White Star Phase: Book One of the Ascendants Chronicle

by Scott Beckman

  At last, the general reached the top of the hill, oso slathering. Aris pointed a blade at her. “I am the one you know as Aaryyss. I have served your highest generals. I have killed viscera in their name and guarded the Eeiinthhyyrr. You know what will happen if you ride against me.”

  The general pointed her hammer back at Aris. Lingering on the vowels, she said, “You came to kill. We defend ourselves and our honor.”

  “You have been lied to,” Aris said. “As have I. If we fight here and now, it will not be our own quarrel. I have committed no crimes within your borders. This attack is preemptive and unnecessary.”

  The general nodded to Jeppo and Vella. “You have attacked our kind. This is a crime.”

  “I did not know they were yours until just now. I have been betrayed.”

  “Yes,” the general said. “But we must defend our own.”

  The Juulliiss charged. Drawing on the demon’s magic, Aris sent a flat, shard of ice into them. Those who failed to duck beneath it were severed in half. The general’s oso fell, its four limbs separated from its body, and the general tumbled down with it, her frustrated cry mingling with the screams of her soldiers.

  Aris moved toward the survivors, swinging his blades in wide arcs. The Juulliiss dodged as best they could but when one soldier couldn’t avoid Aris’ strike, he blocked with his own weapon. The cold blue Kovah blade coupled with Aris’ presence’s magic and froze his arm like stone. The soldier fell back with a dismayed cry and Aris moved on to the others, leaving the wounded soldier to watch wide-eyed as the cold crawled further until it stopped his heart.

  The general freed herself from under her oso and joined her soldiers. She wielded a long hammer that she swung with ease despite its weight, the great whoosh of each swing heralding certain death if it struck.

  Aris fell on the defensive, ducking the general’s swipes and slicing at the soldiers to keep them at bay. One of the soldiers stepped close, preparing a lunge that could have impaled Aris, but the Villain shouted in the soldier’s direction and the presence’s magic sent him tumbling back. Aris flung one blade that slid under the fallen soldier’s armor and froze him solid, then rolled under the general’s hammer and threw his second sword into the last surviving soldier as she charged with her own blade raised overhead.

  The general roared and brought her hammer down with all her strength. Aris raised his forearms and the presence’s magic formed an ice shield to block the blow. The hammer rebounded and the general lost her balance. Aris at once drew another Kovah blade off his back and struck her in the side, freezing her in place, her look of wide-eyed surprised locked and unchanging.

  Aris retrieved his weapons and returned to where Vella sat beside her unconscious father with her head in her hands. Aris tore her hands away so he could see her tear-stricken cheeks and puffy red eyes. “How long?” he demanded. “How long have you been a Juulliiss spy?”

  “All my life,” Vella said. “My father, too.”

  Aris crushed her wrists in his hands. “Did you betray my daughter?” The presence within added its voice to his so the words cut Vella’s skin and tore hair from her head.

  “No, I swear it!” Vella hung her head as though she lacked the strength to lift it again. “We wanted her to succeed. We need the Mourisiel family to fall so that we can corrupt and control the government from within.”

  “Why betray me?”

  “Because you meant to kill our people,” Vella said. “It would have been dishonorable to allow it.”

  “Now I have killed your people, and a general too. Fiskahn got the bloody battle he needed to start a war and foment discord amongst the citizenry.”

  “But he cannot stop the Juulliiss,” Vella said. “They will crush Mourisiel if war comes. Only we can stop them by making them understand. Only my father and I.”

  “Does Fiskahn know what you are?”

  “No. He hopes the overthrow of the Mourisiel family will prompt reconciliation with the Juulliiss. He thinks they will believe their enemy defeated.”

  Aris shook his head. “They will see their enemy weakened and vulnerable, and they will consider this attack a declaration of war that they cannot honorably allow.”

  “Yes,” Vella said, frozen tears in her eyelashes. “There will be war regardless unless my father sits on the throne. Then the Juulliiss will see that they already rule Mourisiel.”

  Aris drew one of his blades. “I care nothing for your politics. I care nothing for your resistance or your father. Let there be war. Let the Juulliiss destroy Harivaz. All I want is my vengeance for my daughter.”

  He swung the blade for Vella’s neck. She brought up her hands and at the moment Aris' blade struck them, Vella's arms burst into flame. Aris’ blade rebounded as if it had struck stone, the tremor shaking his arm.

  Furious, Aris brought the blade back for another blow but didn’t follow through; Vella’s eyes, alight with orange flame, held him in place. “Your daughter lives,” she said, all weakness gone from her voice.

  “You lie,” Aris said. “As you have lied about this.”

  She rose, burning and terrible, the quiet young woman replaced by something demonic. “I have lied about a great many things but I am finished with deception. Your daughter Theina survived the attack and if you ally yourself with me, I can help you find her.”

  “What are you?” Aris asked.

  “I am like you,” Vella said.

  Camarei IX

  Stories Worth Remembering

  Valkil lay with his head in Ahlaha’s lap and she stroked his hair, singing softly. Malquin sat nearby, cross-legged in the dirt, toying idly with a torn strip of leather, and the youths, Erona and Shavyn, spoke together apart from the rest of the group. The desert stretched on into the distance, desolate.

  Valkil looked up as Aioni and Warrior approached from the direction of the oasis. “Anything?”

  “No,” Aioni said. “They insist there is no cure.”

  “So what, then?” Malquin asked. “Is there nothing else we can try?”

  “There is nothing else to try,” Valkil said. “I will fight to keep these old eyes open as long as I can but eventually, it will take me.”

  “No,” Ahlaha sang. The sadness in her tone broke Valkil’s heart. “We will find some way to stop it.”

  “Nobody has found a cure in all these cycles,” Aioni said. “There isn’t one.”

  Valkil took a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell all of you.” He sat up and brushed the sand off his leg. “All this may sound like the ramblings of a dying man but I promise that it happened before the feather. I've been having visions. The last was very dramatic; I was attacked by a dozen therill and rescued by a strange glowing stone. Then that stone showed me another identical stone and how to get to it. Since then, the visions have been more tempered, just glimpses of the next stone, hidden among acovet and water.”

  “Why haven’t you said anything?” Malquin asked.

  “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Valkil asked. “I didn’t want to invite the teasing that you all certainly would have participated in against me if I had told you.”

  “You’ve chosen a funny time for this.” Aioni scoffed. “What does it matter, this stone? There must be more important things you’d like to say to some of us.”

  “I’m telling you now because I feel like the next stone is very close.” Valkil drew a sigil in the sand, a few crossing lines. “I don’t know what this means but it's the rune you should be looking for.”

  Erona, having joined the group partway through Valkil’s story, asked. “What’s the symbol all about? Why would we want to find it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Valkil said with a chuckle. “I just feel like it's leading us somewhere important.”

  “Is it a cure?” Ahlaha sang. “Is it some kind of power that could save you?”

  “No,” Valkil said. “I don’t think so. Like I said, I saw all this before the feather. It seems unrelated.” He took her hands
. “I feel that it’s very important that you find this rune, and I’m going to die, Ahlaha. I can’t go with you.”

  Ahlaha kissed him. When she pulled away, their eyes were wet. “Don’t say it,” Ahlaha sang, voice cracking. “Don’t say it.”

  As the lovers whispered to each other, Malquin led the others away a few steps. “We will not bury him here,” he said. “Not in this desert with its shifting sands. We will bring him back to Verden.”

  “Verden?” Erona asked. “But then we will have come all this way for nothing. He will have died for nothing. We came hunting therill and he wants us to go after this symbol...”

  “I do not care about therill or his visions,” Malquin said. “He is my brother.”

  “I lost my mother,” Erona said, fists clenched. “Others have died, Mal. That is why we have come all this way. We can’t turn back now.” Shavyn began to put his arms around her shoulders but she shoved him away. “I’ve lost family too but here I am. I’m going to my village and I’m hunting therill. Am I braver than you?”

  Malquin sighed. “Do not agitate me, girl. Not now.”

  “I will do what I must to make you see,” Erona said.

  “What hope do we have against the therill without the pairu daza feathers?” Malquin asked. “This was the entire plan, but we came away from the Qati with nothing. Less than nothing.”

  “Aioni wounded one,” Erona said. “With a plain arrow. They may be terrifying, surely, but I’ve seen other things in this world that frightened me that nonetheless could be killed. If we let fear stop us from trying…”

  “Enough, Erona,” Aioni said. “You have seen the therill recently but I have seen their civilization. Yes, I wounded one, but there may be thousands more.”

  “My village was not plagued by a thousand of them,” Erona said. “Just the one. There are a half dozen of us and only one of them.”

  “As far as you know,” Malquin said. “That is not convincing.”

  “And we can’t bury him here,” Shavyn said.

  “You’re not burying me,” Valkil said, his head once again in Ahlaha’s lap. “Old Camarein rites and rituals don’t interest me. Ahlaha and I will return to the oasis and spend the rest of my time there. The four of you, however, need to continue on. If the therill are back, and we’re all here because we believe they are, we need evidence that the Lady Verden can’t ignore. You are tasked with gathering it. If you fail, Camarei will not be ready if and when they come. Don’t let that happen.”

  Malquin knelt at his brother’s side. “Valkil…”

  “Don’t start,” Valkil said. “I owe you more apologies than you owe me.” He touched Ahlaha on the knee. “Give me a moment with my brother, will you?”

  Ahlaha rose and took a dozen steps away from the others, sobbing. Aioni turned to Erona and Shavyn. “I’ll go,” she told the youths. “I’ll go to your village with you. We’ll hunt this therill. By the stars, we’ll kill it.”

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  On the path through the desert, with Valkil and Ahlaha and the oasis beyond the horizon behind them, Erona and Shavyn walked side by side several steps behind Aioni and Malquin and Warrior. All walked with their heads bowed.

  Erona broke the silence. “They say the Verdant Knight was the first into the Damasys Abyss.”

  Malquin nodded. “It’s true. I was there.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Battle at Damasys had been over a while. We had a hundred survivors, no more. Shoulder to shoulder, we worked across the battlefield, digging through the bodies in search of Kiilyyn, the Juulliiss general. We had all seen him during the battle but none had faced him nor seen him fall.

  “We reached the end of the battlefield, the edge of the abyss, without identifying him. Valkil said what we were all thinking, that Kiilyyn must have escaped into the depths of the abyss itself. It belched orange and yellow gas from impenetrable darkness. We were ready to admit we had failed, but Val had that look in his eye.”

  “I know that look,” Aioni said.

  “Every time I’ve seen it, I have felt both afraid and courageous,” Malquin said. “I knew it meant we were about to risk our lives but I also knew our cause was worth that risk.

  “He lit up the first torch and delved into the abyss himself. Didn’t even ask the rest of us to follow, though of course we did. The torchlight barely touched the darkness. Every few seconds, a bit of the gas would light and we’d all hold our breaths, thinking the entire cave might fill with flames and extinguish us all.

  “Finally, we found him. Kiilyyn, backed up against a cave wall with a half dozen of his best warriors. To his credit, he fought like, well, a therill. Wasn’t enough. Valkil was too fast, too strong. Too determined.”

  “Tell us how he killed him,” Erona said.

  Malquin chuckled. “You said you’ve heard this story.”

  “I want to hear it again.”

  “It was one of Valkil’s notorious feints. All our enemies had heard these tales and knew he might try it yet it always worked. He let Kiilyyn get the upper hand, even took a glancing blow from that hammer. You could see the fire in Kiilyyn’s eye as he began to believe he had won. He brought that hammer down, thinking it the death blow, and Val blocked it aside so that it barely missed him, letting go of his sword when the hammer struck. The sword went flipping through the air and Kiilyyn couldn’t help but look. In his victory blindness, he watched Val’s sword turn end over end, making himself vulnerable. Val stuck his knife in Kiilyyn’s neck all the way up to the hilt and that light in his eyes went out.”

  Aioni sighed. “Those were good days.”

  “They make for good stories, anyway,” Malquin said.

  Erona’s thoughts drifted to other stories of the Verdant Knight. They kept her company through the desert until the sight of green fields and red earth reminded her of home and she began to wonder what she would find of her village when they reached it.

  Skor-Adal IX

  The Power of Zor

  Arvad sat with his elbows on his knees, looking out across the brushland. Surrounding the camp, hundreds of Zor thralls worked on their hands and knees, picking berries and placing them into baskets. Once full, the cultists put the baskets on their heads and walked off into the distance until they disappeared.

  The others slept, all but Meon and the thrall guide. The former engaged in strength training and the latter sat apart from the camp, staring into the distance. Arvad had never seen the guide sleep, even after a half dozen rest-times.

  Without provocation, the guide suddenly rose and walked away. Arvad watched him go, wondering if he would stop and turn back. When he didn’t, Arvad scrambled up and went after him.

  The caliph kept his distance and stayed low to the ground to stay out of sight but the guide never glanced back. Once the camp was out of sight, he stopped. Arvad paused as well, watching and waiting, but the guide stood motionless and silent.

  Arvad finally lost patience and approached the guide. “You get yourself lost, friend?”

  “No,” the guide said. “I know these lands too well. I could never lose myself here.”

  Arvad looked about. “Everything is so flat. Every mile looks the same as the last. I don’t understand how you can find your way.”

  “Same as you do. With my eyes and ears.”

  “Yes, well, that’s all very mysterious. Did you come out here for a reason?”

  The guide turned to face Arvad, his dark eyes unsettling to look upon. “I wanted a word with you. The loyalty of these soldiers to their general is something Zor respects. Zor demands a similar kind of unquestioning faith from his followers. You will make excellent allies. However, your faith must be shifted. You cannot follow your general if he leads you astray from the will of Zor. You must obey Zor.”

  “I don’t know that we’re joining with Zor,” Arvad said. “We said we came seeking your protection from the Skor-Adal.”

  “The price of protection is allegiance.” The guide tilt
ed his head. “I could make you bow to me now but it would mean emptying you of will. You and the others are stronger than the commoners we turn to Zor. You are better allies with your faculties and your skills, but I must be sure you will join.”

  “Talk to Krudah, then. He leads us. We do as he commands.”

  “He can hear but he cannot speak. You often speak for him. Thus, I have chosen to speak with you. The others look up to you. They will do as you do. Krudah will do what you advise.”

  “You are wrong, friend,” Arvad said. “If Krudah seems to take my advice, it is only because he and I often think alike.”

  The guide shrugged. “Perhaps, but it seems that the easiest way to ensure your allegiance to Zor will be to remove that which currently holds your loyalty. Then you will be free to find new faith.”

  “Are you threatening Krudah’s life?”

  “Life is valuable only in service to Zor. If the general will not join, he will be killed. It would be a shame to have to kill all of you for his refusal.”

  “I should warn you, friend,” Arvad said, speaking the last word with venom. “My oath to my general requires that I defend his life before my own. The others in our company have made the same promise.”

  “I do not fear them,” the guide said. “I do not fear anything. If Krudah will not do as we ask, he will die. If you and the others choose to defend him, you will also die.”

  Arvad paused, then suddenly drew his knife and plunged it into the guide’s chest, just between a pair of ribs. The guide stared back as if unaffected. “You should not have done that.”

  “You should not have threatened my general.” Arvad tore out his knife and drew it across the guide’s throat. The thrall stared as the blood poured down its chest, then pitched backwards. Arvad stood over him until he was sure the guide was dead, then sheathed his knife.

  The surrounding thralls rose and stared at Arvad. Unsettled but unafraid, he turned to return to camp, yet just then lightning flashed in the empty sky and struck one of the nearby thrall. Heat and light buffeted Arvad, and he shielded his eyes until they had dissipated. When he looked again, the thrall appeared unharmed, though the ground at her feet had been blackened and smoke rose from the top of her head. Her eyes were liquid black as the guide's had been.