Cradle of Darkness

by Tom G. H. Adams

  Dieol joined them as his thunder-troops jogged past and advanced on their elusive quarry. “Stay close, Your Majesty. One stray bolt and you will fall. Let us press home the attack, and our soldiers can overwhelm them with weight of numbers now their archers are defeated.” He stepped in front of Etezora, shielding her with his body and, seemingly for the first time, took in the poses of the dead Dragonians lying in their piles of mangled corpses. “By Phydon, what has happened here?”

  Etezora’s face broke out in a secret smile. “I told you I would deal with them. But rest assured, I haven’t finished yet.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Tayem’s hair whipped behind her as Quassu beat the air with his wings. Mahren flew close beside, her sullen face all too obvious to ignore. They had covered the thirty periarchs from Wyverneth at high altitude in only a half hour yet it seemed an age. Every minute that passed saw Tayem’s fury increase. As her host of dragons approached the edges of the wasteland that was once Lyn-Harath, she grew dismayed at what she saw.

  The Cuscosians were advancing like a swarm of loathsome arachnids, assaulting the western border of the Dragonian sacred forests. She saw fires burning on the plain and the dead and wounded littered like refuse over its surface. The closer they got, the more it became apparent that what they witnessed was fast becoming a rout — and her loyal troops were on the receiving end. It wasn’t certain how they fared underneath the canopy of trees, but if the number of Dragonian slain was any indication, the prospect was not good.

  Time to change that, she thought.

  Cistre’s ayku formed a separate squadron further to her right while Beredere’s dull-coloured contingent of skeredith made up the bulk of the force behind.

  They could do little to aid their forces in the forest itself, but the hordes that still pressed on the forest border were quite another matter. She gestured with her hand in a downward motion, signalling the Imperial Host to lead the whole cohort into a dive.

  Quassu pulled in his leathern wings and Tayem tightened her harness, leaning forward to lower the air resistance. To ride the wind like this was always a thrill beyond measure, but to understand that she was leading the largest mobilisation of dragons since the end of the Marrowbane war added a sense of gravity. The ancient maxim of vs’ shtak, learnt in infancy, echoed in her mind:

  If a dragon you provoke, ‘twil end in fire and smoke.

  The prospect of a firestorm was remote. Enthusarr had yet to breathe her first gout of fire, but they could still inflict untold damage. Their approach meant they would appear to the Cuscosians diving out of Sol-Ar’s gare. The opportunity of surprise would be with them — so she hoped. As long as the dragons maintained discipline and did not shriek their rage.

  As Quassu fell like a stone, the wind blew so strong in her face it caused Tayem’s eyes to water. The Cuscosian figures blurred in their outlines and she gave her trust to Quassu and his protective transparent eyelids to guide them to the enemy. The noise of dragon-wake was too loud for him to hear anything she said, but a gentle tweak of the hair sprouting from a crevice in his hide would tell him the attack strategy.

  When he was but one hundred spans above the heads of their quarry, Quassu spread his wings and he pulled from the dive, sweeping over the bewildered cavalry, legs extended. His bulk, smashing into their bodies threw many from their horses while his talons picked up half a dozen riders from their saddles. Tayem drew her bow as Quassu ploughed a furrow through the sea of Cuscosians. She loosed ten arrows before the dragon finished his sweep, each finding its mark, guided by Hallows witchery.

  As Quassu rose to the heavens again, dropping the screaming Cuscosians to their deaths, she took a moment to glance back. The combined fury of forty-eight dragons was causing carnage amongst the Cuscosian troops. Particularly jaw-dropping was the impact of Enthusarr. Mahren had goaded her to carry a heavy, rounded boulder from the heights of the Whispering Mountains and she had released it to roll like an unshaped dice, crushing a dozen Cuscosians before it came to rest. Her massive bulk overwhelmed scores of soldiers, the abrasive hide flaying outer layers of human flesh to the bone as it brushed against man and horse alike. The impact of that one dragon was devastating.

  Tayem knew the next sweep would not deal as much death. The Cuscosians would scatter or dig themselves into cover on the edge of the forest, but their strike had served its purpose. The onslaught of Cuscosian ranks on her ground troops in the forests had been stemmed, and they now had a chance to fight back on their own terms.

  Quassu approached the enemy on a trajectory more perpendicular to the forest this time. His passage killed less of the Cuscosians but she brought down more with her bow, loosing arrows every second in a supernatural blur of motion.

  This is incredible. Something impels every muscle, every fibre. I feel invincible. And as she emptied her second quiver, Tayem beheld the purple colouration that accompanied the flight of each shaft. One, she noticed, passed right through the chest of one victim and embedded itself in the neck of another.

  What bewitchment possesses my archery?

  But she knew the answer, deep in the marrow of her bones — and she was lost to its insidious influence.

  Quassu stalled his motion and alighted in the ebony dust of the plain just shy of the forest border. If the Cuscosians thought they were safe in the woods, they had reckoned without the might of a dragon’s tail. The skeredith were smaller, better employed in picking off further exposed soldiers on the plain, but the Imperial Host scuttled round and whipped their tails against the bachar trees and thisthorns, felling them and crushing the complacent troops dug in amongst the undergrowth.

  That was not the end of it. Once the imperial dragons had inflicted their carnage, they gave way to Cistre’s ayku, more serpent-like in appearance with long, emerald snouts. They slunk forward, their riders sheltering behind the stunted legs of the beasts. Ignoring the pinprick strikes of Cuscosian crossbow bolts, they lifted their heads then brought them forward, opening their snouts and releasing jets of caustic saliva that showered the hapless bowmen.

  Fyredrench. One drop of the corrosive liquid was enough to burn through the strongest armour and eat its way into the vulnerable flesh beneath. Many received a complete dousing by the effluvium, reducing their bodies to a heap of blackened, smoking sludge in seconds. To die in this way was not a good death.

  A roar to Tayem’s left indicated that Enthusarr had made good her gamble to rouse the dragon from her slumber. Her forelimbs, moving like colossal iron pistons, battered the trees, pushing the Cuscosians deeper into the forest and sandwiching them against the lithe, elusive Dragonian wood-warriors. Tayem knew her forest-ghosts would capitalise on the Cuscosian panic.

  This is turning the tide, Tayem observed with grim satisfaction. She stepped out from Quassu’s shadow, confident the Cuscosian archers were on the run and jogged forward to the woods, glaive in hand.

  If you’re in there, Etezora, I am coming for you.

  24

  A change of fortunes

  The complete transformation to his true form was a moment of great magnitude for Zodarin. It might be his spirit-form, but he knew with prophetic certainty that it was also his core essence in the realm of the Near To. There will be a time for transcendence, he reflected, but for now this is more than enough. He gazed at his transformed body, marvelled at its strength and vitality. To mortals it would be grotesque, but they were limited in their vision and appreciation. To him this was beauty incarnate, bequeathed on him by his progenitor. His skin glistened in the Dreamworld glow, absorbing the air along with his alien lungs to oxygenate haemolymph that coursed through vessels as thick as pipes. All at once he understood his previous yearning to be bathed in water, to be submerged and to luxuriate in its cold embrace. This was his culmination — his becoming.

  He strode forward, remarking that his steps were no longer those of the furtive wolf, but the regal stride of a lord — Ith di wurunwi. His heightened Hallows perception had located the qua
rry, and there was an urgency in his pursuance. He had a numinous sense that something was amiss in the battle waged on the plain of the Near To, and his workings in this realm would be pivotal.

  He had sensed them on previous sojourns in this realm, always dispersed and unreachable due to their nature and lack of activity. But now they were gathered, concentrated in one place, performing their dance in a manner that sent ripples through the realm of dreams.

  He ascended a small incline, and once he stood on the crest of the hill, he beheld them in their true glory. They moved gracefully, regally in this bowl between the hills. Their scales flashed blue, green and scarlet and for a moment they mesmerised him. He understood the ultimate obligation of the hunter completely now — to respect and dignify, even as one contemplated the death of one’s quarry.

  Consider your actions, came the voice next to him. He was surprised that it had taken this long, but at last he was confronted with the form of the Spirit Guide, astral yet imposing in its presence. The creature resembled some hooved animal, yet possessed scales and certain avian features. He had never encountered this being, yet knew of its existence from Wobas.

  Zodarin smiled, knowing that the inward expression did not translate to his form’s outward features. I have planned my strategems for many decades. Do you seek to avert what is to come?

  The Spirit Guide turned to him and fixed him with a gaze that would have challenged even the off-worlder’s mesmerism. There is a cost to every endeavour — whether high-minded or low, it said.

  Indeed there is, Zodarin replied, but the Black Hallows changes everything, and we both know how it has swelled in influence these past days.

  You cannot see everything, off-worlder.

  I know what you are doing, Zodarin said, now stand aside. We both know you cannot stop me, and the time has come.

  The wizard didn’t wait for a reply but surged forward down the hill toward the dragon troupe. He was the current, the swell of the tide, the irresistible essence of the amioid.

  He projected his limbs as he closed the distance, and though it was an unusual sensation, it was also preternaturally familiar. Multiple tentacles uncoiled in a similar manner to Etezora’s ethereal Hallows fronds and they whipped toward the nearest dragon, constricting around its neck and chest, asphyxiating it as it struggled to the floor.

  The others turned to face the threat, bringing their senses to bear; but they were engaged in battle on another plane, distracted and therefore weakened. Even as the first dragon took its last gasps of air, further tentacles unwound and snared two other dragons. Zodarin could sense the life essence removed from the beasts as they died and wondered how soon their demise would translate to the Near To.

  As he waded through the throng, listening and revelling in the roars of pain and anguish from his quarry, he rode a wave of exhilaration. It was augmented by purple Hallows energy such that he deemed himself invincible.

  Then he noticed it. When the fourteenth dragon fell — the largest of the troupe — there was a diminution, a sapping of force. He staggered for a moment then recovered himself. There must be enough to complete the execution, he thought. He struck out at an iridescent dragon, but this time when he brought it down the fatigue caused him to stumble.

  No. I would slay my due!

  But he could not deny it. If he continued, then he risked the dissipation of his core. As he lifted himself up, he saw the Spirit Guide observed all that transpired and, though he couldn’t be sure, there was a glistening on its cheeks, as if it wept.

  Curse your self-righteousness, Zodarin said. One more. Just one more, he implored whatever higher gods there might be.

  As if in answer, he saw a smaller dragon, limping and separated from the rest, rooting about on the periphery of the dance. A runt? It would have to suffice. He closed the distance and bore down on it, summoning the last of his energy into flailing tentacles. The diminutive beast looked up too late, yet where Zodarin expected to see shock and horror, he simply observed resignation and sadness. Die then, pathetic wyrm, he hissed, and wrapped his tentacles around the thing’s neck.

  But the wyrm-avatar was not to die this day. Zodarin felt it like an injection of malignancy — one touch that would change his destiny, an infusion of pestilence transmitting itself from the beast. He cried out in dismay and pain as he stared at the dragon-avatar’s visage.

  What is this?

  An avalanche of fatigue then consumed him, draining his essence with a poison plague, and as he slumped to the floor, he heard again the words of the Spirit Guide.

  There is a cost to every endeavour.

  ~ ~ ~

  Blood drenched Tayem. It formed a slick glaze on her skin, penetrating into the crevices of her leather armour and coagulating on her cuirass and glaive-shaft. Yet still she did not desist. Her blade, edged with a crackling violet glow, hacked through arms, pierced bellies and sliced flesh. It seemed nothing could arrest her destructive swathe as the surge of power within her body buoyed her up. Cistre fought close by, slashing her victims with two-bladed efficiency, warding off attacks to Tayem’s flanks and rear. At times they fought back to back, and Cistre’s undying loyalty seemed to cement itself on that battlefield. It extended beyond the oath she had taken sols ago, becoming something even more solemn and transcendent. Through the flurry of flashing blades Tayem caught occasional glances from her bodyguard, glances that spoke of duty, sacrifice and … and what?

  Yet even as the Queen felled her victims, three others rose to take their place, protecting the one who was the object of her bloodthirsty reaping. The Cuscosian Queen was being spirited away by her guard, slumped against her troll as if wounded. What has happened to her? I hope she is not mortally afflicted — it is I who should put an end to her.

  Tayem roared in anger, a bestial fury that erupted from her lungs — the cry of a berserker.

  Tayem, spoke someone from some distant place — a voice familiar yet faint.

  She withdrew her glaive from a corpse and thrust its vengeful tip into the abdomen of another combatant. The Cuscosians fielded both men and women on the battlefield — unlike the patriarchal Kaldorans — yet Tayem slew both without remorse. They were all but chaff to her reaper’s blade.

  “Tayem.” This time the voice was closer. Mahren.

  “There is something amiss with the dragons. Can you not hear it?”

  Tayem steadied herself on the pile of bodies under her feet and looked back through the greenery.

  It was true. Above the clamour of battle she heard gargantuan bodies thrashing in torment, and worse than that: roars of anguish, the like of which had never assailed her ears before.

  “We must return to them. They need us,” Mahren said. She too had slaughtered many. Cuscosian blood caked the sword she held loosely in her hand, and her shield was dented in numerous places, evidence of a bloody combat that had lasted a mere twenty minutes.

  “But Etezora,” Tayem said, “she flees the field. If she escapes, then the Cuscosian figurehead still remains.”

  “Do what you must,” Mahren said, battering aside a half-hearted attack from an infantryman with her shield, “but I must go to the dragons.” She didn’t hesitate, bounding away from the arboreal battlefront and back to the blasted plain.

  A sudden weariness came upon Tayem in that moment of pause, as if Hallows energy leaked into the earth from her. Whether it was this or a deeper sense of loyalties, she took one last look at the disappearing Cuscosian Queen and sped back to her dragons.

  As she cleared the tree-line again, heart beating in her ears, she witnessed what would come to be known as Sventar vs’ shtak — the Massacre of the Dragons. Five beasts lay motionless in the dust; a further ten appeared to be in their death throes, including Enthusarr. Her torment exemplified the suffering of all the dragons. Her head thrashed from side to side, and a sound like that of a thousand screams rose from her throat.

  The Dragon Riders in attendance made futile attempts to calm them. One had been cr
ushed by an ayku, the only visible part of her being a tattooed arm protruding from beneath a scaly corpse.

  Tayem rushed forward and grabbed Beredere by the arm. “What is this? How are they slain?”

  The Donnephon lieutenant stared at her in shock. “I know not,” he stuttered. “It started without announcement. None of the enemy were close, no missiles fired. The dragons simply recoiled as from an invisible attacker.”

  “It is some fell magic,” she uttered, “and we have no defence.”

  Mahren appeared in front of Tayem, tears mixed with the battle-grime and blood that streaked her face. “Fifteen dragons dead or dying,” she said, unable to contain her reactions. “It is an abomination. Who … what?”

  Tayem was not immune to battle-shock, but she was also Queen of the Donnephon, monarch supreme. It was occasions like this, although unprecedented, where it was incumbent upon her to rise above the dismay and panic — and lead. “The Cuscosians are re-grouping from both sides, and they still outnumber us. We must rally.” She cast her eyes around and searched to see if Quassu had fallen, every nerve preparing her for a weight she might find impossible to endure. But there, over on the periphery of the annihilation, she spied her mount, valiantly confronting a host of Cuscosian spearmen.

  She reached for her horn, wiped blood from the mouthpiece and raised it to her lips. It galled her to sound it, for this meant a recall from the battlefield, an ignominious defeat. But it was the correct strategic decision. She looked at Beredere, who nodded his agreement then sounded the horn — one short blast followed by a longer sustained note.