The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  Myrion raised his blade in mocking salute to the dwarf. Rundin merely turned his head and spat on the ground. Without further preamble, the two combatants rushed at one another.

  Myrion’s blade was like quicksilver, flying before him in a shimmering skein of deadly ithilmar, moving with such speed that it became a blur to the onlookers, indistinct as a phantom. Its effects, however, were far from phantasmal. Cuts blossomed all across Rundin’s exposed flesh. The slashes were shallow, but they bled freely, coating the dwarf’s body crimson.

  Rundin sounded no cry of pain and did not retreat before Myrion’s flying blade. He was determined to press his own attack, yet every time he tried to move forwards, the elf would take a step back. With calculating deliberation, Myrion kept the distance between them, maintained the advantage of his longer reach. He wouldn’t make the mistake of his retainer and court disaster by trying to end the contest quickly. No, the elf lord was playing the longer game. Each cut he visited against the dwarf was like a leech sucking away at Rundin’s vitality. By inches and degrees he was sapping the dwarf’s strength, weakening him, draining his endurance. Only when Rundin was bled down to the dregs, only when he was no longer capable of fighting, only then would Myrion move for the kill.

  Beside him, Forek heard Brok utter a disgusted moan as he realised the elf lord’s despicable tactics. The thane had no fondness for Rundin, but no dawi wanted to see another dealt such a humiliating death. It was like watching a baited bear being worn down by hounds, a villainous sport Forek had seen the elves indulge in when he’d visited Athel Numiel as an ambassador before the war. It was clear the thane had the same misgiving. Brok looked towards his waiting crossbowmen, the command to loose bolts into the arrogant elf lord almost on his lips. Only the understanding that it would bring further disgrace to Rundin to have his life saved in such manner caused Brok to hesitate.

  The decision became unnecessary a moment later. Myrion’s lightning blade licked out at Rundin, but this time instead of striking vulnerable flesh it struck much tougher iron. One of the chains piercing the flesh of the dwarf’s arms bore the brunt of the elf’s attack. A link snapped before Myrion’s blade, the razored edge biting through the metal. The frayed end of the chain spilled outwards and snapped against the elf’s fingers.

  It was a slight, stinging blow, yet its effect was profound. Instinctively, Myrion drew his arm back from the source of his sudden hurt. For a breath, the elf lord’s astonishing defence faltered. There was a pause in that curtain of flying ithilmar he’d woven around himself, a pause as devastating as a breach in any castle wall.

  Rundin’s axe lashed out as Myrion recoiled. The biting edge crunched into the elf’s chest, shredding his silk surcoat and grinding into the armour beneath. The general was sent sprawling by the impact, cast to the ground. Even as he started to rise, to slash out with his sword, Rundin hurled himself at Myrion. Bellowing a feral war-cry, the Dragonslayer leapt upon the prone elf lord. He brought his heavy axe swinging down with both hands clasped about the haft. With the full weight and strength of the dwarf hero behind it, the axe clove into Myrion’s gilded helm, splitting both it and the skull inside like cordwood.

  The remaining elves cried out in horror and disbelief at the abrupt, brutal destruction of their lord and general. Rundin wiped Myrion’s blood from his face and turned to confront them. Before the elves could attack, however, Brok gave the command to loose bolts. The quarrels slammed into the furious elves, piercing their steel armour and puncturing the warriors inside. The first volley put most of them down, a second finished them off completely.

  Rundin stared coldly at the dying elves, then at the slaughtered general lying at his feet. Without a word, he turned and stalked back through the dawi ranks. The dwarfs parted respectfully before him, many raising their voices to cheer the skarrenawi’s feat. For now, none of them remembered Rundin Oathbreaker. There was only Rundin Dragonslayer now. Killer of elgi. The still-bleeding dwarf paid no notice to their cheers but marched away to find some more obscure corner of the battlefield.

  Brok watched Rundin until the hill dwarf was no longer visible. ‘Might have shown a little gratitude,’ the thane grumbled. ‘If I didn’t give the command, he’d be lying there next to that elgi snake.’

  ‘That’s what he wanted,’ Forek said. He was surprised by the sense of admiration that he felt as he said it. ‘It isn’t victory he wants. It’s a death others will remember.’ The steelbeard shook the curious mood, turning to regard the dead elf lord and his retainers. Still standing above them was Lord Myrion’s standard. ‘Are you going to send that back to Tor Alessi?’

  Brok frowned as though he had a bad taste in his mouth. After watching Rundin’s fight with the elf lord, he had to grudgingly admit that the enemy had been playing on some last chance to kill him and leave his own army in disarray. ‘Cast it down,’ Brok ordered. He looked at the dead Myrion with his split skull.

  ‘Leave it here with the rest of the elgi garbage.’

  The army of Lord Salendor marched along the winding road that had been blazed through the vast expanse of Loren Lacoi. Riding a white mare near to the centre of the column, Liandra felt her attention constantly straying from the warriors around her to the trees flanking the road.

  The forest seemed thicker, more wild and overgrown than Liandra remembered it. She’d ridden these trails many times between Athel Maraya and Kor Vanaeth, at least after she’d desisted from riding Vranesh on her errands to the other elf colonies. A dragon, of course, wasn’t always in the mood to ferry an asur mage across Elthin Arvan, however indulgent the reptile was of its companion.

  They were both gone, of course. Vranesh and Kor Vanaeth. In less than a day, Liandra lost both her city and her dragon. Both of them taken from her by the persistent evil of the druchii. First the traitors had taken her mother when she was still but a child, then they had unleashed one of their black dragons against her city and massacred her people. Then, finally, they had taken Vranesh from her.

  Maybe that was why the forest felt so much darker and menacing than it ever had before. Liandra could no longer feel her connection with Vranesh; she no longer had the warmth and security of the drake’s ancient power to give her strength and fire her spirit. When Vranesh died, the loss had left a great hole inside her that she didn’t think anything would be able to fill. In many ways, the loss of Vranesh had hurt her even more than Prince Imladrik’s death. As much as she’d loved him, as close as they had been, as much as they had shared, he had never really been a part of her. There had always been Yethanial, his wife back in Tor Vael in Ulthuan. Thoriol, the splendid son his wife had given him. Draukhain, the awesome drake who shared the dragonsong with him. So many who had shared his life. For Liandra, there had only been Vranesh.

  She still blamed herself for Vranesh’s death. She had been so focused on revenge, on destroying the black dragon and the druchii witch Drutheira that she hadn’t thought about the high cost of vengeance. True, she’d managed to kill the black dragon and subdue the witch, but that hardly made up for the death of a creature as magnificent as Vranesh. She’d left Drutheira captive in the dungeons below Oeragor before Morgrim’s army captured it. There’d been some naïve hope that the witch would be proof to satisfy the dwarfs that this war wasn’t started by the asur. Looking back, she recognised how foolish that idea had been. The dwarfs would never let facts stand in the way of their grudges. They were too stubborn to ever listen to reason.

  Liandra only hoped that Morgrim hadn’t made the witch’s death a quick one when the dwarfs found her.

  A sound from among the trees had Liandra twisting around in her saddle. The spell she’d worked upon her eyes enabled them to pierce the dark of night as though it were bright as midday. She had an impression of motion, somewhere back among the undergrowth, but when she focused there was nothing to be seen. Throughout the ride from Athel Maraya she’d had these ‘fancies’ – motions caught o
ut of the corner of her eye, yet never anything that lingered long enough to actually be seen.

  ‘Is it not the dawi who are meant to despise the woods?’ The question was asked as a half-jest, but there was an undercurrent of genuine concern running beneath. Lord Salendor, Master of Athel Maraya, walked his horse closer to Liandra’s. Once, they had both sat upon the Council of Five in Tor Alessi, but that had been years ago. Before Kor Vanaeth had been razed to the ground for the second time. Before she’d lost Vranesh. One of the first things Lord Myrion had done when he arrived in Tor Alessi to take command of the colonies was to remove her from the council, replacing her with Lord Dlryll of Sith Remora, ‘leader of a living community, not a vanquished one’.

  It was ironic, then, that she should find herself here, riding with an army out to avenge Lord Myrion’s death. But that was because she had so few friends left in the colonies and Salendor was one of those few.

  Liandra forced herself to look away from the trees, to ignore the furtive motions she was certain wouldn’t be there if she actually focused on them. ‘I don’t despise the woods, but I wonder if they despise us. We have wrought them great injury.’

  Salendor nodded and smiled sympathetically. ‘A necessary evil. The blight of war.’ He gestured to the column of soldiers marching all around them. Three thousand asur warriors drawn from across the colonies and the ten kingdoms, supplemented by their baggage train, were bound to leave their mark on the land. ‘Take comfort that we do not despoil the way the dwarfs do. We take what we must, destroy only what is unavoidable. They cut and burn out of simple spite. They ruin what they know we appreciate.’

  ‘But do we?’ Liandra asked. ‘Do we truly appreciate? We say we do, certainly, and perhaps we even believe it.’ She waved her hand at the branches stretching overhead, the green canopy that shadowed the trail. ‘We come here as colonists. We come to conquer and reshape, to draw the shapes and sights of Ulthuan out of Elthin Arvan. Look at how you have transformed Athel Maraya, brought it up from the forest to become a glittering jewel.’

  ‘Have you no heart to thrill to the beauty of Athel Maraya?’ Salendor wondered. ‘Glistening like a tapestry of stars amid the splendour of the forest, towers and obelisks rising from the trees…’

  ‘It is beautiful,’ Liandra assured him. ‘It is as wondrous as Averlorn and Saphery, but it is the beauty of our land. The harmonies of this land are lost beneath that splendour. To build, first you must destroy.’

  Salendor gave her a puzzled look. ‘It is a strange mood that moves you this night. I know it isn’t the prospect of battle that unsettles you. You are like me, an old warhorse who relishes the chance to strike back, to stand defiant before the enemy. Whoever they may be.’ His fingers toyed with the ring that now graced his forefinger. It was similar to the one that had been bestowed upon Lord Myrion and upon Prince Imladrik before him. ‘Is it this that disturbs you?’ he asked. ‘The thought that I am now in command of our armies? Do you think me so unfit for such a role?’

  ‘Never,’ Liandra said. ‘You are the best among us. Gelthar is too timid, Caerwal too vengeful. Aelis and Dlryll think only in terms of defence.’

  ‘And the Lady Liandra? What are her feelings?’ Salendor asked.

  ‘I am… I lack the confidence demanded of a leader,’ she sighed. ‘I have seen my people massacred and asked myself if I could have prevented it. I have seen friends killed and wondered if it was my fault.’ She looked across the ranks of elven spearmen filing down the trail. ‘To command, you can’t ask yourself these questions.’

  Salendor stared down at the ring on his finger. ‘No,’ he told her, ‘if you would be more than a butcher, you must ask yourself these questions all the time. The difference is that you must balance what you might lose against what you might save. You must be ready to spend the lives of a hundred to preserve the lives of a thousand.’

  Liandra shook her head. ‘Is that why we hunt Arhain-tosaith?’

  ‘Avenging Myrion is the king’s decree,’ Salendor said, ‘but it is far more than that. The dwarfs have been emboldened. They’re stirring from their holes again. Scouts say there’s a big mass of them gathering in the south, maybe thinking to lay siege to Tor Alessi again. Killing Arhain-tosaith might give them pause, allow us the time to get more troops from Ulthuan.’

  The mage reached out and set her hand in Salendor’s, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. ‘You have sought this dwarf a long time,’ she said. ‘Be certain of your motivations. Don’t let vengeance cloud your vision.’ He felt the shudder that passed through her as she gave the warning. ‘After revenge you are always left to count the cost.’

  ‘He is just a dwarf,’ Salendor said. The asur lord abruptly pulled away, his face going pale. A strange light was in his eyes, like wisps of scintillating starfire. Liandra was aware of the change for only the briefest instant and then it was gone, but in that instant she felt the aethyric harmonies rippling through Salendor’s spirit.

  The elf lord had a reputation for his uncanny premonitions. Now Liandra had witnessed one of them as it actually came upon him. Salendor turned from her, ordering his standard bearer to wave his flag and summon his captains.

  ‘Halt the column!’ Salendor commanded, waving his captains away to see the order carried out. ‘Therial,’ he shouted, waiting until the Ellyrian knight rode over to him before saying anything more.

  ‘Bring your riders to the head of the column and remain with them,’ Salendor said, his voice so low that Liandra was barely able to hear him from where she was. ‘Keep a watchful eye for my signal. At my sign, spur your horses to full gallop and don’t stop for anything.’ A haunted expression gripped Salendor’s features as he added, ‘You won’t need to be told when to ride back.’ Bowing in his saddle, Therial hastened to obey his general.

  ‘What is it?’ Liandra whispered as she drew close to Salendor again. ‘What did you see?’

  Salendor was rubbing at the Eagle Ring, his gaze faraway. ‘I saw the roles of hunter and prey reversed. Praise be to Asuryan that I’ve restored the proper balance.’

  Therial’s knights moved through the column, the infantry spilling off the trail as they parted for the cavalry. Like a tide of steel, they closed ranks behind the riders. Only when the knights were at the head of the column did Salendor motion to his banner bearer to summon his captains once more. Except for Therial, the officers quickly returned.

  ‘I want a double-file of spears just behind the Ellyrians,’ Salendor told them. ‘Put your best archers behind the spears. Each bowman is to have an arrow nocked and ready. Implement these commands with discretion. When we resume the march, everything must be ready.’

  Long minutes passed. Liandra burned to know what Salendor had foreseen, but she knew it would be useless to press him. Those unfamiliar with magic invariably made the mistake of believing portents and premonitions were quantifiable and readily described things, similar to the mundane senses they knew so well. Magic was different, far more nebulous and vague. A seer could know with certainty the substance of his prophecy but be absolutely at a loss to explain it. Liandra suspected that Salendor was gripped by the same dilemma – knowing what must be done but utterly unable to explain why.

  At a gesture from Salendor, his standard bearer slowly moved his colours from side to side. The column began to march once more. At their head, Therial’s Ellyrian cavalry lunged forwards at full gallop.

  The elven steeds had barely gone more than thirty yards before the ground opened up beneath their hooves. The speed of the chargers carried them over the abyss, though the frightened neighs of the animals echoed through the forest. Behind them, they left a yawning trench five yards across, a great black scar running lengthwise across the trail.

  The true menace of the hole revealed itself an instant later. Shouts of ‘Khazuk!’ rose from beneath the earth. Dwarfs surged up from out of the ground, brandishing their axes and hammers. Th
e deadfall had been intended to drag the front ranks of the asur down to their waiting warriors. Thwarted in that ambition, now the dawi lunged up to meet the enemy.

  The dwarfs had expected their foe to be surprised by the sudden ambush. To be certain, many were, but enough recovered quickly to set their spears against the onrushing dwarfs to blunt the initial charge. Behind them, the archers loosed the arrows they’d held at the ready. Few of the missiles pierced the heavy dwarf armour, but enough of them struck home to further blunt the assault.

  Commands now rang out across the elven ranks. The captains of those archer companies in the rear hurriedly organised their bowmen to loose volleys into the trench itself. Hundreds of arrows arced over the heads of the elves fighting at the fore of the column to slam down into the dwarfs surging up from the trench. Whatever casualties they inflicted, there seemed no end to the dwarfs. It was obvious that the trench connected to one of their ancient tunnel systems, an underground fortress holding untold numbers of the enemy.

  Across the trench, galloping hard, came Therial and his knights. Rushing upon the rear of the dwarfs, the Ellyrians threw the short spears they carried to great effect, striking a goodly number of the foe. Still, the enemy refused to submit. Some of the dwarfs even sallied onto the other side of the trench in a futile effort to confront the Ellyrians. The knights simply galloped away, drawing their enemy after them down the trail until they were far from the safety and reinforcements of the trench. Then, Therial wheeled his knights around and rode the dwarfs down in a brutal cavalry charge.

  The fighting at the head of the column only began to falter when Liandra and the other mages in Salendor’s army took a hand. Drawing upon the aethyr, the mages sent arcane fire raining down into the trench, scorching scores of the stubborn warriors as they tried to climb out of their holes. They seemed unimpressed by the magical flame, but when one of the other mages evoked a spell that caused the edges of the trench to crumble, it seemed a different matter. Almost at once, the dwarfs began to withdraw, hurrying back into their tunnels before the mages could collapse them on top of them.