.” Calen tried to sound as confident as he could, but inside, his heart beat like a horse at a gallop, and his sword hand shook every time he lost focus. He needed to be strong for Dann.
The hall looked much the same, except the purple and gold banners fell flat, drooping down from their mounts. The torches seemed dimmer in their sconces. Everywhere he looked, his eyes fell on the bodies of slain Kingsguard. A chill ran through Calen’s body. The farther they walked into the hall, the deeper the light retreated.
“There is a dark magic here,” Therin muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
The sound of their footsteps and the click-clack of Valerys’s claws on the smooth stone echoed through the halls, piercing the otherwise eerie silence. Calen knew that at the end of the hall was Arthur’s throne, perched on its raised dais, even if, at that moment, it was shrouded in the absence of light.
“It is about time.”
The voice carried through the empty hall, scratching at the air. It hissed from all sides, but Calen knew where it came from. He didn’t have to look at Dann to see the fear on his face. It was the same fear that Calen felt when he heard that voice for the first time in the mountain pass.
Even as they drew closer to the dais, it became no clearer. Blackness enveloped everything outside arm’s reach. Calen waved away his mind’s idea to create a baldír; it was less than useless the last time. They pressed on, but the voice didn’t stop.
“You’re too late… Far too late.”
The dais couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away, though it was impossible to tell. There was an unfamiliar nervousness in Dann’s voice as he whispered, “Calen… that doesn’t sound like the king…”
Calen didn’t reply; he didn’t get the chance. Without warning, the darkness peeled back, as if it were a shroud of fog retreating with the dawn. Calen gasped as the dissipating darkness revealed even more corpses. The entire hall was covered in the bodies of Belduaran soldiers, those who had come to protect their king.
The Fade stood at the foot of the dais, its black hooded cloak draped over its shoulders. The blue swirls that adorned the cloak shimmered in the firelight, dancing with the flickers from the sconces. Beside the Fade was a young man, suspended by threads of Air that were twisted around his arms and legs. His mouth was forced shut, but his eyes were screaming. Fear muddled with sadness. Tears streamed down his cheeks. It was Daymon, the king’s son.
“By the gods…” There was a tremor in Aeson’s voice, a weakness that sounded alien coming from that man’s lips. Calen’s eyes settled on the throne. It was Arthur.
The king sat in his throne. Even in death, he looked every bit the king he was. His golden crown rested on his head, just above the white wings that streaked through his blackish-grey hair. His coat was a deep purple, the edges trimmed with gilt. On the left side of Arthur’s chest, where his heart should have been, was a gaping wound the size of a man’s fist. The blood that stained the front of the king’s coat and trousers was dry.
The Fade stepped closer, drawing his hood back. Its shoulder length-hair was as black as its cloak, as black as its soul-drinking eyes. Its near-translucent skin sent a shiver down the back of Calen’s neck. Its brittle lips cracked as they moved. “It seems the Hand could not carry out their task.” Irritation flashed across the Fade’s face as its black pools cast their gaze across the group. “No matter,” it said, flicking its tongue across its teeth. “It is more satisfying to do these things yourself.”
Calen couldn’t take his eyes off Arthur. His mind was awash with guilt. The man came to him earlier that night, and Calen had ignored him. Arthur had treated him well, and Calen all but spat his apology back in his face. Now he was dead.
“He died quickly,” the Fade hissed, a wicked grin on it’s face. “I can’t say I will do the same with his offspring, though.”
The Fade clicked its tongue off the roof of its mouth as it surveyed the scene. “I can give you a chance to save him, though,” the Fade said, looking straight at Calen. “What do you say, Draleid?” It spat out the word, as if the taste of it was bitter on its tongue. “Do you think you can save the son, like you failed to save the father?”
“Don’t listen to a word it says, Calen.” Therin didn’t look at Calen. His bow was slung over his back, but Calen felt him touching the Spark. He felt that familiar shiver at this back of his neck.
Aeson stood there, a grim expression on his face, each hand fastened tightly around the hilts of his swords. Fear was etched into Dann’s face, but still, he held his bow, and his hands did not shake.
Ellisar stepped closer to Calen, both hands wrapped around the handle of his sword. “Stay behind me, Draleid. Do not let it goad you.”
“Quiet, elf!” The Fade’s voice seemed to rise and fall like the wind, booming throughout the hall on demand. “I grow bored of talking. Which of you is to die first?”
Calen felt the anger rolling over inside him as he looked towards Arthur’s lifeless body. He was done letting the Fade decide everything. He bounded forward, swinging his sword over his head in a downward arc. It came to a jarring halt as
the creature spun and reacted with inhuman speed, a sword wrought of black, pulsing fire held in his grasp.
Calen felt it. It was the same type of weapon that Asius used, a níthral. It looked different though. Asius’s axe was smooth, more controlled, as if forged like steel. The Fade’s blade was chaos incarnate. The flickers of black flame seemed to blow in a non-existent wind, twisting and spiralling of their own volition.
The creature’s brittle lips twisted into a grin. Calen had to fight himself to drag his gaze away from its eyes. Those cavernous wells of black seemed intent on pulling his soul from his body.
Calen felt the Fade pull on threads of Air as he was hit by an invisible battering ram, thrown backwards in the air, then hammered into the ground. A roaring pain erupted through his body. He shook the stars from his eyes just in time to see Valerys launch himself at the Fade.
A single swipe of the Fade’s hand, sent Valerys crashing through a nearby pillar. Pain shot through Calen’s head.
“No!” He couldn’t stop the scream. It was part his own, part Valerys’s. He felt it; Valerys was alive, but his body ached in pain.
Before Calen could get to his feet, Aeson and Ellisar flashed past him. They charged straight towards the Fade. The creature moved like a snake in long grass, its flickering blade snapping at them in a maelstrom of ferocious blows. Aeson and Ellisar were two of the most incredible swordsmen that Calen had ever seen – and even they did not have the time to consider going on the offensive. It was all they could do to keep the creature at bay.
Dann dropped to one knee, nocked an arrow, and sent it soaring through the air, where it plunged into the Fade’s chest. Two more arrows followed, sinking into the Fade’s belly and neck. But they didn’t slow the creature; they only irritated it. While deflecting a strike from Therin, it pulled the arrows from its body with threads of Air, then it reached out its hand. Arcs of purple lightning shot from its fingertips, crashing into Dann and launching him into the air. Fragments of stone flew in all directions as the lightning ripped through the ground.
“Go, help them!” roared Therin as he ran to where Dann’s body had been thrown.
Calen dragged himself to his feet. His head and his heart pulled him in two directions. His heart urged him to run to Dann, but his head commanded him to help the others. He felt Valerys at the back of his mind, his pain and his anger. He felt his own heart beating – not racing, like it had been, but slow, purposeful. Calen steeled himself and charged at the Fade.
Even with the three of them throwing everything at it, the Fade continued to toy with them, striking them with hammer blows of Air and whips of Fire, turning their bodies into canvases of cuts and gashes. For every two strikes Calen deflected, three fresh cuts appeared on his arms or legs. Each one burned as well as sliced. He didn’t want to give the Fade the satisfaction of his pain. But his body held no such grudge. He howled out more than once when the fiery black blade sliced through his skin like molten steel. Ellisar and Aeson did not fare any better. Numerous times, their blades sank into what should have been flesh, only to emerge without a drop of blood on their edge.
How?
Calen tried to strike back. He tried to draw from the Spark, but his mind could not focus. When it could, the Fade sliced at his threads with something unseen, cutting him off as if snipping the strings from a puppet. How is that possible?
Without warning, the Fade drew on thick threads of Air and sent both Aeson and Ellisar hurtling in different directions. The creature snapped its neck around, its gaze fixed on Calen. “Fane wants you alive.” The Fade’s voice slithered off its tongue as it circled Calen. Its blade trailed along the ground, smoke rising where it cut into the stone. “But I think I would prefer you dead. It is cleaner. I have not yet decided.”
I need to do something. I can’t keep going like this.
Calen took a breath in, focusing his mind. He moved into the svidarya, dropping his legs into the wide stance of the Crouching Bear. As the Fade swung at him with his black-fire blade, Calen pounced. The creature was taken aback by the aggression. It immediately took a back step, sweeping its blade across its chest to block Calen’s strikes. Calen moved fluidly through the forms, losing himself in them.
“Keep pushing!” Ellisar leapt up from behind Calen, swinging his sword in a downward arc. Just as his sword collided with the Fade’s black-fire blade, Aeson came charging from the other direction. The three of them redoubled their efforts, pushing harder and harder at the creature, not letting up. Maybe…just maybe.
“Enough!” The Fade twisted its hand into a fist before slamming it into the stone floor, sending a shockwave in all directions. Calen didn’t feel it draw from the Spark, but somehow he was thrown backwards, crashing into one of the sprawling columns that lined the hall. He heaved himself to his feet, pushing the pain to the back of his head. But Ellisar had risen quicker.
Calen’s heart sank into his stomach as he watched the black-fire blade arc through the air. He watched as Ellisar parried the first strike, and he dropped to his knees as the second swing separated the elf’s head from his shoulders.
Ellisar’s body dropped, lifeless, to the floor. He had given an oath to protect Calen. To follow him to the void or beyond. And that was exactly where Calen led him.
Calen’s stomach lurched. He lifted himself to his feet. A mix of fury and fear burned through him as his feet carried him towards the Fade. He didn’t even move to react as thick threads of Air pummelled into his chest. He hit the ground with an agonising crack.
“I might keep you,” the Fade said as it stood over him. It cocked its head to the side, staring down at him with its dark eyes. “You could be an interesting… project.”
The Fade carried on muttering to itself, as if Calen weren’t even there. When Calen tried to get to his feet, he was slammed back to the floor. Threads of Air pushed down against his chest and shoulders. The Fade barely gave a hint that it had noticed – just an irritated flash of its eyes – but the invisible weight that bore down on Calen’s body was evidence enough.
Amidst the chaos, Calen remembered Daymon. The prince still floated in front of the throne, as he had since the darkness had peeled back, but his eyes were no longer filled with fear. They were following something by the corner of the throne.
Valerys.
The young dragon skulked around the dais, its head held low against the floor, like a wolfpine hunting its prey. Calen felt his pain. Every step sent fire through him. Fear filled every crack in Calen’s mind. He couldn’t lose Valerys. He couldn’t lose anyone else, but especially not him. He cried out in his mind, urging the dragon to hide, but Valerys heeded no warnings. He moved closer to the Fade, every purposeful step like a burning knife, but Valerys didn’t stop.
Just as the Fade began to turn, it howled in pain as a bolt of blue lightning slammed into its chest. Calen watched as Aeson charged at the Fade, his twin blades spinning in his hands. The two of them exchanged a flurry of blows. If the Fade had been a man, it would have died twice over. But it wasn’t. The mortal wounds that Aeson inflicted did nothing more than slow it down. Aeson, on the other hand, was a man. And his wounds were taking their toll on his already weary body.
Calen knew he needed to do something… anything. He reached out for the Spark. His energy was already fading, and his muscles burned, but there was nothing else he could do. The Fade spun on his heels. Even in that cold, dead face, Calen saw the anger. The outrage. As if he were disgusted that Calen would not simply resign himself to his fate.
The threads of Air holding him down pushed even harder. He felt his bones stressing under the weight. They felt as though they would shatter.
Valerys was behind the Fade now, and the creature didn’t notice. He was too focused on Aeson and Calen.
Calen felt something in Valerys, something that he had not felt before. It was building, steadily. An enormous pressure. Without thinking, Calen kept reaching for the Spark. He focused his mind. Closing his eyes, he reached o
ut. That ball of ever-moving energy. Its five elemental strands weaving around each other, twisting and pulsating, radiating power, like they had since the dawn of time. Calen reached. He pulled at the strands of Spirit and Fire. He didn’t know why, but that was what he needed. He pulled at them, dragging threads into him, then funnelled them into Valerys. Even as the Fade pushed harder and harder, crushing Calen into the stone floor. He kept drawing from the Spark. He felt consciousness slipping from his grasp – his soul drifting away.
He couldn’t take much more. Aeson needed to move. Calen screamed at the top of his lungs. “Aeson!”
Aeson didn’t hesitate. He threw himself to the ground.
The pressure at the back of Calen’s mind stopped. Valerys’s head kicked back, and his chest expanded. A river of fire poured forth from the dragon’s mouth, a torrent of flickering orange and red flame that consumed the Fade in its entirety. It howled, a piercing shriek like nothing else Calen had ever heard. It was as though its soul was being torn from its body. A feeling of intense power coursed through Calen as the fire cascaded from Valerys’s jaws. In that moment, they were one. Calen pushed everything he had into Valerys, feeling the dragon’s rage burn through him.
There was no way that anything could have survived, but still, the fear didn’t seep from Calen’s bones until he watched Daymon fall to the ground. Until the flames lost their vigour and flickered out of existence, leaving only a pile of char and ash in their wake.
Therin’s voice drummed on the edge of Calen’s consciousness, as if the elf’s head were underwater. He had drawn too deeply from the Spark. He knew it. He felt himself slipping away. His vision blurred. Calen felt a hand rest on his chest. A warm glow flooded his body, but Calen knew that he might be too far gone. Either he knew it, or he heard someone say it. It was hard to tell. His thoughts were scattered, wrapped around themselves a thousand ways, muddled and mashed together.
He heard Therin calling, his voice fading in and out. “You are an idiot, boy… a fool…”