34.
Cor stood in his own hall, looking over the ruins of the beautiful mahogany table he had commissioned so long ago. Actually, it had not been that long, but it felt as if it had been ages. The table was nothing but splinters and saw dust, and most of the chairs lay discarded to the sides, shattered. His larger armchair, his own throne of sorts, still stood in its place, and Cor sat upon it, leaning his elbows forward on his legs.
A month ago, he had left Byrverus at the head of an army ten thousand strong, his own people and son buried deep within its relative safety. They had left less than a week after King Rederick’s coronation, for the decision to retake Martherus and Fort Haldon had been an easy one to make. While Cor marched on Fort Haldon, King Rederick took fifty thousand men to crush the Loszians at Martherus. After, he would dispatch most of the host to cleanse the countryside of any dead they found, for Lord Joth had made mention of thousands upon thousands of corpses littering the miles south and west of Martherus.
“My friend,” Rederick had said, taking Cor’s arm in a firm but jovial grip, “when we next see each other, we will have rid our land of the Loszians.”
“I look forward to it Majesty,” Cor replied, “and then we will take the war to Nadav.”
“Aye!” Rederick had nearly shouted, and he pulled Cor into yet another massive embrace. It had happened three times since Mora had accepted his marriage proposal.
They then rode in opposite directions with the same goal as their destination.
The Loszian garrison that held Fort Haldon had been substantial near as they could tell, but they seemed to have lost their taste for blood. Though the fort had never been equipped to fend off an attack from Aquis, Cor was sure that the Loszian’s five thousand or so could have made quite a fight of it. As it was, the Loszian sorceress holding the position, Lady Veltrina, sent a rider bearing a message of truce, and she and her forces quietly withdrew from Fort Haldon under the cover of night. Cor’s host moved in during the cold of first light the next morning and found not one person against whom to draw a sword. Their scouts said there was not one Loszian from Fort Haldon all the way across to Menak’s holdfast.
Cor’s hall, Dahken Hall, was cold and empty, and his breath showed as white puffs in the air. It was almost exactly a year ago that he led a score of Dahken children through the pass into this very place. They returned a few months later, in the dead of winter, in an attempt to build lives for themselves. It seemed to Cor that all he had found over the last few years was death, and yet now he was going to seek more of it.
Sandaled footsteps on the stone floor broke him away from these thoughts, and he looked up to see Thyss sauntering toward him. She carried Cor’El in her arms, and Cor was amazed at how large the baby grew. As she approached, he could feel the heat that emanated not just off of her but both of them. He stood and held out his arms as she came near, and Thyss handed him their child. The baby was almost uncomfortably warm to the touch.
“What now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Rebuild, I guess.”
“You’ll be glad to know that our bedroom is intact,” she said, “though I may want the bedclothes washed thoroughly. They stink. I’m tired.”
“So am I,” Cor sighed. “Everything seemed so difficult when it was just me, riding from place to place, finding swords and taking my revenge on Taraq’Nok. I didn’t realize how easy that all was. It can’t get much harder than this last year. Can it?”
“We have a son who, if we’re not careful, will learn to set things on fire by laughing at them,” Thyss replied. “What do you think?”
Cor sighed again, but he smiled in spite of it all. His son slapped the black plate of his hauberk with an open hand, apparently enjoying either the sound or feel of it. Cor stood and left the hall, Thyss following and made his way into the cold air outside, made all the colder by the mountains. There he found Keth standing over the bustling of Fort Haldon as thousands of soldiers moved from task to task. The younger man stared into the horizon somewhat south of the sun that would soon be setting.
“Lord Dahken, all is well,” Keth said, neither changing his gaze, nor blinking. “The Dahken are settling into their barracks, and the men are fortifying our position, though we expect no attack. We hold the pass in force. The Loszians left ample supplies behind for awhile, but maintaining an army of this size will become difficult.”
“Thank you. Is it her?” Cor asked, this time pulling Keth’s attention. “Is it Marya?”
“I,” Keth started, then he paused, “I think so. It’s almost as if I can see her, just out there, just beyond the horizon. I want to go to her, bring her home.”
“Then who am I to keep you,” Cor said, and he handed his son back to Thyss. He clapped an arm around Keth’s shoulders. “You’ve been good and loyal, Dahken Keth, and I shall not ask any more of you. You go where you need to.”
“I am need with you Lord Dahken. The Dahken need training, and King Rederick will be sending us more as time goes on. The war with Losz is not over, is it?” he asked, and Cor quietly shook his head. “Then, I will stay for as long as I am needed. Besides I am on the king’s Grand Council, though I’m not sure why. One day, I’m sure I’ll hand that over to someone who’s more worthy.
“Nadav will not stop, will he?” Keth asked.
“I don’t think so, but I am happy to oblige him.”
“I will go to Dahken Marya one day, but not today,” Keth said, repeated his Lord Dahken’s words. He took Cor’s arm and then made his way down the steps toward the Dahken barracks.
Epilogue
Dahk imagined himself on a great white beach. A yellow sun was high overhead, shining down bright and hot. It warmed the sand such that one felt the need to run across it, but the white sand also reflected the light so as to blind. A blue sea washed up the beach gently every now and again, cooling the sand that it covered until the water receded. He laid naked on the beach, allowing the sun to wash over him and the sand to burn his back until a wave came up to cover him and block out both sensations with cool, salty water.
Just when he thought he could no longer bear the heat of the sun, one such wave overtook him, completely drowning out all other feelings and sounds. He opened his mouth slightly to allow in a small amount of the cool seawater, but nearly choked on the hard, iron taste of something thicker and warmer. Dahk coughed and sat up from his beach, the sand of which had turned orange in its reflection of the orange sun in the now red sky. The sea and its soft waves had turned to blood. It was always blood.
Dahk sighed and stood up out of the water (no, blood), and red rivulets ran down his naked body. He had never been much to look at, short and soft no matter what he did about it, and the red blood shone clearly against his pale white skin. He willed it all away, and he was suddenly alone in his vault, just his mind and nothing else.
Cor Pelson had done well. The boy might have started a chain of events that no one could have foreseen, but that was not his fault. The darkness had come with so much force, as an unexpected tidal wave, Dahk had half thought that would be the end of Garod’s people. And everyone else’s people for that matter. Cor had managed to turn the tide, as it were. He somehow rallied a people who hated and feared him, or at the least didn’t understand him, and he led them to a resounding victory.
Resounding for now. The Others would not let it go at that.
The Others… Now that was an interesting thing. Dahk felt a presence outside his vault unlike any he had ever felt before. He knew who it was of course, but the simple fact of its existence requesting entry into his vault was unfathomable. It was so unfathomable in fact, that he simply had to find out what it was all about.
“Show yourself, An,” Dahk called. He himself stood in the middle of his vault dressed as he was before Cor.
A man walked into the light to stand about six feet from Dahk. His hair was fine, straight and black, and his face featured almond shaped eyes, high cheekbones and a sharply defined nose. His fa
ce was somewhat round in appearance with an almost ruddy yellow skin tone. He seemed thin and fit, standing several inches taller than Dahk, though both knew this was more affectation than “real” appearance. He wore a long black canvas coat with padded shoulders and what looked like black leather boots underneath them. Dahk could see nothing else under the coat.
“This is new,” Dahk said, sounding more pleased than he actually was. “How did you accomplish this?”
“Does it matter?” An asked.
“Actually, yes it does.”
“I inserted a residual memory echo of myself into your Repository,” An explained with a shrug. “It was actually fairly difficult, and it took a long while to find your vault.”
“Why my vault?” asked Dahk.
“Because you’re rational enough to listen,” An shrugged again, as if his answer explained everything. “Hykan and his people are too unpredictable, Garod is too stubborn. As for the others, they’re too caught up in their own morality.”
“And I’m not?”
“I don’t think so,” An answered.
“Then allow me to fuck your shit up,” Dahk said, stepping forward aggressively. “You and your cohorts, leave Rumedia now and don’t come back.”
An sighed. “You know we can’t do that. The mission was plain, your orders clear, and you people lost sight of it. We were sent to bring you back in line, to bring you back to the mission. You know that.”
“And you didn’t lose sight of it? You conquered our peoples –“
“Just Garod’s people,” An interrupted.
“- and your Loszians proceeded to eat and fuck their way into oblivion for millennia! How is that continuing with the mission?!” Dahk all but shouted.
“Interracial breeding was an important factor,” An replied, perfectly calm. “It took some time to decide how to proceed.”
“Bullshit! You were to busy watching your people have fun. You got caught up in it as much as we did.”
“I disagree,” An replied coolly. “I’m running out of time, me echo will soon fade.”
“Good, then let me tell you again. Leave Rumedia. Now.”
“We are as marooned on Arcturus V as you are, and the mission will continue.”
“The mission?!” Dahk asked incredulously. “The purpose of the mission ended thousands of years ago. It’s over, and it was immoral to begin with. We realized it too late, and that is our penance. We will stay here forever in payment.”
“Payment?” An asked, cocking his head sideways. “Payment to what? God?”
“To my conscience, be that God or not,” Dahk replied. “Find a way to leave Rumedia, or I will see you all destroyed. Get out.”
The Chinese man instantly disappeared, again leaving Dahk with his thoughts. What the fuck, he thought, and he decided to return to his beach. Maybe he could even find a Corona or some tropical drink with a little umbrella that didn’t taste like blood.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Epilogue
Darkness and Steel Page 28