Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1)

by Benjamin M. Piety

  Chapter 33

  THE GRAVE OF CARVIN

  Drawing closer to the stonetin, Bernard and Sanet catch sight of a tenfooters’ march camped across the grassland almost a mile away. Barwolves wander through rows of oversized tents, with some rolling and others trotting over the heads of the tenfooters, who duck beneath their crossing bodies. Bernard leads Sanet and their getwishes toward a large boulder away from the camp and ties off the tall freks so they can move in closer without being seen. As they step through the thick, dimly lit blades toward the noise of the camp, they pick up bits of conversation.

  With relief, they discover that Wellion is at the minor inside the stonetin where they all believe Carvin’s Grave lies. Throughout the camp, tenfooters offer conflicting thoughts in their discussions about whether Wellion’s ability to resurrect Carvin is even possible. Most seem assured it is. Some of the tenfooters want to move in before he’s able to release the ardroke, but the stonetin’s defenses, now in the control of the twofooters, would likely send most left. Fear that Wellion is planning to complete the ritual this very evening permeates through the camp. And there are no disagreements that the ranpart’s only reason to initiate these skirmishes from the Misipit state line to the Carvingian coast was to seek out and conquer Carvin’s Grave.

  After listening for a half hour, Bernard and Sanet return to the getwishes. “Looks like we know where we need to go.”

  “But how do we get inside?” she asks.

  “Back into the grass and then over there, I’d reckon,” Bernard whispers, pointing to the back of the stonetin, where flickering red lights emit from a line of thin horizontal openings carved near its base.

  She nods and they guide their getwishes away and around the tenfooters’ long camp. As they pull closer to the stonetin, its magnificent size rises farther into the air, growing larger and more impressive with their every stride. Atop each of the four towers, dozens of twofooters pace back and forth, taking stock of the Land beneath them.

  “We should drop into the grass,” Bernard calls back as he hops down from his getwish.

  Sanet agrees, stepping off her own. The minor she’s in the blades, her getwish makes a high-pitched squeal before tumbling backward, shot in the neck with an arrow. This startles Bernard’s getwish, who legs itself into the blades beyond, leaving Bernard and Sanet plunging to their stomachs, hands over head. Shnite!

  Looking up, Sanet slinks over to Bernard, and he takes her by the hand. After a triple count, he nods, and they stand and begin running, keeping the prominent stonetin in their sights along the tips of the grasses above. Every few steps, arrows shink past their shoulders and legs.

  Bernard offers, “I think they’ve spied us.”

  “We’ll lose them ahead. Hopefully.”

  They continue to run and—after what feels like forever—find themselves reaching the stonetin wall. The structure is colossal, with gray bricks built on bricks, each five feet tall. The overgrown grass grows all the way to the stonetin’s foundation, allowing Bernard and Sanet to remain partially hidden from where they’ll begin climbing.

  “Look there.” Bernard points. Above them, twenty measures upward, is the row of openings, presumably light and air holes. “Ready to climb up this brick?”

  Sanet nods, following Bernard’s lead. He steps up to the wall, reaches for the first block, and digs his fingers into the crack. Hand over hand, he climbs with ease. Not a single drop of sweat. Sanet follows behind, using the holes left behind by his stone fingers, keeping her eyes directly above for any down-looking twofooters.

  Bernard reaches the window first and helps Sanet with the last few feet. From the opening’s ledge, they view a glowing red stonetin lit by hundreds of torches. An oppressive heat blows past them into the darkness behind them. Brute finishes climbing and perches on Bernard’s shoulder. The hall ahead is empty, though they still wait a major before dropping in. When they do, their impact echoes across the corridor. Sanet points ahead to a doorway, and they scamper across the spacious hall and then dive into the relatively small room. Immediately they notice how every object and furnishing stands nearly twice its normal size, including doors and torches, and tables and chairs. The effect is dizzying.

  This antechamber looks to be a document room of sorts lined with shelves and shelves of paperwork. The room itself doesn’t appear to have been used for many years, with dust and debris collecting on the papers. Everything in the antechamber is designed near twice in size. Sanet peeks out in the hall once again, looking down the long corridor. Still empty. She motions to Bernard, and they sneak out, sliding along the wall, keeping low, and attempting to minimize their footsteps’ echoes.

  Halfway down the hall, they come across a grander room where columns around its center mark a descending, half-crooked staircase. The walls inside this room present an enormous relief carving of a large, four-armed frek, each hand holding a substantial block hammer. Echoes of movement ascend from below. Sanet and Bernard continue until they reach the head of the large staircase, where they observe exaggerated shadows moving across the lower floor and walls. Sanet eyes Bernard, who acknowledges what she’s seeing. They begin stepping down the tall staircase.

  It’s not long before an underground chamber comes into view, and they witness the shadows and bodies of twofooters and crimson men alike, all facing inward. Sanet scans this outer room and spots another overlooking ledge, similar in style to the earlier one. Slowly and cautiously, they step toward it before climbing the jutted wall protruding at the foot of the staircase. Upon reaching the upper ledge, they take their first glimpse of the space below.

  Ranpart Cadwellion is in the middle of the chamber and stepping toward a tall cube-shaped tablatur. The entire room is populated by hundreds of varied bodies: twofooters on artificial legs, a few others without, crimson men. Paulo and some of the crew members are there as well as Ethan, whose hands are tied in front of him. At either shoulder stand familiar guards of Cadwellion’s, one male and the other female. On the far end of the room stands a small tent with eight guards surrounding it. The tent is red, similar in hue to the cloaks of the crimson men, and an ornate letter Y is sewn on both sides of it. Cadwellion demands beholding as he steps up to the high tablatur and addresses the crowd.

  “Bodies of Misipit, heroes of the Land, we are gathered here to commence the first stage of our unification.” At this word, the crowd cheers. “For too long, the Land has grown perilous without a leader. Without a ruler to keep us free from the tyranny of our coming oppressors. Your Roar, your voice, has arrived!”

  The crowd cheers again, their focus and heads turning toward the tent. From it a small boy, no more than six years old, emerges. He wears a deep red veil over his face. The boy walks about ten strides in front of the tent and then raises both arms, sending the crowd into a remarkable fit.

  Cadwellion chants, “The advent of the Roar brings the union of the Land. The advent of the Roar brings the union of the Land.”

  Everyone continues to cheer and shout, repeating the chant at the boy.

  And then the boy speaks, in what feels a practiced cadence, his voice small and quivering. “I, Yannick, am your servant. I will protect you from our enemies. I will bring the Land together. I am your Roar!” He holds his hands up again, and the crowd is sent into even further fervent chants and hollers.

  Sanet turns to Bernard. “I thought this Roar was a baby. Wasn’t he found only a few months ago?”

  Bernard shrugs, his face growing angry. From the crowd, Paulo steps forward, pulls a knife, and tosses it at the boy. The audience gasps in amazement as the knife whizzes by them and then stops midair. The boy is unaffected, unmoved; across the room, Cadwellion’s hand is outstretched, the small glass orb floating beside him. Paulo screams, pushed to his knees by an unseen force. The knife, still floating in the air, spins and points at Paulo. It slowly begins gliding toward him, and he squirms and struggles against invisible bonds. The boy turns away and returns to his tent while a sile
nt crowd watches breathlessly as the knife reaches Paulo’s throat and pierces through without slowing. He gurgles and spits blood, and when sent left thumps to the ground.

  The air is chilled. Where minors ago everyone felt energized and eager to celebrate, a darkness now looms over the attempted assassination of the small boy curamed Yannick.

  Cadwellion scans the room, then asks, “Are there any other defectors among us?”

  Sanet has a notion to say something. For too long she has sat along the coastlines, letting the sea’s tide wash over her. Wellion stands there, vulnerable, and it is time to act. But something inside stops her, a voice telling her to wait. That her safety is more important than vengeance. When have I ever feared my sending? She senses Bernard’s muscles tense at Wellion’s call but holds him back.

  “Not yet,” she whispers.

  Wellion looks around the room, and Ethan steps forward. Ethan, you cog man, what are you doing? He raises his bound hands.

  “This is madness. Resurrecting an ardroke is madness. Their only use is to destroy everything.”

  As Ethan pleads for sanity and logic, the crowd begins to hiss. Wellion steps closer to him. Surprisingly, the female guard steps between Ethan and the ranpart.

  “Don’t hurt him,” the woman shouts.

  “Amil, don’t!” Ethan reaches forward, grabbing her by the arm just as Wellion rips her away, twisting her body and flinging her across the room. Sent.

  Ethan’s eyes well and he falls to his knees.

  Wellion sneers through his teeth, wiping his bleeding nose. “My dear acolyte, have I taught you nothing? Has history taught you nothing? We are on the verge of the total annihilation of mankind. We are not destroying it . . . we are saving it.”

  Ethan looks up at Wellion, fury in his eyes.

  “Flam to stand up to that friend like that,” Bernard whispers. “Brave, but flam.”

  “It is no matter, acolyte. Your short-sided perspective has no bearing here. Does it, my bodies?” Wellion raises his hands and receives a welcoming agreement. Cheers and shouts. “Now, for the unification.”

  From the opposite corner of the chamber, four guards carry a considerable chest. The crowd quiets as the guards step across the large hall and set the chest down beside Wellion, who has returned to his place before the front of the cube-shaped tablatur. The guards step to either end of the tablatur and pull on two large rings built into the stone and wood. It snaps apart, sending a deep boom throughout the chamber. The crowd stiffens into nervous hums of awe and fear. As the tablatur opens, it reveals a large brass orb with a serpentine chunk missing from its side. The orb floats in the air above a large hole, once hidden by the tablatur. The orb is almost ten feet in width, just a fraction smaller than the hole it floats above. Once each side of the tablatur is pulled clear, the guards stand back. Their faces look outright terrified. Wellion’s sharp yellow teeth appear in a thin, twisted smile.

  He steps over to the chest and opens it up, pulling from it what is clearly the missing piece of the orb.

  “He’s about to do it,” Bernard states. “What are we going to do?”

  Sanet doesn’t know. It feels too late. They’re too high; there’re too many others. They’d never be able to run down there and stop him. And the six pieces, the three they found and the three Wellion gathered, are already together, too large to carry out single-handedly.

  “I don’t know.” The helplessness overcomes her again as well as an instinct to protect herself over anyone else. Who is she? A woman without a past believing she could somehow alter fate and lead a revolt with an old man with broken fingers. Instead, she sits in silence. In wait as it unfolds before her.

  As they watch, Wellion uses his glass orb to float the soon-to-be-unified seventh fragment into place within the larger brass orb. Anticipation sweeps across the crowd as the piece draws closer and closer to the orb. Then, without fanfare, within a whisper, the piece moves into place with a clean clinking snap. The crowd doesn’t react. Breathless. Fearing something about to happen. Wellion steps forward and puts his elongated fingers across the now-smooth reunited brass orb. He begins to whisper something in an old language. Sanet glances over at Ethan, who begins to step backward into the crowd, as if prepared to run. Wellion continues to circle the orb, chanting something under his breath, his eyes now closed. The guards have all stepped back.

  The orb begins to sink into the hole under it. This causes a stir in the crowd.

  “What’s happening?” someone shouts.

  Wellion doesn’t answer but instead continues to caress the orb with his fingers and chant with his eyes closed. The orb continues to descend, farther and farther into the floor, and soon, it falls out of Wellion’s reach. He opens his eyes. “It is done.”

  With these words, the guards suddenly react. Two of them run into the tent and take the boy Yannick. The remaining guards, some within the crowd, some near the ranpart, all turn on the twofooters and crimson men. They attack, shooting and slicing them down. Blood and screams fill the entire chamber. Sanet covers her mouth in shock. Bernard’s eyes widen.

  “We have to go now,” Bernard states.

  There’s no more time to wait. Sanet pulls her crossbow and flicks the switch on top, igniting one of the bolts. She aims squarely for Ranpart Cadwellion and pulls the trigger. The bolt fires across the chamber but freezes before hitting him. Cadwellion spins in place as the bolt falls innocuously to the floor. He points to Sanet, and she suddenly feels her insides being pushed. She falls backward off the ledge. Bernard catches her as she slams her back against the wall below, losing her breath. Out of Wellion’s sight, she regains feeling in her body and reorients to gain a grip on the wall.

  “I have it.”

  “Wisnok. I’ll come down after you.”

  She lets Bernard’s firm grip go and begins descending the wall. Above her, Bernard fires his rifle. To her side, Brute is clinging to the wall, and below her, she hears the screams and running footsteps of crimson men and twofooters alike. She can see a few of them. Some are blood-soaked; others are carrying bodies already sent left. It’s complete bedlam, bodies pushing past each other like a tumbling river just as the entire stonetin starts to reverberate. Huge stone bricks from above crash down onto the staircase, smashing against some of those trying to escape, causing even more screams and yells. Sanet reaches the ground and pushes against the crowd, trying to get into the main chamber. She sees Bernard finally making his way down.

  Inside, the bulk of the crowd has escaped the large room, but there are no signs of Wellion. Guards and twofooters are still fighting what looks to be an uneven match. The guards are much more skilled, taking out four or five twofooters at a time. The crimson men are in even greater shock. They’re young bodies. At the major, Sanet feels apory for them. Eager, flam coinhires betrayed by Wellion without effort or strain. He treats everyone the same. With complete disregard of their lives. More brick and dust come tumbling from above, filling the air with a thick fog.

  “Bernard! Ethan!” she screams into the chaos.

  Bernard grabs her by the shoulder. “We should get that brass.”

  “It’s already done. We have to leave.”

  “No. You brought me here, that’s what we’re going to do!” Bernard exhorts her over the yells and screams.

  “How?”

  He doesn’t answer. Behind her, there’s a pronounced crash in the wall of the stonetin, and the crowd shifts its focus. Tenfooters, mounted on barwolves and carrying gigantic axes and hammers as well as spears and guns, smash through, causing a huge wave of air to billow into the room, dropping its temperature. The smoke quickly clears as Sanet turns her attention back to Bernard, who’s made his way to the large hole in the ground, where streams of blood drip down below like rivulets. He jumps in and disappears. Brute follows behind him.

  “Bernard!” Sanet runs forward, trying to catch Bernard, who almost immediately rises upward, Brute on his shoulder.

  Some of the others
witness this, and it becomes clear after a major that Bernard stands atop a platform rising from the hole. The platform, too large for the small opening, slams through the floor, causing everyone to react in shock and fall backward, fearing what’s taking place. The crash makes Bernard bend over, holding tight onto the light-tan platform as it continues upward out of the hole. The higher it rises, the more its true form becomes apparent.

  It’s a hand.

  Sanet steps backward. It’s real. The hand, followed by a wrist, bends downward, causing Bernard to jump clear and roll shoulder over waist on the ground. Brute leaps forward into the crowd and zips in and out of the scattering legs. Sanet tries to hurry toward Bernard, but the large hand smashes down between the two, positioning itself as if something below is ready to climb out. At this, the entire clash devolves into a retreat. Twofooters, guards, crimson men, tenfooters all turn to cover. The ground beneath them cracks.

  Sanet runs around it and jumps over the growing fissure. She pulls on Bernard, who stumbles up, shaking his head. “We have to go. We have to run.” She looks down into the fissure and catches her first glimpse of the monstrous size of the ardroke below. “Bernard, run!”

  Chapter 34

  OVERTURE OF THE DARK VALOR

  Dust clouds discharge from the stonetin as the panicked crowd emerges, climbing up from the underground chamber into the grasslands above. The setting sun transmits a muted cerise red across the burning prairie. Sanet, shuffled within the crowd, turns to catch her first glimpse of the colossal frek still pulling itself from the ground below. After an entire arm surfaces, clawing for a nearby column, shattering its outer layer of brick, a second arm appears. It drives straight for the same column, bricks tumbling in its wake. Together, they pull the frek out—and what appears is wholly unnatural. It is repulsion incarnate wrapped in vulgar strands of fur braided into a thousand smaller ones and creating an endless hypnotic loop.