Lirana watched from the opposite side of the clearing. Her mages were ready. They had joined hands and were standing in a circle off to her left. Eight of them, young and old, she did not know all their names but she recognised Lady Evelaine from the royal court and Chief Mage Lorcan of the Five Towers. It was good to have them by her side, she knew what their Erthe magic could do. She had once seen Lorcan stay a river with his hand, allowing soldiers to pass. That had been a long time ago. She wondered how powerful he had become in the intervening years.
She held her breath, and prayed to Falinor.
The demon Ashtoreth had not shown her cards yet, she had not attempted an ambush. Instead she had announced her presence by the grisly display involving the two Simulacrum scouts...
She was playing with them.
A sliver of doubt crept into Lirana’s mind, it grew with each passing moment.
We are committed now, there’s no going back. Come on, lead like a queen.
Thoughts and words flew through her mind. The sky filled with threat and menace at the hands of the Simulacrum mages. She could feel vibrations in the ground beneath her feet, from somewhere far below in the depths of the Erthe. Her mages had tapped into the root source of Erthe power, the raw and unstoppable tide of energy that had formed the land and oceans. They would harness this energy and bring it up beneath Ashtoreth trapping her, an anvil against the Simulacrum’s hammer.
This threat would end, they would be free to live and return to their old lives. Perhaps better lives, after this alliance new bridges would exist between the two cultures. Prosperity and peace would return to the land.
Lirana looked up.
A great funnel of cloud had formed and was descending on the clearing. Wind engulfed the fields tearing at the trees and the men gathered there. Sheets of rain fell from the sky.
Lightening burst from the funnel tearing up soil and rock in the clearing. The thunder was deafening, Lirana held her ears and turned away to protect her eyes. Her men were struggling to control their horses. Her own horse reared up in terror and trampled the foot soldier beside her.
She fell from her horse which ran off through the trees, terror in its eyes. Lirana felt the earth move, heaving all round her. She felt sick and paralysed by fear. She closed her eyes and heard the sound of trees toppling. The lightening lasted a long time, men’s screams filled the air. She was surrounded by madness and death.
This was not supposed to happen.
Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The earth stilled, the sky ceased erupting, the storm abated. The stillness was deafening. Lirana blinked, peering through her fingers. Dust hung in the air, trees lay uprooted, her men were in disarray. She rose on all fours, a soldier came to help her, she gripped his arm and nodded her thanks. She caught his eye, he was staring over her shoulder.
Lirana turned to look at the clearing.
Thick smoke filled the area. Lirana smelt burning flesh and tasted sulphur in the air, a sharp pain gripped her chest, she retched emptying her stomach.
An irrational foreboding coursed through her.
Her army was in shock, voices called from the forest. Order stirred, trying to establish itself. The wounded cried out, the able-bodied answered, her men were rallying.
Lirana’s ears were ringing. She closed her eyes and yielded to fear. Her breathing tightened, panic gripped her throat and would not let go, her whole body shook.
Across the clearing Lord Brael lay alone, injured. His mind raced and tried to escape, but fell foul to the shock that controlled his body. He could not move, his arms and legs were useless, his soul imprisoned by a force beyond his reason. Swirling power suffused the ground beneath him and impregnated the air he inhaled. In that moment he knew complete and utter defeat. He realised he was nothing, a speck of dust in a sandstorm.
Powerless.
The clearing was hazy with dust and smoke. Her soldiers rose and started to regroup. Lirana managed a deep breath and regained her composure, her shock receded.
They had done it. Together they had destroyed Ashtoreth.
Silence gripped the clearing.
Then the screaming started.
Thousands of black tendrils shot from the ground into the air. At the centre of the clearing the earth broke, Ashtoreth revealed herself. She was blackened, charred, her face an image of fury and hatred. She snarled at the forces surrounding the clearing, her teeth startling in their whiteness. Her body rose out of the ground, her form, tree like, stood half in, half out of the soil.
Her tendrils extended deep beneath spreading out under the two armies, she struck with precision. Hundreds of men lost arms, legs and heads in her first strike. Her black oily roots whipped and thrashed through the air slashing flesh and breaking bone. She dragged men and horses under the earth. In seconds both armies were decimated.
Lirana’s eyes took it all in. She screamed.
Brael was impaled through the heart where he lay.
Lirana’s mages were decapitated where they stood by six of Ashtoreth’s tendrils.
Ashtoreth had taken their combined magical onslaught and was now somehow stronger… untouchable.
“Stop! Stop! I yield… I yield to your power Ashtoreth. My life, my kingdom is yours.” The words left Lirana’s mouth.
Ashtoreth turned staring at Lirana, her face a rictus of hatred. “Yield? Yield? You are nothing, your cities are nothing, your so called “civilisation” is nothing. I will destroy every last one of you, I will raze your homes to the ground. You are filth, vermin. I will cleanse the world of your stinking corruption. I do not accept your surrender, it means nothing, you mean nothing.”
Ashtoreth paused. “I will however keep you alive, to witness my work until the end, to savour your pain. Yes, that would please me.” A tendril burst out from the ground at Lirana’s feet and wrapped itself tightly around her body.
Lirana screamed again, her face ashen. Bones cracked in her spine and legs, pain exploded within her. Needle like tendrils pierced her, growing through her flesh, injecting her with alchemy. She was alive, her body broken, no longer a threat. She was imprisoned… a witness.
Tears streamed down her face. She saw her army torn apart and Brael’s forces butchered.
Ashtoreth’s massacre lasted twenty minutes. Of the thousands of men that had marched from the city only a few hundred remained. Brael’s army had fared worse, only a few score of his men still breathed, encircled by the thrashing wall of tendrils.
Lirana’s eyes wandered skyward away from the horror. A bird passed her, a nightingale. She followed the bird with her eyes finding herself entranced by it. She felt the battlefield slip away.
The nightingale flew into the clearing amongst Ashtoreth’s flailing tendrils. It swooped and dived, avoiding danger. Ashtoreth seemed unaware of the bird as it landed on her charred shoulder.
Raine was the bird, the bird was Raine and the Twist was strong within her. She was filled with ancient magic, not of the Erthe but of the stars. So old, it was new.
Raine reached into the Twist, lifted her head and sang. Ashtoreth finally registered the nightingale and turned to look at the small bird on her shoulder. Bafflement creased her face followed by irritation. A nearby tendril swung in to deal with the tiny intruder.
In that time the bird’s otherworldly song had released the Twist. Star magic shone brightly to those that could see. Starlight burst up from the clearing piercing the sky and heavens… searching.
It found the answer to the corrupted Erthe magic.
The meteor tore across the sky, travelling at great speed. It shot towards the clearing and Ashtoreth. The nightingale finished its song, leaving Ashtoreth’s shoulder just as the tendril swiped. The bird flew through the clearing, still singing, its song as clear as crystal.
Lirana witnessed it all. She saw the nightingale leave and escape to the trees. She saw a bright light fall from the sky, she saw it strike Ashtoreth, she saw the blinding flash that followed.
Then… she knew nothing.
~
“What the hell was that?” Tuath said turning to look back at the city they had left.
Intense light filled the sky to the north, accompanied by a distant roar.
“The gods are angry,” Ramin whispered in awe.
Bright Feather’s men stood in silence watching the horizon.
“We need to know what’s happened, I’m going back,” Tuath said.
Ramin looked at him, nodding. “I’m with you, we can’t fight what we don’t know.”
“Another adventure,” Tuath grimaced.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Ramin replied.
After some misgivings Luthien agreed to Tuath’s plan. “We’ll return to this spot in a week and wait for you. If you’re not here we’ll assume the worst. Falinor’s blessing on you.”
Tuath and Ramin waved and turned their horses back towards the Imperial City and the Parly Fields. An hour’s fast riding would bring them to the fields. Their questions would be answered.
~
Bright Feather walked through the trees surrounding the clearing. She had been searching for over an hour.
She had stayed far back from the confrontation. She needed to know the outcome. Who had won? Her eyes flitted from body to body, the carnage was horrific. Everywhere men lay torn and broken. She moved on scanning the battlefield, smoke and cinders floated through the blasted trees.
They had given it their best, she told herself. No matter what remained, she’d tried everything. She had ordered her followers to leave the city and to head for the mines in the Crushed Hills. There they would regroup to consider the options in the event of defeat.
The fight must go on, to the last man and woman, to the last breath.
Bright Feather’s shoes crunched on the baked soil, in places it had turned to glass. Charred bone crumbled beneath her feet, a dead horse, its flesh cooked, lay to her left. Smoke swirled obscuring her view.
She heard birdsong.
The high chattering of a nightingale, its notes dancing unconcerned high above the field of death. A light where no light could be seen.
Otherworldly.
Bright Feather wondered. It had taken magic not of this Erthe, to defeat Ashtoreth. With her absorbed Erthe and wildfire magics Ashtoreth had been immune to all Erthe bound lore. It had taken a new magic, unknown to those who walked this land, to fell her. Bright Feather had seen the star come out of the sky and strike Ashtoreth.
She slowed her pace following the birdsong. She was, effectively blind, the smoke blocking her view. She saw shapes moving in the smoke. She felt the presence of spirits. Were they trapped by magic?
Had the falling star destroyed Ashtoreth? Had it taken her back to the otherside?
The birdsong chimed clear and true ahead. Bright Feather’s feet found a dip in the ground. She looked up and saw the sun trying to break through the smoke. She stood for a long time, the birdsong clear. Gradually the smoke thinned, the clearing was gone, the Parly Fields a memory. A vast crater lay before her, at least a hundred feet deep and double that across.
Her eyes were drawn to its centre, she saw a shape far below. The birdsong continued, the bird was a tiny speck in the sky. She had to know, she started picking her way down into the crater. She felt heat beneath her feet, the air was thick with acrid smoke. She could breathe, just, the birdsong guided her, protected her.
As she progressed a light breeze came from the south helping to clear the air. Bright Feather made it to the base of the crater. She crossed its floor and arrived at the broken shape sitting at the centre. A tangle of charred, smoking tendrils lay there.
Apart from one untouched section, an offshoot, which remained intact.
Bright Feather approached, hands on chest. She almost tripped but caught herself. She reached the unburned wood and cried out.
“My queen, Lirana! It’s you… impossible, nothing could have survived that…”
Bright Feather bent over the figure cocooned in the unburned wood. Lirana lay naked, curled up in the hollowed out section, fried tendrils attached to her spine and neck. Bright Feather broke the tendrils away gently, one by one.
As the last one came away Lirana’s eyes snapped open.
“I saw it all, I saw Ashtoreth fall, I saw the star, I saw… the end. The bird brought it down from the heavens… Ashtoreth and Morrigan are destroyed.”
Tears streamed down Lirana’s blackened face and she started to shiver. Bright Feather stooped to lift her.
A voice behind broke the spell.
“Let me do that Bright Feather, you’ve done enough, this day of days.”
Tuath stood there, Ramin at his side. He smiled at Bright Feather, taking in her amazement and relief. He picked up Lirana and turned to leave the crater.
Back to the world. Back to life.
“Your realm awaits, my queen,” Tuath whispered in her ear.
The nightingale’s song carried long and clear in the sky guiding them away from the destruction.
Raine felt peace in her spirit. Her heart sang for Severin, for Ash and little Marianne. She knew when she had finished her song her heart could begin its healing.
The circle complete, at peace once more.
The End
About the Author
Fergal F. Nally is an outdoors lover often to be found out and about in amongst it all in the Scottish Highlands. His passions are hillwalking, music and reading great fantasy adventure novels. He lives in Edinburgh. Runestane is the debut novel in the Erthe sequence. Severance, Sanctuary and Revenant are also available.
Table of Contents
Grace of the Light Page 19