A Darkness Forged in Fire

by Chris (chris R. ) Evans

  "It's getting cold," the soldier said, his lips pale and trembling. Three fires crackled and sparked around them, their heat doing little to warm the open air of the fortress courtyard where the wounded lay. Visyna motioned for a private standing nearby to put another blanket over the man.

  "No amount of covering will warm him now," the man said, eyeing the soldier with the casual disdain of one who knew something about death. "It's that elf-witch that holds all the cards here."

  Visyna bristled at the comment and started weaving again, eliciting a cry of pain from the wounded soldier. "I'm sorry," she said, slowing and chiding herself for being so easily goaded. "Shouldn't you be with your company, Private…?" she asked.

  He sneered. "Zwitty's the name, and no, on account of my wound." He pointed to his left arm. The jacket was covered in blood, yet Visyna remembered dressing his wound earlier, and it had only been a small cut. "Safer to be here. Besides, the scenery is better."

  She ignored his last comment. "The elf-witch you speak of does not hold sway yet. The sarka har are still young, their roots not yet long enough to feed them the power they seek."

  "Wouldn't matter if they did," he said, winking at her. "As soon as the Prince gets his precious Star, we'll be leaving this place and She can do what She wants with it."

  Visyna concentrated on the wounded soldier, blocking out the private's words. She found the faintest of skeins and delicately began to weave them together, slowly creating a strong thread to hold on to the life ebbing before her. There! She felt a clean strength and focused her mind on it. Zwitty was still talking, but she could no longer hear him. All her focus centered on the precious spark of life that yet burned within the man before her. She called on the last reserves of her power and laid her hands on the soldier's body. He gasped, his eyelids shooting open. Slowly, his breathing returned to a more normal rhythm as his face grew less pallid.

  "…do a little of that weaving on me," Zwitty said, reaching out and grabbing her arm.

  Visyna spun around and used what energy she had left. There was a shock of ice and heat colliding as she pushed him, and then Zwitty was flying through the air. He landed hard on his back, then clambered to his feet, one hand cradled in the other, a look of surprise and anger on his face. He turned and ran back toward the regiment.

  Visyna turned away from him and was pleased to see, and feel, that the wounded soldier was indeed healing. She walked briskly to the far end of the fortress, ducking under the remnants of a half-collapsed roof, and sat down on a small keg. Her eyes closed on their own and she let out a shuddering breath. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered.

  "Do you still serve your people, child?"

  Visyna stood up suddenly, swaying as she did so. The image of the Star shimmered before her, its form a shattered mosaic of light and dark. Her weariness vanished in an instant.

  "My people are being butchered out there because they believe in you. How can you let this happen?"

  "Their deaths are of no consequence when weighed against the greater need."

  Visyna felt the color drain from her face. "No. You must stop this!"

  "Foolish girl, why would I want to?" The image of the Star curved in on itself. Shadow ate light and ground heaved in front of her, crumbling apart as a black figure emerged from the earth beneath her, and Visyna realized the extent of her mistake.

  "Deceiver!" Fury blossomed inside her. She brought her hands up to weave a spell, but she was much too slow.

  Her Emissary drew forth a long, black dagger. Frost fire danced along the blade, the air sizzling around it. It had drawn back its arm, preparing to strike, when something small and white flew past her.

  The shadowy figure shrieked and dropped the blade, a white feather quill stuck in its hand. Rallie emerged from the shadows, another quill held lightly between her fingers.

  "I've always believed, but I must admit it is rather gratifying to see, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword."

  "You!" it roared, ripping the quill from its hand and incinerating it with a black flame. It held out its good hand and the dropped blade flew into it. "You should not be here. This is not your time."

  "Oh, I don't know," Rallie said, twirling the quill between her fingers. "I usually think I should be exactly where I am at any given moment. You, however, are definitely in the wrong place, and very much at the wrong time."

  "Your words are as weak as your weapons. This is becoming Her time, and all those that serve Her."

  Visyna gasped for breath as two powerful forces consumed all the life energy around her. The natural order began unraveling and she tried desperately to stitch it back together, even as she realized her magic was woefully inadequate to the task.

  "That remains to be seen. In the meantime," Rallie said, preparing to throw the quill, "it's time you left."

  The ebb and flow of the competing forces suddenly surged in one direction, and Visyna caught her breath, a pleasant warmth filling the air. The dark figure howled, its form splintering, reforming, then splintering again. Visyna reached out her hands and grabbed some of the threads, giving what aid she could to Rallie to help her banish it.

  "You cannot hold us for long. A new forest will grow here before the night is out." The ground shook and Her Emissary disappeared between the cracks and was gone.

  Visyna felt sick. She looked down at her hands and saw they were trembling.

  She had listened to that thing, taken its advice, done whatever she could to help it. This was all her fault. Everything.

  "Really now, my dear, you're getting as melodramatic as Konowa," Rallie said, walking over to give her a pat on the arm. "This is the Shadow Monarch's fault, first and foremost. Our task, and it's a significant one, is to undo the damage."

  "I should have seen through it," Visyna said.

  "Perhaps, but it is skilled in the art of deception, and you saw what you wanted to see."

  "That was the last Viceroy, wasn't it?" Visyna asked, looking at Rallie with a newfound respect.

  "Her Emissary now," Rallie said, reaching into her cloak for a cigar. She pulled one out and made no pretense of lighting it, the end suddenly glowing red of its own accord. "It's been looking for the Star for some time, believing, apparently, that it is buried somewhere beneath the fort."

  "Do you know where the Star is?" Visyna asked, hope rising in her chest.

  Rallie shook her head. "Not that I can find it, but don't despair, my dear, I think it will reveal itself when it's ready."

  "What did it mean about this not being your time?"

  Rallie cackled softly and blew out a long stream of smoke. "That, my dear, is a story for another time." She flexed her fingers around her cigar and for the briefest of moments filigrees of light flowed from them like gossamer threads caught in a breeze.

  Visyna looked at her in stunned surprise.

  "Oh, come now, dear, you suspected as much, no?" Rallie said, cocking her head to the side as if listening to something far away.

  "Then you are a witch," Visyna said.

  Rallie brought her head up straight and clamped down hard on the cigar between her teeth. "After a fashion. I like to think of myself more as the one you least suspect…until it's too late. Now, I suggest we get out to the ramparts. We're about to become rather busy, you and I. The trees that surround us are focused on digging for the Star, but Her Emissary may soon decide to redirect their energies."

  Visyna nodded, following the old woman, the smoke from Rallie's cigar swirling about them in the darkening night.

  FORTY-NINE

  Major, there!" Lorian shouted, pointing toward the gap.

  A group of four elfkynan came walking through, their pace slow and even. They were dressed in bright crimson-colored robes and tall white hats that rose to a point more than a foot above their heads. Each hat bore a shining blue gem in the center that sparkled with the last rays of the setting sun. All four carried tall walking sticks of a dark brown wood entwined with green vi
nes.

  "Shamans," Lorian said, his voice rising with indignation. "These poor buggers have been throwing away their lives thinking they could protect them from musket balls."

  "Don't judge a tree by its bark," Konowa said, the old proverb of his father's coming back to him. He watched the shamans, looking for some grand gesture or conjuration, but they showed no outward sign of being in the midst of battle, or of being in danger at all. Wizards were forever getting under Konowa's skin.

  A group of thirty elfkynan warriors dressed in dark blue robes and carrying spears followed close behind. As they passed through the trees, they fanned out in a circle around the first four.

  Konowa pushed his senses outward. He came up against something incredibly vibrant and warm, a feeling so natural and peaceful that it caught his breath. The four red-robed figures turned as one to look in his direction.

  "Magic all right…" he managed to say, grabbing hold of Lorian to steady himself in the saddle. The feeling reminded him of the calm he had felt when Visyna had woven her magic earlier. It wasn't the deadening of the voices of life, but a complex harmony that made simple, beautiful sense.

  "Major, are you okay? Major?"

  Konowa tried to speak, but no words would come to his mouth. The four shamans continued to stare at him, their faces calm, their posture relaxed.

  "They've bespelled you," Lorian muttered, shouting orders at once. "Take out those shamans! Front row, by volley…fire!"

  Most of the troops had not had time to reload, but at least twenty had, and at a distance of less than a hundred yards they couldn't miss.

  The sound of musket fire sounded from far away. Konowa knew he should care about it, but found it difficult to do so. He started to urge Zwindarra toward the circle, then gasped, feeling as if he had fallen through ice on a frozen lake. He came to his senses at once, the acorn bitterly cold against his flesh. The air shimmered in front of the circle of blue-robed warriors and then cleared again. Not one had fallen. His siggers had missed. Shouted orders echoed down from the fortress. The howitzer in the fortress boomed, its flight almost straight up as the gunners tried to land a shell within the circle. The shell carried long, coming dangerously close to the Iron Elves by the river, and exploded harmlessly in dead ground, throwing splinters of red-hot metal through the air.

  The elfkynan warriors nonetheless decided it was time to find safer ground and moved toward the protection of the four shamans, slipping through the ring of blue-robed warriors. As more and more elfkynan stepped through the circle the warriors moved out, increasing its size until it held more than a thousand elfkynan. Soon, all the elfkynan able to make it to the circle had. Chants of "Sillra! Sillra!" rose in volume again as they called on the Star to finally reveal itself.

  The Iron Elves looked to Konowa, waiting. This was far beyond their experiences. Muskets and bayonets were their tools, tried and tested, yet they had failed in front of their eyes. It was an unsettling feeling in the lee of the coming night. Not believing what they were seeing, a couple of siggers actually fired without orders. Both times the air shimmered about the circle and no elfkynan was hurt. Somewhere in the line a soldier laughed. Konowa shared the sentiment. Just minutes ago, the elfkynan were being cut down in droves, the shamans doing nothing to prevent it. Now they stood in a perfect killing ground, surrounded by the Iron Elves, and apparently impervious to harm.

  Torches and lanterns flamed to life as the last rays of sunlight dimmed. The regiment was growing restless, and Konowa knew Prince Tykkin would be apoplectic, wondering why Konowa hadn't ordered a charge to finish the elfkynan off, shimmering air or no shimmering air. Something would have to give.

  The cold in Konowa told him something now would.

  It started with the trees. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, the shadows were stretched to their full length, their shapes a dark, twisted stain on the ground. Frost began to crackle wherever they lay, the grass withering beneath the weight of obsidian crystals sparkling in the twilight. To look down was to see the night sky beneath their feet, and many soldiers and elfkynan alike felt a sudden nausea at a world inverted.

  A ripping sound criss-crossed the earth between the trees and then surged upward as sickly white roots stabbed skyward, impaling the many elfkynan bodies littering the battlefield. Red blood turned black as the roots began to grow into new trees, their limbs stretching outward like many-fingered hands, groping for contact with the other sarka har.

  Konowa swayed in the saddle as the hunger of the trees washed over him. He felt a surge of anger, a hunger of his own to destroy them all, to leave him in peace. The confusion of the world as he had known it, that constant thrum of life just below the threshold of understanding forever poised to overwhelm him, seemed a simple, wonderful thing now.

  A musket fired, the ball tearing into a tree with no real effect. The howitzer in the fortress boomed in response, tossing a fizzing cannon shell high into the air, its path easily followed by the trail of sparks it smeared across the sky. The gun crew's aim was better, as this shell landed near the trees to the left of the square. It detonated on impact, and both trees and foes were shattered by the blast, but not enough.

  "Hold your fire!" Konowa shouted, his mind racing. Zwindarra tossed his head and pawed at the ground nervously, but still responded to Konowa's commands.

  The encircled elfkynan were even more agitated, their cries of Sillra falling away as they witnessed the desecration of their brethren. The four shamans in the center of the circle stood back to back, their eyes closed, both hands gripping their staffs, chanting silently. Konowa expected to see a bright light, a glow, something, but though the wizards continued to chant nothing appeared to happen.

  "Major, over there!" Lorian shouted, reining his horse in as it reared and neighed in fright.

  Konowa swung around in the saddle to look, but he had already felt it.

  Gray, awkward shapes were crawling from the water. The creatures were man-sized, their heads a blunt, eyeless knob with a circular mouth filled with rows of small, pointed teeth. There didn't seem to be a neck, just a scaly tube for a body, studded with spikes and supported on what looked like four short legs.

  They were the huge ancestors of the bara jogg that swam the river.

  Their progress was slow, their transition from water to land an uneasy one. Konowa cast a glance back at the elfkynan to make sure they weren't preparing anything and urged Zwindarra closer to the river. As he got closer, the reason for the creatures' strange gait became apparent. What he had taken for legs were just four large spikes that flailed and scratched at the ground for purchase, propelling them up the bank and toward the Iron Elves.

  Konowa's mind was still reeling when a more familiar and unwelcome sight greeted his eyes. Rakkes emerged from the trees, their hulking forms all but hidden within the shadows save for the glow of their white, milky eyes. They began roaring and beating their chests, working themselves into a frenzy. Konowa figured they had a minute, maybe two.

  "Major?"

  "There's no point holding the river now. We've got to get the men up to the fortress as quickly as possible. I need you to keep them in check; we'll go slow and steady. No stragglers, no heroics, and I mean it."

  Lorian nodded, a gesture mostly lost in the dark. "There's still the matter of the elfkynan between us and the fortress. How do we get by them while keeping those monsters at bay?"

  "I don't think we have too much to worry about from them for the next little while," he said. The elfkynan were clearly horrified by the new trees squirming to life and showed no sign of mounting any kind of attack. The Iron Elves were no doubt troubled by the spectacle as well, but discipline would hold them together where others ran. Discipline, and an oath.

  "Very good, sir," Lorian said, adjusting himself on the elfkynan saddle, which appeared a bit too small for him.

  The howitzer in the fortress fired again, the shell landing only a few yards from the previous one. Instead of exploding, the shell bou
nced, the ground within the ring of trees hardened with frost. It started rolling toward the square, the fuse still sputtering. A soldier leaped out of line and ran toward the shell. He bent over it and fumbled with the fuse, trying to pull the burning cord out. After two failed attempts, the soldier simply picked the cannonball up and heaved it at the trees, where it exploded a moment later. Konowa didn't need to see his face to know the identity of the only soldier who could toss a cannonball like that.

  "If he was a little smaller, Private Vulhber would make one hell of a cavalryman," Lorian said, his voice filled with relief and pride.

  "Regiment, load muskets!" Konowa shouted, cantering Zwindarra in front of the line of soldiers at the edge of the river. Muskets were held at the hip as cartridges were pulled from leather pouches, the iron ball bitten from the top of the waxed paper that held the black powder, a portion of which was poured into the pan. As one, the regiment grounded their muskets and poured the remaining powder down the barrel, the musket ball following. Ramrods rattled and banged.

  "Regiment will fix bayonets!" The sharp clang of steel on steel rever-berated in the cold air, and Konowa smiled at its familiar tune. He would get these men up to the fortress no matter what black horror stood in their way.

  "What about the guns?" Lorian asked, using his halberd to point at the two positions at either end of the line.

  Konowa spit. "There's nothing for it, they'll have to be left behind. We'll never get the muraphants down here now. Have the gun crews fire double canister shot into those things coming out of the water, then a couple of shots into the trees, and then go. The one in the fortress will have to do."

  Lorian spurred his horse to a gallop to relay the message. Konowa watched him go, quickly running things over in his mind. They had close to three hundred yards to cover to get to the safety of the fortress, normally a three-minute march.