Fury Lingers: Book One of The Foreseen Trilogy

by Ethan Spears

  He turned back to find the men and fields gone. Under his feet sat dark, uncaring stone, and above the blue sky had purpled like bruised flesh. This was not a normal part of the dream.

  He looked to the girl. She was running heedlessly towards the edge of a precipice, eyes wide with fear despite her wild laughing.

  “Mira!” he shouted and took off after her. He was faster, but she was so close to the cliff. With a great leap, he wrapped his arms around her and turned to take the landing but found that nothing met his shoulder. Instead, he plummeted from the cliff with her in his arms. He rolled to put himself between her and the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Mira,” he cried through the rushing wind. “Please, please survive!”

  Flabby arms jostled him. A woman pulled herself from his grip, clearly Mira, but fat, wild-eyed, and boiling with hatred, any semblance of her girlish charm burnt away. “You failed me!” she shouted, spitting at him. “Just as you fail at everything!” Her arms shot out to push him away and he rocketed toward the ground. He struck it hard, bouncing to his feet with a deep intake of breath.

  Zeion found he was no longer below the cliff. Or anywhere he recognized, for that matter. He stood in a large hall lined with columns as far as he could see. The columns were so tall that they disappeared into a whitish haze far above. A yellow mist moved along the floor in a way that made Zeion positive that it was aware of his presence. As he stepped forward, it parted from his feet and fled. He walked towards some destination he couldn’t see but was acutely aware of.

  Fwip.

  A strange noise echoed from ahead. It chilled him to his bones. It was like a note played on an out-of-tune lute. He couldn’t pin down why the sound or the hall left him shivering. Something about the way the shadows flitted about and a low, distant sound of unearthly quality assaulted his ears. Everything was pale and semi-transparent as if both the color and substance had been drained from it.

  Much like a forest, the columns thinned and dropped away as he stepped into a clearing, but in their place were innumerable strings. They hung from an unseen ceiling and ran down to where they attached to the floor, pulled taut like catgut. He wondered, but even so did not stay to examine them, opting instead to move towards something dark at the center of the sea of strings.

  It grew immense as he approached. And while it was immense in height and width, what struck him more was how it was so immensely present, as if nothing he’d ever seen existed quite like it existed. Or rather, she existed, for it was a tall woman shrouded in flowing black cloth, a face of an exotic dark color with gentle white eyes framed by pitch black hair and a shroud wrapped around her chin and mouth so that her nose barely poked over.

  As Zeion approached, he saw her object of focus was one particular string. As she slid her finger fondly down the length of it, he felt an electric jolt run through his body. She observed him from the corner of her eye with an interest so mild that, had she not been of such grand visage, he would have been insulted.

  “My Lady,” he said as she turned away, his voice echoing oddly in the hall, “what is it that you are doing here?” He did not know why of all the questions in his head he chose to ask that one, but it felt appropriate.

  She reached out her hand and touched another string with her forefinger. It instantly severed, the bottom falling loosely to the ground and the top snapping upwards out of sight with a fwip. “I am cultivating the garden,” she said. Her voice was as deep as a foghorn yet undeniably feminine. It was strangely beautiful. It also fell dead on the walls. No echo returned. “I have been kept very busy these past few days.”

  She severed a distant string with a flick of her finger. Fwip.

  “What is this place?”

  “The garden,” she said, reaching out towards two more strings.

  Fwip. Fwip.

  “And those strings?”

  “That which I cultivate.”

  Zeion nodded. He wasn’t going to get any straight answers from her. He peered around at the strings. One in particular drew his eye.

  “Why is that one as thick as a tree?” he asked.

  Fwip.

  “It is only natural that one would catch your attention. That is Annowyn.” She said. Fwip.

  “The goddess?”

  “Your goddess,” she replied. Fwip. “She is quite fond of you, Paladin, and was distressed when your loyalty shifted to the girl.” Fwip. “Personally, I think your kind should stick with those whose company they can regularly enjoy, and a goddess is not such.”

  “My loyalty is ever Annowyn’s,” said Zeion, clutching at the gift she had bestowed upon him; Senmozar seemed to vibrate at the mention of the goddess. The quaking hammer caused the woman to pause, but she resumed her work so swiftly that Zeion was unsure he saw the pause at all.

  Once more ignored, Zeion looked around. “I don’t think I’m dreaming. This doesn’t feel like a dream.”

  The great woman looked up, her face sad. “Oh, my. That was a big one.” Fwip. Fwip.

  “I’m sorry? A big what?”

  Fwip. Fwip. Fwip, fwip, fwip. Fwip.

  The unearthly thrumming was becoming unbearably loud. Her hands moved deftly, severing dozens of strings, and though she moved quickly, she acted with utmost grace. She worked at a dizzying pace, arms stretching beyond his vision to sever strings he couldn’t even see, all while staring upward as if watching the clouds. Slowly, the thrumming lessened.

  Zeion shifted uncomfortably. He felt a small and foolish man. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Not yet,” she said, not unkindly.

  She ran her finger down the first string again and he once more felt a shiver in his spine. He eyed it with dread. “What is that?”

  She looked at him full-on for the first time since he arrived, the piercing quality of her eyes so sharp that it felt like a knife to his soul, and said, as if it were the most obvious thing, “This is you.”

  She didn’t sever the thread but instead plucked it. It made a sound like a bowstring.

  “Croon welcomes you soon.”

  The sound of an arrow striking the tree next to him shocked him awake.

  “To where do you flee?” called a heavily-accented voice. From the thick trees emerged three elves, each with their bow at the ready.

  “Westward,” said Zeion cautiously, his voice firm and commanding despite just being roused from sleep. “Azurcourt has been overrun.”

  The elf shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The gods have decreed the humans’ fall.”

  The horsemen drew their weapons. The elves kept their stances, unperturbed.

  “Are you aiding the orcs?” Zeion spat furiously.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the elf snapped back, adding an insult in Elvish. “We aid the gods.”

  “Well, the gods gave the orcs their blessing to sack our cities. You’re as good as helping the orcs.”

  The elf looked dangerous. “It’s such blasphemies that have invited the wrath of the gods down upon you in the first place. You only make matters worse for yourselves. Have you learned nothing?”

  “Worse for ourselves?” Zeion dismounted and approached the elves. “It doesn’t get worse than this, Elf. I speak naught but the truth, and since when do the gods punish the truth? Who are you to speak for the gods? Are you a Mouth?”

  “The gods were clear,” the elf said coldly. “The humans of Nilriel are blasphemers and are to be destroyed. We have no wish to kill you ourselves, but we can’t let you escape.”

  “They plan to turn us over to the orcs!” shouted Roald, pulling his bow off his shoulder. Before he could grab an arrow, however, three shafts struck his chest, lifting him from the saddle and sending him to the ground. Mira screamed.

  “Cowards!” shouted Zeion. “You’ll not stop us here!” He brought Senmozar up above his head. “Annowyn!” he called out, striking it to the ground.

  A sound like an explosion rang out. The earth around where the hammer struck erupted as a
great shockwave expanded outwards in front of Zeion. The elves were lifted bodily and flung away, whole trees were ripped up, broken and splintered, spraying a shower of wood chips and stone in every direction. It all fell to the ground with an earth-shaking rumble, sending up a cloud of dirt and pollen that blew over the men.

  The horsemen coughed, waving away the dust. The only elf’s body that was still visible lay across a fallen trunk, mangled and bloody.

  “Good show,” said Lowe. “So much for all those treaties. Damn traitorous bastards deserved what they got. Pardon my language, my Lady. Let’s keep moving before more show up, though what they’re doing this far west is beyond me."

  Zeion stayed where he stood, holding his war hammer where it lay with its head in the dirt. Slowly, he raised himself up, then stumbled sideways onto one knee and fell over onto his back, a single arrow protruding from his neck.

  “Addy!” Mira cried, throwing herself from the horse and landing on her backside. She scrambled over to him, her fingers fumbling at the arrow, which was now covered in the blood that was gushing from the wound. His hand reached up and grabbed both of hers.

  “Run, Mira,” he managed to say, though his voice was a strangled whisper.

  “Addy, no!” she sobbed, bursting into tears. “Not you too, Addy! Get up! Come on, Addy, get on your horse!”

  Zeion dragged his war hammer over and pushed it into Mira’s hands. “Take Senmozar. It’s important.”

  “No, it isn’t!” she said, trying to push it away. “You’re important! You are, not your hammer!”

  He closed his fist over hers, wrapping her fingers around the haft. “I failed Annowyn and lost her protection, but she may yet protect you.”

  “I don’t want her protection, Addy! I want yours!” she cried, pulling feebly at the arm that held her. Though his strength was fading from him, he still held her too tightly for her to pull free. “I don’t want the hammer. You carry it!”

  “Lowe,” whispered Zeion. “Please.”

  Mira found hands on her arms pulling her away from Zeion.

  “Release me! I order you to release me!” she screamed, all decorum of age and rank forgotten as she kicked the men holding her, Senmozar now clutched desperately in her hands like she would never let it go.

  “My Lady knows our orders,” said Lowe sternly, but his voice was cracked. He, too, was verging on tears. “We wait for no one.”

  “No! We can’t! We mustn’t leave him!”

  Hoyer put an arm around her and hoisted her onto his horse, placing her between himself and the reins and pinning her in. Laurence mounted Roald’s horse and took control of Starknuckle, then the group began moving westwards again.

  “Let me go! We need to help him! Addy! ADDY!”

  Her voice faded as the horsemen made their way through the woods. Zeion lay on the earth, feeling his body slowly matching the temperature of the air around him. His breathing grew shallow.

  So was this how he was to die? Had he faced terrors that were the stuff of legend only to go out cold, alone, and unburied in the woods? He always knew he would one day die defending Mira, but he just wished it wasn’t today. If only he could have more time with her. Twenty years, five, one, a month, a week, even a day and he would be glad to die, but it was too soon, and it was too sudden, and she was too young. It simply wasn’t fair.

  His breathing ceased. At the last, he felt a shiver run down his spine.

  Fwip.

  Part I

  Apart

  Chapter 1

  Snow and Heart

  A cold wind rolled down from Doddin's Line, bringing with it the frigid snows of the peaks. The wind carried for miles, dragging the snow behind as though the mountains had exhaled a great sigh, its breath drifting across the clear, pale-blue sky. The flakes danced in a fine white mist before losing their wind and sinking over the corpse of the town of Handock.

  Nature didn't even have the courtesy to give the town proper snow, allowing only the mountain's secondhand leavings to alight upon the roofs of broken and abandoned shops, tattered cloth tapestries, and jagged, hole-ridden streets of brick and stone. Slowly, a white blanket spread over the town, making it appear more alive than it had in years, but the effect wouldn’t last: as the sun rose, the snow would beat a hasty retreat from the warmth of late spring, leaving the town not only still in ruins, but miserable and wet as well. The occasional animal peered up into the soft flurry, but the event went largely ignored by the two men in Handock’s otherwise empty town square.

  But not exactly.

  They stood like men; two arms, strong and battle-hardened, yet lithe and graceful; two legs, powerful and quick; eyes, usually sharp and watchful, now cast downward and watching with tempered impatience, respectively; ears, pointed at the top, swept back and lobeless. The two were of the elves.

  But again, not exactly.

  To one experienced with the look of elves, one of them didn’t look quite right; his jaw was large and angular as opposed to the gentle curve of his companion’s; his ears were still elongated, but with a pronounced roundness at the tip; his eyes were a light blue, not the usual brown, black, or green; his shoulder-length hair moved away from the standard gamut of dark browns, preferring a lighter hue and, were one bold, it could even be called blond. Even sitting, one couldn’t help but notice that he would tower over his companion once on his feet.

  The two sat in silence. The not-quite-an-elf was seated on the lip of a fountain, his steel-plated armor removed and tossed in an untidy pile at his feet, his large hands clasped around the handle of a hand mirror. He moved it frantically upward and downward, side to side, shook it, whatever he could think of to get it to work.

  “Come on, Reggy. Where are you?” he muttered as he tilted his head and stared into his own reflection. There was a slight flicker, a momentary glimpse of a tidy room and a figure standing within, facing away, then the image snapped back and the elf was again staring at himself. He sighed in defeat. “Not enough energy out here.”

  His attention was diverted by an impatient sigh. He turned toward the other elf, who was looking about the place, his mouth curled with open distaste, his foot tapping impatiently on the stones of the square. They were rough and he did not like how they felt beneath his boots.

  “Commander,” the impatient one said, realizing he had the other’s attention. Instead of responding, the steel-clad elf shook his head and turned away and walked to a corner where two large boulevards met. He looked down one street, then the other, his hands on his hips. The scout tried to see what his commander saw, but he seemed to only be staring at a blank stretch of an old market road barely lit by the yet-risen sun, its cobbled stonework cracked and split by the wildly growing plant life. He allowed a moment before trying again.

  “Commander,” he said with a bit more force and clarity. This elicited a grunt from the other, though he cast no glance in the scout’s direction. “We’ve spent enough time here. We’re needed at camp.”

  Silence.

  “We were already pressed for time before this diversion. We must move on, and quickly.”

  More silence.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Does he not see?” the tall figure mumbled to himself. “The mayhem sewn into the streets? The tapestry of the road sundered by the hands of uncaring gods?”

  The scout rolled his eyes, finding the attempts at poetry ludicrous. He had come to realize—against his will, of course—that the Commander fancied himself something of a poet, though the Commander had no knack for it. His habit of ham-fistedly attempting deep and meaningful poetry when in a dour mood was rearing its head, so the scout spoke up to stop him. “If we could return...?”

  “Did you know,” said the Commander, his voice quiet, “that I ran along these roads as a child?” He pointed at a stall like it was an amazing piece of history. “The man here spent his life whittling toys to sell to passersby.” The scout sighed heavily behind him. The Commander turned reproachful
ly. “I’m sorry, am I boring you?” The elf nodded unabashedly. “You clearly don’t care what this place means to me. How fortunate that your home still stands. May it never fall.”

  The scout made no outwards response to the comment. “If we could return? I’d much rather be resting now.”

  Damned elves, the Commander thought as the scout crossed and uncrossed his arms impatiently. Accepting that he would get no sympathy or comradery from his companion, he surrendered to the demands. He lifted his breastplate from the ground and shoved his head through the top, tightening the front and back together with leather straps. He pulled on his gauntlets and forced the command crest onto his head. The scout turned on his heels and began the return trek without a word, throwing a glance back only to ensure he was being followed.

  They stumped along in silence. They were deep within the town. Wild dogs and goats darted between the alleyways as the pair moved through. The Commander recognized breeds that he had seen in the streets in his childhood now running feral in houses with broken doors and on rooftops with sliding shingles.

  “It’s like a gallery of Wasuku’s art,” the scout said, invoking the goddess of nature as he eyed a collapsing building that seemed frozen in the midst of being wrenched apart by vines.

  The Commander felt differently but kept his comment to himself; no good would come of another argument, as they had already had a heated one about stopping at Handock. “How many seasons have you seen?” he asked instead, using a phrasing in the Elven tongue that was more formal than a soldier of lower rank warranted.

  “I’ve seen five hundred and twelve,” the scout answered with a far less polite and dismissive phrasing, much to the former’s annoyance. He was torn between another attempt at forced conversation with the arrogant scout or plodding on in uncomfortable silence. Before he could choose, however, a second scout emerged from an alleyway and, seeing the tall Commander, beckoned them forth.

  “Archon Arisil has moved his quarters a short ways from here,” he said without preamble, addressing his fellow scout rather than the Commander. “You were expected a while ago. Follow.”