by Jacob Cooper
The force was unbelievable and Aiden felt his ribs give way under the blow. Hot searing pain shot up through his side and radiated into his arm. Breath evaded him. It was too much for him to capture and recycle before it took root and his face contorted with pain. Before he could fall, the bearded man grabbed him by the throat—still upside down—and head-butted Aiden in the eye, splitting the thin skin around it. Muted stars filled his vision as he went limp. Through the milky expanse obstructing his vision, Aiden thought he saw a short blade come to his face. The blazing pain that danced through his nerves left no doubt as the Borathein warrior traced the knife from his bleeding eye socket down his jawline. Aiden screamed and thrashed wildly, but the man’s strength was immense. He felt a chunk of his flesh start to be peeled away.
“I will have your face, betrayer!” Shilkath yelled in Sentharian.
An arrow from below pierced the wood-dweller’s shoulder, the arrowhead erupting through his skin like a volcano of blood. The surprise of it caught Shilkath off guard. A second arrow hissed by his ear and, in reflex, he let go of the long-haired Arlethian. Unconscious from the pain, the wood-dweller fell through the darkness.
The Deklar righted himself on his massive Alysaar. Hawgl screeched thunder.
“There will be others,” Shilkath promised. “Many others. We will adorn ourselves in their flesh.”
The Alysaar screeched again. Shilkath now had a taste of the battle. He had held back and commanded from on high, but with this first taste he could restrain himself no longer. Leaning forward, he grabbed the reins tightly in his left hand and his mace in his right. He spied a group of children who were mostly doing little good, but there were a few who were effective enough.
“Dive, Hawgl! Dive! Let us feast on the tender spawn of traitors!”
Their charge was terrible. As his mace crushed skulls and bodies he became stained with blood and brain matter. Hawgl tore women and children to shreds with his petrified bone talons, preferring the feel of their softer flesh to the men. Three wood-dwellers leaped atop Hawgl, but the Alysaar turned his side parallel to the earth too quickly for the trespassers to find hold. Two fell and the third dangled desperately from the short stubby tail of the Alysaar. Hawgl leveled out. Leaving the reins, Shilkath turned and stood over the Arlethian. He reached down, grabbed the man by his hair and lifted him up to his height with a single arm. The wood-dweller screamed in pain, clawing at Shilkath’s arm and kicking.
“Pathetic!”
He shook his captive from the crown of his head violently until the momentum of the Arlethian’s swaying body snapped his own neck. The Borathein leader let the corpse fall as if it were no more than a dead fish, and laughed. Shilkath roared with gleeful ferocity as he dove and banked, spilling the life of his enemies upon the treed canopy until it became slick with dark fluid and reflected the shimmer of approaching dawn. Only then did Shilkath realize the color of the forest was wrong. It was paler. Gray.
“The serpent Tyjil has worked his trick,” he mused and was once again impressed by it.
Tyjil sat below the Changrual Monastery in the expansive cavern he had discovered over thirty-six seasons ago. He was a different person then, nine years past. Well, in as much as a name defines someone. He found that he much preferred Tyjil to Rehum. Tyjil was strong and focused where Rehum was desperate and largely a fool.
He removed a Triarch leafling from a satchel. This particular sample came directly from Calyn’s immediate vicinity. It’s how the Influence worked, requiring some connection to the body to be affected.
Memories of his first experience demonstrating the Influence came to mind. A dark night in the Arlethian forest with a small audience. He had not been strong enough to alter a large portion of the forest when he demonstrated the Influence six years ago for Shilkath. He was now. This particular conjure of Influence would mean the end of the Arlethians.
The Ancient Dark swelled inside him and he touched the Triarch leafling. The now familiar blue luminescence shone—the Living Light within the leafling. He extracted it and took it into himself. When he had drawn all the Light out, he was granted access to the tree from which the leafling had been taken. Like a plague, he forced his access through the tree and then the intertwined roots of the forest around Calyn.
“Oh, the exquisite joy!” he cackled as he ripped through the forest. Tyjil felt the changes as he snuffed out the Lumenati spark of life from the trees, leaving cold and dead stone in his wake.
As he pushed farther, he saw the brightest Light. It was blinding and he knew it was the Tavaniah Forest. He tried to push there but was rebuffed soundly. He tried again but could go no farther, dammed by a barrier of some create. The Light caused him to squint with his physical eyes, though he was only seeing it in his mind.
“Soon,” he promised. “Soon I will be strong enough to pierce you. Soon I will have my own army of those that serve the Ancient Dark. Yes, soon.”
A sound interrupted him. Rocks being misplaced and moved, he thought. Startled, he came cautiously to a wall where the sound emanated. His brow furrowed with curiosity, he brought his torch closer to inspect the wall when he saw a stone fall free, followed by a hand reaching through.
Thurik bit through an enemy’s beard and found hot flesh underneath. With a forceful whipping of the wolf’s neck, the trachea came free. Hedron scrambled around a tree faster than his immediate opponent could follow and stabbed him through the side. The pale man died with a yelp. Hedron had never killed anyone before this battle, though he had tried when his mother fell under attack. He discovered it was easy as breathing when properly motivated—something Aiden had whispered to him before the battle. He did not feel any regret in his actions, no remorse. The rightness of it propelled him.
He saw Lord Hoyt caught between two assailants, but Master Gernald was there in an instant. Together, they ended their enemies and moved on to the next. Despite valiant efforts, they were doing little damage to the overall enemy force. The trees forced a bottleneck of sorts and allowed the Arlethian and Southern forces to meet them with less peril, but they were being forced back into the flames that engulfed more of Calyn as every minute passed. Hedron knew they could not press upon their enemy.
The three wolf cubs toppled another Borathein and savagely dispatched him amid screams. Hedron felt a cold sweat on his neck as he heard a yelp of pain followed by a whimper. Alabeth lay on the ground with a spear in her left rear leg. Huksinai and Thurik killed the offender and circled around their sister, viciously snapping at anyone who dared approach. Though she was alive, Alabeth did not move.
A flurry of arrows rained down upon them. Most embedded themselves harmlessly in the trees but some found a target. A second flurry came, adding to the first volley’s effect. Merrick, the giant blacksmith, grunted and Hedron turned to the man. Two arrows protruded from his back near his left shoulder. He reached up and snapped the wooden shafts with no more effort than had they been decayed twigs.
“No harm, my Lord,” Merrick said. “I’m right-handed.”
With his hammer raised, he bellowed forth into the Borathein horde with a thunderous cry. His wood-dweller speed carried him with momentum through several lines of men, swinging and slamming his iron enforcer, authoritatively persuading those in his path that this life was no longer for them. With each swing, at least two Borathein were sent flying back, broken and dead.
“Cover him!” Hedron commanded as he looked above to the archers in the trees. Arrows found their marks all around Merrick, thinning out the masses.
“No! Let them come!” he shouted.
He smashed over and over, spinning and whirling like a tornado of iron. He hit one man on the shoulder, destroying the joint, and followed up with an uppercut to the man’s jaw that nearly took off his head. A bright orange-bearded man threw a small axe that found Merrick’s thigh but the giant ripped it free and returned the favor, catching the man in his face. Another attack, this one from a spear, punctured his abdomen. Slices from h
alf a dozen swords covered his arms, but his lethal hammer continued to crash down on all those around him as he shaped them for death against the earthen anvil at his feet. But no matter his strength and speed, Merrick was eventually overrun by enemy soldiers and cut down as a raft swallowed by ocean swells in a typhoon.
Hedron started to feel physically sick. He and the rest of those with him retreated again and the heat at their backs increased. They must not let the Borathein into the city, but he did not know how to prevent it. All around him men and woman died on both sides, but his forces and allies could not win a battle of attrition. The Borathein acted like a battering ram, pushing forward no matter their losses, until they breached the city, where they would have more room to maneuver and hand out their destruction. Hedron guessed they had only met half of the Borathein’s ground forces thus far. He prayed Aiden’s front above the trees was having more success.
Lord Marshal Wenthil ordered a brisk retreat of about fifty paces, putting some distance between the main lines of the forces. The wood-dwellers in the trees leaped from one tree to the next until they were aligned with the new front. The invaders had continued to advance, but cautiously.
The forest started to change around Lord Kerr. The ground became firmer; the vibrations he felt through it more sharp and thin. Then it receded as a wave pulling back, and Hedron’s mind spun in the undertow. He glanced around and saw looks of terror on every Arlethian. Hoyt’s men did not seem to notice the feeling, nor would they.
Glimon found him. The old command sergeant was splattered with blood but otherwise appeared well.
“Lord Kerr, did you feel that?”
“Yes, what was it?” Hedron bellowed.
He looked to his left and saw Huksinai and Thurik dragging Alabeth hurriedly away from the front. The female cub still did not move.
“Do you know what it was?” he asked Glimon again.
Glimon looked uncertain, but Hedron could guess he was thinking of the corruption that Ulin and Seilia had spoken of. An arrow raced between them.
“But nothing happened!” Hedron exclaimed. They felt the release of more arrows and hunkered behind a tree.
“Something did!”
“Whatever it was, it left. We have to focus on—”
It came back and surged through the forest. Underneath Hedron, the soil turned to gravel and stone, the trees turned dark gray and cold. The thousands of Arlethians, to their credit, did not break and run in terror. But, the young Lord knew how they were feeling because he felt the same. Revulsion spread through him, coupled with shock and disbelief.
What is this? he demanded of himself but had no answer. This was the corruption mother Seilia had spoken of. It had to be. Hoyt’s men could not help but see this physical change around them.
“It is the Dark!” one man screamed. “The Dark Mother’s Influence!”
The fighting ceased, and again a rift of space was created between the two lines with everyone looking down and around themselves, inspecting their environment. Even the Borathein stopped fighting and an eerie calm settled over the masses. Some of the fires smoldered, but much of the city was too far gone to be extinguished.
Lord Kerr stood. All his people looked at him. He saw their defeated expressions and knew the Borathein did as well. They had been outnumbered from the beginning with little hope against such overwhelming odds. But they had their trees. They had their forests and their venerable cities, Calyn foremost among them. Most importantly, they had one another. A race as ancient as the world itself, second only to the Ancients, if the legends were true.
I believed—I hoped that just maybe it would have been enough. Now the tie to each of those treasures was being savagely severed, like a dead child being ripped from a grieving mother’s arms. Hedron looked back to the ruins of Calyn, a city that had been the envy of the Realm—his boyhood home. It now looked as he felt inside.
Second moon had set. Dawn would soon be upon them. His people still stared at him. Should he surrender? Order a retreat?
Ancients Come! I don’t know what to do! Scanning through the crowds he saw Lord Hoyt sitting upon his destrier. They shared a look. Farther off, he heard the sounds of horror above, and Hedron knew that battle fared no better.
Lord Hoyt shook his head slightly. Hedron was thinking of surrender and he knew Hoyt saw it. The early morning sky turned a shade of dark gray, matching the trees around them. Hoyt had half to maybe two-thirds of his men left. The wood-dweller militia had fared better due to their agility and advantage given them by the forest, but with that nullified Hedron knew this would become a slaughter. They would take three Borathein for every Arlethian killed, but it would not be enough.
They were done. Hedron knew it.
“Lord Kerr!” Hoyt yelled. His voice carried well as it bounced off the tree-like rock formations. “Hedron! Do not stop! They will not accept surrender!”
Hoyt spurred his warhorse over to the young Lord. Arlethian and Southern forces alike parted for him.
“Hedron, listen to me! They will give us no quarter. Let us rally our people and press forward. We have no choice!”
Two arrows pierced Calder Hoyt’s chest, ending the lull.
“No!” Hedron yelled.
He caught Lord Hoyt as he fell from his horse. Gernald was there seconds later, cursing fiercely.
“No man,” Calder Hoyt said with great effort, “can be worthy…to live once he shrinks because of…fear from that which he knows to be right. I now…pay that price. I pray I may find your father in…the Living Light and beg his forgiveness…”
“Lord Hoyt!” Hedron cried. Kathryn’s father lay in his arms, motionless. His eyes fluttered and chest became still. Hedron slapped his face twice and called his name again. No reply came. Lord Calder Hoyt had left this life.
Hedron felt too stunned to know what to do. He had been the leader of his people for less than a day. He knew they looked to him for moral strength, but he had looked to Lord Hoyt. Seeing their lord fall, the Southern army started to retreat more quickly. It became a frenzied rout. Hedron knew the Borathein sensed that the final blow was near and would soon charge with feverish abandon. Gernald stayed by his dead lord’s side, cutting down every man he could. Lord Marshal Wenthil tried desperately to call for order and organize a defense until a spear impaled him in the neck.
Gernald ripped Hoyt free from Hedron’s arms and hoisted him over his shoulders.
“Run, boy!” he yelled to Hedron. Gernald was gone before Hedron looked up. He stood and saw the sea of Borathein closing in on him. His people, the wood-dwellers who still lived and fought, had not fled. They were scared and anxious—terrified, just as he was—but they stood their ground.
Run? he asked himself. He had run his entire life. Perhaps three thousand, maybe less, still stood with him. It was amazing to him that so many children were still present, women as well. In a place deep within his mind he knew there were many more lifeless upon the rocky earth.
Run? How can I run? His mother had not run. His father had stood firmly against the darkness that ended him.
How can I run? “No man can be worthy to live once he shrinks,” he heard Lord Hoyt’s final words echo through his mind. He would run away no more in his life. Not one more step.
I am Arlethia and she is me. A terrible fear tried to seize him but found no purchase. He felt stronger suddenly, as if a surge of reserve sprung up inside him. Again the fear came and again it was unsuccessful in clutching him. The strength swelled again. Thurik and Huksinai made their way to his side, having removed their sister far enough from the field of battle.
When he spoke, his voice filled the morning with a supernatural tenor and volume.
“People of Arlethia! Sons and daughters of this land, harken to my words! I have been running my entire life. From my name, from who I am.” He ran his sword through a Borathein and deftly escaped a blow from another. He countered with a punch to the attacker’s face too fast for the man to block and his n
ose inverted, blood spraying. “But I have committed to you and Arlethia! I will not take one step of retreat!” He saw a young girl, eleven at most, bend over from a wound to the stomach. He who threw the spear immediately had three other younglings upon him, each stabbing repeatedly with short blades until the bearded man ceased to move. “Even our little ones stand firm against these enemies of devilish create! We cannot back down, though others flee in fear. We do not blame them but will find in ourselves the brighter Light! The greater portion of bravery!”
Strong as his words were, they did not have the effect his previous speech had carried. They continued to battle but were giving ground too quickly.
“We must fight through until we find the Living Light or the Dark take us! I will wage that fight! I will wage it with you by my side! Will you?”
He saw the resolve thicken inside his people until it hardened. His own determination could not be shattered, it being strengthened by standing for something greater than himself. He swore he could feel the air change around him with a sense of familiarity and he thought of his mother. Her final words played through his mind.
Dar vash alaqyn duwel partia, the ancient Arlethian blessing of protection. He wished he could see her again. His father as well. Perhaps he would after today. His only regret was not being able to say goodbye to Reign and hold Kathryn one last time. He would not waver in the face of death, but spurn it with defiance until the end.
Three thousand men, women, and younglings, along with two wolf cubs, charged the darkness before them in the pale light of what they were certain would be their last morning.
Antious Roan was a general without an army. Where he should turn eluded him. He sat within a quarter-mile of the Sentharian army’s camp where the remnants of the various fronts now gathered. The southern front’s forces had not returned, which Roan hoped was a positive sign, some sliver of silver light in these cursed days. The tall grass he hid beneath also provided some nourishment. He had taken to chewing on the softer portion of the long blades that were under the soil. When he had chewed them to a pulp-like consistency, he forced the bolus down his throat. The cramps felt like someone lancing his stomach from the inside, but they eventually passed.