Legacy

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Before reaching the door, Asher heard one last roar, this time from somewhere deep inside the palace. He didn’t stop, but rather pressed on as fast as his legs would take him. The green fields, which glowed under the moonlight, came into view beyond the door. His father and brother ran for cover under the canopy of a large oak tree.

  “Keep running!” his Father shouted.

  Asher’s chest burned, desperate for breath, as he ran for the moonlight. The black crystal around his neck pulled at his attention when it floated out in front of him, still tethered to his neck. The unexplainable occurrence didn’t stop him from running through the threshold with all haste.

  Asher ran through and felt the cool night air suddenly transform into warmth, as blinding light erupted from all around. Dropping into the field, Asher covered his head, fearing the hot fury of what was surely a dragon’s breath. An eternity went by as he waited for the inevitable pain and darkness of death to take him. But when death should have claimed him, Asher instead heard the squawk of a bird overhead and the warmth on his back was nothing but pleasant.

  The Outlander opened his eyes to a world he didn’t recognise.

  A midday sun beat down on a field of overgrown, faded yellow grass. Asher stood up in a daze, his ankles deep in bog water where it had moments ago been hard ground and short green grass. He took a breath, slowly turning to survey his bizarre surroundings. The city of Elethiah remained behind him, where it should be, but as a shadow of its former glory. The stone had darkened and become overgrown with weeds and thick roots, which crawled up the great walls. To his left were the remains of a demolished tower, lying in ruin where it had fallen. The oak tree, where his father and brother had taken shelter, was gone, a broken rotten stump in its place and his family nowhere in sight.

  Beyond the stump, he could still see the Wild Moores in the distance. The forest was over five hundred miles from north to south with incredible depth. Asher gasped for breath, unbelieving of his new reality. Where had the night gone? Where had Valanis’s forces and the dragons gone? Where was his family? He cried for his father and his brother, screaming at the top of his voice.

  The reply came not from his father or brother, but from the howl of a creature he had never heard before. Asher ducked into the long grass, seeing dark shapes moving through the strands, crouched low to hide their true form. Something slipped out of his shirt and he held it in front of him. The black crystal. He didn’t have time to think about it before the howls came again, much closer this time. He dropped the crystal back into his shirt and ran for the forest that lay sprawled before him. His clan was surely in there somewhere and they would protect him. The rapid padding of many heavy feet came from behind, but he had no idea of their number.

  It wasn’t long before he realised the forest was simply too far away. The Outlander would never make it before the predators caught him. Changing course, Asher ran for the collection of large rocks dug into the small hillside on his left. Maybe he could lose them in there.

  By the time Asher reached the first rock, he was exhausted. He fell to the grass and crawled further into the outcropping. Rolling on to his back, he saw a lumbering creature climb the rock at his feet and stretch to its full height. Dark green scales covered its sloping leathery head, with two thick arms reaching down to its knees and ending in pointed fingers of sharp bone. Its face was closer to that of a lizard, with several rows of razor-sharp teeth. A screeching howl preceded five more, who appeared from behind the other stones, licking their maws with long slimy tongues.

  The first creature jumped off the rock, blocking out the sun as it came to land on top of him - only it never did land, at least not alive. The beast had been struck in the face by an arrow, mid-air. Looking up from his back, Asher glimpsed a stranger came charging over his head and diving into the fray, with a short-sword in one hand and a bow in the other. The beasts leaped at their new prey, only to have their limbs removed with every slash of the stranger’s sword. His movements were similar to that of an elf but Asher could also see the differences; this was a man.

  The fight was over in seconds and the stranger was standing amid a heap of diced monsters.

  The stranger turned to Asher, his sword shining under the sun. He wore dark leather armour, engraved with unusual, intricate patterns and a grey cloak which spread out across the ground, collecting mud. Perhaps the strangest element of his appearance was the red blindfold he wore. He had apparently defeated those beasts without his sight. The stranger proceeded to remove the red cloth from his face, revealing shadowed, brown eyes and curly black hair.

  “Gobbers,” the stranger stated flatly, wiping the blood off of his sword with the edge of his cloak.

  Asher had heard Nalana speak of such creatures and was thankful for surviving the encounter.

  “And who might you be?” the stranger asked.

  Asher’s eyes searched the plains for his father once more. “I am... Asher,” he stuttered.

  “Is that a statement or a question, boy?” The stranger flicked his bow in the air, activating a series of mechanisms and cogs built into the wood. A moment later the bow had folded into itself, before the stranger placed it out of sight, under his cloak.

  Had Asher not been too stunned by the events of the past few minutes, he would have marvelled at the bow’s construction.

  “My name is Asher,” he replied more boldly, standing up and wiping the dirty water from his face.

  The stranger regarded him curiously. “Is that it? Just Asher? Well, this is no place for a boy to wander; between the swamps of Elethiah and the Wild Moores… you must have a talent for survival.” His voice had a foreign twang to it that Asher couldn’t place.

  The boy nodded absently, trying to make sense of the stranger’s words. From here, Asher could see what remained of Elethiah - its beautiful spires and domed towers were gone, with nothing but decay hanging over the entire land. It was more akin to a swamp now, the splendid Moonlit Plains nothing but a memory. He wrapped his hands around his arms feeling the cold against his wet skin.

  The stranger announced, “I am Nasta Nal-Aket, of Nightfall...”

  Asher remained silent, unaware of the man’s significance or the place he was from.

  “Have you never heard of it, boy?”

  Asher shook his head slowly.

  “I am a spectre, an Arakesh,” he stated proudly.

  Asher’s face dropped at the sound of the elvish word; he knew that word.

  “I am an assassin,” Nasta Nal-Aket confirmed.

  Asher stood his ground, as his father had taught him when facing a bear.

  “If I had to guess from your appearance, I would say you’re an Outlander.”

  Asher became self-conscious of the black tattoo, outlining a wolf’s fang, below his left eye, signifying he was from a clan of hunters.

  “I didn’t think your kind strayed beyond the Wild Moores these days. What are you doing out here?” The assassin tucked his blindfold into his belt, letting it hang loosely in the breeze.

  Asher noted the assassin steal a look at Elethiah, but he appeared physically disturbed by the landmark and walked further into the hillside as if to gain more distance.

  The Outlander looked up at the sun and knew it should be the moon that greeted him. “I was...” Asher didn’t know how to explain it. “The elves were fighting and...” He could only look at the ruins of Elethiah.

  Nasta looked from the ruins to Asher in puzzlement. “Elves? Are you talking about the Dark War?”

  Asher didn’t know anything of a Dark War and began to look round for his family once more. They wouldn’t be out there looking for him, he had fallen behind. He was alone.

  “And what would a young Outlander know of a battle over a thousand years past?”

  The gravity of Asher’s situation drained the blood from his head, blurring his vision. “A thousand years...” He spun in every direction, desperate to find something, anything familiar. The landscape began to blur when
the colours of the world faded and his vision narrowed. The ground rose up to greet him and the darkness swallowed him whole.