It was the Wild Clan’s refusal to give up their traditional spirit magic that had infuriated the other Clans and had made them social pariahs. No matter what Lúthien personally thought, the edicts of the Council of Elders were expected to be followed, especially after the deaths of so many of their people. Over the preceding years it was this continued refusal to follow the will of the Council on this one point that had allowed the conflict to deteriorate almost to the point of open warfare between the clans.
Still, Lúthien didn’t understand the intense animosity of her people on this subject. Before the invasion this would have never been an issue. The Wild Clan would have been allowed to follow the traditions of their people without question, but something had drastically changed within her people. Over the last eight years the essence of her people had begun to change in comparatively small but significant ways. Something typically only associated with the shorter lived races of Irlendria.
Studying the dusty old books that lined the shoves of the small alcove, Lúthien thought of her grandmother’s death. It was almost eight years ago to the day since she’d found her bloody half-eaten body. Over the preceding years, Lúthien had buried herself in her studies as she desperately tried to understand how and why her grandmother had been murdered in the heart of the Clan’s fortress. While most of the Elves she knew had focused their hate on the factions of the dissolved Alliance of Aurenko or the growing rift with the Wild Clan, she’d buried herself in learning the truth of the Tuonellian threat that everyone had suddenly forgotten. Nowadays, It seemed like the only time she ever had any real fun was when her cousins came to visit for their yearly Herra Samkoma. Thankfully her father had chosen to at least honor that tradition.
Silently popping the hidden door open, Lúthien slid into the room gently sealing the passageway behind her once again. The doorway stood opposite the single low window, which was perfectly positioned at this time of day for catching the midday sun. Standing in the middle of the alcove, Lúthien let the sun’s rays soak into her fair skin.
The relationship between the Council of Elders and the King of the High Clan was somewhat convoluted. Throughout her people’s long history, the High Clan had been the de facto rulers of all Elves. High Elves lived longer than the other Clans. Their magic was greater and their social structure more advanced than that of their forest dwelling brethren. But, over the millennium the individual clans grew to be unsatisfied with following the High Clan’s edicts and over time the Council of Elders had been formed. There were still conflicts, but at least the Council helped to mediate the disagreements between the clans and the King within Elven society. During this time the Herra Samkoma and Herr Samkoma had been formed. Yearly gatherings for the female and male children of the clan’s ruling families. The hope was that familiarity and education of the differences between the clans would help to ease the growing cultural tensions within their society.
Initially the yearly gatherings had helped to reduce the dissension between the clans to a degree. A prime example of this had been Lúthien’s and Enelya’s relationship. When they were young the two of them had been inseparable. Even though they only saw each other once a month out of the year, they’d always been there for one another. She didn’t know if it was the constant threat of annihilation from the Tuonellian invasion that had made them so close when they were younger, or just that they were growing apart as they aged. Sadly this last year seemed to have changed them all so very much. Even so, she still loved her cousin.
Creeping to the edge of the stairwell, Lúthien listened intently as her body warmed up from the rays of the sun. Hearing no one coming up the steps she plopped down near the entranceway. Reaching for her spell book, Lúthien stopped in midmotion feeling something wet and sticky underneath her hand. Holding up her palm, she looked at her hand in confusion.
“Why was it red?” Looking closer at the dark marble floor, Lúthien realized the stuff was everywhere. Twisting around, she followed the red trail down the corridor with her eyes sniffing her hand unconsciously. Freezing, she immediately recognized the metallic scent. It was blood!
Rising to her feet in a daze she trailed the smeared blood down the corridor. Rounding the corner, she followed the path into her father’s library as if in a trance. Entering through the doorway, Lúthien came to a sudden stop as she saw her mother’s blood-soaked face staring back at her. Rushing to her mother’s side, Lúthien dropped to her knees gathering the broken body in her arms. Ragged sobs shook her as she rocked back and forth silently screaming. Her mind numb from shock.
Lúthien could barely see through the tears streaming down her face as she gently turned her mother over. Her skin was cold to the touch and her body stiff and hard. It was her grandmother’s death all over again. Squeezing her eyes shut, Lúthien wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders rocking back and forth on her knees. “Ma’ma … Ma’ma … Ma’ma …” Lúthien tried to cry out for help, but only choking sobs came from her mouth, each one painfully racking her body more than the next as she moaned in anguish. In her heart, she knew no one could help. Her mother was already dead.
Lúthien didn’t know how long it took her mind to start functioning again. Wiping her tearstained face with the back of her hand, she froze suddenly realizing that most of her mother’s lower body had been ripped apart!
“Hhhuuurrrggghhh!” Turning green Lúthien heaved the contents her stomach as she saw the bloody gnawed pieces of her mother strewn across the marble floor in front of her when she became aware of loud feeding sounds filling the room. Eyes wide in fear, Lúthien looked up in horror.
“Aaaiiieee-“ Lúthien’s blood curling scream cut-off in mid-shriek as she fell backward over her mother’s mangled body, eyes bulging at the corpse-white creature covered in blood sitting before her. In the beast’s gory hands were the mutilated remains of her cousin, Princess Amaurea Celebrindal. Unbelievably, she watched the creature rip Amaurea’s still beating heart from her shredded chest. Again loud smacking sounds filled the still room as the monster shoved the bloody morsel with relish into its fanged maw. Finishing off the chunk of flesh with a loud slurping gulp, the creature’s guttural voice suddenly broke the silence.
“Ahhh, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to taste her succulent flesh.”
In terror, Lúthien crawled backward until her back clanged against an armored leg. Looking up in shock, she saw one of the King’s Ironidium Knights standing at attention. Lurching to her feet, Lúthien tugged at the Knight’s armored shoulders shrieking.
“Kill that monster!” Looking back once more at the humongous creature ripping her cousin’s face off with its teeth, Lúthien cried out in anguish as she screamed into the Knight’s shiny visor. “What’s wrong with you? That beast killed the Queen and is now eating my cousin. Why aren’t you killing …”
The words suddenly died on Lúthien lips as she noticed the full complement of the King’s Guards standing at attention around the room. Staring at the unmoving Knights a cold shiver ran down Lúthien’s spine as the creature’s grotesque guffawing laughter rang out behind her.
“Your mother’s screams of terror tasted so sweet.” Licking a leftover chunk of gore from its claws, the beast continued hauntingly. “You know she begged for me to spare your life until I ripped her heart out.” Standing to its full height of nine feet, the creature smiled wickedly. “How could I do that when I’ve waited so long to taste your sweet flesh? I just hope you taste as succulent as you look.”
Seeing the confused look of horror on Lúthien’s face, the monster’s guffawing barks of laughter echoed throughout the room. “What? Don’t recognize your loving father?” Still laughing, the creature’s corpse white face suddenly began transforming. A second later she saw her father’s reflection looking back at her atop the beast’s mutant body.
“Nnnooo!” Springing to her feet, Lúthien shook the shoulders of the Knight as the monster’s horrible laughter echoed around the room. “What’s wrong with you?”
Running to the next nearest guard, she screamed into the Knight’s armored face. “Why aren’t you helping us?”
“You can scream all you want, but it’s useless. They only listen to me now.”
Spinning around, Lúthien backed up fearfully until she felt the cold stone wall of the library pressing against her back. Shaking her head in denial, she watched the beast close its long clawed hand into a fist of triumph.
“I now control the Ironidium Knights!”
With a shriek, Lúthien lunged for the doorway. Running as fast as her legs would go, she headed for the courtyard. She had to find Warden Morwen! Looking over her shoulder at the clanking sounds of armor, she saw two Ironidium Knights fly around the corner chasing after her. Lúthien knew if she could get to the secret passage she could get away. Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Knight-Captain Valandil walked up the steps in front of her. Screaming in panic, Lúthien came to a sliding stop wrapping her arms around the Knight-Captain’s armored waist in relief.
“Knight-Captain Valandil, they’re going to kill me!”
“Princess, what’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to save me!” Seeing the approaching Ironidium Knights, Valandil drew his sword protectively pushing Lúthien behind him.
“Halt! What is the meaning of this?” Coming to a stop in front of the Knight-Captain, the knights sheathed their swords as the nearest spoke without inflection.
“The King has commanded that the Princess be brought to him in the library.”
Lúthien felt Valandil body suddenly stiffen at the guards words. Incredulously, she watched as the Knight-Captain sheath his blade. “What are you doing?” Brusquely shoving her in front of him, the Knight-Captain roughly grabbed Lúthien by the upper arm. As he began dragging her back down the corridor, she pleaded with him not to take her back.
“You’ve got to believe me, Valandil. These knights are traitors!” As the two Ironidium Knights fell in behind them automatically, Lúthien screamed trying to get him to listen. “Don’t let them get behind you, they can’t be trusted!”
Looking into Valandil’s eyes, Lúthien’s cries of protest died on her lips. The slacked jawed expression on his face made the blood run cold in her veins. Fearfully, she began struggling to break out of his powerful grasp. Inexorable Valandil dragged her back to the corpse-white creature in the library wearing her father’s face. The beast’s evil red eyes glowed in wicked glee as the Knight-Captain came to attention in front of him. Without batting an eye, Valandil saluted holding the Princess out for him to take.
“My liege, I have delivered the Princess by your command.” As the tears ran down Lúthien ‘s face, she looked back and forth between the Knight-Captain and the horrifying creature in despair.
“The good Knight-Captain cannot hear your cries, sweet Princess.” Seeing the stricken look on Lúthien’s face, the monster’s guffawing laughter filled her ears once more. “Oh, I’m sure somewhere the real Knight-Captain is trapped inside watching helplessly as his body betrays him, unable to do anything to stop himself from following my orders.” Lúthien watched in horror as the beast reached into the pouch at its waist. Carefully it pulled out a green glowing crystal shard between two of its long sharp claws cackling evilly.
“This, little Princess is what makes them mine.” Before Lúthien could react, the creature stepped forward in one smooth motion. Grabbing her by the throat with its long clawed hand, the monster lifted her into the air in one smooth motion.
Choking for breath, Lúthien beat her small fists against the beast’s muscular wrists as its long tongue licked the side of her face. In a low guttural purr the creature spoke tauntingly into her ear. “I’m going to enjoy ripping the flesh from your bones as you scream your pretty little head off.”
“Aaarrrggguuusss tooo meee!”
Hearing the screeching war cry echo throughout the room, Lúthien did the first thing that came to mind. Reaching for to the magic that she’d worked with her entire life, Lúthien grabbed the creature’s massive wrist with her small hands. Focusing her will, she gasped out a word of command with her last breath.
“Rafmagns Hendur!”
Chapter Six
Location Earth / Larissa Evans:
At first, they had all thought Thera had erupted once again, but slowly they came to the realization that the flaring discharge of crackling energy shooting out of the hole in the lava dome was not a new volcanic eruption, but something entirely different. The massive electrical discharge lasted for almost an hour and instantly shorted out every electronic device in the area.
For an eruption, normal emergency evacuation procedures dictated the Triumph pulling away from the island to a safe distance off the coast of Santorini, but with their current situation, that had proven to be impossible. Every electrical device on the ship was completely dead. Even the emergency lights were non-operational.
When Larissa had first found Sean MacRory, the Captain was bellowing at the top of his lungs at his Chief Engineer, Kane McDougal. At first, she thought the two men were going to come to blows over the dead ship, but Tony of all people suddenly diffused the argument. Oblivious to the danger, the young man interrupted Captain MacRory’s explosive tirade as they approached with a question that shocked the older men out of their tense standoff.
“What happened to all the lights on the island?”
Looking around, they all suddenly realized nothing had power. Not the capital city of Fira on the ridge above the lagoon, not the other cities that sat on the rim of the lagoon, not even the three cruise ships docked at the nearby port of Athinias. Even the battery of Larissa’s CX Swiss Army Dive Watch had completely lost its charge, and it was supposed to self-charge from her body’s natural motions. Everything around them was pitch-black except for the bright fountain of lightning shooting out of the Nea Kameni lava dome.
It wasn’t until an hour after the unnatural discharge had run its course that the crew, under the direction of Chief Engineer McDougal, were able to get the generators back online. The renovated World War Two cargo ship still had hand cranks in the engine room to manually recharge the batteries, which the Chief put to good use. They had been installed during World War Two to help ships recover after U-boat attacks. Unbelievably enough, even though they hadn’t been used for over half of a century, they were still fully functional.
Once the ships engines were back online, they were able to get the massive diesel generators that powered the Titan XI’s systems running once again. Initially, the plan had been to recover their equipment and fall back to a safe distance before making a decision on how to proceed, but once their systems came back online, everything changed. Tony was in the process of carefully strapping himself back into the Titan XI’s control harness when Sharon loud exclamation threw everything into chaos.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Furiously, Sharon began clattering away at her system’s keyboard as she yelled over her shoulder. “Sara, I need you to take a thermal reading from your terminal, NOW!”
Stopping in mid-tear down, Sara looked up in surprise. “I thought we were breaking down?”
Ignoring the question, Sharon turned back to her screen as Larissa came up behind Sharon’s station a second later. Scanning the data on the terminal before her, Larissa’s face froze in shock. The thermal reading of the volcano was now the same ambient temperature of the surrounding rock. Her mind whirling, Larissa looked up from the screen to see the rest of the team’s questioning looks. Considering the implications of the data, she came to a decision.
“We’re not breaking down people! Sara, I need those thermal reading now. Glenn, tell Captain MacRory that there has been a change of plans. We are not pulling out. I want the ship’s crew to set up a base camp at the lip of the lava dome here. Larry, I want you to get on the horn with Satellite Imaging Corporation. I need to speak with John Jones now.” Seeing the stunned looks on her team’s faces, Larissa slammed her open palm on the table in front of her with a loud s
mack. “Get moving now people, we have work to do!”
“Holy crap!” Tony’s exclamation cut Larissa off in midstride as she whipped around in surprise. During the entire time she’d been working with the young man, this was the first time she’d ever heard him swear. “Nara you’ve got to see this!”
Annoyed, she nodded for George Nordic to put Tony’s display on the main screen in the tiny control room as everyone on the team paused what they were doing to take a look. The screen momentarily darkened as Tony repositioned the robotic arm so that the light lit up more of the dark chamber, but a second later the fisheye camera lens was back in position. As light splayed out across the massive chamber, there was a low gasp throughout the control room as everyone’s eyes locked onto the large curved horns reflecting from the bull shaped heads on the humanoid shaped bodies far below. All of them recognized the inhuman creatures immediately. Minotaurs of legend perfectly preserved in what appeared to be a semi-clear quartz-like crystalline substance for all these centuries.
The Minotaurs were still frozen in place, locked in some titanic battle that must have started over three thousand years ago. In amazement, Larissa’s voice broke the stunned silence of the control room. “Bloody hell, we just hit the jackpot!”
Chapter Seven
Location Irlendria / Startüm Ironwolf:
Starfire’s first thought was to wonder why she felt so hot. It was as if she were burning up from the inside out. Her second thought was to wonder why she couldn’t breathe. Weakly lifting her head, she realized what was wrong.
Why would Momma leave her lying face down in the snow? Feeling light headed, Starfire sat on her knees bewildered. Her whole body felt terribly wrong. Looking down at her hairless arms and five fingered hands, she froze as the memories of the last twenty-four hours suddenly came flooding back to her. Tears streamed down her face as she remembered everything. The Pack slaughtered by demons. The sickening sounds of her littermates smashed to death against the rocks of Winter Heart. Mother hiding them under her ruined body as she slowly bled to death in the deep snow under the dead demon. The sadness was almost too much to bear!
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