Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  She placed both hands around his upper arm and lifted him bodily out of the window. She had air walked and lifted him up as well.

  “There,” she said, putting him down as if he weighed nothing. “That’s just in case you don’t think I can carry him by myself.”

  Tommy blinked and wiped the water out of his eyes. Then he tenderly put a hand on Kiri Lee’s shoulder and softly said, “Bring him back, Kiri Lee. Bring Jett home.”

  Tears and rain mixed, and Kiri Lee disappeared through the window.

  As the streams increased in size and force, the Elves began to slow down.

  “KEEP RUNNING46” Tommy screamed at the top of his lungs— lungs that burned with every step he took. He caught up to Kat and yelled to her, but the next thing he knew, they were both on their backs, sliding down the mountain. He grabbed her arm and she grabbed his as they hurtled forward. Elves fell one after the other, taken by the torrent and carried away.

  Tommy tried to see what was ahead through the pelting sheets. He wished he hadn’t. The central turret of Vesper Crag, a monolith of stone some two hundred feet wide, lay directly in their path. “Oh no!”

  Kat lifted her head. “Oh no!”

  It was too late to do anything.

  Using recovered spears and shields, the Drefids managed to lift the stone slab. But the rain was at its most intense, howling and swirling, so heavy it was almost like being underwater.

  The Drefids, whose bony hands were not good for much traction, couldn’t see to keep the slab up long enough for the Spider King to escape. Time and again, one Drefid would lose his grip, and the stone would fall once more on his segmented legs. Then, with the Spider King roaring and threatening, the Drefids pried the stone up. The Spider King rolled his body to get his legs free. He tried to stand, but two legs were ruined. The third on that side was cracked and oozing green fluid.

  That was when the Spider King turned on the Drefids.

  “You promised me!” he hissed.

  Four of the Drefids began to back away. One stood his ground. “But it was you who broke our agreement! You should never have taken an Elf for a wife!”

  The Spider King roared. “Backstabbing liars! If you’d killed them at the sacking of Berinfell—”

  “Don’t blame us!” the Drefid screamed back. “You should have feared our master above that ignorant curse.”

  The Spider King lashed out with all the power he had, pushing off with his good legs and slamming into the Drefids. He caught the nearest Drefid by the neck and sheared off its head. The other three he crushed against his body and let them fall away into the coursing streams of gray.

  But when the Spider King tried to stand, he found that he’d completely snapped his third leg. And with the pouring, coursing rain, he could not gain any stability at all. His eyes flashed with rage and he pulsed webbing from his shoulder spinnerets, but these sopping threads would not adhere to the slick stone. Using his arms and his good legs, he tried once more, achieving a brief awkward stance. But the force of the wind and rain drove him over onto his back, and he began to slide down the incline . . . and into the main current.

  The flood took Tommy and Kat on a hasty loop around the building and over a sudden lip. They felt weightless for a moment, hit a deep pocket of water, and were submerged for a time before bobbing back to the surface. Slowly, they floated out into a shallow lake of incomparable murk. At last Tommy felt the ground under his feet and helped Kat to her feet. Disoriented and exhausted, they looked about for direction.

  “Johnny’s fire!” Tommy yelled. “Thank Ellos for that light. Come on, Kat!”

  Dozens of Elves were climbing up out of the muck, and Tommy yelled to them, “Seek the flame! Follow the light!”

  Kat tried to tell them through thoughts as well, but she was so terribly exhausted that she could barely stand. She grabbed Tommy’s arm, and he supported her. On and on they pressed, faster and faster. Utter fatigue was setting in, and Tommy was practically dragging Kat through the thigh-deep water. “COME ON, KAT! HANG IN THERE!”

  Kat coughed, pulling herself up by his arm. Her legs were just too tired.

  When he was sure he couldn’t take another step, he noticed the ground pitching upward. AH! he thought. Almost there! The revelation brought on a final burst of energy, and the young lords strode out of the flood and, before too long, made their way up the flowing face of the western bank. At last they made it to the top of the command hill, and there they were met by a horde of Elves welcoming them to safety.

  But Grimwarden broke through them all. “Lord Felheart!” he said. “Thank Ellos you’re alive!”

  Tommy was about to say he was glad to see Grimwarden when the Guardmaster grabbed him by the shoulder, “I need your eyes!”

  He practically dragged Tommy to the highest point on the hill. “Hurry!” he said. “With the storm, we lost sight of the Spider King.”

  “But this rain,” said Tommy. “It was supposed to kill him, right?”

  “I hope so,” he replied. “But that is the kind of thing we must know for certain. Now look at the top of the hill. Is he there?”

  Tommy had a hard time finding an anchor for his vision to pull in. The vague outline of the mountain peak would have to do. His eyes flew through the storm, higher and higher to the peak. “He’s not there! Wait . . . wait, I see him! He’s caught in the current, sliding. He’s out of control, crashing into things. He looks dead.”

  Tommy watched the Spider King’s body rolling and floating until it was about halfway down.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Grimwarden. “I see him now!” Together, they watched him careen the rest of the way. He smacked hard into a massive chunk of a fallen tower that teetered on the edge of a waterfall. The body slid off the edge and fell some fifty feet into a waiting pool below. Then the tower, all twenty feet of stone, rolled over the edge and plummeted into the pool.

  “That,” said Grimwarden, his voice quavering, “is the end of the Spider King.”

  “Any sign?” Autumn asked Tommy.

  “No,” he replied.

  “She’ll make it,” said Autumn.

  Bloodied and caked with ash, Ethon Beleron appeared and said, “If your Kiri Lee survived that crash near the wall, she can make it back through this deluge.”

  “She better,” whispered Tommy.

  Even on high ground, the water flowed past their ankles, speeding toward lower ground. A stiffening chill set in. Johnny hugged Autumn, her teeth chattering. And before Tommy could move, Kat had stepped into his chest, arms tucked up, body trembling. Tommy, slightly startled, felt awkward enveloping her in his arms. But soon he knew she needed him. Maybe for more than just warmth.

  The army of Berinfell stood there, motionless, prisoner of the rain that they themselves had called down. Long seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes stretched into an hour. Not once did a Gwar rise up the hill from the field, nor a Warspider to so much as taunt them. The endless clash of metal on metal, or stone on flesh, had ceased. Now all they heard was rain.

  Just rain. How long it went on, no one quite knew. But one pervading thought was shared by every Elf who had endured the storm: it was a miracle.

  Many rested, some leaning on their spears, some with heads on the shoulders of those beside them. But the cold that set in kept any from falling asleep.

  Tommy had drifted into a kind of exhausted trance when a crowd of Elves began to gather nearby. Neither he nor Kat looked up as Kiri Lee stepped down out of the air and placed her friend into the arms of her people.

  44

  A New Dawn

  THE ENTIRE Elven army stood on the west bank as the morning sun broke through the clouds on the eastern horizon. Just the sight of it was life-giving for many of the Elves who had been wounded in battle or nearly drowned in the great flood. For the first time in a long time, the sun shone bright over Vesper Crag, housed in a brilliant blue sky-bowl.

  What had been known just hours before as the Lightning Fields was now a
flooded basin of destruction. The valley held a putrid brown sea, stretching out to the base of Vesper Crag, as far north as the Dark Veil, and all the way into the southern forest. Boiling sections of the new lake shot steam into the air, lava and water colliding under the surface. But most staggering were the bodies that floated on the surface . . . thousands of them.

  For a long while, no one moved. They just took in the scene, staring in stunned silence. Moments before, it seemed, the entire Elven army was fleeing for their lives; the next, they were standing over the corpses of their foes, victorious.

  “Thanks to Ellos! ENDURANCE AND VICTORY!!” Tommy hoisted his sword skyward.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what happened after that, the reality of their conquest swelling in his own heart like a tidal wave. Enraptured, he was caught up in the euphoria of the moment, having just lived a dream. A wild and crazy dream. One that had taken him across time and space, far from home . . . to a new home. He felt his mouth moving and saw the others shouting . . . the Lords . . . Grimwarden . . . Elle . . . Charlie . . . thousands of others screaming down over the bodies of their enemies. “Endurance and Victory,” they cried, shouting it for all of Allyra to hear. And hear they did, the thunderous praise ringing through the air, shaking the hollows of Nightwish, the trees of the Thousand-League Forest, even the hidden dens of the Gnomes. The whole world would know: Allyra was free at last. They had endured. And now, together as one, they were victorious.

  It took two days to get the army assembled, tend to the wounded, and ready supplies for the trek westward. Five days of travel through the Thousand-League Forest brought them back to Nightwish where their wives, children, and the elderly awaited. Here they were received with a hero’s welcome, and Jett’s body was borne with honor into the main avenue. There, thunderous applause sustained for almost an hour, wave after wave of adoration and thankfulness exploding from their hearts. And all the while, everyone had to keep reminding themselves that it was over. The war was finally over.

  Despite everyone’s eagerness to rid themselves of Nightwish forever, they suspected that Berinfell was in great disrepair. It would take weeks, even months for it to be habitable again. And creating adequate shelter aboveground in the forest would simply be a waste of resources and time. No, Nightwish would remain their home for a little longer. But that didn’t stop the lords and their generals from heading out on a reconnaissance mission as soon as they were rested.

  The journey back to Berinfell did not feel real. No one, not even Grimwarden, had dared venture back to the hallowed halls of their former glory. Not when so many horrific memories covered the stones of their streets with the blood of their people. But no longer. The pain of the memories would fade with each passing generation, but not the significance of their sacrifice.

  They headed south, a two-day journey by foot, and arrived at the famed Tree Gate in the north, where Travin had deceived the enemy so many ages ago. It was here that they reentered their prized city for the first time in over eight hundred years.

  Whatever damage the Spider King had done was long past. Now it was the forest that encroached on the space. Miles and miles of vines weaved their way in and out of every stone crevice imaginable; trees bore up through solid rock roads, their leafy canopies now shade for once highly traveled thoroughfares; animals had made burrows in vacant dwellings, and birds nested on ledges and beams alike. And over the entire city deep green grass and weeds burst from every available crack.

  Those who had lived here had memories flooding back to them, stretching into their childhood. They touched the stone walls of their homes and kissed the streets with their lips. More than a few of the scouts started to weep. Not of bitterness, but of suffering a long absence. For the Elves were as intertwined with this place as the vines were, wrapped around every stone, every arch, every dried-up fountain, as if their very spirits were connected with the place.

  “I feel like . . . like I’ve been here before,” said Kat. Her hand brushed along a hand-carved marble banister that descended along a curving staircase into what seemed to be a lower garden. “But I know that’s impossible.”

  “Impossible?” said Elle, drawing up next to her. “But, Lord Alreenia, don’t you remember? We told you . . . you were born here.”

  Kat held up short. Here? She caught her breath. Berinfell. It was true. This was her birthplace. More real than California. Stronger than her home overlooking Los Angeles. This was where she took her first breath. And while she had no apparent memory of the city, it was powerfully familiar. Like she was destined for it. Like it was destined for her.

  The small war band spread through the city, uncovering ancient ruins, removing growth from abandoned hallways. On and on they went, deeper and deeper into the city, the flet soldiers among them remembering their last moments here all too well. And all the more when they finally arrived at the Great Hall.

  Grimwarden was the first to step in through the wreckage of the main door, the wood long rotted, hinges now rusted blocks of metal. Pale light streamed in through the opening that had once held beautiful glass windows, flooding the musty main hall. The group moved down the corridor, following Grimwarden and Elle along a path the two knew by heart. To the Seven, the castle was extremely foreign . . . yet something about it was endearing. Meaningful.

  After weaving down hallways with caved-in walls for more than ten minutes, they finally turned into a large room with a high-domed ceiling.

  Autumn caught her breath. “I know this place.”

  “Excuse me?” said Grimwarden, looking to her.

  “Yes,” she began nodding. “The book.”

  “Of course!” said Kat, suddenly realizing.

  “The Chronicles of the Elf Lords and Their Kin,” added Tommy. He had seen it all. In the book. But this was not a story, some fictional movie played out in front of him. This was real. He was here. “We saw it all. Eight hundred years ago. This was where—”

  Tommy’s voice trailed off. He couldn’t finish. An emotion he was not expecting swelled in his chest.

  “This, m’lords, is where you were taken from,” said Elle. “And where you last laid eyes on your noble parents, who would be honored to see you this day.”

  The young lords moved forward as if treading on sacred ground. Of course, only ruins remained. Yet for all its lackluster appearance, this place shined to them.

  The lords moved slowly through the space, Grimwarden and Elle not moving a muscle. To see these young lords back in the place where they had been stolen defied every evil ever pitted against them. They had conquered after all. They were victorious. The lords picked through the rubble, touching even the most mundane rock as if it were pure gold.

  Tommy reached the dais, walking slowly up the mossy steps. He knelt down and dug his fingers into a soft pile of decomposing wood. Flipping over a layer of fresh earth, he saw white. The thrones. Just as they had been in his visions of the book. Perhaps his own father had sat in this throne. The feeling was overwhelming and tears filled his eyes.

  “It was his.”

  Tommy rubbed the tears away and looked up at Kat. “What’d you say?”

  “You were wondering if it was his throne. And I’m telling you. It was his.”

  At that, Tommy burst into tears. The father he would never know, had sat right here. His mother had swaddled him right here. He had seen it in the book. Tommy closed his eyes, sobbing. Trying to envision their faces. Trying to remember. Anything.

  Kiri Lee felt it all so keenly. Her parents . . . gone before she even knew them. But she felt worse for Jett. His parents on Earth let him go, knowing full well Jett might never return. But . . . somehow, they had to find out. Kiri Lee vowed right then that she would return to Earth one day and tell Mr. and Mrs. Green just what a hero their son had been.

  The room filled with meaning now. All of the lords began to experience similar emotions, standing in the very space where all of this had begun so many years ago. On the night of their welcoming, meant for
rulership, only to be whisked away at the hands of a wicked foe. They should have been eight hundred years old by now; but they were only thirteen, their maturation slowed by another world’s system. But no more.

  While they each hoped to return someday to Earth to visit those they loved, they realized where their true home was. The Lords of Berinfell had returned . . . to set things right, to establish a new reign from the thrones of Berinfell. They would usher in a new paradigm of leadership that would restore the glorious position of the Elves and once again bring life to the land.

  They were home.

  45

  Bloodlines

  A HOODED Drefid stood on a cliff outside a cave on the southernmost peak of Vesper Crag. In all his days serving as an assassin in the Sarax Clan, Asp had never seen such destruction.

  “Some kind of flood,” he muttered, looking at the standing pools of water down in the hollows. But what kind of flood could reach the towers and even the peaks of the mountains, Asp had no idea. Everything from the tower, where the red light once shone, to the main gate had been utterly destroyed.

  “Several days past,” he said. Judging by the smell of the dead and rotting, perhaps as much as a week.

  It had taken Asp several hours just to find a clear entrance into the fortress. But once inside, he’d explored every accessible region. The slave chambers had been blocked by a cave-in. All the maps in the plotting room were shredded, and many of the columns had toppled over. Asp went to the royal chamber last of all and found it had survived with some minor damage. Several of the statues had fallen from their alcoves and shattered. And one of the two white marble thrones, the left-hand seat, had been destroyed. Blackened was a more appropriate description. Asp knelt and examined the debris more closely. This was not water damage at all. It looked more like fire damage or arc stone residue.