The Black Altar: An Epic Fantasy (The Swords of the Sun Book 1)

by Jack Conner

  The Swan Master nodded and moved off. Calendil found his lieutenant and said, “Rouse a swift-fleet immediately.” A swift-fleet was a smaller fleet of Swans, capable of speed and stealth. It had been such a squad that had found Tiron just that morning. And what a disaster that had been.

  The swift-fleet assembled in a blur of activity, and Calendil drew himself upon his gorgeous and regal white Swan, Velethir, which meant Snow-wing. Unlike horses, Swans were equipped with a saddle, as without one it was all too easy to slide off the side of one’s mount and plummet a mile or more to one’s death. It was easy enough to do without a saddle, in fact.

  “Ra!” Calendil said, bringing Velethir into the night sky. Behind him streamed the rest of the swift-fleet, white wings flashing gray under the muted starlight.

  Calendil strained his eyes as his swift-wing neared the Library. He had no doubt that’s where Tiron would have flown to on his stolen mount, on that Baleron was surely correct. Lights blazed in the upper reaches of the Library, and below Calendil saw the king’s royal escort, or some of them, standing near their horses. Calendil studied the lights and activity around the uppermost chamber of the tallest tower, and fear and sadness rose inside him. Lorivanneth … could she be …?

  He didn’t allow himself to contemplate it. He needed strength now.

  There was no sign of the stolen Swan or its rider. Calendil scanned the night sky, east, west, north and south. He expected to see Tiron winging away toward the north, where the Borchstog company that had been pursuing—or monitoring—him had been. Instead he saw a small figure, barely discernable even with his keen vision, vanishing toward the southeast.

  Calendil gestured one of his Swan Knights forward, and the trooper obeyed.

  “Go to Aneth Mae,” Calendil said. “Rouse the soldiery and bring them to me—I may need a force greater than this.” He flipped the man his token, a golden coin with the embossed image of a swan set within a blazing seven-rayed sun.

  “Yes, my lord. But where will you be?”

  “Southeast, I expect. Tell them to go in that direction for five hours and then send out scouts to search for me and the swift-fleet—or our remains.”

  The trooper nodded grimly. “Aye, my lord.” He started to leave, but the love he bore his captain compelled him to remain one moment more. “May the Omkar smile upon you, my lord.”

  “Thank you. I will accept their aid!”

  The trooper pulled his reins and flew off toward the north, where Aneth Mae waited, asleep for now but as ever primed to explode in activity if called upon. Calendil had managed it and the other border fortresses for many years, and he had run them in full expectation of someday joining the war against the Shadow—or rejoining it, perhaps. It had been so long since Ivenien had participated in battle that he wasn’t sure which one applied.

  Wind misted his eyes and streamed his hair out behind him, but his blood rushed like fire and he did not feel the cold. Behind him his Swan Knights followed, tense and eager to avenge their fallen mates. The slain Swan Handlers were friends to the knights, and both groups enjoyed the company of the other. Neither could exist without the other, and both sets of Elves loved the Swans dearly.

  However evil he was, Tiron was nonetheless brave and fleet, but even so Calendil closed the gap between hunter and hunted with every minute. Tiron was no expert Swan Rider and had likely never flown any of the great birds before. Still, he had a good head start and clearer understanding of his route. It was all Calendil could do to keep the tiny speck in sight. For long minutes at a time Tiron would vanish in the dark spaces between the stars, then reemerge with a shadow and a twinkle.

  Gradually the dark speck grew larger, and larger, and then at last impossible to miss. Hours passed, and Tiron continued to fly southeast … at least until he reached the Gallast Mountains. There he sought to elude his pursuers by slipping around one peak, then breaking hard to the east. Calendil suspected this had been his plan all along—or the plan of the one who had given him this mission. In any case, the Swan Knights were not shaken, and indeed it only allowed them to gain further on the murderous rogue.

  Calendil tried not to imagine his sister dead in her rooms, slain for the Book, but images of her lying bloodied on her bed or sprawled in a chair persisted. Tears burned at his eyes, but he held them in. Anger glowed hot within his chest.

  Suppressing it, he gestured for three knights to fly forward and addressed them.

  “Retrace our path and fan out. Search for either the scouts from the battle wing or the wing itself. Lead them toward us. We’ll need their numbers if battle is joined.”

  “Do you think it will, my lord?”

  “I cannot say, but it is best to be prepared. Go now!”

  They tugged on their reins and guided their mounts back toward where the battle wing would have been heading, unaware that the swift-wing had altered its course. Calendil prayed the scouts he had sent could find them in time.

  Below the landscape dropped from the heights of the mountains into a wide, hilly country, dotted with countless ruined farms and homesteads—victims of the War of the Black Tower. Baleron’s war, Calendil thought of it. He had been at the heart of it, according to all the rumors and the new legends that were springing up. Some painted the youngest son of Albrech Grothgar as the hero, some the villain. Calendil had sensed nothing of the villainous in Baleron, but he had sensed bitterness and despair, along with a strange joy and wonder, which must come from his experiencing the trappings of the Lightborn.

  In any case, the devastation wrought by the war had been catastrophic. This land had once belonged to Galador, a kingdom of Men, but the war—at least, as Calendil understood it, and he would be the first to admit his understanding was limited, being shut up in the Eloath—had driven the survivors north so that they now grouped in cites some hundreds of miles away. Calendil could see signs of squatters living amongst the ruins, and even farming the fields. Good luck, he thought, without irony. May you be more fortunate custodians of the land than its last inhabitants.

  But there would be no fortune or luck, Calendil knew—not if Mogra delivered her terrible spawn. If Lorg-jilaad in his full splendor should ever again return to Vatha, without the Omkar to protect it as they had in his time, all would surely be lost. Lightborn or dark, it would make no difference. All would fall before the Shadow of the Worm.

  Tiron drew closer. Closer. Calendil could almost smell him. When the human was three bowshots away, Calendil called over his shoulder, “Ready your bows!” He didn’t have to glance behind him to see his archers preparing. He did look over his shoulder, however, a few minutes later to see if there was any sign of the battle wing. Nothing.

  Even as he was scanning the horizon behind him, several of his men gasped and pointed. Feeling a swell of dread, Calendil spun back.

  “Damn it all,” he said under his breath.

  Tiron was lowering toward the ground … right between two hills, which had blocked Calendil’s sight … and revealed there was an army of Borchstogs and other fell creatures. Dear Omkar! There must be ten thousand demons in that host! This was the army of Ixa, then, that Baleron had warned them about.

  Before Calendil could even prepare himself, a horn blew, and dark shapes stirred in the host below. From large mobile towers, pulled by trolls like siege engines, poured the black-winged shapes of glarums, the giant crow-like birds flown by their Borchstog riders, the glarumri.

  Glarumri were fierce and fell, and often warred with poisoned bolts from crossbows. Calendil had faced them before, but he did not relish doing so again. Four dozen mounted glarums flew up toward the swift-wing, black wings fluttering, wicked beaks opening to emit harsh caws. Forming a wedge, the glarumri flew straight toward Calendil and his wing.

  “Retreat!” he called.

  Swiftly he jerked the reins of his Swan, veering it in a sharp turn and streaking back the way he’d come. His knights around him did likewise. All knew they were no match for the fleet of glarumri.
And who knew how many more the host held in reserve?

  Wind stung Calendil’s eyes as he flew, and fear filled him. Where could he go now, and what could he do? He could not lead the glarumri to Ivenien. He could not betray his city. And yet he could not defeat them in open battle.

  And meanwhile Tiron was slipping away.

  For his part, Tiron rejoiced to set his stolen Swan down amidst the company of Borchstogs, trolls and others. At last he was down from the skies. Flying had been an alien and surreal experience, one quite beyond his ken, and he hoped never to be airborne again.

  At the same time, loathing for what he had done filled him, eclipsed only by the hatred he felt for this foul host and its denizens. As the Borchstogs closed in around him, it was all he could do not to sneer and spit at them. Omkar, how he hated them!

  Borchstog handlers seized custody of the Swan as Tiron slid down from the saddle, and he had little doubt that they would slaughter the poor bird … and that they would take their time about it. To them it was an affront, a symbol of the Light. He paused only to open the satchel on the saddle-side and retrieve the Book, paid for in the blood of several valiant Elves, and then he turned to four dark-robed priestesses just then arriving on the scene. All four were human, but their skin was deathly pale, almost gray, where it could be seen, only the hands and cheeks, primarily, and the blue lines of veins showed underneath the flesh. They were human, and yet inhuman, altered in some subtle way by the power of Queen Mogra.

  Tiron shuddered at their approach. It had been priestesses of the Order of the Spider that had tortured him after his capture at Novstris, and he neither forgot nor forgave that abuse.

  “Welcome back,” said the foremost priestess, speaking in a hissing, sibilant way that raised the hairs on the back of Tiron’s arms. He remembered the spiders in Theslan, how they had at first appeared human. He had little doubt that these priestesses were of like mold.

  “I’ve got the Book,” he said, holding it up for them to see. “Now take me to Ixa.”

  “The High Priestess will receive you,” said the same priestess.

  The four moved around him and escorted him through the ranks of the Borchstogs. Some of the creatures were cheering on the shapes of the glarumri vanishing into the distance, harrying the Swan Riders. Tiron’s heart still beat a rapid drum in his chest over the chase the Riders had given him; they’d come very close to succeeding in overtaking him, and it had been the luck of the wind, or perhaps some sorcery of Ixa, that had allowed Tiron to outrun them as far as he had.

  The Borchstogs had captured prisoners during their raids, and as was their way they had nailed or tied the prisoners—all human—to posts in an open area. Tiron winced to see them practice their dreaded arts of pain, and he felt physically sick at the cries of the doomed. He forced his eyes down and did not look up until they had passed the torture park.

  Tents thrust up all around, and the priestesses led him toward the tallest such, high and peaked and black. Male priests, bare-chested and decked with sinister tattoos, stood guard at the door and at the periphery. Starlight gleamed on their shaven heads and the knotted cords of muscle on their arms. Their eyes burned yellow.

  Tiron felt dizzy momentarily, but the priestesses forced him on, and one held the tent flap open for him. He ducked inside and blinked at the gloom. Only two priestesses followed him inside, and they took his arms and guided him forward, as if recognizing his near-blindness.

  At last he beheld candlelight, but the light was strange—purple—and flickered in a surreal muted way that did not radiate light but hoarded it. The lights grouped upon a rough altar to Mogra, and Tiron did not have to look to know that there would be blood stains there. Ixa knelt before it, praying, then slowly unfolded and stood to face Tiron.

  “Back at last?” she said, though he had been gone only a couple of days. She still wore the form of Liessa, the girl from Tulan, and in this guise she did not bear the pale skin and purple veins of her fellow priestesses. “Good. And you have … it?”

  He started to hand the Book over, then hesitated. “Where is my sister?”

  “You will be taken to her immediately upon giving me the Book.”

  Tiron felt a chill but dismissed it. Still, he did not trust Ixa, or any of them, and it was only his terror for his sister Aria that he at last offered the book to the High Priestess of Mogra. Ixa accepted the Book with a smile, opened it and flipped through the brittle pages. Satisfied, she handed the Book to one of the priestesses and said, “Begin the translation right away.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The priestess turned and slipped out, leaving only one other priestess alone with Tiron and Ixa. Tiron wondered if he could lunge forward and wrap his hands around Ixa’s pale slim neck and choke the life out of her before a cry could go up, or at least before they could drag him off her, but if he did that he would never be able to save Aria.

  Ixa seemed to read his thoughts. Amusement danced in her eyes. “Attack me, if you would,” she said, almost seeming to dare him. “I am defenseless.”

  She was far from defenseless. Not only was she in actuality a horrid spider-thing, only wearing (half-heartedly) the skin of a woman she had likely slain, but she was also a powerful sorceress. There would be no moving against her, not unless she allowed it for purposes of sport, and in that he would not give her the satisfaction.

  “Take me to Aria,” he said, hearing the resignation in his voice. The hollowness.

  “First, the city of the Elves. The hidden one. We have heard rumor of it, but never did we know where to look. I presume you have its location for us?”

  “That was never part of the bargain! I said I would get the Book, no more. I will not help you destroy that city.”

  “Ah! So you do know it.”

  Tiron felt a vein throb in his forehead. “Take me to my sister!”

  Ixa nodded at the other priestess. Suddenly the latter kicked Tiron’s knees out from behind, and he collapsed to the floor, barely catching himself with groping hands. The priestess grabbed his hair with one hand and jerked him back, and the other pressed a blade to his throat.

  Ixa laughed. “Why do you think your pathetic sister is even still alive? I might have killed her by now, and in keeping my promise to you I would send you to her in oblivion.”

  “You lie!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because …” He swallowed. “She is my twin sister. I would have felt it if she’d died.” He made his voice as firm as he could. “She still lives. I know it.”

  The vague purple light waved on Ixa’s face, which had gone still.

  “Good,” she said. “And what if I said that, yes, she lived, and to that end I would honor our bargain, but that she no longer wishes to leave?”

  “More lies!” he said, feeling the blade bob against the apple of his throat. “She would be rid of you and yours, at whatever price. My sister is a good woman. A much better woman than I am a man.”

  “Well, there is little doubt of that. And you will be a worse one still to come—for I will have the location of that city. In time. Yet what I say was no lie.” She nodded to the priestess. “Collect his bow.” They removed the bow from his back and propped it up near Ixa, who frowned at it. “A thing of the Light,” she said. “It has power that I might be able to use in a spell. It is mine now.” Her eyes held taunts. “Like much else.”

  “I want that back,” Tiron said. He had few enough things to be proud of, but he was an accomplished archer, and that bow, although stolen, was a thing of beauty and strength.

  Ixa ignored this. “Take him to his sister.”

  For an instant Tiron thought she would slash his throat, that they would send him to Aria in the arms of death, but no, the priestess released him, hauled him to his feet and shoved him toward the tent flap. He turned, once, to see Ixa return to the altar of Mogra, then was shoved outside. He blinked his eyes in the light, heard the distant screams of the tortured, and a new worry began to gnaw at him. What ha
d Ixa meant, Aria would not want to leave this foul host? It is mine now. Like much else.

  It had come as a great shock to Tiron to learn of Aria’s capture. After the Borchstogs had seized him in Novstris, they had taken him to Ixa, who would have slain him but that one of her priestesses smelled something on him, something familiar. After taking their own counsel, the priestesses realized that in the sacking of Theslan one of the many prisoners taken had been Tiron’s sister Aria. They had tortured him for days, taking care not to leave visible traces, but in that they were masters, and at the end of such treatment he had little will of his own left, and only a desire to save his sister. He had agreed to do whatever necessary actions would result in her safety and freedom, even if it meant killing innocents. Even if it meant taking back the Book.

  And so he had. To his shame, he had, not seeing any other choice. All the while, he had suspected that Ixa would not hold true to her word, that even if he delivered what he promised she would still kill them both, brother and sister, and not swiftly. Yet he had gone forward nonetheless. What else was there for him to do?

  But now Ixa had thought of some new twist. What fresh horror had the villainess concocted?

  Tiron was brought to a tent not that far from Ixa’s. It too was black and peaked, though not as grand, and two male priests stood before it. They did not move as he was ushered forward. The priestess spoke to the priests in their own awful, hissing language, which seemed a separate tongue than that of the Borchstogs, some sort of unholy language of evil, and the priests stepped back from the flap, just slightly.

  The priestess nodded toward the flap. To Tiron, she said, “Go. In. Your sister awaits.”

  Tiron stared at her, then the flap. His belly squirmed. His fingers shook. Bile shot into the back of his throat. He thought of the awful remains of humans he had seen tied to the posts in the torture parks of Theslan, and he tried not to weep. Please, sister, be alive, and whole. It would be a farce to go through all this, to accomplish such grisly murders, only for her to be beyond saving now.