The Children of Isador

by Sam J. Charlton

“I can. I am neither your slave nor your servant,” Dael replied, his expression bored. “Now if you will excuse me . . .”

  The bounty hunter stepped around Hugo who, wisely, did not attempt to bar his path. He pulled the door shut, just as something smashed against it. Having seen the crimson stains all over the walls inside the chamber, Dael did not need to guess at what had been thrown at him.

  “A waste of good wine,” he said. Then, with an amused shake of his head, he walked away.

  ***

  The company of four rode hard all afternoon across the featureless expanse of the Endaar Downs. None of the companions were in high spirits and so they rode in silence, a warm wind against their faces. They stopped briefly when the sun reached its zenith and consumed a light lunch of bread, cheese and apples, washed down by cider, before they continued on their way. Lassendil rode out in front, his long dark hair streaming out behind him, followed by Gywna. The two wizards brought up the rear.

  The light was starting to fade when they reached the fringes of Delm Forest. The shadow of the ancient forest embraced them in a blanket of green and they were no longer breathing in the sulfuric, westerly wind but the scent of moss, peat and vegetation. Not far from the edge of the forest, by a shallow brook, Lassendil halted his horse and turned in the saddle, studying the others. “From here we go on foot.”

  “What?” Jennadil protested. “But Serranguard is still leagues from here.”

  “We will cover ground no more quickly on horse-back than on foot,” Lassendil explained, springing from the saddle, “and the horses will make unnecessary noise. The Morg will have scouts positioned around the western reaches of the Forest. We will need to slip past them.”

  Jennadil nodded in reluctant understanding and slid off his horse with a groan.

  “We should at least keep the horses here for the journey back,” Gywna spoke for the first time all day.

  A look passed between Jennadil and Lassendil. Gywna gritted her teeth in annoyance.

  “What is it?” she demanded crossly.

  “Do you really think there will be a journey back?” Jennadil replied.

  The light faded into a misty, airless night. The mist curled around them like tendrils of an old woman’s hair. Camping at the water’s edge, they decided to risk a fire. They were still far enough from Serranguard not to worry about attracting attention to themselves. Lassendil killed a couple of rabbits and put them in a stew with some potatoes, carrots and onions they had brought from Falcon’s Mount.

  “I do not know what we would do without you Lassendil,” Jennadil said, helping himself to another bowl of stew.

  “Well you would definitely starve,” Gywna replied. “You are absolutely useless at fending for yourself!”

  “I managed to save your ungrateful hide,” Jennadil snapped, “although it is something I have regretted ever since.”

  Gywna opened her mouth to counter-attack but Lassendil interrupted her. “Enough Gywna,” he snapped. “Remember that none of us want you here. Keep a leash on your tongue if you do not want to be left behind tomorrow.”

  Gywna’s face flushed in the flickering fire light. She glared across at Lassendil with venom but to everyone’s surprise, remained silent. No one saw, however, the tears that brimmed in her eyes when she looked down at her stew.

  Arridel watched the exchange between his three companions impassively. The wizard had been silent for most of the day; his thoughts turned inward. He felt bone weary; not used to riding this distance at such speed. Arridel was a grim presence and the others were not inclined to engage him in conversation.

  The rest of the dinner passed in silence. Afterwards, Lassendil moved back from the fire and leaned back against a nearby tree. Jennadil lit a pipe and after a few puffs joined the Ennadil, offering him a smoke. The two of them sat in companionable silence while Gywna and Arridel remained near the fire.

  Arridel stretched his legs out in front of him and studied Gywna’s profile as she stared into the dying embers of the fire. She was a pretty girl but troubled. He could see the Ennadil’s words had hurt her, for she had been subdued ever since his reprimand. It had not done her any harm, Arridel surmised. Her manners were appalling.

  “Lady Gywna,” he said finally, “may I take a look at that sword you carry?”

  Gywna looked up from the fire, her brow crinkling in surprise. She hesitated a moment before nodding. She reached under her cloak and unbuckled her sword, passing it across to Arridel. He took it and unsheathed it from its scabbard. The fine Ennadil blade glinted in the fire light. Its hilt sparkled with diamonds.

  “Can you not feel the magic in this sword?” Arridel said softly, weighing the sword in his hand. “It hums with it.”

  “It does?” Gywna was curious.

  “This sword is bound to you and you to it,” Arridel continued in a soft voice. “Away from the protection of the Temple of Ancestral Wraiths, the sword’s power has grown stronger. Now that you are the only living Guardian it will protect you.”

  “But the temple was destroyed. The Ancestral flame has gone out.” Gywna replied with a frown; his words confused her.

  Arridel attempted a smile, although on him it looked more like a grimace. “Those things are inconsequential my dear. We made them so that we could worship our ancestors—but the Ancestral Wraiths care nothing for them. The Guardians were originally created three millennia ago to protect Isador from threat. Only a woman can wield the blade you carry and only you can use its magic. However, as the centuries passed the Guardians’ real purpose became obscured and their role became ceremonial. Man’s habit of forgetting the past is the cause of more than one of today’s problems.”

  Gywna stared at him blankly. Arridel sighed, she still did not understand.

  “Do you remember at Falcon’s Mount when Lassendil challenged your father?”

  “You mean when he tried to cut his throat?” Gywna replied with a rueful smile. “Of course.”

  “I was there. I saw how you moved across the hall to block him. You moved like lightening—with an impossible speed. When you wield this sword and channel your emotion into it, you and the Wraith Sword merge.”

  “Why was a not told this before?” Gywna shivered, despite the fire’s warmth.

  “Such knowledge is dangerous. Morgarth Evictar knows, however; it is said that when the Morg destroyed the Temple, they barricaded the doors and sent flaming catapults over the walls. The Guardians were trapped inside and burned to death before they had a chance to fight the Morg. If they had been able to fight, many of them may have escaped. Morgarth Evictar could not risk that.”

  Gywna was still shivering as she listened. If she had not run away just hours earlier she would have met the same fate.

  Arridel re-sheathed the sword and handed it back to her. “Look after this,” he said gravely, “for it is the only thing which will guarantee your survival in the days to come.”

  Jennadil took one last puff of his pipe before laying it down across his knees. He looked across to where Arridel had engaged Gywna in conversation. They spoke in low voices so he could not hear what they were saying; not that it mattered. He reached up and fingered the gemstone which hung around his neck. It was a round, transparent, blue stone, Arkaheth; the Water Stone. Arridel carried Bruarn, the Earth Stone, around his neck.

  Jennadil reached into his pocket and pulled out another gem attached to a fine chain, studying it for a moment. It was pale and milky with a slightly rough surface.

  “The Ennadil call that a Mist Stone.” Lassendil was looking down at the stone in awe. “They are incredibly rare. Where did you get it?”

  “Arridel gave it to me. This one is called Didliar; in Orin it is known as an Air Stone—and it is for your sister. We need three elements: Earth, Air and Water to fight Morgarth Evictar.”

  “This spell, will it work?”

  “Arridel seems to think so,” Jennadil replied hesitantly.

  “But you
do not?”

  Jennadil looked up from the stone he held in the palm of his hand. “It is not the spell I doubt, nor Arridel or your sister—but myself.”

  “Self-doubt comes to us all Jennadil,” Lassendil replied gently, “but from the moment we met I saw that you were plagued by it. I know you are not a fool, so why do you try to convince the world that you are?”

  Jennadil sighed and attempted a smile. “I haven’t done a very good job of convincing you have I?”

  “And you do not fool Arridel either,” Lassendil added.

  Jennadil glanced over at the stern-faced wizard, who was still talking to Gywna. “Do you think so? Arridel thinks I am a halfwit.”

  The two of them sat in silence a moment before Jennadil put away the stone and brought his knees up to his chest. When Jennadil began to talk once more, his voice was quiet and hollow with sadness. “All my life I have felt like an impostor. My mother was an Ennadil witch who broke with her people to marry my father—a soldier from Mirren who had nothing to offer her except his love. Mixed race marriage was not accepted in Mirren any more than in the Ennadil Territory so they went to live in the foothills of the Silver Peak Mountains. My father built a little cottage there and the years passed happily for us all until when I was seven summer’s old.” Jennadil paused a moment, pain flickering across his face before he continued. “A band of Tarzark, after slaughtering the garrison at Blade Pass, attacked our home. They murdered my parents, and I would have been killed too but I had been out practicing with my slingshot in the forest. When I came home, I found them dead and our cottage in flames.”

  Silence followed his words. Lassendil watched the wizard’s face and saw the grief etched there.

  “After that, nothing mattered to me. I would have ended up in the slums of Mirren but, instead, I was taken on as a wizard’s apprentice. I have led a selfish life, dedicated to my own gain and pleasure, but inside, I am hollowed out, empty.” Jennadil broke off and met Lassendil’s gaze.

  “It is time to fill that void,” Lassendil replied, and the fierceness in his voice surprised Jennadil. “You cannot face the evil of Morgarth Evictar in such a state. He will prey on any weakness he senses.”

  “But I am weak.” Jennadil looked away from the Ennadil’s piercing gaze. “I disgust myself. Before we left Falcon’s Mount, Myra Brin came to me.” Jennadil’s face wore a pinched expression as he remembered the scene. “She told me she loved me. She begged me to take her away with me but I refused.”

  “It is just as well you did,” the Ennadil dismissed the idea. “We already have one troublesome female in our midst,” Lassendil cast a dark look in Gywna’s direction.

  “But that’s just it,” Jennadil replied, “even if I had not been going to certain death, even if I had been traveling far away from all of this, I still would not have taken her with me.” Jennadil looked down at his hands in shame, avoiding eye-contact with the Ennadil. “You see Lassendil, I am a coward. I do not love her, and I never did. I’ve never loved any of the women I seduced. To think that I destroyed the life of someone who I used because it pleased me at the time makes me hate myself.”

  Silence hung in the air while Lassendil took in Jennadil’s words. There were few words of comfort he could give the wizard. He knew very little of the emotion Jennadil battled with. After Violyda’s death, the only woman he had ever loved, Lassendil had deliberately kept himself aloof to avoid such entanglements. He had loved Violyda so deeply; his attachment to her had bordered on obsession. When the hunting accident claimed her life he had nearly gone mad with grief. Unlike Jennadil he could not use women. Until now, he had regarded Jennadil’s womanizing existence with bemusement; it made for a complicated life. Now though, Lassendil saw the emptiness of the wizard’s existence and his intense loneliness.

  Hesitantly, Lassendil reached out and placed his hand on Jennadil’s forearm. The wizard looked up in surprise; his eyes glittering. Lassendil squeezed his arm gently.

  “Do not burden yourself with the weight of your past mistakes.” He gave the wizard a rare smile. “Hating yourself is self-indulgent and won’t undo a thing. What is done cannot be changed but you now have the chance to give your life meaning. If you want to make amends for the life you have led then start now.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TARZARK ON THE MOVE

  The Tarzark army snaked through Hammer Pass like a shimmering serpent. Although heavily armored and armed, the Tarzark troops moved stealthily on their large, two-toed, reptilian feet. The sun was rising over the eastern tops of the Sawtooth Mountains; the great peaks cast a deep shadow over the pass.

  King Grull marched at the head of the army, flanked either side by his two most trusted generals: Argoth and Grimmak. Grull wore a long leather cape, encrusted with gleaming jewel-like pieces of obsidian, about his wide, muscular shoulders. The cape sparkled as the first rays of sunlight filtered into the narrow pass.

  Grull was the most charismatic Tarzark king in half a millennium. Despite being fifty winters old, he walked as tall and virile as the surrounding warriors half his age. Among the Tarzark, he was feared as much as he was loved; ruthless with those who opposed him and cruel to those who disappointed him.

  Grull stared straight ahead as he marched; his eyes two glittering slits and his massive jaw set. Chain mail and leather encased his huge, muscular form. The skin visible revealed a grey-blue hide of scales. His face, like the other Tarzark, was reptilian. Two nostrils flared from the end of a smooth snout, and his mouth was wide and lipless. A pink, forked tongue shot out intermittently, sensing the air around him.

  Four of the King’s most senior sorcerers marched behind him. Yaduk was among them. He wore the billowing red sorcerer’s cape. A number of red mantles fluttered in the morning breeze amongst the warriors’ iron-grey battle cloaks; red butterflies interspersed among a cloud of fluttering grey moths.

  The army marched up the final incline as the pass abruptly widened before them and there, blocking their path further west, was the Orinian Garrison. The fort was an imposing structure of iron and stone. Wicked spikes protruded from its high walls like dragon’s teeth and torches burned on top of the walls, illuminating the figures of men against the lightening sky.

  High up on the wall, the Captain of Orin’s Garrison stared down at the approaching army. The Captain was a young man; he had risen quickly through the ranks due to his force of personality and a quick mind. However, as his gaze swept over the mass of bobbing Tarzark heads, he knew his garrison did not stand a chance. There were so many of them; they carpeted the narrow gorge, stretching back into the throat of Hammer Pass.

  Sudden dizziness swept over the Captain and he gripped the edge of the wall for support. His guts cramped with such a force he nearly doubled over with the pain, and he struggled to control his panic. Lord Fire had sent reinforcements but a mere two thousand men were no deterrent to this vast army.

  “Captain?” The soldier next to him gave his superior a beseeching look. “We will never be able to hold the fort against so many!”

  The Captain turned and looked at the soldier. He found it difficult to speak and moments passed before he managed to croak out an answer.

  “We can delay their passage to Falcon’s Mount—it will give Lord Fire time to prepare. Ride to Falcon’s Mount . . .”

  The young Captain paused then, his heart beating in his throat, before he managed to finish his order.

  “Warn them a Tarzark attack is imminent.”

  “Yes Captain!” The soldier rushed off, but not before the Captain had seen the dizzying relief on his face. The Captain watched him go, wishing he too could flee the nightmare before him.

  He reluctantly turned his attention back to the Tarzark army that had come to a halt about thirty yards from the wall. He could see their front line clearly and caught sight of an individual who could only be the infamous Grull; the Tarzark wore a glittering black cape and was taller than most.

/>   The Captain exhaled slowly, letting out the breath he had not realized he had been holding. He stepped back from the edge of the wall and turned to the men awaiting his word.

  “Secure the gates! Focus all your efforts there—they must not break through!” Determination washed over him as he spoke, dulling his fear.

  The Captain picked up his longbow and notched an arrow. “Archers at the ready!” he shouted. His voice echoed off the mountainside. The sun cleared the edge of the fort and bathed Hammer Pass in golden light. “Fire at will!”

  A hail of arrows flew from the top of the wall.

  ***

  The air over Falcon’s Mount was heavy and charged as if a storm was coming. No storm clouds loomed in sight however. The sky was colorless, except for a yellow haze to the west.

  Myra Brin’s gaze took in the wide horizon as she climbed the last set of steps and stopped to catch her breath at the top of the tower. Her heart beat frantically against her ribs. She stood for a moment and took deep gasps of air in an effort to calm the panic that fluttered in her breast. She studied the jaundiced western sky; not knowing its cause but sensing it heralded the enemy’s arrival here.

  Jennadil had gone west, towards those clouds. She would never see him again.

  Myra’s vision swam. She did not think it was possible to have any tears left. After Jennadil left she had cried until she felt hollow. However, the tears had not brought relief; her life was a brittle and empty shell.

  Myra walked across the top of the tower, towards the rim of battlements. The city fell below her, tier upon tier of fortifications. She could see people, tiny as ants, scurrying about below, readying Falcon’s Mount for war. She envied them their strength. Hope and courage mobilized them, despite the overwhelming odds.

  Myra did not have that kind of valor. She had been in turn passive and then reckless—but ever since that day, when Theo Brin discovered her and Jennadil together, Myra had slowly been crumbling from the inside out. She had not thought her husband capable of such cruelty. She now knew there were depths of malice to Theo Brin that surprised even him. It was hard to believe he had loved her once.