Ren of Atikala: The Empire of Dust

by David Adams

  His horrified expression told me everything I needed to know.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s a legitimate question,” he said. “And the answer is clearly, unequivocally, no. I haven’t. You would know, because when the magic fades, the target is aware that their mind was magically altered.” He pursed his lips in thought. “Which is exactly what someone who had used that kind of magic would say…”

  “You should have stopped talking after that first bit,” I said, giving him a comforting squeeze. “I know you. You wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Good.”

  We stood in silence for a moment. “Why did you ask me here?” I asked.

  “Is it not enough that I miss you?”

  I snorted playfully. “A mighty dragon misses Ren of Atikala?” I was so small, and despite my magic, just a kobold. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “I am not,” he said, leaning his head in against my shoulder. “By the way, nice armour.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I made it myself.” Well, no, I should tell the truth. “I mean…the enchanting. The smiths did most of the work.”

  “Anyone can use a hammer to shape metal. It’s the magic that is the key part.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I shaped it myself, too. I just meant…the straps and things.”

  He pulled his head back, blue eyes shining. “Really? You don’t give yourself enough credit for your accomplishments.”

  “What about my mistakes?” I asked. “The central spire of Ssarsdale burned down.”

  “It was burnt.” Tyermumtican fixed his eyes on me. “Not passively, as though by elemental forces, but actively. By Contremulus and his agents. It was no accident, no natural disaster. He did this.”

  “And what should I do in return? Contremulus attacks Ssarsdale in ways I can’t even anticipate. His footsteps are slow, but I feel them drawing nearer. He has a move he hasn’t made yet…and I can’t see it for the life of me.”

  Tyermumtican said nothing for a moment. We stood there, arm in arm, surrounded by stone and nothing.

  “Fight him,” he said. “Strike where he is weak and avoid him where he is strong. Flee when overmatched, and play to the defender’s advantage. The authoritarian uses fear and power to control his enemies. Take away that fear, that power, and they are undone. Use this to your advantage.”

  “I will.” I turned that over in my head.

  “Are you okay?” Tyermumtican said, his words snapping me back to the moment.

  “Yes,” I said, shaking my head. “Sorry. It was nothing. I was just…thinking of the battles ahead. I don’t know enough about humans.”

  “You’ve met some,” he said. “Was that not helpful in educating you?”

  “Very, and yet, I still feel inadequate. I learnt a lot about how they live but not how they fight.”

  “Humans usually win wars,” said Tyermumtican. How comforting. “So you have set yourself against a mighty foe indeed. They might lose battles, but in the end they stand above all others. There is a reason they are the dominant force on the surface. Their methods are varied—numbers, equipment, subtlety. It matters not. There are so many humans not because they breed fast, or because they are smart, or strong, or wise, but because they are cunning. They are flexible. They adapt. That is what brings victory. A good trick you can only use once, but humans are constantly coming up with new ones.”

  That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “So…how do we beat them?”

  Tyermumtican tilted his head. “I didn’t say I could tell you that. Simply how they win.”

  “How have you beaten them, then, in the past?”

  He smiled widely. “I didn’t say I had.”

  Of course he hadn’t. I blew out air through my nose and settled my chin on Tyermumtican’s shoulder. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

  “Asking me for my opinion?”

  “No, I mean, this. This war in general.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “I somewhat feel that I should.”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Do you want to change your mind?”

  I almost—almost—said yes. “I don’t know,” I admitted, and I cuddled up against him some more. “I want to stay here. I don’t want to go back to Ssarsdale.”

  “I know,” he said, hugging me around the middle with his hands. “But you have your duty.”

  “I do.” I sighed and pressed my lips to his. “I’ll… definitely see you later, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  We stood there for some time. Just…standing. Enjoying the quiet.

  “I should go,” I said.

  “You should.”

  “But I don’t want to.”

  “But you should.”

  “But…”

  He kissed me between my eyes. “If you keep saying it, we’ll be here forever.”

  I inhaled slowly, breathing in the scent of him. The smell of the tunnel. Its earthen clay floor and stone walls. I could live here forever. “Would that be so bad?”

  “What would we eat?”

  I smiled. “You’re asking silly questions. I’m sure you could conjure up something.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  More silence. More hugging.

  “I should go.” This time, I meant it. “The humans press us from all sides. I have to hit back at them.”

  “Then do it,” he said, gently slipping into the darkness of the lower tunnels and away.

  CHAPTER XVI

  DERODOHR AND I WORKED FOR many hours. We sharpened the detail on the map, we discussed matters of strategy and strength, and although many hours passed, I did not feel tired. The magical properties on my armour were truly amazing.

  “Do you not rest?” He asked, curiosity dripping from every word. “It has been nearly a full day, and yet you are as attentive as you ever were.”

  I was reluctant to reveal the truth to him. I needed to trust him, certainly, but what could be gained from telling him of my armour? “I am motivated by the suffering of my people and the desire to destroy my enemies.”

  “Boldly stated,” he said, “but you should consider sleeping at some point. You should be fresh if your people have need of you and your magical talents.”

  “What about you?” I was deflecting. “You’ve been awake as long as I have, or longer.”

  I am bound to this plane as long as my mistress is awake, and she has preventative magics that remove the need for sleep… Yet you do not have this talent, and I can smell the frailty in your bones.” His large nostrils flared, taking in air. “But yet, I do sense something about you…some reason you do not tire.”

  I glared at him, curling back my lips, exposing my teeth. “We will discuss this, at length, in time.”

  “Of course,” said Derodohr. “When our task to slay Contremulus is complete, and the Worldcrown is parcelled up between us.”

  “Then,” I said. “And only then.”

  Derodohr went to speak, but glanced over my shoulder instead. The tent flap was open. I hadn’t even noticed. Ilothika stood in the threshold.

  “Leader Ren,” she said. “Reporting to you. Mission complete.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Mission?”

  “Yes,” she said, “at human village.” Her eyes flicked to mine. Suspiciously.

  “What were you doing there?” I asked, feeling a sudden surge of anger. “You made no mention of this to me.”

  Ilothika dipped her head. “I informed you. Problem. You said handle it.” Her tone carried an ominousness that chilled my blood. “Mission was accomplished.”

  “Wait here,” I said to both of them. I grabbed the amulet out of my belt pouch and stepped out of the tent, soaring into the air and past the gates of Ssarsdale, carried on wings of flame that beat with a growing panic.

  I knew what had happened.

  I knew it in my heart as I climb
ed out of the city. Out of the tunnels. Out into the bright light of the surface and saw the column of flame rising towards the bright night sky, glowing red at the base.

  I knew it, yet I still didn’t believe it until I saw it for myself.

  The village was gone.

  Kobolds were monsters.

  It had taken me all of my short life to make this simple realisation. I had wondered, sometimes, if the gnomes saw us as twisted and evil as we saw them, but that question had been answered in a single scene. I stood in the face of evidence I could not refute.

  My entire species were monsters.

  I walked through the cindered remains of the human village, the bodies of its citizens lying here and there, kobold spear wounds marking their bodies. Fathers trying in vain to shield their children. Mothers, weapons in hand, cut down where they stood. As a kobold, I no longer recognised them; they were faceless corpses, able to be identified only by their dress, their skin tone, and the colour of their hair.

  Berad the woodsmith, dead. I found his body hacked to pieces near the centre of town.

  Aleria the tanner, dead. She rotted in a ditch, a half-dozen kobold spears poking out of her back.

  Down the street, past the charred skeleton of The Witty Fox, Serren lay in front of the fireplace, badly burned, dead. The raiders had smashed down the door of his inn, held him down, then slit his throat. Kyrina and Reeve lay crumpled beside him, their guts cut out and splashed on the wooden floor, dead. Then they’d set fire to the place.

  Varsen, the head of the watch lay face down further down the road, dead.

  Alexi, Vaelys, Katria, Leran, dead.

  Tyastra and Pree lay on the south side of the city surrounded by a circle of kobold bodies, their razor sharp elven weapons still in their hands, dead. They had clearly been caught unawares, without clothes or armour, and I could see that I had mistaken the genders of the two elves—they were males—but it didn’t matter. What set of reproductive organs they had possessed had done them absolutely no good, because Ssarsdale’s warriors had cut them both down.

  The rancid stink of the dead mixed with the bitter smell of charcoal from the burned out houses and a savoury scent that made my nose tingle. Blood, and lots of it.

  I found a long crimson trail that led to the barn near the outskirts of the city where I had been imprisoned during my first visit.

  Within I found Ferland. Berad’s son. He had put up a mighty struggle—his body was a gory mess, opened in dozens of places by needlelike kobold spears, but not even that was enough to finish him. The kobolds had left him to bleed and crawl to this cold barn to die in a process that must have been agonising.

  Very dead.

  And it was all my fault.

  Orcs don’t cry. Sharks don’t cry. Kobolds, they often said, don’t cry.

  I cried.

  “This isn’t my fault,” I said to the empty nothingness. “None of this is my fault.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Tzala, her voice coming from air.

  I squinted. With a wave of her remaining hand, Tzala’s invisibility faded. Beside her, Dorydd too faded into existence. They had been here all along. Watching me.

  Waiting for me.

  My mother was angry. Still angry from our fight, possibly. I had expected as much the next time I saw her, and I was ready for that, but I was not prepared for Dorydd. Dorydd’s face was iron. It showed something I had never seen, a tightness around the eyes, a dyke holding back a wave of anger.

  “You are Ren of Atikala,” Tzala said, reaching up and pulling the necklace off her throat. Her form shifted and blurred, then reappeared as a gnome. Her true self. “You forged your own destiny.”

  Truer words were never said. I just stood there.

  “It’s time I left,” said Dorydd. “The visit to my homeland has made many things clear to me. I should return.”

  “Go? But we just returned.” I stared at her. “When will you be back?”

  “I’m not sure when I can be by your side again,” she said, her tone carrying with it a sense of finality. “I may not come back for some time.” She paused, struggling with some internal conflict. “In fact, I mean not to.”

  “But I need you,” I said. “The dwarves of Irondarrow. They speak in languages I cannot understand. You are part of them, one of them. You are the bond that—“

  “I care not for the soldiers of my homeland, and I never did.” She folded her arms defensively. “I left that place because of the rot that dwells within it. Women and men obsessed with control. How ironic, is it, that I would spread that rot to another place…to you.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re mad, Ren of Atikala.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Look around you!” Her voice carried in the quiet night air. “Look at the ruin you’ve brought on these people!”

  “It wasn’t me!” My tail lashed behind me. “It was Ilothika! She acted without my order, sent the warriors to attack this place, it was my aim to—”

  “And yet the deed is done,” said Tzala, her quiet voice full of contempt. “Your actions led us to this.”

  I couldn’t believe it. My closest friend and my own mother were turning against me.

  Betraying me.

  “Of course,” I roared, fire surging in my belly. “You seek to pin this on me regardless of my words, of what I tell you!” I jabbed a finger at my mother. “How do I know you did not orchestrate this yourself?”

  Both of them said nothing. Behind me, I felt rather than saw, movement. So many quiet feet that to even the wide expanse of the surface could not hide their movement.

  A hundred Darkguard, weapons in hand, kneeling quietly in the snow.

  Impressive, said Magmellion in my mind, his voice crackling and sizzling. I could feel his admiration. His pride.

  “Is this how it ends, Ren?” asked Dorydd, her voice even. “You set your assassins on us, now? You should know I will end more than my fare share of them before they are through.”

  “No.” I would never, ever do that, but the accusation stung. My voice faltered. “Why? Why would I do that? You know me.”

  “It seems,” said Tzala, “neither of us truly do.”

  That was the last piece of it. “If that’s how you want to be, then begone! Out and away from here, backstabbers! False friends! If I catch either of you in my sight again, I’ll burn the skin from your bones!” My shouting echoed around the ruins of the village.

  “As you wish,” said Dorydd, turning away from me and walking through the snow, her head high and her stride purposeful. She did not look back.

  “There will come a time,” said Tzala, her face stained with tears, “when you, Ren of Atikala, Ren Humansbane, Ren the Leader, will chase away your last friend. Your empire shall come to dust, your body will fade and break, and you will be truly alone.”

  “That day is not today,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder. As one, the assassins of the Darkguard stood, weapons raised. They walked around me, past me, a sea of kobold spears aimed at Tzala, advancing towards her, warding her away.

  She, too, with one last despairing look, turned and walked away from me, leaving me surrounded by a legion of assassins and bodies.

  “We did well,” said Valen, slipping out of the crowd to my side.

  “Our warriors died in droves,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. “And some of our best, too. Darkguard…Ilothika sent a hundred Darkguard, all to slaughter a bunch of human villagers.”

  “The losses do not matter,” said Valen. “They will be replaced. The breeders will have their work cut out for them.”

  Snow began to fall all around. “It’s time we sent a message to Contremulus,” I said, raising my voice. The only humans I cared about were dead. “Darkguard, fan out and find all similar settlements as this one. Burn them all. Do not give him a home to go to; do not give him supplies to eat and shelter from the cold. Burn everything from here to Northaven.”

  The Darkguard did not waste time. They chattered a
nd clicked amongst themselves, keeping their voices impossibly low, then they spread out. Groups of twenty. They knew where they were going.

  “We should return to the underground,” I said, “and prepare for our next move.”

  “We should,” said Valen, and together we turned our back on the ashes of Ivywood and made for the tunnel back to Ssarsdale.

  “Fewer losses this time,” I said, as I put foot in front of foot on the way back to Ssarsdale.

  “Yes.” Valen smiled his agreement. “Progress.”

  I wasn’t sure about that. I agreed, technically, but losing less than anticipated was not an ideal position for me to be in at this position in the war.

  We chatted as we walked. Down and down and down, into Drathari’s soil, back the way we came. I could make the journey faster now, since I was so familiar with the path. The underworld was full of tunnels.

  Sooner rather than later, I found myself outside Ssarsdale’s gates.

  “I’ll have them open the doors,” I said to Valen, patting his snout.

  He pushed my hand away. I think, for a moment, he resented being treated as a child. “Don’t bother,” he said, tail swaying behind him. “I can get myself in just fine.”

  “You know a way into the city?” I glared at him. “You little beast.”

  “I know lots of things,” he said, flashing his teeth. “Ilothika teaches me.” And then he slipped away, back the way we came.

  I watched him go. He was growing almost by the day; I had barely noticed him in the crowd of Darkguard on the surface. He seemed to be one of them. Going out on missions.

  Had he killed as part of the attack? That thought suddenly bubbled into my mind. I hoped not. What’s done was done, but…

  It did not bear thinking about. I would ask him later.

  I activated my wings, and I flew a few feet into the air.

  “I am Ren of Atikala,” I called to the massive gates. “Open and let me pass.”

  “You might want them to wait,” said a deep voice behind me.

  Tyermumtican. Not as Pzar, the kobold, with white scales and a playful smile, but as a massive wyrm copper dragon. And there was no smile on his scaled face at all.