by Sean Rodden
Mighty Rundul of Axar closed his eyes.
And so he did not see the world change once more and become a primeval jungle, verdant and virile, where small dark dragon-things darted in the lush undergrowth, and large dark dragon-things pursued them.
And Rundul did not see the world become a snow-racked winter wasteland, ice without end, where enormous furred behemoths trekked a cold hard white world under a colder and harder and whiter sun.
And he did not see the world become a magnificent gallery of holy oak, of ash and elm, and of regal redwood, a sylvan wonderland bedecked with dappled sunlight, effulgent, shimmering, beautiful.
And he did not see the Ath and Shaddath before him spread their arms in warmest love and welcome.
But he heard Eldurion’s awe-hushed whisper –
“Eldagreen.”
Rundul’s eyes creaked open.
But the Darad had scarcely glimpsed the glory and grandeur of ancient Eldagreen before oak and elm retreated before a broad deep hollow that held thunder and blood and ruin and death like a great dark chalice frothing with doom.
“Gan Gebbernin.”
The awe in the Eldurion’s whisper had degenerated, devolved to unadorned horror. Then it was he that looked away, and Yllufarr and Sammayal averted their gazes, whilst the Darad bore willing witness to the Angar ban Gan Gebbernindh, that great and terrible battle of olde waged by men and gods. And Rundul watched as his own ferocious folk rose from the bosom of Mother Earth, an eruption of fire and stone, of power and rage, irresistible, overwhelming, and a pure untaintable pride glistened in the black of his wide wet eyes.
And then Gan Gebbernin was gone. Two thousand years passed in a fraction of an instant. And there was only Coldmire again.
Coldmire.
And one thing more.
It rose from the water like the rounded hump of a sleeping sea serpent, a monstrous mound, high and horrible to look upon. Its surface was rough and uneven, as though scaled and plated like the rough hide of a reptile. But the mound was composed of densely interwoven matter, fashioned of indeterminable things twisted and tied together, perhaps of branches broken from their boughs and of roots ripped from the earth – the debris and detritus of ruined Eldagreen.
And then, as the company floated nearer through the fog, Ath and Fian and Darad saw that which they had not seen before for mist and dark and distance.
Bones.
Bones, bones, countless bones.
The skeletal relics and remnants of unnumbered thousands, woven into an enormous osteophyte of ghastly grey wicker, with warps of rib and wefts of femur.
A monstrous mound of the dead.
“Maol an Maalach,” announced the Lord of the Shadowfolk. His voice was itself a shadow. “The Dam of the Damned.”
A silence like the hush of descending death.
Then –
“Good name for it,” grumbled Rundul as he clambered from his perch atop his pack. The Darad’s deep black gaze became deeper, blacker. “What do you know of this place, Fian?”
Eldurion stared. Dread darkened the wonder in his widened eyes.
“I have walked Coldmire long and often,” he rasped as though something had scored the iron of his voice, “but never have I encountered this place. I know it not, and have no wish to know it.”
Yllufarr’s eyes shone with a pale light, like moonlight on bone. In their depths the serpent swam, sleek and silent, seeking the surface.
“I know it.”
In the Sun Lord’s voice was a throttled rage overlying immeasurable grief, both ancient, both impossibly bitter.
“Or rather I know these bones. They are the dead of the Angar ban Gan Gebbernindh. And there” – one arm swept up from beneath the impenetrable blackness of the Sun Lord’s cloak – “lay my seven hundred, slain and slaughtered by slaves of Shadow. And even unto this late day, their deaths have gone unavenged, and the evil that took them remains unanswered.” Pause. “Unto this late day, but not beyond.”
Rundul and Eldurion exchanged an uneasy glance. They felt a certain disquiet snake its way within them. Certain but indistinct.
Yllufarr strode to where the Darad stood and gestured for Eldurion to join them. The Athain Prince placed one fair hand on Rundul’s shoulder, the other on Eldurion’s. Yllufarr’s hood fell away from his head and his face shone with a pale but pure light. And Rundul and Eldurion saw in the Sun Lord’s eyes the thing that slinked within them as surely as one might see an eel swim the clear shallows of a mountain stream. And they knew it for what it was.
The thing he had left undone.
“I leave you now, dear friends,” Yllufarr declared with a gravity surpassing all but that which comes beneath the shadow of looming death. “There is a thing I must do, a thing from which I cannot turn away. I may not return to you. And should I not, then do not attempt to follow me. Sammayal will take you to the borders of Coldmire, and from there you must strike southward across the Plains and continue our quest. The way is closely watched, and death and failure will await you, but no death is certain, no failure assured.”
“Remember your own words, good Prince,” said Eldurion with uncharacteristic softness. “We will await you here.”
And Rundul rumbled, “You will return.”
Sammayal of the Unforgiven said nothing, but bowed in sincere reverence of the Sun Lord, then rose, turned and looked away.
Yllufarr smiled grimly but beautifully, lowered his hands from his companions’ shoulders, and with no further word dove gracefully from the raft, and instantly vanished into the cold grey dead waters.
He did not hear the Darad mutter “Madness!” at his back.
Frigid water filled the Prince’s ears, assaulted his eyes and skin with cold. But Yllufarr was of the Athair, and the Athair were Light, and Light knows no cold. Ulviathoi swam about him like strange and terrible sharks, vile and voracious, but long knives flashed in the Prince’s hands and he slew two of the beasts with swift strokes, and the remainder converged to tear at the bleeding carcasses. Black things like great leeches swarmed about him, then scattered, for they were spawn of Shadow whose only power was fear, and both Shadow and fear flee the Light. And then the grey water became like oil, thick and black and viscous, and the Prince passed through an aperture near the sunken base of Maol an Maalach, arced his body upward, and in moments broke the surface within the deep darkness of the Dam.
The Sun Lord emerged from the water to stand upon a rough and uneven shore. Something crunched underfoot. He did not need to see his feet to know he stood upon a bank of bones. He was unmoved. For he had come there as Death, and Death does not esteem the dead.
He waited.
The air was arctic and acrid, its blackness near complete. But Yllufarr’s heart was colder, his pale gaze more caustic, his own blackness absolute.
He waited.
The water lapped the bones at Yllufarr’s feet. Something had moved. Something was stirring, waking. Something incredibly massive.
The Sun Lord waited.
And then a single great slit of bloody light cracked the black within Maol an Maalach. An eye. The sole remaining eye of the thing that had slumbered there for two thousand years, of the thing whose power was so terrible that its very presence had poisoned Eldagreen and had cast that place of wonder into the warped and wretched ruin that was Coldmire.
And for that thing Yllufarr waited.
The deed you left undone.
Ulviathon rising.
20
THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH
“Nothing there is that binds disparate and desperate
peoples more surely than the threat of a common foe –
thus does the enemy of our enemy become our ally.”
Ri Connall, thirty-third High King of Rothanar
“The Shield Maiden is leaving, I presume.”
Axennus Teagh seemed to not hear his brother’s words, but only peered past the misted pane of the chamber’s window, watching the night waver befo
re the first glowings of dawn – watching, but seeing only shades of darkness. The aurora of Caelle’s laleth yet lingered there in requiem. There, and in his aching heart.
“I suppose she is leaving,” repeated the Iron Captain.
The word yes remained in Axennus’ throat unspoken, as though voicing confirmation of his brother’s assumption would make the painful truth more painful and truer still.
Blue cloak billowing, Bronnus Teagh crossed the chamber to stand at his brother’s shoulder. The Iron Captain was clad in full battledress, his bronze breastplate and greaves polished to a sheen, his sword at his hip, his crested helm held securely in the crook of one arm. He waited for Axennus’ response in silence and with uncustomary patience, as though the rapid approach of war and the prospect of a glorious death had calmed his turbulent warrior spirit.
And then Axennus nodded slowly, sadly. “How did you know?” His voice was hoarse with sleeplessness and sorrow.
“The gardener’s daughter,” was Bronnus’ immediate reply.
The Commander cast a damp look his brother’s way.
Bronnus smiled through his new beard, and the smile was strangely gentle and comforting. His gaze, too, was uncharacteristically warm.
“When you were but three you developed a fondness for the four-year-old daughter of father’s gardener,” explained the Captain. “She was a little wisp of a thing, a happy child, and very pretty. You would follow her around like a puppy, from dawn till dusk, professing your undying love for the little waif and proposing marriage thrice daily.”
Axennus smiled softly. “Crissia.”
The memory was vague, but had not altogether vanished.
“Then, when you were four,” Bronnus continued, “the gardener inherited his family’s modest estate in Anthum, and –”
“And Crissia went away,” Axennus finished wistfully. “I remember.”
“Well, little brother, you have the same dismal slouch to your shoulders and the same pathetic look on your face now as you had then. The deduction that the Shield Maiden is leaving is not a difficult one.”
“You surpass yourself, Bron.”
The Captain disregarded the comment, both word and tone.
“And I will tell you now, Axo, that which I told you then: There are other flowers in the garden.”
Axennus smiled, saving the pain that dwelt in his heart for another place, another time.
“And do you recall my response to those words, dear brother?”
Bronnus frowned, pondered, shook his head.
“I told you then that you were as full of manure as any garden in Hiridith.”
Bronnus chuckled. “Ah…I remember now.”
Axennus turned away from the window and from the optical echoes of the Shield Maiden’s laleth. The night was done and day was dawning. Mourning ended with morning. The Commander wrapped a lean arm about his brother’s broad shoulder and grinned widely.
“Now I would tell you, big brother, that you are as full of manure as all the gardens in Hiridith.”
Bronnus scowled.
Axennus laughed.
“Come, dear Bronnus,” bade the Commander, his cerulean cloak snapping brusquely as he turned toward the door. “We must answer the call of kings.”
The morning sun fell upon the Gardens of Galledine like the forlorn smile of a failing father upon the face of a favoured child.
Mounted upon his noble mirarran, Lord Alvarion swept his metallic grey gaze over those assembled before him. Fully half of the folk of the Fiannar were gathered there at Galledine’s most northerly eaves, three thousand noble souls whose fates lay not at the Pass of Eryn Ruil, but elsewhere. War would not claim these sons and daughters of Defurien. Nay, they would not be taken. Not soon, at least. Alvarion had seen to this, had ensured this with his decision to send the women and children of the Fiannar away to Evangael’s refuge at Allaura. Thus removed, they would survive. Thus, even should calamity strike his forces at Eryn Ruil, Alvarion’s people would survive. The Deathward would endure.
The Lord of the Fiannar nodded to himself.
We will endure.
Alvarion had awoken to those words, silken softnesses in his ear, a hushed whisper at the edge of consciousness, ere the dawn scattered the night. Cerriste had smiled down upon him, stray tresses of her hair playing tenderly, teasingly at his temple, a single fingertip lovingly tracing the raised lines of his scarred cheek. Her eyes shone like heavenly stars, defying all darkness, shining past all sorrows. A single tear, shed not of sadness but of love, slicked one fine cheek with molten silver, and a slight tremble shook but did not chase the smile from her supple lips.
Such courage. Such beauty. Such perfect love.
“All have come, Lord,” Varonin’s voice intruded upon Alvarion’s unintended reverie. “All are here.”
The Lord of the Fiannar nodded gravely.
“Very well, Marshal.”
Two thousand women and one thousand children of the Fiannar faced their Lord with uplifted faces and shining eyes. In serried ranks of green and grey they silently awaited Alvarion’s address, the gold of their rillagha glittering like sunfire beneath banners bold and beautiful. And at the fore, under the Golden Strype, the Flaming Sword and the Crimson Fist, were those nearest and dearest to the heart of their Lord.
Taresse, wife of Eldurion, was there, her eyes implacably grey, like shards of stone chipped from rigid rock walls of defiance.
And there also was Sarrane, worthy wife to tempestuous Tulnarron, her strange Seer’s orbs aswirl with shades of things both seen and unseen. Her husband’s absence did not irk her – they had nodded farewell the previous evening. And then the Master had excused himself to ‘address a situation that demands my immediate attention’. He was, she knew, riding hard and fast to deliver his immediate attention even now.
And Arumarron, Heir to the House of Eccuron, whose glower and glumness of countenance belied the glory that beckoned him, a glory that would in time not only eclipse that of his father, but rival that of Eccuron himself.
And Caelle, daughter of Eldurion and Taresse, Shield Maiden to the Lady of the Fiannar, as fair of face and form as an Athain princess, as deft and as swift of sword as any scion of Defurien.
And the Lady Cerriste with infant Aranion.
The Lady of the Fiannar sat astride her steed, her shoulders straight and square with the dual irons of pride and determination, her eyes like argent fire veneered with ice. From the caring cradle of one arm, the babe Aranion cooed quietly in dream-sweetened slumber.
Alvarion inclined his head toward them, those to whom he would ever be bound in thought and heart and shining soul.
“May your tale not go untold, dear woman, nor ever be forgotten. And may that of our beloved son be far more glorious than my own.”
A small smile creased Cerriste’s lips and eased her otherwise flinty expression. And when she fisted her bosom in salutation and farewell, the gesture was gentle, made tender by the depthless love her heart harboured for her husband. Briefly, baby Aranion raised his curly-haired head from the pillow of Cerriste’s shoulder, yawned, peered through eyes heavy with sleep, and blessed his father with a little laugh.
Alvarion felt a certain tightness in his throat, and tiny tears tugged at the corners of his eyes. His heart, his very soul, ached.
“Go,” the Lord rasped through a resignation that surpassed sorrow. “Allaura and asylum await you. Do not want for haste. Mundar of the Wandering Guard will meet you on the far side of Galledine and guide you through the Hard Hills. Go now, my Lady – and should the Teller deem it proper, his Tale will reunite us in time, whether it be in this world or in the Light.”
Cerriste gifted her beloved husband with a soothing smile, bowed her head slightly, but said nothing.
And then the Lord of the Fiannar raised his voice, and it burst from his breast like the call of a war horn across a field of battle:
“Go! Go, good sons and daughters of Defurien! Go and know no fear! Beli
eve that those whom you leave behind will prevail, though the price of their victory shall be most terrible and dear. Many homes will be empty of fathers and sons and husbands upon your return. Such are the wages of war. Such has ever been the fate of the Fiannar. But the Light awaits us all, and only the Teller of the Tale might know when it is to shine upon each Deathward soul. Go now, and take peace with you, for there shall surely be none here!”
Then Alvarion nodded to Cerriste, a damp gleam whispering in his eyes –
Go.
And the Lady of the Fiannar turned.
And most that had assembled there turned with her.
But there were many among the Deathward there that did not. Fully one third of those gathered at the eaves of Galledine, one thousand stalwart souls, remained facing their Lord and leader, static and staunch in reverent rebellion.
And then Taresse, wife to Eldurion, ushered her magnificent mount forward. The woman bowed her head toward her Lord and nephew, then met his hard gaze with one that was yet harder. Her lips were set, her face firm, the knuckles of one hand whitening for the tightness of her grip on the pommel of her sword.
“I remain, Lord Alvarion,” she pronounced, her voice calm with certitude. “I and these one thousand with me.”
The Lord Alvarion peered through a frown.
“I will countenance no disobedience in this matter, uncle-wife,” the Lord said sternly. “You will go to Allaura.”
Cerriste and Sarrane turned upon their steeds to gaze questioningly at Taresse. They then glanced at one another, then upon Caelle, whose lips quivered betwixt strange humour and sorrow, and belated understanding played across both their visages.
“I obey only your own desire, my Lord,” spoke Taresse above an outthrust chin, “that the Fiannar survive. That we endure.”
Lord Alvarion bit the ire from his tongue.
“Hear her, husband.” Cerriste’s calm cool voice struck the rising admonition from his lips unuttered. “Permit no pride to deafen you.”
Alvarion glowered, but nodded for Taresse to speak.