Shadow Of The Mountain

by D. A. Stone

  Lantueron waited, but no words came from Kreiden. He hadn’t the strength.

  The Volrathi shook his head coolly.

  “We will find them, your men. There is no reason for you not to tell us, but still, I commend your silence.”

  He paused as if reluctant of what was to come next.

  “Grasden?” he finally called out. Another form moved into view, and this man was a tower of flesh and muscle. His hair, too, was black and greasy, slicked back, his face wide and flat. An axe rested on his shoulder. It was the largest axe Kreiden had ever seen.

  “This is my champion. His name is Grasden and he favors the axe, as you will soon discover firsthand,” Lantueron explained. “I regret the two of you hadn’t the chance to meet earlier. I do enjoy watching him work with a clean canvas. You see,” Lantueron continued carefully, bending down again to wipe the blood from Kreiden‘s eyes with a finger. “He kills…men like you. Great men. It is what he does, ever since he first took up steel. He doesn’t build. He doesn’t farm. He kills.”

  Lantueron moved from view, leaving only Grasden behind.

  “Now, you must pay attention, champion,” he said just out of eyeshot. “We only die but once. Such a shame it would be for you to miss it.”

  Kreiden lifted his right arm up before him. His torn sleeve fell down past the elbow, revealing the image of a bronze dragon tattooed on the inside of his forearm. The scales of its body were torn and bloody, but it was still there, looking back at him, a reminder that he was not alone, not in this life or the after. He was not alone.

  Grasden slowly took the axe in both hands. “Rest now,” he spoke, showing jagged-sharp teeth.

  Laying the arm down against his chest, Kreiden stared up into the swaying leaves of the forest. Seeing the sky darken into night, he closed his eyes.

  His last thoughts weren’t of wolves or blood, of battle or death, of fallen friends or assassins in the night, but of a princess dressed in white, with dazzling blue eyes and long brown hair.

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

  “Talia…” he whispered.

  The axe came down and Amoria’s champion was dead.

  Chapter 8

  The dining hall was filled with nearly forty screaming and laughing children. Some were sitting at one of two long oak tables, while others were chasing each other under the high, arched ceiling. The children were dressed in threadbare clothes that had seen better days or seasons, some even better years. They were but a fraction of Corda’s poorest children and many of their thin, little bodies were stricken with fleas and sores.

  All of them could use a good scrubbing, Natalia Baelik thought, but there just isn’t enough time.

  Afternoon light beamed in through a large stained-glass window located high on the far wall. The image on the window depicted a bronze dragon locked in battle with a larger dragon of black, set against a stunning sunset. It was a common enough motif in Amorian society: a depiction of Mir-Saad, the first and most feared dragon Draxakis ever defeated in combat. The stained glass was situated between two large hanging tapestries of green, emblazoned with the Amorian standard, that hung down to the floor.

  The myriad of colors filling the room illuminated the chaos that was commonplace on Sundays at the Baelik house in Amoria’s capital. A veritable feast was laid out on both tables for the hungry children. Large pots of beef stew and plates of meats, cheeses, and fruits adorned the two tables, along with baskets of bread and jugs of cool water.

  The meal had reached its halfway point, with several of the children having wolfed down more food than they’d eaten all week in just a few minutes. Those who were finished jumped from the benches to run about the dining hall, exploring where they could. Still, many remained seated at the tables, slurping stew and wiping up the remnants with chunks of fresh bread. Some of the youths weren’t even big enough to see over the tabletops, so they stood on the benches and grabbed whatever they wanted. The servants of the house darted about, constantly on the move, refilling jugs of water or pots of soup from the kitchen.

  The children always made a dreadful mess, but Talia never cared. She loved them and did all she could to ease the suffering of the poor. These weekly lunches held at her estate were one way she could give back to the less fortunate. It was also a pleasant distraction when Kreiden was away with the army, which happened quite often. More often than she liked.

  As the Sunday meal began to dwindle down, the children started to vacate the tables, leaving an explosion of half-eaten food and spilled soup in their wake.

  Talia’s servants started to round up the children, giving them all a silver piece and a canvas bag of food to take home. They were led in single file through a large hallway to the side entrance of the house where her heavyset handmaiden, Karin, touched and counted each little head as they said goodbye. The ragged children hopped and skipped from the Baelik house with a stomach full of food and a little money in their pocket.

  Karin turned to Talia as the last child, a little boy named Gavin, exited the house. He ducked low underneath Karin’s hand to avoid being touched on the way out. The handmaiden quickly gave him a light smack on the rump, which produced a giggle as he ran off toward the open gate. Karin moved next to her mistress.

  “Thirty-six,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Hmm.” The slender Talia adjusted the blue ribbon holding back her long dark hair. “One short. It seems we have a lamb that has strayed from the flock. And I think I know the little lamb’s name.”

  The two made their way back to the dining hall. Even though the twelve-room house Natalia shared with the Amorian champion was enormous, most of it was locked and sectioned off for the weekly lunch. The servants wouldn’t let a child into the kitchen and the hallway was empty, so that left only the dining area.

  They entered the wide space and saw several servants hurriedly moving about, sweeping or wiping down tables and benches.

  “Orrie?” Talia called out sweetly. “The meal is over, little one.” She and Karin moved around the large tables, looking under both. There was no child to be found.

  “That’s strange,” the lady of the house said, putting hands on hips. “She’s usually underneath one of the dining tables.”

  A nearby servant sweeping the floor cleared her throat to get Talia’s attention, then motioned to one of the hanging green tapestries. She looked over and saw two tiny sandals sticking out from behind it.

  Making her way to the far wall below the great window, she pulled the tapestry aside. There was a tiny girl no older than six standing with her hands locked behind her back. Barely rising above Talia’s waist, she had scraggly blond hair and adorable brown eyes.

  “Please, please, please don’t make me go,” Orrie’s little voice cried. “I’ll do anything, anything! This is my favorite place in the whole world! Please?” She started batting her eyes as they welled up with tears.

  “Oh, don’t cry, little Orrie.” Talia knelt down next to her. “I wish you could stay, but I think your mother would miss you dreadfully, and I know you’d miss her as well. Remember when I came with you to meet your mother? Remember?” Orrie nodded her head. “I’ll return with you next week to see her again. Would you like that?”

  “Yes,” Orrie said as she breathed in through a stuffy nose. “I want to hug you, but I‘m still dirty from the food,” she said sadly, holding up soup-stained sleeves.

  Talia looked down at her ankle-length gown of blue that hung low off her shoulders. It, too, was covered in stains from the afternoon’s festivities, but she would still hug the child even if it were the finest gown in her collection.

  “Hug me anyway,” she said, opening her arms. They almost squeezed the life out of each other. The tiny hands released Talia and she stood back up.

  “Karin will clean you up and walk you home,” she said. “I will see you soon, okay?”

  “Okay,” the little girl chirped, all signs of the tears from earlier vanished. Taking Karin’s outstr
etched hand, Orrie was led to the swinging kitchen door. Karin paused before entering, turning to her mistress.

  “Shall I have the bath drawn for you, my lady?” she asked.

  Talia rolled her eyes at the formality of the question. Karin was only twenty-eight, two years older than herself and more sister than servant. They had known each other since the first day she arrived from Den Prazi nine years ago, sent by her father, Lord Farshan Samtracia, ruler of the Prazi Isles. Karin was paid to become her servant and friend, but she quickly became family. The handmaiden only called her ‘lady’ when there were other servants around, and even then it was an inside jest.

  “Thank you, Karin,” she said with a grin. “A bath would be splendid.”

  ***

  A short while later, Talia was soaking in a large, square bath on the second floor of the house’s western wing. The room was of flawless white marble and the floor was polished to an immaculate shine. Four columns of sectioned marble adorned each corner of the bath situated in the center. There were two padded massage tables to the right of the doorway, with shelves of scented oils and perfumes between them and a wicker basket piled high with heavy, white towels. Two large windows had been swung open and the sweet fragrances of her fruit garden carried in on the breeze from the courtyard below. A few peaches, oranges, and tangerines still lingered from their branches, and the scent of them seemed to blend together pleasantly.

  The lady of the house hummed a tune from her youth in Den Prazi as she rubbed scented oil into her arms and upper body. Natalia Baelik had the tanned skin common to the people of her island nation, the blue eyes of her father, and the lustrous black hair of her grandmother. Her body was lithe and strong, a gift from a childhood of dance lessons and aerobics that she gladly carried over into womanhood. Her days of dance were mostly in the past now, but she maintained other activities to ward off the softness brought by a life of servants and leisure. She took to long runs, slipping quietly into the forest trails surrounding the capital, running until her lungs screamed with fire and limbs turned to clumsy wood. Exertion was one of life’s best distractions.

  Talia ran more often when Kreiden was gone. She ran to settle her mind mostly, to calm the dark thoughts and even darker images of where he might be or what he might be doing. The simple thought of him in danger was enough to fill her with anxiety, but he was the champion and all she could do was wait for his return. Wait and hope and pray.

  She ducked underneath the water and surfaced, smoothing back her hair. Resting her head against a rolled up towel on the rim of the bath, she closed her eyes and listened to the birds outside. It was a wondrous contrast to all the noise that accompanied her Sunday lunches.

  She smiled, picturing the little toes of Orrie peeking out from behind the tapestry. The young girl always wanted to be the last child to leave and Talia had grown fond of her. Orrie’s father had abandoned his wife and daughter when the child was just a babe. Talia had met with the mother on a few occasions, privately asking if she would want to live and work in the Baelik house with Orrie. The proud woman had turned her down, insisting that Orrie’s father would be returning any day. Talia had not pushed the issue.

  “You cannot help them all,” she said softly, repeating Kreiden’s words when he’d heard the story.

  At the thought of her husband, she felt a pang of longing.

  The handsome champion had set out for Goridai nearly two weeks ago, but already she missed him terribly. Sleep rarely came to her when he was away and she’d lie awake those long nights fearing for her husband’s safety, occasionally reaching out to feel his empty side of the bed.

  Through her apothecary she had acquired Garik extract, from the pod-seeds of the Delvian flower, to help her sleep. Just a drop upon the tongue and she’d be out like a stone for hours. Talia reserved the potion for only her most severe bouts of insomnia. She didn’t want to grow dependent on it, but it was difficult to resist. Sleep beneath the opiate was dreamless and that was what she found the most pleasant. Those nights seemed to be the only escape from the gloom of her husband’s absence, and the longer he was gone the worse it became. Without it, sleep never came peacefully.

  And now she was told Amoria was to reach the flatlands either yesterday or the day before, which meant more danger and bloodshed for Kreiden and again more sleepless nights for her.

  She hated the thought of him in battle, but he was an Amorian soldier, the champion. Battle was his life.

  The Volrathi forces were said to be colossal, their origins shrouded in mystery. One day there was nothing south of the Sand Vale, just an ocean of scorched earth and dust. No water, no people, no life. Then they came as if from nothing. Great ships beneath black banners rolled in during the yearly storm, their men arriving to occupy the once-barren city of the Danaki people along the Nangien harbor.

  Everything seemed to change after that. Distant settlements reported sights of strange animals; unknown beasts lurking in the shadows, faster than the desert cats, larger than the southern gray bears.

  Monsters, people had whispered. Nightmares.

  The tales continued to pour in from the southern settlements, then…nothing. The small mining villages within the Sand Vale fell silent. No messages came from their birds, and no riders emerged from their desert. It was as if they had vanished, slipping through the mysterious doorway the Volrathi had appeared from. An Amorian contingent was sent to investigate and make contact with the Volrathi; a thousand soldiers and the red dragon, Rezin, had been sent out across the sands.

  None returned.

  “A thousand men,” she whispered.

  Talia closed her eyes, pushing the black thoughts away.

  The army had been assembled and another apparent battle was nearing. This time, it would be at Goridai.

  Her husband was bound by duty to go. She understood. Duty, honor, and brotherhood. Those were the laws of this land. She had married the king’s champion and, though his love for her was great, one thing was made clear when they were wed: Kreiden was the champion first and a husband second.

  His life was bound to Amoria and the sword, to war. That he loved her, there was no question. Her marriage was a colossal source of happiness and her husband was the finest man she’d ever met. Never before had she loved another the way she loved Kreiden. But unfortunately for Talia, he was more than just a man. He was the king’s man, and fighting for the king was his life. She had made peace with that, but it was still a constant struggle. And often it was downright frightening.

  Fighting in duels for Healianos had become a rarity for her husband. He had been challenged twice during their eight years of marriage by unaffiliated groups of soldiers, and on each occasion Talia had been terrified. On both days she had refused to attend, instead remaining at home to worry and wait.

  Almost ten years earlier the realm of Calconia had collapsed under the combined weight of the Amorian and Gallan forces. With their government in ruin and army in disarray, the nation was split apart and its remnants annexed into the surrounding borderlines. Amorian officials estimated that close to twenty thousand Calconian soldiers were disbanded, with many taking to the vast Killian Forest that stretched from the rim of the Goridai Flats all the way north to the Teserian Hills.

  And what else would such men turn to for a living other than violence?

  Mercenary groups soon sprung up all over Endura. Some were mere nuisances, but others would often grow to great size, lead by charismatic men whom others would flock to for purpose. Her husband’s most recent challenger had been made by a collection of mercenary groups that had combined into one such force over several years. They called themselves the Raegun and had unwisely pillaged an Amorian village. While the Raegun’s numbers were nowhere near that of the Amorian force, the mercenary band had kept to the thick forest, vanishing into its depths before a proper pursuit could ever be mounted.

  After a minor skirmish in the countryside, a handful of the mercenaries had been captured by the Amorian
soldiers. The Raegun’s leader, a ragged man named Huegar, had responded by sacking a settlement on the outskirts of Panea, taking hostages of his own. Negotiations for the captives’ release on both sides had gone awry and a challenge was made.

  Kreiden was said to have fought a sword fighter nearly twice his weight and a full head taller than him. Supposedly, the duel had lasted twelve seconds and the Amorian villagers were released.

  Her husband and Healianos had destroyed the Raegun a week later with a party of Amorian youths fresh out of the academies and a small cavalry division. Roving bands of mercenaries had given their nation a wide birth from then on.

  She thought back to the afternoon before Kreiden had left with the army for Goridai. They had relaxed under the shade of a peach tree in the courtyard, listening to the babbling water from the manmade stream flowing through the garden. The sun was shining and large clusters of clouds filled the sky.

  “Where do you think they come from?” she had asked, her head resting against her husband’s chest.

  “Not much is known about them, save they’re from the far south and their numbers are great,” Kreiden told her. “And they’ve been burning the ships that brought them here. Thousands of them.”

  “What do you suppose it means?”

  “I don’t know, but wherever they’re from, it seems they don’t intend to return.”

  “I was always told that the far south was a wasteland. No army can march across the Sand Vale. There’s no water, just rocks and dust.”

  “They seem to have found a way,” was all he said, scratching his chin. “The rumor is that the Danaki have returned, angry with the realm for our sins.”

  “Our sins? You mean the sins of men three hundred years gone. We never did anything to those poor people. They were dabbling on the fringes of magic and the disease they released crippled the land.”

  “We both know the tale,” he reminded her calmly. Natalia had lapsed into silence.

  “All those people,” she said. “All those women and children…”