Rise of the TaiGethen e-2

by James Barclay

  When Lysael turned her face back to him there were tears running down her cheeks. Auum was aware that conversation around the feast had quietened.

  ‘I have failed in my duties.’ Lysael’s voice was a cracked whisper. ‘The temple to Ynissul lies dormant. No priest resides there now. I have not been back for almost ten years.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Auum, unsure how to feel about her revelation.

  ‘Because the last time I was there, I feared for my life.’

  Silence bled out from the TaiGethen and enveloped the cooks and servants. Auum swallowed hard. He took his hand from Lysael’s shoulder lest his fury caused his fingers to tighten. Here, on the apron of the elves’ most sacred place, where Yniss gazed down unfailingly and his embrace kept all from harm, his high priestess had been forced to reveal such a fear.

  Auum dared a glance around his Tais. All they awaited was his word.

  ‘Were you threatened?’ asked Auum. ‘Did an elf actually threaten your life?’

  Lysael stared at Auum, her lips pressed together against a sob. Then she nodded.

  Uproar exploded among the TaiGethen. All of them were on their feet yelling for justice and revenge. Only Auum remained seated. He held out his hands and the TaiGethen fell silent.

  ‘Keep your anger for man,’ he said. ‘Direct your fire at those who would rape our forest and see us exterminated. Trust me. No criminal will escape justice. A particular state of pain and torment awaits those who dared look into the eyes of our beloved Lysael and thought to end her life.

  ‘Now return to the feast. Do not dishonour our ceremony. Rest well. Tomorrow, we move.’

  Jeral watched Hynd while the mage communed with Ystormun. Hynd was pale and shaking. Sweat covered his brow and his lips were ragged and bleeding where his teeth tore at them. His eyes moved erratically behind closed lids, and when he appeared close to losing his balance, Jeral reached out a hand to steady him where he sat cross-legged near the river’s edge.

  Dusk was approaching. It was the time of day Jeral feared most. Before the campfires, torches and lanterns lent a facade of security to the perimeter, and well after the time that any of them could see into the eaves of the forest to any degree.

  Jeral itched at the deep scratches the ClawBound elf had given him around his throat and lower jaw. They would scar. Jeral was certain that had been the intent. He shuddered every time the memory of that face appeared in his mind, so very close to his. He could still feel the elf’s breath on his face, smelling of blood. He could still hear the words too, and he did fear them.

  Dusk was the ClawBound’s time, and the only question he had no answer to was why they hadn’t attacked the army after so many days. They were so vulnerable in the forest despite the wards the mages laid every night. Almost four thousand men were strung out over miles of logged river bank. Organised into soldier and mage units, each was connected to the units on either side, and each was responsible for the safety of all three and also for a team of Sharps, who were tethered before being ignored for the night.

  Guards stood at the perimeter with shielded lanterns throwing light as far into the forest as possible. More guards patrolled the entire length of the camp. Groups of mages were positioned between the camp and the perimeter, acting as quick-response teams. It all sounded great, but Jeral knew that should an attack come they would still pay dearly for every elf they killed.

  Jeral glanced out over the river at the barges floating at anchor in midstream.

  ‘Lucky bastards.’

  Hynd sighed. Jeral looked back at him, once again glad that he wasn’t one of Ystormun’s mages. Hynd’s body sagged and he blew out his cheeks. His eyes opened and he squinted at Jeral, who had squatted right in front of him, holding his shoulders.

  ‘Are you…?’ Jeral began.

  Hynd’s face was grey and sick-looking even in the half-light.

  ‘Oh God,’ he mumbled.

  Hynd turned his head and vomited. The puke poured across Jeral’s arm and spattered on the ground, and the acrid reek brought tears to Jeral’s eyes.

  ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Hynd, spitting out the remnants.

  ‘Here.’ Jeral passed him his water skin. ‘Don’t dribble your sick into it either. I don’t want to taste your vomit next time I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Hynd took a long swallow, flushed his mouth and spat once more. ‘Bloody hell, he’s a bastard.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you? Well done.’

  Jeral walked to the river’s edge and washed his arm. He sniffed the sleeve of his light leather coat and wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t the kind of odour that was going to fade in a hurry.

  ‘No. I mean, yes,’ said Hynd. ‘I mean, I’ve got to report to the generals.’

  The army commanders were spread throughout the column. They’d spent one night in their ridiculous tent and by morning some wags had painted a target on it in mud. Others had marked the path to the doors with arrows. It had been an effective piece of vandalism.

  ‘Loreb is a few units downstream. I think Pindock and Killith are up near the head. Take your pick: the drunk, the coward or the total fuckwit.’

  Hynd shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think our boys need to hear that, Captain Jeral.’

  ‘Anyone who decides to march the bulk of the army through this continent-sized mantrap deserves nothing but my scorn and the scorn of us all. Just ask your boss.’

  ‘You had a better idea, did you?’

  Jeral gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah. Build. More. Barges.’

  ‘But think of the time that would take,’ said Hynd.

  ‘Think of the people who won’t be dead if we did,’ said Jeral. ‘Think of the final condition of those who actually make it to this mythical place, wherever the hell it is.’

  ‘Ystormun wants to send a message to the Sharps. Marching through their land is the best way to do it.’

  ‘No. Ystormun wants to wipe them out. There’s no point making a statement if the goal is to leave no one alive to take it on board. Waiting fifty days and using those massive stockpiles of timber to build troop transports would send a much better message. One that reads: we’re coming to slaughter the fucking lot of you and there’s nothing you can do about it. The way we’re going about it now, the message is: help yourself to rich human pickings because this column is totally indefensible.’

  Hynd flapped his hands dismissively and stood up.

  ‘We are where we are,’ he said. ‘And I have a message to take to the people who are actually in charge.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Jeral. ‘What did he say anyway?’

  Hynd smiled. ‘Well, among all the things I can tell you, there is one you’ll really enjoy. He said we aren’t making enough progress. We have to march faster and longer each day.’

  Jeral felt his mouth hang open. ‘You have absolutely got to be joking.’

  ‘I never joke, Captain; you know that.’

  Out in the forest, downstream somewhere, a man screamed. The sound carried clear above the hubbub of the camp. Alarm wards were triggered, sending sheets of light out into the forest. A heartbeat of silence along the column was broken by a concerted move to make ready for action. Weapons were drawn, mages began to prepare.

  Jeral shot to his feet and ran down the river bank with Hynd right behind him.

  ‘Stand your ground!’ he yelled. ‘Stand!’

  Jeral flew down the lines. The wards were going off in an arc about a hundred yards downstream and fifty yards into the forest, right in the middle of his section of the line.

  ‘Stay out of the forest. Remember your training.’

  Jeral cursed under his breath and scratched at his face. He could feel his fear growing and the memories taunting him. Light flickered through the trees and sound wards blared out their flat tones, setting sleeping birds to flight and driving animals deeper into burrows or higher into the trees.

  Jeral wished the wards were quieter. He
wanted to know if they were up against TaiGethen or ClawBound. He ducked into the forest as a spell was cast ahead of him. A cold wave surged away into the trees, ice rattling against wood with a sound like breaking glass.

  He could hear orders being barked. Someone was still screaming. And finally he heard the roar of a panther. Jeral’s legs wobbled and he stumbled. His stomach churned, his face felt hot and his hand sweated on his sword hilt. He could see lanterns and guard fires just ahead, shot through with the shadows of men and ClawBound.

  Jeral pounded on, driving himself forward, refusing to give in to the fear. He raced around a banyan trunk and was struck by two hundred pounds of solid muscle. The wind was knocked from him and he was hurled back to sprawl through the leaf litter, fetching up face down in a slew of muddy sludge.

  Jeral rolled over quickly, getting his sword in front of him, but all he could see was Hynd standing stock still, his back to a tree, staring towards the river. Jeral surged to his feet, gasping a breath into a bruised chest. The panther had not broken stride and was streaking towards the water’s edge. Jeral could see elves too, and other panthers, all taking the attack to the main column.

  The screaming behind him hadn’t stopped. Guards ran past, chasing the ClawBound. The sound of the last alarm ward died away and Jeral looked to the screaming. Bodies lay around a fire. One man still stood, a mage by his clothes. He was rigid, his hands clenched by his sides.

  Down towards the river, orders were hollered out. Jeral heard men come to ready. He heard the roar of many panthers and realised he didn’t have a choice. Not really.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Hynd, see to him.’

  Jeral turned and ran back towards the river, where he saw it all. ClawBound pairs exploded from the forest, hammering into his men. Panthers leapt. Jaws and claws ripped and raked, sowing confusion and panic. He saw a mage spin about and fall into the river, his face torn open. A warrior sliced the empty air with his sword as a panther leapt above it and clamped jaws about his skull, bearing him down.

  But the elves weren’t with them. They were attacking to the left and right of the targeted units. This was no random attack to scare and kill. This had a defined purpose.

  ‘Target the elves! Stop them!’

  Jeral leapt over a root, ran through some brush and burst from the forest. The body of a mage slapped into the ground in front of him. The panther snapped its jaws through his neck and turned to roar at Jeral.

  Jeral slashed at it with his sword, simultaneously trying to slither backwards. His blade clipped an ear, slicing off the tip, and the panther howled, unaccustomed to a fight, and leapt away. Jeral tracked its path straight to an elf who had broken from the fighting to clamp a hand over his own ear.

  In the midst of the fight, Jeral stared open-mouthed, just for a few moments. Swords flashed all around them. Men and ClawBound engaged in ferocious fighting. The army was closing in on both sides, and in the midst of it all the elf knelt by his panther and covered her wound with his hand. The pair of them touched heads then turned to stare straight at him. Then they moved, fast.

  ‘Oh no.’ Jeral cast about him. He was surrounded by fighting but there was no one close enough to help. ‘To me! I have incoming!’

  Jeral couldn’t back away except into the forest, which offered nothing but a lonely death. The ClawBound pair streaked towards him. To his left, a mage cast. The invisible mana cone caught up two elves and hurled them back into the forest. The next instant, a panther roared as if in mortal pain. She pounced on the mage, her claws slashing great rents in his chest and her jaws ripping flesh from his shoulder.

  The ClawBound pair was on him. Jeral held his sword in front of him, determined not to die a whimpering coward. But they did not attack. They moved apart and slowed, forcing him back. The elf barked like a wild dog and the elves and panthers pushed away in their attacking arc, forming a defensive line into which enslaved Sharps ran.

  ‘Cast!’ shouted Jeral. ‘One of you ca-’

  The elf in front of him stepped in and cracked a punch against his chin. Jeral didn’t even see it coming until he was falling. He hit the ground and all he could hear was running feet. Belatedly a spell howled away, and he heard the death cry of a single elf and the agonised roars of panthers.

  Jeral tried to get up. His head was swimming. Rough hands helped him back to his feet and someone pushed his sword into his hands. Men were running into the forest and Jeral went with them, groggy at first but then with increasing sureness. He ran towards the guard fires, coming to a stop by Hynd and calling to his men to end the pursuit. They were already chasing shadows.

  ‘Hynd,’ he said.

  Hynd was with the stricken mage, who was still standing in the same position, staring at the forest. Men were filtering back past them. Some saw the mage and their eyes widened as they hurried past. Hynd gestured Jeral to him.

  Jeral could see the blood before he saw the wounds, and when he looked at the poor mage could feel nothing but pity for him. Around the fire, the quickly slaughtered guards and other mages lay mercifully blind. Jeral understood the violence of their deaths, but he could not comprehend the cruelty that had been visited upon the sole survivor.

  Jeral thought he recognised him as Pirian but could easily have been mistaken. The cuts, inflicted by panther and elf, began on his forehead. A long wound ran from temple to temple, described with clinical precision. Blood ran down into his eyebrows and over his face. His nose had been sliced along its length and the cut continued down and through his top lip.

  Pirian’s cheeks each carried four ragged tears that ran from the sides of his nose all the way to his ears, both of which had been bitten half away. And finally, his neck had been sliced from the tip of his chin all the way to the top of his shirt. No single cut was deep enough to be fatal but every single one was designed to scar. Jeral touched his own facial wounds and blessed his relative good fortune.

  Pirian himself was lost to shock. His eyes were seeking an end to his nightmare and his face was shrouded in his blood. But while his face and mind were wrecked, the rest of his body was wholly undamaged.

  ‘Can we move him?’ asked Jeral. ‘Have you tried?’

  ‘He’s totally rigid. I think we’ll have to carry him,’ said Hynd, his voice quiet. ‘Why have they done this? Why not just kill him?’

  Jeral sighed, and another small door into the elven psyche opened for him. His fear and respect for them grew in equal measure.

  ‘It’s a message,’ he said. ‘By morning, everyone will know what has happened to him. Sooner or later, everyone will see him. The elves know we can’t kill him, or leave him behind, and so every day he will be there, the most chilling reminder of what is waiting for us out here.’

  ‘They came all this way just to do that? Deliver that message?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Jeral. ‘This was just a sideshow. They’ve just freed about seventy Sharps. Didn’t bother killing as many of us as they could have, either. But they’ve weakened us nonetheless.’

  ‘What can we do about it?’

  ‘Build. More. Barges.’

  Chapter 14

  There was Ix, jumping and sparkling, laughing, capricious and mischievous. Yniss laughed and the forest echoed with his joy. Ix danced along the lines of the earth and cavorted in the rivers and streams, matching her movements to the energies Yniss had laid there. Because she loved it so, he made her its warden and her laughter echoes still among Beeth’s boughs.

  The Aryn Hiil

  It was not until the next morning that Auum noticed something that he should have seen much sooner. He found Onelle, and after they had prayed together at the statue of Yniss, they walked towards the Hallows of Reclamation beyond the village.

  ‘Takaar has been here, hasn’t he?’ asked Auum.

  Onelle nodded. ‘I’ve wanted to speak to you about it but Lysael’s news rather took over, didn’t it? And you needed more rest last night. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you be the one to bring it up.
’

  ‘You have nothing to apologise for. He’s taken your orientation class, hasn’t he?’

  Onelle put her head in her hands.

  ‘Auum, he was wild. He was unshaven, he stank like he’d run all the way from Ysundeneth without pause and he was weak from hunger and thirst. He should have collapsed but there was something in him, driving him on. He brought the Il-Aryn together, and he gave this extraordinary oration. It lasted for an hour, maybe more, and we all sat and listened though so much of what he said was little more than ravings; nonsensical mutterings. Half the time I wasn’t sure if he was talking to us or talking to his other self. I have never seen anything like it.’

  Auum nodded. It sounded like a continuation of his meanderings outside the city a few days before.

  ‘He’d been talking to Garan,’ said Auum. ‘Something got so far inside him he couldn’t shake it. He’s descending fast, isn’t he?’

  ‘Is he? I don’t know, Auum.’

  ‘You’re going to explain that, I hope,’ said Auum. ‘Because from where I’m standing he’s a menace, pure and simple.’

  Onelle sighed. ‘I know you and he don’t see eye to eye but I’ve spent a great deal of time with him during the years since his return. We’ve studied together, worked together and talked endlessly about the Il-Aryn and how best we can harness it for the good of us all.

  ‘He’s passionate to the point of zealousness and he’s given to flights of fancy, but more than that, he’s a genius. Don’t scoff, Auum, because you don’t know, you don’t see. He believes Ix is the rising god in our pantheon and that the Il-Aryn are the bedrock of our future.’

  Auum’s heart missed a beat. ‘I see. The days of the Ynissul are over, are they?’

  Onelle stopped and Auum was surprised to see the frustration in her expression.

  ‘No, Auum, you’re missing the point. Yniss will for ever be the father of us all, but we have to evolve. Man is here with his magic and we have to be able to fight fire with fire or we will fall. Magic has been awakened within us. In some threads it will remain dormant but in others it will burst into brilliant life and we have to be able to harness it. Ix is undeniably in the ascendant and you have to face that. Embrace it. Magic will be the salvation of the elven race.’