King of Sword and Sky

by C. L. Wilson

  Even before he sensed Ellysetta’s instinctive, horrified recoil, Rain’s hands moved in a blur. Four red Fey’cha thunked hilt-deep in the dirt a finger span from the boots of the three Massan and the Shei’dalin Venarra. The other Fey’s answering blades froze in midair—caught by the swift, masterful weaves of icy-eyed Gaelen and Bel.

  “Touch her and you die,” Rain stated coldly. “Consider warning given.”

  “She has bewitched you!” Tenn accused.

  “She has led me back from death to life and opened my eyes to truth. She has saved us all and risked her soul to do it. If that is bewitchment, then the gods themselves are the sorcerers who taught her the spells.”

  “Rainier Feyreisen.” Venarra seized his wrist and spoke, her voice laden with the resonant, irrefutable command of a shei’dalin’s compulsion weave. “Did your mate Ellysetta weave the forbidden magic?”

  He could not resist, so he spat the truth defiantly. “Aiyah, she did and so did I! And I would do it again.”

  Silence fell over the plateau. The eyes of the Massan and the Shei’dalin went hazy as private Spirit weaves passed between them. A moment later, Tenn turned back to Rain and Ellysetta, his face a mask of unflinching stone.

  “Ellysetta Baristani and Rainier vel’En Daris, you are guilty of weaving the forbidden magic, Azrahn. For your crime, the Massan declares that you both shall be stripped of your steel and banished for all eternity from the Fading Lands.”

  Rain laughed without humor. “Banish us? You overstep yourself, Tenn. The Tairen Soul does not answer to the Massan, and the Massan’s will does not trump the Tairen Soul’s.”

  “You are mistaken, Rain. The Fey vested the Massan with the power to override your will a thousand years ago to ensure that you, in your madness, did not lead us astray, as you are doing now.”

  The words struck Rain like a mortal blow. He turned in stunned disbelief towards Bel, and the knife slid deeper into his heart when his best friend looked away. All this time…all this time the Massan had not simply been wielding power in his name. They’d been wielding power over him.

  And not even Marissya had ever told him.

  Not even Bel.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  Elfeya lay panting on the stone floor, every finger span of her body bruised and bloodied. She sensed the instant Shan regained consciousness, and she reached out to him on the threads of their bond, desperate to give him what information she could before her tormentors began again. «Orest and Teleon, beloved. They strike at Orest and Teleon.» That much she’d been able to pull from the High Mage’s mind as she’d healed him. «Tell her, Shan.»

  «Elfeya…»

  «Tell her to warn them.»

  She cried out as hands seized fistsful of her hair and hauled her to her feet. Rough hands slammed her hard against the stone walls of the cell, knocking the breath from her lungs. Glowing, red-hot metal filled her vision. She tried desperately to close her bonds to Shan before the scream was ripped from her lungs and the smell of sizzling flesh assaulted her nose, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  A terrible, wild roaring filled her dazed mind…her screams and Shan’s mingling in an agony of madness and pain as again and again and again the Eld seared and scorched her.

  The Fading Lands ~ Fey’Bahren

  Fey and tairen stood in a tense ring, violence simmering beneath the surface. Rain struggled to gather his thoughts and find the breath Tenn’s revelation had knocked out of him.

  «Rain…» Bel’s expression was desolate. «Sieks’ta, kem’maresk. I should have told you, but once you came back to us, I never thought there would be cause. I never thought they would be so bold.»

  “You would banish the Defender of the Fey when the Fading Lands stand on the brink of a second Mage War?” Gaelen challenged with cold fury. “You would banish the woman who brought life back to the tairen and the Fey? You would cast them out when the only reason they wove Azrahn was to save your miserable lives?”

  “The reasons do not matter,” Tenn said. “The law is clear. Those who weave the forbidden magic must be banished or slain. These are the ways of honor. These are the ways of the Fey.”

  “These are the ways of death and idiocy,” Gaelen snapped.

  “Feel free to join them in their exile, dahl’reisen,” Yulan spat.

  Steli growled. «What is «banish’?»

  Rain answered, speaking aloud for the benefit of the Fey. “Banishment, Steli-chakai, means these Fey say I am no longer the Tairen Soul. It means they intend to drive me and Ellysetta-Feyreisa from the lair and from all lands of the Fey.”

  Every tairen on Su Reisu roared. Flames shot from snarling muzzles, searing the morning sky, wings spread wide in a show of fearsome might.

  Protective shields sprang up around the gathered Fey. Dozens of hands reached for red Fey’cha.

  Rain flung shields around Ellysetta but none around himself. He glared at the gathered warriors. “And you call me mad? You would pull red against the pride?” He raised his hands to the tairen. «Steli-chakai, my pride-kin, stop.» To all of them, he said, “We have enemies enough without turning upon one another. Stand down, Fey.” When they did not move, his voice dropped an octave and boomed across the plateau. “I said stand down!”

  Behind him, Ellysetta gave a choked cry, and an icy chill washed over him.

  He whirled around and all the blood drained from his face.

  She was shaking, every muscle clenched, every tendon pulled taut beneath her skin. Her hands were clawed and her eyes were endless black pits awash in whirling red lights, like a dead sky filled with bloody stars.

  She threw back her head, her throat convulsing. “Sal veli! Piersan veli ti’Teleon te Orest! Sala talothi!” They’re coming! The enemy comes to Teleon and Orest! Kill them!

  The voice from her mouth was not her own. Low and throbbing, as if ripped from the throat of death itself, the sound scraped across Rain’s senses like a serrated blade.

  The Azrahn-filled gaze pinned him, and in a guttural voice, she cried, “Feyreisen! Defend the pride!”

  Her legs folded, and she collapsed into his arms, and in her own voice, urgent and agitated, she whispered, “Orest and Teleon. They are in danger. He’s coming. You must warn them. Warn them, shei’tan. Let them know…”

  Rain clutched her to his chest and raised stricken eyes to the others. “We must warn Orest and Teleon.”

  “Are you mad? Did you see her eyes?” Tenn pointed a finger. “She’s Mage-claimed! The Mages are using her to draw us into a trap!”

  “How can they be drawing us into a trap?” Rain snapped.

  “Our brothers are already there.”

  “Then they must be trying to draw you out,” Yulan snapped when Tenn frowned in perplexed silence.

  Gaelen sneered. “Considering you just banished him, what do you care?”

  “It isn’t a trap.”

  All eyes turned to Ellysetta.

  Her lids opened, revealing eyes of bright Fey green, glowing and just beginning to whirl with the radiance of the tairen. “It isn’t a trap. The Eld are coming. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Orest and Teleon are in danger.” She rose to her feet, though her body continued to shake with helpless tremors, and her eyes held his in an unwavering gaze. «Believe me, shei’tan. Our friends are in danger. We must warn them.»

  Her urgent concern and unshakable certainty filled his veins first with ice, then with blazing fire. She had no doubt. And because she had none, he could not doubt either.

  Rain flung his head back and sent the cry on the Warriors’ Path. «Fey! To arms! Orest and Teleon, prepare for war! Kieran! Kiel! Get the shei’dalins and Ellysetta’s family to safety! Now, Fey, now! The Eld are coming!»

  «Belay that command!» Tenn shouted on the same path. «By order of the Massan, you will fall back to the Fading Lands! Do not engage the Eld!» To Rain, he shouted, “Even if she isn’t speaking as the mouthpiece of the Mages, you have no right to command the armies of the
Fey! You are dahl’reisen! You are cast out!”

  Later, Bel would tell him that at that moment, Rain seemed to grow half a manlength taller, his shoulders twice as wide, and that his eyes blazed like twin purple suns. But all he knew at the time was the rush of his tairen’s power, hot as the raging Great Sun and just as furious, filling him until his body all but exploded with its wrath. In a voice so low and deadly that the very ground rumbled beneath his feet, he growled, “War has begun and still you would divide us?”

  Tenn stood his ground, refusing to back down. “War has not begun! Whatever trap the Eld are waiting to spring, I will not let the Fey rush into it! I will not sacrifice what precious few Fey lives we still have left for the sake of Celieria!”

  Rain could easily have ripped out Tenn’s throat and danced in the shower of his blood. “The Eld aren’t attacking Celieria, you fool. Teleon and Orest are the gateways to the Fading Lands. They’re coming for us!”

  He spun away and sent a second desperate shout on the Warriors’ Path. «Fey! My brothers, you must each make your choice. Those who would hide from the Eld and hope the Faering Mists will protect you, retreat as the Massan have commanded. The rest of you, prepare to fight!»

  He leapt into the air, summoning the Change. «Fahreeta, Torasul! Take two of the pride and fly to the Garreval. Protect the Feyreisa’s family. Steli, guard Ellysetta. The rest of you, follow me as quickly as you can.» He circled Su Reisu. «Gaelen, Bel, I may no longer be your king, but as your friend, I could use your blades.»

  Bel exchanged a look with Gaelen, then said, «We would follow you through the Seven Hells, Rain, if you will but give us a ride.»

  Rain swooped down. Bel and Gaelen leapt onto his back, shouting, “Miora felah ti’Feyreisa! Miora felah ti’Feyreisen! And death to the Eld!” With a whooshing rush of powerful magic, Rain raced east towards Orest and war.

  Celieria ~ Teleon

  The shei’dalins did not get to finish their last session of Lady Darramon’s healing. Within chimes of Rain’s warning, Kieran and Kiel were hustling them and Ellysetta’s family out of Teleon and towards the Garreval. Behind them, the Fey who had chosen to stay and fight were rushing Lord Darramon’s party to the safety of the hidden fortress.

  «What in the name of the Seven Hells is going on, Kieran?» Kiel asked privately as they hurried across the mountainside. After Rain’s cry to prepare for war, the Warriors’ Path had resounded with Tenn v’En Eilan’s commands to retreat, claiming that he and the Massan were in charge of the Fey armies and that Rain was dahl’reisen, cast out for weaving Azrahn.

  «Scorched if I know. The Massan have gone mad. Right at this moment, all I care about is getting the Feyreisa’s family and the shei’dalins to safety before the Eld unleash every demon in the Well upon us.» Kieran glanced back at the small group behind him. «Quickly,» he urged them. «And quietly.»

  Lillis and Lorelle clambered over the rocks, shrubs, and tangled grasses. Small slings were tied around their necks, holding the kittens they had brought with them. In addition, each child carried a small bag containing the belongings she’d packed the previous night. Sol hurried after his daughters, his own, larger pack on his back.

  Behind Sol, the five shei’dalins followed in swift and graceful silence, their long scarlet robes and veils exchanged for brown traveling leathers. Fifty Fey, silent and grim, surrounded the small group. Their eyes glowed with power, the elongated pupils lengthened and widened like a hunting cat’s. A shifting dome of Spirit hid them as they made their way across the unprotected mountainside towards the Garreval.

  Kieran kept the small party moving and did his best to hide his worry. Not one booted foot had emerged from the Mists since Rain’s cry to prepare for battle.

  Eld ~ Boura Fell

  “Master Maur.” The Primages of the Mage Council bowed low as he entered the war room, his ravaged face hidden by the folds of a deep-hooded robe. He knew better than to reveal how damaged his physical body had become. The moment he revealed such weakness, ambitious Primages would be after him like thistlewolves stalking an injured ram.

  “Status?” he snapped.

  The Primages turned their attention back to the war map. Sib Vargus, the oldest of the Mages, touched his fingers to the Celierian section and swept upward in a single motion, whispering the Mage spell as he did so. A dark, shimmering image of the Celierian map rose over the table, dotted with several dozen pinpoints of bright light. He waved again, enlarging the view of the northeast quadrant of Celieria, from the Garreval to Orest.

  “The Teleon force is in position in the Well, as you ordered. The rest have assembled in Boura Dor, awaiting your command.”

  Vadim examined the map. “Tell the commanders to attack. Here.” He pointed to one of the pinpoints of light, whispered a Feraz witchword, and the light changed from white to red. He touched several other pinpoints in succession. “And here and here and here.” His eyes narrowed on the section that showed the Garreval. A cluster of white lights was moving south along the very edges of the map.

  He smiled and touched a pinpoint of light just east of them. “And here. Bring Ellysetta Baristani’s family and the shei’dalins to me, alive.”

  Celieria ~ Teleon

  The Eld appeared from nowhere. Thousands of them. They came without warning and seemingly from every direction: the guard house, the barracks, the watchtowers, the bailey, all the fields surrounding the outpost. They simply poured out of great gaping black holes in the air, preceded by a hail of barbed sel’dor arrows and blue-white balls of Mage Fire.

  The first scores of Celierians to die didn’t even have time to cry out. Their only sound was the thud of their bodies falling from the walls.

  The others, the ones who lived long enough to see their brothers fall and hear the crash of stone and splintering wood as Mage Fire blasted away towers and barracks, raised the cry. “To arms!” they shrieked, lifting sword and cross-bow. “To arms! We’re under attack!”

  From the shadows of the outpost and behind the invisibility weaves of Teleon, Fey warriors who had gathered after Rain’s urgent call sprang from their concealment, steel flashing in the sunlight.

  “I san, sheisan, te Liss!” For love, honor, and Light!

  They screamed the Fey battle cry and dove into war. Three miles away, near the Mist-filled pass of the Garreval, Kieran paused to glance back at Teleon. The outpost was ablaze. Flashes of Mage Fire and Fey magic exploded like lightning in the sky. Even from this distance, he could hear the muted screams and crashes of battle.

  A shout—not so muted—rang out. Their party had been spotted. Dark shapes rushed across the grassy plain towards them, a scant mile away. Eld soldiers. And with them something else. Something on four legs rather than two.

  One of the shei’dalins cried, “Darrokken!”

  The snarling, slavering beasts gained on the Fey with deadly ease. Red eyes gleamed with menace, and Kieran’s blood ran cold. He’d never seen a darrokken before, but he knew the beast didn’t need to bring down its prey to kill it. The yellow fangs dripped poisonous saliva, and the long, razor-sharp claws carried plague and putrescence. One bite, one slash of those foul claws and, without healing, a victim would die within half a bell.

  “Run!” Kieran snatched up Lillis, while Kiel grabbed Lorelle. “To the Mists!” They began to run. They pelted over rock and scrub. The warriors fell back to the rear flank to offer what protection they could. «Fey! Ti’Kieran! Ti’shei’dalins!» He broadcast the cry on the Warriors’ Path.

  Behind him, Fey’cha filled the air like rain, but for every darrokken felled, another took its place, and the acid blood of the loathsome creatures ate at Fey steel so that each blade called back to its owner’s sheath was pitted and brittle and smoldering with foul vapors that burned Fey eyes and skin.

  Two Fey at the back of the line were the first to fall as the massive, leathery, slime-covered bodies of the darrokken tackled them to the ground and fangs ripped through Fey throats.

&n
bsp; The pack split up, a dozen of the foul beasts racing to cut off the approach to the pass and herd the Fey back towards the Mages.

  “Up! Go up! Run for the Mists!” Kieran changed directions, charging up the mountainside. It was beyond dangerous to enter the Mists on mountainous terrain, but that risk paled in comparison to the certain death posed by the darrokken.

  Globes of Mage Fire pelted through the air. Sol stumbled and went sprawling. The warrior who paused to haul him to his feet died without a sound as Mage Fire took his head.

  Larger spheres of the deadly blue-white flame showered down. Earth exploded all around them. Rocks and trees—everything the Mage Fire touched—vanished in an instant, and great hunks of the mountainside tore away, tumbling down in an avalanche of falling debris.

  “Gods have mercy!” Sol cried.

  “Hang the gods,” Kieran snarled. “Where are the jaffing Fey?” «Fey! Ti’Kieran! Protect the shei’dalins! Fey! Ti’Kieran! Ti’shei’dalins!» Lillis clung to him, her face buried in his neck, showering his skin with hot tears.

  “Kieran!” Kiel shouted. “The mountain!” Another fearsome barrage of Mage Fire had dissolved half the mountaintop above their heads. The remaining rock and stone gave a rumbling shriek and collapsed, sending countless tons of dirt, stone, and wood rushing towards them in a deadly wave.

  “Hold tight to me, ajiana,” Kieran whispered to Lillis. He turned to raise both hands. Green Earth fountained inside him, wrenched up from the center of his soul, spinning in flows of extraordinary mastery and strength. He was Kieran, son of the Solande and Serranis lines, descended from many of the greatest and most powerful Fey the world had ever known, an Earth master of tremendous power.