Silas stopped and considered what to do next. He swiveled in a circle to make sure none of the hesitant guards were sneaking up on him, then faced forward again when he felt safe.
Derith grabbed a sword from the scabbard on his hip. The weapon was ornate and jeweled, not a weapon that had been ever intended to be used violently.
“I’ll face the upstart myself; you keep the captives under threat,” the ruler of Ivaric told the priest.
Silas motioned towards the queens, and created a bright blue, translucent dome of energy to protect the two women. It wouldn’t last long against a determined attack by L’Anvien’s priest, but it would buy some time while Silas considered what else he needed to do.
“You guards, attack him now, or all your lives will be sacrificed to L’Anvien!” the priest screamed at the guards behind Silas. “Distract him!”
Silas heard the guards start to close in on him, as Derith descended down a step from the elevated platform he stood on, approaching Silas confidently. Suddenly, Silas was confused, uncertain what to do. His priority had to be to protect the queens, but he unexpectedly faced two threats to his own safety, threats that he had to fight against, even if it meant risking a momentary disengagement from the protection of the queens. He chose to briefly dissolve his blue dome.
Preeanne gave a sudden shriek, as she was lifted in the air without warning, rose through Silas’s fading dome, and went looping above her captors to land on the pavement fifty yards away, at the mouth of an alley, where a collection of shadowy figures had suddenly appeared.
“Come to us, my queen,” Silas recognized Riesta’s voice, newly and shockingly present at the battle scene. The Mover had joined the battle to help him.
An arrow flew through the air and struck Derith on the shoulder, making the man bellow with rage and pain as he dropped to one knee on the ground.
“No more interference from the vermin!” the priest on the platform screamed. He fired a bolt of his energy over at the alley way, and erected a wall of energy, one that trapped Riesta, Preeanne, and the rest of Prima’s caravan team inside the alley. “We’ll deal with them later!” he growled.
Silas turned his back on the wounded Derith and faced towards the half dozen axe men who were nearly upon him. He held his sword in a low defensive posture. “I mean you no harm, and I know you don’t want to fight me,” he told them. “Stay back and let me handle this on my own.”
“There will be no shirking!” the priest shouted. He pointed his scepter at one of the axe men who appeared to be hanging back and fired a bolt of energy that set the man on fire.
“That will happen to the next person I see not fighting!” the priest warned.
The rest of the squad began to approach with more recklessness, swinging their heavy axes threateningly, so that Silas began to dance slowly backward, using his sword ineffectively to block or alter the trajectory of the axes.
“I’ll finish him off!” Jarvis leapt off the platform with a sword of his own, landing next to Silas and swinging his blade in a ferocious overhand cut that was intended to cleave Silas’s head in half.
Silas had to turn once more, and he blocked the swing, then redirected his own blade to plunge directly into Jarvis’s chest, striking down the heir to the Ivaric throne.
“You murderer! You’ll pay with more pain than anyone has ever known!” Derith, rose to his feet, the shock of his son’s death releasing a flood of adrenaline that drove him towards Silas.
And at that moment, Silas felt a powerful strike, and then unbearable pain in his right leg, as he started to fall over.
He looked down and saw that an axe had hewn straight through his lower calf, cutting his ankle and foot off his leg, and toppling him. Pain overwhelmed him while blood sprayed wildly from the severed artery in his leg.
“Silas! No!” There was a scream from the platform, a scream in Lumene’s voice.
He was about to pass out. He was about to die. Silas grabbed at the leg as he lay on the ground, and he faintly heard the voice of an axe wielder wail softly. “I didn’t want to, my lord, but we have no choice. They’ll kill us, and then they’ll sacrifice our families to L’Anvien. I didn’t want to harm you.”
Silas gasped, and tried to reach his energy; he could faintly detect a tenuous connection to it still, even in the midst of the pain he couldn’t ignore.
“Stop the blood,” he gasped to the energy, and he felt a tight seal form around the stump of his leg, ending the deadly loss of blood.
“Bring him to me!” the priest ordered.
“No! He’s mine to kill!” Derith countermanded the order. “Hold him still for me to strike!”
Another bolt of bright red energy unexpectedly flew from the end of the scepter that the priest held, and it struck Derith in the chest. The dying ruler had a momentary expression of shock on his face at the unforeseen betrayal, as his eyes turned to look up at the platform, then he crumpled to the ground, dead.
“This is all coming to a head, and Derith and Jarvis were about to become expendable anyway,” the priest spoke in a conversational tone. The other officers and leaders on the platform each stepped back, fearful of the fatal dynamics playing out before them.
“Bring the prisoner to me,” the priest commanded the axe men once more. “Now!” he barked.
A quartet of men hastily lifted Silas to an upright position, and began to drag him forward, while Silas tried to maintain his consciousness. The pain remained unbearable, and he screamed when he was lifted up the step to the level of the platform, his wounded stump striking the wooden edge.
“Silas! No! fight him, my love!” Lumene shouted at him.
“Mind your manners; I’m going to deal with you after I finish off this abomination,” the priest growled at Lumene. “You’ll make a suitable concubine for the new ruler of Ivaric.”
“Bring him along – don’t dawdle!” the priest ordered the axe men sharply.
They pulled their captive into position in front of the priest.
“Release him,” the priest ordered, holding his scepter in front of him, its end pointed directly at Silas’s chest.
“He can’t stand, my lord,” one of the axe men protested. Silas vaguely recognized the voice as the same one that had apologized for attacking him.
“Release him or die!” the priest shouted, and Silas felt the hands upon him ungrip. He crumpled to the platform immediately, while the axe men backed away.
“It’s hard to fathom that L’Anvien’s empire should have to be built upon a foundation of such common criminal elements,” the priest scornfully addressed the four men, guards who stood around him after delivering Silas.
Silas felt further pain, but also a bolt of understanding that struck him with searing clarity. He had heard the priest. The priest had referred to the axe men as the foundation of Ivaric.
Krusima had told him to undermine the foundations of his opponents. He had done so, literally, against Maze. He had dug into the ground, and lifted up stones from beneath as a means to undermine and defeat, understanding the god’s instruction to mean what it literally meant.
But there could be another meaning. The priest himself has said so. A foundation could be more than just the material underpinnings; it could be the soul, the spirit, the people of a nation. Perhaps Silas could take action against a different type of foundation, in a different kind of way. Perhaps undermining didn’t mean altering the physical nature of the world – perhaps it suggested a change in the soul of the people. The question was, could Silas apply his energies to move people’s hearts, their souls, and not just their bodies. Could he swing the actions of the axe men to help him in this last dire moment before he would be killed by the priest.
The axe man who had harmed him could be his salvation.
“Your family must count on you to save them. Your nation must count on you to save it. I must count on you to save me. Take action now!” he mumbled the words, speaking softly, but using his special Wind Word voice, t
he one he could attune to be heard by the ears of any individual, if Silas knew something about what appealed to the individual.
He hoped he did. He hoped the appeal to the love and opinion of a family would be enough to motivate a man.
The faint use of energy was just a trickle of what he had left, and it drained away his abilities. He felt the protective cap around his leg stump dissolve, and he heard Lumene scream.
“Your last defenses are,” the priest began to gloat, but his sentence ended in a crushing, throaty sound.
And Silas passed out.
Chapter 27
The guard who had heard Silas’s seductive words was standing directly behind the priest, both hands loosely holding his axe, its blade end resting on the ground in front of him as he watched the priest stand over Silas. The two great beings were nearing the end of their battle, and the one who guard secretly favored, the one he had to attack, appeared about to lose his life. The guard didn’t know what would happen next, but he was sure that it would be bad, evil.
Silas’s voice was suddenly speaking in his mind. Your family must count on you to save them, your nation must count on you to save it, he heard Silas say. Do the right thing. Save your family from evil. Take action now!
It was an astonishing thought. He felt a window in his soul open to the possibility. He could do something. The priest was in front of him, all attention focused on Silas, gloating over Silas’s impending death.
The guard’s hands were gripping the axe handle tightly, he realized.
If he was going to save his family from the perpetual rule of evil, he was going to have to have to take a stand against evil. And he could do it, right there on the platform.
He found that he was stepping forward, and the axe was lifted over his shoulder.
Then he swung the axe. The blade flew through the air and struck the neck of the priest just as the man was speaking.
The blade cleaved through the neck and sent the head of the priest flying upwards and backwards, spinning as it flew, while the body fell to the ground.
“Silas!” Lumene screamed again as she watched the unexpected turn of events. She rushed over to Silas, while the others on the platform edged further away from the inexplicable violent horror that continued to unfold there, a living nightmare that threatened their sanity.
“Silas!” Riesta shouted as well, as the priest’s restraining wall across the mouth of the alley dissolved, letting the caravan warriors see the results of the unfolding drama.
“Dewberry!” Riesta called. “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry! We need you! Silas sprite-friend needs you, desperately!”
“Silas!” Lumene shouted as she slid to a kneeling position next to the prostrate hero. She pressed a hand against the stump of his leg, trying to stop the spurting blood that was pouring from his body, while he lay unconscious. She looked up at the axe man who had killed the priest, watching to see if she or Silas would be his next victims, but the man stood in place behind the headless body of the magician priest, staring down at it, a stupefied expression on his face.
The sounds of war were perhaps diminishing around the harbor, but she couldn’t be sure.
There was a sudden movement overhead, and she looked up to another astonishing sight, a flock of small blue bodies momentarily hovering in the air overhead. They descended down, and Lumene felt them gripping her and surrounding her inexplicably. She wasn’t going to let them tear her away from the body of the dying Silas, she swore.
And then the world changed. It was gray and immaterial. There was no air, and Lumene couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel, almost couldn’t think for long moments.
Then she was in a world again, a world with greenery and water.
“Push him in the spring! Push him in!” the sprites were shouting at her.
The water was right next to them, just inches away. Lumene instinctively reacted to the shouted commands, and she shoved Silas into the pool of water.
Her eyes watched him roll over the edge of the grassy bank, and he splashed into the spring water. There was a red cloud of color in the water where his leg stump was bleeding, before the cloudiness seemed to immediately diminish.
Lumene’s eyes shifted to Silas’s face. His expression was surprisingly peaceful.
“Go in! Lift his head out of the water! Don’t drown him!” a buxom female sprite screamed in Lumene’s ear. “Help him!”
The little imp gave Lumene a mighty shove, as the princess leaned over the edge of the water, unsteady in her posture, and Lumene plunged into the water, landing on top of Silas as she splashed into the cool pool with a shriek. She rolled off of Silas and into the water, where her feet felt the sandy bottom of the pool and she stood up, lifting her head back into the air.
Her hands plunged down into the water and lifted Silas’s head even as she herself sneezed and gagged.
“There, you did it! You will be a heroine in the stories we tell,” the sprite spoke in a conventional tone. “And of course the sprite-friend will be a hero.
“Can heroes have only one leg, Odare?” the sprite asked one of her companions.
“I don’t doubt that this one can, my queen,” one of the other hovering blue beings replied.
“Perhaps the human should be directed on what to do next. She seems uncertain,” Odare suggested.
“Hmm, perhaps you are right. My vast, queenly knowledge can be put to use now,” Dewberry agreed.
“Should one of us go back to the Faralag friends and let them know that we believe Silas-friend will be saved?” another imp spoke up. Lumene’s head swiveled to look at the new voice.
“You have anticipated just what I was going to say,” Dewberry spoke with a thoughtful tone. “Make it so, Stillwater,” and to Lumene’s astonishment, the small blue being disappeared from view.
“Now, my fellow royal personage,” Dewberry addressed Lumene, “I am Dewberry, a sprite, but also the queen of the imps, as you have undoubtedly heard? I am an acclaimed heroine and warrior know throughout the western lands.”
Lumene stood in the water, slack-jawed, her mouth hanging open as she tried to comprehend all that was happening. She slowly shook her head in a negative motion.
“Ah, well, the great sagas are perhaps not known in your land,” Dewberry seemed to take the answer in stride.
“Positioning Silas?” Odare prompted softly.
“Yes, yes, yes, I was about to get to that,” Dewberry answered.
Chapter 28
Silas awoke slowly, feeling a comfortable warmth that engulfed the entirety of his body, and he gave a soft moan of pleasure.
He opened his eyes, and say the blue sky above, ringed by green foliage from tall trees.
He frowned, wondering where he was, then memories flooded into his consciousness, and the last thing he knew was sending the thought to the axe man on the horrifying platform at the Ivaric harbor.
His torso bolted upright, and he sat up to look around.
He was at the healing spring, resting among the rocks at the warm end of the spring, his body cradled by several smoothly rounded stones as the waters flowed over him.
He looked to his right and saw a half dozen sprites lying several yards away, sleeping contentedly on the soft sands of the shallow water.
He looked down at his own leg and saw the stump at the bottom of his right leg, where his foot had been severed.
It was all true, the memories that had been bruisingly resurrected in his mind. His foot had been chopped off. He had been at war in Ivaric and faced the evil power of L’Anvien there. He had seen the deaths of Derith and Jarvis. He had been about to die himself.
But he was alive.
Silas turned to his left, and saw Lumene, lying unclothed in a cradle of stones of her own, sleeping peacefully as the warmer spring waters bathed her as well. She looked healthy – if she had suffered any injuries, she’d been in the waters long enough to have received the benefits of the spring’s magical healing.
And so h
ad he apparently. He felt pain in his stump, but it was far reduced from the pain he had known while he’d been in Ivaric. The spring waters were working their magic upon him.
“Questions, young hero?” a woman’s voice spoke from the grassy bank across the pool, and Silas saw a beautiful elven woman sitting there, a woman who hadn’t been present moments earlier.
“My lady?” he asked.
“Come over here,” she motioned for him to approach, and he awkwardly clambered across the rocks, then unsteadily waded through the water to reach her on his one good foot.
“My lady, great Kere?” he inquired. He thought he saw a resemblance to the elven goddess he had met, though she’d never looked so young. But the spring was her holy place, so if any goddess was likely to be present, Kere was the logical choice.
“Is that a guess or an acknowledgement?” the woman asked with a straight face.
He hated to admit that he didn’t know a goddess when he met one.
“Yes,” he equivocated, hoping that the impertinent answer wouldn’t bring punishment.
“Very good!” Kere laughed. “You really should have pointed ears! You have the spirit of one of my own people. Shall I reshape them for you now?” she reached a hand out towards him.
Silas instinctively hopped back a step and managed to keep his balance, while his hands went protectively to his ears, making Kere laugh.
“Thank you, my goddess of destiny, but perhaps not yet,” he replied sheepishly.
“Silas, come sit here with me, and let’s talk. You can soak your leg in the water,” she said. “And don’t worry about me seeing you unclothed. I see everyone that way one in a while,” she lowered her voice to whisper in a confidential tone, as she anticipated his unease and addressed it.
Silas boosted himself up onto the grass, then tried to casually cross his legs in a way that didn’t appear defensive, but that gave him a modicum of modesty.
“Do you wonder what happened, and how you happened to come here?” Kere asked.
Foundations Broken and Built Page 24