The Shadow of War

by Bryan Gifford

  Cain knew he needed to keep the pressure up. He needed to force his opponent to make a mistake, to commit to a non-sword attack that would leave him open. Until then, he would bide his time, and hope his foe would tire.

  Of course, Iscarius was no fool. He likely knew what Cain intended, and continued to apply his own pressure, constantly forcing Cain back beneath savage blows. Any stumble, any slightly slower block was instantly met with a surge of vicious lightning or fire.

  Cain allowed himself to get beaten back, letting Ceerocai almost guide his hands. He didn’t feel the usual anger or hate that came when the weapon stirred to life. Instead, he only felt determination. Hope.

  Iscarius continued to pound against him. Blade, lightning, blade, fire. Each attack hammered against him and rattled his bones and raked his flesh. Still, he stood firm. Light, blade, shadow. The blows came swift and steady, but he stood his ground.

  Iscarius suddenly stopped. He stood there, scowling at Cain. His blue eyes glowed like embers.

  “You are different than before,” he said at last. His cool voice floated across the mountaintop. “You are strong now. Focused. Perhaps you will make this time a challenge.”

  “I am fortunate to have lived again. This last year, these last few weeks, I have lived a fuller life than all my years combined. I have loved, and I have thrived. I finally know what I fight for… and you will not take it from me.”

  “You know why I must kill you. You know what you are.”

  Cain nodded. Somehow, he’d always known. Like a spark knew its purpose as a flame.

  “I am Abaddon.”

  He raised Ceerocai, and white fire erupted from its blade.

  Isroc ripped off the end of his makeshift tourniquet with his teeth. Blood seeped through the rag around his arm.

  He felt lightheaded, dizzy. Exhaustion threatened to pull him to the ground. He couldn’t give in, not when his soldiers counted on him in their darkest hour. Not when Cain was out there fighting for their fates.

  Isroc grabbed one of his officers and ordered the man to pull their reserve troops to bolster their flanks, then jumped back into the fray.

  Acedens and Iscara hammered at their sides, dropping bodies indiscriminately. Boulders and javelins continued to drop down on their heads from Markadesh. Arrows and bolts rained from the surrounding army. Thousands upon thousands of Acedens pressed them from three sides and beat them back against the mountains. Corpses heaped in mangled mounds. The grass was slick with blood and viscera, every blade stained a deep red.

  There was nothing Isroc could do now but accept his fate. He’d always felt like he’d lived too long; he’d spent years watching his family, his friends, his fellow soldiers die. And yet he always went on living. It was his time.

  Yet, in the back of his mind, he felt like maybe he just hadn’t lived the right way. He’d spent his life trying to become the best leader he could be, poring over every military stratagem to become a master tactician and make his father proud. He’d never really stopped to think about what all of it really meant. Why fight if you had nothing to fight for but the fight itself? He thought of Kari, of the life they could one day have together. Perhaps he hadn’t really lived before this moment.

  As Isroc fought against the endless hordes, he silenced his doubt… that his hope was only there to make his demise easier to accept. He gathered his strength and his fury, then charged back into the fray.

  Here, at the edge of death, he felt life.

  Cain pressed Iscarius back with powerful blows, blinding white fire trailing about them as they clashed. Their weapons met in searing sparks and embers, flashes of light illuminating their determined eyes and gritted teeth.

  Cain felt awake. As if his entire life had been spent asleep, unknowing, unfeeling. His muscles coiled with energy, his vision focused, his heart thumped with every surge of fire. A fierce heat burned in his chest, clawing to be set free.

  This was power. This was understanding, something his human mind could never fully hope to grasp with all its failings. But perhaps, in some small way, he was something beyond. For this one, terrible, beautiful moment, he felt the truth of what he was.

  Cain knocked away a hasty attack and continued pounding his opponent back.

  He was Abaddon. He’d always been. Not the man himself, but a piece of him. That explained how he could control Ceerocai, how he could summon the beast. How he escaped death.

  Cain blocked a flurry of desperate attacks, then swept a wave of fire out before him.

  He was the blood of Abaddon, his progeny. Abaddon had been a man once, prone to human urges. Human love. He’d then spent generations tracking down his descendants to wipe out any who could use his power against him, until but one remained.

  Cain swatted away a blast of lightning. White and black crackled in the space between them.

  Abaddon could not risk someone else with his divine power, and so, had attempted to kill Cain again and again. Now, the tyrant was dead, and Cain was the sole relic of a bloody bygone era.

  “You know why I must kill you!” Iscarius cried, beating back Cain’s fiery blows. “Your power is dangerous, unchained. You could destroy our world. But I will end the Forgotten’s genocide, and it will end with you.

  “I cannot let the tyrant of Tarsha live on through you. I killed his physical form, I killed the beast; now I must kill you. You are the only thing that stands between this world and peace!”

  He screamed, and a plume of blue fire billowed from his outstretched hand, engulfing his sword.

  “I know what my fate must be,” Cain said as he approached his foe, embers floating down around him. “But I will not die before I kill you. You will pay for your crimes, your murders, for the people you used and the lives you tore apart. You claim to fight for peace, but you broke this world and brought it to its knees.

  “I may be Destruction. I may be Death. But I will also be this world’s salvation!”

  Their weapons crashed in an explosion of flames.

  They surged back and forth, blades hammering and ringing. White and blue fire swirled in their dance of metal.

  Iscarius blocked an attack with a wave of flames and sent it careening toward his foe. Cain battered the blaze away in time to block a blade of light. The brilliant flash shattered into shards around him, and their weapons clashed again.

  Cain spun Ceerocai and caught his opponent’s sword in its hook. He swung out with a column of white fire. Iscarius split the attack with a hand of lightning, then launched a bolt at Cain. This close to the attack, the tendrils of black ricocheted off Ceerocai and popped and crashed around him. Cain swung his sword out in a wide arc and beat the lightning away with a gout of flames.

  Iscarius tossed fire down around him and the deep blue waves bound across the stones, colliding with the pillars of white. The two men battled among the violent, churning blaze.

  Their weapons zipped apart with glancing blows and thrummed with mighty swings. Their metal veins glowed in the dazzling lights.

  With each advance and withdrawal, the fires surged and receded, spinning and twisting about. The air burned with an intense, scouring heat. The earth rumbled and stones shattered.

  Cain deflected a lashing of shadows and stabbed out. Iscarius sidestepped and hurled a web of lightning. Dodging, Cain came up and swung into his foe, but Iscarius blocked with a shield of light and spun away, shooting spears of stone out of the ground.

  Cain disintegrated these with wild swings, but Iscarius kept up an endless string of attacks. Stones from above, lightning from below, wind and light and shadow. Each beat Cain back, the fires around him dwindling, the sapphire flames swelling and hovering as if eager.

  He skidded to a stop at the edge of the cliff. He braved a glance over his shoulder.

  The Alliance was dying. A sea of black surrounded a small knot of colorful armor and banners. The Acedens moved in like wolves to kill and devour.

  But from the valley mouth came hope. It came in the form
of a figure in white, sword held high, an army at her heels. Even among the fires that burned within him, he felt a peace in his heart at the sight of his wife.

  He turned and charged.

  Cain was a blur, sliding and jumping past his foe’s furious attacks. Lightning exploded around him. Earth sprayed the air. Fire coursed the mountaintop.

  Cain swung. He tossed his opponent back, blocked a hasty swipe, and bashed him back again. Iscarius gripped his weapon with both hands and lashed out, but Cain still beat him away with a thunderous crash.

  The men exchanged frantic blows. The fires coalesced around them once more, a cyclone of dizzying colors and light. Blades blurred, hissing and pealing.

  Iscarius swung with a series of rapid strikes and beat Ceerocai back in a shower of embers. He hammered down on Cain and forced him on the retreat as blue fire gushed between them.

  Iscarius refused to relent. Attack after blistering attack, he advanced, driving Cain into the dirt.

  Cain’s body shook with the force of each blow. His muscles were tiring. His mind growing numb. The heat in his chest dwindled. He’d been fighting for days, for weeks. How much more could he take?

  As Iscarius beat against Ceerocai, Cain could feel the fading warmth emanate from the weapon into his tired hands. Ever since he’d first held Abaddon’s sword, he’d felt that faint sense of life stirring deep within it. It had risen within him when he needed it the most, manifesting as a great beast, then later as pure black fire. All those times he’d used it out of rage or hatred.

  Not this time. He would use Ceerocai for good.

  He just needed an opening. One decisive swing, then he could make his attack. He could end this on his terms.

  After all, his fate was sealed the moment he’d been born.

  He rose, blocked an attack, and swung.

  Iscarius knocked Ceerocai back.

  And rammed his sword through Cain.

  Cain stumbled as a jolt of pain shot through him. He looked down to the sword pierced through his gut, his blood dripping to the rocks at his feet.

  Iscarius ripped the weapon from his body. The flames vanished from Cain’s flesh with a whisper of smoke.

  He fell to his knees and Ceerocai clattered to the ground beside him. The fire within puffed out. His vision faded.

  Iscarius knelt before him, triumphant eyes glowing.

  “It is done.” He raised his sword.

  Adriel fought for her life. For the lives of her people. For all who had come before, and all yet to come.

  This was more than survival. This battle was more than just a clash of ideals and beliefs.

  It was about the fate of humanity, the fate of the world. It was about showing the Forgotten that humanity itself was worth fighting for and worth living for. All the beauty and creation, all the pain and mistakes. That despite the ugly, dirty blemishes, there was still good left in humanity.

  This was their atonement.

  She understood that now. Peace meant nothing if it were not hard won. Humanity could not exist in a state of harmony unless it was bought with the blood of sacrifice. There had to be heartache and loss before there could be something truly beautiful. Perhaps that was why humankind had fought for so many endless generations. It was a lesson that had to be learned. And the sacrifice that would win their freedom had not yet been made.

  As Adriel battled toward the surviving remnants of the Alliance, she noticed the fires like a distant mighty torch on the mountaintop above. The brilliant white and blues flickered and died.

  Her heart sank.

  Vilant swelled around her to clash with the Acedens. Screams echoed and bodies broke, but the dreadful din of battle fell quiet in her ears.

  She pushed through her army and made her way toward the mountain.

  Cain was dying.

  He could feel his life trickle away. As the descendant of Abaddon, he’d lived on borrowed time, anyway.

  It wasn’t about how much time he’d had, but about what he did with that time. He’d known many good people and many dear friends. He’d loved and lost, but he’d learned to love again. He’d shared his heart with a truly special woman.

  He had lived his life to the fullest. He couldn’t ask for anything more than that. Except, perhaps, for one final thing.

  And so, he smiled up at the sky, its clouds stained with the many red hues of a dying sun.

  Iscarius swung, and with the last of his strength, Cain dove for Ceerocai.

  The sword burst to life.

  Dazzling light exploded outward, sending Iscarius staggering back to shield his eyes. White flames leapt from the blade, tore through the earth around Cain, then climbed high into the sky.

  The fires gathered overhead and crashed together into a blend of churning shapes. Four wings rose from the mass of fire, then spun into the form of a magnificent beast.

  Of solid white flame, the creature splayed out its wings, each hundreds of feet in length. The colossal beast soared higher and higher into the sky, trailing a pillar of devastation in its wake. It blotted out the sun, a solid form of radiant white that spanned the heavens.

  The beast spiraled down to the mountaintop. It washed over and through Cain, a roaring inferno that desiccated earth and scorched air but left him untouched. The flames careened toward Iscarius, who stumbled back to the edge of the cliff, eyes wide in horrified disbelief.

  The white fires engulfed him. His cerebreum sword vanished in ashes and the remnants of his body hurdled back through the air, tumbling the thousands of feet to the rocks below.

  The fires spread out in a ring from the mountaintop, encompassing the sky for a brief, beautiful moment.

  Then, they faded in a sprinkling of tiny embers.

  Adriel scrambled over the rocks, puffing and panting as she went. She’d climbed the mountain with reckless abandon, her knees and arms now scraped and bloodied. None of that mattered. She had to get to Cain.

  She slid down a rift in the earth and climbed up the other side. There, in the middle of the broken stones and scored earth, lay Cain in a pool of blood.

  Adriel bit off a cry. Somewhere inside her, the light died.

  She clambered over the riven ground and collapsed beside her husband. A gaping hole pierced straight through his stomach. Blood spilled out with each pump of his fading heart.

  Adriel grabbed his hand in hers. Cain opened his eyes. “You came,” he whispered.

  “Of course I did.” Tears streamed down her face.

  “Don’t cry.” He reached up with a shaking hand and gently wiped a tear from her cheek.

  Adriel pulled his hand close to her chest. She felt cold, her heart empty. She shook, a mess of blood and tears.

  “I love you, Adriel Taran.”

  Adriel placed a hand on his face. “And I love you.”

  Cain smiled.

  Then fell limp in her arms.

  Adriel cradled her husband’s body, sobbing into his chest.

  Below, the Alliance cheered in victory as the Acedens threw down their arms.

  The sun climbed over the mountains. Brilliant yellows and oranges spanned the cloudless sky.

  Every surviving Alliance soldier gathered in the field and fortress. They stood in solemn quiet, banners snapping in the soft breeze. Every eye turned up to the mountaintop above.

  Adriel and the other Warriors stood on that broken peak, gazing out over the remnants of their army. The Acedens had immediately surrendered at the sight of their leader falling. The awe-inspiring display of Cain’s power had terrified them into submission.

  The Alliance had won.

  Peace had been won. But at what cost? Hundreds of thousands dead and enslaved. Friends and family put to the sword.

  And Cain.

  Adriel turned to the makeshift tomb they had erected out of the mountaintop’s broken stone. It formed an imposing structure, rising like small towers from the shattered ground.

  She raised Ceerocai and gazed into its dull jewel, the fire forever gon
e from its depths. She placed the sword of Abaddon in Cain’s arms, then smiled down at her husband a final time. She turned, and Silas, Isroc, and Mithaniel slid his casket shut.

  The group gathered before the tomb, a mix of uncertain coughs and tears. No one knew what to say.

  Silas leaned against Shara, his right arm a bandaged stump. He held Shara’s hand, her head on his shoulder. Isroc gazed at the ground, Kari’s hand in his. Even Mithaniel and the Iscara, Eritha, stood together with heads bowed.

  There was nothing to be said. They could praise Cain for his heroics and his sense of duty. They could exalt him for his unending friendship and devotion. But everyone knew all of that. They’d known him as a man of passion, of duty and honor. But most importantly, they’d known his love.

  The love they had for him meant more than words could ever know.

  Four hundred years of war was over. It had been won by the blood and sacrifice of millions of people. It was an uncertain future set before them. What were they to do now that they could just simply… live?

  That future had been bought with the life of Cain Taran. Adriel didn’t think she’d be truly whole without him, but he would want her to continue. He had sacrificed himself so that others could have the opportunity to live, to hope, to love and to dream.

  Adriel would make certain that humanity would not forget his sacrifice. She would work every day of her life to make sure that the world would be a place that he could be proud of. Tarsha would, for the first time in its bloody history, at last have salvation.

  For the first time, humanity would be free. They could know true happiness. Prosperity.

  Peace.

  The end of

  The Atonement Trilogy

  Appendix

  People

  Cain Taran: Cain was born in Andaurel, Kaanos, to Marn Taran and Illiya Fallon. At the age of ten, arzecs razed his home and killed his parents. Sent to one of the many orphanages in Dun Ara, he began state mandated training until seventeen, where he joined the infantry and soon distinguished himself as a capable fighter and leader. He was later stationed as a captain in the Andrus Defense Brigade and earned recognition for his heroic efforts to save the city during a rare and brutal arzec assault. Afterward, he was transferred to the elite Outriders and spent several years as a captain, leading numerous scouting missions, hit-and-run attacks, and other dangerous operations.