The queen stepped close to the opening and stared down into the blackness for several minutes. The other refugees had gone on and only they three remained. Then she turned and followed the path away from the tunnel.
Jin and Sera lingered behind.
Sera wasn’t sure what she expected—a miracle perhaps. Some way, somehow, her father had to survive. He had fought off the golden elves for years, narrowly escaping dozens of traps and close calls along the way. He could survive this.
Her mother admitted he hadn’t, though, and her visions were never wrong. The future changed constantly, she lectured, but as a moment approached we made our choices and our fates were sealed.
How long had she known her husband was doomed to die today?
Sera wiped away a tear. She wasn’t ashamed to cry for her father, but she didn’t want to upset Jin. King Teldrain, ruler of the wood elves, her father, was gone. Her older brother, Jace, was gone as well. Despite everything that had transpired between them, she chose to remember the protective older brother he had once been. They couldn’t even be buried properly.
The only home she had ever known was destroyed. The Golden had shattered her people. Could the rest of them ever survive this? All told, less than ten thousand wood elves had escaped Teran, mostly its very old and very young.
Sera hoped a portion of the army would survive, and Dain with it.
She prayed in a low whisper while they stood, asking the creator to receive and shelter the spirits of her father and brother and of all her people who had perished this day. She asked for protection for the survivors, and especially for Dain. Though she had only known him for a short time, the thought of losing him along with everything else, was too great to imagine.
“Grandfather will be alright, won’t he, mother?” Jin asked. Her innocent eyes stared up at Sera. With her small fingers, she reached for her mother’s hand.
“I do not know,” Sera lied. “Let’s catch up to your grandmother.”
Still holding hands, they joined Selasa. The queen took Jin’s free hand without looking, and all three trailed along after the wood elf column.
“Where are we going, grandmother?” Jin asked, breaking the silence.
“You are going to a new home, Jin. I will not be joining you I am afraid,” Selasa answered. “I have seen my fate. The time of Teldrain and Selasa is at an end. It is your mother’s time now. Her’s and the champion’s.”
“Mother please, do not speak like that. You are still young and healthy, you will rule for many years yet,” Sera said.
“I will not survive this road, Sera, nor even this hour. Soon I will join your father with the spirits of our ancestors, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” She rubbed at the old scar on her hand.
Selasa paused for a few steps, smiling almost serenely, and then continued.
“Listen to me now. You and Jin and your other children will be the future of our people. Hold your champion close. I have seen how you look at him, how you watch him. You will need each other in the difficult days and years ahead. Together, you will accomplish much. Though there will be much darkness ahead, you will save our people. Above all else, remember your duty to the land, to protect it should the demons return.”
The queen faced Sera then. A fierce light blazed in her eyes.
“In the south there is an ancient temple. Your father took you there once, as he took your brothers. No matter the cost, the temple must always be kept safe. If the demons seize it, and the well down in its depths, they will plunge the valley into fire and chaos. And our people will not survive. Do not let this happen, you must promise me.” Selasa clutched Sera’s hands in her own, her eyes now imploring.
“You’re scaring both of us. You will reign for a long time. The demons will never return. They never have,” Sera said, trying to calm her mother.
She thought back, recalling her father’s last words for her. This morning they had walked along the castle’s courtyard, past the great gardens and trees, talking and enjoying the brisk morning air. He too mentioned the temple.
“Do you remember the old temply we went to in the south, Sera? We camped out overnight there. A faded, stone building carved into the earth,” Teldrain had asked. His eyes had been so solemn.
“Yes. There were walls around it with ivy growing over them. It took us days to get there, and we slept under the stars and had picnics along the way. I was Jin’s age.”
“That temple is a place of incredible power. Our people are tied to it and to the power it contains. It is both our honor and curse to protect it. Do you remember how to get there?”
“Down the path toward the great ocean. There was an ivory column with a blue flame where we turned east. We climbed down a winding trail into a dark valley. The temple was there.” Sera remembered the trip well. The valley frightened her and she couldn’t explain why.
“The eternal flame burns to remind us to be vigilant and to remember our fallen ancestors. The valley is called Lorthol, an old Elvish word.”
“The valley of Shade, because the sun never touches the bottom. You told me that.”
Teldrain had nodded and spoke again.
“Our ancestors cast spell wards at the outer door. There are other wards inside, many of them, but the outer is the most important, it will let the caster know if the door is breached. Each year that ward must be renewed to keep it safe.”
“How are they renewed?”
“There are instructions inscribed on the doors themselves. It takes no special talent, just a willing heart. Go yourself, take Dain with you, and Jin as well. You will know what to do.”
“I understand. I will protect my people when it is my time. But you and mother have many more years ahead. Why are you telling me this now?”
Teldrain had smiled faintly, but his eyes held no mirth.
“I just want to make sure you understand. Now, swear to me you will protect the temple.”
“I swear it father.”
Her father had hugged her then. Afterward, Sera hadn’t given their conversation much thought. Too much had happened. She hadn’t known it would be the last time she would ever speak to him. There was so much more she should have asked him. So many things she should have said.
Selasa spoke again, to Jin this time.
“Sweet granddaughter, always stay true to yourself. Remember that you are not at fault for the circumstances of your birth, and though it will be difficult, that the Golden are your people as well. There was once a noble dream that we would become one nation, one people. Your grandfather and I failed to make that dream a reality. Someday, the Golden too will need you to lead and guide them to the true path.”
Sera didn’t know what to say. She feared her mother’s words. Feared them and was angered by them. After all the Golden have done, they can burn, she thought. She wouldn’t argue with her mother, but neither she nor Jin would ever help the Golden. Some wrongs could never be forgiven.
Judging by the scowl on Jin’s face, she agreed.
The three had fallen behind the main body of wood elves and only the quiet forest surrounded them now. The trail began to rise, skirting around a ravine on one side and climbing a small rise.
Halfway to the top the queen stopped walking, as if expecting something.
Sera thought she heard a small noise in the distance, but the forest was otherwise eerily silent.
Where are the birds? There were always birds chirping. What had driven them off?
A golden elf stepped out into the path ahead.
It took a moment to recognize Gallad. His once-bright armor was dented in four places and down the left side ran a ragged split. His helmet was missing and brown mud was smeared over his armored legs. Someone had stitched up his forehead from where Sera had cut him while wiping out the supply train. The stitches were pulled open and bled again.
Gallad smiled, exposing a missing tooth.
“Well, this is certainly a pleasant surprise. Looks like I will have the chance
to clean up after myself after all,” he said. “Maybe I will be generous and rape you again after I kill my bastard whelp and the old woman here. I know you enjoyed it last time.”
Here before Sera stood the chance she had wanted. A chance for vengeance. She had spent years seeking Gallad, and now here he was. Only instead of seizing the opportunity, she froze, too frightened to move, unable even to speak. This wasn’t like facing him on the hill. This was close. Intimate. Her careless words about finding and killing him came back to her, stinging like lashes from the cruelest whip.
Jin clutched Sera’s hand, squeezing it tight, and then shrank behind her leg.
To her side, the Queen sprang into action. She had no spellcasting ability beyond her visions, but from her skirts she drew a short knife. She ran toward Gallad with the weapon raised.
Steel rang out as he effortlessly deflected her attack, and with a single slice, cut her abdomen open. Selasa doubled over and Gallad kicked out with an armored boot and sent her rolling off the path and into the narrow ravine below.
“One down,” he said, still grinning.
Jin howled with rage. She flew out in front of her mother, drawing her black rapier and charging her father.
Gallad parried her thin sword, surprised, barely stopping the child’s attack.
Jin followed Dain’s training, pressing the attack, dancing her narrow blade in a whirling series of quick slashes and cuts. Beads of sweat broke out on Gallad’s forehead and his smile faded. He retreated a step, hard-pressed to stop her dizzying assault. Jin managed to slip the narrow blade through his defenses and drew blood from his side. Gallad howled in pain. The Golden prince let his blade rise a fraction too high and Jin slashed. She cried out in frustration as her rapier glanced off his leg plate.
Using her advantage in speed, Jin continued to attack. But after a time she began to tire and her attacks slowed. Gallad feigned an overhead slash, and she tried a quick thrust, which he sidestepped. Then he slammed her blade up with his own.
The dark rapier sailed over the path’s edge and fell away into the ravine.
“Now then, no more swords for bad little girls,” he said. “I will show you what happens to bad little girls.”
Gallad smiled again and slashed his own weapon from the left, but Jin was too quick and dipped beneath the blade. She tried to run then, and slipped on the damp grass. Putting a heavy, armored boot on her back, Gallad pinned her down. He held his sword close, point down, ready to run his daughter through.
“Help. Mother, please help me. Please!” Jin cried. Tears rolled down each pale cheek.
Held captive by her fear, Sera had watched it all unfold through dull, lifeless eyes, a prisoner in her own body. She felt as if she were in a glass box, pounding on the walls, unable to break through. Jin was going to die. She heard her cry out, saw the warm tears running down her face and the fear in her eyes. Gallad was going to murder her perfect, beautiful daughter. And no one was coming to save them.
The box cracked, split, and then shattered completely.
Sera reached out with her will, drawing air from the surrounding forest and sending a powerful fist of wind at Gallad.
The fist connected. He staggered back.
Jin took advantage of his distraction by twisting free and running toward her mother. Gallad tried to speak and raised his threatening sword toward her, but the howling wind muffled his words. Sera couldn’t have heard him anyway. Rage and pounding heartbeats numbed her to the surrounding world.
She used the gathered wind to lift a million tiny grains of sand from the path. They floated up through the tender blades of grass, then began spinning around Gallad, drawing tight against his armor in a whirlwind and moving ever faster. The trapped prince clawed out, struggling to free himself, but Sera’s will held him fast. Blood began to flow from thousands of tiny cuts as the jagged grains first ate his armor and then the softer flesh beneath.
Static built in the cyclone, popping with thousands of small lightning bolts. They arced into Gallad. His muscles twitched and jumped.
Sera split her focus then, reaching deep into the earth and drawing two huge granite boulders up toward the surface. Each over eight feet tall, the boulders rose upright on either side of the golden elf, soil flying in every direction as they burst through the ground.
Gallad was unrecognizable. His painted armor and clothing were scoured away, his hair had been stripped, and his features gone. Blood oozed all over his shredded body, and only by the heaving of his chest could Sera tell that he still lived.
Sera looked for what she knew would be the final time upon Jin’s father. With all her strength, she slammed the two great stones together. A thunderclap rang through the trees and the boulders entombed what little remained of the last golden elf prince.
For the first time in days, weeks, or even months, Koren’s nerves felt calm.
The vengeful fire that had burned ever brighter since Haldrin’s death abated now, lurking somewhere in the back of her mind. She could still feel it, and now here was finally something she could do about it. She’d met her brother’s murderer at last. He knelt not twenty feet away. Like a child waiting to open a long-anticipated gift, she could barely contain her joy.
Koren would capture him soon. Then just for him, she would invent new methods of torture.
As for executing him, she would grant her father that, but he would wait weeks, months before she finished exacting her own vengeance. The best healers in the kingdom would be at her disposal, rebuilding the human’s body daily just for her to hear his screams as she tore it back apart. Only after she broke his spirit and his mind would she part with him. Her pleasure would know no bounds. The human’s example would serve notice of what happened to those who hurt her family.
First, though, she needed to face her brother’s murderer in combat—to defeat him, humiliate him, and then take him. Years had passed since anyone had beaten her in a duel, and Koren burned to prove she was better than this pitiful creature. Haldrin had been a great warrior, but even he dared not face her without spell-wrapped blades.
She had seen Dain fight. From her father’s tent she’d watched him charge through the golden elf soldiers. Though undeniably strong, he looked slow, as if moving underwater. How could he have beaten Haldrin? His victory over her brother must have been luck. Luck, or the hated wood elf vermin had aided him. They too, needed to be punished. Her father would take care of that when he took their precious Teran and wiped them all away. A week from now there would be no wood elves.
The battlelines between Golden and wood elf, along with their allies, passed them by. The sounds of steel meeting steel faded. Other than the dead and dying around them, they were alone near canyon’s edge.
“Dain. That is your name, isn’t it? I am here to avenge my brother.”
Dain continued to look at the fallen priest’s body, ignoring her.
“Go ahead, pick up your axe. I will allow you a slight chance. My daggers against your blades. Just me and you, no surprises, no sneak attacks like I served to your foolish priest friend.”
Her words seemed to snap him out of his trance. He watched her, while retrieving his short axe.
“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she taunted.
“Forgive me if I don’t remember your brother. I seem to have killed a lot of you these last few days.”
He was baiting her, Koren knew, hoping to anger her, hoping she would make some sort of mistake, but that knowledge couldn’t check her anger.
“Haldrin, his name was Haldrin, worm,” she spat. She crouched low and tight, a viper readying to strike. Without waiting for him to find his footing, Koren struck out with both daggers, going for a quick victory, but the human knocked her blades aside with surprising speed. She spun under his counterstrike, ducking just beneath the sword. The wind of it lifted her blond locks. She reached at him with a dagger, but his short axe met the blade, and he retreated back.
She was wrong. The human could move f
ar, far faster than she had believed.
But he is not so fast as me.
Never taking her eyes off him, she stood upright, blade tips down, inviting attack. If he wanted to play mind games, she could play them better.
“Come on now, fight me, give me a bit of sport before this ends,” she laughed.
Something in his green eyes changed. Her words had somehow struck at a raw nerve.
Instead of leading with the sword, he held the longer weapon close while swinging the short axe in quick, choppy strokes. Koren fended it off, anticipating the sword’s broad sweep. When it finally came, she rolled forward under it, lashing out at his legs as she passed by.
The human stepped in the opposite direction, pulling away at the very last moment. Her effort was rewarded with only a thin rip in the leather armor that covered his knee.
Seizing back the initiative, she struck with her right-hand dagger. When he deflected it she pivoted, spinning on her foremost heel to close the distance and get to his unguarded chest.
He must have expected the move. Instead of blocking her dagger, he drove the tomahawk’s edge into her arm near the shoulder. If she had been wearing true leather, without enchantments, the axe would have taken her arm off. Instead it lost all strength and her dagger glanced off his chainmail instead of parting it.
Koren recoiled in pain and tried to recover, but Dain stepped in and swung again with the axe. She leaned aside, trying in vain to avoid the wicked weapon’s bite. It slammed into her hip and chopped through her armor.
She felt a sticky warmth spreading from her open wounds, but refused to look at or even acknowledge them.
He had hurt her. This Dain, a pathetic human, had actually hurt her.
Screaming in rage, she went back on the offensive in a flurry of blades. She fought in white-hot fury, holding the feeling close and drawing strength from it. Her daggers managed to draw blood with a half-dozen strikes, but he always managed to deflect them just enough to avoid a serious wound.
Exhausted, Koren paused to catch her breath. Dain did likewise and she studied him.
Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption Page 34