by C. Greenwood
The noise of battle startled him out of the memory and back to the present. He looked around, bewildered, uncertain how he had come to be amid such violence. His deformed cheek burned, reminding him of Rathnakar’s searing touch. All the memories came flooding back then and, with them, horror at his own deeds. Had he truly raised corpses to life and led them on a march of bloody destruction?
Nearby, a flare of light caught his eye. He looked past the fighters and saw a golden scepter emitting streams of light that burnt through armor and flesh. He knew the dark figure wielding it. Here was the master, the one who had commanded and led him astray.
He didn’t realize he was on his feet and moving toward Rathnakar until he stood immediately before him.
The dark one was engaged in a dual with two lone warriors, a dryad and a freakish-looking, four-armed woman. Neither dryad nor violet-skinned woman was any match for the master. With a single sweep of his scepter, Rathnakar knocked the dryad to the ground, where he lay helpless. The dark knight then turned on the woman and shot a stream of molten light into her. The light pierced through her shoulder and came out her back.
The woman must have possessed powerful magic, because she didn’t dissolve into ash as she should have. Instead, she merely screamed and dropped to the earth, clutching the smoldering wound.
As he watched his former master preparing to finish the brave pair, shame and outrage flooded Varian. How many times had he been witness to the dark one’s cruelty? He would be a slave no more. He snatched a spear from the hand of a nearby dead soldier and charged at the Raven King.
As if sensing his approach, the dark master turned but had no time to take action.
Leaping through the air, Varian thrust the spear into Rathnakar’s chest. The spearhead punched through thick armor and hit flesh.
But Rathnakar didn’t falter. Instead, the shaft of the spear still protruding from the wound, he swung his scepter into Varian’s head. For such a slender beautiful object, the golden scepter was strong. It dealt a ringing blow to Varian’s skull, and he dropped to his knees. Everything seemed to move very slowly after that.
Through blurred vision, Varian had only a shaky impression of the scene around him. At eye level, the armored legs of the master approached to finish him. Behind the master was the weak and bloodied dryad, scrambling to his feet, as if to launch another hopeless attack. On the ground opposite Varian sprawled the four-armed woman, writhing in pain and clutching the smoking hole in her shoulder. In the throes of death, a strange transformation was overtaking her. Her violet-hued skin was fading to a natural shade, and her face taking on a new shape. Varian had a vague sense he had seen this new face before.
But before he could remember more, the dark master loomed, leveling the golden scepter at him. Varian took a last breath and envisioned the cool comforting tombs of Umanath, his home. Then a blinding flash of light filled his vision.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Eydis
Pain raged through Eydis, driving out all other thought. The burning from her shoulder seemed to radiate through her whole body, and the edges of her vision were clouded with red. But some distant part of her was aware the fight wasn’t over, that she mustn’t lie back and give in to the pain. Not yet. She grabbed hold of that thought and used it to block out the agony and draw herself back from the edge of consciousness. Her friends needed her.
Lacking the strength to sit upright, she rolled onto one side so she had a view of all before her. Geveral was rising from the recent blow that had sent him to the ground. Varian Nakul was on his knees before Rathnakar.
Eydis could scarcely make sense of what Nakul had done seconds ago. Why had servant turned on master? But she knew the answer. She had noted it in his eyes when last they met, the tortured conflict between good and evil that had always kept Nakul teetering on the brink of madness. It seemed he had won his inner war.
She watched now as Rathnakar pointed his scepter. Varian Nakul displayed neither fear nor surprise. His last expression was one of peace as his master shot a stream of hot, liquid light blasting through him. In seconds, Nakul was consumed by the heat, transformed into a heap of charred remains.
Before the ashes of his former servant had settled, Rathnakar turned next on Geveral, who had scrambled to his feet to charge the dark one. Rathnakar leveled the golden scepter at his new target.
Eydis couldn’t wait any longer. She had to buy Geveral time. From her wounded and helpless position, she could think of only one way to do that. She raised a hand toward Rathnakar, the hand that bore the ring she had stolen from the dead wizard. Concentrating all her will and strength into the ring, she blasted Rathnakar with its blue light.
The Raven King froze beneath the onslaught of magic, caught in midmovement. He was trapped just as Eydis herself had once been paralyzed beneath the powerful spell.
In the same instant, Geveral swung his sword, its blade slicing the Raven King’s helmeted head off.
For a second nothing happened. Then Eydis released her hold on Rathnakar and the blue light enveloping him dissolved. His body collapsed, still clutching the golden scepter in one great gauntleted fist. His severed head rolled across the ground until Eydis was eye to eye with the red gemstones embedded in the helmet. They no longer glowed.
The last of her strength expended, Eydis collapsed onto her back. She didn’t feel the pain of her scorched shoulder anymore. Her body was growing numb as she gazed up at the sky. The morning’s clouds were scuttling away, leaving behind a clear field of blue.
There came a scuffing sound at her side, and then Geveral was kneeling in the dirt, taking her hand.
“It’s over, Eydis,” he said. His face, speckled with blood and streaked with sweat, was jubilant. “The battle is won. With their master dead and the fortress fallen, the Lostland creatures are fleeing. The undead soldiers and other unnatural creatures are disappearing.”
He must be right. Although unable to turn her head to either side, Eydis could hear a descending hush. Or maybe it was only her hearing that was fading, as she felt more and more removed from her body. She could no longer feel Geveral’s hand clutching hers.
Geveral’s eyes clouded with concern, as if only just realizing the extent of her injury. “You’ve saved Earth Realm,” he told her. “You can heal yourself now.”
She didn’t have time to explain she lacked the remaining power to heal herself even if it were possible to use the lifetouch on her own body.
Instead, she used the last of her strength to say, “Didn’t I say you would be a great mage one day, Geveral? Tell Orrick I always knew his worth.”
Her quest completed and her final message delivered, she was enveloped by a sense of well-being. Geveral’s anxious face faded from view, and again she saw the bright blue sky spreading before her. Only this time she was traveling toward the warmly glowing sun and the earth was dropping away.
EPILOGUE
ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Geveral didn’t know how long he sat numbly beside Eydis’s still form. He was vaguely aware of the remaining members of the enemy army fleeing or surrendering and of the victors moving around the field, collecting the dead and wounded. A time to celebrate would come later. For now, everyone was simply exhausted, relieved to be alive, and anxious to find friends lost during the fight.
Geveral knew he should be among those helping the wounded. Maybe he should even be out there looking for Keir and Kalandhia. But his grief was too great. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Eydis alone. Her lifeless body looked too vulnerable even if her face, turned up to the sun, wore an expression of peace.
In death, she had returned to her original form. No more did she wear the disguise of the oracle. Geveral couldn’t guess why she had ever donned the mask in the first place. Not until her final moments of life did he see past the disguise and realize it was she and not the oracle at his side, fighting Rathnakar.
Eventually he became aware of a shadow moving over him. He didn’t have to lo
ok up to recognize the presence of Orrick. Somehow he was unsurprised to encounter the barbarian here.
“I think she always knew she would die in the end,” Orrick said somberly. “With all the visions she had of the future, she could hardly have failed to glimpse her fate. But she followed her duty anyway, and that means, in a way, she chose this outcome.”
It was true. The knowledge his friend had made peace with her death long before it occurred comforted Geveral. He found himself finally able to tear his eyes from her still face to look around him.
Morning had worn into afternoon, and what had begun as a dreary dawn had given way to a warm and sunny day. The kind of day that might be pleasant if one wasn’t surrounded by blood-soaked earth and scattered corpses. In the distance, far away from the churned ground, the tall grasses of the plain were stirring in a gentle breeze.
“What happens now?” Geveral asked.
He was speaking more to himself than to Orrick, but the barbarian answered anyway.
“There are enemies to be taken captive, bodies to be burned or buried, and wounded to be cared for,” he said. “But when all is over and when supplies and soldiers are ready to travel homeward, you and I will have our own task. Eydis has a surviving sister in Castidon. We will bring Eydis’s ashes to her.”
Geveral nodded, accepting the suggestion. Their friend deserved this final service from them both. He watched as the big Kroadian picked up Eydis’s corpse with surprising gentleness and began carrying her off the field.
When Geveral arose to trail after him, he stepped on something that crunched beneath his foot. He looked down to find his staff, the one he had lost during the fight, lying on the muddy ground. He picked it up, this gift from the guardians of Silverwood Grove, and hurried after Orrick.
IN THE CAMP
In the camp of Lord Branimir, Orrick was directed to an empty tent, where he left Eydis’s corpse resting. Geveral chose to remain with the body, but after the events of the day, Orrick needed fresh air. Besides, he had seen Geveral’s strange friend Keir and his wounded dragon lingering at the camp’s edge earlier. Both looked as if they would survive their exhaustion and injuries, but Orrick should probably check on them all the same. Eydis would want it.
But the mission fled his mind the instant he ducked out of the tent and encountered the oracle waiting outside. She looked as if she had been trying to make up her mind whether to enter. Perhaps she was feeling a degree of guilt over her past manipulations of the catalysts, Orrick thought. Or maybe that was expecting too much. Her expression was as lacking in emotion as ever.
“What are you doing here?” Orrick greeted her, as mistrustful of the woman as ever. “I heard you were in a deep sleep.”
“So I was,” she admitted. “But the death of Rathnakar broke the evil magic that had ensnared me, allowing me to awake once more.”
She glanced past him, toward the tent. “Is it true she is dead?”
“You should know,” he said stiffly. “As you have so often pointed out, you’re the oracle.”
“There’s no need to be defensive,” she said. “You and I are no longer at opposing ends. With the threat of the Raven King removed, the greater part of the kingdom will soon learn of the events here today and the evil they narrowly escaped. Lord Branimir tells me he has been so impressed by your actions he means to appeal to the king on your behalf. He is determined to see your name cleared of the old treason charges. You will probably wind up a hero for your part in recapturing Endguard.”
“And you?” he asked suspiciously. “What do you plan to get out of all this?”
She shrugged a slender shoulder. “I expect no reward. After helping Lord Branimir settle matters here, I will take the golden scepter to a safe place and return to the solitude of my temple, done with meddling in the affairs of the greater world.”
“That I’ll believe when I see it,” he said. “But I’m less interested in your future than in what you plan to do about this.” He touched his temple, where he could still feel the faintly throbbing pressure of his tracing mark. “You planted this mark in my skull sometime ago,” he reminded her. “If you expect me to believe in your good intentions, prove them. Remove the mark.”
The oracle eyed him craftily and said, “I will lift your mark for a price.”
“I thought as much. There is always a price with you.”
She ignored that. “From reports I have heard of Eydis’s confrontation with Rathnakar, I believe she fought him with a certain weapon obtained from a wizard’s tower. That weapon is of no significance to anyone else, but I should have it. Purely for safekeeping, of course.”
Orrick didn’t like the idea. But much as it irked him to fall prey one last time to the oracle’s manipulations, he had to admit it would be more troubling to carry the tracing mark around in his head forever.
“It is agreed,” he told her. “Take what you want.”
He led the oracle into the cool shadows of the tent. She went to where Eydis lay on a clean blanket on the floor, watched over by Geveral.
The oracle knelt over the still form.
“And so our journey together ends, mistress of masks,” the oracle murmured to the lifeless body. If there was a hint of regret in her voice, it was not echoed in her countenance. Without hesitation, she slipped a bulky ring off Eydis’s thumb and shoved it onto her own finger.
“That’s it?” Orrick asked. “The ring is all you wanted?”
“It is enough,” came the response, and then the oracle swept back out of the tent.
Orrick had to hurry to catch up to her outside.
“Wait,” he said to her departing back.
“Why? Do we have some other unfinished business?” she asked, turning around.
Orrick hated to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. It pained him to trust the powers of this particular woman. But he had to know.
“What happens next?” he asked, echoing the question Geveral had so recently directed at him.
“You would know your future?” she asked. Her face became thoughtful, as if she gazed through him and looked into a time to come. “For your dryad companion, peace and happiness lie ahead. For you, your one-eyed dwarf friend, and his vampire queen, there will be lives of adventure and danger.”
OUTSIDE THE FORTRESS WALLS
Long after the battlefield was emptied of all but the dead, the White Lady and a companion walked softly in the deep shadows outside the fortress walls. Darkness had fallen, and the night stars had chased away the last light and warmth of the fading sun.
“Do you think it’s finally over?” asked the White Lady’s companion.
The pale ghost turned toward the old man at her side, a dryad mage. She had known him under other names in distant times, but in this age he called himself Janya.
“You and I have lived long enough to know it is never truly over, the war between darkness and light,” the White Lady answered. “But Rathnakar is defeated to rise no more, so there will be an era of peace in this part of Earth Realm. The catalysts of chaos bought us that.”
Janya wrinkled his brow. “I’m still puzzled as to why you entered this fight. It isn’t usually your way to take sides in the affairs of mortals.”
A corner of the White Lady’s mouth twitched upward. “You needn’t fear I have taken up your meddling ways,” she said. “I simply decided it was in my best interests to interfere this once in the course of events. I did not like to imagine what would become of my home in a world ruled by the Raven King.”
An image flashed through her mind of a certain little island on a mist-shrouded lake tucked away deep in a rangeland forest. It was there she had once lived in physical form, and there more than anyplace her spirit still liked to anchor. The words of the mistress of masks during their encounter back in the wizard’s tower had made her realize she was not prepared to see her precious island overtaken by Rathnakar’s darkness.
“Will you return to your island now?” asked Janya.
; “Soon,” she replied. “But not until I have dealt with one final matter. Today I discovered another member of our kind, a newly formed eternal. His physical condition is strange, half dragonkin youngling, half shadow monster. This Keir does not belong in the mortal world, but with the death of Rathnakar, he is barred from returning to the place of shadows.”
“And you are thinking of making yourself known to the youngling and taking him under your protection?” Janya asked.
She lifted a pale shoulder. “I might make something useful of him. It is never too early to begin readying one’s tools.”
The old dryad looked confused. “In preparation for what?”
The White Lady swept her gaze over the abandoned moonlit battlefield. “For whatever comes after the end.”
Now that the catalysts’ adventures are concluded, begin the Legends of Dimmingwood series from C. Greenwood
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA TODAY bestselling author C. Greenwood started writing stories shortly after learning her ABCs and hasn't put down her pen since. After falling in love with the fantasy genre more than a decade ago, she began writing sword and sorcery novels. The result was the birth of her best known works, the Legends of Dimmingwood series. In addition to her writing, Ms. Greenwood is a wife, mom and graphic designer.
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