The Heir of Ariad

by Niki Florica

  They came in a horde.

  Stworfs, of every size and shape, surrounding them in a swarming circle, faces twisted into hideous snarls and jeers half-obscured by moss and dribbling saliva. Unlike Bouldegar they were jagged and crumbling, burned black by evil and the darkness of the Oenghon Road. They filled the cavern with a terrible chorus of deep, throaty jeers a thousand years old. He sliced the Sword in an arc and watched them shy away, but only for a breath. They pressed nearer, flooding the cavern and illuminating with their torches the domed ceiling and curved walls that the gloom had veiled. And still they came. So many, too many, enlarging the cavern in its miraculous capacity to hold them. The Robin’s shoulder guarded his, their backs shielded by the chamber wall, all exits closed. When the first crumbling creature reached hungrily for the Sword, Kyrian did not think, just sliced.

  A stony hand severed from its wrist. Dropped to the ground. Shattered into pebbles.

  The stworf reeled backward shrieking, and the chamber exploded into chaos.

  Their shoulders snapped together unconsciously; Kyrian braced one foot against the wall and severed the heads of the nearest row, watching them topple like boulders to lie still at his feet. Wielding bludgeons, clubs, and rocky flails another wave followed the first, climbing over their fallen comrades like a black avalanche and screaming bloody murder as they came. The Robin dropped to one knee, a spiked mace swung over his head, and Kyrian seized the moment to draw Elillian’s long knife. Slice, thrust, parry. They came and fell and came.

  A mountain formed beneath them, a pyre of boulder bodies, limbs, and jagged heads. They climbed it as they fought. It became their fortress. The Robin’s knives flew like silver darts in the firelight and Kyrian’s blades matched his for speed and deadly aim but still they came, still they surged, flowing from the leftmost tunnel in an endless, tireless stream. One stworf clawed at his ankle and he stumbled, showering crumbled extremities down upon the enemy. The Robin grasped his arm to keep him from toppling, kicked another climbing stworf to his doom. Sweat stung his eyes. There was no end.

  The Robin saw an opening. The creatures were thinnest in the entrance of the rightmost tunnel. Shouting for Kyrian to follow he leaped from the summit of their mountain, his moccasins finding traction on several twisted faces before lighting in the dark tunnel entrance. “Skyad!”

  The stworf sea roared and surged upon him. He stumbled back, eyes bloodred in the torchlight, fighting desperately to meet them alone, waiting for Kyrian to follow.

  “Go!” Kyrian shouted. Kicked a stworf hand. Severed another at the wrist. “Go! I will follow!”

  Indecision flickered in the Green’s bright eyes, dancing with firelight and the flash of silver blades.

  Kyrian shouted again, swung an arm at him. “Go!”

  Rydel of Robinsdwel hesitated, face pinching, then whirled and pounded into the dark.

  He meant to follow. He was desperate to follow. Stworfs broke from him to chase the Robin but there were still too many, too infinitely many swarming the shifting pyre upon which he stood. The Sword blazed; he gritted his teeth when a blow from behind buckled his knees and sent him toppling down the pyre, the skulls, arms, and torsos sliding chaotically beneath him. He lost the knife. A cry wrenched itself from his throat. He fell through the wall of climbing creatures to land with a skull-jarring impact upon the stone, surrounded by stworfs and jeers and weapons and oh Skies there were so many . . .

  Get up! Get up get up get—

  Something struck his back—a club, a mace, a flail—and Kyrian felt a spasm trace his spine. He swung the Sword at the forest of rocky legs but there was little strength behind it and his efforts were rewarded with a second strike, this time to his shoulder. Something jeered. He rose to a crouch but was promptly levelled again by a bludgeon blow between his shoulder blades. The Robin—where was the Robin? Gone. He was gone. Another strike. And another.

  Upon a gasping hope he groped the ground and felt his fingers close on a smooth hilt. A thousand prayers erupted in his mind at the same moment a bludgeon met his skull and stars exploded in his vision. Elillian’s knife gleamed in the firelight; he shook himself to sense, ground his teeth, and drove the short-range edge mercilessly into the stony limb nearest his face.

  The rewarding bellow lent fire to his veins and he plunged the knife forward again, scrabbling to his hands and knees, plowing into the forest of enemies, tearing and plunging and slicing. He saw an opening, dove for it. His feet found traction beneath him and raced to match pace with his reaching, slicing hands as he stumbled free of the throng, over the tunnel threshold, catching himself on the wall. Only a moment to rest, only a breath. They were coming. The Robin was waiting. Which tunnel had he entered? The middle or the right? Which had Kyrian taken? Did it matter? Should it matter? Skies!

  There was no time, no time to wait. The enemy was coming.

  Kyrian shoved from the wall and ran blindly into the dark.

  Twenty-Five

  And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him . . .

  -1 Samuel 23:9A

  The Grey intruders were not prepared to depart at dawn as their commander had wished, and Elillian was hardly surprised. While waiting for the completion of yet another search of Dunbrielle, she had been fascinated to find that several Grey warriors were disgruntled to be wakened at such an hour, and had resolved to console themselves with the contents of several small flasks. Having never witnessed drunkenness, it was enlightening to behold, and at the very least kept the Grey warriors lively and alert for the greater part of the night, much to Elillian’s satisfaction. Needless to say, when the light of dawn streaked the sky, their departure was drastically delayed.

  Elillian heard their raucous banter as she stole through the trees fringing Dunbrielle, approaching the haven from the south. The iron-hilted knife—newly sharpened—was clenched in a fist at her side, Dunbrielle flashing occasionally through the trees. At the edge of the treeline, she halted in the shelter of an oak to peer furtively around its trunk.

  Billowing, charcoal clouds were piled high over the haven, great war vessels awaiting departure. Her eyes drifted over them, followed their slender grey mooring lines to the earth, where a dozen heavy anchors and expert knots bound the ships by their ropes to the ground.

  Beyond the trees the sun was rising, promising radiant Skies. She buried her knife in the folds of her gown to conceal any conspicuous gleams and darted from the shelter of the forest, across the dry grass, fifty paces to the outcropping of stone to which the moorings were tied. They were unguarded, thank Aradin, exactly as she had hoped. Crouching beside the anchors Elillian tossed a lock of hair from her face and set her knife to the first taut cord.

  They were heavy and well-weaved, but she had expected as much. The knife hilt was slick with perspiration when at last she severed the first of the lines and felt the wind tear it violently from her grasp, its cloud shuddering wildly in anticipation of freedom. She set her blade to a second; in a moment it was severed as well. The first of the Greyclouds caught the fierce winds of the heavens and broke free, its shadow darkening the earth as the currents tore it southwest. Elillian grinned in wild satisfaction, watching it tear across the Skies.

  She had set her blade to the third when a sound from behind her back froze her blood.

  A hand grasped her hair, wrenching her face skyward. Her cry of surprise died in a pitiful, choking gurgle when something cold and deadly-sharp settled on her throat.

  “You are a bold one,” purred a hot voice in her ear. Dorius, second-in-command. Elillian dared not breathe. “You have caused quite a stir in the regiment, fugitive. Your rather chilling message, I must confess, set even me ill at ease upon first sight, although it scarcely seems possible now that so dark a malediction could be carved in the hand of so fragile a perpetrator.”

  Elillian felt her lips curl, but she willed herself to breathe. When his voice ceased in her ear she thrust the knife blindly backward, simultaneously tearing
at the dagger on her throat with her other hand. His knife slipped. Hope shone on the horizon. She prayed that her blade would meet flesh.

  Hope died. He caught her wrist, twisted it, and laughed as she released the knife with a cry of pain. Her other hand he caught and held immobilized with the first, behind her back, while his dagger rested anew upon the skin of her throat.

  “Come now,” he murmured, “there is no need for that.”

  “Release me, Grey filth!”

  “I fear that is quite impossible. You cannot be permitted to continue your little intrusions.”

  Her voice escaped her in a rasp. “You are the intruders, Grey. You have no business here.”

  He chuckled coldly. “Do we not? The Naiad maiden is learned in the business of the Storm Realm?”

  “I know enough.”

  “Of course.” His voice was acid in her ears. “Lady, you know nothing. Our business in the Lands is a matter of war, declared by King Tasnil himself. Your havens shall fall, as shall all Green strongholds, beneath the power and might of the Storm, and in time you shall be wiser than to test our merciful patience.”

  His fingertips brushed her neck. Elillian very nearly gagged. “War?” she choked.

  Another chuckle. “Indeed. But there are ways to divert your doom.”

  “How?”

  The voice grew dark, the knife blade darker. “Know you the whereabouts of Brondro Tarmilis?”

  Panic hummed in her veins and she wondered if he felt it, felt the surge of terror and loyalty and pride the name could evoke in her soul. Brondro Tarmilis, the Sword’s guardian, Aradin’s chosen, Kyrian’s father. His thumb stroked her snared wrist, sending a chill along her spine, and she felt his hot breath ruffling her hair as he waited.

  “No,” she breathed at last, shaking. She knew he tasted the lie.

  He sighed, worrying her hair again, and dimly she was aware of the thunder of marching feet in the distance. A Grey regiment, preparing for departure upon the vessels that she had failed to loose. The sun was a blazing orb in the east, but Elillian felt cold as winter frost. “That is disappointing,” sighed the Grey in her ear. “Predictable, but disappointing. I suppose, then, Naiad, seeing that you are unwilling to assist me in the search for Tarmilis, you do not intend to cooperate while I see you to your quarters?”

  Elillian’s chin rose higher. “Not in the slightest.”

  “How tediously predictable.”

  The world swirled black.

  “Midian, sir?”

  Brondro froze mid-hammer strike, lifting his eyes to the tight-faced second-in-command silhouetted against the smithy door. Caynan’s brow was creased in gravity—an unremarkable phenomenon—but something in his drawn expression warned of a true concern. “What is it?”

  His second-in-command drew his shoulders still tauter. Skies, the creature was more Skyad general than Man. “Chieftain, a moment. There is something you must see.”

  Beyond the smithy door, where forest floor dropped into canyon wall, the sun had nearly risen to its glorious summit and blazed mercilessly over the thirsty Lands. Werdumon had awoken hours ago and was operating quietly in the canyon below. Quietly, for such was the way of civilizations under threat of second extermination. He followed Caynan to the precipice edge and peered down upon his people, until his lieutenant pointed a finger to the western Skies, lips pressed thin with worry.

  Greyclouds. Thick, billowing, and heavy with Skyads, the vessels tore across the Lands to the southwest, some of which were moored already, shadows in the west. Brondro shaded his eyes with a hand, squinting into the distance. “The Seiri Wilds,” he observed, flatly. “Tasnil has not forgotten.”

  “They are seeking you, Midian.”

  “They will find nothing there.”

  “But they know you escaped.” Caynan’s brows knitted. “The ruins are still there.”

  Brondro raked his hair, frowning thoughtfully. The memory of burning wood and screaming children and writhing, bloody Men seared his mind in an instant, along with the memory of Camuel’s eyes, green and earnest in their last moments. Protect it, Brondro. With your life. And tell Rydel I love him.

  “Midian?” Caynan’s voice tethered him mid-wince. “What are your orders for Werdumon?”

  He waited a moment, for the pain to dispel, watching the Grey vessels slice the Skies to the wilds where the Adamun Remnant had first built its refuge, until it had been found and destroyed by Silver mercenaries. His father had died in that bloody battle. As had Camuel. And Ronin. And countless others. Brondro had fought to prevent their extinction, had defeated the last of the Silver assassins, had kept his people strong in the face of unbearable grief and led them north across the river to the hidden canyon that shielded them now. He had founded Werdumon, watched it grow upon nothing.

  And by the Lands he would defend it to the end.

  “Why now?” he murmured, watching the Skies. “So many years . . . Why revive the hunt now?”

  “Vengeance?” Caynan offered.

  Brondro shook his head. “Once, perhaps, but it is beyond vengeance now.”

  Kyrian would reach Rosghel soon—perhaps he was near it even now. He would vanquish the Usurper long before the Grey hunt crossed the Nelduith, long before Werdumon was breached. He would end this reign of fear and darkness. He would, because he needed to.

  “Now,” Brondro whispered, “it is war.”

  The creature’s eyes were so grotesquely watery he projected the image of one in a perpetual state of weeping. His voice trembled as well, lending itself to the illusion, and the sword at his side was a comical antithesis to his existence, like a dagger in the hands of a child. Pitiful.

  Tasnil considered killing him, for entertainment’s sake. Seated upon his pearly throne and leering down upon his new young messenger, he amused himself with various fantasies of slitting the slender throat. The youth knotted his hands as he gave his report, droning some insignificant account of the happenings beyond Rhos-Arpal’s walls, his flesh so pale it neared transparency. Tasnil swallowed a draught of bloodred wine and attempted to recall his reason for enlisting him.

  “. . . true, my lord,” the wretch stammered, “I have spoken with many in Rosghel’s borders, and some beyond. He has treaded carefully. None recall that he has ever spoken a word against you or your rule publicly. He is wise, my lord, but I suspect he shall soon break. All those he loves have abandoned him.”

  Tasnil eyed the pale throat. Wondered how swiftly he could slit it.

  The Silver shifted uncertainly, lips parting for words that did not come as he weaved white knuckles with nervous repetition. It struck Tasnil then, that he had not enlisted this creature’s service.

  This miserable, snivelling deserter had volunteered.

  The tidings were no surprise to him. He had been watching, waiting, biding his time, but the hour was at last upon him. The time had come to place the final pressure upon the captain of the Silver Guard, and this time, he knew, the ally of Brondro Tarmilis would break beneath the burden. This time, there was nothing to keep him strong.

  He glanced indifferently at the ornate ceiling. “Has the message been delivered?”

  “Y-yes, my king,” came the shaky reply. “My father approaches Rosghel as we speak.”

  Tasnil dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and almost chuckled aloud at the spasm of relief that visibly racked the frail shoulders. The new messenger bowed low and turned his back, gripping the hilt of his sword as he strode briskly toward the great ivory doors of the throne room, toward his escape. Tasnil watched his retreat, wondering if Melkian would look the same when dismissed after revealing Brondro’s whereabouts. Like a frightened, guilty, shame-burdened wretch, too cowardly to refuse his great king.

  When the pale, shaky hand touched the door, Tasnil called, “Silver.”

  The watery eyes turned once more to him. “M-my king?”

  “Does my noble messenger possess a name?” he purred, dipping his fingertips in wine and allowin
g the scarlet liquid to dribble onto the ivory floor, one crimson droplet at a time.

  The response was soft, and laced with dread.

  “Berdon of Rosghel . . . my king.”

  Rydel had waited long enough.

  Flattened to the wall of a narrow branch-shaft, he felt every echo, watching firelight lick the black walls from the tunnel in which the wild stworfs sought him now. They passed his narrow refuge once, then again upon their return journey. An age passed. He did not move. Still the Heir did not come.

  There had been so many, too many to be conquered by one Silver warrior even with the power of the Sword of Kings. Perhaps he had been felled, overwhelmed by the savage masses, unthinkable though it was while the world lay in the balance. Rydel should never have left him.

  Silence had settled in the tunnel, and after several moments of listening and waiting, he slipped from his crevice and into the passage, the stone floor cold beneath his moccasins. The darkness was complete, the firelight all but retreated into the distance from which he had come, the distance from which the Skyad should have followed long ago.

  Rydel sheathed his knives. The truth crystallized.

  He had lost the Heir of Ariad.

  Twenty-Six

  Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan . . .

  -1 Samuel 20:30A

  The Rosghel Pass had once served as a floodgate for the unmeasured masses of the Rain Realm’s capital city. Merchants and trades workers, travellers and nobles, peasants of all varieties had once poured through the gates in a steady stream from dawn to dusk, coming and departing, hawking wares and greeting loved ones beneath the shadow of the twin cloud cliffs. It had been a beautiful chaos once, and well-kept by Silver guards. Melkian had once thought it the heart of Rosghel.