by A. Evermore
‘ “Knights of the Raven.” It has a nice ring to it,’ Oria said, watching the bird. ‘And if that’s what will keep us alive…’ she shrugged.
Marakon nodded. ‘My thoughts exactly. But before we jump to such divine conclusions and think ourselves invincible and immortal, I think we’d better see how we fare against a deadlier enemy.’
‘Vicious and numerous and deadly as they are, Histanatarns are nothing compared to demons,’ Lan agreed.
‘And demons are nothing against Maphraxies,’ Marakon said. ‘But this, my honourable knights,’ he spread his arms wide, ‘is the first of our glorious victories, like those we used to have.’
They all cheered. On hearing them the Gurlanka cheered as well, raising their weapons high.
‘Come, let’s meet our new friends,’ Marakon nodded towards the shore where the Gurlanka were clustering. He led his horse through the water, and realised how odd he and his knights might look to a people that had never seen plate armour or mounted knights. Right now he longed to get the sweaty heavy stuff off.
He spied Shufen pushing his way to the front of the crowd, a big grin spreading across his bloody, muddy face. Marakon grinned back, wiped the blood and sweat and grit from his own face. The two men looked at each other and then embraced. Shufen wrapped his knuckles on the metal of Marakon’s breastplate.
‘Hard as iron on the outside, soft us mush on the inside,’ Marakon grinned.
‘Hah. I don’t think so,’ Shufen said. ‘We definitely need something of this design.’
‘Where is Jarlain?’ Marakon’s voice was hoarse.
‘In the healing room,’ Shufen said. Marakon smiled, relieved. ‘And she is asking about you.’
Histanatarn bodies covered the beach and floated in the water. It took hours for the knights and unwounded Gurlanka to pile them up on the sand. As they worked they stripped the enemy of their weapons and whatever else they had of use, which wasn’t a lot. The weapons would be remade into better Gurlanka ones. No one spoke much during the bloody task, but Shufen said what every Gurlanka knew, that each dead Seadevil meant one less to fight in the future. They covered the bodies with dry forest matter, and then set them alight. The parched leaves and wood was quick to light, and the mound of bodies roared into a blaze.
Shufen, Marakon and the knights made their way through what remained of the Gurlanka’s home. Some houses were burnt out holes whilst others were untouched. Most were somewhere between the two. The Gurlanka had already removed their wounded, but the blood patches that littered the ground and splattered the walls could not be taken away. Marakon steeled his heart against the destruction as they walked. How many times had he seen the devastation of war? He had to harden himself against it.
One of the Elders came over to him, her white wispy hair blowing out behind her. Her face was pale and sombre, but she managed a brief smile and touched his arm.
‘You came not a moment too soon, half-elven. You have our deepest gratitude.’
He shrugged. She passed him a welcome flagon of water, which he drank noisily, the cool water delicious in his parched throat. Then she led him and Shufen to the Elder’s house. Marakon thought it a miracle that it’d remained unscathed by fire. He immediately suspected magic. Inside on the ground floor was a large room filled with many wounded Gurlanka, and unwounded Elders and townsfolk able to help. Incense kept the smell of blood and gore absent. A fire burned in one corner of the room where hot water was boiling and various devices being sterilised. At one end Jarlain lay with her eyes closed, covered with a blanket on a low pallet.
‘She’s sleeping.’ The Elder woman reassured Marakon. ‘She was lucky, the knife went deep into her thigh. She’s lost a great deal of blood, but we managed to close the wound quickly.’
‘If only we’d arrived sooner,’ Marakon murmured, gently stroking back Jarlain’s hair from her forehead. ‘I’m sorry for your losses,’ he looked up at Shufen and the Elder.
‘How could you have come sooner? We are lucky you and your knights came at all,’ Shufen said. ‘You fight nearly as well as the Gurlanka,’ he grinned. Marakon chuckled quietly.
‘I want to hear your story,’ Shufen added. ‘What really happened in the Drowning Wastes? Who are these warriors?’
‘Pah, have you got a decade free? I’ll tell you what I can later. All I can say simply is a curse was put upon us that has now been lifted by my return, and maybe something to do with the dark moon. After thousands of years spent damned in exile, these knights have returned so that a great wrong maybe righted.’
Shufen looked at Marakon, all laughter gone from his face and he spoke in a serious voice. ‘Then the first wrong has already been righted this day by driving back our shared enemy. May you have what you seek, Sarun.’
Marakon inclined his head at the term of respect. Sarun meant closest brother and was a word rarely used amongst the Gurlanka. ‘It was an honour to fight at your side against the Seadevils. Maybe we will fight together again some day.’
‘Maybe,’ Shufen nodded, ‘but not too soon.’ Marakon smiled. ‘I must help the others. Just make sure she wakes up.’ Shufen left the room.
Marakon looked down at Jarlain who suddenly stirred. Her face was gaining some colour and after a moment her eyes opened. She looked up at him and smiled.
‘We did it, didn’t we?’ she asked. There was warmth in her hand as she gripped his lightly.
‘We did,’ he replied and lifted her hand to his lips. ‘They said you lost a lot of blood but the wound has closed well. How do you feel?’
‘Oh, great,’ she said, and grimaced in pain. ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. Just a little weak.’ Her usually rich voice was still faint. He worried about her, more than he wanted to admit, more than a married man should. A tall, short-haired Gurlanka woman came over bringing two steaming cups of spiced soup. He took the soup and thanked the woman, then set his own aside and helped Jarlain to sit and drink hers first.
‘I remember you doing this for me not so long ago,’ he said, remembering when Jarlain and Tarn had taken him in and healed his wounds. So much had happened since then, he felt a year had passed.
She nodded. ‘You looked so frightening to us, with your weapons and your wounds.’
He smiled, took her empty bowl, and helped her lie back down. She closed her eyes as a wave of tiredness overcame her. He stood there watching her drift off to sleep again as he drank his own soup. Satisfied that she was comfortable and sleeping he went back outside.
The sun was setting and the wind had picked up, creating a welcome breeze. His nine knights were chatting with the Gurlanka as they washed their armour and weapons in the water basin meant for watering animals. Hylion and Lan were being cared for in the healing room. Though that desperate sense of urgency had disappeared since he had been reunited with his knights, he knew he had to call the boatman soon. They had to return to the Old World and there was much to be done, but right now they all needed rest, especially the injured.
He went over to them, unbuckling his own armour as he walked. He eased off his heavy cuirass and sighed as the wind blew over his hot chest. ‘Taking this stuff off has never felt so good,’ he moaned and stretched amongst loud murmurs of agreement.
‘I can’t remember being anywhere so hot,’ Ironbeard said, tugging his thick beard away from his sweaty chest in irritation.
Marakon pulled off his shirt and dunked his head in the water basin. Spring water had been channelled away from the main stream and pooled into the large moulded stone basin before it trickled out the other end and was channelled back into the stream. He stood up with a gasp as the cold instantly cleared his head. He splashed it all over his arms and chest. Only when he was done washing away the dirt and blood did he turn to talk to anyone.
‘You look different to how I remember for sure, but it’s uncanny for there is still a likeness,’ Nemeron said thoughtfully. ‘It’s in your eyes, or should I say, eye, the set of your chin. The way you hold yourself and the way yo
u speak. But despite all that, I do not remember you having that many scars.’
The other knights nodded and came closer as they polished their armour.
Marakon looked down at his chest, covered as it was in a network of lines, some fine, some thick, some white and some still red. They told the story of his life, and how he’d survived. ‘And I doubt I had an eye patch, or a half-elven heritage before either,’ he grinned. ‘Although, thankfully, I’m not a king, and I don’t ever want to be one again.’
‘You were a good king, before Karhlusus,’ Oria, said and gave a half smile of encouragement. ‘And it seems ours is a bond that even time cannot break. We return, goddess knows, thousands of years later to right the wrong done to us.’
‘Aye,’ Cormak said, his eyes narrowing fiercely. ‘Even if I’d died a hundred times, I’d still return to kill that bastard. I still see their faces before me, in my dreams and when I’m awake, even little children…’ he trailed off, looking horrified at his own hands.
Oria squeezed the dwarf’s shoulder. ‘You don’t suffer alone. We were all there, we all murdered,’ she said.
Marakon saw the suffering on his knight’s faces as a reflection of his own. Knowing that you had taken innocent lives in a horrific manner, lost everything that you were and damned yourself to an endless hell of torment, was its own curse. And it had all been his fault. And he had killed the most. He swallowed a lump and looked to the tree line where the sky began to smoulder in the setting sun.
‘We can be free,’ he said quietly, his voice gruff as he nodded. ‘We will be free. Today was just the first, the first victory of many. And we will stand by each other’s side until our task is complete.’
‘Here, here,’ Ghenath said, and put an arm around Oria. They both smiled, a real smile, though the pain was still in their eyes.
‘We are here together at the end of our damnation, to bring back our glory and make things right,’ Marakon said. ‘We have returned to claim our rightful place amongst the heroes of old.’ The knights cheered at that. ‘Whilst we have Zanufey’s blessing, let us forget our old name. Let us be remembered as Knights of the Raven. Let us be bringers of justice and honour like once we were. We will train and teach others what we know - our creed, our skill, our expertise and our fortitude, so that they may become one of us. Maioria needs an army of knights such as we to set her free, an army of Knights of the Raven.’
Everyone clapped and cheered. The Gurlanka looked on intrigued and began to clap along, seemingly ever ready to join in a celebration.
‘But first we need rest and sustenance,’ he said when everyone had stopped clapping. ‘Lan and Hylion are being treated for their wounds. But tomorrow we must leave. Let’s meet on the beach at dawn. So drink, eat and sleep.’ He laid his armour and his sword beside the others. He needed a strong drink, they had to have something potent here. He went to search for one.
Chapter 5
Demon Trouble
GEDROCK squinted into the light of Zorock as it dimmed then turned orange. The setting moon of the Murk did that, turned a muddy amber as it slid beneath the horizon - a horizon of craggy rocks and squat trees with long finger-like branches that reached over the ground. Where it sank in the north-west were his enemies the Grazen, and the homeland he and his kind had been driven from long ago. Tonight, deep in the rocky swamp forests of Eastern Middle Murk, there was no breeze, and it was hot and humid as it always was in the underworld.
‘Karhlusus,’ Gedrock growled aloud the name of the half human, half greater demon, abomination who drove the wars that divided the lesser demons apart. Their cousins the Grazen were enslaved, and they - the Shadow Demons - were hiding in exile like rats. Karhlusus was not even from the Murk, but he fully controlled it having successfully divided the Grazen and the Shadow Demons against each other. Now no lesser demons at all held the seat of power at Carmedrak Rock. Now their old kingdom was no longer called Carmedrak Rock, but Karhlusus Keep. And that made Gedrock’s black blood boil.
‘They cannot kill us all, my lord, not if we hide amongst the shadows as we Shadow Demons have always done since they came. They have tried for thousands of years to annihilate us, but clearly they cannot,’ Wekurd wheezed. ‘And if they cannot destroy us then they can never fully take the Murk.’
Gedrock’s old advisor came forward a step, his skinny lank frame bent over and held up by a gnarled staff. His bald head shone in the murky orange-green light and a lipless grin revealed three very sharp and surprisingly white fangs that stood out of his otherwise grey face. His long thin tail curled and uncurled around his right foot as it always did when he was vexed.
Gedrock grumbled in response. His advisor was right, but for a king to live in exile made his head pound with rage. He knew not to come up here because it always angered him, and he hadn’t done for several moons, but now something made him. For some reason he just had to see Zorock set once more over their lost kingdom.
‘Let’s go back into the caverns where we are safe. A new nest of Wursels has been discovered, and their blood is fresh for drinking,’ Wekurd said.
The thought of hot blood from a Wursel softened his scowl, and he almost turned to go. Almost. Their lives, the future of the Shadow Demons, and their entire planet were more important than fresh blood from a Wursel.
‘Go. I stay.’
‘I cannot leave your side when enemies might be close,’ Wekurd wheezed.
‘A moment more. Alone,’ Gedrock growled in finality.
Wekurd knew better than to question his King when in this dire mood, and he limped off unhappily, his staff dragging between steps. Gedrock watched him disappear into the blackness of the cave, just one of the many entrances to their huge network of caverns, their place of exile.
Gedrock turned back to the darkening orange-green sky, and his scowl returned. Though it was a long time before he’d came into existence, Grazen and Shadow Demons had once been one, cousins united before Karhlusus came and opened the gates to the Pit, letting the greater demons into the Murk.
Karhlusus was not an ordinary human, and neither was the other half of him just any greater demon. Gedrock’s Finder, the one who’d dug him out of the rock and brought him into existence, told him that Karhlusus the human was once a great black arts wizard from the higherworld, and this wizard was far more powerful than any demon he conjured up. He was stronger than the strongest greater demon. Which is how Karhlusus conjured up the great King Kull, and held him in thrall until this day. King Kull himself was an ancient king of the greater demons, a demon who had managed to crush his enemies and dominate the entire greater demon world.
Knowing they were greater than the sum of their parts, King Kull gave Karhlusus more power than he could ever have had alone. In return Karhlusus gave Kull a physical human body in which he could move around the Murk and, more importantly, the higherworld Maioria. So they agreed to share one body. An abomination if ever Gedrock had heard one. It was demon-possessed Karhlusus who broke through the demon tunnels from Maioria, coming through the Storm Holt gate into the Murk. It was from there that King Kull, through Karhlusus, opened the gates to the Pit and let the greater demons flood in.
Hope ended then for them - no lesser demon was ever a match for a greater demon. Gedrock clenched his fists. Now, when he looked at the moon of the Murk setting gracefully over the place of his enemies, he was reminded that they were doomed and their world was lost. It was only a matter of time. He knew from the images in the crystal shard that Karhlusus amassed a growing army of greater demons. Soon he would open the gates to the Pit, soon greater demons would come and destroy them all.
Blackness fluttered in his peripheral vision. Instinctively he melted his form into shadow, his whole body disappearing into darkness. The raven landed close and looked straight up at him completely unafraid. Though Gedrock had no form the raven was not fooled. He was reminded that ravens could see what moved in the shadows. Ravens came from the higherworld, and that was the last thing Gedrock n
eeded.
Of all the creatures that lived upon the higherworlds, and of those that resided upon the underworlds, only ravens could move at will between the two. Demons and wizards had to use gateways and tunnels of energy connecting the worlds, and only the most powerful and skilled could open a gate and navigate through. No lesser demon had willingly gone to the higherworld since the gates were sealed after the Demon Wars thousands of years ago. All gates, that was, except one.
When he did not materialise the raven squawked. Carmedrak was the lesser demons’ god and Zorock was his messenger. The raven belonged to a goddess not of their world, so why should he, King Gedrock, answer her messenger? The raven squawked again.
‘We want nothing from your blinding world,’ Gedrock growled at the bird, allowing only his face to appear out of the shadows. He caused his eyes to glow red menacingly and bared his fangs, but the bird was not phased and instead took a step closer. It cocked its head expectantly. Curiosity at the bird’s bravery made him materialise fully. That and wondering what hot raven blood tasted like. Blood from higherworld creatures was far more delicious and powerful than anything they could get in the Murk.
Gedrock reached to grab the bothersome bird, but as his clawed fingers brushed the bird’s feathers pain exploded in his head paralysing him, preventing him from roaring aloud, preventing him from fighting or fleeing back into the shadows. The raven had a message for him and he had to receive it. The world began to spin and he thought he was falling but there was nothing to stop him. He lashed around and flapped his wings then, real as day, Carmedrak Rock loomed huge and ominous in his vision.
Gedrock, held aloft by unseen and unfelt hands, plunged through the thick jagged black walls of Carmedrak Rock. He instinctively shielded his face from impending doom, only to be amazed that he passed unscathed through walls of stone. Then bright white light blinded him. He howled as he recognised that which all demons fear, the white spear, Velistor. Its horrific light seared his eyes and froze blood. He slammed his eyes shut but the light came even there, burning into his sockets, his mind and his black heart with its awful light.