by David Wind
The large, blue-coated kraal back-stepped almost to the opening of the pathway and without a moment’s hesitation, launched himself into a gallop. When he reached the edge, he leapt effortlessly up and across the chasm. He landed sure-footed and was able to stop before the rope ran out and Mikaal pulled over.
He went to Hero and tied the rope to the smaller kraal, drew him back until the rope was taut and said to Areenna, “Have him hold strong.”
She laid a hand on Hero’s neck and pushed her asking to him. When she was done, she said, “He is ready.”
“Are you?”
Areenna touched the rope, testing its tautness. “You are sure?”
Instead of replying, he smiled.
Then I am ready, My Prince. With her bow slung across her shoulder and back, the quiver of arrows left attached to Hero’s saddle, she grasp the rope he drew down for her. She took a deep breath, her muscles tensing.
“Wait.”
She froze. “What?”
He went to Hero and freed a coil of rope. It was as long as the first, but less thick and much lighter. He tied one end around her and the other around his own waist.
“If I fall, you do as well,” she pointed out.
It is but a precaution. If you fall, I will hold you. If not, we go together.
You are gallant, My Prince.
No, I am selfish. You are a part of me now.
Areenna could not reply. She closed her eyes beneath the rush of warmth spreading through her. “I will not fall,” she promised.
“I know,” he said. “Go!”
With a deep inhalation, she pulled herself up. As she did, both kraals backed up just enough to keep the rope tight. She started off, hand over hand, refusing to look down, staring only at Charka as she crossed the opening and the rushing waters below. She moved as quickly as she could and was across in a minute. When she stood on her feet, she turned back.
When Areenna’s feet touched down, Mikaal grasped the rope and pushed off the edge. His weight, so much more than Areenna’s, pulled the kraals forward for an instant, but Charka drew back and the rope straightened. Without hesitation, Mikaal crossed, hand over hand and reached the other side in less time than had Areenna.
When he stood next to her, the rope around his waist gone, he went to Charka and untied the rope from the kraal’s saddle. “Bring Hero,” he said to Areenna.
She turned and gazed at her kraal. She formed the asking, drawing a full mental picture of what the kraal needed to do. The kraal back-stepped as far as he could and charged forward.
Mikaal had picked up the rope and braced himself in case the smaller kraal did not make it. Even though he knew he could never hold the animal’s weight, he would not willingly let Hero fall. His caution was unnecessary; the kraal leapt across the opening as if it had been nothing more than a small ditch.
Once Areenna had Hero at her side, Mikaal said, “And now we move as fast as we can. We have added more distance to this journey.”
And given us a better chance to reach the mountain, she responded.
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The flashing crack of lightning burst at the oncoming troops of Nevaeh. Roth, his kraal moving forward at the pace of his footed troops, remained in the lead. The four women flanking the High King joined together to create a shield so strong the lightning struck it and flashed harmlessly, fading into a shimmering nothingness before its force could touch a single man or woman of Nevaeh.
Ahead of him, the dark soldiers of the Circle moved toward them, splitting around the tall unmoving sorceress like a swarm of black writhing insects while she sent blinding bolts of her powers at the oncoming mass. From the rear of the charging vileness of the dark swarm, a rain of arrows rose skyward. The sheet of dark bolts raced across the sky, holding for a moment before curving downward and speeding toward the oncoming forces of Nevaeh.
From within the Nevaen forces, the women warriors—those with varying abilities—used their special powers to stop most of the arrows. Some men carried shields and were able to deflect the shafts, but there were screams as well, as those few arrows able to get through struck their targets.
The instant the arrows fell, Roth raised his left arm, his hand clenched into a fist.
Behind him, the archers of Tolemac paused, knelt, and released their arrows. The volley flew high and true; hundreds of quilled acont shafts soared toward the onrushing forces. The last surviving Afzaleem sorceress stood firmly in the center of her army and destroyed many incoming arrows, but more of the dark swarming ghazi warriors of the Circle fell than had Nevaens.
Then, the two armies met with a roar of voices and the clash of metal upon metal. Roth, strong in the saddle, swung his sword in half arcs, slicing away at anything moving toward him. The four women, their hands covered with the light of their powers, struck. Bodies fell in a path before them. Behind Roth and the four queens, came two of his ‘Six’ groups, at the head of their platoons of fighters, their fierceness in battle never seen by the dark forces.
The fighting grew fierce, the soldiers entangled, each side pushing deeper into the other. The sound of metal upon metal, of sword and spear meeting flesh, and the haunting screams of the injured and dying filled the air, shaking the very ground they fought upon.
Roth charged the black warriors, their misshapen bodies and faces hidden within leather and rusted metal armor. They formed a solid wall against him. Enaid was at her mate’s side, her sword in one hand, her other glowing with the force of her powers.
Roth and Enaid fought, his sword and her abilities blending to form the tip of a cone so strong it cut through the invaders like a battering ram. Yet, for every foot gained, more black forces filled the void created by the Nevaen’s weapons and powers.
The battle grew in ferocity; the Black Sorceress sent streaking bolts of killing power at the Nevaens while the women sorceresses of Roth’s army retaliated in kind, powers fighting powers even as sword met sword.
The battle wore on; the ground turned black and deep in the blood of the fallen. The echoing cries of the wounded blended with the sounds of crashing weapons until everything became a blur of sound and light.
An hour before the sun reached midway into the sky, Roth and Enaid dismounted and, side by side, battled the vileness. They fought their way through the horde to within a hundred feet of the Black Witch who had surrounded herself with a thick barrier of ghazi soldiers.
“The fight lasts too long. They will consume us if we do not stop her now,” Roth shouted to Enaid as he cut down the warrior before him, slicing through his armor as if it were paper. The fighter fell before the High King, his torso split in half.
Roth’s arm ached from the fighting, his legs cramped, but he held himself strong. Behind him, centered within the groups of ‘Six’, Atir, Ilsraeth and Layra fought.
Roth raised his left hand and pumped his fist twice. In response, the three ‘six’ groups moved to him, the other sorceresses joining instantly with Enaid. Roth raised his arm again and with his index finger whirled it in a circle.
The sound of a hundred kraals charging from the right side echoed loudly as Prince Nevets led his men in a flanking charge. “Now!” Roth called to Enaid.
Enaid buried her sword tip in the ground and raised both hands, palms facing the armored vileness before her. The three queens, now joined with Enaid, pushed their most powerful abilities to her. Streaks of blue, gold, and red raced from the hands of the queens to encircle Enaid in a brilliant sphere of pulsating light.
Enaid stood tall, her head back, her eyes locked on the enemy before her as she accepted the rush of power and was soon encased in a globe of flickering rainbow light. She released the built up powers and a stream of blue lightning erupted from her palms. The black-armored soldiers before her disintegrated, leaving the ground as empty as if nothing had been standing there.
The instant the dark things before him disappeared, Roth charged forward, his broadsword in one hand, a long dagger in the other, slashing as
more armored dark soldiers desperately lunged to fill the gaps and block his path. Enaid, at his side, slung bolts at those who would come before them. Behind them followed the Sixes, their swords flashing and black warriors falling.
The Black Sorceress stood straight, glaring at the hated ones as they rushed toward her. Her hatred fed her anger and exploded toward Enaid and Roth in dark jagged waves of malevolence.
When the Black Witch released her explosive force at the two in the lead, the three queens went to their knees. Digging their hands into the earth, they drew every modicum of power possible and created a blocking shield to stop the Black Witch’s attack.
“No!” the deformed mouth screamed. Drawing a swarming mist around her, the last sorceress of the Afzaleem in the lands of Nevaeh pushed her body upward, stretching every fiber of her being until she had doubled in size.
Roth and Enaid, knowing she would use this defense when trapped, had prepared everyone for it. “Now!” Roth shouted.
The three queens stood quickly, raised their arms and hands toward Enaid and released a stream of iridescent wavering light. Enaid, shimmering within the dancing light, inhaled and drew the power within. In the heartbeat following the vanishing of the iridescence, she exhaled sharply. From her hands, two violet shafts rocketed toward the sorceress.
The repulsive form of the dark misty sorceress turned toward the shafts, her single hand flared and one of the shafts burst midway between them, but the second flew true and exploded against her abdomen.
The Black Witch flew backwards. As she fell, two of the Sixes swept around Roth and Enaid, cutting off the dark-armored ghazis who had raced to protect their fallen sorceress. The Sixes destroyed everyone before them while Roth and Enaid ran to the sorceress, who was struggling to her feet.
She made it to one knee. Roth was almost upon her. Enaid, instead of attacking, sent a stream of pure white energy at Roth’s right hand. His sword glowed and when he reached the Black Witch, he leapt high and swung.
The sword arced through the air and descended in a blur. The glowing edge of the metal—a metal not born of this earth and created three thousand years before—struck at the juncture of neck and shoulder and sliced completely through.
Before the severed head could fall, the body of the last sorceress of the Afzaleem dissolved into a pile of gray-black ashes, all dissolved except for her head, which lay on the ground, her red-circled eyes staring upward at Enaid, unending hatred still spewing from them.
Enaid stepped past Roth to stand over the head of her most despised enemy—the sorceress who had murdered Areenna’s mother, the Black Witch who had killed more of her people than she could ever contemplate—and held her hands over the still aware head and released every last remaining strand of her powers.
There was a loud crack and the head ripped apart. An instant later, it too dissolved into ashes blacker than a starless midnight sky.
“It is done,” Enaid whispered.
Roth came next to her and took her hand in his. Looking around, saw the army of Nevaeh had overrun the invading troops. There was no mercy asked nor given as the Nevaens made certain the last of the ghazi breathed no more.
“We have succeeded, My Lord,” Enaid said.
Roth looked over the battlefield, at the fallen enemy mixed with the dead and wounded of Nevaeh. “For now,” he whispered. “What comes next lays with Areenna and Mikaal.”
“Highness,” came the voice of Noslen, the captain of the Sixes. Next to him walked the Master Boatsman, Timon.
Roth turned to him, his eyebrows raised.
“Some of their boats are gone,” the Captain said.
Roth turned to Enaid. “We cannot catch them by foot.”
Timon stepped forward. “I have eight boats and two hundred men. We can follow.”
Enaid exhaled slowly. Her eyes flicked across each face, ending with Roth. “There is no choice.”
CHAPTER 24
In the morning, five days after leaving the southern palisades, and two days after the death of the Black Sorceress, the small fleet of the Circle of Afzal dropped anchor at the mouth of the chasm of the Frozen Mountains.
The Master stood on the platform at the bow of the lead boat and stared into the channel cut between two mountains of the divide. Kneeling on the platform next to him was one of his ghazi. The Master secured a claw-like hand to the ghazi’s head, his long nails digging into the poor soul’s scalp as he fed himself with the life energy of the hapless soldier. When he had pulled enough, he released him and the ghazi fell forward on the platform.
The soldier was not dead but so drained of energy, he would not be able to move for hours. Ignoring him, the Master pushed his senses deep into the chasm, searching for the two. There was no choice. The Circle knew who they were, knew what they could do if they were not stopped. They had foreseen this when the Before Man had defeated their Afzaleem twenty years ago. They had known the dangers and had taken steps to regain their foothold, but the last Afzaleem had failed to destroy the girl and her complement. The Masters of the Circle of Afzal had no choice but to come to Nevaeh themselves.
Off to his left, something bobbed in the choppy waters. He leaned forward and saw the decomposing body of one of her wolves. He raised one clawed hand and drew the lifeless body out of the water. He studied the creature for several seconds before turning his eyes to the mouth of the chasm.
He sensed nothing of the two, not even the block the Master knew they used for hiding. He wrapped his arms about himself and a whirlwind of grayish black mist appeared around him. An instant later, the mist rose skyward and like a lance thrown into the mouth of the chasm, it sped within, leaving behind only his shell.
The Master’s essence scoured the chasm, deeper and deeper until he was certain they were not there. Swirling above the rushing waters, he sought the wraith he and the Afzaleem witch had created.
The Master found it sitting on a ledge, hundreds of feet above the water, staring in the direction the two would come from, obeying both its Master’s orders to await the two and track them.
The Master’s formless shape settled next to its creation and searched for any remaining essence of the two. It took only a few minutes to find the body of the wolf that had crawled away to die. When he finally discovered the barely readable trail of the kraals, he followed it to the pathway leading up from the chasm.
The mist rose and surrounded the wraith and when it did, the Master pushed into the blackness of the wraith’s simple mind and placed a mind picture of the two and of where they had gone. Find them! Track them!
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Areenna shivered beneath the furred cloak. The further they traveled, the colder it grew. She glanced at Mikaal, who rode on her right, slightly ahead. He sat straight, his face, like hers, wrapped within silks to help against the cold. She was tired and hungry and for the last couple of hours had begun to doubt herself and her ability to handle everything, from the cold to the hunger to the repeated self-questioning of what she was doing.
For the past eight months, everyone spoke of her as the woman chosen to save Nevaeh. Chosen by whom? By the stars? By the earth? By some sort of invisible force? She had done too many things someone her age should never have done. Even if she were to accomplish what everyone hoped and expected, where would that leave her?
She glanced at Mikaal again, at his straight back and proudly held head, taking in the strength and power surrounding him like a beautiful robe, and for the hundredth time wished…
Her self-doubting thoughts ended when something touched her mind and quickly withdrew. She chased after it but lost the trail. She knew it was not of the dark but had been unable to tell what or who it was.
She spent a few minutes searching but found nothing. She wondered if it was a trick of her mind brought on by cold, hunger, and doubt. She had lost track of the days and wasn’t sure if it had been a week or a month since they had jumped the chasm. Their food supply was exhausted. The trail, if such it was, was layered wi
th ice and awkward to ride. To their right, the vast expanse of arctic ice fields stretched on as far as she could see.
We are near the end. Mikaal’s thought interrupted her reveries.
In the distance ahead, she saw the mountains were curving to the left. She turned in the saddle and realized they had been angling to the left for a while. A good sign, she replied.
A few days… three or four and we should reach the double-peaked mountains.
If we survive. We have no food. The kraals must eat too, she responded. She took her hand from around Gaalrie, who rode on her lap beneath the cloak. She reached down to run her numb and frozen fingers along the last of the grain bags. There was barely one meal left for the kraals. The bag holding their own food was completely empty.
Then the mind touch came again. Join with me, she called to Mikaal. He instantly fit within her mind and mingling his power into her own, chased after the touch. This time she was able to follow it. She withdrew quickly, stunned at what she had found. At the same moment, she asked Gaalrie to fly ahead and opened her cloak. The treygone lifted into the freezing air and disappeared a moment later.
There is a woman ahead, a woman of power. Who I know not, but not of the Dark Ones. She studied the lingering feel of what little remained of the woman’s essence, turning it around in her mind, reading as deeply as possible.
“She is in trouble. Injured I think,” Areenna guessed aloud.
Mikaal turned to Areenna. “How is it possible for her to be here? Why?”
Something inside of Areenna snapped with his question. Her back stiffened and her eyes spat sparks of pure anger at him. When she spoke, her voice blasted through the silks protecting her face. “How is it possible? Why is she there? Do I know everything? I don’t know what is or isn’t possible. I don’t know where I am… or even who I am any longer. I’ve spent most of this year riding on the back of a four-legged beast seeing and doing things so strange not even the children’s stories my father told me when I was growing up could come close to the reality I now live. I have killed creatures and men. I have found terrible powers within me and met people and things who should never be but are. What I cannot do, is answer questions when I have no answers!”