Darkstone - An Evil Reborn (Book 4)

by Guy Antibes

  Savages ran up and engaged with the troops. Rocks began to pelt the troops. The natives used slings and clubs. It appeared that they possessed few edged weapons. That was consistent with what Vishan had learned long ago from his old mentor Sulm.

  A rock zinged into the carriage past Daryaku’s helmeted head. Vish wished he could have been the one to teach the savage how to make a sling.

  The straight rows buckled on the periphery and faded into the swirls of hand-to-hand combat. Cavalry rode from the front and the rest and began to descend on the Ayrtan natives. As soon as the conflict erupted it settled down. Slings were distance weapons and the natives’ clubs were not match for steel swords and pikes.

  “We’ve taken prisoners, Your Eminence.”

  “I’d like to interrogate one. If we could turn these beasts to our side, it might improve our chances,” she said.

  The carriage stopped and they got out. Vishan examined the native through her eyes. His hair, eyes and skin all looked to be about the same shade of dusty brown.

  “Wash him off,” Daryaku said. Two water skins were poured over the dusty skin and the savage suddenly looked more like a man. His hair darkened. His eyes retained their muddy color and his skin became tan, but stretched thin.

  “Can you speak?”

  The savage looked at her with defiant eyes. Her words obviously didn’t register as he nervously cast his eyes from man to man. Vishan could sense Daryaku reach into her memories. She spoke a few words in a far different language than the one he spoke.

  The savage’s eyes widened. His words mimicked hers.

  “I can’t get much from him. The language has changed in a few thousand years,” she said. “An unavoidable tragedy.” Daryaku motioned for them to take the savage away.

  Unavoidable? You made this man and generations of his ancestors into what they are. What happened to them? You know, because you caused it. You cursed an entire continent!

  “The nexus became inactive through the creation of the Darkstone. It was a worthwhile exchange because I had to have the ability to live again,” Daryaku said, shrugging, once they were back in the carriage. “Without the nexus, the land became barren and these people couldn’t exist as they once did.”

  How advanced was Ayrtan when your father made it his capital? Vish said.

  “Not quite as advanced as Goriath is now. We invented steel, paper and machines of various sorts. No one bound books as you do now, but Ayrtan was the most advanced civilization of the four continents at the time.”

  And you destroyed it so you might become Emperor again.

  “Anyone powerful enough to withstand the Darkstone would be of a status to help me regain my position in the world. Remember, Dakkor is only a stepping stone.”

  You’re about to miss the others. What makes you think after going through all of your battle sorcerers that you can prevail against the Ropponi? Even Besseth’s forces can still defeat you.

  “That’s what you think. With the Purestone, I can rob the Ropponi Guild of all power. Their bureaucracy will crumble and I will pick up the pieces.” She huffed and adjusted their robe, looking at the restored columns marching out from the carriage.

  Do you realize what has happened in Besseth? They have obliterated your elite Dakkoran forces. Your very best warriors, those with enhanced weapons and armor. Defeated. Vishan could sense her anger building.

  “Enough of your talk. Be gone!”

  Daryaku banished Vishan. Another little battle won. He had no desire to watch an army march to their ruin. He didn’t wish to awake again. His people. His fellow soldiers marched to their deaths. He lamented their passing in his own little way.

  ~~~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ~

  DARYAKU DRANK WINE ALONE IN THEIR TENT. She idly put out their hand and produced a sorcerer’s globe, letting the globe change colors and flicker in the darkness like she did every night on their trek. It helped her relieve the boredom. Suddenly it yellowed and dimmed. She grabbed the Darkstone and found it harder to locate the other Warstones.

  “Get me General Bishyar!” she said, standing and producing a number of globes and watching them all dim.

  The general ran in. Vishan could feel the anxiety that Daryaku felt, but he didn’t know the source, he vaguely knew about the sorcerer’s globes.

  “I want you to test the battle sorcerers power… now!” She turned around, grabbing the edge of her robe to let it billow around her. She had done it more and more. The tension seemed to bring out her more feminine characteristics.

  Don’t you say a word, little prince, she said putting a hand to their chin.

  You told me before that power didn’t exist in Ayrtan, and you simply can’t recharge, Vishan said. You lose your battle sorcerers and it’s the skilled, battle-tested Bessethians in an old fashioned clash of arms. No power to tip the battle one way or another. Is that it?

  Daryaku growled. “That is it. Now that you’ve rubbed my nose in my mistake, go away.” She snapped her fingers, but Vishan remained in her mind.

  Was I supposed to go away? Her loss of power gave Vish a jolt of excitement. She was genuinely upset.

  She screamed in her throat. She snapped her finger again and again. Vishan kept up his banter until the General walked into the room.

  “We have a problem, Your Eminence. The sorcerers’ powers have weakened, some significantly.”

  Daryaku thought furiously. Vishan could nearly hear her mind whir in panic. “Take our forces west and find a defensible location. I will take the sorcerers back to Dakkor and regain our power. I will require five hundred horsemen to accompany our sorcerers back to the ships. We will be passing the supply wagons, so we can get food and fodder from them. Do not engage the Bessethians if they appear on Ayrtan. I doubt if they have yet turned their eyes to this continent.”

  Six hundred men and a few women headed east. Daryaku rode a horse. The carriage would slow them up. Vishan restrained his gloating, but he kept reminding Daryaku that she couldn’t banish him from time to time.

  The time that they had spent traveling two-thirds across Ayrtan was cut in half going the other direction. Daryaku and the rest of her nearly one hundred sorcerers painfully hobbled around their hastily set up camps at night as they only stopped to rest the horses.

  Daryaku went on a tirade when she learned her party would have to wait a week for the next ship. They sat in their commandeered tent. Daryaku could only bring up a small dim light, which she quickly extinguished.

  Vishan tried to move some part of his old body and succeeded in making their right index finger jerk.

  “What have you done!” she said, looking at her hand.

  I’ve made my finger move! My finger!

  Vishan felt her grimace, faintly as if through thick padding. “We will start to accumulate power as soon as we are at sea. Enjoy your little tricks, for they won’t last long,” she said with much venom, but underneath it all Vish could feel the concern she felt. Without so much power, the veil between their minds had thinned.

  He enjoyed the tiny bit of control that he could for a few days until a ship came. Their two-week trip to Dakkor proved Daryaku right. Before they sighted land, she had snapped their fingers and Vish involuntarily retreated into blackness.

  ~~ ~~

  ~

  PART TWO

  ALL FORCES CONVERGE

  ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BESSETH

  ~

  THE ALLIANCE MET A FINAL TIME AT THE TRAVELER’S REST. Excitement filled the air. Anchor reviewed the order of battle. Lessa guarded the mountainous west. Lotto and Restella would move Valetan troops from the North. Anchor would bring the southern alliance forces from the dukedoms. Peeron would guard the approach from the East. Gensleran troops under Duke Jellas’s son, Morio, would be spread out in the border keeps as a reserve to the Northwest between Sally’s Corners and South Keep. Everyone agreed.

  Princess Sallia, exiled from the R
ed Kingdom, stepped up. She flashed a look at Anchor and a smile and spoke. “I’ve given this speech before, but I would like you to be reminded that you fight my people who have no enmity towards you. Please remember that. Treat them well, for I must deal with the soldiers and their families when all of this is over. Anchor has been successful in turning a number of Histron’s forces back to our side. Send a Ropponi here and I will happily go into the field and show men from the Red Kingdom that if they fight for us, they fight for the Bloodstone. The honest men of my kingdom will respond to that. They must.” She clenched her fist around the pouch at her neck. She put her hand on Anchor’s arm and smiled again looking him in the eyes.

  Anchor cleared his throat and coughed. “I’ll want Ropponi teleporting regularly so that we can communicate as we go. One of our great advantages is that we can instantly maneuver as circumstances permit. We begin tomorrow. Give your men a good night’s sleep. Unless Histron has hidden an army somewhere we don’t know about, I don’t see how we won’t be walking the streets of Foxhome in a month’s time.”

  He shook all of their hands and wished them well as they walked out of the meeting room or winked out. He waited until they had all left before he shoved his copies of the battle plans into his satchel. He’d like to see Sallia one more time before a Ropponi took him far to the South. Shiro would be spending the night with Chika in Sally’s Corners. She would stay to protect the princess.

  “Unca?”

  Anchor turned at the familiar voice. “Willow.” He smiled. She looked like a comfortable old memory come to life. “Sally told you that she knows?”

  She nodded. “She has, but I didn’t tell her that I already knew.”

  “I’ve tried to keep my situation a secret for all of this time. I hope you haven’t minded.”

  “You’ve sent me a letter or two telling me you’re still alive and I’ve kept them from Sallia as you instructed. I won’t have to hide anything anymore, will I?”

  He held her by the shoulders. “No, you’ve done a wonderful job with her. In a way, I feel that I’ve been an uncle and you the aunt, trying to raise our orphan niece.”

  “She’s more than a niece to you, though, isn’t she?”

  Anchor grit his teeth. He didn’t appreciate this conversation with Willow. It reminded him of how old of a man he was inside. But he didn’t know what ruled him, his heart or his head. He didn’t feel old at all. “She is and it disturbs me. I find it hard to be in love with my king’s daughter. I’m old enough to be her grandfather.” He couldn’t help but sigh, but he had confided so many things to Willow that it felt natural. “Don’t you tell her.”

  “You look a few years older than Sallia and I know that she’s in love with Anchor,” Willow said. “She respects Unca and she’s as confused about you as you are about her. Can you stay young as Anchor?”

  He buckled the straps to his satchel and pulled out a chair for Willow and another for himself.

  “Maybe. I found an old book that talked about the Warstones—the Bloodstone in particular. When I made myself young, I lost my magic. In order to get my power back, some other sorcerer will have to use the Bloodstone to do it. Only then will I become Unca again. I don’t even know what that spell would be like.”

  Willow put her hand on Anchor’s arm. “Then don’t give a sorcerer the opportunity. Unca should never return. He’s gone, transformed into a different person. Even if you regain your power, you’ve done things that you thought you could never do as a wizard. You always told me that King Billeas was always the brains and you were his sounding board. Now you have the brains and, from what I understand, you haven’t needed much help to sound things out.”

  Anchor smiled. “Not true. Shiro and Tishiaki have been my sounding boards. I consulted with Lotto, Mander Hart, Duke Jellas and that rascal, Armand Lessa. I’ve gotten help from all kinds of people.” He hoped that would change the subject. Discussions regarding his relationship with Sallia made him weary. He’d gone over every alternative relationship with Sallia time and time again in his mind. Each attempt to come up with a solution had failed. “I’ve learned that everyone always need help and I’ve had plenty of it and a large share of luck.”

  Willow laughed. “You’ve always made your own luck. Just enough, every time.” She gave him a sideways glance. She knew he just tried to change the subject. He never could fool Willow.

  “Perhaps,” Anchor let his eyes twinkle like he used to. “It’s so good to see you. How is my holding? I’ve resisted visiting it.”

  “Just the same except my son spirited away most of your supplies last winter.”

  “There should be enough funds left for you to keep it going. Do you need more?”

  “I know where your stash of money is. You were the one to show me, remember? It’s kept Sally and I alive and in new dresses all this time. There is plenty left.”

  Anchor squinted at Willow. “I’m glad. If something happens to me, I’ll tell Sallia to make sure you have it all. You’ve had the use of my house for all of these years, you might as well own it.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” Anchor said. He rose and Willow did the same. He gave her a long hug. “Thank you.”

  He picked up his satchel and went to say goodbye to Sallia. He hoped it wouldn’t be as emotional as this talk with his favorite housekeeper.

  ~

  “I want to lead all charges,” Restella said, once Lotto and she were transported to their camp, a number of leagues to the South.

  “Feel free,” Lotto said. He’d had this conversation with her before and it only made him weary. The woman was obsessed with glory and nothing else. The link meant something to her at the beginning, but now? He shook his head. “I’ll run with the rangers, like I always do.”

  “Good. Now let’s look at the battle orders again.” She walked towards the command tent. She slept there and Lotto stayed with the rangers under the command of Gully Workman.

  After their session of going over the battle plan, yet again, Lotto ended up eating with his rangers.

  “You don’t need her,” Gully said. “All she does is mess with your mind.”

  Lotto took a spoonful of stew and swallowed. “It seems I have no one else. Sallia knows who Anchor is and I am definitely out of that picture.”

  “As if you ever really were in it,” Gully said. “Princess Sallia is not one for likes of us. We are too much individualists.” He smiled and poked around in his bowl. “Admit it. You don’t want to sit in a throne room hearing disputes about lost cows and cuckolded husbands, do you?”

  Lotto nodded his head. “You’re right. As long as we fight, I’m comfortable here, but what happens when we prevail and Besseth is at peace? I don’t know where I’ll fit in when that happens,” he said.

  Mander Hart walked up. “Did I hear you don’t know where you fit?” He sat down and took Lotto’s bowl and sniffed, made an ugly face and gave it back. “You fit in right where you are, a ranger and still under my command. That has never changed since I snatched you and Gully from the mines. I don’t have any more control over Princess Restella than her father—”

  “And you think I do?”

  Mander nodded. “Didn’t you just go over your part in the re-taking of Foxhome with her?”

  “I did.”

  “So who else was there?”

  “Just the two of us,” Lotto said.

  Mander spied small lump of bread on a tray and took it. He broke off a piece and put it in his mouth. “Better.” He looked at Lotto with more intensity. “She didn’t invite me and, technically, I’m second in command. Now why do you think that is?”

  “You intimidate her and I don’t.”

  “True. So I want you to make sure that you will tell me if she comes up with any changes to the plans. Despite your difficulties with the woman, she still is willing to go over the battle plan with you. That means, despite it all, she trusts you. If you don’t like what she proposes, if it’s
something you don’t like, tell her. She’ll pause or accept your changes. Even if she doesn’t like you, she still respects you, no matter what her mood or how much she hates your link. The damn woman won’t tell me a thing.” He got up slowly and slapped both men on their shoulders. “Don’t forget me, if you think up something that you know I won’t like. I want the opportunity to say no before you go ahead and do it.”

  “Yes, sir!” Gully said, with half a grin.

  “I didn’t mean you, Workman. You just listen to Lotto and watch his back.” Mander’s eyes twinkled.

  Lotto just nodded. Mander had given him enough to, hopefully, let him sleep. Tomorrow they would be on the march and the rangers were the point, regardless of who rode in front of the much slower moving army.

  ~

  Shiro looked up at the tent ceiling. Chika kissed him on the nose and lay down by his side.

  “You are ready for tomorrow?” she said.

  “It will be our easiest day. In two weeks, Histron’s main army will try to stop us.”

  “Us, huh?” she said. “It’s our fight? We aren’t Bessethians, yet.”

  “They are our friends, Chika. We have fought by their side. They have lost theirs and we have lost ours. At the least, we owe it to those who have gone on to meet their ancestors. I think of them, every one. We have fought valiantly, but it’s not over when we retake Princess Sallia’s Foxhome.”

  “Ayrtan. Our fate lies on that continent. Mistokko still claims that the Dakkorans will invade Besseth from that direction. I agree with Anchor on that, it makes the most sense. Foxhome secures Besseth for the Bessethians. I’m not certain where we go when this is over. But we have enough offers to be confident we can settle in Besseth. Perhaps Happly or lands in southern Learsea. I’ve been to both places and we can find a place to make our own.”