The Last Larnaeradee

by Shelley Cass

  I sighed, brushing ingrained specks of broken rock and earth from my cheek.

  One Awyalknian farmer would be very unhappy in the morning. His sheep had made a quick exit from the break in the fence, but he would be blissfully safe despite how close the threat had been to his family.

  I tried not to remember the times I had been too late to save other families, because Darziates sent more of his beasts from Krall than I could keep up with. His odd, terrible creatures were forever invading Awyalkna and anywhere in between, and I could never hunt them all in time.

  I shut out the crimson images of what I often found in those broken houses and instead twisted my torso a little, trying to turn over onto my back. I grimaced as my legs strained underneath the massive carcass and something heavy seemed to weigh my shoulders down.

  Puffing and labouring to look over my shoulder, I saw that a matted, grizzly paw the size of my body was still imbedded in my quiver where the claws had become stuck in the leather as they had scraped for my spine until the very last.

  Pushing to peer further behind myself, I was confronted by the nearby sight of wet amber coloured hair covering a fanged muzzle. Two of my own arrows were protruding from one of the beast’s eyes. The other orange eye stared glassily at the sky, while a green tongue lolled out from a slack jaw.

  My sword jutted from between its shoulder blades, and I winced as I remembered that the dagger still grasped in my hand had been my last defence against its attacks.

  There had been hungry growls, hot breath and strings of spittle as I had tried with all of my might to keep those gnashing, foul teeth from my face. Those jaws had snapped together, inches from my nose before I had buried my dagger into its bear-like throat, pulling at that blade until the shaggy fur and skin had torn loose.

  Then I’d only had a moment to turn to try to dive out of the way before the beast had slumped to land across my legs, and the collision had left me sprawling and senseless.

  Now my blade, and all the way up to my forearm looked as if they had been coated in rust and amber fur.

  Grimacing, I struggled against the heaviness of my quiver and the massive deadweight of the huge paw. I squirmed and pulled until I had turned to lean back on my elbows while forcing my buried legs to rotate beneath the hairy belly of the beast too.

  I shrugged the quiver from my shoulders and felt the sudden relief of the monstrous arm slipping away. Then I carefully picked claws, each thicker than my fingers, from the strong leather and let the paw drop to the dirt, knowing that getting my legs free from the creature’s bulk would be harder.

  Gritting my teeth, I took hold of one numb leg and yanked on it, hearing dirt scraping and feeling sudden explosions of pins and needles as the movement sent blood fluttering back around my limb.

  “Frarshk. Frarshk. Frarshk …” I moaned, and pulled until, with a sickly wrenching sound, one leg was free – completely whole, and with squashed boot intact.

  I grimly manoeuvred the second useless leg free and cursed quietly as I used handfuls of the beast’s fur to pull myself up.

  I could hardly tolerate standing, and each limping step around the ruined paddock brought new explosions of painful life back into my numbed muscles.

  But all the same I yanked leaves and dirt from my hair, staggered to collect various weapons and my bag, and then wearily climbed over the remains of the paddock fence to start the long trek home.

  And with each stiff step back toward my new cottage on the outskirts of Gangroah village I wished ardently that I had wings to fly me there.

  I would open the bedroom window’s shutters to a sky decorated with a frosting of glowing stars. Silvery beams of moonlight would illuminate the big old bed. And perhaps I would find restful sleep and healing dreams.

  I rolled my eyes. Growing wings would be more likely.

  Tonight’s hunt had not exhausted me enough to avoid the usual night terrors. Though I had spent two years crossing the lands to protect others from the Sorcerer’s threats, I was never quite tired enough to escape dreams of the ghosts of my own past.

  No point even tempting nightmares of torn up pastures, crimson rooms in destroyed houses, or visions of the ones I had lost myself.

  Chapter Three

  Agrona the Witch of Krall had spent her life being everybody else’s nightmare. But tonight it was she who was sitting up in a cold sweat, shivering in the darkness of her chamber.

  A chorus of sublime voices had woken her, but she was alone, and they seemed to whisper from inside her ear drums.

  “Beware,” those voices warned her. The words hurt and reverberated within her skull, and, abruptly, her vision was also taken from her control. Her sight was somehow travelling, as if her gaze was being carried away from the dry wastelands of Krall and across a green landscape without her body ever moving.

  “Beware what is coming.”

  It was all rushing so much that the Witch’s stomach roiled. But then, too quickly, it all stopped and Agrona’s eyes could see a serene place. An enemy place.

  She saw that the moon was high in the velvety blue of the sky, floating above Awyalkna’s Capital City like an iridescent diamond.

  A faint breeze rustled in the farming village outside the great Gwynrock Wall which surrounded the Capital City, and it nudged the yellowing leaves from their rest along the dark streets of the City within the Gates. She had only a moment to wish she could reach her magic out and make that breeze a hurricane – tearing all that peace away – before her vision carried her further in, past quiet dwellings. Oh, if only she could wake the sleepy inhabitants up. And drive them screaming from their beds.

  But her gaze travelled to the Awyalknian Palace, which was a gleaming jewel of sparkling ivory marble in the night. Agrona couldn’t wait for it to be theirs – Darziates’ and hers. They would take it soon, before the tenth age began, and the pale blue flags of King Glaidin would be torn down from each so far un-accosted tower ...

  Again, before she could take in too much, her sight was pulled further along, and she was jolted once more by the sound of the voices. “Beware what is coming!”

  She cried out from where she was huddling back in Krall, raising her hands to her ears, but the voices continued to lash her mind. “Beware the threat and what it will do to you.”

  “I know of the threat! Darziates made me to join him against it!” she howled from her chamber, throwing her head forward to hide behind a veil of dark hair. But the vision played on in her mind.

  “There will be Three to leave on a journey,” the voices whispered now. “And if they live, they will be strong. They will seek allies for Awyalkna. They will seek to face your King. To end your menace.” Then – barely perceptible at the corner of her vision – there was a flicker of movement in a far away hall of the Awyalknian Palace.

  Two strange figures were creeping stealthily through the hall – only two, not three. Their soft feet crossed the smooth marble floor of the vast, lavish chamber, and they had sheathed swords and long coils of rope looped at their belts.

  Agrona noticed them slip into the shadows of the decorative monuments that lined the walls, melting into the dark until the exact moment that the guards patrolling the area passed into the adjoining chamber. Then the figures crossed the expansive space to the giant Palace entrance.

  The taller and leaner of the two figures placed his hands on the huge door, looking tiny in comparison. The other cast a quick, furtive glance across the hall again, then nodded for his comrade to ease the immense door open a slither.

  Agrona forgot to be fearful of the strange phenomenon controlling her vision as she watched them dash across grounds that were abnormally quiet. Awyalkna’s City was deliciously empty because most able-bodied citizens had left for the borders of Krall in a futile effort to march against her Sorcerer King.

  The figures began climbing the inner Gwentorock walls now, and suddenly her vision changed, startlingly quickly, to carry her so close to the ears of the taller figure that sh
e could sense his thoughts. Being so in tune with a mortal’s basic mind made her cringe, and she heard the simultaneously cocky and jittery thoughts of a young man in the middle of growing up – sickened as his pure and ignorant intentions oozed from him openly.

  His mind fluttered with grandeur: he was off on a noble Quest to save his beloved Awyalknian Kingdom. He was contemplating how he would seek the help of the Jenran mountain people. He pictured the glory he would find if he succeeded.

  Then his thoughts became typically youthful and self absorbed. Would he really be good enough? Man enough?

  If only he could hear the answers she would give. The Witch’s sharp lips curled upward. Was this really the best Awyalkna had to offer? Why was she even being warned of these two, and a third who had not manifested?

  Her vision panned out again while the figures next ran through green gardens, neat markets and down twisty City streets. They moved unfalteringly in a course toward the outer Gwynrock Wall’s colossal Northern Gate.

  The two figures stole closer to the closed Gate, treading silkily, and Agrona observed guards stationed as far as the eye could see along the top of the fortified wall. A set of guards also stood watching the foot of the stone ladder steps that led to the top, but as if the two sneaking figures knew every patrol routine, those guards began to patrol the surrounding area, checking the length of the base of the wall so that the figures could quickly move forward and scale their way upward.

  Agrona’s view was pulled along to climb with them and her sight was positioned closer to the rounder figure this time. The Witch felt more amused than threatened once more as she again encountered a young male. This one was feeling queasy and … hungry with nerves. He was repeating: ‘don’t freeze up. Don’t freeze up,’ like a mantra.

  She felt his relief when he saw that the soldiers on either side of the top of the ladder-like stairs were gazing out across the land for anybody trying to get into the City, not behind them for people trying to get out.

  Blending into the dark in their cloaks, the two evasive figures pulled the extraordinarily long ropes from their belts. These ropes had fist sized knots running down their lengths, and the figures quickly joined their two lengths together before securely fastening one end to the rail at the top of the stairs.

  They lowered the rope over the ledge of the walkway, and let it uncoil. It tumbled and unfurled down the length of the Gwynrock Wall to dangle and sway gently from side to side, its dully coloured line hardly noticeable against the stone.

  When no cry of alarm came, one after the other, the two hooded figures climbed over the ledge, virtually invisible.

  Agrona’s view blurred and her vision was carried away from the escapees, to cross over boundless fields of neat squares like grassy patch work. She saw two packed bays tethered and waiting for the fleeing boys and tried to hiss at the mares to frighten them. Their black manes and tails twitched, and they stamped their dark legs, but then with a lurch she could see her chamber again, where she had been sitting all along.

  She felt more certain of victory than ever.

  Until the voices rose up again.

  “Beware of what the threat will do to you!” they were repeating – howling with so much pressure now that she thought the pounding of her brain would burst her skull open.

  And then they were gone.

  She sagged backwards. Panting for a moment before she smirked delightedly. Darziates would praise her for a vision like this!

  She was tearing out of bed and transforming into her other form – that of a raven, before her sheets had settled back down on the mattress.

  Chapter Four

  Dalin

  “They underestimated us. Just like you thought,” Noal remarked wearily. “They must have assumed we would aim for a village closer to the City.”

  “Only hiding from one search group so far has been great. But I’m also incredibly insulted at how severely low everyone’s expectations are,” I replied with a grimace.

  I’d been grimacing all day as each rise and fall of my mare’s gait made my muscles remember my rope descent from the night before.

  “At least this part has been easier than escaping the City,” Noal commented, absently stroking his bay’s dark neck with blistered fingers.

  “We still can’t let our guard down,” I warned him. “Not until we get to the abandoned cottage.”

  “Don’t worry, I know,” he replied amiably, despite his fatigue. “Your parents will search to the ends of the world to bring you back.”

  I felt momentarily stung as I was reminded of my parents, and how acutely focused they had to be on affairs of the kingdom and the approaching war with Darziates. It felt like a betrayal to shift their attention to what would seem like a selfish flight on my behalf.

  “Gods, we did well to get out though. Not even Wilmont, the world’s most observant supervisor, realised we were capable of plotting anything of note,” Noal managed a smile. “Let alone a Quest to seek aid for Awyalkna.”

  My father especially would never have guessed my intentions to leave for Jenra. We had barely spoken in recent months, after he had refused to allow me to take any useful part in Awyalkna’s preparations.

  I had been trained from birth to face all circumstances, yet I’d had to stand resolutely with the remaining nobles, waving off the other young men who were leaving to face the impossible against Krall.

  My father had argued that I was just a boy. And I had accused both himself and the King of being fools.

  For, while Noal and I had been kept idle and safe, constant news had poured into the City of monstrous attacks within our kingdom. There had been news of invading Krall soldiers, but also news of other things invading too.

  I had been especially devastated when the first invasion of Awyalkna had been reported. The entire population of Bwintam village, a place I had once visited on a festival day, had been massacred by Krall soldiers – along with a young, dark haired singer I’d become enamoured with during my visit. She couldn’t have survived.

  “Do you think we’ll reach small, out of the way, easy to overlook Gangroah soon?” Noal asked hopefully then. “Otherwise we could keep our guard up, but stop for a bite.”

  “The Quest has only just begun,” I chortled. “We can’t deviate from the plan already.”

  “But I’m starving,” he sighed, mournfully hugging his paunch.

  I turned in the saddle, rummaged through my pack and turned to him brightly.

  “An apple?” Noal gasped as I tossed it to him. “I’m used to finer things.”

  “You can muster up enough energy to give me sparring bruises most days,” I told him. “So I’m sure you’re tough enough to handle the apples this Quest throws at you.”

  He eyed the fruit balefully, but his reluctant, doleful crunches soon sounded around the rolling landscape while the sky gradually filled with inky darkness.

  Chapter Five

  Kiana

  I had bypassed the big old bed, swapping weapons for a broom, and now the formerly abandoned cottage of little Gangroah village was beginning to look less uninhibited.

  In the lantern lit rooms I was beginning to see what my old neighbour, green-eyed Gloria, had meant when she’d insisted that this had once been the finest dwelling in the area. She had also regularly visited to comment on my lack of house pride since purchasing the place, so I was glad to be casting off the signs of the cottage’s long neglect, and to be giving her one less observation to offer.

  Sweeping my way across the bedroom and out into the hallway, I was also becoming increasingly glad that the cottage would now serve me for a base. A place where I could safely stow my healer ingredients, and where I could also heal myself between hunts.

  A place that my parents would have approved of, after they had worked so hard to train me to become a village healer as my mother had been, or to run a smithy as my father had. Instead, I would be a secret village protector.

  I only paused when I reached the s
o far unused kitchen, which was a nest of intricate cobwebs that stretched across the entire room. Dust flakes were hanging in line on each web like prisoners of war, and no matter how carefully I stepped my way in, I became caught in soft, clingy strings.

  I paused again when I felt something heavy drop onto my arm. And the heavy, hairy mass moved quickly down my arm on many sharp legs, only stopping when it reached my hand.

  “Frarshk,” I breathed slowly, raising my hand in dread.

  My mother had once shown me a picture of a creature like this in one of her healer books, but she had explained that this creature’s bite was something I would hardly have to learn to heal. Patients wouldn’t live long enough for a healing.

  “What is a Granx spider, the most rare and poisonous spider known to exist, doing in my cottage?” I asked it in an exaggeratedly calm, soft tone. “What is a Granx doing on my hand?” I continued, stepping carefully toward the wooden table in the middle of the room. “And by the grace of which Gods am I still alive?”

  I lowered my arm to the table and, with a quick slice of my free hand, I tried to brush it off. Instead of running, I felt its blade-like, spiked claws cling into my skin, and my hand rubbed across a warm, round body and stiff bristles of black hair.

  I inhaled while my heart stopped for a moment, but the bulbous creature just merrily dug into my flesh, barely troubled at all.

  “Perhaps you are the friendliest Granx as well as the most poisonous,” I managed to utter. The black Granx now happily waved its many claw tipped legs, as if to affirm that it was a terribly friendly fatal insect. It moved forward on my hand and I felt each tug on my skin as its little claws pulled out of my flesh and sank back in.

  Its body was the size of my palm, so I could clearly see each beady eye, disturbingly fixed on my face, as it finally prickled its way off my hand of its own accord. Then it sat itself down on the table to continue watching me.

  I crossed my arms, raising an eyebrow at it in evaluation – amazed that I was not convulsing on the floor. Yet instead of bringing me an early death it simply seemed interested in my presence, and I couldn’t help but crack a grin as it lifted a thin black leg and waved it imperiously, as if gesturing to the mess of the kitchen.