A Flutter In The Night (Kyrn's Legacy Book 1)

by Michael S. Gormley

  He whipped his left arm to the handle of the glaive, fully breaking the already damaged bones in his elbow, and sliced through the electrifying blue light that connected Kyrn and the woman in black. He watched her stumble backwards, and with one last smirk, she sent a pulse-wave of the red magic straight through his very being.

  ***

  Kyrn, still on his knees, sat now in some vast desert. The air was humid and muggy, and he was still being pelted by the shrapnel carried by the wind—now tiny beads of sand. He didn’t know where she’d sent him, nor did he know if he’d ever again be able to track down the Dark Ones. He no longer knew whether or not he was even fully elven, or if he’d been transformed into something impure and evil. He did know, however, the only way to save his granddaughter was to kill what she’d become.

  ***

  When Kyrn fully awoke in his cabin aboard the Sea Maiden, he jumped from the bed and pressed his ear to the thin walls. Magmi and Biddledur still sat up, late into the night, telling hushed tales of their travels and adventures. Kyrn slumped to the floor, back against the wall. He was truly awake now, free from his dream, memory, whatever it’d been.

  He wouldn’t be going to sleep again soon, that he knew. That, he was thankful for.

  His mind wouldn’t work properly, not until he’d had time to process what he’d seen; which parts could be true, that he could believe. How had King Ezroch managed to save his mother after all, perhaps Kyrn would never know the answer.

  He decided he wouldn’t bring his visions up to the old wizard in the room next to his.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Storms in the West Lands

  Days passed quietly on the Sea Maiden. Each night, Kyrn and his party feasted with the ship’s captain and his crew, though they never learned a single name. It’s safer that way, the captain had told them. It had stormed every night, since the rains began to fall upon Havenport’s docks, and the flustered sea steadily rocked the ship. Kyrn and Brailen kept mainly to their cabins, though, night after night, they’d seen the halfling sneaking into Magmi the Great’s room, desperate for more of his stories. It was as if Biddledur had his own personal lore master. For the duration of his journey, it seemed he had.

  When they heard the captain shout words of land, like music to their ears, the party raced to the ship’s deck, and they stood at the bow, overlooking the West Lands. Nearly all of them for the first time.

  A jungle, denser even than the forest of Castrolyl, stood as a thick perimeter around the mainland. Kyrn wasn’t able to see even the docks where they were to anchor the Sea Maiden. The night was full and dark when they’d come to the West Lands, but the moon found its escape from the dark rainclouds and cast an eerie glow over the canopy.

  In the distance, a spiraling storm cloud twisted above the jungle, just further in from the mainland. The clouds turned violently, isolated only in one area. As they churned, they glowed the brightest green Kyrn had ever seen. It surely wasn’t natural, that he knew.

  “What is that?” he quietly asked Magmi.

  The wizard leaned upon the bow of the ship, his pointed brows curled with a sorrowful gaze. “Something I have not seen in many, many years,” he answered.

  The captain raced along the soggy deck of his ship, shouting to his deckhands. “We shan’t be here long, boys!” he yelled. “Get ’em dry and we’ll meet the seas soon enough!” They did as he commanded, and not long after the ship drifted beneath an alcove of red rocks and thinly-curved trees.

  Kyrn felt as though the drooping trees were reaching down to him, ready to pluck him from the Sea Maiden’s deck. He marveled at how easily the crew seemed to careen the ship through the low overhang. Before long, the canopy of the jungle devoured what was left of the night’s darkened sky, and they were fully submerged underground, drifting briskly through a cave.

  A light shone from just ahead, over the bow. And, over the slushing waters beneath them, Kyrn could hear deep, grunted voices. “Are we welcomed?” he asked, now standing next to the captain.

  “Dunno about me and mine,” he said through an unsettling grin. “Though, per yer Aldir, ye and yer’s are expected.” The master left Kyrn alone at the bow of the ship, returning to his shouts and commands.

  ***

  Kyrn thanked the captain, but he quickly rushed the party off and onto land. Though his situation was one none would ask for, he was truly grateful for the shipmaster. Being near Kyrn was enough alone to put the entire crew of the Sea Maiden in great peril. Still, they’d overlooked anything they may have inquired from Aldir and spent nearly a half-week on the Grey Seas with them.

  Kyrn stood again, with his party behind him, on the wooden docks of lands completely new to him. He breathed the air, not tasting a difference in the West Lands. The cool, mist-filled air crept into his lungs, and he was pleased with the thick jungles sheltering them from most of the trees.

  A rustling came from the trees before them, and two large creatures stepped from the jungle. They moved quickly, spears held alert, towards Kyrn. He clenched ever tighter to his glaive as he studied their strange features. They each stood nearly two feet higher than a fully-grown man of Grimmrich. Pitch black ponytails stood straight towards the sky from the tops of their heads, falling down to their backs where the elongated, wooden braid no longer held it in place. Their shoulders seemed broad as an elk’s antlers, and a single arm alone could crush Kyrn beneath its weight. Their chests were bare, and they were only clothed from the waist down, adorned in hide-like pants and metal boots that rose to their knees.

  “Orcs,” Kyrn whispered. “Is that why the West Lands have been forsaken?”

  Brailen leaned in close, not wanting the approaching orcish warriors to hear them speak. “More so the wars that trail them,” he said softly.

  The orcs were upon them, and one lifted Kyrn by the back of the shirt. The other gripped Brailen’s arm fiercely, and they pulled them along the docks inside the dimly lit cave. Neither seemed concerned by the old man or the fairy-like creature at his side.

  Kyrn saw the veins of his glaive begin to glow, and he closed his eyes and breathed slowly. When he peeked again, they had ceased.

  The orcs carried them along the wood-planked path, slowly thinning out as it progressed through the cave and out into the jungle. The trees above were filled with fruits of the West Lands, and drops of rain splashed Kyrn’s face. “Where are you taking us?” Kyrn asked, his voice sounding slightly hoarse.

  “Quiet!” the orc holding him shouted. His voice came out low and loud, like boulders shattering together as they fell down a mountainside.

  “Do as he says, Kyrn,” Magmi hissed from behind him, knees aching as he fought to keep up with the long strides of the orcs.

  It hadn’t taken long for Kyrn’s neck to chafe against his leather collar, as he was held high off the ground. They broke through the jungle pathway, opening into a muddied town of quickly pitched tents. Fires were lit intermittently through the flattened grounds that served as streets. Orcs of darker and lighter shades of green bustled to and fro. Some of the larger males carried bundles of poorly-crafted spears and axes, their tips made from stone. Some of the smaller males paced, just as quickly, stoking the fires and dragging wounded into tents in either direction. There were a few females, some larger than the smaller of the males, who’d taken to some of the same tasks. And a few of the elderly female orcs sat in the dirt, nursing babies with half-filled bowls that seemed to be antlers and other stained, white bone.

  An orc, larger than even the two that led the party along, rushed in a direct course with them. A human man talked fervently at his side, though the orc was surely not hearing a word he said. He wore a dark purple robe, embroidered with the same silver stitching as Magmi’s.

  The orc raised his large hand towards the party. “Drop them, Ulrog!” he shouted.

  Kyrn fell to the ground, catching himself before his face dipped into the mud.

  “Get back to work,” he commanded. “Useless
whelps,” he snapped at them as they walked away with no controversy.

  The orc lifted Kyrn entirely in the air, and dropped him upon his feet.

  Magmi nudged past Kyrn and fell into the arms of the purple-cloaked man. “Nylah!” he shouted, though his voice waivered with his trembling lips. He pulled himself away and held the man by his shoulders. “My brother. How long it has been!”

  “Entirely too long,” Nylah answered. He looked surprisingly like his brother, his eyebrows just as pointed, though his beard not as long, and his hair still held a trace of brown that seemed quickly fading. The structure of his face fell to the same shape as Magmi’s, Kyrn noted. They could easily be mistaken as the same man from two points in life, only differentiated by their hair color, and Nylah’s tauter skin.

  “This is Chieftain Gulor,” he said, extending his hand to the orc at his side.

  Kyrn bowed, following suit with the old wizard.

  “My, it has been too long,” Nylah repeated. “Let us get out of the rain and talk!” he said. “I’m afraid we don’t have much time.”

  “I saw with my own eyes,” Magmi agreed.

  Kyrn knew they spoke of the circling green clouds further above the jungle.

  ***

  Gulor led them deeper into the lean-to village. He held open the hanging flap of his tent, and the party entered. Inside, there was nothing more than a small cot, a large, metal axe resting cozily upon it, and a round wooden table. There were pieces placed strategically on the circular tabletop. Chieftain Gulor’s battle plans, Kyrn knew. He’d seen his father use similar figures when they fended off the mountain trolls, years ago.

  Gulor motioned for them to sit, and briskly shoved the wooden pieces from the table. They clattered across the floor with soft wooden clanks, before settling in scattered positions.

  Kyrn felt an odd parallel between the chieftain’s new mess and the state of his camp.

  When they were seated, Gulor paced behind them at the door to his tent. He was dressed similarly to the orcs that had met the travelers at the docks, though he wore a thin, metal strap diagonally across his chest. He seemed eager to fend off any intruders that might peek into his tent, eager to fight anything.

  “Do you have it?” Nylah asked quickly.

  Kyrn looked at Magmi, who breathed a heavy sigh. After which, the old wizard nodded carefully.

  Kyrn placed his worn pack upon the wooden table. He eyed the purple wizard as he loosened its drawstrings, and slid the box from inside. The etching that he’d come to know of King Mayhlan’s relics was chiseled into its top, and he stared at it for a long while. Then, he slowly placed his finger underneath the hatch.

  Nylah quickly slapped his hand over Kyrn’s, holding it in place. “Do not open it!” he hissed. “The Dark Lord has already found the second half of your amulet, Kyrn,” he said gloomily. “He will sense the stone’s presence. He needn’t know the other two pieces remain. It is the only way to stop him.”

  Kyrn shot up from the table. He wasn’t concerned with having the other two pieces. His party sat up straight at his jumping, but he ignored that. “He has the amulet?” Kyrn shouted. “What of Abellia? Do you know? Is she safe?”

  Nylah lowered his head and stuttered over his thoughts.

  “Is she safe?” Kyrn screamed, shaking the table as he did.

  The purple wizard composed himself. “Safe, I can’t be sure,” he started, calmly. “Though, she is alive. My spies have laid eyes upon her through the window of the Dark Lord’s temple. Recently as last night, even.”

  Kyrn cupped his face in his palms and rubbed the tears from his eyes. He sat himself back at the table.

  “The temple?” Magmi asked. “And I’ve heard you say more than once, ‘the Dark Lord.’” He raised a pointed brow quizzically. “Are you to say there is only one?”

  Nylah nodded quickly.

  “Which?”

  “Do not ask questions which you don’t want to know the—”

  “Which?” Magmi shouted now, his face reddened and eyes wide with grief.

  Nylah took in a deep breath. “Daen, my brother.”

  Kyrn watched Magmi slouch low into his chair, deep in thought.

  “Could he skulk behind the Fingers of the Order?” Magmi asked, though, it seemed mostly to himself. He sat upright. “Daen was the first to fall among the council of Caltros. I see not why it couldn’t happen again.” He looked at his brother intently. “Are you certain?”

  Nylah nodded. “I’d come to the West Lands many years ago, in search of the stone. When we’d first felt wind of the Dark One’s return, I knew I’d give my life to see the order of Caltros restored, the Darkness finally put to rest. Much of these lands are barren jungles, though I found Glume, father of Gulor and chieftain of the eastern lands, long before he fell to the first battles of the Orcish War.”

  Gulor grunted softly behind them.

  “Most of my recent years have been aiding Gulor and his tribe in their struggles,” Nylah continued. “The temple to the west sits below the storm Lord Daen is brewing, the mass you all surely saw at your arrival. I sensed his presence three or four tenday back, once a friend, and a fellow wizard of the Caltros Mountains.” He looked at Kyrn, knowing Magmi had enlightened him as best as he could in their short time. “Lord Daen was one of the first elders to fall into the ways of necromancy.”

  Kyrn rested his chin in his palm. “He dragged the others with him,” he said.

  “Yes, though he could not sink them all. By now, you’ve met the last that remain of the fallen council. Those that did not fall into their dark and impure ways.” Nylah stared at Kyrn with such a look of admiration that the half-elf’s heart sank in his chest. “If only we had more time for preparations. The Dark Lord has begun whatever it is he has in store for the West Land. Whether he is working behind the backs of the Black Order, he, much like them, seeks the three pieces of Mayhlan’s Bane. He must not have them, though it is the only way to stop him. None as young as you should carry this burden, though we are out of time and options. If we leave tonight, we may reach the temple by sun up. There is little chance that we, even combined, can stop Lord Daen’s conjuration.”

  Gulor stopped pacing, his boots landing loudly in place behind Kyrn. “My people have been at war with each other for years, now,” he growled. “Fighting, betraying, slaughtering one another.” He had their full attention with the placing of his feet, and he held it tightly with his words. “Seeing the dark times ahead of us may, at last, bring closure to our ceaseless wars. It angers me to hope that war will end war.” He knelt close to Kyrn. “Death, young one, is not the worst a being can face in this life.”

  “Then we shouldn’t waste any more time,” Kyrn said quickly. “If there’s still a chance, no matter how small, we take it.” He turned back to his party. “Sitting here talking will kill us.”

  Gulor stood and patted Kyrn roughly on the back.

  Kyrn felt the soreness from his fight with the Black Knight relight in his spine.

  ***

  Gulor set off to gather a few of his troops. He made it quite clear that they’d be traveling through war-ravaged lands to reach the Dark Lord’s purloined temple. The orc insisted that Magmi and Nylah remain behind. “These lands are no place for robed men,” he said. Magmi’s face turned red as his robes and he droned on about how his age wouldn’t stop him from helping his friends.

  Kyrn gave Syonne the same option. “You’re free for the first time in over four hundred years,” he said. “Don’t give that up for me.” But she fluttered past him with a brisk peck on his cold cheek. “I follow you, Master Kyrn,” she said.

  Kyrn walked at Magmi’s side on the outskirts of Gulor’s camp. The grunts and shuffling of the orcs faded in the distance. He caught sporadic openings in the canopy and let the rainfall cool his face.

  “When I was young…” he began. His voice, cutting through the silence of the night, startled even himself. “Well,” he corrected, “it seems so long a
go, but it wasn’t. Elrich and I snuck through the forest around Grimmrich. We’d hide in the snow, waiting for the mountain trolls to ambush from the mountains to the east. We’d hunt trees, filling them with arrows like they were unknown beasts pillaging from the West Lands.” He looked at Magmi. “We yearned every day for adventure.”

  Magmi chuckled. “And now that you’ve found it, you want it no more.”

  Kyrn nodded. “It seems different though. Adventures and perils. They don’t seem one and the same. It’s almost like dreaming, really. Asleep, it all seems so real. The ways things really are. Awake, though, the world is dark and different.”

  Magmi rested his hand on Kyrn’s shoulder, much like his father had done. “The darkness is the only thing that makes the light as bright as it shines. Remember that.” The old wizard sloshed through the mud, towards Gulor’s camp. “We leave soon, young Kyrn Fellenor, son of the great king Ulzrich Fellenor.”

  Kyrn leaned his back against a tree of the West Land’s jungle and slid down, seating himself in the muddied ground. He looked up at the leaves of the trees, the fruits hanging like the orange elleinor sprouts of Castrolyl. Fellenor, he repeated in his head. Kyrn Fellenor had traveled through the mountain pass, through the magical borders of the new Castrolyl, down rivers and through angry sands, across the Grey Sea to the jungles of orcs. He’d found goblins and dodged the crushing boulders of mountain trolls, with the help of the family he’d built along the way. He’d learned of the Dark Ones, fought their Draelor and Black Knights. He’d learned of his mother, his ancestors, the fallen king Mayhlan Ezroch. He’d learned he descended from the elves. But no, surely not.

  Kyrn Fellenor hadn’t forgotten who he was.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Winds of the Storm

  Gulor led the party from his destitute camp. A few of the children cried as he walked quickly by, some of them begged him to return unharmed. All the orcs hailed their chieftain.

  They traveled restlessly through the night. Syonne flitted to either side of their dirt path. She spiraled around the trunks of the unfamiliar trees, investigating their leaves and fruits and bark. She could feel Kyrn’s watchful eye on her.