by A. Evermore
The brightly lit day on the road to Corsolon dimmed and a different world took shape. A world lit by a sky of murky orange and green. She saw through Ehka’s eyes and he was flying. He came to land on a rocky hillside. It was covered in strange trees that were massive but stumpy. They had long thick branches that reached horizontally across the ground for the several yards.
Something moved in the shadows. Then a dreadful face appeared before her in a swirl of black. Red eyes - not unlike Baelthrom’s - glowed, illuminating a large flat face, squat upturned nose and a long wide mouth filled with inch-long fangs. The horrific thing’s bat-like ears twitched, and a blood red tongue whipped out to lick its grey lips. Demon. She shivered. She had never seen one, but she knew it was a demon. Only its grey face appeared out of the shadows, and somehow that was more terrifying than the whole of it appearing. If its face was as hideous as that then what did the rest of it look like?
The demon spoke in demonic and her soul shrank from it, but Ehka was not afraid, only curious of it. The demon lunged out of the shadows. Thick muscles bulged over its chest, huge hairless wings stretched wide and its clawed arm reached forward so fast it was a blur. She screamed as its claws touched her feathers, then the images flooded into her mind. It took her a while to realise that what she witnessed was Ehka giving the demon a message, a vision of the future. Her breathing came fast and shallow as she struggled to focus on what she was seeing.
An empty plain loomed so fast she could only make out a black spire of rock. The same spire she had seen after entering the sacred mound. There came a flash and then light blinded her. The wailing howl of a demon scoured her ears as she squinted into the light. A long thin spear formed and she blinked in surprise. It’s that spear, the one in Zanufey’s hands and in the sacred mound.
Then the spear was gone and an immense battle was taking place below her, thousands of demons battling against each other. Demons of all sizes and shapes, black and grey and brown, winged and wingless, were locked together in a vicious struggle. Blinding explosions rocked her vision and demon magic surged. Black blood splattered the barren ground and the screams of demons tore at her soul.
‘Please stop,’ she rasped. She had to get away from this demonic place.
A blast shook the earth and she screamed, demon magic rumbled. Then there was nothing. Instead of howling demons and blinding explosions, there was deafening silence and darkness. A large crystal shard filled the darkness and glowed green. That same hideous demon face appeared above it. Its eyes were flaming yellow. Its face was a permanent scowl as it hungered for her soul. She choked down terror and shivered uncontrollably under the demon’s gaze.
The vision swirled into a vortex of energy. Lightning and storm clouds spun in a maelstrom, making her sway sickeningly. The demon’s face was the only thing that remained static in the vortex, its eyes never leaving hers.
‘Issa?’ Asaph’s voice called from somewhere distant. She blinked open her eyes and stared up into the worried faces of Asaph and Coronos. Duskar’s long face loomed over them both, ears pricked forward with interest.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, but her voice was weak. Asaph helped her to sit up and scowled at the raven that always seemed to be the cause of their problems.
‘It’s not his fault,’ she gasped. ‘He is only delivering messages.’
‘Some message,’ Asaph grumbled.
They were on the grass to the side of the road. Passers-by looked at them curiously but didn’t stop to offer any help.
‘Drink some water,’ Coronos said, passing her a flagon.
She drank some and felt better. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated, her voice stronger. ‘What happened?’
‘You went quiet and pale. Then you nearly fell off your horse,’ Asaph explained. ‘Duskar tried to keep you mounted long enough for me to grab you. Otherwise you’d have another nasty bruise.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks. I… Ehka showed me a vision. I don’t understand yet. But I keep seeing demons…’ an uncontrollable shudder made her stop. ‘But I don’t know why. They are horrifying.’
After she had caught her breath she insisted they continue. The men were dubious, but they helped her remount Duskar, and set off at a slower pace.
‘Do you think the raven went to demon world, to the Murk?’ Coronos asked when they had settled into the pace again.
‘Yes,’ Issa said. ‘I’m sure of it. I’ve seen that awful place twice in the last few days, but as usual I don’t know why or what it means.’
‘It will no doubt become clearer in time,’ Coronos said.
‘Hmph, hopefully it won’t be too late for whatever it was supposed to mean,’ Issa said. Why did her visions and Ehka’s messages always have to be so cryptic? Or perhaps they weren’t, but she just didn’t understand what they were trying to say.
‘Do you know anything about a white spear? I keep seeing it. It seems magical, it’s definitely powerful, and it glows and hums. I see it whenever I see the demons,’ she looked at the men hopefully.
Coronos frowned in thought, then he shook his head. ‘Nothing comes to mind. I know little about the demons, only that there was a great war a long, long time ago. The lands to the west were lost and many perished until the demon gates were sealed shut.
‘It’s interesting because the Kuapoh on the Uncharted Lands also know about the demon wars. They say their ancestors came from the land in the sea, and there were great wars against them. The demons still plague the Kuapoh now and then. They call them incubi and succubi. They are their ancestors who became possessed by demons long ago.’
‘Why would demons be of concern to us when our enemies are the Maphraxies? Why would the raven go to the Murk anyway?’ Asaph asked.
Issa shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make any sense and we already have enough on our plate. I don’t want to see anymore demons.’
And what of the knights? She hadn’t mentioned them. “The raven searches for the Cursed King…” Edarna’s words spoken so long ago. She looked for Ehka, he was circling high above them. Had he somehow found the Cursed King? Was she supposed to find this strange white spear? She chewed her lip in frustration. She hoped Coronos was right, and it would become clearer in time.
Chapter 12
Against All Odds
BOKAARD swung his axe. A roar of fury exploded from his lips as he struck down two of the slimy fish bastards at once, their blood spraying all over him and the decks. He spun fast, ducked, and sliced the webbed feet off a third. His blood was alive with the fire of life, his heart pounded in his chest as he prepared himself for a rush of four more Histanatarns. Four was too many but what else could he do? Fight to the end.
At the stern on the higher deck he glimpsed Marakon cornered by two fish bastards. Bokaard laughed, his voice mingling with the clash of metal and screams of soldiers. Two of us sea dogs overwhelmed by an army of fishy devils. I’ll bet you’ll cut down fifty before they take you, you lucky one-eyed bastard.
Bokaard grinned back at the four approaching. They didn’t have the facial features to mirror his expression in mockery. They just snarled and ran for him.
‘I thought that was it then,’ Bokaard said, sipping his steaming hot chocolate, trying to control the tremor in his hands that had never quite left him since that day. ‘I was ready for it - death - as I always have been. So many of us had fallen by then anyway…
‘But that was when the real terror came, when death on wings made of the night filled the sky. The Dread Dragons of Baelthrom blotted out the sun and filled me with terror worse than any demon out of the Murk. When I saw those Dread Dragons above us… For the first time in my life I prayed to Doon. I knew it was probably too late to ask him to give me favours, but it was all I could think to do.’
Rasia sipped her own hot chocolate, spellbound as Bokaard told his story.
‘None of us could move, not even the Histanatarns. We were frozen to the deck in dragon fear. They were so huge, their eyes burned red, and their screams
ripped right through you. For a while they flew low and circled the ships. I don’t know why they didn’t attack us immediately, it seemed they were waiting for something, maybe for a command from that immortal bastard through their cursed amulets. Again, I thought, this is it, my life is done.’
Rasia took his cup, refilled it, and sat down again silently, not wanting to interrupt the big Atalanphian man in case he forgot any part of the story. She had to know what happened to Marakon. Her own hands were trembling in hope or fear or both. Bokaard continued, his brilliant blue eyes looking into the past.
‘The Dread Dragons all screamed at once - a terrible sound - and we fell to the decks, soldiers and Histanatarns alike. Then the fire came and the whole world turned red.’ He rubbed the bandages around his hands. Though it had been well over a week ago, maybe more, maybe less, he’d lost all track of the days since, but the burned skin on his hands was still painful. Rasia had salved them and bandaged them as soon as he’d arrived. Somehow his face was not as bad, though patches of red and white marred his shaven scalp.
‘The fire got me up onto my hands and knees, I mean, the whole deck was alight. The heat was so immense my sun shields were melting on my face. The four Histanatarns I’d been fighting now ran at me, four flaming balls of fire desperately trying to get into the sea. They were quicker than me at reacting, no wonder they are so good at surviving, tough slippery buggers. They didn’t even care I was there, and ran straight into me. We slammed into the burning rails and became entangled in rigging. The rails gave way and we fell into the sea.
‘The feel of that cold water on my burned skin was like Doon answering my prayers. I think I became a believer at that moment,’ Bokaard sighed and smiled, wiped his eyes in remembered relief.
‘Now my world was no longer on flame, but filled with water. I was not going to burn alive, I was going to drown with the sinking rigging and dead Histanatarns. Ha-ha, how hilarious I find it now. Looking back. How many times I thought I would die, and each time a different death confronted me. First it was the Histanatarns, then it was the Dread Dragons, then it was the fire and now I would die by drowning.’
Rasia smiled at him. ‘It’s incredible. I don’t know if you are blessed or cursed to survive all that.’
He smiled, but then saw the tears in her eyes. He reached forwards and took her hand in his. ‘Marakon has luck on his side, more than I ever had.’
‘No, please.’ Rasia shook her head and looked away, a tear escaping down her cheek before she could stop it. ‘Please don’t stop, don’t let me break your thoughts. Tell me everything you can remember.’
Bokaard let her hand go and tried to remember what happened next.
‘Everything was a blur, I hurt in a hundred places and I couldn’t breathe. All around me rigging and debris were falling into the ocean. I remember seeing wood burn under water and being fascinated by it. The ships’ hulls were groaning and cracking under the strain of their burning topsides. A strange sound, like a tortured whale dying slowly. I managed to struggle out of the rigging, and searched for the surface. I found it, only to fill my lungs full of smoky air. It made me choke even more. Then my ship began to roll sideways, towards me. I swam harder than I’d ever swum in my life, but the mast and sail came down over me and the world turned black.’
He sipped his drink then shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea how I survived that day or after it. All I can say is that when the blackness ended I was not dead. Although I wished I was. I awoke on my back. Rope entangled my legs and dragged them under water. Other ropes entangled my arms attaching me to a five-foot square piece of hull. That was what kept me above water. Both my arms and legs were dead. I don’t know what was attached to me beneath the water, but I felt like I had been stretched two feet taller.
‘I was desperately thirsty, more thirsty than when I’d trained as a soldier in the desert - and we Atalanphs have been trained to go for a week without water. My vision came and went and I was hallucinating badly. But in my clear moments I saw nothing other than wreckage and an endless blue ocean.’
Rasia looked away and wiped at the tears falling down her face. She bit her nails. Outside the window her two boys were playing chase. Bokaard found their laughter lifted the gloom a little.
‘Look,’ Bokaard began, ‘it does not mean Marakon is dead. He may have survived, just like I did.’ He wasn’t sure if it was a good or foolish thing to say. That he survived was a miracle, to expect that miracle to be granted to another was a long step.
‘I know,’ Rasia breathed. ‘I still hope,’ she nodded, but continued to stare at her children playing outside.
Bokaard decided to go on with the story just so it was told, even though he did not see Marakon again. It might help to take her mind off her suffering, if only for a little while, and he wanted to tell her what he had seen.
‘I had to get the rigging off my legs. I was so weak it took me maybe an hour to work a hand free so I could reach my knife. It took another hour to cut loose that darn thick rope. I’d cut most of it off when the cursed knife slipped out of my hands and sank. Luckily I managed to wriggle out of the rest and dragged myself onto the wreckage. My legs were so numb I couldn’t feel them, but it felt so good to finally be out of the water.
‘By that time the sun was setting, and I saw the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. The whole sky turned from gold to red to pink. A sunset in the middle of the ocean is far more spectacular than on land. Then I realised that when it was gone it would be dark and I would be alone. Alone out on that vast ocean, on a tiny bit of wreckage waiting for my death. I think I was more scared then than when the Dread Dragons came. As it got dark, I prayed like I never had before. I think I prayed more that night than a priest does in his whole lifetime.’
Rasia laughed. It made him smile, glad to bring a little joy into her life.
‘It’s funny, how terrified I was then of the dark and the sea. Me, an Atalanphian, afraid of the ocean and darkness. I’ve never felt so small and alone in my entire life. I couldn’t sleep for the terror of what might be moving beneath me. It was only when those horrible long hours of darkness passed and the dawn came did I fall asleep.
‘When I next awoke I faced my fifth death. I was dying. Ironically I would not die of drowning, but of dehydration. There was not a cloud in that beautiful dawn sky, nothing to even suggest the rain I so desperately needed. I remember feeling my body slowly shutting down. I wondered if I should take my own life and beat death to it. My situation was utterly hopeless, but at least I would be in charge of my final demise.’
He couldn’t help it but his voice broke then at the memory of it. He put his head in his palm as the overwhelming emotions flowed through him. Rasia squeezed his shoulder. The emotions subsided, and he continued when his voice was calm.
‘I gave up. Every time I tried to drink sea water I choked it back up. I had no knife or weapon to cut myself. I had only two choices, jump off the wreckage and drown, or stay on the wreckage and die slowly. I decided to leave the wreckage, after all the efforts I’d gone through to stay on it.
‘The sun was setting again by the time I decided to leave my home. Honestly, I was so delirious from dehydration I could barely string two thoughts together. It was the delirium that blessedly numbed the fear. It would be a race to the death between the time it took to drown, and the time it took for dehydration to kill me. I slipped into the water, it was so cold. I clung to wreckage for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. I hated Doon then, hated him for making me suffer all the deaths under the sun and moons.
‘I actually don’t remember letting go. I think I must have drifted off to sleep briefly when it happened. I don’t know how long I was floating for. I remembered fading in and out of consciousness. I only really woke up when I slipped beneath the surface.’
Rasia was white-faced, clearly lost in the horror of his story.
‘I remember seeing the brightest stars above the surface, so beautiful. I was too weak
to swim, and I just sank into the dark without a struggle, but always I looked up at the stars as they dimmed. Then the stars grew brighter again, and they’d changed from silver white to purple and blue. They were moving too. They grew brighter and bigger, and then they were all around me. I closed my eyes then. I thought the stars had come to take me home, to the One Source - and by Doon was I ready.
‘Everything was so strange. I remembered suddenly being able to breath and yet I moved deep in the ocean. I just couldn’t work anything out. The purple and blue lights were no longer stars but these beautiful fish dolphin-like beings. They had an intelligent human feel to them.’
‘The Wykiry,’ Rasia gasped.
Bokaard nodded and blinked back tears of wonder. ‘Yes. But I did not realise that at the time, I was so delirious. I thought I had died, and these star-beings had come to take me home. Looking back I realise it was the Wykiry. They had come to me. In Atalanph we say the Wykiry are angels, they come to help souls lost at sea. Now I believe those sayings. Whatever it is they do, magic or otherwise, I could breathe underwater in their presence. They carried me through the ocean, a long way it seemed. I wish I could have stayed conscious for it but, I was spent.
‘They left me on the shore where a river empties into the sea, and I think they knew to find me water. I did awake again, alone, and when I gulped that water down I felt life returning to me once more. The water gave me enough strength to find food. I ate seaweed and mussels. Raw of course, yum.’
Rasia grimaced, Bokaard laughed.
‘They aren’t too bad, just very salty. I knew I was on Frayon but I had no idea where. All I could do was hazard a guess. It was overcast and there was no sun, but what shadows there were told me I was on the west coast. I reasoned I must be far north because of where we’d entered the Lost Sea on our ships. I started walking due south as soon as I had the energy. I came across a hermit madder than I’d become. He pointed me towards the closest town some thirty miles or so away, and told me it was called Wenderon. I remembered Marakon saying that is where you and the boys were. It took me two days to get here without boots, and the rest is… well, you know,’ he smiled.