Rise of the Ranger (Echoes of Fate: Book 1)

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  It was troubling to think of Nasta Nal-Aket’s knowledge regarding his activities. For how long had the human known of his allegiance to Valanis? Did Asher know as well? Were the two still working together, against him? Alidyr would have liked to have kept the old man alive a little longer to extract such information, but his death was also required to take control. Reaver’s bite stung all the more, giving Alidyr cause to smile at the thought that Nasta’s body would be ripped to shreds in the pit before the sun rose. All that was left now was for the elf to call on Adellum and his powerful bow. West Fellion would fall and the ranger with it.

  The gem was so close he could almost feel it in his hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Alliance of Two Shores

  The first light of the morning sun shone over the densely populated shanty homes, which made up the Darkakin’s capital city. With no discernible architecture, the houses and tiny apartments were built atop one another at every angle and in various states of disrepair. A dozen different animals made their morning calls and the open air markets came to life, while the owners set up their stalls, displaying their wares. The assorted smells and sounds assaulted Galanör’s exceptional senses from his vantage point, between two third-storey apartments. The three unusual companions had taken refuge on the decrepit balcony, amidst the hanging pig carcasses and hide canvases, before the stars disappeared from the sky.

  “What do you see, Galanör?” Adilandra asked in hushed tones from the corner. Her legs were tucked up, with her arms wrapped around her knees and her scimitar close by.

  It truly pained Galanör to see his queen so diminished and wounded. He wanted to personally kill every Darkakin who had even looked at her. During the days when Galanör’s father had secured his marriage to Reyna, Adilandra’s disapproval had been clear to see, though not because she didn’t approve of him, but because she could see that it wasn’t what they wanted. There had always been an understanding in her eyes that warmed Adilandra’s subjects to her, Galanör included. They hadn’t long found refuge on the balcony, so the queen’s recent history wasn’t all known to him, but judging from the way they found her, Adilandra had been pushed to the edge of survival. It made Galanör’s blood boil.

  The wizard notably cleared his throat at the sound of her elven words. He had insisted during their escape that they speak in man’s language, so that he might understand, though he was yet to tell them his name. Nevertheless, Galanör was impressed with the young mage, who had climbed every wall and building as they had in the chaos during their escape from the arena. The human had no right to be as agile or fast as the elves, and yet he had continued to defy them by keeping up, while simultaneously firing spells at their savage pursuers. Despite being in better condition than Adilandra, the young man still appeared haggard and in need of a bath. He had barely spoken since they found refuge, but kept his staff in his hands at all times.

  “They’re still looking for us,” Galanör explained in man’s tongue. “But the arrival of the other clans has slowed them down.” He referred to the thousands of Darkakin warriors as clans, but in his head, Galanör knew they were an army. From astride Malliath he had seen other armies heading towards them from different directions, kicking plumes of sand high into the air in their wake.

  Even now the markets were being flooded with hundreds of the tattooed warriors, who came out of every doorway in the neighbourhood. Many had simply camped out in the streets and Galanör had been thankful for the timing in which they found the abandoned balcony. The hunting parties had been easy to see before the sun rose, but now the gathering crowds and animals littered the streets.

  “Where are we exactly?” the mage asked. If his eyes were daggers, then Galanör would certainly be dead by now.

  In truth, Galanör had no clue where Malliath had abandoned them. They were definitely in Ayda, and far south at that, but beyond that the elf was utterly lost. He looked back from peeking over the lip of the balcony to ask Adilandra.

  “This is the Darkakin capital city. They call it Malaysai.” The queen’s voice was hoarse, dry in the desert-like heat. How long had it been since she drank or ate a proper meal? “It’s ruled by the Goddess, but she’s as human as the rest. Can you see the pyramid?” Galanör returned to the edge and cautiously peered out, down the street where the massive structure stood. “She lives inside it, at the very top.” Adilandra dropped her head, covering her face with her long auburn hair. When she faced them again Galanör could see the fresh tears. “She had Ederön thrown from her balcony so the masses could feast on his...” The queen closed in on herself again.

  Galanör didn’t know the name, but it stirred the same feelings. He gripped his sword, filled with the urge to leap from the balcony and slaughter as many of the savages as possible. The thought of putting Adilandra and the mage at risk however, staved his hand. The thought of keeping the mage alive struck him as odd. Was it Galanör’s responsibility to keep the human alive? Aside from the fact that the wizard could defend himself, he wasn’t an elf and he certainly wasn’t royalty. And yet, Galanör felt responsible for his being here, as well as his part in the death of the girl and all the others that haunted his dreams. Helping the young man wouldn’t atone for his actions, but it couldn’t hurt.

  “What is your name, wizard?” Galanör asked softly.

  “Abigail Rose,” the mage replied flatly. “That’s the only name you need to know, elf.”

  Galanör felt his heart quicken, as the shame cut into him deeper than any blade. Abigail Rose was the name of the girl Lyra had killed, and yet it was almost more shameful that he didn’t know the name of the girl Lyra cut down in front of the Hydra, or any of the names of the children and women he had offered up to the Mer-folk.

  “I’m sorry...” Galanör almost choked on his words. Any apology felt foreign to the elf, having been bred to be the ultimate warrior and leader. His time on Dragorn had made him harder, having to deal with Adamar and commanding the others.

  “When we’re out of this hellhole, I’ll show you how much your apology means.” The mage’s knuckles turned white around his staff.

  Galanör couldn’t meet his eyes and just nodded, trying to think of anything else but the faces of his victims.

  “There is no escape,” Adilandra replied from within the cover of her hair. “They’re natural hunters, like animals. Once they have your scent they’ll track you indefinitely. Time and distance mean nothing to them, only the hunt.”

  The mage was trying to keep up a wall of confidence, but it was clear to see that Adilandra’s words had created a crack.

  “What happened to you?” Galanör asked. “When you left Elandril four years ago, the king said nothing of where you were going, only that you had gone on a pilgrimage to study the dragon wall at Mount Garganafan.”

  Adilandra looked up with years of pain reflected in her eyes. “Eleven of us departed Elandril, seeking the dragons that left Mount Garganafan... now only three of us remain.” The queen paused and Galanör waited, happy to give Adilandra the time she needed. “We encountered the first tribe of Darkakin towards the end of our first year, travelling south. They didn’t care who we were or where we came from, we were just prey, something they could hunt that would entertain and feed them. Word travelled fast between the tribes, and before the end of the second year we had four hunting parties on our heels. They knew the terrain, the wildlife and the heat never seemed to slow them down. They could ambush us in the light of day and we would never know it until it was too late. By the end of the third year they had killed five and captured two. After meeting the Goddess there were only three of us left.”

  “Where are the others?” Surprisingly, it was the mage who asked.

  “The Goddess keeps Fallön locked up in her personal chambers.” Adilandra blinked hard, forcing tears out of her eyes. “Lörvana was given to Krenorak, a savage among savages, as a gift for capturing us. They’re both inside the pyramid.”

  “Why did you
come looking for the dragons?” Galanör asked. “They left Mount Garganafan centuries ago. They don’t want to help us, that’s why the king sent us to retrieve Malliath.” He noted the mage’s interest instantly shift towards him, with no lack of disdain.

  “Why, so Malliath can open the dragon wall and my husband can personally raise an army of dragons?” Adilandra countered fiercely. Galanör winced at the queen’s increasing pitch. “Children of fire and flame offer great promise, but only one perceives the time we will fall.”

  Galanör recognised the phrase from Nalana’s prophecy, though he had never paid much attention to it growing up. Like the king, his father had never given it any credence.

  Adilandra continued, “It will take decades to raise and train those unborn dragons, and that’s if Malliath opens the dragon wall, and judging by the way he dropped you two and flew away, I don’t think that plan is going to work anymore. Valanis will rise soon, I can feel it. We need old dragons, experienced dragons that can harness the magic required to defeat Valanis once and for all.”

  Galanör heard the Darkakin before he saw him. The door to the apartment on their left swung open and a barrel-shaped Darkakin, covered in tattoos and wielding a jagged knife, stormed onto the balcony, grumbling in his native tongue. Galanör reached for his blade, having already decided he was going to plunge his sword into the Darkakin’s exposed throat, killing him quickly and silencing any call for help. Adilandra exploded into action with unparalleled speed, diving into the Darkakin’s leg with enough force to invert his knee cap with a crunch. The big man’s cry was stifled by the opened-palm thrust that the queen jammed into his throat, collapsing his windpipe and shoving him back into the apartment. Galanör could only look on in shock at Adilandra’s ferocity. Her time in the savage lands had left her a bag of raw nerves, constantly exposed.

  The Darkakin gargled and suffocated, while Adilandra sat with her knee firmly on his chest, pinning him down until he died. Her shoulders heaved from the exertion of her laboured breaths. Galanör could see the queen watching the Darkakin intensely, as his life faded away. It wasn’t that she enjoyed it, but rather that she needed to see it, to see the savage die and feel something, anything. While watching her friends die and be taken away had made Adilandra numb, but it was the taking of so many lives that had made Galanör numb. Perhaps taking a few of those lives back gave Adilandra some semblance of who she was, or some justice that was owed to her, but it was the opposite for Galanör now; who felt he had to save lives to regain something of his soul.

  Adilandra fell back and scrambled onto the balcony without looking at either Galanör or the mage. Galanör held his breath for a moment, waiting to see if anyone responded to the queen’s outburst. The noise from the street below only increased, as the daily activities continued with the added activity from the swelling army that had arrived.

  Galanör crawled across the balcony and closed the apartment door, since the smell inside was worse than the smell drifting up from the street and the hanging carcasses above them. The elf had thought that nowhere in all of Verda could smell as bad as Dragorn, and yet the home of a single Darkakin made the island-city seem almost refreshing.

  “You’re not like the elves I read about at Korkanath.” The mage stared at the doorway concealing the dead Darkakin.

  Galanör didn’t know what to say. He could imagine well enough what might be written in those books, ancient scripts about a race of vegetarians that spent all day writing poetry and songs, while mastering the art of magic with ever-lasting lives. How wrong they were. That was why the elves would beat the world of man when it came to war.

  “We need to start thinking of a way to leave these lands.” Galanör changed the subject. “Elandril is well north of here, so we’ll need to steal supplies for-”

  “I’m not returning to Elandril.” Adilandra looked up, meeting Galanör’s eyes with defiance.

  “My lady...”

  “I am not your queen, Galanör, not out here. I will not order you to leave me and I will not order you to follow me. But I am going to find the dragons and stop Valanis from returning. In so doing I might just be able to prevent another war from ravaging Illian.”

  “What war?” the mage asked, his interest suddenly peaked.

  Galanör looked at the young wizard but found his mouth had clamped itself shut. Even now his duty kept him from divulging secrets about a war he didn’t want to a man who could do nothing about it anyway. Instead he turned back to Adilandra with concern in his eyes.

  “My queen... Adilandra,” Galanör didn’t know what to say to convince her, “before we arrived here I saw several armies of Darkakin crossing the land, all of them coming here. Very soon we won’t be able to move through the city unseen, let alone cross the jungle and reach the desert. We have to leave now.”

  “What war are you talking about?” the mage asked again.

  “I have no intention of staying in Malaysai,” Adilandra replied, ignoring the man. “The dragons flew east from here, away from the Darkakin. As soon as I free Lörvana and Fallön, we will flee this city with all haste.”

  Galanör felt his expression go blank, as he considered Adilandra’s plan. If she thought that rescuing the elves from the pyramid and fleeing Malaysai was something that could be done with haste, then the queen had lost her... he couldn’t finish the thought. Seeing the determination on her face now, Galanör knew there would be no changing her mind. With that thought, he also knew there was no way he could let her go alone. She was his queen after all. His blank expression turned to one of sad contemplation, when he realised that his days of killing were not as far behind him as he had hoped. A new beginning would have to wait, providing he survived.

  “What war?” the mage asked with more urgency.

  Adilandra didn’t have the same reservations as Galanör. “The war we avoided by leaving Illian a thousand years ago,” she explained. “A war between your race and ours, though I dare call it a war. A slaughter would be a better description.”

  The mage couldn’t decide whether to be confused or horrified. “Why would we fight each other?”

  “The elves will fight to destroy Valanis and end the threat of his return once and for all. Your people will be forced to fight simply to survive. That is the nature of war.” Adilandra looked through the mage, as if seeing into the past.

  Galanör respected her for that alone. Her age dwarfed his own, lending to her experience and wisdom beyond his comprehension.

  “When is this happening?” The mage looked to Galanör now.

  “It has already begun,” Adilandra replied instead. “The world of man just doesn’t know it yet.”

  In the constant noise that surrounded the companions, silence sat between the three. Galanör felt every precious second slip by, aware that their window of opportunity was quickly disappearing. How had his life been turned around so fast? The impact of a dragon, he supposed.

  “You believe that finding the dragons will stop this war?” the mage asked.

  “Dragons are deeply magical beings,” Adilandra said. “Their magic was essential in trapping Valanis in the Amber spell. I believe that with their help, we can find a way to not only trap him, but remove him from the face of Verda all together, ending the threat of his return.”

  “I’ve never heard of that spell.”

  Galanör, like every elf, had been taught the history of the Dark War. “It would normally freeze anything in a single moment, though it cannot be sustained indefinitely. That’s why Garganafan, the oldest dragon of his time, lent his power to the spell. Unfortunately we don’t know if it will last forever or if it can be breached.”

  “If we can prevent Valanis from rising, my husband won’t have a legitimate reason to invade Illian. But we need the dragons.” Adilandra was compelling. Galanör could see why so many had followed her this far.

  The mage paused before replying. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  The question surprised Galanör pr
ofoundly. This was the same mage that had sworn to kill him, with no lack of rage in his eyes only minutes earlier. It was the first time Galanör had been surprised by the actions of a human. For someone so young, the mage showed great wisdom in being able to set his feelings aside for the greater good.

  “Your name, perhaps?” Adilandra replied softly.

  The mage looked at Galanör again, his anger returning slightly. “My name is Gideon Thorn.”

  Galanör looked at the mage with new eyes, knowing that Gideon Thorn wasn’t a man he would soon forget.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Homecoming

  Not long after dawn, the stone walls of West Fellion came into view, as the hills levelled out into the flatter lands of the Moonlit Plains. The fortress home of the Graycoats sat on the edge between the central forest of The Evermoore, to the north, and the enchanted fields of the Moonlit Plains, to the south.

  Nathaniel had spent many a night sitting atop West Fellion’s turrets, looking out over the glowing fields on the horizon, which separated the four fiefdoms from the kingdom of Karath, in The Arid Lands further south still. It was exhilarating to think that the very race that enchanted those plains was riding alongside him.

  “That is where you grew up?” Reyna asked, her beautiful green eyes taking in every detail.

  Nathaniel looked back to West Fellion and thought about the elf’s question. He had certainly been trained to do a great many things inside those walls, but he didn’t grow up there and he certainly didn’t think of it as home. The young knight discovered the true depths of his character on the road, travelling through the wilds of Illian. He felt more welcome there than he did inside West Fellion.

  “It isn’t much, but...” The Graycoat couldn’t find the words to describe it.

  Every three months he would have to return and fill in a report of his work on the roads, and wait to see if any specific mission would be assigned to him. It never was. The order never chose Nathaniel to represent the Graycoats, instead preferring to leave him to it, slaying beasts and hunting fugitives across the land. Every now and then he would be given a student to take out into the world, though it spoke more of the order’s feelings toward the student than him. Nathaniel hadn’t said anything to Elaith, but the fact that she had been paired with him suggested that the masters didn’t expect much from her.