by Chris Evans
Konowa remembered the brindos as vicious-looking, armor-plated beasts that would just as soon trample you, but he kept it to himself. Rallie had even named one of them Baby. “If they had any sense, they would have headed south and away from this,” he said, looking around at the snowstorm. “I hear there’s nothing but grassland to the far south once you get through the desert.”
“I do hope you’re right, Major,” Rallie said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “They deserve a better fate than to perish here.”
“Don’t we all,” Konowa replied.
The wind blew between them piling up a drift of snow on the wooden bench. Konowa absently pulled a hand out of his robes and brushed at the snow and began tracing out stick figures.
“I believe she’s alive,” Rallie said.
Konowa looked up from the snow. Visyna.
His heart didn’t beat faster as much as it beat stronger, deeper, at the thought of her. He’d done his best not to think about her, focusing instead on the task at hand. The regiment came first. It had to. The lives, and the souls, of each and every soldier depended on him. Who knew what horrors would jump out of the darkness next? Still, if Private Feylan could see a future beyond this, maybe he could, too.
Images of burning trees and exhilarating fear still raced through him, but thinking about Visyna brought memories of her power. He stared out at nothing as he remembered how she infuriated him in the quiet way she held her hurt, aggravated when she raged back at him, and cut when her eyes judged him and found him wanting. But when she smiled . . . He realized he was grinning and brought his hand up to his mouth to cough.
“Do you sense something?” he asked.
Rallie stared at him for several seconds before responding. “Not exactly, but nonetheless I believe it to be true. I certainly hope it to be the case, and hope is a power unto itself. It should not be taken lightly.”
“And the others?” Konowa asked, thinking of his parents, his soldiers, and his four-legged friend, Jir.
“I don’t know,” Rallie said. “I thought it best to get them out of the way when I sealed them in one of the tunnels. Perhaps I made a mistake in sending them that way, but at the time it seemed the proper thing to do.”
Konowa reached out and patted Rallie’s arm. As soon as he did it he tensed, expecting frost fire or something worse to happen, but nothing did. “You did what you thought was best. That’s all we can ever do. I’m sure they’ll appear again.”
The chuckle from Rallie caught Konowa off guard.
“I said something amusing?” Konowa asked.
Rallie snapped the reins and the camels brayed in response. “My dear Major, I do believe you’re starting to get the gist of this hope thing after all.”
A single transformed sarka har continued to trudge after the column, its pace slowed by the increased weight of several layers of dragon scale bark. Snow and ice started to accumulate in its branches, weighing it down further. It paused and shook itself, keeping the form of a soldier though it wasn’t sure what that was. It knew, however, that this shape would allow it to continue moving, and that need burned brighter than all others.
It sensed a vibration in the wind. It stopped and raised its branches, opening its leaves to better feel the disturbance. Two objects were approaching it at great speed. It saw no reason to defend itself, however. These were more sarka har. It lowered its branches and began trudging forward again, aware that the objects were now only yards away and closing fast.
Thick branches grabbed the sarka har on either side and lifted it high into the night sky. In its short, violent life the sarka har had never been out of touch with the earth. If it had had a mouth, it would have screamed. Then the other two sarka har let go. The tree plummeted to the earth, twisting and turning end over end as it fell. It smacked into the ground with a thunderous crack. Its trunk snapped in two, its branches broke and thick, brown ichor leaked from a thousand fractures.
The two sarka har landed and approached the fallen tree, tucking in their wooden wings as they did so. Unlike their brethren, these sarka har had transformed into the shape of the dragons the eggs had meant to hatch. Instead of many small leaves they had grown green-brown skins that stretched between branches forming large wings. They had no heads, but where a jaw would be a branch jutted out lined with ten-inch thorns as thick as an elf’s wrist.
Looming over the dying tree, each took turns slashing down with their spiked branch, tearing the stricken sarka har to bits. They grabbed its trunk and pulled, ripping it in half, and then half again. With each cut and tear more of the brown ichor flowed. As it pooled, the two trees moved to stand in it, absorbing the liquid through the remnants of their root system.
As they drank, they grew stronger. The scalelike bark covering their trunks thickened and took on a metallic sheen. More thorns sprouted along the leading edge of their wings.
When all the ichor had been absorbed, the two sarka har unfurled their wings and flapped them a few times. With each up and down movement their pace grew faster and more powerful. With a final pump the two trees leaped into the air and disappeared into the night heading due west.
“Are we there yet?” Private Scolfelton Erinmoss asked. Scolly wasn’t bright, but what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in perseverance. “It’s just that it seems that we should be there by now, shouldn’t we?”
No one answered, leaving the question to chase the darkness beyond the light of their lanterns until it could no longer be heard. Boots scuffed over a thin skiff of sand on the tunnel floor in a mindless rhythm, filling the air with a rasping pulse.
The elves led by Private Kritton marched in front and behind the small band of human soldiers with Visyna. Though there was barely room to walk two abreast, Chayii Red Owl stayed at Visyna’s side. Visyna opened and closed her mouth a couple of times to speak, but each time words failed her. Chayii’s jaw continually clenched and unclenched and sweat beaded on her brow.
“Soon?” Scolly asked again.
Visyna cocked her head to the side then caught herself. She had instinctively listened for Yimt to bellow another anatomically unlikely occurrence involving a unicorn’s spleen, Scolly’s mother in the moonlight, and quite improbably something to do with cabbage. The realization that Yimt wouldn’t be answering added to the darkness.
“No, Scolly, not yet,” Visyna said, a tightness in her chest catching her breath. Visions of the dwarf falling to the floor in the library refused to go away. Anger was still in the future. Right now it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. She had no idea where they were going or how long they’d been walking. She was beyond tired to the point of feeling light-headed with weakness. She shook the grit from her sandals as she walked, wishing she owned a pair of boots. Her thin cotton leggings and blouse were not designed for a desert environment.
Visyna recognized the beginnings of a downward spiral and tried to find something positive to think about. The caustic feel of the ancient magic in the library was gone, but even then she had little energy left to try and pull power from the air around them. And even if she could, what then? They were heavily outnumbered, the soldiers were stripped of their weapons, and the tunnel was narrow and stretched on far beyond her sight. A fight in here would be a bloody mess with little chance of succeeding. Maybe, she wondered, they were already dead. Kritton couldn’t let them live, could he?
A low, rumbling snarl raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She turned and saw Jir limping behind her, his wounded shoulder causing him significant pain. She reached back with one hand and the bengar came close enough to let her fingers brush the top of his head. It surprised her that Jir should be so docile. She’d expected the elves to kill the beast out of hand, but in his wounded state the bengar appeared helpless. For reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Jir had been allowed to follow them, and he seemed to understand the arrangement and made no outward signs of aggression. It was as if the bengar understood that this wasn’t the righ
t time to seek revenge.
A tongue like bark licked her hand and she pulled it back in surprise. She looked back at Jir, who returned her stare with an intelligence she had never seen before.
“I regret having to invade another creature’s mind, but it was necessary to keep him calm, and alive,” Chayii whispered between her teeth.
Visyna turned to look at her. “You’re controlling him?”
“In a manner of speaking. I have connected with him, drawing out much of his rage and need to hunt,” she said.
“What does it feel like?”
Chayii turned to look at her. Visyna tried to move away and put her shoulder into the tunnel wall. Raw, savage violence flashed in the elf’s eyes. Chayii’s lip curled into a snarl and the muscles in her neck rippled with suppressed energy. She rotated her head slowly, easing her shoulders down.
“I have never partaken of the flesh of another animal in my entire life,” Chayii said, “but it is all I can do not to rip out the hearts of these elves and feel their blood trickle down my throat.” As she said it her hands flexed as if she were extending claws.
Visyna hoped the horror that suddenly welled up inside her didn’t show on her face. She looked around quickly to see if any of the elves had overheard, but no outcry arose. Perhaps, like Konowa, these elves had lost much of their hearing from constant exposure to musket and cannon fire. She knew her own hearing had suffered since deciding to accompany the Iron Elves.
“Do you have a plan on when to release Jir and we can escape?” She opted not to voice her growing concern that they would likely share Yimt’s fate at the hands of Kritton before much longer.
Chayii shook her head. “I am doing what I can to control Jir. It is up to you, my child, to figure out what we do next.”
The hope of a moment before dimmed, but did not die. She’s right, Visyna realized. Thoughts of being little more than a damsel in distress brought blood rushing to her cheeks. I can do this. She brought her hands in front of her and gently began to weave the air. There was power here she could use. She lowered her hands and began to think. Even elves can’t march forever. They would have to stop sometime to rest. When they did she would have to be ready.
“Are we there yet?”
This time Visyna smiled. “Soon, Scolly, soon.”
Trailing the unknown shadow among the rocks, the rakkes moved cautiously at first. The green death was instinctively terrifying, but it was more than seeing one of their own kind eaten alive by it. Buried deep in their primal core lay a memory that any other sentient creature would have understood to be a nightmare. They couldn’t fight the green death, only flee from it, and that went against their very nature.
They didn’t understand why they were here, or even how. Each retained the memory of its death centuries ago—drowning, falling, burning, beheaded—horrors a rakke could understand. But to be here in this time and place, and faced with a death they couldn’t tear with claws or rip apart with fangs added to their distress. They knew, however, that the thing that set the green death free could be torn. It would bleed, and so they trailed it, desperate to feed on its flesh while equally terrified that their own flesh would be devoured before they got the chance. A high wind drove between hairline fractures in the rocks issuing forth a razor shriek that dominated all other sound. Stone and sand tumbled as claws sought purchase on rocks slick with ice and snow as the rakkes picked up their pace, growing bolder with each passing minute they went undetected. They were many and it was alone and unaware it was being hunted.
The shadow continued on, moving from cover to cover, but having to expose itself more to the open in order to keep up with the rakkes on the desert floor below. Each sighting amidst the wind-driven snow spurred the rakkes on. They were closing in. Soon, they would feed.
A heavy gust of wind kicked up a mix of snow and sand, momentarily blocking the shadow from the rakkes’ view. When it had passed the shadow was gone. Surprised, the rakkes lurched forward, forgetting their caution of before and now only focused on picking up the trail of their prey before it could slip away in the night. They bounded over rocks in blind pursuit, howling and yelping to each other as they worked themselves up into a killing frenzy. Long-extinct red-throated screams ripped through the air, seeking to flush out their quarry.
It worked.
The rakkes scrambled up and over a twenty-foot-high pinnacle of granite and descended into a shallow valley in front of another chunk of granite where the shadow stood waiting for them.
It was smaller than they had imagined; its hunch-backed body balanced on just two thick, short legs. Two ragged wings sprouted from its head and its face was covered in a thick matt of windblown fur, but its eyes were visible and without a glimmer of mercy. The green glow of impending death, however, came not from its mouth, which now smiled revealing gleaming metal teeth, but from the long black metal pipe with a wide-mouthed nozzle the demon held in its hands. Only now did the rakkes see the copper-wound hose that hung from the back of the pipe and curled up behind the demon to attach to the brass tank strapped to its back.
“You should have stayed extinct, you stupid buggers,” Yimt said, squeezing the trigger on the weapon.
Three things happened at once. The heel of Yimt’s left boot slipped on a piece of ice and his leg shot out in front of him dropping him straight down onto his backside. Instead of hitting all six of the rakkes the arc of the green phosphorescent insects shooting out of the weapon’s metal nozzle only covered the two on the far right, their howls of fear and pain drowned out by the frenzied glee of the four remaining rakkes now lunging forward.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Yimt shouted, struggling to climb to his feet before the rakkes could reach him. He clutched his chest, his hand covering a torn hole in his uniform. He stood up and swayed under the weight of the weapon on his back. Realizing it was too late to run he squeezed the trigger again, moving the nozzle side to side to spray the oncoming rakkes. Nothing came out. Elevating his cursing to greater heights he shrugged his shoulders out of the straps holding the tank to his back and heaved the entire weapon at the charging rakkes now scrambling up the other side of the crevice toward him.
The brass tank hit a rakke in the head with a satisfying clang and the hose of the metal barrel got caught up in the legs of the one behind causing all four rakkes to stumble and go down in a tangle of limbs. Not waiting to see if the tank had burst open, Yimt rolled over and crawled on his hands and knees up and over the rock he was on and rolled down the slope on the other side until a pile of rock debris stopped him.
He sat up with both arms crossed over his rib cage and let out a growl of pain. The sound of yammering rakkes clawing at the rock just the other side of where he sat got him to his feet, though the effort had him spitting blood. He searched around in the dim light looking for a weapon and a place to hide, but the first rakke had already crested the top of the rock above him. The creature’s howl vibrated off the rock around them and Yimt lost his footing again, going down to one knee.
The other rakkes appeared a moment later and then all four began to make their way down the slope toward him. Yimt took a quick look behind him, but the desert floor was still hundreds of feet below and the slope far too sheer for him to climb down. Turning back to the rakkes, he picked up a large rock in each hand and started calculating the odds. Two rocks, four rakkes.
Yimt blinked and wiped snow and sweat from his eyes and looked again. Two more figures stood atop the rock. It was difficult to make them out through the snow, but the wind died down just as they began to descend. He had time to see a drawn sword in the hand of one and a bow and arrow held by the other. A new gust of wind blew up and just before they were lost in the falling snow Yimt saw something far worse. Pointed ears.
“Nuns in butter,” he muttered, twisting the heels of his boots into the gravel in hopes of better footing on the slippery rock. “Rakkes I can deal with, but dark elves, too?” Fine, he decided, he’d have to make sure he kept
an eye on the elf with the bow. If the twisted beastie decided to hang back and shoot he’d have little chance. Think, you daft dwarf, think.
He’d have to take out the elf with the bow first and then turn his attention to the rakkes, who were much closer. Hopefully, if the snow kept blowing he’d have enough cover that he could take on his attackers one at a time. It was a long shot, but it was all he had. He cocked back his left arm ready to hurl the first rock when he noticed black frost burning on its surface.
“Well I’ll be a newt in a pot,” he said, stopping in mid-throw. He focused on the rock and concentrated. Black flames rose two inches high along its surface. The roar of a rakke startled him as it reared up just feet away. Saliva flew from its open maw as its curving yellow fangs lunged for his throat.
With no time to look for the elf with the bow Yimt threw the rock. It smashed into the rakke’s face, breaking one of the upper fangs clean in two. The creature screamed in agony, but not from the broken tooth. Frost fire from the rock covered its face, washing it in flickering black flames. The oath magic took hold quickly, devouring the rakke before his eyes. First its black fur disappeared, revealing a gray, leathery hide that quickly eroded, revealing muscle and sinew that fell away in ribbons until only the silently screaming skull of the beast remained, before it, too, was consumed by the black frost.
Oblivious to the other rakke’s fate or simply too maddened to care, another of the creatures leaped over the rapidly disintegrating remains and caught Yimt full in the ribs with a clenched paw. White sparks exploded behind Yimt’s eyes as the other rock grew heavy in his hand and slipped from his fingers. He flew backward, landing in a crumpled heap on the edge of the ridge line with his head hanging over the precipice. His shako flew from his head to twirl like a top all the way to the desert floor.