Nature Abhors a Vacuum (The Aielund Saga Book 1)

by Stephen L. Nowland

  “You shall have plenty of time to think of your mistakes, during your impending imprisonment,” Criosa informed him archly. Black actually managed a macabre laugh, not exactly the sort of sound one should be hearing from a defeated enemy.

  “I don’t think I’ll be going to prison, Your Highness, as there isn’t going to be much left of Culdeny in a few minutes.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aiden asked, a feeling of dread descending over him.

  “I’ve made arrangements,” the mercenary replied cryptically.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Criosa ordered impatiently. “We’re taking you into town, and anything that befalls it happens to you as well.” Robert looked up at the sky, as did Aiden, noticing that the sun was just about to peak over the horizon.

  “The dragon,” he breathed. “It’s going to strike at dawn, isn’t it?”

  “Azurefang might be a little crazy, but she does what she’s paid to do,” Robert confirmed, seeming to be more relaxed with every passing moment. “So, here’s what’s going to happen. I -”

  Pacian appeared next to Robert at that moment, and interrupted his speech by plunging a dagger into the man’s throat, sending a torrent of blood gushing onto the snow. He clutched at the wound in a futile attempt to staunch the flow, gasping for breath. Aiden was stunned and could only stand and stare at Pacian in disbelief.

  “Don’t just stand there, run!” Pacian shouted, grabbing an equally shocked Nellise by the wrist and pulling her in the direction of town. An ominous roar could be heard in the distance, a sound that had the hairs on the back of Aiden’s neck standing on end.

  He had the presence of mind to look around and make sure everyone else was running, and saw that Colt was still down on the ground, grievously wounded. Aiden rushed to his side and offered a hand.

  “Get out of here, I’ll just slow you down,” Colt grunted, but Aiden was in no mood to deal with his death wish.

  “Get on your feet, mister,” he shouted, kneeling down to reach around the ranger’s shoulder. Realising Aiden wasn’t going to give up on him so easily, Colt accepted his help and did what he could to carry his own weight. The man weighed a ton, and Aiden was forced to use every ounce of his remaining strength to move him.

  With one last check of the area, he saw Criosa and Sayana were helping the equally wounded Sergeant Evans to his feet, despite meeting similar protests from the tough old soldier. Somewhere above in the gathering fog, the dragon Robert Black had called Azurefang headed towards Culdeny.

  It was a quarter of a mile to the town gate, and the group was struggling to move as fast as they could, considering half of them were barely able to stand. The sounds of Culdeny could be heard through the fog, a combination of cries for help, shouted orders for soldiers to follow, and the clash of weapons as a few of the Steel Tigers kept on fighting, not realising their leader was already dead.

  “Get off the road!” Aiden called out to the others nearby, changing direction to head into the trees. He hoped it was enough cover to protect them from being spotted. He set Colt down in the bushes and hit the ground himself, wincing from the pain of his broken arm as he slid to a halt.

  Pacian and Nellise came in next, collapsing onto the ground as they came to a stop. Sayana and Criosa managed to get Evans into the copse as well, just as the sound of beating wings passed overhead and the dark silhouette of the dragon could be seen wheeling through the misty sky.

  It roared again, and the fog was illuminated by the blast of fire as it doused part of the town in flames. Cries of panic emanated from the other side of the wall as Aiden and his companions sat helplessly, listening to the destruction of Culdeny.

  For several minutes, Azurefang circled over the town, sending down torrents of fire at leisure, but its path through the air was uneven and erratic, and sounds of inspirational battle-cries coming from the eastern wall brought Aiden to a realisation – the men on that wall should have been occupied by mercenaries, but since their reinforcements had been eliminated, the defenders were free to rain bolts and arrows into the dragon’s hide.

  The dragon made a strange noise, sounding more like a startled yelp than a roar. Unable to see clearly through the fog, Aiden could only guess what was happening in the skies above until a small explosion of fire lit up the massive beast for a brief instant as something impacted its hide. It was accompanied by a shriek of pain and surprise from the dragon, which circled away from the town as another small explosion landed on its hindquarters.

  “What the hell is hitting it?” Colt asked nobody in particular.

  “Is there a wizard in town I wasn’t aware of?” Nellise wondered aloud. Azurefang was manoeuvring through the skies in a random pattern, blasting fire down upon the town as more explosions hit its massive bulk.

  The dragon snarled and something dropped out of the sky, landing heavily near the road roughly twenty yards away. A brief glimpse of a massive, serpentine body with dozens of arrows sticking out of its hide could be seen as it flew into the clear for a moment.

  If Azurefang saw them at all, it didn’t pay any attention as it sped away from the town, back to the east and the safety of the mountains. For the first time in hours, Aiden finally relaxed and as his adrenaline ebbed, he felt all the pains and exhaustion of the past day hit him at once.

  “I guess it bit off a little more than it could chew,” he muttered in amazement.

  “Go and see what fell on the road,” Pacian prompted him. Despite his broken body, curiosity got the better of Aiden and he slowly hobbled out onto the road to take a look. Lying in the snow was a metal spear, eight feet in length, and with a barbed tip covered in blood. Part of the shaft was charred black from the explosion, but there was no indication as to why the ordinary looking spear had caused the charring.

  “What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?” Colt growled at Pacian as Aiden approached. “Robert Black had surrendered, and you go and stick a knife in his throat?”

  “We had to run, and he was going to do everything in his power to be difficult,” Pacian explained. “I couldn’t just leave him there, knowing he might survive and come back to get revenge upon us another day.”

  “You’re a bloody monster,” Colt stated flatly. “He wasn’t going anywhere and we could have questioned him about this plot to kidnap the princess. If I had any strength left in my body, I’d beat the tar out of you.”

  “Like he’d tell us,” Pacian shot back. “We’ve been over this before, Dante, he -”

  “Shut up, the both of you,” Aiden sighed. “We get it, already. Just… be quiet for a while.”

  “You’re such a problem for us, sometimes,” Nellise mumbled, disappointed. “He didn’t need to die.”

  “Hey, remember what happened back in that akoran cave?” Pacian reminded her rather callously. “That’s what happens when you let bad people get away with bad things. And I’m not ever, ever going to let that happen to us, or to you, again.” Nellise looked directly into his eyes and fondly ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair.

  “Oh Pacian, how can you be such a monster and be so endearing at the same time?” she breathed. “Whatever am I going to do with you?” He didn’t have a reply for that, and simply leaned his head tiredly against her shoulder.

  Nellise had enough strength to speak a short healing prayer, which helped relieve them of their more pressing injuries. Princess Criosa was quiet, apparently in shock at what she had witnessed in the past hour. Despite her earlier bravado, she had clearly never been in a real fight before, and the horrors of war must have been weighing heavily upon her mind as Aiden led them to the town gates, lit in the glow of fires as Culdeny burned.

  Epilogue

  Militia archers stationed behind the wall opened the gate for Aiden and his companions as they approached. Many of the buildings were on fire, with citizens rushing through the streets with buckets of water attempting to control the blaze. The sounds of fighting could still be heard off in the distance, lendi
ng a grim ambience to the devastated surroundings.

  They headed for the church, which was filled with wounded soldiers and civilians alike, and a dozen young clerics doing their utmost to tend to the injured. Although plying their ministrations as quickly as they could, unmoving bodies covered in blankets nearby indicated they were not always successful.

  Aiden slowly sat against the wall with the others, his mind barely active as the rush of the situation surrounding them breezed past. Nellise set about setting his broken arm in a splint and bandaging up the worst of their injuries, then collapsed alongside Aiden, her own injuries getting the better of her.

  Nearly an hour later, the sounds of fighting subsided and subdued cheering could be heard coming from the streets outside. The forces of the Crown seemed to have been victorious at last.

  “It’s over.” Aiden whispered, drawing a brief nod of acknowledgement from Criosa, who had sat down next to him. Considering the devastation, it seemed a hollow victory.

  Shortly afterwards, a blood-spattered Sergeant Ariel entered through the large double-doors, helped along by one of her corporals who followed her directions and half-carried her to one of the pews just in front of Aiden. He carefully helped her to sit, and then the Sergeant waved him away, leaning upon her bloodied sword as one would a cane.

  “Good morning, Mister Wainwright,” she said, the strain evident in her raspy voice. “I’m sorry the town is such a mess, we’ve had a few problems. A hundred of them, to be exact. But my men tell me you and your friends had a hand in taking the pressure off our eastern flank?”

  “We needed to get the princess back into town, and they were in the way,” Aiden explained with a weak voice. Ariel blinked in surprise, and glanced around at the others until she laid eyes upon Criosa, who smiled wanly back at the sergeant.

  “Good God, is that you, Highness? I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you looking so…”

  “Tattered? It’s all right, Sergeant, I feel better than I look, thanks to Aiden and his companions,” Criosa dismissed.

  “Glad I was able to assist,” Aiden whispered modestly.

  “And so self-effacing, too,” Criosa remarked with a tired smile. “I might have use for you in Fairloch, if you’re interested.” Aiden’s tired brain didn’t quite grasp what she was saying for a few seconds, but the implications were far-reaching.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” he mumbled, somewhat dumbfounded.

  “Aiden, the princess just asked you to serve the crown,” Colt pointed out. “The appropriate response is ‘yes, Your Highness, I would be honoured.’”

  “I think he’s waiting to hear how much he’s going to get paid,” Pacian added, earning a jab to his ribs from the big ranger.

  “That reminds me, there’s something else I found,” Aiden interrupted, pulling out the folded note he had retrieved from Bartlett’s body. “Ronald Bartlett had this on him when he met an unfortunate end.” Ariel took the proffered note and read it aloud.

  “It says, ‘Find Commander Black and convey my displeasure to him concerning the handling of his duties thus far. I expect my money’s worth from this deal, and if he and his band of half-wits are unable to perform as expected, I shall have them join the King in his bloody campaign in the west.’ It is signed ‘Number One’. How cryptic.”

  “Captain Marshald said that someone was making a move against the Crown, and your kidnapping was probably the first step,” Aiden said to Criosa. “Bartlett was a big name locally, but he was taking orders from someone else. Have you made any enemies of late?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” she replied, her eyes wide at the thought of a conspiracy against her.

  “The script is very elegant,” Ariel noted, handing the letter to Criosa. “Do you recognise the handwriting?”

  “No, it doesn’t seem familiar, although that’s hardly conclusive,” she mused after a brief examination. “It does look like the writing of a well-educated individual, certainly. Perhaps one of the lords hired the Steel Tigers to kidnap me, and used Bartlett as a liaison?”

  “It’d cost a hell of a lot of money to hire a mercenary army,” Colt grunted. “But none of this explains why they attacked the town. And who in his right mind would bring in a bloody dragon to help, anyway?”

  “Maybe they got greedy, and wanted to loot the place on the way through,” Pacian remarked cynically.

  “This is an outrage,” Criosa breathed. “The sheer scale of this entire operation… it’s bad enough to attempt to kidnap a member of the royal family, but to slaughter innocents in the process? I must go to Fairloch and get to the bottom of this and hold the culprits accountable.”

  “That would be extremely dangerous, Highness,” Aiden warned.

  “Not with you and your companions there to protect me, it wouldn’t,” Criosa replied with a wink. “And you’ll be suitably rewarded for your efforts here today, and in the future, I assure you.”

  “We accept,” Pacian quickly answered for him.

  “I... yes, I suppose so,” Aiden managed to agree. “Before we get to that, I have one question, sarge. I saw what looked like a large metal spear drop from the dragon’s body on the way past. What was that?”

  “We can thank Captain Sir Denholm Sherrard, of His Majesty’s Ship Redoubtable for that,” Ariel explained. “The ship arrived yesterday morning, stopping by for supplies and repairs on its way back to Fairloch from the warzone. They have some sort of special ordnance that catches fire on impact. I doubt the flames did anything to a monster like that, but the ballista bolts they use have very sharp tips and are propelled at speed.”

  “Excuse me a moment, I think the Archioness wants to speak with me,” Nellise said as soon as Ariel had finished. She slowly stood and began gingerly making her way over to speak with the head of the local church, whose white robe was stained with blood and ash.

  “Which leads me to another issue,” Ariel continued. “That dragon was reported heading for the Stonegaard mountains, and until I can confirm that the road is safe, I’m going to have to prohibit travel along the highway until further notice.”

  “But I need to get to Fairloch, as soon as possible,” Criosa protested.

  “I’m sure Captain Sir Denholm will be happy to provide you with transportation. I will advise him to travel north for a day or two before heading east, in order to ensure you do not pass too closely to the coast in the area I suspect the dragon to be.”

  “A sea voyage would be acceptable,” Criosa agreed.

  “With your leave, Highness, I will speak with the Captain and make arrangements for you and your entourage to be taken aboard the Redoubtable.”

  “Of course, I will be here when you have news,” Criosa replied absently. Ariel nodded, then slowly limped out of the church, glaring at a soldier who threatened to offer help. Aiden turned to Sayana, who had been silent through all of this.

  “You haven’t said a word since we arrived,” Aiden observed. “I was curious what your next move was. I know you have your doubts about me, but you’ve been invaluable help over the past few weeks, and I, for one, would be sorry to see you leave.”

  “Where else would I go?” she asked simply. “I have enough coin to stay here for years if I wanted, but I do not feel comfortable in a town with so many people. I have no desire to return to my previous existence either, and until Morik Far-Eagle asserts his authority and makes some changes, I can’t go back there.”

  “Please come with us,” Criosa asked earnestly. “You’re such a fascinating person, and I’d like to pick your brain about your magical training.”

  “She doesn’t mean that literally,” Aiden explained, seeing the slightly alarmed expression on Sayana’s face.

  “I will come, if you wish it,” Sayana said cautiously. “I feel things may be strained between us Aiden and I do not wish it to be so. Though I cannot trust you completely, I will do so until I see signs that you have been corrupted, at which point I shall offer you a swift death for old time’s s
ake.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” Aiden muttered dryly, ignoring Criosa’s curious expression. Fortunately, Nellise was approaching them, providing a suitable distraction from the uncomfortable conversation.

  “After surviving our journey to Akora you may recall that I said I was going to stay in Culdeny after this was over,” Nellise said as she sat on the pew recently vacated by Ariel. Her voice was flat and emotionless.

  “Yes, and I perfectly understand your reasons for doing so,” he replied.

  “I just spoke with the Archioness, and once she learned the princess had requested we accompany her to Fairloch, she virtually ordered me to go.”

  “So you’ll be coming with us then?” Criosa asked, her eyes lighting up like a child about to receive a gift.

  “It certainly seems that way,” Nellise nodded emotionlessly, too tired to react.

  “Splendid,” the Princess remarked victoriously.

  “Just promise me that there will be much less excitement when we get there.”

  “A conspiracy is afoot to topple the royal family and all our lives could be at risk,” Pacian summarised. “I’m sure it’ll be boring and uneventful.”

  “Part of the reason is that my novitiate is officially over, and I have been granted the title of Sarient of the Order of the Resolute Herald, and this must be ratified at the Cathedral in Fairloch by the Hierarchy,” the cleric continued, her voice showing no strong feelings for any of it.

  “Congratulations,” Aiden offered, “you earned it, though I have the feeling most acolytes don’t have such an arduous education.” Nellise said nothing, and merely bowed her head and wrapped her arms around herself as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

  As Aiden and his companions headed for the door, an influx of people entered the already crowded Church. Several men and women, wearing the colours of the Royal Rangers, were bringing in wounded.