Chalice 2 - Dream Stone

by Tara Janzen

  The pack was a full halflan ahead of him, the front of their line almost to the tunnel. He tried to do a quick count, but he scarce could think, so full of fear was he for the worst.

  They had her dreamstone dagger, and for that there must have been battle in Riverwood. Llynya would not have relinquished her blade without a fight.

  Christe. How many had it taken to bring the Light-elf down?

  An awful sound rose in his throat, and he clamped his teeth shut against it.

  The odds were against him. Mayhaps fifty to one. Mayhaps more.

  Ahead of him, another trail snaked off the cavern floor, leading up to a natural arch that spanned a long, open section of the cavern. He resheathed his dagger, hiding its light, and headed for the higher trail at a dead run. He lost ground by changing direction, but gained a better view. What he saw from the top of the arch stopped him cold.

  Pikes and halberds cut into the air in a thick, bristling line of more than a hundred soldiers, all of them heavy jawed and fanged. Men no more, but once men, as Tabor had explained, the worst of the race sought out and turned by a fell mage’s hand into servants of destruction.

  His gaze swept the monstrous army, searching for the one who held the blue light. Mychael found him toward the front of the line, turning to give an order at the tunnel entrance. Tall and blond and more finely formed than the bulk of the troops, he appeared at first to be Liosalfar. Then Mychael saw that the captain’s nose was naught but a silver triangle in the middle of his face, and the hand he had wrapped around Llynya’s dagger was clawed like a bear’s. No Light-elf, this, but one of a darker breed—Dockalfar.

  Mychael’s instinct was to kill him where he stood, but even as he jerked an iron star from his arm guard, his gaze slipped farther back in the horde, to the one receiving the orders. ’Twas then he saw her, a slight form slung over another Dockalfar’s shoulder. Light from a yellow dreamstone cast a pale shimmer across the meadowsweet and rose petals woven into her tunic.

  Fear washed through him, cold and fast, clearing his mind of all thoughts but one—Does she live?

  His heart was tight in his chest, his breath near impossible to catch. The skraelings pooled at the entrance to the tunnel, shoving and jostling to get in and sometimes taking her from his view. He only stood and waited and watched, his eyes focused solely on the bit of shimmer in the dark sea of rough weapons.

  The soldier carrying Llynya looked back, and Mychael saw his face. As fair as any Quicken-tree he was, except for the empty, sunken eye socket on the left side of his face. The Dark-elf shifted her weight on his shoulder before following the queue into the tunnel. Just before he disappeared from sight, Mychael saw her body move again, aided by her bound hands, not by the Dockalfar who held her.

  His relief was as sharp-edged as his fear. He quickly scanned the milling crowd before taking off at an easy lope. There were no other Quicken-tree, only Llynya, and only him to save her.

  Chapter 19

  On the east side of the Dangoes, rounding the last turn of the Kasr-al Loop trail, Nia and Varga heard the clash of battle and the cries of “Khardeen!” ahead of them in the dark.

  “Har maukte! Har!” The skraeling roar went up again and again in response, accompanied by a terrible howling. “Har! Har! Har!”

  Varga swore, a low hiss under his breath. For herself, Nia blanched. She’d ne’er heard uffern beasts afore. ’Twas bloodcurdling, but she kept to Varga’s side, racing onward and drawing steel.

  Hoarfrost limned the portal onto the causeway they’d crossed days earlier. The air grew suddenly cold and within three paces they cleared the tunnel and came out onto a scene of chaos.

  Streaming across the causeway to the field of battle at the mouth of the Dangoes, fiery torches sent yellow flames and trails of greasy smoke into the air. To the west of the great ice cavern’s mouth, dreamstones flared, shining with icy brightness before an onslaught of shifting shadows. And here and there, golden crystals with incarnadine hearts streaked across the darkness, giving off a light unseen in Merioneth for five hundred years.

  “Dockalfar.” Varga spoke the word of a truth Nia could scarce conceive: Dockalfar back in the deep dark where they had reigned, where the riches of the earth had been their stock in trade—the known metals and thullein, and crystal of every color. The yellow dreamstones had never been traded, and those with red at their core had been only for the Dark-elf King and his guard. “Yuell,” ’twas called, the dreamstone crystal of the Tuans. A half-dozen or more such crystals shone out on the causeway, well into the thick of the fight.

  The Quicken-tree were far outnumbered, yet Rhuddlan was holding a line on the trail, forcing the skraelings to remain on the open ground between the frigid sea crashing into the cliffs below them and the glistening maw of the great cavern. Foot by foot the Light-elves were being forced to give way, their losses revealed by the silver and green clothed bodies scattered along the ice-encrusted track.

  Nia watched in disbelief as the Quicken-tree were flanked yet again and another Liosalfar was cut down. Had Rhuddlan gone mad?

  She started forward, a cry on her lips, but Varga grabbed her arm and held her back.

  “No, child. Look,” he said, pointing down into the mouth of the Dangoes.

  Long, twisting cords of vapor-borne ice crystals had risen out from between the huge dripshanks at the cavern’s entrance and were gnarling themselves into bony fingers, reaching across the frozen field of battle and onto the causeway.

  Nia felt the dread chill of their intent and stumbled back toward the Kasr-al. Shadana. Had she really thought to put herself willingly into the ice cave’s clutches?

  “Hold,” Varga commanded, his grip remaining firm on her arm. “We’ll not retreat while a fight is yet to be had. The Dangoes bones are not yet for us. ’Tis the skraelings they come for, the ones with no light or heat to save them.”

  Even as he spoke, his words were proved out, with the first vaporous phalanxes reaching out to snag one beastly warrior after another. They chose their victims with care, picking those with no dread heat about them, the torchless ones. Struggling was to no avail for those doomed souls, since flame seemed the only blade sharp enough to sever Dangoes bones. One by one, the hapless skraelings were hooked ’round their legs or arms and necks and dragged over the edge of the causeway, their screams naught but thin echoes against the louder sounds of the battle.

  “We’ll fight from there,” Varga said, pointing to a cairn of rocks fallen from the Kasr-al Loop portal. “Rhuddlan knows he can’t outrun their wolfpack, so he holds them on the causeway for the vapors to devour. We’ll do the same from this side and keep them from their retreat.”

  Nia, who only moments before had been ready to rush forward on nothing more than instinct and valor, found herself hesitating. There were a hundred skraelings, and wolves everywhere. If they all decided to turn and run, there was naught she and Varga could do to stop them.

  She turned to tell him, but he’d already drawn his longsword and was running toward the fray.

  “Sticks!” She took off after him.

  Awareness of the ice cave’s danger spread quickly among the skraelings, and with awareness came panic. Their lines broke before the oncoming vapors, and Nia scrambled onto the cairn with Varga, prepared to hold the rocks or meet her end.

  A Dockalfar stabbed his pike into the first skraeling who ran, and the others instantly reformed their line, but it needed more Dark-elves than were there to keep the skraelings’ courage stiff. By ones and twos they made their retreats, skirting the ocean-side cliffs and trying to sneak back across the causeway to make a run to Rastaban from whence they’d come. In the melee, with most of the dark host surging forward and a few trying to escape the battle, some were lost, either killed by the Dangoes bones or their more stalwart companions, or daring too close to the icy edges of the cliffs and slipping into Mor Sarff.

  Those few that made it through the lines and across the causeway had to deal with Varga and
Nia on the cairn. The Sha-shakrieg man fought like a whirlwind, gray cloak flying, his sword singing a song of steel and death. The blade’s cutting edge flashed with silver light borne of thullein. “Edge of Sorrow,” she’d heard it called, razor sharp and like the threads Varga carried, steeped in poison. The last skraeling to feel its bite writhed in pain at the foot of the cairn. The first three who had thought to fight their way back to the Kasr-al Loop had been killed on the spot.

  Elfin speed was Nia’s defense, and her greatest offense, until the wolves, too, began to break and run. Aided by the Dangoes bones, Rhuddlan’s line was no longer in retreat and was slowly but surely forcing the skraelpack back onto the causeway and toward the Loop—much to her and Varga’s disadvantage. They could not hold against so many. ’Twould be minutes only, she knew, before the whole tide turned and they were overwhelmed.

  A wolf dodged in close to nip her ankle and met the edge of Varga’s blade. Yelping, the beast retreated, but had no sooner turned than the next set of sharp teeth took its place. A harsh command from a pasty-faced skraeling set more of the wolves on them, and in the space of a breath, a snarling pack had closed in a semicircle around her and the Sha-shakrieg. Gray wolves and black, sooty brown and even the far northern white breed snapped and growled in an ever-tightening ring. A large black moved in closer than the others, and Nia smelled the hunger on him. ’Twas a desperate thing, full of pain, a victim of the Dockalfar’s malevolent power. To turn a forest animal into a ravening beast of war took a conjured twist of nature the likes of which had been forbidden by the Prydion Magi long before the Wars of Enchantment, a twist of the body’s hunger into mindless greed, and desires into insatiable need.

  Faced with the fiercely advancing creatures, Varga ordered her farther up the side of the cairn. As they gave way, the skraelings bent on retreat passed them by, making only ineffectual stabs with their weapons before they plunged into the safety of the Kasr-al portal, leaving the kill for the animals.

  On the far side of the causeway, Rhuddlan’s band was taking the day, with skill and speed proving a good leveler of numbers. As they moved out onto the causeway, the Dangoes bones found them as easily as the skraelpack. Rhuddlan set three Liosalfar to race along the cliff edge, cutting down the skeletal ice fingers with the heat of dreamstone light and freeing others for the push forward.

  ’Twould do her and Varga little good, Nia feared, slicing at another lunging beast with her sword. Blood showed on Varga’s thigh where a wolf’s teeth had found purchase. The animal lay dead on the rocks from the Sha-shakrieg’s blade, but the scent of death had roused the others into more daring attacks.

  She scrambled higher on the rocks with Varga beside her, wolves closing in all around, and Rhuddlan yet a quarterlan away on the causeway. She could have made it to the Liosalfar line with a quickety-split dash, but the Sha-shakrieg had no such speed. He’d pitched himself into the battle on Rhuddlan’s side instead of retreating and saving himself, and for that reason Nia didn’t desert the cairn. ’Twas a choice she did not expect to have long to regret, and mayhaps she wouldn’t have, except for an unlikely savior from the Dangoes.

  A low-pitched howl, faint and eerie, wound its way through the needlelike icicles encrusting the cave’s ceiling, setting them aquiver. Rescue had never arrived on such a mournful note. The wolves stilled and fell silent, their ears pricked.

  The howl grew stronger, accompanied by ice music, and the wolfpack began to whine and yap and jump about, dancing on the rocks. A few slunk away from the cairn and melted into the retreating horde of skraelings.

  Nia looked to the great cavern and found the baying hound—Conladrian—still as stone and black as night against the mighty dripshanks of ice flanking the Dangoes. He raised his head again, giving full throat to his voice, and half the wolfpack broke free and streaked back through the Liosalfar line, heading west off the causeway. The remaining animals milled about in ever-growing confusion, some answering the hound’s call with howls of their own, others silent and watchful.

  Ice music proved the final bane of the skraelpack, as it was ever the bane of men. Its sweet, frozen melody rippled through the air in waves of cresting sound, promising an endless, sleeping death to all who would come nearer, ever nearer—and some went, over the edge and into the icy sea. The Dockalfar tried to herd the skraelings off the causeway before they were caught in the song’s enchanted grip, but for the weary and the wounded, the lure was greater than the threat of a Dark-elf pike.

  Varga and she killed four more as they retreated. Coming up the causeway, the Quicken-tree were laying the skraelings low on every side. ’Twas only the Dockalfar who escaped unscathed into the Loop by being too quick for Varga and staying clear of Nia’s gleaming blade.

  The Quicken-tree fought their way closer, closing the causeway except to those few skraelings who had crossed the Liosalfar line and were escaping to the west with the wolves. Varga engaged one last skraeling, fighting him back into the Kasr-al portal.

  “Nia!” Roth, a Liosalfar at the front of the line, hailed her. Other glad cries of recognition followed, until Varga came out of the shadow of the Kasr-al portal. Upon sighting the Sha-shakrieg, voices were suddenly stilled and bloodied swords relifted.

  Varga halted on the track. Dreamstone light flickered over the woad-painted faces lined up against him, showing bright aquamarine eyes and the glinting edges of daggers and short swords held at the ready. For an awful moment Nia feared she might have to set herself against the Liosalfar to keep him from harm.

  “The Sha-shakrieg is for Rhuddlan,” she warned, stepping forward and taking a guarding stance.

  “Aye. He is mine.” A single voice, clear and deep, spoke from out of the darkness, and as one, the Quicken-tree soldiers lowered their swords.

  Rhuddlan strode through the parting ranks and stopped a few yards from Varga, his face a grim reflection of the carnage on the causeway.

  “Leave us,” he commanded, and all of the Liosalfar moved away.

  Nia, too, made a short bow and stepped aside, back toward the ranks of the Quicken-tree warriors. Should Rhuddlan choose to cut the Sha-shakrieg down before hearing him out, so be it. He was her sovereign lord.

  The Liosalfar welcomed her, and ’twas with a sense of relief that she blended into their midst.

  Varga watched her disappear, noting the wanness of her complexion and the unsteadiness of her gait. The battle had taken the last of her strength. He doubted if she would see the forests again.

  “Mayhaps I’ll compose a song for her in the desert,” he said, turning his attention to the tall, fair-haired man in front of him. “A lay for Nia of the Light-elves.”

  “If she dies, you’ll not see the desert again.” The Quicken-tree leader was succinct, his pronouncement no more than Varga had expected. Rhuddlan had ever been decisive, and arrogant, and most times too sure of his course. ’Twas his weakness as well as his strength, and it seemed he’d changed little.

  “I was taking her through the Dangoes. ’Tis a good two days shorter.”

  “If you live,” Rhuddlan said harshly. “And forever longer if you don’t.”

  “Aye,” Varga agreed. “Yet I would have risked my life alongside her. Indeed, I have risked my life to return her to the Light-elves and to warn you of war as commanded by the Lady Queen of Deseillign.”

  Rhuddlan’s gaze narrowed. “Your life is no longer at risk, Varga. It is forfeit, and the Lady’s warning comes too late. War is already upon us.”

  Arrogant, aye, Varga thought. A tight smile curved his lips. He had not fought to hold the Kasr-al Loop for the privilege of being threatened. He needed Rhuddlan’s help, but so did the Quicken-tree leader need his.

  “This is not yet war,” he said, allowing a measure of contempt into his voice, “only a few soldiers fighting in the dark. I have not forfeited my life, Rhuddlan, to save you and your Liosalfar from a skraelpack and the deformed remnants of the Dockalfar. Look, if you would see the war we fight in Deseillign, a
war that runs through our streets and steals the breath of our children.” He walked over to the nearest skraeling and with his foot shoved the dead man over onto his back. Kneeling, he ripped the pikeman’s sleeve up to his shoulder. “Come, King of the Light-elves, and look at what lies in wait for Merioneth.”

  Rhuddlan lifted his dreamstone high, casting a pool of light over the gray-skinned corpse at Varga’s feet. Shadows and a blue luminescence rippled across the skraeling’s limp form, revealing a rough-hewn tunic and the bit of chain mail that had failed him, and on his upper arm, a zigzag bolt of lightning burned into the flesh, a brand to mark him as the minion of a long-vanquished king—Slott of the Thousand Skulls.

  “By the blood of the Stones,” Rhuddlan swore through gritted teeth. His hand tightened on his dagger and light burst forth from the crystal hilt, a sharp-edged jacinth flash with a heart of golden flame.

  A second curse lodged in his throat.

  In three steps, he was to the next fallen skraeling. With the tip of his sword, he slashed open the dead man’s sleeve, revealing another damning brand. The thunderbolt was unmistakable. Curved like a scythe on one end and edged in flame on the other, ’twas the finial of Slott’s scepter—which had been gripped in the Troll King’s hand when the beast and his raiment had hardened and cracked and metamorphosed into Inishwrath’s granite tor.

  Rhuddlan was no Prydion Mage, but he knew well enough what it would take to turn enchanted stone back into flesh and bone—the light-devouring smoke of Dharkkum and a knowing conjurer to wield it.

  “You’ll find the brands are fresh, scabbed and rimmed with charred flesh,” the Sha-shakrieg said, “and though you killed a fine number here, there are thousands more like them in the north with new recruits coming in every day. Have no doubt, Slott is free and returned to Rastaban, and as the smoke grows, so does his army.”

  Rhuddlan turned on his old enemy, his rage barely held in check. “Is this the Desert Queen’s doing? Has she dared her own destruction as well as mine by breaking the crystal seals to bring Slott back from Inishwrath?”