The Rawn Chronicles Book Three: The Ancarryn and the Quest (The Rawn Chronicles Series 3)

by P D Ceanneir

  The sword changed first. It now became the matt black colour that it was when he first saw it. Then the creature’s armour changed to black also, it progressed slowly over the iridescent green armour like spilt ink. It changed shape as it formed into a lean, muscled arms and torso with a red breast depicting a black dragon. Then came something that he was not expecting, sand rose up from around the captive and turned into a black compound that mixed and melded into a solid covering that clung to his shoulders, enshrouding his body and hiding his face in the darkness of a hood.

  Some of the Kaleeth Eba cried out in alarm at the magical sword and its owner. Al Mullach pulled away the weapon and stepped back several paces. With the Earth Orrinn’s sphere of influence at its limit, the strangers cloak returned to the sand and the armour turned back to green again. Al Mullach took the Lobe Stone and placed it on a pile of the square white marble blocks that was once part of a wall of a stately home. He pulled out his own sword and tried to cut the stone in half, but it just bounced off the orb with a shower of sparks from the sword. He then put on a pair of stiff hide leather gloves then wrapped a thick layer of rags around the hilt. Obviously, thought the Blacksword, he had previously tried to grip the hilt and experienced the pain from the Fire Orrinn. He pulled SinDex out of the scabbard and brought it down quickly onto the white orb. The Lobe Stone cut in half along with the pile of marble bricks beneath it. He used little effort and the blade seemed to carve through the stones with the barest whisper. Everyone gasped in astonishment, not least from the sword’s lethal ability, but because the light from the two halves of the Lobe Stone went out.

  The wind had picked up by the time they had crossed the salt flats and it had covered the tracks. They persevered anyway, but the sun was setting and to top it all off, the Lobe Stone had stopped pulsing for the past half an hour.

  ‘Well that’s buggered that idea then,’ moaned Furran.

  ‘Don’t be so negative!’ snapped Maleene who rode beside him. In fact, Furran was not then only one who noticed the beautiful Wyvern Filial was always by his side.

  ‘I am being realistic,’ Furran gave back, and he smiled at her as she scowled back at him.

  ‘The lady may have a point, my friend,’ said Gunach, ‘the tracks may be gone, but they are still headed in this direction.’

  They carried on for a few miles, getting closer to the ridge when they heard a loud screeching above them.

  ‘I’ll be dammed,’ said Powyss with a laugh, ‘its Mirryn.’

  The red kite swooped down onto his arm as he held it out and she pecked his fingers for food. He gave her some of his dry meat, which he chewed first to re-hydrate it. She was hungry.

  ‘I’m amazed she survived the storm,’ said Whyteman.

  ‘She is a survivor, this one, takes after her owner,’ said Powyss.

  ‘Will she lead us to him?’ asked Lord Ness.

  Powyss stroked the kite’s head and mentioned Havoc’s name. She jumped clumsily from his arm and flew gracefully into the sky, circling around and waiting for them to follow.

  ‘I think the answer is yes,’ said Jilkyn with a grin.

  As the day gave way to night and a full moon rose, Mirryn’s cry led them to a small opening in the ridge. The valley gave Powyss a natural caution as they entered. It was an ideal place for an ambush, but they made it through unmolested.

  On the other side, they found the ruins jutting out of the sand like broken teeth.

  ‘This is it!’ said Lord Ness excitedly, ‘the narrow valley, the salt flats. The Sultan’s directions were spot on. This is the lost Citadel of the Assassi.’

  The rest of the group knew about the search for the Assassi homeland, but were not prepared for the sheer scale of the citadel. The ruins stretched for many miles, most of it covered in sand. The old petrified trees, which stood, or lay, all around, spoke of a huge oasis in the past and better times long gone.

  ‘The storm must have uncovered most of it,’ noted Velnour as he looked around. Lord Ness agreed with him. If it were not for the storm then they would not have found this.

  They went further into the wrecked and derelict buildings until they found a flagstone road leading west. Broken statues and collapsed pillars littered the length of the road and Lord Ness felt sad that the end of the citadels greatness should be lost to the desert. The road, he mused, must be of some importance as it led into a wide square, which must have had important buildings surrounding it. Now they were just piles of rubble and sand.

  A tall stone obelisk, square at the base and tapered to a point at the top, sat proudly in the centre of the flagstone square. To the newcomers it looked new and out of place in the dead city. Although, as they got closer to it, it did look old and pitted, chunks of its surface had broken off and were lost among the uneven flat slabs of the square.

  ‘This looks like it was erected a few hundred years ago,’ said Linth, ‘when did the Eldi and their people leave here?’

  ‘Over three thousand years ago,’ answered Lord Ness.

  ‘Then we can assume that the Elders did not put this here, so who did?’

  ‘That is a very good question.’ One that the Ri had no answer for.

  On the obelisk was a series of silver-rimmed squares, inside these were silver etchings of Skrol symbols that glinted in the moonlight. Lord Ness got off his horse and approached the towering monolith with a look of awe on his face.

  ‘This is a cenotaph to the dead,’ he explained, ‘some of the Assassi stayed to fight a terrible enemy and lost.’

  ‘Who was the enemy, my lord?’ asked Powyss.

  The Ri shook his head. ‘It is not very clear. Some of the symbols have been eroded away or broken off, but it does give a warning though. “Turn back now, the enemy are still here”.’

  ‘Short and straight to the point, just the way I like my warnings,’ Powyss quipped.

  ‘Surely they can’t still be here after several hundred years,’ said Maleene looking around her, ‘this place is deserted, it’s a graveyard. Excuse the pun.’

  ‘The people who erected this must have had the foresight to know that this enemy was here to stay,’ said Velnour with a shrug.

  ‘I think some of us will have a look around,’ said Little Kith un-slinging his big axe, ‘Just to be on the safe side.’ Powyss agreed with a nod and the Paladins split up to form a perimeter, while still keeping the monolith and Lord Ness in sight.

  When the Blacksword woke a second time, darkness was absolute beyond the ring of fires and the Kaleeth Eba were huddled together near the Mullahs tent. They looked apprehensive and fearful, but not because of the Blacksword, it was something else outside the safety of the fires.

  There came a strange toneless barking out in the night which made the nomads jump, though it was some distance away. Those men guarding the Blacksword took their eyes off him for the first time and looked to where the noise had come from. They were tense and watchful.

  Another bark screeched though the night. This one came from a different direction and then another, higher and closer as if in answer to the first. More calls rang out as the moon rose in the night sky and the tension in the camp was becoming unbearable. Al Mullach and some his men formed into a tight circle and he shouted out orders for the others to bring the women out of the cage. Tia, weak as she was, did not struggle. She would pick her moment. Her energy levels were far higher than before and she did not want to waste them in any futile effort, only when the time was right.

  As their captors roughly manhandled her and her fellow women, forcing them to kneel with their hands tied in front of them by strong thick hemp, she looked towards the Blacksword who gave her a sly wink. She forced a snort of laughter back down her throat as she ignoring the absurdity of the moment.

  The strange barks grew louder and closer, then Al Mullach pointed to the other side of the camp with his sword. Something big shifted in the darkness beyond the light, and then another. There were sounds of footsteps running in the sand and anim
al snarls all around them. The camels bellowed in panic and pulled against their reining post and their hobbles. A cacophony of barks rang out echoing off the ruins as the creatures called in unison. By the sounds of them there were many. The girls beside Tia cried in alarm and fear. Even her heart was pounding, whatever these things were she had no doubt that her captors brought her here for them. The only person who showed no fear was the Blacksword, who looked around him with calm boredom.

  Suddenly the barks stopped.

  In the silence, something tall and bipedal walked into the ring of camp fires.

  It was definitely not human, at the sight of it Tia and the other girls screamed.

  Chapter 18

  Night Terrors

  No, we are not your sister. Though, we did take her form on many occasions, we needed to assume the image of someone you knew and loved. It would have been harder to talk to you in our true form, said the Verna-like girl floating in front of Havoc.

  The prince reeled from the fact that when his sister appeared to him in the past, she was someone else.

  ‘If you are not my Verna, then who are you?’ he asked.

  It would be better to show you. Please, do not be afraid.

  Fear in this place was non-existent; even if it did exist, it would not be able to break through the barrier of euphoria Havoc was feeling. Although he watched with awe at the change that overcame his fake sister’s form, he still felt a cold shiver run through him.

  Everything but the eyes seemed to blast away and reform into an amalgamation of forms made up of different substances. Here, a limb of a tree with gnarled fingers, there a foot of white vapour. However, all this anatomy shifted into other shapes until it finally settled on a watery body with a long and lean torso that rippled as the thin arms pushed their way out of the top half and grew into delicate webbed fingers. The legs had fused together into a green-brown tail of a fish that sparkled with silver scales as it moved. It’s face was long with a small thin mouth and chin, but a nose that was perfectly straight and stretched from the very top of the forehead to the upper lip. The creature’s hair was a mass of waving seaweed that cascaded down it’s back and floated around it’s head as if immersed in water. The eyes remained a burning orange that softened in their severity by the curve of the nose ridge and eyebrow of bright green kelp. Throughout this transformation Havoc could see that the creature was female, her features were soft and pleasing and there was a definite feminine structure to her body, which clearly showed a single chest ridge that substituted mammalian breasts though no discernible nipples that he could see.

  I am sorry that my true form displeases you, she said.

  ‘Not so, you are quite beautiful,’ said Havoc and meant it.

  You are kind.

  She was tall, very tall, and sublimely proportioned in a magisterial sort of way. Havoc felt dwarfed by her size, but instead of feeling dominated by this being, he felt a genuine warmth and affection from her, and also a strange feeling of familiarity about this creature in front of him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  I have many names; my true name is unpronounceable to your kind. Like the liquid see-through quality to her body, her voice was similar to trickling water over smooth pebbles.

  We are many, merged into one mind, but I have always been the Ambassador of our kind and so they sent me to speak to you. The children of the Eldi call me Kwi-Aqua.

  If Havoc had a mouth to take in a gasp of breath he would inhale sharply at that moment, for in front of him was the Sea Goddess that gave Tattoium-Tarridun to his ancestors.

  Floating in front of him was a Goddess.

  This beautiful creature was a My’thos.

  Jilkyn held up the corner of the thin parchment while Lord Ness held onto the other end. He used his free hand to flatten it against the Skrol etchings then took a piece of charcoal and made a rubbing of the symbols. They repeated this process several times, as they wandered around the monolith taking more copies of the etchings.

  Maleene watched them with her arms folded. This was not getting them closer to her people, and she looked up into the dark sky to see where the red kite had gone.

  ‘This one is interesting,’ said the Ri as he pointed to a new set of Symbols, ‘it’s a prophecy, and it’s in the old language, not Skrol.’

  “Golden lanes rift through the earth

  Boiling shores and torments welt

  First to sing from their deep dark well

  Are the Brethac screaming a macabre knell?

  Earth that cracks and sky doth fall

  Showering all in burning hail

  All run seeking a sheltered dwell

  None lives to tell the tale

  The Firstborn meet the carrion call

  Darkness spreads as the Brethac walk

  The Earths dead their Banquet hall

  Hope resides in an Orrinns caulk”

  ‘This must be the marker stone that the Sultan’s father, and he, found,’ Ness Ri rubbed his chin.

  ‘What does the Prophecy mean?’ asked Maleene.

  ‘It’s an Apocalyptic Prophecy, one of many that I know of, although obvious that this one should be here.’

  ‘How do you mean obvious?’ her lovely eyes disappeared into shadow as she frowned.

  ‘Well it mentions the Brethac for one thing. The Brethac followers first formed an order here thousands of years ago. They had a temple somewhere in the citadel.’

  Between them Jilkyn and Lord Ness finished the rubbings and were packing away the piles of parchment in the horses saddles when they heard a loud barking off in the distance.

  ‘What in the name of the Earth Mother was that?’ said Jilkyn.

  The barks grew louder as others howled and snarled in reply. The Paladins moved their perimeter closer to the Ri and the girls. Doctor Zabel, standing next to Linth and holding a thick bladed sword that curved at the end, looked pale.

  ‘I know many sounds animals make in the desert, but I have never heard that before,’ he informed them all.

  More growls and snarls, although this time they moved away from them and seemed to concentrate into a loud din somewhere to the north of the ruins.

  ‘Sounds like a lot of them,’ said Furran, ‘maybe we should be walking away from the damn things. Does that sound like a plan to anyone?’

  Whyteman suppressed a chuckle. He knew his friend was only joking. He regarded Furran as one of the bravest men he had ever met.

  ‘I always thought you had a way with animals,’ he said to Furran, ‘what with all of the women you’ve slept with.’

  ‘Well I was poor and I needed the money,’ was Furran’s reply. He caught Maleene looking at him with a strange mix of affection and disgust.

  ‘Quiet you lot!’ snapped Powyss, ‘they’ve stopped barking.’

  The silence that followed was broken by distant screams of women. Without waiting for any word of command, the Paladins unsheathed their weapons, and ran towards the screams.

  Tia could not believe what she was seeing. The pale white creature was at least eight feet in height. Although it walked with a forward stoop because its long legs were similar in construction to horse’s hind hock, but with three large toes that splayed out when it walked, giving it better traction over the sand. A sweeping tail that came to a point helped with balance. It’s thin and wiry chest was covered in a V patch of black hair that travelled down its flat stomach to cover the groin; Tia could clearly see a long white penis hanging from the dark thatch of hair.

  The thing’s arms were long and slim with wide hands and thick knuckles on its long fingers that ended in sharp pointed nails like raptor’s talons that looked black but shone in the moonlight like polished steel.

  It’s head of hair looked more like porcupine quills that bristled two feet long from its scalp and ran down its back to its tail; each quill ringed with browns, reds and yellows at the tips giving the creature a colourful beauty. However, the beauty of the thing ended when Tia saw its face. The jaw
, on it’s long oval skull, seemed enlarged by the many thin rows of needle sharp teeth of a predator. The thin black lips barely covered them and were inadequate at stopping the strands of drool that hung from it’s mouth. The creature’s nose was just a couple of slits above the mouth. Unnervingly, it was the creature’s eyes that made Tia’s own widen in shock surprise; they were the same as the Blacksword’s, black and emotionless pits of darkness and death. Now she understood why her captors were so afraid of him.

  The Kaleeth Eba had placed the captives kneeling in the sand, putting them in-between themselves and the creature. All of the nomads had swords drawn and Tia saw that their leader was gripping the sword of prophecy tightly by the scabbard. He said something in his own language, very fast, directed towards the thing in front of them. The thing ignored him; it was instead looking with interest at the Blacksword tied up to the two palm trees. It approached slowly and snapped a warning at the two guards with their swords still on the booby-trapped ropes. The guards backed off. Tia saw the look of amusement on the Blacksword’s face as the creature moved to within a few inches of the grinning man. He shows no fear, she thought. The thing pressed a long sharp nail onto the Blacksword’s cheek and cut it open with only the barest touch, the two inch cut did not bleed, instead the open ends of the flesh knitted together and healed before the nail was removed, the monster stepped back and barked loudly. It stared at the captive man for a few seconds and growled.

  ‘Good boy,’ taunted the Blacksword in his harsh whisper, ‘now roll over, and play dead for me.’

  The thing did not understand and neither did the nomads. Tia chuckled.

  Suddenly, the creature looked her way, then at the other females. He sniffed the air several times and then walked with long loping strides towards Tia and the nomadic leader beside her. The girls cringed and tried to move away from the thing, but the men behind them held them firmly. Al Mullach grabbed Tia and pulled her to her feet. He pulled back her head by grasping a handful of her short hair, exposing her throat. The monster in front of her put a long nail on her cheek then removed it to place its hand on her breast. Tia shuddered at the cold touch. Al Mullach spoke to the thing again and Tia got the impression that he was talking about her and the others. The creature obviously understood as it flicked its hand in a dismissive gesture then the nomad pulled Tia to his tent, he obviously wished to ravish her.