The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Renmar kicked him. “Get up.”

  Pernon got to his feet, but kept his gaze downcast. The hem and knees of his robe were dusty now. Dust on the floor meant the keeper wardens were not maintaining a strong enough aura around the eyry. It bothered him. Just one more minor problem he would have to deal with that should properly be well beneath his notice.

  “How many halls are still ours?” Renmar demanded of Pernon.

  Pernon straightened. “Thirty-nine, Lord.”

  Renmar considered the number for a moment. The Myrakar had learned much about the Mannlingar. As the message carriers of the Alfar, they were the perfect channels of information about the enemy. They had learned some of the many human languages, although they could not explain to Renmar why the humans didn’t have a common speech. They were able to move among the humans, unlike the Lajos or the Blakar, and it had been the Myrakar who had learned of Ganxiao, the hall in the mountains.

  The Myrakar had also learned that many of the halls the Herliefr had built were empty. Their capture of those halls when they discovered them was uncontested. Thirty-nine halls they could name as theirs was not victory.

  Neither the Myrakar nor Renmar’s generals had been able to discover how many halls there were in total. Information about the Herliefr and their occupation of Midgard was lacking even among humans. The lack did not aid decisions.

  Decisions, decisions. Renmar was surrounded by generals who did not like to make decisions, bringing problems endlessly to his eyry.

  “Make sure the portals are guarded,” Renmar ordered. “Is Rama any closer to finishing the map of the portals?” That was more information they did not have and were blocked from acquiring because of the nature of the portals themselves. To determine where a portal led, it was necessary to step through and look. The generals could order as many Blakar through the portals as they had to hand, but if they did not return to report, then the intelligence was as lacking as if they had not stepped through at all. It told them nothing.

  Still, they sent scouts through every portal they found and assumed that failure to return meant the portal linked to a hall held by the Herliefr. Those portals were guarded ceaselessly.

  At least the portals they had built within this eyry were secure. The more eyries were completed, the larger their domestic and reliable transport would grow.

  Pernon lowered his gaze once more. “I regret, Lord. The map of portals remains unfinished.”

  Renmar waved him away, annoyed. Pernon marched away stiffly, pausing only to lower his head toward Renmarie. Renmar had quite forgotten she was there. Renmarie gave Pernon a gracious smile and did not speak, which was proper.

  Pernon strode through the arch, hurrying to leave his Lord’s presence, no doubt.

  Renmarie stepped out of the dark fold of shadow where she had been standing. The hem of her gown trailed for the correct length behind her. It would extend for exactly the length from her knee to her heel.

  “Why do you obsess about their halls?” she asked. “Our eyries are larger and stronger fortresses than anything they could build. They have not used the auras for any of their structures. They are Mannlingar hovels.”

  “I liked Ganxiao,” Renmar said coldly.

  His wife gave him one of her most gracious smiles. “There are other mountains. Other heights.”

  He sighed, for she had named exactly the thing he had liked most about the Herliefr hall they had been forced to live in for a time, until the London eyry had been ready for his command.

  “London,” Renmar said, forming the name carefully. “Even their names are pedestrian.”

  Renmarie smiled as a wife should.

  * * * * *

  Lucas gave his service khakis a tug and a quick brush-down before stepping through the door the non-com was holding open for him. He returned the salute absently, already looking ahead.

  The room was dimly lit. Most of the light came from the big screens on all four walls. At the big oval table in the middle of the room, Lucas spotted Simmons, the officer he had been told to report to ASAP. Even though he didn’t know Simmons, it was easy to pick him out because he was the only United States Rear Admiral at the table. Simmons was outranked by everyone else, regardless of the uniform they were wearing.

  Lucas flicked his gaze around the table, summing up. There was a British general, and an air marshal from the Hellenic Air Force. Two senior officers from China and a single Indian Army representative, who was unique at the table because his aid, standing behind him, was wearing a full, formal sari. The double-edged traditional Indian Khanda strapped to her hip did not look out of place and these days, it would be far from merely ceremonial.

  There were two officers from the AIFA. Of course there would be two. The Arab Israeli Federal Army was united only so long as egalitarianism reigned. Where an Israeli went, so did an Arab. Lucas was still getting used to seeing the white uniforms. It had taken a common foe to bring together two of the bitterest enemies in the human world. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Who had said that? The Arabs and the Israelis were putting it into practice in a way that had encouraged nearly every standing military force in the world to toss its hat into the war arena and join them.

  Lucas bent over to speak into Simmons’ ear. “Montgomery. Reporting in, sir.”

  “Took your time, didn’t you?” Simmons murmured.

  “I was in Izmir when the orders came, sir.”

  “Turkey?” Simmons calmed down. “Bad over there?”

  “As bad as it looks everywhere else.” Which was true. One advantage about this war was that the enemy hadn’t clued into electronics yet. They were free to broadcast and network across the globe and didn’t have to worry about the enemy listening in. Network coverage of the war was thorough and ran twenty-four-seven on the dozens of stations that had mushroomed overnight solely to provide war news. It sometimes felt like there was a TV screen running coverage in every room in the world. There had even been a bank of four screens in the Lockheed on which he had bummed a lift to Odessa, tuned into channels that between them covered most of the global conflict.

  Simmons nodded. “Step back and listen in. You’ll know when I need you.”

  Lucas stepped back and looked around the room again. There were various aides, petty officers and non-coms in the room, working the communications equipment that hugged the edges. Only four other officers at the table had personal aides or assistants standing by.

  The British general at the head of the table slapped the wood surface gently, drawing attention to him. “Are we secure?” he asked.

  “All personnel with clearance below B-Level, please leave the room now. Security, check passes and lock down.” The order came from somewhere behind the general. There was a drift of people toward the doors, and Lucas leaned back over Simmons’ shoulder. “Sir…”

  “Your B-level security grade was approved this morning,” Simmons told him. “Stand back, pin your ears back and observe.”

  “Sir.” Lucas stepped back again, swallowing his questions. They had pushed through a B-grade clearance for him? What the hell? He had been a lowly D-level yesterday, only one step above “E”, which the US military had dubbed the “everyone else” level.

  The general at the head of the table had watched their short exchange. “You have a new assistant, Rear Admiral Simmons. Would you care to ease our security concerns with an introduction?”

  Simmons nodded. “Thank you, general. Everyone, this is Commander Lucas Montgomery, with the Naval Special Warfare Group 1.” That left it nicely anonymous, especially for anyone not familiar with the structure of the US forces.

  “You have a full Commander holding your cap for you?” the general asked. “A tad bit of overkill, isn’t it?”

  “It demonstrates the high regard the US holds for its Admirals, sir,” Simmons shot back. His smile was very sincere.

  The general smiled too, but his gaze was sharp. “A SEAL unit leader at that. Is there something you haven’t shared
with us about American expectations of outbreaks?” Which proved the general had studied a US military organization chart recently.

  Simmons sighed. Lucas doubted if anyone else in the room would notice, but he was standing right behind the man. “We are not expecting hostilities to break out in Minsk today, general. Nor are there any covert operations of which you are not aware. That is the real question you wanted to ask, isn’t it? Commander Montgomery was assigned to me for this conclave because of his knowledge of the Einherjar. You can think of him as an advisor. I personally will not be handing him my cap to carry. I’d prefer to keep my fingers intact.”

  Lucas barely managed to keep his surprise off his face. How in hell had they learned about his connection to the Einherjar? That wasn’t something he had felt like volunteering yet. Besides, the sum total of his “knowledge” was a dusty memory of a man who had shown him his sword, once.

  But that wasn’t strictly true. He recalled with an almost guilty start the all-night briefing Darwin and Charlee had put him through, three days after news about armies of invading elves had brought the whole world to a screeching halt. Elves! Sometimes he still found himself marveling over the surreal quality of that fact. It was easier to think of them by their Norse name, the Alfar.

  He had just barely made it back onto US soil when the reports about armies of bat-shit crazy elves killing and rounding up humans had begun to break on every channel that mattered. The Internet had gone crazy, bringing down servers with the traffic spikes and stampedes to download footage and images. Facebook and Twitter had crashed because of traffic, a first in human history. Lucas had been barely able to raise cell service and Darwin had driven down to Washington to pick him up, as there were no seats left on any commercial flights and all the military ones were heading to international destinations.

  They had spent the drive back to New York listening to the radio with growing amazement, as reports about the violent invading forces trickled in from not just London, but countries all across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

  Darwin had been silent and introspective for the next two days, but Lucas barely noticed. He had plenty to think about all on his lonesome. On the Sunday night, Charlee had appeared at the house and he was startled all over again, as he was every time he saw her, because she was such a good-looking woman. She had a style and grace he would never have predicted when she was ten and spindly, with long legs and frizzy hair. Once his surprise faded, his pride in her surfaced.

  Charlee had produced a bottle that had no label and looked like it was sealed with wax. She cut the wax away from the top with practiced movements with a sharp knife, while Darwin produced three glasses.

  “Coffee mugs would be better,” Charlee suggested. “It’s more traditional.”

  Darwin had shrugged and reached over Lucas’ head for the mugs on the shelf there.

  “What is it?” Lucas asked as Charlee poured the nearly colorless liquid into the mugs.

  “Sack mead.” Charlee pushed a mug toward him. “You’re going to need it.”

  He sniffed and his nose twitched. “Strong,” he observed. “Where did you get it? Did you make it or something?”

  Charlee tossed back her slug with a ladylike swallow and reached for the bottle again. “I got it from the Viking who made it. He got cut up badly when the first wave of Alfar invaded their hall in China and I healed him, so he gave me the bottle as a favor.”

  Darwin grinned, watching her.

  Lucas put his mug down. After thirty seconds of trying to make sense of what she had just said, he shook his head. There were words in there he had recognized, including Alfar, which had been repeated endlessly on the long trip up from Washington and even more on the TV the last two days, but it didn’t come together in a way that explained anything. Viking? Hall? “What?” he said finally.

  “Charlee has a lot to tell you,” Darwin said. “You’d better have another drink and settle in for a while.”

  Charlee gave Darwin a small smile. “Tomorrow morning, the Herliefr, who have been living among humans for nearly fifteen hundred years, are going to reveal their existence with a coordinated series of media conferences in nearly every major city in the world.”

  Lucas stared at her. “Asher,” he said finally. “You’ve known all the time, haven’t you?” he accused her, not sure if he was pissed about that or not.

  “That’s part of the story,” Charlee had replied, and then she had spent the rest of the night telling him about Chocolate, the Lightning Lords and the facts about her life since then, including most of what she knew about the Kine and their origins. Darwin had weighed in a lot on that stuff. “It’s been a pet research project for a while now,” he’d confessed.

  So yeah, Lucas could be considered an expert in that regard. He knew more than the Kine had given the public yet, enough to know that their culture and history wasn’t something humans were going to be able to digest in a few days. It was a year, almost, since they had stepped out and every day something new emerged about them. Their ways were as complex and convoluted as any human society Lucas had come across in his travels, and he’d put boot to soil on every continent except Antarctica since joining up.

  The general at the end of the conference table—Lucas had yet to hear the man’s name—nodded his satisfaction over Lucas’ qualifications. “As the doors are now secure, let’s get started.” He lifted a finger in an elegant movement. It was a signal to someone. “We flew a reconnaissance mission over London eighteen hours ago, using Einherjar intelligence about the structure of these towers the Lajos are building. This is our first close-up view of one of them.” The lights in the room lowered considerably.

  “You got past the shield guarding it?” one of the officers at the table asked. From the accent, it sounded like the Arab or Israeli.

  The general shifted uncomfortably. “We placed an Einherjar in every plane. They were the ones to open the shields. They call them auras, by the way. It’s terminology we should probably get used to straight away because we’re going to be hearing it and using it a lot from now on.”

  The video began playing on all the screens. At first, it was very ordinary-looking footage of miles of rolling suburbs. Lucas could have identified Britain from the endless streets of terrace housing, even if he hadn’t known where the flight had been.

  The view switched smoothly between perspectives, although the details on the screen didn’t change much. Clearly, there had been cameras in at least two of the planes, and someone had edited the combined footage. It was a pretty slick and professional job, too. On this approach toward London, the planes must have been flying close together, so each camera had recorded pretty much the same thing.

  “If you look at the horizon,” the general said, “you’ll catch the first glimpse of the tower.”

  Lucas looked. There was a dark, elongated vertical smudge on the horizon, as promised. He frowned, trying to make sense of it.

  “How far out from central London is this?” someone asked.

  The subaltern standing behind the general answered that. “The approach was made from south-central England. Ah, Royal Air Force base Weston-on-the-Green, in Oxfordshire, to be precise. They’re moving in a west-south-westerly direction. The town they’re passing over right now would be Maidenhead, or Slough. That line across the lower corner of the screen would be the Thames.”

  The towns and villages and a diminishing number of patches of countryside rolled on, while the dark smudge grew bigger and bigger.

  “This footage has given us some data to analyze that will keep us busy for a wee while,” the general added.

  Lucas rolled his eyes at the typical British understatement. If they had got anywhere closer to the tower than the five mile radius the shields had been keeping all traffic, then the data would be overwhelming.

  “We can confirm that the tower is straddling the Thames,” the general continued. “It has three…I guess you would call them feet. One of those feet destroyed most o
f Parliament House. I’ll let you see the rest for yourself.”

  Lucas watched the landscape slipping down beneath the bottom of the screen, calculating quickly. Usually, the fastest planes were used for reconnaissance. They wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. The Brits had their Harriers, which could do better than 700 mph and if that was what they had used for this mission, then the land rolling across the camera’s viewpoint was passing by too slowly. They had slowed the playback so that details weren’t missed. Ahead, the smudge had evolved into a discernible tower.

  “It looks rather fragile, doesn’t it?” the general murmured.

  Yeah, that was one way to put it. Lucas had seen the tower before, but only in still shots and ground-based footage, taken from two and a half miles away, which was as close as the shield—aura, he corrected himself—would let anyone come. Watching the tower enlarge as the planes drew closer was fascinating. The first time he had ever seen the tower, in pictures online, the thought that had struck him was lace. It looked delicate, like a tall, slender finger pointing to the sky, made up of filigree. Daylight peeped through the edges of it, although the center was more solid. Now he was seeing the tower with a completely different and changing perspective, something else struck him hard. The familiar city skyline of downtown London hadn’t shown up yet, but the tower that was planted over top of it was already clear, although still some distance away, which hinted at a scale that made Lucas uneasy. How big was the thing?

  The suburbs were shifting and changing now, as London drew closer. The jets dropped lower, masking their approach.

  “There is some turbulence as they approach the aura,” the general said. “Then we lost imagery for exactly fifteen seconds while the shield was breached.”

  The screen blanked, then flickered.

  “Hold for a moment please,” the general called.

  The image froze. Dominating the screen was the tower itself. At two and a half miles’ distance, the top of the tower was already cut out at the top of the frame. The feet were spread around the base of the tower evenly, the tower itself expanding at the base in a graceful curve to match the spread of the feet. Lucas stared at the rubble and buildings visible at the feet, trying to orient himself. Where was the Tower Bridge? Where was Buckingham Palace? Big Ben? There was a rivulet of water emerging from beneath the tower.