Thorne's Conquest

by Matthew Cuthbert

  Once Orlana had cleared away the remains of their training equipment, the Queen retired to her chambers to prepare herself for battle. It was lonely. With Odyneus and Elrya on their perilous journey in the mountains, and her other sons waiting out the war in the catacombs below the city, almost the entire palace felt lifeless and empty. When Helsifer was alone, without the need to appear strong or fearless, she allowed herself to grieve- just a little- for the people she was sure would not last until the next winter.

  ***

  With Lyre now in charge of the Varrasian armies, everyone was shifted a little higher in their responsibilities- everyone had a little more to do. A force this large was unusual for the mages’ race, and Lyre was unsure if they would manage to wait out the winter without Thorne’s terrifying presence. In combat, they were still one of the deadliest contingents in Visyria- but the people were beginning to miss home, and the hostile foreign winter was getting to them. Perhaps Thorne’s planned invasion of the Spirit Plain would have alleviated the arctic conditions, but without the master adept himself, no one was willing to take the risk. Since Lyre could not command both the cavalry and Thorne’s infantry regiment, Scarth was now in charge of the Black Army- he had been part of it in the Arkathi wars, but leading it would require incredible skill.

  They were the most capable murderers in the world, but again, without Thorne’s viciously intimidating authority they may falter in combat. Lieutenant Vrax had been temporarily promoted to commander in Thorne’s absence, taking Scarth’s place leading the Crimson Army. Every preparation had been carefully crafted to allow the Varrasians to be as efficient in possible in Thorne’s absence- but Thorne was not just their leader, he was conquest. Everyone who knew him could see the fire in his eyes when he took charge of a battle, saw the very essence of battle alive and raging within him. He was the most natural killing machine in the world.

  On his way back to his personal tent, Lyre stopped briefly. Sniffed the air intently, his Arrachsian senses heightened and amplified. Horses! Within moments the sound of hooves was in the air, a grand crescendo of thunder filling the air. Before he could react, the Chronian cavalry hit the camp like an avalanche, trampling through tents and smashing apart the soldiers that they caught unawares. Lyre sent a blast of air at the alarm bell in the centre of the camp, as he watched its officer fall from the tower with an arrow through his neck. The shrill tones of the alarm sounded across the camp, and within moments the steadfast discipline of the Varrasians kicked in. Helsifer no longer had the element of surprise, but her forces were spread throughout the camp, tearing people apart before they even drew their swords. As Lyre drew his and carved through a Chronian warhorse sending its rider sprawling into the dirt, the carnage began.

  Scarth had only just woken up when the attack hit. In an instant, his war-hammer was in his hand and he began breaking bones and crushing hearts. After the chaos of the first assault died down, he activated its enchantments, even if they would have little effect against Chronian flesh. Briefly scanning as much of the camp he could see, he had a rare moment of doubt; the attack had decimated their forces, leaving the remainder confused and uncoordinated. While their individual fighting skill was enough to hold their own, without the preparations and enchantments of their synergists, the battle was going to be close for once. Scarth cursed himself for not being able to predict this: they had psychics on a routine patrol, but no one had stopped to think that perhaps the Chronian resistance to magic stretched beyond the physical. Now that his soldiers were armed and beginning to understand the situation, Scarth called out to form a formation around him that they would build as more soldiers joined the conflict.

  Commander Vrax had been meditating when the attack hit, but even in the magical plains she could sense the danger and threat facing the camp. When she returned to the physical world, she held her shadow-blade in her hand and cut apart a warrior riding past her tent. This section of the camp seemed to be the least-effected by the Chronian assault being so central. This gave her the time she needed to execute Thorne’s brilliant defence system in the event of an ambush. While many believed that only he had the power to activate it, Vrax had studied closely under Thorne and observed him casting the enchantment. As one of the few shadow-mages in Thorne’s army she was a vital part of Thorne’s council, and one of the few capable of activating Thorne’s spell. Approaching the sentinel tower at the centre of the camp, Vrax took the glove off her hand and pressed against a sigil carved into the cool stone. On her touch, the rune started to glow, and Vrax began pouring magic into it. Feeling her energy flow into the tower, a great beam of darkness rose up into the sky and exploded into blackness…

  The camp was pitch-black. Eyes had turned to see the great spire of black energy only to be greeted with pure darkness. When Helsifer realised what had happened she despaired. Clearly, the Varrasians had some way of seeing in the dark- they were fighting blind. Suddenly the sounds of screaming turned to silence. You could not hit what you could not see, and trying to strike into the darkness was a fool’s endeavour. While Helsifer was half-right about fighting an enemy they could no longer see, she was wrong about the fact that they could see her. Sure, one or two shadow-mages could see through the darkness and had begun slitting throats and chopping heads- but the vast majority were as blind as she was.

  The air was cold, and the quiet echoed far off into the artificial night. Occasionally Helsifer would catch a fireball erupt and bring her mace down only to hit the snow. Her armour protected her from the few strikes of the Varrasians that approached her, but her head was still exposed- her helmet lying on the floor of her chamber back in Disideris. Every time she heard a step, she flinched round only for it to disappear. The horses were restless, and the neighing was an easy target for the Varrasians so most of the Chronians had either dismounted or tried to ride away in the dark, crashing or falling from their saddles. If anyone got too close to her, she sent them sprawling to the dirt with her gauntlet, sometimes her own warriors. She kept expecting her eyes to adjust, get better at seeing through the black magic but it was not a spell that targeted Chronians, and their resistance was not effective. Instead, it targeted the light itself, corrupting it and banishing it, so there was nothing to adjust to. There was only darkness.

  Lyre had tried perceiving the battle in the Magical World in order to get a better view of his targets, but the darkness stretched even into the Power. Instead he relied on his other senses, doing his best to keep them acute. When Chronian warriors got too close they died, Lyre’s claw-shaped gauntlets tearing out their throats- he preferred his hands to swords or other weapons. Additionally, the animalistic nature of his Arrachsian body allowed him to attack with all the speed and ferocity of a wolf, one of the few other inhabitants of the spider-infested island he came from. One of his rare abilities as one of the strongest mages of his country was that he could actually transform into the creatures, as well as being able to simply control them. Contrary to common belief, he was not a werewolf- he had complete control over the transformation. As he slashed the throat of a Chronian warrior’s throat he realised that this was one of the few opportunities his power would be useful. Like Thorne, his wolf-form was not often greeted amicably, and he did not have as much… self-control as he would have liked when he surrendered to his other side. Still, he was confident he could distinguish friend from foe and let the beast out.

  A shrill howl rising into the blackness, fur and muscle grew from Lyre’s body and turned him into a weapon of tooth and claw. His armour melted into the beast, armour thickening its hide and spikes erupting in vicious bones from his back. His teeth were huge, sharp and strong as steel. As his nose took over from his eyes, he began to perceive the world around him in scents and traces, colours swirling in his vision as he adjusted to the difference in interpretation. Much better. Lyre proceeded to dash across the camp from warrior to warrior ripping out throats and sinking teeth into chests. If the rest of his soldiers could have done the same, the b
attle would have been over in minutes. No matter: in a world of blind men, the wolf with a nose is king. Lyre let out a guttural, hellish howl as he killed, echoing out through the camp.

  Her hand still locked on the sigil, Vrax heard the sound of death all around her. It was sudden, intermittent, surrounded by moments of harrowing silence. Her hand was still on the tower- it did not need to be, the enchantment was active, the battle was no longer in the Chronians’ favour. But she could not release. Her magic was still flowing into the Dark, allowing the spell to grow and spread, reaching far beyond the forest of Caira. It took a moment for Vrax to realise the tower was no longer there; neither was the sigil, or the camp, or the snow or the screaming. She was alone in Plain of Darkness.

  Vrax had never been here before, as a shadow-mage she had learned to manipulate it and draw strength from it- but she had never been a victim of its unnatural expanse. There was nothing. Nothingness stretched for miles leading to nowhere and absence. No up, no down, no left, no right, no here, no there… just… nothing. Even Vrax was not here. Nothing was. All that existed here was the inexistence. It was haunting, terrifying, maddening. She did not know how to escape. Thorne could have. Caecilius could have. No one else in the world new how to escape the Dark. She tried to summon her magic, but only blackness came out from her unlit soul. She tried to focus on the physical world, feel her body back in the cold of the forest. Perhaps if there had been light, feeling, a sensation of some sort she could have connected to her material self. However, the spell was syphoning away the light and spreading darkness into the physical world. Vrax concentrated instead on tactile sensation, focusing on where she had been before she was here, but by now it felt like she had been born here, forever trapped in the insanity. She felt something- something cool on her fingers where the stone had been. She tried to amplify it but the only sensation she could feel was her hand on the tower, the sigil binding her to the entrance to the Dark. Trying to feel the rest of her body, letting the feeling spread from her fingers up her arm, she became aware of her other arm hanging by her side. She could not go back to the darkness. If she stayed any longer, she would be another lost victim in its eternal prison. Had to act now. As Vrax realised her only option, she despaired a little, but prepared herself for agony. Reaching for her sword with her free hand, she found the handle and raised it out of the leather sheath. The blade felt clumsy in her left hand, but she found the strength to lift it. Raised it above her right arm. Brought it down on her wrist. Screamed.

  Helsifer no longer knew how many of her warriors were still alive. If any were. The sounds of blood and death grew louder with each moment as Varrasians used their magic to find other ways of perceiving, using small fireballs to illuminate their surroundings or using their other senses to see sounds and smells instead of light. Chronians had no such tools. Helsifer had called an order a long time ago to retreat, and the few Chronians who had remained on horseback had bolted into the distance, attempting to navigate the ruinous camp. Helsifer was trying to make her way out of the darkness without drawing attention- a task that was proving difficult given the snow and the great weight of her armour. She had taken her sword in her left hand to stop it rustling against her greaves. She felt like she had been walking for miles, but the darkness stayed dark, she could have been walking in circles and she had no way of knowing. Unless she made it out, she would almost certainly be found; eventually one of the soldiers would aim for the head, and she would have no way to stop them stabbing through her unprotected skull.

  Up ahead, she heard the footsteps of an entire Varrasian army, locked in formation and led on by the man who had nearly killed her a month ago: Elrak Scarth. Her pride nearly made her face him down, with his entire army behind him. But in a rare moment of cowardly intelligence, she turned and ran. A fireball hit her back, dissipating into her enchanted armour but she did not glance back. She did hear the iconic laugh of the vicious, murdering demons who had plagued her land since the invasion. She heard the challenges and insults of the commander, but she did not listen. She simply ran, dropping her sword and mace so they did not slow her down. As she ran blindly into the darkness, she hit something. Something flesh, with fur, something tall and strong. A horse! Before she had time to catch her breath she was in the saddle, tugging the reigns so hard they nearly broke. The horse bolted and kept running, miraculously avoiding any obstacles or trees, shooting far off into the distance. Once again, she had cheated the commander out of a quick victory, and an easy kill.

  Vrax returned to the physical world screaming, clasping the stump of her wrist where she had cut off her hand and escaped the chokehold the Dark had on her. The enchantment held. She had emerged from the Dark to the dark, and left her hand behind in the void. Bracing herself for the torture to accentuate, she summoned a flame in her left hand and cauterised the bleeding stump. She held the fire there for ten seconds, until she was sure the wound was closed. Her scream must have reached across the ocean; it was the most visceral, arduous cry of the entire massacre. After she had recovered enough to make sense of the situation, she realised most of the Chronians had escaped or been killed. Her magical eyes could see through the darkness across Caira, and only a few helpless women remained- injured or terrified. With what strength she had left, she took up her sword from the snow and struck the sigil on the tower, breaking the enchantment as the stone broke in two. The darkness was immediately replaced by the natural arctic sun: broken, dead bodies littered the ground as far as the eye could see.

  Chapter 13

  “Now that,” began the tall, beautiful creature who came out from the darkness towards Barros’ weakening body, “was beautiful.” Barros did not have the energy to reply; her voice was cold, malevolent, yet with a clarity and power that reminded him of Thorne. He did not have the energy to be afraid- he had almost no energy at all. He closed his eyes, thought about sleeping, letting go, surrendering to the Aether. “No, no, no, we can’t be having that,” she said reaching out her arm and placing her icy hands on Barros’ bare chest. He felt her fingers on his soul as she worked to preserve the flicker of life in his body. He felt it grow as she lent him a strangely hollow energy, like a magic that grew and perpetuated itself from nothingness. It was oddly comforting: he almost felt dead, but with none of those terrible side-effects. “Better?” She queried in a thin, but mellifluous voice. Barros still did not have the energy to reply, he only managed a slight nod. “I must say that was a mighty display of magic: the teleportation, the self-healing. It was all rather spectacular, and those screams- utterly delightful!” Barros was rather confused.

  “You?” He coughed, his broken ribs still aching. He tried to reach out to her with his mind instead. You were there?

  “Oh yes. I was watching you from just up there.” She pointed to a black cloud clinging to the spire. “Very entertaining.”

  How...? Why did you-

  “Oh it’s rather simple you see. I can fly, and I enjoy watching little people suffer. You provided me with an excellent opportunity to do both. And I must say, terribly well done. Bravo sir, bravo!”

  Why help me now? Why not-

  “Leave you to die? No, no, can’t be having that- far too many people dying at the moment. You’re actually the only thing keeping me from being properly dead.”

  Properly?

  “Well, I can’t exactly call myself alive, now can I? But I understand- this is all so new to you. I’m not, as you mortals would say, ‘from around here.’”

  Where-

  “Somewhere cold and dull and awfully dark most of the time. Still, can’t complain. The sun does awful things for my complexion.”

  Barros was thoughtless for a moment as his mind gave up trying to understand- she was a hallucination, nothing more, a thought of his dying mind as he was lost to the Aether. She slapped him.

  “How dare you! I am as real as you, child, and you will show me the respect of acknowledging my existence.” She seemed genuinely upset. He still did not understand.
She sighed. “I am sorry, I realise that it’s not very nice to hit a dying man, but I did just save your life, so I feel like I was allowed that little luxury. Now, as for stopping you die again, I am afraid there is little I can do. Blood is not really my specialty and you don’t seem to have very much left, dear.”

  What you did before… I can make my own blood if you do it again.

  “Do you always bloody yourself into a half-naked mess before you ask a girl to touch you, Barros? It’s not a bad strategy; all those war wounds and scars, that rugged ‘I’ve just been tortured for two days straight’ look- you do pull it off well. And those abs.” She licked her lip as she said this. He was barely listening, as weak as he was. She placed her hand on his chest again and allowed her strange energy to fill his body.

  Barros found it puzzling and a little unnerving working with the foreign magic, but in the end, it seemed to work. He funnelled it into his bones, allowing the marrow to begin making blood with incredible speed: the substance filled his body and flowed in him, beginning to restore his energy and diminish his fatigue.

  “Very impressive, terribly impressive. So impressive in fact, I think- no, no, too rude, couldn’t do it. You are completely at my mercy it would not be fair. But wow! I mean, all that blood. You do have rather a lot, I mean. Surely, surely you don’t need all of it.”

  Wh-

  She opened her mouth and bit his neck with fangs as sharp as Obsyrian shards, sucking away just enough of Barros’ blood to get the full taste. “Oh my. Now that was exquisite, I am sorry though. Very rude of me, should have asked first. Never mind, I didn’t take very much.” She waited for a response, but none came. She became aware of Barros’ face becoming pale and his flesh rippling and protesting as her venom filled his veins. “Oooohhhhhhhh.” She said in what seemed like genuine surprise. “I forgot about that. It has been such a long time, and normally I kill my prey before feeding. Terribly sorry, silly me. Haha, whoopsies!” She laughed a hauntingly malevolent laugh as Barros convulsed and shook. “No matter, darling. You’re going to love being a vampire. It really is the best!” Barros drifted into unconsciousness as the vampiress stared down at him with her bloodied fangs and those fiery, blood-red eyes.