Nightborn

by Anders, Lou

  “Because you two don’t deserve to end like this,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t need you to.” Desstra turned and shoved him forward. “Go.”

  —

  “Still breathing. Good.” The elf knelt by the frost giant, digging in her satchel. “Can’t believe it. We should have used a bigger dose.”

  “Back—to give me—more poison?” gasped Thianna.

  “Not poison, no,” said Desstra, holding up a vial. “Antidote.”

  She tipped the liquid in the small glass into Thianna’s mouth, massaged the frost giant’s throat to help her swallow. After a moment, Thianna’s breathing became more regular. Remembering she was the only one who could see in this darkness, Desstra activated a phosphorescent stone for Thianna’s benefit.

  “Why?” said Thianna.

  “It works fast,” said Desstra. “You’ll be back on your feet in—”

  Thianna’s huge hand shot up and grabbed Desstra by her skinny neck. The frost giant climbed to her feet, lifting the little elf off the ground. Thianna’s eyes narrowed as her fingers tightened. Desstra dangled in the air, fighting to breathe.

  “Thianna, stop!” Desstra coughed out the words, struggling to break Thianna’s grip. “We—have to help—Karn.”

  For an instant, it didn’t look like Thianna was going to listen. Then she set Desstra down on her feet and relaxed her grip.

  “Karn?”

  “He’s gone after Tanthal.”

  Thianna’s anger gave way to alarm.

  “Don’t think this gets you off the hook,” she said.

  “I didn’t do it for your forgiveness,” the elf replied.

  “What did you do it for?” asked Thianna.

  “For Karn. For your friendship.”

  “You and I are never going to be friends,” Thianna spat.

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean for your friendship. The two of you.” Desstra turned her eyes away, looking at the deep shadows of the tunnel, where Karn and Tanthal had gone. “I thought being a member of the Underhand was the best that life could offer. But Karn came all the way here, thousands of miles, for you. You’ve each risked your life over and over for the other. Something like that—it outweighs any dream I could have. If it’s my path versus your path, you two deserve to win, and I deserve to lose.”

  “We haven’t won yet,” said Thianna.

  “No,” said Desstra. “We haven’t.” She looked imploringly into Thianna’s eyes. “You don’t have to like me, but you could use my help stopping Tanthal. I owe you that.”

  “Fine,” said Thianna. “But I’m the one who gets to knock the grin off that smug elf’s face.”

  —

  Karn expected to encounter at least a few Gordashan soldiers on the journey back, but he was alone in the Sunken Palace. If the dark elves had dispatched them, where were the bodies? It was puzzling, but he was glad of it. Then he reached the end of the tunnel and stood in the pool of light from the hole that Thianna had kicked open. The ceiling was a long way up. He didn’t see any convenient handholds. There was a loop of rope hanging down from the lip of the hole. Obviously, Tanthal had used the rope to ascend, then pulled it up behind him. It spoke volumes about the dark elf that he’d left Desstra down here to fend for herself. Karn doubted that Tanthal was testing her resourcefulness.

  But how was Karn to reach the exit? If only he had a way of catching that bit of dangling cord. He thought about it. Maybe he did.

  Karn drew Whitestorm from its sheath. He held the blade hilt upward and readied his toss. Then he threw it as high as he could. It struck the ceiling but missed the line. He caught the sword as it fell. He tried to calm down and concentrate, not throw wild.

  He lined up the throw again, heaved the sword high in the air. This time its hilt passed through the loop and Whitestorm snagged the rope. It hung precariously.

  “Whitestorm!” Karn called.

  The sword jerked downward. It strained for an instant, then Whitestorm raced to his hand, dragging one end of the line with it.

  Karn sheathed his sword and tested the rope. Thankfully, it was still secured at the top. Then he began to climb.

  Karn didn’t know what to expect when he climbed out onto the sands of the Hippodrome. There were no city guards waiting for him. The spectators had mostly left the arena. The space was vast and empty. But from beyond the high walls of its tiered seating, Karn heard a roar like the thundering waves of the ocean.

  A dactyl lay on the ground. He stirred, moaning, and Karn helped him to his feet.

  “What happened?” Karn asked.

  “Palest elf I ever saw,” the dwarf replied. “Knocked me out and took—” His voice took on a note of alarm. “My horn!”

  That’s when Karn noticed that the statue was gone.

  “You’re him! You’re the Marble King!”

  “I am king,” the dactyl said. “But I don’t know anything about marble. Your speech is strange, son. What are you doing in my city, and why are we in the Hippodrome?”

  “Your city?” Karn felt a pang of sympathy. The dwarf didn’t know what had happened to him. Didn’t realize that Gordasha hadn’t been “his city” in over a thousand years.

  “Are you a foreigner? Who are you not to know of Acmon the Anvil: former soldier of the empire until I threw off their yoke and freed Ambracia from their chains?”

  “I think you better sit down,” said Karn. “A lot has changed since your time.”

  “My time? What are you talking about?”

  “For starters, the city isn’t called Ambracia anymore. It’s called Gordasha. And the empire you fought is long gone.”

  Acmon the Anvil glared at Karn.

  “Kid, I think maybe you have a touch of heatstroke. You look a little pale for this climate.”

  “I’m fine,” snapped Karn. “But you’ve been stone for almost fourteen hundred years. Like her.”

  Karn pointed at the other statue set on the spina.

  “My dragon!” screamed Acmon, eyes wide with shock. “What have they done to my dragon?” He grabbed Karn’s shirt. “Who did this? Tell me. I’ll rip them apart!”

  “Will you listen to me?” said Karn. “Your enemies are long gone. But your horn has been stolen by a new villain, that pale elf who attacked you. His name is Tanthal, and he has the horn and he has the creature that turned you and the dragon to stone. And I am going to get them both back.”

  Karn left Acmon and ran to the stables.

  “Where are you going?” the Marble King demanded, chasing after Karn.

  “Tanthal has a head start. But I know how to fix that.”

  —

  The streets of the city were in pure pandemonium. Desstra and Thianna struggled to wade through the crowds. People were fleeing south, away from the land wall and northern seawall. The elf and the half giant were heading against the surge.

  “What’s going on?” Thianna shouted above the noise.

  “The Uskirians have broken the walls,” a man yelled back, not pausing in his rush. “They’ve smashed a gate and are pouring into the city.”

  Karn had been right about the capabilities of the huge cannon, Thianna reflected. Shambok was on his way to being spectacular. As bad as things had been since she arrived in this strange metropolis, they had just gotten a lot worse. But nothing would be as bad as the idea of dark elves in control of dragons.

  “This is taking too long,” she said. “We need to move faster.”

  “How?” asked Desstra. “Unless you have some magic way to clear the streets.”

  “I’m surprised at you, elf,” said Thianna. “Thinking like a city dweller.” She pointed up. “Those rooftops are wide open. Running across them shouldn’t be a problem for two daughters of the mountains, now, should they?”

  “Technically, I live under a mountain,” said Desstra. “But I can climb as well as anyone.”

  “Anyone?” said Thianna, an edge of challenge in her voice
.

  “You’re on,” replied the elf.

  —

  Karn drove the chariot hard through the streets. The manticore was enjoying the relative freedom. Having been shut up in a stable for years, only allowed to run when it was let out onto the race course, it was loving this run through the city.

  There was one advantage to having your chariot pulled by a man-eater, Karn thought. People tended to get out of your way rather quickly.

  Unfortunately, Tanthal was proving very easy to follow. He left a trail of people turned to stone in his wake. They were disturbing bread crumbs marking the dark elf’s passage.

  Riding in the chariot beside Karn, Acmon had been subdued since Karn had filled him in on events. He spoke up now.

  “So who rules my city?” he asked.

  “An imperator,” replied Karn.

  “And it’s the supremacy, not the empire?”

  “Correct.”

  “And they are fighting who?”

  “The Uskirian Empire.”

  “Empire? The Uskiri are just a bunch of rustic nomads up north. Nobody pays them much attention.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I hardly know which side I’m on.”

  “I’ve met both rulers,” said Karn. “I’m not really impressed with either.”

  “I only want my city to be free,” said Acmon. “I had my taste of slavery fighting in the empire’s army.”

  The dactyl sounded sincere. But Karn had his doubts about the legendary king.

  “If you like freedom so much, why did you enslave a dragon?”

  “What?” said Acmon. “Enslave? No, you’ve got that wrong.”

  Karn was about to ask what Acmon meant, but a shout went up from people on the streets.

  “It’s the Marble King!” they cried. Karn saw that the excited folk were mostly dwarves. “The Marble King! The Marble King!” they chanted.

  Acmon brightened at this.

  “To me, my dactyls!” he cried.

  Soon, they had a small army running in their wake.

  “I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the support,” said Karn, “but half of your newfound followers aren’t armed with anything more than fishing poles.”

  “A fine weapon in the right hands.” Acmon smiled. “We have numbers now.”

  “Just make sure everyone stays behind us,” said Karn. “If they get ahead of the chariot, I’m not sure I can keep the manticore from snacking.”

  —

  “Swift as the great wolf,” Tanthal chanted to himself as he ran through the streets. He gripped the horn in one hand and the cockatrice in the other. This left him unable to hold his mace, but it didn’t matter. He had a more powerful weapon now. When he brought it, and the horn, back to Deep Shadow, he would be the most revered Underhand in the city’s history. In fact, he thought, with the cockatrice in his grasp, he could own the city if he wanted. Why bow to another’s orders when he could be the one giving them? There would be no stopping him.

  He was heading for the subterranean ingress of the River Lux. His plan was to leave Gordasha the same way he entered it. He wouldn’t wait for Desstra. Not worth the risk now that he had the prize. If his underling couldn’t fight her way out on her own, then she really didn’t deserve to escape. He hoped that she would make it. She was weak and annoying, true, but she had skills he could exploit. Hopefully killing that Norrønur boy had hardened her heart. If she could be toughened up, she’d make a good lieutenant in the new order he would bring to the Underhand. Or, if she didn’t fall in line, she might make a nice statue for his throne room. There would be a delicious irony in hardening her heart along with the rest of her.

  Tanthal was so caught up in his dreams of glory and conquest that he almost didn’t notice the figure that blocked his path to the ingress.

  “You!” he snarled. “What are you doing here?”

  The cloaked figure he had fought on the rooftops of Castlebriar stood between him and the entrance to the subterranean river.

  “Aren’t you a little far from home?” Tanthal asked.

  “Actually, I’m quite close,” the stranger replied. “You’re the one who’s far from home. And you’re never going back. Not with the horn.”

  Tanthal laughed at the stranger’s arrogance. He lifted the cockatrice in his satchel, prepared to reach in and unveil its head.

  The cloaked figure’s staff shot a searing burst of flame. Tanthal shrieked and dodged aside, losing his hold on the cockatrice. His salamander-skin armor held up under the blast, but he felt his hair singed.

  Scowling, he drew his mace and leapt forward. The staff wasn’t a close-quarter weapon. His best chance lay in the offense.

  From the folds of the cloak, the stranger raised a sword. The fight was on.

  Tanthal and the stranger dueled ferociously. Whoever was under those robes, he was a trained fighter. Sword clashed with mace, while the stranger wielded the staff like a shield. Whatever was bound up in those leather wrappings, it was metal, not a wooden walking stick.

  Tanthal knew he only had to reach the ingress, but he couldn’t put too much distance between himself and his opponent or he would burn. His armor could resist heat, but he’d seen the flames coming off that staff. He couldn’t withstand a direct blow.

  The stranger knew it too and was driving him away from the river’s ingress. He was losing ground. It might be time to think of a Plan B. Then the fight got really interesting.

  Uskirian warriors, riding their ugly war pigs, came charging up the city streets. A troop of Gordashan militia came from the other direction.

  The two forces clashed, with Tanthal and the stranger right in the middle.

  “This isn’t my war,” he screamed in frustration as an Uskirian jabbed a spear at him. “I don’t care about any of you.”

  Then he was too busy to talk, fighting for his life.

  —

  The rooftops were getting crowded. Thianna saw the Uskirian forces swarming through the streets below. But the Gordashan citizens were giving them a real fight. They had climbed their houses and were prying up the red clay roofing tiles. They hurled these at the Uskirians, and many an invader was knocked stunned from the saddle of his war pig.

  Thianna couldn’t help herself. She pried up a piece of tile and lobbed it at a soldier. It struck him right in the forehead, and he toppled to the pavement.

  “Hey,” said the giantess in response to Desstra’s raised eyebrow. “I never liked bullies.”

  “You know what?” said the little elf. “Neither did I.” She snatched up a tile and flung it at an Uskirian. Her shot connected with a solid thunk.

  “Nice arm,” said Thianna. Then she saw something even more impressive.

  “Karn!” she exclaimed.

  —

  Karn took in the battle at a glance as his chariot drove into the fray, Acmon’s dactyl army pouring in behind them. Uskirian soldiers clashed with Gordashan forces. Tanthal was fighting for his life against several invaders. And near him, the cloaked stranger from Castlebriar—the wizard, if wizard he was—was keeping opponents back with the flames from their staff. Everything was mayhem.

  “Pig,” warned Acmon, pointing.

  An Uskiri armed with a spear and riding one of the great beasts bore down on them. Karn dropped the reins and unslung his shield. The hard Norrønir wood took the spear point, but the blow carried him out of the vehicle. He landed in the dust, the wind driven from his lungs.

  He felt a hand under his arm, helping him to this feet.

  “Ynarr?”

  The big blond Norrønur nodded.

  “Shouldn’t you be defending the imperator with the rest of the Sworn?” Karn asked.

  “The imperator has fled the city,” Ynarr replied. “He boarded his ship and left by his private dock the instant word came that the land wall had been breached.”

  “You can really pick them, can’t you?” said Karn.

  “I don’t have good luck with employers, no,”
the man agreed. “Maybe I am not the best judge of character.” Ynarr saw that the Uskirian who had knocked Karn down was bringing his war pig around for another pass. Ynarr drew his ax. “But perhaps there is honor to be had in fighting with you now, Karn Korlundsson.”

  —

  Even on foot against mounted opponents, Tanthal was holding his own. He was fast and small compared with the giant pigs. He dodged in and out of their spears’ range, though his mace was little use against the pigs’ tough hide.

  “Is this the best you can do?” he taunted. “Isn’t there anyone here who can put up a real fight?”

  “I can,” said a voice behind him.

  Tanthal turned just in time to see the frost giant’s fist as it collided with his jaw. He distinctly felt a tooth crack. Then he was shaking the ringing from his ears as he lay in the mud of the riverbank.

  “You?” he said incredulously.

  “Told you I’d knock your smile off,” Thianna said. She bent and picked up the horn where it lay beside him.

  Tanthal scrambled backward, coming to his feet and raising his mace.

  “Think you can beat me in a fair fight?” he asked.

  “I do,” said the giantess, her arming sword poised for his attack.

  “Then it’s too bad I don’t fight fair,” Tanthal replied.

  Behind him, dropping out of the sky, a dozen dark elves leapt from the saddles of their wings to land in a half circle around Tanthal. There was an extra, riderless bat among the flock.

  “I sent my mount for reinforcements before I even entered the city,” Tanthal explained. “The Underhand has agents everywhere. You were never going to win this, you understand.” He called back over his shoulder at the dark elves. “Kill her. Kill them all.”

  “You ever played Knattleikr?” Thianna asked the dark elf.

  “What? You mean your silly frost-giant game?” sneered Tanthal.

  “Didn’t think so,” said Thianna. She hurled the Horn of Osius, tossing it far over the heads of the dark elves. Tanthal’s head turned to follow its trajectory. All their heads turned.

  The frost giant charged.

  She barreled into them like she was an Uskirian war pig. Like a bull. Like the littlest giant suddenly enjoying being the largest person on the playing field. Elves were knocked aside as easily as bowling pins.